Characterization of implantable planar inverted-F antennas, designed for intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring at 2.45 GHz, is presented. A setup, incorporating a scalp phantom emulating the implant environment and an absorbing chamber, was implemented for characterizing the antennas, in terms of their reflection coefficient (S 11), resonance frequency (fr), and transmission coefficient through the phantom (S 21) , and is reported for the first time. As a result of our observations that even a very slight change of the biocompatible (silicone) thickness can drastically change the characteristics of such antennas, several antenna prototypes with various silicone thicknesses were tested for a better understanding of the change in their performance with thickness. The main contributions of this paper rest in the evaluation of the antenna characteristics with respect to time, temperature, and far-field radiation, in an emulated biological environment. In this regard, the impact of the coating thickness on fr, drift of fr, S 11, and S 21 over time, and the effective radiated power (ERP) from the transmission (S 21) measurements were evaluated through careful measurements. A decrease in S 11 of 1.2-2.3 dB and an increase in S 21 of 2.2-2.4 dB, over a period of two days, were observed at 2.45 GHz. A decrease of 8-18 MHz for fr was also observed over the same period of time. This drift was due to the absorption of saline by the silicone, leading to a change in its effective dielectric property. An fr increase of approximately 14.5 MHz was also observed by raising the temperature from 20 degC to 37 degC, mainly because of the negative temperature coefficient of the phantom permittivity. Transmission measurements performed using both S 21 and the received power measurement (for an ICP device mimic) yielded a maximum ERP of approximately 2 mW per 1 W of power delivered to the antennas at 2.45 GHz.


This paper presents a framework of website quality evaluation for measuring the performance of government websites. Multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) is a widely used tool for evaluating and ranking problems containing multiple, usually conflicting criteria. In line with the multi-dimensional characteristics of website quality, MCDM provides an effective framework for an inter-websites comparison involving the evaluation of multiple attributes. It thus ranks different websites compared in terms of their overall performance. This paper models the inter-website comparison problem as an MCDM problem, and presents a practical and selective approach to deal with it. In addition, fuzzy logic is applied to the subjectivity and vagueness in the assessment process. The proposed framework is effectively illustrated to rate Turkish government websites.


The main feature of modern injection methods of dental anesthesia is in the local venous spreading of the anesthetic in the near-toothed spongy substance of the bone and dental pulp. The vascular mechanism is controlled by the epinephrine anesthetic solution and patient vegetal system. Spongy dental anesthesia is universal, highly effective, relatively safe, easy to implement and increasingly widespread. Classification proposed by us is the division of injection methods of anesthesia into traditional diffuse: Infiltrative and conductive, and diffusevascular: Intraosseous, intraligamentary, intraseptal and intrapulparial.


Abstract Fuel-oil contamination of groundwater and waterways is common throughout the world. The fuel components methyl-tert-butyl ether (MTBE) and benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and o-, p- and m- xylenes (BTEX) compounds are most likely to reach a borehole after a contamination event, and also those that pose the greatest risk. Various gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS) methods are available for the analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) but many of these are not suitable for rapid and combined analysis of MTBE and BTEX. Here we describe and validate a simple and reliable method that fulfils these requirements. The method is quick: 48 samples can be analysed in a 24 hour period using the Precept II® autosampler and therefore is suitable for high throughput work. Validation of our experiments is presented in the form of linearity, precision and intra-day repeatability of standards as well as limits of detection and limits of quantification for the range 1-20 μg/l. This MTBE/BTEX analytical method developed was used to study the optimization of a modular post-abstraction remediation system incorporating air-stripping and granular activated carbon (GAC) technologies (Hall, 2004), from which a selection of sample data is presented.


This work aims to show on a very concrete example that simulations (In-Silico experiments) can help drug discovery process and therapeutic strategies search. Such an approach must be based, to reflect the complexity of physiological systems, on a modeling methodology taking into account several organization levels and time scales, and focused on physiological functions and their interactions. First, we present shortly a modeling framework built on top of a physiological systems theory. Then, we apply this approach to model the memory induction at synaptic level where the described system includes some cellular and molecular mechanisms. Finally we propose an application of "in silico" experiments in order to exhibit some synergistic effects of biochemical mechanisms and to suggest new combinatorial therapeutics.


The electromagnetic (e.m.) calorimeter of the ATLAS experiment for the Large Hadron Collider will be a sampling liquid argon accordion calorimeter. To achieve sufficient energy resolution, it is necessary to correct for the energy loss in the material upstream of the calorimeter. For this purpose, a separate presampler detector fixed on the inner face of the e.m. calorimeter, in the same cryostat, is being built by the ATLAS collaboration. Two presampler sectors have already been built and tested in their final version. The geometry of the detector and the various steps of its construction are reviewed. The hardware performance of the detector measured both at CERN and at the ISN-Grenoble (specific test bench) is discussed. It is concluded that the presampler will adequately fulfill its role for future operation at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.


Traditionally, research on life-history traits has viewed the link between clutch size and offspring size as a straightforward linear trade-off; the product of these two components is taken as a measure of maternal reproductive output. Investing more per egg results in fewer but larger eggs and, hence, offspring. This simple size–number trade-off has proved attractive to modellers, but our experimental studies on keelback snakes (Tropidonophis mairii, Colubridae) reveal a more complex relationship between clutch size and offspring size. At constant water availability, the amount of water taken up by a snake egg depends upon the number of adjacent eggs. In turn, water uptake affects hatchling size, and therefore an increase in clutch size directly increases offspring size (and thus fitness under field conditions). This allometric advantage may influence the evolution of reproductive traits such as growth versus reproductive effort, optimal age at female maturation, the body-reserve threshold required to initiate reproduction and nest-site selection (e.g. communal oviposition). The published literature suggests that similar kinds of complex effects of clutch size on offspring viability are widespread in both vertebrates and invertebrates. Our results also challenge conventional experimental methodologies such as split-clutch designs for laboratory incubation studies: by separating an egg from its siblings, we may directly affect offspring size and thus viability.


Microdensitometric measurements were made on autoradiographs of radioiodide localized in mouse thyroids subjected to various degrees of stimulation, in which the formation of organic radioiodide was acutely blocked. Estimates were made of the relative concentrations of radioiodide in lumens and cells of follicles and in the nearby blood vessels. Simple models were introduced to interpret the data. Analysis of the ratio of radioiodide concentrations in the lumen and cells of follicles as a function of follicles size and time after injection indicated that smaller follicles equilibrated faster than larger follicles, that the equilibration was faster the more active the gland was, and that the release of radioiodide from follicles in the less active glands must be characterized by a time-dependent exit rate constant. Analysis of the relative concentration of luminal radioiodide as a function of follicle size at short time intervals and in the steady state indicated that the transport properties of the average epithelial cell were generally independent of follicle size.


This work suggests ways in which 'less' become 'more' in the minimalist approach of three American short story writers, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver and Frederick Barthelme. By 'less', I mean minimalism's tendency to create a pared down, seemingly 'innocent' style; to use absence for effect; and to omit vital narrative details. By more, I mean the range and depth of emotional effects minimalism achieves, and the ways in which it demands the reader engage with the text.

Minimalism achieves its effects because, not in spite of, its tendency towards reduction, its reliance on absence. The paring down process creates interpretative indeterminacy, by omitting apparently vital information. Hemingway may be thought of as the originator of the minimalist short story; Carver and Barthelme develop new ways to implicate the reader in the creation of the text, for example by suggesting that the reader is a voyeur, and through the use of the second person narrator. Together, minimalist writing might be reconsidered in light of the ways in which it demands reader engagement.

My reader is an implied one and my choice of writers suggests ways in which the minimalist aesthetic developed; how it might be valued within literary history, and in the history of the American short story in particular. I consider Hemingway in terms of the origins of the minimalist approach in the short story, hence I offer a discussion of how his work developed within the context of literary history, as a reaction to both modernism and tradition. I conclude by suggesting that the status of minimalist writing in literary history might be reconsidered in light of a renewed understanding of how this seemingly impoverished, restrained and slight writing creates works of great richness, emotional intensity, and intellectual depth.


ABSTRACT In this study, the electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spin probe technique is applied as a detection method in the differentiation of irradiated and unirradiated wheat seeds. Two wheat cultivars, Kunduru and Bezostaya, were used. Aqueous solutions of 4-hydroxy-TEMPO (TANOL) spin probe prepared with a line-broadening agent, potassium ferricyanide, were used in all experiments. The EPR spectra of the samples were recorded against time. A decrease in the signal intensity and a change in the shape of the intensity-time curve (rehydration curve) were observed, depending on the applied level of irradiation. The ratio of the lipid and aqueous regions at the high field (mI = -1) line changes, depending on the dose of irradiation.


In recent years, the incidence of lung cancer (LC) has been increasing throughout the world and is the most common type of cancer in all regions of the world, occurring more frequently in men than in women. Paraneoplastic syndromes (PNS) refer to clinical conditions that develop in relation to tumors, without physical effects of the primary or metastatic tumors. The development of PNS is not associated with the size of the primary tumor or the extent of metastases. It is usually seen in small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) as well as other types of lung cancer. PNS developed in almost 1 in 10 patients with lung cancer and it may be an indicator for the diagnosis of lung cancer and it can be seen during later stages of cancer or at the time of cancer recurrence. Accordingly, the identification of these syndromes can be helpful in the early diagnosis of occult cancers, allowing timely treatment. PNS decreases the quality of life of the patients with cancer and thus requires specific treatment. Moreover, these conditions can be used as a marker of cancer activity and can predict prognosis. In this section, a detailed description of PNS is provided.


In this study, the DNA polymerase genes of 9 different pathotypes strains were compared, to analyze the relationship between the pathotype and MDV's DNA polymerase gene. These strains included four international reference strains—vaccine strain CVI988, virulent strain GA, very virulent strain Md5 and very virulent plus strain 648A; and other vaccine strain 814, reference strain Jing-1 and three field strains isolated in China. The results showed that the DNA polymerase gene was highly conserved. The homology of upstream regulating sequences among 9 different strains was 96.7%~100%. The identity of amino acid sequences of DNA polymerase among 9 MDV strains of different pathotypes was 99.2%~100%. Although there are variations among them, there are no direct relationship between the DNA polymerase gene and pathotype or zone distribution.


Background Public health organizations have begun to use social media to increase awareness of health harm and positively improve health behavior. Little is known about effective strategies to disseminate health education messages digitally and ultimately achieve optimal audience engagement. Objective This study aims to assess the difference in audience engagement with identical antismoking health messages on three social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) and with a referring link to a tobacco prevention website cited in these messages. We hypothesized that health messages might not receive the same user engagement on these media, although these messages were identical and distributed at the same time. Methods We measured the effect of health promotion messages on the risk of smoking among users of three social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) and disseminated 1275 health messages between April 19 and July 12, 2017 (85 days). The identical messages were distributed at the same time and as organic (unpaid) and advertised (paid) messages, each including a link to an educational website with more information about the topic. Outcome measures included message engagement (ie, the click-through rate [CTR] of the social media messages) and educational website engagement (ie, the CTR on the educational website [wCTR]). To analyze the data and model relationships, we used mixed effects negative binomial regression, z-statistic, and the Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test. Results Comparisons between social media sites showed that CTRs for identical antitobacco health messages differed significantly across social media (P<.001 for all). Instagram showed the statistically significant highest overall mean message engagement (CTR=0.0037; 95% CI 0.0032-0.0042), followed by Facebook (CTR=0.0026; 95% CI 0.0022-0.0030) and Twitter (CTR=0.0015; 95% CI 0.0013-0.0017). Facebook showed the highest as well as the lowest CTR for any individual message. However, the message CTR is not indicative of user engagement with the educational website content. Pairwise comparisons of the social media sites differed with respect to the wCTR (P<.001 for all). Messages on Twitter showed the lowest CTR, but they resulted in the highest level of website engagement (wCTR=0.6308; 95% CI 0.5640-0.6975), followed by Facebook (wCTR=0.2213; 95% CI 0.1932-0.2495) and Instagram (wCTR=0.0334; 95% CI 0.0230-0.0438). We found a statistically significant higher CTR for organic (unpaid) messages (CTR=0.0074; 95% CI 0.0047-0.0100) compared with paid advertisements (CTR=0.0022; 95% CI 0.0017-0.0027; P<.001 and P<.001, respectively). Conclusions Our study provides evidence-based insights to guide the design of health promotion efforts on social media. Future studies should examine the platform-specific impact of psycholinguistic message variations on user engagement, include newer sites such as Snapchat and TikTok, and study the correlation between web-based behavior and real-world health behavior change. The need is urgent in light of increased health-related marketing and misinformation on social media.


The objective of research was to examine the contribution of 1) teacher professional competency, motivation, and perception on headmaster leadership simultaneously to teacher discipline, and 2) teacher perception on headmaster leadership to teacher discipline. This study was a qualitative research with survey method, while the technique used was path analysis, used to examine the size of contribution indicated by path coefficient in every path diagram. The population of research was the teachers of public junior high schools in Surakarta city consisting of 1179 persons. The sample consisted of 300 teachers, taken using multistage random sampling technique. The author employed two-tailed test at significance level of 0.05. The results of research were that 1) there was a significant contribution of teacher perception on headmaster leadership to teacher discipline with contribution of 77.1% simultaneously, and 2) there was a significant contribution of teacher perception on headmaster leadership to teacher discipline by 77.1% The research could explain the total variability of 77.1%. The contribution of 22.9% came from variables excluded from the focus of research.


The discovery of oil in the late 1960s catapulted Abu Dhabi out of isolating poverty. A boom in construction introduced new sightlines to the city's landscape and transformed its infrastructure and economy. The impressive growth of just a few decades created new opportunities for work and play and developed a social welfare system that offered free education and medical treatment, generous pensions, family subsidies, and government incentives. Citizens were suddenly encouraged to participate in all aspects of their remaking, and wealth from a seemingly limitless oil economy enabled many households to acquire a sheen of sophistication. The pattern of Abu Dhabi's phenomenal growth can be traced throughout the United Arab Emirates, and oil wealth can be felt among their societies as well. Yet conspicuous consumption hasn't cast the Emirates in a very favorable light. Both at home and abroad, many have accused Emirati citizens of violating the limits of taste and tolerance. Emirati Women offers rare perspective on those who have been affected most by the Emirates' rise in power. Jane Bristol-Rhys merges eight years of conversations and interviews with three generations of women and her own personal observations on Abu Dhabi society, boldly confronting the unflattering stereotypes that quietly flourish among expatriate communities. She also shares her unique findings on such topics as marriage, independence, freedom, and the future.


Up until Brendan Carroll's Korngold biography published in 1997, which, although formulated for the general reader, was based on substantive research, postwar retrospective scholarly investigation into the life and works of Erich Wolfgang Korngold was still in its infancy. Academic studies of his compositions had been limited to theses on the three pianoforte sonatas the Lieder and Violent. Other research, adoptions a generally panoramic approach, befitted progress in the field (in view of the paucity of published literature on Korngold) by way of establishing a ground-base of comparative secondary literature.The problems inherent in Korngold research are evident. Common to a number of cases involving emigration, primary sources of accessible information were scattered; musical manuscripts, smuggled out of Europe, reside in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; whereas correspondence remains in the Nationalbibliothek and Stadt-und Landesbibliothek in Vienna.


Oxidative stress appears to be directly involved in the pathogenesis of Parkinson disease. Several different pathways have been identified for the production of oxidative stress conditions in nigral dopaminergic neurons, including a pathological accumulation of cytosolic dopamine with the subsequent production of toxic reactive oxygen species or the formation of highly reactive quinone species. On these premises, tyrosinase, a key copper enzyme known for its role in the synthesis of melanin in skin and hair, has been proposed to take part in the oxidative chemistry related to Parkinson disease. A study is herein presented of the in vitro reactivity of tyrosinase with α-synuclein, aimed at defining the molecular basis of their synergistic toxic effect. The results presented here indicate that, in conformity with the stringent specificity of tyrosinase, the exposed tyrosine side-chains are the reactive centers of α-synuclein. The reactivity of α-synuclein depends on whether it is free or membrane bound, and the chemical modifications on the tyrosinase-treated α-synuclein strongly influence its aggregation properties. On the basis of our results, we propose a cytotoxic model which includes a possible new toxic role for α-synuclein exacerbated by its direct chemical modification by tyrosinase.


Architects and designers, along with their corporate clients, generally embrace the importance of environmental stewardship, saving the earth's ecosystem, and sustainable design. However, research is needed to link sustainable design with relevant human behavior (e.g., in corporate offices and educational settings) to ensure its enduring legacy. Regarding changing people's behavior, the majority of human experience results from unconscious processes, i.e., brain–environment interactions not available to awareness; thus, in general, people cannot articulate the nature of these associations. Using theoretical roots stemming from William James and running through ecological psychology (e.g., James J. Gibson to Roger Barker), Harry Heft has argued that the influence of environmental design precedes conscious awareness and information processing. Assuming Heft's conjecture, this implies that—if informed by biologically influential signals (e.g., biophilic design)—the design of the ambient physical environment may positively 'nudge' human behavior in ways useful to sustainability and sensitivity to the environment—although relevant critical perspectives suggest that dynamic conditions and contextual complexity may modify the potential of nudge theory applications. Still, could it be that sustainable design can improve human health and well-being? Research suggests that environmentally responsible and biophilic design may accomplish at least a few elements of this goal and perhaps also enhance some aspects of cognitive performance. Could this approach support environmental sustainability by linking sustainable design to its potential economic benefits via worker productivity or student success? If so, then the strategy of improving positive well-being through design aligns well with the goal of maintaining the long-term viability of the earth's ecosystem.


AIMS
Peer substance involvement (PSI) is a robust correlate of adolescent substance use. A small number of genetically informative studies suggest that shared genetic and environmental factors contribute to this association. We examine mechanisms by which PSI influences the etiology of regular substance involvement (RSI), particularly in women.

DESIGN
Population-based cohort study of twin women from the US Midwest.

PARTICIPANTS
2176 twin women.

MEASUREMENTS
To examine the relationship between self-reported PSI during adolescence and a composite RSI representing regular tobacco, alcohol and cannabis use during young adulthood, using genetically informative correlation, moderation and joint correlation-moderation models.

FINDINGS
There was evidence for a significant additive genetic X environment interaction. PSI was moderately heritable (h(2) = 0.25). Genetic, shared and non-shared influences on RSI overlapped with influences on PSI (genetic correlation of 0.43). Even after controlling for these shared genetic influences, RSI was more heritable in those reporting greater PSI.

CONCLUSIONS
While young women may select peers based on certain dispositional traits (e.g. permissiveness towards substance use), the social milieu constructed by PSI does modify the architecture of increased RSI in those individuals with increasing levels of PSI being associated with stronger expression of heritable influences.


Background: To better understand the psychiatric disorders and cognition in Parkinson's disease (PD) and its impact on quality of life (QoL), patients need to be studied soon after diagnosis, before initiation of dopamine replacement therapy. Aim: This study aims to compare the nature and frequency of psychiatric morbidity, cognitive dysfunction, and quality of life in drug-naive patients with PD and healthy controls. Materials and Methods: The cross-sectional, comparative study was conducted in tertiary care center. Fifty drug-naive PD patients and fifty healthy controls were included and assessed on Modified Hoehn and Yahr scale, PD Questionnaire 8, Kolkata cognitive screening battery, General Health Questionnaire-12, and Hamilton Anxiety and Depression Rating Scale (HAM-A and HAM-D). Results: The mean scores of HAM-A and HAM-D of patients with PD were significantly higher than that of the comparison group. The patients with PD had statistically significant impairment in verbal fluency, Mini-Mental State Examination, calculation, memory immediate recall, visuoconstructional ability, and memory (delayed recall and recognition) in comparison to patients without PD. No statistically significant difference was observed with respect to object naming between the two groups. Conclusion: QoL of a PD patient is adversely affected by both the motor and nonmotor symptoms of the disease such as depression, anxiety, apathy, sleep disturbances, and cognitive impairment. The link between nonmotor symptoms and reduced QoL has important implications for the management of PD because the nonmotor symptoms often appear before patients are given anti-parkinsonian therapy. Screening of nonmotor symptoms in early stage of disease will decrease the morbidity and mortality and improve the QoL.


This study's objective was to characterize the neuropsychological functioning of children with Specifi c Language Impairment (SLI), in the areas of visual and verbal memory, attention/executive functions, and visual-perceptual functions. The sample consisted of 28 children with SLI and 28 children without SLI. Both groups were comparable in terms of age, gender, school grade and socioeconomic level. The assessment instruments used are part of Coimbra's Neuropsychological Assessment Battery and data were analyzed through parametric and nonparametric statistical tests. In general, the results differentiate the performances of children with SLI from those observed in children without SLI. In comparison to the control group, the group of children with SLI obtained poorer results in visual memory and verbal memory, selective and sustained attention, executive functions, semantic verbal fl uency, visual-perceptual functions and processing speed.


Clinical transcranial Doppler assessment of cerebral vasomotor reactivity (CVMR) uses linear regression of cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV) vs. end-tidal CO(2) (Pet(CO(2))) under steady-state conditions. However, the cerebral blood flow (CBF)-Pet(CO(2)) relationship is nonlinear, even for moderate changes in CO(2). Moreover, CBF is increased by increases in arterial blood pressure (ABP) during hypercapnia. We used a modified rebreathing protocol to estimate CVMR during transient breath-by-breath changes in CBFV and Pet(CO(2)). Ten healthy subjects (6 men) performed 15 s of hyperventilation followed by 5 min of rebreathing, with supplemental O(2) to maintain arterial oxygen saturation constant. To minimize effects of changes in ABP on CVMR estimation, cerebrovascular conductance index (CVCi) was calculated. CBFV-Pet(CO(2)) and CVCi-Pet(CO(2)) relationships were quantified by both linear and nonlinear logistic regression. In three subjects, muscle sympathetic nerve activity was recorded. From hyperventilation to rebreathing, robust changes occurred in Pet(CO(2)) (20-61 Torr), CBFV (-44 to +104% of baseline), CVCi (-39 to +64%), and ABP (-19 to +23%) (all P < 0.01). Muscle sympathetic nerve activity increased by 446% during hypercapnia. The linear regression slope of CVCi vs. Pet(CO(2)) was less steep than that of CBFV (3 vs. 5%/Torr; P = 0.01). Logistic regression of CBF-Pet(CO(2)) (r(2) = 0.97) and CVCi-Pet(CO(2)) (r(2) = 0.93) was superior to linear regression (r(2) = 0.91, r(2) = 0.85; P = 0.01). CVMR was maximal (6-8%/Torr) for Pet(CO(2)) of 40-50 Torr. In conclusion, CBFV and CVCi responses to transient changes in Pet(CO(2)) can be described by a nonlinear logistic function, indicating that CVMR estimation varies within the range from hypocapnia to hypercapnia. Furthermore, quantification of the CVCi-Pet(CO(2)) relationship may minimize the effects of changes in ABP on the estimation of CVMR. The method developed provides insight into CVMR under transient breath-by-breath changes in CO(2).


This invaluable biography of trumpeter and jazz-bebop-fusion innovator Miles Davis (1926--1991) includes a substantial new introduction that for the first time details Davis's turbulent last decade; the drawing and painting that became an additional creative outlet; the musical lows of his final "Freaky Deaky" years; the family warfare that has erupted over his last will and testament; and--in a long-awaited expose--the truth behind Davis's so-called Autobiography, the book that "borrowed" gigantic portions from Milestones and passed them off as Davis's. Jack Chambers breaks his silence to discuss the extent of the "borrowing" and who was responsible. Here is the last word on the music and controversial life of Miles Davis.


Debris flows are powerful, geophysical flows with the potential to cause fatalities and damage infrastructure. The hazard posed by these events is often related to the velocity of the flow. However, due to their spontaneous nature and rapid onset, opportunities to observe debris flows are rare. The aim of this investigation was to improve the understanding of debris flow dynamics in curved channels using a hardware laboratory flume model.
The purpose-built, variable slope, 8 m long flume enables a variety of debris flow boundary conditions to be studied. Here, 60 experimental tests were carried out at four slope of – 15°, 17°, 23° and 25°; for both straight (12 tests) and curved channels (48 tests). The modular construction of the flume enabled purpose-made channel curves to be inserted in the straight channel. Four channel bends with differing geometries were tested; three radii of curvature – 0.4, 0.55 and 0.7 m (for a bend angle of 40°) and one radius of curvature of 0.7 m for a 20° bend angle. For all runs the grain-size of the debris flow mixture consisted of a poorly sorted gravel/sand/clay mix (bulk density 1880 kg m-3, water content 17%). A combination of direct and video-based observations were used to record debris flow behaviour including variation in superelevation and the average and local velocity of the flow.
Channel gradient is shown to be an important factor in controlling debris flow velocity. The straight channel results demonstrate a strong linear relationship between debris flow velocity and channel gradient. Modelling debris flow hydraulics reveals a power-law relationship, suggesting Newtonian turbulent flow conditions. The magnitude of superelevation was strongly linked to debris flow velocity, radius of curvature and bend angle. Superelevation was shown to increase in a power law relationship with debris flow velocity, which was greatest for tighter bend geometries. A decrease in radius of curvature resulted in a non-linear increase in superelevation, while decreasing the bend angle promoted a decrease in superelevation. When compared to observed superelevation, predicted values from the superelevation equation can substantially overestimate by up to 210% in some circumstances, suggesting that predicted values and back-calculated velocity estimates should be regarded as maxima. Furthermore, calculation of 'k' from experimental data suggests that 'k' was not constant (varying by two-fold) and has a value less than '1', contrary to the proposed theory.
This novel investigation has studied the influence of debris flow velocity, radius of curvature and bend angle upon superelevation, broadening the very limited knowledge base surrounding debris flow superelevation and its controls. For future studies it is recommended to: increase the number of experimental runs for each channel configuration; use a wider range of radii of curvature and bend angles; and improve the accuracy of the superelevation equation by introducing a parameter to account for bend angle, and to better define the significance and value of 'k'.


IntroductionLongitudinal studies ascertain exposure, covariates, and outcomes over time. For estimating treatment effect on mortality, ignoring the time-varying nature of an exposure may lead to immortal time bias. Time-dependent confounding that affects future treatment may bias the estimated effects. Differences in baseline prognosis between treatment groups further complicate this issue.
Objectives and ApproachWe applied sequential Cox modeling to estimate the causal effect of referral for nephrology care on the survival of adults with advanced chronic kidney disease, linking laboratory and administrative data from Alberta, Canada. We created pseudo-data by mimicking successive randomized controlled trials. To address immortal time bias, each "mini-trial" consisted of individuals starting treatment, and those not yet treated, in each 3-month time interval. We incorporated inverse-probability-of-treatment-weights (IPTW) to minimize treatment selection bias for each "mini-trial. " We fit a "mini-trial"-stratified, weighted Cox model to estimate the overall hazard ratio for death by averaging the effect estimates across "mini-trials."
ResultsWe included 9,675 patients who entered the cohort between 2002 and 2013. The mean age was 82 years; 35% were male; and 33% were ultimately referred to a nephrologist after a median wait-period of 6 months. Compared to non-referred patients, those referred were younger and had fewer comorbidities at baseline. Referral was associated with a significant 45% lower hazard for death in an adjusted Cox model. The effect was attenuated in a multivariate Cox model with a time-varying exposure and in a sequential Cox model further controlling for potential time-dependent confounding by measures reflecting kidney-, cardiovascular-, and cerebrovascular-health. After incorporating IPTW for addressing treatment selection bias in the same sequential Cox model, the effect estimate was toward the null and no longer significant.
Conclusion/ImplicationsWe found that applying analytical strategies that addressed immortal time bias, time-dependent confounding, and treatment selection bias, the survival benefit associated with nephrology referral was attenuated. Inverse-probability-of treatment weighted sequential Cox approach may be used to address these important biases and confounding that are common in real-world clinical settings.


Between 1944 and 1989 – the period of communist power in Poland – the national pharmaceutical market experienced several dramatic changes. The country was a prodigious importer of drugs following the Second World War, with a large portion of the medicine received being donated by various aid organisations. In the 1960s, Poland became a significant exporter of drugs to the Eastern Bloc countries, but dropped down the list of meaningful producers again after the post-1989 transformation. For four and a half decades the pharmaceutical market in Poland had been a scene of political and ideological struggle. The companies, owned and controlled by the state, were poorly managed, being neither innovative nor competitive. This fact, along with the state's irrational and inconsequent drug policy, caused an almost permanent shortage in drug supplies for patients: ironic for a socialist system in which universal and free health care was a basic principle.  Key words : Drug policy - Pharmaceutical industry - Poland - Postwarreconstruction


Study of the lethal effect of NMU on radiosensitive strains rad2, rad54 and xrs2 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae has demonstrated that the mutations rad2 and rad54 increase the sensitivity of these strains to low doses of the mutagen. Mutations rad2, rad54 and xrs2 decreases the mutagenic effect of NMU. The study of nature of mutations induced by NMU in ade2 locus has shown that they are mainly the base substitutions. Mutations of radiosensitivity do not influence the nature of NMU-induced mutations in ade2 locus.


Recovering sparse conditional independence graphs from data is a fundamental problem in machine learning with wide applications. A popular formulation of the problem is an $\ell_1$ regularized maximum likelihood estimation. Many convex optimization algorithms have been designed to solve this formulation to recover the graph structure. Recently, there is a surge of interest to learn algorithms directly based on data, and in this case, learn to map empirical covariance to the sparse precision matrix. However, it is a challenging task in this case, since the symmetric positive definiteness (SPD) and sparsity of the matrix are not easy to enforce in learned algorithms, and a direct mapping from data to precision matrix may contain many parameters. We propose a deep learning architecture, GLAD, which uses an Alternating Minimization (AM) algorithm as our model inductive bias, and learns the model parameters via supervised learning. We show that GLAD learns a very compact and effective model for recovering sparse graphs from data.


Purpose Compared to the microbiome of other body sites, the urinary microbiome remains poorly understood. Although noninvasive voided urine specimens are convenient, contamination by urethral microbiota may confound understanding of the bladder microbiome. Herein we compared the voiding- versus catheterization-associated urine microbiome of healthy men and women. Methods An asymptomatic, healthy cohort of 6 women and 14 men underwent midstream urine collection, followed by sterile catheterization of the bladder after bladder refilling. Urine samples underwent urine dipstick testing and conventional microscopy and urine cultures. Samples also underwent Illumina MiSeq-based 16S ribosomal RNA gene amplification and sequencing. Results All organisms identified by urine culture were also identified by 16S amplification; however, next-generation sequencing (NGS) also detected bacteria not identified by cultivation. Lactobacillus and Streptococcus were the most abundant species. Abundances of the 9 predominant bacterial genera differed between the urethra and bladder. Voided and catheterized microbiomes share all dominant (>1%) genera and Operational Taxonomic Units but in similar or different proportions. Hence, urethra and bladder microbiomes do not differ in taxonomic composition, but rather in taxonomic structure. Women had higher abundance of Lactobacillus and Prevotella than men. Conclusions Our findings lend credence to the hypothesis that Lactobacilli are important members of the healthy urine microbiome. Our data also suggest that the microbiomes of the urethra and bladder differ from one another. In conclusion, urine collection method results in different 16S-based NGS data, likely due to the sensitivity of NGS methods enabling detection of urethral bacteria present in voided but not catheterized urine specimens.


The worldwide impact of COVID-19 continues to be felt as hospitals in all countries reduce elective and non- urgent cases to allow staffing and resources to be deployed elsewhere. Urgent gynaecological and cancer procedures are continuing, and it is imperative all theatre staff are protected and risks of SARS-CoV-2 viral transmission reduced when operating on asymptomatic, suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients. In particular, there are concerns relating to the transmission of COVID-19 during gynaecological laparoscopic surgery, arising from the potential generation of SARS-CoV-2 contaminated aerosols from CO2 leakage and the creation of smoke from the use of energy devices. The aim of this paper is to review all the up to date evidence, including experiences from China and Italy, to guide the safe management of such patients when undergoing gynaecological procedures.


Islamic system of finance has the capacity to serve the purpose of financial intermediation as a means to create sustainable value in the real economy at national and global levels. However, the most of Islamic banks and financial institutions (IBFIs) are lacking in application of the Divine principles in letter and spirit. They have not learned the lesson of avoiding finance products that led to instability, injustice and crises in the global finance. They might be lagging behind the conventional institutions in adoption of value based finance that emerged in global finance in the wake of GFC, 2008 ( W B ID B , 2016; P.6) to focus on value based intermediation (VBI), environment, social and governance (ESG) aspects and the stakeholders approach. This article focuses on the area of project financing by the IBFIs for different sectors including communication means, energy, residential and commercial buildings, infrastructure and socioeconomic projects, and the role that Islamic banks can play in financing the projects leading to development and shared prosperity. Its finding is that while the conventional institutions are turning to the ethics and values based financial intermediation and business, it's more a duty of the IBFIs to move to value based intermediation by focusing on project financing.


Cognitive radio (CR) technology has emerged as a realistic solution to the spectrum scarcity problem in present day wireless networks. A major challenge in CR radio networks is the hidden node problem, which is the inability of the CR nodes to detect the primary user. This paper proposes energy detector-based distributed sequential cooperative spectrum sensing over Nakagami-m fading, as a tool to solve the hidden node problem. The derivation of energy detection performance over Nakagami-m fading channel is presented. Since the observation represents a random variable, likelihood ratio test (LRT) is known to be optimal in this type of detection problem. The LRT is implemented using the Neyman-Pearson Criterion (maximizing the probability of detection but at a constraint of false alarm probability). The performance of the proposed method has been evaluated both by numerical analysis and simulations. The effect of cooperation among a group of CR nodes and system parameters such as SNR, detection threshold and number of samples per CR nodes is investigated. Results show improved detection performance by implementing the proposed model.


High purity silicon material in solar cell fabrication constitutes 40% of the total cost for conventional solar cell production. One approach to reduce costs would be to use less of this expensive silicon by making thin film solar cells and use a cheaper substrate as mechanical carrier. In this work the main objective has been to manufacture silicon substrates from powder by hot-pressing. The effect of the sintering parameters has been characterized. A secondary objective was to look at the possibility to achieve larger grains by recrystallization. Samples processed by hot-pressing silicon powder of metallurgical grade with varying temperatures (1200-1375 °C), pressures (30-50 MPa) and sintering time (30-60 min) has been carried out. Halogen lamps were used for heat treatment for specific samples after hot-pressing. Microstructure and porosity were characterized using optical and electronic microscopy. EBSD was used to determine the grain size and grain orientation. The density was determined by Archimedes' method. Resistivity was measured by a conductive probe. Densities higher than 90 % were obtained at high temperatures and pressures. The time conducted at maximum temperature during hot-pressing was not of vital importance with respect to density. The mean particle size of the powder was determined to ~20 μm, while hot-pressed samples had an average grain size of ~30 μm. The samples showed low resistivity due to high impurities of the silicon powder. High surface porosity was found for the less dense samples. Recrystallization was successfully achieved for the sample hot-pressed at 1350 °C, 30 MPa and 30 min, resulting in elimination of pores and significant grain growth from 31,83 to 56,96 μm. Characterizations of the hot-pressed samples are limited to the methods and techniques described above.


Tuning of TCR-mediated activation was demonstrated to be critical for lineage fate in T cell development, as well as in the control of autoimmunity. In this study, we identify a novel diabetes susceptibility gene, Idd28, in the NOD mouse and provide evidence that Cd3ζ (Cd247) constitutes a prime candidate gene for this locus. Moreover, we show that the allele of the Cd3ζ gene expressed in NOD and DBA/2 mouse strains confers lower levels of T cell activation compared with the allele expressed by C57BL/6 (B6), BALB/c, and C3H/HeJ mice. These results support a model in which the development of autoimmune diabetes is dependent on a TCR signal mediated by a less-efficient NOD allele of the Cd3ζ gene.


GRB 190114C is the first binary-driven hypernova (BdHN) fully observed from initial supernova (SN) appearance to the final emergence of the optical SN signal. It offers an unprecedented testing ground for the BdHN theory, which is here determined and further extended to additional gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). BdHNe comprise two subclasses of long GRBs, with progenitors a binary system composed of a carbon–oxygen star (COcore) and a neutron star (NS) companion. The COcore explodes as an SN, leaving at its center a newborn NS (νNS). The SN ejecta hypercritically accretes on both the νNS and the NS companion. BdHNe I are very tight binaries, where the accretion leads the companion NS to gravitationally collapse into a black hole (BH). In BdHN II, the accretion rate onto the NS is lower, so there is no BH formation. We observe the same afterglow structure for GRB 190114C and other selected examples of BdHNe I (GRB 130427A, GRB 160509A, GRB 160625B) and for BdHN II (GRB 180728A). In all cases, the afterglows are explained via the synchrotron emission powered by the νNS, and their magnetic field structures and their spin are determined. For BdHNe I, we discuss the properties of the magnetic field embedding the newborn BH, which was inherited from the collapsed NS and amplified during the gravitational collapse process, and surrounded by the SN ejecta.


Changing environmental conditions associated with a predicted change in global temperatures
is believed to affect water availability on the Tibetan Plateau, which provides freshwater to
approximately 20% of the global population. The reconstruction of past environmental
conditions may provide past climatic analogues to modern warming scenarios and help to
elucidate the environmental response to climate forcing. One of the most abundant archives of
Late Quaternary environmental conditions on the Tibetan Plateau are lacustrine sediments
associated with lake systems. However, lake systems are known to reveal complexity in their
response to climate forcing resulting in individualized sedimentary patterns for different lake
systems. This individuality delimits the potential to infer supra-regional patterns of
environmental change. This thesis presents a reconstruction of environmental conditions during
the last ~12 ka around Lake Heihai, situated on the northern fringe of the Tibetan Plateau.
Special focus is given on analyzing the climatic sensitivity of inorganic sediment fluxes, i.e.
fluxes of allogenic minerals originating from the terrestrial surroundings of the lake as well as
fluxes of endogenic minerals precipitated in the water column of the lake.

A cluster analysis on the mineralogical composition of terrestrial reference samples revealed
four major source areas, distributed evenly on two bordering mountain ranges: the Kunlun
Mountains in the south and the Burhan Buda Mountains in the north of the lake. Especially
sediment source areas on the Kunlun range differ in their main mode of activation, which is
predominantly precipitation generated and glacial runoff. An end-member analysis of grain size
distributions of the siliciclastic detrital fraction revealed that sediment supply from the Burhan
Buda range is a consequence of eolian dynamics. The findings suggests a blockage effect of the
Kunlun range on southerly air masses, leading to an extended rain shadow north of the Kunlun
range. Endogenic mineral formation in Lake Heihai is dominated by carbonate precipitation.
The geochemical analysis of carbonate mineral phases apparent within lacustrine sediments
revealed, that the main control on the predominant endogenic carbonate mineral phase is the
ratio between solute magnesium and calcium (Mg/Ca) in lake waters. The solute lake water
Mg/Ca is controlled by solute composition of inflowing waters as well as lake internal Mg
enrichment relative to Ca by the removal of Ca due to carbonate precipitation. The solute
composition of inflowing waters, in turn, is mainly influenced by weathering intensities of
limestone outcrops in the drainage basin of the lake.

Changes in the inorganic mineral assemblage of a sediment core from the deepest part of the
lake revealed major variations in sediment fluxes during the past ~12 ka induced by varying
environmental conditions. After a prolonged dry and cold phase during the Late Glacial,
allogenic sediment supply to Lake Heihai is characterized by a sudden intensification of
precipitation generated sediment supply around ~10.7 cal. ka BP and a gradual decrease from
~7.9 cal. ka BP to present. This Holocene trend is in phase with known variations in atmospheric
circulation systems over monsoonal Asia. The gradual long-term trend to more arid conditions
is accompanied by several changes in the predominant endogenic carbonate phase, one of which
evidences the onset of permafrost formation at ~3.9 cal. ka BP and hence a complete
disappearance of the lake body. The disappearance is synchronous to a phase of weakened
monsoonal precipitation as recorded in several continental and terrestrial archives throughout
the Asian continent. For the central Kunlun Fault system, this climate event is the driest and
coldest of the past 12 ka. However, while allogenic sediment supply is directly affected by
climatic variations in the study area, endogenic mineral precipitation is additionally controlled
by lake-internal feedbacks not directly influenced by climatic variations, like e.g.
geomorphologically controlled changes in the hydrological condition.

The observed local paleoenvironmental evolution in the region of Lake Heihai was compared
to two well-studied lake systems: Lake Donggi Cona situated on the north eastern Tibetan
Plateau and Lake Nam Co on the southern Tibetan Plateau. The supra-regional comparison was
based on the allogenic sediment input because of the climatic sensitivity of the allogenic
sediment supply system. Variations in allogenic sediment supply were characterized by factor
analysis of elemental concentration in core sediments measured by X-Ray fluorescence scans.
To account for a potential individual response of lake systems to climate forcing, a phase space
reconstruction was carried out on the previously calculated elemental factors. Phase space
reconstruction revealed that despite the individuality in the environmental setting of each lake,
a similar sedimentary system consisting of three (yet unidentified) essential variables controls
the allogenic sediment supply in each drainage basin. The Holocene dynamics in the allogenic
sediment flux suggests the presence of a universal attracting state for lakes situated on the
Tibetan Plateau. The attracting state is mainly characterized by short-term variation
synchronous to solar output variations. Forcing mechanisms not originating from solar
variations destabilize the systems dynamics and lead to unpredictable responses in sedimentary
patterns of the lake systems. The last major destabilization phase was evident in the Early
Holocene under increased monsoonal rainfall intensities caused by orbital variations. The
results have great implications for temporal and spatial variations in atmospheric circulation
patterns over monsoonal Asia and will help to facilitate the prediction of future monsoonal
precipitation patterns under varying climatic conditions.


Abstract There is currently little information on the composition of heavy metals in beverages imported and locally produced in Nigeria. The study quantitatively determined the composition of antimony (Sb), tin (Sn) and mercury (Hg) in 50 different beverage samples and evaluated the extent of violation of guideline values. Analysis of the beverage samples for the presence of Sb, Sn, and Hg was carried out using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS) 929. The mean values detected for mercury, tin and antimony (±SE) in fruit juices and soft drinks were 2.39±0.25, 3.66±0.22 and 0.49±0.048 μg/l; 2.93±0.34, 3.60±0.46 and 0.49±0.10 μg/l in dairy drinks and 0.94±0.02, 4.34±0.48 and 0.48±0.05 μg/l in bottled water samples respectively. While antimony detected in all products was below guideline values, mercury and tin were above the acceptable levels established by the World Health Organization, United States Environmental Protection Agency and European Union in most samples tested.


This study evaluated international trade of value-added wheat products. Analyzed were market size and growth rate by country for each product group. Shift share analysis was used to examine changes in market shares for each value-added wheat product group. Major international exporters were identified for each product group, and market shares held by the major exporters for specific importing markets were analyzed.


The early-age properties and relationships between hydration heat and autogenous shrinkage in high-strength mass concrete are investigated through analysis of the history curves of hydration heat and autogenous shrinkage. To reduce the hydration heat velocity, micro encapsulated retarder (MR) that could retard cement reaction was applied. In the result of research, the hydration temperature and hydration heat velocity of high-strength mass concrete can be decreased with the reduction of size specimen and use of the retarder. A close relationship could be found between the hydration temperature and autogenous shrinkage; the higher the hydration heat velocity, the higher the autogenous shrinkage velocity and the greater the ultimate autogenous shrinkage.


Circular economy provides strategic theory paradigm for the transformation from traditional economy to sustainable development economy, so that it resolve basically the contradiction between environment conservation and economic development in a long time. As the principal part of economic activities, enterprises' attitude to the environment strategy directly affects the execution effect of national environment strategy. From the two sides of exterior conditions and interior factors, the paper analyzed the selection games of enterprises' environment strategy, took an example of Guangxi Guigang National Eco-Industrial Demonstration Parks and explained the feasibility of "win-win" between economy and environment.


For joint source channel coding (JSCC) scheme based on double protograph low-density parity-check (DP-LDPC) codes, due to joint iterative decoding between the source and channel decoders, it is found that the optimal channel code in separate system is not optimal in joint system. In this letter, a novel joint protograph extrinsic information transfer analysis is proposed for the DP-LDPC system over AWGN and redesigning scheme for channel code is put forward to enhance the performance of DP-LPDC system. Both the EXIT analysis and the simulated results show the performance improvement of proposed systems. This verifies the viewpoint that the channel code should be redesigned for JSCC scheme even if the optimal channel codes are selected over AWGN in separate systems.


Objective: To assess mortality risk and extent of increased length of hospital stay in patients with burn injury with preexisting liver disease. Methods: Records of 31,338 adults who were admitted with burns to 70 burn centers were reviewed from the American Burn Association National Burn Repository. Demographics, percentage burn, and medical characteristics of 180 patients with liver disease were compared with all patients without liver disease and to a propensity score–matched sample of 180 patients without liver disease. Risk of mortality as well as lengths of both intensive care and total stay were compared after matching for demographics, burn injury, and preexisting medical conditions. Results: Patients with liver disease were significantly more likely to have a history of a number of medical comorbidities, including alcohol abuse, drug abuse, a psychiatric diagnosis, chronic pulmonary disease, hypertension, and diabetes. Patients with liver disease were significantly more likely to die in the hospital (27.2% vs 6.9%, odds ratio = 5.0, 95% confidence interval = 3.6–7.0, P < .01), and this held even when compared with a propensity score–matched group of patients without liver disease, but with similar demographics, burn injury, and medical profiles. Lengths of both intensive care and total hospital stay were 122.5% (P < .01) and 86.7% (P < .01) longer, respectively, among patients with liver disease than among all other patients. In a matched sample, lengths of both intensive care and total stays were longer, albeit not significantly so (41.6%, P = .12; 35.5%, P = .07). Conclusions: Liver impairment worsens the prognosis in patients with thermal injury.


A recent meeting of minds set into motion an open-access initiative designed to achieve proof of clinical mechanism for selected disease targets. Industry, government, patient advocacy groups, public funders, and academic thought leaders met in Toronto, Canada, to set into motion an initiative that addresses some of the scientific and organizational challenges of modern therapeutics discovery. What emerged from the meeting was a public-private partnership that seeks to establish proof of clinical mechanism (POCM) for selected "pioneer" disease targets using lead compounds—all accomplished in the precompetitive space. The group will reconvene in April 2011 to create a business plan that specifies the generation of two positive POCM results per year.


Airline industry has gained popularity in recent years and not much known about the dental problems associated with the high altitude. It is most common in frequent flyers, crew members, pilots etc. Due to the closed chamber pressure gets accumulated in these organs causing pain, discomfort, and organ dysfunction. The presence of dental abscesses, periodontitis, deep carious lesions and deep unlined restorations in oral cavity can stimulate severe pain due to the extreme altitude changes. With proper diagnosis, the various complications can be avoided. Thus, dentist needs to be well versed with these facts and should provide a comprehensive treatment.


Agriculture sector plays an important role in overall economic development of Bangladesh. A plurality of Bangladeshis earns their living from agriculture. Agriculture is the largest employment sector in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a fertile agrarian country where agriculture and its related branches have been acting as the main livelihood of major portion of citizen since independence. Agro-industry is playing increasingly important role in achieving sustainable development goal as well as faster economic growth in many developing countries like Bangladesh. To meet the domestic food demand and to create self-employment, young generation has diverted their profession to this potential sector by being an agripreneur. Considering the prospect and challenges of agro-industry, it is evident that agro-industry friendly attitude of the government as well as essential policies are necessary for the development and growth of this sector. Vibrant agro-industrial activities can expand the markets for primary agricultural products, add value by vertically integrating primary production and food processing system and minimize post harvest losses. With few exceptions, the agro-industrial sector of Bangladesh remains elementary, underdeveloped and largely without significant institutional, technical and financial support. However, the present study focuses on identifying the problems and prospects of agripreneurship in Bangladesh and the researchers also endeavored to provide some suggestions for the sustainable agripreneurship development.

 Key words: Entrepreneur, agripreneur, agri-business, agro-Industry, Bangladesh.


A new method is proposed for inferring topology for evolutionary trees. Existing methods have complementary strengths and weaknesses. Maximum and transversion parsimony are powerful methods, but they lack statistical consistency, that is, they do not always infer the correct tree as the sequence length becomes very large. Evolutionary parsimony overcomes this deficiency, but it may lack sufficient power when sequence length is small (less than 1000 aligned nucleotides; Sinsheimer, Lake, and Little, 1996, Biometrics 52, 193-210). Our proposed method, evolutionary-symmetric transversion parsimony, is a hybrid that retains the consistency of evolutionary parsimony, while increasing power by incorporating a modified form of transversion parsimony within a statistical model. The method requires choice of a parameter gamma that represents the prior probability that symmetric transversion parsimony yields consistent results. Properties of the method are assessed for a variety of choices of gamma in a large simulation study. In general, inference under the evolutionary-symmetric transversion parsimony has more discriminating power than inference under evolutionary parsimony and is better calibrated than inference under symmetric transversion parsimony. The results are quite robust to the choice of gamma, indicating a value of 0.90 as a reasonable overall choice when the true value of gamma ranges between 0.85 to 1.00. Our method is, like evolutionary parsimony and maximum parsimony, computationally straightforward. The same statistical approach can be applied to combine evolutionary parsimony with other inconsistent methods, such as maximum parsimony, but at the expense of more difficult computations.


Proteus mirabilis, a frequent uropathogen, forms extensive biofilms on catheters that are infamously difficult to treat. To explore the mechanisms of biofilm formation by P. mirabilis, we performed in vivo transposon mutagenesis. A mutant with impaired biofilm formation was isolated. The mutant was found to have Tn5 inserted in the zapD gene, encoding an outer membrane protein of the putative type 1 secretion system ZapBCD. ABSTRACT Proteus mirabilis, a frequent uropathogen, forms extensive biofilms on catheters that are infamously difficult to treat. To explore the mechanisms of biofilm formation by P. mirabilis, we performed in vivo transposon mutagenesis. A mutant with impaired biofilm formation was isolated. The mutant was found to have Tn5 inserted in the zapD gene, encoding an outer membrane protein of the putative type 1 secretion system ZapBCD. zapBCD and its upstream zapA gene, encoding a protease, constitute an operon under the control of CpxR, a two-component regulator. The cpxR mutant and zapA mutant strains also had a biofilm-forming defect. CpxR positively regulates the promoter activities of zapABCD, cpxP, and cpxR. An electrophoretic mobility shift assay revealed that CpxR binds zapA promoter DNA. The loss of zapD reduced CpxR-regulated gene expression of cpxR, zapA, cpxP, and mrpA, the mannose-resistant Proteus-like (MR/P) fimbrial major subunit gene. The restoration of biofilm formation in the zapD mutant with a CpxR-expressing plasmid reinforces the idea that CpxR-mediated gene expression contributes to zapD-involved biofilm formation. In trans expression of zapBCD from a zapBCD-expressing plasmid also reestablished the biofilm formation ability of the cpxR mutant to a certain level. The zapD and cpxR mutants had significantly lower protease activity, adhesion, and autoaggregation ability and production of exopolysaccharides and extracellular DNA (eDNA) than did the wild type. Finally, we identified copper as a signal for CpxR to increase biofilm formation. The loss of cpxR or zapD abolished the copper-mediated biofilm upshift. CpxR was required for copper-induced expression of zapA and cpxR. Taken together, these data highlight the important role of CpxR-regulated zapD in biofilm formation and the underlying mechanisms in P. mirabilis.


Fourteen adult patients with newly-diagnosed acute lymphoblastic, leukemia (ALL), and lymphoblastic lymphoma, were treated with a dose-intense induction regimen. This regimen was designed to increase the fraction of patients achieving an early complete remission, in an attempt to increase the fraction of patients who are long-term disease-free survivors. The induction regimen included vincristine, prednisone, intermediate-dose cytarabine (Ara-C), and idarubicin, all given during the first week of therapy. This combination led to significant hepatic, gastro-intestinal, infectious, and neurologic toxicity. There was unacceptable treatment-related mortality (29%). After the first eight patients, the study was modified, omitting the Ara-C from the induction phase. Gastrointestinal morbidity was less in the cohort treated without Ara-C; however, infectious morbidity persisted at unacceptable levels and this program was terminated as too toxic to administer. There were nine complete remissions, three early deaths, and two patients with resistant disease. There have been six relapses, three of which occurred in patients who, because of protracted grade III/IV toxicity, were no longer receiving chemotherapy. With a minimum follow-up of 20 months, only three patients are still alive. We conclude that this combination of vincristine, prednisone, Ara-C, and idarubicin, is too toxic to be used as induction therapy for adult patients with ALL and lymphoblastic lymphoma.


The purpose of this study is forestry ecological reconstruction on downgraded lands from Baia Mare area, Maramureş county. This land is unsuitable for forestry and other uses because of the downgraded land from surface erosion and also because the average slope of the land is 15 g. The technical solution of improvement includes land and soil preparation technology, afforestation formulas, afforestation technique, planting scheme, and also sustentation needed until canopy closure for every site class. To establish the necessary of seedlings was taken into account planting schemes and percentage of completion for every afforestation composition, as well echeloning the surfaces covered by the project. By establishing the value of proposed works were calculated the costs of basic operations composed by fencing, terminals construction and placement, guarding the perimeter and afforestation works pending final success.


This study assesses early Mesozoic provenance linkages and paleogeographic tectonic models for the western United States based on new petrographic and detrital zircon data from Triassic and Jurassic sandstones of the "Izee" and Olds Ferry terranes of the Blue Mountains Province, northeastern Oregon. Triassic sediments were likely derived from the Baker terrane offshore accretionary subduction complex and are dominated by Late Archean (ca. 2.7–2.5 Ga), Late Paleoproterozoic (ca. 2.2–1.6 Ga), and Paleozoic (ca. 380–255 Ma) detrital zircon grains. These detrital ages suggest that portions of the Baker terrane have a genetic affinity with other Cordilleran accretionary subduction complexes of the western United States, including those in the Northern Sierra and Eastern Klamath terranes. The abundance of Precambrian grains in detritus derived from an offshore complex highlights the importance of sediment reworking. Jurassic sediments are dominated by Mesozoic detrital ages (ca. 230–160 Ma), contain significant amounts of Paleozoic (ca. 290, 380–350, 480–415 Ma), Neoproterozoic (ca. 675–575 Ma), and Mesoproterozoic grains (ca. 1.4–1.0 Ga), and have lesser quantities of Late Paleoproterozoic grains (ca. 2.1–1.7 Ga). Detrital zircon ages in Jurassic sediments closely resemble well-documented age distributions in transcontinental sands of Ouachita-Appalachian provenance that were transported across the southwestern United States and modified by input from cratonal, miogeoclinal, and Cordilleran-arc sources during Triassic and Jurassic time. Jurassic sediments likely were derived from the Cordilleran arc and an orogenic highland in Nevada that yielded recycled sand from uplifted Triassic backarc basin deposits. Our data suggest that numerous Jurassic Cordilleran basins formed close to the Cordilleran margin and support a model for moderate post-Jurassic translation (∼400 km) of the Blue Mountains Province.


The electric grid system is evolved into a smart grid using advanced technologies. The smart grid acts on various information and data in a systematized fashion. It includes an advanced metering infrastructure system that is
responsible for the communication between the smart meter and the utility. The reliability, efficiency, sustainability and economics of the production and distribution of electricity will greatly improve with a smart grid. Overall the smart grid will help save energy.


AbstractThis article investigates gender stereotyping in the Hebrew literature in Palestine during the 1930s in order to find out the extent to which a new ideology effects linguistic and narrative changes. On the assumption that the foundation of the new society was motivated by an egalitarian ideology, the article examines the ideology's reflection in the literature of the period. To this end, three types of analysis were performed: an analysis of the linguistic devices for the introduction of female and male characters, a content analysis of the literary texts, and a quantitative analysis of the personal traits characteristic of women and men. Results support recent claims that the revolutionary ideology of the time hardly applied to women. The results further show that both male and female authors treat women stereotypically, though female authors are significantly less male biased than male authors. The female authors of the 1930s introduced androgy-nous characters, although those authors remained quite conservative at the linguistic level. We attempt to account for the inability of female authors to exercise a complete breakthrough. (Linguistics)


Designers of the aero engines are in quest of maintaining the pressure as high as possible at the face of the compressor, with air velocity not higher than 0.8 Mach. Reduction of the flow from supersonic to such speed is combined with pressure reduction. This paper presents results from coupled techniques to solve for the flow field of double wedge spiked supersonic intake. The selected spike has 4° forebody wedge angle and the second ramp angle is 8°. The external part of the flow was solved analytically while the internal part was solved numerically by finite volume technique. The analysis was carried out at different Mach numbers (1.4, 1.8, 2.2, 2.4, and 3) and different angles of attack (0°, 6°, and 12°). The procedure is validated and the results are presented in terms of the pressure recovery at the face of the compressor. The results have shown that generally the pressure recovery decreases by increasing of incidence angle. The non-zero incidence was found to produce noticeable difference in pressure distribution at the face of the compressor. This became considerably effective at incidences leading to detached shocks at the leading edge of the spike.


The definition of osteoporosis in the general population according to the World Health Organization (WHO) is a T-score ≤ -2.5, or the presence of a low trauma fracture irrespective of bone mineral density (BMD). Osteopenia is defined by the WHO as T-score between -1 to -2.5. The prevalence of osteoporosis is higher in women with and without chronic kidney disease (CKD). In patients with CKD, osteoporosis falls within the spectrum of chronic kidney disease mineral and bone disorder (CKD-MBD). Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcome (KDIGO) CKD-MBD guidelines recommend measurements of BMD in patients with stage 3 or higher CKD to assess fracture risk. Many pharmacological options exist for the treatment of osteoporosis in the general population. There are no clinical trials in patients with CKD-MBD. Recommendations are based on expert opinion and post hoc analyses of major osteoporosis trials in the general population.


Evolution is the mechanism producing the diversity of life. Yet it is also much more. Although the processes of evolution may be lumped together as "natural selection," this catch-all phrase hides an enormous variety of actions, interactions, and events that are still being discovered and appreciated. Furthermore, the intellectual concepts arising from our understanding of evolution have enriched and changed many other fields of study. Dobzhansky's famous dictum that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" is even more true today than it was half a century ago. The concepts and principles of evolution are so ingrained and fundamental in many fields, not just in the life sciences, that their acceptance seems almost subliminal in many cases. In turn, research in evolution and life's diversity has increasingly involved interdisciplinary studies, using approaches grounded in organic chemistry, genetics, developmental biology, ecology, paleontology, and the earth sciences. These are now yielding new understandings of (and surprises about) the history, process, and results of evolution at both finer and grander scales. And the new era of genomics promises to reveal much about the interrelationships of organisms.

This special issue on evolution highlights and samples this richness at many levels: from the record of the diversity of life itself to thoughts on the role of evolution in our lives, from small bacteria to the largest land animals; from the origin of life perhaps 4 billion years ago to evolution that is occurring today at a pace that can be studied in the laboratory; from major radiations of life such as the origins of animals and the rise of the dinosaurs to the evolutionary responses of organisms to external changes in climate or to extinctions, as well as the coevolution of interacting species.

Paradoxically, the breadth of evolution's contribution to research and our daily lives remains grossly unappreciated—and sometimes deliberately denied—in the public realm. Evolutionary methods and concepts have been brought to bear on key questions in contemporary medicine, such as AIDS research and the biology of malaria, and are an important element in the current controversies surrounding genetically modified foods. Many of these issues are barely touched on here, but our sample of evolutionary research underscores evolution's integral role in science as well as its sheer excitement.


I study the relationship between firm growth and the characteristics of newly hired workers. Using Census microdata I obtain a novel empirical result: when a given firm grows faster it hires workers with higher past wages. These results suggest that productive, fast-growing firms tend to hire more productive workers, a form of positive assortative matching. This contrasts with prior research that has found negligible or negative sorting between workers and firms. I present evidence that this difference arises because previous studies have focused on cross-sectional comparisons across firms and industries, while my results condition on firm characteristics (e.g. size, industry, or firm fixed effects). Motivated by the empirical findings I develop a search model with heterogeneous workers and firms. The model is the first to study worker-firm sorting in an environment with worker heterogeneity, firm productivity shocks, multi-worker firms, and search frictions. Despite this richness the model is tractable, allowing me to characterize assortative matching, compositional dynamics and other properties analytically. I show that the model reproduces the positive firm growth-quality of hires correlation when worker and firm types are strong complements in production (i.e. the production function is strictly log-supermodular).


The testing of a compiler is a difficult process, since often a very high quality product is expected by the user, particularly with respect to the compiler's correctness. This paper seeks to review the main methods that have been proposed for the automation of part of this process, using the automatic generation of test cases and the automatic checking of the results. It then summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of the general approach and highlights several areas for further research.


Chronic invasive fungal sinusitis (CIFS) is a rare but potentially aggressive form of invasive fungal disease that occurs in immunocompetent patients. We report a case of CIFS in an otherwise healthy young adult associated with intranasal illicit drug abuse. The patient presented with nonhealing nasal septal and palatal perforations. Biopsy demonstrated invasive Aspergillus flavus requiring surgical debridement and extended intravenous antifungal therapy. Tissue necrosis and ulceration related to intranasal drug use should be recognized as a potential risk factor for invasive fungal sinusitis. Laryngoscope, 125:2656–2659, 2015


Split-level housing systems for pigs may be a simple and relatively inexpensive method for increasing space allowance in existing livestock buildings. Additionally, a second level allows the pigs to structure their pen into different functional areas, and thus can contribute to pig welfare.1–3 First studies investigating the possibility of introducing a plateau unit into a pig's pen were carried out almost 30 years ago.4–7 Nevertheless, until today, split-level pens do not represent a well-established housing system although keeping pigs in such pens can have several advantages. This is largely due to the fact that the additional space provided on a plateau is often not considered to fulfil legal spatial requirements for pigs. However, recently in the Netherlands, it was decided that the plateaus did in fact meet Dutch statutory space requirements.8 The question arises as to whether other countries should follow suit. Due to a lack of scientific knowledge on the acceptance of platforms by pigs, it was argued that there might not necessarily be more space available for all group members if some of them refuse to use the platform.9 Recently, a study on fattening pigs showed only moderate use of an elevated platform.10

In the present study, scientific data on the acceptance of an elevated platform by weaner pigs under modern farming conditions were collected. For this purpose, two split-level pens were …


This paper is focused on the problem of accurate and reliable path tracking control of a 4-wheels car-like mobile robot moving off-road at high speed. Dynamic and extended kinematic models that take into account the effects of wheel skidding are presented. Based on the extended kinematic model, an adaptive and predictive controller for path tracking is derived. This control law is combined to a stabilization algorithm of yaw motion, based on the dynamic model and the modulation of driven wheel forces. The overall control architecture is experimentally evaluated on a slipping terrain. Results demonstrate enhanced performances as the robot succeed in following the path at high speed, accurately and without loss of control.


Purpose To evaluate the effect of gluten-free diet (GFD) on hepatitis B surface antibody (HBsAb) concentrations among previously immunized pediatric celiac disease (CD) subjects. Methods We retrospectively evaluated pediatric CD subjects in serological remission who were previously immunized for hepatitis B virus as infants. The temporal relationship between HBsAb concentration, the amount of time on a GFD, and age were evaluated. Results Overall, 373 CD subjects were analyzed: 156 with HBsAb sampled prior to GFD initiation and 217 after initiation of a GFD and in serological remission. Median age at HBsAb concentration measurement for those before and after GFD initiation was 5.3 years (interquartile range [IQR], 3.1–9.2 years) and 7.6 years (IQR, 5.4–10.9 years), respectively (p<0.001). There was no sex difference between the groups. The median time of HBsAb measurement was 2 months (IQR, 0–5.7 months) before and 12.8 months (IQR, 5.3–30.3 months) after initiation of GFD. The HBsAb concentration was low in 79 (50.6%) and 121 (55.7%) subjects before and after GFD initiation, respectively (p=0.350). Age was inversely associated with low HBsAb concentrations. Neither being on a GFD nor sex was associated with low HBsAb concentrations. Conclusion Adherence to a GFD does not affect HBsAb concentration in children with CD. Age is inversely associated with HBsAb concentration.


Non-negative matrix factorisation (NMF) has been widely used in pattern recognition problems. For the tasks of classification, however, most of the existing variants of NMF ignore both the discriminative information and the local geometry of data into the factorisation. The actual conditions of the problems will be affected by the change of the environmental factors to affect the recognition accuracy. In order to overcome these drawbacks, the authors regularised NMF by intra-class and inter-class fuzzy K nearest neighbour graphs, leading to NMF-FK-NN in this study. By introducing two novel fuzzy K nearest neighbour graphs, NMF-FK-NN can contract the intra-class neighbourhoods and expand the inter-class neighbourhoods in the decomposition. This method not only exploits the discriminative information and uses the geometric structure in the data effectively, but also reduces the influence of the external factors to improve recognition effect. In the factorisation, the authors minimised the approximation error whilst contracting intra-class fuzzy neighbourhoods and expanding inter-class fuzzy neighbourhoods. The authors develop simple multiplicative updates for NMF-FK-NN and present monotonic convergence results. Experiments of the text clustering on the CLUTO toolkit and face recognition on ORL and YALE datasets show the effectiveness of our proposed method.


PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to develop a measurement instrument which measures workplace learning and reflects the connections between quality, learning and brain functioning. Design/ Approach/ MethodologyA literature review is conducted, investigating measures of workplace learning as well as the connections between brain functioning and management. Further studies will use the Brain Integration Scale, whether the brain functions in isolated units or as an integrated whole, calculated from brain waves measured during two reaction-time tasks, to compare levels of brain integration with measures of quality and learning. FindingsThe dimensions "empathy", "integrity", "presence and communication", "influence", "development", "being informed", "work-integrated learning" and "flow" were found to be relevant from the literature review to be tested for inclusion in the measurement instrument. Other measures which has shown to be correlated with high brain integration could be included as well. Practical implicationHigh organisational change requires continuous flexibility of leaders and co-workers, which can lead to poor health. The proposed measurement instrument can be used by managers togain insight into underlying mechanisms in the organisational culture that influence employees´ learning and potential for development. It could be used as a first step for improvements "to break the ice".Orginality/valueTraditional ways of measuring working environment are rarely connected to brain functioning of the employees. Only requiring small resources, this approach adds to an understanding of underlying mechanisms.


Before 1955-1966, 16 instances of whale entanglement with submarine telegraphic cables were reported in the scientific literature. Here we present new information, derived from global cable fault databases, that reveals an absence of whale entanglements since 1959. This cessation coincided with the transition from telegraphic to coaxial telecommunication cables followed by the change to fiber-optic systems in the 1980s. We propose that entanglements ceased in response to advances in cable design, marine surveying, and cable laying techniques. These changes involved the following: 1) development of torque-balanced cables that were less prone to self-coiling, 2) laying armored cables under slight tension to minimize suspensions and loops, and laying low-torque, nonarmored cables with minimum slack to follow the seabed topography, 3) avoidance of rough topography where suspensions may develop, 4) burial of cables below the seabed on the continental shelf and upper slope to protect against shipping and fishing activities, and 5) use of fault repair procedures that reduce cable slack.


Infanticidal behavior has been very common through-out human history. It is suggested that progenicidal behavior, whether consciously or unconsciously practiced, be defined and considered within a cultural, ecological and historical matrix in anthropological studies. Sociobiological and materialist interpretive models are considered too extremist by many anthropologists. Both approaches have an inherent tendency to treat "culture" as a subsidiary variable in infanticide, rather than as encompassing progenicidal phenomena and strategies. A useful conceptual framework with which to approach data collection is one where individuals negotiate progenicidal and child care decision-making within a sociocultural, ecological, technological, demographic and economic framework.


With the rapid growth of smartphones, mobile crowdsensing emerges as a new paradigm which takes advantage of the pervasive sensor-embedded smartphones to collect data efficiently. Many auction-based incentive mechanisms have been proposed to stimulate smartphone users to participate in the mobile crowdsensing applications and systems. However, none of them has taken into consideration both the bid privacy of smartphone users and the social cost. In this paper, we design two frameworks for privacy-preserving auction-based incentive mechanisms that also achieve approximate social cost minimization. In the former, each user submits a bid for a set of tasks it is willing to perform; in the latter, each user submits a bid for each task in its task set. Both frameworks select users based on platform-defined score functions. As examples, we propose two score functions, linear and log functions, to realize the two frameworks. We rigorously prove that both proposed frameworks achieve computational efficiency, individual rationality, truthfulness, differential privacy, and approximate social cost minimization. In addition, with log score function, the two frameworks are asymptotically optimal in terms of the social cost. Extensive simulations evaluate the performance of the two frameworks and demonstrate that our frameworks achieve bid-privacy preservation although sacrificing social cost.


Because of the broad definition of a farm—which includes numerous small operations that produce little or no agricultural commodities in any given year—most farm households earn all of their income from nonfarm sources. However, even those operating farms with substantial production often have significant nonfarm income. Most nonfarm income, in turn, comes from off-farm jobs. Industry and occupation information collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2010 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) provides one indication of how the skills demanded and cultivated on the farm influence off-farm employment incentives and opportunities. Consistent with the notion that farming requires substantial management skills, this study finds that when farm operators and their spouses work off farm, they are most likely to hold a management or professional occupation. This is especially true for households operating larger farms.


The deviation from thermodynamic equilibrium of the ion velocity distribution functions (VDFs), as measured by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission in the Earth's turbulent magnetosheath, is quantitatively investigated. Making use of the unprecedented high-resolution MMS ion data, and together with Vlasov–Maxwell simulations, this analysis aims at investigating the relationship between deviation from Maxwellian equilibrium and typical plasma parameters. Correlations of the non-Maxwellian features with plasma quantities such as electric fields, ion temperature, current density and ion vorticity are found to be similar in magnetosheath data and numerical experiments, with a poor correlation between distortions of ion VDFs and current density, evidence that questions the occurrence of VDF departure from Maxwellian at the current density peaks. Moreover, strong correlation has been observed with the magnitude of the electric field in the turbulent magnetosheath, while a certain degree of correlation has been found in the numerical simulations and during a magnetopause crossing by MMS. This work could help shed light on the influence of electrostatic waves on the distortion of the ion VDFs in space turbulent plasmas.


The synthesis of several non-carbohydrate ligands of cholera toxin based on polyhydroxyalkylfuroate moieties is reported. Some of them have been linked to D-galactose through a stable and well-tolerated S-glycosidic bond. They represent a novel type of non-hydrolyzable bidentate ligand featuring galactose and polyhydroxyalkylfuroic esters as pharmacophoric residues, thus mimicking the GM1 ganglioside. The affinity of the new compounds towards cholera toxin was measured by weak affinity chromatography (WAC). The interaction of the best candidates with this toxin was also studied by saturation transfer difference NMR experiments, which allowed identification of the binding epitopes of the ligands interacting with the protein. Interestingly, the highest affinity was shown by non-carbohydrate mimics based on a polyhydroxyalkylfuroic ester structure.


We studied the composition and variation of nematode body size as a function of nema- tode depth in the sediment and water depth at 18 stations, ranging from 137 to 4951 m depth, along the Galician margin (NE Atlantic). The analysis is based on more than 10 000 individuals and demon- strates that nematodes have adapted mainly in response to the vertical changing conditions in the sediment. Nematode length and width are similar in the upper 0.5 cm of sediment at all stations, but differ greatly as their depth in the sediment increases. The observed trends are consistent with an adaptation to changing oxygen concentrations in the sediments. In lower slope and abyssal plain sta- tions, oxygen decreases gradually until depletion at about 5 cm depth, and nematode body width decreases concurrently, resulting in higher oxygen absorption efficiency per unit of volume. On the shelf and in the canyons, sediments become anoxic at short distances below the sediment-water interface, and more than 50% of the nematodes are present in the anoxic part of the sediment. Here, mean nematode length increases as their depth in the sediment increases. This may result in increased mobility, which enables the organisms to migrate between anoxic patches of food and parts of the sediment where oxygen is available and/or the ability to bridge the gap between oxic and anoxic patches with their body. Order of magnitude calculation shows that in shelf sediments, the chemosynthetic bacterial production, which accompanies the oxidation of reduced substances, can not fulfill the feeding requirements of nematodes in the anoxic zone. The different size adaptations with sediment depth in shallow as compared to deep stations combined with deeper penetration of nematodes into the sediment at shallow water depth cause the observed pattern of miniaturization with increasing water depth. We conclude that nematode size distribution is determined by food availability. However, organic matter, as a food source, is not directly responsible, as a limiting resource, but indirectly because its respiration generates reduced conditions in the sediment. Within the smaller size range (< 500 µm length), there are 2 clearly distinct morphological types, which, to a certain extent, impart a taxonomic division. Similar findings at other localities suggest that this is a common feature of nematodes from ocean margin areas. One group consists of corpulent nematodes, which are less than 15 times as long as wide; most prominent in this group are members of the order of the Desmoscolecida. The other group contains significantly more slender nematodes and com- prises a large variety of nematode taxa. We hypothesize that this duality in nematode design reflects an ecological adaptation designed to meet the conflicting requirements of either increased mobility (slender) or reduced vulnerability to predation (corpulent) at these small sizes.


Increasing data bandwidth requirements from spacecraft systems is beginning to pressure existing microwave communications systems. Free-Space optical communications allows for larger bandwidths for lower relative power consumption, smaller size and weight when compared to the microwave equivalent. However optical communication does have a formidable challenge that needs to be overcome before the advantages of the technology can be fully utilized. In order for the communication to be successful the transmitter and receiver terminals need to be pointed with a high accuracy (generally in the order of ≤10 μradians) for the duration of communication. In this paper we present a new concept for the precise pointing of optical communications terminals (termed the Precise Pointing Mechanism). In this new concept we combine the separate pointing mechanisms of a conventional optical terminal into a single mechanism, reducing the complexity and cost of the optical bench. This is achieved by electromagnetically actuating the whole telescope assembly in 6 degrees-of-freedom with an angular resolution of less than ±3 μradians within a 10 (Az. El.) field of view and linear resolution of ±2 μm. This paper presents the new pointing mechanism and discusses the modelling, simulation and experimental work undertaken using the bespoke engineering model developed.


Image fusion is a process of combining relevant information from two or more images from different sensors
based on certain algorithm. Many algorithms have been proposed for pixel level image fusion. In this paper, Empirical
Mode Decomposition is the recent, powerful tool for adaptive multi scale analysis of non stationary signals that
decomposes them into Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs). Hence an attempt is made to use EMD for multi sensor image
fusion. Two types of Empirical Mode Decomposition algorithms viz. BEMD (Bi dimensional Empirical Mode
Decomposition) and VEMD (Vectorized Empirical Mode Decomposition) are used to decompose the images to get
Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs). It is concluded that both algorithms are performed similar but VEMD is
computationally very simple. Fusion algorithms viz., Simple Averaging (SA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA),
Stationary Wavelet Transform (SWT) and Laplacian Pyramid (LP) are applied on each IMFs to generate the fused
IMFs. Fused image is reconstructed by summing all the fused IMFs. Objective and subjective fusion quality evaluation
metrics are used to evaluate the performance of these fusion algorithms. It is concluded that SWT based image fusion
algorithm performs better followed by LP based fusion algorithm. It is also concluded that fusion quality is degraded
by using more number of decomposition levels in wavelets and pyramid based image fusion algorithms. From this
study, it is concluded that both BEMD and VEMD with SWT based image fusion algorithm provides good fusion
results. VEMD with SWT based image fusion algorithm is computationally simple and can be used for real time image
fusion applications.


This paper investigates the e ect of electrical discharge machining parameters on the surface roughness as an alternative method for machining of Al/SiCp metal matrix composites produced with the powder metallurgy. Current, electrode type, pulse-on-time, particle reinforcement weight ratio and voltage were used as the process parameters. An experimental plan (L18) was constituted by using the Taguchi orthogonal design. Results of experiments showed that pulse-on-time (34%) and current (31.26%) is the most in uencing parameters. Besides this, the percentage contribution of particle reinforcement on the surface roughness is 6.71%.


It is very unfortunate that the philosopher who, as would be generally agreed, has had the greatest influence on modern thought is a writer whose style presents a particularly formidable barrier to the layman, or indeed to any reader tackling him for the first time; and this makes it all the more necessary that an effort should be made by those who have read and studied his works to communicate what they take to be the essential parts of his message. The present article is an attempt to fulfil a part of this function, i.e. to convey a few of the leading ideas of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, while leaving aside altogether his other writings. I hope Kantian scholars will forgive me if in the attempt to make some of Kant's ideas clear in a very small space to readers who have not specialized in the subject but are interested in philosophy I seem not to do justice to the complexity of his finer distinctions. Also I had better add that this article is simply an attempt to state Kant's doctrine; it is not intended as an expression of my own views, and refrains from criticism.