The article describes the architecture of the data sorting and aggregation module for the triggerless
high energy physics experiment data acquisition.
The described module is able to revert shifts in the input data order, which are introduced by the
detector readout modules. The sorted data is aggregated into a single stream and then divided into
packages containing samples acquired in consecutive time intervals.
The presented article describes the usage of the heap sorting algorithm for restoring the correct
data order. Data stream aggregation techniques, used in the presented module, are described.
The paper contains a block diagram of the presented module and resource utilization summary
generated after implementation.


In this work, commercial alumina fine powders were used as raw materials, namely two tabular alumina fractions (–500 mesh and –230 mesh) and a reactive alumina. Statistical modelling and the Response Surface Methodology (Statistica, Mixtures Designs and Triangular Surfaces module) were applied to three-component mixtures and used to calculate the various property-composition surfaces. To that aim, the various mixtures were prepared, cast, dried, fired and characterised. The particle size distribution modulus, q, was determined for all mixtures using the software LISA. The various response surfaces were then combined, so that the water content in the mixture could be minimised and the matrix flowability maximised. The properties of the resulting test-bricks (linear shrinkage, mechanical strength, apparent density and porosity) were also modelled and response surfaces were obtained. Combined results enabled the definition of an optimised particle size composition range, which guarantees the presence of a low water flow-bed that enables the aggregate self-flow.


The influence of external field on thin ferromagnetic films with spin-reorientation transitions (SRTs) is explored in the presence of different orders of thickness-dependent uniaxial anisotropy. The two principal configurations are addressed and the first two anisotropy contributions are examined. A simple and natural representation of the field-induced SRTs has been found. It preserves the linearity of the thickness-driven trajectories even with field. The crosspoints of these trajectories with the phase borderlines correspond to crossover thicknesses of a linear type for positive second-order anisotropy contributions and of both linear and nonlinear types for negative second-order anisotropies. In the latter case, the nonlinear boundaries correlate with the coexistence of phases which brings about first-order-like reorientations and concomitant hysteresis effects. Practical schemes are proposed for the determination of the complete set of anisotropy parameters from measured field dependences of the crossover thicknesses.


Background/Aim. Lymphoma of mucosa-associated lym- phoid tissue (MALT lymphoma) of the stomach usually occurs as a consequence of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection. The aim of this study was to investigate the long-term effect of treatment of low-grade gastric MALT lymphoma with the H. pylori eradication method. Methods. In the period 2002-2012 in 20 patients with dyspepsia, mean age 55.1 years, the endo- scopic and histologic diagnosis of gastric MALT lymphoma in the early stages were made. Histological preparations of endo- scopic biopsy specimens were stained with hematoxyllin-eosin (HE), histochemical and immunohistochemical methods. Re- sults. Endoscopic findings of gastritis were documented in 25% of the patients, and 75% of the patients had hypertrophic folds, severe mucosal hyperemia, fragility, nodularity, exulcera- tions and rigidity. Histopathologically, pathognomonic diagnos- tic criterion were infiltration and destruction of glandular epi- thelium with neoplastic lymphoid cells, the so-called lym- phoepithelial lesions. In all 20 patients H. pylori was verified by rapid urease test and Giemsa stain. After the triple eradication therapy complete remission of MALT lymphoma was achieved in 85% of the patients, with no recurrence of lymphoma and H. pylori infection in the average follow-up period of 48 months. In 3 (15%) of the patients, there was no remission of MALT lymphoma 12 months after the eradication therapy. Of these 3 patients 2 had progression of MALT lymphoma to dif- fuse large-cell lymphoma. Conclusion. Durable complete re- mission of low-grade gastric MALT lymphoma is achieved in a high percentage after eradication of H. pylori infection, thus preventing the formation of diffuse large-cell lymphoma and gastric adenocarcinoma.


Education is a process of development which includes three major activities, namely teaching, training and instruction. Environmental education is a process to promote the awareness and understanding of the environment, its relationship with man and his activities. It is also aimed at developing responsible actions necessary for preservation, conservation and improvement of the environment and its components. It has been introduced as a regular course in formal school education system in India following the directive of the Supreme Court of India. The present study aims at critically analyzing curriculum of environmental studies at primary, secondary and senior secondary level. The detailed analysis was done on the basis interactions with important stakeholders. In our study, we found that there is scarcity of qualified teachers to teach Environmental studies at each level. During interactions it was found that teachers have several environmental knowledge gaps and misconceptions about important environmental issues like about acid rain, ozone layer depletion and greenhouse effect. Our survey indicates that teachers hardly practice innovative methods to teach environment education. Most commonly used method is lecture. Field visits, practical, study tour and demonstrations are missing in many schools. It was also found that course content is not incremental; there is very often repetition of the topics. At college level, there is a need to focus more on environmental education and upgrade the course components. There should be both pre-service and in-service training for teachers to infuse emerging issues in course content. Such training should equip teachers for collecting and using relevant teaching materials to impart emerging issues. A few suggestions and recommendations are given based on critical analysis.


This research attempted to test D. R. Lynam's (1996) hypothesis regarding the developmental relation between adult psychopathy and children with symptoms of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and attention problems (HIA) and concurrent conduct problems (CP). In a large sample of adolescent boys, 4 groups (non-HIA-CP, HIA only, CP only, and HIA-CP) were compared on measures found to discriminate between psychopathic and nonpsychopathic offenders. In line with predictions, the HIA-CP boys most closely resembled psychopathic adults. HIA-CP boys scored higher than HIA-only and non-HIA-CP boys on a measure of psychopathic personality. As with their adult counterparts, HIA-CP boys were the most antisocial, were the most disinhibited, and tended to be the most neuropsychologically impaired of all the groups. Implications for treatment, research, and the study of comorbidity are discussed.


Seven feral pigs (Sus scrofa), radio-tracked in relatively undisturbed rough pasture and forest near Murchison, New Zealand, for periods of 18-186 days, occupied home ranges of 28-209 ha. The immature pigs were significantly more active and had significantly larger home ranges than the adults, particularly adult females. The pigs were mainly nocturnal but they varied individually. The frequency of grazing and the rooting up of pasture and bracken (Pteridium esculentum) varied seasonally. Some of the pigs preferred pasture and bracken in their home ranges while others preferred mixed beech (Nothofagus spp.) forest. The number of pigs and their use of habitat were probably related to the seasonal availability and quality of food and shelter. Farrowing occurs throughout the year but peaks during spring. Litter sizes ranged from 1-9. Density was roughly 12-43 pigs per km compared with 3-8 per km in a nearby, more heavily hunted area.


Carbon-based nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene have great potential for high-performance all-carbon photodetectors due to their unique optical and electronic properties. Here, we assemble a hybrid CNT/graphene film prepared by depositing CNTs on a single layer graphene with a side-polished optical fiber to achieve a novel all-fiber integrated photodetector. Because CNTs strongly enhanced the interaction between graphene and the fiber mode, the photodetector shows an extra-high photoresponsivity over the visible and infrared region. Especially at 1550 nm, the photoresponsivity is found to be ∼1.48 × 105 A W-1, which is 6.5 times larger than those of photodetectors without CNTs. These findings provide a highly versatile, reproducible, and low-cost platform to integrate novel zero-, one-, and two-dimensional materials into optical fibers and deliver more sophisticated functionalities.


Lean manufacturing (LM) is a method, which focuses on reducing wastes and increasing the productivity within manufacturing firms. Several analyses were performed on LM technology depending on minimal lead times, enhanced quality and reduced operating costs. However, limitation exists in understanding its role to develop managing commitment, worker involvement and in turn its organizational performance. This paper intends to propose a new Neural Network (NN) based intelligent prediction framework. The initial process is manual labeling or response validation, which is carried out by utilizing the responses attained for each questions under each factors including lean awareness, employee involvement, management commitment, lean technology, Organizational Performance (OP) and Organizational Support (OS). Subsequently, NN is exploited for prediction process, where the features (received responses) are given as input and the labeling values attained are set as target. Further, in order to improve the prediction performance, the NN training is performed by a new Hybrid Particle Swarm and Pigeon Optimization (HPS-PO) algorithm via tuning the optimal weights. In fact, the proposed algorithm is the combination of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Pigeon Optimization Algorithm (POA), respectively. Finally, the performance of the proposed model is examined over conventional methods in terms of prediction analysis and error analysis.


Positive selection in the human lineage across time scales Rachel M. Gittelman Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Joshua M. Akey Department of Genome Sciences Understanding the evolutionary history of humankind has long been a central goal of biology. This history extends over millions of yearsbeginning with the events that led to our divergence from chimpanzees and other primate relatives, and ending with the ongoing migration patterns that give rise to the diverse human populations we see today. DNA sequencing and other molecular techniques for ascertaining genetic variation have been instrumental in reconstructing the timeline of this history. However, these technologies can also be leveraged to answer more fundamental questions about the ways that natural selection has shaped human evolution. For instance, studying patterns of DNA variation can elucidate the genetic basis of traits that were selected for in the human lineage across time scales. Although many methods have been developed to identify these signatures that natural selection has left on our genomes, there are still many cases of positive selection that current methods are not designed to detect. Here I present novel genome-wide approaches for detecting natural selection at two different points in human history. In the first, I extended methods to identify regulatory elements that show elevated rates of human-specific substitutions, and may thus underlie unique human phenotypes that evolved after our divergence from other apes. In the second, I characterized haplotypes inherited from interbreeding events with archaic hominin species that facilitated modern human adaptation to out of Africa environments. Both of these approaches build significantly on previous work to identify positive selection in the human genome, and provide an extensive catalogue of loci to study using more targeted hypotheses in the future.


Bovine chromosome 20 (BTA20) is associated with several quantitative trait loci (QTL) for meat tenderness, birth weight, milk yield and composition. Fine mapping of these QTL requires the development of additional informative markers to increase the resolution of the BTA20 genetic and physical maps. A BTA20-specific library was constructed by means of microdissection and microcloning, and screened for dinucleotide repeats with (CA)16 and (GT)16 oligos. A total of 60 new microsatellites (MS) were developed and characterized for polymorphism using the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)/Meat Animal Research Center (MARC) bovine reference family, of which 53 markers were informative in this family. The number of alleles for these loci varied from 1 to 14, with an average of 6.5. Thirty-three of these MSs, together with 105 markers previously mapped to BTA20, were scored on a 7000-rad cattle-hamster whole-genome radiation hybrid panel (SUNbRH), resulting in a high-resolution RH7000 rad map for BTA20.


Widespread streamflow droughts can pose substantially greater societal challenges than spatially less extensive events because of the complex realities of trans-regional water management. In a warming climate, drought spatial extent may change along with changes in underlying hydro-meteorological contributors. Here, we assess changes in streamflow drought spatial extent over the period 1981–2018 across the conterminous United States, and how the importance of potential hydro-meteorological contributors has changed over time. We first derive a monthly time series of drought spatial extent and look at trends in streamflow drought spatial extent. We then determine the spatial percentage 'overlap' of precipitation droughts, temperature anomalies, snow-water-equivalent deficits, and soil moisture deficits with the area under streamflow drought to look at the changing influence of these contributors on spatial extent. Our results show that (1) the spatial extent of droughts has increased, mainly because of increases in the extent of small droughts; (2) streamflow drought extents overall substantially overlap with soil moisture deficits and the relationship of drought to precipitation and temperature anomalies varies seasonally; and (3) the importance of temperature as a contributor to drought extent has increased over time. We therefore conclude that continued global warming may further increase drought extents, requiring adaptation of regional drought management strategies.


This thesis deals mainly with the historical development of the religious institution of Ithna ashari Shi'ism in both its scholarly and political aspects. It is divided into six chapters. The word "school" has been used to describe the place in which such an institution had flourished due to the activities of its fuqaha ' in response to their turbulent history, whether it was in Iraq, in Bilad al-Sham (Greater Syria, i.e. Syria and Lebanon) or in Iran. Chapter one deals with the Baghdad School. It includes a study of the scholarly development right from the begining of the fuqaha' institution during Shaykh al-Mufid's times (d. 413/1022) and ending with Shaykh al-Tusi (d. 460/1068). Chapter two follows the development of this scholarly renaissance at the hands of the Hilla fuqaha starting with Ibn Idris al-Hilli's time (d. 598/1201) and ending with Fakhr al-Muhaqiqqin ibn al-'Allama al-Hilli (d. 771/1369), and investigates the relationship between the religious institution and the Mongol invaders of Iraq and the ideological influence of the Ithna'ashari fuqaha' on the leaders of the invaders. Chapter three, on the Jabal 'Amil school, deals in part with the unsettled period of the Mamluk state, its struggle against the Mongols and the internal situation of the Shi'a vis-a-vis the Mamluks. It also deals in part with the influence of the Jabal 'Amil fuqaha' on the Safawid state after these fuqaha' had migrated there. Particular attention is paid to the role of Shaykh al-Karaki (d. 940/1533) and his attempt to build a religious institution inside Safawid Iran, and the opposition that he met. The chapter ends with a study of the Akhbari Movement in its first stage, during the time of Muhammad Amin al-Astarabadi (d. 1033/1624). Chapter four focuses on the Najaf School, which had started about two hundred years before as an intellectual school. The development and activities of this school from the beginning of the thirteenth/nineteenth century, are discussed, as is its position regarding the emergence of the Wahhabi Movement, the Akhbari Movement (in its second phase) and the Shaykhi Movement. The chapter also deals with the political activity of the fuqaha' in their struggle against the Qajari state, which had been manifested in the fatwa prohibiting tobacco and in the Constitutional Movement. Chapter five deals with the struggle of the Najaf fuqaha' from the start of the Republican period (1958) until the beginning of the 1990s. This is preceded by an introductory remark concerning the position taken by the fuqaha' towards the British forces who entered Iraq after the First World War and the events of the Iraqi Revolution of 1920. Chapter six has been dedicated to a study of the Qumm school. It looks at the historical development of that city, with particular attention to the role of Shaykh 'Abd al-Karim al-Ha'iri al-Yazdi (d. 1355/1936) in supervising an elite of mujtahids who have participated in the renewal of this city. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).


The photoelectric yields of small silicate and graphite grains are calculated as a function of incident photon wavelength for the purpose of modeling interstellar grains. The large surface-to-volume ratio of a small grain is expected to result in an increased photoelectric yield when compared with a bulk sample of the same material. The ratio of grain yield to bulk yield is calculated from the Mie solution for the fields inside a spherical particle and from assumptions regarding the electron emission process. Absolute photoelectron yields are calculated from published bulk yields for wavelengths of 900–1500 A. Results are presented for grain radii of 100 and 1000 A. These results should be useful for future investigations of photoelectric emission from interstellar grains.


Disasters always occur without can be predicted precisely. The need to use community's strengths are very important component in new disaster-risk reduction effort. This study aims to find out the correlation between community resilience on long-termed community coping post-earthquake of May 26, 2006. Predictor variable in this study is community resilience, and the criterium variable is long-termed community coping. The instruments used in this study consisted of Community Coping Scale is modification of the Community Well-Being Scale developed by (Prawitasari et al., 2009; Prawitasari, 2011), and Community Resilience Scale developed by Researcher. This research was held in the earthquake affected areas in Klaten. Data were collected from 60 respondents (34 males and 26 females); age ranges from15-78 years old. Reliability test with Alpha Cronbach indicates both instruments were reliable (αCCS=0.930; αCRS=0.925). This study hypothesized that there is a correlation between community resilience and long-termed community coping post-earthquake. Pearson-Product Moment Correlation Analysis was used to analyze the data. Result shows that there is a positive correlation between community resilience and long-termed community coping post- earthquake (r = 0.571, p < 0.05).


The large intestines of pigs with swine dysentery were examined by phase, light, and electron microscopy at intervals up to 11 days after oral inoculation with mucosal scrapings from infected pigs. Large spirochetes with the structural characteristics of Treponema hyodysenteriae were found only in infected pigs and were first observed in small numbers in the lumen of the large intestine 2 days after inoculation. Numerous large spirochetes were present on the luminal surface and in mucosal crypts as lesions developed. Degenerative changes were first observed in the apical portion of epithelial cells in close contact with large spirochetes. These large spirochetes were found intact in goblet cells and epithelial cells in the early stages of the disease and were numerous within degenerating epithelial cells as lesions became more advanced. Invasion beyond the lamina propria was not detected. These observations demonstrated the relationship between pathogenic large spirochetes and the mucosa of the large intestine in a specific disease, swine dysentery.


Introduction/Purpose Although vascular tortuosity is a ubiquitous phenomenon, no mathematical models exist to describe its shape. Given that the shape of tortuous vessel curves seems fairly uniform across great variations in vessel size and anatomic substrata, it is hypothesized that tortuosity is not purely random, but is governed by physical principles. We develop a mathematical model based on optimality principles, and show how it can potentially be used to distinguish physiologic from abnormal tortuosity. Materials/Methods A model is developed which minimizes average curvature per unit length; it produces a "sine-generated" curve. Thirty-four tortuous vessel segments (from retinal, superficial temporal, coronary and splanchnic vessels) are analyzed and compared to the results of the model. Curve shapes are characterized by the parameters L/R and L/l, where L is curve length, l is wavelength, and R is radius of curvature. These parameters are measured for each vessel segment and calculated for the corresponding theoretical curves. The accuracy of the model is compared with that of a standard sine curve in trying to model vessel tortuosity. Also, six retinal vessel segments from a case of Fabry's disease (which produces abnormal tortuosity) are analyzed and compared to the model. Results Comparison between measured and predicted values produces average percent errors of 5.8% in L/R and 5.5% in L/l. Also, sine-generated curves produce a significantly better fit than standard sine curves (p=0.001). For the case of Fabry's disease, there is a significant deviation from the theoretical model, with average percent errors of 21% in L/l and 33% in L/R. Conclusions The theoretical model provides a good fit for normal vessel tortuosity. This suggests that blood vessels obey optimality principles, and curve in such a way as to minimize average curvature. This makes physical sense, as it would minimize shear stress against vessel walls and the energy needed to accelerate blood through the vessel. Although anecdotal, the case of Fabry's disease differed significantly from theoretical results, suggesting that these vessels deviate from the normal pattern of tortuosity. The model may be useful in distinguishing physiologic tortuosity from the abnormal tortuosity which may occur in disease states.Abstract P-012 Figure 1


Acromegaly is usually not a difficult condition to diagnose once the possibility of this disease has been raised. However, a few conditions present with some aspects of acromegaly or gigantism but without growth hormone (GH) excess. Such cases are described as "pseudoacromegaly" or "acromegaloidism". Here we describe a female patient investigated for GH excess at 10 years of age for tall stature since infancy (height and weight > +3 standard deviations) and typical acromegalic features, including large hands/feet, large jaw, tongue, hoarse deep voice, and headache. Results of radiography of the sella turcica and GH response at an oral glucose tolerance test and insulin–arginine– thyrotrophin–luteinizing hormone–releasing hormone test were normal. Ethinylestradiol and medroxyprogesterone were given for 2 years; this successfully stopped further height increase. Although the patient's growth rate plateaued, coarsening of the facial features and acral enlargement also led to investigations for suspicion of acromegaly at 23 and 36 years of age, both with negative results. On referral at the age of 49 years, she had weight gain, sweating, sleep apnea, headaches, joint pain, and enlarged tongue. Endocrine assessment again showing normal GH axis was followed by genetic testing with a macrocephaly/overgrowth syndrome panel. A de novo mutation in the NSD1 gene (c.6605G>C; p.Cys2202Ser) was demonstrated. Mutations affecting the same cysteine residue have been identified in patients with Sotos syndrome. In summary, Sotos syndrome and other overgrowth syndromes can mimic the clinical manifestations of acromegaly or gigantism. Genetic assessment could be helpful in these cases.


This study describes an investigation of community attitudes in Christchurch towards sources of help for children in crisis situations. To whom the child turns is particularly important when a child is unable or unwilling to ask a parent for help. The children sampled showed a preference for informal sources of support (such as friends, relatives, rather than formal, such as teachers, crisis-counsellors, doctors). Most professionals believed children should use their services in preference to those of other professions. The adults rated formal sources of support, particularly teachers, much higher than the children. Of the formal services crisis-counsellors, and in particular the Childhelp Line, a 24-hour telephone counselling service for children, was the most preferred. The findings tend to demonstrate the value of a child-oriented crisis line to the community.


As reported by Prien (see p 847), two United States committees concluded in 1975 that lithium is prophylactically efficacious, ie, significantly better than placebo, in recurrent bipolar affective illness. The committees felt, however, that they could not recommend the prophylactic use of lithium in recurrent unipolar affective illness (1) because there is uncertainty as to what a unipolar disorder represents and (2) because the evidence for the efficacy of lithium in this disease type is based on a relatively small number of patients. With the first reason given, the committees more or less acknowledge that lack of trust in the psychiatrists' ability to diagnose recurrent unipolar affective illness played a role in their decision. I have no comment to offer on this. As regards the second reason: It might be worth comparing the evidence now available for prophylactic efficacy of lithium and of cyclic antidepressants in unipolar affective illness. Use


One of the essential tasks in connectomics is the morphology analysis of neurons and organelles like mitochondria to shed light on their biological properties. However, these biological objects often have tangled parts or complex branching patterns, which make it hard to abstract, categorize, and manipulate their morphology. In this paper, we develop a novel topological nomenclature system to name these objects like the appellation for chemical compounds to promote neuroscience analysis based on their skeletal structures. We first convert the volumetric representation into the topology-preserving reduced graph to untangle the objects. Next, we develop nomenclature rules for pyramidal neurons and mitochondria from the reduced graph and finally learn the feature embedding for shape manipulation. In ablation studies, we quantitatively show that graphs generated by our proposed method align with the perception of experts. On 3D shape retrieval and decomposition tasks, we qualitatively demonstrate that the encoded topological nomenclature features achieve better results than state-of-the-art shape descriptors. To advance neuroscience, we will release a 3D segmentation dataset of mitochondria and pyramidal neurons reconstructed from a 100μm cube electron microscopy volume with their reduced graph and topological nomenclature annotations. Code is publicly available at https://github.com/donglaiw/ibexHelper.


New device architectures favorable for interaction with the soft and dynamic biological tissue are critical for the design of indwelling biosensors and neural interfaces. For the long-term use of such devices within the body, it is also critical that the component materials resist the physiological harsh mechanical and chemical conditions. Here, we describe the design and fabrication of mechanically and chemically robust 3D implantable electronics. This is achieved by using traditional photolithography to pattern electronics on liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), a class of shape programmable materials. The chemical durability of LCE is evaluated under accelerated in vitro conditions simulating the physiological environment; for example, LCE exhibits less than 1% mass change under a hydrolytic medium simulating >1 year in vivo. By employing twisted nematic LCEs as dynamic substrates, we demonstrate electronics that are fabricated on planar substrates but upon release morph into programmed 3D shapes. These shapes are designed to enable intrinsically low failure strain materials to be extrinsically stretchable. For example, helical multichannel cables for electrode arrays withstand cyclic stretching and buckling over 10 000 cycles at 60% strain while being soaked in phosphate-buffered saline. We envision that these LCE-based electronics can be used for applications in implantable neural interfaces and biosensors.


Risk factors for osteoarthritis (OA) often exert effects over protracted time-courses. Mendelian randomization (MR) studies therefore have an advantage over conventional observational studies when studying the causal effect of long-term lifestyle-related risk factors on OA. However, given the heterogeneous design of existing MR studies on OA, the reported causal estimates of these effects remain inconsistent, thus obscuring the true extent of the biological effects of OA lifestyle-risk factors.

 We conducted a PRISMA systematic review and specifically included MR studies that investigated the causal effect between lifestyle-related risk factors and OA, where causal estimates for various lifestyle factors were pooled for meta-analysis. Quality of studies was assessed according to STROBE-MR guidelines.

 A total of 1576 studies were evaluated and 23 were included. Overall, the studies included were of high quality and had a low risk of bias. Our meta-analysis demonstrates the positive causal effect of BMI (ORIVW-random effects 1.49 [1.23-1.80]) and negative causal effects of serum calcium (ORIVW-random effects 0.69 [0.57-0.83]) and LDL levels (ORIVW-random effects 0.93 [0.90-0.96]) on OA.

 Despite the heterogeneous designs and estimates of causal effects provided by various MR studies, our meta-analysis suggests that lifestyle-related risk factors in the form of BMI, serum calcium, and LDL have true biological effects on the development of OA.
 Disclosure
 J. Ho: None. C. Mak: None.


In 1995 India's Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) organized women waste pickers in Ahmedabad into a cooperative to improve their working conditions and livelihoods. When the waste recycling industry collapsed eight years later eroding waste pickers' already vulnerable income the cooperative began to manufacture stationery products from recycled waste. Over time this informal arrangement evolved into Gitanjali—a women-owned and -run social enterprise. With support from key partners Gitanjali has generated social value providing its members with safe and dignified work while increasing their earnings. While Gitanjali faces challenges in becoming a fully self-sufficient social enterprise its experience offers insights for other initiatives seeking to provide opportunities for women to transition from informal to formal work.


Summary 1. Annual meadow grass Poa annua is the most problematic weed within sports turf in temperate climates. It is so abundant that herbicides cannot be used against it because almost total loss of the sward would occur. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi can be used as biological control agents of P. annua , acting to reduce its growth while increasing that of desirable perennial grasses. However, natural levels of AM fungi in amenity turf are very low. Sports turf is characterized by high fungicide usage, so this study tested the hypothesis that levels of toxic elements (derived from historical fungicide applications) and/or organic fungicides are related to the low mycorrhizal abundance observed. 2. Records of fungicide applications to putting greens at four golf courses in south-east England were collected for the period 1993‐2000. Soils from all 18 putting greens on each course were sampled during spring 2000. Levels of arsenic, cadmium, copper and lead were recorded, as these elements formed part of the fungicidal compounds applied in the past. Of the organic fungicides in current use, chlorothalonil, fenarimol and iprodione were found to comprise more than 70% of all compounds used and soil levels of these three chemicals were also measured. Levels of AM colonization of P. annua were recorded at every putting green. The rates of AM colonization of desirable grasses could not be obtained because these were too rare in all the swards examined. 3. There was little evidence that the abundance of AM fungi, as measured by arbuscular colonization of roots, was affected by the presence of any of the chemicals. Levels of all elements were below the ambient levels for UK soils. 4. Chlorothalonil, fenarimol and iprodione were applied to a single putting green over a 6-month period but no effects on AM colonization were found. 5. Synthesis and applications. We have demonstrated that the low levels of AM fungi in putting greens are unlikely to be a consequence of excessive fungicide application. Levels of compounds applied in the last 20 years are very low and modern fungicides do not reduce existing AM colonization when applied to turf. Therefore, if AM fungi are added to sports turf to control P. annua , their effectiveness will not be compromised by current or past fungicide use.


This study was conducted to compare the analgesic efficacy of four commonly used analgesics namely ibuprofen, analgin, paracetamol and aspirin in post-episiotomy pain. The subjects were healthy postpartum women on the obstetric service of Goa Medical College, each of whom received only one experimental medication. Subjective reports were used as indices of pain intensity or relief. Ibuprofen was found to be the most effective analgesic in post-episiotomy pain followed by analgin and paracetamol in that order. Surprisingly, aspirin was found to be no better than placebo.


Radiotherapy is a pivotal treatment for treating breast cancer. However, its role in the management of elderly patients is still under debate. Some authors suggest be avoided after surgery for early stage, some others advocate its adoption. For breast cancer treatment different schedules are used both for whole and partial breast irradiation, in adjuvant as well as definitive setting. Which one is better for elderly patients is a controversial topic. Numerous studies focused on both moderate or extreme hypofractionated irradiation have been published. However, only few addressed the topic on elderly patient population. The data on hypofractionated radiotherapy showed that for whole breast, locoregional and post-mastectomy treatment, this approach is a valid option reporting similar efficacy and toxicity to the standard fractionation. Also accelerated partial breast irradiation for patients with favourable early stage disease represents a viable option allowing for de-escalation by targeting radiation dose to the part of breast tissue at highest recurrence risk. Undoubtedly, for frail and elderly patients a short course of radiotherapy could increase their adherence and the quality of life. In the same manner, the preoperative approach has been applied for both whole and partial breast irradiation, allowing for more precise target delineation compared to the post-surgical one, eventually leading to a smaller treatment volume, to less geographical missing and possibly to a lower radiation-induced toxicity. Some more long-term results could make us more confident in prescribing adjuvant or preoperative partial breast irradiation. These approaches could be the most appropriate treatment for elderly patients, potentially preserving quality of life and increasing the tolerability to the irradiation.


The domination of the Internet by TCP-based services has spawned many efforts to provide high network utilization with low loss and delay in a simple and scalable manner. Active queue management (AQM) algorithms attempt to achieve these goals by regulating queues at bottleneck links to provide useful feedback to TCP sources. While many AQM algorithms have been proposed, most suffer from instability, require careful configuration of non-intuitive control parameters, or are not practical because of slow response to dynamic traffic changes. In this paper, we propose a new AQM algorithm, hybrid random early detection (HRED), that combines the more effective elements of recent algorithms with a random early detection (RED) core. HRED maps instantaneous queue length to a drop probability, automatically adjusting the slope and intercept of the mapping function to account for changes in traffic load and to keep queue length within the desired operating range. We demonstrate that straightforward selection of HRED parameters results in stable operation under steady load and rapid adaptation to changes in load. Simulation and implementation tests confirm this stability, and indicate that overall performances of HRED are substantially better than those of earlier AQM algorithms. Finally, HRED control parameters provide several intuitive approaches to trading between required memory, queue stability, and response time.


Aim: The aim of the present study was to assess the awareness and knowledge of Diabetic retinopathy among Diabetic patients in a tertiary care hospital of Bihar region. Material and Methods: This was a descriptive, cross sectional, non-randomized, questionnaire based study conducted in the department of Department of ophthalmology, Patna Medical College and Hospital, Patna, Bihar, India, for 15 months. A knowledge attitude practice questionnaire was prepared and pretested in a sample group of representative population. The response was analyzed as to whether the questions were understood or not. Social workers were trained in administering questionnaire. Diabetic patients were given questionnaires at primary health centre and filled in the presence of social workers. Results: Out of the 200 patients, 110 (55%) had no knowledge of diabetic retinopathy compared to 90 (45%) who had knowledge. This was statistically significant with p value <0.001. Knowledge was more in age group less than 30 years (76.19%) and least in 40 to 50 age group (47.62%) which was statistically significant with p value <0.001. Knowledge was more among females than males which was not significant statistically. Knowledge was found to be high among participants with higher educational status than in those who had college level education (72.73%) which was statistically significant with p value <0.001. Patients in the upper socioeconomic group had more knowledge about diabetic retinopathy (85.71%) which was statistically significant with a p value of 0.001. Conclusion: The attitude and practice of diabetic retinopathy was statistically significant in knowledge group compared to those who had no knowledge of diabetic retinopathy.


In this paper, we study real-world performance of Sigfox, which is one of the most mature Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) technologies that operate in unlicensed frequency bands. During an extensive measurement campaign conducted over three months in the city of Brno, Czech Republic, we assessed the communication performance and the radio channel properties in 311 different test locations. We observed that despite the challenging natural landscape and urban environment of the test area, more than 94% of the packets sent were received successfully, with at least one packet delivered from 297 out of 311 tested locations. Our results also reported experiment-based radio channel and signal-to-noise characterization as well as provided insights into the efficiency of two crucial mechanisms used by Sigfox to improve the packet delivery - packet repetition and multi-gateway reception. Finally, we employed our experimental data to understand the efficiency of two non-fingerprint localization methods based on received signal strength indicator in a practical Sigfox network.


We provide experimental evidence for the hypothesis that bounded rationality is an important element of the theory of the firm. We implement a simplified version of a mechanism designed to perfectly solve the holdup problem under conditions of perfect rationality (Maskin 2002). We test whether this mechanism is able to perfectly solve our experimental holdup problem or may at least improve economic performance. We find that this is not the case: the implementation of the mechanism worsens economic performance. We reconstruct the main features of participants' behavior by applying the logit agent quantal response equilibrium (McKelvey and Palfrey 1998) as an equilibrium concept that takes players' potential mistakes into account.


BACKGROUND
People with acquired progressive dysarthria typically experience increased problems with intelligibility in everyday conversation as their disease progresses. Such problems are likely to impact on both the person with dysarthria and those with whom they interact. If this is the case then we may ask questions not just about the nature of these problems but how it is that such problems are dealt with by participants when they occur.

AIMS
To investigate ways through which problems resulting from dysarthria in everyday conversation are resolved by participants. Further, to examine some of the features of repair resolution, particularly where understanding of self-repair attempts themselves prove difficult.

METHODS & PROCEDURES
Video data of natural conversation from two dyads were selected for this paper. One dyad features a 58 year-old man with multiple sclerosis and moderate intelligibility problems, the other a 79 year-old woman with motor neurone disease with mild to moderate intelligibility problems. Both elected to be recorded in conversation with their spouses. The dyads were video-recorded at home with no researcher present. Using the methods of Conversation Analysis (CA) a collection of sequences was identified and transcribed. The sequences were analysed with reference to how the participants resolve problems in the understanding of dysarthric speech.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS
It is shown how some problems resulting from dysarthria in conversation can be resolved relatively quickly, particularly where a specific element of a prior turn is highlighted by the recipient as problematic. In other instances, the recipient's understanding problem may be more global. These result in longer repair sequences in which problematic elements are addressed individually. Such a resolution method is ultimately successful but may also be characterised by additional understanding problems. These findings draw attention to an important distinction between intelligibility and understandability.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS
It is concluded that problems resulting from dysarthria in conversation can require extensive repair work involving both parties. This has implications for the assessment of dysarthria in everyday conversation and also the promotion of intervention strategies that encompass the activities of both participants when dealing with dysarthria in interaction. These findings may be usefully employed in informing both direct clinical work and through training those who work with this client group and their significant others.


This paper aims at revisiting Graph Convolutional Neural Networks by bridging the gap between spectral and spatial design of graph convolutions. We theoretically demonstrate some equivalence of the graph convolution process regardless it is designed in the spatial or the spectral domain. The obtained general framework allows to lead a spectral analysis of the most popular ConvGNNs, explaining their performance and showing their limits. Moreover, the proposed framework is used to design new convolutions in spectral domain with a custom frequency profile while applying them in the spatial domain. We also propose a generalization of the depthwise separable convolution framework for graph convolutional networks, what allows to decrease the total number of trainable parameters by keeping the capacity of the model. To the best of our knowledge, such a framework has never been used in the GNNs literature. Our proposals are evaluated on both transductive and inductive graph learning problems. Obtained results show the relevance of the proposed method and provide one of the first experimental evidence of transferability of spectral filter coefficients from one graph to another.


Milk stasis, blocked ducts, inflammatory or infectious mastitis, and breast abscess represent the spectrum of maternal hyperlactation syndrome. Management includes decreasing the rate of milk synthesis, improving milk removal out of the breast, and antibiotic therapy for ascending lactiferous duct infections and mastitis. Thriving infants who choke and splutter at the breast, feed frequently, are colicky, and have explosive, watery bowel movements have infant hyperlactation syndrome and are managed by decreasing quantity and increasing quality of breast milk drunk.


State-of-the-art engineering and science codes have grown in complexity dramatically over the last two decades. Application teams have adopted more sophisticated development strategies, leveraging third party libraries, deploying comprehensive testing, and using advanced debugging and profiling tools. In today's environment of diverse hardware platforms, these applications also desire performance portability—avoiding the need to duplicate work for various platforms. The Kokkos EcoSystem provides that portable software stack. Based on the Kokkos Core Programming Model, the EcoSystem provides math libraries, interoperability capabilities with Python and Fortran, and Tools for analyzing, debugging, and optimizing applications. In this article, we overview the components, discuss some specific use cases, and highlight how codesigning these components enables a more developer friendly experience.


In recent years, the olefins metathesis has established itself as a powerful tool for carboncarbon bonds forming and has found numerous applications in polymer chemistry. One of the important directions of metathesis is the polymerization with cycle opening. A study of new ruthenium catalysts, resistant to the many functional groups effects, has showed the possibility of synthesizing functionalized polymers with unique properties. In this chapter, reactivity and activation parameters of eight different norbornene dicarboxylic acid alkyl esters in the presence of a Hoveyda-Grubbs II catalyst for the ring opening metathesis polymerization were determined by H NMR analysis in-situ. The molecules of esters differ in the aliphatic radical structure and the location of the substituent groups. Kinetic studies have shown that effective polymerization constants and activation parameters strongly depend on the monomer structure. It is shown that the elongation of the aliphatic radical does not significantly affect the reactivity, but significantly changes the activation parameters. The branching of the aliphatic radical significantly affects both the reactivity of the corresponding ester and the activation parameters of the polymerization. The position of the substituents in the norbornene ring of the ester also has a significant effect on the activation parameters of metathesis polymerization.


By the finite element analysis software ABAQUS and the function of coupling process between heat and stress, the welding residual stress of Cr5Mo and 20 steel joint was analyzed. In addition the heat treatment of dissimilar steel welded joint was simulated. The residual stress distributions of dissimilar steel welding and heat treatment after welding were obtained. The comparison of welding residual stress between the homogenous steel and dissimilar steel was carried out. The results indicate that the welding residual stress of the same steel is lower than that of dissimilar steel welded joint obviously. Because of the difference of thermal expansion coefficient for base metal and welding microstructure, the relatively higher residual stress is produced due to the bigger thermal expansion coefficient of base metal. The highest annular residual stress is in welding line root of internal wall, while the highest axial residual stress is in welding line surface of outer wall. The welding residual stress of dissimilar welded joint is reduced obviously after heat treatment. The research results provide the possibility for optimizing the welding procedure and improving the reliability of dissimilar steel welding joint.


Both benign and malignant tumors of the lacrymal sac are not common, and so far only 117 cases have been reported in the literature (Duke-Elder, 1952). 1 In this series only 26 nonspecific granulomas are included. Since that time some other benign tumors have been published, 2-8 but their number is limited. In our country, where, because of the climate, chronic dacryocystitis is frequent enough, we rarely meet polyps of the tear sac. This paper deals with 3 cases of polyps of the tear sac which present many similarities both in their macroscopic and in their microscopic picture and in their etiology. It is this last which I intend to discuss particularly in this study. The first 2 cases have already been presented at the Hellenic Ophthalmological Society 6,7 during the meetings of Feb. 21 and March 28, 1957; the third one has not been published. Report of Cases Case


Owing to its intrinsic advantages of favorable contrast and spatial resolution, microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging (TAI) has drawn great attention in biomedical imaging applications, such as breast cancer detection. Many experimental studies have demonstrated the promising potential of TAI. Several TAI modeling studies have also been published that facilitate the design and optimization of TAI systems. However, experimental validation of the modeling results is rarely seen; thus it is highly desirable to prove the effectiveness of the modeling approach. In this letter, the TAI modeling approach previously described by our group is validated by experiments. A three-dimensional printed polymer slab with featured structures is used as the sample to be investigated by both the model and the experiment. Images are obtained to reveal the featured structures in the slab from both the modeling and experimental results. Rigorous comparisons between the modeling and experimental imaging results are carried out. The achieved good agreement between the images corroborates the validity of the TAI modeling approach and thereby encourages more applications of it.


Clostridium difficile is an anaerobic, Gram-positive, endospore-forming, pathogenic bacterium which is the leading cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea, and causes a significant burden to healthcare facilities and communities, worldwide. Bacterial endospores are one of the most resilient forms of life, able to withstand exposures to wet-heat, desiccation, UV radiation, oxygen, and some disinfectants, which would otherwise kill the vegetative cell form. Thus, endospores of C. difficile are able to persist in the environment and contaminate surfaces within healthcare settings. Once ingested, these spores pass into the anaerobic lower intestines and in susceptible individuals find favourable conditions in which to germinate, generating the toxin-producing vegetative cells responsible for C. difficile associated disease. Consequently, spores are the infectious agent of this disease and both sporulation and germination processes are essential for disease. Whilst these processes have been well studied in Bacillus subtilis, it is only recently, with the development of appropriate reverse genetics tools for clostridia, that the mechanisms of sporulation and germination have begun to be described for C. difficile. This study uses the currently available mutagenesis tools of ClosTron and allelic exchange to generate mutant spores lacking spore-specific proteins, and through a range of assays characterises the sporulation, germination and resistance properties of these mutants, to understand the roles of these proteins in C. difficile endospores. Furthermore, these genetics tools are established in a novel C. difficile strain with beneficial properties for studying the processes of sporulation and germination in vitro. Finally, this study establishes CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in C. difficile for the first time to overcome the major pitfalls associated with the previously available reverse genetics tools. This mutagenesis method was found to offer fast, highly efficient genome editing of two different C. difficile strains and will be the method of choice for future studies in C. difficile.


Abstract This article makes a provocative diagnosis: an unlimited right to secession is incompatible with global peace and progress. In order to overcome such a danger, it offers a practical solution: potential new nations should be subject to a viability test. Should each ethnic, cultural or language group claim their own and independent nation, the globe map would end up divided into 5,000 pieces. It is precisely in times of globalization that stable borders and rationalilty are more than ever necessary, and not only because geostrategic stability is at stake, but because sustainable development and peaceful coexistance are as well.


KARZAN SABAH D.AHMED Recently, there has been interest in the study of soil biodiversity and its functional role in agricultural grassland due to the need to develop management strategies for soil biota to improve ecosystem self-regulation. In the UK, grasslands provide a habitat for several subterranean insect taxa some of which are pests leatherjackets (larvae of Tipulidae: Diptera) and wireworms (larvae of Elateridae:Coleoptera). To provide an appropriate method of pest management, a systematic sampling of agricultural grassland over different sampling scales is crucial in order to understand their population distribution and distribution patterns. The spatial distribution and distribution patterns of soil insects were investigated in agricultural grassland over three sampling scales (farmlet, field and core). The effect of spatial, biotic and scale variables and their combinations have been assessed. In addition, a new molecular method has been developed to identify grassland leatherjackets using universal DNA primers. Soil core samples were collected from 19 grass fields divided into 3 farmlets in the Farm Platform at Rothamsted Research, North Wyke. The abundance of taxa and presence: absence data were analysed over the three sampling scales using variance/mean ratios, non-metric multidimensional scaling to visualise association between individual taxa, and deviance partitioning to determine the effect of spatial, space and biotic variables on species distribution. The spatial distribution of most taxa varied between sampling scales from randomness at the core scale to aggregation at the field and farm scales, though some taxa were aggregated at IV nearly all scales. Using deviance partitioning our results support previous reports and suggest that scale is the most important factor influencing taxa distribution in comparison with biotic and space variables which had a minor impact. This could explain the variation between taxa which might be due to the interactions between specific environmental variables and sampling scale, biotic and other unknown factors and species biology. DNA barcoding of Tipula spp. using universal DNA primers showed that leatherjackets in grassland are dominated by Tipula paludosa with T. oleraca only found in small numbers. There were also some species of T. paludosa with high genetic variability (P>3%) within the species indicating the possibility of other cryptic species close to T. paludosa.


The Scottish Government has a strong commitment to strengthening children's human rights, with the aim of making Scotland 'the best place to grow up and bring up children'. The Education (Scotland) Act 2016 introduced a raft of measures to boost the rights of children with additional support needs (ASN). The programme for government in Scotland, published in September 2020, included a commitment to incorporate the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child into Scottish domestic legislation. In order to examine the extent to which the rights of Gypsy/Traveller children are being respected in practice, this paper draws on an analysis of official statistics conducted as part of an ESRC funded project entitled "Autonomy, Rights and Children with Special Needs: A New Paradigm?" (ES/P002641/1), which ran from 2018 to 2020. In addition, the paper uses findings from an Independent Children's Rights Impact Assessment which was carried out in summer 2020 with a view to investigating the impact of the emergency measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the terms of the Coronavirus Act 2020, schools across the UK were closed, with widespread implications for children and young people, particularly those with additional support needs. The central aim of this paper is to explore the impact of the emergency measures on the recently enhanced rights of children with ASN, with a particular focus on the rights of children from Gypsy/Traveller backgrounds. I conclude that people living itinerant lives experience long-standing exclusion from mainstream schooling and wider society, and their marginal status has been reinforced during the recent pandemic when children's human rights have been side-lined.


NF-κB, a key activator of inflammation primes the NLRP3-inflammasome for activation by inducing pro-IL-1β and NLRP3 expression. NF-κB, however, also prevents excessive inflammation and restrains NLRP3-inflammasome activation through a poorly defined mechanism. We now show that NF-κB exerts its anti-inflammatory activity by inducing delayed accumulation of the autophagy receptor p62/SQSTM1. External NLRP3-activating stimuli trigger a form of mitochondrial (mt) damage that is caspase-1- and NLRP3-independent and causes release of direct NLRP3-inflammasome activators, including mtDNA and mtROS. Damaged mitochondria undergo Parkin-dependent ubiquitin conjugation and are specifically recognized by p62, which induces their mitophagic clearance. Macrophage-specific p62 ablation causes pronounced accumulation of damaged mitochondria and excessive IL-1β-dependent inflammation and enhances macrophage death. Therefore, the "NF-κB-p62-mitophagy" pathway is a macrophage-intrinsic regulatory loop through which NF-κB restrains its own inflammation-promoting activity and orchestrates a self-limiting host response that maintains homeostasis and favors tissue repair. Citation Format: Zhenyu Zhong, Michael Karin. NF-kB restricts inflammasome activation via elimination of damaged mitochondria [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Second CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; 2016 Sept 25-28; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2016;4(11 Suppl):Abstract nr A066.


This essay, written in honor and memory of Professor Alan R. Bromberg as part of a symposium issue of the Southern Methodist University Law Review, is designed to provide preliminary answers to two questions. First: is a limited liability company ("LLC") operating agreement (now known under Delaware law and in certain other circles as a limited liability company agreement) a contract? And second: should we care either way? These questions arise out of, among other things, a recent bankruptcy court case, In re Denman, 513 B.R. 720, 725 (Bankr. W.D. Tenn. 2014).The bottom line? An operating agreement may or may not be a common law contract. But that legal categorization may not matter for purposes of simple legal conclusions regarding the force and effect of operating agreements. A state's LLC law may provide that LLCs are contracts or are to be treated as contracts in general or for specific purposes and may establish the circumstances in which operating agreements are valid, binding, and enforceable. However, in the absence of an applicable statute, the legal conclusion that an operating agreement is or is not a common law contract may matter in legal contexts that depend on the common law of contracts for their rules. In either case, the bar may want to participate in clarifying the status of operating agreements as binding commitments.


Bioethical aspects related with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of patients with AIDS are present in the Cuban strategy to fight the epidemic. Through the revision of the essentials and principles of Bioethics, we analyze the problems that doctors face when treating these patients and aspects related with education for health in the case of this disease. It also outlines the association between these principles and the disposition, manifested or not, of theses patients to be part of some researches. This infection should be the target of permanent analysis by the Bioethics due to the constant challenges that it represent for medical staff and for society, either for the prevention, treatment and care, or for other kids of actions. Cuba has exceptional results in this field.


In this essay I analyse and criticize George Lindbeck's treatment of truth and meaning in his book The Nature of Doctrine. After an explication of his general project in this work, I turn specifically to his discussion of truth and of its interaction with his understanding of meaning. Although he is primarily concerned with these issues as they relate to religious doctrines and language, he insists that the distinctions he makes are not religiously derived. Rather, he borrows and adapts widely from philosophy, anthropology and social theory, bringing the insights adopted to bear on the issues of religion generally, and the development and change of religious doctrines in particular. I argue that his treatment of truth and meaning is very problematic on several counts: on truth, his theory fails as an adequate theoretical description of our pretheoretic intuition of truth, and it is finally parasitic on this intuition. On meaning, his reduction of meaning (and sometimes truth) to use or usefulness leads him to an incorrect categorization of doctrines as (essentially) performative utterances and second-order, non-assertive discourse, rather than as propositional attitude statements. I contend that they most properly fit in the latter category. Finally, I suggest the inadequacy of his treatment of truth and meaning redounds to the failure of his theory of religion and doctrine as a whole.


As part of the continuing development of a non-invasive, objective screening method to achieve efficient early detection of developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH), we determined the diagnostic sensitivity of an experienced nurse examiner and vibration arthrometry in the range of pathological anatomy of the disease. A cohort of 25 children were studied prior to commencement of their treatment. The hips were classified into four categories by an experienced paediatric orthopaedic surgeon with all diagnostic modalities available ("normal", "stable but dysplastic", "unstable and reducible" or "irreducible"). Of the 28 hips identified as abnormal, two hips were classified as stabledysplastic, 11 were unstable/reducible and 15 were irreducible hips. The experienced nurse examiner identified eight out of 11 unstable-reducible hips and reported clinical signs of abnormality in another 18 cases. Vibration arthrometry identified nine out of 11 unstable-reducible dislocations and detected abnormal signals from three irreducible hips. Vibration arthrometry may be of value in detecting abnormality in unstable-reducible and clicking hips. The low detection rate in the irreducible and dysplastic hips by vibration arthrometry was due to the absence of detectable vibration from mechanical events as the hips were manoeuvred. Examination by an experienced clinical examiner continues to be necessary if all degrees of mechanical abnormality in DDH are to be detected. Further development is required to achieve an objective non-invasive system of detecting all stages in the pathology of DDH.


The association behaviour of Brij 58-H2O and Tween 80-H2O with a third component consisting of Brij 30 was investigated. The results were presented in the form of ternary phase equilibriums of H2O - Brij 30 - Brij 58 system and H2O - Brij 30 - Tween 80 systems. The liquid crystalline phase is determined by visual observation of the birefringence under the crossed polarized light. The results showed that the solubilisation for the mixture of Brij 30-Brij 58 and Brij 30-Tween 80 were favourable. The associated formation of self- assembled structures like micelles and lyotropic liquid crystalline were observed. The result showed that the presence of Brij 58 promotes formation of lamellar liquid crystal compared to the Tween 80 counterpart.


The thesis presents new methodology and algorithms that can be used to analyse and measure the hand tremor and fatigue of surgeons while performing surgery. This will assist them in deriving useful information about their fatigue levels, and make them aware of the changes in their tool point accuracies. This thesis proposes that muscular changes of surgeons, which occur through a day of operating, can be monitored using Electromyography (EMG) signals. The multi-channel EMG signals are measured at different muscles in the upper arm of surgeons. The dependence of EMG signals has been examined to test the hypothesis that EMG signals are coupled with and dependent on each other. The results demonstrated that EMG signals collected from different channels while mimicking an operating posture are independent. Consequently, single channel fatigue analysis has been performed. In measuring hand tremor, a new method for determining the maximum tremor amplitude using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and a new technique to detrend acceleration signals using Empirical Mode Decomposition algorithm were introduced. This tremor determination method is more representative for surgeons and it is suggested as an alternative fatigue measure. This was combined with the complexity analysis method, and applied to surgically captured data to determine if operating has an effect on a surgeon's fatigue and tremor levels. It was found that surgical tremor and fatigue are developed throughout a day of operating and that this could be determined based solely on their initial values. Finally, several Nonlinear AutoRegressive with eXogenous inputs (NARX) neural networks were evaluated. The results suggest that it is possible to monitor surgeon tremor variations during surgery from their EMG fatigue measurements.


Organo-halide Perovskite Solar Cells (PSC) have been reported to achieve remarkably high power conversion efficiency (PCE). A thorough understanding of the role of each component in solar cells and their effect as a whole is still required for further improvement in PCE. In this paper, the effect of Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS 2 ) in PSC with mesoporous structure configuration was analyzed using Solar Cell Capacitance Simulator (SCAPS). With the MoS 2 layer which having two-fold function, acting as a protective layer, by preventing the formation of shunt contacts between perovskite and Au electrode, and as a hole transport material (HTM) from the perovskite to the Spiro-OMETAD. As simulated, PSC demonstrates a PCE, ŋ of 13.1%, along with stability compared to typical structure of PSC without MoS 2 (Δ ŋ/ŋ=-9% vs. Δ ŋ/ŋ=-6%). The results pave the way towards the implementation of MoS 2 as a material able to boost shelf life which very useful for new material choice and optimization of HTMs.


Developing efficient redox materials for the thermochemical synthesis of renewable fuels from CO2 and H2O via two-step redox cycling by utilizing concentrated solar energy is a major challenge that needs to be overcome for the realization of the solar fuel technology. Metal oxide redox materials are receiving recent interest on this regard, among which perovskite structured mixed oxides with lattice oxygen transfer are particularly important. In this contribution, we examined a series of perovskites and related Ruddlesden–Popper (RP) structures for their effectiveness in solar thermochemical conversion of CO2. All the materials used in this study were synthesized from the corresponding oxides by following the conventional solid state method. Substitutions were made on the cationic A and B sites in the structure in order to modify their redox properties and to enhance their stability under the reaction conditions. In conjugation, with the compositional tailoring of the perovskite materials, the temperatures of reduction and re-oxidation were varied. Issues regarding carbonate formation were identified, for some compositions so as to affect their CO2-splitting efficiency. Also in some cases, despite the higher extent of reduction observed at low temperatures, given the presence of Co4+, Fe4+ valence states, the extent of re-oxidation and stability were comparatively lower (case of (La,Sr)(Co,Fe)O3, (Ba,Sr)(Co,Fe)O3). The best performance among the investigated series was observed for La(B,B′)O3 perovskites with Mn and Ni or Mn and Co together in the B site, as well as strontium doped lanthanum manganites with perovskite (La0.5Sr0.5MnO3) and parent RP structures. Ruddlesden–Popper materials with only Mn occupying the B-site (LaSrMnO4, LaSr2Mn2O7), exhibited noteworthy thermochemical stability for two-step redox cycling and the amount of produced CO was consistently higher without any microstructural or morphological optimization at this stage.


Knowledge of foraging strategies has significant implications for the conservation of endangered loggerhead sea turtles Caretta caretta. Stable isotope analysis is a useful tool in studying the ecology of marine consumers, as nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios (δ 15 N and δ 13 C) may reflect an organism's patterns of diet and habitat use. However, obtaining samples for analy- sis from the study species can be difficult. For female loggerhead turtles, there is a limited time window in which to collect samples while the turtles are nesting. In the present study, we investi- gated motheroffspring stable isotope relationships and the potential for sampling hatchling log- gerheads to gain information about nesting female populations. Epidermis samples were collected from 29 nesting females and 47 of their hatchlings on Wassaw Island, Georgia, USA. The δ 15 N and δ 13 C values of maternal and offspring tissues were compared to determine the discrimination, or difference, in isotope values. Hatchlings that were sampled after being discovered dead in the nests had significantly different discrimination values from those that were freshly dead, suggest- ing that decomposition affects the reliability of isotope ratios. Therefore, we suggest using fresh hatchling samples. Hatchling δ 15 N and δ 13 C values were significantly correlated to the isotope val- ues of their mothers. Freshly dead hatchlings had significantly higher δ 15 N values and lower δ 13 C values relative to their mothers, and there was little variation among hatchlings within a nest. These discrimination factors can be applied in the future to determine maternal isotope composi- tion from hatchling tissues and evaluate trophic relationships and foraging strategies of nesting females without sampling them.


The purpose of this study was to determine the main patterns of the toxic effect of lead on the red marrow cells of birds in the first three days after exposure. The electro-microscopic study revealed that the toxic effect of lead nitrate on bone marrow cells begins even at a slight MAL excess after 1 day of intoxication. Hematopoietic and stromal marrow cells mainly show the signs of dystrophic changes, which increase as the term after exposure to lead nitrate increases. In the cytoplasm of many cells, heterogeneous lipid inclusions are formed, which are likely the lipid products of cell membrane destruction. In lead intoxication of chickens, the structure of the cell nuclei in the bone marrow is changed, and the morphological characteristics reveal a decrease in the transcription of ribosomal RNA genes and the preparation of many cells for apoptosis.


While developmental neuroscience can often be motivated by clinical and policy concerns, its constituent research methodologies aim to provide insights into the limits and potential of the developing brain. Our article addresses two main approaches for characterizing psychological and neural changes that occur between infancy and adolescence. Specifically, with respect to psychological change, frequently debated topics such as the nature of developmental continuity can potentially gain from the insights of brain data. Whereas for neuroimaging approaches, which have gained substantial traction in recent years, the advances in describing the developing 'connectome' has been challenged by awareness of imaging artifacts related to behavioral aspects of development (such as motion). As these two fields (developmental psychology and neuroscience) continue to integrate by, for example, constraining psychological hypotheses with brain data and offering explanatory models of neuroimaging findings, the resolution of these challenges charts the development of the field itself.


ABSTRACT User-Generated Content (UGC) provides a potential data source which can help us to better describe and understand how places are conceptualized, and in turn better represent the places in Geographic Information Science (GIScience). In this article, we aim at aggregating the shared meanings associated with places and linking these to a conceptual model of place. Our focus is on the metadata of Flickr images, in the form of locations and tags. We use topic modeling to identify regions associated with shared meanings. We choose a grid approach and generate topics associated with one or more cells using Latent Dirichlet Allocation. We analyze the sensitivity of our results to both grid resolution and the chosen number of topics using a range of measures including corpus distance and the coherence value. Using a resolution of 500 m and with 40 topics, we are able to generate meaningful topics which characterize places in London based on 954 unique tags associated with around 300,000 images and more than 7000 individuals.


Background: A target of an HbA1c Methods: A sub-sample of adults (18 years or older) of the representative Brazilian National Health Survey (2014-2015) was randomly selected for the collection of biological samples. Of these, 8952 (52%) individuals provided samples, and 8541 (50%) have HbA1c results. HbA1c was measured at a NDPG-certified central laboratory. Diabetes was defined by self-report of a physician diagnosis. Given the complex sampling used to select participants and the response rate obtained, we used the rake method of post-stratification survey weights, calculated according to sex, age, and education, to estimate national rates. Results: Among the 8541 adults, 573 (5.87%; 95% CI: 5.41%-6.33%) reported having received a previous diagnosis of diabetes outside of pregnancy. Of these, only 55.2% (51.1%-59.4%) had HbA1c less than 7%, and 69.5% (65.7%-73.4%) less than the more flexible HbA1c target of 8%. On the other hand, 19.8% (16.5%-23.1%) had HbA1c ≥9.0%, indicating very poor glucose control. Though small sample size limited statistical testing, we found no differences across socio-demographic characteristics except for educational achievement, those of lesser education more frequently presenting worse glucose control (p=0.004). Conclusion: Our results, showing a glucose control similar to that observed in representative U.S. surveys, highlight the large fraction of cases with very poor control. New strategies are needed to improve glucose control in the entire population of persons living with diabetes. Disclosure R.C.P. dos Reis: None. B.B. Duncan: Research Support; Self; Eli Lilly and Company. Research Support; Spouse/Partner; Eli Lilly and Company. M.I. Schmidt: Research Support; Self; Eli Lilly and Company. Research Support; Spouse/Partner; Eli Lilly and Company.


Background: We leveraged two trials to test the hypothesis of an inflammation–prostate cancer link prospectively in men without indication for biopsy. Methods: Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT) participants who had an end-of-study biopsy performed per protocol that was negative for cancer and who subsequently enrolled in the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) were eligible. We selected all 100 cases and sampled 200 frequency-matched controls and used PCPT end-of-study biopsies as "baseline." Five men with PSA > 4 ng/mL at end-of-study biopsy were excluded. Tissue was located for 92 cases and 193 controls. We visually assessed inflammation in benign tissue. We estimated ORs and 95% confidence intervals (CI) using logistic regression adjusting for age and race. Results: Mean time between biopsy and diagnosis was 5.9 years. In men previously in the PCPT placebo arm, 78.1% of cases (N = 41) and 68.2% of controls (N = 85) had at least one baseline biopsy core (∼5 evaluated per man) with inflammation. The odds of prostate cancer (N = 41 cases) appeared to increase with increasing mean percentage of tissue area with inflammation, a trend that was statistically significant for Gleason sum <4+3 disease (N = 31 cases; vs. 0%, >0–<1.8% OR = 1.70, 1.8–<5.0% OR = 2.39, ≥5% OR = 3.31, Ptrend = 0.047). In men previously in the finasteride arm, prevalence of inflammation did not differ between cases (76.5%; N = 51) and controls (75.0%; N = 108). Conclusions: Benign tissue inflammation was positively associated with prostate cancer. Impact: This first prospective study of men without biopsy indication supports the hypothesis that inflammation influences prostate cancer development. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 26(10); 1549–57. ©2017 AACR.


Prices in the hog industry in Taiwan are determined according to an auction system. There are significant differences in hog prices before, during and after joining the World Trade Organization (WTO). The paper models growth rates and volatility in daily hog prices in Taiwan from 23 March 1999 to 30 June 2007, which enables an analysis of the effects of joining the WTO. The empirical results have significant implications for risk management and policy in the agricultural industry. The three sub-samples for the periods before, during and after joining the WTO display significantly different volatility persistence of symmetry, asymmetry and leverage, respectively.


High penetration of variable wind and solar electricity generation will require modifications to the electric power system. This work examines the impacts of variable generation, including uncertainty, ramp rate, ramp range, and potentially excess generation. Time-series simulations were performed in the Texas (ERCOT) grid where different mixes of wind, solar photovoltaic and concentrating solar power provide up to 80% of the electric demand. Different enabling technologies were examined, including conventional generator flexibility, demand response, load shifting, and energy storage. A variety of combinations of these technologies enabled low levels of surplus or curtailed wind and solar generation depending on the desired penetration of renewable sources. At lower levels of penetration (up to about 30% on an energy basis) increasing flexible generation, combined with demand response may be sufficient to accommodate variability and uncertainty. Introduction of load-shifting through real-time pricing or other market mechanisms further increases the penetration of variable generation. The limited time coincidence of wind and solar generation presents increasing challenges as these sources provide greater than 50% of total demand. System flexibility must be increased to the point of virtually eliminating must-run baseload generators during periods of high wind and solar generation. Energy storage also becomes increasingly important as lower cost flexibility options are exhausted. The study examines three classes of energy storage — electricity storage, including batteries and pumped hydro, hybrid storage (compressed-air energy storage), and thermal energy storage. Ignoring long-distance transmission options, a combination of load shifting and storage equal to about 12 hours of average demand may keep renewable energy curtailment below 10% in the simulated system.Copyright © 2011 by ASME


No one went into the practice of medicine to check off boxes. Clinicians find joy and purpose by connecting with patients and interacting with colleagues. Unfortunately, our goal of practicing in an environment that allows these experiences is threatened by extreme levels of regulatory and administrative oversight.1,2 Decreased enjoyment and meaning in work may follow and lead to burnout, poor performance, and for some, premature departure from medicine.3 The negative effects on individuals can erode the morale and productivity of the group. Many administrative requirements add value to clinical care. For example, interdisciplinary rounds may include a mandatory review of urinary catheters that reduces catheter-associated infections. The usefulness of some requirements, however, may promote implementation of other requirements of lesser value that interfere with the positive impact of meaningful interventions. Best Practice Alerts (BPAs) that are "clicked through" sap enthusiasm. Perfunctory monthly meetings that are informational rather than productive and exhaustive e-learning modules on institutional requirements such as "Corporate Compliance" take time away from patient care. Despite being a prominent driver of burnout, the most common approach to nuisances is nihilism. It is unrealistic for anyone with a full clinical slate to tackle pervasive irritations. Similarly, leaders may not see decreasing administrative burdens as a priority; the excitement for decreasing hassles pales relative to the excitement for developing a new vision or strategic plan. Rather than acceptance, leaders should take proactive steps to decrease wasteful tasks. Begin by explicitly assessing the burden of tasks through dialogue with administrators, such as the chief medical officer. Administrators may not realize the impact of seemingly small requests on hospitalist workflow. For example, even adding one required question for every patient at interdisciplinary rounds can meaningfully affect the flow of rounds. Hospitalist leaders are well situated to assess the yield to burden ratio (Y/B) of any requirement. High burden tasks should be justified by substantial benefit, and tasks in which the Y/B is uncertain should be limited in scope until the value proposition is established. The electronic medical record (EMR) deserves specific attention because it is an established source of annoyance and burnout.3 Leaders should proactively collaborate with administrators to remove EMR requirements with low Y/B. The "Get Rid of Stupid Stuff" (GROSS) program demonstrated the benefits of an innovative approach to eliminating wasteful EMR tasks.4 Our own institution discontinued the BPA asking clinicians to add "Chronic Kidney Disease, Stage III" to the Problem List when an assessment revealed that the Problem List was rarely updated and this BPA was frequently presented; the BPA was low yield, high burden. Lastly, leaders should not become part of the problem. For example, a hospitalist-led quality improvement project may require documentation that a primary care physician has been contacted for each newly admitted patient. Assuming four patients and 5 minutes per call, this ask requires 20 minutes; the burden has been estimated but the yield is unknown, producing an unclear Y/B. Therefore, items generated within the group need to be vetted with the same scrutiny as external tasks. Explicitly addressing wasteful burdens provides leaders with the opportunity to shift the emphasis from processes that distract from to initiatives that enhance patient care. Promoting a sense of meaning and purpose is an essential component of group success.5 Outstanding performance, productivity, and retention can only be realized through a work environment that prioritizes patients and minimizes tasks not aligned with this mission.


With the high industrialization at a rapid pace, the demand for energy increases exponentially, but it is difficult to meet the balance of demand and supply. Therefore, how to effectively meet the balance of demand and supply intelligently has become a popular issue in this century. In recent years, Taiwan Power Company (Taipower), the biggest electric company in Taiwan, is committed to the construction of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), which provides communication channels and enables demand-side users to participate in load dispatch. On the other hand, the construction of AMI is expected to generate a tremendous number of valuable data on electricity consumption, but it is not easy to convert these data into effective information by the conventional quantitative methods. In as much as the rapid progression of AI technology in the industrial field, the application of AI technology in the technology management has become an increasing issue as an interdisciplinary study. To address this task, this work applies the recurrent neural network based on deep learning to predict low-voltage usage shortly by the electricity information of low-voltage user and meteorological data. After many vicissitudes, the electricity consumption per hour can be predicted and a sound energy arrangement can be therefore planned. Through introducing the proposed model, Taipower Company will have an effective capability that schedules power, reduces unnecessary backup power, and provides time-consuming electricity prices for industrial enterprises accurately among high usage of Taiwan industries.


ABSTRACT Objectives: This review examines differences in the use of emotion regulation (ER) strategies among younger and older adults. Method: A systematic review using search terms related to ageing and ER identified 23 relevant studies. Narrative synthesis was adopted to analyse the findings. Results: Generally, greater use of situation selection and attentional deployment was identified among older adults, although these relationships were dependent on contextual/moderator variables. While older adults employed greater levels of situation modification in response to negative stimuli, there was considerable variation in age differences across specific situation modification subtypes. Available evidence pointed to an absence of age differences in the cognitive change strategy of cognitive reappraisal. The use of relatively less-cognitively demanding cognitive change subtypes (e.g. acceptance) was, under particular circumstances, greater among older adults. Findings regarding the response modulation strategy of expressive suppression were equivocal. Conclusion: Adult development is not characterised by straightforward shifts in preferences for use of different ER strategies. Moderator variables appear to be of central importance in shaping the emergence of age differences in ER. Systematically examining interactions of age with individual difference variables and situational factors in samples including oldest-old adults will be important for advancing knowledge regarding developmental differences in ER.


End-to-end optimization of multi-instance learning (MIL) using neural networks is an important problem with many applications, in which a core issue is how to design a permutation-invariant pooling function without losing much instance-level information. Inspired by the dynamic routing in recent capsule networks, we propose a novel dynamic pooling function for MIL. It is an adaptive scheme for both key instance selection and modeling the contextual information among instances in a bag. The dynamic pooling iteratively updates the instance contribution to its bag. It is permutation-invariant and can interpret instance-to-bag relationship. The proposed dynamic pooling based multi-instance neural network has been validated on many MIL tasks and outperforms other MIL methods.


A theoretical analysis of the initial rates of product appearance in both compartments of a specifically designed diffusion cell separated by an asymmetrical enzyme membrane is presented. Variable substrate concentrations and different substrate diffusional limitations were considered. Our analysis shows that, under specific conditions, not only a product accumulation occurs in the compartment opposite to that in which the reaction takes place, but that substrate saturable kinetics can be obtained. These product translocation-like kinetics appear similar to those observed with translocation processes reported for biological situations. For such phenomena, a key role of the diffusion layer surrounding a bioactive surface is proposed.


Language Policy in Business: Discourse, ideology and practice provides a critical sociolinguistic and discursive understanding of language policy in a minority language context. Focusing on Welsh-English bilingualism in private sector businesses in Wales, the book unpacks the circulating discourses, ideologies and practices of promoting bilingualism as a sociocultural and economic resource in the globalised knowledge economy. It sheds light on businesses as ideological sites for struggles over language revitalisation, which has been characterised by tensions and discursive shifts from essentialist ideologies about language, identity, nation and territory, to an increased commodification of bilingualism.The book is premised on the understanding that language is a focal point for articulating and living out historical power relationships and inequalities, and that language policy processes are never apolitical. It adds to a body of literature about bilingualism in minority language contexts and, more broadly, about how the fields of politics, business and society are inextricably related.


Background:
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancers with a heavy burden of disease. There are several established screening-tests (fecal occult blood, flexible sigmoidoscopy, colonoscopy) with potential for early detection and sometimes prevention through the removal of pre-cancerous lesions. Recently more and more CRC-screening programs have been introduced. Methods:
This report, based on a systematic literature search, summarizes the results of economic evaluations of cost-effectiveness of CRC-screening (5 systematic reviews, 31 primary economic evaluation studies). In addition questions about the most relevant cost aspects for planning CRC-screening are addressed and the interdependency of screening-program elements in determining cost-effectiveness is elaborated on. Results:
The incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) of below € 20.000 per life year gained for most screening strategies prove to be acceptable compared to the alternative "no screening". The calculated ICERs, however, vary substantially between studies. The models underlying economic evaluation require many assumptions (participation rate, sensitivity and specificity of screening tests, cost of screening, …) that are uncertain and at times unrealistic. When planning screening-programs the factors with a strong influence on costs such as additional colonoscopy capacity necessary for screening, management of screening-detected polyps and surveillance strategies or the expected participation rate need to be analyzed. Conclusions:
From a cost-effectiveness perspective the introduction of CRC-Screening for people 50-74 years of age with average risk for CRC is justifiable based on the reviewed literature as long as screening is systematically quality assured. The choice of CRC-screening strategies is dependent on the health care system environment (infrastructure), the goals of the CRC-screening program and the additional resources available for establishing CRC-screening. For cost-effectiveness high participation rates are important. This aim needs to be balanced with assuring "informed consent" for potential participants or non-participants in CRC-screening.


Summary. Rat eggs were transferred to the oviducts of previously mated rabbits. The purpose of such transfers was to find out whether or not spermatozoa of one species can penetrate through the zona pellucida of another species. Of the 673 rat eggs that were examined, the perivitelline space of one contained a rabbit spermatozoon. Penetration in this single instance seemed to have occurred due to abnormalities in the spermatozoon.


Answers to mechanistic questions about biological phenomena require fluency in a variety of molecular biology techniques and physical concepts. Here, we present an interdisciplinary approach to introducing undergraduate students to an important problem in the areas of animal behavior and neuroscience—the neuronal control of animal behavior. In this lab module, students explore planarian behavior by quantitative image and data analysis with freely available software and low-cost resources. Planarians are ∼1–2-cm-long aquatic free-living flatworms famous for their regeneration abilities. They are inexpensive and easy to maintain, handle, and perturb, and their fairly large size allows for image acquisition with a webcam, which makes this lab module accessible and scalable. Our lab module integrates basic physical concepts such as center of mass, velocity and speed, periodic signals, and time series analysis in the context of a biological system. The module is designed to attract students with diverse disciplinary backgrounds. It challenges the students to form hypotheses about behavior and equips them with a basic but broadly applicable toolkit to achieve this quantitatively. We give a detailed description of the necessary resources and show how to implement the module. We also provide suggestions for advanced exercises and possible extensions. Finally, we provide student feedback from a pilot implementation.


: We tested the drug-susceptibility of 112 strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae isolated from various clinical materials since January 1975 to May 1976, and observed the changes of susceptibility of this pathogen. All strains tested remained very sensitive to benzylpenicillin and cephaloridine, but 59.8% of strains were resistant to tetracycline and 44.7% to chloramphenicol, and about 90% of chloramphenicol-resistant strains were also resistant to tetracycline. The percentage of resistant strains to tetracycline or chloramphenicol is increasing. Cross-resistance between tetracycline and doxycycline or chloramphenicol and thiamphenicol was observed. On this time we found three strains resistant to macrolides. Two of these strains were resistant to erythromycin, josamycin, oleandomycin, spiarmycin, mydecamycin, lincomycin, clindamycin and tetracycline, but one was resistant to josamycin, spiramycin, mydecamycin and chloramphenicol.


The vastness of the web imposes a prohibitive cost on building large-scale search engines with limited resources. Crawl frontiers thus need to be optimized to improve the coverage and freshness of crawled content. In this paper, we propose an approach for modeling the dynamics of change in the web using archived copies of webpages. To evaluate its utility, we conduct a preliminary study on the scholarly web using 19,977 seed URLs of authors' homepages obtained from their Google Scholar profiles. We first obtain archived copies of these webpages from the Internet Archive (IA), and estimate when their actual updates occurred. Next, we apply maximum likelihood to estimate their mean update frequency (λ) values. Our evaluation shows that λ values derived from a short history of archived data provide a good estimate for the true update frequency in the short-term, and that our method provides better estimations of updates at a fraction of resources compared to the baseline models. Based on this, we demonstrate the utility of archived data to optimize the crawling strategy of web crawlers, and uncover important challenges that inspire future research directions.


The goal of many plant scientists' research is to explain natural phenotypic variation in term of simple changes in DNA sequence. DNA-based molecular markers are extensively used for the construction of genome-wide molecular maps and to perform genetic analysis for simple and complex traits. The PhD thesis was divided into two main research lines according to the different approaches adopted. The first research line is to analyze the genetic diversity in an Italian apple germplasm collection for the identification of markers tightly linked to targeted genes by an association genetic method. This made it possible to identify synomym and homonym accessions and triploids. The fruit red skin color trait has been used to test the reliability of the genetic approaches in this species. The second line is related to the development of molecular markers closely linked to the Rvi13 and Rvi5 scab resistance genes, previously mapped on apple's chromosome 10 and 17 respectively by using the traditional linkage mapping method. Both region have been fine-mapped with various type of markers that could be used for marker-assisted selection in future breeding programs and to isolate the two resistance genes.