The ring-core method is the semi-destructive experimental method used for evaluation of the homogeneous and non-homogeneous residual stresses, acting over depth of drilled core. By using incremental strain method (ISM) for the residual state of stress determination, this article describes procedure how unknown directions and magnitudes of principal residual stresses can be determined. Finite element method (FEM) is used for the numerical simulation of homogenous residual state of stress. Relieved strains on the top of the model ' s core are measured by the three-element strain gauge, turned by the axis of strain gauge " a " from the direction of the principal stress sigma 1 about unknown angle α . Depth dependent magnitudes of relieved strains, their differences and set of known values of calibration coefficients K 1 and K 2 or relaxation functions A and B are used together for determination of the angle α and for re-calculation of principal stresses.


Abstract Demonstrated economic benefits of conversion to organic agriculture, combined with solutions to technical and production-related problems, suggest that farmers in Switzerland should have converted in large numbers to organic production. However, the number of organic farms in Switzerland has remained virtually constant in the last 10 yr, so it appears there are other factors that influence the decision of whether or not to convert. Several studies have sought to identify the factors that influence the decisions by farmers whether or not to convert to organic, but have found a range of factors that appear to be context dependent, while others can be seen as context transcendent, which makes it difficult to draw generalizable conclusions. The aim of this study was to identify how Swiss farmers' decisions reflect the interaction of perceptions, relationships, policies and economic factors, which either enable or provide barriers to conversion. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2015 with 39 farmers of mixed and arable farms in the German- (n = 24) and French-speaking (n = 15) parts of Switzerland. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed according to their content. The results show that the decision of whether or not to convert relies on belief that technical problems have been sufficiently solved, as well as a range of social factors. Farmers perceive social pressure for them to be productive, but non-organic farmers often incorrectly perceive organic farming as not being oriented toward production. Furthermore, 'official' advice, which could correct this misperception, is sought about how, rather than whether, to convert and typically comes after farmers have made their decision. Major barriers in an area with a low density of organic farms are the lack of supply and delivery points within an acceptable travel distance, and lack of peer networks to provide informal support. On the basis of these findings, we propose that strategies to encourage conversion should be based around two main pillars: investment to create a network of supply and delivery points in areas with low density of organic farms; and actions, such as information events, to encourage dialogue between conventional and organic farmers to counteract feelings of 'us vs them'.


Third-order Hanbrury Brown—Twiss and double-slit interference experiments with a pseudo-thermal light are performed by recording intensities in single, double and triple optical paths, respectively. The experimental results verifies the theoretical prediction that the indispensable condition for achieving a interference pattern or ghost image in Nth-order intensity correlation measurements is the synchronous detection of the same light field by each reference detector, no matter the intensities recorded in one, or two, or N optical paths. It is shown that, when the reference detectors are scanned in the opposite directions, the visibility and resolution of the third-order spatial correlation function of thermal light is much better than that scanned in the same direction, but it is no use for obtaining the Nth-order interference pattern or ghost image in the thermal Nth-order interference or ghost imaging.


Abstract Nuclei colliding at very high energy create a strong, quasi-classical gluon field during the initial phase of their interaction. We present an analytic calculation of the initial space-time evolution of this field in the limit of very high energies using a formal recursive solution of the Yang-Mills equations. We provide analytic expressions for the initial chromo-electric and chromo-magnetic fields and for their energy-momentum tensor. In particular, we discuss event-averaged results for energy density and energy flow as well as for longitudinal and transverse pressure of this system. Our results are generally applicable if τ 1 / Q s . The transverse energy flow of the gluon field exhibits hydrodynamic-like contributions that follow transverse gradients of the energy density. In addition, a rapidity-odd energy flow also emerges from the non-abelian analog of Gauss' Law and generates non-vanishing angular momentum of the field. We will discuss the space-time picture that emerges from our analysis and its implications for observables in heavy ion collisions.


Two of the biggest global challenges we face today are mitigating climate change and economic inequality. Some research suggests these goals are in conflict, based largely on the observation that a dollar spent at higher income levels is less carbon intensive than at lower income levels. We put this concern to rest. We quantify this effect in its most extreme manifestation, both within countries and between countries. We use a wide range of income elasticities of emissions (0.7–1.0) and scenarios from the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) with the highest (SSP4) and lowest (SSP5) between‐country inequality. Within countries, even with assumptions of low elasticities (0.7) and aggressive inequality reduction (Gini coefficient of 0.55 to 0.30), emissions would realistically increase by less than 8%, which would likely occur over several decades. Income convergence between countries may reduce the emissions intensity of global income growth, because the energy intensity reductions from income growth in emerging economies, such as India and China, offsets the energy increasing effect of higher growth in developing countries. Given these findings, it seems a distraction for future research to dwell on this narrow framing when there are deeper under‐explored linkages and synergies between reducing income inequality and climate change, such as the effect of reducing inequality on social norms, consumption and on political mobilization around climate policy.


Metal oxides are a very important class of materials with a wide range of photovoltaic applications. Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) are the primary front contact materials used in thin film solar cells. Identification of methods for reducing the resistivity of these materials would have significant benefits. Development of p-type TCOs would provide alternative back contact materials and could enable further development of technologies such as bifacial, window and multijunction cells. A series of studies into these areas is presented in this work.

Aluminium doped zinc oxide (AZO) is a well-known n-type TCO consisting entirely of Earth-abundant materials. Targets were manufactured from AZO powder, which was synthesised using a patented emulsion detonation process developed by Innovnano S.A. All films showed good optical transmission. Resistivity was found to decrease with both increasing time and temperature up to 300 degree C. Temperatures above 300 degree C were found to be detrimental to film formation, with increasing amounts of damage to the crystal structure and consequent increases in the resistivity.

The effect of alloying molybdenum oxide with molybdenum nitride through reactive sputtering in a mixed oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere was investigated. All alloys were found to show p-type behaviour. Resistivity was found to improve with increased nitrogen content, in contrast to optical transmission, which reduced. A selection of compositions were deposited onto CdTe cells as back contacts. These cells showed an increase in efficiency with increasing nitrogen content. Work function was found to increase with increasing oxygen content, but all work functions were low. Resistivity was shown to correlate strongly with efficiency, caused by a corresponding increase in cell voltage. This implies that to form an ohmic contact on CdTe with p-type materials, work function may be less important than resistivity.

The copper oxides are p-type, but uses are limited by the narrow band gaps. Cupric oxide was chosen for investigation and for alloying with other oxides with the aim of increasing the band gap. It was found that temperature and deposition environment have significant impacts on sputtered cupric oxide (CuO) films, with low temperatures and high oxygen environments producing the lowest resistivities. Extrinsic sodium doping was found to reduce the resistivity by up to four orders of magnitude. High oxygen content sodium-doped films were found to have carrier concentrations two orders of magnitude higher than that of indium tin oxide.

[Continues ...]


UNLABELLED
PET imaging represents a promising approach for noninvasive monitoring of reporter gene expression in living subjects. We evaluated the relationship between various methods of quantifying the imaging signal and in vitro assays of the expression of a PET reporter gene (a mutant Herpes simplex virus-1 thymidine kinase (mHSV1-tk); 9-(4-(18)F-fluoro-3-hydroxymethylbutyl)guanine ((18)F-FHBG) was used as the PET reporter probe.

METHODS
In 14 rats, pulmonary gene transfer was performed by intratracheal administration of various amounts of an adenovector containing a fusion gene encoding for mHSV1-tk and an enhanced green fluorescent protein. Three days later, the animals were divided into 2 groups. One group (n = 7) did not receive any other interventions. The other group was treated with alpha-naphthylthiourea (ANTU) to increase pulmonary vascular permeability. All rats were injected intravenously with (18)F-FHBG. Two additional rats in both groups received a null adenovector and served as controls. In the normal rats, repetitive blood samples were obtained and PET imaging was performed simultaneously using a dynamic imaging protocol. Rate constants estimating (18)F-FHBG transport (K(1)) or trapping (k(3)) within target cells were generated by compartmental modeling. After euthanasia, pulmonary uptake of (18)F-FHBG was determined using a gamma-counter in all rats, and in vitro assays of transgene expression were performed on lung tissue.

RESULTS
In normal rats, pulmonary uptake of (18)F-FHBG increased as thymidine kinase (TK) activity increased only at low levels of mHSV1-tk expression and then plateaued as TK activity continued to increase. Compartmental modeling failed to improve the correlation with in vitro assays of transgene expression. However, a linear relationship was obtained between the pulmonary uptake of (18)F-FHBG and in vitro assays of TK activity in rats treated with ANTU.

CONCLUSION
In rodent lungs, (18)F-FHBG uptake appears to be a function of both transport into tissues expressing the transgene as well as the level of transgene expression itself.


In 1994 a moving car and its driver, on a highway in southern Madrid (Getafe), were struck by a falling rock. Eighty-one additional fragments (total weight : 55.926 kg) were later recovered, which all pointed towards a meteorite fall. A study of the composition of this object revealed an ultrarefractory material displaying a most unusual chemical make-up which differs from any known meteorite class, and for some elements and minerals approaches the composition of CAÍ (Ca-Al-rich inclusions in chondrites). A study of some cosmic-ray-produced stable and radioactive nuclides indicates: a) space and terrestrial exposure ages which do not exceed 1,000 and 520,000 years, respectively; b) the presence of a small Ne excess (1,100 °C fraction), which suggests either a nucleogenic contribution from the F(a,n) Ne reaction or a trapped Ne signature distinct from atmospheric Ne, and c) the existence of minor variations in the 3 Ar/Ar ratios also indicating a nucleogenic component or fractionation effects. C data are consistent with "modern" carbón originated in the period 1955-1958 and not earlier or more recently. The possibility that the Getafe rock could have a man-made origin (i.e. ceramic and refractory tiles, industrial slag) is also considered.


6.1 Introduction In Chapter 5, we examined the Jones vector representation of polarized light, which is quite simple and straightforward. This representation, however, can describe only polarized light. In this chapter, we discuss a more versatile representation of the polarization state of any light wave (completely polarized,
unpolarized, or partially polarized), which was first proposed by George Gabriel Stokes in 1852. 6.2 The Stokes Parameters The representation uses four observable parameters, known as Stokes parameters, which are defined as (6.1) In Eq. (6.1), I0 represents the intensity of the given light beam, and IH, IV, I+45, I-45, IRCP, and ILCP represent the transmitted intensities when the given beam is passed through a linear horizontal polarizer (LHP), a linear vertical polarizer (LVP), a linear +45-deg polarizer, a linear −45-deg polarizer, a rightcircular polarizer, and left-circular polarizer, respectively. Physically, S1 gives an idea of whether the given SOP is closer to linear horizontally polarized light (S1 > 0) or to linear vertically polarized light (S1 < 0) or to neither (S1 = 0); S2 gives an
idea of whether the given SOP is closer to the linear +45 deg (S2 > 0), to linear − 45 deg (S2 0), to left-circular polarized light (S3


This class was part of a series of new project- and experience-based classes designed to introduce freshmen to complex, real-world problems.
Course Description

Do you want to think about ways to help solve New Orleans' problems? CityScope is a project-based introduction to the contemporary city. "Problem solving in complex (urban) environments" is different than "solving complex problems." As a member of a team, you will learn to assess scenarios for the purpose of formulating social, economic and design strategies to provide humane and sustainable solutions. A visit to New Orleans is planned for spring break 2007.


We examined seasonal abundance, production and loss to predation of heterotrophic nanoflagellates (HNF) and ciliates in order to clarify food linkages among HNF, ciliates and metazoan zooplankton in a hypereutrophic pond. Production and loss rates of the protists were estimated using size fractionation (< 5 µm, < 30 µm and total) experiments. There were coupled oscillations in seasonal abundance between HNF and ciliates, whereas we found none between the protists and metazoan zooplankton. Seasonal trends in production of HNF (-12.4 to 86.4 ng C ml -1 d -1 ) and predation rates on them by ciliates (-25.6 to 52.2 ng C ml -1 d -1 ) were similar. There were significant correlations (p < 0.05) between HNF production and predation on HNF by ciliates. These results indicate that ciliates are major consumers of HNF, but we have insufficient evidence of predation on HNF by metazoan predators to do more than suggest that food linkage between HNF and metazoan predators is not substantial. The dominant ciliate species were Cinetochilum margaritaceum, Urotricha spp., Halteria grandinella and Cyclidium glaucoma. Growth rates of Urotricha and Cyclidium populations were enhanced by removal of metazoan predators when the ciliates were dominant. We detected substan- tial predation pressure on Urotricha spp. during its period of dominance and found a significant cor- relation (p < 0.02) between production and predation of C. glaucoma. Thus, we suggest that there are active food linkages between these 2 ciliates and metazoan predators. For C. margaritaceum and H. grandinella, we did not have enough evidence to suggest predation by metazoan predators. Thus, we showed over a 1 yr period that HNF production was almost balanced by loss to predation by ciliates, and that loss processes other than predation might be important for some ciliate taxa.


Data prefetching has been shown to be an effective tool in hiding part of the latency associated with cache misses in modern processors. Traditionally, data prefetchers fetch data into a small prefetch buffer near the LI for low latency, or the L2 cache for greater coverage and less cache pollution. However, with the L1-L2 cache speed gap growing, significant performance gains can be obtained if the data pref etcher can operate as aggressively as an L2-level pref etcher but with the fast hit times of an LI-level pref etcher. In this paper, we propose a prefetching framework where an LI-level prefetcher and an L2- level prefetcher work cooperatively to reduce the average access time more than either one alone can. We evaluate several design alternatives suited to perform synergistically under different workloads. From the insight we gather from this analysis, we propose a confidence-based adaptive prefetcher that can improve prefetch efficiency significantly with judicious use of available bus bandwidth. Our results show that for certain prefetcher combinations, two- level prefetching can achieve the cumulative speedup attained from either prefetcher alone. Furthermore, when compared to other two-level prefetching models, the adaptive design provides similar speedups with appreciably less bus traffic.


Ecological restoration aims to re-establish both biodiversity and ecological function in damaged ecosystems. Ants are important drivers of ecological functions and are early colonizers of restored ecosystems. Rates at which ants perform functions are thought to be fuelled by access to plant sugars. In revegetated farmland in south-eastern Australia, I tested if ant activity on trees, which reflects use of arboreal sugars, follows a predictable trajectory of recovery towards a remnant-like state. Additionally, I examined whether planting method alters this trajectory by comparing tube stock (TS), which results in low Eucalyptus densities, with direct seeding (DS), which results in high Eucalyptus densities. Replicate sites (n = 5) of young (planted between 1998 and 2001) and old (planted between 1989 and 1994) TS and DS revegetation, pastures and remnants were compared. Activity on trunks was significantly positively correlated with ant tending of Hemiptera in young and old revegetation. In DS plantings, activity and estimated liquid loads on Eucalyptus trees were low and rapidly approached that in remnants, while TS sites remained similar to high values observed in pastures with trees. Patterns for Acacia were less clear, reflecting consistent densities for this species between TS and DS. At the whole-of-field scale, planting methods did not differ. Importantly, although trajectories differed, neither TS nor DS sites approached the low activity or estimated liquid loads observed in remnants. Rates of ant use of arboreal sugars and associated sugar-fuelled processes may thus take considerably longer to recover than the period covered by this study. This finding suggests planting method may affect the trajectory and outcome of revegetation for plant health, as well as sugar-fuelled ecosystem functions performed by ants.


We introduce a family of authenticated data structures — Ordered Merkle Trees (OMT) — and illustrate their utility in security kernels for a wide variety of sub-systems. Specifically, the utility of two types of OMTs: a) the index ordered merkle tree (IOMT) and b) the range ordered merkle tree (ROMT), are investigated for their suitability in security kernels for various sub-systems of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), the Internet's inter-autonomous system routing infrastructure. We outline simple generic security kernel functions to maintain OMTs, and sub-system specific security kernel functionality for BGP subsystems (like registries, autonomous system owners, and BGP speakers/routers), that take advantage of OMTs.


An endosomal fraction isolated from rabbit renal cortex by a novel, fast, and simple procedure was enriched in ATP-dependent H+ pumping that was oligomycin insensitive but was inhibited by dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (DCCD), N-ethylmaleimide (NEM), Zn2+, Hg2+, diethylstilbestrol, mersalyl, and 4-chloro-7-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole. No substantial Na+-H+ exchange was detected. Electrogenicity of the pump was demonstrated using [14C]-SCN-. In addition, these membranes featured ATP-dependent Cl- flux. The ATP-driven H+ pumping had an absolute requirement for Cl-: an inside-negative membrane potential was not a substitute for Cl-. The protonophore carbonyl cyanide p-trifluoromethoxyphenylhydrazone inhibited ATP-driven Cl- uptake but no inhibition was observed with nigericin. Finally, both ATP-driven H+ pumping and ATP-dependent Cl- flux were inhibited by Cl(-)-channel inhibitors. Part, or all, of the absolute dependence on Cl- may derive from a Cl- channel, the function of which is intimately related to H+ pumping by the ATPase. Flux through this Cl- channel may be regulated by one or more factors, including ATP, membrane potential, and pH.


Elder abuse can be conceptualised as a social problem, a crime problem and a human rights issue. This article presents the findings from an evaluation of the 'Access to Justice' Pilot Project for victims/survivors1 of elder abuse, which was launched in 2010 as part of the Welsh Government's six-year integrated strategy for tackling domestic abuse. It was designed to address the needs of older people in domestic settings and facilitate their access to criminal and civil justice options. Between April and July 2012, case study data were obtained for 131 individuals. A total of thirty-three interviews and a focus group were conducted with service providers, potential service users and practitioners drawn from relevant statutory and third sector groups. The article explores multi-agency responses to elder abuse and addresses the victim‒perpetrator dynamic. Reactive and proactive types of perpetrator2 behaviour are identified and interdependence is described as a feature of the victim‒perpetrator relationship.


Older people usually present with adverse drug events (ADEs) with nonspecific symptoms such as cognitive decline, recurrent falls, reduced mobility, and/or major deterioration. The aims of this study were to assess the ADEs of patients with dementia and presenting neuropsychiatric/behavioral, and psychological symptoms in dementia (BPSD) and to categorize and identify the principal factors that allow to prevent ADEs, and separately ADEs that result in falls. To that end, a one-year prospective study in a psychogeriatric ward (July 2015 to July 2016) was performed. All patients admitted to this ward were eligible for enrolment. Patients who met any of the following criteria were excluded from the study: Patients without cognitive impairment, a length of stay under 7 days, and palliative or previous psychiatric pathology. We included 65 patients (60% women, 84.9 years ± 6.7) with mild to moderate cognitive impairment, moderate to severe functional dependence, and a high prevalence of geriatric syndromes and comorbidity. A total of 87.7% were taking five or more drugs (mean 9.0 ± 3.1). ADEs were identified during the interdisciplinary meeting and the follow up by clinical record. Sixty-eight ADEs (81.5% patients) were identified, of which 73.5% were not related to falls. From these, 80% were related to drugs of the nervous system. The Naranjo algorithm determined that 90% of ADEs were probable. The severity of the ADEs was Category E in 34 patients (68%). The number of preventable ADE according to the Schumork–Thornton test was 58%. The main ADE was drowsiness/somnolence (27.7%). ADEs related to falls represented a 26.5%. The balance between effective treatment and safety is complex in these patients. A medication review in interdisciplinary teams is an essential component to optimize safety prevention.


A nominally undoped wurtzite ZnO thin film of highly c-axis orientation was successfully grown on (001) silicon by metal-organic chemical vapour deposition, and its photoluminescence was measured as a function of excitation intensity at room temperature. The ZnO sample exhibited a strong near band-edge (NBE) line at 379.48nm (3.267eV) and a weak broad green band around-510 nm (2.43eV), showing a linear and sublinear excitation dependence of the luminescence intensity, respectively. No discernible intensity dependence of lineshape and emission peak was found for the NBE line. On the other hand, the peak energy of the green luminescence was found to increase nearly logarithmically with the increasing excitation intensity. The above results clearly indicate that in the ZnO epilayer, the NBE line was due to an excitonic spontaneous emission, while the mid-gap green luminescence can be assigned to the tunnel-assisted donor-acceptor pair (DAP) radiative recombination.Moreover, we obtained an energy depth β-11.74 meV for the potential wells due to the fluctuating distribution of the unintentional impurities/defects responsible for the tunnel-assisted DAP emission.


T-Scan is a new tool for analyzing Dutch text. It aims at extracting text features that are theoretically interesting, in that they relate to genre and text complexity, as well as practically interesting, in that they enable users and text producers to make text-specic diagnoses. T-Scan derives it features from tools such as Frog and Alpino, and resources such as SoNaR, SUBTLEX-NL and Referentie Bestand Nederlands. This paper oers a qualitative discussion of a number of T-Scan features, based on a minimal demonstration corpus of six texts, three of them scientic articles and three of them drawn from a women's magazine. We discuss features concerning lexical complexity, sentence complexity, referential cohesion and lexical diversity, lexical semantics and personal style. For all these domains we examine the construct validity as well as the reliability of a number of important features. We conclude that T-Scan oers a number of promising lexical and syntactic features, while the interpretation of referential cohesion/ lexical diversity features and personal style features is less clear. Further developing the application and analyzing authentic text need to go hand in hand.


Abstract This longitudinal study examines changes to speech production and speech breathing in older adults with Parkinson's disease (PD) and older adults without PD. Eight participants with PD and eight age- and sex-matched older adults participated in two data collection sessions, separated by 3.7 years on average. Speech severity and speech rate increased for people with PD. Vital capacity decreased for both groups. Older adult control participants displayed significant increases in lung volume initiation and excursion and percent vital capacity expended per syllable. These changes allow older adults to utilize higher recoil pressures to generate subglottal pressure for speech production, potentially reducing work of breathing. Participants with PD displayed significant decreases in lung volume initiation and termination. Thus, unlike older adults, people with PD exert more expiratory muscle pressure during speech production, leading to increased effort. Speech-language pathologists need to consider direct treatment of respiratory patterns for speech to reduce effort and fatigue.


This research is all about the biggest question... is it possible that without using factorization method can we find two prime numbers factors of any given product (composite number)? Answer is yes.... We have found the formula method that proves how additive property of prime numbers has direct relation with its multiplicative property and how it can help to find any two multiplied prime factors of given composite number.


This paper contains a derivation of the adjoint equations for transient heat conduction and describes how to include the adjoint solution in a nonlinear conjugate gradient method. The adjoint equations are useful for optimization problems where a scalar valued target function is optimized with respect to a large number of design variables. In this paper the target function is a least squares fit between calculated and measured transient metal temperatures. The design variables consist of heat transfer coefficients on a set of mesh facets for a finite element mesh. Contrary to intuition the sensitivity of the target function with respect to the different design variables can be evaluated by just two transient solutions; the direct problem and the adjoint problem, with roughly similar cost. If a brute force approach is used the transient problem has to be solved for each individual design variable. Since a typical mesh contains thousands of facets the speedup of the adjoint approach is enormous.


Biological degradation of 12 chlorinated aliphatic compounds (CACs) was assessed in bench-top reactors and in serum bottle tests. Three continuously mixed daily batch-fed reactor systems were evaluated: anaerobic, aerobic, and sequential–anaerobic-aerobic (sequential). Glucose, acetate, benzoate, and phenol were fed as growth substrates to both the anaerobic and aerobic systems. Methane and toluene were also added to the aerobic systems to induce cometabolic degradation of the feed CACs. The anaerobic culture degraded seven of the feed CACs. The specialized aerobic cultures degraded all but three of the highly chlorinated CACs. The sequential system outperformed either of the other systems alone by degrading 10 of the feed CACs: chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, 1,1-dichloroethane, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, hexachloroethane,, 1,1-dichloroethylene, trans-1,2-dichloroethylene, trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, and 1,2,3-trichloropropane, plus the anaerobic metabolites: dichloromethane and cis-1,2-dichloroethylene. Sequential treatment did not show significant removal of 2-chloropropene, or 1,1-dichloropropene. Cultures from each of the reactors were used in bottle tests to determine relative CAC degradation rates. Maximum degradation rates observed for individual CACs ranged from 20 to 150 μ\Ng per gram volatile suspended solids per day.


ISO 10993-4 is an international standard describing the methods of testing of medical devices for interactions with blood for regulatory purpose. The complexity of blood responses to biomaterial surfaces and the variability of blood functions in different individuals and species pose difficulties in standardisation. Moreover, in vivo or in vitro testing, as well as the clinical relevance of certain findings, is still matter of debate. This review deals with the major remaining problems, including a brief explanation of surface interactions with blood, the current ISO 10993 requirements for testing, and the role of in vitro test models. The literature is reviewed on anticoagulation, shear rate, blood-air interfaces, incubation time, and the importance of evaluation of the surface area after blood contact. Two test categories deserve further attention: complement and platelet function, including the effects on platelets from adhesion proteins, venipuncture, and animal derived- blood. The material properties, hydrophilicity, and roughness, as well as reference materials, are discussed. Finally this review calls for completing the acceptance criteria in the ISO standard based on a panel of test results.


The actual value added tax systems used in many countries differ significantly from the completely general VAT that has been the focus of most economic analyses. In practice, VAT systems exempt broad classes of consumer goods and services. This has important implications for the effect of the VAT on international trade. A value added tax is sometimes advocated as a way of improving a country's international competitiveness because GATT rules permit the tax to be levied on imports and rebated on exports. This leads to political support for the VAT among exporters and producers of import-competing products. For a general VAT on all consumption, this argument is incorrect except in the very short run because exchange rates or domestic prices adjust to offset the effect of the tax on the relative prices of domestic and foreign goods. When prices or exchange rates have adjusted, a general value added tax will have no effect on imports and exports. In practice, the value added tax frequently exempts housing and many personal services. The VAT thus raises the price of tradeables relative to nontradeables and induces a substitution of housing and services for tradeable goods. Since this implies a reduced consumption of imported goods, it also implies a decline in exports. The most likely effect of the introduction of a VAT would thus be a decline of exports.


Analysis of medical videos for detection of abnormalities and diseases requires both high precision and recall, but also real-time processing for live feedback and scalability for massive screening of entire populations. Existing work on this field does not provide the necessary combination of retrieval accuracy and performance.; AB@In this paper, a multimedia system is presented where the aim is to tackle automatic analysis of videos from the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The system includes the whole pipeline from data collection, processing and analysis, to visualization. The system combines filters using machine learning, image recognition and extraction of global and local image features. Furthermore, it is built in a modular way so that it can easily be extended. At the same time, it is developed for efficient processing in order to provide real-time feedback to the doctors. Our experimental evaluation proves that our system has detection and localisation accuracy at least as good as existing systems for polyp detection, it is capable of detecting a wider range of diseases, it can analyze video in real-time, and it has a low resource consumption for scalability.


Several factors may prevent post-stroke subjects from participating in rehabilitation protocols, for example, geographical location of rehabilitation centres, socioeconomic status, economic burden and lack of logistics surrounding transportation. Early supported discharge from hospitals with continued rehabilitation at home represents a well-defined regimen of post-stroke treatment. Information-based technologies coupled with robotics have promoted the development of new technologies for telerehabilitation. In this article, the design and development of a modular architecture for delivering upper limb robotic telerehabilitation with the CBM-Motus, a planar unilateral robotic machine that allows performing state-of-the-art rehabilitation tasks, have been presented. The proposed architecture allows a therapist to set a therapy session on his or her side and send it to the patient's side with a standardized communication protocol; the user interacts with the robot that provides an adaptive assistance during the rehabilitation tasks. Patient's performance is evaluated by means of performance indicators, which are also used to update robot behaviour during assistance. The implementation of the architecture is described and a set of validation tests on seven healthy subjects are presented. Results show the reliability of the novel architecture and the capability to be easily tailored to the user's needs with the chosen robotic device.


ABSTRACT Multiple imputation (MI) is an increasingly popular method for analysing incomplete multivariate data sets. One of the most crucial assumptions of this method relates to mechanism leading to missing data. Distinctness is typically assumed, which indicates a complete independence of mechanisms underlying missingness and data generation. In addition, missing at random or missing completely at random is assumed, which explicitly states under which conditions missingness is independent of observed data. Despite common use of MI under these assumptions, plausibility and sensitivity to these fundamental assumptions have not been well-investigated. In this work, we investigate the impact of non-distinctness and non-ignorability. In particular, non-ignorability is due to unobservable cluster-specific effects (e.g. random-effects). Through a comprehensive simulation study, we show that MI inferences suggest that nonignoriability due to non-distinctness do not immediately imply dismal performance while non-ignorability due to missing not at random leads to quite subpar performance.


The use of AI and embryo transfer in swine herds will undoubtedly increase during the next decade. The techniques themselves will undergo refinement and improvements as swine producers learn to use them and to manage the genetic aspects of their herds. These techniques should not be viewed as useful tools only for large swine herds. In fact, the relative genetic advantage is probably greater for the medium-sized or small herd, since the superiority of the AI sires compared to boars otherwise available to these herds is relatively greater. Also, access to breeds that are not locally available is an important benefit. The only limitation is the individual producer's desire and abilities, since there is no expensive equipment that will improve results. In fact, AI could become an important equalizer in the distribution of genetic material in the swine industry. In planning for the future, we should also realize that a genetic revolution is just beginning. The Swine Testing and Genetic Evaluation System (STAGES), which is just being implemented by the eight breed associations, will soon make possible comparisons of sires across farms for growth, feed efficiency, and carcass and maternal traits. STAGES will improve the accuracy of selecting superior sires and will provide a means of establishing a national sire listing similar to those presently available in the beef and dairy industries. Estimates of genetic merit will be expressed as predicted progeny deviation (PPD's), which are estimates of how the future progeny of an individual is expected to perform compared to that of an average individual. AI and embryo transfer will be important tools in providing access to the outstanding breeding animals developed with STAGES.; Swine Day, Manhattan, KS, November 21, 1985


Photorhabdus is a bacterial symbiont of soil nematodes and a lethal pathogen of insects. Many pathogenic or symbiotic bacteria utilize various methods of motility to reach favorable conditions, colonize a host, or have motility genes that also regulate virulence expression. It is not known how motility is regulated, or how it may confer an advantage, in the complex life cycle of Photorhabdus.. We characterized motility in Photorhabdus and found that the bacterium was motile both by swimming (movement in liquid) and swarming (movement on surfaces) under appropriate conditions. Both types of motility utilized the same peritrichous flagella and shared genetic components. However, unlike swimming, swarming behavior was a social form of movement in which the cells coordinately formed intricate channels that covered a surface. The optimal conditions for motility were established including a Na + or K+ requirement. Interestingly, microarray experiments imply that NaCl and KCl regulate motility posttranscriptionally and not at the gene expression level. This ionic salt posttranscriptional regulation of motility has not been observed in other bacteria. We suggest that this form of regulation may be beneficial for an organism that must adapt quickly to changing environments. To identify the genes involved in motility, P. temperata mutants with altered motility behavior were generated with random transposon mutagenesis. An rssB mutant that displayed a hyperswarming phenotype was isolated, suggesting that RssB acts as a negative regulator of swarming behavior. A yidA mutant, whose function remains unknown, had inhibited swimming behavior and dramatically attenuated virulence. A plu3723 mutant (a luxR homolog) was isolated, that unlike the wild-type, was able to swim without NaCl or KCl. All together 86 motility mutants were isolated and physiologically characterized. Since many of the motility mutants had concomitant changes in expression of antibiotics, hemolysins, proteases, and insect virulence, expression of motility genes may be co-regulated with expression of virulence enzymes in Photorhabdus. The mutants isolated in this study will be useful long-term tools for additional experiments. The ability of Photorhabdus to swarm could provide a rapid and coordinated colonization of either nematode or insect host, or in traveling from one host to another. The nematode environment is low in nutrients, ionic salts, and amino acids, while the insect hemocoel is high in these solutes. When the nematodes release their bacterial symbionts into the insect hemocoel, the bacteria are exposed to the ionic salts that would induce the flagella regulon. Ecologically, it would be beneficial for the bacteria to be motile upon entering the insect to rapidly colonize the hemocoel. If aspects of virulence expression are co-regulated with motility genes as this research suggests, expression of virulence factors would also be induced upon exposure to the insect. The data presented in this study are the first steps for elucidating a model of motility in the life cycle of this insect pathogen and nematode symbiont.


Pedestrians with challenging patterns, e.g. small scale or heavy occlusion, appear frequently in practical applications like autonomous driving, which remains tremendous obstacle to higher robustness of detectors. Although plenty of previous works have been dedicated to these problems, properly matching patterns of pedestrian and parameters of detector, i.e., constructing a detector with proper parameter sizes for certain pedestrian patterns of different complexity, has been seldom investigated intensively. Pedestrian instances are usually handled equally with the same amount of parameters, which in our opinion is inadequate for those with more difficult patterns and leads to unsatisfactory performance. Thus, we propose in this paper a novel detection approach via adaptive pattern-parameter matching. The input pedestrian patterns, especially the complex ones, are first disentangled into simpler patterns for detection head by Pattern Disentangling Module (PDM) with various receptive fields. Then, Gating Feature Filtering Module (GFFM) dynamically decides the spatial positions where the patterns are still not simple enough and need further disentanglement by the next-level PDM. Cooperating with these two key components, our approach can adaptively select the best matched parameter size for the input patterns according to their complexity. Moreover, to further explore the relationship between parameter sizes and their performance on the corresponding patterns, two parameter selection policies are designed: 1) extending parameter size to maximum, aiming at more difficult patterns for different occlusion types; 2) specializing parameter size by group division, aiming at complex patterns for scale variations. Extensive experiments on two popular benchmarks, Caltech and CityPersons, show that our proposed method achieves superior performance compared with other state-of-the-art methods on subsets of different scales and occlusion types.


The study of thermal radiative transfer in the high energy density regime is important to the National Nuclear Security Administration, and experiments are an important component of such studies. Strong non-linear coupling of radiation hydrodynamics and thermal radiation transport makes it difficult to infer radiation transport uncertainties from experiments. In order to address this problem and have a hierarchical approach to model validation, the Center for Exascale Radiation Transport (CERT), created at Texas A&M University, has designed neutrons-in-graphite experiments as surrogates for thermal radiative transfer in high energy density. There is a strong mathematical analogy between the process of radiative absorption and emission, and the process of neutrons scattering in highly diffusive mediums. This allows the solution for thermal radiation transport benchmark problems to be measured by the neutrons-in-graphite surrogate experiments. The CERT team has designed a series of neutrons-in-graphite experiments to allow investigation of many of the significant transport difficulties regarding thermal radiative transport including: muti-scale modelling in time, space, and angle; highly scalable parallel solution techniques; and refinement in time, space, and angle. The development of computation methods to efficiently and accurately simulate the neutrons-in-graphite surrogate experiments and the predictive science methods to quantify the uncertainty will also be applicable to the analogous thermal radiation transport simulations. This thesis systematically investigates the required spatial, angular, and energy resolution needed to obtain high-fidelity deterministic transport solutions for the ii neutrons-in-graphite experiments designed as surrogates for thermal radiative transfer. Semi-analytic and stochastic methodologies are considered in order to investigate the deterministic neutron transport discretization error as a function of the spatial, angular, and energy resolution. For the discretization error calculations, a hierarchical approach is taken towards increasingly complex geometries. Infinite graphite medium problems with a uniform source have only energy dependence. The infinite medium problems are used to compute the deterministic multi-group discretization error as a function of the energy resolution. 2D graphite problems with an infinite line source and 3D graphite cube problems with a point source are modelled to analyse spatial and angular discretization error as a function of spatial and angular resolution. An analysis is performed on the angular discretization ray effect errors that are present in deterministic discrete ordinate calculations. This research informs the uncertainty quantification efforts for CERT and points the way to the further development of deterministic calculations.


The twelve member councils of the Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (SSROC) together operate over 2,700 vehicles, with an estimated 5,900 staff required to drive vehicles either as the main aspect of their jobs, or occasionally as requirements demand. If we can significantly and continuously improve driver and vehicle safety in councils, a major contribution can be made to improving road safety on local roads. With the assistance of the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority, SSROC has developed the FleetSafe program, which provides a framework for the 12 member councils to improve driver and vehicle safety for the benefit of staff, their families and the local community. The goal of the FleetSafe project was to establish for each of the SSROC member councils: (1) A model fleet safety policy that would significantly improve driver and vehicle safety; (2) Best practice guidelines that could be adapted to each council's unique requirements; and (3) Guidance as to how the councils should go about putting the policy and guidelines into practice. The project report provides SSROC councils with a model policy and recommended operating guidelines to establish best practice driver and vehicle safety policies and procedures. In addition, it provides the basis for other councils, and possibly other government and industry organisations to adopt a similar course of action. Each of the 12 member councils has made significant progress on implementing the policy and guidelines. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see IRRD abstract no. E202589.


AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The project aimed to develop a unit-level quality measurement and improvement programme using evidence-based fundamentals of care.

BACKGROUND
Feedback from patients, families, whānau, staff and audit data in 2014 indicated variability in the delivery of fundamental aspects of care such as monitoring, nutrition, pain management and environmental cleanliness at a New Zealand District Health Board.

DESIGN
A general inductive approach was used to explore the fundamentals of care and design a measurement and improvement programme, the Patient and Whānau Centred Care Standards (PWCCS), focused on fundamental care.

METHODS
Five phases were used to explore the evidence, and design and test a measurement and improvement framework.

RESULTS
Nine identified fundamental elements of care were used to define expected standards of care and develop and test a measurement and improvement framework. Four six-monthly peer reviews have been undertaken since June 2015. Charge Nurse Managers used results to identify quality improvements. Significant improvement was demonstrated overall, in six of the 27 units, in seven of the nine standards and three of the four measures. In all, 89% (n = 24) of units improved their overall result.

CONCLUSION
The PWCCS measurement and improvement framework make visible nursing fundamentals of care in line with continuous quality improvement to increase quality of care.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
Delivering fundamentals of care is described by nurses as getting ?back to basics'. Patient and family feedback supports the centrality of fundamentals of care to their hospital experience. Implementing a unit-level fundamentals of care quality measurement and improvement programme clarifies expected standards of care, highlights the contribution of fundamentals of care to quality and provides a mechanism for ongoing improvements.


SF6 gas, an insulation medium used for gas insulated switchgear (GIS), has a high global warming potential, hence an effective alternative means is expected from the environmental perspective. As one of its potential alternatives, the authors are focusing on CO2 gas, which has relatively good insulation characteristics among gases with a low environmental impact (natural gases). To use this CO2 gas for actual GIS, the insulation characteristics for actual overvoltage waveforms generated in the field (known as nonstandard lightning impulse waveforms) must be obtained. The present study, with single-frequency oscillation waveforms as a representative basis, experimentally obtained the insulation characteristics by changing the polarity, frequency, and damping rate of the applied voltage in the non-uniform electric field represented by the presence of metallic particle in the equipment. As a result, the breakdown voltage was lower for the positive polarity under the non-uniform electric field. In this polarity, the breakdown voltage was 1.05 to 1.68 higher than that by standard lightning impulse waveforms even if the frequency and damping rate were changed. These results support the rationalization of insulation for actual surge waveforms under the quasi-uniform electric field.


The use of complementary and alternative medicines is becoming increasingly popular in Western society. As a result the number of reported adverse reactions is increasing. Glucosamine is a herbal remedy commonly used to ease joint pain in osteoarthritis, and only two previous reports of hepatotoxicity have been published in the scientific literature. The present report describes three patients who developed acute liver injury following exposure to glucosamine; one patient made a complete recovery on cessation of ingestion, the second developed chronic hepatitis and the third died following progression to fulminant hepatic failure. A diagnosis of glucosamine-induced hepatotoxicity was made based on the temporal relationship between onset of liver injury and glucosamine ingestion, exclusion of all other potential aetiologies and, in the two surviving cases, improvement in condition on withdrawal of the supplement.


Introduction The thiopurine metabolites (TPM), 6-Thioguanine nucleotide (6-TGN) and 6-Methylmercaptopurine nucleotide (6-MMPN), have been shown to be useful in monitoring and managing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients on thiopurines. This study set out to determine the overall cost of setting up a TPM service for all of our IBD patients taking thiopurines, whilst assessing any cost savings from the recommended dose adjustments suggested by the results. Method The gastroenterology department at the Luton and Dunstable University Hospital identified 406 patients with IBD on thiopurine medication. These patients were sent a letter in December 2014 requesting blood tests inclusive of a TPM assessment to be performed before the end of January 2015. The patient's samples were sent to Birmingham City Hospital for measurement at a cost of £32. Based on published data a thiopurine management algorithm was designed to help guide clinicians in their response to the results. If a change in prescription was recommended by the results the annual prescription cost for the CCG was calculated using the following drug tariff costs: Azathioprine 25 mg (28 tablets) £2.96, Azathioprine 50 mg (56 tablets) £3.19 and 6-Mercaptopurine 50 mg (25 tablets) £50.47. Results 200 patients attended before the end of January 2015 for the TPM tests there were 156 patients taking AZA and 44 taking 6-MP. The TPM results determined a change in management for 124 (62%) patients, with 76 patients (38%) having no change to their thiopurine drug dose and therefore annual prescription costs. Dose reduction was recommended in 36%, 14% had their dose increased, 13% had their thiopurine drug therapy stopped, and 1 patient had their AZA changed to 6-MP. The annual prescription cost for AZA and 6-MP for the patients in the study was originally £47,065.98. The use of the TPM results in the thiopurine management algorithm led to a reduction in prescription costs to £39,548.78. The total cost of the TPM tests was £6400.00 and therefore the overall saving for the first year of the service was £1117.20. Conclusion TPM assessment led to a dose adjustment in 62% of the IBD patients on thiopurine therapy. Essentially the costs of introducing this service were covered by the savings in the first year alone, from personalised drug dosage adjustments. In addition to the overall saving of £1117.20 in the first year, there will also be an on-going, year on year, prescription cost saving of £7517.20. These savings could be higher still once the remaining thiopurine patients have completed their TPM review. Future studies will be necessary to assess additional cost savings if the personalised dose adjustments are proven to lead to improved disease control and reduced complication rates. Disclosure of interest None Declared.


Primary objective: To trial the method of email-facilitated qualitative interviewing with people with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Research design: Qualitative semi-structured email-facilitated interviews. Procedures: Nineteen people (17 severe diagnosis) with a TBI participated in email interviews. Main outcomes and results: Findings indicate that this method facilitates the participation of people with TBI in qualitative interviews. Advantages include increased time for reflection, composing answers and greater control of the interview setting. In addition, the data indicates that people with a TBI are capable of greater insight, reflection and humour than indicated by previous research. Conclusion: Findings indicate that new technologies may advance data collection methods for people with cognitive-linguistic impairments who face participation barriers in face-to-face interviews.


The position and significance of sociolinguistics in foreign language education is examined along three dimensions: attitudes towards learning a foreign language, inclusion of culture in foreign language lessons, and the contribution of planning to foreign language education. Planning at the highest level must be based on data derived from research and must be conducted by foreign language educators. Curriculum and instruction can be arranged to promote positive attitudes toward the foreign language to be learned and nationalities associated with the language. Inclusion of cultural elements in the foreign language curriculum helps learners to understand new language concepts and provides a context for their use. The status of English as an international language is examined and Kachru's (1985) three-circle model of English speaking countries is reviewed. In the world today, no country and no culture can claim sole ownership of the English language.


Progress on industrial-scale propagation of conifers by somatic embryogenesis has been hampered by the differences in developmental capabilities between cell lines, which are limiting the capture of genetic gains from breeding programs. In this study, we investigated the metabolic events occurring during somatic embryo development in Norway spruce to establish a better understanding of the fundamental metabolic events required for somatic embryo development. Three embryogenic cell lines of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst) with different developmental capabilities were studied during somatic embryo development from proliferation of proembryogenic masses to mature somatic embryos. The three different cell lines displayed normal, aberrant and blocked somatic embryo development. Metabolite profiles from four development stages in each of the cell lines were obtained using combined gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Multivariate discriminant analyses of the metabolic data revealed significant metabolites (P  ≤  0.05) for each development stage and transition. The results suggest that endogenous auxin and sugar signaling affects initial stages of somatic embryo development. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of a timed stress response and the presence of stimulatory metabolites during late stages of embryo development.


We describe results of a project known as OptIC (Optimisation InterComparison) for comparison of parameter estimation methods in terrestrial biogeochemical models. A highly simplified test model was used to generate pseudo-data to which noise with different characteristics was added. Participants in the OptIC project were asked to estimate the model parameters used to generate this data, and to predict model variables into the future. Ten participants contributed results using one of the following methods: Levenberg-Marquardt, adjoint, Kalman filter, Markov chain Monte Carlo and genetic algorithm. Methods differed in how they locate the minimum (gradient-descent or global search), how observations are processed (all at once sequentially), or the number of iterations used, or assumptions about the statistics (some methods assume Gaussian probability density functions; others do not). We found the different methods equally successful at estimating the parameters in our application. The biggest variation in parameter estimates arose from the choice of cost function, not the choice of optimization method. Relatively poor results were obtained when the model-data mismatch in the cost function included weights that were instantaneously dependent on noisy observations. This was the case even when the magnitude of residuals varied with the magnitude of observations. Missing data caused estimates to be more scattered, and the uncertainty of predictions increased correspondingly. All methods gave biased results when the noise was temporally correlated or non-Gaussian, or when incorrect model forcing was used. Our results highlight the need for care in choosing the error model in any optimization.


In the past years, the aeroacoustic noise emission of a helicopter became one of the most important, but also challenging issues in helicopter development. The blade vortex interaction phenomenon is one of the dominant phenomena characterizing the helicopter's aeroacoustic footprint, which is insufficiently predicted by low fidelity computational methods. For a high fidelity noise prediction of a helicopter configuration, a multidisciplinary CFDCSD-CAA tool chain has been established at the Institute of Aerodynamics and Gas Dynamics of the University of Stuttgart. With higher order CFD computed noise generation at the near field and the noise convection using a Ffowcs-Williams Hawkings based CAA code, very good agreement to measured aeroacoustic noise in wind tunnel as well as free flight experiments of helicopters is achieved. However, the simulations had been limited to the main rotor's geometry up to now, where some residual deviations to the experiment still exist. In this paper, we present a high fidelity aeroacoustic simulation of a complete helicopter configuration and the benefit compared to an isolated rotor simulation in predicting its aeroacoustic noise emission. Shading and reflection effects are clearly resolved, influencing the behaviour of the helicopter's noise radiation. The simulated aeroacoustic noise emission of the helicopter lies within the experimental variation and shows therefore highly promising results for the next generation of aeroacoustic noise prediction.


Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) synthesized by marine phytoplankton is the princi- pal source of dimethylsulfide (DMS), an important climate-affecting gas. Prior research has demon- strated that grazing by invertebrate phytoplanktivores often affects the dynamics of DMS production from algal DMSP, but the effects of grazing by phytoplanktivorous fish have not previously been investigated. We studied the fate of algal DMSP following grazing by juvenile Atlantic menhaden Brevoortia tyrannus (13 cm fork length), which are generally viewed as the most specialized for phy- toplanktivory of all postlarval fish. The menhaden were fed the dinoflagellate Prorocentrum micans, containing 1 to 2 pmol DMSP cell -1 . During the first 24 h following ingestion of algal DMSP, almost none of the DMSP (ca. 1%) appeared as DMS. About 21% of ingested DMSP appeared in the water column as dissolved DMSP, peaking in concentration 9 to 11 h after feeding; in natural settings, this fraction would be poised for microbial metabolism, including potential conversion to DMS in surface waters from which outgassing to the atmosphere could occur. About 10% of ingested DMSP appeared in fecal pellets that tended to sink rapidly toward the bottom of the tanks. About 33% of ingested DMSP was deposited in the tissues of the menhaden, in particular in the red and white swimming muscles, in which we observed concentrations exceeding 0.7 µmol g -1 . This final fraction could ultimately be metabolized to DMS, or it could be passed up food chains and possibly act as a taste factor in commercially important piscivores such as striped bass and bluefish. In total, our research demonstrated that at least two-thirds of the ingested DMSP ends up in tissues or feces or in solution in the ambient water in the first 24 h after feeding, and virtually none is converted to ambient DMS during that time period.


The aim of the present article is to reveal the possibilities of a rhetoric interpretation of stylistic and formal properties of linguistic academic texts based on the example of definitions used in these texts. In this order the author characterises such components of professional scholarly communication as functional style and relevant professional language. Next, basic information concerning the typology of definitions is given and an attempt is made to determine the kinds of definitions used in linguistic academic texts. The author exposes the problem of these texts being persuasive.


The development of a superhydrophobic and superoleophilic steel mesh surface, which is durable and regenerable under aggressive conditions, has raised tremendous interest in oil–water separation applications. In this work, via a facile chemical etching method using a mixture of hydrochloric acid and nitric acid followed by treatment with lauric acid, a superhydrophobic and superoleophilic steel mesh surface was synthesized. The surface morphology analysis shows the presence of rough microstructures on the coated steel mesh surface. The coated mesh exhibited superhydrophobicity, with a water contact angle of 171 ± 4.5° and a sliding angle of 4 ± 0.5°, and superoleophilicity, with an oil static contact angle of about 0°, that caused water to run off the mesh while allowing oil to permeate through it. Petroleum ether–water and benzene–water mixtures were successfully separated via a simple filtering method using the coated mesh with a separation efficiency of more than 99%. Additionally, the coating was found to be mechanically, thermally and chemically stable and regenerable. Furthermore, the water-drop impact dynamics for the coated mesh surface were also studied. The aforementioned properties of the durable coated steel mesh show that it is a good candidate for facile, fast, and repeatable oil–water separation applications.


A new magnetic metal-organic framework material, [Mn(2)(C(8)OH(4)(4))(2)(C(3)H(7)NO)(2)], has been synthesized. The structure consists of chains of carboxylate-bridged Mn atoms interconnected with acid linkers, giving much larger interchain than intrachain Mn...Mn distances. Magnetic susceptibility data fitted to a Curie-Weiss law give Theta = -5.7 K and a total magnetic moment of 5.96 micro(B). The heat capacity provides no evidence of magnetic ordering down to 2 K. The X-ray charge density was determined from multipole modeling of 16 (1) K single-crystal synchrotron-radiation data. The structural surroundings of the two unique Mn centers are different, but orbital population analysis reveals close to single electron occupation in all 3d orbitals of both Mn sites, in agreement with the magnetic susceptibility measurements. Bader topological analysis shows the presence of direct chemical Mn...Mn interactions only in two out of three intrachain contacts, which suggests a 'broken' chain. The topological measures and approximate energy densities at the metal-ligand bond critical points (rho, nabla(2)rho, G, V and H) indicate ionic interactions. Formal electron counting suggests mixed-valence Mn sites, but this hypothesis is not supported by the Bader atomic charges [q(Mn) = +2.035 and +2.031].


Manganese oxides occur in a wide range of environmental settings either as coatings on rocks, sediment, and soil particles, or as discrete grains. Although the production of biologically mediated Mn oxides is well established, relatively little is known about microbial-specific strategies for utilizing Mn in the environment and how these affect the morphology, structure, and chemistry of associated mineralizations. Defining such strategies and characterizing the associated mineral properties would contribute to a better understanding of their impact on the local environment and possibly facilitate evaluation of biogenicity in recent and past Mn accumulations. Here, we supplement field data from a Mn rock wall deposit in the Ytterby mine, Sweden, with data retrieved from culturing Mn oxidizers isolated from this site. Microscopic and spectroscopic techniques are used to characterize field site products and Mn precipitates generated by four isolated bacteria (Hydrogenophaga sp., Pedobacter sp., Rhizobium sp., and Nevskia sp.) and one fungal-bacterial co-culture (Cladosporium sp.—Hydrogenophaga sp. Rhizobium sp.—Nevskia sp.). Two of the isolates (Pedobacter sp. and Nevskia sp.) are previously unknown Mn oxidizers. At the field site, the onset of Mn oxide mineralization typically occurs in areas associated with globular wad-like particles and microbial traces. The particles serve as building blocks in the majority of the microstructures, either forming the base for further growth into laminated dendrites-botryoids or added as components to an existing structure. The most common nanoscale structures are networks of Mn oxide sheets structurally related to birnessite. The sheets are typically constructed of very few layers and elongated along the octahedral chains. In places, the sheets bend and curl under to give a scroll-like appearance. Culturing experiments show that growth conditions (biofilm or planktonic) affect the ability to oxidize Mn and that taxonomic affiliation influences crystallite size, structure, and average oxidation state as well as the onset location of Mn precipitation.


An atom transfer radical polymerization-based sequential "graft-from" approach was developed to synthesize molecular brush-on-brush (MBoB)-based hierarchically branched polymers with readily tunable backbone grafting density, lengths of backbone and primary/secondary side chains, and monomer type. The hierarchically branched structure was visualized, and the stability of the giant MBoB macromolecules was studied by atomic force microscopy. The robust approach enabled the versatile combination of chemical functionality and MBoB structure.


We introduce Rosetta, a probabilistic range filter designed specifically for LSM-tree based key-value stores. The core intuition is that we can sacrifice filter probe time because it is not visible in end-to-end key-value store performance, which in turn allows us to significantly reduce the filter false positive rate for every level of the tree. Rosetta indexes all binary prefixes of a key using a hierarchically arranged set of Bloom filters. It then converts each range query into multiple probes, one for each non-overlapping binary prefix. Rosetta has the ability to track workload patterns and adopt a beneficial tuning for each individual LSM-tree run by adjusting the number of Bloom filters it uses and how memory is spread among them to optimize the FPR/CPU cost balance. We show how to integrate Rosetta in a full system, RocksDB, and we demonstrate that it brings as much as a 40x improvement compared to default RocksDB and 2-5x improvement compared to state-of-the-art range filters in a variety of workloads and across different levels of the memory hierarchy (memory, SSD, hard disk). We also show that, unlike state-of-the-art filters, Rosetta brings a net benefit in RocksDB's overall performance, i.e., it improves range queries without losing any performance for point queries.


BACKGROUND
Many studies have indicated that excess free radical formation may be involved in the pathogenesis of patients with schizophrenia. Some investigators suggested that the use of free radical scavengers might provide improvement in schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness and to evaluate the side effects of extract of Ginkgo biloba (EGb) plus haloperidol in chronic, treatment-resistant inpatients with schizophrenia.

METHOD
One hundred nine patients meeting DSM-III-R criteria for schizophrenia completed a double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group study of EGb plus haloperidol. Fifty-six of the patients were randomly assigned to receive a fixed dose of 360 mg/day of EGb plus a stable dose of haloperidol, 0.25 mg/kg/day, and 53 were assigned to receive placebo plus the same dose of haloperidol for 12 weeks. Patients were assessed using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), and the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) at baseline, week 6, and week 12 and the Treatment Emergent Symptom Scale (TESS) for side effects at week 12.

RESULTS
There was a significant reduction in both groups in BPRS total score after 12 weeks of treatment (p < .05). However, a significant reduction in total SAPS and SANS scores was noted in the EGb group (p < .05), but not in the placebo group. There was a lower SAPS total score in the EGb group than in the placebo group at the end of 12 weeks of treatment (p < .05). Of those treated with EGb plus haloperidol, 57.1% were rated as responders as compared with only 37.7% of those receiving placebo plus haloperidol when assessed by the SAPS (chi2 = 4. 111, p = .043). After 12 weeks of treatment, TESS subscore 1 (behavioral toxicity) and subscore 3 (symptoms of nerve system) were significantly decreased in the EGb group compared with the placebo group (p < .05).

CONCLUSION
EGb treatment may enhance the effectiveness of antipsychotic drugs and reduce their extrapyramidal side effects.


The influences of body posture and tidal volume (VT) on inter- and intraregional ventilation inhomogeneity were assessed by normalized phase III slope (Sn(III)) analysis of multiple-breath washout recordings of SF(6) and He in 11 healthy men. Washouts with target VT of 750, 1,000, and 1,250 ml were performed standing and supine. A linear-fit method was used to establish the contributions of convection-dependent (interregional) (cdi) and diffusion-convection interaction-dependent (intraregional) inhomogeneity (dcdi). Overall inhomogeneity was defined as the sum of cdi and dcdi. The difference in first-breath Sn(III) for SF(6) vs. He, the (SF(6) - He)Sn(III), served as an index of intra-acinar inhomogeneity. Multiple-regression analysis revealed greater cdi supine vs. standing (P < 0.001) but no significant effects of posture on dcdi or overall inhomogeneity. Larger VT were associated with greater cdi (P < 0.001), particularly when supine, but reduced dcdi (P < 0.001), overall inhomogeneity (P < 0.001), and (SF(6) - He)Sn(III) (P = 0.031). In conclusion, during resting breathing overall and intraregional ventilation inhomogeneities remain unchanged when the supine posture is assumed and improve with larger VT, but supine posture and larger breaths result in greater interregional inhomogeneities.


Purpose To evaluate tear neuropeptides (NPs) (vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP), neuropeptide Y (NPY), calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), substance P (SP), nerve growth factor (NGF)) in chronic ocular topical hypotensive therapy with and without benzalkonium chloride (BAK) preservative. Methods A comparative, open label, cross-sectional study of patients using antiglaucoma medications for >6 months with BAK (group I), without BAK (group II) and controls was done. Tear NPs (ELISA), ocular surface evaluation tests (tear breakup time (TBUT), Schirmer's test, corneal and conjunctival staining score) and confocal central corneal subbasal nerve fibre layer (SBNFL) imaging was done. Results Of 153 eyes evaluated, group 1 (82 eyes (41 patients; mean age 48±14.5 years)) and group 2 (71 eyes (36 patients; mean age 43.11±15 years)) were on therapy for a mean duration of 10.05±2.0 and 9.67±2.3 months, respectively. Tear analysis showed elevated SP and NGF (p<0.01); decreased CGRP (p=0.03), VIP and NPY (p<0.01) compared with controls (n=30, mean age 29.33±5.7 years). Tear NP levels (SP (p=0.1), NGF (p=0.33), CGRP (p=1), VIP (p=0.87), NPY (p=0.83)) and SBNFL (p=0.09) were comparable in both groups. There was no correlation seen between tear NP levels and clinical tests and SBNFL. Conclusion Our study analysis points towards altered tear NP levels in eyes on chronic topical hypotensive therapy in comparison with controls with no significant difference in tear NP levels and central corneal SBNFL density between the BAK preservative and BAK-free antiglaucoma therapy.


We propose a framework for out-of-sample predictive ability testing and forecast selection designed for use in the realistic situation in which the forecasting model is possibly misspecified, due to unmodeled dynamics, unmodeled heterogeneity, incorrect functional form, or any combination of these. Relative to the existing literature (Diebold and Mariano (1995) and West (1996)), we introduce two main innovations: (i) We derive our tests in an environment where the finite sample properties of the estimators on which the forecasts may depend are preserved asymptotically. (ii) We accommodate conditional evaluation objectives (can we predict which forecast will be more accurate at a future date?), which nest unconditional objectives (which forecast was more accurate on average?), that have been the sole focus of previous literature. As a result of (i), our tests have several advantages: they capture the effect of estimation uncertainty on relative forecast performance, they can handle forecasts based on both nested and nonnested models, they allow the forecasts to be produced by general estimation methods, and they are easy to compute. Although both unconditional and conditional approaches are informative, conditioning can help fine-tune the forecast selection to current economic conditions. To this end, we propose a two-step decision rule that uses current information to select the best forecast for the future date of interest. We illustrate the usefulness of our approach by comparing forecasts from leading parameter-reduction methods for macroeconomic forecasting using a large number of predictors.


Abstract:  In this single‐institution study, we compared outcomes in diabetic recipients of living donor (LD) kidney transplants that did vs. did not undergo a subsequent pancreas transplant. Of 307 diabetic recipients who underwent LD kidney transplants from January 1, 1995, through December 31, 2003, a total of 175 underwent a subsequent pancreas after kidney (PAK) transplant; 75 were deemed eligible (E) for, but did not receive (for personal or financial reasons), a PAK, and thus had a kidney transplant alone (KTA); and 57 deemed ineligible (I) for a PAK because of comorbidity also had just a KTA. We analyzed the three groups (PAK, KTA‐E, KTA‐I) for differences in patient characteristics, glycemic control, renal function, patient and kidney graft survival rates, and causes of death. Kidney graft survival rates (actuarial) were similar in the PAK vs. KTA‐E groups at one, five, and 10 yr post‐transplant: 98%, 82%, and 67% (PAK) vs. 100%, 84%, and 62% (KTA‐E) (p = 0.9). The long‐term (greater than four yr post‐transplant) estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) was higher in the PAK than in the KTA‐E group: 53 ± 20 mL/min (PAK) vs. 43 ± 16 mL/min (KTA‐E) (p = 0.016). The patient survival rates were also similar for the PAK and KTA‐E groups. We conclude that the subsequent transplant of a pancreas after an LD kidney transplant does not adversely affect patient or kidney graft survival rates; in fact, it is associated with better long‐term kidney graft function.


Chronic alcohol consumption perturbs lipid metabolism as it increases adipose tissue lipolysis and leads to ectopic fat deposition within the liver and the development of alcoholic fatty liver disease. In addition to the recognition of the role of adipose tissue derived fatty acids in liver steatosis, alcohol also impacts other functions of adipose tissue and lipid metabolism. Lipid balance in response to long-term alcohol intake favors adipose tissue loss and fatty acid efflux as lipolysis is upregulated and lipogenesis is either slightly decreased or unchanged. Study of the lipolytic and lipogenic pathways has identified several regulatory proteins modulated by alcohol that contribute to these effects. Glucose tolerance of adipose tissue is also impaired by chronic alcohol due to decreased glucose transporter-4 availability at the membrane. As an endocrine organ, white adipose tissue (WAT) releases several adipokines that are negatively modulated following chronic alcohol consumption including adiponectin, leptin, and resistin. When these effects are combined with the enhanced expression of inflammatory mediators that are induced by chronic alcohol, a pro-inflammatory state develops within WAT, contributing to the observed lipodystrophy. Lastly, while chronic alcohol intake may enhance thermogenesis of brown adipose tissue (BAT), definitive mechanistic evidence is currently lacking. Overall, both WAT and BAT depots are impacted by chronic alcohol intake and the resulting lipodystrophy contributes to fat accumulation in peripheral organs, thereby enhancing the pathological state accompanying chronic alcohol use disorder.


This article brings together notes on several words in the Pahlavi Videvdad ( Vendidad ): abē-gēwag "without shoes," āwām "toil, suffering," āwās- āwād "to dry (out)," grāy "heavier," nisēy "abortion," and the enclitic emphatic particle -ib . New manuscript evidence for the Pahlavi Videvdad is also presented: a copy of the manuscript "IM" (current whereabouts not known), was written interlineally in the ms. Tehran University Library no. 11236, which is now accessible at the Avestan Digital Archive. Examples are given to show how this text complements and provides an important control for readings in the oldest manuscripts of the Pahlavi Videvdad : K1 and L4.


The recent emergence and adoption of Machine Learning technology, and specifically of Large Language Models, has drawn attention to the need for systematic and transparent management of language data. This work proposes an approach to global language data governance that attempts to organize data management amongst stakeholders, values, and rights. Our proposal is informed by prior work on distributed governance that accounts for human values and grounded by an international research collaboration that brings together researchers and practitioners from 60 countries. The framework we present is a multi-party international governance structure focused on language data, and incorporating technical and organizational tools needed to support its work.


One of the many forms of government which can be used to run a country is Democracy. This type of governing has many forms and common attributes, but four main qualities seem to be the most common. Democracy is the ability for a country to have free, fair, and regular elections, freedoms and liberties, a strong civil society, and a stable rule of law. With defining democracy, you can look at specific countries and see if that country is a democracy or not. For example, Mexico, on paper, is a democracy, but when looking deeper, the country fails to meet the definition. Although it is not a democracy by definition, it has several democratic qualities; one of them being regular elections. Mexico holds elections for their president, the Chambers of Representatives, Senate, and many local and state officials. The president is elected by first-past-the-post (FPTP), meaning the candidate that receives the most votes wins. This electoral system is fairly simple, and it is easy to count the winner. In contrast, Mexico uses a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system to vote for its legislative branch (Chambers of Representatives and Senators). Corrupt elections, the murdering of journalists for reporting controversial news, and cutting funding from civil society organizations are just some of the reasons why Mexico does not fit the definition of democracy. Mexico has the ability to be a strong democracy, but they need to make strives to improve its democratic endeavors to get it there. If Mexico is willing to make these changes it becomes a strong democracy and starts helping the countries around them. 1 Holtman: Democracy in Mexico Published by Carroll Collected, 2020


While existing literature assumes that organizational members can be corporate entrepreneurs and champion entrepreneurship initiatives, little is known of how they become corporate entrepreneurs and how entrepreneurial behavior practices develop within an organization. The paper draws from the identity work practices literature to argue for the mediating role the construction of an entrepreneurial identity by organizational members has in the development of entrepreneurial practices within an organization, in the absence of prior entrepreneurial experience by the organization. Two instrumental cases, exploring the identity work practices the champions of two corporate venturing programs employed to reconstruct their identity and to project elements of entrepreneurial behavior, are presented. We aim to illustrate how these identity work practices resulted in the creation of a new community of practice within the parent corporation, which other organizational members recognized as entrepreneurial.


It has become more and more common among Swedish municipalities to implement traffic calming measures, with the aim to improve safety and functioning of the local transport system. A plethora of different measures and designs of physical constructions capable of controlling the speed of motorized vehicles can be found when consulting modern planning guidelines and new handbooks in traffic planning. This report compiles and discusses the literature in the fields of research that can be labelled as critical in the sense that increased knowledge is a necessary prerequisite if traffic calming and speed control constructions shall be used as important measures in integrated transport planning strategies. The areas of investigation that are discussed in the report are the following: - Design and content of transport strategies as a component in local planning - Acceptance and demand among individuals for different designs of the traffic system with focus on traffic calming - Traffic calming and consequences for retailing and other commercial activities in inner cities, together with inner city attractiveness and livability in general - The adaptation of traffic calming techniques to public transport and emergency services, and the opportunities to use traffic calming to enhance the competitiveness of public transport - Environmental impact with emphasis on exhaust and noise emissions. The report is concluded with a discussion of the need for further research. It is necessary to find methods and procedures capable of sorting and ranking all the different approaches that are used when analyzing traffic calming and environmental consequences. The state-of-the-art in this field of research is unfortunately very difficult to describe. It is plausible to assume that the reason for this confusion is a large variation between different studies concerning measurement methods, and scope and limitations. But the main part of the discussion of further research is devoted to research that can support the achievement of a more integrated local planning directly. The areas of investigation that are put forward are the creation of general evaluation models designed to evaluate the entire spectrum of relevant measures in transport strategies and not exclusively dealing with special issues, systematic compilations and treatments of knowledge and experience in chosen countries and cities, increasing knowledge about local planning processes in Sweden, and analyzing the demand for different designs of urban transport systems. It is of course necessary both from a democratic and an economical point of view, that the design and performance of transport systems in towns and cities are supported by a majority of the inhabitants. (A) This report is also available electronically via Internet at http://www.vti.se/PDF/reports/M946.pdf.


We investigate the influence of topography on Venus' atmospheric general circulation. Based on comparative simulations with and without the Venusian topography, we elucidate the role of the topography in the fully developed superrotation. Orographically forced stationary waves are predominant over Mt. Maxwell: slightly weakening the superrotation near the cloud top. Differently from previous GCM results, the orographically forced waves do not produce significant asymmetry between the northern and southern hemispheric superrotations in the present model. Weak surface flows from mountains to lowlands are caused by the pressure dependence of the Newtonian cooling. The pattern and magnitude of the near-surface flow are largely different from those simulated in the Herrnstein and Dowling (2007) model. This implies that the parameterizations of physical processes (such as Newtonian cooling, turbulence, diffusion, and surface drag) and the model resolution could significantly influence the pattern and magnitude of the near-surface flow and the orographical forcing of planetary-scale stationary waves.


The analytical applications of terahertz (THz) spectroscopy for the characterization of molecular solids have been limited by the lack of information concerning the assignment of observed spectral features to specific internal (intramolecular) and external (intermolecular) atomic motions. Computational methodologies addressing the assignment of spectral data are the enabling technology for moving THz spectroscopy to the forefront of available detection methods for both imaging and spectroscopic applications. Solid-state density functional theory (DFT) studies have been performed on the high explosives cyclotetramethylenetetranitramine (HMX) and pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) in order to address the dependencies of the predictions of solid-state vibrations in the terahertz (3 to 120 cm−1) region on the choice of basis set and integration grid size, building on previous work that examined this dependency on the choice of density functional. DFT THz simulations reveal that both the choice of basis set and grid size have important influences on the reproduction of spectral features. The sensitivity to basis set choice is most pronounced in the calculation of vibrational intensities, where it is found that THz absorption intensities are most accurately reproduced when derived from basis set-sensitive Mulliken atomic charges as opposed to basis set-insensitive atomic charges generated by the Hirshfeld partitioning method.


In this article we wish to present and encourage the other to use bootstrap methods in statistical analysis. We show how to bootstrap Kaplan-Meier estimator and pay attention to its advantage opposite to classical analysis. Then we present simulation study and survival time of second remission of patients suf fer ing for acute leukaemia.


Holography has the potential to become the ultimate 3D experience. Nevertheless, in order to achieve practical working systems, major scientific and technological challenges have to be tackled. In particular, as digital holographic data represents a huge amount of information, the development of efficient compression techniques is a key component. This problem has gained significant attention by the research community during the last 10 years. Given that holograms have very different signal properties when compared to natural images and video sequences, existing compression techniques (e.g. JPEG or MPEG) remain suboptimal, calling for innovative compression solutions. In this paper, we will review and analyze past and on-going work for the compression of digital holographic data.


The concept of Rice's sum of sinusoids is often applied to the design of deterministic simulation models for Rice fading channels. This paper investigates in detail the level-crossing rate (LCR), average duration of fades (ADF), and cumulative distribution function (CDF) of such classes of simulation models. Exact and simple approximative formulas are deduced for these statistical quantities. Several numerical results for the derived expressions are presented by using different procedures for the design of the parameters of the deterministic simulation model. Moreover, comparisons with the corresponding simulation results-obtained by evaluating the deterministic simulation models output data-are also given.


Our Bayesian dynamic programming model builds on existing models to account for inspection delay, choice of keeping production going during inspection and/or restoration, and lot sizing. We focus on describing how dynamic statistical process control DSPC rules can improve on traditional, static ones. We explore numerical examples and identify nine opportunities for improvement. Some of these ideas are well known and strongly supported in the literature. Other ideas may be less well understood. Our list includes the following: Cancel some of the inspections called for by an economically optimal static rule when starting in control such as at the beginning of a production run and following a restoration. Inspect more frequently than called for by an optimal static rule once inspections begin, and inspect even more frequently than that when negative evidence is accumulated. Utilize evidence from previous inspections to justify either restoration or another inspection. Cancel inspections and hesitate to restore the process at the end of a production run. Consider using scheduled restoration, in which restoration is carried out regardless of the results of any inspections. Implementation, limitations, and extensions are addressed.


New to PA College of Health Sciences or college research? Want to know what the library offers and how to use it? Check out this guide


This volume of "Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology" offers a unique insight into early American economic theory. The notes reproduced in this volume were taken by a student, Maurice Beck Hexter, in 'Economics 11-12', 'Economic Theory', given by Frank William Taussig at Harvard during the academic year 1921-1922. Taken together they represent the height of economic theory being taught in graduate programs in the United States during this period. Accompanying the notes are additional essays on how these notes relate to broader economic thinking of this period, providing a comparison between the Harvard viewpoint and that of previously published presentations of economic theory at the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin.


A critical problem in the clinical management of prostate cancer is that it shows high
intra- and inter-tumoural heterogeneity. As a result, accurate prediction of individual
cancer behaviour is not achievable at the time of diagnosis, leading to substantial
overtreatment. It remains an enigma that, in contrast to other cancers, no molecular
biomarkers which define robust subtypes of prostate cancer with distinct clinical
outcomes have been discovered.
In the first part of this study, using data from exon microarrays, we developed a novel
method that can identify transcriptional alterations within genes. The alterations might
be the result of chromosomal rearrangements, such as translocations, and deletions, or
of other abnormalities, such as read-through transcription and alternative transcriptional
initiation sites. Using data from two independent datasets we identify several candidate
alterations that are constantly correlated with the biochemical failure or that are linked
to the development of metastasis.
In the second part of the study we illustrate the application of an unsupervised
Bayesian procedure, which identifies a subtype of the disease in five prostate cancer
transcriptome datasets. Cancers assigned to this subtype (designated DESNT cancers)
are characterized by low expression of a core set of 45 genes. For the four datasets
with linked PSA failure data following prostatectomy, patients with DESNT cancer
exhibited poor outcome relative to other patients (p = 2.65 ・ 10−5, p = 4.28 ・ 10−5, p =
2.98 ・ 10−8 and p = 1.22 ・ 10−3). The DESNT cancers are not linked with the presence
of any particular class of genetic mutation, including ETS gene status. However, the
methylation analysis reveals a possible role of epigenetic changes in the generation of
the DESNT subtype. Our results demonstrate the existence of a novel poor prognosis
category of human prostate cancer and will assist in the targeting of therapy, helping
avoid treatment-associated morbidity in men with indolent disease.


Within the CLARITY Centre for Sensor Web Technologies, we have developed applications using off-the-shelf and novel sensing technologies. Our group has developed new realtime sensors for phenomena as diverse as the composition of (human) perspiration to respiration rate (breadths per second and intake volume) to the phosphate content in river water. We have also developed applications as wide-ranging as real time full body motion construction from accelerometers for use in sports, to visual lifelogging with applications in memory recall, to real time microcasting (a form of automatic broadcasting) in field sports. In almost all of our work we have discovered unexpected applications of our sensor technology. One of these is the ability to characterise lifestyles using a single energy sensor in a domestic environment. We use energy monitoring to inform users about their energy consumption and we have developed and trialled several interventions and gauged their impact on energy awareness in the homes. Unexpectedly, we have also been able to gauge lifestyle trends in the homes and this has attracted the interest of ethnographers and those who work with the elderly as a form of latent lifestyle analysis. When an energy monitor is combined with a second sensor, such as a wearable accelerometer or wearable camera, then this yields a multiplicative effect whereby two complimentary sensor modalities can mutually inform about the underlying physical activities. In terms of the Internet of Things, our work shows how combining readings from diverse sensors can result in unpredicted applications, suggesting that diversity rather than homogeneity adds greater value to choosing sensors.


We present a method for designing a robust control policy for an uncertain system subject to temporal logic specifications. The system is modeled as a finite Markov Decision Process (MDP) whose transition probabilities are not exactly known but are known to belong to a given uncertainty set. A robust control policy is generated for the MDP that maximizes the worst-case probability of satisfying the specification over all transition probabilities in this uncertainty set. To this end, we use a procedure from probabilistic model checking to combine the system model with an automaton representing the specification. This new MDP is then transformed into an equivalent form that satisfies assumptions for stochastic shortest path dynamic programming. A robust version of dynamic programming solves for a ε-suboptimal robust control policy with time complexity O(log1/ε) times that for the non-robust case.


A clinico-x-ray study of the cranio-vertebral area permitted to define the most frequently encounted forms of degenerative-dystrophic processes in this region. Some in an increased load. Others (depending upon the localization and expressiveness of the process) create conditions for development of neurological disturbances accompained not only by a temporary loss of working capacity, but by long-term incapacity, even invalidity, the severity of which depends upon the expressiveness of neurological disorders.