This study responds to the Test of English as a Foreign Language™ (TOEFL®) research agenda concerning the need to understand the processes and knowledge that test-takers utilize. Specifically, it investigates the strategic behaviors test-takers reported using when taking the Speaking section of the TOEFL iBT™ (SSTiBT). It also investigates how the reported strategic behaviors differed across integrated and independent tasks in the SSTiBT, as well as the relationship between test-takers' reported strategic behaviors and their performance on the tasks as determined by their test scores. The participating students were 14 graduate and 16 undergraduate engineering students whose first language was Chinese.

The results indicate that test-takers reported using 49 separate strategies when completing the SSTiBT tasks. Of the five strategy categories, the metacognitive, communication, and cognitive strategies were proportionally the most frequently reported. The interrelationships among these three categories were negative. Undergraduates reported using significantly more communication strategies, whereas graduates reported using significantly more cognitive and affective strategies. No statistically significant differences were found in reported strategy use across proficiency levels. The integrated tasks were more alike with respect to reported strategy use than were the independent and integrated tasks. Furthermore, the integrated tasks elicited a wider variety of reported strategy use than the independent tasks. Overall, we found no relationship between the total number of reported strategic behaviors and total test score on the SSTiBT.

We conclude that strategy use is integral to performing SSTiBT tasks and should therefore be considered as part of the construct of communicative performance. However, the relationship between strategy use and test performance is varied and is due to complex interactions among test-taker characteristics, tasks, and contexts.


A series of drained tests of ISO medium sand were performed to study the onset and formation of shear band. Using the digital image processing technique, the multifunctional triaxial equipment of GDS was improved. Strain isogram and local stress-strain relation at every sampling time point were recorded based on the improved equipment. The onset of shear band was from inhomogeneity of soil, while the inhomogeneous deformation can be induced by end friction and initial defect. Based on results of global stress-strain and local stress-strain relation, the end friction effect was found to have a strong influence on the radial strain. The macroscopic non-uniform sample was obtained by putting silt clay block into sand sample, evolution of shear band during the loading process showed that the discontinuation of stiffness formed at interface of two materials, with inhomogeneous deformation developing, macroscopic continues shear band fully formed.


Elite parental lines are more likely to breed fine varieties, but knowledge about elite parents and their genetic backgrounds is limited. In this paper, we investigated the pedigree relationships of potato varieties bred worldwide and in China. Several elite parents were identified, and these parents were more frequently used as parents in breeding programs across different time periods and countries. We next used 2b-RAD, a reduced-representation sequencing method, to genotype the elite parent Mira and 24 of its offspring. These cultivars span 5 generations, making this lineage the longest continuous pedigree among Chinese bred potatoes. A total of 47,314 tetraploid single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) identified by FreeBayes were used to trace the conserved segments of the Mira genome. The conserved segments had identical or similar allele-specific SNPs across the analyzed genotypes. In Mira, 3,788 segments comprising over 10,000 bp, or 20.8% of the genome, were defined as conserved segments. These segments contain genes involved in crucial biological processes that are of special interest to breeders. These regions, which have been conserved across generations of highly selective breeding, may be helpful for further breeding and performing genome-wide breeding by design.


We present a novel method, Foveated Manifold Sensing, for the adaptive and efficient sensing of the visual world. The method is based on algorithms that learn manifolds of increasing but low dimensionality for representative data. As opposed to Manifold Sensing, the new foveated version senses only the most salient areas of a scene. This leads to an efficient sensing strategy that requires only a small number of sensing actions. The method is adaptive because during the sensing process, every new sensing action depends on the previously acquired sensing values. Finally, we propose a hybrid sensing scheme that starts with Manifold Sensing and proceeds with Foveated Manifold Sensing. This sensing scheme needs even less sensing actions for the considered recognition tasks. We apply the proposed algorithms to object recognition on the UMIST and ALOI datasets. We show that, for both databases, we reach a 100% recognition rate with only 10 sensing values.


Ten varieties of Emblica officinalis Gaertn. including  Kanchan, Chakaiya, Francis, NA-7 (Narendra-7), NA-10 (Narendra 10), Anand-1, Anand-2, Krishna, Hatizola (Local) and Local- wild were screened against insect pests that is, gall forming insect (Betousa stylophora Swinhoe), leaf roller (Garcillaria acidula Forster), bark eating caterpillar (Indarbela quadrinotata Walker) and diseases that is vascular wilt (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp., albedinis Killian & Maire),  fruit disease (Alternariasp.). The results revealed that variety NA-10 (Narendra-10) followed by Kanchan was found to be least preferred by B. stylophora, G. acidula, I. quadrinotata andAlternaria sps. in clonal seed orchards (CSO). The other test parameters that is, fruit yields, weight/diameter of fruits and the plant morphological characters of the varieties were also studied. Variety of Hatizola (Local) followed by Francis showed less incidence caused by F. oxysorum in nursery stage.

 Key words: Resistance, varieties, Emblica officinalis, insect pests, diseases.


Organic matter is a major component of PM2.5 in megacities. In order to understand the detailed characteristics of organic compounds (>C6) at a molecular level on non-haze and haze days, we determined more than 300 organic compounds in the PM2.5 from an urban area of Beijing in November-December 2016 using two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC × GC-TOFMS). The identified organic compounds have been classified into groups, and quantitative methods were used to calculate their concentrations. Primary emission sources make significant contributions to the atmospheric organic compounds and six groups (including n-alkanes, PAHs, levoglucosan, branched-alkanes, n-alkenes and alkyl-benzenes) account for 66% of total identified organic compound mass. In addition, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and oxygenated PAHs (OPAHs) were abundant amongst the atmospheric organic compounds on both haze and non-haze days. A near-unimodal molecular distribution, peaking approximately within the range of C19-C28, was observed in most hydrocarbon groups. In addition, the concentrations of unidentified compounds were also estimated in the present study. The total identified compounds account for approximately 47% of total organic compounds (> C6) in the chromatogram on both the non-haze and haze days. The total mass concentrations of organic compounds (> C6) in the chromatogram were 4.0 μg m-3 and 7.4 μg m-3 on the non-haze and haze days respectively, accounting for 26.5% and 18.5% of OM respectively on those days. There is strong evidence that the organic aerosol is more highly oxidised, and hence less GC-volatile on haze days.


Intersections of food, energy, and water systems (also termed as the FEW nexus) pose many sustainability and governance challenges for urban areas, including risks to ecosystems, inequitable distribution of benefits and harms across populations, and reliance on distant sources for food, energy, and water. This case study provides an integrated assessment of the FEW nexus at the city and regional scale in ten contiguous counties encompassing the rapidly growing Denver region in the United States. Spatial patterns in FEW consumption, production, trans-boundary flows, embodied FEW inputs, and impacts on FEW systems were assessed using an urban systems framework for the trans-boundary food-energy-water nexus. The Denver region is an instructive case study of the FEW nexus for multiple reasons: it is rapidly growing, is semi-arid, faces a large projected water shortfall, and is a major fossil fuel and agricultural producer. The rapid uptake of high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) combined with horizontal drilling in populated areas poses ongoing risks to regional water quality. Through this case study, fracking is identified as a major topic for FEW nexus inquiry, with intensifying impacts on water quantity and quality that reflect nationwide trends. Key data gaps are also identified, including energy for water use and food preparation. This case study is relevant to water and sustainability planners, energy regulators, communities impacted by hydraulic fracturing, and consumers of energy and food produced in the Denver region. It is applicable beyond Denver to dry areas with growing populations, agricultural activity, and the potential for shale development.


Congenital urethral polyps area rare anomaly of the male urethra that may present with features of voiding dysfunction or obstruction. Although the exact incidence is unknown, they are important in the differential diagnosis of lower urethral obstruction in male children. Their diagnosis requires a high index of suspicion because of the variability of presentation. We present our experience with four cases of male urethral polyps in boys with discussion on the related literature.


Personal area networks (PANs) are expected to play an important role in future mobile ad-hoc wireless communications and information systems. This paper proposes a UWB-based alternate PHY layer for 802.15.4 low rate wireless personal area network (LR-WPAN) system with the intention to enhance such WPAN system with better location positioning capability. The proposed UWB transceiver operates in the first 500 MHz band, 3.1-3.6GHz, within the FCC allocated UWB band. Original 802.15.4 code position modulation scheme is slightly modified to 2-PPM to cater UWB transmission. A simple peak detector based receiver is employed to sample and decode the transmitted symbol. Extensive simulation over IEEE 802.15.3a UWB channel models is also provided.


The appearances of children are inherited from their parents, which makes it feasible to predict them. Predicting realistic children's faces may help settle many social problems, such as age-invariant face recognition, kinship verification, and missing child identification. It can be regarded as an image-to-image translation task. Existing approaches usually assume domain information in the image-to-image translation can be interpreted by "style", i.e., the separation of image content and style. However, such separation is improper for the child face prediction, because the facial contours between children and parents are not the same. To address this issue, we propose a new disentangled learning strategy for children's face prediction. We assume that children's faces are determined by genetic factors (compact family features, e.g., face contour), external factors (facial attributes irrelevant to prediction, such as moustaches and glasses), and variety factors (individual properties for each child). On this basis, we formulate predictions as a mapping from parents' genetic factors to children's genetic factors, and disentangle them from external and variety factors. In order to obtain accurate genetic factors and perform the mapping, we propose a ChildPredictor framework. It transfers human faces to genetic factors by encoders and back by generators. Then, it learns the relationship between the genetic factors of parents and children through a mapping function. To ensure the generated faces are realistic, we collect a large Family Face Database to train ChildPredictor and evaluate it on the FF-Database validation set. Experimental results demonstrate that ChildPredictor is superior to other well-known image-to-image translation methods in predicting realistic and diverse child faces. Implementation codes can be found at https://github.com/zhaoyuzhi/ChildPredictor.


Parkinson ' s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects around 2% of individuals over 60 years old. It is characterised by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta of the midbrain, which is thought to account for the major clinical symptoms such as tremor, slowness of movement and muscle stiffness. Its aetiology is poorly understood as the physiological and molecular mechanisms leading to this neuronal loss are currently unclear. However, mitochondrial and lysosomal dysfunction seem to play a central role in this disease. In recent years, defective mitochondrial elimination through autophagy, termed mitophagy, has emerged as a potential contributing factor to disease pathology. PINK1 and Parkin, two proteins mutated in familial PD, were found to eliminate mitochondria under distinct mitochondrial depolarisation-induced stress. However, PINK1 and Parkin are not essential for all types of mitophagy and such pathways occur in most cell types and tissues in vivo , even in the absence of overt mitochondrial stress — so-called basal mitophagy. The most common mutation in PD, that of glycine at position 2019 to serine in the protein kinase LRRK2, results in increased activity and this was recently shown to disrupt basal mitophagy in vivo . Thus, different modalities of mitophagy are affected by distinct proteins implicated in PD, suggesting impaired mitophagy may be a common denominator for the disease. In this short review, we discuss the current knowledge about the link between PD pathogenic mutations and mitophagy, with a particular focus on LRRK2.


This a rare case of adenoid hypertrophy in a 23 years old Saudi non-smoker female, who presented with severe bilateral nasal obstruction, mouth breathing, anterior nasal discharge, snoring for the last 7 months. The nasopharynx was examined by flexible nasopharyngoscope, which showed a big mass occupying the nasopharynx. Under general anesthesia, adenoidectomy was performed. Immediately after the surgery, the patient's symptoms were completely relieved.


Full batch training of Graph Convolutional Network (GCN) models is not feasible on a single GPU for large graphs containing tens of millions of vertices or more. Recent work has shown that, for the graphs used in the machine learning community, communication becomes a bottleneck and scaling is blocked outside of the single machine regime. Thus, we propose MG-GCN, a multi-GPU GCN training framework taking advantage of the high-speed communication links between the GPUs present in multi-GPU systems. MG-GCN employs multiple High-Performance Computing optimizations, including efficient re-use of memory buffers to reduce the memory footprint of training GNN models, as well as communication and computation overlap. These optimizations enable execution on larger datasets, that generally do not fit into memory of a single GPU in state-of-the-art implementations. Furthermore, they contribute to achieve superior speedup compared to the state-of-the-art. For example, MG-GCN achieves super-linear speedup with respect to DGL, on the Reddit graph on both DGX-1 (V100) and DGX-A100.


Recent research has found a positive relationship between real exchange rate (RER) under-valuation and economic growth. Different rationales for this association have been offered, but they all imply that the mechanisms involved should be stronger in developing countries. Rodrik (2008) explicitly analyzed and found evidence that the RER-growth relationship is more prevalent in developing countries. We show that his finding is very sensitive to the criterion used to divide the sample between developed and developing countries. We then use alternative classification criteria and empirical strategies to evaluate the existence of asymmetries between groups of countries and find that the effect of currency undervaluation on growth is indeed larger and more robust for developing economies. However, the relationship between RER undervaluation and per capita GDP is non-monotonic.


Book theft and stock loss
in academic libraries is certainly not a new problem. But with rising costs, the
introduction of tuition fees, and changing user needs and expectations, it is
an area that needs reviewing. Greater acknowledgement of the costs and effects
that it causes must be made by institutions. This dissertation focuses on the
key issues in this area, while undertaking a case study of the University of Leeds. This dissertation satisfied these
aims by undertaking a large review of the relevant literature on the subject
and by implementing practical research.

A number of key findings
were made by this research: despite this being a problem that an organisation
such as the University of Leeds is aware of, there is still a high level of
theft and stock loss occurring at this institution; the implementation of
guidelines for users, and a clear policy on how to deal with these losses may
well help reduce them; library security devices are not infallible, and
constant vigilance must be kept up, and ways of circumventing the devices must
be counteracted or eliminated; non-return has not traditionally been thought of
in the same terms as theft, yet the library looses a serious amount of stock
each year.

The main conclusions this
research found were that while there are many different approaches to tackling
this problem, solutions must be effective for each organisation. By focusing
the case study on one organisation, the unique qualities could be examined,
while specific recommendations could be made for the University of Leeds.
Management must acknowledge the cost and effect of library theft and stock loss
to a greater degree than they currently do, as this problem has more than just
a financial cost to the institution, it also adversely affects the teaching, research,
and user perception of the library.

The researcher urges an
overall rethink of the University
 of Leeds' policies and
methods for dealing with book theft and stock loss, and warns of the potential
and actual financial and academic cost of these activities. This research
argues that although this problem will never likely be eradicated altogether,
ignoring it, or failing to deal with it effectively will only allow the problem
to worsen.


Shape control is the key technology for thin gauge stainless steel in hot rolling. Because of high rolling force, work roll can suffer from serious uneven wears, edge drop of strip temperature and so on. And in turn these imperfections lead to defects in thin gauge stainless steel production, such as big crown value, quarter wave, edge profile anomalies, poor rolling stability. In order to improve shape the control ability, one will have to eliminate the quarter wave, make roll wear uniform, increase rolling stability in the thin gauge stainless steel production, use high performance variable crown technology in upstream stands, use mixed variable crown technology in last stand, and use conventional work roll with variable shifting stroke strategy in other downstream stands. The above technologies have been successfully applied in several stainless steel productions, which have completely independent intellectual property rights, and the crown control precision of thin gauge stainless is 98.1%, flatness control precision is 97.5%, also a 1260 mm × 1.6 mm ultra-thin gauge stainless steel was successfully developed.


This paper reviews the mechanisms and clinical manifestations of topical medicament dermatitis. It is important for the practicing allergist to aware of this possibility in any patient with a chronic dermatitis.


Distributed fiber-optic sensing (DFOS) has been utilized in unconventional reservoirs for hydraulic fracture efficiency diagnostics for many years. Downhole fiber cables can be permanently installed external to the casing to monitor and measure the uniformity and efficiency of individual clusters and stages during the completion in the near-field wellbore environment. Ideally, a second fiber or multiple fibers can be deployed in offset well(s) to monitor and characterize fracture geometries recorded by fracture-driven interactions or frac-hits in the far-field. Fracture opening and closing, stress shadow creation and relaxation, along with stage isolation can be clearly identified. Most importantly, fracture propagation from the near to far-field can be better understood and correlated. With our current technology, we can deploy cost effective retrievable fibers to record these far-field data. Our objective here is to highlight key data that can be gathered with multiple fibers in a carefully planned well-spacing study and to evaluate and understand the correspondence between far-field and near-field Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) data.
 In this paper, we present a case study of three adjacent horizontal wells equipped with fiber in the Permian basin. We can correlate the near-field fluid allocation across a stage down to the cluster level to far-field fracture driven interactions (FDIs) with their frac-hit strain intensity. With multiple fibers we can evaluate fracture geometry, the propagation of the hydraulic fractures, changes in the deformation related to completion designs, fracture complexity characterization and then integrate the results with other data to better understand the geomechanical processes between wells. Novel frac-hit corridor (FHC) is introduced to evaluate stage isolation, azimuth, and frac-hit intensity (FHI), which is measured in far-field. Frac design can be evaluated with the correlation from near-field allocation to far-field FHC and FHI. By analyzing multiple treatment and monitor wells, the correspondence can be further calibrated and examined.
 We observe the far-field FHC and FHI are directly related to the activities of near-field clusters and stages. A leaking plug may directly result in FHC overlapping, gaps and variations in FHI, which also can be correlated to cluster uniformity. A near-far field correspondence can be established to evaluate FHC and FHI behaviors. By utilizing various completion designs and related measurements (e.g. Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS), gauges, microseismic etc.), optimization can be performed to change the frac design based on far-field and near-field DFOS data based on the Decision Tree Method (DTM).
 In summary, hydraulic fracture propagation can be better characterized, measured, and understood by deploying multiple fibers across a lease. The correspondence between the far-field measured FHC and FHI can be utilized for completion evaluation and diagnostics. As the observed strain is directly measured, completion engineering and geoscience teams can confidently optimize their understanding of the fracture designs in real-time.


In this paper, we investigate the scalability of three communication architectures for advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) in smart grid. AMI in smart grid is a typical cyber-physical system (CPS) example, in which large amount of data from hundreds of thousands of smart meters are collected and processed through an AMI communication infrastructure. Scalability is one of the most important issues for the AMI deployment in smart grid. In this study, we introduce a new performance metric, accumulated bandwidthdistance product (ABDP), to represent the total communication resource usages. For each distributed communication architecture, we formulate an optimization problem and obtain the solutions for minimizing the total cost of the system that considers both the ABDP and the deployment cost of the meter data management system (MDMS). The simulation results indicate the significant benefits of the distributed communication architectures over the traditional centralized one. More importantly, we analyze the scalability of the total cost of the communication system (including MDMS) with regard to the traffic load on the smart meters for both the centralized and the distributed communication architectures. Through the closed form expressions obtained in our analysis, we demonstrate that the total cost for the centralized architecture scales linearly as O(λN), with N being the number of smart meters, and λ being the average traffic rate on a smart meter. In contrast, the total cost for the fully distributed communication architecture is O(λ2/3 N2/3), which is significantly lower.


Summary The objective of this work was to compare the nicotine content and yield of new very low nicotine content cigarettes (VLN™) to the top 100 cigarette brand styles in the United States. Nicotine in tobacco filler and nicotine in smoke were measured. On a dry weight basis, VLN™ cigarettes averaged 0.5 mg of nicotine/g tobacco as compared to 19.4 for the top 100 brand styles in the United States. On a cigarette basis, VLN™ cigarettes contained 0.27 mg of nicotine compared to 12 mg for the top brands. On an ISO smoke yield basis, VLN™ produced 0.03 mg nicotine/cig compared to 0.903 mg nicotine/cig for the leading brands. VLN™ cigarettes contained > 95% less nicotine on a per gram basis of tobacco or per cigarette basis than the top 100 brand styles in the U.S. VLN™ cigarettes yielded > 95% less nicotine in smoke than the top brand styles in the United States.


The Bayon temple in Angkor Thom, Cambodia has shown serious deterioration and is subject to the formation of various pigmented biofilms. Because biofilms are damaging the bas-reliefs, low reliefs engraved on the surface of sandstone, information about the microbial community within them is indispensable to control biofilm colonization. PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis of biofilm samples from the pigmented sandstone surfaces showed that the bacterial community members in the biofilms differed clearly from those in the air and had low sequence similarity to database sequences. Non-destructive sampling of biofilm revealed novel bacterial groups of predominantly Rubrobacter in salmon pink biofilm, Cyanobacteria in chrome green biofilm, Cyanobacteria and Chloroflexi in signal violet biofilm, Chloroflexi in black gray biofilm, and Deinococcus-Thermus, Cyanobacteria, and Rubrobacter in blue green biofilm. Serial peeling-off of a thick biofilm by layers with adhesive sheets revealed a stratified structure: the blue–green biofilm, around which there was serious deterioration, was very rich in Cyanobacteria near the surface and Chloroflexi in deep layer below. Nitrate ion concentrations were high in the blue–green biofilm. The characteristic distribution of bacteria at different biofilm depths provides valuable information on not only the biofilm formation process but also the sandstone weathering process in the tropics.


The yeast SAGA (Spt-Ada-Gcn5-acetyltransferase) coactivator complex exerts functions in gene expression, including activator interaction, histone acetylation, histone deubiquitination, mRNA export, chromatin recognition, and regulation of the basal transcription machinery. These diverse functions involve distinct modules within this multiprotein complex. It has now become clear that yeast SAGA has diverged during metazoan evolution into two related complexes, SAGA and ATAC, which exist in two flavors in vertebrates. The compositions of metazoan ATAC and SAGA complexes have been characterized, and functional analyses indicate that these complexes have important but distinct roles in transcription, histone modification, signaling pathways, and cell cycle regulation.


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Background. Infection remains a leading cause of death in kidney transplant recipients. This study aimed to assess the scope and consistency of infection outcomes reported in contemporary trials conducted in kidney transplant recipients. Methods. A literature review of all randomized trials and trial protocols reporting infection outcomes in adult kidney transplant recipients was identified in the Cochrane Kidney and Transplant Specialized Register from January 2014 to July 2019. Characteristics and infection outcomes from the trials were analyzed. Results. From 102 included trials, 772 outcome measures were extracted and categorized into 216 unique measures with a median of 3.2 outcome measures per trial (range: 1–9). Measures were further grouped into 32 outcomes based on site of infection (14 outcomes) and organism (18 outcomes). The most commonly reported site-specific outcome and organism-specific outcome were systemic infection (71% trials) and cytomegalovirus infection (62% trials), respectively. Outcome metric and methods of aggregation included mean, median, proportion, proportional change, and number of patients with at least 1 episode. Across all trials, measures were assessed at 55 different time points with a range of 1–11 time points per trial. Conclusions. Infection outcomes in kidney transplant recipients were frequently reported by site and organism but varied widely in terms of outcome, metrics, method of aggregation, and time point of measurement. Establishment of core outcomes for infection based on the shared priorities of patients/caregivers and health professionals may improve the consistency, comparability, and usefulness of trial evidence


Using a unique micro dataset, this paper investigates retailer pricing issues for avocados, a key California specialty commodity, and analyzes the implications of retailer pricing behavior for the effectiveness of avocado industry advertising programs. We find that retail prices for avocados are highly dispersed both spatially and temporarily. We also illustrate the existence of a "regular" retail price for avocados. Downward deviations from the "regular" price dominated changes in retail prices, in particular, temporary price reductions accounted for 27 percent of retail price variations. The study examines the effects of fundamental cost and demand factors on determination of retail prices. We conclude that costs are not a primary factor in setting retail prices for avocados. Retailers' sales strategies, which reflect decreases in retail margins rather than decreases in costs, explained much of the observed temporary price reductions for avocados. Retail prices for avocados also exhibited countercyclical movements over seasonal demand cycles. The findings provide support for Lal and Matutes' (1994) hypothesis that retailers reduce prices or margins during a product's high-demand periods. We investigate how retailers respond to industry promotions and, in turn, how retailer response enhances or vitiates the effectiveness of industry promotions. The approach of "Difference-in-Difference" is employed to evaluate the effects of the California Avocado Commission's (CAC) promotion programs on retail pricing and sales. The analysis demonstrates that the radio campaign and outdoor advertisements were successful in raising avocado sales. There is no evidence that retailers charged higher prices during the CAC's promotions. Nonetheless, the CAC's promotion programs could be enhanced if retailers were better informed about the advertising campaigns. Other noteworthy results include the fact that retail margins increased significantly as shipment volumes increased, indicating the presence of retailer oligopsony power. Also notable was the rather strong evidence that retail prices were significantly lower as a function of the amount of avocados imported from Chile and Mexico, meaning that consumers have benefited from trade liberalization for avocados.


Mobile devices play a vital role in our day to day life. The various sensing modalities available in mobile devices are identified and justify the growth of the capabilities on today's smart phones.Taking advantage of the sensing capabilities of the mobile devices paves way for a new era of network, referred as people centric sensing network. In this paper, a broad study about the applications, architectural components and the existing privacy and security architectures available are discussed. The applications of mobile sensing are categorized as personal, social and public sensing based on what they sense, how they share and infer. All these applications clearly depict the roles played by people. People may act as end users, as participants and as application administrators. Since people are in the loop, the basic privacy and security requirements are analyzed that can be realized as the need in the design of any mobile phone sensing systems. The possible threats that arise in this sensing context may be due to both internal and external entities. The strategies and types of adversarial models in the people centric sensing approach provides us light to how the framework works and solutions needed. Existing literature in terms of privacy preserving data aggregation schemes and security Frameworks are also discussed in detail. Applications: The model clearly portraits the importance of people who are no more only passive data users. More focus has to be given on privacy preserving models to make the system more acceptable by the people.


The vulnerability of today's information economy is still not sufficiently realised: The economic structure of Queensland is to a great extent made up of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). Across all industry sectors, these businesses rapidly approach a similar level of information technology take-up than large enterprises and thus depend to an increasing degree on IT efficiency and security.

The findings of this study, which has been conducted in partnership with the Information Industries Bureau and the Gold Coast City Council, are drawn from an online survey in order to provide an indication of the present e-security situation in SMEs of Queensland's Gold Coast region.

The data shows that the installation and maintenance of e-business technology requires significant time, staff and money resources as well as a constant learning and updating process in order to be on top of the IT development, which is why most SMEs rely to a substantial degree on the expertise and competence of external IT service providers and consultants.

E-Business technology is subject to various vulnerabilities. It is necessary to conduct proper risk analysis to gauge the impact and likelihood of any potential business threats. The risks identified in this process have then to be treated with appropriate backup plans. SMEs seem to be overstrained to handle this burden by themselves without the availability of support programs to reasonable charges, for specialised e-security service providers do not target SMEs. Their solutions are too pricey and are not designed to be applied in the setting of a SME.

The Queensland Government shows a high level of interest in issues surrounding e-business and their usage. However, e-security issues in SMEs are rarely addressed. Many public funding and assistance schemes seem to be unknown, unattractive, or unsuitable to SMEs.

There is an obvious lack of awareness for security issues among SMEs which has to be addressed by developing new and rethinking existing public programs and strategies. To stimulate awareness and appropriate action, it is desirable to provide certain incentives and rewards to enterprises that pass security audits and fulfil Australian security standards. These are essential steps towards the protection against and preparedness for any e-security incidents which both the public and private sector have to take in order to survive something Sam Nunn calls an "electronic Pearl Harbor".


In solid state batteries, lithium dendrites form when the applied current density is higher than a critical value. The critical current density is often reported as 1–2 mA cm−2 at an external pressure of around 10 MPa. In this work, a more advanced mechanical constriction technique is applied on a solid-state battery constructed with Li10GeP2S12 (LGPS) as the electrolyte and a lithium metal/graphite composite as the anode, where the graphite layer was applied to prevent (electro-)chemical reactions between Li metal and LGPS, as well as a short-circuit upon the application of pressure. The decomposition pathway of LGPS at the anode interface is modified by this mechanical constriction design, and the growth of lithium dendrites is inhibited, leading to excellent rate and cycling performances. No short-circuit or lithium dendrite formation is observed for batteries cycled at a current density up to 10 mA cm−2.


The RSVPWM (Random SVPWM) is one key type of technology in the motor control and other electronic power transformation applications because of many advantages. The detailed procedure to build the simulation model of RSVPWM is presented and discussed. The ports and parameters, the program flowchart and the method to realize the randomization are given and illustrated. The built model can simulate random frequency SVPWM, random zero-vector distribution SVPWM and random pulse position SVPWM. The simulation results verify the model.


Introduction: Oral cavity contains a plethora of microorganisms. These microorganisms have shown both beneficence and maleficence. The most common disease affecting the oral cavity not only to the human being but also for the animals was dental caries that are proved to have multi-bacterial origin. Bacterial species such as Streptococcus mutans (S.mutans), S.sanguis and Lactobacillus fermentum plays a major role in the pathogenesis of this disease. In this study, the crude extract of sargassum wightii is tested for its antibacterial efficacy against the S.mutants. Materials and Methods: The brown seaweed S. wightii was collected from the Gulf of Mannar. The samples were cut into small pieces and shade dried for five days. After drying, the samples were grounded and stored. Stock solution was prepared using soxhlet apparatus. The organic extract of the seaweed S. wightii was assayed for the antimicrobial activity against S. mutans using agar diffusion method and the result was compared with the positive control sample (Ampicillin). Results: Stock solution of S.wightii used in this study was prepared in the following grades 500, 750, and 1000 μg. It was found that zone of inhibition increased steadily as the concentration of the extract increased. Highest inhibition zone of about 23 mm was found out at the concentration of 1000 μg, whereas the control showed 38 mm. Result showed the definite antibacterial activity of S.wightii even with the crude extract. Conclusion: Majority of the treatment and preventive approaches for dental caries are based on the use of synthetic antibiotics and chemicals. Their excessive use leads to alterations in the oral and intestinal microbiome, development of resistance and other undesirable side effects. The use of natural resources or products has proven to be copious source of biologically active compounds.


Most healthy adults in Muslim communities practice fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. This kind of fasting involves daily abstinence from food and water, from sunrise to sunset, a period that lasts approximately 12 to 17 hours, depending on the season and geographical latitude. Ramadan is a lunar month, which lasts 28 to 30 days and its length changes along the solar year.

Ramadan fasting cannot be simply considered as a different diet. The reason is that the pattern and timetable of eating, drinking and sleeping change in addition to alterations in the food composition during Ramadan.

In most Muslim countries semi-professional and professional sport activities and competitions are postponed until after sunset, and sometimes even until late at night in the month of Ramadan. Fasting and rescheduling of the competition timetable may both affect an athlete's performance during this period.

Sport competitions continue throughout the month of Ramadan. For instance, London 2012 Olympic Games will run from 27 of July to 12 of August, while Ramadan will start on July 21 and last until August 20. Moreover, there is an increasing number of 'Ramadan Cup' competitions in different Muslim countries.

Currently, there exists a limited knowledge pertaining to the physiological and performance consequences of athletes' fasting in Ramadan. However, the issue has been addressed by many original and review articles recently [1].

One day of fasting seems to have no or a little effect on performance. However, thirty consecutive days of fasting may affect various performance factors including endurance and cognitive functions.

Controversy amongst the results of research studies continues to increase due to several reasons such as differences in Ramadan culture, food composition, daily lifestyle, climate, altitude, length of the day and the choice of performance tests.

It is noteworthy that several questions remain in this regard, needed to be investigated. Some of them are as follows:

What is the best time for training and competition for athletes in different sports during day and night?

How can the negative effects on performance — if there are any – be minimized? What is the best eating and hydration strategy?

What is the difference between a bodybuilder and a distance runner in terms of the implications of Ramadan fasting, and what is the best nutritional and training strategy?

What is the impact of fasting on special populations such as older or younger athletes?

How does Ramadan fasting affect the brain and its functions?

Are there any differences between males and females in response to Ramadan fasting?

According to the aforementioned questions, it seems that we are still at the beginning of a long journey to answer all of the relevant questions.

Asian Journal of Sports Medicine aims to provide a platform for all researchers around the world to share the results of their studies on various aspects of shortterm fasting, particularly Ramadan-style fasting, and its probable effects on sports and exercise performance. All accepted manuscripts will be published in a special issue.

We hope that this will help in promoting knowledge and understanding of Ramadan fasting and its effects on exercise and sports performance, and will help in making clearer conclusions and wiser recommendations for athletes and for organizers of sports events taking place during Ramadan.


The objective of this study was to review current changes in the pharmacologic management of cardiac arrest (ventricular fibrillation, pulseless ventricular tachycardia, asystole, and electromechanical dissociation) as put fourth by the American Heart Association's 1992 Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiac Care. We concluded that the 1992 Guidelines provide a reference base for all clinicians involved in emergency cardiac care. The newly revised recommendations are classified on the basis of the true clinical merit of the intervention, for example, an intervention that has been proved effective (i.e., high-dose epinephrine) versus one that is possibly effective (i.e., high-dose epinephrine). The preferred intravenous fluid to be used in resuscitation is saline solution or lactated ringers solution because of possible adverse neurologic outcomes seen with dextrose-containing fluids. The dose of all drugs administered via the endotracheal route should be 2 to 2.5 times the intravenous dose. Modifications in the dose or dosing interval have been recommended for epinephrine, atropine, lidocaine, bretylium, and procainamide during cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Options for high-dose epinephrine therapy are offered, but neither recommended or discouraged. Magnesium sulfate has been added for the management of torsades de points, severe hypomagnesemia, or refractory ventricular fibrillation. The maximum total dose of atropine in the treatment of asystole and electromechanical dissociation has been increased from 2 mg to 0.04 mg/kg. The use of sodium bicarbonate should be limited to the treatment of hyperkalemia, tricyclic antidepressant overdose, overdoses requiring urinary alkalinization, or preexisting bicarbonate sensitive acidosis.


BACKGROUND
Although antibiotic-induced hepatotoxicity is recoverable with mild impairment, and few of them were reported to cause morbidity. Hence, an adjuvant is essential in reducing such incidences.

OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study to evaluate the protective effect of ascorbic acid on antibiotic induced liver toxicity using liver slices.

METHOD
Fresh liver slices collected from leghorn chicken were incubated with different concentrations of sulfamethoxazole tetracycline and clavulanic acid along with ascorbic acid (200μg/ml) for 2 hours. The liver homogenate was assessed for markers like ALT, AST, MDA and CAT levels. Cytotoxicity assessment was performed using MTT assay.

RESULTS
Incubating liver slices with all three antibiotics shows elevated levels of aminotransferases, MDA and CAT enzyme when compared to the control groups which indicates the level of hepatotoxicity. In presence of ascorbic acid, the elevated levels of TBARS, ALT and AST were significantly reduced which showcases the protective effect of ascorbic acid. The percentage survival of cell was also shown to have improved while accessed using cell viability assay.

CONCLUSION
Obtained data suggests that consumption of vitamin C or vitamin C rich food like citrus fruits or green leafy vegetables equivalent to 3g/day during antibiotic treatment, perhaps put down the risk of liver toxicity to a greater extent.


Recent research has shown that froth flotation is not effective at treating fine coals ({minus}28 mesh) containing a large portion of middling particles. Due to their relatively large density differences, middling particles can be separated more efficiently using gravity-based processes. The ability of gravity separators to treat fine particles has been limited by the lack of particle inertia relative to the surface drag forces. However, particle inertia can be enhanced by the application of a centrifugal field. A commercial-scale centrifugal Falcon concentrator capable of treating a mass flow rate of greater than 1 tph continuously has been used to evaluate its feasibility for treating fine coal was an alternative to froth flotation. Tests conducted on a {minus}28 mesh fine coal circuit feed have found the Falcon concentrator to be very effective at cleaning the 28 x 325 mesh size fraction. For an Illinois No. 5 coal sample, the ash content was reduced in the 100 x 325 mesh size fraction from about 18% to 8% while achieving a high combustible recovery value of nearly 97%. In addition, the total sulfur content was substantially decreased from 2.6% to 1.7%. The effects of the critical operating parameters on separation performance have beenmore » studied and their values optimized.« less


The human fibroblast interferon gene beta 1 was mapped to human chromosome 9. Sequence homology with a beta 1 cDNA clone was detected in both genomic DNA and induced mRNA of human/mouse or human/hamster somatic cell hybrids containing human chromosome 9, but not in lines lacking this chromosome or those retaining a complex translocation involving chromosomes 9 and 11. Interferon mRNA that did not share sequence homology with the beta 1 cDNA clone was detected in lines containing human chromosomes 2 and 5 but lacking chromosome 9, suggesting the presence of other unlinked interferon sequences in the human genome.


Given a partially ordered set $P$ we study properties of topological spaces $X$ admitting a $P$-base, i.e., an indexed family $(U_\alpha)_{\alpha\in P}$ of subsets of $X\times X$ such that $U_\beta\subset U_\alpha$ for all $\alpha\le\beta$ in $P$ and for every $x\in X$ the family $(U_\alpha[x])_{\alpha\in P}$ of balls $U_\alpha[x]=\{y\in X:(x,y)\in U_\alpha\}$ is a neighborhood base at $x$. A $P$-base $(U_\alpha)_{\alpha\in P}$ for $X$ is called locally uniform if the family of entourages $(U_\alpha U_\alpha^{-1}U_\alpha)_{\alpha\in P}$ remains a $P$-base for $X$. A topological space is first-countable if and only if it has an $\omega$-base. By Moore's Metrization Theorem, a topological space is metrizable if and only if it is a $T_0$-space with a locally uniform $\omega$-base.
In the paper we shall study topological spaces possessing a (locally uniform) $\omega^\omega$-base. Our results show that spaces with an $\omega^\omega$-base share some common properties with first countable spaces, in particular, many known upper bounds on the cardinality of first-countable spaces remain true for countably tight $\omega^\omega$-based topological spaces. On the other hand, topological spaces with a locally uniform $\omega^\omega$-base have many properties, typical for generalized metric spaces. Also we study Tychonoff spaces whose universal (pre- or quasi-) uniformity has an $\omega^\omega$-base and show that such spaces are close to being $\sigma$-compact.


Language is made of sound. Study of sound is called as phonology. In phonology, there is a term named as suprasegmental features that is used in pronouncing English words. In relation to pronunciation, suprasegmental plays an important role to make the hearer understands what the speaker says. Every person in the world pronounces English words with their suprasegmental features. Thus, it is possible for us, as English students, to produce different suprasegmental features although in the same word or sentence. The suprasegmental features appears different in characteristic. Therefore, it is very interesting to investigate and analyze the difference of the characteristic of English students' supraegmental features and English native's suprasegmental features. The research problems are formulated as follows: (1) What are the characteristics of suprasegmentals features produced by the fourth year students of English Letters and Language Department of UIN Malang? and (2) What are the main differences between the characteristics of suprasegmentals features produced by the English Department students of and the suprasegmentals features produced by English native speakers? Meanwhile, the the objectives of this research are: (1) to investigate the characteristic of suprasegmental features produced the fourth year students of English Letters and Language Department of UIN Malang and (2) to find out the main differences between the characteristic of suprasegmental features produced by the fourth year students of English Letters and language Department of UIN Malang and those produced by the English native speaker.

To answer the problems, the researcher uses gold Wave Editor to measure stress amplitude that is introduced by JWM Verhaar and intonation contour that is introduced by Laurel J Brinton. The researcher, then, focuses on intonation and stress characteristic of English students and native speakers. Methodologically, the researcher exerts descriptive qualitative study as his research design. The data were collected by recording and analyzed the result by using Gold Wave editor to find each characteristic.

From all nine analyzed sentences, the findings show that the English students pronounced some words faster and junctures between a word and the coming word more frequently than the English native speaker. The differences of stressing of their utterances are in the way they pronounce and give junctures. When a word is pronounced faster and read with no pause or juncture, the amount of energy of the sound is lower. It means the amplitude is also low. The lower amplitude of a sound indicates that the word is stressed with weak stress.

The difference of the intonation contour of their utterances is caused by the weak and strong stress of some words. The English native speaker pronounces some words and junctures within two words more frequently, so the intonation contour of their utterances are more long falling than rising. On the other hand, English learners pronounce the words slower and give pause within two words, consequently the amplitude of the words are higher that results the rising intonation contour more than long falling intonation contour.

The researcher suggests that the future researcher conduct similar topic of the study but with different aspects of suprasegmental such as pitch, accent, rhythm, and tempo with more complete data and discussion and also with different subject of the research.


medicine and the arts H ow is a patient like a poem?, I sometimes ask the medical students and residents I teach when I see glazed expressions that indicate they have fallen asleep with their eyes open. While I talk about how reading poetry helps us understand the experi- ences of patients and doctors, they sit there, politely enough, but no doubt wondering how they had the misfortune to wind up in this seminar. They thought that they had finished with English after freshman composition 101. There is an initial stare of uncomprehending silence. I hasten to reassure them that I do not mistake people for texts, and that of course patients are not actually poems. (There is a slight collective sigh of relief, as though they are reassured I am not completely insane.) I am only speaking metaphorically, as a kind of imaginative exercise. The value of a metaphor, I remind them, is that by comparing two dissimilar things, we sometimes discover qualities about one or the other that previously has escaped our notice. Being good physicians-in-training, they are intelligent and inven- tive and, after their momentary shock, they are willing to play. The answers I receive always surprise and delight me. Sometimes they are humorous. A patient is like a poem, explains one student, because reading a poem is usually over quickly, just like seeing a patient in the managed care health system. You have the feeling there is a lot more there, but the experience is over in a flash and it's time to move on. Another chimes in that patients are like poems because they both use an elliptical, indirect form of communication. An essay comes right out and says what it means in straight- forward, rational prose, but patients and poems seem to beat around the bush, using indirection, allusion, and inference. Patients and poems both make you work—hard—to under- stand them. Another time a resident mentions that poems sometimes have ''doorknob kickers,'' just like patients. You think you understand what the poem is about, then in the last stanza or concluding couplet, it throws in a monkey wrench, an ironic twist, or a completely new piece of infor- mation. Patients can have the same frustrating tendency, mentioning their chest pain or shortness of breath just as the doctor is heading out the door. There are more serious answers as well. One student, his eyes fixed on the table in front of him and not looking at any of his peers, says, ''Poetry is lyrical, and within every patient is a song.'' In a different session, a student expresses a similar idea. ''Poems have something important to say. So do patients, if we listen to them carefully enough.'' A third student elaborates on this theme. ''Poems are about meaning —the meaning of life and death. This is exactly what we have to understand about our patients . . . what their ill- nesses mean and what their lives mean.'' After this kind of discussion, it is a lot easier to read a poem together. Sometimes we read poems that are explicitly about patients, such as ''Old Lady Patient'' by Cortney Davis, who is both a poet and a nurse practitioner. In this poem, the content, structure, and tone all converge to give us deep knowledge of this patient. Initially, we see a cantankerous, complaining old woman in a hospital or nursing home. How- ever, we quickly plunge into her loneliness, embarrassment, and helplessness precipitated by the rough, uncaring treat- ment of her physicians and nurses. In the concluding lines of the poem, her hostility is transformed through a simple act of caring. Sometimes we read poems that, in their creation, probably had nothing to do with doctors and patients. An example of such a poem is the haiku by Basho, a seventeenth-century Japanese poet. In giving a talk to physical medicine and rehabilitation residents on professionalism, 1 I used this poem to illustrate the concept of mindful practice. 2 After reading the poem aloud, a resident commented, ''The pond is the ancient wisdom of physicians, stretching back over centuries. The frog is the pain and suffering of the patient. We need to learn how to empathetically reverberate the patient's suf- fering, reflect their suffering while absorbing it with all our accumulated wisdom.'' I had to pinch myself. How did he get to be so smart? How is a patient like a poem? It is always a good question to ask. Inevitably, it leads to an even better question, How is a person like a poem? It is through this question that my students discover that poems are not just about patients or doctors—they are about the human condition. Johanna Shapiro, PhD Dr. Shapiro is professor and director of medical humanities, Department of Family Medicine, University of California, Irvine College of Medicine, Orange, California. R EFERENCES 1. Markakis KM, Beckman HB, Suchman AL, Frankel RM. The path to professionalism: cultivating humanistic values and attitudes in residency training. Acad Med. 2000;75:141–50. 2. Epstein R. Mindful practice. JAMA. 1999;282:833–9. A CADEMIC M EDICINE , V OL . 77, N O . 5 / M AY 2002


Water and energy represent joint productions that support human welfare. We need water to produce energy and we use energy to clean and transport water. To deal with the anthropogenic pressure and climate changes, long-term solutions to water scarcity and energy demand needs to be developed. Studying the interconnections between water and energy sectors allows us to analyze and developing such strategies. The main aim of the study was first to estimate the exploitation, regeneration and management of water resources over long term horizons, and thereafter to anticipate or forecast development of the energy system under constrained water consumption to guarantee sufficient supply, regeneration and conservation. For this purpose we discuss the concept of Water-Energy Capital (WEC). It is adapted from the Natural Capital concept, with a view to creating economic incentives for water-energy nexus. The WEC is defined as a water sustainable consumption indicator through time, and enables us to estimate the energy footprint of water uses. Water allocation issues were implemented in the TIAM-FR energy system model, which is an bottom-up model offers a technology-rich representation of the energy systems in 15 regions of the world. It considers the long-term development of the energy system. All water uses were integrated in terms of a Water Reference Energy System detailing water consumption levels by different technologies. The proposed TIAM-FR model was used to optimize water allocation considering of opportunities for water reuse or non-conventional water use and to estimate the WEC. As the prospective model considers emissions of greenhouse gases, it may also be used to project the development of the energy systems and water allocation under the constraints of climate goals. Furthermore, constrains on water availability, water pricing, and energetic costs are also taken into account. Implementing water allocation in the TIAM-FR energy model has some sustainability implications. We determine an ecological economics framework in order to define the assumptions of our new concept of Water-Energy Capital (WEC). We develop long-term water-energy foresight exercises to assess an optimal "water-energy" mix through economical, social, and environmental points of view. Water pricing and allocation might be explored in a win-win strategy to estimate the costs and profits from the exploitation and conservation of water resources.


Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a complex autoimmune disease characterized by the loss of pancreatic islet beta cells. The mechanisms of T1D genetic risk remain poorly understood. Here, we present a multi-omic integrative study of single-cell/nucleus molecular profiles of gene expression and chromatin accessibility in the same biological samples from healthy and beta cell autoantibody+ (AAB+) human pancreatic islets to characterize mechanisms of islet-mediated T1D genetic risk. We additionally performed single-cell/nucleus multi-omic profiling of healthy islets under two stimulatory conditions used as in vitro models of T1D (cytokine cocktail and CVB4 infection) to evaluate how environmental exposures recapitulate multi-omic signatures of T1D. In total, we analyzed 121,272 cells/nuclei across 34 libraries, identifying 10 distinct cell types. We identified cell-type-specific and disease-associated cis-regulatory elements and nominated likely target genes. We provide evidence that T1D genetic risk is mediated through multiple pancreatic cell populations, including islet endocrine cells (beta, alpha, gamma, and delta), exocrine acinar and ductal cells, and immune cells. Finally, we identified three independent T1D risk variants acting through pancreatic islet endocrine cells at the TOX, RASGRP1, and DLK1/MEG3 loci. Together, this work improves our understanding of how non-coding genetic variants encode T1D risk through a complex interplay of different cell types in the pancreas.


This article answers calls for research into the field of international entrepreneurship (henceforth IE) in the context of emerging economies. In doing so, the research simultaneously heeds appeals for greater methodological variety to broaden the scope of inquiry in the field of international business research. Drawing on internationalization and entrepreneurial process modelling theory, this multiple-case study provides unique insights into the phenomena of IE in emerging market settings. It elaborates upon the processes behind IE's discovery of opportunities; it extends our understanding of IEs resource deployment; and it identifies sources of competitive advantages among IEs in emerging markets. Insights gained from this empirical study were translated into propositions corroborating, elaborating, and challenging existing theory and assumptions. Above all, this research questions our understanding of institutional and transaction cost theory in the internationalization processes of IEs.


There are two methods for identifying formation interface in oil wells: core analysis, which is a precise approach but costly and time consuming, and well logs analysis, which petrophysists perform, which is subjective and not completely reliable. In this paper, a novel coupled method was proposed to detect the formation interfaces using GR logs. Second approximation level (a2) of GR log gained from optimum mother wavelet decomposition was used for formation interface detection. Short time Fourier transform (STFT) of a2 was gained since the window band was fixed in the entire of well depths. Inverse STFT of various windows of transformed data was gained, which creates various signals in depth domain. To this end, a novel formulation was developed to obtain modified signal for formation interface detection. The mean of various resulted signals creates a smooth signal the logarithm well of which highlights formation interfaces. Synthetic data were used to test the applicability of proposed algorithm. Accordingly, GR logs corresponding to five different wells located in an oilfield in south of Iran also were used to investigate the accuracy and applicability of the proposed method. Lastly, the validation process took place by comparing the results of core data analysis and the proposed method. Good agreements were obtained between these approaches, demonstrating the applicability of the proposed methodology.


Estuarine turbidity maxima (ETMs) are generated by a large suite of hydrodynamic and sediment dynamic processes, leading to longitudinal convergence of cross-sectionally integrated and tidally averaged transport of cohesive and noncohesive suspended particulate matter (SPM). The relative importance of these processes for SPM trapping varies substantially among estuaries depending on topography, fluvial and tidal forcing, and SPM composition. The high-frequency dynamics of ETMs are constrained by interactions with the low-frequency dynamics of the bottom pool of easily erodible sediments. Here, we use a transport decomposition to present processes that lead to convergent SPM transport, and review trapping mechanisms that lead to ETMs at the landward limit of the salt intrusion, in the freshwater zone, at topographic transitions, and by lateral processes within the cross section. We use model simulations of example estuaries to demonstrate the complex concurrence of ETM formation mechanisms. We also discuss how changes in SPM trapping mechanisms, often caused by direct human interference, can lead to the generation of hyperturbid estuaries.


Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of noble metal nanoparticles (a.k.a. plasmonic nanoparticles) opens up a new horizon for advanced biomolecule sensing. However, an effective and practical sensing system still requires meticulous design to achieve good sensitivity and distinctive selectivity for routine use and high-throughput detection. In particular, the detection of DNA and RNA is crucial in biomedical research and clinical diagnostics. This review describes the fundamental aspects of LSPR and provides an overall account of how it is exploited to assist in nucleic acid sensing. The detection efficiency of each LSPR-based approach is assessed with respect to the assay design, the selection of plasmonic nanoparticles, and the choice of nucleic acid probes which influence the duplex hybridization. Judicious comparison is made among various LSPR-based approaches in terms of the assaying time, the sensitivity or lowest sensing concentration (i.e. limit of detection or LOD), and the single-base mismatch (SBM) selectivity.


In this paper, a partial-band jamming suppression algorithm is proposed for a slow frequency hopping system with continuous phase modulation (CPM). The algorithm is based on a non-coherent iterative maximum a posteriori (MAP) detection and the jamming state information (JSI) estimation. The simulation results demonstrate that the algorithm performs well for the partial-band jamming suppression. Moreover, the differences of the performance due to varieties of demodulation parameters are discussed.


The microsolvation structures and energetics of water-ammonia mixed clusters containing a lithium atom, i.e., Li(H(2)O)(n)(NH(3)), n = 1-5, are investigated by means of ab initio theoretical calculations. Several structural aspects such as the solvent coordination to the metal ion and binding motifs of the free valence electron of the metal are investigated. We also study the energetics aspects such as the dependence of vertical ionization energies on the cluster size, and all these structural and energetics aspects are compared to the corresponding results of previously studied anionic water-ammonia clusters without a metal ion. It is found that the Li-O and Li-N interactions play a very important role in stabilizing the lithium-water-ammonia clusters, and the presence of these metal ion-solvent interactions also affect the characteristics of electron solvation in these clusters. This is seen from the spatial distribution of the singly occupied molecular orbital (SOMO) which holds the ejected valence electron of the Li atom. For very small clusters, SOMO electron density is found to exist mainly at the vicinity of the Li atom, whereas for larger clusters, it is distributed outside the first solvation shell. The free dangling hydrogens of water and ammonia molecules are involved in capturing the SOMO electron density. In some of the conformers, OH{e}HO and OH{e}HN types of interactions are found to be present. The presence of the metal ion at the center of the cluster ensures that the ejected electron is solvated at a surface state only, whereas both surface and interiorlike states were found for the free electron in the corresponding anionic clusters without a metal ion. The vertical ionization energies of the present clusters are found to be higher than the vertical detachment energies of the corresponding anionic clusters which signify a relatively stronger binding of the free electron in the presence of the positive metal counterion. The shifts in different vibrational frequencies are also calculated for the larger clusters, and the results are discussed for some of the selective modes of water and ammonia molecules that are directly influenced by the location and hydrogen bonding state of these molecules in the clusters.


Oil pump in diesel engine has significant effect on energy consumption and environment pollution. In this paper, the modeling and simulation of a gear oil pump used in a diesel engine and its fluid flow analysis by a solver has been explained. Also the optimization and redesign of it has been discussed and then the outcomes have been compared with the experimental and previous results. The type of this oil pump is external gear pump with involute tooth profile, so we need to use the gears with the minimum number of tooth to optimize the pump performance and getting the optimum displacement volume rate of it. While the engaged gears of the pump rotating together, the intersection between them changes in time. So their boundaries should be considered as movable. The strategy used here consist in using dynamic meshes, dividing a tooth rotating cycle into a certain number of time steps and investigating the flow and getting the results for each time steps.


The work presents a study of surface roughness of pieces of magnesium UNS M11311 obtained by dry turning. The study is focused in repair operations of this type of materials when they are used as inserts of metalic hybrid components. Therefore, the main limitations of this research are the values of the cutting conditions used; especially low in comparison with the usually values of these parameters used in the production of the magnesium. The followed methodology consists of a series of tests of dry horizontally turning carried out with tools of different coatings and under different cutting conditions. The design of experiments has been made by means of fractional factorial orthogonal designs and the analysis of the results by the ANOVA method. The principal result is one ranking for the combinations of cutting conditions and tool coatings based on the surface roughness expected given by the mathematical model. As first conclusion, it is possible to affirm that, the best surface finishes are obtained for low feeds. Cutting tools used in the machining of other types of materials (steel, stainless steel) can be used obtaining a quality of the surface finish similar to that obtained with tools for specific use of non-ferrous metals.


Several factors have been proposed as antecedence to organizational performance in a different context but have pay attention to African continent and the findings of the studies may not be generalizable due to contextual and culture differences. The purpose of the study is to identify the antecedent of organizational performance in the context of Nigerian non-profit organization. Literature review is adopted as methodology to assess the factors that enhance organizational performance. Findings shows that certain factors have been identified for enhance organizational performance. The goal and objective of an organization is to improve the level of performance by designing strategies. The strong emphases on the antecedence of performance by the leaders help the organization to improving the level organizational performance.


The major structural features of the northeast part of the Rio Puerco fault zone are (1) north- to northwest-trending folds, (2) northeast-trending normal faults, and (3) north-trending normal faults. These structures formed in response to an older north-oriented shear couple and a younger east-west-oriented tension. Laramide orogenic movements of late Paleocene through Eocene age resulted from a north-trending, right-shift force couple related to northeast shift of the Colorado Plateau. The folds and the northeast-trending normal faults formed in response to the right-shift couple, and the faults are interpreted as tensional fractures that developed at 45° to the trend of the couple. Miocene to Holocene tectonism is dominated by north-trending, east-dipping normal faults related to the development of the Rio Grande rift. Many southeast-dipping normal faults of Laramide origin were rejuvenated during Miocene and younger rifting.


Identification of countermeasures able to prevent disuse-induced muscle wasting is crucial to increase performance of crew members during space flight as well as ameliorate patient's clinical outcome after long immobilization periods. We report on the outcome of short but high-impact reactive jumps (JUMP) as countermeasure during 60 days of 6° head-down tilt (HDT) bed rest on myofiber size, type composition, capillarization, and oxidative capacity in tissue biopsies (pre/post/recovery) from the knee extensor vastus lateralis (VL) and deep calf soleus (SOL) muscle of 22 healthy male participants (Reactive jumps in a sledge, RSL-study 2015–2016, DLR:envihab, Cologne). Bed rest induced a slow-to-fast myofiber shift (type I –>II) with an increased prevalence of hybrid fibers in SOL after bed rest without jumps (control, CTRL, p = 0.016). In SOL, JUMP countermeasure in bed rest prevented both fast and slow myofiber cross-sectional area (CSA) decrements (p = 0.005) in CTRL group. In VL, bed rest only induced capillary rarefaction, as reflected by the decrease in local capillary-to-fiber ratio (LCFR) for both type II (pre vs. post/R + 10, p = 0.028/0.028) and type I myofibers (pre vs. R + 10, p = 0.012), which was not seen in the JUMP group. VO2maxFiber (pL × mm–1 × min–1) calculated from succinate dehydrogenase (SDH)-stained cryosections (OD660 nm) showed no significant differences between groups. High-impact jump training in bed rest did not prevent disuse-induced myofiber atrophy in VL, mitigated phenotype transition (type I – >II) in SOL, and attenuated capillary rarefaction in the prime knee extensor VL however with little impact on oxidative capacity changes.


Importance
Niemann-Pick disease, type C1 (NPC1) is a progressive neurovisceral disease with no US Food and Drug Administration-approved therapy. Miglustat, a drug used off-label in the United States for the treatment of NPC1, appears to stabilize neurologic disease progression. Several prospective trials suggest that miglustat stabilizes oropharyngeal swallowing function; however, its effect on dysphagia and aspiration risk has not been demonstrated instrumentally.

Objective
To determine if miglustat therapy is associated with stabilized swallowing dysfunction in individuals with NPC1.

Design, Setting, and Participants
Patients with confirmed NPC1 diagnoses were evaluated in a single-center cohort study of NPC1 from April 1997 to November 2019. Longitudinal data from individuals with neurologic disease onset prior to age 15 years were analyzed. The study population was divided into those with neurologic disease onset in early childhood (age <6 years) and late childhood (age ≥6 years and <15 years). Analysis began September 2019.

Exposures
Oral miglustat at baseline and at follow-up.

Main Outcomes and Measures
Oropharyngeal swallowing function was assessed with videofluoroscopic swallowing studies. Overall swallowing ability and aspiration risk were evaluated using the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association National Outcome Measurement System swallowing domain and an adapted Rosenbek aspiration-penetration scale, respectively.

Results
Overall, 50 participants were evaluated at baseline (median [interquartile range] age, 9.4 [3.4-16.4] years; 26 [52%] female). The median (interquartile range) duration of follow-up was 3.0 (1.1-4.4) years. Miglustat use was associated with decreased odds of worse American Speech-Language-Hearing Association National Outcome Measurement System swallowing domain outcomes in all 3 subsets (overall: odds ratio [OR], 0.09 [95% CI, 0.02-0.36); P < .001; early childhood: OR, 0.17 [95% CI, 0.04-0.67]; P = .01; late childhood: OR, 0.05 [95% CI, 0.01-0.29]; P = .001). Miglustat use was associated with decreased odds of worse Rosenbek aspiration-penetration scale outcomes in the overall cohort (OR, 0.28 [95% CI, 0.08-0.95]; P = .04) but not in each subgroup (early childhood: OR, 0.27 [95% CI, 0.06-1.22]; P = .09; late childhood: OR, 0.38 [95% CI, 0.06-2.33]; P = .29).

Conclusions and Relevance
These data suggest that miglustat use is associated with stabilized swallowing function and reduced aspiration risk in NPC1, thus supporting its use in this population. In addition, these data demonstrate that a quantification of swallowing dysfunction can be used as a clinically relevant, functional outcome measure in future therapeutic trials in NPC1.


Background and aims: Infertility is a major problem during reproductive age. Physical and psychological effects of infertility in women are problematic. The aim of this study was to determine the potential predictive factors of infertility, among women referring both public and private health centers in Ilam province, western Iran, in 2013. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 1013 women referring the health care centers of Ilam province were enrolled in 2013. The participants were selected by simple random sampling method and their demographic, medical and obstetric variables were collected. The univariate and multiple logistic regression analyses were used to predict the potential risk factors of infertility. Results: The husband's education and occupation showed to be suitable independent predictor variables for infertility by multivariate logistic regression analysis (OR: 1.36 and 2, respectively). Overall percentage of correct classification of the model was 88.7%. It means that, considering the husband's education and women's occupation, the ability of the model to predict the actual category of the cases was 88.7%. Conclusions: It seems that husband education level and women occupation are independent predictive variables. The women at risk of infertility have to be identified and high-quality counseling should be given in order to minimize the complications of infertility in both genders.


Ethylene response factor (ERF) genes have been involved in responses to biotic and abiotic stress, including hypoxia and anaerobic stress. Vacuum packaging (a typical anaerobic stress) is an effective storage method used to delay browning of fresh-cut lotus root (Nelumbo nucifera). In model plants, ERF genes have been identified as responsive to hypoxia. Whether ERF is associated with browning of vacuum-packaged lotus root has not been studied. The effects of vacuum packaging on browning, phenolic content, the enzyme activity of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL), polyphenol oxidase (PPO), and peroxidase (POD), and PPO, PAL, POD, and ERF genes expression in fresh-cut lotus root were studied. Downregulation of NnPAL1, NnPPOA, and NnPOD2/3 attributable to vacuum packaging coincided with increased related enzyme activities and the degree of browning of fresh-cut lotus root. The expression patterns of NnERF4/5 were consistent with the changes in NnPAL1, NnPPOA, and NnPOD2/3 gene expression. It has been proposed that NnERF4/5 could have be important regulators of fresh-cut lotus root browning, and that the relationships of NnERF4/5 and NnPAL1, NnPPOA, and NnPOD2/3 should to be studied further.


Sustainable water supply, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programming requires the integration of gender dimension at all levels and for all water activities from policies to projects yet, too often, under-represented users particularly women. The main users and managers of water-excluded from decision making. One can simply argue that the exclusion of women has made WASH management systems less responsive to demand of water, sanitation and hygiene services. In development discourse it is agreed that use, access and control over natural resources such as land and water, and tasks, means and responsibilities are highly gender-specific. Patriarchal norms, community systems and values influence gender dimension in any development work. Various approaches have therefore been implemented by governments, donor agencies and NonGovernmental Organizations to promote people centered development through gender sensitive programming. It is against this background that an investigation of gender dimension in water supply, sanitation and hygiene programmes was undertaken in ward 6 of Gwanda district, located in the semi-arid, agro ecological region five of Zimbabwe. Specific objectives of the study were, to examine the gender dimensions witnessed in rural WASH, to assess the level at which women and men, boys and girls participate in WASH, to look at how gender perceptions influence the control over and access to local water supply systems, to explore the impact of unequal treatment of men, women, boys and girls towards WASH projects and to look at how gender mainstreaming has been tailored and incorporated in WASH. The study employed a case study design, using both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods made up of Statistical Package for Social Science(SPSS) was used for analyzing quantitative data, Microsoft Excel was then used to modify imported results from SPSS for improved graphical displays and qualitative data was analyzed using thematic approach. The study found out that WASH is predominantly seen as women's domain as men prefer income earnings projects. Societal norms and values greatly shape the differing roles of men and women in WASH initiatives. The study concluded that despite the major role played by women as both laborers and managers of WASH systems, decision making platforms still remain at the realm of men.


The limitation of traditional delivery methods for fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) gave birth to colonic transendoscopic enteral tubing (TET) to address the requirement of frequent FMTs. Colonic TET as a novel endoscopic intervention has received increasing attention in practice since 2015 in China. Emerging studies from multiple centers indicate that colonic TET is a promising, safe, and practical delivery method for microbial therapy and administering medication with high patient satisfaction. Intriguingly, colonic TET has been used to rescue endoscopy-related perforations by draining colonic air and fluid through the TET tube. Recent research based on collecting ileocecal samples through a TET tube has contributed to demonstrating community dynamics in the intestine, and it is expected to be a novel delivery of proof-of-concept in host–microbiota interactions and pharmacological research. The present article aims to review the concept and techniques of TET and to explore microbial therapy, colonic drainage, and microbial research based on colonic TET.


Textometry is applied to audiovisual corpora, such as transcripts from semi-directed interviews, or the Actualités françaises newsreels archive. A workflow using an assisted or automatic transcription software is efficient to get a rich encoding. New features are added to the TXM software: a specialized import module based on Transcriber XML format, a utility to convert text transcripts to XML, and the MediaPlayer extension to watch the video segment corresponding to a word context selection. Methodological thoughts arise from this experience. It is highly relevant that textometry takes into account internal text structures (such as speech turns) and other metainformation (such as timecodes). Meta-information has to be displayed and available for processing without being mixed with contents. Another challenge is to integrate multiple interrelated representations. A back-tomedia feature is as fundamental as the back-to-text one to provide context to interpretation work.


OF THE DISSERTATION THE ANALYTICAL DETERMINATION OF THE UNIQUENESS AND PERSISTENCE OF THE VOLATILE COMPONENTS OF HUMAN SCENT USING OPTIMIZED COLLECTION METHODS by Allison Marsh Curran Florida International University, 2005 Miami, Florida Professor Kenneth G. Furton, Major Professor The Locard exchange principle proposes that a person can not enter or leave an area or come in contact with an object, without an exchange of materials. In the case of scent evidence, the suspect leaves his scent in the location of the crime scene itself or on objects found therein. Human scent evidence collected from a crime scene can be evaluated through the use o f specially trained canines to determine an association between the evidence and a suspect. To date, there has been limited research as to the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which comprise human odor and their usefulness in distinguishing among individuals. For the purposes of this research, human scent is defined as the most abundant volatile organic compounds present in the headspace above collected odor samples. An instrumental .method has been created for the analysis of the VOCs present in human scent, and has been utilized for the optimization of materials used for the collection and storage of human scent evidence. This research project has identified the volatile organic compounds present in the headspace above collected scent samples from different individuals and various regions of the body, with the primary focus involving the armpit area and the palms of the hands. Human scent from the armpit area and palms of an individual sampled over time shows lower variation in the relative peak area ratio of the common compounds present than what is seen across a population. A comparison of the compounds present in human odor for an individual over time, and across a population has been conducted and demonstrates that it is possible to instrumentally differentiate individuals based on the volatile organic compounds above collected odor samples.


In a recent visit to London, senior editors from Women of China were delighted tomeet with members from the prestigious British Society of Women Writers andJournalists at their members' annual luncheon. The following article, by Dr TessaNelson-Humphries,* was the winner of the society's John Walter Salver Award(2004). Entitled The World Today the author meditates on the current situation ofthe world from the unique perspective of a woman.


The local cyclic elastic-plastic stress-strain responses were simulated using the incremental plasticity procedures of ABAQUS finite element code. It is shown a better understanding on the evolutions of the local cyclic stress-strain and the strong interactions between the most stressed material element and its neighboring material elements in the plastic deformations and stress redistributions. Based on the stress/strain states of the stabilized cycle, a new damage parameter, proposed on modification of the ASME code parameter, is applied and improved correlations between the predicted and the experimental fatigue lives are shown. It is concluded that the improvement of fatigue life prediction depends not only on the fatigue damage models, but also on the accurate evaluations of the cyclic elasto-plastic stress/strain responses.


Laparoscopic inguinal herniorraphy via a transabdominal preperitoneal (TAPP) approach using Polypropylene Mesh (Mesh) and staples is an accepted technique. Mesh induces a localised inflammatory response that may extend to, and involve, adjacent abdominal and pelvic viscera such as the appendix. We present an interesting case of suspected Mesh-induced appendicitis treated successfully with laparoscopic appendicectomy, without Mesh removal, in an elderly gentleman who presented with symptoms and signs of acute appendicitis 18 months after laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair. Possible mechanisms for Mesh-induced appendicitis are briefly discussed.


The development of reusable dual-purpose nanocomposite foams for catalytic and bactericidal water treatment is reported. Small non-aggregated silver nanoparticles were made using Intermatrix Synthesis inside a polyurethane foam, which was chosen as a suitable polymeric matrix due to its high chemical and mechanical stability and industrial applicability. The antibacterial activity of the obtained nanocomposites was evaluated against suspensions of Gram-negative bacteria (E. coli), showing ideal bactericidal features for being applied to water disinfection. The catalytic activity of nanocomposites was also evaluated through a model reaction carried out under flow conditions. The possibility of reusing the catalytic material was evaluated in 3 consecutive cycles and, for all of them, no significant loss of efficiency was found. Moreover, the leakage of the active species to the media was evaluated under accelerated ageing conditions (3 h in an ultrasonic bath) and a negligible amount of silver was found outside the matrix. The chemical stability of the as-prepared nanoparticles was also evaluated by XANES and any modification in the chemical structure of silver nanoparticles was detected, even after storing the samples for two years under dry conditions.


Crises of masculinity and wars on boys often deploy the suicides of young males as a rhetorical strategy in raising awareness for a political cause, that is to say a declaration of war, a war that remains dubious at best. Who, for instance, declared "war" on "boys"? This paper argues that theorists of gender, particularly masculinity, must think carefully and critically about suicide as a rhetorical strategy. In particular, this paper seeks to explain why men's rights activists and scholars prefer the term "boys" to "young men" or "adolescents," and subsequently aims to work through ideas of temporality, futurity, and slow death to understand the deployment of suicide as strategy.


We study dynamical partially localized brane solutions in higher dimensions. We give new descriptions of the relevant solutions of dynamical branes which are localized along both the overall and relative transverse directions. The starting point is a system of p_r-branes ending on a p_s-brane with a time-dependent warp factor. This system can be related to Dp_r-Dp_s brane system in string theory, where one brane is localized at the delocalized other brane. We then show that these give Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker cosmological solutions. Our approach leads to a new and manifest description of the brane configurations near the delocalized branes, and new solutions in the wave or KK-monopole background in terms of certain partial differential equations in D dimensions including ten and eleven dimensions.


Abstract The composition and ecology of Late Carboniferous tropical, dryland plant communities are described for the first time. The study focuses on a 700-m-thick succession through the Langsettian Joggins Formation. Red bed units (5–110 m thick) bearing isolated pedogenic carbonate nodules occur at fourteen intervals and are interpreted as originating in a seasonally dry, well-drained, alluvial-plain setting characterized, in places, by an anastomosing fluvial geometry. A quantitative quadrat analysis of red bed floral assemblages preserved as compressions, impressions, calcareous permineralizations, and charcoal was undertaken. Cordaites, represented by woody trunks, branches, pith casts, leaves, and seeds, comprise 74% of the red bed floral thanatomass, together with minor pteridosperms and sphenopsids, and rare sigillarian lycopsids. Taphonomic data demonstrate that while fire-prone cordaite-pteridosperm vegetation dominated nearly all seasonally dry floodplain niches, hydrophilic lycopsids and sphenopsids were restricted to riparian settings where water availability was greatest. Calculation of standard diversity indices indicates that growing conditions were generally stressful, consistent with a seasonal environment. The composition of these dryland communities differs markedly from lycopsid-dominated wetland communities known from gray, coal-bearing successions at other intervals in the Joggins Formation. Sequence stratigraphic analysis of the Joggins Formation suggests that dryland communities represent the vegetation of seasonal continental-interior environments in contrast to wetland communities that grew in humid coastal settings. Repeated alternations between continental and coastal settings were caused by tectonically and/or eustatically driven base-level fluctuations that resulted in marine transgressive-regressive rhythms minimally hundreds of kilometers long.


Average L-shell fluorescence yields of some rare earth elements were determined using HPGe detector employing reflection geometry set up. Target atoms were excited using 59.5 keV gamma rays emerging from Am-241 source of strength 300 mCi.
Background radiation and multiple scattering effects were minimized by properly shielding the detector. The elemental foils of uniform thickness and 99.9% purity were used in the present investigation. The fluorescent spectra were recorded in a 16 K multichannel -analyzer. The data were carefully analyzed and average L-shell fluorescence yields were calculated. The resulting yield values are compared with the available experimental and theoretical values.


Abstract We study unitary quotients of the free product unitary pivotal category ${{A}_{2}}\,*\,{{T}_{2}}$ . We show that such quotients are parametrized by an integer $n\,\ge \,1$ and an $2n$ –th root of unity $\omega $ . We show that for $n\,=\,1,\,2,\,3$ , there is exactly one quotient and $\omega \,=\,1$ . For $4\,\le \,n\,\le \,10$ , we show that there are no such quotients. Our methods also apply to quotients of ${{T}_{2}}\,*\,{{T}_{2}}$ , where we have a similar result. The essence of our method is a consistency check on jellyfish relations. While we only treat the specific cases of ${{A}_{2}}\,*\,{{T}_{2}}$ and ${{T}_{2}}\,*\,{{T}_{2}}$ , we anticipate that our technique can be extended to a general method for proving the nonexistence of planar algebras with a specified principal graph. During the preparation of this manuscript, we learnt of Liu's independent result on composites of ${{A}_{3}}$ and ${{A}_{4}}$ subfactor planar algebras (arxiv:1308.5691). In 1994, Bisch–Haagerup showed that the principal graph of a composite of ${{A}_{3}}$ and ${{A}_{4}}$ must fit into a certain family, and Liu has classified all such subfactor planar algebras. We explain the connection between the quotient categories and the corresponding composite subfactor planar algebras. As a corollary of Liu's result, there are no such quotient categories for $n\,\ge \,4$ . This is an abridged version of arxiv:1308.5723.