The high spectrum efficiency of nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is attractive to solve the massive number of connections in the Internet of Things (IoT). This article investigates a buffer-aided cooperative NOMA (C-NOMA) system in the IoT, where the intended users are equipped with buffers for cooperation. The direct transmission from the access point to the users and the buffer-aided cooperative transmission between the intended users are coordinated. In particular, a novel buffer-aided C-NOMA scheme is proposed to adaptively select a direct or cooperative transmission mode, based on the instantaneous channel state information and the buffer state. Then, the performance of the proposed scheme, in terms of the system outage probability and average delay, is theoretically derived with closed-form expressions. Furthermore, the full diversity order of three is demonstrated to be achieved for each user pair if the buffer size is not less than three, which is larger than conventional nonbuffer-aided C-NOMA schemes whose diversity order is only two in the considered C-NOMA system in the IoT.


The potential of ground-based multispectral microwave radiometers in retrieving rainfall parameters is investigated by coupling physically oriented models and retrieval methods with a large set of experimental data. Measured data come from rain events that occurred in the USA at Boulder, Colorado, and at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program's Southern Great Plains (SGP) site in Lamont, OK. Rain cloud models are specified to characterize both nonraining clouds, stratiform and convective rainfall. Brightness temperature numerical simulations are performed for a set of frequencies from 20 to 60 GHz at zenith angle, representing the channels currently deployed on a commercially available ground-based radiometric system. Results are illustrated in terms of comparisons between measurements and model data in order to show that the observed radiometric signatures can be attributed to rainfall scattering and absorption. A new statistical inversion algorithm, trained by synthetic data and based on principal component analysis is also developed to classify the meteorological background, to identify the rain regime, and to retrieve rain rate from passive radiometric observations. Rain rate estimate comparisons with simultaneous rain gauge data and rain effect mitigation methods are also discussed.


Aluminum borate microtubes were prepared in excellent yield by annealing the Al2O3−NaBH4−NiCl2 starting materials at 1050 °C under N2(H2) atmosphere. The tubes are usually open at each end with the outer diameters narrowly distributed at ca. 1 μm. XRD results and TEM analysis identified the composition of these tubes as single-crystal orthorhombic Al18B4O33. These newly discovered ceramic microtubes with open ends have a variety of promising applications such as being filled with other materials for protection or for the fabrication of novel composites or filtering media.


Background: Plant-derived products have a vital biological role against various diseases. The present study was carried out to document and investigate the existing ethnomedicinal knowledge on local flora of Kapurthala district, Punjab, India. Materials and Methods: The ethnomedicinal investigation was carried out from March 2015 to October 2017. Key informants, rural as well as urban, i.e., herbal doctors, homemakers, farmers, elders, etc., were selected using snowball sampling method. Information on ethnomedicinal importance of plants of this region and methods of preparation and administration was gathered by questionnaire-based personal interviews, group discussions, informal meetings, and field observations with local people. Results: Fifty plant species belonging to thirty families were informed to be used for medicinal purposes. Fruits and leaves were the most used plant parts. The most commonly used mode of administration was raw form or juice of plant parts. Most of the information was recorded for the treatment of gastrointestinal problems. Conclusions: This study reveals the interesting use of plants by the local people of Kapurthala district, which shows that use of medicinal plants still exists. However, because of modernization, traditional knowledge is losing at high rate; there is a need to conserve our ancestral knowledge. Further, medicinal plants should be examined for pharmacological and phytochemical studies for novel drug discovery.


Rat granulosa cells isolated from mature Graafian follicles were incubated with luteinizing hormone under various conditions in order to follow the synthesis and degradation of phospholipids. During acute incubations, luteinizing hormone provoked rapid and concentration-dependent increases in the incorporation of 32P04 into phosphatidic acid, phosphatidylinositol, and the polyphosphoinositides. Similarly, luteinizing hormone provoked increases in labeling of phosphatidylinositol and the polyphosphoinositides when granulosa cells were incubated with my0-[2-~H]inositol. When granulosa cells were prelabeled with 32P04 in order to label phosphatidylinositol to constant specific radioactivity (4 h), luteinizing hormone treatment significantly increased 32P-phosphatidylinositol evels (23%). Comparable increases (27%) in the cellular concentrations of phosphatidylinositol were observed in response to luteinizing hormone. In pulse-chase experiments employing 32P04 or [3H]inositol-prelabeled cells, luteinizing hormone did not alter phospholipid degradation. In addition, luteinizing hormone did not stimulate degradation of polyphosphoinositides. These results demonstrate that: (a) luteinizing hormone has selective effects on phospholipid metabolism in rat granulosa cells which involve phosphatidic acid, phosphatidylinositol, and the polyphosphoinositides, (b) luteinizing hormone increases net levels of phosphatidylinositol and presumably phosphatidic acid and the polyphosphoinositides, and (c) luteinizing hormone does not increase phospholipid degradation. Our findings suggest that luteinizing hormone provokes increases in de novo synthesis of phosphatidylinositol in rat granulosa cells. These changes in phospholipid metabolism may be important for steroidogenesis and other enzymatic processes during treatment with luteinizing hormone.


ABSTRACT Design and fabrication of micro- and nanostructures for energetic materials have attracted more attention recently to improve safety properties and enhance detonation performance. Exploring and developing dihydroxylammonium 5,5′-bistetrazole-1,1′-diolate (TKX-50) with unique microstructures, an emerging high-energy-density material with superior comprehensive properties, is of great significance for the potential applications. In this work, we reported that three-dimensional (3D) TKX-50 network-like nanostructures were designed and fabricated successfully via the liquid nitrogen-assisted spray freeze-drying method. Characterization results suggested 3D TKX-50 network-like nanostructures were constructed by self-assembly of small nanoparticles. Furthermore, a nucleation-and-growth self-assembly formation mechanism of the network-like nanostructures depended on the different concentrations of the aqueous solution of TKX-50 was proposed in detail based on the experimental results. More interestingly, thermal analysis results demonstrated these novel 3D TKX-50 network-like nanostructures are much easier to be activated and have a lower decomposition temperature than the raw material, due to decrease in particle sizes, and the impact sensitivity of 3D TKX-50 network-like nanostructures become more sensitive than that of raw TKX-50. Their friction sensitivity of as-prepared samples is similar to the raw materials. Therefore, this work could provide a new prospect for fabrication and application of TKX-50 nanostructures.


We present constructions of space-time (ST) codes based on lattice coset coding. First, we focus on ST code constructions for the short block-length case, i.e., when the block length is equal to or slightly larger than the number of transmit antennas. We present constructions based on dense lattice packings and nested lattice (Voronoi) shaping. Our codes achieve the optimal diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) of quasi-static multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) fading channels for any fading statistics, and perform very well also at practical, moderate values of signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). Then, we extend the construction to the case of large block lengths, by using trellis coset coding. We provide constructions of trellis coded modulation (TCM) schemes that are endowed with good packing and shaping properties. Both short-block and trellis constructions allow for a reduced complexity decoding algorithm based on minimum mean-squared error generalized decision feedback equalizer (MMSE-GDFE) lattice decoding and a combination of this with a Viterbi TCM decoder for the TCM case. Beyond the interesting algebraic structure, we exhibit codes whose performance is among the state-of-the art considering codes with similar encoding/decoding complexity.


Multiple imputation by chained equations (MICE) is an effective tool to handle missing data an almost unavoidable problem in quantitative data analysis. However, despite the empirical and theoretical evidence supporting the use of MICE, researchers in the social sciences often resort to inferior approaches unnecessarily risking erroneous results. The complexity of the decision process when encountering missing data may be what is discouraging potential users from adopting the appropriate technique. In this article, we develop straightforward step-by-step graphical guidelines on how to handle missing data based on a comprehensive literature review. It is our hope that these guidelines can help improve current standards of handling missing data. The guidelines incorporate recent innovations on how to handle missing data such as random forests and predictive mean matching. Thus, the data analysts who already actively apply MICE may use it to review some of the newest developments. We demonstrate how the guidelines can be used in praxis using the statistical program R and data from the European Social Survey. We demonstrate central decisions such as variable selection and number of imputations as well as how to handle typical challenges such as skewed distributions and data transformations. These guidelines will enable a social science researcher to go through the process of handling missing data while adhering to the newest developments in the field.


This chapter represents the state of the art at the time of release. Readers are encouraged to consult the link below for the version of this chapter with the most recent release date:


Introduction The phenomenon of condom migration remains a major concern whenever a new HIV prevention approach is being considered to strengthen the existing preventive arsenal. We are currently measuring the baseline condom use at the recruitment visit of an on-going demonstration study on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and treatment as prevention (TasP), involving female sex workers (FSWs) in Cotonou, Benin, West Africa. Methods During the recruitment visit, data on unprotected sex were collected through face-to-face interviews, from the first 112 FSWs with available biomarker results, recruited as of February 28, 2015. In addition, vaginal samples were tested for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and Y chromosome DNA (Yc-DNA) PCR tests, to validate the self-reported unprotected sex. Additional biomarkers include gonorrhoea and chlamydia testing using nucleic-acid amplification tests and urine pregnancy tests. Performance parameters of the self-reported unprotected sex were calculated using combined results of all biomarkers as gold standard for recent semen exposure. Results The prevalence of recent self-reported unprotected sex with all types of sexual partners was 31.2% (35/112) vs. 51.8% (58/112) according to the combined biomarkers (p = 0.003, McNemar test). Using the combined biomarkers as gold standard, the sensitivity and specificity of self-reported unprotected sex were 34.5% and 72.2%, respectively. The prevalences of gonorrhoea and chlamydia at the recruitment visit were 8.0% (9/112) and 6.2% (7/112), respectively. Either infection was present in 16 participants (14.3%), out of whom 10 were positive for PSA or Yc-DNA PCR. The pregnancy test was positive for two participants of whom one was positive for both PSA and Yc-DNA PCR. Conclusion These results confirm the questionable validity of self-reported condom use among FSWs. They underscore the need of supplementing self-reported data by biomarkers to improve data reliability. These early results are part of the baseline data that will be subsequently used to look for condom migration. Disclosure of interest statement This study is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Truvada® for pre-exposure prophylaxis is provided free of charge by Gilead Sciences, Inc.


An experimental investigation was performed to determine the effect on base and forebody pressures of using a sting modified with varying length splitter plates and fins instead of a conventional sting to support a cone-cylinder body of revolution. The investigation was conducted at a Mach number of 3.12 for a Reynolds number range of 2 x 10 to the 6th power to 14 x 10 to the 6th power and for an angle of attack range of 0 degrees to 9 degrees. For Reynolds numbers of 8 x 10 to the 6th power and 14 x 10 to the 6th power there was a negligible effect of the splitter plate modification on the base pressure, and at Reynolds number of 2 x 10 to the 6th power there was a small effect. Positioning the leading edge of the splitter plate at or ahead of the base made no appreciable change in the influence of the modifications on base pressure at a Reynolds number of 14 x 10 to the 6th power. With the fin-type modification there was a small increase in base pressure.


Activation rate uniformity/IVNAA/MCNP/Collimator aperture/Moderator-reflector. The preliminary design studies for developing a prompt-γ rays in vivo neutron activation analysis facility are in construction at Neutron Activation Research Centre of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. In this work, activation rate distribution is studied in different bilateral configurations in order to reduce the CV of activation rate distribution throughout the body to less than 10%. It means that the maximum RMS deviation from the mean value of distribution must be smaller than 0.5%. The best case includes two pairs of 241 Am-Be neutron sources. Each pair (with 70 cm distance between two sources) is positioned within up and down 40 × 110 cm 2 area graphite collimators. Also, four moderator/reflector objects are added to transversal body surfaces with 5 cm thick water and 3 cm thick graphite. The proper thickness of polyethylene pre-moderators is chosen 8 mm. The RMS deviation of distribution is 0.3% with the mean activation rate of 1.85 × 10 –6 cm –3 .


This paper investigates the interaction of the Sri Lankan stock market with other Asian stock markets in terms of cointegration, contemporaneous correlations, information spillovers, and impulse responses. The study consider India, China, Pakistan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan as neighboring stock markets to the Sri Lankan market. And it use daily data of leading stock indices for each country from 01st January 2000 to 31st December 2012. Findings reveal that the Sri Lankan stock market is cointegrated with the Korean stock market but not with others. Contemporaneous correlations are significant between Sri Lanka and other Asian countries such as India, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan. Pakistan, Malaysian, and Korean stock markets Granger cause in mean to the Sri Lankan stock market while India and Korea Granger cause in variance. Extreme downside risks in Chinese stock market also Granger causes the Sri Lankan stock market. Impulse response analysis provides evidence for the following day's impact on the Sri Lankan stock market due a current shock on other Asian stock markets. Findings of this paper provide insightful information to both policy makers and investors in order to understand the behavior of Sri Lankan stock market. Keywords Asian Stock Markets, Granger Causality, Impulse Response, Information Spillover, Sri Lankan Stock Market, Stock Market Interactions


Epidemiological studies demonstrate that chronic use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in normal aging populations reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD). NSAIDs inhibit the enzymatic activity of cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) and inducible COX-2, which catalyze the first committed step in the synthesis of prostaglandins. These studies implicate COX-mediated inflammation as an early and potentially reversible preclinical event; however, the mechanism by which COX activity promotes development of AD has not been determined. Recent studies implicate the prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) E prostanoid subtype 2 (EP2) receptor in the development of the innate immune response in brain. Here, we report that deletion of the PGE2 EP2 receptor in the APPSwe-PS1ΔE9 model of familial AD results in marked reductions in lipid peroxidation in aging mice. This reduction in oxidative stress is associated with significant decreases in levels of amyloid-β (Aβ) 40 and 42 peptides and amyloid deposition. Aged APPSwe-PS1ΔE9 mice lacking the EP2 receptor harbor lower levels of β C-terminal fragments, the product of β-site APP cleaving enzyme (BACE1) processing of amyloid precursor protein. Increases in BACE1 processing have been demonstrated in models of aging and AD and after oxidative stress. Our results indicate that PGE2 signaling via the EP2 receptor promotes age-dependent oxidative damage and increased Aβ peptide burden in this model of AD, possibly via effects on BACE1 activity. Our findings identify EP2 receptor signaling as a novel proinflammatory and proamyloidogenic pathway in this model of AD, and suggest a rationale for development of therapeutics targeting the EP2 receptor in neuroinflammatory diseases such as AD.


The Navy trains two types of line officers. One is destined for command. His training involves rotation through a wide variety of specialty departments before he assumes ultimate authority and responsibility as captain of a ship. Another group of line officers, such as engineers, are trained along narrower lines to become specialty technicians. They are designated for limited command. They are not intended to be skippers. Surgery is fast approaching the point where those of us responsible for training practitioners for the 1980s and 1990s must decide the optimum training pattern for the surgeon practicing for the rest of the century. Will it be for command of total patient care or merely to be a technician? Unfortunately, directors of surgical training programs are usually cloistered in university hospitals and are, therefore, largely unaware of many unpleasant realities of community practice one of which affects basic responsibility and authority of a


The magnetic surface imprinted polymer was effectively synthesized based on grafting polymerization for selective determination of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) as template molecule. The "grafting to" procedure was performed by copolymerizing of vinyl modified magnetic substrate with methacrylic acid (MAA) and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as functional monomer and cross-linking agent, respectively. The morphology, structure and polymeric properties of imprinting polymers were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). In order to improve on the adsorption capacity amount, the various parameters were considered. The resulting sorbent exhibited a high capacity with appropriate selectivity for TNT molecules. The evaluation demonstrated a linear range of 10-500 µg L−1 with the detection limit of 3.0 µg L−1. Moreover, the performance of the present sorbent was studied for extraction and determination of TNT compound in environmental waters and acceptable recoveries ranging from 91.7 to 100.8% were achieved.


The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and correlates of fibromyalgia (FM) in a prospective, multiethnic systemic lupus (SLE) cohort. A total of 266 SLE patients with disease duration of ≤5 years at study entry were evaluated longitudinallyfor the presence of FM (per ACR criteria). Sociodemographicfactors, behavioral=psychologicalvariables, clinical features, serologic factors (autoantibodies), and self-reportedfunctioning(MOS SF-36) were ascertainedin all patients. Subjects were evaluated at study entry and annually thereafter. The prevalence of FM was then calculated, as was the prevalence of FM-like manifestations (widespread pain with at least 6, but fewer than 11=18 tender points). Variables were evaluated for association with FM or FM-like manifestationsby univariate and stepwise logistic regressionanalyses.FM was present in 14 patients (5%; 9=92 Caucasians (C), 4=109 African Americans (AA), 1=65 Hispanics (H)) and FM=FM-like manifestationsin 35 (13%; 16 C, 9 AA, 10 H). There was no difference noted between those with and without FM with respect to gender, education level, income below poverty level, disease activity or damage. By stepwise logistic regression analyses, the strongest association with both FM and FM=FM-like manifestationswas a self-reported history of anxiety or affective disorder (P = 0.0237, OR = 4.6 and P = 0.0068, OR = 3.4, respectively). Caucasian ethnicity was strongly associated with FM (P = 0.0066, OR = 7.5) and African American ethnicity was negatively associated with FM=FM-like (P = 0.0204, OR = 0.3). Poorer self-reported physical functioning was associated with FM=FM-like (P = 0.0443, OR = 0.96). FM and FM-like manifestations correlate best with the presence of Caucasian ethnicity, concomitant anxiety or affective disorder, and to a lesser extent with poorer self-reported physical functioning. African American ethnicity is negatively associated with the combination of FM and FM-like manifestations. Clinical measures of disease activity, disease damage, specific organ dysfunction, sociodemographicfactors and serologic features are not correlated with FM in this early SLE cohort.


PurposeThis article explores the link between defamilisation studies and studies of the adult worker model and discusses the mixed implications that government strategies for supporting the adult worker model have for defamilisation. The adult worker model emphasises that all adult men and women ought to engage in formal employment; defamilisation studies stress the importance of enhancing women's chances of choosing (not) to perform important family roles such as the receiver of financial support and the care provider.Design/methodology/approachTwo new strategies ("condition building" and "rewarding/penalising") for promoting the adult worker model are identified based on literature review; their empirical significance is explored through an examination of comparative data concerning early childhood education and care policies (ECEC) and reforms in pension age in 14 countries.FindingsThe evidence shows that promoting the adult worker model does not necessarily benefit all women. While the 14 countries provide ECEC to varying extents, the increase in pension age in most countries shows that governments adopt a "rewarding/penalising" strategy for promoting the adult worker model by allocating major welfare based on people's labour force participation. These pension reforms may generate a negative impact on women's chances of attaining financial autonomy.Originality/valueThis study presents two new strategies for promoting the adult worker model and shows the empirical significance of these strategies based on comparative data. It also highlights the importance of searching for alternative concepts, namely economic defamilisation, for guiding pension reforms.


This study aims to develop knowledge of essential counseling competencies in the Educational Psychological Counseling Service (EPCS). Through semi-structured interviews with six counselors, the essential competencies of those who counsel teachers and parents are identified and discussed. Five main categories of competencies are proposed in response to the research question: What counseling competencies are considered essential during the counseling process ? The results emphasize the importance of the counseling alliance, the counselor's awareness, the counselor's competencies in challenging and confronting the client, the counselor's subject knowledge and enhancement of the client's ownership of the proposed solution. Three of the categories (the counseling alliance, awareness and challenging/confronting) constitute counselors' process competence. The two remaining categories (subject knowledge and ownership) constitute counselors' expert knowledge. Conclusions: Process competence is heavily emphasized as essential for EPCS counselors and process competence and expert knowledge might be seen as two sides of the same coin.


Fitting network models to neural activity is an important tool in neuroscience. A popular approach is to model a brain area with a probabilistic recurrent spiking network whose parameters maximize the likelihood of the recorded activity. Although this is widely used, we show that the resulting model does not produce realistic neural activity. To correct for this, we suggest to augment the log-likelihood with terms that measure the dissimilarity between simulated and recorded activity. This dissimilarity is defined via summary statistics commonly used in neuroscience and the optimization is efficient because it relies on back-propagation through the stochastically simulated spike trains. We analyze this method theoretically and show empirically that it generates more realistic activity statistics. We find that it improves upon other fitting algorithms for spiking network models like GLMs (Generalized Linear Models) which do not usually rely on back-propagation. This new fitting algorithm also enables the consideration of hidden neurons which is otherwise notoriously hard, and we show that it can be crucial when trying to infer the network connectivity from spike recordings.


INTRODUCTION
The parasympathetically derived marker of heart rate variability, root mean square of successive R-R differences (RMSSD), and the daily fluctuations as measured by the coefficient of variation (RMSSDCV) may be useful for tracking training adaptations in athletic populations. These vagally derived markers of heart rate variability may be especially pertinent when simultaneously considering a female athlete's menstrual cycle.

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to observe the perturbations in RMSSDCV, while considering RMSSD, across a season in the presence and absence of menses with training load in female collegiate rowers.

METHODS
Thirty-six (20 [1] y, 25.6 [3.4] kg·m-2) National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I female rowers were monitored for 18 consecutive weeks across a full season. Seated, ultrashortened RMSSD measurements were obtained by the rowers on at least 3 mornings per week using a smartphone photoplethysmography device. Following the RMSSD measurement, athletes indicated the presence or absence of menstruation within the application. Individual meters rowed that week and sessions rate of perceived exertion were obtained to quantify training load.

RESULTS
Longitudinal mixed-effects modeling demonstrated a significant effect of menses and time, while also considering RMSSD, such that those who were on their period had a significantly greater RMSSDCV than those who were not (11.2% vs 7.5%, respectively; P < .001). These changes were independent of meters rowed, sessions rate of perceived exertion, body mass index, birth-control use, and years of rowing experience, which were all nonsignificant predictors of RMSSDCgV (P > .05).

CONCLUSION
The presence of menses appears to significantly impact RMSSDCV when also considering RMSSD, which may allow coaches to consider individualized training plans accordingly.


Abstract : Human factors are considered in the design and building of airport traffic control quarters. Based on an intensive field study of air traffic controller requirements and human limitations, it specifies over-all tower design and siting workspace layout, and console design for the tower cab n IFR room, and detailed co sideration of the human factors operati g in the working environment. The latter include specifications on seating, floor covering, acoustics, lighting, color (paint), air conditioning, living facilities, nd to brief consi eration of radia ion hazar s. C ONSIDERATION IS ALSO GIVEN IN LESS DET IL TO OTHER TOW R SPACES UCH AS SPACES FOR EQUIPMENT, CONTROLLER READY ROOM, TRAINING AND AD INISTRATIVE ACTIVITIES. (Author)


ABSTRACT Innovation and competition are two major pillars in the information technology (IT) industry. In this paper, we examine the causal relationship between product market competition and innovations in the IT industry. We measure the innovations from both the quantity (number of patents) and the quality (number of non-self citations) perspectives. Based on the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index and natural experiments, we find robust evidence that the competition has a positive effect on the innovations of the IT industry. Specifically, after the exogenous shock to the market (import tariff cuts and thus increased industry competition), the number of patents per IT firm increases by 27.3 percent, and the number of non-self citations per IT firm increases by 38.2 percent on average. The effects are more pronounced in the more competitive sectors. Our study highlights the importance of the competition in the IT industry and suggests that the positive effect of competition on innovation in the IT context is likely to be driven by the parallel search effect. Our findings contribute to the recent policy debate and suggest that reducing import barriers may bring important welfare gains through innovations in the IT industry.


Efficient high-dimensional data indexing algorithms are crucial for image retrieval in large datasets. One of the state-of-the-art indexing methods is vector approximation file (VA-file), which indexes high-dimensional data by filtering feature vectors so that only a small fraction of them are visited in the search process. The VA-file uses a partition strategy that divides the data space on every dimension to make each partition equally full and assigns a same number of bits to each dimension. However, the strategy is not efficient to image datasets where the number of different vector components (granularity) in each dimension is largely diverse. The first two partition strategies are implemented in a practical way according to the description from the original VA-file method. The other two nonuniform partition strategies are proposed to resolve the problems of reduplicate coordinates and uniform bits assignment for each dimension, which assign more bits to represent dimensions with more vector components. Experimental results have shown that these strategies largely improve the performance of the VA-file for nonuniform datasets in terms of query time and filtering efficiency.


This paper proposes a methodology to understand the contents discussed after disasters in the macro debate domain such as articles in newspapers, in order to evaluate the legitimacy of decision making in disaster emergency policies. The concept of ontology is utilized to formulate the structure of observed corpus. By conceptualizing the contents of newspaper articles as a part of macro debate, issues which should be concerned at decision making process after disasters are summarized. This methodology may contribute to the evaluation of decision making process of previous disasters and the proposal of e ff ective emergency disaster policies for possible future disasters.


With advances in basic and clinical neuroscience, many gaps have appeared in the traditional monoamine theory of depression that have led to reformulation of the hypotheses concerning the neurobiology of depression. The more recent hypotheses suggest that melancholic depression is characterized by central glucocorticoid resistance that results in hypercortisolemia, which in turn leads to down-regulation of neurotrophins and subsequent neurodegeneration. Examining the neurobiology of depression from this perspective suggests that the endocannabinoid system may play a role in the etiology of melancholic depression. Specifically, pharmacological and genetic blockade of the cannabinoid CB1 receptor induces a phenotypic state that is analogous to melancholic depression, including symptoms such as reduced food intake, heightened anxiety, increased arousal and wakefulness, deficits in extinction of aversive memories and supersensitivity to stress. These similarities between melancholic depression and an endocannabinoid deficiency become more interesting in light of recent findings that endocannabinoid activity is down-regulated by chronic stress and possibly increased by some antidepressant regimens. We propose that an endocannabinoid deficiency may underlie some of the symptoms of melancholic depression, and that enhancement of this system may ultimately be a novel form of pharmacotherapy for treatment-resistant depression.


Wide circuit implementation of limited switch dynamic logic (LSDL), a high performance logic circuit, with a modified pseudo-nMOS style load has been studied in this paper. A conventional two levels of 8-way mux implementation and a wide 64-way mux implementation of the 64-bit rotator circuit were used in the analysis. The resultant wide circuit implementation consumes less power, maintains robustness to noise and power rail bounce and reduces the pipeline depth to a single stage. The effect of process variation on circuit performance is evaluated. Based on the analysis, a new circuit style known as hybrid LSDL has been proposed.


BACKGROUND
Falls are the second leading cause of work-related fatalities among US workers. We describe fatal work-related falls from 2003 to 2014, including demographic, work, and injury event characteristics, and changes in rates over time.

METHODS
We identified fatal falls from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries and estimated rates using the BLS Current Population Survey.

RESULTS
From 2003 to 2014, there were 8880 fatal work-related falls, at an annual rate of 5.5 per million FTE. Rates increased with age. Occupations with the highest rates included construction/extraction (42.2 per million FTE) and installation/maintenance/repair (12.5 per million FTE). Falls to a lower level represented the majority (n = 7521, 85%) compared to falls on the same level (n = 1128, 13%).

CONCLUSIONS
Falls are a persistent source of work-related fatalities. Fall prevention should continue to focus on regulation adherence, Prevention through Design, improving fall protection, training, fostering partnerships, and increasing communication.


This special issue features 12 contributions by early career scholars and artists dealing with the role of mediatization in the COVID-19 pandemic conjuncture. Themes such as mediated intimacy and sociality, pandemic ideology, politicians' curated authenticity and discursive constructions of self, and playbour and resistance in digital games are examined in five original articles, while three autoethnographic contributions explore the concepts of mediated presence, collectivity, contemplative community, loneliness and relationality. The autoethnographies – in the form of short film, collage and poetry vignettes, respectively – add a personal experiential layer to the broader themes. To generate (mediated) interpersonal dialogue, two artists/academics engage deeply with the autoethographies, further reflecting on the themes explored therein. The issue concludes with an interview with Professor Andreas Hepp, of the University of Bremen, who comments on the contributions and reflects on the role of "deep mediatization" in the pandemic world.


The sound emission from open turbulent flames is dictated by the two-point spatial correlation of the rate of change of the fluctuating heat release rate. This correlation in premixed flames can be represented well using Gaussian-type functions and unstrained laminar flame thermal thickness can be used to scale the correlation length scale, which is about a quarter of the planar laminar flame thermal thickness. This correlation and its length scale are observed to be less influenced by the fuel type or stoichiometry or turbulence Reynolds and Damkohler numbers. The time scale for fluctuating heat release rate is deduced to be about τc/34 on an average, where τc is the planar laminar flame time scale, using direct numerical simulation (DNS) data. These results and the spatial distribution of mean reaction rate obtained from Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) calculations of open turbulent premixed flames employing the standard model and an algebraic reaction rate closure, involving a recently developed scalar dissipation rate model, are used to obtain the far-field sound pressure level from open flames. The calculated values agree well with measured values for flames of different stoichiometry and fuel types, having a range of turbulence intensities and heat output. Detailed analyses of RANS results clearly suggest that the noise level from turbulent premixed flames having an extensive and uniform spatial distribution of heat release rate is low.


In the classification of hyperspectral images with supervised methods, acquisition of ground-truth information for a hyperspectral image is a challenging process in terms of time and cost. Besides, amount of the labeled data also affects the performance of classifiers. In this study, as a solution to this problem, a hyperspectral image classifier is proposed with semi-supervised learning, support vector machine classifier and deep learning. In the first phase to improve the classification performance, limited number of training data is increased by semisupervised learning methodology. Then, the classification process is performed with support vector machines and convolutional neural networks. According to the acquired classification results, a close classification performance is obtained by the system with small number of training data to the supervised classification. Furthermore, deep neural network has reached more successful results than support vector machines.


Purpose
This paper aims to explore the latest study of the emerging data-driven approach in the area of FinTech. This paper attempts to provide comprehensive comparisons, including the advantages and disadvantages of different data-driven algorithms applied to FinTech. This paper also attempts to point out the future directions of data-driven approaches in the FinTech domain.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper explores and summarizes the latest data-driven approaches and algorithms applied in FinTech to the following categories: risk management, data privacy protection, portfolio management, and sentiment analysis.

Findings
This paper details out comparison between different existed works in FinTech with traditional data analytics techniques and the latest development. The framework for the analysis process is developed, and insights regarding the implementation, regulation and workforce development are provided in this area.

Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is first to consider broad aspects of data-driven approaches in the application of FinTech industry to explore the potential, challenges and limitations of this area. This study provides a valuable reference for both the current and future participants.


The transition of plants from sea to land sparked an arms race with pathogens. The increased susceptibility of land plants is largely thought to be due to their dependence on micro-organisms for nutrients; the ensuing co-evolution has shaped the plant immune system. By profiling the immune receptors across flowering plants, we identified species with low numbers of NLR immune receptors. Interestingly, four of these species represent distinct lineages of monocots and dicots that returned to the aquatic lifestyle. Both aquatic monocot and dicot species lost the same well-known downstream immune signalling complex (EDS1-PAD4). This observation inspired us to look for other genes with a similar loss pattern and allowed us to predict putative new components of plant immunity. Gene expression analyses confirmed that a group of these genes was differentially expressed under pathogen infection. Excitingly, another subset of these genes was differentially expressed upon drought. Collectively, our study reveals the minimal plant immune system required for life under water, and highlights additional components required for the life of land plants. Author summary Plant resistance to pathogens is commonly mediated by a complex gene family, known as NLRs. Upon pathogen infection, changes in the cellular environment trigger NLR activation and subsequent defence responses. Despite the dependence of agricultural practices on NLR genes to control pathogen load, relatively little is known about this gene family outside of model crop species. In this study, we identified a convergent reduction in the NLR gene family among two lineages of aquatic plants. Furthermore, we established that NLR reduction occurred in conjunction with the loss of a common immune signalling pathway. Subsequently, we identified other genes convergently lost in aquatic species and propose these as candidate components of the plant immune signalling pathway. In addition, we revealed components of the agronomically important drought response to be lost in aquatic plants. This study adds to our understanding of the complex interactions between environment and response to biotic stress, widely known as the disease triangle. The pathways identified in this study shed further light on the link between responses to drought and disease.


Service-oriented computing is becoming an increasingly popular paradigm for modelling and building distributed systems in heterogeneous, decentralised, and open environments. However, proposed service-oriented architectures are usually based on centralised components, such as service registries or service brokers, that introduce reliability, management, and performance issues. In this paper, we present a fully decentralised service-oriented architecture built on top of a self-organising peer-to-peer infrastructure. This architecture is especially designed to support digital ecosystems due to its low deployment and maintenance cost and inherently decentralised nature.


Recently, a new process has been introduced to control α-γ transformation of steels using cuprous sulfide precipitates on the MnO bearing oxide inclusion as well as MnS. In order to optimize the composition of inclusions, the solubility of copper into MnO-SiO 2 -MnS system were measured at 1 523 K and a dissolution mechanism of copper into an oxy-sulfide melts and cuprous sulfide capacity has been proposed. The solubility of copper increased with an increase in MnO/(MnO+SiO 2 ) ratio and showed a maximum solubility at MnO and MnS doubly saturated composition, which was consistent with the maximum precipitation ratio of CuS. Deliberating an oxy-sulfide melts saturated with MnS, MnO, and SiO 2 at 1 523 K, the phase diagram for the MnO-SiO 2 -MnS system indicated that the activity coefficient of cuprous sulfide in an oxy-sulfide melts was dependent on the activity of MnO and the activity coefficient of MnS. The dissolution mechanism of copper into a MnO-MnS inclusion system was confirmed and cuprous sulfide capacity was also defined from the reaction mechanism. Cuprous sulfide capacity for the MnO-MnS bearing inclusion strongly depends on stability of sulfide and basicity. The experimental results revealed that the optimized composition for inclusion to dissolve copper was (mass%MnO)=43.6, (mass%SiO 2 )=1.8 and (mass%MnS)=54.6. Consequently, it could be proposed that the harmlessness of copper in scrap and dispersion strengthening could be possible by using the non-metallic inclusion technique.


OBJECTIVE
To analyze the influence of a six-month exercise program on neuropsychiatric disorders and on the performance of instrumental activities in elderly patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD).

METHODS
The study included 20 patients with AD in the mild to moderate stages of the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) divided into two groups: the experimental group, composed of 10 women who participated in the six-month exercise program, and the control group, composed of the 10 remaining AD patients who did not take part in an exercise program during the same period. All participants were evaluated using the Mini-Mental State Exam for global cognitive function, the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire for neuropsychiatric disorders, and the Pfeffer Functional Activities Questionnaire for the degree of functional impairment.

RESULTS
The control group showed functional and neuropsychiatric deterioration in the comparisons between pre- and post-intervention times and between groups.

CONCLUSION
The experimental group showed a propensity for less deterioration in neuropsychiatric disorders and performance of instrumental activities compared to the sedentary group.


This thesis concerns Chinese small-scale traders in Zambia, and the relations between Chinese and Zambian traders. It is based on ethnographic field research in Kamwala Market in Zambia's capital Lusaka. The number of Chinese migrants living in Zambia is increasing, and Chinese independent small-scale traders are selling Chinese manufactured consumer goods side by side with Zambian traders. Both media and academia have shown a growing interest in Chinese investments and activities in Africa. However, the media often focuses on large Chinese state run projects in Africa, and points to the negative sides of China's role on the continent. The aim of this thesis is to draw a more nuanced picture of the exchanges between Chinese and African actors, and through a grounded perspective show that the picture is not entirely positive or negative; rather it is complex and context specific.From recent perspectives in anthropology on mobility and mobilities, and using in particular the concepts of 'mobile livelihoods', 'multi-placement', 'translocality' and 'imagined mobility', this thesis argues thatthe Chinese traders live mobile lives, where they maintain a strong presence in more than one locality. They engage in onwards and return migration, and they view Zambia as a place to do business, not to settle down. In a sedentary logic, to migrate is seen as being pulled up by the roots and then planted somewhere else. But the Chinese traders in Lusaka do not think like this. For them, Zambia is a place to moor temporarily to work towards their ambitions of social mobility for themselves and their family. They travel to different places where they see opportunities to do business, as a strategy to obtain social and economic mobility in China and other countries.The relations between Zambians and Chinese at Kamwala Market can be characterised as ambivalent. They both compete and cooperate, they are interdependent but at the same time, there are many conflicts and misunderstandings. To understand the relations between Zambians and Chinese at the market, this thesis analyses the relations in a holistic manner and explores some of the conditions - structural, linguistic, economic, legal and cultural - configuring the relations of ambivalence and conflicting experiences. The study explores how the interactions and relations unfold in practice on a daily basis in the market. The aim is to grasp the relations within defined African locales, engaging the Chinese presence in a grounded context.There is a process of market saturation at Kamwala Market, and there is intense competition for physical, economic and social space. In the saturated market many, both Zambians and Chinese, are provided with opportunities to earn a living and potential for upwards social mobility, while others face falling profits and economic problems, and potential downwards social mobility. This thesis examines the different traders' responses to market saturation, and argues that the recent level of competition has led to increased geographical mobility among the traders, as trading networks are expanding and people and goods are increasingly moving in all directions. The thesis further argues that geographical mobility is related to social mobility and imagined mobility, and that mobilities are key for understanding the processes currently taking place at Kamwala Market.


Synthetic fibers made from nylon or polypropylene have gained application when loose and woven into geo textile form although no information on the matrix's mechanical performance is obtained so that more understanding of their structural contribution to resist cracking can be determined. This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation to determine the performance characteristics of concrete reinforced with a polypropylene structural fiber. In this investigation "Fiber mesh" brand of fibers manufactured by SL Concrete System, Tennessee, USA and marketed by M/S Millennium Building System, Inc., Bangalore, India are used. The lengths of the fibers used were 24 mm. Fiber dosages used were 0.9, 1.8, 2.7 kg/m3. A total of three mixtures, one for each fiber dosage were made. A standard slump cone test was conducted on the fresh concrete mix with and without fibers to determine the workability of the mix. The test program included the evaluation of hardened concrete properties such as compressive, split tensile, modulus of rupture and flexural strengths. The increase in compressive strength is about 36.25%, 26.20%, and 23.75% respectively that of plain concrete. This increase in strength was directly proportional to amount of fibers present in the mix. The increase in flexural strength for Mixes I∼III is about 21%, 16.6%, and 23% respectively that of plain concrete specimens. An experimental investigation was also made to study the behaviors of reinforced fibers concrete beams (with longitudinal reinforcements) under two-point loading. The deflection and crack patterns were also studied. The improvements in strength and ductility characteristics were discussed.


BackgroundBecause it is postulated that gut is important via bacterial translocation in the development of the systemic inflammatory response and multiple organ dysfunction, the preservation of gut integrity is a therapeutic goal for physicians who care for critically ill patients. The aim of the current study was to evaluate whether epidural anesthesia prevented gut injury and subsequent translocation of endotoxin during acute progressive hypoxia in rabbits. MethodsAfter the placement of an epidural catheter, 18 male rabbits, anesthetized with buprenorphine–midazolam, were allocated randomly to two groups: 0.5% lidocaine (group E) and saline (group C) groups. The solutions (0.4 ml/kg) were injected epidurally, followed by continuous infusion (0.1 ml·kg-1·h-1) during the study period. Portal blood flow, portal endotoxin concentrations, and intramucosal pH (pHi) of the ileum were measured at baseline and during two stages of progressive hypoxia (fraction of inspired oxygen [Fio2] = 0.15 and 0.10). ResultsIn both study groups, the portal blood flow was preserved to a similar extent during acute hypoxia. However, pHi was reduced to a lesser extent in group E (7.33 ± 0.12 versus 7.22 ± 0.12 at an Fio2 of 0.15 and 7.13 ± 0.15 versus 7.03 ± 0.12 at an Fio2 of 0.10; mean ± SD, P < 0.01), concurrently with lower portal endotoxin concentrations (P < 0.05) compared with group C. ConclusionsThe current study showed that epidural anesthesia slowed the progression of intestinal ischemia during acute hypoxia, subsequently preventing translocation of endotoxin through the gut mucosa.


Background: Electronic Health Record (EHR) contains all information concerning individuals' health including their outpatient, inpatient, and emergency visits. For successful implementation of this system in the complex healthcare environment, the technical and non-technical factors affecting its implementation should be identified and the barriers should be eliminated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the technical infrastructures of EHR in Iran. Methods: This study was conducted in teaching hospitals in Zahedan and Kerman, Iran in 2015. Data were collected using a researcher-made checklist developed through multiple discussion sessions with technical officers of EHR in medical universities and based on the results of previous studies. The validity of the checklist was confirmed by six health information management and medical informatics professionals. Data were analyzed by calculation of scores, frequency, and percentage for technical infrastructure using SPSS 16. Results: In the studied hospitals, the software infrastructure gained a score of 5.75 out of 11, and the hardware-software infrastructure a score of 20.1 out of 23.Teaching hospitals in Kerman had more hardware equipment including 258 clients, 15 access points, 2 switches, as compared to hospitals in Zahedan. Conclusion: The evaluated hospitals had a fairly favorable software infrastructure and a favorable hardware-software infrastructure. The same process is not followed for the selection and purchase of hardware equipment, and hospitals with more hardware equipment can send more patients' records to EHR. The tool developed in this study can be used to evaluate the technical infrastructure of EHR at the national level.


ABSTRACT In terms of QFR and alkali element (K, Na) relationships, most Archean graywackes are similar to Phanerozoic quartz-intermediate graywackes. However, a number of important differences preclude direct comparisons. Felsic volcanic rock fragments greatly outweigh andesitic rock fragments in Archean graywackes, whereas the reverse is seen in Phanerozoic examples. In comparison to Phanerozoic quartz-intermediate graywackes, Archean graywackes tend to have about 5% lower silica contents. A dominantly volcanogenic provenance can be documented for several Archean graywacke suites. In almost all examples, plagioclase dominates over K-feldspar, but this alone cannot be taken as evidence for a volcanic source because early Archean granitic rocks are typically sodium-rich (tonalites, trondhjemite ). The abundance of quartz in most Archean graywackes (Q typically > 40) is indicative of a major granitic component. Archean graywackes tend to have high FeO + MgO values (typically > 8.0%) and, in this respect, are similar to quartz-poor graywackes or modern sands deposited in fore-arc basins. It is suggested that these high values represent moderate amounts of mafic volcanic debris which have degraded to form part of the matrix. Thus, many Archean graywackes appear to have been derived from the well-established igneous bimodal suite (mafic volcanics--Na-granites, felsic volcanics) characteristic of many Archean terranes. The petrological differences between Archean graywackes and their younger counterparts preclude direct interpretations of tectonic setting, but the petrology of many Archean graywackes is consistent with deposition at the edge of continents.


A 48-year-old man residing in a mental health department inpatient program with a history of schizoaffective disorder presented to the emergency department with a chief complaint of fever and intense abdominal pain for one day. The patient stated he initially fell in the shower and afterwards experienced back pain. He was transferred to an acute care unit within the facility for further evaluation. The facility physician noted that the patient had a mild temperature elevation and abdominal rigidity on exam. At that time, he was given two doses of benztropine intramuscularly, and transferred to our hospital for further evaluation. The patient exhibited fever, diffuse abdominal pain and a nonproductive cough, but denied chills, dysuria, urinary frequency, hematuria, weakness, diarrhea, melena or hematochezia. He did have a one-week history of constipation for which he was given sodium phosphate enemas, magnesium citrate and docusate sodium, eventually resulting in a bowel movement. He also complained of new onset dysphagia. There were no recent changes to his medications, which included clonazepam, divalproex sodium extended release, olanzapine and risperidone. He denied use of tobacco, alcohol or illicit drugs.


businesses orient towards electronic technologies. Amazon.com and e-bay.com are some of the major stakeholders in this regard. Unfortunately the enormous size and hugely unstructured data on the web, even for a single commodity, has become a cause of ambiguity for consumers. Extracting valuable information from such an ever-increasing data is an extremely tedious task and is fast becoming critical towards the success of businesses. Web content mining can play a major role in solving these issues. It involves using efficient algorithmic techniques to search and retrieve the desired information from a seemingly impossible to search unstructured data on the Internet. Application of web content mining can be very encouraging in the areas of Customer Relations Modeling, billing records, logistics investigations, product cataloguing and quality management. In this paper we present a review of some very interesting, efficient yet implementable techniques from the field of web content mining and study their impact in the area specific to business user needs focusing both on the customer as well as the producer. The techniques we would be reviewing include, mining by developing a knowledge-base repository of the domain, iterative refinement of user queries for personalized search, using a graph-based approach for the development of a web-crawler and filtering information for personalized search using website captions. These techniques have been analyzed and compared on the basis of their execution time and relevance of the result they produced against a particular search.


COVID-19, a new pandemic, has swept the world. How could this have happened? In theory the world should have been prepared, armed as it has been since 2005 with a new set of International Health Regulations with universal commitment by WHO Member States. Yet disaster has struck. The authors of this paper consider that fundamental rethinking is needed, with a new review of the post-World War 2 international system for global governance for health. Whilst WHO and its present and future actions will be scrutinized, the organization is fundamentally made up of 194 Member States, which must share the responsibility for ensuring better global health protection in the future. It is clear the world needs a more effective WHO, but it also needs countries to support and develop their public health infrastructure to face today's more complex health challenges, which can only grow in scope and complexity over coming years. The paper proposes several key steps to achieve these goals.


This paper presents and discusses new data on employment protection legislation (EPL) in the successor states of the former USSR – the CIS and Baltic states – over 25 years from 1985 to 2009. We use the OECD methodology (OECD EPL, version II) for assessing the strictness of national labor laws with respect to employers' firing costs. In addition to the overall OECD EPL index, we present detailed statistics for 18(22) sub-indicators used for its computation. The new data allow us to make several important observations. In particular, the data do not support the widely held view that labor regulations in the former USSR with respect to firing costs were extremely rigid and were subsequently liberalized by the 15 successor states over the course of transition to a market economy. Rather, the dynamics of the EPL index in the region resembles an inverted U-shaped pattern with the peak of labor market rigidity occurring in the mid-1990s in the CIS countries and a decade later in the Baltic States. In terms of major sub-indicators, we observe a rather unusual pattern: gradual liberalization of permanent contracts on the background of increasing regulation of temporary contracts and collective dismissals. This is in sharp contrast with the OECD economies, where liberalization of temporary contracts has been the major trend in the recent decades. By now, the ex-USSR states as a group do not differ that much from the EU-15 and OECD countries in terms of the overall EPL index, although they differ considerably in terms of contributions to the overall EPL of its thee major components, namely, regulation of permanent contracts, temporary contracts, and collective dismissals. We also show that our EPL data are correlated with a number of variables characterizing economic development, progress in market-oriented reforms, and political regimes prevailing in the countries studied, which suggests potential of using the new dataset in further politico-economic research.


We present the apparent stellar angular momentum over the optical extent of 300 galaxies across the Hubble sequence using integral-field spectroscopic (IFS) data from the CALIFA survey. Adopting the same λR parameter previously used to distinguish between slow and fast rotating early-type (elliptical and lenticular) galaxies, we show that spiral galaxies are almost all fast rotators, as expected. Given the extent of our data, we provide relations for λR measured in different apertures (e.g. fractions of the effective radius: 0.5 Re, Re, 2 Re), including conversions to long-slit 1D apertures. Our sample displays a wide range of λRe values, consistent with previous IFS studies. The fastest rotators are dominated by relatively massive and highly star-forming Sb galaxies, which preferentially reside in the main star-forming sequence. These galaxies reach λRe values of ∼0.85, and they are the largest galaxies at a given mass, while also displaying some of the strongest stellar population gradients. Compared to the population of S0 galaxies, our findings suggest that fading may not be the dominant mechanism transforming spirals into lenticulars. Interestingly, we find that λRe decreases for late-type Sc and Sd spiral galaxies, with values that occasionally set them in the slow-rotator regime. While for some of them this can be explained by their irregular morphologies and/or face-on configurations, others are edge-on systems with no signs of significant dust obscuration. The latter are typically at the low-mass end, but this does not explain their location in the classical (V/σ, ε) and (λRe, ε) diagrams. Our initial investigations, based on dynamical models, suggest that these are dynamically hot disks, probably influenced by the observed important fraction of dark matter within Re.


This article reports patterned transfer of charge between conformal material interfaces through a concept referred to as nanocontact electrification. Nanocontacts of different size and shape are formed between surface-functionalized polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) stamps and other dielectric materials (PMMA, SiO(2)). Forced delamination and cleavage of the interface yields a well-defined charge pattern with a minimal feature size of 100 nm. The process produces charged surfaces and associated fields that exceed the breakdown strength of air, leading to strong long-range adhesive forces and force-distance curves, which are recorded over macroscopic distances. The process is applied to fabricate charge-patterned surfaces for nanoxerography demonstrating 200 nm resolution nanoparticle prints and applied to thin film electronics where the patterned charges are used to shift the threshold voltages of underlying transistors.


Superposed-neutral-atom model and the finite-difference method (SNA-FD) are used to calculate the positron lifetime of different sizes and types of vacancy clusters in Ni3Al alloy. The calculated positron bulk lifetime in Ni3Al agrees well with the experimental results mentioned in literatures. The positron lifetimes of vacancy clusters with the same amount of vacancy but different components are also calculated. The results show that the positron lifetime is different when its components are different. The positron lifetimes of vacancy clusters with a single element but different sizes are also calculated. The result shows that the positron lifetime is almost a constant when its component is only Al vacancy, but the positron lifetime will increase at first and trend to be a constant when its component is only Ni vacancy.


Style transfer methods put a premium on two objectives: (1) completeness which encourages the encoding of a complete set of style patterns; (2) coherence which discourages the production of spurious artifacts not found in input styles. While existing methods pursue the two objectives either partially or implicitly, we present the Completeness and Coherence Network (CCNet) which jointly learns completeness and coherence components and rejects their incompatibility, both in an explicit manner. Specifically, we develop an attention mechanism integrated with bi-directional softmax operations for explicit imposition of the two objectives and for their collaborative modelling. We also propose CCLoss as a quantitative measure for evaluating the quality of a stylized image in terms of completeness and coherence. Through an empirical evaluation, we demonstrate that compared with existing methods, our method strikes a better tradeoff between computation costs, generalization ability and stylization quality.


The concern that equality could lead to reduced growth is not consistent with empirical evidence. Over 2005-2012, the most egalitarian countries of the EU15 have experienced not only higher levels of GDP per capita, but also higher growth rates. In these countries, the consequences of 2008-2009 financial market crisis were much less severe than elsewhere in Western Europe. It is therefore essential to ask whether Italy is too unequal to continue to grow and if income redistribution may still be separate from growth in the political agenda. The economic gap between South and Central-North Italy is a critical component of the overall inequality observed in Italy, due to both the difference of mean household incomes between the two areas and the greater inequality observed amongst the southern households. Such a gap substantially depends on the higher average number of dependent individuals living in southern households, on the one hand; and on lower employment rates amongst women and young people that implies less opportunities to earn additional household incomes. As a result, the percentage of poor people out of the total population is significantly higher in the South, although in absolute terms the number of the poor who reside in the Centre-North is larger than those living in the South. Therefore, more than half of the total spending of a measure of support to lower income groups would be spent for the Centre-North residents.


Humans have a unique ability to use language for social communication. The neural architecture for language comprehension and production may have prominently emerged in the brain areas that were originally involved in social cognition. Here, we directly tested the fundamental link between language and social processing using functional magnetic resonance data (MRI) data from over 1,000 human subjects. Cortical activations in language and social tasks showed a striking similarity with a complementary hemispheric lateralization. Within core language areas, left-lateralized activations in the language task were mirrored by right-lateralized activations in the social task. Outside these areas, the activations were left lateralized in both tasks, perhaps indicating multimodal integration of social and semantic information. Our findings could have important implications in understanding neurocognitive mechanisms of social disorders such as autism.


Microarray experiments investigate the changes in the expression of the transcriptome of a tissue during biological processes such as development of the tissue. Analysis usually produces a list of up and down regulated genes. While this in itself may highlight important biological processes taking place much information about relations between the genes may remain hidden in the huge amount of data. Databases can be searched via the internet might contain physiological information that can be invaluable for the understanding of the microarray results. However, the databases contain more information on humans and model animals such as mice and rats than other species. Therefore, we developed a set of PERL scripts enabling the automated search of the database for pathways using the list of expressed genes present on the microarray. A previously reported microarray experiment investigating prenatal myogenesis in pigs was used to search the KEGG database. Pathways returned by the KEGG database indicated that the gene expression patterns in several pathways suggest a single regulatory mechanism. Furthermore, pathways may be active in a specific myogenesis process such as proliferation of myoblasts or differentiation indicated by up regulated expression of most genes in that pathway. The results also indicate that pathways act together forming networks of pathways. This may give insight in higher level regulatory mechanisms taking place in the cell. We conclude that combining microarray and physiological data such as biochemical pathways in databases accessible via the internet is an important tool for gaining biological knowledge from microarray experiments.


Farmers' indigenous knowledge of storage insect pests and management practices in stored grain protection against insect pests are critical for sustainable food security in the smallholder sector in Zimbabwe. A survey was conducted among 48 and 51 maize farmers in wards 9 and 10 Bikita district respectively, to evaluate their knowledge, attitudes and traditional maize storage management practices against storage insect pests. The selected farmers grew maize and a variety of vegetables for subsistence. Problem storage pests listed in order of prevalence were maize weevil (Sitophilus zeamais) 49%, lesser grain borer (Rhizopertha dominica) and maize weevil (Sitophilus zeamais) complex 25.5%,  lesser grain borer (Rhizopertha dominica) 17.7% and larger grain borer (Prostephanus truncatus) 7.3%. The commonly used botanical pesticides in the two wards were gumtree  (Eucalyptus spp) (24.6%), tamboti (Spirostachys africana) (7.2%), lilac tree (Melia azedarach) (4.1%), sunflower (Helianthus annuus) ash (5.1%), cow dung (3.1%), lemon bush  (Lippia javanica) (2%), murwiti (Rapanea melanophloeos) (1%), sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum) (1%) and finger millet (Eleucine coracana)  chuff (1%),wood ash (4.1%) and mixtures of the above mentioned botanicals (4.5%). The botanicals are mixed with maize grain before storage either in sealed hessian bags or as loose grain placed in the granary plastered with cow dung. The use of botanicals was more prevalent in Ward 10 (100%) than ward 9 (14.7%). Farmers resort to the use of cheap and locally available botanicals when there is no money to buy synthetic insecticides. There is an urgent need for laboratory evaluation of the efficacy, chemical composition and mode of action in order to come up with dosage guidelines of these ethnobotanicals for the resource poor smallholder farmers.

 Key words: Indigenous knowledge, ethnoecological knowledge, ethnobotanicals, Sitophilus zeamais, Rhizopertha dominica, Prostephanus truncatus, synthetic insecticides, smallholder farmers.


European regions have experienced a polarisation of their unemployment rates between 1986 and 1996, as regions with intermediate rates have moved towards either extreme. This process has been driven by changes in regional employment, only partly offset by labour force changes. Regions' outcomes have closely followed those of neighbouring regions. This is only weakly explained by regions being part of the same Member State, having a similar skill composition, or broad sectoral specialisation. Even more surprisingly, foreign neighbours matter as much as domestic neighbours. All of this suggests a reorganisation of economic activities with increasing disregard for national borders.


Acritical omission in the coworker influence literature is how a coworker influences a closely related focal employee's job performance behaviors and whether this influence is contingent on that coworker's own behaviors. By integrating social information processing and social cognitive theories with social exchange and role theories, we hypothesize that there are, at least, three distinct types of coworker dyadic influence. Accordingly, we developed and tested a moderated mediation model to explicate such influence. Two multisource, field-design studies conducted in Hong Kong support the modeled relationships in that employee role ambiguity partially mediated the relationships between coworker-employee exchange and two types of employee job performance behaviors-task performance and organizational citizenship behavior OCB. Furthermore, coworker OCB fostered employee job performance behavior both directly and interactively, acting as a moderator to weaken the relationships between employee role ambiguity and the two types of job performance behaviors.


As photovoltaic (PV) energy continues to gain market penetration due to the lower cost of photovoltaic (PV) modules, attention is shifting to the balance-of-system. In this paper, a new efficiency evaluation technique based on a usage model synthesized from high temporal operational data of a PV module is investigated along with a multi-objective design optimization of the DC-DC stage of a Module-Integrated Inverter. The analysis shows that the technique provides more accurate results then the California Energy Commission weighted efficiency method particularly when other geographic regions of the world are considered.


Multiple pregnancies are characterized by significantly higher rates of intrauterine and perinatal morbidities and fetal death compared to singleton pregnancies. It is well known that the death of a co-twin during the second and third trimester can cause damage in the other fetus. Here we report two newborn cases presenting with renal failure probably caused by intrauterine death of their co-twins shortly before birth.


In this paper, we use a case study of the stream restoration field to demonstrate how the particular state and market logics of neoliberalism are shifting both the practice of restoration scientists and the relations between public and private sector science. In particular, the embrace of neoliberal environmental management regimes has intensified the demand for environmental scientists to produce applied science that can: (1) be taught as a standardized package; (2) be used by agencies to justify decisions; and (3) form the basis for new markets in ecosystems services. At this point, private sector science produces the most influential knowledge claims, the most widely used applications, and the primary educational system for stream restoration in the US. We argue that the needs of markets and regulatory agencies are heavily implicated in this privatization process, and that the resulting impacts on restoration science and the dynamics of the stream restoration field in the US thus cannot be described without attention to political—economic relations.


Physics on the large scale is based on Einstein's theory of general relativity, which interprets gravity as the curvature of space–time. Despite its tremendous success as an isolated theory of gravity, general relativity has proved problematic in its integration with physics as a whole, and in particular with the physics of the very small, which is governed by quantum mechanics. There can be no unification of physics that does not include both general relativity and quantum mechanics. Superstring theory and its recent extension to the more general theory of branes is a popular candidate for a unified theory, but the links with experiment are very tenuous. The approach known as loop quantum gravity attempts to quantize general relativity without unification, and has so far received no obvious experimental verification. The lack of experimental guidance has made the issue extremely hard to pin down.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the opinions of a perinatal health team regarding decisions related to late termination of pregnancy and severely ill newborns.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
An anonymous questionnaire was administered to physicians, social workers, and nurses in perinatal care. Differences were evaluated using the chi square and Student's t tests.

RESULTS
When considering severely ill fetuses and newborns, 82% and 93% of participants, respectively, opted for providing palliative care, whereas 18% considered feticide as an alternative. Those who opted for palliative care aimed to diminish suffering and those who opted for intensive care intended to protect life or sanctity of life. There was poor knowledge about the laws that regulate these decisions.

CONCLUSIONS
Although there is no consensus on what decisions should be taken with severely ill fetuses or neonates, most participants considered palliative care as the first option, but feticide or induced neonatal death was not ruled out.


Backgrounds: Bleomycin (BLM) has been labeled with radioisotopes and widely used in therapy and diagnosis. In this study BLM was labeled with [ 62 Zn] zinc chloride for oncologic PET studies. Materials and methods: The complex was obtained at the pH=2 in normal saline at 90°C in 60 min. Radio-TLC showed an overall radiochemical yield of 95-97% (radiochemical purity > 97%). Stability of complex was checked in vitro in mice and human plasma/urine. Results: Preliminary in vivo studies performed to determine complex stability and distribution of [ 62 Zn] BLM in normal and fibrosarcoma-bearing mice. [ 62 Zn] BLM accumulated significantly in induced fibrosarcoma tumors in mice according to bio-distribution/imaging studies. Conclusion: [ 62 Zn] BLM can be used in PET oncology studies due to its suitable physicochemical properties as a diagnostic complex in vitro and in vivo. Further studies should be performed for evaluation of the complex behavior in higher animals. Iran. J. Radiat. Res., 2003; 1(1): 37 - 44.


Nonlinear optical (NLO) polyimide and a series of polyimide/silica nanohybrids were synthesized from 3,3',4,4'-biphenyltetracarboxylic dianhydride (BPDA), NLO molecule 4-(4'- nitrophenyl-2-yl) phenyl-1,3-diamine, coupling agent and TEOS via sol-gel method. The TEOS content in the hybrids was varied from 0 to 22.5 wt%. The prepared hybrids were characterized by FT-IR, Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM). The glass transition temperature (Tg) and the decomposition temperature (Td) at 5 % mass loss were in the range 232~365 °C and 335~475 °C, respectively. The results showed that the prepared materials had excellent thermal stabilities. The electro-optic coefficients (γ33) at 832 nm were in the range of 19-34 pm/V and the values remained well. The experimental results indicate that the prepared thin films have good candidate for electro-optical applications.


BACKGROUND/AIMS
Low 25-hydroxyvitamin D serum levels have been associated with the severity of liver fibrosis in genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C patients (G1CHC), and experimental evidence suggested a hepatoprotective role of vitamin D via interaction with hepatic vitamin D receptor (VDR). We assessed the hepatic expression of VDR protein and its association with liver disease severity.

METHODS
Ninety-one consecutive patients with biopsy-proven G1CHC and available frozen liver tissue were evaluated. Ten subjects without chronic liver diseases and nine patients with autoimmune hepatitis served as controls. The hepatic expression of VDR protein was assessed by Western blot for quantification and by immunohistochemistry for morphological distribution.

RESULTS
Liver VDR protein was mainly localized in hepatocytes and cholangiocytes, and its expression by a Western blot was similar in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) and controls (1.83 ± 0.97 vs 2.18 ± 0.62, P = .14) but was lower in autoimmune hepatitis (0.84 ± 0.14, P < .001). The expression was lower in CHC with severe necroinflammatory activity (1.44 ± 0.87) vs both controls and CHC with grade 1-2 inflammation (1.94 ± 0.97, P = .01 and P = .03, respectively) but higher compared with autoimmune hepatitis (P = .007). A similar difference was observed in CHC patients with F3-F4 fibrosis whose VDR expression (1.51 ± 1.07) was also lower compared with controls and CHC with F0-F2 fibrosis (1.98 ± 0.89, P = .02 and P = .04, respectively) but higher vs autoimmune hepatitis (P = .003). At multivariate logistic regression analysis, low VDR protein expression remained associated with severe necroinflammatory activity and severe fibrosis (odds ratio 0.543,95% confidence interval 0.288-0.989, P = .04; and odds ratio 0.484,95% confidence interval 0.268-0.877, P = .01, respectively) in CHC after correction for clinical, biochemical, and histological features.

CONCLUSION
In a cohort of G1CHC patients, the hepatic expression of VDR protein is associated with the severity of both liver fibrosis and inflammation.


Different techniques of moult induction were used to force moult 360 commercial old layers, aged 85 weeks. The techniques were: natural day length with feed and water ad libitum, natural day length with water but no feed, natural day length with no feed and no water, reduced day length with feed and water ad libitum, reduced day length with water but no feed, reduced day length with no feed and no water, designated as T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 and T6, respectively. The T1 served as the control. Sixty hens were randomly assigned to each treatment which was replicated 3 times. The moult induction period was for 10 days coupled with 50 days of recovery period when the birds were fed low protein moult diet. At day 7, the ovaries of T2, T3, T5, T6 regressed weighing 3.43, 7.03, 5.00, 4.80 g, respectively. These were significantly (P<0.05) lower than the ovarian weights of 34.73 and 35.13 g of T4 and control (T1), respectively. By day 35 of moult induction, the ovaries of T2, T3, T5 showed the greatest recovery increasing to 18.53, 20.73, 13.27 g, respectively, while T4 decreased to 13.00 g. The number of large yellow follicles of T2, T3, T5, T6 decreased from 3.33 on day 0 to 0.00 on day 7. By day 21 the large yellow follicles of T2, T3, T5 and T6 started regenerating, ranging between 2.33 and 3.00 and by day 49 were significantly (P<0.05) higher than T4 (1.67). Plasma progesterone levels decreased from between 0.50 and 0.60 ng/ml on day 0 to undetectable levels by days 7 and 14 in T2, T3, T5, T6. By day 21, plasma progesterone levels (ng/ml) started rising in T2 (0.40), T3 (0.33), T5 (0.40), T6 (0.33) although these were significantly (P<0.05) lower than those of T1 (0.77) and T4 (0.81). As the number of large yellow follicles increased, the concentration of progesterone in the plasma increased.


The authors propose a novel spatiotemporal constraint based on shape and appearance and combine it with a level-set deformable model for left ventricle (LV) segmentation in four-dimensional gated cardiac SPECT, particularly in the presence of perfusion defects. The model incorporates appearance and shape information into a 'soft-to-hard' probabilistic constraint, and utilises spatiotemporal regularisation via a maximum a posteriori framework. This constraint force allows more flexibility than the rigid forces of shape constraint-only schemes, as well as other state of the art joint shape and appearance constraints. The combined model can hypothesise defective LV borders based on prior knowledge. The authors present comparative results to illustrate the improvement gain. A brief defect detection example is finally presented as an application of the proposed method.


Paper presented at European Congress and Exhibition on Advanced Materials and Processes (EUROMAT 2013), which took place in Seville (Spain) during 8-13th September 2013.


Research Problem:  There is a contradiction surrounding ebooks in that they are becoming more and more common in academic libraries but evidence often suggests that users still prefer print books to ebooks. The purpose of the study is to examine how users at the University of Canterbury are using the Library's ebooks and what their attitudes towards ebooks are. The study also looks at what role age, gender, academic status and college affiliation play in shaping attitudes towards and use of ebooks.   Methodology:  The study used an online survey to discover how ebooks were used and viewed by users at the University of Canterbury. The survey was largely quantitative but included several comments sections where users could give more qualitative answers. The population sampled was the academic staff and PhD students of the University of Canterbury.   Results:   The results show that the participants are mostly aware of and using ebooks. Opinion is still divided on ebooks with some user still preferring print and many users preferring access to both print and ebooks. Age, gender, academic status and college affiliation all have some effect on attitudes towards and use of ebooks.   Implications:  Academic libraries need to take note of the opinions their users have about ebooks so as to better meet their needs. Some of the problems around ebook use can be solved by increased user education but others are the result of restrictions placed on ebooks by publishers and vendors. Other problems are inherent to the ebook format and cannot be ignored. Academic libraries can best meet their users' needs by providing both print and ebook collections were possible.


A rotating gas bubble stirring technique with specially designed equipment has been developed for the production of light alloy semi-solid slurry. The equipment was specially designed to have temperature, rotation speed and gas flow rate control functions. An Al-Si aluminum alloy was applied as the experimental material. The results showed that large volume of semi-solid slurry could be achieved with the actual stirring temperature of 4 °C to 20 °C below the liquidus temperature of the alloy, and the rotation speed of 195 r/min, and the gas flow rate of 2 L/min. A strong convection and weak stirring effect which was induced by the rotating gas bubbles in the melt was founded responsible for the formation of the semi-solid slurry.


INTRODUCTION
Swertia japonica Makino (S. japonica) has a long history of use as a folk medicine, and it is one of the three essential Japanese folk medicines. S.japonica has been reported to have various biological activities. The biologically active secoiridoid glycoside swertiamarin (SM) has been isolated from S. japonica. The efficacy of this plant is attributed to SM and related secoiridoid glycosides. To control the quality of S. japonica for medicinal use, a method for the determination of SM and other secoiridoid glycosides in the plant is needed.

OBJECTIVE
To produce an anti-SM monoclonal antibody (MAb) and develop an indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (icELISA) for S. japonica standardisation and quality control.

METHODOLOGY
SM was conjugated to cationised bovine serum albumin (cBSA), and the SM-cBSA conjugate was used to immunise BALB/c mice. Splenocytes from the immunised mice were then fused with SP2/0 myeloma cells to produce hybridoma cells that expressed anti-SM MAb.

RESULTS
The developed icELISA was sufficiently sensitive and had a quantitative range of 0.78 to 12.5 μg/mL. Coefficients of variation below 10% indicated good repeatability. Recoveries in a spike and recovery assay ranged from 91.84% to 115.50%, which confirmed that the icELISA was accurate. The SM content measured using the icELISA was in agreement with the results of a high-performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet (HPLC-UV) assay.

CONCLUSION
The icELISA is suitable for the high-throughput analysis of SM and other secoiridoid glycosides in S. japonica. The method is fast, economical, and reliable for S. japonica quality control.


This article provides a unique contribution to the debates about archived qualitative data by drawing on two uses of the same data - British Migrants in Spain: the Extent and Nature of Social Integration, 2003-2005 - by Jones (2009) and Oliver and O'reilly (2010), both of which utilise Bourdieu's concepts analytically and produce broadly similar findings. We argue that whilst the insights and experiences of those researchers directly involved in data collection are important resources for developing contextual knowledge used in data analysis, other kinds of critical distance can also facilitate credible data use. We therefore challenge the assumption that the idiosyncratic relationship between context, reflexivity and interpretation limits the future use of data. Moreover, regardless of the complex genealogy of the data itself, given the number of contingencies shaping the qualitative research process and thus the potential for partial or inaccurate interpretation, contextual familiarity need not be privileged over other aspects of qualitative praxis such as sustained theoretical insight, sociological imagination and methodological rigour.


In this paper, a new single stage single phase power factor corrected and isolated AC-DC converter based on resonance and soft switching (SS) is presented. In fact, a new concept for power factor corrected converter is proposed in this study. This converter provides power factor correction (PFC) by using a switch and a fully resonant circuit. It also provides regulated and isolated output voltage with direct power transfer by using a second switch and forward and yback topologies based on resonance. Both switches in the converter are controlled with the same closed loop and the time multiplexing, and are switched with soft switching dominantly because of resonance. The input or PFC switch is turned on and off under zero current switching (ZCS) due to the resonant circuit. The output switch is turned on with ZCS due to resonance, and unfortunately is turned off with hard switching. The operation principle, detailed steady state analysis, and design procedure of the new PFC converter are presented. The theoretical analysis is veried by a prototype of the new converter using 125 W and 100 kHz.


The term cytoprotection pioneered by Robert and colleagues has been introduced to describe the remarkable ability of endogenous and exogenous prostaglandins (PGs) to prevent acute gastric hemorrhagic lesions induced by noxious stimuli such as ethanol, bile acids, hiperosmolar solutions and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents such as aspirin. Since that time many factors were implicated to possess gastroprotective properties such as growth factors including epidermal growth factor (EGF) and transforming factor alpha (TGFα), vasodilatory mediators such as nitric oxide (NO) and calcitonin gene related peptide (CGRP) as well as appetite gut hormones including gastrin and cholecystokinin (CCK), leptin and recently ghrelin. This protective action of gut peptides has been attributed to the release of PG but question remains whether another peptide angiotensin, the classic component of the systemic and local renin-angiotensin system (RAS) could be involved in the mechanism of gastric integrity and gastroprotection. After renin stimulation, the circulating angiotensin I is converted to angiotensin II (ANG II) by the activity of the Angiotensin Converting Enzyme (ACE). The ANG II acting via its binding to two major receptor subtypes the ANG type 1 (AT1) and type 2 (AT2) has been shown be activated during stress and to contribute to the pathogenesis of cold stress- and ischemia-reperfusion-induced gastric lesions. All bioactive angiotensin peptides can be generated not only in systemic circulation, but also locally in several tissues and organs. Recently the new functional components of RAS, such as Ang-(1-7), Ang IV, Ang-(1-12) and novel pathways ACE2 have been described suggesting the gastroprotective role for the novel ANG II metabolite, Ang-(1-7). The fact that Ang-(1-7) is produced in excessive amounts in the gastric mucosa of rodents and that pretreatment by Ang-(1-7) exhibits a potent gastroprotective activity against the gastric lesions induced by cold-restraint stress suggests that this and possibly other vasoactive metabolites of ANG II pathway could be involved in the mechanism of gastric integrity and gastroprotection. This review summarizes the novel gastroprotective factors and mechanisms associated with metabolic fate of systemic and local RAS activation with major focus to recent advancement in the angiotensin pathways in the gut integrity.


Inkjet 3D printing has broad applications in areas such as health and energy due to its capability to precisely deposit micro-droplets of multi-functional materials. However, the droplet of the inkjet printing has different jetting behaviors including drop initiation, thinning, necking, pinching and flying, and they are vulnerable to disturbance from vibration, material inhomogeneity, etc. Such issues make it challenging to yield a consistent printing process and a defect-free final product with desired properties. Therefore, timely recognition of the droplet behavior is critical for inkjet printing quality assessment. In-situ video monitoring of the printing process paves a way for such recognition. In this paper, a novel feature identification framework is presented to recognize the spatiotemporal feature of in-situ monitoring videos for inkjet printing. Specifically, a spatiotemporal fusion network is used for droplet printing behavior classification. The categories are based on inkjet printability, which is related to both the static features (ligament, satellite, and meniscus) and dynamic features (ligament thinning, droplet pinch off, meniscus oscillation). For the recorded droplet jetting video data, two streams of networks, the frames sampled from video in spatial domain (associated with static features) and the optical flow in temporal domain (associated with dynamic features), are fused in different ways to recognize the droplet evolving behavior. Experiments results show that the proposed fusion network can recognize the droplet jetting behavior in the complex printing process and identify its printability with learned knowledge, which can ultimately enable the real-time inkjet printing quality control and further provide guidance to design optimal parameter settings for the inkjet printing process.


Current therapies for Parkinson's disease (PD) are limited in their ability to control PD symptomatology, are associated with motor and psychiatric side effects, and do not prevent disease progression. Considerable scientific and media interest has focused on the potential value of gene and stem cell therapies to overcome these problems and to enhance the quality of life for PD patients. Gene therapies utilize a viral vector to deliver a protein of interest to specific brain region. Clinical trials of gene therapy are currently underway using adeno-associated virus to deliver AADC to the striatum, the trophic factor nurturin to the striatum, and GAD to the STN. To date, no serious adverse effects have been noted, but only a small number of patients have been studied. Stem cells are pluripotential cells that offer the potential of generating unlimited numbers of optimized dopamine cells for transplantation. Stem cells can be grown and expanded in tissue culture and then induced to differentiate into dopamine neuronal phenotypes. Transplantation of these cells into the striatum is associated with behavioral improvement in 6-OHDA rodents and MPTP monkeys. Still, only small numbers of transplanted dopaminergic cells survive, and benefits are modest. Clinical trials in PD have not yet been performed. There is considerable enthusiasm for the potential of these procedures, but there remains much to learn in the laboratory and neither has been established to be effective as a treatment for PD. Long term safety and efficacy trials have not been performed in PD patients and the potential of unanticipated side effects must be addressed. Further, neither treatment is expected to improve the non-dopaminergic features of PD.


Considers the problem of grasping an unknown polygonal flat object using a parallel jaw gripper. The authors propose to equip a standard gripper with several light-beam sensors (close to each jaw) and describe a reactive grasping algorithm. This is done by probing the object to locate a good grasp position, and then grasping, without moving the object significantly. The goal is to do as little motion as possible to find a grasp. This algorithm can be viewed in, a competitive framework, where the authors' algorithm is competing against any algorithm which already knows the object.<<ETX>>


Sperm quality is an important topic in general health, chemotherapy, and gamete preservation technology. Fatty acid (FA) composition of membranes, which is influenced by the diet, plays key roles in sperm biology and quality. Dietary supplementation with natural products can be used as a technique to screen potential agents to protect, modify, and recover sperm quality. In this study, zebrafish (male [♂-ZF] and female [♀-ZF]) were fed a single cultivar olive oil (OO) bioencapsulated in Artemia. OO-treated ♂-ZF had higher (p < 0.05) sperm density and motility compared to the Artemia nauplii (AN). A significant difference was also observed in follicle abundance at different stages of gametogenesis, and a nonsignificant increase in total fecundity between OO-treated ♀-ZF and the AN, although in OO-treated ♀-ZF, mature follicles had a smaller diameter. A higher fertility rate (FR) was observed in OO-treated pairs compared to the other groups. Hatching in the OO-treated fish was accelerated, although no significant differences could be found in terms of hatching rate (HR) and embryo/larval survival rate (SR). These findings in FR, HR, and SR were also confirmed in male and female replacement mating trials. Taken together, this study shows that altering the FA ratios in the diet has a clear impact on several reproductive parameters in the zebrafish, adding new information about the nutritional requirement of this model species.