Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a highly contagious viral disease of domestic and wild small ruminants caused by the peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV), which belongs to the genus Morbilivirus in the family Paramyxoviridae. The PPRV causes disease in goats and sheep, as well as in wild ruminants, such as gazelle, deer, antelope, Nubian ibex, gemsbok and others. PPR was first recorded in early 1942 in Ivory Coast, West Africa, and spread to around 70 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia – regions that are home to over 80% of the world's sheep and goats. Until 2018, PPR had never been detected in Europe. On 24th June 2018, however, the Bulgarian authorities reported cases of PPR in sheep in the village of Voden, Bolyarovo municipality of Yambol region, on the border with the Thrace region of Turkey. It was the first occurrence of PPR in Bulgaria and in the European Union (EU). The control and eventual eradication of PPR is now one of the top priorities for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). In 2015, the international community agreed on a global strategy for PPR eradication, setting 2030 as a target date for elimination of the disease. The aim of this paper was to highlight future research that could be performed to guide and facilitate the PPR eradication programme. Such research includes studies on PPR transmission and epidemiology, as well as the development and application of new-generation PPR vaccines capable of differentiating infected from vaccinated animals (DIVA). Moreover, there is a need for research to improve and adapt existing diagnostic techniques as well as to develop novel PPRV recognition methods, such as a lateral flow device for in-field use, that accelerate decisions about the implementation of control measures.


The objective of this study was to determine the influence of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) on fatty acid composition and key enzymes of fatty acid oxidation in liver and muscle of geese. A total of 192 1-day-old geese were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 dietary groups, and were fed for 56 days on diets containing 2.5% soybean oil (group A, control group) or 2.0% soybean oil with 0.5% CLA (group B), 1.0% soybean oil with 1.5% CLA (group C), and 2.5 % CLA (group D). Geese fed CLA had a decreased abdominal fat percentage (AFP) (P < 0.01) compared with the control. It was observed that dietary CLA levels had a significant effect on the body weight, weight gain, feed conversion rate (FCR) (P < 0.05), and feed intake (P < 0.01). Fatty acid composition showed a significant increase of the biologically active cis-9, trans-11 and trans-10, and cis-12 CLA isomers in both liver and muscle of geese fed CLA (P < 0.01). Dietary CLA led to an increase (P < 0.01) in saturated fatty acid (SFA) and a reduction in monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) (P < 0.05) concentrations in both liver and muscle. In liver, dietary CLA increased (P < 0.05) acyl CoA oxidase (ACO) activity, but did not affect carnitine palmitoyltransferase-I (CPT-I) activity compared with the control. CPT-I activity was significantly increased by 2.5% dietary CLA in muscle, where ACO activity was decreased at 1.5% CLA level. The results obtained suggested that geese can successfully incorporate CLA in both liver and muscle, which could be beneficial in the human diet, through provision of bioactive fatty acids with no detrimental effects on n-3 PUFA levels.


One-half mile has become the accepted distance for gauging a transit station's catchment area in the U.S. It is the de facto standard for planning TODs (transit oriented developments) in America. Planners and researchers use transit catchment areas not only to make predictions about transit ridership and the land use and socioeconomic impacts of transit, but also to prescribe regulations, such as the relaxation of restrictive zoning, or carve out TOD financial plans. This radius is loosely based on the distance that people are willing to walk to transit, but this same reasoning has been used to justify other transit catchment areas. Using station-level variables from 1,449 high-capacity American transit stations in 21 cities, we aim to identify whether there is clear benchmark between distance and ridership that provides a norm for station-area planning and prediction. For the purposes of predicting station-level transit ridership, we find that different catchment areas have little influence on a model's predictive power. This suggests that transit agencies should use the easiest and most readily available data when estimating direct demand models. For prescribing land-use policy, by contrast, the evidence is less clear. Nevertheless, we find some support for using a quarter-mile catchment area for jobs around transit and a half-mile catchment for population. While these distances will likely vary from place to place and depending on the study purpose, they are a good starting point for considering transit-oriented policy or collecting labor-intensive data, such as surveys, about transit-adjacent firms or households.


Let $G$ be an $n$-vertex $m$-edge graph with weighted vertices. A pair of vertex sets $A,B \subseteq V(G)$ is a $\frac{2}{3} - \textit{separation}$ of $\textit{order}$ $|A \cap B|$ if $A \cup B = V(G)$, there is no edge between $A \backslash B$ and $B \backslash A$, and both $A \backslash B$ and $B \backslash A$ have weight at most $\frac{2}{3}$ the total weight of $G$. Let $\ell \in \mathbb{Z}^+$ be fixed. Alon, Seymour and Thomas [$\textit{J. Amer. Math. Soc.}$ 1990] presented an algorithm that in $\mathcal{O}(n^{1/2}m)$ time, either outputs a $K_\ell$-minor of $G$, or a separation of $G$ of order $\mathcal{O}(n^{1/2})$. Whether there is a $\mathcal{O}(n+m)$ time algorithm for this theorem was left as open problem. In this paper, we obtain a $\mathcal{O}(n+m)$ time algorithm at the expense of $\mathcal{O}(n^{2/3})$ separator. Moreover, our algorithm exhibits a tradeoff between running time and the order of the separator. In particular, for any given $\epsilon \in [0,\frac{1}{2}]$, our algorithm either outputs a $K_\ell$-minor of $G$, or a separation of $G$ with order $\mathcal{O}(n^{(2-\epsilon )/3})$ in $\mathcal{O}(n^{1+\epsilon} +m)$ time.


The books reviewed in this section explore feminist politics in a global frame. They will include writings in feminist international relations, but will also feature multi-disciplinary scholarship pertaining to global gender relations. The section will be made up of a combination of several distinct elements: Rethinking the Canon, Feminist Classics/Many Voices, review essays and book reviews. 'Rethinking the Canon', gives space for an individual to reflect on one text that they feel ought to be essential reading for feminists working on global issues, but which is likely to be marginalized by existing disciplinary boundaries: they are invited to bring the text to our attention and to explain why it is essential reading. 'Feminist Classics/Many Voices', by contrast, will include several short appraisals of a book already widely considered a classic for feminists working on global issues. Reviewers will draw on their distinct disciplinary, geographical and personal locations to offer diverse readings of the classic text. Review essays will survey several texts on a single theme, aiming either to explore a recent debate that has generated a range of new publications or to survey the best of the literature covering a more established area of research. The book reviews will provide brief introductions to, and evaluations of, as broad a range of new publications as space allows. Anyone with suggestions for texts to be reviewed, or requests to contribute to the section, is encouraged to contact the Reviews Editor, Catherine Eschle, email@example.com at Department of Government, University of Strathclyde, 16 Richmond Street, Glasgow, G1 1XQ, UK.


Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection is a serious problem in patientshospitalized with cancer, cystic fibrosis (CF) and in intensive care units (ICUs). Twitchingmotility contributes to the virulence of P. aeruginosa and permits colonizationand infection of the respiratory tract. Genetic relatedness and cross-infection bymultidrug-resistant (MDR) P. aeruginosa could be identified by the random amplifiedpolymorphic (RAPD) – PCR genotypic identification system.


The purpose of this study is to examine relationship between corporate governance and its environmental disclosures. Corporate governance are identified as the proportion of independent
commissioner, the ethnic of commissioner president, the educational background of commissioner president, the number of commissary board meeting, the proportion of independent audit committee, and the number of audit committee meeting. This study includes industry type and firm size as control variable. Companies' environmental disclosures are measured by using the
Indonesian Environmental Reporting index that developed by Suhardjanto, Tower and Brown (2007). Under proportional random sampling method, 90 Indonesian listed companies' annual reports are selected. From the sample, there is fourthy nine percent (49%) disclosed environmental
information with level of five point four percent (5.4%). This study employed a data testing technique: classical assumption, descriptive statistic, and hypothesis test using logistic regression, multiple regression, t-test, and ANOVA.
Analysis of statistical results the proportional of independent commissioner, the ethnic of
commissioner president and the firm size are as significant predictors to environmental
disclosure.


The role of the nonprofit sector in the European Community is widely recognized by the Commission and European Parliament, which look to these organizations to promote the development and integration of EU citizens in activities relevant to the societies of member states. Recognizing the importance of these enterprises, European central bodies seek to promote growth through funding programs for training and professionalization and through communications that define the roles and the operations of these entities. This social economy or Third Sector is very heterogeneous, not only in the types of organizations and operations, but also in the types of relationships with civil society and especially in reporting and accounting practices (Jerger and Lapsley, 1998). The European Commission and Parliament have largely avoided issuing specific rules for financial reporting applicable to all players in the social economy. (Not-for-profit enterprises engaged in business, mainly cooperatives and social cooperatives, are covered in an indirect way by the Community directive in accounting.) A large area of doubt results, particularly concerning associations and foundations, which makes it difficult to gauge the results of these actors' contributions to the social economy. The gray area, paradoxically, covers just those types of entities that have become more pervasive within civil society and that are especially well positioned to promote integration among EU citizens. The enlargement of the Community to twenty-five nations, connected with the free movement of people and activities, raises to extraordinary importance the need for a framework for nonprofits to report accounting information and a model annual budget that are common to all European states. Developing a common framework requires an analysis of national accounting models, including the role of cultural factors (Doupnika and Riccio 2006). It is therefore vital to develop cultural and legislative analyses for those countries that have imposed accounting requirements on players in the Third Sector. Through these analyses, we may derive a path for the creation of a single accounting model. This article seeks to highlight possible areas of overlap in accounting models, through an analysis of accounting regulations applicable to not-for-profit organizations in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy.


Abstract An online health-care community (OHC) is a novel channel through which doctors share medical or health-care knowledge with patients. While the sustainable development of an OHC relies on doctors' participation, we have limited information on how doctors can gain benefits from OHCs. In attempting to close this knowledge gap, we examine the determinants of social and economic returns of doctors at OHCs by extending the social exchange theory into the professional domain. The notion of professional capital, as a set of renewable resources for social professionals developed by good education within a territory of social practice, is introduced to understand the unique resources available to doctors for social exchange. Specifically, we examine the effects of status capital and decisional capital (two dimensions of professional capital) on doctors' social and economic returns. Moreover, we explore how such effects differ across different doctor groups. The results show that, in addition to the widespread pursuit of celebrity doctors (who can be recognized by their high status capital) offline, the doctor's decisional capital is also an important professional component in maintaining exchange returns at OHCs. This study provides empirical evidence of the relationship between professional capital and the exchange returns, and extends prior research on OHCs through a professional capital perspective with implications for theory and practice.


Cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by the loss of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) function and results in a respiratory phenotype that is characterized by dehydrated mucus and bacterial infections that affect CF patients throughout their lives. Much of the morbidity and mortality in CF results from a failure to clear bacteria from the lungs. What causes the defect in the bacterial clearance in the CF lung has been the subject of an ongoing debate. Here we discuss the arguments for and against the role of the epithelial sodium channel, ENaC, in the development of CF lung disease.


Previous studies have shown that the acute stimulation of endothelial nitric-oxide synthase (eNOS) mRNA transcription by laminar shear stress is dependent on nuclear factor κ B (NFκB) subunits p50 and p65 binding to a shear stress response element (SSRE) in the human eNOS promoter and that mutation of the SSRE abrogates the shear-stimulated increase in eNOS promoter activity. In the present study, we found that although shear markedly increased eNOS mRNA, the increase in nuclear translocation of p50 and p65 caused by shear was only 2-fold, suggesting that shear has additional effects on NFκB cofactor activity beyond nuclear translocation. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays showed that virtually no p50 or p65 was bound to the eNOS promoter at base line but that shear increased the binding of these subunits to the human eNOS SSRE by 10- to 20-fold. Co-immunoprecipitation studies demonstrated during the first 30 min of shear p300 bound to p65. Shear also increased p300 histone acetyltransferase (HAT) activity by 2.5-fold and increased acetylation of p65. The increase in eNOS mRNA caused by shear was completely blocked by pharmacological inhibition of p300/HAT activity with curcumin or by p300 small interfering RNA. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays also showed that shear stimulated acetylation of histones 3 and 4 at the region of the eNOS promoter SSRE and extended 3′ toward the eNOS coding region. This was associated with opening of chromatin at the SSRE. In conclusion, these studies reveal a previously unknown role of p300/HAT activation as a very early response to shear that is essential for increasing eNOS mRNA levels.


In North Africa, on the beaches at Normandy, and in the Battle of the Bulge, Dwight David Eisenhower proved himself as one of the world's greatest military leaders. Faced with conciliating or disagreeing with such stormy figures as Churchill, Roosevelt, and DeGaulle, and generals like Montgomery and Patton, General Eisenhower showed himself to be as skillful a diplomat as he was a strategist. Stephen E. Ambrose, associate editor of the General's official papers, analyzes his subject's decisions in The Supreme Commander, which Doubleday first published in 1970. Throughout the book Ambrose traces the steady development of Eisenhower's generalcy--from its dramatic beginnings through his time at the top post of Allied command. The New York Times Book Review said of The Supreme Commander, "It is Mr. Ambrose's special triumph that he has been able to fight through the memoranda, the directives, plans, reports, and official self-serving pieties of the World War II establishment to uncover the idiosyncratic people at its center. ... General Dwight Eisenhower comes remarkably alive. ...[Ambrose's] angle of sight is so fresh and lively that one reads as if one did not know what was coming next. It is better than that: One does know what's coming next--not only the winning of a war but the making of a general--but the interest is in seeing how." This study of Eisenhower's role in the world's biggest war is absorbing as reading and invaluable as a reference. Stephen E. Ambrose was Director Emeritus of the Eisenhower Center, Boyd Professor of History at the University of New Orleans, and president of the National D- Day Museum. He was the author of many books, most recently "The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisana Purchase to Today." His compilation of 1,400 oral histories from American veterans and authorship of over 20 books established him as one of the foremost historians of the Second World War in Europe. He died October 13, 2002, in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.


Background: Errorless learning continues to be much debated in rehabilitation literature. Emerging data suggest that errorless learning is as effective as errorful learning when applied to the treatment of aphasic word-finding difficulties (Fillingham, Hodgson, Sage, & Lambon Ralph, 2003; Fillingham, Sage, & Lambon Ralph, in press; Fillingham, Sage, & Lambon Ralph, 2005).Aims: This paper presents a third investigation, which was designed to replicate this result and also to explore and extend other important and interesting findings from the previous empirical studies: (1) that withdrawing feedback during therapy (not giving information about whether a patient's response was correct or not) does not prevent learning; (2) that frontal executive skills are a predictor of therapy outcome but not language skill. We also used this third study to explore whether the number of naming attempts during therapy affects outcome.Methods & Procedures: Seven of the original eleven participants took part in a multiple baseline, crossover, case-series design.Outcomes & Results: The previous results were replicated: errorless and errorful therapy produced equivalent results immediately post-therapy and at follow-up. There was no effect of omitting feedback—the participants learned equally well without therapists' feedback. Also, executive/problem-solving skills and monitoring ability again predicted immediate naming improvements not language ability. In addition, we found that increasing the number of naming attempts during therapy affected learning outcome.Conclusions: The final section of the paper draws together the results of all three studies, and their implications for the treatment of aphasic word-finding difficulties are discussed.


Abstract In this paper, the author examines the burden of proof in the argu- mentative confrontations taking part in practices of political accountability. She does so by explaining how politicians maneuver strategically with the burden of proof in an attempt at winning the discussion in which they are involved. After making clear the role of the burden of proof in defining the difference of opinion in argumentative confrontations, the author outlines the constraints imposed by practices of political accountability on the burden of proof. Finally, she analyzes in detail a concrete case in which a politician maneuvers in such a way that his burden of proof is significantly diminished.


The objective of this experiment was to examine potential differential methylation of DNA as a mechanism for altered behavioral and stress responses in prenatally stressed (PNS) compared with non-prenatally stressed (Control) young bull calves. Mature Brahman cows (n = 48) were transported for 2-h periods at 60 ± 5, 80 ± 5, 100 ± 5, 120 ± 5, and 140 ± 5 d of gestation (Transported group) or maintained as non-transported Controls (n = 48). From the offspring born to Transported and Control cows, a subset of 28-d-old intact bulls (n = 7 PNS; n = 7 Control) were evaluated for methylation of DNA of behavior and stress response associated genes. Methylation of DNA from white blood cells was assessed via reduced representation bisulfite sequencing methods. Because increased methylation of DNA within gene promoter regions has been associated with decreased transcriptional activity of the corresponding gene, differentially methylated (P ≤ 0.05) CG sites (cytosine followed by a guanine nucleotide) located within promoter regions (n = 1,205) were used to predict (using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis software) alterations to canonical pathways in PNS compared with Control bull calves. Among differentially methylated genes (P ≤ 0.05) related to behavior and the stress response were OPRK1, OPRM1, PENK, POMC, NR3C2, TH, DRD1, DRD5, COMT, HTR6, HTR5A, GABRA4, GABRQ, and GAD2. Among altered (P < 0.05) signaling pathways related to behavior and the stress response were Opioid Signaling, Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone Signaling, Dopamine Receptor Signaling, Dopamine-DARPP32 Feedback in cAMP Signaling, Serotonin Receptor Signaling, and GABA Receptor Signaling. Alterations to behavior and stress response-related genes and canonical pathways supported previously observed elevations in temperament score and serum cortisol through weaning in the larger population of PNS calves from which bulls in this study were derived. Differential methylation of DNA and predicted alterations to behavior and stress response-related pathways in PNS compared with Control bull calves suggest epigenetic programming of behavior and the stress response in utero.


Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have potential for multilineage differentiation and provide a resource for stem cell-based treatment. However, the therapeutic effect of iPS cells on acute kidney injury (AKI) remains uncertain. Given that the oncogene c-Myc may contribute to tumorigenesis by causing genomic instability, herein we evaluated the therapeutic effect of iPS cells without exogenously introduced c-Myc on ischemia–reperfusion (I/R)-induced AKI. As compared with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS)-treated group, administration of iPS cells via intrarenal arterial route into kidneys improved the renal function and attenuated tubular injury score at 48 h after ischemia particularly at the dose of 5 × 105 iPS cells. However, a larger number of iPS cells (5 × 107 per rat) diminished the therapeutic effects for AKI and profoundly reduced renal perfusion detected by laser Doppler imaging in the reperfusion phase. In addition, the green fluorescence protein-positive iPS cells mobilized to the peritubular area at 48 h following ischemia, accompanied by a significant reduction in infiltration of macrophages and apoptosis of tubular cells, and a remarkable enhancement in endogenous tubular cell proliferation. Importantly, transplantation of iPS cells reduced the expression of oxidative substances, proinflammatory cytokines, and apoptotic factors in I/R kidney tissues and eventually improved survival in rats of ischemic AKI. Six months after transplantation in I/R rats, engrafted iPS cells did not result in tumor formation in kidney and other organs. In summary, considering the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antiapoptotic properties of iPS cells without c-Myc, transplantation of such cells may be a treatment option for ischemic AKI.


SIR,-I read the report by Mr B P Gardner and Mr 0 S Gordon (26 June, p 1914) with some concern as the authors do not make it clear what they regard as "infection in shunts." They do not make it clear whether, on the one hand, they are discussing colonisation of ventriculoatrial, peritoneal, or pleural shunts or, on the other hand, infection of the wounds after their insertion. Secondly, they make no attempt to differentiate between infection in ventriculoatrial, ventriculoperitoneal, and pleural shunts. Thirdly, if they are discussing colonisation of shunts they do not tell us how they establish that this infection is present or what evidence they have that their infection rate is not higher. It would be of considerable importance to know that the diagnosis was established on blood culture, culture of cerebrospinal fluid after ventricular valve taps, and culture of valves or catheters removed at subsequent operations. There is no mention of staphylococcal antibody titres. Even taking all this into account, reinfections in 200 consecutive cases provided an incidence of 1 5%'. Without the above information it would seem likely that the incidence was much higher. J 0 N LAWSON


The purpose of this investigation was to measure the conversion of five inlay materials with different curing methods. In particular, the influence of secondary curing in light ovens--that is, additional curing with light and heat simultaneously--was evaluated. The conversion was determined by infrared multiple internal reflection spectroscopy. The inlays were cured with three curing methods (A, B, and C). The conversion was recorded immediately after ended curing and after an additional storage period (postcuring). The mean conversion with method A, using a handheld curing unit, was 42.1% and increased significantly to a mean of 55.4% during the storage period at (37 +/- 1) degrees C. Both curing methods B and C, including the use of light ovens, gave a mean conversion of 65%, which did not increase significantly during the storage period. This investigation demonstrated that the degree of conversion depends on the curing method used.


Locomotor activity (LMA) is a simple and easily performed measurement of behavior in mice and other rodents. Improvements in video tracking software (VTS) have allowed it to be coupled to LMA testing, dramatically improving specificity and sensitivity when compared to the line crossings method with manual scoring. In addition, VTS enables high-throughput experimentation. While similar to automated video tracking used for the open field test (OFT), LMA testing is unique in that it allows mice to remain in their home cage and does not utilize the anxiogenic stimulus of bright lighting during the active phase of the light-dark cycle. Traditionally, LMA has been used for short periods of time (mins), while longer movement studies (hrs-days) have often used implanted transmitters and biotelemetry. With the option of real-time tracking, long-, like short-term LMA testing, can now be conducted using videography. Long-term LMA testing requires a specialized, but easily constructed, cage so that food and water (which is usually positioned on the cage top) does not obstruct videography. Importantly, videography and VTS allows for the quantification of parameters, such as path of mouse movement, that are difficult or unfeasible to measure with line crossing and/or biotelemetry. In sum, LMA testing coupled to VTS affords a more complete description of mouse movement and the ability to examine locomotion over an extended period of time.


Introduction Incisional hernia at the extraction site (ESIH) is one of the common complications after laparoscopic colorectal resection. Information about the risk factors for ESIH could be useful in order to introduce preventive measures. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prevalence and the risk factors for ESIH in a large cohort study. Method We reviewed a prospectively collected database from November 2006 to October 2013 including all patients who underwent elective laparoscopic right or extended right colectomy for cancer. Demographics, clinical data, length and site of extraction were included. All of patients have been followed up with a minimum of one year with CT scan. Multivariate regression analysis was performed to identify risk factors for ESIH in these patients. Results A total of 292 patients were included. During a median follow-up of 42 months (range 12–96), 20 patients (6.8%) developed ESIH. The rate of ESIH was higher in the patients with umbilical midline incision (9.1%) than other sites (3.4%). However this difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.062). In the multivariable analysis a BMI > 30 (odds ratio [OR] = 3.76, 95% confidence interval CI 1.39–10.15; p = 0.009) and an incision length more than 5 cm (OR: 2.86, 95% CI: 1.077–7.60; p = 0.035) were significant predicting variables contributing to the risk of developing ESIH. Conclusion This study identified several factors that could be useful to introduce preventive measures in high risk patients such as mesh closure, reducing the length of incision by intracorporeal anastomosis and non-umbilical extraction site in high-risk patients. Disclosure of interest None Declared.


This research aimed to investigate the effectiveness of digital visual learning in developing the cognitive performance of female students of the first undergraduate stage majoring in teaching primary stages (enrolled in Methods of Teaching Science (3) course) at faculty of education in Saudi Arabia. To achieve the purpose of study, the researcher used several models of applications of electronic mind maps software. The study sample is purposive which consisted of (95) female students. The experimental group consisted of (46) female students and the control group of (49) students. The researcher used the qualitative and quantitative research methodology (the quasi-experimental methodology) . The researcher used two tools, A Pre - Post Test was applied in the study. In the qualitative approach used the interview technique for collecting data. The results showed statistically significant differences in favor of the experimental group that show the effect of digital visual learning is effective. And the students in the experimental group asked to apply electronic mind maps in the curriculum and include them in the teaching methods. The researcher recommends using the electronic mind maps in developing the cognitive performance in the science curriculum, and inclusion of electronic concept maps applications in teaching methods for university courses, and provide training opportunities for students to use these applications.


A crucial part of any recommendation system for manufactured goods is the method used to evaluate the similarity of products. However, despite being central to the performance of many online retailers, current ways of evaluating product similarity are inconsistent with several characteristics of human perception and consequently often generate obvious errors when applied in practice. This paper proposes a new approach that uses the results of a perceptual evaluation of respondents to determine their "inherent knowledge hierarchy." Using this characterization of the user, we propose a new strategy for determining the perceived similarity of products (PSIM strategy). After a systematic evaluation of the proposed approach, we found that the performance of the PSIM strategy is much better than current strategies in terms of both accuracy and robustness. Beyond the application of PSIM in product recommendation systems, the findings of this study have the potential to help designers and companies better understand their customers' emotional needs.


The main objective in this thesis is to control the power consumption of a lattice boom offshore crane in order to reduce frequency variations and prevent blackouts. After studying how the electrically powered offshore lattice boom cranes works and are put together, a dynamic model of the power consumption for a crane was developed. By using the moment balance for the different systems on the crane (hoisting, luffing and slewing) the torque needed to drive the system at a given speed is calculated. A model of a diesel generator was also implemented. This model was found in an technical article, and implemented mainly by using parameters for a 440kW diesel generator. Some of the parameters had to be found in other literature. These values are "typical values" for diesel generators, and may be the cause of that the modelled diesel generator has a relatively slow response. Two datasets were received from National Oilwell Varco Molde AS(NOV) which shows total load in kW and the corresponding RPM of the diesel generator from an actual crane. The load sequences from these datasets were extracted in order to have realistic load scenarios for simulations. The next step was to set up three different simulation scenarios in order to explore the advantages of feeding the measured load forward to the regulator of the RPM of the diesel generator. The first scenario was made by using the model of the crane with a sequence of different reference speeds for the speed controllers for the three systems on the crane. The two other scenarios are using the load sequences from the two datasets received from NOV. After running these three simulation scenarios both with and without the feed forward and studying how this influenced the RPM of the diesel generator, the conclusion was that it reduced the variations of the RPM. The small variations were almost completely removed, while large variations in the load still caused peaks in the RPM even though they were reduced. The large peaks still remained because of that the diesel generator has a limit to how fast it can increase its produced power. When the total load consumed by the crane has a large instant increase, the diesel generator does not manage to follow and in worst case, it blacks out. Therefore this had to be prevented by limiting the rate of change of the load, so that it does not increase faster than that the diesel generator manages to increase its produced power. In this project a MATLAB function is used to limit the requested load from the different speed controllers for the three systems on the crane. In addition to the rate of change, it also has to control that the total consumed load does not exceed the maximum load that the generator is able to produce. When sharing the power between the different systems, the hoisting system has a 100\% priority, while the luffing and the slewing system shares the remaining power available based on how many percent of their maximum power consumed they requests. The effect of this limitation is shown by running a simulation by using the first simulation scenario. The reason for choosing the load sequence that is generated by running the crane model is that the loads for the different systems are available separately, whereas in the datasets received from NOV only the combined total load is available. The conclusion is that the combination of the feed forward and the limitation of the requested load and the rate of change of the requested load, helps reduce the variations in the RPM of the diesel generator significantly. Thereby the variations in the frequency are reduced and an eventual power blackout is prevented.


Abstract. We present a review of selected data-analysis methods that are frequently applied in studies of ionospheric electrodynamics and magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling using ground-based and space-based data sets. Our focus is on methods that are data driven (not simulations or statistical models) and can be used in mesoscale studies, where the analysis area is typically some hundreds or thousands of km across. The selection of reviewed methods is such that most combinations of measured input data (electric field, conductances, magnetic field and currents) that occur in practical applications are covered. The techniques are used to solve the unmeasured parameters from Ohm's law and Maxwell's equations, possibly with help of some simplifying assumptions. In addition to reviewing existing data-analysis methods, we also briefly discuss possible extensions that may be used for upcoming data sets.


OBJECTIVE: To determine the relations between left atrial appendage function, spontaneous echo contrast, and thromboembolism in patients with different modes of permanent pacemakers. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 88 patients with pacemaker implantation and 25 healthy controls in sinus rhythm had transoesophageal echocardiographic examination of the left atrial appendage. Left atrial size, appendage area, peak filling and emptying velocities of the atrial appendage, and the presence or absence of spontaneous echo contrast and thromboembolism were determined. The results in 63 patients with ventricular pacing (group 1, subdivided into subgroup 1A: 42 patients with sinus rhythm, and subgroup 1B: 21 patients with atrial fibrillation) were compared with those in 25 patients with synchronous pacing (group 2), and 25 normal control subjects (group 3). RESULTS: Patients with ventricular pacing had two distinct appendage flow patterns: well defined biphasic filling and emptying waves in subgroup 1A, and irregular very low filling and emptying waves in subgroup 1B. The ejection fraction of the left atrial appendage in subgroup 1A was significantly better than that in subgroup 1B (mean (SD) 40.6 (12.0)% v 7.6 (5.0)%, P < 0.0001). The spontaneous echo contrast was observed in 90% of subgroup 1B patients but in only 19% in subgroup 1A (P < 0.05) and was not found in groups 2 and 3 (P < 0.0001). There was a trend for increased prevalence of spontaneous echo contrast in subgroup 1A v group 2 (P = 0.053). Thrombi were detected in two cases, and cardiogenic embolism occurred in one case in subgroup 1B. All patients with spontaneous echo contrast had ventricular pacing. Multivariate analysis showed that atrial fibrillation was associated with occurrence of spontaneous echo contrast in patients with ventricular pacing (P = 0.005). CONCLUSIONS: The left atrial appendage ejection fraction was lower with ventricular pacing than with synchronous pacing. With ventricular pacing there was a trend towards increased prevalence of left atrial spontaneous echo contrast in patients in sinus rhythm, and a significantly increased prevalence in patients with atrial fibrillation.


Regression testing, which can improve the quality of software systems, is a useful but time consuming method. Many techniques have been introduced to reduce the time cost of regression testing. Among these techniques, test case prioritization is an effective technique which can reduce the time cost by processing relatively more important test cases at an earlier stage. Previous works have demonstrated that some greedy algorithms are effective for regression test case prioritization. Those algorithms, however, have lower stability and scalability. For this reason, this paper proposes a new regression test case prioritization approach based on the improved Annealing-Genetic algorithm which incorporates Simulated Annealing algorithm and Genetic algorithm to explore a bigger potential solution space for the global optimum. Three Java programs and five C programs were employed to evaluate the performance of the new approach with five former approaches such as Greedy, Additional Greedy, GA, etc. The experimental results showed that the proposed approach has relatively better performance as well as higher stability and scalability than those former approaches.


This research examined when, and for whom, American collective nostalgia can relieve feelings of collective guilt. In the Pilot Study, path analyses revealed that national glorification is associated with collective nostalgia, and collective nostalgia is associated with lower collective guilt. Our experimental studies test the role of these variables in determining responses to the elevated salience of past ingroup harm doing. Collective nostalgia was associated with lower collective guilt especially after reminders of America's harm doing in Study 1. In Study 2 we predicted and showed that reminders of American harm doing would evoke spontaneous collective nostalgia for participants high in national glorification. The remaining studies tested the hypothesis that collective nostalgia serves to buffer collective guilt. Collective guilt was lower after reminders of past harm doing for participants who engaged in in collective nostalgia (Study 3), and this was especially pronounced for participants high in national glorification (Study 4).


TRPM channels are a subgroup of the transient receptor potential (TRP) channel superfamily whose members have important roles in cell proliferation and survival. TRPM2, the second subfamily member to be cloned, is expressed in many tissues including brain, heart, vasculature and haematopoietic cells. TRPM2 is activated by oxidative stress and several other extracellular signals including tumour necrosis factor α (TNF‐α) and amyloid β‐peptide, which increase production of ADP‐ribose (ADPR). ADPR binds to the TRPM2 C‐terminal NUDT9‐H domain, activating the channel. Early studies support the paradigm that TRPM2 activation induces cell death by sustained Ca2+ influx or by enhancing cytokine production, aggravating inflammation and tissue injury. However, more recent data show that for a number of physiological processes, TRPM2 is protective. TRPM2 protects lungs from endotoxin‐induced injury by reducing reactive oxygen species (ROS) production by phagocytes. It protects hearts from oxidative damage after ischaemia–reperfusion or hypoxia–reoxygenation by maintaining better mitochondrial bioenergetics and by decreasing ROS. Sustained Ca2+ entry through TRPM2 is required to maintain cellular bioenergetics and protect against hypoxia–reoxygenation injury. TRPM2 also protects neuroblastoma from moderate oxidative stress by decreasing ROS through increased levels of forkhead box transcription factor 3a (FOXO3a) and a downstream effector, superoxide dismutase 2. TRPM2 is important for tumour growth and cell survival through modulation of hypoxia‐inducible transcription factor expression, mitochondrial function and mitophagy. These findings in cardiac ischaemia and in neuroblastoma suggest that TRPM2 has a basic role in sustaining mitochondrial function and in cell survival that applies to a number of physiological systems and pathophysiological processes including ischaemia–reperfusion injury.


The purpose of this article is to review the main challenges to the principle of free movement of persons in theory and practice in an enlarged European Union. The right to move freely represents one of the fundamental freedoms of the internal market as well as an essential political element of the package of rights linked to the very status of EU citizenship. The scope ratione personae and the current state of the principle of free movement of persons is assessed by looking at the most recent case law of the Court of Justice and the recently adopted Directive on the rights of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States. But what are the hidden and visible obstacles to free movement of persons in Europe? How can these barriers be overcome to make free movement and residence rights more inclusive? This article addresses these issues along with the following questions: Who are the beneficiaries of the free movement of persons in an enlarged Europe? What is the impact of the recent legal developments in the freedom of movement dimension, such as the European Court of Justice case law and the new Directive? And to what extent are pro-security policies such as the Schengen Information System II and an enhanced interoperability between European databases fully compatible with the freedom of movement paradigm?


Mathematics information retrieval (MIR) is a domain specific branch of Information Retrieval. MIR aims at searching information in documents with significant amount of mathematical content in the form of expressions and formulae. Based on the newly established international MIR evaluation forum and on the number of MIR related research groups around the world, it is definitely on the rise. In this work I have summarized and compared different approaches to math-aware search systems. More detailed description of Math Indexer and Searcher (MIaS) was provided as this is our system created at Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, primarily designed and developed by me. MIaS is currently reported as the best performing MIR system in terms of effectiveness. In this work I proposed several topics which are main research interests of my studies. The topics correlate with possible features that can improve the effectiveness of MIR systems. Namely, the proposed topics are math formula substree unification, integration of algebraic computational power into the indexing as well as searching phase, query expansion as a way of increasing recall, query variables, combination of more approaches within one system and a utilization of combination of text and math search. One topic that spans over all other topics is evaluation which is a necessity in a process of continuous improvement of effectiveness.


urinary excretion of calcium even when differences in glomerular filtration rates were disregarded. As possible expdanations for their observation of maximum excretion during the period May-September, with a zenifth in July or August, they mentioned changes in dietary calcium intake and the seasonal variations which the serum level of 25-4hydiroxycholecalsiferol (25-OHGC) is known to undergo, or possibly a combination of both, since the zenith of serum 25-OHCC occurs later than that of the urinary calcium excretion. We have studied the same problem by performing simultaneous determinations of the 24-hour urinary calcium excretion and the 24-hour clearance of creatinine in 26 healthy volunteers taking a standard diet. The estimated conten-ts of this diet were 800 nmg of calcium, 900-1100 mg of phosphorus, and 60-140 mmol (mEq) of sodium per day and 1 g of protein per kg body weight per day. There were 17 male subjects aged 21-29 (average 24) years and nine females aged 20-54 (average 34) years. Twelve, including five females, were studied from May to September inclusive and 14 (four females) from October to April inclusive. Assessment was undertaken as well of the 24-hour urinary calcium excretion, both uncorrected (UCaV (mg/24 h)), and corrected for variations in the clearance of creatnine (C(cr (mi/min)) according to the formula (UCaV X 100)13cr. The importance of relating UCaV to Ccr in one way or another has been stressed repeatedly.1-4 As evaluated by Student's t test the clearancecorrected excretion was found to be significanly higher during summer, the mean (±+SD.) being 225 ±61 mg/24 h as against 165 ± 37 mg/24 h during the winter (t= 3-115, P<0-01). The figures for uncorrected excretion were 230±66 mg/24 h and 199± 47 mg/24 h respectively (t= 1-404, P>0-10). Despite the small number of observations the monthly averages displayed a pattern (see fig.) very similar to that so nicely presented by Dr. Robertson and his oolileagues.


The objective of this study was to determine toxicity and immune status of HIV patients under ARVs (Zidovudine, Stavudine and Nevirapine) which comprises first line ARV combination regime currently being used in Kenya. A total of sixty (60) HIV patients participated in the study after consenting to undergo comprehensive care. A control group of forty (40) HIV patients on only contrimoxale (septrin), Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), t-test and correlation coeficient were used to analyse the data. The results showed treatment with ARVs may cause . Based on the findings of this study it is recommended that the ARV drug combination used may be initiated for patients at baseline CD4 counts of 101-150 cells/µl of blood. However change to another ARV drug combination regime may be introduced after three months of use to minimize toxicity associated with prolonged use.


The pharmacological effects of ethanol are complex and widespread without a well-defined target. Since glutamatergic and GABAergic innervation are both dense and diffuse and account for more than 80% of the neuronal circuitry in the human brain, alterations in glutamatergic and GABAergic function could affect the function of all neurotransmitter systems. Here, we review recent progress in glutamatergic and GABAergic systems with a special focus on their roles in alcohol dependence and alcohol withdrawal-induced seizures. In particular, NMDA-receptors appear to play a central role in alcohol dependence and alcohol-induced neurological disorders. Hence, NMDA receptor antagonists may have multiple functions in treating alcoholism and other addictions and they may become important therapeutics for numerous disorders including epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Huntington's chorea, anxiety, neurotoxicity, ischemic stroke, and chronic pain. One of the new family of NMDA receptor antagonists, such as DETC-MESO, which regulate the redox site of NMDA receptors, may prove to be the drug of choice for treating alcoholism as well as many neurological dis-


Dengue is the most widespread mosquito-borne viral disease of man and spreading at an alarming rate. Socio-economic inequality has long been thought to contribute to providing an environment for viral propagation. However, identifying socio-economic (SE) risk factors is confounded by intra-urban daily human mobility, with virus being ferried across cities. This study aimed to identify SE variables associated with dengue at a subdistrict level in Bangkok, analyse how they explain observed dengue hotspots and assess the impact of mobility networks on such associations. Using meteorological, dengue case, national statistics, and transport databases from the Bangkok authorities, we applied statistical association and spatial analyses to identify SE variables associated with dengue and spatial hotspots and the extent to which incorporating transport data impacts the observed associations. We identified three SE risk factors at the subdistrict level: lack of education, % of houses being cement/brick, and number of houses as being associated with increased risk of dengue. Spatial hotspots of dengue were found to occur consistently in the centre of the city, but which did not entirely have the socio-economic risk factor characteristics. Incorporation of the intra-urban transport network, however, much improved the overall statistical association of the socio-economic variables with dengue incidence and reconciled the incongruous difference between the spatial hotspots and the SE risk factors. Our study suggests that incorporating transport networks enables a more real-world analysis within urban areas and should enable improvements in the identification of risk factors.


As the use of wind energy expands across the United States, concerns about the impacts of commercial wind farms on bird and bat populations are frequently raised. Two primary areas of concern are (1) possible litigation resulting from the killing of even one bird if it is protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Endangered Species Act, or both; and (2) the effect of avian mortality on bird populations. To properly address these concerns, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) supports scientifically based avian/wind power interaction research. In this paper I describe NREL's field-based research projects and summarize the status of the research. I also summarize NREL's other research activities, including lab-based vision research to increase the visibility of moving turbine blades and avian acoustic research, as well as our collaborative efforts with the National Wind Coordinating Committee's Avian Subcommittee.


Greater nest predation in tropical than temperate birds has been hypothesized to be a primary selective force generating latitudinal differences in avian life history traits. Few extensive data sets, however, have been available from tropical forests to compare with data from temperate forests. To increase the amount of empirical information available for addressing issues related to the evolution of life history traits of tropical birds, we measured the nesting success of understory birds in lowland forest of central Panama. We found and monitored the fates of 696 nests of 71 species over two breeding seasons. Daily nest predation rates for the ten species for which we obtained the largest samples ranged from 1.6 to 8.3%, equivalent to a loss of 43 to 92% of nests. These values overlapped extensively the range of daily predation rates experienced by ecologically similar species in North America. Proportion of nests fledging young, estimated with the Mayfield method, was significantly lower in tropical (range: 8 to 57%) than temperate (27 to 60%) species. Nesting success in Panama varied among years, however, being greater in 1996 than 1997. In 1996, nesting success was similar to that of species breeding in forest fragments of midwestern North America. When compared with success of nests in large, contiguous forest tracts of North America, however, tropical avian nesting success was consistently lower by approximately 23%. We conclude that nesting success in central Panama may be poor in most breeding seasons, but also may be punctuated by occasional years of relatively exceptional success, a possibility heretofore unappreciated because of a general paucity of data from the tropics. Furthermore, our results indicate substantial variation in levels of nesting success among species, and almost no variation in clutch size. Such large interspecific variation, as well as potentially large annual variation, in nesting success does not support the hypothesis that uniformly low levels of nesting success select for small tropical clutch sizes.


The emergency of the Covid 19 pandemic has led technology to seek solutions to the different problems caused by the disease. In the monitoring area, connected devices offer new possibilities to a rapid detection and intervention of the new cases. They allow remote diagnostic to infected patients with covid 19 symptoms. However, the heterogeneity of the platform requires applications' developers to develop specific solutions for each platform. In this paper, we propose a cross-platform application that permits developer to use one code to build applications in different platforms. The paper describes the architecture of the application by presenting its three parts: interface screens (UI), data manipulation and authentication implementation. Finally, we show selected screens of an android release as an example.


Previous classroom observations, and examination of students' written drafts, had suggested that when summarising or paraphrasing source texts, some of our students were using software tools (for example the copy-paste function and synonym lookup) in possibly unhelpful ways. To test these impressions we used screen capture software to record 20 university students paraphrasing a short text using the word-processing package on a networked PC, and analysed how they utilised software to fulfil the task. Participants displayed variable proficiency in using word-processing tools, and very few accessed external sites. The most frequently enlisted tool was the synonym finder. Some of the better writers (assessed in terms of their paraphrase quality) availed themselves little of software aids. We discuss how teachers of academic writing could help students make more efficient and judicious use of commonly available tools, and suggest further uses of screen capture in teaching and researching academic writing.


A comprehensive fatigue characterization of Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastics (GFRPs) under random ocean current loading is performed. A procedure to calculate random loading from the time history data of ocean current velocity is described. Two sources of randomness were included in the calculation, namely, i) turbulence in ocean current and ii) wake flow behind the support structure of the Ocean Current Turbine (OCT). The random ocean current velocity was first converted into hydrodynamic load and subsequently to tensile stress of the OCT blade using Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory and Finite Element (FE) method. The random ocean current loading had high stress ratio (R), which was inherently different from that of the wind loading. The random ocean current loading was applied to GFRP coupons using a materials testing machine. A code was developed with LabView and was interfaced with the testing machine to implement random loading. Fatigue experiments were then conducted under this random loading. Experimental results indicated that fatigue life increased exponentially with the decrease in mean velocity. Fatigue life of GFRP was also predicted by using Constant Life Diagram (CLD) and Palmgren-Miner's rule. CLD was developed from S-N curves of various stress ratios between R = 0.1 and 0.8. A good agreement was observed between the experimental and the predicted fatigue lives when the mean velocity was high. Comparing with traditional Goodman diagram, it was found that results obtained from CLD prediction were more conservative. Details of random load calculations, fatigue experiments, and life prediction methodologies are described in the paper.


In this article, we address the issue of reliability of quantitative data on multilingualism of the past obtained as recall data. More specifically, we investigate whether the interviewees' assessments of the language repertoires of their late relatives (indirect data) provide results that are quantitatively similar to those obtained from the people of the same age range themselves (direct data). The empirical data we use come from an ongoing field study of traditional multilingualism in Daghestan (Russia). We trained machine learning models to see whether they can detect differences in indirect and direct data. We conclude that our indirect quantitative data on L2 other than Russian are essentially similar to direct data, while there may be a small but systematic underestimation when reporting others' knowledge of Russian.


This dissertation comprises a novel and a critical study. It is an exploration of the possible literary and historical representations of the Horne narratives, a collection of documents from the 1857 Indian uprising. Amy Horne, a young woman of mixed European and Indian descent, was a survivor of the massacre at Cawnpore. Converted to Islam and married to an Indian soldier, she spent ten months in captivity with the rebel forces, before returning to British-controlled territory. She subsequently produced several different accounts of her experiences.
The critical study is a detailed examination of these narratives, the contexts of their composition and their position within the contemporary historical record. My research, which has included archival reading in India and England, has uncovered both contradictions within the narratives and supporting evidence for their claims. I argue that in order to use such contentious material effectively in fiction, a full recognition of the possibilities of interpretation is vitally important. I further suggest that a close and comparative reading of the narratives, informed by an awareness of Horne's own cultural and ethnic status within British society, reveals a dissonant relationship with the discourses of Imperial history, and allows a potentially subversive understanding of Horne's story.


Prime brokers and hedge funds form relationships in a matching market. What are the determinants of these matches? How did they change after the financial crisis? I estimate a matching model in which part of the profits of prime brokers and hedge funds depends on variables that are defined at the level of the entire portfolio of clients that a prime broker serves. I show that prime brokers and their client hedge funds choose to have trading relationships with each other in a manner that reflects the benefits of specialization. Moreover, prime brokers preferred risky clients before the crisis, while they were averse to risky clients after the crisis. Identification follows from pairwise matching stability. I analyze the potential underlying economic mechanisms, mainly the cost advantages to a prime broker of collateral re-use between hedge fund clients. This is known as internalization. I estimate that the value of internalization for major prime brokers, such as Goldman Sachs, is around $100-200 million annually.


A. 3.54 kb chromosomal fragment of Bacillus subtilis was cloned on the plasmid pBluescript SK(+). The fragment suppresses the repair deficiency of the sbc B15 mutation of Escherichia coli. It is shown that the B. subtilis gene of exonuclease! is expressed in the E. coli cells.


Purpose of review Quantitative trait locus analysis has been used in both humans and mice for the purpose of finding new genes regulating plasma lipid levels. We review these methods and discuss new approaches that can help find quantitative trait locus genes. Recent findings Many quantitative trait loci have been found that regulate plasma levels for HDL cholesterol (37 in mice and 30 in humans), LDL cholesterol (25 in mice and 20 in humans) and triglycerides (19 in mice and 30 in humans). Most of the human quantitative trait loci have concordant mouse quantitative trait loci mapping to homologous regions (93% for HDL cholesterol, 100% for LDL cholesterol and 80% for triglycerides), suggesting that many genes identified in mice may also regulate the same traits in humans. New approaches based on recently developed genomic and bioinformatic technologies and resources should greatly facilitate finding these genes. Summary New genes regulating plasma lipid levels can be found in mice and then tested in humans. Some of these genes could be potential therapeutic targets for human atherosclerosis.


In this article we consider the problem of computing approximations to the second derivatives of functions of n variables using finite differences. We show how to derive different formulas and how to comput the errors of those approximations as functions of the increment h, both for first and second derivatives. Based upon those results we describe the methods of Gill and Murray and the one of gradient difference. On the other hand we introduce a new algorithm which use conjugate directions methods for minimizing functions without derivatives and the corresponding numerical comparisons with the other two methods. Finally, numerical experiences are given and the corresponding conclusions are discussed.


The Graveyard of Lost Species by Critical Art Ensemble and YoHa with Arts Catalyst, curated by Nicola Triscott and Claudia Lastra, is a temporary public monument, created from a local wreck, the Souvenir - a 40ft 12 ton Thames Bawley fishing boat, which was reclaimed from the estuary mud. With the names of varied "lost species" (flora, fauna, occupations, words) from the estuary laser carved onto the boat's surface and interior, she was sailed back and installed on the Leigh marshes as a part of the local landscape.

During 2015 and 2016, the artists led a set of enquiries with people in Leigh-on-Sea and Southend to gather local knowledge of and expertise about "lost species" - wildlife, marine creatures, livelihoods, fishing methods, landmarks and local dialects that once flourished in the Estuary and are now disappearing. Working with local craftsmen, the artists then laser cut the lost species into the vessel's surface.

The project is intended to act as a monument to Leigh's past and future, as well as uncovering and highlighting local knowledge about the changing ecology, society and industry of the Thames estuary.


Purpose Isoniazid (INH) mono-resistant tuberculosis (Hr-TB) is a highly prevalent type of drug-resistant TB, possibly associated with unfavorable treatment outcomes. However, definitive guidelines on an optimal treatment regimen and duration for Hr-TB are currently under discussion. We evaluated the characteristics and treatment outcomes of Hr-TB patients. Materials and Methods We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of Hr-TB patients treated at a South Korean tertiary referral hospital from January 2005 to December 2018. Results We included 195 Hr-TB patients. 113 (57.9%) were male, and the median age was 56.6 [interquartile range, 40.2–68.6] years. Mutations in katG were the most frequent [54 (56.3%)], followed by those in the inhA [34 (35.4%)]. Favorable and unfavorable outcomes were noted in 164 (84.1%) and 31 (15.9%) patients, respectively. Smoking history [odds ratio (OR)=5.606, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.695–18.543, p=0.005], low albumin level (OR=0.246, 95% CI: 0.104–0.578, p=0.001), and positive acid-fast bacilli culture at 2 months (OR=7.853, 95% CI: 1.246–49.506, p=0.028) were associated with unfavorable outcomes. Conclusion A tailored strategy targeting high-risk patients is imperative for improved treatment outcomes. Further research on the rapid and accurate detection of resistance to INH and other companion drugs is warranted.


Small cell carcinoma of the ovary (SCCO) is a rare, malignant and very aggressive tumor. According to the current state of the art, no standard treatment has been established, both in terms of treatment modalities and outcomes. With the exception of some very rare cases reported in literature, the prognosis remains very poor and mortality rate extremely high. We report of three cases of SCCO with rapid progression and spreading of the disease despite multifactorial therapies. Different treatment options have been administered to our patients, but none of them was successful in achieving satisfactory outcomes and / or disease control. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4021/jmc1043e


Enrolment in both primary and secondary schools has risen substantially over the years, but secondary and tertiary enrolment remains low. The primary student population increased from just under 4 million students in 1970 to more than 26 million students in 2013.Similarly, at the secondary level, student numbers increased from a base of approximately 360,000 students in 1970 to 12.5 million students in 2013. Likewise, the tertiary sector recorded an appreciable increase in the numbers of institutions, variety of courses and enrolled students in the same period. Despite these increases, only about half of all primary students continue to the secondary level, and less than 15 percent eventually make it to tertiary level. The seeming lack of employment opportunities and other problems identified in the tertiary sector has contributed to a substantial increase in the number of Nigerian students undertaking tertiary education abroad, with the United Kingdom and the United States emerging as the top two destinations.Unemployment is high, particularly among youth and higher educated students. Despite Nigeria's natural resource wealth, many Nigerians appear to have been left behind, primarily because of the shortage of employment opportunities. Unemployment is highest among youth and among those with post-secondary education. Agriculture still has the largest share of employment. Trade emerged as the second most important employment sector providing jobs for Nigerians. Though manufacturing ranks third on the list, the proportion employed in this sector has shrunk to half of what it used to be in the preceding decade. One interesting sector is Information and Communication: while providing less than 1% of all jobs, it contributes more to Nigeria's GDP than manufacturing, due to its high value added.Nigeria is an important area of origin, destination, and transit of migrants in Africa. It is Africa's most populous country, and a country of high migration turnover. The high immigration rate (1.2 million in 2017) is accompanied by an even higher rate of emigration of Nigerians (1.3 million in 2017), resulting in a negative net migration rate. The Nigerian Government formally adopted a National Policy on Migration and its Implementation Plan in May 2015. This occurred in the backdrop of a growing recognition of the strong links between migration and potentially immense national development benefits for the country. For instance, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) stated that the inflow of remittances to Nigeria increased dramatically from $2.3 billion in 2004 to $22 billion in 2018; The US, followed by the UK and Cameroon are the top three destinations of Nigerian migrants. In mainland Western Europe, the Netherlands ranks as the fifth destination behind Germany, Italy, Spain and Austria. Noteworthy is the large 'brain drain' of Nigeria-trained medical students and health workers as well as academics who appear to be fleeing Nigeria's struggling tertiary education landscape and unstable labour market prospects. Thousands of them are now gainfully employed in medical jobs abroad, and they tend to prefer the US and the UK to the Netherlands.


What are the structural characteristics of written scientific explanations that make them good? This is often difficult to measure. One approach to describing and analyzing structures is to employ network theory. With this research, we aim to describe the elementary structure of written explanations, their qualities, and the differences between those made by experts and students. We do this by converting written explanations into networks called element maps and measure their characteristics: size, the ratio of diameter to size, and betweenness centrality. Our results indicate that experts give longer explanations with more intertwinement, organized around a few central key elements. Students' explanations vary widely in size, are less intertwined, and often lack a focus around key elements. We have successfully identified and quantified the characteristics that can be a starting point for guiding students towards generating expert-like written explanations.


The hydration process of cement is an exothermic chemical reaction; the evolution of heat generated during hardening of concrete causes, especially in structures and massive elements, differential contractions between the nucleus and the surface that might generate large thermal shrinkage cracks. The current study wants to identify the factors which allow to obtain the biggest reduction of the heat of hydration using the products with pozzolanic effect present on the market, such as GGBS, silica fume ad fly ash. The goal is to prepare a recipe with a proper proportion of pozzolanic materials able to reduce the heat of hydration of concrete through a reduction of the amount of cement but without affecting the long term compressive strengths. After identifying the best pozzolanic compound, this study wants to propose an analytical method to assign an efficiency factor to the powder mixture, in order to work out the amount of equivalent cement to replace. Thanks to adiabatic calorimetry, it has been possible to experimentally evaluate the heat generated by a series of concrete samples designed with different amounts of pozzolanic materials. Comparing the best performance in terms of compressive strength and reduction of the heat of hydration, the most promising experimental product was identified. This product has been subsequently validated by field trial tests. Some field application of the final product which was performed in several important construction sites, will be showed and documented.


In an ecosystem where education is done through software interaction, the security of those systems is one key aspect which should not trouble the educators nor the children and students that interact with them. The article addresses a problem that is growing every day, new malware samples, which steal data [10], encrypt data and ask for a ransom [11], get remote access to a personal computer [12], use computer resources to mine cryptocurrencies [13]. There are presented malware analysis reports that meticulously describe malicious software's behaviour and help security professionals to mitigate the risk. The need for security brings to light new methods to protect people's devices, like using machine learning or artificial intelligence. Random forest and neural network algorithms are implemented and the results are very encouraging, the accuracy in both cases is over 95%. In the last few years, because of the increasing computer resources and the more frequent usage of cloud services, these machine learning algorithms perform better and have caught the attention of many researchers in this area. The objectives of the project include the study of malicious software in order to find mitigation strategies, important characteristics of malware families that are used to generalize the problem of ransomware and malware detection. Also, it's presented the usage of open source sandbox to capture malware's behaviour and to use the results as the input for machine learning algorithms, and the study of different algorithms which can be used in classification problems. The current work can be a strong baseline to develop more advanced and useful algorithms, using millions of samples as the input dataset.


Systemic infection produces a highly regulated set of responses such as fever, anorexia, adipsia, inactivity, and cachexia, collectively referred to as sickness behavior. Although the expression of sickness behavior requires immune-brain communication, the mechanisms by which peripheral cytokines signal the brain are unclear. Several mechanisms have been proposed for neuroimmune communication, including the interaction of cytokines with peripheral nerves. A critical role has been ascribed to the vagus nerve in mediating sickness behavior after intraperitoneally delivered immune activation, and converging evidence suggests that this communication may involve neurochemical intermediaries afferent and/or efferent to this nerve. Mice lacking functional CCK(2/gastrin) receptors (CCK(2)KO) and wild-type (WT) controls were administered LPS (50, 500, or 2,500 microg/kg; serotype 0111:B4; ip). Results indicate a role for CCK(2) receptor activation in the initiation and maintenance of LPS-induced sickness behavior. Compared with WT controls, CCK(2)KO mice were significantly less affected by LPS on measures of body temperature, activity, body weight, and food intake, with the magnitude of effects increasing with increasing LPS dose. Although activation of CCK(2) receptors at the level of the vagus nerve cannot be excluded, a possible role for these receptors in nonvagal routes of immune-brain communication is suggested.


Objective: To determine the current level of knowledge and its risk factors in the general public in Kuwait. Methods: Six hundred and thirty individual were randomly approached from the six governorates, 600 individual agreed to participate in the study. The data in this study was collected by a random survey. All expatriates, Kuwaiti people of an age < 21 years or > 80 years, medical doctors, dentists, pharmacists, nurses, medical students, dental students and pharmacy students were excluded from the study. Results: The study showed a limited knowledge about cardiovascular disease types since about than quarter of the sample did not know most of CVD types. A low knowledge in this study was regarding symptoms of heart attack; the most known symptom was chest pain that was known to half of the sample followed by shortness of breath (47.2%) then pain in the arm and shoulder (40.7%). Symptoms of stroke were not well known, the most known symptom was confusion and problems in speaking and understanding others (35%), followed by numbness and weakness of the face, arm, or leg in one side of the body. However, it showed a moderate to good knowledge about cardiovascular risk factors and the preventative measures. A better knowledge about cardiovascular disease in general was found in people who have a healthy diet or have positive family history of cardiovascular disease. Participants indicated that the pharmacist role is mainly helping patients in managing their medications, and they did not recognize the role of pharmacist in preventing cardiovascular disease by offering advice and some measurements. Public were welling to use some services and get advice from a pharmacist if it was offered in a community pharmacy. Conclusion: This study indicates that the public need awareness about cardiovascular disease types, symptoms of heart attack and stroke to have a better management of the disease. In addition the pharmacist role must expand to offering public awareness about cardiovascular disease and its risk factors. Knowledge of Cardiovascular Disease and Its Risk Factors among the Community in Kuwait 3 Chapter


A panel of seven monoclonal antiepithelial antibodies of different specificities, including anticytokeratin, human milk fat globule membrane, C, and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) were used with the alkaline phosphatase-antialkaline phosphatase (APAAP) immunostaining technique to determine their value in the differentiation between benign and malignant mesothelial cells and lung carcinoma in histological preparations. The anticytokeratin antibody reacted strongly with all cases of reactive mesothelium, mesothelioma, and lung carcinoma. Antibodies to human milk fat globule membrane and the Ca antigen stained mesothelioma and carcinoma and 43% of cases of reactive mesothelium. Staining for carcinoembryonic antigen was not detected in reactive mesothelium or mesothelioma, but was present in most of the lung carcinomas. CEA seemed to be the single most useful marker in distinguishing carcinoma from mesothelioma in that a positive reaction for CEA would indicate carcinoma rather than mesothelioma.


Background: WHO estimates that more than a billion people live with some form of disability and most of them live in the developing countries. The American Community Survey states that 5.6% of children between the ages of 5-17 live with disability. The situation in Ethiopia is not studied and most of the data on disability comes from the population census conducted every ten years. In this study we report on the impact of musculoskeletal (MSI) on the lives of school age children in Ethiopia.
Methods: This was a prospective mixed qualitative and quantitative research. The study was conducted at CURE Ethiopia Children's hospital which is a specialized pediatric orthopedic hospital that provides free orthopedic care for children. The research was approved by the CURE IRB and a written consent was obtained from the participants. Children between 5 and 14 with acquired or congenital musculoskeletal impairment were interviewed using pretested questionnaires. We also conducted two focus group discussions conducted at a rural as well as an urban setting which were all recorded and translated to English.
Results: A total of 55 children with MSI were interviewed and 37 parents, 3 teachers and a physiotherapist were involved in the focus group discussions. These families spend a significant amount of their income for transport to the hospital and 68.3% reported getting that money was difficult. A third of these children do not go to school or have dropped out but the number goes to 69.2% when it comes to children with mobility problems. Over 80% of these children also reported abuse from peers. The three most important challenges that stood out during the focus group discussion were indignity and exclusion, financial struggles, and challenges in schools.
Conclusions: This study highlights the most important challenges of children with musculoskeletal impairments are indignity and exclusion, financial struggles at home and challenges in school. Ethiopia is one of the countries that have legally committed themselves to delivering comprehensive rehabilitation services for people living with disabilities. The issues identified in our study can be considered as part of the comprehensive rehabilitation services and they need to be addressed properly with the concerned parties in order to improve the life and future of children with musculoskeletal impairments and their families.


Consciousness is a central issue in neuroscience, however, we still lack a formal framework that can address the nature of the relationship between consciousness and its physical substrates. In this review, we provide a novel mathematical framework of category theory (CT), in which we can define and study the sameness between different domains of phenomena such as consciousness and its neural substrates. CT was designed and developed to deal with the relationships between various domains of phenomena. We introduce three concepts of CT which include (i) category; (ii) inclusion functor and expansion functor; and, most importantly, (iii) natural transformation between the functors. Each of these mathematical concepts is related to specific features in the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). In this novel framework, we will examine two of the major theories of consciousness, integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness and temporospatial theory of consciousness (TTC). We conclude that CT, especially the application of the notion of natural transformation, highlights that we need to go beyond NCC and unravels questions that need to be addressed by any future neuroscientific theory of consciousness.


The main aim of this study is to explore learners' perceptions of their own responsibility in learning English. The question of whether our learners in Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University (hereafter COMU) Compulsory and Voluntary English Language Prep Classes are responsible enough for their own learning or not is the main focus of this study. Whether some variables like gender, the type of the prep class education (compulsory or voluntary) and the students' departments will affect their perceptions on responsibility is questioned in this study. Quantitative research methodology was used in the study. Being a sub-category of a survey method , a questionnaire was used by the researchers to find out the students' perceptions of responsibility in English preparatory classes of COMU. Findings reveal that female students are much more responsible than the male students are. Also, voluntary learners are less aware of their strengths and weaknesses in learning English. Students at Travel Management were found to know what to practice in English and how to learn English more when compared to the students of Archeology. Furthermore, students seem to have some problems in planning and revising their own learning. Bearing the findings of the study in mind, suggestions were drawn at the end of the study.


AIM
This paper is a report of a study conducted to explore factors associated with occupational stress among female hospital nurses in China.

BACKGROUND
Nursing is a highly stressful occupation, and high levels of occupational stress are believed to affect the physical and mental health of nurses. Occupational stress among nurses is the result of exposure to a combination of working environment and personal factors.

METHOD
A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2008. The study population consisted of 2613 female nurses from 20 hospitals in the Liaoning province of China. Occupational stress was measured by questionnaires that included the Chinese version of Personal Strain Questionnaire, and data were collected on respondents' demographics, working situations, occupational roles, and personal resources. Of the nurses solicited for enrolment in the study, 79.2% returned the completed questionnaire. A general linear regression model was applied to analyse the factors associated with occupational stress.

RESULTS
Mean Personal Strain Questionnaire score was 86.9, and this score was correlated, in descending order of standardized estimate, with role boundary, role insufficiency, responsibility, social support, self-care, nurse-patient relationship, chronic disease, role overload, rational coping and night shift.

CONCLUSION
Role boundary and role insufficiency were the factors that had the highest association with occupational stress. Occupational health education and occupational training programmes may be necessary to improve the knowledge and ability of nurses to cope with job demands and reduce occupational stress.


The purpose of this study was to identify the longitudinal causality between gambling beliefs and gambling behavior. An online survey was conducted 3 times across 10 months (January, May, and October) among adult gamblers (N=340) who had more than one year of regular gambling behavior, at least once a month (N=340, 64.7% males). The mean age of the subjects was 40.34 y (SD=0.43). The causality between irrational gambling beliefs and gambling behavior was analysed using autoregressive cross-lagged modeling. Analysis showed that gambling beliefs affected gambling behavior after 5 months (B=0.152, p<0.001), and gambling behavior also affected gambling beliefs after 5 months (B=0.090, p<0.01). These results explain that there is a mutual causality between irrational gambling beliefs and gambling behavior. Thus, the gambling disorder treatment programs should take into account not only cognitive behavioral theory but the cognitive dissonance perspective.


Welding exposes welders to a variety of work-related hazards, which may be deleterious to their health. The awareness of these hazards and the attitude towards them are important factors in the prevention of these hazards among the welders. This study assessed the level of awareness of the hazards, the work-related health complaints and the safety measures employed by the welders in a Nigerian setting. The study was carried out in Benin City, the capital of one the 36 States of Nigeria and was of a cross sectional design. A total sample of the welders was identified from a list of registered workshops and they were interviewed using semi-structured interviewer-administered questionnaires. Data obtained was analysed by the Computer Programme for Epidemiologic Research (CPER) and presented as frequency tables and graph. The average number of welders per workshop was 3.7 with all of them as males and with a mean age of 32.2 ±10.6years. The illiteracy rate was 3.3% and the school dropout rate was 14.9%. The average level of use of protective devices was generally low (35.9%) when compared to the levels of awareness of the workplace hazards (91.6%) and the work-related health complaints (96.4%). The most prevalent health complaints were arc eye injuries (75.7%) followed by foreign bodies in the eyes (70.0%), back/waist pain (52.1%), metal fume fever (43.8%) and cuts/injuries from sharp metals (37.7%); while the common personal protective equipment used were coverall (31.2%), eye goggles (35.9%) and hand gloves (20.8%). None of them used any form of ear or respiratory protection. The levels of awareness of occupational hazards and the work-related health problems among the welders though high was not commensurate with the use of safety and protective devices against the hazards. There is therefore need for health and safety education of these workers in order to promote positive health among them.
 Keywords : Occupational Health Hazards, Welders, Nigeria Journal of Medicine and Biomedical Research Vol. 5 (1) 2006: pp. 64-69


The distribution of coral reef fishes is often closely linked to the availability of preferred habitats. However, even in specialized gobies associated with a single coral species, their distribution does not always match that of the coral host. The coral goby Paragobiodon xanthosoma is primarily restricted to shallow water ( 30 m. Here, we use observational and experimental approaches to test whether depth-associated changes in morphology and partial mortality of the coral decrease habitat quality. Quantitative surveys from the surface to 30 m found pronounced changes in colony morphology over depth. S. hystrix colonies most likely to be occupied by P. xanthosoma were those with shallow-water characteristics, especially lower partial mortality and a more complex branching structure. In a binary choice experiment, P. xanthosoma individuals preferentially selected colonies from shallow water (5 m) over deep water (30 m) and with high complexity over low complexity when colonies were collected from a standardized depth (15 m). Finally, a transplant experiment examined the effect of depth-associated changes in the coral habitat on patterns of growth of P. xanthosoma. When the depth of placement was standardized, the growth of P. xantho soma was 8-fold lower on colonies collected from deep water (30 m) compared to colonies from shallower water (5 and 15 m). Together, these patterns suggest that depth-related changes in the morphology of the coral host are responsible for driving patterns of distribution over depth in their associated reef fish.


Ficus deltoidea is one of the common medicinal plants used in Malaysia. This epiphytic plant, from the Moraceae family
has been claimed to have antidiabetic property. However, scientific evidence to confirm its efficacy is still lacking. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of ethanolic extract of F. deltoidea on glucose level in normal rats at different prandial state. The results showed that, all doses of ethanolic extract of F. deltoidea reduced fasting blood glucose particularly after 6 h of administration. Interestingly, the extract did not produce severe hypoglycemia as shown by its comparable effect with metformin. Likewise, postprandial hyperglycemia was also significantly reduced particularly after 4 and 6 h of administration. Furthermore, extract was used at a dose of 1000 mg/kg b.w., reduced postprandial hyperglycemia similar to metformin. This suggests that postprandial antihyperglycemic mechanism of this extract is
mediated through enhancement of glucose uptake into muscle cells and reduction of hepatic gluconeogenesis. Glucose
tolerance activity was also significantly improved in the presence of ethanolic extract of F. deltoidea. From this study, it is suggested that ethanolic extract of F. deltoidea reduced postprandial hyperglycemia and improves glucose tolerance activity in normal rats.


The aim of the paper is to reveal the main causes and consequences of the underground economy, seen as a mix between the shadow economy, reflecting the officially unreported monetary transactions, and the black economy, consisting in the criminal monetary transactions associated with the latter. Given that the underground economy, as a whole, can stand for and/or deepen the budgetary deficit of any country, by diminishing the level of revenues to the state budget, leading, as a consequence, to restrictions as to the public spending volume, thereby adversely influencing the living standard of its population, the focus of the study is related to laying, to a reasonable extent, the general framework, for limiting, via well-grounded macroeconomic fiscal policies and other related, targeted measures, the negative effects of the same.


ABSTRACT We compared HinfI restriction endonuclease-based analysis of genomic DNA with a PCR-based method for molecular typing of 90 Candida krusei isolates from 17 geographically related patients. Strain groupings by these methods were the same for 89 of 90 isolates. Ten of 17 patients were infected with related strains of C. krusei.


Android mobile devices are enjoying a lion's market share in smartphones and mobile devices. This also attracts malware writers to target the Android platform. Recently, we have discovered a new Android malware distribution channel: releasing malicious firmwares with pre-installed malware to the wild. This poses significant risk since users of mobile devices cannot change the content of the malicious firmwares. Furthermore, pre-installed applications have " more permissions" (i.e., silent installation) than other legitimate mobile apps, so they can download more malware or access users' confidential information. To understand and address this new form of malware distribution channel, we design and implement "DroidRay": a security evaluation system for customized Android firmwares. DroidRay uses both static and dynamic analyses to evaluate the firmware security on both the application and system levels. To understand the impact of this new malware distribution channel, we analyze 250 Android firmwares and 24,009 pre-installed applications. We reveal how the malicious firmware and pre-installed malware are injected, and discovered 1,947 (8.1%) pre-installed applications have signature vulnerability and 19 (7.6%) firmwares contain pre-installed malware. In addition, 142 (56.8%) firmwares have the default signature vulnerability, five (2.0%) firmwares contain malicious hosts file, at most 40 (16.0%) firmwares have the native level privilege escalation vulnerability and at least 249 (99.6%) firmwares have the Java level privilege escalation vulnerability. Lastly, we investigate a real-world case of a pre-installed zero-day malware known as CEPlugnew, which involves 348,018 infected Android smartphones, and we show its degree and geographical penetration. This shows the significance of this new malware distribution channel, and DroidRay is an effective tool to combat this new form of malware spreading.


In non-terrestrial networks, where low Earth orbit satellites and user equipment move relative to each other, line-of-sight tracking and adapting to channel state variations due to endpoint movements are a major challenge. Therefore, continuous line-of-sight estimation and channel impairment compensation are crucial for user equipment to access a satellite and maintain connectivity. In this paper, we propose a framework based on actor-critic reinforcement learning for traffic scheduling in non-terrestrial networks scenario where the channel state is non-stationary due to the variability of the line of sight, which depends on the current satellite elevation. We deploy the framework as an agent in a multipath routing scheme where the user equipment can access more than one satellite simultaneously to improve link reliability and throughput. We investigate how the agent schedules traffic in multiple satellite links by adopting policies that are evaluated by an actor-critic reinforcement learning approach. The agent continuously trains its model based on variations in satellite elevation angles, handovers, and relative line-of-sight probabilities. We compare the agent's retraining time with the satellite visibility intervals to investigate the effectiveness of the agent's learning rate. We carry out performance analysis while considering the dense urban area of Paris, where high-rise buildings significantly affect the line of sight. The simulation results show how the learning agent selects the scheduling policy when it is connected to a pair of satellites. The results also show that the retraining time of the learning agent is up to 0.1times the satellite visibility time at given elevations, which guarantees efficient use of satellite visibility.


It has been established that increasing the role of technology in a service organisation can serve to reduce costs and often improve service reliability. For this reason and as the Internet becomes yet more pervasive in retail banking the importance of understanding influences on customer adoption behaviour for e‐banking is increasingly important. This study adopts a quantitative methodology and examines customer communication preferences when interacting with their bank, with a particular focus on Internet banking registration. The customer satisfaction questionnaire was issued to over 2,000 retail customers. Through regression analysis the key predictors that indicate whether or not customers will register as Internet banking users were identified. Twenty‐five senior branch bank managers were then asked to rank the same set of issues to ascertain what they felt to be the key influencers to customer registration for Internet banking. The similarities and differences between the two sets of findings are identified and the managerial implications for the case bank's marketing strategy discussed.


Adoption of data outsourcing to cloud servers is hindered by data integrity issues due to the lack of trust to the servers. Existing solutions to deal with the problem often require costly verification processes to build a verification object (VO) at the server side and to verify it at the client side, especially when the verification is to be performed at a low-level of granularity. This paper proposes an efficient and privacy-preserving solution, which verifies both the integrity and completeness of query results at the finest level of granularity --- an individual attribute value. Outsourced data confidentiality is also preserved by securely dividing attribute values into several pieces. As a key novelty, our solution does not require building VOs at the server side for query results. Consequently, 1) no computation overhead is imposed on the server to construct VOs, 2) no change is required to the existing DBMS engines due to calculating VOs and accompanying them with the results, and 3) no information leakage occurs due to building or observing VOs by the server. Our theoretical and empirical analyses indicate the effectiveness of our solution compared to the existing solutions in terms of communication, query execution, and verification overheads.


The concept of 'Asian Values' has recently been emphasized by East and South East Asian political leaders. These leaders have argued that European political values have exercised an unhealthy hegemony over the international system, not only because of global influence exercised by European ideas during the colonial period, but because of 'Anglo-Saxon' dominance over the world orders that were set up in the aftermath of both the First and Second World Wars. This book considers the interaction between indigenous ('Asian') values and European ideology and the influence this relationship had on the nationalist and revolutionary movements of Southeast Asia that dominated the political systems of Southeast Asia in the period 1945-1975.


This paper presents a novel method for the segmentation of layered structures that have a predefined order. Layers are jointly segmented by simultaneous detection of their interfaces. This is done by means of a level set approach based on Bayesian inference where the ordering of the layers is enforced via a novel level set coupling. The method was applied to in-vivo images of healthy human retinas acquired by optical coherence tomography (OCT). A quantitative comparison with manual annotations was used to estimate the method's accuracy, which showed very good agreement (mean absolute deviation (MAD) of 3.11-8.58 μm). The large errors were mainly due to differences in handling the vessels. Based on repeated OCT images of the same eye acquired on consecutive days, the reproducibility of manual and automated segmentations, expressed by the MAD of the RNFL thickness, were 10.97 μm and 7.68 μm.