Using multi-wavelength observations of Galactic black hole (BH) binaries, we can learn about the physical processes at work in these systems, including improving our understanding of emission mechanisms, accretion processes, and jet production. With the launch of the Spitzer Space Telescope, we have recently been able to extend our studies into the far-IR (24-70 microns) where strong emission can be seen from compact jets or the accretion disk. On 2004 August 20, we simultaneously observed the BH binary GX 339-4 at radio, far-IR, near-IR, optical, and X-ray energies, and we report on the results from these observations. Based on the X-ray properties, GX 339-4 had just entered the "Steep Power-Law" state at this time. A detection in the radio band indicates the presence of optically thin synchrotron emission from a jet. In addition, we measured a flux of 135 +/- 34 microJy at 24 microns, representing the first detection of a black hole binary with Spitzer. We model the broadband spectral energy distribution (SED) and discuss the physical implications.


We conducted a representative survey among young women to determine knowledge, use, and perceptions on barriers, benefits, and risks related to selected herbal drugs (Crocus sativus, Borago officinalis, Citrus aurantium, Thymus vulgaris, Matricaria chamomilla, Lavandula angustifolia, Valeriana officinalis, Hypericum perforatum, and Panax ginseng) in Gorgan by using an internally validated questionnaire. There were 344 participants (mean age 16.3 years; 16.2% in science course). Saffron had most reported knowledge (n = 265, 77.0%) and ever use (n = 324, 94.1%). The average number of source of knowledge was 2.5; parents (n = 224, 65.1%) were the single most frequent source. Media (combined magazine, the Internet, TV, radio) was the source of knowledge for 283 (82.2%) participants. Actual use was "harmful" for the majority (n = 182, 52.9%; no idea n = 83, 24.1%). Parents and media provided knowledge on herbal drugs for most, supporting unsurprisingly high perceived knowledge but harmful actual experience. Programs to educate people are needed to not take herbal drugs lightly.


The aim of this study was to analyse the role of verbal and visuo-spatial working memory (WM) and language skills (vocabulary, listening comprehension) in predicting preschool and kindergarten-aged children's ability to solve mathematical word problems presented orally. The participants were 116 Finnish-speaking children aged 4–7 years. The results showed that verbal WM (VWM) did not have a direct effect on word problems in young children but was indirectly related to word problems through vocabulary and listening comprehension. These results suggest that in young children, VWM resources support language skills which, furthermore, contribute to variation in solving orally presented word problems. The results also showed that visuo-spatial WM had a direct effect on performance in word problems, suggesting that it plays an important role in word problem solving among this age group.


Here we present high-resolution (15–24 au) observations of CO isotopologue lines from the Molecules with ALMA on Planet-forming Scales (MAPS) ALMA Large Program. Our analysis employs observations of the (J = 2–1) and (1–0) lines of 13CO and C18O and the (J = 1–0) line of C17O for five protoplanetary disks. We retrieve CO gas density distributions, using three independent methods: (1) a thermochemical modeling framework based on the CO data, the broadband spectral energy distribution, and the millimeter continuum emission; (2) an empirical temperature distribution based on optically thick CO lines; and (3) a direct fit to the C17O hyperfine lines. Results from these methods generally show excellent agreement. The CO gas column density profiles of the five disks show significant variations in the absolute value and the radial shape. Assuming a gas-to-dust mass ratio of 100, all five disks have a global CO-to-H2 abundance 10–100 times lower than the interstellar medium ratio. The CO gas distributions between 150 and 400 au match well with models of viscous disks, supporting the long-standing theory. CO gas gaps appear to be correlated with continuum gap locations, but some deep continuum gaps do not have corresponding CO gaps. The relative depths of CO and dust gaps are generally consistent with predictions of planet–disk interactions, but some CO gaps are 5–10 times shallower than predictions based on dust gaps. This paper is part of the MAPS special issue of the Astrophysical Journal Supplement.


A heavy dust fell in Beijing on April 16-17, 2006. The dust storm formed in middle and western Inner Mongolia, China, under a strong Mongolian Cyclone. During the dust fall, the near-surface wind speed was insignificant in Beijing. The minimal wind speed at ground level indicates that the dust must have been transported by upper northwestern winds, and the local dust of Beijing contributed little to dust fall. The lack of a contribution from local dust differed from previous dust fall events in Beijing. Therefore, this dust fall provides good information on the dust source. Dust samples colleted during this event and Pleistocene loess samples from the Beijing area were analyzed for magnetic susceptibility, bulk particle and quartz grain size distributions, bulk particle and quartz micro-textures, mineralogy, carbonate content, major element concentrations, trace element and rare earth element (REE) concentrations, and the oxygen isotope composition of quartz. The results indicate the following. (1) The dust of the April 2006 storm derives mainly from surface sediments in middle and western Inner Mongolia, with some minor contributions from anthropogenic emissions from coal combustion and mining. (2) The characteristics of the dust fall in China appear to vary with time and location, which has significance for palcoclimate reconstructions. (3) Many characteristics differ between the dust from 2006 event and Pleistocene loess in Beijing, and implying that the two have different sources. (4) The loess deposits found in Beijing and on the Loess Plateau also appear to differ in provenance.


Abstract Magic sets are a Datalog to Datalog rewriting technique to optimize query answering. The rewritten program focuses on a portion of the stable model(s) of the input program which is sufficient to answer the given query. However, the rewriting may introduce new recursive definitions, which can involve even negation and aggregations, and may slow down program evaluation. This paper enhances the magic set technique by preventing the creation of (new) recursive definitions in the rewritten program. It turns out that the new version of magic sets is closed for Datalog programs with stratified negation and aggregations, which is very convenient to obtain efficient computation of the stable model of the rewritten program. Moreover, the rewritten program is further optimized by the elimination of subsumed rules and by the efficient handling of the cases where binding propagation is lost. The research was stimulated by a challenge on the exploitation of Datalog/dlv for efficient reasoning on large ontologies. All proposed techniques have been hence implemented in the dlv system, and tested for ontological reasoning, confirming their effectiveness.


Maps of land usage are usually produced through image classification that is a process on remotely sensed images for preparing the thematic maps. In this study, multispectral IKONOS II and Landsat imagery data were classified with the methods of artificial neural networks, standard maximum likelihood classifier, and fuzzy logic method. While back-propagating learning algorithm was used for artificial neural network method, Sugeno-type fuzzy model was used for the application of fuzzy logic method. Also, the determination of the optimum design of ANN classification was aimed by using ANN learning algorithms and designating different networks. Comparisons were made in terms of classification accuracy that is the validation tool for the process of image classification. Results show that artificial neural network classification is more robust than the standard maximum likelihood method and fuzzy logic method. However, determining the optimum network structure is a cumbersome but necessary stage in the classification of ANN.


Little has been written on the role of gender in Jewish philanthropy, and there is even less empirical research on gender differences between Jewish men and women, or between Jews and non-Jews by gender. This study examines Jewish philanthropy by type of giving and gender. Specifically, we examine the differing amounts given to charity (both religious and secular) across eight groups, controlling for other factors that may affect philanthropic giving. These included four groups of married couples: those consisting of two Jewish spouses, of a Jewish man and a non-Jewish woman, of a non-Jewish man and a Jewish woman, and of two non-Jewish spouses; and four groups of singles: Jewish men, Jewish women, non-Jewish men and non-Jewish women. Using three waves of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we used regression methods to examine the differences among the groups. Results indicated that the probability of giving and the amount given among Jewish women married to non-Jewish men are significantly less than among all other groups.


Despite much recent progress, human monoclonal antibodies (HuMAbs) are currently more difficult to generate than conventional rodent monoclonals. Clinical trials using rodent monoclonals suggest that they can be given safely, but that the human antimouse immune response can limit their efficacy. We review the human monoclonals that have been generated to date, and explore the clinical uses that will be made of these reagents in the near future.


Introduction: Dermatophytoses are fungal infections whose treatment has been the subject of much concern throughout the world. The emergence of antifungal resistance (azoles) in clinical therapeutics is well known. However, few studies demonstrate the capacity of dermatophytes to develop resistance against natural products such as terpenes. The monoterpenes geraniol and citronellol have recognized antifungal potential and are found in various essential oils. Objectives: To investigate the capacity of Trichophyton rubrum , Microsporum canis, and Microsporum gypseum to acquire resistance against citronellol and geraniol. Methods: The minimum inhibitory concentration of the tested drugs was determined by microdilution. The fungal strains were subjected to eight successive subcultures in Sabouraud dextrose agar containing the monoterpenes in sub-inhibitory concentrations. After this period of adaptation, the susceptibility profile to drugs was assessed by microdilution. Finally, after eight passages in culture medium without the drugs, resistance stability was again evaluated by microdilution test. Results: From the initial citronellol and geraniol minimum inhibitory concentration values we observed an increase. In addition, a cross over effect was observed against the azole compounds. Finally, the fungi reversed their profiles of resistance against the natural drugs and showed no reversal in resistance to azoles. Although in dermatophytes the development of resistance to monoterpenes was observed, the phenomenon was not stable, as was observed against the azole drugs. Conclusions: Citronellol and geraniol were active against resistant isolates even after dis-habituation. Thus these monoterpenes present themselves as potential therapeutic alternatives with fewer complications in the emergence of resistance.


An analytical framework to predict failure of solders under creep conditions is proposed. A creep-rupture model for two-phase eutectic solders, based on both micromechanics and fracture mechanics, has been developed. The general agreement between the model predictions and reported creep-rupture data in the literature for lead/tin eutectic solder indicates that the mode and mechanisms proposed in the model may control the solder creep-rupture process. >


During routine bilateral dissection of 64 upper limbs in 32 adult human cadavers, four cases of an axillary arch, a muscular anomaly, were found. In one case, the axillary arch presented on both sides and in two cases it presented unilaterally on the right side. The innervation and relationships of the axillary arches are reported and the surgical significance of the anomaly is discussed. Clin. Anat. 16:514–519, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of domain highlighting in helping users identify whether Web pages are legitimate or spurious. Background: As a component of the URL, a domain name can be overlooked. Consequently, browsers highlight the domain name to help users identify which Web site they are visiting. Nevertheless, few studies have assessed the effectiveness of domain highlighting, and the only formal study confounded highlighting with instructions to look at the address bar. Method: We conducted two phishing detection experiments. Experiment 1 was run online: Participants judged the legitimacy of Web pages in two phases. In Phase 1, participants were to judge the legitimacy based on any information on the Web page, whereas in Phase 2, they were to focus on the address bar. Whether the domain was highlighted was also varied. Experiment 2 was conducted similarly but with participants in a laboratory setting, which allowed tracking of fixations. Results: Participants differentiated the legitimate and fraudulent Web pages better than chance. There was some benefit of attending to the address bar, but domain highlighting did not provide effective protection against phishing attacks. Analysis of eye-gaze fixation measures was in agreement with the task performance, but heat-map results revealed that participants' visual attention was attracted by the highlighted domains. Conclusion: Failure to detect many fraudulent Web pages even when the domain was highlighted implies that users lacked knowledge of Web page security cues or how to use those cues. Application: Potential applications include development of phishing prevention training incorporating domain highlighting with other methods to help users identify phishing Web pages.


What are the long-term effects of universal preschool programs on child outcomes? We review 26 studies using natural experiments to estimate the effects of universal preschool programs for children aged 0-6 years on child outcomes measured from third grade to adulthood. Studies comparing preschool with parental, family, or other informal modes of care show mixed effects on test scores, and on measures related to health, well-being, and behavior. However, all estimates for outcomes related to adequate primary and secondary school progression, years of schooling, highest degree completed, employment, and earnings indicate beneficial average effects of universal preschool programs. Three of the included studies calculate benefits-to-costs ratios and find ratios clearly above one. Universal preschool tends to be more beneficial for children with low socioeconomic status, and there are not consistently different effects for boys or girls. Only three studies compare two alternative types of universal preschool programs in terms of long-term outcomes.


Douglas-fir seed chalcid (DFSC) Megastigmus spermotrophus, a small (3 mm long) host-specific seed-predatory wasp, was accidentally introduced into New Zealand in the 1920s. Concern over DFSC reducing Douglas-fir seed production in New Zealand led to an attempt at biocontrol in 1955 with the release, but failed establishment, of the small (2.5 mm long) parasitoid wasp, Mesopolobus spermotrophus. We investigated why DFSC causes little destruction of Douglas-fir seed in New Zealand (usually <20%) despite the apparent absence of major natural enemies. Douglas-fir seed collections from 13 New Zealand sites yielded the seed predator (DFSC) but also potential parasitoids, which were identified using morphology and partial COI DNA sequencing. DFSC destroyed only 0.15% of Douglas-fir seed. All parasitoids were identified as the pteromalid wasp, Mes. spermotrophus, the host-specific biocontrol agent released in 1955. Total parasitism was 48.5%, but levels at some sites approached 90%, with some evidence of density-dependence. The discovery of the parasitoid Mes. spermotrophus could indicate that the biocontrol agent released in 1955 did establish after all. Alternatively, Mes. spermotrophus could have arrived accidentally in more recent importations of Douglas-fir seed. The high level of parasitism of DFSC by Mes. spermotrophus is consistent with DFSC being under successful biological control in New Zealand. Suppression of DFSC populations will benefit commercial Douglas-fir seed production in New Zealand, but it also represents the likely loss of a potential biological control agent for wilding Douglas-fir.


Light microscopy has greatly advanced our understanding of nature. The achievable resolution, however, is limited by optical wavelengths to ≈200 nm. By using imaging and labeling technologies, resolutions beyond the diffraction limit can be achieved for specialized specimens with techniques such as near-field scanning optical microscopy, stimulated emission depletion microscopy, and photoactivated localization microscopy. Here, we report a versatile soft x-ray diffraction microscope with 70- to 90-nm resolution by using two different tabletop coherent soft x-ray sources—a soft x-ray laser and a high-harmonic source. We also use field curvature correction that allows high numerical aperture imaging and near-diffraction-limited resolution of 1.5λ. A tabletop soft x-ray diffraction microscope should find broad applications in biology, nanoscience, and materials science because of its simple optical design, high resolution, large depth of field, 3D imaging capability, scalability to shorter wavelengths, and ultrafast temporal resolution.


In the Summer 2013 issue of The Review of Faith & International Affairs, experts on eight countries of East/Southeast Asia—China (Fenggang Yang), Indonesia (Robert W. Hefner), Singapore (Mathew Mathews), the Philippines (Jayeel Cornelio), Burma (Mikael Gravers), Vietnam (James F. Lewis), Laos (Stephen Bailey), and Japan (Kevin Cooney) assess the state of existing scholarly research on religious freedom. In most cases they find that serious scholarly research focused directly on religious freedom is a rarity. They offer theories to explain the past patterns of research on religion, and make detailed recommendations for future research projects on religious freedom that would enrich the multi-disciplinary field of Asian Studies.


Mechanical and Electrical (M&E) services account for 10-70% of the total cost of projects, depending on the project type. Sadly, the complex nature of the design of M&E services among other peculiar attributes has led to an enormous challenge in the cost management of M&E services in the construction industry. This study examined the knowledge areas required to effectively cost-manage M&E services in construction projects. Data for the study were collected by administering copies of a carefully designed questionnaire among experts in M&E services after a pilot study with a team of experts. The variables outlined in the questionnaire were extracted from relevant literature. In selecting the M&E services experts that participated in the survey, purposive and snowballing sampling techniques were used. The professionals involved include Electrical, Mechanical engineers, and Quantity Surveyors. Data analysis was done using Mean Item Score, Gap analysis, Spearman rank correlation, and Kendall coefficient of concordance. Findings revealed that knowledge in Bill of Quantities (BOQ) preparation, valuation, measurement of M&E works, estimating, and quality management were ranked as the most important knowledge areas and a statistically significant agreement among the experts was recorded. Gap analysis revealed that the ability of cost managers/QSs on the knowledge areas is currently below expectation while a moderate relationship was observed between the importance and performance of QSs/cost managers in the knowledge areas. The study concludes that there is a need for cost managers/Quantity Surveyors to enhance their knowledge in the identified knowledge areas and strive hard to close the gap between importance and their performance on the knowledge areas.


In porcine coronary artery, bradykinin-induced endothelium-dependent vasodilatations are associated with simultaneous endothelium as well as endothelium-dependent smooth muscle cell (SMC) hyperpolarizations. In contrast, in porcine ciliary artery bradykinin evokes endothelium-dependent relaxations, but no change in SMC membrane potential. This study addresses the question of whether the lack of bradykinin-induced SMC hyperpolarization is also associated with an absence of endothelial hyperpolarization in porcine ciliary artery. With a microelectrode to impale cells in arterial strips, a 12-mV transient bradykinin-induced hyperpolarization was measured in endothelial cells. Bradykinin evoked no SMC hyperpolarization deep in the media. Only occasionally, a slight 4-mV hyperpolarization could be recorded in some SMC next to the endothelium. The endothelial intracellular injection (through the recording electrode) of the fluorescent tracers, lucifer yellow or ethidium bromide, showed the existence of a heterocellular dye coupling between endothelial cells and SMC. These observations in porcine ciliary artery demonstrate that the lack of bradykinin-induced endothelium-dependent SMC hyperpolarization is not due to an absence of endothelial cell hyperpolarization, but most likely to an insufficient electrotonic propagation space constant from endothelial cells to SMC, despite the presence of a dye coupling between these cells.


It is well known that, in classification problems, the predictive capacity of any decision-making model decreases rapidly with increasing asymmetry of the target variable (Sonquist et al., 1973; Fielding 1977). In particular, in segmentation analysis with a categorical target variable, very poor improvements of purity are obtained when the least represented modality counts less than 1/4 of the cases of the most represented modality. The same problem arises with other (theoretically more exhaustive) techniques such as Artificial Neural Networks. Actually, the optimal situation for classification analyses is the maximum uncertainty, that is, equidistribution of the target variable. Some classification techniques are more robust, by using, for example, the less sensitive logit transformation of the target variable (Fabbris & Martini 2002); however, also the logit transformation is strongly affected by the distributive asymmetry of the target variable.
In this paper, starting from the results of a direct survey in which the target (binary) variable was extremely asymmetrical (10% vs. 90%, or greater asymmetry), we noted that also the logit model with the most significant parameters had very reduced fitting measures and almost zero predictive power. To solve this predictive issue, we tested post-stratification techniques, artificially symmetrizing a training sample. In this way, a substantially increase of fitting and predictive capacity was achieved, both in the symmetrized sample and, above all, in the original sample.
In conclusion of the paper, an application of the same technique to a dataset of very different nature and size is described, demonstrating that the method is stable even in the case of analysis executed with all data of a population.


The eggshell colouration among and within certain bird species is highly variable. Although many studies have addressed this variation, the reasons for it remain largely unclear. Consistent individual differences in egg colouration may improve the ability of colonially breeding birds to recognise their clutch among other neighbouring nests. Moreover, in species with a high incidence of intraspecific brood parasitism, such as the Black-head Gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus, egg colouration patterns may allow parents to expel foreign eggs from their own clutch. Here, we used standardised photography and image processing, including UV spectral information, to investigate egg colour patterns in female Black-headed Gulls (476 eggs in 170 clutches) during four breeding seasons, from 2015 to 2018 in NE Germany. We confirmed maternity by comparing DNA extracted from eggshells with feathers from the breeding female. Our results showed a greater similarity of eggs within a clutch than among clutches (ANOSIM: R = 0.43, P = 0.001). Black-headed Gulls showed consistent individual-specific eggshell colour pattern across consecutive breeding seasons. Genetic analyses further revealed one foreign egg was present in three out of 25 clutches (12%), but these eggs were not expelled by the gulls, possibly because these eggs did not differ significantly in colouration from their own. Additionally, we conducted a clutch exchange experiment to assess the reaction of the breeding pair to a foreign clutch. After 21 neighbouring clutches had been exchanged, adults came back immediately and incubated the interchanged clutch without any negative reaction. It seems that they do not use the specific colour pattern for recognition of their clutches, but possibly use other cues that remain to be investigated. While the function of individual egg colour patterns remains unclear, our results strongly suggest colour variation is driven by internal rather than external factors in this colonially breeding species.


Master the latest electronic warfare (EW) techniques and technologies related to on-board military platforms with this authoritative resource. You gain expert design guidance on technologies and equipment used to detect and identify emitter threats, giving you an advantage in the never-ending chess game between sensor guided weapons and EW systems. This unique book offers you deeper insight into EW systems principles of operation and their mathematical descriptions, arming you with better knowledge for your specific design applications.


INTRODUCTION
Point of care ultrasound (POCUS) is increasingly used in primary care in the USA and has been shown to provide significant benefit to care in deployed military settings and during disaster relief efforts. It is less studied as a tool during humanitarian assistance missions. We sought to determine the utility of POCUS in a humanitarian assistance setting during the February 2019 joint U.S.-Brazilian hospital assistance mission aboard the Hospitalar Assistance Ship Carlos Chagas along the Madeira River in the Brazilian Amazon.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Point of care ultrasound was offered as a diagnostic modality to primary care physicians during the course of a month-long mission. A handheld IVIZ ultrasound machine was loaned for use during this mission by Sonosite. A P21v phased array (5-1 MHz) or an L38v linear (10-5 MHz) transducer was used for scanning. Requests for POCUS examinations, their findings, and changes in patient management were recorded.

RESULTS
Point of care ultrasound examinations were requested and performed in 24 of 814 (3%) outpatient primary care visits. Ten of these studies (42% of POCUS examinations, 1.2% of all patient visits) directed patient management decisions, in each case preventing unnecessary referral.

CONCLUSIONS
In this austere setting, POCUS proved to be an inexpensive, effective tool at preventing unnecessary referrals. Future medical humanitarian assistance missions may likewise find POCUS to be a primary care force-multiplier.


When the supply of energetic substrates is insufficient to slow the development of the catabolism, the next step is to focus on the neuro-endocrine mechanism which regulates the anabolism-catabolism balance. In this work, we review the endocrine response to stress and its implications in protein metabolism, in order to evaluate the different therapeutic possibilities available. Pharmacological blocking of the secretion of catabolic hormones (glucagon and catecholamines) has been unsuccessful up to now. Insulin is the only hormone which produces anabolism in all energetic substrates, but the results published about its administration with glucose and amino acids and its effects upon the nitrogen balance are controversial. The administration of anabolic steroids such as nandrolone, stanolone, and methenolone are usually associated with protein anabolism with minimum androgenizing action. The most recent works lead to the study of the effects of the use of GH and IGF-1 with clearly hopeful results. We have not yet acquired enough experience to use these methods in the habitual clinical practice. At the moment, the clinical studies are in the experimental stage and their application in nutrition is not accepted by the official authorities.


Greedy-GQ is an off-policy two timescale algorithm for optimal control in reinforcement learning. This paper develops the first finite-sample analysis for the Greedy-GQ algorithm with linear function approximation under Markovian noise. Our finite-sample analysis provides theoretical justification for choosing stepsizes for this two timescale algorithm for faster convergence in practice, and suggests a trade-off between the convergence rate and the quality of the obtained policy. Our paper extends the finite-sample analyses of two timescale reinforcement learning algorithms from policy evaluation to optimal control, which is of more practical interest. Specifically, in contrast to existing finite-sample analyses for two timescale methods, e.g., GTD, GTD2 and TDC, where their objective functions are convex, the objective function of the Greedy-GQ algorithm is non-convex. Moreover, the Greedy-GQ algorithm is also not a linear two-timescale stochastic approximation algorithm. Our techniques in this paper provide a general framework for finite-sample analysis of non-convex value-based reinforcement learning algorithms for optimal control.


Spectral compensation is an information-processing technique applied in the transmitter to improve the spectral efficiency of multicarrier modulation under a given power spectral density constraint. A set of carefully chosen tones, the so-called information tones, carries data. The remaining tones, referred to as compensation tones, are modulated with a linear combination of the data, such that the spectral characteristic of the transmit signal and thus the throughput are improved. This paper investigates strategies to find the set of compensation tones and presents the optimal solution for the linear combination of the data given the tone-set split. The optimality criterion is maximization of throughput for a time-dispersive Gaussian channel known to the transmitter. Furthermore, a suboptimal design is proposed, which has low runtime-complexity and achieves near-optimal performance.


Background: The most frequent malignancy among women worldwide is breast cancer, it accounts for 25% of all cancers. The aim of screening programs is to recognize individuals through the asymptomatic stages for possible recognition of cancer during preclinical phases of the disease. Objectives: To evaluate the breast cancer screening program result in Baghdad Al-Russafa Health sectors during 2015 and to estimate breast cancer screening program's effectiveness. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted At Baghdad Al-Russafa Health districts, over the period from first January to December 2015. Data was collected from the database related to the program that was kept at Al-Russafa health sectors in a special form that was adopted by Iraqi ministry of health, true positive results of mammography was collected from the hospital Results: The total coverage rate of AlRussafa Health Directorate/ Baghdad was 71% and the number required to screen and to identify one case of breast cancer was 38. The percent of patients with positive screening test was11%. Detection ability of Baghdad Al Russafa Health Directorate was 3%. Percentage of positive predictive value of Baghdad alrussafa health directorate was 0.42%. Conclusion: The program had a high coverage rate in Al-russafa Health Directorate and the end results of diagnosed cases were low & it consisted of less than one-third of definitely screened cases. There was a high detection ability of the whole program. The number needed to screen to identify one case of breasts cancer was lower than those needed to be screened to identify one case in the screening program of other countries with low Positive predictive value.


Three algorithms were developed to identify the center of the hallway and guide the robot in the correct direction. The first two algorithms use a generic filter (normal, median, or Gaussian) followed by edge detection and then corner detection on the edgedetected image. The first algorithm identifies the strongest vertical lines on an image. Averaging the horizontal coordinates of the vertical lines indicates the location of the center of the hallway relative to the robot. The second algorithm utilizes the trapezoidal shape of the hallway formed where the floor meets the walls, as seen from the perspective of the robot. The y-coordinates associated with the trapezoid's legs are then compared to estimate robot orientation with respect to the walls. The third algorithm uses color to segment the floor from the rest of the features in the image (walls, ceiling, and obstacles). Once again, the trapezoidal shape appears and the center of the hallway is determined based on the location of the highest y-valued pixels identified as floor pixels. Test data indicates that none of these algorithms is singularly sufficient; however, combining their results they can identify the direction a robot must turn to remain in the center of the hallway with 96.6% accuracy. Furthermore, leveraging the results of multiple algorithms produces more robust navigation, where one algorithm covers over the shortcomings of another. The vision system architecture is designed to execute algorithms in parallel. Such a structure enables the addition and removal of algorithms without adversely affecting the system as a whole. Further algorithms may be developed and easily added to improve navigation. Additionally, the system may intelligently ignore results from algorithms that are recognized as inappropriate for certain situations.


Numerical computations are used to evaluate electric field dosimetry for high-resolution anatomically based inhomogeneous models of a human male child, and male and female rats and mice, under exposure to 60 Hz uniform magnetic field sources of three perpendicular orientations. The goal is to compare the child data to previously computed adult dosimetry and to evaluate the accuracy of linear scaling of organ dosimetry between species. It is expected that this work will aid in the design and interpretation of experiments involving rodents. It is found that child-to-adult and mouse-to-rat organ dosimetry shows the expected linear dependence on the geometric scale factor between models. The comparison between mice and the human child shows that postural and individual organ differences do have significant effects, and that care is required in scaling-based extrapolation of rodent experiment results to humans. However, for unrestrained animals, linear scaling appears to be a reasonable and conservative approach. Most of the rodent organ fields, for at least one field orientation, are greater than those expected from linear scaling.


The intrinsic spin Hall effect on spin accumulation and electric conductance in a diffusive regime of a 2D electron gas has been studied for a 2D strip of a finite width. It is shown that the spin polarization near the flanks of the strip, as well as the electric current in the longitudinal direction, exhibit damped oscillations as a function of the width and strength of the Dresselhaus spin-orbit interaction. Cubic terms of this interaction are crucial for spin accumulation near the edges. As expected, no effect on the spin accumulation and electric conductance have been found in case of Rashba spin-orbit interaction.


Critical thinking is a reflective mechanism that helps students to evaluate the information and knowledge that they acquire during classes or that they come into contact with in their everyday lives. Critical assessment aids students to ascertain the extent to which these concepts are relevant for and applicable to their lives, careers, purposes and personal experiences. Critical thinking requires students not solely to assimilate information but also to interact with it actively, to evaluate it, to understand whether or not it is accurate, to determine its role and the goal it may serve. Traditional classroom settings foster the development of critical thinking skills through interaction between students engaged in group activities as well as through careful prompting by the instructors. However, this traditional setting is no longer sufficient and does not assist students in developing these skills for the virtual world. This article suggests that the transfer of critical thinking skills to the online environment can be done in several ways in the e-learning process. The possible activities that incorporate these skills could be either individual (the student can interact with the problem or situation on his/her own) or they could be directed towards an already existing or newly formed learning community, in which students interact not only with the given task but also with each other and they stimulate each other to apply critical thinking skills. These types of interactive exercises could be adapted to suit the study domain of almost any student, since the formats are quite flexible and the instructor simply needs to incorporate the specific situation/case/scenario.


This paper examines the taxation of housing in Israel, and proposes a set of reforms to improve the efficiency and fairness of the current system. Israel's housing tax system faces similar problems to those of many other OECD countries. In particular, a bias arises in favour of owner-occupied property relative to rented property due to the non-taxation of imputed rents and most capital gains. That said, unlike many OECD countries, Israel taxes some owner-occupied capital gains (above a generous threshold) and generally does not allow mortgage interest relief for owner-occupied properties, reducing the extent of the distortion more than in many countries. As with most OECD countries, Israel levies highly distortionary transaction taxes, although a zero-rate band significantly limits the number of owner-occupied house purchases subject to the tax. Additionally, Israel's recurrent property tax (the Arnona) faces a number of design problems, while the tax rules for rental income are complex and subject to significant tax evasion. To address these concerns, a reform package is proposed that involves a gradual and broadly revenue-neutral shift away from transaction taxes towards recurrent taxation of residential property, via increases in both the recurrent property tax and rental income taxation. The redesign of the recurrent property tax from an area-based to a market value-based tax is also proposed, as are a number of more technical reforms.


In this article, we set out to describe the general 'lexicogrammar' of English locative constructions within a broadly neo-Firthian theoretical frame. First, we look at the question of how the verb and its participants — nominal and prepositional — are structurally integrated with each other. To characterize the representational semantics of locative constructions, we develop Fawcett's (1987) proposal that they express caused 'circumstantial relations'. Both diachronic and synchronic data impose, we show, that English locative constructions also manifest a semantic extension into caused possessive relations, associated mainly with the statal passive of locative constructions with 'container'-verbs. We then turn to the question of the main variants of the locative construction: the into/onto-variant versus the with-variant, and examples with container- versus content-verbs. Interesting but partly divergent claims about the relative markedness of these variants were made by Levin and Rappaport, and Pinker. We confront these with two corpus-based neo-Firthian descriptive heuristics: Halliday's quantitative weighing of the terms in a system, and Sinclair's collocational analysis of items in grammatical environments. The result is a pluridimensional characterization of the markedness of the variants. The with-variant is overall the most common and semantically more general variant because it subsumes a large number of statal passives, which attract meaning extensions into the possessive domain. With strict 'action and event' construals, however, the into/onto-variant is the unmarked one. Cross-classifying this dimension of variation is the semantic opposition between examples with content-verbs and examples with container-verbs, which are characterized by collocational orientation on the Locatum and the Location respectively.


Bacteroidaceae are common gut microbiota members in all warm-blooded animals. However, if Bacteroidaceae are to be used as probiotics, the species selected for different hosts should reflect the natural distribution. In this study, we therefore evaluated host adaptation of bacterial species belonging to the family Bacteroidaceae. B. dorei, B. uniformis, B. xylanisolvens, B. ovatus, B. clarus, B. thetaiotaomicron and B. vulgatus represented human-adapted species while B. gallinaceum, B. caecigallinarum, B. mediterraneensis, B. caecicola, M. massiliensis, B. plebeius and B. coprocola were commonly detected in chicken but not human gut microbiota. There were 29 genes which were present in all human-adapted Bacteroides but absent from the genomes of all chicken isolates, and these included genes required for the pentose cycle and glutamate or histidine metabolism. These genes were expressed during an in vitro competitive assay, in which human-adapted Bacteroides species overgrew the chicken-adapted isolates. Not a single gene specific for the chicken-adapted species was found. Instead, chicken-adapted species exhibited signs of frequent horizontal gene transfer, of KUP, linA and sugE genes in particular. The differences in host adaptation should be considered when the new generation of probiotics for humans or chickens is designed.


Objective:To determine the nature of surgeon information transfer and communication (ITC) errors that lead to adverse events and near misses. To recommend strategies for minimizing or preventing these errors. Summary Background Data:Surgical hospital practice is changing from a single provider to a team-based approach. This has put a premium on effective ITC. The Information Transfer and Communication Practices (ITCP) Project is a multi-institutional effort to: 1) better understand surgeon ITCP and their patient care consequences, 2) determine what has been done to improve ITCP in other professions, and 3) recommend ways to improve these practices among surgeons. Methods:Separate, semi-structured focus group sessions were conducted with surgical residents (n = 59), general surgery attending physicians (n = 36), and surgical nurses (n = 42) at 5 medical centers. Case descriptions and general comments were classified by the nature of ITC lapses and their effects on patients and medical care. Information learned was combined with a review of ITC strategies in other professions to develop principles and guidelines for re-engineering surgeon ITCP. Results:A total of 328 case descriptions and general comments were obtained and classified. Incidents fell into 4 areas: blurred boundaries of responsibility (87 reports), decreased surgeon familiarity with patients (123 reports), diversion of surgeon attention (31 reports), and distorted or inhibited communication (67 reports). Results were subdivided into 30 contributing factors (eg, shift change, location change, number of providers). Consequences of ITC lapses included delays in patient care (77% of cases), wasted surgeon/staff time (48%), and serious adverse patient consequences (31%). Twelve principles and 5 institutional habit changes are recommended to guide ITCP re-engineering. Conclusions:Surgeon communication lapses are significant contributors to adverse patient consequences, and provider inefficiency. Re-engineering ITCP will require significant cultural changes.


In the wild, rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) are social but territorial. Recent surveys suggest that over half of pet rabbits are housed singly. We aimed to compare welfare in single versus paired rabbits. We predicted singletons would show more abnormal or escape behaviour,
 greater stress responses to handling, and reduced body temperature (being unable to huddle with another individual when cold), but that pairs may show aggression. This study was conducted during winter at a rabbit-only rescue centre, and included 45rabbits, comprising 15 housed singly and
 15 pairs. Like most pet rabbits, they were housed either outdoors or in unheated outbuildings. Singletons were mostly in smaller enclosures than pairs. Home-pen observations (40 min) revealed bar-biting in 8/15 single rabbits compared with 0/30 of the paired ones. No other behavioural effects
 of social housing reached significance, and enclosure size showed no significant effects. Body temperature was significantly lower in singletons than pairs, with at least 0.5°C mean difference. On colder days, rabbits adopted compact postures more, and relaxed postures less frequently.
 After handling, pairs resumed normal behaviour significantly more quickly than singletons in the home-pen (3.0 [± 0.3] versus 8.3 [± 1.3] s, respectively). Aggression was never observed. The results indicate that social housing reduces bar-biting, aids thermoregulation, and may
 help buffer stress. Rabbit owners should be encouraged to meet the need for rabbits to be housed with an appropriate conspecific in a suitably large, sheltered enclosure.


We have analysed the function of transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) in yolk sac development in mice by generating somatic chimaeras in which the extraembryonic mesoderm, which gives rise to the endothelial and haematopoietic cells of the yolk sac vasculature, is derived from embryonic stem (ES) cells. The ES cells were stably transfected and express either the full-length type II binding receptor or a kinase-deficient mutant of this receptor. Examination of yolk sacs from chimaeras between E8.5 and 9.5, and analysis of marker expression in embryoid bodies from these mutant ES cell lines in prolonged suspension culture demonstrated that (1) a major function of TGF-beta in yolk sac mesoderm is to regulate production and deposition of fibronectin in the extracellular matrix that maintains yolk sac integrity, (2) TGF-beta signalling is not required for differentiation of extraembryonic mesoderm into endothelial cells but is necessary for their subsequent organisation into robust vessels, and (3) TGF-beta signalling must be tightly regulated for the differentiation of primitive haematopoietic cells to take place normally. Together, these results show that defective TGF-beta signalling in the extraembryonic mesoderm alone is sufficient to account for the extraembryonic phenotype reported previously in TGF-beta1(-/-) mice (Dickson, M. C., Martin, J. S., Cousins, F. M., Kulkarni, A. B., Karlsson, S. and Akhurst, R. J. (1995) Development 121, 1845-1854).


Predicting the movement trajectories of multiple classes of road users in real-world scenarios is a challenging task due to the diverse trajectory patterns. While recent works of pedestrian trajectory prediction successfully modelled the influence of surrounding neighbours based on the relative distances, they are ineffective on multi-class trajectory prediction. This is because they ignore the impact of the implicit correlations between different types of road users on the trajectory to be predicted—for example, a nearby pedestrian has a different level of influence from a nearby car. In this paper, we propose to introduce class information into a graph convolutional neural network to better predict the trajectory of an individual. We embed the class labels of the surrounding objects into the label adjacency matrix (LAM), which is combined with the velocity-based adjacency matrix (VAM) comprised of the objects' velocity, thereby generating a semantics-guided graph adjacency (SAM). SAM effectively models semantic information with trainable parameters to automatically learn the embedded label features that will contribute to the fixed velocity-based trajectory. Such information of spatial and temporal dependencies is passed to a graph convolutional and temporal convolutional network to estimate the predicted trajectory distributions. We further propose new metrics, known as Average2 Displacement Error (aADE) and Average Final Displacement Error (aFDE), that assess network accuracy more accurately. We call our framework Semantics-STGCNN. It consistently shows superior performance to the state-of-the-arts in existing and the newly proposed metrics.


Abstract. In the context of global warming attributable to the increasing levels of CO2, severe drought may be more frequent in areas that already experience chronic water shortages (semiarid areas). This necessitates research on the interactions between increased levels of CO2 and drought and their effect on plant photosynthesis. It is commonly reported that 13C fractionation occurs as CO2 gas diffuses from the atmosphere to the substomatal cavity. Few researchers have investigated 13C fractionation at the site of carboxylation to cytoplasm before sugars are exported outward from the leaf. This process typically progresses in response to variations in environmental conditions (i.e., CO2 concentrations and water stress), including in their interaction. Therefore, saplings of two typical plant species (Platycladus orientalis and Quercus variabilis) from semiarid areas of northern China were selected and cultivated in growth chambers with orthogonal treatments (four CO2 concentration ([CO2])  ×  five soil volumetric water content (SWC)). The δ13C of water-soluble compounds extracted from leaves of saplings was determined for an assessment of instantaneous water use efficiency (WUEcp) after cultivation. Instantaneous water use efficiency derived from gas-exchange measurements (WUEge) was integrated to estimate differences in δ13C signal variation before leaf-level translocation of primary assimilates. The WUEge values in P. orientalis and Q.  variabilis both decreased with increased soil moisture at 35–80 % of field capacity (FC) and increased with elevated [CO2] by increasing photosynthetic capacity and reducing transpiration. Instantaneous water use efficiency (iWUE) according to environmental changes differed between the two species. The WUEge in P. orientalis was significantly greater than that in Q. variabilis, while an opposite tendency was observed when comparing WUEcp between the two species. Total 13C fractionation at the site of carboxylation to cytoplasm before sugar export (total 13C fractionation) was species-specific, as demonstrated in the interaction of [CO2] and SWC. Rising [CO2] coupled with moistened soil generated increasing disparities in δ13C between water-soluble compounds (δ13CWSC) and estimates based on gas-exchange observations (δ13Cobs) in P. orientalis, ranging between 0.0328 and 0.0472 ‰. Differences between δ13CWSC and δ13Cobs in Q. variabilis increased as [CO2] and SWC increased (0.0384–0.0466 ‰). The 13C fractionation from mesophyll conductance (gm) and post-carboxylation both contributed to the total 13C fractionation that was determined by δ13C of water-soluble compounds and gas-exchange measurements. Total 13C fractionation was linearly dependent on stomatal conductance, indicating that post-carboxylation fractionation could be attributed to environmental variation. The magnitude and environmental dependence of apparent post-carboxylation fractionation is worth our attention when addressing photosynthetic fractionation.


The ATOC acoustic feasibility network became functional in December 1995 following the installation of an acoustic source on Pioneer Seamount approximately 50 nm off the coast of Northern California. The current effort is part of the Marine Mammal Research Program Pilot Study. This paper describes the acoustic network of sources and receivers, including the augmentations to be made in summer 1996. The network was designed to take advantage of existing hydrophone arrays, while providing for maximum coverage of the North Pacific by the acoustic paths. The acoustical receptions currently being obtained are processed to obtain ''dot plots'' which show the arrival times and arrival angles of acoustical energy above a chosen signal‐to‐noise ratio. The ''dot plot'' histories demonstrate stable ray arrivals (albeit with significant amplitude fluctuations) for even the longest propagation ranges of 5 Mm. [Work supported by the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program through ARPA.]


With technological development and the wide application range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the regulation of UAV altitude limits in many countries is further alleviated, and the problem of UAV noise pollution has emerged with the recent advent of urban air mobility (UAM) and personal air vehicle (PAV) markets. In this study, one typical propeller, the T-motor 15 × 5 propeller, was analyzed by use of the commercial CFD software, ANSYS FLUENT V19.3. The effects of gravity and convection were analyzed to determine the noise characteristics at altitude using the FW-H equation. A high-altitude drone, which operates at heights from 0 to 10 km with 1,000 to 5,000 revolutions per minute, was analyzed using the steady-state k-ω SST turbulence model. And using the steady-state data to initialize values, an unsteady analysis was performed with the LES turbulence model. The time step was divided based on the 1-degree rotational time, and the velocity residual on each axis was calculated until a value of 10−7 or less was achieved and there was no fluctuation of thrust, at which point it was considered converged. The CFD results were validated with the experimental results for thrust and their results show that the maximum error was 8.64%. The overall sound pressure level was calculated, and noise characteristics in the audible frequency range according to receiver points were also compared. Through this study, thrust and noise data according to altitude were provided. The aerodynamic and aeroacoustic characteristics at high-altitudes, which are generally difficult to measure by experiment, are also presented. Therefore, the appropriate operating altitudes and rotational speeds will be presented through the aeroacoustics analysis corresponding to operational altitude, and the basic research data can then be applied to upcoming unmanned aircraft system (UAS) market.


Porous silicon carbide ceramics with high open porosity and large pore size are usually applied as filters for the cleaning of hot dust gases. However, the large porosity and large pore size will decrease the mechanical properties. In the present study, porous SiC ceramics were prepared using bentonite as bonding phase. The effects of sintering temperature on the microstructure and the compressive strength were studied. Bentonite could melt and spread on the surface of silicon carbide particles at all the sintering temperatures. However, the bonding effects were very different at different temperatures. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


In this article, speed and power dissipation of a 16-bit carry skip adder will be optimized using different optimization methods. This adder is implemented in 70nm technology. First the worst carry propagation time will be reduced by changing logic style and using Genetic Algorithm to optimize the skip network of the circuit. And then the power dissipation of the circuit will be optimized by applying MTCMOS technology and Genetic Algorithm optimization on feature size of the transistors. With these methods we reached 7% improvement in circuit performance and 44% reduction in power consumption of the circuit.


In the competitive economic environment that now exists in practically every segment of mechanical design, the value of assessing the durability of mechanical components as early in the design cycle as possible is obvious. This paper describes an example of an integrated durability analysis process performed on a rotary cutter developed by John Deere, Welland Works using CAE tools exclusively. The Pro/Engineer solid geometry of the cutter was used to generate both a basic ADAMS model (using the embedded product MECHANISM/Pro) and finite element meshes for the flexible components (using Pro/MECHANICA). The flexible bodies were generated using the finite element program ANSYS and then imported into the ADAMS model and their flexibility accounted for in the dynamic simulation of the cutter. The simulation mimicked a rotating drum test that is used in the development of new cutter systems. Embedding finite element representations of critical components within the ADAMS model, offers the advantage of being able to recover the stress/time histories at every node in the finite element model for the entire simulation. This would be analogous to having a virtual strain gauge at every node in the finite element model during the simulation. With the stress/time histories available, FE-Fatigue can be used to perform the durability analysis and the resulting damage and life predictions imported into ANSYS for post processing. This approach successfully predicts crack locations in a physical prototype, thereby validating the analysis procedure


Fossil fuels usage is accelerating the problem of global warming and leading to major climatic changes and utmost usage of these fuel accounts for energy generation. This usage cannot be minimized until a renewable alternative completely replaces their job, but can decreased with necessary techniques. Co-generation by combined heat and power is one such practice making better use of fuel by electricity production and simultaneous use of heat recovering from the process. Conventional power plant or on-site grid with boiler generates less than half of output from the consumed fossil fuel energy input. Whereas, CHP increase the output efficiency on-site by making better use of fuel burnt by enhancing energy resiliency. This work shows, based on what factors CHP can be considered for manufacturing and other facilities, what can be facilities payback period based on their utility charges. And manufacturing entities suitability for converting from the conventional grid or supplementing electricity provided from local utility to more efficient CHP system.


Background: Lipodystrophy is a known adverse effect of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Lipodystrophy resulting in body dysmorphism can lower the quality of life (QoL) among HAART recipients. The main aim of our study was to find the effect of lipodystrophy on QoL among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) on HAART. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital in south India. The participants were assessed for the presence of lipodystrophy. Their QoL was assessed using HIV-AIDS-targeted QoL questionnaire (HAT-QoL). Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS version 11.5. Results: Lipodystrophy was present in 21 participants (42%). The QoL among individuals with lipodystrophy was found to be significantly lower in terms of disclosure worries (P 1⁄4 .023) and financial worries (P 1⁄4 .049). Conclusions: Lipodystrophy adversely affects QoL among PLHIV. There is a need for studies analyzing factors that can potentially improve the QoL in such individuals.


As the Web has grown in the last few decades, we now have nearly one billion websites online and most of them offer rich information, that is usually diffcult to manage by normal users. In order to simplify the process of creating and managing website content with relative ease and with an user friendly experience, lots of content management systems were developed. These are software applications that provide capabilities for multiple users with di erent permission levels to seamlessly create, edit, review and publish website content. They offer a web-based graphical user interface, enabling publishers to access the content management systems online using only a web browser. Because of good security, quality, customisability and great support by the community of developers, open source content management systems are becoming extremely popular and many of them available on the market. The most noticeable are Drupal, Joomla, Magento and Wordpress. A lot of di erent surveys have been done to determine which one of them is the best, but this question still remained unanswered. Because of our personal involvement into developing Drupal and helping the community, this article describes a totally new version of Drupal, named Drupal 8. Firstly, a short overview about Drupal and all its key parts is presented, followed by a chapter describing all the new features and the current status. Two subtopics of this article will include modules that we lately contributed to { Translation Management Tool and Paragraphs. Some of our main issues are described at the end of each module.


In this paper, we describe the basic theory underlying BOR (boolean operator) testing and BRO (boolean and relational operator) test-selection criteria, and discuss experimental evidence that shows that BOR testing requires a far smaller number of test-cases than some more traditional strategies, while retaining fault-detection capabilities that are as good as, or better than these strategies. The approach we describe can be used to develop test cases based on software specifications, or based on the implementation, that is, it can be used for both functional and structural testing. We evaluate the BOR strategy with respect to branch testing, traditional causeeffect graph testing, and informal functional and random testing. Two simulation experiments showed that BOR testing is very effective at detecting faults in predicates. We also performed two experiments where we applied BOR strategy to software specification cause-effect graphs of a real-time control system and a set of N-version programs. Our results indicate that BOR testing is practical, and has detected faults that the previously applied strategies have not.


Do testing and exam conditions make a difference in final exam grades? Do testing "out of class" and "in class" produce different results over the same courses? Several graduate courses (N = 84) were tested under different and varying conditions. The majority of students were international, where English was a second language. In general, the "online" e-testers performed at a higher level than the ""in class"" testers with and without any time restrictions while test taking. Tentative implications might be that online exams (less controls) yield grades which are possibly higher, and may or may not be "grade inflated." On the other hand, possibly less controls in exams yield more learning and higher retention of course content.


Peritoneal dialysis may offer many potential advantages over in-center hemodialysis: lower cost, better quality of care and lower mortality. However, the United States Renal Data System (USRDS) which is a national data system that collects, analyzes, and distributes information about chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in the United States, indicates that the incidence and prevalence of home dialysis remains under-utilized compared with in-center hemodialysis. Future changes in national policy on dialysis may bring about an increase in home dialysis and potentially improve the care and cost in dialysis. This paper is mostly based on the 2017 USRDS Annual Report and centered on the potential missed opportunity caused by the underuse of peritoneal dialysis in the US.


The photometric transit timing technique was proposed by Szabo et al. (2006) as a method for discovering moons of transiting extrasolar planets. In the preliminary analysis of this technique, it was assumed that the noise in the transit lightcurve was well described by uncorrelated white noise. However, this assumption is not necessarily realistic. To determine the effect of using more realistic lightcurves, transit timing uncertainties are calculated for the case of white noise, measured solar photometric noise and measured solar photometric noise that has been filtered. It is found that for light curves contaminated with realistic photometric noise, the transit timing uncertainties are dramatically increased (and thus moon detection reduced). In addition, we find that while filtering reduced this problem, it did not negate it.


Skull measurements differ in terms of discriminative and taxonomic value. Facial signs carry much more taxonomic information than neurocranial structures. Differences in the informative value of selected craniological complexes provide a rationale for differential approach to the interpretation of the results of ethno-racial studies.


ABSTRACTAerosol samples were collected during pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon periods in 2009 in Lijiang, a tourism city located on the southeast Tibetan Plateau, southwest China. To determine the seasonal variation and sources of aerosol species, main elements and water soluble ions were analyzed. The results showed that crustal elements (Si, K, Ca, Ti and Fe) were the main elements with an enrichment whose enrichment factor (EF) value were lower than 10, with the large value (except Ca) occurring during the pre-monsoon period. The EF values of S, Cl, Zn, As, Br, Sb, Pb, and Cu were higher than those of the crustal elements and the large concentration appeared during the monsoon period. Ca2+ and SO42– were the dominant cation and anion, respectively. The greatest value of total ionic concentration was found during the monsoon period, mainly because of the high concentration of SO42– and NH4+. Using the positive matrix factorization model, it was found that the main sources of species were from crustal source, transport from south Asia and eastern China, local vehicle emissions and sea salt. Further results indicated that the pollutants mixed with dust, anthropogenic pollutants and biomass burning emissions can be transported to Lijiang from south Asia and Southeast Asia during the pre-monsoon period. In addition, pollutants rich in SO42– and heavy metal from the Sichuan Basin and eastern Yunnan Province can also be occasionally transported to Lijiang during the monsoon period. The seasonal differences in chemical composition and transportation pathway may have important implications for regional climate change.


Patients with advanced-stage unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) were treated with intrahepatic arterial doxorubicin 30 mg/m2 plus escalating doses of cisplatin up to 100 mg/m2 in conjunction with rapid bolus injection of Spherex (degradable starch microspheres; Kabi Pharmacia, Lund, Sweden) into the hepatic artery, until slowing or reversal of blood flow. Treatments were repeated every 4 to 6 weeks until progression, or were continued indefinitely if there was disease stability or response. Thirty-five evaluable patients have so far been accrued to the study. Objective tumor responses have occurred in 22 patients (63%), of whom 20 had partial responses and two had complete responses. Four of the patients had reversal of tumor-induced portal vein thrombus. Toxicities included death, one patient (and a death of uncertain cause in an additional patient); hepatitis, two patients; pancreatitis, one patient; dyspnea/hypotension, two patients; and hepatic artery nontransient thrombosis in four patients. Six patients have survived 2 years and an additional 10 patients have survived 1 year. The addition of Spherex to intrahepatic arterial chemotherapy for advanced-stage HCC appears to be relatively safe and is well tolerated even in patients with portal vein thrombosis, which represent the majority of patients with advanced-stage HCC.


We carried out experiments to detect impact locations on a composite plate using two types of composite plates, a composite flat plate with a constant thickness of 5 mm and a composite stiffened panel with stringers. Four multiplexed FBG sensors were attached to the bottom surface of the composite plates to acquire impact signals. The FBG sensor wavelength shift data were collected at a sampling frequency of 40 kHz using a high-speed FBG interrogator (SFI-710, Fiberpro Inc., Korea). The arrival times of the impact signals at each FBG sensor were obtained using a signal processing procedure. The arrival times were affected by noise level and signal-to-noise ratio. In order to overcome this weakness, signal processing techniques such as wavelet decomposition, normalization using each noise level and filtering with a moving average were adopted. To calculate the impact locations of the composite plate, a neural network algorithm was applied.


ABSTRACT Concentrations of Mn, Ni, Cr, Fe, Mg, and Ti in biotites separated from 28 samples of tuffs from the Green River Formation of Utah have been used in this study as correlation tools. Concentrations were determined by XRF methods. Comparisons of various element ratios using F tests, Tucky tests, diagrammatic tests, and discriminant analysis using density functions show that the three ratios Mn/Fe + Mg, Mn/Ti, and FeO/MgO are the most easily determined and useful element ratios for correlating tuffs. These ratios can be demonstrated to provide a better means of discriminating among individual tuff layers than the methods proposed by Desborough et al. (1973).


BACKGROUND
Corneal ulcers related to contact lens wear are four to 15 times more likely to occur with extended wear lenses versus daily wear lenses. The introduction of disposable contact lenses raised hopes that this product would reduce complications related to contact lens wear. Such has proven not to be the case, especially when patients are noncompliant with the prescribed wear and care regimen.

METHODS
The ordering patterns of a group of 145 patients wearing disposable contact lenses were monitored for a period of one year, 5 months in an attempt to identify those individuals who were potentially noncompliant in their wearing schedules.

RESULTS
Up to 69 percent of the patients studied were identified as potentially noncompliant. A program to counsel and re-educate these patients about proper disposable contact lens wear was proposed.

CONCLUSIONS
Eye care professionals have a legal and ethical responsibility to provide appropriate follow-up care for patients. The ability to track ordering patterns of patients who wear disposable contact lenses provides a valuable tool to use in identifying patients who could be putting themselves at risk to develop complications related to contact lens wear.


While massive valuable deep models trained on large-scale data have been released to facilitate the artificial intelligence community, they may encounter attacks in deployment which leads to privacy leakage of training data. In this work, we propose a learning approach termed differentially private data-free distillation (DPDFD) for model conversion that can convert a pretrained model (teacher) into its privacy-preserving counterpart (student) via an intermediate generator without access to training data. The learning collaborates three parties in a unified way. First, massive synthetic data are generated with the generator. Then, they are fed into the teacher and student to compute differentially private gradients by normalizing the gradients and adding noise before performing descent. Finally, the student is updated with these differentially private gradients and the generator is updated by taking the student as a fixed discriminator in an alternate manner. In addition to a privacy-preserving student, the generator can generate synthetic data in a differentially private way for other down-stream tasks. We theoretically prove that our approach can guarantee differential privacy and well convergence. Extensive experiments that significantly outperform other differentially private generative approaches demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.


The trend toward using inverters in distributed generation systems and micro-grids has raised the importance of achieving low-distortion, high-quality power export from inverters. Both switching frequency effects and pre-existing grid voltage distortion can contribute to poor power quality. A well designed filter can attenuate switching frequency components but has an impact on the control bandwidth and the impedance presented to grid distortion. This paper describes a filter designed to incorporate an isolating transformer and the design of a complementary controller that rejects grid disturbance, maintains good waveform quality and achieves real and reactive power control. A realistic discrete time implementation is discussed and validated with experimental results.


In this paper, we present a scheme of rough-set-based minimal set of feature selection and classification of power quality disturbances that can be implemented in a general-purpose microcontroller for embedded applications. The developed scheme can efficiently sense the power quality disturbances by the features extracted from the cross-correlogram of power quality disturbance waveforms. In this paper, a stand-alone module, employing microcontroller-based embedded system, is devised for efficiently sensing power quality disturbances in real time for in situ applications. The stand-alone module is developed on a PIC24F series microcontroller. Results show that the accuracy of the proposed scheme is comparable to that obtained in offline analysis using a computer. The method stated here is generic in nature and can be implemented for other microcontroller-based applications for topologically similar problems.


Although the entirety of each student's Personal Practice Model Plan B paper is necessarily shared with the student's Plan B committee, some aspects can be of a personally sensitive nature that the author does not feel comfortable sharing with all others who may read his/her document. Therefore, any blanked-out passages you may see in this paper have been deleted by the author for protection of his/her personal privacy.


: The information currently available for assessing the manganese, copper, zinc and cadmium status of New Zealanders was reviewed. By comparison with current standards the status of manganese and zinc in New Zealanders appears to be adequate and the body burden of cadmium is low. The Cu status of some New Zealanders could be inadequate.


We present here results of laboratory and field experiments using two novel active optic elements, an electro-static membrane mirror, and a dual frequency nematic liquid crystal. These devices have the advantage of low cost, low power consumption, and compact size. Possible applications of the devices are astronomical adaptive optics, laser beam control, laser cavity mode control, and real time holography.


This study investigated the effect of priming on puzzle performance in 49 students. Subjects were given fictitious Chinese Zodiac personality descriptions and asked to complete a Sudoku puzzle. Descriptions were manipulated based on nature (positive or negative) and perceived validity (valid or not valid) of description. Subjects read fictitious research statistics that either supported or refuted the validity Chinese Zodiac Animal Signs in order to manipulate perceived validity. It was hypothesized that participants who received the positive/valid horoscope and negative/invalid horoscope predictions would perform best. Findings supported previous literature that priming subjects to think a certain way can affect behavior (Gramzow, Johnson, & Willard, 2014). Subjects primed to think positively about themselves performed better than those primed to think negatively about themselves. Additionally, perceived validity of horoscope predictions had no effect on performance. This study also discovered a marginally significant trend for participants to reject information that negatively affected their self-perceptions. This research expands upon existing knowledge on priming of positive or negative personality traits in order to fully understand its effect on performance.


Abstract Social sciences are facing a crisis of replicability, and concerns about the confidence in quantitative findings have resulted in an increasing interest in open science practices across many fields. In this article we introduce scholars of (digital) journalism studies and communication science to multiverse analysis while addressing the possible reasons of heterogeneity in the findings of research on engagement with news on social media. Using the question of which news article characteristics predict news engagement on social media, this illustration of the multiverse approach shows how different measurement, data processing, and modelling choices lead to divergent conclusions. In particular, we show how the selection of widely used automated text analysis tools and preprocessing steps influence the conclusions drawn from the analysis. We also use this illustration to guide interested scholars through the different steps of doing a multiverse analysis. More broadly, we demonstrate how multiverse analysis can be an open and transparent research approach in a field that is increasingly faced with a wide range of analytical choices.


There are many postgraduate programs offered in public or private universities in Malaysia. Students can choose whether to further their study or not after completing their undergraduate study. If they choose to pursue their postgraduate studies, they can choose their study approach eithera coursework program or a research program. Most students who wish to pursue postgraduate studies have a problem in selecting the best program of study for them. By adopting the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) method, a decision-making instrument was constructed in this project to assist students to choose their postgraduate study program. In this research, seven main criteria were considered which were education, soft skills, time management, stress management, independence, teamwork and critical thinking. The weight of two main focuses which were research and coursework programs of each criteria was calculated using FAHP. The result indicates the students' tendency to choose either research or coursework programs for their postgraduate study.


This dissertation looks at the effect of participating in crop and livestock insurance on many aspects of farmers' business decision making. In Chapter 2, we investigate the effect of crop insurance enrollment on contract terms and farmers' participation in marketing contracts. Our model shows that improved terms of crop insurance (lower premium, higher subsidy) make contracts less appealing to farmers as mechanisms to mitigate risk. Therefore, intermediaries may revise their contract offers so that they are more attractive. However, improvements in contract terms are limited by their cost to the intermediaries, and will not lead to expanded participation in contracts. Thus, improved insurance terms may not crowd out participation in contracts, but will not expand participation either. In Chapter 3, we use various data sources and 2SLS to empirically test the predictions out of the model we developed in Chapter 2. Specifically, we look at how crop insurance enrollment affects farmers' share of value of production under marketing contracts. We construct a pseudo panel out of the repeated observations from the agricultural and resource management survey (ARMS) data. We use lagged county level subsidy and total precipitation as IVs for insurance enrollment. The second stage result indicates that, in peanut sector, farms with higher possibility of insurance enrollment will have more share of value of production under marketing contracts as well. In Chapter 4, we explore the relationship between farmers' use of livestock insurance and debt use. Risk balancing hypothesis (RBH) suggests that an exogenous reduction in farm's business risk would result in farmers taking more financial risk. We utilize a natural experiment from Jiyuan city in Henan province, China and regression discontinuity design approach to test the RBH. Our empirical results suggest that, farmers that are selected into the compulsory hog insurance program are 20 percent more likely to be willing to take debt than those who are not. Meanwhile, the difference of probability of taking debt between the two groups is insignificant. The combination of the two results indicates that farmers are willing to take more debt after insurance is available. However, the presence of credit constraint prevents them from taking more debt.


The wear and corrosion protective coatings were synthesized on AZ91 Mg alloy and Mg matrix SiCw/AZ91 composite by a microarc oxidation (MAO) technique in an alkali-silicate electrolyte solution. The phase structure of the coatings was analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD). The tribological properties of the coatings sliding against GCr15 steel were investigated on a pin-on-disc friction and wear tester. The morphology and elemental composition of the worn coating surface were determined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). The potentiodynamic polarizing curves were measured to evaluate the corrosion resistance of the coatings. The results showed that the application of the coatings changed evolution tendency of friction coefficients and wear mechanism. For coated Mg alloy and Mg matrix composite, both the wear resistance and corrosion resistance were improved greatly.


The absorption of a bolus of intraperitoneal insulin into the splanchnic and peripheral circulations was separately assessed in dogs using an infusion of two insulin tracers (A1-[3H]insulin and B1-[3H]insulin). One tracer was infused into the superior mesenteric artery and the second into the jugular vein. Serial samples were taken before and after an injection of insulin (1 U/kg ip). Sampling was from the portal vein and the inferior vena cava. By using the principle of equivalent entry of tracer and unlabeled material, we developed two simultaneous equations for the rate of splanchnic and peripheral insulin absorption at each time point. These were solved to yield the two rates. Mean concentrations in the portal vein were approximately 25% higher than in the inferior vena cava, reflecting the splanchnic absorption. This rate accounted for almost half (51 +/- 9%) of the insulin absorbed. The remainder of the absorption was peripheral. The total recovery of intraperitoneal insulin, absorbed by either route, was 88 +/- 11%. Portal absorption peaked earlier than peripheral. Absorption by both routes was 90% complete within approximately 2 h (131 +/- 16 min). In summary, therefore, intraperitoneal insulin is rapidly and almost completely absorbed, with absorption split between the splanchnic and peripheral routes of entry.


In this study, vegetation species were classified by using multispectral satellite images. A full wavelet transform is used to decompose the images into sub-images and the energy in each sub-images is assigned as feature for classification. These features were eliminated and classified by using neuro-fuzzy classifier with linguistic hedges. A classification accuracy of 93.75% was achieved by using the selected five features among 252 extracted features.


This thesis, primarily a study of the of the Diwan of the Hispano-Arab poet Ibn Quzman, attempts to show that the popular Arabic, literary genre, the zajal, has often been studied from the point of view of literary history, or from a genetic; rather than from a generic point of view. It; also attempts to show that, medieval, theories about the zajal, namely that it was written in collioquial or vulgar Hispano-Arabia have been accepted by scholars up to the present withouto adequate examination. In this work the zajal is viewed as part of a literary tradition or literary genre, perhaps shortlived, but in any case neglected, called /al-hazl/. In essence this was a literary parody and an expression of literary revolt against: the strict demands and conventions of classical Arabic literature and writing. It's protagonists seem to have called it. /hazl/ to distinguish its droll approach from the sombre and ponderous traditional style of classical Arabic writing which they termed /mu'rab/. Accordingly an attempt is made here to show that just: as it was the declared intention of the /hazl/ writers to: free their work from the demands of desinential inflection, /i'rab/, they also disregarded the demands of linguistic purity and pedantry. It. is thus one of the themes of this thesis that while the language of the zajal. plays havoc with classical Arabic, and popular or colloquial, terms are rife in it, it is not, as has so far been:, maintained by practically every student of the zajal, a colloquial genre. The metrical irregularity of the zajals of Ibn Quzman is explained in the light of the irregularity and nonconformity which characterize the /hazl/ genre, and an attempt is made at the outset to demonstrate the undesirability of postulating a syllabic theory for his metrical patterns. One other conclusion of this work is that the /kharja/ of the classical muwashshah, the subject of so much controversy, and in many ways a puzzle on account of its Romance, popular, vulgar and sometimes even obscene elements, was an element of /hazl/ appended to: an otherwise strictly classical or /mu'rab/ muwashshah. Finally the thesis also examines some Spanish influences on Ibn Quzman.


Training generative adversarial networks requires balancing of delicate adversarial dynamics. Even with careful tuning, training may diverge or end up in a bad equilibrium with dropped modes. In this work, we improve CS-GAN with natural gradient-based latent optimisation and show that it improves adversarial dynamics by enhancing interactions between the discriminator and the generator. Our experiments demonstrate that latent optimisation can significantly improve GAN training, obtaining state-of-the-art performance for the ImageNet ($128 \times 128$) dataset. Our model achieves an Inception Score (IS) of $148$ and an Frechet Inception Distance (FID) of $3.4$, an improvement of $17\%$ and $32\%$ in IS and FID respectively, compared with the baseline BigGAN-deep model with the same architecture and number of parameters.


Many properties of cathodic arcs from single-element cathodes show a correlation to the cohesive energy of the cathode material. For example, the burning voltage, the erosion rate, or, to a lesser extent, plasma properties like electron temperatures or average ion energy and charge states. For multi-element cathodes, various phases with different cohesive energies can initially be present in the cathode, or form due to arc exposure, complicating the evaluation of such correlations. To test the influence of morphology and phase composition of multi-element cathodes on cathodic arc properties, a Nb–Al cathode model system was used that includes: pure Nb and Al cathodes; intermetallic Nb3Al, Nb2Al and NbAl3 cathodes; and three composite Nb–Al cathodes with atomic ratios corresponding to the stoichiometric ratios of the intermetallic phases. Pulsed cathodic arc plasmas from these cathodes were examined using a mass-per-charge and energy-per-charge analyzer, showing that charge-state-resolved ion energy distributions of plasmas from the intermetallic and corresponding composite cathodes are nearly identical. An examination of converted layers of eroded cathodes using x-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy indicates the formation of a surface layer with similar phase composition for intermetallic and their corresponding composite cathode types. The average arc voltages do not follow the trend of cohesive energies of Nb, Al and intermetallic Nb–Al phases, which have been calculated using density functional theory. Possible reasons for this effect are discussed based on the current knowledge of multi-element arc cathodes and their arc plasma available in literature.


The need for applied behavior analysts is growing both within and outside of the United States (US) and the populations with which applied behavior analysts find themselves working are growing increasingly diverse. However, there are few published examples of how to initiate, establish, and maintain international partnerships. The goal of this paper is to describe an international collaboration that has sustained for several years in an effort to provide a resource for those who wish to develop or increase the sustainability of their own international collaborations. The collaborators' goals, variables that contributed to the onset of their relationship, and an analysis of some of the cultural systems that have presented barriers toward achieving their objectives are discussed.


Abstract People with type 1 diabetes need several insulin injections every day to keep their blood glucose level in the normal range and thereby avoiding the acute and long term complications of diabetes. One of the recent treatments consists of a pump injecting insulin into the subcutaneous layer combined with a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) frequently observing the glucose level. Automatic control of the insulin pump based on CGM observations would ease the burden of constant diabetes treatment and management. We have developed a controller designed to keep the blood glucose level in the normal range by adjusting the size of insulin infusions from the pump based on model predictive control (MPC). A clinical pilot study to test the performance of the MPC controller overnight was performed. The conclusion was that the controller relied too much on the local trend of the blood glucose level which is a problem due to the noise corrupted observations from the CGM. In this paper we present a method to estimate the optimal Kalman gain in the controller based on stochastic differential equation modeling. With this model type we could estimate the process noise and observation noise separately based on data from the first clinical pilot study. In doing so we obtained a more robust control algorithm which is less sensitive to fluctuations in the CGM observations and rely more on the global physiological trend of the blood glucose level. Finally, we present the promising results from the second pilot study testing the improved controller.


Hydrogel membranes have been fabricated that incorporate antibody/antigen moieties. The permeability of large solutes through these membranes is dependent on the presence of soluble antigen that can compete with the internal interactions between antibody and antigen leading to an increase in gel mesh size. Specifically, the membrane's structure is based on a dextran backbone grafted with a fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) antigen and a sheep anti‐FITC IgG antibody. The backbone is covalently cross‐linked by conjugated divinyl sulfone (DVS) groups. The gel structure is additionally stabilized by affinity crosslinks formed by biospecific interactions between the bound IgG and FITC. FTIR spectra of the gel are consistent with formation of covalent bonds between cysteine groups in the IgG and DVS groups in the dextran. Results obtained using isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) confirmed the competitive interaction binding between IgG‐FITC‐dextran and free sodium fluorescein at pH 5.0. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of samples prepared using cryofixation and cryofracturing techniques showed that observed changes in permeability correlate with free fluorescein‐dependent structural changes in the gel. Three‐dimensional images obtained from confocal laser scanning microscopy show that these changes occur throughout the gel and indicate that SEM results are not artifacts of sample preparation. The permeability of these gels, as shown by blue‐dextran (12 kDa) diffusion, increases in response to the presence of free fluorescein of the external medium, which causes competitive displacement of the affinity cross‐links. Sequential addition and removal of sodium fluorescein showed that these permeability changes are reversible. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2007;97: 976–984. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


The current stage of development of the system of higher pedagogical education in Ukraine requires updating the methodological system of training future teachers to teach mathematics to learners. Already today, students of 1st-2nd grades study according to the new State Standard of Primary General Education, the draft Standard of Basic Secondary Education is awaiting approval, the draft Professional Standard for Professions "Primary School Teacher of General Secondary Education Establishment", "Teacher of General Secondary Education Establishment" have been presented for public discussion on the Ministry of Education and Science website.The purpose of methodological training of future teachers is to form in them methodical competence, which is understood as internal personal education, which is manifested in the ability and capability to effectively solve standard and problematic methodological problems, based on theoretical and practical readiness to perform the function of teaching a subject or an integrated course. Based on the essence of the methodological activity of the teacher, methodical competence is considered by us as a system of components, among which – normative, variable, special-methodical, control-evaluation, technological and design-modeling. Thus, the content of the methodological system of training future teachers should be aimed at the formation of each of these components in students.It is obvious that at the present stage of development of the education system of Ukraine, in order to achieve the goal of training future teachers – the formation of methodical competence in them, the content, form and technology of teaching need to be updated. Based on the fact that elementary school learners are already representatives of the digital generation, who have acquired an excessive ability to absorb digital information, who are from an early age in two worlds – physical and virtual, the content of methodological disciplines should be expanded to use ICT in teaching learners mathematics. Based on the current need in the use of ICT in the learning process, the possibility of acquiring methodological competence not only in formal education but also in the process of non-formal and informal education, the methodological system of training has acquired updates and forms of learning. In addition, ICT should not only be the subject of study for student-teachers, but also be widely used directly in the training of future professionals. Therefore, we have improved the technological unit of the methodological system.Thus, the article proposes an update of the developed by the author structural and functional model of training future teachers to teach mathematics to learners, in the block "Methodical system of training student-teachers to teach mathematics to learners".


Many modern clusters are being equipped with multiple GPUs per node to achieve better compute density and power efficiency. However, moving data in/out of GPUs continues to remain a major performance bottleneck. With CUDA 4.1, NVIDIA has introduced Inter-Process Communication (IPC) to address data movement overheads between processes using different GPUs connected to the same node. State-of-the-art MPI libraries like MVAPICH2 are being modified to allow application developers to use MPI calls directly over GPU device memory. This improves the programmability for application developers by removing the burden of dealing with complex data movement optimizations. In this paper, we propose efficient designs for intra-node MPI communication on multi-GPU nodes, taking advantage of IPC capabilities provided in CUDA. We also demonstrate how MPI one-sided communication semantics can provide better performance and overlap by taking advantage of IPC and the Direct Memory Access (DMA) engine on a GPU. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our designs using micro-benchmarks and an application. The proposed designs improve GPU-to-GPU MPI Send/Receive latency for 4MByte messages by 79% and achieve 4 times the bandwidth for the same message size. One-sided communication using Put and Active synchronization shows 74% improvement in latency for 4MByte message, compared to the existing Send/Receive based implementation. Our benchmark using Get and Passive Synchronization demonstrates that true asynchronous progress can be achieved using IPC and the GPU DMA engine. Our designs for two-sided and one-sided communication improve the performance of GPULBM, a CUDA implementation of Lattice Boltzmann Method for multiphase flows, by 16%, compared to the performance using existing designs in MVAPICH2. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to provide a comprehensive solution for MPI two-sided and one-sided GPU-to-GPU communication within a node, using CUDA IPC.