Qualitative research has been increasingly recognized in recent years as having a distinctive and important contribution to make to health care research. It is capable of being used as a methodologically sufficient approach in its own right, as a precursor to quantitative studies, during or after trials to explain processes and outcomes, and as a means of enhancing the link between evidence and practice. However, qualitative research has been little used as an evidence resource for systematic reviews. We argue that formal synthesis of both qualitative and quantitative forms of research is essential, and we discuss some of the problems that need to be overcome in carrying out such syntheses. These include methodological prejudice, problems in searching for qualitative evidence, and issues in synthesizing qualitative data. We call for progress to be made on the science and methods of including qualitative research in the evidence base of medicine.


Understanding the mechanism of the forming of the welded pipe may help the engineer to design the shape of forming rollers and forming technology. It is hard to study the forming process of the welded pipe by both the method of experiment and numerical modeling because of too much nonlinear factors included in the forming process such as elastic-plastic large deformation and non linear contact. Although many research works have been conducted in this field by the method of experiment or numerical modeling, but few of the works deal with the whole forming process of the welded pipe. The main difficulties in the numerical modeling are of huge computational labor time, witch has been over the ability of the hardware and software of the computer. The whole process of roll forming of welded pipe has been simulated by nonlinear finite element method with ANSYS and LS-DYNA solver, the distribution of both stresses and strains have been got successfully. Mapping meshes and the rigid models for rollers have been used in the analysis in order to decrease the number of the elements. Numerical results and parameter study have shown that the forming rollers of both the level and vertical are the key factors to the forming process. It is believe that the method used in the paper can also be used to study the forming process of both cage roll forming and flexible forming.


OBJECTIVES
This study aimed to explore the risk factors of hypoglycemia in patients with gastrointestinal bleeding caused by somatostatin for injection and to establish a prediction model based on logistic regression combined with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
This retrospective study analyzed patients diagnosed with gastrointestinal bleeding and treated with somatostatin from January 2022 to May 2023 and collected hypoglycemic events. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used to determine the independent influencing factors of somatostatin-induced hypoglycemia, and a prediction model was established. ROC analysis was used to evaluate the prediction model.

RESULTS
A total of 331 patients were enrolled in this study, and 42 patients developed hypoglycemic events. Age and co-infection were found to be significant risk factors for hypoglycemia in patients with gastrointestinal bleeding induced by somatostatin. Binary logistic regression fitting established the hypoglycemia prediction model Logit (P) = -4.125+0.053Yage +1.366Yco-infection (co-infection: Xco-infection = 1, non-co-infection: Xno co-infection = 0), Hosmer-Lemeshow test results showed that the model had a good fit (χ2 = 10.552, df = 8, p = 0.228), and the AUC of the prediction model to predict the risk of hypoglycemia caused by somatostatin in patients with gastrointestinal bleeding was 0.744 (95% CI: 0.653 - 0.835, p < 0.001), the sensitivity was 57.14%, and the specificity was 93.77%.

CONCLUSION
Among adult patients with gastrointestinal bleeding treated with somatostatin for injection, our study found that age and co-infection were significant risk factors for somatostatin-induced hypoglycemia in this patient population, and the fitted models had high predictive value in predicting the occurrence of hypoglycemia.


Information Technology is commonly referred to as a powerful tool which can provide many opportunities for developing countries. It is seen in particular s a prime enabler for many societies to become 'knowledge societies', and to integrate into the 'g lobal economy .In Saudi Arabia, government authorit ies as well as academics and their institutions have ve ry positive attitudes towards the importance of technology for development. These attitudes, alongs ide economic prosperity, have helped make these technologies widely available. This paper looks at the extent to which access to electronic journals h empowered the Saudi academic community in their res earch. This question is explored through the use of qualitative research methods. Data was collected th rough interviews and further interpreted using the theory of institutionalism. The findings suggest th at the majority of academics in Saudi Arabia resist using electronic journals for their research becaus e they are sceptical of this new method of research . Further, they believe that it cannot replace tradit ional means of research, and they call for the loca lization of knowledge and resources. Furthermore, their limi ted engagement with ICTs for academic research has been shaped by various contextual constraints of Sa udi Arabian educational institutions, including the perceived role of such institutions – as places of instruction rather than research.


ABSTRACT
Arachidonic acid-derived lipid mediators play crucial roles in the development and progression of cardiovascular diseases. Eicosanoid metabolites generated by lipoxygenases and cytochrome P450 enzymes produce several classes of molecules, including the epoxyeicosatrienoic acid (EET) and hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acids (HETE) family of bioactive lipids. In general, the cardioprotective effects of EETs have been documented across a number of cardiac diseases. In contrast, members of the HETE family have been shown to contribute to the pathogenesis of ischemic cardiac disease, maladaptive cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure. The net effect of 12(S)- and 20-HETE depends upon the relative amounts generated, ratio of HETEs/EETs produced, timing of synthesis, as well as cellular and subcellular mechanisms activated by each respective metabolite. HETEs are synthesized by and affect multiple cell types within the myocardium. Moreover, cytochrome P450- (CYP) and lipoxygenase- (LOX) derived metabolites have been shown to directly influence cardiac myocyte growth and the regulation of cardiac fibroblasts. The mechanistic data uncovered thus far has employed the use of enzyme inhibitors, HETE antagonists and the genetic manipulation of lipid-producing enzymes and their respective receptors, all of which influence a complex network of outcomes that complicate data interpretation. This review will summarize and integrate recent findings on the role of 12(S)-/20-HETE in cardiac diseases.


A simple modular strategy for the synthesis of profluorescent nitroxide containing polymers is described. The incorporation of an epoxide as a pendant functionality on a polymer backbone synthesized using ATRP and subsequent nucleophilic ring-opening with sodium azide gave hydroxyl and azide functionality within a 3-bond radius. Orthogonal coupling chemistry then allowed the independent attachment of fluorophore and nitroxide groups in close proximity, giving rise to a profluorescent polymer. Validation of the viability of these materials as fluorescent sensors is demonstrated through efficient fluorescence switch-on observed when the materials are exposed to a model reductant or carbon-centred radical source.


Video quality metrics are intended to replace human evaluation with evaluation by machine. To accurately simulate human judgement, they must include some aspects of the human visual system. In this paper we present a class of low-complexity video quality metrics based on the standard spatial observer (SSO). In these metrics, the basic SSO model is improved with several additional features from the current human vision models. To evaluate the metrics, we make use of the data set recently produced by the Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG), which consists of subjective ratings of 160 samples of digital video covering a wide range of quality. For each metric we examine the correlation between its predictions and the subjective ratings. The results show that SSO-based models with local masking obtain the same degree of accuracy as the best metric considered by VQEG (P5), and significantly better correlations than the other VQEG models. The results suggest that local masking is a key feature to improve the correlation of the basic SSO model.


Published in: Origin of Relief of Central Poland and Its Anthropogenic Transformation in Łodź University Geographical Research, edited by. E.Kobojek, T.Marszal


Over the past 2 decades, chronic total occlusion (CTO) percutaneous coronary intervention has developed into its own subspecialty of interventional cardiology. Dedicated terminology, techniques, devices, courses, and training programs have enabled progressive advancements. However, only a few randomized trials have been performed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of CTO percutaneous coronary intervention. Moreover, several published observational studies have shown conflicting data. Part of the paucity of clinical data stems from the fact that prior studies have been suboptimally designed and performed. The absence of standardized end points and the discrepancy in definitions also prevent consistency and uniform interpretability of reported results in CTO intervention. To standardize the field, we therefore assembled a broad consortium comprising academicians, practicing physicians, researchers, medical society representatives, and regulators (US Food and Drug Administration) to develop methods, end points, biomarkers, parameters, data, materials, processes, procedures, evaluations, tools, and techniques for CTO interventions. This article summarizes the effort and is organized into 3 sections: key elements and procedural definitions, end point definitions, and clinical trial design principles. The Chronic Total Occlusion Academic Research Consortium is a first step toward improved comparability and interpretability of study results, supplying an increasingly growing body of CTO percutaneous coronary intervention evidence.


Users of industrial recommender systems are normally suggesteda list of items at one time. Ideally, such list-wise recommendationshould provide diverse and relevant options to the users. However, in practice, list-wise recommendation is implemented as top-N recommendation. Top-N recommendation selects the first N items from candidates to display. The list is generated by a ranking function, which is learned from labeled data to optimize accuracy.However, top-N recommendation may lead to suboptimal, as it focuses on accuracy of each individual item independently and overlooks mutual influence between items. Therefore, we propose a personalized re-ranking model for improving diversity of the recommendation list in real recommender systems. The proposed re-ranking model can be easily deployed as a follow-up component after any existing ranking function. The re-ranking model improves the diversity by employing personalized Determinental Point Process (DPP). DPP has been applied in some recommender systems to improve the diversity and increase the user engagement.However, DPP does not take into account the fact that users may have individual propensities to the diversity. To overcome such limitation, our re-ranking model proposes a personalized DPP to model the trade-off between accuracy and diversity for each individual user. We implement and deploy the personalized DPP model on alarge scale industrial recommender system. Experimental results on both offline and online demonstrate the efficiency of our proposed re-ranking model.


The presence of reactive species in plasma-activated water is known to induce oxidative stresses in bacterial species, which can result in their inactivation. By integrating a microfludic chipscale nebulizer driven by surface acoustic waves (SAWs) with a low-temperature atmospheric plasma source, we demonstrate an efficient technique for in situ production and application of plasma-activated aerosols for surface disinfection. Unlike bulk conventional systems wherein the water is separately batch-treated within a container, we show in this work the first demonstration of continuous plasma-treatment of water as it is transported through a paper strip from a reservoir onto the chipscale SAW device. The significantly larger surface area to volume ratio of the water within the paper strip leads to a significant reduction in the duration of the plasma-treatment, while maintaining the concentration of the reactive species. The subsequent nebulization of the plasma-activated water by the SAW then allows the generation of plasma-activated aerosols, which can be directly sprayed onto the contaminated surface, therefore eliminating the storage of the plasma-activated water and hence circumventing the typical limitation in conventional systems wherein the concentration of the reactive species diminishes over time during storage, resulting in a reduction in the efficacy of bacterial inactivation. In particular, we show up to 96% reduction in Escherichia coli colonies through direct spraying with the plasma-activated aerosols. This novel, low-cost, portable and energy-efficient hybrid system necessitates only minimal maintenance as it only requires the supply of tap water and battery power for operation, and is thus suitable for decontamination in home environments.


ABSTRACT Myiasis cases are often encountered in humans, especially in tropical and subtropical regions. Urogenital myiasis is one of the facultative myiasis cases that may be seen in humans. Psychoda albipennis is an insect species that causes urogential myiasis in humans Adults of this species, belongs to the Psychodidae subfamily, lives especially in humid toilets and domestic bathrooms. This case, presented as urogeni-tal myiasis caused by P. albipennis in a fifteen year old male. The person, who was a student, was living in the city center reported to have passed five-six larvae for three months. The patient had normal urinalysis, stool microscopy and urine culture. Larvae were examined under a microscope and were identified as fourth period larvae of P. albipennis . Therefore, it should not be forgotten that P. albipennis may be an agent in urogenital myiasis. (Turkiye Parazitol Derg 2012; 36: 51-3) Key Words: Urogenital myiasis, Psychoda albipennis Received: 23.09.2011 Accepted:


This paper gives an overview of the Norwegian legislation on Universal Design of information and communication technology (ICT) and how the Norwegian Authority for Universal Design of ICT works to enforce and achieve the goals behind the legislation. The Authority uses indicators to check websites for compliance with the regulations. This paper describes the rationale and intended use for the indicators and how they are used for both supervision and benchmarks as well as a way of gathering data to give an overview of the current state of Universal Design of websites in Norway.


ABSTRACT In genetic backcross studies, data are often collected from complex mixtures of distributions with known mixing proportions. Previous approaches to the inference of these genetic mixture models involve parameterizing the component distributions. However, model misspecification of any form is expected to have detrimental effects. We propose a semiparametric likelihood method for genetic mixture models: the empirical likelihood under the exponential tilting model assumption, in which the log ratio of the probability (density) functions from the components is linear in the observations. An application to mice cancer genetics involves random numbers of offspring within a litter. In other words, the cluster size is a random variable. We wish to test the null hypothesis that there is no difference between the two components in the mixture model, but unfortunately we find that the Fisher information is degenerate. As a consequence, the conventional two-term expansion in the likelihood ratio statistic does not work. By using a higher-order expansion, we are able to establish a nonstandard convergence rate N− 1/4 for the odds ratio parameter estimator . Moreover, the limiting distribution of the empirical likelihood ratio statistic is derived. The underlying distribution function of each component can also be estimated semiparametrically. Analogously to the full parametric approach, we develop an expectation and maximization algorithm for finding the semiparametric maximum likelihood estimator. Simulation results and a real cancer application indicate that the proposed semiparametric method works much better than parametric methods. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.


Hydrometeor scattered signals originating from one system have the potential to interfere with other independent systems. It is conceivable that the effect of such interference (as measured by BER) in digital communications receivers may depend not only on the hydrometeor scattered signals gross power but also on its temporal and/or spectral characteristics. One way of testing whether or not this is the case is to generate signals characteristics of hydrometeor scatter and observe their effect on the BER of a communications system. A cheap, flexible and convenient way of implementing such a test is to use numerical simulation.<<ETX>>


Since the end of the Second World War, the development paradigm has become the dominant discourse in the world. During the more than 6 decades that the concept of development discourse has been dominant, many theoretical and practical developments have accompanied it. At first, attention was solely centered on economic development and nature was considered as a facilitator of economic growth. However, it was gradually recognized that development with this economic growth approach changes the natural systems of the planet and leads to numerous environmental hazards that can threaten the economic and political systems of countries. Therefore, it is very possible for a political entity to attain development, but sustained development will be faced with serious doubts because environmental aspects are ignored. Therefore, the concept of sustainable development replaced development. Given the above- mentioned approach, this descriptive-analytic research studied the relationship between economic development and the environment, with Urmia Lake as a case example. Findings of the research show that implementation of Development Plans has been one of the main reasons for the drying up of the Lake. Key Words: Sustainable Development, Environment, Urmia Lake.


The mathematical model of the braced stress-strain in the vacuum glazing was established with the crunode method by elastic mechanics. The braced stress-strain field of vacuum glazing was received, and the stress-strain distribution was analyzed at the same time. Electric test method was used to validate the stress distribution. The experimental results are shown that the maximal stress of vacuum glazing occurs in the second braced pillar of the four-square side. The maximal stress value by elastic mechanics is 11.057MPa, while the measured value by electric test method is 11.765MPa, and its tolerance is only 6.02%. The positive stress in the cross section of the braced pillar is 179MPa, the longitudinal strains of steel and glazing braced pillar are 0.2686μm and 0.7414μm, respectively. The tolerance of braced pillar height and the glazing level degree are controlled to guarantee force equality, which increases strength, dependability, and service life of vacuum glazing.


How has education for refugees been shaped by broader dynamics of educational privatization? This paper argues that the invoking of the 'refugee crisis' narrative has been a crucial force in facilitating the privatization of this sector. The urgency of crisis helps to naturalize private actors' participation in refugees' education as equal partners to host governments, multilateral agencies, and civil society. Consistent with Stephen Ball's (2012) distinction between privatization in and of education, the privatization of refugee education also advances through two dimensions: the creation of a new space – a new 'market' – for private actors, and the infusion of market and business principles such as 'innovation' into all aspects of education. The crisis narrative has created a new 'horizon of taken-for-granted' (Hall, 1993), where it is simply natural that private actors must participate in the assumption of the traditional responsibilities of the state in providing education for refugees.


The relationships between knowledge and regulation of cognition and how they interact to mediate the effects of task-induced involvement load on word learning and confidence judgments were investigated. The participants were 77 undergraduate English majors. They were required to complete a checklist on metacognition. Subsequently, they were assigned to complete three tasks with varying degree of involvement load. They were then required to rate their confidence in learning and using the target words. Pre- and post-study vocabulary tests were administered to measure improvement in word learning. According to the checklist on metacognition, the learners were assigned to four different ability groups. The results showed that knowledge of cognition is a good predictor of the confidence judgments, in the same way that regulation of cognition is a good predictor of the confidence judgments. In terms of learners' actual word learning performance, task-induced involvement load is mediated significantly by the regulatory competence but not by the knowledge of cognition. There is a discrepancy between learners' self-assessment and actual performance. Relevant educational implications are discussed.


A study of the elastic exciton-exciton Coulomb scattering in a semiconductor quantum well is presented, including the interexciton exchange of carriers and the spin degrees of freedom. The theoretical results show that electron-electron and hole-hole exchanges are the dominant mechanisms of interaction, while the classical direct term is negligible. The density-dependent homogeneous linewidth is calculated within the Born approximation and good agreement with the existing experimental data is obtained. Owing to the interexciton exchange of carriers, collisions lead to spin relaxation as actually observed in recent time-resolved photoluminescence experiments. [S0163-1829(98)06736-8].


REPORT OF A CASE A 22-year-old man presented to our office in August 1993 with an 8-year history of several asymptomatic poikilodermatous plaques on his torso. These cutaneous lesions had been slowly progressive in both size and number. The patient had previously been evaluated by several other dermatologists, and multiple biopsies had been performed. Initial specimens had been interpreted as "granuloma of undetermined etiology" and "foreignbody granuloma." Cultures of tissue were negative for acid-fast bacilli and fungi. The patient did not seek further medical attention for several years despite progression of his cutaneous lesions. When we first saw the patient in our office, his physical examination revealed multiple, indurated, poikilodermatous plaques located on the lateral aspect of the right side of his torso, in the right axilla, and in the inguinal region bilaterally (Figure 1andFigure 2). There were telangiectasias and marked atrophy of the surface of the epidermis.


A lower frequency of writing errors facilitates the process of knowledge transfer. In this study, we scrutinized the medical journals highlighting the most frequent and critical writing errors in published medical papers of Iranian English journals. As a sample, 25 published articles were randomly selected from recent issues of five Iranian medical English ISI journals (2019). The frequency of discourse, lexical, grammatical, and mechanical errors was identified. In all five journals, more than 50% of errors are related to grammatical errors. The highest frequency of grammatical errors was in articles (79%), and the singular/plural errors had the lowest frequency in this category. Of Mechanical errors, the highest and the lowest errors were assigned to comma usage (25%) and spacing (5%), respectively. The discourse errors had the third position of error frequency among the journals (7.8%). Also, the lexical portion was without error in these journals. Moreover, there is a statistically significant relationship between the impact factors of journals and Grammatical errors (P<0.001). Statistically, no significant relationship was observed between Mechanical errors and the impact factors of journals (P= 0.57). The highest error frequency among the main sections of articles (introduction, method, result, discussion) was in the discussion section (42.6%), and the lowest error frequency was in the result section (15%). These shortages arose from the difference between the grammars of two languages (native and target language) and the unfamiliarity of academic authors from these linguistic points. Adequate language proficiency and proper use of grammar could help the authors to transfer their knowledge efficiently. The findings of this study can help minimize some language-related difficulties in writing scientific papers in all fields of study.


Real estate price indexes summarize the evolution of all property prices in a single number, while actual price movements often differ among market segments. We develop a methodology for measuring prices as a flexible function of a one-dimensional quality measure – housing services for residential real estate and apply it to test for the common assumption of identical price movements in all parts of the market. Our approach is based on a generalization of the familiar (constant unit price) Muth model to a situation of in which the unit price of housing services may depend on the quality level. We apply the method to a rich set of transaction data referring to Amsterdam in the period 1985-2013. We estimate an indicator of housing services based only on the ranking of house prices in postcode areas during periods of three months and compare the results to conventional hedonic price equations that embody the assumption of a unit price for housing services that does not depend on quality. We develop a test for a constant price per unit of housing services and reject it on the basis of price differences occurring over time as well as over space.


Context: Tobacco is the foremost cause of preventable death
and disease in the world today, and India is the second largest
consumer of tobacco products in the world. The Cigarettes and
Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) promulgated in 2003 by
the Government of India, not only mandates ban on the sale
of tobacco within a 100-yard radius around schools, but also
provides guidelines for tobacco-free schools.
Aim: To determine if the provisions of the COTPA are being
complied with, in Mangaluru, India.
Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted
among 30 randomly selected schools in Mangaluru,
India. Information was collected regarding sale of tobacco at
vendor locations within 100-yard radius of these schools. An
interview schedule was administered to the representative
of the school, pertaining to the guidelines for tobacco-free
schools.
Statistical analysis used: The data were coded and analyzed
using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS)
version 11.5. The level of statistical significance was kept at
p < 0.05.
Results: There were 48 shops located within 100-yard radius
of the schools, out of which 46 (95.8%) sold single cigarettes
but only one shop displayed surrogate advertisement. Among
the 30 schools surveyed, only 3 (10%) displayed signages
prohibiting smoking. Although the guidelines for tobacco-free
schools explicitly state that all schools must have a copy of the
COTPA, only 3 (10.0%) schools maintained a copy.
Conclusion: This study showed that there was a widespread
violation of Section 6 of the COTPA 2003 in Mangaluru, India.


The prospects of development of forensic veterinary examination as areas of practical veterinary and legal activity, science and educational discipline in Ukraine are demonstrated. The subject, the range of objects, the list of issues that are solved while this examination during offences investigation are determined. Some aspects of special veterinary knowledge use in expert activity are considered. Prospective scientific directions of forensic veterinary research are indicated. The subject of forensic veterinary examination are factual data (facts, circumstances) which are established on the basis of special veterinary knowledge. Objects of forensic veterinary examination include: 1) live animals: domestic, wild, hunting, zoo (exotic); 2) corpses of animals (anatomically whole, fragmentary, skeletonized); 3) raw materials for the veterinary and biological industry (endocrine, enzymatic); 4) feeds of animal origin, feed additives; 5) products of animal origin; 6) veterinary pharmaceuticals and poisons; 7) objects – material evidence: pesticides, ropes, vomit masses, blood traces, afterbirth, etc.; derivatives of the skin of animal origin (hair, feather, scales, etc.); pieces of fur and skins; 8) documents: materials of pre-trial and judicial cases (protocols of autopsy, acts of an epizootic inspection of a farm, a journal of registration and treatment of sick animals, a journal of issuing veterinary documents, a manufacturer's declaration, operating permit, etc.). Forensic veterinary examination solves the issues during offences investigation regarding: production, circulation, sale, storage of animal origin products; state determination of health and degree of bodily harm of animals; forensic veterinary research of animal corpses; establishment of violent death; assessment of the timeliness and completeness of medical-prophylactic, antiepizootic, sanitary-hygienic, quarantine and other measures; research on cases of medical errors of specialists in veterinary medicine; performing researches on cases on solving conflicting economic issues in the areas of animal husbandry technology and veterinary medicine; researches on veterinary documents.


The need for structural reforms in the euro area has often been advocated. These reforms would improve the welfare of euro area citizens and also, as a welcome side-effect, facilitate the conduct of monetary policy. Against this background, a particularly relevant question that can be posed is whether monetary policy should help implement structural reforms. The objective of this paper is to provide a review of the existing literature on structural reforms in Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and to discuss the possible ways in which monetary policy could support the structural reform process. In the context of EMU, the main conclusions that emerge are that the monetary policy for the euro area is not the appropriate tool for mitigating the potential and uncertain short-term costs of reforms or for providing incentives for structural reforms at the national level. However, credible monetary policy aimed at price stability can improve the functioning of the supply side of the economy and contribute to an environment which is conducive to welfare-enhancing structural changes. In addition, the ECB's contribution to the implementation of structural reforms takes the form of analysis, assessment and communication.


Abstract. Anthropogenic climate change has altered many ecosystem processes in the Arctic tundra and may have resulted in unprecedented fire activity. Evaluating the significance of recent fires requires knowledge from the paleofire record because observational data in the Arctic span only several decades, much shorter than the natural fire rotation in Arctic tundra regions. Here we report results of charcoal analysis on lake sediments from four Alaskan lakes to infer the broad spatial and temporal patterns of tundra-fire occurrence over the past 35 000 years. Background charcoal accumulation rates are low in all records (range is 0–0.05 pieces cm−2 yr−1), suggesting minimal biomass burning across our study areas. Charcoal peak analysis reveals that the mean fire-return interval (FRI; years between consecutive fire events) ranged from ca. 1650 to 6050 years at our sites, and that the most recent fire events occurred from ca. 880 to 7030 years ago, except for the CE 2007 Anaktuvuk River Fire. These mean FRI estimates are longer than the fire rotation periods estimated for the past 63 years in the areas surrounding three of the four study lakes. This result suggests that the frequency of tundra burning was higher over the recent past compared to the late Quaternary in some tundra regions. However, the ranges of FRI estimates from our paleofire records overlap with the expected values based on fire-rotation-period estimates from the observational fire data, and the differences are statistically insignificant. Together with previous tundra-fire reconstructions, these data suggest that the rate of tundra burning was spatially variable and that fires were extremely rare in our study areas throughout the late Quaternary. Given the rarity of tundra burning over multiple millennia in our study areas and the pronounced effects of fire on tundra ecosystem processes such as carbon cycling, dramatic tundra ecosystem changes are expected if anthropogenic climate change leads to more frequent tundra fires.


Knowledge of information technology is crucial in the era globalisai this time, many terms of information technology that has not been understood and understood by the general public. To the knowledge of the information technology needs of the need for the central source of knowledge that can be as references or resources. Language is a tool of human lingual communication both orally and in writing. Role of Indonesian and English is good and right as the official language of national and international has a very important meaning as a description of information technology. Typing error checking and control language is good and true if done manually certainly will spend a lot of time, let alone an age of modern convenience such as this. Writing errors are mainly due to the proximity of the location of the keyboard, slip a finger, or because the two characters are located swapped. For the problems that came the idea to create a system of checking spelling or spelling checker in the encyclopedia of information technology based website developed using the programming language PHP and uses a database of vocabulary that refers to the collection of licensing documents Copyright © 2003 IlmuKomputer.Com. Keywords: Information Technology, Writing Error, Based Website, Spelling checker, Encyclopedia 1


Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) is a unique clinicopathological disease characterized by necrotizing granulomatous vasculitis of the respiratory tract, pauci-immune necrotizing glomerulonephritis and small-vessel vasculitis. Owing to its wide range of clinical manifestations, WG has a broad spectrum of severity that includes the potential for alveolar hemorrhage or rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis, which are immediately life threatening. WG is associated with the presence of circulating antineutrophil cytoplasm antibodies (c-ANCAs). The most widely accepted pathogenetic model suggests that c-ANCA-activated cytokine-primed neutrophils induce microvascular damage and a rapid escalation of inflammation with recruitment of mononuclear cells. The diagnosis of WG is made on the basis of typical clinical and radiologic findings, by biopsy of involved organ, the presence of c-ANCA and exclusion of all other small-vessel vasculitis. Currently, a regimen consisting of daily cyclophosphamide and corticosteroids is considered standard therapy. A number of trials have evaluated the efficacy of less-toxic immunosuppressants and antibacterials for treating patients with WG, resulting in the identification of effective alternative regimens to induce or maintain remission in certain subpopulations of patients. Recent investigation has focused on other immunomodulatory agents (e.g., TNF-α inhibitors and anti-CD20 antibodies), intravenous immunoglobulins and antithymocyte globulins for treating patients with resistant WG.


Seven courses which develop and assess learning in a practice or work context are the focus for exploring students' experience of technology-mediated study practice. Students' experience of their work practice context brings an added dimension to the rich mix of factors influencing students'approaches to study and to technology use. Research methods draw therefore upon activity theory and social theories of learning that foreground the development of learner identity within practice communities. At this early stage, interview data is presented drawing on a triangulation of perspectives from course developers, tutors and students. Interpretations are tentative, but the importance of students' work context in relation to positive or negative orientations to technology is evident. Students' sense of professional identity may position their experience of technology as either at the boundary or closer to the core of their practice, and this materially affects their learning trajectory and their resistance to, or acceptance of, technology as a key element in their course.


Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) play crucial roles in a variety of normal (e.g., blood vessel formation, bone development) and pathophysiological (e.g., wound healing, cancer) processes. This is not only due to their ability to degrade the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM), but also because MMPs function to reveal cryptic matrix binding sites, release matrix-bound growth factors inherent to these processes, and activate a variety of cell surface molecules. The process of blood vessel formation, in particular, is regulated by what is widely classified as the angiogenic switch: a mixture of both pro- and antiangiogenic factors that function to counteract each other unless the stimuli from one side exceeds the other to disrupt the quiescent state. Although it was initially thought that MMPs were strictly proangiogenic, new functions for this proteolytic family, such as mediating vascular regression and generating matrix fragments with antiangiogenic capacities, have been discovered in the last decade. These findings cast MMPs as multifaceted pro- and antiangiogenic effectors. The purpose of this review is to introduce the reader to the general structure and characterization of the MMP family and to discuss the temporal and spatial regulation of their gene expression and enzymatic activity in the following crucial steps associated with angiogenesis: degradation of the vascular basement membrane, proliferation and invasion of endothelial cells within the subjacent ECM, organization into immature tubules, maturation of these nascent vessels, and the pruning and regression of the vascular network.


Dental composite materials are evolving continuously with novel Resin Based Composites being at the forefront of dental restorations. The characteristics of these materials need to be such that they are able to withstand both mechanical (masticatory) stress and any chemical activity. The current study investigates the strength and biocompatibility of three Resin Based Composites (RBCs); Ormocer Admira (VOCO, Cuxhaven, Germany), dimethacrylate FiltekTMZ250 (St Paul, MN, US) and a novel RBC namely X-tra Fil (VOCO, Cuxhaven, Germany). These materials were tested using bi-axial flexure, vickers hardness, water sorption and water solubility tests, but a one-way ANOVA showed no significant difference between their mechanical properties. Cytotoxicity tests were also performed by culturing RBC specimen discs both directly and indirectly with ATCC mouse 3T3 fibroblasts and undifferentiated pulpal fibroblast cells (OD21 cells). These determined that all three materials were cytotoxic to both the cell types, however a one-way ANOVA test showed that there was no significant difference between the materials. This suggests that all the materials exerted a similar cytotoxic effect. Therefore, the current study indicated that the mechanical and cytotoxic properties of X-tra fil are not an improvement but are similar to those materials already available on the market. However, this study provides a good origin for further research into the properties of these materials.


Machine teaching (MT) studies the task of designing a training set. Specifically, given a learner (e.g., an artificial neural network or a human) and a target model, a teacher aims to create a training set which results in the target model being learned. MT applications include optimal education design for human learners and computer security where adversaries aim to attack learning-based systems. In this work, we formulate pool-based MT as a state space search problem. We discuss the properties and challenges of the resulting problem and highlight opportunities for novel search techniques. In our preliminary study we use a beam search approach, and find that training and evaluating empirical risk of models dominate the run time of the search. Toward the goal of better search techniques for future work, we develop optimizations ranging from implementation details for specific learners to algorithm changes applicable to general blackbox learners. We conclude with a discussion of open problems and research directions.


In public international law which seems the most disregarded area is succession of inter- national organizations. Public international law after recognizing international organizations as prime actors before international law next to states, it has ignored their issues of dissolution and succession. Neither general rules and principles nor customary rules developed in this area. As a result, once we use analogical interpretation and try to use rules governing succession of states and another time we try to take minimal and inconsistent practices. However, none of them are helpful to settle succession matters, especially transfer of assets, debts, mission and purpose in inter- national organizations. Taking this predicament into consideration, this paper tries to discussion issues pertaining to dissolution and succession of international organizations, consequential matters, governing rules and practices, procedures, transfer of assets and debts as well as mission and purpose are discussed and areas of practical and legal gaps are indicated there too.


To what extent is the citation rate of new papers influenced by the past social relations of their authors? To answer this question, we present a data-driven analysis of nine different physics journals. Our analysis is based on a two-layer network representation constructed from two large-scale data sets, INSPIREHEP and APS. The social layer contains authors as nodes and coauthorship relations as links. This allows us to quantify the social relations of each author, prior to the publication of a new paper. The publication layer contains papers as nodes and citations between papers as links. This layer allows us to quantify scientific attention as measured by the change of the citation rate over time. We particularly study how this change correlates with the social relations of their authors, prior to publication. We find that on average the maximum value of the citation rate is reached sooner for authors who have either published more papers or who have had more coauthors in previous papers. We also find that for these authors the decay in the citation rate is faster, meaning that their papers are forgotten sooner.


Balanced nesting is the most usual form of nesting and originates, when used singly or with crossing of such sub-models, orthogonal models. In balanced nesting we are forced to divide repeatedly the plots and we have few degrees of freedom for the first levels. If we apply stair nesting we will have plots all of the same size rendering the designs easier to apply. The stair nested designs are a valid alternative for the balanced nested designs because we can work with fewer observations, the amount of information for the different factors is more evenly distributed and we obtain good results. The inference for models with balanced nesting is already well studied. For models with stair nesting it is easy to carry out inference because it is very similar to that for balanced nesting. Furthermore stair nested designs being unbalanced have an orthogonal structure. Other alternative to the balanced nesting is the staggered nesting that is the most popular unbalanced nested design which also has the advantage of requiring fewer observations. However staggered nested designs are not orthogonal, unlike the stair nested designs. In this work we start with the algebraic structure of the balanced, the stair and the staggered nested designs and we finish with the structure of the cross between balanced and stair nested designs. Author KeyWords: Balanced nesting; Stair nesting; Staggered nesting; Crossing; Variance components; Inference


No one factor describes Trump's supporters. But an array of factors – many of them reflecting five major social psychological phenomena can help to account for this extraordinary political event: authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, prejudice, relative deprivation, and intergroup contact. Research on the topic demonstrates that these theories and concepts of social psychology prove centrally important in helping to understand this unexpected event. This paper describes the supporting data for this statement and demonstrates the close parallels between these American results and those of research on far-right European supporters.


The motorcycle frame is important to supported components of the motorcycle and to maintain stability when driving. One of the variables to determine the strength of the frame is to measure the stress when it is loaded. This study was to determine the stress experienced by the frame of the motorcycle when it is given a load of 1960 N and 2450 N in two different types of material, Galvanized Steel and Black Steel (AISI 1080). Research conducted with simulations using software Solidwork 2013. The simulation results indicate that the material Galvanized steel frame permanently deformed when given load 2450 N because the stress (221.6 MPa) is exceed the material's yield strength (203.9 MPa). While the frame of the material Black Steel (AISI 1080) when given a load of 2450 N stress received is 233.9 MPa, still lower than the value of the material's yield strength (375.8 MPa) but displacement that occurs is 21.1 mm.


This article offers a conceptual framework that broadens and enhances our understanding of the role of 'history' in contemporary governance and the attempts by policy-makers to 'manage' critical issues. Building upon the literature on historical analogies in policy-making, we distinguish three dimensions that clarify how the past may emerge in and affect the current deliberations, choices and rhetoric of policy-makers. We apply this in a comparative examination of two cases of crisis management where historical analogies played an important part: the Swedish response to (alleged) submarine intrusions in 1982, and the European Union sanctions against Austria in 1999. We induce from the case comparison new concepts and hypotheses for understanding the role of historical analogies in public policy-making and crisis management.


For the synthesis of novel positively charged 2D-elementary blocks, we have focused on the exfoliation of recent mixed valent Co3+/4+ oxy-bromides, namely the 14H-Ba7Co6BrO17 and 18R-Ba6Co5BrO14 phases built on hexagonal-perovskite blocks separated by [Ba2O2Br]− spacers. Here, we show that the exfoliation in butanol leads to positive nanoblocks in colloidal suspensions, as confirmed Zetametry measurements. Full structural characterization was performed by TEM, EDS, Raman and IR spectroscopies, AFM, X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XANES and DANES) and synchrotron X-ray diffraction (in-plane and out of plane). Combination of all these techniques results into a detailed description of crystalline flat particles (∼100 nm large and ∼10 nm thick) where the Co3+/4+ mixed oxidation state, as well as the local Co environment, are preserved after the exfoliation process. In-plane and out of plane synchrotron X-ray diffraction confirms a strong preferred deposition (001) planes. The original bulk materials showing intrinsic ferromagnetism in the elementary blocks, the magnetic properties of the delaminated nanoparticles are also presented here. Finally, we have prepared new positive nanometric bricks based on hexagonal perovskite structure, rare objects in condensed matter.


Background and Objectives: Self-intoxication with Ethanol (Et) is a common problem worldwide. Being a psychoactive drug, neurotoxic effects of Et are well known. Cerebellum is highly vulnerable to Et exposure. Tocotrienols (T3) are relatively rare components of vitamin E and have the potential to prevent the oxidative stress and act as neuroprotective. Varied modalities of T3 supplementations were evaluated to identify the possibilities of countering cerebellar oxidative stress caused by low-to-moderate doses of Et exposure. Methods: Four phase of experiments were carried out with nil (Et-0) and three doses of Et exposures (Et-I, Et-II and Et-III) for 4 weeks. In each phase, 4 groups of Wistar rats were maintained with sham supplementation (NT3), Prior Supplementation (PT3), Simultaneous Supplementation (ST3) and Total Supplementation (TT3) with T3 for 6 weeks. Cerebellar levels of reduced Glutathione (GSH), Lipid Peroxidation (LPO) and activities of catalase, Superoxide Dismutase (SOD), Glutathione Peroxidase (GPx) and Glutathione Reductase (GR) were estimated and Superoxide and Peroxide Handling Capacities (SPHCs) were calculated. Results: All the tested cerebellar oxidative stress parameters and handling capacities were significantly influenced by the modalities of T3 supplementation. However, low-to-moderate doses of Et exposures contributed significantly in alterations of LPO level, GPx activity, GR activity and glutathione-dependent SPHC of cerebellum. Conclusion: Critical evaluation of studied parameters suggest insufficient overall performance of ST3 type of supplementation, whereas, TT3 type of supplementation was the best among the modalities of T3 supplementation. However, excess T3 supplementation may not be beneficial in some cases of oxidative stress parameters and SPHC of cerebellum.


Transfer learning allows knowledge to be extracted from auxiliary domains and be used to enhance learning in a target domain. For transfer learning to be successful, it is critical to find the similarity between auxiliary and target domains, even when such mappings are not obvious. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm for finding the structural similarity between two domains, to enable transfer learning at a structured knowledge level. In particular, we address the problem of how to learn a non-trivial structural similarity mapping between two different domains when they are completely different on the representation level. This problem is challenging because we cannot directly compare features across domains. Our algorithm extracts the structural features within each domain and then maps the features into the Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space (RKHS), such that the "structural dependencies" of features across domains can be estimated by kernel matrices of the features within each domain. By treating the analogues from both domains as equivalent, we can transfer knowledge to achieve a better understanding of the domains and improved performance for learning. We validate our approach on synthetic and real-world datasets.


: In a climate of financial viability in early 1986, productivity measurement and analysis were implemented as major components of the quality assurance program at University Medical Center at the Arizona Health Sciences Center. The purpose was basically to balance the benefits of conducting an integrated quality assurance program with the operational costs. A fully integrated quality assurance program was implemented at University Medical Center during June, 1985. Comprehensive, 100 percent chart screening is conducted utilizing occurrence screening criteria and criteria for all required JCAH clinical monitors. The quality assurance program is based on the Medical Management Analysis (MMA) system established by Joyce W. Craddick, M.D. Since the immediate plan of the hospital administration's financial sector was to develop units of service for nonrevenue-producing cost centers, the QA director was obligated to develop standards that would demonstrate effective management of the QA department's resources and would project revenue requirements for program development. The QA director elected to conduct a productivity study which resulted in the establishment of performance standards that are currently utilized in budget development to determine staffing needs; to appraise employee performance; and to perform trend analysis.


The performance growth of conventional VLSI circuits is seriously hampered by various variation effects and the fundamental limit of chip power density. Adaptive circuit design is recognized as a power-efficient approach to tackling the variation challenge. However, it tends to entail large area overhead if not carefully designed. This work studies how to reduce the overhead by forming adaptivity blocks considering both timing and spatial proximity among logic cells. The proximity optimization consists of timing and location aware cell clustering and incremental placement enforcing the clusters. Experiments are performed on the ICCAD 2014 benchmark circuits, which include case of near one million cells. Compared to alternative methods, our approach achieves 1/4 to 3/4 area overhead reduction with an average of 0.6% wirelength overhead, while retains about the same timing yield and power.


In the late Middle Ages poets increasingly voiced severe criticism of the social conditions of their time; they especially targeted the world of the courts and aristocracy at large. One of the most outspoken representatives of this criticism was the fourteenth-century Austrian poet Heinrich der Teichner, heretofore fairly little studied and even less known among the reading public today. He certainly relied on the traditional topos of court criticism that can be traced back at least to the twelfth and eleventh centuries, but his comments about the courts and the nobility are extremely biting and explicit. This article identifies some of the key passages in Teichner's voluminous poetic oeuvre in which he offers poignant social, moral, and political commentary about the shortcomings of his time. Teichner can be counted among the leading voices of his time particularly because of his unabashed and outspoken discussion of fundamental shortcomings among the upper level of late medieval society.1


Overview

This presentation will explore how engaging with social media should be a critical skill for the 21st century researcher in building and maintaining their networks both in and beyond the University. Delegates will be asked to consider a range of tools, technologies and services that could facilitate and enhance the accessibility of their research and scholarly outputs within their own research contexts.

Background

The proliferation and rapid emergence of pervasive, ubiquitous and networked information and communication technologies (ICTs) has fundamentally changed the way we conduct our social and professional lives. For the researcher, the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW) and social media presents a staggering array of opportunities to create and maintain your academic digital presence and identity; communicating and disseminating your work in different online fora (such as blogs, wikis, YouTube and podcasts); developing and sustaining online networks and collaborations (through Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Academia.edu); organising and managing your own professional development (through RSS feeds and e-mail alerts); finding out what others within your discipline are doing.

This smorgasbord of online tools, technologies, services and spaces has facilitated and enhanced scholarly activities, improving the way academic research is undertaken and communicated. It has also introduced new levels of openness and transparency that have allowed researchers to have their work scrutinised and critiqued by a much wider audience.

Challenges

However, this kind of 'accessibility of research' may not be recognised by others as having legitimacy and value, especially if more traditional and established routes to research and publication are seen as a more acceptable, accredited path to tenure, promotion and reward (Weller, 2011) and that in many cases print is still considered as the "gold standard" (Cheverie et al, 2009) over digital artefacts.

Paradoxically, in order to appreciate the value and nature that social media technologies and services have to offer researchers, one has to experience them over a prolonged period to get the measure of them (Weller, 2011). This exposure to digital artefacts is especially crucial when attempting to measure or recognise the quality of these various formats.

Opportunities

Through the considered selection of social media tools and technologies, the researcher can begin to construct a Personal Learning & Research Environment (PLRE) and use it as a conduit towards membership within Peer Learning & Research Networks (PLRNs), thus giving the networked researcher unprecedented access to, and participation with, their peers on a global scale.

References

Cheverie, J.F., Boettcher, J. & Buschman, J. (2009). "Digital Scholarship in the University Tenure and Promotion Process". Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 40(3), pp. 219-230. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/scp.0.0044 [Accessed 5.4.2013].

Weller, M. (2011). The Digital Scholar: How technology is transforming scholarly practice. London: Bloomsbury Academic


The hemodynamic hypothesis suggests that raised capillary pressure may play a role in the pathogenesis of diabetic microangiopathy. Although patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) and insulin-dependent diabetes NIDDM) develop a similar range of microvascular complications, differences in their expression and prevalence suggest that different pathogenic mechanisms may be operational. Capillary pressure is elevated in IDDM; the aim of this study was to assess whether capillary pressure was also elevated in NIDDM. Twenty-one patients with NIDDM (15 men) and 21 healthy control subjects matched for age, sex, and skin temperature were investigated supine with the hand at heart level. Finger nailfold capillary pressure was measured after direct cannulation at the summit of the capillary loops using glass micropipettes. The groups were matched for skin temperature (30.4 [24.2–33.8]°C, median [95% confidence interval], NIDDM patients vs. 30.0 [23.4–33.6] degrees C control subjects), age (62.0 [39.4–72.7] years NIDDM patients vs. 62.0 [39.4–72.0] years control subjects), and both systolic (sBP) and diastolic (dBP) blood pressures (133.0 [111.0–167.3]/78.0 [57.0–89.5] mmHg NIDDM patients vs. 133.0 [114.1–158.9]/80.0 [68.2–88.9] mmHg control subjects). Capillary pressure did not differ in the two groups (17.6 [13.1–21.2] mmHg NIDDM patients vs. 19.1 [14.1–23.6] mmHg control subjects [NS]). There was no correlation of capillary pressure with either HbA1c or glucose; however, there was a negative association between capillary pressure and diabetes duration (Rs = −0.50, P = 0.020). Although these data provide no evidence of capillary hypertension in patients with NIDDM, at least under resting conditions, they raise the possibility that diabetes of long duration might modify the normal mechanisms controlling capillary pressure.


Abstract Objective We evaluated the ability of third trimester ultrasound to diagnose fetal growth disorders among obese women. Methods This is a retrospective cohort study of obese nulliparous women who delivered term singleton neonates who had an ultrasound within 5 weeks of delivery. We characterized the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of ultrasound to detect large-for-gestational age (LGA) and small-for-gestational age (SGA) infants. Antenatally, LGA and SGA were defined as an ultrasound estimated fetal weight >90% or <10% based on the Hadlock formula. Postnatally, LGA or SGA designation was based on gestational age-based birthweight percentiles. Test characteristics were analyzed for the total cohort and by class of obesity (class II, body mass index [BMI] = 35.0–39.9 kg/m2 versus class III, BMI ≥ 40 kg/m2). We compared the area under the curve for receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves for different classes of obesity. Results Of 690 women, 13 (1.9%) screened positive for SGA and 19 (2.8%) delivered an SGA neonate. In contrast, 158 (22.9%) screened positive for LGA and 97 (14.1%) delivered an LGA neonate. The sensitivity of ultrasound for SGA was 26.3% and the specificity was 98.8%. The sensitivity for LGA was 75.3% and the specificity was 85.7%. The ROC curves did not differ significantly for different classes of obesity (p = .69 for SGA, p = .75 for LGA). Conclusion Ultrasound in obese women who delivered term pregnancies has a high specificity but poor sensitivity for SGA and a low positive predictive value for LGA.


Abstract : Multiagent systems have become increasingly important in developing complex software systems. Multiagent systems introduce collective intelligence and provide benefits such as flexibility, scalability, decentralization, and increased reliability. A software agent is a high-level software abstraction that is capable of performing given tasks in an environment without human intervention. Although multiagent systems provide a convenient and powerful way to organize complex software systems, developing such system is very complicated. To help manage this complexity this research develops a methodology and technique for analyzing, monitoring and troubleshooting multiagent systems execution. This is accomplished by visualizing a multiagent system at multiple levels of abstraction to capture the relationships and dependencies among the agents.


Background Neonatology is a complex specialty where professionals from different backgrounds including neonatal nurses, nurse practitioners and doctors train separately but work together. The exposure to low frequency high risk events needs team working, behavioural and communication skills which traditional education methods fail to address. The Francis1 report endorses multiprofessional simulation to address these issues. The key issue is how we ensure learning for all multiprofessional members in the team. We present a process of curriculum integration to address this problem which other multiprofessional teams may find useful. Method The BAPM has produced a curriculum for nurses which they need to rotate through to be qualified in specialty. In addition the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have got curriculum competencies for neonatal trainees. Educators from the nursing and medical side have integrated the above curriculums through the production of a bank of 25 scenarios (retrograde mapping) which are run as a modular programme. This is administered over a 6 month cycle for the doctors and an annual cycle for the nurses. Results 16 sessions of multidisciplinary training have covered the neonatal airway, access, respiratory problems, cardiac problems, and surgical scenarios. In addition issues identified at governance have been incorporated and mapped back to the curriculum. Potential impact The absence of a defined curriculum for multidisciplinary neonatal training has not prevented implementation of simulation in our set up. However as educators, we cannot presume learning objectives for colleagues in other fields. We have focussed on adapting existing curriculums to meet competencies and learning objectives for all participating individuals. Curriculum integration has helped to formalise the nursing participation in what was a predominantly medical simulation programme with a significant increase in multidisciplinary sessions and participation over 2 years. We provide an example of retrograde mapping in simulation to multidisciplinary teams. Reference Francis R,. (2013). Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry. London: The Stationery office


Simple and economic tests for estimating addictive potential of drugs using conditioned place preference and intravenous self-administration paradigms have been developed. Various groups of substances were revealed among 12 opioids which differed by their potencies in analgesics and reinforcing tests. Index of "narcological safety" and "addictive index" were proposed for comparative evaluation of therapeutic and adverse (addictive) effects. Using the self-administration procedure a group of addictive psychostimulants were investigated and quantitative criteria for the reinforcing action of them were derived. The analgesic and reinforcing effects of morphine have been dissociated by administration of the calcium-channel blocker isradipine.


The purpose of the study is to examine the strategies of managing career plateau among secondary school teachers In Imenti South District. The general objective of the study was to investigate strategies of managing career plateau among secondary school teachers in Imenti south district. \ The research design was descriptive survey because it required the respondents to describe the situation of the career plateau in their schools. Data collection was done mainly by use of questionnaire. The questionnaire was self administered. It had both open-ended questions to allow open thinking of the respondents and closed-ended questions to ensure that the respondents have answers relevant to the objectives. The data. was analyzed by use of descriptive statistics and frequencies determined. Presentations were done in form of tables for easier understanding. The findings were that Career guidance and mentoring affected the desires and intentions of the teachers to move upwards in their career. According to the data analyzed, 80% of the respondents said that mentoring and career guidance was conducted in the schools. The process of performance appraisal had a lot of impact and influence on the career of teaches. According to the analysis 39% of the respondent said that performance appraisal was conducted annually while 61% were not aware whether performance appraisal was actually conducted in schools. Job rotation was not well done as well as the enlargement as 83% of the respondents had worked in the same job group for up to five years. Many of the teachers were not satisfied as 85% of the respondents said that there was no scheme for motivation of the teachers The conclusion was that Involvement of other parties like consultants would be of crucial importance to the teachers as they would be enlightened on growth areas, Career plateau has been used as an antecedent to many undesirable work outcomes such as low satisfaction, high stress, poor performance and other withdrawal symptoms, thus career plateau leads to poor performance. Career plateau would lead to work stress, less job satisfaction, greater work alienation and greater intention to quit. These would affect the organizational performance and may lead to high degree of labor turnover stability of tenure in employment and upward movement enhances commitment and reduces labor turnover in organizations. Recommendations were that the school management should encourage for self motivation and have prompt response to queries as well as have transparent systems, appreciating their efforts and encouraging teachers as well as comfort them when they are low. The school management and the TSC should be careful of what information they release to the media as researchers have indicated that the low status, poor remuneration, constant ridicule in public and the mass media. Challenges in teaching should be encouraged to avoid professional plateau; the point at which employees find their jobs unchallenging and they provide few opportunities for professional development and future employability. Finally Management should help employees cope up with plateau by providing opportunities for lateral growth when opportunities for upward advancement do not exist.


The standard Solver in Excel 97 was applied in order to solve the copolymer composition equation in terminal and penultimate models of copolymerization. An unquestionable advantage of this software is easy access standardbecause Solver is a part of Microsoft Office package. The radical copolymerization of styrene with acrylonitrile in bulk was chosen to prove the usefulness of the calculation procedure of Solver. These monomers system displays a significant penultimate effect. For comparison the classical methods such as curve-fitting, Mayo-Lewis, Fineman-Ross, Kelen-TudOs and Ezrielev-Brokhina-Roskin for the terminal model were also applied. The solutions obtained by Solver for penultimate model were compared with those obtained earlier by non-linear least squares minimizing method and Nelder-Mead simplex method. It was found that the precision of Solver is comparable with those obtained by above methods. The influences of started values, precision and convergence on the values of minimized function and so on the values of set of reactivity ratios have been also studied.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to assess rural-urban differences in mammography and Papanicolaou (Pap) smear screening.

METHODS
Data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (1994-2000, 2002, 2004) were used to examine trends in these two tests by rural-urban residence location.

RESULTS
In 2004, 70.8 percent of rural and 75.7 percent of urban respondents had received timely mammography; this difference remained significant in adjusted analyses and was greatest for women in remote rural locations. Although overall participation in mammography increased over time, a persistent rural-urban gap was identified. In contrast, in 2004, while 83.1 percent of rural and 86.1 percent of urban respondents had received a timely Pap test, the adjusted difference was not significant and Pap testing did not improve over time. Advanced age and low socioeconomic status were associated with a lack of screening.

CONCLUSIONS
Over an 11-year interval, mammography screening improved nationally, but women living in rural locations remained less likely than their urban counterparts to receive this test. However, no secular improvement in Pap testing was found, and no significant rural-urban differences were observed.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Interventions to improve breast cancer screening are needed for rural women. Such efforts should target older women and those with low socioeconomic status.


Background Typhoid fever remains a major health problem in the developing world. Intestinal perforation is a lethal complication and continues to occur in impoverished areas despite advances in preventive and therapeutic strategies. Objectives To estimate the case fatality rate (CFR) and length of hospital stay among patients with typhoid intestinal perforation in developing countries. Data Sources Peer-reviewed publications listed in PubMed and Google Scholar. Study Eligibility The publications containing data on CFR or length of hospitalization for typhoid fever from low, lower middle and upper middle income countries based on World Bank classification. Limits are English language, human research and publication date from 1st January 1991 to 31st December 2011. Participants Subjects with reported typhoid intestinal perforation. Interventions None, standard practice as reported in the publication. Study Appraisal and Synthesis Methods Systematic literature review followed by meta-analysis after regional classification on primary data. Descriptive methods were applied on secondary data. Results From 42 published reports, a total of 4,626 hospitalized typhoid intestinal perforation cases and 706 deaths were recorded (CFR = 15·4%; 95% CI; 13·0%–17·8%) with a significant regional differences. The overall mean length of hospitalization for intestinal perforation from 23 studies was 18.4 days (N = 2,542; 95% CI; 15.6–21.1). Limitations Most typhoid intestinal perforation studies featured in this review were from a limited number of countries. Conclusions The CFR estimated in this review is a substantial reduction from the 39.6% reported from a literature review for years 1960 to 1990. Aggressive resuscitation, appropriate antimicrobial coverage, and prompt surgical intervention may have contributed to decrease mortality. Implications The quantification of intestinal perforation outcomes and its regional disparities as presented here is valuable in prioritizing and targeting typhoid-preventive interventions to the most affected areas.


Fifteen surface soil samples (0 -30 cm) representative of some the Egyptian soils types were collected fromareas along ElsalamCanal, Sinai, Sewa Oasis and El- Nubaria. The samples were five samples from both Sewa Oasis and along ELSalamcanal at west desert and the north coastal, respectively. Four samples fromSinai and one sample fromNubaria. The study areas are irrigating with different irrigation water qualities and have morphological variations. The collected soil samples were chemically analyzed for some chemical and physical properties, total Se, Se fractions and Se species. To assess the behavior of various geological Se, the collected Soil samples were partitioning to investigate the significance of different Se fractions in assessing solid – phase speciation and geochemical transformation. The Se fractions extracted by the partitioning technique were aqueous (0.25 M KCl) exchangeable (1MKH2PO4), acid extractable (4MHCl), sulfide and humic bound (KClO3 + 12M HCl) and siliceous (HNO3+H2SO4+HCLO4). Selenite and Selenate in each sample were measured by hydride generation atomic adsorption spectrometer.The chemical fractionation of soil Se, ranged between, 0.011to 0.293,0.02 to 0.280, 0.03 to 0.360, 0.033 to 1.211 and 0.061 to 0.710 ppm, for aqueous, exchangeable, acid extractable, sulfide and humic bound and siliceous, respectively. The amount of fraction-Se in soils did not correlated significantly with most of the studied soil properties with exception of the siliceous fraction that related significantlywith pH (0.638*). Total Se was found to vary from 0.17 to 1.95 ppm. These levels are positively correlated significantly with exchangeable, acid extractable and sulfide extractable and siliceous fractions. The coefficient correlations were, 0.507*, 0.582*, 0.882**and 0.512*, respectively.Also, the species (Se+4) of aqueous and exchangeable fractions are positively correlated significantly with the total Se. The coefficient correlations were, 0.811** and 0.527*, respectively.


In this practical follow up to Refusing to be a Man, John Stoltenberg uses a combination of case studies, autobiography, checklists and discussion points, to speak directly to men about how the social construction of manhood operates in everyday relationships and to show how these same dynamics drive the behaviour of gangs, race-hate groups, and international imperialism. Readers will find here new perspectives on intimacy, gender, and violence and be pushed to re-examine their ideas of manhood and gender identity generally. Stoltenberg's new introduction sets the book in academic context, summarising the game theory of gender which underlies all his work.


This paper presents the design of a low-voltage frequency synthesizer for Mode-1 MB-OFDM UWB applications. The proposed approach features a new system architecture and circuit implementation with reduced number of on-chip inductors, silicon area and power consumption. The synthesizer is fabricated in a 0.18-µm RF CMOS process, with the measured phase noise level of −119.4 dBc/Hz at 10 MHz offset from carrier (4.488 GHz) and sideband suppression of better than 43.7dBc. This chip occupies a core area of 1.2 × 0.35 mm2 and consumes 29.6 mW from a 1.2V power supply.


Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a heterogeneous and debilitating neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system, characterised by chronic inflammation and demyelination. MS is estimated to affect 2.5 million people worldwide and results in motor, sensory, autonomic and cognitive disabilities. There is currently no cure for MS, and the immunomodulatory therapies available are limited in their efficacy to decelerate disability progression. This disease continues to bear a heavy burden on its affected patients. In a recent breakthrough, the kappa opioid receptor (KOR) system has been presented as a potential target for treating MS through promoting remyelination. The KOR agonist, U-50488H, has been shown to enhance remyelination in both immune and non-immune mediated preclinical models of MS by promoting the differentiation of the oligodendrocyte precursor cell (OPC) population into myelinating oligodendrocytes. However, traditional KOR agonists like U-50488H are unable to progress through clinical trials due to centrally mediated side effects such as stress, sedation, dysphoria, aversion, anxiety and depression. Our laboratory has access to highly selective and structurally unique KOR agonists with increased potency and reduced side effect profiles in comparison to U-50488H.
This thesis investigates the effects of compound A, B, C and U-50488H on remyelination in a non-immune mediated preclinical model of MS known as the cuprizone (CPZ)-mediated demyelination model.
Female C57BL/6 mice were fed a diet containing 0.3% CPZ for 5 to 6 weeks to induce demyelination in the corpus callosum. CPZ was withdrawn, and the mice returned to standard pelleted chow for an additional 4 to 5 weeks. Several techniques were utilised to investigate behaviour, oligodendrocyte numbers, astrogliosis and axonal remyelination. Feeding mice 0.3% CPZ for 5 weeks led to a significant decrease in body weight, extensive astrogliosis and demyelination in the corpus callosum. Withdrawal of CPZ from the diet and treatment with compound A led to a significant recovery in body weight. In the von Frey filament test, CPZ intoxication led to a significant decrease in the threshold to withdrawal following mechanical stimuli. However, CPZ removal from the diet and KOR agonism did not significantly improve threshold. Oligodendrocyte numbers and MBP levels were not significantly different between the CPZ-intoxicated mice and their healthy counterparts following a 4 to 5-week recovery period. This suggests that extensive remyelination had occurred during recovery and the effects of KOR agonism could not be evaluated via immunohistochemistry (IHC) or immunofluorescence (IF). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to evaluate the G-ratios and the percentage of myelinated and unmyelinated axons in the corpus callosum. The CPZ-intoxicated vehicle mice exhibited significantly higher G-ratios in comparison to the healthy control mice, indicating thinner myelin sheaths. KOR agonism led to a significant decrease in G-ratios and therefore recovery of myelin sheath thickness. The CPZ-intoxicated vehicle mice also exhibited a decrease in the percentage of myelinated axons in comparison to the healthy control mice. KOR treatment with compound A led to a significantly higher percentage of myelinated axons in comparison to the CPZ-intoxicated mice and compound B and U-50488H treatment.
In conclusion, we were unable to precisely evaluate the remyelination ability of KOR agonism via IHC or IF. However, TEM allowed us to obtain high-resolution images of axons in the corpus callosum. Compound A showed a significant improvement in myelin sheath thickness and percentage of myelinated axons after toxic demyelination. In conclusion, the use of more objective methods to evaluate demyelination and remyelination, as well as improvements made to the CPZ-mediated demyelination model could prove compound A as a successful remyelination therapy to be used by MS patients in the future.


ABSTRACT Dihydromyricetin (DMY) was encapsulated to lecithin based reverse hexagonal (HII) liquid crystals to improve its solubility limitation. PEG 400 was used as the representative oil phase. The HII mesophases were identified by means of polarized light microscopy (POM) and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). The DMY was solubilized in interface layer inferred from the increase of the interfacial area of per surfactant as and the infrared spectra. The hexagonal samples showed highly elastic Maxwell properties and shear thinning properties indicated by their rheological spectra. Moreover with the decrease of PEG 400 content, the internal structure of samples apparently becomes more stable, as indicated by the increase in the storage and loss moduli and the decrease in as. Oleic acid enhances the viscoelasticity of sample and increases the release stability for DMY under acidic conditions. The in vitro release of DMY in HII matrices showed that carriers have an ideal sustained release effect. The release of DMY was controlled by concentration diffusion. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT


ing, hyperpnoea which occurs when nitrous oxide and oxygen is used with trichlorethylene alone seldom seems to occur. The " Fluotec " vaporizer is fitted next to the flowmeter, so that some of the gases containing fluothane pass through the trichlorethylene bottle before joining the main flow to the patient. Some halothane is therefore deposited in the trichlorethylene bottle and this continues in lessening quantities for at least four hours, when an equilibrium is slowly approached. For at least four hours, therefore, the patient receives less halothane than is indicated by the " Fluotec " vaporizer, though the difference is small. Analyses done by vapour phase chromatography give figures shown in the Tables.


This article addresses functional outcome assessment of adults with cognitive-communicative disorders due to relatively focal right hemisphere brain damage (RBD). Our discussion observes the World Health Organization's orientation on the multidimensional consequences of health conditions. The WHO framework distinguishes specific deficits (impairments) from their functional consequences: disabilities, or restrictions in daily life activities and handicaps, or broader changes in life role participation. Although there is little evidence about the functional aftermath of RBD, especially in relation to cognitive-communicative disorders, we summarize the data and observations that are available and hypothesize about relationships among outcomes at different levels. We also describe some tools and procedures that may be useful for measuring functional outcomes after RBD, along with relevant caveats, and end with a discussion of research needs and future directions, emphasizing gaps that span the range from basic investigation to treatment research to instrument and procedure development.


Disruption era is a period that requires television broadcasters to do media innovation and creativity to keep up with the times and technology. The tight competition in the broadcasting industry requires that media companies are able to survive in the face of competitors. This paper aims to analyze the strategies used by TV9 Lombok, so that still exist in the media competition is intense. Innovation and creativity against the content of the news and entertainment media, as well as the application of divergence be a strategy used by TV9 Lombok to stay afloat. The methods used in this research is qualitative interpretive approach to address the strategies implemented by TV9 Lombok. Results of the study that the application of divergence by TV9 Lombok is to respond to changes in the way the audience in watching television broadcasts that were previously conventionally, but now the public can enjoy the content of television broadcasts online. The concept of this divergence is applied as the effort's effectiveness in promoting the TV9 broadcasts by utilizing streaming youtube, social media to web news portals to closer to their audience. So do TV9 Lombok as efforts in maintaining its existence in the world of broadcasting


Recently, much attention has been given to the presence and increase of transnational crime, particularly focusing on online illicit markets. A seldom-explored aspect of transnational online illicit markets is the rural to urban flow of the illicit goods. This paper details research on the UK puppy trade, documenting the movement of puppies reared in irresponsible and/or illegal conditions in rural locations and then advertised online for the urban market. Through analysis of online advertisements in Scotland and expert interviews, a stakeholder survey, and focus groups across Great Britain, we document the rural-urban dynamic of an overlooked transnational illicit market, a market facilitated by neo-liberalism and speciesism. While estimates on the value of the trade are problematic, the snapshot of online sales in Scotland alone suggests a marketplace with an annual value of at least £13 million (17,680 puppies). The cost of animal suffering associated with this trade is incalculable. Awareness must be raised and regulatory enforcement improved to reduce suffering and stop transnational criminals from profiting. This rural-urban dynamic presents a global challenge and demands an international response.


This study investigates the relationship between manufactured import flows to Australia and relative prices and domestic economic activity over the period 1981Q3 to 1992Q2. This is done through the estimation of import demand functions for total manufactured imports and 29 import product categories defined at the 2-digit level of the AICC by employing the Johansen FIML procedure. The price and activity elasticities will form part of the elasticity files of the MONASH Model, currently being developed at the Centre of Policy Studies. The price elasticities range from 0.24 to 1.75, with a weighted-average of 0.60. We also find evidence of upward bias in price elasticity estimates when an aggregate import function is employed in a context where variation in prices of individual products are negatively correlated with their price elasticities, and when a significant portion of imports are subject to quantitative restrictions (QRs). The unit activity elasticity hypothesis was accepted for one third of our sample. The majority of activity elasticities are greater than one, and usually closer to two.


Since the start of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, levels of loneliness have increased among the general population and especially among sexual minorities, such as gay men and other men who have sex with men, who already experienced more problems with social isolation before the pandemic. We analyzed how the disruption of the social network and social support structures by containment measures impact loneliness among gay and other men having sex with men. Our sample consisted of gay and other men having sex with men who had in person communication with family as well as heterosexual friends and homosexual friends before the lockdown (N = 461). Multivariate regression analyses were performed with social provisions (social interaction and reliable alliance) and loneliness as dependent variables. A change from in-person communication with gay peers before the pandemic to remote-only or no communication with gay peers during the pandemic, mediated by change in social integration, was related to an increased feeling of loneliness during the pandemic compared with before the pandemic. There were some unexpected findings, which should be interpreted in the specific social context of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. On average, social integration and reliable alliance among MSM increased during the lockdown, even though in-person communication decreased and loneliness increased. Our results show it is critical to maintain a view of social support and social loneliness as lodged within larger social and cultural contexts that ultimately shape the mechanisms behind them.


Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are brief events in the gamma-ray sky occurring at an average rate of a few per day. While they are on, they outshine every source of gamma-rays in the sky. In fact, they are the brightest electromagnetic explosions in the Universe. Until 11 years ago, they were undetected at any wavelengths other than gamma-rays, which provided poor directional information and hence no direct clues about their site of origin. The current interpretation of how this energy release is produced is that a large amount of energy is released in a short time (seconds or less) by the collapse of the core of a massive star or the merger of two compact stellar objects. This sudden energy liberation results in a fireball expanding at highly relativistic speed, which undergoes internal dissipation leading to gamma-rays, and later develops into a blast wave as it decelerates in the external medium, producing an afterglow which gets progressively weaker. The afterglows provide information about the nature of the GRB progenitor and the physical processes involved in these explosions. In this Thesis three GRBs are discussed where extensive follow-up observations could be performed. Thereby, this Thesis concentrates on the nature of the GRB progenitors, the phenomenology of the afterglows and the host galaxies. In Chapter 1 a brief introduction is given about this research field, followed by an overview of the Thesis. In Chapter 2 a broader summary is presented about the observational status of the field, including the most popular theoretical models. Chapter 3 contains information about the data gathering at various telescopes worldwide. Chapters 4 to 6 are devoted to certain aspects of GRB follow-up observations, namely the search for signatures of the nature of the GRB progenitors, the phenomenology and physical interpretation of the observed afterglow light as well as the nature of the GRB host galaxies. Chapter 7 finally summarizes the main work and results of the Thesis.


Tech start-ups and, especially, unicorns have become a hot topic of today business world. Significant amounts
of money have been invested in this sector by venture capital funds in the hope of a good return. However,
the criteria and determinants of these investments are fuzzy, and the author has identified a gap in the
scientific literature.
Therefore, the objective of the present paper is to discover the determinants of venture capital investments in
tech start-ups. Based on a secondary dataset, a multifactorial regression model is proposed that explains the
appetence for investment of venture capital funds into tech start-ups. The model shows that the amount of
funding in start-ups will increase as the number of unicorns and exits strengthens.


The paper describes a measurement project aiming at delivering water quality data with the very fine time resolution necessary to discover deterministic elements of the complex process of pollution wash-off from an urban surface. Measurements of rainfall, runoff, turbidity, pH, conductivity and temperature with 10 sec time resolution were performed on a simple urban catchment, i.e . a single impermeable 270 m 2 surface drained by one inlet. The paper presents data collection and some preliminary results.


Both political and security future of the Balkans highly depend on the conditions in a newly created state of Kosovo. Bearing in mind the ethnic Albanian leadership declared unilateral independence in February 2008 and without providing the Serbian minority with durable solution, this paper aims at exploring three possible scenarios following the Kosovo independence. It combines both sides' positions offering wider understanding why each of them feels entitled to the Kosovo's territory and what are the risks if that territory remains only in one side's hands. The three puzzling questions presented in this paper, supported by the concepts from different thinkers (Cox, Buzan, Waever) are arguably among the least discussed ones in contemporary discourse about Kosovo's future.


Overlay networks have become popular in recent times for content distribution and end-system multicasting of media streams. In the latter case, the motivation is based on the lack of widespread deployment of IP multicast and the ability to perform end-host processing. However, constructing routes between various end-hosts, so that data can be streamed from content publishers to many thousands of subscribers is still a challenging problem. First, any routes between end-hosts using trees built on top of overlay networks can increase stress on the underlying physical network, due to multiple instances of the same data traversing a given physical link. Second, because overlay routes between endhosts may traverse physical network links more than once, they increase the end-to-end latency compared to IP-level routing. Third, algorithms for constructing efficient, largescale trees that reduce link stress and latency are typically more complex. This paper therefore compares various methods to construct multicast trees between end-systems, that vary in terms of implementation costs and their quality of mapping from logical overlay to physical network. We describe several algorithms that make trade-offs between algorithmic complexity, physical link stress and latency. While no algorithm is best in all three cases we show how it is possible to efficiently build trees for several thousand subscribers with latencies within a factor of two of the optimal, and link stresses comparable to, or better than, existing technolo-


With the facts mentioned as a beginning it has become customary to reason approximately as follows. Since none of the objects of our Milky Way seem to produce any cosmic rays, these rays probably are not emitted from any of the extragalactic nebulae either, as the spirals among these nebulae are in most respects similar to our own Milky Way. One arrives therefore at one of two hypotheses, either that cosmic rays originate in intergalactic space or that they are survivors from a time when physical conditions in the universe were entirely different from what they are now (Lemattre). On closer scrutiny both hypotheses prove to be very unsatisfactory. On both views one is forced to assume entirely fantastic processes as regards the mode of creation of the rays. Furthermore, on neither of the two hypotheses can it easily be understood why the ratio of the intensity of cosmic rays to the intensity of visible light from extragalactic space is so much greater than unity, whereas the same ratio for our own galaxy is certainly smaller than one (probably less than 0.005) [1].

In the following we make an entirely new proposal, which, we think, removes some of the major difficulties concerning the origin of cosmic rays.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test the potential of an innovative technology-mediated mental training protocol for the empowerment of stress management and neurocognitive efficiency in highly stressful professional contexts, with people who occupy top management positions. The innovative protocol specifically combines mindfulness practice and a wearable neurofeedback system managed via smartphone.

Design/methodology/approach
The longitudinal research included pre- and post-training assessment steps in order to test training effects with respect to subjective level and physiological markers of stress, anxiety and mood profiles, cognitive abilities and markers of neurocognitive efficiency.

Findings
Results showed decreased stress, anxiety, anger and mental fatigue; increased participants' information-processing efficiency; increased electrophysiological markers concerning the balance and reactivity of the mind-brain system; and improved physiological markers of vagal tone.

Research limitations/implications
Though further investigation and replication with larger samples would strengthen present findings, the authors suggest that observed outcomes, together with the limited duration of the overall protocol and of daily practices, make the training a potentially valuable tool especially for people whose professional position imposes time limitations and elevated job duties, thus increasing the risk of drop-out from traditional stress management programs.

Originality/value
The combination of mindfulness-based mental training with the advantages offered by a novel brain-sensing wearable technology allows for overcoming the weak points of traditional approaches (e.g. notable time expense) and optimizing training opportunities and outcomes. Furthermore, this is, to the authors' best knowledge, the first systematic report of the application of such methodology in an organization and with top management professionals.


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