The leakage of toxic or flammable chemical substances that might affect or endanger public safety has always attracted the attention of the researchers to develop a chemical sensor that could prevent any life-threatening incidents. Due to its robust features, hard polymer clad fiber (HPCF) was used in this experiment to develop an all-fiber optical chemical sensor. The outer hard polymer clad was removed by using mechanical method to expose the inner core. The exposure lets contact between the leaked chemical and the core, both with different refractive indices (RI). The change in signal property of the passing light wave occurs at this point and hence can be detected using optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR). In this way, HPCF was transformed into a fiber optic chemical sensor. OTDR was used as a sensing system that allowed the sensor to detect and localize the leakage of chemical substances in real-time, by measuring the light loss in backscattering light (signal) that was caused due to extraction of chemical on fiber cladding. This light loss is based on leaky wave mode principle. The reliability of the sensor was tested with Benzene, Toluene, Pyridine, Dimethylsulphoxide and several other toxic chemicals. The results showed that the sensor was able to detect the chemicals (in liquid state) and localize the event positioning. With the promising results, the sensor will be further tested with different types of chemicals to optimize the fiber chemical sensing system.


As deep neural networks are highly expressive, it is important to find solutions with small generalization gap (the difference between the performance on the training data and unseen data). Focusing on the stochastic nature of training, we first present a theoretical analysis in which the bound of generalization gap depends on what we call inconsistency and instability of model outputs, which can be estimated on unlabeled data. Our empirical study based on this analysis shows that instability and inconsistency are strongly predictive of generalization gap in various settings. In particular, our finding indicates that inconsistency is a more reliable indicator of generalization gap than the sharpness of the loss landscape. Furthermore, we show that algorithmic reduction of inconsistency leads to superior performance. The results also provide a theoretical basis for existing methods such as co-distillation and ensemble.


In this paper we propose a novel tracking method in Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) data based on local region histogram feature and a statistical distance measure. The aspects that make tracking particularly challenging are global camera motion, large movement of targets, poor gradient and texture information and absence of color information. Global camera motion is reduced or eliminated by registering the images from frame to frame employing SURF (Speeded Up Robust Feature). The proposed method is based on a variant of intensity histogram that encodes both spatial and intensity information. The method is evaluated on aerial WAMI data. The robustness of the feature eliminates the need for background subtraction in videos. A performance comparison of our feature descriptor with other descriptors such as HOG (Histogram of Gradients), SURF and SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) shows the effectiveness of the proposed method. We also show a comparison of our method with mean-shift tracking to show its effectiveness in tracking on WAMI data.


Abstract Over the last forty years, the circle of organisms thought worthy of inclusion within an ethical framework has expanded markedly, in large part in response to Aldo Leopold's 'land ethic'. However, there are still clear limits to the forms of life we are willing to include in such a framework. In this paper I suggest that a strong case can be made for microorganisms to be accorded special ethical status, as they represent the base of all food chains and of the major biogeochemical cycles. Without lions there is life, but without microorganisms there can be no higher life forms. The notion of protecting individual microorganisms may be absurd, but microbial communities and ecosystems nevertheless deserve protection, and offer an example of the merit of a population based approach to environmental ethics. I argue that humankind should assume the position of a moral agent to the microbial world, by formally recognising the intrinsic worth of microorganisms, as well as their utilitarian value to humans and to the rest of life on earth. The practical implications of such an ethic are discussed.


During the past decade, recommender systems have rapidly become an indispensable element of websites, apps, and other platforms that are looking to provide personalized interaction to their users. As recommendation technologies are applied to an ever-growing array of non-standard problems and scenarios, researchers and practitioners are also increasingly faced with challenges of dealing with greater variety and complexity in the inputs to those recommender systems. For example, there has been more reliance on fine-grained user signals as inputs rather than simple ratings or likes. Many applications also require more complex domain-specific constraints on inputs to the recommender systems. The outputs of recommender systems are also moving towards more complex composite items, such as package or sequence recommendations. This increasing complexity requires smarter recommender algorithms that can deal with this diversity in inputs and outputs. The ComplexRec workshop series offers an interactive venue for discussing approaches to recommendation in complex scenarios that have no simple one-size-fits-all solution.


Poor farmers have been blamed for environmental degradation in developing countries. Struggling to survive, they have been claimed to overexploit their natural resource base; but empirical testing has provided confusing evidence. To clarify the discourse, Thomas Reardon and Steven Vosti proposed the concept of investment poverty. It identifies the potentially large group of households that are not poor by traditional welfare poverty measures, but that are too poor in that their surplus above the welfare poverty line is too small to allow them to make investments for the conservation of their natural resource base. They also emphasize the role of assets in generating welfare for rural households, thus affecting production and investment decisions. This research pursues two questions: How can investment poverty be conceptualised and measured? And, which are the welfare-enhancing effects of household assets? Empirical data is collected in the province of Herrera of the Republic of Panama. 402 farmer households are interviewed with a structured questionnaire, using a non-probabilistic quota sampling frame. Household welfare is measured with household consumption and income aggregates, and traditional welfare poverty lines are calculated. This allows to divide the studied households by their per capita consumption aggregates into extremely poor (15,4% of households), moderately poor (33,6%) and non-poor (51,0 %). Comparisons reveal that welfare poverty groups differ significantly not only in asset endowments, income and investment strategies, but also in household structure and in their access to infrastructure and extension services. Although clearly defined in theory, the empirical measurement of investment poverty is challenging. In Herrera, pure conservation investments are not found and welfare is not associated with the sustainability of land use. Hence, the investment poverty line is studied as a level of welfare below which household welfare ceases to be linearly associated with investments that have both productive and conservation aims. Such an investment poverty line, located roughly at twice the annual price of a minimum nutrition, is surpassed by 42,3% of studied households. Investment non-poor households are characterized by both spouses working, high level of social involvement, high farm productivity, growing input-intensive crops, and naturally by having accumulated more land, cattle, vehicles, education, and better housing than the investment poor households. The contribution of assets to household welfare is explored by hypothesizing mechanisms through which land, livestock, education and labour force could enhance welfare, and under which conditions. Results of multinomial logistic regressions using the elaboration method reveal that among extremely and moderately poor households, education is the only studied asset contributing to higher welfare levels. Among the moderately and non-poor households, on the other hand, education, land and labour force contribute to higher welfare through several mechanisms, but depending on conditioning variables, such as input use. There is no automation by which assets generate welfare flows towards households. And, asset accumulation strategies change as welfare increases; the mechanisms are different among the poorest from among the richest households. The relationship between poverty and the environment remains problematic. Overcoming the investment poverty line can be seen as the necessary price of overcoming poverty and accumulating assets in the long run, but under current circumstances it is way out of reach for the poorest Herreran households. Even beyond the investment poverty line environmental sustainability is not necessarily achieved, if cattle herds increase and pastures spread.


Tob1, a member of the Tob/BTG family, is involved in the control of G1-S progression by suppressing cyclin D1 expression and acts as a tumor suppressor gene. Tob1 was reported to have a quick turnover through the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway, but proteins involved in this process are still unknown. We showed that Skp2, a substrate-targeting subunit of the SCF (Skp1/Cul1/F-box protein) ubiquitin ligase complex, was involved in ubiquitin-dependent degradation of Tob1. Skp2 interacted with Tob1 and facilitated ubiquitination of Tob1 in intact cells as well as in vitro . Skp2 mutants without the F-box or leucine rich repeat were not able to bind to Tob1 and did not enhance ubiquitination of Tob1. Tob1 was stabilized in both Skp2 / mouse fibroblasts and Skp2 knockdown HeLa cells. Moreover, cyclin D1 expression was suppressed in Skp2 knockdown HeLa cells. These data suggest that Tob1 is a novel target for degradation by the SCF-Skp2 ubiquitin ligase. (Cancer Res 2006; 66(17): 8477-83)


: Methods were selected and tested for studying the flux of water through the labyrinthine walls. Mannitol which does not pass through the walls was used in isotonic concentration in the endolymphatic space, and various concentrations of mannitol solutions in the perilymph space created a concentration gradient which resulted in a flux of water through the membranous wall. This is a first step in investigating the flux of solutes and solvent through these walls of the labyrinth as a basis for studying substances which chronically increase the colloid osmotic pressure due to their difficulty in passing the walls.


In the original proposal of the NGE (nested generalized exemplar) system, the induction of a concept is based on an initial set of training examples (named seeds) that are randomly chosen. The number of examples in this set is arbitrary, generally determined by the user of the system. It can be seen empirically, that the final results are influenced by the initial choice of the seeds. We propose and investigate other alternative methods for choosing seeds and empirically evaluate their impact on the learning results in seven knowledge domains, as far as accuracy and number of expressions describing the concepts are concerned. In spite of the additional time investment associated with using a clustering method and, assuming that accuracy of the induced concept is of major importance, experiments have shown that choosing the initial set of seeds as the center of clusters can be the best option.


The paper demonstrates the possibility to control the degree of tetragonal zirconia stabilization, microstructure and physical and mechanical behavior of Al2O3 -ZrO2(Y2O3) ceramic composite. Control is exerted via the process variables during deposition synthesis of nanosized composite powders from hydroxide salts, and their subsequent heat treatment and consolidation. Morphology features of nanosized powder systems and microstructures of the consolidated nanostructured materials were characterized by BET surface are measurements, scanning electron microscopy (both standard and HR), and large-angle X-ray diffraction. Correlations are established between microstructure parameters, physical and mechanical behavior of composite ceramics and a degree of stabilization of tetragonal ZrO2.


BACKGROUND: Anesthesiologists and certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) must acquire the skills to recognize and manage a variety of acute intraoperative emergencies. A simulation-based assessment provides a useful and efficient means to evaluate these skills. In this study, we evaluated and compared the performance of board-certified anesthesiologists and CRNAs managing a set of simulated intraoperative emergencies. METHODS: We enrolled 26 CRNAs and 35 board-certified anesthesiologists in a prospective, randomized, single-blinded study. These 61 specialists each managed 8 of 12 randomly selected, scripted, intraoperative simulation exercises. Participants were expected to recognize and initiate appropriate therapy for intraoperative events during a 5-min period. Two primary raters scored 488 simulation exercises (61 participants × 8 encounters). RESULTS: Anesthesiologists achieved a modestly higher mean overall score than CRNAs (66.6% ± 11.7 [range = 41.7%–86.7%] vs 59.9% ± 10.2 [range = 38.3%–80.4%] P < 0.01). There were no significant differences in performance between groups on individual encounters. The raters were consistent in their identification of key actions. The reliability of the eight-scenario assessment, with two raters for each scenario, was 0.80. CONCLUSION: Although anesthesiologists, on average, achieved a modestly higher overall score, there was marked and similar variability in both groups. This wide range suggests that certification in either discipline may not yield uniform acumen in management of simulated intraoperative emergencies. In both groups, there were practitioners who failed to diagnose and treat simulated emergencies. If this is reflective of clinical practice, it represents a patient safety concern. Simulation-based assessment provides a tool to determine the ability of practitioners to respond appropriately to clinical emergencies. If all practitioners could effectively manage these critical events, the standard of patient care and ultimately patient safety could be improved.


Galvannealed steel sheets are being widely used in automotive application for better corrosion resistance. It is generally known that uncoated steel sheets have better mechanical properties than coated steel sheets due to presence of zinc coating. But frictional characteristics of coated steel sheets are very different from those of uncoated steel sheets. Therefore the study on mechanical and frictional characteristics of these steel sheets is needed. In this study, tensile test was performed to evaluate mechanical properties of coated and uncoated steel sheets. Cup drawing test was performed to measure friction-coefficient. And frictional characteristics were analyzed by using FE-analysis. The effect of mechanical and frictional properties on cup drawing was investigated. It was shown that the frictional properties more affected cup drawing.


We reviewed 400 bacteriologically confirmed cases of pertussis in infants and children during the past 18 years. Several changes in the epidemiology have occurred in the most recent six-year period. The incidence of whooping cough in children has decreased by at least 50%, but the proportion of cases occurring in infants younger than 12 weeks of age has doubled to 30% of all cases. Formerly most young infants acquired their illness from siblings or other children, but in the recent period adults in the household were the most common source of infection to neonates and young infants. This observation plus the increasingly high level of immunization in preschool and school-aged children suggest that young adults with waning immunity and mild illness are a major reservoir for transmission of pertussis to infants too young to be immunized.


We present a novel implementation of Kohn-Sham density-functional theory utilizing London atomic orbitals as basis functions. External magnetic fields are treated non-perturbatively, which enable the study of both magnetic response properties and the effects of strong fields, using either standard density functionals or current-density functionals-the implementation is the first fully self-consistent implementation of the latter for molecules. Pilot applications are presented for the finite-field calculation of molecular magnetizabilities, hypermagnetizabilities, and nuclear magnetic resonance shielding constants, focusing on the impact of current-density functionals on the accuracy of the results. Existing current-density functionals based on the gauge-invariant vorticity are tested and found to be sensitive to numerical details of their implementation. Furthermore, when appropriately regularized, the resulting magnetic properties show no improvement over standard density-functional results. An advantage of the present implementation is the ability to apply density-functional theory to molecules in very strong magnetic fields, where the perturbative approach breaks down. Comparison with high accuracy full-configuration-interaction results show that the inadequacies of current-density approximations are exacerbated with increasing magnetic field strength. Standard density-functionals remain well behaved but fail to deliver high accuracy. The need for improved current-dependent density-functionals, and how they may be tested using the presented implementation, is discussed in light of our findings.


The operations of semiclosed endarterecromy of the aortofemoral zone arteries were shown to have a number of advantages over shunting interventions with synthetic transplants. They are quick, not traumatic and have better results of long term patency. However, their application is limited by certain indications. Femoral amputations in patients with lesions of the aorta and iliac arteries independent of the age should not be recommended as a method of treatment of critical ischemia of lower extremities. Reconstructive operations on the vessels of this zone provide longer duration and better quality of life of the patients.


Activin A receptor, type II-like kinase 1 (also called ALK1), is a serine-threonine kinase predominantly expressed on endothelial cells surface. Mutations in its ACVRL1 encoding gene (12q11-14) cause type 2 Hereditary Haemorrhagic Telangiectasia (HHT2), an autosomal dominant multisystem vascular dysplasia. The study of the structural effects of mutations is crucial to understand their pathogenic mechanism. However, while an X-ray structure of ALK1 intracellular domain has recently become available (PDB ID: 3MY0), structure determination of ALK1 ectodomain (ALK1EC) has been elusive so far. We here describe the building of a homology model for ALK1EC, followed by an extensive bioinformatic analysis, based on a set of 38 methods, of the effect of missense mutations at the sequence and structural level. ALK1EC potential interaction mode with its ligand BMP9 was then predicted combining modelling and docking data. The calculated model of the ALK1EC allowed mapping and a preliminary characterization of HHT2 associated mutations. Major structural changes and loss of stability of the protein were predicted for several mutations, while others were found to interfere mainly with binding to BMP9 or other interactors, like Endoglin (CD105), whose encoding ENG gene (9q34) mutations are known to cause type 1 HHT. This study gives a preliminary insight into the potential structure of ALK1EC and into the structural effects of HHT2 associated mutations, which can be useful to predict the potential effect of each single mutation, to devise new biological experiments and to interpret the biological significance of new mutations, private mutations, or non-synonymous polymorphisms.


The appropriateness of sentinel lymph node biopsy in the management of patients with biopsy diagnoses of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) or DCIS with microinvasion (DCISM) has not been established. Three hundred forty-one patients presented with a biopsy diagnosis of DCIS or DCISM. Two hundred forty (70%) underwent sentinel node biopsy at their definitive procedure. All clinical and pathologic data were collected prospectively. Of 224 patients with a biopsy diagnosis of DCIS 23 (10%) were upstaged to infiltrating ductal carcinoma (IDC) at their definitive therapy and of 16 patients with a biopsy diagnosis of DCISM seven (44%) were upstaged to IDC. Excisional biopsies were no more sensitive for detecting IDC than was core biopsy. Lymph node metastases were detected in 26 of 195 (13%) patients with a definitive diagnosis of DCIS, in three of 15 (20%) with a definitive diagnosis of DCISM, and in eight of 30 (27%) with a definitive diagnosis of IDC. Sentinel lymph node biopsy is a valuable tool in the treatment of patients with DCIS and DCISM and is particularly needed in those undergoing mastectomy. No "high-risk" group of patients can be identified for selective sentinel lymph node biopsy.


In practical wireless relay communication systems, nondestination nodes are assumed to be idle not receiving signals while the relay sends messages to a particular destination node, which results in reduced bandwidth efficiency. To improve the bandwidth efficiency, we relax the idle assumption of non-destination nodes and assume that non-destination nodes may receive signals from sources. We note that the message relayed to a particular node in such a system gives rise to interference to other nodes. To study such a more general relay system, we consider, in this paper, a relay system in which the relay first listens to the source, then routes the source message to the destination, and finally produces interference to the destination in sending messages for other systems. We obtain capacity upper and lower bounds and study the optimal method to deal with the interference as well as the optimal routing schemes. From analytic results obtained, we find the conditions on which the direct transmission provides higher transmission rate. Next, we find the conditions, by numerical evaluation of the theoretical results, on which it is better for the destination to cancel and decode the interference. Also we find the optimal source power allocation scheme that achieves the lower bound depending on various channel conditions. We believe that the results provided in this paper will provide useful insights to system designers in strategically choosing the optimal routing algorithms depending on the channel conditions.


Complication and side effects of spinal anesthesia have been studied in 2603 patients. The following complications of spinal anesthesia have been observed: transient and prolonged arterial hypotension; marked respiratory and circulatory depression; neurological consequences and early and late respiratory depression associated with intrathecal administration of narcotic analgesics. Side effects comprised vomiting, nausea, transitory urination disturbances, and itching. The dependence of the number of complications and side effects on the level of puncture, the patient's age and concentration of the anesthetic introduced into subarachnoidal space has been established.


The development of a broadband sound velocimeter allows the simultaneous measurement of sound speed and attenuation over a wide range of frequencies, providing insight into the dispersive characteristics of a bubbly medium. The velocimeter measures the dispersion of a broadband acoustic pulse containing power over frequencies ranging from 2 to 140 kHz across a fixed pathlength. The resulting data are inverted using a simple inversion scheme to arrive at bubble size distributions over a range of radii extending from 20 to 1600 μm. A large wind wave channel located at the Hydraulics Laboratory‐S.I.O. provides an ideal location for testing and calibration of the system. Filled with seawater, the channel can generate O(1 m) breaking waves, providing bubble size distributions similar to those found in the field. Results of the lab measurements and comparisons of inverted bubble size distributions with an independent optical bubble sizing technique will be discussed. Preliminary results of a near‐shore deployme...


The limitations of Moore's Law have led to alternatives in semiconductor packages that provide more functionality. Stacking multiple chips in 2.5D and 3D configurations has become a common solution. During the development of these technologies, test chains of chip to chip micro bumps and thru silicon via's (TSV's) at various regions within the stack are often employed. These present new challenges to the already difficult process of localizing open and resistive chain fails deep within the stack for root-cause analysis. A combination of quick and effective fault isolation techniques is often required to reliably isolate an open in a time critical situation. Capacitive measurements is a useful technique in some cases for obtaining a quick general location of an open. Magnetic Field Imaging (MFI), specifically Space Domain Reflectometry (SDR), is a non-destructive technique that can provide a relatively accurate location of an open. Electron Beam Absorbed Current (EBAC) is another useful technique in confirming and further isolating the open as the region of interest of the sample is approached via cross-sectioning or planar deprocessing. Case studies using these three techniques are presented and their strengths and weaknesses are discussed. The case studies focus on ìbump and chip bump chains in 2.5D samples.


Background: Ample evidence indicated that glucocorticoids, when administered after training, enhance memory consolidation in a variety of tasks. The mechanisms underlying the enhancing effects of glucocorticoids on memory consolidation are not well known. The aim of this study was to determine the role of NMDA receptors and calcium channels in glucocorticoid-induced enhancement of avoidance memory consolidation in mice. Methods: Experiments were performed on 166 male albino mice (about 30 gr). The animals were trained in an inhibitory avoidance (IA) task ( 0.5 m A shock for 3 seconds). In Experiment 1 , dose- response effects of corticosterone on memory consolidation were determined. Immediately after training in IA task, the animals were received different doses of corticosterone ( 0.3 , 1 or 3 mg/kg). In Experiments 2 and 3 , effects of corticosterone on memory consolidation were examined in the presence or absence of verapamil, a calcium channel blocker, ( 2.5 , 5 or 20 mg/kg) or MK-801 , an antagonist of NMDA receptor ( 0.1 mg/kg), respectively. In all experiments, retention test was done two days later. Results: Results from first experiment revealed that corticosterone at dose of 0.3 mg/kg significantly improved consolidation of avoidance. Data from experiments 2 and 3 showed that both verapamil, in doses of 2.5 and 5 mg/kg, and MK801 significantly blocked corticosterone-induced enhancement of memory consolidation. Conclusion: Finding of this study clearly demonstrated that the memory enhancing effects of corticosterone, at least in part; mediate via calcium channels and NMDA receptors. Abstract


Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a malignant tumor of liver that causes approximately half a million deaths each year, of which over half of the cases are diagnosed in China. Because of its asymptomatic nature, HCC is usually diagnosed at late and advanced stages, for which there are no effective therapies. Thus, biomarkers for early detection and molecular targets for treating HCC are urgently needed. With the advent of high-throughput omics technologies, we have begun to mine the genomics and proteomics information of HCC, and most importantly, these data can be integrated with clinical annotations of the patients. Such new horizons of integrated profiling informatics have allowed us to search for and better identify clinically useful biomarkers and therapeutic targets for cancers including HCC. Capitalizing the large clinical samples cohort (over 100 pairs of tumor and matched adjacent nontumor tissues of HCC), we herein discuss the use of proteomics approach to identify biomarkers that are potentially useful for (1) discrimination of tumorous from nonmalignant tissues, (2) detection of small-sized and early stage of HCC, and (3) prediction of early disease relapse after hepatectomy.


The problem of multi-user radio resource scheduling on the downlink of a Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular communication system is addressed in this paper. The optimization model used imposed that the radio resources for multiple users are jointly allocated at the air-interface. The study shows that optimal and near optimal solutions to such a problem may provide reasonable gain over a simply greedy approach using global and local/heuristic approaches. On one hand, the complexity of the global optimal approach appears prohibitively high, on the other hand, the heuristic approach, namely Genetic Algorithm (GA), provides much better near-optimal results with significant reduction in complexity.


White Leghorn (WL) breed is homozygous for an allele on the α2C-AR gene while the Red Junglefowl (RJF) is mostly heterozygous for that. The gene is also hypermethylated in WL. The gene codes for the α2C -adrenergic receptor, which plays various roles including regulation of neurotransmitter release from adrenergic neurons in the central nervous system and sympathetic nerves The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the variation of α2C-AR gene on the chickens' behaviour. Various behavioural tests mostly associated with fear and stress was conducted in progeny of an F9 generation of the advanced intercross line (AIL) between RJF and WL, selected for homozygosity of the alternative alleles on the α2C-AR gene. In the emergence test, the stress effect on both poking and total exit latency was significantly higher in WL genotype females in comparison to RJF genotype females (effect on head poking time: WL -70.62 ± 18.603 versus RJF 15.63 ± 29.069; effect on total exit time WL -72.14 ± 20.582 RJF 5.64 ± 30.140). In the aerial predator test RJF genotype birds showed significantly more agitated behaviours after the predator exposure in comparison to WL genotype birds (RJF 27.65 ± 0.700 versus WL 25.09 ± 0.915) Although we found differences in behaviour of individuals with WL genotype, more research is needed to find out how the variation on the ADRA2C gene has played a role in domestication of layer chicken.


"Moscow and Saint Petersburg are the largest cities in Russia, both seeking to impose themselves on the international arena as active economic places and models of social progress. To consider the competitive advantages of these cities, two major research strategies are used in this paper: 1) a critical analysis of literature in the following subject areas: history of the economy of the city and Russian system of industrialization; 2) an empirical analysis of variables describing innovative cities and human potential. The paper challenges the argument that difference in the tactics of development - lobbying action to enhance the competitiveness of the export-import marketplace against the legislative strategic planning - gives several advantages to one or other city. JEL codes: R11, O3, L5, D73, B14"


This publication is offered as a concise and practical guide to the practicing otolaryngologist caring for commonplace problems. The handbook begins with a section organized according to clinical diagnosis which is then followed by an overview of antimicrobials by category. A list of the "drugs of choice" according to infecting organism and clinical diagnosis is included in addition to a table of appropriate dosage schedules.


Polyomavirus infection occurring during childhood is followed by a lifelong latency in immunocompetent subjects. The major site of polyomavirus persistence are the uroepithelial cells which leads to oral transmission. It has recently been hypothesized that tonsils could be a possible reservoir. The role of tonsil, adenoid, and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) as possible sites of JCV, BKV, and SV40 latency in young healthy children was assessed. Two hundred fifteen fresh specimens, including 57 tonsil, 80 adenoid, and 78 PBMC samples from 80 immunocompetent children (mean age 4.8 years) were analyzed to determine the viral load by quantitative real‐time PCR. The human herpes virus 6 (HHV‐6) was tested as a lymphotropic reference virus. Polyomavirus was detected in 5/80 (6.2%) children while HHV‐6 infection affected 27/80 children (33.7%) (P < 0.001). SV40 was detected in one adenoid sample, while footprints of BKV were found in one adenoid and three tonsil samples. JCV was never found in all samples. Polyomavirus sequences were not detected in the 78 blood samples. One adenoid and two tonsils from three children (1.4%) were positive for both polyomavirus and HHV‐6. Infections were characterized by low replication rates ranging typically from 1 × 10e2/5.5 × 10e4 to 6.8 × 10e3/8.5 × 10e4 viral copies/number of cells. In conclusion, tonsils and adenoids of children could effectively harbor BKV and SV40, although only very few cells proved to be infected. Nevertheless, the low prevalence of polyomavirus, in comparison with the lymphotropic HHV‐6, suggests that these tissues are unlikely to be the preferred site of polyomavirus latency, at least in younger children. J. Med. Virol. 82:1236–1240, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Hot aqueous fluids, both vapor and saline liquid, are primary transporting media for metals in hydrothermal-magmatic systems. Despite the growing geological evidence that the vapor phase, formed through boiling of magmatic ore-bearing fluids, can selectively concentrate and transport metals, the physical-chemical mechanisms that control the metal vapor-liquid fractionation remain poorly understood. We performed systematic experiments to investigate the metal vapor-liquid partitioning in model water-salt-gas systems H2O-NaCl-KCl-HCl at hydrothermal conditions. Measurements show that equilibrium vapor-liquid fractionation patterns of many metals are directly related to the densities of the coexisting vapor and liquid phases. Despite differences in the vapor-phase chemistry of various metals that form hydroxide, chloride, or sulfide gaseous molecules of contrasting volatile properties, water-solute interaction is a key factor that controls the metal transfer by vapor-like fluids in Earth's crust. These findings allow quantitative prediction of the vapor-liquid distribution patterns and vapor-phase metal transport in a wide range of conditions. Our density model accounts well for the vapor-brine distribution patterns of Na, Si, Fe, Zn, As, Sb, and Ag observed in fluid inclusions from magmatic-hydrothermal deposits. For Au and Cu, the partitioning in favor of the liquid phase, predicted in a sulfur-free system, contrasts with the copper and gold enrichment observed in natural vapor-like inclusions. The formation of stable complexes of Cu and Au with reduced sulfur may allow for their enhanced transport by sulfur-enriched magmatic-hydrothermal vapors.


This chapter discusses the development of evaluation policy in the Netherlands. It distinguishes between several periods: the 1970s and before, when there was little or no evaluation, much less evaluation policy; the late 1970s and 1980s, when evaluation increased but there was still little formal policy; the 1990s, when the government began to establish its formal evaluation policy; and the current decade, when evaluation policy was further formalized and evaluation activities blossomed. The author shows that the Dutch policy has always been rather liberal, leaving much room to the community of professionals. The chapter concludes with a summary of the current state of evaluation policy in the Netherlands, showing that the critique on evaluations and the two other strands of activities that produce "evaluative feedback" (i.e., performance auditing and inspection/oversight) is increasing. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


This study aims to compare student performance on introductory engineering statics material by comparing the exam scores of students who are given both multiple choice (MC) questions and constructed response (CR) questions to see whether the type of exam question makes a difference in student performance and understanding. Seventy-five students in an introductory engineering course did either a MC version or a CR version of each statics problem, resulting in MC answers and a control group of CR answers to each statics problem. The students were also polled for feedback regarding their preferences of test question format at the end of the semester. All the exams were graded by one professor, and the results showed little difference between the scores on the MC versus the CR versions of a question. The average score for the MC version was 80%, while the average score for the CR version was 76%. While MC questions may not be appropriate in all circumstances, the high performance on the MC questions, and similar performance on CR questions indicates that not only do students not guess at the answer, but also are able to show understanding of basic statics problems.


This study examines the nature and direction of causality in Tanzania between economic growth and agricultural exports along with some selected variables such as labour force and domestic investment. The analysis for this study was carried out using time series data for the period of 1980 to 2013. The data series were tested for stationarity using Phillips-perron test and the results revealed that they were all stationary and integrated of order one I(1). The Johansen test of cointegration revealed that there are cointegrating vectors in the system. The Granger causality test results revealed no any support of the export-led growth (ELG) hypothesis for Tanzania. However, the growth-led exports (GLE) hypothesis for Tanzania was supported by the results of this study, implying that the government of Tanzania needs to promote growth in order to generate exports.


Recent years have witnessed tremendous interest in understanding and predicting information spread on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. Existing diffusion prediction methods primarily exploit the sequential order of influenced users by projecting diffusion cascades onto their local social neighborhoods. However, this fails to capture global social structures that do not explicitly manifest in any of the cascades, resulting in poor performance for inactive users with limited historical activities. In this paper, we present a novel variational autoencoder framework (Inf-VAE) to jointly embed homophily and influence through proximity-preserving social and position-encoded temporal latent variables. To model social homophily, Inf-VAE utilizes powerful graph neural network architectures to learn social variables that selectively exploit the social connections of users. Given a sequence of seed user activations, Inf-VAE uses a novel expressive co-attentive fusion network that jointly attends over their social and temporal variables to predict the set of all influenced users. Our experimental results on multiple real-world social network datasets, including Digg, Weibo, and Stack-Exchanges demonstrate significant gains (22% MAP@10) for Inf-VAE over state-of-the-art diffusion prediction models; we achieve massive gains for users with sparse activities, and users who lack direct social neighbors in seed sets.


Effective communication is one of the keys to achieving successful partnerships between beef business managers, technical specialists, businesses in value chains, CRC management and partner agencies. It is the responsibility of the BPP Communication, Information and Marketing Strategy to ensure all partners in the BPP network have access to the information and resources they need, can share information and experiences, can give and receive support, and have opportunities to provide feedback. In this paper the elements of the strategy are outlined.


Due to global climate change, concern regarding the environment is greater than ever. Also, the energy industry is constantly developing and investing in new and renewable energy to reduce carbon emissions. Korea is planning to increase the proportion of renewable energy generation to 20% by 2030, in accordance with the 3020 renewable energy policy. This will involve 16.5 GW (34%) from wind energy, with a capacity from offshore wind energy of approximately 13 GW. Considering domestic technological wind resource potential (33.2 GW), it seems to be a sufficient target amount. However, in order to start the wind power generation business, the installation area must be analyzed for environmental information, for the evaluation of the wind resource and the early-stage concept design. Because it is difficult to conduct long-term measurements of the entire sea area, the environmental conditions are generally estimated from short-term measurement data and long-term reanalysis data. In this study, the environmental conditions of the East Sea of Korea were selected, and a comparative analysis was performed on the meteorological agency's oceanic meteorology buoy data, ERA-5 reanalysis data obtained from ECMWF, and NASA's MERRA-2 data. The extreme sea states of 50 years and 100 years were analyzed by extreme statistical analysis. Finally, environmental conditions required for the basic design of wind turbines were selected following IEC and DNV standards.


The aim of this thesis is to review the incidence of adverse events following the use of facial fillers in cosmetic surgery. We will also detect the possible causes of these adverse events and how to prevent and treat them. We hypothesized that these adverse events don´t appear only because of the characteristics of the product that is being used. They could also be caused by reactions of the receiving tissue and medical practice. We made three surveys: the first one aimed at collecting the patterns of fillers use among cosmetic surgeons, and the moderate to severe adverse events that have appeared after injection of these materials. The second one designed to collect the adverse events in patients from a group of cosmetic surgery clinics that have been treated with the most used filler, hyaluronic acid gel. And the third one aimed to corroborate about the results regarding latency time of the adverse events that happened after injection of hyaluronic acid gel. The clinical findings were contrasted with the outcomes of different authors to answer the proposed aims. In conclusion we can assert that there is no an ideal filler and that a safety plan is required to establish what actions must be undertaken to prevent the appearance of adverse events and to treat adverse events that may happen.


The categorization of the many musical and literary works inspired by the Faust legend is based on their two possible conclusions: Faust ends up in hell or is redeemed and attaints heaven. Busoni's work is often categorized in terms of the redemptive form. I will analyze a third possibility: during the last part of the nineteenth century, philosophers conceptualized that man's feelings of unhappiness came from his confinement into an eternal recurrence and that life doesn't end with the death. Scholars tend to ignore the links between Doktor Faust and these philosophical thoughts because of Busoni's explicit denial of such intentions. And yet Busoni wrote that an opera is the highest form of artistic expression, where music gives words to the unspoken. Therefore I will argue that Busoni characterizes Doktor Faust as a hybridization of the new philosophical theories with literature and music. Busoni's depiction of the main character in this opera may not be intentional, but the composer summed up all the qualities of Nietzsche's Ubermensch, D'Annunzio's Superuomo, and Pascoli's fanciullino in Faust. Faust discovers his own transcendent power, which is independent from the material universe and yet belongs to nature's laws that are beyond God and the evil. Doktor Faust's attainment of immortality does not pray for divine redemption and wins out over everything: in this opera, Faust is neither redeemed nor damned. Faust becomes aware that death is nothing but the means that lead to rebirth: "ich, Faust, ein ewiger Wille".


The field monitoring of dangerous landslide is an important measure for guaranteeing its safety, especially when surrounded by large-scale construction. The landslide located nearby a reservoir in Shandong province. To guarantee construction safety, we adopted the automatic monitoring method for monitoring surface displacement and the internal soil pressure. The whole system uses solar power to provide energy and uses GPRS to transfer data. This system not only can provide reliable information for project construction, but also promote the application of environmentally friendly, low carbon in the monitoring field of civil engineering.


The H 2 -H 2 O, Ni/YSZ point electrode has been investigated using long-term potential step measurements and impedance spectroscopy at 1273 K. Morphological and structural changes at the electrode interface were evaluated by electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray analysis, and Raman spectroscopy ex situ. The anodic current was found to induce a self-catalytic effect on the electrode, an the anodic steady state current increased to more than twice the initial value with a time constant of about 40 h. In contrast, cathodic polarization reduced the performance of the electrode, and the cathodic current decreased significantly with a time constant of about 20 h. Redistribution of material in the reaction zone is suggested to control most of the changes in electrode activity. At anodic overpotentials it was observed that Ni was transported to the electrolyte surface, forming a necklace of Ni particles around the electrode/electrolyte contact. This is believed to increase the three-phase boundary (TPB) length and account for the higher activity of the electrode. At cathodic overpotentials the transfer of Ni to the YSZ was found to be restricted, and it is proposed that agglomeration of dispersed metal particles reduced the TPB length, and accordingly the cathodic current. In addition to the morphological modifications, the catalytic properties of the surfaces were significantly altered as the electrode was polarized. Transformation from cubic to tetragonal YSZ, due to segregation of the material, was observed on the surface of the electrolyte when the sample was kept at working conditions for long periods of time (135 days). The passage of current was not found to generate any permanent phase transformation in the YSZ.


Abstract This paper studies the U.S. reference Supercritical Water Reactor (SCWR) design with the newly extended coupled codes PARCS/RELAP5. Steady-state, burnup, and loss-of-feedwater transients are simulated. A possible flow reversal in moderator channels is found in the simulations, and the impact of this reversal on power peaking and reactivity is observed. The transient results show that the assembly with the maximum cladding surface temperature (MCST) and the assembly with the maximum power are different and that the MCST is within the material limit under the current design.


Picking up a patent What is the relationship between patents and scientific advances? Ahmadpoor and Jones devised a metric for the "distance" between patentable inventions and prior research to study this question. They analyzed the relationship between 4.8 million U.S. patents and 32 million research articles. Universities tended to cite their own research directly in their patents (in other words, a distance of 1), but the distance was greater for companies, suggesting that companies may rely on outsiders for their foundational research. The distance varied by discipline, with nanotechnology and computer science having the shortest distances between published research and patents. Science, this issue p. 583 The distance between patented inventions and academic research reveals the strength of the connection. The extent to which scientific advances support marketplace inventions is largely unknown. We study 4.8 million U.S. patents and 32 million research articles to determine the minimum citation distance between patented inventions and prior scientific advances. We find that most cited research articles (80%) link forward to a future patent. Similarly, most patents (61%) link backward to a prior research article. Linked papers and patents typically stand 2 to 4 degrees distant from the other domain. Yet, advances directly along the patent-paper boundary are notably more impactful within their own domains. The distance metric further provides a typology of the fields, institutions, and individuals involved in science-to-technology linkages. Overall, the findings are consistent with theories that emphasize substantial and fruitful connections between patenting and prior scientific inquiry.


Metal-based microchannel heat exchangers (MHEs) are of current interest due to the combination of high heat transfer performance and improved mechanical integrity. Efficient methods for fabrication and assembly of functional metal-based MHEs are essential to ensure the economic viability of such devices. In this paper, the results on fabrication, assembly, and heat transfer testing of Cu- and Al-based MHE prototypes are reported. Efficient fabrication of Cu- and Al-based high-aspect-ratio microscale structures (HARMSs) has been achieved through molding replication using surface-engineered metallic mold inserts. Replicated metallic HARMSs were assembled through eutectic bonding to form entirely Cu- and Al-based MHE prototypes, on which heat transfer tests were conducted to determine the average rate of heat transfer from electrically heated Cu blocks placed outside the MHEs to water flowing within the molding replicated microchannel arrays. Experimentally observed heat transfer rates are higher as compared to those from previous studies on microchannel devices with similar geometries. The potential influence of microchannel surface profile on heat transfer rates is discussed. The present results illustrate the potential of metal-based MHEs in wide-ranging applications.


When a new coronavirus appeared in the late 2019, identified as the cause of several cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Paracetamol was initially reported to be the preferable antipyretic medication, choice which was detrimental to the use of other drugs. People have resorted to buying large stocks of Paracetamol and some have used it in large doses, regardless of the consequences. However, the Paracetamol (Acetaminophen) overdose remains the leading cause of death or transplantation due to acute liver failure in many parts of the world. This review aims at presenting the pharmacokinetics, the clinical signs, and the risk factors for systemic toxicity associated with Paracetamol overdose, as well as the current therapeutic approach. Paracetamol is primarily metabolized in the liver, by glucuronidation and sulfation. In case of a Paracetamol overdose, a large amount of NAPQI is conjugated with glutathione, and this process is due to a major depletion of glutathione, thus leading to hepatic necrosis, renal failure, and encephalopathy. The evaluation of serum acetaminophen levels by analytical methods is extremely useful both for the diagnosis and the therapy monitoring.


Debt-induced crises, including the subprime crisis, are usually attributed exclusively to supply-side factors. We examine the role of social influences on debt culture, emanating from perceived average income of peers. Utilizing unique information from a household survey, representative of the Dutch population, that circumvents the issue of defining the social circle, we consider collateralized, consumer, and informal loans. We find robust social effects on borrowing - especially among those who consider themselves poorer than their peers - and on indebtedness, suggesting a link to financial distress. We employ a number of approaches to rule out spurious associations and to handle correlated effects.


A relay attack is a potentially devastating form of a man-in-the-middle attack, that can circumvent any challenge-response authentication protcol. A relay attack also has no known cryptographic solution. This thesis proposes the usage of reciprocal channel state information in a wireless system to detect the presence of a relay attack. Through the usage of an open source channel state information tool, a challenge-response authentication Channel Based Relay Attack Detection Protocol is designed and implemented using IEEE 802.11n (WiFi) in detail. The proposed protocol adapts ideas from solutions to other problems, to create a novel solution to the relay attack problem. Preliminary results are done to show the practicality of using channel state information for randomness extraction. As well, two novel attacks are proposed that could be used to defeat the protocol and other similar protocols. To handle these attacks, two modifications are given that only work with the Channel Based Relay Attack Detection Protocol.


In order to know the report frames and characteristics of Chinese newspapers in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games,and to summarize its advantages and disadvantages,this thesis makes a research of the report frames of newspapers such as People's Daily,Chinese Sports Newspapers,Sports Weekly and Guangzhou Daily in terms of quantitative and qualitative investigation,with the major viewpoint of news communication,using news frame theories and through the content analysis method.The results show that during the Beijing Olympic Games,Chinese newspapers used diversified frames in coverage topics,extensive frames in coverage projects but the native frame still took the priority in coverage angles.The author argues that stars or winning and loss should not be the only goal for the press to search for during the games and the extensive coverage frames can display better the Olympic's beauty of "the main point is to participate".Besides,the native frames and the international frames of the Olympic coverage need to be balanced more because of the Olympic Games is a international pageant.


In a preliminary survey of furniture workers in 2017, 8 out of 15 workers reported that the wood-cutting process always led to tightness in their chest and made them cough. This is because the wood-cutting process produces dust and the workers do not use any personal protective equipment such as mask at work. Therefore, the aim of this study was to find the effect of wearing masks on the respiratory symptoms of woodcutters in Sentra Mebel Kemirahan, Malang. The researchers distributed N95 masks to all the workers. The research used a pre-experimental with one group preand post-test design. The study included a total of 21 people, selected through purposive sampling. Data were analysed using the Wilcoxon test. The result of pre–post-tests in every variable were: (i) P-value 0.000 for chest tightness; (ii) P-value 0.001 for cough; (iii) P-value 0.000 for chest pain, which is P ≤ 0.005, meaning significant. Therefore, we conclude that there was a difference between before and after using N95 mask against the respiratory symptoms in the wood-cutting workers in Sentra Mebel Kemirahan Malang.


Abstract This exploratory study investigates virtual environments (VEs) as a treatment intervention for the fear of public speaking (FoPS). Prior preliminary studies indicate fear reduction following VE simulations with few investigations examining participants' perspectives. Participants (N = 17) recruited from a public speaking course participated in a virtual reality 360° digital recording simulation that carbon copied the physical reality of their classroom and audience. Before and after immersion, participants completed open-ended responses about the simulation, pre- and post-public speaking fears, and VE public speaking experience. Using thematic analysis on the open-ended responses, researchers coded the responses to understand the communicative performance experience surrounding their VE public speaking simulation. Negative-valence emotions occurred for both presentations; however, participants expressed value in experiencing and overcoming the negative feelings. Based on the anecdotal (or clinical) findings, participants reported experiencing fears similar to those experienced in physical reality as well as emotional and behavioral interventions when engaged in the VE. Additionally, a one-year follow-up (N = 6) provided a reflective process for participants to recall their VE experience and implications beyond the physical simulation. These open-ended responses offered implications surrounding emotional reaction, real audiences, and the speechmaking process. The findings suggest mitigation of audience-related fears by the presence of the virtual audience with participants reoriented to focus on execution of speech delivery. This exploratory qualitative investigation builds toward a future of optimal strategies for using instructional technologies to improve public speaking competency.


Leishmaniasis, a zoonosis of worldwide distribution, presents a significant impact on immunosupressed patients. This study aimed to evaluate Leishmania chagasi infection in BALB/c mice immunosuppressed with dexamethasone. Spleen cells stimulated or not with L. chagasi were cultured for cytokine quantification (IFN-γ, IL-2, IL-4 and IL-10) by sandwich ELISA. Parasite loads in the spleen and liver were determined by means of culture microtitration. Immunosuppressed groups showed statistically lower spleen weight and CD4-cell percentage in blood on the day of infection and produced Th1 and Th2 cytokines on other days of the study. The other infected groups, weather immunosupressed or not, also produced Th1 and Th2 cytokines. Parasite loads in the spleen and liver were not statistically different among the groups. It was concluded that L. chagasi infection was not affected by dexamethasone-induced immunosuppression, probably due the reversible effect of the treatment.


Networks are representations of relational data. Whether the data used represents social interactions, cooperations or inter-bank dependencies, the structure of the network reflect a decision-making process based on many factors (common friends, technological proximity, geographical proximity). One of the objectives of network analysis is to identify these factors. The analysis of the structure using Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGM) can help in the identification of these factors by answering why two particular agents interact with one another, or why a specific agent has a particular position inside a network. In other words ERGMs allow us to perform an econometric analysis on network data. In the case of networks it is possible that a link depends upon the structure of the network. Usual econometric methods cannot be used because the dependence violates the hypothesis of independence of observations. ERGMs take into account this particularity of network data. \r\nThe aim of this paper is to present the statistical theory behind ERGM models and present an application using R-Project.


The 1973 Oil Crisis was a wake‐up call for Sweden. Sweden's high reliance on foreign energy supply and the lack of domestic fossil energy sources hit private motoring hard. In the aftermath of the crisis, methanol was seen as a promising alternative fuel. This article analyzes how, who, and for what reasons methanol fuel was promoted in Sweden in the 1970s and early 1980s. Furthermore, the study places the efforts to establish methanol as fuel in an international framework and in the broader context of the Energy Program and the government's objective to plan for a new energy future for Sweden. This article especially examines forecasting motor fuels and automobiles and how foresight was used in relation to the methanol campaign. The article argues that in the case of the Swedish methanol campaign the upcoming development in the energy sector was mostly described as smooth and calculable. Both the state and the industry planned for a post‐petroleum era, in which methanol fuel played a vital role. However, they were unwilling to take any decisive step until circumstances were right, but since circumstances never seemed appropriate, methanol as a fuel was always deferred to a distant future.


Pervasive home care systems are needed to overcome the problems of an aging population in the western world. An overview of ongoing research at the Pervasive Healthcare Lab, Engineering College of Aarhus on this subject is given, presenting an infrastructure design connecting the various software and hardware projects currently being researched. The primary goal is the design of an open and easily extendible platform for existing and new home care products from multiple vendors. This includes physiological sensors as well as end-user applications, preferably free of vendor lock-in issues. The support of non-professional users, including relatives and neighbors is also a discussed.


Lagrangian equations of motion for finite amplitude azimuthal shear wave propagation in a compressible isotropic hyperelastic solid are obtained in conservation form with a source term. A Godunov-type finite difference procedure is used along with these equations to obtain numerical solutions for wave propagation emanating from a cylindrical cavity, of fixed radius, whose surface is subjected to the sudden application of a spatially uniform azimuthal shearing stress. Results are presented for waves propagating radially outwards; however, the numerical procedure can also be used to obtain solutions if waves are reflected radially inwards from a cylindrical outer surface of the medium. A class of strain energy functions is considered, which is a compressible generalization of the Mooney-Rivlin strain energy function, and it is shown that, for this class, an azimuthal shear wave can not propagate without a coupled longitudinal wave. This is in contrast to the problem of finite amplitude plane shear wave propagation with the neo-Hookean generalization, for which a shear wave can propagate without a coupled longitudinal wave. The plane problem is discussed briefly for comparison with the azimuthal problem.


A 53-year-old woman presented with thyrotoxicosis, which is an unusual manifestation of thyroid carcinoma. Hyperthyroidism associated with malignancy usually occurs with well-differentiated follicular thyroid carcinoma. We show that extensive disease burden contributed to the development of hyperthyroidism, the occurrence of the Jod-Basedow phenomenon and the subsequent death of the patient. This diagnosis and treatment can be challenging.


Using data on middle-school adolescents from the Rural Substance Abuse and Violence Project (RSVP), the authors examined the extent to which psychological difficulties are related to student weapon carrying and use, net of other criminological variables. Furthermore, the authors examined whether psychological difficulties had variable effects across school contexts. Initial logistic regression models showed that variables tapping psychological difficulties (fear of crime, family history of mental illness, and low self-control) were significantly related to student weapon carrying and use. Once other criminological and demographic controls were added, only low self-control remained significant. Multilevel models incorporating random slope coefficients and cross-level interactions showed that the relationship between low self-control and student weapon carrying/use was attenuated in schools with higher levels of school efficacy and school security. Similarly, the relationship between fear of crime and weapon carrying depended on the level of school security, with the effect weakened as school security increased.


ABSTRACT

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic resulted in shortages of production and test capacity of FFP2-respirators. Such facemasks are required to be worn by healthcare professionals when performing aerosol-generating procedures on COVID-19 patients. In response to the high demand and short supply, we designed three models of facemasks that are suitable for local production. As these facemasks should meet the requirements of an FFP2-certified facemask, the newly-designed facemasks were tested on the filtration efficiency of the filter material, inward leakage, and breathing resistance with custom-made experimental setups. In these tests, the facemasks were benchmarked against a commercial FFP2 facemask. The filtration efficiency of the facemask's filter material was also tested with coronavirus-loaded aerosols under physiologically relevant conditions. This multidisciplinary effort resulted in the design and production of facemasks that meet the FFP2 requirements, and which can be produced at local production facilities.


ABSTRACT Terrorists from a wide array of ideological influences and organizational structures consider security and risk on a continuous and rational basis. The rationality of terrorism has been long noted of course but studies tended to focus on organizational reasoning behind the strategic turn toward violence. A more recent shift within the literature has examined rational behaviors that underpin the actual tactical commission of a terrorist offense. This article is interested in answering the following questions: What does the cost–benefit decision look like on a single operation? What does the planning process look like? How do terrorists choose between discrete targets? What emotions are felt during the planning and operational phases? What environmental cues are utilized in the decision-making process? Fortunately, much insight is available from the wider criminological literature where studies often provide offender-oriented accounts of the crime commission process. We hypothesize similar factors take place in terrorist decision making and search for evidence within a body of terrorist autobiographies.


Background: The software market is becoming more dynamic which can be seen in frequently changing customer needs. Hence, software companies need to be able to quickly respond to these changes. For software companies this means that they have to become agile with the objective of developing features with very short lead-time and of high quality. A consequence of this challenge is the appearance of agile and lean software development. Practices and principles of agile software development aim at increasing flexibility with regard to changing requirements. Lean software development aims at systematically identifying waste to focus all resources on value adding activities. Objective: The objective of the thesis is to evaluate the usefulness of agile practices in a large-scale industrial setting. In particular, with regard to agile the goal is to understand the effect of migrating from a plan-driven to an agile development approach. A positive effect would underline the usefulness of agile practices. With regard to lean software development the goal is to propose novel solutions inspired by lean manufacturing and product development, and to evaluate their usefulness in further improving agile development. Method: The primary research method used throughout the thesis is case study. As secondary methods for data collection a variety of approaches have been used, such as semi-structured interviews, workshops, study of process documentation, and use of quantitative data. Results: The agile situation was investigated through a series of case studies. The baseline situation (plan-driven development) was evaluated and the effect of the introduction of agile practices was captured, followed by an in-depth analysis of the new situation. Finally, a novel approach, Software Process Improvement through the Lean Measurement (SPI-LEAM) method, was introduced providing a comprehensive measurement approach supporting the company to manage their work in process and capacity. SPI-LEAM focuses on the overall process integrating different dimensions (requirements, maintenance, testing, etc.). When undesired behavior is observed a drill-down analysis for the individual dimensions should be possible. Therefore, we provided solutions for the main product development flow and for software maintenance. The lean solutions were evaluated through case studies.


The framework geology controls on modern barrier island transgression and the relationship of these controls to subsurface structure, hydrology, and island geomorphology are not well understood. Recent evidence suggests that alongshore variations in pre-Holocene geology of barrier islands modify nearshore hydrodynamic processes and sediment transport, ultimately affecting how barrier islands will respond to storms and relative sea-level rise. Explorations of Holocene barrier island geology are usually based on cores to supplement bathymetric, onshore/offshore seismic and/or ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveys. Alternative near-surface geophysical methods including electromagnetic induction (EMI) sensors are increasingly being used for coastal research because they are non-invasive, provide continuous subsurface information across a variety of sub-environments, are capable of characterizing large areas in a short time, and are considerably more cost effective than the abovementioned techniques. This dissertation demonstrates the utility of using EMI methods for mapping large-scale (101 – 102 km) barrier island framework geology at Padre Island National Seashore (PAIS), Texas, USA. Instrument calibrations and tidal experiments suggest that although hydrology influences EMI signals along the beach, the effect of changing hydrology is not statistically significant over large spatial scales. For the first time, this study shows the importance of statistically modeling EMI spatial data and digital elevation model (DEM) extracted morphometrics to examine the statistical relationships (or lack thereof) between framework geology and geomorphology. A family of fractional autoregressive integrated moving average ARIMA (p,d,q) models demonstrate each spatial data series is most accurately modeled by a single parameter, d, indicating a strong tendency towards long-range dependence (LRD) that suggests self-similarity. Dune height and EMI σa have nearly identical d-values (~ 0.35), which suggests a statistically significant connection between framework geology and dune height at a global scale (100 km). Variations in d at both regional (~30 km) and local (10 km) scales differ by varying degrees, providing further evidence that framework geology controls are more important at the largest spatial scales. By integrating EMI and DEM morphometrics with multivariate analysis and ARIMA modeling, this study offers a robust and novel way for accurately quantifying the entire geological complexity of a barrier island using only three parameters (p,d,q). Moreover, this study shows that EMI sensors are complementary to and offer significant advantages over traditional methods in support of an improved understanding of large-scale barrier island transgression.


Advent of digital sensors and machines led to a significant acceleration in industrial evolution. The desire to automate industrial processes with minimum human intervention paved the way for the onset of a new era of technological nomenclature called the industrial Internet of things (IIoT). A remarkable feature of IIoT is its underlying architecture which allows the managers/engineers/supervisors to remotely operate and access the performance of their machines. Industries ranging from healthcare, finance, logistics, and power have witnessed a major performance increment and quality stabilization by transforming themselves into an IIoT empowered smart environment. However, this transformation has brought with itself a whole new set of challenges with cybersecurity being the paramount. The vulnerabilities like bugs and broken processes can lead to a serious compromise or even collapse of security mechanisms of IIoT networks. Such a situation will have a devastating impact on the financial health, reputation, and credibility of companies. After an extensive review of existing technologies, we believe that blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) can complement each other in building a revolutionary deterrent to negate malicious activities that in any form intend to harm the system. While, blockchain offers public/private/consortium relationships, ML and AI, on the other hand, follow the principle of supervised/ unsupervised/reinforcement learning and reactive/memory approaches, respectively. Based on the distributed ledger system, blockchain mechanisms can be aided with self-learning algorithms which will update and strengthen the database by learning each time the system suffers new forms of network attacks and intrusions. This process of learning will help build a robust system which can learn to optimize its deterrence procedures against different forms of attacks. It is due to these overwhelming benefits, blockchain, AI, and ML find applications in smart logistics, predictive maintenance, autonomous vehicles, intelligent manufacturing, and smart grid maintenance.


Brake squeal is a highly complex noise mechanism resulting from friction induced vibration
which excites many separate but mechanically connected components within the brake
system. Often this can be broken down into the whole corner assembly, including suspension,
at low frequencies while at the higher frequencies only the friction couple of disc and pads are
of interest. The brake disc plays the role of the noise emitter and therefore must be excited
through the friction pair interface in order to generate noise. It is therefore of interest to
identify how the brake pad vibrates in relation to the disc mode of vibration. This paper
presents measurements of pad vibration under dynamic squeal conditions on a laboratory
dynamometer. Measurements are made using piezo-electric beams mounted about the inboard
and outboard brake pad. Various squeal frequencies are investigated including a phenomenon
where a pair of squeal frequencies, close in value, are seen to emanate at different brake
pressure applications. This phenomenon is of particular interest as the noisy regions are
separated by quiet zones within the brake application. This "switching" between the two
frequencies can be related to the pad mode of vibration (torsion or bending) which in turn
may be related to the disc mode "fixing" about the pads. Finite element analysis is used to
investigate the free-free pad modes of vibration with experimental "shaker" testing used to
correlate and confirm the results.


Adolescence has a task to accomplish in order to accept the changes that occur. Encouragement achieves the full developmental task of mature sexual adolescence that comes from teenage interest and curiosity about sexuality. However, adolescents vent their curiosity to physical behavior that is part of sexual harassment. The high level of negative behavior toward sex this the attention of educators in preventing and overcoming them. Guidance and Counseling in schools has a preventive function, whereby Counselors can guide clients against self-harmful behavior with varied and flexible behaviors and techniques. Modules with high adaptability to the development of science and technology in the form of electronic module (e-module) can be a media service Counselor. E-module is a user manual in digital version that can be opened by using electronic device. The module may obtain Counselors in the form of services in a certain format.


Despite a growing number of studies on human–animal interactions, empirical data focusing on companion animals within the context of health-promoting work-life are still limited. This article presents an analysis and discussion based on the perceptions of 22 students and staff from the University of Gävle in Sweden on the potential of companion animals for supportive functions in health-promoting work-life, as well as on the possible challenges of having companion animals on the premises of the University. Based on the findings, this article proposes that companion animals can indeed play vital supportive functions in health-promoting work-life, which are presented in the text as "forcing function," "communication companion," and "social skills." However, this article also highlights the socio-economic, legal, and organizational challenges that need to be carefully considered and worked out for having companion animals in the workplace, such as in a university.


PHYSICS
In traditional light-guiding techniques, the light is confined to the region of high refractive index by total internal reflection. However, miniscule modulations or defects on the surface can lead to significant diffractive losses of the light out of the guide and are generally difficult to remove. Chutinan et al. propose a scheme involving the coupling of two- and three-dimensional (3D) photonic bandgap structures to suppress these diffractive losses. In their proposed design and fabrication scheme, the optical network is patterned in a 2D layer of a photonic crystal slab. This is then sandwiched between 3D photonic bandgap cladding layers, which are specifically engineered to prevent any leaky modes at the wavelength of interest. Although experimental verification is some way off, the simulated results of all-optical networks indicate a promising route toward leak-free all-optical microchips.— ISO

Phys. Rev. Lett. 90 , 123901 (2003).


It is an intimidating prospect to follow the late G. E. Bentley, Jr., in compiling even a portion of this year's checklist. As readers of this journal well know, Bentley's impact on the study of Blake was profound and places him in the lofty empyrean inhabited by Geoffrey Keynes, S. Foster Damon, Mona Wilson, Northrop Frye, and David V. Erdman. In the words of David Worrall, "As Bentley realized a long time ago, and the rest of us somewhat later, the study of Blake is a uniquely complex activity because the abundance, technical complexity and material diversity of Blake's original artifacts is combined with a dearth of 'literary' information about his life." In A Blake Bibliography (co-authored with Martin K. Nurmi), Blake Books, Blake Books Supplement, and "William Blake and His Circle," Bentley brought bibliography on both Blake and scholarship about him to its present state of precision and comprehensiveness. In Blake Records, he provided scholars with an easy means of accessing all the materially known facts of Blake's life and his contemporary reception. He edited important facsimiles that offered painstaking transcriptions of Tiriel and Vala, or The Four Zoas, and his William Blake's Writings vied with Erdman's Complete Poetry and Prose as the most authoritative letterpress edition of Blake's literary works. His scholarship was frightfully prolific, even toward the end of his life, and it covered not only Blake but also a wide range of writers and publishers connected to him, including George Cumberland, the Edwardses of Halifax, and Thomas Macklin. The highest praise may be the simplest: G. E. Bentley, Jr., helped us understand Blake better.


Three-dimensional animation is one of the greatest contributions made by computer sciences to the animation industry. The 3D animation has been widely used in movie special effects, commercials, computer games and computer-based education (CBE), and has become a well-known form of art in the world's pop culture. The rapid development of 3D animation also brings about fundamental changes in the materials used in animation production. This paper gives an introduction of the virtual materials in 3D animation, as well as the tools needed and methods of making the materials using 3D animation design software, especially Maya.


In the manufacturing of hot water tanks, welding quality evaluation and fault detection is a critical operation that is still frequently conducted visually or with the help of none destructive tests, which can generate a high consumption of time and resources. To overcome this problem, many methods have been proposed for defect detection based on the classification of the welding signals. However, most of the proposed methods do not consider the problems of defect localization and the generalization from small sample size. Moreover, studies on the interactions between welding signals seem to be absent in the literature despite its importance in the formulation of the defect detection problem. In this paper, we aim to address these gaps by presenting a study on the causalities between welding signals in the circular welding of hot water tanks. Based on the findings from the causality study, we propose a method that detects and localize welding defect with high accuracy and handles the problem of small sample size. Furthermore, we present a study on the defects root cause and show the possibility of early defect prediction.


Sleep disturbances have far-reaching effects on the neuroendocrine and immune systems and may be linked to disease manifestation. Sleep deprivation can accelerate the onset of lupus in NZB/NZWF(1) mice, an animal model of severe systemic lupus erythematosus. High prolactin (PRL) concentrations are involved in the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus in human beings, as well as in NZB/NZWF(1) mice. We hypothesized that PRL could be involved in the earlier onset of the disease in sleep-deprived NZB/NZWF(1) mice. We also investigated its binding to dopaminergic receptors, since PRL secretion is mainly controlled by dopamine. Female NZB/NZWF(1) mice aged 9 weeks were deprived of sleep using the multiple platform method. Blood samples were taken for the determination of PRL concentrations and quantitative receptor autoradiography was used to map binding of the tritiated dopaminergic receptor ligands [3H]-SCH23390, [3H]-raclopride and [3H]-WIN35,428 to D(1) and D(2) dopaminergic receptors and dopamine transporter sites throughout the brain, respectively. Sleep deprivation induced a significant decrease in plasma PRL secretion (2.58 +/- 0.95 ng/mL) compared with the control group (25.25 +/- 9.18 ng/mL). The binding to D(1) and D(2) binding sites was not significantly affected by sleep deprivation; however, dopamine transporter binding was significantly increased in subdivisions of the caudate-putamen--posterior (16.52 +/- 0.5 vs 14.44 +/- 0.6), dorsolateral (18.84 +/- 0.7 vs 15.97 +/- 0.7) and ventrolateral (24.99 +/- 0.5 vs 22.54 +/- 0.7 microCi/g), in the sleep-deprived mice when compared to the control group. These results suggest that PRL is not the main mechanism involved in the earlier onset of the disease observed in sleep-deprived NZB/NZWF(1) mice and the reduction of PRL concentrations after sleep deprivation may be mediated by modifications in the dopamine transporter sites of the caudate-putamen.


Based on the extensive theoretical analysis of a self-learning algorithm, a novel on-line neural network self-learning algorithm is proposed. This algorithm aims to learn the inverse dynamics of a controlled system. Samples can be easily obtained by the measurements. A reference model or a given orbit is used to generate ideal system responses. A scheme for on-line real-time implementation of such a controller is given. The proposed algorithm has been used to design a self-learning power system stabilizer. Simulation results show that the proposed self-learning neural network based PSS is very effective in damping out the lower frequency oscillations.


We present a general equilibrium model of monopolistic competition featuring pro-competitive effects and a competitive limit, and investigate the impact of trade on welfare and efficiency. Contrary to the constant elasticity case, in which all gains from trade are due to product diversity, our model allows for a welfare decomposition between gains from product diversity and gains from pro-competitive effects. We show that the market outcome is not efficient because too many firms operate at an inefficiently small scale by charging too high markups. We further illustrate that trade raises efficiency by narrowing the gap between the equilibrium utility and the optimal utility. As the population gets arbitrarily large in the integrated economy, the equilibrium utility converges to the optimal utility because of the competitive limit. We finally extend the variable elasticity model to a multi-sector setting, and show that intersectoral distortions are eliminated in the limit. The multi-sector model allows us to illustrate some new aspects arising from intersectoral and intrasectoral allocations, namely that trade leads to structural convergence, rather than sectoral specialization, and that trade induces domestic exit in the nontraded sector.


Introduction: Capitellar fractures are rare injuries and difficult to manage, especially so if the patient presents late. Treatment is almost always operative. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the functional outcome of capitellar fractures in adults treated by open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) with cannulated compression headless screws (Herbert screw) with an inadvertent delay of 2 weeks or more. Materials and Methods: Twelve patients (4 males and 8 females) of capitellum fracture who were reported after an inadvertent delay of at least 2 weeks, with near-normal elbow range of motion, operated by ORIF with Herbert screw, were studied retrospectively from April 2013 to March 2019. All cases were operated between 2 to 3 weeks of injury. All patients had a follow-up for a mean period of 34 months, and the final functional outcome was assessed using Mayo Elbow Performance Index (MEPI) and by radiology. Results: The mean MEPI score was 92.9 points, and as per this evaluation of the functional rating, all but one patient had excellent results. The mean range of elbow flexion/extension was 125 (90–140), while the range of movement in supination/pronation was 170 (130–180). Conclusion: ORIF of capitellum fractures with Herbert screw was found to be superior and gives excellent result, even with a delay of around 2 weeks. Preoperative computed tomography is helpful not only to know clear picture of fracture configuration but also to choose right surgical approach and right implant. Apart from stable internal fixation, early mobilization and rehabilitation are the keys for optimum functional outcome.


Urban computing is an emerging area of investigation in which researchers study cities using digital data. Location-Based Social Networks (LBSNs) generate one specific type of digital data that offers unprecedented geographic and temporal resolutions. We discuss fundamental concepts of urban computing leveraging LBSN data and present a survey of recent urban computing studies that make use of LBSN data. We also point out the opportunities and challenges that those studies open.


This study proposes a new method for estimating tight oil resources in a closed petroleum system using an alternative mass balance model. The proposed approach primarily derives resource estimates based on a large volume of Rock-Eval pyrolysis data. In addition to leveraging the cost-effective, straightforward, and rapid process, the proposed method has the flexibility to assess the potential of different types of resources, including organic-rich tight (shale) oil and organic-lean tight oil. The method is validated by assessing the oil resource potential of the middle Permian Lucaogou Formation (P2l) in the Jimusaer depression, Junggar Basin, China. Results indicate that the P2l contains 1.62 × 109 t (11.91 × 109 bbl) of organic-rich and 2.88 × 109 t (21.17 × 109 bbl) of organic-lean tight oil. Of the organic-rich tight oil, 21% comprises free oil resources, amounting to 0.343 × 109 t (2.521 × 109 bbl). The proposed approach deals sufficiently with the different resources in a petroleum system well and provides a useful tool for estimating the resource potential of an unconventional play.


The role of viruses as causative agents of cancer in man has been examined for more than 50 years. These studies have recently been intensified by employing newly developed, more sensitive techniques in virology and immunology. In spite of proof that viruses cause cancer in animals and that about one-quarter of the known 600 viruses possess oncogenic potential, definite proof of their aetiology in human cancer remains elusive even though cancer research is a highly respectable and costly pursuit. Nevertheless, the probabilities are high that human cancer viruses have been and will be identified and that their induced diseases can be prevented or controlled. It is accepted that some benign tumours of man (such as warts) are induced by a virus infection. This article examines the current situation and highlights the difficulties, hopes and usefulness of research in this field.


SUMMARY Modern business conditions give greater priority to the franchising business in relation to independently launching of business. On the other hand, the complex conditions of business are full of unpredictable situations where businesses can find and what their business is becoming endangered. These unwanted and often unpredictable consequences often threaten to income and well-being of this approach to the market and undermine this business model make less valuable and attractive to businesses, to those who find themselves in the role of donors and those in the user's role or the franchisee. Therefore, modern businesses, especially the franchise businesses, in order to protect their business, and the success of the business as a franchisee and all subjects involved in a specific business project, special attention is given to ensuring the franchising business model. The paper first explains the need for insurance in terms of contemporary globalization franchising business and then gives an overview of available models of franchising insurance, with a special focus on ensuring the franchisor.


Nature-inspired magnetically-responsive intelligent topography surfaces have attracted considerable attention owing to their controllable droplet manipulation abilities. However, it's still challenging for magnetically-responsive surfaces to realize three-dimensional (3D) droplet/multi-droplet transport in both horizontal and vertical directions. Additionally, the droplet horizontal propulsion speed needs to be improved. In this work, a 3D droplet/multi-droplet transport strategy based on magnetically-responsive microplates array (MMA) actuated by spatially varying and periodic magnetic field is proposed. The modified superhydrophobic surface can transport droplets rapidly both in horizontal and vertical directions, and even realize against-gravity upslope propulsion. The rapid horizontal droplet propulsion (~58.6 mm/s) is ascribed to the abrupt inversion of the modified surface induced by the specific magnetic field. Furthermore, the non-magnetically-responsive microplates (NMMs)/MMA composite surface is constructed to realize 3D multi-droplet manipulation. The implementations of MMA in manipulation of continuous fluids and liquid metal are further demonstrated, providing a valuable platform for microfluidic applications.


Both pregnancy & Congenital Heart Disease affect each other, due to hemodynamics changes, which may affect both mother & fetus. In this article we are going to talk about pre-pregnancy assessment, complications, drugs & mode of delivery in pregnancy with Congenital Heart Disease. Mother's complications: Heart failure, arrhythmias, bleeding or thrombosis, and rarely maternal death [1]. Fetus complications: Birth defects, prematurity, low birth weight, abortion, and stillbirth [1]. Conclusion: All CHD female patients must receive pre-pregnancy counseling, thus preventing all pregnancy-related avoidable risks and complications for both mother and fetus.


The objective of the hydraulic capture method for optimal groundwater remediation
design is containment of a contaminant plume using barrier wells to reverse the
direction of groundwater flow. Finding a solution involves applying optimization
algorithms in conjunction with simulators for groundwater flow and possibly for
contaminant transport. The formulation of the objective function and its
corresponding constraints dictates which optimization algorithms are appropriate and
usually eliminates gradient based approaches from consideration. In addition,
objective functions and constraints can be nonlinear, non-convex, non-
differentiable, or even discontinuous, and the simulations involved can be
computationally expensive.

Both computational efficiency and accuracy are important, and this further
influences the choice of solution method. With the advent and increasing
availability of massively parallel computers, computational speed has increased
tremendously. Unfortunately, the numerical and model complexities of problems like
groundwater remediation still demand significant computational resources. Moreover,
these expenses can be a limiting factor of optimization since obtaining solutions
often requires the completion of numerous computationally intensive jobs.
Therefore, we propose an algorithm designed to improve the computational efficiency
of an optimization method for a wide range of applications and apply it to
groundwater remediation.

Our approach takes advantage of the interactions between multifidelity models and is
applicable to problems for which models of varying fidelity are available. The
method can be described as follows: First, a direct search method is applied to the
high fidelity model over a reduced design space. In conjunction with this search, a
specialized oracle is employed to map the design space of this high fidelity model
to that of a computationally cheaper low fidelity model using space mapping
techniques. Then, in the low fidelity space, an optimum is obtained using gradient
based optimization, and it is mapped back to the high fidelity space.

To motivate this work, we consider a hydraulic capture problem proposed in the
literature for benchmarking purposes. The problem is to minimize the cost to install
and operate a set of wells subject to constraints on the concentration of a
contaminant at specified locations in the physical domain. We solve the problem by
applying the multifidelity approach described above using only flow information for
the low fidelity model and using concentration based constraints for the high
fidelity model. We present some promising results for this preliminary problem, and
explain how we plan to extend our study by considering more representative physical
models, simulators, objective function formulations, and by incorporating real-site
data.


Current treatment protocols for 177 Lu-PSMA-617 therapies were cautiously derived from dosimetry data, but their practical appropriateness have not yet been proven clinically. We retrospectively report our clinical observations using four different treatment activities. Methods: Forty patients with advanced prostate cancer and positive uptake in PSMA-imaging were treated in fractions of 4 GBq / 80 nmol, 6 GBq / 120 nmol, 7.4 GBq / 150 nmol or 9.3 GBq / 150 nmol 177 Lu-activity / precursor-amount (n=10, respectively) every 2 months. Safety lab was checked every 2 weeks, PSA-response every 4 weeks; other effects were assessed per anamnesis. Results: Initial PSA response presented no correlation to treatment activity. However, 2/10, 4/10, 4/10 and 7/10 patients with doses of 4, 6, 7.4 and 9.3 GBq were in partial remission 8 weeks after completing all 3 cycles; This would be in line with, but due to low patient numbers not proving, a positive dose-response-relationship. Acute hematological toxicity was also irrespective of treatment activity and no more than one grade-3/4 toxicity was observed in each group. Nevertheless, in contrast to the other groups the mean platelet count in the 9.3 GBq group chronically decreased over time. Conclusions: If patients with diffuse red marrow infiltration and extensive chemotherapeutical pretreatments are excluded, treatment activities up to three injections of 9.3 GBq 177 Lu-PSMA-617 every two months are well tolerable. Further dose escalation should be conducted with care as the MTD seems to be close.


The aim of this study is to investigate the applicability of using an epoxy based isotropic conductive adhesive (ICA), to mount a silicon 3D system-on chip (SoC) in a ceramic 16 pad leadless chip carrier (LCC). We present and discuss thermo-mechanical FEA simulation results obtained by implementing the viscoelastic properties of the adhesive. A generalized Maxwell model using Prony series was considered in this study. We analyse the generated strain and stress in the ICA interconnect as a function of the adhesive geometry for two high and low operating temperatures. The goal is to define an optimal volume and geometry of the cured adhesive with respect to minimized stress at the interfaces between the pads and the adhesive. The target is to reduce the risk of crack initiation and propagation caused by thermal stress by careful design.