Caffeine is one of the most widely consumed psycho-stimulants. The study of the beneficial effects of caffeine consumption to decrease the risk of developing several neuropsychiatric pathologies is receiving increasing attention. Thus, accurate and sensitive methods have been developed, mainly by LC-MS/MS, in order to quantify caffeine and its metabolites. These quantifications of caffeine and its metabolites by LC-MS/MS require a considerable effort to select or find a surrogate matrix, without the compounds of interest, to be used in the calibration curves. Thus, we evaluated the possibility of using calibration curves prepared in solvent instead of calibration curves prepared in human plasma. Results show that the calibration curves prepared in solvent and in human plasma were similar by comparing their slopes and interceptions, and the accuracy and precision were within the limits of acceptance for both calibration curves. This work demonstrates that, by using internal standards, it is possible to use a calibration curve in solvent instead of a calibration curve in plasma to perform an accurate and precise quantification of caffeine and theobromine.


The study of anthropogenic climate change is a research area of vital importance for the coming decades, with rainfall change and variability expected to be keenly felt in vulnerable regions of the world, including Africa. The focus of this study is daily rainfall during the short rains season over East Africa from October to December, which has one of the most coherent increasing rainfall projections in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) dataset. This thesis aims to examine the fidelity of coupled climate models over an East African domain, with the question approached through focus on the daily (rather than monthly) rainfall field. The self-organising map is used as a clustering tool to establish contemporary characteristics of daily rainfall events in reanalysis (ERA-40) and satellite (TRMM) rainfall datasets between 1971-2000 and 1998-2010 respectively for the East African short rains. Moisture flux divergence is found to be the circulation parameter that is most closely related to the presence of rainfall events or dry conditions over East Africa. Coupled climate models are poor at replicating the daily rainfall field over the domain. A key result of the analysis is the consistent overestimation of daily rainfall by climate models for days where dry conditions of suppressed convection should prevail. In contrast, the moisture flux divergence field maps well to dry nodes for days of the self-organising map array for the models. Dry days are associated with widespread anomalous moisture flux divergence and rainfall events with co-located anomalous moisture flux convergence. This is in agreement with the moisture flux divergence field in the ERA-40 dataset; it is the rainfall field where there is disagreement for days of suppressed convection. Twenty to thirty-five percent of the projected rainfall increase towards the end of the twenty-first century results from an increase in the proportion of days assigned to nodes of suppressed convection in six of the seven models and the ensemble mean. There is an accompanying projected rainfall increase associated with days assigned to these nodes. Such days in the 2090s are characterised by projected increased strength moisture flux divergence over East Africa. Given that the moisture flux field was more successfully simulated in the coupled models under contemporary conditions than the daily rainfall field, this suggests that rainfall projections under a high emissions scenario at the end of the twenty-first century are overestimated and that an important part of the key increase in the projected rainfall may not be real.


Author(s): Shemer, Noga | Abstract: This ethnography of the small Eastern Caribbean nation of Grenada explores what it means to today's post-Revolution generation to be Grenadian. The dissertation is both a study of postcolonial nationalism and a person-centered exploration of meaning-making in the face of complex national narratives. Through an analysis of ethnographic data collected during fieldwork from 2006-2009, I examine the dynamics between dominant ideologies about the nation and the personal worlds of youth as they make sense of their lives and country. In the first part, I examine public representations of the nation and argue that there are two master narratives circulating about Grenada and its people. The "Isle of Spice" narrative is future- oriented, and utilizes development rhetoric to unite Grenadians as one people, one family, advancing toward a more independent and prosperous nation. The "Island of Conflict" narrative encompasses the nation's unsettled and violent past, especially the period of the Grenada Revolution (1979-1983), and depicts Grenadians as conflict -oriented and divided. What is the relationship between these two narratives in the minds of Grenadians? In the second half of the dissertation, I explore the personal worlds of thirteen Grenadian youth. Through open-ended, in -depth interviews, this person-centered approach considers how individuals process public narratives in light of lived experience. Their meaning-making processes suggest: (1) contradictory narratives are differently internalized to manage cognitive dissonance, (2) politically alienated and uneducated about history, the youth focus on Grenada's economy and development, (3) the dual narratives foster a strong pre- and post-Revolution generational divide, (4) the common emic perception that Grenadians have a weak national identity must be examined in the broader context of the region's history and contemporary global power relations. By holding both public and personal worlds in focus, it is possible to discern the complex implications of the ways in which individual minds make meaning of national ideologies and, in turn, inform the thrust of these evolving national narratives. As subjects and agents, Grenadians are engaged in an ongoing process of defining themselves and their nation in the face of dynamic internal and external social, political, and economic pressures


Background We previously demonstrated that retinal ischemic perivascular lesions (RIPLs), which are indicative of ischemia in the middle retina, may be a biomarker of ischemic cardiovascular disease. In this study, we sought to determine the relationship between RIPLs and atrial fibrillation, a common source of cardiac emboli. Methods and Results In this case‐control study, we identified individuals between the ages of 50 and 90 years who had undergone macular spectral domain optical coherence tomography imaging. Individuals with atrial fibrillation were identified, and age‐ and sex‐matched individuals from the same pool, but without a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, were selected as controls. Spectral domain optical coherence tomography scans were reviewed by 3 independent and masked observers for presence of RIPLs. The relationship between RIPLs and atrial fibrillation was analyzed using multivariable logistic regression models. There were 106 and 91 subjects with and without atrial fibrillation, respectively. The percentage of subjects with RIPLs was higher in the atrial fibrillation group compared with the control group (57.5% versus 37.4%; P=0.005). After adjusting for age, sex, smoking history, hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease, carotid stenosis, stroke, and myocardial infarction, the presence of RIPLs was significantly associated with atrial fibrillation, with an odds ratio of 1.91 (95% CI, 1.01–3.59). Conclusions RIPLs are significantly associated with atrial fibrillation, independent of underlying ischemic heart disease or cardiovascular risk factors. This association may inform the diagnostic cardiovascular workup for individuals with RIPLs incidentally detected on optical coherence tomography scan of the macula.


Background Maternal psychological stress has been linked to preterm birth. However, the differential contribution of psychological stress versus stress hormones is not clear. Studies focus primarily on perceived stress and cortisol, with few assessing its inter-convertible hormone cortisone. Furthermore, little is known about the potential moderating roles of obstetric risk and fetal sex in the relationship between maternal stress and gestational length. This gap in knowledge is particularly evident for rural women who typically experience chronic multiple stressors during pregnancy. We explored the relationship of hormonal and psychological stress to gestational length and the effects of obstetric risks and fetal sex on this relationship among Kenyan pregnant women. Methods The sample included 130 women recruited between 22 to 28 weeks gestation. They completed a clinical and sociodemographic questionnaire together with the Perceived Stress Scale and provided a hair sample for cortisol and cortisone assay. Women underwent an ultrasound to assess weeks of gestation. At delivery, their pregnancy-related health problems were identified using information extracted from medical records to compile each woman's number of pregnancy risks on the Obstetric Medical Risk Index (OMRI). Results Perceived stress and hair cortisol were not significant predictors of gestational length. However, a greater number of obstetric risks on the OMRI was associated with shorter gestational length. This effect was further explained by the interaction between obstetric risk and hair cortisone (B = 0.709, p = 0.02). Hair cortisone levels of mothers who had a shorter gestation were significantly higher in mothers with 2 or more risks on the OMRI but not among mothers with only one or no risks (t = 2.39, p = 0.02). Fetal sex had no relationship to gestational length and also had no moderating effect on the relationship between any stress-related metric and gestational length. Conclusion Cortisone levels may increase in anticipation of shorter gestation as a compensatory response to increased obstetric risk. Elevated cortisone may be a more sensitive marker of risk for early delivery than cortisol or psychological stress, with salience for both the male and female fetus.


Sources of streaming information, such as news syndicates, publish information continuously. Information portals and news aggregators list the latest information from around the world enabling information consumers to easily identify events in the past 24 hours. The volume and velocity of these streams causes information from prior days to quickly vanish despite its utility in providing an informative context for interpreting new information. Few capabilities exist to support an individual attempting to identify or understand trends and changes from streaming information over time. The burden of retaining prior information and integrating with the new is left to the skills, determination, and discipline of each individual. In this paper we present a visual analytics system for linking essential content from information streams over time into dynamic stories that develop and change over multiple days. We describe particular challenges to the analysis of streaming information and present a fundamental visual representation for showing story change and evolution over time.


Network Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS) intercept the traffic at an organization's network periphery to thwart intrusion attempts. Signature-based NIDS compares the intercepted packets against its database of known vulnerabilities and malware signatures to detect such cyber attacks. These signatures are represented using Regular Expressions (REs) and strings. Regular Expressions, because of their higher expressive power, are preferred over simple strings to write these signatures. We present Cascaded Automata Architecture to perform memory efficient Regular Expression pattern matching using existing string matching solutions. The proposed architecture performs two stage Regular Expression pattern matching. We replace the substring and character class components of the Regular Expression with new symbols. We address the challenges involved in this approach. We augment the Word-based Automata, obtained from the re-written Regular Expressions, with counter-based states and length bound transitions to perform Regular Expression pattern matching. We evaluated our architecture on Regular Expressions taken from Snort rulesets. We were able to reduce the number of automata states between 50% to 85%. Additionally, we could reduce the number of transitions by a factor of 3 leading to further reduction in the memory requirements.


The small dasyurid marsupial, Ningaui yvonneae, feeds opportunistically on invertebrates dominated by the orders Hymenoptera, Coleoptera and Araneae, but is capable of, and will, consume vertebrates such as skinks. When presented with a choice of prey N. yvonneae exhibited a strong preference for prey items on the basis of size. It consistently selected small prey items over large prey items. Small prey items represented the most energy-efficient prey option as the ningaui can more efficiently capture, subdue and consume them than it can larger prey. The relationship between prey size and handling time was exponential, indicating that there is an upper limit to the ability of N. yvonneae to process prey. Moreover, smaller cockroaches provided greater energy gain than larger ones, indicating that the costs of eating larger cockroaches energetically outweighed the energy return. These results are in agreement with optimal foraging theory.


As mercury absorbed into body can cross the blood-brain barrier and react with DNA and RNA. Central nervous system has been known to be affected especially in children. But it was very difficult to know the influences of chronic low-does Hg exposure on the health. Although many studies investigated the affect, most of results were still disparate. In order to investigate the health effects of mercury exposure, several test were conducted for some Korean school children. The general health effects were investigated using blood test, Posturography and computer-based neurobehavioral test was done to examine the affect of Hg into neural responses. About 400 children were chosen for blood test whose blood Hg level were upper and lower 10% of population participated in the nationwide Hg exposure survey. The concentration of calcium and creatine, the number of white and red blood cell showed statistical significance with Hg exposure in blood test. Another 36 children were selected from the same participants for the posturography and neurobehavioral test. The intensity and center frequency of hand tremor which were related to unconsciousness also showed distinct significances. Any general relations with Hg exposure were not found in all test including computer-based neurobehavioral test.


A simple procedure for the isolation of animal mitochondrial DNA is described. It includes deproteinization of mitochondrial lysates with phenol, precipitation of total nucleic acids with polyethylene glycol, RNA precipitation by saet and final purification of DNA using gel chromatography on a Sepharose 4B column. MtDNA preparations obtained were free from protein and RNA and were represented predimonantly by the covalently closed molecules. The content of D-looped molecules in these preparations was equal to 45%.


Aloe greatheadii var. davyana or spotted aloe is indigenous to South Africa and widely distributed in the northern provinces. The plant has a vast ethnopharmacological application which is mostly attributed to its phytochemical content. The aim of the study was to examine the effect of abiotic stress factors on the plant's phytochemical content. The phytochemical content of A. greatheadii hexane extracts from four different provinces (Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, and North West), harvested from the wild at varied altitudes, rainfall patterns, and soil types, was examined using gas chromatography-mass spectra (GC-MS). The phytochemical content of hexane extracts from the four South African provinces was analysed using heat map analysis and hierarchical clustering dendrogram. The phytochemical content of A. greatheadii hexane extracts was composed of fatty acids, alkanes, benzene, carboxylic acids, ketones, phytosterols, and vitamins. Eicosane, henicosane, and [(2S)-2-[(2R)-4-hexadecanoyloxy-3-hydroxy-5-oxo-2H-furan-2-yl]-2-hydroxyethyl] hexadecanoate were the only compounds detected in all samples from the four provinces. The concentration levels of 2-(((2-ethylhexyl)oxy)carbonyl) benzoic acid, beta-sitosterol, tritetracontane, and ethyl 13-methyltetradecanoate were closely related and expressed a low clustering distance amongst the samples. Variations in soil pH, soil type, and rainfall patterns were detected and differed in the four provinces. The different abiotic stress factors affected the biochemical pathways for the different compounds, with conditions in Gauteng being less favourable for many of the compounds detected. Abiotic stress factors have shown to influence phytochemical biochemical pathways and quantity. Aloe greatheadii plants can be selected based on location seemingly due to the variations that persist in their phytochemical content.


Background Mobile technology (mHealth) is increasingly being used to achieve improved access and quality of maternal care, particularly in rural areas of low- and middle-income countries. In 2011, a mobile application—Mobile for Mothers (MfM)—was implemented in Jharkhand, India to support home visits by community health workers. The objective of this study is to assess the impact of the mHealth intervention on maternal health. Methods Households from three subdistricts in the Deoghar district of Jharkhand were selected using a multistage cluster sampling approach. Households from the Sarwan subdistrict received the MfM intervention, those from Devipur subdistrict received other interventions asides MfM from the implementing non-governmental organization (NGO), while households from Mohanpur subdistrict received the current standard of care. Women (n = 2,200) between the ages of 18 and 45 who had delivered a baby in the past 1 year were enrolled into the study. The primary outcomes of interest were maternal health knowledge, antenatal care (ANC) attendance, and delivery in a health facility. Results Post-intervention, women in the MfM group had higher maternal health knowledge, were more likely to attend four or more ANC visits, and deliver at the health facility when compared with the NGO and standard care group. After controlling for predictors, women in the intervention group significantly performed better than both the NGO and standard care groups on all three-outcome variables (all P > 0.05). Conclusion The results indicate that although the MfM mHealth intervention could influence adherence and practice of recommended maternal health behaviors, it could not overcome key sociocultural determinants of maternal health such as caste and educational status, which are specific to the Indian context. mHealth holds continued promise for maternal health but implementers and policy makers must additionally address health system and sociocultural factors that play a significant role in the uptake of recommended maternal health practices.


Video object extration is one of the most important areas of video processing in which objects from video sequences are extracted and used for many applications such as surveillance systems, pattern recognition etc.

In this research work, an object-based technique based on the spatiotemporal independent component analysis (stICA) is developed to extract moving objects from video sequences. Using the stICA, the preliminary source images containing moving objects in the video sequence are extracted. These images are processed using wavelet analysis, edge detection, region growing and multiscale segmentation techniques to improve the accuracy of the extracted objects. A novel compensation method is applied to deal with the nonlinear problem caused by the application of the stICA directly to the video sequences. The recovered objects are indexed by the singular calue decompensation (SVD) and linear combination analysis. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the stICA-based object extraction technique in content-based video processing applications.


In laboratory animals there may be produced a neutrophilic leukocytosis by infectious agents such as the pyogenic cocci, or by chemical substances such as croton oil. A less striking increase of the eosinophils has been produced by extracts of certain parasitic worms. Aside from the diagnostic significance of variations in the number of leukocytes in human blood, there are indications that the reaction of cells present there is a factor in the resistance to the infection. The development of a method 1 for the identification of endothelial leukocytes made it possible not only to determine the percentage of these cells present normally in the blood of experimental animals, but also to test the effect on the endothelial leukocyte count of bacterial and animal proteins and of chemical compounds. The guinea-pig was chosen for the experiments largely on account of its freedom from natural infections of a chronic nature. Blood is best


Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of mortality among infectious diseases globally, surpassing HIV. There were 1.5 million deaths attributed to TB in 2014, and 0.4 million of these were TB‐HIV co‐infected. The World Health Organization End TB strategy focuses on 95% reduction of mortality from Tuberculosis by 2035. The mortality rate of all TB in Kenya is 7%. There is limited information on the characteristics of patients dying after being diagnosed with TB in Kenya. Objective: To determine the characteristics of patients who died while on management for TB in Kwale County in the period 2012‐2016. Design: A retrospective cross‐sectional study Setting: Kwale County, Kenya Results: We reviewed mortality records of 330 out of 5957 cases notified between 2012 and 2016 giving a mortality rate of 6%.The males accounted for 180(54.5%) with the adults aged above 45 years comprising of 20% of all cases. Smear negative presentation was found among 141(42.7%), with 258 (78.2%) with pulmonary TB. The moderately malnourished accounted for 109(40.0%). The HIV negative accounted for 158 (48%) of all cases and 283 (86%) among new cases. Of the HIV positive patients, 109(73.0%) had been initiated on ART. There were 172 (52.1%) of deaths that occurred after 60 days of initiation of TB treatment. Conclusion: We observed a high all‐cause mortality rate among patients with tuberculosis in Kwale County. They were clinically characterized new patients, were HIV negative, majority of patients well‐nourished and death occurred after intensive phase of Tuberculosis treatment. There is need to consider other diagnosis among patients with these characteristics in the population. We recommend a follow‐up study to determine predictors of death and review of National data.


Classification of satellite images is a key component of many remote sensing applications. One of the most important products of a raw satellite image is the classified map which labels the image pixels into meaningful classes. Though several parametric and non-parametric classifiers have been developed thus far, accurate labeling of the pixels still remains a challenge. In this paper, we propose a new reliable multiclass-classifier for identifying class labels of a satellite image in remote sensing applications. The proposed multiclass-classifier is a generalization of a binary classifier based on the flexible ensemble of regression trees model called Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART). We used three small areas from the LANDSAT 5 TM image, acquired on August 15, 2009 (path/row: 08/29, L1T product, UTM map projection) over Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada to classify the land-use. Several prediction accuracy and uncertainty measures have been used to compare the reliability of the proposed classifier with the state-of-the-art classifiers in remote sensing.


The workability of excessively wet subgrade can be effectively improved by using a "green materials" based entirely on industry byproduct of combination of fly ash (FA) with carbide lime (CL) and flue gas desulfurization gypsum (FGDG). This paper presents the results of a further systematic investigation on the mechanical behavior and durability of FA/CL/FGDG treated silt from Dezhou in Shandong province. FA, CL and FGDG were added at 3 levels in percentages of 8%-24%, 2%-6% and 1%-3% by dry weight of the soils, respectively. The unconfined compressive strength as well as splitting tensile strength (STS), volumetric expansion (VE), California bearing ratio (CBR), dry-wet cycles test and freeze-thaw cycles test were performed. The best strength of 0.802MPa was achieved for 24%FA/6%CL/1%FGDG treated soil, while the 16%FA/6%CL/1%FGDG treated soil also produce good strengths of 0.742MPa, after 7 days curing. STS keeps increasing with curing period in the first 8 weeks throughout the investigation. According to the VE test, a mellowing period may help prevent swelling from ettringite precipitation by letting these minerals form and hydrate before compaction. The FA/CL/FGDG treated soil has a better durability with strength loss ratio less than 15% after 10 wet-dry cycles, and the maximum weight loss around 25% after 10 freeze–thaw cycles. CBR decreases with decrease of compaction degree, but the values are still around 70 even in a poor compaction degree of 93%, meeting the general requirements of subgrade. So, if the silt subgrade is in excessively wet state and could not be compacted to the required density, the modified subgrade would still serve as a strong platform and could provide necessary support for pavement.


Transpetro — the transportation division of Petrobras — operates approximately 10.000 kilometers of pipelines and 43 oil terminals. It is the main oil and gas logistic company in Brazil and one of the top companies in Latin America. This work presents a concise description of Transpetro's project to integrate these distributed sites. Most of the pipelines are remotely operated by the Operational Control Center (OCC), located in Rio de Janeiro, but there are also a number of pipelines and specific operations that are under the responsibility of the terminals, and these operations are called "distributed operations". These operations include pump and compressors control, valves alignment, products quality monitoring, and even some pipelines control not integrated to the OCC yet, such as the ones that are used to deliver final products to the distribution companies. Each of the Terminals has, or is receiving, an automation system including instrumentation, programmable logic controllers, communication and supervisory systems. Pressure, density, flow and level are some of the variables collected by the automation system and made available to the terminal operator. The system also allows the remote control of valves, bombs, compressors and other equipment. All this information gathered by the automation system becomes digitally available on the level of the terminals supervisory systems, which in Transpetro are mainly based on Intellution iFIX and Telvent OASyS. Therefore, other systems can access the supervisory systems and use its digital information for the benefit of the company. On the Operational side, there are some specialist systems that refine and sophisticate the level of information available in the supervisory system. One of these is the Leak Detection System, which interfaces with the supervisory system using data transfer protocols such as DDE and OPC, receiving the process data and applying a computational model that allows the operator to identify a potential leak. In a Logistic Company such as Transpetro, it is important to keep all the information concerned to storage (in tanks or pipelines), both current and scheduled operations, in a set of systems functioning in an integrated way. One of these systems is the homemade one called BDEMQ (Storage, Transportation and Quality Data Base). Transpetro is now implementing the interface between the automation systems and BDEMQ in all terminals. The technology used is a C and Java language-based interface through an Ethernet TCP/IP network. Hence, once Transpetro has all the data digitalized in its terminals' automation systems, it is possible to improve the level of control and information, increasing the support to the operators' and managers' decision taking processes.Copyright © 2004 by ASME


Between September 1986 and September 1991, 44 patients with lung metastases originating from an osteosarcoma of an extremity were treated with: primary chemotherapy, simultaneous resection of primary and metastatic lesions (when feasible), and then further chemotherapy. After primary chemotherapy, lung metastases disappeared in 5 patients, whereas in 11 patients they remained surgically unresectable. All 16 patients received local treatment of the primary tumor only. In the remaining 28 patients simultaneous surgical treatment of the primary and the metastatic tumor was performed. The removal of metastatic lesions was complete in 25 and incomplete in 3 patients. With a median follow-up of 8 years (5.5-10.8) all 14 patients who never achieved a tumor-free status died. Of the 30 patients who achieved remission 5 (17%) remained continuously free of disease and 25 developed new metastases, associated with local recurrence in 4 cases. The 5-year overall survival for all 44 patients of the study was 14%, and the 5-year disease-free survival for the 30 patients who reached remission was 17%. These results are significantly worse than those achieved with the same chemotherapy protocol in 144 contemporary patients with localized disease at presentation (73% disease-free and 79% overall survival). We conclude that, despite aggressive chemotherapy which is successful in patients with localized disease, the prognosis remains very poor for patients with osteosarcoma of the extremities with lung metastases at presentation, and justifies the use of novel therapies.


On the basis of an initial molecular modeling study suggesting the favorable binding of the "privileged" fragment 8-hydroxyquinoline with IN at the IN-LEDGF/p75 interface, we developed a set of modified 8-hydroxyquinoline fragments demonstrating micromolar IC50 values for inhibition of the IN-LEDGF/p75 interaction, but significant cytotoxicity was associated with these initial compounds. Diverse modifications at the C5 and C7 carbons of the 8-hydroxyquinoline core improved potency, but reduction of diversity to only modifications at the C5 position ultimately yielded potent inhibitors with low cytotoxicity. Two of these particular compounds, 5-((ptolylamino)methyl)quinolin-8-ol and 5-(((3,4-dimethylphenyl)amino)methyl)quinolin-8-ol, inhibited viral replication in MT-4 cells with low micromolar EC50. This is the first study providing evidence for 8-hydroxyquinolines as novel inhibitors of the IN-LEDGF/p75 interaction. Our lead compounds are drug-like, have low molecular weights, and are amenable to various substitutions suitable for enhancing their potency and selectivity.


We carried out pathomorphological study of fragments of the thoracic aorta obtained at aorto coronary bypass surgery in order to elucidate effect of statins on lipid component of vascular wall using the system of computer processing and image analysis. Treatment of patients with ischemic heart disease with statins leads to decrease of area of aortic intima occupied by lipids. Most significant lipid lowering action of statins has been noted at initial stage of atherosclerosis - in primary extracellular lipoidosis, less significant - in fatty streaks with intracellular lipids, and least significantly pronounced - in fatty streaks with secondary lipoidosis formed as a result of degradation of foam cells.


Introduction Recent case studies following swine flu pandemic show that pregnant woman are more susceptible to flu infection. Various studies have sought to find an association between fetal congenital abnormalities (CAs) and maternal flu infection. Methodology The authors performed a review of literature since 1950 in Medline and on the web using keywords 'Flu' and 'CAs' and collated the results. Results In 2005, Acs et al1 compared 22 843 Hungarian newborns with CAs with 38 151 matched controls and showed a higher prevalence of maternal flu in newborns with cleft lip, central nervous system (CNS) and cardiac abnormalities. Risk was reduced by the use of antifever drugs. A Finnish study in 1978 by Granroth2 compared 710 cases of CNS abnormalities with matched controls and concluded that CNS abnormalities were significantly associated with maternal flu infection. Coffey and Jessop3 4, in two Irish studies in 1953 and 1955 involving 12 552 and 663 women respectively, showed that defects of CNS were more common in infants of women with flu. An American study by Hardy et al5 looked at the 1957 flu epidemic and concluded that CAs were more common in women with flu infection. However, no increase in the incidence of CAs was noted after any of the flu epidemics between 1957 and 1968 by Leck et al.6 Conclusion Antigenic shifts, reliance on clinical observation, discrepancies between serology and symptoms, variations in the geography and the ethnicity of the populations make it difficult to establish a distinct pattern between CAs and flu. However, there is substantial evidence liking maternal fever with CAs.


Due to the high noise level of pixel-wise kinetic data in dynamic studies, direct model fitting of the kinetic data on a pixel-by-pixel basis requires many iterations and has high variability, making it unsuitable for generating parametric images of the micro-parameters of tracer kinetic models. In this study, the authors propose and investigate a spatially-coordinated method for image-wise nonlinear regression that allows good quality parametric images to be generated by direct model fitting. Instead of model fitting the kinetics of each pixel independently, the new method performs regression simultaneously in parallel for all pixels in the image with the intermediate results at each iteration step coordinated among neighboring pixels. The Marquardt algorithm is used to minimize the sum of square differences and a simple smoothing is employed for coordination of estimates at each iteration. The method has been implemented using MATLAB and has been applied to both computer simulated data and real FDG dynamic images. Results on simulated data show the estimates converge quickly with the new method. The estimates have a lower variability than the case of not having the coordination. On real FDG data, the new method is successful in generating good quality images of individual FDG rate-constants. Although further work is still needed to characterize the new method in terms of its many properties, the method is promising for generating useful parametric images of individual rate constants of tracer kinetic models.


Mitochondrial ferritin (FtMt) is a nuclear-encoded iron-sequestering protein that specifically localizes in mitochondria. In mice it is highly expressed in cells characterized by high-energy consumption, while is undetectable in iron storage tissues like liver and spleen. FtMt expression in mammalian cells was shown to cause a shift of iron from cytosol to mitochondria, and in yeast it rescued the defects associated with frataxin deficiency. To study the role of FtMt in oxidative damage, we analyzed the effect of its expression in HeLa cells after incubation with H(2)O(2) and Antimycin A, and after a long-term growth in glucose-free media that enhances mitochondrial respiratory activity. FtMt reduced the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS), increased the level of adenosine 5'triphosphate and the activity of mitochondrial Fe-S enzymes, and had a positive effect on cell viability. Furthermore, FtMt expression reduces the size of cytosolic and mitochondrial labile iron pools. In cells grown in glucose-free media, FtMt level was reduced owing to faster degradation rate, however it still protected the activity of mitochondrial Fe-S enzymes without affecting the cytosolic iron status. In addition, FtMt expression in fibroblasts from Friedreich ataxia (FRDA) patients prevented the formation of ROS and partially rescued the impaired activity of mitochondrial Fe-S enzymes, caused by frataxin deficiency. These results indicate that the primary function of FtMt involves the control of ROS formation through the regulation of mitochondrial iron availability. They are consistent with the expression pattern of FtMt observed in mouse tissues, suggesting a FtMt protective role in cells characterized by defective iron homeostasis and respiration, such as in FRDA.


This paper looks briefly at the beginnings of what has come to be known as communicative language teaching (CLT), then discusses current issues and promising avenues of inquiry. The perspective is international. CLT is seen to be not a British, European, or U.S. phenomenon, but rather an international effort to respond to the needs of present-day language learners in many different contexts of learning. Not long ago, when American structuralist linguistics and behaviorist psychology were the prevailing influences in language teaching methods and materials, second/foreign language teachers talked about communication in terms of language skills, seen to be four: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. These skill categories were widely accepted and provided a ready-made framework for methods manuals, learner course materials, and teacher education programs. They were collectively described as active skills, speaking and writing, and passive skills, reading and listening. Today, listeners and readers are no longer regarded as passive. They are seen as active participants in the negotiation of meaning. Schemata, expectancies, and top-down/bottom-up processing are among the terms now used to capture the necessarily complex, interactive nature of this negotiation. Yet full and widespread understanding of communication as negotiation has been hindered by the terms that came to replace the earlier active/passive dichotomy. The skills needed to engage in speaking and writing activities were described subsequently as productive, whereas listening and reading skills were said to be receptive. While certainly an improvement over the earlier active/passive representation, the terms productive and receptive fall short of capturing the interactive nature of communication. Lost in this productive/receptive, message sending/message receiving representation is the collaborative nature of meaning making. Meaning


ABSTRACT Background: Numerous studies found robust associations between psychosis and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but few have examined the relationships between psychosis and recently formulated ICD-11 Complex PTSD (CPTSD). Further, no known study has examined the effects of different traumatic life events on CPTSD and psychotic-like symptoms in a manner that permits gender-specific effects to be identified. Objective: Using a nationally representative sample of 1,020 Irish adults, we examined gender-differences in (a) psychotic-like symptoms, CPTSD, and exposure to 21 different traumatic life events, and (b) the unique associations between different traumas with CPTSD and Psychosis. Method: Bivariate analyses and structural equation modelling were performed. Results: Consistent with the literature, no gender differences were observed in psychotic-like symptoms. Females reported slightly higher levels of CPTSD and were more likely to be exposed to sexual and emotional abuse, whereas men reported greater exposure to physical violence, accidents, and disasters. Psychosis symptoms were explained by trauma exposure to a considerate degree and at a level similar to CPTSD; a moderate correlation was also found between CPTSD and Psychosis. Physical/emotional neglect was the only traumatic life event that significantly and most strongly predicted both conditions. Two gender-specific associations between different traumatic life events and CPTSD and Psychosis were identified out of the 42 possible effects modelled. Conclusions: The present investigation provides initial evidence that psychotic-like symptoms and CPTSD are moderately correlated constructs in the general population. Results also highlight the importance of conducting a detailed assessment of trauma history for all clients presenting with symptoms of CPTSD, psychosis, or both. HIGHLIGHTS Structural equation modelling of data from 1,020 Irish adults showed symptoms of psychosis and complex posttraumatic stress disorder moderately correlate. Physical emotional neglect was the only traumatic life event that significantly and most strongly predicted both conditions.


A cement which is used in construction and a concrete which is a hydration product of cement is considered anti-environmental materials because of lots of CO2 emission in progress of producing and making them. But a concrete absorbs CO2 gas in atmosphere after hydration and in its lifetime. It is called carbonation. Based on Papadakis' theses, this research is carried on calculation of the CO2 absorption quantity in concrete. After research, we calculated the CO2 absorption quantity in concrete which has various surface-finishes and we evaluate each surface-finishes the resistance against carbonation.


In this paper, recognition system for totally unconstrained handwritten characters for south Indian language of Kannada is proposed. The proposed feature extraction technique is based on Fourier Transform and well known Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The system trains the appropriate frequency band images followed by PCA feature extraction scheme. For subsequent classification technique, Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN) is used. The proposed system is tested on large database containing Kannada characters and also tested on standard COIL-20 object database and the results were found to be better compared to standard techniques.


Agricultural fertilization may change processes of elemental biogeochemical cycles and alter the ecological function. Ecoenzymatic stoichiometric feature plays a critical role in global soil carbon (C) metabolism, driving element cycles, and mediating atmospheric composition in response to agricultural nutrient management. Despite the importance on crop growth, the role of phosphorous (P) in compliance with eco-stoichiometry on soil C and nitrogen (N) sequestration in the paddy field remains poorly understood in the context of climate change. Here, we collected soil samples from a field experiment after 6 years of chemical P application at a gradient of 0 (P-0), 30 (P-30), 60 (P-60), and 90 (P-90) kg ha−1 in order to evaluate the role of P on stoichiometric properties in terms of soil chemical, microbial biomass, and eco-enzyme activities as well as greenhouse gas (GHG: CO2, N2O and CH4) emissions. Continuous P input increased soil total organic C and N by 1.3–9.2% and 3%–13%, respectively. P input induced C and N limitations as indicated by the decreased ratio of C:P and N:P in the soil and microbial biomass. A synergistic mechanism among the ecoenzymatic stoichiometry, which regulated the ecological function of microbial C and N acquisition and were stoichiometrically related to P input, stimulated soil C and N sequestration in the paddy field. The lower emissions of N2O and CH4 under the higher P application (P-60 and P-90) in July and the insignificant difference in N2O emission in August compared to P-30; however, continuous P input enhanced CO2 fluxes for both samplings. There is a technical conflict for simultaneously regulating three types of GHGs in terms of the eco-stoichiometry mechanism under P fertilization. Thus, it is recommended that the P input in paddy fields not exceed 60 kg ha−1 may maximize soil C sequestration, minimize P export, and guarantee grain yields.


A novel technique to analyze transient stability program swing curves is developed which uses the Fourier transformation. This approach generalizes the swing characteristics to specific frequency components over the range of time. The frequency components of the power system swings are identified in the frequency spectrum. These components can then be selected for further analysis. The mathematical process to determine the amount of damping in the respective frequency components is outlined. The damping constants can be obtained by comparing the magnitudes of the respective frequency components in different time windows. Good correlations of the results with conventional linear eigenvalue analysis have been observed. Advantages and necessary precautions in applying the method are presented. >


Background Previous studies on gender differences in aggression focused on physical aspects of the behaviour, and often showed males more aggressive than their female counterparts. This though, does not mean women are non-aggressive. In this paper, we examine the nature of women's aggressive behaviour towards men in their intimate partner relationship in two different societies. Methods The present study employs complementary methodologies to provide quantitative and qualitative data on intimate partner aggression. It applies the construct direct and indirect aggression to investigate aggressive behaviour in heterosexual intimate relationships in Ghana using the Direct Indirect Scales for Adult (DIAS-Adult), (n = 1204), and by analysing ethnographic interviews and observations conducted over two years in Bosnian Muslims in Närpes, Finland, in order to have a holistic and culturally meaningful perspective on aggression. Results Females were found to victimise and perpetrate aggressive acts more than males in Ghana. Findings on Bosnian Muslim women in Närpiö reveal the presence of direct verbal aggression and indirect aggression towards their intimate men partners. Survey and ethnographic findings within the two cultures converge in suggesting that women also employ aggression to deal with frustrations and conflict. Conclusions Through changing times, women are becoming increasingly active in their "male-dominated" societies and are becoming much more independent and self-motivated. From the two study results, we glean that developmental efforts to empower women have an impact on their use of aggression in intimate relationships and there is a presence of male victimisation.


Young Germany explores the revolt of the younger generation in Germany from 1896 to 1933. It is a readable history of the Free Youth Movement, one of the most significant factors in shaping modern Germany. Laqueur, who grew up in Germany, retraces the history of the movement, its central ideas, and its cultural background. Today his study is of even greater interest and importance than when it was first published in 1962. In his new introduction to this edition, Laqueur shows that the German Youth Movement can be seen as a precursor of contemporary youth revolt. It inspired all of the ideas which continue to preoccupy proponents and students of generational conflict today.


Immune responses in lungs of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) are poorly characterized. We conducted transcriptomic, histologic and cellular profiling of post mortem COVID-19 and normal lung tissues. Two distinct immunopathological reaction patterns were identified. One pattern showed high expression of interferon stimulated genes (ISGs) and cytokines, high viral loads and limited pulmonary damage, the other pattern showed severely damaged lungs, low ISGs, low viral loads and abundant immune infiltrates. Distinct patterns of pulmonary COVID-19 immune responses correlated to hospitalization time and may guide treatment and vaccination approaches.


During pregnancy, physiologic and anatomic changes can complicate the diagnosis of venous thromboembolism (VTE) as well as the management of patients with a high risk of or established VTE. As in nonpregnant subjects, clinical diagnosis of VTE by itself is unreliable and accurate objective testing is essential. Few diagnostic studies of VTE have been performed in pregnant women and, therefore, approaches are largely extrapolated from those used in nonpregnant subjects with modifications to limit the radiation exposure and overcome the limitations of diagnostic testing in pregnancy. Therapy of established VTE during pregnancy consists of therapeutic doses of unfractionated heparin (UFH) or low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH), generally given throughout pregnancy subcutaneously and for 4 to 6 weeks after childbirth. A key unresolved issue includes the optimum dosing of LMWH therapy. Maternal warfarin can be safely used after childbirth because it is safe to use in the breast-fed infant of a mother receiving warfarin. Finally, pregnant women with prior VTE (with or without a hypercoagulable state) have an increased risk of recurrent venous thrombosis. A recent study has demonstrated that for women with a single episode of prior VTE, many can be managed without anticoagulants. However, for many, anticoagulant therapy with prophylactic UFH or LMWH is a reasonable option.


A crucial question here is what, exactly, the conditional in the naive truth/set comprehension principles is. In 'Logic of Paradox', I outlined two options. One is to take it to be the material conditional of the extensional paraconsistent logic LP. Call this "Strategy 1". LP is a relatively weak logic, however. In particular, the material conditional does not detach. The other strategy is to take it to be some detachable conditional. Call this "Strategy 2". The aim of the present essay is to investigate Stragey 1. It is not to advocate it. The work is simply an extended exploration of the strategy, its strengths, its weaknesses, and the various dierent ways in which it may be implemented. In the first part of the paper I will set up the appropriate background details. In the second, I will look at the strategy as it applies to the semantic paradoxes. In the third I will look at how it applies to the set-theoretic paradoxes.


KidSat was a NASA pilot project wherein middle school students investigated their world with images of the Earth using a digital camera onboard the space shuttle. Students requested and retrieved Earth images in Student Mission Operations Centers (SMOCs) located in their schools using the Internet as their communications link while the shuttle was in orbit. In the SMOCs, students selected specific geographic sites around the world, determined the map coordinates for each site, and relayed the site data to a KidSat computer on the shuttle via a KidSat Mission Control Gateway (MCG). The computer then activated the KidSat digital camera mounted in the window of the shuttle, and the images were downloaded to the KidSat data system and posted on a web page for the middle schools students. The SMOC was a miniature mission control center modeled after NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston, TX, but with a very specific purpose: to image the Earth with the KidSat camera. The SMOCs had one primary task: target and verify images of the Earth to meet the objectives of their school's investigation themes. Students were organized into teams that planned investigations and associated locations to image, monitored orbit paths and flight timelines, checked weather conditions at the targeted sites, and provided public information to the local media. The SMOCs made the KidSat program unique and exciting as students actually used NASA technology in combination with school equipment to actively participate in a shuttle mission. Prior to launch, students gathered information, asked questions, hypothesized outcomes, and planned ways to test their hypotheses using the Earth images. From their studies, they were able to draw conclusions, for example, about the relationship between man and the environment. In a school setting, the application of knowledge is too often restricted to controlled science lab experiments in which the outcome is already known. KidSat opened a world of possibilities, allowing students to investigate issues using images to determine actual conditions. KidSat successfully adapted NASA technology for use in the middle school curriculum, expanding the horizons of those who were involved.


Water scarcity is a serious concern in emerging economies, as it impacts human development, livelihoods, environment and economic growth. Policies should be formulated in a way that reflects the problem of water scarcity and is oriented towards providing solutions. The science–policy interface can play a key role in translating scientific knowledge into policy action and in mitigating water scarcity of emerging economies like that of India. Hence, the paper aims to review scientific knowledge on water scarcity in India, and analyze the extent to which this knowledge is reflected in the water policies – to understand the science–policy interface. This has been done by extensive review of various scientific approaches used to assess water scarcity at the national and state level. The analysis indicates that Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat in the north-west, and Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in the south experience high water scarcity. To analyze whether this scientific knowledge has been translated into policy, existing water policies were critically reviewed. The paper, by identifying key policy areas, discusses challenges and opportunities for strengthening the science–policy interface, in the context of water scarcity mitigation. The paper argues that translating scientific knowledge into policy action continues to be a major challenge in India.


In order to deal with the small sample size (SSS) problem in linear discriminant analysis (LDA), a two-dimensional linear discriminant analysis (2DLDA) has been proposed [16, 25]. However, some discriminant information could be lost because the 2DLDA can be viewed as operating on the image rows or columns independently [24]. We know that the spatial correlation between neighbouring pixels in both vertical and horizontal directions tend to be high. This motivates us to consider other decompositions of the image. In this paper, a multi-block 2DLDA (MB2DLDA) is developed to consider the spatial correlation in which an image is decomposed into blocks of pixels where some of this local correlations could be captured when the 2DLDA is applied to the subimages instead of the whole image. Moreover, different facial regions have different degrees of importance in face recognition, so we combine the 2DLDA features of the different facial regions based on their degrees of importance. This can be done by weighting the 2DLDA feature of a block. In doing so, the verification performance is improved. We evaluate the approach on the face verification on the XM2VTS database based on a standard protocol defined in the database. The results show that the weighted MB2DLDA outperforms the 2DLDA.


SUMMARY Patients with chronic liver disease represent a susceptible group of the population who manifest numerous complications during the natural course of their disease. As liver disease is considered one of the most common forms of acquired immunodeficiency related to multiple defects in immune defence, infections are one of the main inconveniences associated with high morbidity and mortality. In addition, diagnostic, therapeutic and nursing procedures may influence the critical equilibrium of these patients and predispose to infection. However, the most important predisposed factor is the severity of liver disease and the mortality rate is associated more with the severity than with the etiology of the disease. Infections seen in chronic liver disease include not only spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) and spontaneous bacterial empyema (SBEM) but urinary tract infections, community or hospital acquired pneumonia, bacteremia, skin and soft tissue infections, endocarditis, and meningitis. Alcoholic subjects are also prone to develop pneumonia and pulmonary or peritoneal tuberculosis. On the other hand, a wide range of infectious sequels, involving almost any organ has been associated with esophageal variceal sclerotherapy (EVS). A significantly shorter series of infectious complications has been related to ligation (EVL). Clinical suspicion of infection should be high in any patient with a deteriorating clinical status, encephalopathy or worsening renal insufficiency, as fever may not present. Since long term prognosis of cirrhotic patients with repeated infectious complications such as SBP and SBEM is poor, survivors should be considered potential candidates for orthotopic liver transplantation. Cliniciansi higher index of suspicion of infection, together with the use of more efficient and safer antibiotics, may, for the present at least improve the short term prognosis of this group of patients.


G-quadruplex DNA structures are prevalent in genomes and are considered to play important roles in many important biological processes, which can be linked to many cancers and human diseases. The development of specific probes for G-quadruplex DNAs is thus of great interest in order to gain a deeper understanding of the role of these structures and functions. Herein, we designed and synthesized two new quinolinium conjugates with different styrene-like side groups as G-quadruplex DNA probes. Results revealed that the substitution pattern gave a great influence on the ability for the discrimination of the G-quadruplex from other DNA structures. Probe R-1 with a flexible side group displayed significant and distinctive changes in both the absorption and fluorescence spectra in the presence of G-quadruplex DNAs. Evaluation of R-1 interactions with G-quadruplex DNAs was further performed with fluorescence and absorption titration, circular dichroism, and molecular docking to validate the selectivity, sensitivity and binding mechanism. In addition, the application of R-1 for living cell imaging was also demonstrated.


In this paper, an image edge detection technique based on the ant colony system (ACS) is implemented. ACS is one of the many ant algorithms of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). The number of artificial ants, the total step number for each ant and the size of ant memory used in ACS is determined by applying genetic algorithm. Several reproductions of input image are obtained by nonlinear contrast enhancement applied to the input image. More than one image is passed through ACS and the outputs are integrated onto each other to generate one output image. A global threshold is applied to this very last image in order to obtain binary edge image.


Introduction Injury to the alveolar epithelium underlies a number of important lung diseases, exemplified by the syndromes of acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome, which currently have a poor prognosis. Keratinocyte growth factor (KGF) is a mitogen for, and exerts beneficial effects on, type II alveolar epithelial cells. Pre-treatment with KGF is associated with improvements in outcomes in animal models of lung injury, but the use of recombinant KGF as a clinical therapy is limited by its short bioavailability and lack of specificity. We sought to determine whether macrophages could be used as vehicles to deliver KGF therapy to the injured lung. Methods Macrophages from a murine macrophage cell line (IC-21) were transduced with a lentiviral vector expressing KGF and the reporter gene GFP. Mice were given oropharyngeal (OP) bleomycin to induce lung injury. On days one and three after induction of lung injury, mice were given 3×106 KGF-transduced IC-21 cells (or controls) by OP instillation. Mice were sacrificed on day 5, and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) was harvested and lungs were processed for histology. For in vivo tracking experiments, IC-21 macrophages were transduced with a lentiviral vector expressing luciferase and mice were imaged longitudinally using real-time bioluminescence imaging. Results KGF-expression was confirmed in KGF-lentivirus-transduced macrophages, however delivery of these cells was not associated with improvements in measures of alveolar-capillary membrane permeability (BALF albumin) or inflammation (total and differential cell counts) after lung injury. Cells expressing GFP were recovered in BALF, and immunohistochemistry showed groups of cells close to conducting airways. Longitudinal imaging of mice after OP delivery of luciferase-transduced IC-21 cells suggested that cells initially localised to the lungs, but did not persist at 48 h after delivery. Conclusions KGF-expressing macrophages can be generated using lentiviral vectors, but therapeutic delivery of these cells to the lungs did not improve measured outcomes in the mouse bleomycin lung injury model. Longitudinal imaging suggested that the lack of therapeutic efficacy of KGF-transduced macrophages may be due to their limited survival, and future work should focus on optimising macrophage delivery and survival in vivo.


Recent studies suggest that exercise alters the gut microbiome. We determined whether six-weeks endurance exercise, without changing diet, affected the gut metagenome and systemic metabolites of overweight women. Previously sedentary overweight women (n = 19) underwent a six-weeks endurance exercise intervention, but two were excluded due to antibiotic therapy. The gut microbiota composition and functions were analyzed by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and metagenomics. Body composition was analyzed with DXA X-ray densitometer and serum metabolomics with NMR metabolomics. Total energy and energy-yielding nutrient intakes were analyzed from food records using Micro-Nutrica software. Serum clinical variables were determined with KONELAB instrument. Soluble Vascular Adhesion Protein 1 (VAP-1) was measured with ELISA and its' enzymatic activity as produced hydrogen peroxide. The exercise intervention was effective, as maximal power and maximum rate of oxygen consumption increased while android fat mass decreased. No changes in diet were observed. Metagenomic analysis revealed taxonomic shifts including an increase in Akkermansia and a decrease in Proteobacteria. These changes were independent of age, weight, fat % as well as energy and fiber intake. Training slightly increased Jaccard distance of genus level β-diversity. Training did not alter the enriched metagenomic pathways, which, according to Bray Curtis dissimilarity analysis, may have been due to that only half of the subjects' microbiomes responded considerably to exercise. Nevertheless, tranining decreased the abundance of several genes including those related to fructose and amino acid metabolism. These metagenomic changes, however, were not translated into major systemic metabolic changes as only two metabolites, phospholipids and cholesterol in large VLDL particles, decreased after exercise. Training also decreased the amine oxidase activity of pro-inflammatory VAP-1, whereas no changes in CRP were detected. All clinical blood variables were within normal range, yet exercise slightly increased glucose and decreased LDL and HDL. In conclusion, exercise training modified the gut microbiome without greatly affecting systemic metabolites or body composition. Based on our data and existing literature, we propose that especially Akkermansia and Proteobacteria are exercise-responsive taxa. Our results warrant the need for further studies in larger cohorts to determine whether exercise types other than endurance exercise also modify the gut metagenome.


The use of military working dogs (MWDs) in support of military operations has increased dramatically over recent years, as they have proven to be our most reliable deterrent to improvised explosive devices. Healthcare delivery for MWDs in combat presents unique challenges and requires extensive collaboration between veterinarians and human health care providers (HCPs). A successful example is the incorporation of MWD emergency care for nonveterinary HCPs into the Joint Trauma System Clinical Practice Guidelines, which has proven to be a helpful product. Additional challenges that need further solutions include MWDs as patients in human medical treatment facilities (MTFs) and the procurement of appropriate canine blood components in an operational environment. It is often necessary for MWDs to be treated as patients in human MTFs, however, there is no Department of Defense guidance to support this activity. Access to MWD blood products is limited to collection of fresh whole blood in the operational setting. Similar to humans, specific blood component therapy, such as fresh frozen plasma, is often indicated for sick or injured MWDs. Currently there is no formal system in place to deliver any blood products for MWDs or to facilitate collection in theater.


At 14:46 on March 11, 2011 (local time), a large earthquake of magnitude Mw 9.0 took place, generating a tsunami that caused severe damage to the east coast of Japan. To comprehensively record tsunami trace heights and impacts along the coastal region, the Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami Joint Survey Group was organized immediately after the event. As part of this group, the authors conducted a field survey in Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures. The surveyed area can be divided into 2 parts from the point of view of its geographical features: the northern part (a rias coastal area) and the southern part (a coastal plain area). In this paper, the characteristics of the damage due to the tsunami in each area are analyzed by using both the results of the authors' own field survey and the Joint Survey Group. In the rias coastal area, inundation heights were more than 10 m, which resulted in the flooding of the low-lying grounds located at the inner part of the bays. The tsunami wave caused widespread destruction in this area, and coastal buildings (including reinforced concrete buildings) suffered severe damage. In the southern coastal plains, inundation heights were 5–10 m and the tsunami reached a few kilometers inland, though unfortunately there were not enough high locations or buildings for the residents to evacuate. In addition, an extensive line of coastal dikes and forests, which had been placed to protect the wide plains behind them, also suffered extensive damage. From these geographically dependent inundation and destruction patterns, a number of important lessons on how to modify and improve future risk management strategies can be obtained.


This paper considers robust guaranteed cost control problem for uncertain linear discrete time-delay systems with state delays and a given quadratic cost function. By linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach, we obtain new delay-dependent sufficient conditions for the existence of a memory state feedback control law, and derive a parameterized characterization of the guaranteed cost controller. Furthermore, incorporating with a minimization problem can optimize the upper bound. A numerical example is given to show the potential of the proposed techniques


The article deals with rejections of the mainstream society and subsequent foundations of alternative societies: monasticism, counter-cultural communities, utopias... The hypothesis is that all these counter-foundations share a common concern for a social life entirely controlled by human will (in alternative societies of religious kind, human will is intended to follow the instructions of divine will). A case study is analyzed: Catholic eremitism in contemporary Italy, with particular regard to ascetic practices, such as solitude and fast. These experiments of rejection of the world achieve only limited success, because of the overwhelming cognitive effort they demand. Such experiences help to understand how much of the normal social life passes unnoticed.


This paper demonstrates the advantage of applying Predictive Engineering in thermal assessment of a 279 I/Os, 6-layer, depopulated array flip chip PBGA package. Thermal simulation was conducted using a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool to analyze the heat transfer and fluid flow in a free air environment. This study first described the modeling techniques on multilayer substrate, thermal vias, C5 ball, and PCB. For a flip chip package without any thermal enhancement, more than 90% of the total power was conducted from the front surface of the die through the solder ball interconnects to the substrate, then to the board. To enhance the thermal performance of the package, the heat transfer area from the backside of the die needs to increase dramatically. Several thermal enhancing techniques were examined. These methods included copper heat spreader with various thicknesses and with thermal pads, metallic lid, overmolded with and without heat spreader, and with heat sink. With an aluminum lid and a heat sink, it gave the best improvement; followed by a heat spreader with thermal pads. Both methods reduced thermal resistance by an average of 50%. Detailed analyses on heat flow projections are discussed.


We present a forward-modeling simulation framework designed to model the data products from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). This forward-model process can be thought of as a transfer function—a mapping from cosmological/astronomical signals to the final data products used by the scientists. Using output from the cosmological simulations (the Blind Cosmology Challenge), we generate simulated images (the Ultra Fast Image Simulator) and catalogs representative of the DES data. In this work we demonstrate the framework by simulating the 244 deg2 coadd images and catalogs in five bands for the DES Science Verification data. The simulation output is compared with the corresponding data to show that major characteristics of the images and catalogs can be captured. We also point out several directions of future improvements. Two practical examples—star–galaxy classification and proximity effects on object detection—are then used to illustrate how one can use the simulations to address systematics issues in data analysis. With clear understanding of the simplifications in our model, we show that one can use the simulations side-by-side with data products to interpret the measurements. This forward modeling approach is generally applicable for other upcoming and future surveys. It provides a powerful tool for systematics studies that is sufficiently realistic and highly controllable.


ABSTRACT Economists view earnings as a primary driver of migration, both actual and intended. However, studies on the relationship between migration intentions and earnings yield mixed results. We argue that earnings are an important factor, but that problems related to sample selection and the complexity of migration decision making obscure this importance. Nevertheless, periods of economic turbulence prompt people to reassess their economic situation and when a study is conducted after such economic shock, it surveys migrants who had enough time to revise their mobility intentions but who had not already moved. We used data on remain/move intentions of Polish labour migrants to the UK, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands in 2009–2016. This was a period of high economic turbulence in the four host countries (Global Financial Crisis, the Euro crises and the Brexit referendum) paralleled by a period of steady improvement for the Polish economy. We applied multinomial logistic regression to probe the Polish migrants' return/settlement intentions, our results show that, in general, higher earnings encourage settlement intentions. However, as expected, this influence tends to fade away from view in times of economic calm but gains in importance when unexpected shocks force migrants to re-evaluate their plans.


Approximately 10% of the population has learning disabilities (LD). Although the main manifestations occur in childhood, many of the primary and secondary manifestations of LD can continue into adult life. The high prevalence of LD and the current economic climate in Canada imply that the primary care physician must have a role in the identification, diagnosis, and management services for persons with LD. Information about the specific aspects of a particular person's LD should be incorporated into the evaluation and management of other health matters with which the primary care physician deals. (Can Fam Physician 1989; 35:323-327.) RESUME


Price transmission studies related to the cointegration of price time series are a suitable means for studying market dominance at the various market levels in the food product chains. For this study a price transmission asymmetry study was carried out for 18 commercial food product chains. In this study a monthly price time series was used for the period 2001 to 2005. It was found that there is signifi cant product variation in market dominance which spans the entire industry. However, the variation is not signifi cantly linked to either sectors or vertical levels. At times it is unstable and can easily tilt toward the vertical partner level. Depending on price changes, it can also vary, which, in turn, refl ects changes in weather conditions. Following a radical change in prices, there is almost never enough time to achieve full price restoration before the onset of another price shock. The fact that prices are not fully restored may partly explain the continuing value divergence of agricultural prices.


Preclinical studies have demonstrated a relationship between DNA mismatch repair (MMR) status and sensitivity to cisplatin and carboplatin. MMR-deficient cells are resistant to both drugs, and selection for cisplatin resistance in vitro is sometimes accompanied by loss of MMR protein expression. We used immunohistochemical staining techniques to investigate hMLH1 and hMSH2 expression in paired ovarian tumor sections from 54 ovarian cancer patients before and after platinum-based therapy. We sought associations between hMLH1 and hMSH2 protein expression and clinical parameters known to be of prognostic significance as well as response to treatment and overall survival. hMLH1 and hMSH2 staining decreased significantly after platinum-based therapy. The percent of malignant cells that stained positive correlated with the intensity of nuclear staining for both proteins; staining for hMLH1 correlated well with staining for hMSH2. Unexpectedly, expression of nuclear hMLH1 correlated negatively with response to treatment. Expression of nuclear hMLH1 and hMSH2 was positively correlated with pretreatment CA125 level, and expression of nuclear hMSH2 was positively correlated with change in CA125 level after treatment. Tumor stage was associated with expression of nuclear hMSH2, and tumor histological subtype was associated with both hMLH1 and hMSH2 staining. No association was found between expression of either protein and overall survival. These results indicate that the tumor is biologically altered after chemotherapy consistent with treatment-induced selection for cells expressing lower hMLH1 and hMSH2 levels. However, immunohistochemical staining for either hMLH1 or hMSH2 was not highly predictive of drug sensitivity as measured by response or survival.


Maize leaf plays an important role in the synthesis of organic compounds. It hosts the interception of light energy and conversion to organic energy, and the capture and assimilation of carbon dioxide in order to produce food. In this study, we explore the heritability of the maize leaf length, leaf width, and the number of leaves of two maize genotypes, JNE and BLC. The estimates of heritability varied from 0.2 to 0.44. Only estimates for leaf width and leaf length are significant. The coefficients of genotypic correlation were between 0.45 and 0.66, and like the estimates of heritability, only the genotypic correlations between parents and offspring are significant for leaf length and leaf width of the two genotypes. The estimates of degree of genetic determination also known as heritability in the broad sense are all high. They range between 0.52 and 0.85. We determined a significance criterion for the degree of genetic determination, the critical value at the level of significance = 0.05. We evaluated three methods for finding the critical value. With two methods based on the algebraic transformation of a function of the Snedecor's F and a simulation based on that function of F, it can be concluded that the estimates of the degree of genetic determination of leaf width of both the JNE and BLC genotypes are significant. With the third method that is based on fitting a Beta distribution, the critical value helped to conclude that none of the estimates of the degree of genetic determination is significant. The Pearson coefficients of correlation between plant height and all three leaf traits showed significant correlation between them, except leaf length and number of leaves.

 Key words: Heritability, genotypic correlation, degree of genetic determination, genotype, significance test.


The paper is concerned with the geometric calibration of infrared imaging systems with a view to use them in both photogrammetry and remote sensing applications. From the geometric point of view, three quite different types of infrared imagers can be distinguished: 1. the pyroelectric vidicon camera; 2. the CCD camera with 2-D areal array of solid-state detectors; and 3. the thermal video frame scanner (TVFS). These operate in different parts of the infrared spectrum. The special optical and detector technologies used in these different devices are first reviewed. On this basis, a special target plate is constructed with its own internal radiation source that allows all of these devices to be calibrated geometrically. The actual experimental and calibration procedures are described, as is the method used for the automated measurement of all the targets using image matching techniques. The subsequent data processing and analysis are then outlined. The results obtained from the successful calibration of a representative sample of CCD cameras and thermal video frame scanners are presented and discussed in detail. They provide much new and accurate information on the geometric characteristics of these imagers that can be used in military, medical, industrial, and environmental applications.


Edith Wharton 1862-1937, the grande dame of American literature, was also a subtle and spirited critic of its society. Twenty years earlier, Kate Clephane had exiled herself from husband, child and the rigidity of New York society because of her guilty elopement. Now, living quietly on the Rivera, she is overjoyed to be summoned home by her daughter, Anne. But back in the charmed circle, she finds post-war New York, though changed in many ways, still locked into petty and snobbish constrictions. This touching study of complex issues shows how Kate s joy in being with Anne is soon threatened by the reappearance of the only man Kate had truly loved.


Rotaviruses are the single most important cause of severe diarrhea in young children worldwide, and vaccination is probably the most effective way to control the disease. Most current live virus vaccine candidates are based on the host range-restricted attenuation of heterologous animal rotaviruses in humans. The protective efficacy of these vaccine candidates has been variable. To better understand the nature of the heterologous rotavirus-induced active immune response, we compared the differences in the mucosal and systemic immune responses generated by heterologous (nonmurine) and homologous (murine) rotaviruses as well as the ability of these infections to produce subsequent protective immunity in a mouse model. Sucking mice were orally inoculated with a heterologous simian or bovine rotavirus (strain RRV or NCDV) or a homologous murine rotavirus (wild-type or tissue culture-adapted) strain EHP at various doses. Six weeks later, mice were challenged with a virulent murine rotavirus (wild-type strain ECW) and the shedding of viral antigen in feces was quantitated. Levels of rotavirus-specific serum immunoglobulin G (IgG) and fecal IgA prior to challenge were measured and correlated with subsequent viral shedding or protection. Heterologous rotavirus-induced active protection was highly dependent on the strain and dose of the virus tested. Mice inoculated with a high dose (10(7) PFU per mouse) of RRV were completely protected, while the protection was diminished in animals inoculated with NCDV or lower doses of RRV. The ability of a heterologous rotavirus to stimulate a detectable intestinal IgA response correlated with the ability of the virus to generate protective immunity. Serum IgG titer did not correlate with protection. Homologous rotavirus infection, on the other hand, was much more efficient at inducing both mucosal and systemic immune responses as well as protection regardless of the virulence of the virus strain or the size of the immunizing dose.


According to the dynamic theory and characteristics of the bridge modal analysis theories and methods for bridge were introduced which mainly included solving the nature frequency, mode shape, and damping ratio with the Rayleigh-Ritz method, subspace iteration method. And the application of bridge modal shape sequences and frequencies with their changes were illustrated in the diagnosis of the bridge disaster. Dynamic testing of the bridge should be measured for vibration mode and frequency which could be used to analyze the change of supports, constraints and other facilities of the bridge and to predict the working condition of the structure.


The sociology of music has often concentrated less on analysing and understanding the specificity and meanings of musical material culture as both an object and a process and more about ransacking music for insights into wider social relations like class, race and gender. The social constitution of music and the musical constitution of the social deserve a more sustained attempt at explicating relations and musical forms. This paper looks at the literature on what is specifically sociological about music and why music is important for sociology but also begins to problematize the relationship between social science and material culture by moving beyond popular music studies and the study of music more generally to examine the sociology of sound and sound art. We argue that this raises difficulties for the whole concept of the social as part of a human science and that new sound studies have to have a more nuanced and critical understanding of sociological epistemologies and the objects and processes they seek to explicate at the same time as understanding the material formation of music. Questions of knowledge and meaning are embedded in music and the paper concludes by thinking about knowledge and the materiality of music as knowledge.


A delay-locked loop (DLL)-based frequency synthesizer is designed for the ultrawideband (UWB) Mode-1 system. This frequency synthesizer with 528-MHz input reference frequency achieves less than 9.5-ns settling time by utilizing wide loop bandwidth and fast-settling architecture. Additionally, a discrete-time model of the DLL and an analytical model of phase noise of the delay line are proposed in this work. Experimental results show great consistency with predicted settling time and phase noise. The circuit has been fabricated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology and consumes only 54 mW from a 1.8-V supply. It exhibits a sideband magnitude of -35.4 dBc and -120-dBc/Hz phase noise at the frequency offset of 1 MHz.


at mean 34+1 weeks lead to emergency CS. One of these fetuses was growth-retarded (−36%) and was delivered at 29+5 weeks and had a subsequent normal development. Spontaneous onset of labor started in 17% at mean 34+6 weeks. Closing or closed gastroschisis was correctly diagnosed prenatally in 10%. In 2 of these cases, closed gastroschisis with subsequent short bowel syndrome occurred already before viability; the other cases could be delivered prior to irreversible bowel damage. Conclusions: The intense surveillance of fetuses with gastroschisis seems to be important for detecting cases at risk for fetal distress and may thereby reduce the risk of intrauterine fetal death. Especially in complicated cases, for example growth retardation, the CTG surveillance may be of utter importance. In addition correct diagnosis of closing/closed gastroschisis is possible and may prevent the risk of vanishing bowel.


A guide featuring books suggested by the staff, as well as a selection of Goucher College's common reading programs and books selected for the Administrative Employee Association Book Club.


We present a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the Utaka, an informal taxonomic group of cichlid species from Lake Malawi. We analyse both nuclear and mtDNA data from five Utaka species representing two (Copadichromis and Mchenga) of the three genera within Utaka. Within three of the five analysed species we find two very divergent mtDNA lineages. These lineages are widespread and occur sympatrically in conspecific individuals in different areas throughout the lake. In a broader taxonomic context including representatives of the main groups within the Lake Malawi cichlid fauna, we find that one of these lineages clusters within the non-Mbuna mtDNA clade, while the other forms a separate clade stemming from the base of the Malawian cichlid radiation. This second mtDNA lineage was only found in Utaka individuals, mostly within Copadichromis sp. "virginalis kajose" specimens. The nuclear genes analysed, on the other hand, did not show traces of divergence within each species. We suggest that the discrepancy between the mtDNA and the nuclear DNA signatures is best explained by a past hybridisation event by which the mtDNA of another species introgressed into the ancestral Copadichromis sp. "virginalis kajose" gene pool.


We present a wrist worn medical monitoring computer designed to free high risk patient from the constraints of stationary monitoring equipment. The system combines complex medical monitoring, data analysis and communication capabilities in a truly wearable watch-like form. The paper summarizes the functionality, architecture and implementation of the system.


Genetic engineering has produced a transgenic insect- resistant plant which produces a serine protease inhibitor (Hilder et al., 1987). More insects can be targetted if a plant can be made to produce thiol protease inhibitors. Hence this project attempts to do some preliminary work - purification and gene isolation of thiol protease inhibitors, which is necessary before plants resistant to insects using thiol proteinases as their digestive enzymes can be created. It is known that cowpea seeds contain thiol protease inhibitors. However, their protein sequences have never been elucidated. In the first part of the project, _it was attempted to obtain a pure thiol protease inhibitor. This was so that its sequence could be determined partially to construct an oligo-nucleotide probe to pick the gene coding for it from a cDNA library. In the second part of the project, it was attempted to isolate the gene coding for the bromelain inhibitor of pineapple, to clone it up and to sequence it. Though the sequence of this inhibitor has been known for years, its gene has never been isolated or sequenced.


The imaginary part of the reversible susceptibility and its harmonics are measured on hard magnetic materials by the modulation technique in a DC bias field. A singular point is observed in the second harmonic at the anisotropy field. An interpretation is given based on singular point detection approach.


The emergence of van der Waals (vdW) magnets has created unprecedented opportunities to manipulate magnetism for advanced spintronics based upon all-vdW heterostructures. Among various vdW magnets, Cr1+δTe2 possesses high temperature ferromagnetism along with possible topological spin textures. As this system can support self-intercalation in the vdW gap, it is crucial to precisely pinpoint the exact intercalation to understand the intrinsic magnetism of the system. Here, we developed an iterative method to determine the self-intercalated structures and show evidence of vdW "superstructures" in individual Cr1+δTe2 nanoplates exhibiting magnetic behaviors distinct from bulk chromium tellurides. Among 26,332 possible configurations, we unambiguously identified the Cr-intercalated structure as 3-fold symmetry broken Cr1.5Te2 segmented by vdW gaps. Moreover, a twisted Cr-intercalated layered structure is observed. The spontaneous formation of twisted vdW "superstructures" not only provides insight into the diverse magnetic properties of intercalated vdW magnets but may also add complementary building blocks to vdW-based spintronics.


FinTech offers a new way to mobilize resources for all kinds of uses – including for funding sustainable development. Roughly 3%-13% of funding required for the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)– or around $50 billion to $125 billion -- could come from a 'FinTech Dividend.' Such a dividend derives from the use of FinTech platforms to increase savings and investment (overall), channel resources into publicly funded as well as privately-funded SDG-related activities and policies, and encourage the use of internet platforms, which deliver novel goods and services that relate to the seventeen SDGs. Less than half of UN members have FinTech laws and policies – making FinTech a ripe area for right-regulating. Unfortunately, in areas like institutional reform – no amount of money can guarantee achieving the SDGs, without wider legal and administrative reforms. And no clear data about the exact policies needed to help grow an economy (or pay for SDG spending) serve as any guide. With total investment in FinTech stuck at around $150 billion to $200 billion – the hoped for deluge of FinTech dollars on SDG activities may remain a trickle for years to come.


Abstract Calcareous skeletons evolved as part of the greater Ediacaran–Cambrian diversification of marine animals. Skeletons did not become permanent, globally important sources of carbonate sediment, however, until the Ordovician radiation. Representative carbonate facies in a Series 3 (510–501 Ma) Cambrian to Tremadocian succession from western Newfoundland, Canada, and Ordovician successions from the Ibex area, Utah, USA, show that, on average, Cambrian and Tremadocian carbonates contain much less skeletal material than do post-Tremadocian sediments. Petrographic point counts of skeletal abundance within facies and proportional facies abundance in measured sections suggest that later Cambrian successions contain on average <5% skeletal material by volume, whereas the skeletal content of post-Tremadocian Ordovician sections is closer to ∼15%. A compilation of carbonate stratigraphic sections from across Laurentia confirms that post-Tremadocian increase in skeletal content is a general pattern and not unique to the two basins studied. The long interval (∼40 myr) between the initial Cambrian appearance of carbonate skeletons and the subsequent Ordovician diversification of heavily skeletonized organisms provides an important perspective on the Ordovician radiation. Geochemical data increasingly support the hypothesis that later Cambrian oceans were warm and, in subsurface water masses, commonly dysoxic to anoxic. We suggest that surface waters in such oceans would have been characterized by relatively low saturation states for calcite and aragonite. Mid-Ordovician cooling would have raised oxygen concentrations in subsurface water masses, establishing more highly oversaturated surface waters. If correct, these links could provide a proximal trigger for the renewed radiation of heavily skeletonized invertebrates and algae.


Abstract This paper deals with a low-speed aerodynamic and aeroacoustic analysis of the two-dimensional panhead section model that is a simplification of the pantograph used in high-speed railway (HSR). As a preliminary study of HSR whose actual operating speed is over 300 km/h, the present study considers the low-speed aerodynamics and aeroacoustics in which the speed range is between 120 and 180 km/h. The computational fluid dynamics-based analysis is performed using FLUENT and the low-speed wind tunnel test is conducted to verify the flow simulation as well. The aerodynamic noise is predicted using Ffowcs Williams—Hawkings equation without the quadrupole term. The present study suggests the use of a thin plate (i.e. lift generator) to generate the positive up-lift force that can provide the stable aerodynamic contact between the panhead strips and the catenary system. For a number of panhead section models, acoustic pressure fluctuations and sound pressure levels are analysed to identify the optimum plate length of the lift generator in terms of aerodynamic stability and aeroacoustic noise reduction.


Purpose: Remdesivir has become a part of the treatment standard for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 since its initial availability under the Expanded Access Program in March 2020. Here, we describe our evolving experience with remdesivir utilization during the pandemic. Methods: Medical records of patients prescribed remdesivir during March to December 2020 at a community teaching hospital were reviewed for baseline characteristics, clinical presentation and management, outcomes, and cost of remdesivir treatment. The pattern of remdesivir prescribing was compared pre- and post-formulary addition of the drug for use in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Results: Criteria for remdesivir use evolved from requiring mechanical ventilation to requiring low oxygen supplementation during the study period. A 3.5-fold increase in remdesivir use outside of criteria was observed after formulary addition when much of the prescribing was shifted from Infectious Diseases (ID) and Pulmonary Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) to the Internal Medicine service. Compared to Pre-formulary patients, Post-formulary patients had lower requirements for oxygen supplementation and more achieved early clinical response with <5 days of remdesivir (29.7% vs. 9.2%, p<0.0001), had significantly shorter time to stability (median 4 vs. 6.5 days, p<0.0001) and length of stay (6 vs. 10 days, p<0.0001), and lower mortality (9.9% vs. 15.5%, p=0.19). None of the patients who achieved early response and received <5 days of remdesivir had a COVID-related readmission or emergency department (ED) visit within 30 days. Potential cost savings per 100 patients is estimated at $35,000 with strict adherence to criteria and an additional $15,444 when treatment duration is shortened to 4 days in the early responders. Conclusion: Prescribing of remdesivir outside of criteria increased after it was no longer restricted to ID or PCCM specialists upon formulary addition. Provider education is needed to improve adherence to criteria-based prescribing. Shortening treatment duration in early responders can lessen healthcare resource utilization and cost without negatively impacting patient outcomes.


Genetic algorithms (GAs) have been successfully applied to optimization problems in a variety of applications in electromagnetics. In this paper, GAs are used along with a gradient-based direct search technique. The proposed hybrid optimization procedure was found to be efficient in most of the applications. The strengths of both techniques are used at different stages of the search. A magnetizer example is presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed technique.


cilostazol reduces the 12-month angiographic restenosis rate after percutaneous transluminal angioplasty with provisional nitinol stenting for FP lesions. The angiographic patency rate at 1 year after endovascular therapy was 80% in patients receiving cilostazol treatment in comparison with 51% in patients not receiving it, and cilostazol significantly reduced angiographic restenosis after endovascular therapy for FP disease. The cilostazol group also had a significantly higher event-free survival rate at 12 months, although the rate of cardiovascular events was similar in the 2 groups (83% versus 71%; P =0.02). Cilostazol reduced angiographic restenosis after percutaneous transluminal angioplasty with provisional nitinol stenting for FP lesions. See p 2307.


Distributed Constraint Satisfaction Problems (DisCSPs) solving techniques solve problems which are distributed over a number of agents.The distribution of the problem is required due to privacy, security or cost issues and, therefore centralised problem solving is inappropriate. Distributed local search is a framework that solves large combinatorial and optimization problems. For large problems it is often faster than distributed systematic search methods. However, local search techniques are unable to detect unsolvability and have the propensity of getting stuck at local optima. Several strategies such as weights on constraints, penalties on values and probability have been used to escape local optima. In this paper, we present an approach for escaping local optima called Dynamic Agent Prioritisation and Penalties (DynAPP) which combines penalties on variable values and dynamic variable prioritisation for the resolution of distributed constraint satisfaction problems. Empirical evaluation with instances of random, meeting scheduling and graph colouring problems have shown that this approach solved more problems in less time at the phase transition when compared with some state of the art algorithms. Further evaluation of the DynAPP approach on iteration-bounded optimisation problems showed that DynAPP is competitive.