Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the emergence of e-government in post-Soviet countries using Kazakhstan as a case study. Extant research on e-government in developing countries highlights significant benefits including improved public services, reduced corruption, and more open and inclusive government. The paper asserts the presence of an e-government paradox which limits its potential to improve public services.

Design/methodology/approach
Primary data were collected from a number of sources: 6 focus groups with central government agencies, local authorities and civil society organisations; 25 structured and semi-structured interviews; and participant observation.

Findings
The research finds evidence of an e-government paradox in five forms: an emphasis on technological development; transactional services are faster but have displaced attention from core public services; petty corruption has been reduced but grand corruption remains; isomorphic mimicry; and greater participation by citizens has been limited.

Research limitations/implications
The focus of the research is Kazakhstan. Applying the lessons learned to other post-Soviet countries has limitations given their different stages of development since independence.

Practical implications
The key practical implication of this research is that countries can become absorbed by e-government technology without questioning the fundamental business model which underpins how public services are delivered. Ultimately, this impacts on the social value of e-government.

Originality/value
While existing research has examined how e-government has been implemented in developing countries, this paper focusses on Kazakhstan as an authoritarian state with wider implications for post-Soviet countries.


Abstract Aims: Methods for integrating external costs into clinical databases are not well-characterized. The purpose of this research was to describe and implement methods for estimating the cost of hospitalizations, prescriptions, and general practitioner and specialist visits used to manage hyperlipidemia patients experiencing cardiovascular (CV) events in the United Kingdom (UK). Methods: This study was a retrospective cohort study using the Clinical Practice Research Datalink and Hospital Episode Statistics data. Costs were incorporated based on reference costs from the National Health Service, and labor costs from the Personal Social Services Research Unit. The study population included patients seen by general practitioners in the UK from 2006–2012. Patients ≥18 years were selected at the time of their first CV-related hospitalization defined as myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke, heart failure, transient ischemic attack, unstable angina, or revascularization. To be included, patients must have received ≥2 lipid-lowering therapies. Outcome measures included healthcare utilization and direct medical costs for hospitalizations, medications, general practitioner visits, and specialist visits during the 6-month acute period, starting with the CV hospitalization, and during the subsequent 30-month long-term period. Results: There were 24,093 patients with a CV hospitalization included in the cohort. This study identified and costed 69,240 hospitalizations, 673,069 GP visits, 32,942 specialist visits, and 2,572,792 prescriptions, representing 855 unique drug and dose combinations. The mean acute period and mean annualized long-term period costs (2014£) were £4,060 and £1,433 for hospitalizations, £377 and £518 for GP visits, £59 and £103 for specialist visits, and £98 and £209 for medications. Conclusions: Hospital costs represent the largest portion of acute and long-term costs in this population. Detailed costing using utilization data is feasible and representative of UK clinical practice, but is labor intensive. The availability of a standardized coding system in the UK drug costing data would greatly facilitate drug costing.


The maximum and minimum capacitances on circles concentric with an internal cross are determined for a four-lobed and an eight-lobed equipotential distribution. It is found that the relative difference between the maximum and minimum effective capacitances of the eight-lobed curves is about an order of magnitude lower than the same difference in the four-lobed curves, for comparable geometries. It is shown that the average and the geometric means of the maximum and minimum effective capacitances on the multilobed curves are excellent approximations of the exact values. In fact, the error in the average of the maximum and minimum effective capacitances decreases exponentially as their relative difference decreases so that the average value for the eight-lobed case is a better approximation than the average for the four-lobed case by at least an order of magnitude, in the cases of most interest. The increased accuracy obtained from the eight-lobed equipotential distribution is presented in graphical form. >


This thesis is composed of three projects that are linked by the theme of light-molecule
interactions. These are covered separately in Chapters 2, 3, and 4. In Chapter 1 some
background to the thesis is described so that the various links between the science in the
different chapters, and the motivation for the project as a whole are explained. Elements
of photochemistry, both experimental and theoretical, are described in this chapter and
some material about the most important experimental tools used in this work, ultrafast
lasers, is covered, as well as the methodology of time-resolved spectroscopies, and timeresolved
photoelectron spectroscopy in particular; the field of laser control of chemistry
is also briefly reviewed. Chapter 2 is an account of the design and use of a UV pulse
shaper and characterisation setup. This is an applied optics experiment, whose
application is to the control of photochemical reactions with specifically shaped ultrafast
laser light. Several demonstrations of the pulse shaping capacity of this new experiment
are presented. In Chapter 3, calculation of the excited electronic states of the molecule
styrene is described. This project is a computational study of the electronic spectroscopy
and ionisation of the styrene molecule. In Chapter 4, the direct observation of internal
conversion in styrene using time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy is reported. This
is an experimental laser spectroscopy project in which some of the results from the
computations in the theory project, Chapter 3, will be used to analyse the experimental
spectra. Chapter 5 summarises the conclusions drawn from Chapters 2, 3 and 4 and
provides an outlook for future research based on the work in this thesis. Throughout this
thesis, but more particularly in Chapters 1 and 2, there is quite a large volume of
literature review and background material. This content reflects the personal perspective
from which the thesis was approached. Much of the field of ultrafast optics and
spectroscopy was entirely new to the writer at the outset of the PhD programme, and
most of the review-based writing about these topics found here was originally written
early on in the PhD project, as a means of helping to bridge the gap between work on
optical experiment design and an undergraduate training in chemistry.


This article examines Liu Qing's 1959 novel The Builders, an epical work on the Agricultural Cooperation Movement, from the perspective of configuration of the Socialist New Man. Illuminated by the works of the May Fourth generation, especially Lu Xun, the author argues that the figure of the Socialist New Man usually differentiates itself into two literary prototypes—meditator and doer. Liu Qing attempts to maintain a productive and dialectic tension between meditations and deeds, instead of mere discrepancy or incompatibility. The article demonstrates that in literature, while the meditator can be depicted thoroughly through psychological dynamics and unconscious dreams, it is more problematic to represent the doer. Such a formal and philosophical problem is central to literature, as well as corresponds to the socio-historical paradox of the 1950s China.


The electronic structure and phase stability of MgO, ZnO, CdO, and related alloys in the rocksalt (B1), zincblende (B3), and wurtzite (B4) crystal structures were examined within first-principles band structure theory; the thermodynamically stable phases are reproduced for each material. The band alignment and band-gap deformation potentials were analyzed, showing an increase in the valence band maximum from Mg to Zn to Cd. Ternary alloy formation was explored through application of the special quasirandom structure method. The B1 structure is stable over all (Mg,Cd)O compositions, as expected from the preferences of the binary oxides. The (Mg,Zn)O alloy undergoes a tetrahedral to octahedral transition above 34% Mg content, in agreement with experiment. For (Zn,Cd)O, a transition is predicted above 62% Cd content. These results imply that band-gap manipulation of ZnO from alloying with Mg (Cd) will be limited to 4.0 eV (1.6 eV), while preserving the tetrahedral coordination of the host.


The increasing water shortage in the arid and semiarid western USA requires use of recycled wastewater (RWW) when possible. Recycled wastewater has become a common water source for irrigating golf courses and urban landscapes, creating the need to study the effects of RWW irrigation on soil chemical properties. We compiled soil test data from fairways of 10 golf courses that were near metropolitan Denver and Fort Collins, CO. Among these courses, five had been irrigated exclusively with domestic RWW [electrical conductivity (EC) = 0.84 dS m -1 ] for 4, 13, 14, 19, and 33 yr, respectively. The other five with similar turf species, age ranges, and soil textures had used surface water (EC = 0.23 dS m -1 ) for irrigation. Our results indicated that soils (sampled to 11.4 cm) from fairways with RWW irrigation exhibited 03 units of higher pH and 200,40, and 30% higher concentrations of extractable Na, B, and P, respectively. Compared with sites irrigated with surface water, sites irrigated with RWW exhibited 187% higher EC and 481% higher sodium adsorption ratio (SAR). Comparison of soil chemical properties before and 4 or 5 yr after RWW irrigation on two golf courses also revealed the following findings: (i) 89 to 95% increase in Na content; (ii) 28 to 50% increase in B content; and (iii) 89 to 117% increase in P content at the surface depth. Regular monitoring of site-specific water and soil and appropriate management are needed to mitigate the negative impacts of sodium and salts accumulations.


Surface roughness is an important item to evaluate the surface quality. Many researches focused on the optimization of cutting parameters in the specified cooling/lubrication conditions. But the effect of different cooling/lubrication conditions was still less considered. Aimed at this problem, the effect of cutting parameters on the average surface roughness (Ra) in the different cooling/lubrication conditions, including MQL, wet, dry cutting, was analyzed in this study. Orthogonal arrays were applied in the design of the experiments and Ti6Al4V end-milling experiments were performed on the DAEWOO machining center. The white light interferometer was used to obtain the 3D profile of machined surface and calculate the Ra values. The regression analysis and statistical analysis of variance were employed in the process of the experimental data. The relationships between Ra and cutting parameters in the different cooling/lubrication conditions were obtained and the optimum values of the cutting parameters in the range of the experiments were selected.


This paper discusses the defects of the traditional way of map printing quality detection, which is not adapted to digital and standardization demand of map printing. With the analysis of the element characteristics of the linear map, the theory model of the linear map printing quality auto detection system, based on dynamic threshold algorithm, is put forward. And the way of making the standard map image, image registration and the printing defects extraction is studied in the paper. The experiment shows that this algorithm has high detection precision, and can avoid the interferential pixel which may affect the judgment of printing defects. At the same time, the feasibility of this scheme is available and it has important significance for the improvement of linear map printing speed.


Normally, bacteria exposed to antibiotics at sub minimal inhibitory concentrations (MIC) inside the host. Therefore, the current study aimed to comprehend the association among hemolysins, biofilm, as well as gentamicin resistance in local MRSA isolates. Around 35 Staphylococcus aureus locally isolated from different clinical specimens were employed in this study. Methicillin resistance was detected via cefoxitin disk diffusion and mecA amplification methods. MIC of gentamicin was estimated by broth microdilution method. Hemolysin genes involving hla, hlb, hld , and hlg were determined using multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique. Microtiter plate method was employed for biofilm assessment in the presence and absence of gentamicin at sub MIC. Moreover, atomic force microscopy technique was employed for confirming the effect of gentamicin on biofilm. The present findings revealed that methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA) constituted, nearly, 94.29% (33 isolates) of all S. aureus isolates. Around 12 (36.36%), four (12.12%), and 17 (51.51%) isolates were gentamicin-sensitive, intermediate, and resistant to gentamicin, respectively. hla and hld were located in 32 out 33 MRSA isolates. All MRSA isolates succeeded in forming biofilm; however, three (0.09%), 23 (69.69%), and seven (21.21%) isolates formed weak,moderate, andstrong biofilm, respectively. Gentamicin at sub MIC reduced the intensity of biofilm and the AFM confirmed this finding. In conclusion, very weak correlation linked the biofilm formation capacity and isolate MIC. On the other hand, possession of hemolysin genes seems has no correlation with biofilm formation. Nevertheless, gentamicin at sub MIC reduced the intensity of MRSA biofilm.


This article traces the emergence, proliferation, and identity formation of a 19th century NeoAnabaptist sect known variously as Neutäufer (New Anabaptists), Nazarenes, and Apostolic Christian Church. The Neutäufer emerged during an era that was a turning point in world religious history, marked by a renewed sense of missionary vigor and the proliferation of major voluntary (as opposed to state-driven) religious movements. These movements radically transformed Western, and even global, Christianity. The article gives detailed attention to the role of Samuel Heinrich Fröhlich in synthesizing evangelical renewalist impulses with traditional Anabaptist convictions. It also follows the tensions that emerged, where agreed upon centrally held traditional Anabaptist values—e.g. non-conformity, plainness, and separation from the world—came to be understood differently as the movement diversified beyond its original context. This article not only contributes to the historical study of the Neutäufer but also contributes to understanding the sociological dynamics of the emergence, establishment, and fragmentation of religious sectarian movements more generally.


Learning to walk enables infants to travel faster and farther, exploring more of their environment (e.g., Adolph & Tamis-LeMonda, 2012). This enhanced mobility may have a cascading effect on infants' exploration and social interactions. Notably, infants with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) begin walking later and with reduced proficiency compared with neurotypical infants (e.g., Esposito, Venuti, Apicella, & Muratori, 2011; Minshew, Sung, Jones, & Furman, 2004; West, 2018; Bhat et al., 2011). This may lead infants with ASD to experience this transition differently. This dissertation had two overarching objectives: 1.) investigate whether the onset of walking corresponds to a shift in infants' interactions with objects and people, and 2.) examine whether and how this cascade diverges in ASD. To this end, we measured longitudinal changes in infants' locomotion, object interactions, communication, and caregivers' contingent responses during the transition to walking in two cohorts of infants. The first cohort consisted of 25 infants with no family history of ASD (Low Risk; LR). The second consisted of were 91 infants who are at Heightened Risk (HR) for ASD by virtue of having an older sibling with an ASD diagnosis. In particular, we compared data across three HR outcome groups: infants who later developed ASD (HR-ASD), infants with language delay (HR-LD), and infants with no diagnosis (HR-ND). Across this transition, neurotypical infants walked more, played with a greater variety of objects, produced more frequent gestures and vocalizations, coordinated communicative behaviors with locomotion more frequently, and received proportionately more contingent verbal responses from caregivers. These findings lend support to the notion that learning to walk instigates a cascade, affecting many other domains of development. This transition differed for HR-ASD infants in important ways. Compared to their neurotypical peers, HR-ASD infants showed reduced growth in the variety of objects they played with, the frequency of gestures and vocalizations they produced, reduced coordination of communication and locomotion, and fewer verbal responses from caregivers. This dissertation thus provides evidence that the transition to walking marks a point in development when the gap in communication and social-interaction between ASD and neurotypical infants widens.


— This paper proposes an automated labeling algorithm that extracts authors' affiliation information (organization, city, country, etc.) from the citations in NLM's MEDLINE® database. Researchers and granting organizations can recognize the most active research organizations or countries in specific fields by comparing the number of publications generated in each organization or country. We are developing a system to collect/show such statistics from MEDLINE. Extraction of the authors' information from affiliations in the citations is the key step to obtaining the statistics. The proposed labeling algorithm divides an affiliation into several pieces and identifies each piece as one of seven labels (authors' affiliation information). We adapt Stanford CoreNLP tool, Markov Model (MM), and Viterbi algorithm for the proposed algorithm. Experimental results of the proposed algorithms show 95.90% accuracy.


Microseisms in Scandinavia have been so fully investigated anddiscussed from various points of view by Batli in a number of papera(1949, 1951a, 1951b, 1951c, 1953 and 1962) that we can hardlv addanything by the sanie method. There is another statistica! investigationby Zatopek (1961) about the relation between the positions ofenergy sources over the northernmost Atlantic Ocean and the microseismactivity of Europe, including Scandinavia.The present author made other kinds of investigations of the relationbetween microseismic storms and the passage of c.yclones, typhoons orcold fronts across or around Japan during I.G.Y., using data obtainedat eleven stations along the Japanese Islands (Santo 1959a, 1959b and1960). The writer found that microseisms with periods of 4 to 10seconds are produced by standing ocean waves, due to interferencebetween incident and reflected swells at some steep coasts.Ile had favourable opportunity to investigate the microseisms atKiruna und Uppsala, Sweden, by means of the sanie method. Theinaili purpose of the present worlc is to investigate the validity of theconclusion found for Japan.The materiate used were the Z component ainplitudes and periodsof microseisms recorded at Kiruna by Galitzin seismographs and atUppsala by Benioff long-period seismographs during I.G.Y. The weathermaps published by the Swedish Meteorologica! and Hydrological Instituteof Stockholm were used in order to find the energy sources of microseismicstorms. As the weather maps used show the situation onlyonce a day, tlie energy sources related to microseismic storms of shorterduration may sometimes be missing in the present investigation.


Abstract. The development phase (DP) of the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility for Support to Operational Hydrology and Water Management (H-SAF) led to the design and implementation of several precipitation products, after 5 yr (2005–2010) of activity. Presently, five precipitation estimation algorithms based on data from passive microwave and infrared sensors, on board geostationary and sun-synchronous platforms, function in operational mode at the H-SAF hosting institute to provide near real-time precipitation products at different spatial and temporal resolutions. In order to evaluate the precipitation product accuracy, a validation activity has been established since the beginning of the project. A Precipitation Product Validation Group (PPVG) works in parallel with the development of the estimation algorithms with two aims: to provide the algorithm developers with indications to refine algorithms and products, and to evaluate the error structure to be associated with the operational products. In this paper, the framework of the PPVG is presented: (a) the characteristics of the ground reference data available to H-SAF (i.e. radar and rain gauge networks), (b) the agreed upon validation strategy settled among the eight European countries participating in the PPVG, and (c) the steps of the validation procedures. The quality of the reference data is discussed, and the efforts for its improvement are outlined, with special emphasis on the definition of a ground radar quality map and on the implementation of a suitable rain gauge interpolation algorithm. The work done during the H-SAF development phase has led the PPVG to converge into a common validation procedure among the members, taking advantage of the experience acquired by each one of them in the validation of H-SAF products. The methodology is presented here, indicating the main steps of the validation procedure (ground data quality control, spatial interpolation, up-scaling of radar data vs. satellite grid, statistical score evaluation, case study analysis). Finally, an overview of the results is presented, focusing on the monthly statistical indicators, referred to the satellite product performances over different seasons and areas.


In the recycle trend, this study used the low-melt polyethylene terephthalate fiber and the recycle wasted materials in producing nonwoven products. These two materials were combined together to form nonwoven products, which have good drain ability and high stress. Then, the high frequency plastic welding machine was used to manufacture the geocell of three dimension nonwoven cubic structure. This study discussed the bonding strength with different bonding length and width. The results show that the uniform of the bonding area resulted from the high frequency plastic welding machine affects the bonding strength. In low-power (tuner point to 2) bonding strength increases while the bonding time increases.


Backpropagation image saliency aims at explaining model predictions by estimating model-centric importance of individual pixels in the input. However, class-insensitivity of the earlier layers in a network only allows saliency computation with low resolution activation maps of the deeper layers, resulting in compromised image saliency. Remedifying this can lead to sanity failures. We propose CAMERAS1, a technique to compute high-fidelity backpropagation saliency maps without requiring any external priors and preserving the map sanity. Our method systematically performs multi-scale accumulation and fusion of the activation maps and backpropagated gradients to compute precise saliency maps. From accurate image saliency to articulation of relative importance of input features for different models, and precise discrimination between model perception of visually similar objects, our high-resolution mapping offers multiple novel insights into the black-box deep visual models, which are presented in the paper. We also demonstrate the utility of our saliency maps in adversarial setup by drastically reducing the norm of attack signals by focusing them on the precise regions identified by our maps. Our method also inspires new evaluation metrics and a sanity check for this developing research direction.


Directorate General for Research of the European Commission, by the Sixth Framework Network of Excellence CLIOHRES.net under the contract CIT3-CT-2005-006164.


While public displays are being deployed in a massive manner in various contexts, the user interfaces of their applications often still suffer from poor usability. There is thus a need for structured support for designers and developers able to highlight the main aspects to consider in these cases and suggest possible design solutions. We report on the design and development of an authoring environment for non-interactive public display Web applications that supports some guidelines that we have developed, and on which we have elicited some empirical feedback. Based on such guidelines, several design patterns have been identified, supported by the tool, and applied to some example applications.


Abridged. The discovery of the bone-caves on the Mazet estate, near Lunel-Viel, already dates back thirty-eight years. Since then I have visited some twenty others, of which the names are solely known by the descriptions given of them by myself and my collaborateurs. The femur of an Aurochs brought me by Colonel Prost and Captain Rompleur, R.E., led me to presume that it had been transported into the caves of M. Bouquet and belonged to a bone-deposit of late geological date. The partial search that I immediately made justified my predictions, and the government accorded me a sum sufficient for me to collect every specimen. I had the soil containing the bones sifted, and I was thus able to collect a large number of the bones, which are now in the collection of the "Faculté des Sciences." Unfortunately several of the bones were taken from me by some persons more alive to the marvellous than to the interests of science. I still regret this loss—a loss the more felt as those who permitted themselves the pilfering did so out of mere curiosity, and I found it impossible to recover them. I am ignorant to what species these purloined specimens may have belonged. The discovery of the large cavern was soon followed by that of several others. I have specified them all in my work under the designation of "fissure" and "gut," in consequence of their small size compared with the first cave*. The fissure was filled with bones of different


this CASEinPoint includes a description of the theoretical, operational, and research foundations of an approach to early childhood intervention called Contextually Mediated Practices or CMP. cMP uses everyday family and community activities as sources of natural learning opportunities and child interests as the basis for parent-mediated child participation and learning in those activities. the goals of cMP are increased child participation in everyday activities and enhanced child and parent confidence and competence as a result of the everyday learning opportunities.


When issuing hydrological forecasts and warnings for individual profiles, the aim is to achieve the best possible results. Hydrological forecasts themselves are burdened by an error (uncertainty) at the inputs (precipitation forecast) as well as on the side of the hydrological model used. The aim of the method described in this article is to reduce the error of the hydrological model using post-processing the model results. Models based on neuro-fuzzy models were selected for the post-processing itself. The whole method was tested on 12 profiles in the Czech Republic. The catchment size of the individual profiles ranged from 90 to 4500 km2 and the profiles varied in their character, both in terms of elevation as well as land cover. After finding the suitable model architecture and introducing supporting algorithms, there was an improvement in the results for the individual profiles for selected criteria by on average 5–60% (relative culmination error, mean square error) compared to the results of re-simulation of the hydrological model. The results of the application show that the method was able to improve the accuracy of hydrological forecasts and thus could contribute to better management of flood situations.


Background: Cardiac complications associated with diabetes mellitus have become major cause of concern. Antidiabetic drugs, with varied mode of action, are although available, apprehensions exist for their limited action or side effects upon prolonged use. Efforts are therefore inclined toward finding other alternatives. The present study was, thus, undertaken to evaluate the cardioprotective effect of Azadirachta indica(AI) on microangiopathic changes in rat model of diabetes. Materials and Methods: Diabetes was induced in male rats by single intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (60 mg/kg body weight). Seven days after glucose levels are stabilized, aqueous leaf extract of AI (ALE) (600 mg/kg1 body weight) was administered orally to diabetic animals every day for 7 days. Results: High blood glucose characterizing diabetes in these animals was found to show increased lipid peroxidation (LPO), altered antioxidant biomarkers together with microangiopathic alterations. The treatment of diabetic rats with ALE reduced the levels of blood glucose, LPO, and restored the activities of antioxidant enzyme. Light and transmission electron microscopic analysis revealed reduced necrotic areas and inflammation in tissue architecture of ALE treated heart in comparison to untreated diabetic group. Conclusion: AI provides cardioprotection by ameliorating oxidative stress in rat model of diabetic mellitus.


In a radio-frequency identification (RFID) system, the dynamic frame length ALOHA protocol is widely adopted to solve the anticollision problem. Analysis for the anticollision problem can be divided into two primary parts. The concern of the first part is how to precisely estimate the number of tags. The other part involves determination of dynamic frame length to achieve maximum throughput or channel usage efficiency. In this paper, we present an accurate method for estimating tag quantity. This method is based on the maximum a posteriori probability decision. We also derive the optimal frame length using radio channel efficiency. Simulation results indicate the tag estimate error of the proposed method is less than 4%. Use of our proposed tag estimate method together with optimal frame length can achieve close to the theoretical maximum throughput of the framed ALOHA algorithm.


An extremal graph for a graph $H$ on $n$ vertices is a graph on $n$ vertices with maximum number of edges that does not contain $H$ as a subgraph. Let $T_{n,r}$ be the Tur\'{a}n graph, which is the complete $r$-partite graph on $n$ vertices with part sizes that differ by at most one. The well-known Tur\'{a}n Theorem states that $T_{n,r}$ is the only extremal graph for complete graph $K_{r+1}$. Erd\"{o}s et al. (1995) determined the extremal graphs for intersecting triangles and Chen et al. (2003) determined the maximum number of edges of the extremal graphs for intersecting cliques. In this paper, we determine the extremal graphs for intersecting odd cycles.


A non-stationary smoothing filter for digital medicine image data, degraded by Poisson noise, has been derived and applied to temporal simulated and clinical gated blood pool study (GBPS) data. The derived filter is automatically calculated from a large group (library) of similar GBPS which are representative of all studies acquired according to the same protocol in a defined patient population (the ensemble). The filter is designed to minimize the mean-square difference between the filtered data and the true image values; it provides an optimal trade-off between noise reduction and signal degradation for members of the ensemble. The filter is evaluated using a computer simulated ensemble of GBPS. Libraries of Poisson-degraded and non-degraded studies were generated. Libraries of up to 400 Poisson-degraded simulated studies were used to estimate optimal temporal filters that, when applied to Poisson-degraded members of the ensemble not included in the libraries, reduced the mean-square error in the raw data by 65%.


The 1999-2000 excavations by the Dutch-American team at Tell Umm el-Marra, western Syria, achieved significant new results on the history and character of Bronze Age and later occupation at the site. Of particular note was the discovery of an intact high status (royal?) tomb of the Early Bronze Age (ca. 2300 B.C.) in the site center, providing data for testing hypotheses on the character and ideology of Syrian elites in this period. Important new information was also obtained on the earliest occupation of Umm el-Marra in the early third millennium B.C., the transition from the Early to the Middle Bronze periods, and the urban revitalization of Middle Bronze II. Results from subsequent eras included the discovery of a Late Bronze period Mitannian legal tablet from the reign of Shuttarna II (early 14th century B.C.) and new data on the Achaemenid, Hellenistic, and Roman period occupations.


We measured response to 250 micrograms isoproterenol in 985 patients with COPD who were carefully studied and followed closely for nearly 3 yr. Response was quantitated in relative (% increase in FEV1) and absolute (change in FEV1 as a % predicted normal) terms. Patients were told to abstain from bronchodilator for 6 h before testing, and responses were larger in those who said they had done this. Responses were not related to blood theophylline concentrations. In patients who had abstained for 6 h, response averaged 15% of the baseline FEV1 or 5% of the predicted normal FEV1. Relative response was inversely proportional to baseline FEV1, whereas absolute response was directly related to baseline FEV1. Responses were positively related to symptomatic wheezing and exercise capacity, and negatively to smoking history, but these features accounted for little of the observed variation in response. Patients with large relative and absolute responses demonstrated increased variability of FEV1 with time and a decreased annual rate of decline of FEV1. There was little change in response with time, and the change observed could probably be explained by a gradual decrease in FEV1. However, time-related interindividual and intraindividual variations of response were large and impossible to separate from random variations of FEV1.


Historically, lethal exsanguinations and severe infections have been two major causes of maternal death. Gene mutations that lower the risk of profuse hemorrhage or severe infections would give a survival advantage. A single mutation of coagulation factor V, known as FV Leiden (FVL), can be such a beneficial mutation. FVL is common among Caucasians and today confers an increased risk of thromboembolism. However, the high prevalence of FVL (up to 15%) in the general population suggests that it has given an evolutionary advantage. In this review, we discuss possible mechanisms of the evolutionary survival advantage associated with FVL. In women, FVL confers lower risk of blood loss and profuse hemorrhage in association with delivery and improves the hemoglobin status. In addition, FVL carriers possibly have a survival advantage during sepsis. In conclusion, the high prevalence of FVL may be the result of one or more evolutionary selection advantages.


The gender ask gap measures the extent to which women ask for lower salaries than comparable men. This paper studies the role of the ask gap in generating wage inequality, using novel data from Hired.com, an online recruitment platform for full-time engineering jobs in the United States. To use the platform, job candidates must post an ask salary, stating how much they want to make in their next job. Firms then apply to candidates by offering them a bid salary, solely based on the candidate's resume and ask salary. If the candidate is hired, a final salary is recorded. After adjusting for resume characteristics, the ask gap is 3.3%, the gap in bid salaries is 2.4%, and the gap in final offers is 1.8%. Remarkably, further controlling for the ask salary explains the entirety of the residual gender gaps in bid and final salaries. To estimate the market-level effects of an increase in women's ask salaries, I exploit an unanticipated change in how candidates were prompted to provide their ask. For some candidates in mid-2018, the answer box used to solicit the ask salary was changed from an empty field to an entry pre-filled with the median bid salary for similar candidates. Using an interrupted time series design, I find that this change drove the ask gap and the bid gap to zero. In addition, women did not receive fewer bids than men did due to the change, suggesting they faced little penalty for demanding wages comparable to men. JEL codes: J31; J16; J49


Land use/land cover (LU/LC) changes, particularly deforestation and land degradation, are one of the challenges that face the forest sector in Sudan and create the need for well-designed information systems and management plans. To cope with this issue, the efficiency of successive forest inventories was tested in the Blue Nile region, in particular Karkoj map sheet. Part of the data was obtained from a field survey conducted within the framework of an AFRICOVER project in 1996. In order to estimate the changes, a field mission was executed in 2005 to revisit the same plots determined previously. Earth Observation (EO) data in form of LANDSAT scenes were used to assess the estimated results achieved, based on the terrestrial forest inventories. For precise estimate, the EO data were taken in periods which coincide with the field survey data acquisition dates and season. At the LU/LC information level, the results obtained from the two applied methods were highly correlated. Meanwhile, the results taken from the two successive inventories (1996 and 2005) gave detailed information about the vegetation cover (e.g. species composition, regeneration, age, etc.). In the map sheet under investigation, the results showed that forest land was drastically decreased from 47.1% to 17.7% during the studied time period. Moreover, the study indicated that some of valuable tree species disappeared (12 tree species were recorded in 1996 compared with only 5 in 2005), and the number of stems per unit area also decreased from 116 to 105 per hectare. The conversion of forest into agricultural fields and grassland was a main force of deforestation. In conclusion, remote sensing and GIS are efficient tools to estimate the large-scale LU/LC and its dynamics in timely and cost-effective manner.


AIM: This is an open label, multicenter trial to determine the efficacy of the association of pantoprazole, clarithromycin and amoxicillin to eradicate Helicobacter pylory in patients with peptic ulcer. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Seventy-one patients (36 females, 35 males, average age 41.9 years) from three Brazilian university centers (located in the cities of Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre), with peptic ulcers confirmed by endoscopy, and infections by H. pylory proven by at least two diagnostic testings were admitted in the trial. An association of pantoprazole 40 mg, clarithromycin 500 mg and amoxicillin 1.0 g was administered to patients twice daily for 7 days. RESULTS: By the end of treatment all patients were examined for digestive symptoms, presence of adverse events, and treatment adherence. Sixty days after the end of the treatment a new endoscopy with biopsies and respiratory function testing with 13C-urea breath test was performed in order to determine the eradication rates of that microorganism. Patients showing negative results at least in the 13C-urea breath test and in one other test (urease or histology) were considered H. pylory-negative. By the end of the trial, 60/69 (87%, CI 95% = 78.9-94.8) patients had the H. pylory eradicated in the per protocol analysis and 60/71 (84.5%, CI 95% = 76-92.9) in the intention-to-treat analysis. One patient was withdrawn from the trial due to a diarrhea. Twelve (16.9%) patients showed adverse symptoms that were deemed as mild symptoms. CONCLUSION: Our conclusion is that the association of pantoprazole, amoxicillin and clarithromycin administered during 7 days is an effective and well-tolerated alternative as regards the eradication of H. pylory in patients with peptic ulcer in Brazil.


Because of its ice cover the central Arctic Ocean has not been considered as a sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide. With recent observations of decreasing ice cover there is the potential for an increased air–sea carbon dioxide flux. Though the sensitivity of the carbon fluxes to a climate change can at present only be speculated, we know the responses to some of the forcing, including: melting of the sea ice cover make the air–sea flux operate towards equilibrium; increased temperature of the surface water will decrease the solubility and thus the air-sea flux; and an open ocean might increase primary production through better utilization of the nutrients. The potential change in air-sea CO2 fluxes caused by different forcing as a result of climate change is quantified based on measured data. If the sea ice melts, the top 100 m water column of the Eurasian Basin has, with the present conditions, a potential to take up close to 50 g C m-2. The freshening of the surface water caused by a sea ice melt will increase the CO2 solubility corresponding to an uptake of ? g C m-2, while a temperature increase of 1°C in the same waters will out-gas 8 g C m-2, and a utilization of all phosphate will increase primary production by 75 g C m-2.


IntroductionWhen datasets are collected mainly for administrative rather than research purposes, data quality checks are necessary to ensure robust findings and to avoid biased results due to incomplete or inaccurate data.
When done manually, data quality checks are time-consuming. We introduced automation to speed up the process and save effort.
Objectives and ApproachWe have devised a set of automated generic quality checks and reporting, which can be run on any dataset in a relational database without any dataset-specific knowledge or configuration.
The code is written in Python. Checks include: linkage quality, agreement with a population data source, comparison with previous data version, duplication checks, null count, value distribution and range, etc.
Where dataset metadata is available, checks for validity against lookup tables are included, and the output report includes documentation on data contents. An HTML report with dynamic datatables and interactive graphs, allowing easy exploration of the results, is produced using RMarkdown.
ResultsThe automation of the generic data quality check provides an easy and quick tool to report on data issues with minimal effort. It allows comparison with reference tables, lookups and previous versions of the same table to highlight differences. Moreover, this tool can be provided for researchers as a means to get more detailed understanding about their data.
While other research data quality tools exist, this tool is distinguished by its features specific to linked data research, as well as implementation in a relational database environment. It has been successfully tested on datasets of over two billion rows.
The tool was designed for use within the SAIL Databank, but could easily be adapted and used in other settings.
Conclusion/ImplicationsThe effort spent on automating generic testing and reporting on data quality of research datasets is more than compensated by its outputs. Benefits include quick detection and scrutiny of many sources of invalid and incomplete data. This process can easily be expanded to accommodate more standard tests.


Robert Southey was a figure of major importance on the literary and political scene from the 1790s to his death in 1843. He lived through the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, the dawn of the industrial age, and the coronation of Queen Victoria. He was the contemporary and friend of Coleridge and Wordsworth, admired and vilified by Byron and Hazlitt, and became the foremost man of letters of his day. Yet so far has his reputation been eclipsed by that of his better-known peers that we don't even know how to pronounce his name (to rhyme with "mouthey", as Byron joked). This biography tells the story of a complex and contradictory man, the mirror of his age, and sets him centre-stage to provide a fresh perspective on familiar events and figures of the Romantic period. From rebellious youth to middle-aged conservatism, Southey earned his living from his pen - reviews, histories, translations, biographies and of course poetry: epics and narratives of prodigious length as well as anthology favourites such as "The Cataract of Lodore". He also introduced the story of "The Three Bears" to English readers and was appointed Poet Laureate in 1813. He engaged with all the political debates of his day, from the Corn Laws to the slave trade, and he was a devoted family man. Infuriating though he could be, he supported Coleridge's family throughout his life, and survived personal tragedies and public scorn, to emerge in this biography as a man of real nobility and heroism.


By using the active filler controlled polymer pyrolysis, new and cost-effective composite materials can be obtained. In this work, ceramic matrix composites were prepared by using this precursor route, using a polysiloxane network filled with metallic niobium and aluminum powders as active fillers. The mixtures were blended, uniaxially warm pressed, and pyrolyzed in flowing argon at 1400 °C. Porous ceramic preforms were infiltrated with a LZSA glass material, in order to improve the density of a porous composite material. The properties of the pyrolyzed composite material and the effect of the LZSA infiltration on the Al2O3-NbC-SiOC ceramic composite material were investigated. The results have showed that the infiltration processes has improved the physical and mechanical properties of the composite material.


This paper takes both a diachronic and a synchronic perspective on the empirical approach while exploring the emerging field of Albanology. While still applying methods elaborated during the 1960s, Albanian dialectology is considered widely researched. Other linguistic areas have focused on idiomatic written language, mainly that of print media (e.g., belletristic literature). Precisely because of this, in my view, spoken forms of Albanian have received only little attention. Empiricism in linguistics is as old as the field itself, but with that tradition comes an almost stubborn limitation to only a couple of methods applied. This needs to change, as empiricism is now present in all areas of science and has been revolutionized by digitalization.


This thesis is a critical study of contemporary sociological accounts of the politics of radical social movements (RSMs). The study of this class of movement was revitalised by the general political and cultural upheaval across western democracies at the end of the 1960s, and remains relevant now in what is characterised as a movement society. The classical Anglo-American agenda post 1968 was to repopulate the territory of modern politics with a strategic and reasonable radical subject, specifically, one explicable within a framework of political rationalism; however, I contend that two fundamental properties of RSMs complicate this sociological project. Firstly, the practice and theory of radical communities disturb the existing order of society and politics. They exist in a space that is marginal to the political community. They act outside the established standards of behaviour and transgress the conventional limits of representation. Secondly, in so doing, these radical communities undermine the prevailing discourses on the connection of the radical community to politics. That is, RSMs disturb social order and the discourses that have that order as their object; therefore, I argue that a consequence of deploying a rationalist framework to model collective action is the effacing of the difference and specificity essential to the radical subject. My hypothesis, then, is that the politics of RSMs (the practice and theory of radical communities) are inexplicable through the aspect of instrumental rationality that indelibly marks contemporary sociological studies, in particular Anglo-American social movement theory (SMT). I defend this thesis in two main ways. Firstly, I engage the sociological accounts of RSMs in a case study of the Italian social movements 1968-78. This sector involved a diverse field of radical communities including those of the worker, student, counter-culture, and women. Unlike the trajectory of the events associated with 1968 in other western democracies, the Italian situation lasted for over a decade and involved unprecedented levels of political violence. Through the case study I review two established social movement theories, SMT (particularly the work of della Porta and Tarrow) and New Social Movement Theory (NSMT, Melucci), and engage critically with Italian radical thought (IRT, Bologna, Berardi, Negri, and Tronti). I utilise their respective efforts to repatriate the radical community to politics after the tumult of the 1960s, to diagnose and evaluate the rationalist framework in the sociological study of radicalism. The case study facilitates an inquiry into contemporary sociological thought on the nexus of politics and the radical community in western democracies and its implications for explicating the radical subject of the Italian social movements 1968-78. Secondly, I show that attention to recent movements in European philosophy, against the instrumentalist deficit and identitarian vision of sociological discourse, helps elucidate the logic of politics in the 'age of social movements.' To this end, I will discuss a contemporary aesthetic theory of social movements (Ranciere). The intent of this engagement is to show how an alternative way of understanding the formation of a radical community can be put forth that retains essential characteristics of the radical subject (particularity and difference) and respects the epistemological work of this community. I will also outline the limits of such an approach for the analysis of political movements.


Abstract: Background and Objectives :  Professional ethics is part of midwifery skills that cannot be separated from it .Midwives must get acquainted with this skill and ethical laws, avoiding at the same time unethical manners. Materials and Methods : This study was cross-sectional survey which examined knowledge and attitude of 101 midwives that had been selected by convenient sampling procedure working hospitals of Mashhad. A questionnaire was used in order to collect data. Its validity and reliability was tested and established based on a sample of 20 midwives. The level of knowledge was divided into three groups: good (0.6-1), moderate (0.3-0.5), and weak (0-0.2). Results :  The results showed that the midwives' knowledge of gynecologic laws and professional rules was not sufficient and most of midwives had positive attitude (60.8%) but variables such as age, level of education, duration of work, work place, etc. didn't have any effect on their knowledge and attitude. In addition, data analysis didn't show any statistical relation between attitude and knowledge of midwives.


Flat ad hoc architectures are not scalable. In order to overcome this major drawback, hierarchical routing is introduced since it is found to be more effective. The main challenge in hierarchical routing is to group nodes into clusters. Each cluster is represented by one cluster head. Conventional methods use either the connectivity (degree) or the the node Id to perform the cluster head election. Such parameters are not really robust in terms of side effects. In this paper we introduce a novel measure that allows to form clusters and in the same time performs the cluster head election. Analytical models and simulations results show that this novel measure proposed for cluster head election induces less cluster head changes as compared to classical methods.


Experience and activity refine cortical circuits through synapse elimination, but little is known about the activity patterns and downstream molecular mechanisms that mediate this process. We used optogenetics to drive individual mouse CA1 hippocampal neurons to fire in theta frequency bursts to understand how cell autonomous, postsynaptic activity leads to synapse elimination. Brief (1 hr) periods of postsynaptic bursting selectively depressed AMPA receptor (R) synaptic transmission, or silenced excitatory synapses, whereas more prolonged (24 hr) firing depressed both AMPAR and NMDAR EPSCs and eliminated spines, indicative of a synapse elimination. Both synapse silencing and elimination required de novo transcription, but only silencing required the activity-dependent transcription factors MEF2A/D. Burst firing induced MEF2A/D-dependent induction of the target gene Arc which contributed to synapse silencing and elimination. This work reveals new and distinct forms of activity and transcription-dependent synapse depression and suggests that these processes can occur independently.


In this work, we introduce KnitKit, a flexible and customizable system for the computational design and production of functional, multi-material, and three-dimensional knitted textiles. Our system greatly simplifies the knitting of 3D objects with complex, varying patterns that use multiple yarns and stitch patterns by separating the high-level design specification in terms of geometry, stitch patterns, materials or colors from the low-level, machine-specific knitting instruction generation. Starting from a triangular 3D mesh and a 2D texture that specifies knitting patterns on top of the geometry, our system generates the required machine instructions in three major steps. First, the input is processed and the KnitNet data structure is generated. This graph structure serves as an abstract interface between the high-level geometric and knitting configuration and the low-level, machine-specific knitting instructions. Second, a graph rewriting procedure is applied on the KnitNet that produces a sequence of abstract machine actions. Finally, the low-level machine instructions are generated by adapting those abstract actions to a specific machine context. We showcase the potential of this computational approach by designing and fabricating a variety of objects with complex geometries, multiple yarns, and multiple stitch patterns.


AF-6 contains two putative Ras-associating domains (RA domains) which are seen in several Ras effectors such as RalGDS and RIN1. We previously showed that an AF-6 fragment containing the amino-terminal (N-terminal) RA domain directly binds to activated Ras and ZO-1 in vitro. In this study, we showed that a single amino acid mutation in the N-terminal RA domain of AF-6 abolished the interaction of AF-6 with activated Ras and that the sites of this critical amino acid residue were similar to those for Raf-1 and RalGDS. The overexpression of the N-terminal RA domain of AF-6 inhibited the Ras-dependent c-fos promoter/enhancer stimulation in NIH3T3 cells. Endogenous AF-6 was coimmunoprecipitated with activated Ras from Rat1 cells expressing activated Ras. Moreover, we showed that AF-6 was coimmunoprecipitated with ZO-1 from Rat1 cells. Taken together, these results indicate that the Ras-interacting region on AF-6 is structurally similar to that on Raf-1 and on RalGDS and that AF-6 interacts with activated Ras and ZO-1 in vivo.


MOTIVATION
Bacterial small ribonucleic acids (sRNAs) that are not ribosomal and transfer or messenger RNAs were initially identified in the sixties, whereas their molecular functions are still under active investigation today. It is now widely accepted that most play central roles in gene expression regulation in response to environmental changes. Interestingly, some are also implicated in bacterial virulence. Functional studies revealed that a large subset of these sRNAs act by an antisense mechanism thanks to pairing interactions with dedicated mRNA targets, usually around their translation start sites, to modulate gene expression at the posttranscriptional level. Some sRNAs modulate protein activity or mimic the structure of other macromolecules. In the last few years, in silico methods have been developed to detect more bacterial sRNAs. Among these, computational analyses of the bacterial genomes by comparative genomics have predicted the existence of a plethora of sRNAs, some that were confirmed to be expressed in vivo. The prediction accuracy of these computational tools is highly variable and can be perfectible. Here we review the computational studies that have contributed to detecting the sRNA gene and mRNA targets in bacteria and the methods for their experimental testing. In addition, the remaining challenges are discussed.


The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) is currently researching and developing an array-fed reflector antenna that flexibly changes the coverage area using a digital beam-former (DBF) and improves the frequency utilization efficiency using a digital channelizer (DC) for next-generation communication satellites in the Ka-band. The systematic error calibration of an array feed is very important because the influence of phase errors appears prominently in the characteristics of the antennas. We propose a self-calibration system for an array feed using a pickup antenna and gating process to realize a more accurate systematic error calibration for array-fed reflector antennas. The calibration values for the array feed are obtained from the coupling characteristics using a pickup antenna from which the noise is removed by a gating process. This chapter shows the proposed method, procedure, and calibration results of the radiation pattern in an anechoic chamber. In order to determine the measurement parameters of the proposed method by parametric study, only the characteristics of the array feed were measured and evaluated. The calibration values, with gating a width of 0.01 ms, were almost the same compared with reference values. The calibrated radiation pattern using the proposed method was compared with a simulated radiation pattern, and the deviation in the Hand V-planes within a ± 60 range was about ±1.0 and ±0.6 dB, respectively. This chapter shows that the proposed self-calibration using a pickup antenna and gating process is effective for a DBF array feed.


ABSTRACT Mobile technology has been designed to serve a number of functions relating to health, but we know little about individuals who use these tools to track sleep. This study utilized data from a cross-sectional, geographically diverse survey of adults in the USA (N = 934). Among the sample, 28.2% (n = 263) report current use of a mobile phone for sleep tracking. Income and gender were significant correlates of sleep tracking (p < 0.05). Compared to a poor diet, a reported "excellent" diet was associated with sleep tracking (p < 0.05). Interestingly, compared to individuals who never smoke, report of smoking "everyday" was associated with sleep tracking (p < 0.05). Finally, individuals who reported current use of their mobile device for other health functions (e.g., chat with their doctor or log symptoms) were more likely to report sleep tracking on their mobile device (p < 0.05). Results appear to suggest sleep tracking is common among individuals with good general health.


Background. Collimation of irregularly shaped clinical electron beams is currently based on electron inserts made of low melting point alloys. The present investigation compares a conventional electron applicator with insert and add-on eMLC-based dose distributions in the postoperative chest wall irradiation of left-sided breast cancer. Material and methods. Voxel Monte Carlo++ (VMC++) calculated dose distributions related to electron fields were compared with 10 left-sided breast cancer patients after radical mastectomy. The prescription dose was 50 Gy at a build-up maximum. The same dose was prescribed for the ipsilateral axillary, parasternal and supraclavicular lymph nodes that were treated with photons and calculated with a pencil beam algorithm. The insert beams were shaped with 1.5 cm thick Wood's metal electron inserts in an electron applicator of a Varian 2100 C/D linac. Doses for the eMLC-shaped beams were calculated for an eMLC prototype with 2 cm thick and 5 mm wide steel leaves. The same collimator-to-surface distance (CSD) of 5.8 cm was used for both collimators. Results. The mean PTV dose was slightly higher for the eMLC plans (50.7 vs 49.5 Gy, p<0.001, respectively). The maximum doses assessed by D5% for the eMLC and insert were 60.9 and 59.1 Gy (p<0.001). The difference was due to the slightly higher doses near the field edges for the eMLC. The left lung V20 volumes were 34.5% and 34.0% (p<0.001). There was only a marginal difference in heart doses. Discussion: Despite a slight increase of maximum dose in PTV the add-on electron MLC for chest wall irradiation results in practically no differences in dose distributions compared with the present insert-based collimation.


Exposure to IL-4 during activation of naive murine CD8+ T cells leads to generation of IL-4-producing effector cells with reduced surface CD8, low perforin, granzyme B and granzyme C mRNA, and poor cytolytic function. We show in this study that maximal development of these cells depended on exposure to IL-4 for the first 5 days of activation. Although IL-4 was not required at later times, CD8 T cell clones continued to lose surface CD8 expression with prolonged culture, suggesting commitment to the CD8low phenotype. This state was reversible in early differentiation. When single CD8low cells from 4-day cultures were cultured without IL-4, 65% gave rise to clones that partly or wholly comprised CD8high cells; the proportion of reverted clones was reduced or increased when the cells were cloned in the presence of IL-4 or anti-IL-4 Ab, respectively. CD8 expression positively correlated with perforin and granzyme A, B, and C mRNA, and negatively correlated with IL-4 mRNA levels among these clones. By contrast, most CD8low cells isolated at later time points maintained their phenotype, produced IL-4, and exhibited poor cytolytic function after many weeks in the absence of exogenous IL-4. We conclude that IL-4-dependent down-regulation of CD8 is associated with progressive differentiation and commitment to yield IL-4-producing cells with little cytolytic activity. These data suggest that the CD4−CD8− cells identified in some disease states may be the product of a previously unrecognized pathway of effector differentiation from conventional CD8+ T cells.


Purpose: Repeated use of CBCT in radiotherapy for patient setup and plan verification introduces non‐negligible dose to patients. In this work, we propose a method to effectively reduce the imagingdose by incorporating previously acquired CBCT into an on‐treatment CBCTreconstruction process. Methods: Three CBCT scans were acquired using a low dose protocol, 10mA/10ms per projection view, on a CatPhan 600 phantom. The first two scans represent prior existing scans while the third scan represents an on‐treatment low‐dose scan. In this study, the Karhunen‐Loeve (KL) transform is used to consider the correlation among the on‐treatment low doseCBCT and prior CBCTs in the projection domain. After the KL transform, the selected CBCT projection data are decomposed into un‐ correlated, ordered principle components. Then, a penalized weighted least‐ squares (PWLS) criterion is applied to restore each KL component. Different penalty strengths of the PWLS criterion are applied for restoring each KL component, which is inversely proportional to its corresponding KL eigenvalue. In such a way, a higher smoothing strength is applied on the component associated with a lower signal‐to‐noise ratio. After the inverse KL transform on the processed data, an FDK algorithm is used to reconstruct the on‐treatment CBCTimage. Results: The proposed algorithm is able to suppress noise while preserving edge information. The image quality of low‐dose CBCT processed using the proposed strategy is similar to that of a high‐dose image, which is acquired with a protocol of 10 times dose. Furthermore, this new strategy outperforms the PWLS algorithm without considering prior information based on the noise‐resolution tradeoff measure. Conclusions: Information extracted from previously acquired CBCT can be effectively utilized to suppress noise in on‐treatment low‐dose CBCT. The presented strategy can significantly lower the patient CBCT radiation dose without compromising the quality of the images.


Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to explore how the manufacturing and supply chain flexibility impact on the ability to transfer production between the units, i.e. production network coordination. To take advantage of available opportunities for different actors and locations, companies need to effectively transfer production. Design/methodology/approach-The case studied was a transfer of production between The Netherlands and Sweden. The case was selected based on the opportunity it provided to perform a longitudinal study of an ongoing production transfer. Findings-Different flexibility dimensions have different importance depending on the receiver or sender. A production transfer can be divided into four parts: knowledge, physical, administrative and supply chain transfer. The manufacturing flexibility have a high impact on the physical and knowledge transfer, the new product development dimension also have a major impact on the administrative transfer in combination with the supply chain flexibility dimension IT. The supply chain transfer was impacted by the supply chain flexibility dimensions except IT. Practical implications-The paper presents a first step towards a tool for analysing the strength and weaknesses within units in relation to receiving/sending production. Furthermore, that the production transfer should be viewed as four parts with interdependencies help to identify the order of the transfer process. Originality/value-This paper widens the flexibility concept to a network level. Furthermore, it describes the link between the strategic decision of coordination in the network and the operational ability of the network to accomplish this change.


Previous research showed that married individuals are overrepresented among the self-employed. Few studies proposed skill-spillover between the spouses within the marriage as an explanation. This paper deviates from the previous research by exploring different relationship contexts (e.g., cohabitation, being married or divorced, a widow(er) or single) and the role of partner influences under these contexts. It argues that the interaction between gender and relationship status implies variation in not only resources but also constraints, and hence sorts individuals into two different types of self-employment: entrepreneurial self-employment (i.e., incorporated business) and unincorporated self-employment. Using "Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) 1965–2005" data, results of the competing risk models show that marital status contributes to both types of self-employment transitions, especially for men, but also for women. Cohabitation is a less supportive context for entrepreneurship and a partner's self-employment experience increases only women's likelihood of entering into entrepreneurship. These results suggest that skill-spillover between partners might be context dependent and only in one direction (from men to women).


We described a 59-year-old female, who came to our institute with the diagnosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. The preoperative clinical diagnosis was stage II esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. The three-stage minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE), combined thoracoscopic-laparoscopic esophagectomy with cervical anastomosis, was performed in this case. The lateral-prone decubitus position and Harmonic scalpel facilitate the operation.


The strategic importance of relationship style contracting is recognised in the construction industry. Both public and private sector clients are stipulating more integrated and collaborative forms of procurement. Despite relationship and integrated contractual arrangement being available for some time, it is clear that construction firms have been slow to adopt them. Hence it is timely to examine how social exchanges, via unwritten agreement and behaviours, are being nurtured in construction projects. This paper adopted the concept of Psychological Contracts (PC) to describe unwritten agreement and behaviours. A conceptual model of the PC is developed and validated using the results from a questionnaire survey administered to construction professionals in Australia. The results uncovered the relationships that existed amongst relational conditions and relational benefits, the PC and the partners' satisfaction. The results show that all the hypotheses in the conceptual model of the PC are supported, suggesting the PC model is important and may have an effect on project performance and relationship quality among contracting parties. A validated model of the PC in construction was then developed based on the correlations among each component. The managerial implications are that past relationships and relationship characteristics should be taken into account in the selection of procurement partners and the promise of future resources, support and tangible relational outcomes are also vital. It is important for contracting parties to pay attention to unwritten agreements (the PC) and behaviours when managing construction projects.


This article provides a genealogy of the idea of an immigration industrial complex. The immigration industrial complex is the confluence of public and private sector interests in the criminalization of undocumented migration, immigration law enforcement, and the promotion of 'anti-illegal' rhetoric. This concept is based on ideas developed with regard to the prison and military industrial complexes. These three complexes share three major features: (a) a rhetoric of fear; (b) the convergence of powerful interests; and (c) a discourse of other-ization. This article explores why Congress has not passed viable legislation to deal with undocumented migration, and instead has passed laws destined to fail, and has appropriated billions of dollars to the Department of Homeland Security to implement these laws. This has been exacerbated in the context of the War on Terror, now that national security has been conflated with immigration law enforcement. This is the first in a two-part series on the immigration industrial complex.


Alastair Hugh Bailey Masson's career spanned anaesthesia's development from a time when whole time practitioners were rare to the scientifically and technologically based, highly specialist practice of today. He was a leader in that development, particularly in helping to solve the problems of open heart surgery during the late 1950s and early 1960s, in promoting the highest standards of individual patient care, and in contributing to the education and training of his younger colleagues, for many of whom he was a valued source of advice and support. Primarily a clinician he nevertheless recognised the importance of research to the specialty's development, actively encouraging and contributing to its performance. A major interest was the history of medicine, and this led to his appointment as honorary archivist to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, a position that he filled with great distinction.

Alastair was educated at Bathgate Academy and studied Medicine in Edinburgh, so following in the footsteps of that great pioneer of anaesthesia, James "Young" Simpson. After qualifying in 1947, he applied to undertake his two years of national service in the Royal Air Force, and was soon posted to Habbaniya in Iraq, but with a brief transfer to the much smaller base of Mauripur in Pakistan. This was to prove a …


A time-to-digital converter (TDC) has been designed, and six units have been constructed and tested. It consists of integrated digital time-interval measurement electronics with a /spl plusmn/10-ns resolution that can be improved to /spl plusmn/10 ps by an analog interpolation method. Identical construction of the interpolation electronics leads to stable performance of the TDC. The drifts of all six TDC units remain within /spl plusmn/10 ps over a temperature range from -10/spl deg/C to +50/spl deg/C. The stability can be improved further by a real-time calibration procedure developed here. The single-shot precision of the TDC is better than 15 ps (standard deviation), but precision can be improved to below 0.1 ps by averaging about 10 000 measurements at the maximum measurement speed of 100 kHz. The time range of the TDC is currently 2.55 /spl mu/s, but this can be increased by adding an external digital counter. The TDC suffers from a periodic nonlinearity over the measured time range from 0 to 1.3 /spl mu/s, the amplitude and period of the nonlinearity being /spl plusmn/20 ps and 40 ns, respectively. The reason lies in the integrated digital part of the electronics. The linearity of interpolation in the 10-ns time range improves, however, as more results are averaged.


An aligned carbon nanotube(CNT)array has been prepared on large area Ni-deposited silicon substrates via the pyrolysis of C2H2 using thermal chemical vapor deposition technique at 900°C. Ni nanoparticles were formed when Ni catalyst film was etched and conglomerated by NH3 pretreatment. Under the experimental conditions used, scanning electron microscope (SEM) images showed the CNTs films with 3090 nm in diameter and 17 m in length grown perpendicular to the surface of the substrates at an average growth rate of 102 m/h. Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectrum is carried out to identify the composition of the CNTs and EDX analysis demonstrated that the CNTs are formed as tip growth.


ABSTRACT The tRNA methytransferase NSun2 promotes cell proliferation, but the molecular mechanism has not been elucidated. Here, we report that NSun2 regulates cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (CDK1) expression in a cell cycle-dependent manner. Knockdown of NSun2 decreased the CDK1 protein level, while overexpression of NSun2 elevated it without altering CDK1 mRNA levels. Further studies revealed that NSun2 methylated CDK1 mRNA in vitro and in cells and that methylation by NSun2 enhanced CDK1 translation. Importantly, NSun2-mediated regulation of CDK1 expression had an impact on the cell division cycle. These results provide new insight into the regulation of CDK1 during the cell division cycle.


We report on observations of the candidate Be/X-ray binary (BeXRB) IGR J18219−1347 with the Swift/X-ray Telescope, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope ARray, and the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer during Type-I outbursts in 2020 March and June. Our timing analysis revealed the spin period of a neutron star with P spin = 52.46 s. This periodicity, combined with the known orbital period of 72.4 days, indicates that the system is a BeXRB. Furthermore, by comparing the spectral energy distribution of the infrared counterpart to that of known BeXRBs, we confirm this classification and set a distance of approximately 10–15 kpc for the source. The broadband X-ray spectrum (1.5–50 keV) of the source is described by an absorbed power law with a photon index Γ ∼ 0.5 and a cutoff energy at ∼13 keV.


One of the most important features of rural architecture is paying attention to design in accordance with people's innate needs and their environment and daily activities such as the type of people's livelihood spaces. Architectural examples of the harmony of biological and livelihood spaces in this type of housing are the depth of attention to people's lives and their needs, which has harmonized and created a cloud space with the story of people's lives. Such a view of life and paying attention to the needs and harmony with the natural environment has led to the formation of different forms of housing in the form of tents, camellias and monsoon or permanent housing. Rural architecture such as housing, or architecture of public spaces such as water storages, refrigerators, water and wind mills, house shoes (for fertility and plant growth), dams, etc. It is a great example of the book of people's lives, but the beginning of such an approach requires the development of rural housing and its re-reference to what it is and why. Such a process is an important step in the path of understanding, understanding and encompassing the subject that can have positive effects on explaining the principles and criteria of desirable rural housing, in this research, while addressing the concepts of rural housing and desirable rural housing, we investigate the importance of addressing this issue and finally the risks and risks surrounding rural housing and can eliminate these patterns.


A primary objective of shareholders' equity investment is the expected returns. The level of returns depends largely on the operational and managerial competences and effectiveness of the managers as reflected in reported financial statements. However, the quality of financial reporting in some cases appears to be questionable. Consequent to this, this study investigated the effect of financial reporting quality on shareholders' wealth maximization. The study population consisted of 173 listed companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, from which a sample of 10 companies were purposively selected based on the availability of complete and relevant data for a period of 10 years (2008-2017). Data were extracted from the published financial statements of the companies selected, while descriptive and panel data regression analyses were employed. The validity and reliability of the data were anchored on external auditors' certification of the financial statements in line with statutory requirements. The study found that Shareholders' wealth maximization was positively affected by the financial reporting quality (AdjR = 0.170; F(2, 98) = 41.96; p = 0.000). The individual effects of Earnings persistence (EPES) and Earnings smoothness (ESM) on Shareholder's wealth maximization (SHWM) were negative and statistically insignificant (β = -0.044; t(100) = -0.483 ; p = 0.629; and β = -0.038; t(100) = -0.460; p = 0.645) respectively. The study recommended that managers should exercise high level of competence and effectiveness in managing the shareholder's equity to ensure robust returns since this is key in attracting equity investments.


Chronic musculoskeletal pain is a common problem globally. Current evidence suggests that maladapted central pain pathways are associated with pain chronicity following e.g. post-operative pain after knee replacement. Other factors such as low mood, anxiety and tendency to catastrophize are also important contributors. We aimed to investigate brain imaging features that underpin pain chronicity based on multivariate pattern analysis of cerebral blood flow (CBF), as a marker of maladaptive brain changes. This was achieved by identifying CBF patterns that discriminate chronic pain from pain-free conditions, and by exploring their explanatory power for factors thought to drive pain chronification. In 44 chronic knee pain patients and 29 pain-free controls, we acquired both CBF and T1-weighted data. Participants completed questionnaires related to affective processes, and pressure and cuff algometry to assess pain sensitization. Two factor scores were extracted from these scores representing negative affect and pain sensitization. A spatial covariance principal components analysis of CBF identified five components that significantly discriminated chronic pain patients from controls, with the unified network achieving 0.83 discriminatory accuracy (area under the curve). In chronic knee pain, significant patterns of relative hypoperfusion were evident in anterior default-mode and salience network hubs, while hyperperfusion was seen in posterior default-mode, thalamus, and sensory regions. One component correlated positively to the pain sensitization score (r=.43, p=.006), suggesting that this CBF pattern reflects neural activity changes encoding pain sensitization. Here, we report a distinct chronic knee pain-related representation of CBF, pointing toward a brain signature underpinning central aspects of pain sensitisation.


This paper describes a self-adaptive sampled-data radar tracking loop. The adaptive tracking loop may be considered to be a low-pass filter with a variable bandwidth. The loop is designed to adapt rapidly to changes in the input signal by monitoring both the apparent error and the loop output. Results show a mean tracking accuracy 25 to 34 per cent higher than that of a comparable linear system at a receiver SNR of 10 db. In other terms, to attain the same accuracy the comparable linear system requires a SNR of 13 db. This improvement in performance is obtained with relatively little additional circuitry. In general, the degree of improvement obtained by adaptive tracking will depend on the compromises made in the design of the unadapted loop to track the most difficult type of target.


The processes and devices employed in narrative cinema are often subsumed by the visual nature of the medium. This exhibition brings together artists whose work investigates the cinematic process; creating narratives adopted or appropriated from film and the cine-novel, the works allude to the underlying psychological aspect that is integral to the creation of tension within cinema. The artists deconstruct these approaches and open up new questions surrounding the nature of cinema. They demonstrate how the re-interpretation of a scene or dialogue can alter its meaning, exposing the structured layers of the cinematic process. The presence of each piece within the darkened gallery space alludes to the cinema space as well as theatre. The exhibition identifies specific strategies used by artists to articulate their understanding of the role of cinema within both the historical and present context. This ongoing dialogue between art and cinema is constantly shifting and evolving, more so with the development and access to new technologies as well as to film archives. This has created an expanded framework and reference points from which we can extend our understanding of the moving image and its implications.


Abstract While controversy swirls globally about carbon emissions and electricity use, the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector has achieved significant, positive results already, especially in the developed nations. Some central processing units have reduced power use by 90% or more, and data centers are achieving previously unimaginable results in decreasing the use of electrical power. Several of the leading approaches to this improvement, sometimes called "Green IT", are discussed, including E-waste mitigation, data center economies like virtualization and PUE improvement, telework and telepresence, smart grid devices, power management technologies, cloud computing, and dematerialization. In addition, several ICT power rating systems and return-on-investment methodologies are examined. Finally, as a brief example of a national agenda for ICT-specific focus on energy management, the case of Australia is described. Even though ICT represents only about 3–5% of the world's electrical use, its aggressive, successful, and continuing pursuit of reduced electricity use and lower carbon footprint is a model for other sectors.


Background and aim: Peru is the country with the highest mortality rate from COVID-19 globally, so the analysis of the characteristics of deaths is of national and international interest. The aim was to determine the epidemiological characteristics of deaths from COVID-19 in Peru from 28 March to 21 May 2020. Methods: Deaths from various sources were investigated, including the COVID-19 Epidemiological Surveillance and the National System of Deaths (SINADEF). In all, 3851 deaths that met the definition of a confirmed case and had a positive result of RT-PCR or rapid test IgM/IgG, were considered for the analysis. We obtained the epidemiological variables and carried out an analysis of time defined as the pre-hospital time from the onset of symptoms to hospitalization, and hospital time from the date of hospitalization to death. Results: Deaths were more frequent in males (72.0%), seniors (68.8%) and residents of the region of Lima (42.7%). In 17.8% of cases, the death occurred out-of-hospital, and 31.4% had some comorbidity. The median of pre-hospital time was 7 days (IQR: 4.0–9.0) and for the hospital time was 5 days (IQR: 3.0–9.0). The multivariable analysis with Poisson regression with robust variance found that the age group, comorbidity diagnosis and the region of origin significantly influenced pre-hospital time; while sex, comorbidity diagnosis, healthcare provider and the region of origin significantly influenced hospital time. Conclusion: Deaths occurred mainly in males, seniors and on the coast, with considerable out-of-hospital deaths. Pre-hospital time was affected by age group, the diagnosis of comorbidities and the region of origin; while, hospital time was influenced by gender, the diagnosis of comorbidities, healthcare provider and the region of origin.


OBJECTIVE
Determine the impact of dietary risk factors on patterns of infection by heat labile toxin-producing Escherichia coli (LT-ETEC).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Ninety-eight infants were followed from birth for one year in Guadalajara, Mexico, beginning in august of 1986. Stool and breast milk samples were collected weekly from infants and their mothers, respectively. Mothers were also interviewed on a weekly basis regarding the health of the infants. Parametric hazard models were fit to durations of different LT-ETEC disease states determined through the analysis of stools. The child's consumption of supplemental foods and liquids as well as specific levels of LT-ETEC-specific breast milk antibodies were included in each model as time-varying covariates.

RESULTS
The hazard of LT-ETEC asymptomatic infection increased 400 percent among children who received oats gruel (hazard rate = 4.01; 95% CI 2.77-5.24). The duration of infection was reduced if the child had had a previous LT-ETEC diarrheal episode (2.12; 95% CI 1.74-2.49) but was prolonged if the child consumed herbal teas (0.53; 95% CI 0.27-0.7). Herbal teas and high LT-ETEC-specific breast milk antibody levels each reduced the hazard of symptomatic infection by ninety percent. Symptomatic episodes became asymptomatic more rapidly if a child was given rice water.

CONCLUSIONS
Specific weaning foods increase the risk of infection. Breastmilk antibodies and liquid infusions reduce diarrheal disease and infection duration.


Using social science narrative analysis, we studied how people who live next to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (Bwindi INP) in Uganda narrate about their situation. We found a dominant ambivalence narrative, which deviates substantially from win–win and traditionalist narratives, both of which have been produced by external actors about the same case. Each of the two latter narratives is associated with a broader discourse on protected areas in Africa. The ambivalence narrative describes a situation in which villagers are forced to pay a high price for conservation of the habitat of mountain gorillas. Nevertheless, it contains hope for the future associated with economic benefits from the park through tourism. When looking at the findings of 'realist' studies of costs, benefits and participation, we conclude the dissatisfaction to be well-grounded. Furthermore, we highlight types of changes that would have to take place if the hope for the future is to be realised. The ambivalence narrative constitutes a counter-narrative to externally produced wisdom.


Bacterial kidney disease (BKD) is a chronic systemic infection of salmonid fish. BKD has been a main threat to salmonid health, in aquaculture as well as in feral fish populations, all over the world during recent decades. Various disease manifestations have been reported, from the characteristic swollen kidney containing white nodules, to more diffuse signs and even of asymptomatic carriers. Regular screening programmes have been the most important possibility to prevent transmission, since no effective antibiotics or prophylactic therapy are available. BKD is caused by the Gram-positive bacterium Renibacterium salmoninarum, a slow growing and fastidious diplobacilli. Diagnosis has been complicated due to the difficulties in bacterial cultivation. R. salmoninarum can survive intracellularly in the phagocytic cells of the fish, resulting in a granulomatous reaction, similar to that in tuberculosis of mammals. Progress in the development of prophylactic methods to control BKD requires knowledge of basic immune functions in salmonid fish. In this thesis, techniques have been developed to study the immune response and immune functions in salmonid fish during the progression of BKD. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed to detect R. salmoninarum antigens in fish kidney. The negative-positive threshold value in the ELISA was determined based on the results of more than 400 kidney samples negative for BKD. The sensitivity of the ELISA method was tested on samples from populations with clinical or enzootic BKD. An improvement in the possibility to detect BKD in fish populations by the ELISA was demonstrated when compared with bacterial cultivation. Monoclonal antibodies to salmonid Ig were used in an ELISA for determination of the humoral response to R. salmoninarum by a non-lethal sampling. Elevated antibody levels were measured in populations of rainbow trout and salmon with clinical BKD. No correlation, of the antibody level and the occurrence of R. salmoninarum antigens in the kidney of individual fish, was found. A cell-mediated immune response was measured in rainbow trout with experimentally induced BKD by an in vitro stimulation of the lymphocyte population by R. salmoninarum antigens. Three monoclonal antibodies (Mabs) 1C2, 7A5/20 and 8H4/23 to lymphocytes of rainbow trout were developed. The Mab 1C2-positive lymphocyte population of spleen was indicated to have an influence on the immune response to BKD.


The enhanced warming effect possibly due to anthropogenic green house gas emissions has led to the derangement of global climatic mechanisms (especially at the interannual scale). This has led to the disturbances to the equilibrium of the Earth System and the interconnected self-regulatory processes. Terrestrial vegetation takes an active role in the regulation of the equilibrium of the Earth System by the processes of resistance and resilience. Whilst comprehensive and extensive modelling studies that investigate the effects of climatic change in terrestrial systems have been undertaken, few investigations have focused on the change and evolution in these systems from a holistic geophysiological perspective. In the first part of this thesis, econometric time-series modelling techniques were applied to National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index data sets in order to evaluate the responses of terrestrial South American vegetation to the interannual El Nino Southern Oscillation climatic perturbations. Lags between vegetation response and the El Nino Southern Oscillation perturbations are identified and quantified. The results indicate that the terrestrial vegetation loses its sensitivity to El Nino Southern Oscillation perturbations in the post 1993 period, leading to the hypothesis that the terrestrial system maybe showing a Gaian behaviour that would enable homeostasis in the system of concern. The null hypothesis of this was tested using a stochastic Auto Regressive Integrative Moving Average model, which further strengthens the argument put forward by the hypothesis. Further comprehensive analysis was performed by using the Hybrid version 4.1, a mechanistical model of vegetation dynamics to test the effects of varying changes in the phase and amplitudes of the El Nino Southern Oscillation on terrestrial vegetation. Simulations of different interannual El Nino Southern Oscillation climatic scenarios under varying trends for increases in atmospheric C02 concentrations confirm the possibility of such a homeostatic property in the terrestrial vegetation system within its geophysiologicallimits.


This study investigates the capability of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in creating innovative business solutions compared to human crowdsourcing methods. We initiated a crowdsourcing challenge focused on sustainable, circular economy business opportunities. The challenge attracted a diverse range of solvers from a myriad of countries and industries. Simultaneously, we employed GPT-4 to generate AI solutions using three different prompt levels, each calibrated to simulate distinct human crowd and expert personas. 145 evaluators assessed a randomized selection of 10 out of 234 human and AI solutions, a total of 1,885 evaluator-solution pairs. Results showed comparable quality between human and AI-generated solutions. However, human ideas were perceived as more novel, whereas AI solutions delivered better environmental and financial value. We use natural language processing techniques on the rich solution text to show that although human solvers and GPT-4 cover a similar range of industries of application, human solutions exhibit greater semantic diversity. The connection between semantic diversity and novelty is stronger in human solutions, suggesting differences in how novelty is created by humans and AI or detected by human evaluators. This study illuminates the potential and limitations of both human and AI crowdsourcing to solve complex organizational problems and sets the groundwork for a possible integrative human-AI approach to problem-solving.


Increasing complexity of distributed applications and commodity of resources through grids are making the tasks of deploying those applications harder. There is a clear need for standard tools allowing versatile deployment and analysis of distributed applications. We present here a solution for the deployment and monitoring of applications written using ProActive, an experimental Java-based library for concurrent, distributed and mobile computing. We describe the use of XML-based descriptor for the deployment part of a distributed application and the use of IC2D (Interactive Control and Debugging of Distribution), for the monitoring and steering of the running application. Those ideas, concepts, and experiments are a contribution towards the construction of integrated environments for component-based grid programming.


Liver tissue cirrhosis, developed in rats after long-term administration of CCl4, led to distinct increase in activities of acid phosphatase, acid DNAase, cathepsin D, beta-galactosidase and beta-glucosidase. When the treatment with the hepatotropic toxins was stopped activity of lysosomal enzymes decreased slightly but was maintained at the high level. Within a day after a single administration of choriogonine distinct decrease as compared with the controls in activity of all the acid hydrolases studied was found. Within subsequent periods the lysosomal enzymes activity continued to decrease and within 2 months after the choriogonine treatment it was distinctly lower as compared with control animals.


In a wireless mobile computing system such as ad hoc network or sensor network, it is very difficult to manage resources - the precious bandwidth shared by the mobile terminals and the energy in each mobile terminal - in an efficient manner, due to the lack of network infrastructure support. The difficulties are aggravated by the fact that the wireless link is highly unreliable with high-error rate and bursty errors, and thus, is a CSI (channel state information) dependent time-varying function. In this paper, we consider two important issues in mobile computing systems - routing in wireless ad hoc network and energy management in sensor network. We argue that the time-varying property of the wireless link can have a great influence on these two issues, and propose two schemes - channel adaptive routing in ad hoc network and channel adaptive energy management in sensor network under such CSI fluctuating environment. As indicated in our numerical studies, our proposed schemes outperform other algorithms without channel adaptation in that higher network throughput and energy efficiency are achieved in their respective application scenarios.


Extrusion tapping is a novel and important processing method of internal thread, carrying out research on the thread forming process can contribute to a better application of this process in more industrial situation. The principle of extrusion tapping of internal thread is introduced in this paper firstly, and then the simplified finite element model of extrusion tapping and the thread forming simulation is conducted. Next, the thread forming process and metal plastic flow law during extrusion tapping of internal thread are analyzed based on the simulation. Finally, the revised formulas for calculating extrusion deformation area and volume are presented and comparison are made with the referenced formulas, the results show that the revised formulas can express the practical extrusion deformation area and volume more correctly. Furthermore, the similar law between the revised extrusion deformation volume and extrusion force obtained from simulation are proved effectively.