Samples of Li_xNi_(0.5)Mn_(0.5)O_2 and Li_xNi_(1/3)Mn_(1/3)Co_(1/3)O_2 were prepared as active materials in electrochemical half-cells and were cycled electrochemically to obtain different values of Li concentration, x. Absorption edges of Ni, Mn, Co, and O in these materials of differing x were measured by electron energy loss spectrometry (EELS) in a transmission electron microscope to determine the changes in local electronic structure caused by delithiation. The work was supported by electronic structure calculations with the VASP pseudopotential package, the full-potential linear augmented plane wave code WIEN2K, and atomic multiplet calculations that took account of the electronic effects from local octahedral symmetry. A valence change from Ni^(2+) to Ni^(4+) with delithiation would have caused a 3 eV shift in energy of the intense white line at the Ni L_3 edge, but the measured shift was less than 1.2 eV. The intensities of the "white lines" at the Ni L-edges did not change enough to account for a substantial change of Ni valence. No changes were detectable at the Mn and Co L-edges after delithiation either. Both EELS and the computational efforts showed that most of the charge compensation for Li^+ takes place at hybridized O 2p states, not at Ni atoms.


Three new series of bis-(boron difluoride) complexes 1a–c derived from substituted tetraketonates 2a–c are reported, and their mesomorphic and optical properties have been investigated. Two single crystals of mesogenic ligand 2a (n = 6) and nonmesogenic diboron complex 1a (n = 14) were obtained, and their single crystal and molecular structures were resolved. Results show that all 2a ligands (n = 6, 8, 10, 12, 14) formed nematic and/or smectic C phases; however, all 2b–c compounds were not mesogenic. In contrast, bis(BF2) complexes 1a–b were nonmesogenic, and 1c (n = 8, 10, 12) exhibited enantiotropic columnar mesophases. Ncell = 2.70–2.86 within a column slice of 9.0 A thick was obtained for compound 1c, indicating that a single disc-shaped molecule was stacked within columns in Colh phases. Bis(BF2) complexes 1a–c (n = 8) possess a pronounced yellow-red emission in solution at room temperature. The luminescent emission showed a strong dependence on structural moiety incorporated, with λmax = 538 (1a) < 641 (1b) < 708 nm (1c). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of columnar bis(BF2) complexes.


Appointment system was introduced to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital at the initial stage of the Hospital development. This is a new experience to the local community which is largely illiterate. The appointment breaking was low contrary to expectation. Indifference or negligence accounted for a high percentage of defaulting. The system was deemed to be good by 66.4 per cent of the defaulters interviewed only 1.2 per cent felt that it was bad. Efforts by the health visiting Sister to visit the defaulters at home and persuade them to attend the clinic reduced the number of broken appointments. The habit of breaking appointments by parents/guardians of children who showed indifference or negligence were more difficult to remedy. For a referral system to be effective in a largely illiterate community where referral system is new, knowledge of the reasons for breaking appointments in the community should be known and remedied. Promotion of personalized attention and intensive health education are essential.


A manual selection of the Mobile Network Operator (MNO) to be used on a mobile device is possible through the respective user interface. Furthermore, mobile devices can be adjusted to select automatically the MNO based on the strongest signal strength, among the list of those MNOs the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card is allowed to be registered with. However, so far in modern mobile operating systems, such as Android and iOS, there is no available method in the public developer's Application Programming Interface (API), which allows for an automatic and on-demand selection of the MNO by third-party applications. Recently, various research approaches assume the existence of an automatic and on-demand MNO selection mechanism to achieve different goals, such as breaking the termination rates monopoly (AbaCUS) or minimizing the non-ionizing radiation of mobile/wearable devices. The interest of such a mechanism has been raised three years ago by the Android developers community. Thus, this work here presents an automatic and on-demand MNO selection mechanism, that has been designed and implemented on the Android platform. For evaluation purposes the energy and end-to-end (e2e) time consumption while switching among MNOs using this mechanism is evaluated and as an applied example the data consumption of AbaCUS signaling messages is measured.


Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) is an inference algorithm for state space models that approximates the posterior by sampling from a sequence of target distributions. The target distributions are often chosen to be the filtering distributions, but these ignore information from future observations, leading to practical and theoretical limitations in inference and model learning. We introduce SIXO , a method that instead learns target distributions that approximate the smoothing distributions, incorporating information from all observations. The key idea is to use density ratio estimation to fit functions that warp the filtering distributions into the smoothing distributions. We then use SMC with these learned targets to define a variational objective for model and proposal learning. SIXO yields provably tighter log marginal lower bounds and offers more accurate posterior inferences and parameter estimates in a variety of domains.


Objective To investigate the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and obesity-related cancers in men and women with type 2 diabetes (T2D). Design Observational cohort study. Setting Primary care. Participants A total of 52 044 patients with T2D who participated in the ZODIAC (Zwolle Outpatient Diabetes project Integrating Available Care) study between 1998 and 2012 was included (49% women). A dataset of these patients was linked to available information of the Netherlands Cancer Registry to obtain data on cancer incidents. Primary outcome measures Analyses were performed for the total group of obesity-related cancers and for non-sex-specific and sex-specific obesity-related cancers (in men: advanced prostate cancer, in women: ovarian, endometrial and postmenopausal breast cancer). Results The median follow-up period in all analyses was 3.1 (1.7–5.0) years in men and 3.1 (1.7–5.1) in women. During follow-up, 689 men and 914 women were diagnosed with an obesity-related cancer. In men, BMI was associated with a higher risk of the total group of obesity-related cancers and non-sex-specific obesity-related cancers (HR (per 5 kg/m2 increase) 1.12 (95% CI 1.02 to 1.23) and HR 1.18 (95% CI 1.06 to 1.31)). No association was found with prostate cancer. In women, an association between BMI and all obesity-related cancers combined and sex-specific obesity-related cancers was present (HR 1.15 (95% CI 1.08 to 1.22) and HR 1.22 (95% CI 1.14 to 1.32)). No association with non-sex-specific cancers was found in women. Conclusions BMI is associated with obesity-related cancers in men with T2D, except with advanced prostate cancer. The results of this study provide reason to reconsider the classification of advanced prostate cancer as an obesity-related cancer, at least in T2D. In women, BMI is associated with the total group of obesity-related cancers and with sex-specific obesity-related cancers.


Fish generally grow several orders of magnitude between the larval and adult stage. Many ecological properties of organisms are related to body size, and hence small fish often have very different ecological roles than large conspecifics. This also implies that omnivory, the feeding on more than one trophic level by individuals of the same species, is a common phenomenon in fish. Intraguild predation is omnivory in its simplest form, where two species compete for the same resource, but one of the species can also eat its competitor. In models, persistence of both species in such a configuration is difficult to obtain. In marine fish communities however, it is observed routinely. One way in which persistence of omnivorous species can be established is by incorporating it as an ontogenetic diet shift, where small individuals of both species compete, and large individuals of one can feed on the small individuals of the others species. We show in this study that this mechanism can not only lead to persistence of a single omnivorous species, but also to persistence of multiple omnivorous species. This is possible given that the adults have sufficiently different diets. It is shown that, while adults of both species can feed both on small competitors or on the basic resource, due to the population dynamical feedback, one species will in practice act as a predator, while the other acts as prey. This way, a system with two omnivores in practice persists as a tritrophic system. Which of the species assumes which role depends on the specific community characteristics. We show here that by incorporating complex size-dependent feeding relationships in food webs, many more species may be able to coexist than is possible based on either species-level considerations or size spectrum models which do incorporate within-population size differences, but relate diet only to individual body size irrespective of species identity. The mechanism underlying our result may be part of the explanation why fish species with seemingly similar life histories do coexist in marine ecosystems.


Understanding and managing the fear of death is a central issue in clinical care. Research in terror management theory suggests that death reminders can lead to anxiety, depression, and maladaptive social behaviors. Additional research has suggested that discourse about death can be beneficial in contexts that are safe and supportive. A telecourse and web-based learning program on diverse worldviews of death and the afterlife was developed and used to explore these issues. The impact of this training was assessed using pre- and posttest journaling and questionnaire data. The content of these journals was analyzed within and across subjects for emotionally meaningful expressions related to the writing prompts. Significant pre- and postdifferences were identified using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count text analysis software. After the intervention, participants were less centered on their body as use of the body category decreased by 32% (p .01). This was consistent with an increase of 16% in the use of abstract pronouns (p .05). Participants also were more confident in their expression with a 58% increase in the certain category (p .05). Participants made fewer references to death with a decrease of 34% in the death category (p .05). Results of this work support the feasibility of an online training program that has measurable beneficial affects for clinical care, both for professionals and patients. We discuss such educational clinical applications and the implications for future research.


This paper considers the problem of measure estimation under the barycentric coding model (BCM), in which an unknown measure is assumed to belong to the set of Wasserstein-2 barycenters of a finite set of known measures. Estimating a measure under this model is equivalent to estimating the unknown barycentric coordinates. We provide novel geometrical, statistical, and computational insights for measure estimation under the BCM, consisting of three main results. Our first main result leverages the Riemannian geometry of Wasserstein-2 space to provide a procedure for recovering the barycentric coordinates as the solution to a quadratic optimization problem assuming access to the true reference measures. The essential geometric insight is that the parameters of this quadratic problem are determined by inner products between the optimal displacement maps from the given measure to the reference measures defining the BCM. Our second main result then establishes an algorithm for solving for the coordinates in the BCM when all the measures are observed empirically via i.i.d. samples. We prove precise rates of convergence for this algorithm -- determined by the smoothness of the underlying measures and their dimensionality -- thereby guaranteeing its statistical consistency. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of the BCM and associated estimation procedures in three application areas: (i) covariance estimation for Gaussian measures; (ii) image processing; and (iii) natural language processing.


This exploratory study considered how local jurisdictions in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area address the issue of children caring for themselves in a self care child care arrangement and whether some of these situations overlap with child protective services cases. Researchers conducted focus groups and interviews with child welfare staff and law enforcement officials. Reports of suspected child neglect, specifically reports involving inadequate supervision, were also analyzed. Deciding to leave children home alone is a universal decision that all parents must make. Study findings indicate that how localities respond to reports of inadequate supervision vary by the type of cases accepted, response to these cases, factors considered during the investigation, and how the agency serves the families.


The paper examines the problem of representing the dynamics of low order autoregressive (AR) models with time varying (TV) coefficients. The existing literature computes the forecasts of the series from a recursion relation. Instead, we provide the linearly independent solutions to TV-AR models. Our solution formulas enable us to derive the fundamental properties of these processes, and obtain explicit expressions for the optimal predictors. We illustrate our methodology and results with a few classic examples amenable to time varying treatment, e.g, periodic, cyclical, and AR models subject to multiple structural breaks.


This Essay examines the extent to which some of the seminal ideas and principles from and underlying Brown v. Board of Education can be used to provide a perspective that may help develop intellectual property law in ways that advance the cause of social and economic justice. The social justice-conscious approach of the Court in Brown can inform our understanding of and can inform the development of the public interest as a way to rebalance the rights of intellectual property right holders, users, and the public at large. The principles the Court used in Brown that are examined and applied in this Essay include: (1) Use current circumstances to evaluate law, keeping in mind the effect on the public good; (2) Importance affects analysis - the importance of intellectual property today is analogous to the importance of education fifty years ago; (3) Abuse of power to exploit or exclude others is improper and may rise to the level of being unconstitutional; and (4) Intangible effects matter. Ultimately, these principles, like the Brown decision itself, derive from human rights principles of the inherent dignity, worth, and equality of each person. The issue is justice, not merely legal rights instrumentally conceived.


Deposits of turbidity currents - turbidites - commonly exhibit upward-fining grainsize profiles, reflecting deposition from flows with simple rapidly-waxing then progressively-waning velocity structures. However, turbidites with patterns of multiple cycles of inverse-to-normal grading are not uncommon. Such deposits are interpreted as being deposited under the influence of repeated waxing-waning velocity cycles within multi-pulsed turbidity currents and are termed "multi-pulsed turbidites". Multi-pulsed flow can be initiated by sequences of retrogressive submarine failures in which each slumping episode can form a pulse in the velocity structure, or may arise due to the combination of multiple flows at downstream confluences; separate flows may even run into each other over long distances. In the first case, it has been inferred that multi-pulsed deposits might carry signals of flow initiation, with each slump linked to a seismic impulse, and further, that such signals can be recognised in the vertical grading structures of distal turbidites. The focus of this research has been to establish i) how multi-pulsed flow dynamics and associated deposits vary along flow pathways and ii) the degree to which grading structures in turbidites deposited by multi-pulsed flows permit inference of flow initiation mechanisms.

Initial experiment modelling of single- and multi-pulsed solute-driven gravity flows shows that internal pulses are necessarily advected forward, eventually merging with the flow head such that multi-pulsed flows transition from being cyclically waxing-waning to waxing on arrival then monotonically waning. This finding implies that initiation signals should be distorted then lost in any deposits along the flow pathway. Accordingly, an interpretational template for the spatial variation in turbidite character along flow pathways was developed, accounting for both pulse merging and flow combination at confluences. Further experiments were conducted to support a scaling analysis to estimate merging lengths; these lengths are shorter than those documented from prototype settings, and may reflect a limitation in the scope of application, arising from experimental constraints. Experiment modelling of single- and multi-pulsed sediment-driven gravity flows confirms the occurrence of the pulse merging phenomenon in turbidity currents. Analysis of associated deposits confirms the downstream spatial transition from multi- to uni-pulsed turbidites, albeit with the point of transition being more proximal in the laboratory deposit than the point of pulse merging. However, the spatial persistence of the complex velocity structure up to the point of merging need not be reflected in the associated deposit. Beyond the merging point, single-pulsed turbidites must always be deposited. Such deposits cannot be used to infer flow initiation mechanisms.


Definition of the term "industrial electronics" is difficult because of the varied application of electronic techniques. This paper stresses the importance of recognizing the fundamental problems involved in an industrial process. These problems generally do not fall within the domain normally covered by the electronics engineer. The electronics engineer must have a thorough knowledge of the fundamental physical and chemical laws involved in industrial processes. Reduction of the problem to basic principles permits the finding of solutions applicable to many fields as soon as the common characteristic of the problems is recognized. The task of the industrial electronics engineer is to tie the characteristics of many individual units into a common system and integrate them by means of electronic devices into an operation that performs in a logical and economical manner.


This study examined the policy evaluation of restructuring street vendors in Surakarta city. Street vendors represent the economic actors in the informal sector of urban economic activity. The government of City/District usually removes these street vendors by disguising this activity behind the reason of structuring, . The study used descriptive research with a qualitative approach. The relocation of street vendors in Surakarta City is orderly and smooth without violence which may impact badly on physic and material because the government of Surakarta City, especially Surakarta Mayor, uses persuasive approach. Notoharjo Market is a relocation place for street vendors at Banja r sari Monument Park. In the beginning, Notoharjo Market is crowded with buyers but current days, street vendors who occupy Notoharjo Market complain about lack of buyers. The lack of buyers at Notoharjo Market is because the facilities previously provided by the government of Surakarta City are not well maintained. The government of Surakarta City must listening all complains of street vendors for the smoothness and orderliness of trading activity of street vendors. Not only listening, but the government of Surakarta City also gives appropriate and best solution to street vendors such that street vendors feel comfort in selling and their income is better than before.


Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a novel viral pathogen that was found to disproportionately affect older adults, often sparing pediatric patients from moderate to severe illness. We report on a case of a 12-year-old patient admitted through the emergency department with bilateral pneumonia, thrombocytopenia and hematuria, who subsequently developed respiratory failure requiring intubation and mechanical ventilation. The patient was found to be SARS-CoV-2-positive. The patient's management strategy is discussed. Int J Clin Pediatr. 2020;9(2):41-49 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/ijcp370


Hypoparathyroidism is a rare endocrine disorder whose incidence and prevalence have not been well defined. This study aimed to 1) estimate the number of insured adult patients with hypoparathyroidism in the United States and 2) obtain physician assessment of disease severity and chronicity. Prevalence was estimated through calculation of diagnoses of hypoparathyroidism in a large proprietary health plan claims database over a 12‐month period from October 2007 through September 2008 and projected to the US insured population. Incidence was also calculated from the same database by determining the proportion of total neck surgeries resulting in either transient (≤6 months) or chronic (>6 months) hypoparathyroidism. A physician primary market research study was conducted to assess disease severity and determine the percentage of new nonsurgical patients with hypoparathyroidism. Incidence data were entered into an epidemiologic model to derive an estimate of prevalence. The diagnosis‐based prevalence approach estimated 58,793 insured patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism in the United States. The surgical‐based incidence approach yielded 117,342 relevant surgeries resulting in 8901 cases over 12 months. Overall, 7.6% of surgeries resulted in hypoparathyroidism (75% transient, 25% chronic). The prevalence of chronic hypoparathyroidism among insured patients included in the surgical database was estimated to be 58,625. The physician survey found that 75% of cases treated over the past 12 months were reported due to surgery and, among all thyroidectomies and parathyroidectomies and neck dissections performed in a year, 26% resulted in transient hypoparathyroidism and 5% progressed to a chronic state. In conclusion, the two claims‐based methods yielded similar estimates of the number of insured patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism in the United States (∼58,700). The physician survey was consistent with those calculations and confirmed the burden imposed by hypoparathyroidism. © 2013 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.


Question

How do soil fertility, neighbourhood host tree composition and bark characteristics influence community attributes of vascular epiphytes in a central Amazonian forest?

Location

Adolpho Ducke Forest Reserve, Amazonas, Brazil.

Methods

The abundances of all species of vascular epiphytes were recorded from 300 host trees with DBH >30 cm. Phorophytes were distributed among 30 sample plots established in lowland, slope and upland habitats, and bark characteristics were classified into five types (rough, peeling, fissured, smooth, rugose). The epiphytic species were also classified into three functional types (true epiphytes, hemi-epiphytes and nomadic vines) for separate analyses in an effort to highlight differences in ecological constraints in relation to neighbourhood phorophyte composition and edaphic variation.

Results

More than 21 000 individuals representing 122 species distributed in 66 genera and 20 families of vascular epiphytes were recorded from 300 phorophytes during the course of the study. Multiple regressions demonstrated that neighbourhood phorophyte composition and edaphic variables, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), together explained 65% of the variation in epiphytic species composition. However, edaphic factors were the only significant predictors of epiphytic species richness, accounting for 70% of this variation. Nearly one-third of the true epiphytes occurred only on phorophytes in soils with high P content. Null models demonstrate that a vast majority of the epiphyte species (76% in positive and 96% in negative associations) failed to exhibit a statistically significant preference for bark texture.

Conclusion

Neighbourhood phorophyte composition, in concert with N and P availability, accounts for the vast majority of the variation in vascular epiphyte composition and abundance in central Amazonian forests. However, only N and P were shown to be significant predictors of epiphyte richness. Such results suggest that both biotic and abiotic variables influence epiphyte community structure (composition, abundance and richness) at differing intensities. Weak associations between bark type and epiphyte taxa suggest that epiphyte community variation may also be influenced by other unmeasured physical and environmental factors such as phorophyte architecture or microclimatic differences. Nonetheless, these results corroborate with other studies which report significant changes in epiphyte composition and richness as a result of experimentally manipulated ground soil fertility.


Recent progress in the field of genetic engineering has opened up the door to novel synthetic biology applications. Microfluidic technology has been emphasized as a key technology to support the development of these applications. While several important synthetic biology protocols have been developed in microfluidic format, no study has yet demonstrated on‐chip error control. In synthetic biology protocols, the purification phase is a critical error control process which enhances the reliability of the genome segment assembly by removing undesired oligos. In this context, we report the design and characterization of a fully integrated platform, demonstrating the purification of up to 4 genome segments in parallel, prior to their off‐chip assembly. The key innovation of this platform is the decoupling control strategy which eliminates the need to integrate expensive components onto the microfluidic device, enabling lower cost, disposability and rapid operation. Unlike most microfluidic chips where fluid connector plugs are needed to connect external pumps, this approach is plug‐less and the chips are simply connected to the control breadboard by clamping. Furthermore the passive chip is isolated from the active control layer thereby eliminating the risk of sample‐to‐sample contamination in the reusable parts. As a validation of this fully‐integrated system, the parallel on‐chip purification of genome segments was demonstrated with ratio of correct phenotypes after final assembly up to 20% superior to the bench controls, proving thereby the suitability of the platform for synthetic biology applications. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2014;111: 1627–1637. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Previous studies have demonstrated that patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) may develop the latter. The prevalence of 20-43% for AF in patients with HFpEF and prevalence of 50- 60% for HFpEF in AF patients. The pathophysiology indicates that AF usually precedes HFpEF, but each disease can promote the progression of the other one. Multiple mechanisms have been posited, such as left atrial (LA) fibrosis and myopathy as well as volume/pressure overload. Moreover, the combination of AF and HFpEF is associated with an increased rate of mortality as the presence of AF worsens the hemodynamics of HF. The diagnosis of HFpEF in patients with AF is underestimated, as the symptoms, laboratory values, and imaging techniques can be skewed by the presence of AF. Unfortunately, there are limited randomized controlled trials that recommend guideline-based treatments, such as choosing between rate and rhythm control. This narrative review aims to illustrate and summarize the pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment in the current literature for patients with AF and HFpEF.


Until the publication of Robert Hall's landmark book The Black Diggers in 1989, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were essentially 'written out' of Australia's Second World War history. Still, more than 20 years since the publication of Hall's book, Australian Indigenous participation in the war effort as servicemen and women, labourers and scouts, in wartime industries and in various other capacities, continues to be on the periphery of Australia's war history. The Second World War remains part of what WEH Stanner referred to in 1969 as 'the Great Australian Silence' of Indigenous history. Notwithstanding the lack of significant academic histories of Indigenous military history, there have been a few creative depictions of Aboriginal participation in the Second World War. Both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people have used creative mediums, such as poetry, short fiction, film, musical theatre and music, to portray Aboriginal Second World War service. This paper examines these creative cultural representations and how they position Australian Indigenous war service within a wider narrative of the Second World War and Indigenous history. Though the portrayals of Aboriginal service vary, the majority of creative works present the Second World War as central to Australian Indigenous history. Moreover, the creative representations depict Indigenous servicemen's hopes for a better life after the war, only to be crushed when they returned to ongoing discrimination. Even so, the creative depictions use the Second World War as an early marker of reconciliation in Australia, portraying the conflict as a time when ideals of liberty and equality overruled prejudice to unite Australia. Such a message continues to resonate, as creative representations of the Second World War contribute to contemporary understandings of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander citizenship and reconciliation.