This empirical study seeks to identify key determinants of the recent post-Great settlement pattern of undocumented immigrants inside the U.S. Among the potential determining factors considered are the degree of labor market freedom, the quality of life, and Sanctuary cities. The focus is the year 2012, which has not by itself as yet been studied for this purpose. The estimation results provided in this study imply that the state-level settlement pattern of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. was an increasing function of labor market freedom, the number of Sanctuary cities, and the overall quality-of-life index, as well as per capita personal income, while being a decreasing function of the cost of living and colder climate. Furthermore, the impacts of labor market freedom and the other variables in the model are affirmed using a modest robustness test involving a semi-log estimate for the 2014 settlement pattern of undocumented immigrants.


The domain gap severely limits the transferability and scalability of object detectors trained in a specific domain when applied to a novel one. Most existing works bridge the domain gap by minimizing the domain discrepancy in the category space and aligning category-agnostic global features. Though great success, these methods model domain discrepancy with prototypes within a batch, yielding a biased estimation of domain-level distribution. Besides, the category-agnostic alignment leads to the disagreement of class-specific distributions in the two domains, further causing inevitable classification errors. To overcome these two challenges, we propose a novel Semantic Conditioned AdaptatioN (SCAN) framework such that well-modeled unbiased semantics can support semantic conditioned adaptation for precise domain adaptive object detection. Specifically, class-specific semantics crossing different images in the source domain are graphically aggregated as the input to learn an unbiased semantic paradigm incrementally. The paradigm is then sent to a lightweight manifestation module to obtain conditional kernels to serve as the role of extracting semantics from the target domain for better adaptation. Subsequently, conditional kernels are integrated into global alignment to support the class-specific adaptation in a well-designed Conditional Kernel guided Alignment (CKA) module. Meanwhile, rich knowledge of the unbiased paradigm is transferred to the target domain with a novel Graph-based Semantic Transfer (GST) mechanism, yielding the adaptation in the category-based feature space. Comprehensive experiments conducted on three adaptation benchmarks demonstrate that SCAN outperforms existing works by a large margin.


Abstract The Altai Mountains form an intracontinental, transpressive deformation belt in the NW Central Asian orogenic system. Using a multi-method chronometric approach, the thermo-tectonic history of the basement underlying the Teletskoye graben area is constrained in more detail. The results provide new insights into the Siberian Altai basement evolution from the Early Palaeozoic to the present. Zircon SHRIMP (sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe) U–Pb ages (Late Ordovician–Early Silurian, 460–420 Ma) indicate an earlier crystallization age for the basement granitoids than previously thought (Late Devonian–Early Carboniferous, 370–350 Ma), while new multi-mineral 40Ar/39Ar age spectra suggest continuous basement cooling throughout the Devonian–Carboniferous. Reactivation of long-lived Palaeozoic structures controls the Teletskoye graben formation since the Plio-Pleistocene as a distant effect of India–Eurasian convergence. Deformation is propagated through Central Asia and Siberia along an inherited structural network closely associated with its basement fabric. A similar reactivation affected the Altai during the Mesozoic. Modelled apatite fission-track data suggest Late Jurassic–Cretaceous (150–80 Ma) cooling, interpreted to be related to denudation and the tectonic reactivation that we link to the coeval Mongol–Okhotsk orogeny. From the Late Cretaceous until the Pliocene, the thermal history models indicate a period of stability. Roughly around 5 Ma ago renewed cooling is observed that possibly represents the denudation and growth of the present-day Altai, and provides the context for the Teletskoye graben formation. A modelled Late Cenozoic cooling can be a result of, or overemphasized by, a modelling artefact. Some caution should be taken not to overinterpret this cooling phase.


2519A aluminum plate was shot obliquely by an incendiary projectile with the diameter of 7.62mm at impact velocity of 818m/s. The penetration inhomogeneities of the crater of 2519A aluminum target plate were investigated with optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Melted substance, a mixture of the target material and the projectile was found at the interface of target and projectile. Different microstructural characteristics were observed along the crater depth. Grains were elongated near the entrance area, while severely kinked grains and adiabatic shear bands were present in the middle region, and microbands, as well as abnormal grown grains, appeared at the crater bottom. The failure form of target is mainly ductile expanding.


The anchoring biofilm layer is expected to exhibit a different response to environmental stresses than for portions in the bulk, due to the protection from other strata and the proximity to the attachment surface. The effect of hydrodynamic stress on surface-adhered biofilm layers was tested using a specially designed microfluidic bio flow cell with an embedded three-electrode detection system. In situ electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements of biocapacitance and bioresistance of Pseudomonas sp. biofilms were conducted during the growth phase and under different shear flow conditions with verification by other surface sensitive techniques. Distinct, but reversible changes to the amount of biofilm and its structure at the attachment surface were observed during the application of elevated shear stress. In contrast, regular microscopy revealed permanent distortion to the biofilm bulk, in the form of streamers and ripples. Following the application of extreme shear stresses, complete removal of significant portions of biofilm outer layers occurred, but this did not change the measured quantity of biofilm at the electrode attachment surface. The structure of the remaining biofilm, however, appeared to be modified and susceptible to further changes following application of shear stress directly to the unprotected biofilm layers at the attachment surface.


A steady-state subsonic interface crack propagating between an elastic solid and a rigid substrate with crack face contact is studied. Two cases with respective to the contact length are considered, i.e., semi-infinite and finite crack face contact. Different from a stationary or an open subsonic interface crack, stress singularity at the crack tip in the present paper is found to be non-oscillatory. Furthermore, in the semi-infinite contact case, the singularity of the stress field near the crack tip is less than 1/2. In the finite contact case, no singularity exists near the crack tip, but less than 1/2 singularity does at the end of the contact zone. In both cases, the singularity depends on the linear contact coefficient and the crack speed. Asymptotic solutions near the crack tip are given and analyzed. In order to satisfy the contact conditions, reasonable region of the linear contact coefficient is found. In addition, the solution predicts a non-zero-energy dissipation rate due to crack face contact.


The study of threat and fear appeal arguments has given rise to a sizeable literature. Even within a public health context, much is now known about how these arguments work to gain the public's compliance with health recommendations. Notwithstanding this level of interest in, and examination of, these arguments, there is one aspect of these arguments that still remains unexplored. That aspect concerns the heuristic function of these arguments within our thinking about public health problems. Specifically, it is argued that threat and fear appeal arguments serve as valuable shortcuts in our reasoning, particularly when that reasoning is subject to biases that are likely to diminish the effectiveness of public health messages. To this extent, they are rationally warranted argument forms rather than fallacies, as has been their dominant characterization in logic.


Background: Whether depression and antidepressant (AD) use might influence breast cancer risk is unclear, and these exposures have not been evaluated together in a single, prospective cohort study of breast cancer risk. Methods: Among 71,439 postmenopausal women in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study (WHI-OS), we estimated multivariable-adjusted HRs for the independent and joint effects of depressive symptoms and AD use on breast cancer risk using Cox proportional hazards regression. Results: When analyzed separately, neither depressive symptoms nor AD use at baseline were associated with a significantly increased risk of total breast cancer (HR = 0.96, 95% CI, 0.85–1.08; HR = 1.04, 95% CI, 0.92–1.20, respectively) or invasive breast cancer (HR = 0.98, 95% CI, 0.86–1.12; HR = 1.00, 95% CI, 0.86–1.16, respectively). Current AD use was associated with a borderline-significant increase of in situ breast cancer (HR = 1.30, 95% CI, 0.99–1.75) after adjustment for depressive symptoms; however, this relationship was attenuated after adjustment for mammographic screening (HR = 1.08, 95% CI, 0.76–1.51). No significant variation in total breast cancer risk was observed when the separate and joint effects of depressive symptoms and AD use were explored (P for interaction = 0.14). Conclusion: We found no evidence that either depression or AD use influences breast cancer risk. An elevated risk of in situ disease among AD users could not be ruled out, though is likely due to increased screening in this subgroup. Impact: Given the high prevalence of these exposures, these results may provide reassurance to the millions of women who are depressed and/or use ADs each year. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 25(1); 158–64. ©2015 AACR.


The article is devoted to examination of the little-studied heritage of church music manuscripts of the Old-Believers from the collection of the Khvalynsk Local History Museum (in the Saratov Region). The Old-Believers were Russian Orthodox Christians who did not accept the reforms in the Russian Church in the mid-17th century, and continued the pre-reform rituals, which included monophonic plainchant. The core of the collection consists of manuscripts from the Cheremshany Old-Believers' monasteries, which existed from the 1830s to the 1930-1940s. A study of the manuscript heritage demonstrates that it represents in full measure a regional tradition of church singing and reflects the practice of liturgical singing of the Cheremshany Old-Believers' Monasteries. On the one hand it inherits features of the Old-Believers' liturgical culture (of the Irgiz monasteries), and on the other hand, it reflects a characteristic feature of Old-Believers' church singing from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, becoming simpler and more standardized. Keywords : Old-Believers, church music manuscripts, church singing


The aim of this study was to characterise the allometric growth and bone mineral maturation of forelimb bones in sheep throughout the growth phase. Forelimb bones (scapula to proximal phalanx) were measured in 84 Merino sheep from similar genetic stock of approximately 12, 32, 64, 84, 116, and 168 weeks of age, with approximately equal numbers of wethers and ewes in each age cohort (n = 14). Sheep were selected for divergence of size, body weight, and condition, in order that the effects of age and body size could be assessed independently. Bone magnesium was measured in the metacarpal and humerus. Results demonstrate the highly coordinated, allometric nature of linear bone growth within the ovine forelimb, though allometric growth patterns differed from those previously published for bone weights. We propose that estimates of maturity proportion (M) based on relative limb bone length or limb proportions may present significant advantages over weight- or composition-based maturity indices, or qualitative variables such as dental eruption or USDA-type maturity scores. Sex differences in growth gradients were minimal, although the higher variability and greater gender divergence of metacarpal bone length casts doubt on the use of its growth plate (breakjoint) to indicate maturity. Bone magnesium content was found to decrease rapidly during the growth period and may represent a useful independent estimate of physiological maturity.


Background: To compare the safety and efficacy of percutaneous ultrasound guided gastrostomy (PUG) tube placement with traditional fluoroscopic guided percutaneous gastrostomy tube placement (PRG). Methods: A prospective, observational, non-randomized cohort trial was performed comparing 25 consecutive patients who underwent PUG placement between April 2020 and August 2020 with 25 consecutive patients who underwent PRG placement between February 2020 and March 2020. Procedure time, sedation, analgesia requirements, and complications were compared between the two groups in non-inferiority analysis. Results: Technical success rates were 96% in both groups (24/25) of procedures. Ninety-two percent of patients in the PUG cohort were admitted to the ICU at the time of G-tube request. Aside from significantly more COVID-19 patients in the PUG group (P < .001), there was no other statistically significant difference in patient demographics. Intra-procedure pain medication requirements were the same for both groups, 50 micrograms of IV fentanyl (P = 1.0). Intra-procedure sedation with IV midazolam was insignificantly higher in the PUG group 1.12 mg vs 0.8 mg (P = .355). Procedure time trended toward statistical significance (P = .076), with PRG being shorter than PUG (30.5 ± 14.1 minutes vs 39.7 ± 17.9 minutes). There were 2 non-device related major complications in the PUG group and 1 major and 1 minor complication in the PRG group. Conclusion: PUG is similar in terms of complications to PRG gastrostomy tube placement and a safe method for gastrostomy tube placement in the critically ill with the added benefits of bedside placement, elimination of radiation exposure, and expanded and improved access to care.


Today, flood risk management practices incorporate non-structural measures that take into account the potential of ecosystems to prevent, regulate and reduce water-related hazards. However, the implementation of non-structural measures, such as floodplains and water retention areas, increases the exposure of rural and farming areas for better protection of urban and industrial areas. Since agricultural enterprises are closely linked to land productivity, this exposure trade-off directly affects farm incomes, and thus the long-term sustainability of agricultural activities in floodplain and water retention areas. In addition, local businesses are increasingly interconnected in production networks and supply chains and impacts on local business can quickly have further consequences.

We propose to consider these supply networks as complex systems, i.e. a set of heterogeneous entities interacting with each other according to a given topology.In these systems, the upstream and downstream links that govern the interactions of the entities may allow the appearance of indirect effects that are reflected through the network of links. In our work, we focus on a cooperative winemaking system (CWS). A CWS is conceptualized as a supply chain in which a cooperative winery and a set of vinegrowers interact. The basic product of the system (the grape) is supplied by the vinegrowers, which the cooperative finishes processing (carrying out the winemaking, bottling and marketing stages).

We propose to analyze the extent to which individual winegrowers in financial difficulty may pose a threat to the sustainability of the system in the event of flooding. To carry out this analysis, we adopt a bottom-up approach. We use an agent-based model (the COOPER model) to simulate the production dynamics of the CWS. The COOPER model is used as a virtual laboratory to explore the behavior of the system under various flood scenarios, varying according to the spatial extent of the event and the season of occurrence. We test the influence of 4 parameters on financial viability at both the individual and system levels: the rigidity of the cost structure of the winery, the location of the winery, the individual business cessation criteria and the individual initial treasury.

Our results show that winery-related parameters influence the capacity of both system and individuals to absorb flood impacts more than individual parameters. The analysis of financial flows shows that, indeed, contrary to standard hypotheses in cost-benefit analyses and business resilience studies, return to pre-disaster states might not be possible. Furthermore, without financial support, some businesses may never recover and bussines dismissal due to financial presures and harvest variations threats the survival of the CWS (hence theating the long term viability of farming activities). In addition, we unveil a mechanism to graduate the degree of damage spreading in case of productions losses within the CWS hidden in the revenue-cost sharing rules and the structure of costs. From a managerial point of view, this type of result has strong implications: managers can influence the capacity of the CWS to absorb shocks and prevent damage propagation by keeping cost structures from becoming too rigid.


Research on demand response and transactive energy systems often require granular, appliance-level demand data. However, there is no existing test system with such appliance-level data with proper temporospatial diversity in a realistic distribution system. This paper develops a 240-node real distribution test system with appliance-level demand data for responsive loads. The residential appliance-level demand data are derived from smart meters connected to 1,120 homes in a real distribution system from Iowa State, hereafter called Midwest 240-Node test distribution system. A queueing load model was used to derive the appliance-level data from the smart meter data. The Midwest 240-Node test distribution system provides granular appliance-level information for all homes in the distribution system (i.e., individual appliances that constitute the home load), and the aggregate of all customer load emulates the actual smart meter data. The performance of the Midwest 240-Node test distribution system is evaluated by comparing the aggregated appliance-level demand with the actual measured smart meter data from the utility. The one-year appliance data has a mean absolute percentage error of 2.58% compared to the measured smart meter data. The test system is modeled in OpenDSS and GridLAB-D and is openly available to researchers to enable demand response and transactive energy studies with active end-users.


Low-cost, hydrogen-gas-leak detectors are needed for many hydrogen applications, such as hydrogen-fueled vehicles where several detectors may be required in different locations on each vehicle. A fiber-optic leak detector could be inherently safer than conventional detectors, because it would remove all detector electronics from the vicinity of potential leaks. It would also provide freedom from electromagnetic interference, a serious problem in fuel- cell-powered electric vehicles. This paper describes the design of a fiber-optic, surface-plasmon-resonance hydrogen detector, and efforts to make it more sensitive, selective, and durable. Chemochromic materials, such as tungsten oxide and certain Lanthanide hydrides, can reversibly react with hydrogen in air while exhibiting significant changes in their optical properties. Thin films of these materials applied to a sensor at the nd of an optical fiber have been used to detect low concentrations of hydrogen gas in air. The coatings include a thin silver layer in which the surface plasmon is generated, a thin film of the chemochromic materials, and a catalytic layer of palladium that facilitates the reaction with hydrogen. The film thickness is chosen to produce a guided-surface plasmon wave along the interface between the silver and the chemichromic material. A dichroic beam-splitter separates the reflected spectrum into a portion near the resonance and a portion away from the resonance, and directs these two portions to two separate photodiodes. The electronic ratio of these two signals cancels most of the fiber transmission noise and provides a stable hydrogen signal.


Background: Maternal antibodies, transported through the placenta during pregnancy, contribute to the protection of infants from infectious diseases during the first months of life. The aim of this study was to measure the concentration of antibodies against several vaccine-preventable diseases in paired maternal and cord blood serum samples in preterm and term infants and to assess placental transfer ratios and infant antibody concentrations against vaccine-preventable diseases. Methods: Antibody concentrations specific against pertussis proteins (pertussis toxin, filamentous hemagglutinin, pertactin, and fimbriae), diphtheria and tetanus toxins, and antibody concentrations specific against polysaccharides from Haemophilus influenzae type b and Neisseria meningitidis serogroup C were measured in cord blood samples from preterm (<32 weeks and 1500 g) and term infants and maternal serum samples, using a fluorescent bead-based multiplex immunoassay. Results: A total of 96 preterm and 42 term infants and their mothers were included in the study. Placental transfer ratios of antibodies against all vaccine antigens were significantly lower in preterm infants (medians varied from 0.26 to 0.86) compared with term infants (medians, 0.74–1.89; all antibodies P < 0.05). Furthermore, polysaccharide-vaccine–specific antibodies showed lower transplacental transport ratios than protein-vaccine–specific antibodies. Maternal concentrations are the most important determinants of infant antibody concentrations against vaccine-preventable diseases. Conclusions: Preterm infants benefit to a lesser extent from maternal antibodies against vaccine-preventable diseases than term infants, posing them at higher risk for infectious diseases in the first months of life.


The paper explores how the interface between a literary text and its cinematic rendering underscores the possibilities of meaningful exchanges and encounters between different art forms, historical moments, and ideological values. Cinematic adaptation of canonical literary texts of the nineteenth century offers an effective platform for the discussion of the post-Victorian event. Rituparno Ghosh's film Chokher Bali, based on Rabindranath Tagore's novel bearing the same title, is a retro-Victorian working of colonial history. Ghosh offers an exploration of the spatiality of woman's selfhood/identity, and its complex interface with the historical and the social. Here, I have used the word 'Victorian' both historically and culturally. Culturally, the resonance of the word "Victorian" extends beyond historical specificities spilling to the postmodern era, and revealing an in-depth engagement with history which enriches the postmodern present considerably. The impact of the 'Victorian' is not only true for those in the West, but also for people who had been under British rule for long two hundred years. Rituparno's adaptation of Tagore is a reminder that our postmodern condition should not blind us to our status as postVictorian/nineteenth century. The cinematic reworking of Tagore provides a palimpsestuous vision of what is present but not conspicuous enough.


The crested wheatgrass cultivar 'Hycrest,' which consists of germplasm from an induced tetraploid of Agropuron cristatum (2n = 4x = 28) (L.) Gaertn. and a natural tetraploid (2n = 4x = 28) of A. desertorum (Fisch. Ex Link) Schultes, was hybridized with a promising broadleaf hexaploid (6x-BL; 2n = 6x = 42) accession of A. cristatum from the USSR. The goal was to combine the wide leaf characteristic and green color retention from the 6x-BL parent into a common gene pool. The crossability between Hycrest (4r) and 6x-BL (6x) was excellent; however, chromosome pairing was irregular and chromosome numbers ranged from 2n = 27 to 41. Leaf morphology in Hycrest/ 6r-BL hybrids was intermediate to that of the parents. Selected F 1 pentaploid progenies (2n = 5x = 35), with leaf widths approaching that of the 6x-BL parent, were backcrossed to Hycrest (Hycrest*2/ 6x-BL), and then crossed among themselves (Hycrest*2/6x-BL// Hycrest*2/6x-BL). In the backcross hybrid, chromosome numbers ranged from 2n = 28 to 39. Meiotically, 28 chromosome backcross hybrid plants were more stable than aneuploid backcross hybrids. The broadleaf character was readily detected in the backcross progeny. In Hycrest/6x-BL//Hycrest/6x-BL hybrids, chromosome numbers ranged from 2n = 33 to 45. Despite the hybrid origin, all aneuploid hybrids had an increased number of univalents and chromosome associations that involved more than four chromosomes. AFLP analysis reflected genetic introgression from the 6x-BL parent beyond that observed in Hycrest. Results support earlier conclusions that the crested wheatgrass complex should be treated as a common gene pool.


In order to achieve the (semi-) automatic composition of Web services to business processes and workflows respectively, it is necessary to make use of semantic information regarding the capabilities and further characteristics of particular Web services. In recent years, a couple of approaches have been proposed to achieve (semi-) automatic annotation, retrieval, and composition of Semantic Web services; however, differences in Web service standards and repositories used for the evaluation of these approaches lead to a lack of both in-depth evaluations and comparability of the proposals. In this paper, we present a workbench to test and evaluate the performance of annotation, retrieval, and composition algorithms for Semantic Web services. As a proof of concept we introduce SEM.KOM, a prototypical implementation based on standardized Web service technologies.


High-voltage-rated solid-state switches such as insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) are commercially available up to 6.5 kV. Such voltage ratings are attractive for pulsed power and high-voltage switch-mode converter applications. However, as the IGBT voltage ratings increase, the rate of current rise and fall are generally reduced. This tradeoff is difficult to avoid as IGBTs must maintain a low resistance in the epitaxial or drift region layer. For high-voltage-rated IGBTs with thick drift regions to support the reverse voltage, the required high carrier concentrations are injected at turn on and removed at turn off, which slows the switching speed. An option for faster switching is to series multiple, lower voltage-rated IGBTs. An IGBT-stack prototype with six, 1200 V rated IGBTs in series has been experimentally tested. The six-series IGBT stack consists of individual, optically isolated, gate drivers and aluminum cooling plates for forced air cooling which results in a compact package. Each IGBT is overvoltage protected by transient voltage suppressors. The turn-on current rise time of the six-series IGBT stack and a single 6.5 kV rated IGBT has been experimentally measured in a pulsed resistive-load, capacitor discharge circuit. The IGBT stack has also been compared to two IGBT modules in series, each rated at 3.3 kV, in a boost circuit application switching at 9 kHz and producing an output of 5 kV. The six-series IGBT stack results in improved turn-on switching speed, and significantly higher power boost converter efficiency due to a reduced current tail during turn off. The experimental test parameters and the results of the comparison tests are discussed in the following paper


: The female gonad (germovitellarium) of the lecithoepitheliate turbellarians has a special type of organization. It consists of the peculiar follicles in which the oocytes develop surrounded by the yolk cells (vitellocytes). While an oocyte grows, chromatin remains to be decondensed, and the karyosphere is not formed. Using immunogold labeling microscopy we studied a distribution of RNA polymerase II, transcriptional coactivators CBP/p300, and TATA-box binding protein in the perichromatin regions of Geocentrophora baltica oocytes. We found these components of RNA polymerase II transcription to be associated with the perichromatin fibrils (PFs). We suggest that the presence of numerous PFs in the perichromatin regions of G. baltica oocytes reflects the active state of the nucleus during the unusual alimentary oogenesis of Lecithoepitheliata.


Most European cities are facing urban densification issues. In this context, a solution to create usable spaces without additional pressure on land consists in the vertical extension of existing buildings. Given their abundance in the building stock, tertiary buildings offer an important potential. The paper introduces the Working Space project, which aims to develop an innovative, modular and prefabricated timber construction system adapted to the vertical extension of existing office buildings. The dimensions of the system can be adjusted to a great variety of structural grids and allows for any new typological organisation. Based on the principles of bioclimatic architecture, the extension's envelope provides high-performance insulation, a smart management of passive solar gains, natural ventilation and free cooling, but also offers large surfaces dedicated to photovoltaic energy production and urban biodiversity. The system is made up of eco-friendly, local materials with very low environmental impact. The project's outcomes are presented at a variety of scales, from urban design to construction details, as well as the outputs of an extensive life cycle assessment including the induced mobility impacts. Finally, the paper introduces a first application of this innovative architectural concept, which is currently being completed in Lausanne, Switzerland.


Face Recognition is a well-known image analysis application in the branches of pattern recognition and computer vision. It utilizes the uniqueness of human facial characteristics for personnel identification and verification. For a long time, the recognition of facial expressions by using computer-based applications has been an active area of study to recognize face scheme through a face image database. It is used in a variety of essential fields of modern life such as security systems, criminal identification, video retrieval, passport and credit cards. In general, face recognition process can be summarized in three distinct steps: preprocessing, feature extraction, and classification. At first, histogram equalization and median filter are applied as preprocessing methods. Secondly, Gabor wavelets transform extracts the features of desirable facial characterized by, orientation selectivity, spatial locality, and spatial frequency to keep up the variations caused by the varying of facial expression and illumination. In addition to that, Principal Component Analysis methodology (PCA) is used in dimensionality reduction. At last, Support vector machine (SVM) is applied in classifying the feature of the image according to the classis of every mage. In order to test the approach used in this research, experiments were running on Yale database of 165 images from 15 individuals in MATLAB environment. The results obtained from the experiments confirmed the accuracy and robustness of the proposed system.


As the use of Epoetin alfa to treat the anemia of chronic renal failure (CRF) expands, nurses play an ever-increasing role in patient monitoring and control. One area that relies heavily on nurses is blood pressure monitoring. Clinical trials with Epoetin alfa in hemodialysis patients indicate that its use may be associated with the onset or aggravation of elevated blood pressure as the hematocrit level increases. Because high blood pressure is a risk factor for left ventricular hypertrophy and cardiovascular mortality in this patient population, use of an agent that may cause high blood pressure requires careful monitoring. As the following two cases reports illustrate, sufficient data to provide better insight into the clinical aspects of this potential problem have now been accumulated.


With the promise of providing flexible and elastic computing resources on demand, the cloud computing has been attracting enterprises and individuals to migrate workloads in the legacy environment to the public/private/hybrid clouds. However, the workload migration is often interpreted as an image migration or re-installation/data copying as the exact snapshot of the source machine, and the various cloud platforms and service models are rarely taken into consideration during migration planning. Thus, the cloud migration techniques have not provided enough options that can satisfy the various migration requirements. In this paper, we propose a model to tackle the migration challenges that transforms one resource into the same or another resource in hybrid clouds. We formulate the problem as a constraint satisfaction problem, and iteratively decompose the server components and consolidate the servers. Furthermore, we propose a compute-network mapping algorithm to match computing resources with network resources to guarantee network affinity. The ultimate goal is to recommend the optimal target cloud platform with network affinity and the minimum cost. Through the evaluation of the proposed model using real enterprise datasets (up to 2012 machines), we prove that the proposed model satisfies the goal. We show that when migrating into virtualized cloud environments, thorough resource planning can reduce 16% of current resources, 5%-10% servers can be consolidated, and more than 60% servers are possible candidates for server decomposition.


Changes of the global economy have led to a much deeper integration of firms from developing countries. Multinational corporations are increasingly using offshoreoutsourcing to maintain competitiveness and market shares. While the implications of this trend has been studied from the point of view of the multinational firm and its home economy, far less attention has been paid to the developing country firm participating in the outsourcing arrangement and its strategic options. From this point of view this paper reviews the outsourcing literature and identifies theoretical contributions that can be employed to build a platform for analyzing the strategic implications of outsourcing for local firms in developing countries.


The problems of poverty are quite complex requiring the intervention of all parties. Most of Zakat Management Organization run the utilization program of zakat to tackle the problem of poverty only by its own logic. Therefore the empowerment models of Zakat funds to the urban poor in different system, with the advantages and disadvantages of each system. The aim of this study is to find a prototype model of the proper optimization of charity funds in the empowerment of the poor town based on local wisdom in Lampung province. For the first stage this study used a survey method with the data derived from the results of the Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and in-depth interviews with the speakers is the model identification stage. In the second stage is the stage of reconstruction model using comparative analysis. Community Based Development is a method of approach that involves communities in development. Where construction began on the stage of ideas, planning, program development activities, budgeting , procurement of resources to the implementation of a more emphasis on real desire or the real needs of the community in a group of people.  Integrated Community Development (ICD) is a place that is focused on the integrated delivery of education, health, youth training, and economic empowerment of community-based integrated manner. With Mustahik Relation Officer (MRO) as human resources assistant, ICD became the center of the distribution of the program so that the program is more scalable, and controlled. Keywords: Zakat Fund, Empowerment, and Poor Urban.


The paper explores the socio-economic status of women of Hellenic ethnic origin in Canada (both single and multiple). Such status was mostly looked at through the indicators of income, education and occupation as reported in the 1991 census. Greek women who arrived in Canada before WWII and the 1950's-1970's heavy Greek migration did not really enter the labour force. When they did, they, and their daughters, worked mostly at family business. However, their community and charity work was unsurpassed. As the Greek immigrant women who arrived in Canada during the 1950's to 1970's dominate the portrait of the group, they have overshadowed whatever inroads the descendents of the early arrivals had achieved. This last wave entered the host society at the lowest socio-economic levels such as contract workers for factories, as domestics, and as hospital workers. Upward mobility has been slow and hard. The 1991 data indicate that they rank low at the social status indicators. However, this portrait is expected to radically have changed during the decade of the 90's. New immigration from Greece has come to an end; 1991 was the turning point when the Canadian born Greeks surpassed in numbers those born elsewhere, and; the 90's decade has seen the retirement of the immigrants women from the labour force and the entrance of their educated and skilled daughters


AIM
To identify the prevalence and predictors of VAS bruising in the 5-7 days following cardiac catheterisation or percutaneous coronary intervention.

BACKGROUND
Complication(s) of cardiac catheterisation and/or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) occur commonly at the vascular access site (VAS). While major complications, such as retroperitoneal bleeding, are evident before hospital discharge, the prevalence of VAS bruising in the early post-discharge period is undocumented.

DESIGN
Prospective observational study.

METHOD
Data were collected on 172 patients following cardiac catheterisation and/or PCI through (1) chart review, (2) pre-discharge assessment and (3) telephone follow up 5-7 days post-discharge.

RESULTS
At the time of telephone follow up bruising was reported in 68.6% of all patients (n = 118), with 47% of those patients (n = 56) reporting bruises larger than 7.5 cm (3 inches). Incidence of bruising varied by access site; 73% of patients (n = 86) who had femoral access, 83% (n =  5) with femoral access plus closure device and 60% (n = 17) of patients with radial access reported bruising 5-7 days post-discharge. Bivariate analysis revealed a significant association between female sex and post discharge bruising (χ(2) 10.490, p = 0.001), with a likelihood ratio of 11.20. Abciximab use during the procedure was associated with post discharge bruising (Fisher's exact test, p = 0.045). Logistic regression analysis revealed female sex as a significant predictor of bruising after discharge (p = 0.001).

CONCLUSION
This study suggests that the majority of patients will experience significant bruising at the VAS following discharge and that women may be more at risk.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
The high prevalence of post-discharge bruising after cardiac catheterisation and/or PCI has important implications for nursing education and preparation of patients prior to hospital discharge.


Volumes segmentation is an important part of computer based medical application for diagnosis and analysis of anatomical data. A segmentation approach based on the level set method is proposed for accurately extracting vasculature from magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) volumes in this paper. The proposed model has a boundary alignment term that is used for segmentation of thin structures. Finally the proposed model is applied to the segmentation of MRA volumes. The result shows that the proposed model by us can complete the segmentation task of vascular structure and cannot complete the same task by the model without boundary alignment term


We study the problem of off-policy evaluation (OPE) in reinforcement learning (RL), where the goal is to estimate the performance of a policy from the data generated by another policy(ies). In particular, we focus on the doubly robust (DR) estimators that consist of an importance sampling (IS) component and a performance model, and utilize the low (or zero) bias of IS and low variance of the model at the same time. Although the accuracy of the model has a huge impact on the overall performance of DR, most of the work on using the DR estimators in OPE has been focused on improving the IS part, and not much on how to learn the model. In this paper, we propose alternative DR estimators, called more robust doubly robust (MRDR), that learn the model parameter by minimizing the variance of the DR estimator. We first present a formulation for learning the DR model in RL. We then derive formulas for the variance of the DR estimator in both contextual bandits and RL, such that their gradients w.r.t.~the model parameters can be estimated from the samples, and propose methods to efficiently minimize the variance. We prove that the MRDR estimators are strongly consistent and asymptotically optimal. Finally, we evaluate MRDR in bandits and RL benchmark problems, and compare its performance with the existing methods.


Stress fibers (SFs), a contractile actin bundle in nonmuscle mesenchymal cells, are known to intrinsically sustain a constant level of tension or tensional stress, a process called cellular tensional homeostasis. Malfunction in this homeostatic process has been implicated in many diseases such atherosclerosis, but its mechanisms remain incompletely understood. Interestingly, the homeostatic stress in individual SFs is altered upon recruitment of α-smooth muscle actin in particular cellular contexts to reinforce the preexisting SFs. While this transition of the set-point stress is somewhat a universal process observed across different cell types, no clear explanation has been provided as to why cells end up possessing different stable stresses. To address the underlying physics, here we describe that imposing a realistic assumption on the nature of SFs yields the presence of multiple set-points of the homeostatic stress, which transition among them depending on the magnitude of the cellular tension. We derive non-dimensional parameters that characterize the extent of the transition and predict that SFs tend to acquire secondary stable stresses if they are subject to as large a change in stiffness as possible or to as immediate a transition as possible upon increasing the tension. This is a minimal and simple explanation, but given the frequent emergence of force-dependent transformation of various subcellular structures in addition to that of SFs, the theoretical concept presented here would offer an essential guide to addressing potential common mechanisms governing complicated cellular mechanobiological responses.


This paper uses the bandwagon metaphor to analyse, in two rural contexts, how small tourism firms become engaged in the idea of the experience economy and how the idea is turned into practice through network formation and innovation. In developing a practice-based approach we use the bandwagon metaphor to conceptualize network formation and innovation in terms of a 'journey'. Following the practice-based literature on bandwagons, the journey starts by labelling an idea that is broad enough to give meaning to, and pull together, a number of diverse supporters. The journey also depends on two further central processes, namely appropriation and narrowing the workspace. One Norwegian and one Danish network are studied using a case methodology. They are two rural networks of mainly small tourism firms. The empirical study confirms and illustrates how the bandwagon effect involves these three core processes. However, we also argue for the importance of a fourth process, namely strategic reflexivity. The paper closes by suggesting a development model with relevance for policy. The paper offers an increased understanding of how the experience economy as an idea can become practice and puts forward a practice-based development model.


Pathogenetic significance of major risk factors to primary hepatoma among young people was investigated through a case-control study. The analysis of single-factor showed that there was close relationship between HBV infection, family history of hepatoma and the primary hepatocellular carcinoma among young people, with an OR 25.3. Multiple-factorial analysis indicated that the effect of HBV infection far exceeded other risk factors in the pathogenesis of primary hepatoma, suggesting the HBV infection might be a major cause of primary hepatoma among young people.


Objective: The current study aims to explore the establishment of the patient-derived tumor xenograft (PDTX) model. Materials and Methods: Twenty patients with gastric cancer, 10 males and 10 females, were enrolled in the current study. Firstly, the volume, invasion and metastasis of the xenografts were observed. Subsequently, the correlation between tumor tissues of the PDTX mouse model and the patients ' primary tumor tissues was evaluated by pathological H&E staining and immunohistochemistry. Results: The results showed that the PDTX models corresponding to 15 of the 20 patients were successfully established, and the success rate of PDTX model establishment was 75%. Furthermore, the PDTX models maintained the differentiation degree, morphological characteristics and structural characteristics of tumor cells. Conclusion: A PDTX model can be used as a substitute for cancer patients in clinical practice and may be suitable for clinical pharmacodynamic screening and new drug development.


Background With the outbreak of unknown pneumonia in Wuhan, China in December 2019, a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) attracted worldwide attention. Although coronaviruses typically infect the upper or lower respiratory tract, discovery of the virus in plasma is common. Therefore, the risk of transmitting coronavirus through transfusion of blood products remains. As more asymptomatic infections are found in COVID-19 cases, blood safety is shown to be particularly important, especially in endemic areas. Study Design and MethodsBX-1, an 'AIDS treatment instrument' based on methylene blue (MB) photochemical technology, developed by Boxin (Beijing) Biotechnology Development LTD, has proven that inactivation of lipid-enveloped viruses such as HIV-1 in plasma has high efficiency, without damage to other components in the plasma, and proved safe and reliable in clinical trials of HIV treatment. In order to confirm the inactivation effect of BX-1 in SARS-CoV-2, we used the SARS-CoV-2 virus strain isolated from Zhejiang University for plasma virus inactivation studies. Results and ConclusionBX-1 can effectively eliminate SARS-CoV-2 within 2 mins, and the virus titer decline can reach 4.5 log10 TCID50/mL. Faced with the expanding epidemic, BX-1 is safe for blood transfusion and plasma transfusion therapy in recovery patients, and the inactivated vaccine preparation has great potential for treatment in the current outbreak.


We perform decoy-state quantum key distribution between a low-Earth-orbit satellite and multiple ground stations located in Xinglong, Nanshan, and Graz, which establish satellite-to-ground secure keys with ∼kHz rate per passage of the satellite Micius over a ground station. The satellite thus establishes a secure key between itself and, say, Xinglong, and another key between itself and, say, Graz. Then, upon request from the ground command, Micius acts as a trusted relay. It performs bitwise exclusive or operations between the two keys and relays the result to one of the ground stations. That way, a secret key is created between China and Europe at locations separated by 7600 km on Earth. These keys are then used for intercontinental quantum-secured communication. This was, on the one hand, the transmission of images in a one-time pad configuration from China to Austria as well as from Austria to China. Also, a video conference was performed between the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which also included a 280 km optical ground connection between Xinglong and Beijing. Our work clearly confirms the Micius satellite as a robust platform for quantum key distribution with different ground stations on Earth, and points towards an efficient solution for an ultralong-distance global quantum network.


Training deep neural networks (DNNs) for meaningful differential privacy (DP) guarantees severely degrades model utility. In this paper, we demonstrate that the architecture of DNNs has a significant impact on model utility in the context of private deep learning, whereas its effect is largely unexplored in previous studies. In light of this missing, we propose the very first framework that employs neural architecture search to automatic model design for private deep learning, dubbed as DPNAS. To integrate private learning with architecture search, a DP-aware approach is introduced for training candidate models composed on a delicately defined novel search space. We empirically certify the effectiveness of the proposed framework. The searched model DPNASNet achieves state-of-the-art privacy/utility trade-offs, e.g., for the privacy budget of (epsilon, delta)=(3, 1e-5), our model obtains test accuracy of 98.57% on MNIST, 88.09% on FashionMNIST, and 68.33% on CIFAR-10. Furthermore, by studying the generated architectures, we provide several intriguing findings of designing private-learning-friendly DNNs, which can shed new light on model design for deep learning with differential privacy.


The Findlay Arch district is a cluster of noneconomic, carbonate-hosted mineral occurrences centered in northwestern Ohio. The principal host rocks are vuggy dolostones that range in age from Middle Silurian to Middle Devonian. Reef complexes, beds of nodular gypsum, collapse breccias, and fracture zones provided important stratigraphic and structural ore controls. The main-stage phases are brown, yellow, and purple fluorite, sphalerite, and galena. The sphalerite/galena ratios are 100 or higher. Early dolomite, pyrite-marcasite, and celestite I are premain-stage phases, whereas saddle dolomite, vug-filling calcite, celestite II, barite, and strontianite are postmain-stage phases.T h and T m measurements of fluid inclusions in fluorite and sphalerite indicate that these minerals were precipitated from a warm Na-Ca-Cl brine, likely derived from the northern Appalachian basin. The flow path is inferred from westward-diminishing salinity values that are documented in successive generations of inclusions. The dominant thermal trend was aregional temperature plateau that peaked at about 110 degrees C. Thermal and salinity data imply that the flow system developed during the Alleghenian orogeny when the burial depth of host rocks was at a maximum and when the brine was diluted isothermally as it migrated westward across the arch. Coexisting inclusions of oil and brine indicate that these fluids moved through the district together.Similar sulfur isotope compositions (-0.9 to +4.8 and -3.4 to +0.6ppm) in sphalerite and galena show that these sulfides are genetically related. These data generally agree with sulfur compositions of late Paleozoic seawater sulfate, which is consistent with an Alleghenian age for the Findlay arch sulfur source. Lead isotope compositions of galena (Haden, 1977) fall in the field of the Appalachian ores and diagenetic galena, indicating further that nonradiogenic Paleozoic sedimentary rocks to the east were the likely source of lead.Minerals in vugs lack a radiogenic component of strontium. Nevertheless, a basinal brine is required for the fluorite-sphalerite mineralization, because a rock capable of providing the salinity of the fluid inclusions was absent in the district. The strontium isotope composition of this brine apparently was reset, acquiring the signature of Salina gypsum of Upper Silurian age. A local source of strontium and sulfur is indicated for celestite I, because its S and Sr isotope compositions are nearly identical to those of the Salina anhydrite.Brown calcite in veins associated with the Bowling Green fault zone contains strontium that is slightly radiogenic relative to vug-filling calcite. This, along with the prehydrocarbon age of the brown calcite, indicates that these early veins and the fiuorite-sphalerite mineralization are not coeval.


OBJECTIVE
To re-evaluate the construct validity of the Disease Repercussions Profile (DRP), a measure of handicap in arthritis populations.

METHODS
We used the multitrait-multimethod approach to determine convergent and discriminant validity in a postal survey of randomly selected patients with rheumatoid arthritis who had attended the Wellington Regional Rheumatology Unit since 1988. Respondents (n=142) completed the following self-report instruments: Disease Repercussions Profile, EuroQol EQ-5D, Health Assessment Questionnaire, London Handicap Scale and WHOQOL-BREV.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
The pattern of correlation supported the construct validity of the dichotomous response question (DRP domain affected or not) for the activity and relationships domain, provided ambiguous support for the appearance and emotion domain and no support for the social and financial domains. There was no support for construct validity of any of the domains on the importance rating part of the DRP. We suggest that the DRP be interpreted cautiously in aggregated group data.


In recent years, the use of machine learning algorithms (classifiers) has proven to be of great value in solving a variety of problems in software engineering including software faults prediction. This paper extends the idea of predicting software faults by using an ensemble of classifiers which has been shown to improve classification performance in other research fields. Benchmarking results on two NASA public datasets show all the ensembles achieving higher accuracy rates compared with individual classifiers. In addition, boosting with AR and DT as components of an ensemble is more robust for predicting software faults.


Eight soybean cultivars; Giza 21. Giza 22, Giza 35, Giza 82, Giza 83, Crawford, Holladay and Toamo were evaluated to Rhizoctonia root rot using agar plate and potted plant techniques. Data cleared that, in agar plate assay all soybean cultivars were moderately susceptible (MS), although the differences between them were significant (P=0.05). Generally, in potted assay, the reactions were resistant (R) or moderately resistant (MR) to root rots. Also, the differences between cultivars were significant (P=0.05). These cultivars were inoculated under greenhouse conditions with Fusarium solani, Macrophomina phaseolina, Rhizoctonia solani and Sclerotium rolfsii Generally, G21 had the least pre-emergence damping-off followed by Giza 35, Crawford and Giza 83 with averages of 19.0, 20.0, 20.5 and 21.5%, respectively. In case of post-emergence, Giza 35 had the least values, followed by Giza 21, Crawford and Giza 82 with averages 3.95, 4.10, 4.10 and 4.25%, respectively. Under naturally infested soil in the field conditions the reactions of the same cultivars to damping-off were evaluated in two successive seasons. In 2002 season, G35 had the least pre-emergence damping-off % followed by Giza 21 and Giza 22 with averages of 22.61, 24.33 and 29.33%, respectively. Also, G35 had the least post-emergence damping-off % followed by Toamo and Giza 21 with averages of 9.40, 10.33 and 10.41%, respectively. In 2003 season, the same trend was appeared with light grade where Giza 35 had the least pre-emergence damping of % followed by Giza 22 and Giza 21 with averages of 30.67, 31.00 and 36.67%, respectively and Giza 35 was the most resistant cultivar against post-emergence damping-off, followed by Giza 21 and Giza 22 with averages of 10.91, 11.32 and 11.80%, respectively. Generally, Giza 21 significantly surpassed the other cultivars in plant height, number of pods per plant and 100-seed weight. Moreover, also it had second grade with the other traits.


Balance development of urban and rural industries has become important foundation and momentum of forming a new pattern that integrates economic and social development in urban and rural areas, and the main way to optimize the urban and rural industrial structure in our country. Reasonable division and distribution of urban-rural industrial play an important part in promoting coordinated development of urban and rural industries. By setting indexes and using cluster analysis method, the factor intensity of thirty-eight industries was divided. According to the aggregation of urban space and dispersivity of rural space, this paper confirm that the knowledge intensive industries and capital intensive industries should be distributed in urban areas preferentially , and the labor intensive industries and land intensive industries should be distributed in rural areas preferentially.


This study was conducted with four Palestinian-speaking Broca's aphasics and four normal speakers to examine the production of the fricative /s/ and to analyze the difference in acoustic patterns between the two groups. The acoustic analysis revealed that the Broca's aphasics were able to maintain the phonetic distinction between voiced and voiceless fricatives and did not exhibit voicing or devoicing errors. This result is inconsistent with findings from other languages. The spectral peak of the alveolar /s/ was lower for the aphasic subjects than for the control speakers. The Broca's aphasics displayed a longer duration for /s/ than the control subjects did. The /s/ spectra for the Broca's aphasics were "flatter" than the /s/ spectra for the control speakers and were characterized by a relatively low-frequency energy peak. Substitution errors predominated. In most cases, a one-distinctive-feature error occurred that primarily involved the place of articulation. Generally, the findings of the study suggest that the errors exhibited by Broca's aphasics reflect articulatory movements and articulatory implementation deficits rather than a selection of inappropriate speech segments.


The essence of grid computing is to provide efficient resource on demand (RoD). This paper addresses this challenge from the perspective of network, the living platform of grid, by providing effective quality of service (QoS) mechanisms (both IntServ and DiffServ) inside the grid networking environment. Particularly, the efficiency of this QoS mechanism is maximized by policy-based management taking care of flexible control of QoS parameters/components and active networks technology looking after the fast delivery of various QoS configurations. An early experiment exemplified the current implementation status.


Abstract Objectives. To determine the regional patterns and the temporal trends of suicides in Finnish Lapland. Study Design. Population-based ecological mortality study. Methods. Data on suicides and population aged 15 years and over during the period 1961–2005 were tabulated by sex, age and commune (local government districts). Age-adjusted mortality was calculated by 5-year periods and smoothed by loess regression. Results. Male suicide mortality in Lapland was 51 per 100,000 person-years, an excess of 17% (95% CI 12–23%) compared with the national mortality. The excess was highest in men aged 15–24 years (excess 54%; 95% CI 39–70%), and it increased over time. In females, suicide mortality was 13/100,000, a deficit of 10% (95% CI 1–19%) versus all Finland. Male suicides were most common in north-central Lapland and in the cities Kemi and Kemijärvi. In females, the pattern was similar in kind but the numbers were small. The epidemic wave of suicides which culminated in 1990 in all Finland showed differing trends by small areas in Lapland. Conclusions. Male suicides are excessively common in Lapland compared with the national level, and they concentrate on a geographically contiguous area in the central north and in 2 towns. The findings encourage local studies to investigate the underlying causal factors and interventions to reduce suicides.


of exclusion advised have become progressively shorter. Perhaps the time is now ripe for a further revision, to take account of newer knowledge of periods of communicability. Uniformity of practice in excluding children from schools is very desirable, and difficulties arise when doctors follow their own individual fancies in this matter. In a school where the children are patients of different doctors one can imagine the confusion that can occur in a chicken-pox epidemic when Dr. A. excludes children for one week after the appearance of the rash, while Dr. B. keeps them off school until every last scab has fallen off. Teachers and parents who favoured Dr. B's approach would not hesitate to ascribe the natural progress of the disease through the school to Dr. A's " negligence " in letting the children return to school " too soon." School medical officers being naturally cautious souls, we tend to fall back on the advice given in the Ministry memorandum when consulted about this matter. There is real need for an authoritative up-to-date guideline on periods of exclusion from school. -I am, etc., J. M. MORFITT. Spalding Urban District Council, Public Health Department, Spalding, Lincs.


The increasing popularity of computer gaming and its associated technologies are evidence of the increasing convergence of new technology and leisure practice. The size and popularity of the games industry stands out in contrast to the relative lack of understanding of computer gaming as a serious leisure activity. Previous research on computer gaming has tended to focus on the negative aspects of gaming such as aggression, addiction, and social isolation, rather than viewing it as an activity which forms an important part of many peoples' leisure lifestyles. This paper examines the relationship between gender and the social and spatial organization of computer gaming. The concept of leisure constraints and resistance are utilised to examine the extent to which technologically-mediated leisure activities, such as computer gaming, are part of wider changes in female access to private and public leisure spaces. Computer gaming is still perceived as a highly gendered activity which has the potential to reinforce traditional conceptualizations of masculinity, femininity and associated leisure activities. However, the popularity of domestic and online gaming among females, and the development of female gaming clans, highlights that leisure activities and spaces are becoming less gendered, and can provide sites for resistance to societal notions of the gender appropriateness of leisure activities.


Multiple myeloma is a malignant plasma cell neoplasm that affects more than 20,000 people each year and is the second most common hematologic malignancy. It is part of a spectrum of monoclonal plasma cell disorders, many of which do not require active therapy. During the past decade, considerable progress has been made in our understanding of the disease process and factors that influence outcome, along with development of new drugs that are highly effective in controlling the disease and prolonging survival without compromising quality of life. Identification of well-defined and reproducible prognostic factors and introduction of new therapies with unique modes of action and impact on disease outcome have for the first time opened up the opportunity to develop risk-adapted strategies for managing this disease. Although these risk-adapted strategies have not been prospectively validated, enough evidence can be gathered from existing randomized trials, subgroup analyses, and retrospective studies to develop a working framework. This set of recommendations represents such an effort-the development of a set of consensus guidelines by a group of experts to manage patients with newly diagnosed disease based on an interpretation of the best available evidence.


This study investigates the prevalence and severity of job immobility induced by the provision of employer-sponsored health insurance – a phenomenon known as 'job-lock'. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth from 1994 to 2010, job-lock is identified by measuring the impact of employer-sponsored health insurance on voluntary job turnover frequency. Estimates from a logistic regression with random effects indicate that job-lock reduces voluntary job turnover by 20% per year. These results that are consistent with past research and are also supported by two alternative identification strategies employed in this paper. Our results indicate a persistence of the job-lock effect, despite two major policy interventions designed to mitigate it (COBRA and HIPAA) and signal a fundamental misunderstanding of its causes. Both policies made health insurance more portable between employers, but this paper presents evidence from a quasi-natural experiment to suggest that the problem is a lack of viable alternative private sources of health insurance. In this model, we find evidence that access to health insurance through one's spouse or partner dramatically increases voluntary job turnover. This finding has significant bearing on predicted impacts of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010) and the individual health insurance exchanges catalyzed by it; these new markets will create risk pools that may 'unlock' a job-locked individual by providing them a viable alternative to employer-sponsored health insurance.


We present the first evidence for sexual deception by female mimicry in birds. Using live, caged birds we show that territorial male pied flycatchers behave aggressively toward bright- colored males but display sexually toward female-like male intruders. We also show that the males that are fooled are those that lack recent sexual experience. All male pied flycatchers are dull- colored in winter. It is possible that young males are more constrained during the spring molt than older males since the former are more dull-colored in spring. According to the molt-constraints hypothesis a subadult plumage would be maladaptive in the breeding season. Analysis of male settling pattern at breeding sites in spring suggests that brownish males are allowed to settle closer to already-established males than dark-colored males. This result suggests an adaptive value of having a subadult plumage color, in particular for young males arriving late from spring migration. However, we also show that mimicry incurs a cost, that of increased aggression from females, which may explain why female-like males have reduced,mating success.


The self-assembly technique provides a new and simple route for designing porous hydrogels. At present, most of the studies in graphene oxide (GO)–polymer hydrogels are concentrated on mechanical reinforcement. Developing a self-assembled GO-based porous hydrogel along with swelling and mechanical merits is still challenging, yet very interesting and desirable for practical applications. Herein, we report self-assembled GO-based macroporous composite hydrogels by integrating GO sheets and chitosan-based hydrogel networks. GO sheets, containing adequate hydrophilic functional groups, can be dispersed well and thereby they form self-assembled supramolecular structures with polymer chains by effective intermolecular interactions (e.g., hydrogen bonding, electrostatic attraction or covalent bonding). Surprisingly, an extremely low amount (0.05–0.30 wt%) of GO can remarkably affect the architecture of hydrogel networks, leading to the formation of macroporous composite hydrogels. On the whole, the GO-based polymer composite hydrogels possess both macroporous structures (10–100 μm) and enhanced mechanical performance, yet can still retain the similar swelling properties of their parent polymeric hydrogel. Therefore, this study provides a simple route for fabricating porous hydrogels, which could find some potential applications in wastewater treatment or biomedical engineering.


Phantom ear responses, contralateral to the transducer (head-phone), can be observed during recording of early evoked auditory potentials, as in conventional audiometry, and can ease the problem of temporary deafness. Their appearance obeys laws common to audiometric tests, stimulus transfer to the opposite ear being through bone of cranium with attenuation inversely proportional to bony surface at level of transducer. However, the analogy between conventional and objective audiometry stops there. Normally, the electrophysiologic V wave response is not present or absent alone, as would be a voluntary response of the patient, but varies by its latency and amplitude as a function of intensity and nature of stimulus. These supplementary criteria should make identification simple, allow an abnormal response to be recognized and indications for treatment of the temporary deafness to be better defined. This is illustrated by the present study of 50 cases of unilateral kophosis, using a TDM 39 transducer employed most commonly in both objective and conventional audiometry.


The recent debate on measurement item mis-specification has renewed interest in the construct explication process; however, the focus of this debate has been the interaction between latent variables and their measures ("how"), instead of between latent variables and the constructs they represent ("what"). This paper highlights the problems created when framing the formativereflective discussion in terms of "how" instead of "what." We argue it is necessary to precede measurement item construction (or appropriation) with careful construct definition and operationalization by focusing first on what is being measured, rather than on how it will be measured. Two solutions for better understanding measurement item construction are proposed: 1) carefully defining assumptions and boundary conditions of a construct in its theoretical context , and 2) carefully defining assumptions and boundary conditions of a latent variable in its measurement context . Recommendations regarding correct interpretation of the measurement process by authors, reviewers, and editors are offered.


We study the mixing properties of two systems: (i) a half-filled quasi-two-dimensional circular drum whose rotation rate is switched between two values and which can be analysed in terms of the existing mathematical formalism of linked twist maps; and (ii) a half-filled three-dimensional spherical tumbler rotated about two orthogonal axes bisecting the equator and with a rotational protocol switching between two rates on each axis, a system which we call a three-dimensional linked twist map, and for which there is no existing mathematical formalism. The mathematics of the three-dimensional case is considerably more involved. Moreover, as opposed to the two-dimensional case where the mathematical foundations are firm, most of the necessary mathematical results for the case of three-dimensional linked twist maps remain to be developed though some analytical results, some expressible as theorems, are possible and are presented in this work. Companion experiments in two-dimensional and three-dimensional systems are presented to demonstrate the validity of the flow used to construct the maps. In the quasi-two-dimensional circular drum, bidisperse (size-varying or density-varying) mixtures segregate to form lobes of small or dense particles that coincide with the locations of islands in computational Poincaré sections generated from the flow model. In the 3d spherical tumbler, patterns formed by tracer particles reveal the dynamics predicted by the flow model.


The unbiased estimator of unknown parametric function based on possion's population is discussed, and the expression of two classes of estimable function are given. Applying Maclaurin's series, it's proved that the unbiased estimator of the functions are exist, and utilizing the induction method , derived out the generalized expression of unbiased estimator. By means of comparing the unbiased estimator of the two classes of estimable functions, it's found that the estimator cannot be direct constructed with parametric estimator.


The physiological changes and phytochemical pathways of processed watercress (Nasturtium officinale R. Br.) undergone during storage are not well known. The objective of this work was to evaluate the respiration rate and the inherent and external quality of watercress inoculated with B. subtilis and packaged as a fresh-cut product and stored at 4 °C for 11 days. Watercress was grown using continuous flotation (FL) in a greenhouse using substrate disinfection and inoculated or not with Bacillus subtilis as a plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR). The fresh-cut watercress respiration rate and phytochemical profile changed during the shelf life. The inherent phytochemical compounds were retained during the storage of the fresh-cut salad bags. The best results were found in watercress grown in a disinfected substrate but were less satisfactory when seeds and substrates were inoculated with PGPR. In general, the external quality and the pigment contents progressively decreased during the shelf life and the browning enzyme activities responsible for phenolic oxidation increased at different intensities throughout storage. At the end of the shelf-life period, the fresh weight loss of the fresh-cut product was less than 1% of the original weight. The results demonstrated that watercress grown in FL is a standardised baby leaf vegetable that is suitable for processing in the fresh-cut industry and for storing for more than 10 days. Unclear results were obtained for Bacillus subtilis in the postharvest period due to the inconsistent responses of the different analysed parameters.


Applications in the Internet of Things (IoT) domain need to manage and integrate huge amounts of heterogenous devices. Usually these devices are treated as external dependencies residing at the edge of the infrastructure mainly transmitting sensed data or reacting to their environment. Recently however, a fundamental shift in the basic nature of these devices is taking place. More and more IoT devices emerge that are not simple sensors or transmitters, but provide limited execution environments. This opens up a huge opportunity to utilize these previously untapped processing power in order to offload custom application logic directly to these edge devices. To effectively exploit this new type of device the design of IoT applications needs to change to also consider devices that are deployed on the edge of the infrastructure. The deployment of parts of the application's business logic on the device will not only increase the overall robustness of the application, but can also reduce communication overhead. To allow for flexible provisioning of applications whose deployment topology evolves over time, a clear separation of independently executable application components is needed. In this paper, we present DIANE, a framework for the dynamic generation of optimized deployment topologies for IoT cloud applications that are tailored to the currently available physical infrastructure. Based on a declarative, constraint-based model of the desired application deployment, our approach enables flexible provisioning of application components on edge devices deployed in the field. DIANE supports different IoT application topologies and we show that our solution elastically provisions application deployment topologies using a cloud-based test bed.


As distributed collaborative applications and architectures are adopting policy based management for tasks such as access control, network security and data privacy, the management and consolidation of a large number of policies is becoming a crucial component of such policy based systems. In large-scale distributed collaborative applications like web services, there is the need of analyzing policy interactions and integrating policies. In this thesis, we propose and implement EXAM-S, a comprehensive environment for policy analysis and management, which can be used to perform a variety of functions such as policy property analyses, policy similarity analysis, policy integration etc. As part of this environment, we have proposed and implemented new techniques for the analysis of policies that rely on a deep study of state of the art techniques. Moreover, we propose an approach for solving heterogeneity problems that usually arise when considering the analysis of policies belonging to different domains. Our work focuses on analysis of access control policies written in the dialect of XACML (Extensible Access Control Markup Language). We consider XACML policies because XACML is a rich language which can represent many policies of interest to real world applications and is gaining widespread adoption in the industry.


The potential effects of work and activity on the processes and outcomes of pregnancy should be assessed when a woman's care plan is developed. Perinatal caregivers are limited by a narrow definition of work that encompasses only employment. This commentary expands the description of women's work during pregnancy, and proposes the addition of some activities not currently considered in most prenatal assessments, including home care responsibilities, the maintenance and development of intimate relationships, and the tasks identified with becoming a mother. All this has implications for research, clinical practice, and public and health policy.


Application of Harvesting Ice Storage Syst ems. Thermal storage systems are becoming widely accepted techniques for utility load management. This paper discusses the principles of ice harvesting equipment and their application to the multi-use environments. The potential for application of low dew point environments in terms of comfort and system energy consumption will also be discussed. Several case studies will be the installations of harvesting thermal storage systems.


A wide variety of outstanding problems in astrophysics involve the motion of a large number of particles ($N\gtrsim 10^{6}$) under the force of gravity. These include the global evolution of globular clusters, tidal disruptions of stars by a massive black hole, the formation of protoplanets and the detection of sources of gravitational radiation. The direct-summation of $N$ gravitational forces is a complex problem with no analytical solution and can only be tackled with approximations and numerical methods. To this end, the Hermite scheme is a widely used integration method. With different numerical techniques and special-purpose hardware, it can be used to speed up the calculations. But these methods tend to be computationally slow and cumbersome to work with. Here we present a new GPU, direct-summation $N-$body integrator written from scratch and based on this scheme. This code has high modularity, allowing users to readily introduce new physics, it exploits available high-performance computing resources and will be maintained by public, regular updates. The code can be used in parallel on multiple CPUs and GPUs, with a considerable speed-up benefit. The single GPU version runs about 200 times faster compared to the single CPU version. A test run using 4 GPUs in parallel shows a speed up factor of about 3 as compared to the single GPU version. The conception and design of this first release is aimed at users with access to traditional parallel CPU clusters or computational nodes with one or a few GPU cards.


"Surprisingly readable and studded with nuggets of insight." The Daily Yomiuri "This insightful, well-written, fascinating book offers new understandings, not only of Japan, but also of American culture. It is essential for those in anthropology, psychology, sociology, and psychiatry who are interested in culture, as well as those in law and the business community who deal with Japan." Paul Ekman, Ph.D.,Director, Human Interaction Laboratory, Langley Porter Institute, University of California, San Francisco "[A] thoughtful cross-cultural study of development...His work can only enhance the still evolving psychoanalytic theory of preoedipal development as it is being derived mostly from psychoanalytic research on child-parent interaction in American families." Calvin F. Settlage, M.D. "Johnson's ambitious and exhaustive synthesis of anthropological and psychological treatments of dependency raises interesting questions...Johnson alerts the reader to issues of universalism and relativity and leads us to ask, 'What would psychoanalysis be like, if it had originated in Japan?'" Merry I. White, Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University "...Johnson's erudite and critical re-examination of human dependence succeeds to re-profile dependence meaningfully and revives our interest in this major aspect of human experience. Indeed, much food for thought for both psychoanalysts and anthropologists." Henri Parens, M.D., Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute Western ideologies traditionally emphasize the concepts of individualism, privacy, freedom, and independence, while the prevailing ethos relegates dependency to a disparaged status. In Japanese society, the divergence from these western ideals can be found in the concept of amae (perhaps best translated as indulgent dependency) which is part of the Japanese social fiber and pervades their experience. For the Western reader, the concept of amae is somewhat alien and unfamiliar, but in order to understand the Japanese fully, it is essential to acquire a familiarity with the intensity that accompanies interdependent affiliations within their culture. To place amae in the proper context, Johnson critically examines the western attitudes toward dependency from the perspectives of psychoanalysis, psychiatry, developmental psychology, and anthropology. Johnson traces the development of the concept and uses of the term dependency in academic and developmental psychology in the West, including its recent eclipse by more operationally useful terms attachment and interdependency. This timely books makes use of the work of Japanese psychiatrist Takeo Doi, whose book The Anatomy of Dependence introduced the concept of amae to the West. Johnson goes on to illuminate the collective manner in which Japanese think and behave which is central to their socialization and educational practices, especially as seen in the stunning success of Japanese trading practices during the past twenty years. A major emphasis is placed upon the positive aspects of amae, which are compared and contrasted with attitudes toward dependency seen among other nationalities, cultures, and groups in both Western and Asian societies. Complete with a glossary of Japanese terms, Dependency and Japanese Socialization provides a comprehensive investigation into Japanese behavior.


During the past several years, interest in architectures for multilevel secure versions of the X Window System (X) has grown dramatically, primarily in the compartmented mode workstation (CMW) community. The architectures and security policies implemented in existing CMWs are similar to each other, although they differ in certain key details. Alternatives to the current approaches are being investigated. Most notably, a TRW-led team of researchers has designed and prototyped a trusted X implementation aimed at the trusted computer systems evaluation criteria (TCSEC) B3 level. The architecture and security policies adopted by this implementation differ radically from those of all the existing CMWs. The architectures and security policies implemented in existing CMWs and the TRW prototype are surveyed, areas of commonality and divergence are identified, and areas where interoperability can be achieved are noted.<<ETX>>


OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether all preterm infants born before 33 weeks of gestation need cardiorespiratory monitoring due to the risk of cardiorespiratory disturbances following their first vaccination at 2 months of age.

DESIGN
A prospective observational cohort study.

METHOD
During a period lasting a little over a year, all preterm infants who were being cared for at the neonatal ward of Medical Centre Alkmaar because they had been born before 33 weeks of gestation received their first immunization at the age of 2 months and were subsequently monitored. Infants who had already been discharged by that time were readmitted for this purpose.

RESULTS
In this cohort of 41 premature infants whose mean gestational age was 30.8 weeks (SD: 1.9), 10 of these had a mild decrease in oxygen saturation or bradycardia; three developed a moderate cardiorespiratory event requiring tactile stimulation. The incidence of disturbances was higher in younger and lower-weight infants and those who had experienced more severe morbidity during the neonatal phase. Moderate disturbances only occurred in the infants who had not yet been discharged from hospital after birth.

CONCLUSION
It is recommended that still-hospitalized premature infants receive their first immunizations under cardiorespiratory monitoring, as events were observed during a period of 0-24 hours thereafter. In premature infants who had already been discharged - mainly because they were less premature or dysmature - immunization without cardiorespiratory monitoring appeared to be safe. Further research is needed for substantiating this strategy.


In this work, we have a designation and preparation of MFT glasses for upconversion, the glasses consisted of TeO2 and fluoride: PbF2, AlF3, BaF2, NaF and the impurity Tm2O3. In this glass system the oxide improve forming ability, the fluorides improve the microscopic environment around RE ions in glasses. In this glass host the content of Tm2O3 achieves to 4% mol and crystallization no occurred. A detail study on the concentration quenching of upconversion luminescence for 1G4→3H6 and 1D2→3H4 transitions was completed. The experimental results directed that the quenching concentration was 0.6 mol•% and higher 3 times than in other glasses materials. The cross relaxation and mechanism of concentration quenching were discussed.


The purpose of our study was to identify general factors and distinctive clinical features differentiating patients with chronic cluster headache (CH) evolved from episodic CH and patients with episodic CH. Our study sample included 28 patients suffering from chronic CH evolved from episodic CH and 258 patients with episodic CH; all were referred to the Headache Center of Parma between December 1975 and June 1998. Patients with episodic CH were selected from all episodic CH referrals (n = 485) and selection was based on the duration of the disorder, which was to exceed the average period needed for an episodic form to turn into a chronic form (4.5 years for females and 7.0 years for males). At CH onset, the mean age for patients with chronic CH evolved from episodic CH was older than for those with episodic CH. Among patients with chronic CH, more were smokers or heavy drinkers, and had suffered a head injury. Clinically, episodic CH evolving into chronic CH was characterized by a high frequency of cluster periods, a larger proportion of patients with attacks not occurring strictly within cluster periods, and remission periods lasting less than 6 months. Possible predictive factors in the development of chronic CH appear to be CH onset from the third decade of life onward, the occurrence of more than one cluster period a year, and the short‐lived duration of remission periods. The role played by head injury and cigarette smoking in the evolution of the disorder still cannot be established with certainty.


Counselling in HIV and AIDS has become a core element in a holistic model of health care, in which psychological issues are recognised as integral to patient management. HIV and AIDS counselling has two general aims: (1) the prevention of HIV transmission and (2) the support of those affected directly and indirectly by HIV. It is vital that HIV counselling should have these dual aims because the spread of HIV can be prevented by changes in behaviour. One to one prevention counselling has a particular contribution in that it enables frank discussion of sensitive aspects of a patient's life—such discussion may be hampered in other settings by the patient's concern for confidentiality or anxiety about a judgmental response. Also, when patients know that they have HIV infection or disease, they may suffer great psychosocial and psychological stresses through a fear of rejection, social stigma, disease progression, and the uncertainties associated with future management of HIV. Good clinical management requires that such issues be managed with consistency and professionalism, and counselling can both minimise morbidity and reduce its occurrence. All counsellors in this field should have formal counselling training and receive regular clinical supervision as part of adherence to good standards of clinical practice.

This article has been adapted from the forthcoming 5th edition of ABC of AIDS . The book will be available from the BMJ bookshop and at http://www.bmjbooks.com/

#### Aims of counselling in HIV infection

Prevention

Determining whether the lifestyle of an individual places him or her at risk

Working with an individual so that he or she understands the risks

Helping to identify the meanings of high risk behaviour

Helping to define the true potential for behaviour change

Working with the individual to achieve and sustain behaviour change

Support

Individual, relationship, and family counselling to prevent and reduce psychological morbidity associated with HIV infection …


Aim: Current experimental investigation is dedicated to prepare microspheres with small size and good sphericity by Phase Separation method using Isoniazid (INH) as model drug. Silk fibroin has unique intrinsic qualities like biodegradability, biocompatibility or release properties and their tunable drug loading capacity. The delivery loading proficiency of the drug molecules in silk spheres be contingent on their charge, and hydrophobicity or subsequent in altered drug release profiles. Methods: In the present work Isoniazid loaded silk fibroin microsphere was prepared by using phase separation method. Microsphere was evaluated for Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy, Entrapment efficiency, Scanning electron microscopy Studies. Results: Scanning electron microscopy studies revealed that Isoniazid Loaded Silk Fibroin Microspheres were spherical. Entrapment Efficiency of Isoniazid loaded Microspheres of different Formulation from F1 to F5 was in range of 53 to 68 %. F3 showed 68.47 % entrapment Efficiency and the optimized formulation drug release was 93.56 % at 24 hours. Conclusion: Experimental report disclosed a new aqueous based formulation method for silk spheres with controllable shape or size and sphere. Isoniazid loaded silk microspheres may act as ideal nano formulation with elaborated studies.


PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to report the results of staging primary uveal melanoma with whole-body (18) fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) and abdominal ultrasound. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From January 2012, patients with uveal melanoma over 4 mm in thickness were staged with FDG PET/CT and abdominal ultrasound. RESULTS: Over 2 years, 108 patients with medium-to-large melanoma underwent dual imaging. According to the tumor, node, and metastasis classification, there were 75% T3, 11% T2, and 14% T1 uveal melanomas. Only, three of 108 patients (2.8%) were found to have metastatic uveal melanoma. All three had liver metastases confirmed following biopsy; one of three had additional extrahepatic widespread metastases. In these three patients, liver findings using both imaging techniques were consistent in one patient. In the second case, abdominal ultrasound missed the diagnosis of metastatic disease; however, FDG PET/CT revealed intense metabolic activity of the liver. In the third case, PET/CT missed the liver metastases; however, this was identified on abdominal ultrasound. PET/CT identified incidental second primary malignancies in 10 patients (9%). Second malignancies were found in the lung, breast, colon, thyroid, and adrenal gland. Abdominal ultrasound detected benign hepatic abnormalities in 20 patients (18%). CONCLUSIONS: Whole-body PET/CT and abdominal ultrasound complement each other in the staging of uveal melanoma. Benign hepatic abnormalities found using ultrasound is common. Of importance, a second asymptomatic primary malignancy associated with uveal melanoma was detected almost one in 10 patients.


The use of graft materials is developed from the strong demand to support the complete bone regeneration of the empty socket and to increase the bone volume in treating the atrophies of sites already consolidated and with adverse alveolar bone conditions. A number of graft materials with different origin and mechanism of bone regeneration are available. Autologous graft materials, coming from the same patient, are defined as the gold-standard. The need of a second surgical site and the risk of morbidity and complications may make their use difficult. Human bone allografts (HBA) have been recently introduced, in order to offer an alternative to the autologous grafts. They have demonstrated to be effective in bone regeneration. Recent studies have proved the ability of HBA in bone regenerating process as they guarantee a three-dimensional structure for the re-growth of the new bone and the maintenance of inductive stimuli. In the present manuscript, Authors reviewed the evidence supporting the use of HBA in the management of the localized ridge atrophies, in the preservation of the extracted socket and in the sinus augmentation surgery, and illustrated some original case reports.


Knowledge graphs (KGs) have shown to be an important asset of large companies like Google and Microsoft. KGs play an important role in providing structured and semantically rich information, making them available to people and machines, and supplying accurate, correct and reliable knowledge. To do so a critical task is knowledge validation, which measures whether statements from KGs are semantically correct and correspond to the so-called "real" world. In this paper, we provide an overview and review of the state-of-the-art approaches, methods and tools on knowledge validation for KGs, as well as an evaluation of them. As a result, we demonstrate a lack of reproducibility of tools results, give insights, and state our future research direction.


With the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) technology becoming reality, a number of applications are being proposed. Several of these applications are highly dependent on wireless sensor networks (WSN) to acquire data from the surrounding environment. In order to be really useful for most of applications, the acquired data must be coherent in terms of the time in which they are acquired, which implies that the entire sensor network presents a certain level of time synchronization. Moreover, to efficiently exchange and forward data, many communication protocols used in WSN rely also on time synchronization among the sensor nodes. Observing the importance in complying with this need for time synchronization, this work focuses on the second synchronization problem, proposing, implementing and testing a time synchronization service for low-power WSN using low frequency real-time clocks in each node. To implement this service, three algorithms based on different strategies are proposed: one based on an auto-correction approach, the second based on a prediction mechanism, while the third uses an analytical correction mechanism. Their goal is the same, i.e., to make the clocks of the sensor nodes converge as quickly as possible and then to keep them most similar as possible. This goal comes along with the requirement to keep low energy consumption. Differently from other works in the literature, the proposal here is independent of any specific protocol, i.e., it may be adapted to be used in different protocols. Moreover, it explores the minimum number of synchronization messages by means of a smart clock update strategy, allowing the trade-off between the desired level of synchronization and the associated energy consumption. Experimental results, which includes data acquired from simulations and testbed deployments, provide evidence of the success in meeting this goal, as well as providing means to compare these three approaches considering the best synchronization results and their costs in terms of energy consumption.


The Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) associated cancers is being represented as a special subgroup of cancers nowadays because of its severity and increased mortality rates. HPV is known to integrate with the host tissue and causes carcinogenesis in a phased manner. With vaccination, the incidence of HPV associated cancers can be decreased. With the use of different HPV based screening tests, they can be detected early. Overall, HPV associated cancers have a good prognosis as compared to the non-HPV subtype and there is a growing thought on treatment de-escalation in these tumors to decrease long term treatment related toxicities.