Abstract We challenge the paradigm of natural tree line formation in the equatorial Andes with an alternate view that incorporates the human dimension. We present both direct and indirect evidence of anthropogenic influences on cloud forest tree line location; these human influences should be incorporated in definitions of Andean tree lines as (1) the extensification of grassland for grazing and potato cultivation for the upper limit, and (2) the intensification of the agricultural frontier, fuelwood gathering, and timber extraction for the lower limit. Although we do not claim to fully debunk the prevalent paradigm of tree line dynamics (which is descriptive, depends on the natural sciences, and sees tree lines as physically controlled), we hope to achieve increased recognition for a challenging alternate view of tropical tree lines as functional, resource-use dependent, and human-driven. Management plans and overall tropical montane cloud forest conservation strategies need to consider this new perspective and incorporate a proactive and assertive approach toward restoration of Andean forests in a way that will encourage landscape diversity in tropical mountain ecoregions.


AAC is an abbreviation for the concept Alternative and Augmentative Communication, a joint term for methods used to support and develop communication for individuals who are non-speaking or with severe communicative disabilities. From 2007 and onwards, universities in Sweden, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine have cooperated to develop strategies for integrating these methods into inclusive special education practice and education in each country. The report will present some results and ongoing activities. In Sweden AAC is well-known and methods are used in many inclusive settings. In Russia there are a number of habilitation settings where training in communicative AAC-methods are available and some national and international conferences have been administrated as well as reports published. In Ukraine, some activities are developed from one university in Kyiv and finally in Belarus, AAC is well integrated into the central curriculum on special education training of teachers and others in the country. The cooperation has been initiated from Sweden through projects financed by Swedish agencies and some support from international AAC agencies. The results show that developing new structures in the infrastructure takes time but that international cooperation between EU and adjoining countries support joint inclusive development.


Today's the business's competition is becoming intense. Including competition in food business. Pizza Hut is a services company specializing in food and baverages are very high regard of quality service and products. This research aims to find out whether the product quality and service quality of positive influential to consumer's satisfaction and customer satisfaction influential favorably to loyality. Therefore this research took the title "Influence of Product Quality and Service Quality Toward Customer Satisfaction and Its Impact on Customer Loyalty (Empirical Study At Pizza Hut Duta Pertiwi Mall)". Samples in this study set a number of 100 respondents, using the technique of Purposive Sampling sample. And data collection techniques in the research is kuisioner. The results of hypothesis testing showed a partial positive and significant between product quality and customer satisfaction are partially influence the quality of service with customer satisfaction as well as customer satisfaction and loyalty. The results of testing the hypothesis that there is simultaneously showed positive and significant relationship between product quality and service quality to customer satisfaction, and between customer satisfaction to loyalty. Key words : product quality, service quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty


In the in-out formalism, we advance a new method to represent the gamma function for quantum electrodynamics (QED) actions in supercritical fields, which is complementary to the proper-time integral representation in Phys. Rev. D 78, 105013 (2008) and Phys. Rev. D 84, 065004 (2011). The new method directly yields the QED action in terms of the Hurwitz zeta function in a constant magnetic field and the complex QED action in a constant electric field. The complex action exactly gives the vacuum polarization and the vacuum persistence and thereby the pair-production rate in the electric field. The QED actions exhibit electromagnetic duality.


This paper is about the sheltering of users in a basic health unit in Porto Alegre/RS according to the experience during the Integrate Residency Program in Collective Health at the Public Health School and reflections about specific bibliography. Sheltering is the manner in which the health service is organized to attend its users and to answer their demands, relying on health educative processes aiming to build a different relation than that established in "emergency rooms". It is believed that the nurse is the professional indicated to this task because of its basic education in collectivity and integralized human care.


A practical pricing mechanism is the foundation for the deploying of IP multicast in the inter-domain Internet. The IP multicast service model and its pricing mechanism are discussed in this paper, by considering the motivations of different partners in the process. Three models are proposed for all applications in the real environments. They are ICP-USER model, ICP-ISP model and ICP-ISP-USER model. In every model, the applied scenarios, resolving method and the complexity of algorithm are described. Here, the Internet is considered as an ecosystem. So the work embodies the self-organization property of the Internet based on the game theory, and respects every role's right and benefit, which is good at the health and stable development of the Internet. So it has great practical feature.


Globally, youth mental health and suicide statistics have shown a marked increase over the last decade, with Aotearoa/New Zealand following a similar trend. Along with these high rates, there are also significant issues surrounding access to services. Although Aotearoa/New Zealand has a subsidised mental health system, access to these services are still patterned, most notably by ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Research focused on improving access to services often focuses on disadvantaged communities. However, this ignores the role that society plays in maintaining socioeconomic inequality and reproducing power and privilege. This current research investigates whether parents' access to mental health resources for their adolescent children require certain skills and abilities. More specifically, the project will examine the practices of privilege parents use to access support for their adolescent children experiencing mental distress in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine parents of adolescents aged 15-18, about their experiences and practices used to access mental health services. These interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. All parents faced difficulties in accessing services, regardless of their circumstances. However, privilege, persistence, knowledge and social networking did function to enable parents to access services for their children. Service access required parents to access social networks, to know when to seek additional advice, and to know how and when to persist or to insist on services. The limited services and bureaucratic structure of the mental health system in Aotearoa/New Zealand made it difficult to access services without these additional skills. Needing these skills to access services may mean that those without social and economic resources are excluded from mental health services. These findings can be used to inform the design of more equitable health services in Aotearoa/New Zealand and to develop services that provide fairer access.


STAT5, a member of the signal transducers and activators of transcription (STATs), is important in modulating T cell functions through interleukin-2 (IL-2) receptors. Like other STAT proteins, STAT5 undergoes a rapid activation and inactivation cycle upon cytokine stimulation. Tyrosine phosphorylation and dephosphorylation are critical in regulating STAT5 activity. A number of protein tyrosine kinases have been shown to phosphorylate STAT5; however, the phosphatases responsible for STAT5 dephosphorylation remain unidentified. Using CTLL-20 as a model system, we provide evidence that tyrosine dephosphorylation of STAT5 subsequent to IL-2-induced phosphorylation occurs in the absence of STAT5 nuclear translocation and new protein synthesis. Nevertheless, down-regulation of the upstream Janus kinase activity during the deactivation cycle of IL-2-induced signaling does involve new protein synthesis. These findings point to the constitutive presence of STAT5 tyrosine phosphatase activity in the cytosolic compartment. We further demonstrate that SHP-2, but not SHP-1, directly dephosphorylates STAT5 in an in vitro tyrosine phosphatase assay with purified proteins. Furthermore, tyrosine-phosphorylated STAT5 associates with the substrate-trapping mutant (Cys → Ser) of SHP-2 but not SHP-1. These results suggest a potential role for cytoplasmic protein-tyrosine phosphatases in directly dephosphorylating STAT proteins and in maintaining a basal steady state level of STAT activity.


textabstractThe experimental work described in this thesis was aimed at a better
understanding of the pathogenesis of CF with the emphasis on
electrophysiological studies on Cl" transport. Chloride transport was studied with
Ussing chamber, isotopic ('25I")-efflux and fluorescent (SPQ) measurements as
well as with the patch-damp technique. In search for a suitable cell culturing
model, we studied C!" transport in CF keratinocytes, which are easy to obtain and
would provide us with sufficient cell material (Chapter 3). However, the use of
keratinocytes appeared to be limited to primary cell cultures which can only be
passaged for maximal 10 times, necessatating the use of many different and often
heterogeneous N and CF cell lines necessary. The availibility of a continuously
growing cell line with CF genotype and phenotype would provide a more
homogeneous model for biochemical, electrophysiological and genetic studies. We
have therefore immortalized a CF nasal polyp cell line with a hybrid SV40/ Ad12
virus, and have characterized this cell line biochemically and electrophysiologically
as discussed in Chapter 4. A continuously growing homogeneous cell line selected
for its chloride secreting characteristics would also he of much interest for CF research. The subclone 19A of the human colon carcinoma cell line HI29 is such
a cell line, easy to maintain in culture without the multiple addition;; to the
medium required for culturing keratinocytes and primary nasal polyp cells and
without the use of feeder cells. These colonocytes can be coru;idered as a model
for the study of Cl· transport in normal cells. In Chapter 5 we describe the patchclamp
experiments with HI29.ci19A cells performed to characterize the cAMPdependent
regulation of the outwardly rectifYing chloride channel which was
thought to be defectively regulated in CF. Apart from cAMP regulation of
chloride channels, we also found that G-proteiru; are involved in the regulation
of a different type of chloride channel in intestinal membranes. Chapter 6
describes the vesicle and patch-damp experiments leading to the identification of
a novel potential signal transduction pathway for chloride transport in intestinal
cells.
The homology between CFIR and different types of pump proteins like MDR led
us to verify the hypothesis that CFIR could function as a pump with substrates
exerting secondary effects on chloride channels. In Chapter 7 MDR-substrates and
-blockers were tested on epithelial chloride traru;port and on the outwardly
rectifYing chloride channel in particular.


Design processes in current industrial contexts require integration between different disciplines and functions, not only within an organisation but also across organisational and even national borders. Many barriers to integration can be observed, however, in multi-disciplinary and multifunctional design projects. One of these barriers is the lack of organisational, management, and social knowledge and skills, on the level of team members as well as on the level of project management. To achieve a sufficient level of integration technical knowledge and skills are necessary but not sufficient. Organisational, management, and social skills are necessary too. In our research on organisation and management of business processes we have found that this last category of knowledge needs improvement for the largest part of design team members and managers. As designers are professionals who have been employed because of their knowledge and skills, gained through prior academic or professional education, the question can be asked to what extent organisational, management, and social knowledge is included in this education. One way to answer this question is by studying the knowledge and skills deemed important for performing design tasks. An important source of this knowledge can be found in journal articles in the area of engineering design. The authors of these articles are in most cases also the ones transferring this knowledge to future designers. In this paper, a study of 94 recently published journals articles is described, which reveals, that organisational, management, and social skills are not yet a major focus of attention. In particular the number of empirical studies on the organisational, social, and managerial behaviour of designers in practical contexts is scarce in the engineering research community. These results will be confronted with results from management and social sciences research. We argue that the gap between these two fields of research needs to be bridged to better prepare designers for their task in current industrial contexts.© 2002 ASME


Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, attributing to seven million deaths per year. Coronary artery bypass grafts (CABG) using the saphenous vein (SVG), internal mammary artery, or radial artery is the current method of treatment. These grafts carry risks of atherosclerosis, atrophy, restenosis, and fatality. The SVG is the least invasive; however it maintains the highest occlusion rates as veins contain thinner basement membranes and are not surrounded by smooth muscle cells to allow for the resistance to sheer stress and pulsatile blood flow required of the coronary artery.
 Wingless (Wnt) signaling is associated with epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), endothelial-mesenchymal transition (EnMT), self-renewal of pluripotent stem cells, and transcriptional activation of genes involved in cell proliferation, migration, embryogenesis, and wound healing. The objective of this study is to determine if Wnt pathway activation can dedifferentiate venous endothelial cells (ECs) towards an arterial phenotype to increase the patency, while decreasing the
atherosclerosis and atrophy associated with CABG such as the SVG as a mechanism to treat cardiovascular disease.
 Here, I used Wnt3a and 6-bromoindirubin-3'-oxime (BIO) to activate canonical Wnt signaling. Accordingly, I demonstrate that BIO induced the interaction of beta-catenin and NANOG within the nucleus of ECs, resulting in increased expression of mesenchymal and hemangioblastic cell markers NANOG, BRACHYURY, CD133, OCT4, and VEGFR2, while decreased the expression of mature EC markers vWF and CD31. Bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) incorporation coupled with microscopy provided evidence of asymmetric cell division (ACD) in a subset of ECs upon BIO treatment; however NANOG-knockdown inhibited BIO's ability to induce ACD. Moreover,
microscopic analyses of Matrigel plugs containing venous ECs treated with BIO showed increased alpha-SMA, NOTCH-1, HEY2, and EphB2 staining suggesting acquisition of dedifferentiated EC phenotype, compared with control vascular ECs. Importantly, analyses of hind limb ischemia
revealed the ability of BIO to induce increased neovascularization. Altogether, these results show that BIO not only induced dedifferentiation of mature ECs, but also neovascularization through the activation of NANOG gene networks.


Hard-wired carry chains in FPGAs are designed to improve efficiency of important arithmetic primitives. Although they are proven to be effective for arithmetic-rich functions, there are very few studies on the optimization opportunities of carry chains for general logic that is poor in arithmetic operations. Recently, Majority-Inverter Graphs (MIGs) were proposed for efficient Boolean logic optimization. MIGs open an opportunity for efficient mapping of critical paths onto hard carry chains, as the carry logic of a full adder is naturally a majority (MAJ) gate. In this paper, we propose an MIG-based synthesis method to exploit hard adders in FPGAs for the mapping of general logic. The proposed heuristic algorithm selects MAJ nodes to be mapped on the carry chains and the associated LUTs; then, the efficiency of carry chain mapping is examined theoretically for efficient LUT utilization. The experimental results show that, compared to traditional design flow Verilog-to-Routing (VTR 7.0), the proposed approach can improve delay by up to 25% with an average of 8%, while the channel width is reduced by up to 20% with an average of 6%.


In contemporary linguistics, subordination and coordination are most commonly used in syntax, with co-ordination referring to independent clauses, and subordination to the dependent ones. In this paper, we approach the phenomenon of coordination from the syntagm point of view with the aim of describing the relation between the syntagm and the word. For the purpose of this analysis, "word" is understood as an orthographic unit (a language unit written between two blank spaces) which is, in addition, in the sense of derivational morphology, a compound with at least two stems. In this respect, the most challenging are the derivation of semi-compounds, in the traditional sense, and the understanding of the function of a dash. The dash conveys two senses: formal (orthographic and derivational) and the semantico-syntactic. The formal function refers to the connection of at least two constituents (stems), while the semantico-syntactic function relates, on one hand, to the subordination (connecting parts of the word, i.e., one stem appears as superior to others; also called single-term compound), and on the other hand, to the coordination (connecting two or more words, i.e., the stems of the equal level; multi-term compounds). A similar problem occurs with respect to the compounds which are formally of the same status as the syntagm or the word phrase from which they have been derived. In this paper, the mentioned derivational-morphological problem is explored from the perspective of orthographic diachrony: we analyse the approaches in Croatian orthography books that mirror the concept of coordination at the syntagm and word level (i.e., a compound consisting of at least two stems). Our analysis includes all parts of speech, with the goal of listing, describing and scientifically explaining all the questionable cases.


Birds have arguably been the most intensely studied animal group for their phylogenetic relationships. However, the recent advent of genome‐scale phylogenomics has made the forest of bird phylogenies even more complex and confusing. Here, in this perspective piece, I show that most parts of the avian Tree of Life are now firmly established as reproducible phylogenetic hypotheses. This is to the exception of the deepest relationships among Neoaves. Using phylogenetic networks and simulations, I argue that the very onset of the super‐rapid neoavian radiation is irresolvable because of eight near‐simultaneous speciation events. Such a hard polytomy of nine taxa translates into 2 027 025 possible rooted bifurcating trees. Accordingly, recent genome‐scale phylogenies show extremely complex conflicts in this (and only this) part of the avian Tree of Life. I predict that the upcoming years of avian phylogenomics will witness many more, highly conflicting tree topologies regarding the early neoavian polytomy. I further caution against bootstrapping in the era of genomics and suggest to instead use reproducibility (e.g. independent methods or data types) as support for phylogenetic hypotheses. The early neoavian polytomy coincides with the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K‐Pg) mass extinction and is, to my knowledge, the first empirical example of a hard polytomy.


Using data for the OECD economies, this paper investigates the relationship between labour market regulation and the unemployment rate. The results indicate that increasing the flexibility of labour market regulation via reforms can result in reductions in the unemployment rate. This average effect across all OECD member countries, however, is relatively small. Younger labour market participants, those aged 15–24 have more to gain in terms of employment opportunities as a result of flexibility enhancing labour market regulation reforms. JEL Codes: E24, J53, L51


In this study, the optimum material parameters capable of providing high efficiencies close to the detailed balance limit are determined for intermediate band solar cells. A diffusion model, including the overlap effect between absorption coefficients, is used during the calculations for the first time. It is obtained that to achieve high efficiencies close to the detailed balance limit; the effective density of state value, NCV, should be higher than 1017 cm−3 and the carrier mobility should be larger than 200 cm2/Vs, where the light concentration should not be higher than nearly 1000 sun. Besides, it is found out that the optimum intermediate band level and the base width depend on the mobility and effective density of state values. So they need to be optimized according to the material parameters. The effect of overlap between absorption coefficients on the performance of intermediate band solar cells is also investigated. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Abstract. RF transmission properties of human tissues were investigated in the frequency range from 50 MHz to 1 GHz. This work was motivated by the increasing interest in communication links between medically active implants and external interrogator units. We investigated theoretically and experimentally the transmission loss between an implant and an external interrogator unit. We assumed that due to the size of the implant a maximum area of only 1 cm2 is available for the printed circuit antenna. The size of the external interrogator antenna is less restricted. The maximum depth of the implant beneath the surface of the body was assumed to be 10 cm. For the simulations we took the dielectric properties of skin, fat and muscle as published in the literature. For the measurements, an artificial muscle dielectric proposed in the literature was used consisting mainly of a mixture of water, sugar and salt. In simulation and measurements the reactive part of the impedance of the antennas was compensated numerically. In simulations and measurements we obtained a transmission loss between 30 dB around 100 MHz and 65 dB around 900 MHz.


Variable rotation polishing method has been studied to improve performance for the next generation wafer size of 450 mm in Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) technology. This method adds the backward rotation of a polishing platen against the only forward rotation, i.e. the conventional polishing. Polishing slurry could be more efficiently supplied into the center area of the larger wafer due to the backward rotation of the platen. Material removal rate at the condition the backward rotation experimentally became 38% higher in comparison with only forward rotation. In this case, slurry film thickness of the Variable Rotation Polishing (VRP) method was slightly thinner than that of conventional rotation. Next, the asperities of polishing pad surfaces were evaluated by confocal laser scanning microscope. The higher material removal rates would also be achieved by the movement of the asperity bending back and forth direction on the polishing pad surface during the forward and backward rotation of the platen. These observed polishing pad surfaces indicated that the asperity preservation on the polishing pad is one of dominant parameters to improve the material removal rate of wafer surface in CMP process.


Drawing on hundreds of newly available, top-secret KGB and party Central Committee documents, historian Matthew E. Lenoe reexamines the 1934 assassination of Leningrad party chief Sergei Kirov. Joseph Stalin used the killing as the pretext to unleash the Great Terror that decimated the Communist elite in 1937-1938; these previously unavailable documents raise new questions about whether Stalin himself ordered the murder, a subject of speculation since 1938. The book includes translations of 125 documents from the various investigations of the Kirov murder, allowing readers to reach their own conclusions about Stalin's involvement in the assassination.


In polymer/nanoparticle composite (PNC) thin films, polymer chains experience strong confinement effects not only at the free surface area but also from nanoparticles (NPs). In this work, the influence of NP-polymer interaction and NP distribution on the polymer segmental dynamics and the glass transition behavior of PNC free-standing films are investigated through molecular dynamics simulations. We demonstrate that NPs will migrate to the film surface area and form an NP-concentrated layer when NP-polymer interactions are weak, while NPs are well dispersed in the bulk region when NP-polymer interactions are strong. In both cases, we find increases in the glass transition temperature Tg compared with the pure film without NPs, although with a different degree. The weakly interacting system has the same Tg as the pure bulk system without NPs. The NP layer formed at the surface area reduces both the mobility of the surface polymer beads and the mobility gradient in the film normal direction (MGFND), therefore resulting in an increase in the Tg which highlights the vital role of the mobile surface layer. In contrast, the NPs in the bulk region enlarge the MGFND. NPs have opposite influences on the polymer bead dynamic anisotropy when they interact weakly or strongly with polymers, weakened for the former and enhanced for the latter. These findings offer a clear picture of the segmental dynamics and glass transition behavior in free-standing PNC films with different NP-polymer interaction strengths. We hope these results will be helpful for the property design of related materials.


Residency training programs in Internal Medicine require resident attendance in a continuity clinic. This inevitably engenders conflicts between scheduling in the ambulatory clinic and the required teaching activities of the in-patient services. Some of the conflicts can be resolved by allowing the in-patient service directors to indicate preferred plans for their residents to attend in the continuity clinic. With this plan, scheduling becomes quite complicated. A computer program is presented with coordinates these service requests with ambulatory clinic scheduling. As a result, a given resident may have his/her clinic day changed on different rotations. The program automatically arbitrates conflicts and publishes the attendance dates for the entire academic year. This information is supplied to the appointment desk so that patients can be scheduled accordingly. This system has resulted in a 74% continuity rate and improved satisfaction by both residents and staff.


Various processing routes have been studied to develop the most efficient route toward microstructure refinement and texture homogenization. Most studies have focused on the central shear zone in round or square cross-section rods. However, the utility or application of these materials is subject to conditions across the entire rod. This study begins to investigate the development of recrystallization textures and microstructures across copper ECAE processed via route Bc through 16 passes. Although the recrystallized condition appears to be reasonably homogeneous after 4 or 8 passes, additional passes lead to stronger, heterogeneous recrystallization textures and coarsened microstructures.


INTRODUCTION
Genitourinary cancers constitute a heterogeneous and increasingly frequent group of malignant tumors that have the potential to derive directly, or indirectly from the treatment applied, in a series of neurological complications that negatively impact on the quality of life of the patients who suffer them.

AIMS
To report the most relevant data on the main neurological complications of genitourinary cancers.

DEVELOPMENT
We conducted a PubMed search for articles, latest books, leading clinical practice guidelines, and scientific societies, regarding the appearance of such complications.

CONCLUSIONS
Neurological complications of genitourinary cancers generate a significant burden of morbidity and mortality in cancer patients. In a paradoxical manner, owing to the raised survival of these patients, the likelihood of metastatization at the nervous system level and/or adverse effects related to the treatment received, especially due to chemotherapy, is also increased. Currently, diagnosis and management of neurological complications associated with genitourinary cancers represent a very important area of growing interest for the development of research projects that allow to improve the prognosis and quality of life genitourinary cancers subjects and their relatives and/or caregivers. For this purpose, it is necessary to know more about the etiopathogenesis and pathophysiology that leads to the occurrence of these type of complications in genitourinary cancers individuals, in particular paraneoplastic syndromes. Moreover, on the other hand, to carry out further well-designed randomized controlled clinical trials that expand the therapeutic arsenal with new chemotherapeutic drugs that possess a better antineoplastic effectiveness and improve the safety related to the neurotoxic side effects.


The association of trace elements with Fe oxides during the early stages of rock weathering was determined by analysis of fresh diabase and granite rocks, their associated whole and size-separated saprolites, and goethite by neutron activation and X-ray fluorescence. The same elements are found to be associated with Fe oxides when the results are interpreted by analysis of correlation, by the distribution of elements in the various size fractions by the effects of removing free Fe oxides, and by direct analysis of geothite from the saprolite. The elements Co, Cr, Mn, Sc, Th, U, Zn, and the heavy rare-earth elements during the weathering of diabase, and As, Co, Cr, Sc, Th, U, Zn, and the heavy rare-earth elements during the weathering of granite are associated with Fe oxides. The concentrations of Mn are too low in this system to separate the effects of Mn oxides from those of Fe oxides.


The objective of this study was to develop a new drywall wood-based particleboard as an alternative to gypsum board. Various development iterations have led to the use of wood particles, steatite powder and Portland cement. The resulting outcome shows that screw withdrawal resistance was improved by 37% and bending properties by 69% compared to gypsum board of a similar density (0.68–0.70). The raw surface of the boards is of good quality and comparable to the paper-faced surface of gypsum board. Furthermore, the reaction to fire was evaluated through bench-scale test with a cone calorimeter. The investigated particleboard did not reveal visual signs of combustion after 20 min when exposed to a radiant heat of 50 kW/m2, while burning of the overlay paper of gypsum board occurred at about 57 s, suggesting that wood-cement-steatite powder particleboard could be classified as a quasi non-combustible material.


Nowadays, reliable and automatic subject authentication has become of the utmost importance in multiple application scenarios. Over the last decades, biometric recognition has shown to be a good alternative to password based systems. In spite of their numerous advantages, biometric systems are vulnerable to presentation attacks (PAs), i.e., attempts to log into the system with a fake biometric characteristic or presentation attack instrument (PAI). These attacks pose a severe threat to the security of the authentication system: any person could eventually fabricate or order a gummy finger to impersonate someone else. Therefore, the development of accurate presentation attack detection (PAD) schemes is key to the wider deployment of secure biometric systems. In this paper, we present a novel approach for fingerprint PAD based on short wave infrared (SWIR) images and multi-spectral convolutional neural networks (CNNs). In particular, four samples are acquired at different SWIR wavelengths, which are subsequently fed to five different CNN models. These networks first pre-process the multi-spectral information to obtain images with three channels, and then apply regular CNN models. The approach is evaluated on a database comprising over 4700 samples, stemming from 562 different subjects and 35 different PAI species. The results show the soundness of the proposed approach with a detection equal error rate (D-EER) as low as 0.5%, outperforming the state-of-the-art D-EER of 1.4%. In addition, fusing the SWIR information with laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) sequences leads to an even lower D-EER of 0.2%.


OBJECT
Middle cerebral artery (MCA) aneurysms can be difficult to detect and characterize. The authors describe the utility and impact of helical computerized tomography (CT) angiography for the evaluation of aneurysms in this location, and compare this modality with digital subtraction (DS) angiography and intraoperative findings.

METHODS
Two hundred fifty-one patients with suspected cerebral aneurysms underwent CT angiography. Two-dimensional multiplanar reformatted images and three-dimensional CT angiograms were examined by two independent readers in a blinded fashion. Results were compared with findings on DS angiograms to determine the relative efficacy of these modalities in the detection and characterization of aneurysms. Questionnaires completed by neurosurgeons and endovascular therapists were used to determine the impact of CT angiograms on aneurysm management. Twenty-eight patients harboring 31 MCA aneurysms and 26 patients without aneurysms were identified using CT angiography. The sensitivity of CT angiography and DS angiography for MCA aneurysms was 97%; both techniques showed 100% specificity. In 76% of evaluations, the CT angiography studies provided information not available on DS angiography examinations. For the characterization of aneurysms, CT angiography was rated superior (72%) or equal (20%) to DS angiography in 92% of cases evaluated (p < 0.001). Computerized tomography angiography was evaluated as the only study needed for patient triage in 82% of cases (p < 0.001), and as the only study needed for treatment planning in 89% of surgically treated (p < 0.001) and in 63% of endovascularly treated cases (p < 0.001). The information acquired on CT angiograms changed the initial treatment plan in 24 (67%) of these 36 complex lesions (p < 0.01). The aneurysm appearance intraoperatively was identical or nearly identical to that seen on CT angiograms in 17 (89%) of 19 of the surgically treated cases.

CONCLUSIONS
Computerized tomography angiography has unique advantages over DS angiography and is a viable alternative to the latter modality in the diagnosis, triage, and treatment planning in patients with MCA aneurysms.


Targeting is a central part of many public support schemes to increase cost-effectiveness of policy intervention. Interestingly, targeting in the Rural Development Programs (RDP) of the EU has so far not been quantitatively evaluated for investment support schemes. In this article we suggest how the effectiveness of targeting in the investment support schemes can be evaluated with routinely available data. For an Austrian case-study we find that targeting of investment support measures could be substantially increased if eligibility criteria were used more extensively, as maximum aid-intensity differentiation turns out not to be effective and selection through ranking is not selective if the budget constraint is not binding.


Gangliosides expressed in malignant melanoma are potential targets for immunotherapy. Immunization of melanoma patients with vaccines containing purified GM2 ganglioside has resulted in induction of GM2 antibodies, and high titers of GM2 antibodies have correlated with increased survival. Melanoma ganglioside 9‐O‐acetyl GD3 is another candidate for ganglioside vaccine construction because of its limited expression in normal human tissues. As purification of 9‐O‐acetyl GD3 from human melanoma (9‐O‐acetylated on the terminal sialic acid) is not practical for broad application, we investigated the antibody response of melanoma patients to O‐acetyl GD3 from several additional sources: hamster melanoma (7‐O‐acetyl GO3), bovine buttermilk (mixture of 7‐O‐acetyl GD3, 9‐O‐acetyl GD3 and 7,9‐di‐O‐acetyl GD3) and chemically modified GD3 from bovine brain (9‐O‐acetylated on the subterminal sialic acid). Only immunization with the buttermilk‐derived O‐acetyl GD3 preparation resulted in consistent production of IgM antibodies. However, the induced antibodies reacted with the immunogen and with 7‐O‐acetyl GO3 derived from hamster melanoma but not with 9‐O‐acetyl GD3 or human melanoma cells expressing 9‐O‐acetyl GD3 on their cell surface. In contrast, all O‐acetyl GD3 derivatives used for immunization were recognized by murine MAbs that reacted with 9‐O‐acetyl GD3, and immunization of mice with buttermilk‐derived O‐acetyl GD3 resulted in the production of antibodies that reacted with human melanoma cells expressing 9‐O‐acetyl GD3. Apparently, the human and murine immune systems preferentially recognize different epitopes on these molecules. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) is an attractive material for insulating layers between conductors, such as copper, in the packaging of high-performance electronic devices because of its excellent thermal and chemical properties and its low dielectric constant. Strong adhesion between copper and PTFE is difficult to develop because perfluorinated materials are hydrophobic, relatively inert chemically and possess low surface energies, thus accounting for their non-stick behavior. Since vacuum UV radiation (VUV) is of current interest in the production of small feature sizes on polymer surfaces using photolithography, investigations were conducted to study the ability ofplasma generated VUV radiation to control the adhesion ofCu to PTFE. PTFE surfaces were modified with VUV radiation from low-pressure He and Ar microwave plasma both in the presence and absence of oxygen gas flowing over the surface. Copper deposition by sputtering was done and a peel test was employed to check for adhesion improvement on the treated PTFE. Peel test resulted in about 90% adhesion of copper to PTFE in the case ofHe plasma and 85% of the adhesion in the case of an Ar plasma. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was employed to characterize the surface of PTFE and determine the composition of different components on the PTFE surface. Oxidation of the surface was found for modification of PTFE treated with He and Ar plasma. Scanning electron microscopy was carried out to acquire images of the surface and determine if there is any change in the surface topography. The surface was found rough when treated with Ar plasma in presence of oxygen environment. Contact angle for treated and untreated PTFE was studied to check the change in hydrophilic nature of PTFE. Weight loss measurements were made to determine the photo-etching rate of PTFE. Similar experiments have been done with He and Ar plasma with a LiF window placed between the plasma and the sample surface.


Human platelets incubated with [32P]Pi and [3H]arachidonate were transferred to a Pi-free Tyrode's solution by gel filtration. The labile phosphoryl groups of ATP and ADP as well as Pi in the metabolic pool of these platelets had equal specific radioactivity which was identical to that of[32P]phosphatidate formed during treatment of the cells with thrombin for 5 min. Therefore, the 32P radioactivity of phosphatidate was a true, relative measure for its mass. The thrombin-induced formation of[32P]-phosphatidate had the same time course and dose-response relationships as the concurrent secretion of acid hydrolases. 125I-alpha-Thrombin bound maximally to the platelets within 13s and was rapidly dissociated from the cells by hirudin; readdition of excess 125I-alpha-thrombin caused rapid rebinding of radioligand. This binding-dissociation-rebinding sequence was paralleled by a concerted start-stop-restart of phosphatidate formation and acid hydrolase secretion. [3H]Phosphatidylinositol disappearance was initiated upon binding but little affected by thrombin dissociation and rebinding. ATP deprivation caused similar changes in the time courses for [32P]-phosphatidate formation and acid hydrolase secretion which were different from those of [3H]phosphatidylinositol disappearance. The metabolic stress did not alter the magnitude (15%) of the initial decrease in phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bis[32P]phosphate, but did abolish the subsequent increase of phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bis[32P]-phosphate in the thrombin-treated platelets. It is concluded that in thrombin-treated platelets (1) phosphatidate synthesis, but not phosphatidylinositol disappearance, is tightly coupled to receptor occupancy and acid hydrolase secretion in platelets, (2) successive phosphorylations to phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate is unlikely to be the main mechanism for phosphatidylinositol disappearance, and (3) only a small fraction (15%) of phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate is susceptible to hydrolysis.


The reactive programming model is largely different to what we're used to as we don't have full control over the application's control flow. If we mix the declarative and imperative programming style, which is usual in the ML family of languages, the situation is even more complex. It becomes easy to introduce patterns where the usual garbage collector for objects cannot automatically dispose all components that we intuitively consider garbage.
 In this paper we discuss a duality between the definitions of garbage for objects and events. We combine them into a single one, to specify the notion of garbage for reactive programming model in a mixed functional/imperative language and we present a formal algorithm for collecting garbage in this environment.
 Building on top of the theoretical model, we implement a library for reactive programming that does not cause leaks when used in the mixed declarative/imperative model. The library allows us to safely combine both of the reactive programming patterns. As a result, we can take advantage of the clarity and simplicity of the declarative approach as well as the expressivity of the imperative model.


Spanish prepositional phrases headed by sin "without" with a bare noun complement (una habitación sin luz "a room without light"; un hombre sin corbata "a man without tie") show interesting gradability properties: Degree modification is allowed if the N complement is a mass noun (una habitación muy sin luz "lit. a room very without light"; *un hombre muy sin corbata "lit. a man very without tie"). We claim that sinPPs share syntactic and semantic properties with constructions involving light verbs that select for bare nouns. We argue that (a) a property-denoting bare NP pseudo-incorporates into a null verb have that is part of the syntactic-semantic structure of sin, and (b) sin-PPs can be coerced into gradable properties as long as the bare noun is cumulative and homogeneous (divisive). Our proposal explains the differences between sin-(bare)PPs and PPs headed by sin with a QP/DP complement, since in the latter there is neither coercion nor pseudo-incorporation.


Ultrathin α-Co(OH)2 nanosheets (NSs) were hydrothermally synthesized without using surfactants and templates. Interestingly, the ultrathin α-Co(OH)2 NSs evolved from graphene-like NSs to hexagonal nanoplates (NPs) and then transformed into a needle-like Co(CO3)0.5(OH)·0.11H2O phase with increasing reaction temperature and time. The phase and morphology evolution depended strongly on the CO32− ions in the solution. We ruled out the possibility that CO32− originated from the adsorption of CO2 in air and proposed the possible phase transition mechanism from α-Co(OH)2 to Co(CO3)0.5(OH)·0.11H2O, which was due to the decomposition of hexamethylenetetramine driven by dynamics and thermodynamics. The morphology evolution could be regarded as the dissolution–recrystallization–redissolution–recrystallization of α-Co(OH)2. The electrochemical behavior tests demonstrated that the ultrathin α-Co(OH)2 electrode exhibited an excellent specific capacitance of 833.4 F g−1 at 5 A g−1; however, the specific capacitance of the needle-like Co(CO3)0.5(OH)·0.11H2O electrode was 247.2 F g−1 at the same current density. This excellent electrochemical property is attributed to the crystalline phase and ultrathin nature of the materials.


ABSTRACT DEC1 suppresses CLOCK/BMAL1-enhanced promoter activity, but its role in the circadian system of mammals remains unclear. Here we examined the effect of Dec1 overexpression or deficiency on circadian gene expression triggered with 50% serum. Overexpression of Dec1 delayed the phase of clock genes such as Dec1, Dec2, Per1, and Dbp that contain E boxes in their regulatory regions, whereas it had little effect on the circadian phase of Per2 and Cry1 carrying CACGTT E′ boxes. In contrast, Dec1 deficiency advanced the phase of the E-box-containing clock genes but not that of the E′-box-containing clock genes. Accordingly, DEC1 showed strong binding and transrepression on the E box, but not on the E′ box, in chromatin immunoprecipitation, electrophoretic mobility shift, and luciferase reporter assays. Dec1−/− mice showed behavioral rhythms with slightly but significantly longer circadian periods under conditions of constant darkness and faster reentrainment to a 6-h phase-advanced shift of a light-dark cycle. Knockdown of Dec2 with small interfering RNA advanced the phase of Dec1 and Dbp expression, and double knockdown of Dec1 and Dec2 had much stronger effects on the expression of the E-box-containing clock genes. These findings suggest that DEC1, along with DEC2, plays a role in the finer regulation and robustness of the molecular clock.


The Open Society movement, which goes back to noble fathers such as Bergson and Popper, and which is today declined along issues such as Open Government, Open Innovation, Open Data, Open Access and Open Source, is having a strong impact on the world of Higher Education. It is undeniable that universities around the globe are under an increased "complexity pressure", due to growing international competition, globalisation of education and budget cuts, but also to the ICT revolution that is re-shaping teaching, learning and all other aspects of university life. In this context, Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practices (OEP) are increasingly being considered as an option both to face the increasing students population in times of budget cuts and to increase the accessibility and equality of higher education. The paper will look at some dimensions of this increased complexity, focussing on emerging technologies and on emerging practices of students and staff mobility enhanced by ICT. We believe that ICT and Open Education are not only making more efficient and more accessible teaching and learning in universities, but are somehow starting to change the fundamentals of academic contexts, and we claim that to take stock of this potential it is important to be able to understand and managed the increased system complexity of contemporary and future Higher Education.


The paper shows the characteristics that influence the ethnic identity of students educated in the Azerbaijani and Russian languages.The thoughts related to the study about ethnic identity within the studies conducted in this way, as well as the psychological features of this process in youthful individuals are analyzed.Analysis of the results demonstrates that learners, studying in Azerbaijani department have indicators of the cognitive element of the ethnic identity higher than those of the learners studying in Russian department. This means that the level of self-awareness of their belonging to this ethnic group, opinions about the features of their own ethnic group are higher among students of the Azerbaijani Department. Analysis of the results also reveals the fact that students, studying in Azerbaijani language have indicators of the affective component of ethnic identity higher than students studying in Russian language. This considers a positive attitude towards their ethnos as a group, as well as the fact that young people have a definite emotional feel of acceptance to their ethnic group, a high sensitivity towards their ethnos. las las características de su propio grupo étnico los estudiantes Departamento los estudiantes idioma indicadores del componente de la identidad actitud


Surface Plasmon Resonance imaging (SPRi) is a label-free, ultrasensitive detection method for monitoring biomolecular interactions in real-time with high throughput. Diagnostic biomarkers for cancer, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer's disease are often in low abundance in serum, presenting many challenges for their detection. SPRi has great potential as a diagnostic tool because its limit of detection (LOD) for many biomarkers falls in the nanogram per milliliter range, but in order to further enhance its usefulness, its LOD must be reduced to even lower concentrations. We have developed a detection scheme that improves SPRi sensitivity by several orders of magnitude. This increase in sensitivity relies upon the integration of SPRi with nanomaterials and microwave-assisted surface functionalization. This approach makes it possible for the SPRi biosensor to detect C-reactive protein in spiked human serum at concentrations of 5 fg/ml or 45 zeptomole. This scheme was then compared to commercial ELISA kits for the detection of human Growth Hormone, which has a LOD of 1 ng/ml. In order to directly compare the two platforms the antibody sandwich assay was copied in the SPRi scheme and with nanomaterial enhancement, an LOD of 9.2 pg/ml was achieved.


The European trading and whaling activities of the 17th– 19th centuries provide records of climate and sea- ice conditions off West Greenland in the form of ships' logs and other official documents in many archives around Europe. These documents, combined with evidence from marine sediments, help describe climate changes in general, and seaice volume changes in particular, in connection with human activity in the region. The Greenland National Museum & Archives in Nuuk (NKA) hosts a unique collection of original documents presenting detailed insight into weather and ice conditions as well as the daily life of the colonial centres and outposts recorded by the documents of the Danish administration. These documents also reveal many aspects of the interaction between the Inuit and Europeans from 1779 onwards. Information retrieved from the archives in Nuuk has been combined with results from palaeo-environmental investigations of marine sediment cores to unravel climate variability and changes in sea ice. This information has been supplemented with data from an extensive field programme using drones to document onshore remains from the whaling period in the Disko Bugt region (Fig. 1).


Guitar tablature Web sites have been the subject of recent cease-and-desist letters, forcing most to shut down. Litigation has been side-stepped with the arrival of new creative means to continue operation. The case that may have gone to court is discussed here, ranging from the appropriate legal claims of copyright infringement to the fair-use-defense arguments that would have been made. Policy solutions are considered to resolve the tension between the public's desire to use such tablatures and the copyright owners of the original artists.


The enormous economic loss caused by power quality problems (more than $ 150 billion per year in USA) makes power quality monitoring an important component in power grid. With highly connected fragile digital equipment and appliances, Smart Grid has more stringent timeliness and reliability requirements on power quality monitoring. In this work, we propose a change-point detection theory-based power quality monitoring scheme to detect the most detrimental power quality events, such as voltage sags, transients and swells in a quick and reliable manner. We first present a method for single-sensor detection scenario. Based on that, we extend the scheme to multi-sensor joint detection scheme which further enhances the detection performance. A group of conventional power quality monitoring schemes (i.e. Root-mean-square, Short-time Fourier transform, MUSIC, and MBQCUSUM) are compared with the proposed scheme. Experimental results assert the superior of the proposed scheme in terms of detection latency and robustness.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether the plasma glutamine (GLN) concentration would be depleted in pregnant women with preeclampsia and whether administering GLN comparable to physiologic levels would decrease cellular adhesion molecule expression in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) induced by plasma in preeclamptic women.

STUDY DESIGN
We assessed plasma GLN levels from blood samples collected from 20 women with preeclampsia and 10 normal pregnant women. HUVECs were cultured in medium-199, containing fetal calf serum, antibiotics and growth factor, at different concentrations (0, 300, 500 microM) of GLN for 24 hours. We stimulated those cells for 1.5-6.0 hours with sera from patients with preeclampsia and then determined the expression of intercellular cell adhesion molecules (ICAM)-1 and vascular cell adhesion molecules (VCAM)-1 on endothelial cells by flow cytometry.

RESULTS
Women with preeclampsia had significantly lower plasma GLN concentrations as compared with normal pregnant women. There were no differences in VCAM-1 expression in HUVECs among various GLN concentrations at each time point. However, ICAM-1 expression in HUVECs was significantly lower in the 500-microM GLN group than in the 0- and 300-microM groups at 3, 4.5 and 6 hours.

CONCLUSION
This study showed that plasma from women with preeclampsia had significantly lower GLN levels than that from normal pregnant women and that administering GLN at physiologic levels reduces HUVEC ICAM-1 expression induced by preeclamptic plasma.


Machine learning (ML) is providing a new design paradigm for many areas of technology, including corrosion inhibition. However, ML models require relatively large and diverse training sets to be most effective. This paper provides an overview of developments in corrosion inhibitor research, focussing on how corrosion performance data can be incorporated into machine learning and how large sets of inhibitor performance data that are suitable for training robust ML models can be developed through various corrosion inhibition testing approaches, especially high-throughput performance testing. It examines different types of environments where corrosion by-products and electrolytes operate, with a view to understanding how conventional inhibitor testing methods may be better designed, chosen, and applied to obtain the most useful performance data for inhibitors. The authors explore the role of modern characterisation techniques in defining corrosion chemistry in occluded structures (e.g., lap joints) and examine how corrosion inhibition databases generated by these techniques can be exemplified by recent developments. Finally, the authors briefly discuss how the effects of specific structures, alloy microstructures, leaching structures, and kinetics in paint films may be incorporated into machine learning strategies.


CpG-containing oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG ODN) have broad-ranging immunostimulatory effects, including the generation of antitumor immune responses. Analysis of different CpG ODN have identified two classes: CpG-A ODN, which stimulate high levels of IFN-α production from plasmacytoid dendritic cells and weakly activate B cells, and CpG-B ODN, which strongly activate B cells but stimulate low production of IFN-α from plasmacytoid dendritic cells. Previously, we observed that CpG-B ODN (2006) induces TRAIL/Apo-2 ligand (Apo-2L)-mediated killing of tumor cells by CD14+ PBMC. In this study, we extend our investigation of CpG ODN-induced TRAIL/Apo-2L expression and activity in PBMC to include CpG-A ODN. Of the two classes, IFN-α production and TRAIL/Apo-2L-mediated killing of tumor cells was greatest with CpG-A ODN. Surprisingly, CD3+, CD14+, CD19+, and CD56+ PBMC expressed high levels of TRAIL/Apo-2L following CpG-A ODN stimulation. When isolated, the CD19+ PBMC (B cells) were able to kill tumor cells in a TRAIL/Apo-2L-dependent manner. As with CD14+ PBMC, CD19+ sorted B cells were capable of up-regulating TRAIL/Apo-2L expression when stimulated with IFN-α alone. Interestingly, agonist anti-CD40 mAb further enhanced the IFN-α-induced TRAIL/Apo-2L expression on CD19+ B cells. These results are the first to demonstrate human B cell-mediated killing of tumor cells in a TRAIL/Apo-2L-dependent fashion.


Abstract Objective To summarize and discuss peer‐reviewed studies on minimally invasive osteosynthesis (MIO) of long bone, physeal, and articular fractures in dogs and cats. Study Design Invited review. Methods A critique of literature was performed to assess MIO feasibility, outcomes, and complications through PubMed, Scopus, and CAB abstracts research databases (2000–2020). Results More than 40 MIO articles have been published in the last 15 years, but most studies had small numbers, lacked control groups, and used limited outcome measures. Studies generally showed that MIO was feasible in dogs and cats with low complication rates. The current evidence does not demonstrate superior bone healing or functional outcomes with MIO when compared to standard methods. Although treatment principles, case selection, and techniques varied depending on the anatomical location, there were no salient differences in complication rates among long bones, physeal, and articular fractures treated by MIO. Conclusion The current available evidence and the personal experience of the authors support MIO as a promising fracture management modality. MIO can yield excellent outcomes when applied in carefully selected cases, performed by surgeons experienced in the technique. We cannot, however, conclude that MIO is superior to open fracture stabilization based on the available evidence in veterinary literature. Randomized controlled studies are warranted to prospectively compare MIO with other osteosynthesis techniques and thereby validate its role in fracture management for dogs and cats.


The aim of this article is to analyze both the motivations of foreign scholars to come to work in Poland – specifically Krakow – and their ways of adapting to this significant Polish academic center. Most studies on highly skilled migrants (HSMs) concentrate on the flows between developing and highly developed countries. We concentrate on Central and Eastern Europe. This paper, based on in-depth interviews with 23 foreign scholars working full-time at four universities in Krakow, is a follow-up to a study presenting a 2015 analysis of websites of universities from Krakow. We look closely at barriers to and facilitators of foreign scholars' adaptation to Poland and their perceived image of Poland and Polishness, their national identification and international contacts. We propose a typology comprised of "cosmopolitans", "status seekers", "enthusiasts", and "commuters". Our investigations reveal who decides to move to a semi-peripheral country such as Poland, and why. Certain parts of the narratives can be used in building a strategy of attracting more international scholars to academic centers such as Krakow.


As I told in my previous paper on Liberian Ornithology ¹), Mr. Stampfli and I left for Liberia at the end of October 1886, and arrived at Monrovia, after short stays at Hamburg, Madeira, Teneriffa, Gran Canaria and the Senegal, on the 26th of November. The next day I proceeded in an open sailing boat to Grand Cape Mount to get the servants, which were already hired for me by Mr. Watson, the Liberian Superintendent at Robertsport. From this latter place I visited some of my former stations on the Fisherman Lake, the Japaca Creek and on the Mahfa River.²) Everywhere I was very kindly received by the natives, who had not yet forgotten me and were much enjoyed to see me again. About medio December I returned with three Yey-boys and my old Liberian huntsman Jackson Demery to Monrovia and prepared for my removal to Schieffelinsville on the Junk River, where Mr. Stampfli meanwhile had hired a small Liberian farming house. As our outfit was very voluminous, I went to Schieffelinsville by sea with two sailing boats, entered near Marshall (a small Liberian settlement) the Junk River and reached, along this river, safely the place of my destination.


Applying Friction Stir Welding (FSW) on complex joint geometries requires not only a machine with 3-dimesional work space capacity, but also a sound definition of the part geometry as well as knowledge about the process. Having a joining process, such as FSW, with great characteristics from both seam quality and environmental perspective, but yet only a minor presence in the manufacturing industry may be related to flexibility and cost issues. The machines that are present in production today are mainly devoted towards one single task, with small if any possibility to apply changes. The use of FSW has therefore mainly been introduced in areas where there are extreme demands on the seam quality, or in large scale production. In order to truly challenge the existing solutions using fusion welding techniques, we propose a solution consisting of an industrial robot, which may solve the machine issues to a great extent as well as the flexibility issues by the implementation of planning and control algorithms. In this thesis we aim to develop a general methodology towards 3-dimensional FSW on complex objects. This include a robot prototype based on a standard industrial design, modified to carry out the process to a satisfactory extend. The prototype implementation includes software to control the motion of the welding tool, explicitly in the axial direction by the use of force feedback control and implicitly in the plane perpendicular to the axial direction to avoid path deviations. Other tools proposed in this thesis include planning software to create complex paths, both online and off-line, to consider not only the aspects regarding the robot's motion, but also including restraints due to the FSW process. The evaluation of the proposed system is conducted with an objective to define weldability, in term of alloys, thicknesses and speed, to verify the path planning algorithms for an online as well as an off-line scenario, and to verify the control algorithms response to path deviation due to manipulator compliance, and merge the results from those studies into a discussion on usability of the proposed system and application areas and operations suitable.


Understanding the performance of machine learning models across diverse data distributions is critically important for reliable applications. Motivated by this, there is a growing focus on curating benchmark datasets that capture distribution shifts. While valuable, the existing benchmarks are limited in that many of them only contain a small number of shifts and they lack systematic annotation about what is different across different shifts. We present MetaShift--a collection of 12,868 sets of natural images across 410 classes--to address this challenge. We leverage the natural heterogeneity of Visual Genome and its annotations to construct MetaShift. The key construction idea is to cluster images using its metadata, which provides context for each image (e.g."cats with cars"or"cats in bathroom") that represent distinct data distributions. MetaShift has two important benefits: first, it contains orders of magnitude more natural data shifts than previously available. Second, it provides explicit explanations of what is unique about each of its data sets and a distance score that measures the amount of distribution shift between any two of its data sets. We demonstrate the utility of MetaShift in benchmarking several recent proposals for training models to be robust to data shifts. We find that the simple empirical risk minimization performs the best when shifts are moderate and no method had a systematic advantage for large shifts. We also show how MetaShift can help to visualize conflicts between data subsets during model training.


In this paper we describe our TRECVID 2012 video retrieval experiments. The MediaMill team participated in four tasks: semantic indexing, multimedia event detection, multimedia event recounting and instance search. The starting point for the MediaMill detection approach is our top-performing bagof-words system of TRECVID 2008-2011, which uses multiple color SIFT descriptors, averaged and difference coded into codebooks with spatial pyramids, and kernel-based machine learning. This year our concept detection experiments focus on establishing the influence of difference coding, the use of audio features, concept-pair detection using regular concepts, pair detection by spatiotemporal objects, and concept(-pair) detection without annotations. Our event detection and recounting experiments focus on representations using concept detectors. For instance search we study the influence of spatial verification and color invariance. The 2012 edition of the TRECVID benchmark has again been a fruitful participation for the MediaMill team, resulting in the runner-up ranking for concept detection in the semantic indexing task.


Experiments for decomposition rate were carried out in subcritical and supercritical water in a batch-type reactor biomass set up by ourselves. Glucose was used as a model compound, and CaO was used as CO2 remover in experiments. The effects of temperature, pressure, residence time, initial concentration of glucose and n(Ca)/n(C) on glucose reactions were examined. The optimal process was also suggested after added CaO. Under the condition of 500°C, above critical pressure, 3-10 min resident time, n(Ca)/n(C) of 0.4-0.5.


Acquisition of a company is a phenomena that has increased during the latest years in Sweden. Hostile takeovers is a type of acquisitions that are made in a hostile way. The controll of the company is moved from one group of stockholders to another. One way of acqire another company is to buy it. There are three types of procedures of buying a company. Fusion is one, when two companies of the same size becomes one. The fusion precede with negotiations between the companies and the stockholders. The acquires that are made in a hostile way is callaed hostile takeover. These types of acusitions are more common in USA and in Great Britain than in the rest of Europe. In the most common case of hostile takeovers, the acqusitior gives a bid to the stockholders to make them sell their stocks.The acquisitiors intrest is to take over the power of the company, whithout dealing with the board of the company. The aim of the takeover can vary. Maybe the acquisitors want to expand their portfolio of products, reach out over a new market theratory, or get into contact with new customers. The target company for a hostile takeover is often a company that are underestimated and had faild to maximise their profit. A hostile takeover often results in a big change in the company's organisation to make a better resultWhen a hostile takeover arise there are several defences that the board or the management can take. These defences are built upon two diffrent approaches. One of them is called the "Management entrenchment hypothesis", the board is acting more in their own interest than in the stockholders interests. The other approach is to achieve the stockholders interests. When we define the stockholders interests we mean that way that the stockholders will get the highest possible profit in the specific case.Our question at issue is in which way the different defences relates to the stockholders interests. The purpose is to describe the relation in an easy way and to make the stockholders aware of that there is a conflict betwwen the interests of the management and the stockholders. During the writing of this article we have studied and used litterature, articles in science and research and the Internet. We have also perform some interviews.Our conclusion is that we have to seperate the meaning of stockholders interest, depending on wheter it is a short-term interest, or wheter it is a long-term interest. Some defences results in an increase of value in short term, and some in the long-term. also that some of the defences can not been used at all to achieve the stockholders interests. In one of our interviews, Gunnar Ek at Aktiesparana expreses his thought that there is cases in which the board is acting more in their own interest than in the stockholders interests.In this cases we mean that the "Management entrenchment hypothesis" is used. We also predict that the phenomena hostile takeovers will continue to increase in Sweden


BACKGROUND
This is an update of the original review published in 2007.Carcinoma of the rectum is a common malignancy, especially in high income countries. Local recurrence may occur after surgery alone. Preoperative radiotherapy (PRT) has the potential to reduce the risk of local recurrence and improve outcomes in rectal cancer.

OBJECTIVES
To determine the effect of preoperative radiotherapy for people with localised resectable rectal cancer compared to surgery alone.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (the Cochrane Library; Issue 5, 2018) (4 June 2018), MEDLINE (Ovid) (1950 to 4 June 2018), and Embase (Ovid) (1974 to 4 June 2018). We also searched ClinicalTrials.gov and the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) for relevant ongoing trials (4 June 2018).

SELECTION CRITERIA
We included randomised controlled trials comparing PRT and surgery with surgery alone for people with localised advanced rectal cancer planned for radical surgery. We excluded trials that did not use contemporary radiotherapy techniques (with more than two fields to the pelvis).

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two review authors independently assessed the 'Risk of bias' domains for each included trial, and extracted data. For time-to-event data, we calculated the Peto odds ratio (Peto OR) and variances, and for dichotomous data we calculated risk ratios (RR) using the random-effects method. Potential sources of heterogeneity hypothesised a priori included study quality, staging, and the use of total mesorectal excision (TME) surgery.

MAIN RESULTS
We included four trials with a total of 4663 participants. All four trials reported short PRT courses, with three trials using 25 Gy in five fractions, and one trial using 20 Gy in four fractions. Only one study specifically required TME surgery for inclusion, whereas in another study 90% of participants received TME surgery.Preoperative radiotherapy probably reduces overall mortality at 4 to 12 years' follow-up (4 trials, 4663 participants; Peto OR 0.90, 95% CI 0.83 to 0.98; moderate-quality evidence). For every 1000 people who undergo surgery alone, 454 would die compared with 45 fewer (the true effect may lie between 77 fewer to 9 fewer) in the PRT group. There was some evidence from subgroup analyses that in trials using TME no or little effect of PRT on survival (P = 0.03 for the difference between subgroups).Preoperative radiotherapy may have little or no effect in reducing cause-specific mortality for rectal cancer (2 trials, 2145 participants; Peto OR 0.89, 95% CI 0.77 to 1.03; low-quality evidence).We found moderate-quality evidence that PRT reduces local recurrence (4 trials, 4663 participants; Peto OR 0.48, 95% CI 0.40 to 0.57). In absolute terms, 161 out of 1000 patients receiving surgery alone would experience local recurrence compared with 83 fewer with PRT. The results were consistent in TME and non-TME studies.There may be little or no difference in curative resection (4 trials, 4673 participants; RR 1.00, 95% CI 0.97 to 1.02; low-quality evidence) or in the need for sphincter-sparing surgery (3 trials, 4379 participants; RR 0.99, 95% CI 0.94 to 1.04; I2 = 0%; low-quality evidence) between PRT and surgery alone.Low-quality evidence suggests that PRT may increase the risk of sepsis from 13% to 16% (2 trials, 2698 participants; RR 1.25, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.52) and surgical complications from 25% to 30% (2 trials, 2698 participants; RR 1.20, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.42) compared to surgery alone.Two trials evaluated quality of life using different scales. Both studies concluded that sexual dysfunction occurred more in the PRT group. Mixed results were found for faecal incontinence, and irradiated participants tended to resume work later than non-irradiated participants between 6 and 12 months, but this effect had attenuated after 18 months (low-quality evidence).

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
We found moderate-quality evidence that PRT reduces overall mortality. Subgroup analysis did not confirm this effect in people undergoing TME surgery. We found consistent evidence that PRT reduces local recurrence. Risk of sepsis and postsurgical complications may be higher with PRT.The main limitation of the findings of the present review concerns their applicability. The included trials only assessed short-course radiotherapy and did not use chemotherapy, which is widely used in the contemporary management of rectal cancer disease. The differences between the trials regarding the criteria used to define rectal cancer, staging, radiotherapy delivered, the time between radiotherapy and surgery, and the use of adjuvant or postoperative therapy did not appear to influence the size of effect across the studies.Future trials should focus on identifying participants that are most likely to benefit from PRT especially in terms of improving local control, sphincter preservation, and overall survival while reducing acute and late toxicities (especially rectal and sexual function), as well as determining the effect of radiotherapy when chemotherapy is used and the optimal timing of surgery following radiotherapy.


Beach visitors rate beach quality in large part by its appearance. Removal of natural beach litter (called beach wrack) has, therefore, high priority for beach managers in coastal areas dependent on revenues from tourism. Focusing on the German Baltic Sea coast, the amount of beach wrack has increased by a factor of approximately 3.4 between 1977 and 2012/2013. At the same time, the composition of macrophyte communities underwent a severe change from late successional stages (eelgrass and bladder wrack) toward more ephemeral communities. Correspondingly, the contribution of bladder wrack to seaweed litter alone dropped from 75% in 1977 to 18.1% today, while the contribution of ephemeral and nutrient-opportunistic seaweeds increased by a factor larger than 6.2 to approximately 44%. Such seaweed opportunists could have a higher potential for olfactorial nuisance than late successional macrophytes. To test this hypothesis, odors extracted from equal amounts of nutrient-opportunistic and non-opportunistic species that had been partially degraded under equal conditions were compared in a public survey. Participants graded the smell of opportunistic species, in particular Ceramium tenuicorne, consistently as more intense and less pleasant than the odor of non-opportunistic species. The particularly high potential of Ceramium litter and the relatively lower potential of eelgrass litter for deterrence were confirmed in field experiments. We conclude that the documented compositional shift in macrophyte communities at German Baltic Sea coasts since the onset of eutrophication has caused a shift of beach wrack composition toward species with a higher potential for olfactorial deterrence, which could explain recent concerns of beach managers about beach wrack despite the limited increase of biomass in the study area.


In her 2014 History Compass article, Margrit Pernau issued a call for scholars to consider entanglements between history of emotion methodologies and space. She argued that 'bodies are necessarily situated in space, and they bear the imprint of the spaces they are moving through and have moved through.' Nine years after the publication of Pernau's article, this study engages with developments in the field of history of emotions to posit that emotional methodologies provide important opportunities for scholars of the urban built environment, adding additional lenses that can help to push the boundaries of urban history. Extending Pernau's thesis by borrowing theoretical and methodological muscle from affect theory and the combined field of slavery and gender studies, via the concepts of atmospheres , reconstruction , and critical fabulation , this article explores new avenues for research that aims to understand and analyse marginalised groups in urban history. The explorative analysis is tested on a macroanalysis of social processes among the Irish diaspora in nineteenth century Melbourne and Chicago and a microhistorical study of a Pietist orphanage in nineteenth century Stockholm and thus showcases the possibility of the approach to go beyond spatial-emotional management and reach contradictory and alternative strategies and experiences.


In an effort to highlight potential "cell division cycle proteins" in the fission yeast, Soh-izosaoaharorrtyces pombe, cultures growing exponentially in defined medium were starved of nitrogen. This treatment causes a semi-synchronous burst of accelerated cell division at a reduced cell size and can thus be envisaged as an uncoupling of 35 the growth cycle from the DNA-division cycle. S-methionine labelling during the period of accelerated division reveals the differential synthesis of two polypeptides of molecular weights 46kd and 27kd. In order to distinguish between the alternative hypotheses that these proteins ( denoted as p46 and p27 ) are a) "division proteins", or b) "stress proteins" (synthesized as a direct result of nitrogen starvation), use was made of the temperature-sensitive mutant of S.pombe, wee 1.50, which, at the restrictive temperature, divides at half the size of wild type cells. This mutant does NOT accelerate into division upon nitrogen starvation at the restrictive temperature for reasons satisfactorily explained by current models of cell cycle 35 control in S.pombe. S-methionine labelling during the period follow ing nitrogen starvation does, however, reveal the same differential synthesis of proteins p46 and p27 as seen in wild type. Heat shock analysis reveals the existence of two heat shock proteins in S.pombe of similar sizes to p46 and p27. It was therefore postulated that nitrogen starvation in this yeast induces a subset of the total array of heat shock proteins. The hypothesis is supported by the observation that nitrogen-starved cells acquire thermotolerance at a time only shortly after the transient appearance of proteins p46 and p27. A heat shock protein in Saooharomyces c e v e v is ia e, HSP 48, has recently been identified as the glycolytic enzyme ENOLASE. Furthermore, it has been proposed that this protein may be solely responsible for the acquisition of thermotolerance in pre-heated cells. Using an anti-HSP 48 antiserum the possibility that, in S.pombe, protein p46 is enolase was tested by immunoblotting techniques. While the antiserum reacted specifically to a single polypeptide of S.pombe of approximate molecular weight 50kd, the amount of this antibody-binding protein was not found to increase during nitrogen starvation. On this basis, it was concluded that protein p46 is not enolase. The implied divergence in the heat shock responses of budding and fission yeasts is emphasized further by the suggestion, by similar inmunoblotting techniques, that, in S.pombe, enolase is not a heat shock protein at all.


A traumatic brain injury (TBI) can occur from a sharp strain, or acceleration, to the human head. Based on the level of injury, TBIs are classified as mild, moderate, or severe, with the most common causes being motor vehicle crashes; violence related injuries; collisions in sports; and falls are the most common causes of TBIs for the general public. Many soldiers experience a TBI in combat zones when they are exposed to the shock waves from blasts, or to ballistic impacts.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


Purpose To measure the association between institutional investment in high-value care (HVC) performance improvement and resident HVC experiences. Method The authors analyzed data from two 2014 surveys assessing institutions' investments in HVC performance improvement as reported by program directors (PDs) and residents' perceptions of the frequency of HVC teaching, participation in HVC-focused quality improvement (QI), and views on HVC topics. The authors measured the association between institutional investment and resident-reported experiences using logistic regression, controlling for program and resident characteristics. Results The sample included 214 programs and 9,854 residents (59.3% of 361 programs, 55.2% of 17,851 residents surveyed). Most PDs (158/209; 75.6%) reported some support. Residents were more likely to report HVC discussions with faculty at least a few times weekly if they trained in programs that offered HVC-focused faculty development (odds ratio [OR] = 1.19; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04–1.37; P = .01), that supported such faculty development (OR = 1.21; 95% CI 1.04–1.41; P = .02), or that provided physician cost-of-care performance data (OR = 1.19; 95% CI 1.03–1.39; P = .02). Residents were more likely to report participation in HVC QI if they trained in programs with a formal HVC curriculum (OR = 1.83; 95% CI 1.48–2.27; P < .001) or with HVC-focused faculty development (OR = 1.46; 95% CI 1.15–1.85; P = .002). Conclusions Institutional investment in HVC-related faculty development and physician feedback on costs of care may increase the frequency of HVC teaching and resident participation in HVC-related QI.


Industrial thin slab casting and direct rolling processing started in 1989 with the world's first CSP® plant at Crawfordsville (USA). Since this time CSP® and competing thin slab casting and direct rolling concepts have been developed to a standard process for hot strip production. Typical features of the CSP® process are the homogeneous structural and mechanical properties all along the strip. Direct hot rolling of thin slabs may be followed by a well defined cooling pattern to produce fine-grained HSLA steel or multiphase hot strip on the runout table. The product range covers low carbon as well as medium and high carbon steel grades comprising IF-, HSLA-, API-, electrical- and multiphase steel grades. CSP® processed thin hot strip is used for non-exposed parts and may substitute cold rolled strip. Hot strip from thin slab can be easily further processed to cold rolled and/or surface treated strip. Today process and material developments e.g. go for energy saving, rise in productivity, advanced surface requirements, HSLA and multiphase steel grades combining higher strength and ductility as well as multiphase steel grades for hot dip galvanizing.


This review paper discusses the temperature behavior and thermal event of cesium dihydrogen phosphate (CsH2PO4) in both ambient and high pressure atmosphere. A complete transition from the room-temperature to a high-temperature of CsH2PO4 (monoclinic to cubic phase) occurs between 230 to 240 °C, even in the absence of humid conditions and the superprotonic transition precedes the onset of the dehydration/chemical decomposition of the title compound. Decomposition or dehydration can be avoided by either keeping the sample under a H2O-saturated atmosphere, or subjecting the sample to a pressure of 1.0 ± 0.2 GPa.


TGF-beta1 modulation of cell cycle components was assessed in an experimental model in which the synthetic progestin medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) induced mammary tumors in Balb/c mice. TGF-beta1 inhibited both MPA-induced proliferation of progestin-dependent C4HD epithelial cells and proliferation of the progestin-independent variant cell type C4HI, arresting cells in G(1) phase of the cell cycle. Progestin-independent 60 epithelial cells evidenced reduced response to TGF-beta1 antiproliferative effects. TGF-beta1 inhibition of cyclins D1 and A expression and up-regulation of p21(CIP1) levels were the common findings in all three cell types. In addition, a significant content reduction of cyclin D1/cdk4 and cyclin A/cdk2 complexes was found after TGF-beta1 inhibition of MPA-dependent and -independent proliferation. TGF-beta1 inhibited cyclin D2 expression and up-regulated p27(KIP1) levels only when acting as inhibitor of MPA-induced proliferation of C4HD cells. Regulation of these two cell cycle components resulted in decreased cyclin D2/cdk2 complex and in increased p27(KIP1) association with cdk2 in C4HD cells treated with TGF-beta1. These two molecular mechanisms, unobserved in progestin-independent growth of C4HI or 60 cells, were associated with a significantly higher degree of inhibition of cdk2 kinase activity in C4HD cells compared to that found in TGF-beta-treated C4HI or 60 cells. Reduced sensitivity of 60 cells to the growth-inhibitory effects of TGF-beta1 correlated with significantly lower levels of p15(INK4B), p21(CIP1), and p27(KIP1) expressed in these cells, compared to the levels present in C4HD or C4HI cells, and correlated as well with lack of expression of p16(INK4). Thus, common targets were found to exist in TGF-beta1 inhibitory action on breast cancer cells, but regulation of specific targets was found when TGF-beta1-inhibited proliferation driven by the progesterone receptor.


Interdisciplinary exploration of selected topics in the sciences; emphasis on integrating information and perspectives from multiple disciplines and on student participation through discussion, research, writing, and projects.


ABSTRACT Academy rugby league competition is an important step along the pathway to professional status, but little is known about injury at this level of the game. The aim of this research was to establish the nature, incidence and burden of injury in English academy rugby league. Using an observational prospective cohort study design, and a time-loss injury definition, the injury outcomes of three professional rugby league academies were recorded during the 2017 season. A total of 87 injuries occurred in 59 matches for an overall injury incidence of 85 (95%CI 67–103) injuries per 1000 hours played. The mean severity of injury was 22 ± 19 days resulting in an overall injury burden of 1898 (95%CI 1813–1983) days lost per 1000 hours. The tackle event was the most common cause of injury (77% of all injuries). Forwards sustained a greater proportion of injuries than backs (forwards 67% vs. backs 33% of injuries). Concussion (13 (6–20) per 1000 hours) and ankle sprains (11 (4–17) per 1000 hours) were the most commonly diagnosed injuries. The shoulder joint was the most commonly injured site (17 (9–25) per 1000 hours). The incidence of injury for academy rugby league is similar to senior professional rugby league.


Recent deep face recognition models proposed in the literature utilized large-scale public datasets such as MS-Celeb-1M and VGGFace2 for training very deep neural networks, achieving state-of-the-art performance on mainstream benchmarks. Recently, many of these datasets, e.g., MS-Celeb-1M and VGGFace2, are retracted due to credible privacy and ethical concerns. This motivates this work to propose and investigate the feasibility of using a privacy-friendly synthetically generated face dataset to train face recognition models. Towards this end, we utilize a class-conditional generative adversarial network to generate class-labeled synthetic face images, namely SFace. To address the privacy aspect of using such data to train a face recognition model, we provide extensive evaluation experiments on the identity relation between the synthetic dataset and the original authentic dataset used to train the generative model. Our reported evaluation proved that associating an identity of the authentic dataset to one with the same class label in the synthetic dataset is hardly possible. We also propose to train face recognition on our privacy-friendly dataset, SFace, using three different learning strategies, multi-class classification, label-free knowledge transfer, and combined learning of multi-class classification and knowledge transfer. The reported evaluation results on five authentic face benchmarks demonstrated that the privacy-friendly synthetic dataset has a high potential to be used for training face recognition models, achieving, for example, a verification accuracy of 91.87% on LFW using multi-class classification and 99.13% using the combined learning strategy. The training code and the synthetic face image dataset are publicly released11https://github.com/fdbtrs/SFace-Privacy-friendly-and-Accurate-Face-Recognition-using-Synthetic-Data.


This chapter focuses on the compliance effect of dynamic humanoid robot walking. This compliance is generated with an articular muscle emulator system, which is designed using two neural networks (NNs). One NN models a muscle and a second learns to tune the proportional integral derivative (PID) of the articulation DC motor, allowing it to behave analogously to the muscle model. Muscle emulators are implemented in the knees of a three‐dimensional (3D) simulated biped robot. The simulation results show that the muscle emulator creates compliance in articulations and that the dynamic walk, even in walk‐halt‐stop transitions, improves. If an external thrust unbalances the biped during the walk, the muscle emulator improves the control and prevents the robot from falling. The total power consumption is significantly reduced, and the articular trajectories approach human trajectories.


The orthotropic mechanical behaviors of weft-knitted flax fiber fabric reinforced polypropylene (PP) composites, which were produced by hot pressing of knit layers composed of a commingled yarn with a flax fiber content of 50vol.%, are investigated in both meso- and macro-scales. In meso-scale, the repeating unit cell (RUC) finite element (FE) model is developed, in which impregnated yarns are assumed to be isotropic elastic while the matrix is modeled as an elastoplastic, isotropic solid. Then, stress-strain curves of the RUC are simulated for its elastoplastic orthotropic parameters. Finally, in macro-scale of its specimen, the tensile behavior of the composite laminates with six parallel plies is simulated by means of 3D elastoplastic FE method. The applicability and limitation of this model have been discussed.


Deformable image registration (DIR) is a critical technic in adaptive radiotherapy (ART) for propagating contours between planning computerized tomography (CT) images and treatment CT/cone-beam CT (CBCT) images to account for organ deformation for treatment re-planning. To validate the ability and accuracy of DIR algorithms in organ at risk (OAR) contour mapping, ten intensity-based DIR strategies, which were classified into four categories—optical flow-based, demons-based, level-set-based and spline-based—were tested on planning CT and fractional CBCT images acquired from twenty-one head & neck (H&N) cancer patients who underwent 6~7-week intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). Three similarity metrics, i.e., the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), the percentage error (PE) and the Hausdorff distance (HD), were employed to measure the agreement between the propagated contours and the physician-delineated ground truths of four OARs, including the vertebra (VTB), the vertebral foramen (VF), the parotid gland (PG) and the submandibular gland (SMG). It was found that the evaluated DIRs in this work did not necessarily outperform rigid registration. DIR performed better for bony structures than soft-tissue organs, and the DIR performance tended to vary for different ROIs with different degrees of deformation as the treatment proceeded. Generally, the optical flow-based DIR performed best, while the demons-based DIR usually ranked last except for a modified demons-based DISC used for CT-CBCT DIR. These experimental results suggest that the choice of a specific DIR algorithm depends on the image modality, anatomic site, magnitude of deformation and application. Therefore, careful examinations and modifications are required before accepting the auto-propagated contours, especially for automatic re-planning ART systems.


This paper presents an innovative product design system based on Quality Function Development (QFD) and Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ in Russian abbreviation). House of Quality (HOQ) is the core of QFD. To make QFD more practical and operable for small and medium-sized companies, a simplified model of HOQ is proposed. A set of reasoning scheme for inferring requirements relationships is adopted to facilitate constructing the HOQ. The contradiction in the process of mechanical design is defined by TRIZ as physical contradiction and technical contradiction. These two contradictions are solved through contradiction matrix and inventive principles of TRIZ. The innovative design system mainly uses the tool of contradiction matrix to solve the bottle techniques attained from QFD. By taking the HOQ as its interface the integration between QFD and TRIZ is realized. After conducting quality function development, two outputs can be obtained. They are the technical measure needing improvement and the technical measure that is getting worse while improving the former one. These two measures are taken as inputs of TRIZ module to analyze and solve the problem of product design.


Objective:
 Functional significance and efficiency of reverse cholesterol transport (RCT) pathways of cholesterol efflux is of major pathogenetic and therapeutic relevance. The assays used to test RCT however continue to remain fairly labor and time intensive with the "gold standard" approach in vitro employing acetylated low-density lipoprotein (acLDL)-mediated loading of cells with radioactively labeled cholesterol followed by exposure to a cholesterol acceptor (e.g. high-density lipoprotein, HDL). We tested the feasibility and efficacy of a synthetic CHolesterol Efflux Assay Probe (CHEAP) capable of Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) as an alternate strategy to quantify RCT that could theoretically replace more labor intensive methods via its advantages of high throughput screening, faster and economical synthesis, bulk fabrication, and real time cholesterol release monitoring.

 Methods and results:
 CHEAP synthesis was accomplished through self-assembly methodologies from polystyrene core nanoparticles, lipids, and H3- or BODIPY- labeled cholesterol. Screening of 25 potential formulations for multiple physicochemicalproperties including stability, polydispersity, zeta potential and FRET efficiency upon cholesterol release resulted in identification of an optimized particle with mean size similar to LDL (32.3 nm). Fluorescence profiles of BODIPY-cholesterol loaded and cholesterol free CHEAP were characterized to allow real time determination of cholesterol release kinetics ex vivo and in vitro through changes in Förster Resonance Energy Transfer upon cholesterol release. Internalization was studied via confocal microscopy and the results showed that particles localized to early endosomal and lysosomal intracellular compartments. Assay efficacy of CHEAP was investigated in RCT with varying doses of human HDL as cholesterol acceptors. Figure 1 demonstrates that cholesterol loading with CHEAP resulted in dose-dependent cholesterol efflux (r2 = 0.83, p=0.011) as compared with acLDL loading (r2 = 0.67, p=0.048).

 Conclusions:
 CHEAP has several advantages over lipoprotein cholesterol delivery probes and has reliable results in RCT assays.