BackgroundThe use of dobutamine stress echocardiography for the evaluation of coronary artery disease is rapidly expanding. New applications of the technique are being investigated in a wide variety of patients including those with advanced coronary artery disease. Despite its widespread use, the safety of dobutamine stress echocardiography has not been sufficiently documented. Methods and ResultsA consecutive series of 1118 patients undergoing dobutamine stress echocardiography for evaluation of known or suspected coronary artery disease form the basis of this report. Dobutamine stress testing was performed for evaluation of chest pain, risk assessment before noncardiac surgery, after recent myocardial infarction, or as a part of ongoing research protocols. Over the study period, the maximal dose of dobutamine used was increased from 30 to 50 jug/kg per minute, and atropine was used in 420 (37%) patients. There were no occurrences of death, myocardial infarction, or episodes of sustained ventricular tachycardia as a result of dobutamine stress testing. The major reasons for test termination were achievement of target heart rate in 583 patients (52.1%), maximum dose in 255 (22.8%), and angina pectoris in 142 (13%). The test was terminated in 36 (3%) patients because of noncardiac side effects including nausea, anxiety, headache, tremor, and urgency. Angina pectoris occurred in 216 (19.3%) patients. Sublingual nitroglycerin, a short-acting 0-blocker, or both types of medication were administered in 80 of these patients for relief of angina pectoris. None required intravenous nitroglycerin. A total of 736 (65%) patients had stable sinus rhythm throughout the test. The most common arrhythmias were frequent premature ventricular complexes (six or more per minute) in 172 patients (15%), and frequent premature atrial complexes in 86 (8%). There were 40 patients with nonsustained ventricular tachycardia. None had symptoms associated with the tachycardia, and only one received specific pharmacological treatment to prevent recurrence of the arrhythmia after the test was terminated. The patients who were evaluated after recent myocardial infarction and those who received atropine did not have a higher frequency of ventricular tachycardia compared with those without recent infarction and those not receiving atropine. ConclusionsDobutamine stress echocardiography was safely performed using supplemental atropine and an aggressive dosing protocol. Noncardiac side effects were usually minor. Arrhythmias were well tolerated and rarely required treatment. In this study, serious complications from myocardial ischemia did not occur. Symptomatic ischemia was effectively treated with test termination, sublingual nitroglycerin, or short-acting f-blockers.


We present an end-to-end imitation learning system for agile, off-road autonomous driving using only low-cost on-board sensors. By imitating a model predictive controller equipped with advanced sensors, we train a deep neural network control policy to map raw, high-dimensional observations to continuous steering and throttle commands. Compared with recent approaches to similar tasks, our method requires neither state estimation nor on-the-fly planning to navigate the vehicle. Our approach relies on, and experimentally validates, recent imitation learning theory. Empirically, we show that policies trained with online imitation learning overcome well-known challenges related to covariate shift and generalize better than policies trained with batch imitation learning. Built on these insights, our autonomous driving system demonstrates successful high-speed off-road driving, matching the state-of-the-art performance.


A series of experiments with and without sample retreatment was performed on a starting mixture of dolomite plus quartz at 0.5 GPa and 600 °C in a CO2-H2O ß uid with a mole fraction of CO2 of 0.2 for durations up to 582 h. The initial reaction of dolomite and quartz led to rapid formation of talc and calcite instead of tremolite and calcite by the intended reaction: 5 dolomite + 8 quartz + H2O = tremolite + 3 calcite + 7 CO2. With continued treatment, the talc + calcite + quartz assemblage gradually reacts to form increasing amounts of tremolite and diopside with the eventual loss of quartz and nearly complete loss of talc. The detailed structure of the amphibole and the nature of the Mg enrichment were revealed using AEM analysis of individual amphibole crystals. The most abundant defects are triple-chain chain multiplicity faults (CMFs), which appear as isolated lamellae with single periodicity in short-duration experiments and increasingly as groups of lamellae with variable multiplicity and periodicity in longer duration experiments and especially in a long-duration experiment without retreatment. In this latter experiment, a calcian clinojimthompsonite domain extending 15 unit cells along the b axis was observed. The sample after 582 h and Þ ve retreatments shows, on average, 3.5% true solid solution with Mg expressed as the Mg-cummingtonite (MC) component after correction for the presence of CMFs. This sample is thought to most closely approach the equilibrium composition for the amphibole. The sample after 250 h with three retreatments has about 10%, whereas that after 582 h without retreatment has 0.6% MC component, the latter having a relatively high density of CMFs. This study afÞ rms the importance that precursor non-amphibole biopyriboles play in the formation of tremolitic amphibole.


In this paper, we investigate the weighted iterative decoding to improve the performance of turbo-polar code. First of all, a minimum weighted mean square error criterion is proposed to optimize the scaling factors (SFs). Secondly, for two typical iterative algorithms, such as soft cancellation (SCAN) and belief propagation (BP) decoding, genie-aided decoders are proposed as the ideal reference of the practical decoding. Guided by this optimization framework, the optimal SFs of SCAN or BP decoders are obtained. The bit error rate performance of turbo-polar code with the optimal SFs can achieve 0.3 dB or 0.7 dB performance gains over the standard SCAN or BP decoding respectively.


The unsteady hydrodynamic interaction of two bodies moving in a shallow fluid is examined by applying slender-body theory. The bodies are assumed to be in each other's far field and the free surface is assumed to be rigid. By matched asymptotics, the inner and outer problems are formulated and a pair of coupled integro-differential equations for determining the unknown cross-flows is derived. The degree of coupling is shown to be related to a bottom-clearance parameter. Expressions are given for the unsteady sinkage force, trimming moment, sway force, and yaw moment. Numerical calculations for two weakly coupled cases are presented. One corresponds to the interaction of a stationary body with a passing one, the other to the interaction of two bodies moving in a steady configuration. Theoretical results are compared with existing experimental data.


Abstract: Habitat loss and fragmentation due to timber harvest in western Oregon has put wildlife species reliant on late‐seral forest under demographic pressure as available habitat shrinks and local populations become isolated. Few studies have examined the effects of habitat removal and fragmentation on the ability of wildlife to disperse over large areas. We used a spatially explicit population model to examine the effects of landscape patterns on the dispersal success of territorial wildlife species with different dispersal capabilities and home‐range sizes. Simulations of dispersal were conducted on 8.3 million ha of forested landscape in western Oregon, based on forest conditions derived from satellite imagery. We compared dispersal success for baseline conditions of land cover with two alternative landscape patterns: late‐seral forest habitat systematically converted to a younger forest class based on (1) public ownership and (2) the Northwest Forest Plan reserve system. Dispersal success increased with larger dispersal distances and with smaller home ranges (  p < 0.01). Results indicate that the reserve system will not maintain habitat connectivity throughout the landscape for species with relatively short dispersal distances. Patches showing the greatest decrease in dispersal activity following the systematic removal of late‐seral forest habitat were identified as important areas of connectivity.


The promise of Mobile Health (mHealth) is the ability to use wearable sensors to monitor participant physiology at high frequencies during daily life to enable temporally-precise health interventions. However, a major challenge is frequent missing data. Despite a rich imputation literature, existing techniques are ineffective for the pulsative signals which comprise many mHealth applications, and a lack of available datasets has stymied progress. We address this gap with PulseImpute, the first large-scale pulsative signal imputation challenge which includes realistic mHealth missingness models, an extensive set of baselines, and clinically-relevant downstream tasks. Our baseline models include a novel transformer-based architecture designed to exploit the structure of pulsative signals. We hope that PulseImpute will enable the ML community to tackle this significant and challenging task.


Abstract. Reactive mercury (RM) is an important component of the global atmospheric mercury cycle, but measurement currently depends on un-calibrated, operationally defined methods with large uncertainty and demonstrated interferences and artifacts. Cation exchange membranes (CEM) provide a promising alternative methodology for quantification of RM, but method validation and improvement are ongoing. For the CEM material to be reliable, uptake of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) must be negligible for all conditions, and RM compounds must be captured and retained with high efficiency. In this study the performance of CEM material under exposure to high concentrations of GEM (1.43 × 106–1.85 × 106 pg m−3) and reactive gaseous mercury bromide (HgBr2 ~ 5000 pg m−3) was explored, using a custom-built mercury vapor permeation system, with quantification of total permeated Hg accomplished via pyrolysis at 600 °C and detection using a Tekran® 2537A. Permeation tests were conducted for 24 to 72 hours in clean laboratory air, with absolute humidity levels ranging from 0.1–10 g m−3 water vapor. Gaseous elemental mercury uptake by the CEM material averaged no more than 0.004 % of total exposure for all test conditions, which equates to a non-detectable GEM artifact for typical ambient air sample concentrations. Recovery of HgBr2 on CEM filters was > 100 % compared to calculated total permeated HgBr2, suggesting incomplete thermal decomposition at the pyrolyzer, as the CEM material collected HgBr2 with less than 1 % downstream breakthrough on average, implying a high collection efficiency.


Presents a simulation study of a hypercube architecture of complex nodes. The goal of the simulation experiments is to compare two possible architectural solutions for the complex nodes, and to study the hypercube behaviour under different types of workload. The models have been expressed in the formalism of stochastic well-formed nets (SWNs), which is a class of high-level stochastic Petri nets, and the results have been obtained using a general-purpose simulator for SWN models. In this study, the availability of a general-purpose simulator and the flexibility and parametricity of the SWN formalism has indeed been a crucial point in what we think is a successful example of "benchmarking by models": a characterization of an architecture in terms of models, rather than by measurement.


Experience with a new operative procedure namely arterialization of popliteal vein (APV) on 182 cases with 80% success for ischaemic lower extremity due to chronic nonspecific arterial occlusive diseases (ChNAOD) not responding to conservative methods of management currently in vogue is described. Success of this new operation saves the limbs from amputation which was done when conservative methods failed. The main purpose of this article is to write about etiology-clinical features--laboratory--and angiographic findings of this ChNAOD and APV operation. Accidental discovery of gastrocnemious muscle circulation responsible for success of APV operation is mentioned.


Vera Zamagni charts the remarkable story of European economic growth from the birth of industrialization through to the present day. Setting European events within the wider context of world economic progress and alongside developments in Asia, Eastern Europe and the United States, she provides an up-to-date and authoritative survey suitable for course use. The book begins with an outline of the economic landscape of the late Middle Ages before exploring the process of European industrialization, including how the British model was replicated across Europe, and why Britain was unable to maintain its position relative to other economies, in particular the United States. The advent of global finance is examined and the economic impact of world war and revolution is assessed. European reconstruction and integration is analysed alongside the decline of Russia and the growth of the Asian economies. The book ends with an assessment of the impact of the global crash of 2008 and the subsequent crisis of the Eurozone. Throughout her analysis, Zamagni shows how the social and economic institutions and values of European civilization catalyzed economic progress. That these same structures are now threatened makes this history particularly timely.


There is growing awareness of the mental health impact of all types of mass violence. The exposure of large population groups, mostly having no mental health problems prior to the exposure, and the subsequent development, in a significant proportion of the population, of a variety of psychiatric symptoms and disorders represent both a challenge and an opportunity for psychiatrists. There is sufficient evidence from the variety of mass violence/conflict situations, that a significant proportion of the exposed population develop different mental disorders. There are vulnerable groups like women, children, widows, orphans, elderly, disabled, those exposed to severe pain and loss of body parts. There is also a consistent finding of the dose-response to the amount of trauma and the prevalence of mental disorders. There is growing recognition that there is need to consider a variety of syndromes, in addition to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) like acute stress disorder (ASD), depression, complicated bereavement reactions, substance use disorders, poor physical health, fear, anxiety, physiological arousal, somatisation, anger control, functional disability and arrest or regression of childhood developmental progression. The challenge is to reach all of the ill persons and provide mental health services. The opportunity provided by this field is to develop a better understanding of issues of resilience, recovery and effectiveness of public health approaches to mental health care.


A binary tanglegram is a pair 〈S, T 〉 of binary trees whose leaf sets are in one-to-one correspondence; matching leaves are connected by inter-tree edges. For applications, for example in phylogenetics, it is essential that both trees are drawn with no edge crossing and that the inter-tree edges have as few crossings as possible. It is known that finding a drawing with the minimum number of crossings is NP-hard and that the problem is fixed-parameter tractable with respect to that number. We show that the problem is hard even if both trees are complete binary trees. For this case we give an O(n)-time 2-approximation and a new and simple fixedparameter algorithm. We prove that under the Unique Games Conjecture there is no constant-factor approximation for general binary trees. We show that the maximization version of the problem for general binary trees can be reduced to a version of MaxCut for which the algorithm of Goemans and Williamson yields a 0.878-approximation.


A three-dimensional model of airflow over hills has been used in conjunction with a two-dimensional model of orographic rainfall enhancement. This development has allowed the accurate production of rainfall contour maps in areas of complex terrain. A comparison has been made, using a variety of atmospheric stability profiles, between the wind fields and rainfall distributions over a bell-shaped hill and those over a two dimensional ridge of similar height. the results show that, in conditions of either stably stratified air or with an inversion layer aloft, three-dimensional airflow effects can lead to much reduced rainfall over a bell-shaped hill. It is shown that in such situations the use of a two-dimensional approximation can introduce significant errors. an example is presented of the rainfall distribution in complex hill terrain over south Kintyre on the western coast of Scotland.


The use of tracers as a hydrogeological tool was reviewed in four papers at this meeting and demonstrated the diversity of their use to the hydrogeologist and groundwater engineer. The use of radionuclides as groundwater tracers. S. Nixon, (Water Research Centre, Stevenage). The choice of radionuclides is subject largely to a wide range of half-lives, varying from 15 hours (24Na) to 12.26 years (tritium), and to obtaining the necessary authorization to introduce these into an aquifer. The type of equipment used was shown in conjunction with a summary of several case histories including: (i) injecting radionuclides into an aquifer at controlled depths within an injection well to assess the flow of sea water leaking into a dry dock; (ii) to prove the connection of leachate in a quarry contaminating a nearby stream; (iii) to assess groundwater flow beneath a landfill in a limestone quarry; (iv) to assess the quantity of recharge entering a landslip in comparison to the total quantity of groundwater leaving it. The use of dissolved gases and natural radioactive isotopes in hydrogeological studies. J. N. Andrews (Bath University). Gases dissolved in the groundwater during recharge provide a means to investigate the climatic conditions existing during recharge and thus enabling limits to be placed on the groundwater age. The gases used in this determination include 4He, 3He/4He, Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe, N2/Ar, 40Ar/36Ar and 14C. Radio-isotopes reviewed by the author were 238U, 234U/238U, 222Rn and 226Rn. The 222Rn and 226Rn were the most significant radioactive isotopes in the


Gastrointestinal (GI) disease is a debilitating feature of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection that can occur in the absence of histopathological abnormalities or identifiable enteropathogens. However, the mechanisms of GI dysfunction are poorly understood. The present study was undertaken to characterize changes in resident and inflammatory cells in the enteric nervous system (ENS) of macaques during the acute stage of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection to gain insight into potential pathogenic mechanisms of GI disease. Ganglia from duodenum, ileum, and colon were examined in healthy and acutely infected macaques by using a combination of routine histology, double-label immunofluorescence and in situ hybrid- ization. Evaluation of tissues from infected macaques showed progressive infiltration of myenteric ganglia by CD3 (cid:1) T cells and IBA1 (cid:1) macrophages beginning as early as 8 days postinfection. Quantitative image analysis revealed that the severity of myenteric ganglionitis increased with time after SIV infection and, in general, was more severe in ganglia from the small intestine than in ganglia from the colon. Despite an abundance of inflammatory cells in myenteric ganglia during acute infection, the ENS was not a target for virus infection. This study provides evidence that the


The dissolution of calcium carbonate with both organic and aqueous solvents was examined quantitatively and kinetically. Neither ethanol and nor acetone at 25 C dissolved appreciable aragonite or calcite, even after nearly ten days. Bleach (sodium hypochlorite) was a much less effective solvent than deionized water, producing little or no net calcium in solutions in contact with calcium carbonate. Although exposure to sodium hydroxide solutions also yielded relatively small concentrations of calcium in the field, characterization of the exposed carbonate grains by X-ray powder diffraction and by light microscopy revealed extensive replacement of the CaCO[sub 3] by Ca(OH)[sub 2], calcium hydroxide (portlandite). A solution of Alconox, a commercial laboratory anionic detergent, was about half again as potent as deionized water, and hydrogen peroxide proved to be many times more corrosive of calcium carbonate than deionized water. These results are consistent with published and anecdotal observations of the effects of laboratory preparation protocols on calcium carbonate. The authors quantitative data permit the researcher to assess the potential for a treatment procedure using any of these solutions to compromise the integrity of a sample of calcium carbonate.


In recent years, the Taiwan government's active promotion of the marketization of education, coupled with a decreasing number of school-age children, has given rise to a highly competitive educational market. As a result, school principals (at all levels) feel compelled to resort to unethical marketing practices to ensure the survival of their schools. The main purpose in this study was to identify the unethical marketing practices commonly used by school principals in Taiwan, and then determine their prevalence, the degree to which they contravene established ethical norms, and the circumstances in which school principals are likely to employ them. The results show that whereas bribery is regarded as the most unethical marketing strategy, invasion of privacy was seen as much less serious.


To date, cross-gender friendships in childhood and adolescence have been virtually ignored in the peer relationships literature. The purpose of the present investigation was to chart the territory of cross-gender friendship by examining the domains of friendship conceptions and the selection of friends. Accordingly, 176 students (91 girls, 85 boys) in grades 3, 6, 9, and 12 participated in individual sessions and were asked to describe their beliefs about, and expectations for, both sameand cross-gender friendship. In addition, students participated in a hypothetical decision-making task using a series of information boards on which they were asked to search for, and select, a sameand cross-gender friend. Findings revealed that beliefs and expectations for both sameand cross-gender friendships were observed to follow a common developmental sequence with little evidence that cross-gender friendships lag behind. Although the pattern of gender differences in conceptions of cross-gender friendship was consistent with previous research, the results of this study suggest that for several features of friendship, participants made distinctions on the basis of what is expected in friendships involving girls versus boys. The differential emphasis placed on various expectations in friendship provides support for the notion that sameand cross-gender friendships may represent different types of personal relationships. As compared to conceptions of friendship, observations in the friendship selection task revealed that students engaged in similar predecisional searching regardless of the gender of the target friend. Findings suggest that the process of sameand crossgender friendship selection was somewhat different at different grade levels but did not vary markedly for boys and girls. Indeed, boys and girls at all ages were observed to select sameand cross-gender friends who were highly similar to themselves. The present discussion concludes with a description of the cross-gender friendship experiences of children and adolescents in this sample including consideration of the potential challenges and benefits associated with having a friend of the other gender.


Abstract. The representation of 3D geometric and photometric information of the real world is one of the most challenging and extensively studied research topics in the photogrammetry and robotics communities. In this paper, we present a fully automatic framework for 3D high quality large scale urban texture mapping using oriented images and LiDAR scans acquired by a terrestrial Mobile Mapping System (MMS). First, the acquired points and images are sliced into temporal chunks ensuring a reasonable size and time consistency between geometry (points) and photometry (images). Then, a simple, fast and scalable 3D surface reconstruction relying on the sensor space topology is performed on each chunk after an isotropic sampling of the point cloud obtained from the raw LiDAR scans. Finally, the algorithm proposed in (Waechter et al., 2014) is adapted to texture the reconstructed surface with the images acquired simultaneously, ensuring a high quality texture with no seams and global color adjustment. We evaluate our full pipeline on a dataset of 17 km of acquisition in Rouen, France resulting in nearly 2 billion points and 40000 full HD images. We are able to reconstruct and texture the whole acquisition in less than 30 computing hours, the entire process being highly parallel as each chunk can be processed independently in a separate thread or computer.


Purpose. To study the impact on health status as measured by SF-36 in groups of subjects having chronic musculoskeletal pain with different degree of generalization: No chronic pain (NCP), chronic regional pain (CRP), chronic widespread pain (CWP), CWP with a stricter 'Manchester' definition (CWP-M), and clinically defined fibromyalgia (FM). The study also examines the association between psychosocial and lifestyle background variables, and these pain-groups. Method. A cross-sectional study with a postal survey to 3928 subjects, constituting a representative sample of the adult general population, followed by clinical examination in a selected group of subjects with CWP. CWP and FM were diagnosed according to ACR 1990 fibromyalgia criteria. Health status was measured by SF-36 Health Survey. Results. Patients with CWP, CWP-M, and FM were found to present with more severe impairment of health status than the other two population groups. Several psychosocial factors, such as belonging to a lower socio-economic group, being an immigrant, living in a compromised housing area, having lower educational level, experiencing lower social support and having a family history of chronic pain, were associated with the populations with CWP and FM Conclusions. The spectrum of impact on health and association to background variables, with respect to a stricter definition of CWP, indicates that these factors are important to attend to in the understanding and management of CWP and FM.


English translation of Petrarch—translation that is also metamorphosis in a manner that Petrarch would have recognized—begins with Chaucer's rendition of canticus Troili Troilus and Criseyde , an inaugural moment of lyric imitation long thought unique in Chaucer's work. Yet suggestive claims have been made that Rvf 189 was also rendered by Chaucer as Troilus' second canticus in book V, within a context inclusive of additional Petrarchan influences on Chaucer. Chaucer's versions, and their contextualization in the Troilus , had definite consequences for Petrarchan translation when it resumed with the Henrician poets Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard a century and a half later. For the Tudor poets living under the tyranny of Henry VIII the Petrarch-inspired sonnet offered a richly articulated space of private reflection that did not fail to register the pressure of court politics. Wyatt's Petrarchan translations in the Egerton manuscript represent a privileged part of his lyric production, a preference that the Earl of Surrey absorbed for his very different poetic program, one designed to exalt both aristocratic lineage and an aureate genealogy of poets including Virgil, Dante, and Chaucer along with Petrarch and Wyatt. Mediated by multiple editions of Tottel's Songs and Sonnettes between 1557 and 1594, the legacy of Wyatt's and Surrey's Petrarchan translations reached the Elizabethans with an emphasis on Petrarch's poetic supremacy that stimulated emulation by the young Shakespeare. His tragedy Romeo and Juliet threw down a challenge to Petrarch with respect to sonnet forms, sonnet rhetoric, and the typical story of enamorment, a story still discernibly affiliated with Chaucer's .


The identification and validation of a small molecule's targets is a major bottleneck in the discovery process for tuberculosis antibiotics. Activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) is an efficient tool for determining a small molecule's targets within complex proteomes. However, how target inhibition relates to biological activity is often left unexplored. Here we studied the effects of 1,2,3-triazole ureas on Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). After screening ~200 compounds, we focused on two inhibitors active against both exponentially replicating and hypoxia-induced drug-tolerant Mtb that form part of a four-compound structure-activity series. The compound with negligible activity revealed potential false positive targets not addressed in other ABPP studies. Biochemistry, computational docking, and morphological analysis confirmed that active compounds preferentially inhibit serine hydrolases with cell wall and lipid metabolism functions and that disruption of the cell wall underlies biological activity. Our findings showed that ABPP identifies the targets most likely relevant to a compound's antibacterial activity.


We compare the change in ownership concentration in firms privatized through two different programs of mass privatization: the Czech voucher scheme and the Polish program of National Investment Funds. Despite important differences in ownership structure at the start of the process and in the quality of legal and regulatory environments, the emerging ownership patterns are remarkably similar: in the two groups of firms we observe high concentration and the emergence of industrial corporations and individuals as important dominant shareholders. Given the important evolution of ownership, we take ownership structure as endogenous and look at its determinants. We find in particular that ownership concentration depends on the degree of uncertainty in the firm's environment. In a more risky environment firms tend to have more dispersed ownership. We interpret this result in the light of the recent theories of the firm stressing the trade-off between managerial initiative and shareholder control.


Abstract In this paper, we review and discuss how nanoantennas may be used to largely enhance the nonlinear response of optical materials. For single nanoantennas, there have been tremendous advancements in understanding how to exploit the local field enhancement to boost the nonlinear susceptibility at the surface or sharp edges of plasmonic metals. After an overview of the work in this area, we discuss the possibility of controlling the optical nonlinear response using nanocircuit concepts and of significantly enhancing various nonlinear optical processes using planar arrays of plasmonic nanoantennas loaded with χ(2) or χ(3) nonlinear optical materials, forming ultrathin, nanometer-scale nonlinear metasurfaces, as optical nanodevices. We describe how this concept may be used to boost the efficiency of nonlinear wave mixing and optical bistability, due to the large local field enhancement at the nonlinear nanoloads associated with the plasmonic features of suitably tailored nanoantenna designs. We finally discuss three exciting applications of the proposed nonlinear metasurface: dramatically-enhanced frequency conversion efficiency, efficient phase-conjugation for super-resolution imaging and large optical bistabilities.


Mapping the vertebrate developmental landscape As embryos develop, numerous cell types with distinct functions and morphologies arise from pluripotent cells. Three research groups have used single-cell RNA sequencing to analyze the transcriptional changes accompanying development of vertebrate embryos (see the Perspective by Harland). Wagner et al. sequenced the transcriptomes of more than 90,000 cells throughout zebrafish development to reveal how cells differentiate during axis patterning, germ layer formation, and early organogenesis. Farrell et al. profiled the transcriptomes of tens of thousands of embryonic cells and applied a computational approach to construct a branching tree describing the transcriptional trajectories that lead to 25 distinct zebrafish cell types. The branching tree revealed how cells change their gene expression as they become more and more specialized. Briggs et al. examined whole frog embryos, spanning zygotic genome activation through early organogenesis, to map cell states and differentiation across all cell lineages over time. These data and approaches pave the way for the comprehensive reconstruction of transcriptional trajectories during development. Science, this issue p. 981, p. eaar3131, p. eaar5780; see also p. 967 A single-cell transcriptome analysis of whole frog embryos reveals cell states and provides a map of differentiation over time. INTRODUCTION Metazoan development represents a big jump in complexity compared with unicellular life in two aspects: cell-type differentiation and cell spatial organization. In vertebrate embryos, many distinct cell types appear within just a single day of life after fertilization. Studying the developmental dynamics of all embryonic cell types is complicated by factors such as the speed of early development, complex cellular spatial organization, and scarcity of raw material for conventional analysis. Genetics and experimental embryology have clarified major transcription factors and secreted signaling molecules involved in the specification of early lineages. However, development involves parallel alterations in many cellular circuits, not just a few well-described factors. RATIONALE We recently developed a microfluidics-based single-cell RNA sequencing method capable of efficiently profiling tens of thousands of individual transcriptomes. Building on earlier studies that showed how single-cell transcriptomics can reveal cell states within complex tissues, we reasoned that a series of such measurements from embryos, if collected with sufficient time resolution, could allow reconstruction of developmental cell-state hierarchies. We focused on the western claw-toed frog, Xenopus tropicalis, which serves as one of the best-studied model systems of early vertebrate development. We profiled these embryos from just before the onset of zygotic transcription up to a point at which dozens of distinct cell types have formed encompassing progenitors of most major organs. To establish aspects of development general to vertebrates, we additionally incorporated data from the copublished paper by Wagner et al. on zebrafish embryos, which separated from frogs about 400 million years ago. RESULTS We profiled 136,966 single-cell transcriptomes over the first day of life of Xenopus tropicalis. Our analysis classifies 259 gene expression clusters across 10 time points, which belong to 69 annotated embryonic cell types and capture further substructure. Using a computational approach to link cell states between time points, a resulting cell-state graph agrees well with previous lineage-tracing studies and shows that developmental fate choices can be well approximated by a treelike model. Many cell states are detected considerably earlier than previously understood, thus revealing the earliest events in their differentiation. The data lends clarity to numerous specific developmental processes, such as the developmental origin of the vertebrate neural crest. Through an evolutionary comparison with zebrafish, we identified diverging features of developmental dynamics, including many genes showing cell-type specificity in one organism but not in another. Yet, we also identified conserved patterns in the reuse of transcription factors across lineages and in multilineage priming at fate branch points. The resulting resource is available in an interactive online browser that allows in silico exploration of any gene in any cell state (tinyurl.com/scXen2018). CONCLUSION The approaches and results presented here, along with the copublished paper by Wagner et al., establish the first steps toward a data-driven dissection of developmental dynamics at the scale of entire organisms. They provide a useful, annotated resource for developmental biologists, comprehensively tracking differentiation programs as they unfold on a high-dimensional gene expression landscape. Although demonstrated on model organisms, the same approaches could be transformative to the study of nonmodel organisms by allowing rapid and quantitative description of differentiation processes across the tree of life, opening up a new front in evolutionary biology. Single-cell analysis of whole developing vertebrate embryos. Xenopus embryos at 10 time points over the first day of life were dissociated, barcoded, and sequenced, yielding 136,966 single-cell transcriptomes. These data were clustered and connected over time to reveal a complete view of transcriptional changes in each embryonic lineage and clarify numerous features of early development. hpf, hours postfertilization. Time series of single-cell transcriptome measurements can reveal dynamic features of cell differentiation pathways. From measurements of whole frog embryos spanning zygotic genome activation through early organogenesis, we derived a detailed catalog of cell states in vertebrate development and a map of differentiation across all lineages over time. The inferred map recapitulates most if not all developmental relationships and associates new regulators and marker genes with each cell state. We find that many embryonic cell states appear earlier than previously appreciated. We also assess conflicting models of neural crest development. Incorporating a matched time series of zebrafish development from a companion paper, we reveal conserved and divergent features of vertebrate early developmental gene expression programs.


We investigate surface plasmon amplification in a silver nanoparticle coupled to an externally driven three-level gain medium and show that quantum coherence significantly enhances the generation of surface plasmons. Surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation is achieved in the absence of population inversion on the spasing transition, which reduces the pump requirements. The coherent drive allows us to control the dynamics and holds promise for quantum control of nanoplasmonic devices.


Traditional critical reading of Walcott's very early text The Sea at Dauphin has prioritized elements like misanthropy, blasphemy or even "passive nihilism". My paper attempts to read the play in a more affirmative light, re- assessing how much life portrayed here is worth living, how the narrative offers up a morally worthy life when there is no spiritual salve. It aims to read the locus of the narration at the interface of life and "un-life" (to describe in Empedocles' phrase). Despite recognizing contingency and pain the play interprets a mode of being that affirms values like will, strength, endurance. It exemplifies a strong life, against the type of life espoused by Christianity. Its principal character Afa, a veteran fisherman impresses as a complex study, a mixture of opposites, terrible yet shining. The narrative seeks to affirm fishing community's negotiation with pain, suffering as a distinctive ethical imperative in overcoming chaos and confusion surrounding their lives. It confirms, as Nietzsche saw it, tragedy as affirmation rather than resignation. And here the gritty sailors of Dauphin leave a testimonial of 'true optimism' what Satre believed begins in 'despair'.


The concept of gamified interactive models and its novel extensions, such as playification, has been widely approached in order to engage users in many fields. In fields such as HCI and AI, however, these approaches were not yet employed for supporting users to create different forms of artworks, like a musical corpus. While allowing novel forms of interactivity with partially-autonomous systems, these techniques could also foster the emergence of artworks not limited to experts. Hence, in this paper we introduce the concept of meta-interactivity for compositional interfaces, which extends an individual's capabilities by the translation of an effort into a proficiency. We present how this approach can be effective through a novel system that enables non-experts to compose coherent musical pieces through the use of imagetic elements in a virtual environment. We conduct experiments with a population of musical experts and non-experts, showing that non-experts were able to learn and create high-quality musical productions through our interactive approach.


Patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty can be at risk in developing venous thromboembolism. The etiology of venous thromboembolism after a total knee arthroplasty is multifactorial. The aim of this study is to present the risk factors and the incidence of venous thromboembolism among the 276 patients, who underwent a total of 348 knee arthroplasty treatments in the King Abdulaziz University Hospital. Three hundred (86.2%) patients had undergone unilateral total knee arthroplasty. Only 48 (13.8%) patients had simultaneous bilateral total knee arthroplasty.  Their mean length of stays was 11.02 days. venous thromboembolism was present in eight patients (2.3%), either with symptomatic deep vein thrombosis (1.4%) or with pulmonary embolism (1.1%). One hundred twenty-five (35.9%) patients had diabetes, and six of them had developed venous thromboembolism (P-value: 0.020). The mean post-op mobilization (4.63 ± 3.5 days) was higher in cases with venous thromboembolism (P-value: 0.045). Factors, such as the patients' age, history of venous thromboembolism, gender, history of cerebrovascular, obesity, operation time, and use of preoperative venous thromboembolism prophylaxis, showed no statistical significance with the incidence of venous thromboembolism in them. The result of our study are comparable to those reported in literature. Diabetes mellitus and delayed postoperative mobilization were the significant risk factors to the incidence of venous thromboembolism.


The classical fitting problem in exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is to find estimates for the factor loadings matrix and the matrix of unique factor variances which give the best fit to the sample covariance or correlation matrix with respect to some goodness-of-fit criterion. Predicted factor scores can be obtained as a function of these estimates and the data. In this thesis, the EFA model is considered as a specific data matrix decomposition with fixed unknown matrix parameters. Fitting the EFA model directly to the data yields simultaneous solutions for both loadings and factor scores. Several new algorithms are introduced for the least squares and weighted least squares estimation of all EFA model unknowns. The numerical procedures are based on the singular value decomposition, facilitate the estimation of both common and unique factor scores, and work equally well when the number of variables exceeds the number of available observations.

Like EFA, noisy independent component analysis (ICA) is a technique for reduction of the data dimensionality in which the interrelationships among the observed variables are explained in terms of a much smaller number of latent factors. The key difference between EFA and noisy ICA is that in the latter model the common factors are assumed to be both independent and non-normal. In contrast to EFA, there is no rotational indeterminacy in noisy ICA. In this thesis, noisy ICA is viewed as a method of factor rotation in EFA. Starting from an initial EFA solution, an orthogonal rotation matrix is sought that minimizes the dependence between the common factors. The idea of rotating the scores towards independence is also employed in three-mode factor analysis to analyze data sets having a three-way structure.

The new theoretical and computational aspects contained in this thesis are illustrated by means of several examples with real and artificial data.


This paper describes a detailed study into the unsteady boundary layer behaviour in two high lift and one ultra high lift Rolls-Royce Deutschland LP turbines. The objectives of the paper are to show that high lift and ultra high-lift concepts have been successfully incorporated into the design of these new LP turbine profiles.Measurements from surface mounted hot film sensors were made in full size, cold flow test rigs at the altitude test facility at Stuttgart University. The LP turbine blade profiles are thought to be state of the art in terms of their lift and design philosophy. The two high lift profiles represent slightly different styles of velocity distribution. The first high-lift profile comes from a two stage LP turbine (the BR710 cold-flow, high-lift demonstrator rig). The second high-lift profile tested is from a three-stage machine (the BR715 LPT rig). The ultra-high lift profile measurements come from a redesign of the BR715 LP turbine: this is designated the BR715UHL LP turbine. This ultra high-lift profile represents a 12% reduction in blade numbers compared to the original BR715 turbine.The results from NGV2 on all of the turbines show "classical" unsteady boundary layer behaviour. The measurements from NGV3 (of both the BR715 and BR715UHL turbines) are more complicated, but can still be broken down into classical regions of wake-induced transition, natural transition and calming. The wakes from both upstream rotors and NGVs interact in a complicated manner, affecting the suction surface boundary layer of NGV3. This has important implications for the prediction of the flows on blade rows in multistage environments.Copyright © 2001 by ASME


Most existing studies on technology training address the operational issues of training process (e.g., training needs assessment, learning, delivery methods, etc.). The strategic concerns of IT training for enhancing business productivity largely are not addressed by the current literature. In this article, we explore the strategic concerns of IT training in hierarchical organizations, which are typically prevalent in developing countries. We synthesize various ideas in the literature on change management, training needs analysis, and IT adoption in order to evolve a strategic IT training framework for hierarchical organizations. The proposed framework recognizes the differences in IT training requirements for different levels of employees and suggests a differentiated training content for different segments of employees. The training framework provides an actionable and comprehensive tool that can be used for systematically planning IT training for enhancing productivity of organizations.


One indicator is the result of learning student has mastery of knowledge and development of skills or abilities required to use this knowledge, as shown by the fulfillment of the KKM. While that happened in class II SDN 1 Campang District of Gisting Tanggamus, the average value is still below the KKM. Among the success factors of the learning process is largely determined by the ability of teachers to select and use the method as a learning strategy appropriate to the circumstances and abilities of students so that learning outcomes in accordance with expectation. One of  the methods of learning that can be applied in teaching PAI is demonstration. By the demonstration method expected learners can understand and practice them directly. Specifically the study to determine what thedemonstrationmethode can improve student learning outcomes? With the subject of research grade II SDN 1 Campang districts Gisting Tanggamus, factors that could affect, measures, and the advantages and disadvantages (weaknesses) method of demonstration. Knowing that all of it can be given some suggestions that can be consideration for PAI teachers, particularly PAI in improving learning outcomes for students in the school. This study uses classroom action research (PTK) with a qualitative approach or naturalistik.Data aggregationby using observation, interview, dokumentation, and learning outcomes test. Whereas test results for data analysis using three way of activities, data reduction, display / presentation of data and verification / conclusion , From the results of the study revealed that; using the method of demonstration can improve learning outcomes PAI in class II SDN 1 Campang districts Gisting Tanggamus district academic year 2015 / 2016.Is demonstrated matter student learning outcomes is increasing in every cycle.When pre survey class average value of only 69, 59 with KKM 75. While the classroom action research conducted in the first cycle the average value rose to 74.9. and the second cycle the average value increased to 77,3 by percentage of completeness in the first cycle of 56% and the second cycle by 87%. Key Words : Learning Outcomes and Methods Demonstration


Considering all that has been written on the subject of carcinoma of the vulva, it is surprising to find that the basal cell type of tumor has received so little attention. This is particularly true when one considers its relatively benign nature in other parts of the body as compared with squamous carcinoma. That the tumor is uncommon is unquestioned; yet it occurs with sufficient frequency to warrant special consideration. The following study is based on the 4 cases reported here and on 23 additional cases collected from articles dealing with vulval carcinoma in general, found in the literature between 1916 and 1939. From this material an attempt is made to present data regarding the incidence, therapy and prognosis. In order to clarify the term basal cell carcinoma the histopathologic picture must first be considered. Between the typical squamous carcinoma with its pearl-forming, large, clear cells and the classic basal


This paper describes a pseudorandom carrier modulation scheme and its harmonic spectra spread effect. The pseudorandom carrier of the proposed scheme are produced through the random synthesis of the two triangular carriers, each of the same fixed frequency, but of opposite phase. The random selection of the two triangular carriers is decided by ``0'' or ``1'' states of the pseudorandom binary sequence (PRBS) random bits. Multiplexer which are used as random selector of the PRBS random bits, produces the resultant pseudorandom frequency carrier waveform. In order to verify the validity of the proposed method, the simulations and experiments were conducted and tested with a single-phase low-power H-bridge multilevel inverter. An EXAR XR2207 is used as a triangular carrier generator with fixed frequency, also an XR2206 is used for generation of single-phase sinusoidal wave. The PRBS random bits generator is implemented, using a shift register and an EXCLUSIVE OR gate. The experimental results show that the harmonics spectra of voltage and current are dispersed over a wide-band area by using the proposed scheme.


Design patterns are codified solutions to common object-oriented design (OOD) problems in software development. One of the proclaimed benefits of the use of design patterns is that they decouple functionality and enable different parts of a system to change frequently without undue disruption throughout the system. These OOD patterns have received a wealth of attention in the research community since their introduction; however, identifying them in source code is a difficult problem. In contrast, metapatterns have similar effects on software design by enabling portions of the system to be extended or modified easily, but are purely structural in nature, and thus easier to detect. Our long-term goal is to evaluate the effects of different OOD patterns on coordination in software teams as well as outcomes such as developer productivity and software quality. we present THEX, a metapattern detector that scales to large codebases and works on any Java bytecode. We evaluate THEX by examining its performance on codebases with known design patterns (and therefore metapatterns) and find that it performs quite well, with recall of over 90%.


The potential for protein tectons to be used in nanotechnology is increasingly recognized, but the repertoire of stable proteins that assemble into defined shapes in response to an environmental trigger is limited. Peroxiredoxins (Prxs) are a protein family that shows an amazing array of supramolecular assemblies, making them attractive tectons. Human Prx3 (hPrx3) forms toroidal oligomers characteristic of the Prx family, but no structure has been solved to date. Here we report the first 3-D structure of this protein, derived from single-particle analysis of TEM images, establishing a dodecameric structure. This result was supported by SAXS measurements. We also present the first detailed structure of a double toroidal Prx from a higher organism determined by SPA. Guided by these structures, variants of the protein were designed to facilitate controlled assembly of protein nanostructures through the association of the toroids. We observed an enhanced population of stacked toroids, as seen by TEM; nanocages and interlocked toroids were also visible. Low pH was successfully predicted to generate long ordered nanotubes. Control over the length of the tubes was gained by adding ammonium sulfate to the assembly buffer. These versatile assembly properties demonstrate the considerable potential of hPrx3 as a tecton for protein nanotechnology.


To identify factors that influence students to choose primary care or non-primary care specialties, the authors surveyed the 509 graduating students at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine in 1988, 1989, and 1990. Using a Likert-type scale, the 404 responding students rated potential influences on their specialty choices from 1, very negative, to 7, very positive. The students choosing primary care specialties were positively influenced significantly more often by their desire to keep options open (85% versus 58%, p less than .001) and their desire for longitudinal patient care opportunities (95% versus 54%, p less than .001). Those choosing non-primary care specialties were more often influenced by their desire for monetary rewards (69% versus 35%, p less than .001) and by their perceptions of lifestyle following residency (74% versus 60%, p less than .01) and prestige of the specialty (57% versus 36%, p less than .001). The authors used multiple discriminant analysis to derive a discriminant function that would permit classification of students into primary care and non-primary care groups. The potential influences of desire for longitudinal care opportunities and desire for monetary rewards were statistically and clinically significant for all three years. Using the discriminant function, the authors correctly classified 81%, 79%, and 78% of the students' specialty choices for 1988, 1989, and 1990, respectively. The authors suggest that addressing the issue of monetary rewards will be necessary before the primary care fields again become attractive to students.


In this paper, the concept of social capital is introduced and illustrated, its forms are described, the social structural conditions under which it arises are examined, and it is used in an analysis of dropouts from high school. Use of the concept of social capital is part of a general theoretical strategy discussed in the paper: taking rational action as a starting point but rejecting the extreme individualistic premises that often accompany it. The conception of social capital as a resource for action is one way of introducing social structure into the rational action paradigm. Three forms of social capital are examined: obligations and expectations, information channels, and social norms. The role of closure in the social structure in facilitating the first and third of these forms of social capital is described. An analysis of the effect of the lack of social capital available to high school sophomores on dropping out of school before graduation is carried out. The effect of social capital within the family and in the community outside the family is examined.


The socio-economic assessment and appraisal of the performance of mechanical harvester, Combine-Harvester and Seedling-Machine, depended upon sample survey and questionnaire forms applied for the three common types of enterprises of such machines in Egypt: private, State and Specialized Ideal Units of the Research Institute of Agricultural Engineering. The financial statements analysis showed that the Seedling-Machine achieves the lowest return to investment (19.4%), while the Combine Harvester achieves the highest return to investment (52.4%), and the Reaper achieves an internal rate of return of 29.4%. While the private enterprises show the highest return to investment, the state firms are of the lowest return to investment. The critical level of operating hours per machine that achieves the average discount rate in Egyptian market (20%) is 257 hours for the private enterprise, 604 hours for the specialized ideal unit and 753 for the state enterprise. These differences are due to the structure of the operating costs and the rent-out rate under the three management types. The average profit per operating hours of the Combine-Harvester is about L.E. 39 for the private enterprise, L.E. 37 for the state enter¬prise and L.E. 33.5 for the specialized ideal unit. The average profit per operating hour of the reaper amounts to L.E. 7.6 for the private enterprise, L.E. 6.9 for the specialized ideal Unit. The Seed¬ling-Machine achieves a loss of L.E. L9 per operating hour due to low demand for it, because the farmers believe that it is not a proper technology for the Egyptian rice farms. Impacts of phasing-out the energy price subsidy on the machines profitability vary according to the machine capacity (horse power), level of maintenance, which affects its fuel consumption rate, which in turn varies among the different enterprise types. However, the fuel consumption and the costs of energy are of the highest level under state management. The of of a reaper achieves a level of income amounts to L.E. 1764 per capita per year, assuming a family size of 5 persons, which is 88% of the average per capita income. The investment in a Combine-Harvester, achieves an average per capita income of L.E. 5000, i.e. 2.5 times the national average. Generalization of the Combine-Harvester to cover all wheat area's harvesting, threshing, winnowing and backing, would release about 159,000 opportunities of agricultural labor from wheat farms, which would be under employed, if and only if, an integrated rural development program has not been established soon. The supporting industries that may associate with the generalization of the Combine-Harvester operation on all wheat area in Egypt would create, only, 23,000 new labor opportunities.


BACKGROUND
The incidence of food allergies is increasing all over the world. Prevention strategies intend to reduce food sensitization risk and subsequent allergies. In this review, we will discuss the recent data concerning different geographic regions for the prevention of food allergies in children.

METHODS
This review provides recommendations for the prevention of food allergies based on the recent data available in the PUBMED database in English (up to December 2022).

RESULTS
The best strategy to prevent food allergies is regarded as the early introduction of allergenic foods to an infant`s diet. A healthy and diverse diet is recommended for infants and their mothers, in accordance with the family`s eating habits and regional food culture, rather than avoiding certain foods or using supplements. Avoiding common food allergens in the maternal diet during pregnancy and/or breastfeeding is not recommended. Exclusive breastfeeding is generally recommended for all mothers for at least 6 months. There is no specific association between exclusive breastfeeding and the primary prevention of any specific food allergy. Where a breastmilk substitute is needed, the best alternative should be chosen according to the infant`s nutritional needs. There is no substantial evidence to support the use of hydrolyzed or soy formula in infancy against food allergies or sensitization.

CONCLUSIONS
Feeding patterns in infancy play an important role in the risk of developing food allergies. Existing strategies to prevent allergies are relatively ineffective and further research is needed to figure out strategies for food allergy prevention, particularly in high-risk infants.


This paper presents a proposed model of Human Talent Management for the Enterprise MERCAEMPRESA LTDA. with implementing an action plan for its execution. Related concepts are developed with strategic direction from the definition of strategy, commonly used to refer to a function of Organizational Management. He combines the natural ability of living beings; they develop intelligent and intuitive strategies of survival against enemies and circumstances that hinder their achievement, with the ability to perceive reality to develop strategies for meeting a specified goal by mentally structured creation known as strategic thinking. It is thus that through the Strategic Planning process defines the orientation of the products and services of the Company to market in light of the resources,
opportunities and threats in the environment and corporate principles, are equally determine actions with the objective of timely and adequately meet the needs of customers and shareholders. Under this framework, the estimated number of components such as the Organization Assessment Organizational
Capabilities Profiler, SWOT Matrix and Key Success Factors that facilitate the understanding of the various strategic elements of the proposal, including strategic management, organizational structure required, the Induction Program, the Social Welfare Program, the Program Performance Assessment,
the map of processes, procedures and staff functions of the Company.


Despite intensive efforts in the search for small molecules with anti-cancer activity, it remains challenging to achieve both high effectiveness and safety, since many agents lack the selectivity to only act on cancer cells. The interface of two apoptotic proteins, myeloid cell leukemia-1 (Mcl-1) and p53 upregulated modulator of apoptosis (PUMA), has been recently affirmed as a target for treating cancers, as the disruption of Mcl-1-PUMA binding can reduce cancer cell survival and protect normal cells from apoptosis. However, therapeutic agents that target this interface are yet to be found. In this work, we combined pharmacophore modelling and biological tests to seek small molecules which target the Mcl-1-PUMA interface. For the first time, a small-molecule compound was identified. Its dual activity has been validated to reduce PUMA-dependent apoptosis while deactivating Mcl-1-mediated anti-apoptosis in cancer cells. Our results would provide a new avenue for the development of effective and safe anti-cancer agents.


AIM
To examine the efficacy of the radial flow bioreactor (RFB) as an extracorporeal bioartificial liver (BAL) and the reconstruction of liver organoids using embryonic pig liver cells.

METHODS
We reconstructed the liver organoids using embryonic porcine liver cells in the RFB. We also determined the gestational time window for the optimum growth of embryonic porcine liver cells. Five weeks of gestation was designated as embryonic day (E) 35 and 8 wk of gestation was designated as E56. These cells were cultured for one week before morphological and functional examinations. Moreover, the efficacy of pulsed administration of a high concentration hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) was examined.

RESULTS
Both cell growth and function were excellent after harvesting on E35. The pulsed administration of a high concentration of HGF promoted the differentiation and maturation of these fetal hepatic cells. Microscopic examination of organoids in the RFB revealed palisading and showed that bile duct-like structures were well developed, indicating that the organoids were mini livers. Transmission electron microscopy revealed microvilli on the luminal surfaces of bile duct-like structures and junctional complexes, which form the basis of the cytoskeleton of epithelial tissues. Furthermore, strong expression of connexin (Cx) 32, which is the main protein of hepatocyte gap junctions, was observed. With respect to liver function, ammonia detoxification and urea synthesis were shown to be performed effectively.

CONCLUSION
Our system can potentially be applied in the fields of BAL and transplantation medicine.


Heavy metals fHg, Cu, Zn. Cd. Fa, Mn. Pb and Sn) were determined in several brands of three
commercially processed canned and frozen molluscan products - mussels, clams and oysters Concentrations
of Hg, Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb and Sn were well below the recommended maximum concentrations in
clams and mussel products. However, copper and zinc were higher in oyster products: Overall mean
concentrations being 56.88 and 178.6 ppm respectively. Products in Aluminium cans were better in
quality compared to the products in traditional tin cans. Impact Of heavy metals on the safety and
evaluation of colour and flavour for product for acceptability are discussed Depuration studies have
been suggested to remove heavy metals from molluscs.


Entropy feature analysis is an important tool for the classification and identification of different types of ships. In order to improve the limitations of traditional feature extraction of ship-radiation noise in complex marine environments, we proposed a novel feature extraction method for ship-radiated noise based on improved intrinsic time-scale decomposition (IITD) and multiscale dispersion entropy (MDE). The proposed feature extraction technique is named IITD-MDE. IITD, as an improved algorithm, has more reliable performance than intrinsic time-scale decomposition (ITD). Firstly, five types of ship-radiated noise signals are decomposed into a series of intrinsic scale component (ISCs) by IITD. Then, we select the ISC with the main information through correlation analysis, and calculate the MDE value as a feature vector. Finally, the feature vector is input into the support vector machine (SVM) classifier to analyze and get classification. The experimental results demonstrate that the recognition rate of the proposed technique reaches 86% accuracy. Therefore, compared with the other feature extraction methods, the proposed method is able to classify the different types of ships effectively.


The interactive requirements of 3D games and physically driven virtual environments add strong constraints to the simulation of natural cloth collisions and self-collisions. In order to achieve interactive rates, we first define smoothness conditions over small patches of deformable surfaces and then resort to image-based collision-detection algorithms that we have developed. Our collision-detection system achieves interactive rates as it accurately tracks collisions and self-interactions of objects consisting of highly deformable surfaces. This method makes use of a novel technique for dynamically generating a hierarchy of cloth bounding boxes in order to perform object-level culling and image-based intersection tests using conventional graphics hardware support. Our results show that, for complex deformable surfaces with an excess of 50,000 triangular elements, we can track collisions at nearly interactive rates.


Current adversarial attacks against speaker recognition systems (SRSs) require either white-box access or heavy black-box queries to the target SRS, thus still falling behind practical attacks against proprietary commercial APIs and voice-controlled devices. To fill this gap, we propose QFA2SR, an effective and imperceptible query-free black-box attack, by leveraging the transferability of adversarial voices. To improve transferability, we present three novel methods, tailored loss functions, SRS ensemble, and time-freq corrosion. The first one tailors loss functions to different attack scenarios. The latter two augment surrogate SRSs in two different ways. SRS ensemble combines diverse surrogate SRSs with new strategies, amenable to the unique scoring characteristics of SRSs. Time-freq corrosion augments surrogate SRSs by incorporating well-designed time-/frequency-domain modification functions, which simulate and approximate the decision boundary of the target SRS and distortions introduced during over-the-air attacks. QFA2SR boosts the targeted transferability by 20.9%-70.7% on four popular commercial APIs (Microsoft Azure, iFlytek, Jingdong, and TalentedSoft), significantly outperforming existing attacks in query-free setting, with negligible effect on the imperceptibility. QFA2SR is also highly effective when launched over the air against three wide-spread voice assistants (Google Assistant, Apple Siri, and TMall Genie) with 60%, 46%, and 70% targeted transferability, respectively.


First time introduced in Release 12 of the 3GPP specifications, Proximity Services (ProSe in the above-mentioned specification) is a Device-to-Device (D2D) technology that allows two devices to detect each other and to communicate directly without traversing the Base Station or core network. In other words, it is a technology that is oriented (ultimately) on the direct connection of two devices. In this article, we are promoting the idea that proximity services are more than just support for a direct connection (in fact, search for candidates for a direct connection). The paper discusses content models (that is, information dissemination models) based on proximity data. In this case, a direct connection is simply one of the possible options for disseminating information.


Flattery citations of editors, potential referees, etc. has been claimed to be a common strategy among academic authors. From a sociology of science perspective, as well as from a citation analytical perspective, it is both an interesting claim and a consequential one. The paper presents a citation analysis of the editorial board members entering American Economic Review from 1984 to 2004 using a citation window of 11 years. In order to test the flattery citations hypothesis further we have conducted a study applying the difference-in-difference estimator. We analyse the number of times the editors and editorial board members of the American Economic Review were cited in articles published in the journal itself as well as in a pool of documents comprising of articles from Journal of Political Economy and Quarterly Journal of Economics. The results of the analyses do not support the existence of a flattery citation effect.


North Mesopotamia has witnessed dramatic political and social change since the Bronze Age, but the impact of these events on its demographic history is little understood. Here we study this question by analysing the recently excavated Late Iron Age settlement of Çemialo Sırtı in Batman, southeast Turkey. Archaeological and/or radiocarbon evidence indicate that the site was inhabited during two main periods: the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE and the first millennium BCE. Çemialo Sırtı reveals nomadic items of the Early Iron Age, as well as items associated with the Late Achaemenid and subsequent Hellenistic Periods. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplotypes from 12 Çemialo Sırtı individuals reveal high genetic diversity in this population, conspicuously higher than early Holocene west Eurasian populations, which supports the notion of increasing population admixture in west Eurasia through the Holocene. Still, in its mtDNA composition, Çemialo Sırtı shows highest affinity to Neolithic north Syria and Neolithic Anatolia among ancient populations studied, and to modern-day southwest Asian populations. Population genetic simulations do not reject continuity between Neolithic and Iron Age, nor between Iron Age and present-day populations of the region. Despite the region's complex political history and indication for increased genetic diversity over time, we find no evidence for sharp shifts in north Mesopotamian maternal genetic composition within the last 10,000 years.


Background: Pharmacovigilance is a useful to assure the safety of medicines and protect consumers from their harmful effects. Healthcare professionals should consider Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) reporting as part of their professional obligation and participate in the existent pharmacovigilance programs in their countries. In India, the National PV Program was re-launched in July 2010. Objectives: This survey was conducted in order to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of Indian pharmacists with the aim of exploring the pharmacists' participation in ADR reporting system, identifying the reasons of under reporting and determining the steps that could be adopted to increase reporting rates. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey was carried out among the pharmacists in India using a pretested questionnaire with 33 questions (10 questions on knowledge, 6 on attitude, 7 on practice, 7 on future of ADR reporting in India and 3 on benefits of reporting ADRs.). The study was conducted, over a period of 3 months from May 2012 to July 2012. Results: Out of the 600 participants to whom the survey was administered, a total of 400 were filled. The response rate of the survey was 67%. 95% responders were knowledgeable about ADRs. 90% participants had a positive attitude towards making ADRs reporting mandatory for practicing pharmacists. 87.5% participants were interested in participating in the National Pharmacovigilance program, in India. 47.5% respondents had observed ADRs in their practice, and 37% had reported it to the national pharmacovigilance center. 92% pharmacists believed reporting ADRs immensely helped in providing quality care to patients. Conclusion: The Indian pharmacists have poor knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) towards ADR reporting and pharmacovigilance. Pharmacists with higher qualifications such as the pharmacists with a PharmD have better KAP. With additional training on Pharmacovigilance, the Indian Pharmacists working in different sectors can become part of ADR reporting system.


Aim. To study the balance between activity of lipid peroxidation, antioxidant system and ferrum content in blood, lymph and myocardium of rats with experimental myocardial infarction (EMI). Material and methods. Experimental study included 116 Wistar male rats (200-220 g of body mass). The EMI was caused by subcutaneous adrenaline injection (0.2 mg/100 g of body mass). The EMI was confirmed by electrocardiography and histopathologic data. The plasma/lymph ferrum index was calculated as blood/lymph ferrum content ratio. The neutrophil chemiluminescence analysis was also performed. Intensity of lipid peroxidation was evaluated by levels of malonic dialdealdehyde, the diene conjugates and diketones. The catalase activity and recovered glutathione was assessed in the erythrocyte hemolysate. Activity of superoxide dismutase was determined in serum; total blood antioxidant activity was assessed by chemoluminescent method. Results. The neutrophil activity and lipid peroxidation intensity was increased. The total blood antioxidant activity was reduced (in 2.5-5 times) as well as catalase activity and recovered glutathione level. Conclusion. The balance disorders between lipid peroxidation and antioxidant activity can result in myocardial injury. The ferrum redistribution from serum to lymph is observed in clinical course of myocardial infarction.


Bacteriophage phiX174 temperature-sensitive and nonsense mutations in eight cistrons were mapped by using two-, three-, and four-factor genetic crosses. The genetic map is circular with a total length of 24 x 10(-4)wt recombinants per progeny phage. The cistron order is D-E-F-G-H-A-B-C. High negative interference is seen, consistent with a small closed circular deoxyribonucleic acid molecule as a genome.


Abstract: This article examines how popular organizational strategies and coping mechanisms affect broader trajectories of urban governance in contemporary Africa. Does the proliferation of informal livelihood networks and associations foster economic empowerment and popular political participation, or do these informal processes breed poverty and organizational chaos? This article explores the link between popular organizational strategies and structural outcomes, focusing on how institutional process and power relations shape the access of the poor to resources and decision-making structures in decentralizing urban environments. Case studies from Nigeria trace how liberalization has fragmented informal organizational strategies into networks of accumulation and survival that tend to marginalize the interests of the poor within informal enterprise associations. Distinctive political strategies of informal enterprise associations are analyzed to show why dynamic informal organization is unable to break through the barriers of social and legal marginalization that trap the urban poor in cliental forms of political incorporation. This suggests that "social capital" within the informal economy may fail to improve popular political representation and governance outcomes even in contexts of decentralization.


Dispersed reference interferometry (DRI) is a variant of spectral interferometry and has potential to improve on existing commercial single point measurement techniques such as chromatic confocal (CC) sensors by improving dynamic range. The DRI has previously been demonstrated with a resolution of only 250 nm over a range of 300 µm. However, because DRI is an interferometric technique, phase information is inherent in the generated spectral interferograms and nanometre resolution could be achieved if that information can be extracted efficiently from a single interferogram. This talk describes a method of phase calculation using template matching which is a technique commonly used in image processing. Template matching is used to extract high resolution phase information from an experimental DRI apparatus. Spectral interferogram templates, representing axial measurement positions are generated using a simple simulation of the optical apparatus. These templates are cross-correlated against a spectral interferogram generated from the DRI apparatus. The peak of the resulting correlogram indicates the closest matching template interferogram and allows the inference of a measured position with high resolution. The template matching phase extraction method is evaluated in terms of linearity, resolution and operating range. The computational requirements and avenues for optimisation in this area are also considered.


A lot of students do not make their homework. The hypothesis is that this can be caused by the fact that students do not know how much time is required for making the homework assignments. To answer this hypothesis, the following question was addressed: what is the effect of the use of expected time-on-task indicators (ETI"s) on the performance p and time-on-task tt of students with respect to homework assignments in the context of high school physics classes? This study is meant as an investigation of how to set up a proper research that can answer the question above. For that reason, this report will not answer the question above, but can be seen as a basis for follow-up research, which should be performed on a larger number of students. First experiments were performed and analysed to test the working of the chosen method and materials. Furthermore, a student survey was taken and teachers were asked for their opinion to provide input and recommendations for follow-up research.
A qualitative analysis of the different measurements approaches based on several criteria showed that using computer exercises was the best measurement approach. Furthermore, analysis of different computer programs resulted in using the computer program ProProfs during this study. Two classes, one 4 havo (higher general secondary education) class and one 5 vwo (pre-university education) class, were given homework sessions with these computer program during a period of 8 weeks. Sometimes unrealistically high values of tt were measured with ProProfs. This might be caused by the fact that students started a homework sessions and continued and finished it later on without closing the program in between. Therefore, the time perception was also measured. If the difference between time perception and tt was too high, these measurement values could be excluded from the analysis.
The influence of ETI"s on tt an p were measured using two different methods. Because of the analysis time, Method 2, in which students were ascribed to two fixed groups (experimental and control group), was preferred above Method 1, in which the ascription of the students to one of the two groups was done randomly every week, resulting in different students in the two groups every week. However, from experiments with both Method 1 and 2 it was found that only a small amount of students made the homework via the computer. Therefore, it is important to let students also make homework without ETI for multiple times before the experiment, such that it can be used as a reliable reference for tt. Moreover, the students have to see the homework as a habit and therefore make it. This is very important for follow-up research which should be performed to obtain a larger amount of data, because the data obtained in this research is not enough to draw any conclusions on the effect of ETI"s on the p and tt of students with respect to homework assignments in the context of high school physics classes.
The homework sessions that were made, were not always made very seriously by the students. Therefore, it is important that teachers check the student answers. Homework sessions that were made by for example only filling in question marks, should be excluded from analysis. To prevent that students will do this again, the teacher should talk to the student about this and possibly give the student an alternative and similar homework session.
Furthermore, the given ETI was not always corresponding to the tt of the students, also because of the large spread in tt of the students. This arises the question if it would not be good to use ETI"s dependent per student. However, ETI"s per student would in practice hardly feasible, unless smart software is used for it. On the other hand, the general ETI"s can still be used by the student as an estimate, when students perceive that the ETI"s of previous homework sessions are not realistic for them. To minimize the error, at least short homework sessions of maximum 30 minutes should be made with an ETI based on teacher experience.
From the student survey, it was concluded that providing the homework via the student email was not the best way, because students were hardly using it. Furthermore, 62% of the students did not notice the ETI in the homework. Therefore, the notification of the ETI should be improved, by for example providing the ETI in the message to the students and not in the homework itself. Consequently, the students can see the ETI before they decide to make the homework or not and therefore can result in bigger differences between the control and experimental group. Alternatively, an ETI in the form of a progress bar can be used to increase that change of students noticing the ETI. The most important result from the student survey was that 79% of the students indicate that having an ETI on their homework is pleasant. Additionally, 34% of the students indicate that they would make the homework sooner if it was provide with an ETI. Therefore, it would be worthwhile to further investigate the effect of the use of ETI"s on the behaviour of students with respect to homework assignments in the context of high school physics classes.


According to the annual quality control report within a home care unit, a baseline replacement rate of nasogastric tubes was recorded as 6.65% in 2008. In reference to this observation, we carried out a project to reduce the nasogastric tube replacement rate in a home care unit. From our analysis, we found that the causes of the high nasogastric tube replacement rate included the following: (1) a lack of a clinical pathway for standard nasogastric tube care (2) inappropriate education programs resulting in caregivers' lack of knowledge (3) a lack of a substitute program for restraint and (4) inappropriate techniques to firm the nasogastric tube. Having identified these problems, the following interventions were proposed to address them: (1) the implementation of a nasogastric tube replacement nursing care tracking form; (2) the establishment of standard techniques in nasogastric tube care to stabilize the tube; and (3) the provision of an illustrated education booklet and poster in Chinese and other languages for non-Chinese carers, focusing upon an innovative technique to prevent the accidental removal of the nasogastric tube. After implementation of the intervention program, the unexpected nasogastric tube replacement rate was reduced to 0.98%. This study highlights the importance of an innovative technique combined with an education program that contributed to a control of the unexpected nasogastric tube replacement rate in a home care unit. Disciplines Medicine and Health Sciences | Social and Behavioral Sciences Publication Details Chang, H., Wang, R. & Wang, S. (2011). 降低居家個案鼻胃管重複置換之方案. 長期照護雜誌, 15 (2), 131-144. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/smhpapers/4097


The strength and direction of interactions between organisms vary spatially across the landscape. Traditionally, the focus has been on how trait variation affects the interactions between species. However, differences in abiotic and biotic environmental factors may also alter the distribution, phenology and behavior of the interacting species. To be able to understand why an interaction varies across the landscape, the effects of trait variation has to be separated from the effects of the environmental context. In this thesis, I try to separate the effects of context and trait differences on plant resistance against herbivory, through experimental and observational studies conducted with two cytotypes of the perennial herb Cardamine pratensis and its main herbivore, Anthocharis cardamines.The results show that differences in plant resistance against oviposition under controlled conditions were mainly mediated by flower size; larger flowers were more attractive to the female butterfly. However, among-populations differences in oviposition under natural conditions were not related to the resistance observed under controlled conditions, or to ploidy type, flowering phenology or plant size. Within populations under natural conditions the oviposition patterns by A. cardamines was affected by the plant traits plant size and flowering phenology.The result of this thesis shows that among-population differences in intensity of plant-herbivore interactions were caused by differences in environmental context rather than by herbivore preferences for any phenotypic plant traits, while host plant selection within population was based on plant traits. This suggests that biotic and biotic context can have important effects on the intensity of plant-herbivore interactions. Although genetic traits influenced the outcome of the interaction within populations, it was the environmental context of the populations that determined largely if the interaction took place or not.


This paper presents a new algorithm for efficiently generating the minimal cut-sets of a fault tree containing repetitions of basic events. The algorithm is easily performed by hand and substantially reduces both execution time and storage requirements, over the classical technique, when programmed. The savings are accomplished by recognizing and recursively reducing the influence of the repetitive events. The theoretical basis of the algorithm is presented and examples from the recent literature, used to demonstrate its efficiency. Finally, the computational complexity is discussed and rules presented for simplifying the tree before the computations begin.


A new expression is given for the average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of a dual selection-combining receiver where the antenna signals are correlated in a Rayleigh fading multipath environment. This formula is based on a recently developed expression for the bivariate Rayleigh cumulative distribution function by associating the correlation parameter of the distribution with the spatial correlation of the multipath field. By examining various multipath and receiver antenna geometries we can determine the critical parameters which affect the average SNR performance. Our results are shown to generalize and subsume well-known expressions based on an independence assumption of the signals at the antennas. We relate the average SNR diversity gain to critical parameters such as the spatial correlation, beamwidth, angle of arrival and antenna separation. These results show the subtle interplay between these parameters and reveal there is a reduction in performance relative to unrealistic models previously studied.


San Francisco--Results from a study evaluating the effect of urinary pH alteration in patients with interstitial cystitis suggest little benefit is likely gained from alkalinizing the urine to a neutral pH. Nevertheless, the question of how urine pH affects IC symptoms remains unanswered and requires further study, concluded the authors, from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.


A map of susceptibility to submarine landslides in European seas has been developed using the maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) and landslide cartography acquired from European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) Geology (https://www.emodnet-geology.eu/). A total of 15% landslide points were set aside and used as test data, while the remaining 85% were used for model training. Based on EMODnet bathymetry, 33 environmental maps including bathymetric position index (BPI), slope, features, flat curvature and profile curvature, all calculated at different spatial scales, were processed. In an iterative process, all the variables that were highly collinear and those that did not contribute significantly to the model were eliminated. In the end, the model was constructed using only bathymetry and the slope of the seabed. The elaborated model has an area under the ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curve (AUC) of 0.910 calculated on the training set and 0.911 on the test set, and the ROC curves are coincident. The slope is the variable that gives the greatest contribution to the model (82%), but without the contribution of depth (18%) the results degrade significantly. The susceptibility map correctly identifies all the main structures where the presence of landslides is known. The model shows a certain sensitivity to bathymetric acquisition noise. Thematic collection: This article is part of the Mapping the Geology and Topography of the European Seas (EMODnet) collection available at: https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/EMODnet


In the General State Archives, in Athens, specifically in the "Giannis Vlachogiannis" archive collection, there is a file containing seventeen fragments, that are one-sheet, two-sheet, four-sheet and, one among them, five-sheet. Vlachogiannis does not mention anything about their origin; in order to describe, however, the contents of this file, he wrote: "Χειρογράφων αποσπάσματα (βιογραφικά λογίων και κληρικών)" (excerpts from manuscripts (biographical information of scholars and clergymen)). This study aimed initially at tracing the philological identity and origin of these fragments.The identification of two scribes, who have written the majority of the fragments (fifteen out of seventeen), has given the first clue: Nikolaos Karatzas, a scholar, collector and manuscript scribe all together, owner of one of the biggest libraries in Constantinople in the 18th century, has written eleven texts; in the remaining four, we recognize the handwriting of his son and inheritor of his library, Konstantinos Karatzas. The second piece of information arose from the discovery of the fact that the fragments are not actually fifteen, as textual evidence demonstrated their coherence of content: in fact they form six sections.But are they indeed excerpts, fragments from "manuscripts", as Vlachogiannis had assumed?Evidence from various sources brought forward in this study demonstrate the fact that the fragments were fascicules incorporated into printed books that once belonged to Karatzas' library, probably until the beginning of the second decade of the 19th century.The printed books in question are the following: Meletios Pegas, Ὑπὲρ τῆς χριστιανῶν εὐσεβείας πρὸς Ἰουδαίους ἀπολογία, Léopol 1593.Gregorios Palamas, Λόγοι ἀποδεικτικοὶ… [London 1626-1626].Ioannes Karyophylles, Ἐγχειρίδιον περί τινων ἀποριῶν…, Monastery of Synagovou 1697.Johann Michael Lange, Philologiae Barbaro-Græcæ, Noribergae 1707-1708.Ioannes Komnenos, Προσκυνητάριον τοῦ ἁγίου Ὄρους…, Venice 1745.Gabriel Severos, Συνταγμάτιον περὶ… μυστηρίων, Venice 1791. How were these fragments found in Athens, although they originated from printed books located in Constantinople? The answer to this plausible question is that they followed a labyrinthine path: the books that included them were bought by Lord Guilford and were donated to the Ionian Academy, the School he had established in 1824 on Corfu. After Guilford's death, when the books of his library were to be given back to the heirs of the donor, the librarian on Corfu, who was claiming his unpaid salaries, detached the fragments. They remained in the hands of A. Papadopoulos-Vretos and when his archive was sold to the General State Archives in 1920, Vlachogiannis put them aside in order to study them. It should be noted that most of the printed books from which the fragments were detached were bought by the British Museum in an auction, and are today located in the British Library.DIMITRIS G. APOSTOLOPOULOS


The current special issue of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy is concerned with economic diplomacy. This article looks at the role that the European Union plays in economic diplomacy and shows that the EU's role is essentially to facilitate, rather than to promote national companies as EU member state governments do. After discussing the various definitions of economic diplomacy, the article summarizes the areas in which the European Union constrains the scope for certain national policies of the EU member states. The article then discusses the factors that shape EU economic diplomacy and assesses the relative importance of these factors in specific negotiations.


The earliest climate change adaptation plans emerged about ten years ago and are an increasingly important component of the international policy agenda. Because these plans by nature involve long-term objectives, some of the main questions raised in current adaptation tracking research studies are whether and how they will be implemented and what is required for these plans to successfully achieve their objectives? There is no consensus on how to define "successful adaptation" and there are multiple, sometimes competing, interpretations of success. In this working paper, we define three areas where climate change adaptation plans should focus on to successfully achieve their goals: policy and economy, science and learning and legitimacy. We develop a checklist that identifies required aspects for successful adaptation and sustainability in the long-term based on these three areas and related indicators. We suggest that plans follow this checklist as a guideline for plan development and institutional capacity building in the long term. We eventually discuss the adequacy of these metrics for assessing the credibility of developed climate adaptation policies.


The objective of the study was to investigate physical and mechanical properties of experimental particleboard panels manufactured from oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) biomass without using any adhesives. Different parts of oil palm, including the core and mid sections of trunks, fronds, bark, and leaves, were used to make the panels with an average target density of 0.80g/cm3. Based on the test results, it seems that panels made from bark and leaves did not have satisfactory strength and dimensional stability. However, the panels having particles from the core portion of the trunks exhibited the highest modulus of rupture and internal bond strength but lowest in thickness swelling and water absorption values among the samples. The panels made with particles of mid-section of trunks and fronds followed the samples having core portion trunks material. Three types of raw material, namely fronds, mid-, and core-parts of the trunks appeared as though they could have potential to manufacture particleboard panels with acceptable properties based on requirements stated in Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS). Similar to the above findings, surface quality of the samples were also found acceptable for the panels made from three types of particles. Based on the results of this work, oil palm in the form of biomass could be considered as an environmentally friendly alternative raw material to manufacture binderless particleboard panels.