Abstract Transportation of Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 ) via high-pressure pipelines from source to storage site forms an important link in the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)chain. To ensure the safety of the operation, it is necessary to develop a comprehensive understanding of the consequences of possible pipeline failure. CO 2 is a hazardous substance and an accidental release may lead to catastrophic damage. This paper describes an experimental investigation of the dispersion of CO 2 in the atmosphere in a full-scale burst test of a pipeline containing high-pressure dense phase CO 2 . The experiment was carried out to simulate a CO 2 pipeline failure in the real world. The test rig consisted of a buried 85 m long, 610 mm diameter pipeline test section connected at either end to 116 m long reservoirs. An explosive charge detonated at test section half-length initiated a rupture in the pipe wall top surface, releasing the high-pressure contents. The atmospheric dispersion of the CO 2 following the explosive release was measured. The paper also describes Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)simulations of the dispersion of CO 2 following the release. The CFD models were validated against the experimental data. The models were then extended to estimate the consequence distances related to CO 2 dispersion following failure of longer pipelines of various diameters under different wind speeds and directions. Comparison of the results with prior studies was carried out. Abstract Transportation of Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 ) via high-pressure pipelines from source to storage site forms an important link in the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) chain. To ensure the safety of the operation, it is necessary to develop a comprehensive understanding of the consequences of possible pipeline failure. CO 2 is a hazardous substance and an accidental release may lead to catastrophic damage. This paper describes an experimental investigation of the dispersion of CO 2 in the atmosphere in a full-scale burst test of a pipeline containing high-pressure dense phase CO 2 . The experiment was carried out to simulate a CO 2 pipeline failure in the real world. The test rig consisted of a buried 85 m long, 610 mm diameter pipeline test section connected at either end to 116 m long reservoirs. An explosive charge detonated at test section half-length initiated a rupture in the pipe wall top surface, releasing the high-pressure contents. The atmospheric dispersion of the CO 2 following the explosive release was measured. The paper also describes Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of the dispersion of CO 2 following the release. The CFD models were validated against the experimental data. The models were then extended to estimate the consequence distances related to CO 2 dispersion following failure of longer pipelines of various diameters under different wind speeds and directions. Comparison of the results with prior studies was carried out.


The key to balancing economic transformation and improving quality development is financial supporting green development. The relationship between financial technology (fintech) and green development has gradually emerged recently. Based on the data of 35 major cities in China from 2015 to 2019, the fintech development index and green total factor productivity (GTFP) are obtained by adopting web crawler technology and Bootstrap-SBM-GML model respectively; further, the impact of urban fintech level on GTFP is also revealed by taking the financial support policy index (FSP) as the instrumental variable. The empirical research shows the following results. First, the level of fintech and financial support policy indicators show a steady upward trend in the study period; whereas the tendency of GTFP is not obvious. Second, the urban fintech level has a significant promoting effect on GTFP through FE, MM-QR and 2SLS models. Specifically, the promoting effect mainly comes from the promotion of technological change (TC) of the GTFP decomposition index; the promoting effect will be greater in the lower cities of green development level. Third, industrial structure upgrading (UIS) and technological innovation (TI) play an intermediary role in the green development effect of fintech. Four, the green development effect of fintech is heterogeneous. Specifically, the green development effect of fintech on GTFP is larger in the central and western regions and low-level cities; whereas it is smaller in the eastern part regions and high-level cities.


Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) is a life-threatening hyperinflammatory syndrome comprising familial/genetic HLH (FHL) and secondary HLH. In the HLH-94 study, with an estimated 5-year probability of survival (pSu) of 54% (95% confidence interval, 48%-60%), systemic therapy included etoposide, dexamethasone, and, from week 9, cyclosporine A (CSA). Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) was indicated in patients with familial/genetic, relapsing, or severe/persistent disease. In HLH-2004, CSA was instead administered upfront, aiming to reduce pre-HSCT mortality and morbidity. From 2004 to 2011, 369 children aged <18 years fulfilled HLH-2004 inclusion criteria (5 of 8 diagnostic criteria, affected siblings, and/or molecular diagnosis in FHL-causative genes). At median follow-up of 5.2 years, 230 of 369 patients (62%) were alive (5-year pSu, 61%; 56%-67%). Five-year pSu in children with (n = 168) and without (n = 201) family history/genetically verified FHL was 59% (52%-67%) and 64% (57%-71%), respectively (familial occurrence [n = 47], 58% [45%-75%]). Comparing with historical data (HLH-94), using HLH-94 inclusion criteria, pre-HSCT mortality was nonsignificantly reduced from 27% to 19% (P = .064 adjusted for age and sex). Time from start of therapy to HSCT was shorter compared with HLH-94 (P =020 adjusted for age and sex) and reported neurological alterations at HSCT were 22% in HLH-94 and 17% in HLH-2004 (using HLH-94 inclusion criteria). Five-year pSu post-HSCT overall was 66% (verified FHL, 70% [63%-78%]). Additional analyses provided specific suggestions on potential pre-HSCT treatment improvements. HLH-2004 confirms that a majority of patients may be rescued by the etoposide/dexamethasone combination but intensification with CSA upfront, adding corticosteroids to intrathecal therapy, and reduced time to HSCT did not improve outcome significantly.


Salvia amarissima Ortega was evaluated to determinate its antihyperglycemic and lipid profile properties. Petroleum ether extract of fresh aerial parts of S. amarissima (PEfAPSa) and a secondary fraction (F6Sa) were evaluated to determine their antihyperglycemic activity in streptozo-cin-induced diabetic (STID) mice, in oral tolerance tests of sucrose, starch, and glucose (OSTT, OStTT, and OGTT, respectively), in terms of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), triglycerides (TG), and high-density lipoprotein (HDL). In acute assays at doses of 50 mg/kg body weight (b.w.), PEfAPSa and F6Sa showed a reduction in hyperglycemia in STID mice, at the first and fifth hour after of treatment, respectively, and were comparable with acarbose. In the sub-chronic test, PEfAPSa and F6Sa showed a reduction of glycemia since the first week, and the effect was greater than that of the acarbose control group. In relation to HbA1c, the treatments prevented the increase in HbA1c. In the case of TG and HDL, PEfAPSa and F6Sa showed a reduction in TG and an HDL increase from the second week. OSTT and OStTT showed that PEfAPSa and F6Sa significantly lowered the postprandial peak at 1 h after loading but only in sucrose or starch such as acarbose. The results suggest that S. amarissima activity may be mediated by the inhibition of disaccharide hydrolysis, which may be associated with an α-glucosidase inhibitory effect.


Climate change matters for all young people. It matters especially for those whose livelihoods depend on agriculture and will continue to do so in the future due to slowing growth in labour-intensive manufacturing and constraints on labour absorption in the service sector. Of the slightly more than 500 million rural young people projected globally in 2030, two thirds will be in sub-Saharan Africa and in South Asia. In many African countries farming still employs over half of a rapidly growing labour force, and the absolute number of agricultural workers is still rising (although the share of the labour force is falling with structural transformation). Where agriculture is called upon to deliver job security as well as food security, vulnerability to climate change presents major risks for the large numbers of young job-seekers. Adaptation to climate change is feasible, and options will increase as new technologies and management approaches come onstream. Adaptation requires proactive planning and investments in relevant infrastructure and agricultural science. Strategies for job creation in highly affected countries must accord more attention than is the case at present to agriculture, both on the farm and in the food system.


Brazil is the largest �g producer in South America, but the Brazilian commercial �g tree cultivation is based on the planting of a single cultivar, 'Roxo-de-Valinhos', resulting in serious problems related to diseases. Since there are epigenetic variations in the plant-pathogen interaction, mainly through gene regulation, the aim of this study was to carry out the in vivo characterization of �g accessions through the analysis of the natural root-knot nematode and leaf rust incidence correlated to its epigenomic pro�le, in order to support conservation works and genetic improvement. Regarding the analysis of the presence of nematodes, it was observed that all plants were attacked by this pathogen, and the identi�cation of Meloidogyne incognita as the root-knot nematode species was con�rmed. However, the rust incidence and the global genomic methylation content where statistical different between evaluated accessions. The joint analysis of data showed that methylation and the leaf rust incidence, when observed in the same phenological phase of plants, are correlated, presenting evidences of the same factorial pressure loads in genotypes, with the premise of similar behavior in these genotypes. Biotic factors are also responsible for changes in the DNA methylation of plants, demonstrating a positive role in promoting plant defense.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to test the efficacy of brief physician advice in reducing alcohol use and related harm in college students.

METHOD
The College Health Intervention Projects (CHIPs) is a randomized, controlled clinical trial with 12-month follow-up conducted in five college health clinics in Wisconsin; Washington state; and Vancouver, Canada. Of the 12,900 students screened for high-risk drinking, 484 men and 502 women met inclusion criteria and were randomized into a control (n = 493) or intervention (n = 493) group. Ninety-six percent of students participated in the follow-up procedures. The intervention consisted of two 15-minute counseling visits and two follow-up phone calls, and used motivational interviewing, contracting, diary cards, and take-home exercises.

RESULTS
No significant differences were found between groups at baseline on alcohol use, age, socioeconomic or smoking status, rates of depression, or measures of alcohol-related harm. At 12 months, the experimental subjects reduced their 28-day drinking totals by 27.2%, and the control group reduced their totals by 21%. A mixed effects repeated measures model found a statistical difference in favor of the brief-intervention group (beta = 4.7, SE = 2.0, p = .018) in 28-day drinking totals. The total Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index score was also significantly different during the 12-month follow-up period (beta = 0.8, SE = 0.4, p = .033). There was no difference on the other outcome measures of interest, such as frequency of excessive heavy drinking, health care utilization, injuries, drunk driving, depression, or tobacco use.

CONCLUSIONS
The study supports resource allocation and implementation of alcohol screening and brief physician advice in primary care-based college health clinics.


The proliferation of radical online communities and their violent offshoots has sparked great societal concern. However, the current practice of banning such communities from mainstream platforms has unintended consequences: (i) the further radicalization of their members in fringe platforms where they migrate; and (ii) the spillover of harmful content from fringe back onto mainstream platforms. Here, in a large observational study on two banned subreddits, r/The_Donald and r/fatpeoplehate, we examine how factors associated with the RECRO radicalization framework relate to users' migration decisions. Specifically, we quantify how these factors affect users' decisions to post on fringe platforms and, for those who do, whether they continue posting on the mainstream platform. Our results show that individual-level factors, those relating to the behavior of users, are associated with the decision to post on the fringe platform. Whereas social-level factors, users' connection with the radical community, only affect the propensity to be coactive on both platforms. Overall, our findings pave the way for evidence-based moderation policies, as the decisions to migrate and remain coactive amplify unintended consequences of community bans.


An isotope-dilution technique using carbon-14 was employed to determine quantitatively the carbon budget of a filter-feeding crustacean. The amount of carbon ingested ranged between 0.044 and 0.139 mg. Incorporation of carbon varied between 11.3 and 73.6 percent per day per organism, with an average of 32.5 percent for the animals tested. Values for oxygen consumption are given as they relate to carbon intake and utilization.


Abstract The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a palliative/end-of-life care workshop on students' perceptions of professional identity, team understanding, and their readiness for interprofessional education (IPE). A before-and-after design was used combining both qualitative and quantitative methods. A survey was completed by 25 undergraduate students from a variety of health care professional schools across Canada, both before and after they attended the five-day workshop. There was a significant increase in students' readiness for IPE, perceptions of professional identity, and team understanding after they attended the palliative care workshop. Students stated that learning about other professionals' backgrounds and becoming more sensitive to other team members and their scopes of practice helped change the way they would practice. The findings from this study will contribute to our understanding of student attitudes around IPE and palliative care.


Abstract In many areas of neural computation, like learning, optimization, estimation, and inference, suitable divergences play a key role. In this note, we study the conjecture presented by Amari (2009) and find a counterexample to show that the conjecture does not hold generally. Moreover, we investigate two classes of -divergence (Zhang, 2004), weighted f-divergence and weighted -divergence, and prove that if a divergence is a weighted f-divergence, as well as a Bregman divergence, then it is a weighted -divergence. This result reduces in form to the main theorem established by Amari (2009) when .


In addition to quality improvements and cost reductions, dynamic and flexible business relationships are expected to become more important in the future to account for specific customer change requests or small-batch production. Today, despite reservation, sensitive information must be shared upfront between buyers and sellers. However, without a trust relation, this situation is precarious for the involved companies as they fear for their competitiveness following information leaks or breaches of their privacy. To address this issue, the concepts of confidential computing and cloud computing come to mind as they promise to offer scalable approaches that preserve the privacy of participating companies. In particular, designs building on confidential computing can help to technically enforce privacy. Moreover, cloud computing constitutes an elegant design choice to scale these novel protocols to industry needs while limiting the setup and management overhead for practitioners. Thus, novel approaches in this area can advance the status quo of bootstrapping new relationships as they provide privacy-preserving alternatives that are suitable for immediate deployment.


Sediment sampling for investigation of the effect of environmental factors on abundance and diversity of benthic community was carried out in Makran (Oman Sea) coast in pre and post monsoon with a 0.1m Van Veen Grab and CTD in 2007 and 2009. Polychaeta, Crustacea, Gastropoda and Bivalvia were the dominant groups of benthic community respectively either in pre or post monsoon. There was a significant difference between abundance in pre and post-monsoon (P<0.05). Pearson correlation was significantly different between abundance with depth (P<0.01) and DO and temperature (P<0.05). Shanoon and margalof indices changed increasingly from west to east of Makran (Oman Sea) coast but there was no significant correlation between diversity indices and environmental factors. The results showed that abundance of macrobenthos community in post-monsoon was more than pre-monsoon because of the Monsoon Sea current and the increase of chlorophyll-a in post-monsoon.


Von Willebrand factor (VWF) and coagulation factor VIII (FVIII) are plasma proteins that circulate in a tight, noncovalent complex. Binding to VWF is required to stabilize the FVIII heterodimer and to prevent its premature clearance. The half-life of FVIII mimics that of the FVIII/VWF complex, suggesting that the complex is cleared as a single entity. The objectives of studies presented in this thesis were to identify parameters that affect VWF plasma levels and to elucidate elements that contribute to the VWF clearance mechanism. Little is known about the clearance mechanism of VWF. However, a number of parameters have been identified that influence VWF plasma levels. One of these factors is its glycosylation profile. VWF contains both N- and O-linked glycosylation. The blood group sugars on VWF all belong to the N-linked glycans and average VWF plasma levels are decreased in persons with blood group O. We investigated the influence of O-linked glycans on VWF plasma levels. Therefore we set up an assay that could determine the level O-linked glycans present on plasma VWF. We showed an inverse correlation between the extend of O-linked glycosylation and VWF plasma levels. Moreover, the amount of O-linked glycosylation is proportional to the VWF/ propeptide ratio. Because increased ratios may be indicative for increased clearance of VWF, the possibility exists that also modifications in O-linked glycosylation affect clearance of VWF. Also mutation in VWF may affect its plasma levels. We investigated the in vivo survival of three cysteine mutations, expressed in patients suffering from Von Willebrand Disease (VWD). We observed decreased survival of the VWF mutants in both patients an in an experimental mouse model. We explored the possibility that FVIII half-life can be predicted using VWF plasma level concentrations. Therefore we determined FVIII half-life and VWF antigen levels in severe haemophiliacs. VWF antigen levels correlated well with FVIII half-life in blood-group non-O, but poorly in severe haemophiliacs. This poor correlation for blood-group O patients could be considerably improved when VWF/propeptide ratios were used. Thus determination of VWF antigen levels and propeptide allows prediction of FVIII half-life. In order to gain more insight into the clearance mechanism of FVIII and VWF, VWF clearance was investigated in mice deficient for VWF. VWF was mainly targeted to the liver and spleen. Analysis of liver and spleen sections of VWF-deficient mice infused with FVII, VWF or the VWF/FVIII complex revealed co-localisation of all proteins with macrophages in both tissues. We also tested the contribution of macrophages to the in vivo clearance of VWF. Treatment of mice with gadolinium chloride (GdCl3) prior to VWF infusion resulted in decreased macrophage cell numbers. This resulted in a 2-fold increase of endogenous VWF in wild-type mice pre-treated with GdCl3. In addition, the survival of infused VWF was prolonged almost 2-fold in VWF-deficient mice. To study the uptake of the VWF by macrophages, we developed an in vitro model using macrophages and showed binding of VWF and FVIII to human macrophages. Moreover, VWF bound to these cells in a dose-dependent and saturable manner, which was followed by a rapid uptake and subsequent degradation of the internalised protein.


The paper researched a solar heat-reflective insulation coating method, investigating coating morphology and other factors affecting the performance of thermal insulation, such as membrane material and the type of insulation pigments as well as pigment to binder ratio. It used solar heat reflectivity and infrared spectroscopy to characterize the coating thermal insulation performance. The results showed that with the silane coupling agent for the bonded dispersant, the flake aluminum powder and titanium dioxide for the thermal insulation filler, together with water and additives, the average reflectance of visible light is 56%, the UV reflectance is 53%, the infrared reflectivity is 58%.


This article will focus on harnessing the latest in multi-media and technological gadgetry in the modern history classroom. Teenagers find themselves at the cutting edge of the world of "bits and bytes", social media and a global network of knowledge. It is at that point that the history teacher needs to meet them and help them to engage with the past. A new horizon has opened up for the modern history teacher who, as a student of change can pass on the skills of change management. Looking into the past, the dots can be connected and scenario planning for the future can begin. In the history classroom, which is by its very nature interdisciplinary (because history is all about the story of what people do), various fields of study and kinds of reasoning meet. The modern history classroom should be relevant to teenagers navigating their way through a rapidly changing world which has been shrunk by technology and in which there has been an explosion of knowledge. It is the history teacher who can put that knowledge to work, if he/she meets the teenager at the intersection of technology and of the past. Knowledge alone is of little use if not tempered by wisdom, and it is the historian who can apply "reason" to snippets of information. In the 21st Century the history teacher must perform a delicate balancing act: reason, technology and the multi-media world of the young technophile must be juggled with consummate skill.


This paper clarifies that the skillful time-scale characteristic of a model is one of the key factors to reproduce the amount precipitation at a specific location with the model. A comparison with data from an operational weather station of the Japan Meteorological Agency in Tokyo (Ote-machi) revealed that a model needed That a model requires 5-km-grid resolution and below to represent the power spectrum of hourly precipitation. A model with a higher resolution is probably needed to simulate hourly precipitation in Tokyo during the summer monsoon season.


While online behavior creates an enormous amount of digital data that can be the basis for social science research, to date, the science has been conducted piecemeal, one internet address at a time, often without social or scholarly impact beyond the site's own stakeholders. Scientists lack the tools, methods, and practices to combine, compare, contrast and communicate about online behavior across internet addresses or over time. In response, we are building the infrastructure for computational social scientists, social scientists, and citizens to make corresponding advances in our understanding of online human interactions. In this paper, we present our effort to specify the Open Community Data Exchange (OCDX) metadata standard to describe datasets, as well as the necessary infrastructure for creating, editing, viewing, sharing, and analyzing manifests. The purpose of this paper is to communicate the current state of our project and represent our current findings through our ongoing engagement with the scientific community and to engage in dialog among computational social scientists.


The CFTR protein, encoded by the gene whose mutations induce Cystic Fibrosis, is an anion channel devoted mainly to chloride and bicarbonate transmembrane transport, but which also regulates transport of several other ions. Moreover, it is implicated in the cell response to inflammation, and, reciprocally, cftr gene expression is modulated by inflammatory stimuli and transduction pathways. Looking for a control of CFTR expression by ionic conditions, we investigated the effect of altered extracellular bicarbonate ion concentration on CFTR expression in human pulmonary Calu-3 cells. We found that basal cftr gene transcription is enhanced when extracellular HCO 3-concentration increases from 0 to 25 mmol/l. The transduction pathway controlled by these extracellular [HCO 3-] variations includes cAMP production linked to the stimulation of soluble adenylyl cyclase (sAC), and nuclear accumulation of the transcription factor, CREB. Basal membrane content in CFTR protein exhibits the same variations as cftr mRNA in cells incubated in the presence of extracellular [HCO 3-] between 0 and 25 mmol/l, and is also decreased by inhibiting sAC in the presence of HCO 3-. These results show that bicarbonate-controlled sAC stimulation must be taken into account in cell physiology and that basal CFTR expression depends on an ionic parameter.


India has the world's highest burden of child undernutrition. Lack of income has been attributed as the primary cause of child undernutrition. However, evidence suggests that despite steady economic growth and investments in social services directed towards child welfare, undernutrition rates in India are persistent. Thus factors impacting child undernutrition are entrenched within the social fabric of a community. Previous studies indicate that countries that have higher gender inequality have poorer health outcomes for women and children. India with its dominant patriarchal structure and deep-rooted gender biases has disproportionately worse outcomes for women and children. This dissertation study was designed to do the following: 1) emphasize the importance of maternal autonomy and health related awareness as factors significantly impacting maternal health and child nutritional status and 2) use a strengths-based approach to make recommendations for child welfare policy. By applying an asset-based approach, the social capital within a community is recognized interventions can be developed using community and individual level strengths. This study fills the gap in literature on the role of maternal autonomy and health related awareness on child nutritional status, particularly in communities with high levels of gender inequality. The current study utilized data from the India National Family Health Survey Round-3 (NFHS-3) to conduct a cross sectional analysis. The study sample consisted of urban married women between ages of 15-49 years who had at least one living child between the ages of 0-5 years (N= 9,092). It utilized the UNICEF 'model of care' and three distinct theories (i) Ecological Systems Theory, (ii) Capability Approach, and (iii) Positive Deviance Inquiry to develop the conceptual framework. Scales measuring maternal autonomy and health related awareness were developed and validated. Ordered Logistic Regression and Kohler mediation model were utilized to examine the relationship between maternal autonomy and health related awareness and child nutritional status and the mediation effect of maternal health. Implications are provided for child welfare policy and practice, social work policy and research.


The interaction of NO with Cu{110} is complex and is strongly dependent on both coverage and temperature, When Cu{110} is exposed to NO in the temperature range 40-85 K, initial adsorption leads to the presence of molecular NO on the surface, With further exposure this is replaced by the dimeric (NO)(2) species and N2O. Below 60 K, subsequent adsorption leads to the formation of multilayers of (NO)(2). A detailed molecular beam study shows that adsorption is accompanied by the appearance of a range of gaseous reaction products. At 85 K, beaming of NO at a Cu{110} surface results in a large uptake of NO, which leads to gaseous N-2 and N2O production followed by a sudden saturation of the surface. The observed gaseous products are. derived from adsorbed N2O formed on the surface upon exposure to NO, which dissociates to give the observed gaseous N-2 and O-ad. This was confirmed in independent experiments with N2O beams, demonstrating gaseous N-2 production at 85 K. Saturation of the surface with O-ad results in a sudden fall in NO uptake. At higher temperatures N-ad, which associatively desorbs as N-2 at similar to 800 K, is also produced on the surface by dissociation of incident NO. The NO dissociative sticking probability passes through a maximum. at 200 K, with an anomalously sharp fall between 220 and 300 K.


This article updates previous Reserve Bank research on how developments in the composition and pricing of banks' funding have affected their overall cost of funding and the setting of lending rates (Deans and Stewart 2012; Robertson and Rush 2013). The main findings are that the absolute levels of banks' funding costs and lending rates have fallen over the past year, and spreads between these rates and the cash rate have narrowed marginally. The decline in these spreads largely reflects the shifts in the composition of banks' funding liabilities and the narrowing of wholesale debt spreads. Lending rates have tended to move in line with funding costs over the past 12 months.


Abstract. Layers with strongly enhanced ozone concentrations in the middle–upper troposphere, referred to as secondary ozone peaks (SOPs), have been observed in different regions of the world. Here we use the global ECHAM5/MESSy atmospheric chemistry model (EMAC) to (i) investigate the processes causing SOPs, (ii) explore both their frequency of occurrence and seasonality, and (iii) assess their effects on the tropospheric ozone budget over the Himalayas. The vertical profiles of potential vorticity (PV) and a stratospheric ozone tracer (O3s) in EMAC simulations, in conjunction with the structure of SOPs, suggest that SOPs over the Himalayas are formed by stratosphere-to-troposphere transport (STT) of ozone. The spatial distribution of O3s further shows that such effects are in general most pronounced in the northern part of India. Model simulated ozone distributions and backward air trajectories show that ozone rich air masses, associated with STT, originate as far as northern Africa and the North Atlantic Ocean, the Middle East, as well as in nearby regions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and are rapidly (within 2–3 days) transported to the Himalayas. Analysis of a 15-year (2000–2014) EMAC simulation shows that the frequency of SOPs is highest during the pre-monsoon season (e.g. 11 % of the time in May), while no intense SOP events are found during the July–October period. The SOPs are estimated to enhance the tropospheric column ozone (TCO) over the central Himalayas by up to 21 %.


In a loss less interconnection network, network congestion needs to be detected and resolved to ensure high performance and good utilization of network resources at high network load. If no countermeasure is taken, congestion at a node in the network will stimulate the growth of a congestion tree that not only affects contributors to congestion, but also other traffic flows in the network. Left untouched, the congestion tree will block traffic flows, lead to underutilization of network resources and result in a severe drop in network performance. The InfiniBand standard specifies a congestion control (CC) mechanism to detect and resolve congestion before a congestion tree is able to grow and, by that, hamper the network performance. The InfiniBand CC mechanism includes a rich set of parameters that can be tuned in order to achieve effective CC. Even though it has been shown that the CC mechanism, properly tuned, is able to improve both throughput and fairness in an interconnection network, it has been questioned whether the mechanism is fast enough to keep up with dynamic network traffic, and if a given set of parameter values for a topology is robust when it comes to different traffic patterns, or if the parameters need to be tuned depending on the applications in use. In this paper we address both these questions. Using the three-stage fat-tree topology from the Sun Data center InfiniBand Switch 648 as a basis, and a simulator tuned against CC capable InfiniBand hardware, we conduct a systematic study of the efficiency of the InfiniBand CC mechanism as the network traffic becomes increasingly more dynamic. Our studies show that the InfiniBand CC, even when using a single set of parameter values, performs very well as the traffic patterns becomes increasingly more dynamic, outperforming a network without CC in all cases. Our results show throughput increases varying from a few percent, to a seventeen-fold increase.


The collection, management and sharing of customers' personal data represents a new set of opportunities for online businesses. The provision of personal data by consumers is a source of benefits and threats at the same time. Online retailers and service providers often seek ways to gain consumers' confidence and minimize privacy concerns in online transactions. This paper aims to establish a better understanding of the role of attitudes in respondents' willingness to provide personal information in online transactions. We employ a stated preference discrete choice experiment to collect respondents' choices across online retailers and a conventional store under different levels of personal-information requirements.An opt-out option is also available in each of the choice exercises. Personal information in the experiment is presented across three dimensions (attributes): amount/type of information collected, duration of storage and the likelihood of this information being shared with third parties. These dimensions are introduced in order to be able to capture specific threats involved in online transactions according to consumer perceptions. The choice data are complemented with a set of attitudinal indicators (psychometric scales) corresponding to latent constructs such as privacy concern, general caution and technical protection. The data comes from 502 participants reflecting a nationally representative sample of the online-user population in the UK. We report on Integrated Latent Variable models which test the influence of these latent constructs in the respondents' decision to engage in an online transaction. Model estimation results show that the higher an individual's concern, general caution and technical protection the less likely this individual is to purchase a product online. In a joint model, the influence of privacy concern is found to outweigh the influence of general caution and technical protection.


Ferroresonance is a complex nonlinear electrical phenomenon that can cause dielectric and thermal problems for electrical equipment. Electrical systems with ferroresonant behavior are nonlinear dynamical systems. The ferroresonance phenomenon may take place when the core of an inductive device becomes saturated, and its current flux characteristic becomes nonlinear. While in the case of a linear resonant circuit the resonance frequency is well defined, in the case of a nonlinear circuit, the oscillations may exist at various frequencies, depending on many factors of the particular case. In this paper, ferroresonance phenomenon and its mitigation techniques in 33 kV/110 V voltage transformers (VT) were studied using ATP-EMTP simulation. Initial investigations were carried out for the VT failures occurred at one substation in Malaysia. Physical and burn characteristics of the failed VTs were studied. Simulation results show that ferroresonance cannot be proven to have occurred at the VT due to switching operations since one precondition, namely the critical capacitance, could not have been satisfied. However, in the event of a ferroresonance occurring, several mitigation techniques such as using load resistors, proper grounding sequence, reconfiguration of VT connection, and overcurrent and overvoltage protection can be implemented.


Changes in cellular metabolism, whether caused by nutrition deficiencies or improper storage conditions, result in inefficient germination physiology (BUSTAMANTE L. et al., 1984., MIRDAD Z. et al., 2006, STANISAVLJEVIC R. et al. 2010 ). The aim of the present study was to examine the relation among the parameters that influence seed storability in the granary, for variety Palma of Festuca arundinacea. The seed for this variety was produced under the conditions characteristic for Banat area, in the west of Romania. The samples we analysed were taken from the granary where tall fescue seeds are kept. We took samples five months after harvest, during three consecutive years, namely: 2009, 2010 and 2011. For the analysis, we took several samples from the granary; these samples were combined and we extracted the lab sample for determining the purity, germination and the moisture sample. Germination testing was made in compliance with the current ISTA rules (International Seed Testing Association (ISTA)-2002) and Order SR 1634. We determined the following: germination (%/number), pure seeds (%weight) and moisture content (%). In order to determine the germination of Festuca arundinacea seeds, we used the TP-top of paper method. The following categories were highlighted on the germination layer: normal seedlings; abnormal seedlings; dead seeds. The results obtained while testing germination in the three consecutive years led us to the conclusion that improper storage conditions, i.e. increased moisture, influence germination percentage for variety Palma of Festuca arundinacea. Moisture content and dead seeds influence abnormal seedlings in a direct way. The poorest results from the point of view of the parameters we studied were recorded in 2009, while the best results were recorded in 2011. The relay index shows the similarities between years 2010 and 2011 (relay index for 2010 was 1.8183 and for 2011 it was 2), when the germination percentage was the highest. The assessment of germination, moisture and purity for variety Palma of Festuca arundinacea, grown in the conditions present in România, by the firm SC.Zanandreea Sementi, brings more information on the behaviour of this variety during storage.


OBJECTIVE
Impaired attention has frequently been observed in studies of unaffected siblings of patients with schizophrenia. To assess the suitability of impaired attention for use as an intermediate phenotype in genetic studies, the authors estimated the relative risk of impaired attention in a large group of siblings.

METHOD
The authors used the Continuous Performance Test, 1-9 version, with and without a distraction condition, to study 147 patients with schizophrenia, 193 of their siblings, and 47 normal comparison subjects. Relative risk (l) was estimated by using cutoff scores that were one, two, and three standard deviations below the mean sensitivity index value (d cent) of the normal comparison group in both Continuous Performance Test conditions.

RESULTS
Patients but not their siblings performed worse than the normal comparison subjects in both conditions. Fifty percent of the patients, 24% of their siblings, and 18% of the normal comparison subjects scored one standard deviation below the mean score of the comparison group for the more difficult distraction version of the Continuous Performance Test. The patients with Continuous Performance Test scores one standard deviation below the mean score of the comparison group had a total of 97 siblings. Compared with the comparison group, this subgroup of siblings had significantly lower Continuous Performance Test scores. Relative risk was also significantly higher for the siblings of patients whose scores were one standard deviation (l=2. 1) and two standard deviations (l=3.3) below the mean of comparison subjects. Attempts to assess ascertainment bias suggest that this may be an underestimate.

CONCLUSIONS
Poor performance on the Continuous Performance Test appears to be familial and, possibly, genetic. Relative risk estimates were in the moderate range. Given the ease of administering the Continuous Performance Test, the use of impaired attention as an intermediate phenotype could increase the power of genetic studies of schizophrenia.


A new model called ICEM (integrated circuits electromagnetic model) is currently under standardization process. It is proposed under the IEC 62014-3 reference and is aimed at modeling radiated and conducted parasitic emissions of integrated circuits on printed circuit boards (PCB). This paper deals with the validation and extraction of ICEM parameters on an integrated circuit (microcontroller), allowing the designer to predict conducted noise level. First of all, this paper describes an approach for ICEM model generation on an integrated circuit. An 8-bit microcontroller (RISC, AVR Core, etc.) has been selected as the test vehicle. The test board and the measurement setup are then described. Finally, the influence of design parameters like decoupling capacitors is discussed.


BACKGROUND
Hysterectomy is a very common surgery in gynecology. Ideal surgery for hysterectomy is microinvasive with few complications. There are three major routes of hysterectomy that are currently used. The aim of this study was to identify the differences of peri-operative outcome among the patients who underwent the three different approaches.

METHODS
One hundred and one women undergoing hysterectomy for myoma had the procedure performed by laparoscopic assisted vaginal hysterectomy (LAVH), total vaginal hysterectomy (TVH) or total abdominal hysterectomy (TAH) in a randomized study. We compared the course of peri-operative and post-operative outcome for the three different approaches.

RESULTS
were evaluated by linear regression analysis, Fisher's exact test and Student's t test for independent samples.

RESULTS
The operation time among the three procedures was not significantly different (P > 0.05). The amount of blood loss in the TVH group was less than in the LAVH and TAH groups (P < 0.05). The pain score 3 hours after operation in the LAVH group was significantly lower than in the TAH and TVH groups (P < 0.001). The pain scores in the LAVH and TVH groups were lower than in the TAH group at 24 and 48 hours after operation (P < 0.01). The women who underwent LAVH and TVH had a shorter hospitalization stay (P < 0.001). The highest body temperature after operation in the TAH group was higher than that in LAVH and TVH groups (P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
LAVH and TVH are better procedures for women requiring hysterectomy. The peri-operative and post-operative courses of TVH are better than LAVH, excluding the pain score 3 hours after operation. Vaginal hysterectomy is the most cost-effective approach but the final choice for the route of hysterectomy can depend on many factors such as gynecological disease, patients' health status and experiences of the gynecologist.


Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) has attracted much attention and been widely used in real-world applications. As a clustering method, it fails to handle the case where data points lie in a complicated geometry structure. Existing methods adopt single global centroid for each cluster, failing to capture the manifold structure. In this paper, we propose a novel local centroids structured NMF to address this drawback. Instead of using single centroid for each cluster, we introduce multiple local centroids for individual cluster such that the manifold structure can be captured by the local centroids. Such a novel NMF method can improve the clustering performance effectively. Furthermore, a novel bipartite graph is incorporated to obtain the clustering indicator directly without any post process. Experiments on both toy datasets and real-world datasets have verified the effectiveness of the proposed method.


Head nominals in Tagalog relative clauses can surface in three distinct positions: preceding the clause, immediately following the embedded verb, and in argument position within the clause. This paper accounts for these possibilities by positing that the head nominal is base generated within the clause as a property-denoting NP rather than a full DP and identifying the gap position by means of complex predicate formation between this NP and the rest of the clause. If the head NP raises to [Spec, CP], it forms a complex predicate with the embedded TP in that position and is spelled out preceding the clause. If the head NP does not raise to [Spec, CP], it either remains in its base position in the embedded clause and undergoes complex predicate formation with the embedded verb in situ, or it undergoes head movement and forms a complex predicate with the embedded verb via incorporation. I also account for the distribution of linkers in Tagalog relative clauses by proposing that all unsaturated categories within a Tagalog DP are headed by linkers. Consequently, both the relative clause and the head nominal are preceded by a linker, accounting for the fact that a linker always appears between the clause and head NP, regardless of their relative order. Finally, analyzing the head nominal as an NP rather than a DP also accounts for the locality restriction in Tagalog relativization such that genitive DPs are ineligible for movement. This is prevented on my analysis by ensuring that the head NP is not merged in a position which would be assigned inherent case. This article is part of the special collection: Internally-Headed Relative Clauses


This paper describes preparation of carboxymethylated and carboxylated cellulosic fibers from waste paper. Chemical properties of the product were distinguished by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectral analysis. To produce carboxylated and crosslinked fibers and also to increase the anionic surface charge of the fibers, maleic anhydride was used in three different batches; 0, 1%, and 5%. The treatment condition for producing carboxymethylated fibers also involved the use of isopropanol, sodium hydroxide solution, and monochloroacetic acid. The product was purified with 70/30 methanol/ water. Then one sample was neutralized with acetic acid and the other was considered as a sample without having been neutralized. Effects of these treatments were evaluated by FTIR and XRD analysis. The results of FTIR analysis indicated that the carboxyl and methyl functional groups had increased in the carboxymethylated fibers and that just carboxyl groups had increased in carboxylated fibers. The results of XRD analysis showed that the crystallinity of cellulose had decreased in both the carboxymethylated and carboxylated fibers.


We establish a probability distribution analysis (PDA) method for the analysis of fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) signals to determine with high precision the originating value of a shot-noise-limited signal distribution. PDA theoretical distributions are calculated explicitly including crosstalk, stochastic variations, and background and represent the minimum width that a FRET distribution must have. In this way an unambiguous distinction is made between shot-noise distributions and distributions broadened by heterogeneities. This method simultaneously and effectively extracts highly resolved information from FRET distributions. The theoretical histograms match the exact profile of histograms generated from constant transfer efficiency experimental data with a chi2 near unity. The chi2 surface suggests an ultimate level of precision with FRET of < 1% of the Förster radius. Distributions of FRET signals in donor-acceptor-labeled DNA were unambiguously identified as being broader than shot-noise variations could explain. A model describing a Gaussian distribution of distances was tested with the PDA method and demonstrated 5 A inhomogeneities due to dye motions. The capability of this method to recover quantitative information from FRET distributions has potential applications for studying molecular conformations and dynamics. Potential sources for artifacts such as acceptor photobleaching, spectrally different observation volumes, and fluctuations of the Förster radius are ruled out.


Large-scale Pretrained Language Models (PLMs) have become the new paradigm for Natural Language Processing (NLP). PLMs with hundreds of billions parameters such as GPT-3 have demonstrated strong performances on natural language understanding and generation with \textit{few-shot in-context} learning. In this work, we present our practice on training large-scale autoregressive language models named PanGu-$\alpha$, with up to 200 billion parameters. PanGu-$\alpha$ is developed under the MindSpore and trained on a cluster of 2048 Ascend 910 AI processors. The training parallelism strategy is implemented based on MindSpore Auto-parallel, which composes five parallelism dimensions to scale the training task to 2048 processors efficiently, including data parallelism, op-level model parallelism, pipeline model parallelism, optimizer model parallelism and rematerialization. To enhance the generalization ability of PanGu-$\alpha$, we collect 1.1TB high-quality Chinese data from a wide range of domains to pretrain the model. We empirically test the generation ability of PanGu-$\alpha$ in various scenarios including text summarization, question answering, dialogue generation, etc. Moreover, we investigate the effect of model scales on the few-shot performances across a broad range of Chinese NLP tasks. The experimental results demonstrate the superior capabilities of PanGu-$\alpha$ in performing various tasks under few-shot or zero-shot settings.


There is a dearth of research on the public's beliefs about how social media technologies work. To help address this gap, this article presents the results of an exploratory survey that probes user and non-user beliefs about the techno-cultural and socioeconomic facets of Twitter. While many users are well-versed in producing and consuming information on Twitter, and understand Twitter makes money through advertising, the analysis reveals gaps in users' understandings of the following: what other Twitter users can see or send, the kinds of user data Twitter collects through third parties, Twitter and Twitter partners' commodification of user-generated content, and what happens to Tweets in the long term. This article suggests the concept of "information flow solipsism" as a way of describing the resulting subjective belief structure. The article discusses implications information flow solipsism has for users' abilities to make purposeful and meaningful choices about the use and governance of social media spaces, to evaluate the information contained in these spaces, to understand how content users create is utilized by others in the short and long term, and to conceptualize what information other users experience.


Complexes of bacteriophage T7 RNA polymerase (T7 RNAP) with a DNA template (which contains a promoter and internal terminator of T7 RNAP) in transcription elongation were visualized by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Images of specific stable complexes of T7 RNAP with a terminal fragment of DNA template located at a distance of 200 bp from the T7 RNAP promoter were obtained for single molecules. Complexes of a single DNA template molecule with 2-3 T7 RNAP molecules corresponding to stages of initiation, elongation and termination of transcription were visualized under the elimination of nonspecific DNA-protein binding. Detailes of specific and nonspecific complex formation for the T7 RNAP--DNA system during initiation and transcription elongation are discussed.


This study was aimed to compare the health conditions and burden of formal and informal caregivers of older adults. Cross-sectional and comparative study with a quantitative approach. The data were collected in 2014 in São Carlos/SP, using the Zarit Burden Interview and the SRQ 20 (Self Reported Questionnaire). Results: The sample included 15 formal and 35 informal caregivers. Among the formal caregivers, women were predominant (86.7%), with a mean age of 36.7, mean of 13.7 years of education, mean workload of 7.5 hours per day, 26.7% were diagnosed with emotional distress and they the majority mentioned feeling "a little overloaded" (40%). Concerning the informal caregivers, women were predominant (85.7%), 42.9% were the children of the older adult, with a mean age of 55.2 years, mean of 7.1 years of education, length of time as caregiver of 6.5 years, mean of 19.8 hours per day taking care of the older adult, 17 (48.6%) presented mild overload and 16 (45.7%) presented emotional distress. Conclusions: The results revealed important differences and attention is needed to planning interventions to improve health and work conditions of these people.


Tracheal stenting is used for successful management of adult airway obstructions, including tracheal stenosis, a narrowing of the tracheal lumen due to trauma or prolonged intubation. The permanent nature of non-degradable tracheal stents makes them a treatment option of last resort for pediatric patients. Complications associated with stent removal and restenosis could be avoided with degradable tracheal stent placement. Magnesium alloys are demonstrating promise as degradable materials in orthopedic and cardiovascular applications, however the performance of magnesium alloys in the trachea remains unknown. This research explores three commercially available magnesium alloys for evaluation as degradable tracheal stents. The degradation behavior of these alloys was first evaluated in vivo as an intraluminal stent in a rat tracheal bypass model. Even after 6 months the stents persisted and degradation was assessed using microCT imaging. Significant differences in percent of total volume lost were found between alloys over time. Magnesium alloys were also evaluated in a bioreactor to simulate the airway environment and corrosion in vitro. Using ICP, the presence of magnesium from each alloy was measured in a simulated airway media and in a control media over 7 days. Significant differences in corrosion were observed between the simulated and control conditions for in vitro assessment of each alloy. Additionally, in vitro corrosion of magnesium alloys did not appear significantly different from the percent of total volume lost in vivo at the 1-week time point. This study demonstrates an approach to evaluating magnesium alloys as intraluminal tracheal stents. Further development of the alloys and stent design are required for a clinically translatable model.


2897 TCDD is one of most toxic dioxins produced as an impurity during the manufacture of certain herbicides and the incineration of municipal and industrial waste. It has been reported that exposure to TCDD can alter the metabolism of exogenous chemicals and endogenous steroids. In this work, we have investigated the effect of prenatal exposure to TCDD on the mammary gland's morphology, and genomic profile during critical stages of development. For this purpose pregnant Sprague Dawley rats received 3ug TCDD/kg of body weight, by gavage, on day 15 post conception. A control group received an equivalent volume of sesame oil. At parturition, the offspring were placed with surrogate dams. We divided the offspring in four groups of 20 females each and sacrificed at 21, 35, 50 and 100 days of age. The mammary glands were removed for morphological and genomic analyses. The morphology was evaluated in whole mount preparations in 10 female offspring per group and the structures quantitated were classified as terminal end buds (TEBs), terminal ducts (TDs), and lobules type 1 (Lob1). Ten offspring were used for RNA extraction. The extracted RNAs were fluorescently labeled for hybridization using the Agilent platform of 60-mer oligo-microarrays containing 22,000 features. The most relevant changes observed were a decrease in the number of TEBs and an increased number of Lob1 in the 21 days of age group, whereas, the most significant genomic changes were observed at 100 days. At this age, we found some functions being over expressed, such as, cell adhesion (Cldn14, Pcdh8), proliferation and differentiation (Fgf2, Cxcl10, Erbb2). At 21 days the genomic changes were less evident, however, genes related to immunity (Cd5, Sh2d2a, Cd3d) and apoptosis (Bcl2a1) were over expressed. Altogether our data show an asynchrony between the morphological changes observed and the expression of a genomic profile that is significantly different to the control group at 100 days of age. (This work was supported by NCI and NIEHS Grant UO1 ES012771).


A self-localized Ultra-Wide-Band (UWB) system that is suitable to navigate mobile robots in indoor environments is introduced. In impulse-based UWB systems, positional accuracy is inversely proportional to the signal bandwidth. In the work, a number of anchor nodes are located at fixed positions in an indoor environment transmitting synchronized 2ns pulses with Differential Binary Phase Shift Keying (DBPSK) modulation. An UWB receiver mounted on a mobile robot utilizes Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) between pairs of synchronized transmitting anchor nodes for localization. Self-localization implies that position estimation algorithms run locally on the mobile robot. A prototype non-coherent UWB system using off-the-shelf components is implemented where signal acquisition runs on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Measurement results indicate sub-20cm positional accuracy with Line Of Sight (LOS) and Non-Line of Sight (NLOS) conditions relative to fixed anchor nodes in a typical indoor environment.


This paper discusses blockchain-based energy applications from the distribution system operator (DSO) perspective. Blockchain has a potential impact on newly emergent actors, such as electric vehicles (EVs) and the charging facility units (CFUs) of the electricity grid. Although Blockchain offers magnificent decentralized solutions, the central management of DSOs still plays a significant, non-negligible role, owing to the reality of the existing grid structure. Numerous related studies of proposed blockchain-based EV systems have investigated the energy costs of EVs, fast and efficient charging, privacy and security, P2P energy trading, sharing economy, the selection of appropriate CFUs location, and scheduling. However, cooperation with DSO organizations has not been adequately addressed. Blockchain-based solutions mainly suggest an entirely distributed and decentralized approach for energy trading; however, converting the entire power system infrastructure is considerably expensive. Building a thoroughly decentralized electricity network in a short time is nearly impossible, particularly at the national grid level. In this regard, the applicability of the solutions is as significant as their appropriateness, especially from the DSO perspective, and must be examined closely. We searched and analyzed the blockchain literature related to EVs, CFUs, DERs, microgrids, marketing, and DSOs to define the DSO-based requirements for potential blockchain applications in the energy sector, specifically EV evolution.


Acoustic black holes (ABHs) have been explored and demonstrated to be effective passive treatments for broadband noise and vibration control. Performance metrics for assessing damping concepts are often focused on maximizing structural damping loss factors. Optimally performing damping treatments can reduce the resonant response of a driven system well below the direct field response. This results in a finite structure whose vibration input-output response follows that of an infinite structure. The vibration mobility transfer functions between locations on a structure can be used to assess the structure's vibration response phase, and compare its phase response characteristics to those of idealized systems. This work experimentally explores the phase accumulation in finite plates, with and without embedded grids of ABHs. The measured results are compared and contrasted with theoretical results for finite and infinite uniform plates. Accumulated phase characteristics, their spatial dependence and limits, are examined for the plates and compared to theoretical estimates. The phase accumulation results show that the embedded acoustic black hole treatments can significantly enhance the damping of the plates to the point that their phase accumulation follows that of an infinite plate.


Marine controlled-source electromagnetics (CSEM) has become an established exploration tool in the hydrocarbon industry over the last decade; however, this is not the case for land-based CSEM. A possible reason is the perception that electromagnetic field energy traveling through air masks target responses much more than for marine surveys in which the "airwave" energy is attenuated by the conductive water. Various strategies for mitigating air-wave effects have been proposed recently (Loseth et al., 2010; Chen and Alumbaugh, 2011). In this contribution, we focus on other problems limiting the use of land-based CSEM. These include logistical and technical challenges related to high-power current transmission, and the high levels of cultural electromagnetic noise typical of target areas located in populated regions.


A novel double-gate AlGaN/GaN HEMT, in which an additional top-gate covers the adjacent regions of a normal gate, was proposed and fabricated for the first time to compare the dynamic characteristics of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with a source field plate (SFP) and a gate field plate (GFP). During the dynamic characterization, the device was configured in two operation modes: One is the SFP mode with the top gate biased at 0 V, and the other is the GFP mode applying the gate pulse signal on the top gate at the same time. Compared with an AlGaN/GaN HEMT without field plates, both GFP and SFP much improve the dynamic performances. Compared with the SFP, the GFP shows better dynamic performances with a ~ 34% reduction of switch-on delay time and ~ 6% reduction of dynamic on-state resistance. Studying the dynamic characteristics and applying negative voltage on the top gate during the off state, the mechanism differences between the GFP and the SFP are discussed in detail.


Harvested logs supplied from five fibre-managed Eucalyptus nitens plantation coupes with different growing environments were assessed for quality and stiffness. Billets extracted from the logs were rotary peeled for veneer. When averaged across the five coupes, 30% of veneer recovered could be used directly in structural plywood production and an additional 20–25% could be used after further processing. In visual assessment most veneer was assigned an Australian/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS2269.0:2012 Quality D. Acoustic testing during processing showed veneer peeled from a drier and lower elevation coupe had significantly higher dynamic MOE values than veneer processed from logs harvested from wetter higher elevation coupes. To examine the utility of the E. nitens peeled veneer in the production of structural plywood, it was combined with veneer of a known higher stiffness, rotary peeled from regrowth forest Tasmanian oak species logs. Structural seven-ply panels were manufactured from the veneer prepared in three different ply arrangements. Mechanical testing of the panels in accordance with AS/NZS2269.0:2012 showed that an F17 target stress-grade panel product of 83% E. nitens and 17% Tasmanian oak species could be produced, if E. nitens veneer of higher stiffness were selected from veneer segregated by estimated dynamic Modulus of Elasticity value. Panels with 50% E. nitens and 50% Tasmanian oak veneer could be produced by selecting E. nitens veneer of lower stiffness after segregation. In the majority of panels tested stress-grade rating was limited by perpendicular bending strength. Outcomes from the study indicate that structural plywood can be manufactured using differing proportions of E. nitens veneer, rotary peeled from fibre-managed plantations, provided it can be segregated into stiffness categories and selected to achieve a target stress-grade.


Prior research has examined the impact of board structure on firm performance and found that characteristics such as board size affect both operating and stock price performance. Existing research has concentrated primarily on performance in periods well removed from a firm's initial public offering (IPO), and relatively little research has examined the impact of board structure on the stock price performance of IPOs, particularly with regard to characteristics other than board size. This study fills this gap, finding that the key board characteristic is the percentage external directors on the board. The authors find that the greater the percentage of external board members, the lower the firm's underpricing or initial return. This result is particularly pronounced for firms with venture capital backing, suggesting that VCs provide certification value, although primarily when they have a deep involvement in the issuing firm.


Plasma-membrane fractions were prepared from the livers of rats injected with 0.15 M-NaCl (controls) or vasopressin (1 nmol/kg body wt.). When assayed in the presence of deoxycholate, vasopressin increased the Vmax. of plasma-membrane diacylglycerol kinase 2-4-fold, and the apparent Km of the enzyme for 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycerol was doubled. The effect of vasopressin on the Vmax. of plasma-membrane diacylglycerol kinase was twice as great between pH 7 and 8.5 than at pH 6 or 6.5. Vasopressin doubled the activity of diacylglycerol kinase in the plasma-membrane fraction when the enzyme was assayed with phosphatidylserine rather than deoxycholate as stimulator, and when either 1-stearoyl-2-arachidonoyl-sn-glycerol or 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycerol was the substrate. In perfused livers vasopressin (10 nM) increased the Vmax. of plasma-membrane diacylglycerol kinase 2-fold, and phenylephrine (3 microM) gave a similar effect. Vasopressin doubled diacylglycerol kinase activity in hepatocytes that had been preincubated for 55 min, but not in cells that had only been preincubated for 15 min.


Information retrieval in a neural network is viewed as a procedure in which the network computes a "most probable" or MAP estimate of the unknown information. This viewpoint allows the class of probability distributions, P, the neural network can acquire to be explicitly specified. Learning algorithms for the neural network which search for the "most probable" member of P can then be designed. Statistical tests which decide if the "true" or environmental probability distribution is in P can also be developed. Example applications of the theory to the highly nonlinear back-propagation learning algorithm, and the networks of Hopfield and Anderson are discussed.


The results of a theoretical and experimental investigation of wall interference for an airfoil spanning a closed-throat circular wind tunnel are presented. Analytical equations are derived which relate the characteristics of an airfoil in the tunnel at subsonic speeds with the characteristics in free air. The analysis takes into consideration the effect of fluid compressibility and is based upon the assumption that the chord of the airfoil is small as compared with the diameter of the tunnel. The development is restricted to an untwisted, constant-chord airfoil spanning the middle of the tunnel. Brief theoretical consideration is also given to the problem of choking at high speeds. Results are then presented of tests to determine the low-speed characteristics of an NACA 4412 airfoil for two chord-diameter ratios. While, on the basis of these experiments, no appraisal is possible of the accuracy of the corrections at high speeds, the data indicate that at low Mach numbers the analytical results are valid, even for relatively large values of the chord-diameter ratio.


SUMMARY In August 2008, a large outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O111:NM infections associated with a buffet-style restaurant in rural Oklahoma was identified. A case-control study of restaurant patrons and a retrospective cohort study of catered event attendees were conducted coupled with an environmental investigation to determine the outbreak's source and mode of transmission. Of 1823 persons interviewed, 341 (18·7%) met the outbreak case definition; 70 (20·5%) were hospitalized, 25 (7·3%) developed haemolytic uraemic syndrome, and one died. Multiple food items were significantly associated with illness by both bivariate and multivariate analyses, but none stood out as a predominant transmission vehicle. All water, food, and restaurant surface swabs, and stool cultures from nine ill employees were negative for the presence of Shiga toxin and E. coli O111:NM although epidemiological evidence suggested the outbreak resulted from cross-contamination of restaurant food from food preparation equipment or surfaces, or from an unidentified infected food handler.


Modern computational science poses two challenges for scientific visualization: managing the size of resulting datasets and extracting maximum knowledge from them. While our team attacks the first problem by implementing parallel visualization algorithms on supercomputing architectures at vast scale, we are experimenting with autostereoscopic display technology to aid scientists in the second challenge. We are building a visualization framework connecting parallel visualization algorithms running on one of the world's most powerful supercomputers with high-quality autostereo display systems. This paper is a case study of the development of an end-to-end solution that couples scalable volume rendering on thousands of supercomputer cores to the scientists' interaction with autostereo volume rendering at their desktops and larger display spaces. We discuss modifications to our volume rendering algorithm to produce perspective stereo images, their transport from supercomputer to display system, and the scientists' 3D interactions. A lightweight display client software architecture supports a variety of monoscopic and autostereoscopic display technologies through a flexible configuration framework. This case study provides a foundation that future research can build upon in order to examine how autostereo immersion in scientific data can improve understanding and perhaps enable new discoveries.


A key competency that we seek to build in learners is a critical
mind, i.e. ability to engage with the ideas in the literature, and to identify when significant claims are being made in articles. The ability to decode such moves in texts is essential, as is the ability to make such moves in one's own writing. Computational techniques for extracting them are becoming available, using Natural Language Processing (NLP) tuned to recognize the rhetorical signals that authors use when making a significant scholarly move. After reviewing related NLP work, we introduce the Xerox Incremental Parser (XIP), note previous work to render its output, and then motivate the design of the XIP Dashboard, a set of visual analytics modules built on XIP output, using the LAK/EDM open dataset as a test corpus. We report preliminary user reactions to a paper prototype of such a novel dashboard, describe the visualizations implemented to date, and present user scenarios for learners, educators and researchers. We conclude with a summary of ongoing design refinements, potential platform integrations, and questions that need to be investigated through end-user evaluations.


Emergency shutdown systems (ESDs) for mining machinery provide critical functions to safeguard miners. Traditionally, ESDs were realized with simple hardwired circuits; today, there is a growing trend to use programmable electronic technology such as programmable logic controllers (PLCs). This paper describes an analytical study to quantify the safety integrity of a PLC-based ESD and a hardwired ESD. The safety integrity level (SIL) of each design approach was determined by quantifying the average probability of failure on demand (PFDavg) described by the recommendations for programmable electronic mining systems published by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the IEC 61508 international standard. The safety analyses addressed system architecture, hardware failure probability, proof test interval, diagnostic coverage, and human error probability. The results indicated that a same level of safety, SIL 3, could be attained when evaluating random hardware failures. Neither approach could attain SIL 3 if manual activation was used. Human error was the limiting factor where, using human reliability analysis,PFDavg < 1x 10 -1; thus, the ESD does not meet SIL 1. It is apparent that automatic verses human-activation of the ESD is a very important safety consideration. Manually actuated ESDs can only achieve SIL 1 regardless of the technology; therefore, additional independent safety layers of protection are needed to exceed SIL 1. Second, it is apparent that the technology choice is very important. The PLC-based ESD was much simpler to design and to validate safety.


In order to introduce the environment of the University of Gavle to the new students, an efficient way is needed. Among many different methods of helping new students get familiar with university, a Digital Education Game could be a good option. The aim of this research is to test if new students can learn more about University of Gavle when they are learning through a Digital Education Game. This research was mainly based on five methods. Before creating the game, a theoretical framework was built in the beginning, and then interviews and surveys were performed to get useful information. Next, a Digital Education Game was created through the platform e-Adventure. Finally, evaluations of this game were performed. The findings of this research were that according to the result of evaluating surveys, after players played this game, they were able to provide more correct answers than before. The conclusion could be drawn from this research was that new students could learn more about University of Gavle by playing a Digital Education Game.


The most important reasons for buying white goods according to consumers are to use or take advantage of them for various purposes. Meanwhile, consumers may also have other purposes such as innovation, prestige, brand and flashiness. Many people perceive white goods as comfort and ease of life. However, the most important thing is to figure out why or why not consumers buy and the factors which affect their brand preference most. During brand life cycle, the links produced by advertisements in consumers' mind will determine consumers' decision for brand preference, in addition to brand awareness.  Although there are several researches on the effects of advertisements on consumers' decision in general, there are no researches about effects of advertisement on decision of white goods. This situation required this study. The aim of this research is to explore the effects of advertisements in white goods sector on brand preference. According to this aim, firstly brand and ad concepts are reviewed and then the relationship between them is stated. Afterwards for the preference of white goods brands are evaluated through results of the research. The study participants are customers of white goods brands in Istanbul and the data collection method used is questionnaire. (After questionnaires recovered, SPSS 11.5 was used for frequence analysis, reliability & validity analysis, anovo and t-tests respectively).It is assessed that the results and findings of the research will be helpful for white goods vendors about advertisement decisions.


In this experimental study, the 50CrV4 (SAE 6150) steel was subjected to the machining tests with coated carbide and cermet cutting tools in a turning operation. The tests were carried out at various cutting speeds, feed rates and cutting depths. In the light of these parameters, cutting forces and surface-roughness values were determined. Three components (Fa, Fr and Fc )o f the cutting forces were measured during the tests using a dynamometer, while the machined surface-roughness values were determined using a surface roughness measuring unit. A multiple regression analysis and experimental design were performed statistically. The measured surface-roughness values were used for the modeling with an artificial neural network system (ANNS). The relations between the cutting forces and the surface-roughness values were also defined.


Fewer than 50% of British employees now have their pay and conditions affected by collective pay setting institutions - collective bargaining or wage councils. This paper provides an historical context to the current picture of a decollectivised Britain, constructing a time series on coverage from 1895-1990. Extant estimates and sources of coverage data are presented and discussed alongside estimates drawn from a source used only sparingly before now - the number of workers affected by changes in wage rates of national agreements or wage orders. The various manipulations required to convert these data into coverage estimates are detailed at length. The recent decline in collective bargaining coverage is the longest period ever recorded and has been noticeably steeper than the fall in union density, such that the proportion of British workers covered in lower now than in the 1940s. Given the abolition of wages councils in 1993, collective pay setting machinery now affects the pay and conditions of less workers than it did in the 1930s.


This paper describes a NASA-funded project that has provided students in engineering technology, computer science, geographic information sciences, and mathematics at A&M-CC with technical experience and ideas for graduate and undergraduate projects. The project involves the development of a remotely-controlled, shallow-draft vehicle designed as a supplemental tool for our studies of the South Texas coastal waters. The system transmits environmental data wirelessly via a radio to a control station in real-time. The paper will describe several undergraduate projects resulting from students' involvement in this research project


Although it is known for many years, that transformation products (TPs) of pesticides are often more persistent, mobile, and sometimes more toxic than the parent compound, former catchment scale studies of substance release and flushing effects focused only on the parent compound. In this study, four river points were sampled in the Hula Valley, Israel, and samples were analyzed in the lab for chlorpyrifos (CP) and endosulfan residues (including transformation products; TPs). Sampling results of the first rainfall in autumn 2009 identified a strong release of most substances to the rivers. First flush effects of these substances were assessed regarding the risk for drinking water supply and ecology, like fresh water invertebrates and fish. Although, these substances were found in Jordan River water during the first significant rainfall the observed levels are below international drinking water guideline values with no adverse effects on human health in the region. However, the observed CP and chlorpyrifos oxon (CPO) levels are above the acute toxicity for fresh water invertebrates and fish. The study shows that the Hula Valley was an important source of pesticides and TPs at the Upper Jordan River basin and that substance flushing is extremely important for pesticides-monitoring campaigns.


A 36-year-old premenopausal woman was admitted with acute myocardial infarction. The lady was being administered leuprolide, a GnRH agonist which suppresses FSH and LH which in turn decreases blood estrogen level for the treatment of uterine fibroid. Patient was initially thrombolysed with streptokinase and later treated with anticoagulants and antianginals. Check coronary angiography performed on the fourth day revealed mid left anterior descending artery (LAD) 99% stenosis. Apart from mild hypertension which was controlled by lifestyle modifications there were no other coronary risk factors. It was concluded that decreased serum estrogen level caused by leuprolide could cause ischemic heart disease even in premenopausal women and caution to be exercised while using this drug. Key words: Myocardial infarction, Coronary vasospasm, Anti-estrogen, Leuprolide, Uterine fibroid.


The electromagnetic properties of a thin–film helicoidal bianisotropic medium (TFHBM) are totally delineated by a reference crystallographic symmetry as well as a helicoidal rotation matrix. The response of a dielectric TFHBM slab to an axially exciting plane wave is investigated here, assuming that second–harmonic (SH) generation is possible inside the slab. The time–harmonic Maxwell postulates are used to formulate two 4 × 4 matrix differential equations. Analytical solution of these matrix differential equations is accomplished using an eigenvalue approach. The response of the TFHBM slab to axial planewave excitation is then set up as two boundary–value problems. The dependences of the linear and the SH responses on various structural—geometric as well as constitutive—parameters are graphically illustrated for a TFHBM slab with tetragonal 42m reference crystallographic symmetry. The geometric parameters include the helicoidal pitch, the angle of rise above the transverse plane and the slab thickness. Both positive–uniaxial and negative–uniaxial reference symmetries are considered. The responses of the TFHBM slab to both left– and right–circularly polarized incident plane waves are studied. Zones of attenuative propagation inside the TFHBM are found and a zonal classification of the linear and the SH responses of the TFHBM slab is proposed. The intensities of the reflected/transmitted linear as well as the emitted SH plane waves are highly influenced by the handedness of the incident plane wave relative to the handedness of the TFHBM. The possible existence of an optimal set of structural parameters of the chosen TFHBM slab to maximize the total intensity of the emitted SH plane waves is examined. Nanostructural implications for fabricating HBMs as thin films are discussed. Optical rotatory characteristics of the reflected/transmitted linear and the emitted SH plane waves are presented.


A very large part of the literature on urban commute travels is related to high-income countries. The determinants of urban commute trip distances are not clear in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA); thus, this study attempts to shed light on this topic in relation to Tehran, Istanbul, and Cairo. The objective is to clarify which environmental and human factors are correlated with commuting distance in these cities. Using primary disaggregate data produced by surveys in the three cities (n = 8237) in 2017, weighted least square regressions showed that fifteen significant or highly significant variables, including individual and household characteristics, mobility decisions, residential location, and land use attributes, predict the lengths of urban commute trips in the MENA sample. Unlike western countries, age and gender are not significant predictors of commute distance in MENA large cities. The results of independent-sample Kruskal–Wallis test show that there is a significant difference between the mean one-way commute travel distances in the three cities (Tehran: 9096 m, Istanbul: 10839 m, and Cairo: 6670 m); however, there are some similarities in the determinants of commute distance in the three cities. The results can be adopted to reduce commute trip lengths by providing a more connected street network and accessible neighborhood-level facilities.


This research study utilised Q-methodology to elicit the shared perspectives of n=40 registered Mental Health Nurses (MHN) who work with men diagnosed with personality disorder (PD), represented from high, medium, and low secure environments. A literature search focused on the understanding of personality disorder, their relationship difficulties and how this is processed, to situate/contextualise the nurse participants' results. The literature highlighted the influences on the nurses' understanding and the therapeutic relationship, particularly concerning diagnosis, risk, role and training, and the components that impede and optimise the therapeutic alliance.
The aim of the study was to explore the nurse participants' shared perspectives regarding (1) what they understand about men diagnosed with personality disorder, (2) how Mental Health Nurses' understand the therapeutic relationship, and (3) how understanding personality disorder and their relationship difficulties inform reflective processes. Two Q-sorts, utilising 70 and 82 statements respectively were used to elicit participants' perspectives and were analysed using a PQ-Method 2.11 factor analysis programme.
The first Q-sort created eight distinct factors for understanding personality disorder: (Factor 1: "Labels are unhelpful - look deeper"; Factor 2: "social groups and difference - gender and ethnicity"; Factor 3: "Personality disorder - a pejorative label for men and women"; Factor 4: "Beyond the mist of the personality disorder label"; Factor 5: "Personality Disorder and relationships"; Factor 6: "Personality disorder, relationships and society"; Factor 7: "Race, gender, treatment and the non-prejudicial society"; Factor 8: "Personality disorder"?). The second Q-sort created seven distinct factors for personality disorder relationships: (Factor 1: "Processing present relationships"; Factor 2: "The impact on therapeutic relationships"; Factor 3: "Relationships are consciously driven but don't talk about the past"; Factor 4: "Coping with emotional and other responses"; Factor 5: "Coping with the 'relationship' and the utility of labels"; Factor 6: "The relevance of past and present behaviour, and female nursing issues"; Factor 7: "Relationship strategies, the impact and processing") respectively from the nurse participants.
In addition, emerging themes that traversed most factors revealed the following related issues pertaining to Q-sort A: ("Diagnosis and nursing assessment of personality disorder"; "Relationships"; "Features of personality disorder"; "Perceived understanding of society"; "Gender issues"; "Racial issues"; "Treatment") and Q-sort B: ("Relationship patterns"; "The impact of personality disorder relationships on the Mental Health Nurse"; "Nurses coping strategies"; "Nurses role"; "Understanding of self"; "Processing relationship difficulties"; "Reflective practice"; "Training").
The research methodology offered a unique perspective concerning the aims, providing a foundation for a variety of future developments recommended in the discussion chapter. The above factors and the emerging themes have been interpreted, discussed, and the potential recommendations for practice have been examined. The recommendations for future practice consideration involved: functional dimensional diagnostic and nursing assessment models alongside shared formulation, personality disorder and risk, reflective practice, integrative evidence based interventions, training and support, evaluation of forensic/Mental Health Nurse competency base and role. Final recommendations concerned further research, into the relationship between personality disorder and race, and the provision of a specific reflective practice model underpinned by attachment theory.


Omakere Ridge is an anticlinal thrust ridge in water depths of 1100–1700mon the Hikurangi Margin, east of the North Island of New Zealand, and is an area of active seafloor methane seepage associated with an extensive gas hydrate province. Methane seep sites on the Hikurangi Margin are characterised by localised buildups of authigenic carbonate and chemosynthetic seep fauna that exist on a seafloor otherwise characterised by soft, muddy sediments and provide a unique window into the workings of the gas hydrate system. Seafloor methane seeps sites on Omakere Ridge have been successfully imaged using three newly-acquired acoustic datasets: a P-CableTM high-resolution 3D seismic reflection dataset (60 Hz); a multibeam sonar backscatter dataset (12 kHz); and a ParasoundTM subbottom profiler dataset (4 kHz). Seafloor seismic amplitude and similarity maps have been derived from a preliminary shipboard post-stack migrated data cube. A pronounced acquisition artifact is manifest in the seafloor horizon slice as high- and low-amplitude stripes that alternate periodically in the crossline direction. This artifact has been removed from the seafloor horizon slice using 2D spatial frequency filtering, followed by direct sampling and stochastic removal of the very-low-frequency components in the spatial domain. The seismic amplitude map has then been transformed into a calibrated seafloor reflection coefficient map. Sonar backscatter mosaics have been created after correcting for beam pattern effects and angular variation in backscatter after taking into account the bathymetry. Several backscatter mosaics were incorporated into a stacked mosaic over the study area to attenuate random noise. The ParasoundTM sub-bottom profiler data were processed to display instantaneous amplitude and separated into 43 lines over the study area. Comparison of 3D seismic attributes, multibeam backscatter intensity and shallow subsurface reflection characteristics provides new insights into the previously unknown extent of authigenic carbonate build-ups, methane migration pathways and seep initiation mechanisms at five seep sites on Omakere Ridge. Areas of high seafloor 3D seismic reflection coefficient and high multibeam backscatter intensity are interpreted as carbonate formations of at least 6–7 m thickness, while areas exhibiting low seismic reflection coefficient and moderate/high sonar backscatter intensity are interpreted as areas where the carbonates are less developed. Anomalous high-amplitude subsurface reflections beneath the seeps in the ParasoundTM data are interpreted as buried carbonates and may indicate a previously unknown earlier phase of seepage at Omakere Ridge, but could also be caused by gas or gas hydrates. The extent of authigenic carbonates is directly related to the duration of seepage and thus provides a new proxy for the chronology of seepage at Omakere Ridge, which has proved consistent with an existing hypothesis based on the abundance of deceased and live chemosynthetic fauna at the seep sites.


Due to its great diversity and characteristics, backpackers can increase business opportunities in many destinations that decide to invest on their promotion. Those responsible for destinations planning and management will be able to conduct marketing strategies to segments that are best adapted to local or regional reality, bringing with it, important competitive advantages. It can be promoted not only in regions where the tourism sector is already well established and developed but also in more peripheral regions usually in the margins of the main tourist flows. This paper aims to present and discuss the backpacker tourism contribution to development and poverty alleviation, emphasising some theoretical aspects related to concepts, constructs and methodological options used in articles published in Scopus platform. A systematic review of literature and a qualitative and quantitative analysis were made. In a first stage data compilation and quantitative analysis of scientific articles published in Scopus database since 1960 was carried out. In a second stage, a qualitative analysis was performed. Despite few exceptions, the majority of governments worldwide continue to ignore backpacker tourism. It was confirmed the lack of quantitative studies that demonstrate, objectively, the economic impact of backpackers and it is suggested the need of quantitative data collected and analysed by statistical official agencies.


This article describes two cases of augmentation of ruptured tendon with fresh frozen Achilles tendon allograft (FFATA) in dogs. Case 1 was a two-year-old crossbreed dog (29 kg) that presented with an open wound on the right forelimb and with complete rupture of the flexor carpi ulnaris and superficial digital flexor tendons. Case 2 was a four-year-old crossbreed dog (4 kg) with partial ruptures of the patellar tendon and detachment of the tibial tuberosity in the right hind limb. In both cases, the ends of the ruptured tendon were sutured and apposed after debridement. To minimize suture failure, FFATA (cut to sufficient size) was placed across the primary suture with tension and sutured to the host tendon. In addition, Case 2 received a Krackow suture through a transverse bone tunnel made in the tibia to fix the patellar tendon along with the tibial tuberosity in situ. The surgical areas healed without any evidence of exaggerated inflammatory response or clinical signs consistent with rejection of the allograft. Both the dogs had normal ambula - tion and weight bearing on the affected limb 12 weeks postoperatively. No postoperative complications were observed during a one-year follow up period except for slight contracture of the carpus and digits of the affected limb in Case 1. Thus, ruptured tendons can be successfully repaired using suture and augmentation with FFCTA. Augmentation with FFATA may provide additional stability, which counters tension on the primary repair and reduces the chance of gap formation or suture failure in case of reconstruction of the damaged tendon in dogs.


Abstract : Autonomous and teleoperated mobile robots require an accurate knowledge of their spatial location in order to accomplish many tasks. Many mobile robots make use of dead reckoning navigation because of its simplicity, low cost and robustness. Although dead reckoning navigation has been used for centuries for ships and wheeled vehicles, the application to a walking machine is novel. Since walking machines differ greatly from ships and wheeled vehicles, a new approach to dead reckoning was developed to solve this problem. This paper discusses the problem, a solution, preliminary test results and future goals for dead reckoning navigation. Experiments were done with the CMU Ambler, an autonomous, six-legged walking robot, but the results are general and apply to any statically stable walking robot. The current results show a systematic bias of two percent of body advance in the direction of travel. Although the cause of this bias is unknown, it is corrected in the position estimation routines.


In recent years, botulinum toxin type A (BT) has been found to be effective in the treatment of various spastic disorders of smooth muscle in the upper and lower gastrointestinal tract. The short-term efficacy of intrasphincteric injection of BT in achalasia is now well established, however, because of the chronic nature of the disease, patients will require repeated injections at regular intervals. In contrast, after a single injection into the anal sphincter, BT has impressively high healing rate with minimal side effects. BT remains a novel therapeutic approach in a range of other gastrointestinal motility disorders including diffuse oesophageal spasm, sphincter of Oddi dysfunction and anismus, and the list of its indications is increasing. BT seems to be safe but as its long-term effects remain unestablished, it should be used with caution in younger patients. In this review we discuss the mechanism of action, indications, efficacy and side-effects of BT with its use in various areas of gastrointestinal tract.


Artificial intelligence techniques offer one possible avenue toward new CAD tools to handle the complexities of VLSI. Redesign is a Prototype knowledge-based system that uses Al techniques to interactively aid in the functional redesign of digital circuits. Given a desired change in the function of a circuit, Redesign combines rule-based knowledge of design tactics with its ability to analyse signal propagation through circuits, in order to help the user focus on an appropriate portion of the circuit to redesign, suggest local redesign alternatives, and determine side effects of possible redesigns. Using lessons learned from work on Redesign, we are working on systems to aid in designing and debugging VLSI.


The dissociation and isomerization kinetics of the methyl ester combustion intermediates methoxycarbonyl radical (CH3OĊ(═O)) and (formyloxy)methyl radical (ĊH2OC(═O)H) are investigated theoretically using high-level ab initio methods and Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel-Marcus (RRKM)/master equation (ME) theory. Geometries obtained at the hybrid density functional theory (DFT) and coupled cluster singles and doubles with perturbative triples correction (CCSD(T)) levels of theory are found to be similar. We employ high-level ab initio wave function methods to refine the potential energy surface: CCSD(T), multireference singles and doubles configuration interaction (MRSDCI) with the Davidson-Silver (DS) correction, and multireference averaged coupled-pair functional (MRACPF2) theory. MRSDCI+DS and MRACPF2 capture the multiconfigurational character of transition states (TSs) and predict lower barrier heights than CCSD(T). The temperature- and pressure-dependent rate coefficients are computed using RRKM/ME theory in the temperature range 300-2500 K and a pressure range of 0.01 atm to the high-pressure limit, which are then fitted to modified Arrhenius expressions. Dissociation of CH3OĊ(═O) to ĊH3 and CO2 is predicted to be much faster than dissociating to CH3Ȯ and CO, consistent with its greater exothermicity. Isomerization between CH3OĊ(═O) and ĊH2OC(═O)H is predicted to be the slowest among the studied reactions and rarely happens even at high temperature and high pressure, suggesting the decomposition pathways of the two radicals are not strongly coupled. The predicted rate coefficients and branching fractions at finite pressures differ significantly from the corresponding high-pressure-limit results, especially at relatively high temperatures. Finally, because it is one of the most important CH3Ȯ removal mechanisms under atmospheric conditions, the reaction kinetics of CH3Ȯ + CO was also studied along the PES of CH3OĊ(═O); the resulting kinetics predictions are in remarkable agreement with experiments.