This action research used a technical collaborative approach aimed to develop a model for enhancing the goodness, smartness and happiness of Thai primary school children. The participants were divided into two groups. The first group was 38 Thai Primary school students (Grade 6) selected by purposive sampling method. The data were collected using focus groups, discussion, in-depth interviews, journal writing and field notes. The second group was 8 primary teachers. The data were collected using focus group discussions. Data collection took place from February 2014 - January 2015. The general information data were analyzed using frequency, percentage and mean. The data for the model development were analyzed using the Strauss & Corbin method. The results of the study showed that the model could be divided into 4 stages: (1) building relationships, (2) exploring the phenomena, (3) implementing and reflecting, and (4) evaluation. The implementing and reflecting stage comprised of 3 steps: (1) promoting knowledge and understanding emotional intelligence - goodness, smartness and happiness, (2) enhancing students' smartness and (3) enhancing students' goodness. The promoting of happiness was integrated in the smartness, goodness activities and recreational activities. In addition, this stage also comprised of 8 activities:  (1) understanding the meaning of being good, smart and happy (2) setting up life goals (3) inspiring and motivating the desire to be good and grateful (4) practicing meditation and emotion control, being moral  and having mercy, understanding others, having gratitude, responsibility and sufficient economic principles (5) building commitment (6) practicing  planning, recording, and self-evaluation, (7) reinforcement, and (8) using recreational activities to enhance students' goodness, smartness, and happiness scores and satisfaction. The findings can be used to guide stakeholders in particular school nurses, school directors,  and teachers in the practice of setting up life goals, planning, making plans and self-evaluation in order  to promote the goodness smartness, and happiness of Thai primary school students.


Taiwan's flourishing tourism industry has stimulated the development of a small and medium-sized hotel industry, including leisure farms. Nevertheless, most small hotel operators lack sufficient hotel operation and management knowledge. Although the adoption of appropriate property management systems (PMSs) could help small hotels improve management performance, the huge purchase costs and maintenance expenses of conventional property management systems make them unsuitable for most leisure farms and other small hotels. In order to overcome this problem, this study tries to take a nominal leisure farm in South Taiwan as an example, and employs the "Web service" concept to create a suitable online property management system. The findings of this study reveal that a Web service model incorporating the concepts of "software as a service" and "service-oriented architecture" can successfully reduce software deployment time and costs, hardware adoption costs, and overall maintenance manpower costs.


The subject of this thesis is the Suenos series: photomontages completed between the years of 1948-1951 in Buenos Aires by the artist Grete Stern. This series, originally published in the popular magazine Idilio , illustrates dreams submitted by readers for the column 'El psicoanalisis te ayudara.' These images constitute a feminist intervention into mainstream representations of women in visual culture and invite this magazine's young female readership to reimagine standards of conventional femininity through laughter. The feminist agenda behind this series is defined through humor and comedic effect. In the space of this thesis, I explore how this work represents a significant contribution to feminist Surrealism and prompts reflection on an essential link between humor, politics, and visual art.


In this paper, a new auditory-based speech processing system based on the biologically rooted property of average localized synchrony detection (ALSD) is proposed. The system detects periodicity in the speech signal at Bark-scaled frequencies while reducing the response's spurious peaks and sensitivity to implementation mismatches, and hence presents a consistent and robust representation of the formants. The system is evaluated for its formant extraction ability while reducing spurious peaks. It is compared with other auditory-based front-end processing systems in the task of vowel recognition on clean speech from the TIMIT database and in the presence of noise. The results illustrate the advantage of the ALSD system in extracting the formants and reducing the spurious peaks. They also indicate the superiority of the synchrony measures over the mean-rate in the presence of noise.


Lipases, which can be immobilized and reused for many reaction cycles, are important enzymes with many industrial applications. A key challenge in lipase immobilization for catalysis is to open the lipase lid and maintain it in an open conformation in order to expose its active site. Here we have designed "tailor-made" graphene-based nanosupports for effective lipase (QLM) immobilization through molecular engineering, which is in general a grand challenge to control biophysicochemical interactions at the nano–bio interface. It was observed that increasing hydrophobic surface increased lipase activity due to opening of the helical lid present on lipase. The molecular mechanism of lid opening revealed in molecular dynamics simulations highlights the role of hydrophobic interactions at the interface. We demonstrated that the open and active form of lipase can be achieved and tuned with an optimized activity through chemical reduction of graphene oxide. This research is a major step toward designing nanomater...


The spatial heterogeneity along a fracture is a key determinant for fracture-associated mechanical and hydraulic properties of the subsurface. Laboratory experiments have been performed to test the applicability of the nonwelded interface representation to predict the frequencyand angle-dependent elastic response of a single fracture. The observation that nonwelded interface model can represent quite well the frequencyand angle-dependent reflection response of a fracture has led us to develop a new methodology for estimating the spatially heterogeneous fracture compliance from the reflection response along a fracture surface. A data-driven approach based on Marchenko equation coupled with inverse scattering to solve the nonwelded interface boundary condition has been formulated. The approach estimates the elastic wavefield along a fracture accurately, including the multiple reflections. As an extension, it offers the possibility to estimate fracture compliance using the multiple reflections. We illustrate the concept by numerically modeling 2-D SH waves sensing the heterogeneous tangential compliance of a fracture. The stationary phase method is applied to single and double spatial integrals to analyze the effect of source and receiver aperture on the Green's function retrieval. Our results show that the use of multiple reflections allows a better estimation of the heterogeneous fracture compliance than using primary reflections alone, especially for the far offsets on the fracture plane.


ABSTRACT Human enterovirus 68 (EV-D68) is a member of the EV-D species, which belongs to the EV genus of the Picornaviridae family. Over the past several years, clusters of EV-D68 infections have occurred worldwide. A recent outbreak in the United States is the largest one associated with severe respiratory illness and neurological complication. Although clinical symptoms are recognized, the virus remains poorly understood. Here we report that EV-D68 inhibits innate antiviral immunity by downregulation of interferon regulatory factor 7 (IRF7), an immune factor with a pivotal role in viral pathogenesis. This process depends on 3Cpro, an EV-D68-encoded protease, to mediate IRF7 cleavage. When expressed in host cells, 3Cpro targets Q167 and Q189 within the constitutive activation domain, resulting in cleavage of IRF7. Accordingly, wild-type IRF7 is fully active. However, IRF7 cleavage abrogated its capacity to activate type I interferon expression and limit replication of EV-D68. Notably, IRF7 cleavage strictly requires the protease activity of 3Cpro. Together, these results suggest that a dynamic interplay between 3Cpro and IRF7 may determine the outcome of EV-D68 infection. IMPORTANCE EV-D68 is a globally emerging pathogen, but the molecular basis of EV-D68 pathogenesis is unclear. Here we report that EV-D68 inhibits innate immune responses by targeting an immune factor, IRF7. This involves the 3C protease encoded by EV-D68, which mediates the cleavage of IRF7. These observations suggest that the 3Cpro-IRF7 interaction may represent an interface that dictates EV-D68 infection.


Documentation management represents a relevant and mandatory activity according to ISO 26262 [1]. The same activity tends to be considered as a waste according to the agile manifesto [2]. Thus, agile and ISO 26262-compliant documentation management styles seem to form an odd couple. When this couple is located in the Swedish cultural context, reconciliation and negotiation within it represent a true challenge. In this paper, based on the state of practice in industrial settings, we report about our findings and propose our envisioned solution to face this challenge and get a balance. Finally, conclusion and perspectives for future work are also drawn.


One of the major factors that can potentially slow down widespread use of embedded chip multiprocessors is lack of efficient software support. In particular, automated code parallelizers are badly needed since it is not realistic to expect an average programmer to parallelize a large complex embedded application over multiple processors, taking into account several factors at the same time such as code density, data locality, performance, power and code resilience. Especially, increasing use of software-managed SPM (scratch-pad memory) components in embedded systems require an SPM conscious code parallelization. Motivated by this observation, this paper proposes a novel compiler-based SPM conscious loop scheduling strategy for array/loop based embedded applications. This strategy tries to achieve two objectives. First, the sets of loop iterations assigned to different processors should approximately take the same amount of time to finish. Second, the set of iterations assigned to a processor should exhibit high data reuse. Satisfying these two objectives help us to minimize parallel execution time of the application at hand. The specific method adopted by our scheduling strategy to achieve these objectives is to distribute loop iterations across parallel processors in an SPM conscious manner. In this strategy, the compiler analyzes the loop, identifies the potential SPM hits and misses, and distributes loop iterations over processors such that the processors have more or less the same execution time. Our experimental results so far indicate that the proposed approach generates much better results than existing loop schedulers. Specifically, it brings 18.9%, 22.4%, and 11.1% improvements in parallel execution time (with a chip multiprocessor of 8 cores) over a previously proposed static scheduler, a dynamic scheduler, and an alternate locality-conscious scheduler, respectively


Current research on emotions in sport focuses heavily on athletes' intrapersonal emotion regulation; however, interpersonal consequences of emotion regulation are garnering recent attention. As leaders in sport, coaches have the opportunity to regulate not only their own emotions, but also those of athletes, officials, and spectators. As such, the present study set out to develop an observational tool, demonstrating evidence of validity and reliability, for measuring coaches' overt emotions in the youth sport context. Categories were derived and refined through extensive literature and video review, resulting in 12 categories of behavioural content and eight emotion modifiers (Neutral, Happy, Affectionate, Alert, Tense, Anxious, Angry and Disappointed). The final coding system is presented herein, complete with supporting evidence for validity and reliability. As a tool for both researchers and practitioners in sport, the Assessment of Coach Emotions (ACE) offers enhanced insight into the contextual qualities underlying coaches' interactive behaviours.


Slow transient slip that releases stress along the deep roots of plate interfaces is most often observed on regional GPS networks installed at the surface. The detection of slow slip is not trivial if the dislocation along the fault at depth does not generate a geodetic signal greater than the observational noise level. Instead of the typical workflow of comparing independently gathered seismic and geodetic observations to study slow slip, we use repeating low‐frequency earthquakes to reveal a previously unobserved slow slip event. By aligning GPS time series with episodes of low‐frequency earthquake activity and stacking, we identify a repeating transient slip event that generates a displacement at the surface that is hidden under noise prior to stacking. Our results suggest that the geodetic investigation of transient slip guided by seismological information is essential in exploring the spectrum of fault slip.


Objective To determine outcomes at age 3 years in babies born before 27 completed weeks' gestation in 2006, and to evaluate changes in outcome since 1995 for babies born between 22 and 25 weeks' gestation. Design Prospective national cohort studies, EPICure and EPICure 2. Setting Hospital and home based evaluations, England. Participants 1031 surviving babies born in 2006 before 27 completed weeks' gestation. Outcomes for 584 babies born at 22-25 weeks' gestation were compared with those of 260 surviving babies of the same gestational age born in 1995. Main outcome measures Survival to age 3 years, impairment (2008 consensus definitions), and developmental scores. Multiple imputation was used to account for the high proportion of missing data in the 2006 cohort. Results Of the 576 babies evaluated after birth in 2006, 13.4% (n=77) were categorised as having severe impairment and 11.8% (n=68) moderate impairment. The prevalence of neurodevelopmental impairment was significantly associated with length of gestation, with greater impairment as gestational age decreased: 45% at 22-23 weeks, 30% at 24 weeks, 25% at 25 weeks, and 20% at 26 weeks (P<0.001). Cerebral palsy was present in 83 (14%) survivors. Mean developmental quotients were lower than those of the general population (normal values 100 (SD 15)) and showed a direct relation with gestational age: 80 (SD 21) at 22-23 weeks, 87 (19) at 24 weeks, 88 (19) at 25 weeks, and 91 (18) at 26 weeks. These results did not differ significantly after imputation. Comparing imputed outcomes between the 2006 and 1995 cohorts, the proportion of survivors born between 22 and 25 weeks' gestation with severe disability, using 1995 definitions, was 18% (95% confidence interval 14% to 24%) in 1995 and 19% (14% to 23%) in 2006. Fewer survivors had shunted hydrocephalus or seizures. Survival of babies admitted for neonatal care increased from 39% (35% to 43%) in 1995 to 52% (49% to 55%) in 2006, an increase of 13% (8% to 18%), and survival without disability increased from 23% (20% to 26%) in 1995 to 34% (31% to 37%) in 2006, an increase of 11% (6% to 16%). Conclusion Survival and impairment in early childhood are both closely related to gestational age for babies born at less than 27 weeks' gestation. Using multiple imputation to account for the high proportion of missing values, a higher proportion of babies admitted for neonatal care now survive without disability, particularly those born at gestational ages 24 and 25 weeks.


This report describes a quality assurance chain for the bentonite material acquisition for a nuclear waste disposal repository. Chemical, mineralogical and geotechnical methods, which may be applied in quality control of bentonite are shortly reviewed. As a case study, many of the presented control studies were performed for six different bentonite samples. Chemical analysis is a very reliable research method to control material homogeneity, because the accuracy and repeatability of the study method is extremely good. Accurate mineralogical study of bentonite is a complicated task. X-ray diffractometry is the best method to identify smectite minerals, but quantitative analysis of smectite content remains uncertain. To obtain a better quantitative analysis, development of techniques based on automatic image analysis of SEM images is proposed. General characteristics of bentonite can be obtained by rapid indicator tests, which can be done on the place of reception. These tests are methylene blue test giving information on the cation exchange capacity, swelling index and determination of water absorption. Different methods were used in the determination of cation exchange capacity (CEC) of bentonite. The results indicated differences both between methodologies and between replicate determinations for the same material and method. Additional work should be done to improve the reliability and reproducibility of the methodology. Bentonite contains water in different modes. Thus, different determination methods are used in bentonite studies and they give somewhat dissimilar results. Clay research use frequently the so-called consistency tests (liquid limit, plastic limit and plasticity index). This study method does, however, not seem to be very practical in quality control of bentonite. Therefore, only the determination of liquid limit with fall-cone method is recommended for quality control.


Landscape modification and habitat fragmentation are key drivers of global species loss. Their effects may be understood by focusing on: (1) individual species and the processes threatening them, and (2) human-perceived landscape patterns and their correlation with species and assemblages. Individual species may decline as a result of interacting exogenous and endogenous threats, including habitat loss, habitat degradation, habitat isolation, changes in the biology, behaviour, and interactions of species, as well as additional, stochastic threats. Human-perceived landscape patterns that are frequently correlated with species assemblages include the amount and structure of native vegetation, the prevalence of anthropogenic edges, the degree of landscape connectivity, and the structure and heterogeneity of modified areas. Extinction cascades are particularly likely to occur in landscapes with low native vegetation cover, low landscape connectivity, degraded native vegetation and intensive land use in modified areas, especially if keystone species or entire functional groups of species are lost. This review (1) demonstrates that species-oriented and pattern-oriented approaches to understanding the ecology of modified landscapes are highly complementary, (2) clarifies the links between a wide range of interconnected themes, and (3) provides clear and consistent terminology. Tangible research and management priorities are outlined that are likely to benefit the conservation of native species in modified landscapes around the world.


Three fully differential bandpass (BP) /spl Delta//spl Sigma/ modulators are presented. Two double-delay resonators are implemented using only one operational amplifier. The prototype circuits operate at a sampling frequency of 80 MHz. The BP /spl Delta//spl Sigma/ modulators can be used in an intermediate-frequency (IF) receiver to combine frequency downconversion with analog-to-digital conversion by directly sampling an input signal from an IF of 60 MHz to a digital IF of 20 MHz. The measured peak signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ratios are 78 dB for 270 kHz (GSM), 75 dB for 1.25 MHz (IS-95), 69 dB for 1.762 MHz (DECT), and 48 dB for 3.84 MHz (WCDMA/CDMA2000) bandwidths. The circuits are implemented with a 0.35-/spl mu/m CMOS technology and consume 24-38 mW from a 3.0-V supply, depending on the architecture.


This paper examines relationships between collaborative governance and technological innovation. Collaborative governance is a key strategy for this form of innovation but remains underresearched. This paper explores how and to what extent collaborative governance can contribute to technological innovation by means of a case study of wind energy in China. Drawing on a comparative analysis of three provinces—Xinjiang, Shanghai, and Guangdong—the paper presents three major findings. Firstly, the three provinces reflect local variations in their models of government–industry–university collaboration. Xinjiang illustrates a hierarchical model, Shanghai's model is highly institutionalised, whereas Guangdong has adopted a market model. Secondly, the mechanisms for collaborative governance are conceptualised into three integral elements: resources (such as funds, personnel, and technological knowledge), structures (such as collaborative institutions and learning networks), and processes (such as resource pooling and learning). Thirdly, the Chinese model of collaborative governance for technological innovation shares some important characteristics with Western models but also exhibits some differences: the relatively limited role of public service organisations, a domestic market dominated by state-owned enterprises, the relatively inactive role of industrial associations, and an emergence of policy networks distinguish the Chinese models.


The nucleotide sequence of the genomic RNA1, 7342 nucleotides (nt) of grapevine fanleaf virus strain F13 (GFLV-F13) has been determined from cDNA clones. The complete sequence contained only one long open reading frame (ORF) of 6852 nucleotides extending from nucleotide 243 to 7101. The putative polyprotein encoded by this ORF is 2284 amino acids in length with an Mr of 253K. The location of genome-linked protein and comparison of the primary structure of the 253K polyprotein to that of other closely related viral proteins of the picronavirus-like family allows the proposal of a scheme for the genetic organization of GFLV-F13 RNA1. The primary structure of the polyprotein includes a putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of 92K and a cysteine protease of 25K. This protease shares not only major structural homologies, particularly in the substrate-binding pocket, with the trypsin-like serine proteases of other picorna-like viruses, but also their specificity in terms of cleavage. The large region of Mr 133K upstream of the VPg was found to contain at least two domains, one of which could be easily aligned with the NTP-binding sequence pattern and another which may have the characteristics of a protease cofactor. Thus, the 253K protein possesses the same general genetic organization as the corresponding protein of other picorna-like viruses.


BACKGROUND
A recent laboratory study indicated that statins impaired the antitumor effects of rituximab by inducing conformational changes in CD20. Although these findings raised significant concerns about statin use during rituximab treatment, their clinical significance is unclear.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
We conducted a retrospective study investigating the effects of statins on the prognosis of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) treated with rituximab plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (RCHOP). Newly diagnosed DLBCL patients were analyzed (n = 256), including 35 patients taking statins.

RESULTS
The 3-year progression-free survival rates were 84% and 73% (P = 0.38), while the overall survival rates were 89% and 78% (P = 0.28) for those patients treated with and without statins, respectively. After adjusting for the International Prognostic Index and serum cholesterol level, statin use was not associated with prognosis.

CONCLUSIONS
These results indicate that statins do not influence the clinical prognosis of DLBCL treated with RCHOP. Further studies with larger numbers of patients are warranted to confirm the prognostic significance of statins for patients with DLBCL receiving rituximab-containing chemotherapy.


This paper presents design of a highly safe driving control system using different kinds of sensors and its evaluation in order to avoid the rear-end collision of the model vehicle. The feature of the control is that an appropriate combination of sensing information from different kinds of sensors is introduced to reduce the occurrence of multiple faults. It is shown in the results of analysis of numerical values that the reliability of the combination of different kinds of sensors is higher than that of the combination of the same kind of sensors. Moreover, the systematic design of the model vehicle is proposed, and it is also shown in the experiment that the rear-end collision avoidance can be achieved even if a fault occurs at any sensor.


Multi-hop infrastructure-based communication is expected to play a vital role in supporting high data-rate multimedia access to mobile devices. The advantages are significant in highly mobile scenarios such as intra-vehicular networks. However, mobile nodes in these networks suffer from long authentication delays, which adversely affect the goodput. In this work, we propose two techniques to shorten the initial authentication delay without compromising the authentication process and overall security. One of the techniques, called fast authentication, admits data traffic temporarily through the network to the gateway and the immediate parent node of the joining node presents network-side authentication. The other technique, called prefetch-assisted authentication, allows the authenticated wireless nodes to prefetch and store the authentication vectors of the potential mobile clients. We investigate several unique features of our proposed schemes and find their performance to be suitable for infrastructure-based multi-hop wireless communications.


This paper draws on the first, completed phase of a research project on inspection as governing in three European inspection systems. The data presented here draw attention to the rather under-researched associational activities of European inspectorates and their developing practices of policy learning and exchange, and highlight their significance as contributing to an emergent European Education Policy Space (EEPS). The paper is framed by original approaches to inspection that locate it as a set of governing practices, connected to changing governing forms and the growth of networks of relationships and flows of data across Europe. Comparisons are drawn between the relationships with Europe of inspectorates in Scotland, Sweden and England, drawing on Jacobsson's conceptualisation of regulative, inquisitive and meditative governance as a framing device.


Abstract Retention behavior of ionized and unionized forms of ten weak acid solutes was investigated in hybrid micellar systems with varying cetyltrimethylammonium bromide concentrations (CTAB), acetonitrile (ACN) content and mobile phase pH range from 2.5 to 7.5. It was shown that observed retention patterns are significantly affected by CTAB concentration, ACN volume fraction and analytes' ionization state. The rationale and quantitative description for observed retention behavior was obtained by fitting k values to retention model and calculation of binding constants for both ionized and unionized species. The importance of interaction between analyte anions and positively charged CTAB molecules adsorbed onto stationary phase surface was confirmed. For all solutes, except salicylic acid and furosemide, binding to stationary phase is reduced upon ACN volume fraction increase since the solvent partially desorbs the adsorbed surfactant. Also, the interactions of analytes with micelles are diminished with increase in ACN content because it promotes decrease in micelle aggregation number and its capacity for analyte binding. The additional analysis to identify and interpret molecular descriptors which can best explain the experimental evidence and findings obtained was performed. These findings could provide a new and specific understanding of the interactions between all the components of the hybrid micellar chromatographic system and a good basis for further investigations suggesting the development of generally applicable predictors in structure-retention relationship studies in related chromatographic systems. Graphical Abstract


The article deals with the results of analysis of physicians' information awareness about legal foundations of medical activities. The study included the sample of 918 medical workers (229 clinical interns and 689 physicians). To evaluate the readiness of medical stuff to inform the patients about their rights and duties during medical care provision and the implementation of these rights the indicator of relative number of right answers to the questions of test questionnaire was applied. This technique was used to measure the quality of legal background of medical workers. The inadequate average level of legal knowledge of physicians is revealed. It is demonstrated that the fullness of physicians' legal knowledge depends on labor experience, qualification and medical specialty. The need to revise the education programs on medical legal subject is substantiated. The necessity to record the test results at the physicians' certification is emphasized.


Children under 18 years represent 23 percent of the population, but they comprise 34 percent of all people in poverty.1 Among all children, 45 percent live in low-income families and approximately one in every five (22 percent) live in poor families. Young children under age 6 years appear to be particularly vulnerable, with 48 percent living in lowincome and 25 percent living in poor families. Being a child in a lowincome or poor family does not happen by chance. Parental education and employment, race/ethnicity, and other factors are associated with children's experience of economic insecurity. This fact sheet describes the demographic, socio-economic, and geographic characteristics of young children and their parents. It highlights important factors that appear to distinguish low-income and poor children in this age group from their less disadvantaged counterparts.


This article advances one of the most important debates in recent scholarship on democratic theory: the one on deliberative systems. In the wake of the systemic turn deliberative scholars agree that not all components of a deliberative system can or even need to be deliberative. However, there is little clarity about the role of non-deliberative politics in a system and to what extent these are justifiable while we seek a more deliberative society. In this paper I first illustrate the main ideas of the systemic turn, explore the distinction between 'deliberative' and 'non-deliberative' politics and investigate the main arguments justifying non-deliberative politics. Then, I build upon these arguments to shed new light on the relationship between deliberative and non-deliberative politics. I identify three distinctive actors in deliberative systems (political institutions, empowered agents, and public space actors). Finally, I argue that deliberative democrats should adopt three different approaches (intensive, moderate, and free) in order to assess whether the use of non-deliberative politics by each of these actors is legitimate.


Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a common joint disorder that affects balance, knee joint proprioception and gait. Many treatment approaches have been used to improve the conditions of people with this disease. Knee sleeves are often prescribed to alleviate pain. However, the biomechanics underlying their pain-relieving effect is still not well understood. This pre-post study is aimed at evaluating and comparing the effects of two different types of knee sleeves on gait biomechanics and postural stability of people with early knee OA, and to determine the relationship of these changes to patient-reported pain outcomes following a six-week application. Patients with clinically diagnosed knee OA were recruited from the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC), and were randomly assigned to two test groups comprising those using: 1) a simple sleeve, and 2) a simple sleeve with patella cutout. The walking motion and the ground reaction forces of participants were measured using Vicon Nexus motion analysis system (with five cameras) and two Kistler force plates, with sampling rates of 100Hz (kinematics) and 1,000Hz (kinetics), respectively for two walking speeds – controlled and self-selected. The postural stability was measured using Biodex Stability System (BSS) – with seven protocols – to obtain the Overall Stability Index (OSI): Postural Stability Test (PST), and Athlete Single Leg Test (ASL) – static and dynamic conditions – and Fall Risk Test (FRT). Pain, stiffness and physical functions were recorded using the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index (WOMAC). SPSS v22 was used for statistical analyses, with two-way repeated measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with mixed approaches were used to compare knee sleeve designs (between-subject effects) against all dependent variables (within-subject effect), with additional Bonferroni corrections for multiple tests and confidence interval. All measurements were made before, immediately after, and following six weeks of knee sleeve application (primary time point). Seventeen participants (aged 47.7±9.7 years) with early unilateral knee OA completed the study.
iii
Overall results show significant reduction in pain, early stance and late stance knee adduction moment, and increased walking speed after six weeks of sleeve application. However, there are no significant differences between the groups in all parameters at all points of measurements. The results indicate that there is improvement in overall stability index (OSI) but no significant changes are detected for static and dynamic PST for both types of sleeves immediately after application. For ASL, there is significant reduction in OSI in the affected knee in the static test (p=0.042), and in the unaffected knee in the dynamic test (p=0.034) in both groups. The findings show that early knee OA patients could experience improved balance ability in both static and dynamic conditions, and less pain after six weeks of knee sleeve application. This study results suggest that knee sleeves can reduce knee adduction moments in early unilateral knee OA by 14.0% and 12.1% using the simple sleeve and the sleeve with patella cutout, respectively, and possibly delay disease progression. Additionally, knee sleeve with patella cutout does not provide additional benefits when compared to the simple knee sleeve.


Abstract The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of different amounts of barley bran (0.3%, 0.6%, 0.9%, and 1.2%) on the viability of Lactobacillus acidophilus and the physicochemical and sensory properties of low‐fat yogurt during storage period (28 days). Results showed that L. acidophilus number and viscosity in samples containing barley bran was significantly higher than the control group (p < .05). High levels of barley bran (1.2%) decreased sensory prosperity scores and led to viscosity increment; although sensory prosperity scores of samples containing 0.6% barley bran did not show significant difference with control sample, while the number of L. acidophilus in this treatment was higher than minimal acceptable level (106 CFU/g). Therefore, level of 0.6% of barley bran is recommended for symbiotic yogurt production. According to the present study, a positive correlation was observed between barley bran concentrations in the yogurt with L. acidophilus number.


We use Reinforcement Meta-Learning to optimize an adaptive integrated guidance, navigation, and control system suitable for exoatmospheric interception of a maneuvering target. The system maps observations consisting of strapdown seeker angles and rate gyro measurements directly to thruster on-off commands. Using a high fidelity six degree-of-freedom simulator, we demonstrate that the optimized policy can adapt to parasitic effects including seeker angle measurement lag, thruster control lag, the parasitic attitude loop resulting from scale factor errors and Gaussian noise on angle and rotational velocity measurements, and a time varying center of mass caused by fuel consumption and slosh. Importantly, the optimized policy gives good performance over a wide range of challenging target maneuvers. Unlike previous work that enhances range observability by inducing line of sight oscillations, our system is optimized to use only measurements available from the seeker and rate gyros. Through extensive Monte Carlo simulation of randomized exoatmospheric interception scenarios, we demonstrate that the optimized policy gives performance close to that of augmented proportional navigation with perfect knowledge of the full engagement state. The optimized system is computationally efficient and requires minimal memory, and should be compatible with today's flight processors.


Athena is recognized as an allegory or representative of Athens in most Athenian public art except in tragedy. Perhaps this is because tragedy is rarely studied as a public art form or, perhaps, because her character is not static in tragedy. Although Athena's characterization changes to fit the needs of a particular drama, her clear connection with justice remains true throughout and suggests that she is always the representative of the city and its institutions. Athens, the city Athena protected, experienced a dramatic transformation in the fifth century: its political institutions, physical landscape, military power and international prestige underwent dynamic change. Athena, its goddess and its symbol, simultaneously transformed as well, although not always for the better. Athena's Justice follows the question of civic identity and ideology in Athenian tragedy, focusing specifically on the link between tragedy and its influence upon identity creation and promotion during the period when Athens was asserting itself as an imperial power. Through examination of tragedies in which Athena appears, this book traces the process by which Athens came to identify itself with its legal system, symbolized by Athena on stage, and then suffered the corruption of that system by the exercise of imperial power. Athena's Justice is essential reading not just for classicists and ancient historians, but for anyone interested in the interaction between art and politics and the process by which human beings in any period seek to shape their identity as a people.


Forty-eight PM2.5 samples were collected from June to August 2015 at the summit of Mount Tai. The samples were analyzed to determine the concentrations, potential sources and health risk of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs). Total OCPs concentration in PM2.5 ranged from 20.5 to 331 pg m–3. Hexachlorocyclohexane (HCHs) were the most abundant compounds. The sources of OCPs used potential source contribution function (PSCF), back trajectory analysis and principal component analysis suggested that the southwest agricultural areas and southeast regions of Mount Tai were the significant contributions regions of OCPs. Both old residual and new input were considered to the contribution of OCPs contamination. Human health risk assessment was carried out by non-carcinogenic health hazard quotient (HQ). The HQ values through inhalation and dermal contact ranged from 9.28 × 10–12 to 6.56 × 10–3, indicating a negligible risk of the study area.


It has been shown that hypoxia (5% 02) and fibroblast growth factor bFGF reduce the doubling time of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells under their cultivation in vitro that indicates an increase in cell culture proliferation. It has been found out that low concentrations of O2 and factor bFGF added to the cell culture medium increase an expression of abcg2 gene and its gene protein, ABCG2 transport gene, in mesenchymal stem cells. These events potentiate the effects of hypoxia observed in mesenchymal stem cells. We revealed that blocking of ABCG2 protein functional activity led to increased generation of reactive oxygen species in mesenchymal stem cells. The effect of hypoxia and/or bFGF on protein profile of mesenchymal stem cells was studied. The results represented in this work together with previous data proved a link between ABCG2 protein expression, its activity and maintenance of viability and proliferative activity of mesenchymal stem cells cultivated under hypoxia. ABCG2 acts as protector.


Managing postoperative pain in rodents is an important part of any animal care and use program, and identifying an optimal analgesic plan for a surgical procedure is critical to providing for animal welfare. Opioids and NSAID are commonly used in rodents, but few studies have evaluated their efficacy in surgical models. The current study aimed to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of clinically relevant doses of buprenorphine (2 formulations) or meloxicam used in combination with ketamine and xylazine anesthesia in a Sprague-Dawley rat ovariohysterectomy surgical model. Rats received either subcutaneous saline once daily for 3 d, low-dose (0.05 mg/kg SC) or high-dose (0.1 mg/kg SC) buprenorphine twice daily for 3 d, a single injection of sustained-release buprenorphine (1.2 mg/kg SC), or low-dose (1 mg/kg SC) or high-dose (2 mg/kg SC) meloxicam once daily for 3 d. Clinical analgesic efficacy was assessed over 8 d according to cageside observation scoring, body weight, and behavioral testing. Ovariohysterectomy was associated with 2 d of postoperative pain, and all 3 buprenorphine dosing strategies and both doses of meloxicam demonstrated varying amounts of analgesia. Given the results of the current study, we recommend 0.05 mg/kg SC buprenorphine at least twice daily or a single dose of 1.2 mg/kg SC of sustained-release buprenorphine for rats undergoing midline laparotomy with ovariohysterectomy. Alternatively, meloxicam at 1 to 2 mg/kg SC once daily could be used for this indication.


The term STUMP (smooth muscle tumor of uncertain malignant potential) is used to describe a uterine smooth muscle tumor in which the histologic features leave some uncertainty as to the tumor's biologic potential. Histologic features that might prompt putting a tumor into this category include a high mitotic rate, atypical mitotic figures, tumor cell necrosis, and nuclear atypia. Although each of these is typically evaluated separately, they must be assessed as a group to establish the most appropriate diagnosis. The term STUMP is only used as a diagnostic category when the findings are equivocal and it is not possible to place a tumor into one of the defined diagnostic categories. Examples where this might be necessary include tumors with a very high mitotic rate (>20 mitotic figures/10 high-power field), tumors where the type of necrosis is questionable, or tumors with significant nuclear atypia where there are atypical mitotic figures or the mitotic rate is elevated but not to the level held to be diagnostic of leiomyosarcoma. In some cases, diffuse strong staining for p16 can support placing a smooth muscle into the STUMP category. Most tumors categorized as STUMPs have a benign clinical evolution, but occasional STUMPs recur or metastasize.


This article visits the history of Brazil-Sweden's partnership in botany and the contribution of Anders Fredrik Regnell and other botanical collectors to the knowledge of Brazilian flora. The importance of the herbarium of Stockholm (S) is widely recognized for its collections of Brazilian plants, one of the largest in the world. The majority of the collections from Brazil date from the period between the second half of nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. The main collectors of Brazilian flora from that phase, whose bulk of collections are in Stockholm are Anders Regnell, Gustaf Malme, Per Dusen, Carl Lindman and many others sponsored by the Regnellian fund. The herbarium also houses substantial collections of August Glaziou, a great contributor to the knowledge of the flora of state of Goias, and Adolf Ducke, pioneer in the taxonomy of Amazonian tree species. The cooperation between Brazil and Sweden is currently being renewed through Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden and the Reflora Program, allowing repatriation of Brazilian specimens housed in Stockholm.


ABSTRACT In the Katavi-Rukwa ecosystem of western Tanzania, aerial censuses carried out between 1988 and 2002 show that populations of several large ungulate species had declined. Five competing factors that could be responsible for these changes were investigated. (i) Rainfall increased slightly over 25 years and (ii) no obvious outbreaks of disease were witnessed, suggesting that populations are not suffering food shortages or disease. (iii) Large predators live at low densities and are not increasing, and estimates suggest that that predation is unlikely to impact larger prey species. (iv) Some assessments of illegal hunting indicate little influence on herbivore populations but one measure points to giraffe, hippopotamus, warthog and perhaps other species being adversely affected. (v) Tourist hunting quotas of lions and greater kudu in hunting blocks appear high and there are indications that both may be declining. Preliminary data, approximate calculations and elimination of hypotheses point to anthropogenic factors being partly responsible for changes in this ecosystem and constructive recommendations are made to alter these. More generally, this study highlights the importance of monitoring in conjunction with collecting diverse data when trying to stop population declines before they become too serious.


Speech rhythm varies noticeably from language to language, and within the same language as a function of numerous linguistic, prosodic and speaker-dependent factors, among which is the speaker's age. Cross-sectional studies comparing the acoustic characteristics of young and old voices have documented that healthy aging affects speech rhythm variability. This kind of studies, however, presents one fundamental limitation: They group together people with different life experiences, healthy conditions and aging rate. This makes it very difficult to disentangle the effect of aging from that of other factors when interpreting the rhythmic differences between younger and older adults. In the present paper, we overcame such difficulty by tracing rhythmic variability within one single individual longitudinally. We examined 5 public talks held by Noam Chomsky, from when he was 40 to when he was 89. Within-speaker rhythmic variability was quantified through a variety of rate measures (segment/consonant and vowel rate) and rhythmic metrics (%V, %Vn, nPVI-V, n-PVI-C). The results showed that physiological aging affected speech rate measures, but not the durational characteristics of vocalic and consonantal intervals. More longitudinal data from numerous speakers of the same language are necessary to identify generalizable patterns in age-related rhythmic variability.


This paper presents the first study in a series of proxemics experiments concerned with the role of personal spatial zones in human-robot interaction. In the study 40 participants approached a NAO robot positioned approximately at participants' eye level and entered different social zones around the robot (personal and intimate space). When the robot perceived the approaching person entering its personal space, it started gazing at the participant, and upon the intrusion of its intimate space it leaned back. Our research questions were: (1) given the small size of the robot (58 cm tall), will people expect its social zones to shrink by its size? (2) Will the robot behaviors be interpreted as appropriate social behaviors? We found that the average approach distance of the participants was 48 cm, which represents the inner limit of the human-size personal zone (45-120 cm), but is outside of the personal zone scaled to robot size (16-42 cm). This suggests that most participants did not (fully) scale down the extent of these zones to the robot size. We also found that the leaning back behavior of the robot was correctly interpreted by most participants as the robot's reaction to the intrusion of its personal space; however, our implementation of the behavior was often perceived as "unfriendly". We will discuss this and other limitations of the study in detail. Additionally we found positive correlations between participants' personality traits, Godspeed Questionnaire subscales, and the average approach distance. The technical contribution of this work is the real-time perception of 25 keypoints on the human body using a single compact RGB-D camera and the use of these points for accurate interpersonal distance estimation and as gazing targets for the robot.


This book presents an experiment conducted with first year students learning English as a foreign language at the University of Khenchela. It illustrates the positive effects, the exposure to authentic materials, could have on learners performance in writing.This book offers a detailed study including the different stages of the experiment. It describes the different authentic materials used in this study and the planned activities. The experiment compares the scores of a control and an experimental group.At the end, we compared the results of the pre and the post-test of both groups. The interpretation of the results showed the positive effect the use of the authentic materials had on learners achievement in writing. Authentic materials such as films, songs and newspapers in English triggered students' motivation and helped them in improving their writing.


An electronic organ, particularly of the institutional type employing classical voicing, having Swell and Great manuals as well as a full pedalboard wherein the manuals and pedalboard are multiplexed simultaneously to produce a plurality of synchronized serial data streams. Intermanual coupling is accomplished by connecting the data stream from one manual to the footage generation circuit of another manual, and tab footages are generated for each manual by utilizing tapped shift registers introducing controlled amounts of delay of the keyboard data before demultiplexing thereof. There is a bank of demultiplexer-keyers for each voice, such as flutes, principals, complex and percussion, which receive the serial data streams from one or more of the footage generators. The demultiplexer-keyers are supplied with tones and function to demultiplex the serial data streams and provide tones selected in accordance with the keydown pulses in the serial data streams to the voicing circuitry. Transposition is accomplished by transposing the demultiplex latch command ahead or behind in time so that the data stream is latched either early or late by one or more time slots depending on the amount of transposition selected. An automatic bass feature permits monophonic bass notes to be played without having to play the pedals, and this is accomplished by coupling into the pedal data stream the lowest data bit originating from the Great manual. Because the footages are generated by selectively delaying the data streams, each manual is scanned twice and the data is gated off on alternate scans to permit the data streams to be supplemented with the lower frequency footage data.


Original title: "Kwetsbaar en eenzaam?"

Loneliness is regarded as an issue in an ageing society. It seems to be a persistent problem, and one to which there are no simple solutions. In order to combat loneliness in society, we first need to understand this complex phenomenon better. Is loneliness associated with old age, for example? Are those with support needs more susceptible to feelings of loneliness? Does having a wide circle of friends help protect people against loneliness? Does loneliness make people unhappy?

This study provides an insight into trends relating to loneliness in society as a whole, and in the course of an individual's life. It focuses particularly on the cases of three vulnerable groups: older persons, nursing home residents and people who receive support under the Wmo (Social Support Act). The study also explores the underlying factors that, in combination, can exacerbate feelings of loneliness.


Historians not only have knowledge of history, but by writing about it and engaging with other historians from the past and present, they make history themselves. This companion offers young historians clear guidelines for the different phases of historical research; how do you get a good historical question? How do you engage with the literature? How do you work with sources from the past, from archives to imagery and objects, art, or landscapes? What is the influence of digitalisation of the historical craft? Broad in scope, Writing History! also addresses historians' traditional support of policy makers and their activity in fields of public history, such as museums, the media, and the leisure sector, and offers support for developing the necessary skills for this wide range of professions.


Acute administration of the anticonvulsant drug, phenytoin (PHT) has been shown to result in embryotoxicity and teratogenicity in several strains of mice. The A/J strain is reported to be most susceptible to the effects of the drug including an increased incidence of resorptions and orofacial clefts in treated animals. When administered chronically, the drug has been shown to be teratogenic in the absence of maternal toxicity and embryolethality in Swiss Webster mice [Hansen and Billings, 1985]. In this paper, we have compared the embryopathic effects of chronic and acute administrations of PHT to A/J mice. PHT was administered to pregnant females by intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection on day 10 of gestation at a dose of either 60 or 75 mg/kg body weight. Alternatively, PHT was added to ground chow and fed to animals prior to and throughout gestation; animals received a daily dose of either 60 or 75 mg/kg body weight. Pregnant animals were sacrificed on day 18 or 19 of gestation, and fetuses were examined for the presence of orofacial clefts and other anomalies. There was a significant increase in the frequency of cleft lip and palate in animals receiving the drug by i.p. administration, but there was no increase in the incidence of clefts if the drug were added to the diet. The results of this study reiterate the importance of the route of administration of a drug in determining its embryopathic effect.


: Weanling Thoroughbred horses were fed diets providing 70%, 100%, or 130% of their daily energy and protein requirements for eight months. Biopsy specimens of growth plate cartilage were taken from the distal right radius at this time. Tissues from both overfed and underfed horses exhibited significantly decreased protein, hydroxyproline and hexosamine contents (on a dry tissue weight basis), increased DNA content and decreased LDH activity, compared to tissues taken from the animals fed 100% of their daily requirements. Growth plate thickness was proportional to diet level. The reserve and hypertrophic zones were enlarged in the overfed horses. The hypertrophic cartilage from the overfed horses lost the usual columnar organization of lacunae and remained unpenetrated by metaphyseal capillaries. Longitudinal growth rates of the upper forelegs were reduced by under-nutrition and were unaffected by overfeeding. The similarities between the lesions accompanying chronic overfeeding and those of equine hypothyroidism suggest endocrine involvement linking dietary excess to developmental osteochondrosis.


Summary The effect of dietary lactobacilli on in-vitro deaminative and decarboxylative activities of the small-intestinal microflora has been studied in pigs in relation to weaning. Pigs were weaned abruptly at 21 days of age on to a diet of sterile milk or milk incubated with lactobacilli, and measurements of catabolic activity were made on small-intestinal digesta with and without supplementation with l-arginine, l-histidine, l-lysine and l-ornithine. An increase in decarboxylative and deaminative activities was observed within 48 hr after weaning in animals fed on both diets. Decarboxylative activity was highest, and deaminative activity lowest, in digesta from pigs fed on milk without lactobacilli. During a later period, when diarrhoea was observed, there was a second peak of decarboxylative activity in the digesta of animals fed on both diets; but deaminative activity increased only in animals receiving dietary lactobacilli. Continuous administration of dietary lactobacilli failed to induce any consistent changes in the small-intestinal microflora.


We describe a practical implementation of a semi-deterministic photon gun based on the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage pumping and the nonlinear tuning of the photonic density of states in a photonic band-gap material. We show that this device allows deterministic and unidirectional production of single photons with a high repetition rate of the order of 100 kHz. We also discuss specific 3D photonic microstructure architectures in which our model can be realized and the feasibility of implementing such a device using Er3+ ions that produce single photons at the telecommunication wavelength of 1.55 microns


Mediastinal anastomotic leaks are still catastrophic events following surgical procedures and are still a therapeutic challenge. A variety of conservative and surgical procedures have been proposed for the management of this conditions. An aggressive surgical approach is associated with considerable morbidity and lethality. A conservative approach is indicated only in a few selected patients with minimal anastomotic leaks. With advances in minimally invasive techniques, interventional endoscopic procedures have become an established therapeutic approach in the treatment of anastomotic insufficiencies. Our case report demonstrates that transesophageal placement of a selfexpandable metal stent in combination with interventional drainage of the paraesophageal space is a safe and effective procedure in the management of a mediastinal anastomotic leaks.


Antiplatelet therapy, mainly consisting of aspirin and P2Y12 receptor antagonists, is the cornerstone of the pharmacological treatment and prevention of atherothrombotic diseases. Its use, especially in secondary cardiovascular prevention, has significantly improved patient clinical outcomes in the last decades. Primary safety endpoint (i.e., bleeding complications) remain a major drawback of antiplatelet drugs. National and international societies have published and regularly updated guidelines for antiplatelet therapy aiming to provide clinicians with practical recommendations for a better handling of these drugs in various clinical settings. Many recommendations find common ground between international guidelines, but certain strategies vary across the countries, particularly with regard to the choice of molecules, dosage, and treatment duration. In this review, we detail and discuss the main antiplatelet therapy indications in the light of the different published guidelines and the significant number of recently published clinical trials and meta-analyses and highlight the areas that deserve further investigation in order to improve antiplatelet therapy in patients with atherothrombotic diseases.


The following k-way graph partitioning (GP) problem is considered: given an undirected weighted graph G(V,E), partition the nodes of G into k parts of almost equal size such that the partition-cost (sum of the weights on edges with nodes in different parts) is minimized. Two simple and fast algorithms are proposed, namely, direct algorithm AUCTION and iterative algorithm GREEDYCYCLE. In algorithm AUCTION, the idea of using auction and biddings is introduced using the master-workers paradigm. Algorithm GREEDYCYCLE is a greedy algorithm where the idea of cyclic node passing among parts during the iterative improvement stage is introduced. Cyclic node passing is a k-way generalization of the 2-way node exchange found in the Kernighan-Lin (1970) approach. Experimental results show that, as compared to the existing algorithms, these algorithms are extremely fast, and they produce solutions of reasonable quality.


Two forms of Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD) have been identified in Schistosoma mansoni, signal peptide-containing SOD (SP-SOD, Simurda et al., 1988, Exp. Parasitol. 67, 73-84) and cytosolic SOD (CT-SOD, Hong et al., 1992, Exp. Parasitol. 75, 308-322). The SP-SOD gene has been previously characterized. We report the isolation and characterization of the gene encoding CT-SOD. A cDNA clone of CT-SOD was radiolabeled and used to screen an EMBL3 genomic library. Of 100,000 plaques, 1 hybridizing phage contained an insert of 14.6 kb. The CT-SOD gene spans 8.5 kb of chromosomal DNA and possesses three exons (150, 285, and 234 bp, respectively) and two introns (4.9 and 2.7 kb, respectively) which interrupt the coding region. Separate copies of the gene as determined by restriction fragment patterns on Southern blots are found on two YAC clones. Using YAC clones that contain the CT-SOD gene, fluorescence in situ hybridization on chromosomes identified a copy of the gene located on the middle region of chromosome 1 and another copy localized to the middle region of the long arm of chromosome 3. Primer extension and nuclease protection assay performed on total RNA define the transcription initiation site and allow the identification of potential cis-acting sequences, such as a CAAT box and a hexanucleotide GCCCGG. Comparison of this gene with Cu/Zn SOD genes from Drosophila, humans, and mice identifies conserved exons that represent functional domains in the SOD protein.


: External quality assessment schemes (EQAS) for trace elements in body fluids are organized in The Netherlands by the SKZL (Foundation for Quality Assessment in Clinical Laboratories). Medical laboratories participate on a voluntary base. The EQAS is designed to evaluate laboratory performance in terms of accuracy, precision and linearity. Laboratory-made frozen samples of whole blood, serum and urine, enriched with the elements of interest, i.e. Tl, Cd, Co, Hg, Se, Pb, Mg, Li, Al, Cu, Zn and As, are used. The present state of art shows an acceptable mean recovery, intra-laboratory variation and linearity. Interlaboratory variation, comparability of reference ranges and criteria of interpretation used in different laboratories are less satisfying and require improvement.


According to the NGO theory, the main comparative advantage of these organizations is the high level of trust, provided primarily by the peculiarities of corporate governance and information openness. In Russia, these features of NGOs are still relatively weak, but they are gradually being mastered by the non-profit sector. Based on the data of an all-Russian representative survey of 1001 NGOs, using the exogenous differences in the requirements of the legislation for the organization of corporate governance in different legal forms of NGOs, it is shown that if an NGO at the time of creation has a board of trustees and/or a supervisory board, then it has a statically significant positive effect on the information openness. This result seems to be important in the context of the development of the non-profit sector in Russia.


A fit and healthy 26-year-old woman presented to the general surgical team with epigastric pain and weight loss of 2 stones over 6 months. She has also a positive family history of ulcerative colitis. As her oesophagogastroduodenoscopy and colonoscopy were normal, a contrasted CT was requested, and it detected an inflammatory mass with fat streaking around her transverse colon. An intrauterine contraceptive device (IUCD) was noted. In light of the CT findings, she underwent a diagnostic laparoscopy. As the inflammatory mass was not separable from the transverse colon, a segmental transverse colectomy was proceeded. The histology revealed multiple actinomycosis abscesses in the mesentery. Subsequently, we learnt that her IUCD had been in situ for the last 7 years, and the source of actinomycosis abscesses is likely from her IUCD. The patient was recommended to have the coil removed and commenced on a 6 months course of amoxicillin.


We exploit a high-stakes quasi-field setting to estimate attitudes towards both risk and strategic ambiguity. Participants make a sequence of binary choices, either between a sure thing and a risky alternative, or between a sure thing and an alternative that is contingent on the unobserved strategies of rivals. Payoffs range up to 250 000 Swiss Francs. Our econometric model allows for both stochastic choice and preference heterogeneity across contestants. We consider several models of ambiguity attitudes. We find substantial ambiguity aversion and moderate risk aversion; ambiguity attitudes are best captured by the Klibanoff et al. (2005) smooth ambiguity model; and heterogeneity is important at the decision and participant level.


Purpose. To reveal the peculiarities of geo-ecological status of the lake-basin system (LBS) of Ozerianske lake for the needs of a balanced nature management.

Methods.The research is based on methods of field instrumental landscape-geochemical searches using modern geoinformation technologies and laboratory-analytical diagnostics of soil, water and lake sediments.

Results. The current state of economic development of the catchment of Ozerianske lake has been clarified. The results of the research of the hydrochemical composition of lake water have been presented. The results of the experiments with the determination of the content and features of radial, lateral migration of mobile forms of biogenic elements (N, P2O5, K2O) and heavy metals (Co, Pb, Cd, Cu, Zn, Mn) on a landscape soil geochemical microcatena within the catchment area of a lake have been analyzed. A slight excess of MPC in the content of Mn and Cd in the soils of the microcatena has been fixed. The feature of lateral migration of biogenic elements is the increase of their concentration from the eluvial to the superequal facies of the geochemical microcatena, and the radial feature is the decrease of their content with the depth of the soil profile. Moving forms of heavy metals (Co, Pb, Cd, Cu, Mn) are characterized by radial migration - increasing their content with the depth of the soil profile in the horizon (20-40 cm), and further towards the parent rock, their concentration mainly decreases.

Conclusions. It was established that the catchment area of Ozerianske lake refers to the anthropogenic-natural (IV) type and has unsatisfying geo-ecological status. In order to improve the geo-ecological status of the catchment area, it is advisable to gradually increase the area of ecostabilizing lands (meadows, forests, forage areas); to control the application of mineral fertilizers and pesticide use, and to prohibit the plowing of land by a 50-100-meter coastal protective strip around the lake.


This paper discusses the design, modeling, and development of small motorcycle equipped with a HCCI engine in an series hybrid configuration. A mathematical model was developed using MATLAB/Simulink and used to size the powertrain components and to predict fuel economy. A conventional 125 cc spark ignition engine was modified to run in HCCI combustion mode and integrated into a prototype vehicle. Dual-fuel and external EGR strategies were used to upgrade the engine speed and torque capabilities of the engine to meet the requirements of the powertrain. An electrical generator, hub-motor, battery pack and other power electronics devices were used to form the electrical system for the vehicle. The advantages of the proposed design compared to the original motorcycle with SI engine and CVT transmission are: 1) a reduction in noxious emissions due to the HCCI combustion, and 2) higher fuel economy in city driving because of the HCCI engine and series hybrid powertrain. Fuel economy was measured by driving the motorcycle on a chassis dynamometer using a sequence of ECE-40 driving cycles. The overall fuel economy was measured to be 73.7km/L which represents a 139.3% increase in fuel economy over the baseline vehicle.


SimYard is a stochastic shipyard simulation tool designed to evaluate the labor costs of executing different schedule s in a shipyard production environment. SimYard simulates common production problems such as task delays and labor shortages. A simulated floor manager reacts to problems as they arise. Repeatedly simulating multiple schedules allows the user to compare the schedules on many different metrics, such as expected labor costs and the probability of missing the deadline. A SimYard simulation is driven by many inputs that describe the shipyard being simulated. Determining the correct values for these inputs can be frame d as a multivariate calibration problem, which can be solved using inverse regression methods. Predictive sampling fro m the resulting model provides an appropriate adjustment for statistical uncertainty.


. Wind farm power production is known to be significantly affected by turbine wakes. When mesoscale numerical models are used to predict power production, the turbine wakes cannot be resolved directly because they are sub-grid features and therefore their effects need to be parameterized. Here we propose a new wind farm parameterization that is based on the Jensen model, a well-known analytical wake model that predicts the expansion and wind speed of an ideal wake. The Jensen parameterization is implemented and inserted into two commonly-used atmospheric numerical models: the Weather Research 5 and Forecasting (WRF) model and the Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS). In addition, the internal variability in wind speed and direction within a wind farm, the wind direction uncertainty, and the superposition of multiple wakes are taken into account with an innovative approach. The proposed approach and parameterization are tested against observational data at two offshore wind farms: Lillgrund (small in size and tightly spaced) and Anholt (large and widely spaced). Results indicate that power production is predicted more accurately with the Jensen than with the Fitch wind farm parameterization, which is the 10 only one available in the WRF model. Power predictions with the Jensen parameterization are similar in WRF and MPAS. The sensitivity to grid resolution is small and the bias is generally low and negative. In conclusion, we recommend that the Jensen wind farm parameterization be used in the WRF and MPAS models, especially for coarse resolution, high turbine density, and wind directions aligned with the turbine columns.


Frontal cephalometric radiography (frontal ceph) is one of the important diagnostic methods in orthodontics and maxillofacial surgery. It allows one to determine occlusion anomalies in the transverse and vertical planes and to evaluate the symmetry of the facial skeleton relative to the median plane, including analysis of the position of the jawbone.

AIM
The aim of this study was to develop an artificial neural network (ANN) for placing cephalometric points (CPs) on frontal cephs and to compare the accuracy of its performance against humans.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study included 330 depersonalized frontal cephs: 300 cephs for training ANNs and 30 for research. Each image was imported into the ViSurgery software (Skolkovo, Russia) and the 45 CPs were arranged. The CPs were divided into three groups: 1) precise anatomical landmarks; 2) complex anatomical landmarks; and 3) indistinct anatomical landmarks. Two ANNs were used to improve the accuracy of CP placement. The first ANN solved the problem of multiclass image segmentation, and the second regression ANN was used to correct the predictions of the first ANN. The accuracy of CP placement was compared between the ANN and three groups of doctors: expert, regular, and inexperienced. Then, using the Wilcoxon t test, the hypothesis that an ANN makes fewer or as many errors as doctors in the three groups of points was tested.

RESULTS
The deviation was estimated by the mean absolute error (MAE). The MAE for the points placed by the ANN, as compared with the control, was close to the average result for the regular doctor group: 2.87 mm (ANN) and 2.85 mm (regular group); 2.47 mm (expert group), and 3.61 mm (inexperienced group). The results for individual groups of points are presented. On average, the ANN places CPs no less accurately than the regular doctor group in each group of points. However, calculating all points in total, this hypothesis was rejected because the P value was 0.0056. A different result was observed among the inexperienced doctor group. Points from groups 2 and 3, as well as all points in total, were placed more accurately by the ANN (P = 0.9998, 0.2628, and 0.9982, respectively). The exception was group 1, where the points were more accurately placed by the inexperienced doctors (P = 0.0006).

CONCLUSION
The results of the present study show that ANNs can achieve accuracy comparable to humans in placing CPs, and in some cases surpass the accuracy of inexperienced doctors (students, residents, graduate students).


Background: The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been the cause of more than 13,350 deaths in Canada. As a result, nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been adopted by government officials to mitigate dissemination of the disease. Quantifying NPI effectiveness is challenging due to variability in their implementation between geographic regions. Mobility data can help understand the role of NPIs in reducing COVID-19 cases.Methods: The data used in this analysis consists of individual level time-series of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases in six Canadian provinces, population mobility trends and timing and level of NPI implementation. The Granger causality test was used to assess bi-directional predictive causality between NPIs, mobility and COVID-19 daily cases per 100 000 population. Findings: Using data from February 15th to December 28th 2020, we found that implementations of NPI and daily COVID-19 cases causally influence population mobility in all provinces. The relationship between daily cases and NPIs remains unclear.Conclusion: This study showed that in six Canadian provinces, NPIs and daily cases contributed to minimizing population mobility, but suggested that NPIs may have to be implemented and enforced more promptly to significantly influence the incidence of COVID-19 cases.Funding: There are no funding sources to disclose.Declaration of Interests: None to declare


Currently, generation prices of hydropower plants are determined by government in china. Normally government applies so-called "operation period price" and "benchmark price" to calculate the generation price. Both the two methods have their advantages and disadvantages, the former one is propitious to attract investment to hydropower plants but easily lead to uneconomical invest; while the latter one is benefit to control the construction cost but go against encouraging the investment to the hydropower plants with storage. Due to the generation price will still be controlled by government in the near future, it is important for the government to find a more reasonable way to determine generation price to guide the fast development of hydropower plants. This paper proposes a new pricing mechanism of hydropower plants called "cap operation period price" which combines the advantages of "operation period price" and "benchmark price". With the proposed mechanism, it both benefits to encourage the development of the hydropower plants and avoids inefficient investment. The key to realize "cap operation period price" is to set reasonable cap prices for each type hydropower plants, which should be based on their market values. This paper creatively put forward a method which applies long term marginal cost pricing theory to evaluate the market values of hydropower plants. Besides, this paper illustrates the theoretic basis of the "cap operation period price" mechanism, establishes models for it, and applies it to a real system.


In this project we have created our own AI assistant as 'Savvy' Voice Command System as an Intelligent Personal Assistant (IPA) that can perform numerous tasks or services for an individual. These tasks or services are based on user input, location awareness, and the ability to access information from a variety of online sources (such as weather or traffic conditions, news, stock prices, user schedules, retail prices, telling time, local traffic, travel assistant, events, notification from social applications plus one can ask questions to the system, invoke its wolframalpha cloud otherwise from Wikipedia. The key difference between google assistant and our assistant is that our assistant has capability to solve mathematical question on screen within a second that's of google assistant can't do that computation. Using Raspberry Pi as a main hardware to implement this model which works on the primary input of a user's voice. Using voice as an input to convert into text using a speech to text engine. It can control the home appliance like light, fan, TV, AC etc through voice command given through Savvy AI assistant which reduces human efforts by controlling the appliances from the place we are in. Make a simple home into SMART Home using different sensors connected using IoT. It also provides IoT based security using a trained camera with ML model and also using some other sensors like IR etc. We also created a website additionally from this site also user can control home appliances from any part of the world. keywords Savvy, AI, Assistant, Raspberry pi, Python, Sensors, IoT, Smart Home, Security _____________________________________________________________________________________________________


The compound strontium-doped manganite lanthanum (La0,85Sr0,15MnO3 - LSM), deposited in the form of thin films in yttria-stabilized zirconia substrate (Y2O3/ZrO2 - YSZ), is of basic importance as cathodic material of the solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). In this work, the LSM was synthesized by the citrate technique and characterized by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), phase analysis light scattering granulometry (PALS), X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). In the wet powder spraying, was used an airbrush and the LSM sample deposited to the YSZ substrate was sintered and characterized by SEM. The conclusions had allowed to establish preliminary conditions for preparation of LSM suspensions by wet powder spraying.


This research aims (1) to risk-modify the functional forms applied to estimate technical efficiency in European banking,
and (2) to evaluate the sensitivity of estimates to risk and to functional forms' specification.
This research methodology applies the Fourier Flexible functional forms to derive estimates using accounting data from the Bankscope database. For efficiency analysis, profit and cost frontiers are estimated using the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) in a single-stage estimation approach where the inefficiency term is specified under the time-flexible
Battese & Coelli (1995) model.
The past studies tend to overlook a number of significant banking risks, or restrict the estimated functional form, or do both. This research demonstrates that it is paramount to comprehensively accounting for risk in the analysis of efficiency to obtain accurate estimates, and that estimates are very sensitive to the specification of the underlying functional form.
The main limitation to this research related to data availability: data covers 10-year period (2008 – 2018) with 541 only observations. Moreover, risk factors could have been measured using more advanced methodologies (e.g. Merton Approach for measuring the probability of default) which paves the way for further research.
The findings result show that unless risk is adequately accounted for, efficiency estimates tend to be misleading or even erroneous. Findings indicate that European banks can enhance their cost efficiency: (1) by being better capitalized, and (2) by better managing the exposure to trading risk. On the other hand, European banks can enhance their profit efficiency mainly by: (1) maintaining high quality loan portfolios, (2) focusing on interest-based income, (3) relying more on customer deposits as a main source of funding and (4) better managing trading risk exposure to enhance the risk-return payoff. Moreover, results suggest that there is more profit inefficiency than cost inefficiency in European banking overall.


The use of drugs to enhance performance in sport will not go away. Athletes seek every competitive advantage and the rewards of success at top level are great, both financially and in personal glory. Almost all top level competitors are full time and, even if not paid, are to all purposes professional. There is huge pressure to train longer and harder and to take a scientific approach to nutrition and fluid and electrolyte balance, to seek every biomechanical and psychological advantage. It is almost inevitable that some will seek an advantage through drugs. Though there may be little clear objective scientific evidence of a benefit to be gained from drug use, what evidence there is supports the widespread belief among athletes that drugs help. Indeed, many believe that it is impossible to succeed without drugs. Though an athlete's motivation in taking drugs is understandable, we cannot condone it. Firstly, it can be dangerous to the athlete's health and, secondly, it is against all principles of fair competition.

A systematic search of the literature is unlikely to tell the complete story in any review of drug abuse in sport. Doping in sport is essentially an underground activity with little formal published research in a topic which should not officially exist. Much of what is common knowledge is cloaked in rumour, suspicion, and suggestion, and the strategies adopted by athletes seem to be founded more on empiricism than published scientific data.

The information presented in this review has been identified from several sources. A Medline search from 1966 to 1996 identified 620 references to the term "doping in sports." With the search restricted to humans (504) and to publications in English there were 389 references. Those references were subclassified into publications identifying side effects, prevalence, methods of detection, and a fourth group …


We present a new explainable AI (XAI) framework aimed at increasing justified human trust and reliance in the AI machine through explanations. We pose explanation as an iterative communication process, i.e. dialog, between the machine and human user. More concretely, the machine generates sequence of explanations in a dialog which takes into account three important aspects at each dialog turn: (a) human's intention (or curiosity); (b) human's understanding of the machine; and (c) machine's understanding of the human user. To do this, we use Theory of Mind (ToM) which helps us in explicitly modeling human's intention, machine's mind as inferred by the human as well as human's mind as inferred by the machine. In other words, these explicit mental representations in ToM are incorporated to learn an optimal explanation policy that takes into account human's perception and beliefs. Furthermore, we also show that ToM facilitates in quantitatively measuring justified human trust in the machine by comparing all the three mental representations.
We applied our framework to three visual recognition tasks, namely, image classification, action recognition, and human body pose estimation. We argue that our ToM based explanations are practical and more natural for both expert and non-expert users to understand the internal workings of complex machine learning models. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to derive explanations using ToM. Extensive human study experiments verify our hypotheses, showing that the proposed explanations significantly outperform the state-of-the-art XAI methods in terms of all the standard quantitative and qualitative XAI evaluation metrics including human trust, reliance, and explanation satisfaction.


Irish prisoners are the second most represented foreign national group in the prison system in England and Wales, and while no precise statistics are available, it is estimated that Irish Travellers make up a considerable percentage of the prisoners who identify as Irish. It has been said that Irish Travellers suffer from unequal hardship in prison and this has been linked with racism and discrimination from prison staff and other prisoners. This paper draws on a series of semi-structured interviews undertaken with ex-prisoners from Traveller and non-Traveller backgrounds (n = 37) as part of the author's doctoral research. It considers more specifically the experiences of those who identified as being Irish Travellers (n = 8), with participants regularly reporting name calling, bullying and racism by both prisoners and prison staff. The paper also reflects on a perceived lack of Traveller engagement with education in the prison system and argues that a lack of literacy has resulted in Irish Travellers being in a prison within a prison.


IA is the Government of British Columbia's largest income assistance program, with an annual cost of just over $2B and reaching more than 8% of households. It is a program that is very complex to access and has complex eligibility rules and design features. It is also associated with a large amount of stigma and does not foster the financial stability and financial security of its clients. IA is also a poor tool to support those who engage in vital unpaid work (e.g., child care; caregiving for ill, disabled, or elderly family members; volunteering), not only because of the stigma associated with the program but also because the benefit levels are inadequate. The purpose of this paper is to put the IA program through the lens of BI principles to recommend reforms that would move IA closer to BI principles and away from being a "funder of last resort." Taken together, reforms based on BI principles should make IA a more inclusive program that recognizes the worth of all people. These reforms will also help reduce income poverty rates and poverty depths, preventing poverty, and help those caught in or about to be caught in a poverty trap.


Coleridge's Shakespearean criticism is mostly composed of fragments-sometimes in the form of lectures, sometimes as notes, and sometimes scribbled on the blank leaves of pamphlets. In his lectures from 1808 to 1819 on literature, Coleridge seldom adhered to the prospectus. In many cases they ended up as fragments. Critics are divided between those who insist that Coleridge's criticism is distinguished by the consistency of its principles and methodology and those who insist on its fragmentariness. The purpose of the thesis is to reveal the wholeness of a Shakespearean criticism that consists of fragments. Some critics such as Thomas MacFarland claim that fragmentation is the distinguishing condition of the Romantic era. According to him, a diasperactive form; that is, an actual incompleteness striving toward a hypothetical unity is common in the art of an era in which the fragment functions as the symbol for the whole. Lee Lust Brown argues that Coleridge hypothesised a textual whole which was both more than and prior to its parts and yet his own writing manifests a degree of literal fragmentation. He takes the fragment as a synecdoche of wholeness and claims that textual wholeness is not so much lost as deferred or displaced in the question of its possibility. Agreeing with these critics, I argue for the wholeness of Coleridge's Shakespearean criticism. In so doing, first of all, I deal with the representative schools of Shakespearean criticism before or contemporary with Coleridge, those of his predecessors and of the German Idealists, because these constitute the two main sources informing Coleridge's Shakespearean criticism. Considering that Coleridge's Shakespearean criticism is closely linked to his poetic principles, I try to define his poetic principles-the concept of nature, organicism, and imagination. I deal with Coleridge's criticism of Shakespeare under three heads; Shakespeare as an artist, Shakespeare's poetic works, and their appreciation. In chapter one, in order to trace the background of Coleridge's Shakespearean criticism, I discuss the two distinctive schools of Shakespearean criticism contemporary with Coleridge; i.e., the British school and the German school. In chapter two, I deal with the poetical principles that form the ground of Coleridge's Shakespearean criticism; that is, the concept of nature, organicism and imagination. In chapter three, I show how a unified ideal of Shakespeare can be drawn from the fragments. In chapter four, I begin by tracing Coleridge's insistence that Shakespeare's drama is an instance, indeed the highest instance, of all art. In chapter five, I deal with Coleridge's appreciation of Shakespeare's work. Finally, I discuss Coleridge's idea of the perfect audience for Shakespeare's plays, the audience that the plays imply. In conclusion I offer a general view of Coleridge's Shakespearean criticism and indicate its crucial place in critical history. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).


Recent studies of lactation in wild mammals have emphasised the need for accurate information on milk composition, requiring the analysis of large numbers of samples. A simplified method for determining milk composition in pinnipeds was assessed using samples collected from Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella). The stoichiometric relationships between elemental C, H, and N in the ash-free dry mass were used to determine the organic composition and energy content of samples. The results were compared with those obtained by conventional biochemical analyses. Stoichiometric estimates of lipid content were positively correlated with those obtained by methanol-chloroform extraction (r2 = 0.62, P < 0.0001) but consistently lower (P < 0.0005). The mean difference between the results of the two methods was 3.56 f 0.89% of total milk volume (range - 16.98 to +7.47%). Variation between replicates was significantly lower when the stoichiometric method was used (P < 0.05). Gross energy content, calculated from stoichiometric estimates of milk composition, was closely correlated with, though consistently higher than (P < 0.0005), that determined by bomb calorimetry (r2 = 0.96, P < 0.0001). The difference between the two methods, however, was negligible (1.8 f 0.08%, range -5.0 to +5.6%). The sum of the milk components measured by the stoichiometric method accounted, on average, for 96.5% of the wet mass and varied inversely with lipid content (r2 = 0.29, P < 0.001). This small error is most likely due to retained water in the oven-dried milk. The stoichiometric method for determining organic composition allows the processing of samples at a much faster rate, requiring much smaller volumes, than conventional techniques and should prove useful in ecological studies of lactation.


Approximate Double Circular Arc Interpolated Method (ADCAIM) has been proposed by the authors. It requires only the included angles in the normal directions of the adjacent arcs at intersection points to be less than specified value, but does not require the adjacent arcs to be tangent as in other circular arc interpolated methods. ADCAIM is an approximate method with better calculating speed because of its concise calculation, and its interpolated error can meet the requirement too. The problems in NC programming of aspheric curves have been solved by using ADCAIM. In this paper, to the plane profile including aspheric curves, using VB program language as the second development tool, auto-programming for NC machining of aspheric curve is also realized by using ADCAIM, as long as the curve's profile graphics on the AutoCAD is known. The research result indicates: the method introduced in this paper can meet the needs of NC machining in both interpolated accuracy and calculating speed for the example.


Being the fourth most important crop in the developing countries surpassed only by maize, rice and sugarcane as a source of calories, cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is doubtlessly a famine reserve crop due to its drought tolerance, ability to grow on infertile soils and its ability to recover from disease and pest attacks. However, this important tuber crop has a fair share of demerits, among which is the fact that all parts of the plant contain toxic levels of cyanogenic glycosides, which have to be removed by laborious processing before cassava can be safely consumed. Conventional methods for removal of cyanogenic glycosides in cassava have seldom been successful for decades. Genetic engineering holds the key to overcoming majority of these limitations in order to produce cassava plants in which desirable traits are optimized and undesirable traits downregulated. The objective of this study was to determine the levels of cyanogenic compounds in three Kenyan cassava genotypes along with an exotic model cultivar in which cyanogenic glycosides had been downregulated via RNA interference approach in an earlier study by the authors. Cassava roots from transgenic and wild type genotypes were harvested, peeled, cut to pieces and washed three times with cold water, following cyanogenic compounds were extraction by homogenization in acid extraction medium. The supernatant obtained after centrifugation of the homogenate was analyzed for cyanogenic compounds content by spectrophotometric procedures. From this study, transgenic cassava lines with cyanide content three folds less than the cyanide content in the wild type relatives were produced. This confirmed RNAimediated downregulation of expression of cytochrome P450 genes responsible for biosynthesis of cyano-glycosides previously undertaken by the authors in an earlier study.


TpRuPPh(3)(CH(3)CN)(2)PF(6) catalyzed the efficient rearrangement of alpha,beta-epoxyketones to 1,2-diketones. Unlike a previously reported iron catalyst, the reaction in this case is applicable not only to 1,2-disubstituted epoxides but also to mono- and trisubstituted epoxides and tolerates oxygen functionalities. The sterically crowded and highly basic tris(1-pyrazolyl)borate (Tp) ligand of the ruthenium catalyst might account for its high selectivity toward 1,2-diketone rather than 1,3-diketone.


A family with Becker type muscular dystrophy is described, in which two females were severely affected, giving the family tree the appearance of dominant inheritance.


Since 1869, Wyoming's women have been guaranteed suffrage: the right to vote in elections and hold public office. They were the first in the nation to be granted this right. Learn more in this guide about women's suffrage in the state.


ABSTRACT IFN regulatory factor (IRF)3 plays a detrimental role in the cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) mouse model of sepsis. However, it is unclear which pathway activates IRF3 in this context. In this report, we investigate two pathways that activate IRF3: the Stimulator of Interferon Genes (STING) pathway (that senses cytosolic DNA) and the TIR-domain-containing adapter-inducing interferon-&bgr; (TRIF) pathway (that senses dsRNA and LPS via Toll-like receptor 3 and 4). Initially, we examine the impact of these pathways using a severe CLP model (∼90% mortality). Both STING-KO and TRIF-KO mice are protected from severe sepsis, exhibiting reduced mortality, disease score, hypothermia, and inflammatory cytokines relative to WT counterparts. STING/TRIF-DKO mice exhibit a similar phenotype to each of the single KO strains, suggesting that these pathways have an interrelated function. Subsequently, we examine the impact of these pathways using a moderate CLP model incorporating clinical treatments (Lactated Ringer Solution and antibiotics, ∼36% mortality). In this case, STING-KO mice show a similar phenotype to WT counterparts, while TRIF-KO mice show improved disease score and hypothermia. During sepsis, innate immune receptors recognize bacterial ligands and host-derived danger signals, including cell-free DNA released into the circulation. We show that IRF3 is activated in cultured macrophages treated with bacteria derived from the mouse cecum, dependent on TRIF, and in macrophages treated with mouse genomic DNA/Lipofectamine 2000, dependent on STING. Together, our data demonstrate that both the STING and TRIF pathways can promote sepsis pathogenesis; however, their contribution depends on the severity of the disease model. We show that bacteria are abundant in the peritoneum following both severe and moderate CLP, while cell-free DNA is more highly elevated in the serum following severe CLP compared with sham and moderate CLP. Hence, the presence of bacteria and cell-free DNA may explain the variable phenotypes in our severe CLP model (dependent on TRIF and STING) versus our moderate CLP model (dependent on TRIF only).