We propose a novel variation to biogeographybased optimization (BBO), which is an evolutionary algorithm (EA) developed for global optimization. The new algorithm employs opposition-based learning (OBL) alongside BBO's migration rates to create oppositional BBO (OB BO). Additionally, a new opposition method named quasi-reflection is introduced. Quasi-reflection is based on opposite numbers theory and we mathematically prove that it has the highest expected probability of being closer to the problem solution among all OBL methods. The oppositional algorithm is further revised by the addition of dynamic domain scaling and weighted reflection. Simulations have been performed to validate the performance of quasiopposition as well as a mathematical analysis for a singledimensional problem. Empirical results demonstrate that with the assistance of quasi-reflection, OB BO significantly outperforms BBO in terms of success rate and the number of fitness function evaluations required to find an optimal solution.


This paper analyses the source and development of fault tolerance theory, and discusses the working process of fault tolerance, and illustrates the workflow and dependability of fault tolerance. So there is a widespread belief that this is feasible that fault tolerance theory is used in the traffic safety study. Base on summarizing fault tolerance factors, the paper gives fault tolerance conceptual model primarily which could be used in the road traffic safety research. Above all, the paper presents a new idea which study traffic safety issues from the perspective of fault-tolerant , and this is important core content of the paper, and is the purpose of writing this article too.


This article aims to reveal and discuss the representation of the monster figure as the castrating mother in the movie titled Mama (Andres Muschietti, 2013). The study argues that the movie's specialty is based on the characterization of the monster with psychoanalytical connotations. The monster and the female figure are often portrayed as related characters in the horror genre. Conventionally, the binary opposition between the male and the female causes to represent the female with monstrous qualities in the genre. The castration complex provides male characters to define females featuring monstrous attributions. This study broadens the argument in the field by explicitly analyzing the maternal monster character called Mama in Mama (2013) with psychoanalytical studies by seminal works of the theoreticians in the field. For this purpose, the castrating complex, the uncanny concept, and ancestor examples of monstrous characters in the genre are researched to gain an understanding of the characterization of the monster called Mama within the psychoanalytical perspective. The threat of the Mama as a castrating figure, the maternal qualities as a substitute mother, and terrifying appearance as uncanny characteristics are analyzed through the movie's narrative structure. Besides the characterization of the Mama as the castrating mother, its relation to the setting of the movie is highlighted as an uncanny relationship, which is a conventional element in the horror genre. This study intends to contribute to the field with an interdisciplinary approach to analyze a horror movie within the psychoanalytical perspective. In this way, the representation of the monster related to the material qualities and the function of the monstrous character both in the narrative structure of the movie and the genre are discussed and revealed.


Objective: The authors sought to describe characteristics of effective mentoring relationships in academic surgery based upon lived experiences of mid-career and senior female academic surgeons. Background: Prior qualitative work describes characteristics of successful mentoring relationships. However, no model exists of effective mentorship that is specific to academic surgery. Methods: The authors conducted in-depth interviews with mid-career and senior female US academic surgeons about the impact of mentoring on professional development during 2014 and 2015. Purposive selection aimed to maximize institutional, specialty, years in career, and racial diversity. Grounded theory method was used to generate a conceptual model of effective mentoring relationships. Data saturation occurred following 15 interviews. Results: Interviewees described the need for multiple mentors over time with each mentor addressing a unique domain. Interviewees suggested that mentees should seek mentors who will serve as strategic advisors, who will be unselfish, and who engage with diverse mentees. Conclusions: This study identified a need for multiple mentors across time and disciplines, and identified 3 key characteristics of effective mentoring relationships in academic surgery. Future work in this area should generate an operational definition of mentorship that supports quantitative evaluation of mentor and mentoring panel performance.


Quaternary alkaloids berberine (chloride, 0.18%) and, after transformation into the iodides, magnoflorine (iodide, 1.06%), jatrorrhizine (iodide, 0.066%), thalphenine (iodide, 0.040%) and thalifendine (iodide, 0.021%) were isolated, after separation of the tertiary bases (0.38%) from the root of Thalictrum minus subsp. elatum (JACQ.) STOJ. et STEFANOV of Czechoslovak origin (1.8% alkaloid content). The aerial parts (0.013% alkaloids) in their quaternary fraction contain only negligible amounts of magnoflorine, berberine, and coptisine (which is the first time coptisine was found in the Thalictrum genus).


: The efficiency of complex methods of examination, including that of the new special ones, for the diagnosis of disseminated processes in the lungs has been studied in 300 patients between the ages of 20 and 76 years. The following methods were used: microbiological (including a new nutritive medium for mycobacteria activation), immuno-enzymatic (detection of specific antigens), immuno-morphologic with determination of antigen determinants of tuberculosis mycobacteria and their L-forms with the help of specific antisera, cytologic, biochemical (the content of phospholipids and their fractions in the bronchoalveolar washing and blood plasma cortisol/insulin ratio), ++tracheo-bronchoscopic and surgical methods. A possibility of the verification of the clinical diagnosis of various diseases was established with the help of each method being used. Surgical intervention (thoracoscopy with lung biopsy and open lung biopsy) which confirm the diagnosis in 96.4% of cases proved to be the most informative diagnostic method.


Ukraine is a country heavily dependent on other countries for its natural gas supply, leaving it vulnerable to interruptions in supply. One of its largest suppliers, Russia, has twice taken drastic means of physically closing the pipelines, thereby cutting off this supply and illustrating to Ukraine and the world the leverage that it can exercise. While at the present time the cut-offs have lasted no longer than a few weeks, future cut-offs could become more common and longer in duration. When compounded with the troubled history between the two countries, one can quickly see the precipitous situation that has the potential to escalate into armed conflict. The methodology used in this thesis sought to identify a renewable energy technology that could help reduce this dependency on foreign energy. The technology must be feasible considering the climate, viable considering the cost, and efficient in the production of an alternative fuel source. Biogas plants (anaerobic digestion) were identified as satisfying all three of these conditions. These plants can use as an input any biodegradable material, but corn silage was quickly identified as the optimal input due to its low cost and high biogas yield. Rural farmers were then identified as the optimal target population for these digesters, due to their ownership of a large amount of land and having the existing infrastructure in place to produce corn silage. The annual natural gas demand of the rural farmers was found to be 4,200 cubic meters, which was used in the calculation of the size of the actual digester that would produce this exact amount of gas annually. The size of the digester was determined to be 9 cubic meters. A financial analysis of the biogas plants then proved that this technology produced a large amount of natural gas equivalent, and also provided financial profits to those who constructed them. However, a problem soon arose. How could rural farmers be expected to afford the lump sum payment necessary for the construction of the digester? A microfinance institution was then theorized that would provide the upfront capital to construct these plants, who would then lease these plants to rural farmers. These rural farmers would repay the lease over a five year term and would benefit from the opportunity cost from synthesizing their own fuel. A financial analysis of the borrower and the institution determined that both parties would benefit financially from the institution, with borrowers experiencing profits in year 1 and the institution achieving self-sufficiency in year 7. The final section reports the impacts and final results that this institution could potentially have on the country of Ukraine. First, it evaluates the amount of carbon dioxide offsets generated by these digesters. Second, it values these carbon offsets by using the market price of Emission Reduction Units (ERUs) to identify a potential funding opportunity for the institution. Finally, it measures the total amount of natural gas that all digesters in operation would generate and its impact on Ukraine's importation of natural gas from foreign countries. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i ADVICE TO FUTURE HONORS STUDENTS ii


This study examined the psychological well-being of gifted primary school children. From a screening sample of 233 children in Grades 1 and 2 across five schools in the Netherlands, 35 children achieving high scores on two out of three selection criteria (teacher nomination, creativity, and nonverbal reasoning ability) and 34 typically developing children were selected to participate in the study. Combinations of grouping criteria were used to create different subsamples within the gifted sample. In general, the differences in well-being between the gifted and the comparison group were relatively small, although the gifted children experienced lower self-worth and social acceptance. In contrast, within the sample of gifted children, some differences were found between selected subgroups. Highly creative gifted children experienced lower feelings of well-being than less creative gifted children, while the reverse was true for children who were nominated by their teacher. Additionally, high-performing gifted children showed higher psychological well-being than underachievers.


For older people who transition from hospital to home, home care is an increasingly important and effective way of managing chronic illness with skilled nursing care in the home. Communication between clinicians across care settings is fundamental for continuity of care. Poor communication of patient information is acknowledged to be a root cause of sentinel events. In Scandinavia and the United States, researchers study the communication of patient information from hospital to home care. The health care systems of these two countries differ. Differences are reflected in the characteristics of patients transferred from hospital to home care, as well as the characteristics of health information systems (ICT). These differences help to elucidate key issues related to the transfer of patient information from hospital to home care.


For several decades the American political system has been polarizing along partisan, ideological, and issue lines at both the mass and elite levels. One implication of polarization is the disappearance of the political middle: Moderates have almost completely vanished in Congress, for example (Fleisher and Bond 2004), and the political activists stratum, that is, party activists, candidates for office, and office holders, consist almost entirely of consistent liberals in the Democratic Party and consistent conservatives in the Republican-Party. By historical and American standards, polarization has given rise to policy extremism, in the sense of vanishing moderates. (1) This article investigates the implications of the partisan polarization and extremism of the past two decades on the American presidency. Although the presidency is a key political institution, and often at the center of important political changes and developments, rarely has the literature on polarization considered the presidency. As Layman, Carsey, and Horowitz (2006) state, "the work on growing polarization between the parties in government has focused largely on Congress" (87). (2) The literature on presidential-congressional relations and polarization rarely goes beyond the general point that polarization makes a difficult relationship even more problematic for presidents (Andres 2005; Binder 2003; Edwards and Barrett 2000; Fleisher and Bond 2000a, b; Pomper 2003; Sinclair 1997, 2000, 2002; Theriault 2008; but see Beckmann and Kumar 2010). For instance, almost no attention has been paid to the effects of polarization on presidential policy choice and the implications of such choice on presidential success with Congress. (3) Cameron (2002) offers one of the few extended discussions of the implications of polarization on the presidency, yet Cameron's essay aims mainly to set an agenda for research. As Cameron argues, polarization touches more than executive-legislative relations but also deeply affects presidential relations with the media, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, and the organization of the White House staff. But, "[p]residential scholars are just beginning to grasp these changes." (Cameron 2002, 647). To date, few have picked up on the research directions set out by Cameron. (4) This article looks at the implications of polarization on presidential policy choice. The polarization literature argues that the widening gap between the parties should lead to policy extremism as opposed to moderation. Has the presidency, like Congress, also become more extreme, that is, decidedly liberal or conservative, as polarization has increased? I test two competing explanations for extremism in presidential policy, the party activist theory and the congressional context theory. The first theory argues that the reforms in election processes, in particular campaign finance and nominations, increased the power of party activists in the party processes. Consequently, liberals captured the Democratic Party and conservatives the Republican. Presidents, as agents of their party, selected by these newly powerful elements in their party, moved to the policy extremes in the post-reform era. In contrast, the congressional context theory maintains that policy considerations in part motivate presidents: Presidents care about implemented policy for a variety of reasons detailed below. Two aspects of the congressional context affect presidential policy choice, whether their party controls Congress and the degree of party polarization. Under united government, presidents select policies close to their party center. Under divided government, presidents will moderate their policy positions, being forced to work with the opposition. But the president's ability and/or willingness to work with the opposition during divided government ebbs as polarization between the parties widens. The analysis presented below shows support for the congressional context theory but little for the party activist one. …


The replication control genes of bacterial plasmids face selection at two conflicting levels. Plasmid copies that systematically overreplicate relative to their cell mates have a higher chance of fixing in descendant cells, but these cells typically have a lower chance of fixing in the population. Apart from identifying the conflict, this mathematical discussion characterizes the efficiency of the selection levels and suggests how they drive the evolution of kinetic mechanisms. In particular it is hypothesized that: (1) tighter replication control is more vulnerable to selfishness; (2) cis-acting replication activators are relics of a conflict where a plasmid outreplicated its intracellular competitors by monopolizing activators; (3) high-copy plasmids with sloppy replication control arise because intracellular selection favors overreplication, thereby relieving intercellular selection for lower loss rates; (4) the excessive synthesis of cis-acting replication activators and trans-acting inhibitors is the result of an arms race between cis selfishness and trans retaliations; (5) site-specific recombination of plasmid dimers is equivalent to self-policing; and (6) plasmids modify their horizontal transfer to spread without promoting selfishness. It is also discussed how replication control may be subject to a third level of selection acting on the entire population of plasmid-containing cells.


This guide provides information to law students who are looking for resources on mindfulness, physical health, mental health, or other wellness resources.


DNA methylation is an epigenetic modification established during embryogenesis and reset during development. Aberrant DNA methylation patterns have frequently been associated with carcinogenesis, with a general loss of genomic 5-methylcytosine and a hypermethylation of particular genes. Therefore, the analysis of the genomic methylation level (5-meC) would provide a comprehensive tool for the correlation between 5-meC-mediated biological variations and cancer development as well as other cell abnormalities.
Capillary electrophoresis coupled with laser induced fluorescence detector (CE-LIF) is the method used in the whole work for the analysis of DNA modifications and requires the presence of the phosphate group in the 3' position of 2'-deoxyribose of the nucleotide to be analysed after its derivatisation with the fluorescent marker BODIPY. Therefore, the first section in this study focused on the synthesis of the modified 8-oxo-2'-deoxyguanosine-3'-monophosphate (8-oxo-dGMP) nucleotide, its characterisation with ESI-MS and its detection by CE-LIF. 8-Oxo-dGMP is used as biomarker for oxidative stress to assess the influence of oxidative stress on the methylation level. A correlation between oxidative stress (8-oxo-dGMP) and promotion of carcinogenesis was established via another biomarker, the methylation level, but further studies are necessary for verification.
The second part of this work was the study of the change of methylation level in response to several carcinogens either natural products such as aristolochic acid (AA) or environmental pollutants - 3-nitro-benzanthrone (3-NBA), benzo[Α]pyrene B[Α]P and 4-aminobiphenyl (4-ABP) - in either in-vivo or in-vitro studies in order to find whether there is a correlation between the methylation level and the carcinogen-adduct formation. The results showed different patterns in the methylation level according to the tested organ, confirming a specificity of the methylation level that can distinguish different tissues. The variability of the methylation level among several analysed tissues provides insight into the role of related biological factors in cancer formation via epigenetic modification.
Finally, a great part of this work focused on the determination of the DNA methylation level in clones of Simmental and Holstein breeds of cattle and in Simmental twins to clarify some epigenetic approaches toward cloning. Successful somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) cloning is compatible with the birth of live offspring in a wide range of mammalian species; however the low overall efficiency of the technology could be related to the failure of epigenetic reprogramming. Clones that survive into adulthood, in contrast, are judged to be normal, and the epigenetic marks required for their normal development are assumed to have been retained; however, the epigenetic status of such healthy adult clones has never been investigated. CE-LIF analysis revealed that individual methylation levels of circulating white blood cells of bovine clones ranged from 4.4 % to 6.9 % with significant differences between the mean 5-meC levels of Holstein and Simmental clones (6.50 % ± 0.01 % and 5.09 % ± 0.02 %, < 0.001). In addition, in order to judge the contribution of SCNT to the variability of individual 5-meC levels, further analyses were carried out to compare Simmental clones with 12 sets of similarly aged female monozygotic Simmental twins experimentally generated from bisected fertilised embryos as well as to compare Holstein clones with the mother nuclear donor cows. The methylation level of clones is higher than the nuclear donor animals or in contemporary monozygotic twins. The absolute deviations of 5-meC values of individual SCNT clones from their genotype means were five times as high as in twins. Finally, it is concluded that global DNA methylation levels of leukocytes of healthy adult clones are in fact highly variable between individuals of the same genotype and between genotypes of different breeds that call for an in-depth analysis of genetic and epigenetic risks associated with SCNT cloning.


In this study the effect of boundary condition on premixed methane-air stationary Bunsen flames has been experimentally investigated. Laminar burning velocity is calculated by the concentrated cons method (CCM) and Schlieren photography technique, under the effect of laminar boundary horizontal stream air bulk with a range of air flow speeds. The experimental results have shown that the effect of these boundary conditions in general is small on calculated burning velocity if air flow speed is around between (0-50 cm/s). So, it is suggested that this effect be neglected. This effect so characterized increases at/around Stoichiometric ratio flames because of the increase of temperature difference between flame and boundary. The results of the experimental findings were compared with the latest published work and showed a good agreement with it, with a maximum discrepancy of (±2.5% at ϕ =1.1).


BACKGROUND
An intricate network of reciprocal interactions between adipose tissue and immune system have been largely demonstrated, leading to the well-accepted concept of insulin resistance as a low grade inflammatory state and, conversely, chronic high-grade inflammation as a dysmetabolic condition. Immune homeostasis is regulated by several players including the complement system, a complex protein network at the crossroad between the innate and adaptive arms of the human defences against pathogens.

OBJECTIVE
Complement C3 represents the nodal point of the complement cascade independently of the pathway recruited. Aim of this review is to collect the evidence supporting the role of complement C3 as a candidate biomarker of insulin resistance and other metabolic disorders.

METHODS
We reviewed the available evidence pointing to a role of complement system, and in particular complement C3, in insulin resistance and other cardiometabolic diseases including diabetes (T2D), hypertension, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and atherosclerosis.

RESULTS
Compelling preclinical evidence demonstrated a role of adipose-tissue C3 and its cleavage products C3a and acylation stimulating protein (ASP) in adipose tissue inflammation and insulin resistance. To further support this hypothesis, several clinical studies, both cross-sectional and longitudinal, confirmed this association in independent cohorts. Moreover, preliminary evidence support a role of complement C3 in other cardiometabolic diseases such as hypertension, NAFLD and atherosclerosis.

CONCLUSION
Future studies are needed to fully confirm the usefulness of C3 as a clinical biomarker and to establish accurate cut-off values. Moreover, the therapeutic potential of C3 modulation in either cardiometabolic and inflammatory diseases need to be investigated.


In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there were very few people actually doing AI research—mostly the handful of founders (McCarthy, Minsky, and Selfridge in Boston, Newell and Simon in Pittsburgh) plus their students, and that included me. Everyone knew everyone else, and saw them at the few conference panels that were held. At one of those conferences, I met John. We renewed contact upon his re-arrival at Stanford, and that was to have major consequences for my professional life.


Abstract: Macroscopic Sarcocystis cysts were detected in the muscles of 28 Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), 1 Eurasian Wigeon (Anas penelope), and 1 Common Teal (Anas crecca) hunted in Lithuania and Finland. According to the sequences of the 18S rRNA gene, 28S rRNA gene, and ITS-1 region, the macrocysts examined from all 30 ducks belonged to Sarcocystis rileyi. This parasite was found in the Eurasian Wigeon and the Common Teal for the first time. All S. rileyi isolates examined were identical to each other and differed from 2 S. rileyi isolates previously reported from 2 Mallards from the United States only by 1 nucleotide substitution within the ITS-1 region.


The present study was designed to find out the prevalence of different intestinal opportunistic parasites in different groups of immunocompromised hosts; patients suffering from malignancy with or without immuno-suppressive drugs, or with chronic renal failure, or diabetes mellitus, or subjects under cortisone therapy. Examination of stool samples collected from 427 immunocompromised hosts revealed the detection of intestinal opportunistic parasites in 98 samples, with a prevalence of 23%. Infection with opportunistic parasites was higher in males than in females (32.6% versus 12.9%). There was statistically significant association of infection with G. lamblia and Cryptosoporidium in the mixed infection detected. The highest group affected with the opportunistic parasites was the group of patients under corticosteroid therapy (31.7%), followed by patients suffering from renal failure (28.8%) and malignancy (25.7%), while the least group affected were the diabetic patients (8%). The highest prevalence rate was 10.3% for G. lamblia, being followed by E. histolytica (7%), C. parvum (6.3%), Microsporidia (2.3%) and the least one was for Strongyloides (0.7%). No cases of Isospora belli infection was detected. Relation between presence of opportunistic parasites and risk factors was discussed and evaluated.


Translocations and gross deletions are important causes of both cancer and inherited disease. Such gene rearrangements are nonrandomly distributed in the human genome as a consequence of selection for growth advantage and/or the inherent potential of some DNA sequences to be frequently involved in breakage and recombination. Using the Gross Rearrangement Breakpoint Database [GRaBD; www.uwcm.ac.uk/uwcm/mg/grabd/grabd.html] (containing 397 germ‐line and somatic DNA breakpoint junction sequences derived from 219 different rearrangements underlying human inherited disease and cancer), we have analyzed the sequence context of translocation and deletion breakpoints in a search for general characteristics that might have rendered these sequences prone to rearrangement. The oligonucleotide composition of breakpoint junctions and a set of reference sequences, matched for length and genomic location, were compared with respect to their nucleotide composition. Deletion breakpoints were found to be AT‐rich whereas by comparison, translocation breakpoints were GC‐rich. Alternating purine‐pyrimidine sequences were found to be significantly over‐represented in the vicinity of deletion breakpoints while polypyrimidine tracts were over‐represented at translocation breakpoints. A number of recombination‐associated motifs were found to be over‐represented at translocation breakpoints (including DNA polymerase pause sites/frameshift hotspots, immunoglobulin heavy chain class switch sites, heptamer/nonamer V(D)J recombination signal sequences, translin binding sites, and the χ element) but, with the exception of the translin‐binding site and immunoglobulin heavy chain class switch sites, none of these motifs were over‐represented at deletion breakpoints. Alu sequences were found to span both breakpoints in seven cases of gross deletion that may thus be inferred to have arisen by homologous recombination. Our results are therefore consistent with a role for homologous unequal recombination in deletion mutagenesis and a role for nonhomologous recombination in the generation of translocations. Hum Mutat 22:229–244, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The use of immunotherapy in the treatment of cancer has resulted in a paradigm shift in clinical outcomes and in the correlative biomarkers that are most useful to evaluate in cancer patients. While several immunotherapeutic approaches have shown great promise, and several checkpoint inhibitors have been approved in the first and second line setting for multiple cancer types, major challenges remain in identifying the population of patients most likely to respond and in accurately monitoring clinical response while patients are receiving treatment. To best evaluate these prognostic and correlative parameters, the relationship between the anti-tumor immune response and treatment response should be evaluated. Sensitive and specific immune assays, therefore, need to be employed in patients receiving immunotherapy treatment. This review explores some of the current immunotherapies being assessed in cancer patients and describes the experimental tools available for monitoring the anti-tumor response prior to treatment or in patients receiving treatment. Studies of the correlation between these responses, as determined by these experimental assays, and response to immunotherapy should be performed to better select patients who will likely benefit from the different available immunotherapeutic treatments, to select the appropriate treatment approach, and to carefully monitor the response while on therapy.


Background:
 Intraplaque hemorrhage (IPH), a component of late stage atherosclerosis, is a critical factor in plaque destabilization leading to stroke and myocardial infarction. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is able to identify IPH and allows for identification of high risk patients. Currently however, no routinely available tests are conducted to identify individuals at risk of IPH.

 IPH is a rich source of free hemoglobin (Hb), a potent oxidant. The plasma protein haptoglobin (Hp) binds Hb forming a Hb-Hp complex, that can be engulfed by tissue macrophages.The reduction in oxidative stress decreases vascular inflammation. In humans, the Hp gene has three different genotypes: Hp1-1, Hp2-2 and Hp1-2. The Hb-Hp2-2 complex has a lower binding affinity to macrophages, resulting in higher oxidative burden. Numerous studies have demonstrated a higher risk of cardiovascular events in Hp2-2 individuals. We therefore hypothesized that patients of a Hp2-2 genotype have a greater risk of MR-IPH.

 Methods:
 From 2010 to 2014, patients with non-surgical carotid artery disease (30-95% stenosis) underwent 3T carotid MRI that included a MR-IPH sequence. A radiologist with 25 years of expertise in MR-IPH imaging determined the presence of MR-IPH using widely accepted methods. Patients' charts were blindly reviewed for demographics and medical history. Patients were genotyped for Hp1/2 using an established PCR genotyping method. Statistical association analysis was performed using logistic regression.

 Results and Conclusions:
 Out of the 80 recruited patients (mean age, 72.8 years; range 52-100), those with Hp2-2 genotype vs. Hp1-1/Hp1-2 had a prevalence of MR-IPH of 65% compared to 41%(p=0.09). Non-diabetics (HbA1c <6.5%) with Hp2-2 genotype had an increased risk of IPH compared to non-diabetics with Hp1-1/Hp 1-2 genotype (OR=3, 95% CI 1.04-8.73, p=0.03). Males were also at an increased risk of IPH (OR=4.05, 95% CI 1.53-10.70, p=0.004) and the majority (71%) of males with IPH were of the Hp2-2 genotype. In conclusion, non-diabetic Hp2-2 male patients with history of vascular disease are the population with the highest risk of developing IPH and they can be identified using simple haptoglobin genotype testing.


Objective: Previous randomized clinical trials and their meta-analyses have raised the possibility that thiazolidinediones (rosiglitazone and pioglitazone) may increase the risk of pneumonia. We aimed to test the hypothesis that thiazolidinediones may increase the risk of pneumonia. Design: Population based case-control study using a new user design. Setting: A large administrative database in the United States from 2002 to 2008. Population : Adults with type 2 diabetes aged 18-64; restricted to 6129 hospitalized pneumonia cases and 6129 controls without congestive heart failure matched on age, sex, enrollment pattern and diabetes complication severity index matched controls. Conditional logistic regression was used to analyse the data. Results : Compared with controls, cases were more likely to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), tobacco use, cancer and have received influenza and pneumococcal vaccination. After adjusting for COPD, cancer, tobacco use, and receipt of influenza and pneumococcal vaccination, and exposure in other periods, neither recent exposure to pioglitazone (adjusted Odds Ratio [aOR], 1.15, 95% Confidence intervals 1.00 – 1.32) or rosiglitazone (aOR 1.09, 95% CI, 0.83 – 1.44) nor current exposure to pioglitazone within 60 days (aOR, 1.04, 95% CI, 0.60 – 1.79) was associated with a statistically significant odds of pneumonia. Current exposure to rosiglitazone was associated with a statistically significant reduction in the odds of pneumonia (aOR, 0.33, 95% CI 0.11-0.95). Conclusion : In this study of US adults with type 2 diabetes we did not detect a significant increased risk of pneumonia with the thiazolidinediones. The unusually large protective effect of current exposure to rosiglitazone reflects the healthy user effect or unmeasured confounding.


In this work we propose a reflection on education and, more specifically, on the process of teacher's education. To approach this discussion we assume the necessity of addressing this issue in its complexity. We used the multi-referential approach that has the perspective to study educational phenomena considering the heterogeneity typical of educational relationships. We are holding this discussion by identifying several aspects of the formation of teachers from the fields of education and psychoanalysis. This route allowed us to deepen and clarify some concepts:


It is widely accepted that the cellular oncogene c-myc plays an important role in the control of cell proliferation and that its expression diminishes in differentiated cells. We examined whether there is a correlation between c-myc expression and cell proliferation or differentiation by using a subclone of a rat skeletal muscle cell line L6E9. Myoblasts irreversibly withdraw from the cell cycle, fuse to form multinucleated myotubes, and express muscle-specific genes (terminal differentiation). Muscle-specific genes can also be expressed in the absence of fusion (biochemical differentiation). Such mononucleated but biochemically differentiated cells can be stimulated to reenter the cell cycle. c-myc was induced by insulin, insulin-like growth factor, or serum factors in GO-arrested cells, whereas induction by protein synthesis inhibitors or superinduction by protein synthesis inhibitors in combination with serum factors occurred in all physiological states tested. We found that c-myc expression was reduced in biochemically and terminally differentiated cells as well as in quiescent undifferentiated cells but that it remained inducible by growth factors in all three physiological states. Results of nuclear runoff transcription assays suggested that the induction of c-myc mRNA by growth factors and its deinduction in these physiological states were regulated mainly at the transcriptional level. In contrast, induction and superinduction of c-myc mRNA by protein synthesis inhibitors alone and in combination with growth factors, respectively, were regulated posttranscriptionally mainly by stabilization of c-myc mRNA. Moreover, c-myc and muscle-specific genes could be simultaneously transcribed in both biochemically and terminally differentiated cells. These results indicate that irreversible repression of c-myc is not required for terminal myogenic differentiation and that its expression is insufficient by itself to suppress the differentiated phenotype.


The problem of estimating the parameters in stochastic continuous-time signals, represented as continuous-time autoregressive moving average (ARMA) processes, from discrete-time data is considered. The proposed solution is to fit the covariance function of the process, parameterized by the unknown parameters, to sample covariances. It is shown that the method is consistent, and an expression for the approximate covariance matrix of the estimated parameter vector is derived. The derived variances are compared with empirical variances from a Monte Carlo simulation, and with the Cramer-Rao bound. It turns out that the variances are close to the Cramer-Rao bound for certain choices of the sampling interval and the number of covariance elements used in the criterion function.


Abstract Several clinical studies suggest that estradiol acts as a potent growth and protective factor in the adult brain. Postmenopausal women experience permanent hypoestrogenicity and suffer from increased risk of brain injury associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as stroke and Alzheimer's disease. Estrogen replacement therapy appears to decrease the risk and severity of these neurodegenerative conditions. Studies using animal models have shown that estradiol exerts similar effects in rodents and can enhance cell survival and induce synaptic plasticity. Therefore, we undertook studies to assess whether estradiol treatment can decrease brain injury and cell death induced by an experimental model of ischemia and whether aging animals remain responsive to the protective effects of estradiol. We will review results from recent studies that demonstrate that 1) in young animals, estrogens exert profound protective effects against ischemic brain injury induced by cerebral artery occlusion and 2) the response of aging animals has been tested with varying results. We will discuss and compare our experimental findings that utilize a permanent cerebral artery occlusion model and physiological levels of estradiol replacement therapy in young and middle-aged rats with those of previous studies. These observations provide important insights into the potential protective actions of estrogen replacement therapy on age- and disease-related processes in the brain.


This study aimed to investigate the growth rate of 31 consecutive invasive breast cancers based on volume measures on at least two serial mammograms and its relation to histopathological findings. The average tumour volume-doubling time in all invasive breast cancer subtypes was 282 d (range 46-749 d). Grade III breast cancers had a significantly shorter average tumour volume-doubling time of 105 d (range 46-157 d) compared with Grade I and II tumours (average of 296 d, range 147-531 d and average of 353 d, range 139-749 d, respectively) (p = 0.002). Multiple linear regression identified that tumour volume-doubling time was positively associated with patient age, histological grade and progesterone receptor expression and inversely associated with axillary lymph node involvement, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 and Ki-67 expression (p < 0.001). In conclusion, tumour volume-doubling time as estimated on serial mammography may provide important prognostic information relevant for clinical decision-making.


We investigate the electrostatic effects in doped topological insulators by developing a self consistent scheme for an interacting tight binding model. The presence of bulk carriers, in addition to surface electrons, generates an intrinsic inhomogeneous charge density in the vicinity of the surface and, as a result, band bending effects are present. We find that electron doping and hole doping produce band bending effects of similar magnitude and opposite signs. The presence of additional surface dopants breaks this approximate electron-hole symmetry and dramatically affects the magnitude of the band bending. Applying a gate potential can generate a depletion zone characterized by a vanishing carrier density. We find that the density profile in the transition zone between the depleted region and the bulk is independent of the applied potential. In thin films the electrostatic effects are strongly dependent on the carrier charge density. In addition, we find that substrate induced potentials can generate a Rashba type spin-orbit coupling in ultra thin topological insulator films. We calculate the profiles of bulk and surface states in topological insulator films and identify the conditions corresponding to both types of states being localized within the same region in space.


A great deal of attention has been given over the years to the development of highly specialized x-ray equipment that, in many instances, has reduced the complex nature of the radiographic procedure. However, it is impossible, and probably always will be, to design equipment that will automatically produce the proper radiographic position. This will remain a distinct function of the technologist, and the individual's skill will have great bearing on the quality of the radiograph. One need only review the literature to realize how innovative our profession has been in developing countless numbers of radiographic positions for demonstrating specific anatomical regions. Moreover, many useful radiographic positions can be found that, for various reasons, never gained the level of acceptance perhaps anticipated by their originators. Consequently, the practical value of these positions often escapes our attention. To illustrate this point, I have selected a radiographic position described some thiry years ago for visualization of the mandibular condyle. It is my intent to demonstrate the practical value of this projection, as well as that of some others not usually thought of, for radiography of the mandibular condyle.


Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a foodborne pathogen that has become a public health concern at the global scale. The epidemiological significance of V. parahaemolyticus infections in Latin America received little attention until the winter of 1997 when cases related to the pandemic clone were detected in the region, changing the epidemic dynamics of this pathogen in Peru. With the aim to assess the impact of the arrival of the pandemic clone on local populations of pathogenic V. parahaemolyticus in Peru, we investigated the population genetics and genomic variation in a complete collection of non-pandemic strains recovered from clinical sources in Peru during the pre- and post-emergence periods of the pandemic clone. A total of 56 clinical strains isolated in Peru during the period 1994 to 2007, 13 strains from Chile and 20 strains from Asia were characterized by Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) and checked for the presence of Variable Genomic Regions (VGRs). The emergence of O3:K6 cases in Peru implied a drastic disruption of the seasonal dynamics of infections and a shift in the serotype dominance of pathogenic V. parahaemolyticus. After the arrival of the pandemic clone, a great diversity of serovars not previously reported was detected in the country, which supports the introduction of additional populations cohabitating with the pandemic group. Moreover, the presence of genomic regions characteristic of the pandemic clone in other non-pandemic strains may represent early evidence of genetic transfer from the introduced population to the local communities. Finally, the results of this study stress the importance of population admixture, horizontal genetic transfer and homologous recombination as major events shaping the structure and diversity of pathogenic V. parahaemolyticus.


Coastal and marine ecosystems are some of the most heavily exploited with increasing degradation. This alarming situation appeals for urgent and effective actions. The optimal balance between use and conservation of ecosystems theoretically requires all costs and benefits to be considered in decision-making, including intangible costs and benefits such as non-market use and non-use values. The broad aim of this PhD is to examine how these economic values associated with coastal and marine ecosystem services can be measured, and how the economic valuation exercise may be considered and influence management decision- making.The first analytical part of the thesis focuses on assessing non-market use and non-use values, through econometric methods. The characterization and estimation of non-use values are complex and controversial, especially when the valuation exercise is focusing on individuals who are users of the ecosystem services being considered. An original approach based on a stated preference method, namely choice experiments, is developed then empirically applied in quantifying non-market values for marine and coastal ecosystems in two areas in New Caledonia. It allows the estimation of non-use values for populations of users in an implicit way. An in-depth analysis of the individuals' choice heuristics during the valuation exercise is also conducted, with a focus on payment non-attendance. This issue is dealt with by comparing multiple modelling approaches in terms of: (1) inferred attendance, in relation to stated attendance; (2) attendance distribution according to several socio-economic variables; and (3) welfare estimates.After noting that the potential influence of economic valuation in decision making is unclear and largely unexplored in the literature, the second major component of this PhD aims to examine if, how and to what extent the economic valuation of ecosystem services, including measures of non-market values, influence decision-making regarding coastal and marine ecosystems management in Australia. Based on two nation-wide surveys, the perceived usefulness of the economic valuation of ecosystem services by the general public and decision-makers is studied, and the reasons why decision-makers may or may not fully consider economic values are elicited. Using a multi-criteria analysis, a part of the surveys also aims at examining the relative importance of different evaluation criteria (ecological, social and economic) when assessing the consequences of a hypothetical coastal development project on commercial activities, recreational activities and marine biodiversity.


Introduction . The study examines the tacit knowledge sharing (KS) practices among lecturers in the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. It explored the presence of tacit knowledge sharing culture, KS processes, factors affecting the sharing of tacit knowledge, how the University supports the sharing of tacit knowledge, and the challenges of tacit knowledge sharing. Method . Case study research design was used. The population composed academic staff in the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Data was collected from thirty-one purposively selected lecturers using an interview schedule. Responses were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed using Nvivo 12. Results. There is a culture of sharing knowledge generally among the lecturers. They share tacit knowledge through personal interactions, discussions and especially during seminars. The identified factors that positively affect their sharing of tacit knowledge are: communication, lecturers' willingness to share tacit knowledge, existence of cordial relationship, availability of constant electricity in offices and University environment and a platform for older lecturers to mentor younger ones. Conclusions . The study concludes that minimal sharing of tacit knowledge is practiced among lecturers in the University of Ibadan especially in informal settings through close interactions. Lecturers possess tacit knowledge that they have acquired from their experiences and they are aware of the importance of sharing such knowledge, but the absence of some necessitating factors like reward, organisation policy on tacit knowledge sharing, suitable environment and factors like competition amongst lecturers, makes sharing difficult. Provision of a fora to share tacit knowledge, presence of a reward system and enabling environment is recommended.


The objective was reduce at the half the GSV diameter trough remodeling of the great saphenous vein by 1470 LASER LEED flexibility (setting parameters) as a method to counteract Valsalva reflux.
A prospective study of 38 patients done in two centers is presented using a combined approach of sparing techniques plus LASER 1470 nm .The purpose was avoid unnecessary ablation of the great saphenous vein (GSV) at the early hemodynamic stages (diameter below 9 mm, peak reflux speed below 30 cc/s and total reflux volume (TRV) between 10 and 100 cc/s).
The study was under the supervision of the Ethical Committee and Scientific Department of the Argentine Society of Phlebology and Lymphology, Chairman Dr. Daniel Garcia, June 9 2017, and approved during the plenary session. No number registration was given. Each patient gave signed informed consent. Thirty-eight middle-aged patients, 29 women and 9 men, with clinical, etiologic, anatomic, pathophysiologic (CEAP) classification C2-5 were included.
This study does not record background into the world bibliography, therefore doesn't exist comparison parameters available.


This article examines the politics of calculative devices in one of the most successful areas of finance, the life insurance business. By empirically tracing an insurance applicant's risk trajectory, it analyses how calculative devices perform insurance underwriting through acting on insurance risk decisions. This allows one to document what calculative devices exactly do, and to point out the political effects of what they do. First, it highlights the fact that, contrary to thinking in terms of 'the insurance logic', there are multiple ways of calcuting life insurance risks. Second, it underscores the crucial role of calculative devices in that process by demonstrating how they align considerations as divergent as economics and medicine to perform a life insurance market. It then demonstrates the political effects of these calculative devices by making explicit how the latter contribute to the production of inequalities in calculative power in life insurance. In this way, the article links up insights from the performativity approach in the sociology of markets with the broader question of governing economic life. Such an approach, it is argued, provides the opportunity to open up the organization of economic markets and to put classic questions of justice and power struggles in economic markets on the agenda again.


Time-resolved one- and two-pulse laser dc photoconductivity has been used to observe two kinds of reducing species, anion-1 and anion-2, in liquid acetonitrile. At 25 °C, the standard enthalpy of conversion from anion-1 to anion-2 is −44.3 ± 3.6 kJ/mol and the conversion time is ∼3 ns. The high-temperature form, anion-1, absorbs in the IR and migrates >3.3 times faster than any other ion in acetonitrile. This rapid migration has a low activation energy of 3.2 kJ/mol (vs ∼7.6 kJ/mol for other ions). Anion-1 rapidly transfers the electron to acceptors with high electron affinity, with rate constant up to 1011 M-1 s-1. The low-temperature form, anion-2, absorbs in the visible and exhibits normal mobility and electron-transfer rates, ca. 1.5 × 1010 M-1 s-1. It reacts, by proton transfer, with two hydrogen-bonded molecules of water and/or aliphatic alcohols. Laser photoexcitation of these two solvent anions in their respective absorption bands leads to the formation of CH3 and CN-. We present arguments indicat...


Despite the pervasiveness of patent licensing in many industries, there is a dearth of publicly available information on licensing transactions. Notably, information on price—i.e., the royalty agreed upon by licensor and licensee—is purposefully kept secret. We assess to what extent "market prices" on patent licenses are observable by assembling all publicly available information on royalty amounts associated with the licensing of 4G and 5G standard essential patents (SEPs). Our data come from a range of sources including court verdicts and litigation settlements, arbitration awards, public announcements, and published licensing agreements. We show that even for a highly visible technology such as mobile broadband, the available price points are few and far between. Moreover, any comparison of the available data points, let alone their aggregation, is extremely challenging due to largely unobservable heterogeneity in the terms and scope of the underlying licensing agreements. Our results point to a lack of transparency in the market for patent licensing that might adversely affect market participants and competition more broadly.


We investigate a mechanism that generates exact solutions of scalar field cosmologies in a unified way. The procedure investigated here permits to recover almost all known solutions, and allows one to derive new solutions as well. In particular, we derive and discuss one novel solution defined in terms of the Lambert function. The solutions are organised in a classification which depends on the choice of a generating function which we have denoted by x() that reflects the underlying thermodynamics of the model. We also analyse and discuss the existence of form-invariance dualities between solutions. A general way of defining the latter in an appropriate fashion for scalar fields is put forward.


Abstract Background: Ionizing radiation has an indispensable role in diagnostic radiology and clinical treatments. Apparently, medical exposure in diagnostic radiology pertains to be the preeminent man-made source of radiation. Objective: The aim of the present scientific study is to calculate the Entrance Surface Dose (ESD) and Effective Dose (ED) in digital radiography in Mazandaran province. Materials and methods: The study was performed on 3600 patients in digital X-ray rooms 15 hospitals and the required data were collected from two age groups (10>15 years and adults) in each projection. Based on the results of this study, ESD and ED were calculated for skull (PA), skull (lateral), cervical spine (AP), cervical spine (lateral), chest (PA), chest (lateral), abdomen (AP), lumbar spine (AP), lumbar spine (lateral), pelvis (AP), thoracic spine (AP) and thoracic spine (lateral) examinations. It was calculated using PCXMC software (version 2.0). Results: In this study, mean ESDs for the 10-15 year group varied from 0.97±0.21 mGy to 3.62±1.38 mGy for chest (PA) and lumbar spine (lateral), respectively. For the adult group varied from 1.05±0.31 to 3.85±1.44 for cervical spine (AP) and lumbar spine (lateral), respectively. And also ED value was from in the range of 10.40 µSv to 378.46 µSv for skull (PA) 10-15 year group and abdomen adults, respectively Conclusion: This survey revealed a significant variation in the radiation dose of digital radiology examinations among hospitals in Mazandaran province. Application of a dose reference level (DRL) could be an optimization procedure for reducing the patient's dose in Mazandaran province.


The residue after oil extraction from sacha inchi (SI) presents a high protein content of ∼59% that can be further exploited to extract proteins. In this study, the protein extraction parameters for defatted SI cake meal (DSICM) were optimized using alkaline and enzyme-assisted extractions. A central composed design (CCD) was used to optimize the protein yield for both methods. The obtained response surface models (RSM) produced a satisfactory fitting of the results for both extraction methods (R2 = 0.9609–0.9761). For the alkaline extraction method, the optimal SI protein extraction conditions corresponded to 54.2C, solvent/meal 42/1 (v/w) ratio, NaCl concentration of 1.65 M, pH 9.5 for 30 min and yielded 29.7% protein. For the enzyme-assisted method, optimal extraction conditions corresponded to an enzyme concentration of 5.6%, 40.4 min extraction, solvent/meal 50/1 (v/w) ratio, pH 9.0 and 50C and yielded 44.7% protein and hydrolysis degree of 7.8%.

Practical Applications

The cake obtained after oil extraction from SI seed is an important source of protein. Thus, efforts should focus on the development of protein extraction processes from the cake to add value to this by-product. Up to date, studies are very limited. Results obtained in this study allowed the optimization of the protein extraction process from SI cake meal. The enzyme-assisted protein extraction resulted in a higher quantity of protein recovery (∼1.5 fold more) than the alkaline protein extraction. The optimized protein extraction process will allow the food industry to obtain isolates or protein concentrates from SI cake meal to be used as techno-functional, nutritional and/or functional agent.


Turner syndrome (TS) is a chronic disease related to haploinsufficiency of genes that are normally expressed in both X chromosomes in patients with female phenotype that is associated with a wide range of somatic malformations. We made detailed cytogenetic and clinical analysis of 65 patients with TS from the region of Recife, Brazil, to determine the effects of different chromosome constitutions on expression of the TS phenotype. Overall, patients with X-monosomy exhibited a tendency to have more severe phenotypes with higher morbidity, showing its importance in TS prognosis. Additionally, we found rare genetic and phenotypic abnormalities associated with this syndrome. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of 45,X,t(11;12)(q22;q22) described as a TS karyotype. Turner patients usually have normal intelligence; however, moderate to severe levels of mental retardation were found in 5 TS cases, which is considerate a very uncommon feature in this syndrome.


The article considers main interpretations of the role of ideologies in the scholarly discourse of modern Russia. Based on the analysis of assessments of the main party technologies and specifics of the State Duma elections in 2021 presented in the research of domestic political scientists, generalizations are made about the reasons why ideological positions of most Russian parties are hybridized and functionality of systemic use of ideological values in parties' pre-election activities is insufficient.


In times marked by trends as diverse as economic globalisation, international migration as well as fear of terrorism and organised crime, the efficient handling of borders has become an issue of political priority, in the EU and across the world. Modern, economy-oriented states have to rely on a flourishing trade and offer a comfortable degree of security to their citizens. The formula commonly chosen in combining these two objectives is that of 'integrated border management', which represents the delicate attempt to marry security concerns with trade facilitation. If the implementation of this innovative approach is already proving to be a challenge to well-established nation states, it becomes a genuine balancing act for an incomplete federation such as the EU, with its sensitive mix of a single external border and 25 separate legal/administrative systems. This working paper seeks to illustrate the difficulties encountered by the EU and develop solutions that should firmly go into the direction of a coherent, communitarian approach in border management, such as that sketched out by the recent Council Regulation No. 2007/2004 establishing the European Border Agency known as FRONTEX.


Objective: This study was conducted to evaluate both personal and work-related factors associated with occupational injuries of ship-building supply workers in Busan, Korea. Methods: A self-administered, questionnaire survey, asking both personal and work-related factors associated with occupational injuries, was administered to 1,651 workers from 64 different ship-building supply companies in Busan, Korea. All occupational injuries had occurred within the previous 5 years. The workers were divided into three sub-groups: Group I, under 4 day-sick leave, Group II, 4 day-sick leave and over, and Group III, which consisted of both Groups I and II. The statistical significance of the factors associated with occupational injuries underwent cross tabulation analysis for each group. Afterwards, the relationships between the factors which had statistical significance and the occurrence of occupational injuries were analyzed through multiple logistic regression by using the SPSS 12.0 K program. Results: The prevalence of occupational injuries was 4.30% in Group II and 7.57% in Group III. The work activities which had the most frequent occupational injuries were ''Fit-up'' and ''Welding'', and 30.0% of injured workers were covered by workers'' compensation in Group II. According to the multiple logistic regression analysis results, the factors which had statistical significance in occupational injury occurrence were education level above college (OR 2.78) and high level of fatigue (OR 2.18) in Group I, sleeping less than 5 hours per day (OR 3.47), high level of fatigue (OR 2.79) and working over 56 hours per week (OR 1.53) in Group II, and education level above college (OR 1.78), sleeping less than 5 hours per day (OR 2.98), poor sleep quality (OR 1.65) and high level of fatigue (OR 2.58) in Group III. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that several factors of ship-building supply workers such as sleep hours, sleep quality, fatigue, working hours, and educational level exerted a statistical effect on the occurrence of occupational injuries. In association with occupational injuries occurrence, these factors need to be controlled by proper methods such as effective safety education, work condition modification, and life style management.


We present a fixed-length robust joint source-channel coding (RJSCC) scheme for transmitting images over wireless channels. The system integrates a joint source-channel coding (JSCC) scheme with all-pass filtering source shaping to enable robust image transmission. In particular, we are able to incorporate both transition probability and bit error rate of a bursty channel model into an end-to-end rate-distortion (R-D) function to achieve an optimum tradeoff between source coding accuracy and channel error protection under a fixed transmission rate. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme can achieve not only high peak signal-to-noise ratio performance, but also excellent perceptual quality, especially when the channel mismatch occurs.


Common mode (CM) Electromagnetic interference (EMI) noise in an isolated converter is mainly due to parasitic capacitance occurring within the SMPS (Switch-mode Power Supply). It flows through transformer coupling capacitance and the parasitic capacitance of MOSFETs and diodes. Several techniques have been proposed in the literature to mitigate the common mode noise flowing through transformer windings. Transformer shielding is one of the most effective methods to reduce EMI noise between the primary and secondary windings, however. However, further improvement should be possible by developing more precise models. In this paper, we develop an EMI noise model for an isolated converter that allows detailed performance analysis. It incorporates the parasitic elements of the converter components and also the coupling capacitance of the transformer. Using this model we propose a new balancing technique to mitigate the CM noise of the isolated converter with modified transformer. The proposed method is applied to an isolated converter and experimental results are provided to verify the novel balancing technique.


We have developed components of an automated system that understands and follows navigational instructions. The system has prior knowledge of the geometry and landmarks of specific maps. This knowledge is exploited to infer complex paths through maps based on natural language descriptions. The approach is based on an analysis of verbal commands in terms of elementary semantic units that are composed to generate a probability distribution over possible spatial paths in a map. An integration mechanism based on dynamic programming guides this language-to-path translation process, ensuring that resulting paths satisfy continuity and smoothness criteria. In the current implementation, parsing of text into semantic units is performed manually. Composition and interpretation of semantic units into spatial paths is performed automatically. In the evaluations, we show that the system accurately predicts the speakers' intended meanings for a range of instructions. This paper provides building blocks for a complete system that, when combined with robust parsing technologies, could lead to a fully automatic spatial language interpretation system


A high molecular weight protein antigen, designated P1, has been isolated from the culture fluid of chemostat-grown Streptococcus mutans strain Ingbritt and shown to be free of other antigens including glucosyltransferase. Antiserum against the protein was used in rocket immunoelectrophoresis to confirm and extend the previous observation that there were major differences in the amount of the protein produced under different growth conditions. Physico-chemical and serological studies indicated that protein P1 was indistinguishable from antigens B, I/II and IF isolated in other laboratories. Mammalian tissue cross-reactivity of protein P1 was demonstrated by binding of antiserum to P1 to sections of normal rabbit tissues, particularly heart. There was also a statistically significant increase in the number of mononuclear leucocytes in heart tissue of rabbits which had been injected with protein P1, when compared with the levels in control uninjected rabbits; injection with whole cells of S. mutans Ingbritt did not produce this effect.


Grid computing system consists of machines with varied computational capabilities. These systems assist in the computing of large amounts of complicated tasks in scientific and engineering areas. It may operate in an environment where system performance features degrade due to unpredictable changes, inaccuracies in the estimation of task execution times etc. These systems need robustness. The robustness guarantees limited degradation in system performance. The following research is based on the requirement of robustness for resource allocation in grid computing environment. Four heuristic techniques for resource allocation are used to compare the robustness. General Term Grid Computing System


A new proprietary herbomineral formulation was formulated, consisting of essential ingredients viz. herbal root extract of ashwagandha and minerals (zinc, magnesium, and selenium). The present study aimed to evaluate the impact of The Trivedi Effect®- Energy of Consciousness Healing Treatment (Biofield Energy Healing Treatment) based herbomineral formulation in male Sprague Dawley (SD) rats for immune biomarkers modulation. The test formulation was divided into two parts. One part was denoted as the control without any Biofield Energy Treatment, while the other part was defined as the Biofield Treated sample, which received the Biofield Energy Healing Treatment remotely from twenty renowned Biofield Energy Healers. The immunomodulatory potential was studied in male SD rats using various immune biomarkers such as IgG and IgM, CD4+ and CD8+, hematology, lipid profile, hepatic enzymes, sex hormone, and antioxidant profile. The humoral immune response showed an increase IgG level by 6.10% in the Biofield Energy Treated test formulation (G4) group compared with the disease control (G2) group. Cellular immune response i.e. CD4+ and CD8+ counts were significantly improved by 51.64% and 52.09%, respectively in G4 compared with the G2 group. The lymphocytes level were increased by 38.87%, while TLC, neutrophils, eosinophils, and monocytes count were decreased by 7.38%, 19.35%, 21.14%, and 3.43%, respectively in G4 compared with the G2 group. Lipid analysis showed that triglycerides and VLDL levels were decreased by 6.02% and 5.97%, respectively while HDL level was significantly increased by 28.44% in G4 compared with the G2 group. Hepatic biomarkers viz. SGOT, CK-MB, total protein, total bilirubin, and globulin by 6.27%, 14.97%, 2.85%, 16.66%, and 5.90%, respectively in G4 compared with the G2 group. However, the testosterone level was significantly increased in G4 and untreated test formulation (G5) groups by 135.74% and 28.09%, respectively compared with the G2 group. Additionally, the antioxidant assay showed that the lipid peroxidation (LPO) level was decreased, while superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase levels were increased by 59.72% and 20.07%, respectively in the G4 compared with the G2 group. Overall, the study results suggested that the Biofield Energy Treated test formulation showed an improved cellular and humoral immune responses along with improved hematological and biochemical animal profile compared with the untreated test formulation. Consequently, it can be established that The Trivedi Effect®-Biofield Energy Healing has the significant capacity for immunomodulatory effect, which may also be useful in organ transplants, anti-aging, and stress management by improving overall health and quality of life.


Manufacturing services are basic building blocks for the agile collaborating business applications. It represents a new model in the utilization of the networked resources, by which self-contained, modular applications can be described, published, located and dynamically invoked in a programming language independent way. In this paper, a general formal model for manufacturing services is proposed by wrapping manufacturing resource into semantic web service. Thus resources sharing requirements are translated into service's capacity requests. As the key part of manufacturing services, manufacturing capability profile is presented which has four particular attribute sets to represent the infomation what enterprises really care about. Finally, ontology specifications of manufacturing services are established by extending OWL-S, which provides a standard vocabulary to support in an unambiguous, computer-understandable form.


Abstract Medicinal plants accumulate heavy metals from contaminated soil, and their consumption can cause poisoning. Our objective was to determine the levels of Pb, Cd, Zn, Cu, Fe, and Mn in four medicinal plant species (Achillea millefolium, Hypericum perforatum, Plantago lanceolata, and Urtica dioica) and their native soil, all sampled at a former smelter. The highest soil Cd, Pb, and Zn levels surpassed the maximum allowed limit 75-fold, 48-fold, and 14-fold, respectively. Their soil levels correlated with those in the plants, but this was not the case with Cu, Fe, and Mn. Heavy metal accumulation seems to depend on the plant species, yet even so, medicinal herbs should be cultivated and gathered only from controlled (uncontaminated) areas. Polluted areas should be monitored on a regular basis, while further research should investigate the connection between the heavy metal levels in the soil, their levels available for plants, and the levels extractable from plants.


Today's datacenters are increasingly becoming diverse with respect to both hardware and software architectures in order to support a myriad of applications. These applications are also heterogeneous in terms of job response times and resource requirements (eg., Number of Cores, GPUs, Network Speed) and they are expressed as task constraints. Constraints are used for ensuring task performance guarantees/Quality of Service(QoS) by enabling the application to express its specific resource requirements. While several schedulers have recently been proposed that aim to improve overall application and system performance, few of these schedulers consider resource constraints across tasks while making the scheduling decisions. Furthermore, latencycritical workloads and short-lived jobs that typically constitute about 90% of the total jobs in a datacenter have strict QoS requirements, which can be ensured by minimizing the tail latency through effective scheduling. In this paper, we propose Phoenix, a constraint-aware hybrid scheduler to address both these problems (constraint awareness and ensuring low tail latency) by minimizing the job response times at constrained workers. We use a novel Constraint Resource Vector (CRV) based scheduling, which in turn facilitates reordering of the jobs in a queue to minimize tail latency. We have used the publicly available Google traces to analyze their constraint characteristics and have embedded these constraints in Cloudera and Yahoo cluster traces for studying the impact of traces on system performance. Experiments with Google, Cloudera and Yahoo cluster traces across 15,000 worker node cluster shows that Phoenix improves the 99th percentile job response times on an average by 1.9× across all three traces when compared against a state-of-the-art hybrid scheduler. Further, in comparison to other distributed scheduler like Hawk, it improves the 90th and 99th percentile job response times by 4.5× and 5× respectively.


The nature and subcellular localization of the enzymic activities responsible for the production of the 20 kDa protein betagranin from its 100 kDa chromogranin-A-like precursor was investigated in transplantable insulinoma tissue. [35S]Methionine-labelled precursor was converted by lysed insulin-secretory granules into betagranin and one or more proteins of 47 kDa, via intermediates in the 60-65 kDa range. Lysosome-enriched fractions also processed the precursor, but not into the peptides found in vivo; other fractions, including those enriched in Golgi, were inactive. Conversion of the precursor by granules was quantitative and the products were stable. Inhibitor studies showed that processing occurred by initial endoproteolytic cleavage at sites marked by pairs of basic amino acids, followed by removal of these by carboxypeptidase H. The endopeptidase activity appeared to be a novel metalloenzyme, with a markedly acidic pH optimum (4.8-5). It was inhibited by alanyl-L-lysyl-L-arginyl chloromethane (K0.5 = 1.3 microM), but to a much lesser extent by inhibitor analogues of processing sites defined by single or unpaired basic amino acid residues, e.g. alanyl-L-norleucyl-L-arginylchloromethane (K0.5 greater than 100 microM), leupeptin (K0.5 = 150 microM) and antipain (K0.5 = 40 microM). p-Chloromercuribenzoate (K0.5 = 13 microM), Hg2+ (K0.5 = 16 microM), Zn2+ (K0.5 = 0.8 mM) and vanadate (K0.5 = 7 microM) also abolished activity, as did various anions (SCN- greater than I- greater than Cl- greater than SO4(2-). Group-specific inhibitors of serine, thiol and acidic endopeptidases were without effect. EDTA and CDTA (1,2-cyclohexanediaminetetra-acetic acid), but not 1,10-phenanthroline, abolished endoproteolytic activity. Several bivalent cations could restore activity after EDTA or CDTA inhibition, including Ca2+, Zn2+, Mn2+ and Sr2+; however, the ion of physiological importance appeared to be Ca2+ (K0.5 = 8 microM). The properties of the granule endopeptidase and its subcellular localization suggested that it is of importance in processing chromogranin A in the pancreatic beta-cell.


A new, high efficient comprehensive utilization technology with non-pollution, low energy consumption, and strong feedstock adaptability is investigated with the view to developing an efficient smelting process of vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite by non-BF route. It includes three major steps in this process: selective chlorination of the concentrates for extraction vanadium using industrial chloride wastes, direct reduction for producing DRI at medium temperature, and separation of hot metal from slag at elevated temperature. In this paper, it focuses on the extraction of vanadium from vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite by selective chlorination. The mechanisms of selective chlorination for extracting vanadium is discussed from the view of thermodynamics analyses and it is found that the reasonable temperature is over the temperature range of 900K~1300K if chlorine potential (logpCl2) and oxygen potential (logpO2) are controlled at a certain region (hatched region A). Furthermore, some preliminary experimental are conducted and the results show that it is possible to extract vanadium from vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite by selective chlorination and extraction ratio can reach up to 30% under 1100K after 2 hours calcination.


Manifestations of SSc in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract are common, occurring in 50-90% of patients. They typically result from the fibrosis that characterizes this disease. Manifestations of SSc can affect many sites within the GI tract, and patients may experience substantial dysfunction in the processes of motility, digestion, absorption and excretion. Oesophageal dysfunction is the most common GI manifestation, but patients may also experience dysfunction of the stomach, small intestine, colon and rectum, each of which can be responsible for severe and distressing symptoms. At present, few specific therapeutic options are available for the treatment of these patients, but relief of symptoms is often possible with appropriate knowledge and support. It is therefore particularly important to identify, monitor and manage these patients carefully, with a view to minimizing further degeneration and maximizing quality of life.


A gross anatomical survey of the placental development was carried out in 24 cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) of 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15 and 20 weeks of gestational age. Eight of the 24 placentas examined were found to be single discoidal and the remaining 16 bidiscoidal. The weight and size of placentas of each animal were measured. The average weight of the 20th week placentas was about 94 times heavier than that of the 4th week ones; the average diameter of the former was about 5 times larger than that of the latter.


On Midori River Tidal Flat and Arao Tidal Flat, which are major sandy tidal flats in Ariake Bay, Kyushu, Japan, I examined various heavy metal contents of the surface sediment to reconfirm that, among the heavy metals, only manganese deposited on the sediment at extremely high levels. On these two tidal flats, 790 to 2,230 mg kg−1 dry sediment of total manganese was detected in the surface sediment. The manganese deposited (mainly as manganese dioxide) in the sediment tends to be reduced by bacterial activities, released as manganese ion to the interstitial water of the sediment, and weakly bound electronically in an exchangeable form with organic or inorganic matter in the sediment. I also examined the manganese ion concentration of the interstitial water and the content of the exchangeable form of manganese of the sediment. High concentrations of manganese ions, as affect the physiology of the aquatic organisms, were detected from the interstitial water of the sediment on Midori River Tidal Flat (5.8 to 9.9 mg L−1), while high contents of the exchangeable form of manganese (approximately 28 mg kg−1 dry sediment) were found from the sediment on Arao Tidal Flat. It seems probable that the manganese ions reduced from the manganese in the sediment acts as one of the major limiting factors on the occurrence of the clam on these two tidal flats.


In September 2011, CREWES recorded a data set in southern Alberta near Hussar. The purpose of this survey was primarily to compare receiver types (four types of receivers) and source types (four types of sources) at very low frequencies. Data processing by CGGVeritas resulted in a final section for 10Hz vertical component geophones and dynamite source and this was used in this study. Three wells intersected this line, two near the south (12-27 and 14-27) and one towards the north (14-35). An overburden and underburden, derived from the stacking velocities, was applied to the sonic logs. An overburden and underburden was also applied to the density log using the stacking velocities and Gardner's equation. The next step was to estimate a wavelet by fitting a fourth order polynomial to the decibel amplitude spectra of a seismic average trace.. Synthetic traces were then prepared at each well location. A rough tie of well 1227 was completed and the seismic data was balanced with a time-variant scaling operator. To create a good tie between the seismic data and the synthetic traces the sonic logs of the wells were stretched until key events matched. An average trace was prepared from averaging five traces located at each well location after the traces were aligned as a slight dip is evident in the seismic data. An average synthetic trace was prepared by aligning, balancing and averaging the synthetic seismograms at each well location. The reflectivity and Impedance for these wells were also aligned and averaged. It is helpful to have a reference impedance section which was created by a weighted average of the well impedance logs. This study found that producing well ties that match the seismic data is not trivial and is very important for accurate inversions. StretchWell and WaveletEstimator were two programs created for this study with graphical user interfaces used in tying the wells. StretchWell is used to modify the sonic logs and WaveletEstimator is used to create wavelets. Each of these programs is explained at the end of this paper.


The speed and magnitude of the ongoing demographic aging in Japan are unprecedented. A rapid decline in the labor force and a rising fiscal burden to finance social security expenditures could hamper growth over a prolonged period. We build a dynamic general equilibrium model populated by overlapping generations of males and females who differ in employment type and labor productivity in addition to life expectancy. We study how changes in the labor market over the coming decades will affect the transition path of the economy and fiscal situation of Japan. We find that a rise in the labor supply of females and the elderly of both genders in extensive margin and in productivity can significantly mitigate the effects of demographic aging on the macroeconomy and reduce fiscal pressures, despite a decline in wages during the transition. We also quantify effects of alternative demographic scenarios and fiscal policies. The study suggests that a combination of policies that remove obstacles hindering the labor supply and that create a more efficient allocation of male and female workers of all age groups will be critical to keeping government deficits under control and raising incomes across the nation.


The 2007 Public Education Reform Amendment Act led to 39 percent of the principals in District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) being dismissed before the start of the 2008–09 school year, and additional principal exits over the next few years. We measure the impact of replacing these principals on schoolwide student achievement by measuring the changes in achievement that occurred when principals were replaced, and comparing these changes to achievement in comparison schools within DCPS that kept the same principal. We find that after a new principal's third year in a school, average schoolwide achievement increased by 4 percentile points (0.09 standard deviations) compared with how students in the school would have achieved had DCPS not replaced the previous principal. For students in grades 6 to 8, the gains were larger and statistically significant in both math and reading.


Changes is tubular reabsorption of uric acid in response to alterations in the extracellular fluid volume (ECFV) were examined in rats by clearance studies and by direct intratubular microinjections. Contraction of the ECFV led to a rise in the serum uric acid concentration and a 47% decrease in the clearance of uric acid. The ratio of uric acid to inulin clearance also fell, indicating an increase in the net tubular reabsorption of urate. Volume expansion resulted in an increase in the urate clearance and a 37% decrease in the net tubular reabsorption of uric acid. To localize the site in the nephron where these changes occur, microinjections of [2-14C]urate were performed. The lack of conversion of radioactive urate to allantoin after microinjections was demonstrated by thin-layer chromatography. After contraction of the ECFV, urinary recoveries of uric acid were significantly decreased after microinjections into proximal tubular sites. In contrast, recoveries were increased from these proximal sites after volume expansion. No evidence for distral reabsorption was obtained in any group of animals. These studies demonstrate that net urate reabsorption is influenced by the state of hydration of the ECFV and that these alterations are mediated by changes in the rates of reabsorption in the proximal tubule.


A peer-to-peer (p2p) network allows computer hardware and software to function without the need for special server devices. While file sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multi-media (audio, video) resources, documents, or electronic books.A peer-to-peer (p2p) network provides a scalable and fault-tolerant mechanism to locate nodes anywhere on a network without maintaining large amount of routing state. This allows for a variety of applications beyond simple file sharing, including in multicast systems, anonymous communications systems, and web caches. This work surveyed security issues that occur in the underlying p2p systems, as well as legal and trust issues that occur in file sharing and p2p networking. It also, analyzes different p2p software and their features. This work has established that file sharing and peer-to-peer networking generates a lot of traffic on the network and is associated with malicious software. Keywords: Peer-to-peer, network, internet protocol, file sharing, web caches International Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences , 7(1): 81 - 87, 2011


Magnetization measurements are relevant tests for the characterization of superconductors. Practically they are the only measurements that allow estimating the critical current density at low fields of low temperature superconductors, the effective filament size and the hysteresis losses. For this purpose CERN, in collaboration with the University of Geneva, has carried out magnetization measurements on five types of Nb3Sn wires: three bronze route strands used in the ITER project; one Powder In Tube (PIT) and one Internal Tin (IT) wires used for developing next generation accelerator magnets. The field dependent magnetization has been determined using three setups: a Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM), a Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) and a special system used for the production control of LHC strands. Samples of different lengths have been tested to check the different coupling between the filaments. Unexpectedly, it was found that the magnetization of the tested bronze wires was strongly dependent on the sample length. In this paper, the results, which were obtained for different type of strands and sample lengths, are reported and compared.


In this paper, the incorporation of carbide and nitride phases supported on mesoporous materials like SBA type is described in order to obtain a better material than commercial catalysts (NiMoS/Al2O3, Sg=269 m2.gr-1) specifically in the HDS of dibenzothiophene. The XRD patterns exhibit the presence of carbide and nitride phases in each series, respectively. In the nitride materials, the presence of oxide phases was more evident than in the carbide catalysts. The principal product was biphenyl (BF) for all the analyzed series. This behavior suggests that the DBT desulphurization pathway for the carbide materials was similar to that of sulfide catalysts. Bicyclohexyl (BCH) was analyzed as a product, and cyclohexylbenzene traces (CHB) were determined in a single catalyst (NiMoC-2%P/SBA-16). This was attributed to the hydrogenation character of carbide catalyst reported previously.


In a recent wave of events, President Obama had announced his open acceptance and support of gay marriage in America; many celebrities have endorsed and said "It Gets Better", to help with gay teenagers – and the majority of America stands behind them. But the trend towards an acceptance of gays has been established way before Obama, Lady Gaga, or "It Gets Better" Campaign. In this study, I seek the answer to the puzzling question of, "what made the public opinion change regarding the gay population?" After looking at public opinion trend, I seek the answer through some quantitative ways: through the political interest groups' financial and media data; seeking media infiltration of "gay" in the news and TV shows; and lastly, the elite's opinion through the channels of Supreme Court of the United States, State of the Union Address, and Presidential Campaign platforms of each parties. My data analysis goes back through roughly last thirty-five years (from 1977 to the present) of what "gay" is, and how it changed in the eyes of the American public. As none of the previous literature does a comprehensive look at all three factors as the change in attitude towards "the gays", I discover that there is a general pattern, as there are more influences in the interest groups, the media, and the elites' opinion, the public opinion in America went up, seemingly the former leading the latter; however, that pattern is not always so true – in fact, public opinion may lead elite opinion or media exposure.


This article interrogates West and Zimmerman's Doing Gender paradigm by examining the Muxes of Juchitán, a little known third gender in El Istmo de Tehuantepec, Oaxaca México. After presenting preliminary findings based on personal interviews with forty-two muxes and forty-eight community members, distinguishing between muxes and gays and describing the wide variation in the muxe lifestyle, the essay concludes that muxes are a third sex/gender category that is actively redoing the prevailing Western gender binary as well as traditional Mexican conceptions of gender and sexuality. They are an indigenous third sex/gender category, which is less about Western conceptions of sexuality, sexual identity, or doing transgender and more about retaining the language, cultural categories, practices, and worldviews of indigenous communities.


With the transition of China's economy from the stage of rapid growth to the stage of high-quality development, the influence of the introduction of FDI on the high-quality development of regional economy has become more and more an issue to be discussed. This paper selects Guangdong Province as the frontier of China's reform and opening up. Combining with the new development concept of innovation, coordination, green, development and sharing, the high-quality development system of Guangdong's economy is constructed and the high-quality development index of Guangdong's economy is measured by entropy weight method. On this basis, empirical analysis of FDI on the quality of Guangdong province's economic development. Research shows that FDI can significantly promote the high-quality economic development of Guangdong, where technological progress and government intervention are important factors to promote the high-quality economic development of Guangdong, while industrial development hinders the high-quality economic development of Guangdong, urbanization has a positive role in promoting the high-quality economic development of Guangdong. However, the results were not significant. The results of quantile regression showed that for different levels of high-quality economic development, the promoting effect of FDI presented differences, specifically, with the improvement of the level of high-quality economic development, the promoting effect of FDI on high-quality economic development presented a gradual downward trend. Guangdong is in the important stage of the high-quality economic development to the objective and the role of FDI on Guangdong economy high-quality development, to distinguish the different economic development level of high-quality parts for the sensitivity of the FDI, specific aim ground is made science and Guangdong economy development stage of FDI into high-quality policy, to ensure high-quality economic growth is of great significance in Guangdong.


The fields of social psychology and neuroscience have known for several decades that culture affects the way people carve up the world. This perceptual difference is often, but not always, aligned with similar differences in linguistics categories. If correct, this problem of linguistic categorization may have considerable impact on search algorithms. This paper examines the relationship between culture and linguistic categorization for global search engines. A total of 43 American and Chinese participants completed two classification tests, one derived from social psychology and neuroscience and the other based on a common classification problem for full-text searching. These data suggest that Chinese participants are more field dependent, American participants are less field dependent, and that these results may offer important clues about adapting search algorithms for global computing systems.


BACKGROUND
Despite years of public health efforts, Chlamydia trachomatis remains a highly prevalent disease suggesting that current control strategies are not sufficient. Asymptomatic men with chlamydial infections are under-identified and probably play an important role in sustaining the epidemic. Novel methods of actively screening asymptomatic men are needed to reduce the prevalence of chlamydia. This formative study explored the features of a sexually transmissible infection (STI) control program that would encourage annual testing among men.

METHODS
Using semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, we explored issues related to health seeking behaviours and preferences for STI screening among men recruited from a public health STI clinic.

RESULTS
All 29 participants acknowledged the expertise of clinic staff and most men preferred speaking with a provider over using electronic informational resources. The clinic was the preferred venue for future screening, followed by self-collected home sampling with clinic drop-off. Men expressed a preference for receiving results via the telephone rather than electronic options, and preferred personalised reminders for future STI screening.

CONCLUSIONS
In this sample, there was high interest in utilising the expertise of STI clinic personnel and less in non-clinical options. While this may be due to recruiting from an STI clinic, the data serves as a reminder that service provision must be responsive to the needs of potential users. Our findings suggest that future non-clinic based screening strategies may require an initial educational component to address concerns about confidentiality and sample quality in order to be acceptable.


We address the problem of testing artificial intelligence (AI) hardware accelerators implementing spiking neural networks (SNNs). We define a metric to quickly rank available samples for training and testing based on their fault detection capability. The metric measures the interclass spike count difference of a sample for the fault-free design. In particular, each sample is assigned a score equal to the spike count difference between the first two top classes. The hypothesis is that samples with small scores achieve high fault coverage because they are prone to misclassification, i.e., a small perturbation in the network due to a fault will result in these samples being misclassified with high probability. We show that the proposed metric correlates with the per-sample fault coverage and that retaining a set of high-ranked samples in the order of ten achieves near-perfect fault coverage for critical faults that affect the SNN accuracy. The proposed test generation approach is demonstrated on two SNNs modeled in Python and on actual neuromorphic hardware. We discuss fault modeling and perform an analysis to reduce the fault space so as to speed up test generation time.


Heat-mirror coatings can play a significant role as transparent insulation for architectural windows. These coatings effectively reduce the thermal emittance of glass or plastic glazings, thereby decreasing the overall radiative loss of the glazing or window assembly. Coating techniques are detailed for both doped semiconductor and dielectric/metal multilayer films. For highly doped simeconductors, Drude theory is discussed. New and innovative materials systems are also suggested.


The role of nitric oxide (NO) in the cholinergic regulation of heart rate (HR) recovery from an aspect of simulated exercise was investigated in atria isolated from guinea pig to test the hypothesis that NO may be involved in the cholinergic antagonism of the positive chronotropic response to adrenergic stimulation. Inhibition of NO synthesis with NG-monomethyl-L-arginine (L-NMMA, 100 micro M) significantly slowed the time course of the reduction in HR without affecting the magnitude of the response elicited by bath-applied ACh (100 nM) or vagal nerve stimulation (2 Hz). The half-times (t1/2) of responses were 3.99 +/- 0.41 s in control vs. 7. 49 +/- 0.68 s in L-NMMA (P < 0.05). This was dependent on prior adrenergic stimulation (norepinephrine, 1 micro M). The effect of L-NMMA was reversed by L-arginine (1 mM; t1/2 4.62 +/- 0.39 s). The calcium-channel antagonist nifedipine (0.2 micro M) also slowed the kinetics of the reduction in HR caused by vagal nerve stimulation. However, the t1/2 for the reduction in HR with antagonists (2 mM Cs+ and 1 micro M ZD-7288) of the hyperpolarization-activated current were significantly faster compared with control. There was no additional effect of L-NMMA or L-NMMA+L-arginine on vagal stimulation in groups treated with nifedipine, Cs+, or ZD-7288. We conclude that NO contributes to the cholinergic antagonism of the positive cardiac chronotropic effects of adrenergic stimulation by accelerating the HR response to vagal stimulation. This may involve an interplay between two pacemaking currents (L-type calcium channel current and hyperpolarization-activated current). Whether NO modulates the vagal control of HR recovery from actual exercise remains to be determined.