Abstract Objective FMF is an inherited autoinflammatory syndrome caused by mutations in the MEFV gene. MEFV variants are still largely classified as acvariant of uncertain significance, or with unresolved classification, posing significant challenges in FMF diagnosis. Rare Exome Variant Ensemble Learner (REVEL) is a recently developed variant metapredictor tool. To reduce the number of MEFV variants with ambiguous classification, we extracted REVEL scores for all missense variants present in the INFEVERS database, and analysed its correlation with expert-based classification and localization in the MEFV-encoded pyrin functional domains. Methods The data set of 216 MEFV missense variants was divided into four categories (likely benign, variant of uncertain significance, likely pathogenic and unresolved). Variants were plotted onto the pyrin protein, the distribution of REVEL scores in each category was computed and means, confidence intervals, and area under the receiver operating curve were calculated. Results We observed a non-random distribution of pathogenic variants along the pyrin functional domains. The REVEL scores demonstrated a good correlation with the consensus classification of the International Study Group for Systemic Autoinflammatory Diseases. Sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were calculated for different cut-off values of REVEL scores and a gene-specific-threshold of 0.298 was computed with confidence boundary limits. This cut-off value allowed us to propose a reclassification of 96 MEFV gene variants, thus reducing the variant of uncertain significance proportion from 61.6% to 17.6%. Conclusion The combination of available expert information with sensitive predictor tools could result in a more accurate interpretation of clinical consequences of MEFV gene variants, and to a better genetic counselling and patient management.


This paper presents the modeling and analysis of a three-phase grid-connected wind energy conversion system using Matlab. The modeled system is characterized and analyzed for validation. An inverter control algorithm for effective power control is also proposed and evaluated. An LCL filter is designed to reduce the switching frequency ripple. But the LCL filter also makes the system unstable because of the zero impedance at the resonant frequency. Two current-loops with PR control strategy are analyzed in this paper to make sure the stability of the system. All analysis and evaluation have been conducted for a 3.5 kW power system with 208V grid voltage.


This study aims at identifying and describing stuttering suffered by the main
character in Rocket Science. The objectives of this study are to identify and
describe (1) the types of dysfluencies, (2) the types of associated behaviors, and (3)
the kinds of treatments experienced by the stuttering character in Rocket Science.
The study was a descriptive qualitative study with the researcher as the main
instrument and the data sheets as the secondary instrument. The object of this
research was the stuttering character's utterances in Rocket Science. The data were
utterances in the form of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences of the character
containing and reflecting the phenomenon of stuttering. Another data source was
the script of the movie. After being collected, the data were categorized and
analyzed based on each category in psycholinguistic study. To enhance the
trustworthiness of the data in this study, theory and researcher triangulations were
applied.
The result of the research shows three important points. First, there are two
types of speech dysfluencies, namely between-word dysfluencies and within word
dysfluencies. In between-word dysfluencies, there are interjections, multisyllabic
whole-word repetitions, revisions, and phrase repetitions. Then in within-word
dysfluencies, there are blocks (silent pauses), monosyllabic whole-word repetitions,
and repetitions of individual sounds and syllables. Interjections can rank as the
highest phenomenon in between-word dysfluencies because it is the most usual type
of dysfluencies. Even, normal people sometimes experience Interjections to delay
the initiation of a word the speaker expects to get stuck on. Meanwhile, blocks
(silent pauses) in within-word dysfluencies can rank as the highest phenomenon
because it is also the most usual type of dysfluencies too; even normal people
sometimes experience blocks (silent pauses). Then, there are four types of
associated behaviors of a stuttering person, namely eye behaviors, visible muscle
tension, head, torso, and limb movement, and audible inhalations or exhalations.
Eye behaviors can rank as the highest phenomenon in the associated behaviors of
stuttering because this phenomenon is the earliest and most frequently observed
associated behaviors that typically involve the eyes. Some of the more common eye
behaviors are blinking, squeezing the eyes shut during moments of stuttering, side
to-side movements of the eyes, and consistent loss of eye contact with the listener
during instances of types of speech dysfluencies. The last, there are three kinds of
treatments experienced by the stuttering character in Rocket Science. They are
manuevers that can induce fluency, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and speech
therapy. In addition, for the stuttering character, the implementations of those
treatments are successful enough in overcoming the stuttering although the film
shows that the treatments just can help Hal induce his fluency, not to make him
recover from his stuttering.


An efficient multiobjective evolutionary algorithm is described for optimizing a novel spline based printed monopole antenna. The antenna geometry is based on spline outlines. Both radiating element and groundplane are simultaneously optimized by the algorithm. The resulting antenna performance is evaluated. It is shown that the evolutionary algorithm and the spline geometry can be used to efficiently generate ultrawideband antennas on limited computing resources.


The flow of foreign direct investment has long been regarded as the main engine of growth in developing countries. Lebanon has aimed at attracting foreign direct investment to contribute to its economic recovery in the post-civil war period. EU countries were expected to be a major source of investment inflows, partly, due to their rich historical relationship, and partly, as an expected result of the new Euro-Med approach, adopted in the 1990s.This thesis assesses the EU private business interests in Lebanon during the reconstruction period, and investigates to what extent EU business engagements involved FDI. Within this framework, this thesis examines the role of the EU in encouraging the flow of EU private investments into Lebanon. This thesis falls into two parts. The first assesses the history of economic relations between Lebanon and Europe in the modern period, and the development of these relations after the establishment of the EC, examining the role of the latter in reshaping these relations. It also assesses the development of the Lebanese economy since independence from France. In the second part of the thesis, the theoretical framework of FDI is applied to a survey of EU private businesses operating in Lebanon. This helped in answering two questions: what business activities did involve FDI, and why EU firms engagement in FDI was very shallow. The thesis concludes that the lack of FDI activities in Lebanon, whether EU or non-EU, was a result of the lack of comparative location-specific advantages. It also suggests that the Lebanese government should assume a stronger role in improving Lebanon's comparative advantages in order to attract FDI. The EU should provide substantial help - within the Euro-Med approach - to encourage EU private business investments in the country.


The Lake Imandra watershed is located in one of the most developed regions in the Arctic - the Kola Peninsula of Russia. Approximately 300 000 people live on the roughly 27 000 km² watershed, making it one of the most densely populated areas of the Arctic. Most of the people are involved in large-scale mineral extraction and processing and the infrastructure needed to support this industry. This paper reports the results of a pilot project staged for the Lake Imandra watershed that has put human dynamics within the framework of ecosystem change to integrate available information and formulate conceptual models of likely future scenarios. The observation period is one of both rapid economic growth and human expansion, with an overall economic decline in the past decade. We are applying the Participatory Integrated Assessment (PIA) approach to integrate information, identify information gaps, generate likely future scenarios, and link scientific findings to the decision-making process. We found an increasingly vulnerable human population in varying states of awareness about their local environment and fully cognizant of their economic troubles, with many determined to attempt maintenance of relatively high population densities in the near future even as many residents of northern Russia migrate south. A series of workshops have involved the citizens and local decision makers in an attempt to tap their knowledge of the region and to increase their awareness about the linkages between the socioeconomic and ecological components.


AIMS: To compare the lineage specific distribution of MUC1 and MUC2 mucins in normal colorectal mucosa and adenocarcinoma and to identify pathological correlations. METHODS: Paraffin wax sections from 51 colorectal cancers were examined for the expression of MUC1 and MUC2, non-O-acetyl sialic acid and the carbohydrate epitopes Lex, Ley, sialosyl-Lex, sialosyl-Tn, and Tn using standard histochemical methods. RESULTS: MUC1, Lex and Ley co-localised with columnar cell secretions, whereas MUC2, mild periodic acid Schiff and sialosyl-Tn co-localised with goblet cell mucin in both normal and malignant tissues. Sialosyl-Lex and Tn were associated with both lineages. In normal tissues MUC1, Lex and Ley showed only trace expression by crypt base columnar cells. Cancers could be classified into four phenotypes (MUC2+/MUC1-, MUC2+/MUC1+, MUC2-/MUC1+, MUC2-/MUC1-). Particular phenotypes showed significant correlations with cancer type, lymph node spread and peritumoral lymphocytic infiltration and trends falling short of significance in relation to grade of differentiation and contiguous adenoma. CONCLUSIONS: Classification of colorectal cancer by means of lineage specific function may be relevant to both pathogenesis and prognosis.


In heterogeneous network environments with performance variations present, complex distributed applications, such as distributed visual tracking applications, are desired to adapt themselves and to adjust their resource demands dynamically, in response to fluctuations in either end system or network resources. By such adaptations, they are able to preserve the user-perceptible critical QoS parameters, and trade off non-critical ones. However, correct decisions on adaptation timing and scale, such as determining data rate transmitted from the server to clients in an application, depend on accurate observations of system states, such as quantities of data in transit or arrived at the destination. Significant end-to-end delay may obstruct the desired accurate observation. We present an optimal state prediction approach to estimate current states based on available state observations. Once accurate predictions are made, the applications can be adjusted dynamically based on a control-theoretical model. Finally, we show the effectiveness of our approach with experimental results in a client-server based visual tracking application, where application control and state estimations are accomplished by middleware components.


The TiC particles are selected as reinforced phase and the Hadfield steel as matrix. The powder metallurgy liquid phase sintering technique is adopted to fabricate TiC particles reinforced Hadfield steel matrix composites. The effects of elements Mo and Ni on the performance of the composites were studied. The impact wear tester is adopted to investigate the wear-resistant property of the composites under the different impact loads. Adding Mo can improve the interfacial bonding between the Hadfield steel and TiC, and the best adding ratio between Mo and TiC is 1:3.68. Adding 2%(vol.%)Ni can significantly improve the density and hardness of the composites. The experiment results of impact wear tests show that under the condition of low and middling loads, the composites display the best wear-resistant properties, moreover, the more TiC content is, the better wear-resistance property is. Under 2.0J impact energy, the wear resistance of the composite containing 40%(vol.%) TiC is 1.3 times of Hadfield steel.


Cows, ewes, and mares varied considerably in susceptibility to toxicoses from the oral administration of the piperidine alkaloid, coniine. Cows were most susceptible and ewes least. Only calves had teratogenic effects from maternal administration of coniine during gestation; lambs and foals were apparently resistant. Results suggest that the marked differences between cattle and sheep are probably not due to variation in gut absorption or rumen metabolism.


Accurate diagnosis of the components of our food and a standard lexicon for clear communication is essential for regulating global food trade and identifying food frauds. Reliable identification of wild collected foods can be particularly difficult, especially when they originate in under-documented regions or belong to poorly known groups such as Fungi. Porcini, one of the most widely traded wild edible mushrooms in the world, are large and conspicuous and they are used as a food both on their own and in processed food products. China is a major exporter of porcini, most of it ending up in Europe. We used DNAsequencing to identify three species of mushroom contained within a commercial packet of dried Chinese porcini purchased in London. Surprisingly, all three have never been formally described by science and required new scientific names. This demonstrates the ubiquity of unknown fungal diversity even in widely traded commercial food products from one of the most charismatic and least overlooked groups of mushrooms. Our rapid analysis and description makes it possible to reliably identify these species, allowing their harvest to be monitored and their presence tracked in the food chain.


Arithmetic word problem (AWP) solving is a highly demanding task for children with learning disabilities (LD) since verbal and mathematical information have to be integrated. This study examines specifically how syntactic awareness (SA), the ability to manage the grammatical structures of language, affects AWP solving. Three groups of children in elementary education were formed: children with arithmetic learning disabilities (ALD), children with reading learning disabilities (RLD), and children with comorbid arithmetic and reading learning disabilities (ARLD). Mediation analysis confirmed that SA was a mediator variable for both groups of children with reading disabilities when solving AWPs, but not for children in the ALD group. All groups performed below the control group in the problem solving task. When SA was controlled for, semantic structure and position of the unknown set were variables that affected both groups with ALD. Specifically, children with ALD only were more affected by the place of the unknown set.


In this paper, we experimentally investigated discharge phenomena inside vacuum interrupter at 1 to 20 Torr to simulate the vacuum leakage. We used glass type of vacuum interrupter where the internal pressure and the type of gasses can be varied according to requirement. The experiment is conducted under AC applied voltage and the experimental circuit is constructed to simulate the actual circuit used in cubical type insulated switchgear. We used two types of gases such as air and SF/sub 6/. The use of glass type vacuum interrupter allowed us to measure discharges occurring in vacuum interrupter optically. We measured and discussed the discharge occurring in both gases with a current transformer and ICCD camera. We also revealed that electromagnetic wave spectra emitted by the discharge have same frequency range for both gasses.


Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) deficiency promoted an exacerbation of autoimmune arthritis in mice by inducing proinflammatory immune responses. In this study we analysed the contribution of hypercholesterolaemia and/or the absence of ApoE anti‐inflammatory properties, unrelated to its function in the control of cholesterol metabolism, towards the acceleration of arthritis in these mutant animals. The induction and severity of collagen type II‐induced arthritis (CIA) were compared for B10.RIII wild‐type (WT), B10.RIII.ApoE+/–, B10.RIII.ApoE–/– and B10.RIII.low‐density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR–/–) mice with different concentrations of circulating ApoE and cholesterol. A 50–70% reduction in serum levels of ApoE was observed in heterozygous B10.RIII.ApoE+/– mice in comparison to B10.RIII.WT, although both strains of mice exhibited similar circulating lipid profiles. This ApoE reduction was associated with an increased CIA severity that remained lower than in homozygous B10.RIII.ApoE–/– mice. An important rise in circulating ApoE concentration was observed in hypercholesterolaemic B10.RIII.LDLR–/– mice fed with a normal chow diet, and both parameters increased further with an atherogenic hypercholesterolaemic diet. However, the severity of CIA in B10.RIII.LDLR–/– mice was similar to that of B10.RIII.WT controls. In conclusion, by comparing the evolution of CIA between several strains of mutant mice with different levels of serum ApoE and cholesterol, our results demonstrate that both hypercholesterolaemia and ApoE regulate the intensity of in‐vivo systemic autoimmune responses.


PURPOSE
The aim of this study was to examine how nursing unit turnover affects key workgroup processes and how these processes mediate the impact of nursing turnover on patient outcomes.

METHODS
A secondary data analysis was used to test the hypothesized model. This study used registered nurse and patient data from 268 nursing units at 141 hospitals collected as part of the Outcomes Research in Nursing Administration (ORNA II) project. Nursing units provided monthly nursing unit turnover rates for 6 consecutive months, and registered nurses completed questionnaires measuring workgroup processes (group cohesion, relational coordination, and workgroup learning). Patient outcome measures included unit-level average length of patient stay, patient falls, medication errors, and patient satisfaction scores.

RESULTS
Nursing units with moderate levels of turnover were likely to have lower levels of workgroup learning compared to those with no turnover (p<.01). Nursing units with low levels of turnover were likely to have fewer patient falls than nursing units with no turnover (p<.05). Additionally, workgroup cohesion and relational coordination had a positive impact on patient satisfaction (p<.01), and increased workgroup learning led to fewer occurrences of severe medication errors (p<.05).

CONCLUSIONS
The findings of this study provide specific information on the operational impact of turnover so as to better design, fund, and implement appropriate intervention strategies to prevent registered nurse exit from nursing units. Further investigation is needed to assess the turnover-outcomes relationship as well as the mediating effect of workgroup processes on this relationship.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Managing nursing unit turnover within appropriate levels at the nursing unit is critical to delivering high-quality patient care.


SUBJECT: Faced with increasing cost pressure of the social insurance system the carriers of rehabilitation programs focus on the efficacy of their measures. The diagnostic instrument for work motivation (DIAMO) has been developed to assess the influence of job-related motivation on the rehabilitation outcome. METHOD: The inner structure of the instrument was validated and optimized in a cohort of medical rehabilitation patients (n = 422). Construct validity was further tested by using established instruments. RESULTS: Ten scales related to self-image, intention of action and goodness of fit show good psychometric qualities (Cronbachs alpha: 0.72 - 0.86). The constructs correlate moderately-to-strongly with personality-oriented scales while correlation with disease-related contents is low. CONCLUSIONS: The DIAMO is a generic and not disease oriented instrument. It would be expected to facilitate the development of vocational interventions to increase the rehabilitation outcome.


Model based control schemes, such as nonlinear model predictive control, assume that the full state vector of the plant is known for feedback control. However, in reality this is not always true. Most times only a set of noisy measurements are available, and thus, the unmeasured states need to be inferred from these measurements. This is done in combination with a detailed model of the system. The most common nonlinear state estimation methods do not have a means to deal with bounds or constraints on the states in an efficient or systematical way. These bounds and constraints are important in chemical engineering processes since states usually have physical meaning, for example, concentrations, molecular weights, and conversions are always positive. Therefore, state estimates must be physically feasible. Since Moving Horizon Estimation (MHE) is optimization based it has become a superior strategy for constrained state estimation because bounds are handled optimally by theNonlinear Programming (NLP) solver. In the present workwe develop strategies for MHE based on NLP sensitivity to reduce the on-line computational expense of solving these problems. These formulations are intended to make the on-line application of MHE feasible, by reducing the potential of delays due to the computational expense of solving the associated NLP. Here we discuss two approaches to update certain tuning parameters in MHE: one of them allows us to reduce the size of the NLP that is being solved, while the other provides a fast approximation of the covariance of the initial condition. The former method is only suitable for small and medium sized problems, while the latter one is better suited for large-scale systems. Additionally, we also discuss NLP sensitivity theory and extensions that apply to the Interior Point solver we use (i.e., IPOPT). With these extensions we are able to develop fast on-line strategies for NMPC and MHE. However, in this work we focus only in the application of these developments to the latter. To reduce the horizon window we propose methods to approximate the initial condition parameters based on particle filters and sample based statistics to approximate the conditional probability density function (or its parameters) of the initial condition of the states in the MHE horizon window (i.e., the so-called arrival cost). As mentioned above, this approach is suitable mostly for only certain classes of systems that have few states or almost Gaussian behaviors. Therefore, we also develop other methods for on-lineMHE suitable for large-scale systems that uses moremeasurements to reduce any effects of the simplifications done to approximate the initial condition terms. Thus, using NLP sensitivity we develop strategies that leverage the parametric properties of the MHE problem to formulate fast on-line methods applicable to large-scale systems. Moreover, using NLP sensitivity also allows us to relate the optimality conditions of the associated NLP problem to the stochastic origin of MHE. For example, we show the relationship of the covariance of the state estimates with the reduced Hessian matrix of the NLP. This information can also be used to update the parameters if the initial condition penalty term. Moreover, we also discuss the use of Robust M-Estimators to reduce the effects of outliers or gross errors in the measurements. Finally, we illustrate the use and benefits of these strategies through several small and large-scale examples taken from the literature. ABSTRACT ii


W a l l a c e Denton has the r e m a r k a b l e a b i l i t y t o c o m m u n i c a t e t h e m o s t technical d a t a in concise, r e a d a b l e t e r m s that are useful to the mos t technical ly equipped e x p e r t and the average l a y m a n at one a n d the same t ime. This b o o k is a n excellent e x a m p l e of h o w h e h a s processed the d a t a on such subjects as a profi le of the o r d i n a r y fami ly in the 1 9 7 0 ' s , the struggle for in t imacy in marr iage , t h e m a n a g e m e n t of conflict , m o n e y , t ime, a n d boredom in t h e c o n t e m p o r a r y stress-ridden fami ly . He identifies the difficulties of parenthood , and makes the generation g a p created b y the countercu l ture of today m a k e sense to bo th y o u n g a n d o ld .


Twitter uses machine learning to crop images, where crops are centered around the part predicted to be the most salient. In fall 2020, Twitter users raised concerns that the automated image cropping system on Twitter favored light-skinned over dark-skinned individuals, as well as concerns that the system favored cropping woman's bodies instead of their heads. In order to address these concerns, we conduct an extensive analysis using formalized group fairness metrics. We find systematic disparities in cropping and identify contributing factors, including the fact that the cropping based on the single most salient point can amplify the disparities because of an effect we term argmax bias. However, we demonstrate that formalized fairness metrics and quantitative analysis on their own are insufficient for capturing the risk of representational harm in automatic cropping. We suggest the removal of saliency-based cropping in favor of a solution that better preserves user agency. For developing a new solution that sufficiently address concerns related to representational harm, our critique motivates a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods that include human-centered design.


We previously reported (Cancer Res., 50:6139-6145, 1990) a significant frequency of activating point mutations in codon 12 of the K-ras oncogene in endometrial adenocarcinomas of the uterine corpus (series 1). To further define the role of ras activation in the development of endometrial adenocarcinoma, we surveyed cystic, adenomatous, and atypical hyperplasias of uterine endometrium and additional cases of endometrial and cervical carcinoma (series 2) for the presence of activating mutations in cellular protooncogenes of the ras family. Polymerase chain reaction was performed from deparaffinized sections of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue. We screened for point mutations in codons 12, 13, and 61 of the K-, H-, and N-ras genes by dot blot hybridization analysis with mutation-specific oligomers. Mutations in K-ras were also confirmed by direct genomic DNA sequencing. Of 19 endometrial adenocarcinomas in series 2, point mutations in ras genes were found in 7 tumors. Six contained single-base substitutions, five in codon 12 of K-ras and one in codon 12 of N-ras. The seventh tumor contained two different point mutations in codon 12 of K-ras. In one endometrial adenocarcinoma, tumor cells with point mutations in K-ras were predominantly localized to a portion that had a more aggressive histological pattern. In endometrial hyperplasia, K-ras mutations, one in codon 12 and one in codon 13, were found in 2 of 16 hyperplasias histologically classified as atypical and clinically considered premalignant. None of 6 adenomatous hyperplasias and none of 12 cystic hyperplasias, the latter of which is considered clinically benign, contained any detectable ras mutations. No mutations in H-ras were detected in either carcinomas or hyperplastic tissue.


It is astonishing both how little and how much we know about neutrinos. On one hand, the neutrino is the second most abundant particle in our Universe. Neutrinos may be created in the Sun, core collapse supernovae, cosmic rays, geological background radiation, supernova remnants and in the Big Bang. On the other hand, they have unimaginably small masses and are unwilling to react with their surroundings. Because of their abundance and their inclination to show us physics beyond the standard model of particle physics, neutrinos are hoped to carry yet unknown information of the Universe. However, it will take some effort and time to persuade the neutrinos to tell us what they know.Among the things we do not yet know of the neutrinos, is the -phase in the neutrino mixing matrix. If is in fact non-zero, neutrino flavour oscillations violate CP-symmetry. Also, if neutrino masses are introduced in the standard model through the See-Saw mechanism and if leptogenesis is a valid theory, CP-violation in neutrino oscillations could help explain why our Universe has no antimatter even though equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been created at the Big Bang.In this thesis, we investigate the flavour evolution of supernova neutrinos. We present the full Hamiltonian in the flavour basis for our system and identify how the different contributions affect the evolution and in which environment. We also present a theoretical motivation from [1, 2] as to how a non-zero -phase affects the flavour evolution and the final energy spectra. The analytical conclusion is that it has no impact under the assumptions made in our analysis. Thus, the -phase may not be measurable from supernova neutrinos.


: Cholinergic modulation on the regulation of tyrosine hydroxylase was studied in guinea pig atria depolarized with high potassium concentration. In these conditions there was an increment in tyrosine hydroxylase activity as well as in the release of radioactivity from atria preincubated with 3H-noradrenaline. Both effects were concentration-dependent. Incubation in the presence of 10 microM methacholine, 31 microM 1,1 dimethyl-4-phenylpiperazinium iodide (DMPP), 0.15 microM atropine or 83 microM hexamethonium did not affect tyrosine hydroxylase activation by 100 mM K+. The percentage of activation was reduced however, when 7 microM physostigmine (acetylcholinesterase inhibitor) was present during depolarization. This effect is unlikely to be related to the increase of acetylcholine concentration in the interface, but more probably to a direct effect on the enzyme. In conclusion, tyrosine hydroxylase activation induced by 100 mM potassium appears to be unrelated to the stimulation of nicotinic and muscarinic presynaptic receptors.


Consider the following Online Boolean Matrix-Vector Multiplication problem: We are given an n x n matrix M and will receive n column-vectors of size n, denoted by v1, ..., vn, one by one. After seeing each vector vi, we have to output the product Mvi before we can see the next vector. A naive algorithm can solve this problem using O(n3) time in total, and its running time can be slightly improved to O(n3/log2 n) [Williams SODA'07]. We show that a conjecture that there is no truly subcubic (O(n3-ε)) time algorithm for this problem can be used to exhibit the underlying polynomial time hardness shared by many dynamic problems. For a number of problems, such as subgraph connectivity, Pagh's problem, d-failure connectivity, decremental single-source shortest paths, and decremental transitive closure, this conjecture implies tight hardness results. Thus, proving or disproving this conjecture will be very interesting as it will either imply several tight unconditional lower bounds or break through a common barrier that blocks progress with these problems. This conjecture might also be considered as strong evidence against any further improvement for these problems since refuting it will imply a major breakthrough for combinatorial Boolean matrix multiplication and other long-standing problems if the term "combinatorial algorithms" is interpreted as "Strassen-like algorithms" [Ballard et al. SPAA'11]. The conjecture also leads to hardness results for problems that were previously based on diverse problems and conjectures -- such as 3SUM, combinatorial Boolean matrix multiplication, triangle detection, and multiphase -- thus providing a uniform way to prove polynomial hardness results for dynamic algorithms; some of the new proofs are also simpler or even become trivial. The conjecture also leads to stronger and new, non-trivial, hardness results, e.g., for the fully-dynamic densest subgraph and diameter problems.


RATIONALE
Protective effects of a high quality diet on respiratory health, particularly among youths exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), are unknown.

OBJECTIVES
To assess if a higher quality diet is associated with improved respiratory symptoms and lung function among adolescents, and if these associations are modified by ETS exposure.

METHODS
This was a cross-sectional study on 7,026 nonsmoking adolescents of the 2003-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Diet quality was assessed using the Healthy Eating Index-2010 score (HEI-2010), categorized into quintiles. ETS exposure was measured using serum cotinine, dichotomized as high (>2.99 ng/ml) or low (≤2.99 ng/ml). Outcomes included the presence of wheezing and cough symptoms in the past 12 months, and in a sub-group, spirometric lung function. Survey-design adjusted logistic and linear models evaluated associations between diet and 1) respiratory symptoms and 2) lung function, respectively, and assessed the interaction between HEI-2010 and serum cotinine.

RESULTS
While there were no significant associations between diet quality and respiratory symptoms, there was a significant interaction between HEI-2010 and serum cotinine on wheezing (pint = 0.011). In models stratified by serum cotinine, adolescents with high serum cotinine and the healthiest diet (5th quintile HEI-2010) experienced lower wheezing odds (OR, 0.10; 95% CI, 0.02-0.61), compared to those with the poorest diet (1st quintile HEI-2010). In contrast, among adolescents with low serum cotinine, there were no significant differences in any respiratory symptoms between those with the highest, compared to the lowest diet quality. Of the sub-group with spirometry data (n = 3,166), there was a trend towards better lung function with improving diet quality, although this did not achieve statistical significance. There was no effect modification by ETS exposure on the relationship between diet quality and lung function.

CONCLUSIONS
Consuming a higher quality diet was associated with lower wheezing odds in adolescents with substantial ETS exposure. While longitudinal studies are needed, public health interventions to improve diet quality in vulnerable, environmentally-exposed populations merit consideration.


To better understand the relationship between EEG signals and hand movements the WAY Consortium has organized the Grasp-and-Lift EEG Detection challenge. It was held in 2015 from 29th June to 31th August on Kaggle, a platform for competitive predictive modeling, and attracted 379 contesting teams. The goal of the challenge was to detect 6 different events related to hand movement during a task of grasping and lifting an object, using only EEG signal. The 6 events were representing different stages of a sequence of hand movements (hand starts moving, starts lifting the object, etc.). True labels were extracted from EMG signal, and provided as a +/-150ms frame centered on the occurrence of the event. Contestants were asked to provide probabilities of detection for the 6 events and for every time sample. The evaluation metric for this challenge was the Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC) averaged over the 6 event types. Finally, the model must be causal, i.e. only the data from the past can be used to predict the events. This abstract presents the winning solution of this challenge.


Background Among the possible renal complications that can develop a human immunodeficiency virus- (HIV) infected patient, thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA) is one of them. This is a type of vascular lesion more common in HIV patients than in normal population, and sometimes it can be the first manifestation of the HIV infection. Methods We present a patient with TMA in whom the subsequent investigation to find the cause of TMA revealed HIV infection and Giardia Lamblia in stool. Results Before antiretroviral therapy was started the patient began to show recovery of the hemolytic anemia, recovery of the nephrotic syndrome and partial remission of the proteinuria, so that he did not receive specific therapy for TMA. Conclusions HIV infection should be suspected in patients presenting with TMA, and a HIV test should be routinely performed as part of the initial clinical evaluation of TMA. If the patients have not developed acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, the prognosis of TMA is equal to non-infected ones.


Hydrogen is expected to play an important role as a clean, reliable and renewable energy source. A key challenge is the production of hydrogen in an economically and environmentally sustainable way on an industrial scale. One promising method of hydrogen production is via biological processes using agricultural resources, where the hydrogen is found to be mixed with other gases, such as carbon dioxide. Thus, to separate hydrogen from the mixture, it is challenging to implement and evaluate a simple, low cost, reliable and efficient separation process. So, the aim of this work was to develop a polymeric membrane for hydrogen separation. The developed membranes were made of polysulfone via phase inversion by a controlled evaporation method with 5 wt % and 10 wt % of polysulfone resulting in thicknesses of 132 and 239 micrometers, respectively. Membrane characterization was performed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and ASTM D882 tensile test. Performance was characterized using a 2 factorial experiment using the time lag method, comparing the results with those from gas chromatography (GC). As a result, developed membranes exhibited dense microstructures, low values of RMS roughness, and glass transition temperatures of approximately 191.75 °C and 190.43 °C for the 5 wt % and 10 wt % membranes, respectively. Performance results for the given membranes showed a hydrogen selectivity of 8.20 for an evaluated gas mixture 54% hydrogen and 46% carbon dioxide. According to selectivity achieved, H2 separation from carbon dioxide is feasible with possibilities of scalability. These results are important for consolidating hydrogen production from biological processes.


Spring wheat (L.) grain dry matter (DM) has been increased in previous greenhouse experiments through the use of a nitrification inhibitor (NI), which provides an enhanced ammonium supply (EAS). The objective of this research was to determine, under greenhouse conditions, the effect of EAS on the accumulation and partitioning of DM and N at several stages of plant development and on the yield components (heads plant, kernels head, and kernel weight). Enhanced NH supply increased plant DM at 18 d after plant emergence, boot stage, 7 d after anthesis, and maturity. Enhanced NH supply did not alter the relative partitioning of DM among leaf, stem, and grain at any stage of development. Effects of EAS on plant and grain DM at maturity increased with increasing N rate. At the highest N rates, grain DM was increased 18 and 6% in two experiments. Nitrogen and moisture stress appeared to alter grain DM response to EAS. Increased grain DM was associated with an increased number of heads plant. Kernels head were decreased with EAS, but kernel weight was not affected. Consequently, EAS increased heads plant more than grain DM. At growth stages prior to maturity, EAS increased plant N uptake. At maturity, plant N uptake was slightly and inconsistently affected by EAS; however, the proportion of plant N in the grain was increased by EAS. This indicated a greater translocation of N from the stem to the grain with EAS. In general, increased spring wheat grain DM is associated with proportional increases in plant DM throughout plant development, but not necessarily with proportional increases in plant N uptake. Heads plant is the only yield component increased positively by EAS and thus warrants further research.


Background A once-daily single-tablet regimen (STR) containing rilpivirine/emtricitabine/tenofovir (RPV/FTC/TDF) has been recently approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the treatment of treatment-naïve HIV patients with a baseline viral load below 100,000 copies/mL. Additionally, it's prescribed when switching treatment. Purpose To describe the characteristics of patients starting RPV/FTC/TDF during the first six months of its inclusion in our hospital. To define reasons to be on RPV/FTC/TDF other than initiating antiretroviral treatment (ART) in treatment-naïve patients. Materials and methods Retrospective descriptive study including all patients starting or switching to RPV/FTC/TDF between April–September 2013 in a tertiary university hospital. Data collected: demographics (sex, age), starting or switching reasons, previous ART, CD4+ count and HIV viral load at baseline. Data are expressed as median (Q1-Q3). Results 78 patients initiated RPV/FTC/TDF: 18 (23%) treatment-naïve patients and 60 (77%) pre-treated patients. Treatment-naïve patients. Men: 16 (88.9%); age: 34.6 (33.8–42.9) years; CD4+ count: 358.0 (304.3–464.5) cell/mcL; HIV-RNA: 44513 (21130–71551) copies/mL. Reasons to start treatment: CD4+ count <500 cell/mcL: 13 (72.2%); patient's request: 4 (22.2%) and ART restart: 1 (5.6%). Pre-treated patients. Men: 54 (90.0%); age: 44.9 (38.0–51.2) years; CD4+ count 645.0 (405.8–807.5) cell/mcL; HIV-RNA <50 copies/mL: 48 (89%) patients. Reasons for switching to RPV/FTC/TDF: side effects 48 (80%) patients; drug interactions 3 (5.0%); simplifying to STR 6 (10.0%) and patient's request 3 (5.0%). Type of side effects: CNS effects 34 (70.8%) patients; gastrointestinal tract dysfunctions 11 (22.9%) and lipid profile abnormalities 3 (6.25%). Previous treatment: non-nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI) 39 (65.0%) patients and protease inhibitors 21 (35.0%). Conclusions Only 23% patients starting RPV/FTC/TDF were treatment-naïve, following EMA approval conditions. Naïve patients were younger, had a lower CD4+ count and higher viral load than pre-treated patients. Main reason for initiating ART with RPV/FTC/TDF was immunological progression. Main reasons for switching to RPV/FTC/TDF were side effects such as CNS and gastrointestinal tract dysfunctions. The most common previous treatment was NNRTI-based ART. No conflict of interest.


Axolotls and other salamanders have the capacity to regenerate lost tissue after an amputation or injury. Growth and morphogenesis are coordinated within cell groups in many contexts by the interplay of transcriptional networks and biophysical properties such as ion flows and voltage gradients. It is not, however, known whether regulators of a cell's ionic state are involved in limb patterning at later stages of regeneration. Here we manipulated expression and activities of ion channels and gap junctions in vivo, in axolotl limb blastema cells. Limb amputations followed by retroviral infections were performed to drive expression of a human gap junction protein Connexin 26 (Cx26), potassium (Kir2.1-Y242F and Kv1.5) and sodium (NeoNav1.5) ion channel proteins along with EGFP control. Skeletal preparation revealed that overexpressing Cx26 caused syndactyly, while overexpression of ion channel proteins resulted in digit loss and structural abnormalities compared to EGFP expressing control limbs. Additionally, we showed that exposing limbs to the gap junction inhibitor lindane during the regeneration process caused digit loss. Our data reveal that manipulating native ion channel and gap junction function in blastema cells results in patterning defects involving the number and structure of the regenerated digits. Gap junctions and ion channels have been shown to mediate ion flows that control the endogenous voltage gradients which are tightly associated with the regulation of gene expression, cell cycle progression, migration, and other cellular behaviors. Therefore, we postulate that mis-expression of these channels may have disturbed this regulation causing uncoordinated cell behavior which results in morphological defects.


Secretory vesicles containing polysaccharide were isolated from germinated pollen of Lilium longiflorum and characterized by biochemical and ultrastructural investigation. Pollen tubes exhibit a secretory pathway in which the vesicles concentrated in the tube apex are produced by the Golgi apparatus and contributed to the cell wall at the apex upon fusion of the vesicle membrane with the plasma membrane. Secretory vesicles were isolated by a method involving the size discrimination of cytoplasmic components using Millipore filters. Cells were disrupted under conditions which minimized membrane vesiculation. Identification was made by electron-microscopic comparison of the periodic acid-silver hexamine (PASH) reactivities of in situ and isolated secretory vesicles. The secretory vesicles contained polysaccharides which were high in galacturonic acid and similar in sugar composition to those of the hot-water-soluble fraction of pollen tube cell wall. A hot-water-insoluble, non-cellulosic glucan was the major component of the cell wall. Less than 7% of the wall was cellulosic. Chitin was absent. Similarities in the ultrastructure and PASH staining of apical secretory vesicles and an amorphous component of the cell wall support a precursor-product relationship between these 2 cell components. Ultrastructural investigations revealed complexes of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) associated with electron-translucent regions of cytoplasm, suggesting a possible function of the ER in cell wall formation. Additionally, patterns of PASH staining show that changes in polysaccharides occur in secretory vesicles after vesicles have been formed by dictyosomes. Therefore, secretory vesicles may have a role in polysaccharide synthesis as well as in membrane and product transport.


In this paper, an efficient VLSI architecture of a pipeline fast Fourier transform (FFT) processor capable of producing the normal output order sequence is presented. A new FFT design based on the decimated dual-path delay feed-forward data commutator unit by splitting the input stream into two half-word streams is first proposed. The resulting architecture can achieve full hardware efficiency such that the required number of adders can be reduced by half. Next, in order to generate the normal output order sequence, this paper also presents a sequence conversion method by integrating the conversion function into the last-stage data commutator module.


CIMMYT has invested a large and significant amount of public expenditures in wheat breeding research each year for several decades. Estimates of the impact of the wheat breeding program on wheat yield increases provides information to scientists, administrators, and policy makers regarding the efficacy and the rate of return to these investments, providing important information for future funding decisions. Using CIMMYT test plot data from the Yaqui Valley in Mexico from 1990-2002, regression results indicate that the release of modern CIMMYT varieties has contributed approximately 53.77 kg/ha to yield annually. The growing conditions of the experiment fields located in the Yaqui Valley approximate 40% of the developing world's wheat growing conditions. A rough estimate of the gains attributed to CIMMYT's wheat breeding program on a global scale is 304 million (2002) USD annually during the period 1990-2002. CIMMYT's total wheat breeding cost in 2002 was approximately 6 million dollars, making the benefit cost ratio approximately 50 to 1.


A number of new molecular entities (NMEs) selected for full-scale development based on their safety and pharmacological data suffer from undesirable physicochemical and biopharmaceutical properties, which lead to poor pharmacokinetics and distribution after in vivo administration. An optimization of the preformulation studies to develop a dosage form with proper drug delivery system to achieve desirable pharmacokinetic and toxicological properties can aid in the accelerated development of these NMEs into therapies. Nanoparticulate drug delivery systems show a promising approach to obtain desirable druglike properties by altering the biopharmaceutics and pharmacokinetics properties of the molecule. Apart from the advantages of enhancing potential for systemic administration, nanoparticulate drug delivery systems can also be used for site-specific delivery, thus alleviating unwanted toxicity due to nonspecific distribution, improve patient compliance, and provide favorable clinical outcomes. This review summarizes some of the parameters and approaches that can be used to evaluate nanoparticulate drug delivery systems in early stages of formulation development.


We propose using agent-based modeling to study the impact of physical activity on health benefit and risk. Previous researches have focused on aggregated analysis at the population or group level, making recommendations that are useful, but may not be appropriate for individuals with substantially different health/risk profiles. The proposed model explores individualized recommendations of physical activity levels for risk adjusted health benefits while also allows population level analysis ofsocietal health benefits and system dynamics.


This paper presents a mathematical programming model that allows quality to be explicitly considered in project planning and scheduling, while addressing the tradeoffs between quality, time, and cost. A quality function is used to represent the relationships between time, cost, and quality for individual tasks. The initial problem formulation maximizes the minimum quality (weakest link) over all project tasks, subject to bounds on cost and completion time. Using a construction example we show how this model can be adapted to generate quality level curves to illustrate the trade-offs among time, cost, and quality. These level curves can then be used by project managers to make project scheduling decisions that explicitly model and consider quality as well as time and cost, so that better and more appropriate decisions can be made for a particular situation. We also offer some managerial insights for project planning and scheduling that are derived from the analysis through improved understanding of these choices and tradeoffs.


The immigrant puts at issue assumptions of inviolability of borders, territoriality of sovereignty, and exclusivity of citizenship - fundamental characteristics of the modern state. The immigrant calls into question cultural homogeneity, linguistic commonality, shared history, and security of identity - the key ideologies of the nation. This article explores these issues by locating them in spatial and temporal sites removed from the common foci of current immigration debates. Using three stories of migration from colonial and postcolonial South Asia, the first part of the article demonstrates that within the general context of empire and imperialism, the determinants and processes of migration are multiple, as borders are porous, identities flexible and sovereignties malleable. Recounting the story of post-migration existence of a particular South Asian community, the second part of the article demonstrates that the compatibility of the immigrant with the nation and the state is always partial, contingent and unstable.


ABSTRACT Wu, Y.; Li, Q.; Liu, Y.; Xu, Y.; Wang, X., and Li, W., 2020. Study on dispersion of marine pollutants from islands in the southern section of Bohai Strait. In: Zheng, C.W.; Wang, Q.; Zhan, C., and Yang, S.B. (eds.), Air-Sea Interaction and Coastal Environments of the Maritime and Polar Silk Roads. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 99, pp. 242–249. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. The three-dimensional hydrodynamic model was established based on FVCOM, coupled with the Lagrangian particle tracking module to study the water exchange ability of 15 drain outlets of North and South Changshan Island. Meanwhile, the 30-day influence distance was introduced to quantify the water exchange ability. The drain outlets with a strong water exchange capacity are mainly located in the east of North and South Changshan Islands and the southwest corner of South Changshan Island, and those with a weak water exchange capacity are mainly located in the northwest corner of North Changshan Island, joint of South Changshan Island and the tombolo dyke and inside the Changdao Harbor. The 30-day influence range of the 15 drain outlets of North and South Changshan Islands is significantly affected by monsoon. East Asian monsoon accelerates the dispersion of the pollutants in the south sea areas of Bohai Strait.


The Poseidon P332 cruise in the Cape Verde Island region was undertaken as part of the UK-SOLAS project
(Surface-Ocean / Lower-Atmosphere Study, websites: www.solas-int.org and
www.nerc.ac.uk/funding/thematics/solas/) to improve understanding of the atmospheric transport, cycling and
deposition of dust and nutrients into the North Atlantic. The cruise was funded by NERC. The objectives of the
cruise were:
1) Obtain an improved temporal and spatial estimate of atmospheric dust input to the Tropical N Atlantic.
2) Obtain an improved estimate of the seawater dissolution of N, P and Fe species from aerosol dust.
3) Determine the influence dust exerts on phytoplankton carbon fixation, species diversity and nutrient cycling in
surface waters.
4) Determine the impact of atmospheric dust derived micronutrients on microbial community production and species
diversity in the surface microlayer and underlying waters.
In particular this cruise aimed to combine in-situ aircraft measurements of the atmosphere (DODO, University of
Reading, www.met.rdg.ac.uk/~aer/dodo/dodo.html) with in situ sampling of the lower atmosphere and the water
column (University of East Anglia, University of Southampton, National Oceanography Centre Southampton and
University of Birmingham) around the Cape Verde islands. However, the Poseidon did not meet up with the aircraft
due to a lack of dust in the atmosphere.
The main sampling and data-gathering activities comprised 21 stations for CTD and GoFlo profiles, 175
underway samples from the towed Fish and 6 samples of the surface microlayer. Stand Alone Pumps (SAPS) were
deployed 4 times but without success.
One dust event was encountered at 4-8 Feb. The transect sailed at 3-4 Feb. during the dust event was again
sampled a week later to investigate changes in nutrients, trace-metals and the microbial community. The Cape
Verde Time Series Station was sampled at 9 Feb.


About 17.2 million Kenyans lack access to clean water due to increased population growth, high rate of industrialisation and poor waste management. The situation may worsen if immediate measures are not taken. Lead and cadmium are the main heavy metals in contaminated water and their harmful effects such as lung cancer, mental retardation and nerve disorder cannot be under estimated. Available methods for removing these metal ions from water such as use of activated carbon are very expensive and unaffordable to low income earners. Maize cobs which have minimal use after maize harvesting can be utilised to reduce environmental pollution. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the ability of maize cobs derived products to adsorb both lead (II) and cadmium (II) ions and remove methylene blue and turbidity from contaminated water. Maize cobs charcoal was prepared by heating dry maize cobs in a furnace in limited air. Activation was done by use of 1 M sulphuric acid and heating the mixture in a closed vessel. Maize cob ash was generated by heating dry maize cobs in a furnace. Ability of these adsorbents to adsorb lead (II) and cadmium (II) ions from the solution was investigated by carrying out batch experiment and varying parameters such as contact time, initial metal ion concentration, adsorbent dose, temperature and shaking speed. The data obtained was fitted in Langmuir and Freundlich models. Activated charcoal gave the best fit in Langmuir for lead ions with maximum adsorption capacity of 13.0 mg/g. Ash fitted in Freundlich model with r 2 =0.953. For removal of cadmium (II) ions, all the adsorbents gave best fit in Freundlich with maize cob charcoal having the highest adsorption capacity of 24.3 mg/g and r 2 =0.997. Among the three adsorbent only ash was found to have the ability of removing turbidity from water. This implies that maize cob derived products can be used to remove lead (II) and cadmium (II) ions


Age structure and its dynamics are critical in understanding the impact of population growth on a country's growth prospects. Using state-level data from India, we show that the pace of demographic transition varies across states, and that these differences are likely to be exacerbated over the period 2011–26. We show that the so-called BIMARU states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh) are likely to see a continuing increase in the share of the working-age population in total population. The BIMARU states are expected to contribute 58 per cent of the increase in India's working-age population. The BIMARU states have traditionally been the slow-growing states and have performed poorly on different accounts of social and physical infrastructure. The article argues that whether the demographic window of opportunity will be utilised and turned into a boon or be wasted and result in a bane will rest critically on the ability of the BIMARU states to exploit the bulge in the working-age population.


Epidemiologists seek to make a valid inference about the causal effect between an exposure and a disease in a specific population, using representative sample data from a specific population. Clinical researchers likewise seek to make a valid inference about the association between an intervention and outcome(s) in a specific population, based upon their randomly collected, representative sample data. Both do so by using the available data about the sample variable to make a valid estimate about its corresponding or underlying, but unknown population parameter. Random error in an experiment can be due to the natural, periodic fluctuation or variation in the accuracy or precision of virtually any data sampling technique or health measurement tool or scale. In a clinical research study, random error can be due to not only innate human variability but also purely chance. Systematic error in an experiment arises from an innate flaw in the data sampling technique or measurement instrument. In the clinical research setting, systematic error is more commonly referred to as systematic bias. The most commonly encountered types of bias in anesthesia, perioperative, critical care, and pain medicine research include recall bias, observational bias (Hawthorne effect), attrition bias, misclassification or informational bias, and selection bias. A confounding variable is a factor associated with both the exposure of interest and the outcome of interest. A confounding variable (confounding factor or confounder) is a variable that correlates (positively or negatively) with both the exposure and outcome. Confounding is typically not an issue in a randomized trial because the randomized groups are sufficiently balanced on all potential confounding variables, both observed and nonobserved. However, confounding can be a major problem with any observational (nonrandomized) study. Ignoring confounding in an observational study will often result in a "distorted" or incorrect estimate of the association or treatment effect. Interaction among variables, also known as effect modification, exists when the effect of 1 explanatory variable on the outcome depends on the particular level or value of another explanatory variable. Bias and confounding are common potential explanations for statistically significant associations between exposure and outcome when the true relationship is noncausal. Understanding interactions is vital to proper interpretation of treatment effects. These complex concepts should be consistently and appropriately considered whenever one is not only designing but also analyzing and interpreting data from a randomized trial or observational study.


In the deregulated electrical power system, the allocation of transmission losses is becoming a key issue. The electric transmission power system is more and more constrained due to the increasing volume of power flows, while the active power losses' costs are increasing. In this context, the traditional "postage stamp" allocation is no longer sufficient to give right incentives. One solution could be to charge each actor depending on his responsibilities on the active power losses. This is why a number of transmission loss allocation (TLA) methods have recently been proposed. Their economic impact, however, has rarely been taken into account. This paper resumes the most common TLA methods and designs a frame to compare their efficiency. A simplified market design is proposed in order to evaluate the impact of the integration of transmission loss costs. These methods are applied to the IEEE 14 bus system. An over cost of 1.16% of the global production costs is then estimated for the "postage stamp" allocation while flow based methods reach 0.38%. The influence of the simulation parameters is analyzed.


Sprouting vigour is determined by the plant amount of reserves and intrinsic growth rate of plants. While the first factor has been well studied, the second is far less understood. Although a higher growth rate would imply a higher sprouting vigour, fast-growing species may have less below-ground reserves, and thus, a lower sprouting potential. The relative importance of both opposite effects was little explored in the literature. To analyse the influence of growth rate on sprouting vigour, one growth season after a fire we measured plant height of the old (pre-fire) and new (post-fire) tissue in 194 individuals of 14 woody species from a woodland in central Argentina. We calculated a mean value of pre- and post-fire height for each species, and obtained from a data-base potential height at maturity, wood density (WD) and specific leaf area (SLA), as surrogates of intrinsic growth rate. We performed a forward stepwise multiple regression using WD and SLA, together with mean pre-fire height or potential height as independent variables, and mean post-fire height (as an indicator of resprout vigour) as the dependent variable. Interactions were also tested. Pre-fire height, WD and their interaction term were the variables that best explained post-fire height. We also analysed the relationship between pre- and post-fire size for each species independently by fitting hyperbolic functions. Then we correlated both parameters of the functions to species characteristics (WD, SLA, potential height and mean pre-fire height). Both parameters of the hyperbolic functions were significantly correlated only with WD, but not with the other species characteristics. All results together indicate that species with low WD (i.e. high potential growth rate) regrow more vigorously than species with high WD when pre-fire individuals were tall. In contrast, when pre-fire individuals were small, WD had no influence on sprout vigour. A trade-off between allocation of biomass to underground reserves and shoot growth seems to be responsible for the patterns obtained. For small individuals, below-ground reserves seem to play a more important role than inherent growth rate (here measured through WD) in determining the sprouting vigour, while for large individuals, growth rate seems more important than reserves.


When should your car be willing to kill you? Suppose that a driverless car is headed toward five pedestrians. It can stay on course and kill them or swerve into a concrete wall, killing its passenger. On page 1573 of this issue, Bonnefon et al. (1) explore this social dilemma in a series of clever survey experiments. They show that people generally approve of cars programmed to minimize the total amount of harm, even at the expense of their passengers, but are not enthusiastic about riding in such "utilitarian" cars—that is, autonomous vehicles that are, in certain emergency situations, programmed to sacrifice their passengers for the greater good. Such dilemmas may arise infrequently, but once millions of autonomous vehicles are on the road, the improbable becomes probable, perhaps even inevitable. And even if such cases never arise, autonomous vehicles must be programmed to handle them. How should they be programmed? And who should decide?


Tracking and registration of camera and object is one of the most important issues in Augmented Reality (AR) systems. Markerless visual tracking technologies with image feature are used in many AR applications. Feature point based neural network image matching method has attracted considerable attention in recent years. This paper proposes an approach to feature point correspondence of image sequence based on transient chaotic neural networks. Rotation and scale invariant features are extracted from images firstly, and then transient chaotic neural network is used to perform global feature matching and perform the initialization phase of the tracking. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and the effectiveness of the proposed method.


The housing corporation Uppsalahem has installed asolar heating system in the neighbourhood Haubitsen,which was renovated in 2011. This report examineshow much energy the solar heating system is expectedto generate and which factors could improve theefficiency. Simulations suggest that the solar heatingsystem can to cover about 22 per cent of the domestichot water demand in Haubitsen, which corresponds to50 MWh for a year. If some factors, such as the tilt ofthe solar collectors would have been improved, thesystem efficiency would increase according to thesimulations. To evaluate how solar heating in a scaledperspective affect the existing energy system inUppsala, district heating simulations have beenperformed. District heating simulations indicate thatthe district heating production do not decrease withthe same amount of energy that the solar heatinggenerates.


The present study assesses the fecundity of Glyptothorax telchitta, a hill stream fish from the Tamor River, Nepal. A total of 60 specimens were collected from the Tamor River, with the help of local fishermen between March 2019 and February 2020. The absolute fecundity ranged from 3385 to 14298 eggs with the mean absolute fecundity of 9448.469 ± 607.783. The fish was found to be a medium fecund fish. Relative fecundity ranged from 151 to 529 eggs per gram body weight with mean relative fecundity of 371.38 ± 15.72. Fecundity showed significant positive correlations with ovary weight (r = 0.858) total length (r = 0.844) and total weight (r = 0.825). This indicated that fecundity dependent is mostly on ovary weight. Gonado-somatic index scored the peak values during March (15.15%) and May (15.01%), indicating the fish's spawning period during the spring season. Egg sizes varied from 0.382 mm to 1.149 mm. The appearance of various sizes of eggs in a single ovary indicated that the fish was a fractional spawner. The ovaries occupied maximum space in the abdomen during the breeding season.


Believing that charity inadvertently legitimates social inequality and fosters dependence, many international development organizations have increasingly sought to replace material aid with efforts to build self-reliance and local institutions. But in some cultures - like those in rural Uganda, where Having People, Having Heart takes place - people see this shift not as an effort toward empowerment but as a suspect refusal to redistribute wealth. Exploring this conflict, China Scherz balances the negative assessments of charity that have led to this shift with the viewpoints of those who actually receive aid. Through detailed studies of two different orphan support organizations in Uganda, Scherz shows how many Ugandans view material forms of Catholic charity as deeply intertwined with their own ethics of care and exchange. With a detailed examination of this overlooked relationship in hand, she reassesses the generally assumed paradox of material aid as both promising independence and preventing it. The result is a sophisticated demonstration of the powerful role that anthropological concepts of exchange, value, personhood, and religion play in the politics of international aid and development.


Impregnation and deposition-precipitation syntheses have been used to obtain Y2O3/SiO2 samples. In the deposition method, the urea causes the precipitation of yttrium hydroxide, which leads to the formation of yttria nanocrystalline particles in the final composites. Delaying the silica addition up to the visible muddying of the solution, a relevant formation of yttria nanocrystalline particles with average size of about 12 nm is produced. The composites obtained through the impregnation method are amorphous and contain different amounts of yttrium depending on the kind of solvent, the highest concentration being reached using ethanol. In all the samples important interactions at the molecular level among yttrium and silica are revealed, but less important in composites obtained with the deposition precipitation method.


Abstract Cases of mastitis (CM) from 38,236 lactations belonging to 16,497 cows were recorded on seven farms in the Czech Republic from 1996 to 2014. Clinical mastitis was analyzed with linear animal model as an all-or-none trait for each recorded lactation (CM305) and separately for each trimester of lactation (CM1, CM2, and CM3). Bivariate linear animal models were used to estimate the genetic correlation between these CM traits and lactation means for somatic cell score (SCS305), the interval between calving and first insemination (INT) and days open (DO). Factors included in the linear model were parity, herd, year of calving, calving season, fixed linear and quadratic regression on age at first calving, fixed linear and quadratic regression on milk production in the corresponding parity, permanent environmental effect of the cow, and additive genetic effect of the cow. Estimated heritabilities of the CM traits ranged from 0.01 to 0.03. Permanent environmental effects accounted for approximately two-thirds of the phenotypic variance. Genetic correlations of SCS305 with CM traits were 0.85±0.029, 0.81±0.086, 0.82±0.087, and 0.67±0.088 for CM305, CM1, CM2, and CM3, respectively. Genetic correlations of INT with CM305, CM1, CM2, and CM3, respectively, were 0.22±0.065, 0.19±0.084, 0.20±0.121 and 0.15±0.121: and genetic correlations of DO and the four CM traits were 0.28±0.079, 0.26±0.101, 0.43±0.134, and 0.15±0.131. For the 140 sires in the dataset, Spearman rank correlations among breeding values for the four CM traits and for SCS305 were uniformly high at 0.99±0.001.


The objective of this research is to carry out an optimisation of the comparative analysis of the queuing efficiency of commercial banks using the TORA Optimisation Approach. Based on a sample size of four commercial banks of the top two performing banks and least two performing banks in Lagos State Nigeria, the research adopted the output from the Tora Optimisation Software to show the performance of each of the banks based on queuing efficiency. The variables measured include arrival rate ( λ ) and service rate ( µ ). They were analysed for synchronised efficiency in customer satisfaction as relating to the queuing efficiency of each of the banks which were compared among commercial banks using number of queuing efficiency performances such as; the average number of customers on queue and in the system, average time each customer spends on queue and in the system and the probability of the system being idle. The results showed that Bank A had the highest traffic intensity with its customer arrival rate not being matched with faster service delivery rate by bank officials. Banks peak period with high influx of customers was 10:30 to 11:30am and between 12:30pm to 1:30pm daily is off peak period. The research made recommendation on how the queuing efficiency of each banks, can be improved upon due to its concern to most customers. Keywords: Queuing Efficiency, Peak period, Traffic Intensity, Queuing system, Arrival Rate, Service Rate


Temporal fringe pattern analysis is invaluable in studies of transient phenomena but necessitates large data storage for two essential sets of data, i.e., fringe pattern intensity and deformation phase. We describe a compression scheme based on the Fourier-transform method for temporal fringe data storage that permits retrieval of both the intensity and the deformation phase. When the scheme was used with simulated temporal wavefront interferometry intensity fringe patterns, a high compression ratio of 10.77 was achieved, with a significant useful data ratio of 0.859. The average root-mean-square error in phase value restored was a low 0.0015 rad. With simulated temporal speckle interferometry intensity fringe patterns, the important paremeters varied with the modulation cutoff value applied. For a zero modulation cutoff value, the ratio of data points and the compression ratio values obtained were roughly the same as in wavelength interferometry, albeit the average root-mean-square error in the phase value restored was far higher. By increasing the modulation cutoff value we attained significant reduction and increase in the ratio of data points and the compression ratio, respectively, whereas the average root-mean-square error in the restored phase values was reduced only slightly.


Secure multiparty generation of an RSA biprime is a challenging task, which increasingly receives attention, due to the numerous privacy-preserving applications that require it. In this work, we construct a new protocol for the RSA biprime generation task, secure against a malicious adversary, who can corrupt any subset of protocol participants. Our protocol is designed with generic multiparty computation (MPC), making it both platform-independent and allowing for weaker security models to be assumed (e.g., honest majority), should the application scenario require it. By carefully "postponing" the check of possible inconsistencies in the shares provided by malicious adversaries, we achieve noteworthy efficiency improvements. Concretely, we are able to produce additive sharings of the prime candidates, from multiplicative sharings via a semi-honest multiplication, without degrading the overall (active) security of our protocol. This is the core of our sieving technique, increasing the probability of our protocol sampling a biprime. Similarly, we perform the first biprimality test, requiring several repetitions, without checking input share consistency, and perform the more costly consistency check only in case of success of the Jacobi symbol based biprimality test. Moreover, we propose a protocol to convert an additive sharing over a ring, into an additive sharing over the integers. Besides being a necessary sub-protocol for the RSA biprime generation, this conversion protocol is of independent interest. The cost analysis of our protocol demonstrated that our approach improves the current state-of-the-art (Chen et al.-Crypto 2020), in terms of communication efficiency. Concretely, for the two-party case with malicious security, and primes of 2048bits, our protocol improves communication by a factor of ~37.


Content based image retrieval (CBIR) as it is known today has to deal with a number of challenges. Quickly summarized, the main challenges are firstly, to bridge the semantic gap between high-level concepts and low-level features using feedback, secondly to provide performance under adverse conditions. High-dimensional spaces, as well as a demanding machine learning task make the right way of indexing an important issue. When indexing multimedia data, most groups opt for extraction of high-dimensional feature vectors from the data, followed by dimensionality reduction like PCA (Principal Components Analysis) or LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing). The resulting vectors are indexed using spatial indexing structures such as kd-trees or R-trees, for example. Other projects, such as MARS and Viper propose the adaptation of text indexing techniques, notably the inverted file. Here, the Viper system is the most direct adaptation of text retrieval techniques to quantized vectors. However, while the Viper query engine provides decent performance together with impressive user-feedback behavior, as well as the possibility for easy integration of long-term learning algorithms, and support for potentially infinite feature vectors, there has been no comparison of vector-based methods and inverted-file-based methods under similar conditions. In this publication, we compare a CBIR query engine that uses inverted files (Bothrops, a rewrite of the Viper query engine based on a relational database), and a CBIR query engine based on LSD (Local Split Decision) trees for spatial indexing using the same feature sets. The Benchathlon initiative works on providing a set of images and ground truth for simulating image queries by example and corresponding user feedback. When performing the Benchathlon benchmark on a CBIR system (the System Under Test, SUT), a benchmarking harness connects over internet to the SUT, performing a number of queries using an agreed-upon protocol, the multimedia retrieval markup language (MRML). Using this benchmark one can measure the quality of retrieval, as well as the overall (speed) performance of the benchmarked system. Our Benchmarks will draw on the Benchathlon's work for documenting the retrieval performance of both inverted file-based and LSD tree based techniques. However in addition to these results, we will present statistics, that can be obtained only inside the system under test. These statistics will include the number of complex mathematical operations, as well as the amount of data that has to be read from disk during operation of a query.


In order to investigate the effect of the as-cast microstructure on the hot working behavior of an AZ31 magnesium alloy, specimens were cast in copper moulds with and without water cooling. A series of compression tests were performed at a temperature of 350 °C, a strain rate of 0.01 s-1, and at strains up to 1.0. It was found that as-cast microstructure is very sensitive to the solidification conditions, which leads to a significant difference in flow behavior and dynamic recrystallization (DRX) characteristics. It appears that more uniform and refined as-cast grain size promotes dynamic recrystallization and reduces the flow stress. It is also possible that second phases (>1+m in size) contribute to DRX by acting as nuclei.


Abstract Objectives To identify food sources of Na in a group of community-dwelling women in Adelaide, South Australia. A secondary aim was to measure Na excretion in this group. Design Survey. Setting Community setting, Adelaide, South Australia. Subjects Seventy healthy women (mean age 48·6 (sd 8·1) years, mean BMI 28·6 (sd 6·3) kg/m2) living in metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia and participating in a validation study of an FFQ. Dietary intake was derived from two 4 d weighed food records. Foods from the 4 d weighed food records were grouped according to foods or food groups to establish contributors to Na intake. Na excretion was measured in two 24 h urine samples. Completeness of urine collections was verified using creatinine excretion. Results Bread alone contributed 19·0 % of Na intake, with an overall contribution from the breads and cereals group of 32·5 %. Meat products contributed 14·4 % of intake, the dairy and eggs group (excluding cheese) 9·6 % and combination dishes (e.g. pizza, quiche, sandwiches and stir fry dishes) 8·4 %. Na excretion was 126 (sd 42) mmol/d, i.e. approximately 7·6 (sd 2.5) g salt/d. Seventy per cent of participants (n 48) had Na excretion ≥100 mmol/d (146 (sd 34) mmol/d). Conclusions Effective Na reduction could be achieved by reducing the amount in staple foods such as bread and meat products.


There is a notable trend within the building industry to move from traditional two-dimensional drawing
tools towards three-dimensional design tools in order to make the design process more effective with a
quicker and more rational way to produce blue prints and other documents. Parallel to this trend it is
also become more common for structural engineers to use three dimensional tools for structural
analysis. It is the same type of information which is used to create the blue print as well as the
structural building model therefore making this an incentive for software developers in trying to come
up with a way to automatically transfer building models between different types of applications as this
is an obvious way to save expensive engineering time.
This Master"s Project has been carried out with the purpose of analyzing the potential of a BIM design
process for bridge structures with focus on hands on strategies for automatic transfer of building
models between design tools and tools for structural analysis. Compared to a two dimensional CAD building model, a parameterized three dimensional BIM model
is composed in a entirely different and more sophisticated way as it rests on an object oriented data
structure which opens up for a broad spectra of new technical applications such as automatic
construction scheduling, billing of quantities and collision control. This new technique also opens up
for an inter-disciplinary work in a shared building model making the design process more effective.
However, discipline specific applications are generally not compatible with each other as software
vendors usually employ proprietary file formats within their software environment. This report
presents a method that enables automatic file transfer of building models via the neutral IFC file
format.


Female mosquitoes need vertebrate blood for egg development. Evaluating mosquito behavior is essential for determining the ability of a mosquito to blood feed. Blood feeding experiments are often performed using artificial membrane feeders; however, such experiments do not represent realistic scenarios in which a mosquito injects saliva into the host to prevent host hemostatic responses. Vertebrate animal models are therefore more representative of a natural blood feeding event. Here, we describe a methodology to evaluate mosquito blood feeding success that can be used to compare blood feeding between mosquito groups-for instance, wild-type versus transgenic mosquitoes lacking salivary proteins or field-collected versus laboratory-reared mosquitoes. We also include a simple procedure to measure blood meal size, allowing for a more quantitative assessment of feeding status. The volume of ingested blood directly affects mosquito fecundity and fertility, important markers of fitness. The methods described herein can be used to evaluate transmission-blocking vaccines, insecticides, or fitness costs associated with transgenic mosquitoes.


In eukaryotic cells, the spatial segregation of replication and transcription in the nucleus and translation in the cytoplasm imposes the requirement of transporting thousands of macromolecules between these two compartments. Nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) are the sole gateways that facilitate this macromolecular exchange across the nuclear envelope with the help of soluble transport receptors. Whereas the mobile transport machinery is reasonably well understood at the atomic level, a commensurate structural characterization of the NPC has only begun in the past few years. Here, we describe the recent progress toward the elucidation of the atomic structure of the NPC, highlight emerging concepts of its underlying architecture, and discuss key outstanding questions and challenges. The applied structure determination as well as the described design principles of the NPC may serve as paradigms for other macromolecular assemblies.


Advances in health technology incorporate bioethical discussions in texts that address professional care. Would the new code of ethics for physiotherapists have incorporated such discussions? Given the issue, we aimed to verify the ratio of deontological and bioethical approaches in the new code of ethics when compared to the old one, investigating relationships between professional and client autonomies in healthcare. Content analysis methods were applied to written documents in order to verify in what proportion deontological and bioethical approaches are present in the new code. The bioethical approaches compose the large part of the content in this new code (53%) specially related to the justice category which represents 21,9% of the total textual units found. Changes in the new document reveal bioethical influences in the conception of the new code, which still did not modify the relationship between professional and client autonomies, revealing the need for further discussions.


This project was started within the Market-Design programme of Elforsk, with the aim of developing representative test systems of Swedish distribution networks. Using such test systems as a basis for reliability and customer interruption cost calculations makes it feasible to analyse the network tariff regulation of Swedish power istribution companies. In particular, it enables studies of the incentives for companies to invest in system reliability. Until now, the available test systems are either not representative of Swedish conditions, or too small in scale and limited in function.Within this project we have created two test systems. In order to represent the diversity of actual Swedish distribution networks, we have created one test system for urban environments and another for rural environments. The test systems contain information about structure, customer composition, load data, component failure statistics and cost of power interruptions. To enable reliability and customer interruption cost calculations, the test systems have been implemented in Matlab. In this project power distribution company representatives and responsible authorities have been valuable as primary information sources.The resemblance of actual systems to the test systems has been confirmed for several individual aspects, including their overall performance. Reliability in terms of frequency and duration of power interruptions is consistent with data found in annual reports submitted to the Swedish Energy Markets Inspectorate.Improvements of the test systems can be made through in-depth studies of both the total system-load distribution among the different customer categories, and the cost incurred by customers from power interruptions. Data for failure statistics and time-dependent load-profiles will be more accurate in the near future, and can be used for updating the test systems.


A 23-year old male presented with chronic right ankle pain intermittently over the past three years secondary to a chronic superficial Achilles bursitis. The patient had been seen by multiple physicians during this time and had tried various conservative treatment modalities, ranging from physical therapy and antiinflammatories to immobilization with a boot. He was then offered percutaneous bursectomy using a radiofrequency coblation wand under ultrasound guidance followed by a platelet-rich plasma injection. The patient, thereafter, was followed up for one year. At the eight week follow-up, the patient was very pleased to report full resolution of his symptoms. He returned to recreational sports without further reported pain and remained asymptomatic during follow-up at three months and one year after the procedure. This case highlights a novel procedure that has not been previously reported in the literature. It is minimally invasive, carries low risk for complication, requires minimal care on post-procedural follow-up, and does not restrict further surgical resolution if the procedure is unsuccessful.


Riley and Johannsen 1 state in their "Handbook of Medical Entomology" that a multitude of cases of parasitism of dipterous larvae are on record. However, inThe Journal, we were able to find only one case of this kind reported in the last 25 years. 2 Descriptions and illustrations of myiasis-producing larvae are very scanty in laboratory handbooks. We report herein a case of human intestinal infestation with larvae of Piophila casei, the first one observed in our clinic. REPORT OF A CASE F. R. R., a 44-year-old contractor who had modern sanitary facilities in his home, was admitted to the hospital on July 30. 1951, with complaints of bowel disturbance. In 1944 he had attacks of severe pain in the abdomen, radiating to the back and downward to the left thigh. At this time he had noticed blood and mucus as well as small white "worms" in the stool.


The rising demand for clean water and the environmental challenges associated with fossil fuels have encouraged the application of renewable and greener energy systems in desalination. Moreover, the small footprint and high productivity favored the membrane-based process in the water industry. In the past few decades, noticeable work has been performed on the development and applicability of membrane-based desalination processes powered by renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal. Several integrated membrane desalination processes for producing clean water with sustainable and clean energy are introduced. This review details the source and performance efficiencies of existing renewable energy technologies and their application in membrane-based desalination processes, with a special focus on current advancements and challenges. This study reviews the interconnections between water, energy, and the environment and explores future energy-efficient desalination options for energy savings and environmental protection.


The present report is based on an independent, policy-oriented investigation of the current European patent system. The central premise of the report is that the patent system has so far been a positive factor in promoting innovation and the diffusion of knowledge, and thus that the system is contributing in a constructive way to economic and social welfare objectives. In acknowledging the importance of the patent system in relation to many aspects of society, it is also essential to continually evaluate whether the system is working as effectively as it could be. In addition, because of some of the influences coming to bear upon the system at the moment, as well as the various ways in which it has been operating, the workings of the European patent system especially merits close public attention. However, it is not the objective of the report to evaluate whether a patent system should exist. Rather, the investigation works from the starting position that the system is there, and so the main thing to do is to try to improve its workings. This is because the Working Group believes that the European patent system may be operating in certain ways and within certain sectors such that there is room for various improvements to be made. To do this, the Working Group puts forward a series of policy options. The Working Group supports the introduction of a Community patent and a European Patent Court, and the policy options presented in this report should not be seen as an alternative for this ultimate goal. They have been developed to improve the system as it is known today, since the Community patent is not guaranteed to be introduced in the near future. Should it be introduced, the Working Group considers that many of the policy options put forward would have an even better effect.When making its recommendations, the Working Group recognizes that the protection and enforcement of the rights of inventors through the patent system must be done in a manner to stimulate innovation and the diffusion of knowledge. In order to propose meaningful policy options that meet these objectives as much as possible, the evidence put forward in the report includes an assessment of key patenting activity trends occurring at the moment. The analysis assesses what kind of impact these trends have on the ability of the European patent system to work well, and what are the specific challenges that arise as a result. The report identifies that worldwide, the most important patent trends happening now relate to the number of patent applications being made. Specifically, the fact that applications received by patent offices continue to grow steeply, resulting in high numbers of granted patent rights. One potentially undesirable consequence of this development is a dampening effect of the incentive to innovate in the first place. This is mainly because costs associated with inventive activity have risen, often substantially. Rising costs reflect, among other things, overcrowded and overlapping sets of rights in specific research areas. Another effect of increased numbers of patent applications is the extra and sometimes severe pressure it puts onto examining offices and the sheer volume and complexity of the applications received. These sorts of trends fundamentally challenge conceived notions of the patent system. The Working Group believes that left unchecked, this will have a damaging effect on the European patent system. The main impact is that there may be a deteriorating effect on patent quality in terms both of the clarity and balance of individual rights given to inventors, and the effectiveness of the system as a whole to meet economic and social welfare aims. The discussion about patent quality emerges from the report as the core underlying challenge to the future of the European patent system. The key task is to try to manage the growing patent workload while at the same time, maintaining the highest quality possible. Another significant challenge identified is that new subject matter and science-based inventions are making it harder for examiners to accurately assess patentability requirements. And this may mean that undesirably broad rights are being granted in emerging technologies. No single all-embracing policy strategy is able to meet these and the other challenges identified in the report. Instead, the Working Group believes a package of interrelated options is more suitable. This reflects the intricacy of the policy situation and mirrors the many connected and complex fields involved. For instance, the workings of the European patent system are closely related with rules about EU competition law, and policy initiatives regarding science and innovation. For these reasons, the policy options put forward are varied in scope and in method, and aim at tackling specific areas of concern. The policy options put forward by the Working Group for the improvement of the European patent system are presented and discussed fully at the end of the report. Below is a simple list of the titles of the options: Insertion of the economic mission of the patent system in the European Patent Convention; Enhancing governance within the European patent system; Improving quality aspects in regard to patentability standards and patent grant procedures; Dealing with emerging technologies; Increasing access to patented inventions; Facilitating defensive publications.The Working Group strongly urges careful consideration of these policy options, one by one and as a group of proposals. They are complementary and carefully designed to improve the functioning of the current European patent system. All other things being equal, if these options are not taken up the European patent system will continue to face increasing pressure as a result of wider and deepening trends that are occurring at both a regional and international level. The main end result of this will be an ever-decreasing level of quality that the European patent system is able to provide, as regards inventors and society. This may result in a negative impact on economic and social welfare. And even though, given the limitations of scientific research, it may not be realistic to describe these effects precisely, it is nonetheless the overriding feeling of the Working Group that positive action of the kind suggested here is much better than no action at all. The analyses made and policy options put forward by the Working Group have been developed between May 2006 and May 2007. The members of the group have volunteered their input and they have met five times to discuss the report contents and commented on various drafts mostly through e-mail communication. In November 2006 at a workshop in the European Parliament, policy options were debated with politicians and a wide variety of experts and stakeholders, and the report was peer reviewed. The report has been developed within these limits and does not intend to build on new research, rather collecting and (re)organizing existing knowledge about the patent system. The Working Group recommends initiating new and more comprehensive empirical investigations and debates of a similar kind of nature to this report