Diffusion bonding may be used, with superplastic forming, to create a great range of cellular structured materials, with great potential for material efficiency, multi-functionality and lightweighting. However, this potential is generally considered to be constrained by the slowness (hours) of and the overall cost of achieving such solid-state bonds. The work described is part of the basis for the development of a process that can produce good diffusion bonds, in the commonly used titanium alloy Ti64 (Ti6Al4V), in less than 60 s. And so it has the capability of increasing the productivity for diffusion bonding. Localised direct heating can induce high levels of stress, and these thermal stresses can accelerate the diffusion bonding process. The equipment used involved induction heating and required no large (and expensive) hot presses or pressure vessels. Hence, machinery capital cost may be reduced. A sequence of numerical models was found useful to understand the effects of the process parameters on diffusion bonding. Finite element modelling looked at accelerating the collapse of the voids, determined by the relative flatness and roughness of the metallic sheets at different spatial wavelengths. It appears that the localised heating drives the diffusion bonding process in inducing significant stress levels, into the material to be bonded, and thus accelerates the collapse of voids and the achievement of intimate contact. Raising the temperature as much as possible assists the actual diffusion processes required for bonding to occur and is an important aspect of accelerating the process. Therefore, the increase in the rate of bonding and the lower cost of the equipment open up the possibility of much more affordable diffusion bonding and the production of material efficient and functionally useful cellular materials.


Objective. Circadian and sleep dysfunction have long been symptomatic hallmarks of a variety of devastating neurodegenerative conditions. The gold standard for sleep monitoring is overnight sleep in a polysomnography (PSG) laboratory. However, this method has several limitations such as availability, cost and being labour-intensive. In recent years there has been a heightened interest in home-based sleep monitoring via wearable sensors. Our objective was to demonstrate the use of printed electrode technology as a novel platform for sleep monitoring. Approach. Printed electrode arrays offer exciting opportunities in the realm of wearable electrophysiology. In particular, soft electrodes can conform neatly to the wearer's skin, allowing user convenience and stable recordings. As such, soft skin-adhesive non-gel-based electrodes offer a unique opportunity to combine electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG), electrooculography (EOG) and facial EMG capabilities to capture neural and motor functions in comfortable non-laboratory settings. In this investigation temporary-tattoo dry electrode system for sleep staging analysis was designed, implemented and tested. Main results. EMG, EOG and EEG were successfully recorded using a wireless system. Stable recordings were achieved both at a hospital environment and a home setting. Sleep monitoring during a 6 h session shows clear differentiation of sleep stages. Significance. The new system has great potential in monitoring sleep disorders in the home environment. Specifically, it may allow the identification of disorders associated with neurological disorders such as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder.


Purpose: A phase I clinical trial in patients with advanced carcinoma was conducted, using a replicationdefective avipox vaccine containing the gene for the human carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). The canarypox vector, designated ALVAC, has the ability to infect human cells but cannot replicate. Patients and Methods: The recombinant vaccine, designated ALVAC-CEA, was administered intramuscularly three times at 28-day intervals. Each cohort of six patients received three doses of either 2.5 3 105 ,2 .53 106 ,o r 2.53 107 plaque-forming units of vaccine. Results: The vaccine was well tolerated at all dose levels and no significant toxicity was attributed to the treatment. No objective antitumor response was observed during the trial in patients with measurable disease. Studies were conducted to assess whether ALVAC-CEA had the ability to induce cytolytic T-lymphocyte (CTL) responses in patients with advanced cancer. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from patients with the MHC class I A2 allele were obtained before vaccine administration and 1 month after the third vaccination. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were incubated with the CEA immunodominant CTL epitope carcinoembryonic antigen peptide-1 and interleukin 2 and quantitated using CTL precursor frequency analysis. In seven of nine patients evaluated, statistically significant increases in CTL precursors specific for CEA were observed in PBMCs after vaccination, compared with before vaccination. Conclusion: These studies constitute the first phase I trial of an avipox recombinant in cancer patients. The recombinant vaccine ALVAC-CEA seems to be safe and has been demonstrated to elicit CEA-specific CTL responses. These studies thus form the basis for the further clinical exploration of the ALVAC-CEA recombinant vaccine in phase I/ II studies in protocols designed to enhance the generation of human T-cell responses to CEA. J Clin Oncol 17:332-337. r 1999 by American Society of Clinical Oncology.


Replicate groups of juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) were exposed to infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV), sub-lethal levels of esfenvalerate, or to both agents concurrently. A lethal synergistic effect of concurrent exposure to IHNV and esfenvalerate resulted in 24.1% mortality by 68 h post-virus exposure with no mortality observed in any other treatment groups at this time. Analyses of spleen samples from fish sampled at 68 h following exposure to both IHNV and esfenvalerate was suggestive of a disruption of transcription, and demonstrated a significant decrease in the production of two early, non-specific anti-viral genes (Mx-1 and Vig-8). Analyses of blood serum suggested that osmolality was not a contributing factor to the observed early mortality event. Examinations of stained sections of the gill and anterior kidney from fish in all treatment groups at 68 h did not reveal pathologic microscopic changes. This study suggests that the lethal synergistic effect of exposure to IHNV and esfenvalerate to juvenile Chinook salmon may be related to inhibited transcription of early, non-specific, anti-viral cytokines.


Lucid dreaming is a rare occurrence in which individuals are aware that they are dreaming and sometimes the dreamer is also able to control the dream. The metacognition experienced during lucid dreaming appears as prefrontal cortex activation that is not apparent during normal dreaming. Prefrontal cortical activity has also been linked to creativity. The current experiment measured the incidence of lucid dreams in an undergraduate population and examined a possible relationship between lucid dreaming and creativity. Participants were given a creativity test, followed by a short session that trained participants in pre-sleep autosuggestion techniques to aid in lucid dreaming. Participants kept a dream journal for next 7 days. At the conclusion of the week, subjects took a second creativity test. It was hypothesized that creative people would be more likely to lucid dream, and that perhaps training in lucid dream techniques may be able to boost creativity in participants. We found high rates of both current (59%) and lifetime (75%) lucid dream occurrence in our undergraduate population (n=295). Statistical analysis found no significant difference in creativity between lucid dreamers or non-lucid dreamers (n=47), nor was there any evidence that 7 days of pre-sleep autosuggestion increased creativity. However, lucid dreaming training over a longer period of time should be explored.


The PKWN August decree of 1944 as an instrument for legalizing the communist authorities in PolandThe aim of this study is to present the key assumptions and practices of the August Decree of 31 August 1944 of the Polish Committee of National Liberation PKWN. It is important to show how the Decree was an instrument for the settlement of Nazi crimes in Poland, and to what extent a tool to defeat the opponents of communist rule in Poland. The most important goal of the work is to show how instrumental treatment of the law served the legitimization of power: unwanted, deprived of broader social support, based solely on the violence and military strength of the Soviet Union. Principles and legal regulations of the Decree will be discussed as well as its practical application in the jurisprudence of special and common courts.


We and others have shown previously that fisetin, a plant flavonoid, has therapeutic potential against many cancer types. Here, we examined the probable mechanism of its action in prostate cancer (PCa) using a global metabolomics approach. HPLC-ESI-MS analysis of tumor xenografts from fisetin-treated animals identified several metabolic targets with hyaluronan (HA) as the most affected. Efficacy of fisetin on HA was then evaluated in vitro and also in vivo in the transgenic TRAMP mouse model of PCa. Size exclusion chromatography-multiangle laser light scattering (SEC-MALS) was performed to analyze the molar mass (Mw) distribution of HA. Fisetin treatment downregulated intracellular and secreted HA levels both in vitro and in vivo Fisetin inhibited HA synthesis and degradation enzymes, which led to cessation of HA synthesis and also repressed the degradation of the available high-molecular-mass (HMM)-HA. SEC-MALS analysis of intact HA fragment size revealed that cells and animals have more abundance of HMM-HA and less of low-molecular-mass (LMM)-HA upon fisetin treatment. Elevated HA levels have been shown to be associated with disease progression in certain cancer types. Biological responses triggered by HA mainly depend on the HA polymer length where HMM-HA represses mitogenic signaling and has anti-inflammatory properties whereas LMM-HA promotes proliferation and inflammation. Similarly, Mw analysis of secreted HA fragment size revealed less HMM-HA is secreted that allowed more HMM-HA to be retained within the cells and tissues. Our findings establish that fisetin is an effective, non-toxic, potent HA synthesis inhibitor, which increases abundance of antiangiogenic HMM-HA and could be used for the management of PCa.


Henri Matisse's images in Jazz, created during the disruption of the German Occupation of France, were embedded with symbols of cultural resistance, while his text, which he composed after the defeat of the Germans, reflected the transition to a post-Liberation France. The wartime symbols and allusions camouflaged within these images are readily revealed when consideration is given to two carefully devised interpretative filters that Matisse created. The first, a circus theme embodied in its original title Cirque, and the second, the intricate captions that Matisse accorded to each image. Enhancing the visual quality of his handwritten text with his richly drawn arabesques, he created a new text-image dynamic which gave primacy to the image. The paper reveals a congruency between the text in Jazz, which he declared had no relationship to the image, and the essay he wrote at the same time, "How I made my books", where he articulated a principle he adopted for his other books, the rapport between the image and the literary character of the text.


The concept and method of in-line sputtering and selenization become the industrial standard for Cu-III-VI2 solar cell fabrication, but it is a difficult work to control and predict the electrical and optical performances, which are closely related to the chemical composition of the film. This chapter addresses the material design, device design, and process design using chemical compositions relating parameters. Compositional variation leads to change in the poisson equation, current equation and continuity equation governing the device design. To make the device design much realistic and meaningful, we have to build a model that relates the opto-electrical performance to the chemical composition of the film. The material and device structural parameters are input into the process simulation to give a complete process control parameters and method. We calculated neutral defect concentrations of non-stoichiometric CuMSe2 (M-In, Ga) under the specific atomic chemical potential conditions. The electrical and optical performance has also been investigated for the development of full function analytical solar cell simulator. Module instability and their origins are listed. After that progress of CZTS (Cu2ZnS4) is briefed on the future work of CIGS (CuInGaSe2). The future prospects regarding the development of CIGS thinfilm solar cells (TFSCs) have also been discussed.


On March 5, 2014, the United States Supreme Court, in BG Group PLC v. Republic of Argentina,1 ruled for the first time on the standard of review U.S. courts should apply when examining investment treaty awards to determine whether an arbitral tribunal exceeded its powers. In a 7-2 split, with a concurrence, the majority adopted a highly deferential standard of review based on interpretive presumptions developed under U.S. domestic law for arbitration agreements found in ordinary contracts between private parties. The dissent, by contrast, opted for a de novo standard of review based on the recognition that states have delegated an important function of policing arbitral decisions on jurisdiction to national courts and that particular care is required when this function is exercised in investor-state disputes founded on interstate treaties. The dissent's approach is preferable because it appreciates the public international law basis and public law nature of investment treaty arbitration, which differs in important ways from contractual arbitration between private parties.


Abstract We are researching the interaction between the rule and the ontology layers of the Semantic Web, by comparing two options: 1) using OWL and its rule extension SWRL to develop an integrated ontology/rule language, and 2) layering rules on top of an ontology with RuleML and OWL. Toward this end, we are developing the SWORIER system, which enables efficient automated reasoning on ontologies and rules, by translating all of them into Prolog and adding a set of general rules that properly capture the semantics of OWL. We have also enabled the user to make dynamic changes on the fly, at run time. This work addresses several of the concerns expressed in previous work, such as negation, complementary classes, disjunctive heads, and cardinality, and it discusses alternative approaches for dealing with inconsistencies in the knowledge base. In addition, for efficiency, we implemented techniques called extensionalization, avoiding reanalysis, and code minimization.


Parthenium ( Parthenium hysterophorus L.) is an invasive alien species of global significance which is rapidly expanding in Nepal and other Asian countries with negative impacts on species diversity, health of human and livestock, and productivity of pasture and agriculture. To understand the invasive success of this weed, we analysed soil of its invaded sites, morphological traits, biomass allocation, leaf attributes, and phenology in the Kathmandu valley. The roadside soil, which is loamy sand in the valley is highly suitable for the growth and proliferation of the parthenium weed where its density has become double in less than a decade. An average size plant was 112 cm tall with 12 cm long tap root and produced 2637 achene per plant (max. 3865 per plant). A combination of different leaf traits enables the parthenium to grow under diverse habitats such as resources poor condition (due to low specific leaf area, SLA), disturbed habitats (due to low leaf dry matter content, LDMC) as well as productive sites (due to high leaf nitrogen content). During rainy season it completes lifecycle in 16-18 weeks. Relatively long (12-16 weeks) reproductive period with high output of small seeds and their capacity to germinate and flower anytime in the year make parthenium a successful invasive weed in the Kathmandu valley. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/njst.v15i1.12007 Nepal Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 15, No.1 (2014) 31-38


When a gain system is coupled to a loss system, the energy usually flows from the gain system to the loss one. We here present a counterintuitive theory for the ground-state cooling of the mechanical resonator in optomechanical system via a gain cavity. The energy flows first from the mechanical resonator into the loss cavity, then into the gain cavity, and finally localizes there. The energy localization in the gain cavity dramatically enhances the cooling rate of the mechanical resonator. Moreover, we show that unconventional optical spring effect, e.g., giant frequency shift and optically induced damping of the mechanical resonator, can be realized. Those feature a pre-cooling free ground-state cooling, i.e., the mechanical resonator in thermal excitation at room temperature can directly be cooled to its ground state. This cooling approach has the potential application for fundamental tests of quantum physics without complicated cryogenic setups.


Recently, a series of advances were made for image restoration tasks such as image denoising and single image super-resolution. It is particularly remarkable that methods employing different formulations and assumptions achieve comparable top performances. Moreover, the top methods operate at their best on some particular image contents and poorer on other. No method is the best on all the image contents. The methods are complementary in both formulation and performance. We propose a locally adaptive fusion of results of such methods towards an improved restoration result. We work patch-wise and partition the patch space such that per each partition to train anchored regressors from the fused methods' output patches to the fusion target result. At test our anchored fusion method applies efficiently the anchored regressors corresponding to the input patches to be fused. Whilst having a low time complexity, we achieve significant improvements over the fused state-of-the-art methods on standard test images for both image denoising and super-resolution tasks (e.g. 0.1 – 0.5dB PSNR).


The aim of the paper is to express the nature and the extent of changes in the consumer preferences in the context of the oligopolistic multinational chains of fast food restaurants. The methodology of the paper is based on the analysis of growing market shares of fast food restaurants in the Czech Republic using the performance indicators of companies. Among the largest fast food restaurants in the Czech Republic are McDonald's, KFC, Subway and the new fast food chain Parky's. McDonald's market share in terms of output is currently 46% of the fast food market. The paper therefore analyzes the last part of the agri-food vertical with clear consequence on the demand for agricultural commodities and for food as a whole. This study is supported by the Internal Grant Agency of Faculty of Economics and Management, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (Projects No. 20141025 – The growing share of fast food restaurants in consumer demand).


A model of full scale one-bay, one storey was tested under low cyclic loading in order to study the hysteretic behavior of steel frames with sandwich composite (SC) panels. According to the failure pattern and damage process of test specimen, seismic behaviors were evaluated. Hysterics loops, skeleton curves, curves of strength degradation, and curves of stiffness degradation, ductility index and viscous damping coefficient were analyzed. Test results show that the failures of panels mainly occurred around the embedded parts, but compared with traditional panels and walls, SC panels exhibit a better integration. The connection between panel and steel frame is vital to the mutual work of the two parts. Finally, seismic design recommendations based on the analysis of ductility index and energy dissipation of the structures are presented.


Sir We agree with Mann et al. (Br J Sury 1988; 75: 425-7) that preparation of the distal bowel, by means of disposable phosphate enema, is helpful before rigid sigmoidoscopy. However, when the facilities are available in the out-patient department to give enemas to patients requiring sigmoidoscopy the opportunity should be taken to examine the patient with a flexible, fibreoptic instrument whenever possible. A disposable enema will adequately prepare the bowel as far proximally as the splenic flexure in most cases and full insertion of a 65 cm flexible endoscope can be achieved in over 70 per cent' of cases. Examination of at least 30 cm of bowel (the maximum distance achievable with a rigid instrument) is possible in almost all patients. In fact, Mann et al. achieved passage of the rigid sigmoidoscope a mean distance of only 22.4 cm, despite bowel preparation and placing the patient in the unpopular knee-elbow position. Allowing for the apparent distance passed due to stretching of the rectum, this suggests that the rectosigmoid junction remains a difficult obstacle to negotiate with the rigid instrument. However, the greatest argument for use of the flexible sigmoidoscope is that it will increase the number of occasions where cancer is diagnosed at a patient's first hospital attendance, simply owing to the extra length of bowel examined. In our experience, diagnosis of cancer at the initial consultation, without need for further investigation such as barium enema or colonoscopy, significantly reduces the delay between a general practitioner referring the patient and surgery. We suggest that any surgeon with the opportunity to give patients limited bowel preparation in the out-patient department would d o better to invest in a flexible sigmoidoscope than a Ritter table. J. J. T. Tate G. T. Royle Unirersity Surgical Unit Southampton General Hospital Southampton SO1 6 H U U K


As one of the most promising carbon-based photoluminescent materials, carbon dots (CDots) have recently attracted great attention for many potential applications owing to their excellent optical, electrical, and chemical properties. Forster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) is a highly sensitive spectroscopic technique that has been widely utilized for all applications of fluorescence. In this review, we provide an updated roadmap of CDot-based FRET systems for nanoprobes. Several CDot-based FRET systems obtained by co-assembling different fluorescent molecules are surveyed. Furthermore, the synthesis strategies for CDot-based FRET systems and their applications in nanoprobes, bioimaging, and biomedicine are reviewed. We further provide an outlook toward the future development of CDot-based FRET systems. This article summarizes the latest progress in CDot-based FRET systems and looks forward to further developments in these exciting nanocomposites.


An escalation strategy for a flat network based on the Big Crossconnects Architecture (BCA) and discordant virtual paths is proposed. The proposed scheme implements different restoration mechanisms at the switching and transport layers of the BCA for each discordant virtual path. The switching layer mechanism is called the dormant VP protection and will combine the best characteristics of dedicated and semi-dedicated-ATM protection. The transport layer is protected using the VP link switching scheme that is a hybrid between SDH and ATM 1:1 protection mechanisms. The overall escalation is designed so that the interworking between the two mechanisms is transparent to the users.


An orbital drilling approach is proposed in machining hardened steel hole. In this study, the orbital drilling performance was investigated in connection with deburring, form error and surface roughness. First, the hole machinability of various steels was analyzed to compare an orbital drilling with a vertical drilling; then the orbital drilling experiments of hardened steel were carried out to investigate the effects of orbital drilling parameters such as tool speed, orbital feed and screw-pitch on form error and surface roughness. It is shown that the orbital drilling approach is feasible to machine the hole of hardened steel with smooth surface and little burrs using an AlTiN coating WC drill bite. Moreover, the hole form accuracy and surface roughness can be improved with increasing the tool speed and the working space, or decreasing orbital speed and orbital pitch. It is also found that the hole edge burrs can be reduced by choosing a low orbital speed. It is indicated that the form error may be greatly decreased by using a compensation approach through a new CNC tool orbital path.


Sequence data derived from two mitochondrial markers, 16S rRNA and COI genes, were used to infer the evolutionary history of 47 insular and mainland populations covering most of the distributional range of the northeastern Mediterranean scorpion species Mesobuthus gibbosus. Based on the estimated divergence times of Mesobuthus lineages, the temporal frame of the genus differentiation in the northeastern Mediterranean region is placed in middle Miocene (15 million years ago). The biogeographic affinities of M. gibbosus populations point towards a mainly vicariant pattern of differentiation of the species which is consistent with the geological events that transformed the Aegean region during the period from 12 to 5 million years ago. M. gibbosus is an old northeastern Mediterranean species that has retained valuable bits of genetic information, reflecting some of the oldest vicariant events that have occurred in the area. Most importantly, the history witnessed by M. gibbosus has not been obscured by more recent palaeoevents of the region. Therefore, the case of M. gibbosus is in favour of a taxon‐oriented 'perception' of the natural history of a given area.


The traditional sources of energy are considered as a threat to the environment. On the contrary, renewable sources of energy such as wind energy, solar energy, and geothermal energy, etc. are eco-friendly. The main source of renewable energy in our area is solar energy where Palestine is considered as one of the sunny countries, and percepts good solar radiation over the year. The insolation intensity is in the range of 0.5-1kW/m2, and so solar concentrators are required to attain medium and high temperature conditions. In this work, Solar Energy Heater Tank (SEHT) is designed. SEHT uses solar energy to produce hot water for various domestic purposes. By using SEHT, the cost of electric bills reduces dramatically. Moreover, it is a great alternative for regions which do not receive utility services. It does not pollute air or water or soil and is completely eco-friendly. The components used in designing SEHT are taken form junk yards. The tank replaces the currently available ones that are electricity powered supplied by utility company. Though the design is found very useful to Gaza, and it also applicable to any area where solar radiation is abundant, especially for areas suffering from lack of tradition sources of energy or in remote areas where utility services cannot reach them.


Operation time during the harvest of soybean at farmer's holdings has been analyzed by working operations and presented in this paper. Modern combines gain more utilization through working (Krv = 0,55) and production time (Kpv = 0.70) and achieve 3.7 times more effeciency. Proportion of effective time during the harvest of soybean (55,11% - JD 1450 CWS and 48,52% - Zmaj 141) within working day is small and not enough. Analyses of time have shown that there are possibilities for rationalization the process of harvesting soybean. Possibilities for rationalization lay down in resolving of organizational failures, making an optimal combining plan (schedule), and contemporary combine's usage.


Abstract:  American Indians are at high risk for exposure to violence and other traumatic events, yet few studies have investigated posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or its neurobiological consequences in Indian communities. In the present study, a sample of American Indians (n= 146) were given a structured diagnostic interview that additionally indexed traumatic life events and symptoms emerging following those events. Electroencephalogram (EEG) spectra and visual event‐related potentials (ERPs) to happy, sad, and neutral faces were also recorded from each participant. Ninety‐nine percent of the sample had experienced at least one category of trauma with the mean number being 5, 27% had experienced at least 8 categories, and 13% met DSM‐IV criteria for PTSD. The PTSD group did not differ on any demographic or diagnostic variables from the larger sample. An electrophysiological signature for PTSD was found that included increases in high‐frequency gamma activity (20–40 Hz, F= 8.7, P < 0.004) in frontal leads, higher N1 amplitudes to sad stimuli in frontotemporal leads (F= 12.4, P < 0.001, F= 5.0, P < 0.03) , and longer latency P3 components to happy stimuli in midline, central, and right frontal leads(F= 4.7, P < 0.03; F= 4.1, P < 0.04; F= 4.0, P < 0.05). These findings were observed in participants with PTSD, but not in a group with equivalently high trauma counts. These findings suggest that PTSD is associated with EEG hyperarousal, higher attentional levels to sad stimuli, and slower processing of happy stimuli. They also partially confirm ERP data reported in combat victims with PTSD suggesting that PTSD may induce neurobiological consequences that transcend type of eliciting trauma as well as ethnic and cultural factors.


In order to do research on dynamic characteristics of auger miner's working mechanism, three-dimensional entity model was built by software Pro/E, some components of working mechanism were made flexible and corresponding Modal Neutral Files were created by software ANSYS. Through the date exchange among Pro/E, ANSYS and ADAMS, dynamical simulation model of working mechanism was built in ADAMS environment. ADAMS/vibration, a plugin in ADAMS, can solve the dynamical simulation model and obtain dynamic characteristics of working mechanism. The establishment of the model can lay the foundation for the research on dynamic characteristics of working mechanism. The resolved results of the model can provide reference for structural design and performance improvements of working mechanism.


Cisplatin is commonly used in neoadjuvant, adjuvant, and systemic therapy for advanced bladder cancer, but its immune-related mechanism is still unclear. Exploration of the immune effects of cisplatin in bladder cancer would complement the comprehensive mechanism of cisplatin and provide the basis for combination therapy of cisplatin and immunotherapy in bladder cancer. We confirmed the immune effects of cisplatin on T24 and TCCSUP bladder cancer cell lines in vitro and explored the important function of these immune effects in the bladder cancer microenvironment in a mice tumor model. We found cisplatin induced immune response in bladder cancer by RNA sequencing and validated that cGAS-STING signal was deeply involved in this response. Cisplatin induced cGAS-STING signal inhibited the proliferation of bladder cancer and increased the infiltration percentages of CD8+ T cells and dendritic cells in a transplantation mice tumor model. Accumulation of dsDNA and the release of chromatin bound cGAS are important to activate downstream STING. Our findings indicated a cisplatin-related immune effect in bladder cancer, and cisplatin combined with immunotherapy might have a synergistic effect for bladder cancer therapy.


Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a long‐lasting skin disease with flares of painful boils in areas where skin meets skin, such as the armpits and groins. It affects somewhere between 1 and 40 people out of 1000 worldwide. When trying to measure the effect of a treatment in a clinical trial, so‐called 'outcome measurement instruments' are used. These are ways of estimating 'how much' disease is present. It is obviously important that outcome measurement instruments measure the right thing and do not vary at random. It has previously been shown that outcome measurement instruments used in HS trials lack proof of their reliability. This study therefore aimed to find out how consistently 12 HS‐experienced dermatologists would score 24 patients with HS, using nine different instruments. The study showed that one called Hurley staging was an acceptable instrument in terms of consistency of scores. However, Hurley staging is suited only for severity staging e.g. to guide the most appropriate treatment in each stage. For instruments designed to measure changes in disease severity, low agreement between the rating dermatologists was found. Therefore, the results question whether HS physical signs are best measured by traditional instruments based on a physician counting individual HS lesions (affected patches). As a result, other assessment methods of physical signs in HS, using technology such as ultrasound, should also be considered.


Renal biopsy is a common procedure in most large hospitals. The safety and efficacy of this procedure have been well established, 1 and complications, when they occur, are usually noted in the immediate postbiopsy period. 2 This report concerns fatal, postbiopsy bleeding, occurring ten days after a percutaneous renal biopsy. Report of Case A 47-year-old man was admitted to the Philadelphia General Hospital on Feb 22, 1964, because of progressive weakness, lethargy, and neuropathy involving the left thigh of six months' duration. He had been hypertensive for more than six years. Otherwise, his past medical history was unremarkable. Physical examination on admission revealed a chronically ill Negro man in no acute distress. The blood pressure was 190/110 and the pulse 64/min. His optic fundi showed mild hypertensive changes. He had cardiomegaly and marked hyperesthesia over the lateral aspect of the left thigh. Initial Laboratory Findings. —Hemoglobin was 13.7 gm per


Solenoid pump is widely used in the steam appliances. It is important to have a good understanding and research on the solenoid pump for its structural design and function design. The paper made a preliminary theoretical analysis to the problem of the flue attenuation of the solenoid pump and a preliminary verification through an experimental data. Through the understanding of the feature of the solenoid pump, it can make the design of the steam appliances more successfully.


Dopamine (DA) drives incentive learning: learning which is elicited through rewarding stimuli. Irregularities in DA activity are associated with various psychological disorders. Glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK3β), a molecule downstream of DA receptors, has been implicated in mediating dopaminergic behaviour, and unbalanced DA activity is associated with concomitant irregularities in GSK3β signaling. Inhibition of this molecule has been noted to attenuate behavioural sensitization, and decrease psychotomimetic behaviour in animals. Few studies have assessed the role of GSK3β in the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm, which evaluates the rewarding properties of substances and has been used to model psychosis. CPP can be examined through either acquisition or expression paradigms, which look at the active learning process vs. the recall of learned information respectively. We tested the hypothesis that selective inhibition of GSK3β with SB 216763 will differentially and dose-dependently affect the acquisition and expression of amphetamine (AMPH) CPP, as well as attenuate AMPH locomotor activity in acquisition. All drugs and vehicles were administered via intra-cranial microinfusions into the nucleus accumbens (NAc). AMPH was administered at a dose of 20.0 μg/0.5 μl/side. SB 216763 was tested at four doses (0.03, 0.30, 3.00, & 5.00 μg/0.5 μl/side) in both acquisition and expression. We found administering SB 216763 at all doses to attenuate AMPH CPP and locomotor activity in acquisition. At doses 0.30, 3.00, & 5.00 μg/0.5 μl/side, SB 216763 also blocked AMPH CPP at expression. These results lend support to GSK3β's involvement in incentive learning and DA-mediated behaviours, and suggest its inhibition may differentially affect the acquisition and expression of AMPH CPP.


How have the discourses of 'trade-oriented food security' and 'food sovereignty' contributed to a politics of international agri-food policy? Discourse is understood as the meanings given to phenomena (both social and physical) and the practices associated with those meanings. Consequently, metaphors are regarded as powerful sense-making constructs. In their classic forms, these two discourses constitute seemingly irreconcilable paradigms: one representing a hegemonic assertion of neoliberal economic rationalism, the other an oppositional and populist social movement. Analysis of public-facing discourse reveals distinctive meanings and metaphors concerning the role of trade in food security and in the conceptualisation of nature (particularly in reference to agricultural biotechnology) along with elements of co-construction. While both forms of discourse face challenges in retaining coherency, trade-oriented food security enunciates a poorly specified and increasingly arcane vision, relatively unconcerned with ecological sensitivities and resource constraints. New opportunities for the discourse of food sovereignty may involve continuing to specify and exemplify a politics of the particular founded on agro-ecological practices.


Three 3D seismic cubes (EL0001, St0309 and ST05M09) from different parts of the SW Barents Sea basin were studied to decipher processes causing depressions in the seabed and subseabed. Since the investigated areas were under the influence of various depositional and erosional conditions during ice ages special attention was given to the potential of ice driven morphologies. Depressions identified at the seafloor and at the upper regional unconformity (URU) sub surface vary in shape, size and depth. Their distribution is governed by large scale glacial morphology and deeper fluid accumulation and migration pathways as inferred from seismic anomalies. The formation of fluid flow related depressions could be a result or a combination of both external (glacial erosion and accumulation) and internal factors (gas expansion). Evidence for fluid flow exists in deeper layers and thus fluids could migrate upward along faults and porous sediment strata and spread laterally in upper sediment layers. A second class of depressions exists that is mainly related to glacier driven surface processes in for example subglacial melt-water channels without any obvious relation to deeper fluid sources. Generally, glacial morphological elements influence sediment facies distributions, the thickness of the deposits and therefore the location and frequency of pockmarks and/or pockmark fields. The pockmarks tend to occur inside iceberg-plough marks, mega scale glacial liniations (MSGL), all regions with reduced sediment thickness through which fluids may penetrate more easily. The timing of pockmark creation varies depending on fluid source areas, the thickness of the glacial sediment blanket and ice sheet retreat.


In light of the growing TV industry in Sweden competition is intensified. Production companies have increased in number and public service has gone through major organizational changes in order to adapt to the new market conditions. Stockholm is the major cluster for TV production. As a consequence production firms are located there. The thesis reveals that competition has risen and a certain trend of specialization has taken place. The Swedish public television provider has increased its collaboration with other production companies and also exports its own formats. As quality plays a crucial part in TV production it is relevant to understand the stakeholders and their definition of the concept of quality in relation to production and what role it plays in the interconnection between the decision makers and the creators. This thesis addresses two subjects. First the geographic nature of the Swedish TV industry: Its location, district and the network within the Stockholm region. Second the concept of quality and how the different stakeholders' within the Stockholm region define quality in TV production. Using qualitative interviews similarities and differences in the concept of quality were discovered. The major differences are related to stakeholders' relation to the cultural and economic spheres. Two formats were singled out for comparison: Reality shows and TV-series (all genres). Firstly gate-keepers definitions in relation to formats and genres are analyzed through interviews. Secondly a participatory observation of the Swedish drama series Real Humans was conducted. By observing and interacting with the production and those involved the concept of quality is addressed in the creative context. I argue that there are similarities in the conceptualization of quality between different stakeholders but differences when prioritizing and crafting quality. Hence there is a complexity in the definition within TV-production which is identified and discussed in this thesis.


: The influence of seduxen (diazepam) on cortical potentials P300 evoked by neutral and emotional words was studied in adult subjects having life conflicts. The therapeutic dose of seduxen (10 mg) had no significant effect on the amplitude of the late positive cortical response P300 to neutral words. Seduxen depresses the emotional activation of the cerebral cortex; that is manifested in selective elimination of those changes in latency and amplitude of P300 wave which are observed in response to emotionally significant words. Under the action of seduxen, the interhemispheric difference in the latency of cortical response disappears due to latency increase in the right hemisphere.


Here this system comes with new point of view towards surveillance system, which is multifunctional wireless medical surveillance system using very useful device FPGA. This system mainly based on radio frequency, GSM, wireless communication protocol and FPGA. This system accepts real time parameters like temperature, Pressure, heart beat pulses. It can be transmitted through base station to community hospital or expert system. Doctor can also touch up with help of web or PDA. At every moment it is not possible for patient to go to the hospital and take a service. Here we are introducing a system that helps in taking care of patient by them as well as doctor. Here not only patient can measure parameters related to body but also they can see it with help of internet. At the same interval hospital and doctor can also touch up with patients" health updates and they can give related instruction after they come to dignose. The system which we have made helps patients to take care of them. Here in this project we are using sensor that is heart beat sensor to sense heart beat pulses. Output of the sensor is given to ADC from where we get digital output for our FPGA. Here FPGA is heart of this system which takes data, analyze it, process it, calculate result and also display the same. It can take corrective action in case of output when it is above and below threshold. FPGA output is connected to wireless transmitter which is RF module transmitter with encoder. In our receiver section we have used wireless receiver whose output is connected to ARM and from there it is given to GSM modem from where message is send to doctor. When doctor is out door then with the help of GSM modem he or she can get message on the mobile. In our model we have used one heart beat sensor whose output is given to transmitter section and at the other end at the receiver we get messages on the mobile related to our heart bit sensor"s output.


Quantitative and qualitative analysis with graphic representation of the publication productivity of a scientist facilitates easy and clear perception about the work of a scientist. Bhabha's scientific work spanned over more than three decades (1933-1967) during which he published 104 publications, which could be classified into nine fields: Interaction of Radiation with Matter (4), Quantum Electrodynamics (5), Mathematical Physics (2), Cosmic Ray Physics (18), Elementary Particle Physics (14), Field Theory (15), General Physics (2), Nuclear Physics (4) and General (40). The highest number of publications (6) were published in 1941, 1945 and 1964 respectively. The average number of publications published per year was 3.05. His productivity coefficient was 0.05 which is a clear indicates that his publication productivity was quite consistent throughout his scientific career. He was single author in 79 of his publications and the main author in 24 publications indicates that he always preferred to work himself and lead the team as 'mentor'. Bhabha had 22 collaborators during the period. Team of research collaborators working with a successful scientist documents the sociological aspect of history of science while generating knowledge by a leader in a domain.

Bhabha became a citable author in 1937. Bhabha received 1211 citations to his 30 publications out of 104 publications. Out of 104, 74 publications did not receive any citations. Out of 74 publications, 40 publications dealt subjects mainly of general interest. Bhabha's 86.66 percent of cited publications received their first citations within four years of their publication indicates that his publications were noticed immediately and had direct impact among the fellow researchers working all over the world. His overall citation rate was 11.64 per cited publication. The highest citations 389 were received to the domain 'Cosmic ray physics'. The highest number of citations received were 45 in 1938. His self-citations were only 24 (1.98%) and citations by others were 1187 (98.02%). The highest self citations were six in 1946. Bhabha's mean diachronous self-citation rate was 1.98. The highest citation rate 28.4 was to the domain 'Quantum electrodynamics. His single authored publications have received the highest number 863 (71.26%) of citations. Bhabha's five publications have been cited more than 100 times each. His publications have been cited by the authors working in various diverse fields like nuclear physics, mathematical physics, instrumentation, optics, geophysics and geochemistry, condensed matter physics, applied physics, electrical and electronic engineering, mechanical engineering etc., indicating a very diverse influence and impact of Bhabha's publications. Bhabha's publications have also been cited by the Nobel laureates like V. L. Ginzberg, Wolfgang Pauli, H. A. Bethe, M. Born, W. Bothe, E. P. Wigner, H. Yukawa, P. M. S. Blackett and C. N. Yang which is an indication of his originality of ideas and high quality of publications.


This paper presents a methodology to determine proper temperature levels and zones for successful warm forming of lightweight materials. A comparison of experimental and finite element analysis (FEA) results is presented to verify the effectiveness of FEA in warm deep drawing and rectangular pan forming processes. A new methodology to determine the proper temperature distribution of tooling and blank was proposed using design of experiments (DOE) and FEA. Results of this method were compared with those of alternative approaches. The proposed method offers alternatives for rapid and relatively accurate predictions and design of warm forming process especially for large parts that require 3D FEA.


We calculate electron-transport properties within equilibrium, linear transport theory through the DNA nucleotide bases spanning two gold nanowires. Our quantum mechanical calculations show that single configurations of DNA bases A, C, T, and G have significantly different charge conductance characteristics. This result is consistent with the notion that it is possible to read the nucleotide base sequence on an individual DNA heteropolymer which is moving through a gap between electrically biased nanoelectrodes by measuring the changes in the electron-transport conductance.


Some algorithms are more efficient than others. The complexity of an algorithm is a function describing the efficiency of the algorithm which has two measures: Space Complexity and Time Complexity . In this paper, we present complexity analysis for FPGA based designs which is based on 4-input and 1-output LUT structure followed by the majority of FPGA manufacturers. The same procedure is then applied to Karatsuba-Offman Multiplier (KOM) because of two reasons. Firstly, due to the increased use of FPGAs especially for security applications, it seems logical to compare various architectures for their efficiencies in FPGAs. Secondly, for diverse security applications, it provides a prior estimation to hardware resources and achievable timing. We consider a 4-input and 1-output structure as a basic building block available in majority of FPGAs by different FPGA manufacturers. We then compare our theoretical and experimental results for KOM in FPGAs which are fairly convincible.


Diesel particulate filters (DPF) are becoming a standard technology in diesel engines because of the need for compliance with forthcoming regulations regarding soot emissions. When a great degree of maturity in management of filtration and regeneration has been attained, the influence of the DPF placement on the engine performance emerges as a key issue to be properly addressed. The novelty of this work leads to the study of an unusual location of an aftertreatment device in the architecture of the turbocharged diesel engine exhaust line. The problem of the pre-turbo DPF placement is tackled comparing the engine response under full-load transient operation as opposed to the traditional DPF location downstream of the turbine. The study has been performed on the basis of a gas dynamic simulation of the engine, which has been validated with experimental data obtained under steady-state and transient conditions. The DPF response has been simulated with a model able to deal with the characteristic highly pulsating flow upstream of the turbine. Several levels of DPF soot loading have been considered to represent fully the most exigent conditions in terms of performance requirements. As a result, the main physical phenomena controlling the engine and DPF response and interaction have been identified. Placing the DPF upstream of the turbine will lead to a number of important advantages, owing to the continuous regeneration mode at which the DPF will operate, the lower pressure drop in the DPF, and the thermal energy storage in the DPF, which is very useful to mitigate 'turbocharger lag' during engine transient operation. These three effects have been evidenced with calculations performed using the validated model and the results have been fully analysed and discussed.


ABSTRACT The "Cognitive Functioning Self-Assessment Scale" (CFSS) is a questionnaire specifically developed for the self-reporting of cognitive functioning in non-neurologic settings. A previous published study had showed its good reading comprehension and face validity, defining it as monofactorial and reliable. This paper provides further psychometric data and norms derived on a larger sample from the general population. Our work is divided into two studies. In Study 1, 194 adult patients in a General Practitioner study (27.8% retested after 2 weeks) have filled-in the CFSS together with the CES-D, the State Anxiety subscale of the STAI, and a clinical and socio-demographic data form. The Cronbach's alpha of the CFSS was 0.878; the temporal stability was 0.794; in addition, CFSS showed substantial and moderate associations respectively with depression and state anxiety measures. In Study 2, CFSS data on 476 participants have been considered. CFSS score was associated to age (p < 0.01) and education (p < 0.01). In addition, CFSS descriptive statistics according to age and education levels were provided. In conclusion, although further research is surely necessary to refine the CFSS, the herein presented data together with the already published results, confirm the validity and reliability of this tool.


Lymphoma immunotherapy can result in durable immune and clinical responses. Nevertheless, the clinical impact of such therapy remains suboptimal and there is still a need to apply our growing understanding of cancer immunity to the design and testing of rational combination approaches to lymphoma immunotherapy. This includes consideration of the three steps necessary to generate an antitumor response: (1) providing tumor antigens to dendritic cells (DCs) in a manner that enhances their ability to process and present antigens to T cells; (2) enhancing T cell activation; and (3) overcoming immunosuppression so that activated anti-lymphoma T cells can proceed unrestrained. In situ immunization generates systemic immune responses through local injection of agents into the tumor, thus providing DCs with the patient's own tumor antigens. We evaluated a three-step approach to in situ immunization against lymphoma using Doxorubicin, anti-CTLA-4 and anti-OX40: (1) Doxorubicin (Dox) to induce the expression of "eat-me" signals by dying tumor cells, facilitating their phagocytosis by DCs; (2) anti-OX40 antibody to augment OX40-mediated stimulation of T cells; (3) anti-CTLA-4 antibody to block immunosuppression imposed by CTLA-4 on T cells. While Dox is highly effective as a systemic anti-lymphoma agent and has been reported to induce immunogenic cell death, intratumoral injection of soluble Dox is not clinically feasible due to its strong vesicant effect. Poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) is an FDA-approved polymer that is used in biodegradable surgical sutures and microparticles (MPs) with sustained-release properties. Thus, PLGA MPs loaded with Dox (Dox MPs) represent a clinically translatable approach for delivering Dox, as its slow release would decrease likelihood of vesication. In addition, PLGA MPs at an optimal size of 1-µm enhance antigen-specific immune responses by activating the NALP3 inflammasome in DCs. While both tumor cells and DCs are exposed to Dox released by MPs in the tumor, we found in vitro that Dox MPs (1-µm) are less cytotoxic to DCs than to A20 B-lymphoma cells and do not require internalization for their cytotoxic activity. Dox MPs significantly enhanced phagocytosis of A20 by DCs as compared to soluble Dox. In vivo, we used the two-tumor mouse model to assess immune responses. This allowed us to monitor the local effect (on the tumor injected with MP) and the systemic effect (on the distant tumor that was not injected with MP) of therapy. Dox MPs injected intratumorally do not induce vesication even at doses as high as 100 µg Dox. Using a low dose of Dox MPs (2 µg Dox) and of antibody to limit systemic toxicity, we found that three-step therapy induced CD4- and CD8- T cell-dependent systemic immune responses that enhanced T cell infiltration into distant tumors. This led to their eradication and significantly improved survival as compared to antibody-only therapy (87% of mice treated with all three components became tumor-free). Moreover, all three components were required for maximum efficacy (Figure 1). These results demonstrate that systemic antitumor immune responses can be generated locally by three-step therapy. The potential value of this approach to immunotherapy is not limited to lymphoma and merits further evaluation in lymphoma and other cancers. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


This work presents a model to support medical diagnosis through the classification of abnormality normality in medical brain images, in order to help to specialist as a previous step in the brain pathology diagnosis. Our proposal was incorporated into a content-based image retrieval system, thus we developed a useful tool for radiologists. The first step produces the features vector of MR image using Gabor Filter for the data train and test, then as second step features vector of training data are indexed into CBIR module. The third step makes the training of SVM and as four step the test dataset is classified with the SVM trained. Finally, the result of classification are presented with a set of similar images product of a KNN query. This model was implemented as a software tool with graphical interface. We obtained 94.12% of correct classification. Our medical image dataset is composed of 187 MRI images collected from a medical diagnosis company and selected by medical specialist. The result shows that the proposed model is robust and effective as a software tool to aid support to medical diagnostic.


Patient safety has become an international healthcare priority over the past two decades. The prevailing approach to prevent harm in healthcare environments is the implementation of systems and structures that have made significant safety gains in high reliability organisations, such as aviation and nuclear power. However, similar safety improvements have not been realised in the healthcare environment. Studies suggest occupational culture is of importance, though our understanding of the relevance of safety subcultures is limited. This study explores how patient safety is described from the perspective of clinicians and organisational managers in an acute care hospital, using embedded case study design.  The case for this study was a New Zealand tertiary hospital. The emergency department and intensive care unit provided the settings for the embedded units. Three interviews with health care managers and six focus groups with nineteen doctors and nineteen nurses were undertaken. An interview guide, informed by the literature was used in data collection. Thematic data analysis was conducted within and across the case and embedded units. The theoretical concept of safety capability was developed from the data. Safety capability was defined as the ability to provide safe patient care and underpinned by the themes of resilient culture, and anticipation and vigilance.  A key finding of this research was that acute care environments have unique patient safety challenges, and these are influenced by complex factors. Patient safety was not assessed as being safe or unsafe, but rather perceived to exist across different levels of safety. Given this, healthcare professionals accept that some harm is inevitable in the healthcare setting. Doctors, nurses and managers understand and manage patient safety differently, and this affects how patient safety is addressed. This study identified anticipatory and vigilant systems are used to proactively manage risk by doctors and nurses, whereas incident reporting systems are used more by managers.    Given the need to keep patients safe and avoid harm, more proactive patient safety systems are needed to manage patient safety in hospitals; this will require a paradigm shift away from current reactive safety systems. Proactive systems must be underpinned by a resilient patient safety culture that focuses on the right building blocks to produce balance of resources and targets and develop collaboration in organisations. This will bring about flexibility and stability to meet the complex conditions presented by acute care environments.


Abstract : Data fusion is suitable for a broad range of decision support applications. To cope with a larger class of problems and contexts, data fusion gains to be adaptive. Adaptation in data fusion corresponds to Level 4 of the JDL model, also referred to as process refinement. The Decision Support Systems Section (DSS) at Defence Research & Development Canada (DRDC)-Valcartier has initiated research activities aiming at developing and demonstrating advanced concepts of adaptive data fusion that could apply to the current Halifax and Iroquois Class Command & Control Systems (CCS), as well as their possible future upgrades, in order to improve their performance against the predicted future threats. This document gives a brief description of the adaptive data fusion concepts. It also presents a new Measure Of Effectiveness (MOE) that serves as an adaptation trigger in the target-tracking problem in maritime Above Water Warfare (AWW) applications. The proposed MOE uses the search to lock-on time of the Fire Control Radar (FCR) and aims at establishing and quantifying the effect of the quality of the Maritime Tactical Picture (MTP) on the diminution of battle space size and reaction time. Besides adaptation of the sensing and processing operation, this MOE allows addressing the trade-off between the time dedicated to the tracking with surveillance radars versus the time spent in search and lock-on with FCR.


The structure of a new orthorhombic trirubidium pentatantalum oxide (Rb3Ta5O14) phase with Pnma symmetry was identified from a half sphere of synchrotron X-ray data measured at a wavelength of 0.85 A. This notionally linked TaO6 octahedral structure broadly consists of three different modifications of the pyrochlore ring motif with layer stacking normal to (205) planes. Successive pyrochlore layers do not simply stack normal to these planes but are offset along the [100] axis. An unusual aspect of this structure is the occurrence of TaO5 trigonal bipyramids in structurally complex regions where the modified pyrochlore rings connect.


Just as information technology is rapidly changing how we work, shop, and play, it is changing how we practice democracy. This paper focuses on one area where the Internet is broadening public participation in governance: the administration of environmental laws and regulations. It describes a survey of how each of the 50 states is using the Internet to provide citizens with environmental information, gather public input on agency decisions, and foster networks of interested citizens. As "laboratories for democracy," the states may be the source of ideas and experience that anticipate how environmental governance at all levels of government will change over the next decade. The survey results suggest that electronic democracy in state-level environmental decisionmaking is in an early and experimental phase. All state environmental agencies have Web sites and most provide substantial amounts of information on-line. However, opportunities for active on-line interaction between citizens and government, as well as among citizens themselves, are quite limited. Relatively few states, for example, allow citizens to comment on proposed rules electronically. Overall, the survey suggests that it is a good time for states to learn from each other as more innovative states push the envelope of what technology allows and more cautious states continue to adopt basic features as decision-makers become convinced of their efficacy.


The curiosity whether or not animals have the characteristics of long term planning skills is fairly new. Some researchers agree that certain species have a form of episodic-like memory, in the terms of where, when and what. But the most difficult thing is to find out if these species have an aim for the future which involves what some call mental time travel. This study is a part of the discussion if the tests in long term planning and foresight can be explained by associative learning and the ability of self control in highly trained animals. Many self control and delay tasks have been conducted with laboratory animals such as rats, pigeons, monkeys and apes. Here we made a self control test with a reinforcement delay in pygmy hippos (Hexaprotodon liberiensis), an endangered species (listed as vulnerable at Cites, 2000), to extend the test among species. Also for trying to find out more about their cognitive skills, so we can better fulfil their needs in captivity. In this study, the female succeeded in 71,1 % (27 out of 38 trials) of the opportunities and the male in 84,2 % (32 out of 38 trials). To our knowledge this is the first study of learning and cognition in Pygmy hippos.


This presentation was given on November 5, 2011 in Lawrence, Kansas at the Eberhardt Colloquium in honor of the writing of Kenneth Irby, sponsored by the Department of English,The Hall Center for the Humanities, the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and the Spencer Museum of Art. The introduction was given by Philip Wedge, University of Kansas Department of English.


BACKGROUND
Despite increasing evidence that immunization procedures can be stressful for children, little is known about what the experience of immunizing frightened and needle-resistant children can be like for nurses.

METHOD
This article presents findings from a qualitative research project designed to explore public health nurses' feelings toward immunizing needle-resistant children. A constructivist theoretical perspective and an action research approach framed the study. Data sources included two survey questions and audio-recorded transcribed data from three focus groups. Participants included 35 public health nurses from five different health units in one Canadian province. The data were analyzed for themes and were confirmed with participants through ongoing member checking.

RESULTS
The following four overarching themes were identified and are used to explain and describe significant features of the immunization experience that were stressful and problematic for nurses: (a) nurses experience stress when immunizing children who fear and resist needle injection; (b) the strength of child resistance and some adult behavior creates an ethical dilemma for nurses; (c) some adult responses make immunizing difficult and unsafe; and (d) resources to help nurses cope with these situations are inconsistent.


Although the role of cortical structures in skilled and impaired reading has been the topic of considerable investigation, the contribution of subcortical structures to reading performance is less well understood. Here, we assess the role of the caudate, putamen, and thalamus in adults with and without reading impairment. Thirty-three individuals (19 skilled readers and 14 reading impaired individuals) participated in two functional MRI tasks: (a) silent reading of real words and (b) silent reading of nonwords. Percent signal change was calculated for each of the three structures by evaluating the signal change relative to the baseline (i.e. no task or fixation crosses), and response time was measured for each reading condition. We found that for skilled readers, activity in the putamen predicted behavioral performance for both real words and nonwords. In contrast, we found evidence for two subgroups of impaired readers: a positive caudate activity group and a negative caudate activity group. Interestingly, brain activity differentially predicted reading performance depending on whether individuals had positive or negative caudate activity. We discuss our findings in the context of developmental reading impairments, print-to-speech networks, and language processing in general.


Defect modes in one-dimensional photonic crystals (PCs) can be readily detected from the solution of the transmission spectra via the standard transfer-matrix method. We adopt an analytic Bloch-mode approach to examine this problem in terms of eigenmode solutions and investigate the dispersion behaviour of localized defect modes supported by a defect layer sandwiched within two symmetric semi-infinite PCs that are made from multiple constituents. The results show that the number of defect modes grows when the dielectric constant and width of the defect layer increase.


This paper aims to study an eleven-year project of mGov in the state of Paraná, Brazil. From 2000 to 2010, Paraná State Government introduced the cell phone as a means of service provided to the citizen. The precocious experience in Brazil in Mobile Government (mGov) and the number of cell phones used in the country (over 224 million in 2011) are not arguments for these to be used in providing mass public services. The reason may be the difficulty of establishing relations among multiple mGov actors. The study of such relations motivated this research. Mason"s Historical Method was used to get to know those eleven years of the project, raising available information and retrieving happenings and results. To identify events, relevant actors, their roles, aspects in collaboration, setting and density of the relations among these actors, Network Theory was used. The study of the relations among actors concluded that the organizations involved only with the aim to experiment in mGov remained for a short time, normally only one of the phases. Those visualizing opportunities in fulfilling their role as an organization using mobile technology remained longer in the project. Interactions indicate that relationship dynamics among actors contributed to develop the idea, in the initial exploration phase, using technology for the maturity and survival of the project.


The traps of the tripad of the Brazilian macroeconomic policy. This paper analyses the so-called tripod of the Brazilian macroeconomic policy, which since 1999 has been combining an inflation target regime, a floating exchange rate regime and targets for primary fiscal surplus. I argue that, unless its modus operandi is changed, the tripod will not be able to free the Brazilian economy from another "possible trinity": high real interest rates, real exchange rate appreciation and very low economic growth. After briefly analysing the theoretical base under the macroeconomic tripod, I will show why this macroeconomic policy regime, if it is evaluated in a medium or long-term perspective, has not been able to assure neither price stability nor economic growth. In addition to the suggestion of breaking with the Brazilian strategy of growing with foreign savings, the paper also suggests three main ways of changing the modus operandi of the Brazilian tripod: i) increase the time horizon for reaching the inflation target, as has been the experience of most countries that adopt this monetary policy regime; ii) restore the countercyclical role of the Brazilian fiscal policy; and iii) adopt a mix of instruments aiming at preventing the Brazilian currency from entering into a new cyclical trend of appreciation in real terms.


On July 13, 1989 the BEAM experiment Aboard Rocket (BEAR) linear accelerator was successfully launched and operated in space. The flight demonstrated that a neutral hydrogen beam could be successfully propagated in an exoatmospheric environment. The accelerator, which was the result of an extensive collaboration between Los Alamos National Laboratory and industrial partners, was designed to produce a 10 mA (equivalent), 1 MeV neutral hydrogen beam in 50 {mu}s pulses at 5 Hz. The major components were a 30 keV H{sup {minus}} injector a 1 MeV radio frequency quadrupole, two 425 Mhz RF amplifiers, a gas cell neutralizer, beam optics, vacuum system and controls. The design was strongly constrained by the need for a lightweight rugged system that would survive the rigors of launch and operate autonomously. Following the flight the accelerator was recovered and operated again on the laboratory. 6 figs., 2 tabs.


The design of a prototype power converter was evaluated and improved using the physics-of-failure based design-for-reliability approach. Thermal simulation of the power module board with the heat sink has been carried out and these results have been used further for estimating the overall thermal cycle reliability. The solder joint reliability has been investigated using two different kinds of solders — SnAgCu (SAC305) and SnPb eutectic solder.Copyright © 2010 by ASME


Background It is essential to determine the safety of ophthalmic drugs. Purpose To demonstrate any in vitro cytotoxicity of antifungal eye drops manufactured by the Hospital Pharmacy Department. Material and methods Three antifungal eye drops (voriconazole 28.67 mM, fluconazole 6.53 mM and amphotericin 1.62 mM) were tested in Human Corneal Keratocytes (HCK). Toxicity to these cells was assessed using the novel label-free and real-time monitoring xCELLigence system. Under this platform, the Cell index (CI) was used to represent cell status based on the measurement of electrical impedance. Briefly, 3,000 cells/well (E-plates 16 wells) were seeded and incubated for 24 h until the CI reached the range of 1.0–1.2 indicating about 60% cell confluence. At this stage, cell culture medium was aspirated to perform cell treatment using different concentrations of antifungal eye drops. CI values were recorded throughout the test, obtaining real-time graphs of the cells' behaviour in contact with the antifungal and IC50 was determined (corresponding to the concentrations of compounds that inhibit cell growth by 50% compared to controls). Results The kinetic curves clearly showed that cellular response depends upon concentration and time in all antifungals tested. (These graphics will be displayed on the poster). The IC50 values obtained were 5.85 mM, 0.16 mM and 0.5 mM for voriconazole, amphotericin and fluconazole respectively. Conclusion These results may be helpful in warning of cytotoxic effects of antifungal eye drops manufactured by Hospital Pharmacy Departments which are being used in concentrations that exceed the IC50 determined. References and/or acknowledgements This work was supported by Fundación Española de Farmacia Hospitalaria and Fundación Mutua Madrileña No conflict of interest.


Globalization and Economic Reform have enormous potential for economic growth and poverty reduction. But there are at least three troubling features of these phenomena that have emerged over the last two decades—technical change which is biased in favor of capital and skilled labor; increased vulnerability and exposure to economic risks; and a shift of economic power towards more mobile factors of production. The core of the paper then discusses SEWA's experiences with the impact of these global and national level forces at the ground level in India, SEWA's responses to them, and SEWA's strategy for ensuring that its poor women members gain rather than lose from globalization and economic reform.


The N-end rule pathway is a conserved targeted proteolytic process observed in in organisms ranging from eubacteria to mammals. The N-end rule relates the metabolic stability of a protein to its N-terminal amino acid residue. The identity of the N-terminal amino acid residue is a primary degradation signal, often referred to as an N-degron, which is recognized by the components of the N-End rule when it is a destabilizing N-termini. N-degrons may be exposed by non-processive proteolytic cleavage or by post-translational modifications. One modification is the post-translational addition of amino acids to the N-termini of proteins, a reaction catalyzed by aminoacyl-tRNA protein transferases. The aminoacyl-tRNA protein transferase in eubacteria like Escherichia coli is L/F transferase. Recent investigations have reported unexpected observations regarding the L/F transferase catalytic mechanism and its mechanisms of substrate recognition. Additionally, recent proteome-wide identification of putative in vivo substrates facilitates hypothesis into the yet elusive biological functions of the prokaryotic N-end rule pathway. Here we summarize the recent findings on the molecular mechanisms of catalysis and substrate recognition by the E. coli L/F transferase in the prokaryotic N-end rule pathway.


The Knudsen paradox—the non-monotonous variation of mass-flow rate with the Knudsen number—is a unique and well-established signature of micro-channel rarefied flows. A particle which is not of insignificant size in relation to the duct geometry can significantly alter the flow behavior when introduced in such a system. In this work, we investigate the effects of a stationary particle on a micro-channel Poiseuille flow, from continuum to free-molecular conditions, using the direct simulation Monte-Carlo (DSMC) method. We establish a hydrodynamic basis for such an investigation by evaluating the flow around the particle and study the blockage effect on the Knudsen paradox. Our results show that with the presence of a particle this paradoxical behavior is altered. The effect is more significant as the particle becomes large and results from a shift towards relatively more ballistic molecular motion at shorter geometrical distances. The need to account for combinations of local and non-local transport effects in modeling reactive gas–solid flows in confined geometries at the nano-scale and in nanofabrication of model pore systems is discussed in relation to these results.


As it is the case globally, cardiovascular diseases (CVD) make up the most frequent cause of death in Turkey also. Due to this fact, cardiac rehabilitation (CR) has gained a highly important role in the treatment of coronary artery diseases. In Turkey, mortality and morbidity rates among the elderly patients are significantly high. Disability due to coronary artery diseases is more frequent in the elderly compared to young patients. So, it is clear that CR has a considerable importance in this special group of patients. CR program consists the following core components; early initial assessment of the patient, nutritional counseling, management of lipid profiles, education to quit smoking, weight control, treatment and control of diabetes, emotional assessment and support, physical activity referral and exercise training. All cardiac patients, both the inpatient and outpatient groups can be recruited in the CR program. It is recommended to keep the exercise intensity between 40-80% of the patient's capacity. Exercise and aerobic training should be given together and while doing this, co-morbidities and the drugs currently used by the patient should be taken into account. In conclusion, CR is recommended to be started just after the acute phase of the disease has resolved or the patient is dismissed from the intensive care unit. Periodic follow up and 30 minute of aerobic exercise which is preffered and can be easily performed by the patient every two or three times a week will be adequate to keep the capacity regained. Especially for the patients over 75 years of age, CR program should be considered as a long-term condition management.


This paper addresses the stability problem of pump controlled asymmetric hydraulic actuators and proposes a physical solution for it. The system under consideration utilizes a shuttle valve to compensate for unequal flow rates due to the asymmetry in the actuator. Possible hydraulic circuit configurations resulting from various valve positions are defined on the load pressure versus velocity plane and a generalized linear model of the system is derived. The investigation shows that there exists a critical load pressure region in which any equilibrium point requiring a partially open spool position is unstable during the retraction of the actuator. A particular valve underlap is proposed in order to avoid the instability and a shuttle valve selection guide is presented. Theoretical findings are validated by both numerical simulations and experimental tests. Results show that the undesired pressure oscillations are removed up to certain actuator velocities with the use of an underlapped shuttle valve.


Drug abuse is one of the public health problems in Nepal. Only limited research has been done to explore knowledge and sexual behaviors of injection drug users in Nepal. The objective of this research was to explore knowledge about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and sexual behavior among drug users in Nepal. More than 90% of participants had heard of HIV. Almost all participants who had heard of HIV knew that HIV is transmitted through unsafe sexual intercourse and through syringe use. In comparison to that, a small percentage of participants knew of infected blood and mother to child as modes of transmission of HIV. Injection drug users were less likely to use condoms during sexual intercourse with their wives. Awareness programs and behavior-change communication to alert drug users to the risks of sharing syringes need to be conducted, in addition to promoting the use of condoms during sexual intercourse with other women as well as with their wives.


In this paper we investigated that Bluetooth wireless transmission standard accommodate a low-power data link between electronic devices over relatively abruptly ranges. These connections also known as Pico-nets transmit using frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) to send data over the air. In many of Bluetooth technology becomes used the number of Bluetooth devices will continue to extending daily life. With this increase in use there will be a decrease in performance that can be blame to Bluetooth "inter-Pico-net" interference. Very small has been published on the subject of interpico-net interference. Previous to studies have derived mean packet error rates for an increase in the number of Pico-nets present. To analysis that the mean rate many papers make up the assumption that the probability of a Bluetooth device hopping to a channel is random. However making this examine does not explain what happens in actual time. This research gives some awareness into what really happens when multiple Pico-nets are interfering in day to day time. Bluetooth devices actually use a frequency hopping explanation to analysis hopping sequence. This explanation has been implemented in software to test various acts of looking aspects of interpico-net interference. Previous explanation has shown that synchronizing the clocks among neighboring Pico-nets will result in an increase in performance. This analysis shows there are cases where synchronization individual will not provide adequate improvement. Experimental testing has been conducted to validate some of the simulated results. Adjacent channel interference was analysis during experimentation. This dispute former research, which has accepted that adjacent channel disturbance, is inconsequential.


Cancer cachexia is characterized by selective depletion of skeletal muscle protein reserves. Soleus muscles from mice bearing a cachexia-inducing tumor (MAC16) showed an increased protein degradation in vitro, as measured by tyrosine release, when compared with muscles from nontumor-bearing animals. After incubation under conditions that modify different proteolytic systems, lysosomal, calcium-dependent, and ATP-dependent proteolysis were found to contribute to the elevated protein catabolism. Treatment of mice bearing the MAC16 tumor with the polyunsaturated fatty acid, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), attenuated loss of body weight and significantly suppressed protein catabolism in soleus muscles through an inhibition of an ATP-dependent proteolytic pathway. The ATP-ubiquitin-dependent proteolytic pathway is considered to play a major role in muscle catabolism in cachexia, and functional proteasome activity, as determined by "chymotrypsin-like" enzyme activity, was significantly elevated in gastrocnemius muscle of mice bearing the MAC16 tumor as weight loss progressed. When animals bearing the MAC16 tumor were treated with EPA, functional proteasome activity was completely suppressed, together with attenuation of the expression of 20S proteasome alpha-subunits and the p42 regulator, whereas there was no effect on the expression of the ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme (E2(14k)). These results suggest that EPA induces an attenuation of the up-regulation of proteasome expression in cachectic mice, and this was correlated with an increase in myosin expression, confirming retention of contractile proteins. EPA also inhibited growth of the MAC16 tumor in a dose-dependent manner, and this correlated with suppression of the expression of the 20S proteasome alpha-subunits in tumor cells, suggesting that this may be the mechanism of tumor growth inhibition. Thus EPA antagonizes loss of skeletal muscle proteins in cancer cachexia by down-regulation of proteasome expression, and this may also be the mechanism for inhibition of tumor growth.


By combining multiple factors during authentication, a service can provide better assurance of security. However, the users are likely to feel inconvenient, or even discard the service. This paper, therefore, addresses this issue and introduces a novel method, referred to as the Quantified riSk and Benefit adaptive Authentication Factors combination QSBAF. QSBAF balances the requirements for both security and usability in the authentication of an information system and improves the system's ability to respond quickly to emerging risky events. In QSBAF, the authentication factors can be dynamically combined on the basis of quantified risk, benefit measurements, and combination policies. Furthermore, QSBAF provides an adaptive mechanism, which is driven by history data to justify the measurements of risk and benefit. In this paper, we use the online banking system as a typical scenario to demonstrate the usage of QSBAF. We also implement a prototype of QSBAF to evaluate the performance of its feasibility in real application scenarios. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


As new ideas and perspectives continue to be shared by various authors, many different aspects of WSN technology have been generated according to the pivotal role of WSN for many fields in our lives. This technology contains different components, the most basic one is the sensor nodes that communicate with each other and deliver the data. Routing protocols make the sensors' communication and delivering of data thoughtfully planned to be more reliable. Routing protocols are a wide field given the importance of their presence in the network to route the data to the best path or shortest path as much as possible among sensor nodes. This paper focus on cluster-based routing protocols that have hierarchal architecture, this class of protocols has gone through a lot of developments and improvements because of the great benefits that offer to WSN. Part of these Improvements that applied to IEEPB protocol (Improved Energy-Efficient PEGASIS-Based protocol) is enhancing the protocol work mechanism using the Ant colony optimization technique (ACO) to conserve wasted energy and thus increase the network lifetime. Therefore, this paper proposes a SIEEPB-ACO protocol that is an improved protocol over IEEPB protocol using ACO.


The authors assessed how the relative age of spouses affects whether men or women initiate a divorce, using data from the National Survey of Families and Households. Ex-spouses' reports of who left generally agreed, but not always, so the analysis used a latent class model embedded in an event-history model with competing risks that the woman leaves the man or the man leaves the woman. Support was not found for the hypothesis that age heterogamy itself increases the odds of divorce: Even large age differences did not make men more likely to leave younger wives, and women's exits were as likely when the marriage is homogamous as when she was older. The main conclusion is that both men and women are more likely to leave if their spouse is older than they are. The effects were stronger for men, but the gender difference in effect size was not statistically significant.


Purpose: To develop a new oncolytic herpes simplex virus (oHSV) for glioblastoma (GBM) therapy that will be effective in glioblastoma stem cells (GSC), an important and untargeted component of GBM. One approach to enhance oHSV efficacy is by combination with other therapeutic modalities. Experimental Design: MG18L, containing a US3 deletion and an inactivating LacZ insertion in UL39, was constructed for the treatment of brain tumors. Safety was evaluated after intracerebral injection inHSVsusceptible mice. The efficacy of MG18L in human GSCs and glioma cell lines in vitro was compared with other oHSVs, alone or in combination with phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt inhibitors (LY294002, triciribine, GDC-0941, and BEZ235). Cytotoxic interactions betweenMG18L and PI3K/Akt inhibitors were determined using Chou–Talalay analysis. In vivo efficacy studies were conducted using a clinically relevant mouse model of GSC-derived GBM. Results: MG18L was severely neuroattenuated in mice, replicated well in GSCs, and had anti-GBM activity in vivo. PI3K/Akt inhibitors displayed significant but variable antiproliferative activities in GSCs, whereas their combination with MG18L synergized in killing GSCs and glioma cell lines, but not human astrocytes, through enhanced induction of apoptosis. Importantly, synergy was independent of inhibitor sensitivity. In vivo, the combination of MG18L and LY294002 significantly prolonged survival of mice, as compared with either agent alone, achieving 50% long-term survival in GBM-bearing mice. Conclusions: This study establishes a novel therapeutic strategy: oHSV manipulation of critical oncogenic pathways to sensitize cancer cells to molecularly targeted drugs. MG18L is a promising agent for the treatment of GBM, being especially effective when combined with PI3K/Akt pathway–targeted agents. Clin Cancer Res; 17(11); 3686–96. 2011 AACR.


Abstract This article provides an empirical analysis of nonfinancial corporate debt in six large Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru), distinguishing between bond-issuing and nonbond-issuing firms, and assessing the debt's macroeconomic implications. The paper uses a sample of 2,241 firms listed on the stock markets of their respective countries, comprising 34 sectors of economic activity for the period 2009–2016. On the basis of liquidity, leverage, and profitability indicators, it shows that bond-issuing firms are in a worse financial position relative to nonbond-issuing firms. Using Minsky's hedge/speculative/Ponzi taxonomy for financial fragility, we argue that there is a larger share of firms that are in a speculative or Ponzi position relative to the hedge category. Also, the share of hedge bond-issuing firms declines over time. Finally, the article presents the results of estimating a nonlinear threshold econometric model, which demonstrates that beyond a leverage threshold, firms' investment contracts while they increase their liquidity positions. This has important macroeconomic implications since the listed and, in particular, bond-issuing firms (which tend to operate under high leverage levels) represent a significant share of assets and investment. This finding could account, in part, for the retrenchment in investment that the sample of countries included in the paper have experienced in the period under study and highlights the need to incorporate the international bond market in the analyses of monetary transmission mechanisms.


Rioting and street disorder have been a recurrent problem in Northern Ireland over the course of the peace process. This article reviews a range of the responses that have been developed to try to address the disorder and to better understand the process of the creation and development of policy. The article starts from interpretation of policy as a process of social relations involving the interaction of different sectors of society and it discusses how government and community actors have responded in different ways to the violence, but over the course of time have come to a broadly shared understanding of the most appropriate means of managing the conflict.


The mastication is a rhythmic motor act involving peripheral effector organs and sensory inputs and it is attended by intense activity of brain stem. The prefrontal cortex has long been suspected to play an important role during mastication, in the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals. Its neural basis, however, has remained a mystery (Ono Y. et al. 2010). We selected a sample of 10 healthy right-handed subjects who underwent fMRI during mastication as forced as free with soft and hard bolus. Results showed, during free mastication with hard or soft bole, in "left" cerebral cortex the activation of the primary (area 4) supplementary (area 6) motor areas and somesthesic primary area (area 3), with maximum activation during hard bole. At same time, in forced mastication, besides the previous areas, are activated also, in "right" cerebral cortex, area 10 and 11 and omolateral neostriatum. In conclusion, in the light of recent studies, we observed the significant role of basal ganglia in planning and execution of motor gesture process.


Developing a site history and ecological site description is one of the critical steps in restoration planning for arid landscapes. This study focuses on Umm Nigga, Northeast of Kuwait, which was damaged by various human activities. The northern portion of Umm Nigga falls within the boundaries of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) adjacent to Iraq, and was fenced off to restrict public access since 1994. The central objective of this project was to use remote sensing, field assessment, and Geographical Information System (GIS) spatial data to develop a site history for restoration planning of Umm Nigga. Field observation and GIS analysis indicated that the landscape could be divided into three units along a gradient ranging from the coast to inland locations, based on geology, soil properties, and dominant vegetation. Reference sites in the DMZ were also matched for each unit. Remote sensing was used to compare vegetation cover between damaged and reference sites at selected units. Results showed that vegetation cover increased in the unfenced damaged site after the 1991 Gulf War from 2% in 1988 to 37% in 1998, but then it decreased to 23% in 2013. In the DMZ reference site, the vegetation cover also increased from 0% in 1988 to 40% in 1998, but it continued increasing through 2013 to 64%. We conclude that overgrazing and destructive camping are the major source of disturbance in the damaged areas.


The present paper deals with two-player all pay contests in which a tie is due to slacking, showing that to reduce the likelihood of such an occurrence, slackers should be denied any reward, or even punished. The denial of reward, or the punishment, inflicted on substandard performers, may spur some players to bigger efforts, or induce others to avoid contests in which they are unable to meet standards. However denying any reward to those making small but not substandard efforts, would not raise the proportion of those making the maximum effort, while more competitors would abstain from any effort at all, detracting from overall performance. The point allocation rule suggested by this paper is thus shown to improve on its alternatives. The paper proposes changing the rules of point allocation in soccer, to reduce the incidence of non-scoring draws, often the outcome of bad playing or of extreme risk avoidance, expressed in purely defensive game strategies. Under the new rules, a win would award a team with three points, a scoring draw would entitle the teams to one point each, but neither team would receive any points for non-scoring draws. We show that this change would reduce the numbers of games ending in 0:0, while raising the numbers of goals in other games, thus boosting spectator enjoyment.


Author(s): Faris, Anthony; Kosterev, Dmitry; Eto, Joseph H; Chassin, Dave | Abstract: In 2015, NERC's reliability standards were revised to require the use of dynamic load models in transmission planning studies. To comply with the standards, planners must use load models that explicitly represent the dynamic behavior of the different constituents of load at each load bus within their transmission planning models. The most important of these constituents are motor-driven and power electronics-based loads. Collectively, these representations are known as composite load models. In anticipation of the compliance date for the new standards, NERC's Load Modeling Task Force (LMTF), in 2019, initiated a field test of composite load models involving the regional reliability planning entities. In support of the field test, DOE and BPA researchers developed region-specific composite load models that could be assigned to each non-industrial load bus in the planning models for each of the North American interconnections. Separate models were developed for each hour of a summer peak day, a winter peak day, and a spring light-load day. This report is the technical documentation for the load composition analysis that was conducted to develop these non-industrial composite load models.