The treatment of international parallel proceedings remains one of the most unsettled areas of the law of federal jurisdiction in the United States. There is no consensus in the U.S. federal courts as to the appropriate legal framework for addressing cases involving truly parallel, concurrent proceedings in the courts of a foreign country. This is true whether the U.S. court is asked to issue an anti-suit injunction or asked to stay or dismiss its own proceedings in deference to the pending foreign action. Given that the Supreme Court has never spoken to the appropriate framework to be employed in parallel proceedings cases involving the courts of foreign countries, it may be unsurprising that the federal courts are divided in their approaches. What is surprising, however, is that while the academic literature has paid considerable attention to the problem of anti-suit injunctions in international cases (i.e., cases in which a party asks a foreign court to enjoin a parallel proceeding in a U.S. court), scant attention as been paid to the alternative course available to a domestic court: the stay or dismissal of its own proceedings. Instead, the majority of the articles that have been written on the topic have merely chronicled the divergent approaches taken by federal courts in the stay/dismissal context; there has been almost no effort in these articles to propose a constitutional framework to allow the federal courts to deal with these cases. This article seeks to begin a debate on the appropriate constitutional framework for U.S. courts faced with the question of whether to decline the exercise of their jurisdiction in international, parallel proceedings cases. Specifically, this article proposes a judicial approach rooted in and based on historic common law principles of adjudicatory comity. Principles of comity empower the federal courts, as a matter inherent to their judicial function, to exercise discretion with respect to their jurisdiction in cases of international parallel proceedings. Moreover, in exercising this comity-based discretion, the courts are not bound by the Supreme Court's domestic abstention jurisprudence and its attendant federalism concerns, but instead are empowered to craft rules based upon the fundamental concerns both addressed by principles of comity and raised in international cases. And, as this article demonstrates, historically the courts have been able to craft sensible and workable rules for translating the theoretical concept of comity into practice in the context of federal jurisdiction.


Nowadays, due to the rapid development of technology, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has become very popular and has been rapidly adopted by consumers, enterprises, governments and militaries. The main advantages of this technology are more features, higher flexibility and lower costs than traditional telephony infrastructure. However, VoIP systems are very complex in terms of protocols, architecture and implementation and very often this leads to misuse. In this context, we present in this paper a new eLearning tool, called eVoIPeazy, for students, teachers, developers and other users that are interested in understanding advanced VoIP concepts. Our instrument provides detailed information about VoIP elements such as analog and digital interfaces, numbering, gateways and protocols. Moreover, because requirements such as Quality of Service and security are very important taking into consideration the usage of VoIP in home and business environments, our tool describes the quality and security issues and offers several solutions for addressing these requirements. Further on, we provide a comparison between some of the most used applications that are based on VoIP. Also, the framework provides a separate module that includes details for the user about the possibility to implement their own VoIP applications. In this context, users can learn from the beginning all necessary notions regarding VoIP and its usage and can analyze the advantages and disadvantages of already existing solutions (use some of them in their own projects). eVoIPeazy is an easy-to-use tool, which offers the possibility to learn and fully understand the fundamentals of VoIP and how to easily deploy it in real-life applications.


Three new pieces of evidence concerning James Croll, the nineteenth century Scottish autodidact and climate change pioneer are revealed. These untold facets became apparent as a result of pursuing evidence further than might have seemed warranted, and comprise: (1) Croll's short-lived attempt to become a publisher; (2) appointment to a janitorial position at Anderson's University and Museum in Glasgow a year later than claimed by himself and repeated by subsequent commentators; (3) the enigma of why letters from Joseph Dalton Hooker to Croll were copied onto notepaper headed Montreal Cottage in Perth, Scotland (the town in which Croll lived), and the identification of John Bower, a retired fleet-surgeon and friend of Croll, as the copyist. It is argued that the findings were hidden in plain sight, are not trivial, and shed light on the biography of a relatively neglected individual.


Plant-parasitic nematodes are economically important pests of banana ( Musa spp.) and compromise its productivity. Controlling nematode populations and good agronomic practices are pre-requisites for a good yield. A survey of farmers in the Rusitu Valley, Zimbabwe, was conducted to assess their current banana production practices and knowledge of plant-parasitic nematodes associated with banana. Respondents were selected using systematic sampling from three wards. Most farmers (61.9%) grew bananas as a monoculture, and 38.1% intercrop banana with other crops. All the farmers neither rotated banana with other crops nor practiced pest and disease control measures, and only 11.4% apply a fertiliser to their banana crops. Most (82.9%) farmers in Rusitu Valley had little or no knowledge of plant-parasitic nematodes that damage bananas. Sound extension programme in Rusitu Valley should educate farmers on the importance of managing plant-parasitic nematodes and using better banana crop production practices.


BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to compare the learning of family practice residents after lectures of differing lengths (either 20 or 50 minutes' duration). Immediate and delayed recall were measured by written quizzes administered at the conclusion of each lecture and 2 weeks later. METHODS: A total of 390 quizzes, 220 immediate and 170 delayed, were completed by residents from all three year groups attending didactic lectures as part of the regular training program curriculum at Naval Hospital Jacksonville. The completed quizzes were divided almost equally between 20- and 50-minute lectures. RESULTS: No significant difference was found when the Student's t test was used to compare the quiz scores following the contrasting lecture lengths at either the immediate post-lecture period (P = .294) or 2 weeks later (P = .5443). CONCLUSION: This study shows that a 20-minute lecture was equal to the classic 50-minute lecture in terms of information retained by residents. If future studies confirm this study's findings, medical educators will need to reevaluate the length of lectures to improve efficiency of teaching.


This paper promotes the use of supervised machine learning in laboratory settings where chemists have a large number of samples to test for some property, and are interested in identifying as many positive instances for the least laboratory testing effort. Rather than traditional supervised learning where the chemists would first develop a large training set and then train a classifier, the paper promotes incrementally re-training from each lab test as it completes and then predicting the next best sample to test, as in the field of reinforcement learning. The method outperformed the 2001 KDD Cup thrombin competition winner, partly due to its reduced risk to concept drift from training set to test set.


This paper presents the optimization and implementation of a relaxed dynamic programming (RDP) algorithm to generate a daily control scheduling for optimal or near-optimal air conditioner loads (ACLs). The conventional control mode for ACL includes demand control, cycling control, and timer control, to assist customers for saving electricity costs. The proposed load control scheduler (LCS) scheme supports any combination of these three control types to save costs optimally during the dispatch period. Microprocessor hardware techniques were applied to carry out the proposed strategy for realistic application. The Visual C++ language was adopted as the developing tool to carry out the proposed work. Field tests of controlling air conditioners located in the campus of National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, were tested on-site to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed load control strategy. The results show that interruptible load scheduling can reduce the system load effectively, and the load capacity reduced by the proposed load control strategy follows closely the trajectory of the peak load.


An experimental program was conducted in order to establish the dominant factors that affect the interpretation of the small strain shear modulus of soils when using bender elements. Both Ticino sand and resedimented Boston blue clay (RBBC) were used to develop the characteristics of the bender element behavior and to isolate the parameters that most closely need to be monitored during the experimental procedure. After the experimental program was completed, a comparison with published results was performed as a secondary measure of reliability of the measurements. The conclusion of this investigation showed that the signals produced by the bender elements can be substantially improved if the wavelength ratio and aspect ratio are maintained in an acceptable range of greater than two and less than one, respectively. Furthermore, after conducting an extensive series of ray path analyses and varying the confining material of the specimen, it was clear that the geometry of the bender element was the cause of major discrepancies between velocity results, which was caused by the creation of not only side traveling P-waves in addition to the orthogonally propagating S-wave, but also directly traveling P-waves.


In recent years, the idea of a robust negative association between changes in the cross-currency basis and the dollar has become a well-known theme in the finance literature. In this article, the authors revisit this topic from a purely empirical, data-driven perspective, taking a deeper look at rolling, rather than static, correlations at different windows and using the dollar bases of G10 and 10 emerging market (EM) currencies. Overall, results obtained do not support a persistent negative relationship between changes in the basis and the dollar, especially using short rolling windows. At the same time, as evidenced by the negative correlations in some historical episodes, a negative comovement between changes in the basis and the dollar cannot be ruled out, particularly at longer rolling windows. Hence the nature of the relationship appears to be dynamic, varying from negative to positive and vice-versa. As such, the evidence that the basis–dollar relationship is robustly negative appears to be window-dependent and may not always be tenable. As with nearly everything else in the financial markets, the relationship between changes in the basis and the dollar is anything but static. This result has implications for trade positioning in the cross-currency basis swap markets. TOPICS: Currency, emerging market, interest-rate and currency swaps Key Findings • Using dynamic correlations, we document no support for a consistently negative dynamic relation between changes in the cross-currency basis swap spreads and the dollar, even in the post-crisis era, especially at short rolling windows. • Instead, the dynamic relation seems to vary in direction, from negative to positive or vice-versa. Thus, like nearly everything else in the financial markets, the direction of comovement between changes in the basis and the dollar is not static. • This result has broader implications for optimal and profitable positioning in the cross-currency basis swap markets in the current world of low rates, narrower FX trading range on the back of depressed vol, and persistent covered interest parity deviations.


Future projections of the impact of international climate change (and other) policies are usually presented against a "business as usual" baseline or a reference scenario. But a wide range of possible factors can affect the economic growth projections. It is therefore useful to depict a picture of possible developments. This paper presents a set of global representative scenarios that may provide alternative perspectives on future socio-economic developments and compare these scenarios in terms of their respective economic and environmental consequences. The scenarios are based on the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) storylines developed by the Integrated Assessment Modelling Consortium (O'Neill et al., 2012). The different scenarios (i.e. SSP representations) are then framed in terms of how they affect different elements that influence growth, such as demographics, education and technology convergence. Given the long-term nature of some of the major environmental challenges, including climate change, the time horizon is 2100.
This paper typically assumes a convergence process, though placing special emphasis on the drivers of GDP growth over the projection period rather than projecting convergence only on income levels. Based on this, long-term projections are made for key drivers of per capita economic growth (e.g. total factor productivity and human capital). Together with population growth, these drivers are then used to project future paths for GDP of more than 175 countries, representing 98.5% of global GDP in 2010.


The authors present a planning model to allocate equipment capacity between production that generates immediate revenue and engineering process improvement activity that results in increased future output. The benefit of engineering activity is modeled as a concave function of the total number of engineering lots processed to date, while the production facility is represented by a nonlinear clearing function capturing the nonlinear relationship between resource utilization and cycle time. We analyze the model to develop structural results and illustrate its behavior with numerical examples.


Emergency preparedness and responding to major adverse events are expected to be well co-ordinated between the emergency services, with communication within and between teams highlighted as essential elements (Knight, 2013; Cabinet Office 2012). Communication constitutes one of a number of essential 'non-technical skills' that are shown to improve teamwork (Anderson et al, 2010) and patient safety (Gordon, Darbyshire and Baker, 2012). To engage these issues, a full-scale, ' in situ' simulation of complex, multiple-casualty trauma scenarios requiring both paramedic and fire and rescue interventions – which examine technical and non-technical skills - is hosted for final year paramedic students from Brighton and St George's Universities at the East Sussex Fire and Rescue Services training facilities. Systematic reviews have highlighted the implementation of interprofessional learning (IPL) foci to simulation within undergraduate curricula (Gough et al, 2012,); participants rating full-scale simulation of emergency events highest in terms of satisfaction and self-confidence compared to low-fidelity or computer-based approaches (Arnold et al, 2011). Nonetheless, scrutiny of simulation-based IPL literature has divulged that best practices are yet to be formalised for these areas (Rosen et al, 2012) and, further, that there is a need for methodological rigour in studies using validated, psychometrically robust evaluation strategies (Zhang, Thompson and Miller, 2011). This presentation describes the development of an inquiry into students' learning experiences and needs within high-fidelity IPL simulation scenarios. A psychometrically robust questionnaire-based approach is being developed, specifically for the IPL environment. The questionnaire is undergoing a reiteration process to determine face and content validity with the finalised tool's reliability being assessed using Cronbach's alpha to measure both the internal consistency and the intra-class correlations to gauge 'inter-rater reliability'. The potential improvement afforded here is a methodologically robust, transferable tool that could enhance the planning of and the learning within the emerging IPL simulation arena. References Anderson PO, et al. Resuscitation 2010;81(6):703–711 Arnold JJ, et al. Clinical Simulation in Nursing 2011;9(4):e1–e9 Cabinet Office (2012) Civil Contingencies Act Enhancement Programme. Gordon MD. Darbyshire and P Baker Medical Education 2012;46:1042–1054 Gough S, et al. Collegian 2012;19(3):153–70 Knight, K (2013) Facing the Future Department for Communities and Local Government Rosen MA, et al. Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions 2013;32(4):243–254 Zhang C, Thompson S, Miller C. Clinical Simulation in Nursing 2011;7(4):e117–e126


Abstract : Stochastic particle methods (SPMs) for the Boltzmann equation, such as the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) technique, have gained popularity for the prediction of flows in which the assumptions behind the continuum equations of fluid mechanics break down; however, there are still a number of issues that make SPMs computationally challenging for practical use. In traditional SPMs, simulated particles may possess only a single velocity vector, even though they may represent an extremely large collection of actual particles. This limits the method to converge only in law to the Boltzmann solution. This document details the development of new SPMs that allow the velocity of each simulated particle to be distributed. This approach has been termed Distributional Monte Carlo (DMC).


The ethnographic observation of differential forms of politicization during an electoral campaign in a changing authoritarian context is an ideal means of analyzing a number of processes. Empirically, it enables us to observe the actors' diverse ways of appropriating the electoral moment, a Moroccan leftist party's attempts to adjust to the loss of its electoral base and the transformations of the electoral market. It also enables us to observe a one-time reversal of the symbolic voting restrictions, in correlation with the desertion of the polls by the those best equipped to participate, both culturally and materially, and with the transformation of the urban popular vote. In theoretical terms, examination of such ongoing processes – before their stabilization – allows us to follow the interplay between the work on political clientelism and on politicization, at the intersection of sociohistorical and political sociological approaches, in authoritarian and democratic contexts. It demonstrates the value of moving beyond the opposition between restrictive and extensive conceptions of politicization, to grasp the process in situ of differential forms of the politicization of actors, registers and practices.


The researchers and media have drawn attention to the gender inequality in digital divide, education and employment opportunity which pervades the various physical, social and cognitive contexts. For the time past we have witnessed an endless discrimination against and widened socio-economic inequalities in the country with disastrous effect. In developing countries like Nigeria women often end up in poorly paid jobs without social protection. In the ICT and public sector, they fill the lower rung of job hierarchy. There is need for employment conditions and job quality to improve so that women can maximize their productivity. These circumstances confronting women have led the researchers to study the Nigerian population of women and men. In the documentary study of the population of 171million the researchers applied exploratory survey of records provided by authoritative national and international organizations. Statistical tables were drawn and studied using simple percentages. Comparative studies were undertaken in the areas of school enrollment and drop out syndrome, male/female number of successful candidates in NECO and WAEC examinations in various years, public appointments on gender basis. Other parameters used to highlight gender disparity include: admission into Nigerian Universalities by sex, gender and education statistics, gender and economic statistics and admission statistics into Nigerian Universities by sex. Analysis were comparatively done using the tables containing the raw data. The results were found to be in line with the 2012 Gender in Nigeria Report which indicated gender imbalance in different areas of social and economic endeavours, having worse life opportunities, mean chances for employment, rising income differentials and general inequality. It was also identified that inequality is solely founded upon institution of patriarchy. Consequent upon the circumstances women are highly under represented in job positions and girls often face school drop out syndrome. Inequality persisted in the face of numerous programmes designed to minimize the gender disparity. The resultant effects as identified are now exclusion of women in decision making position, limitation of women's choices and options, lack of economic empowerment and lack of access to good employment opportunities. Based on the findings and the resultant effects the following recommendations are hereby made: That policy makers in education, ICT industry and employment agencies promote equality in their organisations, inform people about the need for gender equality, care for girl dropout victims, and provide access to free functional education, minimize biases against women in employment and activate constitutional provisions against gender inequality; inclusion of study of ICT skills in tertiary institutions as well as installation of ICT facilities in various parts of Nigeria .


In this paper, invariance under rotation for the first-order and second-order spatial dispersion properties of the elastic constants was researched based on group theory. Softwares for calculating and judging invariance under arbitrary rotation of various order spatial dispersion tensors of the elastic constants were programmed by means of Mat lab. With the help of the softwares which we programmed, the general forms of the first-order and second-order spatial dispersion tensors of the elastic constants which belong to the group SO (2) were got, and it is judged that the above tensors of crystals or quasicrystals which have some degree axis of rotation had invariance under arbitrary rotation about the corresponding axes of rotation. The results were of importance to theoretical and experimental research for higher order spatial dispersion effects of the elastic constants.


One issue that has occupied the attention of humanity is the production of food and view it from several perspectives: the quality of the seed, the production process, diseases that affect productivity, the effect of climate and location, in example. As a contribution to the above situation, this paper presents the application of one discipline of artificial intelligence, known as machine learning, which involves the study of computer algorithms that improve automatically through experience. This type of learning has been used in applications ranging from data mining to discover rules in large datasets, to information filtering systems that automatically learn user interests. As a particular case, the Corporacion Bananera Nacional of Costa Rica (Corbana) has stations measuring meteorological variables. These variables measured are temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind speed, among others. Corbana is interested in relating this information with the spread of a disease that affects production; this disease is the sigatoka. In addition, this organization recorded weekly in several of his research areas the following variables related to that disease: state of evolution, severity leaf 2, severity leaf 3, among others. With this data and using machine learning algorithms; they want to make predictions. This work presents the results of applying various machine learning algorithms to available data, in example, artificial neural network, support vector machines regression. These first conclusions will be tuned in the future.


Space vector modulation (SVM) has advantages such as wide linear range of operation, better DC link utilization, 15% more output voltage than Sine PWM and Less harmonics content. For High Voltage application switching frequency is limited by stresses on switches. Multilevel inverter provide solution for the increase operating voltage for converter above the limits of semiconductor devices along with reduced dV/dt stress. However implementation of Three-level Space Vector Modulation involves significant increase in complexity. In this paper in effort to simplify SVM for Three-level Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) ,the Three-level VSI is synthesized using a dual Two-level inverter for open-end winding induction motor drive and is simulated in PSIM. The proposed method results in reduction in the amount of switching commutations in the dual-inverter by half. The implementation of the suggested Three-level SVM scheme neither needs any look-up tables nor sector identification for the under modulation region.


We investigated the association between occupational factors and risk of bone sarcoma, a rare tumor with a largely unknown aetiology. A multicentric case‐control study was conducted in 7 European countries in 1995–97. Ninety‐six cases aged 35–69 years with a centrally reviewed diagnosis of bone sarcoma (68 chondrosarcomas and 28 osteosarcomas) were compared to 2,632 population (68%) or colon cancer (32%) controls. Subjects were interviewed to obtain information on occupational, medical and reproductive history, smoking and alcohol consumption and selected exposures including use of pesticides. Response proportions were 90% among cases and 66% among controls. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated for selected categories of job titles and branches of industry and for use of pesticides. We found an increased OR for bone sarcoma among blacksmiths, toolmakers, machine‐tool operators (OR = 2.14, 95% CI 1.08–4.26), woodworkers (OR = 2.68, 95% CI 1.36–5.29) and construction workers (OR = 1.62, 95% CI 0.92–2.87). Ever users of pesticide had an OR of 2.33 (95% CI 1.31–4.13), with similar risks for exposure to insecticides and exposure to herbicides. Neither duration of employment in any of the analyzed occupational categories nor duration of use of pesticides showed an increasing trend in the risk of bone sarcoma. ORs of bone sarcoma were 1.03 (95% CI 0.23–4.57), 3.13 (95% CI 1.26–7.76) and 1.44 (95% CI 0.43–4.85) for the first, second and third tertile of days of use of pesticides. Our study suggests that novel and previously reported (woodworking) occupational factors play a role in the aetiology of bone sarcomas. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


This paper discusses two novels The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and The Scarlet Letter written by James Hogg and Nathaniel Hawthorn from the perspective of Jacques Lacan theories: the mirror stage, the-name-of-the-father and desire. The mirror stage refers to historical value and an essential libidinal relationship with the body-image. The-name-of-the-father is defined as the prohibitive role of the father as the one who lays down the incest taboo in the Oedipus complex. Meanwhile, desire is neither the appetite for satisfaction, nor the demand for love, but the difference that results from the subtraction of the first from the second. Keywords: Lacanian Reading; The Mirror Stage; The-Name-Of-The-Father And Desire


Is school a "white" thing? If not, then why do African-American students from comfortable middle-class backgrounds perform so badly in the classroom? What is it that prevents so many black college students in the humanities and social sciences from studying anything other than black subjects? Why do young black people, born decades after the heyday of the Civil Rights movement, see victimhood as the defining element of their existence? In this explosive book, Berkeley linguistics professor John McWhorter reports from the trenches of today's college classroom to offer a daring assessment of what's plaguing the children of yesterday's affirmative-action babies. The Civil Rights revolution was the pinnacle of American history, freeing African Americans from centuries of disenfranchisement. Yet, as McWhorter shows, it has had a tragic side effect. As racism recedes as a serious obstacle to black advancement, most black American leaders and thinkers have been misled into a self-destructive ideological detour. Victimhood is exaggerated and enshrined more than constructively addressed. Following from this, young black people are shepherded into a separatist conception of "blackness" defined largely as that which is not "white." This in turn conditions a sense, embedded in black American culture as a whole, that academic achievement is a "white" realm that the "authentic" black person dwells in only for financial gain or to chronicle black victimhood and victories. McWhorter addresses these problems head-on, drawing on history, statistics, and his own life experiences. He shows that affirmative action in university admissions, indispensable 30 years ago, is today an obsolete policythat encourages the counterproductive ideologies of what he calls Separatism, Victimology, and Anti-intellectualism. Most perniciously, it prevents black students from demonstrating the abilities our Civil Rights leaders gave them the opportunity to nurture, and it deprives them of the incentive to strive for the very top. Racism is not dead -- but as McWhorter so persuasively argues, dealing it a death blow will require a reinvestment in the strength that allowed black Americans to triumph and survive this far. His pathbreaking book is certain to shock, inspire, and ignite debate among all those who care about race and education today.


Alterations in dietary intake, especially of protein, may produce changes in the hepatic levels of the branched-chain alpha-keto acid dehydrogenase (BCKAD) complex. The possible role of insulin in the regulation of these observed changes in hepatic capacity for BCKAD expression was therefore examined. Steady-state RNA levels encoding three of the subunits, E1 alpha, E1 beta and E2, increased by 2-4-fold in the livers of mice starved for 3 days, a known hypoinsulinaemic state. In contrast, the levels of E1 beta and E2, but not E1 alpha, RNA were decreased when mice were fed 0% protein diets compared with the levels observed in mice fed standard (23%) or higher protein isocaloric diets. BCKAD subunit protein levels under these conditions changed co-ordinately even though the changes in RNA were not co-ordinate. The effects of hormonal changes that might be associated with these dietary changes were examined, using the rodent hepatoma cell line H4IIEC3. In these cells, the levels of E1 alpha protein and mRNA were significantly depressed in the presence of insulin. In contrast, the levels of E1 beta and E2 RNAs were not decreased by insulin. The half-lives of the E1 alpha and E2 RNAs were determined to be quite long, from 13 to 18 h, with insulin having no dramatic overall effect on the half-lives determined over 24 h. Therefore, it is likely that insulin directly affects the transcription of the E1 alpha gene rather than RNA stability in exerting its negative regulatory effect. This effect is specific to the E1 alpha subunit. The differences in BCKAD subunit RNA levels observed under various nutritional and developmental conditions may therefore be the result of the differential effects of insulin and other hormones on the multiple regulatory mechanisms modulating BCKAD subunit expression.


Like the DFT/spl minus/a discrete version of the Fourier transform/spl minus/the recently developed discrete Gabor transform (DGT) provides a feasible vehicle to implement the very useful Gabor expansion. In general, the choice of the biorthogonal window function /spl gamma/(i) is not unique. The authors discuss the solution of /spl gamma/(i) that is optimally close to an arbitrary desired function d(i) when the synthesis window h(i) and sampling pattern are given. For d(i)=h(i), the resulting /spl gamma//sub opt/(i) directly leads to so-called orthogonal-like DGT. Combining the DGT, they believe that the result presented in this paper is rather significant for digital signal processing. >


The wild and cultivated species of potato have been utilized in potato breeding to good effect but only a very small sample of the available biodiversity has been exploited. In total, 468 accessions of wild and cultivated species of potato were assessed for resistance to the oomycete pathogen Phytophthora infestans using greenhouse assays. Wide phenotypic variation for resistance was found within a species (i.e., among accessions) but not among species which, on average, were similar. Nineteen accessions had resistance levels better than or similar to the variety Chucmarina, which is routinely used by the International Potato Center as a resistant control. Surprisingly, a number of accessions were significantly more susceptible than the susceptible control, Tomasa Condemayta. Frequency histograms of species indicated continuous variation for resistance with little evidence for functional resistance genes.


The phase exchange process: (^10)BCl(_3)(1) + 11BCl(_3)(g) = (^11)BCl(_3)(l) + (^10)BCI(_3)(g) has been examined in a high efficiency packed fractionating column. The relative volatility of the isotopic boron chlorides has been found to be 0.9987(in favour of 10(_B)). A novel method has been developed for assaying the concentration in BC1(_3). This method is based upon the large capture cross section of for thermal neutrons as compared with any other nuclide likely to be present. The technique consisted in measuring the neutron transmission through an absorption cell, alternately empty- and filled with BCl(_3) gas. Standard nuclear physical apparatus and a BF(_3) filled proportional counter were used for measuring the neutron intensity. The value of the equilibrium constant obtained experimentally differs in sense and magnitude from that predicted by Urey from infra-red spectral data(l.014 at the boiling point). This discrepancy has been discussed in the light of a more general theory of the vapour pressure differences of isotopic liquid mixtures, and. it has been shown that reasonable agreement is obtained between theory and experiment if allowance is made for the existence, in the liquid phase, of infra-red dispersion forces'(analogous to the London dispersion forces), the magnitudes of which are isotope-dependent.


*These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: Psoriasis is a common inflammatory skin condition frequently associated with cardiometabolic diseases such as diabetes. Indeed, the state of systemic inflammation typical of psoriasis leads to an increase in the level of IL-1, IL-6 and TNF-alpha which may cause a reduced sensitivity to insulin and, ultimately, can lead to type 2 diabetes mellitus. Particularly, the derangement of PDE4-cAMP signaling has a critical role in disordered glucose and lipid metabolism. Apremilast, as a selective inhibitor of PDE4-cAMP signalling, represents an innovative therapeutic strategy for psoriasis. Here, we report a case of a patient affected by psoriasis and diabetes, who – after using Apremilast – improved his glucose metabolism as well as his need of anti-diabetic drugs and his psoriasis. This suggests that, in addition to its role against psoriasis, Apremilast may even act as a metabolic modulator.


Abstract This paper is concerned with the problem of the estimation of the integrated volatility of log-prices based on high frequency data when both price jumps and market microstructure noise are present. We begin by providing a survey of the leading estimators introduced in the literature to tackle volatility estimation in this setting. We then introduce novel integrated volatility estimators based on a truncation technique and establish their properties. Finally, we carry out a simulation study to compare the performance of the different estimation techniques.


Terahertz quantum-cascade (QC) lasers operating at 0.6 − 5 THz (l ∼ 60 − 500 mm) are poised to become the dominant solid-state sources of continuous-wave (cw) far-infrared radiation enabling applications in terahertz spectroscopy, imaging, and sensing. QC-lasers are the longest wavelength semiconductor laser sources in which terahertz gain is obtained from electronic intersubband radiative transitions in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure quantum wells. Since their invention in 2001, rapid development has enabled demonstration of cw powers greater than 100 mW. However, challenges still remain in the areas of operating temperature,laser efficiency and power, and beam quality to name a few.The highest-temperature operation of terahertz quantum-cascade lasers (200 K pulsed, 117 K cw) depends on the use of a low-loss metal-metal waveguide where the active gain material is sandwiched between two metal cladding layers; a technique similar, in concept, to microstrip transmission line technology at microwave frequencies. Due to the subwavelength transverse dimensions of the metal-metal waveguide, however, obtaining a directive beam pattern and efficient out-coupling of THz power is non-trivial.This thesis reports the demonstration of a one-dimensional waveguide for terahertz quantum-cascade lasers that acts as a leaky-wave antenna and tailors laser radiation in one dimension to a directional beam. This scheme adapts microwave transmission-line metamaterial concepts to a planar structure realized in terahertz metal-metal waveguide technology and is fundamentally differentfrom distributed feedback/photonic crystal structures that work based on Bragg scattering of propagating modes. The leaky-wave metamaterial antenna operates based on a propagating mode with an effective phase index smaller than unity such that it radiates in the surface direction via a leaky-wave mechanism. Surface emission (∼ 40 ◦ from broadside) with a single directive beam (FWHM ∼ 15 ◦ ) at 2.74 THz was demonstrated from terahertz QC-lasers with leaky-wave coupler antennas which exhibited slope efficiencies ∼ 4 times greater than conventional Fabry-Perot metal-metal waveguides. Using this technique the first demonstration of beam scanning for a terahertz QC-laser was reported (from 35 ◦ − 60 ◦ ) as the emission frequency varied from 2.65 − 2.81 THz.Towards the bigger goal of realizing an active terahertz metamaterial to ultimately develop zero-index terahertz quantum-cascade lasers immune to spatial hole burning, or negative-index metamaterials for superresolution terahertz imaging, a composite right-/left-handed transmission-line metamaterial based upon subwavelength metal waveguide loaded with terahertz QC material was demonstrated. Due to the addition of distributed series capacitors (realized by introducing gaps in top metallization) and shunt inductors (realized by operating in the higher-order lateral mode of the waveguide), the transmission-line metamaterial exhibits left-handed (backward waves or negative index) leaky-wave propagation from 2.3 − 2.45 THz in addition to the conventional right-handed leaky-wave behavior (from 2.6 − 3.0 THz).


We sought to gain a mechanistic understanding of the control of seed dormancy and germination by hormone balance. The field has matured to a stage where most of the key genes are known, and competing hypotheses have been proposed to explain how hormone balance works in seeds. During the meeting we simplified a more complex model of seed germination (Figure 1), reducing it to a tractable network. We then showed that if considered as a set of competing protein complexes the network took on the properties of a switch. Results from two models of the reduced network, which incorporated the biological switching phenomena, were found to be in good agreement with both wild and mutant phenotypic data. Our models made the novel prediction that one complex in particular was key to promoting germination, and this prediction can now be tested in the laboratory.


Purpose: The aim of the present study was to compare personality characteristics between injured and uninjured motorcyclists. Methods: This study as part of a larger case-control study was carried out on 130 motorcycle traumatic patients along with 91 control patients admitted to Shohada and Imam Reza university hospitals as the two referral specialty centers in East Azarbyjan Province of Iran in 2013. The Persian version of the motorcycle Riding behavior questionnaire (MRBQ) was used to assess riding behavior. Also, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III was used to assess personality disorders and psychiatric syndromes. Multivariate binary logistic regression was used as the main analysis method to estimate the adjusted odds ratios of the subscales of Millon-III and risky behavior scales. The statistical analysis was conducted using Stata version 11 statistical software package. Results: Mean/median scores of the personality subscales of schizoid, alienated, obsessive-compulsive, self-abusing, schizotypal, paranoid, post-traumatic stress, thought disorders, major depression, delusional disorder in the injured group were higher than in the control group (P<0.05). However, histrionic personality disorder was observed less in the injured group than the control group (P <0.01). According to the logistic regression models obsessive-compulsive and paranoid disorders were considered to be risk factors in motorcycle injuries. Conclusion: According to the results of this study, obsessive-compulsive personality was a risk factor for motorcycle traffic injuries.


We agree with Dr Gross that a sizable percentage of the professional boxers in our study exhibited abnormalities on neurologic examination. However, our cohort was not randomly selected, and our data cannot be used to accurately estimate the overall prevalence of neurologic impairments in professional boxers. Furthermore, not all abnormal neurologic findings in boxers are indicative of "significant brain injury." Signs and symptoms of chronic traumatic brain injury were mild (12/30) or absent (11/30) in the majority of the boxers we examined. To avoid hyperbole, we recommend that the term significant brain injury be reserved for those instances in which there is actual loss of functional status and/or overt parenchymal brain damage, neither of which was the case with most of the boxers we studied. The purpose of our study was to determine if some boxers are genetically predisposed to chronic neurologic impairments. In our article, we elected not to


Chronic administration of antiepileptic drugs without history of unprovoked epileptic seizures are not recommended for epilepsy prophylaxis. Conversely, if the patient suffered the first unprovoked seizure, then the presence of epileptiform discharges on the EEG, focal neurological signs, and the presence of epileptogenic lesion on the MRI are risk factors for a second seizure (such as for the development of epilepsy). Without these risk factors, the chance of a second seizure is about 25-30%, while the presence of these risk factors (for example signs of previous stroke, neurotrauma, or encephalitis on the MRI) can predict >70% seizure recurrence. Thus the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) re-defined the term 'epilepsy' which can be diagnosed even after the first seizure, if the risk of seizure recurrence is high. According to this definition, we can start antiepileptic drug therapy after a single unprovoked seizure. There are four antiepileptic drugs which has the highest evidence (level "A") as first-line initial monotherapy for treating newly diagnosed epilepsy. These are: carbamazepine, phenytoin, levetiracetam, and zonisamide (ZNS). The present review focuses on the ZNS. Beacuse ZNS can be administrated once a day, it is an optimal drug for maintaining patient's compliance and for those patients who have a high risk for developing a non-compliance (for example teenagers and young adults). Due to the low interaction potential, ZNS treatment is safe and effective in treating epilepsy of elderly people. ZNS is an ideal drug in epilepsy accompanied by obesity, because ZNS has a weight loss effect, especially in obese patients.


Optical survey is an efficient technique to survey space debris, especially for the ones in MEO and GEO orbital regions. Utilizing wide field of view and relatively small aperture telescope is a popular and costless way to perform space debris surveys, however, due to the optics defects of the telescope as well as the limited aperture size, the detection ability for faint objects is affected. Here image restoration is adopted to improve the image quality and detection efficiency. To optimizing image processing, the imaging process is modeled (referred as point spread function) from raw CCD images with principal component analysis, the preliminary results are analyzed and the optimal mean point spread function is constructed, with which the image restoration is performed to improve the data quality and reduction efficiency. To test the efficiency and reliability, a survey is performed with our wide field of view (4.4◦ × 4.4◦) 50-cm refracting telescope. In our survey, the stare mode is adopted and the dedicated image processing pipeline for detecting GEO objects automatically is presented. Our survey lasts for 11days and it takes 4 hours each day. While the raw images are obtained, the restoration is performed with our proposed technique, then the image processing pipeline runs on both raw and restored images. The tracklets are correlated with the catalog and the improvement for object detection is investigated accordingly. The results demonstrated that with image restoration, the count of tracklets increases about 80% in average, and the count of objects detected increases more than 20% for most arcs. Due to the smear noises and unexpected impulse noises, the correlation ratio of the tracklets varies and is reduced by around 10% for most surveys. However, it should be noted that with imaging modeling and restoration, the detection ability can be improved distinctly with the present technical state of art, and it deserves wider application in optical space debris observations.


Most business organizations understand that employees are an essential part of their success and as such, much research has gone into understanding the most effective ways of eliciting favorable employee outcomes. The self-determination theory (SDT) is one result of the extensive research that has been done on the topic. SDT suggests a relationship between positive employee outcomes and the satisfaction of employees' three basic psychological needs (TBPN): autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This literature review was undertaken to examine empirical studies that have researched the ways psychological needs are satisfied, and the effects of the TBPN on employee outcomes in the workplace. It was concluded that satisfaction of the TBPN occurs most frequently in employee-supportive organizations and leadership. Additionally, the research has also indicated that need satisfaction occurs in employees that focus on mindfulness and positivity. Results from these studies also showed a strong relationship between the TBPN and increased employee performance, well-being, and job satisfaction. While limitations were present due to the use of surveys and limited demographics, overall, the literature reviewed herein shows that the satisfaction of the TBPN indeed influences employee outcomes in the workplace.


New empirical evidence is presented on the impact of public debt on economic growth. To that end, we employ the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach using annual data from both central and peripheral countries of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) for the 1961-2015 period. In particular, we allow for different endogenously (data- based) regimes in the parameter relating the public debt variable to the real growth rate. Our results suggest that the impact of public debt on economic growth not only changes across EMU countries, but also over time.


Multimodal learning considers learning from multi-modality data, aiming to fuse heterogeneous sources of information. However, it is not always feasible to leverage all available modalities due to memory constraints. Further, training on all the modalities may be inefficient when redundant information exists within data, such as different subsets of modalities providing similar performance. In light of these challenges, we study modality selection, intending to efficiently select the most informative and complementary modalities under certain computational constraints. We formulate a theoretical framework for optimizing modality selection in multimodal learning and introduce a utility measure to quantify the benefit of selecting a modality. For this optimization problem, we present efficient algorithms when the utility measure exhibits monotonicity and approximate submodularity. We also connect the utility measure with existing Shapley-value-based feature importance scores. Last, we demonstrate the efficacy of our algorithm on synthetic (Patch-MNIST) and two real-world (PEMS-SF, CMU-MOSI) datasets.


Abstract This study examines the sentencing and recidivism of 34,315 first-time DUI offenders in Pennsylvania. Results indicated that individuals processed through accelerated rehabilitative disposition (ARD) rather than a guilty conviction were more likely to be white, female, and older and to have less serious prior records. In terms of recidivism, those receiving ARD were significantly less likely than those found guilty to be rearrested within 4 years. Results also showed the effects of contingent labeling, in that ARD reduced recidivism for females and minorities, possibly because they did not suffer from the cumulative disadvantage of being labeled a criminal. These findings suggest that diversion programs could be used with first-time DUI offenders, even males and whites, without a consequent increase in recidivism. Moreover, the study provides support for diversionary programs for demographic groups (women and minorities) who may be disproportionately affected by a permanent criminal label.


Purpose: HER2-amplified breast cancer is sometimes clinically insensitive to HER2-targeted treatment with trastuzumab. Laboratory models of resistance have causally implicated changes in HER2 expression and activation of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)–AKT pathway. We conducted a prospective tissue acquisition study to determine if there is evidence for these lesions inmetastatic tumors that have progressed on trastuzumab-containing therapy. Experimental Design: From 2/2007 to 11/2011, 63 patients with HER2-amplified breast cancer with recurrence of disease after adjuvant trastuzumab therapy or World Health Organization–defined progression ofmetastatic disease on a trastuzumab-containing regimenwere prospectively enrolled and underwent tumor biopsy. Specimens were analyzed for activating mutations in PIK3CA and HER2 by Sequenom and analyzed for HER2 and PTEN status by immunohistochemistry. Results: In 53/60 cases (88%, 3 cases not evaluable for HER2), HER2 overexpression persisted in the metastatic tumor following trastuzumab exposure. Among the 7 cases lacking HER2 overexpression, repeat analysis of the pretreatment tumor failed to confirm HER2 overexpression in five cases. Among cases evaluable for PTEN (56) or PI3K mutation (45), absent or significantly diminished PTEN expression was noted in 33 (59%) and activating mutations in PIK3CA in 13 (29%). The combined rate of PTEN loss and PIK3CA mutation in the trastuzumab-refractory tumors was 71% compared with 44% (P 1⁄4 0.007) in an unexposed cohort of 73 HER2-amplified tumors. Conclusions: In this series of prospectively collected trastuzumab-refractory human breast cancers, loss of HER2 overexpression was rare, whereas activation of the PI3K-AKT pathway through loss of PTEN or PIK3CA mutation was frequently observed. Clin Cancer Res; 18(24); 6784–91. 2012 AACR.


Recent concerns about bioterrorism have intensified interest in the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax. The pathogen's major virulence factor, lethal toxin (LT), is well characterized at the molecular level, but remarkably little is known about how it kills the infected host. One prevailing hypothesis suggests that lysis of B. anthracis-infected macrophages triggers the release of massive amounts of cytokines into the circulation, leading to endotoxic shock. A new study raises questions about this pathophysiological model. Moayeri et al. injected LT into two strains of mice— one with toxin-sensitive macrophages, the other with toxin-resistant macrophages. Surprisingly, the two strains showed a similar course of disease, most notably characterized by the presence of hypoxia-induced liver damage and the absence of features typically associated with cytokineinduced shock. Thus, macrophage lysis is not essential for LT-induced death, and anticytokine therapies developed for septic shock may not be effective in patients with inhalation anthrax. — PAK


We present estimates of the effect of legal immigration status on earnings of undocumented workers. Our contribution to the literature centers on a two-step procedure that allows us to first estimate the legal status of an immigrant and then estimate the effect of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) on immigrants' labor market outcomes using a triple difference approach. From a sample of young to middle aged Mexican men, our results show that IRCA causes a 20 log point increase in labor market earnings of Mexican immigrants over the long run, and that nearly all of this increase is in the occupational wage. These results suggest that the primary disadvantage for undocumented workers is the type of jobs that they are able to obtain. We estimate the model for immigrants from other countries not benefiting from IRCA to the extent that Mexican immigrants did, and find no systematic bias towards positive and significant results.


Abstract From 1989 to 1998 we treated 94 patients with pancreatic pseudocysts. 55 patients underwent laparotomy (external drainage of the cyst, sequestrectomy). 14.5% patients of this group presented with postoperative complications, mean hospital stay was 36 days. During 1997-1998 we performed US-controlled punctures and drainage in 37 patients with pancreatic pseudocysts. This method was efficient in 83.7% of the cases without sequesters in the cystic cavity. Use of this method allowed to decrease the percentage of complications and lethality rate, and reduce the mean hospital stay by 47.2%.


Histone methyltransferases (HMTs) transfer a methyl group from the cofactor S-adenosyl methionine to lysine or arginine residues on histone tails, thereby regulating chromatin compaction, binding of effector proteins and gene transcription. HMTs constitute an emerging target class in diverse disease areas, and selective chemical probes are necessary for target validation. Potent and selective competitors of the substrate peptide have been reported, but the chemical tractability of the cofactor binding site is poorly understood. Here, a systematic analysis of this site across structures of 14 human HMTs or close homologues was conducted. The druggability, interaction hotspots, and diversity of the cofactor binding pocket were dissected. This analysis strongly suggests that this site is chemically tractable. General principles underlying tight binding and specific guidelines to achieve selective inhibition are presented.


X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanning can provide non-invasive predictions of intramuscular fat (IMF) in live lambs and meat cuts, providing potential to select for meat quality within a sheep breeding programme. The genetic control and relationships of these traits with carcass quality must be determined across relevant breeds and within the context of the new UK combined breed analysis (CBA), before recommending incorporation into existing breeding programmes. UK national data were analysed within-breed from several thousand commercial, CT scanned ram lambs of 3 terminal sire breeds, and using a snapshot of CBA data, across 7 terminal sire breeds and crossbreds. In most cases, IMF levels were moderately heritable (0.23-0.4), highly positively genetically correlated with total carcass fat and moderately negatively correlated with total carcass muscle and muscularity, although there were some marked breed differences. In a separate trial, genetic parameters estimated for IMF in meat from crossbred progeny (n=1204) of Suffolk sires (n=28), predicted by CT post-mortem, gave a similar heritability (0.21), with moderate positive genetic correlations with carcass EUROP grades for fat and conformation. Results suggest scope to use CT within a breeding programme to select for more taste and less waste in commercial slaughter lambs.


This thesis offers a new classification for the female protagonists of the capa y espada plays in early modern Spain. The term tramoyeras, the 17th century vernacular epithet for scheming women, depicts a new distinction for these intelligent and cunning characters of agency and sets them apart from the similar yet different categories of female figures in the nueva comedia. The tramoyeras are women who take up subject positions in order to become agents of their own desire. This study presents a revisionist approach to the highly popular, comedic genre that challenged the success of tragedies and tragicomedies in seventeenth-century Spain. This thesis analyzes female agency through the lens of masquerade, transvestism, sex, language, voice, and property. The images of female insubordination displayed in the action, the dramatic discourse, and the opportunistic weddings emphasize possibilities and ruptures in the gender and social discourses of the dominant culture. Closure as meaning is produced not only by structural closing but by all the factors of representation and response implicated in the interactive process of dramatic production. The aim of this dissertation is to reaffirm women's position as subject in literature and history.


In accordance with the Agreement of the Customs Union on sanitary measures between the Government of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus and the Republic of Kazakhstan in the customs territory of the Customs Union the Uniform sanitary and epidemiological and hygienic requirements for goods subject to sanitary-epidemiological control are applied. Common sanitary requirements are binding for executive authorities of the Member States of the Customs union, local authorities, legal persons, whatever legalform, individual entrepreneurs, individuals. Currently, out of 47 planned to take priority technical regulations of the Customs Union 31 regulation, including the safety of railway rolling stock, production of perfumery and cosmetics, toys and products for children and teenagers, food products, grain, and other furniture products was adopted.


When a firm sells puts on its own common stock, an interesting set of financial analysis problems are created. Should the amount equal to the proceeds from the sale of the puts be classified as a liability or as stock equity? At what amount should the liability for the sale of puts be recorded? Should the gain or loss resulting from the sale of the puts be included in the income statement? Under what circumstances should a firm sell puts on its stock? We should understand these issues better, as an increasing number of firms are selling puts on their own stock.


This article reports on a resident-led quality improvement program to improve communication between inpatient internal medicine residents and their patients' primary care physicians (PCPs). The program included education on care transitions, standardization of documentation, audit and feedback of documented PCP communication rates with public reporting of performance, rapid-cycle data analysis and improvement projects, and a financial incentive. At baseline, PCP communication was documented in 55% of patients; after implementation of the intervention, communication was documented in 89.3% (2477 of 2772) of discharges during the program period. The program was associated with a significant increase in referring PCP satisfaction with communication at hospital admission (baseline, 27.7% "satisfied" or "very satisfied"; postintervention, 58.2%; P < .01) but not at discharge (baseline, 14.9%; postintervention, 21.8%; P = .41). Residents cited the importance of PCP communication for patient care and audit and feedback of their performance as the principal drivers of their engagement in the project.


The age and origin of the Grover Gravel, which is preserved on stable uplands in St. Louis County, Missouri, USA, and similar gravels along the Mississippi River bluffs farther south, have been controversial for over a century. These gravels have some features consistent with a glacial origin but lack obvious erratics such as igneous rock fragments. New observations, however, show that the earliest tills within the Mississippi basin nearly lack such constituents as well, and that the Grover Gravel is a Pleistocene deposit derived from such a till. A Mississippi River terrace deposit in St. Louis County also includes typical clasts of this till and formed between 2.0–1.8 Ma, based on various dating methods. This deposit may correspond to a pulse of glacial meltwater recorded within sediment near the mouth of the Mississippi River and represent outwash from a previously unrecognized glaciation within the US midcontinent. The Mounds Gravel (or Upland Complex) is present farther south around the perimeter of the Mississippi Embayment and contains the same distinct clasts as the gravels in St. Louis County. Given that the age of the Mounds is <~3 Ma based on cosmogenic‐nuclide ratios, the southern gravel could be the same age as the gravel terrace in St. Louis County. If so, these gravels could mark a geomorphic transition to glacial‐dominated sedimentation farther south in and around the Gulf of Mexico. Regardless, all the upland gravels have insignificant amounts of zircon from provinces west of Hudson Bay. Therefore, detrital zircon provenance does not support a recent hypothesis that the Mounds (Upland Complex) was deposited by a giant Mississippi River with a drainage basin extending across broad areas west of Hudson Bay.


The paper discusses the use of electronic publishing for the preservation and dissemination of rare manuscript material. It is based both upon the authors' earlier work on multimedia integration and upon their experience of designing and developing "Treasures of Islam: Art and Design in Islamic Manuscripts". This trilingual multimedia CD-ROM (with interfaces in English, French and Arabic) contains rare or unique art work, together with a number of complete texts, selected from a collection of Islamic manuscripts held in the Department of Rare Books at McGill University. It combines text, still images, video sequences, music and voices. The paper deals with the following issues: Content selection (selection criteria, authentication); Digitization; Authoring system; Interface design; Information-seeking approaches; Multimedia integration; Multilingualism; Copyright; and Production and marketing. The paper also discusses CD-ROM versus the Web as a publication medium for this type of material.


Graphene with in-plane nanoholes, named holey graphene, shows great potential in electrochemical applications due to its fast mass transport and improved electrochemical activity. Scalable nanomanufacturing of holey graphene is generally based on chemical etching using hydrogen peroxide to form through-the-thickness nanoholes on the basal plane of graphene. In this study, we probe into the fundamental mechanisms of nanohole formation under peroxide etching via an integrated experimental and computational effort. The research results show that the growth of nanoholes during the etching of graphene oxide is achieved by a three-stage reduction-oxidation-reduction procedure. First, it is demonstrated that vacancy defects are formed via a partial reduction-based pretreatment. Second, hydrogen peroxide reacts preferentially with the edge-sites of defect areas on graphene oxide sheets, leading to the formation of various oxygen-containing functional groups. Third, the carbon atoms around the defects are removed along with the neighboring carbon atoms via reduction. By advancing the understanding of process mechanisms, we further demonstrate an improved nanomanufacturing strategy, in which graphene oxide with a high density of defects is introduced for peroxide etching, leading to enhanced nanohole formation.


An overview of the requirements for industrial applications of computer vision is given. A method called multilevel input binary template matching, which applies binary template matching to gray-level images, is presented. With this method, a vision system can be tailored to the difficulty of the individual computer-vision application while maintaining high speed and high reliability in all cases. A full custom VLSI specially designed for binary template matching is discussed. This dedicated VLSI chip, called IRIS, has a configurable kernel up to a size of 1024 elements for 1-D or up to 32*32 elements for 2-D, and has integrated line buffers. Some application examples from the field of industrial automation are presented.<<ETX>>


Internal loading of phosphorus (P) from lake sediments can delay the recovery of lakes from eutrophication for years to decades following decreases in external nutrient inputs. While internal P loading is a pervasive problem in freshwater systems, molecular speciation of P in benthic sediments of these systems remains poorly characterized. As different P species will exhibit different responses to changing sediment-water interface (SWI) geochemistry, quantifying P speciation in sediments is a critical step in understanding P dynamics in sediment-water systems. Here, various synchrotron-based techniques were employed to directly probe the bonding environments of P and iron (Fe) in natural and experimentally manipulated lake sediments in order to link chemical speciation to chemical behavior and to identify the geochemical drivers that mediate this linkage. We manipulated SWI redox conditions in mesocosm experiments to investigate the impacts of prolonged anoxia and redox oscillations on P mobility and speciation in sediments. Mesocosm experiments demonstrate that oscillating redox conditions near the SWI may drive accelerated P release from sediments relative to uninterrupted reducing conditions. Sediment P is found to be predominantly associated with Fe oxyhydroxides, calcium carbonate, and apatite minerals in three shallow hyper/eutrophic lakes in northern Vermont. In Missisquoi Bay and Lake Carmi, Fe redox cycling controls P mobility via precipitation and dissolution of Fe oxyhydroxides. In the hypereutrophic Shelburne Pond, the presence of Fe sulfides precludes redox-driven P cycling and P mobility is instead dominated by organic matter mineralization. Our results demonstrate that internal P loading can manifest differently in similar shallow lake systems due to differences in lake configuration, sediment P and Fe speciation, and organic content of sediments. This work demonstrates the potential utility, as well as the limitations, of P Kedge X-ray absorption near edge structure spectroscopy in determining sediment P speciation in freshwater lakes.


The Copper Harbor Conglomerate is a Mesoproterozoic (1.09 Ga) freshwater sedimentary sequence that outcrops in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The formation was deposited during infilling of the failed Midcontinent Rift and contains fluvial, lacustrine, and alluvial fan facies. This study describes and analyzes the formation of small domal structures preserved in fluvial sandstone facies within the lower portion of the formation. These domal structures range from millimeters to several centimeters in diameter and height, and are preserved in convex epirelief on fine‐grained sandstone beds. The structures have a pustulose texture and a patchy distribution on bedding planes. Slabs containing the structures were collected in the field and analyzed in the laboratory through inspection of cut slabs, petrographic thin sections, X‐radiographs, and RAMAN spectroscopy. Results of these analyses reveal that the domal structures often contain weak, wavy horizontal bedding and laminae, and lack any vertical structures. These results support a biogenic origin of the domal structures instead of through abiogenic processes such as loading, sand volcanoes, or adhesion warts. These structures are akin to what were traditionally labeled as 'sand stromatolites', but are now known as 'domal sand structures'. Along with previous descriptions of carbonate stromatolites, organic‐rich paleosols, and microbial sand structures, our findings provide further evidence that mat‐forming microbial communities thrived in the late Mesoproterozoic freshwater systems of the Midcontinent Rift.


We propose a new methodology to measure both the dielectric constant and thickness of dielectric coatings on a flat conducting substrate from two capacitance measurements. We discuss the principles of the method and demonstrate its feasibility using 2-D numerical simulations. We present a proof of principles experiment confirming the viability of the method in practice. Finally, we propose and analyze a multisphere electrode geometry


The propagation, growth and absorption of electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves in the Pc 1 frequency range is investigated using the HOTRAY ray tracing program for a realistic distribution of thermal plasma (H+, He+ and O+) that is assumed to be in diffusive equilibrium inside the plasmasphere and collisionless in the low-density region outside the plasmapause. Free energy for L- mode wave growth is provided by a bi- Maxwellian distribution of energetic H+ and O+ with a temperature and density modelled on satellite observations. Solutions to the hot plasma dispersion relation show that inside the plasmasphere the spatial growth rates are small whereas they increase outside the plasmapause with increasing L shell. Ray tracing shows that inside the plasmasphere guided L- mode waves only grow during one crossing of the magnetic equator and only achieve small path-integrated wave gain (≤ 2 e- foldings). At the plasmapause the density gradient enables guided mode waves to grow during several equatorial crossings and the net path-integrated gain is much larger (≃ 8.7 e-foldings). For the largest observed ring current densities of 4 × 106 m−3 at L = 4 the gain is above the critical level (10 e-foldings) for amplification to observable levels. Just outside the plasmapause the waves only grow during the first equatorial crossing and the gain is smaller. In the absence of nonconvective instabilities the path- integrated amplification of the guided mode tends to increase with L shell and reaches the critical level for observable waves only in the outer magnetosphere (L ≥ 7). Unguided L- mode waves have very small wave gain. For L ≥ 7 the plasma beta becomes large (β⊥ > 1) and should lead to the onset of nonconvective instabilities. However, we suggest that inhomogeneities in the medium and quasi-linear scattering will prevent absolute instabilities from occurring and that in reality the waves are propagating with very low group velocities. We suggest that the waves observed by Anderson et al. (1990, 1992a, b) beyond L = 7 near local noon are influenced by the enhanced wave gain due to these very low group velocity waves.


Animals navigate within their surrounding environment to find food, shelter, and mates; this behavior forms one of the most basic means of survival. The vertebrate hippocampus acts as an integration hub for varied dynamic processes such as attention, memory, perception, and decisionmaking. This ultimately allows an animal to move efficiently in its surroundings in search of food or to escape from predators. Place cells are neurons located within the hippocampus which are triggered in response to an animal entering specific places in its local environment. John O' Keefe first described the firing patterns of these cells in 1976 in a paper published in Experimental Neurology. This was a pioneering effort in combining the efficacy of electrophysiological recordings with the value of behavioral approaches in freely moving animals. The author also presented testable hypotheses of plausible mechanisms governing place cell activation which in turn provided a conceptual scaffold for a diverse range of subsequent work in the field. This is an excellent paper for undergraduate education because it provides the historical context to an important research avenue while simultaneously showing how clear and concise hypotheses can emerge from studying how neural activity correlates with animal behaviour.


We study the relationship between monetary policy and long‐term rates in a structural, general equilibrium model estimated on both macro‐ and yield‐data from the United States. Regime shifts in the conditional variance of productivity shocks, or "uncertainty shocks," are a crucial driver of bond risk premia. We highlight three main results. First, our term premia on 10‐year bonds are highly correlated with estimates from the affine literature, even if less markedly volatile. Second, uncertainty shocks also induce an increase in equity premia and exert downward pressure on consumption and inflation. An increase in equity premia will therefore be accompanied by a cut in policy interest rates, even if the policy rule does not directly react to equity prices. This model mechanism is consistent with the empirical evidence on the "Fed put." Third, model‐implied long‐term inflation expectations are less dogmatically anchored than survey‐based measures over the 2000s.


This book provides an immense amount of knowledge in a concise form. It will be of great value to many engineers and others and especially to graduates. The scope of the sections dealing with theory is comprehensive although the detailed methods described might in some cases be too elaborate for an experienced designer. However, Mr. White implies this in the chapters that follow. I was particularly impressed with his descriptions and explanations of the biochemical processes which are given with commendable clarity. The sections on sewage treatment plant are extensive and describe a wide range. To my mind a dogmatic style appears from time to time suggesting, incorrectly, that there may be only one solution to a given problem. But this is softened by an excellent final chapter which includes much wisdom on the steps to be taken in the basic design of a scheme. The emphasis on the magnitude of the electrical and mechanical problems that arise could be greater, although these matters are by no means ignored. Also it might be made clearer that basic designthe most interesting part of a designer's job-represents only a small part of the work of producing documents for construction and subsequent setting to work. A first class book which will be a sound investment for frequent references. D.H.H.


Antibiotic resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes cause increasing problems in clinical setting and are worldwide considered emerging environmental contaminants, but little is known about their fate in the receiving environment and how natural microbial populations may be affected. In the environment, antibiotic resistant bacteria (e.g. pathogen) may die but their resistance determinants may become part of the environmental gene pool via horizontal gene transfer to environmental bacteria. From this localization, resistance genes may move back to human and animal bacteria via food and drinking water. Natural environment, especially water, is considered a "hot spot" for spread of antibiotics resistance in this scenario Aeromonas spp. were considered the model of hydric microorganisms exposed to the actions of residual antibiotic compounds and to the aquatic resistome, whereas Faecal Coliforms represented the allochthonous population contaminating the aquatic environment. In order to investigate how these two bacterial populations could be influenced by potential antibiotic pollution, we want to examine the presence, the distribution and the transferability of transposons, integrons, and plasmids in Aeromonas spp. and Faecal Coliforms isolated from different aquatic environments submitted to a diverse degree of antibiotic contamination. In this work, we want to highlight if there are common genetic determinants in the two populations and check the potential transferability of these genetic determinants. Conjugation, natural transformation and transduction are the three mechanisms of horizontal antibiotic resistance genes transfer among bacteria. Additionally, we want to investigate if Aeromonas could also be a good donor in mating experiments with other bacteria and if it is able to naturally acquired free DNA from the environment and if Aeromonas DNA could be incorporated by natural competent bacteria. Finally we want to study lytic and lysogenic bacteriophages of Aeromonas spp., investigate the presence of resistance genes on phage DNA and evaluate if phage can transfer these resistance genes by transduction experiments.


Between July 1, 1971 and June 30, 1977, 45 axillofemoral artery bypass procedures were performed on 39 men and 5 women whose average age was 67.7 years. Twenty-four patients received 25 unilateral axillofemoral bypasses; the remaining 20 patients underwent axillobifemoral artery procedures. The indication for surgery in 42 patients was limb salvage; the other 2 had infected aortic prostheses. All patients in the former group had serious associated disorders which would have made a conventional intra-abdominal procedure hazardous. The early mortality was 2.3% and the late mortality 29.6%. Of these 45 grafts 20 became occluded; however, 8 of the occluded grafts were successfully revised and have remained patent. For the 25 unilateral grafts at risk the 5-year cumulative patency rate determined by life-table methods was 50.6% and for the 20 bilateral grafts it was 89.7%. Our experience indicates that axillobifemoral bypass has a significantly (P less than 0.02) higher patency rate than unilateral axillofemoral bypass and is an acceptable alternative to conventional intra-abdominal procedures in elderly and poor-risk patients with aortoiliac disease.


In an incomplete information model, investors' uncertainty about the underlying drift rate of a firm's fundamentals affects option prices through (i) endogenous and belief-dependent stochastic volatility, (ii) stochastic covariance between returns and volatility, and (iii) a market price of "belief risk." For the special case where the drift takes only two values, we provide an option pricing formula using Fourier Transforms. The model calibrated to 1960-1998 S&P 500 real earnings growth shows that investors' uncertainty explains intertemporal variation in the slope and curvature of implied volatility curves as well as the conditional moments of the state-return density obtained from option data. The calibrated model generates hedging `violations' of one-factor markov and deterministic volatility function models with roughly empirical frequencies.


Abstract This paper analyses reported speech, thought and epistemic modality in the North Western Australian Aboriginal language Ungarinyin. It demonstrates how these grammatical domains interact in the language to encode multiple perspective meanings. The paper concludes by discussing some implications of the Ungarinyin patterns for expressions of complex perspective elsewhere.


Avian tropomyosin has been purified from fast skeletal muscles (breast muscle and posterior latissimus dorsi : PLD) and from a slow skeletal muscle (anterior latissimus dorsi : ALD) and the alpha and beta subunits have been further separated using preparative gel electrophoresis. These subunits have been subjected to partial proteolysis using different proteolytic enzymes. In this communication we show that this procedure allows to distinguish not only between fast and slow alpha tropomyosin but also between fast and slow beta tropomyosin. Furthermore we have raised an antiserum against the fast alpha tropomyosin and we present evidence to show that this antiserum does not cross-react with the slow alpha tropomyosin. These results are taken to indicate that all these tropomyosin subunits represent different gene products.


A general framework based on Gaussian models and a MAPEM algorithm is introduced in this paper for solving matrix/ table completion problems. The numerical experiments with the standard and challenging movie ratings data show that the proposed approach, based on probably one of the simplest probabilistic models, leads to the results in the same ballpark as the state-of-the-art, at a lower computational cost.


Four antioxidant treatments (none, 0.05% ascorbic acid, 0.01% α-tocopherol+0.01% sesamol, and 0.05% ascorbic acid+0.01% α-tocopherol+0.01% sesamol) were applied to ground beef using either mixing or spraying method. The meat samples were placed on Styrofoam trays, irradiated at 0 or 2.5 kGy, and then stored for 7 d at 4° C. Color, lipid oxidation, and volatiles were determined at 0, 3, and 7 d of storage. Irradiation increased lipid oxidation of ground beef with control and ascorbic acid treatments after 3 days of storage. α-Tocopherol+sesamol and ascorbic acid+α- tocopherol+sesamol treatments were effective in slowing down lipid oxidation in ground beef during storage regardless of application methods, but mixing was better than spraying method. Ascorbic acid was the most effective in maintaining redness of ground beef followed by ascorbic acid+α-tocopherol+sesamol. Beef sprayed with antioxidants produced more hydrocarbons and alcohols than mixing application, but ascorbic acid+α-tocopherol+sesamol treatment was effective in reducing the amount of volatiles produced by irradiation. Therefore, mixing was better than spraying method in preventing lipid oxidation and maintaining color of irradiated ground beef.


Social media, including micro-blogs such as Twitter, have become main channels to communicate and share public social opinion among people. The opinion on nuclear power is an important social issue because nuclear plant construction needs national consensus. This paper proposes an opinion mining approach to monitor public sentiments on nuclear related issues using tweets on Twitter. The proposed process consists on (1) Crawling related tweets (2) Text preparation (3) Sentiment dictionary construction, and (4) Sentimental scoring. Based on experiment using nuclear related tweets in Korean between 2009 and 2013, we verify the usefulness on the proposed approach and confirm the changes on national opinion on nuclear generation depending on critical events such as Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.


At the invitation of the AIS Board of Directors, representatives of several longstanding interdisciplinary programs gathered on October 9, 2003, to participate in back-toback panel discussions at the 25th AIS conference. Following months of email exchanges prior to the conference, the panel moved quickly into an exploration of the common issues faced by such programs. Many, the panel discovered, can be examined fruitfully by extending Nietzsche's distinction between the Apollonian and Dionysian, applied by him to tragedy, to an overview of experimental, interdisciplinary programs. In the panel discussion, it became apparent that this distinction could serve as a useful metaphorical lens through which to view many of the tensions that shaped the structures and practices of the programs represented. Since those structures and practices, in turn, influenced how faculty members and students each came to understand the interdisciplinary approach to education common to these programs, the panelists came to appreciate that the insights gained from viewing interdisciplinary education as an outcome of Apollonian-Dionysian tension are of more than passing or parochial interest.


Signal integrity has become a major problem in digital IC design. One cause is device scaling that results in a sharp reduction of supply voltage, creating stringent noise margin requirements to ensure functionality. This paper introduces both a novel on-chip decoupling capacitance methodology and active noise cancellation (ANC) structure. The decoupling methodology focuses on quantification and location. The ANC structure, with an area of 50 ¿m × 55 ¿m, uses decoupling capacitance to sense noise and inject a proportional current into VSS as a method of reduction. A chip has been designed and fabricated using TSMC's 90-nm technology. Measurements show that the decoupling methodology improved the average voltage headroom loss by 17% while the ANC structure improved the average voltage headroom loss by 18%.


The atmospheric water generators (AWG) produce alkaline, calcium, ionic water at a PH range between 8-10 by condensing moisture from the air, which is an ideal water for the body to assimilate oxygen and nutrients. They are creating a new standard in the production of quality drinking water from air for human consumption by utilizing natures own hydrologic system. They can help overcome the water scarcity or water unavailability from draught hit areas. There is 3.1 quadrillion gallons of atmospheric water available at any given time throughout the world. Everyday, 280 cubic miles or 238 trillion gallons of water evaporates into the atmosphere. Waternever disappears, rather it recycles in the environment. Drinking this type of water will help flush acidic waste in joints which is one of the causes of arthritis and restore the body to a proper balance. The rate at which water can be produced depends on relative humidity and ambient air temperature.


The increased use of GNSS for technical constructions and infrastructure works makes necessary the calculation of local accurate geoid undulation's models for the determination of accurate orthometric heights. Apart from the conventional methods, artificial neural networks (ANN) are also used for this purpose. Specially, back propagation artificial neural networks (BPANN) are widely applied for engineering practice. It is well known that the training of ANNs consists a "black box", as the user cannot interlope in the procedure. The aim of this work is to investigate the impact of some crucial parameters to the accuracy, of geoid undulations determination, when BPANN is used. Parameters as the different types of input data (ellipsoidal or Cartesian coordinates, ellipsoidal or orthometric heights etc.), the allocation of the known points at a concrete area, the number of neurons and the number of hidden layers are examined. The results are evaluated by means of the achieved RMSEs, they are compared to each other and to the initial approximation by a polynomial interpolation using GNSS/leveling data. For the trial run an urban region of Athens city was used, where 37 points of known geoid undulations are located at 12Km area. Useful diagrams illustrate the evaluation of the 176 BPANNs that were tested. It is concluded that the number of the known points is not as crucial as their regular and equidistant allocation. Also the increment of neurons in the hidden layers, optimize the results. Moreover simple input data set with two or three neurons including the coordinates of the known points is adequate as it provides better assessments.


BACKGROUND
We designed an interprofessional education (IPE) clinical simulation that paired nurse practitioner and pharmacy students. The objective was to evaluate the effect on attitudes of interprofessional collaborative learning and practice.

METHOD
Perceptions were assessed using the Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education-Revised instrument and reflection questions that assessed the simulation's effectiveness in requiring team knowledge and experience from each profession whether the experience improved individual student clinical performance, and how this team approach influenced patient outcomes.

RESULTS
Students believed that working with another health profession was educationally beneficial and should be a required experience; they also believed that this collaboration improved patient outcomes and satisfaction. Responses also indicated student ambiguity about their role in interprofessional care, and that clinical rotations were not the ideal setting for first professional interactions with others.

CONCLUSION
Students expressed satisfaction and increased awareness of the importance of collaboration to ensure patient safety. Increasing interprofessional education experiences prior to clinical rotations should be considered. [J Nurs Educ. 2018;57(7):426-429.].


The present article presents results of a laboratory study on the assessment of erosion patterns around a hydrodynamic transparent offshore foundation exposed to combined waves and currents. The model tests were conducted under irregular, long-crested waves in a scale of 1:30 in a wave-current basin. A terrestrial 3D laser scanner was used to acquire data of the sediment surface around the foundation structure. Tests have been conducted systematically varying from wave- to current-dominated conditions. Different volume analyzing methods are introduced, which can be related for any offshore or coastal structure to disclose physical processes in complex erosion patterns. Empirical formulations are proposed for the quantification of spatially eroded sediment volumes and scour depths in the near-field and vicinity of the structure. Findings from the present study agree well with in-situ data stemming from the field. Contrasting spatial erosion development between experimental and in-situ data determines a stable maximum of erosion intensity at a distance of 1.25 A, 1.25 times the structure's footprint A, as well as a global scour extent of 2.1–2.7 A within the present study and about 2.7–2.8 A from the field. By this means, a structure-induced environmental footprint as a measure for erosion of sediment affecting marine habitat is quantified.


Resources related to the MATH 331 project, to "Learn a new theorem in geometry and communicate it in written form."


Virtually, every pulmonary disease and most non‐pulmonary diseases may be associated with a pleural effusion. The presence of a pleural effusion allows the clinician to 'diagnose' or narrow the differential diagnosis and aetiology of the fluid collection. However, pleural fluid analysis (PFA) in isolation rarely provides a definitive diagnosis. This review discusses the rationale for evaluating patients with a pleural effusion. If the clinician obtains a detailed history, performs a comprehensive physical examination, reviews pertinent blood tests, and evaluates the chest imaging findings prior to thoracentesis, there should be a high likelihood of establishing a firm clinical diagnosis based on the appropriate PFA. This manuscript reviews the clinical presentation, chest imaging findings, duration and natural course of specific pleural effusions to help narrow the range of pre‐thoracentesis diagnoses. A diagnosis of transudative effusion confirms an imbalance in hydrostatic and oncotic pressures, normal pleura and a limited differential diagnosis, which is typically apparent from the clinical presentation. Exudates are the result of infections, malignancies, inflammation, impaired lymphatic drainage or the effects of drugs, and pose a greater diagnostic challenge. The differential diagnosis for a pleural exudate can be narrowed if LDH levels exceed 1000 IU/L, the proportion of lymphocytes is ≥80%, pleural fluid pH is <7.30 or there is pleural eosinophilia of >10%.


Sepsis is a life-threatening condition in cattle, as in humans. Successful sepsis treatment requires a fast initiation of antimicrobial therapy with a broad-spectrum, bactericidal drug, administered intravenously. However, the new legislation limits the use of critically important fluoroquinolones and cephalosporins in food animal medicine, drugs which are considered highly effective for sepsis treatment and were previously frequently used for this indication. This article aims at providing an overview of the current knowledge of sepsis in cattle to aid practitioners in adapting their decision making process to treat sepsis. Sepsis incidence in cattle is likely seriously underestimated. This disease is almost unexplored in cattle, which makes it particularly difficult to design species specific guidelines. Sepsis diagnosis by blood culture reaches sufficient accuracy with the current laboratory technology. When adapting this procedure to a field environment, difficulties might arise, and the availability of adapted incubators in veterinary laboratories may be limited. However, these difficulties are likely to be overcome. Severe sepsis and septic shock are likely the only indications where the 'urgency' criterion of the new legislation would apply, but it is important to realize that alternative antimicrobial treatments with possibly similar efficacy are available.


Androgen-responsive (SC-3) and -unresponsive (SC-4) cloned cell lines in culture were established from an androgen-responsive mouse mammary tumor, Shionogi carcinoma 115. By using a serum-free medium [Ham's F-12:Eagle's minimum essential medium (1:1, v/v) containing 0.1% bovine serum albumin], characteristics of androgen-induced and autonomous growth factors (GFs) were examined. Serum-free conditioned medium (CM) obtained from testosterone-stimulated (+T) SC-3 cells had remarkable growth-stimulatory effects on both SC-3 and SC-4 cells. To examine the molecular characteristics of GF, CM(+T) from SC-3 was fractioned by heparin-Sepharose affinity chromatography; two peaks, eluted at 0.5 M (GF-low) and 1.1 M NaCl (GF-high) were identified. GF-high had the ability to stimulate growth with a morphological change of both SC-3 and SC-4 cells; the GF-high was not found in CM from T-unstimulated (-T) SC-3 or CM from SC-4. GF-low stimulated the growth without the morphological change of only SC-4 cells; the GF-low was also present in CM(-T) from SC-3 and CM from SC-4. The present findings demonstrate that T-induced autocrine GF-high secreted from SC-3 cells can also stimulate the growth of progressed unresponsive SC-4 cells in a paracrine mechanism and that autonomous GF-low secreted from both SC-3 and SC-4 cells can stimulate the growth of only SC-4 cells.


Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are the most effective agents in the first-line and maintenance treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease. As the grade of esophagitis increases, an increase is also observed in the level of endoscopic response to PPIs. In the first-line therapy of patients with severe esophagitis (Los Angeles (LA) Grade C-D), administration of a standard dose of PPIs bid has been reported to be more beneficial than PPIs qd. While any intermittant and low dose-continuous treatment can be chosen for the maintenance therapy of patients with non-erosive reflux disease or mild esophagitis (LA Grade A-B), continuous use of a standard dose of PPIs is preferred in the maintenance therapy of patients with severe esophagitis (LA Grade C-D). In patients who use PPIs for a long time, the drug must be stopped by gradually decreasing the dose.


: Congenital hearing loss occurs in association with cranio-facial anomalies. Lay people and health professionals as well frequently regard individuals with cranio-facial anomalies as "stupid" or of lower than normal intelligence because of their odd appearance. Two case reports illustrate that this erroneous assumption will result in the delayed detection of significant hearing loss.


The main purpose of this experiment is to investigate the effect of expansion/compression
ratio on efficiency of an internal combustion engine. Efficiency of internal combustion
engines are affected by compression ratio, expansion/ compression ratio, internal friction and
many other factors. Compression ratio is the factor affecting on the fuel combustion process
mainly affects the combustion pressure, as compression ratio increases, fuel solubility
therefore released energy increases. Expansion is the process of converting pressure produced
by heat, into kinetic energy. With enough expansion ratio pressure inside the combustion
chamber can equalized to the pressure outside pressure. With optimization of these two ratios,
useful energy produced from unit amount of fuel can be increased. To conserve fuel burning
efficiency and increasing expansion ratio, first I determined what expansion/compression ratio
to test and then calculated the volume need to be reduced in the combustion chamber to fix
compression ratio at eight and increase expansion ratio. To reduce volume, metal pieces were
bolted on the cylinder head, graduated cylinder was mounted on the fuel tank. To make results
closer to real life usage, 2 kilos of cylindrical mass was bolted on the crankshaft. In each test
same amount of fuel was used, RPM was kept constant in each run, times were recorded for
each setup. Each configuration of expansion/compression ratio is tested for four times. Four
different time data for each expansion/compression ratio configuration summed and divided
by four to get average time. To calculate average percentage efficiency gain, average time of
running for each expansion/compression ratio configuration was divided by the average time
of configuration with expansion/compression ratio of 1 and 1 was subtracted and divided by
100. Graphs show that efficiency increases as expansion/compression ratio increases.