This study presents empirical research findings of the impact of national and corporate cultures on managerial beliefs about employees and on company styles of treating its employees (HRM styles), measured in terms of an autocratic-participative dimension, and based on managers from three different manufacturing entities: Japanese companies in Japan (JC; n=104), Japanese subsidiaries in Bangladesh (JBC; n=102), and Bangladeshi companies (BC; n=114). As hypothesized, BC managers were found to have stronger negative ('work- avoidance') beliefs about employees and to perceive their company's HRM style as more autocratic relative to JBC and JC managers. On the other hand, a positive ('self-motivation') belief about employees was highest among JC managers, followed by JBC and BC colleagues. The participative HRM style was found correlating negatively with the work-avoidance belief across all managers as hypothesized. However, the participative HRM style correlated positively with the self-motivation belief only among JC managers, but negatively among BC managers. National and cultural differences have been discussed to explain this contradiction among BC managers.


This paper reports on how children have fared during the period of the global economic crisis (Great Recession) in rich European countries. The authors provide a descriptive overview of the evolution in a series of child well-being indicators over time (2007/8-2012/3 ) in 32 countries (the EU-28 plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey). The focus is on key child and adolescent outcome indicators that are expected to have been affected by the crisis and its related real-economy effects in the short and medium-term, including child monetary poverty and material deprivation, subjective well-being, and transition to adulthood (including education and employment). Countries' performances are compared and ranked according to the change they experienced in these indicators over the period under analysis.


Vaginal ectopic ureter associated with ipsilateral dysplastic pelvic kidney and bicornuate uterus is a rare congenital urogenital anomaly. A six-year-old girl had suffered from purulent vaginal discharge for three years. She was first misdiagnosed as vulvovaginitis. Ultrasound later revealed double uterine cavities, hydrocolpos, and lobulated cystic lesion identified as the left hydroureter connecting the vagina. A tiny pinhole was detected on the left upper vagina wall. Intravenous pyelography demonstrated right compensatory hypertrophic renal system without visible of the left side. Magnetic resonance imaging delineated the defect and entire urogenital systems. The patient received laparoscopic left ureteronephrectomy and was discharged uneventfully. Integrated radiographic and endoscopic examinations were required for preoperative diagnosis of urogenital tract anomalies in a young girl.


The range of first detection of an approaching target is among the most important parameters defining sensors and defensive surveillance systems. A demonstration of capability typically consists of staged approaches of a target under realistic conditions in order to 1) assess detection range for mission planning, 2) show that the range of first detection occurs at notably greater range than competing systems, or 3) show that it exceeds a minimum performance specification. In port protection, for instance, it is common to demonstrate the performance of a sonar for the detection and tracking of underwater intruders by staging the approach of divers, or to demonstrate the performance of a radar for the detection of a fast boat by heading a boat toward the radar. The importance of detection range holds equally for combat systems. Like most quantitative observations, the observation of detection range is subject to random variability. That is, the same value is neither observed nor expected on repeated trials. It will vary instead depending in part on the constantly changing environmental conditions that affect a sensor's performance, and in part on the changing target-strength of the target owing to its construction, aspect, and speed, and in part on any intrinsic randomness in the nature of the detection process itself. The intrinsic uncertainty is the subject of this paper. At the limits of detection, a sensor system is by definition "straining" its utmost to distinguish a target in noisy or cluttered scene. Its probability of detection in a small time period is relatively low, for if it were high, one would not be speaking of the range limits of detection. Here it is shown by analysis that this in turn implies that there is a high intrinsic random variability in detection range that is not due to environmental or target strength uncertainties. Defensive response measures against a target must, as a minimum, be robust against this intrinsic variability in detection range. The interpretation of observed detection range must also take this intrinsic variability into account, when comparing one system against another or against performance specifications.


This paper summarizes the results of a systems approach to water development issues concerning the Platte River in Nebraska. This approach enabled the production of numerous tradeoff curves which show the implications of the different choices available to decision makers. The particular tradeoffs considered in this paper were those concerning project financing and the associated equity implications. It was found that there are major choices to be made regarding financing from current account versus debt capital. This basic financing choice has a major effect on inter temporal equity. The analysis also illustrated the interrelationships between financing and user group equity.


The ability of species to shift their distributions in response to climate change may be impeded by lack of suitable climate or habitat between species' current and future ranges. We examined the potential for climate and forest cover to limit the movement of bird species among sites of biodiversity importance in the Albertine Rift, East Africa, a biodiversity hotspot. We forecasted future distributions of suitable climate for 12 Albertine Rift endemic bird species using species distribution models based on current climate data and projections of future climate. We used these forecasts alongside contemporary forest cover and natal dispersal estimates to project potential movement of species over time. We identified potentially important pathways for the bird species to move among 30 Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) that are both currently forested and projected to provide suitable climate over intervening time periods. We examined the relative constraints imposed by availability of suitable climate and forest cover on future movements.

The analyses highlighted important pathways of potential dispersal lying along a north-south axis through high elevation areas of the Albertine Rift. Both forest availability and climate suitability were projected to influence bird movement through these landscapes as they are affected by future climate change. Importantly, forest cover and areas projected to contain suitable climate in future were often dissociated in space, which could limit species' responses to climate change. A lack of climatically suitable areas was a far greater impediment to projected movement among IBAs than insufficient forest cover. Although current forest cover appears sufficient to facilitate movement of bird species in this region, protecting the remaining forests in areas also projected to be climatically suitable for species to move through in the future should be a priority for adaptation management.

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This paper investigates the experience of Staten Island's diverse urban communities with limited financial resources regarding access to affordable housing after the 2008 economic downturn. It details a successful partnership in researching the challenges faced in these communities and offers recommendations for the targeting of resources to maximize community benefits. Also highlighted is Wagner College's commitment in connecting its academic offerings to urban challenges and in showing students how their studies support the local community's economic development.


THERE ARE some 30 million people with disabilities in the U.S. If you have created Web pages without thinking about how accessible they will be for these people, you may be unintentionally locking them out of your site. I am certainly no expert on accessibility, but I thought I should at least know something about it, and I'm passing along what I've learned so far with a few suggestions for how you can learn more about the topic. I will also discuss a great website that has a free online test for accessibility. But accessibility is a wider issue than just accessibility for people with disabilities. It also becomes an issue as more and more users are accessing the Web using small-screen, low-power devices such as cell phones and small PDAs. Some estimates are that mobile users of the Web will be the majority of users in the next five years or so. There are three main sets of accessibility standards: the government's Section 508 guidelines, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards, and the Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) standards. Undoubtedly, various professional associations devoted to people with disabilities have position statements and standards of their own. The government's 508 standards may carry the force of law. I say "may" because I believe the matter is still being argued in various courts of law. Some large websites, such as AOL and MSN.com, have come under pressure in the last few years to abide by Section 508. It is doubtful that small sites will ever be forced to comply with Section 508, but thinking about the standards as you create Web pages is certainly easier than retrofitting a site's pages. And many of the standards are remarkably simple and easy to accommodate. Of the three sets of standards listed above, the government's Section 508 standards are the easiest with which to comply. The W3C standards are listed in three priority levels. Satisfying all three priority levels would be difficult. The Nielsen Norman Group is a consulting firm that devised its over 100 standards after doing large-scale user tests of various commercial websites, such as the American Airlines site. Section 508 standards and information about them are available at www.access-board.gov. Here is the government's summary of Section 508. Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications (1194.22) The criteria for Web-based technology and information are based on access guidelines developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium. Many of these provisions ensure access for people with vision impairments who rely on various assistive products to access computer-based information, such as screen readers, which translate what's on a computer screen into automated audible output, and refreshable Braille displays. Certain conventions, such as verbal tags or identification of graphics and format devices, like frames, are necessary so that these devices can "read" them for the user in a sensible way. The standards do not prohibit the use of website graphics or animation. Instead, the standards aim to ensure that such information is also available in an accessible format. Generally, this means use of text labels or descriptors for graphics and certain format elements. (HTML code already provides an "Alt Text" tag for graphics which can serve as a verbal descriptor for graphics.) This section also addresses the usability of multimedia presentations, image maps, style sheets, scripting languages, applets and plug-ins, and electronic forms. The best summary of the W3C "priority one" guidelines I found was at www.w3.org/WAI/References/QuickTips/. These 10 tips have to do with many of the same elements mentioned in the Section 508 summary above. Here, in nontechnical language, is the advice contained in the tips. Use real text instead of images or pictures of text. If you use pictures of anything, even of text, provide captions or descriptions. Give all pages a descriptive title at the top. …


Almost all the worldwide and nationwide companies utilize advertising to increase their sales volume and profit. These companies pay millions of dollars to reach consumers and announce their products or services. This forces companies to evaluate advertising effects and check whether ads meet companys strategies. They need to evaluate the ads not only after announcement, but also before advertising, i.e. they can be one step ahead by predicting the future advertising awareness through artificial intelligence tools such as fuzzy systems and neural networks. In this study, we propose to use adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and artificial neural network (ANN) to analyze advertising decision making. ANFIS creates fuzzy rules and trains the neural network using given input data. This training ability of ANFIS and ANN leads to predicting the advertising awareness outputs. Here, we investigate three advertising awareness outputs, namely, top of mind, share of voice, and spontaneous awareness. In order to achieve the valid predictions, data are randomly divided into training data with 70 percent, validation data with 15 percent, and testing data with remained 15 percent of data. The correlation between actual data and predictions are calculated to check the accuracy of the predicted outputs.


Dynamic programming algorithm is classical strategy to solve the optimization problem. The distributing of enterprise resource is a multistage decision problem, having the characteristic of dynamic programming algorithm. We establish distribution of mathematical model of planning target, using dynamic programming principle and method to divide enterprise resource allocation stage reasonably, and then we use the recursion method to structure dynamic programming equation from the bottom up. Using VC++6.0 development platform is to compute the optimal decision-making sequence and maximum of profit. Dynamic programming makes optimum resource allocation for an enterprise, and it is high application value in resource allocation.


The present paper is concerned with the use of the Modified Wöhler Curve Method (MWCM), applied in terms of nominal stresses, to estimate lifetime of notched components subjected to variable amplitude multiaxial fatigue loading. The MWCM is applied by defining the critical plane through that direction experiencing the maximum variance of the resolved shear stress: since the shear stress resolved along the above direction is a monodimensional quantity, fatigue cycles are directly counted by the classical Rain-Flow method. The performed validation exercise, based on an extensive experimental investigation, seems to strongly support the idea that the MWCM applied along with the classical nominal stress based approach is capable of accurately estimating fatigue damage also in notched components subjected to variable amplitude multiaxial load histories.


Introduction: Setting tariffs is one of the most important tools of policy makers of the health system in every country for implementing their authority which is effective in justice, performance, and the quality of and accountability in offering services. Moreover, it can influence access rate and use of services. Changing medical tariffs affects the income of medical and hospital service providers, and the expenditure of financiers of medical and hospital services. This study investigated the concept of real tariff from the point of view of managers of insurance organizations. Method: This qualitative study was performed via in-depth interviews with 19 managers of health, social security, and armed forces insurance organizations who were informed of or their occupation was related to this field. Thematic analysis method was used for analyzing interviews. Results: Managers of insurance organizations expressed the concept of real tariff in two themes of definition of real tariff, and methods, elements, and principles of determining tariffs and subthemes of determination of tariffs based on collective agreement considering interests of involved groups, based on cost of services, and based on type and sensitivity. Conclusion: To amend the status of setting tariffs, characteristics of real tariff should be identified based on the concept of real tariff. Interests of involved groups (insured, service provider, and insurer) should be considered in determining tariffs. Tariffs should be determined based on collective agreement, the views of representatives of involved groups, and cost of services.
Keywords: Real tariff, Insurance organizations, Managers, Medical services, Health system


This research contrasts the physical activity-related self-efficacy before and after exergame play and the gender-wise expectancy related to beliefs and task values. Sedentary undergraduates (n=102; 51 males, 51 females) were recruited from a local university in Kota Bharu, Kelantan using Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ). Participants completed questionnaires assessing their self-efficacy, expectancy related beliefs, subjective task values and intention to participate in exergame play in the future. After exergame play, participants had a significantly higher degree of self-efficacy than before exergame play (mean score: before 27.1 ± 4.33 vs. after 32.2 ± 4.51; p < 0.001). Their belief in their ability to exercise on a regular basis varied considerably across gender, with higher values reported in male than in female participants (mean difference= 0.84, p=0.02). Other components, such as expectancy-related beliefs, task values, and intentions, were comparable between gender. Besides, participants also considered exergaming to be more attractive and stimulating than traditional physical exercise, thereby presenting greater beliefs in capability and greater desire to engage in exergaming in the future. The result suggests that exergame play can be used as an innovative approach to increase the level of physical activity among sedentary university students.


This work focuses on the impact of sharing contexts on consumers' decision processes and purchase-amount decisions. Four studies, using both hypothetical and real (incentive-compatible) choices, find that people regularly purchase more in sharing (vs. non-sharing) contexts. Evidence is presented suggesting that a significant portion of this effect is driven by a cognitive bias arising in sharing contexts that focuses people on what they will give to others, and away from what they will receive from others. Consequences of this bias include the noted surplus in purchase amounts, over-consumption, and waste.


Antibiotic resistance has increased markedly in gram-negative bacteria over the last two decades, and in many cases has been associated with increased mortality and healthcare costs. The adoption of genotyping and next generation whole genome sequencing of large sets of clinical bacterial isolates has greatly expanded our understanding of how antibiotic resistance develops and transmits among bacteria and between patients. Diverse mechanisms of resistance, including antibiotic degradation, antibiotic target modification, and modulation of permeability through the bacterial membrane have been demonstrated. These fundamental insights into the mechanisms of gram-negative antibiotic resistance have influenced the development of novel antibiotics and treatment practices in highly resistant infections. Here, we review the mechanisms and global epidemiology of antibiotic resistance in some of the most clinically important resistance phenotypes, including carbapenem resistant Enterobacteriaceae, extensively drug resistant (XDR) Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and XDR Acinetobacter baumannii. Understanding the resistance mechanisms and epidemiology of these pathogens is critical for the development of novel antibacterials and for individual treatment decisions, which often involve alternatives to β-lactam antibiotics.


Background It has been recently reported that histamine H2 receptor antagonists (H2RAs) are associated with impairment of ventricular remodeling and incident heart failure. In addition, favorable pleiotropic effects and adverse effects of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) on cardiovascular disease have also been reported. We examined the associations of acid suppressive therapy using H2RAs or PPIs with cardiac mortality in patients with heart failure. Methods and Results In total, 1191 consecutive heart failure patients were divided into 3 groups: a non–acid suppressive therapy group (n=363), an H2RA group (n=164), and a PPI group (n=664). In the follow‐up period (mean 995 days), 169 cardiac deaths occurred. In the Kaplan–Meier analysis, cardiac mortality was significantly lower in the PPI group than in the H2RA and non–acid suppressive therapy groups (11.0% versus 21.3% and 16.8%, respectively; log‐rank P=0.004). In the multivariable Cox proportional hazards analysis, use of PPIs, but not H2RAs, was found to be an independent predictor of cardiac mortality (PPIs: hazard ratio 0.488, P=0.002; H2RAs: hazard ratio 0.855, P=0.579). The propensity‐matched 1:1 cohort was assessed based on propensity score (H2RAs, n=164; PPIs, n=164). Cardiac mortality was significantly lower in the PPI group than in the H2RA group in the postmatched cohort (log‐rank P=0.025). In the Cox proportional hazards analysis, the use of PPIs was a predictor of cardiac mortality in the postmatched cohort (hazard ratio 0.528, P=0.028). Conclusions PPIs may be associated with better outcome in patients with heart failure.


This paper by Daniel P. O'Brien was submitted as background material for Item 6 of the 128th meeting on the OECD Competition Committee on 5-6 December 2017. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Organisation or of the governments of its member countries. More documents related to this discussion can be found at www.oecd.org/daf/competition/common-ownership-and-its-impact-on-competition.htm


In response to the spread of SARS-CoV-2 across North America in early March of 2020, Canadian and United States medical schools swiftly virtualized medical education for pre-clerkship students. With remote learning arrived novel challenges: barriers to students' comprehension of course material, difficulties conveying the nuances of patient interaction, and social hardships hindering students' continued progress. The 2020 Harvard-McGill Medical Student Exchange, a group of ten McGill University Faculty of Medicine and Harvard Medical School students, analyzed their institutions' respective responses in the virtualization of medical education and their personal experiences with remote pre-clerkship education. The authors' work provides insight into opportunities for mutual progress and cross-cultural exchange between Canadian and American medical schools, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors detail potential changes to didactics, student research opportunities, support for students, and clerkship preparation that they expect would benefit pre-clerkship students in an ever-changing biomedical landscape. With gratitude toward their respective programs for their efforts in transitioning to virtual learning, the authors look toward a future of medical education increasingly interwoven with digital technology and responsive to social change.


Exophthalmos with lowering of the globe, eyelid enlargement, and canthal displacement are the usual consequences of orbitopalpebral neurofibromatosis. A cerebral hernia into the orbit may be seen on CT scan. An intracranial approach allows for pushing back the brain with a bone graft to create an enlarged orbital cavity, lifting the globe with a graft on the orbital floor, and fixing the canthi in proper position. An eyelid radical resection is performed in the same stage or later. This approach is discussed in the treatment of 17 cases of orbitopalpebral neurofibromatosis.


The polymorphic phosphoglucomutase (PGM) and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) loci have been studied in parallel to experimental work on the phosphoglucose isomerase (PGI) polymorphism in Colias butterflies. PGI, PGM and G6PD are also autosomal in Colias. PGM and G6PD are loosely linked (and represent the first identified autosomal linkage group in Colias); they assort independently from PGI. Recombination occurs in both sexes. Neither PGM nor G6PD shows large, consistent differences in flight capacity through the day among its genotypes, as PGI does. PGM shows some change of allele frequencies, and match to Hardy-Weinberg expectation, with air temperature in middle and latter parts of the season, but not early in the season. G6PD may show some heterozygote excess over Hardy-Weinberg expectation early in the day, but more testing is needed. No evidence for differential survivorship was seen at PGM or G6PD, in contrast to PGI. At the PGM and G6PD loci, male heterozygotes are advantaged in mating with females, but without the evidence of female choice which occurs for PGI. These effects are not correlated among the three loci. There is no assortative mating at G6PD (nor at PGI). There is minor positive assortative mating of PGM heterozygotes, but it is too weak to account for the PGM-genotype-specific male mating advantage. No trends of multilocus genotype frequencies involving PGI are seen. Certain PGM-G6PD two-locus genotypes are over-represented, and others under-represented, in wild adult samples, particularly among males and uniformly among successfully mating males. Our results emphasize that enzyme loci sharing a substrate need not have common experience of the existence or strength of natural selection, and suggest initial food-resource processing and allocation as a possible context for fitness-related effects of the PGM and G6PD polymorphisms.


Multimodal characterization is commonly required for understanding materials. User facilities possess the infrastructure to perform these measurements, albeit in serial over days to months. In this paper, we describe a unified multimodal measurement of a single sample library at distant instruments, driven by a concert of distributed agents that use analysis from each modality to inform the direction of the other in real time. Powered by the Bluesky project at the National Synchrotron Light Source II, this experiment is a world's first for beamline science, and provides a blueprint for future approaches to multimodal and multifidelity experiments at user facilities.


One of the most frequently performed blood tests, measurement of total hemoglobin concentration, requires invasive blood sampling. We developed an optoacoustic technique for noninvasive monitoring of total hemoglobin concentration and other blood variables by probing the radial artery or other blood vessels. Recently, we designed and built a focused, wide-band, polymer-based optoacoustic transducer for blood vessel probing with high, submillimeter lateral resolution and incorporated it into a highly portable, laser diode-based optoacoustic system. The focused optoacoustic transducer combines a fiber-optic delivery system and a wide-band piezosensor. First, we experimentally measured transducer parameters (lateral resolution, sensitivity, focal length). To test the transducer capabilities in measurement of total hemoglobin concentration and other blood parameters from blood vessels, we prepared a tissue phantom simulating strongly-scattering tissues with blood vessels of different diameters, spacing, and depths. Optoacoustic signals were acquired from blood at different hemoglobin concentration and oxygenation during transducer scanning over the phantom. In vivo experiments were performed from radial arteries and peripheral veins of different size, depth, and spacing. Submillimeter lateral resolution was obtained in the in vitro and in vivo experiments. The high resolution combined with the wide-band detection of the optoacoustic waves can be used for monitoring of blood variables in blood vessels with high accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity.


Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have recently attracted a lot of interest in the research community. The security mechanism with large overhead of computation and communication, are infeasible to apply in WSNs due to many constraints such as limited energy, resource and memory, and low computation capability. Current access control models cannot make an effective access decision in many events because access decisions are based on predefined access policies and roles. Sometimes, users may need to access important data urgently but apart from those predefined access policies, other user request will not be granted. An adaptive access control model is proposed aiming to provide a flexible and an effective access decision on user access request at any time. The proposed model is developed in Ponder2 framework with additional extensions to adapt the unexpected events by using privilege overriding and also adjust its decision based on users' behaviour trust value. A medical scenario is used as an example application to develop and evaluate the proposed model in Body Sensor Networks (BSNs) and WSNs. In this paper, detailed design, implementation phase, evaluation result and policies testing for the proposed adaptive access control model are presented. Based on an evaluation result, all the modules in the proposed access control model are cooperated to make an effective access decision.


The article explores the themes of body, physical pain, and corporeal memory as framed by Fatna El Bouih's and Latifa Jbabdi's prison narratives contained in Ḥadīth al-'Atama (Tale from the Dark). Members of the Marxist-Leninist movement, El Bouih and Jbabdi were subjected to sensory annihilation, brutal tortures, practices of gender erosion, and sexual abuses during the Moroccan Years of Lead (1965 – 1999). The article provides a critical reading of the memoirs by identifying a trajectory from a gendered inflicted suffering (abuses and tortures) to an agentive self-inflicted pain (hunger strike). Drawing on Banu Bargu's perspective on the manipulative use of corporeality in the carceral framework, the article emphasizes the weaponization of women's bodies in undertaking a hunger strike which ultimately improves the inmates' conditions of detention. Furthermore, the body is defined as a crucial medium of memory as the two women approach the recollection of violent past experiences to restore historical truth about Moroccan state violence of the Years of Lead.


In today's societies, there is a myriad of issues on homosexuality that, when discussed, tend to raise awareness, understanding and acceptance. The study determined the level of acceptability of homosexual students in the community particularly in their family, social circle, institution, and in the church. It also explored on the type of homosexuality the students belong and the relationship between the level of acceptability of the students and their socio-demographic profile. Utilizing the descriptive research design, the respondents composed of homosexual students, colleagues, family members, teachers and church lay leaders. A survey questionnaire and an interview were used to gather data needed in the study. Findings show that majority of the respondents are gays. Most of them claimed to be blatant homosexuals, few are bisexuals and the least are situational homosexuals. The homosexual students were highly accepted by the community, particularly by their family, their colleagues, the institution and the church. There is no significant difference in the level of acceptability between gays and lesbians. The differences in the overall acceptability of homosexuals when grouped according to type of homosexuality are not statistically significant. Moreover, the socio- demographic variables except mother's occupation did not give significant relationships with the community acceptability of homosexuals. KEYWORDS - Social Science, acceptability, homosexual, lesbians, gay, bisexual, community, descriptive research design, Philippines


Walter Benjamin's seminal essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936) addresses the confluence of representational art and twentieth-century technologies. Specifically, Benjamin sees the intrusion of technological apparatuses into the creation and reception of art as tending toward the alienation of both the creator and the audience. Pynchon's investigation in V. of the aura-divested, mirror-obsessed, decadent and inanimate world of "twentieth-century nightmare" can be read as a fictional treatment of the same concerns–mass production, alienation, loss of aura, fascism and politicized aesthetics. Benjamin concludes his essay by remarking that "Mankind, which in Homer'S time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order." In V., where the inanimate intrudes into and threatens to take over the realm of the animate, such self-alienation lurks behind V's fetishism, Foppl's Siege Party, Rachel's auto-love and Esther's nose job, to mention only a few examples. A focus on image, appearance and materials fills the emptiness caused by the loss of contact with what it means to be human. As Itague says, "'A decadence … is a falling-away from what is human, and the further we fall the less human we become. Because we are less human, we foist off the humanity we have lost on inanimate objects and abstract theories.'" And as Fausto Maijstral confesses, "To have humanism we must first be convinced of our humanity. As we move further into decadence this becomes more difficult" (322).


An ideal description for a given video should fix its gaze on salient and representative content, which is capable of distinguishing this video from others. However, the distribution of different words is unbalanced in video captioning datasets, where distinctive words for describing video-specific salient objects are far less than common words such as 'a' 'the' and 'person'. The dataset bias often results in recognition error or detail deficiency of salient but unusual objects. To address this issue, we propose a novel learning strategy called Information Loss, which focuses on the relationship between the video-specific visual content and corresponding representative words. Moreover, a framework with hierarchical visual representations and an optimized hierarchical attention mechanism is established to capture the most salient spatial-temporal visual information, which fully exploits the potential strength of the proposed learning strategy. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the ingenious guidance strategy together with the optimized architecture outperforms state-of-the-art video captioning methods on MSVD with CIDEr score 87.5, and achieves superior CIDEr score 47.7 on MSR-VTT. We also show that our Information Loss is generic which improves various models by significant margins.


It has been 20 years since the word ultrawideband (UWB) has first been used in the open literature. In these 20 years, ideas have been transformed into real products. Yet, some might object that UWB has not yet lived upto the promises of gigabit wireless. This review shows that despite some drawbacks, UWB is not only needed because of the spectrum gridlock but it can still deliver its promises, including gigabit wireless. To do so, the gap between the potential, which is achievable, and the current performance must be closed. Thus, this review identifies some main issues of UWB (range, bit error rate performance, data rate, chip complexity and issues associated by strong narrowband interference). It shows that their reasons are well understood and addressed by erudite research, which includes low complexity chip design, alternative modulation schemes, multiple antenna systems, UWB radio-over-fibre, higher band UWB and interferer detection and suppression techniques. A specific feature of this review is the cross-layer approach. The latest findings from different system layers, for example, wave propagation, are linked to the system performance or complexity.


There is currently an increasing number of international refugees due to political warfare and natural calamities. Over the recent years, countries are shying away from assisting with the provision of healthcare to this vulnerable population either in their home country through humanitarian aid and services or in the host country by providing free healthcare coverage. World leaders and politicians have attempted to ignore the morality behind these decisions and have put forth a false narrative of scarcity and racism to appeal to the population of developed countries. As this question remains unsolved, we have attempted to look at the question from the perspective of our moral obligations as a species. We have discussed some of the popular moral theories that support providing healthcare services to global refugees and refuted theories that object to the same. We conclude with a brief look at the direction that countries could take without violating established moral code while attempting (without evidence) to prioritize the welfare of their citizens.


Rheo-optical and mechanical properties of Cyclic Olefin Copolymers(COC's) with different composition have been investigated across the glass transition temperature. Accurate measurement of stress or strain-optical coefficients and elastic modulus data across the glass transition are essential for predicting optical anisotropy in many optical products like pickup lenses and waveguides in LCD backlight unit since the material of these products have both flow and thermal history from the melt to glass. To obtain stress-optic behavior in the wide frequency region including rubbery, glassy and glass transition regime, extensional bar-type device was used. A shear-sandwich tool was used in the melt region. Master curves for modulus, stress-optical and strain-optical coefficients have been obtained in wide frequency region. The stress-optical coefficients of COC's with mol fraction of norbornene, 60 ~ 70%, showed almost constant between -8 and -9 Br at glassy region and between +920 and +1,160 Br in the melt region. Even though the glass transition temperature showed the difference of 35, the stress-optical coefficients of COC's with different composition showed almost same extreme values


T2V(Text-to-Vision) a technology which is capable of automatic animated movie generation to assist individuals who do not have special knowledge about animation production. This paper shows improvement of the function that animates BBS (Bulletin Board System) with this technology. T2V has a package (2ch convertor) that is capable of animating "2channel" (largest BBS in Japan). The present 2ch convertor, however, does not support dialogue situation based on quotation marks. Therefore, it causes a problem that it cannot produce animation with dialogue. In this paper we propose a method of animation production regarding the conversation structure in BBS to create more natural expression in the animation.


Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) is a major cool-season perennial grass grown for forage and turf. We have obtained transgenic tall fescue by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation to improve agronomically important traits. In our protocol, we use embryogenic calli derived from not only mature seeds but also shoot tips. Although tall fescue cultivars consist of various genotypes with different genetic variation, we can produce transgenic plants at any time with calli induced from shoot tips of in vitro-maintained responsive genotypes. When the hygromycin phosphotransferase gene is used as a selectable marker, transformants are selected by incubation with 100 mg l-1 hygromycin in both selection and regeneration media. Since tall fescue is an anemophilous species, the cultivation of transgenic plants poses the risk of transgenic pollen flow. Recently, it has been reported that genome-edited plants without the integration of foreign DNA fragments can be produced by an Agrobacterium-mediated transient gene expression system. We hope that our protocol will contribute to production of transgene-free genome-edited tall fescue.


In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world turned to contact-tracing applications in an attempt to balance the reopening of the economy with keeping the virus at bay. But as this article demonstrates, contact-tracing applications not only fail to protect the most vulnerable among us; they also shift responsibility for failing to prepare public-health systems for a pandemic away from governments and onto the individual user struggling to contain its worst effects. In the process, contact-tracing applications change the definition of failure. They also reinforce existing inequalities. Technology in this case not only has politics; it prevents politics. By focusing on contact-tracing applications as an example, the article points to some of the deeper perils of accepting app-based solutions to structural problems.


Light (pseudo-)scalar fields are promising candidates to be the dark matter in the Universe. Under certain initial conditions in the early Universe and/or with certain types of self-interactions, they can form compact dark-matter objects such as axion stars or Q-balls. Direct encounters with such objects can be searched for by using a global network of atomic magnetometers. It is shown that for a range of masses and radii not ruled out by existing observations, the terrestrial encounter rate with axion stars or Q-balls can be sufficiently high (at least once per year) for a detection. Furthermore, it is shown that a global network of atomic magnetometers is sufficiently sensitive to pseudoscalar couplings to atomic spins so that a transit through an axion star or Q-ball could be detected over a broad range of unexplored parameter space.


Clean water production has not been well considered between the balance of water use by the community and the production of clean water that is in accordance with the needs of the community. Prediction of water use in meeting the daily needs of the community is very necessary in order to be able to produce efficient water. This research can help PDAM Kota in Kalimantan to be able to produce clean water in accordance with the use of clean water by the community. The Backpropagation Neural Network method focuses on the recapitulation of water use by the community. For better prediction results, optimization is done with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). It is expected that the results in this study can predict community water use in daily activities. The test results showed that the Prediction results had RMSE of 0.040 with parameters for training cycle 600 values, learning rate 0.1 and momentum 0.2, and neuron size was 3 and in particle swarm optimization population size 8, max.of gene 100, inertia weight value 0.3, the value of local best weight 1.0 and global value of best weight 1.0


Transmission of sarcoptic mange by fomites was investigated by placing mange-free piglets in pens for either fixed or variable periods of time during the first six days following removal of mange infected swine. Transmission occurred in pigs with as little as 24 hours exposure to fomites. Clinical signs of pruritis and focal erythematous skin lesions developed in various pigs from four and a half to 13 weeks after exposure. Pigs with the longer exposure developed clinical signs more rapidly than those with a shorter exposure. Four of six pigs developed a chronic form of the disease characterized by thickened encrustations and scurf from which mites were readily demonstrated. The remaining two pigs developed only the pruritic form and mites were never found in numerous skin scrapings examined.


Surgical management of the scoliosis patient has evolved significantly in recent years. We are now seeing patients who were operated on 15-20 years ago return with problems distal to the fusion. These adults have unique problems that need to be managed by many disciplines. This article describes current problems in the adult scoliosis patients who have had previous surgery, current treatments, and nursing management of these patients.


The 'starving the beast' hypothesis claims that tax cuts lead to lower public spending, rather than higher debt levels and higher taxes in the future. This paper uses the institutional setting of German fiscal federalism to its advantage in order to explore how fiscal policy reacts to exogenous tax revenue shocks. We use panel data from the German states covering the period from 1992 to 2011, and assess to what extent exogenous changes in tax revenues affect aggregate public expenditure as well as specific sub-categories of government spending. Applying the narrative approach pioneered by Romer and Romer (2009), we construct a measure of exogenous tax shocks. This allows us to identify the causal effect of tax changes on fiscal policy. Our results suggest that an exogenous decrease in tax revenues triggers a reduction in public spending of roughly the same amount, with a delay of two to three years. We find that a revenue decline of one Euro reduces public spending on administration and, with a larger delay, social security, by 30 to 45 cents in each case. Spending on infrastructure declines by ten cents. We find no significant effects on spending on education, legal protection and public safety, or culture.


Since Alfred Marshall propounded industrial clusters, the study of spatial organisation over the years has revealed numerous benefits of agglomeration to businesses, countries and regions. Until recently, discussions on the gains associated with internationalising clusters have mainly been situated within the developed economy setting. The key drivers of exporting clusters have mostly been related to cases within more functioning institutional environments. However, factors responsible for driving exporting activities in clusters within developing economies' setting are a current phenomenon in academic enquiry that has received minimal attention. Thus, the study aims to fill the knowledge gap by investigating the emergence of and dynamism within clusters, thereby understanding the key drivers of exporting fruit processing cluster activities in developing economies like Ghana.

The study focuses on spatial and internationalisation theories to draw out key concepts on networking and knowledge. The research adopts a mixed methods approach, using 99 surveys and 24 interviews, to empirically study actors in two fruit processing and exporting clusters. The findings show that, comparatively, palm processing businesses have a more socially embedded network structure that drives exporting activities in the cluster as opposed to the more formal business-like relationship in the pineapple cluster. As a result, parallel social institutions have emerged among the palm processing businesses which are enhancing their exporting capabilities. The findings also reveal how pineapple processors, due to their more outward-looking nature, have been able to externally acquire and transmit 'tacit' knowledge on MD2 pineapples through an entrepreneur 'gatekeeper'. Further evidence shows that processing businesses in the pineapple cluster are mostly set up to internationalise from the onset due to the presence of external investors and the exposure of entrepreneurs to international markets. The results provide a compelling case of born global businesses within a developing economy setting.

The research contributes to extant theoretical development and understanding of the key drivers of exports within clustered businesses. Particularly, it emphasises the role spatial organisation plays in exporting clusters within the developing economy setting.


Organoids recapitulate brain development Gene expression changes and their control by accessible chromatin in the human brain during development is of great interest but limited accessibility. Trevino et al. avoided this problem by developing three-dimensional organoid models of human forebrain development and examining chromatin accessibility and gene expression at the single-cell level. From this analysis, they matched developmental profiles between the organoid and fetal samples, identified transcription factor binding profiles, and predicted how transcription factors are linked to cortical development. The researchers were able to correlate the expression of neurodevelopmental disease risk loci and genes with specific cell types during development. Science, this issue p. eaay1645 Organoids recapitulate the chromatin accessibility profiles of the developing human forebrain. INTRODUCTION The cerebral cortex is responsible for higher-order functions in the nervous system and has undergone substantial expansion in size in primates. The development of the forebrain, including the assembly of the expanded human cerebral cortex, is a lengthy process that involves the diversification and expansion of neural progenitors, the generation and positioning of layer-specific glutamatergic neurons, the cellular migration of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA)–ergic neurons, and the formation and maturation of glial cells. Disruption of these cellular events by either genetic or environmental factors can lead to neurodevelopmental disease, including autism spectrum disorders and intellectual disability. RATIONALE Human forebrain development is, to a large extent, inaccessible for cellular-level study, direct functional investigation, or manipulation. The lack of availability of primary brain tissue samples—in particular, at later stages—as well as the limitations of conventional in vitro cellular models have precluded a detailed mechanistic understanding of corticogenesis in healthy and disease states. Therefore, tracking epigenetic changes in specific forebrain cell lineages over long time periods, has the potential to unravel the molecular programs that underlie cell specification in the human cerebral cortex and, by temporally mapping disease risk onto these changes, to identify cell types and periods of increased disease susceptibility. RESULTS We used three-dimensional (3D) directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells into dorsal and ventral forebrain domains and applied the assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with high-throughput sequencing (ATAC-seq) in combination with RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) to map the epigenetic and gene expression signatures of neuronal and glial cell lineages over 20 months in vitro. We show, through direct comparison with primary brain tissue from our study and several epigenetic datasets, that human stem cell–derived 3D forebrain organoids recapitulated in vivo chromatin accessibility patterns over time. We then integrated these data to discover putative enhancer-gene linkages and lineage-specific transcription factor regulators, including a diverse repertoire of factors that may control cortical specification. We validated protein expression of some of these transcription factors using immunofluorescence, confirming cellular and temporal dynamics in both primary tissue and forebrain organoids. Next, we used this resource to map genes and genetic variants associated with schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders to distinct accessibility patterns to reveal cell types and periods of susceptibility. Last, we identified a wave of chromatin remodeling during cortical neurogenesis, during which a quarter of regulatory regions are active, and then highlighted transcription factors that may drive these developmental changes. CONCLUSION Using long-term 3D neural differentiation of stem cells as well as primary brain tissue samples, we found that organoids intrinsically undergo chromatin state transitions in vitro that are closely related to human forebrain development in vivo. Leveraging this platform, we identified epigenetic alterations putatively driven by specific transcription factors and discovered a dynamic period of chromatin remodeling during human cortical neurogenesis. Finally, we nominated several key transcription factors that may coordinate over time to drive these changes and mapped cell type–specific disease-associated variation over time and in specific cell types. Developing a human cellular model of forebrain development to study chromatin dynamics. ATAC-seq and RNA-seq studies over long-term differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells into forebrain organoids and in primary brain tissue samples reveal dynamic changes during human corticogenesis, including a wave associated with neurogenesis, and identify disease-susceptible cell types and stages. Forebrain development is characterized by highly synchronized cellular processes, which, if perturbed, can cause disease. To chart the regulatory activity underlying these events, we generated a map of accessible chromatin in human three-dimensional forebrain organoids. To capture corticogenesis, we sampled glial and neuronal lineages from dorsal or ventral forebrain organoids over 20 months in vitro. Active chromatin regions identified in human primary brain tissue were observed in organoids at different developmental stages. We used this resource to map genetic risk for disease and to explore evolutionary conservation. Moreover, we integrated chromatin accessibility with transcriptomics to identify putative enhancer-gene linkages and transcription factors that regulate human corticogenesis. Overall, this platform brings insights into gene-regulatory dynamics at previously inaccessible stages of human forebrain development, including signatures of neuropsychiatric disorders.


The reaction of 2-mercapto-4,6-diamino-5-hydroxypyrimidine(HMDAHP) with Fe(III), Ni(II), Ag(I),[RuII(PPh3)3Cl2] and[AgI(phen)(H2O)(NO3)] is described. IR, 1H NMR and mass spectra, conductivity, magnetic and thermal measurements of the complexes reported and their structures discussed. In all complexes, HMDAHP behaves as a bidentate forming four-membered cyclic nitrogen-sulfur chelate without any participation of the pendant amino or hydroxy groups in complexation. The biological activity of Ag(I) complexes against bacteria(S.aureus and P.aeruginosa) and fungi(A.niger and C. albicans) was also discussed.


Total dissolved gas supersaturation from dams and power stations is a chronic freshwater pollutant that is toxic to animals with aquatic respiration. Laboratory ecotoxicology experiments have revealed capacity for captive fishes to saturoregulate by moving deeper, but field ecotoxicology research is largely lacking. We instrumented 94 brown trout in the Rysstad basin of the Otra River, Norway, with depth sensor acoustic transmitters and monitored their movements for 10 months. We found that the depths used by the trout largely protected them from the effects of total dissolved gas supersaturation, which ranged from 96% to 133% total gas pressure during the study. The depth use of fish was affected by sun position, lunar phase and spatial position in the river (i.e., available depth), and there was an extremely weak effect of total dissolved gas supersaturation that was counterintuitive (i.e., positive slope, movement toward surface). Depth traces of the fish revealed that nine fish died during the study, mostly coinciding with the first wave of supersaturation, consistent with observations of untagged dead fish with signs of gas bubble trauma found on the river bottom during this period (May‐June). Overall, tagged trout exposure to total dissolved gas supersaturation depended on their use of depth, but responses to waves of extreme supersaturation at supraphysiological levels were weak and biologically insignificant, with individual variation and spatial position in the river most important in the model. Exposure to total dissolved gas supersaturation was mediated by individual differences in habitat use, which may be linked to activity and other traits that determine overall vulnerability to exposure to total dissolved gas supersaturation.


We find the reply by Kahana, Sederberg, and Howard (see record 2008-14936-014) helpful in clarifying the temporal-context model (TCM) function, in particular with regard to the elimination of the recency effect by a difficult distractor under parameters that still enable long-term contiguity effects to emerge. We agree with Kahana et al. that what matters most to the understanding of memory is the testing of models against actual data, while attempting to maintain the criterion of parsimony. We welcome, therefore, the challenge offered by this exchange, which has produced quite a number of novel predictions (see below). Still, we are not convinced that TCM has been successful in offering a satisfactory account for memory dissociations between long- and short-term recency, that it is able to flexibly discriminate and recall items from different lists, or that it is more parsimonious than is our dual-store model. Our arguments have implications for the wider debate about short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM).


We apply data mining to version histories in order to guide programmers along related changes: "Programmers who changed these functions also changed. . . ". Given a set of existing changes, such rules (a) suggest and predict likely further changes, (b) show up item coupling that is indetectable by program analysis, and (c) prevent errors due to incomplete changes. After an initial change, our ROSE prototype can correctly predict 26% of further files to be changed - and 15% of the precise functions or variables. The topmost three suggestions contain a correct location with a likelihood of 64%.


Due to the increased digitalization of information, a huge amount of data is being generated. Information richness in such data has attracted researchers to this data. The major problem existing in real time data is that it is usually huge and is imbalanced. This paper deals with analysing the tree based real time intrusion detection technique for intrusion detection from highly imbalanced Big Data. Classifiers tend to exhibit lower accuracies and reliabilities when the imbalance levels in the data are increased. Hence a highly imbalanced data is applied on the proposed classifier to determine its efficiency. Sampling techniques are some of the mostly used techniques to reduce the impact of imbalance on classifiers. Hence sampling techniques were applied on the data and the threshold limits for imbalance that can be effectively handled by the proposed classifier is identified.


The evaluation step in school accreditation process includes eight components of national education standard (SNP). The result of accreditation from the evaluation is believed to explicate the academic achievement of student, in this case is National Examination (UN). Thus, it is necessary to further observe the relation between the accreditation results and the score of national examination. One of the analysis that can be used is regression analysis, it is used to observe the relation between the accreditation result and the sroce of national examination also to identify the SNP components that affect the national examination score. However, since the study was conducted at senior high school level where the national examination score for this level covers six subjects, the analysis used is no longer a simple regression but a multiple variable regression. It is because of the relationship between the score of the national examination that characterizes an academic achievement. The application result of multiple variable regression method shows that there is a relation between SNP and national examination score.


Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA

The TGF-β signaling regulates numerous cellular processes, including cell proliferation, cell differentiation, apoptosis, migration and cell fate. It was also demonstrated that TGF-β functions as a tumor suppressor in normal ovarian surface epithelium (OSE) cells but promotes tumor proliferation and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) during ovarian cancer progression. Nevertheless, the molecular mechanisms leading to this divert role of TGF-β signaling in ovarian cancer remains to be elucidated. Our previous studies demonstrated that several TGF-β/SMAD4 regulated targeted are epigenetically silenced by DNA methylation and histone modification including H3K27me3. We therefore hypothesized that the histone-lysine N-methyltransferase, EZH2 may act as an epigenetic switch to facilitate the TGF-β mediated EMT in ovarian cancer. In this study, we utilized our previously identified TGF-β responsive targets using combined ChIP-chip and expression arrays in an immortalized ovarian surface epithelial (IOSE) cell which showed TGF-β growth inhibition. Bioinformatics analysis using ENCODE ChiP-Seq data identified that several of these TGF-β targets are marked by EZH2. To investigate the effect of TGF-β signaling on the methylome of ovarian cancer, we performed MBDcap-Seq in SMAD4 knockdown CP70 cells. Our result showed that there are 99 and 73 TGF-β targets showing hyper- or hypo-methylation respectively after SMAD4 knockdown. Analysis of the gene functions on DAVID has uncovered that some of these hypermethylated genes are associated with EMT process and the TGF-β signaling pathway. On the other hand, the hypomethylated genes are associated with transcription repressor activity. We selected one of the hypermethylated target, LTBP2 which was previously found to be a tumor suppressor for further experiment. This gene was expressed in IOSE but down regulated in a panel of ovarian cancer cells showing overexpression of EZH2. Except for IOSE, promoter hypermethylation of LTBP2 was found in ovarian cancer cells as revealed by bisulphite pyrosequencing. In consistent with deep sequencing result, knock-down of SMAD4 further increased the promoter methylation in CP70 cells. Treatment of demethylation agent, 5azaDC partially restored its expression in these cancer cells. Interestingly, synergistic treatment of 5azaDC and EZH2 inhibitor, GSK343 resulted in a dramatic increase of LTBP2 expression in MCP3 and CP70 cells. Taken together, our result suggested that EZH2 may be involved in the epigenetic silencing of TGF-β/SMAD4-regulated tumor suppressors in ovarian cancer. The differential occupancy of EZH2 into these SMAD4 loci may act as an epigenetic switch to turn the function of TGF-β from a tumor suppressor into an EMT regulator. The therapeutic potential of targeting EZH2 in the inhibition of EMT in ovarian cancer deserves further investigation.

Citation Format: Jora Meng-Ju Lin, Jacqueline Shay, Jian-Liang Chou, Pearlly S. Yan, Tim H.-M. Huang, Hung Cheng Lai, Michael W.y. Chan. The role of EZH2 as an epigenetic switch of the TGF-β/SMAD4 targets in regulating EMT in ovarian cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 2318. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-2318


Vascular cellular adhesion molecule (VCAM)-1 is a membrane-bound cellular adhesion molecule that mediates adhesive interactions between hematopoietic progenitor cells and stromal cells in the bone marrow (BM) and between leukocytes and endothelial as well as dendritic cells. Since VCAM-1–deficient mice die embryonically, conditional VCAM-1 mutant mice were generated to analyze the in vivo function of this adhesion molecule. Here we show that interferon-induced Cre-loxP–mediated deletion of the VCAM-1 gene after birth efficiently ablates expression of VCAM-1 in most tissues like, for example, BM, lymphoid organs, and lung, but not in brain. Induced VCAM-1 deficiency leads to a reduction of immature B cells in the BM and to an increase of these cells in peripheral blood but not in lymphoid organs. Mature recirculating B cells are reduced in the BM. In a migration assay, the number of mature B cells that appears in the BM after intravenous injection is decreased. In addition, the humoral immune response to a T cell–dependent antigen is impaired. VCAM-1 serves an important role for B cell localization and the T cell–dependent humoral immune response.


Objectives: To provide further information on mortality from cancer and other causes among chrysotile asbestos miners several years after exposure ceased, we updated the analyses from the Balangero mine worker cohort with follow-up to the end of 2003. Methods: The cohort included 1056 men, for a total of 34 432 man-years of observation. We obtained employment data from factory personnel records, and ascertained vital status and causes of death through population registers and death certificates from municipal registration offices. We computed expected numbers of deaths and standardised mortality ratios (SMRs) for relevant causes using the province of Turin and national death rates, for each 5-year calendar period and age group. Results: We found a significant excess mortality from pleural cancer only (4 deaths, SMR 4.67) and pleural and peritoneal cancers combined (5 deaths, SMR 3.16). All pleural and peritoneal cancer deaths occurred 30 or more years after first exposure. The SMRs were 1.27 for lung cancer (45 deaths), 1.82 for laryngeal cancer (8 deaths) and 1.12 for all cancers (142 deaths). Cumulative dust exposure and the various time factors considered did not show a clear pattern of risk associated with mortality from lung cancer. There were 57 deaths from cirrhosis (SMR 2.94) and 54 from accidents and violence (SMR 1.88). Overall, we observed a total of 590 deaths as compared to 412.9 expected (SMR 1.43). Conclusions: This updated analysis, with almost 60% of the cohort having died, confirmed the excess mortality from pleural and peritoneal cancers and from several alcohol-related causes.


Regulatory T (Treg) cells maintain dominant control of immune responses to foreign materials and microbes. Appropriate Treg cell suppression of immune responses is essential for the maintenance of efficacious defensive responses and the limitation of collateral tissue damage due to excess inflammation. Allergy and infection are well studied and frequent afflictions in which Treg cells play an essential role. As such, they provide excellent models to communicate the significance and relevance of Treg cells to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).


Cell fusion in vitro can be artificially achieved through microengineering technology. This paper presents a laser-induced cell fusion methodology on the microwell array-based microfluidic chip, with high selectivity and controllability at the single cell level. Optical tweezers and optical scissors are employed to achieve cell pairing and fusion, respectively. The specific cells are first characterized with high spatio-temporal resolution and preselected from the mixture through an on-chip isolation method prior to pairing. The paired cells are then transported, deposited, fused, and released at the desired location with high controllability. Biophysical analysis on the fused cells shows that the fusion efficiency of the homotypical pairs is higher than that of the heterogenic pairs obtained based on different combinations of sample cells, such as human embryonic stem cells and Jurkat cells. This laser-induced cell fusion technique offers a new opportunity to explore specific targeted therapy in stem cell research for the treatment of human diseases.


We study the role of peer groups in determining the structure and the total amount of executive compensation. Our analysis is based on a standard agency model in which the agent's reservation utility is related to the peer group used for performance evaluation. Our main result is that the informativeness criterion proposed by Holmstrom (1979) is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the optimality of a relative performance evaluation. Whenever the relative performance evaluation is positively related to the agent's reservation utility, the principal faces a trade-off between the benefits from improved risk sharing and the total cost of compensation. If the peer group effect is strong, it can be optimal to evaluate the agent on her own firm performance only. If the relative performance evaluation is negatively related to the agent's reservation utility, it can also prove useful to reward the agent on the basis of uninformative signals. We also study the optimal weighting and composition of the performance index and find that the principal puts lower (higher) weight on an index and on peer firms that are positively (negatively) related with agent's reservation utility. In case of a negative relation it can even be optimal to include firms with uncorrelated cash flows into the index in order to reduce the total compensation.


Control chart can be designed to quickly detect small shifts in the mean of a sequence of independent normal observations. But this chart cannot perform well for autocorrelated process. The main goal of this article is to suggest a control chart method using to monitoring process with different time delay feedback controlled processes. A quality control model based on delay feedback controlled processes is set up. And the calculating method of average run length of control charts based on process output and control action of multiple steps delay MMSE feedback controlled processes is provided to evaluate control charts performance. A simple example is used to illustrate the procedure of this approach.


We have measured the magnetic splitting Delta K of a Kondo peak in the differential conductance of a single-electron transistor while tuning the Kondo temperature T K along two different paths in parameter space: varying the dot-lead coupling at a constant dot energy and vice versa. At a high magnetic field B, the changes of DeltaK with TK along the two paths have opposite signs, indicating that Delta K is not a universal function of TK. At low B, we observe a decrease in DeltaK with TK along both paths, in agreement with theoretical predictions. Furthermore, we find Delta K/Delta<1 at low B and Delta K/Delta>1 at high B, where Delta is the Zeeman energy of the bare spin, in the same system.


Human liver aldehyde dehydrogenase was inhibited by aromatic chelating agents. However, structurally related compounds with much lower metal-complexing ability displayed affinities for enzyme essentially equal to those of their respective chelating analogues. Inhibition was competitive with respect to the coenzyme. It is suggested that hydrophobic interactions between the inhibitors and the coenzyme-binding site of the enzyme are responsible for the observed effects on activity.


In this study, we describe how to use innovative techniques to improve the decision-making process in crisis response organizations. The focus was on building situation awareness of a crisis and overcoming pitfalls such as tunnel vision and information bias through using critical thinking. We started by observing typical difficulties in crisis management in a field study. The essential elements of concern were a deficit in sharing and communicating understanding and a patchy overview of the topics communicated, within as well as between teams. Communication frequently did not entail the reasoning behind a decision that was made. We therefore developed a critical thinking tool that made the reasoning process more explicit and at the same time more robust by tying it to specific hypotheses. We studied a candidate support tool in a controlled setting and found that people made better judgments, particularly in situations where they would be prone to decision biases. We subsequently extended the critical thinking tool to a team setting. We list a number of requirements that are essential for support systems that intend to limit tunnel vision and alleviate communication and coordination problems in crisis response organizations.


How much do animal rights activists talk about animal rights when they attempt to persuade America's meat-lovers to stop eating nonhuman animals? This study serves as the basis for a unique evaluation and categorization of problems and solutions as framed by five major U.S. animal rights organizations in their vegan/food campaigns. The findings reveal that the organizations framed the problems as: cruelty and suffering; commodification; harm to humans and the environment; and needless killing. To solve problems largely blamed on factory farming, activists asked consumers to become "vegetarian" (meaning vegan) or to reduce animal product consumption, some requesting "humane" reforms. While certain messages supported animal rights, promoting veganism and respect for animals' subject status, many frames used animal welfareideology to achieve rights solutions, conservatively avoiding a direct challenge to the dominant human/animal dualism. In support of ideological authenticity, this paper recommends that vegan campaigns emphasize justice, respect, life, freedom, environmental responsibility, and a shared animality.


The paper addresses analytical, numerical and experimental aspects of the design of magnetorheological (MR) fluid valve. Magnetic flux in valve's cross-section is analysed with the help of finite element method (FEM) software. Based on the magnetic field intensity distribution within valve's MR fluid annular gap, simulation model of the shock absorber equipped with newly designed MR valves is developed. Prototypes of MR valve are built and embedded in the stationary barrier of the rotary shock absorber, instead of standard, passive check valves. Simulation and preliminary experimental results comprising resistance force values as a function of angular displacement and angular velocity are presented.


Recent experimental work on the etiology of pernicious anemia points to the formation in normal persons of an erythrogenic principle by the interaction of gastric juice and certain dietary constituents, subsequent absorption of the principle and storage in the liver. This process is well known to be grossly deficient in persons with pernicious anemia. 1 In normal persons it appears that a sufficient concentration of this hematogenic principle is maintained in the blood stream to effect the normal maturation of the red blood cells in the bone marrow. The logic of examining urine for the presence of the hematogenic principle is therefore apparent. Moreover, renal tissue has already been shown to contain an appreciable amount of the principle acting against pernicious anemia. 2 This report deals with preliminary observations relative to the presence in normal human urine of a substance which is perhaps identical with the hematogenic or antianemia principle


Introduction and purpose: Hypertension is an important risk factor for coronary heart diseases and the most common cause of stroke and renal failure in the elderly. This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of hypertension and its associated risk factors in the e lderly of Bahar city in the province of Hamadan. Materials and Methods: This analytical cross-sectional study was conducted among older adults (more than 60 years old) of Bahar city in the province of Hamadan. Total sample of 476 elderly attending to the urban and rural health centers during March to June 2014 were enrolled. The information contained in the checklist of this study were; gender, age, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, marital status and living conditions. Findings: Our findings revealed that the prevalence of hypertension in elderly was 25% and the average systolic and diastolic blood pressure was 124.94±19.52 and 75.55±11.7 mmHg, respectively. Furthermore, after adjusting for the effect of confounders, our results indicated that elderl y at urban area had 2.19 times higher chance of having hypertension compared to rural area (P=0.002). Older people living alone had 4.51 times greater chance of having diastolic hypertension compared to the elderly who lived with spouses but, this relation ship was not significant. (P=0.077). Conclusion: The prevalence of hypertension in the elderly population of Bahar city was lower than majority of previous Iranian studies. Lifestyle of elderly could be potential risk factors for increasing systolic and diastolic blood pressure.


In the globalised world today, more and more people aspire to becomemultilinguals. However, most people acquire their target foreign languages in theirnative countries, without having ever visited a place where those languages are used inday-to-day communication. Such learners, whom we name "exolingual" learners in thispaper (as opposed to "endolingual" learners who acquire languages in learning contextswhere their target language is spoken outside the classroom), have a greater risk offalling short of achieving their objective. Many reasons for such failures could be linkedto obstacles which are inherent to exolingual language learning contexts. However, inthe field of acquisitional linguistics, foreign language acquisition is often studiedalongside first and second language acquisition, that is, under language acquisition inendolingual learning contexts. Our objective in doing this study was to research into an exolingual context offoreign language learning and to precisely identify obstacles linked with such learningcontexts. In order to do this, we opted to study a particular exolingual context of foreignlanguage learning: namely the context of foreign language learning in Sri Lanka. Theselected target foreign language being French, the methods of research includedobservations of French classes, studying of French text books used in those foreignlanguage classes and discussions with students and teachers of French. At the conclusion of the study, we discovered how little the contexts ofendolingual and exolingual language learning have in common. Except for targeting acommon language in its fundamental form, endolingual and exolingual languagelearning situations differ largely from each other when we consider their classroom,social, cultural and academic set ups; teaching and learning methods, techniques andmaterial; learner motivation, objectives, etc. As an obvious consequence, the outcomeof the teaching/learning process in the two different learning situations too is hardly thesame. Key words: Foreign languages, Teaching/learning, Endolingual/exolingual contexts


There is a growing global interest in extending the field of study from stand-alone learning environment to collaborative or cooperative learning environment. In the light of the recent explosive growth of information communication technology, the platform for collaborative or cooperative activities should be revisited. This paper investigates the technological challenges in using distributed multimedia in a collaborative learning environment and proposes an architecture for multimedia processing in the collaborative learning environment. V-Class, a Java application suite with intensive distributed multimedia support, has been developed and deployed, allowing collaborative learning between students and tutors at remote locations. Students can engage in group activities and also collaborate with tutors. Each student sees a common shared window on which text or graphical objects may be added and which can then be shared online. A built-in chat room supports collaborative dialogue. Students can work either in collaborative groups or in teams as directed by the tutor. This paper summarizes the technical architecture of the V-Class system as well as the pedagogical implications of the suite.


Our research project compares two first-year engineering course project pedagogies to identify approaches that enhance the likelihood of women continuing in engineering majors and entering engineering careers. Specifically, we compare the problem-based learning (PBL) model to a more general experiential learning approach centered on the engineering design process, referred to here as the traditional engineering design model (TED). We hypothesize that the PBL model, with extensive faculty facilitation, will increase the likelihood of women persisting in an engineering degree, achieving higher grades in future classes, and going into engineering careers. Our research is grounded in motivational theory, and particularly in a model that integrates aspects of existing theories including participation-identification, expectancy-value, and self-efficacy. We are testing this integrated model and the research hypothesis through a longitudinal, mixed-method analysis, with data collected from five cohorts at two large research universities.


Objective. To determine the prevalance of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) in brothers of patients who underwent elective AAA surgery and to determine the psychological distress caused by the screening. Design. Prevalence study. Method. Brothers older than 50 years of patients who underwent elective AAA surgery in the period May 1st 1993-April 30th 1995 were invited for abdominal ultrasonographic aneurysm screening. They were asked to complete a standard psychological wellbeing questionnaire both before and 3 months after screening (subscales: depression, anxiety, energy, and positive wellbeing). Results. 571 brothers older than 50 years were identified: 251 were dead, 35 lived abroad, 16 could not be contacted for other reasons, 46 refused to participate and 13 were already known to have an AAA. 210 subjects accepted the offer of screening. A new AAA was detected in 26 (12.4%; 95% confidence interval: 8-18) of the men screened, resulting in an overall prevalence of 17% (13-23). Eight (3.8%) aneurysms were ≥ 5 cm in diameter and elective surgery was performed in 5 of these patients. The psychological dimensions of wellbeing had not changed significantly 3 months after screening. Conclusion. The prevalence of AAA in brothers of patients with AAA was far higher (17%) than in the overall male population of the same age (8%). Screening had no measurable negative influence on psychological wellbeing.


The development of fully adaptive, cut-through (wormhole) networks is important for achieving high performance in communication-critical parallel processor systems. Increased flexibility in routing allows network bandwidth to be used efficiently, but also creates more opportunity for cyclic resource dependencies to form which can cause deadlock. If not guarded against, deadlocks in routing make packets block in the network indefinitely and, eventually, could result in the entire network coming to a complete standstill. The paper presents a simple, flexible, and efficient routing approach for multicomputer interconnection networks which is based on progressive deadlock recovery as proposed to deadlock avoidance or regressive deadlock recovery. Performance is optimized by allowing the maximum routing freedom provided by network resources to be exploited. True fully adaptive routing is supported in which all physical and virtual channels at each node in the network are available to packets without regard for deadlocks. Deadlock cycles, upon forming, are efficiently broken in finite time by progressively routing one of the blocked packets through a connected, deadlock-free recovery path. This routing approach enables the design of high-throughput networks that provide excellent performance. Simulations indicate that progressive deadlock recovery routing can improve throughput by as much as 45 percent and 25 percent over leading deadlock avoidance-based and regressive recovery-based routing schemes, respectively.


This paper presents a tunable broadband monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) active directional coupler that demonstrates tuned coupling gains (from 3 dB to -6 dB) and tuned center frequencies. The active directional coupler consists of two broadband near 90° phase shifters, two amplifiers between these phase shifters, and varactors at the connection nodes of the phase shifters and the amplifiers. It was designed and fabricated in a 130-nm process. For a 3-dB coupling gain, the 10-dB directivity bandwidth is 2.3 GHz (from 5.5 to 7.8 GHz). The amplitude imbalance is 3 dB ±0.5 dB, the phase imbalance is 180° ± 5°, and the noise figure is less than 8 dB in the range of 4 to 9 GHz. The return losses are better than 19 dB and the insertion loss is less than 1.2 dB in the range of 4 to 9 GHz. The measured IP1 dBs for 3-dB and 0-dB coupling gains at 6.7 GHz are 0.3 dBm and 1.8 dBm, respectively. The supply voltage is 1.2 V. The measured power consumptions at 3-dB, 0-dB, - 3-dB, and - 6-dB coupling gains are 22 mW, 6 mW, 3 mW, and 1 mW, respectively. The core chip area, including two on-chip DC bias inductors, is 470 μm × 250 μm.


We describe a case of mpox characterized by a circularly distributed facial rash but no identified risk factors. Fomite transmission of monkeypox virus from contaminated linen at a massage spa was suspected. Clinicians should consider mpox in patients with consistent clinical syndromes, even in the absence of epidemiologic risk factors.


Following the brutal invasion and occupation of Poland, the Nazis moved swiftly to realize one of their key ideological aims, the expansion of German living space: deport Jews, bring in German settlers and subjugate the rest of the population to a selection process to separate Poles from ethnic Germans. As simple as this might have seemed initially, the various parts of the German occupation machinery soon found themselves embroiled in a bitter fight about the essence of Germanness and how to identify a German. Gerhard Wolf reveals an astonishing development in which a more inclusivist understanding of Germanness based on a more traditional notion of Volk eventually won out against one that was based on Rasse and much more exclusivist. This had important implications, as Wolf can show, as it paved the way for turning around three million Poles into German citizens. Parallel to the mass deportation and mass murder of Christian Poles and the genocide of Jewish Poles, the Nazis paradoxically thus also presided over the largest (forced) assimilation program in German history. Students and scholars of the Polish occupation, the Holocaust, and Nazism will find new analysis of German imperialism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in this important book.


Because epidermal growth factor (EGF) has multiple effects on the intestinal epithelium and endogenous EGF plays an important role in maintaining normal intestinal structure and the response to injury, EGF should be important in the intestinal adaptive response to resection. The accumulated data in the literature support a role for endogenous EGF in the intestinal adaptive response. Endogenous EGF is increased in saliva and diminished in urine after intestinal resection. This suggests increased tissue utilization of endogenous EGF during adaptation. Intestinal EGF receptor activity is increased after resection. Intestinal adaptation is impaired in animals with defective EGF receptors. Thus EGF receptor activity also is important during adaptation. The results of experimental studies suggest that EGF administered at the time of resection enhances the intestinal adaptive response. Both structural and functional adaptation are augmented. The route, dose, and timing of EGF administration are important factors. EGF has additive effects with glutamine and growth hormone on adaptation. Several observations from these reports have relevance to the potential clinical application of EGF therapy: (1) EGF should be given soon after resection; (2) early transient administration may lead to a substantial effect on adaptation; (3) both systemic and enteral therapy may be effective; (4) luminal nutrients are important but not essential in mediating EGF-stimulated adaptation; and (5) combined therapy with other nutrients and growth factors may have merit. In conclusion, endogenous EGF plays an important role in intestinal adaptation. Furthermore, experimental results suggest the potential clinical usefulness of EGF to stimulate intestinal adaptation after massive intestinal resection. There is currently no evidence to support the use of EGF in patients with well-adapted short bowel syndrome.


In this thesis, analytical modeling of a MOSFET as well as investigation of its gate drive
was studied. Firstly the performance of the gate drive during switching transients under
different test conditions were studied. In order to do so, the elements in the drive were
checked separately and their effect on the gate voltage and current were observed. Then
two simple case set-ups consisting RC circuit were switched by the gate drive. For the
first case a large capacitor and resistor was selected (C = 68nF;R = 209Ω). The results
match well with the simulations. The rise time of the voltage was 39 s. For the second
case very small values were selected to check the gate drive performance in higher
currents(C = 13nF;R = 22Ω). The results in this case also were in agreement with the
results from the simulation test set-up, the voltage rise time was 898ns in this case.
The next step was modeling a MOSFET analytically, using its turn-on and turn-off
equations in MATLAB. Two cases were considered for this part. First large capacitors
were attached between the gate-source and gate-drain of the device in order to overrule
its inherent capacitors and slow down the switching transient(Cgs = 68nF;Cgd = 5nF).
The results from the simulation were in agreement with the experimental results. Afterwards
the capacitors were detached and only the inherent capacitors of the MOSFET were
charged and discharged during switching transients. For both cases gate voltage/current
and drain-source voltage/current from the simulation were compared with the experimental
results. Finally switching losses were calculated and compared for both experimental
and simulation, which at switching frequency of 2kHz losses for simulation and measurement
were 21mW and 28mW during turn-on and 28mW and 30mW during turn-off
respectively.


Fragments of five rrp genes encoding response regulators (RRs) in Lactobacillus sakei were amplified by PCR using degenerate oligonucleotide primers. The five rrp genes were part of distinct loci that also comprised hpk genes encoding histidine protein kinases (HPKs). The putative RRs belonged to the OmpR-PhoB subclass of response regulators that consist of N-terminal receiver and C-terminal DNA-binding domains. The putative HPKs were members of the EnvZ-NarX family of orthodox histidine protein kinases which possess two transmembrane segments in a non-conserved N-terminal domain and a C-terminal cytoplasmic kinase domain. Insertional inactivation of the rrp genes indicated that the RRs are implicated in susceptibility to the glycopeptide antibiotic vancomycin, and to extreme pH, temperature and oxidative conditions.


Kernel-level rootkits affect system security by modifying key kernel data structures to achieve a variety of malicious goals. While early rootkits modified control data structures, such as the system call table and values of function pointers, recent work has demonstrated rootkits that maliciously modify non-control data. Prior techniques for rootkit detection fail to identify such rootkits either because they focus solely on detecting control data modifications or because they require elaborate, manually-supplied specifications to detect modifications of non-control data. This paper presents a novel rootkit detection technique that automatically detects rootkits that modify both control and non-control data. The key idea is to externally observe the execution of the kernel during a training period and hypothesize invariants on kernel data structures. These invariants are used as specifications of data structure integrity during an enforcement phase; violation of these invariants indicates the presence of a rootkit. We present the design and implementation of Gibraltar, a tool that uses the above approach to infer and enforce invariants. In our experiments, we found that Gibraltar can detect rootkits that modify both control and non-control data structures, and that its false positive rate and monitoring overheads are negligible.


The protective clothing and equipment required for certain sports may inhibit heat loss from the body and contribute to potentially harmful heat stress injuries. This study measured the thermal resistance (insulation) and evaporative resistance of a variety of sports ensembles worn for football, basketball, baseball, soccer, track, tennis, golf, and cycling. The thermal resistance was measured with a heated sweating manikin in an environmental chamber according to ASTM F 1291. The intrinsic insulation values (Rcl) ranged from a low of 0.018 m2.0 C/W for running/aerobic ensemble consisting of a sports bra and compression shorts to 0.152 m2.0 C/W for a football uniform. The intrinsic evaporative resistance values (Rccl) ranged from 0.004–0.028 m2kPa/W for the same ensembles, respectively. Sports uniforms that cover a large portion of the body surface or provide impact protection substantially reduced heat loss from the body. The data presented in this paper can be used in the solution of heat balance equations to predict physiological responses of athletes when wearing uniforms under different conditions.


Cognitive Gadgets is an impressive and convincing intervention in the debate on what makes us human. It does not raise essentialist questions, such as "What is human nature?" but attempts to understand why human animals have certain features that make them different from the rest of the animal kingdom. However, from the very beginning, the author makes clear that she does not assume "that humans are the only particular animals, or that our particularities make us morally superior" (p. 8). In general, the book foregrounds the human mind (the main disciplinary background of the author is cognitive psychology from an evolutionary point of view), not the three other foci that are the body, the brain and behavior—all of them complementary with the mind and vice versa. It defends and illustrates a third way between a purely genetic approach to evolution and intelligent design that Heyes calls "cultural evolutionary psychology" and that foregrounds the notion of "cognitive gadget." In the debate on human evolution, one could consider cultural evolutionary psychology as a new step, after the debates on the distinction between genetics and epigenetics (which affects chromosome structure but not the ADN structure). It should be clear however that, no less than other forms of evolutionary thinking, cultural evolutionary psychology builds on the Darwinian and post-Darwinian idea of variation and selection. For Heyes, cognitive gadgets are cognitive tools or mechanisms, such as mindreading or imitation, that are not genetically encoded (nor given by some intelligent design) but that are culturally inherited—that is, developed through social interaction. Cognitive gadgets do not refer to "what" we culturally inherit (what Heyes calls the "grist" of the mind), but to "how" we do it (the "mills" of the mind), and throughout the book the cognitive gadget theory is opposed to and compared with the cognitive instinct theory, which insists on the genetic transmission of these mechanisms. For Heyes, "mills" are more important than "grist" (a good recent example of a "grist theory" is meme theory, which claims a strong link between the form and content of a certain item and its capacity to spread and survive), and these "mills" are not theorized in terms of "Big Special" psychological attributes but as "small ordinary" ones that humans can use in order to build stronger cognitive mindsets via social interaction. In this regard literacy is a key element in human history and evolution, and it is still so recent (reading and writing appeared only 5,000–6,000 years ago) that it helps make a strong claim in favor of nongenetic inheritance of cognitive features. Literacy is simply too recent a phenomenon to have left genetic traces so its appearance can only be explained through cultural inheritance (the development of which can be seen as the result of a change in the human environment with, for instance, stronger interactions between various groups). The defense of cultural evolutionary psychology is based on hard evidence, and Heyes builds her case by combining three methods: One, the theoretical discussion of the flaws and advantages of the different theories (an example of this is Heyes's critique of mirror neurons, which she considers as a kind of black box with little or no explanatory power); two, laboratory tests involving the classic test groups (identical and fraternal twins, other individuals, human and nonhuman animals, always with different ages and in varying contexts); and three, field research to see in vivo how certain cognitive gadgets actually work—provided they can really be tested, which is according to the author not the case of the memetics theory). editor-in-chief Michael Punt associate editors Hannah Drayson, Dene Grigar, Jane Hutchinson A full selection of reviews is published monthly on the Leonardo website: leonardo.info/reviews. leonardo reviews


Among the diverse range of techniques applied in manufacturing of wearable electronics, welding process appears to be one of the most promising, as it offers high protection and insulation without sacrificing textile comfort and quality expectations, however, a number of factors including material and processing types must be considered in order to reach a high quality welded e-textile with repeatable and accurate functionality. In this study, in order to create an e-textile power transmission system, stainless steel conductive yarns were welded with three different types of multi-layered breathable, waterproof and windproof welding tapes on top of either polyester or polyamide textile fabrics under different welding process parameters. Current on the e-textile sample was measured and acquired via real-time measurements under different voltages applied. The effects of welding parameters together with material types at various applied voltages on electrical current passing through powered e-textile structure were statistically analyzed and discussed. Interaction of highly effective factors were presented using contour plots. Moreover, a desirability map was prepared for a targeted current. Statistical analysis of the experimental data showed that applied voltage and linear resistance of conductive yarn were the highly significantly effective factors on obtained level of current when the welded e-textile samples are powered. Desirability map showed that by selection of levels of factors applied throughout the study, a targeted actual current level can be reached with a very high precision ( over 99%) .