Abstract : The Defense Science Board (DSB) Task Force on Tactics and Technology for 21st Century Military Superiority was formed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense to explore new concepts for making a relatively small and rapidly deployable force capable for accomplishing missions that would otherwise require a large, massed force. As part of the concept development phase of the study, the DSB identified two different means of achieving a capable small dispersed force. The first concept represents an evolutionary change from current small forces, such as the division ready brigade (DRB) of the 82nd Airborne. Here the force is envisioned to remain a small, mostly self-contained unit such as a DRB, but it is given the mission and capability of a larger unit such as a division. This may be accomplished by augmenting many of a DRB's current components with advanced RSTA, C2, and weapon systems, much as envisioned in the Rapid Force Projection Initiative (RFPI) and the U.S. Army's Force XXI concept. The DSB builds on these concepts by emphasizing joint nonorganic or 'external' RSTA and fire support system technologies. The second DSB concept is more revolutionary, removing the notion of an area control by ground forces almost entirely. Here, long-range fires are called by small, virtually independent dismounted teams moving around the region. This concept is close to that espoused in the USMC Sea Dragon proposal. The DSB concept builds on Sea Dragon by extending it to include a larger range of external RSTA and weapons and possibly giving it a more substantial level of team mobility. While our simulation effort focuses on the first concept, the two have many aspects in common, and some merging of ideas is expected. Both concepts emphasize joint operations and coordination among many geographically remote systems. The common question between both concepts is how much of a


The present investigation seeks to compare the antioxidant activities of solvent extracted (methanol) and in vitro enzyme digested Bambara nut. Bambara nut was extracted with methanol and another portion was subjected to an in vitro human digestion model that stimulated the composition of the gastrointestinal tract. The HPLC-DAD phenolic analysis revealed the presence of some phenolic acids and flavonoids, with reduced levels of most of the identified compounds after cooking process. The result of the antioxidant indices (total phenol, total flavonoid, ferric reducing antioxidant power, ABTS and DPPH radical scavenging activities) of the methanolic extract revealed a higher potency for the raw methanolic extract compared with the cooked methanolic extract. The assessment of the in vitro enzyme digested Bambara nut for antioxidant action revealed a high activity for the enzyme digested Bambara nut compared with the methanolic extract. Conversely, the cooking process improved the antioxidant activity after in vitro enzyme digestion. The result of this study indicates that the selected legume has some phyto-constituents with some measure of antioxidant action and that the phyto-constituents will be better released after passing through the gastrointestinal tract, and therefore could be harnessed as a functional food with potential health benefits.


A steady-state fluorescence technique was used to examine the annealing of films formed from high- T latex particles above the glass transition temperature. The films were prepared by sintering pyrene-labeled poly(methyl methacrylate) latex particles. During the annealing processes, the transparency of the film changed considerably. Direct fluorescence emission from excited pyrene was monitored as a function of annealing temperature to detect these changes. Scanning electron microscopy in conjunction with Monte Carlo simulations of photon diffusion in latex film were used to interpret the fluorescence results. Healing temperature and time were measured at the point where the fluorescence emission intensity becomes maximum. This was associated with the longest optical path of a photon in latex film during healing of particle-particle boundaries. Healing activation energy was measured and found to be 10 kcal/mol.


A follow-up period averaging 21.6 years was obtained for patients with low-grade papillary intraductal carcinoma initially treated only by biopsy between 1940 and 1950. Subsequent carcinoma was diagnosed in the same breast in seven of the ten patients after an average interval of 9.7 years. Six of the seven subsequent carcinomas were invasive. Two of the patients died of metastatic carcinoma and two were known to be alive with metastases when last contacted. Three patients were without carcinoma following mastectomy. When these results were combined with the few reports available in the literature, it appeared that at least 39% of patients with intraductal carcinoma treated by biopsy alone subsequently had clinically evident carcinoma, invariably in the same breast, with an average latent period of about ten years. This was undoubtedly a result of the multicentric nature of the disease in many patients. ( JAMA 239:1863-1867, 1978)


While large scale pre-training has achieved great achievements in bridging the gap between vision and language, it still faces several challenges. First, the cost for pre-training is expensive. Second, there is no efficient way to handle the data noise which degrades model performance. Third, previous methods only leverage limited image-text paired data, while ignoring richer single-modal data, which may result in poor generalization to single-modal downstream tasks. In this work, we propose an EfficientCLIP method via Ensemble Confident Learning to obtain a less noisy data subset. Extra rich non-paired single-modal text data is used for boosting the generalization of text branch. We achieve the state-of-the-art performance on Chinese cross-modal retrieval tasks with only 1/10 training resources compared to CLIP and WenLan, while showing excellent generalization to single-modal tasks, including text retrieval and text classification.


Cyclin-dependent kinases and cyclins regulate with the help of different interacting proteins the progression through the eukaryotic cell cycle. A high-quality, homology-based annotation protocol was applied to determine the core cell cycle genes in the recently completed Arabidopsis genome sequence. In total, 61 genes were identified belonging to seven selected families of cell cycle regulators, for which 30 are new or corrections of the existing annotation. A new class of putative cell cycle regulators was found that probably are competitors of E2F/DP transcription factors, which mediate the G1-to-S progression. In addition, the existing nomenclature for cell cycle genes of Arabidopsis was updated, and the physical positions of all genes were compared with segmentally duplicated blocks in the genome, showing that 22 core cell cycle genes emerged through block duplications. This genome-wide analysis illustrates the complexity of the plant cell cycle machinery and provides a tool for elucidating the function of new family members in the future.


There are continuous high concerns on formation protection technology in international petroleum engineering field. The reservoir drill-in fluid (RDF) is the first non-native fluid to contact formation, and which influences directly the ultimate capacity of oil and gas well. The paper discusses the smart RDF design method based on conventional drilling fluid. The designed RDF system is characterized as good formation damage control, as well as the performance easily adjusted for field application. The technology combines ideal packing technology with active calcium carbonate to obtain low permeability filter cake, high return permeability and low initial flowing pressure. The sized calcium carbonates contribute to develop sealing zone for preventing filtrate and solids from invading into formation, and the organophilic passageway in filter cake (the active calcium carbonate) is favorable to open automatically passageway for oil and gas during production. Different modifiers used to ground calciumcarbonate surface modification are evaluated in laboratory. And the laboratory results show modified calcium carbonates are comfortable with conventional drilling fluids additives such as XC(Xanthan ), potassium polyacrylate(K-PAM), sodium carboxymethyl cellulose(Na-CMC).


OBJECTIVES
General anesthesia and positive pressure ventilation are associated with perioperative pulmonary complications. Lung ultrasound (LUS) is a method used to evaluate lung parenchyma. The purpose of this study was to evaluate LUS patterns in a cohort of women undergoing gynecological surgery with uncomplicated general anesthesia.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Patients were assessed according to the 8-zone LUS assessment protocol used to detect lung sliding, A-lines, B-lines, interstitial syndrome and lung consolidation. Each patient was screened at specific time intervals: before induction of anesthesia, at induction, 30 and 60 minutes after induction and within two hours after recovery.

RESULTS
A total of 99 patients undergoing gynecological surgery with uneventful anesthesia from November 2017 to November 2018 were included in this study. A total of 426 LUS records were retained for further analysis. Overall, no significant changes to patients' A-line appearance were detected, regardless of the time of assessment. There was, however, an increase in the number of B-lines at the screening times of 30 and 60 minutes after induction, as compared to initial assessments (p = 0.011 and p < 0.001 respectively), and an increase in the number of positive regions (≥ 3 B-lines) at 30 and 60 minutes after induction and after recovery, as compared to initial assessment (p < 0.001; p < 0.001 and p = 0.001 respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
An uneventful anesthesia may predispose to abnormal LUS findings and should be considered while interpreting of LUS results in cases with perioperative pulmonary complications.


In this paper, we describe the design of Neurogrid, a neuromorphic system for simulating large-scale neural models in real time. Neuromorphic systems realize the function of biological neural systems by emulating their structure. Designers of such systems face three major design choices: 1) whether to emulate the four neural elements-axonal arbor, synapse, dendritic tree, and soma-with dedicated or shared electronic circuits; 2) whether to implement these electronic circuits in an analog or digital manner; and 3) whether to interconnect arrays of these silicon neurons with a mesh or a tree network. The choices we made were: 1) we emulated all neural elements except the soma with shared electronic circuits; this choice maximized the number of synaptic connections; 2) we realized all electronic circuits except those for axonal arbors in an analog manner; this choice maximized energy efficiency; and 3) we interconnected neural arrays in a tree network; this choice maximized throughput. These three choices made it possible to simulate a million neurons with billions of synaptic connections in real time-for the first time-using 16 Neurocores integrated on a board that consumes three watts.


Introduction: Despite improvements in automotive safety, motor vehicle collision (MVC)-related facial fractures remain common and represent preventable injuries. This study examines the changing characteristics of facial fractures treated at a regional, level I trauma center, from 2005 to 2010. Methods: We identified all patients with facial fractures admitted to our hospital, from 2005 to 2010, by querying the North Carolina Trauma Registry, using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision codes. Prospectively collected data, sorted by year, were descriptively analyzed for demographics, referral patterns, etiology, anatomic location, and clinical outcomes. Results: Number of patients with facial fractures increased from 201 per year to 263 per year (total n = 1508). Although transport distances remained constant at ∼85 miles, standard deviation increased from 37 to 68 miles. Transport time increased from 87 to 119 minutes. Referrals came from 28 surrounding counties in 2005 and 43 counties in 2010. Regarding etiology, MVCs decreased from 40% to 27%, all-terrain vehicle crashes decreased from 6% to 2%, falls increased from 8% to 19%, and bicycle accidents increased from 3% to 6%. Regarding anatomic location, frontal sinus fractures increased from 8% to 37%, zygomaticomaxillary fractures increased from 9% to 18%, nasoethmoid fractures decreased from 12% to 6%, orbital floor fractures decreased from 6% to 3%, and mandible fractures decreased from 28% to 18%. Single-site fractures increased from 75% to 90%. Length of intensive care unit and hospital stay remained stable at 3 and 7 days, respectively. Conclusions: Despite a decrease in MVC-related facial fractures, the overall increase in facial fractures referred to our trauma center is due to a growing number of patient transfers from rural hospitals, where a paucity of qualified surgeons may exist.


This paper, the third in a series of eight introduces some of the basic concepts of the theory of extensors needed for our formulation of the differential geometry of smooth manifolds . Key notions such as the extension and generalization operators of a given linear operator (a (1,1)-extensor) acting on a real vector space V are introduced and studied in details. Also, we introduce the notion of the determinant of a (1,1)-extensor and the concepts of standard and metric Hodge (star) operators, disclosing a non trivial and useful relation between them.


This paper analyzes the properties of a number of estimators that can be used to estimate short-run persistence in mutual fund returns. When data for different funds are pooled, it is advisable to correct for cross-sectional differences in expected returns. However, these adjustments may induce biases in the estimated persistence coefficients and thus lead to spurious persistence. Theoretical derivations, combined with a Monte Carlo study, show that these biases cannot be neglected for the samples that are typically used in applied work. We also estimate the short-run persistence in two samples of U.S. open-end mutual funds using quarterly returns for 19871994. An important conclusion is that the results are quite sensitive to the estimation method that is employed.


Aim: Irritable Bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common gastrointestinal disease worldwide with a broad spectrum of symptoms. In present retrospective study, we aimed to compare mean platelet volume to platelet ratio (MPR) and red cell distribution width to platelet ratio (RPR) values of IBS patients to those of healthy subjects.
Methods: Patients whom followed up in internal medicine clinic of our institution between 2014 January to 2018 January were enrolled to the study. IBS subjects divided into constipation dominant or diarrhea dominant IBS groups. Healthy individuals visited our outpatient clinics for a check-up were enrolled as control group.
Results: Median MPR of the constipation IBS, diarrhea IS and control groups were 0,034 (0,02-0,06), 0,034 (0,02-0,06), and 0,028 (0,01-0,05), respectively. The difference between groups was statistically significant (p=0.004).
Conclusion: We think that elevated MPR in a patient with typical symptoms of IBS could be helpful in the diagnosis of the disease. Therefore, we suggest automatic calculation of MPR in hemogram assays.


In late Cenozoic time the Sierra Nevada was uplifted to twice the height of the Appalachian Range, although crustal thickness beneath the two ranges is the same. Moreover, the Sierran root is probably much too old to have caused the late uplift. Rayleigh-wave phase velocities along the axis of the Sierra Nevada are low and, combined with other evidence, indicate that thinning of mantle lithosphere produced the uplift. The former subducted slab of lithosphere beneath the Sierra Nevada may have caused not only the present low heat flow but also shielded the Sierra Nevada from a high regional asthenospheric heat flux. Progressive warming followed the Mendocino triple juction northward, converted sub-Sierran lithosphere to asthenosphere, and raised the southern Sierra Nevada highest because they have been rising for the longest time.


Heme-regulated eukaryotic initiation factor 2α (eIF2α) kinase (HRI) functions in response to the heme iron concentration. At the appropriate heme iron concentrations under normal conditions, HRI function is suppressed by binding of the heme iron. Conversely, upon heme iron shortage, HRI autophosphorylates and subsequently phosphorylates the substrate, eIF2α, leading to the termination of protein synthesis. The molecular mechanism of heme sensing by HRI, including identification of the specific binding site, remains to be established. In the present study we demonstrate that His-119/His-120 and Cys-409 are the axial ligands for the Fe(III)-protoporphyrin IX complex (hemin) in HRI, based on spectral data on site-directed mutant proteins. Cys-409 is part of the heme-regulatory Cys-Pro motif in the kinase domain. A P410A full-length mutant protein displayed loss of heme iron affinity. Surprisingly, inhibitory effects of the heme iron on catalysis and changes in the heme dissociation rate constants in full-length His-119/His-120 and Cys-409 mutant proteins were marginally different to wild type. In contrast, heme-induced inhibition of Cys-409 mutants of the isolated kinase domain and N-terminal-truncated proteins was substantially weaker than that of the full-length enzyme. A pulldown assay disclosed heme-dependent interactions between the N-terminal and kinase domains. Accordingly, we propose that heme regulation is induced by interactions between heme and the catalytic domain in conjunction with global tertiary structural changes at the N-terminal domain that accompany heme coordination and not merely by coordination of the heme iron with amino acids on the protein surface.


The goal of high-recall information retrieval (HRIR) is to find all, or nearly all, relevant documents while maintaining reasonable assessment effort. Achieving high recall is a key problem in the use of applications such as electronic discovery, systematic review, and construction of test collections for information retrieval tasks. State-of-the-art HRIR systems commonly rely on iterative relevance feedback in which human assessors continually assess machine learning-selected documents. The relevance of the assessed documents is then fed back to the machine learning model to improve its ability to select the next set of potentially relevant documents for assessment. In many instances, thousands of human assessments might be required to achieve high recall. These assessments represent the main cost of such HRIR applications. Therefore, their effectiveness in achieving high recall is limited by their reliance on human input when assessing the relevance of documents. In this thesis, we test different methods in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of finding relevant documents using state-of-the-art HRIR system. With regard to the effectiveness, we try to build a machine-learned model that retrieves relevant documents more accurately. For efficiency, we try to help human assessors make relevance assessments more easily and quickly via our HRIR system. Furthermore, we try to establish a stopping criteria for the assessment process so as to avoid excessive assessment. In particular, we hypothesize that total assessment effort to achieve high recall can be reduced by using shorter document excerpts (e.g., extractive summaries) in place of full documents for the assessment of relevance and using a high-recall retrieval system based on continuous active learning (CAL). In order to test this hypothesis, we implemented a high-recall retrieval system based on state-of-the-art implementation of CAL. This high-recall retrieval system could display either full documents or short document excerpts for relevance assessment. A search engine was also integrated into our system to provide assessors the option of conducting interactive search and judging. We conducted a simulation study, and separately, a 50-person controlled user study to test our hypothesis. The results of the simulation study show that judging even a single extracted sentence for relevance feedback may be adequate for CAL to achieve high recall. The results of the controlled user study confirmed that human assessors were able to find a significantly larger number of relevant documents within limited time when they used the system with paragraph-length document excerpts as opposed to full documents. In addition, we found that allowing participants to compose and execute their own search queries did not improve their ability to find relevant documents and, by some measures, impaired performance. Moreover, integrating sampling methods with active learning can yield accurate estimates of the number of relevant documents, and thus avoid excessive assessments.


ICTs and Intercultural Learning The
internationalisation of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the United
Kingdom over the past decade has meant that most students are expected to
engage in learning activities which involves working with peers from other
cultures. Research suggests that international students, South-East and East
Asian students in particular, often face challenges adjusting from a 'passive'
teacher-fronted educational system to the more active 'student-centred'
approach favoured in countries such as the UK. Information and communication
technologies (ICTs) have frequently been proposed as a solution to these issues
in light of their perceived popularity among international students and their
positive impact on classroom engagement and learning outcomes.We
seek contributions that address how best to facilitate intercultural learning
within Higher Education. This may include (but is not limited to): •Working
papers•Presentations
e.g. Power Point•Videos•Infographics
and data visualisations Curators: Dr Paul Reilly, Xin Zhao and Paul Fenn,

The
University of Sheffield


A technique has been developed to measure the surface tension of thin foils under their own vapor pressure. The zero creep method of surface tension measurement is used in conjunction with laser interferometry. This technique allows very small sample strains to be measured. Sample length changes of the order of 0.3 μm were measured with the laser interferometer. The sensitivity of the laser interferometer/zero creep system allows the surface tension to be measured much closer to the Tammann temperature, which is approximately one-half the melting temperature (≍1/2 T _ m ) of the material. The system has been tested on thin Sn foils in air, and on thin Al and Ni foils under their own vapor pressure (vacuum).


This paper presents a new method for the online modal analysis of heavy-duty dump truck frames in order to verify the true performance of the frame. Rather than commonly using raw response signals for covariance-driven stochastic subspace identification (Cov-SSI), it takes the average correlation signal of the raw signals as the input data of Cov-SSI for more efficient online modal identification. In this way, different data records can be combined coherently and the noise content and nonstationary phenomena are suppressed effectively, which allows the effective use of acceleration signals from the frame of the truck running under different road conditions and operating conditions for online modal analysis. It shows the theoretical basis of the proposed method and verifies its performance with both simulated and measured data sets. The results show that the proposed method yields a more accurate results compared with that of conventional Cov-SSI that uses raw signals as the input data. Therefore, the vibration behaviors of the frame obtained online are reliable, realistic and hence valuable for assessing the overall dynamic performance of the vehicle.


Influenza A virus utilizes RNA throughout infection. Little is known, however, about the roles of RNA structures. A previous bioinformatics survey predicted multiple regions of influenza A virus that are likely to generate evolutionarily conserved and stable RNA structures. One predicted conserved structure is in the pre-mRNA coding for essential proteins, M1 and M2. This structure starts 79 nucleotides downstream of the M2 mRNA 5′ splice site. Here, a combination of biochemical structural mapping, mutagenesis, and NMR confirms the predicted three-way multibranch structure of this RNA. Imino proton NMR spectra reveal no change in secondary structure when 80 mM KCl is supplemented with 4 mM MgCl2. Optical melting curves in 1 M NaCl and in 100 mM KCl with 10 mM MgCl2 are very similar, with melting temperatures ∼14 °C higher than that for 100 mM KCl alone. These results provide a firm basis for designing experiments and potential therapeutics to test for function in cell culture.


Most Twitter search systems generally treat a tweet as a plain text when modeling relevance. However, a series of conventions allows users to tweet in structural ways using combination of different blocks of texts.These blocks include plain texts, hashtags, links, mentions, etc. Each block encodes a variety of communicative intent and sequence of these blocks captures changing discourse. Previous work shows that exploiting the structural information can improve the structured document (e.g., web pages) retrieval. In this paper we utilize the structure of tweets, induced by these blocks, for Twitter retrieval. A set of features, derived from the blocks of text and their combinations, is used into a learning-to-rank scenario. We show that structuring tweets can achieve state-of-the-art performance. Our approach does not rely upon social media features, but when we do add this additional information, performance improves significantly.


Abstract. This paper presents and extends an approach for the detection of pedestrians in unstructured point clouds resulting from single MLS (mobile laser scanning) scans. The approach is based on a neural network and a subsequent voting process. The neural network processes point clouds subdivided into local point neighborhoods. The member points of these neighborhoods are directly processed by the network, hence a conversion in a structured representation of the data is not needed. The network also uses meta information of the neighborhoods themselves to improve the results, like their distance to the ground plane. It decides if the neighborhood is part of an object of interest and estimates the center of said object. This information is then used in a voting process. By searching for maxima in the voting space, the discrimination between an actual object and incorrectly classified neighborhoods is made. Since a single labeled object can be subdivided into multiple local neighborhoods, we are able to train the neural network with comparatively low amounts of labeled data. Considerations are made to deal with the varying and sparse point density that is typical for single MLS scans. We supplement the detection with a 3D tracking which, although straightforward, allows us to deal with objects which are occluded for short periods of time to improve the quality of the results. Overall, our approach performs reasonably well for the detection and tracking of pedestrians in single MLS scans as long as the local point density is not too low. Given the LiDAR sensor we used, this is the case up to distances of 22 m.


1 Variation in resource requirements among plant species may cause changes in community composition when resource supply rates vary. Because exotic plants may differ in their requirements compared with native plants, changes in resource levels or ratios may change their invasive potential. The concentration hypothesis, nutrient balance hypothesis and resource ratio hypothesis make different predictions regarding the effects of nutrient additions on plant communities and the success of invaders. 2 We investigated these hypotheses using Chinese tallow tree (Sapium sebiferum), which is an aggressive invader of grasslands in the southern USA. Soil nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium were manipulated in a full factorial field experiment in a Texas coastal prairie. 3 Survival of Sapium seedlings over three growing seasons was independent of all three types of nutrient additions, alone or in any combination. Adding nitrogen or potassium increased the mass and height of Sapium seedlings. Adding phosphorus increased the mass and height of Sapium seedlings only when nitrogen was also added. These results support the nutrient balance hypothesis, which assumes that higher tissue concentrations of a nutrient reflect a greater ability of a plant species to take up and/or conserve that nutrient. 4 The above‐ground biomass of background prairie vegetation was independent of the addition of each type of nutrient alone or in any combination. However, the functional composition of the community shifted from graminoids to forbs with the addition of nitrogen and from graminoids to woody plants with the addition of phosphorus. These results support the concentration hypothesis, which assumes that higher tissue concentrations of a nutrient reflect a greater requirement for that nutrient. The contrasting responses of native woody vegetation and Sapium to phosphorus addition suggest that Sapium may have unusually low demands for phosphorus relative to nitrogen for a woody plant in this community. 5 These results show that potassium or nitrogen addition, perhaps in combination with phosphorus addition, has the potential to accelerate the invasion of Sapium into Texas coastal prairies. Because anthropogenic nutrient additions are common in grasslands worldwide, this may help to explain the frequent success of woody species invading grasslands.


. Advertising is an undisputed reality of the contemporary world, being a form of communication present both in and beyond mass media. With the evolution of the society, new means of expression have emerged and determined an expansion of the range of advertising products offered for information, persuasion and, why not, for enjoyment. However, as advertising expanded its scope, the meanings attributed to the concept began to change and broaden at the same time. In the Romanian cultural space, this evolution of the concept, as well as the increasing presence of English in all instances of communication have led to a dynamisation of the process of defining advertising, especially due to the new meanings revealed by the definition of the concept in English. In this context, the present article aims to highlight the existence of some discrepancies between the definition of the concept and the terminology already established in Romanian, on the one hand, and to offer solutions that smooth the way to a better equivalence of the meanings assigned to the concept in the process of translating it from Romanian into English, on the other hand. Considering the problem statement, our own observations and the data collected from the online survey carried out among the students pursuing a bachelor's degree at the Faculty of Communication Sciences, two definitions of the Romanian concepts of publicitate and reclamă are put forth in order to bridge the conceptual gap existing in the Romanian cultural space.


When learning, such as classification, is used in adversarial settings, such as intrusion detection, intelligent adversaries will attempt to evade the resulting policies. The literature on adversarial machine learning aims to develop learning algorithms which are robust to such adversarial evasion, but exhibits two significant limitations: a) failure to account for operational constraints and b) a restriction that decisions are deterministic. To overcome these limitations, we introduce a conceptual separation between learning, used to infer attacker preferences, and operational decisions, which account for adversarial evasion, enforce operational constraints, and naturally admit randomization. Our approach gives rise to an intractably large linear program. To overcome scalability limitations, we introduce a novel method for estimating a compact parity basis representation for the operational decision function. Additionally, we develop an iterative constraint generation approach which embeds adversary's best response calculation, to arrive at a scalable algorithm for computing near-optimal randomized operational decisions. Extensive experiments demonstrate the efficacy of our approach.


The United States has supported the development of its oil and gas industry since the early twentieth century. Despite repeated pledges to phase out 'inefficient' fossil fuel subsidies, US oil and gas production continues to be subsidized by billions of dollars each year. In this study, we quantify how 16 subsidies and regulatory exemptions individually and altogether affect the economics of US oil and gas production in 2020–2030 under different price and financial risk outlooks. We find that, at 2019 average market prices of oil and gas, the 16 subsidies could increase the average rates of return of yet-to-be-developed oil and gas fields by 55% and 68% over unsubsidized levels, respectively, with over 96% of subsidy value flowing to excess profits under a 10% hurdle rate. At lower 2020 prices, the subsidies could increase the average rates of return of new oil and gas fields by 63% and 78% over unsubsidized levels, respectively, with more than 60% of oil and gas resources being dependent on subsidies to be profitable under a 20% hurdle rate. Under all price scenarios analyzed, the highest-value subsidies include federal tax incentives that have existed since 1916, as well as less recognized forms of support such as cost exemptions related to well cleanup and hazardous waste management. Given that these results depend on our chosen definitions of what constitutes a subsidy and, in some cases, assumptions regarding what the unsubsidized practices should be, we also present results for selected subsets of subsidies. By showing which subsidies have the greatest effects in different producing regions of the country, our findings can help policymakers chart a schedule of targeted subsidy repeals and regulatory reforms that can contribute to reducing carbon dioxide emissions and achieving other sustainable development goals. Our results can also help inform how different choices about economic recovery measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic can shape the US oil and gas industry in the years to come.


Wheat yield of 37 wheat varieties along with a susceptible check, Morocco, was studied under yellow rust pressure across 3 locations of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Pakistan during 2007. Considerable high disease pressure, as revealed by yellow rust severity, was observed at all locations with the maximum (100%) at Cereal Crop Research Institute (CCRI), Nowshera. Disease severity ranged from 0% to 70% for the tested varieties while reached 100% for Morocco with S type of host response. We report the presence of sufficient variability across locations for both yield potential and yellow rust severity. Locations with maximum disease pressure had lower mean grain yield and vice versa. NIFA followed by AUP had higher mean grain yield (5533 kg ha-1 and 4292 kg ha-1, respectively) with lower maximum disease severity values (70% and 80%, respectively). CCRI had higher disease pressure (100% severity for Morocco) with lower mean grain yield (3676 kg ha-1). Bahawalpur-95, Suleman-96, Kohsar-93, Fakhre-Sarhad, Tatara, and Frontana had relatively stable severity across locations in a range of 0% to 10%. Based on overall traits, Kohsar-93, Bakhtawar-92, Saleem-2000, Fakhre-Sarhad, Tatara, and Karwan had better yield and lower yellow rust severity and is recommended for cultivation and further breeding exploitation.


Empirical models for the abundance and berry yield of V. myrtillus were constructed using generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) techniques. The percentage coverage of bilberry was predicted as a function of site and stand characteristics using the permanent sample plots of the National Forest Inventory (NFI) in 1995. The number of bilberries was predicted as a function of percentage coverage and stand characteristics using a sub-sample of the NFI plots in North Karelia. The between-year variation in the bilberry yield was analysed using the permanent experimental plots (MASI) established in different areas of Finland and measured in 2001–2007. The highest coverage of bilberry was found on mesic heath sites; on sub-xeric and herb-rich heath sites the values were 62% of that for mesic sites. The decreasing effect of deciduous trees (compared to spruce) was significant only on herb-rich heath sites. The coverage increased along with stand development up to certain stand ages and basal areas. The bilberry yields were higher in pine-dominated stands than in spruce-dominated ones. In spruce stands, the coverage of bilberry and stand basal area significantly affected the number of berries, whereas in pine stands only the coverage was a significant predictor. In the MASI data, the bilberry yield of pine stands was two times higher than that of spruce stands; however, the between-year variation in bilberry yield was higher in the spruce than in the pine stands. The estimated models were used to predict the bilberry coverage and yield along with stand development. On mesic heath sites in southern Finland (1200 dd.), the predicted annual yield of bilberry was about 25 kg ha–1 (95% confidence interval 9–73 kg ha–1) in a mature pine stand and about 10 kg ha–1 (3–35 kg ha–1) in a mature spruce stand. The models can be included in stand simulators, where they would facilitate the prediction of bilberry abundance and yields for silvicultural and forest planning purposes.


This paper develops a framework to support multiple protection strategies in optical networks, which is in general applicable to any connection-oriented network. The capacity available on a link for routing primary and backup connections are computed depending on the protection strategy. The paper also develops a model for computing service outage and failure recovery times for a connection where notifications of failure location are broadcast in the network. The effectiveness of employing multiple protection strategies is established by studying the performance of three networks for traffic with four types of protection requirement.


Extracted from text ... MORE ABOUT
There are two parts to the cause of
death statement.
? Part 1 is a sequential statement of
the disease, injuries or complications
that caused the death with one condition
per line, beginning with the final
or terminal or most recent condition
on the top line and ending with the
underlying cause or initiating event
on the bottom line. There may be a
single or multiple lines.
? Part 2 requires the statement of
other significant conditions, if any,
that contributed to death but did not
result in the underlying cause given
in Part 1.
Further Reading
Dada ..


Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) technology offers higher switching, compact structures and lower energy consumption. A Pseudo Random Number Generator (PRNG) is a fundamental block in communication system which is used at the transmitter end to spread the sequence over a wide frequency band and the same is used at the receiver to despread the demodulated signal. The total area and energy dissipation of the PRNG becomes a very important concern in the design. This paper presents the implementation of a compact three-stage PRNG using CAD tool QCADesigner. The efficacy of the proposed PRNG circuit is assessed in terms of cell count, total area, latency and energy dissipation using QCA Designer-E. The proposed three-stage PRNG operates at higher switching speed and is 41% and 23% more efficient in terms of energy dissipation and cell count than the existing architectures, can be used for spreading of the sequence.


There is a large gap between the types of risky behavior we recommend to others and those we engage in ourselves. In this study, we hypothesized that a source of this gap is greater reliance on information about others' behavior when deciding whether to take a risk oneself than when deciding whether to recommend it to others. To test this hypothesis, we asked participants either to report their willingness to engage in a series of risky behaviors themselves; their willingness to recommend those behaviors to a loved one; or, how good of an idea it would be for either them or a loved one to engage in the behaviors. We then asked them to evaluate those behaviors on criteria related to the expected utility of the risk (benefits, costs, and likelihood of costs), and on engagement in the activity by people they knew. We found that, after accounting for effects of perceived benefit, cost, and likelihood of cost, perceptions of others' behavior had a dramatically larger impact on participants' willingness to engage in a risk than on their willingness to recommend the risk or their prescriptive evaluation of the risk. These findings indicate that the influence of others' choices on risk-taking behavior is large, direct, cannot be explained by an economic utility model of risky decision-making, and goes against one's own better judgment.


Many problems in voice recognition and audio processing involve feature extraction from raw waveforms. The goal of feature extraction is to reduce the dimensionality of the audio signal while preserving the informative signatures that, for example, distinguish different phonemes in speech or identify particular instruments in music. If the acoustic variability of a data set is described by a small number of continuous features, then we can imagine the data as lying on a low dimensional manifold in the high dimensional space of all possible waveforms. Locally linear embedding (LLE) is an unsupervised learning algorithm for feature extraction in this setting. In this paper, we present results from the exploratory analysis and visualization of speech and music by LLE.


This report identifies and reviews literature that evaluates the impacts of technology and innovation advisory services. These services provide information, technical assistance, consulting, mentoring, and other services to support enterprises in adopting and deploying new technologies and in commercialising innovations. Examples include the: Manufacturing Advisory Service (UK), the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (USA), and the Industrial Research Assistance Program (Canada). Technology and innovation advisory services are also provided by technology centres and other business assistance programmes. Such services are typically targeted at small and medium-sized enterprises. A defining capability of technology and innovation advisory services is the offer of expert one-on-one guidance to individual companies through extension staff, field offices, or dispersed technology centres. The available studies generally find that technology and innovation advisory services provide positive benefits for participating firms. The types of benefits achieved include reductions in costs, improved quality, reduced waste and improved environmental performance, higher productivity, and new product development and innovation. Net benefits achieved are typically relatively modest, although commensurate with the relatively small amounts of public funding usually invested in technology and innovation advisory services. More intense and customised services can improve results. Applying best practices in the operation and delivery of technology and innovation services, including attention to outreach, staff capability, long-term engagement, flexibility, organisational stability, and linkage with other services, increases the likelihood of programme effectiveness and impact.


Property testing is a relaxation of decision problems in which it is required to distinguish YES-instances (i.e., objects having a predetermined property) from instances that are far from any YES-instance. We present three theorems regarding testing graph properties in the adjacency matrix representation. More specifically, these theorems relate to the project of characterizing graph properties according to the complexity of testing them (in the adjacency matrix representation). The first theorem is that there exist monotone graph properties in /spl Nscr//spl Pscr/ for which testing is very hard (i.e., requires one to examine a constant fraction of the entries in the matrix). The second theorem is that every graph property that can be tested making a number of queries that is independent of the size of the graph, can be so tested by uniformly selecting a set of vertices and accepting iff the induced subgraph has some fixed graph property (which is not necessarily the same as the one being tested). The third theorem refers to the framework of graph partition problems, and is a characterization of the subclass of properties that can be tested using a one-sided error tester, making a number of queries that is independent of the size of the graph.


The effect of the Schottky barrier height on the detection of the midgap defects EH6 and EH7 in 4H-SiC by deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) is systematically studied. The results show that the DLTS peak height - and as a consequence the observed defect concentration - increases with the increasing barrier height and saturates above 1.5 eV for EH6 and above 1.7 eV for EH7, while below 1.1 eV the DLTS peak height completely disappears. A model is applied, which determines the position of the quasi-Fermi level in the space charge region as a function of the barrier height and of the reverse bias applied and which explains the variation of the DLTS peak height.


The influence of cold-worked and aging processes on the microstructures, mechanical properties and conductivity of Cu-Cr-Y alloy has been experimentally investigated. Samples were cut from ingot of Cu-0.8 wt.%Cr-0.05 wt.%Y alloy. They were solution-treated, cold rolled and aging treated. The results show that the Cu-Cr-Y alloy, with 70% deformation and aging at 480°C for 24min, can reach an excellent combination of microhardness and conductivity. The microhardness and conductivity is about 143HV and 84%IACS, respectively. The microstructures by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) show that the fine and dispersed distributed Cr precipitate, which form due to decomposition of the supersaturated solid solution during aging, is responsible for the peak maximum microhardness as it is predominantly present in the peak aged hardening condition.


Knowledge of radar scattering characteristics is very important to the development of radar detection technology on aircraft wake vortices. In this paper, the high range resolution (HRR) profile of the wake vortex is investigated. The HRR profile is observed to have a particular structure, from which the wingspan of the aircraft can be easily identified. This characteristic could be very useful to identify the wake vortex from the ambient air. At the same time, the Bragg scattering, whose characteristic and applicability are further explored, is used to explain the mechanism of such particular HRR profiles.


Abstract In August the author made an excursion into the wild and rocky valleys of Laridjan, on the northern side of the Elburz chain, to examine some mineral springs near the village of Aske. This village is placed on a steep declivity above the impetuous torrent of the Laur, and is about 40 or 45 miles E.N.E. from Tehran, and near where latitude 36° N. intersects longitude 52° E. It is only a few miles from the lofty and slumbering volcano Demavend†. Round Aske the country is chiefly limestone, with dark-coloured pudding-stone, and in several places large tracts of sandy grit, in many precipitous heights of which numerous caves and hermitages have been excavated in olden times. The most celebrated spring in the neighbourhood is the Ab-i-garm (hot-water),—a warm sulphur-spring that rises on one of the spurs of the Demavend, about six miles to the eastward of Aske, on the left bank of the Laur, and probably about 2000 feet above the bed of that river. The principal mineral ingredients of this spring are sulphur and naphtha, with some iron and lime. On the 15th of August, the temperature of the atmosphere in the shade, at two p.m., being 75° F., the temperature of the spring at its source was 150° F. From hence it flows down the side of the mountain to a large basin about 15 feet long, 10 broad, and 4 deep, over and around which a large stone bath has been raised. The temperature in the basin is about 118° F. Here in summer thousands congregate from every part of Northern Persia. The bath seems to be beneficial in rheumatism, neuralgia, and some diseases of the skin. Formerly there issued from the rock, a few feet from the Ab-i-garm, a cold spring of pure water, which disappeared after an earth-quake about forty years ago. The tepid baths of Aske are about half a mile from the village on the right bank of the Laur, and about 250 or 300 feet above that river. These are used both for bathing and drinking. Lime and carbonic acid gas are abundant in this water. There are several springs of different dimensions, the bathing-basins of which are apart from each other at distances varying from ten to fifteen yards. At half-past five p.m., the temperature of the air in the shade being 71°F., the water in the centre of the largest basin (where the bubbles are thrown up by the gas to an elevation of 6 or 8 inches above the surrounding surface) was at 82°— the average of the temperature of the other springs near by. On the left bank of the Laur a small bubbling spring of water, similar to those last mentioned, had a temperature of 85° F. These tepid mineral springs lying to the eastward of Aske, do not appear to be affected by the intervention of the deep and rocky bed of the Laur. To the westward of Aske, at the distance of about 1½ mile, on the left bank of the river, and not more than 150 feet above its bed, is a fine cold ehalybeate spring : besides iron, this probably contains carbonic acid gas and a small portion of sulphur. Its temperature was found to be 50° F., that of the atmosphere being 73° F. It is not disagreeable to the taste, and in some complaints is found very strengthening and efficacious. In conclusion, the author referred to the undeveloped riches of the Elburz—its coal, iron, copper, silver, sulphur, marble, and other mineral treasures.


Aging in India is exponentially increasing due to the impressive gains that society has made in terms of increased life expectancy. About 8.6% of the total population in India is in this age group, with 8.2% males and 9% females. With increasing age, an aged person becomes dependent and faces a lot of problems. There is a feeling of neglect and sadness and that the people have an indifferent attitude toward them. Furthermore, the prevalence of mistreatment with the elderly is on the rise. Such a situation has resulted because of degenerating traditional values and weakened family system. The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act came into existence in the year 2007 to provide maintenance support to elderly parents and senior citizens. Parents according to the Act mean biological, adoptive, and stepparents, and the age of parents is irrelevant to claim maintenance. Adult children and adult grandchildren are legally obligated to pay maintenance; the amount is determined by the needs of the claimant so that the elderly person can lead a normal life. If children intentionally abandon the senior citizen completely, he/she is liable to pay a fine of Rs. 5000 or face imprisonment for 3 months or both. The legislative approach has its limitation, but it has the potential to arouse the social and ethical debates in the country to alleviate the dependent status of older persons.


The development of space and time resolved spectroscopic methods to image space and time dependent heterogeneities in catalyst bodies during preparation is of paramount importance for the development of more efficient and sustainable chemical processes. There are a large number of physicochemical parameters that play an important role in the preparation of catalyst bodies, and in order to obtain the optimum and most efficient catalyst material a careful selection of all these must be made. The aim of this work was double. On the one hand, new spatiotemporal spectroscopic methods were developed and their limitations and capabilities to study the different elemental steps of catalyst preparation were investigated. On the other hand, research on the influence of different chemical or physical properties during the preparation of Ni and Pd/gamma-Al2O3 catalysts was conducted by means of the developed spectroscopic techniques. Several spectroscopic techniques have been investigated comprising invasive (UV-Vis and IR micro-spectroscopies) and noninvasive methods (MRI and TEDDI). UV-Vis micro-spectroscopy provides information regarding the surroundings of the metal-ions during the impregnation step. Hence, the dynamics of the metal-ion and potential changes in its coordination sphere while moving towards the core of the catalyst body can be measured. This technique can also be applied to dried samples and, if the sample does not become black, after calcination or thermal treatment. IR micro-spectroscopy can be utilized on dried samples and it yields information regarding the location of organic molecules. On the other hand, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and tomographic energy dispersive diffraction imaging (TEDDI) have been investigated as noninvasive methods. 1H-MRI can be used in a very straightforward manner to monitor the impregnation process of paramagnetic metal-ion complexes and, when the ligands surrounding the metal-ion are water molecules, the impregnation process can be monitored quantitatively. The possibility of quantifying impregnation processes is of great importance in catalyst design since understanding the molecular-transport kinetics is crucial to control the preparation of mm-sized catalysts. Finally, the TEDDI technique is, for the moment, the only technique that can be used in situ during the drying and thermal treatment steps of mm-sized catalyst bodies preparation. Thanks to this advantage, the genesis of Ni nanoparticles within gamma-Al2O3 pellets has been visualized for the first time together with the breakdown of the precursor phase and the formation of, until now, unknown intermediate phases. Thus, this method can provide relevant input regarding the shape and size of the active particles in a catalytic material. Moreover, possible gradients of the shape and size of the active component along the catalyst body can be disclosed, which would provide enormous benefits when understanding the performance of the catalyst.


With the economic development and the improvement of living standards, the demands for the excellent quality fruits grow quickly, while fresh fruits are restricted by the region and season, transportation plays an important role in it. Vibration causes fruits mechanical and physical damage during transportation and affects the fruits storage characteristics and sales. This paper selects Huangguan pear as the research object, using frequency spectral density curve simulates the vibration damage condition of the Huangguan pears in cartons during the actual transportation. Through the simulation results analyze the damage level under the conditions of different packaging forms and different situations and different stacking, and then analyze the relationship of the vibration damage and the other factors. Finally the paper puts forward the Huangguan pear packaging improvements.


This is a complete replica of the revolutionary consumer's guide. This facsimile of the 1897 "Sears Roebuck and Co. Catalogue" presents a unique glimpse of America at the end of the 19th century. Hundreds of illustrations and intriguing text bring this bygone era to life, describing more than 6,000 items, from abdominal corsets and zulu guns, to trout baskets and puff bangs, to bicycle suits and phaeton tops. A replica of the original catalog, this volume features products offered to consumers more than 100 years ago and makes this period come alive by illuminating people's consumer habits, as well as advertising methods during that time. Perfect for collectors of Americana, social historians, and general readers, this catalog is a browser's delight.


Habermas argues that in the eighteenth century, private vices were translated into public virtues; from the intimate spaces of the conjugal family came the public virtues of companionate love, voluntary association, and self-cultivation; from private commerce came acquisitiveness, competition, and rational calculation. This essay uses Habermas to reexamine Foucaultian histories of sexuality, arguing that the enormous medical literature on pleasure--luxury, sexual pleasure, masturbation, nerves--polices this transition from private vice to public virtue, but in sometimes surprising ways. The key was to explain why certain pleasurable experiences (acquisitiveness for its own sake and sexual intimacy outside the normative middle-class family) were not legitimately or even empirically pleasurable, despite potential somatic evidence to the contrary.


: Twenty three rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients treated with cyclophosphamide (CTX) were observed for 6 months. Eight patients received CTX in a single intravenous dose (group I) and 15 orally in a single daily dose (group II). The surface antigens of lymphocytes, isolated from peripheral blood, were determined using immunofluorescence method. The clinical improvement was observed both in group I and in group II of patients. However, in patients receiving CTX intravenously amelioration of the disease appeared quicker. The percentage of CD3+ and CD8+ T cells remained unchanged. In group I we observed decrease in the number of CD4+ T cells (60.1 +/- 11.5% and 43.8 +/- 12.5%, before and after treatment respectively, p < 0.01), in group II this level remained unchanged. In both groups the percentage of CD19+ B cells decreased (14.7 +/- 9.2% and 8.0 +/- 6.1%, before and after treatment respectively in group I, p < 0.01; 17.4 +/- 12.3% and 11.0 +/- 7.1%, before and after treatment respectively in group II, p < 0.01). Moreover, the percentage of activated T cells (CD25+ cells and HLA-DR+ cells) was reduced in both groups.


Waterflood is most commonly used secondary recovery mechanism in conventional sanstone reservoirs worldwide. Waterflooding assists in pressure maintenance and increases the field estimated ultimate recovery (EUR). Conformance in water injector wells plays an important role during waterflooding of a reservoir. Better conformance results in improved vertical sweep efficiency leading to higher recovery.
 Continuous injection of fluids into the reservoir at higher rates may create channels for preferential flow. Zones of higher permeability, leading to higher injectivity in selective zones, can also exist because of various lithological conditions and rock structures comprising of naturally occurring fractures or fissures. For injection wells, the entry of fluids into a set of perforations is governed by the quality of the perforations and the permeability of the formation at that depth. Preferential flow of injected fluids into selective pay intervals results in diminished overall sweep efficiency. (J. Vasquez, et.al., 2008).
 This paper discusses the use of thermally activated gels from polyacrylamides and metal chelates applied for selective reservoir matrix permeability reduction in an injector well. A low concentration, low viscosity delayed crosslinker gel system employing partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (PHPA) exhibiting 12-14% degree of hydrolysis level with chromium acetate as crosslinker offering delayed gelation time was used to selectively isolate one of the payzones.
 A non-profile retrievable (NPR) plug was installed to isolate the target interval from the rest of the pay zones to enable selective treatment of the interval using coiled tubing (CT). The fluid was customized to minimize CT friction while ensuring that the rheological properties of the fluid in the reservoir would achieve the desired diversion and allow delayed gel crosslinking mechanism assuring avoiding of gel crosslinking in CT while pumping in progress. Denser brine relative to the delayed gel density was spotted above the NPR plug to avoid gel settling on the plug for easy retrieval of the plug post-treatment. Injectivity was measured and subsequently, the treatment was placed as per design while constantly monitoring the pressures so as to qualitatively determine the effectiveness of the treatment placement.
 The treatment resulted in significant alteration in injectivity of the targeted zone. Post-treatment production logs confirmed an improvement in the injection conformance. Later, the zone was isolated and the bottommost zones were selectively stimulated enhancing the injection and thus improving sweep efficiency. Since the crosslinked gel system is not prone to any disintegration when in contact with acidic interventions, the treatment ensures a superior longevity of the conformance control when compared to other conventional diversion or zonal shut-off treatments.
 The success of the treatment substantiates that the CT deployed low viscosity, low concentration delayed crosslinked gel system application can be successfully extended to selective water shut-off applications in producer wells. The injector profile modification treatment executed offered a comprehensive solution to conformance issues enhancing volumetric sweep efficiency, pressure maintenance across depleted sands and avoiding further water cycling in producer wells.


Fungi and plants interact in a myriad of ways. These interactions range from mutualism to parasitism, and yet, many plant species appear to use similar tools to deal with both. One recent observation is the role that small RNAs play in mediating the conversation between plant and fungus. Increasingly, many studies demonstrate these RNAs are pivotal modulators, reprogramming gene expression and cellular processes essential to the biogenesis of these inter-kingdom


One of the efforts to ensure the company's survival is to increase the efficiency of line
balancing in company. The goals of this research are to get a scenario of how the line
balancing in the company is done, observe the using of the line balancing method in
order to increase the efficiency.
This research used study case and descriptive analysis. The data collection was
done by direct observation and interview with production division. The research was
done at a manufacturing company that produces tapioca flour.
The result showed that the line balancing in company is 39.21%, it means that
the effective time the company used in line production is 39.21%. The efficiency of
line balancing has not been reached yet because of the total operation time in every
workstation has not balanced yet with cycle time, 0.0427 minutes. If the company
apply the line balancing method, it could increase the efficiency up to 98.01%. The
influencing factors of the line balancing are : the irregular supply of raw materials
which eventually accumulated at certain time and thus, causing the machines to have
an idle time.
Keywords: Line balancing analysis, facility layout, efficiency, idle time


Objective To study drug retention and response rates in patients with axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) initiating a first tumour necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi). Methods Data from 12 European registries, prospectively collected in routine care, were pooled. TNFi retention rates (Kaplan-Meier statistics), Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score (ASDAS) Inactive disease (<1.3), Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) <40 mm and Assessment of SpondyloArthritis International Society responses (ASAS 20/40) were assessed at 6, 12 and 24 months. Results A first TNFi was initiated in 24 195 axSpA patients. Heterogeneity of baseline characteristics between registries was observed. Twelve-month retention was 80% (95% CI 79% to 80%), ranging from 71% to 94% across registries. At 6 months, ASDAS Inactive disease/BASDAI<40 rates were 33%/72% (LUNDEX-adjusted: 27%/59%), ASAS 20/40 response rates 64%/49% (LUNDEX-adjusted 52%/40%). In patients initiating first TNFi after 2009, 6097 patients was registered to fulfil ASAS criteria for axSpA, 2935 was registered to fulfil modified New York Criteria for Ankylosing Spondylitis and 1178 patients was registered as having non-radiographic axSpA. In nr-axSpA patients, we observed lower 12-month retention rates (73% (70%–76%)) and lower 6-month LUNDEX adjusted response rates (ASDAS Inactive disease/BASDAI40 20%/50%, ASAS 20/40 45%/33%). For patients initiating first TNFi after 2014, 12-month retention rate, but not 6-month response rate, was numerically higher compared with patients initiating TNFi in 2009–2014. Conclusion A large European database of patients with axSpA initiating a first TNFi treatment in routine care, demonstrated that 27% of patients achieved ASDAS inactive disease after 6 months, while 59% achieved BASDAI <40. Four of five patients continued treatment after 1 year.


A glycoprotein protein kinase was isolated from monkey cerebellum by polylysine-Sepharose chromatography and affinity chromatography on Sepharose 4B coupled to the lectin, Concanavalin A. The protein kinase phosphorylated casein on serine and threonine residues and was stimulated by polylysine, polyarginine, spermine, histone, protamine and sphingosine, but was inhibited by heparin, poly (Glu, Ala, Tyr) and poly (Glu, Tyr). These characteristics were typical of casein kinase II. The protein kinase also phosphorylated fibrinogen and calmodulin and exhibited similar characteristics of stimulation by polylysine or polyarginine. The phosphorylation of fibrinogen (a glycoprotein), but not casein or calmodulin (non-glycoproteins), was significantly inhibited by Concanavalin A. Unlike casein kinase II, the enzyme did not undergo autophosphorylation. The collective results suggested that the enzyme from monkey cerebellum was a casein kinase II-like protein kinase and that phosphorylation of a glycoprotein substrate (fibrinogen) by the kinase could be influenced by a carbohydrate binding lectin.


The scholarly literature on innovation was for a long time not very voluminous. But as shown in the paper, this is now rapidly changing. New journals, professional associations and organizational units within universities focusing on innovation have also been formed. This paper explores the cognitive and organizational characteristics of this emerging field of social science and considers its prospects and challenges. The research reported in this paper is based on a web-survey in which more than one thousand scholars worldwide took part.


Abstract. The Ultraviolet Forward Spectrometer is a new type of spectrometer for monitoring the vertical distribution of atmospheric trace gases in the global middle atmosphere. It is on the TianGong-2 space laboratory, which was launched on 15 September 2016. The spectrometer uses a solar calibration mode to modify its irradiance. Accurately calculating the solar orientation is a prerequisite of spectral calibration for the Ultraviolet Forward Spectrometer. In this paper, a method of calculating the solar orientation is proposed according to the imaging geometric characteristics of the spectrometer. Firstly, the solar orientation in the horizontal rectangular coordinate system is calculated based on the solar declination angle algorithm proposed by Bourges and the solar hour angle algorithm proposed by Lamm. Then, the solar orientation in the sensor coordinate system is achieved through several coordinate system transforms. Finally, we calculate the solar orientation in the sensor coordinate system and evaluate its calculation accuracy using actual orbital data of TianGong-2. The results show that the accuracy is close to the simulation method with STK (Satellite Tool Kit), and the error is not more than 2 %. The algorithm we present does not need a lot of astronomical knowledge, but only needs some observation parameters provided by TianGong-2.


Stem cells in the bone marrow (BM) are used as regenerative treatment for leukemia. They are usually harvested by puncturing the cancellous bone in the ilium of the donor with a needle. However, this process can cause severe burden to the donor because of its inefficiency; the bone may require 50–100 punctures to obtain enough stem cells.Various factors affect the volume of BM harvested, and their influence can be estimated by observing the flow in the cancellous bone. Recent computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses of BM with 3-D reconstruction of the cancellous bone have profiled flow velocity or wall shear stress (WSS) and have shown that some parts on the surface of the cancellous bone have higher WSS and that this high WSS may tear cells from the surface of the bone. CFD analysis may therefore help determining a method for efficient stem cell harvest. However, it is difficult to validate CFD using BM structure because of its porosity. To improve the accuracy of WSS and flow pattern calculations, blood characteristics should be incorporated as key factors and the effects of non-Newtonian flow and viscosity on the flow patterns evaluated. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate CFD analyses of BM in the cancellous bone based on flow where viscosity depended on the shear rate.BM from porcine ilium bones was extracted, and the viscosities of samples, with or without anti-clotting medications, were measured at various shear rates. 3-D reconstruction of the cancellous bone was performed using micro-CT after removing BM and fat from the bone. The resolution of the reconstruction was 11.7 μm per pixel, which was sufficient to reconstruct the porous structure. The size of the bone sample was 2.5 × 2.5 × 3.5 mm. The number of mesh was approximately 4.3 million.CFD analyses were performed using 3-D reconstruction and viscosity profile at three pressure differences (5, 7, and 10 kPa). Constant pressure was applied in the outlet.The viscosity of BM could be divided into three shear rate ranges. The first corresponded with a shear rate over 100 1/s, where the viscosity was constant at less than 0.01 Pa·s. Transient curves were observed for shear rates 0.01–100 1/s. At lower shear rates, the viscosity was again constant, at over 105 Pa·s. These changes were higher than the changes in blood viscosity based on the shear rate.The CFD analyses showed that the results depended on the inlet pressure. When the pressure difference was 10 kPa, the viscosity change almost disappeared, and the velocity profile was similar to that of Newtonian flow. When the pressure difference was 5 or 7 kPa, changes in viscosity and completely changed flow patterns were observed. The WSS profile also changed with the velocity profile.Therefore, pressure can be a major factor in the velocity profile of BM in the cancellous bone. Effects of non-Newtonian flow on velocity and WSS profiles were observed under an appropriate pressure difference.Copyright © 2016 by ASME


The critique of class society finds the positive only in the classless society, in communism. The difficulty of conceiving of human emancipation has to do with the very idea of communism. In distinction to the pursuit of profit, seizure of the state, pursuit and preservation of political power, and economic value and human resource, it follows a completely different entelechy of human development. Communism means Commune, an association of the direct producers where each contributes according to her abilities, and where each receives according to her needs. In distinction to the second and third Internationals, which subscribed to naturalised conceptions of society and history, there is no universal historical law that leads human kind from some imagined historical beginning via capitalism to communism. If, however, history is not the consequence of either divine revelation or abstract historical laws, what is it? History does not make history. Neither is history on the side of the working class. History takes no sides: it can as easily be the history of barbarism as of socialism. History is made, and will be made. The future that will come will not result from some objective laws of historical development but will result from the struggles of today. The communist future is a future present. Its reality is the everyday struggle over the production and appropriation of surplus value.


We extend the reactive Burgers equation presented in [A. R. Kasimov, L. M. Faria, and R. R. Rosales, Phys. Rev. Lett., 110 (2013), 104104], [L. M. Faria, A. R. Kasimov, and R. R. Rosales, SIAM J. Appl. Math., 74 (2014), pp. 547--570] to include multidimensional effects. Furthermore, we explain how the model can be rationally justified following the ideas of the asymptotic theory developed in [L. M. Faria, A. R. Kasimov, and R. R. Rosales, J. Fluid Mech., 784 (2015), pp. 163--198]. The proposed model is a forced version of the unsteady small disturbance transonic flow equations. We show that for physically reasonable choices of forcing functions, traveling wave solutions akin to detonation waves exist. It is demonstrated that multidimensional effects play an important role in the stability and dynamics of the traveling waves. Numerical simulations indicate that solutions of the model tend to form multidimensional patterns analogous to cells in gaseous detonations.


Introduction Upper gastrointestinal variceal bleeding (UGIVB) is associated with high mortality rate. Aim To determine predictors of outcome (42-day survival and 5-day rebleeding rate) of patients admitted with severe UGIVB. Methods Retrospective study of all patients admitted to liver intensive therapy unit (LITU) in our centre with severe UGIVB 01/01/2000 to 31/03/2008. Results 177 patients, 157 analysed. Male 90/157 (57%). Median age was 49 years (IQR 39–57). Alcohol related liver disease 83/157 (53%). Cirrhosis was confirmed in 136 patients (87%). Median MELD was 15 (IQR 11–20). All patients referred 126/177 (71%) failed endoscopic haemostasis at referring hospital (RH). Median RBC transfusion at RH was 9 units (IQR 6–15) with 80% had Sengstaken-Blakemore tube inserted prior to transfer. Median LITU length of stay (LOS) 6 days (IQR 3–15). Median hospital stay was 24 days (IQR 13–40). LITU survival was 70% (133/157). Hospital survival 61% (96/157). Survival at 42 days was 60% (94/157). Factors determining 6-week survival, survivors to non-survivors, were Day (D) 1 MELD (13 vs 19), D5 MELD (13 vs 25), ▵ (D5-D1) MELD (0 vs 4), D1 UKELD (Na incorporated MELD) (53 vs 57), D5 UKELD (52 vs 56) and APACHE II score (16 vs 24), p<0.0001 (all). AUROC curve analysis showed the following prognostic indicators performed well: D1 MELD=0.75, D5 MELD=0.84, ▵MELD=0.74 and D1 APACHE II score=0.78. Median number of endoscopies was 2 (IQR 1–3). Endoscopy performed within 24 h of LITU admission in 94%. Bleeding source was oesophageal varices 96/145 (66.2%), gastric varices 12/145 (8.3%) and ectopic varices 2/145 (1.4%). Active bleeding identified in 93/144 (65%). Five day rebleeding rate was 13% (20/153). Four had failure of control of bleeding. There was no significant difference in hospital survival (62% vs 65%), LITU survival (72% vs 65%), LITU LOS in days (6 vs 8) and hospital LOS in days (24 vs 32) comparing those who achieved primary haemostasis to rebleeders (P=NS). Admission haemoglobin, platelet count, transfusion requirement, MELD and UKELD did not predict rebleeding (p=NS). TIPSS was performed on 10%. Seven patients (35%) of those who rebled within 5 days had TIPSS. TIPSS insertion did not influence hospital survival (p=0.46). Conclusion Outcome of severe UGIVB is determined by severity of liver disease and organ failure assessed by MELD/UKELD and APACHE II, respectively. However, these factors did not predict rebleeding. Endoscopic haemostasis was achieved in the majority of patients. TIPSS did not influence outcome in this selected cohort of UGIVB.


A negative correlation between education and fertility has been described with great regularity in modern societies. The present investigation examines the strength of this relationship with data from the 1990, 1995 and 2000 waves of the World Values Survey covering 78 countries with a combined sample size of up to 181,728 respondents. The negative correlation is present in nearly all countries, is stronger in females than males, is greater for educational level than for length of schooling, and is not mediated by personal wealth. It is strongest at relatively low levels of economic, social and cognitive development and becomes weaker in the most advanced societies. However, it is also less than maximal in the least developed countries. The relationship is strongest in Latin America and the Middle East, where the typical correlations for cohorts with completed fertility are -.31 for females and -.24 for males, and weakest in Protestant Europe, where average correlations are -.10 for females and -.01 for males. The negative relationship persists in the younger generation of advanced societies, who are reproducing under conditions of sub-replacement fertility.


Since 1997, the Zambian government has allowed girls who fall pregnant to take leave and go on maternity and then continue with their education after delivery. This shows that Zambia has a policy in place to carter for the continued education of girls returning to school after giving birth. Despite the policy being implemented, many young girls continue dropping out of school due to challenges encountered in their pursuit of education. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of the Re-entry policy in government schools, from an educational management perspective, in ftezhi-tezhi District of Central Province of Zambia. This study used the interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and the data analysis approach which involved the coding of emerging themes on the effectiveness of the Re-entry policy in government schools fi-om an educational management perspective. Interpretative Phenomenological analysis (IPA) as an experiential qualitative approach to research in social sciences is concerned with trying to understand lived experiences and how participants themselves make sense of their experiences. The main aim of using IPA was to explore in detail how participants made sense of their personal and social world. This study involved 36 participants composed of two (2) head teachers, two (2) guidance teachers, four (4) teachers, four (4) teen mothers, four (4) guardians or parents of the teen mothers, and twenty (20) pupils of which ten were girls and the other ten 10 were boys. A l l the participants were picked fi-om the selected two secondary schools in Itezhi-tezhi District using purposive sampling. Purposive sampling was used because it is suitable for the small sample size which was used in the study. The findings of the study indicated that the Re-entry policy was not being effectively implemented in government schools from an educational management perspective. It was also found that there were low awareness levels among pupils about the Re-entry policy. The majority of the learners indicated that they were not aware of the Re-entry policy and this showed that the school management did not adequately sensitize the pupils on the policy. This study recommended that it was necessary to include the Re-entry policy in the school curriculum so that both learners and teachers could have adequate knowledge of it.


Background Topical corticosteroids have proven efficacy in the treatment of eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) and are considered the cornerstone of therapy. Objective To evaluate the effect of topical beclomethasone dipropionate (BDP) therapy on clinical outcomes, esophageal eosinophilia, and other markers of inflammation in patients with EoE. Methods Nine subjects with a biopsy-proven diagnosis of EoE were enrolled. In a cross-over design, the subjects were randomly assigned to a sequence of BDP and placebo. Treatment periods were 8 weeks, with a 4-week washout period. The subjects had endoscopic biopsies and blood tests at baseline and after each treatment period. They were instructed to maintain a diary of symptoms. Immuno-histochemical studies were performed for interleukins IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), and transforming growth factor (TGF) beta. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction was performed for IL-3, IL-4, IL-5, IL-10, IL-13, IL-17F, IL-25, IL-33, chemokine ligands (CCL)2, CCL5, CCL11, GM-CSF, and TGF-beta levels. The mast cell tryptase (MCT) level was measured in esophageal tissues. Results BDP led to a significantly larger decrease in esophageal eosinophilia compared with placebo, but there was no significant change in peripheral eosinophilia and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein between the two groups. The study was not powered enough for us to report a significant improvement in clinical symptoms. There was a significant decrease in tissue IL-13 and MCT levels from baseline to the end of treatment between the treatment and placebo groups. Mean fold decreases in cytokine expression between the baseline and treatment groups were observed for IL-17F, IL-25, CCL2, and CCL5. Conclusion Treatment with topical BDP was associated with significant decrease in esophageal eosinophilia, MCT and IL-13. BDP is a potential alternative to fluticasone propionate and budesonide for treatment of EoE. Larger studies are needed to validate these findings.


Short-distance or near-field communication is increasingly used by mobile apps for interacting or exchanging data in a cross-device fashion. In this paper, we identify a security issue, namely cross-device app-to-app communication hijacking (or CATCH), that affect Android apps using short-distance channels (e.g., Bluetooth and Wi-Fi-Direct). This issue causes unauthenticated or malicious app-to-app interactions even when the underlying communication channels are authenticated and secured. In addition to discovering the security issue, we design an algorithm based on data-flow analysis for detecting the presence of CATCH in Android apps. Our algorithm checks if a given app contains an app-to-app authentication scheme, necessary for preventing CATCH. We perform experiments on a set of Android apps and show the CATCH problem is always present on the whole analyzed applications set. We also discuss the impact of the problem in real scenarios by presenting two real case studies. At the end of the paper we reported limitations of our model along with future improvements.


The focus of this paper is an analysis of Phoenician anthropomorphic sarcophagi located in the ancient territory of the Phoenician necropolis site of Amrit (Syria) through exhaustive archaeological contextualization of each sarcophagus. Our goal is to raise awareness of the need to bring scant documentation of findings from previous centuries into a condition more consistent with current historical-archaeological contexts. We begin with findings documented in the nineteenth century and map the evolution of the changing approach of studies related to these enigmatic funerary objects. This will allow us to propose possible reasons for and causes of the treatment of these funerary containers more as artwork than archeologically significant objects. These sarcophagi will also be examined in order to establish their socio-ideological significance.


'I have a really simple view of life. We're here for a good time, not a long time, so make every minute count. Like the physical clutter in your home, mental clutter slowly creeps up over the years without your even noticing. You can't rewrite history, but boy oh boy, you can start a new chapter today.' On the hit TV programme The Life Laundry, Dawna Walter showed you how to de-clutter your house. Just like physical clutter, we all have mental baggage too, some of which needs to go in the crusher: Old attitudes and beliefs that reinforce other people's impressions of who you are Negative behaviour patterns Parental baggage Relationships that have no positive impact on your life Fear of change De-Junk Your Mind is packed with practical exercises and a big dose of Dawna's tough love - it's time to take the plunge and change life for the better...now! The purpose of this book is to help you to let go of the past and achieve your goals. Above all, it is a practical book structuring a game plan to boost your confidence and help you to be happier in all that you do.


THE FINDING of diagnostic areas of sensory reduction, or hypalgesia, with loss of a single nerve root has made possible the accurate identification and location of nerve roots in their relation to vertebral sequence and abnormality. From this study it has been found that each nerve root maintains a constant position in the total series of vertebrae, regardless of a variable number of ribs or of transitional types of vertebrae. This observation is of considerable importance in the interpretation of nerve root syndromes in relation to lesions of the spine, particularly in the localization of posterolateral herniation of an intervertebral disk. It has made unnecessary the use of the spinogram in the great majority of typical cases and has clarified some misinterpretations of anatomic and pathologic variations of the spine not related to symptoms of nerve root involvement. This paper is presented in support of these statements and is based


The Single Bubble SonoLuminescence is a phenomenon where the vapor bubble trapped in a liquid collapse by emitting of a light. It is very known that the temperature inside the bubble depends on the radius, during the collapse, the temperature can reach thousands of Kelvins and that the light would be emitted by radiation of the ionized gas inside the bubble. So, studies show that in certain cases neither an imploding shock nor a plasma has been observed and the temperature is not high enough to explain the spectrum observed. The Single Bubble SonoLuminescence remains a subject of study. For this study we consider the bubble as a box where the free particles (particularly electrons) stemming from the molecules dissociation, are are trapped and confined within the bubble. The confinement allows the particles to acquire some energy during the collapse which they lose in the form of light and also to be considered to bind to the bubble as an electron is bound to the nucleus in an atom. So, with regard to the bubble the energy of the particles can be considered to quantify, and with the quantum theory, by putting some hypotheses, their energy is determined well. The energy is physically acceptable that if the bubble is spherical. This necessary condition of a spherical bubble of the model is observed experimentally in the collapse phase but not in the afterbounce phase of the bubble, explain why the bubble emits of light in the collapse but not in the phase of the afterbounces where she can be smaller, and constitute a validation of the Single Bubble SonoLuminescence of particles model. For the application of the Single Bubble SonoLuminescence of particles model we consider a electron free particle of mass . We note that the interval of time between and energy (who can be considered as the duration when the bubble emits some light) is of the order of picoseconds, the same order that the shortest pulses observed experimentally.


During space flight the function of the immune system changes significantly. Several papers reported that postflight the number and the proportion of circulating leukocytes in astronauts are modified (Leach, 1992), the in vitro mitogen induced T cell activation is depressed (Cogoli et al., 1985; Konstantinova et al. 1993) and there are detectable differences in cytokine production of leukocytes as well (Talas et al. 1983; Batkai et al. 1988; Chapes et al. 1992). One of the possible modifying forces is the microgravity condition itself. Our aim was to analyse mechanisms responsible for changing leukocyte functions in low gravity environment. For terrestrial simulation of microgravity we used a Rotary Cell Culture System (RCCS) developed by NASA. We investigated the effect of simulated microgravity on separated human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). We detected the populations of different cells by antibodies conjugated to fluorofors using a Flow Cytometer. Since space flight reduces the number of peripheral blood lymphocytes (Stowe et al., 1999) we supposed that apoptotic (programmed cell death) processes might be involved. This hypothesis was supported by the result of our earlier experiment demonstrating that simulated microgravity increased the level of secreted Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNFalpha, a known apoptotic signal molecule) significantly (Batkai et al. 1999).


As user interfaces become more powerful and easier to use, they are often harder to design and implement. This has created a great demand for tools which help programmers create interactive applications. While existing interface tools simplify interface creation, they typically focus only on the interface, do not provide facilities for simplifying application generation, and are too low-level. We have developed a tool which automatically generates complete interactive applications from a high-level description of the application''s semantics. We argue that our system provides a very simple yet powerful environment for application development. Key advantages include: ease of use, separation of interface and application, interface and machine independence, more comprehensive programming aids, and greater potential for software reusability. While we tend to focus on the practical motivations for using such a tool, we conclude that this approach should form the basis of an important category of interface tools and deserves further study.


In Alzheimer's disease (AD), affected neurons accumulate beta amyloid protein, components of which can induce mouse microglia to express the high-output isoform of nitric oxide synthase (NOS2) in vitro. Products of NOS2 can be neurotoxic. In mice, NOS2 is normally suppressed by transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-beta 1). Expression of TGF-beta 1 is decreased in brains from AD patients, a situation that might be permissive for accumulation of NOS2. Accordingly, we investigated the expression of NOS2 in patients with AD, using three monospecific antibodies: a previously described polyclonal and two new monoclonal antibodies. Neurofibrillary tangle-bearing neurons and neuropil threads contained NOS2 in brains from each of 11 AD patients ranging in age from 47 to 81 years. NOS2 was undetectable in brains from 6 control subjects aged 23-72 years, but was expressed in small amounts in 3 control subjects aged 77-87 years. Thus, human neurons can express NOS2 in vivo. The high-output pathway of NO production may contribute to pathogenesis in AD.


Motivated by the overall challenge of ensuring long-term sustainable electricity service, we view this challenge as a long-term decision making problem under uncertainties. We start by recognizing that, independent of the industry organization, the uncertainties are enormous and often exogenous to the energy service providers. They are multi-dimensional and are result of fundamental drivers, ranging from the supply side, through the demand side, to the regulatory and policy sides. The basic contribution of this thesis comes from the recognition that long-term investments for ensuring reliable and stable electricity service critically depend on how these uncertainties are perceived, valued and managed by the different stakeholders within the complex industry organization such as the electric power industry. We explain several reasons why price signals obtained from current short-term electricity markets alone are not sufficient enough for long-term sustainable provision. Some enhancements are presented in the thesis to improve the short-term electricity market price signals to reflect the true cost of operation. New market mechanisms and instruments are needed to facilitate the stakeholders to better deal with long-term risks. The problems of ensuring long-term stable reliable service in the sense of the traditional resource adequacy requirements are revisited in both the restructuring industry and regulated industry. We introduce a so-called Stratum Electricity Market (SEM) design as the basic market mechanism for solving the problem of long-term reliable electricity service through a series of interactive multilateral market exchange platforms for risks communication, management and evaluations over various time horizons and by the different groups of stakeholders. In other words, our proposed SEM is a basic IT-enabled framework for the decision making processes by various parties over different time. Because of the uniqueness of electricity as a commodity, the values for the same amount of energy during different time and at different location can vary dramatically. Moreover, for the same hour, the values for the same amount of power at base load level or at peak load level are different due to the different generation 4 technologies and other non-convex constraints like unit commitment. The multiple market products at zonal/nodal levels with different time horizon and time of use categories are designed to reflect more realistic demand and supply conditions at various temporal and spatial granularities. Detailed market rules, rights and regulations (3Rs) concerning the sub-markets interactions, product hierarchy and financial settlements are also examined. 5 Acknowledgement First and foremost I offer my sincerest gratitude …


Objective. This study explores immigrant group and individual differences within groups in parental reports of involvement in their children's education as a function of both sociodemographic and cultural variables. Design. Over 300 parents from three different immigrant groups - Portuguese, Dominican and Cambodian - were interviewed when their children were in either second or fifth grade. Results. Language comfort and immigrant group membership were the most frequent variables associated with group differences in the various aspects of parental involvement. Cambodian parents showed the lowest levels of parent involvement as expressed in measures of attitudes, contact with schools, home-based control over children's behavior, and provisions of material support for homework. Ethnographic data suggest that differing forms of group migration, the educational system's differing responses to the groups, and group differences in cultural values explain the above findings. Within the Portuguese and Cambodian groups, language comfort was also the variable most frequently associated with individual differences in the dimensions of parent's involvement. Finally, the different dimensions of parental involvement are highly correlated amongst each other within the Portuguese and Cambodian families, but not so for Dominicans. Conclusions. These findings suggest both similarities and differences in the processes of parental involvement in children's education across three quite different immigrant groups.


Because logging has replaced fire as the most extensive and frequent disturbance regime in northeastern Minnesota, monitoring bird populations and their habitats has become increasingly important. We surveyed early-successional forests created by fire or logging for birds and their habitat during the 1994 and 1995 breeding seasons. We found that overall bird species richness and number of individuals (territorial males/ ha) were higher (P < 0.05) in burned forests than in logged forests. The American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos), house wren (Troglodytes aedon), common yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas), clay-colored sparrov (Spizella pallida), song sparrow (Melospiza melodia), Lincoln's sparrow (M. lincolnii), and brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) were more abundant in burned areas. The Nashville warbler (Vermivora ruficapilla), chestnut-sided warbler (Dendroica pensylvanica), black-throated green warbler (D virens), and mourning warbler (Oporornis agilis) were present in greater numbers in the logged areas. We related these differences in bird presence and abundance to vegetation differences in the burned and logged habitat types. Burned areas had higher densities of dead trees, wider size ranges of dead trees, and greater heterogeneity in the shrub layer. Logged areas had higher densities of live trees, more live tree species, and wider size ranges of live trees. Red maple (Acer rubrum) was the live tree species found in greatest abundance in logged areas. If management goals include simulating natural disturbances like fire and maintaining bird populations, more dead trees should be left within logged habitats and the variability among logged areas should be increased.


The morphological characteristics of shoulders with torn rotator cuffs were determined using 41 embalmed specimens. The following parameters were measured in the supraspinatus (SSP), infraspinatus (ISP) and subscapularis (SSC) muscles: the length, thickness and width of the extramuscular tendon; the length of the intramuscular tendon; the length and width of a tear, if present, muscle fibre length; and muscle volume. The cross-sectional area (CSA) of the tendon was measured on the photographic image of slices of the tendon using an image analysis system, and the CSA of the muscle was calculated by dividing the muscle volume by muscle fibre length. The rotator cuff was intact in 11 shoulders. A partial-thickness tear of the cuff was present in 12 shoulders, a full-thickness tear of the SSP in 11 shoulders, and a full-thickness tear of more than 2 tendons in 7. Overall incidence of full-thickness tears of the rotator cuff was 44%, and that of partial-thickness tears 29%. With increase of tear size, the functional tendon length (extramuscular tendon length plus tear length) increased by a statistically significant amount in the SSP, ISP and SSC, whereas muscle fibre length decreased in SSP and ISP. It is concluded that the increased functional tendon length and decreased muscle fibre length are the main morphological changes that make the rotator cuff a physiologically abnormal unit. Surgical repair of the torn cuff would be expected to improve these anatomical changes and restore the kinetics of the glenohumeral joint.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)