: The purpose of the investigation was to study the efficacy of closing the bone defect in facial walls of the frontal and maxillary sinuses, formed as a result of their purulent inflammation, by porous permeable titanium nickelide. Analysis of the experimental data (18 dogs) and clinical observations (20 patients in whom the anatomic structure and function of frontal and maxillary sinuses with osteomyelitis were restored by an antibiotic pooling implantation material) gives evidence that the material can be well used to reconstruct an organ with an infected wound. The porous structure of the bioinert graft facilitates the ingrowth of osteogenic tissues, which becomes packed in the bone matrix without any intermediate connective tissue layer.


Plum rains and typhoons are important weather systems in the Taiwan region. They can cause huge economic losses, but they are also considered as important water resources as they strike Taiwan annually and fill the reservoirs around the island. There are many meteorological sensors available for investigating the characteristics of weather and climate systems. Recently, the use of GPS as an alternative meteorological sensor has become popular due to the catastrophic impact of global climate change. GPS provides meteorological parameters mainly from the atmosphere. Precise Point Positioning (PPP) is a proven algorithm that has attracted attention in GPS related studies. This study uses GPS measurements collected at more than fifty reference stations of the e-GPS network in Taiwan. The first data set was collected from June 1st 2008 to June 7th 2008, which corresponds to the middle of the plum rain season in Taiwan. The second data set was collected from September 11th to September 17th 2008 during the landfall of typhoon Sinlaku. The data processing strategy is to process the measurements collected at the reference stations of the e-GPS network using the PPP technique to estimate the zenith tropospheric delay (ZTD) values of the sites; thus, the correlations between the ZTD values and the variation of rainfall during the plum rains and typhoon are analyzed. In addition, several characteristics of the meteorological events are identified using spatial and temporal analyses of the ZTD values estimated with the GPS network PPP technique.


The high energy demand and the threat of climate change have led to a remarkable development of renewable energies, initially through technologies applied to the terrestrial environment and, recently, through the awakening of marine renewable energies. However, the development of these types of projects is often hampered by failure to pass the corresponding environmental impact assessment process.
 The complexity of working in the marine environment and the uncertainties associated with assessing the impacts of such projects make it difficult to carry out objective and precise environmental impact assessments.
 AMBEMAR-DSS seeks to establish a basis for understanding and agreement between the different stakeholders (project developers, public administrations, environmental organizations and the public in general), in order to find solutions that allow the development of marine renewable energies, minimizing their environmental cost. For this purpose, a DSS is proposed which, based on cartographic information and using objective and quantifiable criteria, allows comparative assessments and analyses between different project alternatives. The analytical procedures used by the system include, among others, hydrodynamic modeling tools and visual impact simulators. In addition, impacts on marine species are assessed taking into account intrinsic ecological and biological aspects. The magnitude of the impacts is quantified by means of fuzzy logic operations and the integration of all the elements is carried out by an interactive multi-criteria analysis. The results are shown in tables, graphs and figures of easy interpretation and can be also visualized geographically by means of a cartographic viewer.
 The system identifies the main impacts generated in the different phases of the project and allows establishing adequate mitigation measures in search of optimized solutions. The establishment of the assessment criteria has been based on the abundant, but dispersed, scientific literature on the various elements of the system and having the opinion of experts in the various fields. Nevertheless, the DSS developed constitutes a preliminary basis on which to build and improve a system with the input of researchers, promoters and experts from different disciplines.


The ability to map descriptions of scenes to 3D geometric representations has many applications in areas such as art, education, and robotics. However, prior work on the text to 3D scene generation task has used manually specified object categories and language that identifies them. We introduce a dataset of 3D scenes annotated with natural language descriptions and learn from this data how to ground textual descriptions to physical objects. Our method successfully grounds a variety of lexical terms to concrete referents, and we show quantitatively that our method improves 3D scene generation over previous work using purely rule-based methods. We evaluate the fidelity and plausibility of 3D scenes generated with our grounding approach through human judgments. To ease evaluation on this task, we also introduce an automated metric that strongly correlates with human judgments.


Lucid dreaming is a phenomenon that can be classified as altered state of consciousness. In the last years the scientific interest for it has grown exponentially. To understand how the research on this topic evolved during the time, bibliometric and network analyses were performed. The focus of the analysis was on: 1) papers; 2) authors; 3) countries and 4) collaborations. Scopus database was used to retrieve articles on lucid dreaming. The analyses included publications published between 1966 and 2019. The productive countries, citation analysis, keywords co-occurences, international collaboration, active authors, and active journals were retrieved and analyzed. A total of 306 articles were retrieved. They refer to the period between 1966 to 2019. The average citations per documents was 12.79. The documents annual growth rate was 5.60. Stratified by number of publications, the United States ranked first with 59 papers. The highest percentage of international collaboration was seen for researchers from Germany. Most active journals in the context of lucid dreaming were Dreaming, International Journal of Dream Research, Perceptual and Motor Skills. Schredl M. and Erlacher D. were the two most productive authors in terms of number of published papers, number of citations, h and g indices. LaBerge S. was the author with the longest research productivity. The strongest co-authorship relationship was between Schredl M. and Erlacher D while the strongest university collaboration was between Heidelberg University (Germany), Central Institute of Mental Health (Germany) and the University of Bern (Switzerland). Publications on lucid dreaming have increased in the past decades. This shows that the topic is becoming more and more appealing to the scientific world and not anymore confined to the esoteric tradition. Several countries are involved in the research and some of them collaborate on this topic. The number of papers is exponentially increasing from 1979. This means that the topic is a hot topic and more and more studies are expected in the next years for a better understanding of a branch of consciousness that was mainly overlooked until 1979.


Abstract : The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the parameters affecting crack growth direction in unidirectional composite materials. To achieve this, the effect of anisotropy and biaxial loading on the direction of crack growth in unidirectional off-axis composite materials were investigated. Specific emphasis was placed on defining the crack tip stress field and finding a consistent criterion for predicting the direction of crack growth. Two models are presented to predict the crack tip stress field, an anisotr6pic elasticity solution and a singular isoparametric finite element formulation. After defining the crack tip stress field, three crack extension direction criteria, thr normal stress ratio, the tensor polynomial and the strain energy density criterion, were applied to predict the direction of crack extensiufl. The theoretically predicted crack extension directions were then compared with experimental results. After comparison, it was determined that only the normal stress ratio criterion correctly predicts the direction of crack extension. (MM)


The anticonvulsant (AED) history for 216 children and adolescents with epilepsy was reviewed to determine the incidence and types of significant side effects (SSE) which warranted ceasing the drug (not due to a lack of response or a high dose). All parents of patients with epilepsy seen by the author over a 2 year period (March 1996 - March 1998) were questioned about SSE to previous AEDs, and the child's current therapy was also monitored prospectively to determine SSE. There were 107 girls and 109 boys ranging in age from 3 months - 18 years. Eighty-three patients had been exposed to a single AED while 133 had multiple AED exposures: mean 3.6 drugs; range 2-10 drugs. They were exposed to a total of 568 AEDs with SSE occurring in 15% of drug contacts: 7% due to behavioural changes such as irritability, aggression or hyperactivity; 8% were due to other factors such as a rash, headache, gastrointestinal disturbance or drowsiness. Fifty-seven children (26%) had experienced at least one SSE with 19 (9%) having SSE to more than one AED (range 2-4). Global developmental delay or an intellectual disability (ID) were present in 67 patients, and 27 (40%) of these experienced SSE compared with 30 (20%) of the group with normal cognition. This difference was principally due to the higher incidence of behavioural SSE in the ID group 28% versus 6% for the normal cognition group. Allowing for the higher number of AEDs used in the ID group (implying that their epilepsy was more difficult to control), behavioural SSE were still significantly more likely to occur in this group, i.e. 1: 9.6 drug exposures compared with 1: 31. 8 exposures for the normal cognition group (P<0.001). Monotherapy trials underestimate the true incidence of SSE in clinical practice as 26% of children had experienced at least one SSE and 9% had SSE to more than one AED. Those with ID were three times more likely to have behavioural SSE than children with normal cognition.


Online learning has an important place in widening access and participation in higher education for diverse student cohorts. One cohort taking up online study in increasing numbers is that of mature-age, first-in-family students. First-in-family is defined as those who are the first in their immediate family, including parents, siblings, partners and children, to undertake university studies. This paper looks at the experience of 87 first-in-family students, for whom the opportunity to study open-entry, online undergraduate units through Open Universities Australia made it possible for them to embark on a university education. Using a qualitative methodology, in-depth interviews and surveys were conducted with these students as part of a wider study into first-in-family students (O'Shea, May and Stone, 2015). Findings include the important role that opportunity plays in providing the impetus for study, as well as the importance of support and encouragement from family, friends, colleagues and institutions in being able to continue the journey.


Background: Intraoperative fluoroscopy facilitates minimally invasive surgery, and although it is irreplaceable in terms of intraoperative guidance, it results in substantial radiation exposure to the patient and surgical team. Although the risk of radiation exposure because of equipment factors has been described, there is little known about the impact of surgeon experience on radiation exposure. The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a relationship between years of surgical experience and total dose of radiation used for an archetypal pediatric orthopaedic surgical procedure that requires intraoperative fluoroscopy. Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of children undergoing closed reduction and percutaneous pinning for supracondylar humerus fractures at a level I pediatric trauma center. Information pertaining to radiation dosage was gathered including fluoroscopic time, total images acquired, magnification use, and dose area product (DAP). Regression analysis was used to evaluate the effect of surgeon experience on the outcome variables. Results: A total of 759 pediatric patients treated by 17 attending surgeons were included. The median surgeon experience was 8.94 years (interquartile range, 5.9 to 19.8). Increased number of pins was associated with increased DAP (P<0.001) and lower years of experience (P=0.025). There was significantly higher fluoroscopy time in seconds (56.9 vs. 42.1 s, P=0.001), DAP (179.9 vs. 110.3 mGy-cm2, P=0.001), use of magnification (39.5 vs. 31.9 s, P=0.043), and total number of images obtained (74.5 vs. 57.6, P=0.008) in attending surgeons with <1 year of experience compared with those with greater experience. An operator extremity was visible in at least 1 saved image in 263 of 759 (35%) cases. Conclusion: Increased surgical experience was significantly associated with decreased fluoroscopy usage, including time, number of images, and dose. Surgeon inexperience increases radiation exposure for patients and staff by over 60% when treating supracondylar humerus fractures. This study clearly identifies methods to reduce radiation exposure, including use of pulsed fluoroscopy instead of continuous fluoroscopy, decreasing use of magnification, removing the operator's extremity from the field, and judicious use and placement of each additional pin. Level of Evidence: Level III.


Increasing attention is being given to the occurrence of second primary tumours among survivors of childhood cancer. Our aims are to examine the risk of a subsequent primary, particularly in relation to chemotherapy, in a well-defined cohort; and to examine interesting associations between first and second primary tumours in relation to therapy generally and chemotherapy in particular among a less well-defined group of cases developing at least two primary tumours. There is suggestive evidence from our data that chemotherapy is involved either directly or indirectly in the development of secondary leukaemia, and this confirms previous work. Our data, although based on small numbers, indicate consistent evidence of an association between cyclophosphamide and an increased risk of a second primary tumour following retinoblastoma; this may be due to cyclophosphamide, radiotherapy or an interaction between the two. Two cases of uterine cancer were observed among three patients given oestrogen replacement therapy.


This paper describes aneural blind source separation (BSS) method based on amortized variational inference (AVI) of a non-linear generative model of mixture signals. A classical statistical approach to BSS is to fit a linear generative model that consists of spatial and source models representing the inter-channel covariances and power spectral densities of sources, respectively. Although the variational autoencoder (VAE) has successfully been used as a non-linear source model with latent features, it should be pretrained from a sufficient amount of isolated signals. Our method, in contrast, enables the VAE-based source model to be trained only from mixture signals. Specifically, we introduce a neural mixture-to-feature inference model that directly infers the latent features from the observed mixture and integrate it with a neural feature-to-mixture generative model consisting of a full-rank spatial model and a VAE-based source model. All the models are optimized jointly such that the likelihood for the training mixtures is maximized in the framework of AVI. Once the inference model is optimized, it can be used for estimating the latent features of sources included in unseen mixture signals. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperformed the state-of-the-art BSS methods based on linear generative models and was comparable to a method based on supervised learning of the VAE-based sourcemodel.


Herpes Simplex infection of mouth and face is known as 'Oro Facial Herpes Simplex (cold sores). The incident rate of herpes viral infection is found to be around 7-14% in adolescents in India. It is caused by herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSVL). Oro facial herpes simplex causes inflamed and localized blisters that pop, weep and form crusts. At initial stage it shows symptoms like redness, swelling, heat and itching along with pain. Over a period of time the blisters leak out and become sores. According to Ayurveda literature, this disease can be co-related with 'Pittaja Visarpa.' Here presenting a case report of 52-year-old male with sudden onset of painful blisters, redness and burning pain on the jaw region. The patient was managed with Sutshekhar rasa, Avipattikar churna as oral medication and Jatyadi oil (Sheath Veda) and Khas Anantmool Ayurvedic cream (Sheath Veda) for local application over the jaw region. The patient showed improvement within two weeks and got significant relief over a month.


We introduce a class of noisy quantum cellular automata on a qubit lattice that includes all classical Markov chains, as well as maps where quantum coherence between sites is allowed to build up over time. We apply such a construction to the problem of excitation transfer through 1-d lattices, and compare the performance of classical and quantum dynamics with equal local transition probabilities. Our discrete approach has the merits of stripping down the complications of the open system dynamics, of clearly isolating coherent effects, of allowing for an exact treatment of conditional dynamics, all while capturing a rich variety of dynamical behaviours.


Dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) algorithms save energy by scaling down the processor frequency when the processor is not fully loaded. Many algorithms have been proposed for periodic and aperiodic task models but none support the periodic and sporadic task models when the deadlines are not equal to their periods. A DVS algorithm, called General Dynamic Voltage Scaling (GDVS), that can be used with sporadic or periodic tasks in conjunction with the preemptive EDF scheduling algorithm with no constraints on the deadlines is presented here. The algorithm is proven to guarantee each task meets its deadline while saving the maximum amount of energy possible with processor frequency scaling when tasks execute with their worst-case execution times. GDVS was implemented in the"C/OS-II real-time operating system for embedded systems. Though theoretically optimal, the actual power savings realized with GDVS depends on the type of the task set and the processor's DVS support. GDVS is tested and evaluated with both a real-time application and a simulated task set. A difference exists between the theoretical power savings and the actual power savings which is due to the limited number of frequency levels the Rabbit 2000 processor supports.


*The main part of this thesis focuses on designing, optimising, and studying the embedding of two types of interventions: pre-testing and peer assessment, both supported by or combined with ICT-tools.
* Pre-test sensitisation is used intentionally to boost the learning gain of the main intervention, an interactive, multimodal learning environment, designed for the pre-training of science concepts . The results show a high learning gain, especially after applying a pre-test by interaction of the pre-test with the intervention. The learning gain is negligible if no treatment follows the pre-test. The pre-test effect of multiple choice questions is the same as the effect short answer questions.

*The gain of writing a scientific report in combination with doing a peer assessment gives an effect size of d=0.876. No learning gain was connected to the writing, whereas the computer-supported peer assessment appeared to be entirely responsible for the measured "average" learning gain with an effect size of d=1.47.

*A peer assessment of a complete paper-and-pencil test show an "average" learning gain. When students apply explicit scoring criteria to authentic pre-selected samples of answers of peers in a digital environment a high learning gain was found when students made a pre-test.

*In a simulation of chemical reaction kinetics combined with peer support and pre-test sensitisation high learning gain is found. After two months, the effect of pre-testing is still significant.

*An alternative is presented to gauge the effectiveness of educational arrangements based on a experimentally found strong power law relationship yi = xi1-B between the pre-test values xi and post-test values, yi.
The practical advantage of the proposed method is experimenting with a very small number of participants.


ABSTRACT Trypanosoma cruzi is a protozoan parasite that chronically infects many mammalian species and in humans causes Chagas' disease, a chronic inflammatory disease. The parasite expresses glycophosphoinositol (GPI), which potently stimulates interleukin 12 (IL-12) production. During T. cruzi infection IL-12, and possibly GPI, might stimulate NK T cells to affect the protective and chronic inflammatory responses. Here we report that during T. cruzi infection CD1d-restricted NK T cells are stimulated as NK T-cell-deficient mice have greater parasitemia. Furthermore, during T. cruzi infection the percentages of NK T cells in the liver and spleen become decreased for prolonged periods of time, and in vitro stimulation of NK T cells derived from livers of chronically infected mice, compared to uninfected mice, results in increased gamma interferon and IL-4 secretion. Moreover, in NK T-cell-deficient mice the chronic-phase antibody response to a GPI-modified surface protein is decreased. These results indicate that, during the acute infection, NK T cells limit parasitemia and that, during the chronic phase, NK T cells augment the antibody response. Thus, during T. cruzi infection the quality of an individual's NK T-cell response can affect the level of parasitemia and parasite tissue burden, the intensity of the chronic inflammatory responses, and possibly the outcome of Chagas' disease.


A natural language interface exploits the conceptual simplicity and naturalness of the language to create a high-level user-friendly communication channel between humans and machines. One of the promising applications of such interfaces is generating visual interpretations of semantic content of a given natural language that can be then visualized either as a static scene or a dynamic animation. This survey discusses requirements and challenges of developing such systems and reports 26 graphical systems that exploit natural language interfaces and addresses both artificial intelligence and visualization aspects. This work serves as a frame of reference to researchers and to enable further advances in the field.


The major objectives of this paper are to show how a properly tuned coupling network may be selected, how the appropriate component values may be determined, and how the network may be accurately tuned. Two new concepts relative to power line carrier coupling are introduced. The first deals with the establishment of workable limits for the range over which the coupling network may be detuned by 60-Hz bus conditions (while still meeting transmission objectives), and the second shows means for evaluating the effect of the coupling unit (return loss) upon the standing wave ratios in the wire line as well as in the entrance cables. The resulting tuned coupling network has the following characteristics: 1) performance unaffected by substation bus conditions at the point of coupling; 2) predictable bandwidth and band location; 3) low coupling loss (less than ?dB) from entrance cable to phase wire; 4) smooth frequency response (high return loss) over the derived band; 5) high blocking loss (greater than 25 dB) from phase wire to substation bus.


Normal 0 14 false false false IT X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 In this paper I raise some issues pertaining to Brandom's pragmatic theory of the explanation of norms. I will argue that Brandom's attempt to explain normative statuses through recourse to normative attitudes does not succeed in distinguishing norms from regularities of behaviour. The basic suggestion is that the pragmatist strategy of explaining the normative aspects of intentional phenomena does not succeed in distinguishing itself from a dispositionalist approach: pragmatism about norms explains normativity through by recourse to items that are in the end—contrary to what Brandom asserts—indistinguishable from behavioural dispositions. I venture that talk about normative attitudes is translatable into dispositionalist terms, inside a language devoid of normative notions, and that the thesis of the institution of norms by the practical attitudes of the members of the community fails to make sense of the idea of objective normative statuses existing above what single practitioners hold as correct according to their understanding of norms. In the first section I will consider Brandom's discussion of the rule-following problem presented in the first Chapter of MIE . In the second section I will analyse Brandom's arguments against the accountability of attitudes in a non-normative language, and forward a dispositionalist reading of Brandomian semantics. Then, I try to consider whether the dispositionalist reading of normative attitudes entails a corresponding naturalisation of Brandom's semantic project, and examine Brandom's critique of the tenets of AI functionalism in Between Saying & Doing .


Single port thoracic surgery, reduced port surgery and needlescopic surgery attract attention as one of the minimally invasive surgery in thoracic surgery recently. Single port thoracic surgery was advocated by Rocco in 2004, it was reported usefulness of single port thoracic surgery for primary spontaneous pneumothorax. The surgical procedure as single (or reduced) port thoracic surgery is roughly divided into the following. One is operated with instruments inserted from the single extended incision, and the other is operated with instruments punctured without extending incision. It is not generally complicated procedures in single port thoracic surgery. Primary spontaneous pneumothorax and biopsy for lung and pleura are considered the surgical indication for single (or reduced) port surgery. It is revealed that single port surgery for primary spontaneous pneumothorax is less invasive than conventional surgery. Single port and reduced port thoracic surgery will spread furthermore in the future.


Background : There has been some evidence that proteins are potentially excellent source of antioxidants, antihypertensive and antimicrobial peptides and enzymatic hydrolysis is an effective method to release these peptides from protein molecules. The functional properties of protein hydrolysates depends on the protein substrate, the specificity of the enzymes, the conditions used during proteolysis, degree of hydrolysis, and the nature of peptides released including molecular weight, amino acid composition, and hydrophobicity. Context and purpose of this study : The biomass of Kluyveromyces marxianus was considered as a source of ACE inhibitory, antioxidant and antimicrobial peptides. Results : Autolysis and enzymatic hydrolysis were completed respectively, after 96 h and 5 h. Overall, trypsin (18.52% DH) and chymotrypsin (21.59% DH) treatments were successful in releasing antioxidant and ACE inhibitory peptides. Autolysate sample (39.51% DH) demonstrated a poor antioxidant and ACE inhibitory activity compared to trypsin and chymotrypsin hydrolysates. The chymotrypsin 3-5 k Da (301.6±22.81 μM TEAC/mg protein) and trypsin< 3 kDa (280.16±39.16) permeate peptide fractions showed the highest DPPH radical scavenging activity. The trypsin <3 kDa permeate peptide fraction showed the highest ABTS radical scavenging (1691.1±48.68 μMTE /mg protein) and ACE inhibitory (IC50=0.03±0.001 mg/ml) activities. The fraction (MW=5-10 kD) obtained after autolysis treatment showed antibacterial activity against St. aureus and Lis. monocytogenes in well diffusion screening. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value was 13.3 mg/ml against St. aureus and Lis. monocytogenes calculated by turbidimetric assay and it showed bactericidal activity against St. aureus at 21.3 mg/ml protein concentration. Conclusions : Taken together, the results of this study reveal that K. marxianus proteins contain specific peptides in their sequences which can be released by enzymatic hydrolysis and autolysis. Key words : Kluyveromyces marxianus ; Antioxidant activity; ACE-inhibitory; Antimicrobial; Protein hydrolysate; Peptide


The Rural Telecommunications Project in Nicaragua will improve access to, and use of telecommunications services in rural areas for communities, governments and businesses, and will continue to strengthen TELCOR to ensure its successful transition, from a monopoly to competitiveness, in an aim to increase access to improved, and more affordable services, and, in addition, the project will reform the postal sector. Regardless of the beneficial aspects of the project, potential negative environmental impacts may occur due to the installation of, and construction for telecommunication posts, stations, and facilities; therefore, this environmental and social assessment sets the guidelines to manage and abate environmental and social adversity. Mitigation measures stipulate the following: project sites selection shall be in compliance with previous studies, to prevent soil erosion, and to ensure local communities are not in the proximity of project sites thus avoiding high power frequency hazards, as well as to minimize the potential damage of natural disasters - floods and landslides, earthquakes, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions. Biodiversity conservation will be taken into consideration by the Project design, looking at natural habitats and protected areas so as to mitigate potential adversity on flora and fauna, particularly protecting endangered species, forestry and native vegetative species. Engineering studies will further ensure compliance with standard regulations to prevent soil erosion, landslides, etc. Telecommunication power posts will be installed within enclosed perimeters, ensuring local safety. During construction, solid wastes shall be disposed of into municipal sewerage installations, in accordance with local municipal regulations. Power plants should be constructed to include noise abatement devices, and, most importantly, permeable floor should be installed to contain oil and lubricant storage tanks, to contain potential oil spills. Drainage systems will be appropriately in place to prevent water and surface water contamination. The report comprises three volumes: Environmental impact assessment (V. 1); Manual on social guidelines (V. 2), and, Guidelines for the construction and installation of Power posts and stations (V. 3).


Rivaroxaban is an effective and safe alternative to warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation and venous thromboembolism. We tested the efficacy and safety of rivaroxaban compared with warfarin in high-risk patients with thrombotic antiphospholipid syndrome. This is a randomized open-label multicenter noninferiority study with blinded end point adjudication. Rivaroxaban, 20 mg once daily (15 mg once daily based on kidney function) was compared with warfarin (international normalized ratio target 2.5) for the prevention of thromboembolic events, major bleeding, and vascular death in patients with antiphospholipid syndrome. Only high-risk patients triple positive for lupus anticoagulant, anti-cardiolipin, and anti-β2-glycoprotein I antibodies of the same isotype (triple positivity) were included in the study. The trial was terminated prematurely after the enrollment of 120 patients (59 randomized to rivaroxaban and 61 to warfarin) because of an excess of events among patients in the rivaroxaban arm. Mean follow-up was 569 days. There were 11 (19%) events in the rivaroxaban group, and 2 (3%) events in the warfarin group. Thromboembolic events occurred in 7 (12%) patients randomized to rivaroxaban (4 ischemic stroke and 3 myocardial infarction), whereas no event was recorded in those randomized to warfarin. Major bleeding occurred in 6 patients: 4 (7%) in the rivaroxaban group and 2 (3%) in the warfarin group. No death was reported. The use of rivaroxaban in high-risk patients with antiphospholipid syndrome was associated with an increased rate of events compared with warfarin, thus showing no benefit and excess risk. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT02157272.


98 mm × 145 mm with ascites. CT scan confirmed the report. Chest X-Ray showed pleural effusions. Her CA 125 was 182 um/L. The case was discussed at multi-disciplinary team meeting and decided for laparatomy and proceed. Operative findings showed 1 litre of straw coloured ascites aspirated and sent to cytology. 14 cm smooth, firm left ovarian mass was seen. Right ovary and uterus looked normal. Small and large bowel and omentum looked normal. Left oophorectomy with omental biopsy was done. Post operatively, patient made a good recovery and repeat chest x-ray was clear of effusions. Ascitic fluid and omental biopsy was clear of malignant deposits. The histology of the ovarian mass represented a mitotically active celluar firbroma. Retrospectively the case was confirmed as Meigs syndrome. Patient made good postoperative recovery. Future care for the patient is annual follow up. Our case is unique because of histological diagnosis of mitotically active fibroma at such a young age. Recurrence may be local. Irving et alhave recommended long term follow up for all patients with mitotically active cellular fibroma.


Major factors in settlement generation can be summarized as four aspects, the natural environment factor, the social ethic factor, visual esthetics factor, socioeconomic contributing factor etc. nowadays numerous analyses are being conducted in these four aspects, however the vast majority of them are partial, one dimensional researches and the results are often remote from the actual effects. From the perspective of human settlements, the author made a general research by means of systematic approach and discussed how to effectively combine these four aspects to form an evaluation system based on the effect of settlement generation, in order to obtain an ideal outcome of settlement generation.


This study examines the role that attachment value plays in the formation of a willingness to accept price (WTA) for farmland. Attachment value is defined as the estimated or assigned worth of a socio-emotional good that binds one person or group to a physical object. The objective of this study is to determine if a differential exists between the market or assessed farmland price and the price a farmland owner would accept from a strange. Further this study aims to determine if attachment value has an affect on this differential. Qualitative evidence strongly supports the hypothesis that attachment value to farmland affects the WTA and that variables such as length of ownership tenure, family closeness, and community closeness affect the level of attachment value. The quantitative results provide evidence that there is a significant differential between the WTA and the assessed price and further that family closeness and education levels are significant in explaining the differential. An alternative survey instrument to more effectively explore the issue of farmland values and attachment values is presented in appendix 1.


Context: This paper is part of a larger project in which we study the chemical abundances of extra-galactic post-AGB stars with the ultimate goal of improving our knowledge of the poorly understood AGB third dredge-up mixing processes and s-process nucleosynthesis. Aims: In this paper, we study two carefully selected post-AGB stars in the LMC. The combination of favourable atmospheric parameters for detailed abundance studies and their known distances make these objects ideal probes of the internal AGB third dredge-up and s-process nucleosynthesis in that they provide observational constraints for theoretical AGB models. Methods: We use high-resolution optical UVES spectra to determine accurate stellar parameters and perform detailed elemental abundance studies. Additionally, we use available photometric data to construct SEDs for reddening and luminosity determinations. We then estimate initial masses from theoretical post-AGB tracks. Results: Both stars show extreme s-process enrichment associated with relatively low C/O ratios of about 1.3. We could only derive upper limits of the lead (Pb) abundance which indicate no strong Pb overabundances with respect to other s-elements. Comparison with theoretical post-AGB evolutionary tracks in the HR-diagram reveals that both stars have low initial masses between 1.0 and 1.5 Msun. Conclusion: This study adds to the results obtained so far on a very limited number of s-process enriched post-AGB stars in the Magellanic Clouds. We find an increasing discrepancy between observed and predicted Pb abundances towards lower metallicities for all studied Magellanic Cloud post-AGB stars found so far, as well as moderate C/O ratios. We find that all s-process rich post-AGB stars in the LMC and SMC studied so far, cluster in the same region of the HR-diagram and are associated with low-mass stars with a low metallicity on average.


From the Publisher:

New advances in spoken language processing: theory and practice
In-depth coverage of speech processing, speech recognition, speech synthesis, spoken language understanding, and speech interface design
Many case studies from state-of-the-art systems, including examples from Microsoft's advanced research labs

Spoken Language Processing draws on the latest advances and techniques from multiple fields: computer science, electrical engineering, acoustics, linguistics, mathematics, psychology, and beyond. Starting with the fundamentals, it presents all this and more:

Essential background on speech production and perception, probability and information theory, and pattern recognition
Extracting information from the speech signal: useful representations and practical compression solutions
Modern speech recognition techniques: hidden Markov models, acoustic and language modeling, improving resistance to environmental noises, search algorithms, and large vocabulary speech recognition
Text-to-speech: analyzing documents, pitch and duration controls; trainable synthesis, and more
Spoken language understanding: dialog management, spoken language applications, and multimodal interfaces

To illustrate the book's methods, the authors present detailed case studies based on state-of-the-art systems, including Microsoft's Whisper speech recognizer, Whistler text-to-speech system, Dr. Who dialog system, and the MiPad handheld device. Whether you're planning, designing, building, or purchasing spoken language technology, this is the state of the art—fromalgorithms through business productivity.


Background  This paper describes a novel combination of inclusive methods to evaluate health and health promotion needs of service users (clients) with intellectual disability. Sixty centres provide disability services to over 900 clients with intellectual disability in the East Coast Area Health Board region of Ireland (population approximately 325 000). This is the first known triangulated large-scale approach to inclusive needs assessment of clients using regional disability services in Ireland.

Method  The research included interviewer-directed surveys of 247 clients with intellectual disability (or advocates) and 180 clients with physical/sensory disability; focus groups for clients, service providers and carers; and a postal survey for centre managers. Modification of existing surveys was required for people with intellectual disability.

Results  Fifty-six of 60 (93.3%) centres participated. The response rate at the client level was 98.8% (3/250 refusals). Health behaviours, likes and dislikes were well described by clients and advocates. Clients identified the need for more creative therapy, physical activity, relaxation therapy and social activities. Service providers and carers emphasized more the need for speech and language therapy, counselling, occupational therapy and physiotherapy.

Conclusions  Inclusive research methods can produce useful outcome measures of the health promotion needs of those with disability. Triangulation is valuable, where clients, carers and service providers are all involved in the research process.


In modern science, computer models are often used to understand complex phenomena, and a thriving statistical community has grown around analyzing them. This review aims to bring a spotlight to the growing prevalence of stochastic computer models -- providing a catalogue of statistical methods for practitioners, an introductory view for statisticians (whether familiar with deterministic computer models or not), and an emphasis on open questions of relevance to practitioners and statisticians. Gaussian process surrogate models take center stage in this review, and these, along with several extensions needed for stochastic settings, are explained. The basic issues of designing a stochastic computer experiment and calibrating a stochastic computer model are prominent in the discussion. Instructive examples, with data and code, are used to describe the implementation of, and results from, various methods.


Objective: To investigate predictors of outcome in patients with all-cause encephalitis receiving care in the intensive care unit. Methods: A retrospective analysis of encephalitis cases at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center was performed. Using multivariate logistic regression analysis, we examined mortality and predictors of good outcome (defined as modified Rankin Scale scores of 1–3) and poor outcome (scores 4 and 5) in those surviving to hospital discharge. Results: In our cohort of 103 patients, the median age was 52 years (interquartile range 26), 52 patients (50.49%) were male, 28 patients (27.18%) had viral encephalitis, 19 (18.45%) developed status epilepticus (SE), 15 (14.56%) had cerebral edema, and 19 (18.45%) died. In our multivariate logistic regression analysis, death was associated with cerebral edema (odds ratio [OR] 18.06, 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.14–103.92), SE (OR 8.16, 95% CI 1.55–43.10), and thrombocytopenia (OR 6.28, 95% CI 1.41–28.03). Endotracheal intubation requirement with ventilator support was highly correlated with death (95%). In addition, in those patients who survived, viral, nonviral, and unknown causes of encephalitis were less likely to have a poor outcome at hospital discharge compared with an autoimmune etiology (viral encephalitis: OR 0.09, 95% CI 0.01–0.57; nonviral encephalitis: OR 0.02, 95% CI 0.01–0.31; unknown etiology: OR 0.18, 95% CI 0.04–0.91). Conclusions: Our study suggests that predictors of death in patients with encephalitis comprise potentially reversible conditions including cerebral edema, SE, and thrombocytopenia. Further prospective studies are needed to determine whether aggressive management of these complications in patients with encephalitis improves outcome.


The case is presented of a professional learning project through which a school counsellor was assisted in her work with a child who she admitted 'rattled her cage' due to his complex needs and behaviours and the effect these had on her and the other children in her social skills group. As a result of a combination of mindfulness and therapeutic storytelling the child was able to gain an insight into his behaviour, which helped him feel a new sense of calm, safety and belonging. While the story of 'The Red Beast' provided the therapeutic content, the counsellor's transmission of mindfulness into the story telling space allowed it to be absorbed as wisdom to be drawn upon later by him and the other children in the group. This case demonstrates that school counsellors can benefit from professional development in mindfulness practice that supports them to become more attuned to the needs of vulnerable children through becoming more aware of their own emotional energies. It also shows that a therapeutic story's effectiveness can be enhanced if the teller is mindful of the right moment, manner and context in which to tell it.


The subject of this paper is the analysis of necessary tools for global teams, image of the team leader, styles of leadership in global teams. The analysis is based on selected examples from high-performance teams with visible results. The purpose of the work is to answer for the following questions: What are the characteristics of the leading global teams? Which style of leadership use the global teams? Is a female leader different from the male leader in a team? What factors influence the team's leadership style? Which system is better: leadership or management in the most driven international teams? How should a leader of a team behaves? Is the cooperation of the leader with other people important in a team? What kind of people lead successful companies?

I will try to answer the above questions based on my own research. At the beginning, research methodology was presented in the light of the theory, based on the available literature of the subject. The purpose and object of the study, research problem and research hypothesis, methods, technique, research tools also place and time of research were defined specifically. Subsequently, a general team mission was quoted in the light of available literature. As a result, the definition of the team leader was mentioned, it is styles listed, and the origins of that phenomenon as well. Women and men were analyzed as leaders as two different creatures that use management and leadership in their described way that leads to become successful team. The advantages and disadvantages of working in a team, the similarities and the differences between using different types of intelligence in practice. Most of all, the maritime industry was presented, that is very taken for granted nowadays, including the figure and style of the team leader. The captain's chosen silhouette in this publication was also not chosen accidentally. The fact is, that a shipping industry is just after the armed forces industry one of the most rigorous and still dominated by the male-workers' sphere, and is still underestimated. And it is true that the maritime transport industry provides the society with as much as 90% of raw materials. In addition, about 35,000 Polish seafarers are currently working on ships - this sum is for the European Union. Beyond it, you can even talk about 50,000 to 60,000 seafarers. In addition, according to a report conducted by World Health Organization in 2014 on sectors exposed to sudden death, which was the result of, inter alia, committing suicide. For over a dozen years, up to 800,000 thousand suicides have been recorded, which means that each is committed every 40 seconds. This means that suicides are one of the fifteen most widespread causes of death worldwide. It is an industry in which there is a culture of occupational safety and leadership in an organizational culture with higher risk. This risk is caused, among other things, by the terrorists and pirate attacks to which shipowners must be prepared, providing so-called sea freight, which in the maritime transport industry is more accurately referred to as the Aden Gulf Surcharge.

Particularly noteworthy; the chapter devoted to conflicts occurring in teams and conflict resolution is essential for this academic book. Such activities are crucial for the proper management of teams and thus presented the development by reference to a wider range of instruments that can be useful not only for the students involved in managing teams. This can be helpful for practitioners on a daily basis in the subject of team-building inside different industries. In the following book, the future of the team leader's function predicted by the researchers was also mentioned. The use of many types of intelligence is a leading topic that was presented in the paper. The available results of the own research conducted in selected international companies were presented completely in a book. Moreover, the development of the team leader's work has been approximated: from co-operation with people, through work styles, to the types of pursuit of goals by the team leaders.


This study was conducted at the Laboratory of Food Crops and Floriculture, Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia to characterize the potential lignocellulolytic bacteria for rapid bio-bioconversion of rice straw. Fifty isolates of bacteria were isolated from several in-situ and in-vitro sources. Isolates B3, B13, B21, B37 and B46 showed the highest enzymatic activities to starch, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and Azure B amended media. They were further screened on rice straw powder (RSP) amended media for their adaptability on rice straw (RST). The isolate B37 obtained from thermophilic phase of in vitro composting of rice straw and showing the optimum lignocellulolytic activity and adaptation to RSP amended media was identified as Bacillus pumilis . Key words: Rice straw, lignocellulose, microbial degradation, Bacillus pumilis .


Waldorf Schools, in their history started out as schools, located in European countries with a strong Christian heritage. However, almost one hundred years later there are schools in every inhabited continent of the world. These schools have mainly been founded with European support concerning finances, materials and curricular contents. In a considerable amount of cases those European Waldorf contents and Waldorf traditions have been exported to far away countries, often not only far away concerning space and nature but also concerning culture and religion. This ethnographic study investigates the processes that two schools in two continents have undergone in overcoming the influences of Eurocentric Waldorf festival traditions. It studies how they reconceptualised those traditions to then develop place based new forms of celebrating Waldorf annual festivals. The findings are related to literature from sociology, ritual theory, Indigenous Knowledge, Anthroposophy and to related studies in Waldorf contexts from the Middle East, Taiwan, South Africa, Germany and New Zealand. It offers profound insights into the school life and cultural surrounding of two quite different and unique Waldorf schools, Kusi Kawsay in Peru and Nairobi Waldorf School in Kenya.


Over the years, there has been much interest in the use of optical wavelengths for communication because of the potential for high data rates. However, the performance of these systems can become significantly degraded due to turbulence-induced signal fluctuations. These fluctuations can be minimized by enlarging the receiving aperture, thereby averaging the fluctuations. There is extensive interest in developing probability density functions (PDFs) describing these intensity fluctuations so as to accurately predict system performance. This work examines several PDF models that have been suggested to represent fluctuations by comparing them to simulations of realistic propagation scenarios of a collimated Gaussian beam with centroid wander. Unlike with an infinite plane or spherical wave, the empirical PDF shape in these simulations changed significantly with increased aperture, going from a positively skewed to a negatively skewed distribution; therefore, the PDF model that describes it also must change. This change in skew can have serious consequences on the metrics of an optical communication system, e.g., number of fades and bit-error rate. In this work, we examine the evolution of the empirical PDF with aperture size and the fit of potential PDF models under various strengths of turbulence. We show that the change in skew with increasing aperture size occurred for all strengths of turbulence and that the currently used PDF models do not adequately characterize this for realistically sized apertures where beam wander is present.


1. While the biocontrol potential of natural enemies is well established, it is largely unknown how landscape-mediated effects on pest and natural enemy communities impact the cascade of biocontrol potential, crop injury, yield and profit, taking into account crop management and surrounding landscape composition. 2. We compared natural biocontrol with chemical control according to local farmers' practice, across the 'full cascade' from natural enemy and pest abundance to crop injury, yield loss, yield and economic performance. This 2-year study was conducted in 20 rice fields embedded in a gradient of landscapes from crop-dominated to semi-natural habitat-dominated, in subtropical China, the world's largest rice-producing region. 3. Natural enemies suppressed brown planthopper population growth in unsprayed plots, irrespective of landscape composition. However, crop injury was lower in pesticide treated plots than in unsprayed plots, and yields in sprayed plots were 20% higher than in unsprayed plots. Nevertheless, pesticide applications were only profitable in less than half of the cases when only costs for pesticides were considered, and in less than one third of the cases when costs for pesticides and labour were considered. 4. Synthesis and applications. Our findings question the cost-effectiveness of current chemical-based pest management in farming, and highlight opportunities for more ecologically based pest management strategies based on the widespread activity of natural enemies. Pest damage and biocontrol, however, are largely independent from the landscape context, which might be due to the small-scale character of Chinese rice landscapes. To maintain high levels of biocontrol, conserving this small-scale character appears more important than increasing the proportion of semi-natural habitat.


Teachers think they're doing a lot for us by having a week on Indians --"We're going to do an Indian unit"--especially before Thanksgiving--"and we're going to make a little headband with feathers and everyone is going to understand what it is to be Indian." That's ridiculous. --Nola Lodge (Oneida) WE HAVE ALL seen and probably suffered through the kind of educational experiences Nola Lodge describes. From instructional materials to classroom decorations, schools are deluged with stereotypical images of America's Native peoples. Despite a vast array of research and primary sources that provide a complex and highly textured history, a simplistic version of how non-Indians settled the North American continent persists in most classrooms around the nation. Montana's Indian Education for All (IEFA) Act offers a remarkable opportunity to change that. The law requires that all of Montana's children learn the history and culture of the 12 tribes and seven reservations spread across the state. Research indicates that American Indian students still attend schools where they do not see themselves reflected in the school's guiding principles, in the curriculum, or even in their own classrooms. Meanwhile, non-American Indian students still do not learn about their Indian peers, with whom they will continue to work and live throughout their lives. Up to now, little has been done to implement specific language in Montana's constitution requiring a commitment to preserve American Indian history and heritage through education. This year, for the first time, the state legislature has funded implementation of IEFA. As we begin to implement the law, most of our focus is on classroom teachers and administrators. That is as it should be. The first steps will occur in classrooms around the state, and most teachers, administrators, and other school personnel are not ready. As they begin, they will need a strong program of professional development that emphasizes both gaining knowledge about the tribes and developing the strategies necessary to infuse that knowledge into classroom instruction. However, we must also begin to think in the long term about how we can educate preservice teachers and administrators for the future so that they can enter schools ready to make IEFA a vibrant, meaningful, and integrated part of life in their learning communities. TOWARD A COURSE OF STUDY In fall 2003, the director of the Northern Plains Transition to Teaching, an alternative certification program, asked me to develop an online course that would help teachers meet the requirements of IEFA. I had experience developing online courses but had never designed a course about American Indians. As I looked around for examples of such courses, I found nothing that would serve the purpose of preparing students for the specific tasks called for by IEFA. I would be starting from scratch. As a non-Indian, I was acutely aware of my own lack of expertise in American Indian history and culture. Could I trust that a course I developed would be historically accurate and culturally appropriate? What if I made the same mistakes that had been made so often in the past and, without knowing it, perpetuated stereotypes or taught inaccurate information? Because of the complexity of American Indian history and culture and the diverse perspectives and experiences of Indian people, it is always difficult to make decisions about course content. This is true for both Indian and non-Indian course developers. As Richard Littlebear of the Northern Cheyenne noted, "Whenever we as American Indian people develop ... curriculum materials, we tend to immediately develop a faction that opposes their use; this opposition occurs without anybody appreciating the fact that members of our own tribes locally produced these materials." (1) With some hesitation, I decided to take on the challenge. Confident that I could develop instructional activities and fully aware that I could not make decisions about the content, I knew that consulting local and state Indian education experts every step of the way would be crucial. …


Circumstellar disks play a key role in the understanding of stellar systems. Direct imaging of such extended structures is a challenging task. Current post-processing techniques, first tailored for exoplanets imaging, tend to produce deformed images of the circumstellar disks, hindering our capability to study their shape and photometry in details. We address here the reasons of this shortcoming and propose an algorithm that produces more faithful images of disks taken with ground-based telescopes. We also show that our algorithm is a good candidate for exoplanets imaging. We then explain how our approach can be extended in the form of a regularized inverse problem.


Background: The party drug gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB) is highly addictive. GHB use disorder (GUD) has poor treatment outcome, with relapse rates over 60% within 3 months after detoxification. In order to get a better understanding of the limited treatment success, we explored GUD patients' illness perceptions and treatment needs. Methods: In a qualitative cross-sectional observational study, using a semi-structured interview based on the works of Kleinmann, illness perceptions were explored among treatment seeking GUD patients (n = 20). The analysis was based on the principles of Grounded Theory by the 2 interviewers and an independent researcher. Results: GUD patients had mainly positive views toward GHB. GHB was perceived as strongly rewarding and perceived as the solution to psychosocial problems, rather than the cause. After repeated readmissions, GUD patients perceived themselves as addicted to GHB and GHB use as more problematic. They reported a need for personalized treatment goals, which were mainly aimed toward dealing with psychiatric symptoms and social reintegration. Conclusion: GUD shares many characteristics with other substance use disorders, in line with gradual development from positive reinforcement in early-stage GUD to negative reinforcement in later stages of more compulsive GHB use. Future studies should investigate whether personalization of treatment goals, such as social reintegration, lead to better treatment outcomes.


Problems in this research is the pattern of communication conducted by adolescent autism in expressing feelings to the opposite sex and the uncontrolled behavior of adolescent autism in expressing the feeling to the opposite sex. The purpose of this study was to describe and explain the communication patterns of adolescent autism in expressing the feeling to the opposite sex as well to explain the uncontrollable behavior that may arise from autistic adolescents when feeling an attraction with the opposite sex. The type of this research is descriptive qualitative with the case study. Subjects in this study were autistic adolescents with an age range of 12 to 22 years, autistic adolescent parents, and teachers/therapists from autistic adolescents. Data collection techniques used are interviews, observation, and documentation. Data analysis techniques by collecting data, organizing data systematically then interpreting data to others. Of the 2 subjects studied showed that communication adolescent autism to the opposite sex that makes them interested tend to passive, 2 subjects cannot communicate their feelings to the opposite sex firmly and clearly. They are more likely to show interest by staring at the opposite sex for long periods of time, walking back and forth near the opposite sex, or following the opposite sex everywhere. Not all autistic teenagers who are getting interested in the opponent have uncontrollable behavior, from 2 subjects there is only 1 who likes to suddenly kiss and hug the opposite sex that attracts him.


This Article explores a feature of the law of causation in torts that has received little analysis: what I call "self-proving causation." This is a class of negligence cases in which there is no direct evidence of cause-in-fact. Rather, there is circumstantial evidence resting on the fact that the defendant was negligent. In most tort cases, evidence of negligence cannot serve as the basis, and certainly not as the sole basis, of an inference that this negligence caused the harm for which the plaintiff seeks damages. But in self-proving causation cases that is precisely what occurs. So the question is, what distinguishes self-proving causation from other proof of causation? The Article first examines what makes self-proving causation cases distinctive. It then turns to what has become in a short time the most salient and provocative self-proving causation case ever decided, Zuchowicz v. United States. In an opinion by Judge Calabresi, the court held that, because overdoses of prescription drugs often increase the risk of harm, the plaintiff had introduced legally sufficient evidence of causation by proving that the defendant had negligently provided the plaintiff an excessive dose of a particular drug. The Article peels off the layers of the opinion in that case by identifying and evaluating the key steps in the reasoning that leads to its conclusion. Finally, the Article explores the precedential significance of Zuchowicz and its application in some subsequent cases, and considers what this analysis can tell us about the requirements for application of self-proving causation generally.


Localization of features and structures in images is an important task in medical image-processing. Characteristic structures and features are used in diagnostics and surgery planning for spatial adjustments of the volumetric data, including image registration or localization of bone-anchors and fiducials. Since this task is highly recurrent, a fast, reliable and automated approach without human interaction and parameter adjustment is of high interest. In this paper we propose and compare four image processing pipelines, including algorithms for automatic detection and localization of spherical features within 3D MRI data. We developed a convolution based method as well as algorithms based on connected-components labeling and analysis and the circular Hough-transform. A blob detection related approach, analyzing the Hessian determinant, was examined. Furthermore, we introduce a novel spherical MRI-marker design. In combination with the proposed algorithms and pipelines, this allows the detection and spatial localization, including the direction, of fiducials and bone-anchors.


Careful architectural decisions are required in order to create a highly available and scalable search system. This requires an in-depth analysis and understanding of the architecture and context of each deployment. Different requirements placed upon the system by different deployments mean different solutions provide the best case by case result, thus benchmarks provide an invaluable source of information. This thesis provides an overview of common components and important aspects of a distributed search system. It then gives an overview of different partitioning techniques before going into the details of repartitioning and rebalancing in a document-partitioned full-text search system. A processing framework that draws inspiration from flow-based programming literature is introduced, which is shown a valuable tool in creating custom tailored search solutions. The implementation is used to benchmark different repartitioning and rebalancing strategies. In conclusion, the techniques mentioned in the thesis show great promise in creating custom, maintainable and flexible partitions. The processing framework enables each specific deployment to easily compare different partitioning schemes and associated manageability and maintenance costs to determine the best fit for any given situation.


In order to provide data necessary for predicting the operating characteristics of proposed alkali atom-rare gas excimer lasers, measurements have been made of the fluorescence spectral intensity from the NaXe/sub 2/ molecule. At Xe pressures of 20 atm, the NaXe/sub 2/ fluorescence exceeds the NaXe fluorescence for wavelengths greater than 720 nm. New techniques have been developed for the calculation of the growth of instabilities in laser type discharges, and for the analyses of measurement of rate coefficients for the electron excitation of molecules. The collisional quenching of Na atoms in the 3 doublet P states has been observed and appears to be the result of excitation transfer to Na/sub 2/ molecules.


This paper studies beam training design for a codebook- based beamforming millimeter wave (mmwave) system where multiple antenna arrays are employed and each array is capable of beamforming independently. To reduce the training overhead and the complexity of subsequent beam direction search, we propose a cooperative multi- subarray beam training method. Specifically, from the perspective of excluding noneffective beam direction combinations and thus reducing search space, method and criterion of beam superposition are proposed to construct a wide beam from multiple narrow beams corresponding to multiple subarrays. Then, a cooperative multisubarray beam training scheme is proposed based on the proposed criterion. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieves a spectral efficiency close to that of the optimal exhaustive search scheme, while has greatly reduced training overhead and computational complexity.


This study explores the decision-making process of tourists visiting Guilin, China as an ecotourism destination. An extended model of goal-directed behavior with the inclusion of place attachment and destination image is employed to understand tourists' revisit intention. This study finds several substantial variables that contribute to leading the behavioral intention of tourists. Results reveal that tourist attitude, positive anticipated emotion, and perceived behavioral control positively influence desire. Tourist desire to visit a destination is an important predictor of behavioral intention, and desire plays a substantial mediating role between attitude, positive anticipated emotion, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention. The image of an ecotourism destination is an important antecedent of attitude, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norm. The destination image indirectly influences behavioral intention through attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. Destination image also has a direct effect on place attachment, which in turn influences behavioral intention. Findings provide a theoretical framework of understanding tourist behavior and contribute guidelines for developing sustainable ecotourism for central and local governments.


This paper explores initiatives to date by the IMF, financial markets, and civil society organizations to assess and utilize information on fiscal transparency. The results of surveys and interviews of rating agency analysts and surveys of civil society organizations on their level of awareness of, and use of IMF fiscal transparency assessments are presented. The paper then considers the relative roles of the IMF, the private sector, and civil society organizations in assessing and promoting fiscal transparency, and the scope for greater complementarity among their roles. The paper concludes with a number of suggestions for making the IMF's fiscal transparency initiatives more effective.


Cognitive Science
AlphaGo has demonstrated that a machine can learn how to do things that people spend many years of concentrated study learning, and it can rapidly learn how to do them better than any human can. Caliskan et al. now show that machines can learn word associations from written texts and that these associations mirror those learned by humans, as measured by the Implicit Association Test (IAT) (see the Perspective by Greenwald). Why does this matter? Because the IAT has predictive value in uncovering the association between concepts, such as pleasantness and flowers or unpleasantness and insects. It can also tease out attitudes and beliefs—for example, associations between female names and family or male names and career. Such biases may not be expressed explicitly, yet they can prove influential in behavior.

Science , this issue p. [183][1]; see also p. [133][2]

 [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aal4230
 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aan0649


In this study, we propose an algorithm for computing the network size of communicating agents. The algorithm is distributed: a) it does not require a leader selection; b) it only requires local exchange of information, and; c) its design can be implemented using local information only, without any global information about the network. It is privacy-preserving, namely it does not require to propagate identifying labels. This algorithm is based on system identification, and more precisely on the identification of the order of a suitably-constructed discrete-time linear time-invariant system over some finite field. We provide a probabilistic guarantee for any randomly picked node to correctly compute the number of nodes in the network. Moreover, numerical implementation has been taken into account to make the algorithm applicable to networks of hundreds of nodes, and therefore make the algorithm applicable in real-world sensor or robotic networks. We finally illustrate our results in simulation and conclude the paper with discussions on how our technique differs from a previously-known strategy based on statistical inference.


This article provides the first scholarly analysis of the Joint Declaration on the Conference on the Future of Europe, adopted by the Presidents of the European Parliament, European Commission and Council of the European Union (EU) on 10 March 2021. The article sheds light on the process that is opened by the Joint Declaration and discusses the potential of this initiative, including to address the shortcomings of the current EU constitutional structure, vividly exposed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the article compares the Conference's plan with two illustrious precedents, namely the Conference of Messina and the Convention on the Future of Europe, highlighting how these prior out-of-the-box initiatives proved valuable to relaunch the project of European integration at difficult times. Nevertheless, the article also draws attentions on the perils that the Conference faces, arguing that in particular political leadership and legal inventiveness will be essential to secure the success of this initiative. As such, by reflecting on the ambiguities and the open-textured nature of the Joint Declaration, the article suggests that the document launching the Conference is the premise of an uncertain future, where promises and pitfalls persist.


The article deals with some aspects of the history of the existence and development of the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise, the historical personalities of its employees, their dedication, and heroic work.

The history is multifaceted. It always directly combines the history of the State itself with the history of organizations, institutions, enterprises, and other institutions that contribute to its functioning, and, in general, to prosperity. In turn, the fruitful work of the employees, and their achievements in science and practice are a contribution to history that cannot be forgotten. Life goes on and there are always fields for achievement.

Key words: forensic examination, history of the Kyiv Scientific Research Insti tute of Forensic Expertise, historical employees of the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise.


This paper describes the development of design and optimization workflow of self-cleaning portable toilet cubicle interior surface in Grasshopper to obtain a high cleaning performance. Modelling of the portable toilet cubicle interior surface was performed using the parametrically defined skeletal implicit modelling technique, which allows for the quick generation of smooth and seamless surface variants. Assuming the importance of impact pressure to cleaning performance, the developed rotary jet head (RJH) cleaning simulation model provides the evaluation and optimization of the cleanability performance of the toilet cubicle interior surface. The distribution of the cleaning effect using a rotating liquid jet for a set of configured surfaces can be described as a function of surface shape and jetting parameters, such as position and motion. The optimization objective is defined as the maximization of cleaning effect distribution and the minimization of under cleaned surfaces. The findings of the study suggest the potential of implicit surface modelling being a promising method within the parametric modelling environment when coupled with a cleaning performance simulation in order to enable the optimization of the surface. In particular, it suggests the appropriate surface configuration for optimum cleaning performance.


Background: Strong evidence supports the vasoactivity of cocoa flavanols, particularly (-)-epicatechin (EC). However, full dose-dependency of EC remains unclear, emphasising the need for further research and clinical trials to inform public health and future dietary
recommendations.
Objective: To conduct a clinical trial-based investigation in healthy men to elucidate dose-dependent vascular effects, primarily assessing FMD at doses ≤ 1 mg/kg BW of pure compound over an acute timeframe (6 h), and secondly, assessing bidaily intake of high-flavanol milk chocolate (HFMC) over 2 weeks for a longer-term insight of dietary flavanol intake.
Design: Two randomised, controlled, double-blind intervention trials were conducted in 20 and 33 healthy men (18-40 y). Acute study subjects crossed over 4 treatment arms (control 0.0, 0.1, 0.5, and 1 mg/kg BW pure EC) and plasma samples and vascular measures were taken at baseline, 1, 2, 4 and 6 h post-treatment. Acute-on-chronic study subjects followed bidaily intake of either HFMC (35 mg EC/d) or LFMC (0 mg EC/d) over 2 weeks. Plasma samples and FMD measures were taken at the first (day 0) and last day of intervention (day 14), and post-intervention (≥ day 28). Acute measures (2 h) were also assessed at day 0 and day 14. Results: In the acute study we observed significant improvements in FMD% (>1.2%) after ingestion of doses 0.5 and 1 mg/kg BW at 2 h post-ingestion (P <0.01-0.001). Results of the acute-on-chronic study demonstrated significant improvements in FMD% within the HFMC group; I) acutely (2 h) at day 0 (0.7 %; P<O.OI); 2) chronically at day 14 (1.0%;P<O.OOI), and 3) a sustained increase in FMD post-intervention (0.9%; P<O.OOI). EC metabolites were able to predict changes in both trials, although, no other vascular or haematological markers were changed significantly.
Conclusion: We show for t,le first time 0.5 mg/kg BW of pure EC can significantly induce acute improvements in FMD. We also conclude that long-term (>2 weeks) bidaily intake of HFMC results in sustained improvements in FMD. Both studies demonstrated clinically relevant increased in FMD. Our data supports the vasoactivity, linking to cardioprotection, of EC, and stereoisomer-specific foods, by demonstrating enhanced vascular function in a 'low-risk' population.


These Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are intended to clarify the reporting requirements for Chemical Data Reporting for the 2016 reporting period.


SIR,-We were interested in the correspondence between Dr Addy and Professor Brook and Dr Hindmarsh on detecting organic illness through assessment of height velocity.' 2 The question, however, is academic and their arguments theoretical since, as we have recently shown, the assessment of height velocity in individuals is so imprecise as to be clinically meaningless. There is effectively no correlation between successive velocities, so that a 12 month velocity cannot possibly identify anyone.3'4 The Wessex Growth Study provides a practical demonstration of the problem. Thirty (17%) of the original cohort of 174 school entrants below the third height centile had identifiable organic disease. Eighteen of these were monitored over a period of three years alongside a cohort of78 short 'normal' children in whom all pathology had been excluded. The height velocity of four of the short 'normal' children and two of those with organic disease was deemed to be on or below the third centile for velocity after the first year. Over the next 12 months, two of the short 'normal' subjects, and three of those with organic disease, were growing at a rate below the third centile, but the identity of the 'poor growers' changed from year one to year two. We should abandon the notion that low 12 month velocities will effectively identify pathology. The children in the Wessex Growth Study with organic causes of short stature were identified at the beginning of year one on the basis of height screening alone.


Livestock holdings in rural areas of the West African Semi-arid Tropics (WASAT) are often substantial yet there is little evidence for precautionary saving in the form of livestock. This paper re-visits farm households' ability to smooth consumption ex post via savings in the form of livestock. Based on data covering Burkina Faso's 2004 drought, we find that livestock sales increase significantly in response to drought with households citing the need to finance food consumption. Some consumption smoothing is achieved via adjustments to grain stocks, but households apparently fail to smooth consumption by adjusting livestock holdings. We argue that this seemingly contradictory finding is largely due to a decrease in relative livestock prices during droughts. This renders selling livestock a costly coping strategy and underlines the need for market integration.


We propose a novel framework PROVEN to PRObabilistically VErify Neural network's robustness with statistical guarantees. PROVEN provides probability certificates of neural network robustness when the input perturbation follow distributional characterization. Notably, PROVEN is derived from current state-of-theart worst-case neural network robustness verification frameworks, and therefore it can provide probability certificates with little computational overhead on top of existing methods such as FastLin, CROWN and CNN-Cert. Experiments on small and large MNIST and CIFAR neural network models demonstrate our probabilistic approach can tighten up robustness certificate to around 1.8× and 3.5× with at least a 99.99% confidence compared with the worst-case robustness certificate by CROWN and CNN-Cert.


Abstract. To better understand the effects of wildfires on air quality and
climate, it is important to assess the occurrence of chromophoric compounds
in smoke and characterize their optical properties. This study explores the
molecular composition of light-absorbing organic aerosol, or brown carbon
(BrC), sampled at the Missoula Fire Sciences laboratory as a part of the
FIREX Fall 2016 lab intensive. A total of 12 biomass fuels from different plant
types were tested, including gymnosperm (coniferous) and angiosperm
(flowering) plants and different ecosystem components such as duff, litter,
and canopy. Emitted biomass burning organic aerosol (BBOA) particles were
collected onto Teflon filters and analyzed offline using high-performance
liquid chromatography coupled to a photodiode array spectrophotometer and a high-resolution mass spectrometer
(HPLC–PDA–HRMS). Separated BrC chromophores were classified by their
retention times, absorption spectra, integrated absorbance in the near-UV
and visible spectral range (300–700 nm), and chemical formulas from the
accurate m∕z measurements. BrC chromophores were grouped into the following
classes and subclasses: lignin-derived products, which include lignin pyrolysis
products; distillation products, which include coumarins and flavonoids;
nitroaromatics; and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The observed
classes and subclasses were common across most fuel types, although specific BrC
chromophores varied based on plant type (gymnosperm or angiosperm) and
ecosystem component(s) burned. To study the stability of the observed BrC
compounds with respect to photodegradation, BBOA particle samples were
irradiated directly on filters with near UV (300–400 nm) radiation, followed
by extraction and HPLC–PDA–HRMS analysis. Lifetimes of individual BrC
chromophores depended on the fuel type and the corresponding combustion
condition. Lignin-derived and flavonoid classes of BrC generally had
the longest lifetimes with respect to UV photodegradation. Moreover,
lifetimes for the same type of BrC chromophores varied depending on biomass
fuel and combustion conditions. While individual BrC chromophores
disappeared on a timescale of several days, the overall light absorption by
the sample persisted longer, presumably because the condensed-phase
photochemical processes converted one set of chromophores into another
without complete photobleaching or from undetected BrC chromophores that
photobleached more slowly. To model the effect of BrC on climate, it is
important to understand the change in the overall absorption coefficient
with time. We measured the equivalent atmospheric lifetimes of the overall
BrC absorption coefficient, which ranged from 10 to 41 d, with subalpine
fir having the shortest lifetime and conifer canopies, i.e., juniper, having
the longest lifetime. BrC emitted from biomass fuel loads encompassing
multiple ecosystem components (litter, shrub, canopy) had absorption
lifetimes on the lower end of the range. These results indicate that
photobleaching of BBOA by condensed-phase photochemistry is
relatively slow. Competing chemical aging mechanisms, such as heterogeneous
oxidation by OH, may be more important for controlling the rate of BrC
photobleaching in BBOA.


BACKGROUND
Studies have identified characteristics of adenomas detected on colonoscopy to be predictive of adenoma recurrence.

OBJECTIVE
To assess the role of both colonoscopy-related factors and polyp characteristics on the risk for colorectal cancer after colonoscopic polyp detection.

DESIGN
Population-based case-control study (3148 case participants and 3274 control participants).

SETTING
Rhine-Neckar region of Germany.

PATIENTS
Case and control participants with physician-validated detection of polyps (other than hyperplastic polyps) at a previous colonoscopy in the past 10 years.

MEASUREMENTS
Detailed history and results of previous colonoscopies were obtained through interviews and medical records. Case and control participants were compared according to colonoscopy-related factors (incompleteness, poor bowel preparation, incomplete removal of all polyps, and no surveillance colonoscopy within 5 years) and polyp characteristics (≥ 1 cm, villous components or high-grade dysplasia, ≥ 3 polyps, and ≥ 1 proximal polyp). Odds ratios (ORs) and attributable fractions were derived by using multiple logistic regression and the Levin formula.

RESULTS
155 case participants and 260 control participants with physician-validated polyp detection in the past 10 years were identified. The following characteristics were significantly more common among case participants than among control participants: not all polyps completely removed (29.0% vs. 9.6%; OR, 3.73 [95% CI, 2.11 to 6.60]), no surveillance colonoscopy within 5 years (26.5% vs. 11.5%; OR, 2.96 [CI, 1.70 to 5.16]), and detection of 3 or more polyps (14.2% vs. 7.3%; OR, 2.21 [CI, 1.07 to 4.54]). Odds ratios ranged from 1.12 to 1.42 and CIs included 1.00 for all other variables. Overall, 41.1% and 21.7% of cancer cases were statistically attributable to colonoscopy-related factors and polyp characteristics, respectively.

LIMITATION
This was an observational study with potential for residual confounding and selection bias.

CONCLUSION
Colonoscopy-related factors are more important than polyp characteristics for stratification of colorectal cancer risk after colonoscopic polyp detection in the community setting.


As one of the outcomes of the process of dissemination of the free market capitalism model, the concept of market orientation has become one of the most important in the field of marketing as of the 1990s. The first studies in market orientation were undertaken in the US and focused only large business firms. Subsequently, in parallel to the expansion of the free market capitalism model, research started to be undertaken in developing countries and emerging economies. Finally, research embraced also public organizations and nonprofit organizations. These studies helped raise the strategic status of the field of marketing but also to detach researchers from criticisms about the relevance of the discipline and from important developments made by other fields about market, academy and emerging economies. This article argues that the concept of market orientation reproduces assumptions that are inadequate to the understanding and representation of the market in emerging economies – as Brazil – in the age of globalization. At the end, the article presents the guidelines of an interdisciplinary framework to the project of rethinking marketing orientation in Brazil.


Large amplitude inter-well oscillations in bi-stable energy harvesters made them a proper energy harvesting choice due to high energy generation. However, the co-existence of the chaotic attractor in these harvesters could essentially decrease their efficiency. In this paper, an algorithm for detecting chaos in bi-stable energy harvesters based on a data-gathering algorithm and estimating the largest Lyapunov exponent is investigated. First, a simple model of axially loaded non-linear energy harvesters is derived. This model is derived using the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and the Assumed Mode method considering the Von-Karman non-linear strain-displacement equation. The harvester's numerical simulation results are used to test the algorithm's efficiency and accuracy in identifying chaotic response. The results showed the algorithm's success in detecting chaos in such systems with minimum possible calculation cost. The effect of noise on the algorithm's performance has been investigated, and the results showed the excellent robustness of the algorithm to noise. It can diagnose the harvester's chaotic or harmonic behavior with noise-contaminated data, with 10 percent noise density. The comparison between this algorithm and Wolf's method showed relatively less computation time, up to 80 percent, to detect chaos with reasonable accuracy.


Microbial mat ecosystems vary in complexity and structure depending on the environmental constraints placed by nature. Here, we describe in detail for the first time the community composition and functional potential of the microbial mats found in the supratidal, gypsum-rich, and hypersaline region of Blue Holes, Shark Bay. This was achieved via high throughput sequencing of total mat community DNA on the Illumina NextSeq platform. Mat communities were mainly comprised of Proteobacteria (29%), followed by Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi Group (11%), and Planctomycetes (10%). These mats were found to also harbor a diverse community of potentially novel microorganisms including members from the DPANN and Asgard archaea, Candidate Phyla Radiation (CPR) and other candidate phyla, with highest diversity indices found in the lower regions of the mat. Major metabolic cycles belonging to sulfur, carbon, nitrogen, and fermentation were detected in the mat metagenomes with the assimilatory sulfate reduction pathway being distinctly abundant. Critical microbial interactions were also inferred, and from 117 medium-to-high quality metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), viral defense mechanisms (CRISPR, BREX, and DISARM), elemental transport, osmoprotection, heavy metal and UV resistance were also detected in the mats. These analyses have provided a greater understanding of these distinct mat systems in Shark Bay, including key insights into adaptive responses.


Abstract Glacier surges are periodic episodes of mass redistribution characterized by dramatic increases in ice flow velocity and, sometimes, terminus advance. We use optical satellite imagery to document five previously unexamined surge events of Sít' Kusá (Turner Glacier) in the St. Elias Mountains of Alaska from 1983 to 2013. Surge events had an average recurrence interval of ~5 years, making it the shortest known regular recurrence interval in the world. Surge events appear to initiate in the winter, with speeds reaching up to ~25 m d−1. The surges propagate down-glacier over ~2 years, resulting in maximum thinning of ~100 m in the reservoir zone and comparable thickening at the terminus. Collectively, the rapid recurrence interval, winter initiation and down-glacier propagation suggest Sít' Kusá's surges are driven by periodic changes in subglacial hydrology and glacier sliding. Elevation change observations from the northern tributary show a kinematic disconnect above and below an icefall located 23 km from the terminus. We suggest the kinematic disconnect inhibits drawdown from the accumulation zone above the icefall, which leads to a steady flux of ice into the reservoir zone, and contributes to the glacier's exceptionally short recurrence interval.


Neuropathic pain (pain initiated by a lesion or dysfunction of the nervous system) is characterised by symptoms such as allodynia (pain due to a stimulus that does not normally provoke pain) and hyperalgesia (an increased response to a stimulus that is normally painful). It constitutes a major clinical problem, since in many cases treatment is unsatisfactory. The main focus of this thesis is the role of the melanocortin system in neuropathic pain and its possible contribution to the treatment of this syndrome.
The melanocortins comprise a group of peptides derived from the precursor molecule POMC (e.g. alpha-MSH and ACTH), and synthetically derived analogues. Melanocortins are known to antagonize opioid effects, such as analgesia and tolerance, and to have direct effects on nociception.
So far, 5 melanocortin receptor (MC-R) subtypes are identified. The MC4-R subtype is the only one present in the spinal cord, located in nociception-associated areas (laminae II and X), which prompted us to investigate its role in neuropathic pain. Therefore we used the rat chronic constriction injury (CCI) model for neuropathic pain.
By using a radioactively labelled alpha-MSH analogue, 125I-NDP-MSH, we demonstrated an increased binding in the outer layer of the dorsal horn, suggesting an upregulation of spinal MC4R in neuropathic pain. Both acute and chronic intrathecal administration of MC-R agonists to CCI rats increased cold allodynia (as measured by withdrawal latency to immersion in 4.5oC water bath) and mechanical allodynia (as measured by withdrawal threshold to von Frey filaments). Conversely, the MC4R antagonist SHU9119 decreased symptoms, suggesting that blockade of the spinal MC4R alleviates neuropathic pain.
In the dorsal horn the MC-R agonist alpha-MSH as well as the endogenous opioid agonist beta-endorphin, both derived from POMC, are present. Also the mu- and delta-opioid receptors (for which beta-endorphin displays high affinity) are located in the same area, suggesting the presence of both a functional melanocortin and opioid system in the dorsal horn.
We hypothesize that the anti-allodynic effects of SHU9119 are caused by blockade of a tonic influence of alpha-MSH on nociception, through the MC4R. This could reveal tonic anti-nociceptive effects of beta-endorphin (through the opioid receptors), coreleased with alpha-MSH. By administering naloxone (which increased pain symptoms) we furhter supported this hypothesis.
In addition we investigated a possible interaction of the spinal melanocortin and opioid systems, and tested whether opioid effectiveness could be increased through modulation of the spinal melanocortin system activity. A low dose of naloxone (which by itself had no effect on nociception) was able to block the anti-allodynic effect of SHU9119, confirming an interaction between the two systems. Combined treatment with SHU9119 and morphine resulted in additive anti-allodynic effects.
Based upon these results we suggest that MC4R antagonists, possibly combined with opioids, might contribute to the treatment of human neuropathic pain.
In addition to the investigation of the role of the melanocortins in neuropathic pain a novel animal model for neuropathic pain (the sciatic nerve crush) and an alternative method for quantifying mechanical allodynia (the "CatWalk") are also described in this thesis.


[1] An analogue experiment using a starch-water mixture has been carried out in order to understand the effect of cooling rate on the morphological characteristics of a basalt columnar joint. If the contraction of material is essential for the formation of columnar joint structure, the water loss rate by desiccation (hereafter referred to as desiccation rate) in the experiment is analogous to the cooling rate in solidifying basalt. In the experiment the desiccation rate is controlled by varying the distance between the starch-water mixture and a lamp used as the heat source. We find that there are three regimes in the relation between joint formation and desiccation rate: (1) At desiccation rates higher than ∼1.4 × 10−2 (g cm−2 h−1) (normal columnar joint regime), the average cross-sectional area S of a column is inversely proportional to the average desiccation rate, 〈〉 (i.e., S ∝ 〈〉−δ, with δ = 1). (2) Between that desiccation rate and a critical desiccation rate, 0.8 × 10−2 (g/cm2h), S approaches infinity as 〈〉 decreases close to a critical desiccation rate (i.e., exponent δ monotonically increases from unity to infinity) (critical regime). (3) Below the critical desiccation rate, no columnar structure forms (no columnar joint regime forms). Applying the present experimental result to the formation of basalt column, the basalt columnar cross-sectional area is inversely proportional to the cooling rate with factors including elasticity, crack growth coefficient, thermal expansion, glass transition temperature, and crack density ratio at stress maximum. Also, it can be predicted that there exists a critical cooling rate below which the columnar joint does not form; the presence of a critical regime between the normal columnar jointing and no columnar jointing during a certain cooling rate range can also be predicted. We find that at higher cooling rate the preferred column shape is a pentagon, whereas at lower cooling rate it is a hexagon.