Given a matrix $M$ (not necessarily nonnegative) and a factorization rank $r$, semi-nonnegative matrix factorization (semi-NMF) looks for a matrix $U$ with $r$ columns and a nonnegative matrix $V$ with $r$ rows such that $UV$ is the best possible approximation of $M$ according to some metric. In this paper, we study the properties of semi-NMF from which we develop exact and heuristic algorithms. Our contribution is threefold. First, we prove that the error of a semi-NMF of rank $r$ has to be smaller than the best unconstrained approximation of rank $r-1$. This leads us to a new initialization procedure based on the singular value decomposition (SVD) with a guarantee on the quality of the approximation. Second, we propose an exact algorithm (that is, an algorithm that finds an optimal solution), also based on the SVD, for a certain class of matrices (including nonnegative irreducible matrices) from which we derive an initialization for matrices not belonging to that class. Numerical experiments illustrate that this second approach performs extremely well, and allows us to compute optimal semi-NMF decompositions in many situations. Finally, we analyze the computational complexity of semi-NMF proving its NP-hardness, already in the rank-one case (that is, for $r = 1$), and we show that semi-NMF is sometimes ill-posed (that is, an optimal solution does not exist).


Are you teaching freshman level students? Is this one of the first college level courses your students have ever taken? Probably. That is why this English Handbook is different (and we think better). Miles McCrimmon's, The Flat World Knowledge Handbook for Writers is based on the understanding that writing is at the center of the college experience, not just something students do on their way to "higher-level" coursework. The Flat World Knowledge Handbook for Writers supports the goal of acculturating entering students to the demands of college-level thinking and writing, whether that goal is being met through coursework in Composition, Student Development, or some combination of the two. Miles shows students how to use writing as a portal for thinking and learning and for communicating with the world. Its writing prompts and exercises encourage students to do a great deal of low-stakes, exploratory writing, but also to experience gradually the rhetorical considerations of going public in a variety of genres and media. Through it all, students are asked to reflect on their writing, exploring precisely how it functions depending on the rhetorical considerations of their voice, audience and purpose. The Flat World Knowledge Handbook for Writers is both a guide to college-level writing and thinking and a comprehensive college-level writing handbook. In Part 1, students will identify and develop habits of mind they can use for success in college and life, and in Parts 2-4 and the Appendices, they will find the tools they need to become better and more polished writers. Dig in deeper to the organization to see what we mean: The driving energy of Part 1 ("Composing Habits of Mind") is the reciprocal relationship between thinking and writing. Students will use low-stakes, personal writing to identify, develop, and activate the habits of mind they need for college-level thinking, then learn how to apply those habits to their high-stakes, public writing. The first three chapters each focus on a different cluster of four related "habits of mind", while Chapter 4 focuses on the rhetorical demands of demonstrating those habits in the presence of others. Chapter 1 ("Writing to Think and Writing to Learn") activates the following habits of mind: examining the status quo; posing productive questions; slowing down your thinking; and withholding judgment. Students are exposed to a variety of ways to use low-stakes writing as a gateway to deeper thinking, not so much as a stepping stone toward producing more audience-centered texts, but more as a preliminary, meditative strategy to generate further questions. Habits of mind activated: Chapter 2 ("Becoming a Reflective Practitioner") activates the following habits of mind: developing a "meta" sense; attending to your own role in observation; reading texts carefully and critically; and nurturing curiosity, wonder, and humor. Students cultivate the "meta" sense as a crucial habit they must acquire and develop in order to succeed as college-level writers, readers, and thinkers. They are also exposed to a variety of methods they can use to reflect productively about themselves, as well as about the texts they encounter and produce. Chapter 3 ("Thinking through the Disciplines") activates the following habits of mind: seeing and making connections; sustaining two ideas simultaneously; articulating multiple sides of an issue; and finding your place and purpose in the world. Students come to understand that the disciplines they encounter in college, just as the occupations they will someday assume, are socially constructed and negotiated. These disciplines have developed distinct conventions for writing, speaking, and making meaning that are under constant interrogation and revision. Chapter 4 ("Joining the Conversation") introduces students to what's involved when low-stakes writing of the type produced in the first three chapters goes public and finds a medium and genre. Systematically, students will explore the rhetorical stakes of writing for an instructor, small peer groups, larger units like an entire class, and still broader audiences outside the confines of the academic setting. The rest of Miles' handbook has the look and feel of a comprehensive handbook, but with a few crucial differences. Parts 2-4 and Appendix A and B are consistently infused with the principles and habits of mind introduced in Part 1, with exercises designed to reinforce becoming a reflective practitioner, writing to think and learn, thinking through the disciplines, and joining the conversation. The handbook portion also maintains the personable voice of a writing guide established in Part 1, rather than taking on the dry, pedantic tone of a manual. Textboxes, graphics, web links to text, audio and video files, and samples of student work further enliven the handbook portion. Frequent cross-indexing and internal linking between Part 1 and the rest of the book strengthens The Flat World Knowledge Handbook for Writers dual function as a both a writing guide and a comprehensive handbook. We've rambled on enough about this handbook, it's time for you to take a look. Check out the table of contents in the tab above, or request a desk copy and peruse The Flat World Knowledge Handbook for Writers at your leisure.


The study of dynamics and performance of flying discs is motivated by how variations in their design features influence the aerodynamic characteristics and flight performance, particularly range. Reviews in the literature focus on the development of fundamental research in flying discs and on the performance of sports projectiles. Theoretical background on disc dynamics, range and sensitivity are given. This work investigates disc aerodynamics by performing wind tunnel experiments to measure aerodynamic loads on a set of generic parametric discs and a set of commercial golf discs. The parametric discs isolate various geometrical features such as thicknesses, cavities, leading edge curvatures and cambers to study the influence of these parameters on aerodynamic characteristics. The commercial golf discs consist of three different categories known as putter, mid-range and driver: these discs are used for short, medium and long flight range, respectively. To study the performance, aerodynamic data of the golf discs are used as inputs in numerical simulations to predict their flight trajectories and range. Effects of launch attitude on range are assessed to study the optimal initial launch conditions to achieve maximum range. Further, the simulation provides a direct approach to analyse range sensitivity on launch parameters.Results from the experiments show a number of significant findings on disc geometry. First, a cavity is fundamentally important for a disc to have satisfactory flying qualities: the presence of the cavity produces a significant aft shift in the aerodynamic position to minimize the pitching moment about the centre of the disc. Hence, the disc will have a minimal tendency to roll about the flight axis. Second, the thickness of a disc has a significant effect on its profile drag: increasing the thickness increases the profile drag. Third, a disc with a positive camber produces a relatively higher lift-to-drag ratio (CL/CD) compared to one with no camber. Fourth, the effect of tapering a flat leading or trailing edge of a disc leads to a reduction in its lift (within the angles of attack tested in the study) with a significant reduction in its drag. Fifth, it is shown that peak lift-to-drag ratio of a free flying disc is not necessarily a good indicator of performance because the angle of attack (and hence, lift-to-drag ratio) varies widely through a typical flight. Furthermore, a disc with a significant pitching moment will roll significantly about the flight path direction, further reducing the achievable range for a given lift or drag characteristic. Finally, a novel method to quantify disc sensitivity with respect to changes in launch conditions has been developed. The simulations show that the range sensitivity of each disc with respect to launch pitch angle varies significantly, with discs design for long range being much more sensitive (and therefore harder to throw accurately) than discs designed for short range.


Allopregnanolone (ALLO) and tetrahydrodeoxycorticosterone (THDOC) are potent positive allosteric modulators of GABA action at GABAA receptors. ALLO and THDOC are synthesized in the brain from progesterone or deoxycorticosterone, respectively, by the sequential action of two enzymes: 5α-reductase (5α-R) type I and 3α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3α-HSD). This study evaluates 5α-R type I and 3α-HSD mRNA expression level in mouse brain by using in situ hybridization combined with glutamic acid decarboxylase 67/65, vesicular glutamate transporter 2, glial fibrillary acidic protein, and S100β immunohistochemistry. We demonstrate that 5α-R type I and 3α-HSD colocalize in cortical, hippocampal, and olfactory bulb glutamatergic principal neurons and in some output neurons of the amygdala and thalamus. Neither 5α-R type I nor 3α-HSD mRNAs are expressed in S100β- or glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive glial cells. Using glutamic acid decarboxylase 67/65 antibodies to mark GABAergic neurons, we failed to detect 5α-R type I and 3α-HSD in cortical and hippocampal GABAergic interneurons. However, 5α-R type I and 3α-HSD are significantly expressed in principal GABAergic output neurons, such as striatal medium spiny, reticular thalamic nucleus, and cerebellar Purkinje neurons. A similar distribution and cellular location of neurosteroidogenic enzymes was observed in rat brain. Taken together, these data suggest that ALLO and THDOC, which can be synthesized in principal output neurons, modulate GABA action at GABAA receptors, either with an autocrine or a paracrine mechanism or by reaching GABAA receptor intracellular sites through lateral membrane diffusion.


Th is article focuses on the security architecture of the Persian Gulf. Since the British left the Persian Gulf in 1971, maintaining the security of this strategic body of water has been a major concern for the governments of the region and for those who depend on energy supply from this region. Four decades later, after a revolution, three major wars, and regime changes in the region, defining a security system for the Persian Gulf remains a significant challenge. This article reviews the past security arrangements in the Persian Gulf and proposes a new framework for Persian Gulf security. Study of previous and current security patterns in the region reveal that the existing security frameworks have failed to ensure stability and led to massive direct military confrontations in the Persian Gulf. The authors argue that the failed strategies and theories of balance of power and arms race would intensify the atmosphere of mistrust and animosity in the region. They suggest that any meaningful security arrangement should involve all major regional actors the Persian Gulf. They conclude that common security can only be achieved through comprehensive security architecture in the region. Although they insist that achieving this objective needs confidence-building measures to be considered by regional actors.


Finding an elementary form for an antiderivative is often a difficult task, so numerical integration has become a common tool when it comes to making sense of a definite integral. Some of the numerical integration methods can even be made rigorous: not only do they compute an approximation of the integral value but they also bound its inaccuracy. Yet numerical integration is still missing from the toolbox when performing formal proofs in analysis. This paper presents an efficient method for automatically computing and proving bounds on some definite integrals inside the Coq formal system. Our approach is not based on traditional quadrature methods such as Newton-Cotes formulas. Instead, it relies on computing and evaluating antiderivatives of rigorous polynomial approximations, combined with an adaptive domain splitting. Our approach also handles improper integrals, provided that a factor of the integrand belongs to a catalog of identified integrable functions. This work has been integrated to the CoqInterval library.


The Main objective of this presentation was to evaluate the impact of clinical pharmacists on important issues related to the use of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in patients with active tuberculosis disease. Treatment for HIV and tuberculosis leads to polypharmacy. This fact might be a challenge for the physician, but also for the pharmacist.


We study the response of banks to the introduction of a new capital requirement relating to operational risk. To isolate the effect of this new regulation on realized operational risk losses, we take advantage of the partial US implementation relative to full European adoption. Operational risk losses are reduced in treated banks. The extent of loss reduction depends upon the measurement approach used to calibrate operational risk capital requirements. Banks with low institutional ownership and those without binding regulatory capital constraints also present significant loss reduction. We link these findings to incentives for improved risk management and governance post treatment.


Contextual information consists of functional, social, and financial information about patients. Physicians routinely have difficulty incorporating contextual information into clinical decision-making despite the emphasis on patient-centered care and functional status. One reason for this difficulty is that such information is not well-represented in the patient medical record. This study assesses the impact of a "story-form" model versus a "medical" model on a practitioner's ability to recall and incorporate contextual information. We assessed this question through the analysis of responses of 30 clinicians to 2 vignettes presenting contextual information in both formats. Overall, there was a statistically significant difference between the narrative and numerical form with those receiving the narrative form for contextual information being more likely to consider it a top issue. Reference to goals in the report of key clinical factors was also significantly higher for the group receiving goal information. Implications for sharing contextual information in EMRs are discussed.


PURPOSE
To investigate the effects of preventive enteral administration of ornithine alpha-ketoglutarate (OKG) in an ischemia-reperfusion rat model.

METHODS
Sixty rats were randomized into five groups (G1-G5, n = 12). Each group was divided into two subgroups (n = 6) and treated with calcium carbonate (CaCa) or OKG by gavage. Thirty minutes later, the animals were anesthetized with xylazine 15mg + ketamine 1mg ip and subjected to laparotomy. G1-G3 rats served as controls. Rats in groups G4 and G5 were subjected to ischemia for 30 minutes. Ischemia was achieved by clamping the small intestine and its mesentery, delimiting a segment of bowel 5 cm long and 5 cm apart from the ileocecal valve. In addition, G5 rats underwent reperfusion for 30 minutes. Blood samples were collected at the end of the laparotomy (G1), after 30 minutes (G2, G4) and 60 minutes (G3, G5) to determine concentrations of metabolites (pyruvate, lactate), creatine phosphokinase (CPK), thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and glutathione (GSH).

RESULTS
There was a significant decrease in tissue pyruvate and lactate and plasma CPK levels in OKG-treated rats at the end of reperfusion period. GSH levels did not change significantly in ischemia and reperfusion groups. However, TBARS levels increased significantly (p<0.05) in tissue samples in OKG-treated rats subjected to ischemia for 30 minutes.

CONCLUSION
Short-term pretreatment with OKG before induction of I/R decreases tissue damage, increases pyruvate utilization for energy production in the Krebs cycle and does not attenuate the oxidative stress in this animal model.


Background The National Cancer Registry of Ireland states that "One in three people in Ireland will develop cancer during their lifetime". Cancer accounts for more than one-quarter of the annual death toll in Ireland. It is the second most common cause of death in Ireland. Mortality estimates of cancer are not solely sufficient to understand the true magnitude and trends in cancer. Therefore, morbidity-related factors along with the mortality estimates are crucial. Methods Data was abstracted from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (United States) website (www.healthdata.org) on all the cancers and five risk factors (smoking, alcohol consumption, low physical activity, high Body Mass Index (BMI) and dietary risks). The following metrics were computed: Years-of-Life-Lost due to premature mortality (YLLs) – a product of total deaths at each age and the reference life expectancy at that age; Years-Lived-with-Disability (YLDs) – a product of prevalence and disability weight; Disability-Adjusted Life-Years (DALYs)-the sum of YLDs and YLLs, Health Adjusted Life Expectancy (HALE) – a summary measure of overall population health. These estimates were based on total disease conditions and risk factors, thus analysed on the GBD study. Results The cancers with the largest DALYs in 1990 were: Lung cancer (males) −4.08% and breast cancer (females) −3.7%. In 2013 the cancers with the Largest DALYs were lung cancer 4.07% (males) and breast cancer (females) −3.6%. The percentage contribution of the risk factors to the total DALYs from cancer in 1990 and 2013 were smoking (10.8% vs 11.4%), alcohol consumption (3.6% vs 4.3%), dietary risks (9.9% vs 10.4%), low physical activity (2.1% vs 2.4%), high BMI (4.8% vs 5.9%). The DALYs per 100,000 for the highest ranking cancers in 1990 were lung (884.8), colorectal (553.3), breast (472.8), and stomach (269.3). The DALYs per 100,000 for the highest ranking cancers in 2013 were lung (777.1), colorectal (442.1), breast cancer (395.5), and stomach cancer (152.8) in 2013. Males had proportionately higher DALYs compared to females for both the calendar years 1990 and 2013. YLDs attributable to cancers were 1% and 1.4% in 1990 and 2013, respectively. HALE for males increased from 72 to 78 years and for females from 78 to 83 years in 1990 and 2013, respectively. Conclusion Overall health life expectancy has improved in Ireland but both productivity and the quality of life has declined between 1990 and 2013 in relation to cancer deaths and associated risk factors.


Activated oligomers of the BAX protein promote apoptosis (cell death) by enhancing permeabilization of the outer mitochondrial membrane. An inactive monomeric form of BAX appears to be sequestered in the mitochondrial membrane. Cheng et al. found that a particular isoform of the mitochondrial voltage-dependent anion channel, VDAC2, interacted with BAX in vivo. VDAC proteins are thought to contribute to regulation of mitochondrial metabolic functions as well as to provide a protein-conducting pore for release of apoptotic factors into the cytoplasm. E. H.-Y. Cheng, T. V. Sheiko, J. K. Fisher, W. J. Craigen, S. J. Korsmeyer, VDAC2 inhibits BAK activation and mitochondrial apoptosis. Science 301, 513-517 (2003). [Abstract] [Full Text]


OBJECTIVE Women with diabetes in pregnancy have high rates of pregnancy complications. Our aims were to explore trends in the incidence of diabetes in pregnancy and examine whether the risk of serious perinatal outcomes has changed. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We performed a population-based cohort study of 1,109,605 women who delivered in Ontario, Canada, between 1 April 1996 and 31 March 2010. We categorized women as gestational diabetes (GDM) (n = 45,384), pregestational diabetes (pre-GDM) (n = 13,278), or no diabetes (n = 1,050,943). The annual age-adjusted rates of diabetes in pregnancy were calculated, and rates of serious perinatal outcomes were compared between groups and by year using Poisson regression. RESULTS The age-adjusted rate of both GDM (2.7–5.6%, P < 0.001) and pre-GDM (0.7–1.5%, P < 0.001) doubled from 1996 to 2010. The rate of congenital anomalies declined by 23%, whereas the rate of perinatal mortality did not change significantly. However, compared with women with no diabetes, women with pre-GDM and GDM faced an increased risk of congenital anomalies (relative risk 1.86 [95% CI 1.49–2.33] and 1.26 [1.09–1.45], respectively), and perinatal mortality remained elevated in women with pre-GDM (2.33 [1.59–3.43]). CONCLUSIONS The incidence of both GDM and pre-GDM in pregnancy has doubled over the last 14 years, and the overall burden of diabetes in pregnancy on society is growing. Although congenital anomaly rates have declined in women with diabetes, perinatal mortality rates remain unchanged, and the risk of both remains significantly elevated compared with nondiabetic women. Increased efforts are needed to reduce these adverse outcomes.


Background. Transplanted metanephroi vascularize and develop features of mature kidney. One group reported the intriguing finding that metanephric allografts and congenic, major histocompatibility complex-mismatched grafts developed without rejection in the absence of immunosuppression. Our experiments aim to investigate the hypothesis that metanephroi lack immunogenicity and identify immunosuppressives that do not inhibit development. Methods. We transplanted syngeneic metanephric grafts, allografts, and class II mismatched transplants to adult rats along with control grafts to nude recipients. glomerular filtration rates (GFRs) were measured where possible and transplants assessed by histology, immunohistochemistry, electron microscopy, and polymerase chain reaction. Results. Allografts underwent reliable growth and vascularization followed by vigorous rejection (n>200). Rejection was conserved across a class II-mismatched strain and when the earliest dissectable metanephric structures were transplanted. Immunosuppressive drugs other than cyclosporine demonstrated no in vivo toxicity to transplants and treatment with FTY720 and tacrolimus could ablate histologic evidence of allograft rejection. Syngeneic transplants exhibited function of up to 8% of a normal GFR. Renal mass reduction and growth factor treatment was associated with higher GFR than controls. The anatomical site of implantation was also linked strongly with achieved function. Conclusions. Fetal kidney rudiments can provide a source of functioning renal tissue. These results suggest that such structures are no less immunogenic than mature organs, but the observed rejection is controllable.


We analyse a general class of bilevel problems, in which the upper-level problem consists in the minimization of a smooth objective function and the lower-level problem is to find the fixed point of a smooth contraction map. This type of problems include instances of meta-learning, equilibrium models, hyperparameter optimization and data poisoning adversarial attacks. Several recent works have proposed algorithms which warm-start the lower-level problem, i.e. they use the previous lower-level approximate solution as a staring point for the lower-level solver. This warm-start procedure allows one to improve the sample complexity in both the stochastic and deterministic settings, achieving in some cases the order-wise optimal sample complexity. However, there are situations, e.g., meta learning and equilibrium models, in which the warm-start procedure is not well-suited or ineffective. In this work we show that without warm-start, it is still possible to achieve order-wise (near) optimal sample complexity. In particular, we propose a simple method which uses (stochastic) fixed point iterations at the lower-level and projected inexact gradient descent at the upper-level, that reaches an $\epsilon$-stationary point using $O(\epsilon^{-2})$ and $\tilde{O}(\epsilon^{-1})$ samples for the stochastic and the deterministic setting, respectively. Finally, compared to methods using warm-start, our approach yields a simpler analysis that does not need to study the coupled interactions between the upper-level and lower-level iterates.


Following the deregulation of electric power market, the several power transactions and the distributed generation are on the rise increase year by year in Japan. If this trend continues, there is a likelihood that the power flow will be more complex coupled with a greater degree of uncertainty. Therefore it may be difficult for voltage/reactive power control (VQC) to maintain the adequate voltages for the secure operation of the power system. In addition, there is an increasing need to optimize the power system operation in view of the competitive power market. Hence, in this paper, the optimization problem is formulated to solve the VQC strategy satisfying the trade-off problem concerning security and economy using Tabu Search (TS). TS, a meta-heuristic approach, is suitable for the optimization problem of VQC. In particular, the efficient method to search the neighborhood solution on Tabu search algorithm is proposed. It is confirmed by performing several numerical simulations using IEEE 14 bus system that the proposed scheme is able to ensure the security and to find the useful sub-optimal solution efficiently.


BACKGROUND
 In recent months, multiple publications have demonstrated the use of convolutional neural networks (CNN) to classify images of skin cancer as precisely as dermatologists. These CNNs failed to outperform the International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI) 2016 challenge in terms of average precision, however, so the technical progress represented by these studies is limited. In addition, the available reports are difficult to reproduce, due to incomplete descriptions of training procedures and the use of proprietary image databases. These factors prevent the comparison of various CNN classifiers in equal terms.

 OBJECTIVE
 To demonstrate the training of an image-classifier CNN that outperforms the winner of the ISBI 2016 challenge by using open source images exclusively.

 METHODS
 A detailed description of the training procedure is reported while the used images and test sets are disclosed fully, to insure the reproducibility of our work.

 RESULTS
 Our CNN classifier outperforms all recent attempts to classify the original ISBI 2016 challenge test data (full set of 379 test images), with an average precision of 0.709 (vs. 0.637 of the ISBI winner) and with an area under the receiver operating curve of 0.85.

 CONCLUSIONS
 This work illustrates the potential for improving skin cancer classification with enhanced training procedures for CNNs, while avoiding the use of costly equipment or proprietary image data.


Global biophysical products at decametric resolution derived from Sentinel-2 imagery have emerged as a promising dataset for fine-scale ecosystem modeling and agricultural monitoring. Evaluating uncertainties of different Sentinel-2 biophysical products over various regions and vegetation types is pivotal in the application of land surface models. In this study, we quantified the performance of Sentinel-2-derived Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR), and Fractional Vegetation Cover (FVC) estimates using global ground observations with consistent measurement criteria. Our results show that the accuracy of vegetation and non-vegetated classification based on Sentinel-2 surface reflectance products is greater than 95%, which indicates the vegetation identification is favorable for the practical application of biophysical estimates, as several LAI, FAPAR, and FVC retrievals were derived for non-vegetated pixels. The rate of best retrievals is similar between LAI and FAPAR estimates, both accounting for 87% of all vegetation pixels, while it is almost 100% for FVC estimates. Additionally, the Sentinel-2 FAPAR and FVC estimates agree well with ground-measurements-derived (GMD) reference maps, whereas a large discrepancy is observed for Sentinel-2 LAI estimates by comparing with both GMD effective LAI (LAIe) and actual LAI (LAI) reference maps. Furthermore, the uncertainties of Sentinel-2 LAI, FAPAR and FVC estimates are 1.09 m2/m2, 1.14 m2/m2, 0.13 and 0.17 through comparisons to ground LAIe, LAI, FAPAR, and FVC measurements, respectively. Given the temporal difference between Sentinel-2 observations and ground measurements, Sentinel-2 LAI estimates are more consistent with LAIe than LAI values. The robustness of evaluation results can be further improved as long as more multi-temporal ground measurements across different regions are obtained. Overall, this study provides fundamental information about the performance of Sentinel-2 LAI, FAPAR, and FVC estimates, which imbues our confidence in the broad applications of these decametric products.


The middle-aged patient with a dentofacial deformity complicated by partial edentulism and underlying medical problems presents a challenge to the orthodontic-surgical team. The clinical management of a 51-year-old man with maxillary deficiency and chronic atrial fibrillation is presented. Preoperative evaluation and planning, and a scheme and rationale for perioperative anticoagulation, are crucial. The etiology and risks of chronic atrial fibrillation are reviewed along with anticoagulation therapy.


A region in the adenovirus major late promoter (MLP) containing a CCAAT consensus sequence can direct transcription termination of RNA polymerase II, a mechanism that possibly prevents transcriptional interference from upstream genes. Using a chimeric plasmid template that contains the MLP directing expression of the simian virus 40 early region, we showed that an inserted oligonucleotide containing only 13 base pairs of MLP sequences, including the CCAAT box, is capable of inducing transcription termination in an orientation-dependent, position-independent manner. Point mutations within the CCAAT-specific protein-binding site abolished this effect, while a base substitution outside of this region did not affect termination. These data suggest that termination is mediated by a CCAAT box-binding protein. Several other transcription factor-binding sites do not, however, cause termination, suggesting that this may be a relatively specific property of a CCAAT-binding protein.


This study was conducted to evaluate if in vitro fertilization (IVF) with intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is an effective treatment for infertility complicated by the presence in the male partner of sperm autoantibodies. Over a 1-year study period comparisons of fertilization, pregnancy, and implantation rates were made in couples where the male partner was negative or weakly positive for sperm autoantibodies (<50%) (gr 1); autoantibodies were strongly positive (>80%) (gr 2); or autoantibodies were moderately positive (50-80%) (gr 3). Only patients having oocytes fertilized by ICSI were included. The fertilization, clinical pregnancy, implantation, and miscarriage rate for group 1 (n = 67) was 56, 43, 21, and 14%. Comparable values for group 2 (n = 20) were 55, 40, 23, and 25%, and for group 3 (n = 6) were 63, 33, 23, and 0%. IVF with ICSI demonstrates comparable fertilization, pregnancy, implantation, and miscarriage rates in female partners of males with and without sperm autoantibodies.


In this article, the authors illustrate some of the challenges and dilemmas that Norwegian early childhood education and care teachers experienced when completing a global screening tool (UPSI-5: Universal Psychosocial Indicator for 5 Year Old Boys and Girls) concerning the psychosocial well-being of five-year-olds as part of an international research project. Based on interviews with 31 teachers, the authors present in-depth analysis of the critical reflections of 19 teachers concerning the assessment forms. While previous research has criticized standardized testing and screening in early childhood education and care, there is a need for the critical voices of practitioners to be heard. The aim of this article is to illustrate which aspects teachers find challenging and how they respond when in doubt. The authors found that teachers' assessments are inextricably linked to the early childhood education and care context, and the values, ideas and norms that are prevalent in Nordic early childhood education and care settings.


[1] Colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), also referred to as gelbstoff, gilvin, or yellow matter, has long been known to be an important component of the optical properties of coastal and estuarine environments. However, an understanding of the processes regulating its global distribution and variability, its relationship to the total pool of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and its influence on light availability remain largely unexplored. Satellite imagery from the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) is used to characterize the global distribution of light absorption due to colored detrital and dissolved materials (CDM). The quantity CDM is considered as it is not yet possible to differentiate CDOM and detrital particulate absorption from ocean color spectra on a routine basis. Nonetheless, analysis of an extensive field data set indicates that detrital particulates make only a small contribution to CDM. A comparison of coincident field observations of CDM with SeaWiFS retrievals shows good agreement, indicating that the present procedures perform well. To first order, the basin-scale CDM distribution reflects patterns of wind-driven vertical circulation of the gyres modulated by a meridional trend of increasing CDM toward higher latitudes. The global CDM distribution appears regulated by a coupling of biological, photochemical, and physical oceanographic processes all acting on a local scale, and greater than 50% of blue light absorption is controlled by CDM. Significant differences in both CDM concentration and its contribution to blue light absorption are found spatially among the major ocean basins and temporally on variety of timescales. Significant impacts of riverine discharges can be discerned, although their effects are largely localized. Basin-scale distributions of CDM and DOC are largely unrelated, indicating that CDM is a small and highly variable fraction of the global DOC pool. This first view of the global CDM distribution opens many new doors for the quantification of global marine photoprocesses using satellite ocean color data.


The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of automobile industries workshop craftsmen in relation to the integration of automobile mechatronics technology into the curriculum of automobile trade programmes in technical colleges in Nigeria. Three research questions guided the study. A survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for the study is 31 comprising 23 automobile industries workshop craftsmen who are currently working in automobile companies in Enugu state, and eight (8) automobile trades' technical teachers in technical colleges in Enugu state. A structured questionnaire titled Instrument for Integrating Automobile Mechatronics Sub-systems (IIAMS) was used for data collection. Two experts from the Department of Industrial Technical Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and one expert from Anambra Motor Manufacturing Company (ANAMCO) face validated the instrument. The reliability co-efficient of the instrument was found to be 0.87 using Cronbach Alpha. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation for the research questions, while t-test was used to test the null hypotheses. The results of the study indicate that that automobile craftsmen find difficulties in servicing some automobile mechatronics sub-systems, while 16 mechatronics sub-systems were agreed on to be integrated into the automobile curriculum. It was recommended that these mechatronics sub-systems should be integrated into technical college curriculum and that technical colleges should partner with automobile industries for effective training of craftsmen. The study will contribute positively to the understanding of automobile mechatronics technology, and how it can be integrated into the curriculum.


Growing evidence suggests that Type Iax supernovae might be the result of thermonuclear deflagrations of Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarfs in binary systems. We carry out Monte Carlo radiative transfer simulations and predict spectropolarimetric features originating from the supernova explosion and subsequent ejecta interaction with the companion star. Specifically, we calculate viewing-angle dependent flux and polarisation spectra for a 3D model simulating the deflagration of a Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf and, for a second model, simulating the ejecta interaction with a main-sequence star. We find that the intrinsic signal is weakly polarised and only mildly viewing-angle dependent, owing to the overall spherical symmetry of the explosion and the depolarising contribution of iron-group elements dominating the ejecta composition. The interaction with the companion star carves out a cavity in the ejecta and produces a detectable, but modest signal that is significant only at relatively blue wavelengths (≲5000 Å). In particular, increasingly fainter and redder spectra are predicted for observer orientations further from the cavity, while a modest polarisation signalP~ 0.2 per cent is found at blue wavelengths for orientations 30° and 45° away from the cavity. We find a reasonable agreement between the interaction model viewed from these orientations and spectropolarimetric data of SN 2005hk and interpret the maximum-light polarisation signal seen at blue wavelengths for this event as a possible signature of the ejecta–companion interaction. We encourage further polarimetric observations of SNe Iax to test whether our results can be extended and generalised to the whole SN Iax class.


This dissertation contends that the "Orality Movement" in missionary circles has a dearth of theological development and is therefore susceptible to doctrinal error leading to ministry practices that are potentially harmful to the spiritual health of newly planted churches. As a corrective, this dissertation presents Kevin J. Vanhoozer's theodramatically-revised Scripture principle as a paradigm for the use of orality in ministry. Through the use of a Toulmin-model argument from practical reason, each chapter develops the argument supporting the thesis or claim of the dissertation.

Chapter 1 establishes the first ground of the argument by establishing the legitimacy of Vanhoozer's theodramatically-revised Scripture principle. First, the chapter recognizes the improvement Vanhoozer makes to the classical orthodox position on the Scripture principle. Next, the chapter indicates how Vanhoozer responds to contemporary epistemological and hermeneutical concerns.

Chapter 2 states the second ground of the argument by demonstrating how the dominant medium of communication has an impact on human cognition. The chapter defines orality and details the origins and subsequent history of research in orality. The chapter concludes with a description of the two dominant schools of thought in orality research.

Chapter 3 develops the first warrant of the dissertation's thesis by chronicling the influence of orality research in both biblical studies and in missionary outreach.

Chapter 4 states the second warrant of the argument by identifying an analogical oral dynamic in various aspects of the theodrama including the Trinitarian economy, creation, redemption, and the inspiration of Scripture.

Chapter 5 demonstrates how Vanhoozer's revised Scripture principle can function as a paradigm by showing how it responds to Richard Osmer's four metatheoretical questions for practical theology as well as the four tasks of the discipline as a reflected practice. The reflected practice section includes a case study of how the use of the revised Scripture principle would allow one to respond to the use of an "oral Bible" by some mission practitioners.


Introduction. Human papillomavirus infection (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States of America. In Romania there is no information about the prevalence of the HPV infection because reporting of the cases is not mandatory. Most cervical and vaginal malignancies are HPV secondary infection. HPV can also produce benign lesions (venerian condyloma). Vaginal cysts occur in 1-2% of women and Gartner cysts represents 10% of vaginal benign cysts.
Case presentation. We report the case of patient M.P., 42 years old who presented to gynecological examination for moderate dyspareunia and vaginal discharge. Genital examination identified a vaginal tumor of 3-4 cm diameter, thin and translucent capsule with citrine liquid inside. Cervical vaginal cytology was negative for malignant intraepithelial lesion. The tumor was excised and the vaginal mucosa restored leaving a small flaw to allow excess citrine liquid to be drained and reepithelialize the area. Histopathology identified koilocites. HPV testing detected 33 and 52 HPV types (HPV-HR).
Conclusions. HPV infection can cause premalignant or malignant lesions. The peculiarity of this cases a vaginal cystic tumor and the coexistence of HPV infection, without being able to determine with certainty a cause-effect relationship.


Abstract Kabuki Syndrome (KS) is a rare genetic disorder characterized by multiple developmental abnormalities, and varying degrees of cognitive impairment. Hallmark features of this disorder typically include distinctive facial features, skeletal and dermatoglyphic abnormalities, intellectual disability, and postnatal short stature. These features form the basis for diagnosis, though individuals suffering from KS will present a host of other ailments spanning from cardiovascular and digestive abnormalities, to immunological deficiencies. The majority of cases arise due to de novo mutations, but KS can be inherited through autosomal dominance. Genes identified as suspect in the disease's manifestation include KMT2D and KMD6A, which are both involved in histone modification. Mutations in these genes account for 75% of those clinically diagnosed with KS. Treatment is centered around the mitigation of symptomology unique to each patient, and early diagnosis is crucial to improving prognosis. Recent findings have shown that neurological and immunological pathology has potential for improvement in animal models, as well as the role of hypoinsulinism in the manifestation of hypotonia and growth retardation. This presentation seeks to review recent data on KS, and to provide information on the role of development in this disease.


M-theory is a quantum theory of gravity in 11 dimensions that could possibly describe our world. Unfortunately, it is difficult to study and little is known about it beyond a few quantities that are protected by supersymmetry. The AdS/CFT conjecture provides a non-perturbative definition of M-theory, by relating a stack of N M2-branes in M-theory to a family of maximally supersymmetric conformal field theories (SCFTs) in three dimensions with U(N)× U(N) gauge group called ABJM theory. When N is large, ABJM theory is dual to classical supergravity in four dimensions with a negative cosmological constant, where sub-leading terms in N correspond to corrections from M-theory. ABJM theory itself is strongly coupled, and so is difficult to study using conventional methods. In this thesis, we use the recently discovered conformal bootstrap technique to compute quantities in ABJM theory, and thus M-theory via the AdS/CFT correspondence. We begin by deriving a protected 1d topological sector in all 3d SCFTs with half maximal supersymmetry, which we use to compute certain protected observables in ABJM theory exactly for low N as well as in a large N expansion to all orders in 1/N . For N = 3, we find a new duality between ABJM theory and another kind of maximally supersymmetric 3d SCFT that previously had no M-theory interpretation. We then use the conformal bootstrap to compute numerical bounds on observables in all maximally supersymmetric 3d SCFTs, and find that the previous analytic results for ABJM theory come close to saturating these bounds, which allows us to conjecturally read off the low-lying spectrum of this theory for all N . We then use the Mellin space formalism to compute the same quantities on the AdS side, and find that to leading order in N they match the predictions from the conformal bootstrap, providing a new check of the AdS/CFT conjecture. Finally, we outline a strategy to derive the M-theory S-Matrix from ABJM theory to all orders in N , and check that it works to sub-leading order in N using the previously derived analytic results.


Because of the emergence of heterogeneous access devices and diverse wired and wireless networks, and a substantial lack of support for integrating these networks, we are building a communication network and a service infrastructure that provides integrated telephony and data services across these networks. We generalize the basic call service to support communication between two or more call parties using any number of devices through any media. Call setup has already been addressed by protocols such as the session initiation protocol (SIP), so we focus on a missing component: scalable and fault-tolerant call session maintenance and control after call setup. In this paper, we present a new signaling protocol that offers scalability, high availability, robustness, and flexibility in creating new call processing services. The protocol is compatible with existing call setup protocols, but provides lightweight call session management using a completely decentralized, soft-state group control protocol. We show that this approach simplifies the implementation of the basic call service, including multi-device calling and service handoff between diverse access networks. The design of our protocol follows the principle of separation of control (signaling information) from data. The signaling protocol has been implemented in ICEBERG, an IP-based core network testbed with access to heterogeneous networks.


This paper empirically examines the impact of current world-wide recession on India's growth. The data for this study were compiled from RBI and Central Statistical Organisation (CSO). The paper has applied regression technique with GDP as dependent variable, while exports, imports, FDI and FII were taken as independent variables. Prior to regression analysis, all the variables are tested for stationarity, applying Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test. The data sets were also tested for seasonality by applying auxiliary regression. Because of the problem of multicolinearity among the independent variables, three models, dropping one of the highly collinear variables, were estimated. The results suggest that financial crisis has adversely impacted India's GDP although imports, exports and FDI were found to have exercised stimulating influence through technological spillovers and other externalities. The paper suggests that recovery of global economy is extremely important for Indian economic growth although the effects of global slow down could be minimized through the use of stimulant fiscal and monetary measures.


The UN Practical Manual on Transfer Pricing for Developing Countries endeavors to provide "clearer guidance on the policy and administrative aspects of applying transfer pricing analysis." Chapter 10 is particularly noteworthy. It sets out specific country practices. The rules in Brazil, China, India and South Africa are offered as templates for developing countries to follow. This article considers the Brazilian contribution to Chapter 10. Although some writers believe that developing countries should adopt the Brazilian model this article suggests otherwise. Even though it is a theoretically simple system, some aspects of the Brazilian model consistently work to the fiscal disadvantage of the country adopting it. As a general matter, this is not a transfer pricing regime that should be widely emulated by developing countries. In particular, developing countries that offer low cost manufacturing opportunities to MNEs and those that offer market access to an expanding middle class may be disappointed to learn that the Brazilian transfer pricing regime systematically shifts income out of the country. The problem is mainly with the import rules.


Title of Dissertation: CHARACTERIZATION OF THE COWPOX AND MOUSEPOX HOMOLOGS OF THE SMALLPOX VIRUS B22 PROTEIN AND THEIR ROLES IN MOUSE DISEASE MODELS Sara Elizabeth Reynolds, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016 Dissertation directed by: Dr. Bernard Moss, Adjunct Professor, National Institutes of Health and Dr. James Culver, Professor, Biological Sciences Program Poxviruses are an important family of viruses with members capable of infecting humans including variola virus, the causative agent of smallpox. Homologs of the variola virus B22 protein are found in almost all chordopoxviruses and have estimated masses of greater than 200 kDa, making them the largest known poxvirus proteins, and leading to our initial interest in the role of this protein family. Most homologs are found in the variable region of the poxviral genome where less conserved host-interaction proteins are found, however, B22 homologs are remarkably well conserved, missing only from the parapox subfamily and vaccinia virus, and sometimes even found in multiples (crocodilepox, canarypox) despite their large size. We showed that the cowpox homolog, CPXV219, was expressed early during infection and cleaved into fragments that remained associated. CPXV219 was observed in the secretory pathway and at the plasma membrane with the majority of the protein extracellular. However, mutants that did not express CPXV219 replicated normally in cell culture and retained virulence in a mouse respiratory infection model. Next, we investigated the importance of the ectromelia virus homolog C15 in the natural infection model, mousepox. In the absence of C15 following footpad infection of BALB/c mice, there was less mortality and at high doses all mice survived, whereas none survived infection with wildtype virus. Similar virus loads were present at the site of infection with mutant or control virus whereas there was less virus in popliteal and inguinal lymph nodes, spleen and liver, key organs in mousepox disease, indicating decreased virus spread and replication in the absence of C15. Decreased spread was not the result of an intrinsic viral function of C15 as the survival of infected mice was dependent on host CD4+ and CD8+ T cells during infection. These results highlight the importance of choosing an appropriate animal model. The influence of B22 homologs displays a species-specificity as observed in the natural virus-host model of ectromelia virus, which provides an excellent model for the study of such host-defense molecules during poxvirus infection. Future work should focus on determining the mechanism of action of these homologs. CHARACTERIZATION OF THE COWPOX AND MOUSEPOX HOMOLOGS OF THE SMALLPOX VIRUS B22 PROTEIN AND THEIR ROLES IN MOUSE DISEASE MODELS


SYNOPSIS The rheological behavior of hydroxyapatite and partially stabilized zirconia mixed slurries is investigated in order to study the production of hydroxyapatite / zirconia functionally graded materials by slurry dipping method. The purpose of this material is to use as a dental implant material. The rheological behavior of hydroxyapatite and zirconia, which strongly contributes to the resultant thickness of FGM layer, is different between hydroxyapatite (Newtonian fluid) and zirconia (non-Bingham plastic fluid). The mixed slurries.of hydroxyapatite and zirconia slurries show the strong contribution of zirconia when the shear rate is low, but the rheology of hydroxyapatite is dominated when the shear stress is high. On the other hand, the optimum dispersant concentration changes linearly with change in the composition of hydroxyapatite and zirconia. KEW WORDS rheology, slurry technology, bioceramics, hydroxyapatite, partially stabilized zirconia, implant materials


Use of antibiotics for the treatment and prevention of bacterial infections in humans, agri- and aquaculture as well as livestock rearing leads to antibiotic pollution of fresh water and these antibiotics have an impact on free-living bacteria. While we know which antibiotics are most common in natural environments such as rivers and streams, there is considerable uncertainty regarding antibiotics' interactions with one another and the effect of abiotic factors such as temperature. Here, we used an experimental approach to explore the effects of antibiotic identity, concentration, mixing and water temperature on the growth of Pseudomonas fluorescens, a common, ubiquitous bacterium. We exposed P. fluorescens to the four antibiotics most commonly found in surface waters (ciprofloxacin, ofloxacin, sulfamethoxazole and sulfapyridine) and investigated antibiotic interactions for single and mixed treatments at different, field-realistic temperatures. We observed an overall dependence of antibiotic potency on temperature, as temperature increased efficacy of ciprofloxacin and ofloxacin with their EC50 lowered by >75% with a 10 °C temperature increase. Further, we show that mixtures of ciprofloxacin and ofloxacin, despite both belonging to the fluoroquinolone class, exhibit low-temperature-dependent synergistic effects in inhibiting bacterial growth. These findings highlight the context dependency of antibiotic efficacy. They further suggest antibiotic-specific off-target effects that only affect the bacteria once they enter a certain temperature range. This has important implications as freshwater systems already contain multi-drug antibiotic cocktails and are changing temperature due to environmental warming. These factors will interact and affect aquatic food webs, and hence this creates an urgent need to adapt and improve laboratory testing conditions to closer reflect natural environments.


A new soil model named as 3d combined-layer soil model is firstly proposed. According to the concept of image, the Green function of this soil structure is derived using complex image method. Based on it, the surface potential distribution (SPD) of different soil structure configuration is calculated, moreover, the influence of soil parameters on SPD is analyzed. It can be seen from the results that the variations of the soil parameters such as soil thickness and resistivity can bring different influence to the SPD of the soil, and it is related not only to the distances, but also the angle for the grounding electrode. Therefore, the 3DSM may be more accurate for the calculation of SPD.


Purpose
Numerous studies have been done on various aspects of tax evasion in recent years. Some studies focus on compliance, while others examine more esoteric topics, such as optimum tax evasion. A third group of studies discusses theoretical issues, such as when tax evasion can be justified on moral grounds. A few studies have addressed the relative seriousness of tax evasion compared to other infractions. The purpose of this paper is in the latter category.

Design/methodology/approach
Wave 6 of the World Values Surveys (2010-2014) asked hundreds of questions to participants in 57 countries. One of those questions asked whether it was justifiable to evade taxes if one had the opportunity to do so. Another question asked whether it was justifiable to pay cash to avoid paying taxes. It also asked questions about other ethical issues such as bribery, avoiding a fare on public transport, claiming government benefits and buying stolen goods. The present study included those questions in a survey that was distributed to 485 students and faculty members at the University of Exeter in England to determine the relative seriousness of each act. They were asked to select a number from 1 (never justifiable) to 10 (always justifiable) to show the extent of their agreement or disagreement with the commission of the six acts. The goal was to determine how serious tax evasion was compared to other acts that might be considered unethical. One-sample t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) methods were used for the data analysis.

Findings
The results of the study show that the act considered least serious was paying cash for services to avoid tax followed in order of seriousness by avoiding a fare on public transport, cheating on taxes if you have a chance, buying stolen goods, claiming benefits without entitlement and, with least justification, accepting a bribe in the course of one's duty. Some interesting results emerged by examining the responses of different groups. Like other studies, the results indicate older groups tend to have a higher respect for the law than younger ones. This was true for the cheating on taxes possibility, but the 30-49 years age group were more opposed than the other two groups to paying cash for services to avoid taxes. In terms of gender, females were significantly more opposed than males to cheating on taxes if you have a chance. The respondents who are married were more opposed to the six acts, including of course, the two tax ones, than non-married persons. There was also evidence that the level of higher education makes a difference to individuals' opinions.

Originality/value
This is an important study in relation to England. It is the first study to do so. The relative seriousness of tax evasion is compared to other offenses. Mean scores are used to rank the various offenses in terms of relative seriousness. Various demographics are also examined to see whether some groups view tax evasion as more serious than other groups. Those demographics included gender, age, academic major, education level and marital status.


Excessive maternal alcohol use can cause fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, but is also associated with stillbirths and neonatal or infant deaths. A data linkage study from Western Australia identified 21 841 mothers with a diagnosis of alcohol abuse from databases of hospital inpatient admissions, databases of mental health outpatients, and local government drug and alcohol services. A comparison cohort comprised 56 054 mothers randomly selected from a midwife database without an alcohol diagnosis and matched by maternal age, race (Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal) and year of birth. Three hundred three cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and 598 infant deaths not attributed to SIDS were identified through a mortality register. The risk of SIDS was increased almost sevenfold for mothers with an alcohol diagnosis during pregnancy and more than eightfold when the diagnosis was made within 1 year post-pregnancy. An alcohol diagnosis during pregnancy was associated with more than double the risk of an infant death not due to SIDS. At least 16.4% of all cases classified as SIDS could be attributed to maternal alcohol use, as well as 3.4% of infant deaths not classified as SIDS.


The book describes what it means to say the world is complex and explores what that means for managers, policy makers and individuals. The first part of the book is about the theory and ideas of complexity. This is explained in a way that is thorough but not mathematical. It compares differing approaches, and also provides a historical perspective, showing how such thinking has been around since the beginning of civilisation. It emphasises the difference between a complexity worldview and the dominant mechanical worldview that underpins much of current management practice. It defines the complexity worldview as recognising the world is interconnected, shaped by history and the particularities of context. The comparison of the differing approaches to modelling complexity is unique in its depth and accessibility. The second part of the book uses this lens of complexity to explore issues in the fields of management, strategy, economics, and international development. It also explores how to facilitate others to recognise the implications of adopting a complex rather than a mechanical worldview and suggests methods of research to explore systemic, path-dependent emergent aspects of situations. The authors of this book span both science and management, academia and practice, thus the explanations of science are authoritative and yet the examples of changing how you live and work in the world are real and accessible. The aim of the book is to bring alive what complexity is all about and to illustrate the importance of loosening the grip of a modernist worldview with its hope for prediction, certainty and control.


Collaborative machine learning paradigms based on secure multi-party computation have emerged as a compelling alternative for sensitive applications in the last few years. These paradigms promise to unlock the potential of important data silos that are currently hard to access and compute across due to privacy concerns and regulatory policies (e.g., health and financial sectors). Although collaborative machine learning provides many privacy benefits, it makes sacrifices in terms of robustness. It opens the learning process to the possibility of an active malicious participant who can covertly influence the model's behavior. As these systems are being deployed for a range of sensitive applications, their robustness is increasingly important. To date, no compelling solution exists that fully addresses the robustness of secure collaborative learning paradigms. As the robustness of these learning paradigms remains an open challenge, it is necessary to augment these systems with measures that strengthen their reliability at deployment time. This paper describes our efforts in developing privacy-preserving auditing mechanisms for secure collaborative learning. We focus on audits that allow tracing the source of integrity issues back to the responsible party, providing a technical path toward accountability in these systems.


This article presents the exciting advances made and ongoing in the area of pharmacologic cardiac stress testing. In particular, new A2A-specific receptor agonists work like adenosine but promise the delivery of uncomplicated vasodilator stress testing or the diagnosis and prognosis of coronary disease. These agents, although not perfect, do likely present a level of protection against the complications of bronchospasm and heart block. Phase III studies have shown that these agents promise a reduced symptom intensity and greater patient tolerance. One of these agents, regadenoson, is now Food and Drug Administration approved and will be delivered as the same single-dose bolus in all patients, regardless of weight, greatly simplifying the method and increasing its acceptability. Most widely applied with myocardial perfusion SPECT, these agents will find application with PET myocardial perfusion studies and likely MRI studies. Because of their effect on coronary supply rather than demand, they will not be applied with stress echocardiography. Before considering these agents, we will consider the principles and methods of stress testing, and particularly pharmacologic stress testing. The learning objectives of this article are to familiarize the reader with the methods and choices in stress testing for coronary disease diagnosis and prognosis, to present the advantages and disadvantages of pharmacologic stress testing, to review current pharmacologic stress-testing methods and their specific combination with imaging methods, to present the chemistry and effects of the new A2a-specific receptor agonists and their advantages compared with existing nonspecific agents, and to help the reader better understand the clinical role of the A2a-specific receptor agonists and their application.


Despite statistics which indicate that older people in Australia are the least likely group within the community to become victims of crime, older people especially women, report feeling less safe when alone in their home and fearful of becoming a victim of sexual assault or home invasion. concerns about personal safety and security have been found to be one of the most significant factors in older people considering a move to a retirement village or manufactured home estate. This paper presents the result of a study conducted with resident of manufactured home in South east Queensland. The study sought to investigate the health and financial implications for older people who move to a manufactured home or mobile park. 200 residents were surveyed and in-depth interviews were conducted. The study found a high level of satisfaction amongst residents. The high level of satisfaction was examined further and many participants nominated that a reduction the level of fear of crime played an important part in their overall level of satisfaction. Security measures, included in the design and development of manufactured home estates, together with reciprocity social support and strong resident networks were vital components in reducing the levels of fear experienced by residents. In presenting the results of this study, the role of reciprocity social support and strong resident networks within manufactured and retirement villages will be explored as will the capacity of age segregated housing such as retirement villages and manufactured homeparks to enhance older people's autonomy and independence


We consider parallel computation for Gaussian process calculations to overcome computational and memory constraints on the size of datasets that can be analyzed. Using a hybrid parallelization approach that uses both threading (shared memory) and message-passing (distributed memory), we implement the core linear algebra operations used in spatial statistics and Gaussian process regression in an R package called bigGP that relies on C and MPI. The approach divides the covariance matrix into blocks such that the computational load is balanced across processes while communication between processes is limited. The package provides an API enabling R programmers to implement Gaussian process-based methods by using the distributed linear algebra operations without any C or MPI coding. We illustrate the approach and software by analyzing an astrophysics dataset with n = 67, 275 observations.


The advancements in fields like robotics and medicine continuously require improvements of sensor devices and more engagement of cooperative sensing technologies. For example, instruments such as tweezers with sensitive force sensory heads could provide the ability to sense a variety of physical quantities in real time, such as the amount and direction of the force applied or the texture of the gripped object. Force sensors with such abilities could be great solutions toward the development of smart surgical tools. In this work, a unique force sensor that can be integrated at the tips of robotic arms or surgical tools is reported. The force sensor consists of a single bioinspired, permanent magnetic and highly elastic nanocomposite cilia integrated on a magnetic field sensing element. The nanocomposite is prepared from permanent magnetic nanowires incorporated into the highly elastic polydimethylsiloxane. We demonstrate the potential of this concept by performing several experiments to show the performance of the force sensor. The developed sensor element has a 200 μm in diameter single cilium with 1:5 aspect ratio and shows a detection range up to 1 mN with a sensitivity of 1.6 Ω/mN and a resolution of 31 μN. The simple fabrication process of the sensor allows easy optimization of the sensor performance to meet the needs of different applications.


Long-range movement of the Rieske iron-sulfur protein (ISP) between the cytochrome (cyt) b and cyt c1 redox centers plays a key role in electron transfer within the cyt bc1 complex. A series of 21 mutants in the cyt b ef loop of Rhodobacter sphaeroides cyt bc1 were prepared to examine the role of this loop in controlling the capture and release of the ISP from cyt b. Electron transfer in the cyt bc1 complex was studied using a ruthenium dimer to rapidly photo-oxidize cyt c1 within 1 mus and initiate the reaction. The rate constant for electron transfer from the Rieske iron-sulfur center [2Fe2S] to cyt c1 was k1 = 60 000 s-1. Famoxadone binding to the Qo site decreases k1 to 5400 s-1, indicating that a conformational change on the surface of cyt b decreases the rate of release of the ISP from cyt b. The mutation I292A on the surface of the ISP-binding crater decreased k1 to 4400 s-1, while the addition of famoxadone further decreased it to 3000 s-1. The mutation L286A at the tip of the ef loop decreased k1 to 33 000 s-1, but famoxadone binding caused no further decrease, suggesting that this mutation blocked the conformational change induced by famoxadone. Studies of all of the mutants provide further evidence that the ef loop plays an important role in regulating the domain movement of the ISP to facilitate productive electron transfer and prevent short-circuit reactions.


Computational fluid dynamics is used to simulate the release of high pressure Hydrogen from a reservoir with an exit of increasing diameter. Abel-Noble real gas equation of state is used to accurately simulate this high pressure release. Parallel processing based on Message Passing Interface for domain decomposition is employed to decrease the solution time. The release exit boundary is increased in time to simulate a scenario when the exit area increases during the release. All nodes and elements are moved accordingly at each time step to maintain the quality of the mesh. Different speeds of increasing diameter are investigated to see the impact on this unsteady flow.


A grand narrative history of the world's first experiment in globalization, with lessons for an ever-expanding American Empire--from England's most talented young historian. The British Empire was the largest in all history, its reach the nearest thing to world domination ever achieved. By the eve of the Second World War, over a fifth of the world's land surface and nearly a quarter of the world's population were under some form of British rule. Yet for today's generation, the British Empire has come to stand for nothing more than a lost Victorian past--one so remote that it has ceased even to be a target for satire. The time is ripe for a reappraisal. In this major new work of synthesis and revision, Niall Ferguson argues that the British Empire should be regarded not merely as vanished Victoriana but as the very cradle of modernity. Nearly all the key features of the twenty-first-centu ry world can be traced back to the extraordinary expansion of Britain's economy, population, and culture from the seventeenth century until the mid-twentieth--economic globalization, the communications revolution, the racial make-up of North America, the notion of humanitarianism, the nature of democracy. Displaying the originality and rigor that have made him the brightest light among British historians, Ferguson shows that far from being a subject for nostalgia, the story of the Empire is pregnant with lessons for the world today--in particular for the United States as it stands on the brink of a new kind of imperial power based once again on economic and military supremacy.


The shadow of the Moon observed with cosmic rays can be utilized to study the pointing error and the angular resolution of the ground-based air shower arrays, also offers a good ability to do below a few TeV energy calibration based on the bending of cosmic rays when they travel through the geomagnetic field. Water Cherenkov Detector Array (WCDA), one of components of Large High Altitude Air Shower Observation (LHAASO), has high observation sensitivity, lower threshold, and high duty cycle, which make itself a very good facility in this aspect. In this presentation, we study the ability of the westward displacement of the Moon shadow based on
an accurate simulation and experimental data analysis, some systematic uncertainties related with energy calibration are also discussed.


Become a professional photo editor and bring your ideas to life with Photoshop Elements 2019
Key Features
Improve your pictures with easy-to-follow techniques that help you make simple, fast and effective edits

Understand how to animate and add multiple layers to your images

Master the Photoshop Elements user interface (UI) with real-life examples
Book Description
Adobe Photoshop Elements is a raster graphics editor for entry-level photographers, image editors, and hobbyists. Though it shares many of Photoshop CC's high-end features, it also boasts a significant number of simple to use, yet highly effective tools not found at the professional level.

This book presents the complexities of image editing in easy-to-follow, bite-sized chunks, allowing you to quickly recognize the editing challenge, and helps you to identify the tools and techniques required to make improvements, and to apply those techniques quickly and efficiently. You will start by learning how to import, organize, manage, edit, and use your pictures in a format that's designed for creative photography projects. Going further, you'll discover how to fix a wide range of photographic problems based on the book's extensive repertoire of commonly applied solutions. You'll be escorted through a wide range of common processes that include applying artistic effects to creative projects, custom image makeovers, processing images for social media, and other file export methods.

Towards the end of the book, you will understand what the most important tools and features actually do in Photoshop Elements, answering the often-asked question; What, when, and where would you use these features in a precise and practical way.
What you will learn
Understand the latest Photoshop tools to add life to your photos

Add graphic elements to any composition, photograph, or illustration

Tackle challenges in editing multi-layered images for your photography projects

Develop illustrative skills with Photoshop Elements' variety of drawing tools

Understand techniques for professional photo retouching

Work with online and local templates to create calendars, greeting cards, and other projects
Who this book is for
This book is for photographers, creative professionals, and individuals who want to master image editing for publishing, press, and web formats with Adobe's Photoshop Elements. Professionals who are looking to become accomplished image retouchers will also find the book helpful. Photography skills along with basic photo editing knowledge will be useful, but not necessary.


We analyze first time parents' work patterns. Little empirical work exists on the influence of the partner's (change of) employment status. There is no study known to us that investigates the effects of the family's immigrant background. This study explores both issues in addition to the effects of human capital, the mother's partner not sharing the household, the women's breastfeeding intentions and practices. We use panel data of 2003-2004 on families in Amsterdam at early pregnancy and at the time the infant is 3-5 months (when the Dutch family has to "choose" its paid parental work arrangement). Fathers do change their working hours after the birth of the first child. Only the father's reduction of working for pay, to 25-32 hours per week after the birth of the first child, makes it more likely that the mother starts work when the infant is 3-5 months old. Furthermore, being a female, first generation immigrant has an independent – negative – effect, beyond human capital and other family characteristics, on the decision to work when pregnant and when the infant is 3-5 months old. Similarly, a partner born abroad has an independent, negative effect on the Dutch born – with Dutch born parents – mother's timing of her return to work. Dutch social policies seem to some extent successful in obtaining the sharing of parental unpaid infant care. Yet, they created by stressing own responsibility only an opportunity and potential benefits for children and parents for those families who can (and dare to) afford.


A study was conducted to investigate the epistemological aspects found in the curriculum, teaching, learning and practice of Medical Laboratory Technology (MLT) in Uganda. The study involved the analysis of the curriculum document for the diploma in MLT implemented at Mulago Paramedical Schools (MPS) in Kampala Uganda. It further involved getting the views of learners, educators and clinical supervisors of the MLT diploma programme. The results of the study revealed that various epistemological aspects were applied during the development and implementation of the MLT curriculum as well as during the practice of MLT in Uganda. Application of these aspects during curriculum development and implementation led to acquisition of various types of knowledge. It further led to the development of different and appropriate ways of knowing that is necessary for the training and practice of MLT.


Summary
Normal dental anatomy and the range of dental disorders found in donkeys are largely similar to those described in horses. Recent studies have shown dental disease to have a high prevalence in donkeys. Some dental disorders, such as diastemata, displaced teeth and wave mouth can have serious clinical consequences by causing oral pain and weight loss and even predispose to colic. Many of these signs can be prevented by regular dental treatment that can slow down or even prevent the progression of these disorders.


This edition brings together Jonson's four great comedies in one volume. Volpone, which was first performed in 1606, dramatizes the corrupting nature of greed in an exuberant satire set in contemporary Venice. The first production of Epicene marked the end of a year-long closure of the theatres because of an epidemic of Plague in 1609; its comedy affirms the consolatory power of laughter at such a time. The Alchemist (1610) deploys the metaphors of alchemical transformation to emphasize the mutability of the characters and ther relationships. In Bartholomew Fair (1614) Jonson ebroils the visitors to the fair in its myriad temptations, exposing the materialistic impulses beneath the apparent godliness of jacobean Puritans. Under the General Editorship of Michael Cordner of the University of York, the texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation. Stage directions have been added to facilitate the reconstruction of the plays' performance, and there is a scholarly introduction, detailed annotation, and a glossary.


Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep disorder in which pharyngeal collapse during sleep causes complete (apnea) or partial (hypopnea) airway obstruction. OSA is common and can have severe implications, but often remains undiagnosed. The most widely used objective measure of OSA severity is the number of obstructive events per hour of sleep, known as the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI). This study reports an innovative system to identify OSA subjects while they are awake, not asleep, using speech signal processing techniques. The assumption is that OSA affects the acoustic parameters of speech because it is associated with anatomical and functional abnormalities of the upper airway. The system associates three different sub-systems based on features extracted from breathing segments within continuous speech signals, information acquired from sustained vowels using a convolutional neural network, and inherent information in continuous speech signals using a recurrent neural network. Each of these sub-systems provided an AHI estimation and were combined with age and body mass index (BMI) to produce a composite system that estimates AHI using a linear regression. The sample was composed of 398 subjects (men and women). The performance of each sub-system was examined separately, in addition to the composite system. As expected, the composite AHI estimation yielded the superior results, with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.61 between the estimated and diagnosed AHI. To distinguish between OSA and non-OSA subjects, a classification decision was made using an AHI threshold of 15 events per hour. The system achieved an average accuracy of 77.14%, a sensitivity of 75%, and a specificity of 79%.


The case histories of 17 patients in whom urinary retention was associated with an intervertebral disc protrusion which occurred, most commonly, centrally at the lumbar 4/5 level are presented. Strong pleas are made for consideration of this entity in patients with unexplained urinary retention.


The current study investigated the opinions of secondary school students taking the science course from different science teachers about the science course and science teachers. The current study was conducted with the participation of 32 students instructed by different science teachers and attending different secondary schools in the fall term of 2018-2019 academic year. The data of the current study were collected by means of semi-structured interviews. In the analysis of the data, the descriptive analysis technique was used. The findings of the current study have revealed that high majority of the students love their science classes and science teachers, that in science classes, lecturing, question-answer and note-taking are methods widely employed, that if there is a smart board in the class, then Okulistik or EBA computer program is on, that the assignments given are from the textbook, that the most frequently adopted behavior by the teachers in the face of any discipline problem is warning and that informal learning environments are not used much. Moreover, it was found that projects are rarely assigned to students and the projects assigned are given as homework. A great majority of the students expect their teachers to be entertaining, they want their lessons to be instructed through games and experiments, and they do not want to write a lot in their classes.


Dose as a result of radiation exposure is the notion generally used to disclose the imparted energy in a volume of tissue to a potential biological effect. The basic unit defined by the international system of units (SI system) is the radiation absorbed dose, which is expressed as the mean imparted energy in a mass element of the tissue known as gray (Gy) or J/kg. The procedure for ascertaining the absorbed dose is complicated since it involves the radiation transport of numerous types of charged particles and coupled photon interactions. The most precise method is to perform a full 3D Monte Carlo simulation of the radiation transport. There are various Monte Carlo toolkits that have tool compartments for dose calculations and measurements. The dose studies in this thesis were performed using the GEANT4 Application for Emission Tomography (GATE) software (Jan et al., 2011). GATE simulation toolkit has been used extensively in the medical imaging community, due to the fact that it uses the full capabilities of GEANT4. It also utilizes an easy to-learn GATE macro language, which is more accessible than learning the GEANT4/C++ programming language. This work combines GATE with digital phantoms generated using the NCAT (NURBS-based cardiac-torso phantom) toolkit (Segars et al., 2004) to allow efficient and effective estimation of 3D radiation dose maps. The GATE simulation tool has developed into a beneficial tool for Monte Carlo simulations involving both radiotherapy and imaging experiments. This work will present an overview of absorbed dose of common radionuclides used in nuclear medicine and serve as a guide to a user who is setting up a GATE simulation for a PET and SPECT study.


Positions and approaches of scientists to determine the typical traces of violation of safety rules during performance of increased danger works are considered. It was stated that material traces of violations of safety rules during performance of increased danger works are detected as directly on the scene as in various documents. Trace on the scene can provide information on the conditions under which these works are carried out, the presence of dangerous manufacturing and external factors, technical causes of violation, degree of victim's fault, etc. Typical material traces include victim's body damage; traces of hands, feet, microparticles of the victim or offender clothes; destruction of important building for production, of mechanisms or machinery or of residential building. Allocation of material tracks is closely linked to the situation of crime commission, in particular, to time, place, type of production, nature of performed work. These traces can indicate certain circumstances of crime commission, namely: event nature, work conditions; inactive status of mechanisms, devices and tools used by the victim; event cause. Material traces bearers are certain documents related to the workplace safety management at enterprise, on site during execution of a particular type of works. Each type (group) of crimes is characterized by the availability of a certain Trace Patterns which generalized data are essential practical importance for their investigation. Data set on material traces of a crime, their features and localization should be considered as one of elements of criminalistic description of the crimes regarding violation of safety rules during increased danger works.


Increases in area burned and fire size have been reported across a wide range of forest and shrubland types in the Western United States in recent decades, but little is known about potential changes in fire regimes of piñon and juniper land cover types. We evaluated spatio-temporal patterns of fire in piñon and juniper land cover types from the National Gap Analysis Program using Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS 2016) data (1984 through 2013) for Northern and Southern Intermountain and Central and Southern Rocky Mountain geographic regions. We examined differences in total area burned, fire rotation, fire size, fire number, and fire season among: (1) the four geographic regions; (2) the EPA level III ecoregions that occur within each geographic region; and (3) the piñon and juniper land cover types (woodlands, savannas, and shrublands) and other land cover types that occur within each geographic region and level III ecoregion. We found that area burned during the 30-year period, number of fires each year, and fire size followed a strong geographic pattern: Northern Intermountain > Southern Intermountain > Southern Rocky Mountain > Central Rocky Mountain. Area burned within piñon and juniper land cover types increased significantly during the 30-year period across the study area overall and for each geographic region, except the Southern Intermountain. Fire rotations were within reported historical ranges for sagebrush ecosystems and decreased over time. Also, fire number or fire size increased for the Southern Rocky Mountain and Southern Intermountain geographic regions. Across the study area, spatio-temporal patterns in fire regimes for piñon and juniper land cover types were similar to those for other land cover types. Careful monitoring of longer term trends in fire activity and the interacting effects of invasive annual grasses, bark beetles, and climate change is needed to access the dynamics of piñon and juniper land cover types and evaluate the efficacy of management treatments in piñon and juniper land cover types.


Artificial intelligence has a remarkable effect on many different fields with its flexible and comprehensive solution approaches to solve real-world problems. In this context, the field of biomedical engineering has also been affected by employment of different artificial intelligence-based techniques. This chapter aims to give a theoretical discussion on using nature-inspired artificial intelligent techniques for obtaining intelligent applications within biomedical engineering. As it is known, techniques within the field of artificial intelligence are inspired from nature. So, it is a good approach to focus on nature-inspired techniques for discussing intelligent biomedical engineering research works. Readers will have a chance to understand some ways of using artificial intelligence for achieving better results in biomedical engineering and the related developments associated with this field.


Abstract Background: Nosocomial outbreaks leading to healthcare worker (HCW) infection and death have been increasingly reported during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Objective: We implemented a strategy to reduce nosocomial acquisition. Methods: We summarized our experience in implementing a multipronged infection control strategy in the first 300 days (December 31, 2019, to October 25, 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic under the governance of Hospital Authority in Hong Kong. Results: Of 5,296 COVID-19 patients, 4,808 (90.8%) were diagnosed in the first pandemic wave (142 cases), second wave (896 cases), and third wave (3,770 cases) in Hong Kong. With the exception of 1 patient who died before admission, all COVID-19 patients were admitted to the public healthcare system for a total of 78,834 COVID-19 patient days. The median length of stay was 13 days (range, 1–128). Of 81,955 HCWs, 38 HCWs (0.05%; 2 doctors and 11 nurses and 25 nonprofessional staff) acquired COVID-19. With the exception of 5 of 38 HCWs (13.2%) infected by HCW-to-HCW transmission in the nonclinical settings, no HCW had documented transmission from COVID-19 patients in the hospitals. The incidence of COVID-19 among HCWs was significantly lower than that of our general population (0.46 per 1,000 HCWs vs 0.71 per 1,000 population; P = .008). The incidence of COVID-19 among professional staff was significantly lower than that of nonprofessional staff (0.30 vs 0.66 per 1,000 full-time equivalent; P = .022). Conclusions: A hospital-based approach spared our healthcare service from being overloaded. With our multipronged infection control strategy, no nosocomial COVID-19 in was identified among HCWs in the first 300 days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong.


Runoff, sediment yield and infiltration process of shrub plots were studied under rainfall intensities of 45, 87 and 127 mm/h with 20° slope gradient using simulated rainfall experiment. The results showed that cumulative runoff and cumulative sediment yield of shrub plot had an obvious positive correlation with rainfall time. Under rainfall intensity of 45 mm/h, runoff and sediment yield of shrub plot kept a constant level. Under rainfall intensity of 87 mm/h, runoff kept a fluctuant increase, whereas sediment yield basically kept steady. Under rainfall intensity of 127 mm/h, runoff and sediment yield of shrub plot increased evidently due to the formation of erosion pits. Infiltration rate of shrub plot had a negative relation with runoff as well as sediment yield.


A new species of umagillid rhabdocoel is described from echinoids from the Kenyan coast. Syndesmis longicanalis sp. nov. is found in the intestine of both Tripneustes gratilla and Toxopneustes pileolus collected near Mombasa. The most striking characteristic, which distinguishes this new species from all known species of the Syndesmis-Syndisyrinx group is the very long sclerotic bursa1 canal and the three ventral glandular papillae. A more detailed comparison between the specimens from the two different hosts demonstrates that they belong to the same species although some differences are statistically significant.


Significance housing and municipal economy is very varied. This sector of economics is one of the clef elements general objective structure of management by innovation.


An investigation of point symmetry patterns on the regular hexagonal tessellation is presented. This tessellation has three point symmetry groups. However, the restriction to the hexagonal tessellation causes some symmetry subgroups to be repeated in ways that are geometrically unique and others that are geometrically equivalent, resulting in a total of 14 geometrically distinct symmetry groups. Each symmetry group requires a particular set of motif symmetries to allow its construction. Examples of symmetric patterns are shown for several simple motif families.


In 1214, King John issued a charter granting freedom of election to the English Church; henceforth, cathedral chapters were, theoretically, to be allowed to elect their own bishops, with minimal intervention by the crown. Innocent III confirmed this charter and, in the following year, the right to electoral freedom was restated at the Fourth Lateran Council. In consequence, under Henry III and Edward I the English Church enjoyed something of a golden age of electoral freedom, during which the king might influence elections, but ultimately could not control them. Then, during the reigns of Edward II and Edward III, papal control over appointments was increasingly asserted and from 1344 onwards all English bishops were provided by the pope. This book considers the theory and practice of free canonical election in its heyday under Henry III and Edward I, and the nature of and reasons for the subsequent transition to papal provision. An analysis of the theoretical evidence for this subject (including canon law, royal pronouncements and Lawrence of Somercote's remarkable 1254 tract on episcopal elections) is combined with a consideration of the means by which bishops were created during the reigns of Henry III and the three Edwards. The changing roles of the various participants in the appointment process (including, but not limited to, the cathedral chapter, the king, the papacy, the archbishop and the candidate) are given particular emphasis. In addition, the English situation is placed within a European context, through a comparison of English episcopal appointments with those made in France, Scotland and Italy. Bishops were central figures in medieval society and the circumstances of their appointments are of great historical importance. As episcopal appointments were also touchstones of secular-ecclesiastical relations, this book therefore has significant implications for our understanding of church-state interactions during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.


Photograph of a crowd of people seated before a large rock. The crowd, left, is made up of various ages and races of people, with some standing along the edge of the mass. To the right, a group of people are situated in a line to the sides of a rock that is half again the size of a person. The rock is broad and thin and has a hide on its front. A man in a pink shirt (Bob Green) leans against the rock to the right, while another man (Joe Blanton)stands in front of it. Cars can be seen parked in the background.


This paper presents a technique for the estimation of the sideslip angle and longitudinal speed of a high-performance four-wheel drive vehicle by means of Artificial Neural Networks. The proposed architecture relies on the combination of a pattern recognition neural classifier with two stages of cascaded regression neural networks. The classifier allows identifying the road condition and the regression stages perform the two estimation tasks. The networks are trained by means of datasets recorded on an instrumented vehicle. The strategy is tested in different road adherence conditions, namely dry, wet and icy, and in a variety of driving maneuvers. The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated experimentally by deploying the algorithm on the vehicle and comparing the sideslip angle estimation with the measurement computed by an optical sensor and the longitudinal speed estimation with both the estimation already present on the vehicle and obtained as the mean value of the wheels' velocity and with the optical sensor measurement.


A Focal Plane Array (FPA) Radar is being developed to image objects and personnel in enclosed areas. An FPA radar continuously receives energy from every angular resolution cell in the Field-of-View. Thus, an optimal signal processor must process, in real time, a large number of simultaneous channels, 216 in the current configuration. A DSP-based processor has been developed to achieve this goal.


The mycobacterial flora of 321 water samples was explored to evaluate the role of this part of the environment as a possible source of human mycobacterial disease. The samples included natural waters, waters treated to make them suitable for drinking, and waters in contact with animals. Water from the city aquarium contained the greatest abundance of mycobacteria, with an average of 3.5 strains per sample. The highest yield of positive cultures came from samples in contact with zoo animals and with fish. The majority of the isolated strains were slowly growing mycobacteria; 80 were Mycobacterium gordonae, and 34 of thse belong to a new serotype. Forty-seven cultures were members of the M. avian-intracellulare-scrofulaceum complex, of which 11 were typable by agglutination. From this study and from the work of others, it is concluded that water may be contaminated with potentially pathogenic mycobacteria and thus may serve as a source of human disease.