In this paper, we provide a generalized framework for Variational Inference-Stochastic Optimal Control by using thenon-extensive Tsallis divergence. By incorporating the deformed exponential function into the optimality likelihood function, a novel Tsallis Variational Inference-Model Predictive Control algorithm is derived, which includes prior works such as Variational Inference-Model Predictive Control, Model Predictive PathIntegral Control, Cross Entropy Method, and Stein VariationalInference Model Predictive Control as special cases. The proposed algorithm allows for effective control of the cost/reward transform and is characterized by superior performance in terms of mean and variance reduction of the associated cost. The aforementioned features are supported by a theoretical and numerical analysis on the level of risk sensitivity of the proposed algorithm as well as simulation experiments on 5 different robotic systems with 3 different policy parameterizations.


Crowdsourcing requesters are trapped between a rock and a hard place. Typically they specify their crowdsourcing workflows procedurally, but current languages commit them to overly strict and static policies that waste human effort. While optimizing workflows with more sophisticated tools like POMDPs can significantly reduce labor costs, such advanced AI techniques are hard to use and understand. We report on our progress in developing Clowder, a system that provides the user with an adaptive programming language that looks and feels like Lisp, yet abstracts over POMDPs so that non-experts can write POMDPs without knowing anything about them. Such a system frees requesters from needing to resort to suboptimal techniques that use approximate heuristics or hire a planning expert to formally define and solve their problems.


Eat more plants for influenza resilience Antibiotic treatment worsens influenza in mice, possibly because the concomitant loss of the microbiota interrupts the production of bioactive metabolites. Steed et al. found that a microbial product, desaminotyrosine (DAT), produced by an obligate clostridial anaerobe from the digestion of plant flavonoids, is beneficial during influenza. DAT enters the bloodstream and triggers type I interferon signaling, which then augments antiviral responses by phagocytic cells. Without DAT, influenza virus causes inflammation and severe disease. Science, this issue p. 498 A dietary plant flavonoid derivative, metabolized by Clostridium orbiscindens in the gut, mediates protective responses to influenza in mice. The microbiota is known to modulate the host response to influenza infection through as-yet-unclear mechanisms. We hypothesized that components of the microbiota exert effects through type I interferon (IFN), a hypothesis supported by analysis of influenza in a gain-of-function genetic mouse model. Here we show that a microbially associated metabolite, desaminotyrosine (DAT), protects from influenza through augmentation of type I IFN signaling and diminution of lung immunopathology. A specific human-associated gut microbe, Clostridium orbiscindens, produced DAT and rescued antibiotic-treated influenza-infected mice. DAT protected the host by priming the amplification loop of type I IFN signaling. These findings show that specific components of the enteric microbiota have distal effects on responses to lethal infections through modulation of type I IFN.


This study intended to assess the role of NGOs in promoting ICT capacity building the Community in Tanzania. The study used DOT as a case study and utilized both primary and secondary data collection methods. Specific objectives were to identify strategies used by Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT) in providing ICT training, to assess the benefits of ICT training to the beneficiaries and to assess challenges facing DOT in promoting ICT capacity building to the community. However, the study employed purposive and convenient sampling techniques to get sample size of 40
respondents. Data analysis was done based on the research objectives. The findings revealed that, ICT training program has a significant impact to its beneficiaries. It has managed to create knowledge, it has positively change the lives of beneficiaries and managed h to create awareness in the community on importance of ICT for social
and economic development. Moreover, there were various challenges facing DOT in providing ICT training that include lack of sufficient fund, lack of government
support, dependence on donors and limited capacity. The study recommends that, DOT organization should find alternative means of generating income instead of
depending on donors alone. This will reduce dependence or eliminating totally and thus minimizes challenges that they face during implementation of the program. But also government should support the NGOs which are committed to help and support society. This will encourage the organizations to act more in supporting the community especially the vulnerable groups.


Perovskite oxides form a fascinating class of materials because they possess many active degrees of freedom that result in a large variety of physical effects. One important structural parameter controlling the behavior of perovskites is the tilting of the oxygen octahedral. Among other properties, this tilting is coupled with the electric and magnetic orders, which leads to novel and potentially useful phenomena; recent examples include new mechanisms for improper and triggered ferroelectricity, rich phase diagrams, and novel chiral phases, counter‐intuitive behaviors of ferroelectric and multiferroic films, and weak ferromagnetism in otherwise antiferromagnetic materials. Interestingly, most perovskites present the same tilted structures, which are few in number and fairly simple. In contrast, here we use different theoretical methods to show that a complete new family of stable phases, all displaying complex and nano‐twinned tilting patterns (as well as other anomalous properties), exists in multiferroic BiFeO3 and related compounds.


In order to add to literature on forecasting entrepreneurial intentions this research paper aims to examine levels of Entrepreneurial Intentions amongst Students through a model developed by Ajzen, in selected countries such as Pakistan, Turkey. This research is based on Theory of Planned Behavior according to which entrepreneurial intentions are based upon antecedents such as perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, proactive personality, risk taking propensity and attitudes towards entrepreneurship. Paper based survey (Entrepreneurial Intention Questionnaire) was conducted among Turkish and Pakistani university students. Intended survey covered 300 Pakistani 150 Turkish. Data was analyzed using SPSS soft ware in computer while correlation, t-test regression was utilized for finding out the results. Results should yield similarities and differences among these students despite the commonality of Islamic culture. What factors influence the intentions? Risk taking propensity, motivations and restrictions to entrepreneurship associated with their culture. Policy makers can make policies on the basis of the research to enhance entrepreneurial mind set amongst youth of the region. It will help in socioeconomic growth of the region by enhancing entrepreneurship and understanding cross cultural mind set. This study would be added to the literature previously researched about antecedent of entrepreneurial inclinations in cross cultural context. Especially in West Asia It would also initiated discussion on new topics for research in future. It should establish more research among these countries.


Background: Replacement of missing teeth is a common patient need and with increase in life expectancy of individuals, the need for restoration of partially edentulous condition is increasing. Various studies have confirmed the prevalence of partial edentulousness, its rehabilitation status, lack of awareness,etc. Long-term partial edentulousness leads to various undesirable sequelae like aesthetic impairment, migration and spacing of surrounding teeth,etc. Hence decided to do a survey on status of partial edentulism and restoration of it. Aim: To take a survey on the status of Partial Edentulism and its restoration which is a Cross Sectional Study in the Age Group of 18-25 Years among the sub-urban population of Kanchipuram. Objective: The objective of this study is to find out the frequency of partial edentulism, its arch distribution status and awareness to restore among a population sample aged 18–25 years. Materials and methods: In this study, a survey and a patient examination method was proposed. The population for the study comprised of the suburban population of Kanchipuram aged (18-25) years. All the subjects selected were screened using questionnaire and clinical examination. Result: The incidence of partial edentulism among the surveyed group was 23 % with no significant gender based difference in the frequency of its occurence. A predominance of partial edentulousness in maxillary posterior region in men and mandibular posterior region of women.Lack of awareness to go for rehabilitation was seen in both groups. However, women subjects showed more awareness than men did. All the subjects preferred to undergo fixed partial denture treatment rather than removable options. conclusion: The prevalence of partial edentulism in the state population of suburban Kancheepuram is relatively high. The awareness about rehabilitation of partial edentulous state is also inadequate.Hence, more awareness and treatment program has to be initiated to address this concern.


Knowledge of the conditions governing the initiation and propagation of cracks in Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) mixtures is a prerequisite for a comprehensive understanding of HMA cracking mechanisms. According to the "HMA Fracture Mechanics" pavement cracking model recently developed at the University of Florida, fundamental tensile failure limits of mixtures (fracture energy density and tensile strength) are identified as key parameters in defining the cracking resistance of HMA mixes. A Digital Image Correlation (DIC) system, developed for the purpose of investigating the cracking behavior of HMA mixtures, has been applied to accurately determine fundamental tensile failure limits of SBS polymer modified mixes. The effect of modification on crack localization and crack growth was also investigated. One unmodified and four SBS polymer modified HMA mixes were tested performing both the Superpave IDT test and the Semi-Circular Bending (SCB) test. Tensile failure limits and cracking behavior of two of these mixes (the unmodified and a heavily SBS linear modified) were evaluated also from the Three Point Bending Beam (3PB) test. Full field strain maps indicate that the addition of SBS polymers in mixtures leads to more homogeneous stress states during tensile loading condition, resulting in high strains strongly localized up to the location of impending fracture.


We have theoretically studied the optical absorption coefficient of quantum wires in electric and strain fields with intermixing interfaces. The potential profiles are governed by the intermixing heterojunctions, internal strain due to the lattice mismatch, the external electric field and stress. The second Fick's law describes the wires' intermixing heterojunctions due to the alloy interdiffusion. We adopt the Green's function method to solve the Poisson equation for the displacement to determine the internal strain due to the lattice mismatch. The single-band Schrödinger equation in the effective mass approximation is used to describe the conduction subband structures while the four-band Kohn-Luttinger Hamiltonian is used to describe the valence subband structures. In solving the Schrödinger equation and the Kohn-Luttinger Hamiltonian, we expand the wave functions for the electrons and holes by using linear combinations of the two-dimensional harmonic oscillator wave functions to yield two matrix equations. These matrix equations are numerically solved for their eigenenergies and their corresponding eigenfunctions. We investigate some physical properties of the unstrained quantum wire GaAs/AlAs and the strained wire CdSe/ZnSe as examples. When the interdiffusion becomes stronger, on one hand, the internal strain is relaxed leading to the band gap shrinkage if the initial strain 0 0 and, on the other hand, the potential profiles are deformed and the effective band gap becomes wider. Variations of the transition energies with external stress show the anticrossing effect and variations of the transition energies with external electric field show the field emission effect. The hole effective masses can be enhanced or become electronlike by applying stress to the wire. The oscillator strengths of the dipole-allowed intersubband transitions for the y and z polarizations are calculated to infer possible optical transitions. The optical absorption coefficients together with the joint density of states are calculated.


The paper investigates the issue of fuel poverty and its presence in the Bulgarian context. The focus of the analysis is on the potential for alleviation and – in the long term – elimination of energy poverty through the implementation of measures for energy-efficient retrofit of residential multi-story apartment housing. An effective strategy tackling this topic at the local scale is a key prerequisite for the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with particular relevance for SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy and SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities. Achieving the optimal ratio of saved energy versus financial resources is the key to renovating housing at scale sustainably and efficiently. Energy poverty as a phenomenon is linked to the combined effect of three main factors - low household income, high energy costs and low energy efficiency of housing. There is a broad scientific consensus that this phenomenon has a serious negative impact on the quality of life and citizens' health and wellbeing. Furthermore, energy poverty contributes to a huge waste of energy and also affects the physical dimension of the sustainable development of the built environment. Therefore, energy poverty exacerbates deficits and discrepancies for territorial economies and communities. Eliminating the problem of "fuel poverty" is often considered to be impossible without the support of the affected households through subsidies. Subsidies invested in energy-efficient housing reconstruction result in immediate savings in housing heating costs, which in turn leads to a tangible reduction in the "fuel poverty" experienced by residents of reconstructed housing. Energy-efficient housing reconstruction (retrofit) is the fastest and most efficient (in terms of public resources) way to combat energy poverty. The financial resources required to enable these activities could also be obtained or complemented through financial engineering schemes with third-party involvement.


Presented are the research objectives of the project 'Irep en Kemet', Wine of Ancient Egypt, and the content of the website. This research project aims at documenting the complete corpus of wine in ancient Egypt and analysing the data (iconography, textual sources and artefacts) to unveil the importance of the ancient Egyptian wine culture legacy in the Mediterranean region. At this stage, a bibliographical researchable database relevant to wine, viticulture and winemaking in the ancient Egypt has been completed, a scene-detail database for the viticulture and winemaking scenes in the Egyptian tombs has been recorded, and the collected data will be studied and analysed. Our main goal is to provide scholars with a complete, comprehensive archaeological and bibliographical database for the scenes of viticulture and winemaking depicted in the Egyptian tombs throughout the ancient Egyptian history. The project's website (under construction) will include all the collected data, the study and analysis, as well ...


There are several methods to evaluate the environmental performance of new technologies. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the methodological development of environmental assessments, with contributions from life-cycle assessment (LCA), theories on technical change and socio-technical scenarios.

LCA, or 'well-to-wheel studies', is a widely used tool for evaluating the environmental performance of alternative transport fuels. However, the methodology is usually not adapted to answer questions regarding strategic technology choice. Suggestions are presented that could increase the usefulness of LCA in this respect. A 'net output approach' is used, where fuels are used for their own production and distribution. Background system changes and the size of byproduct markets are studied, and it is shown that these factors can have a large influence on the results. Studies of LCA type can be used to give information on which fuels that have a low environmental impact today, and which are promising in the long run. However, it is suggested that also dynamic processes of technical changed need to be taken into account in the selection of technologies.

In a study of the history of alternative transport fuels in Sweden, we show that also short-term options can contribute to the development towards more promising long-term options. Investments in alternative fuels during the years have not only resulted in physical artefacts and new explicit knowledge, but have also created dedicated actors and changed tacit knowledge and normative rules. Positive feedback loops related to actors, knowledge and rules have created more actors and changed regulation, and an ability of alternatives to survive. At the same time, the growth of some alternatives has favoured others, due to overlaps in socio-technical systems.

However, the growth of alternatives is still very much dependent on exogenous factors and policy. The balance between short-term and long-term options in the transition of the transport system is illustrated through the use of socio-technical scenarios. These show that there is a risk that any policy could result in a negative development for renewable alternatives, but they also suggest that there are opportunities for growth. Policy could balance the development in different parts of the system, and make use of short-term options to contribute to more radical changes in the transport system.


This paper describes the design and testing of a new introductory programming language, GRAIL1. GRAIL was designed to minimise student syntax errors, and hence allow the study of the impact of syntax errors on learning to program. An experiment was conducted using students learning programming for the first time. The students were split into two groups, one group learning LOGO and the other GRAIL. The resulting code was then analysed for syntax and logic errors. The groups using LOGO made more errors than the groups using GRAIL, which shows that choice of programming language can have a substantial impact on error rates of novice programmers.


A 16-bit ALU (arithmetic logic unit) design is presented which was designed using ASPECT standard cells and boasts an operating frequency of 142 MHz. The ALU is expandable, with a full carry lookahead capability that allows implementation of a 100-MIPS (million-instruction-per-second) 64-bit system. The methodology used to implement the design efficiently maximizes performance using critical path analysis and automatic modification along this path to reach desired performance goals.<<ETX>>


The crystallization tendency for 30 experimental glasses in the system Na2O-K2O-MgOCaO-B2O3-P2O5-SiO2 was studied with thermal methods, DTA, HSM and XRD. The glasses were also immersed into simulated body fluid for 8 and 72 hours. The formation of the silica-rich gel and calcium phosphate layer on the glasses were analyzed with SEM. The in vitro behavior and crystallization tendency for heat-treated glasses were then related. This information is essential for choosing glass compositions that can be manufactured to desired products with controlled bioactivity for different applications. In general, glasses with low alkali content can tolerate heattreatment without crystallization but have less initial Si-gel formation ability and show less in vitro bioactivity than glasses with high alkali content.


The use of the spinal internal skeletal fixation system (ISFS), originally developed for fracture treatment by Dick for the segmental correction of scoliosis, is demonstrated in eight adult degenerative lumbar spinal curves. The two main benefits of an intrapedicular screw fixation system, i.e., excellent skeletal stabilization and the ability to freely modify individual segmental vertebral position, are clearly demonstrated in this instrumentation, which is still at the prototype stage. The good preliminary results seen in this series encourages the further development of segmental intrapedicular spinal fixation systems for the treatment of scoliosis.


Bernd Heinrich's widely praised Bumblebee Economics (Harvard, 1979) set a high standard for scientifically accurate yet gracefully articulate writing about nature's ingenious patterns, specifically thermoregulation. His Hot-Blooded Insects takes a giant step forward by presenting an overview of what is now known about thermoregulation in all of the major insect groups, offering new insights on physiology, ecology, and evolution. The book is richly illustrated by the author's exquisite sketches. By describing the environmental opportunities and challenges faced by moths and butterflies, grasshoppers and locusts, dungball rollers and other beetles, a wide range of bees, and other insects, Heinrich explains their dazzling variety of physiological and behavioral adaptations to what, for them, is a world of violent extremes in temperature. These mechanisms are apparent only through precise observations, but the small body size of insects poses large technical difficulties in whole-animal experiments, engendering controversy about the reliability of the data thus derived. Emphasizing an experimental approach, Heinrich pinpoints where he believes studies have gone astray, describing in detail both groundbreaking experiments and those which leave a reasonable doubt" about the mechanism being interpreted. He reviews relevant work on the major taxa to show the underlying patterns that draw diversity together, opines on current controversies, and identifies questions that call for further study. Physiologists, ecologists, entomologists, and zoologists - in fact, all biologists - will be stimulated and challenged to further research by this masterly synthesis of a new field; it will also appeal toinformed readers interested in general science.


A randomized clinical trial (RCT) is the gold standard to evaluate the intended effects of drugs. In such trials a drug can be compared with a placebo or with another active compound for the same indication. RCTs can be used to demonstrate that a drug is superior to placebo or an active comparator (superiority trial) or that a drug is not worse than an active comparator (non-inferiority (NI) trial). NI trials can be used in a situation when a new drug is expected to have a similar efficacy as its comparator but may offer other advantages over the existing drug such as a more convinient method of administration (for example oral drugs versus parenteral route) or has less side effects. The objective of this thesis was to look deeper into the challenges of the methodology of NI trials, and the role of regulatory guidelines in it. From a methodological perspective, NI trials have special challenges in design and analysis that can influence proper interpretation of its result. First, there are different methods to determine the limit where we can say that the drug is not worse than its active comparator (NI margin). Second, there is a difficulty in interpreting NI trials because of their lack of ability to distinguish an effective drug from an ineffective drug i.e. assay sensitivity, without relying on evidence outside the trial. Third, the validity of the historical data that were used to base the NI margin on, i.e. constancy assumption sometimes is questionable. In the thesis, we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of NI trials based on ethical, methodological and regulatory arguments. We suggest that the non-inferiority aim of showing efficacy of a drug in NI trials should be studied together with aims directed at showing superiority of aspects of the drug over its active comparator e.g. on side effects, or ease of use of drugs. Furthermore, these other study aims should be studied in a scientific sound way (e.g. with adequate statistical power). When these conditions have been met we think it is not unethical to perform NI trials.


Basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steelmaking slag is enriched in potentially toxic V which may become mobilized in high pH leachate during weathering. BOF slag was weathered under aerated and air-excluded conditions for 6 months prior to SEM/EDS and μXANES analysis to determine V host phases and speciation in both primary and secondary phases. Leached blocks show development of an altered region in which free lime and dicalcium silicate phases were absent and Ca-Si-H was precipitated (CaCO3 was also present under aerated conditions). μXANES analyses show that V was released to solution as V(V) during dicalcium silicate dissolution and some V was incorporated into neo-formed Ca-Si-H. Higher V concentrations were observed in leachate under aerated conditions than in the air-excluded leaching experiment. Aqueous V concentrations were controlled by Ca3(VO4)2 solubility, which demonstrate an inverse relationship between Ca and V concentrations. Under air-excluded conditions Ca concentrations were controlled by dicalcium silicate dissolution and Ca-Si-H precipitation, leading to relatively high Ca and correspondingly low V concentrations. Formation of CaCO3 under aerated conditions provided a sink for aqueous Ca, allowing higher V concentrations limited by kinetic dissolution rates of dicalcium silicate. Thus, V release may be slowed by the precipitation of secondary phases in the altered region, improving the prospects for slag reuse.


Nowadays, autonomous electric vehicles (AEVs) are increasingly popular due to low resource consumption, low pollutant emission, and high efficiency. In practice, Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) networks supply energy power to EVs to ensure the usage of EVs. However, there are still certain security and privacy concerns in V2G connections, such as identity impersonation and message manipulation. Additionally, the widespread usage of EVs brings significant pressure on the power grid, leading to undesirable effects like voltage deviations if EVs' charging is not well coordinated. In this article, to tackle these issues, we design a novel load-balanced secure and private EV charging framework named load-balanced secure and private framework (LbSP) for secure, private, and efficient EV charging with a minimal negative effect on the existing power grid. It assures reliable and efficient charging services by a lightweighted encryption technique. Also, it balances the energy consumption of power grids via an online pricing strategy that minimizes load variance by optimizing energy prices in real time. Moreover, it preserves users' privacy while not affecting online pricing using an advanced differential privacy technique. Furthermore, LbSP deploys on an edge-cloud structure for fast response and more precise pricing, where clouds balance overall load consumption by online price optimization while edges gather data for clouds and respond to charging requests from EVs. The evaluation results show that the proposed framework ensures secure and private EV charging, balances energy load consumption, and preserves users' privacy.


Zinc binding proteins play an important role in biological function, many researches focus on the area of zinc-binding sites. Taking into account the advantages of support vector machine, based on the different tools for the prediction of zinc-binding sites, a novel predictor named combZincPred was proposed to integrate these result scores. Tested on a non-redundant dataset, AURPC of our method increased more, and other indexes are also better than the other three predictors. The method can be better used to the inference of zinc-binding protein function.


Sixty-five patients with mild to moderate nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy who enrolled in a prospective controlled clinical trial had stereofundus photographs assessed for change over an 8-mo period. The entire study group showed a worsening of retinopathy with time (P < 0.001). The worsening was greater in the pump-treated group (15/32) than in the conventionally treated group (9/33). The significance of this difference ranged from P = 0.67, if changes in mean retinopathy level for each patient were compared, to P = 0.177 if a grading system keyed to the worse eye was compared. The difference in rates of change between treatment groups was found to be related to the baseline mean retinopathy level (P = 0.031), but less significantly so if baseline retinopathy keyed to the worse eye was used as a covariate (P = 0.08). Worsening occurred more frequently in those patients starting with the lower retinopathy levels. Progression was associated with the appearance of retinal infarcts (cotton-wool spots, soft exudates) and/or intraretinal microvascular abnormalities, with the pump patients showing a significant increase in these individual retinal lesions compared with the conventionally treated patients over 8 mo (P < 0.025).


Perfluoroalkyl-substituted compounds are regarded as important components of fluorophors and for the introduction of fluorous tags into organic substrates. Their syntheses in organic solvents are achieved through different methods, among which, the addition of perfluoroalkyl radicals to unsaturated bonds represents a convenient choice. On the other hand, intermolecular radical reactions in water have attracted the attention of synthetic chemists as a strategic route to carbon-carbon bond formation reactions. In this paper we undertook the intermolecular addition of perfluoroalkyl radicals on electron rich alkenes and alkenes with electron withdrawing groups in water, mediated by silyl radicals, and obtained perfluoroalkyl-substituted compounds in fairly good yields. The radical triggering events employed consist of the thermal decomposition of an azo compound and the dioxygen initiation. Our results indicate that for intermolecular carbon-carbon bond formation reactions mediated by (Me(3)Si)(3)SiH, the decomposition of the azo compound 1,1'-azobis(cyclohexanecarbonitrile) (ACCN) is the best radical initiator. We also found that water exerts a relevant solvent effect on the rates of perfluoroalkyl radical additions onto double bonds and the H atom abstraction from the silane. Our account provides a versatile and convenient method to achieve perfluoroalkylation reactions of alkenes in water to render perfluoroalkylated alkanes as key intermediates in the synthesis of fluorophors and other fluorinated materials. This is the first report where perfluoroalkyl-substituted alkanes are synthesized through intermolecular radical carbon-carbon bond formation reactions in water, mediated by silyl radicals.


Objective: To improve home monitoring of heart failure patients so as to reduce emergency room visits and hospital readmissions. We aim to do this by analyzing the ballistocardiogram (BCG) to evaluate the clinical state of the patient. Methods: 1) High quality BCG signals were collected at home from HF patients after discharge. 2) The BCG recordings were preprocessed to exclude outliers and artifacts. 3) Parameters of the BCG that contain information about the cardiovascular system were extracted. These features were used for the task of classification of the BCG recording based on the status of HF. Results: The best AUC score for the task of classification obtained was 0.78 using slight variant of the leave one subject out validation method. Conclusion: This work demonstrates that high quality BCG signals can be collected in a home environment and used to detect the clinical state of HF patients. Significance: In future work, a clinician/caregiver can be introduced into the system so that appropriate interventions can be performed based on the clinical state monitored at home.


: The aim of the present work is twofold: 1) to find a simple method of diagnosing a genuine risk of post operative thromboembolic disease: the level of platellets and of fibrine, the cephaline-kaolin test, the thromboelastogram and the para-coagulation tests were not considered satisfactory by authors. Only the isotopic detection of venous thrombosis is able to confirm the value of a given preventive treatment; 2) to achieve an effective prevemtive treatment: the pre and post-operative heparin therapy (an adaptation of Kakkar's method) eliminates the clinical accidents, reduces the number of isotopic venous thrombosis, but might increase the incidence of hemorrage.


This paper studies policy instruments that correct insufficient learning-by-doing (LbD) and research and development (R&D) of renewable electricity technologies and insufficient investments in energy efficiency (EE) in the presence of carbon pricing. The theoretical model analysis shows how to re-adjust the first-best in second-best situations, in which one of the policy instruments is restricted. Calibrated to the European power sector, the first-best choice of all instruments reduces the climate policy cost by one third. Feed-in tariffs turn out to be good substitutes for LbD, but not for R&D or EE subsidies.


In a cloud computing environment, future networks will most probably utilize network functions virtualization (NFV) which is a network architecture concept that proposes virtualizing network node functions into "building blocks" or entities that may be operationally connected or linked together to provide services. However, applying these mechanisms brings security challenges. Due to the programmability of software defined networking (SDN), if attackers gain access to an SDN controller, then the whole network may be exploited by the attackers. The attackers may change forwarding paths and pass malicious traffic to infect the SDN enabled network. To detect the security attacks and malicious traffic early enough and to protect the network, centralized monitoring and intrusion detection system (IDS) monitoring may be used for enhancing SDN, NFV and OpenFlow security. If the network traffic is analysed and the anomalies are detected, the SDN controller may be used to block such traffic from passing through the network by flow control, i.e. forwarding paths in a switch. IDS and intrusion prevention system (IPS) may be deployed at the gateway node to detect a security intrusion. Thus, the data traffic originated from a subscriber passes through each network element until the traffic reaches the gateway node. Such traffic may attack the network elements and may also cause a denial of service (DoS) attack in the network. IDS devices are designed to handle network traffic in real time, yet the cost and high processing time is a challenge for handling the traffic load. Combining dynamicity and programmability of SDN together with traffic filtering of IDS, enables a scalable, redundant and reliable anomaly detection for mobile network operators. In this study, we propose an architecture that combines IDS with programmability features of SDN for detection and mitigation of malicious traffic. Mitigation will be performed by SDN controller using flow control techniques. The proposed architecture can be applied to an SDN enabled mobile network with two different approaches for improved performance in terms of computation power.


Vertical ion drift velocity data from Jicamarca have been analyzed for a lunar semidiurnal tide using a least squares fitting method. Amplitudes of up to 6 m s−1 are obtained with phases in agreement with lunar tidal determinations of other associated physical parameters. Variations between season, solar activity, and day to night are also examined. Generally, amplitudes are larger in the southern summer. Much of the phase variation with season is very similar for solar maximum and minimum years. There is a summer to winter phase change that is most distinct at solar maximum nighttime. A day-to-night phase reversal can also been seen in some seasons. Hints of this are also found in the lunar tide in the F region height and in the magnetic variations at Huancayo.


Adult stem cells are considered multipotent, restricted to differentiate into a few tissue-specific cell types. With the advent of technologies which can dedifferentiate and transdifferentiate cell types, assumptions about the process of cell fate determination must be reconsidered, including the role of extrinsic versus intrinsic factors. To determine the plasticity of adult neural progenitors, rat hippocampal progenitor cells were xenotransplanted into embryonic zebrafish. These animals allow for easy detection of transplanted cells due to their external development and transparency at early stages. Adult neural progenitors were observed throughout the zebrafish for the duration of the experiment (at least five days post-transplantation). While the majority of transplanted cells were observed in the central nervous system, a large percentage of cells were located in superficial tissues. However, approximately one-third of these cells retained neural morphology and expression of the neuronal marker, Class III β-tubulin, indicating that the transplanted adult neural progenitors did not adapt alternate fates. A very small subset of cells demonstrated unique, non-neural flattened morphology, suggesting that adult neural progenitors may exhibit plasticity in this model, though at a very low rate. These findings demonstrate that the developing zebrafish may be an efficient model to explore plasticity of a variety of adult stem cell types and the role of external factors on cell fate.


With a focus on equity effects, three CO₂ abatement measures bearing on automobile taxation have been studied by means of network travel demand models and a discrete choice model for vehicle purchase. The commuter tax credit in effect in Norway helps equalize welfare between low and high income communities. Revoking it would be a strongly regressive tax measure. Increasing the fuel tax would have similar, although not quite so strongly regressive effects. Higher toll rates and ferry fares also affect different population segments unequally, but in a way that has less to do with income than with geography per se. The vehicle purchase tax, on the other hand, is an effective instrument for long-term greenhouse gas reduction, without having obvious regressive effects. The same is true of the value added and purchase tax exemptions for battery electric vehicles. These tax incentives have allowed Norwegian consumers a large new assortment of relatively affordable vehicles – cars that are also quite economical in use, since battery electric vehicles are three to four times more energy efficient than conventional cars.


BACKGROUND
Patients with peripheral artery disease who have undergone lower-extremity revascularization are at high risk for major adverse limb and cardiovascular events. The efficacy and safety of rivaroxaban in this context are uncertain.

METHODS
In a double-blind trial, patients with peripheral artery disease who had undergone revascularization were randomly assigned to receive rivaroxaban (2.5 mg twice daily) plus aspirin or placebo plus aspirin. The primary efficacy outcome was a composite of acute limb ischemia, major amputation for vascular causes, myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke, or death from cardiovascular causes. The principal safety outcome was major bleeding, defined according to the Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) classification; major bleeding as defined by the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis (ISTH) was a secondary safety outcome.

RESULTS
A total of 6564 patients underwent randomization; 3286 were assigned to the rivaroxaban group, and 3278 were assigned to the placebo group. The primary efficacy outcome occurred in 508 patients in the rivaroxaban group and in 584 in the placebo group; the Kaplan-Meier estimates of the incidence at 3 years were 17.3% and 19.9%, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.85, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.76 to 0.96; P = 0.009). TIMI major bleeding occurred in 62 patients in the rivaroxaban group and in 44 patients in the placebo group (2.65% and 1.87%; hazard ratio, 1.43; 95% CI, 0.97 to 2.10; P = 0.07). ISTH major bleeding occurred in 140 patients in the rivaroxaban group, as compared with 100 patients in the placebo group (5.94% and 4.06%; hazard ratio, 1.42; 95% CI, 1.10 to 1.84; P = 0.007).

CONCLUSIONS
In patients with peripheral artery disease who had undergone lower-extremity revascularization, rivaroxaban at a dose of 2.5 mg twice daily plus aspirin was associated with a significantly lower incidence of the composite outcome of acute limb ischemia, major amputation for vascular causes, myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke, or death from cardiovascular causes than aspirin alone. The incidence of TIMI major bleeding did not differ significantly between the groups. The incidence of ISTH major bleeding was significantly higher with rivaroxaban and aspirin than with aspirin alone. (Funded by Bayer and Janssen Pharmaceuticals; VOYAGER PAD ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02504216.).


Despite the seven-year implementation of three adjustment programs to address the sovereign debt crisis, the Greek economy is still in a prolonged recession and faces problems of competitiveness, political stability and social cohesion. At the same time, the fiscal adjustment policy did not solve the original problem of public debt. On the contrary, as recent evidence shows, the country's ability to service its debt has deteriorated. The causes of the crisis and the failure of the selected economic stabilization policies are a multidimensional and interrelated complex. The Greek economy has supported its growth in recent decades mainly in domestic consumption, with little presence in areas with high added value and extrovert features, focusing mainly on traditional business sectors with limited innovation characteristics. Ιn this study we will try on reasonable arguments but also with a series of statistical data and indicators from sources such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Greek authorities to analyze the course of the Greek economy, evaluate the results of the selected policies and to formulate appropriate policy proposals.


This paper presents a design case study of a summer school that brought together a multidisciplinary group of early-career professionals to explore ideas relating to new technologies in an urban context. The organisers of the summer school took an explicitly designinformed approach to the event, specifically a 'critical design' approach. The aspiration of the organisers was that the school activities would lead to the creation of an exhibition of artefacts and visual media expressing the ideas explored during the school. The expectation of generating exhibition quality outputs influenced the participants' experience of the event, and this paper describes the process and reflects upon the success of this method. The authors address the question: in what way is it useful to adopt a critical design approach with a multidisciplinary group in a workshop or school setting? It is suggested that envisionment in the form of 'design fictions' is key to the success of this approach.


During inflammatory conditions, peroxidation of biological membranes often takes place. Deleterious physiological consequences, in terms of membrane function, could theoretically be mediated by either direct oxidative attack upon integral membrane proteins or by indirectly altering the lipid environment surrounding these proteins. To address this issue, in vitro peroxidation of guinea pig brush-border membrane vesicles was induced by incubation of the vesicles with ferrous sulfate and ascorbic acid. We found that ongoing peroxidative attack initiates lipid peroxidation and radically alters the physical properties of the membrane lipid bilayer in a well-defined and regional manner. Peroxidation of microvillous membrane produced an increasingly rigid membrane. Coupled with these alterations was a fivefold reduction in maximal rates of sodium-dependent glucose transport that appeared to have a multifactorial origin. Approximately one-third of this reduction was secondary to altered membrane physical properties and was reversible by fluidizing the vesicles and returning membrane physical properties to normal. The remaining reduction in glucose transport activity was not responsive to membrane fluidization and was presumably related to direct damage of the transport protein.


In this paper, generation-type drain current transients, in advanced (down to 50nm gate-length) floating-body PD SOI MOSFETs are investigated by 2D numerical simulation in weak inversion operation. An original compact analytical model is derived for the pure transient weak inversion operation and validated on both elementary and realistic 2D structures. The proposed sub-threshold transient compact model allows accurately to predict the influence of the generation lifetime, surface velocity (or interface state density), oxide thickness and substrate doping on floating-body related transient behavior and duration, which is essential for advanced transistor optimization and subsequent circuit applications. Moreover, our model is a unique, robust tool for the electrical characterization of submicron SOI transistors since it allows the carrier lifetime extraction independently on the channel carrier mobility and device effective gate length.


In many CVD processes there is a complex interplay between the homogeneous reactions in the vapour and the heterogeneous growth reactions. The homogeneous reactions in the vapour can be enhanced by using hot-wall reactors or photolytic laser-assited CVD with the laser beam in parallel to the substrate surface. In contrast to the use of photolysis, use of a hot wall reactor does not permit discrination between different homogeneous reactions in the vapour. This means that new reaction channels can be opened by photolysis and CVD materials different from those grown in a hotwall reactor can be produced. Thermal laser-assisted CVD (TLCVD) differs considerably from large-area CVD. The extreme suppression of the homogeneous reactions in the vapour in TLCVD means that other precursors than those used in the large-area CVD are preferred. Similarities and differences between conventional CVD and various laser-assisted CVD processes will be discussed in connection to deposition of tungsten, aluminium, carbon, and titanium carbide.


Abstract. We describe a computer code that simulates how a satellite observes optical radiation emitted by a lightning flash after it is scattered within an intervening cloud. Our code, CloudScat.jl, is flexible, fully open source and specifically tailored to modern instruments such as the Modular Multispectral Imaging Array (MMIA) component of the Atmosphere–Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) that operates from the International Space Station. In this article, we describe the algorithms implemented in the code and discuss several applications and examples, with an emphasis on the interpretation of MMIA data.


In recent years, with only small fractions of modern processors now accessible in a single cycle, computer architects constantly fight against propagation issues across the die. Unfortunately this trend continues to shift inward, and now the even most internal features of the pipeline are designed around communication, not computation. To address the inward creep of this constraint, this work focuses on the characterization of communication within the pipeline itself, architectural techniques to avoid it when possible, and layout co-design for early detection of problems. I present work in creating a novel detection tool for common case operand movement which can rapidly characterize an application's dataflow patterns. The results produced are suitable for exploitation as a small number of patterns can describe a significant portion of modern applications. Work on dynamic dependence collapsing takes the observations from the pattern results and shows how certain groups of operations can be dynamically grouped, avoiding unnecessary communication between individual instructions. This technique also amplifies the efficiency of pipeline data structures such as the reorder buffer, increasing both IPC and frequency. I also identify the same sets of collapsible instructions at compile time, producing the same benefits with minimal hardware complexity. This technique is also done in a backward compatible manner as the groups are exposed by simple reordering of the binary's instructions. I present aggressive pipelining approaches for these resources which avoids the critical timing often presumed necessary in aggressive superscalar processors. As these structures are designed for the worst case, pipelining them can produce greater frequency benefit than IPC loss. I also use the observation that the dynamic issue order for instructions in aggressive superscalar processors is predictable. Thus, a hardware mechanism is introduced for caching the wakeup order for groups of instructions efficiently. These wakeup vectors are then used to speculatively schedule instructions, avoiding the dynamic scheduling when it is not necessary. Finally, I present a novel approach to fast and high-quality chip layout. By allowing architects to quickly evaluate 'what if' scenarios during early high-level design, chip designs are less likely to encounter implementation problems later in the process.


Adoption of healthcare innovations frequently outpaces the evidence of effectiveness. Endovascular repair (EVAR) for abdominal aortic aneurysms in the USA demonstrates how comparative effectiveness research without evidence-based reimbursement changes may fail to influence clinical practice. Randomized controlled trials for small abdominal aortic aneurysms demonstrate no lasting benefits of EVAR or open surgical repair (OSR) compared with surveillance, and for large abdominal aortic aneurysms demonstrate no lasting survival benefit of EVAR over OSR, and do show poorer durability and higher costs for EVAR. Nonetheless, >50% of elective abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs in the USA use EVAR. Factors that may be driving the high use of EVAR include patient preference, surgeons' desire to appear 'up-to-date' in the procedures they offer, higher hourly surgeon reimbursement for EVAR than OSR, and the expansion of physician specialties able to perform abdominal aortic aneurysm repair from only vascular surgeons with OSR, to vascular surgeons and interventional radiologists/cardiologists with EVAR. By comparison, in Canada, where government health insurance restricts EVAR coverage to high surgical risk patients, only approximately 25% of abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs are performed using EVAR. Country-specific cost studies and a prospective population-based study collecting detailed clinical data to identify patient subgroups that truly benefit from a particular management strategy are needed to inform policy regarding EVAR availability and reimbursement.


Four brands (A, B, C and D) of aceclofenac tablets (100 mg) manufactured in India were evaluated for six in vitro parameters, both official and non-official, viz., uniformity of weight, hardness test, friability test, disintegration test, dissolution test and assay. All the products met the requirements as per general specifications of Indian pharmacopoeia for tablet formulation. Assay value lies within the limit of 90% to 110%. The study on dissolution profile revealed that product A had faster dissolution rate while product C has slowest dissolution rate. This sort of study is good indicator for the in vitro evaluation of the idealness of commercial products. The obtained data may be useful for further formulation development studies.


Primary regulation is essential to compensate for unplanned variations in production and consumption plans. The responsible for the availability of primary regulation is the system operator in each country. In Sweden contracted balance providers offer their accessible primary regulation weekly and hourly, to the system operator, to a price that will compensate the costs that derive from the primary regulation. This master thesis investigates the costs and the profitability of the primary regulation in a balance provider's perspective. The project was initiated by Fortum.The production plan is the result of an optimization based on spot price forecasts where the income is maximized. Primary regulation implies further constraints for the optimization model which give a different result. The difference in the result is due to the primary regulation and thereby an obvious cost caused by the same. Given the costs the bid and profit could be calculated. The thesis is based on optimization results for some small hydropower systems. These results gave the costs that have been evaluated and compared with the model recommended by the Swedish system operator Svenska Kraftnat.The results show the importance of the spot price, especially the difference in the spot price within the planning period. The inflow to the power plants is also an important parameter in a small reservoir, but it cannot be compared to the impact of the price. The optimal bid is hard to find, as the model does not count with the uncertainties in price and weather forecasts. It considers though the same parameters as the existing model, but with more exact values. To be sure that the primary regulation is profitable, using this model, a risk factor and investment costs need to be added.


From the author of Statistical Applications for Health Information Management, this text provides a solid foundation of the fundamentals of statistics in health information technology in an accessible and reader-friendly format. A single case study is woven throughout the book to serve as an example for each statistical process covered. Attention is given to morbidity and mortality measures, graphical display of data, measurement, central tendency and variability, normal distribution and statistical inference, and inferential statistics. Written specifically for health information technology students who need a basic understanding of the topic, this text is ideal for those with a modest background in mathematics and no prior training in statistics.


The crucial function of higher education in the knowledge economy has been the object of various empirical demonstrations that succeeded in showing a strong correlation between higher education and GDP growth, through human capital development and technology diffusion. Nevertheless, a large number of factors can influence and limit higher education benefits such as countries' macro-economic structure, the given function of higher education in national poverty reduction strategies, the degree of universities independence and their responsiveness to local needs. In Sub-Saharan Africa a variety of international donors support tertiary education, emphasising or neglecting certain aspects depending on their nature and ultimate goals. In spite of their attempt of redefining cooperation paradigms, strengthening partnerships and improving projects sustainability, the issues of academic freedom, shared value definition or actions coordination and cohesiveness are still far to be achieved and sometimes addressed. This paper argues that international donors need to take the risk of exploring new solutions, following the paths that are being tracked by African scholars.


By considering the emergence and threat of African Swine Fever (ASF) in Europe, this paper demonstrates the growing role of veterinary rationales in reframing contemporary human-wild boar coexistence. Through comparative ethnographies of human-wild boar relations in the Czech Republic, Spain and England, it shows that coexistence is not a predictable and steady process but is also demarked by points of radical change in form, course and atmosphere. Such moments, or wild boar events, can lead to the (re-)formation or magnified influence of certain discourses, practices and power relations in determining strategies of bio-governance. Specifically, this paper highlights how the spread of ASF in Europe has accelerated an already ongoing process of veterinarization, understood as the growing prominence of veterinary sciences in the mediation and reorganization of contemporary socioecologies. This example highlights how veterinary logics increasingly influence localized human-wildlife relations and, through analogous practices of biosecurity and control, also connect different places and geographic contexts.


Epithelial ovarian cancer has the highest mortality among all gynecologic cancers. Due to the nonspecific nature of its symptoms, most women with ovarian cancer present with advanced stage disease, resulting in a poor overall prognosis. Surgical tumor debulking is one of the most effective interventions to improve the outcome for these patients. However, reducing the amount of residual tumor to microscopic levels is often complicated by the small size of the implants and poor visual contrast between small tumor implants and normal tissue under white light conditions found in most operating rooms. Therefore, one proposed method to improve the resection of metastatic ovarian cancer is to apply tumor-targeted optical fluorophores that could identify sites of metastasis with high sensitivity and specificity, providing the surgeon with an intraoperative guide to tumor location. Herein, we describe a novel method of identifying ovarian cancer metastases using fluorescent tagging and a real-time fluorescence camera that allows the resection of metastatic disease that would otherwise not be visible to the surgeon.


The stochastic block model (SBM) is a popular tool for community detection in networks, but fitting it by maximum likelihood (MLE) involves a computationally infeasible optimization problem. We propose a new semidefinite programming (SDP) solution to the problem of fitting the SBM, derived as a relaxation of the MLE. We put ours and previously proposed SDPs in a unified framework, as relaxations of the MLE over various subclasses of the SBM, which also reveals a connection to the well-known problem of sparse PCA. Our main relaxation, which we call SDP-1, is tighter than other recently proposed SDP relaxations, and thus previously established theoretical guarantees carry over. However, we show that SDP-1 exactly recovers true communities over a wider class of SBMs than those covered by current results. In particular, the assumption of strong assortativity of the SBM, implicit in consistency conditions for previously proposed SDPs, can be relaxed to weak assortativity for our approach, thus significantly broadening the class of SBMs covered by the consistency results. We also show that strong assortativity is indeed a necessary condition for exact recovery for previously proposed SDP approaches and not an artifact of the proofs. Our analysis of SDPs is based on primal-dual witness constructions, which provides some in-sight into the nature of the solutions of various SDPs. In particular, we show how to combine features from SDP-1 and already available SDPs to achieve the most flexibility in terms of both assortativity and block-size constraints, as our relaxation has the tendency to produce communities of similar sizes. This tendency makes it the ideal tool for fitting network histograms, a method gaining popularity in the graphon estimation literature, as we illustrate on an example of a social networks of dolphins. We also provide empirical evidence that SDPs outperform spectral methods for fitting SBMs with a large number of blocks.


The gas monitor with optical fiber is developed in this paper based on the principle that the absorption light changes with gas intensity under absorptive peak wavelength. The LED of driving light source is selected by the absorptive peak wavelength of measured gas. The light source driving circuit with the different frequency is used to detect the varied gas in real time. The techniques of phase-sensitive detected and ratio between measured signal and reference signal is used to ensure measurement accuracy. The examination system chooses low loss 50cm-long quartz optical fiber as long distance transmitting channel. The light source adopts low power pulse modulation semiconductor LED. 50cm-long absorption gas room is used to ensure measurement sensitivity. The system adopts the technique to carry out scheme combining optical fiber sensing technique with computer data handling technique. Uniting sensing light signal and stimulating light power transfer and measured parameter sensing, the advantages of optical fiber system, micro-electron electric circuit and computer compatibility can be sufficiently realized. The entire measurement system can attain light, the engine and electricity integration, and realize multi-parameter and multi-function. The experiment result of methane and acetylene intensity indicates that the system has higher detected sensitivity and detected accuracy. The system is not only used to detect the methane and acetylene intensity, but also to detect other gas intensity under a little structure parameter change.


Neuronal voltage-gated cation channels regulate the transmembrane flux of calcium, sodium and potassium. Neuronal ischaemia occurring during acute ischaemic stroke results in the breakdown in the normal function of these ion channels, contributing to a series of pathological events leading to cell death. A dramatic increase in the intracellular concentration of calcium during neuronal ischaemia plays a particularly important role in the neurotoxic cascade resulting in stroke-related acute neurodegeneration. One approach to provide therapeutic benefit following ischaemic stroke has been to target neuronal voltage-gated cation channels, and particularly blockers of calcium and sodium channels, for post-stroke neuroprotection. A recent development has been the identification of openers of large-conductance calcium- and voltage-dependent potassium channels (maxi-K channels), which hyperpolarise ischaemic neurons, reduce excitatory amino acid release, and reduce ischaemic calcium entry. Thus far, targeting these voltage-gated cation channels has not yet yielded significant clinical benefit. The reasons for this may involve the lack of small-molecule blockers of many neuronal members of these ion channel families and the design of preclinical stroke models, which do not adequately emulate the clinical condition and hence lack sufficient rigor to predict efficacy in human stroke. Furthermore, there may be a need for changes in clinical trial designs to optimise the selection of patients and the course of drug treatment to protect neurons during all periods of potential neuronal sensitivity to neuro-protectants. Clinical trials may also have to be powered to detect small effect sizes or be focused on patients more likely to respond to a particular therapy. The development of future solutions to these problems should result in an improved probability of success for the treatment of stroke.


Ho, Mozes, and Greenfield provide an analysis of the interplay between endowment spending policy and the volatility of investments. A key feature of their analysis is a formula that gives an upper bound for volatility, given the endowment's spending policy, expected rate of return on investment, and risk parameters. Their analysis shows that the investment performance necessary to support spending rates of 4% to 5%, and to maintain reasonable risk guidelines, is considerably greater than the performance that individual markets and common blends of those markets have generated over the past 20 years. Thus, the authors conclude that, in the absence of a unique ability to significantly outperform the financial markets over long periods of time, endowments with high spending rates must either reduce those rates or accept a higher probability of suffering a significant loss.


This paper examines designing language teaching materials as an integral segment of language courses taught at tertiary level. Firstly, it defines teaching materials and considers them both as anything that can be used to facilitate the language learning and as authentic materials specially designed for development of specific skills. Secondly, it discusses reasons for designing materials as supplement to the materials teachers are provided with. Thirdly, the authors attempt to present the advantages of the process of producing materials. Material designing enables teachers to have a control over selection of topic, situations, functions and skills to be developed. Moreover, it takes into account particular learning environment, students' learning needs and their learning experiences, cross-cultural issues and their influence on development of students' communication competence.
This is followed by a comparison of experiences in material designing at two faculties, Faculty of Mining, Geology and Petroleum Engineering, University of Zagreb, and Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad. The language teaching material development starts at both faculties with identification of the main requirements set by the departments and the detailed needs analysis of students' needs which is the foundation of all language courses preparing students for using language in working environment. This initial stage helps teachers to select the textbooks and decide on additional material they need. Although material designing contributes greatly to the relevancy and productivity of language courses, it goes together with numerous obstacles ranging from technological to financial ones. To conclude the authors will elaborate on actual examples of materials produced for the courses they teach.

Keywords: language teaching, materials, design, textbooks, development.


G31.9+0.0 (3C 391) is a Galactic mixed-morphology supernova remnant observed in GeV gamma rays by Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope's LAT (Fermi-LAT), as well as in the 0.3-10 keV X-ray band by Suzaku. In this paper, we will present the analysis results of X- and gamma-ray data of 3C 391 taken with Suzaku and Fermi-LAT. The X-ray spectrum of 3C 391 was fitted to a single-temperature variable abundance non-equilibrium ionization model with an electron temperature of kTe ~ 0.57 keV, an absorbing column density of NH ~ 3.1 x 10^{22} cm^{-2} and a very high ionization age (\tau > 10^{12} cm^{-3} s), which suggest that the plasma has reached ionization equilibrium. The spectrum shows clearly detected emission lines of Mg, Si, and S. 3C 391 was detected in GeV gamma rays with a significance of ~ 13 sigma. The spectrum was fitted with a log-parabola function, where the spectral index and beta parameters were found to be \alpha = 2.35 +- 0.07 and \beta = 0.366 +- 0.339. The integrated flux above 200 MeV was found as F = (2.34 +- 0.37) x 10^{-8} ph cm^{-2} s^{-1}. These results are in agreement with the Fermi-LAT results given in the 2nd Fermi-LAT catalog.


Pichia pastoris has been successfully used as an efficient expression system for heterologous protein production. Herein, we report the development of a semi-continuous process to improve the production of recombinant proteins in P. pastoris by its cultivation in a BIONET's F1 bench-top 3-liter bioreactor equipped with a continuous process module (CPM). Six repetitive batches were conducted in a semi-continuous process by replacing 2/3 of the culture every 72-96 h. The overall process in a 3-liter culture yielded a protein concentration of 0.28±0.13 mg·mL −1 , taking 650 h to obtain 6±0.5 g of total target protein. On the con-trary, the obtention of the equivalent amount of protein with a fed-batch mode would require around 1100 h of total time, including the inoculum preparation, the non-induced fermentation stage and the expression stage. Therefore, a reduction of the operation time and of the operation cost is evident when using a scalable semi-continuous fermentation strategy. These results suggest there is potential for the development of cost-effective processes for the expression of recombinant proteins in P. pastoris in semi-continuous mode as an alternative to the productive continuous process mode, that is not available when low dilution rates are required due to the lack of available pumping technology.


EDITOR,-We read with considerable interest both the paper from Dr Mazlam and Professor Hodgson concerning cytokine production in inflammatory bowel disease (Gut 1994; 35: 77-83), and the accompanying leading article. A number of points emerge that are worthy of further discussion. There are many practical difficulties in attempting to compare, quantitatively, the acute phase response in Crohn's disease with the response in ulcerative colitis. In particular, it is critically important to match patient groups precisely for disease activity, extent, and drug treatment before drawing any conclusions regarding differences in monocyte cytokine production in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Mazlam and Hodgson have used clinical indices of disease activity only, and provide no details of histology or endoscopic appearances. These clinical indices are subject to considerable criticism, and reappraisal. Moreover, in the patient group described as having 'active' ulcerative colitis, seven had mildly and four moderately active disease. No patients with symptoms of severe active colitis those most likely to have an acute phase response, and systemic illness were included. Therefore, we would suggest that there is not sufficient information to draw any valid conclusions regarding cytokine production in acute inflammatory bowel disease. In their study, most patients with ulcerative colitis, had limited distal disease. Only one of 22 patients had total colonic involvement. It is not only our clinical experience but also well reportedl 2 by other authors that patients with proctitis or distal ulcerative colitis may fail to display an acute phase response, as assessed by C reactive protein concentration or erythrocyte sedimentation rate. Normal values may occur, even in patients with symptoms of severe acute colitis. Mazlam and Hodgson have themselves recently shown the effects of corticosteroids (and 5ASA drugs) on cytokine production by peripheral blood monocytes.3 Other workers have described4 an inhibitory effect of sulphasalazine and 5ASA on the actions of tumour necrosis factor. This important aspect, however, is not discussed in their paper. We would like to know whether corticosteroid treated patients had active disease at the time of venesection, and the relation between drug treatment and monocyte cytokine production, for individual patients. Although previous studies (including our own early findings5) have suggested differences in. cytokine production by peripheral blood mononuclear cells in ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, we continue to have reservations. There remains a need for a further study, using well matched groups of patients with active disease. Studies of mucosal cytokine production in such patients are also needed.


This article describes and analyses by whom, in what ways and with what consequences migrant reception was performed in Malmö during the period 1945–1970 and how this changed over time. Inspired by Carol Bacchi's 'what's the problem represented to be' (wpr) approach, the article analyses the shifting problematisations of migrant reception in Malmö, and argues that there were two decisive shifts in Malmö's migrant reception policy. With the help of Robert Miles' concept of racialisation, the article shows that different migrant groups were racialised in different ways, depending on how they were depicted by the Swedish society. We also identify a gendered racialisation as women and men were racialised differently.


By using emergy analysis theory and methods, we conduct quantitative analysis on the input and output of emergy, and sustainable development of agro-ecological system in Poyang Lake Area. The results show that compared with the national average, the environmental loading ration is relatively low in this area; the net emergy yield rate is high; the sustainable development ability is strong. Finally according to the results of emergy analysis, corresponding countermeasures are put forward as follows: develop agriculture based on the existing rich natural resources; increase technological inputs; develop circular agriculture; promote sustainable agricultural development.


DNA strand break repair by homologous recombination leads to the formation of intermediates in which sister chromatids are covalently linked. The efficient processing of these joint molecules, which often contain four-way structures known as Holliday junctions, is necessary for efficient chromosome segregation during mitotic division. Because persistent chromosome bridges pose a threat to genome stability, cells ensure the complete elimination of joint molecules through three independent pathways. These involve (1) BLM-Topoisomerase IIIα-RMI1-RMI2 (BTR complex), (2) SLX1-SLX4-MUS81-EME1 (SLX-MUS complex), and (3) GEN1. The BTR pathway promotes the dissolution of double Holliday junctions, which avoids the formation of crossover products, prevents sister chromatid exchanges, and limits the potential for loss of heterozygosity. In contrast to BTR, the other two pathways resolve Holliday junctions by nucleolytic cleavage to yield crossover and non-crossover products. To avoid competition with BTR, the resolution pathways are restrained until the late stages of the cell cycle. The temporal regulation of the dissolution/resolution pathways is therefore critical for crossover avoidance while also ensuring that all covalent links between chromosomes are resolved before chromosome segregation.


Simulation of occupant responses in scenarios involving low load levels requires the addition of active muscles to add posture control and muscular response to the human body. A model for active muscle control has previously been implemented in the Chalmers Active Human Body Model using subroutines written in the FORTRAN programming language. In order to decrease conflicts with future software updates and increase the usability of the model, the possibility to build the model using standard LS-DYNA keywords has been investigated in this thesis. The keywords need to perform signal retrieval, addition of a time delay, implementation of feedback control algorithms and solution of differential Equations for activation dynamics. In addition to the approach already existing as a subroutine to LS-DYNA, alternative ways to implement the areas of functionality has been reviewed in literature and scientific papers. A proposed solution using standard keywords called the Load Curve Method has been developed. For basic mathematical operations *DEFINE_CURVE_ FUNCTION keyword and its built in functions are used. To solve differential Equations a mechanical representation of the Equations together with the ability in LS-DYNA to simulate kinetic and kinematic properties of single and multiple nodes is proposed. All areas of functionality except a true time delay have been implemented using standard LS-DYNA keywords. Since it is not possible to retrieve data from earlier time steps a first order low pass filter has been implemented to model the effect of a time delay. Even though it does not exactly replicate the input signal, the filter provides a phase shift and can be used to model closed loop instability. The standard keyword solution has been implemented with the Chalmers Active Human Body Model (Chalmers AHBM) as well as on an elbow joint model using LS-DYNA V971, R5.1.1 or 6.1.0 standard binary. It has been validated against the implementation that uses a sub-routine to LS-DYNA; the elbow joint model in a situation similar to the ARMANDA haptic equipment (de Vlugt et al., 2003) and Chalmers AHBM in a seated position under influence of gravity and 1G forward acceleration. In simulations with the Chalmers Active Human Body Model a decrease in computational time of about 14% has been seen for the standard keyword solution compared to the FORTRAN sub-routine.


This paper derives and gives explicit formulas for a derived sandwich variance estimate. This variance estimate is appropriate for generalized linear additive measurement error models fitted using instrumental variables. We also generalize the known results for linear regression. As such, this article explains the theoretical justification for the sandwich estimate of variance utilized in the software for measurement error developed under the Small Business Innovation Research Grant (SBIR) by StataCorp. The results admit estimation of variance matrices for measurement error models where there is an instrument for the unknown covariate.


We present a method to regenerate diversified code dynamically in a Java bytecode JIT compiler, and to update the diversification frequently during the execution of the program. This way, we can significantly reduce the time frame in which attackers can let a program leak useful address space information and subsequently use the leaked information in memory exploits. A proof of concept implementation is evaluated, showing that even though code is recompiled frequently, we can achieved smaller overheads than the previous state of the art, which generated diversity only once during the whole execution of a program.


Objective: Use of safety strategies is increasing in United States schools due to increased media attention to school violence and maladaptive student behavior. Yet, relationships between the use of school safety strategies and school social work practice have not been adequately researched. This study examines relationships between school-level characteristics and types of safety strategies in schools where social workers are employed and how these strategies influence school social work practice. Method: We used data from 229 school social workers to explore the extent to which school-level variables predict the implementation of authoritarian and educational/therapeutic school safety strategies and examine how these strategies affect practitioners. Results: School size and education level are positively associated with the use of authoritarian strategies, and urbanicity and percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged students enrolled are negatively associated with the use of educational/therapeutic strategies. Findings suggest that school social workers are affected in their practice by the types of safety strategies their schools implement. Conclusions: Implications call for social work practitioners to assess their schools' safety measures and their influence on students and school personnel when developing case conceptualizations. Practitioners should also evaluate the need for educational/therapeutic strategies and implement them accordingly, particularly in rural schools enrolling a greater percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Additional recommendations for school social work practice, education, and research are noted.


Xanthone is an antioxidant compound contained in the rind of mangosteen. There are some methods to extract Xanthone from rind of mangosteen, and one of them is hydrothermal extraction. Hydrothermal extraction is a method to obtain xanthone from rind of mangosteen using water at teIn this work, the effect of extraction temperature, pressure, and mode (batch and continuous), and particle size of starting material on the yield and recovery of extracted xanthone and phenolic compounds was investigated. Extraction was carried out at various temperatures (120, 150, and 180 o C) and pressures (1, 3, and 5 MPa) and constant flow rate of 1 mL/min. The xanthone content and antioxidant efficiency of extract was examined by using spectrophotometer, while the concentration of total phenolic compounds in the extract was determined with folin ciocalteu reagent and examined using spectrophotometer In order to confirm the extracted phenolic compounds, the extract residue was analyzed by using FTIR. The experimental result showed that the increase in pressure and temperature caused an increase in total phenolic compound concentration and yield of xanthone. In addition, the result also showed that antioxidant activities were observed in the extract of mangosteen rind.


This thesis is presented in conjunction with my production of Antigone performed at the University of Huddersfield on the 15th and 16th of June 2017. The production aimed to examine the use of circus elements to illuminate the text within Sophocles' Antigone. This was done by training one second year student and six first year students in various circus techniques which were then applied to the ancient Greek drama of Antigone.

Sophocles' Antigone is an ancient Greek tragedy, set in Thebes, which pits a tyrannical ruler, Creon, and his own niece, Antigone, against one another. Creon threatens death to anyone caught burying Antigone's brother, Polynices. Antigone breaks this law to adhere to the divine laws of the gods and pay respect to her brother. Antigone is caught, Creon convicts her of her crime, which he later pays a heavy price for; the loss of his niece, son and wife.

Using some key aspects from Peta Tait and Katie Lavers' working definition of circus: liveness, risk, extreme physical action, music, lighting, acrobatics, and using the audience's expectations to surprise and excite them (Tait & Lavers, 2016, p.6), the thesis demonstrates where the synergy of circus and Antigone was researched to examine where these aspects could illuminate the text.

Observations of the characters Antigone, Creon and The Chorus, and how these observations affected the character development are also included. The findings during the rehearsal process and an analysis of some aspects of the performance are also included in the thesis, examining where the use of circus elements has been effective, particularly, the use of physical acts and clowning.


Author(s): Tartibi, Mehrzad | Advisor(s): Komvopoulos, Kyriakos; Steigmann, David J | Abstract: The mechanical response of solids exhibiting complex material behavior has traditionally been determined by fitting constitutive models of specified functional form to experimentally derived force-displacement (stress-strain) data. However, characterizing the nonlinear mechanical behavior of complex materials requires a method of quantifying material behavior that is not restricted by a specific constitutive relation. To this end, a new method, termed \textit{the reverse updated Lagrangian finite element method} (RULFEM), which is based on the three-dimensional displacement field of the deformed solid and finite element method, is developed for incrementally linear materials. In RULEFM, the body is discretized by finite elements and its material properties are determined element-wise, i.e., the properties are assumed to be uniform at the element level and may vary from one element to another. The validity of RULFEM is demonstrated by three noise-free numerical examples and three numerical examples with various input noise levels. Two methods to assess the global and local errors of the results due to error in the measured input data (noisy data) are also discussed.The life expectancy of a solid is traditionally predicted by assessing its expected stress cycle and comparing it to the experimentally determined stress state at failure. The accuracy of this procedure is often compromised by unforeseen extremes in the loading cycle or progressive material degradation. Often residually stressed part can either produce longer or shorter lifespans than predicted. Thus determination of the current state of stress (i.e., the residual stress in the absence of external loading) and material properties is particularly important. Typically, the material properties of a solid are determined by fitting the experimental data collected from the measured response to deformations of a stress-free configuration. However, the characterization of the mechanical behavior of a residually stressed body requires, in principle, a method that is not restricted to specific constitutive models. Complementing RULFEM \cite{tartibi2014reverse}, a new method, called \textit{estimating the current-state-of-stress} (ECSS) is developed in this work. Similar to RULFEM, ECSS also uses as input three-dimensional full-field displacement and force data of the body, which is perturbed by small displacements. ECSS complements the first step of the incremental RULFEM method. It generates the nodal current-state-of-stress (or residual stress in the absence of external tractions) as well as the incremental elasticity tensor pertaining to each of the finite elements used to discretize the body. The ECSS method is used to simulate two noise-free examples.The linear dynamic response of a solid body has been used for material identification and even defect detection in low-damping (negligible viscoelastic behavior) materials. RULFEM and ECSS input full-field data, obtained from the statically perturbed body, are used to determine the initial state of stress and the current material elasticity tensors. A new formulation of ECSS, called \textit{dynamically estimating residual stress} (DERS) is developed in the fifth chapter of this dissertation. This is based on three-dimensional full-field displacement and force data of the dynamically perturbed body. In addition to nodal residual stress tensors and element-wise incremental elasticity tensor, DRES generates element-wise material density of the discretized body.


In many sustainable urban innovation projects, the efforts, endurance and enthusiasm of individuals at key positions are considered a crucial factor for success. This article studies the role of individual agency in sociotechnical niches by using Kingdon's agenda-setting model. Although strategic niche management is commonly used to study processes of urban innovation, the process of niche formation and the role of individual agency has been understudied. We will introduce the notion of the 'niche entrepreneur' as an actor who, analogous to Kingdon's policy entrepreneur, connects the elements that are needed to develop a successful niche that allows learning for sustainability transitions. We will study the process of niche formation and the role of individual entrepreneurship therein, and identify the strategies that have been used by individuals to create a successful niche. This will be done for three cases in urban systems integration: the development of Eva Lanxmeer, a residential district in a drinking water retention area in Culemborg, the Netherlands; the transformation of the waste management practices of Lille Métropole Urban Community, France; and the development of the urban district Hammarby Sjöstad, Sweden. Our findings show that for the successful formation of niches, it is necessary to create ambitious, but clear goals and matching concrete operational plans; niche entrepreneurs may play the role of project champions that contribute significantly to the operationalization, monitoring and the effectuation of the original goals of the project; the strategies of niche entrepreneurs emphasize the building of coalitions and the securing of space for learning.


Mesopelagic fishes are an important element of marine food webs, a huge, still mostly untapped food resource, and great contributors to the biological carbon pump, whose future under climate change scenarios are unknown. The shrinking of commercial fishes within decades has been an alarming observation, but its causes remain contended. Here, we investigate the effect of warming climate on mesopelagic fish size in the eastern Mediterranean Sea during a glacial–interglacial–glacial transition of the Middle Pleistocene (marine isotope stages 20–18; 814–712 Kyr B.P.), which included a 4 °C increase of global seawater temperature. Our results based on fossil otoliths show that the median size of lanternfishes, one of the most abundant groups of mesopelagic fishes in fossil and modern assemblages, declined by ~35% with climate warming at the community level. However, individual mesopelagic species showed different and often opposing trends in size across the studied time interval, suggesting that climate warming in the interglacial resulted in an ecological shift toward increased relative abundance of smaller-sized mesopelagic fishes due to geographic and/or bathymetric distribution range shifts, and the size-dependent effects of warming.


Background Achilles tendinopathy (AT) is a multifactorial condition for which genetic risk factors have been identified. The evidence implicating cytokines and inflammatory mediators in the development of tendinopathy is growing. Objective The objective of this study was to identify sequence variants within genes encoding proteins involved in the inflammatory pathway which may modulate risk of developing AT. Methods A case-control genetic association study was conducted and candidate genes within the inflammatory pathway were explored. Functional polymorphisms within interleukin-1 (IL) (−31T>C and −511C>T), IL-1RN (VNTR) and IL-6 (−172G>C), were investigated for associations with AT in a South African (SA) and Australian (AUS) case-control study. A total of 356 (158 SA and 198 AUS) asymptomatic control participants (CON) and 171 (89 SA and 82 AUS) participants with AT (TEN) were genotyped. Genotype pairs were constructed using the above polymorphisms in combination with the COL5A1BstUI RFLP. Results Risk-reducing genotypes were indentified and these genotypes in combination with the COL5A1BstUI CC genotype were found to significantly modulate risk of AT (p<0.025). No associations were observed for IL-1−31T>C, IL-1−511C>T or IL-1RN. The GG genotype (OR=2.1, 95% CI 1.2 to 3.6; p=0.017) and G allele (OR=1.5, 95% CI 1.0 to 2.2; p=0.044) of IL-6-172G>C were significantly over represented in AUS TEN. Conclusion Variations within interleukin genes together with the COL5A1BstUI CC genotype are able to modulate risk of AT. This research emphasises that a pathway-based genetic association study may be a more effective approach to capture and understand the genetic risk factors underlying multifactorial conditions, such as AT. Furthermore, this study provides evidence that injury susceptibility is most likely dependent on the cumulative effect of the interactions of sequence variants in multiple genes within biologically significant pathways.


Online reviews now influence many purchasing decisions. However, the length and significance of these reviews vary, especially when reviewers have different criteria for making their assessments. In this paper, we present an efficient method for analyzing restaurant reviews on the popular review site known as Yelp. We have created an application that uses web scraping, natural language processing, and a blacklist to recommend customer favorite dishes from restaurants. To test the app, we have conducted a qualitative evaluation of the approach. Through analyzing two different ways to obtain Yelp reviews and evaluating our word filtering process, we have concluded that an average of 51% of nonfood words are filtered out by the blacklist we made. We provide further details of its deployment, user interface design, and comparison to the opinion mining field, which utilizes similar tools to make financial market predictions based on the perceived public opinion on social media.


Sequencing the genome of the buffaloes enables scientists to more accurately identify the genetic markers that are responsible for economically important traits such as milk yield, milk fat and protein. Producers can use that information to breed healthier dairy animals that produce more and higher quality milk as well as beef animals. Consumers will benefit from more cost-effective and healthier products on store shelves. Understanding what genes contribute to specific buffalo animal traits will also have spinoff applications related to other fields like human health and disease. The animals used in the genome project have had a high impact on the breeding and


Partially-depleted Silicon-On-Insulator Negative Channel Metal Oxide Semiconductor (SOI NMOS) transistors with different layouts are fabricated on radiation hard Separation by IMplanted OXygen (SIMOX) substrate and tested using 10 keV X-ray radiation sources. The radiation performance is characterized by transistor threshold voltage shift and transistor leakage currents as a function of the total dose up to 2.0×106 rad(Si). The results show that the total dose radiation effects on NMOS devices are very sensitive to their layout structures.


When developing software today, we still use old tools and ideas. Maybe it is time to start from scratch and try tools and languages that are more in line with how we actually want to develop software. The Go Programming Language was created at Google by a rather famous trio: Rob Pike, Ken Thompson and Robert Griesemer. Before introducing Go, the company suffered from their development process not scaling well due to slow builds, uncontrolled dependencies, hard to read code, poor documentation and so on. Go is set out to provide a solution for these issues. The purpose of this master's thesis was to review the current state of the language. This is not only a study of the language itself but an investigation of the whole software development process using Go. The study was carried out from an embedded development perspective which includes an investigation of compilers and cross-compilation. We found that Go is exciting, fun to use and fulfills what is promised in many cases. However, we think the tools need some more time to mature.


Some estimators for the spectral density of the return in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images are studied using Monte Carlo experiences. The spectral density is an important quantifier of the texture that, in turn, can be related to biophysical magnitudes and it can be used to establish the kind of target being observed. These images are contaminated by a particular kind of noise, called speckle, that departs from the classical hypothesis of obeying the Gaussian law and of entering the signal in an additive manner requiring, thus, a careful treatment. The departure from the Gaussian law will be modeled by means of the k distribution. This law arises from certain (very realistic) hypothesis for the relationship between signal and noise. The empirical observation of structured data is modeled by the use of spatial correlation. There are two approaches to the problem of the presence of speckle noise, one being the use of techniques for its reduction (usually specially devised filters) and the other the proposal of methodologies that take its presence into account. These approaches are compared, to the problem of estimating the spatial correlation structure of the ground truth. The performance of these estimators are assessed using Monte Carlo experiences, since the problem is analytically intractable.


Those of us living near power lines can breath a little easier knowing that the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences has determined that we are safe from power-line electromagnetic fields (EMF) in the following sense: As scientists we know that we cannot prove the negative, that cancer from power-lines is impossible; but we can determine the absence of the proof of a positive link between cancer and EMF. The Academy panel determined the later, the lack of a positive link. The panel's main conclusion follows: "Based on a comprehensive evaluation of published studies relating to the effects of power-frequency electric and magnetic fields on cells, tissues, and organisms (including humans), the conclusion of the committee is that the current body of evidence does not show that exposure to these fields presents a human-health hazard. Specifically, no conclusive and consistent evidence shows that exposures to residential electric and magnetic fields produce cancer, adverse neurobehavioral effects, or reproductive and developmental effects."