For high-speed digital circuits, the activation of all flip-flops that are used to store data should be strictly synchronized by clock signals delivered through clock networks. However, due to the high frequency of simultaneous switching of clock pins in flip-flops, a high peak power/ground noise (i.e., voltage drop) is induced at the clock boundary. To mitigate the current noise, we employ four different types of hardware component that can implement a set of flip-flops and their driving buffer as a single unit, which was previously used for reducing clock power consumption. (The idea for the generation of the four types of clock boundary component was that one of the two inverters in a driving buffer and one of the two inverters in each of its driven flip-flops can be nullified without altering the circuit functionality.) Consequently, we have a flexibility of selecting (i.e., allocating) clock boundary components in a way to reduce peak current under timing constraint. We formulate the component allocation problem of minimizing peak current into a multi-objective shortest path problem and solve it efficiently using an approximation algorithm. We have implemented our proposed approach and tested it with ISCAS benchmark circuits. The experimental results confirm that our approach is able to reduce the peak current by 27.7%∼30.9% on average.


In this paper we look into the probability that, given the choice, corporate groups would opt for taxation on a consolidated basis. We further consider what effects separate accounting and taxation on a consolidated basis (formula apportionment) might have on the location of investments and exploitation of remaining leeway for profit shifting. To this end, we present an experimental framework that captures the most relevant aspects of theses decision for EU multinationals. In a controlled laboratory experiment we use a basic 2-by-2 treatment design with two levels of tax-rate differential between two investment locations and two different remuneration functions allowing the participants to act as owners or managers of a company. In addition, we control for the way in which information on possible extra costs associated with profit shifting is presented to participants. Our results show that taxation using formula apportionment, while being a viable alternative, does not emerge as the preferred regime. In both separate accounting and formula apportionment, the allocation of production factors depends on the tax-rate differential. Higher tax rates lead to lower amounts of investment, in particular if formula apportionment (CCCTB) is used. Moreover, profit shifts to companies not eligible for consolidation (i.e., companies not resident in the EU) are significantly higher under formula apportionment than under separate accounting. We do not observe significant differences in the behavior of managers and owners. However, the form in which information is provided on possible extra costs has an impact on the extent of profits shifted to low tax countries.


Recently, the surface mounting devices (SMD) have been rapidly developed for miniaturisation of electronic applications such as cellular phones, cameras, computers, etc. Low temperature sintering NiCuZn and MnCuZn ferrite was employed at most cases due to its co-firability with Ag (below 960OC).The purpose of this study is to fabricate NiCuZn and MnCuZn ferrite sintered body with high-strength and high-frequency magnetic properties. Following is the procedure: firstly, NiCuZn and MnCuZn ferrite powder were synthesized under CO2 atmosphere at 500 OC from the mixed doxalate synthesized by liquid phase deposition method; then a small amount of boric acid [H3BO3] was added to the powder, and the NiCuZn and MnCuZn ferrite powder compact were prepared with Newton press and CIP methods; finally, NiCuZn and MnCuZn ferrite sintered body was fabricated by sintering at 900 OC under CO2 atmosphere. The effect of boric acid additives on growth of particle and sintering temperature were discussed. The high frequency magnetic properties and density as well as bending strength of the NiCuZn and MnCuZn sintered magnet with various adding of H3BO3 as well as at various sintered temperatures were evaluated by using Impedance analyzer, TMA (Thermo Mechanical Analyzer), TEM (Transmission Electronic Microscopy) and 3-point bending test. From the evaluated results, the most suitable producing conditions were determined and NiCuZn ferrite with wider scope of high frequency and high bending strength were obtained.


A new series of 5-chloro-3-(4-substituted anilino)-2-phenyl-2,3-dihydro-1,2λ5-benzoxaphosphol- 2-ones 4a-j have been prepared via Mannich type reaction by reacting 5-chlorosalicyaldehyde 1 with phenyl dichlorphosphine 2 and aromatic amines 3a-j in anhydrous benzene under reflux condition. Their chemical structures were characterized by using 1H, 13C, 31P and mass spectral studies. All the title compounds were screened for antioxidant properties by radical scavenging methods such as 1,1-dipheyl-2-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH), Reducing power and H2O2 scavenging methods. They exhibited potent in vitro antioxidant activity dose dependently. Their bioassay showed that they possess significant antibacterial activity.


BACKGROUND
 Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems in health care settings have many benefits for prescribing medication, such as improved quality of patient care and patient safety. However, to achieve their full potential, the factors influencing the usage of CPOE systems by physicians must be identified and understood.

 OBJECTIVE
 The aim of this study is to identify the factors influencing the usage of CPOE systems by physicians for medication prescribing in their clinical practice.

 METHODS
 We conducted a systematic search of the literature on this topic using four databases: PubMed, CINAHL, Ovid MEDLINE, and Embase. Searches were performed from September 2019 to December 2019. The retrieved papers were screened by examining the titles and abstracts of relevant studies; two reviewers screened the full text of potentially relevant papers for inclusion in the review. Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies with the aim of conducting assessments or investigations of factors influencing the use of CPOE for medication prescribing among physicians were included. The identified factors were grouped based on constructs from two models: the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model and the Delone and McLean Information System Success Model. We used the Mixed Method Appraisal Tool to assess the quality of the included studies and narrative synthesis to report the results.

 RESULTS
 A total of 11 articles were included in the review, and 37 factors related to the usage of CPOE systems were identified as the factors influencing how physicians used CPOE for medication prescribing. These factors represented three main themes: individual, technological, and organizational.

 CONCLUSIONS
 This study identified the common factors that influenced the usage of CPOE systems by physicians for medication prescribing regardless of the type of setting or the duration of the use of a system by participants. Our findings can be used to inform implementation and support the usage of the CPOE system by physicians.


The author reviews the locomotor problems observed in performing musicians. The overall frequency of these problems is high. Three presentations exist: overuse, entrapment and dystonic syndromes. Treatment of these problems implies not only a technical approach, but also consideration of life experience and individual personality.


Against a backdrop where protectors of cultural heritage are naturally motivated by the watchwords of preservation and conservation, it is hardly surprising that the cheerfully cultivated squalor of alternative heritage remains so little examined. Via a literary-inspired method, this chapter makes the case for the inherent goodness of ruination. I begin by briefly contemplating the peculiar, even perverse, appeal of decaying and neglected places. I also suggest that there is a greater audience for the reification of such desires than is presently acknowledged. I contend that such consumers have three qualities in common: an interest in retroscendence, impoverished enrichment and catharsis. I conclude with a plea that heritage defenders, instead of rushing to impose preservation orders, to dip all in amber, should on occasion simply allow the patina of decrepitation and brokenness to do its worst, or best, as the case may be.


Olive oil is a distinct food nutrient source because of its several biological effects, including anti-allergy and anti-inflammatory activities, which can be very important factor for cosmetic's production. Indeed, olive oil active molecules do not cross the hepatic barrier and not metabolized. The aim of this work is to evaluate and compare the anti-inflammatory potential of extracts of different extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) varieties from different harvest years (2012 to 2014). We assessed the anti-inflammatory effect of SPE-Diol extract in LPS/IFNγ stimulated J774.A1 macrophages by measuring the production of several pro-inflammatory mediators such as nitric oxide (NO), prostaglandin (PGE2), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), interleukin 6 (IL-6), and expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2). The results showed that the anti-inflammatory effect differs between the EVOO varieties and were concentration-dependent. Among the tested varieties, Picholine had the highest anti-inflammatory activity, with a significant scavenging activity against the free radical. Nevertheless, the anti-inflammatory effect of each variety stayed in the same trend regardless of the harvest year. Moreover, the results showed that total polyphenols content stayed approximately the same for each variety whatever the harvest year, and that activity is correlated with total polyphenol content and radical scavenging activity.


The South Saskatchewan River (SSR) is one of the most important river systems in Saskatchewan and, arguably, in Canada. Most of the Saskatchewan residents, industries, and powerplants depend on the SSR for their water requirements. An established 1D modelling approach was chosen and coupled with the Hydrologic Engineering Center's River Analysis System (HEC-RAS). The WASP (Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program) stream transport module, TOXI, is coupled with flow routing for free-flow streams, ponded segments, and backwater reaches and is capable of calculating the flow of water, sediment, and dissolved constituents across branched and ponded segments. Copper and nickel were chosen as two metals with predominantly anthropogenic (agriculture, mining, and municipal and industrial waste management) and geogenic (natural weathering and erosion) sources, respectively. Analysis was carried out at ten different sites along the South Saskatchewan River, both upstream and downstream of the City of Saskatoon, in the years 2020 and 2021. Model performance was evaluated by comparing model predictions with concentrations of copper and nickel measured in a previously published study. The model performed well in estimating the concentrations of copper and nickel in water samples and worked reasonably well for sediment samples. The model underestimated the concentration values at certain segments in both water and sediment samples. In order to calibrate the model more accurately, extra diffusive contaminant loads were added. While several default parameter values had to be used due to the unavailability of primary historical data, our study demonstrates the predictive power of combining WASP—TOXI and HEC-RAS models for the prediction of contaminant loading. Future studies, including those on the impacts of global climate change on water quality on the Canadian prairies, will benefit from this proof-of-concept study.


PURPOSE
Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) and consensus statements (CSs) are used to apply evidence-based medicine or expert recommendations to clinical practice. Here we explore author financial conflicts of interest (FCOIs), sources of guideline funding, and their relationship with endorsement of specific drugs.

METHODS
An electronic search of MEDLINE was conducted to identify CPGs and CSs for common solid cancers published between January 2003 and October 2013. The search was restricted to articles evaluating systemic therapy. We extracted data on self-reported author FCOIs, funding sources, use of manuscript writers, and endorsement of specific drugs in the abstract of the article.

RESULTS
Of 142 articles evaluated, 64% were CPGs, and 36% were CSs. The proportion of articles reporting FCOIs improved from 11% in 2003 to 93% in 2013 (P for trend < .001). Only 45% of articles explicitly reported funding sources. Of these, 65% disclosed partial or full industry sponsorship. Use of manuscript writers was declared in 13%, but many articles did not explicitly report the role of authors in the writing of the manuscript. Endorsement of specific drugs was significantly associated with author FCOIs (odds ratio [OR], 7.29; P = .001), but not with industry funding (OR, 0.95; P = .37).

CONCLUSION
Reporting of FCOIs in CPGs and CSs has improved over time. Despite prevalent funding of guideline development by industry, such funding is not associated with endorsement of specific drugs. Author FCOIs are prevalent, and endorsement of a specific drug seems to be more common when authors have FCOIs with the pharmaceutical company marketing that drug.


Diffusion-based generative models have achieved promising results recently, but raise an array of open questions in terms of conceptual understanding, theoretical analysis, algorithm improvement and extensions to discrete, structured, non-Euclidean domains. This work tries to re-exam the overall framework, in order to gain better theoretical understandings and develop algorithmic extensions for data from arbitrary domains. By viewing diffusion models as latent variable models with unobserved diffusion trajectories and applying maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) with latent trajectories imputed from an auxiliary distribution, we show that both the model construction and the imputation of latent trajectories amount to constructing diffusion bridge processes that achieve deterministic values and constraints at end point, for which we provide a systematic study and a suit of tools. Leveraging our framework, we present 1) a first theoretical error analysis for learning diffusion generation models, and 2) a simple and unified approach to learning on data from different discrete and constrained domains. Experiments show that our methods perform superbly on generating images, semantic segments and 3D point clouds.


In this paper, a maximum energy extraction and tracking strategy for direct-drive wave energy converters (DDWECs) based on back-stepping and sliding mode control strategies are developed. It is well known that the existence of the chattering phenomenon degrades the control performance of conventional sliding mode control (SMC). To mitigate the effects of flutter and external disturbances, a back-stepping sliding model control (BSMC) scheme is proposed. The main features of the proposed methodology are as follows: (1) By using the proposed BSMC, the maximum wave energy of DDWEC can be captured. Moreover, the speed tracking of the permanent magnet linear generator (PMLG), which is a subsystem of DDWEC, tracked in real-time. (2) By virtue of the proposed BSMC, the closed-loop control system is asymptotically stable in finite time. (3) With the superior controllability of the BSMC, it can handle disturbances that the SMC cannot handle. Comprehensive and comparative studies are proved to be superior to the most advanced method


The image-based monocular visual servoing is difficult to realize the grasping task on three-dimension. This study presented a method of quaternion on 3D reaching tasks of visual servoing. This method used a camera and a laser scanner to acquire the information of the images and the depth. Then the parameters of Jacobian matrix could be determined by the method of the quaternion. A particular constraint mechanism was also proposed to optimize the reaching trajectory of the robot. The simulation results demonstrated our proposed method could implement the 3D reaching tasks successfully and had a significant performance improvement compared to conventional methods.


: The character of microflora, directly causing inflammatory process in tuboperitoneal infertility, was studied. The study revealed the prevalence of microbial associations, Chlamydia infection was detected in half of the women, and in 17% of the patients this infection was for the first time detected in the upper section of their reproductive apparatus, which was indicative of the role of Chlamydia infection in the occlusion of the uterine tubes. Opportunistic microflora persisting in persons with defective antimicrobial protection was found. The study of local protective factors in peritoneal fluid revealed the absence of T-cell activity, which was manifested by a low level of sIL-2R and the absence of a significant rise in the level of IL-2 in peritoneal fluid in comparison with that in healthy women. In addition, a decrease in the total complement activity and in the activity of component C3 of the complement was established.


It is shown that the algorithm of R.S. Barlow and K.D. Heidtmann (ibid., vol.R-33, p.322-3, Oct. 1984) is more computationally efficient than those reported by S.P. Jain and K. Gopal (ibid., vol.R-34, p.144-6, June 1985) and S. Rai et al. (ibid., vol.R-36, p.261-5, June 1987). Efficiency is measured here by the number of multiplications. >


An iterative conjugate heat transfer technique has been developed to predict the temperatures on film cooled surfaces such as flat plates and turbine blades. Conventional approaches using a constant wall temperature to calculate heat transfer coefficient and applying it to solid as a boundary condition can result in errors around 14% in uncooled blade temperatures. This indicates a need for conjugate heat transfer calculation techniques. However, full conjugate calculations also suffer from inability to correctly predict heat transfer coefficients in the near field of film cooling holes and require high computational cost making them impractical for component design in industrial applications. Iterative conjugate heat transfer (ICHT) analysis is a compromise between these two techniques where the external flow convection and internal blade conduction are loosely coupled. The solution obtained from solving one domain is used as boundary condition for the other. This process is iterated until convergence. Flow and heat transfer over a film cooled blade is not solved directly and instead convective heat transfer coefficients resulting from external convection on a similar blade without film cooling and under the same flow conditions are corrected by use of experimental data to incorporate the effect of film cooling in the heat transfer coefficients. The effect of conjugate heat transfer is taken into account by using this iterative technique. Unlike full conjugate heat transfer (CHT) the ICHT analysis doesn't require solving a large number of linear algebraic equations at once. It uses two separate meshes for external convection and blade conduction and thus problem can be solved in lesser time using less computational resources. A demonstration of this technique using a commercial CFD solver FLUENT is presented for simulations of film cooling on flat plates. Results are presented in form of film cooling heat transfer coefficients and surface temperature distribution which are compared with results obtained from conventional approach. For uncooled surfaces, the deviations were as high as 3.5% between conjugate and conventional technique results for the wall temperature. For film cooling simulations on a flat plate using the ICHT approach showed deviations up to 10% in surface temperature compared to constant wall temperature technique for a high temperature difference case and 3% for a low temperature difference case, since surface temperature is not constant over the surface when conjugate heat transfer is considered. Results show that conjugate heat transfer effect is significant for film cooling flows involving high temperature differences for the current blade materials and application of film cooling correction obtained from experimental data is very useful in obtaining realistic blade temperatures.Copyright © 2010 by ASME


We propose a novel, inverted two-stage exam format that encourages anticipation of transfer problems. We report on its design, use, and initial assessment for low-stakes quizzes in an algorithms course. A typical two-stage exam, where the group stage comes after the individual stage, emphasizes retrospective learning: reflecting on already-solved problems. Our inverted two-stage format places the group stage first, and incentivizes prospective learning: preparing for transfer to novel problems that will appear on the individual stage and subsequent assessments. TAs reported the new format leads to reliable engagement. In surveys, most students preferred inverted two-stage quizzes to individual quizzes plus a TA walkthrough. Students who preferred this format cited the value of learning from peers, brainstorming in the problem domain, and working out ambiguities in the domain and problems.


The concepts of behavioral economics have proven to be useful for understanding the environmental control of overall levels of responding for a variety of commodities, including reinforcement by drug self-administration. These general concepts have implications for the assessment of abuse liability and drug abuse intervention and the formulation of public policy on drug abuse. An essential requirement is the ability to compare the demand for different drugs directly in order to assess relative abuse liability, and to compare demand for the same drug under different environmental and biological interventions to assess their ability to reduce demand. Until now, such comparisons were hampered by the confounding effect of varying drug doses and potencies that prevent quantitative comparisons of demand elasticity--sensitivity of consumption and responding to the constraint of price (effort). In this paper we describe a procedure to normalize demand-curve analysis that permits dose- and potency-independent comparisons of demand across drugs. The procedure is shown to be effective for comparing drug demand within and across the drug classes. The technique permits a quantitative ordering of demand that is consistent with the peak levels of responding maintained by the drugs. The same technique is generalized for the comparison of other types of reinforcers under different biological conditions.


Shallow-water octocorals are among the most abundant macro-benthic organisms inhabiting tropical subtropical and temperate communities. In spite of being worldwide distributed and highly diverse, the systematics of many octocorals remains controversial and the understanding of the processes who led to their diversification is largely unexplored. This study includes five chapters, each dealing with different aspects of the systematics, phylogeny and evolution of six soft coral genera such as Lobophytum, Sarcophyton, Paramuricea, Leptogorgia, Muricea and Pacifigorgia. One of the main goals of the study was to explore, through the use of molecular methods, the genetic variation within species notoriously difficult to identify. Besides the use of standard molecular methods for phylogenetic reconstruction and species delimitation, the effectiveness of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies was tested for mitogenomic and genotyping analyses.
In the first chapter the use of single-locus markers (e.g. COI, mtMutS and 28S rDNA) was investigated and different automated species delimitation methods (e.g. ABGD, bPTP) were employed to assess species richness among soft coral genera from Western Australia. The methods used appeared suitable for preliminary and rapid diversity assessments especially in the presence of species-rich genera such as Lobophytum and Sarcophyton where morphological identification is particularly difficult and time consuming.
In the second chapter, along with the sequencing of complete mitogenomes of Mediterranean Paramuricea species (P. clavata and P. macrospina), the biogeography of the genus was investigated. The results revealed nucleotide and genome size polymorphisms, while the biogeographic predictions suggested that the Mediterranean species have resulted from independent speciation events, explaining in part the high phylogenetic divergence detected.
In the third chapter, the sequencing of complete mitogenomes of five Leptogorgia species from different geographic areas (eastern Pacific, eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean) was followed by phylogenetic reconstructions based on an extended mtMutS dataset. The phylogenetic tree recovered Leptogorgia polyphyletic with a clear segregation between the eastern Pacific and eastern Atlantic forms. A time calibrated phylogeny provided insights into the evolution of the genus. In chapter four, using NGS approaches, the complete mitochondrial genome of two eastern Pacific Muricea species (M. crassa and M. purpurea) has been sequenced. The recovery of complete mitogenomes allowed to evaluate the presence of variable and informative regions and to infer a more robust phylogeny. Overall, the results showed high nucleotide diversity in the intergenic spacers, making these regions new potential molecular markers for species-level identifications.
In the last chapter a genome-wide Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) and a Bayes Factor Delimitation method were used to infer the genetic relationships within species of the genus Pacifigorgia. The data obtained showed incongruence between molecular and morphological investigations suggesting the possibility of alternative taxonomic assignments for these species.
This study provides information on the evolution and speciation of ecologically important soft corals, which distribution range from the littoral and sublittoral zones of the Mediterranean to the tropical and subtropical reefs of Western Australia (WA) and eastern Pacific (EP). The use of mitochondrial markers such as MutS allowed to shed some light on the biogeography and evolutionary history of widespread gorgonians with special emphasis on the Mediterranean endemics and the Atlantic species. Concerning the Western Australia, the obtained results will support the management and conservation of under-investigated marine biodiversity hotspots and potentially species-rich localities such as the Kimberley. In terms of species delimitation, the application of genome-wide SNPs and the use of NGS technologies showed a higher resolution when compared with the traditional methods based on DNA barcoding and single-locus phylogenies. The data generated have been used to clarify the systematics of the species investigated and will be considered as a baseline for future studies on population genetics with a closer look on the adaptive processes.


PURPOSE
Polychromatic x-rays are used in most computed tomography scanners. In this case, a beam-hardening effect occurs, which degrades the image quality and distorts the shapes of objects in the reconstructed images. When the beam-hardening artifact is not severe, conventional correction methods can reduce the artifact reasonably well. However, highly dense materials, such as iron and titanium, can produce more severe beam-hardening artifacts, which often cannot be corrected by conventional methods. Moreover, when the size of the metal is large, severe darks bands due to photon starvation as well as beam-hardening are generated. The purpose of our study was to develop a new method for correcting severe beam-hardening artifacts and severe dark bands using a high-order polynomial correction function and a prior-image-based linearization method.

METHODS
The initial estimate of an image free of beam-hardening (a prior image) was constructed from the initial reconstruction of the original projection data. Its corresponding beam-hardening-free projection data (a prior projection) were calculated by a projection operator onto the prior image. A new beam-hardening correction function G(praw ) with many high-order terms was effectively determined via a simple minimization process applied to the difference between the original projection data and the prior projection data. Using the determined correction function G(praw ), a corrected linearized sinogram pcorr can be obtained, which became effectively linear for the line integrals of the object. Final beam-hardening corrected images can be reconstructed from the linearized sinogram. The proposed method was evaluated in both simulation and real experimental studies.

RESULTS
All investigated cases in both simulations and real experiments showed that the proposed method effectively removed not only streaks for moderate beam-hardening artifacts but also dark bands for severe beam-hardening artifacts without causing structural and contrast distortion.

CONCLUSIONS
The prior-image-based linearization method exhibited better correction performance than conventional methods. Because the proposed method did not require time-consuming iterative reconstruction processes to obtain the optimal correction function, it can expedite the correction procedure and incorporate more high-order terms in the linearization correction function in comparison to the conventional methods.


This paper presents the activities carried out in one of the work packages of the Nordic Energy Research funded project Smart Transmission Grid Operation and Control (STRONg2rid). The main objective of the work package is to deploy a state-of-the-art software and hardware for developing power system operation, protection, control and automation applications. Several PMUs have been deployed at partner universities and a network of synchrophasors has been set up. In addition the Smart Transmission System Laboratory (SmarTS-Lab) has been established. This laboratory serves as a test-bench to develop and verify smart transmission grid technologies. A software development kit (S3DK) was developed within the project. The S3DK has been used to implement PMU-based applications and deploy them in different targets, including smart phones and tablets. Several tools and software applications which utilize synchrophasor measurements (from the laboratory or the deployed university PMU network) to perform power system monitoring, sub-synchronous power oscillation detection, etc., have been developed and are presented herein.


An experimental study is reported of the interaction between multiple isothermal jets within a cylindrical chamber under conditions relevant to a wide range of engineering applications, including the confined swirl combustors, industrial mixers, and concentrated solar thermal devices. The particle image velocimetry technique was used to investigate the swirling and precessing flows generated with four rotationally symmetric inlet pipes at a fixed nozzle Reynolds number of ReD = 10 500 for two configurations of swirl angle (5° and 15°) and two alternative tilt angles (25° and 45°). The measurements reveal three distinctive rotational flow patterns within the external recirculation zone (ERZ) and the central recirculation zone (CRZ) for these configurations. It was found that the mean and root-mean-square flow characteristics of the swirl within the chamber depend strongly on the relative significance of the ERZ and CRZ, with the swirling velocity being higher in the CRZ than that in the ERZ. A precessing vortex core was identified for all experimental conditions considered here, although its significance was less for the cases with a dominant CRZ.An experimental study is reported of the interaction between multiple isothermal jets within a cylindrical chamber under conditions relevant to a wide range of engineering applications, including the confined swirl combustors, industrial mixers, and concentrated solar thermal devices. The particle image velocimetry technique was used to investigate the swirling and precessing flows generated with four rotationally symmetric inlet pipes at a fixed nozzle Reynolds number of ReD = 10 500 for two configurations of swirl angle (5° and 15°) and two alternative tilt angles (25° and 45°). The measurements reveal three distinctive rotational flow patterns within the external recirculation zone (ERZ) and the central recirculation zone (CRZ) for these configurations. It was found that the mean and root-mean-square flow characteristics of the swirl within the chamber depend strongly on the relative significance of the ERZ and CRZ, with the swirling velocity being higher in the CRZ than that in the ERZ. A precessing v...


This book describes recent theoretical findings relevant to bilevel programming in general, and in mixed-integer bilevel programming in particular. It describes recent applications in energy problems, such as the stochastic bilevel optimization approaches used in the natural gas industry. New algorithms for solving linear and mixed-integer bilevel programming problems are presented and explained.


An empirical parametric equation with 2 bluntness parameters was introduced for describing the velocity profile of blood in the small arterioles and venules of small mammals, in vivo, with the basic approximations of the axisymmetric flow in cylindrical geometry, zero velocity at the wall and a blunter than parabolic flow profile. The purpose was to evaluate the usefulness of this equation in describing the velocity profile and in estimating the volume flow when only one velocity measurement is available near the vessel axis. The equation was tested on 17 velocity profiles (9 arteriolar and 8 venular) previously measured by particle image velocimetry (PIV) techniques, at diameters ranging from 17 to 38.6 microm. The correlation coefficients of each experimental profile were higher than 0.96. The average relative error-bias measured at 10 radial segments ranged between -5% to 1%, leading to an average relative volume flow estimation error for all the 17 velocity profiles of -1.8% with a standard deviation of 4.3%.


This paper presents the tool developed and used during the first year of the European IST project SCALE1 (Internet- Based intelligent tool for Supporting Collaborative Argumentation and Learning). This tool allows argumentative interactions across internet that can be used in pedagogical situations. In adjunction to regular collaborative tools (chat, white board and text editor), a specific collaborative graph editor was designed according to Toulmin's representation of argumentative debate. All the interactions are recorded in structured trace files that can be further studied by the cogniticians and educationalist partners of the project and can be used as examples for teacher training in argumentation. The whole architecture of the system relies on a client-server architecture and uses open Internet protocol technology (XML and Java language). The tool is used via a regular browser, doesn't need any software installation on the client side and has a multi language interface. This modular architecture also enables easy integration of new interactive modules.


A comparative evaluation between Digital Venous (DV) and Arterial (DA) studies of carotid arteries has been carried out in our institution in the last two years. DV study, in our experience, only in fourty percent of the cases shows good details (i.e. of true diagnostic value); this rate decreases to fifteen-twenty of intracranial sector, while DA offers optimal results in eighty percent and more of the patients. DV studies, highly invasive on a pharmacological point of view, based on the contrast medium amount, must be reserved only to surgical follow-up studies and patients with femoral/brachial bilateral occlusion, that involves technical impossibility for arterial catheterization.


This paper introduces new polarimetric algorithms for generating 3-D images and estimating scattering mechanisms from polarimetric multibaseline (MB) interferometric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) measurements. First, an MB interferometric SAR signal model is generalized to the fully polarimetric configuration, establishing the notion of polarimetric reflectivity. Subsequently, polarimetric beamforming, Capon, and MUSIC methods that determine optimal polarization combinations for height estimation are developed. These new techniques allow for extracting the height of reflectors, the associated scattering mechanisms, and the polarimetric (pseudo)reflectivities. By means of polarimetric dual-baseline interferometric SAR observations of an urban environment, the performance of the conceived algorithms is examined in detail. Producing 3-D images of a building layover, the quality of the approaches is compared in terms of refined resolution and lowered side lobes. Furthermore, the scattering processes occurring in urban scenes are investigated thoroughly by analyzing the optimal reflection types. The algorithms are validated using dual-baseline polarimetric SAR interferometric data at L-band acquired by German Aerospace Center's experimental SAR system over Dresden city.


Synopsis This brief biography summarizes the life of Scots-born Robert Kidston (1852–1924), who was arguably the best and most influential palaeobotanist of his day. In over 180 scientific papers he laid the foundations for a modern understanding of the taxonomy and palaeobiology of Devonian and Carboniferous plants. His expertise was critical to the research and curation of the Geological Survey and British Museum (Natural History) and excavations of Glasgow's Fossil Grove introduced the great Carboniferous forests into the public imagination. Despite their age, his meticulously documented collections of slides (deposited in the Botany collection University of Glasgow) and hand specimens and notebooks (deposited in the collections of the British Geological Survey, Nottingham) provide a wealth of important scientific data with modern applications in plant taxonomy, biostratigraphy and palaeoclimatic reconstruction.


Context: Periodontal diseases are made out of an enormous scope of inflammatory conditions that influence the supporting structures of the teeth. Fixed retainers are progressively utilized since they are aesthetic, require less patient participation, and give more prominent dependability in the long-term, hence being increasingly predictable. Aim: To assess the gingival health status of subjects' maxillary and mandibular anterior teeth retained with fixed bonded retainers. Settings and Design: Cross sectional Study. Materials and Methods: Thirty-three and 30 individuals were selected in the study and control group respectively. The gingival index, plaque index, presence of calculus, and periodontal parameters were recorded. A five-question oral hygiene survey was developed to asses each subject's oral hygiene habits. Data have been analyses and compared to determine the association between periodontal disease and fixed orthodontic retainers. Statistical analysis used: The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (version 18.0) was used for statistical analysis. Descriptive statistics were presented as frequency and percentage for categorical data and mean and standard deviation for quantitative data. Chi-square test was applied for the association between categorical variables. Student's independent variable t-test was applied to compare quantitative variables. Results: Although the result reveals no significant differences according to PI, GI, or presence of calculus. However, significant differences were present according to the gingival contour (p=0.001), stippling (p=0.002), bleeding on probing (p<0.001), presence of exudation (p<0.001). Conclusion: A long-term usage of fixed retainers might affect periodontal tissue. Long-term studies that would assess a wide range of outcomes and correlations that might affect periodontal well-being is recommended.


25 pregnant women, 15 of whom developed stress incontinence in pregnancy, have been investigated by cystometry and urethrometry in both erect and supine posture. The resting bladder pressure rises throughout pregnancy in both erect and supine positions. Those who are not incontinent have normal bladder and urethral function. Incontinent patients show no residual urine, normal bladder capacity, and either detrusor instability and/or sphincter weakness. The stress of change of posture makes both bladder dysfunction and sphincter weakness more evident. Although the results of this investigation are not yet complete, there is a suggestion that detrusor instability may be produced by pregnancy in some patients and that in some instances recovery to normal bladder function occurs after delivery. It is postulated that these patients may be the ones who, in later life, develop stress incontinence due to bladder dysfunction.


Measuring data utility and privacy risk embedded in synthetic or other de-identified datasets is an increasingly important research area. Existing measures in the data privacy literature however are one-sided in that they either measure utility or privacy risk only. In this paper we propose a new measure that can evaluate both data utility and privacy, a well-known trade-off relationship in data synthesis. The proposed measure employs the notion of relative distance between the synthetic and original datasets at the dataset level, and can identify the optimally balanced position of the synthetic data in terms of both utility and privacy. In addition, we devise a graphical tool that visually reveals the current utility-privacy trade-off position of the synthetic data. Numerical studies show our new measure consistently performs better and offers richer interpretations than other existing global data utility measures, for both simulated and real datasets, confirming its distinctive advantages.


ABSTRACT The prevalence of heart failure (HF) is a major public health concern associated with negative health outcomes and poor quality of life. HF patients with low health literacy are considered as high-risk population with poor self-care confidence and negative health outcomes. In this study, we aimed to examine the effect of educational interventions on level of health literacy, self-efficacy and self-car behavior among patients with HF. Participants included 80 patients with HF aged 30–79 years. Prior to receiving education, they completed a series of neuropsychological tests and measures of health literacy, self-efficacy, self-care and socio-demographic characteristics. Health literacy was poor for the majority of patients and it was significantly associated with assessment measures of self-efficacy and self-care (p < 0.05). The regression model showed that age, education level, place of residence and substance addiction were important potential confounders to control level of health literacy and self-efficacy while self-care behaviors were only controlled by education level. Educational interventions could be an effective way to improve health literacy skills and self-care confidence among patients with HF. HF patients with adequate health literacy were younger and had higher levels of educational attainment.


Interactions of cell with the extracellular matrix (ECM) are crucial for normal development and functioning of the human organism. By regulating ECM integrity and composition matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) play the main role in ECM molecules signaling and influence processes such as proliferation, migration, differentiation and apoptosis. ECM remodeling is a highly regulated process. When imbalanced it could contribute to pathophysiology of many diseases. The MMPs actions and activity are regulated through different mechanisms such as regulation of transcription, activation of latent MMPs, inhibition of MMP function by tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases. MMPs are a family of calciumand zinc-dependent endoproteinase, which share similar structural domains, but differs in substrate specificity, cell localizations and inducibility. Genetic variations in MMPs have been associated with a number of diseases, still not all findings are reproducible. Nine of 23 human genes encoding MMPs are located in a cluster on chromosome 11, which implicate their haplotype-driven effects. They could be important mediators of disease severity and could trigger acute events. In this chapter, we will review the basics of MMP biology and the most significant associations of MMPs variations with cardiovascular and neurological diseases in humans and MMPs therapeutic potential through synthetic inhibitors.


Search, as a well-known information retrieval strategy, is widely researched and developed for academic and commercial usage. However, in the context of increasing amounts of multimedia data, search alone cannot satisfy user requirements for exploring multimedia resources. Therefore, preprocessing of multimedia resources is necessary to define potentially related documents to reduce retrieval time and improve the browsing efficiency. Using hyperlinks to connect relevant resources is widely used for multimedia collection. However, the definition of hyperlinks is usually based on textual information. For example, hyperlinks in Wikipedia link a term to relevant webpages. By contrast, content based multimedia retrieval provides the possibility of analysing multimedia materials on the actual content. The availability of these technologies for multimedia search suggests further investigation of content-based hyperlinking for multimedia collections.

This thesis is dedicated to a novel topic of automatically creating hyperlinks within TV data collections for content-based browsing and navigation. Hyperlinks are created between video segments determined to be related based on their multimodal features.

First, we detail the methodologies to create potentially relevant segments across the TV collection in terms of automatically detected spoken information. We present which of these approaches are more efficient to segment video streams.

Next, we involve both low-level and high-level visual features to improve the hyperlinking quality. We detail the implementation of data fusion schemes to combine multimodal features.

Finally, a novel hyperlinking framework associated with query enrichment, spoken data analysis, and multimodal fusion is proposed. The experiments show the effectiveness of this framework at satisfying user experience which is concluded in crowdsourcing study.


The aim of this study was to evaluate the biocompatibility with the proliferation of osteoblast-like cell (MC3T3-E1) on zirconia/alumina nanocomposite (NANOZR) in comparison to yttria stabilized zirconia (3Y-TZP) and titanium (Ti). Cellular proliferations after 1-, 3-, 6-, and 9-day incubation were calculated from the measurement of the MTT activities of the proliferated cell and were analyzed by two-way ANOVA. Time-dependent proliferation of MC3T3-E1 in all the sample was observed in all three materials with culture days. However, these were no significant differences in the proliferation between three kinds of material, indicating all the materials have a similar-good biocompatibility.


Stress induced hyperglycaemia is prevalent in critical care. Since the landmark paper published by Van den Berghe et al. (2001) a great deal of attention has been paid to intensive insulin therapy in an ICU setting to combat the adverse e ects of elevated glucose levels and poor glycaemic control. Glycaemic control protocols have been extensively developed, tested and validated within an ICU setting. However, little research has been conducted on the e ects of a glycaemic control protocol in a less acute ward setting. There are many additional challenges presented in a ward setting, such as the variation in meals and levels of activity between patients, from day to day and throughout the day. A simple compartment model is used to describe the nature of insulin and glucose metabolism in patients of the Cardiothoracic Ward (CTW). A stochastic model of the tted insulin sensitivity parameter is generated for this cohort and validated against cohorts of similar characteristics. The stochastic model is then used to run simulations of predictive control on 7 CTW patients, which shows signi cantly tighter glucose control than what is obtained with regular clinical procedures. However, the rate of severe hypoglycaemia is an unacceptably high 4.2%. The greatest challenge in maintaining tight glycaemic control in such patients is the consumption of meals at irregular times and of inconsistent quantities. Insulin sensitivity was compared to extensive hourly clinical data of 36 ICU patients. From this data a sepsis score of value 0-4 was generated as gold standard marker of sepsis. Comparing the sepsis score to insulin sensitivity found that insulin sensitivity provides a negative predictive diagnostic for sepsis. High insulin sensitivity of greater than SI = 8 10 5 L mU 1 min 1 rules out sepsis for the majority of patient hours and may be determined non-invasively in real-time from glycaemic control protocol data. Low insulin sensitivity is not an e ective diagnostic, as it can equally mark the presence of sepsis or other conditions.


The study has revealed that over-exploitation of groundwater has effected drastic changes in energy input-use and energy output produced across the regions in Coimbatore district and the Tamil Nadu state. Energy equivalent values have been used for various direct sources of energy (human, animal and mechanical power), indirect sources (fertilizers, pesticides, manures), commercial, non-commercial, renewable and non-renewable energy sources to analyse the economics of energy usage in the agricultural production process in the two different groundwater development regions of the Coimbatore district. Energy inputs usage has been found very high in groundwater less-exploited area of Perur in paddy and cotton crops. For the coconut crop, Palladam block has shown consumption of more energy-inputs. Energy output-input ratios for paddy, coconut and cotton have been reported as 0.85, 29.35 and 0.09 in Perur region and 0.76, 13.20 and 0.09 in Palladam region. The energy efficiency has been observed higher in coconut crop among crops and in Perur among regions. Not much difference has been observed in gross value of output per MJ of energy input in paddy and cotton crops among groundwater severely-exploited and less exploited regions.


Restoration stonemasons play a vital role in preserving culturally significant heritage buildings and the majority of culturally significant buildings in Sydney are constructed using Sydney sandstone, with an average silica content of 75%. Stonemasons conducting the close inspection required for precision sandstone grinding restoration works are considered at significant risk of exposure to respirable crystalline silica (RCS). An occupational hygiene survey was conducted to assess the risk of RCS exposure of restoration stonemasons conducting various tasks. Exposure monitoring for respirable dust (RD) and RCS was undertaken and the task of grinding sandstone determined as the highest exposure risk. 'Spinning' and 'Chopping out' tasks were identified as 'high risk' activities with excessive exposures of 4, 6 and 12 mg/m3, well above the workplace exposure standard (WES) of 0.1 mg/m3. Short duration task monitoring was conducted to better evaluate worker exposures and job rotation during the highest risk grinding task was not determined as a suitable control to reduce stonemason exposures. A trial was undertaken using on-tool dust collecting shrouds attached to local exhaust ventilation (LEV) system to evaluate the effectiveness and suitability to grinding tasks, with a 99% exposure reduction achieved. Reducing stonemason exposures below the WES was still not possible for grinding tasks; and numerous control measures were recommended to ensure workers are not exposed to concentrations of RCS likely to cause risk to health. Implementation of a combination of control measures is essential in reducing RCS exposure risk. Controls selected in line with the hierarchy of controls include:mini enclosures, wet methods of dust suppression, on-tool dust collection shrouds and local exhaust ventilation (LEV); along with appropriate respiratory protection commensurate to exposure and powered air purifying respirators (PAPR) when grinding sandstone. Stonemasons grinding sandstone are considered at high risk of RCS exposure. They were encouraged to participate in equipment trials and evaluate their effectiveness. The more informed the stonemasons became, the more inspired they were to reduce their RCS exposure and integrate small, effective changes during sandstone restoration activities. Utilising knowledge from industry experts was invaluable in ensuring a successful trial, and gaining the confidence of the cohort. Throughout the risk assessment process, the stonemasons increased their knowledge and understanding of RCS.


Synchronization in networks of oscillatory units is an emergent phenomenon that has been observed in various systems, from power grids to ensembles of nerve cells. Many real-world networks have adaptive properties, meaning that their connectivities change with time, depending on the dynamical state of the system. Networks of adaptively coupled oscillators show various synchronization phenomena, such as hierarchical multifrequency clusters, traveling waves, or chimera states. While these self-organized patterns have been previously studied on all-to-all coupled networks, this work extends the investigations towards more complex networks, analyzing the influence of random network topologies for various degrees of dilution of the connectivities. Using numerical and analytical approaches, we investigate the robustness of multicluster states on networks of adaptively coupled Kuramoto-Sakaguchi oscillators against the random dilution of the underlying network topology. We utilize the master stability approach for adaptive networks in order to highlight the interplay between adaptivity and topology. With this, we show the robustness of multifrequency cluster states to diluted connectivities.


This work focuses on the conception and formulation of appropriate filtration models for use by water treatment professionals for design, development and management of deep-bed (depth) filters. Performance and optimization studies were carried out using data (turbidity, filtration rate, head loss) acquired from pilot filter test runs. The curves developed from these studies were utilized for the formulation of steady-state and hydro-dynamic models of depth filtration. An effluent quality model was developed, relating depth of flow in filter bed with effluent turbidity. This model was verified and validated. The depths obtained are in good agreement with standard values from literature.


The United Kingdom has moved to a new points-based system of managing the temporary and long-term immigration of workers, students and their families. It is designed to ensure that only workers with high-level and/or needed skills are selected and that students are genuine and of benefit to the UK. The government view is that the new system will provide it with the tools necessary to reduce labour immigration during the current economic downturn. The system is not yet fully operational but recent data on skilled immigration show that around 60 per cent of migrants are from the European Economic Area, and thus have the right to enter Britain for work, and that many others have been transferred by the multinational companies that employ them. Thus while the new system represents a definite administrative break with the past, its effects on selection and on overall numbers may be limited.


Many mobility models have been proposed for the simulation of vehicular sensor network, however, the existing models seldom consider the sociological Aspects of vehicle movement. The paper firstly analyzed the social characteristic of mobility of the real vehicular traces and gained the conclusion that is short average distance, limited node degree and high cluster coefficient. Based on it, a mobility model based social network is proposed and turned into a simulation, which consists of growing and evolvement of social networks, geographical location mapping of vehicles and node dynamics. The simulation results proved that the model's characteristic is similar to real trace.


Objective: In vitro models of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) nonreplicating persistence (NRP) suggest the rate of oxygen (O2) depletion is a significant determinant in persistence. However, few studies have characterized the metabolic association between slow and rapid O2 depletion rates and successful versus failed persistence. Methods: We developed a theoretical model of Mtb metabolic adaptation that includes O2 driven genetic modulation of enzymes in the tricarboxylic acid cycle, energy, and redox recycling pathways. We conducted an in silico study of Mtb adaptation, and investigated the metabolic dynamics that enable persistence during slow versus rapid anaerobiosis. Results: Consistent with in vitro studies, during rapid anaerobiosis the most significant enzymatic changes occurred during the active growth period while the majority of the slow anaerobic system's adaptive response occurred during the first phase of aerobic shiftdown (NRP1). The characteristic response of the two conditions differed, with the slow anaerobic system exhibiting positive adaptation response, upregulating six enzymes during NRP1, while the rapid system exhibited a negative adaptation response, decreasing the levels of seven enzymes during active growth. Conclusion: Results of our study illustrate the intricate metabolic balance Mtb achieves during adaptation to anaerobic conditions, and how failure in redox recycling correlates to failure in persistence. Significance: We have provided the first theoretical description of the genetic and metabolic death profile for Mtb during anaerobic growth. Insight into Mtbs dynamic adaptation response provides a unique systems framework for the development of targeted therapies to reduce the likelihood of mycobacterial persistence and the related incidence of latent tuberculosis infection.


The detection of event-related potentials (ERPs) in the electroencephalogram (EEG) signal has several real-world applications, from cognitive state monitoring to brain-computer interfaces. Current systems based on the detection of ERPs only consider a single type of response to detect. Hence, the classification methods that are considered for ERP detection are binary classifiers (target vs. non target). Here we investigated multiclass classification of single-trial evoked responses during a rapid serial visual presentation task in which short video clips were presented to fifteen observers. Each trial contained potential targets that were human or non-human, stationary or moving. The goal of the classification analysis was to discriminate between three classes: moving human targets, moving non-human targets, and non-moving human targets. The analysis revealed that the mean volume under the ROC surface of 0.878. These results suggest that it is possible to efficiently discriminate between more than two types of evoked responses using single-trial detection.


Purpose of review Though lobectomy remains the standard of care for resection of nonsmall cell lung cancer, a number of studies have been published in the last 24 months exploring the role of sublobar resection in the treatment of stage I nonsmall cell lung cancer. Recent findings Large retrospective studies comparing lobar and sublobar resection show similar overall and disease-free survival. Survival and local control for sublobar resections are best for tumors smaller than 2 cm and with margins greater than 2 cm. Importantly, sublobar resections commonly have less thorough nodal dissection and incomplete pathologic staging; this may have important therapeutic consequences. No formal comparison of segmentectomy to wedge resection has been performed although bias towards segmentectomy resulting in better outcomes than nonanatomic wedge resection continues. Sublobar resection is especially interesting for patients with prior resection, bronchoalveolar carcinoma, and the elderly. Radiologic criteria for selecting candidates appropriate for sublobar resection are evolving. Summary Sublobar resection is an alternative therapy for stage I nonsmall cell lung cancer for patients with physiologic impairment unable to undergo lobectomy. The literature also suggests a role for patients with prior lung resection, bronchoalveolar carcinoma, peripheral tumors less than 2 cm, and for the elderly.


Poly(2-ethylaniline)(P2EANI) films were chemically deposited onto gold electrodes using ammonium persulfate as oxidant in the presence of the surfactants sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS, anionic), tetradecyltrimethylammonium bromide(TTAB, cationic) and polyoxyethylene octyl phenyl ether(Triton-X 100, non-ionic). The doping and adsorption effects of surfactants onto the properties of P2EANI, were correlated with mass gain, and were determined in situ during polymerization of 2EANI using quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). The frequency shift of P2EANI in the presence of Triton-X 100 was very sharp and fast. TTAB exhibited the lowest frequency and mass shift among the three surfactants. P2EANIs were characterized using FTIR and UV-visible spectroscopies, TGA, conductivity measurements and SEM analysis. The latter technique showed that the polymer morphology is, as expected, affected by the incorporation of surfactants into the polymer.


In this paper, we present a Pareto optimal multi-objective optimisation for parallel dynamic programming algorithm applied in cognitive radio ad hoc networks. To measure the performance of our contribution, we have used a multi-core architecture. The parallel version of the dynamic programming is implemented with the concept of Pareto. To select the most compromising solution from the Pareto front, Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is used in this paper. We have also implemented a meta-heuristic (cuckoo search) with the Pareto principle in order to validate our proposal. Our simulations approve the desired results, showing significant gain in terms of execution time. The main objective is to allow a cognitive engine to use an exact method and to have better results compared to the use of meta-heuristics while satisfying QoS parameters.


The Likoaeng archaeological site in the eastern highlands of Lesotho preserves a particularly finely resolved sequence left by hunter-gatherers who repeatedly occupied this open-air location during the late Holocene, c. 1700 BC to AD 900. This paper describes the flaked stone tool assemblages used, produced and left at the site during this period and then relates them to other post-Classic Wilton assemblages elsewhere in the wider Maloti-Drakensberg region. The Likoaeng artefact sequence itself shows differences over time in patterns of raw material usage, stone reduction technology, formal tool frequencies and backed microlith production that offer an unusually well resolved insight into the evolution of the post-Classic Wilton in this part of southern Africa. At the specific level of the Likoaeng site itself, explanations for this patterning may be sought through correlations with changing subsistence activities and palaeoenvironmental conditions, but understanding other elements of it demands a geographically much wider frame of analysis. To cite this article: Mitchell, P. 2009. The flaked stone artefact assemblages from Likoaeng: a late Holocene sequence in the Lesotho Highlands and its regional context. Southern African Humanities 21 : 117-155.


Today's optometry students and practitioners alike are often unaware of the richness of optometric history. The use of ophthalmic pharmaceutical agents and the designation of primary care practitioners are often taken for granted. This article utilizes some of the early research conducted by Harrington, Hofsteter, Prentice, Hirsch, Wick, Fitch, and Gregg, and describes the advent of drug legislation and the expanded role of optometry within the health care system.


We have investigated the effects of the pro-inflammatory cytokines interleukin 1 beta (IL-1 beta), tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF alpha) and interferon gamma (IFN gamma) on the iron metabolism of the human monocytic cell line U937. Cells were treated with each cytokine for up to 24 h, and then iron uptake from diferric transferrin was determined. The intracellular distribution of this iron, the expression of the transferrin receptor and levels of mRNA for the two ferritin subunits were also studied. IL-1 beta, TNF alpha and IFN gamma all decreased transferrin-iron uptake into cells, and all three cytokines had effects on the proportion of iron associated with ferritin. With TNF alpha there was a marked enhancement of the fraction incorporated into ferritin. Transferrin-receptor expression was diminished by TNF alpha and IL-1 beta, but not IFN gamma, suggesting different effector mechanisms. Both TNF alpha and IFN gamma increased the amount of cellular mRNA for ferritin H-chain, but not the L-chain; IL-1 beta affected mRNA for neither ferritin. These data demonstrate that cytokines, which can be present at high concentrations in inflammation, have the capacity to affect macrophage iron uptake, transferrin receptor expression, intracellular iron handling and the relative abundance of ferritin-subunit mRNA, and may therefore be important mediators in the observed perturbations of iron metabolism in inflammatory diseases.


BACKGROUND
It is well known that magnesium (Mg) plays an important role in many physiological processes such as regulation of blood catecholamine concentrations, particularly epinephrine (E) and norepinephrine (NE). The complex character of extracorporeal circulation (ECC) with intraoperative normovolemic haemodilution (NH) may alter blood Mg levels, which is likely to result in disorders of E and NE. The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of preoperative Mg supplementation on E and NE in patients undergoing CABG.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Forty male patients undergoing CABG under general anaesthesia were included. Patients were randomly divided into two groups: A--the patients receiving pre-operative magnesium supplementation and B--patients without pre-operative magnesium supplementation. The Mg, E and NE blood concentrations were measured in five stages: 1) before anesthesia after the radial artery cannulation, 2) during NH and ECC, 3) immediately after surgery, 4) in the morning of the 1st postoperative day, 5) in the morning of the 2nd postoperative day. The Mg levels were determined by spectrophotometric methods, E and NE were measured by radioimmunoassay methods.

RESULTS
The CABG caused a decrease of Mg and an increase of E and NE in both groups, but the changes were significantly higher in group B.

CONCLUSIONS
1) CABG causes a decrease of Mg and an increase of E and NE; 2) Preoperative, oral supplementation of Mg substantially reduces intra- and postoperative disorders.


This particular paper aims to throw light on the culture and folk tradition of Bundelkhand region, a place which is located in the middle of Indian geographical map that's the reason this place is known as the heart of India. If we peep into past, we will find that this particular region was known by various old names such as Chedi, Dasharn, Yudhdesh, Vanyadesh, Aatavyadesh, Jejakbhukti, Jujharkhand, Vindhyelkhand, and later on Bundelkhanddue to the impact of Budela Dynasty that was very popular and celebrated for their bravery and great deeds. Among the people of this region there is a folk saying which describes geographically this region- "BhainsbandhihaiOrchha, PadaHosangabad; LagveyahaiSagre, ChapiyaRewapaar." In this saying, with the help of animals' name they tried the map the boundary of the region. The folk of the region are very simple and coloured with rich cultural tradition. In their day to day life and activities, the impact of culture and tradition is clearly visible. This was still untouched by  growing industrialisation so it is known as backward region due to less development and poverty but at the same time with increasing effect of Globalization and technology the folk and their culture and traditions greatly affected by. We will explore the richness of culture and society and its traditions and rituals in the prevailing folklore of Bundelkhand.


Blood samples were taken from 39 black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis), usually soon after they were captured. The blood was examined microscopically for trypanosomes, and most samples were tested for trypanosome serum antibodies and inoculated into small laboratory animals. Serum antibodies were found in most animals and trypanosomes identified as Trypanosoma brucei were found in 7 of 39 (18%) of the rhinoceros. Berenil (diminazene aceturate) did not effect complete elimination of trypanosomes. In spite of treatment, one rhinoceros died of trypanosomiasis.


Objectives: Teenage marriage results in social, cultural, and economic problems including domestic violence. Based on research evidence, the present study attempted to provide a documentary image of domestic violence in early marriages. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted by searching different databases such as Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Science Direct, PubMed, Scientific Information Database, Google Scholar, Magiran, Irandoc, and Iranmedex for articles which were published during 2000-2018. To this end, MeSH keywords like "dating violence", "intimate partner violence (IPV)", "teenage marriage", and "domestic violence" were utilized and thus a total of 176 articles were obtained and selected for review. Finally, the "Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations" (GRADE) approach was used to order the quality of evidence. Results: Based on the findings, the general prevalence of domestic violence varies from 7% to 48% in the world and from 10.7% to 93% in Iran. IPV is more prevalent in younger women and psychological and physical violence is higher in this group. In addition, the prevalence of domestic violence in pregnancy varies from 2% to 43.5%. Women experience more violence in three months prepregnancy, during the first six months of pregnancy, and three months after childbirth. During pregnancy, domestic violence is related to the complications of preterm labor, low birth weight, vaginal bleeding, and hospitalization. Eventually, depression, panic attacks, excessive alcohol use, eating disorders, and suicidal thoughts are mental health disorders resulted from domestic violence. Conclusions: Overall, young women are the sacrifice of violence in their most active years of life, which is along with the most harm in society concerning health, economics, cultural, and social issues.Considering its high rate, teenage marriage can be prevented by increasing public awareness and the cooperation of related organizations.


Zwitterions are naturally occurring molecules that have a positive and a negative charge group in its structure and are of great importance in many areas of science. Here, the vibrational and hydration dynamics of the zwitterionic system betaine (N,N,N-trimethylglycine) is reported. The linear infrared spectrum of aqueous betaine exhibits an asymmetric band in the 1550-1700 cm(-1) region of the spectrum. This band is attributed to the carboxylate asymmetric stretch of betaine. The potential of mean force computed from ab initio molecular dynamic simulations confirms that the two observed transitions of the linear spectrum are related to two different betaine conformers present in solution. A model of the experimental data using non-linear response theory agrees very well with a vibrational model comprising of two vibrational transitions. In addition, our modeling shows that spectral parameters such as the slope of the zeroth contour plot and central line slope are both sensitive to the presence of overlapping transitions. The vibrational dynamics of the system reveals an ultrafast decay of the vibrational population relaxation as well as the correlation of frequency-frequency correlation function (FFCF). A decay of ∼0.5 ps is observed for the FFCF correlation time and is attributed to the frequency fluctuations caused by the motions of water molecules in the solvation shell. The comparison of the experimental observations with simulations of the FFCF from ab initio molecular dynamics and a density functional theory frequency map shows a very good agreement corroborating the correct characterization and assignment of the derived parameters.


IoT (Internet of Things) technically connects billions of entities to the Internet. The IoT is divided between the technology and the service itself. As a result, great efforts are needed to join data from many contexts and services. This reason has motivated proposals to develop solutions that can overcome existing issues of limitations for mobility, security, reliability and scalability of IoT. These billions of devices are interconnected to each other either using unicast, multicast or broadcast communications, and mixture of static and mobile communications. This paper aims to investigate the parameters of mobility performance in handover process for mobile multicast IoT environment. Investigation is done quantitatively by evaluating the parameters of handover process for IoT in two networking protocols that are possible to support acceptable mobility performance for IoT. The protocols are ICN (Information Centric Networking) and Proxy Mobile Internet Protocol. The evaluation parameters include packet loss and service recovery time. The metrics are extracted from the handover process flow for each network protocol topology. The service recovery time parameter is assumed as the time duration for each message to travel from sender to receiver, while packet loss parameter depends on the packet arrival rate and service recovery time. The results show that the ICN performs better than Proxy Mobile Internet Protocol.


Human impacts on water transparency may affect plunge-diving seabirds. We studied prey capture success of Sandwich Terns Sterna sandvicensis as a function of six environmental variables during the breeding season. We observed diving terns in the south eastern North Sea and found a non-linear optimum curve for the relationship between Secchi transparency and prey capture probability. High capture probability was found at 1.5–2.0 m, with an optimum of 63% at 1.74 m. At a minimum transparency of 0.4 m and at a maximum transparency of 3.2 m, capture probabilities were about halved. Conversion of transparency to total suspended matter (TSM) concentration showed that the optimum concentration for foraging terns would be 5–10 mg ⁄ L under mean summer conditions for chlorophyll-a. However, the summer-averaged TSM concentrations in the nearshore Dutch coastal waters range between 10 and 30 mg ⁄ L, which implies that foraging Terns in the breeding season do not encounter optimal foraging conditions. The Full Plunge Dive, with which the largest diving depth can be achieved, was applied dominantly in clear water, while the Partial Plunge Dive and Contact Dip were applied more frequently in turbid water, thus showing that Sandwich Terns adjust their diving technique in response to water transparency.


One of the most serious challenges faced by the British in the occupation of northern Nigeria was where and how to place Islam in the new dispensation. Islam provided the state structure and political machinery, which made it easy for British administrators to rule such a vast area through the Indirect Rule system. On the other hand, Islam was the major force that resisted the British inroads and consistently resisted being subsumed into the ambit of the new administration. Islam, as far as the British colonial interest was concerned, was both an ally and foe at the same time. The traditional and spiritual aspects of Islam were tolerable. However, any aspect of Islamic appeal in polity and other socio-economic practices in the form of Mahdism or resistance to state imperial interest were branded as OpoliticalO and in some cases OsubversiveO by the colonial officers. While the British did not interfere with the conventional practices of Islam like prayer, fasting, and other rituals, the political side of Islam was under serious surveillance and continuous scrutiny by the security and other relevant government agencies. The movements of such elements were monitored at home and all their links with the international community were trapped and muffled. The main concern of this paper therefore, is to assess the religious policies of the British colonial administration in the Sokoto province in relation to what was termed as the political side of Islam. What were the measures taken to contain the movements? It was found that these policies were later retained and maintained significantly in post independent Nigeria.


OBJECTIVE
An association between chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and fibromyalgia (FM) remains controversial, mainly because previous studies were based on prevalent case series or comparisons with less than optimal control groups. We investigated whether there might be an association between chronic HCV infection and FM.

METHODS
We prospectively investigated the prevalence of HCV infection in a series of 115 patients with FM and compared it with the prevalence in the general population of our community reported in the same period. Anti-HCV antibodies were determined by ELISA. In positive cases, infection was confirmed by recombinant immunoblot assay and HCV-RNA was detected by PCR using sera samples. Differences between prevalence rates were assessed by chi-square test.

RESULTS
HCV infection was confirmed in 3 of 115 patients with FM (2.6%). Two of these patients (1.74%) had active HCV infection shown by the presence of viral RNA in serum, whereas HCV RNA was undetectable in the third patient. In these cases, liver disease had previously been undiagnosed and HCV infection manifested itself by extrahepatic symptoms. Although the prevalence of HCV infection was slightly higher in patients with FM than in the general population in the age groups 25-44 and 45-64 years, when we compared prevalence rates in the total group and the different age groups, no statistically significant differences were found.

CONCLUSION
From our results, it seems unlikely that HCV infection plays a pathogenic role in FM.


Through the field test on the laboratory building foundation pit engineering of Northeastern University at Qinhuangdao, the distribution and variation rule of steel stress and pile moment is researched and analyzed in the process of the deep foundation pit excavation. The result shows that foundation pit excavation and applied prestressed anchor are the main factors of pile internal force change, furthermore, the latter is more effective than the former. Meanwhile, the influence of top beam to steel stress and moment of pile head can not be ignored especially. The zero position of steel stress and pile moment are basically same, which lies under foundation pit bottom. The use of limit equilibrium method more economical than elastic subgrade method in design over foundation pit bottom, however, which is opposite under it.


Data is power in today's society, but not all access to data is ethical or legal. When individuals or organizations are able to access unauthorized data, they can manipulate it or profit from it. In this article, the emphasis is on the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) grant account holders and how their data is being used. The SASSA grant holders are vulnerable and poor, often with no one to assist them if they do not receive their full grant pay-out. A survey was done where 1000 questionnaires were given to helpers who visited SASSA pay-out points in Moloto in Pretoria and Katlehong in Johannesburg, who then assisted the grant holders with completing the questionnaire. A total of 534 completed questionnaires was then used to perform cross-tabulations and Pearson Chi-square analyses. The findings include that not all grant holders are sure of exactly the amount of money they should receive and discrepancies exist, especially in banking charges and unauthorized debits. The age groups of 70 and older and the females tend to receive less than their total SASSA grant pay-out more often compared to younger age groups and males. Future research can include expanding the survey to other provinces and more rural areas as well as to identify if there are similar trends in other countries where there are social grant programs and grant holders who do not receive their full payments.


The lucrative rewards of security penetrations into large organizations have motivated the development and use of many sophisticated rootkit techniques to maintain an attacker's presence on a compromised system. Due to the evasive nature of such infections, detecting these rootkit infestations is a problem facing modern organizations. While many approaches to this problem have been proposed, various drawbacks that range from signature generation issues, to coverage, to performance, prevent these approaches from being ideal solutions. In this paper, we present Blacksheep, a distributed system for detecting a rootkit infestation among groups of similar machines. This approach was motivated by the homogenous natures of many corporate networks. Taking advantage of the similarity amongst the machines that it analyses, Blacksheep is able to efficiently and effectively detect both existing and new infestations by comparing the memory dumps collected from each host. We evaluate Blacksheep on two sets of memory dumps. One set is taken from virtual machines using virtual machine introspection, mimicking the deployment of Blacksheep on a cloud computing provider's network. The other set is taken from Windows XP machines via a memory acquisition driver, demonstrating Blacksheep's usage under more challenging image acquisition conditions. The results of the evaluation show that by leveraging the homogeneous nature of groups of computers, it is possible to detect rootkit infestations.


A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Statistics of the Addis Ababa University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Statistics


Very marked differences in the metastable persistence of coesite and stishovite have been demonstrated; the former possibly persists indefinitely below 1000�C at 1 atmosphere "dry," and the latter completely decomposes in minutes above 500� to 600�C to an amorphous or short range order phase. Quartz was grown (metastably) at temperatures well above its stability field from both coesite and stishovite, possibly by way of a short range order phase. The absence of stishovite in meteor-impact craters cannot be taken as evidence that it was not formed. If it has "reversed" in normal natural environments the product would almost certainly be a short range order phase or derivative.


Bananas (Musa spp. AAA group) are an important food and a source of income for farmers in tropical countries. Black sigatoka (Mycosphaerella fijiensis Morelet), a fungal leaf spot disease, is the major production constraint worldwide. The replacement of most of the susceptible banana landraces requires the proper assessment of host plant response to black sigatoka and the determination of yield potential (per unit area and time) of the new selections. Although optimum plot sizes have been reported earlier for banana trials, the number of plants per plot was determined primarily by using a subjective visual assessment, based on the point of maximum curvature. This paper presents an objective method to determine optimum plot size using segmented models. Data on host response to black sigatoka, and growth and yield characteristics recorded in the plant crop and first ratoon on competing plants of the widely grown banana cv. Valery, provided the sample to illustrate the proposed method. With few exceptions, feasible solutions were obtained after <10 iterations. The approximate solutions suggested that nine to 33 plants per plot could be optimal for banana trials. The optimum number of plants per plot depended on the characteristic of interest and the production cycle. About 13 ± 1 plants may suffice to assess the host response to black sigatoka, whereas 16 ± 3 plants per plot are needed to evaluate growth characteristics and yield potential of cultivars. The optimum number of plants needed to assess the performance of genotypes had lower coefficients of variation in the plant crop than in the ratoon crop. Hence, the recommended optimum plot size consisted, on average, of 13 ± 3 plants per plot for the plant crop, and 15±2 plants per plot for the ratoon crop. The suggested procedure to determine optimum plot sizes may prove useful for other crops.


A three-day meeting, convened by R. Hall (University College London), G. J. Nichols (Royal Holloway and Bedford New College) and C. Rangin (Paris), was held at the Geological Society in London on 18–20 April 1990. The aim was to draw together workers from a variety of earth science disciplines who are studying or exploring the boundaries of the Australian and Eurasian Plates with the Pacific Ocean, and other scientists who are looking for modern analogues of older orogenic belts. Of the 124 participants, 58 came from Australia, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Singapore, Taiwan, USA and USSR and 39 from industry. There were some 60 oral and poster presentations. The first day focused on the Australian margin between Indonesia and New Guinea. M. G. Audley-Charles (UCL) discussed some practical problems of active orogenic belts; despite the youth (Pliocene and younger) of collison zones in such areas as Timor, there are still considerable difficulties in identifying sutures. Several speakers drew attention to the changing expression of arc–continent collision along the strike of the collision zone. A. J. Barber (RHBNC) described the structure of the Australia-Banda Arc collision zone where seismic records show mud diapirism in the 400 km wide forearc accretionary complex south of Sumba; further west on Timor the equivalent zone narrows to less than 150 km, and Australian margin sedimentary and basement rocks are stacked in a duplex. R. A. Harris (West Virginia) suggested that past disagreements in interpretation may be a consequence of a failure


This paper presents results of a survey conducted to investigate the level of satisfaction of Maasai Mara University (MMARAU) library user's towards university library services. The study adopted survey research design and questionnaires was used for data collection. From the results, library users perceive the quality of library services to be above average. MMARAU main library was most used as compared to formally town campus with 93.85% (166) and 5.6% (10) respectively. Majority of library users were undergraduate students from the School of Education. The findings showed that MMARAU have few international students. Most of the library users frequently used the library for at least two to four days in a week preferably using print books for study, research, teaching and assignments. Library staff customer care stated include: good provision of accurate answers to enquires, excellent staff approachability, excellent staff availability, no discrimination for provision of library services and library users. Generally, the library has a conducive learning environment with average print and electronic information resources. The library website, facebook, local area network, internet access and wireless internet access were fairly available. The study concluded that, MMARAU library staffs have excellent customer care, print books are exhaustively used, and the library users are satisfied with the services except few electronic services with a representation of 14.7% (26). The study recommended that MMARAU library to develop an information literacy policy and equip digital library with more computers and expand wireless connectivity for exhaustive use of electronic resources.


Solar energy is considered a potential source of renewable energy in India, a country blessed with abundant solar energy resources. Using system advisor model, weather data, cost estimates, and local specific assumptions, this work looks at economic and financial feasibility of a 100 MW parabolic trough concentrating solar power plant with energy storage at Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India. Base case scenario is defined as a 100 MW plant without thermal energy storage. The resulting power purchase agreement (PPA) price comes out to be 34.17 US cents/kWh, barely within acceptable range of specified feed‐in tariff indicated by the Indian Government in Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission. This implies that although the system configuration in the base case may be financially feasible, it yields lower returns. Scenario analysis with varying solar multiples and thermal energy storage has been done in this study. It is concluded that the lowest PPA price of about 31.4 US cents/kWh can be achieved in a system configuration having a solar multiple of two and equipped with 3 hours of thermal energy storage. Sensitivity analysis is done to measure the impact of uncertainty of solar radiation on project economics and performance. Theuncertainty in measurement and prediction of solar radiation has a direct impact on the levelized cost of electricity and capacity factor of the 100 MW parabolic trough plant. © 2012 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 32: 824–829, 2013


Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) views language as "social practice" (Fairclough & Wodak 1997:258), studying and analyzing written and spoken texts to unfold the sources of power, dominance, and inequality (van Dijk 2001). CDA is used to describe, interpret, and explain the relationship between language and society, which is much different from other discourse analysis methods (Rogers 2004). The major goals of CDA are to "critically analyze those who are in power, those who are responsible, and those who have the means and the opportunity" to deal with social problems (van Dijk 1986: 4). Among many CDA theorists, van Dijk's (1993) socio-cognitive model has been widely referenced and applied in the analysis of media discourse. However, there is little research analyzing debate discourse by van Dijk's model. Therefore, the discourse in this study was analyzed using van Dijk's model in order to describe, interpret, and explain the relationship between language and power in the national debate on the issue of Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) held in Taiwan. The ECFA debate is about 142 minutes long, held on April 25, 2010. The reason for holding this national debate was to familiarize the Taiwanese people with the contents of the ECFA and to publicize the benefits of signing it with Mainland China. The data of the ECFA debate was analyzed based on van Dijk's socio-cognitive model and then categorized into three themes: discourse representing Us versus Them, evasion, and diversity of the discourse. Through the above analysis, the study is to reveal that dominance and power are manifested in language (Wodak 2001; Van Dijk 1993, 2001).


Determination of elapsed time since death in small cetaceans can be important to our understanding of the nature of their interactions with fishing operations. This pilot study was conducted to determine the potential diagnostic usefulness of ocular fluid (vitreous humour) and core body temperature to estimate postmortem intervals in harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena ). Core temperature and concentrations of various constituents of vitreous humour (glucose, urea, sodium, potassium, chloride, magnesium, calcium, and phosphorus) were determined in 24 harbour porpoises incidentally caught in groundfish gillnets in the waters of the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy. These parameters were compared to published values for rectal temperatures and the serum concentrations of several selected elements in live harbour porpoises. Glucose in vitreous humour decreased in dead animals compared to serum values in live ones; its level was positively correlated with core temperature. Potassium and magnesium in vitreous humour increased following death. These data suggest that most animals analysed had been dead for several hours. For the present, the methodology affords researchers an approach that appears to hold some promise. However, the most practical technique requires testing animals with a known time of death in order to derive a set of curves for ocular fluid values and temperature versus time that are appropriate for a statistical presentation of predictability for the time since death.


The Waterville fishery provides angling and other recreation amenities to the public at a nominal cost. However, the use-value which this site provides is not completely captured by market transactions. Benefits which must be consumed in situ make the Travel Cost Method (TCM) the most appropriate choice of revealed preference technique for estimating their value. Data for this analysis was sourced from an online survey, but many respondents were first approached on-site, and links to the survey questionnaire were also advertised on a local conservation website, so self-selection bias was expected. A negative binomial model with a correction for endogenous stratification was estimated, and it outperformed both the standard Negative Binomial and Poisson models. The resulting estimate of per trip consumer surplus was €300. Furthermore, there was a lack of any evidence to support the idea that the site's benefits are inferior goods. In light of this, and of the high use-values associated with the site, the conclusion drawn from the analysis is that future development plans should prioritise the health of the local ecosystem before other quality improving measures.


We present a novel type of a waveguide, which consists of several rows of periodically placed dielectric cylinders. In such a nanopillars photonic crystal waveguide, light confinement is due to the total internal reflection, while guided modes dispersion is strongly affected by waveguide periodicity. Nanopillars waveguide is multimode, where a number of modes is equal to the number of rows building the waveguide. We present a detailed study of guided modes properties, focusing on possibilities to tune their frequencies and spectral separation. An approach towards the specific mode excitation is proposed and prospects of nanopillars waveguides application as a laser resonator are discussed.


Space is becoming a domain in which commercial and institutional entities operate side by side. Launch costs are decreasing because of new launch concepts and the miniaturization of satellite hardware. In the US, an effort is made to establish space traffic management as an analogue to air traffic management under the control of Department of Commerce. The private sector grabs opportunities that open up. Its actors plan to put a vast amount of new satellites into orbit which work in tandem. Not only big players are on the field, but many new space companies put their feet into the door ("NewSpace"). All the while, digitalization is progressing, making place for new technologies and paradigms. One of the paradigms emerging is Software as a Service (SaaS), which aims to provide software as something that is connected to on demand. Instead of downloading and installing software on one's own systems, software runs somewhere else and is used via network. Common implementations allow users to connect via web browser and/or allow the user's systems to connect via Representational State Transfer (REST) Application Programming Interface (API). The latter allows an automation of the usage of provided software. This approach yields the possibility for space operators to integrate exactly what they need for their Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST, US pendant is Space-situational Awareness (SSA)) needs into their own ground-based software systems. An algorithm can be provided, but so can a core SST functionality like statistical orbit determination or even a whole catalogue maintenance system. Also, new sensors and catalogues keep coming online pushing the need to be able to cope with Big Data. Scalability and adjustability are key to provide NewSpace actors exactly what they need. This can be achieved by allowing external SST experts to easily adjust a scalable SST processing system which provides SST as a Service (SSTaaS). This paper presents OKAPI:Orbits' SSTaaS provision based on a Data Stream Management System (DSMS) architecture. DSMS allow the definition of the data flow within the system via a script language. They don't save data permanently, but rather expect continuous data stream input and produce continuous data stream output. DSMS work in RAM only, are suitable for working with uncertain Big Data and are inherently modular. It is shown what SST experts can do with the architecture presented to tailor the service provision to user's needs.


Proceedings of a Symposium held at The Royal College of General Practitioners, London 27 January 1968 MANY of the general public and the medical profession have strong views on the current and possible future shape of medical care. However, all too frequently each group is unaware of the basis or nature of the other's problem. To bring members of each of these groups together the Office of Health Economics held a Symposium on The Consumer and the Health Service, on Saturday, the 27 January, 1968, at the Royal College of General Practitioners. It was attended not only by General Practitioners and representatives of consumer groups, but also by professional social scientists and social workers and members of the other branches of the medical profession and its auxiliary services. The Conference had three primary objects; to try to foster an increasing awareness and understanding of the attitudes of different groups, to consider the type of service which might satisfy both consumer wants and clinical needs, and to identify areas requiring further research. In this publication were present the formal papers and some of the ensuing discussion.