Officially confined to red-light districts, brothels in British India were tolerated until the 1920s. Yet, by this time, prostitution reform campaigns led by Indian, imperial, and international bodies were combining the social scientific insights of sexology and hygiene with the moral condemnations of sexual slavery and human trafficking. These reformers identified the brothel as exacerbating rather than containing "corrupting prostitutes" and the threat of venereal diseases, and therefore encouraged the suppression of brothels rather than their urban segregation. In this book, Stephen Legg tracks the complex spatial politics surrounding brothels in the interwar period at multiple scales, including the local, regional, national, imperial, and global. Campaigns and state policies against brothels did not just operate at different scales but made scales themselves, forging new urban, provincial, colonial, and international formations. In so doing, they also remade the boundary between the state and the social, through which the prostitute was, Legg concludes, "civilly abandoned."


In recent experiments with a superconducting nanosized Pb bridge formed between a scanning tunneling microscope tip and a substrate, superconductivity has been detected at magnetic fields, which are few times larger than the third (surface) critical field. We describe the observed phenomenon on the basis of a numerical solution of the Ginzburg-Landau equations in a model structure consisting of six conoids. The spatial distribution of the superconducting phase is shown to be strongly inhomogeneous, with concentration of the superconducting phase near the narrowest part (the ``neck'') of the bridge. We show that suppression of superconductivity in the bridge by applied magnetic field or by temperature first occurs near the bases and then in the neck region, what leads to a continuous superconducting-to-normal resistive transition. A position of the transition midpoint depends on temperature and, typically, is by one order of magnitude higher than the second critical field H_c2. We find that the vortex states can be realized in the bridge at low temperatures T/T_c < 0.6. The vortex states lead to a fine structure of the superconducting-to-normal resistive transition. We also analyze vortex states in the bridge, which are characterized by a varying vorticity as a function of the bridge's height.


This paper primarily investigates the use of shape-based features by an Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) system to classify various types of targets in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images. In specific, shapes of target outlines are represented via Elliptical Fourier Descriptors (EFDs), which, in turn, are utilized as recognition features. According to the proposed ATR approach, a segmentation stage first isolates the target region from shadow and ground clutter via a sequence of fast thresholding and morphological operations. Next, a number of EFDs are computed that can sufficiently describe the salient characteristics of the target outline. Finally, a classification stage based on an ensemble of Support Vector Machines identifies the target with the appropriate class label. In order to experimentally illustrate the merit of the proposed approach, SAR intensity images from the well-known Moving and Stationary Target Acquisition and Recognition (MSTAR) dataset were used as 10-class and 3-class recognition problems. Furthermore, comparisons were drawn in terms of classification performance and computational complexity to other successful methods discussed in the literature, such as template matching methods. The obtained results portray that only a very limited amount of EFDs are required to achieve recognition rates that are competitive to well-established approaches.


An investigation of financing an inspection policy while allowing the enforcement of a market regulation is described. A simple model shows that the intensity of controls depends on the market structure. Under a given number of firms, the per-firm probability of controls is lower than one, since firms' incentive to comply with regulation holds under positive profits. In this case, a lump-sum tax is used for limiting distortions coming from financing with a fixed fee. Under free entry, the per-firm probability of controls is equal to one, and only a fixed fee that prevents excess entry is used to finance inspection.


The Fourier split-step method is a one-way marching-type algorithm to efficiently solve the parabolic equation for modeling electromagnetic propagation in troposphere. The main drawback of this method is that it characterizes only forward-propagating waves, and neglects backward-propagating waves, which become important especially in the presence of irregular surfaces. Although ground reflecting boundaries are inherently incorporated into the split-step algorithm, irregular surfaces (such as sharp edges) introduce a formidable challenge. In this paper, a recursive two-way split-step algorithm is presented to model both forward and backward propagation in the presence of multiple knife-edges. The algorithm starts marching in the forward direction until the wave reaches a knife-edge. The wave arriving at the knife-edge is partially-reflected by imposing the boundary conditions at the edge, and is propagated in the backward direction by reversing the paraxial direction in the parabolic equation. In other words, the wave is split into two components, and the components travel in their corresponding directions. The reflected wave is added to the forward-wave in each range step to obtain the total wave. The wave-splitting is performed each time a wave is incident on one of the knife-edges. This procedure is repeated until convergence is achieved inside the entire domain.


The Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-127), signed into law on April 4, for the first time grants the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) broad-based authority to establish national generic promotion ("check-off") programs for virtually any agricultural commodity. Formerly, individual programs first had to be authorized expressly by Congress. The new law also explicitly authorizes the establishment of new check-off programs for rapeseed and canola, kiwifruit, and popcorn. Other provisions require USDA to establish a new meat and poultry inspection advisory committee; deal with the collection of user fees for the inspection of agricultural imports; and authorize new guidelines to protect horses being transported to slaughter facilities, among other things.


Purpose: To report a case of chronic unilateral conjunctivitis caused by Alcaligenes xylosoxidans. Methods: A previously healthy 47-year-old woman presented with left eye purulent discharge and irritation beginning 3 months earlier. The patient had previously been treated with bacitracin and olopatadine without improvement. Bacterial staining, culture, and antibiotic sensitivities were performed from a conjunctival swab. Results: The cultures revealed heavy growth of A. xylosoxidans. The organism was resistant to aminoglycosides, fluoroquinolones, and cephalosporins. The patient was started on polytrim, but an allergic reaction forced the use of topical Timentin 2%. After 14 days of treatment, the infection completely resolved. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first case report of an external ocular infection caused by A. xylosoxidans in a host without predisposing risk factors and the first case report of isolated conjunctivitis caused by A. xylosoxidans. A. xylosoxidans should be considered a rare but potential pathogen capable of producing chronic conjunctivitis in an otherwise healthy host.


Sports traumatology and sports orthopaedics are two closely interconnected fields usually more or less non-existent in a medical curriculum. Optional courses are difficult to coordinate because of the densely packed course schedule of a medical student, although the overall interest in it shows a continually upward trend. The course that is being offered since the winter semester 2004 / 2005 has been conceived as a seminar with lectures on a variety of subjects but it contains a practical part as well, e. g. for improving examination techniques. The offered course is particularly aimed at students of higher clinical semesters. The evaluation was carried out using questionnaires that were designed especially for this purpose. Subject to evaluation were not only general topics, but also the course instructors who had participated in the theoretical and practical implementation of the course. Suggestions for improvement or other comments were encouraged and taken into consideration. A total of 116 medical students (m = 68, f = 48) who have taken the course since the winter semester 2004 / 2005 have answered the questionnaire for the present evaluation. The interdisciplinary topics, covered the theoretical as well as the practical ones, were considered as interesting and important by 90 % of the students, organization and commitment on the part of the instructors were largely commended. Additional training in sports orthopaedics and sports traumatology enjoys great popularity on the part of medical students, in spite of their densely packed course schedule. Especially its multidisciplinary orientation provides students with a general overview in sports orthopaedics and sports traumatology and raises further interest in both fields of study.


While the political aspects of parody have been widely researched, this work has generally focused on institutionally circulated parodies on shows like Saturday Night Live and The Colbert Report. Fewer projects have explored the political potential of fan-created parody videos on social media outlets. In order to gain a fuller understanding of parody's political potential within the YouTube community, this case study puts Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" music video in conversation with fan-created parodies. The author argues that the feminist rhetoric in Lady Gaga's video is disciplined by fan parodies' repressive vernacular, demonstrating the transformative power of user-generated videos. Social media publication is a powerful force to both progress social change and to recoup transformative messages in the mainstream media.


ABSTRACT We reports a novel thermally enhanced drug release system synthesized via a dynamic Diels-Alder (DA) reaction to develop chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer. The anticancer prodrug was designed by tethering gemcitabine (GEM) to poly(furfuryl methacrylate) (PFMA) via N-(3-maleimidopropionyloxy)succinimide as a linker by DA reaction (PFMA-L-GEM). The conversion rate of the DA reaction was found to be approximately 60% at room temperature for 120 h. The reversible deconstruction of the DA covalent bond in retro Diels-Alder (rDA) reaction was confirmed by proton nuclear magnetic resonance, and the reaction was significantly accelerated at 90 °C. A PFMA-LGEM film containing magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) was prepared for thermally enhanced release of the drug via the rDA reaction. Drug release was initiated by heating MNPs by alternating magnetic field. This enables local heating within the film above the rDA reaction temperature while maintaining a constant surrounding medium temperature. The MNPs/PFMA-L-GEM film decreased the viability of pancreatic cancer cells by 49% over 24 h. Our results suggest that DA/rDA-based thermally enhanced drug release systems can serve as a local drug release platform and deliver the target drug within locally heated tissue, thereby improving the therapeutic efficiency and overcoming the side effects of conventional drugs used to treat pancreatic cancer. Graphical abstract


Dedicated to 'all the kids who insisted on an underwear book', this latest instalment in the popular Arthur series is adapted from a PBS teleplay. When Binky bends over to pick up a piece of chalk, 'a loud RRRIPPP!' reveals red polka-dot underwear. Arthur finds the situation hilariously funny until he starts dreaming about being caught in his own white briefs. Arthur's friend Buster dispenses advice, but things come to a head when Buster informs other kids about Arthur's apprehension. Embarrassed that his secret is out, Arthur rushes to escape the cafeteria, ripping his jeans and realising his worst fear. Ironically, the incident ends up curing him.


Early fault detection is critical for safe and optimum plant operation and maintenance in any chemical plant. Quick corrective action can help in minimizing quality and productivity offsets and can assist in averting hazardous consequences in abnormal situations. In this paper, fault diagnosis based on trends analysis is considered where integrated equipment behaviors and operation trajectory are analyzed using a trend-matching approach. A qualitative representation of these trends using IF-THEN rules based on neuro-fuzzy approach is used to find root causes and possible and consequences for any detected abnormal situation. Experimental plant is constructed to provide real time fault simulation data for fault detection method verification.


Background: Mitral valve prolapse (MVP) is a valvular heart disease in which the two valve flaps of the mitral valve do not close equally, and part of the mitral valve slips backward loosely into the left atrium during systole. In general, MVP is associated with low body mass index (BMI), as confirmed by several studies. However, the reason for the higher prevalence of MVP in patients with low BMI remains unknown. Objectives: There is no reliable evidence on the role of genetics or pathophysiological factors in this correlation, and the hypothesis that the size of BMI may lead to MVP or vice versa has not yet been established. Materials and Methods: In this study, all the articles were evaluated in terms of the inclusion criteria. In total, we found 546 articles via PubMed and Google scholar, out of which 30 articles were mainly focusing on MVP, MVR as the major complication of MVP, and BMI, which were included in this systematic review. Results: Among these reviewed studies, patients with MVP had a lower BMI score compared to the subjects without MVP. The low and high BMI score were 28±5 kg/m and 31±6 kg/m, respectively. Conclusions: In the present study, we concluded that low BMI is directly associated with the occurrence of MVP.


The aim of this research was to identify the morphological characteristics of several local Samosir shallot which was conducted in Bakti Raja, Humbang Hasundutan district i.e. Siunong-unong Julu, Marbun Dolok, Simamora, Marbun Toruan, Sinambela-Simanulang and Simangulampe start from July till August 2015. This research was implemented by using randomized block design non factorial with 3 replicants. The parameters observed were time flowering, leaves colour, bulbs shape, bulbs colour, plant length, leaves number, tillers number per clump, wet bulbs weight, dry bulbs weight, bulbs number per clump, diameter of bulbs, 100 bulbs dry weight, wet-dry bulbs weight decrease. The result of research showed local Samosir shallot in six accession in Bakti Raja districts have narrow kuantitative related. The morphological differentiator characteristic of the accessions was wet bulbs weight. The potential yields of each accession shown that the shallot from Marbun Toruan has the highest yields potential i.e 15,20 ton/ha then Siunong-unong Julu i.e 12,00 ton/ha, Simangulampe i.e 11,93 ton/ha, Simamora i.e 11,76 ton/ha, Sinambela-Simanulang i.e 11,36 ton/ha and Marbun Dolok i.e 11,07 ton/ha wet bulbs.


The authors introduce customized conjoint analysis, which combines self-explicated preference structure measurement with full-profile conjoint analysis. The more important attributes for each respondent are identified first using the self-explicated approach. Full-profile conjoint analysis customized to the respondent's most important attributes then is administered. The conjoint utility function on the limited set of attributes then is combined with the self-explicated utility function on the full set of attributes. Surprisingly, the authors find that the self-explicated approach by itself yields a slightly (but not statistically significantly) higher predictive validity than does the combined approach.


Strategic road safety programmes setting out long-term visions and road infrastructure development plans must be based on road safety forecasts and an understanding of the long-term impact of different measures on road safety. The objective of this paper is to discuss a concept of road safety management for an area of a selected country because there are no simple tools of road safety management for the development and implementation of national and regional road safety strategies. The paper will present a method for estimating fatalities and road fatality rate in relation to the most significant sources of hazard. To estimate the number of fatalities a multiple factor model was used which is the quotient of the population of a country as a measure of risk exposure and the road fatality rate as the measure of the probability of road accident consequences. To implement the proposed method a general procedure was developed for estimating fatalities for a specific area. The paper will present a proposed risk classification as the key to risk evaluation and a method for determining the potential for reducing societal risk and indicate those countries which have the highest potential for road death reduction.


The fabrication of thick-film hybrid circuits using the solder system consists of screen printing conductor and resistor networks on alumina substrates and attaching other circuit elements (capacitors, discrete semiconductors etc.) to the conductor using tin-lead solder. The difficulty encountered with this technique has been that, although components are rigidly attached at the time of assembly, deterioration of the solder bonds occurs. The objective of the investigation was to develop a suitable test method for testing incoming materials, optimizing process variables, and in-process quality control of the product. After review of methods of conductor adherence testing, a method, pull-peel at 90 deg, was chosen which represented the worst case in actual module application. In order to hold the variables to a minimum, one standard test module was chosen for all experimental work. Part of this test module was incorporated into the design of production modules so that quality control of the product could be directly correlated with the initial testing results and with any process variables. Tests were conducted under controlled conditions which optimized all the assembly steps. Four areas have been found to have marked influence on conductor adhesion: the initial thickness of screened material, the preparation of substrate before soldering, the amount of solder used to make a joint, and the rate of cooling of the soldered joint. Implementing these controls results in a product with improved conductor adhesion.


Null compensator method is a popular aspheric surface testing method. However null compensator has the characteristics of complex structure, high price and poor universal property. This paper proposed to test aspheric surface by a partial compensation lens (PCL) to overcome the defect. This novel PCL method is designed to partially compensate the wave aberration caused by the aspheric surface, which allow some residual wave aberration exists. Research was conducted on measurement principle, design method of PCL. The experiment results show the feasibility and validity of this method.


Classical inference in statistic and econometric models is typically carried out by means of asymptotic approximations to the sampling distribution of estimators and test statistics. These approximations often do not provide accurate p-values and confidences intervals, especially when the sample size is small. Moreover, even if the sample size is large, the accuracy can be poor due to model misspecification (nonrobustness). Several alternative techniques have been proposed in the statistic and econometric literature to improve the accuracy of clasical inference. In general, these alternatives address either the accuracy of the first-order approximations or the nonrobustness issue. However, the development of general procedures which are both robust and second order accurate is still an open question. In this thesis, we propose an alternative statistical test wich has both robustness and small sample properties for two large and important classes of models: Generalized Linear Models (GLM) and models on overidentifying moments conditions.


Along with being a frequent feature and theme in various forms of creative expression, the British and American counterculture of the late 1950s and 1960s has produced a significant body of its own cultural artefacts. Reflective of the aspirations and ideals championed by the diverse set of groups and movements partaking in the countercultural explosion, its cultural production sought to challenge conventions and explore new ways of both producing and experiencing art. In no field of artistic and literary work was this more true than in the world of countercultural drama and theatre. Examples from the American Off-Off-Broadway scene and British fringe theatre will be used to illustrate how radical theatres combined experimental art with political resistance, simultaneously devising a tool for political agitation, revolutionising and overturning traditional approaches and conceptions about theatre and, most interestingly, creating a microcosm of what the counterculture believed was the image of future society. Combining sociological insight and theatre studies, the analysis will rely heavily on theoretical explorations of the counterculture by Theodore Roszak and Herbert Marcuse, contemporaries of the tumultuous events of the 1960s. Beginning with a historical overview of the origins and early years of post-war experimental theatre on both sides of the Atlantic, the paper will examine the literary influences and social developments which helped set the stage for the subsequent rise of both the counterculture and radical theatre. The analysis will place special focus on the political aspects of performance in the fringe and Off-Off-Broadway scenes. Finally, after a brief account of the reasons which brought about the counterculture's decline, as well as those which ultimately affected the very essence of radical theatre and re-shaped its image in the mid-70s, the contemporary legacy and impact of the radical theatre movement of the 1960s will be assessed.


Key words: Victorian, women, silent, patriarchy, monologue
ABSTRACT
Robert Browning was one of the two most famous Victorian poets, who became well-known particularly for his dramatic monologues. Mostly set in the Renaissance Italy, they usually present a male speaker with artistic inclinations who, caught at a crucial moment of his life, unconsciously reveals the deep and dark secrets of his character to a silent listener. In his two most successful monologues, 'My Last Duchess' and 'Andrea del Sarto', Browning deals with the relationship between life and art, men and women, power and weakness. His male speakers, the rich and arrogant Duke of Ferrara and the weak and passive Andre del Sarto, ironically called 'the faultless painter', look back at their lives and talk about their past desires, plans, ambitions and regrets, which were significantly influenced by the relationship they had with their wives. Although we are not given the opportunity to hear the voices of these 'silent' women whose characters are presented to us only through their husbands' words, we still manage to get a pretty good idea about their position in the patriarchal Victorian society and the roles they were supposed to play. This paper will try to examine different relationships between these two pairs of husbands and wives, as well as to explore the stereotypes used in the presentation of women such as 'the angel in the house', 'the fallen woman' and 'the femme fatale'.


This field guide should be useful for veterinary practitioners and veterinary students. Murphy covers all aspects of common animal poisons and provides references for more in-depth research. As a text, the book is designed for teaching applied aspects of veterinary toxicology. Organised for easy reference, "A Field Guide to Common Animal Poisons" is divided into five major sections. The first section, Prevalence, is further divided into common and uncommon poisons and goes into detail about the former, highlighting the species and physiological systems affected. In section two, Murphy categorises treatment regimes as general, supportive, or specific and also lists therapeutic agents, dosage regimes, and suppliers. In section three he summarises the facts necessary for recognition, diagnosis and treatment of common animal poisons. The fourth section highlights clinical signs, diagnostic test results, and toxin names including common and scientific names for plants. The last section includes lists of colleges of veterinary medicine, accredited veterinary diagnostic laboratories, poison control centres, and drug suppliers.


The process of deregulation on the energy markets has changed priorities and introduced new responsibilities into risk management. Awareness has increased among market participants regarding the importance and necessity for the risk management of electrical energy prices. Due to the nature of electrical energy, there are significant differences in price risk management in comparison to the classical methods used on financial markets. Energy derivatives have an important role in providing price signals, determining correct energy prices and facilitating effective price risk management. The article presents the results of an investigation conducted on a sample of energy companies comprised of members of the European Federation of Energy Traders (EFET). The investigation demonstrated that 75 % of the enterprises from the sample manage the risk from the variable prices of electrical energy by using some type of derivative. The most frequently used instruments are as follows: forwards (68,2 %), options (52,3 %), futures (50 %) and swaps (43,2 %), known as plain vanilla derivatives. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that the size of enterprises is an influential factor in deciding whether to use derivatives.


A flow and ice particle trajectory analysis was performed for the booster of the Honeywell ALF502 engine. The analysis focused on two closely related conditions one of which produced an icing event and another which did not during testing of the ALF502 engine in the Propulsion Systems Lab (PSL) at NASA Glenn Research Center. The flow analysis was generated using the NASA Glenn GlennHT flow solver and the particle analysis was generated using the NASA Glenn LEWICE3D v3.63 ice accretion software. The inflow conditions for the two conditions were similar with the main differences being that the condition that produced the icing event was 6.8 K colder than the non-icing event case and the inflow ice water content (IWC) for the non-icing event case was 50% less than for the icing event case. The particle analysis, which considered sublimation, evaporation and phase change, was generated for a 5 micron ice particle with a sticky impact model and for a 24 micron median volume diameter (MVD), 7 bin ice particle distribution with a supercooled large droplet (SLD) splash model used to simulate ice particle breakup. The particle analysis did not consider the effect of the runback and re-impingement of water resulting from the heated spinner and anti-icing system. The results from the analysis showed that the amount of impingement for the components were similar for the same particle size and impact model for the icing and non-icing event conditions. This was attributed to the similar aerodynamic conditions in the booster for the two cases. The particle temperature and melt fraction were higher at the same location and particle size for the non-icing event than for the icing event case due to the higher incoming inflow temperature for the non-event case. The 5 micron ice particle case produced higher impact temperatures and higher melt fractions on the components downstream of the fan than the 24 micron MVD case because the average particle size generated by the particle breakup was larger than 5 microns which yielded less warming and melting. The analysis also showed that the melt fraction and wet bulb temperature icing criterion developed during tests in the Research Altitude Test Facility (RATFac) at the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada were useful in predicting icing events in the ALF502 engine. The development of an ice particle impact model which includes the effects of particle breakup, phase change, and surface state is necessary to further improve the prediction of ice particle transport with phase change through turbomachinery.


Dance, as an embodied activity, is shaped by culture, and simultaneously shapes culture. Significantly, over the last few years there has been a worldwide boom in Latin dance, which is often considered an 'exotic' and 'sexy' activity. This paper explores experiences of teaching Latin dance as a service activity (extensión, in Spanish) by an academic in Australia, shaped by the theoretical ideas of public and body pedagogies. The reflections are presented under two broad themes: the potential of Latin dance as a service activity, and the processes of integrating and othering Latinness in Australia.


We study a dirty paper channel model where the input is constrained to belong to a PAM constellation. In particular, we provide lower bounds on the capacity as well as explicit coding schemes for the binary-input dirty- paper channel. We examine the case of causal as well as non-causal side information.


Purpose: To determine the safety and efficacy of the combination of the chimeric anti-CD20 antibody, Rituxan (Rituximab, IDEC-C2B8; IDEC Pharmaceuticals Corporation, San Diego, CA), and cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (CHOP) chemotherapy. Patients and Methods: Forty patients with low-grade or follicular B-cell non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma received six infusions of Rituxan (375 mg/m2 per dose) in combination with six doses of CHOP chemotherapy. Results: The overall response rate was 95% (38 of 40 patients). Twenty-two patients experienced a complete response (55%), 16 patients had a partial response (40%), and two patients, who received no treatment, were classified as nonresponders. Medians for duration of response and time to progression had not been reached after a median observation time of 29 1 months. Twenty-eight of 38 assessable patients (74%) continued in remission during this median follow-up period. The most frequent adverse events attributable to CHOP were alopecia (38 patients), neutropenia (31 patients), and fever (23 patients). The most frequent events attributed to Rituxan were fever and chills, observed primarily with the first infusion. No quantifiable immune response to the chimeric antibody was detected. In a subset of 18 patients, the bcl-2 [t(14;18)] translocation was positive in eight patients; seven of these patients had complete remissions and converted to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) negativity by completion of therapy. Conclusion: This is the first report demonstrating the safety and efficacy of Rituxan anti-CD20 chimeric antibody in combination with standard-dose systemic chemotherapy in the treatment of indolent B-cell lymphoma. The clinical responses suggest an additive therapeutic benefit for the combination with no significant added toxicity. The conversion of bcl-2 from positive to negative by PCR in blood and/or marrow suggests possible clearing of minimal residual disease not previously demonstrated by CHOP chemotherapy alone. J Clin Oncol 17:268-276. r 1999 by American Society of Clinical Oncology.


Leadership Strategies to Cultural Transition at Message of Peace Church Fernando R. Carvalho Doctor of Ministry School of Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary 2012 The goal of this Ministry Focus Paper is to formulate strategies of cultural adaptation that will guide the leadership and membership of Message of Peace Church, currently a Portuguese-speaking congregation, to transition to a multiethnic church with English as its primary language of worship. Message of Peace is an ethnic church primarily of Brazilian immigrants in South San Francisco. It began ministering to the Portuguese people in San Jose, but with the decrease of Portuguese immigration and increase of the Brazilian immigration in the 1990s, the church moved north and became mostly Brazilian. With the changes to immigration laws after September 11, and the improvement of the Brazilian economy, immigration to the US has slowed and many will return to Brazil. The ones who remain have children who are English speaking. To assure its survival and its growth the church needs to adapt to a different reality. The study is divided in three parts. Part One describes both the local congregation and the local community surrounding Message of Peace. It also describes the needs of the new generation, made up of children of the immigrants who were born here or came very young, and were schooled in the US. This new generation will become the future of the church and its leadership. This section also describes the church's organization structure including leadership patterns. Part Two examines the literature on cultural adaptation, makes a comparison with two multiethnic churches and provides a theology of ministry and cultural adaptation required for such a transition. The study concludes with a description of a five-year plan to transition Message of Peace and it serves as a model for other ethnic churches that may transition to a multiethnic church with English as the primary language of worship. Content Reader: Oscar García-Johnson, PhD


In this paper, a face recognition approach using Zernike moments is presented for the main purpose of detecting faces in surveillance cameras. Zernike moments are invariant
to rotation and scale and these properties make them an appropriate feature for automatic face recognition. A Viola-Jones detector based on the Adaboost algorithm is employed for detecting the face within an image sequence. Pre-processing is carried out wherever it is needed. A fuzzy enhancement algorithm is also applied to achieve uniform illumination. Zernike moments are then computed from each detected facial image. The final classification is achieved using a kNN classifier. The performance of the proposed methodology is compared on three different benchmark datasets. The results illustrate the efficacy of Zernike moments for the face recognition problem in video surveillance.


The Journal of Indian Prosthodontic Society | Volume 20 | Supplement 1 | December 2020 S23 Conclusion: It was observed that flexural strength of denture base resin incorporated with 5 wt% TiO2 nanoparticles was having highest flexural strength among all. DOI: 10.4103/0972-4052.306374 Effect of two chromatogens on the color stability of three provisional materials before and after thermocycling –an in vitro study Dr. Shrirao Nupur, Dr. Neelam Pande, Dr. Saee Deshpande, Dr. Usha Radke Introduction: An acceptable cosmetic effect in any dental restoration has been regarded as a very important aspect of quality dentistry. In long term cases of full mouth rehabilitation with interim prosthesis or even cases of provisionalization in the anterior region of the mouth, staining and discoloration of restorations is the main esthetic concern of the patients which brings them back to the dentist's time and again , adding to the number of visits and costs. The Indian food consists of various chromatogenic substances such as tea, coffee, turmeric/ red chilli powder, spices, oil etc. which are consumed on a daily basis and can adversely affect the color of the provisional restorative material. Thermocycling can be done to simulate this clinical situation in the laboratory. Considering these facts, the present study was palnned. Aim:To evaluate and compare the effect of two chomatogens on colour stability of three provisional materials before and after thermocycling. Materials and methods:Three commercially available provisional materials were chosen – DPI heat-cure , protempTM4 chemical-cure and Luxatemp solar dual cure. Flat circular metallic dies were prepared of 22 mm diameter and 2mm thickness. Total 150 samples were prepared from the materials using these dies. The samples were finished and polished using standardized method. They were divided into 5 groups. Two groups from each material were subjected to a standardized thermocycling regimen. The samples were immersed in two staining solutioncoffee solution and sambhar solution for 30 days. Then artificial saliva was used for the control group. The solutions were prepared using a standardized method and were changed everyday. The color measurements were done twiceonce before thermocycling and staining and another after, in CIE L*a*b* color system using a reflectance spectrophotometer. Results:-Statistical analysis was done in SPSS version 20.0 using oneway ANOVA and Tukey's post-hoc test .p value <0.05 was considered statically significant. Conclusions:Luxatemp Solar showed least color stability, followed by ProtempTM4 whereas DPI showed maximum color stability. Sambhar showed higher staining ability .The color changes seen with coffee and control were not clinically perceptible. Thermocycled samples showed more color change than non thermocycled samples. DOI: 10.4103/0972-4052.306375 Level of Public Awareness about Dental Implants: A Cross sectional Study Dr. Rajlakshmi Banerjee VSPM Dental College and Research Centre, Nagpur Introduction: Implant dentistry has recently become a highly viable treatment option for replacement of missing teeth. The number of implants being placed worldwide has increased exponentially in the past decades. Implant dentistry has opened new options in wide variety of cases. However in the certain parts of the country acceptance of implants as a treatment modality is still low due to lack of awareness or high treatment costs as compared to other available treatment options. The aim of the study was to determine the level of awareness of implants as a dental treatment modality. The objective of the study was to evaluate whether there is further need to improve awareness in the general population regarding implants. Material and Method: A validated printed questionnaire was used to conduct a survey to evaluate the awareness about implants in 200 dental patients visiting the department of Prosthodontics and private dental clinics in and around Nagpur. Information was gathered regarding knowledge and attitude of patients regarding Implant treatment. Results: Out of the 200 patients, approximately 30% mostly in the age group of 2050 years (35.5%) knew about dental implants as a treatment modality, with no statistical significance difference between males and females. It was also found that they had received the information regarding implants from their dentists or from social media. All the patients who had a negative attitude towards dental implants were due to the high cost being the first reason (43%) and need for surgical intervention (38%) being the second reason. Conclusion: The survey concluded that further awareness should be provided to patients regarding dental implants. There should be efforts taken to reduce the treatment costs by initiating implant manufacturing or use of cost-effective technologies. DOI: 10.4103/0972-4052.306376


The preliminary design process is characterized by imprecision: the vagueness of an incomplete design description. The Method of Imprecision uses the mathematics of fuzzy sets to explicitly represent and manipulate imprecise preliminary design information, enabling the designer to explore the space of alternative designs in the context of the designer and customer's preferences among alternatives. This paper introduces new methods to perform Method of Imprecision calculations for general non-monotonic design evaluation functions that address the practical necessity to minimize the number of function evaluations. These methods utilize optimization and experiment design.


This article analyses Estonian youth's perceptions of their own political participation and their practices of participation on social media. We analysed 60 interviews with Estonian informants in a MYPLACE study and relied on a conceptual broadening that acknowledges the political potential of everyday. We relay on theories of standby citizenship and spiral of silence to understand signing petitions, commenting, liking and sharing politically minded content online. Based on this we suggest that young people in Estonia are interested in political issues and public opinion and their social media use represents a diversification of how citizens take part in civic matters. However, youths do not necessarily believe in the efficacy of social media in enacting political change and their reasons for not participating can be seen as indicative of a desire for both impression management and being affected by the spiral of silence.


Ibuprofen and ketoprofen are chemically similar non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs widely used in the treatment of arthritis. Using a molecular imprinting technique, a simple and rapid method was developed for the simultaneous separation and determination of ibuprofen and ketoprofen. Molecular imprinting introduces artificial binding sites into a synthetic polymer matrix, allowing it to exhibit selective rebinding of template molecules. Imprinted polymers can be regarded as an HPLC stationary phase, important for pharmaceutical analysis.

Most molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are synthesized by free radical polymerization of functional monomers, resulting in an excess of crosslinking monomers. In this study, MIPs have been prepared with a ibuprofen template, which can form intramolecular hydrogen bonds. Methacrylic acid (MAA) and ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) were used as the functional monomer and cross-linker, respectively. Bulk polymerization was carried out at 4 °C under UV radiation. The resulting MIP was ground into 25˜44 μm particles, which were slurry-packed into analytical columns. Template molecules were removed by methanol-acetic acid (9:1, v/v). We evaluated the template binding performance of the MIP using HPLC, with ultraviolet (UV) detection at 234 nm. Chromatographic resolution of ibuprofen and ketoprofen on the MIPs were appraised using buffer/acetonitrile (45/55, v/v) as the mobile phase. Results show that the MIPs prepared using ibuprofen as the template had a significant molecular imprinting effect. The method was successfully applied to the separation and analysis of ibuprofen and ketoprofen in pharmaceuticals.


A heat transfer model of PEMFC is developed that captures dynamic behavior for control purposes in this paper. According to the law of conservation of energy, by analyzing in detail the heat source, considering the heat of electrochemistry, activation polarization heat and the heat loss of air forced convection etc., the dynamic heat model of PEMFC is established. Among all influential factors of fuel cell temperature, current density is one of the most important influence factors. Finally, by comparing the response results temperature with the current density changes between simulation and experiments, the results s are consistent. The model in this article has an important guiding significance for the design of fuel cell. For example, the working temperature of fuel cell can keep up stability by controlling cooling medium flow rate etc.


In this paper we outline a grasp planning system designed to augment the cortical control of a prosthetic arm and hand. A key aspect of this system it the ability to combine online user input and autonomous planning to enable the execution of stable grasping tasks. While user input can ultimately be of any modality, the system is being designed to adapt to partial or noisy information obtained from grasp-related activity in the primate motor cortex. First, principal component analysis is applied to the observed kinematics of physiologic grasping to reduce the dimensionality of hand posture space and simplify the planning task for on-line use. The planner then accepts control input in this reduced-dimensionality space, and uses it as a seed for a hand posture optimization algorithm based on simulated annealing. We present two applications of this algorithm, using data collected from both primate and human subjects during grasping, to demonstrate its ability to synthesize stable grasps using partial control input in real or near-real time.


Pulse-inversion-based fundamental imaging was experimentally investigated for the enhancement of contrast detection. The pulse-inversion technique involves two firings with inverted waveforms. When the returning echoes from the two firings are summed, the residue signal is limited to even-order harmonics for tissue. However, when the returning echoes are from microbubbles, the fundamental signal is not completely cancelled because the reaction of the bubbles under compression is different from that under rarefaction. Thus, with the application of pulse-inversion technique, the fundamental signal can be used to enhance the contrast-to-tissue ratio. In this paper, B-mode, pulse-inversion-based fundamental images were constructed with various transmit waveforms. Motion artifacts also were studied. The results indicate that the contrast-to-tissue ratio was significantly enhanced compared to that obtained using either conventional, fundamental imaging or second-harmonic imaging. Longer transmit pulses resulted in a better signal-to-noise ratio, but did not noticeably affect the nonlinear response of the bubbles. In addition, the optimal ratio of the magnitude of the positive pulse to that of the negative pulse was unity, in terms of avoiding the uncancelled, third-order response in the fundamental frequency range. It also was found that the pulse-inversion fundamental technique is highly sensitive to tissue motion because the fundamental tissue signal is not cancelled when motion is present.


PLOS and the PLOS Biology team would like to express our sincere gratitude to everyone who lent us their expertise as an academic editor, as a guest editor or as a peer reviewer in 2016. We are fully dependent on the voluntary efforts of these experts to publish the journal for the academic community. Over the past year, PLOS Biology relied on 286 academic and guest editors to manage the more than 2,000 articles submitted to the journal, which were assessed by 1,285 reviewers. Their efforts enabled the publication of more than 170 rigorous, Open Access papers. The names of our 2016 editors that handled submitted manuscripts appear in the Supporting Information as S1 Editor List and as S1 Guest Editor List. Our reviewers appear in the Supporting Information as S1 Reviewer List. We are grateful for their dedication, generosity, and support of Open Access science. Thank you all. an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.


There is evidence that performance ratings are often manipulated for political purposes. The present study examined the effects of employees' perceptions of political motives in performance appraisal on their job satisfaction and intention to quit using survey data from an occupationally heterogeneous sample of white‐collar employees (N=127) from various organizations. Regression analysis results indicated that when employees perceived performance ratings to be manipulated because of raters' personal bias and intent to punish subordinates they expressed reduced job satisfaction that, in turn, led to greater intentions to quit their jobs. Manipulations of ratings for motivational purposes, however, had no effect on job satisfaction and turnover intention.


Self-assemblies dominated by coordination interaction are hardly responsive to thermal stimuli. We show that in case the coordinating mode changes with temperature, the resultant assemblies also exhibit temperature dependence. The self-assemblies are constructed with perylene tetracarboxylate and metal ions. Compounds containing a perylene skeleton often self-assemble into micro-belts, which is also true for the combination of perylene tetracarboxylate and metal ions. However, a unique pinecone structure was observed upon increasing the temperature of the coordinating system. The structural transition is triggered by the change of coordinating mode between the carboxylate group and the metal ion. At low temperature, intermolecular coordination occurs which favours the growth of the coordinating self-assembly along the long axis of the perylene. However, upon the elevation of temperature, the coordination is overwhelmed by intra-molecular mode. This is against the extension of the coordinating assembly due to the loss of connection between neighbouring perylenes. As a result, the pinecone structure is observed. We expect that the cases introduced in this work may inspire the design of structurally controllable temperature-dependent soft materials based on coordinating self-assembly.


A problem of stabilisation of networked control systems (NCSs) with time-varying delay governed by homogeneous Markov chains, disorder of data packet and packet loss is discussed in this study. The time delay is decomposed into two parts: one is a fixed part which is an integer multiple of sampling period; the other is time-varying delay with more than one sampling period but bounded and governed by homogeneous Markov chains. Static delay-dependent controller which satisfies mean square stability is successfully designed using linear matrix inequalities techniques. Because controller designed based on a fixed transition probability matrix may not stabilised NCSs when time-varying delay changes along with networked load, the authors firstly design m controllers which satisfies different m transition probability matrices, and then constitute a stochastic switching controller with them and a switch. The switching rules of this stochastic switching controller are found through an intelligent algorithm based on greedy algorithm. Simulation example shown, if the switching controller would be used to stabilise NCSs, this system not only has larger stabilising span but also has better dynamic performances compared those has only one controller.


A method for projecting software productivity with reasonable accuracy which uses the statistical techniques of time series analysis is described. The measure of productivity is the development time required per line of code. In making productivity projections, the key issue is the need to achieve a balance between forecasting stability and responsiveness to changing conditions. An integrated moving average process of order one, using exponential smoothing of all the previous observations, is judged appropriate for software productivity analysis, particularly where there are limited data available or where conditions are sufficiently varied to make much of the available data inapplicable. Empirical evidence suggests that most commonly encountered time series can be reasonably well described by such methods. The methods for computing the weights used for exponential smoothing are described, as are the means for determining prediction intervals, or measures of forecast uncertainty. This data analytic approach uses historical data alone, unlike structural methods where learning curves as well as prior data are used to define the predictive process. >


Between 1977 and 1983, 561 consecutive patients underwent 595 surgical biopsies for suspicious mammographic lesions with negative clinical correlation. The procedure consisted of preoperative needle localization, with or without immediate radiologic examination of the biopsy specimen, depending on the presence or absence of microcalcifications in the mammographic lesion. Eighty-four carcinomas were found. Of these, 60 (71%) were infiltrating carcinoma and 24 (29%) were noninvasive carcinoma. The carcinoma yield was 24.2% in the patients with lesions involving foci of microcalcifications and 9% in those lesions without calcifications. Surgical treatment of infiltrating carcinoma consisted of 39 modified radical mastectomies, 10 (25.6%) of which were associated with positive nodes, 16 partial mastectomies with axillary dissection, 3 (18.7%) of which were associated with positive nodes, and 5 wedge resections. Treatment of noninvasive carcinoma consisted of 19 partial mastectomies with axillary dissection and 5 modified radical mastectomies. None of these were associated with positive nodes. Modified radical mastectomy was used with decreasing frequency. Of the 10 patients with infiltrating carcinoma and positive axillary nodes treated by modified radical mastectomy, 7 had one to three involved nodes and 3 had four or more; of those with positive nodes treated by partial mastectomy, 1 had one to three involved nodes and 2 had four or more. These results confirm the correlation between suspicious mammographic non-clinical lesions and breast carcinoma.


The charge equalizer design for a series connected battery string is very challenging because it needs to satisfy many requirements such as implementation possibility, equalization speed, equalization efficiency, controller simplicity, size and cost issues, voltage and current stress, and so on. Numerous algorithms and circuits were developed to meet the above demands and some interesting results have been obtained. However, for a large number of cells, for example, eighty or more batteries, the previous approaches might not satisfy the above requirement easily. To overcome these difficulties, we propose a charge equalizer design method based on a battery modularization technique. In this method, a very long battery string is divided into several modules and then an intramodule equalizer and an outer-module equalizer are designed. This battery modularization scheme effectively reduces the number of cells that we consider in an equalizer design procedure; thus, the design of a charge equalizer becomes much easier. Furthermore, by applying the previously verified charge equalizers to the intramodule and the outer-module, we can make the equalizer design more flexible. Several examples and experimental results are presented to demonstrate the usefulness of the charge equalizer design method.


This study assesses the suitability of the behavioural image analysis systems ECOTOX and Daphnia Tox for inclusion in an integrated early-warning system for drinking water quality to be implemented in Canada. Results of behavioural parameters measured by ECOTOX using Euglena gracilis are compared to visual observations of E. gracilis behaviour after exposure to atrazine, tributyltin, and copper to determine the automated system's sensitivity. The usability of the Daphnia Tox automated system is assessed using the aquatic macroinvertebrate species Daphnia magna and Hyalella azteca. The possible use of the rotifers Brachionus calyciflorus and Brachionus havanensis with the ECOTOX system is also assessed. Findings indicate that at the present state ECOTOX and DaphniaTox are not suitable for inclusion in an early-warning system, but based on visual observation the parameters measured are sensitive to the contaminants tested and consistent, and with suggested modifications these systems have the potential to be fitting additions in an early-warning system.


For permanent magnetic motors, the faults in inverter may cause serious mechanical vibration, winding overheating, and thermal demagnetisation for the magnets. Thus, this study addresses the problem of the electromagnetic field and temperature distributions for permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) under open circuit fault (OCF) in the upper switch of one phase. Firstly, taking a 12.5 kW 2000 r/min PMSM as an example, the 2D transient electromagnetic field-circuit coupling calculation model is established. Then the flowing paths of the three-phase currents in inverter are analysed before and after the OCF in the upper switch of one phase. Next, by using the finite-element method, the current harmonics, the electromagnetic torque, the rotating speed, and the losses in PMSM are investigated. Simultaneously, direct current component and torque pulsation are also derived. Based on the 3D temperature field, the temperature distributions in different parts of PMSM also are comparatively studied before and after this fault. Moreover, the temperature of permanent magnets, which is the part most seriously affected by the temperature, are further analysed. Finally, calculation and experimental tests prove the accuracy of the theoretical analysis. The obtained conclusions may provide some references for the limit operation and effective diagnosis for inverter faults.


This thesis surveys the origins and development of the moves to introduce journalism education courses into British universities between 1880 and 1970. It examines the arguments presented for, and against, such moves and describes the various courses introduced to meet the demands of education for journalism. These include the first, 4 commercial, London School of Journalism of 1887, the syllabus agreed at the University of Birmingham in 1908, and the work of the Institute of Journalists in developing a syllabus, with the University of London, which eventually began in 1919 for returning ex-Servicemen. The thesis also follows the attempts of the National Union of Journalists, from 1920 onwards,- to secure university co-operation in the education of its members. Particular attention is given to the last five years of the University of London Diploma for Journalism when it had its first full-time Director of Practical Journalism, 4 Mr Tom Clarke,3 from 1935 to 1939. This research quotes extensively from the minutes of the Journalism Committee of the University of London and, from 1935 to 1939, from the similar committee in King's College, where the journalism course developed its own centre. Mr Tom Clarke's lecture notes are used to illustrate attitudes towards news-gathering and reporting of someone who had been a news editor on the Daily Mail and editor of the News Chronicle, prior to his appointment as Director of Practical Journalism - the first person to hold such a post. Lecture notes of former students, staff reports on students' work, as well as students' journalistic assignments, former students and staff. Correspondence with the former Tutor to Journalism Students at King's College, 4 Dr G.B. Harrison, now retired in New Zealand, has added a useful dimension to the archival study of Journalism Department papers, as well as giving me the advantage of Dr Harrison's comments on my research. The academic work of students has been harder to assess as staff and students had little contact outside of lecture room or examination room. The Examination Papers of the Diploma for Journalism are also studied for the light they throw on the development of the course throughout its 20-year existence. Attitudes towards the Diploma for Journalism were culled from contemporary correspondence, the archives of the Newspaper Society and of the Royal Commission on the Press,4 1947-1949, 4 now in the Public Record Office. The Oral Evidence of the Commission reveals close questioning of newspapermen about the course. Finally the thesis briefly introduces possible areas of
synthesis between academia and journalism.


Abstract Purpose: The 21st century has witnessed an explosive growth of both South Korean popular culture (K-pop) and automobiles (K-car) in Western societies. However, K-pop appears to maintain its success better than K-car. This paper will evaluate the origins of K-pop and K-car and determine the distinguishing factors that led to continued K-pop compared to K-car success. Design/methodology/approach: Suggested claims of artistic/cultural and social/industrial traditions unique to South Korea as causes of the growth in K-pop and K-car success in literature will be evaluated based on historical growth in sales of both products in the US market. Factors of continued success will be evaluated based on how well both industries have been able to maintain their (perceived) brand authenticity, which emphasizes 'Korean' cultural values. Findings: Unlike claims regarding the importance of traditional culture in shaping business success in emergent states, this paper shows that the success of Korean music and cars is not due to artistic/cultural values. Rather, while optimally identifying progress within industries such as digitization in music, South Korea's unique ability is to deploy its industrial machinery to transform bolder performances and designs originating elsewhere into inoffensive forms with broad cross-cultural appeal. Especially, K-pop's continued success can be explained through better attention to perceived authenticity, without distinguishing its products too much from known, Western perspectives. Results also indicate that Korean products do not perform well when companies attempt to take on a leadership role in the industry or develop bold new designs that deviate strongly from Western principles. Originality/Value: The paper provides unique insights in the similarity of product design and branding, providing tools for evaluating perceived authenticity of a brand and its potential impact on sales. It shows that attention to traditional cultural values may not be a (sufficiently) appropriate strategy for international success. From a Central European perspective, lessons learned by the Korean car and culture industries may lead to new strategic uses of branding and marketing local products and of different forms of governmental/industrial structures to emerge out of the periphery.


Single-photon light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is a key technology for depth imaging through complex environments. Despite recent advances, an open challenge is the ability to isolate the LiDAR signal from other spurious sources including background light and jamming signals. Here we show that a time-resolved coincidence scheme can address these challenges by exploiting spatio-temporal correlations between entangled photon pairs. We demonstrate that a photon-pair-based LiDAR can distill desired depth information in the presence of both synchronous and asynchronous spurious signals without prior knowledge of the scene and the target object. This result enables the development of robust and secure quantum LiDAR systems and paves the way to time-resolved quantum imaging applications.


The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) is a widely used self-report instrument to measure student motivation and learning strategies at the course-specific level (i.e., an individual course or subject domain). The present study sought to explore the utility of the MSLQ in measuring student motivation and learning strategies pertaining to the general curriculum level (i.e., all courses and subjects taken together) rather than to the course-specific level. To that end, the instrument was slightly modified and administered to recently graduated secondary school students ( N = 1,166) in Singapore. The construct and predictive validity of the instrument were determined using confirmatory factor analysis and by correlating the individual subscales of the instrument with the overall semester grades. Results showed that the modified MSLQ is a reliable and valid instrument to determine students' motivational beliefs and learning strategies at the general curriculum level.


BACKGROUND
Manifestation of chondrosarcoma (CS) in the head and neck region is rare but it is the most frequently encountered non-epithelial malignancy of the larynx. Since this tumor entity is frequently neglected, its characteristics including differential diagnosis and therapy will be discussed in the following.

PATIENTS
From 1975 to 1995, five cases with CS were diagnosed and treated in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, University of Kiel.

RESULTS
The medical history of this five patients (one woman, four men, average age: 71 years) varied from 9 months to 10 years. Three patients had a fixation of the vocal cord; one patient had obviously reduced movement of the vocal cord. Two cases revealed a moderate and three cases a high differentiation in the histological examination. Initially one case was diagnosed as a chondroma. The origin of tumor growth was the cricoid cartilage in four patients and the cartilage of the arytenoid in one patient. Surgical treatment was either by partial or complete laryngectomy in two cases each. One patient refused any therapy. Two patients including the latter died of tumor related causes.

CONCLUSIONS
Laryngeal CS grow slowly. Diagnosis is frequently made late in the course of disease. Obtaining of tissue for histological examination and diagnostic delimitation towards a chondroma can be difficult. Therapy depends on the degree of histological differentiation with radical excision of low or moderately differentiated CS and function preserving surgery in case of high differentiation.


In this article we present a review of the latest activities in recent experimental high-performance optical networks such as ultrascience network (USN), dynamic resource allocation via GMPLS optical network (DRAGON), and circuit-switched high-speed end-to-end transport architecture (CHEETAH). We compare the control and management approaches adopted in each of these networks and analyze their capabilities vis-a-vis the functional requirements of grid computing applications. Grid computing is increasingly on the rise to meet the massive processing and storage demands of a new class of e-science physics applications that may generate and require the processing of data sets reaching terabytes per day. The requirements of these applications challenge the limitations of the networking technologies that are in place today. In particular, the area of network management and control is undergoing significant developments in order to meet the demands of these applications. It is the purpose of this article to share our experiences in the deployment of the GMPLS control plane in these experimental optical networks. It is our belief that these and similar efforts will result in significant progress toward enabling connection-oriented high-performance networking. This new paradigm will encompass grid computing applications as well as commercial, health, and entertainment services, thus making it useful to the public at large.


The Clinical Scholars (CS) National Leadership Institute (CSNLI) equips interprofessional teams of health care professionals through equity-centered leadership training, preparing them to be change leaders working to advance health equity in communities across the US and its territories. At the time of this writing, four cohorts consisting of 131 Fellows from 14 different disciplines, participating in 36 different teams of two to five members are working on "Wicked Problem Impact Projects", an implementation science-based approach to action learning projects. This chapter reports on the design of the 3-year CS experience, the onsite and distance-based training support, and the subsequent learning responses of 98 participants, 30 of whom had completed the 3-year training (Cohort 1), 34 of whom had completed 2-years of the training (Cohort 2), and 34 who had completed 1-year of the training (Cohort 3). The training program is guided by 25 competencies that weave leadership and equity throughout, which are divided into four families: Personal, Interpersonal, Organizational, and Community & Systems. Learning outcomes indicated that Fellows are highly satisfied, with all participants rating their experience at 6.10-6.77 on a 7-point scale across all sessions, all years. Retrospective pre-and post-tests assessed learning gains on the competencies, indicating statistically significant changes from baseline to midpoint in participant knowledge, attitude, use, and self-efficacy in each of the 25 competencies and large and significant gains by competency family. The Clinical Scholars Program presents an in-depth, longitudinal, state-of-the-art approach to promoting the cultivation and development of a large and sophisticated set of skills that intentionally integrate leadership competencies with a focus on health equity. Taken together, these outcomes show how a logical and structured process, using widely available tools, can contribute to both learning and implementation of skills that lead to real world impacts in communities. Given the results reported at the close of their Clinical Scholars experience, the data suggest that investing in robust, intensive leadership development of interprofessional teams is a smart decision for impacting the culture of health in communities nationwide.


This unique study examines the alliance between board characteristics and shareholders assessment of risk as revealed in the volatility of stock returns for Pakistani listed companies. For this purpose, a sample of 30 manufacturing companies is used that are listed on Karachi Stock Exchange for the period of 2004-2013. The study uses panel data analysis and reports that random effect model is the best results yielding method. Our hypothesis incorporates preceding evidence that the small and large firms have spectacularly diverse constitution of boards, shimmering the firms diverse monitoring and counseling needs. It is hypothesized and locate confirmation with the intention of entrenched the large firms are able to produce affirmative net benefits, in the appearance of lesser risk, form board independence, gender diversity and director ownership. On the other hand the finding of this study showed the board size is negatively associated with the shareholder assessment of risk for large firms and the positive associated with the assessment of risk for small firms. The CEO duality is positive associated with the assessment of risk for large and negative associated amid assessment of risk for small firms. The results have insinuation for regulatory authorities, shareholders and directors to take steps to improve the board competanices for better performance


Throughout the health care industry, technical and professional employees are moving into supervisory roles, usually without preparation for this major change. They often are frustrated during the transition period. This article discusses how to decide whether supervision is for you and how to prepare for the new role. Several tenets of leadership are offered in the health care setting.


It started with Hippocrates in the 5th century BC coming up with the idea that medicine should be practised through observation and reasoning. It hasn't stopped since. Over the centuries the scale of medical innovation, in thinking and technological advances, has been extraordinary. From Zacharias Janssen, a lens grinder from the Netherlands who invented the microscope in 1590, to William Harvey explaining the circulatory system in 1628, to the human genome project that started sequencing chromosomes in 1999, the breadth of medical innovation has been remarkable and uplifting.

If you are involved in healthcare it's only natural to want to innovate—to have ideas about how you might improve things for patients. So it's not surprising that the innovation in healthcare category had so many entries—close to 100, which varied from preliminary studies on brain surgery to mobile applications to improve mental health. These entries came from all over the world.

Our three finalists are startlingly different. They include a paediatric team from India that is reducing infant deaths by using expanded polystyrene foam boxes; a website and mentoring service to support pregnant teenagers; and a centralised ophthalmic electronic referral unit that reduces …


MicroRNAs are a group of short non-coding RNAs that undertake various roles in different cell signaling pathways and developmental stages. They regulate gene expression levels at the post-transcriptional stage, which results in cleavage of mRNAs or repression of their translation. Some miRNAs, including the miR-302 cluster, are critical regulators for the stemness state of embryonic stem cells and cell fate patterning. The miR-302 cluster is located in the intron of a non-coding gene that has no other reported function, other than hosting miR-302, and grant a complex expression regulation through upstream its regulatory sequences. To date, analysis of the miR-302 expression pattern in a transgenic mouse model has not been reported. In this study, we generated transgenic mice that expressed EGFP driven by miR-302 upstream regulatory sequences that harbored the core promoter of its host gene. We examined the activity of the miR-302 promotor in somatic tissues of transgenic mice, transgenic blastocysts, and embryonic stem cells derived from transgenic blastocysts. Our results showed that miR-302 highly expressed in both blastocysts and the first passages of transgenic embryonic stem cells, and has low expression in the somatic tissues of transgenic mice. It could be concluded that different temporal and spatial gene expression patterns occur during the embryonic and adult stages in mice.


BACKGROUND
Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is an easily accessible alternative source for multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) and is generally believed to provide MSCs with a higher proliferative potential compared with adult bone marrow. Limitations in cell number and strict dependence of expansion procedures from selected lots of fetal bovine serum have hampered the progress of clinical applications with UCB-derived MSCs.

METHODS
We analyzed the isolation and proliferative potential of human UCB MSCs compared with bone marrow MSCs under optimized ex vivo culture conditions. We further investigated human platelet lysate as an alternative to replace fetal bovine serum for clinical-scale MSC expansion. Clonogenicity was determined in colony-forming units-fibroblast assays. MSC functions were tested in hematopoiesis support, vascular-like network formation and immune modulation potency assays.

RESULTS
MSCs could be propagated from UCB with and without fetal bovine serum. MSC propagation was effective in 46% of UCB samples. Once established, the proliferation kinetics of UCB MSCs did not differ significantly from that of bone marrow MSCs under optimized culture conditions, resulting in more than 50 population doublings after 15 weeks. A clinical quantity of 100 million MSCs with retained differentiation potential could be obtained from UCB MSCs within approximately 7 weeks. Ex vivo expansion of hematopoietic UCB-derived CD34+ cells as well as immune inhibition and vascular-like network formation could be shown for UCB MSCs propagated under both culture conditions.

CONCLUSION
We demonstrate for the first time that human MSCs can be obtained and propagated to a clinical quantity from UCB in a completely bovine serum-free system. Surprisingly, our data argue against a generally superior proliferative potential of UCB MSCs. Functional data indicate the applicability of clinical-grade UCB MSCs propagated with human platelet lysate-conditioned medium for hematopoiesis support, immune regulation and vascular regeneration.


Summary This article proposes that there is a general principle of international law concerning the humane treatment of animals. Preoccupation with "animal rights" has been associated with Western cultural imperialism masquerading as a universal ethic. Animal welfare is thus an instructive case study of what Jutta Brunnée and Stephen Toope have identified as the key challenge for international law, that of "construct[ing] normative institutions while admitting and upholding the diversity of peoples in international society." This article applies the framework of interactional international law set out in Brunnée and Toope's recent book Legitimacy and Legality in International Law, while raising questions about the weight that their analysis accords to practice and their willingness to conclude that widely recognized principles to which states fail to adhere in practice lack legal force. The article also examines how laws prohibiting cruelty to animals have emerged precisely from an interactive cultural exchange between East and West, in particular, between England and India. It concludes that Brunnée and Toope's framework, although it does not deal at any length with general principles of law (a source of international law in which practice plays a relatively minor role), is nevertheless a useful tool for understanding how a culturally contested principle fits into international law and ultimately supports the view that there is a general principle of international law concerning animal welfare.


Vein of Galen aneurysmal malformations (VGAM) are characterized by multiple arteriovenous connections draining into a markedly enlarged median draining vein. This ectatic vein is not the vein of Galen, but its embryonic precursor, the median prosencephalic vein of Markowski. During normal development, the posterior portion of the median prosencephalic vein persists as the vein of Galen, while its anterior portion regresses in parallel with the formation of the internal cerebral veins (ICV). It has been traditionally thought that, in children with a VGAM, the deep venous system does not connect to and, a fortiori, does not drain into the ectatic median prosencephalic vein/vein of Galen. This report describes a case of successfully treated VGAM in which the drainage of an ICV into the vein of Galen was only demonstrated by follow-up MR imaging and venography. The potential implications of this finding for the management of VGAMs are discussed.


The aim of this study was to evaluate osseointegration and crestal bone height in implants with a triangular cervical design in comparison with a standard rounded cervical design. The control group consisted of 24 implants with a standard cervical design, and the test group of 24 implants with a triangular cervical design. The implants were inserted in healed bone in six American Foxhounds. Crestal bone height and tissue thickness in the cervical portion were measured after 12 weeks healing. Data analysis found mean crestal bone loss of: 0.31 ± 0.24 mm on the buccal side, 0.35 ± 0.14 mm on the lingual in the test group, and 0.71 ± 0.28 mm buccal loss, and 0.42 ± 0.30 mm lingual in the control group; with statistically significant differences on the buccal aspect (p = 0.0019). Mean tissue thickness in the test group was 1.98 ± 0.17 mm on the buccal aspect, and 2.43 ± 0.93 mm in the lingual; in the control group it was 2.48 ± 0.61 mm buccal thickness, and 2.88 ± 0.14 mm lingual, with significant differences on both aspects (p = 0.0043; p = 0.0029). The results suggest that greater thickness of peri-implant tissue can be expected when the triangular cervical implant design is used rather than the standard cervical design.


Upper thoracic spine lesions are characterized by delayed diagnosis due to nonspecific symptoms and its anterior aspect (T1 - T4) is difficult to be approached surgically. This retrospective clinical study was done to assess the efficacy of mini thoracotomy approach in management of these lesions. We studied 14 cases with upper thoracic spine different pathological lesions at levels (T1 - T4). These lesions were indicated for anterior approach surgery. Radiological assessment included plain X-ray, MRI and CT scan thoracic spine. The anaesthesia was specifically selective intubation and unilateral ventilation. All patients were operated upon through mini inter-costal thoracotomy approach (left sided in 13 patients and right sided in 1patient). Out of 14 patients there were 7 males and 7 females. The age range was 20 - 55 years (mean 38.7 years). Preoperative symptoms included vague nonspecific upper thoracic pain in 11 patients, lower limbs weakness in 6 patients, sphincteric disturbance in 5 patients, upper thoracic kyphotic deformity in 4 patients, severe brachialgia in 3 patients and neck pain in 2 cases. The operative time was ranged from 90 - 210 minutes (mean 152 m). Blood loss ranged from 250 to 750 cc (mean 464 cc). Chest tube drainage was inserted in all patients. There were no intra-operative or post-operative surgically related complications and no patients needed ICU admission. The lesions were neoplasms in 8 patients, traumatic fracture dislocation in 3 cases, tuberculous spondylodiscitis in 2 cases and degenerative disc prolapse in 1 case. All patients improved post-operative as regard their pre-operative complaints except one patient. During the follow up period, no mortality was recorded. In conclusion, mini thoracotomy approach seems to be ideal only for patients with mono- or bi-segmental pathology involving the upper thoracic spine.


Stereo lithography apparatus is an advanced technology that uses photopolymers as the raw materials from which the prototypes are built. The RP manufacture system uses lasers or ultraviolet light to expose selectively the surface of the liquid resin and builds a three-dimensional part according its CAD model in a layer-by-layer manner. The absorption of energy causes photo-polymerization that changes the liquid resin into a solid, expanding the cured volume but shrinking simultaneously. The primary reason for the volume distortion and deformation of the stereo lithography apparatus part are the interlaminar stress generated by resin contraction. The volume shrinkage and curl distortion of the resin will lead to poor accuracy of the built prototype because the bending stress cannot be compensated for. Selecting a non-standard gear as experimental object and manufactured in the SCPS350B rapid prototyping machine. Four kinds of scanning mode, includes X-X mode, X-Y mode, XY mode and XY ST mode, are respectively carried out. From the results, it is found that SLA parameters, i.e. scanning mode and scanning speed significantly affect the forming precision of the prototype. The accuracy of the prototype with XYST mode is prior to the XY mode, and the X-Y mode is prior to the X-X mode. With the lower scanning speed and surface recoating process can further improve the finished precision.


In this article, the argument is developed that workplace spirituality can be used within practical theology to understand developments within the workplace. This can enable the church to give effective guidance to the congregation on finding meaning and purpose within the workplace. The value of workplace spirituality for both practical theology (as science) and the church (as organisation) will be debated in this article. In this study, it is accepted that workplace spirituality is not the same as religion even though the two concepts are not disjoint. This study first attends to workplace spirituality and then to the role of practical theology in workplace spirituality.

Based on the discussion of the difference between religion and spirituality, and what spirituality is, including the dimensions of spirituality, the working definition used in this study is that workplace spirituality engenders spiritual growth and development of employees which creates purpose, meaning, and community within the organisational context.

In the part on practical theology, it is argued that practical theology has three domains, namely the church, society, and academia (or science). The study presents the perspective that the workplace is a study focus for practical theology. The practice of workplace spirituality should be studied in practical theology thereafter practical theology can develop a faith-based approach to spirituality. This can be useful to understand the construct and practice of faith-based workplace spirituality without the one faith tradition dominating over the other.


Social networks can quickly propagate information to large audiences and can be used to spread fake news or to provide false figures of popularity. Social bots, i.e., software robots that automatically interact with human users and produce content under a fictive identity, are used for such harmful activities. In this paper, we study the relationship between bots and genuine human users with the aim of identifying those "credulous" users who are particularly exposed, and unintentionally contribute, to the activities planned by a network of bots. Spotting credulous users is useful to service providers to display warnings on their dashboards, scan their activities for early signs of attacks, or take more active measures to prevent or limit the negative effects of their activities. Here we aim at identifying credulous users on Twitter starting from those involved in any social relation with a bot. To that end, we rely on an existing bot detector along with its dataset of genuine users and bots that we extend with additional information about the friends of each genuine user. To single out credulous users out of genuine ones, we study the effectiveness of different metrics or combinations thereof. We see this as a first step towards singling out features that can be used to detect credulous users without resorting to the expensive analysis of the nature of their friends.


Only 3 of 2536 cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) VDRL tests ordered at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1980 were positive. Of patients on whom the test was ordered, 226 had a positive or borderline serum fluorescent treponemal antibody absorption test. Records from 156 (69%) of these patients, including all 3 with positive CSF-VDRL tests, were reviewed and showed that the diagnosis of neurosyphilis had been considered only in 44 (28%). One third of records lacked notations of historical and physical findings characteristic of neurosyphilis. Forty seropositive patients who had lumbar puncture to rule out asymptomatic neurosyphilis had negative CSF-VDRL tests; none had neurosyphilis diagnosed. Use of the CSF-VDRL test seemed to represent predominantly "box-checking" on the requisition to rule out neurosyphilis. Yet the test performs better when "ruling in" rather than ruling out neurosyphilis. The Centers for Disease Control should reevaluate its recommendation to rule out neurosyphilis in asymptomatic patients with untreated syphilis of greater than 1 year's duration, given the costs, risks, and dubious benefits.


We study the phenomenology of neutralino dark matter (DM) in a mirage mediation scenario of supersymmetry breaking which results from the moduli stabilization in some string/brane models. Depending upon the model parameters, especially the anomaly to modulus mediation ratio determined by the moduli stabilization mechanism, the nature of the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) changes from bino-like neutralino to Higgsino-like neutralino via a bino–Higgsino mixing region. For the bino-like LSP, the standard thermal production mechanism can give the right amount of relic DM density through the stop/stau–neutralino coannihilation or the pseudoscalar Higgs resonance process. We also examine the prospect of direct and indirect DM detection in various parameter regions of mirage mediation. Neutralino DM in the galactic halo might be detected by near future direct detection experiments in the case of the bino–Higgsino mixed LSP. The gamma ray flux from the galactic centre might be detectable also if the DM density profile takes a cuspy shape.


A new surrogate model construction method is presented. The method creates the model directly from rigorous EM-response using the radial basis function (RBF) interpolation technique. The advantage of the RBF's is the guaranteed non-singularity of the interpolation problem. Additionally, an adaptive algorithm is applied to minimize the amount of the support points needed to create model with requested accuracy. To prove the usefulness of the method models of different waveguide discontinuities were created and used in design of waveguide filter, as presented in the results section.


Relation extraction is a fundamental problem in natural language processing. Most existing models are defined for relation extraction in the general domain. However, their performance on specific domains (e.g., biomedicine) is yet unclear. To fill this gap, this paper carries out an empirical study on relation extraction in biomedical research articles. Specifically, we consider both sentence-level and document-level relation extraction, and run a few state-of-the-art methods on several benchmark datasets. Our results show that (1) current document-level relation extraction methods have strong generalization ability; (2) existing methods require a large amount of labeled data for model fine-tuning in biomedicine. Our observations may inspire people in this field to develop more effective models for biomedical relation extraction.


Abstract: The epidemiology and perception of Paragonimus infection were investigated in Oban community of Cross River State, Nigeria between January and June, 2006. Sputum samples collected on each of three consecutive days from 311 participants with productive cough were examined using standard parasitological procedures for the detection of ova of Paragonimus Spp. The samples were also processed and stained using the Ziehl-Neelsen technique to exclude Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. Crabs collected from the village streams were dissected and examined for the presence of metacercariae of Paragonimus Spp. A questionnaire was also administered to test the perception of the disease. Paragonimus uterobilateralis was confirmed as the aetiologic agent of paragonimiasis with a prevalence of 4.2%. Peak prevalence of 7.7% was found among children aged between 1 to 10 years. More males (4.5%) were infected than females (3.9%) (P > 0.05). The mean egg count was high (222 egs/5ml of sputum). The intensity of infection was found to correlate moderately and strongly with haemoptysis (r = 0.6) and chest pain (r=0.8) respectively. Only 1.6% of the subjects had tuberculosis and presented with symptoms which mimic paragonimiasis. Sudanonautes africanus is the suspected vector of the disease in this locality. The disease, its vector and mode of transmission were poorly perceived by the respondents. The study has confirmed the endemicity of paragonimiasis in Oban community as well as provides comprehensive information on the disease and its transmission in this locality. There is urgent need to initiate the control of this disease in this community.


Self-Monitoring of Blood Glucose (SMBG) is a vital constituent of diabetes care. The aim of this study was to document the practice, determinants and effects of SMBG in our setting.

 A cross-sectional study was carried out on 249 adult type 2 diabetic subjects who attended the diabetes clinic of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital Ikeja. The statistical analysis was done with independent t-test and logistic regression. A P-value of less than 0.05 was taken as significant.

 The age of the study subjects ranged from 28 years to 87 years. The mean + S.D age is 62 + 11 years. The mean + S.D BMI of the study subjects is 27.79 + 4.73 Kgm2. 159 (64%) of the patients practised SMBG while 90 (36%) patients did not. Twenty-two (14%) of the patients have been practising SMBG for less than 12 months, 71 (46%) patients for 12 - 36 months, while 60 (39%) of them for more than 36 months. 36 (23%) of the patients did SMBG daily, 58 (37%) patients twice weekly, 48 (30%) patients weekly, 11 (7%) patients monthly, 5 (3%) patients did it for unspecified time period while 1 (1%) patient was unable to report the time period. SMBG practice was associated with better short term glycemic control P= < 0.001, OR= 0.399 and 95% CI 0.229-0.693. Predictors of SMBG were male sex, higher socioeconomic status and insulin therapy. More male patients (72.7%) practice SMBG compared to female patients (59.9%) p-value 0.051. The detection of chronic complications of DM was comparable between those who practice SMBG and those who do not.

 SMBG practice is significantly associated with better short term glycaemic control.


During the negotiations on the Australia–US free trade agreement (AUSFTA), the US dairy industry vigorously opposed opening the US market to imports of Australian dairy products on the grounds that the US industry would be devastated. Subsequently, the agreement signed in February 2004 made an exception for dairy, providing for only limited quota expansion and no free trade, even at the end of the long implementation period. This paper presents a simulation model of world dairy markets, represented by supply and demand equations for fat and non-fat components of milk and manufactured dairy products. We use the model to analyse the effects on US milk markets of both a hypothetical agreement, allowing free bilateral trade in dairy products, and the actual AUSFTA. An important contribution to the literature is the derivation of explicit supply and demand relationships for milk components. The components model allows an analysis of long-term production, consumption, and trade patterns that is not tied to specific, fungible products. Simulations indicate that increased imports from Australia resulting from bilateral trade liberalisation would have resulted in small reductions in US milk prices and production. The much smaller increases in Australian access to the US market under the actual AUSFTA will have even smaller, almost negligible, impacts.


Based on the hidden conformal symmetry, some authors have proposed a Harrison metric for the Schwarzschild black hole. We give a procedure which can generate a family of Harrison metrics starting from a general set of SL(2, R) vector fields. By analogy with the subtracted geometry of the Kerr black hole, we find a new Harrison metric for the Schwarzschild case. Its conformal generators are also investigated using the Killing equations in the near-horizon limit.


Previous work has generally conceptualized emotion regulation as contributing to mental health outcomes, and not vice versa. The present study challenges this assumption by using a prospective design to investigate the directionality of underlying relationships between emotion regulation and mental health in the context of a major population-level stressor. We surveyed a large nationally representative sample of adults (18-91 years, N = 704) at three 1-month intervals across the acute lockdown phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, using standardized measures of depression and anxiety symptoms. At each time point, we also measured the use of two emotion regulation strategies-cognitive reappraisal and emotional suppression-previously associated with adaptive and maladaptive mental health outcomes, respectively. We found cognitive reappraisal was unrelated to mental health symptoms. In contrast, greater emotional suppression was robustly associated with higher symptom levels for both depression and anxiety. Longitudinal analyses revealed this association reflected bidirectional relationships. Higher symptoms of depression and anxiety each predicted greater subsequent use of emotional suppression, and greater use of emotional suppression predicted higher subsequent symptoms. This bidirectionality suggests emotional suppression is both symptomatic and predictive of psychological distress. The lack of a relationship for cognitive reappraisal is discussed with respect to the pandemic context and evidence that high stress might reduce people's ability to use this strategy effectively. Given the strong emphasis on reappraisal in clinical practice, there is a critical need to understand for whom, what and when this strategy is helpful. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).


The increasing emergence of new bacterial beta-lactamases that can efficiently hydrolyze beta-lactam antibiotics to clinically inactive carboxylic acids has created an intractable problem in the treatment of bacterial infections, and it is highly desirable to develop a useful tool that can rapidly screen bacteria for beta-lactamases against a variety of antibiotic candidates in a high-throughput manner. This paper describes the use of a fluorescein-labeled beta-lactamase mutant (E166Cf) as a convenient fluorescent tool to screen beta-lactamases, including the Bacillus cereus beta-lactamase I (PenPC), B. cereus beta-lactamase II, Bacillus licheniformis PenP, Escherichia coli TEM-1, and Enterobacter cloacae P99 against various beta-lactam antibiotics (penicillin G, penicillin V, ampicillin, cefuroxime, cefoxitin, moxalactam, cephaloridine), using a 96-well microplate reader. The E166Cf mutant was constructed by replacing Glu166 on the flexible Omega-loop, which is close to the enzyme's active site, with a cysteine residue on a class A beta-lactamase (B. cereus PenPC) and subsequently labeling the mutant with thiol-reactive fluorescein-5-maleimide. Such modifications significantly impaired the hydrolytic activity of the E166Cf mutant compared to that of the wild-type enzyme. The fluorescence intensity of the E166Cf mutant increases in the presence of beta-lactam antibiotics. For antibiotics that are resistant to hydrolysis by the E166Cf mutant (cefuroxime, cefoxitin, moxalactam), the fluorescence signal slowly increases until it reaches a plateau. For antibiotics that can be slowly hydrolyzed by the E166Cf mutant (penicillin G, penicillin V, ampicillin), the fluorescence signal rapidly increases to the plateau and then declines after a prolonged incubation. The E166Cf mutant retains its characteristic pattern of fluorescence signals in the presence of both bacterial beta-lactamases and beta-lactamase-resistant antibiotics. In contrast, in the presence of both bacterial beta-lactamases and beta-lactamase-sensitive antibiotics, the fluorescence signals of the E166Cf mutant were decreased. The fluorescence signals from the E166Cf mutant allow an unambiguous differentiation of beta-lactamase-resistant antibiotics from beta-lactamase-sensitive ones in the screening of bacterial beta-lactamases against a panel of antibiotic candidates. This simple method may provide an alternative tool in choosing potent beta-lactam antibiotics for treatment of bacterial infections.