To the Editor : Most clinical HIV-1 isolates can infect CD4+ peripheral blood T lymphocytes, monocytes, and cultured macrophages (macrophage or M-tropic) but not transformed T-cell lines. In contrast, HIV-1 strains adapted for growth in transformed T-cell lines (T-cell line or T-tropic) do not infect primary monocytes or macrophages. This difference in tropism appears to be a consequence of specific amino acid changes in the env protein. Changes in env responsible for an Mto T-tropism shift often involve the acquisition of multiple positively charged residues in the hypervariable V3 loop domain (1). However, some non-V3 determinants are also important for viral tropism. Although both types of viruses use CD4 as receptor, the CXCR4 chemokine receptor (previously designated LESTR/fusin) is the unique cofactor for entry of T-tropic HIV-1 strains (2). The CCR5 chemokine receptor was subsequently demonstrated to be the cofactor for M-tropic HIV-1 isolates (3). Although some direct evidence for cell surface association of the CD4env complex and the CXCR4 coreceptor was obtained (4), little detail is available on the molecular forces responsible for these proteinprotein interactions. In particular, there is no direct evidence to indicate that the V3 loop binds to the chemokine receptor. Jiang (5) reported that the extracellular domain of the CXCR4 coreceptor for T-tropic HIV-1 isolates is more negatively charged than the CCR5 coreceptor. Because T-tropic isolates have evolved a positively charged V3 domain, it was suggested that coreceptor-env binding involves the interaction between oppositely charged residues. We now expand this analysis by showing that the chemokines corresponding to the different receptors have a similarly unbalanced composition of charged amino acids. So far, the CXCR4 receptor has been demonstrated to bind only the SDF-1 chemokine (6). The CCR5 receptor binds more than one chemokine, including RANTES, MIP-1α , and MIP-1ß (7). The amino acid sequence of these four chemokines is presented in the Figure. We listed the number of positive residues (arginine [R] and lysine [K]) and negative residues (aspartic acid [D] and glutamic acid [E]), and calculated the net charge. SDF-1 appears to have the highest number of positive residues and the lowest number of negative residues, resulting in a net charge of +11. All other chemokines have much less positively charged amino acids, resulting in a net charge for MIP-1α and MIP-1ß of -2 and -1, respectively. The RANTES chemokine has an intermediate charge of +7, which may correlate with the unique receptor use of this chemokine (e.g., RANTES, but not MIP-1α and MIP-1ß, binds the CCR3 receptor [7]). These results are consistent with the idea that positive charges in SDF-1 interact with negative charges in the CXCR4 receptor, and this binding may thus resemble the HIV-1 env-CXCR4 interaction. Early evidence that both the chemokines and HIV-1 bind to the same domain of the chemokine receptor comes from virus inhibition studies. Several ß-chemokines suppress infection with Mtropic but not T-tropic HIV isolates (8), and SDF1 specifically blocks entry of T-tropic isolates (6). Although direct blocking of the receptor may explain part of this chemokine-mediated inhibition, it has also been proposed that internalization of the receptor contributes to the antiviral effect (9). Irrespective of the precise antiviral mechanism, the combined results of this analysis


A typical 3-ton vapor compression refrigeration system using R-22 as the refrigerant is addressed. Two models are developed: a design model and a hierarchical control model. The design model is operated to observe the response of a typical system under various off-design operating conditions. In lieu of laboratory experiments, the normalized responses from the design model (normalized with respect to the design conditions) are compared to the normalized values based on the experimental data reported in the literature. This is done to validate the design model to the extent possible, limited by the reported experimental data in the literature. From this design model a hierarchical control model is developed, in which different control techniques for system capacity regulation and for operation over a range of ambient temperature are employed. By varying corresponding control parameters in each technique, information is developed regarding the refrigerant conditions within the system and system performance under different operating conditions. From the results of these simulations, hierarchical or switchover control strategy for an integrated refrigeration system is postulated to achieve the specific operational requirements with the highest feasible system efficiency over a wide range of off-design operating conditions. A similar approach can be used to postulate different hierarchical control based on other performance measures and considerations.


The Munro Review highlighted obstacles hindering the realisation of an 'effective' and 'child-centred' English child protection system, including the 'risk' associated with the social worker's discretionary space. The review called for reform to enable practicing social workers to exercise their discretion in the best interests of the individual child. This article reports on the results of an iterative qualitative mixed-methods case study of one local authority child protection team, utilising focus group, questionnaire, interview, observation, documentary analysis and critical realist grounded theory, to explore whether, on encountering a discretionary space, social workers were willing to employ discretion, and the factors influencing this decision. The main findings included that social workers were experiencing discretionary space in an entrepreneurial, de jure and de facto sense and that practitioners were more likely to choose to exercise their discretion within the managerially sanctioned discretionary space. Whilst the research does offer some evidence in favour of Munro's image for discretion within the system, it also suggests that further efforts may be required to better imbed 'sanctioned' discretionary space into local policy and procedures so that child protection social workers can more consistently employ their discretion in the interests of the individual child.


Postmortem angiography was used to examine the blood vessels supplying the sinoatrial node in 25 subjects with chronic sinoatrial disorder (group 1). The results were compared with similar studies in 54 subjects who died of heart block and in whom sinus node function was normal (group 2). Although no significant lesion obstructing the blood flow to the sinus node was seen in the majority of those in group 1, there were abnormalities in seven cases, with reduced filling of the sinus node artery in five. In group 2 the sinus node artery filled normally in all cases despite major disease of the parent vessel in three. The combination of contralateral coronary artery disease with extensive atrial anastomoses was actively sought because this arrangement might predispose to a steal phenomenon. Such conditions were fully met in three cases in group 1 and two cases in group 2, and were found to a lesser extent in a further two cases in group 1 and three in group 2. Although coronary artery disease was unlikely to be the principal cause of sinus node dysfunction in most of the cases studied it was relatively common and may have been a factor in about one third. Improved survival after myocardial infarction may increase the number of patients with chronic sinoatrial disorder of ischaemic origin.


Imbalanced data problem is widely present in network intrusion detection, spam filtering, biomedical engineering, finance, science, being a challenge in many real-life data-intensive applications. Classifier bias occurs when traditional classification algorithms are used to deal with imbalanced data. As already known, the General Vector Machine (GVM) algorithm has good generalization ability, though it does not work well for the imbalanced classification. Additionally, the state-of-the-art Binary Ant Lion Optimizer (BALO) algorithm has high exploitability and fast convergence rate. Based on these facts, we have proposed in this paper a Cost-sensitive Feature selection General Vector Machine (CFGVM) algorithm based on GVM and BALO algorithms to tackle the imbalanced classification problem, delivering different cost weights to different classes of samples. In our method, the BALO algorithm determines the cost weights and extract more significant features to improve the classification performance. Experiments conducted on eleven imbalanced data sets have shown that the CFGVM algorithm significantly improves the classification performance of minority class samples. By comparing with similar algorithms and state-of-the-art algorithms, the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms in performance and produces better classification results.


The Kolleru Lake area (KLA) in Andhra Pradesh being a predominant centre for carp culture is known as the 'Carp Pocket of India'. This paper has described the highly efficient fish marketing system prevalent in the KLA and has compared it with the marketing of Indian Major Carps (IMC) in other major aquaculture states like West Bengal and Orissa and marine states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. The marketing channels, market intermediaries, price spread and marketing efficiency have been presented. A comparison of the marketing channels at several fish markets has revealed that the price spread for IMC from Kolleru is highest at the Mumbai market and lowest at the Coimbatore market. Consequently, fishermen's share in consumer price has been found highest for Coimbatore at 61.54 per cent and lowest for Mumbai at 47.06 per cent. Similarly, the marketing efficiency was the highest for Coimbatore at 2.60 and lowest for Mumbai at 1.89. Retail price for KLA carps has been found lower than locally cultured carps at various areas, reflecting the efficiency of the marketing channel in providing cheap fish transported over large distances and through a large number of intermediaries. The reasons for the efficient IMC marketing system at KLA have been discussed and the study has recommended the development of efficient fish marketing system in other parts of the country.


Contemporary Chinese society provides several socially pre-constructed models of representations and practices that interact to produce tensions that must be managed, and values, behaviour and actions are subject to renegotiation: the first system arises from pluralist and dynamic Chinese tradition (local traditional discourse), the second is two-folded—one was inherited from the 1919 intellectual and reform movement in the historical context of the fall of the Empire and the first republican revolution (1911), the other was introduced by Marxist ideology and nurtured the project to construct a socialist society (official discourse); the third reflects the global model that is producing changes in China just as it is elsewhere (local global or 'glocalised' discourse). Except the first model, the others are broad projects of modernization of the Chinese society as well. Arising from a background description which provides pointers to the theory, methodology and Chinese context, the following points are addressed : (1) sexual transmission of HIV in the context of an epidemic dynamics; (2) its situation within society and the position of sexual and social sub-groups (sex workers/potential clients, MSM, and migrants as potential bridge populations for HIV transmission), and (3) late 1980s development of studies on sexuality in the context of 'sexual health' and 'sexology'-oriented awareness as assessing a social inscription of sexualities as well. Therefore, acknowledging the social inscription of sexual transmission in the larger context of the social inscription of sexualities while sexual transmission is becoming the leading mode of HIV transmission, may contribute to reframe social inscription of sexualities and vice-versa, documenting the latter may contribute to reframe efforts for HIV/AIDS prevention and care.


It has been a major concern in the foundry that steel castings manufactured by the evaporative pattern casting process encounter the carbon pick-up problem. A carbon rich layer at the evaporative pattern cast surface is a result of interactions between the gaseous products from foamed polystyrene and the molten metal. The carburized layer with a high hardness makes it difficult to machine the casting. In this study, the influence of the density of EPS pattern and coatings on carbon pick-up phenomena of S25C and S45C commercial carbon cast steel were investigated. As the density of EPS pattern is increased, the carbon concentration of decomposed pattern is increased and the thickness of carburized layer at the surface of steel castings is increased. Also as the density of coatings is increased, the permeability of coatings is decreased and the thickness of carburized layer at the surface of steel castings is increased. S25C steel which has lower original carbon content compared to S45C steel exhibited severe carburization.


Research in sociology shows that effective conversation relates to people's spatial and orientational relationship, namely the proxemics (distance, eye contact, synchrony) and the F-formation (orientation and arrangement). In this work, we introduce novel conversational paradigms that effects conventional F-formation by introducing the concept of multi-directional conversation. Multiplex Vision is a head-mounted device capable of providing a 360° field-of-view (FOV) and facilitating multi-user interaction multi-directionally, thereby providing novel methods on how people can interact with each other. We propose 3 possible new forms of interactions from our prototype: one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many. To facilitate them, we manipulate 2 key variables, which are the viewing parameter and the display parameter. To gather feedback for our system, we conducted a study to understand information transfer between various modes, as well as a user study on how different proposed paradigms effect conversation. Finally, we discuss present and future use cases that can benefit from our system.


Magnetic materials with noncollinear spin textures are promising for spintronic applications. To realize practical devices, control over the length and energy scales of such spin textures is imperative. The chiral helimagnets Cr1/3NbS2 and Cr1/3TaS2 exhibit analogous magnetic-phase diagrams with different real-space periodicities and field dependence, positioning them as model systems for studying the relative strengths of the microscopic mechanisms giving rise to exotic spin textures. Although the electronic structure of the Nb analogue has been experimentally investigated, the Ta analogue has received far less attention. Here, we present a comprehensive suite of electronic structure studies on both Cr1/3NbS2 and Cr1/3TaS2 using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and density functional theory. We show that bands in Cr1/3TaS2 are more dispersive than their counterparts in Cr1/3NbS2, resulting in markedly different Fermi wavevectors. The fact that their qualitative magnetic phase diagrams are nevertheless identical shows that hybridization between the intercalant and host lattice mediates the magnetic exchange interactions in both of these materials. We ultimately find that ferromagnetic coupling is stronger in Cr1/3TaS2, but larger spin–orbit coupling (and a stronger Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction) from the heavier host lattice ultimately gives rise to shorter spin textures.


I discuss recent progress in developing and exploiting connections between SAT algorithms and circuit lower bounds. The centrepiece of the article is Williams' proof that NEXP \not\subseteq ACC^0, which proceeds via a new algorithm for ACC^0-SAT beating brute-force search. His result exploits a formal connection from non-trivial SAT algorithms to circuit lower bounds. I also discuss various connections in the reverse direction, which have led to improved algorithms for k-SAT, Formula-SAT and AC^0-SAT, among other problems.


DEVELOPING A FRAMEWORK FOR CREATING mHEALTH SURVEYS Veli Melih Bilen, B.S. Marquette University, 2016 Various issues in the design of surveys for mobile health (mHealth) research projects still exist. As mHealth solutions become more popular, new issues have been brought into consideration. Researchers need to collect some critical information from participants in these mHealth studies. These mHealth studies require a specialized framework to create surveys, track progress and analyze user data. In these procedures, mHealth's needs differ from other studies. Therefore, there has to be a new framework that satisfies needs of mHealth research studies. Although there are studies for creating efficient, robust and user-friendly surveys, there is no solution or study, which is specialized in mHealth area, and solves specific problems of mHealth research studies. mHealth research studies sometimes require real-time access to user data. Reward systems may play a key role in their study. Most importantly, storing user information securely plays a key role in these studies. There is no such solution or study, which covers all these areas. In this thesis, we present guidelines for developing a framework for creating mHealth surveys. By doing this, we hope to propose a solution for problems encountered in creating and using surveys in mHealth studies.


The study's overarching objective was to evaluate the pros and cons of the newly adopted Village-Based Organization that was funded by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Empirical data was collected following personal interviews and focus group discussions.  The study revealed that VBO contributed to diversifying enterprises by promoting high-value crops, small-scale livestock, and other value-added activities. The respondents expressed their complimentary views about their uplifted living standards. The women's active participation and consequent empowerment increased by restoring their rights on resources and decision making. Farmers Field School motivated the community to introduce new technologies and practices for maintaining their livelihoods better. Despite some limitations, the VBO helped reduce local disputes and criminal activities like dowry, the high-interest rate of credit, child marriage, and drug abuse. The study advocates replicating this concept in the whole country as a part of the corona pandemic stimulus package. It can curb Monga (seasonal famine), tackle incremental anthropogenic-climatic stressors, reduces the consumption of natural resources, achieves Sustainable Development Goals, and finally, uphold the aspiration of a "whole society approach" and "no one is left behind." Policy interventions are warranted to rectify the identified challenges and integrate the basic principles of sustainability, termed a holistic approach.


Recent conceptual studies identify gain, normative and hedonic factors as three categories of motivations of consumer proenvironmental behavior. However, empirical understanding of how these motivations interact and affect proenvironmental behavior is limited. This study is based on a survey of car owners in Sweden (N = 573) and uses structural equation modeling to analyze the data. The empirical findings point to the importance of all three motivations (gain, normative and hedonic) in consumer electric vehicle adoption intentions. Furthermore, for consumers who perceive high social norms regarding sustainable consumption, the direct effect of hedonic motivations on behavioral intention is stronger, and the direct effect of gain motivations is insignificant. The business strategy implications indicate that targeting consumers who perceive high social norms in relation to proenvironmental behavior and communicating the hedonic and normative aspects of proenvironmental behaviors to this group might be more effective than general mass communication.


The presence of dust in either pesticide formulation ingredients or the finished product is a nuisance at best. Dust in the pesticide industry is commonly measured as minus 60 mesh (250 micrometers) material. Dust itself is much smaller airborne particulate matter. A device was constructed to measure airborne particles by weight and light absorption. 3A sample is introduced through a port into a 0.0566 m space. Dust generated during the fall is measured optically and gravimetrically. Absorbance is determined with a tungsten light source, a cadmium sulfide detector and a 0.305 m path length. Dust weight is determined by evacuation of the air above the sample and collection on filter paper. Instrument performance was determined with three types of absorbent minerals, a hormite, a montmorillonite and a diatomite. Light absorption and dust weight were linear with the amount of material introduced. Though materials were slightly different colors, a linear correlation was observed in dust weight vs. absorption plots. Particles in the dust ranged from 2 to over 200 microns, averages ranging from 20 to 65 microns.


The "push-down" technique for hump removal, or hump elimination, is just one maneuver of a number of surgical steps to obtain a more functionable and esthetic appearing nose. The maxilla-premaxilla Cottle approach to extensive nasal septum surgery is used, using techniques of his to modify the nasal dorsum. The "push-down" procedure usually eliminates the bony hump. The cartilaginous hump, (the upper lateral cartilage area) remains intact, and produces little trauma to the subcutaneous tissue, the mucous membranes, the periosteum, the perichondrium, and preserves the nerves and blood supply of the area. The amount of "push-down" that can be done depends on the nasal septum, which is the key to the surgical procedure. One must know how to handle part or all of the septum; its reconstruction with the patient's own bone and cartilage, so that saddling and deformity of the external pyramid and lobule may not occur later. In the repair of the roof, all anatomic relationships should be restored. The upper lateral area should be spared, however, if modified, very conservatively done and with little or no shortening. If there is partial removal of the hump, there should also be reparation of the nasal dorsum with crushed septal cartilage. Further "push-down" depends upon the width of the nose, the location and number of lateral osteotomies and intra-septal osteotomies, incomplete or complete separation of the upper lateral cartilage, done chiefly through the intra-septum space; thus, the nose becomes narrower, smaller, and the roof remains an unimpaired insulating organ playing its important physiological role. Secondary nasal revisions were minor in nature and were usually performed as outpatient procedures. The hump removal concept of total excision should be changed to "push-down" elimination of the nasal bones with total preservation of the dorsum.


Objective: Perfusion quantification of tissues is an important goal to evaluate the state of blood supply of an organ. We developed a method to quantify tissue perfusion via color Doppler signal quantification from sonographic videos and applied this to describe renal parenchymal perfusion in healthy kidneys. Method: Color Doppler sonographic videos of renal perfusion from both kidneys of 87 healthy children (age 2 weeks to 16 years) were recorded under defined conditions. Perfusion data (color hue, color area) were measured in a standardized region of interest automatically. Signal intensity was calculated as whole ROIs (regions of interest) mean flow velocity (cm/s) encoded by color Doppler signals during one full heart cycle. Results: Normal signal intensity values are: 1.86 cm/s in the region encompassing central 50% of the renal cortex and 0.56 cm/s in the peripheral 50% of the renal cortex. These differences are significant. Signal intensity of both kidneys did not differ. Conclusion: Signal intensity of cortical tissue in healthy kidneys was quantified noninvasively from color Doppler signal data in an easily accomplishable manner with new measurement software. Normal values for this technique have been calculated. Possible further applications might be all situations, where perfusion changes could be expected like inflammation, renal insufficiency, vascular diseases and tumors.


This research is focused on improving electrical conductivity of conjugated polythiophene films fabricated by microwave plasma assisted polymerization process. Polythiophene thin films with 300 nm to 1.5 micron thickness were deposited on glass substrates in a highly uniform fashion as evident by Scanning Electron Microscopic analysis. An efficient incorporation of the iodine dopant into the films was also successfully performed to give thin films with 120-250 nm thickness. The films were characterized by various spectroscopic methods. Attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy showed absorption frequencies of important functional groups mostly characteristics of thiophene. The doped fabricated films exhibited UV-vis spectra indicative of increased -conjugation (439-535 nm). Results from energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy confirmed the presence of iodine in the films of upto 10%. Electrical conductive measurements revealed that the undoped films has the conductivity in the range of 1.4×10-5 to 1.0×10-4 S/cm.


With the aim of establishing a framework to efficiently perform the practical application of quantum chemistry simulation on near-term quantum devices, we envision a hybrid quantum--classical framework for leveraging problem decomposition (PD) techniques in quantum chemistry. Specifically, we use PD techniques to decompose a target molecular system into smaller subsystems requiring fewer computational resources. In our framework, there are two levels of hybridization. At the first level, we use a classical algorithm to decompose a target molecule into subsystems, and utilize a quantum algorithm to simulate the quantum nature of the subsystems. The second level is in the quantum algorithm. We consider the quantum--classical variational algorithm that iterates between an expectation estimation using a quantum device and a parameter optimization using a classical device. We investigate three popular PD techniques for our hybrid approach: the fragment molecular-orbital (FMO) method, the divide-and-conquer (DC) technique, and the density matrix embedding theory (DMET). We examine the efficacy of these techniques in correctly differentiating conformations of simple alkane molecules. In particular, we consider the ratio between the number of qubits for PD and that of the full system; the mean absolute deviation; and the Pearson correlation coefficient and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. Sampling error is introduced when expectation values are measured on the quantum device. Therefore, we study how this error affects the predictive performance of PD techniques. The present study is our first step to opening up the possibility of using quantum chemistry simulations at a scale close to the size of molecules relevant to industry on near-term quantum hardware.


TUCSON, ARIZONA--
 State transportation officials have agreed to weigh a proposal to set aside a scientifically valuable parcel of a federal highway project for future research rather than excavating it and selling it to the highest bidder. Should it proceed, Arizona could set a new standard of stewardship for government agencies that determine the fate of ancient relics.


Summary: The effects on hemodynamics and left ventricular function of propranolol and pindolol, β-blockers without and with intrinsic sympathomimetic activity (ISA), respectively, were compared in six men with stable exertional angina at rest and during symptom-limited bicycle exercise. The study was controlled and double blinded, and the order of drug administration was randomized. The dosage of each drug (propranolol 0.15 mg/ kg i.v., pindolol 0.02 mg/kg i.v.) was chosen to reduce exercise tachycardia by approximately 18%. Exercise capacity and duration were similar after each drug, and both drugs similarly reduced ST depression during exercise. At rest, propranolol significantly reduced heart rate, systolic arterial pressure, rate-pressure product, stroke volume index, cardiac index, and left ventricular ejection fraction, and increased systemic vascular resistance. In contrast, pindolol significantly reduced only the ratepressure product and cardiac index, and to a lesser extent than propranolol. During exercise on the other hand, both drugs reduced the heart rate, arterial pressure, rate-pressure product, and cardiac index to a similar degree. Neither drug altered pulmonary artery wedge pressure, systemic vascular resistance, stroke volume index, left ventricular ejection fraction, or left ventricular end-diastolic and end-systolic volume indices. At equipotent β-blocking dosages, ISA in pindolol reduced the effects of β-blockade on resting hemodynamics and left ventricular function compared to propranolol, but during exercise the influence of ISA was reduced; and both pindolol and propranolol exert similar effects on hemodynamics and left ventricular function.


In rice plants a drought at the booting stage is the event most damaging to grain yield because it drastically increases sterility. Our objective was to establish what phosiological processes caused sterility during drought. We applied several soil-drying treatments to pot-grown plants of three rice cultivars (one lowland and two upland) for 10 days during the booting phase. Flag leaf elongation rate (LER), the rate of dry matter production (DMP) and leaf water potential (LWP) decreased and sterlity increased in all cultivars as the intensity of soil drying increased. Increasing sterility was closely correlated with reduced DMP in all cultivars. It has been assumed previously that suppressed assimilate supply causes sterility. However, when DMP was strongly suppressed by shading under well-watered conditions, sterility was unaffected. Moreover, when part of the root system was partially dried at the booting stage, sterility significantly increased and leaf diffusive conductance decreased when compared with the results for well-watered plants, although there was no significant difference in LWP between the treatments. We suggest that sterility in rice plants subjected to soil drying during the booting stage occurs not by reduced assimilation or because of water deficits in the shoot, but by some chemical signal from roots to shoots.


Coupled with the convolutional neural network (CNN), an intelligent Raman spectroscopy methodology for rapid quantitative analysis of four pharmacodynamic substances and soluble solid in the manufacture process of Guanxinning tablets was established. Raman spectra of 330 real samples were collected by a portable Raman spectrometer. The contents of danshensu, ferulic acid, rosmarinic acid, and salvianolic acid B were determined with high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection (HPLC-DAD), while the content of soluble solid was determined by using an oven-drying method. In the establishing of the CNN calibration model, the spectral characteristic bands were screened out by a competitive adaptive reweighted sampling (CARS) algorithm. The performance of the CNN model is evaluated by root mean square error of calibration (RMSEC), root mean square error of cross-validation (RMSECV), root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP), coefficient of determination of calibration (Rc2), coefficient of determination of cross-validation (Rcv2), and coefficient of determination of validation (Rp2). The Rp2 values for soluble solid, salvianolic acid B, danshensu, ferulic acid, and rosmarinic acid are 0.9415, 0.9246, 0.8458, 0.8667, and 0.8491, respectively. The established model was used for the analysis of three batches of unknown samples from the manufacturing process of Guanxinning tablets. As the results show, Raman spectroscopy is faster and more convenient than that of conventional methods, which is helpful for the implementation of process analysis technology (PAT) in the manufacturing process of Guanxinning tablets.


ABSTRACT Evaluating population-level responses to conservation action following large-scale disturbance can improve the efficacy of future habitat conservation measures. In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy storm surges cleared vegetation and opened inlets through the barrier islands, Fire Island and Westhampton Island, New York, creating Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) habitat. Storm effects prompted an island-wide stabilization project, which had the potential to negatively affect novel Piping Plover habitat. Certain sections of Fire Island were designed to create and/or improve habitat (hereafter, restoration areas) to mitigate possible habitat loss or degradation. Since Piping Plovers in New York appear to be habitat-limited, we anticipated positive population growth following habitat creation. From 2013 to 2018, we captured and banded 152 adults and 353 chicks, and monitored 279 nests and 160 broods. We developed an integrated population model to assess demographic processes in response to hurricane created-habitat (2013–2018) and the creation of restoration areas (2015–2018). We observed positive population growth in 3 of 5 yr, and overall growth throughout the period ( = 1.13). Immigration and reproductive output were correlated with population growth (r = 0.92 [95% CI: 0.22 to 0.98] and 0.84 [95% CI: –0.47 to 0.95], respectively). Compared with the rest of the study area, restoration areas had higher chick survival, and lower nest survival and after second-year site fidelity. The result was population growth in restoration areas ( = 1.14) similar to the whole study area. In the short term, restoration areas seemed to mimic natural Piping Plover habitat. Vegetation removal, an important process in renewing natural Piping Plover habitat, likely will be necessary to maintain habitat suitability. Efforts to increase immigration of new breeding adults into the system, and to improve reproductive output, primarily by habitat creation or maintenance, are likely to have the greatest local effect on population growth. LAY SUMMARY Despite being listed under the Endangered Species Act for more than 30 yr, and intensive management, Piping Plovers on the Atlantic Coast have not met population recovery goals across much of their breeding range. Hurricane Sandy increased available nesting habitat (dry sand) by over 150%. Following Hurricane Sandy, we monitored a population of individually marked birds on Fire Island and West Hampton Island, New York, for 6 yr. The area monitored included restored habitat, to evaluate the effectiveness of Piping Plover targeted habitat management. The population increased 90% in the 6 yr following Hurricane Sandy, primarily because of immigrant adults, and local reproductive success. The reproductive output and population growth in restoration areas were similar to the rest of the study area. Overall, Hurricane Sandy habitat creation was positive for this local plover population. Efforts to allow future hurricane storm surges to create habitat, along with continued management, will improve long-term population persistence.


Users' tourism activities are often influenced by the visiting time of Point-of-interests (POIs). Considering the prevalence of location-based social networks(LBSNs) and user-generated-content (UGC), this study tries to propose a novel method to deduce the temporal characteristics for city POIs. To that end, first, we introduce the NLP method to extract tourism-related features for POIs from massive online documents. Then, we analyze the distribution of the tourists' visiting time for a specific POI by taking each check-in made by an individual visitor as a preference voting. Finally, we propose a learning model based on matrix factorization to derive the temporal characteristics of each tourism feature, which is the fundamental for the model proposed in this work for predicting the feasible visiting time for a POI. Our experimental results on two real-world datasets show that the methods proposed in this work are efficient for discovering the feasible visiting time for city POIs.


Nimesulide, a widely prescribed anti-inflammatory analgesic drug belongs to BCS class II and exhibit low and variable oral bioavailability due to its poor solubility and dissolution rate. The objective of the present study is to develop nimesulide rapidly dissolving tablet formulations by wet granulation and direct compression methods employing starch phosphate, a new modified starch. As per FDA guidelines on biowaivers, drug products containing weakly acidic BCS class II drugs with a dissolution of > 85% in 30 min are eligible for biowaiver. Hence, a dissolution of > 85% in 30 min is taken as target dissolution to achieve in the formulation development of nimesulide tablets. Starch phosphate prepared by reacting potato starch with disodium hydrogen orthophosphate anhydrous at elevated temperatures was insoluble in water and has good swelling (400%) property without pasting or gelling, when heated in water. In the micromeritic evaluation, the angle of repose and compressibility index values revealed the excellent flow characteristic of starch phosphate prepared. All the physical properties studied indicated that starch phosphate is a promising pharmaceutical excipient in tablets. Nimesulide rapidly dissolving tablets with >85% dissolution in 30 min could be formulated employing starch phosphate as directly compressible vehicle by direct compression method (BF3) and also employing nimesulide-starch phosphate (1 : 2) solid dispersion by wet granulation method (BF4). Formulations BF3 and BF4, respectively gave 90.25% and 97.25% dissolution in 30 min fulfilling the target dissolution requirement for biowaiver.


Card-not-present credit card fraud costs businesses billions of dollars a year. In this paper, we present Boxer, a mobile SDK and server that enables apps to combat card-not-present fraud by scanning cards and verifying that they are genuine. Boxer analyzes the images from these scans, looking for telltale signs of attacks, and introduces a novel abstraction on top of modern security hardware for complementary protection. Currently, 323 apps have integrated Boxer, and tens of them have deployed it to production, including some large, popular, and international apps, resulting in Boxer scanning over 10 million real cards already. Our evaluation of Boxer from one of these deployments shows ten cases of real attacks that our novel hardware-based abstraction detects. Additionally, from the same deployment, without letting in any fraud, Boxer's card scanning recovers 89% of the good users whom the app would have blocked. In another evaluation of Boxer, we run our image analysis models against images from real users and show an accuracy of 96% and 100% on the two models that we use.


In the context of polarized societies, income homogeneity is linked to the frequency and the intensity of social unrest. Most homogenous countries exhibit a lower frequency of intense social conflicts and less homogeneous countries show a higher frequency of moderate social conflicts. This paper develops a methodology to compare the degree of homogeneity of two income distributions. We use for that purpose and index of polarization that does not account for alienation. This index is the identification component of polarization that measures the degree to which individuals feel alike in an income distribution. This development leads to identification dominance curves and derives first-order and higher-order stochastic dominance conditions. First-order stochastic dominance is performed through identification dominance curves drawn on a support of identification thresholds. These curves are used to determine whether identification, homogeneity, or similarity of individuals is greater in one distribution than in another for general classes of polarization indices and ranges of possible identification thresholds. We also derive the asymptotic sampling distribution of identification dominance curves and test dominance between two distributions using Intersection Union tests and bootstrapped p-values. Our methodology is illustrated by comparing pairs of distributions of eleven countries drawn from the Luxembourg Income Study database.


T IS frequently assumed that principles of conflict of laws, at least as they are understood in the United States, make local domicil a necessary jurisdictional prerequisite to the creation by a state of any of those conditions of person which are customarily grouped together under the broad descriptive term "status."' Consistent resort to this assumption for the solution of problems involving state power with respect to the status of children would require that when legitimacy2 is in issue, the circumstances be such as would legitimize under the law of the domicil at the time the circumstances occur, and that in the case of adoption3 or of custody, 4 the judicial proceedings confixning the adoption or awarding custody take place at the domicil. A reason which is frequently given for the assertion that power over status is, or should be, in the domiciliary state is that that state has a peculiar interest or concern in the status of its own citizens.5 Unfortunately, problems relating to permissible state control over legitimacy, adoption, and custody cannot be solved through resort to such a simple thesis. The legal relations which in the aggregate are designated by such terms as legitimacy, adoption, or custody, necessarily affect more persons than one. When the domicils of these individuals are in different states, consideration cannot be given simultaneously to the peculiar interests of all of the states involved. Furthermore, even though it were possible to weigh the interests of the several states for the purpose of determining the jurisdiction or jurisdictions having a predominant claim to power, the process of balancing and counter-balancing would, if state interests alone were taken into consideration, fail to make allowances for the interests of the child. And these latter interests, in view of national concern in matters relating to child welfare, would seem to be far more important than the somewhat


Supplier selection is a MADM problem. In this paper, a new method to deal with the supplier selection problem is proposed. The work procedure is as follows: firstly, perfects the method of comparing grey numbers with their probability distribution. Secondly, applies the method of multiple attribute decision making based on dominance-base rough sets to the supplier selection problem. Finally, an example of supplier selection problem is used to illustrate the proposed approach.


An organizational performance measurement practice is a function of performance measurement system and performance management system they are currently employing, and its quality is determined by evaluating the followings in a comprehensive manner: first, if they are measuring right things; second, if they are measuring in a right way; third, if they are actively facilitating a process of data collection, structuring, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination; and fourth, if they are using performance measurement results for the primary purposes of performance measurement. This study proposes a diagnostic framework for evaluating the performance measurement practices of public broadcasting which include the qualities of performance measurement and performance management, and develop a structured questionnaire for that purpose. The framework proposed in this study does not serve only as a useful tool for public broadcasting to revise their respective performance measures and performance measurement systems, but it also make their respective performance measurement practices a strategic management tool as well as an operational management one.


Spectrum access policy largely impacts the business models for wireless carriers. The amount of revenue that wireless carriers can earn from (statically assigned and allocated) spectrum is generally the product of Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) and the number of subscribers. But revenue is also related to how "well" they use the spectrum, which is a combination of application type and their Quality of Services (QoS) level. One criterion for evaluating QoS is signal to noise and interference radio (SINR). When the interference level is high, the expected revenue may decrease with the decreases of QoS level. Consequently, the potential interference that is brought by users in adjacent bands in the same area is a significant concern for wireless carriers. In order to prevent this type of potential interference, large guard bands have been instituted at the cost of spectrum utilization efficiency.
The emerging spectrum environment is quite different from this static approach. Today, spectrum is assigned more dynamically, either through secondary spectrum markets or through other spectrum sharing mechanisms, such as the new Citizen's Broadband Radio Services (CBRS) and other initiatives that allow private entities to share federal agencies' frequency bands. Under spectrum sharing policy, new business models are emerging. Primary users (PUs) now have two sources of revenue: providing wireless services and leasing spectrum to secondary users (SUs). In this environment, potential interference that may be brought by users in the same/adjacent bands in the same area need not lead to business failure even though the QoS decreases. Now, PUs can balance the potential spectrum leasing gain with revenue loss due to low QoS, and then make an informed decision as to how to use their spectrum assets. On the other hand, SUs only generate revenue from providing wireless services, but they are not locked in to any static situation. For example, they can choose between opportunistic and cooperative spectrum sharing, or even the mix of the two. With spectrum sensing and software defined radio, they can also choose different frequency bands when channel becomes congested.
In this new world, a key success factor for wireless carriers is their ability to continually adapt to a changing spectrum utilization environment. In other words, they must exercise management flexibility in an environment of continuous decision making. For example, when service demand increases, they need a way to acquire more spectrum and then increase the revenue. On the other hand, when the service demand decreases, they need a way to manage their potential loss. This management flexibility has not received much attention from the research literature. (Weiss, 2012 & Cui, 2014) proposes spectrum trading as options to mitigate uncertainties in the future and incentivize PUs to enlarge the quantity of leasable spectrum. (Lehr, 2015) suggests priority access licenses (PALs) as options to exclude GAAs to ease the implementation and address the asymmetric information challenge confronted by regulators. (De Vries, 2015) suggests risk informed regulation which is based on explicit quantification of the changing spectrum utilization environment.
In this paper, we will use a real options model to analyze different spectrum usage approaches. Using this approach, we investigate the "potential" of one strategy considering future changes and capabilities of coping with risks. For example, for cooperative sharing through trading, a risk is that it is difficult if not impossible for PUs and SUs to predict their future usage. As a result, we anticipate that: spectrum users will be conservative. PUs may only lease the minimum amount of spectrum in case their future service demand will increase. SUs may also lease the minimum amount of spectrum just in case the demand will decrease; or spectrum users may lease the maximum amount of spectrum with a risk of service degradation or financial failure.
Neither solution is desirable. Trading spectrum as financial options can reduce the risks in this situation. These options give the buyer the right but not obligation to share the spectrum. This asymmetry provides protection for both parties. On one side, the buyer of the right can decide whether to share the spectrum or not depending on their situations. On the other side, the seller of the right either gain premium (spectrum leasing fee) when buyers exercise the right or strike (price of the right) when buyers do not exercise the rights.
Next, we broaden our view to all spectrum sharing methods from wireless services entrants' perspective. Before they enter the wireless market, they face the problem of selecting the most appropriate spectrum usage method. Each spectrum usage method has embedded risks and uncertainties, such as changing situations in spectrum utilization environment, regulatory rules, and service demands, that may occur throughout the investment life cycle.
However, risks and uncertainties may not necessarily lead to failure. When they occur, instead of passively commit to the existing business strategy, corporations have the right to delay, expand, contract, or abandon a project with a given cost or salvage value at some future date. This management flexibility may be able to alleviate the risks. Hence, in order to reduce the possibility of business failure, a clear understanding of each spectrum usage method is essential. Therefore, we will identify potential risks and mitigation strategies for each spectrum usage method. Then, we will quantify the value of each spectrum sharing method considering both risks and mitigation strategies by real options. With this value, spectrum entrants can make an informed decision by explicitly considering risks and mitigation strategies.
The outcome of this paper will promote spectrum sharing by minimizing financial risks. It will also help understanding the potential problems for each spectrum sharing method. Therefore, policy makers, operators, and the spectrum market could create interventions in order to obtain the favorable outcomes.
Reference
Lehr, William. "Spectrum License Design, Sharing, and Exclusion Rights." Sharing, and Exclusion Rights (August 15, 2015) (2015). Weiss, Martin BH, and Liu Cui. "Spectrum trading with interference rights." Cognitive Radio Oriented Wireless Networks and Communications (CROWNCOM), 2012 7th Interna- tional ICST Conference on. IEEE, 2012. Cui, Liu, Taieb Znati, and Martin BH Weiss. "Coopetive Spectrum Trading--Creating Endogenous Spectrum Holes." Mobile Networks and Applications 19.4 (2014): 451-466. De Vries, Jean Pierre. "Risk-Informed Interference Analysis: A Quantitative Basis for Spectrum Allocation Decisions." Available at SSRN 2574459 (2015).


ABSTRACT Drawing on a review of international literature published between 2005 and 2021, the present article discusses interventions tailored for Indigenous people in vocational education and training. A critical analysis of this literature was carried out to gain a deeper understanding of the scope of these interventions in bolstering success among Indigenous people in vocational education. Three axes of analysis were used to examine 24 academic papers: the interventions featured in these papers, the conception of social justice in education (i.e. equality of place, equality of opportunity, equity and inclusion, and decolonisation) underpinning these interventions, and their effects on success. The findings paint a picture of the relevance and scope of initiatives that can foster Indigenous student success in vocational education and at the same time reveal the limitations of these studies. They also show which conception of social justice in education appears the most promising. The article concludes with a brief discussion of a few fundamental elements that need to be kept in mind when developing initiatives for Indigenous people in vocational education.


The continuous growth in worldwide container terminals' traffic resulted in an increasing interest for the Quay Crane Scheduling Problem (QCSP) in research and practice. This problem consists of scheduling the discharge and load operations of the containers of a vessel by a set of quay cranes; the objective is to minimize the completion time in an attempt to increase container terminal throughput. In the literature, most of the proposed studies focus on improving model formulation and solution methods with a trend, in most recent papers, to incorporate more realistic features of the problem. Despite the importance given by practitioners to vessel stability in scheduling discharge and load operations, there is little research that considers this constraint. This paper presents a novel MIP formulation of the QCSP that takes into account vessel stability constraints. Furthermore, the proposed model is very flexible in handling various settings of the QCSP, such as those related to crane traveling time, task preemption and unidirectional quay crane operating mode. In order to tackle problem complexity, a Genetic Algorithm (GA) is proposed. Computational results validate the MIP formulation on small sized problems and highlight the performance of the proposed GA.


Introduction: Labor pain and anxiety are closely interrelated with each other. Pain and anxiety together can increase level of cortisol, may result in a decrease uterine contractions so that the risk of causing prolonged labor.The purpose of this study were to examine the effect of music therapy in pain, anxiety, and cortisol level in primigravida during active phase of first stage labor. Method: This study was an experimental research approach with pre-test post-test design at Delivery room Puskesmas Jagir Surabaya. Research subjects of this study was recruited using simple random sampling who was included inclusion criterias. Research subjects in this study was of 32 people who were then divided into two groups, 16 mothers into intervention group and 16 mothers into control group. Data were collected by using observation with VAS and VAAPS, also took venous blood sampling for laboratory test of cortisol serum. Data were analyzed by using paired t-test and independent t-test. Result and Analysis: The results showed that: 1) Score of VAS in intervention group was less than control group (p= 0,000), 2) Score of VAAPS in intervention group was less than control group (p=0,000), 3) There was no significant differences cortisol level between intervention group and control group (p=0,305). Discuss and Conclusion:Music therapy could reduce pain and anxiety, but could not reduce levelof cortisol in primigravida during active phase of first stage labor.Further research, music therapy should be given from third trimester in order to relaxation effect of music therapy can be felt by the mother during labor. Keywords: pain, anxiety, cortisol, music therapy


In subtropical areas of China, air temperature and relative humidity were relatively high in summer, as well as the solar radiation. In the university campus, students are relatively concentrated and have more outdoor activities. Hot and humid weather conditions may cause students uncomfortable and even heat stroke. Therefore, the influences of landscape design on thermal environment should be taken into account in the process of campus planning. In this paper, the field measurement of outdoor air temperature, relative humidity, wind velocity, heat radiation and integrated hot environmental indicator namely wet bulb global temperature were carried out around the Dong Lake in South China University of Technology in typical summer days. The impacts of design methods of water, tree, grass and floor on thermal environment were analyzed.


In this paper a new CNN model with second-order cells is proposed. The system dynamic behaviour is analyzed using the state equations. Its eigenvalues are studied in the space frequency domain and we show how the template and circuit parameters can be varied to obtain dispersion curves with a desired shape, which allows one to precisely select the unstable modes, with useful applications in pattern formation.


Local synthesis of immunoglobulins (Igs) has been demonstrated in tissues surrounding epithelial cell layers engaged in secretion, such as in salivary glands, gastrointestinal tract, mammary glands and respiratory tract (1–4). Several theories have been put forth (4–6) to explain the passage of Igs, particularly secretory IgA (sIgA), from the plasma cells in the sub-epithelial spaces to the lumen of the various glands and organs. These have also been necessarily concerned with the assembly of the sIgA 11S dimer and its association with secretory component (SC), because the latter component can be localized in epithelial cells (1, 7) rather than in the plasma cells which synthesize the α and light chains of IgA. As yet, the route of the IgA molecule from the plasma cells to the lumen of various secretory glands has not been clearly delineated. However, the presence of IgA in between and/or at the apex both of the absorptive and glandular epithelial cells of the intestine has been described (4, 8, 9).


Named Data Networking (NDN) supports the consumer mobility service by letting a consumer reissue an interest. This method is straightforward, but it may cause several drawbacks, including unnecessary handover overhead and long handover delay. We concentrate on the NDN communication model in which the pair of an interest and a data packet is considered a single communication working set (i.e., transaction unit). In this respect, reissuing an interest means creating a new transaction due to the connection damaged by the movement of a consumer. It makes all states of the current transaction useless, and this is where the drawbacks arise. In order to enhance the consumer mobility service, we propose Mobility Link Service (MLS) operated in NDN face which is responsible for management of a connection for a transaction. MLS reuses the existing states of a transaction by establishing a connection for the transaction instead of creating a new one. In addition, MLS in NDN face makes consumer mobility service transparent to the NDN forwarding plane. Therefore, the consumer mobility service and the NDN architecture can evolve independently. The performance evaluation shows that MLS reduces the amount of retransmitted data and handover latency compared with the existing NDN mobility solution.


We report in situ growth of amorphous silicon/carbon (Si/C) layers on graphitized carbon black (GCB) particles in porous microspheres (PMs) for formation of novel GCB@Si/C PMs as high performance anode materials. The preparation included spray drying, KOH activation and chemical vapor deposition at 900 °C, and used methyltrichlorosilane as both the Si and C precursor, which is a cheap byproduct in the organosilane industry. The obtained samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, nitrogen adsorption, transmission electron microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. Compared with the bare GCB PMs, the GCB@Si/C PMs showed a significantly enhanced electrochemical performance with high lithium storage capacity and excellent cycling stability (the discharge capacity of GCB@Si/C-3 PMs and GCB@Si/C-6 PMs is maintained at 587.2 and 729.7 mA h g−1 after 200 cycles at a current density of 100 mA g−1), because the unique interconnected porous structure within the microspheres could absorb a large portion of Si volume change during Li insertion and extraction reactions, promote the diffusion of Li-ion and electrolyte solution, hinder the cracking or crumbling of the electrode, and additionally, the GCB and amorphous C provide high conductive electron pathway. This work opens a new way for fabrication of Si/C nanocomposites as anode materials for Li-ion batteries.


Domestic-currency invoicing and hedging allow internationally active firms to reduce their exposure to exchange rate variations. This paper argues that domestic-currency invoicing and hedging with exchange rate derivatives allow a fairly straightforward management of transaction and translation risk. Broader economic risk (which takes into account the impact of the exchange rate on competitiveness) is by its very nature harder to manage, but the paper argues that natural hedging provides possibilities for doing so. A novelty of this paper is a survey of actual hedging strategies and techniques of large euro-area corporations. The paper finds that euro-area exporters make ample use of instruments to limit the adverse impact of euro appreciation.


Consider a unit which can experience any one of k competing failure types, and suppose that for each unit we observe the time to failure, T, and the type of failure, C ∈ {1, 2, …, k}. The case of observing the pair (T, C) is termed competing risks in statistical literature. After considering some examples we review basic notation and theory of competing risks. In particular we consider the latent failure time approach to competing risks in which the k risks are represented by potential failure times T1, …, Tk where only the smallest, T = minjTj, is observed together with its index C = arg minjTj. In reliability studies, the marginal distributions of the Tj are often of primary interest, but are unfortunately nonidentifiable in general. Additional, though nontestable, assumptions to obtain identifiability are considered, as are bounds for the marginal distributions given in terms of observable functions. The likelihood function of right censored competing risks data is given and its consequences for both parametric and nonparametric estimation are explained. Extensions of the classical theory of competing risks to more general Markov models and to repairable systems are briefly discussed.

Keywords:

competing risks;
latent failure times;
subdistribution function;
cause-specific hazard function;
identifiability;
preventive maintenance;
repairable system


Recently, neural networks have achieved great success on sentiment classification due to their ability to alleviate feature engineering. However, one of the remaining challenges is to model long texts in document-level sentiment classification under a recurrent architecture because of the deficiency of the memory unit. To address this problem, we present a Cached Long Short-Term Memory neural networks (CLSTM) to capture the overall semantic information in long texts. CLSTM introduces a cache mechanism, which divides memory into several groups with different forgetting rates and thus enables the network to keep sentiment information better within a recurrent unit. The proposed CLSTM outperforms the state-of-the-art models on three publicly available document-level sentiment analysis datasets.


Martin L. Olsson received his M.D. [1991] and Ph.D. [1997] from Lund University in Sweden where he is a Professor and Senior Consultant in Transfusion Medicine and also the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. He is the Medical Director of the Nordic Reference Laboratory in Lund. His main clinical and research interest is the molecular genetics of blood groups with an emphasis on carbohydrates and host-pathogen interactions.


Agriculture is a major economic sector and a critical source of livelihood in many of the low and middle income countries in Asia. However, this sector is subject to a very wide range of risks related to natural hazards, climate change and variability, pest and diseases. This study review literatures that focus on disaster risks and disaster-related loss and damage in agriculture sector in Asia. The study also highlights the current patterns of agricultural insurance in the region. Literatures were identified for review from various sources such as journals, reports, proceedings and other related documents by searching comprehensively both electronic and non-electronic databases. Evidences suggest that agriculture sector in Asia is particularly exposed to floods, droughts, hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, landslides and seasonal epidemics. However, the amount of losses and damages occurred in this sector varies across the countries. It was reported that agricultural insurance was available either in a pilot form or a fully mature national-level program in 20 of the 44 countries (45% of the total) in the region in 2010. The most popular insurance product in the region is livestock insurance, followed by crop insurance (available in 13 and 12 countries, respectively). Therefore, further research is urgently needed to assess more accurately the losses and damages in agriculture sector in the region and to provide better policy suggestions to relevant agencies to promote sound and effective insurance programs.


We describe an oracle for smart contracts for strengthening the functionality of their execution, thus making them amenable to any future changes that may be critical for sustained use. The oracle is supported by an ontology—specifically, constraints for transactions can be represented by semantic rules, and as such, this ontology-based oracle can help resolve break glass in case of emergency type scenarios that require going beyond pre-defined rules in the smart contracts that are already deployed in the distributed ledger platform. The issue of resolving an unexpected situation that was not explicitly considered in the code can be thought of as dynamic changes to attributes of assets and participants involved in a smart contract, which is equivalent to changing rules for a transaction. One way to implement such changes could be by having users vote on different proposals to change the rule. In our case, such a change can be invoked using the ontology and contextual information associated with the smart contract itself. The ontology also helps constrain the voting system itself, imposing a form of access control to allow only valid changes in rules.


Aim: The aim of this study was to relate the salivary electrolyte levels with dental caries in children with Down syndrome and to compare salivary electrolyte levels and dental caries of these children with their siblings. Materials and Methods: Study population consisted of 30 Down syndrome children (study group) and their 30 healthy siblings (control group). Caries status was determined by dental caries indices in deciduous and permanent dentitions. Un-stimulated saliva from both groups was collected for salivary electrolyte examination. Results: In the study group, mean caries experience in primary dentition was 1.00 ± 0.79 and in the control group it was 2.33 ± 1.42, the difference being statistically significant. Mean caries experience in the permanent dentition of the study group (0. 97 ± 0.76) was significantly lower than the control group (2.47 ± 1.25). Salivary electrolyte levels in the study group were significantly higher than the control group. Conclusion: There was a significant decrease in dental caries in primary as well as permanent dentition of Down syndrome patients with increase in their salivary electrolyte levels.


A surface treatment was applied to carbon black to improve the electrical and microwave properties of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET)-based composites. Three different formamide solutions with 1, 2, and 3 wt % concentrations were prepared to modify the surface chem- istry of carbon black. Microwave properties such as the absorption loss, return loss, insertion loss, and dielectric constant were measured in the frequency range of 8- 12 GHz (X-band range). Composites containing formam- ide-treated carbon black exhibited enhancements in the electrical conductivity, electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding effectiveness, and dielectric constant values when compared to composites with untreated carbon black. In addition, increases in the formamide solution concentration and carbon black content of composites resulted in an increase in the electrical conductivity, EMI shielding effectiveness, and dielectric constant values. The percolation threshold concentration of PET composites shifted from a 3 to 1.5 wt % carbon black composition with the surface treatment. The best EMI shielding effec- tiveness was around 27 dB, which was obtained with the composite containing 8 wt % carbon black treated with a 3 wt % formamide solution. Moreover, this composition gave the lowest electrical resistivity and the highest dielectric constant among the produced composites. 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 109: 152-159, 2008


Abstract Introduction: The concept of "event" offers a valuable lens to understand the discursive contestations in and around protests. Events create ruptures that disturb the logic of continuity and open up new way of thinking and talking about the past and the future. Drawing on this concept, this article analyzes the 2013 protests in Turkey and Brazil. It investigates how the causes of these protests were framed and debated in each country and how these frames shifted over time by opening up new interpretations of the past and the future. Materials and Methods: Data is generated from four Facebook pages capturing the messages posted during the first 30 days of protests in each country. In the Brazilian case, we collected the posts of: (1) Passe Livre São Paulo (301,787 likes), the group that started the wave of protests; and (2) O Gigante Acordou (155,690 likes), a collective that emerged during the protests, representing nationalist perspectives. In total, 626 posts were collected from both pages. In the Turkish case, we analyzed posts that appeared on the pages of : (1) Taksim Dayanismasi (82,479 likes), an association that played a significant role in organizing and mobilizing Gezi Park protests; and (2) Recep Tayyip Erdogan (6,957,408 likes), a pro-government and inherently anti-protest page. We coded each post inductively focusing particularly on the way they framed the causes of the protests. We then identified the number of times each frame was mentioned during the first 30 days of the protests and explored whether and how frames changed over time. Results: Our analysis reveals a significant shift in the way the causes of the protests were framed over time in both countries, yet with different implications. While in Brazil, we observe a frame transformation undermining the initial rationale of the protests, in Turkey we see a frame extension and the emergence of broader issues as the real causes of protests, such as the authoritarian nature of the regime and the restriction of democratic rights in this country. Discussion: The article offers a way of analysing protests based on a conceptual lens of event. It sheds light on the role of social media as a platform for symbolic struggles over the protests. Furthermore, the article opens up a debate about the developments of democracy in both countries.


The paper addresses the issue of hierarchical cell structure (HCS) planning using a single UMTS carrier. Using system-level simulations, analyses have been made of the coverage and capacity of 64 kbps circuit-switched services. Basic issues related to micro-cell planning and design, for example base station power outage and soft-handoff ratio, are studied. Simulation results on micro-cell downlink capacity and coverage are presented and, in particular, the role of the pilot power settings for micro-cell sites.


Extracts of mammalian arterial walls revealed a kinin-like biological activity resistant against proteolytic inactivation with trypsin but not chymotrypsin. Bradykinin was chromatographically determined as kinin existing in extracts from the rat aorta. Kallidin was found as well as bradykinin in human vessels. Metabolism of vasoactive kinins in the vascular wall seems to take part in control of circulation and blood pressure.


This work considers estimation of mass parameters for multi-robot coordinated lifting in the context of coordinated aerial manipulation, and develops strategies for active parameter estimation for cooperative manipulation tasks through an information-theoretic framework. The active sensing problem is formulated based on application of increasing forces to the object and detection of small motions that occur when the center of pressure exits the convex hull formed by existing contacts. In order to enable identification of informative actions, we develop and employ a closed-form solution of Cauchy-Schwarz quadratic mutual information (Ics) for non-parametric filters. The evaluation considers iterative selection from a finite set of measurements and demonstrates that choosing measurements to maximize Ics significantly improves the convergence rate of the parameter estimates compared to random and cyclic selection methods. This approach is extended to consider actuator constraints and feasible lifting configurations and achieves an 80% success rate in formation of feasible lifting configurations compared to a 53% baseline performance.


Purpose Color coding of digital subtraction angiography (DSA) is a temporal and intensity post-processing color coded algorithm that generates a single composite image containing all information contained in a standard DSA acquisition. The composite image enhances the conspicuity of findings on DSA images done before and after therapeutic interventions. To date, analysis of images processed with this algorithm has been entirely qualitative. In a series of patients, we sought to add quantification to the color coded images. Materials and methods Angiographic acquisitions were obtained by a single operator using the same volume of contrast medium injected through a catheter at the same location before and after treatment. Using the time to peak parameter, the effect of neuroendovascular treatment of cerebral artery vasospasm and intracranial stenosis was quantified in three patients. A time contrast concentration curve was generated from a group of pixels in the extracranial segment of the vertebral artery or internal carotid artery (proximal to the area of pathology) to confirm that delivery of the contrast bolus was equivalent before and after treatment. Next, a time contrast concentration curve from a group of pixels in a vessel distal to the lesion was used to quantify the treatment effect. Quantitative analysis was obtained by directly comparing the time to peak before and after treatment at these two locations. Results Color coded DSA was quantified in two patients treated for vasospasm and in one with an intracranial stenosis. In all cases, composite color images were generated with the only variable between pretreatment and post-treatment images being the treatment itself. In all cases, time–concentration curves distal to the lesion demonstrated quantifiable changes in time to peak following treatment. Overall, there was a 1–1.25 s decrease in time to peak after verapamil infusion for vasospasm. There was a 0.5 s decrease in time to peak after angioplasty for intracranial stenosis. Conclusions Color coded DSA not only presents all the information from a standard acquisition as a composite qualitative image but also contains readily quantifiable parametric data. The full usefulness of these data remains to be determined and is the topic of ongoing investigations. Furthermore, animal experiments on the effects of varying stenosis on quantitative data proximal and distal to the stenosis are ongoing and will be presented.


Context: Steroid 17α-hydroxylase/17,20-lyase deficiency (17OHD) is characterized by decreased sex steroids and cortisol, and excessive mineralocorticoid action. The clinical symptoms of hypocortisolemia are subtle. Aim: The clinical, biochemical, and molecular characteristics of patients with 17OHD were evaluated to determine the factors influencing the time of diagnosis and the management. Patients and Methods: Clinical data, steroid profiles by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, and Sanger sequencing of the CYP17A1 gene was evaluated in 12 patients with 17OHD diagnosed between 2004 and 2020. Results: Median age of diagnosis was 13.9 (range: 0.04–29.5) years. Ten of 12 patients had 46,XY karyotype. Except for one boy with partial 17OHD, all patients had female external genitalia hence raised as females. The clinical presentation of 17OHD was earlier (median age: 7 years) in patients, who presented with severe hypertension, atypical genitalia, or positive family history (n = 6, 50%) than those without (median age: 15.3 years; p = 0.0005). The latter group presented with amenorrhea (n = 6, 50%). Steroid profile of patients uniformly showed a typical pattern of 17OHD regardless of the age at diagnosis. Serum gonadotropin concentrations were elevated in patients >12 years (n = 7), normal in pre-adolescents (n = 4), and low in a patient, who had a digenic inheritance of homozygous CYP17A1 and KISS1R mutations. Conclusions: Early clinical presentation and diagnosis in 17OHD are associated with symptomatic hypertension in both 46,XX and 46,XY patients or inadequate virilization of external genitalia in 46,XY partial 17OHD. In the absence of these, the clinical presentation is at late pubertal ages at which time amenorrhea and elevated gonadotropins are the hints for diagnosis.


When firms announce a restatement of their financial reports, they inform investors that their prior announcements were faulty. Not only do companies lose credibility at times such as this but also their securities are revalued as investors respond to the substance of the announcement. We investigate investor size to understand how large and small investors differ in their responses to restatement announcements. Our results indicate that large investors seemingly anticipate the announcement; their holdings decrease before restatement announcements; consequently large investors trading after announcements is less pronounced than for smaller investors. The response of small investors depends on who has prompted the restatement: the company itself, FASB or the SEC and not on the reason for the restatement such as problems with revenue recognition, restructuring or cost/expense. Large investor trading volume is affected by both the source of the restatement and the reason for it. Large investors seem to anticipate potential problems, and sell securities before restatement announcements.


This paper investigates the semiotics of Bitcoin, an electronic cash system that uses decentralized networking to enable irreversible payments. For enthusiasts, Bitcoin provides an alternative to currencies and payment systems that are seen to threaten users' privacy, limit personal liberty, and undermine the value of money through state and corporate oversight. Bitcoin's promise lies in its apparent capacity to resolve these concerns not through regulatory institutions or interpersonal trust, but through its cryptographic protocols. We characterize this semiotics as a "practical materialism" and suggest it replays debates about privacy, labor, and value.


The interactions among climate, erosion, and tectonics have long been of interest to geologists, but have not yet been united into a single theoretical framework. In this study, representations of orographic precipitation and fluvial erosion are combined with the concept of a critical wedge orogen. The idealized framework captures the basic system dynamics. It also allows for a formal analysis of the precipitation and tectonic interactions in terms of feedback factors and gains, and so permits a quantitative comparison of their relative strengths. The constraint of self-similar growth in a critical wedge orogen acts as a tectonic governor, whereby changes in orogen size are strongly damped. We determine that this negative tectonic feedback is stronger than the precipitation feedback, which may be negative or positive depending on whether precipitation increases or decreases with orogen size. For an extreme positive feedback unconstrained runaway growth is possible, ultimately leading to plateau formation. When orographic precipitation leads to a significant rain shadow, there is a strong partitioning of rock uplift rates that favors the wet, windward flank of the orogen. This flank also dominates the response of the whole orogen to changes in climate or tectonic forcing, except in the case where a large fraction of the eroded material is recycled into the wedge. Finally, it is demonstrated that the response time of the orogen depends on the feedbacks, and is proportional to the gain of the system.


Importance
Although the central visual field (VF) in end-stage glaucoma may substantially vary among patients, structure-function studies and quality-of-life assessments are impeded by the lack of appropriate characterization of end-stage VF loss.

Objective
To provide a quantitative characterization and classification of central VF loss in end-stage glaucoma.

Design, Setting, and Participants
This retrospective cohort study collected data from 5 US glaucoma services from June 1, 1999, through October 1, 2014. A total of 2912 reliable 10-2 VFs of 1103 eyes from 1010 patients measured after end-stage 24-2 VFs with a mean deviation (MD) of -22 dB or less were included in the analysis. Data were analyzed from March 28, 2018, through May 23, 2019.

Main Outcomes and Measures
Central VF patterns were determined by an artificial intelligence algorithm termed archetypal analysis. Longitudinal analyses were performed to investigate whether the development of central VF defect mostly affects specific vulnerability zones.

Results
Among the 1103 patients with the most recent VFs, mean (SD) age was 70.4 (14.3) years; mean (SD) 10-2 MD, -21.5 (5.6) dB. Fourteen central VF patterns were determined, including the most common temporal sparing patterns (304 [27.5%]), followed by mostly nasal loss (280 [25.4%]), hemifield loss (169 [15.3%]), central island (120 [10.9%]), total loss (91 [8.3%]), nearly intact field (56 [5.1%]), inferonasal quadrant sparing (42 [3.8%]), and nearly total loss (41 [3.7%]). Location-specific median total deviation analyses partitioned the central VF into a more vulnerable superonasal zone and a less vulnerable inferotemporal zone. At 1-year and 2-year follow-up, new defects mostly occurred in the more vulnerable zone. Initial encroachments on an intact central VF at follow-up were more likely to be from nasal loss (11 [18.4%]; P < .001). One of the nasal loss patterns had a substantial chance at 2-year follow-up (8 [11.0%]; P = .004) to shift to total loss, whereas others did not.

Conclusions and Relevance
In this study, central VF loss in end-stage glaucoma was found to exhibit characteristic patterns that might be associated with different subtypes. Initial central VF loss is likely to be nasal loss, and 1 specific type of nasal loss is likely to develop into total loss.


 Abstract — Individuals are generally associated with different learning styles, which have been explored extensively in recent past. The learning styles refer to the potential of an individual by which s/he can easily comprehend and retain information. Among various learning style models, VARK is the most accepted model which categorizes the learners with respect to their sensory characteristics. Based on the number of preferred learning modes, the learners can be categorized as uni-modal, bi-modal, tri-modal, or quad/multi-modal. Although there is a prevalent belief in the learning styles, however, the model is not being frequently and effectively utilized in the higher education. This research describes the identification model to validate teacher's didactic practice and student's performance linkage with the learning styles. The identification model is recommended to check the effective application and evaluation of the various learning styles. The proposed model is a guideline to effectively implement learning styles inventory in order to ensure that it will validate performance linkage with learning styles. If performance is linked with learning styles, this may help eradicate the distrust on learning style theory. For this purpose, a comprehensive study was conducted to compare and understand how VARK inventory model is being used to identify learning preferences and their correlation with learner's performance. A comparative analysis of the findings of these studies is presented to understand the learning styles of tertiary students in various disciplines. It is concluded with confidence that the learning styles of students cannot be associated with any specific discipline. Furthermore, there is not enough empirical proof to link performance with learning styles.


Shadows are important to computer graphics because they add realism and help the viewer identify spatial relationships. Shadows are also useful story-telling devices. For instance, artists carefully choose the shape, softness, and placement of shadows to establish mood or character. Many shadow generation techniques developed over the years have been used successfully in offline movie production. It is still challenging, however, to compute high-quality shadows in real-time for dynamic scenes. This thesis presents two efficient shadow algorithms. Although these algorithms are designed to run in real-time on graphics hardware, they are also well-suited to offline rendering systems. First, we describe a hybrid algorithm for rendering hard shadows accurately and efficiently. Our method combines the strengths of two existing techniques, shadow maps and shadow volumes. We first use a shadow map to identify the pixels in the image that lie near shadow discontinuities. Then, we perform the shadow-volume computation only at these pixels to ensure accurate shadow edges. This approach simultaneously avoids the edge aliasing artifacts of standard shadow maps and avoids the high fillrate consumption of standard shadow volumes. The algorithm relies on a hardware mechanism that we call a computation mask for rapidly rejecting nonsilhouette pixels during rasterization. Second, we present a method for the real-time rendering of soft shadows. Our approach builds on the shadow map algorithm by attaching geometric primitives that we call smoothies to the objects' silhouettes. The smoothies give rise to fake shadows that appear qualitatively like soft shadows, without the cost of densely sampling an area light source. In particular, the softness of the shadow edges depends on the ratio of distances between the light source, the blockers, and the receivers. The soft shadow edges hide objectionable aliasing artifacts that are noticeable with ordinary shadow maps. Our algorithm computes shadows efficiently in image space and maps well to programmable graphics hardware. Thesis Supervisor: Frédo Durand Title: Assistant Professor


Commitments help model interactions in multiagent systems in a computationally realizable yet high-level manner without compromising the autonomy and heterogeneity of the member agents. Recent work shows how to combine commitments with goals and apply planning methods to enable agents to determine their actions. However, previous approaches to modeling commitments are confined to propositional representations, which limits their applicability in practical cases. We propose a first-order representation and reasoning technique that accommodates templatic commitments and goals that may be applied repeatedly with differing bindings for domain objects. Doing so not only leads to a more perspicuous modeling, but also supports many practical patterns.


We present strong evidence that during the January 2008 minor sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event, the equatorial vertical E × B drifts exhibit a unique and distinctive daytime pattern. We do not think one event causes the other, however both events might be related through the global effects of planetary waves. The drifts were measured by the Jicamarca Incoherent scatter radar located under the magnetic equator. We have observed an anomalous temporal variation of the vertical E × B drifts during the minor SSW event, showing a semidiurnal variation with very large amplitudes lasting for several days. Large differences in the E × B drifts were observed during a period of large increase of temperature and a large decrease of mean zonal wind, in the high latitude stratosphere (60°–90°N). This high correlation is an unexpected finding which might shed new light on sources and mechanisms of quiet‐time ionospheric variability.


Consider a multiuser system where an arbitrary number of users communicate with a distributed receive array over independent Rayleigh fading paths. The receive array performs minimum mean squared error (MMSE) or zero forcing (ZF) combining and perfect channel state information is assumed at the receiver. This scenario is well-known and exact analysis is possible when the receive antennas are located in a single array. However, when the antennas are distributed, the individual links all have different average signal to noise ratio (SNRs) and this is a much more challenging problem. In this paper, we provide approximate distributions for the output SNR of a ZF receiver and the output signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) of an MMSE receiver. In addition, simple high SNR approximations are provided for the symbol error rate (SER) of both receivers assuming M-PSK or M-QAM modulations. These high SNR results provide array gain and diversity gain information as well as a remarkably simple functional link between performance and the link powers.


PURPOSE
Glaucoma is an optic neuropathy commonly associated with elevated intraocular pressure (IOP), leading to optic nerve head (ONH) cupping, axon loss, and apoptosis of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), which could ultimately result in blindness. Brn3b is a class-4 POU domain transcription factor that plays a key role in RGC development, axon outgrowth, and pathfinding. Previous studies suggest that a decrease in Brn3b levels occurs in animal models of glaucoma. The goal of this study was to determine if adeno-associated virus (AAV)-directed overexpression of the Brn3b protein could have neuroprotective effects following elevated IOP-mediated neurodegeneration.

METHODS
Intraocular pressure was elevated in one eye of Brown Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus), following which the IOP-elevated eyes were intravitreally injected with AAV constructs encoding either the GFP (rAAV-CMV-GFP and rAAV-hsyn-GFP) or Brn3b (rAAV-CMV-Brn3b and rAAV-hsyn-Brn3b). Retina sections through the ONH were stained for synaptic plasticity markers and neuroprotection was assessed by RGC counts and visual acuity tests.

RESULTS
Adeno-associated virus-mediated expression of the Brn3b protein in IOP-elevated rat eyes promoted an upregulation of growth associated protein-43 (GAP-43), actin binding LIM protein (abLIM) and acetylated α-tubulin (ac-Tuba) both posterior to the ONH and in RGCs. The RGC survival as well as axon integrity score were significantly improved in IOP-elevated rAAV-hsyn-Brn3b-injected rats compared with those of the IOP-elevated rAAV-hsyn-GFP- injected rats. Additionally, intravitreal rAAV-hsyn-Brn3b administration significantly restored the visual optomotor response in IOP-elevated rat eyes.

CONCLUSIONS
Adeno-associated virus-mediated Brn3b protein expression may be a suitable approach for promoting neuroprotection in animal models of glaucoma.


IMP dehydrogenase (IMPDH) is an essential enzyme of de novo guanine nucleotide synthesis. IMPDH inhibitors have clinical utility as antiviral, anticancer or immunosuppressive agents. The essential nature of this enzyme suggests its therapeutic applications may be extended to the development of antimicrobial agents. Bacterial IMPDH enzymes show biochemical and kinetic characteristics that are different than the mammalian IMPDH enzymes, suggesting IMPDH may be an attractive target for the development of antimicrobial agents. We suggest that the biochemical and kinetic differences between bacterial and mammalian enzymes are a consequence of the variance of specific, identifiable amino acid residues. Identification of these residues or combination of residues that impart this mammalian or bacterial enzyme signature is a prerequisite for the rational identification of agents that specifically target the bacterial enzyme. We used sequence alignments of IMPDH proteins to identify sequence signatures associated with bacterial or eukaryotic IMPDH enzymes. These selections were further refined to discern those likely to have a role in catalysis using information derived from the bacterial and mammalian IMPDH crystal structures and site-specific mutagenesis. Candidate bacterial sequence signatures identified by this process include regions involved in subunit interactions, the active site flap and the NAD binding region. Analysis of sequence alignments in these regions indicates a pattern of catalytic residues conserved in all enzymes and a secondary pattern of amino acid conservation associated with the major phylogenetic groups. Elucidation of the basis for this mammalian/bacterial IMPDH signature will provide insight into the catalytic mechanism of this enzyme and the foundation for the development of highly specific inhibitors.


: In two adult patients, a 74-year-old woman and a 84-year-old man, who suffered from vague abdominal complaints, an intussusception was diagnosed by CT. Surgical resection of the affected bowel parts was successful. Intussusception is usually seen in children; in adults it is a rare condition. Adult patients mostly complain about vague abdominal pain only. Physical examination, laboratory investigations and plain abdominal X-rays often don't give any additional information. In such patients it is advised to perform CT of the abdomen at an early stage. CT may show a so-called 'target sign' which is characteristic of an intussusception. In addition it can provide information about the possible causes of the intussusception, most commonly a malignant tumour in adults. During laparotomy one should not attempt to reduce the intussusception because of the risk of tumour spill. In this clinical review, we present two adult patients with unexplained abdominal complaints due to intussusception, caused by malignancy.


Purpose Tumor-induced osteomalacia (TIO) is characterized by hypophosphatemia caused by a phosphaturic mesenchymal tumor. While surgical resection of the tumor leads to a cure, identification of the responsible tumor is challenging. Recently, several studies showed that systemic sampling of fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) is helpful for localization of tumors. The present study aimed to evaluate the clinical utility of this method in Korean patients. Materials and Methods Six patients compatible with TIO who were admitted to our hospital between 2006 and 2015 were analyzed. Systemic venous sampling of FGF23 was performed to detect blind lesions or to confirm a suspicious lesion identified in previous imaging studies. Results Venous sampling helped confirming the tumor in five of the six patients. Three patients underwent surgery after sampling, and in two patients, the lesions were detected after 3 years by means of 68Ga-DOTATOC positron emission tomography with computed tomography. In one patient, there was a local elevation of serum FGF23 without any related lesion on additional imaging. Conclusion Our data strengthened the value of venous sampling of FGF23 in predicting the location of tumors and suggested that it can be more effective in the presence of the relevant lesion in subsequent imaging analyses.


EGFR signaling initiates upon ligand binding which leads to activation and internalization of the receptor-ligand complex. Here, we evaluated if BUB1 impacted EGFR signaling by regulating EGFR receptor internalization and activation. BUB1 was ablated genomically (siRNA) or biochemically (2OH-BNPP1) in cells. EGF ligand was used to initiate EGFR signaling while disuccinimidyl suberate (DSS) was used for cross linking cellular proteins. EGFR signaling was measured by western immunoblotting and receptor internalization was evaluated by fluorescent microscopy (pEGFR (pY1068) colocalization with early endosome marker EEA1). siRNA mediated BUB1 depletion led to an overall increase in total EGFR levels and more phospho-EGFR (Y845, Y1092, and Y1173) dimers while the amount of total EGFR (non-phospho) dimers remained unchanged. BUB1 inhibitor (BUB1i) decreased EGF mediated EGFR signaling including pEGFR Y845, pAKT S473 and pERK1/2 in a time dependent manner. Additionally, BUB1i also reduced EGF mediated pEGFR (Y845) dimers (asymmetric dimers) without affecting total EGFR dimers (symmetric dimers) indicating that dimerization of inactive EGFR is not affected by BUB1. Furthermore, BUB1i blocked EGF mediated EGFR degradation (increase in EGFR half-life) without impacting half-lives of HER2 or c-MET. BUB1i also reduced co-localization of pEGFR with EEA1 positive endosomes suggesting that BUB1 might modulate EGFR endocytosis. Our data provide evidence that BUB1 protein and its kinase activity may regulate EGFR activation, endocytosis, degradation, and downstream signaling without affecting other members of the receptor tyrosine kinase family.