Dynamic program optimization is increasingly important for achieving good runtime performance. A key issue is how to select which code to optimize. One approach is to dynamically detect traces, long sequences of instructions spanning multiple methods, which are likely to execute to completion. Traces are easy to optimize and have been shown to be a good unit for optimization. The paper reports on a new approach for dynamically detecting, creating and storing traces in a Java virtual machine. We first describe four important criteria for a successful trace strategy: good instruction stream coverage, low dispatch rate, cache stability, and optimizability of traces. We then present our approach based on branch correlation graphs. A branch correlation graph stores information about the correlation between pairs of branches, as well as additional state information. We present the complete design for an efficient implementation of the system, including a detailed discussion of the trace cache and profiling mechanisms. We have implemented an experimental framework to measure the traces generated by our approach in a direct-threaded Java VM (SableVM) and we present experimental results to show that the traces we generate meet the design criteria.


Management of patients with cardiac arrhythmias is increasingly complex because of continuous technological advance and multifaceted clinical conditions associated with ageing of the population, the presence of co-morbidities and the need for polypharmacy. The aim of this European Heart Rhythm Association Scientific Initiatives Committee survey was to provide an insight into the role of the Arrhythmia Team, an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to management of patients with cardiac arrhythmias. Forty-eight centres from 18 European countries replied to the Web-based questionnaire. The presence of an Arrhythmia Team was reported by 44% of the respondents, whereas 17% were not familiar with this term. Apart from the electrophysiologist, health professionals who should belong to such teams, according to the majority of the respondents, include a clinical cardiologist, a nurse, a cardiac surgeon, a heart failure specialist, a geneticist, and a geriatrician. Its main activity should be dedicated to the management of patients with complex clinical conditions or refractory or inherited forms of arrhythmias. When present, the Arrhythmia Team was considered helpful by 95% of respondents; the majority of centres (79%) agreed that it should be implemented. The Arrhythmia Team seems to be connected to important expectations in the management of cardiac arrhythmias. The efficacy of such an integrated and multidisciplinary approach should be encouraged and tested in clinical practice.


Human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE) results in fever, pancytopenia, and mild liver injury. We used a mouse model to examine immunity in the pathogenesis of HGE. HGE agent-infected C3H/HeJ mice were necropsied over 21 days. Histologic, immunohistologic, and serologic analyses, blood culture, tissue and blood polymerase chain reaction (PCR), cell counts, serum chemistries, and plasma cytokine ELISAs were performed. No clinical signs were detected. Ehrlichiae were identified in neutrophils in hematopoietic tissues maximally on day 7. Interleukin (IL)-10 levels were high throughout, whereas interferon (IFN)-gamma levels peaked on days 7 and 10 and dropped thereafter. Hepatic lymphohistiocytic aggregates with apoptoses were maximal at day 14. HGE-agent infection of mice induces pathologic changes similar to those in infected humans, despite differences in cytokine profile. The IFN-gamma peak prior to maximal pathologic change, when ehrlichiae are absent in tissues, suggests a role for host immunity in the pathogenesis of HGE.


Abstract : Pin is a basic, simple component technology suitable for building embedded software applications. Pin implements the container idiom for software components. Containers provide a pre-fabricated "shell" in which custom code executes and through which all interactions between custom code and its external environment are mediated. Pin is a component technology for pure assembly -- systems are assembled by selecting components and connecting their interfaces (which are composed of communication channels called "pins"). This report describes the main concepts of Pin and documents the C-language interface to Pin V1.0.


The purposes of this research were to determine the prevalence of dengue virus in the study population, to determine the relationship between the occurrence of dengue virus IgM and potential risk factors and to determine the association between the occurrence of dengue virus and some symptoms. In this study, blood specimen were collected from 340 subjects with febrile complaints attending hospitals in Kaduna metropolis, Nigeria and who gave their consent to participate. Serological determination of dengue virus IgM was carried out using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay technique. Structured questionnaires were also administered to obtain data on demographic, risk factors,  and symptoms of illness. A total of 6 subjects were positive for dengue virus IgM giving a prevalence of 1.8%. There was no statistically significant association between the occurrence of dengue virus IgM and potential risk factors, demographic factors and symptoms of the illness. The occurrence of dengue virus in the study population was confirmed.


Many clinically significant parameters are estimated from height (h), weight (w) and age (y). Two important examples are body mass index (BMI) and basal metabolic rate (BMR). There are circumstances when it might be desirable to estimate h, w and y for a particular subject from BMI and BMR (or other similar combinations). While there is only one mathematical expression for BMI, there are many competing expressions for BMR which complicates this process. Here we describe methods for solving this problem for three different classes of BMR equation when the coefficients are known. We also provide means of identifying the coefficients of an unidentified BMR equation. We apply these technique to our own data, data published by others and in computer simulations, from which we conclude that in the most challenging case our method yields the correct result in more than 99% of cases and identifies the likelihood of error in about 0.96% of cases, leaving only about 0.03% of cases of unidentified error. Application of these techniques to data obtained using an Omron HBF-362 demonstrate some of the difficulties that can arise.


We consider the problem of learning to annotate documents with concepts or keywords in content information networks, where the documents may share multiple relations. The concepts associated to a document will depend both on its content and on its neighbors in the network through the different relations. We formalize this problem as single and multi-label classification in a multi-graph, the nodes being the documents and the edges representing the different relations. The proposed algorithm learns to weight the different relations according to their importance for the annotation task. We perform experiments on different corpora corresponding to different annotation tasks on scientific articles, emails and Flickr images and show how the model may take advantage of the rich relational information.


The synthesis and characterisation of a homologous series of liquid crystal trimers, the 4,4′-bis[ω-(4-cyanobiphenyl-4′-yloxy)alkoxy]biphenyls, is reported in which the length of the flexible spacers is varied from 3 to 12 methylene units. All the members of the series exhibit enantiotropic nematic behaviour and, in addition, monotropic smectic A behaviour is observed for compounds with spacers containing from 4 to 11 methylene units. The formation of a smectic phase in these compounds is attributed to a specific interaction between the unlike mesogenic groups, namely, the central biphenyl and the terminal cyanobiphenyl units. The nematic–isotropic transition temperatures and the associated entropy changes exhibit a dramatic odd–even effect as the length and parity of the spacers is varied, in which the even members exhibit the higher values. This behaviour is interpreted in terms of the geometry as well as the flexibility of the spacers and how these control the average molecular shape. A comparison of the magnitudes of these odd–even effects with those for the analogous dimeric series suggests that in the nematic phase the mesogenic units in the trimers are correlated to the same extent as in the dimers but that their orientational ordering is significantly higher.


Anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) provides effective therapy for many patients with aplastic anemia, and its mechanism of action has been presumed to be secondary to lymphocytotoxicity. However, our studies of lymphocyte function in aplastic anemia show marked abnormalities of lymphokine production, which ATG may modulate. In 12 of 17 patients with aplastic anemia, interleukin 2 (IL2) production was markedly elevated in vitro (P less than .01 by paired statistical analysis). Expression of the IL2 receptor, or Tac antigen, on peripheral lymphocytes assessed by flow microfluorometry was also increased above the normal range in 11 of 15 cases. Studies of ATG suggested that it might act to stimulate lymphocyte function. In vitro, ATG is a mitogen, as measured by incorporation of 3H-thymidine into blood mononuclear cells; the response of cells to ATG from patients with aplastic anemia was exaggerated in comparison with normals. Cell proliferation was accompanied by production of IL2 to levels that were, in some cases, similar to those obtained with lectin stimulation. Finally, supernatants from lymphocytes cultured in the presence of ATG were able to replace adherent cells in providing growth factors for the support of nonadherent cells in methylcellulose hematopoietic colony assays. These results provide a mechanism for an "immunostimulatory" action of ATG in effecting hematopoietic response in some patients with aplastic anemia.


Studies on the nature and characteristics of children who are gifted and talented show that these children are inquisitive in nature. Their curiosity may lead to rejection by family members, teachers, peers and society as a whole. Feeling frustrated and different from their peers, these children may rebel in school, home or in the society and end up being labeled delinquents. In Kenya, juvenile delinquents are referred to Rehabilitation Schools and Children Remand Homes as stipulated in 2001 Children's Act. The purpose of this study was to explore giftedness among learners with juvenile delinquency in selected rehabilitation schools in Kenya. The study population comprised of teachers, social workers and children in Rehabilitation Schools in Kenya. Random sampling was used to select three Rehabilitation Schools; two for boys and one for girls representing 33.3% of the rehabilitation schools in Kenya. Both qualitative and quantitative data was collected and analyzed. All learners in the selected schools participated in the study. The study utilized Ravens Progressive Matrices, teachers and peer nomination forms and Observation Checklists to identify children who are gifted. Children's committal records were also analyzed. The study revealed that about 13% of children in the rehabilitation schools are gifted and talented. If this population is not well taken care of the Kenyan society may end up losing a very important human resource. There is need therefore to sensitize different stakeholders on the nature and needs of children who are gifted and talented.


Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common malignant tumor with high incidence and morbidity worldwide. The pathogenesis and progression of HCC are closely related to abnormal epigenetic regulation of hepatocytes. DNA methylation is an important regulatory mechanism in epigenetics which has been deeply and widely investigated. Along with the development of high-throughput sequencing techniques, including high-throughput gene chip analysis and next generation sequencing, great progress was achieved toward the understanding of the epigenetic regulation of HCC. In this article we will systematically summarize the current and emerging research on DNA methylation in HCC.


Background Chronic fatigue is common in the general population. Complementary therapies are often used by patients with chronic fatigue or chronic fatigue syndrome to manage their symptoms. Purpose This study aimed to assess the effect of a 4-month qigong intervention program among patients with chronic fatigue or chronic fatigue syndrome. Methods Sixty-four participants were randomly assigned to either an intervention group or a wait list control group. Outcome measures included fatigue symptoms, physical functioning, mental functioning, and telomerase activity. Results Fatigue symptoms and mental functioning were significantly improved in the qigong group compared to controls. Telomerase activity increased in the qigong group from 0.102 to 0.178 arbitrary units (p<0.05). The change was statistically significant when compared to the control group (p<0.05). Conclusion Qigong exercise may be used as an alternative and complementary therapy or rehabilitative program for chronic fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome.


Eventhough the district government has somehow acknowledged the failure of its own initiatives to empower its people, there must have been certain creativities or custom-related wisdom which seem to be able to independently respond to any development initiative. Precisely this article is trying to track creative moments when the customs and people writhing on the "bottom" of formal structures to contribute for a self modernization. Data from a short ethnographic study in the Kei Islands in mid 2016 shows the complicated moments of how indigenous communities survive while appropriating opportunities (friction) that is open due to failure of both the government and the market penetration to radically change the identity of indigenous local communities. Hence, modernization does not happen in a vacuum culture. Through their primordial taste, i.e. their identity, traditional leaders, businessmen and ordinary citizens creatively appropriating moments linkage to the world to declare local social differences.


A study was conducted to evaluate effects of nitrocompounds on growth of uric acid-utilizing microorganisms, nitrogen retention, and microbial community in laying hen manure. There were three treatments: control, 100 mM nitropropanol (NPL), and 100 mM nitropropionic acid (NPC). The mixed laying hen manure was divided into 3 groups and incubated at 23°C for 7 days. On Days 0, 3, and 7, samples were collected to measure the quantity of uric acid-utilizing microorganisms, total nitrogen retention, and microbial community changes. Both nitrocompounds significantly reduced growth of the uric acid-utilizing microorganisms on Day 3 (P < 0.05). Inhibitory effects of both nitrocompounds remained until Day 7 when the experiment was terminated. NPL treatment retained significantly more manure nitrogen compared to the control on both Days 3 and 7. Manure nitrogen levels of NPC treatment were also significantly higher than the control on Day 7. We further investigated the effects of NPL and NPC on microbial community changes during a 7-day incubation. NPC treatment and control on Day 7 exhibited 94% community similarity. NPC on Day 3 and NPL on Day 7 also showed high community similarity (approximately 94%). Control on Day 0 and Day 7 yielded less than 80% community similarity. Control and NPL treatment groups on Day 3 gave the lowest community similarity (approximately 64%) compared to the other groups. This result indicated that incubation time and treatment moderately influenced microbial community changes. In summary, these results indicate that both nitrocompounds increased manure nitrogen retention by inhibiting the growth of uric acid-utilizing microorganisms, and that NPL and NPC could be used as manure treatments in order to reduce ammonia volatilization and nitrogen retention in poultry manure. Moreover, nitrocompounds may have potential as feed additives to reduce ammonia volatilization.


This thesis examines silence in modernist fiction, explaining how it forms a central aspect of realism in the modernist novel. It is based on close readings of the form and function of silence in the works of Dorothy Richardson, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf. The study proposes that silence as part of a text's soundscape and silence as part of its mode of literary expression are related in modernist fiction. As part of the soundscape, silence represents aspects of 'real' human experience that cannot be conveyed in words: silence in modernist fiction is hence a response to linguistic problems connected to the representation of mind and feeling. The first chapter investigates what a reading of silence reveals about the modernist novel as a subgenre. Early twentieth-century linguistic difficulties are explored in terms of a crisis of realism: what is at stake here is the (im)possibility of achieving mimesis of certain aspects of reality through the use of language. Silence is seen to constitute a solution to the crisis of realism, forming part of an aesthetics of obscurity which seeks to circumscribe rather than describe. In modernist fiction, silence often represents a subjective experience of something that is not necessarily unintelligible, but ineffable by its very nature. Richardson, Joyce, and Woolf did not abandon realism as an aesthetic paradigm; they just redefined it. The subsequent seven chapters examine silence as a form of representation in the works of Richardson, Joyce, and Woolf. Chapters two to four discuss silence in Richardson's Pilgrimage (1915-67), both in relation to Miriam's explorations of her inner 'Being' and as an aspect of the form of the novel-sequence. Chapters five and six investigate silence in Joyce's early fiction. A scrutiny of the early drafts of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) reveals radical changes in Joyce's conceptualization of silence. Silences that are explicitly described in the text are associated with Stephen's inner world, where he hides from the squalor of his external surroundings. Chapters seven and eight, finally, explore the oscillations between silence and sound in Woolf's fiction, examining silence in relation to creativity and repose but primarily as an indication of rupture in the social and private spheres. In the work of all three writers, silence is a presence which communicates in its own way, representing nonverbal aspects of human experience. (Less)


The historic view of metadata as "data about data" is expanding to include data about other items that must be created, used, and understood throughout the data and project life cycles. In this context, metadata might better be defined as the structured and standard part of documentation, and the metadata life cycle can be described as the metadata content that is required for documentation in each phase of the project and data life cycles. This incremental approach to metadata creation is similar to the spiral model used in software development. Each phase also has distinct users and specific questions to which they need answers. In many cases, the metadata life cycle involves hierarchies where latter phases have increased numbers of items. The relationships between metadata in different phases can be captured through structure in the metadata standard, or through conventions for identifiers. Metadata creation and management can be streamlined and simplified by re-using metadata across many records. Many of these ideas have been developed to various degrees in several Geoscience disciplines and are being used in metadata for documenting the integrated life cycle of environmental research in the Arctic, including projects, collection sites, and datasets.


Justice Wilson was a serious scholar of the Charter who confronted its flashpoints, including social change, the proper relationship between the individual and the state, and judicial deference. Her engagement with the Charter is an exemplar for our own. She, along with other key members of the early Court, constructed a framework of Charter interpretation which constitutes a lasting legacy. There was an active commitment to judicial review of legislation in light of Charter rights. The common law, the rights jurisprudence of other countries and framers' intent were not determinative of Charter rights. Instead, interpretation was driven by a purposive approach to rights grounded in social reality as demonstrated by the effect of the law and evidence. Where Justice Wilson states that section 7 requires the judiciary to protect individuals' choices from government interference, her approach amounts to judicial colonization of a country's decision-making. However, elsewhere she sounds a quieter note, restricting section 7 to important decisions intimately affecting private lives, notably parent-child relations and health and medical decisions. This quieter note has resonated in subsequent Supreme Court judgments which have relied on her work when protecting important and fundamental life choices in these areas. She held the government to a high standard for justifying the breach of rights under section 1. While she was not an Oakes absolutist and was prepared to allow the government to protect the vulnerable, generally she felt that deference to the legislature and judicial review were incompatible and that justifications based on pragmatic considerations, cost and administrative convenience must fail. Her strict approach to section 1 meant that she failed to fully grapple with the full Charter equation which requires us both to protect rights and to identify what we value in a democracy other than rights.


s-NATO 2009 sl05 for diagnosis, prevention, and treatment are a target of research in many NATO countries. Methods: This presentation describes recent HFM Panel technical activities related to psychological/mental health and mTBI and summarizes some of the main findings from those activities. Results: In preparation. Conclusions: NATO HFM Panel Technical Activities provide an opportunity for other NATO organizations to benefit from the efforts conducted with the support of the Research and Technology Agency of the Research and Technology Organization.


The maximum clique problem (MCP) is to determine a sub graph of maximum cardinality. A clique is a sub graph in which all pairs of vertices are mutually adjacent. Based on existing surveys, the main goal of this paper is to provide a simplified version and comprehensive review on Maximum clique problem. This review intends to encourage and motivate new researchers in this area. Though capturing the complete literature in this regard is beyond scope of the paper, but it is tried to capture most of the representative papers from similar approaches.


ABSTRACT This article studies the efficiency of street networks of Neighborhood Planning Units. Pedestrian Route Directness quantified the NPUs' efficiency. The sample includes ten Abu Dhabi NPUs built during two periods: pre-1990 and post-1990. Two scenarios are assessed. First, as-built streets are evaluated based on the PRD test. Second, PRD values of NPUs with different plot densities are compared. Results show that plot density does not affect efficiency. A good network design produces high efficiency regardless of its plot density. The effects of streets on efficiency were further revealed by Betweenness. Combining PRD and Betweenness yields important principles of network design. This method can be applied to assess the connectivity of streets in different contexts. Future research should focus on: How do alleys contribute to the efficiency of NPUs? How do street configurations influence the behavior of movement? And how should NPUs be evaluated as local street systems with global implications?


Mangrove ecosystems help mitigate climate change, are highly biodiverse, and provide critical goods and services to coastal communities. Despite their importance, anthropogenic activities are rapidly degrading and deforesting mangroves world-wide. Madagascar contains 2% of the world's mangroves, many of which have undergone or are starting to exhibit signs of widespread degradation and deforestation. Remotely sensed data can be used to quantify mangrove loss and characterize remaining distributions, providing detailed, accurate, timely and updateable information. We use USGS maps produced from Landsat data to calculate nation-wide dynamics for Madagascar's mangroves from 1990 to 2010, and examine change more closely by partitioning the national distribution in to primary (i.e., >1000 ha) ecosystems; with focus on four Areas of Interest (AOIs): Ambaro-Ambanja Bays (AAB), Mahajamba Bay (MHJ), Tsiribihina Manombolo Delta (TMD) and Bay des Assassins (BdA). Results indicate a nation–wide net-loss of 21% (i.e., 57,359 ha) from 1990 to 2010, with dynamics varying considerably among primary mangrove ecosystems. Given the limitations of national-level maps for certain localized applications (e.g., carbon stock inventories), building on two previous studies for AAB and MHJ, we employ Landsat data to produce detailed, contemporary mangrove maps for TMD and BdA. These contemporary, AOI-specific maps provide improved detail and accuracy over the USGS national-level maps, and are being applied to conservation and restoration initiatives through the Blue Ventures' Blue Forests programme and WWF Madagascar West Indian Ocean Programme Office's work in the region.


We were recently asked by management to produce an interactive metric. This metric should somehow measure the performance of the machine as the user perceives it, or the interactive response time of a machine. The metric could then be used to identify unusual behavior, or machines with potential performance problems in our network. This paper describes firstly how we set about trying to pin down such an intangible quality of the system and how we produced graphs that satisfied management requirements.

We also discuss how further use can be made of the metric results to provide data for dealing with user reported interactive response problems. Finally, we relate why this metric is not the tool for analyzing system performance that it may superficially appear to be.


Medicine is the art and science of healing human diseases. Any branch of biological sciences when comes to help and is related to understanding, preventing, alleviating and curing human diseases becomes 'Medical'. Medical Physiology deals with how the human body works, depending upon how the individual body systems function, which in turn depend on how the component cells function, depending upon the interactions among subcellular organelles and countless molecules. Graduating medical students believe that physiology is highly relevant and important to their clinical training. About 150 years ago, many authors started writing important Physiology books keeping in view the special needs of medical students, and that established medical physiology as a separate subject.


Objectives: Modelling and simulation of amine absorption process for CO2 removal at macro-scale is well established. This study used to investigate the amine-CO2 absorption process at molecular level using Molecular Dynamic (MD) simulation. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Analysis on different types of amine and blended amines for absorption process was conducted in this study. COMPASS and Ewald models used for force field and summation method calculation, respectively. Findings: The results shows MEA solvent was the highest tendency (39.70%) to interact with CO2 compared to DEA and MDEA because can directly react with CO2 and easily form carbamate ions. Due to the lack of –HN bond in MDEA, it was determined to be less reactive and suggested to be blended with other reactive amines. Blended MDEA/AMP (33.50%) and MDEA/PZ (23.80%) improved the efficiency of MDEA in CO2 absorption process. The addition of AMP and PZ assisted MDEA to have intermolecular interaction with CO2. Application/Improvements: Research on molecular modelling of amine absorption process for CO2 capture was proposed in this study to give insight about this process at molecular level and to analyse the intermolecular interaction between CO2 and amine solution. Molecular Dynamic Simulation of Amine-CO2 Absorption Process N. Harun* and E. E. Masiren Faculty of Chemical and Natural Resources, University Malaysia Pahang, Gambang 26300, Pahang, Malaysia; firstname.lastname@example.com, email@example.com


Air-core compulsator is a specially designed generator capable of delivering high current pulses to a low-impedance load, such as the electromagnetic railgun. Due to the absence of ferromagnetic material, the field strength in air-core compulsator can reach 4-6 T. Therefore, electromagnetic shields are required to protect the surrounding operators and instruments from exposure to high magnetic fields. This paper investigates the design methodology of the shield as well as its influence on the performance of the machine. A dynamic model is built to analyze the shielding effect and its performance tradeoffs of a reference compulsator. The result indicates that the effect of the eddy-current shield is much better than the magnetic shield using ferromagnetic material, due to the high frequency and the magnetic saturations. The magnetic field can be completely screened inside the conducting shield, at the expense of some electrical, mechanical, and thermal performance. Since the eddy-current density is sensitive to the location of the shield, the influences of the conducting shield are parametrically analyzed. Using the electromagnetic and thermal coupling field link, the temperature rise of the shield is also calculated. Analysis results can provide the theoretical guides for the shielding of the air-core compulsator investigation in the future.


DNA polymerase β (Pol β) is an error-prone enzyme whose up-regulation has been shown to be a genetic instability enhancer as well as a contributor to cisplatin resistance in tumor cells. In this work, we describe the isolation of new Pol β inhibitors after high throughput screening of 8448 semipurified natural extracts. In vitro, the selected molecules affect specifically Pol β-mediated DNA synthesis compared with replicative extracts from cell nuclei. One of them, masticadienonic acid (MA), is particularly attractive because it perturbs neither the activity of the purified replicative Pol δ nor that of nuclear HeLa cell extracts. With an IC50 value of 8 μM, MA is the most potent of the Pol β inhibitors found so far. Docking simulation revealed that this molecule could substitute for single-strand DNA in the binding site of Pol β by binding Lys35, Lys68, and Lys60, which are the main residues involved in the interaction Pol β/single-strand DNA. Selected inhibitors also affect the Pol β-mediated translesion synthesis (TLS) across cisplatin adducts; MA was still the most efficient. Therefore, masticadienonic acid sensitized the cisplatin-resistant 2008C13*5.25 human tumor cells. Our data suggest that molecules such as masticadienonic acid could be suitable in conjunction with cisplatin to enhance anticancer treatments.


We evaluated glycohemoglobin (GHb) and glycated plasma protein (GPP) by automated affinity HPLC for their ability to monitor both short-term and long-term antecedent glycemia in 70 diabetic subjects. We placed 30 subjects on an intervention protocol in which insulin and (or) dietary changes were made twice weekly to acutely decrease glycemia. We monitored 40 subjects at 6-week intervals; changes in the clinical regimen were made at that time only. Despite weekly changes in mean blood glucose in the subjects who received more intensive intervention. GHb concentrations correlated significantly with the weekly (r = 0.66, P < 0.001), 2-week (r = 0.70, P < 0.001), 3-week (r = 0.72, P < 0.001), and 6-week (r = 0.83, P < 0.001) mean glucose concentrations. GPP correlated significantly with measured glycated albumin determined by boronate affinity columns (r = 0.83, P < .001) and correlated best with the 1-week (r = 0.66, P < 0.001), 2-week (r = 0.64, P < .001) and 3-week (r = 0.60, P < 0.001) mean antecedent glucose concentration. Thus, GHb, traditionally considered a marker for only long-term diabetic control, correlated significantly with both short-term and long-term antecedent glycemia.


The main aim of this study was to see if any major difference(s) existed between ISI and Non-ISI English medical research articles in their application of major moves. To this effect, 36 randomly selected online articles from each group were subjected to analysis using Fryer"s moves analysis framework. These articles were chosen on the basis of ease of accessibility, publication frequency and reputation. To test the hypotheses of this study, a Chi-Square Test of Independence was run to see if there were any significant differences between the number of moves employed in each section of ISI articles with those found in non-ISI articles. Overall, findings revealed that articles in both groups had significantly adhered to the major moves specified in the study"s framework. Detail descriptive data analysis showed significant differences between the two groups in the use of Move11 (State the Limitation). It was found that 72% of the researchers in Type 1(ISI journals) had described the limitations of their studies while only36% of the authors in articles of Type 2(Non-ISI journals) had done so. However, the most striking similarities were seen in Move1 (Present Background Knowledge) and Move 12 (Conclusion). These moves were employed by all the articles in both Types of journals. In addition, two new moves named, Introduce Methods (M3) in the Introduction Section and Sample Selection (M6) in the Method Section were identified during analysis. Though the use of M3 was found to be insignificant, M6 was used by more than half of the articles in both groups. Overall, it was concluded that since articles in both groups had significantly adhered to the major moves specified in the study framework, other underlying criteria besides the application of common moves may exist in choosing articles to be published in Iranian ISI medical journals. These findings contribute to genre research and provide input for further analysis in this context.


— We consider an M X /G/1 queuing system with breakdown and repairs, where batches of customers are assumed to arrive in the system according to a compound poisson process. While the server is being repaired, the customer in service either remains the service position or enters a service orbit and keeps returning, after repair the server must wait for the customer to return. The server is not allowed to accepte new customers until the customer in service leaves the system. We find a stability condition for this system. In the steady state the joint distribution of the server state and queue length is obtained, and some performance mesures of the system, such as the mean number of customers in the retrial queue and waiting time, and some numerical results are presented to illustrate the effect of the system parameters on the developed performance measures.


In order to efficient treatment swine wastewater of chemical oxygen demand(COD) of high concentration, ammonium nitrogen (NH4+-N) of high concentration and high suspended solids (SS) , Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Bed (UASB) were fed with piggery wastewater and investigated removal effect of COD, SS, NH4+-N, TP. The results showed that, UASB can effectively remove COD and SS in the pig farm wastewater. The corresponding removal rate was respectively 82.36% and 70%. UASB was poor on removal effect of NH4+-N and total phosphate (TP), due to the lack of anaerobic, anoxic environment. UASB is able to treatment COD and SS of piggery wastewater, but TN and TP removal efficiency need to further study.


We study gauge and gravitational field theories in which the gauge fixing conditions are imposed as constraints on classical fields. Quantization of fluctuations can be performed in a BRST invariant manner, while the main novelty is that the classical equations of motion admit solutions that are not present in the standard approach. Although the new solutions exist for both gauge and gravitational fields, one interesting example we consider in detail is constrained gravity endowed with a nonzero cosmological constant. This theory, unlike General Relativity, admits two maximally symmetric solutions one of which is a flat space, and another one is a curved-space solution of GR. We argue that, due to BRST symmetry, the classical solutions obtained in these theories are not ruined by quantum effects. We also comment on massive deformations of the constrained models. For both gauge and gravity fields we point out that the propagators of the massive quanta have soft ultraviolet behavior and smooth transition to the massless limit. However, nonlinear stability may require further modifications of the massive theories.


Transactional memory (TM) is a new optimistic synchronization technique which has the potential of making shared memory parallel programming easier compared to locks without giving up from the performance. This thesis explores four aspects in the research of transactional memory. First, it studies how programming with TM compares to locks. During the course of work, it develops the first real transactional application ¿ AtomicQuake. AtomicQuake is adapted from the parallel version of the Quake game server by replacing all lock-based synchronization with atomic blocks. Findings suggest that programming with TM is indeed easier than locks. However the performance of current software TM systems falls behind the efficiently implemented lock-based versions of the same program. Also, the same findings report that the proposed language level extensions are not sufficient for developing robust production level software and that the existing development tools such as compilers, debuggers, and profilers lack support for developing transactional application.

Second, this thesis introduces new set of debugging principles and abstractions. These new debugging principles and abstractions enable debugging synchronization errors which manifest at coarse atomic block level, wrong code inside atomic blocks, and also performance errors related to the implementation of the atomic block. The new debugging principles distinguish between debugging at the language level constructs such as atomic blocks and debugging the atomic blocks based on how they are implemented whether TM or lock inference. These ideas are demonstrated by implementing a debugger extension for WinDbg and the ahead-of-time C# to X86 Bartok-STM compiler.

Third, this thesis investigates the type of performance bottlenecks in TM applications and introduces new profiling techniques to find and understand these bottlenecks. The new profiling techniques provide in-depth and comprehensive information about the wasted work caused by aborting transactions. The individual profiling abstractions can be grouped in three groups: (i) techniques to identify multiple conflicts from a single program run, (ii) techniques to describe the data structures involved in conflicts by using a symbolic path through the heap, rather than a machine address, and (iii) visualization techniques to summarize which transactions conflict most. The ideas were demonstrated by building a lightweight profiling framework for Bartok-STM and an offline tool which process and display the profiling data.

Forth, this thesis explores and introduces new TM specific optimizations which target the wasted work due to aborting transactions. Using the results obtained with the profiling tool it analyzes and optimizes several applications from the STAMP benchmark suite. The profiling techniques effectively revealed TM-specific bottlenecks such as false conflicts and contentions accesses to data structures. The discovered bottlenecks were subsequently eliminated with using the new optimization techniques. Among the optimization highlights are the transaction checkpoints which reduced the wasted work in Intruder with 40%, decomposing objects to eliminate false conflicts in Bayes, early release in Labyrinth which decreased wasted work from 98% to 1%, using less contentions data structures such as chained hashtable in Intruder and Genome which have higher degree of parallelism.


In maintaining the health of elderly people, it can be useful to monitor their health status through their daily routines in their own home. This paper reports on the remote monitoring of the daily routine behavior of elderly patients in their domestic houses. We attempted to monitor the daily behavior of two elderly ladies who live in Mizusawa, Japan. A 74-year-old woman, who lived alone, was monitored for about two years, and another 72-year-old woman who lived alone was monitored for about a year. Several sensors were installed, including infrared sensors to detect human movement, magnetic switches to detect the opening and closing of doors, wattmeters embedded in wall sockets to detect the use of household appliances, a flame detector to detect the use of a cooking stove and a CO, sensor to detect the presence of a subject in a room by monitoring the carbon dioxide expired. An industrial networking system was introduced into each house to combine the sensors. The sensor outputs were recorded on a personal computer located in each house. The data were automatically transferred daily to another site via the Internet using CATV. With the, sensors, a network and data system, the monitoring was fully automatic and did not require the placement of any sensors on the subjects (e.g. electrodes and cuff sensors) or any operations by subjects. Information on several daily behavior patterns, such as the number of door openings, the length of sleep, absences from the house, use of a cooking stove, and time spent watching television were clearly identified either from a single sensor output, or by combining several sensor outputs. Examination of the data allowed some daily behavior, such as worship (in the form of Japanese Buddhism) and the tending of planters to be evaluated. Such monitoring can contribute to the maintenance of health.


Saudi Arabia's involvement in the Middle East's internal political problems for instance by supporting the Egyptian government under As-Sisi after the military coup against president Morsi and covertly supporting opposition groups can be understood as an attempt to prevent the Arab Springs from inducing political changes. Attempts were made to prevent outside influences from getting into Saudi Arabia by supporting new regimes friendly to the Saudis. In addition, Saudi Arabia has implemented many reforms to reduce the demand for political participation. The methods used were historical and qualitative research. The results show that Saudi Arabia was intentionally involved in the internal affairs of its neighboring countries and implemented internal reforms to prevent any effects of the Arab Springs in Saudi Arabia.


Workspaces is a Web-based WFMS developed at the Technical University of Berlin that attempts to deal with various shortcomings of Web-based workflow management systems by employing XML. The proposed architecture combines concepts from workflow management and coordination technology and uses XML for representation and the Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) for processing. The author examines the system architecture and describes the prototype implementation developed with several diploma students for an experimental evaluation of the ideas.


The transport of charge carriers throughout an active conjugated polymer (CP) host, characterized by a heterogeneous morphology of locally varying degrees of order and disorder, profoundly influences the performance of CP-based electronic devices, including diodes, photovoltaics, sensors, and supercapacitors. Out-of-plane charge carrier mobilities (μout-of-plane) across the bulk of the active material host and in-plane mobilities (μin-plane) parallel to a substrate are highly sensitive to local morphological features along their migration pathways. In general, the magnitudes of μout-of-plane and μin-plane are very different, in part because these carriers experience different morphological environments along their migration pathways. Suppressing the impact of variations in the morphological order/disorder on carrier migration remains an important challenge. While much is known about μin-plane and its optimization for devices, the current challenges are associated with μout-of-plane and its optimization for device performance. Therefore, this review is devoted to strategies for improving μout-of-plane in neat CP films and the implications for more complex systems, such as D:A blends which are relevant to OPV devices. The specific strategies discussed for improving μout-of-plane include solvent/field processing methods, chemical modification, thickness confinement, chemical additives, and different post-annealing strategies, including annealing with supercritical fluids. This review leverages the most recent fundamental understanding of mechanisms of charge transport and connections to morphology, identifying robust design strategies for targeted improvements of μout-of-plane.


In order to analyze the periodic unsteady flow problem efficiently the partially implicit harmonic balance(PIHB) method was developed. Contrary to the existing harmonic balance method, this method handles the harmonic source term explicitly and deals with flux terms implicitly. This method has a good convergence in comparison with the full explicit harmonic method and it is easy to apply this method because there is no need to calculate the complicated flux Jacobian term by comparing with the full implicit harmonic method. With the multigrid method about the each harmonic it turns out that this method has a good convergence regardless method. With the multigrid method about the each harmonic it turns out that this method has a good convergence regardless of the number of harmonics. The oscillating flows over NACA0012 airfoil is considered to verivy this method then the result correponsed to both the result of dual time stepping and explicit Runge-Kutta method.


With the development of ssds, performance limitations in persistent storage have shifted from the underlying medium to the interface through which the host and disk communicates. nvme is a recently developed standard for operating ssds connected to a host through pci Express, and offers significant performance improvements compared to conventional interfaces, as well as features designed for multi-tenant environments. Vortex is an experimental implementation of the omni-kernel architecture, a novel operating system kernel designed to offer strong isolation and accurate, fine-grained scheduling of system resources for all tenants that share a platform. The bios of the hardware platform currently supported by Vortex does not recognize nvme devices, and the Vortex operating system does not support configuration of devices that are unrecognized by the bios. Further, the storage stack implemented in Vortex only supports scsi-based storage devices. This thesis presents the implementation of an nvme driver for Vortex that is exposed as a scsi device. We also implement a system for recovering information about devices that are unrecognized by the bios, and use this system to successfully configure nvme devices on our hardware platform. The nvme driver is fully functional, deployed in a running Vortex system, and evaluated through performance experiments.


This thesis aims to study the theoretical complexity and empirical performance of decomposition algorithms. We focus on linear programs with a block-angular structure. Decomposition algorithms used to be the only way to solve large-scale special structured problems, in terms of memory limit and CPU time. However, with the advances in computer technology over the past few decades, many large-scale problems can now be solved simply by using some general purpose LP software, without exploiting the problems' inner structures. A question arises naturally, should we solve a structured problem with decomposition, or directly solve it as a whole? We try to understand how a problem's characteristics influence its computational performance, and compare the relative efficiency of algorithms with and without decomposition. Two comparisons are conducted in our research: first, the Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition method (DW) versus the simplex method (simplex); second, the analytic center cutting plane method (ACCPM) versus the interior point method (IPM). These comparisons fall into the two main solution approaches in linear programming: simplex-based algorithms and IPM-based algorithms. Motivated by our observations of ACCPM and DW decomposition, we devise a hybrid algorithm combining ACCPM and DW, which are the counterparts of IPM and simplex in the decomposition framework, to take the advantages of both: the quick convergence rate of IPM-based methods, as well as the accuracy of simplex-based algorithms. A large set of 316 instances is incorporated in our experiments, so that different dimensioned problems with primal or dual block-angular structures are covered to test our conclusions.


Thomas Molnar's "Bernanos "is an illuminating study of the personal evolution of the French Catholic novelist Georges Bernanos from a reactionary royalist to a religiously principled anti-fascist. It also provides a detailed account of the intellectual divisions within the French Catholic Right and suggests a number of parallels with intellectual and literary figures on the secular and religious left including Zola, Peguy, and Simone Weil. But, as Molnar points out, the significance of Bernanos is not exhausted by his writings. Bernanos the man is as deserving of attention as is Bernanos the novelist, essayist, and social critic. Molnar shows Bernanos against the troubled political-religious background of modern France: the Dreyfus case, the disillusionment following World War I, the Franco regime, Vichy, and the beginnings of the cold war. Whatever touched France touched Bernanos, and he flung himself into each crisis, not armed with a political system nor an academically sanctioned philosophy, but with a peasant's respect for what is and a Christian's sense of what might be. The portrait that Molnar draws is that of a passionately concerned Christian who knows that truth is hard to come by, but who is ready to follow it wherever it leads, regardless of the consequences. A crucial theme covered by Molnar is Bernanos' long and conflicted relations with Charles Maurras and the "Action Francaise. "He makes clear the extent to which Bernanos' fervent Catholicism set him apart from Maurras whose positivistic inspiration and passion for order helped lay the groundwork for the political collapse that led to the Vichy regime. Thomas Molnar's book is a fascinating account of Georges Bernanos' stature as both a political thinker and an important novelist. "Bernanos "will be enjoyed by historians, political scientists, philosophers, theologians, and scholars of literature.


We examine the response from both local governments and their voters to a sudden increase in public debt burden. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in the ex post cost of toxic loans, a notorious financial innovation adopted by a large number of local governments. A large increase in the debt burden of a local government results in a significant reduction in its investments, but leaves expenses and taxes mostly unchanged. This effect is dampened for local governments that are more politically contested. An increase in public debt reduces the likelihood of re-election for incumbent mayor and its political party. Overall, these findings support the existence of a public debt overhang effect, which binds differently depending on the political context as contested mayors strive to maintain investments.


This paper argues about the need for a revisited public policy framework giving priority to knowledge and technological change across the entire Europe, by discussing new cumulative data on R&D expenditure and the qualification of human resources across Europe. It takes a wide international comparison after a decade hit by recession and economic and budgetary problems, which shows an increasing internal divergence on knowledge investments across Europe, beyond the increasing gap between Europe as a whole and North America. As a result, the paper argues that new paradigms and conditions for responsible science and innovation policy across EU require the collective action of R&D institutions and a system approach to higher education, together with new initiatives towards international cooperation across an enlarged Europe. Analysis shows that chronic backwardness in science and technology in many European peripheries, including in EU southern and eastern regions, have been significantly overcome over the last decade. Nevertheless, their growing scientific and technological capacity is now associated with an increasing vulnerability as a result of the growing international competition for qualified human resources. Additionally, the comparative analysis of levels of economic diversification and sophistication across Europe, suggests the need to insist on qualification and institutional strengthening. This should consider active public policies to attract and retain qualified human resources all over Europe, as well as considering public actions towards promoting new markets. The way in which the economic fabric may gain competitiveness and access to external markets may require enhancing the degree of internationalization of the scientific community and encouraging international knowledge and innovation networks.


The article examines the ethnic interactions of immigrant Bulgarians, which are present in the literary reflection of Bulgarian authors from the diaspora - mostly Misho Hadzhiiski (Tavria), Nikolay Kurtev and Anna Maleshkova (Bessarabia). Сontent analysis of the artistic and the journalistic writing of Bulgarian migrants has enabled us to determine their significant neighbors, the distance between them, as well as some peculiarities of the relations among them. Tavrian and Bessarabian Bulgarians' implicit or explicit appraisals of "others" are presented too, and their conscious experience of the ethnic contacts in the "empty foreign land" is justified in the article.


We present recent advances and investigations related with a new mechanism for lightemission in conjugated molecules, Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence (TADF), seeking to harvest both the singlet and triplet excitons generated under electrical excitation ideally achieveing a 100% of efficiency. The new strategy may fuel the use and manufacturing of 3rd generation OLEDs, although a complete understanding of the molecular mechanism is not fully uncovered yet. Therefore, we will review our recent efforts to address some challenging issues using quantum and atomistic models [1-6]. Among them, we will remark how the mixed nature of the excited-states involved (chargetransfer or locally-excited) ultimately control the singlet-triplet energy difference, and how this is a dynamic process mediated by conformational fluctuations and spin-orbit coupling.


Environmentally friendly behavior has become an important part in achieving sustainable city. However, the implementation of environmentally friendly behavior in daily activities tends to get low participation. Therefore, this study aims to find out the factors that influence a person to behave in an environmentally friendly manner, especially from social and psychological aspects. This study using literature review and weighting based pairwise comparison as a method. Our study concluded, there are four groups of factors that influence the community in implementing environmental friendly behaviors, namely: internal factor (environmental knowledge and attitude), external factor (support from the government in providing environmental education, public facilities, and establish environmental policies and regulations), socio-demographic factor, and situational factor (financial aspects and the availability of good facilities/green product). Furthermore, external factors (such as government support in providing environmental education and public facilities) is the factor that most influence environmentally friendly behavior and also as a key factor in achieving a sustainable city.


Two recent approaches are combined in a new technique to find moving arbitrary shapes. We combine the new Velocity Hough Transform, which extracts moving conic sections, with a continuous formulation for arbitrary shape extraction. The new technique is demonstrated to provide motion analysis that is resilient to noise and to be able to detect its target shapes, which are both moving and arbitrary. Further, it is shown to have performance advantage over contemporaneous single-image extraction techniques. Finally, it appears to offer improved immunity to noise and occlusion, as consistent with evidence gathering techniques. The target application of this new approach is for use in automatic gait recognition, as a primer for shape extraction or as a basis for a recognition technique.


The characteristics of four human cytomegalovirus (HCMV)-specific monoclonal antibodies as assessed by ELISA, immunofluorescence, immunoprecipitation and Western blotting are described. Two antibodies recognized a 67K late polypeptide of HCMV, one recognized 43K and 79K polypeptides present early and late in HCMV-infected cells, and the fourth identified a 72K early nuclear protein of HCMV. The antibodies recognized these antigens in all HCMV isolates tested by immunofluorescence and ELISA, but demonstrated inter-isolate variations in polypeptides recognized by Western blotting.


Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine antidepressant use among Mexican Americans (MA) and non-Hispanic (NH) blacks and whites with type 2 diabetes and depressive symptoms. Methods A secondary data analysis based on National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2005-2012 cohort data included 560 noninstitutionalized civilian MA, NH black, and NH white adults with type 2 diabetes and depressive symptoms. Unadjusted and adjusted 2-way ANOVA models evaluated whether there was a difference in the use of antidepressants by depressive symptom level across race/ethnic group. Results Whites were more likely than blacks and MA to be on antidepressant treatment (whites: 41.7%, blacks: 27.1%, MA: 24.2%) and on serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRI) (whites: 8.1%, blacks: 2.9%, MA: 2.4%). However, there was no difference in the use of other drug classes or antidepressant use by depressive symptom level across racial/ethnic group. Followed by tricyclic antidepressants (TCA), selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) were the most commonly used drug class overall. Approximately 30% of subjects were on antidepressants and among those, 80% were on one antidepressant, all others on 2 or more. Conclusions Racial/ethnic differences were observed in the use of antidepressant treatment but not when depressive symptom levels were incorporated in the analyses. Further studies on the effectiveness of different antidepressants in diabetes outcomes minorities are needed.


Background: The bulking agents have provided an effective means of treating adults with internal sphincter (IS) incompetence. The damages to IS in pull-through operation and in those who had hypermotile proximal bowel segments have increased the need for increasing the IS pressure. Materials and Methods: 35 children with fecal incontinence after pull-through, who presented to our unit from January 2008 to February 2012, were enrolled in the study and investigated with endoanal sonography and anorectal manometry. The bulking agent was injected into the sub-mucosal anal plane of IS. The assessments undertaken were clinical assessment of the functional score and anorectal manometery for 6-12 months. Data were analyzed with IBM SPSS version 21 using repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA). Friedman test was used for analyzing soilage score changes during the study. Results: Manometry readings before and 6 months after intervention were 21.8 ± 4.2 and 25.2 ± 4.7 mmH 2 O, respectively. High-pressure zone area changed from 1.98 ± 0.63 to 2.8 ± 0.75 cm (P < 0.0001). B efore intervention, all the patients had complaints of soilage and complete incontinency. However, after intervention and 6-12 month follow-up, nearly 60% of patients were continent without significant soilage. However, there was a significant improvement in the overall continence grading scale scores post bulking from baseline to 6-12 months, but no change in the mean squeeze pressures at any time interval. Conclusion: Bulking of internal anal sphincter defects causes an improvement in fecal continence and the function.


Parkinson's disease is a slow onset, neurodegenerative disease that affects some 500,000 people in the United States alone. Mitochondrial dysfunctions, caused by mutations within dopamine generating cells, lead to the slow loss of functioning neurons. Three important genes have been identified in the causation and prevention of Parkinson's disease. PARK7, PINK1, and Parkin work as cofactors within the mitochondria. PARK7 plays an important role in reducing free radicals (reactive oxygen species, ROS) in mitochondria. Likewise, PINK1 and Parkin are involved in mitochondrial morphology and function. Recent studies have indicated that PINK1 and Parkin work in series, which is parallel to the function of PARK7. These studies have brought insight into the interactions between the three complimentary genes, as little was known regarding their interaction previously. Additionally, studies of PARK7 have indicated two variants of the gene, which may determine the pathology of the disease. Wild type PARK7 encodes elongated mitochondria, which promotes normal function. In contrast, mutated PARK7 causes increased fragmentation of the mitochondria, thereby leading to a decrease in function. While a great deal of knowledge has been acquired about the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease, more research is needed to determine exact mechanisms and potential treatments.


An algorithm for weight adjustments in a multilayer neural network is derived using the principles of dynamic programming. According to this algorithm at every layer the cost obtained using optimal values for weights for the remainder of the network is minimized using the weights in the current layer. Optimum weights are then computed recursively starting from the output layer. The mathematical formulation of the weight minimization problem is described within the dynamic programming framework. Equations governing weight adjustments in each layer are derived when the activation functions for neurons are continuous, e.g., sigmoid functions.<<ETX>>


The subject Introduced the analysis method of the black-spot, established the black-spot discriminant model, And gave its algorithm. According to the characteristics of China's traffic flow, we develope black-spot database, so that the work of the black-spot identification can be quickly carried out。The Road black-spot traffic accidents describes the road sections which have significantly higher accident rate than the average level . Road black-spots identification, analysis and processing are widely considered to be the most efficient way to prevent traffic accidents. The identification of Road accident black-spots is the concern of road design, road safety review, operation management, and security studies , The research studies of road black-spot identification,and determines risk road sections, so that countermeasures can be put forward, and we can achieve the goals of design improvement, strengthen management, improvement of road safety operation environment, decrease of the number of traffic accidents and improvement of the whole road traffic safety performance.


Abstract Impacts on water quality and quantity are among the most contentious aspects of mining projects. Companies insist that the use of modern technologies will ensure environmentally friendly mining practices. However, evidence of the negative environmental impacts of past mining activity causes local and downstream populations to worry that new mining activities will adversely affect their water supply. We report on one mine site in Peru where water has become a particularly conflictive issue. We then provide a detailed proposal for a monitoring plan to recover trust among stakeholders. A well-designed and executed monitoring plan for water quantity and quality is critical to foster dialogue, consensus, trust, and transparency between mine and community.


The advanced oxidation process (AOP) is used to increase the treatment efficiency of effluents however, it is necessary to compare the toxicity of treated and untreated effluents to evaluate if the decontamination process does not cause any biological harm. Cultured cells have been previously used to assess the genotoxic and cytotoxic potential of various compounds. Hence, the aim of this work was to assess the applicability of cytotoxicity assays to evaluate the toxicity related to the AOP treatment. Samples of an industrial effluent were collected after their treatment by a conventional method. Cytotoxicity of standard and AOP treated effluents was assessed in CRIB and HEp-2 cell line using the MTT and neutral red assays. We observed decrease at cell viability in the both assays (50% MTT and 13% NRU) when cells were exposed to the AOP treatment in the highest concentration. Thus, cytotoxic assays in cultured cells can be explored as an useful method to evaluate toxicity as well as to optimize effluents treatment process.


Teachers and other professionals increasingly utilize Twitter as a medium for professional expression and professional learning. These types of Twitter exchanges often take place in formal chats which are moderated by professional organizations or other knowledge brokers in the field. As moderated public online forums become more common, educators may wish to understand the benefits and limitations of this type of professional learning. This paper reports on a study of educators' discourse in two hosted Twitter chats focused on global education and analyzes the ways in which these types of chats align with research on high-quality professional learning. Results indicate that Twitter chats provide multiple components of high-quality professional learning, namely a focus on content, collaboration, and teacher agency; to a lesser extent, they may provide peer coaching and allow for conversations across a sustained duration. However, other components of meaningful professional learning are not possible in this context, as it is not job-embedded and does not provide active learning or supported opportunities to practice.


The problems, limitations, and potential advantages of mobile computing systems are discussed. It is suggested that the constraints violate many of the assumptions upon which today's distributed systems are based. A key requirement of mobile computing systems will be the ability to access critical data regardless of location, which implies interdependence between the elements of a mobile computing system. The Coda file system, which is an effort to provide transparency of environment to mobile computing systems, is reviewed.<<ETX>>


ABSTRACT Question: What is the combined effect of two drivers of local biodiversity changes (presence of a potentially invasive species and seasonal drought) on the performance of seedlings of plants from gypsum habitats under experimental conditions? Location: A controlled microcosm reconstruction of natural assemblages of gypsum plant communities from central Spain. Methods: We evaluated the effects of a potentially invasive grass (Lolium rigidum) and water stress on the survival, height growth and biomass of five woody species (Colutea hispanica, Gypsophila struthium, Thymus lacaitae, Lepidium subulatum and Helianthemum squamatum) from semi-arid gypsum ecosystems. Seedlings of the five species were grown with or without the potential invader and under three watering regimes: early stress – simulating an advanced summer, late stress – simulating the characteristic timing of current summer drought and well-watered. Results: Seedling survival and performance were negatively affected by the presence of the potential invader. Early stress had larger impacts on the gypsum species than late stress. No interactions were found between factors for any of the study variables, and responses to both factors were found to be species-specific. Conclusions: The lack of interactions between factors indicates that the presence of the potentially invasive grass and water stress had additive effects in our study system. The negative impact of early water stress draws attention to the possible consequences of the advances of summer drought predicted for Mediterranean ecosystems. Finally, the differential responses found for the study species suggest that plant communities will not respond as a unit to global change, leading to significant changes in species composition and dominance. Nomenclature: Tutin et al. (2001).


The LTE standard uses three different modulation schemes to adapt to various channel conditions in order to improve achievable data rates. These modulation schemes are the QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM. This paper presents an overview of a LTE digital communication system, designed in order to study the effects of the QPSK, 16-QAM and 64QAM modulation schemes on the BER performance with an AWGN channel model. Different subsystems within the transmitter and receiver blocks are implemented. It is noted that the LTE system uses Turbo channel coding and bit level scrambling to offer reliable and secure services to the users. Depending on the assumed channel condition (clear, medium clear or noisy), the 64-QAM, 16-QAM or QPSK modulation scheme, on the transmitter side; as well as the corresponding demodulation scheme, on the receiver side; are automatically selected. Based on the recovered data bits, the obtained bit error rates are analyzed, compared and discussed.


The core aspect of the child welfare and protection thought focusing on the family and channelling community resources, is that in order to preserve the unity of the family, it is necessary to widely introduce from the local community the services into the family's life, thus mobilizing the internal resources of the family, and acknowledging parenting, as a social value. Integrative child protection safeguards and maintains the family's responsibility focused on care, while it promotes the protection and widespread social acceptance of the rights of the child. Giving support is understood as a multidisciplinary and multidimensional process, aimed at the promotion of the well-being of children, the improvement of the life quality of each member of the family, and on long term the social integration of families with multiple problems. The present study examines which are the new directions in the Hungarian child protection system centred on social inclusion and foreseeing a system of complex services. In order to perform this inquiry, we present the professional experiences of two model programs: 1) parental skill development programs; 2) mobile application supporting the successful social integration of children and young adults in child care. The success of the presented innovations in child protection is further enhanced by the fact that these initiatives are built on the cooperation of several actors, addressing target group members (children/young people and their parents), professionals working in child welfare and child protection system, representatives of associated fields, and decision-makers. The joint identification and interpretation process of various issues include researches applying complex methodologies, developed for the assessment of the results.


Since their initial discovery in the 1970s and their subsequent resurgence in the mid 1990s, regulatory T (Treg) cells have become one of the most studied cell subsets. Treg cells prevent autoimmunity and limit aggressive immune responses directed against either pathogen or foreign antigen that might serve to damage host tissue. In contrast, tumour cells have been shown to recruit and/or induce Treg cells, which can impair tumour immunity. The immunoregulatory function of these cells makes them ideal therapeutic candidates for the treatment of autoimmune disease and in the prevention of transplant rejection. Likewise, depletion of Treg cells remains an additional option in the treatment of cancer. Despite significant advances in the treatment of murine models of disease with Treg cells, it has been difficult to transfer this success into the clinic. In this review, we will discuss relevant patents and the most recent advances in the use of Treg cells to treat autoimmunity, prevent graft rejection as well as the use of antibodies to deplete these cells in cancer.


Implementing Cisco Unified Communications Voice over IP and QoS (CVOICE) Foundation Learning Guide Foundation Learning for the CCNP Voice (CVOICE) 642-437 Exam Kevin Wallace, CCIE No. 7945 Implementing Cisco Unified Communications Voice over IP and QoS (CVOICE) Foundation Learning Guide is a Cisco-authorized, self-paced learning tool for CCNP Voice foundation learning. Developed in conjunction with the Cisco CCNP Voice certification team, it covers all aspects of planning, designing, and deploying Cisco VoIP networks and integrating gateways, gatekeepers, and QoS into them. Updated throughout for the new CCNP Voice (CVOICE) Version 8.0 exam (642-437), this guide teaches you how to implement and operate gateways, gatekeepers, Cisco Unified Border Element, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, and QoS in a voice network architecture. Coverage includes voice gateways, characteristics of VoIP call legs, dial plans and their implementation, basic implementation of IP phones in Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express environment, and essential information about gatekeepers and Cisco Unified Border Element. The book also provides information on voice-related QoS mechanisms that are required in Cisco Unified Communications networks. Fourteen video lab demonstrations on the accompanying CD-ROM walk you step by step through configuring DHCP servers, CUCME autoregistration, ISDN PRI circuits, PSTN dial plans, DID, H.323 and MGCP gateways, VoIP dial peering, gatekeepers, COR, AutoQoS VoIP, and much more. Whether you are preparing for CCNP Voice certification or simply want to gain a better understanding of VoIP and QoS, you will benefit from the foundation information presented in this book. -Voice gateways, including operational modes, functions, related call leg types, and routing techniques -Gateway connections to traditional voice circuits via analog and digital interfaces -Basic VoIP configuration, including A/D conversion, encoding, packetization, gateway protocols, dial peers, and transmission of DTMF, fax, and modem tones -Supporting Cisco IP Phones with Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express -Dial plans, including digit manipulation, path selection, calling privileges, and more -Gatekeepers, Cisco Unified Border Elements, and call admission control (CAC) configuration -QoS issues and mechanisms -Unique DiffServ QoS characteristics and mechanisms -Cisco AutoQoS configuration and operation Companion CD-ROM The CD-ROM that accompanies this book contains 14 video lab demonstrations running approximately 90 minutes. This book is in the Foundation Learning Guide Series. These guides are developed together with Cisco as the only authorized, self-paced learning tools that help networking professionals build their understanding of networking concepts and prepare for Cisco certification exams.


Dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP4), also known as CD26 is a type II transmembrane protein that is released from the cell membrane in a nonclassical secretory mechanism. This exopeptidase selectively degrades varieties of substrates including incretin hormones, growth factors, and cytokines. A significant detectable amount of DPP4 activity can be measured in plasma as well as in different tissues such as intestinal epithelium, vascular endothelium, lymphocytes, monocytes, kidney, liver, adipose, lung, thymus, spleen, prostate, etc. Enzymatically active circulatory DPP4 is shed from the plasma membrane via proteolytic cleavage, a process responsible for the enhanced plasma DPP4 levels and activity. Elevated circulatory DPP4 activity as well as levels has been found in wide spectrum of metabolic diseases including diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and nonalcoholic fatty liver diseases. Moreover, recent preclinical studies have further expanded the repertoire for the usage of DPP4 inhibitors in the treatment of other metabolic diseases and in their consequent complications. In the present review we highlight the reason behind the elevated circulatory DPP4 levels in metabolic diseases with a focus on the tissue of origin. We also underscore the discrepancy of protein levels with enzyme activity of circulatory DPP4 in metabolic diseases. © 2018 IUBMB Life, 70(2):112–119, 2018


One square meter field enclosures made of steel flashing, and natural ponds were used to determine the efficacy of Bactimos formulations of Bacillus thuringiensis (H-14) for control of late instar Aedes dorsalis, Ae. fitchii and Ae. melanimon mosquito larvae in intermountain meadows. Low temperatures caused decreased efficacy of the formulations tested in the laboratory, and spring temperature extremes lowered efficacy in field tests. Adequate control of fourth instar larvae was obtained in field studies in a 24 hour period when water temperatures were greater than or equal to 12 degrees C at a treatment rate of 0.1 mg/liter.


This paper explores how actors in local markets in the Global South adapt traditional communication technologies to successfully collaborate to sustain the markets and their business practices. Drawing on ethnographic observations at a local technology goods market in Bangalore, India, the study details the use of a landline telephone intercom system as the primary tool for business communication in the market. Through analyzing how the intercom system relates to informality and physical space, the paper argues that it bridges the formal with the informal, and helps facilitate informal business practices while also allowing them to remain hidden from the formal regulatory gaze of the state.


In 2000 several STEM faculty at Bethel College in Kansas designed and began offering a one-week intensive residential summer research experience for high school students – the Bethel College Summer Science Institute. The core idea underlying the design was to motivate students through the excitement of discovery. This event has been offered annually since that time and emphasizes collaboration with others during the research process, learning laboratory techniques, systematic data recording, data analysis methods, formal oral presentation of research results, exposure to cutting-edge STEM topics, and a residential experience with recreational activities mentored by college STEM students. Research topics have varied across STEM disciplines, including biology, psychology, chemistry, neuroscience, computer science, engineering, mathematics, and astronomy. Instruction involves a bare minimum of didactic presentation with emphasis on active involvement in laboratory or field activities. Instructional groups of 12 or fewer students, taught by 1 or 2 faculty with 1 or 2 undergraduate assistants, are further divided into groups of 2 to 4 students for individual projects, of which the results are presented in an afternoon symposium at the conclusion of the institute. The institute was funded primarily with student fees for the first decade of its existence, though enrollment, especially of underserved students, appeared to be limited by the $325 fee. In 2009 STEM alumni of the College were offered the opportunity to support individual students through donations, and fees were set at $50 in 2010. Enrollment tripled in 2010 and has remained at this level to the present; alumni donations have been adequate to cover expenses. Many students report that this support was crucial to their attendance and that the experience increased their desire to pursue study and careers in STEM fields (mean greater than 4 on a 1-to-5 scale for both attendance and desire). Approximately 17 % of Institute attendees have eventually matriculated to Bethel College, greatly enhancing the financial sustainability of the event. STEM alumni have responded very favorably to this opportunity for a significant impact on the development of young STEM students and on STEM enrollment at their alma mater. The approach described here can be replicated at other institutions as a strategy to build STEM enrollments and to engage STEM alumni in this effort.


Many healthy individuals perceive themselves as forgetful and are interested in interventions to decrease their worries and increase their memory functioning. Educational interventions can be more effective when determinants are targeted that are known to predict perceived forgetfulness. In the present study, first, a broad range of determinants was selected from the literature and from experiences in clinical settings and, second, the most important determinants among the selected ones were identified with multivariate regression analyses. The study had a cross-sectional design. A sample of 300 healthy participants aged over 54 years filled in a self-report questionnaire. Findings indicated that low memory self-efficacy, high memory-related anxiety, negative attitude and high subjective norm (e.g. anticipating negative evaluations by important others) were the most important correlates of perceived forgetfulness. It is argued that future interventions should focus on the specified determinants to improve programme effectiveness in reducing subjective memory complaints.


Existing few-shot image generation approaches typically employ fusion-based strategies, either on the image or the feature level, to produce new images. However, previous approaches struggle to synthesize high-frequency signals with fine details, deteriorating the synthesis quality. To address this, we propose WaveGAN, a frequency-aware model for few-shot image generation. Concretely, we disentangle encoded features into multiple frequency components and perform low-frequency skip connections to preserve outline and structural information. Then we alleviate the generator's struggles of synthesizing fine details by employing high-frequency skip connections, thus providing informative frequency information to the generator. Moreover, we utilize a frequency L1-loss on the generated and real images to further impede frequency information loss. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and advancement of our method on three datasets. Noticeably, we achieve new state-of-the-art with FID 42.17, LPIPS 0.3868, FID 30.35, LPIPS 0.5076, and FID 4.96, LPIPS 0.3822 respectively on Flower, Animal Faces, and VGGFace. GitHub: https://github.com/kobeshegu/ECCV2022_WaveGAN


A new alternative local source of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) has been found to be sensitive towards several insecticides. AChE was purified from the brain tissue of Puntius javanicususing affinity chromatography (procainamide hydrochloride coupled with sephacryl 6B) with the total recovery of 40% at 8.48 purification fold. All carbamate (CB) insecticides tested at the concentration of 1 mg/L were capable of lowering AChE activity to less than 30%; Bendiocarp (18.80%), carbaryl (5.96%,), carbofuran (6.12%), methomyl (13.91%) and propoxur (15.851%). The P. javanicus AChE was found to be unaffected by several activated organophosphates (OP) such as acephate and dimethoate, while trichlorfon slightly inhibited the enzyme activity (p<0.05). Chlorpyrifos, diazinon, malathion and parathion lowered AChE activity to 43.02, 40.97, 37.11 and 46.72%, respectively. Pesticides that inhibit AChE activities more than 50% were further tested in different concentrations to determine the half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50). Carbofuran and carbaryl showed the lowest IC50 value at 0.035 and 0.031 mg/L, respectively, as both showed no significant differences (p <0.05), followed by bendiocarp, propoxur, methomyl, malathion, diazinon, parathion and chlorpyrifos at 0.045, 0.076, 0.090, 0.063, 0.103, 0.151 and 0.202 mg/L, respectively. Based on these results, the sensitivity of AChE from brain P. javanicus brain tissue shows promise as an alternative biosensor for the detection of insecticides contamination.


1. Exposure of rats to environmental-stress conditions of hypobaria, hypoxia and cold did not alter the activity of hepatic delta-aminolaevulinate synthetase. 2. Induction of the enzyme by diethoxycarbonyldihydrocollidine was inhibited when the rats were exposed to hypobaria before or during the treatment with the drug but not after the initial phase when the process of induction was initiated. Neither increased concentration of the drug nor the time of induction had any effect on the inhibition under hypobaria. 3. A period of 12-24h of pre-exposure to hypobaria gave the maximum inhibition, and on longer exposure the inhibitory effect was decreased. 4. The inhibition was not a permanent effect and could be substantially reversed in 12h of withdrawal to ambient pressure. 5. Inhibition of induction was found under hypobaria and hypoxia, but not on exposure to cold. This suggests a specific effect of lack of O(2) rather than a general effect of stress. 6. It appears possible that alteration of concentration of endogenous adenine nucleotides may control the process of diethoxycarbonyldihydrocollidine-mediated induction of delta-aminolaevulinate synthetase, since treatment with ATP, cyclic AMP or theophylline produced inhibition similar to that under hypobaria and hypoxia.


Most wireless solutions today are centered around people-centric devices like laptops and cell phones that are insufficient for mobile robots. The key difference is that people-centric devices use wireless connectivity in bursts under primarily stationary settings while mobile robots continuously transmit data even while moving. When mobile robots use existing wireless solutions, it results in intolerable and seemingly random interruptions in wireless connectivity when moving [1]. These wireless issues stem from suboptimal switching across wireless infrastructure access points (APs), also called AP handoffs. These poor handoff decisions are due to stateless handoff algorithms that make wireless decisions solely from immediate and noisy scans of surrounding wireless conditions. In this paper, we propose to overcome these motion-based wireless connectivity issues for autonomous robots using highly informed handoff algorithms that combine fine-grain wireless maps with accurate robot localization. Our results show significant wireless performance improvements for continuously moving robots in real environments without any modifications to the wireless infrastructure.


It is argued that Darwin's concept of evolutionary change is primarily based on the idea of functional adaptation. Genealogical aspects are seen as a secondary consequence of this hypothesis. Unfortunately, the reception of Darwin's work was concentrated on the genealogical aspects from the very beginning (Huxley, Haeckel) and thus channeled future development of evolutionary morphology in a very one-sided way. This direction of development led to the adoption of cladism as a very sophisticated concept of comparative morphology. Though cladism claims to contribute to our understanding of evolution, it is demonstrated that it suffers in this regard because of the incompatibility of,,pure morphology with the demands of functional thinking as an integrative part of Darwin's proposition.


A learning programme, on the topic of glaciation, is written for pupils of above average intelligence for use in the school situation. The learning programme is linear in style with overt response. It consists of 144 frames divided into five sections. Pupils work at their own pace within the lesson period. First year pupils, in a senior (13 + - 18 +) high school assisted in programme development. Four revisions were found to be necessary before the learning programme was considered to be satisfactory (gain ratio of 1.2). revisions were based on the pupils post-test performance and the frame response error rate. The final version of the programme produced a gain ratio of 1.38. overall frame response errors were 6.8% and key response errors 6.92%. The map interpretation section of the programme did not reach an acceptable level of sucess. The pupils concerned may have lacked the necessary basic map reading skills. The gain ratio for the whole programme after a period of one month is 0.87. Programme evaluation followed with a teaching methods experiment. The learning which resulted from the use of three different teaching methods was analysed. The teaching methods employed ere (1) learning programme only; (2) learning programme plus discussion; and (3) normal method. A comparison of the results obtained from the three groups for (i) post-test gains; (ii) retention gains (5 weeks later); (iii) G. C. E. theory and (iv) G. C. E. map interpretation (9 weeks later) all yielded results of no significant difference. The learning programme was as effective as the other teaching methods and required less time. It is suggested that the type of O.S map interpretation used in the learning programme may be too difficult for pupils in the 13+ - l4+ age group.


The swelling potential of weak rocks is crucial to assess in stability determinations of tunnels constructed for both infrastructure and hydropower. Among the institutions that are involved with extensive research on swelling rock material, the methodologies applied at three different European institutions are reviewed in this manuscript. XRD analysis and oedometer swelling tests are included as index tests at all three institutions whereby the adopted swelling test methodologies at all three institutions are grounded in the ISRM standards. Different mindsets in how to forecast the challenges related to swelling are, however, reflected in the boundary conditions of test procedures and the internal modifications on the test apparatus, the preparation procedure, and in the choice of specimen size/mass. This manuscript reviews the adopted methodologies and highlights the advantages and drawbacks on the testing approaches used. Two of the institutions rely on a general approach which is standardized, and the results are compared. It is highlighted that, both institutions have modified the ISRM standard and the methodologies represents two unique approaches. Institution 3 have a case-specific approach and no test data were available. However, the described methodology differs from the procedures at Institution 1 and 2. Important differences between the testing procedures are both discussed and exemplified by comparing the test results obtained from duplicate samples at two of the institutions.


The Cenozoic East African Rift System (EARS) extends from the Red Sea to Mozambique. Here we use seismic reflection and bathymetric data to investigate the tectonic evolution of the offshore branch of the EARS. The data indicate multiple and time transgressive neotectonic deformations along ~800 km of the continental margin of northern Mozambique. We observe a transition from a mature rift basin in the north to a juvenile fault zone in the south. The respective timing of deformation is derived from detailed seismic stratigraphy. In the north, a ~30 km wide and more than 150 km long, N‐S striking symmetric graben initiated as half‐graben in the late Miocene. Extension accelerated in the Pliocene, causing a continuous conjugate border fault and symmetric rift graben. Coevally, the rift started to propagate southward, which resulted in a present‐day ~30 km wide half‐graben, approximately 200 km farther south. Since the Pleistocene, the rift has continued to propagate another ~300 km, where the incipient rift is reflected by subrecent small‐scale normal faulting. Estimates of the overall brittle extension of the matured rift range between 5 and 12 km, with an along‐strike southward decrease of the extension rate. The offshore portion of the EARS evolves magma poor, similar to the onshore western branch. The structural evolution of the offshore EARS is suggested to be related to and controlled by differing inherited lithospheric fabrics. Preexisting fabrics may not only guide and focus extension but also control rift architecture.


Hypothesis: There is no difference in patient compliance regarding appointment keeping behavior, broken appliances, wearing orthodontic auxiliaries, or oral hygiene maintenance in the Medicaid and non-Medicaid orthodontic populations studied.

Objective: To determine if perceived problems with the orthodontic Medicaid population are justified by examining whether patients whose orthodontic treatment is covered by Medicaid have more late and failed appointments, more broken appliances and are less compliant with orthodontic auxiliaries wear and oral hygiene maintenance than patients who are paying for orthodontic services themselves.

Methods: A retrospective chart review was conducted at two sites: 1) Wicker Park Orthodontics – a private orthodontic practice in Chicago and 2) the University of Illinois at Chicago Orthodontic Clinic. Charts of 30 Medicaid and 30 non-Medicaid patients were reviewed at each site. From each chart, the following information was recorded: mean percentage of failed and late appointments, number of broken appliances, auxiliary wear, and oral hygiene maintenance. Student t-tests and Chi-square tests were performed to determine if there were any statistically significant differences in the aforementioned categories between the Medicaid and non-Medicaid orthodontic patients.

Results: The student t-tests showed no statistically significant differences between the two groups with regards to the mean percentage of late and failed appointments (p = 0.107, p = 0.393). Cross-tabulation and Chi-square results also showed no statically significant differences between the two groups with regards to the number of broken appliances, auxiliary wear, and oral hygiene (p = 0.075-0.600).

Conclusions: The results of this study indicate there is a lack of evidence behind orthodontists' perceptions that Medicaid orthodontic patients are less compliant than non-Medicaid orthodontic patients. While there are still some difficulties in treating Medicaid patients, such as low fee reimbursement and cumbersome paperwork, the current study will hopefully alleviate some of the doubts practitioners may have regarding this population's compliance making them more open to participating in the Medicaid program to help reduce the access to care issue faced by these patients.


Summary Objective: To investigate the efficacy and safety of donepezil in a subgroup of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) of moderate severity from a previous trial. Methods: Two hundred and seven patients with moderate AD (standardized Mini-Mental State Examination [sMMSE] score 10-17) were randomized to treatment in this 24-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Patients received either donepezil, 5mg/day for the first 28 days and 10mg/day thereafter according to the clinician's judgement (n = 102), or placebo (n = 105). The primary outcome measure was the Clinician's Interview-Based Impression of Change with caregiver input (CIBIC-plus) at week 24 using a last observation carried forward (LOCF) analysis. Results: Baseline patient demographics were similar between treatment groups. Mean age was 74.3 years (range 48–92). Least-squares (LS) mean sMMSE scores at baseline were 13.6 ± 0.3 for the donepezil group and 13.9 ± 0.3 for the placebo group. LS mean CIBIC-plus scores for donepezil-treated patients were improved from, or close to, baseline severity at all visits, and were significantly different from placebo at weeks 8,12,18, and 24 (week 24 LOCF mean difference = 0.53, p = 0.0003). LS mean change from baseline scores on the sMMSE and Severe Impairment Battery (SIB) for the donepezil group improved throughout the study, and were significantly different from placebo at each visit for the sMMSE (week 24 LOCF mean difference = 2.06, p = 0.0002) and from week 8 for the SIB (week 24 LOCF mean difference = −4.44, p = 0.0026). LS mean change scores on the Disability Assessment for Dementia remained at or above baseline levels throughout the study for the donepezil group, while the placebo group showed a steady decline; treatment differences were significant at each visit (week 24 LOCF mean difference = −9.25, p < 0.0001). LS mean change scores on the Neuropsychiatric Inventory 12-item total improved throughout the study for the donepezil group and were significantly different from placebo at weeks 4 and 24 (week 24 LOCF mean difference = 5.92, p = 0.0022). Eighty-one per cent of donepezil-treated and 89% of placebo-treated patients completed the trial, with 9% and 5%, respectively, discontinuing due to adverse events (AEs). Eighty-two per cent of donepezil-treated and 80% of placebo-treated patients experienced AEs, the majority of which were rated mild in severity and, in general, were similar between treatment groups. Conclusion:The significant treatment responses observed with donepezil in these patients reinforce the findings from earlier studies that show donepezil to have important benefits, compared with placebo, across functional, cognitive, and behavioral symptoms, with good tolerability, in patients with AD of moderate severity.