How to cite this article: Kamat D, Mahajan R. Hot topics in paediatric dermatology. Indian J Paediatr Dermatol 2019;20:315-9. This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non‐commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.


Newly public companies tend to exhibit abnormally high accruals in the year of their initial public offering (IPO). Although the prevailing view in the literature is that these accruals are caused by opportunistic misreporting, we show that these accruals do not appear to benefit managers and instead result from the normal economic activity of newly public companies. In particular, and in contrast to the notion that managers benefit from inflating accruals through an inflated issue price, inflated post-IPO equity values, and increased insider trading profits, we find no evidence of a relation between abnormal accruals and these outcomes. Instead, consistent with these accruals resulting from normal economic activity, we find that these accruals are attributable to the investment of IPO proceeds in working capital and that controlling for the amount of IPO proceeds invested in working capital produces a more powerful accrual-based measure of misreporting.


Abstract Despite major advances in the study of the brain, investigations on neurochemistry in vivo still lack the solid ground of more established methods, such as structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is a technique that might potentially fill in this gap. Nevertheless, studies using this approach feature great methodological heterogeneity, such as varying voxel of choice, differences on emphasized metabolites, and absence of a standardized unit. In this study, we present a methodology for creating a systematic review and meta-analysis for this kind of scientific evidence using the prototypical case of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Systematic review registration: International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO), CRD42018112418.


The Rice Spherical PENDUlum Laboratory APparatus (SPENDULAP) is a rich teaching aid for senior and first year graduate courses in kinematics, dynamics, control and simulation. It consists of a free-swinging (unactuated) rigid pendulum mounted in a rotating frame. The frame rotates about an axis perpendicular to the pendulum swing axis and is driven by an electric motor. The SPENDULAP is attractive as a teaching tool because it is easy to visualize the motion of the pendulum, but somewhat challenging to model kinematically and dynamically. In particular, the three-dimensional nature of the pendulum motion allows students to gain proficiency and confidence not possible with a planar apparatus. Additionally, nonlinearities in the dynamics present interesting, but tenable, control challenges. In this paper, the authors illustrate each step in the process of kinematic and dynamic modeling, simulation and control of the SPENDULAP. They start with the kinematic analysis and then develop the equations of motion using both Newtonian and Lagrangian approaches. The spherical pendulum is sufficiently complex to demonstrate the advantages of the Lagrangian approach, and it also offers an excellent illustration of the benefits of the Newtonian formulation. Next, they illustrate the development of a numerical simulation of the SPENDULAP dynamics, and provide examples of uses of simulation and animation using MATLAB. Finally, they show the development of linear and nonlinear control laws, and illustrate testing them using simulation.


This is the first comprehensive evaluation of the women characters of baseball literature, including women's crucial roles on and off the field of play. Applying several feminist theories and examining the works in the context of both myth and psychology, the author discusses baseball fiction written by both men and women. Among the topics discussed are the literary implications of motherhood; how patterns of behavior in women characters often recall Greek goddesses; and how women characters and the feminist imagination enrich the literature of this apparently masculinized sport.


To aid the optimizing design of filling system, computer simulation technique is introduced to predict injection-forming process and to protect defects during trial manufacture of automotive parts by using semi-solid die cast process. By comparing formed appearance of parts in experiments and that in simulations, and observing the relationship between internal defects inspected by X-ray and flow field obtained in simulation, it is indicated that there are quite good agreements between simulation and experiment, right predictions for cast defects resulting from filling process can be made and improving direction is proposed. The realization of numerical visualization for filling process of high speed during semi-solid die cast process will play an important role in optimizing technology plan and process.


In this paper I explore the question of how artificial life might be used to get a handle on philosophical issues concerning the mind-body problem. I focus on questions concerning what the physical precursors were to the earliest evolved versions of intelligent life. I discuss how cellular automata might constitute an experimental platform for the exploration of such issues, since cellular automata offer a unified framework for the modeling of physical, biological, and psychological processes. I discuss what it would take to implement in a cellular automaton the evolutionary emergence of cognition from non-cognitive artificial organisms. I review work on the artificial evolution of minimally cognitive organisms and discuss how such projects might be translated into cellular automata simulations.


This preprint has been reviewed and recommended by Peer Community In Evolutionary Biology (http://dx.doi.org/10.24072/pci.evolbiol.100033). Much of the immense present day biological diversity of Neotropical rainforests originated from the Miocene onwards, a period of geological and ecological upheaval in South America. We assess the impact of the Andean orogeny, drainage of lake Pebas, and closure of the Panama Isthmus on two clades of trees (Cremastosperma, c. 31 spp.; and Mosannona, c. 14 spp.; both Annonaceae) found in humid forest distributed across the transition zones between the Andes and Western (lowland) Amazonia and between Central and South America. We inferred phylogenies based on c. 80% of recognised species of each clade using plastid and nuclear encoded sequence markers, revealing similar patterns of geographically restricted clades. Using molecular dating we showed that diversifications in the different areas occurred in parallel, with timing consistent with Andean vicariance and Central American geodispersal. In apparent contradiction of high dispersal abilities of rainforest trees, Cremastosperma clades within Amazonia are also geographically restricted, with a southern/montane clade that appears to have diversified along the foothills of the Andes sister to one of more northern/lowland species that diversified in a region once inundated by lake Pebas. Ecological niche modelling approaches show phylogenetically conserved niche differentiation, particularly within Cremastosperma. Niche similarity and recent common ancestry of Amazon and Guianan Mosannona species contrasts with dissimilar niches and more distant ancestry of Amazon, Venezuelan and Guianan species of Cremastosperma suggesting that this element of the similar patterns of disjunct distributions in the two genera is instead a biogeographic parallelism, with differing origins. The results provide further independent evidence for the importance of the Andean orogeny, the drainage of Lake Pebas, and the formation of links between South and Central America in the evolutionary history of Neotropical lowland rainforest trees.


Trust in policy makers fluctuates significantly over the cycle and affects the transmission mechanism. Despite this it is absent from the literature. We build a monetary model embedding trust cycles; the latter emerge as an equilibrium phenomenon of a game-theoretic interaction between atomistic agents and the monetary authority. Trust affects agents' 'stochastic discount factors, namely the price of future risk, and through this it interacts with the monetary transmission mechanism. Using data from the Eurobarometer surveys, we analyze the link between trust and the transmission mechanism of macro and monetary shocks. Empirical results are in line with theoretical ones.


Macrophages are important responders to environmental changes such as secreted factors. Among the secreted factors in injured tissues, the highly conserved endothelial monocyte activating polypeptide II (EMAP II) has been characterized to limit vessel formation, to be locally expressed near sites of injury labeling it a 'find-me' signal, and to recruit macrophages and neutrophils. The molecular mechanisms mediated by EMAP II within macrophages once they are recruited are unknown. In this study, using a model of partially activated, recruited thioglycollate-elicited peritoneal macrophages, a transient, transcription profile of key functional genes in macrophages exposed to EMAP II was characterized. We found that EMAP II-mediated changes were elicited mainly through STAT3 (Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3) as evidenced by increased Y705 phosphorylation and changes in activity and upstream of it, Janus Associated Kinase (JAK)1/2 upstream. Both inhibition of JAK1/2 and knockdown of Stat3 abrogated a subset of genes that are up-regulated by EMAP II. Our results identify a rapid EMAP II-mediated STAT3 activation that coincides with altered pro- and anti-inflammatory gene expression in macrophages.


Low cost and small size integrated sensors bring a significant interest to redundant sensing systems such as sensor array systems. Redundancy may permit to increase both performance and dependability of individual sensors at the system level, however, the emergence of these redundant systems has generated the need for dynamic algorithms able to detect and act against the presence of errors in system elements. Then, a new adaptive algorithm for sensor array systems is presented in this work. This approach is generic and can be implemented for different types of sensor systems, besides it does not require any information about the inputs. The proposed real-time algorithm is based on the following: 1) estimation of sensor individual variances at each time step, 2) identification and removal of sensors affected by errors, and 3) reincorporation of sensors after recovery or replacement. Variance estimation is revisiting MInimum Norm Quadratic Unbiased Estimation (MINQUE) method to allow real-time operation and requires that the number of sensors is strictly greater than two times the number of signals to be measured. Consequently, the proposed method is able to support the presence of m-1 faulty devices, where m is the total number of sensors less two times the number of measured signals. Performance of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through theoretical demonstrations, simulations, and experimental results.


: The tissue H2O of rabbit heart and rat liver was partially exchanged in situ with D2O. In rat liver, the loss of ATP, resulting from normothermic ischemia, was decreased after perfusion with D2O. The maximal protective effect was found when the proportion of D2O in the water of the liver tissue was 0.20. In both organs the protective effect of D2O could be correlated with a marked decrease in severe ischemic damage of cellular organelles, in particular mitochondria. D2O also increased the protective action of Mg-ions in the heart.


The coastal region of Nigeria has abundant water naturally good for rice production, which is untapped due to oil exploration. The study was conducted to access the relationship between grain yield (GY) and its components of twenty-six segregating lines for the coastal region of Southern Nigeria. The experiment was conducted at the University of Port Harcourt teaching and Research Institution of Faculty of Agriculture and replicated three times in a complete block design. Data was collected on yield components such as number of tillers per plant, leaf area index (LAI), total GY at maturity, and grain weight per panicle at maturity. About 8 lines had more tiller number than the general mean value (30) at maximum tillering stage of the rice crop, while lines with high effective tiller numbers were IRBW-180 (49) and IRBW-147 (48). GY significantly positively correlated with effective tiller number, grain weight per plant, number of grain per panicle and grain weight per panicle. The cluster analysis for genetic diversity revealed three major groupings (A, B and C). The genotypes in Group A posses the character of high grain weight and Group B posses characters for long panicle and high value of flag LAI (FLAI), which indicates broad leaf for light interception thus enhancing photosynthesis. In Group C, genotypes posses varying characters, however, high value of LAI and tall plant, which indicates tendency of good nutrient utilization. Soil in this region is saline and effect crop performance especially rice, these identified indexes will facility the breeding for this region.


PURPOSE
Accurate TomoTherapy treatment is dependent on multiple parameters, including the accuracy of couch velocity during beam delivery and gantry rotation. The recent TG-148 protocol recommends quarterly film tests to verify the constancy of couch velocity. We determined the feasibility of using TomoDose, a quality assurance device, to detect the variation in couch velocity from baseline by a deviation of one or two percent.

METHODS
The TomoDose unit was rotated 90 degrees clockwise so that the long axis, consisting of 107 detectors, would translate across the TomoTherapy 'Y' jaws. The collimator field size used was the 1 cm mode and the table velocity was set to 0.5 mm/sec to establish a baseline. The velocity was then varied by 1% or 2% from nominal. The five tested velocities were 0.495, 0.490, 0.500, 0.505 and 0.510 mm/sec. The total translation time was kept at a constant 400 sec. The field was progressively painted during the scans and was shortened if table velocity was decreased, and lengthened as velocity was increased.

RESULTS
The baseline field size was 20.03 cm (400 sec × 0.05 cm/sec). A 2% increase in velocity translated to an increase in the field size to 20.39 cm and a 2% decrease in velocity resulted in a decrease in field size to 19.64 cm. Similarly, a 1% increase in velocity increased the field to 20.18 cm, and a 1% decrease velocity decreased the field to 19.76 cm.

CONCLUSIONS
An increase or decrease in the couch velocity, for a fixed beam delivery time, resulted in an altered radiation field size. The field size results are approximately as expected for both the baseline scans as well as the modified velocity scans. This study demonstrates that, under these conditions, TomoDose can be used to determine small variations in table velocity as small as 1 %.


Introduction

                  Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has led to an unprecedented global pandemic. Given highly variable clinical presentations, readily obtainable predictive biomarkers are urgently needed to identify patients are risk of severe disease and death. Anemia is commonly present in hospitalized patients yet its prognostic potential in COVID-19 remains largely unexplored.

                     Methods

                  We evaluated all adult patients at a large tertiary health system during the month of March 2020 who were diagnosed with COVID-19, excluding patients without a complete blood count (CBC) obtained at the time of diagnosis. Anemia was defined by as a hemoglobin (hgb) <13 g/dL for males and <12 g/dL for females. Chi-squared and Wilcoxon rank sum tests were performed to assess difference in anemia, demographics, and other laboratory values according to mortality. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to assess independent predictors of outcomes including mechanical ventilation and death. An adaption of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was conducted to identify optimal cut points of hemoglobin levels that best predict mechanical ventilation and mortality.

                     Results

                  During the study period, 3,777 adults with COVID-19 were identified, of which 2,439 had a CBC. 861 patients (35.4%) met criteria for anemia, as shown in the Table, and they were significantly older and had a higher comorbidity burden. Mechanical ventilation was required in 531 patients (14.1%) and 629 patients (17%) were deceased. On multivariable logistic regression adjusting for age, sex, race, and Charlson comorbidity index (CCI), anemia was significantly associated with higher risk of mortality (adjusted OR [ORadj]: 1.45, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 1.17-1.80) and need for mechanical ventilation (ORadj: 2.03, 95% CI: 1.64-2.51).
                  For mortality, the optimal cutoff of hgb by ROC curve was 12.5 g/dL in males and 12.1 g/dL in females. These hgb cutoff for mechanical ventilation were 13.5 g/dL for male and 11.0 g/dL for females. When applying these cutoffs to the definition of anemia, a stronger association was observed between anemia and mortality (ORadj 1.68, 95% CI: 1.22-1.93) and need for mechanical ventilation (ORadj 2.09, 95% CI: 1.68-2.61).
                  We also performed a subgroup analysis of patients with a normal hemoglobin to assess the independent predictive value of red blood cell distribution width (RDW). Of the 1578 patients without anemia, 139 (8.8%) had an elevated RDW (>15%). On multivariable logistic regression adjusting for age, sex, race, and CCI, an elevated RDW was statistically associated with need for mechanical ventilation (ORadj: 1.74, CI: 1.12-2.69) and mortality (ORadj: 1.93, CI: 1.26-2.95).

                     Conclusions

                  In this single health system study, anemia was significantly associated with both need for mechanical ventilation and mortality in patients with COVID-19. Based on ROC analysis, the ideal cutoff for considering anemias a significant contributor to these outcomes was just below normal, suggesting that even mild anemia in the context of COVID-19 is an independent predictor of mortality and need for intubation. In addition, an elevated RDW in non-anemic patients was also independently predictive of mortality. Our analysis is limited by inability to determine the chronicity of baseline anemia. Given that a CBC is almost universally obtained on patients with COVID-19, this study identifies a readily accessible predictive biomarker to inform risk adaptive clinical care. The mechanisms by which anemia impacts outcomes in COVID-19 are likely to be multiple in nature and require further investigation.

                           Table

                  Disclosures

                     Mascarenhas:
                     Celgene, Prelude, Galecto, Promedior, Geron, Constellation, and Incyte: Consultancy; Incyte, Kartos, Roche, Promedior, Merck, Merus, Arog, CTI Biopharma, Janssen, and PharmaEssentia: Other: Research funding (institution).


SUMMARY The cestode family Taeniidae consists of 2 genera, Taenia and Echinococcus, which both have been the focus of intensive taxonomic and epidemiological studies because of their zoonotic importance. However, a comprehensive molecular phylogeny of this family has yet to be reconstructed. In this study, 54 isolates representing 9 Taenia species were characterized using DNA sequences in the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) and NADH dehydrogenase subunit 1 (nad1) genes. Phylogenetic relationships within the family Taeniidae were inferred by combining cox1 and nad1 sequence data of the present and previous studies. In the phylogenetic analysis, the genus Echinococcus was shown to be monophyletic, but Taenia proved to be paraphyletic due to the position of T. mustelae as a probable sister taxon of Echinococcus. This indicates that T. mustelae should form a genus of its own. Taenia ovis krabbei was placed distant from T. ovis ovis, as a sister taxon of T. multiceps, supporting its recognition as a distinct species, T. krabbei. High intraspecific sequence variation within both T. polyacantha and T. taeniaeformis suggests the existence of cryptic sister species.


The dynamic flowgraph methodology is a promising way to find the prime implicants of a top event for a dynamic system possibly containing digital subsystems. This article demonstrates how to express dynamic flowgraph methodology models as logic programs, and top events as queries to those programs, in a natural and comprehensible way. Computation of the logic program lists the prime implicants of a top event in the system. We also present and implement an algorithm for computing the probability of the top event from its prime implicants. Together, computation of prime implicants and calculation of top event probability from these constitute a complete way of finding a system's failure probability. Logic programs, implemented in this article in the leading logic programming language Prolog, enable rapid prototyping of dynamic flowgraph methodology models. The logic programming framework introduced here could also be utilized in teaching dynamic flowgraph methodology in risk analysis courses.


Filaments of Anabaena flos-aquae lost over half of their gas vesicles when exposed to light of high irradiance (> 115 μmol m-2 s-1) for long periods (up to 23 h). An investigation using different irradiances showed that the major loss of gas vesicles occurred after prolonged exposure to irradiances exceeding 80 μmol m-1 s-1. In a time-course experiment it was found that 56% of the gas vesicles were lost after 16 h exposure to an irradiance of 135 μmol m-2 s-1. Most of this loss could be accounted for by collapse under turgor pressure, which rose by 0.24 MPa to 0.54 MPa after 16 h. A further unexplained loss of 15% after 23 h exposure may indicate that prolonged high irradiance can cause weakening of gas vesicles in the cells. In this time-course experiment 98% of the filaments lost their buoyancy after 6 h exposure, before any gas vesicles were lost; this buoyancy change was quantitatively accounted for by the rise in cell carbohydrate. The relative importance of gas vesicle collapse and carbohydrate accumulation as mechanisms of buoyancy loss is discussed in relation to vertical movements of planktonic cyanobacteria in lakes.


Creating small-molecule antivirals specific for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) proteins is crucial to battle coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro) is an established drug target for the design of protease inhibitors. We performed a structure–activity relationship (SAR) study of noncovalent compounds that bind in the enzyme's substrate-binding subsites S1 and S2, revealing structural, electronic, and electrostatic determinants of these sites. The study was guided by the X-ray/neutron structure of Mpro complexed with Mcule-5948770040 (compound 1), in which protonation states were directly visualized. Virtual reality-assisted structure analysis and small-molecule building were employed to generate analogues of 1. In vitro enzyme inhibition assays and room-temperature X-ray structures demonstrated the effect of chemical modifications on Mpro inhibition, showing that (1) maintaining correct geometry of an inhibitor's P1 group is essential to preserve the hydrogen bond with the protonated His163; (2) a positively charged linker is preferred; and (3) subsite S2 prefers nonbulky modestly electronegative groups.


Abstract : A method for the evaluation of military hybrid electric vehicle thermal management systems has been developed. The approach allows for the generation of a set of evaluation metrics for determination of the effectiveness of existing systems and the means to assess alternative concepts and advanced approaches. Further, through the use of a set of deterministic performance metrics the methodology allows for evaluation of performance margins for adverse boundary conditions and system operations. The thermal management systems of military hybrid electric vehicles can face challenging performance goals under the burden of unfavorable operating conditions. The cooling requirements of engines, motors, and power electronics impose specific requirements on thermal management system performance in terms of threshold temperatures and heat rejection capability. In addition, vehicle packaging concerns impose restrictions in terms of both volumetric occupancy and system weight. Acknowledgement of these concerns has led to thermal management system evaluation metrics in two separate classes: performance-based metrics and packaging-based metrics. Performance-based metrics allow for a means to determine whether a vehicle thermal management system can meet maximum thermal demands at the worst case boundary conditions. Further, this methodology establishes a design metric for quantifying thermal management system hotel loads. Performance metrics allow for a structured approach to identify system over-design and/or functional margin deficiencies under a worst-case operational scenario.


PolarTrack is a novel camera-based approach to detecting and tracking mobile devices inside the capture volume. In PolarTrack, a polarization filter continuously rotates in front of an off-the-shelf color camera, which causes the displays of observed devices to periodically blink in the camera feed. The periodic blinking results from the physical characteristics of current displays, which shine polarized light either through an LC overlay to produce images or through a polarizer to reduce light reflections on OLED displays. PolarTrack runs a simple detection algorithm on the camera feed to segment displays and track their locations and orientations, which makes PolarTrack particularly suitable as a tracking system for cross-device interaction with mobile devices. Our evaluation of PolarTrack's tracking quality and comparison with state-of-the-art camera-based multi-device tracking showed a better tracking accuracy and precision with similar tracking reliability. PolarTrack works as standalone multi-device tracking but is also compatible with existing camera-based tracking systems and can complement them to compensate for their limitations.


Abstract Mining has historically made a major contribution to the economies of all the contemporary Celtic lands. At the start of the third Millennium, the bulk of mining activity has ceased, and problems associated with hydrogeological changes in abandoned mines are now common to all these lands. In global terms an unusually high proportion of mining in the Celtic lands has been by underground methods, a fact which is reflected in the range of hydrogeological problems encountered in these countries. Recent experiences in these countries offer insights which should be useful elsewhere when currently-active deep mines are eventually abandoned. Particular lessons are drawn from case studies and analyses of previously unpublished data from Alba (Scotland), Ceap Breattain (Cape Breton, Canada), Cymru (Wales) and Kernow (Cornwall). These lessons are: (1) The importance of recognizing the predominance of mined features in the post-closure hydrogeology of abandoned mines. (2) Dynamic temporal changes in hydrogeological behaviour arise from collapse of mined voids, caused by fluvial erosion by rapidly-flowing mine waters and/or by pneumatic fracturing by mine gases compressed in pockets during mine water rebound; these changes can have significant implications for human safety and environmental protection. (3) Net-acidic mine waters are generally restricted to situations in which high-sulphur strata are present in (i) recently-flooded deep-mine workings (ii) shallow partially flooded mine workings and (iii) perched groundwater systems in spoil heaps and opencast backfill. (4) Net-alkaline mine waters are associated with (i) low-sulphur strata in any hydrogeological setting and (ii) high-sulphur strata at depth in long-flooded workings. In practice, this means that the net-alkaline mine waters are far more abundant than the net-acidic. (5) The presence of limestone in a mined sequence is not on its own a guarantee that mine waters will be net-alkaline; the patterns of groundwater flow (which determine the transport of limestone dissolution products through the mined system) must also be favourable. (6) Mine water often becomes hydrochemically stratified during rebound. However, when discharge from a mined system commences, this stratification can break down, resulting in discharges considerably poorer in quality than would have been inferred by sampling the uppermost waters alone.


There are many who would insist that the best laws from Washington, D.C., are those that aren't passed. A singular problem with many of the laws that are placed on the books is that their intended achievements are frequently largely overcome by unintended results. Such may be the case with the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. For all the good this law has done for those who need to take leaves of absence, it has added greatly to the woes of those who remain behind, the author says. Managers, she insists, will have to work diligently with the reactions of those who must accept additional workloads to accommodate the leaves of their colleagues.


Across the developed world, including Australia, public policymaking now rests heavily on commissioned reports generated by for-profit consultants, contrasting starkly with the earlier customary reliance on the civil service to provide informed policy advice to political decision makers. Dependence on commercial consultants is problematic, especially given the moral hazards involved in 'hired guns' providing support for policy 'solutions' desired by their political paymasters. This paper provides a vivid illustration of some of the dangers flowing from the use of consultants by examining the methodology employed by KPMG in its empirical analysis of the pecuniary consequences of proposed municipal mergers as part of the New South Wales' (NSW) Government's Fit for the Future local government reform program. We show that the KPMG (2016) modelling methodology is awash with errors which render its conclusions on the financial viability of the NSW merger proposals fatally flawed.


Background In dogs with chronic valvular heart disease (CVHD), early recognition of pulmonary edema (PE) is of paramount importance. Recent studies in dogs showed that lung ultrasound examination (LUS) is a useful technique to diagnose cardiogenic PE. Objectives To describe LUS features in dogs with different stages of CVHD, and to determine its diagnostic accuracy in detecting PE using thoracic radiography as the reference standard. Animals Sixty‐three dogs with CVHD. Methods Prospective, multicenter, cross‐sectional study. Each dog underwent physical examination, echocardiography, thoracic radiography, and LUS. The LUS findings were classified as absent, rare, numerous, or confluent B‐lines. Sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of LUS B‐lines to identify PE were calculated using thoracic radiography as the reference standard. Results Dogs in stage B1 had absent or rare B‐lines in 14 of 15 cases (93.3%). Dogs in stage B2 had absent or rare B‐lines in 16 of 18 cases (88.9%). All dogs in stage C, without radiographic signs of PE, had absent or rare B‐lines. Dogs in stage C, with radiographic signs of PE, had numerous or confluent B‐lines in 18 of 20 cases (90%). Lung ultrasound examination detected PE with a sensitivity of 90%, specificity of 93%, and with positive and negative predictive values of 85.7 and 95.2%, respectively. Conclusions and Clinical Importance Lung ultrasound examination showed good diagnostic accuracy to identify cardiogenic PE and might be helpful in staging dogs with CVHD. Lung ultrasound examination should be considered as a new, noninvasive diagnostic tool for clinicians managing CVHD in dogs.


We propose a superposition scheme, based on the use of serially-concatenated LDGM codes, for the transmission of spatially correlated sources over Gaussian broadcast channels. The messages intended for each receiver are independently encoded using the same code. In this manner, a strong degree of correlation is kept between the encoded sequences, which are then modulated with different energies and symbol-wise added. By properly designing the encoding process, simulation results show that our proposed scheme easily outperforms the suboptimal theoretical limit assuming separation between source and channel coding.


The structure of gangliosides isolated from the liver of starfish Asterias rathbuni was established by chemical methods, mass spectrometry, and enzymic hydrolysis with a neuraminidase. The major ganglioside was found to be a disialoganglioside with two 8-O-methyl-N-glycolylneuraminic acid residues bound with an N-acetylgalactosamine residue: 8-O-Me-NeuGc alpha 2-3 (8-O-Me-NeuGc alpha 2-6)GalNAc beta 1-3Gal beta 1-4Glc beta 1-1 Cer. Its lipid part contains unsubstituted higher fatty acids (mainly palmitic and stearic) and sphingosines (for the most part C20 and C22). The minor ganglioside fraction consists of two monosialogangliosides the carbohydrate chains of which differed only in the position of the terminal 8-O-methyl-N-glycolylneuraminic acid residue in the N-acetylgalactosamine moiety: 8-O-Me-NeuGc alpha 2-3GalNAc beta 1-3Gal beta 1-4Glc beta 1-1 Cer and 8-O-Me-NeuGc alpha 2-6GalNAc beta 1-3Gal beta 1-4Glc beta 1-1 Cer. The higher fatty acid composition of the minor gangliosides was determined too.


The counting of microstates of BPS black-holes on local Calabi-Yau of the form ${\mathcal O}(p-2)\oplus{\mathcal O}(-p) \longrightarrow S^2$ is explored by computing the partition function of q-deformed Yang-Mills theory on $S^2$. We obtain, at finite $N$, the instanton expansion of the gauge theory. It can be written exactly as the partition function for U(N) Chern-Simons gauge theory on a Lens space, summed over all non-trivial vacua, plus a tower of non-perturbative instanton contributions. In the large $N$ limit we find a peculiar phase structure in the model. At weak string coupling the theory reduces to the trivial sector and the topological string partition function on the resolved conifold is reproduced in this regime. At a certain critical point, instantons are enhanced and the theory undergoes a phase transition into a strong coupling regime. The transition from the strong coupling phase to the weak coupling phase is of third order.


There are various cerebral diseases that deform the cerebral shape with region specificity. So it is effective to quantify the deformation change of cerebral gyri. This study introduces new index called gyral deformation index (GDI) that is defined as a ratio of area of gyrus of interest to area of cerebrum in the defined projection plane. To calculate the gyral areas, this paper proposes a gyral labeling method in the projection plane using magnetic resonance images. The new method finds the boundaries between the gyri by optimizing deformable boundary models aided by fuzzy logic. The proposed method was applied to quantify the cerebral deformation of infants on a plane which is perpendicular to the longitudinal fissure. The comparison results with the manual delineation showed that the method labels gyri with a mean sensitivity of 92.8% and a mean false positive rate of 0.1% for 14 infantile subjects (3 weeks – 4 years 3 months old).


Questions about the state legislative role in determining the identity of presidential electors and electoral slates, and the permissible extent of a departure from regular legislative order, have recently reached peak prominence. Much of the controversy, including several cases to reach the Supreme Court, has concerned the constitutional delegation of power over pre-election rules. But a substantial amount of attention has also focused on the ability of state legislatures to appoint electors in the period between Election Day and the electors' vote.

An asserted legislative role in the post-election period has two ostensible sources: one constitutional and one statutory. The constitutional provision — the portion of Article II allowing states to appoint electors in the manner the legislature directs — has received substantial scholarly and judicial attention. In contrast, there has been no prominent exploration of the federal statute, 3 U.S.C. § 2, despite text similar to the constitutional provision. This piece appears to represent the first exploration of that federal statute as an ostensible basis for legislative appointment of electors in the aftermath of an election, when that election has "failed to make a choice." After reviewing the constitutional controversy, the essay canvasses the history of the statute and its context. And it discovers a previously unreported historical anomaly, which might well affect construction not only of the statutory text, but the constitutional predicate, in the event of a disputed presidential election.


Wake vortices pose a threat to a following aircraft, because they can induce a roll and compromise the safety of everyone on board. Caused by a difference in pressure between the upper and the lower part of the wings, these invisible flows of air are a major hazard and have to be avoided by separating theaircraft at considerable distances. One of the known constraints in airport capacity for both departure and arrival operations is the large headway resulting from the wake spacing separation criteria. Reducing wake vortex separations to a safe level between successive aircraft can increase capacity in the National Airspace System (NAS) with corresponding savings indelay times. One of the main goals of the Wake Encounter Model (WEM) described in this thesis is to assess the outcome from future reduced separation criteria in the NAS. The model has been used to test probable encounters in today's operations, and can also be used to test NextGen scenarios, such as Close Parallel Approaches and reduced in-trail separation flights. This thesis presents model enhancements to account for aircraft turning maneuvers, giving the wake a more realistic shape. Three major airspaces, New York, Southern California and Atlanta, were analyzed using the original and the enhanced WEM to determine if the enhanced model better represents the conditions in today's operations. Additionally, some analysis on the wake lateral travel for closely spaced runways is presented in this thesis. Finally, some extension tools for post -analysis, such as animation tool and various graphs depicting the interactions between wake pairs were developed.


Geothermal and solar thermal are renewable, clean energy sources with immense potential for electricity generation. Concentrating Solar Power can achieve very high temperatures and high efficiencies compared to geothermal power plants. However, it is intermittent and must be coupled with thermal storage or another source for continuous power generation. Geothermal resources exist in varying temperatures but are too small for economic power production; however, it is not intermittent. This paper briefly summarizes the location-specific design considerations for geothermal and solar thermal plants. The performance of both these types of power plants is analysed in terms of capacity factor, thermal energy storage hours, solar multiple, area requirement, and levelized cost of energy for a given set of environmental conditions at two separate locations, Las Cruces, US and Aydin, Turkey. Electricity consumption for an example airport at Aydin is provided by DHMI Airport authority administration, which was used as load profile for Aydin. This analysis is performed using the System Advisor Model. Simulation of parabolic trough, power tower, linear Fresnel, dish Stirling, and geothermal energy conversion systems are performed and the results are compared.


This paper presents a framework for evaluating the level and composition of public expenditures, illustrated by sectoral and country examples. It emphasizes six elements which should be an integral part of an ongoing exercise to evaluate public spending. First, the aggregate level of public spending and deficit of the consolidated public sector must be consistent with the macroeconomic framework. Second, aggregate spending should be allocated to programs within and across sectors to maximize social welfare, including the impact on the poor. Third, the role of the government versus the private sector ought to be a principal criterion governing the choice of programs for public financing and provision; public expenditures should complement rather than substitute for private sector activities. Fourth, the impact of key programs on the poor, including their incidence and total costs, should be analyzed. Fifth, the input mix, or the allocations for capital and recurrent expenditures, should be analyzed in an integrated manner within programs and sectors. Finally, budgetary institutions should be analyzed to ensure that the underlying incentive structure contributes to aggregate fiscal discipline, allocative efficiency and equity in the composition of spending, and technical efficiency in the use of budgeted resources.


Previous research has shown that Explicit Data Graph Execution (EDGE) instruction set architectures (ISA) allow for power efficient performance scaling. In this paper we describe the preliminary design of a new dynamic multicore processor called E2 that utilizes an EDGE ISA to allow for the dynamic composition of physical cores into logical processors. We provide details of E2's support for dynamic reconfigurability and show how the EDGE ISA facilities outof- order vector execution.


ABSTRACT Bradstreet, A.J.; Brander, R.W.; McCarroll, J.R.; Brighton, B.; Dominey, H.D.; Drozdzewski, D.; Sherker, S.; Turner, I.; Roberts, A., and MacMahan, J., 2014. Rip current survival principles: Towards consistency. Advances in applied rip current research over the past 10 years have dramatically increased our collective understanding of the hazard posed to communities by rip currents. Repeated drifter, dye, swimmer, in situ instrumentation, and model experimentation has demonstrated the highly variable nature of rip currents, which has significant implications for long standing survival strategies. Analysis of prevalent rip current survival advice revealed that under variable rip current conditions, the advice may not prove effective in-situ, resulting in individual adopting alternative behaviours, which may or may not have been endorsed or promoted by safety authorities. This paper discusses evidence supporting key principles prominent in the discourse between public safety practitioners and rip current researchers, and presents how these principles relate to each other in practice. The principles are set into two categories: avoidance and survival. They have been developed to support consistent engagement, education and communication strategies for community resilience and further reduce the burden of rip current related drowning globally.


Due to their high hardness and wear resistance Si3N4 based ceramics are one of the most suitable cutting tool materials for machining hardened materials. Therefore, their high degree of brittleness usually leads to inconsistent results and sudden catastrophic failures. Improvement of the functional properties these tools and reduction of the ecological threats may be accomplished by employing the technology of putting down hard coatings on tools in the state-of-the-art PVD processes, mostly by improvement of the tribological contact conditions in the cutting zone and by eliminating the cutting fluids. However in this paper was used a Si3N4 based cutting tool commercial with a layer TiN coating. In this investigation, the performance of TiN coating was assessed on turning used to machine an automotive grade compacted graphite iron. As part of the study were used to characterise the performance of cutting tool, flank wear, temperature and roughness. The results showed that the layer TiN coating failed to dry compacted graphite iron under aggressive machining conditions. However, using the measurement of flank wear technique, the average tool life of was increased by Vc=160 m/min.The latter was also observed using a toolmakers microscope and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).


We investigate modeling cost optimal delete-free STRIPS Planning by Integer/Linear Programming (IP/LP). We introduce two IP models and their LP relaxations based on a recently formulated representation of relaxed plans, named causal relaxed plan representation. The new models are produced by enforcing acyclicity in so-called causal relation graphs using vertex elimination and time labeling methods. We empirically show that while the vertex elimination based method outperforms the time labeling based method and all previously introduced domain independent methods for computing the exact values of h+, the time labeling based LP model is faster to solve compared to its vertex elimination based alternative, making it more suitable for using as heuristic function for optimal planning. We also theoretically analyze the admissible heuristic functions obtained by solving our LP models, and prove that the vertex elimination based heuristic is at least as informative as the time labeling based heuristic. Moreover, our empirical analysis shows that our vertex elimination based heuristic, which is a novel admissible estimation of h+, often has information complementary to that of the LM-cut heuristic.


Tree bark is comprised of living inner bark (phloem) that transports the products of photosynthesis and dead outer bark that protects the living tissues and seals in moisture. Active and passive defenses against destructive agents (e.g., insects, fungal pathogens) are provided by the inner bark and outer bark, respectively (Eberhardt 2013). For sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua L.), the bark comprises 23 percent by mass of the sapling-sized stems and 31 percent of the branches (Koch 1985); the percentage of bark in larger trees would be less. Trees debarked during processing by the forest products industry sector generate significant amounts of bark residue for conversion to mulch products or for fuel value recovery. The chemical composition of tree bark is important as it has the potential to significantly impact the utilization of bark, particularly for biofuel applications.


Tony Gaddiss accessible, step-by-step presentation helps beginning students understand the important details necessary to become skilled programmers at an introductory level. Gaddis motivates the study of both programming skills and the C++ programming language by presenting all the details needed to understand the how and the whybut never losing sight of the fact that most beginners struggle with this material. His approach is both gradual and highly accessible, ensuring that students understand the logic behind developing high-quality programs. In Starting Out with Games and Graphics in C++, 2e, Gaddis covers the essentials of programming for a novice using the C++ language. The Second Edition has been completely revised to provide students with more knowledge of standard C++, while retaining the interesting examples and exercises that students latch on to. Now organized in two parts, Part 1 covers the fundamentals of procedural programming using standard C++. To inspire student productivity and reinforce the core objectives of a strong CS1 foundation, Gaddis covers graphics and game programming using C++ and the App Game Kit in Part 2. Part 2 also covers file I/O and introduces object-oriented programming.


The livelihoods of 130 to 270 million people depend on artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), a labor-intensive method of mineral extraction. Based on geological mapping and gold price variations in a yearly panel of 10,628 fine-grained cells, we provide the first estimation of the environmental and wealth impacts of the main form of ASM, gold ASM, throughout the African continent. We first demonstrate that artisanal mining leads to tropical deforestation and vegetation degradation. We find that the historical increase in the gold price accounts for 20 percent of the total deforestation in the gold-prone tropical regions in Africa. Second, we contrast these negative environmental impacts with the positive economic effects of ASM, which increases nighttime light emissions and households wealth. Last, we show how droughts magnify the effects of ASM, suggesting that mining may be a way for households to diversify their livelihoods when agricultural incomes fall short. These results are policy relevant: a one standard deviation increase in artisanal gold mining revenues increases wealth by 2% of a standard deviation, an effect larger than the effect of drought alone on wealth.


The stable free radical 2,2,6, 6-tetramethyl-4-hydroxypiperidin-1-oxyl monophosphate has been synthesized; it binds to ribonuclease. The selective changes in the nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum of the enzyme produced by the free radical make it possible to define qualitatively the region of the enzyme to which it binds. The radical appears to occupy a site similar to that to which inorganic phosphate binds which is close to or within the active site of the enzyme.


Electricity is one of the most important human resources in the life of today's human being. It keeps the lights on, air conditioners and fans running throughout the hot weather and connecting people through smart phones. These household appliances will be causing higher dependency on electricity among consumers. The electricity requirements are hiking at alarming rate where the fossil fuels and other conventional resources that are being used for generation of electrical energy may no longer be sufficient to keep pace with increasing demand of the electrical energy of the world. This power generation depends on fossil fuel which also causes pollution and changes to the global climate. Thus, the main objective of this study is to propose a mechanical design of power generator which the input is from the movement of door openings. The power generator is designed and fabricated through various manufacturing processes and it consists of bevel gears, shafts and wheels. The power generator is then attached to a moving door and connected to a voltmeter. Result shows that the power generator is able to generate approximately of 12V and this is sufficient to charge a smart phone. To conclude, the designed power generator is not only environmental friendly but also has potential to be used by households because of its simple input requirement and small in size.


The nuclear matter and charge radii of the helium isotopes (A=4,6,8) are calculated by quantitative geometrical thermodynamics (QGT) taking as input the symmetry of the a -particle, the very weak binding (and hence halo nature) of the heavier helium isotopes, and a characteristic length scale given by the proton size. The results follow by considering each isotope in its ground state, with QGT representing each system as a maximum entropy configuration that conforms to the Holographic Principle. This allows key geometric parameters to be determined from the number of degrees of freedom available. QGT treats He as a He core plus a concentric neutron shell comprising a holomorphic pair of neutrons, and the He neutron halo is treated as a holomorphic pair of holomorphic pairs. Considering the information content of each system allows a correlation angle of 2 /3 between the holomorphic entities to be inferred, and then the charge radii of the three isotopes can be calculated from the displacement of the He core from the centre of mass. The calculations for the charge and matter radii of He agree closely with observed values. Similar QGT calculation of the sizes of the self-conjugate A=4n nuclei {He,Be,C,O,Ne,Mg,Si,S,Ar,Ca} also agree well with experiment.


Thyroid gland metastasis of malignant tumors is observed in 1.9% to 9.5% of histologically examined autopsy cases. Thyroid metastasis from colon cancer is extremely rare and the prognosis is poor. Here we report a case of lung metastasis and thyroid gland metastasis following sigmoid colon cancer surgery. In 2000, a 58-year-old woman underwenta sigmoid colectomy for sigmoid colon cancer. In 2005, a metastatic lung tumor was detected by chest CT. The patient underwent a partial thoracoscopic resection of the left lung in April 2005. On a CT scan taken 3 years and 4 months after the lung resection, a tumor mass was observed in the left lung and a low-absorption region with an unclear border was seen in the left lobe of the thyroid gland. Thyroid aspiration cytology showed adenocarcinoma, and a diagnosis of thyroid gland metastasis from sigmoid colon cancer was made. In April 2008 a subtotal thyroidectomy was performed. Following surgery, the patient underwent chemotherapy with mFOLFOX6 and bevacizumab. Nevertheless a number of lung metastases and expressions of lung metastasis were subsequently observed. Histopathological examination revealed a number of metastases of differentiated papillary adenocarcinoma in the thyroid gland from colon cancer.


It is shown that a strong but diffuse dielectric anomaly, commonly expected only in disordered ferroelectrics, may be inherent in strained and defect-free perovskite ferroelectric thin films. The origin of this unusual anomaly, which was never predicted for a defect-free system, is the overcritical trace of a critical point in the film phase diagram, This possibility is illustrated by the mean-field thermodynamic calculations performed for (111)-oriented PbTiO3 films epitaxially grown on dissimilar cubic substrates. It is shown that clear symmetry reasons exist for the unusual behavior of the system. The essential prediction of the theory is that the type of the dielectric anomaly can be tailored by the sign of the misfit strain imposed on the film in paraelectric state: compressive strain leads to a standard Curie-Weiss anomaly, whereas the tensile one results in a diffuse anomaly.


Some authors argue that the integration of stock options as well as restricted stocks into executive compensation may reduce the conflicts between shareholders and management but may at the same time give rise to other agency problems connected to debt. While this line of argument may hold some merit, the structure of executive compensation packages, has over the years, focused less on stock options and more on restricted stocks. A classic example of this trend is Microsoft, who in 2003, switched from using stock options to restricted stock.Compensating executives through restricted stocks has recently come under scrutiny due to the fact that some of these executives receive dividend equivalents on restricted stocks even before the vesting period. One recent example of a company that has received such criticism is CA. Inc. CA's executives received as much as $19,530 apiece on dividend equivalents from stock that they do not own. The relevant question that follows is whether executives are extracting additional compensation from shareholders using dividend equivalents or are dividend equivalents appropriate incentives to executives.This paper will examine the concept of restricted stocks as part of executive compensation and the motivation of companies in using this compensation policy to address the agency costs problem. I will also examine practical examples of CEO's who have received dividend equivalent payments on restricted stocks, variations of corporate treatment of dividend equivalent rights and the motivation of some companies who chose to defer payment on dividend equivalents until an executive earns the shares.This paper will further examine, whether there are agency cost benefits of dividend equivalent rights, which merit a strong case for its use. I conclude that there are a quite a number of significant agency cost benefits of dividend equivalent rights, one of which includes the fact that it helps executives focus on, and rewards them for managing the business to produce cash that is capable of being distributed to shareholders in the form of a dividend.I will also look at some of the criticisms that have been asserted by shareholder activist groups as to how dividend equivalent rights reduce firm value, increase agency costs, and fails to achieve the objectives of adopting restricted stocks as a performance enhancing compensation package. I will describe the criticisms with a view to determining the basis of the criticisms and I conclude that while the criticisms are well founded, calling for complete elimination of dividend equivalent rights is not an appropriate solution to the agency cost problem. Finally, I will put forward my recommendations for policy reforms.


This paper attempts to identify the major economic factors that influence the bilateral trade balance between Japan and the US. Differing from conventional elasticities approach, one more variable—the net foreign assets—is added in the Vector Autoregression estimation using quarterly data from 1980: I to 2006: IV. The Johansen and Juselius result indicates three long-run relationships among five macro variables: trade balance, domestic income, foreign income, net foreign assets and real exchange rate. Short run adjustment parameters are identified as coefficients of the error correction terms. The variance in trade balance due to variations in the two macro variables—the exchange rate and the net foreign assets—is examined by Impulse Response Functions and Variance Decomposition procedures. The main finding of this paper is that taking the valuation effect of the net foreign asset position into account, the final effect of the exchange rate changes on trade balance is undetermined. Although appreciation can reduce trade surplus in the short run, in a longer horizon, there is no stable relationship. The positive sign of the relation is not guaranteed in this case, and appreciation is not surely able to correct the trade imbalance between countries.


This paper mainly studied the influence on the carbon emission permits and trading on the production strategy for manufacturing enterprises. The enterprises might obtain carbon emission permits in three different ways, i.e. government quota, market trading and purification treatment. The enterprises must make a tradeoff between them. The characteristic of purifying cost was analyzed. Then, an optimal production model with carbon emission permits and trading was established. Finally, a typical numerical experiment was employed to show the influence of the parameters on optimal production decisions.


This is an Introduction to volume 68, issue 1 of the Rutgers University Law Review which published papers from a conference on the American Law Institute's Restatement of the Law of Liability Insurance held on February 27, 2015 at Rutgers Law School in Camden, New Jersey. Sponsored by the Rutgers Center for Risk and Responsibility and co-sponsored by the Institute for Professional Education, the conference engaged academics and practicing lawyers in a discussion of the issues raised by the Restatement.This Introduction first describes the articles in the symposium, the topics into which they fall, and the papers of other speakers who participated in the conference. Because only a few months prior to the conference the ALI Council had changed the project from a Principles project into a Restatement, many participants framed their analysis in light of the project's new status as a Restatement. Part II of the Introduction highlights this feature of the articles and discusses the nature of a Restatement and the ALI process that produces Restatements. The concept of "Restating" the law with a capital "R" has always been controversial, in concept and in application. This Introduction offers four propositions about Restatements, using the Restatement of the Law of Liability Insurance as an illustration: A. Restatements address easy cases and hard cases; B. Precedent matters for a Restatement; C. A Restatement is about weighing, not counting; D. A Restatement is a product of the ALI process.


Haematologica vol. 85(5):May 2000 Haematologica 2000; 85:502-507 original paper Malignant Lymphomas Background and Objectives. The first clinical studies of paclitaxel as a single agent for the treatment of relapsed or refractory low or intermediate grade non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL) yielded controversial results regarding the response rates observed, mainly related to the dose and schedule of administration used. To obtain additional data concerning the efficacy and toxicity of paclitaxel in intermediate and high grade NHL we initiated a phase II study using a 3-hour infusion of high doses of paclitaxel. Design and Methods. The eligibility criteria included patients with relapsed or refractory aggressive NHL, a performance status ≤ 2 (WHO index), a platelet count ≥ 100,000/μL, a neutrophil count ≥2,000/μL, measurable disease, and adequate hepatic function. Patients were excluded if they were infected with HIV, had a left ventricular ejection fraction < 50%, or prior peripheral neuropathy. Paclitaxel was administered as a 3-hour infusion at a dose of 250 mg/m2 every 3 weeks for a maximum of 6 courses. Results. Of 45 eligible patients, 42 received a total 73 courses of paclitaxel. Forty patients were assessable for response (89%), and 42 for toxicity (93%). Six patients (15%) achieved a partial (n = 4) or a complete remission (n = 2). Responses were observed in intermediate grade (n = 4) as well as in high grade lymphoma (n = 2). The main factor influencing the response to paclitaxel was the median duration of response to previous chemotherapy regimens which was 3 times longer in patients who responded to paclitaxel (16.3 months) than in patients who did not respond to paclitaxel (5.2 months) (p < 0.05). The most common serious side effects were related to the hematologic toxicity of paclitaxel, and included grade IV granulocytopenia in 20 cases (48%), grade III/IV thrombocytopenia in 14 cases (33%) and grade III-IV anemia in 13 cases


Background International research has focused on screening and mass media campaigns to promote earlier patient presentation and detect lung cancer earlier. This trial tested the effect of a behavioural intervention in people at increased risk of lung cancer on help-seeking for respiratory symptoms. Methods Parallel, individually randomised controlled trial. Eligible participants were long-term smokers with at least 20 pack-years, aged 55 and above. The CHEST intervention entailed a consultation to discuss and implement a self-help manual, followed by self-monitoring reminders to encourage help-seeking for respiratory symptoms. The control group received a brief discussion about lung health. Both groups had baseline spirometry. Telephone randomisation was conducted, 1:1, stratified Medical Research Council (MRC) dyspnoea score and general practice. Participants could not be blinded; data extraction and statistical analyses were performed blinded to group assignment. The primary outcome was respiratory consultation rates. Results We randomised 551 participants (274 intervention, 277 control) from whom the primary outcome was determined for 542 (269 intervention, 273 control). There was a 40% relative increase in respiratory consultations in the intervention group: (adjusted rates (95% CI) intervention 0.57 (0.47 to 0.70), control 0.41 (0.32 to 0.52), relative rate 1.40 (1.08 to 1.82); p=0.0123). There were no significant differences in time to first respiratory consultation, total consultation rates or measures of psychological harm. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was $A1289 per additional respiratory consultation. Conclusions A behavioural intervention can significantly increase consulting for respiratory symptoms in patients at increased risk of lung cancer. This intervention could have an important role in primary care as part of a broader approach to improve respiratory health in patients at higher risk. Trial registration number Australian New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry (1261300039 3752). This was registered pre-results.


Service-users' inclusion (SUI) in decision-making regarding services provided by public social services has numerous benefits for both users and providers. However, studies show a gap between the evolution of inclusive discourse and policy, and the implementation of SUI in social services' daily practice. Focusing on the organisational context, the present study is the first to empirically test the relationship between social workers' perception of the services' participative organisational culture (POC), their actual participation in organisational decision-making (SWAP) and their inclusive praxes with service-users (SUI). Data were collected between January and March of 2019 via an online survey of 317 Israeli social workers from 173 public departments of social services. Findings show that social workers who find the organisational culture at their workplace to be more participative, do in fact take a significantly greater part in decision-making at the organisational level, and include service-users more in decision-making throughout the intervention. Furthermore, SWAP mediates the connection between services' POC and SUI. Findings suggest that establishing a POC is not enough to increase users' inclusion, as social workers' active participation in decision-making is vital for their ability to include their marginalised users.


Drawing from the social and relational perspectives, this study offers an innovative conceptualization and operational approach regarding the validation of self-reported customer demographic data, which has become an essential corporate asset for harnessing business intelligence. Specifically, based on social network and homophily paradigms in which individuals have a natural tendency to associate and interact frequently with others with similar characteristics, we constructed a relational inference model to determine the accuracy of self-administered consumer profiles. In addition, to further enhance the reliability of our model's prediction capability, we employed the entropy mechanism that minimizes potential biases that may arise from a simple probabilistic approach. To empirically validate the accuracy of our inference framework, we obtained and analyzed over 20 million actual call transactions supplied by one of the largest global telecommunication service providers. The results suggest that our social network-based inference model consistently outperforms other competing mechanisms (e.g., weighted average and simple relational classifier) regardless of the criteria choice (e.g., number of call receivers, call duration, and call frequency), with an accuracy rate of approximately 93 percent. Finally, to confirm the generalizability of our findings, we conducted simulation experiments to validate the robustness of the results in response to variations in parameter values and increases in potential noise in the data. We discuss several implications related to business intelligence for both research and practice, and offer new directions for future studies.


In this paper, we have studied a new kind of terahertz (THZ) antenna: integrated MEMS pyramidal horn antennas. These antennas have interesting characteristics for THz applications: large bandwidth, low reflection coefficient and good directivity. The processing of this type of horn antenna is KOH etching of silicon. The structure of the antennas includes two parts, pyramidal horn and inverted pyramidal horn for feed, the fabrication of them need only one wafer. There are many tunable parameters of the horn, so that high performance THz antennas can be achieved by synthesizing these parameters. The proposed antennas can be composed by MEMS processing with low fabrication cost, which are suitable for many terahertz systems, such as in THz radar, communication and imaging system.


Satellite communication is facing the urgent need of improving data rate and efficiency to compete with the quality of service offered by terrestrial communication systems. An imminent gain, achievable without the need of upgrading current satellite technology, can be obtained by exploiting multicarrier operation at the transponder and using highly efficient modulation schemes. However, on-board multicarrier joint amplification of high order modulation schemes is a critical operation as it brings severe non-linear distortion effects. These distortions increase as the on-board High Power Amplifier (HPA) is operated to yield higher power efficiencies. In this work, we propose novel techniques to implement on ground predistortion that enable multicarrier transmission of highly efficient modulation schemes over satellite channels without impacting infrastructure on the downlink.


Three Posters plays with fiction and truth by offering a voyeuristic view of multiple takes of Jamal Sati's farewell video testimonial, recorded shortly before his suicide mission, and juxtaposing them with an actor's real-time testimonial. The videos consider the limits of truth and its representations, asking: Were the artists violating the sacred space of the martyr in order to critique the concept of martyrdom and the powers that nourish such ideologies?


Realtime observations of vertical/horizontal seafloor movements and sea surface height associated with a huge earthquake are crucial for immediate recognition of its causal fault rupture, so that tsunami early warning can be issued and also the risk of subsequent ruptures can be evaluated. For this purpose, we developed an offshore monitoring system using a moored buoy platform to measure, in realtime, the three observables mentioned above and operated it on a trial basis for a year. While operating the system, GPS-acoustic observation of horizontal movement on the buoy was especially a new challenge. To achieve realtime GPS-acoustic observation under conditions of the limited power supply and narrow bandwidth in satellite communication, we developed special hardware suitable for use on a buoy and software to minimize onboard computational procedures and data transmission. The system functioned properly through the year; 53 regular weekly measurements and 55 on-demand measurements at arbitrary timings. Each measurement consisted of 11 successive acoustic rangings. The buoy tended to drift far from the preferred position for GPS-acoustic measurement, i.e., the center of the seafloor transponder array, due to strong current. The accuracy of the GPS-acoustic positioning achieved ∼46 cm (2σ) even only with "a single ranging" when the buoy was inside the array, while it degraded to ∼1.0 m when the buoy was outside the array. Although the 1.0 m accuracy is a detectable level of possible displacement due to a M8-class earthquake in the source region, further improvement to keep the drifting range smaller despite the current will enhance the utilization of the system.


Oxidative stress was associated for a long time with cancer physiopathology and the physiopatology of other diseases. The reactive species generated in excess increase genomic instability that causes damage to DNA and other cellular constituents and can cause mutations. The natural defense system of the organism against oxidative stress is composed by antioxidants that help restore the balance. Thiols, especially albumin, which is the main plasma low molecular antioxidant, are very important. Here, in this paper, we describe the antioxidant properties of albumin and the stages of redox reaction in which it is involved. We also evaluate its potential as a biomarker of oxidative stress mainly in cancer and in other oxidative stress related diseases.


Bullying, as defined by Wikipedia, "is the act of intentionally causing harm to others, through verbal harassment, physical assault, or other more subtle methods of coercion such as manipulation [...] Bullying is usually done to coerce others by fear or threat" (http://en.wikipedia.org/, accessed 1 august 2008). of course, as adults we tend to think of bullying as a school-age problem and seldom talk about it or how it affects our lives. yet, although i might be in the minority, i think that bullying is a pervasive problem in academic research and that scientists seem to accept it without further comment or disapproval as though it were a normal part of life. phD students, as the most junior and vulnerable members of a research group, who lack the support of success and experience to carry them through difficult periods, are most prone to become the victims of bullies. Some older colleagues might simply be scathing or insulting when commenting on an imperfect experiment; others just remain silent to cow the newcomer into submission. Some are downright nasty, but that is unusual; peer bullying is more subtle. But this subtlety is what makes bullying in this manner so insidious: it can be dismissed by senior scientists as 'professional criticism' or 'character building'; it is not. Bullying also extends to defending dishonesty when claiming credit for the results that a junior group member has generated— after the supposed mentor had ignored the experiments while they were not working. in this case, phD students are elbowed out of the way—figuratively speaking—and labelled as trouble makers if they complain that they are not receiving due credit. the bully gets a higher position on a publication than was warranted and the pre-docs have to labour even harder to move their careers forward. Sometimes, a senior laboratory member might even steal a project from a junior member if it seems sufficiently advanced and promising for publication. of course, the line between a competitive atmosphere and one where actual bullying is tolerated is a fine one. it is often the case that the bully's motives—the need to advance their own career—fall on the sympathetic ears of the laboratory head. there is a sense that 'everyone goes through this' and browbeating junior members is part of their training. research science is certainly a competitive 'sport', which might explain why many successful scientists have 'strong' characters. But too much competition easily leads to a situation in which everyone suffers and the pressure stifles, rather than encourages, excellence. this pressure is most prominent after an invitation to give an important plenary lecture: it creates an opportunity to excel and make one's mark on the community, but comes with large amounts of stress. in such a circumstance, the pressure on those doing the experiments increases exponentially. Some laboratory heads become outright aggressive with their team, which gives rise to a cascade of bullying as unreasonable demands are made or implied: drop other activities, work non-stop, 'borrow' reagents from others—all is fair in love, war and science, it seems. Similarly, fears that a competitor is going to publish something that will scoop ongoing work can also turn the laboratory into a hostile environment where anger, implications of inadequacy and internal competition run rampant. it also presents an opportunity to deceitfully commandeer or swap projects on the grounds of greater efficiency if a senior team member claims that he or she can complete the work faster. group leaders who create or encourage such an exploitative environment also tend to bully editors or reviewers when their grant application or paper is rejected. i have many years of experience both with the selection processes for grants and fellowships, and with the editorial procedures at scientific journals and, from what i have seen and read, the reaction of some scientists when their grant application or submission is rejected can be downright disgraceful. if they know that they are dealing with more junior people, they will emphasize that they are the expert and that the decision should not rest with 'some ignorant editor' who is not a 'real scientist' anyway. they will ridicule the referees who critically analysed their work; they will persist, bully and coerce until they get beyond the initial rejection. conversely, when such bullies make their case to a more senior colleague, they change their tactic from being offensive to chummy collegiality. no matter the tactics, this bullying is unfair and to the detriment of scientists who still have to establish their reputation, and to the vast majority of colleagues who gracefully accept the comments of an editor or reviewer. i might be exaggerating the extent and seriousness of bullying in academic science, but its existence is undeniable. Science certainly needs a degree of competition and is genuinely driven by the incentive to be the first to discover; we are a competitive species after all. nonetheless, we should consider the damage we inflict on one another and on research itself if we tolerate bullying. academic science needs all types of characters; not only the dominant and aggressive ones, but also the pensive and quiet workers. More importantly, scientific research flourishes best in an environment characterized by mutual respect, tolerance and support, and where bullying has no place.


Robot-assisted partial nephrectomy (RAPN) was introduced in our hospital for treating small renal cell carcinoma in May 2018; we examined treatment outcomes in 24 patients (25 kidneys) who had undergone this procedure till 2019. The median observation period was 11 months (range, 1-17 months). The patients' age range was 43-77 years (median, 68 years). Fourteen men and 10 women underwent the procedure. Their BMI was 17.9-39.7 (median, 24.1) kg/m. In one patient, RAPN was performed twice at different times for treating bilateral renal cancer. The right kidney was affected in 12 cases and the left kidney in 13 cases. The clinical cancer stage was T1a in 20 cases and T1b in 5 cases. Tumor sizes were 0.9-6.2 cm (median, 2.5 cm), and RENAL nephrometry scores were 4-10 (median, 7). The transperitoneal approach was used in 22 cases, and the retroperitoneal approach in 3. The operating durations were 147358 min (median, 225 min), console durations were 59-394 min (median, 152 min), and renal ischemia durations were 8-54 min (median, 21 min). Blood loss was 10-700 ml (median 10 ml), and none of the patients underwent blood transfusion. The histopathological analysis of the resected tumors revealed clear cell renal cell carcinoma in 20 cases, chromophobe renal cell carcinoma in 2 cases, and papillary renal cell carcinoma, angiomyolipoma, and leiomyoma in 1 case each. All margins were negative. The postoperative hospital stay lengths were 5-14 days (median, 9 days). The postoperative deterioration in renal function was mild, and there were no severe complications. In the early stages after its introduction, RAPN was safely performed and allowed for the preservation of renal function. We plan to continue studying more cases going forward. doi:10.11482/KMJ-E202046027 (Accepted on March 4, 2020)


The microstructural inspection of engine cylinder walls is an important task for quality management in the automotive industry. Until recently, mainly tactile methods were used for this purpose. We present an optical instrument based on microscopic fringe projection that permits fast, reliable, and nondestructive measurements of microstructure. The field of view is 0.8 mm x 1.2 mm, with a spatial sampling of 1100 x 700 pixels. In contrast to conventional tactile sensors, the optical method provides fast in situ three-dimensional surface characterizations that provide more information about the surface than do line profiles. Measurements are presented, and advantages of this instrument for characterization of a surface are discussed.


Interviewer Effects from a Total Survey Error Perspective presents a comprehensive collection of state-of-the-art research on interviewer-administered survey data collection. Interviewers play an essential role in the collection of the high-quality survey data used to learn about our society and improve the human condition. Although many surveys are conducted using self-administered modes, interviewer-administered modes continue to be optimal for surveys that require high levels of participation, include difficult-to-survey populations, and collect biophysical data. Survey interviewing is complex, multifaceted, and challenging. Interviewers are responsible for locating sampled units, contacting sampled individuals and convincing them to cooperate, asking questions on a variety of topics, collecting other kinds of data, and providing data about respondents and the interview environment. Careful attention to the methodology that underlies survey interviewing is essential for interviewer-administered data collections to succeed. In 2019, survey methodologists, survey practitioners, and survey operations specialists participated in an international workshop at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to identify best practices for surveys employing interviewers and outline an agenda for future methodological research. This book features 23 chapters on survey interviewing by these worldwide leaders in the theory and practice of survey interviewing. Chapters include: The legacy of Dr. Charles F. Cannell's groundbreaking research on training survey interviewers and the theory of survey interviewing Best practices for training survey interviewers Interviewer management and monitoring during data collection The complex effects of interviewers on survey nonresponse Collecting survey measures and survey paradata in different modes Designing studies to estimate and evaluate interviewer effects Best practices for analyzing interviewer effects Key gaps in the research literature, including an agenda for future methodological research Written for managers of survey interviewers, survey methodologists, and students interested in the survey data collection process, this unique reference uses the Total Survey Error framework to examine optimal approaches to survey interviewing, presenting state-of-the-art methodological research on all stages of the survey process involving interviewers. Acknowledging the important history of survey interviewing while looking to the future, this one-of-a-kind reference provides researchers and practitioners with a roadmap for maximizing data quality in interviewer-administered surveys.


Objectives Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal disease characterised by combined upper and lower motor neuron degeneration. An early and accurate diagnosis is important for patient care and might facilitate the search for a more effective therapy. MRI was used to study the whole cortical mantle, applying an unbiased surface based approach to identify a marker of upper motor neuron involvement in ALS. Methods Surface based cortical morphology analyses were performed on structural, 3T MRI data of 45 patients with ALS and 25 matched healthy controls in a case control study design. These analyses consisted of measuring cortical thickness, surface area and volume. The effects of disease progression were examined by correlating cortical measures with progression rate and by longitudinal measures in 20 patients. Results Cortical morphology analyses revealed specific thinning in the precentral gyrus, considered the primary motor cortex, in patients with ALS compared with controls (p=6.3×10−8). Surface area was reduced in the right inferior parietal region (p=0.049) and volume—the product of cortical thickness and surface area—was reduced in the right precentral gyrus (p=0.031). From these findings, it appears that cortical thickness is superior in detecting the degenerative effects of ALS. Relative cortical thinning in temporal regions was related to faster clinical progression (right inferior temporal gyrus: p=3.3×10−4). Conclusions Cortical thinning of the primary motor cortex might be a diagnostic marker for upper motor neuron degeneration in ALS. Relative thinning in temporal regions was associated with a rapidly progressive disease course.


In vitro maturation (IVM) of goat oocytes with serum‐supplemented media results in oocytes with reduced developmental potential. The objective of this study was to develop a defined medium for IVM of goat oocytes that better supports subsequent embryonic development. Cumulus oocyte complexes (COC) were matured for 18–20 hr in: Experiment (1), tissue culture medium 199 (TCM199) with 10% (v/v) goat serum or modified synthetic oviduct fluid maturation medium (mSOFmat) with 2.5, 8.0, or 20.0 mg/ml bovine serum albumin (BSA); Experiment (2), mSOFmat with 4.0, 8.0, 12.0, or 16.0 mg/ml BSA; or Experiment (3), 1.0 mg/ml polyvinyl alcohol (PVA; control), 4.0 mg/ml BSA, 0.5 mg/ml hyaluronate plus 0.5 mM citrate, or hyaluronate, citrate, and BSA. Mature COC were coincubated for 20–22 hr with 12–15 × 106 sperm/ml in modified Brackett and Oliphant (mBO) medium. Embryos were cultured for a total of 7 days in G1/2, and evaluated for cleavage, and blastocyst development, hatching, and total cell numbers. In the first experiment, more (P < 0.05) blastocysts developed per cleaved embryo following maturation in mSOFmat with 2.5 or 8.0 mg/ml BSA than with 20.0 mg/ml BSA or TCM199 with 10% goat serum. The various concentrations of BSA used in the second experiment did not affect (P > 0.05) any of the developmental endpoints examined. In the third experiment, developmental potential of oocytes matured with PVA or hyaluronate with citrate was not different (P > 0.05) from oocytes matured in the presence of BSA. These results demonstrate that developmentally competent goat oocytes can be matured under defined conditions. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 69: 338–346, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The performance of DASH has been evaluated against powder X-ray diffraction data collected
from 101 molecular crystal structures, representing the most comprehensive testing of a
"structure determination from powder diffraction data" (SDPD) program carried out to date.
These 101 structures cover a broad range of molecular complexities, from very simple (6
degrees of freedom) to very challenging (49 degrees of freedom). 95 of the crystal structures
could be solved with the current version of DASH, going some way to explaining why the
parameterisation of its simulated annealing (SA) algorithm has not been altered since the
launch of the program in 1999.
This thesis explores optimisation of key DASH SA parameters using the program irace. The
irace runs, comprising 255,000 individual DASH runs and requiring approximately 1300 CPU
days of compute time, produced six sets of SA parameters which differed greatly from the
DASH default parameters and which markedly improved the performance of DASH. Further
evaluation of these six sets against all 101 compounds (a further 2874 of days of CPU time),
allowed selection of one best-performing set, which delivered an order of magnitude
improvement in the success rate with which crystal structures were solved. The adoption of
these parameter values as the defaults in future releases of DASH is strongly recommended
and is expected to broaden the range of molecular complexities to which the program can be
applied.
Three distinct approaches to further improving DASH performance, based on introducing prior
conformational knowledge derived from the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), have also
been assesed. The findings show that inclusion of conformational knowledge brings significant
additional gains in SDPD performance, and that existing implementations of these approaches
in the DASH / CSD System are close to being ready for routine use.


We address the dynamics of a single spin embedded in the tunneling barrier between two superconductors. As a consequence of pair correlations in the superconducting state, the spin displays a rich and unusual dynamics. To properly describe the time evolution of the spin we find the generalized Wess-Zumino-Witten-Novikov term in the effective action for the spin on the Keldysh contour. The superconducting correlations lead to an effective spin action which is non-local in time leading to unconventional precessions. Our predictions might be directly tested for macroscopic spin clusters.


OBJECTIVE
We propose a new health informatics framework to analyze physical activity (PA) from accelerometer devices. Accelerometry data enables scientists to extract personal digital features useful for precision health decision making. Existing methods in accelerometry data analysis typically begin with discretizing summary counts by certain fixed cutoffs into activity categories. One well-known limitation is that the chosen cutoffs are often validated under restricted settings, and cannot be generalizable across populations, devices, or studies.

METHODS
We develop a data-driven approach to overcome this bottleneck in PA data analysis, in which we holistically summarize a subject's activity profile using Occupation-Time curves (OTCs), which describe the percentage of time spent at or above a continuum of activity count levels. We develop multi-step adaptive learning algorithms to perform supervised learning via a scalar-on-function model that involves OTC as the functional predictor of interest as well as other scalar covariates. Our learning analytic first incorporates a hybrid approach of fused lasso for clustering and Hidden Markov Model for changepoint detection, then executes refinement procedures to determine activity windows of interest.

RESULTS
We evaluate and illustrate the performance of the proposed learning analytic through simulation experiments and real-world data analyses to assess the influence of PA on biological aging. Our findings indicate a different directional relationship between biological age and PA depending on the specific outcome of interest.

SIGNIFICANCE
Our bioinformatics methodology involves the biomedical outcome of interest to detect different critical points, and is thus adaptive to the specific data, study population, and health outcome under investigation.


Abstract. A case study is presented that concerns the footprints of the low-latitude boundary layer in the high-latitude ionosphere. The measurements were made near local magnetic noon in summertime under conditions of B z >0 and small clock angle. Of particular interest are particle fluxes measured in the region by the NOAA-12 satellite that revealed energetic (>30 keV) electrons, characteristic of trapped particles, together with a population of softer precipitating magnetosheath particles. The particle energy-distribution was distinct from those identifying the central plasma sheet at lower latitudes. On its poleward side the layer extended to at least the latitude of the polar cap boundary as identified in ion flows and electron densities measured by the EISCAT Svalbard radar. It is proposed that the particles of the low-latitude boundary layer occurred on newly-closed magnetic field lines, which were formed by the closure of open polar cap field by lobe reconnection in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres.


The French Establishments in Oceania are an interesting empirical case to understand the French State's action in its overseas possessions. Under the terms of a very singular legal system which made half of the natives French citizens while the others remained "native subjects", this remote possession falls outside the traditional divide between citizens and subjects. While the effectivity of political rights has already been partially analyzed, another important vehicle of citizenship has not been studied, namely, education. Whereas the interests of the "civilizing mission", and in particular the linguistic requirement of francization, ordered the extension of compulsory education in Tahiti, it was not implemented locally before 1897, after two decades of debates that shed a new light on a fundamental imperial tension between the need to consider as "equal" those who were, and should to a certain extent remain, "different". This article aims to review this tension in the light of the resistance to the Metropolitan law, both on the part of the colonizers and of the colonized, by showing on the one hand how the racialist logic, officially ineffective in this case, kept resurfacing in public and official writings, and on the other hand, how the Polynesians' hidden transcript, challenged, in practice, the enforcement of the law.


Mutualisms, or interactions between species that lead to net fitness benefits for each species involved, are stable and ubiquitous in nature mostly due to "byproduct benefits" stemming from the intrinsic traits of one partner that generate an indirect and positive outcome for the other. Here we verify if myrmecotrophy (where plants obtain nutrients from the refuse of their associated ants) can explain the stability of the tripartite association between the myrmecophyte Hirtella physophora, the ant Allomerus decemarticulatus and an Ascomycota fungus. The plant shelters and provides the ants with extrafloral nectar. The ants protect the plant from herbivores and integrate the fungus into the construction of a trap that they use to capture prey; they also provide the fungus and their host plant with nutrients. During a 9-month field study, we over-provisioned experimental ant colonies with insects, enhancing colony fitness (i.e., more winged females were produced). The rate of partial castration of the host plant, previously demonstrated, was not influenced by the experiment. Experimental plants showed higher δ15N values (confirming myrmecotrophy), plus enhanced vegetative growth (e.g., more leaves produced increased the possibility of lodging ants in leaf pouches) and fitness (i.e., more fruits produced and more flowers that matured into fruit). This study highlights the importance of myrmecotrophy on host plant fitness and the stability of ant-myrmecophyte mutualisms.


Recently, metal oxide gas sensors by nanostructures have stirred interest and have found their way in many applications due to their high sensitivity, material design compliance and high safety properties. Gas performance tests of n-type ZnO, Al-doped ZnO and ZnO/MWCNT structures toward different type gases from our previous studies have been reported. It is indicated that nanoparticle formations on the film surfaces, grain sizes, gas types and operating temperatures have a severe effect on the chemisorption/physisorption process. Low concentration detection, determination of grain size limit values and reducing operating temperature to room temperature are already obstacles on long-life sensitivity and long-term stability characters. Doping is an effective way to increase gas sensitivity with atomic surface arrangement and active gas adsorption sites, which are generated by doping atoms. However, C-based material/MO nanostructures are preferred than doped MO films with their working even at room temperature. Up to now, a lot of methods to improve the gas sensitivity has been proposed. With the help of the development of surface modification methods such as different types of doping and MO-C composite, sensitivity, which is the most important parameter of sensor performance, can also be stable as well as increasing later on.


Theoretical study by using DFT method on four compo unds based on Ethyl 2-methyl-3-carboxylate-4-phenyl -4H-5- cyano-6-amino-pyran is reported in this paper; one adding the Cl, CH 3 and NO 2 substituent for one of the most electronegative positions of the phenyl ring. The a im is to investigate their effects on the electroni c structure and the optoelectronics properties. The time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT/CAM-B3LYP /6-31G(d,p)) level has been used for predict the excitations properties. The theoretical knowledge of the HOMO and LUMO energy levels of th e components is cannot be ignored in investigating su itable materials for organic solar cells; so the HO MO, LUMO, the gap energy, the V oc (open circuit voltage) and λ max of absorption and other quantum parameters of the studied compound have been calculated and reported. These p roperties suggest these materials as good candidate s for organic solar cells.


PURPOSE
Statin potentially improved outcome in patients with COVID-19. Patients who receive statin generally have a higher proportion of comorbidities than those who did not, which may introduce bias. In this meta-analysis, we aimed to investigate the association between statin use and mortality in patients with COVID-19 by pooling the adjusted effect estimates from propensity-score matching (PSM) matched studies or randomised controlled trials to reduce bias.

METHODS
A systematic literature search using the PubMed, Scopus and Embase databases were performed up until 1 March 2021. Studies that were designed the study to assess statin and mortality using PSM with the addition of Inverse Probability Treatment Weighting or multivariable regression analysis on top of PSM-matched cohorts were included. The effect estimate was reported in term of relative risk (RR).

RESULTS
14 446 patients were included in the eight PSM-matched studies. Statin was associated with decreased mortality in patients with COVID-19 (RR 0.72 (0.55, 0.95), p=0.018; I2: 84.3%, p<0.001). Subgroup analysis in patients receiving statin in-hospital showed that it was associated with lower mortality (RR 0.71 (0.54, 0.94), p=0.030; I2: 64.1%, p<0.025). The association of statin and mortality was not significantly affected by age (coefficient: -0.04, p=0.382), male gender (RR 0.96 (0.95, 1.02), p=0.456), diabetes (RR 1.02 (0.99, 1.04), p=0.271) and hypertension (RR 1.01 (0.97, 1.04), p=0.732) in this pooled analysis.

CONCLUSION
In this meta-analysis of PSM-matched cohorts with adjusted analysis, statin was shown to decrease the risk of mortality in patients with COVID-19.

PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER
CRD42021240137.