Over the last three decades, our nation has witnessed a dramatic change regarding how schools discipline children. Empirical evidence during this time period demonstrates that schools increasingly have relied on extreme forms of punishment such as suspensions, expulsions, referrals to law enforcement, and school-based arrests to discipline students for violations of school rules, including for low-level offenses. Many have referred to this disturbing trend of schools directly referring students to law enforcement or creating conditions under which students are more likely to become involved in the justice system — such as suspending or expelling them — as the "school-to-prison pipeline." Perhaps the most alarming aspect of over-disciplining students and of the school-to-prison pipeline generally is that not all racial groups are affected equally by these negative trends. This short symposium essay describes the observed racial disparities associated with disciplining students. It then discusses the concept of implicit racial bias, which appears to be one of the causes of these racial disparities. Finally, it describes the role that national and state government entities, including the U.S. Department of Education and state departments of education, can play in forming a comprehensive strategy to address the implicit racial biases of educators.


Primary or secondary nasal tuberculosis is rare and usually, it is considered as an extra pulmonary form of tuberculosis. Nasal tuberculosis infection may spread to maxillary palatal region by contagious or haematogenous route causing palatal perforation. In some instance, it may cause septal perforation with nasal obstruction which may give rise to halitosis. We report a case where, there was bilateral nasal mucosal involvement leading to severe nasal obstruction. This rare manifestation should be considered in areas where the disease is prevalent as delay in diagnosis and treatment could lead to serious and life threatening complications due to local spread from the nose to the para nasal sinuses and brain.


Accurate coding is an important function of neurologic practice. This section of , contributed by members of the AAN Medical Economics and Management Committee, includes a table of helpful coding information related to the issue topic. The table may include diagnosis coding, evaluation and management (E/M) coding, procedure coding, or a combination, depending on which is most useful for the subject area of the issue.


This paper wades through the extant corporate governance literature and identifies the existence of four different governance models in practice. Though market‐centric and relationship‐based models have been widely discussed in corporate governance literature, a dearth of two other governance models viz., transition and emerging governance models have not been extensively covered. This paper tries to identify the existence of the transition governance model and also a new governance model that is emerging in some developing countries. An attempt has been made to narrate the way all the four governance models function in different economies, and assumes that understanding the governance quadrilateral would be a pre‐requisite for understanding global corporate governance.


Mental health has become a growing priority for the government of the UK over the past few decades and during the same period, the economic and social goals of the government have become increasingly neoliberally focused. The present study combines analysis of both neoliberalism and mental healthcare in examining a UK Government mental health strategy document. The present discourse analysis furthers the work of Tegtsoonian (2009) in examining how government produced literature can exhibit the rise of contemporary post-liberal agendas in political systems.The present study uses an epistemological position derived from the work of Fairclough (1995, 2010), Laclau and Mouffe (1985) and Foucault (1972). In doing so, it uses a unique methodology to analyse 'Closing the gap: priorities for essential change in mental health' (Department of Health, 2014), a document produced by the Department of Health for outlining Government strategy for mental healthcare in the UK.The analysis uncovers a clear neoliberal agenda throughout the document. Replicating the findings of Tegtsoonian (2009), the analysis evidenced the document's continuous attempts to align public interests with that of the government through various methods. Defining illness with the aim of inducting the public into the role of the consumer, prioritising functionality over wellbeing, and the adoptions of specific ways of conceptualising mental health are all identified as technologies of power. The concept of shifting between different paradigms of mental illness is uniquely explored in the way that it is used within the text to advance free market capitalist aims and goals.


Objectives—To determine the effects of seating position, combined with restraint use and airbag status, on children's risk of dying in crashes. Methods—Using 1988–95 data from the United States Fatality Analysis Reporting System, risk of death was compared among front and rear seated passengers aged 12 and younger who were involved in fatal crashes for different categories of restraint use and in vehicles with and without passenger airbags. Results—Restrained children in rear seats had the lowest risk of dying in fatal crashes. Among children seated in the rear, risk of death was reduced 35% in vehicles without any airbags, 31% in vehicles equipped only with driver airbags, and 46% in vehicles with passenger airbags. Both restrained and unrestrained children aged 0–12 were at lower risk of dying in rear seats. Rear seats also afforded additional protection to children aged 5–12 restrained only with lap belts compared with lap/shoulder belted children in front seats. Children were about 10–20% less likely to die in rear center than in rear outboard positions. Conclusions—Parents and others who transport children should be strongly encouraged to place infants and children in rear seats whether or not vehicles have airbags. Existing laws requiring restraint use by children should be strengthened and actively enforced.


The CRISPR-Cas universe continues to expand. The type II CRISPR-Cas system from Streptococcus pyogenes (SpyCas9) is the most widely used for genome editing due to its high efficiency in cells and organisms. However, concentrating on a single CRISPR-Cas system imposes limits on target selection and multiplexed genome engineering. We hypothesized that CRISPR-Cas systems originating from different bacterial species could operate simultaneously and independently due to their distinct single-guide RNAs (sgRNAs) or CRISPR-RNAs (crRNAs), and protospacer adjacent motifs (PAMs). Additionally, we hypothesized that CRISPR-Cas activity in zebrafish could be regulated through the expression of inhibitory anti-CRISPR (Acr) proteins. Here, we use a simple mutagenesis approach to demonstrate that CRISPR-Cas systems from Streptococcus pyogenes (SpyCas9), Streptococcus aureus (SauCas9), Lachnospiraceae bacterium (LbaCas12a, previously known as LbCpf1), are orthogonal systems capable of operating simultaneously in zebrafish. CRISPR systems from Acidaminococcus sp. (AspCas12a, previously known as AsCpf1) and Neisseria meningitidis (Nme2Cas9) were also active in embryos. We implemented multichannel CRISPR recording using three CRISPR systems and show that LbaCas12a may provide superior information density compared to previous methods. We also demonstrate that type II Acrs (anti-CRISPRs) are effective inhibitors of SpyCas9 in zebrafish. Our results indicate that at least five CRISPR-Cas systems and two anti-CRISPR proteins are functional in zebrafish embryos. These orthogonal CRISPR-Cas systems and Acr proteins will enable combinatorial and intersectional strategies for spatiotemporal control of genome editing and genetic recording in animals.


The author discusses important causes of the 1929 stock market crash. The first was excessive attempts by important people and the media to stop stock market speculators. Without this, there would probably not have been a crash (although likely some decline). The second cause was the great expansion of investment trusts, public utility holding companies, and the amount of margin buying, all of which fueled the purchase of public utility stocks and drove up their prices. Public utilities, utility holding companies, and investment trusts were all highly levered, using large amounts of debt and preferred stock.


This The Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) is a powerful and reflex natural, which is the reuse of past experiences in solving new problems and this is confirmed by experiments in psychology and in cognitive science. A CBR system is a combination of processes and knowledge called "knowledge containers", Its reasoning power can be improved through the use of domain knowledge. CBR systems combining case specific knowledge with general domain knowledge models are called Knowledge Intensive CBR (KI-CBR). Although CBR claims to reduce the effort required for developing knowledge-based systems substantially compared with more traditional Artificial Intelligence approaches, the implementation of a CBR application from scratch is still a time consuming task. The present work aims to develop a CBR application for fault diagnosis of steam turbines that integrates a domain knowledge modeling in an ontological form and focuses on the similarity-based retrieval step. This system is view as a KI-CBR system based on domain ontology, built around jCOLIBRI a well-known framework to design KI-CBR systems. During prototyping, we examine the use and functionality of the focused framework.


Ordernn+1 s QCD corrections to top quark decays into W + and H + bosons are computed to all orders in perturbation theory. Predictions for the radiative corrections to the top quark width are compared with the es- timates from BLM scale setting procedures. The results of the summation are shown to greatly improve understanding of higher order corrections in the limit mW, mH → mt, where the BLM scale setting method is known to fail. Attempts to reduce nonperturbative error by substituting the running mass for the pole mass in the expression for the decay are shown to fail in the limit mW, mH → mt because of subtleties in the treatment of phase space.


ABSTRACT Donald Trump's arrival in the White House has tested the special relationship between Canada and the US. Admittedly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has had a harder time connecting with the new president than with his predecessor, President Barack Obama, but the difficulties between Washington and Ottawa go far beyond personal affinities. More specifically, Trump's change of attitude toward both traditional allies of the United States and usual rivals has often put Canada in a difficult position. On the one hand, Canada cannot afford to antagonize its closest ally and commercial partner, but, on the other, it cannot sacrifice the other relationships it is trying to maintain across the globe. In an attempt to understand how Canada has managed to navigate this complicated relationship, this article will look at how Ottawa has dealt with third parties when its approach toward said parties differs from Washington's. Additionally, using situations from the first three years of the Trump presidency, we will try to determine if third-party issues tend to alleviate or accentuate tensions in the bilateral relationship between Ottawa and Washington.


Millions of properties in the U.S. are exposed to increasing threats from natural disasters. Yet, a large majority of at-risk homes are uninsured against the costliest disaster: flooding. Floods cause elevated rates of mortgage delinquency and default that can impact the broader housing finance system. In this paper, we explore the connection between homeowners' stake in their homes and their demand for flood insurance. To isolate the causal effect of home equity on food insurance demand, we study the response of flood insurance take-up to sudden house price changes over the housing boom and bust in the 2000s. We find that flood insurance take-up follows the dynamics of house prices in each market over the boom-bust cycle, with a home price elasticity around 0.33. A series of heterogeneity and robustness checks suggest that the role of mortgage default as implicit insurance is the most plausible mechanism for the positive relationship. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results for the effects of climate change on real estate and financial markets as well as for optimal disaster insurance policy.


ABSTRACT Information on combining ability and heterosis are desirable to determine the best parents in chili pepper hybrid variety development. To estimate general and specific combining abilities and  heterobeltiosis of backcross lines selected for CMV tolerance, eight selected lines were crossed to three CMV tolerant lines in a Line x Tester method and the crosses were evaluated in a CMV inoculated condition. The results showed that general and specific combining abilities varied tremendously among crosses and traits. Generally, specific combining ability (sca) variances were higher than general combining ability (gca) variance indicating that interaction of non-aditive predominance the inheritance of traits under study. Amongs lines evaluated, there was no a general combiner line for vegetative growth. However, lines S1B3A-29-13-47 and S1B3B-12-13-2 were the best general combiner for a breeding program to improve total number of fruits and fruit weight per plant, respectively. Crosses of S1B3C-16-22-34 x C1042, S1B3B-49-40-6 x C1043, and S1B3C-34-18-9 x C1042 were consedered the most prospective crosses as indicated by high value of sca, i.e., 130.53, 102.01 and 61.93, with heterobeltiosis estimate of 146.06, 26.05 and 24.31, respectively. Keywords: capsicum annuum, heterobeltiosis, GCA, SCA


Abstract The demographic changes occurring in Mali, evident in high fertility but declining mortality rates have raised optimism about the prospects of reaping demographic dividend. However, it remains unclear how soon and what policy scenario would yield the largest demographic dividend in the country. We used a demographic-economic model "DemDiv" to assess the prospects of reaping a demographic dividend in Mali by 2050. We illuminate this further by examining the cost and implications of different combination of education, family planning and economic policies. The results show that by increasing access to education, family planning services coupled with strong economic reforms, Mali's GDP per capita will be $27,044 by 2050. This high per capita GDP is almost thrice the benefit of prioritising only economic reforms. Mali would also have a GDP of $977 billion. These findings highlight the need for sound demographic and market-oriented economic policies for Mali to reap a large demographic dividend by 2050.


Cops and Robbers is a classic pursuit-evasion game played between a group of g cops and one robber on an undirected N-vertex graph G. We prove that the complexity of deciding the winner in the game under optimal play requires Omega (N^{g-o(1)}) time on instances with O(N log^2 N) edges, conditioned on the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis. Moreover, the problem of calculating the minimum number of cops needed to win the game is 2^{Omega (sqrt{N})}, conditioned on the weaker Exponential Time Hypothesis. Our conditional lower bound comes very close to a conditional upper bound: if Meyniel's conjecture holds then the cop number can be decided in 2^{O(sqrt{N}log N)} time.
In recent years, the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis has been used to obtain many lower bounds on classic combinatorial problems, such as graph diameter, LCS, EDIT-DISTANCE, and REGEXP matching. To our knowledge, these are the first conditional (S)ETH-hard lower bounds on a strategic game.


Abstract In this study we present a simple optimization model for the evolution of defensive strategies (tolerance and resistance) of plants against their natural enemies. The model specifically evaluates the consequences of introducing variable costs and benefits of tolerance and resistance and nonlinear cost-and-benefit functions for tolerance and resistance. Incorporating these assumptions, the present model of plant defense predicts different evolutionary scenarios, not expected by previous work. Basically, the presence of an adaptive peak corresponding to intermediate levels of allocation to tolerance and resistance can arise when the shape parameter of the cost function is higher than the corresponding of the benefit function. The presence of two alternatives peaks of maximum tolerance and maximum resistance occurs only when benefits of tolerance and resistance interact less than additive. Finally, the presence of one peak of maximum resistance or maximum tolerance depends on the relative values of the magnitude of costs for tolerance and resistance. An important outcome of our model is that under a plausible set of conditions, variable costs of tolerance and resistance can represent an important aspect involved in the maintenance of intermediate levels of tolerance and resistance, and in favoring adaptive divergence in plant defensive strategies among populations. The model offers a framework for future theoretical and empirical work toward understanding spatial variation in levels of allocation to different defensive strategies.


The authors present a fuzzy logic-based implementation of the policing mechanism (PM) and cell loss priority control (CLPC) functions on voice cells in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks. Specifically, a redesigned model of fuzzy leaky bucket (FLB) is presented which serves as an alternative PM on the voice sources in an ATM network. As a continuation of the implementation of the FLB in the ATM network, three models of ATM switches with different algorithms are constructed, to perform CLPC on the voice cells, as well as to enhance the network throughput. Simulation results show that FLB is a better PM than the conventional leaky bucket (LB) in terms of cell loss probability and throughput while the mean transfer delay remains unchanged. It is also shown that the model of ATM switch with fuzzy token generator is the most balanced CLPC scheme as compared with the other two models.


A study was performed in Sprague-Dawley rats (Crl:CD BR) to differentiate between effects of hydrofluorocarbon 123 (HCFC-123) on the lactating dam or on the fetus using fostering and cross-fostering of the offspring. Pregnant and/or lactating dams without the pups present were exposed to the test substance (1000 ppm) or clean air by whole-body inhalation for 6 h/day from day 6 to 19 post conceptionem (p.c.) and from day 5 to 21 post partum (p.p.). Pups were cross-fostered to new dams within the first 2 days after birth. Treatment of the mothers with HCFC-123 led to decreases in serum glucose, cholesterol, and triglycerides and increases in absolute and relative maternal liver weights. Decreased litter and individual pup weight and decreased serum triglycerides were observed in the pups of treated foster mothers. Treatment of the mothers with HCFC-123 did not influence milk production based on the body weight difference of the dam before suckling and 60 min after beginning of suckling using 12-pup "standard litters" of untreated dams. Total fat, glucose, and protein contents in the milk were also not influenced by the treatment. Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a main metabolite of HCFC-123, was observed in urine samples of standard litters that had been nursed by treated dams. In conclusion, the effects on offspring due to HCFC-123 treatment consisted of decreased pup weight and decreased serum triglycerides at weaning. All effects were due to treatment of the lactating dams, as no prenatally induced effects were found. Since milk production and nutritional constituents of the milk were not influenced, but significant amounts of the main metabolite were found in pup urine, an effect of HCFC-123 or its metabolite on the pups via maternal milk is considered to be a possible cause for their decreased weight gain.


fitnessassessment. Springfield, IL:CharlesC. Thomas, 1978: Chap. 32. 5. Lake BJ. Definition of an exercise tolerance test. Med J Aust 1976; I: 189-192. 6. Chahine RA, Raizher AE, Ishimori 1. The clinical significance of exercise inducedST segmentelevation. Circulation 1976; 54: 209-213. 7. Marwi KN, Ellestad MH. Elevated ST segments with exercise in ventricular aneurysm. J Electrocardiol 1972; 5: 317-323.


Creating a sensitive and selective method that can provide simple, practical and high-throughput determination of levels of Hg2+ ions in water has proved extremely challenging. This work responds to these challenges by designing, fabricating and evaluating a polyaniline (PANI) based immobilized sensor optimized to exhibit a colorimetric response to trace amount of Hg2+ ions. The sensor design is realized using a leucoemeraldine based PANI as probe, which has a specific interaction with Hg2+ and results in both "off–on" and "color-change" signals. Hierarchical structured nanofibrous sensing membranes within well immobilized probes are fabricated by a bottom-up blending electrospinning nanofabrication method. This sensor shows a vivid colorimetric response specifically to Hg2+ ions (white–yellow/green–green–blue) over other possible interfering metal cations and achieves a low detection limit of 5 nM observed by the naked eye. Additionally, the sensing responses are visualized quantitatively by employing a colorimetric framework that translates measured spectra into numeric color values directly related to color perception. Furthermore, the as-prepared sensors exhibited good reversibility after extended regeneration cycles, which suggests a promising analytical method as an economical alternative to traditional Hg2+ sensors and also provides a new insight into the design and development of a novel colorimetric sensing system based on PANI immobilized materials.


The consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) contributes to several health problems among adults and children. In this paper, we build upon the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA), which has already been successfully used in many health contexts to achieve preventive health behavior. However, research shows that in contexts like healthy dieting, people seem to neglect risks, which is generally an important predictor of intention and indirect behavior. Therefore, we want to use virtual reality (VR) and its beneficial characteristics to manipulate participant's risk awareness by giving them interactive feedback to their choice of beverages. We assume this could shape their intention to consume less SSBs. To test our assumption, we use a one-way between-subject design (feedback design: informational vs. informational with related physical activity) in laboratory study. We suggest positive results of our feedback manipulation to risk awareness and furthermore to the consumption behavior.


This study aims to determine the impact of liquidity on BEP and ROE in Indonesian banking industry. The supporting theory in this study is ALMA theory. Based on annual data for the period 2001-2014 and following purposive sampling technique, the acquired amount of sample study is 97 banks. The data is analyzed using panel data regression of GMM Arrelano Bond, as a novelty in data processing, therefore the speed of adjustment can be known. The ALMA variables such as LAR, capital, leverage, operating expenses, interest income, and CAR sensitivity have a significant effect on BEP and ROE. Meanwhile LDR, NPL, the FBI have no impact on profitability. The implication of this study is the fact that banking performance in Indonesia can be leveled up through the reduction in mortgage interest rates and increment of credit volume and FBI. DOI :  https://doi.org/10.21632/irjbs.220.127.116.11-32  Keywords: Bank, ALMA, BEP, ROE, LAR, LDR, NPL, Capital


Although dominated by a strong late Tertiary extensional overprint, the turtlebacks of the Black Mountains of Death Valley display evidence for earlier, possibly Laramide-age, basement-involved thrust faulting. The thrust faults consist of now highly deformed contacts in which >200-m-thick bodies of basement gneiss structurally overlie upper Proterozoic metasedimentary rock. In addition, the faults contain locally preserved, east- directed mylonitic fabrics in their footwalls that are demonstrably early Tertiary or older. The association of these fabrics with Laramide-age pegmatite suggests that they may have formed concurrently with the intrusions. These basement thrust faults are significant because they formed in a region long considered to have exclusively thin-skinned deformation. Their presence also places new constraints on this part of the fold-and-thrust belt's preextension geometry by limiting the amount of late Tertiary extension. Specifically, these faults disallow the correlation of thin-skinned structures that currently exist to the east and west of the Black Mountains.


A typical sensor network is conceived as being a very large collection of low-powered, homogeneous nodes that remain static post-deployment and forward sensed data to a single sink via multi-hop communication. For these types of networks there is an inherent funnelling effect whereby the nodes that can communicate directly with the sink must collectively forward the traffic of the entire network and therefore these nodes use more energy than the other nodes. This is known as the energy hole problem because after some time, these nodes deplete their batteries and leave an energy hole cutting the sink off from the network.In this thesis two new routing protocols are proposed that aim to maximise load balancing among these most critical nodes in order to maximise lifetime. They are the first fully distributed routing protocols that are designed to generate a load balanced routing tree to mitigate the energy hole problem. The results show that the better performing of the two is capable of creating a highly balanced tree at the cost of a small increase in latency.Although there have been other fully distributed protocols that aim at a similar form of load balancing, it is proven that the approach they take cannot guarantee perfect balance among the most critical nodes even in unrealistically generous scenarios. This suggests that they are not well suited to that task and the simulation results show that the novel protocols proposed in this thesis outperform the best of the alternatives.Before these protocols are proposed, the absolute reception-based blacklisting routing strategy is shown to be more energy efficient than previously thought and indeed more efficient than the strategy that has previously been considered optimal. This result is used to strongly justify the use of the unit disk graph model in simulations of sensor networks. Additionally, the relay hole problem in sensor networks is analysed for the first time.


Background & objectives: Different types of practises are known for improving motor skills in intellectually disabled b oys. The purpose of this study was to compare the impact of spark motor program and basketball on improving of gross motor skills in this people. Methods: In this semi-experimental study, from 98 educable intellectually disabled students who studied in special school in Urmia, 30 children (age range of 9 to 13 years and IQ mean 64.4) were selected objectively and divided in three groups (2 experimental and 1 control) based on pre-test. BOTMP was used as a measurement of motor ability. Selected motor program (Spark motor program) including strengthening training, games, sports and basketball techniques was performed for 24 sessions . T-tests (dependent) and co-variance were used to comparison of results. Results: In Spark group after 24 sessions, there were significant effects on balance (p= 0.000), bilateral coordination ( p=0.000) and strength (p=0.001). There was no significant effect in agility and speed (p= 0.343) in basketball techniques group after 24 sessions, there were significant effects in agility and speed (p= 0.001), balance (p= 0.000), bilateral coordination (p= 0.013) and strength (p= 0.007). Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, it can be claimed that the Spark program and basketball techniques improve gross motor skills in educable intellectually disabled students. We also found a significant difference between the Spark program and basketball techniques efficacy on the improved skills. Furthermore, the efficacy of Spark program was significantly higher than basketball techniques (p<0.05).


The realization technology of a new kind of multi-wavelengths label optical packet switching technology is discussed. In this switching, optical header is labeled by several optical pulses at different wavelengths in the same optical communication channel band as optical payload. The optical transmitter with header generation and packet formation, receiver with data restoration and switching node with route processing are introduced. The switching principle is verified by a simplified experiment.


Formation of a complex between the tyrosine kinases FAK and Src is a key integrin-mediated signaling event implicated in cell motility, survival, and proliferation. Past studies indicate that FAK functions in the complex primarily as a "scaffold," acting to recruit and activate Src within cell/matrix adhesions. To study the cellular impact of FAK-associated Src signaling we developed a novel gain-of-function approach that involves expressing a chimeric protein with the FAK kinase domain replaced by the Src kinase domain. This FAK/Src chimera is subject to adhesion-dependent activation and promotes tyrosine phosphorylation of p130Cas and paxillin to higher steady-state levels than is achieved by wild-type FAK. When expressed in FAK -/- mouse embryo fibroblasts, the FAK/Src chimera resulted in a striking cellular phenotype characterized by unusual large peripheral adhesions, enhanced adhesive strength, and greatly reduced motility. Live cell imaging of the chimera-expressing FAK -/- cells provided evidence that the large peripheral adhesions are associated with a dynamic actin assembly process that is sensitive to a Src-selective inhibitor. These findings suggest that FAK-associated Src kinase activity has the capacity to promote adhesion integrity and actin assembly.


Aims: Improvements in nanotechnology in the past decayed has created various opportunities for evaluation of biologic effects such as anti-bacterial effects of nanoparticles. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the antibacterial activity of calcium carbonate nanoparticles on two different bacteria including A grobacterium tumefaciens and Staphylococcus aureu s. Methods: The antibacterial effect of calcium carbonate nanoparticles against mentioned bacteria was evaluated by dilution in agar containing medium and dilution in Broth medium. Each of prepared Broth Media (10 ml) was inoculated with 1 ml of bacterial suspension (10 6 CFU/ml) and incubated. Sampling of culture Media was performed in specific intervals and diluted as 10 -1 , to 10 -6 . Then 100 µl of each sample was transferred to agar plates and was spread carefully and then incubated. Grown colonies were counted and MIC and MBC was determined. Results: Calcium carbonate nanoparticles showed very good antibacterial effect and after 16 hours the bacteria were totally diminished. The lowest and highest MIC concentration of these nanoparticles in solid medium was 31.2 and 125 µg/ml respectively. The MIC of calcium carbonate nanoparticles in Broth Medium was two times more than the MIC concentration in solid medium, while different concentrations of ordinary calcium carbonate not only revealed antibacterial effects but also supported the bacterial growth. Conclusion: Use of calcium carbonate nanoparticles as an anti-microbial agent is recommended in different fields of medicine, food industry and agriculture and can be of importance considering health and economic issues.


The effects of salt and pH on the sonophotocatalytic degradation of azo dye Reactive Black 5 (RB5) were investigated. The applied frequency was 35 kHz, and 254 nm UVC lamps and TiO2 were used. At salt concentrations of 0, 50, 500, and 5000 mg/L, salt acted as an inhibitor or a OH radical scavenger under neutral pH condition and there was no significant difference in the removal trends for salt-added conditions. Under acidic condition, adsorption of RB5 on the surface of TiO2 was observed before the start of the sonophotocatalytic process and it was revealed that adsorption of RB5, negatively charged dye anions, could be enhanced under acidic condition because the charge of the TiO2 surface was changed from negative to positive at a pH of 6.6. This enhancement under acidic condition was observed during the entire operation time. In the comparison of the pH and salt effects, the enhancement by acidic pH control was larger than the inhibition by the effect of salt as a radical scavenger.


Large-scale generative language models such as GPT-3 are competitive few-shot learners. While these models are known to be able to jointly represent many different languages, their training data is dominated by English, potentially limiting their cross-lingual generalization. In this work, we train multilingual generative language models on a corpus covering a diverse set of languages, and study their few- and zero-shot learning capabilities in a wide range of tasks. Our largest model with 7.5 billion parameters sets new state of the art in few-shot learning in more than 20 representative languages, outperforming GPT-3 of comparable size in multilingual commonsense reasoning (with +7.4% absolute accuracy improvement in 0-shot settings and +9.4% in 4-shot settings) and natural language inference (+5.4% in each of 0-shot and 4-shot settings). On the FLORES-101 machine translation benchmark, our model outperforms GPT-3 on 171 out of 182 directions with 32 training examples, while surpassing the official supervised baseline in 45 directions. We conduct an in-depth analysis of different multilingual prompting approaches, showing in particular that strong few-shot learning performance across languages can be achieved via cross-lingual transfer through both templates and demonstration examples.


LTE-advanced system which based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) can eliminate intra-cell interference but still can not mitigate inter-cell interference (ICI). In this paper, we propose a novel cooperative multi-cell multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) scheme for LTE-advanced system to reduce ICI and improve the cell capacity. By sharing information such as data and channel state information (CSI) across multiple evolved NodeBs (eNB) and configuring joint preceding at cooperative transmitters, the ICI may be mitigated or even beneficial. Multi-cell block diagonalization (BD) algorithm is used to coordinate the transmissions across multiple eNBs for downlink. To guarantee fairness of the cell-edge users, round robin (RR) scheduling is applied. Simulation results for downlink show that the proposed multi-cell MIMO scheme can significantly improve the average cell throughput and reduce ICI for the cell-edge users.


The influence of an early blight epidemic on potato tuber yield was evaluated in three field experiments during 2000 to 2002 crop seasons under Vicosa, Minas Gerais state growing conditions. Through a disease severity gradient method, used four different dosages of fungicide chloratalonil were obtained four epidemic levels with severity range of D1 (maximum), plot without fungicide treatment, to D4 (minimum), plot with fully dosage fungicide commercial recommended, were obtained, which allowed for comparison of the epidemic effect on plant growth and tuber yield, and indicated the time for initiating of the first early blight (Alternaria solani) lesions on potato foliage The disease was predicted by using the methods based either degree days (DD) with base temperature of 7oC and physiological days (PD) having minimum, optimum and maximum temperature of 7, 21 and 30oC, respectively, accumulated during the period between planting and the first symptom appearance. Plots with higher disease levels along the gradient had significantly loss tuber yield in all trials. The highest yield reduction of 49,6; 52,7 and 58,2% occurred in D1, plots without fungicide treatment, during the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, respectively. The epidemic prediction through accumulated DD or PD did not indicate the appropriate time to initiate the epidemic control. However, the PD method that predicted the first symptoms between 240 and 333 accumulated PDs was found to be more adequate. The data revealed that green leaf area and tuber yield reduction caused by the early blight is dependent upon the disease severity. Compared to the others, the PD method appears to be most suitable to determine when the disease will establish, and thus can be recommended to initiate the disease management at 250 accumulated PDs, under disease-favorable climatic conditions.


In age‐structured populations, environmental autocorrelations influence the long‐run population growth rate as well as the variance in future population size. We used the concept of individual reproductive value to examine how autocorrelated environments affect the dynamics of age‐structured populations, leading to transparent interpretations and estimation of these effects. Environmental autocorrelation is expressed by the covariances between mean individual reproductive values for each age class and size of the same age class with stochastic components depending only on noise matrices from previous years. Thus, if an age class that is large in a given year also tends to perform better than the temporal average of that class in the contribution per individual to future population sizes, then the environmental autocorrelation will be positive. We use a simple model with temporal autocorrelation in recruitment rate to illustrate the theory through analytical results as well as stochastic simulations. We show how the effect of environmental autocorrelation, the term included in the long‐run growth rate, as well as influencing the variance of future population size, can be estimated using a combination of individual‐based demographic data and time series of fluctuations in age composition without estimating autocorrelations and cross‐correlations of large numbers of age‐specific vital rates. The method was applied to data from four mammal species. These analyses revealed that the influence of autocorrelations in the environmental noise on the dynamics of these species was small and in two populations almost negligible. The theoretical explorations as well as the empirical estimates indicate that the temporal scaling of the environmental autocorrelation must be long to substantially affect the long‐term population growth rate. The white noise approximation is therefore often very accurate.


Background Recent neuroimaging studies have highlighted differences in cerebral maturation in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in comparison to typical development. For instance, the contrast of the gray-white matter boundary is decreased in adults with ASD. To determine how gray-white matter boundary integrity relates to early ASD phenotypes, we used a regional structural MRI index of gray-white matter contrast (GWC) on a sample of toddlers with a hereditary high risk for ASD. Materials and Methods We used a surface-based approach to compute vertex-wise GWC in a longitudinal cohort of toddlers at high-risk for ASD imaged twice between 12 and 24 months (n = 20). A full clinical assessment of ASD-related symptoms was performed in conjunction with imaging and again at 3 years of age for diagnostic outcome. Three outcome groups were defined (ASD, n = 9; typical development, n = 8; non-typical development, n = 3). Results ASD diagnostic outcome at age 3 was associated with widespread increases in GWC between age 12 and 24 months. Many cortical regions were affected, including regions implicated in social processing and language acquisition. In parallel, we found that early onset of ASD symptoms (i.e., prior to 18-months) was specifically associated with slower GWC rates of change during the second year of life. These alterations were found in areas mainly belonging to the central executive network. Limitations Our study is the first to measure maturational changes in GWC in toddlers who developed autism, but given the limited size of our sample results should be considered exploratory and warrant further replication in independent and larger samples. Conclusion These preliminary results suggest that ASD is linked to early alterations of the gray-white matter boundary in widespread brain regions. Early onset of ASD diagnosis constitutes an independent clinical parameter associated with a specific corresponding neurobiological developmental trajectory. Altered neural migration and/or altered myelination processes potentially explain these findings.


The collection of the most significant scientific papers by Alexander Yu. Galushkin (1960–2014), the last of Viktor Shklovsky's literary secretaries, the creator of one of the first independent philological journals in Russia "De Visu", the long-term employee of the IWL RAS, and the head of the Literary Heritage Department, reflects the main areas of his research interests. In addition to articles and publications, the section "From the History of Russian Formalism" includes the extensive work "From Conversations with Viktor Shklovsky". The section "From the History of Literary Life" contains articles and notes from periodicals that have become inaccessible (the old "Literaturnoe Obozrenie", the Parisian newspaper "Russkaia Mysl"). The section "From the Documentary Biography of E.I. Zamyatin" presents materials for the book of the same name prepared by A.Yu. Galushkin on the basis of his works on Zamyatin; as an appendix, his PhD thesis "Discussion on B. Pilnyak and E. Zamyatin in the Context of Literary Policy of the Late 1920s — Early 1930s" with author's corrections and additions is published for the first time. The collection is concluded with the bibliography of A.Yu. Galushkin's works.


An infinite impulse response (IIR) adaptive resonator-in-a-loop filter bank that can be used for high-resolution spectral analysis of not only long data segments, but short data segments as well, with accuracies approaching the Cramer-Rao lower bounds for SNRs as well as 10 dB is described. The basic approach taken is to reanalyze the data segment many times while running the data forward and backward through the filter, as the coefficients converge. Special care is taken at the data endpoints, when reinitializing the filter state variables, to eliminate transients. >


Given a large and a small quantum circuit, we are interested in finding all maximal matches of the small circuit, called template, in the large circuit under consideration of pairwise commutation relations between quantum gates. In this work we present a classical algorithm for this task that provably finds all maximal matches with a running time that is polynomial in the number of gates and the number of qubits of the circuit for a fixed template size. Such an algorithm finds direct applications in quantum circuit optimization. Given a template circuit for which a lower-cost implementation is known, we may search for all instances of the template in a large circuit and replace them with their optimized version.


Remdesivir (GS-5734) is a 1′-cyano-substituted adenosine nucleotide analogue prodrug that shows broad-spectrum antiviral activity against several RNA viruses. This compound is currently under clinical development for the treatment of Ebola virus disease (EVD). While antiviral effects have been demonstrated in cell culture and in non-human primates, the mechanism of action of Ebola virus (EBOV) inhibition for remdesivir remains to be fully elucidated. The EBOV RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) complex was recently expressed and purified, enabling biochemical studies with the relevant triphosphate (TP) form of remdesivir and its presumptive target. In this study, we confirmed that remdesivir-TP is able to compete for incorporation with adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Enzyme kinetics revealed that EBOV RdRp and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) RdRp incorporate ATP and remdesivir-TP with similar efficiencies. The selectivity of ATP against remdesivir-TP is ~4 for EBOV RdRp and ~3 for RSV RdRp. In contrast, purified human mitochondrial RNA polymerase (h-mtRNAP) effectively discriminates against remdesivir-TP with a selectivity value of ~500-fold. For EBOV RdRp, the incorporated inhibitor at position i does not affect the ensuing nucleotide incorporation event at position i+1. For RSV RdRp, we measured a ~6-fold inhibition at position i+1 although RNA synthesis was not terminated. Chain termination was in both cases delayed and was seen predominantly at position i+5. This pattern is specific to remdesivir-TP and its 1′-cyano modification. Compounds with modifications at the 2′-position show different patterns of inhibition. While 2′-C-methyl-ATP is not incorporated, ara-ATP acts as a non-obligate chain terminator and prevents nucleotide incorporation at position i+1. Taken together, our biochemical data indicate that the major contribution to EBOV RNA synthesis inhibition by remdesivir can be ascribed to delayed chain termination. The long distance of five residues between the incorporated nucleotide analogue and its inhibitory effect warrant further investigation.


Although pharmacotherapy with atypical antipsychotics is common in child psychiatry, there has been little research on this issue. To compare the efficacy and safety of risperidone and aripiprazole in the treatment of preschool children with disruptive behavior disorders comorbid with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Randomized clinical trial conducted in a university-affiliated child psychiatry clinic in southwest Iran. Forty 3-6-year-old children, diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder comorbid with ADHD, were randomized to an 8-week trial of treatment with risperidone or aripiprazole (20 patients in each group). Assessment was performed by Conners′ rating scale-revised and clinical global impressions scale, before treatment, and at weeks 2, 4, and 8 of treatment. The data were analyzed by SPSS version 16. Mean scores between the two groups were compared by analysis of variance and independent and paired t-test. Mean scores of Conners rating scales were not different between two groups in any steps of evaluation. Both groups had significantly reduced scores in week 2 of treatment (P = 0.00), with no significant change in subsequent measurements. Rates of improvement, mean increase in weight (P = 0.894), and mean change in fasting blood sugar (P = 0.671) were not significantly different between two groups. Mean serum prolactin showed a significant increase in risperidone group (P = 0.00). Both risperidone and aripiprazole were equally effective in reducing symptoms of ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder, and relatively safe, but high rates of side effects suggest the cautious use of these drugs in children.


We have conditionally inactivated the E-cadherin gene in the thyroid follicular cells of mouse embryo to unravel its role in thyroid development. We used the Cre-loxP system in which the Cre-recombinase was expressed under the control of the tissue-specific thyroglobulin promoter that becomes active at embryonic d 15. At postnatal d 7, thyroid follicle lumens in the knockout mice were about 30% smaller with respect to control mice and had an irregular shape. E-cadherin was almost completely absent in thyrocytes, beta-catenin was significantly reduced, whereas no change in gamma-catenin was detected. alpha-Catenin was also reduced on the cell plasma membrane. Despite the dramatic loss of E-cadherin and beta-catenin, cell-cell junctions were not affected, the distribution of tight junction proteins was unaltered, and no increase of thyroglobulin circulating in the blood was observed. In addition, we found that other members of the cadherin family, the R-cadherin and the Ksp-cadherin, were expressed in thyrocytes and that their membrane distribution was not altered in the E-cadherin conditional knockout mouse. Our results indicate that E-cadherin has a role in the development of the thyroid gland and in the expression of beta-catenin, but it is not essential for the maintenance of follicular cell adhesion.


Fe 62 Co 8-x Cr x Nb 4 Zr 6 B 20 and Fe 62 Co 8-x Mo x Nb 4 Zr 6 B 20 (x=0,2,4, atomic percent) alloy series were chosen to study in this paper based on the three empirical rules of making bulk amorphous alloy. The ribbons, 30μm thick and 5mm wide, were produced by single-roller rapid quenching. The thermal stability, amorphous structure and magnetic properties of these alloys were studied by differential thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction, Faraday magnetic balance and static magnetic measurement. The supercooled liquid region ΔT x of the alloy, which contains 2at% Cr, reaches 85K, but the saturation magnetization σ s of these alloys decreases distinctly with increasing Cr or Mo. The saturation magnetization σ s and coercive force H c increase rapidly for the alloys of this series annealed at 973K for 900s because of the precipitation of α-Fe.


Early detection of fires is an important aspect of public safety. In the past decades, devices and systems have been developed for volumetric sensing of fires using non-conventional techniques, such as, computer vision based methods and pyro-electric infrared sensors. These systems pose an alternative for more commonly used point detectors, which suffer from transport delay in large and open areas. The ubiquity of computing and recent developments on novel hardware alternatives, like memristor crossbar arrays, promise an increase in the number of deployments of such systems. Existing video-based methods have been developed for the analysis of uncompressed spatio-temporal sequences. In order to respond the growing demand of such systems, techniques specifically aimed at analyzing compressed domain video streams should be developed for early fire detection purposes. In this paper, a Markov model and wavelet transform based technique is proposed to further improve the current state-of-the-art methods for video smoke detection by detecting signs of smoke existence in the MJPEG2000 compressed video.


Durkheim's 'second program of research' above all refers to his project as developed in Les formes elementaires de la vie religieuse. This essay examines how it has in turn been developed and taken up nowadays in the work of Roy Rappaport and Jeffrey Alexander. Both of them are concerned with the centrality of ritual and the sacred as active, constitutive elements not just of religion but of all social life, not least modern social life. However, a key difference between them can be found in the issue of the internal dimension of ritual and of the individual's participation in public performance of this. Rappaport emphasizes some sort of general notion of acceptance, in an effort to open up things and get away from the particular epistemological as well as theological commitments of the idea of belief. Alexander still appears to work with the modernist epistemology and 'Protestant' theology of belief. His project of a new Durkheimian cul tural sociology has nonetheless itself opened up all kinds of things, and is one of the most creative and dynamic research programs in sociology now adays.


To solve the present health scientific problems, requires a synthesis of the theoretical results of the analytic and reductive research made by the laboratory, clinical and public health, medical sciences. The reach of the potential maturity and efficiency of a unified medical science demands the integration by induction of those theories and a better understanding of their meanings. Thus, essential principles could be obtained within a general theory, to guide deductively a part of the present factual reseach to increase more the human health. This research should be placed within an integral framework of advanced ideas and models of the life and health of the human being in his environment. It must be made through the coordinating precepts of the clinical sciences. Much information from publications and meetings interchangeable by Internet, should be handled with a new integrative and interpretative, theoretical approach. International cross-disciplinary teams and a program with a theory-based network are necessary.


Environmental factors, e.g. temperature (T), feather cover (FC), and housing system (HS) affect energy requirements of laying hens. Interaction effects of T (11°C, 16°C, 21°C), FC (100% vs. 50%) and HS (cage vs. floor) on energy partitioning and performance of laying hens were investigated. Six batches of 70 brown layers per batch were applied. Heat production (HP) was determined by indirect calorimetry. ME-intake increased by 1% for each degree reduction in T. HP was not affected by T in hens with 100% FC, whereas in hens with 50% FC HP linearly increased if T decreased. In floor housing, HP at 16°C and 11°C was 5.8% and 3.0% higher, respectively, than in cages. NE for production (NEp) was 25.7% higher in cages compared to floor housing. In cages, 24.7% of NEp was spent on body fat deposition, whereas in floor housing 9.0% of NEp was released from body fat reserves. ME-intake (kJ/d) was predicted by: 586 BW – 7.94 T + 26.84 Daily gain + 11.36 Egg mass – 0.993 FC – 36.2 HS (0 = cages, 1 = floor; R = 0.75). Despite considerable differences among treatments, egg performances were not affected, indicating the adaptive capacity of layers to a broad range of environmental conditions. Abbreviations: HP, heat production; ME, metabolisable energy;


An analog system-on-chip for kernel-based pattern classification and sequence estimation is presented. State transition probabilities conditioned on input data are generated by an integrated support vector machine. Dot product based kernels and support vector coefficients are implemented in analog programmable floating gate translinear circuits, and probabilities are propagated and normalized using sub-threshold current-mode circuits. A 14-input, 24-state, and 720-support vector forward decoding kernel machine is integrated on a 3mm × 3mm chip in 0.5μm CMOS technology. Experiments with the processor trained for speaker verification and phoneme sequence estimation demonstrate real-time recognition accuracy at par with floating-point software, at sub-microwatt power.


How mutual support is created in online conversations and how such relational communication can be understood within and between layers of more enduring relational narratives is the focus of this study. The online (Facebook) conversations between two close friends over a 9 month period—one dying from pancreatic cancer (H. L. "Bud" Goodall, Jr.) and one experiencing vision loss (me)—are analyzed for how they create mutual support. The detailed qualitative analysis of the conversations furthers our understanding of supportive communication in two important ways: First, although much of the current literature focuses on one-way support, this study illustrates how mutual support is constructed. Second, given that the conversations are between long-term close friends during a specific period of health decline, the paper provides a detailed account of how supportive conversations are both "supported by" and help to "support" two broader narrative layers. One layer is the context of being mutually supportive during 9 months of need, and the second layer is the context of maintaining and celebrating a 20-year friendship. The further scholarly implications for understanding the invaluable connection of mutually supportive conversations within these broader relational narrative layers are explored.


We have carried out a detailed observational study of the light, color, and velocity variations of two bright, carbon-rich proto-planetary nebulae, IRAS 22223+4327 and 22272+5435. The light curves are based upon our observations from 1994 to 2011, together with published data by Arkhipova and collaborators. They each display four significant periods, with primary periods for IRAS 22223+4327 and 22272+5435 being 90 and 132 days, respectively. For each of them, the ratio of secondary to primary period is 0.95, a value much different from that found in Cepheids, but which may be characteristic of post-asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. Fewer significant periods are found in the smaller radial velocity data sets, but they agree with those of the light curves. The color curves generally mimic the light curves, with the objects reddest when faintest. A comparison in seasons when there exist contemporaneous light, color, and velocity curves reveals that the light and color curves are in phase, while the radial velocity curves are ∼0.25 P out of phase with the light curves. Thus they differ from what is seen in Cepheids, in which the radial velocity curve is 0.50 P out of phase with the light curve. Comparison of the observed periods and amplitudes with those of post-AGB pulsation models shows poor agreement, especially for the periods, which are much longer than predicted. These observational data, particularly the contemporaneous light, color, and velocity curves, provide an excellent benchmark for new pulsation models of cool stars in the post-AGB, proto-planetary nebula phase.


Direct measurements of stream-incision rates are generally neither practical nor meaningful because bed-rock abrasion rates are so small, and the variability of average stream discharge and sediment load is so great. Field examples of bed-rock incision by streams rarely allow determination of incision duration, initial channel geometry, or history of flow parameters. Complications arising from threshold-response and complex-response behavior of drainage basins (Schumm, 1977) often obscure the very cause of incision. However, incision resulting from datable stream diversion or capture allows determination of the duration of cutting. In extraordinary instances, such as the one reported herein, initial channel geometry, hydraulics, and sediment transport can be estimated in addition to the time of diversion. This paper develops the chronology of incision of a glacially diverted river over a time span of some 25,000 yr. Duration of this natural incision experiment was long enough that short-term perturbations may be ignored and meaningful average incision rates determined. The chronology, with accompanying estimates of channel geometry, hydraulics, and sediment-transport rate, thus provides data for the study of bed-rock incision processes in gravel-bed rivers (Foley, 1980a, 1980b).


REV BRAS EPIDEMIOL 2020; 23: E200009 ABSTRACT: Introduction: Tuberculosis and diabetes comorbidity remains a challenge for global public health. Objective: To analyze the sociodemographic profile and the diagnostic and treatment characteristics of tuberculosis cases with and without diabetes in Brazil. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study with data from the Notifiable Diseases Information System and the Hypertension and Diabetes Mellitus Primary Care Clinical Management System, from 2007 to 2011. We adopted a Poisson regression model with robust variance to estimate the prevalence ratios (PR) and their respective confidence intervals. Results: We found the studied comorbidity in 7.2% of cases. The hierarchical model showed a higher PR among women (PR=1.31; 95% confidence interval – 95%CI 1.27–1.35); a greater association in the age groups 40–59 years and ≥ 60 years (PR=11.70; 95%CI 10.21–13.39, and PR=17.49; 95%CI 15.26–20.05), and in those with positive sputum smear microscopy results – 1st sample (PR=1.40; 95%CI 1.35–1.47). Return after treatment discontinuation and treatment discontinuation were inversely associated with comorbidity (PR=0.66; 95%CI 0.57–0.76 and PR=0.79; 95%CI 0.72–0.87). Conclusion: The findings, such as the inverse relationship with tuberculosis treatment discontinuation in the group of people with comorbidity, reinforce the importance of integrated actions in health services to change the scenario of this challenging comorbidity.


Service providers are often reluctant to support anonymous access, because this makes it hard to deal with misbehaving users. Anonymous blacklisting and reputation systems can help prevent misbehaving users from causing more damage. However, by the time the user is blocked or has lost reputation, most of the damage has already been done. To help the service provider to recover from abuse by malicious anonymous users, we propose the vote-to-link system. In the vote-to-link system, moderators (rather than a single trusted third party) can cast votes on a user's action if they deem it to be bad. After enough moderators have voted on the action, the service provider can use these votes to link all the actions by the same user within a limited time frame and thus recover from these actions. All the user's actions in other time frames, however, remain unlinkable. To protect the voting moderators from retaliation, we also propose a (less efficient) variant that allows moderators to vote anonymously. We implemented and evaluated both variants to show that they are practical. In particular, we believe this system is suitable to combat malicious Wikipedia editing.


Recent studies have witnessed an increasing popularity of cross-device web search, in which users resume their previously-started search tasks from one device to later sessions on another. This novel search mode brings new user behaviors such as cross-device information transfer; however, they are rarely studied in recent research. Existing studies on this topic mainly focused on automatic cross-device search task extraction and/or task continuation prediction; whereas it lacks sufficient understanding of user behaviors and ways of supporting cross-device search tasks. Building an automated search support system requires proper models that can quantify user behaviors in the whole cross-device search process. This motivates me to focus on understanding, modeling and supporting cross-device search processes in this dissertation.

To understand the cross-device search process, I examine the main cross-device search topics, the major triggers, the information transfer approaches, and users' behavioral patterns within each device and across multiple devices. These are obtained through an on-line survey and a lab-controlled user study with fine-grained user behavior logs. Then, I work on two quantitative models to automatically capture users' behavioral patterns. Both models assume that user behaviors are driven by hidden factors, and the identified behavioral patterns are either the hidden factors or a reflection of hidden factors. Following prior studies, I consider two types of hidden factors --- search tactic (e.g., the tactic of information re-finding/finding would drive to click/skip previously-accessed documents) and user knowledge (e.g., knowing the knowledge within a document would drive users to skip the document). Finally, to create a real-world cross-device search support use case, I design two supporting functions: one to assist information re-finding and the other to support information finding. The effectiveness of different support functions are further examined through both off-line and on-line experiments.

The dissertation has several contributions. First, this is the first comprehensive investigation of cross-device web search behaviors. Second, two novel computational models are proposed to automatically quantify cross-device search processes, which are rarely studied in existing researches. Third, I identify two important cross-device search support tasks and implement effective algorithms to support both of them, which can beneficial future studies for this topic.


The relevance of the proposed study is due to the need to fully trace the formation of a system of terms to define the concept of «cutting off» the phonemic end or a certain part of the creative basis in the process of forming new words in the Ukrainian language, which will contribute to the terminological ordering in Ukrainian derivatology. The article investigates the formation of the terms truncation and trimming in Ukrainian derivatology, the influence of the corresponding terms of Russian derivatology on this process was noted. The correlation of the term «truncation» to numerous terms in different periods of development of linguistics was characterized. We paid special attention to those based on the clipping (rejection) of the part of the creative basis, accompanied by phonetic changes and without them, in particular with such as the affix-free (suffix-free) method of creation, rederivation (inverse word formation), zero suffixation, elision, apocope, telescopy, etc. The characteristic features of two terminological units at the present stage of development of Ukrainian derivatology were singled out: truncation as a morphological phenomenon and trimming as an independent way of word formation. It was found that truncation of the creative basis is possible not only during affixation, but also in the absence of any affixes in derived words. We can observe this phenomenon in the creation of complex words of different types. It is called an abbreviation truncation of bases or an abbreviation type of abbreviation, on the basis of which the abbreviation type of word formation was distinguished. Alternatively, we can call it an abbreviation, the essence of which is the formation of the word-abbreviation due to the reduction of words of the corresponding nominative phrase. The tendency of the term elision to function has been traced, in particular, it has been found out that this term has not become widely used in Ukrainian word formation, obviously because the phenomenon it causes is not very characteristic of word-forming acts of the Ukrainian language.


The interest of the scientific community on the remote observation of sun‐induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) has increased in the recent years. In this context, hyperspectral ground measurements play a crucial role in the calibration and validation of future satellite missions. For this reason, the European cooperation in science and technology (COST) Action ES1309 OPTIMISE has compiled three papers on instrument characterization, measurement setups and protocols, and retrieval methods (current paper). This study is divided in two sections; first, we evaluated the uncertainties in SIF retrieval methods (e.g., Fraunhofer line depth (FLD) approaches and spectral fitting method (SFM)) for a combination of off-the-shelf commercial spectrometers. Secondly, we evaluated how an erroneous implementation of the retrieval methods increases the uncertainty in the estimated SIF values. Results show that the SFM approach applied to high-resolution spectra provided the most reliable SIF retrieval with a relative error (RE) ≤6% and <5% for F687 and F760, respectively. Furthermore, although the SFM was the least affected by an inaccurate definition of the absorption spectral window (RE = 5%) and/or interpolation strategy (RE = 15%–30%), we observed a sensitivity of the SIF retrieval for the simulated training data underlying the SFM model implementation.


We present a Raman scattering spectroscopic study of boron imidazolate metal-organic frameworks (BIFs) with a number of paramagnetic ions in a wide frequency range from 25 to 1700 cm − 1 , which covers local vibrations of the linkers and well as collective lattice vibrations. We show that the spectral region above 800 cm − 1 belongs to the local vibrations of the linkers, which have the same frequencies for the studied BIFs without any dependence on the structure of the BIFs, and are easily interpreted based on the spectra of imidazolate linkers. In contrast, collective lattice vibrations, observed below 100 cm − 1 , show a distinction between cage and two-dimensional BIFs structures, with a weak dependence on the metal node. We identify the range of vibrations around 200 cm − 1 , which are distinct for each MOF, depending on a metal node. Our work demonstrates the energy hierarchy in the vibrational response of BIFs.


Our test of price-taking behavior looks at the choice of capacity rather than the choice of output. It is motivated by a complete spot markets model in which goods are distinguished by the selling probabilities in addition to other characteristics. When output is explained by total man-hours and a capacity utilization proxy, the coefficient of the first variable is the elasticity of capacity with respect to fixed labor. Under competition and risk neutrality this coefficient is equal to an average labor share. We use this observation to interpret Abbot-Griliches-Hausman's regressions and to argue that once the capacity utilization proxy is included in the regression, Hall's data at the manufacturing level fail to reject the joint hypothesis of competition and risk neutrality. It is also argued that the coefficient of total man-hours does not tell us anything about monopoly power once the capacity utilization proxy is omitted from the regression.


Employing the Geilikman-Kresin (GK) theory, we address the experimental data obtained by Bauer et al., and by Schneider et al., on the thermal conductivity (κ) of superconducting MgB2. The two gaps of this compound have qualitatively been understood via the well-known Suhl, Matthias, and Walker's (SMW) approach to multigap superconductivity. Since this approach is based on one-phonon exchange mechanism for the formation of Cooper pairs, it cannot give a quantitative account of the values of Tc and the multiple gaps that characterize MgB2 and other high-Tc superconductors (SCs). Despite this fact and some rather ambiguous features, it has been pointed out in a recent critical review by Malik and Llano (ML) that the SMW approach provides an important clue to deal with an SC the two gaps of which close at the same Tc: consider the possibility of the interaction parameters in the theory to be temperature-dependent. Guided by this clue, ML gave a complete summary of parameters that quantitatively account for the Tc and the gaps of MgB2 via the generalized BCS equations (GBCSEs). GBCSEs which we recall, invoke multi-phonon exchange mechanism for the formation of Cooper pairs and multiple Debye temperatures to deal with composite SCs. The parameter-values given in ML are used here to calculate the temperature-dependent gaps, which are an essential input for the GK theory. Notable features of this work are: 1) kMgB2 is calculated for both—the scenario in which the two gaps of MgB2 close/do not close at the same temperature whence it is found that 2) the latter scenario yields results in better agreement with experiment.


Articular chondrocytes are exposed to a unique osmotic environment, which varies throughout the depth of cartilage, and in response to mechanical loading or pathological conditions. In light of such osmotic variations we investigated the response of chondrocytes cultured in alginate beads to long term hypo- and hyperosmotic challenge. Following pre-incubation at 380 mOsmol, exposure to hyperosmotic conditions (550 mOsmol) initially decreased 35S-sulphate incorporation, but after 24 hours of culture, rates had recovered and surpassed their original levels. MAP kinase inhibitors abrogated this response suggesting their involvement in the adaptation mechanism. Hypo-osmotic challenge caused a decrease in 35S-sulphate incorporation throughout the culture period. These results suggest that osmolality is a powerful regulator of macromolecular synthesis, and that perturbations in the osmotic environment may alter the set point for turnover.


The ultimate goal is to understand how the information in the distributed neural circuits of the brain reorganizes and plastically adapts to laboratory disruptions designed to reversibly mimic brain injury. Our approach involves a new generation of data- driven mathematical models of brain circuits and their connection with complex behavioral tasks in primates that are enabled with a suite of novel experimental tools .In the following article, we illustrate a few of these methods, which include projecting input directly onto specifically targeted brain microcircuits and thus writing in neuromodulatory signals. These methods also enable the simultaneous read out and write in of real-time neural responses across multiple spatial and temporal scales of network activity.


Myocardial infarction is caused by prolonged ischemia and it is one of the main cause that leads to heart failures. The aim of the present work was the development of in situ gelling systems, based on poloxamer 407 (P407) or sodium alginate (Alg), loaded with platelet lysate (PL) to enhance cardiomyocyte survival after ischemia. Chondroitin sulfate (CS), a negatively charged glycosaminoglycan able to interact with different positively charged bioactive molecules, such as growth factors, was also investigated with both the systems. The gelation properties of both systems (viscosity, viscoelasticity, consistency by means of penetrometry, and injectability) were characterized in a physiological environment. In vitro evaluation of biocompatibility using fetal cardiac cells (cardiomyocytes and cardiac fibroblasts) demonstrated that the PL loaded alginate/chondroitin sulfate system retained the highest number of viable cells with equal distribution of the populations of cardiomyocytes and fibroblasts. Furthermore, the ability of the systems to improve cardiomyocyte survival after ischemia was also assessed. PL allowed for the highest degree of survival of cardiomyocytes after oxidative damage (simulating ischemic conditions due to MI) and both the Alg + CS PL and, to a greater extent, the PL alone demonstrated a considerable increase in survival of cardiomyocytes. In conclusion, an in situ gelling alginate-chondroitin sulfate system, loaded with platelet lysate, was able to improve the survival of cardiomyocytes after oxidative damage resulting in a promising system to improve cardiac cell viability after ischemia.


Abstract The thermal-hydraulic integral effect test (IET) program is being progressed by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. This paper presents an overview of the IET program; the scientific design characteristics of the IET facility; ATLAS, which is under construction; and the experimental and analytical validation works. The ATLAS facility has the following characteristics: (a) a 1/2-height, 1/288-volume, full-pressure simulation of the APR1400, (b) geometrical similarity with the APR1400, including 2 (hot legs) × 4 (cold legs) reactor coolant loops, a direct vessel injection (DVI), an integrated annular downcomer, etc., (c) incorporation of the specific design characteristics of the 1000-MW(electric) class Korean Standard Nuclear Power Plant, such as a cold-leg injection and the low-pressure injection pumps, (d) a maximum 8% of the scaled nominal core power, and (e) simulation capability of broad scenarios, including the reflood phase of the large-break loss-of-coolant accidents (LOCAs), small-break LOCA scenarios including the DVI line breaks, steam generator tube ruptures, main steam line breaks, midloop operation, etc. The scientific design of the ATLAS was accomplished rigorously from the viewpoints of both a global and local scaling based on the three-level scaling methodology of Ishii et al. The validation works showed that the scientific design of the ATLAS test facility is sound.


This study was conducted depend on the secundary data of the study of "Model Development of Health Services on HIV/AIDS Prevention for Adolescent Worker". The objective of this research were to study the knowledge of sexual transmission disease and HIV/AIDS of the adolescent workers and the effort to increase their knowledge. The finding showed that the knowledge on sexual transmission disease and HIV/AIDS of the adolescent workers were low, especially on understanding, symptom consequence, and prevention. To increase their knowledge, the health facility of the industry must delivery promotion and prevention services beside curative services. Key words: knowledge, sexual transmission disease and HIV/AIDS, adolescent, industry


In reviewing the records of 893 operations on the biliary tract and 331 operations on the stomach performed by my associates, Dr. Bunts and Dr. Lower, and myself, together with those performed by other surgeons at the Lakeside Hospital, we find that the clinical course of certain patients after gastric resections and after common-duct operations is similar in many respects. At the time of operation pulse and temperature are normal, but the patient is emaciated and sallow in appearance; his vitality is much reduced; his demeanor is melancholic and he is alternately possessed by hope and despair. After the operation his downward course and exit strikingly resemble the sinking and disappearance of the unwary traveler who has been trapped by quicksand. Statistics show that no clinic has ever reduced the mortality rate of any considerable series of resections of the stomach below 10 per cent., and the mortality rate of


We present an updated description of the San Felipe-Punta Estrella aquifer in Mexico by using new Transient Electromagnetic (TEM) measurements. A total of 17 TEM soundings were acquired with a 50 × 50 m2 single-loop configuration. The one-dimensional inversion of TEM data is performed by using Occam and Marquardt inversion techniques. A three-layer model, where a resistive layer is embedded by conductive ones, is sufficient to fit the data. The second and third layer are associated with the aquifer. We also applied Spatially Constrained Inversion (SCI) to the TEM data in order to derive a pseudo-3D model. A resistive layer extends from 10–100 m and is correlated to the permeable unit of the aquifer. The lowest conductive layer is associated to the semipermeable unit and starts appearing at a depth of 100 m. A high salinity in the permeable unit is detected at TEM stations near the shoreline, suggesting a saltwater intrusion. The TEM 1D inversion and SCI results confirm what a previous Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) survey campaign has detected using electrode spacing up to 1,000 m. The bedrock of the aquifer structure could not be detected by the applied TEM configuration.


Land cover changing would influence the availability of nutriens and otherssoil properties. In the forest areas, forest clearing would lead land degradation. KPHL Batutegi was catchment area for Batutegi dam. The ilegal logging that still occure in that area raising important question about the soil fertility status in that region. Its related to soil capability to the plant growth. The aims of this study was to get information about soil fer tility status in two type of land cover, which was secondary forest and one yearmixed coffee plantation. Soil sample was taking by purpose sampling on two type of land cover in KPHL Batutegi. One year mixed coffee plantation opened by illegal loging with fired. Intact soil samples were taken using the ring samples, while for the disturbed soil was done by the composite. Parameters observed were nutrients contain (N, P, and C -organic), pH, CEC, soil thickness, total pores and textur. The result showed that there no different on nutrient status and chemical soil properties between two land cover type . It was important from this study obtained that about 10 cm soil lost after one year land clearing from secondary forest to mixed coffee plantation.


Postprandial hyperglycemia (PPHG) is detrimental to health and increases risk of cardiovascular diseases, reduced eyesight, and life-threatening conditions like cancer. Detecting PPHG events before they occur can potentially help with providing early interventions. Prior research suggests that PPHG events can be predicted based on information about diet. However, such computational approaches (1) are data hungry requiring significant amounts of data for algorithm training; and (2) work as a black-box and lack interpretability, thus limiting the adoption of these technologies for use in clinical interventions. Motivated by these shortcomings, we propose, DietNudge1, a machine learning based framework that integrates multi-modal data about diet, insulin, and blood glucose to predict PPHG events before they occur. Using data from patients with diabetes, we demonstrate that our model can predict PPHG events with up to 90% classification accuracy and an average F1 score of 0.93. The proposed decision-tree-based approach also identifies modifiable factors that contribute to an impending PPHG event while providing personalized thresholds to prevent such events. Our results suggest that we can develop simple, yet effective, computational algorithms that can be used as preventative mechanisms for diabetes and obesity management.


Various energy management systems (driving strategies) have been developed to improve the efficiency of electrified vehicle drives. These include strategies from the field of offline optimization to determine the theoretical optimum for a given system, as well as online strategies designed for an on-board application in the vehicle. In this paper, investigations are performed on an SUV electrified by a 48 V hybrid system in P14 topology regarding both offline and online strategies. To calculate the global optimum, the performance of Dynamic Programming (DP) compared to an Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS) with an iteratively determined equivalence factor is shown. Furthermore, with regard to online energy management strategies (EMS), it is presented how a predictive Online ECMS achieves additional fuel savings compared to a robust, non-predictive implementation. The simulation-based vehicle development allows detailed investigations regarding interactions between battery requirements and EMS. In this context, it is shown how various battery capacities are exploited by the discussed EMS.


In vitro selection techniques offer powerful and versatile methods to isolate nucleic acid sequences with specific activities from huge libraries. We describe an in vitro selection strategy for the de novo selection of allosteric self-cleaving ribozymes responding to pefloxacin and other quinolone derivatives. Within 16 selection cycles, highly sensitive clones responding to drug levels in the sub-micromolar range were obtained. The morpholine moiety of the quinolone derivatives was required for inhibition of the self-cleavage of the selected ribozymes: modifications of the aromatic system were tolerated better than modifications of the morpholine ring. We also present a theoretical model that analyzes the predicted fraction of ribozymes with a given binding constant and cleavage rate recovered after each selection cycle. This model precisely predicts the actual experimental values obtained with the selection procedure. It can thus be used to determine the optimal conditions for an in vitro selection of an allosteric ribozyme with a desired dissociation constant and cleavage rate for a given application.


The paper summarizes the first stage of the work for development of a virtual archaeological museum carried under the EU Copernicus ArchTerra project. It describes a new implementation of a database with museum information after the CIDOC standard. The system reported here is developed using Oracle CASE methodology and is currently implemented as an Oracle 8i database. The data model it is based on enhances the CIDOC object-oriented data model in several important directions for realistic museum data processing, such as artefact duplication, conservation and Internet browsing. It clearly separates the domain ontology from the specific domain knowledge through the concept of a terminological thesuarus, thus making it applicable to other kind of museum information systems, e.g. in ethnography, natural sciences, etc. The paper discuss also future directions of further development, especially in the direction of data exchange between CIDOC compliant databases containing information related to cultural heritage management.


Based on the studies of contemporary writers this paper presents a discourse on modernism especially in English literature, along with different socio-political and historical events related with modernism. Modernism like any other doctrine has had its beginning and phases of development until today as it appears now to us with different meanings and varied connotations. Modernism in the field of arts and literature refers to the time of late 19th century and first half of the 20th century, to the specific mode of writing of some writers and painting of some painters- as opposed to the previous convention of arts and literature- in the background of socio-political disorder of the First World War. In the greater dynamics of human history modernism is the significant phenomenon which at the same time presents human weakness such as frustration, deep despair, loneliness and spiritual crises of individual even in the midst of eye-catching material and technological development, as if human beings lost the centre of authority in a center less world. With the collapse of socio-political structures that began with the destruction of First World War, the Western society became victim of hopelessness and many other social ills damaging their hope and idea of progress. The idea of perfect future and progress of the world, which so far had been deemed to be possible based on human reason, was shattered due to the overwhelming effects of the war. Modern poets and authors not only portrayed different society's ills, as created in post war Europe, in their writing, but also sought an authority based on which the society's ills would be relieved or gone. Still, we have the experience of the same social ills as modernism had earlier; as we have the legacy of modernism even in the post modern era. In modern era "fragmentation" in literary writings was really the sign of individual's or human being's fragmented and disorderly or problematic existence for which the modern writers regret. But "fragmentation" is being more celebrated in the post modern era signifying more and more disintegration and dissolving entities in human relationships that really creates more uncertainty for the world. This paper attempts to understand how the modern writers presented and lamented the lack of authority by which the modern writers wanted to remove society's ills. This paper also makes an attempt to explore as to how the modernism is made out throughout different phenomena of history that essentially can determine our future authority.


Abstract : Broadcast in a communication network is the delivery of copies of messages to all nodes. A broadcast algorithm is reliable if all messages reach all nodes in finite time, in the correct order and with no duplicates. The present paper presents an efficient reliable broadcast algorithm. (Author)


Adoptive cellular therapy with chimeric antigen receptor T cells (car-ts) has recently received approval from Health Canada and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after remarkable and durable remissions were seen in children with recurrent or refractory leukemia and adults with non-Hodgkin lymphoma-responses that were so impressive that a shift in the paradigm of care has now occurred for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The concept behind car-t immunotherapy is that modification of a patient's own T cells to facilitate their localization to the cancer cell, with subsequent activation of the T cell effector mechanism and proliferation, will result in targeted killing of cancer cells. The car-ts are a novel drug in that the starting material for the manufacture of the car-t product comes from the patient, whose viable T cells are then genetically modified. Thus, collaboration is needed between the pharmaceutical companies, which must meet good manufacturing standards for each patient's unique product, and the treating sites. For regulators and health authorities, this new class of drugs requires new paradigms for assessment and approval. Treatments with car-ts require that institutions address unique logistics requirements and management of novel toxicities. The Hospital for Sick Children has had early experience with both the licensing of clinical trials and the introduction of the first commercial product. Here, we provide an overview of basic concepts and treatment, with caveats drawn from what we have learned thus far in bringing this new therapy to the clinical front line.


Expanding the genetic code DNA and RNA are naturally composed of four nucleotide bases that form hydrogen bonds in order to pair. Hoshika et al. added an additional four synthetic nucleotides to produce an eight-letter genetic code and generate so-called hachimoji DNA. Coupled with an engineered T7 RNA polymerase, this expanded DNA alphabet could be transcribed into RNA. Thus, new forms of DNA that add information density to genetic biopolymers can be generated that may be useful for future synthetic biological applications. Science, this issue p. 884 DNA that includes synthetic bases expands the genetic code from four to eight nucleotide letters We report DNA- and RNA-like systems built from eight nucleotide "letters" (hence the name "hachimoji") that form four orthogonal pairs. These synthetic systems meet the structural requirements needed to support Darwinian evolution, including a polyelectrolyte backbone, predictable thermodynamic stability, and stereoregular building blocks that fit a Schrödinger aperiodic crystal. Measured thermodynamic parameters predict the stability of hachimoji duplexes, allowing hachimoji DNA to increase the information density of natural terran DNA. Three crystal structures show that the synthetic building blocks do not perturb the aperiodic crystal seen in the DNA double helix. Hachimoji DNA was then transcribed to give hachimoji RNA in the form of a functioning fluorescent hachimoji aptamer. These results expand the scope of molecular structures that might support life, including life throughout the cosmos.


In order to develop a common mathematical and simulation platform for tumbling mills, a review of existing mechanistic models was made identifying the key aspects of grinding and slurry transport which are common to all tumbling mills. A mill model structure has been developed for all types of tumbling mills based on the population balance framework by incorporating breakage characteristics, slurry and solids transport, product classification and discharge, and energy consumption. A size-dependant breakage model developed by the JKMRC is applied. Transport is separated from breakage events and treated as a main sub-model in the new model structure. The model structure is based on dynamic timestepping technique to enable dynamic simulation capability for non-steady-state simulation and control modelling. It is envisaged that the new model will cover a full range of milling conditions. It should enable a smooth transition between different mill types, such as from AG (Autogenous Grinding) to SAG to ball mill. The dynamic mill model structure developed here is the first step towards mechanistic modelling of grinding mills and provides great potential for the optimization of the comminution process.


To gain further insight into the fabrication and to improve the mechanical and optoelectronic properties of materials at the nano-scale, new experimental methods that permit thorough but fast and reliable multi-dimension microstructural and defect analyses are needed. The present contribution promotes the use of scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) as an advantageous approach compared to conventional TEM for two- and three-dimensional defect analysis in thick metallic specimens. Annular dark-field (ADF) STEM imaging of dislocations reveal a number of characteristic contrast effects that are shown to depend on both angular detection range and the specific position of the dislocation in the foil. In order to comprehend better the mechanisms underlying these contrast features, STEM dislocation contrast was systematically studied as a function of ADF detection angle, and a rationale based on electron channelling and Bloch-wave theories is proposed to account for such complex contrast phenomena. It is demonstrated that the character and position of a dislocation in the foil can be distinguished simply through a comparison between the images acquired at low- and medium-angle annular detection ranges. Due to its inherent projection nature, a single transmission electron microscopy micrograph is not always sufficient to unravel a complex configuration of dislocations; to do so multiple micrographs in the form of tilted stereo pairs or tilt-series are usually acquired. Here a very efficient and rapid method, in which both image acquisition and three-dimensional reconstruction problems are addressed, is developed that provides a reliable insight into the 3D shape of line dislocations. Instead of tilting the specimen, this method uses the convergent illumination of STEM imaging mode to record a stereoscopic pair of micrographs for a single sample tilt. These stereo images, whose effective viewing directions are separated by only a few degrees, are then treated with an in-house algorithm to yield a reliable 3D reconstruction of the dislocation arrangement.


A 9–11-GHz fully integrated shock wave generator using a 0.18-μm CMOS process for in-door active imaging applications is presented. This chip includes an on-chip wideband meandering dipole antenna, a shock wave generator and a 5-bit digitally programmable delay circuit. The pulse generator simulation produces a 0.4-V peak–peak (p-p) pulse amplitude with a 45.86-ps monopulse cycle in simulation. The integrated dipole antenna's bandwidth −10 dB is 25.3 GHz in EMDS, ADS 2008 simulation. A 20-dB standard horn antenna with distance of 38 mm to this chip is used for the measurement. Measurement results show that 9–11-GHz pulse frequency response with 1.1-mVp-p pulse output voltage received from the horn antenna and 3-ps delay control resolution are suitable for fully on-chip pulse beam forming purpose with integrated antenna array.


This guide provides information on characteristics of wood, wood-working tools, joinery, and wood materials and engineering. Special topics such as birdsmouth masts are also addressed. Public Domain Books Digitized by Google


In the rabbit sarcolemma both in norm and under experimental muscular dystrophy besides cholesterol there are found squalene and lanosterol - predecessors of its synthesis as well as a series of other sterols which are not yet identified. The cholesterol fraction of sarcolemma of the rabbits in norm and under muscular dystrophy contain so-called rapid sterols. Under experimental muscular dystrophy in the rabbit sarcolemma side by side with an increase in the content of cholesterol content the concentration of rapid sterols increases. It is also found that under mentioned pathology desmosterol arises in the rabbit sarcolemma.


The X-ray source CXOXBJ142607.6+353351 (CXOJ1426+35), which was identified in a 172 ks Chandra image in the Bootes field, shows double-peaked rest-frame optical/UV emission lines, separated by 0.69" (5.5 kpc) in the spatial dimension and by 690 km s^-1 in the velocity dimension. The high excitation lines and emission line ratios indicate both systems are ionized by an AGN continuum, and the double-peaked profile resembles that of candidate dual AGN. At a redshift of z=1.175, this source is the highest redshift candidate dual AGN yet identified. However, many sources have similar emission line profiles for which other interpretations are favored. We have analyzed the substantial archival data available in this field, as well as acquired near-infrared (NIR) adaptive optics (AO) imaging and NIR slit spectroscopy. The X-ray spectrum is hard, implying a column density of several 10^23 cm^-2. Though heavily obscured, the source is also one of the brightest in the field, with an absorption-corrected 2-10 keV luminosity of ~10^45 erg s^-1. Outflows driven by an accretion disk may produce the double-peaked lines if the central engine accretes near the Eddington limit. However, we may be seeing the narrow line regions of two AGN following a galactic merger. While the AO image reveals only a single source, a second AGN would easily be obscured by the significant extinction inferred from the X-ray data. Understanding the physical processes producing the complex emission line profiles seen in CXOJ1426+35 and related sources is important for interpreting the growing population of dual AGN candidates.


This thesis work has been performed at GKN Aerospace Sweden AB.The objective was to initiate GKN Aerospace Engine System (GAES) work towards Model Based Engineering (MBE); letting the 3D models including Product and Manufacturing Information (PMI) replace the 2D drawings as the authoritative information source.To obtain the objective a pilot-study was performed. The pilot-study implied taking a 3D model including PMI through the downstream information flow at the company, to identify opportunities and challenges with this way of working.Requirements and aspects were identified to describe what need to be tested and answered during the pilot-study. Concurrent with the pilot-study the ranked list of requirements was followed-up and the identified aspects were answered. Out of 19 requirements the result showed that nine requirements are fully met with the current work approach, seven requirements are partly met and three requirements are not met. Since a major part of the requirements is fully met it will simplify GAES step in the direction towards MBE.The study showed that introducing MBE can imply both opportunities and challenges for GAES. One opportunity is that MBE can minimize errors when less human interpretation is needed. A challenge is that GAES way of working differs from other companies, which requires a new way of thinking and different functionality in software. There is today no solution for tracking changes in the 3D model including PMI, which needs to be solved before a transition.The employees believe that introducing MBE will lead to a big readjustment and that the cultural change at the company will be the biggest and most difficult challenge to overcome.Since the approach to work with MBE is still not as widespread within the aerospace industry, there are several aspects that need to be explored and studied further.