Malware is pervasive and poses serious threats to normal operation of business processes in cloud. Cloud computing environments typically have hundreds of hosts that are connected to each other, often with high risk trust assumptions and/or protection mechanisms that are not difficult to break. Malware often exploits such weaknesses, as its immediate goal is often to spread itself to as many hosts as possible. Detecting this propagation is often difficult to address because the malware may reside in multiple components across the software or hardware stack. In this scenario, it is usually best to contain the malware to the smallest possible number of hosts, and it's also critical for system administration to resolve the issue in a timely manner. Furthermore, resolution often requires that several participants across different organizational teams scramble together to address the intrusion. In this vision paper, we define this problem in detail. We then present our vision of decentralized malware containment and the challenges and issues associated with this vision. The approach of containment involves detection and response using graph analytics coupled with a blockchain framework. We propose the use of a dominance frontier for profile nodes which must be involved in the containment process. Smart contracts are used to obtain consensus amongst the involved parties. The paper presents a basic implementation of this proposal. We have further discussed some open problems related to our vision.


A tremendous amount of software models has been created so far. This growing number of models adds to the fact that it gets more and more difficult to organise, structure, and reuse them. Thereby new software development projects cannot profit from existing knowledge. In our research we will study existing natural language processing techniques for their adaptability in the reuse of software models. We will research methods to group existing models according to their functionality.


A method for deep desulfurization of transportation fuels was presented. Reactive conversion of sulfur compounds and the following adsorption occurred inside adsorbents. The condensation reaction with formaldehyde catalyzed by phosphomolybdic acid was shown effective for the removal of thiophenic and benzothiophenic compounds. Thiophene or benzothiophene of model fuels was completely removed. Coupling with an oxidation reaction, the total sulfur content of commercial fuels was dropped to below 15 ppm. Appropriate desulfur condition was at 70–80°C and ambient pressure without consumption of hydrogen. Saturated adsorbent was regenerated with heating in air at 400°C, and the sulfur capacity was almost fully recovered. Fuel quality was not negatively affected by the desulfur operation. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2009


In this Franklin Classic Storybook, our hero discovers a hideaway --- perfect for a secret club --- but there's only room for four members. Soon Franklin becomes so busy with his Secret Club that he forgets about his other friends. When Beaver starts her own club, Franklin learns how it feels to be left out.


"Methodology of valuation most widespread now is based on the assumption of stability of the market of a valuation subject (a real estate). This assumption has consequence the concept of the market value, in particular, in the definition of International Valuation Standards [1] (which for clients' purposes equates to fair value under IAS 40). This is a conception of a value in exchange, where a willing seller and a willing buyer decide to change a valuation subject for a calculated sum of money on the valuation date on the base of well-done marketing. Some time ago it seems that the approximation of a market value looks strange only for emerging markets [2] with its non-transparency. But last half-decade changes the situation. Thinking on the reasons of poor-quality valuation since times of scandals with Enron company etc. up to modern mortgage crisis many analytics have come to conclusion, that, apparently, the stable markets exist only in imagination, as a model. In the contemporary world prices are not established by what has gone before or even what exists now, but by buyersi and sellersi future needs and expectations. Whether for this reason, or on the basis of intuition, more and more valuers' clients (owners, buyers, investors) are interested not in a present condition of the market, but its future. Making a decision they wish to know the future incomes of use of a real estate (valuation subject). Differently, a willing seller and a willing buyer have typically ignored market value, but are interested in value in use. The concept of the value in use is well-known. The value in use is a value of concrete property at concrete use for the concrete user and consequently not connected with the market (e.g. [1]). In book keeping a value in use is the value of calculated future cash flows discounted to a present situation which presumably will arise from continuation of use of an active and from its sale in the end of its term of useful services (see IFRS 5, app. A). Nevertheless often a potential real estate investor is not interested in value in current use, but value in the most profitable use (highest and best use). We shall name this kind of value as the ""user value"". It can be defined as follows. User value is a current value of the future incomes of valuation subject in highest and best use. Being based on this definition, it is simple to fix an algorithm of calculation of the user value. At the first stage it is necessary to define the highest and best use of a valuation subject. Further, to forecast the incomes of this use, including return of the capital by sale in the end of use. At last, to predict changes of capitalization rate in the market of valuation subject and to discount future incomes to the valuation date. As it shows, in conditions of changing markets the using by the valuer of the user value as the basis of a valuation often meets greater understanding of clients, than calculation of the market value."


Progress Claims
This article presents a novel method to bond PLA, a 3D-printing material, and PMMA, a popular substrate material for microfluidic applications. With this technique, the tubing connectors can be fabricated by 3D printing and make this PLA/PMMA hybrid microfluidic chip extremely easy to use for experiments. The major challenge of bonding this hybrid chip is the high level surface roughness of PLA substrates with its significant influences on bonding strength [1]. After Ethanol treatment and UV irradiation of this hybrid chip, a post-annealing step was realized to facilitate the bonding. To further analyze the bonding quality leakage test, cross-sectional image by microscope, and pressure bursting test were conducted. The experiment results clearly showed that this method could successfully and rapidly form a strong bond (>13 bars) between PLA and PMMA substrates.
Background
Nowadays, thermoplastics are used commonly in microfluidic applications. The bonding of PMMA/PLA can offer significant benefits taken advantages from 3D-printing process such as allowing producing incredibly complex products in a short time, while minimizing material waste.
Description of Bonding Procedure
Ethanol solution was distributed uniformly sandwiched between two substrates by spin-coating process (190 rpm, 10 sec). Following the UV irradiation (56 sec), an instantaneous and permanent bonding can be formed between PMMA and PLA. However, the bonding strength is significantly affected by the high level of surface roughness of PLA substrates (range from 4.5 to 6.5μm). It can cause the failure of bonding. To solve this critical issue, we employed a post-annealing strategy (55℃, 30 min) straightforwardly after UV exposure step. Its purpose is help create more contacting points between two bonded substrates because of surface degradation caused by coarsening phenomena [3]. Besides post annealing can help relieve stress and therefore improve the bonding strength. The temperature executed for post-annealing is below the glass transition temperature of PLA (Tg of PLA = 60~65℃), hence there has no significant channel deformation observed. The overall bonding procedure is described in Fig. 1.
After bonding, several experiments were conducted to characterize the bonding quality such as leakage tests, cross-sectional images by microscope, and burst tests.
Experimental Results

 Comprehensive examination

Following the completion of the bonding experiments, leakage tests and the cross sectional investigation using microscope of bonded chip were conducted, the results of which are presented in Fig. 2. The figure clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed bonding method for heterogeneous substrates between PMMA/PLA. Figure 2(a) shows the bonded chip, Figure 2(b) shows the enlarged figure of the microchannel, both figures clearly showed that no leakage was observed. Figure 2(c) shows the cross-sectional image of bonded chip.

 The influence of post-annealing conditions on bonding strength.

Fig.3 illustrates the set up for busting test and Table 1 lists the experiment results of bonding strength. In all of the experiments, the microchannels were fabricated on the PMMA substrates and the cover substrates were PLA. Table 1 clearly shows that the microfluidic chips have sufficient bonding strength above 10 bars.


Time course of development of male germ cells in man during prenatal development was studied quantitatively for the first time. For each period of the prenatal development the following characteristics were determined: relationship between the number of germ and somatic cells in spermatic cords, mitotic index for germ cells the intensity of their degeneration, average diameter of their nuclei, and the proportion of germ cells at the stage of preleptothene.


Emotional contagion was examined from the perspective of interpersonal relationships. Using a vignette paradigm, 156 Japanese undergraduates (108 females and 48 males) assumed either a friend, acquaintance, senior, or junior as their partner. Their emotional expression and experience were measured when their assumed partner told them of intensely positive episodes (e.g., the long-sought passing of a certification examination) and intensely negative episodes (e.g., the death of their mother). Emotional responses were significantly stronger in the friend, senior, and junior conditions than in the acquaintance condition for both positive and negative episodes, suggesting the degree of intimacy in the interpersonal relationship influenced emotional contagion. Emotional responses were also stronger in the junior condition than in the senior condition, suggesting that social power in interpersonal relationships influenced emotional contagion. Moreover, sad expressions resulting from partners' disclosures did not differ across conditions, reflecting the display rule of negative emotions in Japan. These results indicate that interpersonal relationships need to be taken into account in the model of emotional contagion.


The aim of this study was to assess the association between promotion, protection, and support for breastfeeding in primary health care services and prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months of life. A cross-sectional study was conducted in a representative sample of 1,029 mothers of infants younger than six months treated at primary health care facilities in the city of Rio de Janeiro, in southeastern Brazil. Prevalence ratios (PR) were estimated by Poisson regression. Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding was 58.1%. Factors associated with increased prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding were: white skin color (PR = 1.20; 95%CI: 1.05-1.36); schooling (PR = 1.19; 95%CI: 1.05-1.35); marital status (married or in common-law marriage) (PR = 1.72; 95%IC:1.022.90); previous breastfeeding (PR = 1.27; 95%CI: 1.08-1,49); exclusive breastfeeding at the time of hospital discharge (PR = 2.01; 95%CI: 1.20-3.36); group support for the mother (PR = 1.14; 95%CI: 1.01-1.28); and orientation on breastfeeding (PR = 1.20; 95%CI: 1.08-1.33). Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding decreased 17% per month in the infant's life. Support groups and orientation by primary health care for breastfeeding were associated with increased exclusive breastfeeding prevalence.


Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) may provide good services through Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) platform by providing services to many application scenarios range from safety to comfort. However, VANETs networks introduce many challenges for supporting voice with QoS requirements. In this paper, our study is based on Inter-Vehicle voice streaming rely on multi-hop fashion. For this task, a performance evaluation of various audio CODECs will be analyzed by mean of simulations. Furthermore, we test the impact of network environment on QoS metrics. To achieve good results, CODECs behaviour is tested by using mobility information obtained from vehicular traffic generator. The mobility model is based on the real road maps of an urban environment. Focusing on inter-vehicular voice traffic quality, we provide simulations results in terms of both user level (MOS) metrics and network level (such as Losses). According to this performance evaluation, we show that G.723.1 CODEC worked well in the urban VANET environment.


HPLC separation method of main seven green tea catechins has been developed. Three HPLC columns of different lengths, particle sizes, and sorbent properties were tested for this purpose. Separation was performed applying gradient elution with a mobile phase containing formic acid (0.28%) and an organic modifier (acetonitrile or methanol). Basic chromatographic characteristics were evaluated for each column and mobile phase composition. Extraction of catechins was performed in two ways: applying either methanol or boiling water under classical brewing conditions. Yields ofanalytes were calculated for both extraction techniques. Solid-phase extraction with molecularly imprinted polymer towards (+)-catechin was used for the cleanup ofmethanolic extract of green tea. Very good selectivity and recovery (95%) were achieved for the template molecule.


Eight different fibers were studied to examine upconversion as a function of erbium concentration below 1000 ppm by weight. These experiments and a computer model of two-particle upconversion made it possible to estimate the upconversion coefficient used in a rate-equation model. A strong correlation was found between amplification reduction and parasitic upconversion in fibers with both Ge- and Ge/Al/P-cores when the erbium-doping concentration is in the range 70-840 ppm by weight. When plotting maximum amplification versus the 980 luminescence on a logarithmic scale, the slope was approximately -2 irrespective of the host material. The validity of the assumed two-particle upconversion model up to 4 mW of pump power is shown.<<ETX>>


Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate the antimyeloma activity of a novel Bcl-2 family inhibitor, ABT-737, in preclinical treatment of multiple myeloma. Experimental Design: The antimyeloma activity of ABT-737 was evaluated in cultured myeloma cell lines and patient myeloma samples, and in a xenograft mouse myeloma model. Drug combination therapy using ABT-737 with other commonly used myeloma drugs was also investigated. Results: MY5 and JJN3 cell lines exhibited the most sensitivity to ABT-737 with an EC50 of 0.2 and 0.5 μmol/L, respectively, with increased cell apoptosis and elevated activated caspase-3. We identified two distinct groups of myeloma patient samples that were either sensitive or resistant to the drug. Four of 15 patient bone marrow samples (27%) were highly sensitive to ABT-737 at doses of 0.25 and 0.5 μmol/L, which eliminated 80% to 90% of myeloma cells as a result of cellular apoptosis 3 days after drug treatment. ABT-737 showed a synergistic effect when combined with dexamethasone or melphalan in inducing myeloma cell death. Furthermore, the dexamethasone-resistant MM1(Dex)R myeloma cell line was highly sensitive to 0.2 μmol/L ABT-737. As determined by colony assay, little or no detectable toxicity to patient hematologic progenitor cells was observed at 1 μmol/L ABT-737. ABT-737 dose dependently suppressed tumor growth in a xenograft MY5 mouse model. Conclusions: These studies show substantial antimyeloma activity of ABT-737 as a single agent or in combination with dexamethasone or melphalan and suggest a rationale for future clinical trials.


Paleoproterozoic basement occurs on the islands of Islay and Colonsay in western Scotland and on Inishtrahull off the north coast of Ireland. The basement is composed of a deformed alkalic igneous association, collectively referred to as the Rhinns complex. Isotopic data indicate that the complex represents new addition of mantle-derived material to the crust at ca. 1.8 Ga. The Rhinns complex may link with rocks of similar age in North America, Greenland, and Scandinavia, which formed part of the southern margin of the Laurentia-Baltica supercontinent.


It is mainstream to describe the design of a circuit in hardware description languages such as VHDL or Verilog HDL. In contrast, many high-level synthesis tools which provides the way to implement a circuit using a software programming language, such as C language, are released in late years. Therefore, in this paper, we discussed the implementation methods of high-speed encryption circuit using a high-level synthesis tool. Then we implemented two kinds of encryption circuit (MISTY1 and AES) by 4 different types of substitution table on an FPGA using Vivado HLS which is a high-level synthesis tool provided by Xilinx. As a result, the fastest methods of implementation are 1.9 and 37.6 times faster than the slowest methods, in cases of MISTY1 and AES respectively. In addition, the smallest methods of implementation require 10% and 38% smaller circuit's area than the biggest methods, in cases of MISTY1 and AES respectively.


The order Mucorales comprises predominantly fast-growing saprotrophic fungi, some of which are used for the fermentation of foodstuffs but it also includes species known to cause infections in patients with severe immune or metabolic impairments. To inventory biodiversity in Mucorales ITS barcodes of 668 strains in 203 taxa were generated covering more than two thirds of the recognised species. Using the ITS sequences, Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units were defined by a similarity threshold of 99 %. An LSU sequence was generated for each unit as well. Analysis of the LSU sequences revealed that conventional phenotypic classifications of the Mucoraceae are highly artificial. The LSU- and ITS-based trees suggest that characters, such as rhizoids and sporangiola, traditionally used in mucoralean taxonomy are plesiomorphic traits. The ITS region turned out to be an appropriate barcoding marker in Mucorales. It could be sequenced directly in 82 % of the strains and its variability was sufficient to resolve most of the morphospecies. Molecular identification turned out to be problematic only for the species complexes of Mucor circinelloides, M. flavus, M. piriformis and Zygorhynchus moelleri. As many as 12 possibly undescribed species were detected. Intraspecific variability differed widely among mucorealean species ranging from 0 % in Backusella circina to 13.3 % in Cunninghamella echinulata. A high proportion of clinical strains was included for molecular identification. Clinical isolates of Cunninghamella elegans were identified molecularly for the first time. As a result of the phylogenetic analyses several taxonomic and nomenclatural changes became necessary. The genus Backusella was emended to include all species with transitorily recurved sporangiophores. Since this matched molecular data all Mucor species possessing this character were transferred to Backusella. The genus Zygorhynchus was shown to be polyphyletic based on ITS and LSU data. Consequently, Zygorhynchus was abandoned and all species were reclassified in Mucor. Our phylogenetic analyses showed, furthermore, that all non-thermophilic Rhizomucor species belong to Mucor. Accordingly, Rhizomucor endophyticus was transferred to Mucor and Rhizomucor chlamydosporus was synonymised with Mucor indicus. Lecto-, epi- or neotypes were designated for several taxa.


Can we train a hybrid discriminative-generative model with a single network? This question has recently been answered in the affirmative, introducing the field of Joint Energy-based Model (JEM) [17], [48], which achieves high classification accuracy and image generation quality simultaneously. Despite recent advances, there remain two performance gaps: the accuracy gap to the standard softmax classifier, and the generation quality gap to state-of-the-art generative models. In this paper, we introduce a variety of training techniques to bridge the accuracy gap and the generation quality gap of JEM. 1) We incorporate a recently proposed sharpness-aware minimization (SAM) framework to train JEM, which promotes the energy landscape smoothness and the generalization of JEM. 2) We exclude data augmentation from the maximum likelihood estimate pipeline of JEM, and mitigate the negative impact of data augmentation to image generation quality. Extensive experiments on multiple datasets demonstrate our SADA-JEM achieves state-of-the-art performances and outperforms JEM in image classification, image generation, calibration, out-of-distribution detection and adversarial robustness by a notable margin. Our code is available at https://github.com/sndnyang/SADAJEM.


The semiclassical limit in a quantum energy-transport model for semiconductors is proved. The system consists of a nonlinear parabolic fourth-order equation for the electron density, including temperature gradients; a degenerate elliptic heat equation for the electron temperature; and the Poisson equation for the electric potential. The equations are solved in a bounded domain with periodic boundary conditions. The asymptotic limit is based on a priori estimates independent of the scaled Planck constant, obtained from entropy functionals, on the use of Gagliardo-Nirenberg inequalities, and weak compactness methods.


This work on Africans and African Humanism is a philosophical enquiry into the significance of African sense of respect for the human person. The traditional values of hospitality, primacy of the person, respect for life, sense of the sacred, familihood, brotherhood, solidarity and other characteristic features of the communalistic life of an African person are brought into cognizance. Applying the descriptive, analytic and phenomenological methods of enquiry and spreading forth the scope of our coverage to include not only black Negroes within the confines of the geographical configuration of Africa but also diasporans and those of any race and colour within the continent, practical examples are sourced in order to illumine our subject matter. Salient questions are raised with respect to the essence of the centrality of the human person, his/her dignity, right and the need for fair-play and sense of responsibility on the part of the citizenry and general leadership. The notoriety of Africa and Africans in relation to their being religious in all aspects of life is being latched upon as a launch-pad for this allimportant task. By and large, Africans are called upon not only to be more conscious of the latent potentials in this essentially humanistic light, but to harness and promote them assiduously and to give it a more cosmopolitan outlook as they anchor their lives on this rich cultural heritage. This, as it were, is expected to yield immense dividends of not only curbing violence, terrorism, genocide and all forms of social ills associated with our contemporary world, but it is also hoped that it will bring about the much needed peace, harmony and progress in all its ramifications world-over.


Some 200 shonkinite dikes, sills, and breccia bodies on the western Colorado Plateau of south-central Utah were intruded from approximately 3.7 to 4.6 Ma, contemporaneous with mafic volcanism along the nearby plateau margin. Thicknesses of dikes range to about 6 m; the log-normal mean thickness is 85 cm. Despite the excellent exposures of essentially all dikes in strata of the Jurassic San Rafael Group, their number is indeterminate from their outcrop and spacing because they are everywhere greatly segmented. By our grouping of almost 2000 dike segments, most dikes are less than 2 km in outcrop length; the longest is 9 km. Because the San Rafael magmas were primitive and probably ascended directly from the mantle, dike lengths in outcrop are much less than their heights. The present exposures probably lie along the irregular upper peripheries of dikes that lengthen and merge with depth. Orientations of steps on dike contacts record local directions of dike-fracture propagation; about half of the measurements plunge less than 30°, showing that lateral propagation at dike peripheries is as important as the vertical propagation ultimately responsible for ascent. The San Rafael dikes, now exposed after erosion of about 0.5–1.5 km, appear to thicken and shorten upward, probably because near-surface vesiculation enhanced magmatic driving pressures. Propagation likely ceased soon after the first dike segments began to feed nearby sills or vented to initiate small-volume eruptions. Most of the dikes are exposed in clastic strata of the Jurassic San Rafael Group. They probably acquired their strikes, however, while ascending along well-developed joints in massive sandstones of the underlying Glen Canyon Group. Rotation of far-field stresses during the emplacement interval cannot account for disparate strikes of the dikes, which vary through 110°, most lying between north and N25°W. Rather, the two regional horizontal principal stresses were probably nearly equal, and so the dominant N75°E direction of dike opening was not strongly favored. Across the center of the swarm, about 10 to 15 dikes overlap and produce 15–20 m of dilation. Many are in sufficient proximity that later dikes should be thinner than earlier ones if neither the magma pressures nor regional stresses were changing during the emplacement interval. However, dike thicknesses vary systematically neither along the length of the swarm nor in proportion to the number of neighboring dikes. It appears that crustal extension during the magmatic interval relieved compressive stresses localized by intrusion.


Although the original intent of the peer-to-peer (P2P) concept is to treat each participant equally, heterogeneity widely exists in deployed P2P networks. Peers are different from each other in many aspects, such as bandwidth, CPU power, and storage capacity. Some approaches have been proposed to take advantage of the query forwarding heterogeneity such that the high bandwidth of powerful nodes can be fully utilized to maximize the system capacity. In this paper, we suggest using the query answering heterogeneity to directly improve the search efficiency of P2P networks. In our proposed differentiated search (DiffSearch) algorithm, the peers with high query answering capabilities will have higher priority to be queried. Because the query answering capabilities are extremely unbalanced among peers, a high query success rate can be achieved by querying only a small portion of a network. The search traffic is significantly reduced due to the shrunken search space. Our trace analysis and simulation show that the DiffSearch algorithm can save up to 60 percent of search traffic


Radio transmitters are a commonly used tool for monitoring the fates of harvested species, although little research has been devoted to whether a visible radio transmitter changes a hunters' willingness to harvest that animal. We initially surveyed deer hunters to assess their willingness to harvest radio-collared deer and predicted radio collars were unlikely to affect the harvest of antlerless deer, but hunters may be less willing to harvest small-antlered males with radio collars compared to large-antlered males. We fitted white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) with radio collars that were visible to hunters or with ear-tag transmitters or ear-tags that were difficult to detect visually and estimated if harvest rates differed among marking methods. For females, the best model failed to detect an effect of radio collars on harvest rates. Also, we failed to detect a difference between male deer fitted with radio collars and ear-tag transmitters. When we compared males fitted with radio collars versus ear tags, we found harvest rate patterns were opposite to our predictions, with lower harvest rates for adult males fitted with radio collars and higher harvest rates for yearling males fitted with radio collars. Our study suggests that harvest rate estimates generated from a sample of deer fitted with visible radio collars can be representative of the population of inference. Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.


To the Editor: In their editorial that accompanied four articles on dexmedetomidine use in children, Drs. Tobin, Shafer, and Davis (1) assessed the broad impact of the pharmaceutical industry's lack of interest in conducting appropriate drug development studies for children. Yet the solution to "untying the Gordian knot" extends beyond the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and industry. A critical factor largely absent from the discussion is training clinical investigators to meet the needs of pediatric drug development. We take issue with the contention that investigator-initiated studies cannot meet ". . . the FDA's definition for adequate and well controlled studies, . . . " because adequately trained investigators can certainly undertake such studies when given adequate support. Our recent experience with dexmedetomidine shows how this can be done. From October 2003 to December 2005, we repeatedly attempted to engage various members of Abbott Pharmaceuticals to initiate appropriate pediatric studies. These efforts failed. However, we garnered limited support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Pediatric Pharmacology Research Unit (PPRU), allowing us to implement a pediatric, drug development plan for dexmedetomidine. The PPRU comprises 13 academic sites that develop and perform clinical pharmacologic research in the pediatric population, often in collaboration with industry partners. The network includes experts in quantitative drug analysis, pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) modeling, pediatric clinical trial design, and a wide range of pediatric subspecialties. Our initial trial is a PK/PD study of dexmedetomidine administered as a continuous infusion in infants after open-heart surgery. This doseescalation study evaluates both the PK profile in this population and concentration-response relationships with respect to hemodynamic variables, tracheal extubation readiness, quality of sedation, and overall safety. The trial is nearly complete, and has produced a preliminary model of dexmedetomidine PK in infants. This model will enable us to design the next stage of investigations. As described in the accompanying editorial (2), our investigator-initiated study is being performed under an Investigational New Drug application, and our interaction with the FDA has been productive. There is a paucity of funding and an insufficient number of programs available to train experts in pediatric drug development. Although there are more than 250 children's hospitals in the United States, only a few train pediatric subspecialists in clinical pharmacology. Future efforts to assure appropriate design of clinical pharmacologic studies in children must include a comprehensive effort to train young investigators. These investigators are desperately needed in academia, industry, and the FDA. The solution to this Gordian knot is perhaps not that complex. Society, academia, government, and industry must simply decide that it is important enough to untie.


Clinicians are becoming more aware of the risks of sleep deprivation and unrecognized sleep-disordered breathing in hospitalized patients, most importantly in those patients planning to undergo surgical procedures. Polysomnography is difficult to perform in the hospital setting, such that actigraphy or urinary metabolites of melatonin are often used as surrogate measures, and show that sleep is markedly impaired. Patients in the medical intensive care unit with sepsis or requiring mechanical ventilation may show complete absence of the normal circadian rhythm pattern, and many centers have initiated sleep-enhancement protocols. In postoperative patients, rapid-eye-movement sleep is nearly obliterated, especially in the first 1-2 days after surgery, and this appears closely related to the use of high-dose opioids. Sleep-disordered breathing is common in postoperative patients, and tools such as the Sleep Apnea Clinical Score or the STOP-BANG (Snoring, Tiredness, Observed apnea, and high blood Pressure - Body mass index, Age, Neck circumference, and Gender) questionnaires have been utilized to predict the possibility of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and postoperative respiratory complications. Protocols to evaluate patients that determine the need and process for positive-airway-pressure treatment in the hospital patient with OSA are being developed. An obstructive apnea systematic intervention strategy protocol to deal with patients with suspected OSA can help guide diagnostic and therapeutic decision making. Hospitals that are proactive in the development of protocols for identification and management of patients with sleep-disordered breathing are likely to be rewarded with reduced complications and costs, and the issue is sure to be incorporated in future pay-for-performance evaluations.


The Ti50Fe22Ni22Sn6 amorphous powder was prepared by mechanical alloying with a high-energy planetary ball mill. Crystallization kinetics of the milled amorphous powders was investigated by DSC. Thermal analysis showed that when the heating rate increasing from 10K/min to 40K/min, the super-cooled liquid region of milled amorphous alloy increased from 93K to 110K. On the basis of the obtained DSC curves, the characteristic temperatures of the amorphous powders could be measured. The equations of Kissinger and Ozawa were used to calculate the crystallization activation energies of the milled amorphous alloy for comparing. The activation energy for the glass transition Eg had the maximum values of 650KJ/mol and 629KJ/mol calculated from Kissinger and Ozawa, respectively. In addition, the second crystallization process had a higher activation energy value comparing with the others crystallization events.


It has been described as a new non-transthoracic esophagectomy that the single-port inflatable mediastinoscopy and laparoscopic surgery is safe and effective for the radical esophagectomy of esophageal cancer. This report describes the whole procedure in detail. The patient lies in the supine position with the legs apart. The procedure is performed under general anesthesia with a single lumen endotracheal tube. For upper mediastinal operation, a lateral incision of the clavicle was made about 3 cm; for laparoscopic operation, the incisions of 5 ports for the laparoscopic operation. CO2 insufflation is performed into the mediastinum with 10 mmHg to make artificial mediastinal emphysema. The Maryland forceps is used to perform separation before dissection. In the non-transthoracic esophagectomy, it is essential to expose the recurrent laryngeal nerve and the azygos vein. The lymph nodes around the esophagus were removed in en bloc. Maintaining double lung ventilation during surgery can significantly reduce carbon dioxide accumulation, especially for those with reduced lung function or severe pleural adhesion. Furthermore, it saves much time that upper mediastinal operation and laparoscopic operation are undergone simultaneously. It is a perfect surgical technique that is worth to promote.


It is a cause for concern that I find the statement 'all patients underwent renography and cystography, with anatomical localisation by intravenous urography and sometimes antegrade pyelography', in a paper published in 1989.1 The obsessive desire for full assessment should not override management based on a primary division of patients into those requiring early intervention and those requiring careful follow up. For example, dilatation of one renal tract in a neonate may resolve spontaneously without surgery. There is no single imaging pathway that is correct for all neonates with urinary abnormalities. Prudence in the use of ionising radiation dictates the need for individual assessment by surgeon and radiologist followed by the use of investigations relevant to the individual problem.


© 2014 The Authors. doi: 10.2340/00015555-1732 Journal Compilation © 2014 Acta Dermato-Venereologica. ISSN 0001-5555 Sir, The inaugural Australian symposium on pruritus was convened at St George Hospital, Sydney on August 10, 2013. The co-conveners were Professor Dedee Murrell, Executive Vice President of the International Society of Dermatology (ISD) and Dr Frank Brennan, Palliative Medicine Physician. The impetus behind the symposium was the recognition of two facts. Firstly, the significant developments in the understanding of the pathophysiology of pruritus in recent years and, secondly, the paucity of education and understanding by colleagues across multiple disciplines of those developments. Given that the symptom of pruritus manifests in many diseases the symposium was deliberately multi-disciplinary in focus. The symposium commenced with a recognition of international work in this area, including the formation of the International Federation for the Study of Itch (IFSI) in 2005, the publication of European Guidelines on Chronic Pruritus in 2012 (1) and the international conferences convened on this topic. The structure of the symposium was simple. It commenced with an overview of the pathophysiology of pruritus. It then proceeded to an analysis of itch measurement instruments and the aetiology and management of pruritus in the context of multiple disease states. They included pruritus in the setting of allergy and atopy, atopic dermatitis, cholestasis, uraemia, solid tumors and haematological conditions, pruritus secondary to opioids and pruritus as a sequelae to burns. Frank Brennan gave an overview of the current understanding of the pathogenesis of pruritus. Synthesising developments in neuroscience he outlined the increasingly complex picture that has emerged of histaminergic and non-histaminergic transmission of itch, the role of itch receptors in the dorsal horn and central signalling in the brain. Connie Katelaris, Immunologist and Allergy Physician, outlined the role of histamine and histamine receptors in itch. Dedee Murrell presented an overview of pruritus in atopic dermatitis, one of the most common dermatological conditions that presents with itch. Chris Lim surveyed the instruments used to measure the severity of pruritus. John Freiman, Hepatologist, outlined the pathogenesis and management of cholestatic pruritus. Freda Passam, Haematologist, presented an overview of haematological conditions and pruritus with a particular focus on myeloproliferative disorders, Hodgkin's Lymphoma and the cutaneous T-cell lymphomas that are notoriously pruritic. Anica Vasic, Pain Specialist, spoke on the mechanisms and management of opioid-induced itch. Frank Brennan spoke on uraemic pruritus, Paul Gray, a Pain Specialist with a particular interest in burns spoke on the phenomenon of post-burns pruritus and Craig Lewis, Medical Oncologist surveyed the symptom of itch and its management in cancer medicine. A feature of the day was an interview with a patient in front of the symposium participants. The patient presented with a challenging combination of pruritus secondary to a life-long history of atopy and, in later years, uraemic pruritus. Connie Katelaris surveyed the history and immunological results of the patient and made clinical recommendations. The symposium was well attended by a combination of clinicians from multiple disciplines. Delegates found that the symposium synthesised the growing literature on the pathophysiology and management of pruritus in the varied diseases that present with this often disabling symptom. The podcast and transcript of a national radio interview of the two conveners by Dr Norman Swan of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, discussing the symptom of pruritus and publicising the symposium and can be accessed by readers (2).


Network externality can encourage adoption when a network is growing in size. Network externality, however, can also encourage abandoning when a network is getting small. Therefore, the challenger's action focusing on persuading a part of the market can eventually affect the whole market when network externality is at work. This paper discusses two local attacking strategies, namely, "focusing on the high-end" and "focusing on the low-end", and compares their effects. The conclusions show that the former strategy generally exhibits stronger eventual effects than the latter. Although direct effects are local, the eventual effects could be global when network externality is strong and/or consumers have small differences in their reservation prices. Based on our results, the incumbent should set a price keeping all installed users away from being stranded. If any installed user gives up the incumbent's technology, he or she may be the fuse to trigger the chain reaction. Thus, a better approach is to "make the fuse wet". To the challenger, local attacking strategies work better when network externality is strong and/or reservation prices of installed users are nearly the same. Keyword: Network Externality, Attacking Strategies, Targeting


The next decade will be crucial for Asian gas markets and determine whether natural gas will become a major fuel in the key energy markets of China, India, Japan and Korea, or will remain a "promising" but peripheral energy source. Natural Gas in Asia is a new edition of a 2002 study on the future of natural gas in the major energy markets of Asia. The 2nd edition has been substantially rewritten and completely updated, and contains two new chapters on South East Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. The future energy needs and environmental problems of China, India and the rest of Asia are considerable. A major question is whether gas supplies can and will respond to expanding demand for the cleanest fossil fuel? Large scale projects will need to be implemented in Russia, the Central Asian Republics and the Middle East to bring required supplies to Asian markets in the years to 2020. This book assesses the economic opportunities, political obstacles and other challenges - both domestic and international - to these projects. In order to succeed, pipeline infrastructure will need to be built over long distances to bring gas to these markets, as well as significant numbers of new LNG terminals. The volume discusses the major current and potential gas markets in Asia: China, India, Japan and Korea, as well as the potential supply of pipeline gas and LNG to Asia from: Russia, Central Asia, South East Asia, Australia and Middle Eastern countries. An important aspect of the next two decades will be the extent to which the region can develop pipeline gas sources to supplement existing large scale LNG imports. The volume also looks at the substantial gas markets emerging in China and India which are at the early stage of introducing large scale natural gas use in cities. These markets face the commercial challenge of developing gas-fired power generation at a cost which may be greater than generation based on domestically produced coal. However, considerations of local air quality and global emissions may give extra value to gas fired generation, as has happened elsewhere in the world. Contributors to this volume - Jonathan Stern David Fridley Sunjoy Joshi and Najeeb Jung Akira Miyamoto Keun Wook Paik Michael Bradshaw and Jonathan Stern David Ledesma Andy Flower Jonathan Stern


We verify two hypotheses which are assumed to be true only intuitively in many rigid body simulations. I: In large scale rigid body simulation, viewers may not be able to perceive distortion incurred by an approximated simulation method. II: Fixing objects under a pile of objects does not affect the visual plausibility. Visual plausibility of scenarios simulated with these hypotheses assumed true are measured using subjective rating from viewers. As expected, analysis of results supports the truthfulness of the hypotheses under certain simulation environments. However, our analysis discovered four factors which may affect the authenticity of these hypotheses: number of collisions simulated simultaneously, homogeneity of colliding object pairs, distance from scene under simulation to camera position, and simulation method used. We also try to find an objective metric of visual plausibility from eye-tracking data collected from viewers. Analysis of these results indicates that eye-tracking does not present a suitable proxy for measuring plausibility or distinguishing between types of simulations.


The field study was conducted to evaluate the effect of tillage, crop residue retention and crop rotationon proline concentration in flag leaves of wheat as an important factor influencing future grain quality and yield during the grain filling period. Conservation agriculture (CA) is widely adopted by the farmers but due to remaining uncertainties about its effects on quality crop yield, needs to be explained through study of physiological performance. This study, carried out over two consecutive wheat growth seasons (rabi seasons of 2012–13 and 2013–14), examined how environmental factor particular soilwhich was influenced by agricultural management, broughtto alter physiological contents in leaves of wheat during grain filling period. Proline accumulation decreased significantly from conventional agricultural practices (scenario 1) to conservation agricultural practices (scenario 3). There were significant differences occurred between all three scenarios of agricultural management. The lowest average proline concentration in two consecutive years was found 10.97 (μg proline/fresh weight) in flag leaves of wheat during grain filling stage grown under conservation agriculture practices, while highest concentration was found 33.97, grown in conventional agricultural practices. It was concluded that proline was reliable biomarker of the environmental stress imposed on crop, thus allowing us to establish stress onsets for quality yield of conservation agriculture grown wheat.


A novel strategy of 'all water chemistry' is reported for a concise total synthesis of the novel class anti-anginal drug ranolazine in its racemic (RS) and enantiopure [(R) and (S)] forms. The reactions at the crucial stages of the synthesis are promoted by water and led to the development of new water-assisted chemistries for (i) catalyst/base-free N-acylation of amine with acyl anhydride, (ii) base-free N-acylation of amine with acyl chloride, (iii) catalyst/base-free one-pot tandem N-alkylation and N-Boc deprotection, and (iv) base-free selective mono-alkylation of diamine (e.g., piperazine). The distinct advantages in performing the reactions in water have been demonstrated by performing the respective reactions in organic solvents that led to inferior results and the beneficial effect of water is attributed to the synergistic electrophile and nucleophile dual activation role of water. The new 'all water' strategy offers two green processes for the total synthesis of ranolazine in two and three steps with 77 and 69% overall yields, respectively, and which are devoid of the formation of the impurities that are generally associated with the preparation of ranolazine following the reported processes.


Wear in orthopedic prosthesis has been the main limiting factor of total joint replacement's service life. Wear analysis of total joint replacements is essential for determining failure mechanism, prediction of wear and longevity of implants. So it would be possible to improve design, material and manufacturing quality and service life of these devices. Radiographic, gravimetric, volumetric and optical techniques are current methods for measuring of wear in retrieved implants. Gravimetric method is the standardized method for quantifying wear volumes of total joint prosthesis. Although this method is eective for determining experimental wear volume in simulated conditions, it is not suitable for assessing the clinically retrieved prosthesis for which there is no pre-wear data available. Each of the wear measuring methods has advantages and limitations. Researches have been going on for developing eective methods. In this paper the techniques that are currently used for evaluating wear of orthopedic prosthesis like gravimetry, coordinate measuring machine, micro computed tomography, and digital photogrammetry are explained. The literature works and new trends in metrological assessment of wear are reviewed.


In program verification, we check that an implementation meets its specification. Both the specification and the implementation describe the possible behaviors of the program, though at different levels of abstraction. We distinguish between two approaches to implementation of specifications. The first approach is trace-based implementation, where we require every computation of the implementation to correlate to some computation of the specification. The second approach is tree-based implementation, where we require every computation tree embodied in the implementation to correlate to some computation tree embodied in the specification. The two approaches to implementation are strongly related to the linear-time versus branching-time dichotomy in temporal logic. In this work we examine the trace-based and the tree-based approaches from a complexity-theoretic point of view. We consider and compare the complexity of verification of fair transition systems, modeling both the implementation and the specification, in the two approaches. We consider unconditional, weak, and strong fairness. For the trace-based approach, the corresponding problem is language containment. For the tree-based approach, the corresponding problem is fair simulation. We show that while both problems are PSPACE-complete, their complexities in terms of the size of the implementation do not coincide and the trace-based approach is more efficient. As the implementation is normally much bigger than the specification, we see this as an advantage of the trace-based approach. Our results are at variance with the known results for the case of transition systems with no fairness, where the tree-based approach is more efficient.


Outsourcing of Information Systems (IS) is today a commonly accepted and growing practice that is continually evolving. As the IS outsourcing market has matured, IS outsourcing is perceived as one way to increase business operations. Despite, few firms report success. The critical role of an effective clientIS supplier relationship has been argued as a precondition to reach a successful outcome of IS outsourcing. Even though the importance of the IS outsourcing relationship has been highlighted by both practitioners and researchers, paradoxically few studies have applied the relationship as the unit of analysis. This research study contributes to the identified knowledge gap by studying the success of the post-contract stage of the IS outsourcing process from a relationship perspective. The purpose of the paper is to identify dimensions for describing and explaining the successful outcome of the IS outsourcing process.As the combination of several theories increases the possibility to obtain a better understanding of the dimensions by which the IS outsourcing process evolves, the success of the IS outsourcing process is studied with an emphasis on three different domains of knowledge: the IS life cycle model, the interaction approach and the framework of the IS outsourcing relationship. Through the application of several theories, a more compelling description of what contributes to the successful outcome of the IS outsourcing process is reached. Furthermore, the application of several theories entailed the possibility to compensate for weaknesses of one theory through the strengths of another theory.Through the review of three different theoretical fields dimensions have been identified for describing and explaining the successful outcome of the IS outsourcing process. The dimensions identified are the activity-related dimension, the atmosphere dimension, the contract dimension, the efficiency outcome dimension, the environment dimension, the interaction dimension, the management dimension and the structure dimension.Besides the contributed dimensions, a modified version of the interaction approach is proposed. The modified version is adjusted to the IS outsourcing relationship and includes, besides its original parts, a time-line, additional dimensions and the specification of the involved firms as composed of three different interacting areas.


The complexity of information is issued from interacting information sources (IS), and could be better exploited with respect to relevance of information. In distributed IS system, relevant information has a content that is in connection with other contents in information network, and is used for a certain purpose. The highlighting point of the proposed model is to contribute to information system agility according to a three-dimensional view involving the content, the use and the structure. This reflects the relevance of information complexity and effective methodologies through self organized principle to manage the complexity. This contribution is primarily focused on presenting some factors that lead and trigger for self organization in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and how it can be possible to integrate self organization mechanism in the same.


Abstract It is only approximately one year before Sein und Zeit was published that Heidegger read Kant for the first time with attention and interest. Has this late reading had an influence on the treatise that Heidegger was writing? The thesis that we stand for is that Kant's main influence shall be found in no passage of the treatise in particular, but mostly in the decision of adopting the form of a treatise.


In this study, we analyzed effect of fine particle bombarding (FPB) treatment conditions on structural transformation close to the material surface and also measured temperature close to the material surface in FPB treatment. As a result, when an intensive condition was used in FPB treatment, a lamellar structure was observed. In other words, dents and bumps are formed in the initial stage of particle collisions on the material surface. Repeatedly processed, the protruded portions are supposed to be then bent over, resulting in an atomized structure. On the other hand, we measured temperature close to the material surface to find temperature rising up to about 600. In addition, when the fine particle collided continuously to the same portion, the specimen reached a melting state. These results indicate that heat generated in FPB treatment has a drastic effect on structural transformation close to the material surface.


From the author of Through Animals' Eyes come more true stories from the rare perspective of someone who not only cares for the animals she treats, but also has never wanted nor tried to tame or change them. Lynn Cuny founded Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation (WRR) in 1977 in her backyard in San Antonio. It has since grown to 187 acres and now rescues more than 7,000 animals annually and maintains an emergency hotline 365 days a year. Native animals are released back into the wild, and those non-native or severely injured animals that cannot be released become permanent Sanctuary residents. Through her stories, Lynn hopes to dispel the belief that animals do not reason, have emotions, or show compassion for each other. Lynn's stories cover the humorous and the tragic, the surprising and the inevitable. The animals she describes range from the orphaned baby Rhesus monkey who found a new mother in an old monkey rescued from a lab, to the brave red-tailed hawk who was illegally shot, but healed to soar again. The stories will touch your heart and help you see "through animals' eyes." "These true accounts, as amazing as some of them are with their unlikely bondings (a porcupine and a rabbit, a duck and a cat) will captivate, fascinate, educate, and often move you deeply. It's an inspiring read for animal advocates and a must-read for those who have not been exposed to the beautiful experiences of the animal-animal bond."—Loretta Swit, actress


Diazonium salts preferentially react with metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) over semiconducting SWNT, enabling the separation of SWNT by electronic type. Therefore, the reaction selectivity of diazonium salts for metallic SWNT is crucial for high purity separation of both metallic and semiconducting SWNT. Herein, we developed an efficient method of increasing the reaction selectivity by manipulating the redox potential of diazonium salts. The electron affinity of diazonium salts is effectively lowered when the para-substituent of the diazonium salts is an electron-donating group, (i.e., 4-hydroxy and 4-propargyloxy) rather than an electron-withdrawing group (i.e., 4-nitro, 4-carboxy, and 4-cholro). The reduction potential of 4-hydroxyphenyl and 4-propargyloxyphenyl diazonium salt was greater than the oxidation potential of semiconducting SWNT; therefore, the electron transfer reaction between these two reagents was effectively suppressed, leading to a highly selective reaction for metallic SW...


An ancient tradition holds that Pythagoras discovered the secrets of harmony within a forge when he came across five men hammering with five hammers, producing a wondrous sound. Four of the five hammers stood in a marvelous set of proportions, harmonizing; but there was also a fifth hammer. Pythagoras saw and heard it, but he could not measure it; nor could he understand its discordant sound. Pythagoras therefore discarded it. What was this hammer, such that Pythagoras chose so decidedly to reject it?Since antiquity, "harmony" has been a name for more than a theory of musical sounds; it has offered a paradigm for the scientific understanding of the natural world. Nature, through harmony, has been transcribed in the ideal signs of mathematics. But, time and again, the transcription has run up against one fundamental limit: something in nature resists being written down, transcribed in a stable set of ideal elements. A fifth hammer, obstinately, continues to sound. In eight chapters, linked together as are the tones of a single scale, The Fifth Hammer explores the sounds and echoes of that troubling percussion as they make themselves felt on the most varied of attempts to understand and represent the natural world. From music to metaphysics, aesthetics to astronomy, and from Plato and Boethius to Kepler, Leibniz, and Kant, this book explores the ways in which the ordering of the sensible world has continued to suggest a reality that no notes or letters can fully transcribe.


James Thurber is universally admired for his hilarious sense of humour, off-beat imagination, and unique take on the world around him. "The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty", in which a young man's fantasies have a much more powerful hold on him than reality, is probably his best-known prose work but this selection also contains wonderfully entertaining essays, poetry and cartoons gathered from all of Thurber's collections. Poking fun at his own weaknesses and those of other people (and dogs) - the English teacher who looked only at figures of speech, the Airedale who refused to include him in the family, the botany lecturer who despaired of him totally - James Thurber is essential reading for everyone who loves to laugh.


An 80-year-old lady noticed a painless "swelling" in the medial canthal region 3 months. The tumor showed a reddish color due to a recurrent superficial bleeding for 2 weeks. Clinically the tumor was supposed to be a super-infected keratoacanthoma. The differential diagnosis included an ulcerative basal cell carcinoma. Excisional biopsy and reconstruction using a free graft from the ipsilateral upper lid were performed. Histopathologically the lesion proved to be a "benign calcifying epithelioma Malherbe" (pilomatrixoma). Today, 8 years after surgery, there was no recurrence of the tumor. A circumscribed, subepidermal, movable reddish or livid tumor of the upper lid, eye brow or of the canthal region should be suggestive of pilomatrixoma, not only in young females.


When planning a data center migration it is critical to discover the client's business applications and on which devices (server, storage and appliances) those applications are deployed in the infrastructure. It is also important to understand the dependencies the applications have on the infrastructure, on other applications, and in some cases on systems external to the client. Clients can only rarely provide that information in a complete and accurate manner. The usual approach then has been to obtain the information by asking the client's application and platform owners a series of questions but in most cases clients do not have the tools or skills to acquire the requested information. The lack of accurate information leads to project delays, increased cost and higher levels of risk. In this paper we present an algorithm and tools for programmatically identifying and locating business application instances in an infrastructure, based on weighted similarity metric. We discuss results from our preliminary evaluation and the correctness of the algorithm. Such automated approach to application discovery significantly helps clients to achieve their project objectives and timeline without imposing additional work on the application and platform owners.


Reports of the effects of calcifediol (25-hydroxycholecalciferol) on phosphate excretion, alone or with parathyroid hormone (PTH), or with adenosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (cAMP), have been conflicting. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effects on fluid and phosphate transport by the rabbit pars recta of calcifediol alone or with PTH. In tubule segments obtained from rabbits fed a normal diet, the addition of 10 or 30 nM calcifediol to the bath did not alter fluid absorption (Jv) or lumen-to-bath phosphate flux (JPil----b). However, pharmacological concentrations did inhibit Jv by 20.9 +/- 5.6% (100 nM, P less than 0.02) and 37.9 +/- 9.4% (1.0 microM, P less than 0.01) and JPil----b by 18.5 +/- 6.6% (100 nM, P less than 0.05) and 40.5 +/- 8.6% (1.0 microM, P less than 0.01). In the presence of 30 nM, 100 nM, or 1.0 microM calcifediol, neither 0.25 nor 1.0 U/ml PTH inhibited JPil----b. A modest decline in Jv did occur with 1.0 U/ml PTH in the presence of 30 nM and 100 nM calcifediol. Unlike calcifediol, when 10 nM calcitriol (1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol) was present in the bath, 0.2 U/ml PTH significantly depressed Jv and JPil----b. To investigate the mechanism of action of high calcifediol concentration, measurement of the collected minus perfused tubule fluid chloride concentration difference was performed.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Huddleston Hall • 73 Main Street • Durham, NH 03824 carsey.unh.edu • 603.862.2821 TTY Users: dial 7-1-1 or 1-800-735-2964 (Relay N.H.) Nearly one-in-five American children were poor in 2018, according to analyses of new American Community Survey data released today. While child poverty has finally returned to pre-recession rates, the 0.4 percentage point decline since 2017 continues the trend of incremental decreases in child poverty since the post-recession peak in 2012. Child poverty rates continue to be lowest in the suburbs, although this is the only place type in which rates have not returned to pre-recession levels. The South remains the region with highest child poverty rate (20.6 percent), while rates are between 16.0 and 17.0 percent in other regions. Both child poverty rates and the pace of post-recession recovery vary from state to state (see Appendix Table 1), but forty-five states now have child poverty rates similar to or lower than pre-recession. Although the official poverty measure provides an important yardstick for tracking child wellbeing, it is important to note that families at or above the poverty line still struggle to meet needs and prosper.


This article probes the motivation of ideal L2 self and perceptions of global competence of Chinese language learners taking high-level Chinese courses to fulfill degree requirements at a university on the East Coast of the United States. The results show
 that the students envision an ideal L2 self with high speaking fluency, which they believe can develop their intercultural
 communication skills and promote their future careers. It was also found that integrative motivation, in the past found
 predominant among second language learners, is also a prominent form of motivation for foreign language learners in the 21st
 century. The study provides evidence that the students' perceptions of global competence still need to improve, but that learning
 Chinese has contributed to the development of their global competence. The study demonstrates that motivation of ideal L2 self and
 global competence complement each other. Informed by the results, the researcher suggests some pedagogical implications about
 maintaining learner motivation, developing learners' intercultural communication competence and perceptions of global competence,
 and encouraging students to take higher-level language courses.


Serum albumin concentration (CP) is a remarkably strong prognostic indicator of morbidity and mortality in both sick and seemingly healthy subjects. Surprisingly, the specifics of the pathophysiology underlying the relationship between CP and ill-health are poorly understood. This review provides a summary that is not previously available in the literature, concerning how synthesis, catabolism, and renal and gastrointestinal clearance of albumin interact to bring about albumin homeostasis, with a focus on the clinical factors that influence this homeostasis. In normal humans, the albumin turnover time of about 25 days reflects a liver albumin synthesis rate of about 10.5 g/day balanced by renal (≈6%), gastrointestinal (≈10%), and catabolic (≈84%) clearances. The acute development of hypoalbuminemia with sepsis or trauma results from increased albumin capillary permeability leading to redistribution of albumin from the vascular to interstitial space. The best understood mechanism of chronic hypoalbuminemia is the decreased albumin synthesis observed in liver disease. Decreased albumin production also accounts for hypoalbuminemia observed with a low-protein and normal caloric diet. However, a calorie- and protein-deficient diet does not reduce albumin synthesis and is not associated with hypoalbuminemia, and CP is not a useful marker of malnutrition. In most disease states other than liver disease, albumin synthesis is normal or increased, and hypoalbuminemia reflects an enhanced rate of albumin turnover resulting either from an increased rate of catabolism (a poorly understood phenomenon) or enhanced loss of albumin into the urine (nephrosis) or intestine (protein-losing enteropathy). The latter may occur with subtle intestinal pathology and hence may be more prevalent than commonly appreciated. Clinically, reduced CP appears to be a result rather than a cause of ill-health, and therapy designed to increase CP has limited benefit. The ubiquitous occurrence of hypoalbuminemia in disease states limits the diagnostic utility of the CP measurement.


Significant dephosphorylation of glucose 6-phosphate due to glucose-6-phosphatase activity in rat brain in vivo was recently reported (Huang, M., and Veech, R. L. (1982) J. Biol. Chem. 257, 1135811363). The evidence was an apparent more rapid 3H than 14C loss from the glucose pool and faster [2-3H] glucose than [U-14C]glucose utilization following pulse labeling of the brain with [2-3H,U-14C]glucose. Radiochemical purity of the glucose and quantitative recovery of the labeled products of glucose metabolism isolated from the brain were obviously essential requirements of their study, but no evidence for purity and recovery was provided. When we repeated these experiments with the described isolation procedures, we replicated the results, but found that: 1) the precursor glucose pool contained detritiated, 14C-labeled contaminants arising from glucose metabolism, particularly 2-pyrrolidone-5-carboxylic acid derived from [ 14C] glutamine; 2) [ 14C]glucose metabolites were not quantitatively recovered; 3) the procedure used to isolate the glucose itself produced detritiated, 14C-labeled derivatives of [2-3H,U-14C]glucose. These deficiencies in the isolation procedures could fully account for the observations that were interpreted as evidence of significant glucose 6-phosphate dephosphorylation by glucose-6-phosphatase activity. When glucose was isolated by more rigorous procedures and its purity verified in the present studies, no evidence for such activity in rat brain was found.


We have fabricated micro- and nanocrystalline YBa2Cu3O7, Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 and Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10 superconductors using mechanical ball milling, hot isostatic pressing and oxygen annealing. The fabricated materials were characterised using powder x-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetry, resistivity, V-I traces, a.c. magnetic susceptibility and d.c. magnetic hysteresis. A new approach for measuring the resistivity of grain boundaries in polycrystalline materials is presented. The average resistivities of the grain boundaries ρ_GB in micro- and nanocrystalline YBa2Cu3O7 are much higher than that of the grains (ρ_G) which leads to huge ρ_GB/ρ_G values of 2 × 10^3 and 1.6 × 10^5 respectively. For nanocrystalline Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 and both micro- and nanocrystalline Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10 samples, ρ_GB/ρ_G is at least 10^3. Only microcrystalline Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 has a very low ρ_GB that is similar to ρ_G such that ρ_GB/ρ_G≈1. The values of grain boundary resistivity measured in our samples were used in conjunction with a theoretical framework developed in Durham, to quantitatively calculate how high grain boundary resistivities must be to account for the decrease by several orders of magnitude in transport critical current density J_c in polycrystalline YBa2Cu3O7 and Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10. We conclude that the significant effort made by the research community in texturing samples and removing the grain boundaries is well-founded. For low-temperature superconducting intermetallics such as Nb3Sn, we demonstrate that increases in J_c by two orders of magnitude is still possible by completely removing the grain boundaries from these materials and incorporating additional artificial pinning. Only large-grained polycrystalline Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 has sufficiently low grain boundary resistivity, that cost constraints for applications may yet lead to high J_c polycrystalline materials that have artificial pinning sites or pinning produced by irradiation.


Objective To assess the prevalence of RTI among ever married women by using Syndromic approach. Study design Cross- Sectional study. SettingCross- Sectional study. Setting urban slum, Rajeev Nagar, Dehra Dun. Participants Ever married women in 15 - 49 years age group. Study periodJanuary- April 2003. Study variablesRTI, Occupation, S.E.S. Statistical analysis Percentage. ResultPrevalence of RTIs was found to be 7%. It was found to be maximum (57.14%) in laborer's and in women belonging to the lower middle class (65.7%). Commonest symptoms of RTIs were pain lower abdomen (74.2%), burning micturition (17.14%) and vulval itching (17.14%).


Abstract Morphological and physiological considerations suggest that sprinting ability and endurance capacity put conflicting demands on the design of an animal's locomotor apparatus and therefore cannot be maximized simultaneously. To test this hypothesis, we correlated size-corrected maximal sprint speed and stamina of 12 species of lacertid lizards. Phylogenetically independent contrasts of sprint speed and stamina showed a significant negative relationship, giving support to the idea of an evolutionary trade-off between the two performance measures. To test the hypothesis that the trade-off is mediated by a conflict in morphological requirements, we correlated both performance traits with snout-vent length, size-corrected estimates of body mass and limb length, and relative hindlimb length (the residuals of the relationship between hind- and forelimb length). Fast-running species had hindlimbs that were long compared to their forelimbs. None of the other size or shape variables showed a significant relationship with speed or endurance. We conclude that the evolution of sprint capacity may be constrained by the need for endurance capacity and vice versa, but the design conflict underlying this trade-off has yet to be identified. Corresponding Editor: T. Garland Jr.


Background: A phase-III trial that included fifty-three patients undergoing unilateral primary total knee arthroplasty with cement was conducted to investigate the hemostatic efficacy of fibrin sealant. Methods: Following cementing of the joint, 10 mL of fibrin sealant was sprayed onto the wound before tourniquet deflation and wound closure. No placebo was used in the control group. All patients received drains. Results: Within twelve hours after the surgery, the amount of bloody drainage was 184.5 ± 28.9 mL (mean and standard error) in the fibrin-sealant group (information available for twenty-three patients) and 408.3 ± 54.6 mL in the control group (information available for twenty-three patients) (p = 0.002, after adjustment for variance in the time that the drainage was measured). On the first postoperative day, the hemoglobin level had decreased by 20.1 ± 2.1 g/L in the fibrin-sealant group (information available for twenty-two patients) and by 27.3 ± 2.1 g/L in the control group (information available for twenty-four patients). After adjustment for baseline values, the decrease in the hemoglobin level was 28.9% less in the fibrin-sealant group than in the control group (p = 0.005, 95% confidence limits = 10.2, 43.7). There were no seroconversions in the fibrin-sealant group. Conclusion: These results suggest that fibrin sealant can safely reduce bloody drainage following total knee arthroplasty while maintaining higher hemoglobin levels.


Background Pain is very common in childhood emergency department (ED) attendances, but is under-recognised and undertreated. Sequential national paediatric analgesia audits demonstrate suboptimal outcomes in several domains. The Donabedian framework examines the structures, processes and outcomes to evaluate quality of care. To date there has been no network-level exploration of structures supporting analgesic practices or attempts to address failure to attain national standards. Objective To benchmark current variation in assessment and management of childhood pain at network level. Methods Online survey distributed between December 2016 and January 2017 exploring health system structures including pain score tools, pain assessment/protocols, training, practice guidelines and analgesic agent usage. We explored structures, processes and outcomes to identify interventions, and their potential effectiveness and feasibility. Results In total 95% (38/40 sites) responded, including 25 tertiary (66%) and 13 secondary hospitals (34%), with a total annual paediatric ED census of 1 225 000 (range 11 500–65 000). Availability of analgesics varied included topical wound anaesthesia in 29/38 sites (76%), oral diclofenac sodium in 22/38 sites (58%) and tramadol in 16/38 sites (42%). Pain assessment was mandatory in initial assessment in 34/38 sites (89%), and 18/38 sites had a policy on frequency of pain assessment (47%). Local guidance aligned with national guidance in 21/38 sites (55%). There was no staff training at induction/orientation in 14/38 sites (37%) and no mandatory competencies in pain management in 23/38 sites (61%). Play specialist services were available in 21/38 sites (55%). Conclusion Despite national guidance and recommendations from multiple audits, there are substantial variations in structures relating to pain assessment and management across sites. The lack of uniformity is a likely root cause for the persistent suboptimal practices identified by serial national audits. A whole system and person-centred approach to improving pain outcomes by utilising effective interventions seeks to improve paediatric pain outcomes.


A 75-year old woman with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and class IV dyspnea refractory to medical management had relative contraindications for both pacemaker implantation and surgical approach. Percutaneous intervention was devised to perform the selective injection of absolute alcohol in the first septal branch of the left anterior descending coronary artery. This led to a limited septal infarction documented by ST elevation, enzymatic elevation and the appearance of complete right bundle branch block on the electrocardiogram. A baseline left ventricular outflow tract pressure gradient of 66mmHg was immediately abolished and no unexpected complications supervened. Currently, two months after the procedure, marked symptomatic relief is present and associated with the absence of obstructive outflow gradient, as documented by echocardiography.


The objective of the present investigation is framed within a line of investigation developed
by the author, relative to reveal the new space configuration economic that displays
the great cities in the context of the Economic Globalization. The hypothesis in the Industry
of Retail is one of whom has experienced the greater economic dynamism in Chile
and that has characteristics that would frame it within the process of flexible production
in Advanced Capitalism. The retail, sector that the attention of the great economic
groups has captured that make investments and space competition in related activities,
generates new spaces of leisure and consumption, determining a singular space distribution
of the use, that is more and more dynamic and precarious in its nature. The investigation
concludes that a clear tendency to the integration of activities exists from the centers
of the posfordista economic power towards the consumer, space model of businesses
whose diffusion is made in the extensive Latin American Region.


The main objective of this research is to evaluate the influence of intelectual human capital transformation, from the student´s perception, through the Open University of Brazil's  distance education in the municipality of  Camaçari, which is an industrial hub in the metropolitan area of Salvador, Bahia. At this rate, education and development are closely connected, pondering previous studies where this approach is present. Meanwhile, distance education (DE) streamlines through its capillarity in several regions altering the perception and the way of transmitting knowledge. Additionaly, it enables significant changes if we relate the human capital and the field of study, considering cultural, ethical and social aspects. From a methodological point of view, descriptive research has been chosen, using qualitative inquiry. In relation to the methodological process, the Survey method research has been used. This study is justified due to the dimension in which the distance education has been widespread in Brazil and worldwide. As it is a regulated model by the superior instances of education in Brazil, and thus a more detailed one, it deserves more emphasis, once it often approaches DE, human capital and the region where it lies in. Following this understanding, studying the activities of the Open University of Brazil (OUB) in Camaçari, contributes to the perception of changes in the logic of education offer in the distance model, deployment in culture in a general scope and the perception of social freedoms in the object region of study. Hence, it is evident that the DE conducted by OUB in Camaçari gives rise to conditions for training and improving human capital taking into account its urban and social infrastructure, among other factors that combined, foster fertile ground to mitigate the social asymmetries while expanding individual freedoms and the progress of the region.


In this paper, a Cournot oligopoly with isoelastic demand function and constant marginal cost is considered. The local stability conditions of the Cournot equilibrium are determined for four models with different decision mechanisms. In the first model, firms adjust their outputs using the best reply response with naive expectations. The second model is a generalization of the first one, where firms have adaptive expectations. Meanwhile, the third and fourth models adopt the bounded rationality and local monopolistic approximation, respectively. The results show that, in the case of identical firms, the Cournot equilibrium is always stable when the firms adopt the local monopolistic approximation mechanism.


Recent evidence suggests that default based nudges i.e. alterations in the decisional context, can have large effects on decision making and can be used as policy interventions to improve individual and public welfare. This paper presents the results of a controlled experiment (N = 988), designed to evaluate not only the effectiveness of a default manipulation on decision making, but also to explore how yielding or opposing a nudge intervention later affects attitudes (towards the nudge and the nudger) and behavior in a charity giving context. The results show that while the default nudge was effective at the time of application, it was not enough to change attitudes towards the nudged behavior as would be needed for long-term success. Indeed, we rather find that those who adopted an action that went against the nudge were more motivated to follow on through with this action later on than those who went with the nudge. We furthermore show that giving people more leeway in how to respond to a nudge improves acceptance of the nudge. We finally discuss the practical implications of our findings in terms of the applicability of default-based nudges as a tool for policy interventions.


We present monitoring observations of the active T Tauri star RW Aur, from 2010 October to 2015 January, using optical high-resolution (R ≥ 10,000) spectroscopy with Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope/ESPaDOnS. Optical photometry in the literature shows bright, stable fluxes over most of this period, with lower fluxes (by 2–3 mag) in 2010 and 2014. In the bright period our spectra show clear photospheric absorption, complicated variation in the Ca ii λ8542 emission profile shapes, and a large variation in redshifted absorption in the O i λλ7772 and 8446 and He i λ5876 lines, suggesting unstable mass accretion during this period. In contrast, these line profiles are relatively uniform during the faint periods, suggesting stable mass accretion. During the faint periods, the photospheric absorption lines are absent or marginal, and the averaged Li i profile shows redshifted absorption due to an inflow. We discuss (1) occultation by circumstellar material or a companion and (2) changes in the activity of mass accretion to explain the above results, together with near-infrared and X-ray observations from 2011 to 2015. Neither scenario can simply explain all the observed trends, and more theoretical work is needed to further investigate their feasibilities.


ABSTRACT Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) remains a formidable cause of diarrheal illness worldwide. At present, there is no vaccine that provides broad-based protection against ETEC. A ′phoA-based self-cloning mutagenesis system, TnphoA.ts, employed to identify novel ETEC surface antigens, led to identification of an ETEC two-partner secretion locus (etpBAC) on the pCS1 virulence plasmid of prototype strain H10407. Cloning and expression of etpBAC in recombinant E. coli LMG194(pJY019) resulted in secretion of a high-molecular-weight (HMW) glycosylated exoprotein. This glycoprotein, EtpA, exhibits linear peptide sequence and predicted structural homologies with known HMW adhesins produced by other two-partner secretion loci. Antibodies directed against recombinant EtpA (anti-rEtpA.6H) recognized an HMW protein in culture supernatants of ETEC strains H10407 and LMG194(pJY019) but not in culture supernatant of strain H10407-P, which lacks the 92-kb pCS1 plasmid, or an isogenic etpA mutant. etpA mutants were deficient in adherence to intestinal epithelial cells in vitro, and anti-rEtpA.6H antibodies inhibited association of H10407 with target epithelial cells. Cloning and expression of etpB in recombinant E. coli were sufficient to confer adherence. Screening of multiple ETEC isolates for the etpBAC locus by colony hybridization and by EtpA immunoblotting suggested that EtpA is one of the most common antigens secreted by these pathogens. Together, these results indicate that the newly identified ETEC two-partner secretion locus directs the secretion of a high-molecular-weight glycosylated protein, EtpA, that in concert with the putative EtpB transporter participates in adherence of H10407 to epithelial cells, thereby expanding the repertoire of potential ETEC virulence proteins and vaccine candidates.


Researches on deep neural networks with discrete parameters and their deployment in embedded systems have been active and promising topics. Although previous works have successfully reduced precision in inference, transferring both training and inference processes to low-bitwidth integers has not been demonstrated simultaneously. In this work, we develop a new method termed as "WAGE" to discretize both training and inference, where weights (W), activations (A), gradients (G) and errors (E) among layers are shifted and linearly constrained to low-bitwidth integers. To perform pure discrete dataflow for fixed-point devices, we further replace batch normalization by a constant scaling layer and simplify other components that are arduous for integer implementation. Improved accuracies can be obtained on multiple datasets, which indicates that WAGE somehow acts as a type of regularization. Empirically, we demonstrate the potential to deploy training in hardware systems such as integer-based deep learning accelerators and neuromorphic chips with comparable accuracy and higher energy efficiency, which is crucial to future AI applications in variable scenarios with transfer and continual learning demands.


Abstract Unemployment remains high among Egyptian university graduates. This study aimed to identify demographic attributes that influence student perceptions of the importance of employability skills, as well as to measure concordance between employers versus student perceptions of the importance of employability skills. Egyptian university agriculture students and private sector employers completed a survey where they assessed their perceived importance of 35 skills. A multivariate linear regression model was used to measure the influence of student demographics in decision-making and concordance between employers and students were compared using Cohen's weighted Kappa. Student location was the most influential demographic that determined perceptions of the importance of employability skills. As a group, students possessed more intra-group concordance than employers, but concordance levels of all students were low when compared to employers. Our findings indicate that regardless of demographics, Egyptian agriculture university students are unaware of what is important to potential employers, meaning that students do not know which skills to focus on developing when searching for a job. Teaching students the skills that are most desired by employers contributes to Human Capital Theory because it improves the employability value of university graduates. Few studies have analyzed student demographics combined with student/employer concordance. This approach could assist future studies that aim to compare individual student and employer perceptions to each other. Abstract Unemployment remains high among Egyptian university graduates. This study aimed to identify demographic attributes that influence student perceptions of the importance of employability skills, as well as to measure concordance between employers versus student perceptions of the importance of employability skills. Egyptian university agriculture students and private sector employers completed a survey where they assessed their perceived importance of 35 skills. A multivariate linear regression model was used to measure the influence of student demographics in decision-making and concordance between employers and students were compared using Cohen's weighted Kappa. Student location was the most influential demographic that determined perceptions of the importance of employability skills. As a group, students possessed more intra-group concordance than employers, but concordance levels of all students were low when compared to employers. Our findings indicate that regardless of demographics, Egyptian agriculture university students are unaware of what is important to potential employers, meaning that students do not know which skills to focus on developing when searching for a job. Teaching students the skills that are most desired by employers contributes to Human Capital Theory because it improves the employability value of university graduates. Few studies have analyzed student demographics combined with student/employer concordance. This approach could assist future studies that aim to compare individual student and employer perceptions to each other.


Physiologic changes in pregnancy induce profound alterations to the pharmacokinetic properties of many medications. These changes affect distribution, absorption, metabolism, and excretion of drugs, and thus may impact their pharmacodynamic properties during pregnancy. Pregnant women undergo several adaptations in many organ systems. Some adaptations are secondary to hormonal changes in pregnancy, while others occur to support the gravid woman and her developing fetus. Some of the changes in maternal physiology during pregnancy include, for example, increased maternal fat and total body water, decreased plasma protein concentrations, especially albumin, increased maternal blood volume, cardiac output, and blood flow to the kidneys and uteroplacental unit, and decreased blood pressure. The maternal blood volume expansion occurs at a larger proportion than the increase in red blood cell mass, which results in physiologic anemia and hemodilution. Other physiologic changes include increased tidal volume, partially compensated respiratory alkalosis, delayed gastric emptying and gastrointestinal motility, and altered activity of hepatic drug metabolizing enzymes. Understating these changes and their profound impact on the pharmacokinetic properties of drugs in pregnancy is essential to optimize maternal and fetal health.


Gas sensors are characterized by their sensitivity and selectivity. This is preferably combined with versatility, where the selectivity can be altered, without complex modifications and whiteout losing sensitivity. If aimed at lab-on-a-chip applications, the sensor also must be able to analyze small samples. Today, sensors combining selectivity and versatility for chip-level gas analysis are scarce; however, this paper investigates how miniaturized optogalvanic spectroscopy can fill this gap. By studying the spatial distribution of the optogalvanic signal inside a microplasma, it is shown that the signal is generated in the minuscule gas volume of the sheath surrounding the plasma probe that collects it. Nevertheless, a strong and stable spectroscopic signal can be extracted from the sheath, and the sample concentrations can be calculated using straightforward plasma theory. The minimum detectable absorption and the noise equivalent absorption sensitivity of the system are estimated to be less than 1.4  ×  10−9 Hz−0.5 and 2.8  ×  10−9 cm−1 Hz−0.5, respectively, without cavity enhancement. Combined with inherited versatility from absorption spectroscopy and the capability of handling sub-nanogram samples, this makes optogalvanic spectrometry an excellent candidate for future lab-on-a-chip gas analyzers.


Interferometric measurement of Pb ii lines produced by hollow-cathode sources were made to improve the values of derived Pb ii energy levels. A total of 50 lines were measured with a Fabry-Perot interferometer, from which values for 29 even levels and 12 odd levels were derived. Where isotope or hyperfine structure was resolved, the data were adjusted to give the center of gravity of natural Pb.


In this paper, we propose a scalable multicast protection scheme based on a dual-homing architecture where each destination host is connected to two edge routers. Under such an architecture, there are two paths from the source of a multicast session to each destination host, which provides a certain level of protection for the data traffic from the source to the destination host. The protection level varies from 0 percent to 100 percent against a single link failure, depending on the number of shared links between these two paths. The major advantage of the proposed scheme lies in its scalability due to the fact that the protection is provided by constructing a dual-homing architecture at the access network while keeping the routing protocols in the core network unchanged. The selection of dual edge routers plays an important role in enhancing the protection level. Two problems arise for the proposed dual- homing partial multicast protection scheme. One is to calculate the survivability from the source to any pair of edge routers. The other is to assign a pair of edge routers for each destination host such that the total survivability is maximized for the multicast session subject to the port number constraint of each edge router. We propose an optimal algorithm to solve the first problem. We prove the decision version of the second problem is NP-complete and propose two heuristic algorithms to solve it. Simulation results show that the proposed heuristic algorithms achieve performance close to the calculated lower bound. Index Terms—Networks, multicast, survivability, protection, complexity, NP-completeness.


This project aims to design and implement a solution for a complex mobile manipulation
task using PAL Robotics' robot TIAGo. The goal is to use the platform as an assistive robot,
making it capable of picking a chosen object from a certain location and moving it to another. More precisely the task in which the project will focus will be to pick a certain soda
can from a table with several of them on it and pour its contents into a glass placed on
another table for the user to have his/her drink . For that, all the perception, interaction,
planning and mobile capabilities of the robotic platform will be exploited in order to develop
a suitable and complete solution.
The generated solution is a modular method that can be launched as a whole process to
complete the entire challenge, but this solution also gives the possibility of using each
one of the modules independently. This way it is feasible to easily integrate them to other
processes in order to complete other similar tasks, making the packages more versatile and
adaptable.
The entire project has been divided in two parts. One focused on developing the packages
in charge of navigation and arm manipulation, carried out by Xavier Garcia Peroy. The
other one, focused on developing perception and task management part, and described in
this report.
For the perception part, some computer vision capabilities have been implemented using
TIAGo's camera. These capabilities were added in order to get knowledge about the objects with which the robot needs to interact. In this case, these objects were cans of soda
which the robot needed to detect and, using some image processing steps, determine their
position in order to pick the can of soda chosen by the user.
On the other hand, for task management part, a solution based on behavior trees was
developed. This solution has been done in a modular way, removing a big part of the
complexity of executing each necessary task to achieve the goal of this project, and also
decreasing the necessity of going deep in programming in order to make changes and check
partial functionalities. That has been achieved with the use of the BehaviorTree library and
Groot, a visual tool that has allowed to create the task manager functionalities graphically.
Both solutions have been checked to work properly in order to achieve the established goal.
However, specially in perception part, some functionalities should still be improved in order
to increase the robustness of the method and decrease some limitations. Future work is
suggested in order to make these enhancements.


The study revealed optimum doses, NPK combinations, terms and methods of fertilizer application, which provides for highly efficient use of nutrients thus maintaining the fertility of soils, high efficiency and high quality of winter wheat grains. The application of some mineral fertilizers was followed by some decrease (trend) of humus content in relation to control samples. The option manure+NPK was characterized by relative stabilization of humus condition of soil, and concerning the average humus content this option exceeded the control one by 0.32 %. Fertilizers clearly improved the nutrient status of leached chernozem under winter wheat enriching its 0–40 cm layer with mobile nitrogen (NН4+ and NO3−), phosphorus and potassium respectively by 6.0–9.2; 3.2–9.4; 9.3–36.7 and 21.5–32.8 mg/kg of soil on average per vegetation. Options with high doses of mineral fertilizers were characterized by the largest content. The application of fertilizers under winter wheat in N50−150P40−120K40−120 doses increased grain yield from 0.22 to 2.32 t/ha (6.9–72.5 %). The estimated option was the best.