OBJECTIVES
To assess the occurrence rate, characteristics, and impact of eating disorders (EDs) in adolescents with epilepsy.

METHODS
In this observational study, adolescents with epilepsy seen in a single center between 2013-2022 who had comorbid EDs were compared to two control groups of adolescents with only epilepsy and only EDs. Patients with intellectual disability or autism spectrum disorder were excluded. Data retrieved included demographic and anthropometric details and clinical variables relating to seizure types, EDs, and psychiatric disorders and behaviors.

RESULTS
A total of 376 subjects were included in the study: 84 adolescents with both epilepsy and eating disorders, 135 with only epilepsy, and 157 with only EDs. The rate of EDs in adolescents with epilepsy was 7.0% (95% CI 5.6-8.5%) overall, 11.3% (95% CI 8.8-14.3%) in females, and 3.1% (95% CI 1.9-4.8%) in males. The median (IQR) time difference between the onset of epilepsy to an ED was 1.6 (0.5-3.6) years. Among adolescents with epilepsy, those with an ED were more likely to be females (p=0.001) and have a lower zBMI percentile (p<0.001). Epilepsy type, seizure frequency, or seizure duration were not specific for having or not having EDs. Amongst adolescents with EDs, those with epilepsy had a younger onset of their EDs (p<0.001), included relatively more males (p=0.007), and consisted of more cases of anorexia-nervosa-restrictive type (p<0.001), and fewer cases of bulimia nervosa (p=0.04) and binge eating disorder (p=0.003). Adolescents with epilepsy and a comorbid ED were more likely to have psychiatric comorbidities such as depression, anxiety, and suicidality than adolescents with only epilepsy or EDs.

SIGNIFICANCE
EDs should be suspected and screened for in intellectually intact female and male adolescents with epilepsy, irrespective of their epilepsy type. If disturbed eating behaviors or EDs are identified, further evaluation should be directed at detecting other psychopathologies, including suicidality.


From the distant past until the present day, the archetypal image of the vast steppe
lands of Inner Asia has been represented by populations practicing various forms of
nomadic pastoralism as their predominant means of subsistence and way of life. While
existing research in this region has focussed on questions pertaining to empire
formations and interactions, as well as social and political complexity, a more
developed understanding of diet, health, and activity patterns has yet to be established.
Towards this end, the broad aim of this dissertation entails the reconstruction of diet,
health and activity in discrete populations which inhabited this region from c. 1500
BCE to CE 600. These objectives have been addressed through a comprehensive
research programme involving osteological and chemical analyses of human skeletal
remains, derived from archaeological sites located throughout modern-day southern
Siberia, Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Kyrgyzstan. Additional skeletal
samples dating from c. CE 1200 to 1300 and a late historic sample from c. CE 1700 to
1900 have been included to provide a comparative framework for the earlier material
under study.
This dissertation aimed to challenge assumptions, which often presuppose a
predominantly mobile pastoralist lifestyle for many of these populations, by providing
indirect and direct evidence for dietary habits and evidence for workload and activity
patterns. Long-term dietary intake was investigated through the analysis of stable
carbon and nitrogen isotopes on both human skeletal remains and associated
archaeological faunal material. Diet has also been assessed through a comprehensive
study of dental pathology and dental wear analysis. Health and nutrition has been
assessed through the study of dental pathology, linear enamel hypoplasia, and
degenerative joint disease. Workload and activity patterns have been addressed
through the combined analysis of musculo-skeletal stress markers and degenerative
joint disease.
The key results of this dissertation indicate dietary variation and similarities in distinct
communities which are related to food procurement strategies carried out at local
group levels. The results of the isotopic and dental pathology analyses indicate dietary
variation in discrete groups which may have been labelled under the same terms
historically and archaeologically, but based on these findings did not necessarily
engage in identical subsistence regimes. In addition, the results of the isotopic analyses
reflect the influence of the inhabitation of and environments on 615N isotopic
signatures and reinforce the need for contextualising isotopic results within local
environmental settings. The analysis of degenerative joint disease, coupled with
musculo-skeletal stress marker recording has provided an indication of variation in
workload and health between discrete groups. Based on these results workload
variation and activity patterns have been found to be relatable to local food production
activities and social circumstances of particular groups. Finally, the combined analyses
presented in this dissertation have provided a firm basis for reconstructing past lifeways
of these populations by presenting a more thorough understanding of diet, health
and group activities. In addition, this assessment provides a foundation for future
research in these areas, which will continue to contribute to our knowledge of the
ancient communities of this region.


An important task in quantum physics is the estimation of local quantities for ground states of local Hamiltonians. Recently, [Ambainis, CCC 2014] defined the complexity class P^QMA[log], and motivated its study by showing that the physical task of estimating the expectation value of a local observable against the ground state of a local Hamiltonian is P^QMA[log]-complete. In this paper, we continue the study of P^QMA[log], obtaining the following results: (1) The P^QMA[log]-completeness result of [Ambainis, CCC 2014] above requires O(log(n))-local Hamiltonians and O(log(n))-local observables. Whether this could be improved to the more physically appealing O(1)-local setting was left as an open question. We resolve this question positively by showing that simulating even a single qubit measurement on ground states of 5-local Hamiltonians is P^QMA[log]-complete. (2) We formalize the complexity theoretic study of estimating two-point correlation functions against ground states, and show that this task is P^QMA[log]-complete. (3) P^QMA[log] is thought of as "slightly harder" than QMA. We give a formal justification of this intuition by exploiting the technique of hierarchical voting of [Beigel, Hemachandra, and Wechsung, SCT 1989] to show P^QMA[log] is in PP. This improves the known containment that QMA is in PP [Kitaev, Watrous, STOC 2000]. (4) A central theme of this work is the subtlety involved in the study of oracle classes in which the oracle solves a promise problem. In this vein, we identify a flaw in [Ambainis, CCC 2014] regarding a P^UQMA[log]-hardness proof for estimating spectral gaps of local Hamiltonians. By introducing a "query validation" technique, we build on [Ambainis, CCC 2014] to obtain P^UQMA[log]-hardness for estimating spectral gaps under polynomial-time Turing reductions.


We performed infarct exclusion repair of ventricular septal perforation(VSP) in a 63-year-old woman who was diagnosed with acute myocardial infarction(AMI) of the inferior wall. As VSP existed behind a fragile posterior papillary muscle, we excised the papillary muscle and sutured a bovine pericardial patch to exclude the infarct area of the whole septum and a part of the inferior wall. Mitral valve replacement and coronary artery bypass were also performed. The postoperative course was uneventful. There was no residual shunt and the left ventricular function was preserved. Selection of surgical procedures taking account of complete closure of VSP is important.


Abstract Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) infection has been a major public health threat globally. Monitoring and prediction of CT epidemic status and trends are important for programme planning, allocating resources and assessing impact; however, such activities are limited in China. In this study, we aimed to apply a seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) model to predict the incidence of CT infection in Shenzhen city, China. The monthly incidence of CT between January 2008 and June 2019 in Shenzhen was used to fit and validate the SARIMA model. A seasonal fluctuation and a slightly increasing pattern of a long-term trend were revealed in the time series of CT incidence. The monthly CT incidence ranged from 4.80/100 000 to 21.56/100 000. The mean absolute percentage error value of the optimal model was 8.08%. The SARIMA model could be applied to effectively predict the short-term CT incidence in Shenzhen and provide support for the development of interventions for disease control and prevention.


What role did sexual assault play in the conquest of America? How did American attitudes toward female sexuality evolve, and how was sexuality regulated in the early Republic? Sex and sexuality have always been the subject of much attention, both scholarly and popular. Yet, accounts of the early years of the United States tend to overlook the importance of their influence on the shaping of American culture. Sex and Sexuality in Early America addresses this neglected topic with original research covering a wide spectrum, from sexual behavior to sexual perceptions and imagery. Focusing on the period between the initial contact of Europeans and Native Americans up to 1800, the essays encompass all of colonial North America, including the Caribbean and Spanish territories. Challenging previous assumptions, these essays address such topics as rape as a tool of conquest; perceptions and responses to Native American sexuality; fornication, bastardy, celibacy, and religion in colonial New England; gendered speech in captivity narratives; representations of masculinity in eighteenth- century seduction tales, the sexual cosmos of a southern planter, and sexual transgression and madness in early American fiction. The contributors include Stephanie Wood, Gordon Sayre, Steven Neuwirth, Else L. Hambleton, Erik R. Seeman, Richard Godbeer, Trevor Burnard, Natalie A. Zacek, Wayne Bodle, Heather Smyth, Rodney Hessinger, and Karen A. Weyler.


Researchers have proposed a wide range of ransomware detection and analysis schemes. However, most of these efforts have focused on older families targeting Windows 7/8 systems. Hence there is a critical need to develop efficient solutions to tackle the latest threats, many of which may have relatively fewer samples to analyze. This paper presents a machine learning (ML) framework for early ransomware detection and attribution. The solution pursues a data-centric approach which uses a minimalist ransomware dataset and implements static analysis using portable executable (PE) files. Results for several ML classifiers confirm strong performance in terms of accuracy and zero-day threat detection.


A measurement of the insertion loss and crosstalk in folded, 100 GHz, arrayed waveguide multiplexers as a function of the number of grating waveguides is described. The number of grating waveguides can be varied in a single device to evaluate power truncation effects with high accuracy. We show that the central peak insertion loss decreases exponentially with the number of grating waveguides. The crosstalk decreases with increased number of waveguides and the measured dependence shows valleys and peaks associated with the passband spectrum of individual channels. These observations are in good agreement with simulation results. With the arrayed waveguide design used in this work the crosstalk performance becomes phase error limited for the number of waveguides greater than 250.


In an attempt to overcome national rival- ries, many will invoke the idea of constitutional patriotism. This idea, which serves as a collec- tive cement, is conceived as a rational commit- ment and loyalty towards the democratic and universal principles of liberal constitutions. The universalism of constitutional principles serves as a shield against national particular- isms. Indeed, this was precisely the intention of Jurgen Habermas, one of the most famous advocates of constitutional patriotism. With this political idea, Habermas set out to defeat Teutonic nationalism and its antimodern and chauvinistic manifestations. If nationalist pas- sions can be subdued, it would be with the help of such a "postnational" attitude.


Error messages presented to users are one of the most important elements of Web forms. Error messages are embedded in different parts of the forms available on the Internet and presented in various formats. One of the measures of a user-friendly error message design is the ability to easily capture users' attention and facilitate fast error correction. In this empirical study, I tested four different locations of error messages frequently used in Web forms on 32 participants. In addition, I analysed the participants' interactions with error messages through their eye movements. The results of the study showed that the participants spotted the error message fastest when it was displayed on the right side of the erroneous input field. When error messages displayed further the input field users have less saccades to and fixations on error messages compared to those located near to this field, suggesting that less effort has been spent to understand the given message. However, group mean dif-ferences were not statistically significant for form completion time, error recognition time, the number of saccades, and error correction time.


A technique for visualizing intrusion-detection system log files using hierarchical data based on IP addresses represents the number of incidents for thousands of computers in one display space. Our technique applies a hierarchical data visualization technique that represents leaf nodes as black square icons and branch nodes as rectangular borders enclosing the icons. This representation style visualizes thousands of hierarchical data leaf nodes equally in one display space. We applied the technique to bioactive chemical visualization and job distribution in parallel-computing environments.


Background:
 Neuroimaging studies including diffusion and perfusion-weighted imaging identify the location and neuroanatomic extent of brain ischemia in the acute phase of infarction. Although there has been substantial progress in using early neuroimaging studies to predict whether localized regions of brain tissue will proceed to infarction or recover, there has been little effort to define imaging parameters that predict which of the patient's acute functional deficits will remain or resolve with potential recanalization/reperfusion treatments. This information may be particularly important in late time windows when the number of patients with salvageable penumbral tissue progressively declines. We previously reported development of a proof of concept acute stroke imaging atlas correlating DWI lesions and NIHSS items in a relatively small number of subjects. The goal of the current analysis was to expand this atlas to include a much larger number of cases.

 Methods:
 As part of a global project aimed at creating a large scale stroke-specific predictive brain atlas, we correlated acute DWI lesion location with the presence of individual sub-item scores from the NIHSS. Inclusion criteria were: acute ischemic stroke; brain MRI (including DWI) performed within 24 hours of symptom onset; and baseline NIHSS score available. Intramural NINDS provided the imaging and clinical data. Acute DWI images from all subjects were aligned to a common neuroanatomic coordinate system. Chi square images were calculated on a voxel-by-voxel basis.

 Results:
 A total of 400 patients were included in the analysis. Mean age was 69, range 21-98. Baseline NIHSS was median 5, mean 7, range 0-32. The
 figure
 shows representative axial slices from the atlas, including color-coded chi square values, using a false discovery rate of 5%, for anatomic regions in which there was a significant correlation between NIHSS sub-item symptom presence and DWI hyperintensity.

 Conclusions:
 Employing a large dataset including 400 acute stroke patients, we have developed a large scale voxel-based stroke atlas correlating NIHSS sub-items employing acute DWI lesion data. The maps illustrate the neuroanatomic representation of the NIHSS sub-items in standardized space. An important next step will incorporate acute diffusion and perfusion MR imaging to predict long-term outcome for two scenarios: untreated vs. treated with recanalization therapy. This information may then assist in guiding treatment decisions for late recanalization therapies.


Devices of interconnected parallel acting sequential automata are investigated from a language theoretic point of view. Starting with the well-known result that each tally language acceptable by a classical one-way cellular automaton (OCA) in real-time has to be a regular language we will answer the three natural questions 'How much time do we have to provide?' 'How much power do we have to plug in the single cells (i.e., how complex has a single cell to be)?' and 'How can we modify the mode of operation (i.e., how much nondeterminism do we have to add)?' in order to accept non-regular tally languages. We show the surprising result that for some classes of generalized interacting automata parallelism does not lead to more accepting power than obtained by a single sequential cell. Adding a wee bit of nondeterminism an infinite hierarchy of unary language families can be shown by allowing more and more nondeterminism.


Digitizing historical documents is crucial in preserving the literary heritage. With the availability of low cost capturing devices, libraries and institutes all over the world have old literature preserved in the form of scanned documents. However, searching through these scanned images is still a tedious job as one is unable to search through them. Contemporary machine learning approaches have been applied successfully to recognize text in both printed and handwriting form, however, these approaches require a lot of transcribed training data in order to obtain satisfactory performance. Transcribing the documents manually is a laborious and costly task, requiring many man-hours and language-specific expertise. This paper presents a generic iterative training framework to address this issue. The proposed framework is not only applicable to historical documents, but for present-day documents as well, where manually transcribed training data is unavailable. Starting with the minimal information available, the proposed approach iteratively corrects the training and generalization errors. Specifically, we have used a segmentation-based OCR method to train on individual symbols and then use the semi-corrected recognized text lines as the ground-truth data for segmentation-free sequence learning, which learns to correct the errors in the ground-truth by incorporating context-aware processing. The proposed approach is applied to a collection of 15th century Latin documents. The iterative procedure using segmentation-free OCR was able to reduce the initial character error of about 23% (obtained from segmentation-based OCR) to less than 7% in few iterations.


This report firstly presents the rule based scantlings and sectional properties of the example ship defined by using the nominal properties of mild shipbuilding steel. It also describes the way of collection of characteristic material specimens of rolled steel plates and bars delivered by the steel manufacturer to the shipyard for to the example ship. Secondly it summarizes the results of tensile testing in the Laboratory for experimental mechanics of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture in Zagreb of plates and bars denoted here as 'in-built' material properties for the example ship according to the production plans. The report then reminds on the rule based material properties for acceptance purposes. Next it considers the influence of 'in-built' mechanical properties with respect to the rule requirements on local, global and ultimate strength of ships. The report discusses material properties other than yield strength, which participate in the assessment of the overall ship safety such as the weld strength, buckling and fatigue strength, low temperature behavior, corrosion and reliability. The results of the tensile testing of 'in-built' materials are then applied to checking of the local, global and ultimate 'asbuilt' strength of the example ship's hull instead of the 'asdesigned' strength defined by the nominal material properties. The report at the end discusses the differences between the 'as-designed' and the 'as-built' hull strength, fatigue life and reliability. It suggests minimization of the hull strength uncertainties by adopting the mechanical properties of 'inbuilt' materials. The conclusion supports the stirring idea of this report that in addition to the 'as-designed' strength, a ship deserves individualized assessment of the "as-built" ship hull strength based on the measured realistic 'in-built' properties.


Data exploration is essential to data analytics, especially when one is confronted with massive datasets. Clustering is a commonly used technique in data exploration, since it can automatically group data instances into a list of meaningful categories, and capture the natural structure of data. Traditional finite mixture model requires the number of clusters to be specified in advance of analyzing the data, and this parameter is crucial to the clustering performance. Chinese restaurant process (CRP) mixture model provides an alternative to this problem, allowing the model complexity to grow as more data instances are observed. Although CRP provides the flexibility to create a new cluster for subsequent data instances, one still has to determine the hyperparameter of the prior and the parameters for the base distribution in the likelihood part. This work proposes a non-parametric clustering algorithm based on CRP with two main differences. First, we propose to create a new cluster based on entropy of the posterior, whereas the CRP uses a hyperparameter to control the probability of creating a new cluster. Second, we propose to dynamically adjust the parameters of the base distribution according to the mean of the observed data owing to Chebyshev's inequality. Additionally, detailed derivation and update rules are provided to perform posterior inference with the proposed collapsed Gibbs sampling algorithm. The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm avoids to specify the number of clusters and works well on several datasets.


Glomus tumors, especially with some definitive MR imaging features, are diagnosed easily. However, when two glomus tumors are suspected in one single mass, careful evaluation is necessary. We report one patient with two synchronous glomus tumors, ipsilateral glomus tumor of the carotid body and glomus vagale on the right neck, simulating a single mass.


The results of a correlation study between high spatial resolution (1m) Multi-Spectral Scanner (MSS) data and reference data with particular emphasis to soil-plant water parameters are presented. Digital images of the Management Systems Evaluation Area (MSEA) research site in south central Ohio were acquired using MSS mounted on an aircraft. Gravimetric soil water, plant water, and plant residue information relating to MSS data were collected in April, July, August, and September, 1994. It was found that the correlation between MSS data and soil water was changed by the presence of crop residue versus bare soil. The combined water estimates from the soil and plant enhanced the correlation structure between MSS parameters and soil-plant water variables. It was also shown that when using soil water content data below the 0.5-2.0 cm soil depth, the correlation with MSS parameters decreased.


Charge-pump phase-locked loops (CP-PLL) are the circuit architecture of choice for embedded frequency synthesis applications. In all situations a frequency synthesis system will generate timing or reference signals for other important system functions. Therefore, it is a key element for satisfactory system level operation and must be verified correctly. The key performance metric for CP-PLLs is often stated in terms of spectral purity or jitter of the generated output signal. However, in a production test environment it can be difficult to assess system performance directly in these terms. For a correctly designed system, output signal degradation can often be related back to deviations or errors introduced during the manufacturing process. In many instances the CP-PLL may be the only analogue block present on a digital SoC (system on chip), and in consequence production test is often focused towards sufficient verification using methods applicable for digital only testers. Direct access DfT (design for test) techniques are often employed to address test requirements for analogue portions of the CP-PLL; however, problems can occur in terms of noise injection and general test access. The paper presents an introductory overview and tutorial providing information relating to key CP-PLL deviations, common direct access DfT extraction methods and the associated problems. In addition, a review of recent significant BIST (built-in-self-test)/DfT test approaches is provided. The focus is on methods that can indirectly validate CP-PLL closed loop performance and be useful in highlighting key jitter or phase noise contributors.


"The Sacrifice" provides a uniquely detailed account of the sociological context of animal experimentation. The authors provide a rich analysis of complex and changing role of the laboratory animal in the political and scientific culture of the United States and the United Kingdom. By understanding the interplay of the groups, the authors view the experimental controversy as an ongoing and constantly recreated set of social processes, not just a problem of morality.


Recent empirical literature on corporate governance has demonstrated that companies' shares are generally concentrated in the hands of particular families or wealthy investors. Claessens et al. (2002) analyzed the ownership structure in East Asian eight countries, but misestimated the Taiwanese condition that made them not find the positive incentive or negative entrenchment effects in Taiwan. This study tries to clear the ultimate control in Taiwan, use the detailed data to better understand the ownership structure in Taiwan and investigates the determinants for deviation of control from cash flow rights. Based on the findings, the companies' shares are common concentrated in the hands of the largest shareholder. We find that the deviation of control from cash flow rights is greater in the family-controlled companies than other type companies. Also the controlling shareholders use more pyramids and cross shareholding to increase their control rights that accompanies with deeply management participation. On the average, the controlling shareholders hold more than half board seats and usually occupy the chairman and general manger to enhance their control power in family-controlled companies. No matter in all sample or family-controlled companies, the controlling shareholders owns significantly less cash flow rights, occupy more board seats in deviation group companies than those without deviation. Corporate valuation is significantly lower in the companies with the divergence of control from cash flow rights than non-deviation companies.


This work deals with the results of the research "Configuration of the participatory democracy experienced by the civil society in the county councils of Cruz Alta" and aimed to check the level of the civil society participation in the county councils of Cruz Alta, Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. The surveyed results corroborate what has been characterized as the Brazilian PoliticalCulture, the relations between the Brazilian political and civil societies which are in a negotiation process, mediated by the political positions before the state. In view of a totality perspective, both societies have formed partnerships to defend polarized projects in the minimum state and in the radicalization state of the democratic deepening. In the space of these struggles there is a permanent tension in which, due to the fragility of the democracy, civil society acts under the perspective of representative democracy, delegating the voting power to a representative and remaining absent from the process, leaving to those elected the responsibility to carry out the political processes.


The focus of this article is an educational encounter during a social science project at a junior high school in Norway. The topic of the school project was the Norwegian Constitution of 1814. In this Constitution, many of the ideas of the French and American revolutions had been adopted, e.g. popular sovereignty and the separation of power. Nevertheless, the Constitution also reflected intolerant ideas, especially with regards to the so-called Jews-paragraph, whereby Protestantism was proclaimed, and Jews were excluded from the Norwegian state. In the educational encounter analyzed in this article, I argue that the notion of an exceptional Norwegian democracy affects the narrative constructed about the Norwegian Constitution. This notion serves to exclude the Jews-paragraph from the narrative. The postcolonial concept of Nordic exceptionalism constitutes an important theoretical framework for the analyses of the educational encounter. In the contemporary Norwegian society, immigration regulation by laws again has relevance. This article, therefore, discusses the critical classroom conversations thematizing the Jews-paragraph could have led to, by pointing at different historical and present-day topics of relevance. The discussion implicates the importance of recognizing the role and impact state-led control, violations and exclusion of minorities have in Norwegian history. Not recognizing these aspects of history can lead to the production and reproduction of idealized and exceptional national narratives.


Recent findings implied that the progression of hematologic malignancies, like that of solid tumors, is dependent on neovascularization. Recent studies on patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) showed increased levels of leukocyte-associated vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and neovascularization of the bone marrow. Murine (32D, M1) and human (HEL, U937, and UKE-1) leukemic cell lines and freshly isolated leukemic cells were analyzed for the expression of VEGF and VEGF receptor mRNA. The expression of VEGF and VEGF receptors KDR and neuropilin-1 (NRP-1) was detected in these cells. In a murine chloroma model, delivery of VEGF(165) using microencapsulation technology resulted in enhanced tumor growth and vascularization, whereas treatment with a VEGF antagonist soluble NRP-1 (sNRP-1) inhibited tumor angiogenesis and growth. In a systemic leukemia model, survival of mice injected with adenovirus (Ad) encoding for Fc-sNRP-1 (sNRP-1 dimer) was significantly prolonged as compared with mice injected with Ad-LacZ. Further analyses showed a reduction in circulating leukemic cells and infiltration of liver and spleen as well as bone marrow neovascularization and cellularity. Taken together, these results demonstrate that angiogenic factors such as VEGF promote AML progression in vivo. The use of VEGF antagonists as an antiangiogenesis approach offers a potential treatment for AML. Finally, our novel in vivo drug delivery model may be useful for testing the activities of other peptide antiangiogenic factors.


PURPOSE
This study aimed to assess the results of computed tomography (CT) fluoroscopy-guided vertebroplasty in patients with multiple myeloma, focusing on the frequency and clinical impact of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) leaks.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
From December 2001 to August 2008, 39 patients (17 females, 22 males; mean age, 65±7 years) with multiple myeloma suffering from painful spinal osteolyses underwent vertebroplasty. A total of 67 vertebrae were treated in 44 sessions under CT fluoroscopy (single-slice, 4-row CT, and 16-row CT). In the planning CT scan, osteolytic destruction (i.e., none, ≤25%, ≤50%, ≤75%, or ≤100%) was assessed regarding the vertebral cross-sectional area, the cortical border of the spinal canal, and the outer circumference. CT performed after vertebroplasty was used to detect local PMMA leaks. Patient charts were retrospectively reviewed with special respect to peri and postinterventional adverse events. Clinical outcomes were assessed on a visual analog scale (VAS) 24 hours before, 24 hours after, and 6 months after vertebroplasty.

RESULTS
Overall, 37.3%, 12.0%, and 6.0% of vertebrae showed at least 50% osteolytic involvement of the cross-sectional area, spinal canal, and outer vertebral cortex, respectively. Intradiscal, intraspinal, paravertebral, and intercostovertebral/posterolateral leaks were seen in 21.6%, 35.1%, 43.3%, and 0% of vertebrae, respectively. The ratio of basivertebral to segmental venous leaks was 16.2%/40.5%. No major complications occurred. The mean VAS score decreased significantly (P < 0.05) from 6.4 at 24 hours before vertebroplasty to 3.2 at a mean follow-up of 9.0 months.

CONCLUSION
Vertebroplasty in multiple myeloma can be performed safely under CT fluoroscopy, even with substantial destruction of the vertebral cross-sectional area or cortical bone. A high clinical success rate was achieved, regardless of whether PMMA leaks were present.


Computer science faculty must attract and retain students by offering innovative courses that spark student interest, yet still teach core, computer science concepts. These efforts have become particularly important as computer science enrollments have declined, thus increasing concerns for attracting and retaining students. We describe an innovative course that leverages students' interest in computer security issues to attract and retain technically-oriented students. Our initial vision was to offer a course covering computer viruses - a subject that even a novice computer user has some familiarity. To avoid the controversy associated with teaching students how to write malicious software, we focused the course on techniques for defending against viruses, so we named the course Defense Against the Dark Arts. In teaching the course, we have found the subject matter provides an engaging way to introduce and reinforce many important computer science concepts that other courses often cover, most particularly, the traditional compiler course. We have taught the course three times at two separate institutions, with a third school soon to follow. The course has been well received by students - completely filling each semester with enrollments that are four to five times greater than the compiler course. Furthermore, student surveys indicate that the course raises students' awareness of computer security while introducing students to important program translation and analysis concepts.


News for inclusion in this section … activities of schools and departments of journalism, staff appointments and changes, curricular developments and the like … should be sent to Professor Root, School of Journalism, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y., before April 1st for the next issue.


Abstract. Cytokine-producing potential of peripheral blood cells was determined as a stimulation index with polyclonal activators (i.e., a cytokine production ratio of stimulated versus resting cells), as well as concentrations of cytokines were investigated in blood serum of patients with chronic atrophic gastritis. It was revealed that the stimulation indices concerning production of TNFα, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8 and IL-10 by whole blood cells, along with serum concentrations of IL-8 and IL-18BP were increased in patients with epithelial dysplasia of stomach mucosa, as compared to patients without dysplasia. It was sahown, that the patients with higher polyclonal stimulation indices for IL-6 and IL-8 (resp., > 164 and > 38 arbitrary units) should be referred to a high-risk group for development of mucous epithelial dysplasia of stomach.


Robots designed to interact with people in collaborative or social scenarios must move in ways that are consistent with the robot's task and communication goals. However, combining these goals in a naïve manner can result in mutually exclusive solutions, or infeasible or problematic states and actions. In this paper, we present Lively, a framework which supports configurable, real-time, task-based and communicative or socially-expressive motion for collaborative and social robotics across multiple levels of programmatic accessibility. Lively supports a wide range of control methods (i.e. position, orientation, and joint-space goals), and balances them with complex procedural behaviors for natural, lifelike motion that are effective in collaborative and social contexts. We discuss the design of three levels of programmatic accessibility of Lively, including a graphical user interface for visual design called LivelyStudio, the core library Lively for full access to its capabilities for developers, and an extensible architecture for greater customizability and capability.


The period from the late sixteenth to the late eighteenth centuries was one of complex change for the Chinese. Europe was eagerly looking to the East with an interest in developing a China market, not just in commercial and diplomatic enterprises but in evangelical ventures as well. The resulting contacts produced significant cultural exchanges and appropriations, as well as misconceptions and stereotypes. Profoundly affected by these interactions were the areas of technology and the decorative arts. Europe became enamored of Chinese style, and a fashion known as chinoiserie permeated the decorative arts. In China, one result of Sino-European contact was the introduction of a new and important technology: the Western mechanical clock.Called in Chinese "zimingzhong, " or "self-ringing bells," these elaborate clocks were used as status symbols, decorative items, and personal adornments, and only occasionally as timepieces. Most importantly, they were signifiers of cultural power: Europeans, whether missionaries or ambassadors, controlled the introduction of both object and technology, and they used this control to advantage in gaining access to the highest reaches of Chinese society.Through her focus on technology and the decorative arts, Catherine Pagani contributes to an overall understanding of the nature and extent of European influence in late Imperial China and of the complex interaction between these two cultures. This study's interdisciplinary approach will make it of interest to those in the fields of art history, the history of clockwork and of science and technology, Jesuit history, Qing-dynasty history, and Asian studies, as well as to the educated general reader.Catherine Pagani is Associate Professor, Asian Art History, University of Alabama.


Peer-to-peer-based file replication is a proven approach to provide cooperative robust backup for data: if one peer does not have a specific datum, another one might. If enough peers participate, the overall system can survive isolated failures. Applying this approach to distributed file integrity checking (or similar security-sensitive areas) requires that current and untampered information is distributed among the peers in such a way that a limited number of malicious peers cannot subvert or sabotage the overall system. This paper presents a mechanism to provide such tamper-resistant replicated storage in a decentralised peer-to-peer system where no component is trusted a priori. We present a system model for our mechanism, and discuss the threats and countermeasures used to detect tampering. We also give an analysis of various distribution strategies and their respective costs and benefits as observed in our research implementation.


Thromboendarterectomy appears to be the procedure of choice in the surgical treatment of localized obstructive arteriosclerosis in the aortoiliac area in a relatively young patient. Clinical follow-up over a three-year period demonstrated maintenance of a maximum benefit and suggested that the endarterectomized area will remain patent for the duration of the patient's life. In younger patients, it seems logical to reestablish vascular continuity with their own tissues by a careful endarterectomy rather than by homograft replacement because of the reported incidence of late thrombosis in the latter."Diffuse" arteriosclerosis definitely limits the potential benefit or effectiveness of thromboendarterectomy. However, lumbar sympathectomy may still bring about definite benefit in particular cases. The careful selection of patients with localized or segmental arteriosclerosis and well developed collateral circulation would seem to be the greatest factor in obtaining a maximum result by thromboendarterectomy.


Background: Kidney failure is a global health problem with a worldwide mean prevalence rate of 13.4%. Kidney failure remains symptomless during most of the early stages until symptoms appear in the advanced stages. Kidney failure is associated with a decrease in health-related quality of life (HRQOL), deterioration in physical and mental health, and an increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to evaluate the factors associated with decreased HRQOL and other factors affecting the overall health of patients. Another objective was to measure how medication adherence and depression could affect the overall HRQOL in patients with kidney failure. Methodology: The study used a prospective follow-up mix methodology approach with six-month follow-ups of patients. The participants included in the study population were those with chronic kidney disease grade 4 and kidney failure. Pre-validated and translated questionnaires (Kidney Disease Quality of Life-Short Form, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale Urdu Version, and Morisky Lewis Greens Adherence Scale) and assessment tools were used to collect data. Results: This study recruited 314 patients after an initial assessment based on inclusion criteria. The mean age of the study population was 54.64 ± 15.33 years. There was a 47.6% male and a 52.4% female population. Hypertension and diabetes mellitus remained the most predominant comorbid condition, affecting 64.2% and 74.6% of the population, respectively. The study suggested a significant (p < 0.05) deterioration in the mental health composite score with worsening laboratory variables, particularly hematological and iron studies. Demographic variables significantly impact medication adherence. HRQOL was found to be deteriorating with a significant impact on mental health compared to physical health. Conclusions: Patients on maintenance dialysis for kidney failure have a significant burden of physical and mental symptoms, depression, and low HRQOL. Given the substantial and well-known declines in physical and psychological well-being among kidney failure patients receiving hemodialysis, the findings of this research imply that these areas related to health should receive special attention in the growing and expanding population of kidney failure patients.


Custom-oriented product design is the trend of cabinet electromechanical product. At present, the enterprise mainly used configuration design in product design. There are many insufficiencies in the process of cabinet electromechanical product customization design. Such as prompt delivery, success rate once and for all, cost and level of standardization. For enhance the level of customization design by utilizing knowledge reuse, the structure characteristics and the design method of cabinet electromechanical product was analyzed. Some critical problems was discussed based on configuration design patterns, including product structural, configuration design Knowledge ontology and reasoning method of knowledge reuse etc. Finally, a switchgear design case was illustrated.


In this paper an optimal algorithm for scheduling requests on interleaved memories is presented. With this algorithm the average completion time for servicing a finite set of randomly generated requests is proved to be minimum. Performance of this algorithm for nonrandom requests has not been proved. However, it is compared with alternate algorithms using simulations. A pipelined processor is used as an example for the generation of nonrandom requests to the memories. Nonetheless, the source could have been a vector processor or a multiprocessor system. Two alternative organizations are investigated, one with a common set of fixed size buffers to store conflicting requests and one with individual fixed size buffers for each module. These two organizations are shown to be equivalent as far as the average utilization and waiting cycles are concerned. An intelligent scheduler determines the order of initiation of the memory modules. An alternative design with separate instruction and data modules is investigated. It is found that separation gains very little in performance because of the unequal rates of access to the instruction and the data modules. The basic assumptions for the analysis are that the dependency effects are ignored and the request rate is very high so that any empty buffers can be filled immediately. The degradation in memory utilization due to dependency effects is studied in a separate paper in this issue.


Multilayer optical filters are characterized by a signal flow graph. Standard feedback-network analysis techniques are modified to yield an iterative algorithm to compute the transmission of filters with any number of layers. The use of iteration results in an economical use of computer storage. The algorithm can take into account the frequency, polarization, and angle of incidence of the incident light wave as well as the index of refraction and thickness of each layer. Dispersion effects can be incorporated. Working programs have been developed for the IBM 1130 computer.


The problem of this study was to determine the emphasis placed on various science teaching practices by a random sample of high school biology, chemistry, and physics teachers in selected Texas high schools. The subproblem was to compare the emphasis placed on the practices as reported by the high school teachers with the emphasis as recommended by national science education specialists, teachers of biology, chemistry, and physics in selected Texas colleges and universities, and teachers of professional education courses in selected Texas colleges and universities.


Besides being a very interesting, cogent, and even a tidy study, "Strategic Regulators" sheds some bright light on agency behavior and on the important issue of whether agency rulemaking may be "ossifying." The study design employed by Hamilton and Schroeder is attractively simple. They started with all of the Environmental Protection Agency's ("EPA's") hazardous waste regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ("RCRA") appearing in the Code of Federal Regulations ("CFR"), counting each decimal point CFR number as a separate rule. This yielded 697 rules. They then examined all EPA/RCRA guidance documents issued since the inception of the program (1980-1991) and matched them to the appropriate CFR rule. Some CFR rules had associated guidance documents, and some did not. After characterizing the type and history of the individual CFR rules, the authors then developed hypotheses as to why certain CFR rules were more or less likely to be accompanied by supplemental guidance documents.A premise underlying this research is that agencies seem to be avoiding notice-and-comment rulemaking in favor of greater reliance on more informal issuances. One problem with examining this premise, of course, is the compared-to-what issue. We know, for example, that federal agency rulemaking (at least as measured by the inadequate surrogate of Federal Register rulemaking documents and pages) peaked in 1979, dropped rather sharply in the early 1980s, and then edged back up through the late 1980s.Looking at the RCRA slide provided by Hamilton and Schroeder, we see a similar, albeit bumpier, curve in the EPA's notice-and-comment rulemaking, while the EPA's more informal issuances rose sharply in the mid-1980s, only to drop off again in the late 1980s. Before making any government-wide generalizations, however, we still need better data, and better ways to measure data, on the rise and fall (and perhaps rise again) of agency rulemaking. Even when the data is available for a single program at a single agency, one wishes to know more about the institutional staffing, budgets, priorities, and, perhaps, the shadow of proposed rules waiting in the wings at the agency or at the Office of Management and Budget ("OMB"). Nevertheless, the beauty of the Hamilton/ Schroeder idea and database is that it allows us to document a relationship between agency rules and "non-rule" rules. It is quite illuminating to discover that certain types of rules-based either on their "target" or their "rule history" - are much more likely to be accompanied by at least one guidance document.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a simultaneous measurement of overall performance and its two dimensions of efficiency and effectiveness in the case of Chinese construction industry.

Design/methodology/approach
A relational two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) method, which builds a relationship between component stages and can effectively identify inefficient stages, is developed and applied in order to measure overall performance, efficiency and effectiveness.

Findings
The construction industry of the Eastern region in China demonstrated the best results for overall performance, efficiency and effectiveness. The gaps between regions were primarily reflected in differences of pure technical efficiency. Performance indicators in the whole construction industry improved steadily and but could be improved more effectively. The coefficients of variation became smaller and more well-balanced across the whole industry.

Practical implications
Improving overall performance should focus on promoting construction efficiency at the project level and increasing management effectiveness at the company level. Sustainable development policies, which may include large investment and preferential policies, can narrow performance differences among the regions' construction industries, and ultimately promote overall performance for the whole industry.

Originality/value
The relational two-stage DEA model is further developed in a variable returns-to-scale condition. The developed approach is generic and can provide a pathway for simultaneously measuring performance, efficiency and effectiveness and to recognise competitive advantages for promoting sustainable development.


Motion capture, or mocap, is a prevalent technique for capturing and analyzing human articulations. Nowadays, mocap data are becoming one of the primary sources of realistic human motions for computer animation as well as education, training, sports medicine, video games, and special effects in movies. As more and more applications rely on high-quality mocap data and huge amounts of mocap data become available, there are imperative needs for more effective and robust motion capture techniques, better ways of organizing motion databases, as well as more efficient methods to compress motion sequences.
I propose a data-driven, segment-based, piecewise linear modeling approach to exploit the redundancy and local linearity exhibited by human motions and describe human motions with a small number of parameters. This approach models human motions with a collection of low-dimensional local linear models. First segment motion sequences into subsequences, i.e. motion segments, of simple behaviors. Motion segments of similar behaviors are then grouped together and modeled with a unique local linear model. I demonstrate this approach's utility in four challenging driving problems: estimating human motions from a reduced marker set; missing marker estimation; motion retrieval; and motion compression.


Water pollution experts from across the world visited Kinghorn Loch in Fife, Scotland last month to learn more about decades of pollution clean-up work. The loch is thought to be the only documented example in the world of full chemical and ecological recovery following red mud pollution.

The visit was hosted by the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, the University of Edinburgh and the Craigencalt Rural Community Trust. Experts from across the world including Thailand and Poland were joined by scientists, environmental regulators and water resource managers.

By the 1980s, Kinghorn Loch had run red as a result of pollution from the mud waste produced by a bauxite processing plant. This pollution led to total loss of many native species in the loch. However, diversion of the pollution and the installation of a waste management and treatment facility have resulted in dramatic ecological improvements: the loch now supports a diverse range of fish, insects and birds.

Of particular interest to the visiting group were the links between Kinghorn Loch and similar projects in Thailand, where local communities have mobilised to protect and improve water quality for the good of future generations.

Ron Edwards, chair of the Kinghorn Loch Users Group, said, "The successes at Kinghorn Loch are an excellent example of engagement between industrial, regulatory, research, and community groups. We have had tremendous co-operation with Alcan and SEPA in fighting the legacy of pollution and, after 30 years of improvements, the loch is in excellent condition. The benefits of this work to canoeists, sailors, fishermen and nature studies, especially birds, are obvious for all to see."

The group learned that these improvements have taken decades to achieve at Kinghorn Loch and that legacy issues including problem algal blooms and changes in catchment management continue to threaten the ecology of the loch. Craigencalt Rural Community Trust, through the Kinghorn Loch Users Group continues to actively manage algal blooms at the loch using barley straw rafts. Also of interest was a current three-year research project investigating the return of iconic freshwater species to the loch funded by the Natural Environment Research Council.

Dr Bryan Spears of CEH, lead scientist of the research project, said, "In the 1980s, Kinghorn Loch was effectively dead. The recovery of plants and animals at the site, including the impressive fish population, has been remarkable. It is vital that we understand and document 'life after pollution' in freshwater lakes.

"The Kinghorn Loch story is a greatly undervalued scientific resource and the lessons learned from our study will help to inform the management of sites suffering from similar pollution across the world."

http://www.ceh.ac.uk/news/news_archive/Kinghorn-Loch-after-pollution_2012_32.html


The present study focuses on the participation of rural women in small-scale dairy farming activities as a means to reduce poverty in rural areas. This study was carried out in two villages in the Mymensingh district of Bangladesh. From each village data were collected from 50 rural women involved in dairy farming practices through direct interviews using questionnaires. The results showed that in Salakandi village (V1), personal factors most significantly influenced women to start farms, but in Binpara village (V2) social factors were a greater motivation. The results revealed that women in V1 placed a higher importance on dairy farming activities and showed greater improvement in their economic well-being compared to women in V2. Thus it is suggested that women's participation in dairy farming can reduce poverty in rural areas of Bangladesh.


The COVID-19 pandemic and associated public health measures have interrupted the daily routines of parents and children. The purpose of this study was to explore parents' attitudes regarding their children's play/sport during COVID-19. A secondary objective was to explore the influence of parent demographics and parent-reported physical activity levels and risk tolerance on these attitudes. Ontario parents of children aged 12 and younger completed an online survey (August—December 2020) that assessed their attitudes (grouped by support, safety and socialization-related attitudes; n = 14 items) regarding their child(ren)'s play/sport, their physical activity levels (n = 2 items), and demographic details (n = 16 items). Two open-ended items were used to gather a deeper understanding of attitudes. Parents' tolerance for risk was measured via the validated Tolerance of Risk in Play Scale. Descriptive statistics were calculated to describe attitudes and risk tolerance. Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator regressions were conducted to examine factors influencing parents' attitudes. Multiple linear models were computed using the identified predictors for each attitude category. Deductive content analysis was undertaken on open-ended responses. Participants (n = 819) reported the highest scores for safety-related attitude items (M = 3.54, SD = .63) followed by socialization and support, which all influenced attitudes regarding children's play/sport (p < .05). Demographics and parents' physical activity levels were identified as important predictors of parents' attitudes. Qualitative data revealed that parents had mixed levels of comfort with respect to their children's return to play/sport. Findings from this study reveal that increased support is needed to guide future play/sport decision-making.


In the fifth generation (5G) of wireless communication systems, hitherto unprecedented requirements are expected to be satisfied. As one of the promising techniques of addressing these challenges, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been actively investigated in recent years. In contrast to the family of conventional orthogonal multiple access (OMA) schemes, the key distinguishing feature of NOMA is to support a higher number of users than the number of orthogonal resource slots with the aid of non-orthogonal resource allocation. This may be realized by the sophisticated inter-user interference cancellation at the cost of an increased receiver complexity. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the original birth, the most recent development, and the future research directions of NOMA. Specifically, the basic principle of NOMA will be introduced at first, with the comparison between NOMA and OMA especially from the perspective of information theory. Then, the prominent NOMA schemes are discussed by dividing them into two categories, namely, power-domain and code-domain NOMA. Their design principles and key features will be discussed in detail, and a systematic comparison of these NOMA schemes will be summarized in terms of their spectral efficiency, system performance, receiver complexity, etc. Finally, we will highlight a range of challenging open problems that should be solved for NOMA, along with corresponding opportunities and future research trends to address these challenges.


Background/Objectives: Aviation safety would be different by safety behavior of members and there are needs to do research the perception of members about safety culture and atmosphere of low cost carriers. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Positive analysis of people who have been working in local low cost carriers had been done using Self-administered Questionnaire Survey Method through Convenience Sampling Method. And statistic things were treated by a statistic package program called "SPSS for Win 18.0". Plus, the analysis of data had been done by Descriptive Statistics and Multivariate Statistical Analysis. Findings: Firstly, It was found that all of factors in safety culture have given a meaningful effect into safety atmosphere. Analyzing it, it is natural that safety regulation culture to mainly think conducting duties based on rules influences the atmosphere to consider safety education and regulation of safety importantly. According to the test result of hypothesis 2, it was showed that all of factors in safety culture have given a meaningful effect into a safety behavior as well. It means that the culture to treat a safety as first priority when people work has an effect on safety behavior. Based on the test result of hypothesis 3, it was known that only factor of safety consensual give an effect on safety behavior. It has delivered that members in organizations have recognized safety consensual is the most important factor in safety behavior, especially more in low cost carriers' than major airlines. Improvement/Applications: Unlike other researches, detailed influences and relationship in various variables could be researched in this study. Through this research, it is concluded that it is difficult to find accurate and a variety of variables in existing researches. This report and result could be the starting point to explore deeper and wider relationship among variables for safety behavior.


ABSTRACT Growth and differentiation of Candida albicans over a broad pH range underlie its ability to infect an array of tissues in susceptible hosts. We identified C. albicans RIM101,RIM20, and RIM8 based on their homology to components of the one known fungal pH response pathway. PCR product-disruption mutations in each gene cause defects in three responses to alkaline pH: filamentation, induction of PRA1and PHR1, and repression of PHR2. We find thatRIM101 itself is an alkaline-induced gene that also depends on Rim20p and Rim8p for induction. Two observations indicate that a novel pH response pathway also exists. First, PHR2 becomes an alkaline-induced gene in the absence of Rim101p, Rim20p, or Rim8p. Second, we created strains in which Rim101p activity is independent of Rim20p and Rim8p; in these strains, filamentation remains pH dependent. Thus, pH governs gene expression and cellular differentiation inC. albicans through both RIM101-dependent andRIM101-independent pathways.


The aim of this study was to conduct cultural energy (CE) analyses of beef cattle animals with different initial
weights. Data were obtained by a questionnaire administered to 100 beef farms selected by stratified random sampling.
The beef farms were divided into three groups based on initial animal weights and were analyzed. Initial weights were
assigned as light ( 276 kg, 32 farms). Cultural energy
used for feed for the treatments was derived from their lot feed consumption and values from the literature.
Transportation energy was included in the analysis. As the objective of the study was to evaluate CE analysis of the
feeding systems, energy that the calves had deposited in muscle and fat tissue, when they were purchased was deducted
from carcass energy. Total expended CE was highest for the lighter animals (P < 0.05). Feed energy was more than half
of total CE and again was highest for the lighter animals (P < 0.05). Energy expended kg?1 live weight did not differ
among the three initial weight groups (P > 0.05). Cultural energy Mcal?1 of protein energy decreased as initial body
weight increased (P < 0.05). Efficiency, defined as Mcal input Mcal?1 output, was best in heavier cattle and was worst
for lighter animals (P 0.05). The results
showed that efficiency became better as initial body weight increased and that to be more sustainable the initial animal
weight should be taken into account.


Many of the services a smart city can provide to its citizens rely on the ability of its infrastructure to collect and process in real time vast amounts of continuous data that sensors deployed through the city produce. In this paper we present the server infrastructure we have designed in the context of the HERMES project to collect the data from sensors and aggregate it in streams for their use in services of the smart city.


Retroperitoneal fibrosis may be classified as either primary or idiopathic, probably of autoimmune origin or secondary to a malignant process. Both classes are usually presented identically, and it is the responsibility of the physician to exclude a malignant process. The disease should be especially suspected in patients with signs and symptoms of irritation of the retroperitoneal space, such as pain in the lower part of the back or in the flank, a distribution of pain down the legs and, at times, a positive Patrick's sign. Gray scale ultrasonography and computerized axial tomography may now be used to help in the diagnosis of this entity and also in the follow-up management. Operation is recommended for diagnosis and correction of any ureteral impairment. Steroids may be an invaluable aid for the treatment of this disease.


OBJECTIVES
Hospital information systems are evolving towards health information systems. This article aims at identifying both proven benefits and critical issues, and at discussing problems and possible solutions.

METHODS
Reports on HIS successes and failures were analyzed, and core challenges were identified. These challenges are discussed against state of the art solutions.

RESULTS
In spite of demonstrated benefits, there are more severe problems than reports on successes suggest. Among today's core problems are integration, human-computer interaction, socio-technical issues, and support of processes.

CONCLUSIONS
Significant efforts of all parties involved in the health care process are needed to improve, implement, and evaluate the concepts described.


The terms of primary and secondary resistance to nicotine replacement therapy in tobacco dependent patients are defined. It is shown that treatment resistance is a result of a constellation of special clinical features of tobacco dependence, tolerance to nicotine, personality traits of the patients, family history of smoking, comorbid affective disorders and somatic diseases.


One of the lasting effects of neoliberalism on higher education is the total dismantling of the very purpose of education, i.e., to enhance human potential, individual self-realization, and social development. In this essay, I read Marx's theory of labor to indicate that Marx's deeply held regard for humanity as capable of self-production and transcending its conditions of existence—which was, in fact the vantage point of his bitter critique of capitalism— also underlies the conception of the true purpose of education, at least since the Enlightenment. In critiquing capital from the point of view of labor we can see how the goals of neoliberalism are anti-education, anti-human, and wasteful. Taking the concept of time—i.e., the relationship between time and intellectual labor and intergenerational relationships within the university— as a key to understanding the nature of neoliberalism, I argue that the public university is not just collateral damage in the neoliberal assault on labor. Rather, it is one major site of the war itself.


Proteus mirabilis is a dimorphic bacterium which exists in liquid cultures as a 1.5- to 2.0-microns motile swimmer cell possessing 6 to 10 peritrichous flagella. When swimmer cells are placed on a surface, they differentiate by a combination of events that ultimately produce a swarmer cell. Unlike the swimmer cell, the polyploid swarmer cell is 60 to 80 microns long and possesses hundreds to thousands of surface-induced flagella. These features, combined with multicellular behavior, allow the swarmer cells to move over a surface in a process called swarming. Transposon Tn5 was used to produce P. mirabilis mutants defective in wild-type swarming motility. Two general classes of mutants were found to be defective in swarming. The first class was composed of null mutants that were completely devoid of swarming motility. The majority of nonswarming mutations were the result of defects in the synthesis of flagella or in the ability to rotate the flagella. The remaining nonswarming mutants produced flagella but were defective in surface-induced elongation. Strains in the second general class of mutants, which made up more than 65% of all defects in swarming were motile but were defective in the control and coordination of multicellular swarming. Analysis of consolidation zones produced by such crippled mutants suggested that this pleiotropic phenotype was caused by a defect in the regulation of multicellular behavior. A possible mechanism controlling the cyclic process of differentiation and dediferentiation involved in the swarming behavior of P. mirabilis is discussed.


Wafer-scale memory provides greater yet cheaper storage volume than conventional memory systems using discrete chips. A simulator using a Monte Carlo technique to evaluate the defect tolerance scheme for a wafer-scale memory and predict the harvested capacity of the wafer memory is described. The design of a wafer-scale random-access memory that uses switching-register network logic is presented. A simulator that selects the optimal defect tolerance scheme for the wafer-scale memory is discussed.<<ETX>>


Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This study analyses a unique, revelatory case of service modelling in a complex organisation providing air traffic control. The study analyses broad modelling activities, including information elicitation, analysis, and organisation, undertaken by a small team internal to the organisation that so far has spent about 2,400 person-hours of effort in the project. The study follows a qualitative approach in the interpretivist tradition based on interviews and document analysis. The study analyses the project framework, modelling notations, data collection, collaboration, modelling activities, and project outputs. The findings are interpreted in light of two theoretical lenses: coordination and simplexity. The study suggests that simplexity is beneficial for structuring the modelling of complex, knowledge-based services. A pattern was identified combining an initial step promoting simplicity and establishing communication with the stakeholders, followed by a second step acquiring complexity of understanding. Considering the mechanisms defined by coordination theory (flow, share, and fit), the study suggests a predominance of the fit mechanism in modelling knowledge-based services. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the challenges of modelling work through cognitive and knowledge-based lenses and identifies possible strategies to overcome these challenges. The paper also contributes to the emergent literature on simplexity by applying that particular lens to work modelling.


With the widespread development of new energy, the study of power lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has broad prospects and great academic significance. The model and parameters are two essential prerequisites for LIB state estimation, which are used to provide a guarantee for the secure and convenient handling of LIBs. To obtain the reliable model and parameters, a simplified fractional order equivalent circuit model (FO-ECM) with high precision is presented in this article. The dynamic external electrical characteristic of LIBs is represented by the one-order FO-ECM, and then, the FO-ECM parameters are identified by the combination of Grunwald–Letnikov (G-L) definition-based factional order numerical calculation and noise compensation-based forgetting factor recursive least squares (FFRLS) method. The simplified FO-ECM can better characterize the nonlinear dynamic behaviors of LIBs, and the G-L definition-based FO-FFRLS algorithm can maintain good accuracy in the parameter estimation process. The results show that the simplified FO-ECM can improve the modeling precision and parameter identification performance compared with the common integer-order ECM in different test cycles.


This study aims to explore the role and possible impact of cultural background knowledge (CBK) on performance in sight translation, specifically the translation of metaphorical expressions (MEs). A between-subjects experiment was designed for 68 interpreting students who were assigned to a control group (CG) and an experimental group (EG). They were asked to sight translate a speech containing ten MEs, with only the EG members given relevant CBK beforehand. The study triangulates data from the recordings of sight translation outputs, the transcriptions of the recordings, and the subjects' guided interviews. The paper concludes with two main findings: (1) CBK markedly alleviates the cognitive load imposed by MEs and thus facilitates the process of translation by shortening the processing time and improving the translation quality; (2) although CBK does not exert a significant influence on the choice of translation strategies as a whole, it discernibly reduces the use of omission as a coping strategy to deal with inadequacies in the understanding of metaphorical meanings.


The bifurcations of traveling wave solutions of the Broer–Kaup system are investigated and all possible exact parametric representations of the smooth and peaked solitary waves are presented.


One model of learning that includes a series of learning experiences planned systematically arranged, operational, and targeted to help students master specific learning objectives is the expansion ICARE study model class. The purpose of the development of the learning model ICARE on the expansion of the class are: Produce learning model ICARE the expansion of classes in accordance with the culture and character of students at SDN Gedongan 2 and SDN Meri 2 Mojokerto From the results of this development can be concluded: 1) Products that are developed interesting for learning in the classroom in the classical and independently. 2) This product can ease the burden of teachers in teaching. 3) The results of expert validation and testing, the ICARE study model on the expansion of this class suitable for use in subjects Religious Education Islam.4) Products that are developed can increase students' motivation, and motivation is one of the conditions of implementation of productive learning model. 5) Products that are developed can improve ketuntaan study for students from three classes of trials increased mastery of grade V-A SDN Gedongan 2 Mojokerto average value Pre test 73.66 increase on the post test 87.80 while the percentage of completeness pre-test is a 75.61% increase to 92.68%. Students in grade VB SDN Gedongan 2 Mojokerto average value Pre test 70.49 increase on the post test 87.80 while the percentage of completeness pre-test is a 68.29% increase to 92.68% and fifth grade students of SDN Meri 2 Mojokerto in mind that the average value of Pre test 75.71 increases in post test 87.22 while the percentage of completeness pre-test is a 77.14% increase to 88.89%. Thus, it can be concluded that it is feasible for the dissemination media as a learning strategy.


IMPORTANCE
Racial differences in breast cancer treatment may result in part from differences in the surgeons and hospitals from whom patients receive their care. However, little is known about differences in patients' selection of surgeons and hospitals.

OBJECTIVE
To examine racial/ethnic differences in how women selected their surgeons and hospitals for breast cancer surgery.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
We surveyed 500 women (222 non-Hispanic white, 142 non-Hispanic black, 89 English-speaking Hispanic, and 47 Spanish-speaking Hispanic) from northern California cancer registries with stage 0 to III breast cancer diagnosed during 2010 through 2011. We used multivariable logistic regression to assess the reasons for surgeon and hospital selection by race/ethnicity, adjusting for other patient characteristics. We also assessed the association between reasons for physician selection and patients' ratings of their surgeon and hospital.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
Reasons for surgeon and hospital selection and ratings of surgeon and hospital.

RESULTS
The 500 participants represented a response rate of 47.8% and a participation rate of 69%. The most frequently reported reason for surgeon selection was referral by another physician (78%); the most frequently reported reason for hospital selection was because it was a part of a patient's health plan (58%). After adjustment, 79% to 87% of black and Spanish-speaking Hispanic women reported selecting their surgeon based on a physician's referral vs 76% of white women (P = .007). Black and Hispanic patients were less likely than white patients to report selecting their surgeon based on reputation (adjusted rates, 18% and 22% of black and Hispanic women, respectively, vs 32% of white women; P = .02). Black and Hispanic women were also less likely than white women to select their hospital based on reputation (adjusted rates, 7% and 15% vs 23%, respectively; P = .003). Women who selected their surgeon based on reputation more often rated the care from their surgeon as excellent (adjusted odds ratio, 2.21; 95% CI, 1.24-3.93); those reporting their surgeon was one of the only surgeons available through the health plan less often reported excellent quality of surgical care (adjusted odds ratio, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.34-0.91).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
Compared with white patients with breast cancer, minority patients were less actively involved in physician and hospital selection, relying more on physician referral and health plans rather than on reputation. Interventions to promote involvement in surgeon and hospital selection may have potential for addressing disparities related to lower-quality care from surgeons and hospitals.


This study was conducted to determine the level of child labor involvement in arable crop farming. A multistage random sampling method was used to select the respondents. Data were collected with the use of a structured interview schedule and questionnaire. Most farming household heads were males (60.61%) and 65% had no formal education, with an average age of 42.28 years, an average household size of 11persons, annual average income of N192,000.00, and average farm size of 1.13ha. The children participated in field preparation, planting, weeding, pesticide, fertilizer and herbicide application, harvesting, transportation and processing. Many (43.33%) of the children combined schooling with farming operations. The decision of the farming, household heads to use child labor was influenced by socioeconomic variables such as gender, age, level of education, household size, farm income, farm size, culture, economic factors and political factors. It is recommended that extension agents should educate farming household heads on the consequences of using child labor, especially with respect to chemical application. The concerned agencies need to educate farming household heads on the danger of involving child labor in farming at the expense of school attendance; educational and input empowerment by government should be closely monitored.


One of Nietzsche's main projects was to critique morality and to invite a revaluation of our values. Neither secular nor religious interpretations of Nietzsche's critique of morality do it justice. Each support their own interpretation by appealing to certain aspects of his writings. The former appeal to Nietzsche's rejection of Christianity and Christian morality; while the latter appeal to Nietzsche's anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian remarks. In actuality, Nietzsche was neither of the two: he argued that Western secular moralities are a modern manifestation of Christian morality, and that Christian morality is a manifestation of what he comes to call "Slave Morality." On this account, this thesis is a humble attempt to bring forth a philosophical interpretation of Nietzsche's critique and historical analysis of morality, and how we can incorporate his critique and revaluation of values into our lives so we can live a better life. I hope that my contribution will be a meaningful addition to the ongoing philosophical discussion on Nietzsche. I also hope that this thesis will be accessible to those who have not yet introduced themselves to the work of Nietzsche.


Scholarly resources in Dutch Studies, including the Netherlands and Belgium for Flemish resources. The resources organized here are all freely available and have undergone a selection and evaluation process.


The high attrition rates observed among young athletes, particularly adolescents, have been attributed to and studied primarily as outcomes of negative aspects of the organization and administration of competitive youth sport. The present study extends this research by examining withdrawal from competitive sport roles in the broader context of the role constellation and lifestyle of adolescent girls. A conceptual framework was developed to examine the process of withdrawal from the role of competitive age group swimmer. It was hypothesized that withdrawal is influenced by six categories of factors: (a) the salience of gender-role stereotypes; (b) the diversity and salience of the opportunity set; (c) the degree of social support from significant others for the sport role; (d) the extent to which the athlete role is perceived as central to personal identity; (e) the extent to which positive and negative outcomes are associated with sport involvement; and (f) the degree of commitment to the athlete role. Su...


Objectives To examine the course of fear of falling (FoF) up to 1 year after hip fracture, including the effect of prefracture FoF on the course. Design Observational cohort study with assessment of FoF at 6, 12 and 52 weeks after hip fracture. Setting Haaglanden Medical Centre, the Netherlands. Participants 444 community-dwelling adults aged 70 years and older, admitted to hospital with a hip fracture. Main outcome measure Short Falls Efficacy Scale International (FES-I), with a cut-off score ≥11 to define elevated FoF levels. Results Six weeks after hip fracture the study population-based mean FES-I was located around the cut-off value of 11, and levels decreased only marginally over time. One year after fracture almost one-third of the population had FoF (FES-I ≥11). Although the group with prefracture FoF (42.6%) had slightly elevated FES-I levels during the entire follow-up, the effect was not statistically significant. Patients with persistent FoF at 6 and 12 weeks after fracture (26.8%) had the highest FES-I levels, with a mean well above the cut-off value during the entire follow-up. For the majority of patients in this group, FoF is still present 1 year after fracture (84.9%). Conclusions In this study population, representing patients in relative good health condition that are able to attend the outpatient follow-up at 6 and 12 weeks, FoF as defined by an FES-I score ≥11 was common within the first year after hip fracture. Patients with persistent FoF at 12 weeks have the highest FES-I levels in the first year after fracture, and for most of these patients the FoF remains. For timely identification of patients who may benefit from intervention, we recommend structural assessment of FoF in the first 12 weeks after fracture.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the effects of application of anti-adhesive films (OrthoWrap™) in traumatic decompressive craniectomy on prevention of adhesion formation and facilitation of subsequent cranioplasty.

METHODS
This was a retrospective cohort study being performed in ShahidRajaei hospital (Shiraz Level I trauma center) during a 12-month period (from March 2012 to April 2013) including 93 patients undergoing traumatic decompressivecraniectomy.Patients who received OrthoWrap™ during the initial craniectomy (n=44) were compared to those who did not (n=49). Two study groups were matched regarding the baseline characteristics. The perioperative indices including the surgical time, amount of bleeding, transfusion and 6-month Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) were compared between two study groups.

RESULTS
There was no significant difference between two study groups regarding the baseline characteristics. We found that the cranioplasty duration (113.3±33.2 vs. 146.9±34.9 minutes; p<0.001) and amount of intraoperative bleeding (182.1±98.3 vs. 270.6±77.6 mL; p=0.043) was significantly lower in those who had OrthoWrap™ compared to control group. The final GCS (p=0.052) as well as GOSE (p=0.653) was comparable between groups. The infection rate was comparable between two study groups (p=0.263).

CONCLUSION
Application of OrthoWrap™ during decompressive craniectomy in those with severe traumatic brain injury is associated with shorter duration of operation and less intraoperative bleeding in subsequent cranioplasty. Infection rate and neurologic outcome was comparable between study groups.


There are many concepts in the social sciences that are measured using multiple indicators. Such concepts have been called by Blalock (1968) concepts-by-postulation because one needs a theoretical argument to define them. Within the set of concepts-by-postulation, a distinction has been made between concepts with reflective indicators and concepts with formative indicators. This distinction refers to the assumption whether the latent concepts determine the observed indicators (reflective) or that the indicators together determine the latent concept of interest (formative). Blalock complained that developing measurement procedures for complex concepts, researchers think mainly about questions not about concepts that these questions measure. In this way, the questions used contain unique components which reduce the quality of the composite score based on these questions as measure for the complex concept of interest. Saris and Gallhofer have shown how alternative formulated questions can be developed to measure so-called concepts-by-intuition. In this paper, we will show that the same procedure can be used to avoid unique components in the measurement of complex concepts with reflective indicators and that in this way the quality of the composite score for complex concepts can considerably be increased.


The nonrelativistic energies of the core-excited 1s2snp 4P (n = 2, 3, 4, 5) states for the lithium isoelectronic sequence from Be II to O VI are calculated with a full core plus correlation method using multiconfiguration interaction wavefunctions. The relativistic and mass-polarization effects on the energy are evaluated as the first order perturbation theory. Our predicted energies are lower than other theoretical results. They show that this full core plus correlation method is useful for the core-excited systems.


Energetically favourable conformations for simultaneous intramolecular rotations of both the 17 alpha ethyl side chain and the 17 beta hydroxyl group of a model steroid are calculated by MM2 molecular mechanics. In accordance with recent IR and NMR interpretations, the 17 alpha substituent is found to preferably adopt conformations which may sterically hinder the formation of hydrogen bonds between the steroidal 17 beta oxygen atom and the receptor protein. Furthermore, the 17 alpha ethyl substitution is computed to influence the D-ring conformation and to alter the location of the 17 beta oxygen function by 28 pm in space.


In Reply. —The data from Dr Fox and Mr Phua are of interest because they reflect the effects of actual increases in Medicaid payments on obstetricians' participation in Medicaid. Although the increase in payments stemmed declining participation rates, they found, as we did, that the overall effect of increased payments on participation was modest. The second North Carolina Pediatric Society survey points up how different approaches to measuring participation in Medicaid may yield different results. This survey differed somewhat from ours in that it was sent only to pediatricians who were members of the pediatric society, a different definition was used to determine if pediatricians were in active practice, the findings regarding the relationship of Medicaid payments to participation were not controlled for other factors that may influence physicians' decisions to participate in Medicaid, and the survey asked what physicians would do in response to increased payments rather than assessing


In this paper emerging parallel/distributed architectures are explored for the digital VLSI implementation of adaptive bidirectional associative memory (BAM) neural network. A single instruction stream many data stream (SIMD)-based parallel processing architecture, is developed for the adaptive BAM neural network, taking advantage of the inherent parallelism in BAM. This novel neural processor architecture is named the sliding feeder BAM array processor (SLiFBAM). The SLiFBAM processor can be viewed as a two-stroke neural processing engine, It has four operating modes: learn pattern, evaluate pattern, read weight, and write weight. Design of a SLiFBAM VLSI processor chip is also described. By using 2-mum scalable CMOS technology, a SLiFBAM processor chip with 4+4 neurons and eight modules of 256x5 bit local weight-storage SRAM, was integrated on a 6.9x7.4 mm(2) prototype die. The system architecture is highly flexible and modular, enabling the construction of larger BAM networks of up to 252 neurons using multiple SLiFBAM chips.


From the moment Stephenie Meyer published Twilight in 2005, the series has captivated readers. Through three subsequent novels and the blockbuster movie series, the Twilight Saga quickly became more than just a hit series—it's now a cultural touchstone. This new entry in the Fan Phenomena series brings together scholars and fans to explore the vibrant fan culture and lasting legacy of the saga. Contributors address such topics as the role of mythology in the appeal of the series; the distinct fan groups drawn in by the books and films; the vast world of Twilight fan fiction (including a discussion of Fifty Shades of Grey, the blockbuster novel that began as Twilight fan fiction); the role of gender in Twilight's global acceptance; and much more. As with all the books in the series, the essays included here are sophisticated and richly analytic, yet aimed as much at fans as at scholars. Whether you're interested in analyzing its initial popularity or its impact on society more than a decade later, there's no question you'll find plenty in Fan Phenomena: The Twilight Saga to sink your teeth into.


African Women Writing Resistance is the first transnational anthology to focus on women's strategies of resistance to the challenges they face in Africa today. The anthology brings together personal narratives, testimony, interviews, short stories, poetry, performance scripts, folktales, and lyrics. Thematically organized, it presents women's writing on such issues as intertribal and interethnic conflicts, the degradation of the environment, polygamy, domestic abuse, the controversial traditional practice of female genital cutting, Sharia law, intergenerational tensions, and emigration and exile. Contributors include internationally recognized authors and activists such as Wangari Maathai and Nawal El Saadawi, as well as a host of vibrant new voices from all over the African continent and from the African diaspora. Interdisciplinary in scope, this collection provides an excellent introduction to contemporary African women's literature and highlights social issues that are particular to Africa but are also of worldwide concern. It is an essential reference for students of African studies, world literature, anthropology, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and women's studies.


Abstract:This article examines news and political mediations of security, race, and violence in the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting in an attempt to isolate how dominant institutions reaffirm and preserve the North American state's monopoly on violence and cultural preservation through the calculated balance of security in relation to tolerance of diversity. The event was predominantly mediated through security discourses of the "war on terror," and this martial framing enabled the production of homonationalist rhetoric (drawing on Jasbir Puar's Terrorist Assemblages) that aimed to include previously excluded queer Latino/a populations within the American body politic. Focusing on news media reporting and political as well as activist responses to the shooting during the months of June – August 2016, the article shows how this process of homonationalist inclusion was not smooth. Memorialization and advocacy for the Pulse victims by dominant institutions is striated by colliding phobias (Islamo-, xeno-, and homo-) that interrupt a clear mode of nationalist address or point of identification in mediations of the shooting. Drawing on a knowledge base attentive to queer-of- color and Indigenous concerns, the article demonstrates how biopolitical and necropolitical value is extracted from communities exposed to intersecting violences with differential dividends distributed to queer Latino/a and Afro-Latino/a communities.


Bi cluster ions are among the most utilized primary sources for time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS). Although Bi clusters have advantages over larger clusters, such as C60+ and Arn+, TOF-SIMS is less sensitive for macromolecules when Bi clusters are used as primary ions. Matrix-enhanced SIMS is a more sensitive technique for large molecules, because the matrix limits fragmentation. The matrix is thought to reduce molecular crystallinity and cohesiveness, which facilitate the extraction of large molecules from the sample surface. In this study, the authors investigate the effects of polyethylene glycol structure on the molecular sensitivity of TOF-SIMS using different primary Bi ion species. The results indicate that amorphous PEG enables the detection of larger molecules than crystalline PEG by TOF-SIMS when either Bi1+ or Bi32+ ions are used for irradiation. This suggests that the structures of organic molecules affect the propagation of kinetic energy from the primary ions. This phenomenon reduces damage to polymer chains and enhances the sensitivity of TOF-SIMS for intact molecular ions.


The relationship between economic conditions and environmental attitudes has been hotly debated in academic and public discourse. Some contend that economic prosperity strengthens environmental attitudes, while others argue that no such relationship exists. We shed light on the economy-environmental importance relationship by incorporating both nonlinear effects and public perceptions of the economy. Two countries with comparable economic performance and cultural heritage, Australia and Canada, are investigated. Using opinion survey data in a time-series analysis over a 20-year period, we find that GDP per capita has a nonlinear relationship with environmental attitudes in both countries, and the inclusion of perceptions of the economy significantly improves the prediction of environmental attitudes. In both Australia and Canada, a U-shaped relationship is observed; initial improvements in economic conditions tend to worsen environmental attitudes, but past a certain threshold, further economic improvements result in increased environmental concern. Perceptions of the economy too showed analogous trends. In both countries, positive perceptions of the economy were associated with strong environmental attitudes; at least in Canada, negative perceptions of the economy were also positively associated with environmental attitudes. The nonlinear effects of the economy as well as perceptions of the economy helps shed light on the current inconclusive literature on the relationship between the economy and citizens' pro-environmental support. This is an important consideration given the critical importance to the future sustainability of the natural environment.


In this work we designed, constructed and tested a clean, transportable and comfortable advanced biomass cookstove. A validated data acquisition device for controlling the thermal behavior of stoves or heating systems was set up by programming an Ardiuno Mega microcontroller, provided with type-K thermocouples, LCD Display, SD card module, LM35 and DHT22 sensors. In designing the stove, we focused on the insulation of its external walls (to minimize heat loss together with smokiness and enhance users' comfort), on the provision of both a chimney and an air inlet, and on its transportability. The obtained results of Simple Water Heating Test show that its thermal efficiency, charcoal consumption, time to boil and heat utilized are closed to others' in the literature.