Design load factor structural reliability analysis is critical for pipeline postlay OOS design to mitigate global UHB for a trenched and buried subsea pipeline configuration operating at elevated temperature and pressure. During the detailed engineering phase it is necessary to evaluate and define any measure available to be finalised for UHB mitigation such as deep trenching selection, enhanced blanket or spot rockdumping. In order account for inherent uncertainties in the design variables, a pre-emptive SRA is normally performed for the probabilistic UHB design load factors prior to pipeline installation according to the typical trench imperfection statistics and some specified survey accuracy. As per the current practice the semi-analytical universal design curve method is used in the limit state for design load factor predictions. The SRA results will be updated once the OOS survey data become available. A rockdump schedule can then be established by FEA incorporating appropriate safety or load factors to address uncertainties in the design parameters and as-built pipeline OOS survey measurement accuracy.
 This paper examines the UHB model uncertainties in the load factor and backfill cover assessment with a view to improving the SRA OOS analysis. Sources of uncertainties and variability in the UHB design are discussed first. Some disparity and inconsistency arising between the SRA and FEA models for the limit state are considered. Alternative UHB models are investigated by taking Timoshenko shear stiffness and associated deformation with pipe-soil interactions into consideration. A comparison is made with the conventional universal design curve method, the improved model and FE modelling to demonstrate the findings and conclusions. Of these, the pipe-soil interaction and its representation in the SRA limit state assessment are identified as a significant factor.


Exploring the link between material culture production, hominin cognition, behavioural complexity and the development of language form some of the central tenants of Palaeolithic archaeological discourse. This paper aims to bring these components together by utilising a new theoretical perspective regarding hominin identity construction and the use of material culture in the story of language development — the identity model. The identity model proposes that in order for material culture to be imbued with symbolic social meaning, not only is a theory of mind (or second-order intentionality) essential, but it also must be superseded by a third-order of intentionality at a minimum. This premise will be examined using data pertaining to handaxe manufacture from the British Lower and Middle Palaeolithic in an effort to shed new light upon the cognitive landscape of ancient hominins. It is proposed that although hominins paid attention to form within handaxe manufacture, locked into the so-called Acheulean gaze (Foley & Gamble 2009), on the whole, they may not have realised the full potential of such a gaze to consciously off-load social interactions and culturally meaningful signals onto the material culture with which they interacted.


Security and privacy are the fundamental concerns of RFID systems. Several ultralightweight mutual authentication protocols have been proposed to ensure the security of RFID systems in cost effective manner. These protocols usually involve simple bitwise logical operations such as XOR, AND, OR and some special purpose ultralightweight primitives. In this paper, we identify the vulnerabilities of the two recently proposed ultralightweight mutual authentication protocols: SASI and Yeh. et al. We have used Recursive Linear Cryptanalysis (RLC) for security analysis of SASI protocol, which requires only two authentication sessions to reveal concealed secret ID of the tags. For Yeh et al. protocol, we have proposed an active Quasi-Linear attack, which requires approximately 213 authentication sessions to disclose the tag's secret ID.


Activation of the TRPA1 nociceptor in mammalian skin promotes local and distant tissue regeneration and reduces scar formation. Wound healing headway Wound healing in mammalian skin often results in fibrotic scars, and the mechanisms by which original nonfibrotic tissue architecture can be restored are not well understood. Here, Wei et al. have shown that pharmacological activation of the nociceptor TRPA1, which is found on cutaneous sensory neurons, can limit scar formation and promote tissue regeneration. They confirmed the efficacy of TRPA1 activation in three different skin wounding mouse models, and they also observed that localized activation could generate a response at distal wound sites. TRPA1 activation induced IL-23 production by dermal dendritic cells, which activated IL-17–producing γδ T cells and promoted tissue regeneration. These findings provide insight into neuroimmune signaling pathways in the skin that are critical to mammalian tissue regeneration. Adult mammalian wounds, with rare exception, heal with fibrotic scars that severely disrupt tissue architecture and function. Regenerative medicine seeks methods to avoid scar formation and restore the original tissue structures. We show in three adult mouse models that pharmacologic activation of the nociceptor TRPA1 on cutaneous sensory neurons reduces scar formation and can also promote tissue regeneration. Local activation of TRPA1 induces tissue regeneration on distant untreated areas of injury, demonstrating a systemic effect. Activated TRPA1 stimulates local production of interleukin-23 (IL-23) by dermal dendritic cells, leading to activation of circulating dermal IL-17–producing γδ T cells. Genetic ablation of TRPA1, IL-23, dermal dendritic cells, or γδ T cells prevents TRPA1-mediated tissue regeneration. These results reveal a cutaneous neuroimmune-regeneration cascade triggered by topical TRPA1 activators that promotes adult mammalian tissue regeneration, presenting a new avenue for research and development of therapies for wounds and scars.


This paper investigates the optimal sensor placements and capabilities of this procedure for dynamic characteristics identification of arch dams. For this purpose, a prototype arch dam is constructed in laboratory conditions. Berke arch dam located on the Ceyhan River in city of Osmaniye is one of the highest arch dam constructed in Turkey is selected for field verification. The ambient vibration tests are conducted using initial candidate sensor locations at the beginning of the study. Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition and Stochastic Subspace Identification methods are used to extract experimental dynamic characteristics. Then, measurements are repeated according to optimal sensor locations of the dams. These locations are specified using the Effective Independence Method. To determine the optimal sensor locations, the target mode shape matrices which are obtained from ambient vibration tests of the selected dam with a large number of accelerometers are used. The dynamic characteristics obtained from each ambient vibrations tests are compared with each other. It is concluded that the dynamic characteristics obtained from initial measurements and those obtained from a limited number of sensors are compatible with each other. This situation indicates that optimal sensor placements determined by the Effective Independence Method are useful for dynamic characteristics identification of arch dams.


Due to the influence of artificial factor and slow convergence of particle swarm algorithm (PSO) during parameters selection of support vector machine (SVM), this paper proposes a modified particle swarm optimization support vector machine (MPSO-SVM). A Steam turbine vibration fault diagnosis model was established and the failure data was used in fault diagnosis. The results of application show the model can get automatic optimization about the related parameters of support vector machine and achieve the ideal optimal solution globally. MPSO-SVM strategy is feasible and effective compared with traditional particle swarm optimization support vector machine (PSO-SVM) and genetic algorithm support vector machine (GA-SVM).


Current approaches in approximate inference for Bayesian neural networks minimise the Kullback-Leibler divergence to approximate the true posterior over the weights. However, this approximation is without knowledge of the final application, and therefore cannot guarantee optimal predictions for a given task. To make more suitable task-specific approximations, we introduce a new loss-calibrated evidence lower bound for Bayesian neural networks in the context of supervised learning, informed by Bayesian decision theory. By introducing a lower bound that depends on a utility function, we ensure that our approximation achieves higher utility than traditional methods for applications that have asymmetric utility functions. Furthermore, in using dropout inference, we highlight that our new objective is identical to that of standard dropout neural networks, with an additional utility-dependent penalty term. We demonstrate our new loss-calibrated model with an illustrative medical example and a restricted model capacity experiment, and highlight failure modes of the comparable weighted cross entropy approach. Lastly, we demonstrate the scalability of our method to real world applications with per-pixel semantic segmentation on an autonomous driving data set.


Using standard domain-theoretic fixed-points, we present an approach for defining recursive functions that are formulated in monadic style. The method works both in the simple option monad and the state-exception monad of Isabelle/HOL's imperative programming extension, which results in a convenient definition principle for imperative programs, which were previously hard to define.
For such monadic functions, the recursion equation can always be derived without preconditions, even if the function is partial. The construction is easy to automate, and convenient induction principles can be derived automatically.


With increased global interconnectivity and reliance on e-commerce, network services and Internet communication, computer security has become a necessity. Organizations must protect their systems from intrusion and computer virus attacks. Such protection must detect anomalous patterns by exploiting known signatures while monitoring normal computer programs and network usage for abnormalities. Current anti-virus and network intrusion detection (ID) solutions can become overwhelmed by the burden of capturing and classifying new viral strains and intrusion patterns. To overcome this problem, a self-adaptive distributed agent-based defense immune system based on biological strategies is developed within a hierarchical layered architecture. A prototype interactive system is designed, implemented in Java and tested. The results validate the use of a distributed-agent biological system approach toward the computer security problems of virus elimination and ID.


Condom use remains the predominant prophylactic intervention to control rates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. However, chemoprophylactic strategies, which involve preexposure prophyaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophyaxis (PEP), have emerged as appropriate prevention tools to minimise and prevent future infections. Different studies have indicated that PrEP can prevent new HIV infections among men who have sex with men when used daily or event-based, and it is also effective with heterosexuals and people who inject drugs. However, appropriate education is needed as recent reports have observed a decline in adherence to PrEP over time, particularly in young adults, which will impact on the effectiveness of PrEP. Thus, we created a brief educational short intervention (3 hours) to increase the awareness of HIV with second year BMedSci Medical Science (Hons) students at De Montfort University (DMU, UK) in 2016/17 (Peña-Fernández et al., 2017) [1]. Briefly, BMedSci students tailored a community-centred intervention programme to reduce HIV infection rates following evidence-based public health methodology. 92% indicated an acquisition of knowledge for preventing HIV transmission and tools to fight this disease. However, BMedSci students also showed a lack of knowledge of preventative measures (PrEP and PEP), routes of transmission and appropriate screening. We implemented a similar teaching strategy with BSc Biomedical Science (BMS) students enrolled in the level 4 module of Basic Microbiology in 2017/18, but limited to two hours: one-hour lecture and one hour workshop in which different HIV prevention strategies were discussed and analysed by students. BMS students were also provided with an overview about the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) 90:90:90 targets in the UK (2016, [2]). In a similar way as with the BMedSci cohort, BMS students showed little awareness about PEP/PrEP, specifically knowledge about what they are/how they work, access and usage. This teaching intervention was well-received by students according to the feedback provided in the final module level feedback. BMS participants (n=27 out of 187 students) indicated that they enjoyed the session and suggested a practical session and the introduction of case studies to enhance the teaching intervention. We are developing a virtual clinical case study on HIV following recent successful experiences in the development and introduction of these novel learning strategies and have performed small modifications in the delivery of this workshop for 2018/19 to increase engagement and interaction. In conclusion, we consider that similar short education interventions that specifically target HIV chemoprophylaxis would be needed in any degree to prevent the decline in adherence to PrEP over time observed in young adults and reduce PEP/PrEP stigma and other barriers which could impede their access.


Abstract As an indispensable part of transportation system, urban underpass can alleviate traffic congestion and reduce traffic accidents effectively. In order to acquaint the hydrodynamics of shockwave in underpass and assess the potential damage and risk of bombing accidents, a numerical simulation was established to calculate the blast effects originating from the 13Kg TNT. Based on the location of detonation point, the shape of corridor section and the exit's cover, peak pressure distributions were predicted. The results indicate that the propagation of shockwave in horizontal direction switches to the inclined top of ground in a near-field due to the ground reflection and the set of exit's cover increases the risk of explosion to the structure and the users.


Apomixis is an evolutionarily important phenomenon across plant lineages. The interaction of apomixis with hybridization and polyploidy can lead to complex patterns of reticulation, complicating efforts to reconstruct evolutionary history in groups where apomixis is common. Ferns, in particular, are rich in apomictic species, notably in centers of species diversity like East Asia. Eastern North America too is home to a number of apomictic species. We investigated the East Asian ferns in Polystichum sections Xiphopolystichum and Duropolystichum (Dryopteridaceae) in order to elucidate the evolutionary and biogeraphic history of seven apomictic species in the group: Polystichum tsus-simense, P. xiphophyllum, P. sinotsus-simense, P. pseudoxiphophyllum, P. mayebarae. P. rigens, and P. neolobatum. In addition, we examined the evolutionary origin of an undescribed apomictic cytotype of North American genus Phegopteris (Thelypteridaceae). The datasets comprised phylogenetic inference based on three nuclear and three plastid markers, analysis of mixed nucleotide signals from chromatograms generated from Sanger sequencing of nuclear markers, ploidy estimates based on flow cytometry data and spore length measurements, morphometric analysis of representative specimens collected in southwest China and nearby regions, and climatic niche models. By interpreting these multiple lines of evidence synthetically, we have discerned multiple highly reticulate complexes of polyploid lineages derived largely from diploid sexual progenitors. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding the role of apomictic reproduction in the context of species diversity, an understanding central to similar future inquiry into the diversity of East Asian and North American ferns.


Article history: Received: April 2014 Received in the revised form: September 2014 Accepted: October 2014 The objective of the paper was to design and test various variants of the thermal biomass processing controllers. The process took place in a batch reactor consisting of a metal chamber into which thermal energy was supplied through a diaphgram with the use of a 2 kW power ceramic band heater. The chamber of the reactor along with the heater was thermally insulated. A classic solution of a PID controller and its variety a robust PID controller, resistant to the object parameters fluctuations was selected for tests. The Linux Debian system and the SciCosLab environment, consisting of graphic SciCos environment were used for the operation of the stand. The system kernel was modified for operation in real time through a RTAI module (Real Time Application Interface). Analysis of the results shows that, a robust controller ensures better quality, which besides a shorter time of response, behaves better in case of the object parameters fluctuations.


Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between psychosocial variables, biomarker hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C), and immune modulatory cytokine mediators among diabetic patients in marital or committed long-term relationships. Method: This is a cross-sectional study of adult patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) presenting at a university-based ambulatory medical clinic. Social/interpersonal constructs were assessed using measures of dyadic adjustment, interpersonal sensitivity and social functioning, and expressed emotion. HbA1c and cytokines were measured from blood samples using standard laboratory tests. Associations of relational systems constructs with biomarkers were assessed using bivariate tests. Results: Dyadic adjustment was significantly associated with cytokine IL-8. Interpersonal relationship functioning was significantly associated with biomarker HbA1c, and cytokines TNF-α, and IL-1ra. Social functioning was significantly correlated with cytokines IL-17, IL-1ra, IL-2r, IL-6, and eotaxin. Depression was significantly correlated with HbA1C. Conclusions: Although preliminary in nature, findings revealed significant relationships between molecular mediators of the inflammatory and immune systems and variables measuring the relational context patients with T2DM. The initial findings suggest a next step in understanding and exploring the complex but important biopsychosocial pathways in Type 2 DM.


Old age has been defined variously in different societies and also Cross-Culturally. It is a relative concept and different meanings have been attributed in different contexts. It is nevertheless, universally accepted as the last phase of human life cycle. The timing of this phase, its impact on the meanings attached to it vary greatly from one society to another. The present study aims to find out the social tribulations of the aged people in Aravakurichy Taluk, Karur district. A samples of 202 respondents selected randomly were studied. A questionnaire method of survey was used to find out the social problems of the aged people. The data were collected by using questionnaire as an instrument. Percentage analysis and cross tabulation was applied in the present study. The findings and observations are the result and outcome of the interpretations made during the study of analysis.


This paper proposes an intelligent interface integrated services environment for electronic commerce. It contains four main modules, i.e., dialog manager, EC transaction ontology, information collector, and data analyzer. The dialog manager manages the transaction history of the user to collect the user-specific information. It also provides different helping functions for the user. The EC transaction ontology stores the business type of electronic commerce in the system. It classifies the business process into eight categories, i.e., transaction type, ordering pattern, merchandise type, logistic type, customer category, transport vehicle, delivery type, and service type. It also provides the relations and constraints between different business steps. The information collector instantiates and dispatches different information agents to extract, filter, and synthesize relevant transaction data from different data sources timely. The data analyzer is the main component of the system. It instructs the dialog manager to provide proper helping functions for the different users. It then uses the user model to classify the knowledge and skill level of a user. It also predicts the goal of the user by using case-based reasoning and fuzzy Petri-Net to recommend the user with the best transaction plan and browsing behavior. Finally, it monitors the quality of service that the system provided for the user. This environment not only provides an integrated human-machine interface but also manages the business information thoroughly for the users.


Chronic antidepressant treatments result in the potentiation of dopaminergic transmission in the mesolimbic dopamine system revealed as an increased motor response to dopamine D2-like agonists. On the basis of the involvement of this system in the control of motivation and reward-related behaviour, which are impaired in depression, it has been suggested that such supersensitivity might play an important role in the mechanism of action of these drugs. Several studies have provided evidence suggesting a role of dopamine D3 receptors in mediating antidepressant-induced increased motor response to dopamine agonists. To test this hypothesis, we studied the effect of the intracerebroventricular infusion of a dopamine D3 receptor antisense oligodeoxynucleotide (10 μg/3 μl, 2–3 daily injections) on the expression of imipramine-induced supersensitivity (20 mg/kg daily intraperitoneal injections for 21 days) to the motor effect of the dopamine D2-like receptor agonist quinpirole (a single 0.3 mg/kg subcutaneous injection 24–48 h after imipramine withdrawal). The results show that a treatment previously shown to reduce the synthesis of dopamine D3 receptors, rather than resulting in an inhibitory effect, potentiated the ability of imipramine to induce dopaminergic motor supersensitivity. The present results suggest that increased dopamine D3 receptor expression following antidepressant treatments is not involved in the mechanism of dopaminergic supersensitivity, and are consistent with evidence supporting an inhibitory role for dopamine D3 receptors in motor activity, both in normal and in sensitized subjects.


This work proposes a formal modelling of categorisation processes attempting at simulating the way information is categorised by neural populations in the human brain. The formalism mainly relies on a similarity-based approach to categorisation. It involves weighted rules that use inference and fusion techniques borrowed from fuzzy logic. The approach is illustrated by a simulation of the McGurck effect where the combination of contradictory auditory and visual stimuli creates an auditory perceptive illusion.


The goal of the current study was to determine which of the D2-like receptors (D2, D3 or D4) are involved in autoreceptor regulation of dopamine synthesis. We have derived a model system utilizing a mouse mesencephalic cell line, MN9D, which both synthesizes and releases dopamine, to characterize the modulation of tyrosine hydroxylase activity, the rate limiting enzyme in the conversion of tyrosine to dopamine, by the D2-like receptors. Previously, we have shown that stimulation of D2 and D3, but not D4, dopamine receptors transfected into MN9D cells inhibited the release of dopamine. In the current study, we show that quinpirole stimulation of transfected D2 and D3, but not D4, dopamine receptors inhibited K+-stimulated tyrosine hydroxylase activity in a pertussis toxin-sensitive manner, strongly suggesting G-protein coupling as a mechanistic pathway. The D2 receptor effect could be maintained for at least 60 min, whereas the D3 receptor effect desensitized. Treatment with 10 microM forskolin, which raises cyclic AMP levels or with 100 nM okadaic acid, a potent phosphatase inhibitor, had no effect on the D2-or D3-mediated inhibition, suggesting that these effects may be independent of both cyclic AMP- and okadaic acid-sensitive phosphatase activity. Taken together, these data confirm the hypothesis that dopamine D2 and D3 receptors can perform dual roles in autoreceptor regulation.


Elite Performance: Running is the second in a new series of Elite Performance titles aimed at aspiring recreational athletes who typically train and compete at club level and above. The increased use of lab-based sports testing in recent years has considerably raised awareness of the impact of sports science on training and performance, and many coaches, trainers and athletes are looking for more information and guidance on how to apply this knowledge to their own training. This approach is at the heart of the Elite Performance: Running, which includes structuring a training programme, how and when to use different levels of training, the importance of rest and recovery, goal-setting, physiological assessment, principles of heart rate training, and detailed sections on injury prevention/treatment and nutrition. There is also a section on race day preparations and planning. With a practical full-colour design and packed with stunning colour photography, Elite Performance: Running is an indispensable companion for the middle- and long-distance runner, giving them all the information and tools to gain a competitive edge and stay fit.


The purposes of this study were: (1) to describe the experiences of gay couples when at least one was diagnosed with symptomatic HIV infection or AIDS, and (2) to explain couples' experiences in the context of heterosexism. To address the first study purpose, grounded theory provided the methodological basis for data gathering and data analysis. The second study purpose was achieved through a structural analysis that explained the relationship between couples' actions, their acknowledgment, or lack thereof, of heterosexism as an important dimension of their social environment, and the intended and unintended consequences of their actions on heterosexism.The sample consisted of 9 gay couples. Becoming a Couple Affected by HIV Infection was perceived as a major life transition as each individual was challenged with confronting multiple losses including possible death of the PWA, the pre-AIDS lifestyle, relationships with friends and family members, the future, finances, and health. The beginning of this transitional began with "hitting home," or the awareness and subsequent emotional shock that life as the couple knew it before HIV was gone. "Mutual protection" is the mechanism by which individuals in the couple governed their activities toward one another. The major motivation for actions taken by study participants was the protection of the self and the other by forestalling losses such as threats to the relationship, health, and privacy, and preserving important relational characteristics such as independence, social boundaries, and intimacy. "Moving on" marked the end of the transition and included acceptance of a world in which loss and uncertainty were expected, if not commonplace, and moving on with one's life within the relationship, having renegotiated its meaning. Study participants settled on one of two different perspectives for the future: succumbing to AIDS or surviving HIV infection.Structural analysis revealed that although study participants defined their experiences using the term homophobia, their experiences could also be understood in the context of heterosexism, or the socially constructed belief that heterosexuality is superior to homosexuality. Heterosexism asks heterosexuals to consider their privileged position which serves to perpetuate the constraints placed upon gay couples coping with HIV infection. Employing this term helps us to understand the institutionalized and systematic constraints placed upon gay couples, as compared to the concept of homophobia, which tends to focus on the individual personality traits of gays and those who harbor negative feelings toward them.


This paper addresses the aerodynamics ofmembrane flappingwings. In a series ofwind-tunnel experiments on the 25 and 74-cm-wingspan models, the stroke-averaged lift and horizontal force were measured at an angle of attack that varied from 0 deg (horizontal) to 90 deg (hovering position). The flapping frequency was held constant, and freestream velocity was varied with the advance ratio range 0–1.2. For high angles of attack, flapping wings do not exhibit a typical abrupt stall seen with fixed wings. This feature in flapping wings allows a smooth transition from a level flight to hovering and back. The angle of attack, corresponding to a balance of forces in the horizontal direction, decreases exponentially with advance ratio. Aerodynamic coefficients are defined using a reference velocity as a vector sum of a freestream velocity and a stroke-averaged wing-tip flapping velocity. The lift and drag coefficients obtained using this procedure collapse well for the studied advance ratios, especially at lower angles of attack. Polynomial approximations for aerodynamic coefficients are proposed that can be used in flight-performance analysis.


In this paper, we investigate the problem of synthesizing computable
functions of infinite words over an infinite alphabet (data $\omega$-words).
The notion of computability is defined through Turing machines with infinite
inputs which can produce the corresponding infinite outputs in the limit. We
use non-deterministic transducers equipped with registers, an extension of
register automata with outputs, to describe specifications. Being
non-deterministic, such transducers may not define functions but more generally
relations of data $\omega$-words. In order to increase the expressive power of
these machines, we even allow guessing of arbitrary data values when updating
their registers.
 For functions over data $\omega$-words, we identify a sufficient condition
(the possibility of determining the next letter to be outputted, which we call
next letter problem) under which computability (resp. uniform computability)
and continuity (resp. uniform continuity) coincide.
 We focus on two kinds of data domains: first, the general setting of
oligomorphic data, which encompasses any data domain with equality, as well as
the setting of rational numbers with linear order; and second, the set of
natural numbers equipped with linear order. For both settings, we prove that
functionality, i.e. determining whether the relation recognized by the
transducer is actually a function, is decidable. We also show that the
so-called next letter problem is decidable, yielding equivalence between
(uniform) continuity and (uniform) computability. Last, we provide
characterizations of (uniform) continuity, which allow us to prove that these
notions, and thus also (uniform) computability, are decidable. We even show
that all these decision problems are PSpace-complete for $(\mathbb{N},<)$ and
for a large class of oligomorphic data domains, including for instance
$(\mathbb{Q},<)$.


In this paper we develop a method for estimating varying coefficients on effects of covariates without modeling the shape of the spatial-temporal baseline trend. We consider the situation where primary interest is in the effects of covariates and the spatial-temporal baseline trend, though non-negligible, is of secondary interest. This is similar to the situation with the Cox proportional hazards model in survival analysis. Basis functions are used to model the shapes of the varying coefficients, but no particular shape is assumed for the spatial-temporal baseline trend. After the effects of covariates are evaluated, estimates of the spatial-temporal baseline trend can be obtained nonparametrically.


In sandwich plates, the strong demand of both lightweight and high bending rigidity makes its face sheet very thin and core very high. In such plates, resonance frequencies of in-plane vibration become very low. Consequently it is necessary to consider in-plane vibration as well as bending vibration. But there are few studies related to in-plane vibration problems. In this paper, the in-plane vibration characteristic of the flat plate which is made of the thick Al honeycomb core and thin Al face is evaluated by both the finite element method analysis and the experiment. Both results are compared with each other and both natural frequencies and vibration modes by the analysis coincides very well with those by the experiment.


As Washington and Tokyo continue to clarify their relationship and roles, Japan continues to block the access of foreign professionals, Westerners and Asians alike. These market barriers serve neither the professed goals of Japan nor those of the United States. Despite repeated promises to open up, Japanese legal, media, academic and research organizations run an intellectual closed shop. Western lawyers are stymied in efforts to help firms enter the Japanese market. Foreign correspondants are systematically walled off from the most important resources. Resident Asian academics in search of stable and productive careers and education find the roads blocked. Non-Japanese scientists and engineers are kept out of state-of-the-art laboratories. Japan aspires to a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and a larger political voice, but its intellectual parsimony is simply not worthy of a world economic power, argues Ivan Hall. This book looks into the causes of these cultural and institutional barriers and examines ineffective past attempts to challenge them.


The standard electroweak model is extended by means of a second Brout–Englert–Higgs–doublet. The symmetry breaking potential is chosen in such a way that (i) the Lagrangian possesses a custodial symmetry, (ii) a stationary, axially symmetric ansatz of the bosonic fields consistently reduces the Euler–Lagrange equations to a set of differential equations. The potential involves, in particular, a direct interaction between the two doublets. Magnetic, stationary, axially-symmetric solutions of the classical equations are constructed. Some of them can be assimilated to embedded Nielsen–Olesen strings. From these solutions there are bifurcations and new solutions appear which exhibit the characteristics of the recently constructed twisted semilocal strings. A special emphasis is set on "doubly-twisted" solutions for which the two doublets present different time-dependent phase factors. They are regular and have a finite energy which can be lower than the energy of the embedded twisted solution. Electric-type solutions, such that the fields oscillate asymptotically far from the symmetry-axis, are also reported.


The emerging paradigm of Web services opens a new way of Web application design and development to quickly develop and deploy Web applications by integrating independently published Web services components to conduct new business transactions. As research aiming at facilitating Web services integration and verification, WS-Net is an executable architectural description language incorporating the semantics of colored Petri-net with the style and understandability of object-oriented concepts. WS-Net describes each Web services component in three layers: interface net declares the services that the component provides to other components; interconnection net specifies the services that the component acquires to accomplish its mission; and interoperation net describes the internal operational behaviors of the component. As an architectural model that formalizes the architectural topology and behaviors of each Web services component as well as the entire system, WS-Net facilitates the verification and monitoring of Web services integration.


Abstract Although a number of studies have looked at what factors might mediate the relationship between symptoms and quality of life (QoL) in a number of psychiatric disorders, little research has addressed this issue in eating disorders. In the current study, female undergraduates (N = 339) completed questionnaires assessing eating disorder symptoms, social support, coping, QoL, and psychosocial impairment. Perceived family support and levels of substance misuse as a way of coping were identified as mediators of the symptom-impairment relationship and, in addition, maladaptive coping also mediated the relationship with QoL. These results highlight the role of coping and social support in impairment resulting from eating disorder symptoms.


The imaging properties of an imaging system can be described by its detective quantum efficiency (DQE). Using the modulation transfer function calculated from measured line spread functions and the normalized noise power spectrum calculated from uniformity images, DQE was calculated with the number of photons emitted from a plane source as a measure for the incoming SNR2. Measurements were made with 99mTc, using three different pulse height windows at 2 cm and 12 cm depths in water with high resolution and all purpose collimators and with two different crystal thicknesses. The results indicated that at greater depths a 15% window is the best choice. The choice of collimator depends on the details in the organ being investigated. There is a break point at 0.5 cycles cm−1 and 1.2 cycles cm−1 at 12 cm and 2 cm depths, respectively. A difference was found in DQE between the two crystal thicknesses, with a slightly better result for the thick crystal for measurements at 12 cm depth. At 2 cm depth, the thinner crystal was slightly better for frequencies over 0.5 cm−1. The determination of DQE could be a method to optimize the parameters for different nuclear medicine investigations. The DQE could also be used in comparing different gamma camera systems with different collimators to obtain a figure of merit.


Introduction: The National Clinical Programme for Older People in Ireland recommends the implementation of methods to identify frailty in the Emergency Department (ED) and to integrate the care of frail older adults between primary, secondary and social care.  Although several models of frailty assessment teams have been piloted nationally, research into their effects on healthcare outcomes is limited. Description of practice change implemented: An integrated care pathway, consisting of dedicated medical, nursing and health and social care professional (HSCP) staff, was developed through the department of geriatric medicine, to assess frail older adults at the earliest possible point following admission through the ED. All patients >75 years admitted over the preceeding 24 hours are screened for frailty using the PRISMA-7. Those screening positive are discussed by the Frailty Service Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) and those deemed frail are assessed by Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) in the ED and managed as inpatients, if appropriate. The same MDT meet daily to review progress to provide consistent and integrated care linking in with community services and an intergrated care manager. Aim and theory of change: To evaluate the experience of developing and integrating a Frailty Medicine strand within an University Hospital with existing medical, nursing and HSCP models of caring for frail older adults and to investigate whether this new model has a positive impact on healthcare outcomes including hospital length of stay (LOS) and 30-day readmission rates. Targeted population: Consecutive older adults (aged ≥75 years) that were medically stable (not requiring immediate resuscitation, intensive care or specialist medical care) and admitted through a University Hospital ED, on service operational days, were targeted. Frailty was screened using the PRISMA-7 (cut-off ≥3) and confirmed by a Consultant Geriatrician using CGA. Those admitted overnight and remaining on ED trolleys were prioritized. Timeline: We examined differences in outcomes for frail older adults after the introduction of the new service during 14 days in October 2016. Highlights: In total, 102 older patients were screened for frailty; their median age was 81 years (interquartile +/-8) and their median PRISMA-7 score was 5 (+/-4). Of these, 22 frail inpatients admitted overnight and remaining on ED trolleys were assessed and managed on the new integrated frailty pathway. Of the remainder, 54/80 (67.5%) patients were confirmed as frail but were not managed due to limited service capacity or exclusionary criteria. There was no statistically significant difference in median age (82.5+/-6 versus 83+/-8, respectively, z=-0.46, p=0.65) or PRISMA-7 scores (5+/-2 versus 5+/-2, respectively, z=-0.49, p=0.63) between those managed on the frailty pathway and frail patients receiving usual care. The median LOS of those taken over and managed throughout their admission on the frailty pathway (n=21) was 7 days (9-5=+/-4) compared to 8.5 days (12-6=+/-6), for those receiving usual care, z=-1.2, p=0.23. Likewise, no significant differences in 30-day readmission rates were found. Comments on Sustainability: Sustainability of this Frailty Service is dependent on targeted goal setting, enhanced resources and the incorporation of patient important outcomes particularly the quality of care (access, effectiveness and patient-centeredness). Wider integration with community services is planned. Comments on Transferability: Different models of frailty assessment have been created as a response to the increasing numbers of older adults attending and admitted through Irish ED's. This new model incorporating dedicated medical with nursing and HSCP resources shows potential but requires comparison and validation against existing models nationally and internationally. Conclusions: While no statistically significant differences in outcomes were shown, a trend towards reduced LOS and readmission rates over those receiving usual care was found. Discussions: These results suggest that targeting frail older adults (≥75), screening positive for frailty with CGA and management, directly after admission into an ED, may improve healthcare outcomes. Further research with larger samples (as the sample is likely underpowered), measured over longer periods, is now required to overcome potential sources of bias. Lessons learned: This project shows the potential to identify and manage frail older adults with interdisciplinary integrated care from ED admission throughout their inpatient stay until discharge. While the Frailty Service is yet limited, there is scope to further integrate with existing hospital and community-based services for older adults to improve patient flow and transitions of care.


The study was carried out to evaluate water use efficiency and yield of Amaranthus cruentus grown under soil moisture sensor-based (SMS-based) irrigation system. SMS-based irrigation controller was designed to automate irrigation events based on 100 %, 75 % and 50 % field capacity (FC) for the growth of Amaranthus cruentus. The findings of the study revealed that the SMS-based irrigation based on 50 % FC saved 57.17 % irrigation water, 75 % FC saved 43 % while 100 % FC saved 25.33 % irrigation water. Water use efficiency (WUE) ranged from 1.39 – 2.43 for WUE based on fresh weight while WUE based on dry weight ranged from 0.22- 0.4. SMS-based on 50 % FC had the highest WUE of 2.43 while manual irrigation had the lowest WUE of 1.39 based on vegetable fresh weight. The total fresh weight and shoot fresh weight ranged from 62.47g – 84.16 g and 52.22 - 66.92 g respectively. Total dry weight and shoot dry weight ranged from 9.13 - 13.30 g and 7.58 - 11.28 g respectively. SMS-based irrigation based on 100% FC had the highest total and shoot fresh yield while SMS-based irrigation based on 75 % FC had the highest total dry and shoot dry weight. Generally, the yield of Amaranthus cruentus were statistically similar for all the treatments. The relationship of total fresh weight and shoot fresh weight and number of leaves with WUE and volume of irrigation water were statistically significant p≤0.05 while that of total dry weight, shoot dry weight and plant height with WUE and volume of irrigation water were not statistically significant at p≥0.05. SMS-based irrigation had higher irrigation water use efficiency more than manual irrigation which resulted to irrigation water saving compared to the manual irrigation without reducing the yield of Amaranthus cruentus. Keywords : Soil Moisture, Water Use Efficiency, Amaranthus, Fresh weight, Plant height


Finding a document or resource in an unstructured peer-to-peer network can be an exceedingly difficult problem. In this paper we propose a query routing approach that accounts for arbitrary overlay topologies, nodes with heterogeneous processing capacity, e.g., reflecting their degree of altruism, and heterogenous class-based likelihoods of query resolution at nodes which may reflect query loads and the manner in which files/resources are distributed across the network. The approach is shown to be stabilize the query load subject to a grade of service constraint, i.e., a guarantee that queries' routes meet pre-specified class-based bounds on their associated a priori probability of query resolution. An explicit characterization of the capacity region for such systems is given and numerically compared to that associated with random walk based searches. Simulation results further show the performance benefits, in terms of mean delay, of the proposed approach. Additional aspects associated with reducing complexity, estimating parameters, and adaptation to class-based query resolution probabilities and traffic


The main purpose of this master`s thesis is to look for geomorphologic and sedimentary traces of a palaeo channel in Bismo, to examine a previous avulsion. After a remote sensing of the area, a topographical trace was found and assessed important for the case study. Seven cross sections were measured in this hollow topographical trace and four cross sections in the active river channel for comparison, and soil samples were collected from the stratigraphic sequence in six profiles. Geomorphologic traces as flood plain, river banks and bars were observed, and the sediment in those areas showed fluvial deposits associated to processes before and after the avulsion. The topographical trace is hence interpreted as an ancient river channel, which signifies that an avulsion in fact has occurred in the Otta River. The characteristics of the present river channel can interpret to occurred during flood, thus the avulsion probably happened during Storofsen which had a significant impact on the landscape.


Recent demands for preserving esthetics of polymer parts over the duration of their service life have necessitated a favorable scratch resistance of polymer surfaces. Herein, a layer-multiplying coextrusion process was chosen to prepare a type of scratch resistant polylactide (PLA) material containing multilayer-assembled shish-kebab structure. Their scratch behavior and potential mechanisms were investigated. It was demonstrated that the greatly improved mechanical strength and toughness following the formation of ordered and oriented crystalline structure in neat PLA played a significant role in improving the scratch performance, particularly the resistance to the formation of cracking. Since no foreign additives were required, the present work provided an economical and environmental-friendly strategy for fabricating scratch resistant polymers.


Demographic transition implies severe challenges for high income nations, for instance Japan, as the population decreases due to declines in birth rates as well as the higher rate of elderly population. More women are entering the labor market which affects birth rates. In addition, technological progress has improved health care and standard of living, bringing up life expectancies. However, the elderly population is increasing, elevating the dependency ratio which dampens the economic growth. The changed age structure alters the ratio of labor force negatively relative to population, in spite of the higher female labor participation. This paper analyzes how the current demographic transition in advanced countries influences economic growth. The paper is focused on Japan that is currently dealing with the consequences from the fastest increase in the percentage share of the elderly population compared to the other high income countries. The empirical analysis is based on a growth accounting model that estimates the impact of demographic factors on growth rates in high income countries. The empirical results indicate that demographic factors such as life expectancy and total dependency ratio have a negative impact on economic growth. The conclusion is that Japan and other rich countries have to make greater efforts in dampening the demographic change by policy making and in-migration.


ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound societal impact with unprecedented impact on women's labor force participation, including among academic mothers. Yet, persistent gendered and racialized inequities in academia remain structurally unaddressed, including in social work. We believe that as social work educators we are well-positioned to develop an academic culture that helps us refocus on what matters most; redefine excellence in teaching, service, and research; and make academic practice more equitable. To this end, we convened a group of social work academic mothers, representing various identities at teaching and research-intensive institutions, to offer collective perspectives and recommendations for structural change within the social work academy to buffer the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and exacerbating racial and gendered disparities.


This thesis consists of three papers that aim to increase our understanding of how divergent changes to organizational structures and management systems in hospitals may be handled by leaders and employees in order to achieve outcomes that contribute towards organizational goals of service quality improvement. Reforms, new policies and the continuous large- and/or small-scale changes aiming for service quality improvement that they manifest in within hospital organizations have been identified as a move away from professional dominance and autonomy, and a move towards a health care system where managerial and market logics are influential. These changes have challenged the organizing principles of professional power in decisions regarding hospital organizational structures and management systems, and professional services are increasingly subject to organizational reform, budgetary control and managerial supervision. Organizational changes that break with existing institutions in a field of activity are defined as divergent. Despite decades of managerial logic initiatives, health care organizations are still heavily influenced by the professional logic. Introducing changes that are based in a managerial or market logic into the work of health service professionals could therefore be considered as divergent, and potentially conflictual, organizational change which would be met with resistance rather than readiness for change and willing participation. We know from previous research that quality improvement initiatives in hospitals very often fail to produce the intended results. We also know that involving health care professionals in processes aimed at improving hospital services is widely considered as a critical factor for achieving goals of quality improvement. However, the most widely documented reaction to divergent change from clinical staff is resistance or active opposition to new arrangements, and this is often identified as the reason for failure in achieving the improvements that change projects aim for. There are few studies of successful outcomes of divergent changes in health care organizations. There are also few empirical studies of professional engagement in such organizational change efforts. This means that there is an identified need for studies that shed light on how successful outcomes occur in a variety of contexts and related to a variety of different types of changes, as well as for more in-depth research on how divergent changes may be handled by hospital leaders and employees in order to achieve outcomes that contribute towards organizational goals of service quality improvement. This thesis raises the two following research questions: How are frequent organizational changes in hospitals and middle manager change-oriented leadership related to organizational and employee outcomes relevant to hospital service quality? How can hospital leaders and employees contribute to processes of implementing divergent changes to organizational structures and management systems in order to achieve outcomes that contribute towards organizational goals of service quality improvement? The first question is answered by Paper 1, titled "Changing to improve? Organizational change and change oriented leadership in hospitals." The second question is answered by Papers 2 and 3, and an overall discussion of the findings from all three papers.


Purpose: Carcinoids are neuroendocrine tumors and most frequently occur within tissues derived from the embryonic gut. These tumors can occur in any organ site but are rare in the testis. The cell type giving rise to testicular carcinoid is unknown. We hypothesized that testicular carcinoid may have a germ cell origin. Experimental Design: We describe our analysis of protein and genetic markers of germ cell neoplasia, using immunohistochemistry and fluorescence in situ hybridization, in four testicular carcinoid tumors. Results: All four cases of testicular carcinoid tumor arose in a background of mature teratoma. Isochromosome 12p was identified in carcinoid tumor cells in all four samples. 12p overrepresentation was also observed in three cases. Isochromosome 12p and 12p overrepresentation were present in cells of coexisting mature teratoma in three cases. Carcinoid tumors showed strong immunoreactivity for synaptophysin and chromogranin, but no immunoreactivity for OCT4, CD30, c-kit, TTF-1, and CDX2. Membranous and cytoplasmic staining for β-catenin was detected in three cases. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that testicular carcinoid represents a phenotypic expression of testicular teratoma and is of germ cell origin.


Parameterised patient-specific models of the heart enable quantitative analysis of cardiac function as well as estimation of regional stress and intrinsic tissue stiffness. However, the development of personalised models and subsequent simulations have often required lengthy manual setup, from image labelling through to generating the finite element model and assigning boundary conditions. Recently, rapid patient-specific finite element modelling has been made possible through the use of machine learning techniques. In this paper, utilising multiple neural networks for image labelling and detection of valve landmarks, together with streamlined data integration, a pipeline for generating patient-specific biventricular models is applied to clinically-acquired data from a diverse cohort of individuals, including hypertrophic and dilated cardiomyopathy patients and healthy volunteers. Valve motion from tracked landmarks as well as cavity volumes measured from labelled images are used to drive realistic motion and estimate passive tissue stiffness values. The neural networks are shown to accurately label cardiac regions and features for these diverse morphologies. Furthermore, differences in global intrinsic parameters, such as tissue anisotropy and normalised active tension, between groups illustrate respective underlying changes in tissue composition and/or structure as a result of pathology. This study shows the successful application of a generic pipeline for biventricular modelling, incorporating artificial intelligence solutions, within a diverse cohort.


Most mission planning algorithms are designed for healthy systems. When faults occur in a system, it is advantageous to optimize the mission plan by taking the system health condition into consideration. In this paper, a mission planning scheme is proposed to integrate real-time prognostics in a receding horizon path planning framework to accommodate the system fault. In this scheme, the stateof-charge of a battery is monitored and predicted by a particle-filtering based prognostic algorithm. The predicted state-of-charge and remaining useful life of the battery are used in the mission planning to minimize mission failure risk. A series of experiments are presented on a robotic platform, which is powered by a Lithium-ion battery, to demonstrate and verify the proposed scheme.


A sensitive electronic monitor (Mini-Motionlogger, Ambulatory Monitoring Inc.) attached to the wrist was used to record movements during two 24-hr days of ambulatory blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) recording in 65 women and 54 men between the ages of 55 and 79 years, all of whom were in good health. The objective was to examine the relationship between various measures of physical activity and ambulatory BP and HR during waking and sleeping periods and during various diary-defined behaviors. For waking and sleeping periods, neither the mean nor the variability of the activity measure was associated with the mean or variability of the ambulatory BP and HR measures in between-subjects correlational analyses. Within-subject analyses showed little evidence of significant covariation between activity and BP or HR during either waking or sleeping conditions with most participants showing a slightly positive association. The activity measure discriminated between behaviors associated with little effort (watching television) versus more energetic behaviors (walking). Activity accounted for a relatively small amount of the difference in BP or HR related to overall state (wake, sleep), posture (stand, sit), and social condition (being with family vs. being with friends). The utility of electronic activity monitoring for studies of BP and HR in natural settings is discussed.


Introduction: Hypertension is a major public health problem due to its high prevalence, low levels of control, and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Objective: To analyze the prevalence of hypertension and associated factors in men and women living in the cities of Legal Amazonia. Methods: A population-based, cross-sectional study was carried out with 1,296 adults in the cities of Legal Amazonia. Socio-demographic, lifestyle, and anthropometric data were collected and blood pressure was measured, being considered hypertensive those individuals who had blood pressure ≥ 140/90 mmHg and/or those who reported the use of antihypertensive drugs. Statistical analyzes were performed using the survey module prefix in Stata version 11.0. Results: The prevalence of hypertension was 22.3%. After adjusting, the variables associated with hypertension in men were in the age groups 30 - 39 years (adjusted prevalence ratio (PR) = 2.69; 95%CI 1.49 - 4.86), 40 - 49 years (adjusted PR = 3.28; 95%CI 1.82 - 5.93), and 50 - 59 years (adjusted PR = 4.80; 95%CI 2.63 - 8.76); overweight (adjusted PR = 1.97; 95%CI 1.39 - 2.78); obesity (adjusted PR = 3.32; 95%CI 2.32 - 4.75); and being born in the North or Northeast regions (adjusted PR = 0.31; 95%CI 0.18 - 0.59). Among women, the age groups 40 - 49 years (adjusted PR = 3.41; 95%CI 1.91 - 6.07) and 50 - 59 years (adjusted PR = 7.29; 95%CI 4.07 - 13.07), wine consumption (adjusted PR = 0.31; 95%CI 0.10 - 0.97), and obesity (adjusted PR = 2.39; 95%CI 1.65 - 3.45) were associated with hypertension. Conclusion: In men, hypertension was independently associated with age, nutritional status, and place of birth, whereas in women, the variables associated with hypertension were age, nutritional status, and type of alcoholic beverage.


Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is a multi-copy genome encoding for proteins essential for aerobic energy metabolism. Mutations in mtDNA can lead to a variety of human diseases, from mild metabolic syndromes to severe fatal encephalomyopathies. Most mtDNA mutations co-exist with wild type genomes in a state known as heteroplasmy. The segregation of these pathogenic mutants is tissue and mutation specific, and a key determinant in the onset and severity of human mitochondrial disorders. We used a forward genetic approach in mice to identify and demonstrate that Gimap3 (GTPase of immunity associated protein) is a key regulator of mtDNA segregation in leukocytes. The Gimap gene cluster is found only in vertebrates and appear to be a class of nucleotide-dependent dimerization GTPases. Gimap3 is a membrane-anchored GTPase with a critical role in T cell development. Here, we summarize our genetic findings and postulate how Gimap3 might regulate mtDNA genetics.


Context. In the era of large Galactic stellar surveys, carefully calibrating and validating the data sets has become an important and integral part of the data analysis. Moreover, new generations of stellar atmosphere models and spectral line formation computations need to be subjected to benchmark tests to assess any progress in predicting stellar properties.
Aims: We focus on cool stars and aim at establishing a sample of 34 Gaia FGK benchmark stars with a range of different metallicities. The goal was to determine the effective temperature and the surface gravity independently of spectroscopy and atmospheric models as far as possible. Most of the selected stars have been subjected to frequent spectroscopic investigations in the past, and almost all of them have previously been used as reference, calibration, or test objects.
Methods: Fundamental determinations of Teff and log g were obtained in a systematic way from a compilation of angular diameter measurements and bolometric fluxes and from a homogeneous mass determination based on stellar evolution models. The derived parameters were compared to recent spectroscopic and photometric determinations and to gravity estimates based on seismic data.
Results: Most of the adopted diameter measurements have formal uncertainties around 1%, which translate into uncertainties in effective temperature of 0.5%. The measurements of bolometric flux seem to be accurate to 5% or better, which contributes about 1% or less to the uncertainties in effective temperature. The comparisons of parameter determinations with the literature in general show good agreements with a few exceptions, most notably for the coolest stars and for metal-poor stars.
Conclusions: The sample consists of 29 FGK-type stars and 5 M giants. Among the FGK stars, 21 have reliable parameters suitable for testing, validation, or calibration purposes. For four stars, future adjustments of the fundamental Teff are required, and for five stars the log g determination needs to be improved. Future extensions of the sample of Gaia FGK benchmark stars are required to fill gaps in parameter space, and we include a list of suggested candidates.


Evidence is presented that a lethal toxin is produced by P. aeruginosa growing in the burned skin of experimental mice. After injection of approximately 100 P. aeruginosa cells into the burned skin there was a rapid proliferation of organisms at the site of inoculation. When the organisms in the burned skin tissue reached a critical concentration, there was generalised toxaemia with subsequent mortality; the process was not reversible at this stage, even by reducing substantially the numbers of infecting organisms. However, when the reduction was accompanied by administration of rabbit serum prepared against filter-sterilised extracts of infected burned tissues, approximately 40% of the animals survived for at least 96 h. The data suggests that the antiserum afforded protection by inactivating a toxin produced by the organisms growing in the infected burned tissues rather than by further reducing the numbers of infecting organisms.


This paper proposes an enhanced one-terminal fault-location algorithm in which its salient performance is to combine the advantage of minimal fault data requirement for standard IEEE one-terminal algorithm with the advantage of superior accuracy for two-terminal algorithm. Assuming that voltage phasor at any bus can be easily obtained, and that fault impedance can be treated with resistive characteristic, an optimization problem is then formulated, and solved by a well-known SQP routine, to estimate the fault current contribution from the other terminal with no measuring device such as digital fault recorder. Performance of the proposed technique has been validated by comparing against respective performances of the two aforementioned IEEE standard algorithms as well as another enhanced one-terminal proposed by Takagi, et. al, testing on an IEEE 14-bus network for three-phase and single-phase-to-ground short-circuits with fault resistance varying from 0.1–5 ohm and fault position varying over the entire line length. Test results show impressive accuracy performance, especially for the cases with fault resistance above 1 ohm and fault position within 0.7 per-unit line length. The optimization formulation will be further refined in the future, in an attempt to even improve the accuracy closer to the level obtained from the two-terminal algorithm.


Methane transport from subsurface reservoirs to shallow marine sediment is characterized by unique biogeochemical interactions significant for ocean chemistry. Sulfate-Methane Transition Zone (SMTZ) is an important diagenetic front in the sediment column that quantitatively consumes the diffusive methane fluxes from deep methanogenic sources toward shallow marine sediments via sulfate-driven anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM). Recent global compilation from diffusion-controlled marine settings suggests methane from below and sulfate from above fluxing into the SMTZ at an estimated rate of 3.8 and 5.3 Tmol year–1, respectively, and wider estimate for methane flux ranges from 1 to 19 Tmol year–1. AOM converts the methane carbon to dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) at the SMTZ. Organoclastic sulfate reduction (OSR) and deep-DIC fluxes from methanogenic zones contribute additional DIC to the shallow sediments. Here, we provide a quantification of 8.7 Tmol year–1 DIC entering the methane-charged shallow sediments due to AOM, OSR, and the deep-DIC flux (range 6.4–10.2 Tmol year–1). Of this total DIC pool, an estimated 6.5 Tmol year–1 flows toward the water column (range: 3.2–9.2 Tmol year–1), and 1.7 Tmol year–1 enters the authigenic carbonate phases (range: 0.6–3.6 Tmol year–1). This summary highlights that carbonate authigenesis in settings dominated by diffusive methane fluxes is a significant component of marine carbon burial, comparable to ∼15% of carbonate accumulation on continental shelves and in the abyssal ocean, respectively. Further, the DIC outflux through the SMTZ is comparable to ∼20% of global riverine DIC flux to oceans. This DIC outflux will contribute alkalinity or CO2 in different proportions to the water column, depending on the rates of authigenic carbonate precipitation and sulfide oxidation and will significantly impact ocean chemistry and potentially atmospheric CO2. Settings with substantial carbonate precipitation and sulfide oxidation at present are contributing CO2 and thus to ocean acidification. Our synthesis emphasizes the importance of SMTZ as not only a methane sink but also an important diagenetic front for global DIC cycling. We further underscore the need to incorporate a DIC pump in methane-charged shallow marine sediments to models for coastal and geologic carbon cycling.


To study the seismic performance of RC shear wall, and to develop its fine nonlinear analysis method, systemic studies on nonlinear static analysis and it's realization method are carried out. Beginning with rotating-angle softened-truss model for coupled shear and flexural responses, analytical model of solid wall is presented based on the comparative study on four types of constitutive law of concrete for confined concrete of boundary zone. Good agreements between analytical and experimental results of load-displacement relation are found, which indicates that the proposed analytical method can reflect the global mechanical behavior of shear wall well. Studies on coupling beam and global perforated wall modeling are implemented, then modeling approach and nonlinear static analysis method for perforated wall are proposed. Comparing analytical load-displacement curve to experimental, initial stiffness and first turning point agree well and analytical ultimate capacity is close to experimental, which is shown that the load-displacement curve can actually exhibit the general load-displacement trend of perforated wall.


Accounting for ocean currents in the bulk parameterization of the wind stress might represent a physically more plausible way to force an ocean model than ignoring their effect. We show in this study that using the air-sea velocity difference instead of the atmospheric wind in the wind stress formulation dampens both the near-surface eddy activity and the biotic carbon assimilation in a high-resolution model of the North Atlantic. The former is significant, corresponding to a reduction down to 50% in the tropical Atlantic, while in higher latitudes (in agreement with previous results) the reduction of eddy activity is only around 10%. The effect on biotically mediated new production and air-sea carbon fluxes is, on the other hand, minor. New production is reduced by less than 5% on a basin average, while simulated air-sea CO2 fluxes are barely affected at all. The model results imply that eddy/wind interaction introduced by accounting for ocean currents in the wind stress formulation does not drive any additional (and hitherto unaccounted) nutrient fluxes to the sunlit surface of the subtropical gyre, as was recently proposed in the literature.


The exceptionally low deformation potential is proposed as the key determinant for the high carrier mobility in α-phosphorene. This is related to its unique corrugated two-dimensional structure. Herein, we present a systematic first-principles density functional theory study on ten α-phosphorene isostructures by calculating the three key parameters of the carrier mobility. An electron mobility in the armchair direction with a value comparable to α-phosphorene is found in α-PAs, α-PCH, and α-AsCH, due to the structure-caused low deformation potential. The highest carrier mobility is predicted in α-graphane because of a two-orders-of-magnitude smaller deformation potential than the other isostructures. The low deformation potential can be correlated to the separation of charge carriers from neighbouring unit cells. This study highlights a feasible route to generating high mobility materials through deformation potential engineering.


Licensed assisted access (LAA) enables the coexistence of long-term evolution (LTE) and Wi-Fi in unlicensed bands, while potentially offering improved coverage and data rates. However, cooperation with the conventional random-access protocols that employ listen-before-talk (LBT) considerations makes meeting the LTE performance requirements difficult, since delay and throughput guarantees should be delivered. In this paper, we propose a novel channel sharing mechanism for the LAA system that is capable of simultaneously providing the fairness of resource allocation across the competing LTE and Wi-Fi sessions as well as satisfying the quality-of-service guarantees of the LTE sessions in terms of their upper delay bound and throughput. Our proposal is based on two key mechanisms: 1) LAA connection admission control for the LTE sessions and 2) adaptive duty cycle resource division. The only external information necessary for the intended operation is the current number of active Wi-Fi sessions inferred by monitoring the shared channel. In the proposed scheme, LAA-enabled LTE base station fully controls the shared environment by dynamically adjusting the time allocations for both Wi-Fi and LTE technologies, while only admitting those LTE connections that should not interfere with Wi-Fi more than another Wi-Fi access point operating on the same channel would. To characterize the key performance trade-offs pertaining to the proposed operation, we develop a new analytical model. We then comprehensively investigate the performance of the developed channel sharing mechanism by confirming that it allows to achieve a high degree of fairness between the LTE and Wi-Fi connections as well as provides guarantees in terms of upper delay bound and throughput for the admitted LTE sessions. We also demonstrate that our scheme outperforms a typical LBT-based LAA implementation.


DEVELOPING A CHURCH PLANT LAUNCH TEAM AT CITYVIEW CHURCH IN PEARLAND, TEXAS Jason Andrew Crandall, D.Min. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2016 Faculty Supervisor: Dr. John David Trentham Chapter 1 provides an introduction to this project by describing the early circumstances for CityView Church. This chapter introduces the church's background and the rationale for focusing on this topic. Chapter 2 explores the biblical justification for church planting and leadership within a church plant. This chapter focuses on what the church must do and how church plant launch teams should be sent. Additional focus is given as to who should lead a church plant launch team. There are many pragmatic strategies to planting a church, but they must fall in line with the biblical mandate and purpose for church planting. Chapter 3 gives information regarding aspects of church planting vital to success and health in new churches. This information helps churches evaluate which factors will indicate greater success in church planting. Chapter 4 provides the implementation of the project that begins with curriculum design, selection of a prospective team, training, and commitment to the team. This section also provides brief explanation of each session's training objectives. Chapter 5 describes the results of the project. Theological reflections are included to aid in future learning on this subject. My personal reflections upon the doctoral program's influence on this project are also included in this chapter.


The article introduces a novel laser chemical processing technique for removing thin oxide layers on low-carbon steel surfaces by combining laser-induced shock waves and the chemical cleaning technique that is currently utilized in the conventional oxide-scale removal. A Q-switched Nd:yttritium–aluminum–garnet laser (wavelength 1064 nm, full width at half maximum 6 ns) induces optical breakdown in the acid solution, producing intense pressure waves which act as a noncontact scale breaker. It has been demonstrated that the novel process leads to substantial enhancement of the oxide-scale removal from the surfaces. The removal rate has been measured by optical microscopy,x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and energy-dispersive x-ray analysis. Parametric study has been performed to reveal the effect of laser-induced pressure pulse, acid concentration, and reaction time on the efficiency of oxide removal. This work demonstrates a technical feasibility of employing the proposed process in industrial applications which require special treatment, e.g., increased oxide-removal rate and selective surface processing.


BACKGROUND: Welding work is considered to be an occupational hazard and welders are exposed to a range of metal fumes that are toxic to the blood system. Regular inhalation of the welding toxic fumes alters the hematological, antioxidant, and trace element levels and therefore an attempt is made at understanding these changes in the welders. AIM OF THE WORK: In this case–control study, an attempt is made at understanding the general health, hematological, antioxidant, and trace elements status of welders by comparing with age-matched office workers from the same area. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a purposive, case–control prospective study and was carried out in healthy volunteers devoid of any chronic or acute systemic ailments in Mangalore, India. The sociodemographic details were collected in a structured questionnaire, while a detailed clinical examination was carried out by the senior clinicians. The blood collected as per the standard laboratory procedure was analyzed for hematological parameters, antioxidant, and trace elements status. The data were subjected to frequency, percentage, and analyzed using the unpaired ttest. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: The results suggest that when compared to the controls, the welders showed significantly lower neutrophil count (53.45 ± 6.11 vs. 46.68 ± 6.12; P = 0.0003) and platelet count (267409.1 ± 42329.4 vs. 199142.9 ± 73735.1; P = 0.0002), and significantly higher counts of eosinophils (5.86 ± 4.12 vs. 9.86 ± 2.76; P = 0.0004) and monocytes (2.45 ± 1.63 vs. 4.89 ± 1.17; P < 0.0001). The levels of lipid peroxidation were high (225.73 ± 56.88 vs. 255.82 ± 30.26; P = 0.04), whereas total antioxidant capacity was less (3.00 ± 0.91 vs. 2.16 ± 1.04; P = 0.004) in the welders. When compared to controls, the serum iron (84.09 ± 6.18 vs. 94.46 ± 8.44; P ≤ 0.0001), copper (104.68 ± 40.63 vs. 148.93 ± 34.18; P = 0.0002), and lead (8.53 ± 5.49 vs. 14.18 ± 8.05; P = 0.005) were all significantly high in welders. There was no significant difference in the serum zinc and glutathione levels between the controls and welders. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the study indicate that occupational exposure to welding fumes among welders disturbs the homeostasis of trace elements in systemic circulation and induces oxidative stress.


Providing instant response for product-related questions in E-commerce question answering platforms can greatly improve users' online shopping experience. However, existing product question answering (PQA) methods only consider a single information source such as user reviews and/or require large amounts of labeled data. In this paper, we propose a novel framework to tackle the PQA task via exploiting heterogeneous information including natural language text and attribute-value pairs from two information sources of the concerned product, namely product details and user reviews. A heterogeneous information encoding component is then designed for obtaining unified representations of information with different formats. The sources of the candidate snippets are also incorporated when measuring the question-snippet relevance. Moreover, the framework is trained with a specifically designed weak supervision paradigm making use of available answers in the training phase. Experiments on a real-world dataset show that our proposed framework achieves superior performance over state-of-the-art models.


Urban clusters are the expected products of high levels of industry and urbanization in a country, as well as being the basic units of participation in global competition. With respect to China, urban clusters are regarded as the dominant formation for boosting the China's urbanization process. However, to date, there is no coincident, efficient, and credible methodological system and set of techniques to identify Chinese urban clusters. This research investigates the potential of an computerized identification method supported by geographic information techniques to provide a better understanding of the distribution of China's urban clusters. The identification method is executed based on a geographic information database, a digital elevation model, and socio-economic data with the aid of ArcInfo Macro Language programming. In the method, preliminary boundaries are identified according to transportation accessibility, and final identifications are achieved from limiting city numbers, population, and GDP in a region with the aid of the rasterized socio-economic dataset. The results show that the method identifies nine Chinese urban clusters, i.e., Pearl River Delta, Lower Yangtze River Valley, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, Northeast China, Middle Yangtze River Valley, Central China Plains, Western Taiwan Strait, Guanzhong and Chengdu-Chongqing urban clusters. This research represents the first study involving the computerized identification of China's urban clusters. Moreover, compared to other related studies, the study's approach, which combines transportation accessibility and socio-economic characteristics, is shown to be a distinct, effective and reliable way of identifying urban clusters.


Many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) want to introduce recommendation services to boost sales, but they need to have sufficient amounts of data to introduce these recommendation services. This study proposes an extrapolative collaborative filtering (ECF) system that does not directly share data among SMEs but improves recommendation performance for small and medium-sized companies that lack data through the extrapolation of data, which can provide a magical experience to users. Previously, recommendations were made utilizing only data generated by the merchant itself, so it was impossible to recommend goods to new users. However, our ECF system provides appropriate recommendations to new users as well as existing users based on privacy-preserved payment transaction data. To accomplish this, PP2Vec using Word2Vec was developed by utilizing purchase information only, excluding personal information from payment company data. We then compared the performances of single-merchant models and multi-merchant models. For the merchants with more data than SMEs, the performance of the single-merchant model was higher, while for the SME merchants with fewer data, the multi-merchant model's performance was higher. The ECF System proposed in this study is more suitable for the real-world business environment because it does not directly share data among companies. Our study shows that AI (artificial intelligence) technology can contribute to the sustainability and viability of economic systems by providing high-performance recommendation capability, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups.


Direct indexing is an excellent tool for improving after-tax returns for taxable clients. However, the predominant approach to doing this, where tracking error is minimized and any possible tax benefit is constrained, may be sub-optimal. Focusing too much on tracking error can lead to missed opportunities to add after-tax value. The best outcome for clients is to maximize their after-tax return/wealth, which may require taking on higher levels of tracking error. Based on 20 years of simulated portfolios, the authors found that higher active risk can potentially provide more tax alpha without sacrificing pre-tax performance, and that it is most beneficial in years with large drawdowns and during the earliest years after inception. When investors choose direct indexing providers, it is important to take a holistic view of their risk tolerance and investment horizon, and of the providers' investment process—particularly how loss harvesting is implemented, how risk is managed, and how the strategy performs during large drawdowns. TOPICS: Mutual funds/passive investing/indexing, wealth management, portfolio construction, performance measurement Key Findings ▪ Systematic tax loss harvesting contributes significantly to clients' after-tax wealth without compromising pre-tax performance. Tax alpha is often highest during the early years after inception, stabilizes as portfolios mature, and persists over an extended period of time. ▪ Higher active risk provides more opportunities to harvest losses. The value-add is usually greatest in years with large drawdowns and at the earliest stage of portfolios, when higher active risk is permitted. ▪ Tax managed portfolios tend to tilt positively to momentum and growth factors, and negatively to size, value, and dividend yield factors. The magnitude of active factor exposure is modest, however, and often not of real concern.


The evidence for several sites of activity within the dynorphin sequence is reviewed. A number of endocrine and CNS peptides are believed to contain several sites of biological activity. Data from a number of laboratories is consistent with such a mechanism for the opioid peptide dynorphin. These findings stem from structure-activity studies in which nonopiate fragments of dynorphin sometimes show biological activity and from the failure of naloxone to reverse some effects of dynorphin. These results are discussed in terms of the possible physiological relevance of such nonopiate actions.


The ability of ionizing radiation to initiate genomic instability has been harnessed in the clinic where the localized delivery of controlled doses of radiation is used to induce cell death in tumor cells. Though very effective as a therapy, tumor relapse can occur in vivo and its appearance has been attributed to the radio-resistance of cells with stem cell-like features. The molecular mechanisms underlying these phenomena are unclear but there is evidence suggesting an inverse correlation between radiation-induced genomic instability and global hypomethylation. To further investigate the relationship between DNA hypomethylation, radiosensitivity and genomic stability in stem-like cells we have studied mouse embryonic stem cells containing differing levels of DNA methylation due to the presence or absence of DNA methyltransferases. Unexpectedly, we found that global levels of methylation do not determine radiosensitivity. In particular, radiation-induced delayed genomic instability was observed at the Hprt gene locus only in wild-type cells. Furthermore, absence of Dnmt1 resulted in a 10-fold increase in de novo Hprt mutation rate, which was unaltered by radiation. Our data indicate that functional DNMTs are required for radiation-induced genomic instability, and that individual DNMTs play distinct roles in genome stability. We propose that DNMTS may contribute to the acquirement of radio-resistance in stem-like cells.


The present U.S. system of international taxation is riddled with problems because it does not satisfy critical principles of economics, justice, or common sense. It fails to accomplish the most important goals that an international system should achieve-that is, protecting the domestic tax base in a way that fosters domestic economic development and the creation of jobs. This paper explores alternatives to the present system to see if they do a better job. Some of the alternatives fail for the same reasons as the present system because they are predicated on the same outmoded theories. Some are clearly an improvement, but at the same time raise other significant issues. There is one system, however, that consistently overcomes these defects in a way that would promote domestic business activity and job growth. That system is a destination-based, territorial consumption tax for all corporations.


A Clear Cell Acanthoma is presented, located in the abdominal region, in a 60-year old man, who had had it all his life. The lesion was warty in appearance and brown in colour. Histologically, among the clear cells, numerous dendrytical cells were found which simultaneously contained melanine grains and small drops of neutral fat. These findings are discussed.


Abstract A review of biodiversity curves of marine organisms indicates that, despite fluctuations in amplitude (some large), a large-scale, long-term radiation of life took place during the early Palaeozoic Era; it was aggregated by a succession of more discrete and regionalized radiations across geographies and within phylogenies. This major biodiversification within the marine biosphere started during late Precambrian time and was only finally interrupted in the Devonian Period. It includes both the Cambrian Explosion and the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event. The establishment of modern marine ecosystems took place during a continuous chronology of the successive establishment of organisms and their ecological communities, developed during the 'Cambrian substrate revolution', the 'Ordovician plankton revolution', the 'Ordovician substrate revolution', the 'Ordovician bioerosion revolution' and the 'Devonian nekton revolution'. At smaller scales, different regional but important radiations can be recognized geographically and some of them have been identified and named (e.g. those associated with the 'Richmondian Invasion' during Late Ordovician time in Laurentia and the contemporaneous 'Boda event' in parts of Europe and North Africa), in particular from areas that were in or moved towards lower latitudes, allowing high levels of speciation on epicontintental seas during these intervals. The datasets remain incomplete for many other geographical areas, but also for particular time intervals (e.g. during the late Cambrian 'Furongian Gap'). The early Palaeozoic biodiversification therefore appears to be a long-term process, modulated by bursts in significant diversity and intervals of inadequate data, where its progressive character will become increasingly clearer with the availability of more complete datasets, with better global coverage and more advanced analytical techniques.


Out-of Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) is an important medical issue and a leading cause of mortality all over the world. In Spain there are around 15300 cases of OHCA per year. 82% of them are reported to have a cardiac etiology, with the vast majority suffering from ventricular fibrillation during the early minutes after the collapse. A chain of survival with early defibrillation has shown its effectiveness in recovering these individuals. With the technological improvements in the Automatic External Defibrillators (AED) many Public Access Defibrillation (PAD) programs have been started around the world. A pioneer project of widespread PAD has been started in the province of Girona, north-east of Spain. Aims: 1) To analyze the impact of public-access AED use over the survival rate to hospital discharge in patients with OHCA in the province of Girona. 2) To evaluate the one-month neurological outcome in these patients. Methods: A total of 673 AEDs have been distributed in the whole province of Girona. Prospective data from all bystander-witnessed OHCA in this province will be gathered from 2015 to 2019 Retrospective data about OHCA cases before PAD program will be recruited from the regional Emergency Medical Services (EMS) database. Outcome measures: the main outcome will be survival to hospital discharge in each case. The secondary outcome will be survivor's neurological outcome at one-month, measured by the Cerebral Performance Scale (CPC)


A medium is described which selectively inhibits most bacteria from the normal flora of the conjunctiva, the lid-margin, and the upper respiratory tract but permits growth of Moraxella nonliquefaciens, M. liquefaciens, and the less fastidious strains of M. lacunata. The selective conditions are obtained with thiostrepton, tyrothricin, and sodium nalidixinate as inhibitors. Incubation under increased CO(2) pressure increased the number of primary isolations. M. nonliquefaciens was isolated on the selective medium twice as many times as on other media.


This article proposes a new architecture for privacy-preserving data mining based on Multi Party Computation (MPC) and secure sums. While traditional MPC approaches rely on a small number of aggregation peers replacing a centralized trusted entity, the current study puts forth a distributed solution that involves all data sources in the aggregation process, with the help of a single server for storing intermediate results. A large-scale scenario is examined and the possibility that data become inaccessible during the aggregation process is considered, a possibility that traditional schemes often neglect. Here, it is explicitly examined, as it might be provoked by intermittent network connectivity or sudden user departures. For increasing system reliability, data sources are organized in multiple sets, called rings, which independently work on the aggregation process. Two different protocol schemes are proposed and their failure probability, i.e., the probability that the data mining output cannot guarantee the desired level of accuracy, is analytically modeled. The privacy degree, the communication cost and the computational complexity that the schemes exhibit are also characterized. Finally, the new protocols are applied to some specific use cases, demonstrating their feasibility and attractiveness.


Abstract Market efficiency can be enhanced by market liquidity if it promotes value creation, leading to increasing stock returns. A positive relation between liquidity and stock returns implies capital movement towards more efficient investment at a low cost for value creation. Existing studies are controversial for the relation being positive, negative, or inconclusive. With such inconsistency, this paper uses data from more than 3,200 company stocks from the UK, the United States, Germany, and China securities markets over a 10-year period to estimate the relation across these four markets, respectively. The framework of estimation is robust to outliers and macro shocks, while eliminating the issues of multicollinearity, autocorrelation, and endogeneity. The study finds some interesting results. We report strong evidence for Germany and the UK of a positive relationship between returns and liquidity. In contrast, China exhibits the opposite result, and the United States provides inconclusive evidence, possibly caused by significant diversification of value perception on liquidity. Our results imply that the German and the UK markets are more efficient than the emerging market of China because liquidity assists capital movement more efficiently. The policy implication of this research is that, for emerging stock markets, the costs of capital movement should be reduced in order to increase the efficiency of funding allocation.


Recent years have witnessed exciting developments in understanding and treating addictions. For example, it seems that almost weekly we get new insights into the neurobiology underlying vulnerability to addiction. Similarly, there have never been more medications available to treat the spectrum of addictive disorders, especially alcohol, nicotine, and opioid dependence. In addition, studies continue to underscore the crucial role of psychosocial treatments in recovery from addiction.