Wilson traces four major themes in the thought of Paine and Cobbett: the relationship between British radical ideas and American revolutionary ideology; the eighteenth-century revolution in rhetorical theory; the effect of the American and French Revolutions on British popular radicalism; and the American attempt to turn the United States into a new "empire of liberty". He challenges the view that Paine created a new literary style for a new audience of artisans and labourers, arguing instead that this style was part of a broader revolution in rhetoric, and discusses the interconnections between Paine's English and American careers. Wilson shows that the tension between the ideal and the real is central to understanding Cobbett. He analyzes Cobbett's American experiences, and examines the role of Paine's writings and the United States in Cobbett's subsequent career as a radical in England. The epilogue returns to the differences and similarities in Paine's and Cobbett's careers, examines their strategies for change, and discusses their ambiguous legacies to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.


Background and purpose Early Reperfusion is critical for favourable outcome in patients with acute ischaemic stroke (AIS). There are limited data on the comparative performance of FDA approved devices for mechanical thrombectomy. Here, we compare the angiographic, radiographic, and clinical outcomes amongst the three device categories currently available in the U.S. when used in routine clinical practice. Methods Retrospective review of a prospective collected database of endovascularly treated large vessel AIS in a large academic centre. Data from all consecutive patients who underwent clot retrieval using Merci, Penumbra, or Stent-Retrievers from September 2010 to July 2012 were analysed. Baseline characteristics including age, gender, NIHSS, ASPECTS score, and co-morbidities were compared across the 3 groups. The outcome measures included the rates of recanalisation (TICI 2b-3), symptomatic intracebral haemorrhage (sICH, defined as any parenchymal haematoma e.g. PH-1/PH-2), final infarct volume, 90-day mortality, and independent functional outcomes (modified Rankin Scale, mRS 0–2) at 90 days. Results The entire cohort included 287 patients with a mean age of 65.5 ± 14.2 and median baseline NIHSS 20. Of the patients 49.38% were females. The median ASPECTS score was 8. There were no significant differences in terms of baseline characteristics amongst the 3 device groups. There were not statistically differences in the rate of sICH (7% vs 7% vs 6%, for Stent retrieval, Merci and Penumbra respectively, P-value = 0.921), and the volume of infarction (66.9, 69.5, and 59.8 cc for Stent retrieval, Merci and Penumbra respectively, P-value = 0.621). However, the rates of TICI 2b-3 reperfusion (86 % vs 70% vs 78 %, p=: 0.027) were significantly higher with Stent-Retrievers and Penumbra system as compared to Merci treatments. This effect remained significant when controlling, for time of stroke onset, ASPECTS score, infarction volume, and co-morbidities. There was no significant difference in the 90-day functional independence (33 % vs 25 % vs 41%, p=0.079) amongst the different devices (for Stent-Retriever, Merci, and Penumbra groups, respectively). Conclusion Our initial data confirms the superiority of the Stent-Retriever technology over the Merci device in achieving higher rates of reperfusion and better outcomes. No significant difference in near complete/complete reperfusion, final infarct volumes, or clinical outcomes could be established between Stent-Retrievers and Penumbra thromboaspiration. This supports the need for a randomised clinical trial comparing these two technologies. Disclosures T. Kass-Hout: None. O. Kass-Hout: None. C. Sun: None. R. Gupta: None. R. Nogueira: None.


Fifteen percent of patients with Wilms' tumor (WT) experience relapse. It has been suggested that weight and age may affect the chances of relapse. Few studies have investigated the role, if any, between P-glycoprotein (P-gp) and relapse. The authors assessed the prognostic value of tumor weight and age at diagnosis and asked whether some other potential biological markers, specifically P-gp protein expression, had a prognostic value in favorable-histology WT. No association between age and relapse could be found. Patients with tumor weight ≥550 g were 6 times more likely to relapse, whereas P-gp expression was positive in 18/40 (45%) of the patients, of which 10/12 (83.3%) relapsed and 8/28 (28.6%) did not. Further studies are necessary to elucidate whether or not P-gp is related to relapse in patients with histologically favorable Wilms' tumor. If confirmed, the protein may be used in the future as a target for new drugs and treatments for this group of patients.


This article discusses how different climate policy instruments such as CO2 taxes and renewable energy subsidies affect the profitability of fossil fuel production, given that a fixed global climate target shall be achieved in the long term. Within an intertemporal framework, the model analyses show that CO2 taxes reduce the short-term profitability to a greater extent than technology subsidies, since the competition from CO2-free energy sources does not become particularly noticeable until decades later. Due to e.g. discounting of future revenues, most fossil fuel producers therefore prefer subsidies to their competitors above CO2 taxes. However, this conclusion does not apply to all producers. Oil producers outside OPEC lose the most on the subsidising of CO2-free energy, while CO2 taxes only slightly reduce their profits. This is connected to OPEC's role in the oil market, as the cartel chooses to reduce its extraction significantly in the tax scenario. The results seem to be consistent with observed behaviour of important players in the climate negotiations.


Objectives The aim of this study is to assess the management of patients affected by ovarian cancer at first diagnosis in the Oncological Network of Piedmont and Valle d'Aosta. Specific objectives of this audit are: description of first line treatment, evaluation of adherence to international guidelines, description of overall survival and assessment of clinical and organisational factors that could influence the outcome. Methods This audit includes a retrospective and a prospective part. The retrospective analysis concerns incident cases between January and June 2016, which are useful to describe structure and process indicators at baseline. The prospective anlysis concerns patients with ovarian cancer treated in the hospitals of the oncological network from May 2017 until today and will last three years. The outcomes are shared with the operators every six months. Results There has been a significant improvement in adherence to the correct treatment pathways: the percentage of patients following the correct diagnostic-therapeutic pathway increased from 2.3% in 2015 to 68.2% in 2017 with a further improvement in the last year. Focusing on retrospective analysis, a comparison with a similar previous study (COROP 2009) shows a centralisation of treatments, an increase in early diagnosis, a better adherence to protocols with a significant improvement in overall survival. Conclusions Retrospective data showed an improvement in care pathways confirmed by a preliminary analysis of prospective data. If these results will be confirmed at the end of the Audit, it could be possibile to exporting this system also outside the Oncological Network in order to set improvement strategies.


This paper is the latest in a series of studies of EIS (electronic information services) usage and information literacy among staff and students at Glasgow Caledonian University and builds on previous work elsewhere. It reports on two surveys conducted in March 2002 and October 2002-February 2003 respectively and thus offers a longitudinal perspective. The questionnaires were administered both on paper and electronically and the results compared but no differences in data collected could be detected. The results showed a growth in usage in the relatively short period between the two surveys and subject area studied proved to be the main determinant of EIS usage, followed by integration into the programme. Mode of attendance is an issue and off-Campus usage is growing, with an increasing emphasis on workplace access. The catalogue was found to be no longer 'the key to the library' and gateways and links were little used. A relationship between student progression and retention and EIS usage was identified.


Research on next‐generation battery technologies (beyond Li‐ion batteries, or LIBs) has been accelerating over the past few years. A key challenge for these emerging batteries has been the lack of suitable electrode materials, which severely limits their further developments. MXenes, a new class of 2D transition metal carbides, carbonitrides, and nitrides, are proposed as electrode materials for these emerging batteries due to several desirable attributes. These attributes include large and tunable interlayer spaces, excellent hydrophilicity, extraordinary conductivity, compositional diversity, and abundant surface chemistries, making MXenes promising not only as electrode materials but also as other components in the cells of emerging batteries. Herein, an overview and assessment of the utilization of MXenes in rechargeable batteries beyond LIBs, including alkali‐ion (e.g., Na+, K+) storage, multivalent‐ion (e.g., Mg2+, Zn2+, and Al3+) storage, and metal batteries are presented. In particular, the synthetic strategies and properties of MXenes that enable MXenes to play various roles as electrodes, metal anode protective layers, sulfur hosts, separator modification layers, and conductive additives in these emerging batteries are discussed. Moreover, a perspective on promising future research directions on MXenes and MXene‐based materials, ranging from material design and processing, fundamental understanding of the reaction mechanisms, to device performance optimization strategies is provided.


We use Transparency International's ratings of self-reported anticorruption efforts to analyze factors underlying the ratings. Our tests examine whether these disclosures reflect firms' real efforts to combat corruption or are cheap talk. We find that the ratings are related to enforcement and monitoring, country and industry corruption risk, and governance variables. Controlling for these effects and other ratings determinants, we find that firms with lower residual ratings have higher subsequent citations in corruption news events. They also report higher future sales growth and show a negative relation between profitability change and sales growth in high corruption geographic segments, but not in low corruption segments. The net effect on valuation from sales growth and changes in profitability is close to zero. The findings are robust to a number of sensitivity tests, including analysis of disclosures for a larger sample over multiple years. We conclude that, on average, firms' disclosures signal real efforts to combat corruption.


Most present drug-phospholipid delivery systems were based on a water-insoluble drug-phospholipid complex but rarely water-soluble drug-phospholipid complex. Mitomycin C (MMC) is a water-soluble anticancer drug extensively used in first-line chemotherapy but is limited by its poor aqueous stability in vitro, rapid elimination from the body, and lack of target specificity. In this article, we report the MMC-soybean phosphatidylcholine complex-loaded PEG-lipid-PLA hybrid nanoparticles (NPs) with Folate (FA) functionalization (FA-PEG-PE-PLA NPs@MMC-SPC) for targeted drug delivery and dual-controlled drug release. FA-PEG-PE-PLA NPs@MMC-SPC comprise a hydrophobic core (PLA) loaded with MMC-SPC, an amphiphilic lipid interface layer (PE), a hydrophilic shell (PEG), and a targeting ligand (FA) on the surface, with a spherical shape, a nanoscaled particle size, and high drug encapsulation efficiency of almost 95%. The advantage of the new drug delivery systems is the early phase controlled drug release by the drug-phospholipid complex and the late-phase controlled drug release by the pH-sensitive polymer-lipid hybrid NPs. In vitro cytotoxicity and hemolysis assays demonstrated that the drug carriers were cytocompatible and hemocompatible. The pharmacokinetics study in rats showed that FA-PEG-PE-PLA NPs@MMC-SPC significantly prolonged the blood circulation time compared to that of the free MMC. More importantly, FA-PEG-PE-PLA NPs@MMC-SPC presented the enhanced cell uptake/cytotoxicity in vitro and superior tumor accumulation/therapeutic efficacy in vivo while reducing the systemic toxicity. A significant accumulation of MMC in the nuclei as the site of MMC action achieved in FA-PEG-PE-PLA NPs@MMC-SPC made them ideal for MMC drug delivery. This study may provide an effective strategy for the design and development of the water-soluble drug-phospholipid complex-based targeted drug delivery and sustained/controlled drug release.


The year 2009 begins a new security relationship, for better or worse, between Russia and the United States. On the policy menu for both states are carry-forward negotiations and looming deadlines with respect to strategic nuclear arms control. Despite the ups and downs of political relations during the years of the George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin presidencies, the United States and Russia have remained committed to reducing their numbers of operationally deployed, long range nuclear weapons. Those commitments have implications for other issues, including nonproliferation and counterterrorism. Since politics dominates strategy, the outcome of further negotiations on Russian-American nuclear arms reductions depends upon the character of the political winds that blow between Washington and Moscow. During the latter part of the Bush and Putin presidencies, those winds were Arctic. More favorable westerlies and easterlies permit progress, but what realistic options present themselves for policy makers' consideration? The following discussion considers those options, evaluates their credibility, and considers their possible side effects.


Synchrotron radiation emitted from the UVSOR storage ring is monochromated by a grazing-incidence monochromator and introduced coaxially with the second harmonic of a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. Sample gases, N(2) and N(2)O, are photoionized into vibronically ground N(2)(+) with the fundamental light of the undulator radiation at 18.0 and 18.6 eV, respectively. Laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) excitation spectra of N(2)(+) from N(2) and N(2)O are measured in the laser wavelength region of the (B (2)Sigma(u)(+), v' = 0) <-- (X (2)Sigma(g)(+), v" = 0) transition at 389-392 nm. The LIF excitation spectra of N(2)(+) exhibit two maxima due to the P and R branches in which rotational bands are heavily overlapped. The rotational temperature is determined by simulating an LIF excitation spectrum by using the theoretical intensity distribution of rotation bands convoluted with the spectral width of the laser.


Due to its low power consumption and high density, phase change memory (PCM) becomes a promising main-memory alternative to DRAM in embedded systems. PCM, however, has the endurance problem in which the number of rewrites to each cell is quite limited compared with DRAM. Therefore, it is fundamental to eliminate unnecessary writes in PCM-based embedded systems. This paper presents a simple yet effective scheme to solve this problem, through redesigning existing software to exploit write-activity-aware features provided by underlying hardware. Particularly, we target at page table management, a key kernel component residing in the memory management part of the Linux kernel. We present for the first time a write-activity-aware page table management scheme, WAPTM, accomplished through two modifications to the page table initialization and page frame allocation process. The scheme has been implemented in Google Android 2.3 based on ARM architecture and evaluated with real applications on the Android emulator. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme can significantly reduce write activities to page tables in the new kernel compared with the original Android. We hope this work can serve as a first step towards the design of write-activity-aware operating systems via simple and feasible modifications.


Ni–Cu–PGE (platinum group element) sulphide mineralization is commonly found in magmatic conduit systems. In many cases the trigger for formation of an immiscible sulphide liquid involves assimilation of S-bearing crustal rocks. Conceptually, the fluid dynamics of sulphide liquid droplets within such conduits is essentially a balance between gravitational sinking and upwards entrainment. Thus, crustal contamination signatures may be present in sulphides preserved both up- and down-flow from the point of interaction with the contaminant. We examine a suite of ultramafic volcanic plugs on the Isle of Rum, Scotland, to decipher controls on sulphide accumulation in near-surface magma conduits intruded into a variable sedimentary stratigraphy. The whole-rock compositions of the plugs broadly overlap with the compositions of ultramafic units within the Rum Layered Complex, although subtle differences between each plug highlight their individuality. Interstitial base metal sulphide minerals occur in all ultramafic plugs on Rum. Sulphide minerals have magmatic δ34S (ranging from –1·3 to +2·1‰) and S/Se ratios (mean = 2299), and demonstrate that the conduit magmas were already S-saturated. However, two plugs in NW Rum contain substantially coarser (sometimes net-textured) sulphides with unusually light δ34S (–14·7 to +0·3‰) and elevated S/Se ratios (mean = 4457), not represented by the immediate host-rocks. Based on the Hebrides Basin sedimentary stratigraphy, it is likely that the volcanic con duits would have intruded through a package of Jurassic mudrocks with characteristically light δ34S (–33·8 to –14·7‰). We propose that a secondary crustal S contamination event took place at a level above that currently exposed, and that these sulphides sank back to their present position. Modelling suggests that upon the cessation of active magma transport, sulphide liquids could have sunk back through the conduit over a distance of several hundreds of metres, over a period of a few days. This sulphide 'withdrawal' process may be observed in other vertical or steeply inclined magma conduits globally; for example, in the macrodykes of East Greenland. Sulphide liquid sinking within a non-active conduit or during magma 'suck-back' may help to explain crustal S-isotopic compositions in magma conduits that appear to lack appropriate lithologies to support this contamination, either locally or deeper in the system.


In this paper we propose a Multiple Description Image Coding(MDIC) scheme to generate two compressed and balanced rates descriptions in the wavelet domain (Daubechies biorthogonal (9, 7) wavelet) using pairwise correlating transform optimal and application method for Generalized Multiple Description Coding (GMDC) to image coding in the wavelet domain. The GMDC produces statistically correlated streams such that lost streams can be estimated from the received data. Our performance test shown that the proposed method gives more improvement and good quality of the reconstructed image when the wavelet coefficients are normalized by Gaussian Scale Mixture (GSM) model then the Gaussian one ,. Keywords—Multiple description coding (MDC), gaussian scale mixture (GSM) model, joint source-channel coding, pairwise correlating transform, GMDCT.


This article is made to know the destinantion and the administrasi functions of the school in order to assist the leader of an organazation in making decisions and doing the right thing, recording of such statements in addition to the information needs also pertains to the function of accountabilitty and control functions.


We have demonstrated the fabrication and characterization of hybrid CdSe-ZnS quantum dot (QD)-InGaN-GaN quantum well (QW) red light-emitting diodes (LED). The red-emitting QD-resin blend was dropped on the InGaN blue LED to complete the device fabrication. With proper blend ratio, the blue light from the InGaN QWs can be effectively down converted to the red light. In our case, when the QD concentration is as high as 40 mg/1 ml of resin, the luminous flux from the hybrid LED biased at 20 mA is 0.65 lm, from which the luminous efficiency of 9.3 lm/W can be obtained. Also, the corresponding electroluminescence spectrum exhibits the contribution of red light emission to the total light intensity is 98%, while the Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage chromaticity coordinates of the red light are (0.635, 0.275). However, the coordinates would be gradually shifted with current increasing from 10 to 60 mA due to the fluctuation of red/blue light ratio and thermal effect.


Emerging vertical flight concepts being proffered for solutions to the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) mission set such as compound high speed rotorcraft can be designed with multiple, coupled control effectors thus creating redundant systems in one or two more axes to generate control forces and moments which allow for a range of trim states. In the FVL mission area future rotorcraft will be asked to fly into high threat environments where potential failure modes can be encountered due to enemy fire or mechanical failure causing reduction of the safe flight envelope. Fault detection creates options to increase the survivability of the crew and passengers allowing an emergency flight envelope to be proposed. One of the more serious potential failures due to enemy fire is a loss of yaw control. Faults in yaw control can be detected in a compound rotorcraft with a vectored thrust ducted propeller (VTDP) or similar anti-torque thruster. An online Kalman filter (KF) for a dimensional yaw moment coeff icient model will be used to estimate vehicle yaw coeff icients. Deviation from the nominal coefficients will be monitored based on the KF statistics in the case of both rudder and tail rotor failure at 60, 40, and 20 ft/s in forward flight. Both frozen zero rudder and ganged sector faults as well as failed tail rotor faults were successfully detected at all airspeeds except the failed tail rotor at 60 ft/s. For the yaw control faults considered, post fault excitation appears airspeed dependent. An online KF estimator for yaw control fault detection could successfully be integrated into the design of a compound rotorcraft with VTDP thereby increasing system safety.


The main challenge in domain generalization (DG) is to handle the distribution shift problem that lies between the training and test data. Recent studies suggest that test-time training (TTT), which adapts the learned model with test data, might be a promising solution to the problem. Generally, a TTT strategy hinges its performance on two main factors: selecting an appropriate auxiliary TTT task for updating and identifying reliable parameters to update during the test phase. Both previous arts and our experiments indicate that TTT may not improve but be detrimental to the learned model if those two factors are not properly considered. This work addresses those two factors by proposing an Improved Test-Time Adaptation (ITTA) method. First, instead of heuristically defining an auxiliary objective, we propose a learnable consistency loss for the TTT task, which contains learnable parameters that can be adjusted toward better alignment between our TTT task and the main prediction task. Second, we introduce additional adaptive parameters for the trained model, and we suggest only updating the adaptive parameters during the test phase. Through extensive experiments, we show that the proposed two strategies are beneficial for the learned model (see Figure 1), and ITTA could achieve superior performance to the current state-of-the-art methods on several DG benchmarks. Code is available at https://github.com/liangchen527/ITTA.


This review presents methanol as a potential renewable alternative to fossil fuels in the fight against climate change. It explores the renewable ways of obtaining methanol and its use in efficient energy systems for a net zero-emission carbon cycle, with a special focus on fuel cells. It investigates the different parts of the carbon cycle from a methanol and fuel cell perspective. In recent years, the potential for a methanol economy has been shown and there has been significant technological advancement of its renewable production and utilization. Even though its full adoption will require further development, it can be produced from renewable electricity and biomass or CO2 capture and can be used in several industrial sectors, which make it an excellent liquid electrofuel for the transition to a sustainable economy. By converting CO2 into liquid fuels, the harmful effects of CO2 emissions from existing industries that still rely on fossil fuels are reduced. The methanol can then be used both in the energy sector and the chemical industry, and become an all-around substitute for petroleum. The scope of this review is to put together the different aspects of methanol as an energy carrier of the future, with particular focus on its renewable production and its use in high-temperature polymer electrolyte fuel cells (HT-PEMFCs) via methanol steam reforming.


Dual language learners, or DLLs, may have greater school readiness needs due to the key role English oral language skills play in the development of emerging literacy skills in English and their overall academic achievement. This especially can be the case if children's capacity to benefit from classroom instruction and interact with teachers and fellow students is dependent on their English language proficiency. This policy report examines key factors contributing to young Hispanic DLLs academically at-risk status, as well as the emerging research base on strategies for supporting the learning and development of DLLs in preschool and the early primary grades. Also addressed are the practical, on-the-ground implementation challenges to be addressed if early education programs are to incorporate these strategies.


Deploying a system in a safe and secure manner requires ensuring the tech- nical and procedural levels of assurance also with respect to social and regu- latory frameworks. This is because threats and attacks may not only derive from pitfalls in complex security critical system, but also from ill-designed procedures. However, existing methodologies are not mature enough to em- brace procedural implications and the need for multidisciplinary approach on the safe and secure operation of system. This is particularly common in electronic voting (e-voting) systems.
This dissertation focuses along two lines. First, we propose an approach to guarantee a reasonable security to the overall systems by performing for- mal procedural security analysis. We apply existing techniques and define novel methodologies and approaches for the analysis and verification of procedural rich systems. This includes not only the definition of adequate modeling convention, but also the definition of general techniques for the injection of attacks, and for the transformation of process models into rep- resentations that can be given as input to model checkers. With this it is possible to understand and highlight how the switch to the new tech- nological solution changes security, with the ultimate goal of defining the procedures regulating system and system processes that ensure a sufficient level of security for the system as well as for its procedures.
We then investigate the usage of formal methods to study and analyze the strength and weaknesses of currently deployed (e-voting) system in order to build the next generation (e-voting) systems. More specifically, we show how formal verification techniques can be used to model and reason about the security of an existing e-voting system. To do that, we reuse the methodology propose for procedural security analysis. The practical applicability of the approaches is demonstrated in several case studies from
the domain of public administrations in general and in e-voting system in particular. With this it can be possible to build more secure, reliable, and trustworthy e-voting system.


BACKGROUND
Ectopic pregnancy is the leading cause of pregnancy-related death during the first trimester. Bilateral ectopic pregnancy is a rare phenomenon, varying in frequency between 1 per 725 and 1 per 1,580 ectopic pregnancies. We report the case of a bilateral ectopic pregnancy (ruptured right cornual and intact left ampullary) in a patient with no known risk factors for extrauterine gestation.

CASE
A 33-year-old, black woman, gravida 2, para 1001, presented at approximately 7 weeks' gestation with the acute onset of abdominal pain. She had a rigid surgical abdomen but was hemodynamically stable. Her beta-human chorionic gonadotropin level was 6,398 mIU/mL, and transvaginal ultrasound failed to reveal an intrauterine gestation, adnexal mass or cul-de-sac fluid. Findings at laparotomy included a 500-mL hemoperitoneum and a ruptured right cornual and intact left ampullary pregnancy. Pathology of both specimens confirmed the presence of chorionic villi.

CONCLUSION
Although rare, heterotopic pregnancies can occur even in patients without risk factors.


Environmental problems with chemical and biological water pollution have become a major concern for society. Providing people with safe and affordable water is a grand challenge of the 21st century. The study investigates the photocatalytic degradation capabilities of hydrothermally prepared pure and Cu-doped ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) for the elimination of dye pollutants. A simple, cost-effective hydrothermal process is employed to synthesize the Cu-doped ZnO NPs. The photocatalytic dye degradation activity of the synthesized Cu-doped ZnO NPs is tested by using methylene blue (MB) dye. In addition, the parameters that affect photodegradation efficiency, such as catalyst concentration, starting potential of hydrogen (pH), and dye concentration, were also assessed. The dye degradation is found to be directly proportional to the irradiation time, as 94% of the MB dye is degraded in 2 hrs. Similarly, the dye degradation shows an inverse relation to the MB dye concentration, as the degradation reduced from 94% to 20% when the MB concentration increases from 5 ppm to 80 ppm. The synthesized cost-effective and environmentally friendly Cu-doped ZnO NPs exhibit improved photocatalytic activity against MB dye and can therefore be employed in wastewater treatment materials.


The CKLS process (introduced by Chan, Karolyi, Longstaff, and Sanders) is a typical example of a mean-reverting process. It combines random fluctuations with an elastic attraction force that tends to restore the process to a central value. As such, it is widely used to model the stochastic behaviour of various financial assets. However, the calibration of CKLS processes can be problematic, resulting in high levels of uncertainty on the parameter estimates. In this paper we show that it is still possible to draw solid conclusions about certain qualitative aspects of the time series, as the corresponding indicators are relatively insensitive to changes in the CKLS parameters.


Conventional methods to determine the efficacy of bacteriophage (phage) for biocontrol of E. coli require several days, due to the need to culture bacteria. Furthermore, cell surface-attached phage particles may lyse bacterial cells during experiments, leading to an overestimation of phage activity. DNA-based real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) is a fast, sensitive, and highly specific means of enumerating pathogens. However, qPCR may underestimate phage activity due to its inability to distinguish viable from nonviable cells. In this study, we evaluated the suitability of propidium monoazide (PMA), a microbial membrane-impermeable dye that inhibits amplification of extracellular DNA and DNA within dead or membrane-compromised cells as a means of using qPCR to identify only intact E. coli cells that survive phage exposure. Escherichia coli O157:H7 strain R508N and 4 phages (T5-like, T1-like, T4-like, and O1-like) were studied. Results compared PMA-qPCR and direct plating and confirmed that PMA could successfully inhibit amplification of DNA from compromised/damaged cells E. coli O157:H7. Compared to PMA-qPCR, direct plating overestimated (P < 0.01) phage efficacy as cell surface-attached phage particles lysed E. coli O157:H7 during the plating process. Treatment of samples with PMA in combination with qPCR can therefore be considered beneficial when assessing the efficacy of bacteriophage for biocontrol of E. coli O157:H7.


This study investigates German and English revolutionary literary discourse between 1819 and 1848/49. Marked by dramatic socioeconomic transformations, this period witnessed a pronounced transnational shift from the concept of political revolution to one of social revolution. Writing the Revolution engages with literary authors, radical journalists, early proletarian pamphleteers, and political theorists, tracing their demands for social liberation, as well as their struggles with the specter of proletarian revolution. The book argues that these ideological battles translated into competing "poetics of revolution." (Series: Kulturgeschichtliche Perspektiven - Vol. 10)


Severe feather pecking, a potentially stereotypic behaviour in chickens (Gallus gallus), can be reduced by providing enrichment. However, there is little comparative information available on the effectiveness of different types of enrichment. Providing forages to birds is likely to decrease feather-pecking behaviour the most, as it is generally thought that feather pecking stems from re-directed foraging motivation. Yet, other types of enrichment, such as dustbaths and novel objects, have also been shown to reduce feather pecking. In order to develop a practical and effective enrichment, these different possibilities must be examined. Using a Latin Square Design, 14-week old birds were given each of four treatments: i) forages; ii) novel objects; iii) dustbaths; or iv) no enrichment. The amount of feather-pecking behaviour and the number of pecks to the enrichments were recorded. Results showed feather pecking to be highest when no enrichment was present and lowest when the forages were present, with the other two enrichments intermediate. This was despite the fact that the numbers of pecks birds gave to the forages and dustbaths were not significantly different, suggesting that they were similarly used. Thus, we suggest here that forage enrichments are most effective at alleviating feather pecking at least in the short term and attempts should be made to develop poultry housing that allows for natural foraging behaviour. Following this, providing any kind of enrichment will increase bird welfare and is therefore still beneficial.


Two multilayer-perceptron (MLP) artificial-neural-network (ANN) committee methods and a mathematical-macromodelling method for determining the concentrations of gases in a known gas mixture from the outputs of an array of tin-oxide gas sensors placed in the mixtures are described. The committee approach is also used to determine the associated error bars. A large set of artificial training data generated from the small set of experimental data was used to train the MLPs. For the Bayesian-trained committee methods average predicted concentration errors of 1.66 to 9.49% were obtained. The macromodelling method resulted in errors of 19.7 to 33%, but was much easier to implement and faster. Training by back propagation gave much worse accuracy. The average calculated error bars were in good agreement with the actual errors in prediction. The concentration errors were comparable to those yielded by other methods and were at least partly determined by the original errors in the concentration measurements.


Photocatalysis on semiconductors using solar energy sources provides a clean technology to produce hydrogen from water splitting. Although zirconia (ZrO2) is a semiconductor oxide, it is not generally considered as a photocatalyst owing to its poor light absorbance and wide bandgap (over 5 eV). In this study, black ZrO2 with a large concentration of lattice defects such as oxygen vacancies, dislocations and nanograin boundaries is stabilized by high-pressure torsion (HPT) straining. The black ZrO2, which experiences monoclinic–tetragonal phase transformations during the HPT process, shows large light absorption, a small bandgap, reduced conduction band energy and high photocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution due the presence of oxygen vacancies. These results confirm that the introduction of strain-induced oxygen vacancies is a potential method to produce low-bandgap photocatalysts.


Canada's current definition of a refugee includes those facing persecution on account of sexual orientation. This article demonstrates that the success rates for sexual-minority refugee claims are similar to the success rates for traditional refugee claims. However, one subset of sexual-minority refugee claimants, those alleging a fear of persecution on account of bisexuality, is far less successful.The author contends that a major cause of the difficulties bisexual refugee claimants encounter is the dominant understanding of sexual orientation as an innate and immutable personal characteristic. This view of sexual orientation underlies contemporary Canadian sexual-minority refugee law. The life experiences of many bisexual asylum seekers, however, cannot be easily located within such an understanding. This leads many refugee adjudicators to approach accounts of bisexual life narratives with skepticism.Drawing from the tradition of queer theory, the author concludes that refugee adjudicators should embrace an alternative understanding of sexual orientation that can accommodate a multitude of sexual minority life stories. This understanding views sexual orientation as flexible and fluid. The author presents specific ways in which such an understanding may be applied to decision making regarding sexual-minority refugee claims. All encourage decision makers to focus not on the sexual identity of claimants but rather on evidence of their persecution on account of traditional gender roles and compulsory heterosexuality.


We demonstrated selective fluorination of a SrFeO2.5 layer in a SrFeO2.5/SrRuO3 epitaxial bilayer film via a topotactic reaction with polyvinylidene difluoride while maintaining the epitaxial relationship. Physical property measurements of the SrFeO2F/SrRuO3 heterostructure confirmed that the SrRuO3 layer could work as a good bottom electrode.


Qualitative and quantitative observations were made of the growth, distribution and density of external taste buds (TB) in the barbels of 2 phylogenetically close species of the Mullidae family (Perciformes: Teleostei) from the NW Mediterranean. Both species 11ve on the cont~nental shelf and have similar benthivorous feeding habits, but each prefers a different bottom habitat. Mullus surmuletus is typical of sandy and rocky bottoms, while Mullus barbatus is found over muddy bottoms and reaches to deeper waters than M surmuletus. The barbels of M, barbatus differ from those of M surmuletus in that they have a greater density and number of TBs, which are characteristically distnbuted in well-defined groups. These characteristics of A4 barbatus are associated with a greater sensitivity to chemical stimuli, as there is a compensatory relationship with the reduction of the visual field which occurs in muddy and deeper waters.


This paper aims at minimizing the total completion time for a single batch processing machine with non-identical job sizes. For this problem, each job has a corresponding processing time and size. The machine can process the jobs in batches as long as the total size of all the jobs in a batch does not exceed the machine capacity. The processing time of a batch is equal to the longest processing time among all the jobs in that batch. This problem is NP-hard and hence a chaotic ant colony optimization algorithm based on batch sequence (BCACO) is proposed. Random instances were used to test the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Computational results show that BCACO significantly outperforms other algorithms addressed in the literature.


To achieve high availability in the face of network partitions, many distributed databases adopt eventual consistency, allow temporary conflicts due to concurrent writes, and use some form of per-key logical clock to detect and resolve such conflicts. Furthermore, nodes synchronize periodically to ensure replica convergence in a process called anti-entropy, normally using Merkle Trees. We present the design of DottedDB, a Dynamo-like key-value store, which uses a novel node-wide logical clock framework, overcoming three fundamental limitations of the state of the art: (1) minimize the metadata per key necessary to track causality, avoiding its growth even in the face of node churn; (2) correctly and durably delete keys, with no need for tombstones; (3) offer a lightweight anti-entropy mechanism to converge replicated data, avoiding the need for Merkle Trees. We evaluate DottedDB against MerkleDB, an otherwise identical database, but using per-key logical clocks and Merkle Trees for anti-entropy, to precisely measure the impact of the novel approach. Results show that: causality metadata per object always converges rapidly to only one id-counter pair; distributed deletes are correctly achieved without global coordination and with constant metadata; divergent nodes are synchronized faster, with less memory-footprint and with less communication overhead than using Merkle Trees.


As the optimal use of network resources is a major issue for telecoms operators, we started works aiming to, firstly, improve the utilization of network resources by transmitting the IP packets in multicast when possible, secondly, to adapt the format of the data transmitted in multicast to take into account the context of the members of the multicast group, and thirdly to preserve the Quality of Service when a member of the multicast group moves from a radio network to another radio network. The paper shows, through a scenario, how our work will improve the utilization of the resources and then describes our approach.


The relationship between left ventricular end-diastolic pressure and circumference was studied in 27 open-chest dogs, utilizing a mercury-resistance gage to measure left ventricular end-diastolic circumference. In 6 experiments aortic pressure, cardiac output and heart rate were varied independently. Tachycardia above a rate critical for each heart elevated left ventricular eud-diastolic pressure for any given end-diastolic circumference. Hypothermia at a constant heart rate had a similar effect. The altered left ventricular end-diastolic pressure-end-diastolic circumference relationships resulting from tachycardia and hypothermia are believed to be related to the incomplete ventricular relaxation which occurs as the duration of diastole is encroached upon. Acute, spontaneous heart failure was accompanied by an augmented left ventricular end-diastolic circumference for any given end-diastolic pressure, an effect which may be considered to reflect an increase in myocardial extensibility. The relationship between left ventricular end-diastolic pressure and end-diastolic circumference was not modified either by changes of aortic pressure or of cardiac output. There was no constant relationship between the left ventricular end-diastolic circumference and the tension-time index. Indeed, it was possible to manipulate aortic pressure and cardiac output so that these 2 parameters moved in opposite directions. These observations are not consonant with the view that myocardial oxygen consumption is primarily dependent on end-diastolic fiber length.


Laryngeal cancer is an uncommon form of cancer. The tumor suppressor P16, known to be mutated or deleted in various types of human tumor, including laryngeal carcinoma, is involved in the formation and development of laryngeal carcinoma. It has been previously reported that the inactivation or loss of P16 is associated with the acquisition of malignant characteristics. The current study hypothesized that restoring wild-type P16 activity into P16-null malignant Hep2 cells may exert an antitumor effect. A recombinant adenovirus carrying the P16 gene (Ad-P16) was used to infect and express high levels of P16 protein in P16-null Hep2 cells. Cell proliferation and invasion assays and polymerase chain reaction were performed to evaluate the effects of the P16 gene on cell proliferation and the antitumor effect on Hep2 cells. The results demonstrated that the Hep2 cells infected with Ad‐P16 exhibited significantly reduced cell proliferation, invasion and tumor volume compared with untreated or control adenovirus cells. Furthermore, the expression of laryngeal carcinoma-associated genes, EGFR, survivin and cyclin D1, were measured in Ad-P16-infected cells and were significantly reduced compared with control groups. The results of the current study demonstrate that restoring wild-type P16 activity into P16-null Hep2 cells exerts an antitumor effect.


Due to the boom in technical compute in the last few years, the world has seen massive advances in artificially intelligent systems solving diverse real-world problems. But a major roadblock in the ubiquitous acceptance of these models is their enormous computational complexity and memory footprint. Hence efficient architectures and training techniques are required for deployment on extremely low resource inference endpoints. This paper proposes an architecture for detection of alphabets in American Sign Language on an ARM Cortex-M7 microcontroller having just 496 KB of framebuffer RAM. Leveraging parameter quantization is a common technique that might cause varying drops in test accuracy. This paper proposes using interpolation as augmentation amongst other techniques as an efficient method of reducing this drop, which also helps the model generalize well to previously unseen noisy data. The proposed model is about 185 KB post-quantization and inference speed is 20 frames per second.


Rogoff, 1985, suggested that central bank independence would lead to lower inflation but greater output variability. Alesina and Gatti, 1995, demonstrated Rogoff's work was partial by only considering economic sources of output variability. By including political factors, circumstances could be identified when making a central bank independent could reduce both inflation and output variability. In EMU, however, there is no choice about central bank independence. Starting with a review of the analysis presented by Alesina and Gatti, this paper suggests national fiscal policies could also be a source of politically-induced output variability. It reinterprets the analysis of Alesina and Gatti and identifies circumstances when the Stability and Growth Pact could help to reduce output variability in EMU.


Several sets of explanatory variables - including shallow, language modeling, POS, syntactic, and discourse features - are compared and evaluated in terms of their impact on predicting the grade level of reading material for primary school students. We find that features based on in-domain language models have the highest predictive power. Entity-density (a discourse feature) and POS-features, in particular nouns, are individually very useful but highly correlated. Average sentence length (a shallow feature) is more useful - and less expensive to compute - than individual syntactic features. A judicious combination of features examined here results in a significant improvement over the state of the art.


Purpose: Childhood obesity is a major global health concern. Understanding children's and adolescents' eating behaviours, and promoting healthier behaviours, is key for reducing the negative health outcomes associated with obesity. The current study explored the perceptions of healthy eating behaviours and the influences on eating behaviours amongst 11-to-13-year-old secondary school students. Design/methodology/approach: Nine semi-structured same-sex focus group discussions were conducted in schools located in deprived areas of England, with the discussions subjected to a thematic framework analysis. Findings: Three main constructs were identified in the analysis: (1) eating patterns and lifestyle , (2) social influences , and (3) environmental influences . Participants understood what healthy eating behaviours are, and the benefits of eating healthy, yet reported irregular mealtimes and consuming unhealthy snacks. Students reported that their parents and fellow student peers were strong influences on their own eating behaviours, with girls subjected to being teased by male students for attempting to eat healthily. Finally, students perceived that unhealthy foods were cheaper, tasted better and were readily available in their social environments than healthier options, making healthier behaviours less likely to occur. Originality/value: Findings indicate that students had a good understanding of healthy eating behaviours but did not always practise them and are seemingly influenced by their social and environmental context. The promotion of healthier eating in this age group needs to challenge the misperceptions associated with the accessibility and social acceptability of unhealthy food items.


EPFTS (Ethernet-oriented physical frame timeslot switching) is designed to carry the most popular data link frames, i.e., Ethernet MAC (media access control) frames, and the transmission time for an Ethernet-oriented physical frame (EPF) is defined as a timeslot for transmission and switching the physical layer frames. To resolve the data scheduling problem in EPFTS switches, this paper proposes a new type of scheduling mechanism called TRWFS (timeslot-reservation based weighted fair scheduling) based on the characteristics of EPFTS. The principle of TRWFS is to control the request time of inputs to outputs according to the number of reserved timeslots of each traffic flow and utilize a two-phase iteration mechanism to resolve request conflicts problem. This paper also puts forward three algorithms of TRWFS to show that the implementation complexity of TRWFS is about the same as round-robin based scheduling algorithms. Further simulation results show that even under heavy load conditions, TRWFS algorithms can better guarantee reserved timeslots of each I/O pairs and get better delay and throughput performance compared with other typical algorithms.


Corals are mysterious animals that have been around for ages. They are the creators of beautiful reefs. Sadly, the reefs that we love to look at are in danger of overheating and are disappearing from our planet. While this sounds bad, not all corals are affected the same way by warm seawater. Corals from the Red Sea seem to be more resistant to higher temperatures than are corals from other regions. Red Sea reefs are thriving in seawater that is hotter than that in other places. But what is their secret? What makes Red Sea corals stronger and more heat resistant? We know that Red Sea corals not only handle the incredibly high temperatures, but also deal with high salinity (saltiness). This connection between high salinity and high temperature made us wonder: can we find evidence that high salinity makes corals stronger? YOUNG REVIEWERS:


bacilli are not quite as rare as people might imagine. With a relatively low level of immunization among those most at risk, the appearance of a highly virulent strain could again give rise to an outbreak, the first few cases of which might well be diagnosed at necropsy. Until we know the precise reasons for the decline of diphtheria in the United Kingdom we should be cautious of writing its obituary.-We are, etc.,


The market for security software has witnessed an unprecedented growth in recent years. A closer examination of this market reveals certain idiosyncrasies that are not observed in a traditional market. For example, it is a highly competitive market with over 80 vendors. Yet the market coverage is relatively low. Prior research has not attempted to explain what makes this market so different. In this paper, we develop an economic model to find possible answers to this question. Our model uses existing classification of different types of attacks and models their resulting network effects. We find that the negative network effect from indirect attacks, which is further enhanced by value-based targeted attacks, provides a possible explanation for the unique structure of this market. Overall, our results highlight the unique nature of the security software market, furnish rigorous arguments for several counterintuitive observations in the real world, and provide managerial insights for vendors on market competition.


SUMMARY
Temporal change of deformation in northeastern Japan is clarified by continuous Global Positioning System (GPS) observations from 1995 April to 2002 March. The observed GPS velocity is approximately parallel to the direction of plate convergence on east and west plate boundaries of northeastern Japan and shows post-seismic transient deformation around source regions of the Mw 7.8 1993 Hokkaido-Nansei-Oki and the Mw 7.7 1994 Sanriku-Haruka-Oki earthquakes. We interpret the source of the observed deformation as contemporary interplate coupling on the east subducting boundary to the Pacific Plate and the west collision boundary to the Amurian Plate. Using elastic dislocation theory, we inverted horizontal and vertical velocities of 212 GPS stations to estimate interplate coupling on both boundaries. The estimated coupling during 1995–2002 is spatially heterogeneous, however, it is temporally almost constant except for the region around the 1993 and 1994 earthquakes. After-slip of the 1994 earthquake occurred over the coseismic rupture area and its downdip extension on the plate boundary for 0.3–1.3 yr after the earthquake. After-slip continued only in the downdip extension for later periods and decayed with time. Weak coupling was recovered in the eastern part of the coseismic rupture area 3.3 yr after the earthquake. Interplate coupling on the Pacific Plate was strong in two regions, Miyagi-Oki and Tokachi-Oki. The west plate boundary is tightly coupled except for the source areas of three large earthquakes that occurred in 1964, 1983 and 1993. The apparent decoupling of the source areas of these earthquakes implies long-term post-seismic deformation as a result of viscoelastic relaxation in the subseismogenic lithosphere.


This study used eye-tracking technology to explore how individuals with different levels of health literacy visualize health-related information. The authors recruited 25 university administrative staff (more likely to have adequate health literacy skills) and 25 adults enrolled in an adult literacy program (more likely to have limited health literacy skills). The authors administered the Newest Vital Sign (NVS) health literacy assessment to each participant. The assessment involves having individuals answer questions about a nutrition label while viewing the label. The authors used computerized eye-tracking technology to measure the amount of time each participant spent fixing their view at nutrition label information that was relevant to the questions being asked and the amount of time they spent viewing nonrelevant information. Results showed that lower NVS scores were significantly associated with more time spent on information not relevant for answering the NVS items. This finding suggests that efforts to improve health literacy measurement should include the ability to differentiate not just between individuals who have difficulty interpreting and using health information, but also between those who have difficulty finding relevant information. In addition, this finding suggests that health education material should minimize the inclusion of nonrelevant information.


Excited states in the odd-proton nucleus 125Cs were investigated by means of in-beam γ -ray spectroscopy. The πg7/2 band is observed to fork into a ΔI = 1 coupled band and a ΔI = 2 decoupled band at high spins. To assign the possible configurations of these two bands, experimental B(M1)/B(E2) ratios and signature splittings have been evaluated for the ΔI = 1 band, and calculations based on the geometrical model, cranked shell model and total Routhian surfaces model have been performed. They are suggested to be a near-oblate band built on the (πg7/2/d5/2) ⊗ (νh11/2)2 configuration and a prolate band built on the πg7/2 ⊗ (πh11/2)2 configuration, respectively.


Development of symptomatic treatment of Alzheimer s disease by cholinesterase inhibitors like donepezil was successful. However, it is a disappointment that development of disease-modifying drugs such as anti-amyloid drug based on amyloid-cascade theory has been interrupted or unsuccessful. Therefore, we have to be more cautious regarding inclusion criteria for clinical trials of new drugs. We agree that potentially curative drugs should be started before symptoms begin as a preemptive therapy or prevention trial. The concept of personalized medicine also is important when ApoE4-related amyloid reducing therapy is considered. Unfortunately, Japanese-ADNI has suffered a setback since 2014. However, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare gave a final remark that there was nothing wrong in the data managing process in the J-ADNI data center. We should pay more attention to worldwide challenges of speeding up new drug development.


Play is an open source framework for Web application development created in 2007 and opened to the community in 2009. It targets the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and focuses on simplicity, developer productivity, and HTTP/Web friendliness. Play implements the classic model-view-controller (MVC) architecture with a route file that maps HTTP requests to controllers, which then take request information and produce an HTTP result representation, optionally using a view template. Play then serializes this result representation and returns it as a response to the client.


A rotating arm device to collect large samples of fogwater for chemical analysis was designed and fully characterized. This instrument was used to determine the chemical composition of fogwater at a large number of sites in California. Fogwater at both urban and non-urban sites was frequently found to contain important inorganic acidity. Chemical models were developed to interpret the origins of this acidity in terms of aqueous-phase S(IV) oxidation reactions and acid/base titration processes in the fog and the precursor atmosphere. These models were found to successfully interpret the inorganic acidity in fogwater and aerosol during wintertime stagnation episodes in the San Joaquin Valley of California.


Nipah virus (NiV) disease is a bat-borne zoonosis responsible for outbreaks with high lethality and is a priority for vaccine development. With funding from the Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), we are developing a chimeric vaccine (PHV02) composed of recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) expressing the envelope glycoproteins of both Ebola virus (EBOV) and NiV. The EBOV glycoprotein (GP) mediates fusion and viral entry and the NiV attachment glycoprotein (G) is a ligand for cell receptors, and stimulates neutralizing antibody, the putative mediator of protection against NiV. PHV02 is identical in construction to the registered Ebola vaccine (Ervebo) with the addition of the NiV G gene. NiV ephrin B2 and B3 receptors are expressed on neural cells and the wild-type NiV is neurotropic and causes encephalitis in affected patients. It was therefore important to assess whether the NiV G alters tropism of the rVSV vector and serves as a virulence factor. PHV02 was fully attenuated in adult hamsters inoculated by the intramuscular (IM) route, whereas parental wild-type VSV was 100% lethal. Two rodent models (mice, hamsters) were infected by the intracerebral (IC) route with graded doses of PHV02. Comparator active controls in various experiments included rVSV-EBOV (representative of Ebola vaccine) and yellow fever (YF) 17DD commercial vaccine. These studies showed PHV02 to be more neurovirulent than both rVSV-EBOV and YF 17DD in infant animals. PHV02 was lethal for adult hamsters inoculated IC but not for adult mice. In contrast YF 17DD retained virulence for adult mice inoculated IC but was not virulent for adult hamsters. Because of the inconsistency of neurovirulence patterns in the rodent models, a monkey neurovirulence test (MNVT) was performed, using YF 17DD as the active comparator because it has a well-established profile of quantifiable microscopic changes in brain centers and a known reporting rate of neurotropic adverse events in humans. In the MNVT PHV02 was significantly less neurovirulent than the YF 17DD vaccine reference control, indicating that the vaccine will have an acceptable safety profile for humans. The findings are important because they illustrate the complexities of phenotypic assessment of novel viral vectors with tissue tropisms determined by transgenic proteins, and because it is unprecedented to use a heterologous comparator virus (YF vaccine) in a regulatory-enabling study. This approach may have value in future studies of other novel viral vectors.


We use a field experiment to investigate whether race affects how responsive state legislators are to requests for help with registering to vote. In an email sent to each legislator, we randomized whether a putatively black or white alias was used and whether the email signaled the sender's partisan preference. Overall, we find that putatively black requests receive fewer replies. We explore two potential explanations for this discrimination: strategic partisan behavior and the legislators' own race. We find that the putatively black alias continues to be differentially treated even when the emails signal partisanship, indicating that strategic considerations cannot completely explain the observed differential treatment. Further analysis reveals that white legislators of both parties exhibit similar levels of discrimination against the black alias. Minority legislators do the opposite, responding more frequently to the black alias. Implications for the study of race and politics in the United States are discussed.


Cortical bone remodeling is an ongoing process triggered by microdamage, where osteoclasts resorb existing bone and osteoblasts deposit new bone in the form of secondary osteons (Haversian systems). Previous studies revealed regional variance in Haversian systems structure and possibly material, between opposite cortices of the same bone. As bone mechanical properties depend on tissue structure and material, it is predicted that bone mechanical properties will vary in accordance with structural and material regional heterogeneity. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed the structure, mineral content and compressive stiffness of secondary bone from the cranial and caudal cortices of the white-tailed deer proximal humerus. We found significantly larger Haversian systems and canals in the cranial cortex but no significant difference in mineral content between the two cortices. Accordingly, we found no difference in compressive stiffness between the two cortices and thus our working hypothesis was rejected. Seeing that the deer humerus is curved and thus likely subjected to bending during habitual locomotion, we expect that similar to other curved long bones, the cranial cortex of the deer humerus is likely subjected primarily to tensile strains and the caudal cortex is likely subject primarily to compressive strains. Consequently, our results suggest that strain magnitude (larger in compression) and sign (compression vs. tension) affect differently the osteoclasts and osteoblasts in the BMU. Our results further suggest that osteoclasts are inhibited in regions of high compressive strains (creating smaller Haversian systems) while osteoblasts' osteoid deposition and mineralization is not affected by strain magnitude and sign.


Adaptation of Lighting Styles from Traditional Paintings to Computer Generated Scenes. (August 2012) Muzammil Abdul Malik, B.E., Osmania University Chair of Advisory Committee: Prof. Philip Galanter Image making using Computer Graphics has become extremely popular. Great advances in computer graphics have led to an increasing number of people using this medium. But Computer Graphics on its own is not art unless art principles are applied to it, as is the case with any other art medium. Studying art principles used in traditional paintings is an invaluable way of learning how to create images that tell a story, look believable, evoke appropriate emotions, and remain aesthetically alluring too. With that motivation in mind, a visual analysis of paintings of John Register, Jules Breton and Chris Peters was conducted to better understand their styles. Two paintings by each of the three artists were then selected for an in depth study and based on those, computer generated renderings were produced. Inspired by each artist's style, digital scenes were modeled, lit and rendered using 3D authoring tools. The final rendered images exhibit the lighting style unique to each of the three artists.


The controlled texturing of surfaces at the micro‐ and nanoscales is a powerful method for tailoring how materials interact with liquids, electromagnetic waves, or biological tissues. The increasing scientific and technological interest in advanced fibers and fabrics has triggered a strong motivation for leveraging the use of textures on fiber surfaces. Thus far however, fiber‐processing techniques have exhibited an inherent limitation due to the smoothing out of surface textures by polymer reflow, restricting achievable feature sizes. In this article, a theoretical framework is established from which a strategy is developed to reduce the surface tension of the textured polymer, thus drastically slowing down thermal reflow. With this approach the fabrication of potentially kilometers‐long polymer fibers with controlled hierarchical surface textures of unprecedented complexity and with feature sizes down to a few hundreds of nanometers is demonstrated, two orders of magnitude below current configurations. Using such fibers as molds, 3D microchannels are also fabricated with textured inner surfaces within soft polymers such as poly(dimethylsiloxane), at dimensions and a degree of simplicity impossible to reach with current techniques. This strategy for the texturing of high curvature surfaces opens novel opportunities in bioengineering, regenerative scaffolds, microfluidics, and smart textiles.


There is a common expectation that as the landscape contains nature, then it is a natural thing. Yet, it is difficult to find a time when this has really been the case. It is frequently co-opted as part of the imagination of what landscape could, and ideally should, be. It can be a difficult thing to 'read'. The three artists in –scape explore some of the diversions, delusions – as well as the delights - of the constructed landscape. In doing so, the work questions the relationship of space to experience and the ways in which meaning is constantly re-configured.


Accounting Information System (AIS) continues to flourish, and organisations continue to become increasingly dependent upon their AIS to support business process and decision making. Should organizations do not give due attention to their AIS, the number of errors in stored data and the organisational impact of these errors is likely to increase. Inaccurate and incomplete data may adversely affect the competitive success of an organisation. Indeed, poor AIS can have significant social and business impacts.To make the study area more appealing, today's organisations are operating and competing in an information age. Information has become a key resource of most organisations, economies, and societies. Indeed, an organisation's basis for competition has changed from tangible products to intangible information; thereby highlighting the need for having well-developed Accounting Information System (AIS). Managers and other decision makers rely on the information provided to them when making decisions. Hence, the quality of the decision they make is a function of the quality of the information they get. This noticeable value of information marks the importance of having excellent accounting information system that enables decision makers to make informed decision. Simply put, in this information oriented era, managers and other decision makers rely heavily on information generated from the AIS employed by companies. Therefore, nowadays companies are paying good attention to their accounting information system which enables them to analyze their firm's performance. This growing importance of AIS has led the researcher to investigate the application and use of accounting information systems of selected manufacturing firms in Ethiopia.The design of the study is exploratory method of research design. This research design is found to be suitable because it addresses major objectives and research questions stated in the study satisfactorily. In the meanwhile, qualitative research approach was adopted to carry out this study. Moreover, because it was possible to obtain the information needed from all stakeholders of the nominated firms simultaneously, the time dimension of the study was cross-sectional. The study also gathered both primary and secondary data. Furthermore, the target population of this study is the entire permanent and temporary employees of the selected firms, out of which 25% of the employees were taken as a representative sample via a non-probability judgment sampling technique. Since the greatest expense or cost of manufacturing firms is their raw material cost, decision makers at all levels of the firms need to get well-timed reliable cost information for their sound decision making. Briefly, accounting information systems are pillars to the operation and management of every organization (predominantly manufacturing firms). Thus, owners, managers, regulatory bodies, and so on need the accounting information provided by their AIS to evaluate their firm's past performance and to map their future plans. To sum up, this study revealed that the role of accounting information systems to enhance the performance of manufacturing firms is undeniable; however; management perception, financial constraints, and unqualified human capital have hindered the establishment of sound accounting information systems in manufacturing firms in Ethiopia. Therefore, it can be concluded that the nominated manufacturing firms are not functioning at their full capacity as stakeholders are not getting the information they require for their decision making on account of the fragile and overlooked accounting information systems of the firms. Keywords: Accounting Information System, Manufacturing Firms, Informed Decision Making, Company Performance DOI: 10.7176/IKM/10-2-01 Publication date: February 29 th 2020


A method is proposed to detect the abnormal situations of people's health in case of the unexpected outbreak of a disease by monitoring the daily variations in the prescriptions at a pharmacy. The abnormal situations are defined as the situations which are not included in the majority (99.9%) of the normal situations. An epidemic probably caused by infectious micro-organisms in a terrorist attack is taken as an example. The drugs for the typical symptoms are monitored: influenza anti-viral agent and common cold drug. This paper demonstrates that the border between the normal and abnormal situations corresponds to the detection limit which is a fundamental concept in analytical chemistry.


Previous investigators have not described some of the new anatomic variations or provided quantitative and analytical data of the arterial anatomy of the lips in as much depth as in this study. Dissections of 14 different facial sides of cadavers were done. Through investigating the arterial supply of the upper and lower lips, measurements were performed and statistically analyzed. The main arterial supply of the upper lip was from the superior labial artery (SLA, mean external diameter, 1.8 mm [SD, 0.74 mm]); in addition, the subalar and septal branches contributed to its vascularization. The origin of the SLA was above the labial commissure in 78.6%. The subalar branch was not found but replaced by the alar artery that arose from the infraorbital artery in 1 specimen. The main arterial supply of the lower lip was derived from 3 branches of the facial artery, the inferior labial artery (mean external diameters, 1.4 mm [SD, 0.31 mm]) and the horizontal and vertical labiomental arteries. The inferior labial artery originated mostly below the labial commissure in 42.9% and formed a common trunk with the SLA in 28.6%. The horizontal labiomental artery was present in all, but vertical labiomental artery was absent in 21.4% of specimens. Overall, observed anatomic variations were classified into types I to VIII. Significant relations between the demographic variables and measured parameters were reported including the correlation coefficient among evaluated parameters. In conclusion, this study provides various information that aids in creating new flaps and supports the vascular base for clinical procedures in reconstructive surgery of the lip.


Abstract : Our reliance on computers and information-based technologies within DOD has greatly increased our potential for vulnerability if our information systems are attacked, DOD systems now receive numerous intrusion attempts daily and this trend appears to be increasing It is paramount that DOD develops appropriate defensive courses of action to systematically and appropriately counter the threat of future cyber attacks, The main problem is distinguishing the type of intrusion or attack and developing the mechanisms to appropriately respond whether by law enforcement or military action, This paper develops a spectrum of cyber conflict from hacking to information warfare which addresses who the adversary is, their intentions and how best to counter them This spectrum of cyber conflict will consist of various forms of cyber attack such as hacking, hacktivism (a form of computer based civil disobedience), espionage, terrorism, and information warfare, The important issue in countering any form of cyber attack is to quickly discern the type of attack and adversary and respond appropriately, Currently, tracking down computer intrusions is a law enforcement function, The collection of information/evidence after the fact to trace the attacks back to the origin requires a robust and competent law enforcement community, The traditional war fighting military is prohibited from executing this mission domestically, If the US is a law enforcement theatre, now domestic law enforcement has a critical role in national security and national defense.


Measurements with two Raman-depolarization lidars of the Meteorological Institute of the Ludwig-Maximilians- Universit¨at, M¨unchen, Germany, performed during SAMUM-2, were used to characterize the planetary boundary layer (PBL) over Praia, Cape Verde. A novel approach was used to determine the volume fraction of dust υd in the PBL. This approach primarily relies on accurate measurements of the linear depolarization ratio. Comparisons with independent in situ measurements showed the reliability of this approach. Based on our retrievals, two different phases could be distinguished within the measurement period of almost one month. The first (22–31 January 2008) was characterized by high aerosol optical depth (AOD) in the PBL and large υd > 95%. During the second phase, the AOD in the PBL was considerably lower and υd less than ∼40%. These findings were in very good agreement with ground based in situ measurements, when ambient volume fractions are considered that were calculated from the actual measurements of the dry volume fraction. Only in cases when dust was not the dominating aerosol component (second phase), effects due to hygroscopic growth became important.


Previous field studies have demonstrated that residues of the herbicide, triclopyr butoxyethyl ester (3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinyloxyacetic acid, butoxyethyl ester) (TBEE), can accumulate in submerged leaf material of aquatic systems at concentrations up to 20 times the maximum aqueous concentrations. Accumulated TBEE residues may pose a risk of adverse effects to detritivorous invertebrates inhabiting and using natural leaf packs. We examined the dynamics of TBEE accumulation and persistence in leaf materials of laboratory and outdoor aquatic systems, and determined the ecological significance of this in terms of effects on detritivorous insects and organic matter processing. Accumulations of TBEE in leaf packs of semi-static laboratory microcosms were up to 80 times aqueous concentrations, and residues persisted for 4 to 5 d. Leaf material of flow-through laboratory microcosms accumulated TBEE at much higher rates (up to 1000 times aqueous concentrations), but residues were cleared by 48 to 72 h. Accumulation and persistence in flow-through units were dependent on water depth, velocity, and exposure duration. Accumulated TBEE residues were less in outdoor stream channels than in laboratory flow-through units, probably because of losses through sorption to natural benthic material in the stream channels. Despite accumulations of TBEE in leaf packs at up to 90 mg kg -1 in systems treated at or near expected environmental concentrations, there was no significant mortality of detritivorous insects and no significant reductions in leaf consumption. Significant mortality and reduced feeding occurred only in systems treated at concentrations well above (up to 10 times) expected environmental concentrations.


Introduction: Tetraspanins are a family of small proteins that cross the membrane four times and form complexes by interacting between themselves and with a variety of transmembrane and cytosolic proteins, building a network of interactions referred to as tetraspanin web or tetraspanin enriched microdomains (TEMs). These domains provide a signaling platform involved in many important cellular functions and malignant processes. Areas covered: The authors describe the methods and the rationale for targeting tetraspanins in the therapy of cancer in this review. Expert opinion: Targeting tetraspanins in cancer may be a promising therapy due to the importance of tetraspanins in several steps of tumor formation, communication with the environment, dissemination, and metastasis.


Objective: Regionalization of stroke care has occurred sporadically across the U.S, so determining realistic goal treatment rates for individual regions or the nation as a whole is challenging. Studies of a single hospital or region vary widely in estimates of eligibility for acute therapy and may have limited generalizability or biases. We hypothesized that the proportion of U.S. Medicare beneficiaries receiving acute stroke therapy varies by region. Treatment rates in high performing regions may represent realistic national goals and inform policy to increase treatment rates. Methods: All Medicare beneficiaries with a principal diagnosis of ischemic stroke (ICD-9 433.x1, 434.x1, 436) admitted through the emergency department were identified using MEDPAR files from 2007-2010. Receipt of IV tPA (DRG 559, MS-DRG 61-63, ICD-9 procedure code 99.10) or IA thrombolysis (CPT code 37184-6, 37201, 75896 via linked Medicare Carrier files) was determined. Patients were assigned to one of 3,436 Hospital Service Areas (HSA; local health care markets for hospital care) by zip code. Regional acute stroke treatment rates were calculated and the lowest and highest quintiles were compared. Multi-level logistic regression was used to adjust for individual demographics as well as regional population density, education, median income, and unemployment using linked census data. Model-based adjusted regional acute stroke treatment rates were estimated. Results: Of 916,232 stroke admissions 3.6% received IV tPA only and 0.6% received IA or combined therapy. Unadjusted treatment rates by region ranged from 0.8% (minimum) to 14.8% (maximum). Regional rates ranged from 1.7% (quintile 1) to 5.4% (quintile 5). Regions with higher education, population density and income had higher treatment rates (p Conclusions: Marked variation exists in acute stroke treatment rates by region, even after adjusting for patient and regional characteristics, supporting the perception that a major opportunity exists to improve acute stroke treatment within many HSAs.


In this paper we give some background to how the long-lasting discussion on separation of identifiers and locators in networking has influenced the Information-centric Networking (ICN) research. We start with a historical retrospect of the id/locator discussion. We then address the problems that have been fueling the discussion followed by a chronological walkthrough of a number of id/locator split ideas up to some current ICN approaches. Finally we discuss a set of remaining research challenges that need to be addressed before ICN could become a way to resolve the id/locator issue.


Elevated temperature and pressure in the earth's subsurface alters the permeability of salt formations, due to changing properties of the salt-brine interface. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are used to investigate the mechanisms of temperature and pressure dependence of liquid-solid interfacial tensions of NaCl, KCl, and NaCl-KCl brines in contact with (100) salt surfaces. Salt-brine dihedral angles vary between 55 and 76° across the temperature (300-450 K) and pressure range (0-150 MPa) evaluated. Temperature-dependent brine composition results in elevated dihedral angles of 65-80°, which falls above the reported salt percolation threshold of 60°. Mixed NaCl-KCl brine compositions increased this effect. Elevated temperatures excluded dissolved Na+ ions from the interface, causing the strong temperature dependence of the liquid-solid interfacial tension and the resulting dihedral angle. Therefore, at higher temperature, pressure, and brine concentrations Na-Cl systems may underpredict the dihedral angle. Higher dihedral angles in more realistic mixed brine systems maintain low permeability of salt formations due to changes in the structure and energetics of the salt-brine interface.


Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has always been a musically fertile city, and it has been the incubator for many of the greatest musicians in the history of jazz. While not a major recording center, Pittsburgh has maintained, since the 1950s, an active recording scene documenting the work of jazz musicians living in the city. Because independent record labels and studios have been the rule in Pittsburgh, many recordings made by great Pittsburgh musicians in Pittsburgh have been overlooked.While jazz musicians have always engaged in diverse musical endeavors, including "popular" music, the aesthetics of jazz and pop grew closer together in the late 1960s with the advent of "fusion" and "funk." This stylistic cross-fretilization made much of the music of the late 1960s and 1970s difficult to categorize. To try to fit this music into compartments of jazz, rock, pop, or otherwise is counterproductive, undermining the comprehensive study of the period's music and the work of its musicians.Thus, the contributions of this study are twofold. It documents many overlooked recordings made in Pittsburgh by Pittsburgh musicians, while simultaneously serving as a case study of the progression of jazz from bebop to funk and fusion, and as an illustration of the necessity of casting a wide stylistic net, including genres such as gospel and popular music, when studying the history of jazz and its musicians.


In this study, the authors explored the use of positive, negative, and avoiding humor in 2 types of situations by individuals in romantic relationships. Participants (N = 154) rated their frequency of humor use in either a typical conflict scenario with their partner or a typical pleasant event. Participants also indicated their overall degree of romantic relationship satisfaction. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that individuals who were more satisfied with their relationship reported higher levels of positive humor use and lower levels of negative and avoiding humor use. Furthermore, lower levels of negative and avoiding humor use were reported for the conflict situation. Last, a significant 2-way interaction revealed that individuals who were high in relationship satisfaction reported significantly lower levels of negative humor use in a conflict situation as compared with a pleasant encounter. In contrast, individuals who were low in relationship satisfaction reported the same high levels of negative humor use regardless of whether they were in a conflict situation or a pleasant encounter. The authors discuss these findings in terms of the need for further research to clearly delineate the factors that may influence the complex use of humor in romantic relationships.


In this chapter, the primary focus is towards four topics related to the ultrasound (US)- guided injection: (1) the advantages of various guided injection techniques including US-guided injection, (2) a brief review of recently published studies on the US-guided botulinum toxin type A (BoNT-A) injection in stroke patients, (3) standardized operational procedures for the US-guided injection and (4) a description of the skills neces- sary to properly locate the probe and limb during the US-guided injection operation. Illustrations will be presented in the chapter to assist the readers in gaining a better understanding of the US-guided BoNT-A injection technique.


There are two philosophies for how elected officials should posture to voters. One approach holds that officials should appeal to the centrists in their district, while another suggests that they should ignore the middle and appeal to the partisan base. In this book, I posit that the number of citizens living within an electoral district determines the viability of each strategy. When a district has a low population, the quality of "representational relationship" is high and the average citizen has an incentive to participate in democratic elections. In this context, public officials should posture to the centrists in order to capture the median voter. But when a district is very populous, there is little value in engaging in democracy for the average citizen. Here, it makes sense for officials to appeal to the partisans, who are more likely to turnout to vote.I outline a theory of size and electoral engagement that holds that, as an electoral district population increases, the electorate becomes less engaged in elections, such that fewer citizens turnout to vote and support candidates. I test the empirical implications of this theory with a number of analyses. My analysis of thousands of returns from national, state, and local elections in America shows that size depresses voter turnout. I observe similar effects on campaign contributions during U.S. Senate elections. The effects of size on voter engagement have implications for how legislators behave strategically in order to secure reelection. I find that senators discount the views of their states' median citizen as the size of their state increases.This analysis has far-reaching implications for the study of democracy beyond the context of American politics. The primary contribution of this book is that it provides a rigorously-tested, logically-grounded theoretical framework that explains the role of population size in structuring political behavior on both sides of the representational relationship.


In an effort to locate the sites of emission at different frequencies and physical processes causing variability in blazar jets, we have obtained high time-resolution observations of BL Lacertae over a wide wavelength range: with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) at 6000–10000 Å with 2 minute cadence; with the Neil Gehrels Swift satellite at optical, UV, and X-ray bands; with the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array at hard X-ray bands; with the Fermi Large Area Telescope at γ-ray energies; and with the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope for measurement of the optical flux density and polarization. All light curves are correlated, with similar structure on timescales from hours to days. The shortest timescale of variability at optical frequencies observed with TESS is ∼0.5 hr. The most common timescale is 13 ± 1 hr, comparable with the minimum timescale of X-ray variability, 14.5 hr. The multiwavelength variability properties cannot be explained by a change solely in the Doppler factor of the emitting plasma. The polarization behavior implies that there are both ordered and turbulent components to the magnetic field in the jet. Correlation analysis indicates that the X-ray variations lag behind the γ-ray and optical light curves by up to ∼0.4 day. The timescales of variability, cross-frequency lags, and polarization properties can be explained by turbulent plasma that is energized by a shock in the jet and subsequently loses energy to synchrotron and inverse Compton radiation in a magnetic field of strength ∼3 G.


Green synthesis of metal nanoparticles is an important technique in improved methods of eco-friendly nanoparticles production. In this investigation, the biomedically valid gold nanoparticle was synthesized by using marine brown algae Turbinaria conoides. The colour changes from brown to pinkish red confirmed the gold nanoparticles synthesis. The triangle, rectangle and square shaped and 60 nm average sized gold nanoparticles were observed by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The nature of elemental gold was analysed by using Energy dispersive analysis (EDS). Finally the antibacterial activity of gold nanoparticles was performed; it shows Streptococcus sp having the maximum inhibition and medium range of inhibition was examined against Bacillus subtilis and Klebsiella pneumoniae.


Abstract A combined chemical-biological treatment of industrial wastewater using ozonation as the first step of a Sequencing Batch Biofilm Reactor (SBBR) process, in which 3-methylpyridine (3MEP) was degraded as a model industrial pollutant, has been developed. The steps of the entire process were ozonation, heterotrophic degradation, denitrification and nitrification. An ozonation bubble-column reactor was used to produce biodegradable molecules, such as formate, acetate, ammonium or nitrate. These were then biologically degraded downstream in the biofilm reactors. The gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient (KLa=2.3*10−3 (1/s)), the rate constant for the reaction of 3MEP with ozone (kB=6.63 (1/Ms)) and the surface tension were determined independently. The latter stayed almost constant through the whole batch ozonation (approximately σ=72E-3 (N/m)). The process was limited by mass transfer during the first 80 minutes, when about 75 % of the initial pollutant was degraded. Only a small amount of the total consumed ozone reacted directly with 3MEP, while the rest reacted widi the non-stable byproducts or was decomposed.


The work in this thesis has been centred on the light emitting properties of silicon nanocrystals and the possible applications of this particular material platform to various topics ranging from bio-imaging to erbium ion sensitization. Silicon nanocrystals as bio-imaging agent have been investigated by employing colloidal dispersion of individual silicon nanocrystals where surface properties could be controlled to a great extent. By using a suitable functionalization scheme, high quality hydrophilic luminescent nanoparticles were produced. Using the improvements in the physical coating, bio-imaging on living cells (in vitro) was demonstrated showing that silicon nanocrystals have a great potential in bio-imaging and offer a promising alternative to commonly used fluorescence dyes.
A part from being good light emitters, silicon nanocrystals could also amplify the light. This is a reason why the part of the work in this thesis has been dedicated to the investigation of silicon nanocrystals as a gain material. While most of the studies on this topic are concentrated on the nanocrystal surface as a driving mechanism behind the optical amplification, the work presented in this thesis concerns the study of a zero phonon (direct) optical transition as a possible source of optical amplification in this material system. To this scope, investigation of the dynamics of the system on a nanosecond time-scale and under high excitation conditions has been employed. Additional insight on ultrafast dynamics has been obtained by using optical cavities in the form of optically active free-standing micro-disk resonators.
Finally, in the last part of this thesis a study of Er3+-doped Silicon-Rich-Oxide (SRO) materials and Er3+-doped SRO based devices is presented. This part of the work differs from the rest of the work reported in this thesis as is not focused on the light emitting properties of silicon nanocrystals but mostly on their non-radiative process engineering (energy transfer to erbium ions). Er3+ doped SRO opens the route towards compact waveguide amplifiers and lasers and allows for the possibility of electrical injection schemes, which are not realizable in standard erbium amplifiers used in EDFA for telecom applications. To that end, novel opto-electronic structures were proposed, modeled and manufactured and preliminary results of their performance were presented.
The sensitization mechanism between silicon nanoparticles and erbium ions was studied and its complex nature was illustrated. Although, the acquired knowledge of physics involved was not sufficient for formulation of a complete working theory of the energy transfer process, some important physical aspects of this process have been elucidated paving the way towards its complete understanding.


This letter presents an equivalent form of the Wang-Poor algorithm. A single matrix equation is used to generate all of the estimates simultaneously, while in the Wang-Poor algorithm a recursive technique is used to generate these estimates one by one. The new method is mathematically more compact and computationally more efficient.


An increasing number of companies design a family of product variants simultaneously in order to introduce adequate product variety in the competitive market in a cost-effective way while shortening product lead-times, instead of designing one product at a time. The key to using this approach successfully is to achieve the right trade-offs between product family commonality and performance of individual product variants. This paper considers multi-level commonality in product family design in the sense that the feature or component can be common only among some product variants. This differs from the two extremes of being totally common throughout the family or being completely different from one product variant to another. A product family design model is proposed as a multiobjective optimization. A commonality index is introduced to evaluate the family commonality in the presence of multiple levels. A multiobjective cooperative coevolutionary algorithm is developed for simultaneous design of a family of product variants. Optimal decisions include which design variables should be common among which product variants. Computational experiments are conducted using the design of a family of welded beams to demonstrate the effectiveness of the product family design method proposed in this paper.


Introduction. Stress and burnout are common among healthcare professionals, including doctors and nurses. Work-related stress rates among the general working population average 18%, while among doctors the rate is reported to be around 28%. Stress in doctors can result in multiple negative consequences. Detecting stress early may have positive outcomes for doctors, their families and the patients they care for. There is growing concern about stress in doctors working in public hospitals, yet there is a paucity of studies on stress among these doctors in South Africa. Methods. A cross-sectional, descriptive study using a self-administered, standardised questionnaire (12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12)) was conducted among medical doctors working in four hospitals of the Ngaka Modiri Molema (NMM) district, North West province. The research questionnaire was distributed and returned anonymously to ensure confidentiality. Results. Of the 67 doctors in the study, 34 (51%) were found to be stressed; 18 (27%) of the participants were highly stressed (morbidly stressed). This result was compared with figures obtained by Govender in an earlier study conducted among private general practitioners in KwaDukuza, KwaZulu-Natal, in which 38% were stressed according to the GHQ-12; 23% of the subjects were morbidly stressed. Conclusion. The rate of stress among doctors working in the four hospitals of the NMM district is higher than that found in other studies, which report a stress prevalence of 28 - 38% among doctors.