ABSTRACT In rivers and at old mill sites there is a substantial amount of very low-head hydropower with head differences from 0.3 to 1.5 m. Much of this potential is unused since in these conditions modern hydropower technology is not cost effective. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Sagebien and Zuppinger wheels were developed for such situations. Recent model tests showed the Zuppinger wheel has a maximum efficiency of 85%. No such data are however available for the Sagebien wheel. At Southampton University, 1:10 scale model tests with Sagebien and Zuppinger wheels were conducted. Both wheels had maximum efficiency of 84%. The Sagebien wheel's performance curve was less affected by the flow rate. Contrary to the Zuppinger wheel, the Sagebien wheel's geometry avoids noise generation at the upstream blade entry. The results indicate that the Sagebien wheel is an attractive, although so far underestimated, hydropower converter for very low-head situations.


Given the steep dose-response relationship with cisplatin, a pilot study on very high-dose cisplatin (HD-CDDP) was conducted in previously untreated patients with advanced ovarian carcinoma and postoperative residual tumor (RT). Thirty-seven patients (FIGO stages III–IV; RT> 0.5 cm) received three courses of HD-CDDP (a course of 40 mg m−2 day−1 for days 1–5, every 28 days). Twenty patients (54%) achieved clinical complete response (CR), 12 (32%) partial response (PR), and the remaining five (14%) showed stable or progressive disease (NC-P). All 20 clinically complete responders underwent second-look laparotomy and CR was confirmed in all but five cases (pathologic CR: 40%) and in 71% of patients with> 0.5-2 cm RT vs. 15% of those with> 2 cm RT (P < 0.001). The 4-year overall survival was 35% (median: 27 months, range: 7–58+), and 53% vs. 20% for patients with> 0.5–2 cm and> 2 cm RT, respectively (P = 0.01). The overall progression-free survival was 29.5% (median: 16 months, range 2–58+) and for patients with more or less than 2 cm RT it was 20 and 41.2% (P < 0.05). Pathologically complete responders received no further treatment and showed a 3-year disease-free survival of 53%. The major toxic effect was a delayed-onset peripheral neuropathy observed in all patients, five of them (13.5%) with gait disturbances requiring continuous assistance. Nevertheless, none of them became wheelchair dependent and about 90% of the alive patients recovered at the 18-month neurologic follow-up, suggesting that cisplatin damage can be reversible. Ototoxicity was detected in all patients although only 19% of patients were symptomatic. HD-CDDP showed high activity in patients with> 0.5–2 cm RT, suggesting that the adverse significance of minimal RT may be partially overcome through an intensive chemical cytoreduction. Substantial neurotoxicity and the need for intensive care represent the major drawbacks. Further studies should delineate the exact role of HD-CDDP in optimally debulked patients, and a considerable effort should be made in rapidly achieving reliable data on the value of neuroprotectors in the prevention of the dose-limiting neurotoxicity.


Abstract Aeromagnetic maps of the Egersund Mid-Proterozoic igneous province show a spectacular range of positive and negative magnetic anomalies with a contrast up to 15 600 nT. The positive magnetic anomalies are over magnetite norites and overlying mangerites and quartz mangerites of the Bjerkreim- Sokndal layered intrusion. These rocks are dominated by multi-domain (MD) magnetite. The negative magnetic anomalies are over ilmenite-rich norites of the Bjerkreim-Sokndal layered intrusion, the Tellnes ilmenite norite ore deposit, and massif anorthosites. These rocks are dominated by hemoilmenite and/or by silicates containing fine-grained oxide exsolution lamellae. Electron microprobe analyzes of coexisting Fe-Ti oxides in the layered intrusion confirm earlier observations that oxides in early magmatic rocks are dominated by hemo-ilmenite with minor end-member magnetite, followed by more reduced oxides dominated by titanomagnetite with minor near end-member ilmenite. What is not fully understood is the property of ilmenite with hematite exsolution lamellae, or, even more striking, hematite with ilmenite lamellae, to produce strong remanent magnetization of high coercivity and with a Néel temperature equal to or above the Curie temperature of magnetite. This property makes the rhombohedral oxides an important candidate to explain some high-amplitude deep-crustal anomalies on earth, or strong remanent magnetization on other planets. A remarkable feature in the Egersund province is that primitive magmas produced rocks rich in hemo-ilmenite causing negative magnetic anomalies related to magnetic remanence, and more evolved magmas produced rocks rich in magnetite related to positive induced magnetic anomalies, all in the course of crystallization-differentiation.


As of recent years in shrimp industry women's job fulfillment is lower than men's, given that women's employments are regularly inferior as far as compensation, self-rule and special open door that decrease the presentation and ruffians wellbeing. The reason for this investigation is to get data on economic and social advancement of female shrimp laborers and discover the issue to improve the part of female shrimp laborers. The sample size is 40 by utilizing purposive sampling. Information was gathered by the immediate meeting of respondent. All data are analyzed in descriptive method based on socio-economic perspective, for example, age, marital status, family size, individual salary, health hazard, family income, living pattern and so forth. By field survey and investigation, it is finding that married women are occupied with shrimp work for their jobs since they are separated by their husbands. The family size of the respondents is high a direct result of polygamy. Their pay level and consumption level is practically same. Since their pay level is lower yet they can't cut their measure of use. The living pattern of the respondents isn't all that great. The outstanding task at hand is twofold which trouble for them to work appropriately is. They face different medical issues and they don't get the best possible offices from the proprietor. This dissertation represents these suggestions that women workers of shrimp industries need training, significant compensation, maternity leave, well living pattern, lessen their remaining burden, legitimate wellbeing offices for improving their financial condition, way of life and wellbeing profile. Watchwords: Shrimp firm, female workers, employments, financial condition, maternity leave.


The Judgement of Paris has been one of the most influential and popular myths throughout antiquity. Significant work has been done by previous scholars on the collection and analysis of artistic representations of the Judgement. This thesis is also looking into the Judgement of Paris in ancient Greek art, but it mainly focuses on the collection and analysis of the references to the myth in Greek literature from the eighth century B.C. to the second century A.D. Special attention is paid to recurring themes and ideological implications that the Judgement story raises, as well as to the interaction between those themes and specific genres. The detailed account and analysis of the references available sheds light not only on the perception of the myth itself, but also on conceptions of morality, beauty, gods, free choice, responsibility and even humour in antiquity. Through this thesis it is possible to see the transformations of the Judgement of Paris throughout centuries of literature, from its very first appearance in Homer's Iliad to the enjoyable world of Lucian, realising the vast possibilities of this mythological tradition.


This is a combined guide for the Police Foundations, Community & Justice Services and Protection, Security & Investigation programs. Policing, Police, justice, offender rehabilitation, justice, private security, private investigation, community safety,


The selective catalysis reduction (SCR) is one of the most promising technologies for NOx reduction at present. There are three types of NH3-SCR catalysts in the market, honeycomb catalyst, plate-types catalyst and corrugated catalyst. This paper firstly describes the preparation of the three types of catalysts, and then analyzes their performance. The analysis indicates the catalyst structure plays an important role on their performance. The honeycomb catalyst and plate-type catalyst are widely utilized in world's coal power station, which should be due to their excellent capabilities of ash prevention, wear resistance and anti-poisoning.


Characterization and analysis of climatic signal in chronologies of Fagus sylvatica L. and Quercus robur L. in the central Cantabrian region, Spain In this work, the climatic responses of three beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) and three oak (Quercus robur L.) tree-ring chronologies in the central Cantabrian region, were analyzed. Regional temperature and precipitation data, and the climatic teleconnection indices of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), were used as climatic predictors. Very similar interannual ring-width variability among chronologies of different species and localities was displayed. Chronologies of the same species and similar altitudes showed the highest cross-correlations, which were significant at widest timescales. Periodic signals of a variety of frequencies that coincided with signals characteristic of NAO indices, were discovered in the chronologies. Between 52 to 64% of growth variance was explained by regional climate, while 13 to 27% was related to monthly NAO indices. High summer temperatures in the year prior to ring formation and low winter temperatures limited beech growth at altitudes over 700 m. Oak radial growth at lower altitudes was limited by high spring temperatures in the previous year and summer drought in the year the ring was formed. Growth of both species displayed negative relationship with winter NAO indices, in the previous year for beech and in the current year for oak. Moreover, oak exhibited a negative correlation with NAO indices in the late summer of previous year. The obtained results suggest that more exhaustive research, regarding the characterization of radial growth and the analysis of its climatic response along the complete Cantabrian region, is required.


BACKGROUND
Experimental data have suggested that hypothermia (32-34 degrees C) may improve outcome after cerebral ischaemia, but its efficacy has not yet been established conclusively in humans. In this study we examined the feasibility and safety of deliberate moderate perioperative hypothermia during operations for subarachnoid aneurysms.

METHODS
A total of 359 operations for intracranial cerebral aneurysms were included in this prospective study. By using cold intravenous infusions (4 degrees C) and convective cooling our aim was to reduce the patient's core temperature to more than 34 degrees C within 1 h before operation. The protocol assessed postoperative complications such as infections, prolonged mechanical ventilation, pulmonary complications and coagulopathies.

RESULTS
During surgery, the body temperature was reduced to a mean of 32.5 (SD 0.4) degrees C. Cooling was accomplished at a rate of 4.0 (SD 0.4) degrees C h(-1). All patients were normothermic at 5 (sd 2) h postoperatively. Peri/postoperative complications included circulatory instability (n=36, 10%), arrhythmias (n=17, 5%) coagulation abnormalities and blood transfusion (n=169, 47%), infections (n=29, 8%) and pulmonary complications (infiltrate or oedema while on ventilatory support) (n=97, 27%). Eighteen patients died within 30 days (5%). There was no significant correlation between the extent of hypothermia and any of the complications. However, there was a strong correlation between the occurrence of complications and the severity of the underlying neurological disease as assessed by the Hunt and Hess score.

CONCLUSION
Moderate hypothermia accomplished within 1 h of induction of anaesthesia and maintained during surgery for subarachnoid aneurysms appears to be a safe method as far as the risks of peri/postoperative complications such as circulatory instability, coagulation abnormalities and infections are concerned.


Background
Multiple sclerosis (MS) detrimentally affects cognition and quality of life (QOL). Interventions that can improve cognitive deficit and QOL in individuals with MS are desired. This pilot study investigated the possible effects of vibration training on improving cognition and QOL in individuals with MS.

Methods
Eighteen adults with MS were randomized into 2 groups: training and control. The training group underwent 6 weeks of vibration training, and the control group maintained their normal lifestyle throughout the study. In both groups, before and after the training course, the disability status was evaluated by the Patient Determined Disease Steps scale and the Multiple Sclerosis Functional Composite (MSFC), cognitive function was assessed by the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Adults (BRIEF-A) and the Buschke Selective Reminding Test (SRT), and QOL was gauged by the 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36).

Results
The training was well accepted by the participants, and no major adverse event was reported. All participants finished the entire protocol. Compared with the control group, the training group showed greater improvements in MSFC score, Metacognition Index score of the BRIEF, SRT score, and physical domain score of the SF-36.

Conclusions
These results suggest that vibration training could be an effective alternative training paradigm to enhance cognition and QOL in individuals with MS, and they provide an encouraging base to conduct a large-scale clinical trial.


Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the major pulmonary pathogen that causes morbidity and mortality in burned, immunocompromised and cystic fibrosis patients. Among the various virulence factors, type IV-pili, play a major role in mediating bacteria-host cells interactions, in formation of biofilm and for twiching motility.These pili are composed of pilin, 15000-16000 molecular weight monomeric subunit, synthesized from pilA gene. The N-terminal region of pilin protein is strong conserved and is important for the oligomerization.The C-terminal region is less conserved and contains a disulfide-bonded loop (DSL) structure that is thought to interact with the eukaryotic glycolipid receptor "asialo GM1". Analysis of pilin allele distribution among isolates from various sources revealed the presence of six groups of pilin allels characterized by different DSL sequence and different associated accessory genes in pilA chromosomal locus. 81 P. aeruginosa isolates were recovered from cystic fibrosis patients during a 3 years period. 30 of these strains were grown and their genomic DNA was prepared using a rapid method for gram-negative bacteria. PCR primers were used for amplification of pilA and adjacent sequences revealing the presence of three different amplification products. One of these is highly homologous with pilA gene of PA14 strain, the others are identical to PA103 and PAK pilA genes. Our study revealed in the prevalence of isolates with group II pilin genes from Cystic Fibrosis compared with other groups that are predominant in previous studies.


Background: The demand for home-based health care support providers (HB providers) is growing as the locus of care shifts to private homes. However, industry representative data of these workers are limited. Methods: Washington Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (WA BRFSS) data from 2011 to 2016 were analyzed to compare HB providers (n = 385) with health care support occupations not based in the home, non-HB providers (n = 229), and all other occupations (n = 32,011). Findings: More HB providers were overweight (4.2%, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [3.3%, 5.2%]) than non-HB providers and all other occupations. Significantly more HB providers had arthritis (33.2%, 95% CI = [27.0%, 39.4%]) and diabetes (9.4%, 95% CI = [5.7%, 13.2%]) than non-HB providers. Nearly twice as many HB providers currently smoked (31.3%, 95% CI = [24.2%, 38.4%]) than non-HB providers. Significantly more HB providers reported serious mental illness (6.8%, 95% CI = [2.8%, 10.7%]) than all other occupations (2.2%). Conclusion/Application to Practice: It is imperative to maintain good health in this home-based health care population as these workers are aging and their professional time becomes limited.


coma can tolerate enormous amounts of picrotoxin. I have used the drug in all cases of coma due to poisoning with different members of the barbiturate group since early in 1946 and have had only one fatality; this was in the case of a woman who was unconscious for longer than 24 hours before starting treatment. For the drug to have effect it should be given at regular intervals, first by the intravenous route and then by intramuscular injections; it must be persevered with until the first signs of recovery are apparent. Relapses are an indication for a renewal of picrotoxin injections. Nauth Misir' treated successfully two cases of barbiturate poisoning with 1,745 mg. and 1,024 mg. of picrotoxin respectively. However, a total dosage not exceeding 500 mg. will be found sufficient in most cases of barbiturate poisoning of marked severity. My own procedure follows the general lines as pointed out by Nauth Misir: the first intravenous injection may range from 6 to 30 mg. of picrotoxin, and this is followed 15 minutes later by either more intravenous injections of doses of 6 mg. or similar amounts given intramuscularly every 15 or 20 minutes. This treatment is continued day and night until the patient shows signs of coming round. In an article on the subject I have also reported a case of deep coma due to paraldehyde poisoning which responded in a dramatic way to picrotoxin treatment.2 I am, etc., London, W.10. A. I. SUCHETJrKAYE. REFERENCES 1Lancet, 1946, 2, 381. 2 Pr. mdd., 1948, 56, 495.


This study examines the acoustic realization of the Catalan /a/-/ əә / alternation as a function of lexical stress together with the production of the Majorcan Catalan stressed / əә / by 30 Spanish-dominant and 30 Catalan-dominant early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals in Majorca (Spain). The acoustic analyses show that there are no differences between language dominance groups in the implementation of the phonological Catalan vowel reduction rule: both groups consistently produced /a/ as a central mid-vowel [ əә ] in unstressed position. The analysis of Majorcan stressed / əә / revealed that both groups differed in their phonetic behavior: the stressed / əә / of Spanish-dominants was realized with a higher F2, approximating the front mid-vowel acoustic region. A closer analysis of the individual data confirms that the degree of language dominance plays a significant role in the production of this dialectal feature.


Apr27 Mike Dressing rooms go high-tech, vacations go suborbital Would you get dressed in a department store fitting room that's as smart as you? So-called "smart" dressing rooms have arrived—and, while these high-tech fitting rooms are hailed for their innovation, they might cause trepidation among some shoppers. On "Dateline: RIT – The Podcast" this week, RIT business professor Gene Fram weighs some of the pros and cons of "smart" dressing rooms and offers his prediction about their short-term acceptance with consumers. For more, read "High-tech Dressing Rooms Become Virtual Reality," in the April 20 edition of The Christian Science Monitor, and hear Dr. Fram on the pod. And the "giggle" factor is gone when it comes to space vacations. So says C.J. Wallington, RIT professor in RIT's School of Hospitality and Service Management, who teaches the world's only university-level course in space tourism development. Though mainly for the wealthy, space vacations are a reality—just as Dr. Wallington predicted when he began teaching the course eight years ago. He expects suborbital and low-earth-orbit space vacations—like ocean cruises and overseas airline flights a half-century ago—to become more affordable in time. Hear more of Dr. Wallington's remarks on the pod. Plus, Will Dube, Bob Finnerty and Vienna Carvalho share more RIT news and News & Events highlights—all only on the pod. Have a great weekend!


The myth persists that in 1492 the Americas were a sparsely populated wilder- ness, "a world of barely perceptible human disturbance." There is substantial evidence, however, that the Native American landscape of the early sixteenth century was a humanized landscape almost everywhere. Populations were large. Forest composition had been modified, grasslands had been created, wild- life disrupted, and erosion was severe in places. Earthworks, roads, fields, and settle- ments were ubiquitous. With Indian depopu- lation in the wake of Old World disease, the environment recovered in many areas. A good argument can be made that the human pres- ence was less visible in 1750 than it was in 1492.


This article considers an unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) communication network, where UAV operate as an aerial mobile relay between a source and a destination of the network. To capture the "timeliness" of the received information at the destination node, a new performance metric named Age of Information (AoI) is considered. In addition, a short packet communication scheme maintains low latency in the proposed UAV wireless communication system. The finite block-length theory investigates the performances of the short packet communications scheme in the UAV-assisted wireless communications system. In this article, the Average AoI (AAoI) is estimated by applying the stochastic hybrid systems (SHSs) model. The SHS model comprises discrete states represents events that reset the AoI process and continuously dynamics that represent linearly growing age processes. Finally, a closed-form expression for the AAoI of the proposed UAV wireless communication system is derived and it can be used to estimate the optimal altitude, block length, and other parameters.


The paper deals with text document retrieval from the given document collection by using neural networks, namely cascade neural network model, linear and nonlinear Hebbian neural networks and linear autoassociative neural network. With using neural networks it is possible to reduce the dimension of the search space with preserving the highest retrieval accuracy.


In the twenty first century Leicester has a hard-won reputation as a harmonious city with positive race relations and strong social cohesion. However, this status took a knock during the Covid 19 pandemic and the local Leicester lockdown with constant low-level attempts to attribute blame for the spread of the disease in the city to sweat-shop factory owners and ethnic minority communities. The re-emergence of this latent racism has its roots in the rapid growth of South Asian communities in the city in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1972 during the Uganda Asian crisis Leicester was regarded in the national press as 'the most racist city' in Britain. This paper will analyse the rise of extreme right wing political parties and campaign groups in Leicester in the context of the impact of immigration to show how they both grew and declined rapidly.


The role of surgery in the treatment of hormone refractory prostatic cancer is extremely limited. Rarely, patients with locally advanced, uncontrollable, non-metastatic prostatic cancer enjoy prolonged survival. However, these patients represent an extremely small percentage of patients with prostatic cancer. Radical surgery should be applied to palliate selected patients with uncontrollable local symptoms. However, prostate cancer rarely behaves in a manner necessitating this type of intervention and thus only rarely do patients require radical surgery for local palliation.


We have designed and constructed a combined experimental setup for synchronous measurements of electron diffraction patterns and mass-spectra of gas samples. Test measurements have been performed for acetic acid at two temperatures, 296 and 457 K, respectively. Electron diffraction data have been analysed taking into account mass spectra measured in the same experiments. From the diffraction intensities molecular structures and mole fractions of the acetic acid monomer and dimer have been refined. The obtained results demonstrate the importance of measuring mass spectra in gas electron diffraction experiments. In particular, it is possible to detect the sample decomposition, which can be used for the optimization of experimental conditions and for the data interpretation. The determined in this work length of the hydrogen bond in the acetic acid dimer, re(O...H) = 1.657(9) Å, is in good agreement with modern theoretical predictions. We recommend to measure diffraction patterns of acetic acid for the calibration of the sample pressure in the diffraction point.


Since both the Agr (accessory gene regulator)-like quorum sensing (QS) system and VirS/VirR (VirS/R) two-component regulatory system of Clostridium perfringens positively regulate production of several toxins, including C. perfringens beta toxin (CPB), it has been hypothesized the VirS membrane sensor protein is an Agr-like QS signaling peptide (SP) receptor. To begin evaluating whether VirS is an SP receptor, this study sequenced the virS gene in C. perfringens strains CN3685 and CN1795 because it was reported that agrB mutants of both strains increase CPB production in response to the pentapeptide 5R, likely the natural SP, but only the CN3685 agrB mutant responds to 8R, which is 5R plus a 3-amino-acid tail. This sequencing identified differences between the predicted VirS extracellular loop 2 (ECL2) of CN3685 versus that of CN1795. To explore if those ECL2 differences explain strain-related variations in SP sensitivity and support VirS as an SP receptor, virS agrB double-null mutants of each strain were complemented to swap which VirS protein they produce. CPB Western blotting showed that this complementation changed the natural responsiveness of each strain to 8R. A pulldown experiment using biotin-5R demonstrated that VirS can bind SP. To further support VirS:SP binding and to identify a VirS binding site for SP, a 14-mer peptide corresponding to VirS ECL2 was synthesized. This ECL2 peptide inhibited 5R signaling to agrB mutant and wild-type strains. This inhibition was specific, since a single N to D substitution in the ECL2 peptide abrogated these effects. Collectively, these results support VirS as an important SP receptor and may assist development of therapeutics. IMPORTANCE C. perfringens beta toxin (CPB) is essential for the virulence of type C strains, a common cause of fatal necrotizing enteritis and enterotoxemia in humans and domestic animals. Production of CPB, as well as several other C. perfringens toxins, is positively regulated by both the Agr-like QS system and the VirS/R twocomponent regulatory system. This study presents evidence that the VirS membrane sensor protein is a receptor for the AgrD-derived SP and that the second extracellular loop of VirS is important for SP binding. Understanding interactions between SP and VirS improves knowledge of C. perfringens pathogenicity and may provide insights for designing novel strategies to reduce C. perfringens toxin production during infections.


Secrets, lies, surveillance, and the power of information, dominate Sara Shepard's Pretty Little Liars series and the popular television show adaptation by I. Marlene King for ABC Family.

Although there are many directions from which to analyse the enormous appeal and influence of Shepard's series on young female minds, in this chapter I will not only focus on the female leads, but on the abstract character of Shepard's texts – technology. Through mobile phones, laptops, desktops, messengers, email, and CCTV, Shepard's eighteen novels, written and set in the 21st century, comment explicitly on the perils of technology and social networking, suggesting that all children are locked into an inescapable web of cyber reality in which bullying, victimization, and abuse becomes standardized and naturalized as part of the 'teen experience'. Anxieties surrounding growing up, in this series, are as much to do with taking control of the mechanizing forces in their lives as it is to do with 'standard' and (perhaps) traditional teen pressures of friendship, love, grades and body image. In Shepard's novels, it is the anonymity of virtual communication and remote action that endangers the girls.


Neutronics experiments are performed at JET for validating in a real fusion environment the neutronics codes and nuclear data applied in ITER nuclear analyses. In particular, the neutron fluence through the penetrations of the JET torus hall is measured and compared with calculations to assess the capability of state-of-art numerical tools to correctly predict the radiation streaming in the ITER biological shield penetrations up to large distances from the neutron source, in large and complex geometries. Neutron streaming experiments started in 2012 when several hundreds of very sensitive thermo-luminescence detectors (TLDs), enriched to different levels in 6LiF/7LiF, were used to measure the neutron and gamma dose separately. Lessons learnt from this first experiment led to significant improvements in the experimental arrangements to reduce the effects due to directional neutron source and self-shielding of TLDs. Here we report the results of measurements performed during the 2013–2014 JET campaign. Data from new positions, at further locations in the South West labyrinth and down to the Torus Hall basement through the air duct chimney, were obtained up to about a 40 m distance from the plasma neutron source. In order to avoid interference between TLDs due to self-shielding effects, only TLDs containing natural Lithium and 99.97% 7Li were used. All TLDs were located in the centre of large polyethylene (PE) moderators, with natLi and 7Li crystals evenly arranged within two PE containers, one in horizontal and the other in vertical orientation, to investigate the shadowing effect in the directional neutron field. All TLDs were calibrated in the quantities of air kerma and neutron fluence. This improved experimental arrangement led to reduced statistical spread in the experimental data. The Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) code was used to calculate the air kerma due to neutrons and the neutron fluence at detector positions, using a JET model validated up to the magnetic limbs. JET biological shield and penetrations, the PE moderators and TLDs were modelled in detail. Different tallying methods were used in the calculations, which are routinely used in ITER nuclear analyses: the mesh tally and the track length estimator with multiple steps calculations using the surface source write/read capability available in MCNP. In both cases, the calculated neutron fluence (C) was compared to the measured fluence (E) and hence C/E comparisons have been obtained and are discussed. These results provide a validation of neutronics numerical tools, codes and nuclear data, used for ITER design.


Soufriere is a stratovolcano just higher than 1,000 m which dominates the northern part of the island of St. Vincent in the Lesser Antilles. A succession of pyroclastic fall deposits produced by this volcano covers about 55% of the island. Maximum thicknesses away from the crater area range from 50 m in the northeastern area of the island to 2 m in the Kingstown area at the southern tip. These deposits, believed to be of late Pleistocene age, were produced during a unique phase of extremely violent activity which may not have lasted for more than a few hundred years; during this time, the volcano was in nearly constant activity. The eruptions took place from an open summit crater similar to the present one, which may have been periodically blocked by lava domes during short quiescent spells. The deposits were produced by plinian, vulcanian, and strombolian type eruptions, some of which may have been directed blasts. The composition of the pyroclastic falls is distinctly more mafic than that of the average Soufriere lava from previous eruptions. Chemical variation in vertical sections shows that tephra with the highest silica content is ejected at the start of an eruption, usually as pumice, and is followed by more mafic material. High-level fractionation of basaltic magma under the volcano is inferred from this pattern of behavior.


Supracondylar fracture of humerus is one of the common pediatric fractures encountered by an orthopedic surgeon. Closed reduction and percutaneous pinning is one of the recommended treatments for displaced-supracondylar fracture of humerus. The growth plate of distal humerus in the pediatric age group is a relatively small area and drilling Kirschner (K)-wires across the physes will cause physical, thermal, and vascular damage to it. It is a very common scenario where a K-wire is drilled multiple times to achieve acceptable position and the damage to the growth plate gets added with every new attempt and is further compounded as the number of K-wires required to achieve stability increases. Thus, we may achieve a good reduction and a stable fixation but still cause irreversible damage to the growth plate and end up with resultant deformity. We suggest a simple modification in the pinning technique by using a bone marrow aspiration needle to act as a guide and sleeve. This technique helps in reducing the number of attempts required to achieve acceptable position of the pins thereby reducing above-mentioned iatrogenic damage to the physes. It not only prevents soft tissue injury by acting as a sleeve but also gives mechanical advantage during passage of thin diameter K-wire in small children. It can also be used to find the proximity of ulnar nerve by stimulating it, thereby reducing the chance to damage the nerve during medial pinning.


regular language, Spanish, (J N al), in a syllabic orthography, k Karanth) and in the dual writin Japanese (S Sasanuma) form the third section. J Masterson, CM U Frith each contribute to a sec surface dyslexia and the deve reading. The latter two chapters larly clearly written and compl other: the one (by Temple) illus the information processing can be applied to individual cas children and the other (by Frith' progression of the different strategies that occur in the ac reading skills. Section V contains two excel] of normal data in relation to cur of reading (by KE Patterson an and L Henderson). In contrast and R McCarthy draw on data lished dyslexic patients to cone multi-level model of how reading through print to sound conve included in this section is a cl Deronesne and MF Beauvois an individual case study, not c dyslexic, but a patient who ha deficit in their phonological rea conceptualisation of the stages print-sound conversion has simil Templin's chapter. A neurological appendix presents CT scans of a number described in the book. Surface Dyslexia is definitely volume and should provide a reference text for those actively reading research. For the rest, suspect they will have to aw; simplified summary of the field.


Abstract Phase relations of magnesioferrite-magnetite solid solutions (Mg,Fe2+) Fe23+ $\rm {Fe_{2}^{3+}}$ O4 were investigated at pressures of 9–23 GPa and temperatures of 1200–1600 °C. Our new results indicate that the assemblage Mg2Fe2O5 + Fe2O3 reconstitutes to a hp-MgFe2O4 phase at 20 GPa and 1300–1500 °C. The stability field of hp-MgFe2O4 begins at ~1300 °C and widens to higher temperature. At lower temperature (1200–1300 °C) Mg2Fe2O5 + Fe2O3 breaks down to the new phase assemblage Mg3Fe4O9 + Fe2O3 with its stability field expanding to higher pressures and temperatures at the expense of hp-MgFe2O4. The Mg3Fe4O9 phase has the same crystal structure that recently reported for Fe7O9, and thus represents the Mg-end-member. From powder X-ray diffraction, we find that hp-MgFe2O4 has a structure consistent with an orthorhombic unit cell belonging to the Pmcn space group (no. 62). However, it could have undergone a transformation from a different structure during decompression. Experiments conducted with a Mg0.5Fe0.52+Fe23+O4 $\rm{ Mg_{0.5}Fe^{2+}_{0.5}Fe^{3+}_2O_4 } $ composition demonstrate that the addition of Fe2+ significantly changes the topology of the phase relations compared to the MgFe2O4 end-member system. At 10–11 GPa and 1000–1600 °C, Mg0.5Fe0.5Fe2O4 breaks down to the assemblage MgFeFe2O5+ Fe2O3, with the phase boundary described by: P (GPa) = 2.0 × 10−3 × T (°C) + 8.2. No stability field for the constituent oxides [i.e., (Mg,Fe)O + Fe2O3] exists, in contrast to that observed for the MgFe2O4 end-member. The stability of the assemblage MgFe2+Fe23+O5+Fe2O3 $\rm{ MgFe^{2+}Fe_2^{3+}O_5 + Fe_2O_3 }$ is limited at higher pressures and appears to pinch out to higher temperatures. At 15–16 GPa and temperatures up to 1350 °C, this assemblage reconstitutes to form a hp-Mg0.5Fe0.5Fe2O4 phase. However, at higher temperatures a new assemblage of (Mg,Fe)3Fe4O9 + Fe2O3 appears. The occurrence of such compositions suggests that solid solution may be complete across the Mg3Fe4O9–Fe7O9 binary. Our results further demonstrate that phase relations even in simple Fe-Mg oxides can become complex at high pressures and temperatures and that phases with various novel stoichiometries (i.e., Mg3Fe4O9) may become stable. In addition, this study has implications for natural samples by helping to place constraints on the range in pressure and temperature at which a given sample formed. For instance, magnetite or magnesioferrite entrapped as inclusions in diamond could have either have crystallized directly, or formed from precursor phases at depths that exceed the stability of the spinel-structured phases. Evidence for such high-pressure transformations can potentially be found by investigating micro-textures.


Safety has become one of the main challenges of applying deep reinforcement learning to real world systems. Currently, the incorporation of external knowledge such as human oversight is the only means to prevent the agent from visiting the catastrophic state. In this paper, we propose MBHI, a novel framework for safe model-based reinforcement learning, which ensures safety in the state-level and can effectively avoid both "local" and "non-local" catastrophes. An ensemble of supervised learners are trained in MBHI to imitate human blocking decisions. Similar to human decision-making process, MBHI will roll out an imagined trajectory in the dynamics model before executing actions to the environment, and estimate its safety. When the imagination encounters a catastrophe, MBHI will block the current action and use an efficient MPC method to output a safety policy. We evaluate our method on several safety tasks, and the results show that MBHI achieved better performance in terms of sample efficiency and number of catastrophes compared to the baselines.


The scope of this article is to analyze the epidemiological data relating to exposure to medication among women of reproductive age attended at a Toxicology Information Center. A study was conducted among women of reproductive age exposed to medication between 2007 and 2011. The variables relating to the patients, the occurrence and the medication involved were studied in a total of 777 notified cases. Data was collected from Aggravated Injury Notification System forms and processed on Epi Info for Windows software. The majority of the occurrences (90.5%) was intentional, 33.7% of theses incidents involved the intake of 2 or 3 types of drugs by the patients and the percentile of hospitalization was 35.6%. Drugs acting on the central nervous system were responsible for 59.9% of the incidents, and antidepressants (21.3%) and anti-epileptics (21.2%) were most commonly involved. The main factors associated with hospitalization were: delayed medical rescue after exposure, patients with higher education, ingestion of 2 or 3 types of drugs and exposure to anti-epileptics and antidepressants. Data from this study showed that exposure to medication is a serious health problem for women of reproductive age and it contributes to the increase in the number of hospitalizations.


Coeliac disease (CD) is a common inflammatory disease of the small intestine. It has a prevalence of 1% in the population and is strongly heritable. Current germline disease risk variants explain ∼50% of known heritability, the majority contributed by a strong human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DQ association. The role of HLA-DQ in the immunology of CD is well understood, for example the role of tissue transglutaminase and HLA-DQ in modifying and binding immuno-dominant dietary cereal (gluten) peptides. Genome-wide association studies have found 39 loci with risk variants of more modest effect. The use of high-throughput sequencing technologies to locate rare variants of larger effect may aid in the complete resolution of this complex trait, as well as in other autoimmune diseases, which show considerable overlap in immunological pathways.

Key Concepts:

Coeliac disease has a strong genetic component with an environmental trigger, gluten.

Coeliac disease shows strong HLA association, which is necessary but not sufficient for disease development.

Genome-wide association studies have located common variants of modest effect size.

Rare variants with larger effect are hypothesised to contribute to common complex disease.

Exome sequencing a large number of individuals from multigenerational families might isolate precise causal variants.

Keywords:

coeliac;
autoimmune;
genetics;
genome-wide association;
resequencing


A new way of pore space partition via secondary metal ions entrapped by pyrimidine hooks is implemented on flexible metal–organic frameworks. The new resulting (3, 4, 6)-connected MOF, HHU-2 (HHU for Hohai University), whose pore space was partitioned by additional metal ions and flexibility was confined under specific pressure and temperature, exhibits promising CO2 uptake capacity (17.5 wt% at 1 bar and 298 K), strong CO2 adsorption enthalpy (30.0 kJ mmol−1), and high CO2 selectivity towards N2 (47.3 at 298 K). Importantly, this is the first example of simultaneously achieving high CO2 selectivity as well as high CO2 uptake capacity in MOFs by flexibility confinement through the introduction of secondary metal sites.


Seasonal rainfall forecasts generated with regional Eta model for the rainy season of the São Francisco River Basin, upstream Hydroeletric Power Plant (HPP) Três Marias in Minas Gerais are evaluated in this work. The use of such forecasts as an input in energy planning models, represent a better management in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. However, it is well known that most of the globe, seasonal climate predictability is much reduced, since the effects of boundary conditions to determine the evolution of the average state of the atmosphere compete with internal variability associated with the chaotic instabilities and nonlinear interactions of the atmospheric flow. The forecasts of the Eta-Seasonal-15km model are initiated on days 13 to 17 October, extending until February 28, during the years 2001-2010. The evaluation results indicate that the noise (inter members variability) is higher than the signal (interannual variability), suggesting low reliability of the forecasts for the region during the rainy season. Forecasts of precipitation are underestimated and the Root Mean Square Error of 77.03 mm / month is high, almost twice its standard deviation. Note A high spatial variability of rainfall due to very steep topography, which further reduces the performance of numerical models. A hit rating category of precipitation (IACP), based on the distribution of tertiles, was applied to account for the number of times that the forecasts point to the same category of observed rainfall: rainfall below, within or above the normal range. The IACP for the whole area and during the ten years was low (mean 29%), however in the southern Basin IACP is a bit higher, around 50% to 70% in the Southeast region. The annual review of the forecasts for the entire area indicated that the best model performance occurred in 2005, when conditions ATMS negative in Pacific, near the coast of Peru were persisted in October 2005 and in fact such anomalies occurred through the month of February 2006.


This study was inspired from the difference between the role of non-bank MFI (MFI-NB) in support of SMEs under Law No. 01 of 2013 concerning the MFI and Law 20 of 2008 on SMEs which regulates the implementation and achievement of the performance of the microfinance sector in Riau Province. The purpose of this study are: a) determine the role of MFI-NB in support of SMEs in the province of Riau, b) know the quality of implementation and mechanism of MFI-NB terms of mechanisms (governance) in Riau Province, and c) develop strategies MFI-NB in improving the welfare of communities in Riau province. This study used qualitative research methods and review the existing legislation implemented or enhanced fit the facts on the ground conditions in Riau Province.Results of this study explains that: (a) The role of MFI-NB in Riau Province in support of SMEs are MFI-NB role as providers of capital to SMEs, the certainty that the capital is in the MFI-NB is intended for viable SMEs and the capital believed are not diverted to other uses or loans to large enterprises. And MFI-NB is believed not to be intervened by another party, another role of a given MFI-NB to SMEs is accelerating MFI-NB's capital to SMEs decent hands and responsible by using services such as energy contributors and coordinators who helped the function of the service of MFI-NB. (b) the quality of the implementation of the disbursement of funds by the MFI-NB to SMEs is less satisfactory because it is slow to respond to the desire of SMEs to additional capital. The quality of the implementation of the training held by the MFI-NB to SMEs say less than optimal. (c) MFI-NB Strategy to improve the welfare of the people in the province of Riau, with training materials that really demand so as to motivate SMEs to further develop their potential. MFI-NB continue to provide assessment and issue a certificate or award for outstanding SMEs so that SMEs can thrive in Riau Province. Another strategy to improve the welfare of the community is to help SMEs develop business, namely through the development, marketing (promotion, exhibition and clusters/groupings), partnerships, advocacy, implementation of management functions, so that SMEs have a good standard and credibility even when dealing with other financial institutions, Policies that there is or is believed to be held by the MFI-NB actors become the dominant factor in formulating strategies, policies and programs that support increasing the role of the MFI-NB in support of SMEs in the province of Riau.


Performing literature survey for scholarly activities has become a challenging and time consuming task due to the rapid growth in the number of scientific articles. Thus, automatic recommendation of high quality citations for a given scientific query topic is immensely valuable. The state-of-the-art on the problem of citation recommendation suffers with the following three limitations. First, most of the existing approaches for citation recommendation require input in the form of either the full article or a seed set of citations, or both. Nevertheless, obtaining the recommendation for citations given a set of keywords is extremely useful for many scientific purposes. Second, the existing techniques for citation recommendation aim at suggesting prestigious and well-cited articles. However, we often need recommendation of diversified citations of the given query topic for many scientific purposes; for instance, it helps authors to write survey papers on a topic and it helps scholars to get a broad view of key problems on a topic. Third, one of the problems in the keyword based citation recommendation is that the search results typically would not include the semantically correlated articles if these articles do not use exactly the same keywords. To the best of our knowledge, there is no known citation recommendation system in the literature that addresses the above three limitations simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a novel citation recommendation system called DiSCern to precisely address the above research gap. DiSCern finds relevant and diversified citations in response to a search query, in terms of keyword(s) to describe the query topic, while using only the citation graph and the keywords associated with the articles, and no latent information. We use a novel keyword expansion step, inspired by community finding in social network analysis, in DiSCern to ensure that the semantically correlated articles are also included in the results. Our proposed approach primarily builds on the Vertex Reinforced Random Walk (VRRW) to balance prestige and diversity in the recommended citations. We demonstrate the efficacy of DiSCern empirically on two datasets: a large publication dataset of more than 1.7 million articles in computer science domain and a dataset of more than 29,000 articles in theoretical high-energy physics domain. The experimental results show that our proposed approach is quite efficient and it outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of both relevance and diversity.


We present a grammar inference system that leverages linguistic knowledge recorded in the form of annotations in interlinear glossed text (IGT) and in a meta-grammar engineering system (the LinGO Grammar Matrix customization system) to automatically produce machine-readable HPSG grammars. Building on prior work to handle the inference of lexical classes, stems, affixes and position classes, and preliminary work on inferring case systems and word order, we introduce an integrated grammar inference system that covers a wide range of fundamental linguistic phenomena. System development was guided by 27 geneologically and geographically diverse languages, and we test the system's cross-linguistic generalizability on an additional 5 held-out languages, using datasets provided by field linguists. Our system out-performs three baseline systems in increasing coverage while limiting ambiguity and producing richer semantic representations, while also producing richer representations than previous work in grammar inference.


The article presents the results of studies on the adaptive potential of sorghum used for restoration of degraded pasture ecosystems, increasing their biodiversity and nutritional value. The region chosen for the experiment is a semi-desert arid part of southern Russia. The aridity coefficient is 0.11–0.30 which is typical of the arid zone. The annual volume of precipitation is 125-265 mm. Two varieties of sorghum – Travinka and Caravan – were studied. They were grown with different thickness: 10 thousand, 20 thousand and 40 thousand plants per 1 hectare. During the growing season, there was soil and atmospheric drought. The best indicators of green mass yield were recorded for Travinka for the variant "40 thousand plants per hectare – 7.9 tons per hectare, and for Caravan for the variant "20 thousand plants per hecrate – 3.9 tons per hectare. Compared with natural pasture, sorghum productivity is 18 times higher by green mass yield and 26 times higher by dry mass yield (the best options). The analysis of the chemical composition and nutritional value of sorghum showed that compared to the plants of natural pasture, sorghum is a more nutritious fodder plant. Its nutritional value is more by 0.24 feed units per 1 kg and by 1.9 % by the mass of crude protein. It is better than other plants by the content of sugar content (79 g per 1 kg) and macronutrients.


Sequences of events describing the behavior and actions of users or systems can be collected in several domains. In this paper we consider the problem of recognizing frequent episodes in such sequences of events. An episode is defined to be a collection of events that occur within time intervals of a given size in a given partial order. Once such episodes are known, one can produce rules for describing or predicting the behavior of the sequence. We describe an efficient algorithm for the discovery of all frequent episodes from a given class of episodes, and present experimental results.


In recent years the interest of consumers and manufacturers on traditional foods and biodiversity has been constantly growing.
The definition of traditional foods has been scientifically elaborated with different approaches, mainly based on a top-down approach. During BaSeFood, a 3 year research programme, investigations were carried out in Black sea area countries, Italy and Portugal, following a scheme of qualitative cross-cultural, on-site surveys of traditional foods and plant raw materials; the information collected has been the basis for both an extensive documentation and the selection and sampling of material to be entered in the experimental phase. A similar scheme was followed in an area of Northern Tuscany (Italy), focussing on local species and critical points in food preparation.
The experimental part, was aimed at: a) evaluating the variability of local populations of the selected crops, with respect to key phytochemical compounds content; b) analyze the retention of phytochemicals following cooking/processing. Primitive wheats, mainly represented by Triticum monococcum and Triticum dicoccum, and leafy vegetables of Brassicaceae and Asteraceae families were locally collected as target species.
The fate of primitive wheats phytochemicals was monitored during traditional processing of glume removal and kernel crushing, in comparison with a modern plant: besides the efficiency of the process, no relevant differences were found in bioactive compounds retention.
In Brassica, retention of main phytochemical compounds was evaluated following the most common cooking methods (boiling, steaming and stir frying), also applying kinetic modelling. Retention was mainly affected by cooking method and duration, plant matrix (extractability) and the chemical nature of individual compounds.
Finally, glucosinolate thermal degradation was analyzed in different binary model systems, containing broccoli, to assess the effect of added ingredients during thermal treatment. Added ingredients could play an important role on retention, however further studies are still necessary to better understand which mechanisms are involved.


Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans (DFSP) is a rarely observed tumor of a subcutaneous tissue. Its incidence is about 0.8-4.5/1000000. Fibrosarcomatous transformation of DFSP has been described in the literature, accounting for about 10% of DFSP cases. A high-grade sarcoma with fusiform and pleomorphic cells is a very rarely observed tumor. It is mainly located on proximal extremities and body; it is seldomly seen in the breast. The tumor grows gradually within the years. The local recurrence is frequently observed, however, the metastasis is rarely present. It is treated by a resection with free surgical margins. We presented Forty-three years old multipar patient a case of DFSP with a high-grade sarcoma, a histologic feature with spindle and pleomorphic cells in the breast. Up to date, on no cases with such a tumor in the breast has not been reported yet.


Abstract Purpose: The aim of the article is to examine the selected determinants of the expected rate of return on human capital. Methodology: We conducted an anonymous survey of expected salaries among the Accounting and Controlling students at the Cracow University of Economics, which provided a unique setting for the analysis. On the basis of collected data for the cost of living and the cost of professional education for every participant, we used the human capital model developed by Dobija to compute the perceived level of the human capital of each individual. Then, we compared the expected salaries with the perceived levels of human capital and computed expected rates of return on human capital. The following research methods are used: literature review, statistical tests, econometric modeling. Findings: On the sample of 754 respondents, we found that male students expect a higher rate of return on their human capital than female students, while older students expect a lower rate of return on human capital than younger students. Research limitations: Only one field of study was used to measure the determinants of the expected rate of return on human capital. Originality: We contribute to the salary expectations and human capital literature by identifying a significant gender salary expectations gap that holds even after considering individually assessed costs of living and professional education. Our findings are consistent with the well-known observation that women tend to expect lower salaries than men.


Objective: Quantitative assessment of fetal venous volume flow can be used in compromised fetuses such as in intrauterine growth restriction. In a pilot study, we explored the feasibility of umbilical venous volume flow ultrasound measurements in fetuses at the time of NT measurement for individual chromosomal risk assessment. Methods: In 26 fetuses the NT was measured and the umbilical venous volume flow quantified non-invasively using ''colour velocity imaging'' (CVI) in the proximal straight portion of the intraabdominal umbilical vein. Results: All fetuses but four had NT values below the 95th centile (adjusted for crown rump length) of whom one with a mildly increased NT was found to have trisomy 21. All other pregnancies had a normal pregnancy outcome. Quantitative umbilical volume flow as measured by CVI ranged from 5 to 32 mL/min and increased between 11 and 14 weeks' gestation in a linear fashion. Conclusions: Fetal umbilical volume flow can be measured noninvasively using colour velocity imaging. Umbilical venous volume flow increases between 11 and 14 weeks. One fetus with a mildly increased NT and trisomy 21 showed a normal umbilical volume flow.


The objective of this study is to describe the normal, abdominal radiological findings after laparoscopic cholecystectomy that could be confused with a pathological process. Thirty-one patients, who had laparoscopic cholecystectomy were prospectively studied. They underwent supine and erect abdominal X-rays, on the first and second postoperative days. In 19 patients (61 %) no residual free intraperitoneal gas was seen. In 12 patients (39%) small amounts of free gas were noticed 24 hours postoperatively, and in six (19%), some free intraperitoneal gas was seen after 48 hours. Distention of the colon was noticed in 17 (55%), and was mainly in the hepatic flexure area in nine of these patients (29%). Eight patients complained of shoulder pain. This study shows that pneumoperitoneum tends to disappear within 48 hours of laparoscopic cholecystectomy. When present, there is usually no cause for alarm as long as patients show no evidence of clinical disturbance.


Samples of 316LVM stainless steels were hydrostatically extruded in a multi-step process to a total true strain of 1,84 and subsequently annealed at different temperatures. The structural changes occurring as a result of HE and annealing were observed using a transmission electron microscope. The microhardness of the samples was measured using a load of 200g. The results show that hydrostatic extrusion results in a uniform microstructure characterized by a high density of nano-twins. Subsequent annealing at 600°C produces a partial transformation to a nano structure of average grain size 54 nm. At an annealing temperature of 700°C a fullyrecrystallized uniform microstructure consisting of 68 nm diameter nano-grains was formed. It should be noted that 700°C is much lower than that required to recrystallize a micro-grained alloy of the same composition. The microstructural changes which occurred during annealing have a significant effect on the mechanical properties. The microhardness after HE increased following annealing at 500°C. However, annealing at 800°C resulted in a drop in microhardness, indicating the occurrence of grain growth.


Sodium dodecyl sulphate/polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis was used to characterize human leucocyte interferon (HuIFN-alpha) under reducing and non-reducing conditions. Under non-reducing conditions HuIFN-alpha possesses two size forms, but under reducing conditions (r-HuIFN-alpha) only one is observed. The apparent molecular weight of this one form varies with the concentration of 2-mercaptoethanol used. When r-HuIFN-alpha is permitted to reoxidize the bimodal configuration of HuIFN-alpha is restored. The size heterogeneity of native HuIFN-alpha can be eliminated by mild treatment with NaIO4 [HuIFN-alpha/IO4; Stewart II, Lin, Wiranowska-Stewart & Cantell (1977) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 74, 4200-4204]. The size of the HuIFN-alpha/IO4 increases after treatment with 2-mercaptoethanol (r-HuIFN-alpha/IO4) and the apparent molecular weight of this component also varies with the concentration of 2-mercaptoethanol used. In the case of r-HuIFN-alpha the single peak observed apparently originates from both the higher- and lower-molecular-weight components.


This paper investigates the error incurred by predicting the wave-induced heave forces on a submerged body using a mathematically simple flat face bow and stern rather than the typical curved ones. We examine both theoretically and experimentally how the heave force changes when flat end faces replace hemispheric end caps. We consider bodies with various length-to-diameter ratios to identify the influence that the ratio of the end cap length to the total body length plays on the heave forces. We also consider bodies with forward speed to identify if heave forces are affected by leading edge separation around the blunt front face which is not present for the hemispheric end cap. The theoretical predictions are from an existing potential flow analytical solution while the experimental results were collected in a towing tank with wavemaking capability. The theoretically predicted percent increase in the heave forces caused by the flat end face was confirmed by the experimental results. Finally, the theoretical predictions also showed that the percent increase in the heave force is independent of the forward speed of the body. This was also confirmed with the experimental results.


We live in on-demand, on-command Digital universe with data prolifering by Institutions, Individuals and Machines at a very high rate. This data is categories as "Big Data" due to its sheer Volume, Variety and Velocity. Most of this data is unstructured, quasi structured or semi structured and it is heterogeneous in nature. The volume and the heterogeneity of data with the speed it is generated, makes it difficult for the present computing infrastructure to manage Big Data. Traditional data management, warehousing and analysis systems fall short of tools to analyze this data. Due to its specific nature of Big Data, it is stored in distributed file system architectures. Hadoop and HDFS by Apache is widely used for storing and managing Big Data. Analyzing Big Data is a challenging task as it involves large distributed file systems which should be fault tolerant, flexible and scalable. Map Reduce is widely been used for the efficient analysis of Big Data. Traditional DBMS techniques like Joins and Indexing and other techniques like graph search is used for classification and clustering of Big Data. These techniques are being adopted to be used in Map Reduce. In this paper we suggest various methods for catering to the problems in hand through Map Reduce framework over Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). Map Reduce is a Minimization technique which makes use of file indexing with mapping, sorting, shuffling and finally reducing. Map Reduce techniques have been studied in this paper which is implemented for Big Data analysis using HDFS.


1. Picrotoxin, eserin, butyrylcholine and acetylcholine bring about increase of impulse discharges on the T large fibre in the cord. Picrotoxin gives conspicuous increase of impulse discharges in the response of the T large fibres to sound, while the excitatory effects of the latter three agents are not so conspicuous. 2. Such effects can be explained on the assumption that picrotoxin inhibits the inhibitory synapses, so that the T large fibre is fully activated by both tympanic nerves, while the latter three agents activate both the excitatory and inhibitory fibres. 3. GABA, γ-aminobutyrylcholine and D-tubocurarine act reversibly as inhibitors of the activity of the T large fibre. The response evoked in the T large fibre may be suppressed by the activities of the inhibitory interneurons activated by the tympanic nerve fibres. 4. After the application of picrotoxin solution to the prothoracic ganglion the threshold of the T large fibre near to a sound source rises while that of the opposite side falls. The inhibitory effect seems to be eliminated by the drug action and the T large fibre is activated by both the ipsilateral and the contralateral excitatory fibres. 5. The increased information about a source of sound which arises from the central inhibitory interaction is disturbed by the application of picrotoxin. 6. The conclusion that the T large fibre has excitatory synapses with the tympanic nerves, and inhibitory synapses with the inhibitory interneurons activated by the tympanic neurons, has been confirmed pharmacologically. 7. The inhibitory interneurons are activated not only by the natural activity of the tympanic nerve, but also by activity elicited electrically with square pulses.


The aim of this research is to study compensation strategies for Chief Executive Officers (CEO) from various economic, political and symbolic perspectives. A theoretical model was developed to study the hypothetical influence of several phenomena suggested by theoretical work on executive compensation. An empirical study was carried out in France on a sample of 106 chief executives from firms amongst the top 700 rated by sales. A structural equation model was tested using Lisrel. The results suggest that agency theory offers a priori the most solid explanation of CEO compensation because of the links observed between the control exercised by the Principal, the intensity of short-term incentives and the sensitivity of direct pay to performance. A detailed analysis of the results also seems to provide substantial support for political and symbolic perspectives. The balance of power between board members and top executives seems to be a determining factor in the determination of the structure and management of CEO compensation. The results of the research suggest that the political perspective remains coherent with agency theory by supposing that CEOs can be tempted to make use of their privileged position concerning compensation decisions.


Four studies were conducted to examine the effects of individual skill differences among adult readers, as well as the effects of the quality of their lexical knowledge, on eye movements during reading. Study 1 defined dimensions of adult reader variability via a factor analysis of a database of adult reading assessments. Five dimensions emerged from the analysis reflecting: (1) speed/reading experience (expertise), (2) sublexical skills, (3) accuracy, (4) learning/memory, and (5) amount of ``casual reading'. Study 2 examined the effects of each of the dimensions of variability on eye movements during paragraph reading. Expert readers read words more quickly, especially less frequent words. Readers with good sublexical skills exhibited faster reading on early fixations, especially for more frequent words. These results suggest that individual differences in reading may be largely based on differences in the quality of lexical representations, with experienced readers having more knowledge of low frequency words, and readers with good sublexical skills having more unitized representations of frequent words. Study 3 employed a training paradigm in order to control the quality of lexical knowledge readers had along orthographic, phonological, and meaning dimensions. Orthographic and phonological training affected first pass reading measures, and phonological and meaning training affected second pass measures. The direction and strength of the training effects were mediated by individual differences between readers in their ability to learn from experiences. Study 4 examined the effects of components of word knowledge on eye movements by testing readers' orthographic, phonological, and meaning knowledge of words they read in context. Results confirmed the results of Study 3, with orthographic and phonological knowledge affecting early fixations, and meaning knowledge affecting re-reading. Studies 3 and 4 also showed a pattern of faster first fixations with more rereading for the words with the list familiar forms. Results from the set of experiments show that each component of word knowledge affects eye movements uniquely, and that individual differences between adult readers, resulting in differences in the quality of lexical representations these readers have, account for variability in patterns of reading above and beyond attributes of the text being read.


Oral health includes freedom from disease in the gums, the mucosa and the teeth. There has been a striking reduction in dental caries and periodontitis in industrialized countries, although the proportion with severe disease has remained at 10-15%, and the prevalence increases in less developed countries. If left untreated, these diseases may lead to pain, and impaired quality of life and nutritional status. Prevention and treatment need, besides traditional implementation of proper oral hygiene, sugar restriction and use of fluoride, newer cost-effective strategies. Non-sweetened dairy products, which are proven non-cariogenic, or specific bioactive components from alike sources might prove to be part of such strategies. Thus, milk proteins, such as bovine and human caseins and lactoferrin, inhibit initial attachment of cariogenic mutans streptococci to hydroxyapatite coated with saliva or purified saliva host ligands. In contrast, both bovine and human milk coated on hydroxyapatite promotes attachment of commensal Actinomyces naeslundii and other streptococci in vitro, and phosphorylated milk-derived peptides promote maintenance of tooth minerals, as shown for the β-casein-derived caseino-phosphate peptide. Observational studies are promising, but randomized clinical trials are needed to reveal if dairy products could be a complementary treatment for oral health.


We use 3D magnetohydrodynamics simulations with anisotropic thermal conduction to study turbulence due to the magnetothermal instability (MTI) in the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters. The MTI grows on time-scales of ≲1 Gyr and is capable of driving vigorous, sustained turbulence in the outer parts of galaxy clusters if the temperature gradient is maintained in spite of the rapid thermal conduction. If this is the case, turbulence due to the MTI can provide up to 5–30 per cent of the pressure support beyond r500 in galaxy clusters, an effect that is strongest for hot, massive clusters. The turbulence driven by the MTI is generally additive to other sources of turbulence in the ICM, such as that produced by structure formation. This new source of non-thermal pressure support reduces the observed Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (SZ) signal and X-ray pressure gradient for a given cluster mass and introduces a cluster mass and temperature-gradient-dependent bias in SZ and X-ray mass estimates of clusters. This additional physics may also need to be taken into account when estimating the matter power spectrum normalization, σ8, through simulation templates from the observed amplitude of the SZ power spectrum.


We present two new families of complex -symmetric extensions of the non--symmetric Burgers equation using two different -symmetric extension principles. Many representative nonlinear wave equations are investigated. Some exact solutions and conservation laws are obtained which contain solitary wave solutions, compacton solutions, rational solutions and peakon solutions, etc. Moreover, we also present some higher-dimensional complex nonlinear -symmetric wave equations.


PURPOSE
Described the lived experience of U.S. warrior nurses who served as advisors to host nation officials in Afghanistan.

METHOD
The phenomenological approach was applied to obtain comprehensive descriptions from 10 warrior nurses. The modified Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen data analysis method was utilized as the researcher had performed in the role of interest.

DISCUSSION
Textural themes included (a) challenging role, (b) challenging place, and (c) changed. One of two structural themes representing the core traits included four subthemes (a) be careful, (b) be powerful, (c) be courageous, and (d) be resourceful. The other structural theme representing the skin or outer traits included four subthemes (a) be impeccable, (b) be malleable, (c) be caring, and (d) be resilient.

CONCLUSION
The findings provided validation of previous information and new insight for nursing and military professions in terms of advancement of the practice of military nursing and enhancing the understanding of personnel who participate in the complexities of health care transformation. The need to apply the information gained in this study to enhance role player preparations and support was confirmed.


The purpose of this study was to investigate how Japanese educational institutions realize social justice and enhance Japanese students' capacity for individual self-development in the education system, particularly in upper secondary education. This study involved historical investigation based on analyzing documents, field studies, and in-depth interviews. However, due to the particular social and cultural context of Japan, the preliminary analysis conducted in this study indicated that, despite equal opportunity in education often being emphasized and discussed, social justice is rarely involved in educational policy and research. We conducted in-depth interviews with Japanese scholars to confirm and clarify this issue. Therefore, in this paper, concepts related to social justice (including factors such as educational equity, equality, and fairness) in education are explored first in the Japanese social and cultural context. Second, this paper concentrates on the relationship between social justice (including factors such as educational equity, equality, and fairness) and the capacity for self-development, and comprehensively analyzes Japan's overall education system. Third, in the educational policies, Japanese ideas of realizing social justice and strategies for enhancing students' capacity for individual self-development are clarified. Finally, relevant recommendations are provided in the conclusion.


Program slicing is a program decomposition technique that transforms a large program into a smaller one that contains only statements relevant to the computation of a selected function. Applications of program slicing can be found in software testing, debugging and maintenance where program slicing essentially reduces the amount of data that has to be analyzed in order to comprehend a program or parts of its functionality. In this thesis, two program slicing algorithms based on the notion of removable blocks are presented and they are (1) a general static program slicing algorithm and (2) criterion based hybrid program slicing algorithm. The thesis introduced new syntax tree representation using removable blocks and theorized a new navigation technique for the same. The new static slicing algorithm combined with the enhanced dynamic slicing algorithm is used to derive the criterion based hybrid slicing algorithm. The hybrid program slicing algorithm allows the user to define the range of accuracy between static and dynamic program slicing. These algorithms compute slices that are executable for structured and object-oriented programs. It uses the executable property of new static slicing to reduce the input source code to dynamic slicing to save the time and space. The introduced program slicing approaches are part of M[barbelow]ontreal O[barbelow]bject-O[barbelow]riented S[barbelow]licing E[barbelow]nvironment (MOOSE). MOOSE utilizes the information derived from the program slicing algorithms to enhance the functionality and usability of the framework. The preliminary tests with the basic hybrid program slicing algorithm indicate that hybrid program slicing can reduce the algorithmic time and space for the slice computation as compared to the dynamic program slicing.


The authors model the agency relationship between managers and investors. Through socialization, ethical managers develop internalized norms that prevent them from acting opportunistically. Unethical managers lack these norms. Higher ethical standards on the part of managers increase economic activity in the short run. However, increased economic activity increases opportunities to profit from unethical behavior, eroding ethical standards over the long run. When this rate of erosion is high, cycling of ethics and economic activity emerges. Otherwise, ethics and economic activity converge to a stable long-run limiting value. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.


We consider financial networks where agents are linked to each other via mutual liabilities. In case of bankruptcy, there are potentially many bankruptcy rules, ways to distribute the assets of a bankrupt agent over the other agents. One common approach is to first apply pairwise netting of agents that have mutual liabilities and next use the proportional rule to determine the payments on the basis of the net liabilities. We refer to this as the pairwise netting proportional rule. The pairwise netting proportional rule satisfies the basic requirements of claims boundedness, limited liability, priority of creditors, and continuity. It also satisfies the desirable properties of net impartiality, an agent that has two creditors with the same net claims pays the same amount to both creditors on top of pairwise netting, and invariance to mitosis, an agent that splits into a number of identical agents is not affecting the payments of the other agents. We demonstrate that if net impartiality and invariance to mitosis, together with the basic requirements, are regarded as imperative properties, then payments should be determined by the pairwise netting proportional rule. JEL


Austrian education is currently undergoing long overdue standardization procedures, with nationwide school-leaving exams still not available for most subjects. A similar standardization procedure was introduced at Graz, Klagenfurt, Salzburg and Vienna universities in 2006 when linguists and language teachers started professionalizing assessment practices for exit-level English exams in their BA programmes by developing analytic rating scales for writing. This paper describes which dimensions were selected, and how the scales were developed. Anchor descriptors were extracted from the CEFR for a bare pass (C1) and the top grade (C2) in Grammar, Vocabulary, Textual competence and Pragmatic competence (later Task achievement), and exam performances on typical writing prompts were rated, including brief justifications. Subsequently, extended descriptors were formulated for C1/C2 based on the teams' justifications, and a mid-way level (C1.2) was inserted. Finally, the scales were modified during benchmarking procedures.


Most studies that examine the influence of climatic change on flora and fauna have focused on northern latitudes; however, there is increasing recognition that tropical regions are also being affected. Despite this, regions such as Madagascar, which are rich in endemic biodiversity but may have low adaptive capacity to climatic change, are poorly represented in studies examining the effects of climate variability on biota. We investigated how El Niño Southern Oscillations (ENSO) influence precipitation patterns in the rainforest region of southeastern Madagascar (1962–2006) and then constructed models to assess the potential contribution of climatic variables on the reproductive parameters of the Milne Edward's sifaka, a threatened lemur species (Propithecus edwardsi), over a 20-year period. The Southern Oscillation Index of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the tropical Pacific was associated with precipitation patterns including wetter wet seasons during warmer phases and drier dry seasons following cooler phases. The bestsupported models of lemur fecundity (female offspring per female that survive to 1 year of age per year) included cyclone presence during gestation and ENSO phase before conception and during the first 6 months of life. Models also suggested that heavy rains during gestation may limit birth rates and that prolonged drought during female lactation may limit first year offspring survival; although these variables were given little importance for predicting overall fecundity relative to ENSO phases and cyclone presence. Our results linking lemur reproduction with climatic variability suggest that climatic changes may be an additional threat to Madagascar's unique and already endangered flora and fauna. The association between precipitation in southeastern Madagascar and SST anomalies in the tropical Pacific suggests that dynamics of wildlife populations even in tropical areas such as Madagascar can be affected by global climate cycles making them potentially vulnerable to global climate change.


Brain Computer Interface (BCI) systems provide control of external devices by using only brain activity. In recent years, there has been a great interest in developing BCI systems for different applications. These systems are capable of solving daily life problems for both healthy and disabled people. One of the most important applications of BCI is to provide communication for disabled people that are totally paralysed. In this paper, different parts of a BCI system and different methods used in each part are reviewed. Neuroimaging devices, with an emphasis on EEG (electroencephalography), are presented and brain activities as well as signal processing methods used in EEG-based BCIs are explained in detail. Current methods and paradigms in BCI based speech communication are considered.


As a consequence of recent implementations of EU Directives related to noise protection more and more students of various AGH-UST programs are introduced to the basics of acoustic measurements. Students at various levels of theoretical background in the field of acoustic measurements are offered practical training in measurements using digital sound analyzers. The situation would be optimal if each student could have a device at his/her own disposal. Unfortunately, such a situation is not possible at the moment because of various reasons. With the above problem in mind, a dedicated software package has been developed, implemented in the LabVIEW environment, which allows detailed studies of problems related to the acoustic signal measurement using sound level meters, as well as tasks in spectral analysis (1/1 and 1/3 band filters) and narrow-band (FFT) analysis. With such organization during the introductory laboratory classes each student is offered a direct individual contact with a virtual device that is properly pre-programmed for realization of a well-constructed learning process. It definitely facilitates understanding of the essence of acoustic signal measurements and provides a good basis for further laboratory work carried out as a team-activity.


This paper considers the effect of corruption on the efficiency of capital investment. Using firm-level level data from the World Bank enterprise surveys, covering 90 developing and transition economies, we consider whether the cost of informal bribe payments distorts the efficient allocation of capital by reducing the marginal return per unit investment. Using country estimates of fractionalization and legal origin as instruments, and controlling for censoring, we find that bribery decreases investment efficiency, as measured using both absolute and relative metrics of investment returns. The negative effect is strongest for domestic small and medium-sized enterprises while there is no significant effect on foreign and large domestic firms. We conclude that reducing the level and incidence of bribery by public officials would facilitate a more efficient allocation of capital. This in turn would support economic growth and development, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.


Owing to the importance of the concept of aromaticity, different indices have been developed to try to quantify this property. The possible π delocalization through an XSOnX group (X = C, N; n = 0, 1 or 2) could explain heteroaromaticity in rings containing the moiety. For that reason, the aromaticity of five-membered sulphurcontaining rings with different oxidation numbers (S, SO and SO2) and including no (thiophene), one (isothiazole) or two (1,2,5-thiadiazole) adjacent atoms was investigated. Ab initio calculations were carried out to determine geometrical parameters (planarity of the ring, bond length and bond order), electronic structure (charge distribution and dipolar moment) and the participation of d-orbitals of sulphur. According to these calculations, only compounds with S(II) can be considered to be aromatic, whereas compounds bearing S(IV) or S(VI) are better described as ylides.


REVIEW This reVIew IS to provide information on viral diseases of livestock in Zambia. The distribution of the diseases as well as the control measures and limited research that has been done, are described. Foot and mouth disease (FMD) causes serious economic losses in the cattle industry. So far five serotypes (SAT1, SAT2, SAT3, 0 and A) of FMD virus have been isolated in Zambia. Other notifiable viral diseases are rabies, Rift Valley fever, lumpy skin disease, African horse sickness, bluetongue, African swine fever, Newcastle disease, Marek's disease, fowlpox and infectious bursal disease. Based on the reports of clinical and/or serological diagnoses, these are widespread in the country, although their precise incidence rates are not known. With the establishment of a veterinary school equipped with modern diagnostic facilities and the increasing number of qualified veterinary personnel, this review would stimulate surveillance study on the viral diseases for the ultimate goal of achieving effective disease control measures.


Serum bile salt measurements and intravenous clearance of glycocholate were performed in a woman with Dubin-Johnson syndrome. Fasting conjugated cholate concentration was raised and prolonged intravenous clearance of sodium glycocholate revealed a secondary rise in conjugated cholate concentration after two hours. The intravenous clearance of bromsulphthalein also showed a secondary rise. These findings support the proposal that Dubin-Johnson syndrome is not homogeneous and that in some patients a abnormality of bile salt clearance coexists with an abnormality of bilirubin nd bromsulphthalein clearance.


Carbohydrate content and related enzyme activities were determined in leaves of rough-lemon (Citrus volkameriana Ten. & Pasq) plants grown under K, Mg, and Ca deficiencies. Starch content was lower and soluble sugar significantly higher in K-deficient than in control leaves. Magnesium- and Ca-deficient leaves, on the other hand, accumulated large amounts of starch. Electron micrographs also showed a reduction in the number and size of starch grains in chloroplasts of K-deficient leaves, while those of Mg- and Ca-deficient leaves were filled with large starch grains. Total amylase activity increased 3- to 7-fold in K-deficient leaves, with maltose as the major product and small amounts of maltotriose. Electrophoretic separation of amylase isozymes on native gels containing starch or amylopectin showed higher band intensities in K-deficient leaves. Examination of the capacity of leaf extracts to use amylopectin vs. β- limit dextrin indicated that mainly 8-amylase was involved. Acid invertase activity increased 7-fold in K-deficient leaves, while alkaline invertase showed little change. In most higher plants, the principal end-products of leaf photo- synthesis are starch and sucrose. However, species partition the photosynthate differently between starch and sucrose, and various factors affect this partitioning pattern (Huber, 1989). Starch is the major storage carbohydate in Citrus (Sanz and Guardiola, 1988) and may comprise as much as 12.3% of leaf dry matter (Goldschmidt


This paper addresses the problem of cooperative target tracking using a heterogeneous multi-robot system, where the robots are communicating over a dynamic communication network, and heterogeneity is in terms of different types of sensors and prediction algorithms installed in the robots. The problem is cast into a distributed learning framework, where robots are considered as 'agents' connected over a dynamic communication network. Their prediction algorithms are considered as 'experts' giving their look-ahead predictions of the target's trajectory. In this paper, a novel Decentralized Distributed Expert-Assisted Learning (D2EAL) algorithm is proposed, which improves the overall tracking performance by enabling each robot to improve its look-ahead prediction of the target's trajectory by its information sharing, and running a weighted information fusion process combined with online learning of weights based on a prediction loss metric. Theoretical analysis of D2EAL is carried out, which involves the analysis of worst-case bounds on cumulative prediction loss, and weights convergence analysis. Simulation studies show that in adverse scenarios involving large dynamic bias or drift in the expert predictions, D2EAL outperforms well-known covariance-based estimate/prediction fusion methods, both in terms of prediction performance and scalability.


In this paper, I analyze Corporale (1974) from the perspective of the proper names of the main character. The oscillation of the name and of its meaning are clear signs of the deconstruction of the main character's identity but they refer at the same time to the desire to revolt against the existential crisis that is destroying him. With reference to the names of the main character, I identify two forms of rebellion – one is realistic, the other utopian – and three narrative phases related to the names. From this perspective, I reinterpret the whole narrative involving Gerolamo Aspri.


Due to improved computing power, connectivity and interaction capability of mobile devices, their popularity and general acceptance in mass population has increased in recent years. Mobile applications are software systems running on mobile hand-held devices such as smart phones and tablets. Due to obvious differences in mobile applications, the evolution studies on them is of high importance. The primary objective is to study and compare the mobile applications evolution with the Lehman's laws of software evolution. Next is to identify and report how the software development team size influences mobile applications evolution. The study is conducted on 9 different open source mobile applications among which 5 were developed by single core developer and 4 were developed by multiple core developers. The selected projects' code repository is cloned into local copy and a number of tools are used on those repositories for extraction of relevant metrics from the artifacts. The Lehman laws are tested graphically, analytically and in some cases statistically. Six of the Lehman's laws are tested for validation in sample mobile applications. Among the six laws, I-Continuing Change is found supportive, III-Self Regulation and VI-Continuing Growth are found partial supportive in mobile applications. The II-Increasing complexity and V-Conservation of Familiarity are inconclusive. The IV-Conservation of Organizational Stability is not supportive in our sample mobile applications. Moreover, mobile applications are developed by a single or a few developers. Small team mobile projects have less time between releases compared to large team projects. The growth pattern of mobile applications is different than that predicted by Lehman laws.


Pharmacy store Pekan Labuhan of Medan Health Office is a technical implementation unit manager of the medicine in the Medan Health Office were instrumental in ensuring the availability of medicine in the region of Medan Health Office. Implementation of management informations system medicine of Pharmacy Store Pekan Labuhan of Medan Health Office refers to existing systems that is based on the Report of Medicine and Demand then processed manually and partly by a computer. Due still use the manual way to manage the availability of medicine informations systems, so sometimes the information generated is less accurate, relevant and timely. This in certainly a very impact on the efficiency an effectiveness of the medicine availability informations. The goal of designing this system is to have medicine control management that can process the data and produce the information of the good medicine availability for supporting the medicine programme management and health supply in Pharmacy Store Pekan Labuhan of Medan Health Office. The design of this system uses system development life cycle. This life cycle has several stages. They are planning stage, analysing stage, designing stage, testing stage and keeping stage. The result of designing this system is the report of the medicine availability, medicine entry and out as of the date, month, year and donors. After doing this research, there is a suggestion that can be applied in Pharmacy Store Pekan Labuhan of Medan Health Office. It is to develop the system to be a client server information system. It is needed some trainings for administrators and operators of the new system to have the accuracy in inputting the data. Keywords : System, information, availability medicine information, computer program.


The motion estimation algorithm based on the Region of Interest has been proposed for the contradictions between accuracy and computational complexity. According to different levels of physical activity, the image is divided into regions of interest (ROI) and background (BG). For ROI, motion estimation based on redundant wavelet domain (RDWT-FS-ARPS) is presented in order to ensure the accuracy of motion estimation and the speed. And for BG, adaptive rood pattern search based on wavelet domain (DWT-ARPS) is proposed so that the computational complexity is of a dominant position while maximizing the accuracy of motion estimation. Experiment shows that the method is practical and effective to meet human visual system, and it can solve the contradictions between accuracy and computational complexity of the motion estimation to a certain extent. Besides, it provides a foundation for the compression of the region of interest and real-time transmission, especially suitable for monitoring, video phone system.


This research tries to explain the financial performance of several SMEs (Small Medium Enterprises) owned by our students. They are living examples of student that run business since in undergraduate program. The discourse to boosting SMEs cannot neglect problems related to financial performance. We obtained the result that the all financial statements showed good performance. Even though there were excess funds that the entrepreneurs not maximally used. We suspect they are doing it as a caution because they are still beginners in the business world. The businesses getting most profit are those who sell staple food substitutes. This phenomenon is because these types of foods are already familiar to most people's tongues. While businesses that focus on drinks with specific targets, it turns out shows smaller profits and even the lowest among others. However, in total, they showed their ability as entrepreneurs, even though on a small scale.


Background : Type 2 diabetes mellitus is associated with abnormal markers of inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress markers. Although, these abnormalities could be modulated with weight reduction; there is limitation in clinical studies that have addressed the beneficial effects of weight reduction in modulating biomarkers of inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress for obesity associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Objective : This study was designed to detect the effects of weight loss on the inflammatory cytokines, oxidative stress markers in obese type 2 diabetic patients. Material and Methods : Eighty obese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, their age ranged from 35-57 years and their body mass index ranged from 31-35 kg/m2 were equally assigned into 2 groups: the weight reduction group received aerobic exercises, diet regimen, where as the control group received medical treatment only for 12 weeks. Results : The mean values of body mass index (BMI), tumor necrosis factor–alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), C-reactive protein (sCRP), conjugated dienes (CD) and malondialdehyde (MDA) were significantly decreased, while the mean values of glutathione peroxidase (GPx), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione (GSH) were significantly increased in patients of group (A), while changes were not  significant in group (B). Also, there were significant differences between mean levels of the investigated parameters in group (A) and group (B) at the end of the study. Conclusion : Weight loss ameliorates inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress markers in obese type 2 diabetic patients. Keywords : Type 2 diabetes, weight reduction, oxidative stress, cytokines, obesity.


We re-interpret the drivers of structural change in Australia from Federation to World War II. Manufacturing increased its relative share of output and employment, the farm sector and mining contracted. Conventional wisdom contends these shifts largely resulted from government policy, particularly increases in trade barriers. We contend that the connection between tariffs and increased profitability is conceptually weak and not supported by extant evidence. We argue that exogenous shifts in consumer preferences, the adoption of new technologies, changing factor proportions, and greater specialisation in manufacturing and services were responsible for manufacturing increasing its share of the economy's resources and output.