Background The EDIFICE surveys have been conducted since 2005 to provide a better understanding of the participation of the French population in cancer screening programs. The breast cancer (BC) screening program is nowadays widely implemented throughout the target female population: women aged 50-74 years are invited for a mammogram once every two years. We analyzed the behavior of women over time (between 2005 and 2016) regarding BC screening according to age-group, socioprofessional categories (SPC) and social vulnerability. Methods The fifth nationwide observational survey, EDIFICE 5, was conducted by phone interviews using the quota method. A representative sample of 1299 subjects aged 50-74 years with no history of cancer was interviewed between November 22 and December 7, 2016. Interviewees (women aged 50-74 yrs; N=657) were asked about their uptake of BC screening, and the date of the last examination to determine the follow-up rate. Demographic data on social characteristics and SPC were also collected to determine the level of social vulnerability (validated EPICES score). Results Compliance with BC screening (a mammogram within the past 2 years) decreased significantly from 81% in 2014 to 75% in 2016 (P=0.02). From 2014, a significant impact of age was observed (P=0.02 in 2014 and 2016). In 2016, and for the first time, a significant and disturbing decrease in follow-up rate was recorded among younger women (age 50-54 yrs: 88% in 2014 vs 74% in 2016, P=0.01). SPC had no effect on compliance with screening. However, since 2008, fluctuations have been observed among unemployed individuals (U), with a significant decline in compliance in 2016 (U: 81% in 2014 vs 73% in 2016, P=0.03). In 2016, social vulnerability was seen as a factor that negatively impacts on compliance with BC screening (P≤0.01), but not in 2011 or 2014. We also observed a significant overall decrease in 2016 among both vulnerable (76% in 2014 vs 65% in 2016; P=0.04) and non-vulnerable populations (85% in 2014 vs 79% in 2016, P=0.04), highlighting a general loss of confidence. Conclusion For the first time since 2005, compliance with BC screening dropped significantly in France in 2016. A significant overall decline was observed regardless of social vulnerability status. Disturbing significant decreases were observed among the younger age-group (women aged 50-54 yrs) of the target population of the organized program, and among unemployed women. Although organized programs have been shown to ensure equitable access to cancer screening, this achievement remains precarious and requires regular monitoring. Citation Format: Morere JF, Eisinger F, Blay J-Y, Greillier L, Brignoli-Guibaudet L, Lhomel C, Cortot AB, Couraud S, Viguier J. Decline in compliance to breast cancer screening in France: Results of the 5th EDIFICE survey [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2017 Dec 5-9; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P6-08-07.


Intellectual property rights have a firm place within the European Union. Measures aretaken to assure that such rights are secured and protected. Such rights are said to fosterinnovation, creation, competition and consumer welfare. EU competition law carries thesame objectives.Yet, at the very same time, case law on EU competition law and the assessmentunder Article 102 - TFEU regarding abuse of a dominant position, indicates a failure totake notion of the rights of the intellectual property rights holder, and rather views thepossession of such a right, and exploitation, in itself as an abuse, and a monopoly.Seemingly such handling of the matter creates a clear discrepancy between the twolegal fields and creates an uncertainty with regards to when the exercise of an IPR, by adominant undertaking, amounts to an abuse.


Ag-copper dual-layer substrate design is presented. The Ag cladding on the copper substrate is a buffer to deal with the large mismatch in coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) between semiconductors such as Si (3 ppm/degC) and Cu (17 ppm/deg C). Ag is chosen because of its low yield strength, only one-tenth of that of Cu and one-third of the popular Sn3.5Ag solder. Other advantages are high electrical conductivity and high thermal conductivity. To bond Si chips to the Ag layer on copper substrates, Sn-rich solder is used. A fluxless bonding process is designed and developed. The bonding media are Ni/Sn/Au multilayer solder structure plated over Ag. In this design, Ni is a diffusion barrier between Sn and Ag. The thin (100 nm) outer Au layer prevents inner Sn from oxidation. The Si chip is deposited with Cr/Au under bump metallurgy (UBM). The bonding process is performed in 50-mtorr vacuum atmosphere without any flux. Comparing to bonding in air, the oxygen content is reduced by a factor of 15 200. The resulting joints consist of three distinct layers, i.e., Sn-rich layer, Ni3 Sn4 intermetallic compound, and Ni. Scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM) is used to verify the quality of the joint. Microstructure and composition of the joints are studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). This technique presents an initial success in overcoming the very large mismatch in thermal expansion between silicon and copper. It can be applied to mounting numerous high-power silicon devices to Cu substrate for various applications such as hybrid automotive and high-voltage power networks.


The scope of this integrative review was to investigate the association between alcohol consumption and physical violence in the literature, with an emphasis on identifying the predictor between them. A search was conducted in the Lilacs, Medline and SciELO databases, adopting "violence," "alcohool drinking" and "adolescent" as descriptors. It included articles published between 2005 and 2014 that analyzed the association between alcohol consumption and physical violence using multivariate analysis. Of the total of 1667 articles located, 29 met the inclusion criteria. Alcohol consumption was investigated more as a predictor of involvement in physical violence when the teenager is the perpetrator or the victim of violence, with a significant association found in 19 studies. However, when victimization was investigated as a predictor (7 studies), most of these (6) revealed no significant association with the intake of alcoholic beverages. The consumption of alcohol has proven to be the predictor of physical violence for both the teen perpetrator and for the adolescent victim of violence. However, having been the victim of violence in childhood and adolescence may also lead adolescents to alcohol consumption.


Vitamin A (retinol) is an essential precursor for the production of retinoic acid (RA), which in turn is a major regulator of gene expression, affecting cell differentiation throughout the body. Understanding how vitamin A nutritional status, as well as therapeutic retinoid treatment, regulates the expression of retinoid homeostatic genes is important for improvement of dietary recommendations and therapeutic strategies using retinoids. This study investigated genes central to processes of retinoid uptake and storage, release to plasma, and oxidation in the liver of rats under steady-state conditions after different exposures to dietary vitamin A (deficient, marginal, adequate, and supplemented) and acutely after administration of a therapeutic dose of all-trans-RA. Over a very wide range of dietary vitamin A, lecithin:retinol acyltransferase (LRAT) as well as multiple cytochrome P-450s (CYP26A1, CYP26B1, and CYP2C22) differed by diet and were highly correlated with one another and with vitamin A status assessed by liver retinol concentration (all correlations, P < 0.05). After acute treatment with RA, the same genes were rapidly and concomitantly induced, preceding retinoic acid receptor (RAR)β, a classical direct target of RA. CYP26A1 mRNA exhibited the greatest dynamic range (change of log 2(6) in 3 h). Moreover, CYP26A1 increased more rapidly in the liver of RA-primed rats than naive rats, evidenced by increased CYP26A1 gene expression and increased conversion of [(3)H]RA to polar metabolites. By in situ hybridization, CYP26A1 mRNA was strongly regulated within hepatocytes, closely resembling retinol-binding protein (RBP)4 in location. Overall, whether RA is produced endogenously from retinol or administered exogenously, changes in retinoid homeostatic gene expression simultaneously favor both retinol esterification and RA oxidation, with CYP26A1 exhibiting the greatest dynamic change.


While monocular 3D pose estimation seems to have achieved very accurate results on the public datasets, their generalization ability is largely overlooked. In this work, we perform a systematic evaluation of the existing methods and find that they get notably larger errors when tested on different cameras, human poses and appearance. To address the problem, we introduce VirtualPose, a two-stage learning framework to exploit the hidden"free lunch"specific to this task, i.e. generating infinite number of poses and cameras for training models at no cost. To that end, the first stage transforms images to abstract geometry representations (AGR), and then the second maps them to 3D poses. It addresses the generalization issue from two aspects: (1) the first stage can be trained on diverse 2D datasets to reduce the risk of over-fitting to limited appearance; (2) the second stage can be trained on diverse AGR synthesized from a large number of virtual cameras and poses. It outperforms the SOTA methods without using any paired images and 3D poses from the benchmarks, which paves the way for practical applications. Code is available at https://github.com/wkom/VirtualPose.


We report on three types of skin lesions in a population of blue whales, Balaenoptera musculus , off the northwestern coast of Isla Grande de Chiloe, Chile. These lesions were: (1) cookie-cutter shark, Isistius brasilensis, bites, (2) vesicular or blister lesions, and (3) a tattoo-like skin disease. The presence of these lesions was determined by the examining photos collected in 2006 and 2007 for a blue whale photo-identification project. We examined 289 photographs of 68 individuals for lesions. The cookie-cutter shark lesions are common on these blue whales and similar to those reported from other species of cetaceans. Skin peeling or shedding was observed on some whales and is believed to be a normal condition. Based on the photographs examined to date the vesicular lesions are more common than the tattoo-like lesions. The tattoo-like skin lesions was observed just on a single whale in 2007. The blister lesions were common on whales in both 2006 and 2007. The presence of blister lesions in both years may indicate that this "disease" will be present in the population for a long time. It is unknown if these lesions contribute to mortality of blue whales frequenting Chilean waters, but the tattoo-like skin lesions if shown to be a pox virus could cause neonatal and calf mortality. Additional investigations are needed that, as a minimum, must include the histological and genetic examination of the two types of disease from live or dead whales, especially the tattoo-like skin lesions. Until this work is undertaken, it will be impossible to determine if these lesions pose a conservation risk to the blue whales off Chile.


Automatic segmentation of nanoparticles and determination of their shapes and sizes from transmission electron microscopy images are crucial for material analysis. Manual segmentation of nanoparticles produces subjective results and it is time-consuming. In this study, a new method is proposed for the automatic segmentation of the nanoparticles. First, background and foreground detection is employed with machine learning. Then, the nanoparticles are coarsely detected with connected component analysis and they are determined with Hough Transform. The method is tested on ten different images. The nanoparticles segmented with our method are similar to the nanoparticles segmented manually by experts and ImageJ software and the results are promising.


Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a)-induced protein 3 (TNFAIP3/A20) is an important deubiquitinating enzyme that takes part in homeostasis of immunity induced by TNF-a. During viral and bacterial infection, it plays a crucial role in negative regulation of innate immune responses in mammals. However, this molecule in fish is still poorly understood. In this study, we identified full-length A20 gene of Japanese pufferfish (Fugu) Takifugu rubripes and performed its expression analyses in various tissues and stimulated cells. Total length of the determined Fugu A20 gene spaned 6,229 bp and consisted of 9 exons and 8 introns. The Fugu A20 gene contained a 2,394 bp open reading frame (ORF) that encoded a 797-amino acid residue. In the exon-intron structure of Fugu A20 gene, the intronboundary positions in the region having 7 zinc finger (Zf) domains were different from those of human. Expression analysis of Fugu A20 gene exhibited a higher transcription in thymus, head kidney (HK) and spleen tissues than the others. In HK and spleen cells stimulated with LPS, polyI:C and imiquimod, A20 gene was expressed after up-regulation of TNF-a gene expression. These results together suggest that expression of Fugu A20 gene is associated with bacterial and viral infections.


Find opinion polls and social surveys from both free and subscription resources. Some resources contain quick survey statistics, while others offer downloadable data in formats compatible with statistical software that are used for secondary analysis.


Multiple myeloma constitutes about 1% of all malignancies. It has complex cytogenetic and heterogeneous clinical presentations. Recent advances in molecular diagnostic methods have shed light into the chromosomal and molecular changes underlying the pathogenesis of plasma cell dyscrasias, such as Monoclonal Gammopathy of Unknown Significance (MGUS), Smoldering Myeloma (SMM), Multiple Myeloma (MM), and plasma cell leukemia. It is now well established that majority of hypodiploid and hypotetraploid karyotypes, otherwise known as non-hypodiploid karyotypes, harbor chromosomal changes that are considered high risk and have an aggressive disease course. The hyperdiploid category consists of trisomies of uneven chromosomes, and majority of the patients have a good prognosis, although a minority of patients have aggressive disease with up-regulation of proliferative genes. Risk stratification with gene expressions profiling and aCGH studies have helped classify patients into high risk, intermediate risk and good risk categories which are helpful in guiding therapy. While t(4;14) and del(17p) are considered to be the most deleterious cytogenetic abnormalities, del(13) by FISH analysis is considered an intermediate risk and t(11;14) is considered as a good risk marker. The worst outcomes are observed in the high risk category, and even the most intensive  treatments cannot fully overcome the negative impact of genetic findings. Although some novel agents are showing promise in changing the outcomes of t(4;14), del(17p) remains a challenging disease. While many targeted therapies are under development, more work needs to be done in establishing and integrating routine testing of these cytogenetic markers into clinical practice to individualize treatment although within specific genetic subgroups there remains a high degree of variability in outcome determined by other factors, mainly the extent of the disease.


The Product-line approach has been shown to be a beneficial process for software development. It offers great paybacks on investment, in reduced time-to-market, development costs and maintenance costs. Here, the utilization and development of reusable components are key factors. To overcome reuse-related problems, component frameworks can be included in the product-line. In this report the product-line is further discussed. Then the industrial component model, Koala, developed for the product-line approach, is presented. The report starts with an overview of component based software development and the software lifecycle.


Statistics Sweden has identified a need to increase the level of knowl-edge in the SDC field among methodologists and also to develop a unified view and strategy on application of SDC methodology. A project was thus initiated with the goal to spread knowledge but also to collate current practices and ex-periences within the agency. The project resulted in a course on SDC given at Statistics Sweden and this paper provides a brief first report on the work so far, reviewing the background and describing the course and possible future activities. Furthermore, several practical examples were discussed during the course, two of which are briefly described here; the Industrial production index and Structure of wages and earnings in the private sector.


ZnO/TiO2 nano-sculptured foxtail-structures were fabricated using two sequential low-temperature processes combining hydrothermal growth of ZnO nanorods (NRs) and plasma ion assisted evaporation of crystalline TiO2 nanostructures. The ZnO NRs were homogeneously covered with a thin layer of anatase TiO2 nanostructure to form nano-sculptured foxtail-like patterns. Power conversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells made from these hybrid ZnO/TiO2 structures was improved from 0.3% to 1.8% after using the ZnO/TiO2 hybrid structure. Measurement using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and photocurrent decay proved that the hybrid structures have good electron transport capability, because the ZnO NRs can provide a direct pathway for charge transport; the TiO2 layer can improve charge injection and prevent the formation of Zn2+/dye complex (thus reducing the recombination); the hybrid structures can further increase surface area (thus higher dye loading).


Partial label learning is a weakly supervised learning framework, in which each instance is provided with multiple candidate labels while only one of them is correct. Most of the existing approaches focus on leveraging the instance relationships to disambiguate the given noisy label space, while it is still unclear whether we can exploit potentially useful information in label space to alleviate the label ambiguities. This paper gives a positive answer to this question for the first time. Specifically, if two instances do not share any common candidate labels, they cannot have the same ground-truth label. By exploiting such dissimilarity relationships from label space, we propose a novel approach that aims to maximize the latent semantic differences of the two instances whose ground-truth labels are definitely different, while training the desired model simultaneously, thereby continually enlarging the gap of label confidences between two instances of different classes. Extensive experiments on artificial and real-world partial label datasets show that our approach significantly outperforms state-of-the-art counterparts.


Days after Nigerian security forces freed 234 women from Boko Haram's stronghold in Nigeria's Sambisa forest it was reported that at least 214 (91%) of them were pregnant.

The women were among nearly 700 rescued from the Islamic terrorist group in operations and have been taken to safe camps in Borno State where they will be offered medical and pre-natal care and counselling. It is not yet known whether any of the 230 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram from their school in the town of Chibok in April 2014 were among them.


A 1961-90 mean monthly climatology for Africa south of the Equator was constructed at a resolution of 0.5° latitude/longitude for a suite of eight surface climate variables: minimum, maximum and mean air temperature; rainfall; sunshine hours; vapour pressure; wind speed; and rain day (>0.1 mm)frequencies. This climatology was constructed from observed station data distributed across the region with station frequencies ranging from 288 (wind speed) to 916 (rainfall). Over 92% of these data is based on observations between 1961-90 and over 85% has been supplied by national meteorological agencies from the region. Additionally, for mean temperature and rainfall, monthly anomalies with respect to the 1961-90 average have been calculated at the same spatial resolution for each month from January 1961 to December 1994. This paper describes the dataset which has been compiled for this work, the interpolation methods which have been used, together with some assessment of the accuracy of the resulting climate surfaces. The interpolation of the 1961-90 normals uses elevation, as well as longitude and latitude, as predictor variables and this enables three climate surfaces to be constructed for each variable, reflecting the 'minimum', mean and 'maximum' elevation within each 0.5° cell. The interpolation of the anomaly fields uses a simpler method in which elevation is not considered. These anomaly time series enable fields of interannual variability to be established for mean temperature and rainfall. The second part of the paper uses this climatology to construct fields of mean monthly potential evapotranspiration (PET) for the region using a number of different calculation methods. A comparison of the resulting PET estimates highlights significant spatial and seasonal biases due to differences in climate input variables and in the theoretical representation of PET. The climatology, described and analysed here is available from the authors for use in climate modelling and the study of climate change in Africa south of the Equator.


The increased interest in secure and reliable communications has turned the analysis of network traffic data into a predominant topic. A high number of research papers propose methods to classify traffic, detect anomalies, or identify attacks. Although the goals and methodologies are commonly similar, we lack initiatives to categorize the data, methods, and findings systematically. In this paper, we present Network Traffic Analysis Research Curation (NTARC), a data model to store key information about network traffic analysis research. We additionally use NTARC to perform a critical review of the field of research conducted in the last two decades. The collection of descriptive research summaries enables the easy retrieval of relevant information and a better reuse of past studies by the application of quantitative analysis. Among others benefits, it enables the critical review of methodologies, the detection of common flaws, the obtaining of baselines, and the consolidation of best practices. Furthermore, it provides a basis to achieve reproducibility, a key requirement that has long been undervalued in the area of traffic analysis. Thus, besides reading hard copies of papers, with NTARC, researchers can make use of a digital environment that facilitates queries and reviews over a comprehensive field corpus.


Abstract Collisional fold-and-thrust belts are characterized by foreland-verging thrusts. Conversely, structures with hinterland-ward vergence, known as the back-thrusts, also exist. Strain intensification, critical taper deformation and the presence of thrust ramps generate back-thrusts. This study focuses on the exposure-scale brittle and ductile structures showing hinterland-ward vergence (back-structures) from a part of the Garhwal Lesser Himalaya, NW India, mainly along the Bhagirathi river section. In our field-traverse, back-structures were found at 31 locations. Towards the north, in the Outer Lesser Himalaya, the back-structures are located on the inverted limb of the Mussoorie Syncline (Group 1). The Tons Thrust is a south-dipping thrust (i.e. back-thrust). Hence, the Tons Thrust and nearby areas show intense back-structures (Group 2). In the Inner Lesser Himalaya, back-structures have been generated by shearing related to the folded Berinag Thrust (Group 3). The back-structures at and near the Main Central Thrust Zone (MCTZ) (Group 4) can be correlated with the presence of the Delhi–Haridwar Ridge. In this way, this study establishes the back-structures to be an integral part of the Garhwal Lesser Himalaya and provides the genesis of those structures by correlating them with the (local) tectonic settings. Supplementary material: Tables listing seismic events and the GPS coordinates of the field locations, and figures showing structures at these field locations are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4339784


MEMS technology requires low cost techniques to permit large scale fabrication for production. Porous silicon (PS) can be used in different manner to replace standard expensive etching techniques like DRIE (Deep Reactive Ion Etching). To perform same process quality as the latter, one need to understand how different parameters can influence porous silicon properties. We investigate here local formation of macroporous silicon on 2D and 3D silicon substrates. The blank substrate is a low doped (26–33 Ω cm) n type 6 inches silicon wafer. Then, an in situ phosphorus-doped polycrystalline silicon (N+ Poly-Si) is deposited on a thermal oxide layer to delimit the regions to be etched. Porous silicon is obtained afterwards using electrochemical anodization in a hydrofluoric acid (HF) solution. The effect of the temperature process on Si-HF electrochemical system voltamperometric curves, macropores morphology and electrochemical etch rates is more specifically studied. Moreover, permeation of porous substrates to hydrogen is studied after various anodization post-treatments such as KOH and HF wet etching or after a thin gold layer deposition used as current collector in micro fuel cells.


John B. Lyon, Crafting Flesh, Crafting the Self: Violence and Identity in Early Nineteenth-Century German Literature. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP, 2006. 280 pp. John Lyon presents an engaging and original analysis of works that deal with wounded human bodies in the German literature of the early nineteenth century. His focus is on four separate works: Holderlin's Hyperion, Brentano's Godwi, Kleist's The Broken Pitcher, and Biichner's Danton's Death. He applies a different philosophical foundation to each work.Thus,Hyperion is seen from Fichte's subject/object perspective; Godwi is scrutinized vis a vis Freud's ideas on trauma; The Broken Pitcher is analyzed with respect to Walter Benjamin's theories on power and violence; and Biichner's Danton's Death is examined employing the psycholinguistic theories of Jacques Lacan. Lyon first explains the theory of wounding and violence on the body as it has developed as a theme over the last thirty years through sundry studies by Wolfgang Sofsky, Lindsay French, Elaine Scarry, David Morris, and others. Lyon uses the term "wounded" primarily in a physical sense since "Both wounding and the pain that it produces cause a radical division between subject and object" (15). Each analysis expands this concept of identity to include a number of allied preoccupations such as psychology, philosophy, politics, art, and linguistics. In fact, Lyon's analysis of wounding in these works not only provides a fresh take on each piece but also elucidates the concept of identity in its richest meaning in remarkable and new ways with respect to German Romanticism as such. And so we view the elegiac hero Hyperion as a divided self who ends his story with dissolution of his identity. This occurs in the first instance as a result of physical wounds that he himself has suffered, even as he wounds others. For Lyon, Hyperion becomes a "self who views himself in terms of subject and object, asserting the Fichtean categories of Ich' and Nicht-Ich'" (33).That Hyperion concludes the work as divided reveals a psychosomatic state that disallows his wished for completeness, or as Lyon insists: "The image of the wound as a representative of consciousness thus puts wholeness of self at an unattainable remove" (77). Meanwhile, the seldom analyzed Godwi focuses on the problem of trauma itself, and Lyon is careful to set the stage of his argument by employing ideas from Freud's Pleasure Principle where he voices "notions of consciousness resulting from trauma, of a repetitive compulsion, and of conflicting fundamental drives" (86). Accordingly, Lyon sees Brentano's focus on the wound as "a metaphor for the experience of traumatic loss, and the scar represents the psychological persistence of trauma" (87). Godwi is unable to rise above his psychological wounds and particularly the psychological scarring he has suffered from past relationships. Even the church-like museum created by his father colors his memories negatively because he always associates it and his father with violence. But the outcome also is Freudian in that Brentano portrays Godwi as being simultaneously possessed by the opposing drives of sex and death that Freud suggests "both stem from the Wiederholungszwang, a compulsion to repeat original traumatic experience" (94). …


Background: Endothelial dysfunction is considered a common precursor to and occurs before cardiovascular events. Therefore, endothelial dysfunction is the first step in atherosclerosis growth that leads to cardiovascular disease CVD. Patients with periodontitis are ideal models for determining how endothelium-dependent vasodilation is affected by inflammation. Objective: The objective is to determine the effect of periodontal therapy on endothelial dysfunction. Methodology: This review was conducted as per the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis and JBI guidelines. A total of twelve randomized clinical trials published over a period of the past 14 years were included in the review (200420018). Results: There were 813 patients in the research, which lasted between 2 and 6 months and looked at the effects of periodontal therapy on endothelial dysfunction. The common interventions given for the intervention group in all of the studies were supra or subgingival scaling and root planing with some studies providing antibiotic medications such as amoxicillin and minocycline as an adjuvant for periodontal therapy. All included studies reported a high level of evidence (LOE) of 1c. Conclusion: This study focused on periodontal therapy and its effect on endothelial dysfunction precisely and compared the levels of endothelial function before and after intervention, however, the studies included in this review did not do matching between cases and controls on endothelial function levels. This review revealed that more multi-centric randomized control trials are required in this area of research with proper randomization and adequate sample size and proper matching done between cases and controls.


A 68-year-old female patient with previous history of transsphenoidal hypophysectomy operation underwent three-vessel coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery for extensive coronary artery disease. Preoperative neurological examination revealed sequelae visual loss at right temporal visual field. Follow-up Magnetic Resonance Imaging studies showed a residual hypophyseal tumor tissue extending to suprasellar area. No additional pathology was detected in the early postoperative cranial control CT, but aggravation of visual field defect was determined. Coincidently, cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed hemorrhage into the tumor tissue. We decided to follow-up the patient who exhibited no additional symptoms and was discharged well on the fifth day due to the signs of resolution of hemorrhage. Follow-up controls of the patient at sixth and twelfth months demonstrated normal hormone levels without any additional clinical complaints. We present preoperative assessment, perioperative anesthesia management, and postoperative clinical follow-up of a patient with a residual hypophyseal tumor.


Filamentous fungi are producers of a broad range of secondary metabolites with a high diversity of biological activities. It is generally assumed that the production of these metabolites leads to benefits which allow the fungi to survive in their ecological niche. The role of most secondary metabolites is still unknown, but many of them may be involved in biotic interactions. Understanding the function of secondary metabolites in biotic interactions requires experimental studies for which sensitive and accurate analytical techniques for the quantification of fungal biomass and secondary metabolites are necessary. The aim of this study was the development and validation of analytical detection methods based on real-time PCR and HPLC-MS/MS as well as the identification and investigation of toxic secondary metabolites involved in diverse fungal interactions.
First of all a sensitive method for the simultaneous quantification of the six hexadepsipeptides beauvericin, enniatin A, A1, B and B1 and destruxin A in various matrices like asparagus, potato, maize, tomato, rice and wheat were developed and validated. Fragmentation of sodium adducts of the analytes and determination of their specific mass spectra with LC-ESI-MS/MS using an ion trap allowed the specific and sensitive identification of the mycotoxins. Furthermore, sample preparation steps, including choice of suitable organic solvents for extraction and defatting, were thoroughly investigated. A new solvent combination acetonitrile/isopropyl alcohol/water (70:15:15) lead to high efficiency rates and low matrix effects. The limits of quantification and limits of detection ranged from 1-12 ng g-1 and 0.3-4 ng g-1 respectively across all mycotoxins and matrices.
Furthermore real-time PCR is a common method for species-specific quantification of fungal biomass in epidemiological studies. However, no methods for the determination of the two performance characteristic parameters in real time PCR assays, that is, the limit of quantification and the limit of detection, exist as they do in common chemical analytical techniques. In this study a method based on receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis in combination with Youden index was established to determine both performance characteristic parameters. The concept was applied to two species-specific real-time PCR assays which had been developed in earlier studies and which served the quantification of F. verticillioides and F. proliferatum.
Apart from the establishment of analytical methods, studies on biotic interactions of fungi with a focus on the production of secondary metabolites were carried out.
Interactions of two major causal agents of maize ear rot F. verticillioides and F. graminearum were investigated by inoculating maize ears with a spore suspension of F. verticillioides, F. graminearum and a mixture of both in field trials. Maize kernels were analyzed for their content of fungal biomass and mycotoxins. Amounts of F. verticillioides and fumonisin B1 either increased or were not affected by mixed inoculations. By contrast, the incidence of F. graminearum were either not affected or decreased in mixed inoculations. However, the amounts of mycotoxins relative to biomass revealed no differences between single and mixed inoculated treatments. Additionally, the effect of different temperature scenarios on fungal disease severity and interactions were investigated under controlled conditions. Overall, incidence and amounts of F. verticillioides and fumonisin B1 were either not affected or correlated positively with increased temperature in single and mixed inoculations. The results indicate that an increase of temperature due to climate warming may favor maize ear rot caused by F. verticillioides. The interaction with F. graminearum may additionally facilitate infestation by F. verticillioides. This may result in increased risk of fumonisin B1 contamination of maize in moderate climate areas.
Another part of this dissertation deals with the production of secondary metabolites produced by Aspergillus nidulans as a putative chemical defense reaction against the fungivore Folsomia candida. Grazing of F. candida on A. nidulans induced significant up-regulation of the highly toxic mycotoxin sterigmatocystin. Furthermore, the enhanced production of two meroterpenoids austinol and dehydroaustinol as well as the cyclic nonribosomal depsipeptides emericellamides C, D, E and F was identified. These findings may indicate the involvement of these secondary metabolites in the defense reaction of A. nidulans to fungivores.
Finally, the fungal strain Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. strigae Elzein et Thines, was analyzed for its production of the mycotoxins fumonisins, beauvericin, enniatins and moniliformin. It was found that the strain in question produced the mycotoxin beauvericin. Furthermore, the ability of the fungus to produce cancerogenic fumonisins was additionally excluded by genetic analysis. The fungal strain is highly host specific and aggressive towards the parasitic weed Striga hermonthica but is nonpathogenic towards sorghum. Beauvericin was obtained in Striga shoots but not in sorghum grains. The host-specific pathogenicity of the fungus towards S. hermonthica in combination with unaffected sorghum grains indicates that the fungus acting as biocontrol agent poses no risks for animal or human consumers of sorghum grains.
The reported studies revealed the involvement of several secondary metabolites in diverse types of complex biotic interactions demonstrating the high diversity and biological activities of fungal secondary metabolites.


Signal transducers and activators of transcription (STAT) factors are cytoplasmic proteins that can be activated by Janus kinases (JAK) and that modulate gene expression in response to cytokine receptor stimulation. STAT proteins dimerize, translocate into the nucleus, and activate specific target genes. In the present study, we show for the first time that Interleukin-6, in the presence of its soluble receptor (sIL6R), induces activation of JAK1, JAK2, and STAT1/STAT3 proteins in bovine articular chondrocytes. Western blotting and mobility shift assays demonstrated that this effect is accompanied by the DNA binding of the STAT proteins. The mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway was also activated in response to IL-6/sIL-6R association, as reflected by phosphorylation of ERK1 and ERK2 proteins. In these conditions, the expression of cartilage specific matrix genes – type II collagen, aggrecan coreand link-proteins was found to be markedly down-regulated. This negative effect was abolished by addition of Parthenolide, an inhibitor of the STAT activation, whereas blockade of the MAP kinases with PD98059 was without significant effect. Thus, activation of the STAT signaling pathway, but not ERK dependent pathways, is essential for down-regulation of the major cartilage specific matrix genes by IL-6. In addition, a parallel reduction of SOX9 expression, a key-factor of chondrocyte phenotype, was found in these experimental conditions. These IL-6 effects might contribute to the phenotype loss of chondrocytes in joint diseases and the alteration of articular cartilage associated with this pathology. by gest on Sptem er 1, 2017 hp://w w w .jb.org/ D ow nladed from


In order to deal with the striking booming process of urbanization in the situation of urban housing demolition expanding and its major contradictions, the interactive fair game theory model is used to solve these contradictions and presented some suggestion. By analyzing the existing contradictions of demolition, the leads interactive justice theory establishes the model to analyze the game among the Government, the demolition, the developers and the demolition, which finally comes to the conclusion of the contradictory solutions and supplies suggestions for the government and developers demolition work. What's more, it's helpful to build a harmonious and stable society.


ObjectivesIt is important to evaluate the quality of linkages between cohort and administrative data to discern the likely reliability of research using the linked data resource. We examined the quality and sample representativeness of linked 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) and Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data.
ApproachWe examined the quality of the linkage in terms of the associations between key cohort member sociodemographic characteristics and successful linkage, and compared the levels of successful linkage within strata of NCDS variables which may be expected to be associated with hospital attendance (self-reported hospital attendance, self-rated general health, self-reported long-term illness), and hence with successful HES linkage. We additionally evaluated the population representativeness of the linked sample using external population statistics (hospital admission rates in the general population).
ResultsSome sociodemographic characteristics were found to be associated with successful HES linkage, with females slightly more likely than males (risk ratio 1.03; 95% confidence interval 1.00, 1.06) and those who had ≤ 1 person per room at birth more likely than those who had > 1.5 (1.12; 1.05, 1.19) to have linked data. There was a high level of correspondence between NCDS variables and HES linkage – e.g., 86.0% of cohort members who reported no day patient or in-patient attendance had no linked HES Admitted Patient Care (APC) data and 76.3% of those who reported having day patient or in-patient attendance did have linked HES APC data. The level and pattern of hospital admission rates over time was similar in the linked NCDS-HES data to the population statistics.
ConclusionThe quality and representativeness of the linked NCDS-HES data appears to be high. We hope that these analyses will both improve the quality and transparency of research using this linked data resource and encourage providers and users of other linked data resources to undertake and publish similarly thorough evaluations.


The real-time vehicle classification plays an important role in Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). How to effectively improve the accuracy rate and the speed of the vehicle classification is still a hot research issue, the classification algorithm has to be effective but simple. In this paper, a vehicle detection algorithm based on edge-based background difference and region-based background difference is proposed. This algorithm can extract the moving vehicle completely, eliminate vehicle shadow effectively, and it is still significant despite the variations of illumination and weather conditions. The algorithm is simple with low computation quantity and suitable for real-time system. In the feature extraction process, the feature vector can be obtained in short time. Support vector machine (SVM) is also discussed in the classification process. The experimental result shows that the system can accurately recognize the vehicles.


White laboratory rats, weighted 100-160 g, with acute pneumonia, inhale (from 4-th to 8-th days of developing the disease) liposomes. It was shown, that introduction of liposomes promoted normalization of external breath, acid-base state of blood, increased diffusion ability of lung for O2 and decreased arterial hypoxia. It was noted, that liposomes are an effective antihypoxant, inhibited the process of lipid peroxidation and, evidently, the destruction of cell membranes.


An exact solution for the effects of topography on Rayleigh wave amplification is presented. The solution is obtained by incorporating conformal mapping into complex-variable stress functions developed for free Rayleigh wave propagation in an elastic half-space with a flat upper surface. Results are presented for free Rayleigh wave propagation across isolated symmetric ridges and valleys. It is found for wavelengths that are comparable to ridge widths that horizontal Rayleigh wave amplitudes are amplified at ridge crests and that vertical amplitudes are strongly reduced near ridge crests relative to horizontal and vertical amplitudes of free Rayleigh waves in the flat case. Horizontal amplitudes are strongly deamplified at valley bottoms relative to those for the flat case for Rayleigh wavelengths comparable to valley widths. Wave amplitudes in the symmetric ridges and valleys asymptotically approach those for the flat case with increased wavelengths, increased ridge and valley widths, and with horizontal distance from and depth below the isolated ridges and valleys. Also, prograde particle motion is predicted near crests of narrow ridges and near the bottoms of narrow valleys. Finally, application of the theory at two sites known for topographic wave amplification gives a predicted surface wave amplification ratio of 3.80 at the ridge center for a frequency of 1.0 Hz at Robinwood Ridge in northern California and a predicted surface wave amplification ratio of 1.67 at the ridge center for the same frequency at the Cedar Hill Nursery site at Tarzana in southern California.


Certificateless cryptography can be considered as an intermediate solution to overcome the issues in traditional public key infrastructure (PKI) and identity-based public key cryptography (ID-PKC). There exist a vast number of certificateless signature (CLS) schemes in the literature; however, most of them are not efficient enough to be utilized in limited resources environments such as Internet of things (IoT) or Healthcare Wireless Sensor Networks (HWSN). Recently, two lightweight CLS schemes have been proposed by Karati et al. and Kumar et al. to be employed in IoT and HWSNs, respectively. While both schemes are claimed to be existentially unforgeable, in this paper, we show that both these signatures can easily be forged. More specifically, it is shown that 1) in Karati et al.'s scheme, a type 1 adversary, considered in certificateless cryptography, can generate a valid partial private key corresponding to any user of its choice and as a consequence, it can forge any users' signature on any message of its choice, and 2) in Kumar et al.'s scheme, both types of adversaries which are considered in certificateless cryptography are able to forge any signer's signature on an arbitrary message.


: The paper discusses the implementation of a fuzzy logic and artificial neural networks approach to providing a structural framework for the representation, manipulation and utilisation of data and information concerning prediction of power demand and generation commitments. An algorithm has been implemented and trained to predict the power demand at each load point on an hourly basis. The neural network is then implemented to supply the brute force necessary to accommodate the large amount of sensory data to provide the initial evaluation of the generation units to be committed. Results of the fuzzy model show a reasonable correspondence with the actual power demand. A standard deviation error for an hourly based prediction is limited to 4.4. Further refinement of the fuzzy model may produce further improvements.

Implementation of artificial neural networks for scheduling an hourly unit commitment based on load demands is also discussed The backpropagation technique based on the I/O mapping method has been chosen for structuring the neural network. Geographically related load points and generating units are clustered into groups. Grouping has significantly reduced the number of inputs and outputs to the neural network and, hence, reduced the system complexity. As a result, both training requirements and running real time interaction are significantly improved. The expert system would replace and utilise the requirement for skilled dispatchers in scheduling the generators. It is anticipated that this facility is more accurate, dynamic, adaptive and more efficient than a skilled dispatcher. The overall cost of power generation is expected to be less if the new facility is used. Initial results have reflected a satisfactory correlation between predicted and actual results, with a standard deviation error of 1.71% and 1.96% in the base load units of HTPS and ATPS respectively.


As the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to evolve, the need arises to keep a constant eye on the integrity of IoT implementations to ensure that everything is running as it should. This is especially true in industrial sector. Machine Health Monitoring (MHM) was created. The primary goal of MHM is to ensure that all devices within an Industrial IoT (IIoT) implementation are functioning as expected at all times. For our specific usage of MHM, we are monitoring various readings from a 3D printer. We have currently implemented an array of sensors, and a live camera feed, with an accelerometer and a power meter soon to come. We have also created a web server running off of a Raspberry Pi 3 to hold our database and provide accessibility to the data. Through this setup, a user could access our storage and view up to the last 60 readings from the sensors in real time. The user can also view the live camera feed. We plan to use that range to implement fault detection with an alert system. We also look to eventually add predictive AI in an attempt to prevent faults before they occur. We believe our implementation provides a more cost-effective and scalable architecture for MHM. It also provides large amounts of customizability and adaptability due to our usage of generalized sensor data inputs and storage. The system is also self-monitoring, providing proper detection of its own internal issues.


We produced highly uniform nanoporous thin films of the dense array of titania (TiO2) pores of 70~80 nm in diameter with nanoimprinting method. Titania in HCl and 2-propanol solution was coated on an indium tin oxide (ITO) surface and embossed with an array of PMMA nanopoles which was produced using a nanoporous alumina (Al2O3) template. Two-step anodization was introduced to produce highly uniform and dense nanopores on the aluminum surface. The polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) was poured onto and infiltrated into the nanoporous alumina surface which was heated at 150 oC. The alumina nanopores and aluminum plate were removed by wet-etching leaving an array of PMMA nanopoles. These highly uniform nanostructured titania films will be very useful for photovoltaic and photocatalytic applications where nanostructuring of surface with controlled dimensions are essential.


INTRODUCTION
Undergoing transplantation is extremely stressful, and a recipient is likely leave the hospital burdened with fears of an uncertain future. A paucity of knowledge on the long-term survival of rehospitalized kidney transplant recipients is the likely the reason that physicians fail to provide this group of patients with promising information and reassurance about their future. We sought to describe the long-term patient and graft survival after nonfatal rehospitalization in kidney recipients with a normal graft function after discharge.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We reviewed the follow-up data (from the time of discharge after first rehospitalization) of 253 kidney transplant recipients who had been discharged from rehospitalization with a normal kidney function (serum creatinine less than 1.6 mg/dL). Patient and graft survival rates 6 months and 1, 2, and 5 years after discharge were determined.

RESULTS
The mean duration of follow-up (from the time of discharge after the first rehospitalization) was 38.9 +/- 11.2 months (range, 6 to 84 months). The overall patient survival rates were 98%, 97%, 95%, and 93% at 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, and 5 years, respectively. Graft survival rates at these times were 88%, 82%, 77%, and 63%, respectively. After the first posttransplant rehospitalization, 54 patients (21.9%) experienced more hospitalization episodes (mean, 2.6+/- 2.0 times), while 193 (78.1%) had no further hospitalizations during the follow-up period. Conclusion. Kidney transplant recipients who are rehospitalized should be reassured about favorable chances of survival if discharged with a normal graft function.


Denoising diffusion probabilistic models (DDPM) are powerful hierarchical latent variable models with remarkable sample generation quality and training stability. These properties can be attributed to parameter sharing in the generative hierarchy, as well as a parameter-free diffusion-based inference procedure. In this paper, we present Few-Shot Diffusion Models (FSDM), a framework for few-shot generation leveraging conditional DDPMs. FSDMs are trained to adapt the generative process conditioned on a small set of images from a given class by aggregating image patch information using a set-based Vision Transformer (ViT). At test time, the model is able to generate samples from previously unseen classes conditioned on as few as 5 samples from that class. We empirically show that FSDM can perform few-shot generation and transfer to new datasets. We benchmark variants of our method on complex vision datasets for few-shot learning and compare to unconditional and conditional DDPM baselines. Additionally, we show how conditioning the model on patch-based input set information improves training convergence.


Objectives To provide the basis for designing an interprofessional patient safety training for medical treatment teams, the current situation regarding patient safety and existing training programs in southern German hospitals should be explored. Moreover, need-based content regarding the subject areas teamwork, safety culture, and patient involvement should be derived, a conducive learning format suggested, and wishes and concerns regarding the training explored. Methods Qualitative design (focus groups) in five hospitals with different levels of care involving a total of 39 members of interprofessional teams, administration, and quality management team. Structured contents analysis was used for evaluation. Results The need for training to improve patient safety was highlighted. Related contents regarding the subject areas were derived: teamwork (team-building exercises, interprofessional teamwork, interprofessional communication), safety culture (dealing with criticism, appraisals, open handling of errors/proactive error reporting), and patient involvement (inclusion of patients and/or relatives, question types). The combination of e-learning and interprofessional in-person training was emphasized as a conducive learning format. The desire for practical tips, Continuing Medical Education credits, and intuitive review of theories was expressed. Conclusions The study initially presents the current situation regarding patient safety, existing training, teamwork, safety culture, and patient involvement in southern German hospitals and gives recommendations for related content and learning format. Based on our results, we recommend to develop a combination of e-learning and interprofessional in-person training. This training should systematically link all three subject areas and address the derived content from the focus groups to improve patient safety.


I argue that, contrary to the standard view, one cannot understand
 the structure and nature of our knowledge in physics without an
 analysis of the way that observers (and, more generally, measuring
 instruments and experimental arrangements) are modeled in theory.
 One upshot is that standard pictures of what a scientific theory can
 be are grossly inadequate. In particular, standard formulations
 assume, with no argument ever given, that it is possible to make a
 clean separation between, on the one hand, one part of the
 scientific knowledge a physical theory embodies, viz., that
 encoded in the pure mathematical formalism and, on the other, the
 remainder of that knowledge. The remainder includes at a minimum
 what is encoded in the practice of modeling particular systems, of
 performing experiments, of bringing the results of theory and
 experiment into mutually fruitful contact---in sum, real application
 of the theory in actual scientific practice. This assumption comes
 out most clearly in the picture of semantics that naturally
 accompanies the standard view of theories: semantics is fixed by
 ontology's shining City on the Hill, and all epistemology and
 methodology and other practical issues and considerations are
 segregated to the ghetto of the theory's pragmatics. We should not
 assume such a clean separation is possible without an argument, and,
 indeed, I offer many arguments that such a separation is not
 feasible. An adequate semantics for theories cannot be founded on
 ontology, but rather on epistemology and methodology.


This study explores how employees in a Finnish financial company use rhetorical strategies to accept or reject corporate environmentalism. It is based on a qualitative study in which face-to-face interviews were conducted among 30 employees. The study shows how employees rejected corporate environmentalism by dissociating their employer from polluters or by dissociating environmental values from other values in the financial business. It also shows how they accepted corporate environmentalism by associating it with other business virtues and by associating the employer with polluters. The study identifies rhetorical strategies as means for employees to construct an understanding of corporate environmentalism, and of whether or not it is a part of their organization's responsibilities. The results highlight a need to manage corporate environmentalism processes so that the focus is on finding diverse meanings instead of on promoting a single, organization-wide meaning for corporate environmentalism in a top-down manner.


The higher education world is changing consistently and deeply following the direction given by the governments? educational programs, leading educational organizations, by the information and communication technology advancements, and last but not least by the individual contributors naming here specialists, researchers, teachers and students all together. Also, the work force market requirements have an important role in determining the strategies which will be implemented by the higher education organizations when organizational, administrative, financial decisions are made by the responsible functions. One of the new terms brought by new direction was ?quality? term, a term which very rapidly has become a very important one. Initially, the Quality Management Systems were specific to manufacturing domains. Soon such systems have become compulsory to many other areas. Today, around the world, the higher education organizations are looking to design, develop, implement and continuously improve their Quality Management Systems having as a ultimate goal to support a significant increase of all over performances. Even the educational systems have their own balances/checks or measurement scales which were used to prove the teaching and learning effectiveness there has appeared the necessity to rather guarantee the effectiveness of teaching and learning than to prove such effectiveness. One of the pillars supporting the fundament of a Quality Management System is taken by the core criteria used to design and develop the system.
This paper is looking to put at-a-glance some of the Quality Management Systems developed for E-learning by different higher education centers around the world focusing on the core criteria used. Also, the article provides the author own view about the core criteria as a leading parachute for developing efficient Quality Management Systems for E-learning.


Congress, by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (hereinafter "TCJA"),1 made a number of changes to the income tax rates applicable to individuals and profits of businesses conducted both in corporate and non-corporate form. Elsewhere, in an article entitled Advancing to Corporate Tax Integration: A Laissez-Faire Approach, I advanced the case for an Integrationist Norm of business income taxation.2 In the tax regime of the Integrationist Norm, all business profits would be subject to exactly the same tax burden as if a business were conducted directly by the individual equity holders without an intervening legal fiction of a juridical business entity. The purpose of this Article is to assess how near TCJA brings the Internal Revenue Code (hereinafter the "Code") to achieving the Integrationist Norm, and to consider what possible modifications to TCJA might bring it nearer the target, and whether achieve sufficiently more good than harm to justify the effort to have them enacted.


This paper examines inequality and welfare in food consumption expenditure in Pakistan. The indices are derived on the basis of Sen's welfare function by employing HIES, 2005-06. The empirical results show that inequality and welfare varied widely in urban and rural areas. It can be seen that the concentration index of non essential/luxury food components are unevenly distributed over the total expenditure in favour of rich families. The price elasticity of welfare indicates that rising prices of food components have negative effect on the aggregate welfare. The present analysis provides a basis for determining the magnitude of inequality and welfare that can help in des igning appropriate policies


Objectives: The purpose of the study was to contribute further to this debated topic by investigating the correlation of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings with the clinical picture in lumbar spondylosis patients.
 Patients and methods: This multicenter retrospective study (as part of the epidemiological project of the TLAR-OASG [Turkish League Against Rheumatism-Osteoarthritis Study Group]) included 514 patients (101 males, 413 females; mean age: 63.6±10.8 years; range, 40 to 85 years) who were diagnosed as lumbar spondylosis by clinical examination and direct X-ray between December 2016 and June 2018. Demographic characteristics of patients, Visual Analog Scale for pain, presence of radiating pain, Roland-Morris disability questionnaire, straight leg raise test, deep tendon reflexes, neurogenic intermittent claudication symptoms, any decrease of muscle strength, and abnormality of sensation were recorded. Lumbar MRI findings of the patients were recorded as positive or negative in terms of disc herniation, intervertebral disc degeneration, root compression, osteophytes, spinal stenosis. Statistical analysis was done to assess the correlation between the clinical symptoms, physical examination, and MRI findings.
 Results: Correlation analysis of the MRI results and the clinical findings showed a significant correlation between straight leg raise test and root compression (p<0.001, r=0.328) and a significant correlation between neurogenic intermittent claudication and spinal stenosis (p<0.001, r=0.376). Roland-Morris disability questionnaire had a significant correlation with all MRI findings (p<0.05, r<0.200).
 Conclusion: The results of this study corroborate the notion that diligent patient history and physical examination are more valuable than MRI findings, even though a higher incidence of abnormal MRI findings have been obtained in patients with disability and dermatomal radiating pain.


Spherically symmetric solutions in Brans-Dicke theory of relativity with zero coupling constant, ! = 0, are derived in the Schwarzschild line-element. The solutions are obtained from a cubic transition equation with one small parameter. The exterior space-time of one family of solutions is arbitrarily close to the exterior Schwarzschild space-time. These nontopological solitons have some similarity with soliton stars, and are proposed as candidates for approximate black holes for the use in numerical relativity, in particular for treatment of horizon boundary conditions.


Moving computing into the "Cloud" makes computer processing much more convenient for users but also presents them with new security problems about safety and reliability. To solve these problems, service providers must establish and provide security architectures for Cloud computing. This paper describes domestic and international trends in security requirements for Cloud computing, along with security architectures proposed by Fujitsu such as access protocol, authentication and identity (ID) management, and security visualization.


Polypyridyl ruthenium(II) complexes have been widely researched as promising functional molecules. We have found unique photoisomerization reactions of polypyridyl ruthenium(II) aquo complexes. Recently we have attempted to provide insight into the mechanism of the photoisomerization of the complexes and distinguish between the distal−/proximal-isomers in their physicochemical properties and functions. Moreover, polypyridyl ruthenium(II) aquo complexes have been intensively studied as active water oxidation catalysts (WOCs) which are indispensable for artificial photosynthesis. The catalytic aspect and mechanism of water oxidation by the distal-/proximal-isomers of polypyridyl ruthenium(II) aquo complexes have been investigated to provide the guided thought to develop more efficient molecular catalysts for water oxidation. The recent progress on the photoisomerization and water oxidation of polypyridyl ruthenium(II) aquo complexes in our group are reviewed to understand the properties and functions of ruthenium complexes.


A logical cause of migration is of course immigrants which is a topic always creating discussions. When arriving in a new country a process of integration with the goal to adapt to the environment is started. This study will explore the need for integration and seeks to examine the connection between population composition and radical right opinions.To fulfill the aim, a multivariate regression analysis is done on aggregated level in Sweden with statistics concerning the year of 2010. The relation between ethnic composition and voters support for the Swedish radical right party Sverigedemokraterna is studied as well as integration as an explanatory intermediate factor operationalized through unemployment, financial assistance and trust.The results of the study indicate a positive connection between immigrants from EU/EFTA and the voter support for Sverigedemokraterna. A negative relation is identified between trust and the voter support for Sverigedemokraterna. Further the result establishes that an integration process with focus on social relations is the most effective regarding reducing radical right opinions. To explain the results of the study the contact theory as well as the ethnic competition theory is used.


Rural tourism is a factor in multidirectional development of rural areas and its most important consequences are population stability, unemployment problem alleviation, and immigration reduction. The present survey was set to investigate the strategies of developing rural tourism in Mishkhas Village in Ilam Province using the SWOT technique. A questionnaire was used as the data gathering instrument and the sample size was determined to be 368 based on the Krejcie and Morgan table. The Cronbach alpha coefficient was used to show the reliability of research instrument which came out to be 0.87. In this research, the internal (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (threats and opportunities) of the region were ranked by the SWOT technique. It was indicated that the amount of advantages with the obtained value of 5.87 (strengths and opportunities) was higher than limitations rate of weaknesses and threats (4.531). Thus, according to the results, the strategy of developing rural tourism was applied in this region.


ABSTRACT Some methicillin-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus are defective in the production of major surface components such as protein A, clumping factor, or other important adhesins to extracellular matrix components which may play a role in bacterial colonization and infection. To evaluate the impact of methicillin resistance (mec) determinants on bacterial adhesion mediated by fibrinogen or fibronectin adhesins, we compared the in vitro attachment of two genetically distinct susceptible strains (NCTC8325 and Newman) to protein-coated surfaces with that of isogenic methicillin-resistant derivatives. All strains containing an intactmec element in their chromosomes were found to be defective in adhesion to fibrinogen and fibronectin immobilized on polymethylmethacrylate coverslips, regardless of the presence or absence of additional mutations in the femA,femB, or femC gene, known to decrease expression of methicillin resistance in S. aureus. Western ligand affinity blotting or immunoblotting of cell wall-associated adhesins revealed similar contents of fibrinogen- or fibronectin-binding proteins in methicillin-resistant strains compared to those of their methicillin-susceptible counterparts. In contrast to methicillin-resistant strains carrying a mec element in their genomes, methicillin-resistant strains constructed in vitro, by introducing the mecA gene on a plasmid, retained their adhesion phenotypes. In conclusion, the chromosomal insertion of themec element into genetically defined strains of S. aureus impairs the in vitro functional activities of fibrinogen or fibronectin adhesins without altering their production. This effect is unrelated to the activity of the mecA gene.


Abstract Ina, Y. and Sakai, K. Further Study of Prolongation of Life Span Associated with Immunological Modification by Chronic Low-Dose-Rate Irradiation in MRL-lpr/lpr Mice: Effects of Whole-Life Irradiation. Radiat. Res. 163, 418–423 (2005). MRL-lpr/lpr mice carry a deletion in the apoptosis-regulating Fas gene that markedly shortens life due to multiple severe diseases. In our previous study (Radiat. Res. 161, 168– 173, 2004), chronic low-dose-rate γ irradiation of mice at 0.35 or 1.2 mGy/h for 5 weeks markedly prolonged the life span, accompanied by immunological activation. This report shows that extension of the irradiation period to the entire life of the mice at the same dose rates improved survival further. The 50% survival time for untreated mice, 134 days, was prolonged to 502 days by 1.2 mGy/h life-long irradiation. Also obtained were a time course and a radiation dose-rate response for the activation of the immune system as indicated by a significant increase in CD4+ CD8+ T cells in the thymus and CD8+ T cells in the spleen and also by a significant decrease in CD3+ CD45R/B220+ cells and CD45R/B220+ CD40+ cells in the spleen. Drastic ameliorations of multiple severe diseases, i.e. total-body lymphadenopathy, splenomegaly and serious autoimmune diseases including proteinuria, and kidney and brain-central nervous system syndromes, were found in parallel with these immunological activations, with lifelong low-dose-rate irradiation being more effective than 5-week irradiation at low dose rates.


The electric energy saving system (EESS) for enterprise and city is proposed in this paper, which consists of three parts: electric energy saving equipments of high voltage, electric energy saving equipments of low voltage, and real-time reactive power optimal compensation. Three novel electric energy saving technologies are presented: high-quality hybrid var and harmonic compensator (HVHC) for high-voltage distribution network; low-cost and high-efficiency hybrid var compensator (HVC) for low-voltage distribution network; real-timely global optimization system of EESS. The characters of the three novel energy saving technologies are analyzed, respectively. Industrial practical effects confirm that the proposed EESS effectively solves the problems of electric energy saving in distribution network and ensures its operation securely and stably, as well as decreases the loss of electric energy greatly.


This study uses a large-scale mobile phone dataset to estimate potential demand of bicycle trips in a city. By identifying two important anchor points (night-time anchor point and day-time anchor point) from individual cellphone trajectories, this study proposes an anchor-point based trajectory segmentation method to partition cellphone trajectories into trip chain segments. By selecting trip chain segments that can potentially be served by bicycles, two indicators (inflow and outflow) are generated at the cellphone tower level to estimate the potential demand of incoming and outgoing bicycle trips at different places in the city and different times of a day. A maximum coverage location-allocation model is used to suggest locations of bike sharing stations based on the total demand generated at each cellphone tower. Two measures are introduced to further understand characteristics of the suggested bike station locations: (1) accessibility; and (2) dynamic relationships between incoming and outgoing trips. The accessibility measure quantifies how well the stations could serve bicycle users to reach other potential activity destinations. The dynamic relationships reflect the asymmetry of human travel patterns at different times of a day. The study indicates the value of mobile phone data to intelligent spatial decision support in public transportation planning.


Coupling of an atom-like emitter to surface plasmons provides a path toward significant optical nonlinearity, which is essential in quantum information processing and quantum networks. A large coupling strength requires nanometer-scale positioning accuracy of the emitter near the surface of the plasmonic structure, which is challenging. We demonstrate the coupling of single localized defects in a tungsten diselenide (WSe2) monolayer self-aligned to the surface plasmon mode of a silver nanowire. The silver nanowire induces a strain gradient on the monolayer at the overlapping area, leading to the formation of localized defect emission sites that are intrinsically close to the surface plasmon. We measured an average coupling efficiency with a lower bound of 26%±11% from the emitter into the plasmonic mode of the silver nanowire. This technique offers a way to achieve efficient coupling between plasmonic structures and localized defects of 2D semiconductors.


The aim of the present study is to evaluate the early impact of fixed orthodontic therapy on some salivary physical and chemical characteristics of patients in relation to their weight status. The sample consisted of 54 patients (25 males and 29 females; age between 16-18 years old) going under the course of fixed orthodontic treatment. Patients were categorized according to their Body Mass Index (BMI) into 3 weight status groups (underweight, normal weight, overweight and obese), then unstimulated salivary samples were collected from each patient who met specific inclusion and exclusion criteria during three time intervals; before bonding (1st visit), 2 weeks after bonding (2nd visit), and 4 weeks after bonding (3rd visit), then salivary samples are examined to evaluate some salivary physical properties (flow rate, pH) and some chemical properties (salivary calcium concentration, salivary phosphate concentration). A significant increase in salivary flow rate for all weight status categories during the 2ndvisit. A significant decrease in salivary pH for both underweight and overweight groups during 2nd visit with no significant change for normal weight group. A significant decrease in salivary calcium concentration for all weight status groups. And a significant increase in salivary phosphate concentration for all weight status groups. Exposure to fixed orthodontic appliances causes significant changes in salivary physical and chemical characteristics in early stages of treatment. These changes differ among patients with different BMI weight status, but with lesser intensity on normal weight patients than underweight and overweight and obese patients.


– Although power quality aspects of electrical machines have been extensively studied and investigated for a large number of years, room for improvement still exists in the field of classic, wound-field, synchronous generators. This paper proposes an innovative method of power quality improvement for single-phase synchronous generators in which the usual DC field current is replaced by a calculated current waveform. The optimised field current waveform is designed in such a way that harmonics created by the machine geometry and the winding configuration are significantly reduced.


The effects of biofilms in the health world can be detrimental. Biofilms allow bacteria to resist antibiotics by providing a "slippery" outer layer, thereby inhibiting phagocytosis. One organism in particular that is protected by biofilms is Staphylococcus. This bacterium is antibiotic resistant because of the biofilm. Due to this feature, Staphylococcus is hard to treat and can eventually lead to death. The importance of understanding the bacteria's biofilm will open new possibilities for the creation of biofilm inhibition drugs. The presence of Staphylococcus in society has increased dramatically over the years because many of the current antibiotics no longer inhibit them. In other words, these bacteria have mutated and the rate of infection is high. This is especially true in hospital settings where numerous patients are recovering from an illness or surgery and their immune systems are compromised. Many have observed the growing concern over the inability to stop the rapid influx of staphylococcus cases. In response to this concern numerous studies are being conducted to analyze the bacteria's biofilm in order to understand what allows for inhibition. Although new medications have become available, they are not coming fast enough to keep up with mutating strains.


The shielding of buried three-phase high-voltage power lines can be done by placing them in conducting ferromagnetic U-shaped gutters covered with plates. In case of a perfect electrical contact between adjacent gutters and between adjacent cover plates, induced currents in the shield efficiently reduce the magnetic field generated by the cables. As however a perfect contact cannot be guaranteed, in practice, it is useful to quantify the effect of a defective electrical contact on the field reduction. From two-dimensional/three-dimensional finite element computations and experiments, the influence of the contact resistance on the shielding efficiency is investigated, as a function of the ratio of axial length to height of the shield elements. Furthermore, the effect of other parameters on the shielding efficiency is studied: the ratio of axial length to height, a parasitic air gap between the gutter and the cover plate and the type of the shield material. It was found that a low contact resistance deteriorates much more the shielding in case of an aluminium shield than in case of a steel shield. As expected, the effect is larger for shield elements with relatively short axial length with regard to the other dimensions. Nevertheless, the effect remains quite significant for aluminium shields with practically convenient dimensions.


Influence of weld lines is important to the mechanical properties of the modified polypropylene products. Orthogonal experiments are adopted to confirm injection process parameters for such mechanical properties as impact resistance and tensibility of the modified polypropylene injection-molded parts in weld lines. The factors which affect the mechanical properties at welding joints product vary, and how to select rational parameters is a difficult problem for production. The mechanical strength can be increased through higher temperature, lower injecting pressure, higher velocity of filling, higher packing pressure and longer packing time. The specifications of cross section in weld lines of the products are analyzed to illustrate the theory of fracture. In order to increase mechanical strength of the sample, the length of hot weld lines should be increased and the length of cold welding joints should be decreased through adjusting the process parameter.


Background. COPD exacerbations have negative impact on patients' survival. Several risk factors for grave outcomes of such exacerbations have been descried. Muscle dysfunction and mass loss were shown to impact negatively on prognosis and survival. Low activity of the enzyme ALT (Alanine amino-transferase) in the blood is a known indicator for sarcopenia and frailty, however, no previous studies addressed the association of low ALT amongst patients hospitalized due to COPD exacerbation and long-term survival.
Methods. This is a historic prospective cohort study of patients hospitalized due to acute COPD exacerbation.
Results. Included were 232 consecutive COPD exacerbation patients. The median time of follow-up was 34.9 months (IQR 23.13 – 41.73 months). During this period 104 (44.8%) patients died. All patients were grouped to quartiles according to blood ALT levels (after exclusion of cases considered to have hepatitis (ALT > 40 IU)). The risk of long-term mortality increased, in a statistically significant manner, amongst patients with low ALT values: the median survival of patients with ALT < 11 IU was 18.5 months only while the median survival for the rest of the study group was not reached. For ALT < 11IU; 12-16IU; 17-20IU and >21IU the mortality rates were 69%; 40.9%; 36.3% and 25% respectively (p < 0.001 for comparison of lower quartile with upper three quartiles). The crude hazard ratio for mortality amongst patients with ALT levels lower than 11IU was 2.37 (95% CI; 1.6 – 3.5). This increased risk of mortality remained significant after adjustment for age, weight, creatinine, albumin concentration and cardiovascular diseases (HR = 1.83; 95% CI 1.08 – 3.1, p < 0.05).
Conclusions. Low ALT values, a biomarker of sarcopenia and frailty, are associated with poor long-term survival amongst patients hospitalized due to COPD exacerbation.


Distributors need to allocate a maximum allowed level of harmonic current to MV customers to keep voltage distortion acceptable. The paper describes a new approach, based on the concept of voltage droop, requiring much less calculation and data than required by the present approach based on an IEC technical report. The discrepancy between the new method and the present is studied by comparing some carefully selected scenarios. It is shown that the proposed method gives results within 20% of the standards-based approach which makes it a very attractive alternative for harmonic allocation.


The titanium alloys-especially Ti-6Al-4V- are attractive materials because of their high specific strength and low density. But these alloys have poor surface properties such as wear and corrosion resistance for many industrial applications. Laser surface nitriding technique, has been the subject of considerable interest as a means of enhancing the surface performance of titanium alloys. In the present paper, the corrosion properties of laser nitrided Ti-6Al-4V alloy that have been reported by several researchers until now is considered. The microstructure changes, phase's formation and the influence of laser processing parameters on them, in laser nitriding layers of Ti-6Al-4V alloy are investigated in different manners like SEM, TEM, XPS and XRD. At the end of this paper, the effects of laser nitriding on the corrosion behavior of Ti-6Al-4V alloy are reviewed.


Scalability of object detectors with respect to the number of classes is a very important issue for applications where many object classes need to be detected. While combining single-class detectors yields a linear complexity for testing, multi-class detectors that localize all objects at once come often at the cost of a reduced detection accuracy. In this work, we present a scalable multi-class detection algorithm which scales sublinearly with the number of classes without compromising accuracy. To this end, a shared discriminative codebook of feature appearances is jointly trained for all classes and detection is also performed for all classes jointly. Based on the learned sharing distributions of features among classes, we build a taxonomy of object classes. The taxonomy is then exploited to further reduce the cost of multi-class object detection. Our method has linear training and sublinear detection complexity in the number of classes. We have evaluated our method on the challenging PASCAL VOC'06 and PASCAL VOC'07 datasets and show that scaling the system does not lead to a loss in accuracy.


In this study, the authors investigate the relationships between team communication styles and job-related cognitions on one hand and knowledge-sharing attitudes and behaviors on the other using 424 members of different work-related teams. Both eagerness and willingness to share are positively related to knowledge sharing—both donating and collecting knowledge. These attitudes mediate the relationships of communication styles, job satisfaction, and performance beliefs with knowledge-collecting and donating behaviors. In terms of team communication styles, an agreeable style is positively related to team members' willingness to share their knowledge, whereas an extravert communication style of a team is positively related to both eagerness and willingness to share. Performance beliefs and job satisfaction are both related to willingness and eagerness to share knowledge. However, in contrast with the authors' expectations, the relationship between eagerness to share knowledge and knowledge donating is not s...


The Solid Oxide Fuel Cell is an attractive technology with the potential to play an important
role for energy supply in the future. SOFCs have many advantages, as its high efficiency and
the possibility to operate with a wide range of hydrogen containing fuels, being methane one
of the most employed. The SOFC operates at high enough temperatures to allow the
methane to be reformed within the fuel cell stack. This is called internal reforming and it
results in lower operating costs. Modelling a SOFC requires a deep knowledge of the rate of
the methane steam reforming.
The purpose of this project is to study the steam reforming kinetics on Ni-YSZ, a common
anode material for solid oxide fuel cells.
This project includes a literature study to give an overview on the SOFC technology and a
more in depth study about the kinetics of the steam reforming on Nickel catalysts. An
experimental part follows, in which results from the experiments on a tubular reactor are
presented and discussed.
It was found that the reaction rate was linearly dependent on the methane partial pressure
and independent on the steam partial pressures. Moreover, results showed that hydrogen
have a positive influence on the reaction rate. Initially planned experiments could not be
completed due to problems with the experimental setup.


Despite the large number of modifications proposed to the standard Cam-clay models over the last three decades, the critical state concept has been much less successful for modelling sand behaviour. This thesis is concerned with understanding the stress-strain and strength characteristics of Portaway sand, a quartz sand, and the validity of several recently developed critical state models formulated in terms of the state parameter concept.

The laboratory investigation consisted of the evaluation and modification of two triaxial systems and 83 triaxial tests performed under monotonic and cyclic loading conditions. Emphasis has been placed on assessing the applicability of critical state theory and state parameter concept to sands. Portaway sand was chosen in this research work because it is a typical granular material for which the deformation behaviour can be obtained and used to verify the newly developed constitutive models.

The critical state model concerned is known as CASM developed by Yu (1995, 1998). CASM is a relatively simple model because it only requires seven model constants, five of which are the same as those used in the modified Cam-clay model. Three extensions of CASM referred to as CASM-b, CASM-d and CASM-c were developed recently based on the combined hardening concept and the bounding surface plasticity theory. These enable the smooth transition of stiffness, phase transformation and cyclic behaviour to be simulated. For the first time, a simple procedure for determining all the model parameters from triaxial results has been established.

The validities of the theoretical assumptions introduced in the new models are critically assessed in light of results obtained from both element testing and numerical modelling. In general, the overall stress-strain behaviour of Portaway sand observed in triaxial tests under various stress paths is well captured by the models.


This is the Health Inequalities theme chapter of the second joint annual report of Professor Yvonne Doyle and Professor John Newton, the South East England regional directors of public health.
The South East is one of the healthiest regions in England, but in common with elsewhere in the country faces many challenges to current and future health: while life expectancy is high and early death rates from cancer and circulatory disease are low, more than one in five adults smoke, more than one in five adults are obese, levels of physical activity are low, and marked inequalities in health remain.
The report looks back over the 2009/10 financial year and provides:
- an update on key documents published during the year of relevance to the health inequalities theme of the South East Health & Well-Being Strategy
- a spine chart summarising how the South East is performing on a number of high-level health inequalities indicators
- an â?~in focusâ?T section concentrating in greater detail on tobacco control and NHS Health Checks
- a concluding section giving examples of the progress made at the regional level in supporting local work aimed at reducing health inequalities.
In addition to this theme chapter, the executive summary, full report and five other regional Health & Well-Being Strategy theme chapters can be downloaded separately via the links below.
Comments on this report are warmly welcomed and can be addressed to Professor Doyle and Professor Newton at firstname.lastname@example.com
THIS REPORT IS AVAILABLE IN ELECTRONIC FORMAT ONLY.


In univariate quality control, theX Charts have been useful in determining whether the process mean is in-control or not. It would be very useful to have a similar chart applied to the multivariate case. The existing methods do not provide all the information that a quality control practitioner would like to possess such as the indication of which variables are causing the process to be out-of-control. In this paper, we propose a method which allows us to simultaneously control the overall process quality characteristics and to identify the responsible variables leading to an out-of-control condition. This method is based on the adequate selection of the symmetric square root of the correlation matrix. The associated critical region is also discussed. The process considered is assumed to be multivariate normal with parameters known from historical data or estimated from a large sample. We call this method, "Multivariate Shewhart Chart (MS Chart)", because it reduces to the Shewhart Chart when the process involves only one variable. The procedure has been illustrated with the help of three examples, two of which have been frequently used by other authors, and one simulated.


A multiple access channel (MAC) consists of multiple senders simultaneously transmitting their messages to a single receiver. For the classical-quantum case (cq-MAC), achievable rates are known assuming that all the messages are decoded, a common assumption in quantum network design. However, such a conventional design approach ignores the global network structure, i.e., the network topology. When a cq-MAC is given as a part of quantum network communication, this work shows that computation properties can be used to boost communication speeds with code design dependently on the network topology. We quantify achievable quantum communication rates of codes with computation property for a two-sender cq-MAC. When the two-sender cq-MAC is a boson coherent channel with binary discrete modulation, we show that it achieves the maximum possible communication rate (the single-user capacity), which cannot be achieved with conventional design. Further, such a rate can be achieved by different detection methods: quantum (with and without quantum memory), on-off photon counting and homodyne (each at different photon power). Finally, we describe two practical applications, one of which cryptographic.


Incubation of hepatocytes from pregnant rats with dithiothreitol decreased specific 125I-prolactin (125I-prl) binding to such cells by about 20% relative to control. This was not due to a non-specific effect of dithiothreitol on the cell membrane, since reduction also altered the binding of prl to solubilized partially purified receptor. Exposure of hepatocytes to N-ethylmaleimide (6 mM) for periods as brief as 1 min decreased the subsequent specific binding of 125I-prl by more than 50%. N-Ethylmaleimide was less effective as an inhibitor of binding when applied after hepatocytes had been exposed to 125I-prl, binding being decreased by about 15%. Scatchard analysis demonstrated that the effect of N-ethylmaleimide resulted from loss of receptor-binding capacity without any substantial effect on the affinity of the prl receptor for hormone. Dithiothreitol diminished the affinity of lactogenic sites for prolactin without altering cellular binding capacity. These observations suggest that thiol and disulphide groups are present in the prl receptor and that these functional moieties regulate the formation and properties of prl receptor complexes. The species to which 125I-prl had bound were identified by affinity labelling. 125I-prl was covalently coupled into saturable complexes of Mr 65000 and 50000. 125I-human growth hormone (125I-hGH) was covalently incorporated into complexes of Mr 300 000, 220 000, 130 000, 65 000 and 50 000. Bovine growth hormone (bGH), but not prl, competed for 125I-hGH uptake into the 300 000-, 220 000- and 130 000-Mr complexes, indicating that these species were somatogenic. Prl, but not bGH, inhibited 125I-hGH uptake into 65 000- and 50 000-Mr complexes. This demonstrated that 125I-hGH in the presence of bGH could affinity-label lactogenic receptors. 125I-prl aggregates in Triton X-100, whereas 125I-hGH does not. Therefore lactogenic complexes to which 125I-hGH was bound in the presence of excess bGH were solubilized in Triton X-100 and characterized sequentially by gel filtration and affinity labelling. Prl receptors were eluted from columns of Sepharose 6B as a species of Mr380 000. Fractionation of the 380 000-Mr species on sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gels resulted in the isolation of complexes of Mr 65 000 and 50 000. Thus non-covalent forces stabilize aggregates of the monomeric prolactin receptor.


: To assess the long-term clinical results of uncemented total hip arthroplasty with the McGoey-Evans bipolar high-friction hip prosthesis, the authors reviewed the findings in 86 such hip replacements. The minimum patient follow-up was 5 1/2 years (mean 9 years). Overall, satisfactory results were obtained in 46.5% of cases. There were no deep infections. In contrast to the experience with the cemented hip replacements, the authors found that the results were better in men than women and that most of the revisions were done within 5 years of the original operation. Tissue hypersensitivity resulted in implant loosening in only two cases and no harmful systemic effects arose from the use of this uncemented cobalt-chromium prosthesis. Although this particular hip prosthesis is not recommended because of its inferior design, the findings of the study could be useful in the current practice of uncemented hip arthroplasty.


Abstract — Oversampled bandpass A/D converters based on sigma-delta (Σ∆) modulation can be used to robustly digitize the types of narrowband intermediate frequency (IF) signals that arise in radios and cellular systems. This paper proposes a two-path architecture for a fourth-order, bandpass modulator that is more tolerant of analog circuit limitations at high sampling speeds than conventional implementations based on the use of switched-capacitor biquadratic filters. An experimental prototype employing the two-path topology has been integrated in a 0.6-μm, single-poly, triple-metal CMOS technology with capacitors synthesized from a stacked metal structure. Two interleaved paths clocked at 40 MHz digitize a 200 kHz bandwidth signal centered at 20 MHz with 75 dB of dynamic range while suppressing the undesired mirror image signal by 42 dB. At low input signal levels, the mixing of spurious tones at dc and fs/2 with the input appears to degrade the performance of the modulator; out-of-band sinusoidal dither is shown to be an effective means of avoiding this degradation. The experimental modulator dissipates 72 mW from a 3.3-V supply.


Civic participation is of major importance for the democratic development of Europe. As European societies are highly affected by immigration, it is interesting to examine why immigrants are usually less active than natives. We explain our concentration on first generation immigrants and at the same time raise awareness of the different meanings and research implications of terms such as 'immigrant', 'migrant' and 'foreigner' both in statistics and in the public discourse of European societies. Active civic participation is defined as continuously investing time and energy to organise solidarity or give a voice to societal concerns in the receiving society. Although this definition is relatively broad and comprises both political and civil society activities, it does not include low-key types of participation such as voting or visiting events. Building predominantly on American literature on individual determinants of civic participation and on European literature to examine the influence of the societal opportunity structure on the participation of immigrants, we conceptualise our own model for researching the topic. We identify the activation process as the main research gap.