CALET is the long-term high energy cosmic ray observation mission on JEM-EF of the International Space Station. In order to extend measurements of electrons and gamma rays to the 10-20 TeV region and protons and nuclei to several hundred TeV, the CALET calorimeter (CAL) has a thickness of 30 radiation lengths. CAL is composed of a lead tungstate (PWO) Total AbSorption Calorimeter (TASC), a tungsten-scintillating fiber IMaging Calorimeter (IMC), and a plastic scintillator CHarge Detector (CHD).

The data taken by CALET are passed to the ISS and sent to the ground immediately via NASA and JAXA data relay links. At JAXA's Tsukuba Space Center, a ground operation system (JAXA-GSE) then transmits the data to the Waseda CALET Operations Center (WCOC) at Waseda University. Monitoring of the instrument's observation status has been performed since October 2015 at JAXA. Simultaneously, the CALET science team monitors the scientific mission and the data transmission on a 24-hour 7-day basis in WCOC.

Monitoring at the WCOC is performed by Quick Look software developed at Waseda. When the Quick Look GUI detects observed values exceeding predetermined thresholds, an alarm is issued. In order to provide flexibility for the scientific operation, the CALET' observing schedule is updated daily. In addition, the observation data file is processed for transmission to the science team. Raw (Level0) data processed at JAXA-GSE are converted to engineering (Level1) data for distribution to the international CALET collaboration. Finally, individual detector temperature dependences, time variations, etc. are included in the final (Level2) data which are used for detailed science analysis.

In this presentation, we will describe the detailed CALET monitoring operation and the data processing system at WCOC.


The first tests for colourblindness Usually Goethe or John Dalton is supposed to have discovered colourblindness. However, the English oculist Joseph Huddart (1776) was the discoverer of this phenomenon. The first physiological explanation of it does come from Goethe. From 1798 onwards he believed that the colourblind missed the faculty to perceive blue. He assumed that green was made up of blue and yellow, with orange being an intensified kind of yellow: whoever wasn't able to see blue, should see green and orange as the same colour. Goethe's colour theory (1810) found its successor in Hering's opponents' theory of colours (1874). In this theory red and green are supposed to be each other's opponent colour, just like blue and yellow. Correspondingly there would be two visual substances: one should give a red sensation if the red-green substance is subject to a katabolic change and a green one if it is subject to an anabolic change, and one should see yellow when katabolism preponderates in the blue-yellow substance and blue when anabolism preponderates in it. So Hering differentiated two kinds of partial colourblindness: red-green blindness (or confusion) when the red-green substance was missing and blue-yellow blindness (or confusion) when the blue-yellow substance was missing. The first and for practical purposes still most important pseudo-isochromatic test of colourblindness (1883) was based on Hering's theory. (Pseudo-isochromatic means: in appearance (but for the colourblind in reality) having the same colour.) It was constructed by the German oculist Jakob Stilling (1842-1915). A colour theory that competed for a long time with Hering's theory, was the three colour theory of Young (1802) and Helmholtz (1855). It explained colourblindness as an absence of one of the three colour sensitive cells in the retina, the so-called cones. According to this theory there are three kinds of colourblindness. Nowadays we explain colour vision with a synthesis of the three colour theory and the opponent' theory. It is rooted in the zonal theory of the Dutch ophthalmologist Franciscus Donders (1818-1889). The former theory is supposed to be valid only for the retina and the latter only for the visual cortex. Like the three colour theory it explains most forms of colourbhndness as an absence of one of the three cones, so that the corresponding double opponent cells in the visual cortex lose their discriminatory function.


Purpose/Method: This qualitative case study examined through an interpretive worldview how current high school (HS) physical education
 (PE) teachers (n=14) implemented online experiences that could have influenced students' interpretations of their vicarious experiences
 during the Covid-19 pandemic (spring/fall of 2020). The study sought to better understand teachers' perceptions of how social modeling of
 PA was implemented online, how online PA experiences impacted opportunities for social comparison among the students, and what teachers'
 opinions of these practices were in relation to supporting students' PA self-efficacy. Results: The results found that the study
 participants differed in their opinions on the most effective ways to provide students with PA demonstrations and implement students'
 PA experiences during online instruction. Many of the teachers relied more on online videos to demonstrate PA, resulting in a decrease
 in teachers personally modeling PA themselves (theme 1). Due to the stress of the pandemic on students' well-being, teachers and their
 school districts prioritized students' social and emotional health which influenced how teachers had students participate in PA online
 (theme 2). This resulted in fewer PA experiences with students participating in front of each other and none of the teachers requiring
 students to model PA for peers online. Conclusion: This study serves as a starting point to better understand how teachers implemented
 online instructional practices that could have influenced students' interpretations of their vicarious experiences during the Covid-19
 pandemic. The information collected in this study can be used by current PE teachers to design future online practices.


Rodney R. A. SyDie, Grey Street. East Melbourne. Vic. 3002. post-TUR prostate strictures there are the additional factors of urethral damage from the surgical instrument, the large size of drainage catheter required, and the use of electrosurgical diathermy during operation with the attendant risk of thermal injury to the urethra. For simple drainage during or after non-urological operations with smallcalibre catheters, much smaller rates should be found. Ruutu's letter was of great interest,as a marked incidence of stricture had been noticed in Melbourne following coronary artery graft surgery, as wellas following TUR of the prostate. Additional factors in coronary artery grafting are hypothermia and possible urethral ischaemia during bypass. Nevertheless, the incidence of these strictures has fallen since the withdrawalof certain catheters. The lesson of this saga is that all catheters are not equal, that they may cause severe urethritis and stricture, and that considerable thought shouldbegivento whether a postoperative catheter is really necessary; most importantly that, when any urethral catheter is placed, the brand and batch detail must be recordedin the patient's history, so that, if an untoward event occurs, the offending batch of catheters can be readily detected. Moreover, despite the deficiencies of in-vitro testing, it is nevertheless essential to use thisas a screening mechanism to identify (though not crucify) suspect catheters. Hospital purchasing officers should also be aware (as housewives already are) that the cheapest product is not usually the best product.


In recent years, the consumers' demand for costumes tends to become environmental protection, security and health from traditional utility, beauty and durability, and the costumes tend to be more comfortable, simple and natural. The idea of green design in costumes shall become dominant in costume designing. The article mainly elaborates the green designing idea and its necessity of application in the costume from surface materials, color, structure, production and marketing.


With an increasingly connected world, information technologies can be used to offer many solutions to global health challenges. In low- and middle-income countries Community Health Workers (CHW) are an important provider of healthcare, however, they often lack access to adequate technologies, low-cost training, and networking opportunities. To address these challenges, the authors explain the Community Health Innovator Program (CHIP) framework, which facilitates local innovation to improve health behaviors, and the use of a Web-based portal to support its work. This paper details the growing use of low-cost social media technologies in healthcare and the development of the specific CHIP Web site prototype. The authors further discuss the potential for expansion of the CHIP model and associated IT solutions for increasing vaccine up-take in low- and middle-income regions, as well as how these technologies can effectively respond to other priority challenges in global health.


The utility business was historically hardware driven, where utilities generated power and hoped it reached the customer. They meter the consumption at the home, and replace resources when failure is reported by customer. Over the last decade a lot has changed, how measurements are made what types of generation are widespread, and the price of monitoring equipment. Through digitization it is now possible to repair equipment before it breaks, utilize more renewable sources, and maintain large grid networks with fewer people.


In this paper we challenge the notion that "green" buildings can achieve greater productivity than buildings that are not accredited as "green". For nearly two decades, research has produced apparent evidence which indicates that the design of a "green" building can enhance the productivity of its occupants. This relationship between building design and productivity is claimed to be achieved through compliance with internal environmental quality (IEQ) criteria of Green rating tools. This paper reviews methods of measuring productivity and the appropriateness of the metrics used for measuring IEQ in office environments. This review is supported by the results of a survey of office building users which identifies social factors to be significantly more important than environmental factors in trying to correlate productivity and IEQ. It also presents the findings of observations that were discretely carried out on user-response in green buildings. These findings demonstrate that, despite a building's compliance with IEQ criteria, occupants still resort to exceptional measures to alter their working environment in a bid to achieve comfort. The work has been carried out on "green" buildings in New Zealand. These buildings are rated based on the NZ "Green Star" system which has adopted the Australian "green star" system with its roots in BREEAM. Despite this, the results of this research are applicable to many other "green" rating systems. The paper concludes that methods of measuring productivity are flawed, that IEQ criteria for building design is unrepresentative of how occupants perceive the environment and that this can lead to an architecture that has few of the inherent characteristics of good environmental design.


Introduction Prednisolone has been shown to improve 28 day survival in alcoholic hepatitis (AH). However, use of this therapy is associated with increased infection that could explain the loss of survival benefit by 90 days. A large body of data has also emerged implicating bacterial translocation in the pathogenesis of AH. We therefore sought to elucidate the impact of prednisolone in patients with elevated pre-treatment circulating bacterial DNA (bDNA). Methods DNA was extracted from the whole blood of patients recruited to the STOPAH study before therapy. In these patients, clinicians confirmed that any prior infection, if present, was controlled. bDNA levels were quantified by quantitative PCR using a Taqman probe that targeted a region within a 380 bp fragment of bacterial 16 S ribosomal DNA. As part of the STOPAH study, patients would then receive therapy with or without prednisolone by random allocation. After unmasking, levels of bacterial DNA were then compared to clinical outcomes such as the development of infection within 7 days, static and dynamic markers of liver function and mortality at 28 and 90 days. Results bDNA was quantified in 714 whole blood samples. There was no correlation between bDNA levels and baseline characteristics such as age and gender, nor with static markers of liver function such as MELD. Elevated bDNA levels were associated with development of infection within the first 7 days in patients treated with prednisolone (p = 0.001), and remained independently associated with the subsequent development of infection after multivariate analysis (p = 0.02). Importantly, bDNA levels were not associated with the development of infection in patients treated without prednisolone (p = 0.43). Elevated bDNA levels were associated with death at 90 days (p = 0.05). Mortality in prednisolone treated patients was increased for patients with high bDNA compared to patients with low bDNA (hazard ratio 2; p = 0.02). Accordingly, patients with elevated bDNA were more likely to die if they were randomly allocated prednisolone therapy (OR 2.9, 95% CI 1.2–6.9, p = 0.02). We estimate that if patients with elevated bDNA were instead treated without prednisolone, 90 day mortality in AH could be reduced (odds ratio 0.5, p = 0.03 [one-tailed]).Abstract OC-034 Figure 1 Conclusion Infection is more likely to develop within 7 days if patients with elevated bDNA are treated with prednisolone. Measuring pre-treatment bDNA could therefore inform decisions to initiate corticosteroid therapy and has the potential to increase survival at 90 days in AH. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


This paper presents a recent investigation into sensing and measurement of large strain (>10%) based on variation in electrical resistance of reduced graphene oxide. Sensing and measurement of large strain is of great interest for highly flexible and stretchable systems with applications including monitoring human motion, soft robotics and structural health monitoring. Measuring large strains is challenging because many traditional engineering materials yield or fracture at relatively small strains. Nanoparticle-based strain gauges have been investigated and regularly found to survive strains up to 50% with sensitivity (gauge factor) near 100 times greater than conventional metal foil strain gauges. However, most of these nanoparticle-based strain gauges have been made of toxic materials and are expensive to create (e.g. nickel or silver nanoparticles). Recent research has uncovered incredible properties of graphene which can overcome these issues, composed of inexpensive and natural carbon and surviving strain up to 20%. Direct synthesis and deposition of graphene monolayers remains expensive and complex. Reduced graphene oxide shares many of the phenomenal properties of graphene but can be synthesized with simple drop casting and thermal reduction techniques.
 This paper presents recent research into measurement of strains greater than 10% by monitoring the change in resistance of reduced graphene oxide patches. A combination of electrical, mechanical, and microscopic investigations were performed to understand the electromechanical behavior of the material. A highly linear relation between resistance and strain was observed at relatively small strains, consistent with piezoresistive theory from monolithic materials, while a nonlinear relation was observed at strains from 12% to 20%, consistent with percolative behavior of nanoparticle-based strain sensors. The relation between non-aligned strain and resistance measurement was also investigated (e.g. perpendicular and off axis). Continuing investigation is seeking to understand the origins of the electrical and mechanical behavior observed.


Epidermal growth factor (EGF) is present in milk from various mammalian species, but its physiologic function in neonatal development remains unclear. Transforming growth factor-α (TGF-α) is a peptide structurally related to EGF, and its presence is detected in the developing small intestine of rats. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of milk-borne EGF on endogenous production of EGF and TGF-α in the small intestine of suckling rats. Neonatal rats were fed via gastrostomy either growth factor-free rat milk substitute (RMS) or RMS supplemented with EGF (100 ng/mL of RMS) from 8 to 12 d of age. Artificially reared rats were then compared with their dam-fed littermates. Animals fed the EGF-deficient diet RMS had markedly increased EGF and TGF-α mRNA levels in duodenum and ileum compared with dam-fed controls and significantly elevated total intestinal content of TGF-α peptide. Intestinal EGF content and EGF serum levels were significantly decreased in the RMS group compared with controls. The addition of EGF to the RMS diet normalized TGF-α mRNA levels in the duodenum and ileum, EGF mRNA levels in the ileum, and total intestinal TGF-α content and EGF serum levels to the levels measured in dam-fed littermates. Motility studies showed that enteral administration of EGF did not affect stomach emptying and intestinal transit. These studies indicate that exogenous milk-borne EGF modulates endogenous production of TGF-α in developing small intestine. It is likely that neither TGF-α nor EGF are solely responsible for small intestinal overgrowth of artificially reared neonatal rats.


This is the first book to examine the concept of anti-access and area denial warfare, providing a definitive introduction to both conceptual theories and historical examples of this strategy. Also referred to by the acronym "A2/AD," anti-access warfare has been identified in American strategic planning as the most likely strategy to be employed by the People's Republic of China or by the Islamic Republic of Iran in any future conflict with the United States. While previous studies of the subject have emphasized the effects on the joint force and, air forces in particular, this important new study advances the understanding of sea power by identifying the naval roots of the development of the anti-access concept.The study of anti-access or area denial strategies for use against American power projection capabilities has strong naval roots-which have been largely ignored by the most influential commentators. Sustained long-range power projection is both a unique strength of U.S. military forces and a requirement for an activist foreign policy and forward defense. In more recent years, the logic of the anti-access approach has been identified by the Department of Defense as a threat to this U.S. capability and the joint force.The conclusions in "Anti-Access Warfare" differ from most commentary on anti-access strategy. Rather than a technology-driven post-Cold War phenomenon, the anti-access approach has been a routine element of grand strategy used by strategically weaker powers to confront stronger powers throughout history. But they have been largely unsuccessful when confronting a stronger maritime power. Although high technology weapons capabilities enhance the threat, they also can be used to mitigate the threat. Rather than arguing against reliance on maritime forces-presumably because they are no longer survivable-the historical analysis argues that maritime capabilities are key in "breaking the great walls" of countries like Iran and China.


Salmonella serovars are harmful enteric pathogens of economical and clinical
importance that possess sophisticated strategies to rapidly adapt to various
host (human and animal) and non-host (soil, water and industrial) environments.
Nitrosative stress, in the form of RNS such as the potent cytotoxin NO, is an
important stress in the Salmonella lifecycle. Salmonella is exposed to
exogenous NO, produced by activated macrophages as part of the host
immune response and to endogenous NO, produced during anaerobic nitrate
respiration. Salmonella employs three known enzymes (HmpA, NrfA and
NorVW) to detoxify NO to less toxic compounds, including the
neuropharmacological agent and greenhouse gas N2O. The production of
endogenous NO and N2O have been predominantly studied in denitrifying soil
bacteria and have been widely neglected in enteric bacteria.
Here, the physiological and molecular mechanisms involved in endogenous NO
production and detoxification were examined in the pathogenic Salmonella
enterica serovar Typhimurium and laboratory Escherichia coli (E. coli) strains.
Significant differences in N2O production were observed between the two
genera and between the tested E. coli strains, although they possess identical
nitrate respiration systems. The reason for this was found to be transcriptional,
with narG expression having the major impact. In addition, our results indicate
that a weak nitrous oxide reductase exists in Salmonella; a process that was
believed to be restricted to certain soil bacteria, archaea and fungi that possess
the enzyme NosZ. Furthermore, the contribution of selected NsrR regulon
genes, to endogenous N2O production of Salmonella was determined and
revealed that HmpA and the Hcp-Hcr operon are both crucial for high N2O
levels. These findings provide new insights into host-pathogen interactions,
which could potentially lead to new treatment strategies for Salmonella
infections, help to increase food safety and provide new mitigation strategies to
reduce global warming.


We present ozone loss estimated from airborne measurements taken during January-February and March in the Arctic winter 2002/2003. The first half of the winter was characterized by unusually cold temperatures and the second half by a major stratospheric sudden warming around 15-18 January 2003. The potential vorticity maps show a vortex split in the lower stratosphere during the major warming (MW) in late January and during the minor warming in mid-February due to wave 1 amplification. However, the warming can be termed as a vortex displacement event as there was no vortex split during the MW period at 10 hPa. Very low temperatures, large areas of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), and high chlorine activation triggered significant ozone loss in the early winter, as the vortex moved to the midlatitude regions. The ozone depletion derived from the ASUR measurements sampled inside the vortex, in conjunction with the Mimosa-Chim model tracer, shows a maximum of 1.3 +/- 0.2 ppmv at 450-500 K by late March. The partial column loss derived from the ASUR ozone profiles reaches up to 61 +/- 4 DU in 400-550 K in the same period. The evolution of ozone and ozone loss assessed from the ASUR measurements is in very good agreement with POAM observations. The reduction in ozone estimated from the POAM measurements shows a similar maximum of 1.3 +/- 0.2 ppmv at 400-500 K or 63 +/- 4 DU in 400-550 K in late March. Our study reveals that the Arctic winter 2002/2003 was unique as it had three minor warmings and a MW, yet showed large loss in ozone. No such feature was observed in any other Arctic winter in the 1989-2010 period. In addition, an unusually large ozone loss in December, around 0.5 +/- 0.2 ppmv at 450-500 K or 12 +/- 1 DU in 400-550 K, was estimated for the first time in the Arctic. A careful and detailed diagnosis with all available published results for this winter exhibits an average ozone loss of 1.5 +/- 0.3 ppmv at 450-500 K or 65 +/- 5 DU in 400-550 K by the end of March, which exactly matches the ozone depletion derived from the ASUR, POAM and model data. The early ozone loss together with considerable loss afterwards put the warm Arctic winter 2002/2003 amongst the moderately cold winters in terms of the significance of the ozone loss.


Now a day Internet only put up best effort service. Traffic is transmitting as earliest as possible, but during transmission, there is no guarantee of timelines or real delivery of packets. With the swiftly transformation of the Internet into a commercial infrastructure, demands for a quality of service have developed in rapid rate. People of the present world are very much depending upon the various network services like VOIP, Video conferencing and File Transfer (6,7). Various categories of Traffic Management systems are used in those services. Queuing is one of the very important mechanisms in traffic management system. Each router in the network must implement some queuing discipline that control how packets are buffered while waiting to be transmitted. The main aim of this paper is to highlight quality of service (QoS) analysis using different queuing disciplines.


Figure 1: The gallbladder (black in color) volvulized on its pedicle is necrotic in appearance.
Figure 2: A different angle of the gallbladder with less manipulation reveals the extent of the torsion and the significant pedunculated origin.
 Figure 3: Ultrasound imaging revealed gallbladder wall thickening of 5 mm and pericholecystic fluid consistent with acute cholecystitis.
Figure 4: Computed tomography axial cross section depicts a dilated gallbladder with wall thickening and pericholecystic fluid present.
Figure 5: A coronal cross section CT image reveals the extent of the gallbladder dilation and amount of pericholecystic fluid.
Case Presentation An 86 year-old woman with a past medical history significant for abdominal hernia and Alzheimer dementia presented to the Emergency Department with a 24 hour history of acute right upper quadrant pain associated with nausea and non-bilious emesis. Physical exam revealed right sided abdominal tenderness with associated mass. All laboratory values were within normal ranges. Both abdominal ultrasound and computed tomography of the abdomen/pelvis revealed a large distended gallbladder with wall thickening and gallstones. Based on presentation and radiologic findings, the emergency general surgery service was consulted for suspected acute cholecystitis. The patient was then admitted for intravenous antibiotics and scheduled for laparoscopic cholecystectomy the following day. Intra-operative findings revealed volvulus with acute necrosis of the entire gallbladder. The gallbladder had a long pedunculated cystic duct and artery that was detorsed before proceeding with resection. Postoperatively, the patient did well and was discharged a few days later tolerating a regular diet. Gallbladder volvulus, a rare occurrence, is the result of a free "floating gallbladder" or gallbladder with a long cystic duct which rotates on its axis [1]. The literature reports approximately 500 cases, with the majority diagnosed intra-operatively [2]. However, current literature suggests that a "typical whirl" sign can diagnose the disease entity through imaging [3].
This torsion, if untreated emergently, has a high mortality rate due to the sequelae of gangrene and perforation. Our case was initially diagnosed based on presentation and radiologic examination as "typical" acute cholecystitis (Figures 1-5). This misdiagnosis triaged our patient into an urgent but not emergent status, and delayed operation 24 hours. In retrospect, we believe that if the patient had presented with signs of sepsis or decompensated after admission, we would have performed an emergent cholecystectomy owing to the complications of gangrene or perforation as high risk for morbidity and mortality [2].


Abstract A locally applicable (nonzonally-averaged) conservation relation is derived for quasi-geostrophic stationary waves on a zonal flow, a generalization of the Eliassen-Palm relation. The flux which appears in this relation constitutes, it is argued, a useful diagnostic of the three-dimensional propagation of stationary wave activity. This is illustrated by application to a simple theoretical model of a forced Rossby wave train and to a Northern Hemisphere winter climatology. Results of the latter procedure suggest that the major forcing of the stationary wave field derives from the orographic effects of the Tibetan plateau and from nonorographic effects (diabatic heating and/or interaction with transient eddies) in the western North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans and Siberia. No evidence is found in the data for wave trains of tropical origin; forcing by the orographic effects of the Rocky mountains seems to be of secondary importance.


The securitization of financial assets is a form of structured finance, developed by the U.S. banking world in the early 1980's (in Mortgage-Backed-Securities format) in order to reduce regulatory capital requirements by removing and transferring risk from the balance sheet to other parties. Today, virtually any form of debt obligations and receivables has been securitised, resulting in an approximately $2.5 trillion ABS outstanding in the U.S. alone: a market which is rapidly spreading to Europe, Latin-America and Southeast Asia. Though no two ABS contracts are the same and therefore each deal requires its very own model, there are three important features which appear in virtually any securitization deal: default risk, Loss-Given-Default and prepayment risk. In this paper we will only be concerned with default and prepayment and discuss a number of traditional (continuous) and Levy-based (pure jump) methods for modelling the latter risks. After briefly explaining the methods and their underlying intuition, the models are applied to a simple ABS deal in order to determine the rating of the notes. It turns out that the pure jump models produce lower (i.e. more conservative) ratings than the traditional methods (e.g. Vasicek), which are clearly incapable of capturing the shock-driven nature of losses and prepayments.


An original work for solo horn, commissioned by the US horn player Marlene Ford for inclusion in a series of lecture-recitals in the USA about women composers. Performances in 2010 as follows:

27/01/10, Portsmouth Music Club, Portsmouth, USA.
27/01/10, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, USA.
23/03/10, Tidewater Community College, Norfolk, USA.
28/03/10, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Virginia Beach, USA.
22/04/10, Virginia Wesleyan College, Norfolk, USA.
13/11/10, Virginia Music Teachers Association, James Madison University, USA.

Linear Lines explores a relationship between the musical language of Hildegard of Bingen [1098-1179] and the present day, some 800 years later. The complete chant, In principio omnes, is used as the basis of the work which is split into five sections, each a progressive soliloquy on the original musical material.
For much of the piece, decorative grace notes symbolically relate to the drawing together of the two musical cultures by characterising tied notes from the chant, the pitches taken successively from the initial phrase (unrepeated) and transposed up a major third. Throughout, a relationship between two 'key' centres a third apart represents a 'flicker' of an image between then and now.


Objectives To assess recent disparities in fatal and non-fatal injury between travellers and the general population in Ireland. Design A cross-sectional population-based comparative study. Setting Republic of Ireland. Participants Population census and retrospective mortality data were collected from 7042 traveller families, travellers being those identified by themselves and others as members of the traveller community. Retrospective injury incidence was estimated from a survey of a random sample of travellers in private households, aged 15 years or over (702 men and 961 women). Comparable general population data were obtained from official statistical reports, while retrospective incidence was estimated from the Survey of Lifestyle, Attitude and Nutrition 2002, a random sample of 5992 adults in private households aged 18 years or over. Outcome measures Potential Years of Life Lost (PYLL), Standardised Mortality Ratios (SMR), Standardised Incidence Ratios (SIR) and Case Fatality Ratios (CFR). Results Injury accounted for 36% of PYLL among travellers, compared with 13% in the general population. travellers were more likely to die of unintentional injury than the general population (SMR=454 (95% CI 279 to 690) in men and 460 (95% CI 177 to 905) in women), with a similar pattern for intentional injury (SMR=637 (95% CI 367 to 993) in men and 464 (95% CI 107 to 1204 in women). They had a lower incidence of unintentional injury but those aged 65 years or over were about twice as likely to report an injury. Travellers had a higher incidence of intentional injuries (SIR=181 (95% CI 116 to 269) in men and 268 (95% CI 187 to 373) in women). Injury CFR were consistently higher among travellers. Conclusions Irish travellers continue to bear a disproportionate burden of injury, which calls for scaling up injury prevention efforts in this group. Prevention and further research should focus on suicide, alcohol misuse and elderly injury among Irish travellers.


Polymer nanocomposites (PNC) are a new type of material, in which the reinforcement must have at least one dimension in a nanoscale. Polymer/clay nanocomposites provide great advantages in terms of different properties in comparison with conventional mineral-filled polymers. In this work, the preparation of polypropylene (PP)/clay nanocomposites by melt process (Brabender mixer) from five different chemistries of organo-nanoclays and five different coupling agents with different functional groups, such as maleic anhydride (MA), amine (NH 2 ), onium ion (NH 3 + ), has been carried out. It should be noted here that the NH 3 + modified PP were first studied in this work. The effect of impurities in conventional coupling agents has also been investigated for the first time. Different processing temperatures, residence times and shear rates have been examined. The effects of parameters, such as type of coupling agent and clay, processing conditions, dispersion and interface interaction, were evaluated using different means, such as XRD, DSC, SEM, DMA, and mechanical properties. The rheological behavior of nanocomposites was also studied. The results obtained from this study provide a certain understanding on the relationship between the formulation, processing condition and performance. Significant improvement in stiffness and storage modulus was observed in nanocomposites formulated with coupling agent. However, the extent of the improvement of the nanocomposites' performance depends on the type of the clay and the coupling agent. In addition, the processing condition had great effects on the properties of PP nanocomposites.


The development of University Midwifery Education Programs (UMEPs) has been a key component of the midwifery professionalization process in Ontario and British Columbia. The choice to develop UMEPs has set a standard for professional midwifery training which it is anticipated subsequently legislated provinces in Canada will follow. The goal of this study is to highlight the gendered struggles of midwifery, as a femaledominated and historically marginalized occupational group, in its attempt to integrate into preexisting hierarchies of the university stmcture. This analysis has suggested that other similarly located marginalized groups attempting integration into a university stmcture are likely to experience similar exclusionary strategies related to factors including gender, sexuality, ethnicity and race. Evident from this study are specific challenges of this process including tensions around inter-professional collaboration and faculty sharing with dominant disciplines such as Health Sciences and/or Medicine, enculturation of masculine/feminine professional characteristics, struggles to value practicum learning components, visibility/obscurity within the university, stmggles for achieving diversity in the student/client population, gendered dimensions of earnings potential and labour mobility. Recommendations from the findings of this study encourage future education design committees to take into consideration the economic, cultural, material and ideological barriers and challenges facing women in the context of practice as the predominant applicants, professionals and clients for this profession.


Field clues to soil permeability were investigated at 182 locations from 1947 through 1951. Estimates of permeability were made in the field without prior knowledge of measured percolation rates. Then the estimated permeability class was compared with the measured rate. In case of discrepancy, the profile was re-examined to see if any signfiicant clues had been overlooked. It was found that permeability could be estimated, with fair precision, from information obtained in the field, in terms of seven classes that are defined in terms of saturated percolation rates. The first step is determination of the type of structure. Then the class of permeability is estimated from four principal clues and one or more of eight secondary clues. Types of structure and structureless conditions found significant are fragmental, platy, nuciform, cubical blocky, prismatic, single grain, and massive. Principal clues are relative dimensions, horizontally and vertically, of structural aggregates; amount and direction of over-lap of the aggregates; number of visible pores; and texture. Important secondary clues are compaction, direction of natural breakage, silt content, cementation, type of clay minerals, character of coatings on aggregates, degree of mottling and certain features of climate. None of these clues, when taken singly, is a reliable indicator of permeability, but each must be considered with reference to the others.


We are to solve a linear system of equations which arise from discretization of realistic stress analysis problems by Krylov subspace (KS) methods such as the Conjugate Gradient (CG) method and the AZMJ variant of ORTHOMIN(2). It is important to use effective preconditioners with the KS methods to rapidly and successfully solve the linear equations. However some of the preconditioners do not often work well, and the speed-up obtained by parallel computing deteriorates when using preconditioning. We therefore try to apply CG and AZMJ with an Eisenstat type of Symmetric SOR preconditioner (abbreviated as E-SSOR) for parallel computing to the realistic stress analysis problems, and then examine the effectiveness of E-SSOR and the parallel performance. The numerical experiments demonstrate that AZMJ and CG using E-SSOR for parallel computing are useful for obtaining rapid and successful convergence on the stress analysis problems, and the good speed-up can be gained by E-SSOR on parallel computer. The convergence behavior of AZMJ is superior to that of CG, and the parallel performance of AZMJ, which has the less number of synchronization points than CG, using the hybrid parallelization is higher on the parallel computer.


Apart from relatively well-studied aboveground effects, invasive plant species will also impact the soil food web. So far, most research has been focusing on primary decomposers, while studies on effects at higher trophic levels are relatively scarce. Giant goldenrod Solidago gigantea, native to North America, is a widespread and common invasive species in most European countries. We investigated its impact on plant communities and on multiple trophic levels of the soil food web in two contrasting habitats: riparian zones and semi-natural grasslands. In 30 pairs of invaded and uninvaded plots, floristic composition, pH, fungal biomass and the densities of 11 nematode taxa were determined by using a quantitative PCR-based method. In the two habitats, the invader outcompeted both rare and dominant plant species. Belowground, S. gigantea invasion reduced pH, increased overall fungal biomass as well as the density of a single lineage of fungivorous nematodes, the family Aphelenchoididae. The densities of two other, phylogenetically distinct lineages of fungivorous nematodes, Aphelenchidae and Diphtherophoridae, were unaffected by the local increase in fungal biomass. Apparently this plant species induces a local asymmetric boost of the fungal community, and only Aphelenchoididae were able to benefit from this invader-induced change. The alternative explanation – the results are explained by a subtle, S. gigantea-induced 0.1–0.2 units decrease of pH – seems unlikely, as pH optima for nematode taxa are relatively broad. Thus, apart from readily observable aboveground effects, the invasive plant species S. gigantea affects fungal biomass as well as a specific part of the fungivorous nematode community in a soil type-independent manner.


Companies and individuals connect into networks to share their resources with the purpose of achieving a common goal. The field of collaborative network organizations covers various types of organizational structures. Knowledge, which is stored in such networks, can be separated into two different levels. First, there is a common knowledge about the organizational structure itself that can be used and reused in any of such networks. The second level represents the domain-specific knowledge, which such networks cover and use to function. In this paper, we address both levels, first, by proposing an ontology representing the common vocabulary and identifying the actors and relationships in a specific type of network, namely virtual organization breeding environment (VBE), and second, by proposing a methodology for extracting network-specific knowledge related to competencies. The instantiation of the proposed VBE ontology and the developed approach to semiautomated construction of competencies have been applied to real problem scenarios of Virtuelle Fabrik, a Swiss-German cluster of companies in mechanical engineering.


Received May 16, 2018 Revised Jul 17, 2018 Accepted Jul 31, 2018 Frequent item set mining emphases on excavating item sets which follow frequently in a transactional database. Investigators have projected numerous processes to mine rare item sets, however it is still stimulating. In current studies, to catch rare item sets, customer demarcated single threshold value ought be fixed small adequate which outcomes in generation of enormous quantity of duplicate item sets. The rare item sets may not initiate if a high threshold value is fixed. In this study, an exertion is generated to analyse the rare items for discovery of all probable rare item sets from the transaction database. To mine rare item sets effectually, a method has been anticipated that would permit customer to identify many lowest support that imitates the items and their diverse occurrences in list.


In a purposive sample of HIV-exposed infants, Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training (NCAST) Feeding Scale measurements of caregiver-infant interaction during one feeding occasion in a clinic demonstrated both strengths and weaknesses in the interaction. Twelve dyads included 6 birth mothers, 2 biological fathers, 3 foster mothers, and 1 kinship guardian, who were primary caregiversfor4Hispanic, 1 Vietnamese, and 7 African American infants, ranging in age from 2 weeks to 12 months. Caregivers were sensitive to infants'cues and responsive to their distress, and infants were clear in conveying cues and responsive to their caregivers. The use of the feeding interaction to foster social-emotional growth was less than expected. Contingency of behavior between caregivers and infants was also deficient. Four dyads had caregiver scores at or below the risk cutoffpoint.


Ludwigia L. (Onagraceae) species are known to be invasive in most parts of the world, serving as a threat to native plant species and blocking navigational channels. In Africa, they block waterways and are serious weeds in wet fields, most especially in rice paddies. The floral morphology, mode of sexual reproduction, and mechanism of fruit dispersal in water of L. leptocarpa (Nutt.) H.Hara and L. adscendens (L.) H.Hara subsp. diffusa (Forssk.) P.H.Raven were assessed in the Department of Botany of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria, from March 2006 to March 2009. L. leptocarpa produced cylindrical, hairy fruits of 34.80 ± 0.6 mm in length that contained 379.6 ± 8.63 seeds. The fruits of L. leptocarpa remained afloat in water, and seeds were easily dispersed from the fruits and germinated at 3 weeks while floating in water. L. adscendens produced cylindrical, glabrous fruits of 25.30 ± 0.4 mm in length that contained about 67.22 ± 0.84 seeds. All of the fruits of L. adscendens sank in water at 8 weeks, and seeds were not dispersed from the fruit at 22 weeks when germination was observed. The stigma was slightly raised above and separated away from the anthers at anthesis in both species. L. leptocarpa was self-compatible and highly autogamous; L. adscendens was self-compatible, autogamous, and out-crossing.


This paper presents the Digital Equity Leadership Lab in Baltimore, Maryland as a case study of community leadership development to promote digital equity and justice. While several studies of community leadership development exist, few are focused on its role in promoting digital equity and justice. This case study attempts to address this gap in the scholarly literature through the following research question: How might DELL serve as a community-based leadership training model to develop the next wave of digital equity leaders? Through our analysis of interviews with community leaders, outside experts, and community foundation staff, we discovered the following three main findings: (1) bringing national policymakers and advocates together with community leaders is powerful and transformative; (2) digital inequality is a social, not a technological problem; and (3) community leaders need access to a shared platform and to each other to create change. These findings suggest that community leaders can benefit from seeing their work within a digital equity ecosystems framework, which calls attention to the importance the interactions that exist among individuals, populations, communities, and their broader sociotechnical environments that all shape the work to promote more equitable access to technology and social and racial justice. This case study report concludes with recommendations for community leaders, including community foundations, working to uncover systemic discrimination shaping digital inequality today to advance digital equity and justice.


The purpose of this contribution is to offer insight on the methods in which current, graduate, engineering education programs incorporate tenets of the four learning environments from the How People Learn framework into their programs of study (Bransford et al., 1999). For over a decade, professional and academic engineering organizations have declared the need for the integration of non-technical competencies (e.g., communication, collaboration, creative thinking, and lifelong learning) into the curriculum of all engineering programs (Grasso & Burkins, 2010; National Academy of Engineering [NAE], 2004). Efforts advancing this initiative to promote holistic-style engineering requires the training of future postsecondary educators that understand and apply the four learning environments (i.e., student-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered, and community-centered), reflected in Bransford and colleague's (1999) How People Learn framework. In this qualitative study, an open coding strategy was applied to public data gathered from nine, select engineering education, graduate programs to answer the following question: In what ways do current U.S., graduate engineering education programs incorporate elements of the four learning environments of the How People Learn framework into their programs of study? Based on the analysis presented, the strengths associated with each program - as related to the development of holistic engineers - can be identified. These findings provide implications for the design of graduate, engineering education programs as well as conclusions useful to prospective students interested in pursuing programs that align with their personal goals to become the next generation of holistic, engineering education leaders.


Recent studies have shown that attitudes towards immigrants are the most important factor explaining opinions towards EU issues. Two arguments are given to explain this effect. First, we argue that these arguments are both build on the idea that people with anti-immigrants attitudes frame other Europeans as an out-group. Second, we test the validity of these arguments by measuring how respondents in a voter survey frame the issue of Turkish membership. We find that framing the issue in terms of out-group indeed mediates the effect of anti-immigrant attitudes on support for Turkish membership. This finding offers new insights into why levels of public support varies over different EU issues, as opposition is likely to increase when an issue is more easily framed in terms of out-groups .


We analyze 'Distribution to Distribution regression' where one is regressing a mapping where both the covariate (inputs) and response (outputs) are distributions. No parameters on the input or output distributions are assumed, nor are any strong assumptions made on the measure from which input distributions are drawn from. We develop an estimator and derive an upper bound for the L2 risk; also, we show that when the effective dimension is small enough (as measured by the doubling dimension), then the risk converges to zero with a polynomial rate.


Axonal transport is the process by which materials are moved from one region of the nerve cell to another. Axonal transport occurs in two directions, from the cell body to terminal (anterograde) and from terminals to the cell body (retrograde). Now axon transport is used as a neuroanatomical tool for the analysis of fibre pathways in the central nervous system. There are two phases in the anterograde transport: the slow one (for maintenance of the axon value) and the fast phase (for transport of different components dealing with organization of the intracellular and surface membranes). The paper is concerned with the problems of the different cellular structures participation in the mechanism of the axoplasmic transport.


The U.S. Interstate Highway System was created in 1944, but construction was stalled by disputes over funding and urban route locations. The 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act resolved these issues. It also changed the name of the Interstate System to the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. National defense figured prominently in lobbying and national defense continues to be cited by historians as a compelling justification for the Interstate System and for the greatly expanded federal role in highway construction. This paper critically evaluates the defense argument for the Interstate Highway System. It concludes that the defense argument does not stand up well to close scrutiny, and that if defense had indeed been a paramount concern, the Interstate Highway System would have had a very different configuration from the one enacted in 1956.


A new method is presented to search for hydraulically transmissive features in open boreholes in bedrock. A flexible borehole liner made of a watertight, nylon fabric is filled with water to create a constant driving head to evert (reverse of invert) the liner down the hole so that the liner pushes the borehole water out into transmissive fractures or other permeable features. The descent rate is governed by the bulk transmissivity of the remaining permeable features below the liner. Initially, the liner descent rate or velocity is a measure of transmissivity (T) of the entire hole. As the everting liner passes and seals each permeable feature, changes in the liner velocity indicate the position of each feature and an estimate of T using the Thiem equation for steady radial flow. This method has been performed in boreholes with diameters ranging from 96 to 330 mm. Profiling commonly takes a few hours in holes 200‐ to 300‐m long. After arrival of the liner at the bottom of the hole, the liner acts as a seal preventing borehole cross connection between transmissive features at different depths. Liner removal allows the hole to be used for other purposes. The T values determined using this method in a dolostone aquifer were found to be similar to the values from injection tests using conventional straddle packers. This method is not a replacement for straddle‐packer hydraulic testing of specific zones where greater accuracy is desired; however, it is effective and efficient for scanning entire holes for transmissive features.


Giardia lamblia is widespread enteric protozoan parasite of human and other mammals . Prevalence data suggest that 200 million people are infected with Giardia lamblia. The parasite has been discovered by van Leeuwenhoek in 1961. Life cycle of G.lamblia has two stages trophozoite and cyst of which trophozoite is the pathogenic stage and cyst is infective stage and both of them found in fecal material of patient with giardiasis. The parasite transmitted mainly by oral –fecal route .Giardia infection which is characterized by malabsorbtion of small intestine and fatty diarrhea . Pathogenicity of Giardia trophozoite occurs due to direct damage of intestinal lining or mechanical blockage of intestinal villi and absorption. Identification of parasite is based on recognized of trophozoite and cyst microscopically and also by detection of antigen from fecal sample .ELISA test ,Direct flurescentantibody test and PCR test are also helpful ,Giardia infection can be effectively treated by metronidazole as primary stapes of treatment.


Background and aim Kawasaki disease (KD) is a generalised systemic vasculitis of unknown aetiology involving medium and small size blood vessels, particularly the coronary arteries, in which a progressive stenosis may result from active remodelling with an intimal proliferation and neoangiogenesis. The aim of our study was to assess if subjects with a previous diagnosis of KD show, after several years, a coronary intimal thickening, suggestive of a persistent cardiovascular risk, by using high-resolution transthoracic echocardiography (HRTE). Methods We conducted an observational cross-sectional case-control double-blind study on 21 patients with a previous diagnosis of KD who had been hospitalised, as children, since January 1990 to December 1999 in our Paediatric Department of the University of Catania, Italy. We performed colordoppler-echocardiography in all patients assessing measurement of thickening, inner diameter and outer diameter of proximal portion of left coronary artery using HRTE. The cardiologic data were compared with those of the 21 healthy subjects of the same age. Results We found a significant intimal thickening in patients with previous KD compared to healthy controls (3.9 mm ± 2.4 mm vs 1.8 mm ± 0.6 mm p < 0.05). In particular, we noticed that also subjects not suffering from coronary impairment in acute phase have higher values of thickening than healthy controls, configuring a higher cardiovascular risk. Conclusions We concluded that the assessment of coronary artery thickening by means of HRTE may become an essential instrument to evaluate late cardiovascular risk in subjects with a diagnosis of KD in childhood.


This paper presents a prediction model for ground surfaces that uses the actual grinding wheel topography to perform a grinding simulation. Precise knowledge of expected machined surfaces plays an important role in process planning. Here, the main criterion is the achievement of the components' function after manufacturing. Therefore, it is essential to consider the surface roughness to enable a function-orientated workpiece surface. The presented approach uses a real grinding tool topography, which is measured by a 3D laser triangulation sensor in the machine tool. After a data processing step, the measured topography is imported into a material removal simulation. A kinematic simulation of the realistic ground surface enables the data-based confirmation of the envelope profile theory for the first time.


Anurans from an inselberg in southeastern Brazil were studied using a sample ofsixty tank of bromeliads Alcantharea sp. We found 153 tadpoles of S. arduous, 21adults of S. arduous, 30 adults of T. miliaris, and two adults of Scinax x-signatus,which were not considered in our analyses. Tadpoles of S. arduous were present in35% of the analyzed plants. Adults of S. arduous (bromeligeneous) occurred in 25%of analyzed plants, while adults of T. miliaris (bromelicolous) occurred in 30%.Apparently the presence of toe pads in S. arduous allow them to occupy the centerportion of bromeliads, while T. miliaris, which lack pads on their toes, were foundon the base of the plant axils. The number of anuran species and the abundance ofindividuals found were low. This may be a result of the high altitude of our studiedsite or a restriction imposed by the saxicolous environment, such as high temperaturesand low humidity during the day. Both species can be considered generalist feedersdue to their wide variety of ingested prey. Formicidae was their main prey but wasabsent segregation in the bromeliads. Blattodea was very common inside the bromeliadaxils and represented the most signifi cant prey by weight in both frog species. Weconclude that both anurans forage inside and outside of bromeliads. Trophic nichebreadth in S. arduous was larger than in T. miliaris. Even both species being commoninhabitants of the same environment, they demonstrated a marked spatial segregationin the bromeliads. Based on their diet, however, there may be disputes for territoryoutside of the bromeliads.


In this paper, we compare several popular rank aggregation methods by the accuracy of finding the true (correct) ranked list. Our research reveals that under most common circumstances simple methods such as the average or majority actually tend to outperform computationally-intensive distance-based methods. We then conduct a study to compare how actual people aggregate ranks in a group setting. Our finding is that individuals tend to adopt the group mean in a third of all revisions, making it the most popular strategy for belief revision.


This research is aimed to answer how accounting information users classify accounting information when they are presented in different forms. Specifically, this research investigate whether users can efficiently and effectively classify failed and non-failed corporations. The results show that respondents are most efficient when they classify ac counting Information using Chemoffs schematic faces than any forms o f conven tional accounting information. The effectiveness o f Chemoffs schematic faces is also evidenced when compared to other forms o f accounting information presenta tion.


The coverage of the semantic gap in video indexing and retrieval has gone through a continuous increase of the vocabulary of high - level features or semantic descriptors, sometimes organized in light - scale, corpus - specific, computational ontologies. This paper presents a computer - supported manual annotation method that relies on a very large scale, shared, commonsense ontologies for the selection of semantic descriptors. The ontological terms are accessed through a linguistic interface that relies on multi - lingual dictionaries and action/event template structures (or frames). The manual generation or check of annotations provides ground truth data for evaluation purposes and training data for knowledge acquisition. The novelty of the approach relies on the use of widely shared large - scale ontologies, that prevent arbitrariness of annotation and favor interoperability. We test the viability of the approach by carrying out some user studies on the annotation of narrative videos.


The effects of acute ethanol intoxication were investigated in a rat model of unilateral middle cerebral artery occlusion. Groups of 5 to 8 male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to 4 hr of left middle cerebral artery occlusion. All groups were deprived of food overnight and were pretreated intraperitoneally with 5% dextrose solution (10 ml/kg), 20% ethyl alcohol in 5% dextrose solution (2 g/kg), or 30% ethyl alcohol in a 5% dextrose solution (3 g/kg) 1 hr before middle cerebral artery occlusion. Regional cerebral blood flow during ipsilateral occlusion was approximately 9.1 to 10% of baseline in all groups. The mean % brain water content in control, 2 g/kg ethanol-treated groups, and 3 g/kg ethanol-treated groups were: in the ischemic core--81.6, 81.2, and 82.4; intermediate zone--80.5, 80.6, and 81.7; and outer zone--79.7, 79.7, and 80.8, respectively. Brain Na+ and K+ content in the three groups was related to water content, but much greater with ethanol pretreatment. The water content of the intermediate zones in the 3 g/kg ethanol-treated animals was significantly greater than in the control (p < 0.01 and 0.001) and the 2 g/kg ethanol-treated groups. One-way analysis of variance indicated a significant dose-effect relationship in which the lower dose of ethanol tended to reduce ischemic core water content, and the larger dose increased ischemic core water, compared with the control. None of the overnight fasted groups had any significant hyperglycemia. The group given 3 g/kg i.p. ethanol 1 hr before had exacerbated edema formation with a mean whole blood level of ethanol of approximately 230 mg/dl. The neurotoxic effects of high concentrations of ethanol were unrelated to any change in plasma glucose concentrations.


This work involves three topics that advance the functionality of an elbow simulator in the Orthopaedic Biomechanics Laboratory at Allegheny General Hospital. To draw clinically and scientifically meaningful conclusions from future cadaver studies conducted with the simulator, its design must be validated and the accuracy of the data collection methods demonstrated. The simulator was designed to offer physiologically-correct adjustable moment arms throughout the elbow's range of motion. To validate this, muscle moment arms were measured in three cadaver elbow specimens. Flexion-extension moment arms were measured at three different pronation/supination angles: fully pronated, fully supinated, and neutral. Pronation-supination moment arms for four elbow muscles were measured at three different flexion-extension angles: 30°, 60°, and 90°. The numeric results compared well with those previously reported. The biceps and pronator teres flexion-extension moment arms varied with pronation-supination position, and vice versa. This represents the first use of closed-loop feedback control in an elbow simulator, one of the first reports of both flexion-extension and pronation-supination moment arms in the same specimens, and demonstrates the adjustability of the moment arms that the elbow simulator can produce.Towards accurate motion analysis of the radial head, two areas were investigated. The first identified the phenomena of camera-switching, which occurs in motion analysis when data from one or more cameras is temporarily excluded from the computation of a marker's three-dimensional position. Tests with static markers showed that camera-switching could cause up to 3.7 mm of perceived movement. The second area of investigation set the stage for future studies with cadaver elbows. A protocol was developed to quantify both the travel of the native radial head, radial head implants, and the finite helical axis during pronation-supination movement. The tracking of implant motion employs a unique circle-fitting algorithm to determine the implant's center. A video-based motion analysis system was used to collect marker position coordinates actuated by a precision micrometer table. MATLAB code was designed and implemented to compute both the radial head position and finite helical axis from these data. Immediate future work will use these algorithms to evaluate radial head implants in comparison to the native radial head.


The limitation on thermal budget in chip multiprocessor (CMP) results in a fraction of inactive silicon regions called dark silicon, which significantly impacts the system performance. In this paper, we propose a thread-to-core mapping method for dark-silicon-constrained CMPs to address their thermal issue. We first propose a thermal prediction model to forecast CMP temperature after the CMP executes a forthcoming application. Then, we develop an ant colony optimization-based algorithm to conduct the thread-to-core mapping process, such that the CMP peak temperature is minimized and, consequently, the probability of triggering CMP dynamic thermal management is decreased. Finally, we evaluate our method and compare it with the baseline (a standard Linux scheduler) and other existing methods (NoC-Sprinting, DaSiM mapping, and TP mapping). The simulation results show that our method gains good thermal profile and computational performance, and performs well with chip scaling. Specifically, it eliminates all thermal emergency time, outperforming all other methods, and gains million instructions per second improvement up to 12.9% against the baseline.


Large bowel cancer is a worldwide public health challenge. More than one third of patients present an advanced stage of disease at diagnosis and the liver is the most common site of metastases. Selection criteria for early diagnosis, chemotherapy and surgery have been recently expanded. The definition of resectability remains unclear. The presence of metastases is the most significant prognostic factor. For this reason the surgical resection of hepatic metastases is the leading treatment. The most appropriate resection approach remains to be defined. The two step and simultaneous resection processes of both primary and metastases have comparable survival long-term outcomes. The advent of targeted biological chemotherapeutic agents and the development of loco-regional therapies (chemoembolization, thermal ablation, arterial infusion chemotherapy) contribute to extend favorable results. Standardized evidence-based protocols are missing, hence optimal management of hepatic metastases should be single patient tailored and decided by a multidisciplinary team. This article reviews the outcomes of resection, systemic and loco-regional therapies of liver metastases originating from large bowel cancer.


Graphyne is an allotrope of graphene containing both sp and sp2 hybridized carbon atoms. In this paper, we perform non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations to explore the thermal conductivity of oxidized gamma-graphyne based on the advanced reactive force field. The effects of the oxygen adsorption, its coverage and external tensile strain are thoroughly studied. Owing to the oxygen adsorption, the thermal transport property of gamma-graphyne is greatly deteriorated with lower thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivity is controlled by altering the oxygen coverage as well as external tensile strain. The underlying mechanisms for the thermal conductivity change are elaborated by the corresponding vibrational density of states. Our simulation results imply that graphynes are more attractive than graphene in the thermoelectric applications where lower thermal conductivity is essential to achieve a higher figure of merit. Oxygenation and strain engineering are promising methods to modulate graphyne to achieve designated thermal properties.


Wind turbines with double output induction generators can operate at variable speed permitting conversion efficiency maximization over a wide range of wind velocities. However, random wind fluctuations, wind shear and tower shadow, may excite the oscillation mode of the mechanical system, producing large torque ripple. Consequently, damage to drive train components and power quality problems may occur. In this paper, a sliding mode control is developed which provides a suitable compromise between conversion efficiency and torque oscillation smoothing. The resultant sliding dynamics is completely robust to uncertainties in the electrical variables and parameters. In addition, to prevent windup problems due to saturation, a combined sliding surface that incorporates such limitations is proposed.


There are two major views to literature. The first and older one treats literature as something, invented by human for cultural needs. The traditional studies in literature employ this view evaluating cultural value of literature. The other and new one considers literature as a part of the cybernetic system nature-human-literature, where a human play a role of a transmitter, nature is its input and literature is output. Accordingly, it presents human as a medium, communicating fundamentals of nature in the form of literary texts. Although this view is already formed, its scientific implications are not yet investigated. In this paper we employ the second view and show that literature in the whole and diffusion behave similarly. We propose a method for creation of sample paths of the diffusion process, related to literary texts. The paper is addressed to those who are interested in mathematical modeling, philosophy of literature and communication. It has a speculative form with a minimum number of mathematical formulae.


Coastal zone management is a multidisciplinary issue that can be assessed from multiple viewpoint s such as safety, recreation, ecology and nature. A possible means for properly maintaining the various functions of the coast is sand nourishments along either the shoreface and/or the beach. To assess the influence of sand nourishments, the time-dependency of appropriate indicators of the various coastal functions can be analyzed.
HKV has conducted a study that focuses on the probability of failure for dune erosion, as an indicator for safety. For this purpose, the yearly JarKus measurements from the online OpenEarth-database are used. HKV has computed the probability of failure for dune erosion for the entire Dutch coast, from 1965 until 2010, using the dune erosion model DUROS+ and the probabilistic method FORM ('First Order Reliability Method'), as implemented in the package PC-Ring. This approach is closely re lated to the approach of the project Flood Risks in the Netherlands (FLORIS/VNK).
The current paper presents results of these computations, in relation to previous nourishment activities, for the region of Northern-Holland. These gained results can be used to further analyze the effectiveness of nourishments and can hence benefit future nourishment strategies by providing a decision supporting framework.


Many companies including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Starbucks may not have existed, or may not have developed to the same level and size they have without venture capital (VC) funding. VC investments are in essence long-term, illiquid, high-risk, hands-on, privately held, minority equity investments in high-growth-potential companies initiated and managed by professional investors. While these specific characteristics explain the benefits of VC's proximity to portfolio companies (PCs), paradoxically the fraction of non-domestic investments has been increasing significantly in the last two decades. The increasing occurrence and disadvantages of investing across borders hence raises the question of how international VC firms manage the additional difficulties and what their impact is on PCs. The focus of my dissertation lies on the differential impact of VC origin (i.e. cross-border, branch and domestic VC firms) in three main aspects of the VC investment cycle. In a first step, VC firms carefully select potential investment targets based upon the future prospects. Second, VC firms typically do not only provide financial resources but also engage in time consuming post-investment monitoring and value adding activities. Finally, in contrast to other investors, VC firms are not interested in taking permanent equity positions in their PCs. Instead, they exit their investments after a five to seven year holding period. In a first study I examine the impact of VC origin on the mutual matching decision combining preferences of both investors (i.e. supply side) and entrepreneurs (i.e. demand side). From a supply perspective, results show that cross-border VC firms have a higher probability to invest with local investors, larger investment syndicates and more experienced investors. We further demonstrate that investing through a local branch allows foreign VC firms to exhibit the same investment behaviour as domestic VC firms. These results thereby exhibit that local and more resourceful co-investors or establishing a local presence mitigate the disadvantages linked to foreign investing. From a demand perspective, findings show that less developed companies have a higher probability to match with domestic VC. Moreover, seed stage companies in which only cross-border VC firms co-invest have a higher probability to attract a local VC firm as opposed to an additional cross-border VC firm. These results display that entrepreneurs dynamically assess their companies' resource gaps and consequently target VC investors with specific geographic origins based upon the required resources. My second study concentrates on the role of domestic and cross-border VC in PCs' growth. Findings demonstrate that companies initially backed by domestic VC investors exhibit higher growth in the short term compared to companies backed by cross-border investors. In contrast, companies initially backed by cross-border VC investors exhibit higher growth in the medium term. Finally, companies that are initially funded by a syndicate comprising both domestic and cross-border VC investors exhibit the highest growth. Overall, this study provides a more fine-grained understanding of the role that domestic and cross-border VC investors can play as their PCs grow and thereby require different resources or capabilities over time. Finally, in a third study I analyse how cross-border, branch and domestic VC firms behave when PCs do not meet initial expectations. Results show that domestic investors have a high tendency to escalate their commitment to a failing course of action. In contrast, cross-border investors terminate their investments efficiently, even when investing through a local branch. This is explained by cross-border investors having more limited access to soft information, a lower social involvement with the project and a lower embeddedness in the local economic and social environment, which are all factors that contribute to lower escalation of commitment. Local branches of cross-border investors are further shielded from escalation of commitment through structural safeguards. Domestic investors may hence benefit from mimicking cross-border investors' behaviour.


The historical NEXUS iris kiosks log dataset collected by the Canada Border Services Agency from 2003 to 2014 has become the focus of scientific attention due to its involvement in the iris ageing debate between the National Institute of Standard and Technology and the University of Notre Dame researchers. To facilitate this debate, this study provides additional details on how this dataset was collected, its various properties and irregularities, and presents new results related to the effect of ageing, age, and other factors on the system performance obtained using the portions of the dataset that have not been previously analysed. In doing that, the importance of conducting subject-based performance analysis, as opposed to the traditionally done transaction-based analysis, is emphasised. The significance of factor effects is examined. Recommendations on further improvement of the technology are made.


Wiener spectra of radiographic screen-film systems were measured in the low-frequency range from 0.05 to 0.8 mm-1 with a special photometric set-up capable of scanning large film areas with a very long slit. It appears that inhomogeneities in radiographic film and film processing produce a strong low-frequency component of the Wiener spectrum below approximately 0.4 mm-1. Similar disturbances over the whole measured frequency range 1 mm-1 can be introduced by technologically-caused inhomogeneities in radiographic screens (low-frequency screen noise). Low-frequency film and screen noise must be considered for calculation of the detectability, especially of large low-contrast details from Wiener spectral data.


Patient safety is a core principle of anesthesia care worldwide. The specialty of anesthesiology has been a leader in medicine for the past half century in pursuing patient safety research and implementing standards of care and systematic improvements in processes of care. Together, these efforts have dramatically reduced patient harm associated with anesthesia. However, improved anesthesia patient safety has not been uniformly obtained worldwide. There are unique differences in patient safety outcomes between countries and regions in the world. These differences are often related to factors such as availability, support, and use of health care resources, trained personnel, patient safety outcome data collection efforts, standards of care, and cultures of safety and teamwork in health care facilities. This article provides insights from national anesthesia society leaders from 13 countries around the world. The countries they represent are diverse geographically and in health care resources. The authors share their countries' current and future initiatives in anesthesia patient safety. Ten major patient safety issues are common to these countries, with several of these focused on the importance of extending initiatives into the full perioperative as well as intraoperative environments. These issues may be used by anesthesia leaders around the globe to direct collaborative efforts to improve the safety of patients undergoing surgery and anesthesia in the coming decade.


Knowledge of the crystal structure of a monometallic inorganic molecule is often sufficient to calculate its electronic structure and interpret its magnetic properties. Here we show that for a series of nine-coordinate lanthanide complexes based on the 1,4,7-tris[(6-carboxypyridin-2-yl)methyl]-1,4,7-triazacyclononane ligand, the electronic structure is hypersensitive to geometric structure and to the presence of noncoordinated lattice solvent, which renders the magnetic and spectroscopic properties very difficult to interpret. We explore possible explanations for the peculiar electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectra and conclude that a number of entangled factors are at play across the samples. Hence, great care should be taken in the interpretation of EPR spectra for systems with small magnetic anisotropy, even when the molecular structure is known.


Sex differences in immune investment and infection rate are predicted due to the divergent life histories of males and females, where females invest more toward immunity due to the fitness consequences of a reduced lifespan and males allocate less toward immunity due to increased resource investment in traits critical to sexual selection. Consequently, males are expected to fight infection less adeptly, resulting in higher parasite loads relative to females across all taxa. Wild animals rarely face a single parasite within their given environment, yet nearly all studies on sex‐biased infection rates have focused on a single host–parasite relationship. Here, we investigate how simultaneous natural infections of ecto‐ and endosymbionts (i.e. both parasitic and phoretic taxa) correlate with sex biases in host immune response and reproductive investment in a field‐caught cricket, Gryllus texensis. Our comprehensive analysis found no significant sex differences in two measures of immune response (melanization and nodulation), and found no strong evidence of a sex bias in the prevalence or intensity of parasitism by the three most common parasites infecting wild G. texensis field crickets (Eutrombidiidae, gregarines, and nematodes). Two traits related to female fitness, egg number and egg size, showed no relation to parasitic infection; however, males having wider heads and poorer body condition were significantly more infected by eutrombidiid mites, gregarines, and nematodes. Despite frequent predictions of male‐biased parasitism in the literature, our results concur with many other studies indicating that the divergent life histories of males and females alone are not sufficient to explain natural infection rates in wild insects.


Dietary supplements and functional foods are becoming increasingly popular complements to regular diets. A recurring ingredient is the essential cofactor vitamin B12 (B12). Microalgae are making their way into the dietary supplement and functional food market but do not produce B12, and their B12 content is very variable. In this study, the suitability of using the human B12-binding protein intrinsic factor (IF) to enrich bioavailable B12 using microalgae was tested. The IF protein was successfully expressed from the nuclear genome of the model microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and the addition of an N-terminal ARS2 signal peptide resulted in efficient IF secretion to the medium. Co-abundance of B12 and the secreted IF suggests the algal produced IF protein is functional and B12-binding. Utilizing IF expression could be an efficient tool to generate B12-enriched microalgae in a controlled manner that is suitable for vegetarians and, potentially, more bioavailable for humans.


This article introduces the R package ctmcd, which provides an implementation of methods for the estimation of the parameters of a continuous-time Markov chain given that data are only available on a discrete-time basis. This data consists of partial observations of the state of the chain, which are made without error at discrete times, an issue also known as the embedding problem for Markov chains. The functions provided comprise matrix logarithm based approximations as described in Israel et al. (2001), as well as Kreinin and Sidelnikova (2001), an expectation-maximization algorithm and a Gibbs sampling approach, both introduced by Bladt and Sørensen (2005). For the expectationmaximization algorithm Wald confidence intervals based on the Fisher information estimation method of Oakes (1999) are provided. For the Gibbs sampling approach, equal-tailed credibility intervals can be obtained. In order to visualize the parameter estimates, a matrix plot function is provided. The methods described are illustrated by Standard and Poor's discrete-time corporate credit rating transition data.


Mapping time series to complex networks to analyze observables has recently become popular, both at the theoretical and the practitioner's level. The intent is to use network metrics to characterize the dynamics of the underlying system. Applications cover a wide range of problems, from geoscientific measurements to biomedical data and financial time series. It has been observed that different dynamics can produce networks with distinct topological characteristics under a variety of time-series-to-network transforms that have been proposed in the literature. The direct connection, however, remains unclear. Here, we investigate a network transform based on computing statistics of ordinal permutations in short subsequences of the time series, the so-called ordinal partition network. We propose a Markovian framework that allows the interpretation of the network using ergodic-theoretic ideas and demonstrate, via numerical experiments on an ensemble of time series, that this viewpoint renders this technique especially well-suited to nonlinear chaotic signals. The aim is to test the mapping's faithfulness as a representation of the dynamics and the extent to which it retains information from the input data. First, we show that generating networks by counting patterns of increasing length is essentially a mechanism for approximating the analog of the Perron-Frobenius operator in a topologically equivalent higher-dimensional space to the original state space. Then, we illustrate a connection between the connectivity patterns of the networks generated by this mapping and indicators of dynamics such as the hierarchy of unstable periodic orbits embedded within a chaotic attractor. The input is a scalar observable and any projection of a multidimensional flow suffices for reconstruction of the essential dynamics. Additionally, we create a detailed guide for parameter tuning. We argue that there is no optimal value of the pattern length m, rather it admits a scaling region akin to traditional embedding practice. In contrast, the embedding lag and overlap between successive patterns can be chosen exactly in an optimal way. Our analysis illustrates the potential of this transform as a complementary toolkit to traditional time-series methods.


In this paper, we investigate the relationship between export performance and economic growth in Russian regions. We propose a methodology for decomposition of export growth into intensive and extensive margins and distinguish between productand geographic extensive components within extensive margin. An empirical analysis suggests that higher growth rates in Russian regions are associated with higher intensive margin. We reveal significant differences in export survival of differentiated and homogeneous flows and find evidence of strong effects of distance and institutions on export survival. We argue that Russian regions would experience higher economic growth if they were able to improve their export performance at the intensive margin by providing lower transport costs to the business and by enhancing higher quality of institutions.


Background : Incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is common in intensive care unit (ICU). This pneumonia, becomes important due to its association to increased length of hospital stay, increased costs, and increased mortality. Irrational administration of antibiotics can lead to development of bacterial resistance. The objective of this study was to describe the pattern of bacteria and the susceptibility of VAP patients. Methods : A descriptive study was carried out to 10 medical records of VAP patients in the ICU at Dr. Hasan Sadikin General Hospital, Bandung in January–June 2014. Microbiological culture results and antibiotics susceptibility testing of patients' sputum were identified and the collected data were analyzed in form of tables and percentages by using a computer program. Results : Out of 44 cultures taken from 10 patients with VAP, 43 cultures had microbiological findings. Gram negative bacteria were found in 90.6% cultures, the rests were Gram positive bacteria and fungi. The majority of findings were: Acinetobacter baumannii (41.9%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (18.6%), and Klebsiella pneumoniae (16.9%). The laboratory test result showed varied degrees of antimicrobial resistance to antibiotics. Conclusions : Bacteria found in sputum cultures of ICU patient with VAP are mostly of Gram negative. The result of susceptibility testing of bacteria shows many of the bacteria have resistance to antibiotics in ICU at Dr. Hasan Sadikin General Hospital. [AMJ.2016;3(2):195–9] DOI:  10.15850/amj.v3n2.772


Over the past decade, many states have enacted laws that make it more difficult for eligible citizens to vote. In 2006, I labeled such restrictions the "new vote denial," comparing them to practices that were used to disenfranchise African Americans before enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ("VRA"). Much has happened since then. Voting rights advocates have challenged state voting restrictions under both the Fourteenth Amendment and Section 2 of the VRA, with mixed success. In 2014, the Supreme Court was asked to intervene in four cases involving Section 2 vote denial claims. The Court allowed voting restrictions to take effect in Ohio, North Carolina, and Texas, while temporarily stopping Wisconsin's voter ID law. Yet the legal test governing Section 2 vote denial claims remains uncertain. This article proposes a three-part test for Section 2 vote denial claims, one that builds upon my previous scholarship, the work of other scholars, and decisions by the Supreme Court and lower courts. First, plaintiffs would have to demonstrate that the challenged practice has a disparate impact on minority voters. Second, plaintiffs would have to demonstrate that the disparate impact is traceable to the challenged practice's interaction with social and historical conditions, including but not limited to intentional discrimination by the state. Third, courts should balance the harm to minority voters against the state's proffered interests. At this stage, the burden would lie with the state to show by clear and convincing evidence that the challenged practice's benefits outweigh its harms to voters. Because my proposed test draws on the standard for vote denial claims under the Fourteenth Amendment, its application falls safely within the scope of Congress' constitutional enforcement power. Section 2 litigation is no panacea, but could serve as an effective shield against some forms of the new vote denial, complementing constitutional claims. Part I of the Article provides background on Section 2, focusing on the uncertainty over the precise standard that should govern burdens on participation. Part II discusses lower court decisions on vote denial claims under Section 2. Part III presents a refined standard for vote denial claims under Section 2, one that addresses practical problems that have emerged in lower court decisions and is consistent with Congress' enforcement power. Part IV concludes with some observations on benefits and limitations of the race-discrimination model in preserving access to the vote.


This paper provides a quantitative assessment of the effects of inflation through changes in the value of nominal assets. We document nominal positions in the US across sectors as well as different groups of households, and estimate the redistribution brought about by a moderate inflation episode. Redistribution takes the form of 'ends-against-the-middle': the middle class gains at the cost of the rich and poor. In addition, inflation favours the young over the old, and hurts foreigners. A calibrated OLG model is used to assess the macroeconomic implications of this redistribution under alternative fiscal policy rules. We show that inflation-induced redistribution has a persistent negative effect on output, but improves the weighted welfare of domestic households.


Further, a highly selective dry etch process for etching Al on AlN has been developed for the fabrication of MIM, MIS, SAW and BAW test structures for electrical and electroacoustic characterization of the films. A dielectric constant of 10 for AlN and 25 for Ti doped Ta2O5 have been measured. With respect to electroacoustic characterization, BAW measurements gave a longitudinal velocity of 11350 m/s and a TCD of -25ppm/K. AlN thin film test structures on SiO2/Si yielded a SAW velocity of around 5000 m/s, while those on polycrystalline diamond exhibited a SAW velocity of 11800 m/s. The latter results illustrate one of the biggest advantages of thin film SAW technology, namely one can exploit both the piezoelectric properties of the film and the acoustic properties of the substrate and hence devise components with superior performance. The explosive development of personal communications systems, navigation, satellite communications as well as personal computer and data processing systems together with the constant demand for higher speeds and larger bandwidths has driven the fabrication technology to its limits. This in turn necessitates the development of novel functional materials for the fabrication of devices with superior performance and higher capacity at reduced manufacturing costs. This thesis focuses on the synthesis and characterization of such materials for IC and electroacoustic applications. Specifically, AlN thin films as well as Ti doped Ta2O5 thin films have been grown using both RF and pulsed-DC reactive sputter deposition on a variety of substrate materials. AlN is a piezoelectric material and hence its crystallographic structure and film texture are of prime interest, while Ta2O5 is a material with a relatively high dielectric constant. A significant part of the work deals with the optimization of the deposition processes. The latter have been optimized both empirically and theoretically by modeling the reactive sputter process. Subsequently, highly textured AlN thin films have been synthesized and characterized. The films were fully c-axis oriented with a typical value for the FWHM of the (002) rocking curve of 1.6°. In addition, epitaxial AlN films have been grown on sapphire at 500oC with relatively low defect density.


The identification of different loss mechanisms and the prediction of exact power dissipations play a significant role in the development of new electric motor designs and the achievement of highest power densities and, therefore, high continuous drive powers. As many approaches exist to estimate the ohmic losses in the windings of a motor and additional mechanical losses, such as bearing losses, the most significant calculation error is usually made in the iron loss estimation of the stator core. In this paper, an analytic calculation method of the iron losses is presented, which gives the opportunity to predict the stator's losses without time-consuming 3D FEM calculations. The basis of the calculation model are commonly known material parameters of the lamination sheet and the insulation varnish, as well as geometric parameters of the target geometry. The result of the loss model is compared and validated with measurement values, delivered by a novel test device for stator segments.


BMP and Wnt signaling pathways play a crucial role in organogenesis, including tooth development. Despite extensive studies, the exact functions, as well as if and how these two pathways act coordinately in regulating early tooth development, remain elusive. In this study, we dissected regulatory functions of BMP and Wnt pathways in early tooth development using a transgenic noggin (Nog) overexpression model (K14Cre;pNog). It exhibits early arrested tooth development, accompanied by reduced cell proliferation and loss of odontogenic fate marker Pitx2 expression in the dental epithelium. We demonstrated that overexpression of Nog disrupted BMP non-canonical activity, which led to a dramatic reduction of cell proliferation rate but did not affect Pitx2 expression. We further identified a novel function of Nog by inhibiting Wnt/β-catenin signaling, causing loss of Pitx2 expression. Co-immunoprecipitation and TOPflash assays revealed direct binding of Nog to Wnts to functionally prevent Wnt/β-catenin signaling. In situ PLA and immunohistochemistry on Nog mutants confirmed in vivo interaction between endogenous Nog and Wnts and modulation of Wnt signaling by Nog in tooth germs. Genetic rescue experiments presented evidence that both BMP and Wnt signaling pathways contribute to cell proliferation regulation in the dental epithelium, with Wnt signaling also controlling the odontogenic fate. Reactivation of both BMP and Wnt signaling pathways, but not of only one of them, rescued tooth developmental defects in K14Cre;pNog mice, in which Wnt signaling can be substituted by transgenic activation of Pitx2. Our results reveal the orchestration of non-canonical BMP and Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathways in the regulation of early tooth development. Summary: The direct binding of Noggin to Wnt modulates non-canonical BMP and Wnt/β-catenin signalling to regulate cell proliferation and cell fate during early tooth development.


The corrosion and degradation behavior of Mg-Ca binary alloy in simulated body fluid (SBF) were studied by immersion of pure Mg and Mg-Ca alloys with different Ca contents in SBF. The corrosion process was carried out by real-time measurement of sample weight, pH value of SBF and the microstructures of the immersed samples at different immersion time observed by electron microscopy. The result shows that Mg-Ca alloy with 0.7% Ca has better corrosion resistance than the one with 2.0% Ca. The product generated on the surface of Mg-0.7Ca during the immersion was identified by X-ray diffraction and energy spectrum analysis.


Valvular and coronary artery disease are among the most important causes of disability and death in the world and Iran as well. Every year, half a million death because of these diseases is reported in United State. The incidence of degenerative and valvular diseases of heart is increasing. Considering the industrialization of our country, the incidence of these kind of problems are increasing as well. In this study, there is an attempt to recognize the causes of cardiac surgery. We conducted a retrospective study in 915 cardiac surgery patients (630 CABG and 285 valve replacement) from 1374 to 1377. In CABG patients, there were 46 cases of reoperation (78.3 percent male 21.7 percent female). The most reoperations for bleeding was less than 24 hours in 90.3 percent. In valvular patients the causes of reoperation were: A) Valvular complications (female/male=3/1), B) Non valvular complications (female/male=1/3). The most common nonvalvular complication was bleeding (66.6 percent). The most common valvular complication was bioprosthetic valve degeneration. The meantime between two operation in valvular complications was 11.8 years. In all cases (915) the incidence of bleeding was 3.8 percent, mediastinitis 0.8 percent, cardiac tamponade 0.8 percent and GI bleeding 0.5 percent.