The purpose of this thesis is to examine how native Greeks and first-generation Greek-Americans identify or disidentify with "Greek-ness," "American-ness," or both in their struggle to achieve an ultimate, successful balance of a third "space," one that expresses their Greek-American identity. In order to come to certain conclusions regarding the formation of Greek-American identity, I examine Greek-American life from a historical overview that spans as early as the first Greek-American communities of the early 1900's, to Greek-Americans of present-day society. I look at how Greek-Americans perform "Greek-ness," "American-ness," or "Greek-American-ness," through language choice and the altering of traditional gender roles, in an attempt to achieve the third "space" of "Greek-American-ness." I discuss their use of Greek and English languages in the first chapter of the thesis from a qualitative, sociolinguistics study I conducted in spring 2003. In addition I examine females' and males' altering of traditional gender roles, and their implications, in several Greek-American texts, including Helen Papanikolas's novel, The Time of the Little Blackbird, and her story collection, The Apple Falls from the Apple Tree, Nia Vardalos's film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Nick Gage's memoir, A Place for Us, and Eleni N. Gage's memoir, North of Ithaka: A Journey Home through a Family's Extraordinary Past, for the purposes of this thesis. These texts most effectively illustrate the altering of traditional gender roles and the affects of interethnic marriage. I found that the definitions of Greeks and Greek-Americans have always been ambiguous. Furthermore, Greek-American identity continues to be so in contemporary America, as a result of white, American socio-historical and socio-cultural constructs of race and ethnicity. Other findings include the fact that American-born and Greek-born Greek-Americans consider themselves different from other Americans, as well as from the Greeks who live in Greece. Both groups express their "Greek-American-ness" through language choice, altering of traditional gender roles, and lifestyle patterns characteristic of American life. Both males and females successfully achieve the third "space" of Greek-American identity in contemporary America. However, from a historical perspective, males assimilated more easily, and more often, than females. In addition, it took females much longer than the males to achieve this third "space," because of Greek traditional gender roles, which automatically allowed males more freedom for self-definition than the females, as a result of Greek patriarchal society in which these original roles were constructed. Finally, contemporary Greek-Americans are assimilating more than ever before, since influx of Greek migration patterns has significantly slowed down, from the last working class group who came in the early 1980's. This is probably the last group of first-generation Greek-Americans, so assimilation will become even more prevalent amidst later generations…


Oxidation of acetate, palmitoyl carnitine and palmitoyl-CoA was studied in isolated rabbit heart mitochondria. The highest rate of respiration was found if acetate was used as a substrate, the other substances studied were less effective. Oxidation of these substrates was gradually decreased after permanent coronary artery occlusion within 1, 4 and 24 hrs; the extent of the oxidation decrease was similar for all the substrates used. Incomplete oxidation of palmitoyl carnitine was observed in mitochondria from ischemic heart. Consumption of acetate in the mitochondria of control and ischemic animals exceeded distinctly its production in total respiration and in beta-oxidation of palmitoyl carnitine. The data obtained suggest that the decrease in coupled respiration, observed in mitochondria under conditions of ischemia, caused rather by lowering in respiratory capacity than by impairment of adenine nucleotides transport.


ABSTRACT Oudart, T., Larroudé, Ph. and Bouchette, F., 2013. Two numerical approaches: 2D and 3D SPH model to simulate extreme waves over a barrier island The barrier islands usually erode seriously during the occurrence of typhoon, especially, when storm surge comes at the spring tide period. The high water level combined with typhoon wave run-up induces overwash on the barrier islands and pushes the barrier sand into the lagoon behind. . We tentatively characterize this natural phenomenon with numerical modeling of the propagation of water waves onto a barrier island. The modelling work is based upon 2D and 3D Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) models. The barrier island response to typhoon waves is analyzed in two different ways: 1) comparing the results from an experimentation in a wave flume with those from SPH computations performed on exactely the same barrier island morphology and the same long wave forcings; b) performing SPH computations in a real case study, i.e. the Wan Lu Tziao barrier island, south-western Taiwan (ANR KUN-SHEN program), from the shoaling zone in the open sea to the lagoon.


How much volatility is there in earnings in South Africa? The South African labour market has been shown to be a key determinant of welfare, both in terms of poverty and inequality. These are a function of both the high levels of unemployment as well as the wage distribution, conditional on being employed. One aspect of welfare that derives from the labour market, which has been relatively understudied to date, is the amount of volatility in earnings that various groups of South Africans experience over time. This has implications directly for welfare, as well as for inequality. We make use of the first three waves of data from the National Income Dynamics Study to describe the amount of earnings volatility experienced by different demographic groups. We then make use of a regression model to estimate the partial correlation between the various characteristics that we use and earnings volatility. Our main findings are that earnings volatility is high over a four year interval. The mean within‐person standard deviation in earnings across the three waves lies between 50% and 66% of the mean earnings depending on the time period, and the mean within‐person coefficient of variation in earnings is 0.641. Chief Research Officer, SALDRU, Dept. of Economics, Univ. Of Cape Town. Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


Rearing young stock for replacement heifers is probably one of the least well understood and practised aspects of herd and feeding management on dairy farms throughout the world, particularly on small holder dairy farms in the tropics. This book addresses all the major concerns of the small holder dairy farmer in Asia. It shows how to attain optimal growth in young stock, so that as cows, they can calve at an appropriate early age at the lowest cost and promptly substitute for any cows culled from the milking herd. This provides continuing returns on the investments of feed, labour and other farm resources.

Low reproductive rates and high calf mortality are the major causes of reproductive wastage. This has a direct bearing on culling and replacement strategies and on genetic improvement. In many tropical countries, calf mortality can be as high as 50%. In some areas this can be due to climatic stress on temperate or crossbred stock. While climatic stress compounds the other hazards of calf life, high calf mortality is usually due to diseases and poor feeding management.

Rearing Young Stock on Tropical Dairy Farms in Asia encourages the small holder dairy farmer to maintain their investment in replacement heifers and gives them the tools necessary to achieve realistic targets for mortalities, live weight gain, mating age, and age and live weight at first calving. It is a companion volume to three previous manuals written by John Moran: Tropical Dairy Farming, Business Management for Tropical Dairy Farmers and Managing High Grade Dairy Cows in the Tropics.


Derived from mesoderm precursors, hemangioblasts are bipotential common progenitors of hematopoietic cells and endothelial cells. The regulatory events controlling hematopoietic and endothelial lineage specification are largely unknown, especially in humans. In this study, we establish a serum-free and feeder-free system with a high-efficient embryoid body (EB) generation to investigate the signals that direct differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), including human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Consistent with previous studies, the CD34(+)CD31(+)VE-cadherin(+) (VEC(+)) cells derived from hPSCs contain hematopoietic and endothelial progenitors. In the presence of hematopoietic and endothelial growth factors, some of CD34(+)CD31(+)VEC(+) cells give rise to blast colony-forming cells (BL-CFCs), which have been used to characterize bipotential hemangioblasts. We found that the level of the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) 1 protein is increased during hPSC differentiation, and that TGF-β signaling has the double-edged effect on hematopoietic and endothelial lineage differentiation in hPSCs. An addition of TGF-β to hPSC differentiation before mesoderm induction promotes the development of mesoderm and the generation of CD34(+)CD31(+)VEC(+) cells. An addition of TGF-β inhibitor, SB431542, before mesoderm induction downregulates the expression of mesodermal markers and reduces the number of CD34(+)CD31(+)VEC(+) progenitor cells. However, inhibition of TGF-β signaling after mesoderm induction increases CD34(+)CD31(+)VEC(+) progenitors and BL-CFCs. These data provide evidence that a balance of positive and negative effects of TGF-β signaling at the appropriate timing is critical, and potential means to improve hematopoiesis and vasculogenesis from hPSCs.


A central concern for an optimizing compiler is the design of its intermediate representation (IR) for code. The IR should make it easy to perform transformations, and should also afford efficient and precise static analysis. In this paper we study an aspect of IR design that has received little attention: the role of undefined behavior. The IR for every optimizing compiler we have looked at, including GCC, LLVM, Intel's, and Microsoft's, supports one or more forms of undefined behavior (UB), not only to reflect the semantics of UB-heavy programming languages such as C and C++, but also to model inherently unsafe low-level operations such as memory stores and to avoid over-constraining IR semantics to the point that desirable transformations become illegal. The current semantics of LLVM's IR fails to justify some cases of loop unswitching, global value numbering, and other important "textbook" optimizations, causing long-standing bugs. We present solutions to the problems we have identified in LLVM's IR and show that most optimizations currently in LLVM remain sound, and that some desirable new transformations become permissible. Our solutions do not degrade compile time or performance of generated code.


The large temperature gradients experienced by thermoelectric modules induce significant thermal stresses which eventually lead to device failure. The impact of thermal cycling on a commercial thermoelectric module is investigated through characterization of the electrical properties. In this work, we measure the evolution of the thermoelectric and electrical properties with thermal cycling. One side of the thermoelectric module is cycled between 30°C and 160°C every 3 minutes while the other side is held at ~20°C. The thermoelectric figure of merit, ZTET̅, and electrical resistivity are measured after every 1000 cycles. The measured ZTET̅ value is compared using both a modified Harman method and an electrical measurement technique analyzed with an electrical circuit model. In addition, the change in output power and resistivity with cycling are reported. This study provides insight into characterization methods for thermoelectric modules and quantifies reliability characteristics of thermoelectric modules.


A case of urinary bladder leiomyoma in a patient initially diagnosed as having urethritis on account of a 2-week history of purulent urethral discharge is presented. The clinical presentation, imaging findings, and management of this rare benign tumour are discussed. The use of various imaging modalities (intravenous urography, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging) contributed to the diagnosis of urinary bladder leiomyoma, which was confirmed histopathologically after transurethral cystoscopy was used to partially resect the lesion.


Drug addiction is recognized as a serious brain disease and with the rapid expansion in neuroscience research over the past few decades, great progress has been made in understanding the causes and effects of drug addiction and its relevance to more basic components of human behavior. It is now accepted that drugs of abuse (DOA) act on the mesolimbic dopamine (DA) brain reward system to mimic the rewards induced by more 'natural' stimuli such as food and sex. Acute administrations of DOA, particularly the psychostimulant amphetamine (AMPH), and the opiate heroin, lead to increases in extracellular levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in regions comprising the brain reward system, including the nucleus accumbens (NAc), the ventral tegmental area (VTA), the striatum, and the dorsal caudate (DC). Changes in DA levels contribute to both the rewarding properties of DOA, as well as behavioral aspects of their use. As knowledge of the molecular and behavioral effects of DOA has advanced, evidence has accumulated that opioids not only share similar rewarding properties as psychostimulants, but that the endogenous opioid system can directly modulate the mesolimbic dopaminergic system as well. However, the individual contributions of the three opioid receptors subtypes (μ, κ, and δ) in modulating the brain reward system are still unclear. In an attempt to investigate this, we developed an animal model of acute amphetamine (AMPH) –induced behaviors and studied the effect of antagonizing the individual opioid receptors (ORs) on these behaviors. Using the induction of hyperlocomotion following a low dose (2mg/kg) of AMPH as a behavioral correlate of DA levels, we found that antagonizing the δOR significantly attenuated behavior, antagonism of κORs failed to effect behavior, and antagonism of μORs had a slight, but non-significant, augmentation of DA-dependent hyperlocomotion. In contrast, utilizing the induction of stereotypic behaviors with a high dose (12mg/kg) of AMPH as our behavioral correlate, antagonism of all three ORs significantly attenuated DA-dependent stereotypy. It is assumed that these OR-dependent effects are mediated through differential regulation of target neurons within the mesolimbic reward system and indicate that the endogenous opioid system can regulate behavioral responses to rewarding stimuli.


This paper seeks to extend the work of seventeen years of research and development in the field of computer aided assessment. Work began on the Computer Aided Learning in Mathematics (CALM) Project in 1985 at Heriot-Watt University (http://www.calm.hw.ac.uk/). But, more general issues of automatic assessment are now being considered in collaboration with UK Examination Boards, commercial companies (http://www.i-assess.co.uk/) and Scottish academics through the forum of the Scottish Centre for Research into On-Line Learning and Assessment (SCROLLA) (http://www.scrolla.ac.uk/). To set the debate in context some of the main results of the CALM Project will be briefly reviewed.
Two of the areas of research in SCROLLA are investigation into automatic assessment of higher order skills (Beevers et. al. 2003) and how traditional paper based questions translate into an equivalent on-line version using existing question types (Fiddes et. al. 2002). For example, the rewording of a question to allow it to be delivered in an assessment engine can mean that the student is provided with additional information that may not be available in the traditional paper based version, or the rewording may change the skills that are being tested. Some of these issues can be addressed by creating new question types to increase the flexibility given to the author in creating questions, and to increase familiarity of the students in the responses they can provide.
The assessment system CUE has been used in UK programs such as SCHOLAR (http://scholar.hw.ac.uk/), which provides a wide range of questions in a variety of subjects (Higher, Advanced Higher and A Level in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics). This provides a stable base from which CUE can expand. SCROLLA intends to provide CUE as a research and development resource for education institutions in Scotland from schools through to higher education over a range of subject areas. CUE provides an opportunity for exploring the research issues further and investigating possible solutions that more flexible question types may provide. Using examples chosen from Computer Science and Mathematics this paper will illustrate where some of the restrictions with currently available question types occur, and offer potential solutions for discussion and comment.


The purpose of this study was to find the trends of HIV/AIDs after a ten year period after the establishment of the free voluntary testing and counseling services. It was a retrospective study and the national prevalence rate data of ten years period was compared with Mary Immaculate Testing Center prevalence rates for same period. Over 35,000 people have been tested there. The findings demonstrated that the national prevalence rates for the HIV virus have remained stable e.g. nationally, the prevalence rate of HIV has been as follows: 2004 (7.5%), 2005 (7.3%), 2006 (6.9%), 2007 (7.4%), 2008 (7.8%), 2009 (6.3%), 2010 (6.4%), 2011 (6.2%), 2012 (either 5.6 %? or 6.3 %?), and 2013 was targeted to be 6.8% for ages 15-49. But for Mary Immaculate, the HIV testing site, the statistics has been: 2004 (15.2%), 2005 (14%), 2006 (11%), 2007 (10.2%), 2008 (7.8%), 2009(5.2%), 2010 (4.2%), 2011 (5.5%), 2012 (4.8%), and 2013 (3.72%). Furthermore, the finding indicated that before 2009, men were leading in taking the test as compared to women; from 2009 more women have taken the HIV test as compared to men. In conclusion, the HIV prevalence rate for the country has remained stable, neither decreasing nor increasing. There is no established single Institution in the country that gives reliable statistics, as prevalence rate for 2012 was conflicting from different sources; either under reported or over reported. Likewise we don't know exactly how many people are living with HIV as the reporting's from different sources gave conflicting figures.


This contribution presents a comparison of the observed and projected low flow trends and changes for the European domain (as derived from homogenized large-scale datasets and model applications) with the mosaic of results obtained from pan-European and national-scale studies. The large-scale datasets include the streamflow records held in the European Water Archive and the WATCH large-scale model ensemble. National studies are available from Norway, the UK, southern Germany, Austria and France. The comparison shows that large-scale model experiments focus mostly on the general pattern of seasonal flow changes, whereas national to regional scale studies tend to focus on absolute low flow values and deficits below relevant thresholds and often stratify their assessments by hydrological regime or dominant process control. The study concludes that different levels of information can indeed benefit synthesis assessments of low flow changes at the hydrological planning scale.


ABSTRACT Sommers et al. (2010) reported that recolonizing predators increased bovine calf mortality rates in the Upper Green River Cattle Allotment in western Wyoming. However, Sommers et al. (2010) failed to consider multiple competing hypotheses explaining calf loss rates, increasing the likelihood that their results are actually spurious. I reanalyzed their data using a multiple competing hypotheses framework that considered effects of livestock density, summer precipitation, bias in reporting rates, and whether mortality by different predator species was compensatory. I found support for a confounded web of factors influencing calf losses. Calf losses increased with livestock density (which increased during the study), but also during drier summers and with increasing rancher reporting rates. Although both wolves (Canis lupus) and grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) did increase calf losses, the presence of just grizzly bears alone did not significantly increase calf losses. Unconditional estimates of the effects of wolves and grizzly bears on calf losses were only 2.0% (95% CI 0.53–3.81), compared to 3.6% reported by Sommers et al. (2010). Most importantly, however, I report bias in favor of livestock producers in the authors' assumptions that cast further doubt on the rigor of their results. In conclusion, I recommend managers not consider the spurious predator compensation factors reported by Sommers et al. (2010) to be reliable.


This study concerns Sir Reginald Wingate as High Commissioner in Egypt. It discusses his administration, connection with the Arab revolt, relations with the Foreign Office, and the reasons for his dismissal in 1919. Chapter I is devoted to a discussion of source materials with particular emphasis upon collections of private papers relating to the field. Chapter II recounts the situation in Egypt prior to Wingate's arrival and the events which led up to his appointment. Wingate's involvement with and consistent support of the Arab revolt are dealt with in Chapter III. In Chapter IV the internal state of affairs in Egypt during the War is described. The various demands placed upon Egyptian resources by the military and the political events which occurred during the War are also discussed. Relations between British civil servants, Foreign Office officials, and Wingate were often tangled during these years. Wingate's involvement with the confusion in the administration, and his attempts to reassert his own control, are dealt with in Chapter V. Chapter VI describes the growing nationalist agitation in Egypt after the Armistice, and Wingate's endeavours to have the British government offer concessions. These developments led to Wingate's departure in early 1919 for London, where he hoped to carry his recommendations concerning the Egyptian national movement. His failure to do so and his subsequent supersession by Allenby are the subject of Chapter VII.


Students display and discuss their research in a "Microbiology Poster Conference." Students
choose their topic for investigation but must include an interview with a primary resource as part
of their research. Posters provide opportunities for students to become experts and to apply
critical and cross-disciplinary thinking to the microbiology curriculum.


--?^he U.S. military establishment is at a historic turning point. It can continue with the same strategy that has dominated its thinking, training and procurement for the past 32 years. That is a concept of prepared defenses and predeployed forces in Europe and in Korea, along with forward-deployed naval forces, on the assumption that being ready for those requirements will automat ically be adequate for whatever other contingencies may arise. Alternatively, it can recognize that the world has changed since the late 1940s, and take those changes into account by revising its strategy through placing more emphasis on the flexibility needed to move forces to wherever the United States may require them. Such a strategy would call for greater stress on our capabilities to use the seas and be prepared for unexpected military contingen cies, rather than just for the clearly defined problems of defending Europe and Korea. The Reagan Administration has declared that it wants naval superiority and that it wants to accelerate the Rapid Deployment Force that has been building for more than two years. It has directed an abrupt shift in defense resources to these ends. The Navy will, for instance, take the largest share of the next defense budget if the Congress agrees. Still, one does not get the feeling that a serious debate is taking place or that an express decision to reorient our military strategy has been made. Instead, we see clear indicators of strong resistance to any shift in strategy: from those elements of the military that would have to change most and their supporters in Congress; from defense contractors who build the equipment we have been using for years and whose interests might be adversely affected; and from traditional Atlanticists who abjure any tampering with our long-established security relationship with Europe.


Dislocation dynamics in a Ni-3(Al, Ta) single-crystal alloy have been studied by means of mechanical spectroscopy at intermediate temperatures, that is in the temperature range of the flow stress anomaly. The mechanical loss of specimens predeformed at 300 K was found to be strongly dependent on temperature, pre-deformation level and heating rate. Thermal cycling (heating-cooling) and ageing experiments were also performed, which provided additional information about the annealing time dependence of the mechanical loss, elastic modulus of the material and plastic deformation of the specimens. The obtained results can be explained by a combination of two phenomena simultaneously occurring as the temperature is increased from 300 to about 500 K exhaustion of the mobile dislocation parts (superkinks) and pinning of the screw dislocation segments via cross-slip from the (111) onto the (010) planes.


ABSTRACT Private detectives have been providing their services in Lithuania for about a decade; however, only now has the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania started to discuss whether it is expedient and necessary to regulate the activities of private detectives by means of a separate law. One of the goals of a separate legal regulation of private detective activities is the protection of human rights, particularly the right to privacy. This article examines the provisions of national and international legislative acts related to the private life of a person, and assesses the opportunities of a private detective to provide private detective services without prejudice to the provisions of applicable legislative acts. The article concludes that a private detective is not an authorized (public) authority and there is no possibility to assess in each case whether the interests of a person using the services of private detectives are more important than those of other persons, which would allow for violating their rights to private life. The limits of an individual's right to privacy can only be narrowed by a particular person, giving consent to making public the details of his/her private life. It is the only opportunity for a private detective to gather information related to the private life of a citizen. Currently applicable legislative acts in Lithuania do not provide for opportunities for private subjects to collect personal data without that person's consent. This right is granted only to public authorities and with the court's permission


BACKGROUND
 With the rapid aging of the global population, experts anticipate a surge in the prevalence of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia worldwide. It is argued that developing more sensitive, easy to administer, and valid MCI screening tools for use in primary care settings may initiate timely clinical and personal care planning and treatment, enabling early access to programs and services. Including functional competence measures in screening tests makes them more ecologically valid and may help to identify cognitive deficits at an earlier stage.

 OBJECTIVE
 We aim to conduct a preliminary evaluative study comparing the sensitivity, specificity, and reliability of the BrainFx Screen (referred to as SCREEN hereafter), a novel digital tool designed to assess functional competence and detect early signs of cognitive impairment, with the Quick Mild Cognitive Impairment, a validated and highly sensitive tool that detects MCI in the older adult population. We will also investigate the perceived usefulness and integration of the SCREEN into primary care practice to identify demonstrable impacts on clinical workflow and health care providers' (HCP) perceptions of its success as a screening tool. Patients' perceptions of completing the SCREEN and its impact on their quality of life will also be explored.

 METHODS
 This study has a concurrent, mixed methods, prospective, and quasi-experimental design. Participants will be recruited from 5 primary care family health teams (FHTs; defined by multidisciplinary practice and capitated funding) across southwestern Ontario, Canada. Participants will include HCPs, patients, care partners, and FHT administrative executives. Patients 55 years and older with no history of diagnoses for MCI, dementia, or Alzheimer disease rostered in one of the FHTs participating in the study will be eligible to participate. Their care partners will help triangulate the qualitative data collected from patients. Participating FHTs will identify an occupational therapist from their site to participate in the study; this HCP will both administer the research protocol and participate in semistructured in-depth interviews and questionnaires. Principal component analysis will be conducted on the SCREEN data to understand the test components better. Tests comparing sensitivity, specificity, and test-retest reliability will assess the validity of SCREEN as a screening tool for MCI.

 RESULTS
 This paper describes the study protocol and its activities to date. Data collection was halted early because of COVID-19 restrictions on research activity, and data analysis is currently in progress.

 CONCLUSIONS
 At the end of the project, we anticipate having an initial comparative evaluation of the SCREEN as a tool for early detection of MCI in primary care older adult patient populations. Resource constraints on this research study limit our ability to conduct a randomized controlled trial; however, the results will assist developers of the SCREEN in determining whether rigorous controlled testing is warranted.

 INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT
 DERR1-10.2196/25520


The increasing quantity of CO2 is a big problem leading to global warming. Therefore it is necessary to properly design a system to monitor the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to prevent the debacles of future.This paper gives us details about how to develop CO2 monitoring system based on the ZigBee protocol. Graphical user interface is helpful to display monitoring data on screen. This is another important advantage present in this paper.


We apply the recently developed extremely correlated Fermi liquid theory to the Anderson impurity model, in the extreme correlation limit. We develop an expansion in a parameter \lambda, related to n_d, the average occupation of the localized orbital, and find analytic expressions for the Green's functions to O(\lambda^2). These yield the impurity spectral function and also the self-energy \Sigma(\omega) in terms of the two self energies of the ECFL formalism. The imaginary parts of the latter, have roughly symmetric low energy behaviour (~ \omega^2), as predicted by Fermi Liquid theory. However, the inferred impurity self energy
\Sigma"(\omega) develops asymmetric corrections near n_d ~ 1, leading in turn to a strongly asymmetric impurity spectral function with a skew towards the occupied states. Within this approximation the Friedel sum rule is satisfied but we overestimate the quasiparticle weight z relative to the known exact results, resulting in an over broadening of the Kondo peak. Upon scaling the frequency by the quasiparticle weight z, the spectrum is found to be in reasonable agreement with numerical renormalization group results over a wide range of densities.


Aims: The main objective of this study was to investigate whether a comprehensive self-management programme, including self-treatment guidelines for exacerbations and a fitness programme, is an efficient treatment option for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. Method: We randomly allocated 248 COPD patients to either self-management (127) or usual care (121). Data on preference-based utilities (EuroQol-5D), health-related quality of life (HRQoL), health-care resource use and productivity losses associated with exacerbations were prospectively collected. Quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) were calculated. The economic analysis took the societal perspective and the observation period was one year. Results: As we observed that the groups were equally effective in terms of QALYs and HRQoL (SGRQ), we described a cost minimization analysis only. The self-management programme-specific costs amounted to 6642 per patient. In the base-case cost analysis, the incremental cost difference amounted to 838 per patient per year in favour of usual care. When only direct medical costs were included, the incremental annual cost of self-managementrelative to usual care was 179 per person per year. If time costs for the fitness programme were set to zero, the costs for self-management diminished to 542. Sensitivity analysis showed that these results were robust to changes in the underlying assumptions. Conclusion: We conclude that the COPE self-management programme is not an efficient treatment option for moderate to severe COPD patients who rate their HRQoL relatively high. The programme was twice as expensive as usual care and had no measurable beneficial effects on QALYs or HRQoL.


A Ne-like TCE (transient collisional excitation) x-ray laser at 19.6nm (J = 0 --> 1, 3p --> 3s) was investigated numerically using a sophistic hydrodynamic code for a 100 mum thick Ge planar target irradiated by a nano-second prepulse followed by a picosecond main optical laser pulse. The simulations indicate that for a given peak intensity; the main pulse has an optimal duration to generate the maximum effective gain. An effective gain as high as 200cm(-1) was obtained for the optimized drive pulse configuration.


The 'synaptic tagging-and-capture' (STC) theory of cellular memory consolidation holds that memory persistence can be altered by prior or subsequent patterns of neural activity (Redondo & Morris 2011). The aim of this thesis was to develop a realistic model of everyday memory for mice and use the optogenetic toolbox to investigate the neuromodulatory circuitry that modulates persistence of everyday spatial memories. The task involved learning a win-stay rule with the daily goal of finding the location of food in the event arena. Using the developed task, it was confirmed that unrelated novel experiences can facilitate the persistence of spatial memory in a manner sensitive to pharmacological blockade of hippocampal dopamine D1/D5 receptors. Further analysis focused on identifying the specific neuromodulatory systems that mediate this effect. An influential model called the 'hippocampusVTA loop' (Lisman & Grace 2005) points to the critical role of dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), but recent evidence also implicates locus coeruleus (LC) as a potential source of dopamine in the hippocampus (Smith & Greene 2012). In order to identify the dopaminergic structure(s) that may mediate the novelty effect on memory persistence, single unit activity of optogenetically identified catecholaminergic (CAergic) neurons in mouse VTA and LC was recorded in a novelty exploration paradigm. Using tyrosine hydroxylase-Cre knock-in mice and a Cre-dependent adeno-associated viral vectors, CAergic neurons in VTA and LC were selectively tagged with channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2). Conditional ChR2 expression made it possible to reliably identify CAergic neurons during unit recording sessions in freely moving animals. The main conclusion of the study is that that CAergic neurons in both VTA and LC selectively increase their firing rates in novel environments, relative to both a familiar environment and a home cage baseline. When normalised to their average baseline firing rates, LC neurons are more strongly activated by novelty than VTA neurons. In the final experiment outlined in this thesis, another cohort of Th-Cre mice, in which ChR2 was expressed in CAergic neurons of both VTA and LC using a Cre-dependent adeno-associated virus, was trained on the everyday appetitive spatial memory task. ChR2-mediated photoactivation of CAergic neurons in LC but not in VTA 30 min after encoding, substituting for novelty, was successful in enhancing the persistence of memory. Paradoxically, the effect of optogenetic LC activation was blocked by hippocampal microinfusion of dopamine D1/D5 receptor antagonist but not β-adrenergic receptor antagonist. Results of experiments described in this thesis support the principle of STC theory and collectively indicate that dopamine released from hippocampal terminals of LC neurons mediates the novelty effect on memory persistence. Importantly, they also point to a more general of role of LC in gating of entry to long-term memory.


Ticodendron incognitum is the sole species of the Ticodendraceae, which was established as a new family in the Fagales less than 20 years ago. Considering the diverse modes of pollen tube growth observed in other Fagales, we investigated the growth of pollen tubes in the pistil of Ticodendron. At the time of pollination, T. incognitum had four immature ovules in a bilocular ovary, thus exhibiting delayed fertilization, as in other Fagales. During the period when fertilization was delayed, pollen tube growth in the pistil was intermittent, consisting of five steps associated with development of the ovules and embryo sacs. Four cessation sites occurred: in the style, in the tissue of the upper part of the ovary, inside and outside of the funicle and at the chalaza. A single pollen tube eventually reaches a mature embryo sac through the chalaza in one of the four ovules. While both delayed fertilization and intermittent pollen tube growth play a role in male and female gametophyte selection, as in other Fagales, the five-step process of pollen tube growth through the chalaza (i.e. chalazogamy) is characteristic of lineages of the Casuarinaceae, Ticodendraceae and Betulaceae (the latter with the loss of one step). © 2008 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2008, 157, 621–631.


We describe a possible new class of X-ray sources that have robust detections in ultradeep Chandra data yet have no detections at all in our deep multiband Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) images, which represent the highest quality optical imaging obtained to date on these fields. These extreme X-ray/optical ratio sources (EXOs) have values of FX/Fopt at least an order of magnitude above those generally found for other active galactic nuclei (AGNs), even those that are harbored by reddened hosts. We thus infer two possible scenarios: (1) if these sources lie at redshifts z ≲ 6, then their hosts need to be exceedingly underluminous or more reddened, compared with other known sources, or (2) if these sources lie above z ~ 6-7, such that even their Lyα emission is redshifted out of the bandpass of our ACS z850 filter, then their optical and X-ray fluxes can be accounted for in terms of relatively normal ~L* hosts and moderate-luminosity AGNs.


Pathogenic variants of the SCN2A gene (MIM 182390) are associated with several epileptic syndromes ranging from benign familial neonatal-infantile seizures (BFNIS) to early infantile epileptic encephalopathy. The aim of this work was to describe clinical features among five patients with concomitant SCN2A gene variants and cryptogenic epileptic syndromes, thus expanding the SCN2A spectrum of phenotypic heterogeneity. De novo variants were identified in four patients, while one inherited variant was identified in a patient with an unaffected carrier biological father with somatic mosaicism. Two of five patients were diagnosed with a neonatal epileptic encephalopathy. The remaining three patients manifested a focal epileptic syndrome associated with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) or with a variable degree of intellectual disability (ID), one of them displaying a hitherto unreported atypical late onset epilepsy. Overall, the pattern of clinical manifestations among these patients suggest that any observed neurological impairment may not be directly related to the severity of the electroclinical pattern, but instead likely associated with the mutation itself. Moreover, our results highlight the importance of SCN2A mutational screening in cases of ID/ASD with or without epilepsy.


Chromosome instability (CIN) is a hallmark of human cancer and causes structural (S-CIN) as well as whole (W-CIN) chromosome aberrations. Cancers exhibiting the CIN phenotype are characterized by a large genetic heterogeneity that is associated with an increased adaptability of cancer cells and with a poor patient's prognosis. In order to improve cancer therapy, it is of particular interest to unravel the mechanisms underlying CIN. Recently, enhanced mitotic microtubule growth rates were identified to contribute to CIN via inducing transient mitotic spindle mis-orientation, thereby triggering an increase in chromosome mis-segregation. Moreover, a pathway containing the microtubule plus-end binding protein EB1, the guanine exchange factor TRIO and its Rho GTPase Rac1, as well as the F-actin regulating Arp2/3 complex was identified to be involved in generation of the spindle orientation defect in cells with increased microtubule plus-end growth rates. However, many links within this pathway were still elusive and their investigation was the main aim of this study.
This study revealed that EB1 and TRIO interact at microtubule plus-ends and that this interaction depends on microtubule dynamics. Moreover, it could be shown that this interaction is required for downstream activation of Rac1 and Arp2/3 in mitotic cells, which in turn results in reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton. Upon hyperactivation of this pathway, such as through increased microtubule plus-end growth rates found in CIN cells, the connectivity and thus density of the actin cortex increases, thereby causing a decreased cortical tension. Since a reduced cortical tension is associated with defects in spindle orientation, this triggers chromosome mis-segregation and thus CIN. Interestingly, an upregulation of TRIO did not only induce whole chromosome instability in an EB1 binding dependent manner via the introduced pathway, but also structural chromosome instability. S-CIN did not only arise through the EB1 binding dependent pathway but also through an EB1 binding independent hitherto unknown pathway. Moreover, TRIO upregulation also resulted in enhanced cell migration in an EB1 binding independent manner. Therefore, these findings do not only give rise to further details and links of a CIN-inducing pathway connecting increased microtubule plus-end growth rates and spindle mis-orientation, but also further confirm and expand the role of TRIO in the development of genetic heterogeneity and metastasis.


The temporal pier scour process was studied extensively for laboratory scale but remains poorly understood for prototype piers. This research presents a novel semi-analytical solution for temporal clear-water scour at prototype piers with arbitrary initial scour conditions, by integrating the fundamental mass conservation law and the empiricism from previous studies. The proposed solution includes the conventional power-, log- and exponential laws for the initial, growth and decay phases, respectively, in a single model agreeing with recent high-quality data for long durations and prototype scour with a determination coefficient higher than 0.98. The results show that (i) temporal pier scour process is described by two basic parameters: characteristic time tc and equilibrium scour depth η∞; and (ii) the proposed solution may be useful for data correction in relation to η∞ and for real-time bridge scour monitoring during floods. Yet, its predictive power depends on the predictability of tc and η∞, indicating a future research need.


Water reuse for landscape irrigation requires the production of high quality virus-free effluents to minimize risk for human health. In order to establish the relevance of MS2 phages as an appropriate biodosimeter for UV design, a pilot plant study has been carried out with different types of wastewater effluents. The two pilot systems tested (low-pressure high output and medium-pressure UV units) were able to achieve 4 and 5 log MS2 reduction in tertiary filtered effluent at high calculated UV doses of 170 _ 10 and 300 mJ/cm2, respectively. UV disinfection was extremely efficient for MS2 inactivation in high quality effluents after reverse osmosis: detention times as low as one second and UV dose of 40 mJ/cm2 were sufficient to reach 5 log inactivation of MS2. UV irradiation also produced rapid inactivation of human pathogens such as poliovirus type 1 and indigenous enteroviruses at UV doses up to 3 times lower that those for MS2 disinfection. It was concluded that accurate UV unit design for a given type of wastewater could be ensured by pilot tests using laboratory-propagated MS2 as biodosimeter and collimated-beam tests as the calibration-check.


BACKGROUND
Endometriosis is a common and disabling gynecologic condition affecting between 5% and 15% of women of childbearing age. Conventional medical intervention has unpleasant side-effects, and symptoms frequently return after treatment. Preliminary evidence suggests Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) may contribute to the treatment of endometriosis.

OBJECTIVES
The aims of this study were to test the feasibility of a novel methodology for investigating individualized decoctions of CHM rigorously and to gather preliminary data on the treatment effect of CHM for a larger definitive trial.

DESIGN
This was a 16-week prospective, double blinded, randomized controlled trial of 40 women with laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis.

SETTINGS
The trial was conducted at a private CHM clinic in Hove (U.K.) and at a National Health Service outpatient clinic in London (U.K.).

INTERVENTIONS
Participants were initially randomized to either wait-list control (WLC) or treatment groups to receive either individualized CHM decoctions or a therapeutically inert placebo decoction.

OUTCOME MEASURES
Four 10-cm visual analogue scales (VAS) were used to measure menstrual pain, daily pain, and pain on intercourse and bowel movement; these measurements were recorded weekly. The Endometriosis Health Profile-30 (EHP-30) endometriosis-specific quality-of-life questionnaire was completed at the beginning and at the end of the trial. The Measure Yourself Medical Outcomes Profile (MYMOP) a patient-centered health questionnaire was completed monthly. Liver and renal function was measured at 0, 4, 8, and 16 weeks.

RESULTS
Twenty-eight (28) women completed the trial. High dropout rates led to the suspension of the WLC. Randomization, double blinding, and allocation concealment was achieved successfully. Adjusted mean differences favored the active treatment in the EHP-30 and MYMOP scores. VAS scores favored the active treatment for relief of menstrual pain and the placebo group for reduction of daily pain.

CONCLUSIONS
the methodology successfully allowed individualized CHM decoctions to be tested rigorously. There are nonspecific contextual effects from CHM that require further investigation. Provisional data were generated to warrant a larger, more-definitive study.


Abstract The Watchet-Cothelstone-Hatch Fault (WCHF) comprises a system of northwest-southeast-trending basement and cover faults that are traceable for at least 40km from the Bristol Channel, southeast into the western Wessex Basin. The west-dipping WCHF displays outcrop and seismic evidence of a complex movement history involving early (Variscan) and late (?Cretaceous or Tertiary) strike-slip, separated by phases of normal extension. In the Variscan basement of North Somerset, the WCHF shows a 14–16km dextral offset to Devonian markers and Variscan fold axes, and can be linked to similar trending faults in South Wales. Offsets to early Permian (and possibly late Carboniferous) rifts indicate a dextral transfer of north-south extension from the Crediton and Tiverton troughs, across the WCHF and into the Wessex Basin. In Mesozoic cover, the WCHF swings to become part of the east-west Central Bristol Channel Fault Zone in the north and Lopen Fault Belt (western Wessex Basin) in the south. This geometry reflects a present-day preservation of a later sinistral movement. The structure of juxtaposed Palaeozoic and Mesozoic successions along the WCHF provides an analogue for what might be expected at the basement-cover contact beneath the Wessex Basin. The existence of Mesozoic cover to the WCHF most likely explains why no Cenozoic pull-apart basins were formed, unlike the Sticklepath Fault (in granites and metamorphic rocks) to the southwest.


Recently constructed tomographic models of the lateral heterogeneity of elastic properties in the Earth's mantle are contrasted in terms of their implications concerning the extent to which the endothermic phase transformation at 660 km depth is influencing the radial style of mixing. Previously published whole mantle and split mantle tomographic reconstructions, SH8/WMI3 and SH8/U4L8 respectively, fit the seismic observations equally well but disagree on the extent to which radial mixing may be impeded across this depth horizon. We show that inferences from seismic tomographic images based on the application of diagnostic functions (global and regional variance spectra and the radial correlation function) lead to the conclusion that the mantle circulation is whole mantle in style if model SH8/WM13 is employed. The split mantle tomographic inversion SHS/U4L8 leads to the contradictory conclusion that the mantle circulation is significantly impeded across the 660 km depth horizon. This latter interpretation is reinforced when we employ the new higher resolution split mantle model SH12/U7L5 in our calculations. We demonstrate that the depth-dependent radial heat flow delivered by both of the split models implies the existence of a thermal boundary layer at 660 km depth, and therefore significant layering, whereas that delivered by the whole mantle model does not. By insisting that the depth-dependent viscosity profile of the mantle be compatible with the thermal structure if the flow were layered, we argue that the split mantle tomographic inversions lead to a self-consistent description of geodynamic constraints (geoid and postglacial rebound data).


Background and Objectives: Constant monitoring of healthcare organizations' performance is an integral part of informed health policy-making. Several hospital performance assessment methods have been proposed in the literature. Pabon Lasso Model offers a fast and convenient method for comparative evaluation of hospital performance. This study aimed to evaluate the relative performance of hospitals in Tunisia, using Pabon Lasso Model. . Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted during 2011-2012 to measure the hospitals performance in Tunisia. A sample of 40 public hospitals was surveyed. The assessed hospital performance indicators included Bed Occupation Rate (BOR), Bed Turnover Ratio (BTR), Average Length of Stay (ASL). The relevant data were collected using a standard forms approved by the Tunisian Ministry of Health. For each hospital the data were extracted from the Hospital Information Systems. The data were plotted on Pabon Lasso diagram and the performance of each hospital was analyzed by visual inspection. The data were summarized using descriptive statistical methods. Findings: Average values of 62.3, 58.1% and 3.8 days, was observed for the BTR, BOR, and ALS, respectively. While nineteen hospitals (47.5%) were located in zone 1 of the Pabon Lasso diagram, three (7.5%) were located in zone 2, eleven (27.5%) in zone 3, and seven (17.5%) in zone 4. In addition, 50% of the studied hospitals had low performance in terms of either bed occupancy rate or bed turnover ratio or both. Conclusions: This study ranked the surveyed hospitals of Tunisia with respect to their overall performance and reveals the relative strength and weakness of each hospital. The speed and convenience of Pabon Lasso measurement method facilitate constant monitoring of overall hospital performance. Moreover, large-scale application of this method, can offer an overall view of the health system performance, which could be used by policy-makers in future plantings.


Background Selective IgA deficiency (SIgAD) is the most frequent primary antibody deficiency. Aims Authors emphasise the phenotype diversity among SIgAD patients included in our clinic casuistry. Methods Authors analysed clinical and biochemical features of patients that fulfilled SIgAD diagnosis criteria. They've been evaluated concerning previous respiratory and gastro-intestinal diseases severity (necessity for intravenous antibiotics and/or intensive care measures). Serology investigations performed: complete blood count and evaluations for immunoglobulin isotype, IgG subclass, total IgE, specific IgE for cow's milk precipitins. Autoimmune status estimation included antibodies against: red blood cells, basement membrane, smooth muscle, thyroglobulin, thyroid microsomal antigens, transglutaminase IgG/endomysium and nuclear proteins. Authors accomplished microbiological tests for patients with sinopulmonary infections and analysed stools in order to exclude Giardia/ Cryptococcus infections. Susceptibility for brochiectasis justified chest X-ray. Results Among 8 SIgAD patients followed in our clinic, 3 patients were considered as asymptomatic. The others were diagnosed with: recurrent knee arthritis in context of Epstein-Barr virus reactivation confirmed by quantitative PCR for DNA-EBV in serum (1 patient), celiac disease (2 patients), giardiasis (2 patients), asthma and allergic rhinitis (1 patient), cow milk allergy (1 patient). Sinopulmonary infections/ purulent otitis were identified for all symptomatic cases. One patient was diagnosed with tonsil phlegmon. No immunological thrombocytopenic purpura or autoimmune hemolytic anaemia were confirmed. Conclusions 1. In spite of small number of SIgAD patients, authors revealed a quite large range of clinical manifestations: from asymptomatic status to recurrent arthritis due to EBV reactivations; 2. Three patients presented more than 1 clinical feature.


A laboratory scale model of the Santa Lucia escarpment (34°–35 °N, 121°–122 °W) has been built at a scale of 1/10 000, and this paper will describe the design of the model and the downslope propagation measurements which have been made. The bathymetry of this region is typical of the continental shelf on the west coast of the United States, and the model includes a large area with a 2° slope in shallow water (400 m depth full scale) which extends into a region with a 14° slope at the deeper end where it joins the abyssal plain (4000 m depth full scale). The slope also includes three dimensional features such as a spur which extends out into the abyssal plain. The base of the model is made of concrete simulating a rock basement, and the purpose of the study is to investigate the bathymetric refraction of propagating sound waves over a region with a variable slope. The measurements of the sound propagation will be compared with calculations based on adiabatic mode theory. [Work supported by ONR.]


Four accepted Herschel open time key programs, DIGIT, GASPS, DEBRIS and DUNES, will study the evolution of the dust grains in circumstellar disks around young and Main Sequence stars. There is a strong implication of the french community in these four projects which represent a total of 930 hours (>38 days) of Herschel observing time. The DIGIT and GASPS projects will focus on the first stages of planet formation, while the DEBRIS and DUNES projects will search for extra-solar Kuiper Belt analogs around nearby Main Sequence stars. In this paper, we give an overview of the scientific goals of the four projects and of the numerical tools that we will be providing to the teams to model and interpret the Herschel observations from these programs.


Effects of acicular ferrite and retained austenite on the mechanical properties of bainite-base steels were investigated. Various morphology and volume fraction of constituent phases have been obtained by control of hot rolling conditions and alloy compositions. It has been shown that the steels containing retained austenite have better combinations of strength and ductility than the ones with no retained austenite. However, there is no noticeable change in DBTT by the incorporation of retained austenite in the microstructure since retained austenite exists as fine particles. On the other hand, DBTT of the steels are largely affected by the presence of acicular ferrite in the microstructure. EBSD analyses of fractured Charpy specimens show that cracks are deflected within the morphological packet of acicular ferrite, indicating its role in reducing the effective grain size of the steels.


Venomous Indo-Pacific lionfish (Pterois miles and P. volitans) are now established along the Southeast U.S.A. and parts of the Caribbean and pose a serious threat to reef fish communities of these regions. Lionfish are likely to invade the Gulf of Mexico and potentially South America in the near future. Introductions of lionfish were noted since the 1980s along south Florida and by 2000 lionfish were established off the coast of North Carolina. Lionfish are now one of the more numerous predatory reef fishes at
some locations off the Southeast U.S.A. and Caribbean. Lionfish are largely piscivores that feed occasionally on economically important reef fishes. The trophic impacts of
lionfish could alter the structure of native reef fish communities and potentially hamper stock rebuilding efforts of the Snapper –Grouper Complex. Additional effects of the
lionfish invasion are far-reaching and could increase coral reef ecosystem stress, threaten human health, and ultimately impact the marine aquarium industry. Control strategies for lionfish are needed to mitigate impacts, especially in protected areas. This integrated assessment provides a general overview of the biology and ecology of lionfish including genetics, taxonomy, reproductive biology, early life history and dispersal, venom defense
and predation, and feeding ecology. In addition, alternative management actions for mitigating the negative impacts of lionfish, approaches for reducing the risk of future invasions, and directions for future research are provided.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
This interim report from the Syst-Eur trial investigated the level of blood pressure control achieved during the double-blind period in patients followed in general practices.

METHODS
In the Syst-Eur trial elderly patients (60 years or older) with isolated systolic hypertension were randomized to either active or placebo treatment. Active treatment consisted of nitrendipine combined with enalapril and/or hydrochlorothiazide to reduce systolic pressure to < 150 mmHg and by > or = 20 mmHg. Matching placebos were used in the control group.

RESULTS
This analysis was restricted to patients of general practitioners who had been followed for at least 12 months. The placebo (N = 204) and active treatment (N = 217) groups had similar characteristics at randomization. At one year, the difference in sitting pressure between the two treatment groups was 10 mmHg systolic and 4 mmHg diastolic. Fewer patients remained on monotherapy in the placebo than in the active treatment group and on placebo the second and third line medications were started earlier. Nitrendipine tablets were discontinued in 10 patients on placebo and in 21 patients assigned to active treatment (P < 0.001 for all comparisons).

CONCLUSIONS
A significant blood pressure reduction can be achieved and maintained in older patients with isolated systolic hypertension followed by general practitioners. Whether this blood pressure reduction results in a clinically meaningful decrease of cardiovascular complications is under investigation.


Introduction: Despite the presence of many prognostic and predictive
factors, overtreatment remains a major problem in patients with breast cancer.
The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of CD74 and HLA-DR
expressions on the prognosis of patients who have had a mastectomy for the
treatment of breast cancer. Materials and Methods: A retrospective search of
medical records was carried out for patients who had surgery for breast cancer
at the Department of General Surgery, Akdeniz University School of Medicine,
between March 1984 and November 1999. Patients with regular follow-up and
necessary data for the study (i.e. patients' demographics, pathology results, and treatment characteristics) were
included in the study. Paraffin blocks of tumor specimens were re-examined with
immunohistochemical methods in March 2010 to determine the extent of CD74 and
HLA-DR expression and the level of tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TILs).
Results: The mean age and the median duration of follow-up for the 41
participants were 48.29 ± 11.86 years and 125 months (range 115 to 135 months),
respectively. Disease-free survival (DFS) in CD74 negative subjects was better
than in CD74 positive patients, but the difference was not statistically
significant (p = 0.75). Similarly, HLA-DR negative and HLA-DR positive groups
showed no statistically significant differences in terms of DFS (p = 0.81).
Conclusion: There were positive but insignificant correlations with increased
expression of CD74, decreased expression of HLA-DR, and TILs levels. Further
studies involving larger sample sizes may provide more insight into these
associations.


Introduction: A wind instrumentalist was diagnosed with a periapical lesion on tooth 21. The prosthetic rehabilitation options were considered with respect to the embouchure mechanism of the saxophonist. The underlying mechanism associated with the embouchure of the saxophone player was observed in this particular case in order to understand if asymmetrical forces were transmitted to the upper central incisors. Periapical lesions can be harmful to the oral health of musicians. The treatment options thus have to be taken into consideration with special focus on the need for oral rehabilitation on the anterior maxilla. Material and Methods: The patient underwent a radiographic examination with a panoramic X-ray. Subsequently, two piezoresistive sensors (FlexiForce™) were placed on the upper surface of the mouthpiece in order to quantify the pressure applied to the central incisors during the embouchure. In order to understand the values involved during this procedure, the saxophone player was required to play three different notes at different pitches: high, medium, and low. This procedure was repeated three times for each pitch in order to obtain a medium value for each note. Signal acquisition was obtained within software developed for this purpose, with the voltage output observed in LabView 2011®. Results: The panoramic X-ray showed a periapical lesion with the characteristics of a radicular cyst on tooth 21. The FlexiForce™ piezoresistive sensors allowed us to find that greater force (kg) was being applied to tooth 11 in comparison to tooth 21 during the embouchure mechanism. Conclusions: The sensors used in this research are acceptable for identifying the tooth where the greatest pressure is applied during the mouthpiece stabilization. In the case of executing an oral rehabilitation procedure for wind instrumentalists, a clinical examination can be complemented with the aid of bioengineering and the inherent development of sensor technology in order to better understand the embouchure mechanism. Likewise, the prosthetic rehabilitation should be taken into consideration in order to provide minimal changes to the musician's performance.


Online social networks (OSNs) have become essential ways for users to socially share information and feelings, communicate, and thoughts with others through online social networks. Online social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are some of the most common OSNs among users. Users' behaviors on social networks aid researchers for detecting and understanding their online behaviors and personality traits. Personality detection is one of the new difficulties in social networks. Machine learning techniques are used to build models for understanding personality, detecting personality traits, and classifying users into different kinds through user generated content based on different features and measures of psychological models such as PEN (Psychoticism, Extraversion, and Neuroticism) model, DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Compliance) model, and the Big-five model (Openness, Extraversion, Consciousness, Agreeableness, and Neurotic) which is the most accepted model of personality. This survey discusses the existing works on psychological personality classification.


The semiconductor laser rate equations are rewritten using a new set of parameters which can all be found from steady state and small signal measurements on the laser. Procedures for finding these parameters are described. Parameters have been measured on three 1550 mm lasers from different manufacturers. Comparison between large signal measurements and simulations using the measured parameters shows in general good agreement for modulation currents sufficiently above threshold.


Liquid adsorption chromatography at critical conditions (LACCC) in normal and in reversed-phase modes provides independent information on the molar mass distributions of both blocks of poly(methyl methacrylate)-block-poly(tert-butyl methacrylate), even if no information about the precursor is available. In addition, the amount of unreacted precursor can be determined, even if its molar mass is comparable to that of the total block copolymer. The reversal of elution order by changing of stationary and mobile phases makes it possible to independently characterize each block in the SEC mode of the LACCC system. Thus, complete structural information is obtained even without using two-dimensional chromatographic techniques.


Currently, there is a considerable amount of spatiotemporal data available in various media, especially on the Internet. The visualization of spatiotemporal data is a complex task that requires suitable visual resources that can enable users to have a correct interpretation of the data. Apart from the use of visualization techniques, the use of techniques of knowledge discovery in databases has proven to be relevant for the exploratory analysis of spatiotemporal data. The state-of-the-art in the visualization of spatiotemporal data leads to the conclusion that the area is still deficient in solutions for the viewing and analysis of those data. Many approaches cover only spatial issues, ignoring the temporal characteristics of such data. In this context, the main objective of this research work is to improve the user experience in spatiotemporal visualization and analysis, going beyond the universe of the visualization of spatiotemporal raw data by considering the importance of the visualization of spatiotemporal data derived from a knowledge discovery process, more specifically, clustering algorithms. This goal is achieved by defining an innovative approach for the analysis and visualization of spatiotemporal data, and its implementation, called GeoSTAT (Geographic Spatiotemporal Analysis Tool). GeoSTAT includes important features of the main existing approaches and adds specific visualization techniques that are geared to the temporal dimension and the use of clustering algorithms, enhancing unexplored features in the spatiotemporal data. The validation of the proposed approach occurs through a case study that addresses spatiotemporal data from a specific domain, to demonstrate the end-user experience of the visualization techniques that are combined in the proposed approach presented in this article.


By ab initio many-body quantum chemistry calculations, we determine the strength of the symmetric anisotropy in the 5d5 j 1/2 layered material Ba2IrO4. While the calculated anisotropic couplings come out in the range of a few meV, orders of magnitude stronger than in analogous 3d transition-metal compounds, the Heisenberg superexchange still defines the largest energy scale. The ab initio results reveal that individual layers of Ba2IrO4 provide a close realization of the quantum spin-1/2 Heisenberg-compass model on the square lattice. We show that the experimentally observed basal-plane antiferromagnetism can be accounted for by including additional interlayer interactions and the associated order-by-disorder quantum-mechanical effects, in analogy to undoped layered cuprates.


SIGNIFICANCE
The broad classes of O(2)-binding proteins known as hemoglobins (Hbs) carry out oxygenation and redox functions that allow organisms with significantly different physiological demands to exist in a wide range of environments. This is aided by allosteric controls that modulate the protein's redox reactions as well as its O(2)-binding functions.

RECENT ADVANCES
The controls of Hb's redox reactions can differ appreciably from the molecular controls for Hb oxygenation and come into play in elegant mechanisms for dealing with nitrosative stress, in the malarial resistance conferred by sickle cell Hb, and in the as-yet unsuccessful designs for safe and effective blood substitutes.

CRITICAL ISSUES
An important basic principle in consideration of Hb's redox reactions is the distinction between kinetic and thermodynamic reaction control. Clarification of these modes of control is critical to gaining an increased understanding of Hb-mediated oxidative processes and oxidative toxicity in vivo.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
This review addresses emerging concepts and some unresolved questions regarding the interplay between the oxygenation and oxidation reactions of structurally diverse Hbs, both within red blood cells and under acellular conditions. Developing methods that control Hb-mediated oxidative toxicity will be critical to the future development of Hb-based blood substitutes.


(1) Background: Immune–mediated necrotizing myopathy (IMNM) is a rare form of inflammatory muscle disease which is even more rare in pediatric patients. To increase the knowledge of juvenile IMNM, we here present the clinical findings on long-term follow-up, myopathological changes, and therapeutic strategies in two juvenile patients. (2) Methods: Investigations included phenotyping, determination of antibody status, microscopy on muscle biopsies, MRI, and response to therapeutic interventions. (3) Results: Anti-signal recognition particle (anti-SRP54) and anti- 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutarly coenzyme A reductase (anti-HMGCR) antibodies (Ab) were detected in the patients. Limb girdle presentation, very high CK-levels, and a lack of skin rash at disease-manifestation and an absence of prominent inflammatory signs accompanied by an abnormal distribution of α-dystroglycan in muscle biopsies initially hinted toward a genetically caused muscle dystrophy. Further immunostaining studies revealed an increase of proteins involved in chaperone-assisted autophagy (CASA), a finding already described in adult IMNM-patients. Asymmetrical muscular weakness was present in the anti-SRP54 positive Ab patient. After initial stabilization under therapy with intravenous immunoglobulins and methotrexate, both patients experienced a worsening of their symptoms and despite further therapy escalation, developed a permanent reduction of their muscle strength and muscular atrophy. (4) Conclusions: Diagnosis of juvenile IMNM might be complicated by asymmetric muscle weakness, lack of cutaneous features, absence of prominent inflammatory changes in the biopsy, and altered α-dystroglycan.


This thesis proposes and evaluates an Internet of Things (IoT) solution consisting of architectures and algorithms, which enable several heterogeneous devices to intercommunicate, providing support for their offered services. An IoT network needs to enable exchange of diverse data types including rich-media and sensor data and handle a large number of devices, offering services at high quality levels. These goals are achieved by innovative solutions, which improve the performance and quality of IoT services and allow exchange of rich-media content. The proposed architecture consists of IoT objects and their services, smart gateways, supporting IoT object network connectivity, and cloud platforms employed for resource management. The performance and quality of IoT services are improved through NETSMITS
(NETworking Scheme for sMart IoT gatewayS), which contains an algorithm that uses Quality of Service (QoS) and service relevance metrics in order to efficiently cluster inter-communicating IoT objects, attach them to the most suitable smart gateway and
improve the performance of their services. The IoT mobility challenges are addressed through REMOS-IoT (RElay and MObility Scheme for the Internet of Things), which introduces algorithms that use QoS and service relevance metrics, age of information, and objects location in order to provide the best connectivity for devices and achieve better overall performance and QoS. A higher layer in the architecture contains VRITESS (VR-IoT Environment Synchronisation Scheme), which allows virtualisation of the IoT devices to fulfil requirements of certain rich-media devices and platforms, such as virtual reality (VR) devices and social media, integrating them to the IoT network.
The contributions presented in this thesis include simulation models and testbeds for the mobility-enabled networking scheme for rich-media IoT, demonstrating performance improvements in comparison with other baseline solutions. A survey of IoT
architectures, applications, QoS, protocols and mobility solutions is also provided.


The influence of the pH in the first stage, the hydrolytic stage, of the anaerobic digestion of the organic fraction of urban solid waste in a two phase anaerobic reactor was studied. The reactor was fed with a solution of the organic fraction of urban solid residues containing 5 to 7% solids. Four reactors with a working volume of 3 L were used, the experiments were done at three controlled pHs; 6, 7, and 8, and one with free pH, the temperature was keep at 37 degrees C in all the experiments. The higher degradation of TSS and VSS was obtained in the reactors operated at pH 7 and 8; 75% degradation of TSS and 85% degradation of VSS. The volatile fatty acids were determined at the different pH conditions, no significant differences were found, and as was expected, the acetic acid was found at the higher value among them (from 25 to 29 g/L). According to the results obtained it is possible to conclude that in the case of the hydrolytic stage of the anaerobic digestion of the organic fraction of urban solid waste it is not necessary to control the pH, the pH is kept stable by the buffer effect of the protein residues and other macromolecules present in the residue.


This thesis investigates the research surrounding school choice programs, such as charter schools, private school vouchers, and education savings accounts (ESAs). My research investigates academic effects, fiscal effects, impact upon low-income and minority students, parental involvement and satisfaction, and public opinion of school choice programs. The ultimate goal of this thesis is to answer my central research question of, "What is the ideal school choice picture for Mississippi," with two goals in mind: 1.) To "rescue" children currently trapped within underperforming schools without the means to transfer to a higher quality school. 2.) To "reform" the K-12 educational system in Mississippi by creating more quality alternatives, providing fiscal savings that can be reinvested into traditional public schools, and to help provide low-income and minority families with the means to choose the best educational route that will prepare their children to become educated and productive members of society. My research focuses on existing sources and investigates the findings of various school choice studies to discover the effects of various programs. I also interviewed the Senate and House chairs of Mississippi's Education Committees as well as staffers from two school choice foundations located in Mississippi. Attempts to interview school choice opponents in Mississippi were unsuccessful. My research shows that while academic results for school choice programs are often mixed, there does exist significant evidence of improvements for both low-income and minority students. The research also shows nearly universal fiscal savings for states as well as increased parental satisfaction, parental involvement, and public support for school choice programs. Finally, my conclusion is that school choice programs will not solve Mississippi's continuing educational woes, but they provide an opportunity to help struggling students as well as provide one avenue of reform that can help improve Mississippi's K-12 educational system. The conclusion of this thesis proposes that Mississippi continue expanding its charter school program while also expanding its special-needs ESA program to cover all K-12 students to provide a private school voucher component as well as funds that can be used to cover any educational expense including tutoring, therapy, online courses, or college savings.


: Fourteen cases of nonclostridial anaerobic infections of soft tissues caused by peptococci, peptostreptococci, bacteroids or their combinations with E. coli, Proteus, and Staphylococcus aureus were studied. They are characterized by a rapid spread of serous-suppurative inflammation and the causative agents in loose fibrous connective tissue of subcutaneous adipose tissue (cellutitis), surface fascia (fasciitis), or skeletal muscles (myositis). Dissolution of intercellular structures of the connective tissue, extensive necroses, mild leukocyte reaction, and a wide peripheral zone of toxic edema are observed in the focus of inflammation. This is due to a high toxicity and enzymatic activity of the causative agents. Gas formation is observed when anaerobes are combined with E. coli.


The paper aims to investigate Hungarian senior language learners' motivational profile with a special attention to factors influencing their motivational intensity. We focused on the significant features of Hungarian senior language learners' motivational behaviour and conducted a survey with thirty senior Hungarian students learning English as a Foreign Language (FL). This instrument was constructed based on Gardner's socio-educational model and Tremblay and Gardner's model of second language (SL) motivation. We performed a series of statistical analyses on the data. The results of multiple regression analyses show that the most influential factors regarding motivational behaviour of older language learners in this context are attitude towards leaning the SL and goal specificity.


Gated recording based on two-step excitation with metastable shallow traps is analyzed theoretically. A two-center model, including the tail of the conduction band into the bandgap, is suggested. The tail provides a way to model efficiently excitation from deep to shallow traps and long recombination times back into deep traps. The results are compared with experimental results performed with La3Ga5SiO14, and good agreement is found. Further, the limiting material parameters determining the material sensitivity are identified.


The journalism industry is undergoing a profound shift from print to digital media, which has allowed for new modes of storytelling (e.g. Twitter or listicles) and ways of capturing audiences (e.g. click-baiting and data-tracking). This shift in media appears to be attended by a more fundamental ideological shift, where the economic and democratic affordances of digital media have contributed to a privileging of quantity (audience or financial growth) over quality (substance-driven, intellectual journalism). To examine this issue, this paper puts the recent collapse of The New Republic magazine under the microscope. On December 5th, 2014, two thirds of the magazine's masthead resigned enmass over an ideological dispute involving an increased focus on digital media. Using this profound ideological schism as the launching point for discussion, this paper inquires: what are the opposing ideologies within The New Republic collapse, how do they relate to digital media, and can the collapse at The New Republic be seen as a microcosm for an ideological shift occurring across the journalism industry?


The recent wave of internationalization among Brazilian companies differs from past experiences, in terms of volume, reach and quality. Unlike what is suggested by recurrent explanations about the gradual expansion of multinationals from emerging countries, the first steps of Brazilian multinationals were not entirely directed towards South America, in a search for regional dominance. In amount of investment and number of subsidiaries there are signs they prefer activities in advanced markets – mainly Europe and North America – where they compete on an equal footing with major conglomerates and can have access to cutting-edge technology. Some Brazilian companies have previous internationalization experience, and a significant portion had been prepared and initiated outward growth in the 1990s, after the economy opened up. However, the boom of internationalization that began in 2004 took place in such unusual conditions as to deserve highlight and special analysis. This article discusses the recent expansion of Brazilian multinationals pointing out: (i) that the companies have as a strategic goal the more advanced economies; (ii) how the transformation of the Brazilian productive structure led to the emergence of a group of companies seeking internationalization as a competitive strategy; (iii) the new Brazilian state activism, especially in financing and the implementation of industrial policies which support the creation of large national groups with a presence in the globalized market.


Abstract The authors conducted an e-mail survey of 772 college students to learn more about their experiences with blackouts. Approximately half (51%) of those who had ever consumed alcohol reported they had experienced a blackout at some point in their lives, and 40% had experienced 1 in the year before the survey. Among those who drank in the 2 weeks before the survey, nearly 1 in 10 (9.4%) had experienced a blackout during that period. Many later learned that, during the blackout, they had vandalized property, driven an automobile, had sexual intercourse, or engaged in other risky behaviors. Experiencing 3 or more blackouts was associated with a variety of other experiences, including heavier drinking, lower grades, an earlier age of drinking onset, and having others express concerns about their drinking. The female students who reported blackouts during the 2 weeks before the survey drank far less than male students did during this time period, supporting the use of gender-specific definitions of risky drinking.


Aims and Objectives: Copper (Cu) and Zinc (Zn) are the important trace elements that play an important role in various functions of the human body at cellular and molecular level. The purpose of this study was to assess the alterations in serum Cu and Zn levels in oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs) and to correlate the variations with the severity and progression of the OPMDs. Materials and Methods: In this institution-based study, 20 of each clinically diagnosed and histopathologically proven cases of leukoplakia (Group 1), oral lichen planus (Group 2), clinically diagnosed cases of oral submucous fibrosis (OSMF) and 20 healthy age and sex matched controls were taken based on the clinical staging. Clinical examination of the selected subjects was carried out and an informed consent was obtained, following which blood samples were collected from the participants. After serum separation, Cu and Zn levels were analyzed using the colorimetric method. Data were sent for the statistical analysis using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software, version 21.0. Results: Serum copper levels were increased and zinc levels were decreased in patients with OPMDs when compared to that in the control group. However, gradual increase in the levels of serum Cu was found with the advancing stages of OSMF. No statistical significant relation was observed in the levels of serum Zn with the disease progression in OSMF. Conclusion: Serum Cu and Zn levels can have diagnostic significance in early evaluation of OPMDs. Increased serum Cu levels can be used as a marker of disease progression and severity in OSMF.


Fog computing is a disruptive technology in the big data analytics area. Smartphone users and organizations use cellular services, which can support decision-making in disaster scenarios with the data that have been collected. Nevertheless, the regular communication infrastructure can be damaged by disasters. NTT provided an easily deployable solution to construct an emergency communication network (ECN), but ECNs are slow at propagating big data due to their limited transmission capabilities. One major issue is efficiently integrating data processing in the ECN to realize effective data processing and transmission in disaster scenarios. In this paper, we present—a detailed mathematical model to represent data processing and transmission in an ECN fog network; an NP-hard proof for the problem of optimizing the overall delay; and a novel algorithm to minimize the overall delay for wirelessly-networked disaster areas that can be run in real-time. We evaluated the systems across various transmission speeds, processing speeds, and network sizes. We also tested the calculation time, accuracy, and percent age error of the systems. Through evaluation, we found that the proposed disaster area adaptive delay minimization (DAADM) algorithm showed to have a reduced overall delay over various network sizes when compared with some conventional solutions. The proposed DAADM algorithm matched the curve of the genetic algorithm (GA), even if its results did not yield delays as small as the GA. The DAADM had one major advantage over the GA which was the processing time, which allows the DAADM to be implemented in a real-time system, where a GA solution would take far too much time.


Geomorphic data is required in multi-disciplinary studies for engineering projects, hazard zone delineation, risk assessment and planning. In the present study, Landsat ETM+ data was used to delineate the geological and geomorphological features in the (semi) arid Gumushane region of Turkey, This region has a complex geology and is located north of the North Anatolian Fault (NAF) in northeastern Turkey. The geological, topographical and structural characteristics of the area were studied using digital image processing techniques such as band rationing, principal component analysis (PCA) and generation of false colour composite (FCC) of ETM data. Georeferenced information such as land cover data, hydrology and digital elevation models (DEMs) were integrated with remotely sensed data to enable better interpretation, analysis and mapping of geomorphic features. The interpretation of the new data contributes to a more detailed geological mapping of selected test sites that were studied during the fieldwork. Finally, the understanding of the geologic/geomorphologic process in the complex and rugged topography of the Gumushane region was much improved by employing image enhancement and GIS techniques.


In the current century, e-government transformation is considered as one of the biggest challenges among and within the IT-related sector from the scale and complexity perspective. Having the main objective as of adapting an existing e-government system and methodology in order to obtain new computing requirements based on the concept of citizens' new service. Thus, increase the features of service level, quality and maintaining a high policies and rules consistency. Moreover, mission criticality and time of services, information sharing and interoperability, efficiency and productivity along with the reduction of operation expenses are all considered as priorities in this transformation project (Raymond, 2007) [1]. Such a transformation is considered crucial for the service concept as it is changing rapidly; the roadmap coherence in e-government transformation is critical (Raymond, 2007) [1]. However, there is a big aspect regarding the e-Government progress by citizens due to many aspects like: Citizens-Centricity, Facilitating Condition, Effort expectancy and Performance Expectancy. Hence, there is a need to further study in order to be able to obtain better understanding of the complete picture and to have a balanced view and concepts all under one e-Government umbrella. This paper will review and analyze through a quantitative approach in Sultanate of Oman case study. This study targeted citizens in the country to check their intention to use e-Government in Oman (e-Oman). After reviewing and discussing questionnaire outputs using SPSS program, the writer listed some recommendations and conclusion of the study and the nature of them they will be categorized upon to their point of view.


In this study, we designed a digital fuzzy logic controller based on FPGA and microprocessor for MPPT of the solar power generation system. A fuzzy algorithm to control the power tracking function of a boost converter has been built into the FPGA, and applied to the small scaled solar power generation system. The embodied controller showed a stable operation characteristic with the small output voltage ripple for the intensity change of solar radiation. This result proves that the implementation of the power tracking controller using FPGA is an effective way compared to the existing one using microprocessors.


Each electronic device that allows wireless communication incorporates a building block that is called an RF transceiver. It consists of a receiver and a transmitter. The basic function of a receiver is to down-convert high frequency signals to a lower intermediate frequency, to convert them into the digital domain, and to demodulate them. Some of the most challenging and key RF blocks can be found in the analog highfrequency part of a receiver, which is called the RF front-end. Therefore, the focus of this thesis and the core of research is related to the design and implementation of RF front-ends. Nevertheless, RF circuit design is a delicate process involving many time consuming steps. In industry whole design teams work on the radio. So, it is important to limit the scope. Particularly, multi-band LNAs, multi-band RF filters and mixers have been subjects of investigation. This thesis starts with an introductory part. It provides an overview of the existing standards for wireless communications and gives the state-of-the-art in multi-standard RF transceivers. The most important part of the introduction is related to the discussion about the trends in the field of wireless communications, IC technology and packaging as well as about their consequences. Based on these consequences the objectives of this thesis have been formulated. The primary goal is to investigate solutions, benefits, limitations and costs related to multi-standard operation of RF front-ends and their adaptivity to variable radio environments. The second goal is to highlight the optimization of RF front-ends that allows to achieve maximal performance with a certain power budget, while targeting full integration. The third goal is to investigate possibilities for low-voltage low-power circuit topologies in CMOS technology. Finally, the results and considerations presented in this thesis have to be validated through the design and implementation of the reconfigurable multi-band multi-standard DECT/Bluetooth RF front-end in 0.18 µm CMOS technology. At the end of the introductory part, the design flow of a multi-standard front-end has been introduced and the steps in this flow have been discussed. According to the multi-standard design flow, the selection of a suitable front-end architecture is the first step in the system level design. The double-quadrature low-IF front- end architecture with adaptive image rejection has been selected as the most suitable architecture for the DECT/Bluetooth multi-band front-end. The achievable maximal image rejection in the double-quadrature low-IF architectures is directly dependent on the performance of the RC polyphase filters. Therefore, in the next step the performance of broad-band RC polyphase filters has been investigated. The last step in the system level analysis has been to calculate RF and building block specifications. The calculation of RF specifications is straightforward, while the distribution of the building block specifications has been based on the analytical expressions for the voltage gain, noise figure and IIP3 of low-IF front-ends. It has not been possible to guarantee that this distribution will lead to a minimal power consumption or minimal occupied chip area of the on-chip front-end. Nevertheless, its purpose has been to provide the starting point for the circuit level design, where further design optimization has been done. In the double-quadrature low-IF front-end with adaptive image rejection, the performance of the down-conversion mixer has a great influence on the overall front-end performance. Actually, the down-conversion mixer can be considered as the most important building block in the double-quadrature down-converter. Therefore, the first step in the circuit level design and implementation has been to design and implement the folded switching mixer with current-reuse. The measurements results of this mixer have shown very good performance even at a supply voltage of 1 V. After the successful implementation of the folded switching mixer with current-reuse, the design and implementation of the reconfigurable multi-band DECT/Bluetooth complex mixer with adaptive image rejection has been the next step. The measured performance has been quite satisfactory, while the cost introduced due to the adaptive image rejection have been acceptable. The design and implementation of the reconfigurable multi-band DECT/Bluetooth LNA has been the last step towards the design and implementation of the reconfigurable multi-band DECT/Bluetooth RF front-end. An inductively-degenerated common-source LNA has been selected as the most-promising topology. The analysis of this LNA has been presented and a rather efficient design procedure yielding a minimum noise figure with a certain power consumption has been proposed. Finally, the evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of the designed reconfigurable multi-band DECT/Bluetooth RF front-end has been considered. It has been shown that the reconfigurable multi-band DECT/Bluetooth RF front-end with adaptive image rejection is an appropriate solution when an image rejection of more than 30 dB is required. At the end of the thesis some concluding remarks have been given. The most important are the following. First, the design and use of multi-standard RF transceivers is the way to increase hardware flexibility and functionality, as well as to improve the flexibility of set-makers on the market. Second, since the radio environment is variable, the application of adaptivity in RF transceivers results in the reduction of their power consumption. Third, the implementation of analog amplification at low supply voltages has to be based on inverters.


registration which is of particular interest to surgeons. Applications of 2D/3D registration are [1] radiotherapy planning and treatment verification, spinal surgery, hip replacement, neurointerventions and aortic stenting. The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review of the main methods for image registration for the 2D/3D case. At the end of the paper an algorithm is proposed for 2D/3D registration based on the Chebyssev polynomials iteration loop.


Mobile communication networks are constantly evolving and each new generation provides considerably higher data transmission capabilities. Having in mind predictions of high cellular data traffic growth over the next few years, it is clear that the licensed band communications would have problems to support such a high bandwidth demand. One of the possible solutions to this problem is to adaptively use some additional spectrum out of the dedicated licensed band, such as the unlicensed bands. LTE-A standard introduced a new mechanism, named Carrier Aggregation, which provides the possibility to simultaneously use multiple frequency bands, such as the licensed and unlicensed bands. In order to work in an unlicensed band, LTE has to employ some new procedures that provide shared access with other systems using the same frequency band, such as WiFi. These procedures include spectrum sensing, dynamic frequency selection, as well as the coordination of the shared access. Performance measurements and the analysis of the procedures in 5 GHz frequency band will be shown in this paper. Since there is no available LTE hardware operating in 5 GHz band, it has to be made in a laboratory using the software radio approach. The description of such an experiment may be complex, and therefore we describe and propose the concept of the automatic experiment code generation. The automatic code generation is based on the semantic descriptions of experiments, and it is flexible due to the adoption of the domain and system ontologies for formal representation of the semantics of the problem.