The silicon wafer manufacturing process relies heavily on precision polished wafers that have uniform thickness and, depending on the application, also control parallelism to a secondary wafer after bonding. Lumetrics' low coherence interferometer, commercially marketed as OptiGauge II, is a device capable of measuring the simultaneous wafer thickness, adhesive thickness, and parallelism between surfaces to sub-micron precision. Combined with custom software and a precision XY raster scanner, a wafer or wafer assembly can be fully characterized with respect to layer thicknesses and surface parallelism.


Temperature is one of the most important parameters to evaluate the status of electric equipments. In this paper, a temperature monitor and query system based on virtual instruments and infrared temperature monitoring technical is introduced, including the hardware build-up and software realization. The system a multiple function system, including measurement and control parameter setting; data acquisition and processing; data, chart and graph displaying; signal processing and analyzing; data saving and so on. It can meet the need of the precision request in the temperature measurement of electrical equipment. Also it can be applied in other related experiments and developed further.


OBJECTIVE
To observe the effect of electroacupuncture (EA) at "Futu" (LI 18),etc. on the pain threshold and expression of metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 5 (mGluR 5), cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), cAMP responsive element binding protein (CREB) genes in the cervico-spinal dorsal region in rats with neck incision pain so as to analyze its underlying analgesic mechanism in performing thyroid surgery.

METHODS
Forty male Wistar rats were randomly divided into control, model, Futu (LI 18), Hegu (LI 4)-Neiguan (PC 6), Zusanli (ST 36)-Yanglingquan (GB 34) groups, with 8 cases in each group. Neck-incision pain model was established by making a longitudinal incision along the midline of the neck under anesthesia (isoflurane) except rats in the control group. EA(2 Hz/15 Hz, 1-2 mA) was applied to bilateral LI 18, LI 4-PC 6 and ST 36-GB 34 for 30 min, 4 h, 24 h and 48 h after modeling, respectively. The thermal pain threshold was detected before modeling, and before and after each treatment. After removing the ventral part, the spinal tissue of the cervical 1 -4 segments was collected for detecting the expression of mGluR 5, cAMP, MAPK, CREB genes by using quantitative real-time-PCR technique.

RESULTS
In comparison with the control group, the pain threshold of the model group was decreased obviously (P<0.05). Compared with the model group, the pain thresholds of the LI 18 and LI 4-PC 6 groups were upregulated markedly after treatment (P<0.05). No significant differences were found between the LI 18 and LI 4-PC 6 groups, and between the model and ST 36-GB 34 groups in pain thresholds (P>0.05). Compared with the control group, the expression le-vels of mGluR 5 mRNA, cAMP mRNA and CREB mRNA in the cervico-spinal cord were upregulated significantly in the model group (P<0.05). While in comparison with the model group, cervico-spinal cAMP mRNA, and CREB mRNA were down-regulated markedly (P<0.05) and mGluR 5 mRNA was down-regulated moderately (P>0.05) in the LI 18 group, rather than in the LI 4-PC 6 and ST 36-GB 34 groups (P>0.05).

CONCLUSION
EA-LI 18 can significantly suppress neck incision pain induced pain reaction, which may be closely associated with its functions in down-regulating expression levels of intracellular cAMP mRNA and CREB mRNA in the cervico-spinal cord.


Following a request from the European Commission, the risks to animal and human health and the environment related to the presence of nickel (Ni) in feed were assessed by the EFSA Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM Panel). The presence of Ni in feed can arise from both natural and anthropogenic sources. Additionally, certain feed materials contain metallic Ni, since it is used as a catalyst in their production. Based on the differences observed between the Ni exposure levels estimated for different animal species and identified no observed adverse effect levels (NOAELs) and lowest observed adverse effect levels (LOAELs), the CONTAM Panel concluded that any adverse impact of Ni via feed to cattle, pigs, rabbits, ducks, fish, dogs, chickens, horses, sheep, goats and cats is unlikely. Concerning the assessment of human health risks from the presence of Ni in food of animal origin, the CONTAM Panel concluded that in the average population the current levels of chronic exposure to Ni, considering only foods of animal origin, might be of potential concern in the young population, in particular in 'Toddlers'. In the highly exposed population (95th percentile), the concern also extends to the age class 'Other children'. Regarding acute dietary exposure, the CONTAM Panel concluded that Ni-sensitized individuals are also at risk of developing eczematous flare-up skin reactions through the consumption of food of animal origin. The contribution of food of animal origin to human dietary exposure to Ni should therefore not be underestimated, particularly in age classes with high dietary exposure to Ni. Release to the environment from manure, resulting from its presence in animal feed, is not a major contributor of Ni deposited onto agricultural soils or to the environment. © European Food Safety Authority, 2015


This chapter assesses war and intervention. Just war theorists share two beliefs: that wars can, at least in theory, sometimes be just, and that the fighting of war is governed by moral rules. Just war theory is usually divided into jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum. Jus ad bellum (justice prior to war) sets the conditions under which it is just to declare war. Jus in bello (justice during the war) sets the 'rules of engagement', governing the conduct of combatants during a conflict. Jus post bellum (justice after war) deals with topics like war reparations and punishment of aggression and had, until recently, received comparatively little attention in the just war literature. Meanwhile, pacifism and realism offer alternative approaches to the ethics of war.


Mitoxantrone is a synthetic anticancer drug used clinically in the treatment of different types of cancer. It was developed as a doxorubicin analogue in a program to find drugs with improved antitumor activity and decreased cardiotoxicity compared with the anthracyclines. As the cell membrane is the first barrier encountered by anticancer drugs before reaching the DNA sites inside the cells and as surfactant micelles are known as simple model systems for biological membranes, the drugs-surfactant interaction has been the subject of great research interest. Further, quantitative understanding of the interactions of drugs with biomimicking structures like surfactant micelles may provide helpful information for the control of physicochemical properties and bioactivities of encapsulated drugs in order to design better delivery systems with possible biomedical applications. The present review describes the physicochemical aspects of the interactions between the anticancer drug mitoxantrone and different surfactants. Mitoxantrone-micelle binding constants, partitions coefficient of the drug between aqueous and micellar phases and the corresponding Gibbs free energy for the above processes, and the probable location of drug molecules in the micelles are discussed.


Background To meet the target of Hepatitis C elimination in the UK, a rapid and high throughput method of genotyping is desirable. Current methods target the NS5B region with a nested PCR followed by Sanger sequencing. Drawbacks include insufficient information to guide second line treatment in the event of failure and poor sensitivity compared to assays targeting the 5'UTR. Method Previously tested HCV positive patient samples were selected and RNA extracted using an ultra-centrifugation manual extraction method. A two-step reverse transcription long range PCR generated amplicons which were quantified using the Qubit fluorometer and libraries prepared using the Nextera XT library preparation kit. Sequencing was performed using an Illumina Miseq and genomes were assembled using a Linex-based bioinformatics pipeline. Results A total of 150 samples were tested, with full HCV genomes obtained for genotypes 1–6 and the sensitivity of the assay corresponded to around 1000 IU ml−1. Where previous sequence data for resistance associated variants (RAVs) was available, mutations were consistent. Furthermore, the assay identified a 2 k/1b recombinant and allowed the typing of previously unassigned genotypes, demonstrating its utility in the diverse local population. Conclusion This study displayed the utility of a whole genome sequencing approach to HCV. A major benefit of whole genome analysis was the inclusion of regions targeted by antiviral therapy such as NS5A and NS3. This allowed the identification of RAVs in patients experiencing treatment failure. Its application to dried blood spots is currently being investigated as part of a wider screening programme.


During the Cold War, President John F. Kennedy made it a mission for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to accomplish a lunar landing and return to Earth. The final lunar landing and the last time humans left Low Earth Orbit (LEO) was in December, 1972. However, 47 years have passed and the fascination with traveling into deep space remains alive and flourishing. A major problem with future human missions to Mars is the effects of microgravity and Mars' 0.38g environment. Unfortunately, space medicine is limited and little is known about the effects of microgravity on the human body after one year in space. Is it possible for astronauts to survive long spaceflight missions to Mars? To help address this question, my research focuses on the effects of microgravity on astronauts in order to find solutions for long-duration space flights to Mars. Bone and muscle loss are factors that could lead to severe, unknown consequences on an astronaut's health. My methods included doing an analytical interpretation of historical and contemporary research on long-distance spaceflight. In the future, longer missions are going to require more permanent solutions for humans to be an interplanetary species. The current solutions being used in the International Space Station (ISS) are only to treat individual symptoms separately. Only theoretical permanent solutions were found, such as artificial gravity; therefore, further research is needed. Centripetal acceleration has shown great promise to eliminate microgravity effects but more research is needed to understand the health consequences and the limitations of rotation that humans can sustain.


This study uses Trust-TAM to describe and empirically test a behavioral model of software component adoption. Three sets of predictive factors were tested and found to be statistically significant in their relationship with intention to adopt: the consumer's perception of the trustworthiness of the component producer, the adoption-related characteristics of the component, and the organizational reuse norms. The results further validate the use of Trust-TAM as a predictor of technology adoption, adding to the explanatory power of the traditional TAM to include interpersonal and normative elements. Practical implications include the importance of creating a professional environment that fosters trust and norms that support technological innovation.


This study answers a key question: how can the concept of sustainable development contribute to the sustainable realization of the human right to water for vulnerable people, by taking the following approaches. This was answered in the following ways. Firstly, by widening the scope of vulnerability to include environmental factors. Those who do not have access to water, as guaranteed by the human right to water, will be eligible for targeted measures when environmental vulnerability is considered in conjunction with social vulnerability. Secondly, the principles which accompany the concept of sustainable development can be used to inform and further develop the human right to water. In this manner the right will be sustainably realized and states will be able to meet both requirements under international human rights law as well as under environmental law. What does this mean for the human right to water at the international level? The human right to water was authoritatively interpreted in 2002 and politically accepted in 2010. The core requirements of the human right to water have been established and now attention should be given to aligning other provisions within international law relating to water resources. At the national level a sustainable human right to water will allow for context specifications to be taken into account. Those states which are confronted by, for instance, depletion will be able to justify allocation measures by referring to the human right to water. Also, individuals will be able to hold the state accountable for pollution on account of this right. When implementing the right at the national level, states should realize that it often requires harmonization and a better coordination of regulations and practices regarding the whole water sector as the case study of Suriname demonstrates. Suriname, has a great wealth of freshwater resources. Nevertheless, this country has to deal with two major issues. Firstly, providing access to safe water for domestic purposes for all those within its territory. Currently, the highest percentage of the population with access is in the urban areas reaching between 85 – 90 percent, followed by the rural area with 66.6 percent and, lastly, the Interior with just 20 percent. This means that the national percentage of the population with access to safe drinking water is around 72.6 percent and shows that even though there is enough freshwater within the Surinamese territory, not everyone is benefiting from it. The case study clearly demonstrates that the realization of the human right to water requires interventions on multiple levels. Adjusting the legal framework is not sufficient if the overall environment is not supportive of a right to water and water resources are not managed sustainably. The case studies also show that localizing the human right to water requires different measures and strategies in different contexts which happen to be in the same national context. Therefore, applying a nationwide strategy might not be effective or sustainable when states want to meet their obligations.


Purpose – Redevelopment, an essential aspect of the urban regeneration process, brings positive externalities to neighbourhoods. This study evaluates the effect of the improvements of neighbourhoods, brought about by redevelopment, on nearby ground-floor retail shopping property values. This study uses a hedonic price model to determine whether there is a relationship between redevelopment work and nearby shopping property values and the influence of neighbourhood improvements on the price of shopping properties if there is such relationship. The analysis is based on three large-scale redevelopment projects, each having a commercial space ranging from 30,000 to 50,000 sq.ft. The results show that an improved neighbourhood environment brings significant value enhancement to nearby shopping properties. Potential tenants are willing to pay a sale rental price premium ranging from 13% to 34% on shops located near redeveloped areas. The results also reveal that potential shop tenants are willing to pay a premium of 0.1% more on a shop with a cockloft. These findings imply that a neighbourhood environment that has been improved through well-planned redevelopment projects adds value to nearby properties. This study contributes an indication of the amount a tenant or buyer would be willing to pay on shops near redeveloped areas and can be used as a reference for users, developers and investors.


São Paolo, already a financial services powerhouse, is seen by finance workers around the world as the leading financial centre for green finance in Latin America, beating Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City by a considerable margin. However, its lead may be precarious as it has a high exposure to fossil fuel financing and faces tough regional competition.

This case study quantifies São Paolo's current performance, examines the source of its success and analyses how it can sustain its green finance lead by expanding private sector green finance initiatives and deepening its international network, and mitigating its fossil fuel and competition risks.


ABSTRACT Objective: To examine the importance of distinguishing between primary and secondary racial identification in analyzing health disparities in a multiracial population. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of 2012 Hawaii Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (H-BRFSS). As part of the survey, respondents were asked to identify all their races, and then which race they considered to be their primary race. We introduce two analytic approaches to investigate the association between multiracial status and general health: (1) including two separate dichotomous variables for each racial group (primary and secondary race; for example, 'primary Native Hawaiian' and, separately, 'secondary Native Hawaiian'), and (2) including one combined variable for anyone choosing a particular racial group, whether as primary or secondary race ('combined race'; e.g. Native Hawaiian). Linear regression then compares the multiracial health disparities identified by the two approaches, adjusted for age and gender. Results: The 2012 H-BRFSS had 7582 respondents. The four most common self-identified primary racial/ethnic groups were White, Japanese, Filipino, and Native Hawaiian. Native Hawaiians were the largest multiracial group with over 80% self-identifying as multiracial. Health disparities for Native Hawaiians, Portuguese and Puerto Ricans were attenuated by 10% after accounting for multiracial status. Populations that self-identified secondarily as Japanese, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and other PI had significantly poorer self-reported health. Conclusion: The analysis illustrates the importance of accounting for multiracial populations in health disparities research and demonstrates the ability of two approaches to identify multiracial health disparities in data sets with limited sample sizes. The 'primary and secondary race' approach might work particularly well for a multicultural population like Hawaii.


In this paper the impact of the soft handover micro diversity gain on the UMTS system performance is investigated. First, by means of link layer simulations the micro diversity gain is measured in terms of reduction of the average Eb/N0 requirement. After modelling this effect, by some system level simulations we show the high influence of this usually neglected gain in the overall performance of UMTS, demonstrating that in downlink soft handover improves not only the quality of service but also the overall system capacity


We present a new type of allosteric modulation in which a molecule bound outside the active site modifies the chemistry of an enzymatic reaction through rapid protein dynamics. As a test case for this type of allostery, we chose an enzyme with a well-characterized rate-promoting vibration, lactate dehydrogenase; identified a suitable small molecule for binding; and used transition path sampling to obtain ensembles of reactive trajectories. We found that the small molecule significantly affected the reaction by changing the position of the transition state and, through applying committor distribution analysis, showed that it removed the protein component from the reaction coordinate. The ability of a small-molecule to disrupt enzymatic reactions through alteration of subpicosecond protein motion opens the door for new experimental studies on protein motion coupled to enzymatic reactions and possibly the design of drugs to target these enzymes.


An on-line kilovoltage (kV) imaging system has been implemented on a medical linear accelerator to verify radiotherapy field placement. A kV x-ray tube is mounted on the accelerator at 90 degrees to the megavoltage (MV) source and shares the same isocenter. Nearly identical CCD-based fluoroscopic imagers are mounted opposite the two x-ray sources. These systems are being used in a clinical study of patient setup error that examines the advantage of kV imaging for on-line localization. In the investigation reported here, the imaging performance of the kV and MV systems are characterized to provide support to the conclusions of the studies of setup error. A spatial-frequency-dependent linear systems model is used to predict the detective quantum efficiencies (DQEs) of the two systems. Each is divided into a series of gain and spreading stages. The parameters of each stage are either measured or obtained from the literature. The model predicts the system gain to within 7% of the measured gain for the MV system and to within 10% for the kV system. The systems' noise power spectra (NPSs) and modulation transfer functions (MTFs) are measured to construct the measured DQEs. X-ray fluences are calculated using modeled polyenergetic spectra. Measured DQEs agree well with those predicted by the model. The model reveals that the MV system is well optimized, and is x-ray quantum noise limited at low spatial frequencies. The kV system is suboptimal, but for purposes of patient positioning yields images superior to those produced by the MV system. This is attributed to the kV system's higher DQE and to the inherently higher contrasts present at kV energies.


Members of several insect orders are known to modify osseous vertebrate remains postmortem, whether for nutritional or habitational purposes. Recognizing the appearance of these taphonomic traces is important in the evaluation of skeletal remains recovered from forensic and archaeological contexts. Thus far, ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) have only been anecdotally noted in the literature to modify bone as a presumed food resource and have not yet been shown to modify human bone. This paper presents a contemporary case where a colony of ants was directly observed nesting inside human bone and describes the appearance of modified entrances into their repurposed medullary cavity dwellings. This case may prompt further considerations of ants as agents of bone modification, how and why such behaviors occur, and how to recognize these ichnological traces. KEYWORDS: forensic anthropology, forensic entomology, taphonomy, ichnology, insect damage, Nylanderia


The present study was aimed to improve the growth and development of Blackgram (Vigna mungo) under foliar application of panchagavya as organic nutrient. A pot culture experiment was conducted at the Experimental farm during March-May 2010 season to evaluate the efficacy of Panchagavya foliar spray and NPK on the physiological growth and yield of Blackgram (Vigna mungo) cv. ADT-3. The results of the experiment revealed that foliar application of Panchagavya recorded significant improvement in chlorophyll content, N content of root nodules, plant height, number of branches per plant, leaf area index (LAI) and dry matter production when compared with NPK and control. Yield attributes such as number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, test weight and grain yield were also recorded significantly higher under foliar application of Panchagavya over NPK and control. Three percent Panchagavya foliar spray given at 15th, 25th, 35th and 45th days of interval period recorded significantly higher growth and yield of Blackgram than NPK and untreated control.


Increasingly, academics have to demonstrate that their research has academic impact. Universities normally use journal rankings and journal impact factors to assess the research impact of individual academics. More recently, citation counts for individual articles and the h-index have also been used to measure the academic impact of academics. There are, however, several serious problems with relying on journal rankings, journal impact factors and citation counts. For example, articles without any impact may be published in highly ranked journals or journals with high impact factor, whereas articles with high impact could be published in lower ranked journals or journals with low impact factor. Citation counts can also be easily gamed and manipulated, and the h-index disadvantages early career academics. This paper discusses these and several other problems and suggests alternatives such as post-publication peer review and open-access journals.


Two years after the Rana Plaza catastrophe that left over 1100 mostly women garment workers dead and more than 2500 injured, a new report has said that improvements promised by the government and companies have not been enough to improve the working conditions, rights, and health of workers.

The eight storey building outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, which housed several clothing factories supplying global brands such as Benetton, Primark, and Walmart, collapsed on 24 April 2013 in one of the world's worst industrial disasters.

The charity Human Rights Watch released the report on 22 April in Dhaka, detailing the experiences of garment workers, which included verbal abuse, physical assault, and threats of sexual violence.1 The workers, the vast majority of whom are women, are denied breaks to use the toilet and often do not have …


This study was carried out to evaluate the incidence of postoperative pain in 68 patients requiring root canal therapy. The teeth studied contained non-vital pulps and each had an existing open communication between the root canal and the oral cavity. Solvidont irrigating solution and medication paste were used on a group of 36 patients, while a second group of 32 patients had sterile isotonic sodium chloride2 (SISC) as the canal irrigant; no medicament was used on the second group. Three out of 36 patients (8 per cent) had mild discomfort following the use of Solvidont irrigant and paste. In the SISC group, 10 out of the 32 patients (31 per cent) complained of pain ranging from moderate discomfort to severe pain with associated swelling of soft tissues. Statistical analysis showed that the incidence of postoperative pain was high when the root canals of open teeth were not medicated.


Amorphous and partly nanocrystalline amorphous iron-phosphorus (Fe-P) layers have been deposited by pulse electrochemical technique. X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) have been used to characterize the structure in the layers. Depending on the pulse parameters, the structure of Fe-P layers changed from mostly amorphous to partly nanocrystalline amorphous. The magnetic coercivity and the frequency limit of the samples are discussed in terms of the structure of the Fe-P layers. The frequency limit as determined from the permeability spectra is above 10 MHz, which makes these layers suitable for high frequency inductive element applications.


The model of using colloidal magnetic fluid to build tunable negative-index photonic crystal is established. The effective permittivity ɛe and permeability μe of the two-dimensional photonic crystal are investigated in detail. For transverse magnetic polarization, both ɛe and μe exhibit a Lorentz-type anomalous dispersion, leading to a region where ɛe and μe are simultaneously negative. Then, considering a practical case, in which the thickness of photonic crystal is finite, the band structures for odd modes are calculated by the plane wave expansion method and the finite-difference time-domain method. The results suggest that reducing the external magnetic field strength or slab thickness will weaken the periodic modulation strength of the photonic crystal. Simulation results prove that the negative-index can be tuned by varying the external magnetic field strength or the slab thickness. The work presented in this paper gives a guideline for realizing the flat photonic crystal lens with tunable properties at optical frequencies, which may have potential applications in tunable near-field imaging systems.


Churchwell and Smith's Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers from Charlotte Temple to The Da Vinci Code comprises fourteen essays that intend to redress both the lack of critical attention and academic denigration suffered by the American bestseller. Ranging from the late eighteenth to the early twenty-first century, the various essays and their authors convincingly demonstrate the cultural significance of the bestseller, collectively revealing a complexity and significance often belied by their popularity, as well as how such texts respond to American cultural values and, quite often, fantasies. Combined, the editors' "Introduction" and Sarah Garland's initial chapter surveying the vagaries of the very term "bestseller" clearly demonstrate the impetus for the collection, as well as its few limitations. Churchwell and Smith highlight a number of issues to redress: the generality of previous surveys of the genre, the narrow focus of earlier analyses of specific best-selling works, and, perhaps most crucially, the lack of a comprehensive survey of the bestseller for over fifty years (Churchwell and Smith 1-2). A collection of essays—placed "within a comparative and developmental context" (Churchwell and Smith 2)—seems a wise choice for this recuperative effort, as it accomplishes both breadth and specificity as opposed to only one or the other. Similarly, Garland's essay demonstrates the partial and fragmentary nature of the category/genre of the "bestseller"; from the different sources of data (or lack thereof) and regional emphases in specific bestseller lists, to the fact that most equate the term "bestseller" with fiction (thus ignoring how other genres such as children's literature and nonfiction often eclipse fiction sales), Garland crystallizes how the best one can do to survey the field is something like this book, which collects specifically-focused essays within a broader context. That being said, the collection does run afoul of some of the very issues these chapters raise. For one, though it includes a nonfiction bestseller (Emily Post's Etiquette) in a chapter by Grace Lees-Maffei, the collection, on the whole, exhibits the same predilection towards the fiction bestseller. Furthermore, children's literature is completely absent from the discussion, an odd omission given the preponderance of recent young adult and teen fiction (e.g., the Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games series), and the reference to such texts and their best-selling status in the editors' "Introduction" and elsewhere. Like the editors, several essay contributors engage in varying recuperative efforts within their individual chapters. Many chapters strive to rescue their texts from limited and/or simplistic ways they have been previously read or viewed. Rachel Ihara, for example, seeks to broaden our understanding of E.D.E.N. Southworth beyond her most famous work, The Hidden Hand. Ihara highlights Southworth's repetition of plots, characters, and settings, not as a flaw in her work, but as creating a recognizable consistency that allowed her to maintain and engage her audience for over forty years of serial publication. Similarly, William Gleason explicates the narrative style in Timothy Shay Arthur's Ten Nights in a Bar-Room for how it reflected the visual rhetoric of the late nineteenthand early twentieth-century temperance movement and, like Southworth, established a kind of brand identity for Arthur. Hsuan L. Hsu's contribution complicates our understanding of Edward Everett Hale's short story "The Man Without a Country," using its various publications in the second half of the nineteenth century to position the simply "patriotic" story at a more complicated nexus of contradictions inherent within US imperialism.


This paper presents an error modeling of an odometry system for a synchronous-drive system and a possible strategy for evaluating this error. The odometry error is modeled by introducing four parameters characterizing its systematic and nonsystematic components (translational and rotational). The nonsystematic errors are expressed in terms of a covariance matrix, which depends on both the previous four parameters and the path followed by the mobile robot. In contrast to previous approaches which require assuming a particular path (straight or circular) in order to compute this covariance matrix, the general formulas are derived. We suggest a possible strategy for simultaneously estimating the four model parameters. It is shown that our strategy only requires measuring the change in the orientation and position between the initial and final configurations of the robot, related to suitable robot motions. In other words, it is unnecessary to know the actual path followed by the robot. We illustrate the proposed strategy by discussing the accuracy of the parameters estimation, and present some of the experimental results obtained with the mobile robot Nomad 150.


Of the many intracellular events that occur after mitogenic stimulation of cells, the phosphorylation of the retinoblastoma protein (RB) in early G1-phase appears to play a pivotal role in controlling cell-cycle progression. RB phosphorylation results in release from a proliferative block imposed by hypophosphorylated RB. Several investigators have presented evidence, using models produced in vitro, that the serine kinase p34CDC2 phosphorylates RB and is responsible for regulating RB phosphorylation. Using human T-cells as a model, we show that lectin treatment of resting T-cells results in detectable RB phosphorylation by 24 h after treatment. Further, using immunoprecipitation and immunoblotting, no detectable p34CDC2 could be seen until 48 h after lectin stimulation. Analysis of the relative histone H1 activity of p34CDC2, purified by immunoprecipitation, revealed that RB phosphorylation does not parallel increases in p34CDC2 activity as T-cells progress into S-phase, supporting the contention that p34CDC2 activation as a histone H1 kinase is not a critical regulator of RB phosphorylation. Further treatment of activated T-cells, arrested in G1-phase, with interleukin 2 results in a 95% increase in RB phosphorylation within 4 h with no detectable increase in the histone H1 kinase activity of p34CDC2. Together, these data suggest that p34CDC2 activation is not required for early cell-cycle phosphorylation of RB.


The aim of this in vitro study is to evaluate the fracture resistance of premolars with three surface amalgam restorations. Fifty premolars were used, and divided into five groups. The teeth in group one remains intact whereas the teeth in the second group prepared and not restored. The teeth in the third group prepared and restored with amalgam only. In groups four and five, the amalgam restorations were lined with All–Bond 2 and Scotchbond Multi Purpose Plus respectively. After thermocycling, the teeth were tested under universal compression machine at a crosshead speed 5 mm/minute. Data were analyzed using one way Analysis of Variance and Duncan's Multiple Range Test. The results of this study indicates that both Scotchbond Multi Purpose Plus and All–Bond 2 increase the fracture resistance as compared to the control groups (groups two and three). The results of this study also show no significant difference between the two bonding agents regarding teeth fracture resistance.


A role of an entity can be defined as the set of properties that are important for an object in order to behave in a certain way, as expected by a set of other objects. A role model is a software that specifies a style of designing and implementing roles. This paper evaluates roles in the context of modeling dynamic systems by examining its foundations, surveying the recent role models available for academic use and giving implementation examples. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Ullrich congenital muscular dystrophy and Bethlem myopathy are caused by mutations in collagen VI (ColVI) genes, which encode an extracellular matrix protein; yet, mitochondria play a major role in disease pathogenesis through a short circuit caused by inappropriate opening of the permeability transition pore, a high-conductance channel, which causes a shortage in ATP production. We find that melanocytes do not produce ColVI yet they bind it at the cell surface, suggesting that this protein may play a trophic role and that its absence may cause lesions similar to those seen in skeletal muscle. We show that mitochondria in melanocytes of Ullrich congenital muscular dystrophy and Bethlem myopathy patients display increased size, reduced matrix density, and disrupted cristae, findings that suggest a functional impairment. In keeping with this hypothesis, mitochondria (i) underwent anomalous depolarization after inhibition of the F-ATP synthase with oligomycin, and (ii) displayed decreased respiratory reserve capacity. The non-immunosuppressive cyclophilin inhibitor NIM811 prevented mitochondrial depolarization in response to oligomycin in melanocytes from both Ullrich congenital muscular dystrophy and Bethlem myopathy patients, and partially restored the respiratory reserve of melanocytes from one Bethlem myopathy patient. These results match our recent findings on melanocytes from patients affected by Duchenne muscular dystrophy (Pellegrini et al., 2013), and suggest that skin biopsies may represent a minimally invasive tool to investigate mitochondrial dysfunction and to evaluate drug efficacy in ColVI-related myopathies and possibly in other muscle wasting conditions like aging sarcopenia.


Corrosion of reinforcing steel causes cracking and spalling of concrete structures, reduces the effective cross-sectional area of the reinforcing steel and the concrete simultaneously decreases the bond strength at the steel-concrete interface. The detrimental effect of corrosion on the service life of reinforced concrete structures highlights the need for modeling of bond strength between the corroded steel and the concrete. This research presents a nonlinear finite element model for the bond stress at the steel-concrete interface for both uncorroded and corroded reinforcing steel. The nonlinear finite element program ABAQUS is used for this purpose. The expanded volume of corroded product of reinforcing steel produces radial and hoop stresses which cause longitudinal cracks in the concrete. The increased longitudinal crack width, the loss of effective cross-sectional area of the steel and the concrete is also reduced due to the lubricating effect of flaky corroded layer. This research models the loss of contact pressure and the decrease of friction coefficient with the mass loss of the reinforcing steel. The model analyzes the pullout tests of Amleh (2002) and a good agreement is noted between the analytical and the experimental results. Both in FE analysis and experimental results, the loss of bond capacity is almost linear with mass loss of rebar. FE analysis and experiemental result show that, up to 5% mass loss, the bond capacity loss is moderate, at 10 to 15% mass loss, significant amount of bond capacity is lost and at about 20% mass almost all bond capacity is lost. The model is also validated by analyzing the pullout tests performed by Cabrera and Ghoddoussis (1992) and those by Al-Sulaimani et al.(1990).


Pseudotypes of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) containing envelope glycoproteins provided by C3H mammary tumor virus (MTV) instead of the normal VSV G-proteins were prepared and used to assay the presence of an MTV receptor on cells. The assay was specific as demonstrated by competition studies with excess MTV particles and neutralization of the pseudotypes with anti-MTV serum or monoclonal antibodies directed against MTV gp52. The MTV receptor was abundantly present on mouse cells but hardly detectable on nonmurine cells, including the Chinese hamster cell line E36. Somatic cell hybrids between E36 cells and GRS/A spontaneous leukemia cells (GRSL cells) and between E36 and GRS/A primary mammary tumor cells were made. The hybrids retained all Chinese hamster chromosomes but segregated mouse chromosomes. From the analysis of the isoenzymes and chromosomes of the hybrid cell lines we conclude that the gene for the receptor (MTVR-1) is located on mouse chromosome 16.


Organic photovoltaic modules have been evaluated for their integration in mobile electronic applications such as a laser pointer. An evaluation of roll-to-roll processed indium and silver free polymer solar cells has been carried out from different perspectives: life cycle assessment, cost analysis and layer quality evaluation using inline optical and functional inspection tools. The polymer solar cells were fabricated in credit card sized modules by three routes, and several encapsulation alternatives have been explored, with the aim to provide the simplest but functional protection against moisture and oxygen, which could deteriorate the performance of the cells. The analysis shows that ITO- and silver-free options are clearly advantageous in terms of energy embedded over the traditional modules, and that encapsulation must balance satisfying the protection requirements while having at the same time a low carbon footprint. From the economic perspective there is a huge reduction in the cost of the ITO- and silver-free options, reaching as low as 0.25 € for the OPV module. We used inspection tools such as a roll-to-roll inspection system to evaluate all processing steps during the fabrication and analyse the layers' quality and forecast whether a module will work or not and establish any misalignment of the printed pattern or defects in the layers that can affect the performance of the devices. This has been found to be a good tool to control the process and to increase the yield.


In Indonesia, consumers can choose to consume high or low quality gasoline based on their preferences. It might be influenced by the price difference between the two qualities. Changing preference to a higher quality that is affected by the declining relative price can lead to an A-A phenomenon. This study aims to determine whether the A-A Phenomenon occurs on the behavior of consumers before and after the existence of Pertalite. The regression model used are the panel data regressions and the regression result proves that there is an A-A phenomenon in market share in Indonesia before and after Pertalite. This indicates that the high difference of relative prices between high and low quality gasolines has a negative impact towards their relative consumption. Prior to Pertalite, consumers continued changing preference into high quality gasoline in the 2nd and 3rd month intervals when relative price difference decreased. After the existing of Pertalite, consumers did not quickly transfer their preferences from Premium to Pertalite when the relative price declined, so that the A-A phenomenon did not occur in this low and middle grade gasoline consumption pattern. However, Pertamax's consumption to Pertalite increases when the relative price between them declines; thus raising the A-A phenomenon.


Introduction: National data on the clinical & economic impact of asthma/COPD are key to raise awareness and to inform national action plans and implementation strategies. For low-resource settings as Uganda, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan & rural Greece, these data are largely lacking. Objective: We aimed to estimate the health economic burden of asthma/COPD in Uganda, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan & rural Greece as part of the FRESH AIR study. Methods: Questionnaires were administered to representative samples of patients with a diagnosis of asthma and/or COPD in Uganda [U] (N=102), Vietnam [V] (N=491), Kyrgyzstan [K] (N=308) and rural Greece [G] (N=100). We surveyed patients about socio-economic data, risk factor exposure, symptoms, healthcare utilization and co-payments, work productivity (WPAI) and health status (mMRC, CCQ, EQ-5D). Data were enriched with spirometry, comorbidities & treatment data from patients' clinical records. Results: Mean age (SD) was 34.0 (15.8) [U], 60.5 (16.2) [V], 62.1 (11.2) [K] and 70.4 (12.1) [G] with 8%, 51%, 99% and 81% respectively having COPD (the rest asthma). Mean mMRC scores ranged between 0.5 [U]-2.7 [K], CCQ between 1.9 [U]-3.1 [K]. EQ-5D derived utility was 0.92 [U], 0.71 [V], 0.68 [K] and 0.72 [G]. A total of 95% [U], 13% [V], 1% [K] and 4% [G] lacked health insurance and a substantial part of healthcare utilization was uncovered. Between 60% and 90% of patients reported that asthma/COPD affected their ability to work and/or do their regular daily activities. Conclusions: The impact of asthma/COPD on healthcare utilization & spending, work productivity and quality of life is considerable. Ultimately these data could serve national asthma/COPD strategies.


The knowledge of the chemical evolution of magmas is a major concern in geochemistry and petrology. The jumps (or discontinuities) of chemical composition observed in volcanic series from the same province are also the subject of many studies. In particular the phenomenon of "Daly gap" (Daly 1910, 1925), the name given to the jump in chemical composition between the mafic rocks (basalt) and felsic rocks (trachyte, rhyolite, phonolite), corresponding to the absence or scarcity of rocks of intermediate composition (andesite), in both ocean and continental series. Some authors explain these compositional jumps thanks to the intervention of various geological phenomena which follow in time. For example, when a magma chamber turns from a closed to an open system, the lava of a specific composition is ejected to the surface, favoring the rise of the lightest, the most volatile-rich and the less sticky magmas to the surface of the earth (Geist et al., 1995, Thompson et al., 2001). The various explanations offered, although they agree satisfactorily with the natural data, most often lead us away from basic phenomena of melting / solidification, relative migration and chemical equilibrium between solid and liquid and involve various additional phenomena. In our study, we propose a numerical modelling of the crystallization of a closed magma chamber. The physical and mathematical model distinguishes three main classes of processes occurring simultaneously: - heat transfer and solidification, - relative migration between the solid and the liquid magma, - chemical reactions between the two (solid and liquid) phases. Writing the partial differential equations with dimensionless numbers makes two parameters appear, they express the respective ratios of the solidification velocity on the transport velocity, and the kinetics of chemical exchange on the transport velocity. The speed of relative movement between the solid and the liquid, the solidification velocity and the chemical partition law between the solid and the liquid are assumed to be known; this last one may be non-linear and apply to major elements. The model is written for one chemical component. It is splitted into two submodels, the crystallization/sedimentation model and the reactive transport model. The first is expressed by an hyperbolic partial differential equation and is solved by a three-point scheme, the second is solved using non-centered schemes. The computing program is written in Fortran 90, it is then validated by theoretical methods such as the method of characteristic curves, analytical calculations or by qualitative considerations. Numerical simulations show that, for some values of the dimensionless parameters and for some shapes of the chemical partition curves, the chemical composition of the magma chamber can be non homogeneous, particularly bimodal (two values of concentrations are preferred), starting from homogeneous initial conditions. The degree of this bimodality notably depends on the shape of the chemical partition law. This model provides an intellectual framework to discuss the phenomena responsible for the variety of composition of magmatic rocks, particularly in the same province. It shows in particular that the coupling between three elementary phenomena, internal to the magma chamber, is enough to account for the bimodality or more generally the appearance of discontinuities in chemical compositions, without involving additional phenomenon.


Introduction. The outcome of invasive fungal infections (IFI), particularly aspergillosis in acute leukemia (AL) patients (pts), has improved over the last years, but IFI still remain a major clinical issue in hematological pts, both for its severity and for the toxicity and potential drug interactions of antifungal treatments. Isavuconazole (ISV) is a new antifungal agent, with a modest drug-drug interaction profile, reduced drug-related adverse events and efficacy similar to voriconazole as demonstrated in a non-inferiority trial of IFI treatment (Maertens, Lancet 2016). To confirm the efficacy and safety of ISV in a clinical care setting, we planned a multicenter retrospective epidemiological study on behalf of SEIFEM (Sorveglianza Epidemiologica delle Infezioni nelle Emopatie) Group, collecting all cases of IFI treated with ISV in hematological pts. Patients and Methods. Since July 2016, we collected all cases of IFI occurring in adult and pediatric hematological pts who were treated with ISV in 13 Centers. IFI was diagnosed according to EORTC/MSG criteria and categorized as possible (poss) or probable/proven (p/p). The effects on outcome of age, gender, type and status of hematological disease at IFI (diagnosis [Dx], complete and partial remission [CR/PR], relapse/refractory [Rel/Refr]), type of IFI, allogeneic stem cell transplantation (alloSCT), neutropenia and timing of ISV treatment were evaluated. Results. IFI was diagnosed in 69 pts (M/F ratio: 47/22, median age 54.5y, range 5-80), affected by AL in 49 (71%) (myeloid 35, 51%; lymphoblastic 14, 28%), lymphoma in 15 (22%), myeloma in 2 (3%), severe aplastic anemia in 2 (3%) and myelodysplastic syndromes in 1 (1%) pts, respectively. AlloSCT pts were 20 (29%). IFI were categorized as p/p in 36 (52%) and as poss in 33 (48%) cases. Aspergillus spp was responsible for 31/36 (86%) p/p IFI; in the remaining 5 cases, 1 Rhizomucor pusillus was isolated and in 4, despite histology proven for IFI, no specific agent could be identified. Lung was the more frequent site of IFI (58/69, 84%), followed by paranasal sinuses (5, 7%), liver (3, 5%), brain (2, 3%), and bone (1, 1%). ISV was employed as first-line therapy in 19 (28%) and as subsequent line of treatment in 50 pts (72%; 41 as second and 9 as subsequent, respectively), following voriconazole in 15 cases, L-AmB in 22, caspofungin in 1 and combination therapy in 12. The median duration of previous treatments was 17.5 days (range 5-1110). Reasons for ISV use were failure of previous treatments in 16 (32%) and intolerance in 17 (34%) of 50 cases, respectively. In 16 cases (32%) ISV was chosen because of the need to switch antifungal treatment to an oral agent for outpatients and in 3 (4%) for a favorable drug-drug interaction profile. Median duration of ISV treatment was 60 days (3-210). After a median follow-up of 4.2 mo, 24/69 (35%) pts died; IFI-attributable mortality was 10/69 (15%). The estimated 1-year overall survival (OS) from IFI event of the entire cohort was 56% (CI 0.22-0.45); it was similar when considering poss vs p/p IFI (62% vs 51%, p=0.39), AL vs no AL (51% vs 69%, p=0.395) and first vs subsequent line use of ISV (66% vs 59%, p=0.6). OS was significantly lower for pts with failure to previous treatments (1y OS: refractory IFI 26% vs not refractory IFI 66%, p=0.001) (Fig. 1a) and for pts with rec/ref hematological disease (1y OS: rec/ref 29% vs CR/PR 86%, p=0.0027, or vs Dx 53%, p=0.06; no differences between Dx and CR/PR, p=0.27) (Fig. 1b). Clinical and radiological overall response rate (ORR) was 44 of 64 evaluable pts (69%). In multivariate analysis, only underlying disease status was a predictive factor for response to ISV (rec/ref HR 0.202, CI 0.062-0.658). Adverse events (AE) were reported in 10/69 pts (15%) (hepatic in 5, cutaneous in 3, gastroenteric in 3 and hypokaliemia in 1); grade 3-4 AE were reported in 5 cases and led to permanent ISV discontinuation. Conclusions. ISV is widely used in hematological pts with IFI also in diseases other than acute myeloid leukemia and it is overall well tolerated. ORR to ISV is at least comparable with other antifungal agents. A rec/ref underlying hematological disease impacts both on OS and response to ISV, while having an IFI refractory to other antifungal agents including azoles does not seem to compromise the response to ISV, although this promising result should be confirmed in prospective studies and larger groups of patients.

 Busca: Gilead: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Merk: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Pfizer Pharmaceuticals: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Jazz Pharmaceuticals: Honoraria; Novartis: Speakers Bureau. Fanci:Gilead: Honoraria; Pfizer Pharmaceuticals: Honoraria; Merck: Consultancy, Honoraria, Speakers Bureau. Candoni:Pfizer: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Merck SD: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Celgene: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Janssen: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Gilead: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau. Fracchiolla:Amgen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Merck: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Pfizer Pharmaceuticals: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Gilead: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau. Tumbarello:MSD: Consultancy, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Gilead: Consultancy, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Angelini: Consultancy, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Roche: Consultancy, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Nordic Pharma: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Astellas: Speakers Bureau; Pfizer: Speakers Bureau. Aversa:Merck: Honoraria; Basilea: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Astellas: Honoraria; Pfizer: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Gilead: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Rossi:Amgen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Jazz: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Mundipharma: Honoraria; Novartis: Honoraria; Celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Janssen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Sanofi: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Abbvie: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Roche: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; BMS: Honoraria; Sandoz: Honoraria; Pfizer: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Teva: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Gilead: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Pagano:Basilea: Speakers Bureau; Merck: Speakers Bureau; Janssen: Speakers Bureau; Pfizer: Speakers Bureau; Gilead: Speakers Bureau.


Declines in public support for universities throughout the world have prompted administrators and policymakers to seek alternative funding. One favored idea is the entrepreneurial university --one that uses modern business practices including commercializing its intellectual property. A related notion is the entrepreneurial professor, who is willing to explore new commercial markets for his or her intellectual outputs. Although these concepts for commercialization and partnerships with business and government are not always appreciated or embraced, they are becoming more common, particularly in the natural sciences, engineering, and medicine. This book focuses on the field of geography and its potential in the entrepreneurial university. The contributors also discuss how to encourage the acceptance of entrepreneurial faculty who move the work of academic geography into the world of commercial applications in industry, government, and nongovernmental sectors.


Poultry has been identified by the World Bank funded Commercial Agricultural Development Program (CADP) as a value chain in the agricultural sector of Enugu State and thus has the potential for commercial agriculture. This work has investigated poultry farms in three production cluster areas in Enugu State namely: Emene (in Enugu East) located on 6.523815°N, 7.4151535°E and 1236 ft; Ngwo (in Enugu North/Udi) located on 6.523815°N, 7.57528°E and 572 ft and Nsukka located on 6.234754°N, 7.326473°E and 3422 ft. The study identified the position of each farm using Global Positioning System (GPS) hand held device; their specific mechanization needs and challenges limiting the performances of the farms using structured questionnaire, oral interviews and on-the-spot assessments. Position and mechanization data were represented in a map using ArcGIS version 10.3. The farms visited produce eggs, broilers or layers or combinations of them, and the sizes of the farms range from unit of thousands to tens of thousands of birds; these generally are commercial poultry farms but of  low or medium scale levels. The survey reveals that most of the poultry farms are having the following mechanization needs: Power supply, egg handling, road network, waste handling, feed mill, pelleting machine, battery cage, automatic drinker, water pump, and automatic feeder; however the need depends on the level of production. Other problems or challenges facing the farms visited as observed during the survey are classified as management problems quantified as 60%, technical problems 30% and the problem of cost 10%. Result of this work is a step further in developing and building up the much talked about commodity-specific data base system for agribusiness decision support and development in the local area.

 Key words: Mapping, poultry farms, mechanization needs, Global Positioning System (GPS), Geographical Information System (GIS).


As payment cards and mobile devices are equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, electronic payment transactions at physical Point of Sale (POS) environments are changing. Payment transactions do not require the customerto insert their card into a slot of the payment terminal. The customer is able to simply swipe the payment card or mobilephone in front of a dedicated zone of the terminal to initiate a payment transaction. Secure Elements (SEs) in mobile phonesand payment cards with NFC should keep sensitive application data in a save place to protect it from abuse by attackers.Although hardware and the operating system of such a chip has to go through an intensive process of security testing, thecurrent integration of such a chip in mobile phones easily allows attackers to access the information stored. In the followingpaper we present the implementation of two different proof-of-concept attacks. Out of the analysis of the attack scenarios, wepropose various starting points for the forensic analysis in order to detect such fraudulent transactions. The presented conceptshould lead to fewer fraudulent transactions as well as protected evidence in case of fraud.


In this paper we investigate the two-lane main road on-ramp system with signal-controlling using the cellular automata traffic flow model. The traffic signal is setup at the merging part between the main road and the on-ramp so that it can control the vehicles of both roads. We simulate the effect of traffic signal on vehicle flows of main road and on-ramp, and the traffic capacity and average velocity at the merging part are discussed. Through the analysis of the phase diagram, it can be found that the on-ramp system with two-lane main road can embody more complicated and realistic traffic flow characteristics than the on-ramp system with single-lane main road. Compared with the model introduced by Jiang Rui [Jiang R 2003 J. Phys. A 36 11713], the simulation results indicate that the state of traffic flow is improved obviously and the capacity of the on ramp system has increased.


The present experiment "Long term effect of integrated nutrient management on soil nutrient status under rice-wheat cropping system in Inceptisols" was carried out during Kharif-Rabi season of 2015 2016 at the instructional cum research farm, IGKV, Raipur. The objectives of the study were the long term effect of INM on soil major nutrient status after 24 crop cycle under rice-wheat cropping system, to find out the best INM practice on the basis of cropping system productivity and economics. The experiment was laid out in Randomized block design and replicated three times with twelve treatments i.e. T1 (control), T2 50%RDF-50RDF%, T3 50%RDF-100%RDF, T4 75%RDF-75%RDF, T5 100%RDF100%RDF, T6 50%RDF+50%FYM-100%RDF, T7 75%RDF+25%FYM-75%RDF, T8 50%RDF+50%RR-100%RDF, T9 75%RDF+25%RR-75%RDF, T10 50%RDF+50%GM-100%RDF, T11 75%RDF+25%GM-75%RDF, T12 FP-FP. Result revealed that combined application of inorganic fertilizer and organic manure during kharif and rabi improve chemical properties of soil like organic carbon, available N, P and K status in soil. The highest available nitrogen (288.6 kg ha) and available phosphorus (28.5 kg ha) content was recorded in T10 50%RDF+50%GM-100%RDF. The higher available calcium and sulphur was recorded in T6 -50%RDF+50%FYM-100%RDF, treatment. The available micronutrient was observed in T6 50%RDF+50%FYM-100%RDF. Maximum number (448.67 m) of effective tiller and test weight (46.19g) was recorded in T10 50%RDF+50%FYM100%RDF. The yield of rice and wheat increased with increasing the levels of mineral nutrients from Treatment T10 50%RDF+50%FYM-100%RDF highest grain yield (61.25 Q ha) of rice and wheat (31.46 Q ha) was significantly superior. The Harvest index was observed highest (41.64%) in T350%RDF-100%RDF NPK. Agronomic efficiency was recorded maximum (51.31 kg kg) under T10 50%RDF+50GM-100%RDF. The Factor productivity index was observed highest (62.91) under T10 50%RDF-50GM-100%RDF. Harvest index of these treatments was also higher. These results are also reflected in the net return and B: C ratio. Maximum total productivity (TP) in terms of rice equivalent yield (98.35q/ha) was recorded under treatment 100% RDF + 100% RDF during both kharif and rabi (T5). The per cent change in TP in terms of rice equivalent yield (q/ha) and total net return (Kharif +Rabi) over farmer's practice were also highest 70.33% and Rs. 59,198/ha, respectively) under treatment 100% RDF + 100% RDF during both kharif and rabi (T5) followed by 50% RDF+50% N through GM during kharif and 100% RDF during rabi (T10) (64.60% and Rs 53,908 /ha, respectively).


Post-transcriptional regulation is crucial to shape gene expression. During the Maternal-to-Zygotic Transition (MZT), thousands of maternal transcripts are regulated upon fertilization and genome activation. Transcript stability can be influenced by cis-elements and trans-factors, but how these inputs are integrated to determine the overall mRNA stability is unclear. Here, we show that most transcripts are under combinatorial regulation by multiple decay pathways during zebrafish MZT. To identify cis-regulatory elements, we performed a massively parallel reporter assay for stability-influencing sequences, which revealed that 3'-UTR poly-U motifs are associated with mRNA stability. In contrast, miR-430 target sequences, UAUUUAUU AU-rich elements (ARE), CCUC and CUGC elements emerged as the main destabilizing motifs in the embryo, with miR-430 and AREs causing mRNA deadenylation in a genome activation-dependent manner. To identify the trans-factors interacting with these cis-elements, we comprehensively profiled RNA-protein interactions and their associated regulatory activities across the transcriptome during the MZT. We find that poly-U binding proteins are preferentially associated with 3'-UTR sequences and stabilizing motifs, and that antagonistic sequence contexts for poly-C and poly-U binding proteins shape the binding landscape and magnitude of regulation across the transcriptome. Finally, we integrate these regulatory motifs into a machine learning model that accurately predicts the stability of mRNA reporters in vivo. Our findings reveal how mechanisms of post-transcriptional regulation are coordinated to direct changes in mRNA stability within the early zebrafish embryo.


Information and computer technology has developed along with the globalization, where a learning system must integrate with the use of computers and the Internet. The purpose of this research is on the LAN device installation and to know the validity and practicalities of the media. This is according to Van Den Akker's consisting of: requirements analysis, design, evaluation and revision. This research resulted from the media in the form of E-Learning with Classroom Online that is validated by a validate with criteria very well 94.28%. A Testing for practicalities is done with 20. The result of the testing for practicalities is stated that the e-learning Classroom Online is good categorized with an average score of 83% in terms of the interest of the students, the process of increasing its use, liveliness, time and student evaluation. E-learning in the Classroom Online as one of the alternative media learning materials on the installation of the device for the LAN in the vocational school.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To explore differences in cancer risk knowledge and colorectal cancer (CRC) knowledge among adults in Alabama.
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RESEARCH APPROACH
Telephone interviews were conducted using an 80-item questionnaire that included 14 demographic questions and 26 general questions regarding healthcare quality, sources of health-related information, and cancer fears and risk factors. Also included were 40 questions dealing with CRC perceptions and experiences (asked only of respondents aged 50 years or older).
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SETTING
A standard random-digit-dialed statewide telephone survey, targeting adult residents of Alabama. Interviews were conducted during about seven weeks in 2012.
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PARTICIPANTS
1,024 participants, including 615 who were aged 50 years or older. Most of the participants identified as Caucasian.
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METHODOLOGIC APPROACH
A secondary data analysis using data from a CRC screening survey of Alabama residents conducted in 2012 by the University of South Alabama polling group via telephone.
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FINDINGS
Knowledge of general cancer risk factors predicted disagreement with the statement, "There is nothing you can do to avoid getting cancer," and disagreement with the statement, "Only people with signs or symptoms should be screened for CRC." Binary logistic regression showed that those higher in CRC risk knowledge were more likely to have been screened for CRC.
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CONCLUSIONS
Knowledge of general cancer risk factors may increase self-efficacy. In addition, individuals with increased knowledge of colorectal cancer risk factors were more likely to participate in CRC screening.
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INTERPRETATION
Nurses play an instrumental role in addressing CRC, a preventable and treatable cancer. An opportunity exists for nurses and other healthcare providers to develop culturally appropriate educational interventions to increase knowledge related to CRC, risk factors, and screening, particularly among those who are at increased risk. This education needs to occur in clinical practice and within the community.


Medication errors are common through all phases of a hospitalization and represent a significant patient safety risk. Medication errors lead to Adverse Drug Events which are the most common type of error experienced in a hospital. Such events represent a significant public health issue and have gained national attention. Despite this attention, the current financial structure of the United States' healthcare system inhibits providers from fully embracing efforts to reduce medication errors.
Medication Reconciliation is the act of completing a medication history and correcting discrepancies between a patient's previous medication regimen and the proposed medication order. Medication reconciliation characterizes a sustainable solution that can significantly reduce medication errors if performed correctly. Often, medication reconciliation is performed by a nursing admissions team or physicians, despite the research that proves pharmacists are suited best. When pharmacists perform medication reconciliation it denotes the most effective solution for reducing drug related errors.
A case study of a large academic medical system's Emergency Department examined the effectiveness of a nursing based medication reconciliation process. A pharmacist reviewed medication histories performed by a nursing admissions team to assess the prevalence and type of medication discrepancies. Interviews with key stakeholders conveyed the barriers in creating an effective medication reconciliation process.


Background Speeded (ST) and metronome (MT) tapping have been shown to be sensitive in distinguishing premanifest (preHD) and manifest (HD) stages of Huntington's disease (HD) in the cross-sectional analysis of the TRACK-HD study, and to detect an early motor phenotype even more than 14 years before predicted disease manifestation. Aims To investigate whether ST and MT are able to track disease progression within a 12 month follow-up period. Methods Participants from the four TRACK-HD sites (ST/MT: controls: 120/122, preHD: 117/118, HD: 117/121) were instructed to perform two tapping tasks with their non-dominant index finger. In ST, they had to tap at maximal speed for 10s; in MT, they were instructed to continue a given tapping rate of 1.8 Hz for 10s. After one year, the assessments were repeated. The annual change in performance of gene-carriers was compared to controls and to each other. The variability of tapping intervals expressed as logarithmic standard deviations was calculated for the primary outcome measures (ie, inter-onset interval (IOI) & tap duration (TD) in ST, inter-onset intervals (ΔIOI) & mid-tap interval (ΔMTI) in MT). Results The annual change in IOI and TD for ST showed significant results for HD versus controls and HD versus preHD. ΔIOI and ΔMTI, both MT variables, failed to make this distinction. Conclusions ST is able to detect changes in manifest HD within only one year of follow-up and may thus be applicable as an outcome measure for disease modifying clinical trials in early manifest HD. Possible changes in preHD may require longer follow-up periods or larger cohorts. The hypothesis that force-transducer-based MT and ST tasks may track the progression of a premanifest motor phenotype will be tested in the TRACK-HD study.


Thirty-seven patients with either bleeding or obstructive metastatic gastrointestinal malignant neoplasms were treated with the neodymium-YAG laser between June 1985 and December 1988. The age range for the group was 55 to 99 years, with a mean of 71 years. There were 25 upper gastrointestinal lesions, including 22 obstructive lesions (20 esophageal and two prepyloric gastric) and three bleeding lesions (one metastatic melanoma to the stomach, one duodenal, and one pancreatic carcinoma). Of the esophageal tumors, three were proximal, eight were middle, and nine were distal third. The mean number of laser treatments was 2.6, and the overall survival ranged from 1 to 20 months, with a median of 8 months. The dysphagia grade was improved overall but depended on the site of the tumor. All bleeding lesions were successfully photocoagulated. Twelve colorectal malignant neoplasms were treated palliatively, six for obstruction (three intraperitoneal colon and three rectal) and six for bleeding (three intraperitoneal and three rectal). The mean number of treatments for the group was 1.5, and the overall survival ranged from 2 to 38 months, with a median survival of 15 months. The neodymium-YAG laser was found to be effective as a palliative mode of therapy for the management of malignant gastrointestinal lesions.


Losnegard, T, Myklebust, H, and Hallén, J. No differences in O2-cost between V1 and V2 skating techniques during treadmill roller skiing at moderate to steep inclines. J Strength Cond Res 26(5): 1340–1347, 2012—Elite crosscountry skiers use both the V1 and V2 techniques on moderate and steep inclines despite previous studies suggesting that the V1 technique is superior in terms of lower O2-cost and better performance on these inclines. However, this has not been studied in elite athletes, and therefore, the aim of this study was to compare O2-cost in these 2 main ski skating techniques in a group of 14 elite male crosscountry skiers (age: 24 6 3 years, height: 184 6 6 cm, weight: 79 6 7 kg, V1 _ VO2max: 71.8 6 3.5 ml kg min). With both techniques, the athletes performed submaximal trials for the determination of O2-cost on a roller ski treadmill at 4, 5, and 6 (3 m s) and maximal trials at 8 ($3 m s) for the determination of _ VO2max. Video-based kinematic analyses on cycle length and cycle rate (CR) were performed to unravel if there was any relation between these variables and O2-cost. No significant differences in O2-cost or _ VO2max between techniques were found. However, large and significant individual variations in physiological response were observed. V2 had a longer cycle length and lower CR than V1 did. No significant correlation was found between CR and O2-cost. This study shows that both V1 and V2 are appropriate techniques for optimizing O2-cost on moderate to steep inclines in elite skiers. However, individual variation suggests that ski skating performance on moderate to steep inclines may be determined by technique preferences of the athletes.


The Multi-agent Multi-item Pickup and Delivery problem (MAMPD) stands for a problem of finding collision-free trajectories for a fleet of mobile agents transporting a set of items from their initial positions to specified locations. Each agent can carry multiple items up to a given capacity. We study the solution quality of the naive decoupled approach, which decouples the problem into task assignment (TA) and Multi-Agent Pathfinding (MAPF). By computing the gap between the lower bound of the MAMPD cost, estimated using the TA cost, and the upper bound, given by the final MAMPD cost, we show that the decoupled approach is able to obtain near-optimal solutions in a wide range of cases.


The amorphous phase behavior of blends of poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT) and poly(ester-ether) segmented block copolymers (PEE) was found to vary from completely immiscible to miscible, depending on the copolymer composition. The predictions of the Flory-Huggins relationship are in general agreement with the observed behavior when the interaction parameters are estimated from solubility parameters. The results of thermal analysis and small-angle X-ray scattering experiments strongly suggest that the PBT and PEE copolymers are capable of cocrystallization in the miscible blends under all crystallization conditions. The cocrystalline microstructure results from the complete miscibility and the blocky nature of the copolymer (i.e., the identical chemical and crystalline structures of the PEE hard segments and PBT). The crystallization rate of the copolymer in the miscible blends was found to be significantly enhanced due to the presence of PBT, and the resulting crystal thickness was found to be the same as that observed for PBT. Partially miscible blends of PBT with copolymers containing intermediate hard-segment concentrations formed distinguishable crystal populations, but the crystallization rate of the copolymer in these blends was also strongly influenced by the presence of PBT.


Ceruloplasmin (Cp) is an acute phase, plasma protein with multiple enzymatic activities consistent with both proand anti-inflammatory functions. Our laboratory has recently reported the presence of Cp in intestinal epithelial cells. To determine the potential role of Cp in intestinal inflammation, we induced colitis in Cp-deficient mice by continuous administration of dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) ad libitum in the drinking water. The Cpnull mice rapidly lost weight and all were moribund by day 14, while about 90% of the wild-type (WT) mice survived at least 20 days. Higher amounts of TNF-, and neutrophil (KC) and macrophage (MCP-1) chemokines, were detected in colon culture supernatants in Cp-null mice compared to WT controls. Cp-null mice also exhibited excessive colonic bleeding after 5 days, which correlated with elevated white blood cells, neutrophils, and lymphocytes in the blood, and higher histopathology. Depletion of commensal microflora by antibiotic treatment demonstrated that excessive inflammation in Cp-null animals is microbiota-independent. Interestingly, microbiota-depleted Cp-null animals appear to have higher epithelial damage caused by DSS since they become moribund about 10 days earlier than WT controls. We have investigated the protective mechanism of Cp by injection of Cp into knockout mice. Unexpectedly, mimicking Cp secretion by liver and restoring blood Cp did not lessen the severity of inflammation. This finding was supported by the transplantation of Cp-null bone marrow (BM) into WT controls and vice versa; 90% of WT animals with Cp-null BM became moribund by day 14, whereas most of the KO mice with WT BM survived until day 20 of DSS administration. Since macrophages are the only source known to express Cp, we transferred WT macrophages to Cp-null animals all of which survived continuous DSS challenge. Our results demonstrate that Cp derived from macrophages contributes to the protection against DSS-induced damage and colonic inflammation.


Although consumers appreciate the genetic diversity among tomato landraces, traditional varieties have been displaced from commercial agriculture. Their cultivation through organic farming in natural parks can contribute to their resurgence. With this aim, we developed a participatory plant breeding (PPB) program in Collserola Natural Park (Barcelona, Spain) to promote the conservation of the Mando landrace and to obtain new varieties adapted to local organic farms. Taking advantage of the natural genetic variation from the variety's high cross-pollination rate, farmers developed five experimental inbreeds that were tested in a multi-locality trial in 2018. As a result of the PPB program, cultivation of the original landrace increased from 80 plants in 2011 to more than 2000 plants in 2018, which protected the variety from genetic erosion. Locality was the factor that contributed mostly to agronomic traits (e.g., yield (66% of the phenotypic variance)), while the genotype contributed more to the quality traits (except for soluble solids (37%) and dry matter (38%)). Farmer evaluations were highly correlated with the phenotypic traits recorded by researchers (Pearson coefficient ranging from 0.63–0.83), and led to the same final varietal selection. The superior inbred selected (3.9) is now being cultivated in the area of study. This paper discusses the efficiency of PPB in guiding the evolution of landraces.


Neonatal jaundice is a common physiological problem affecting over half of all full term and most preterm infants. Thus, newborn infants must be monitored for signs of hyperbilirubinemia to prevent acute bilirubin encephalopathy or kernicterus. Evidence exists supporting the benefits of baby massage as a form of mild hand to skin contact, to increase neonatal physical and mental development. In the present study, the effects of gentle baby massage on neonatal jaundice in full term newborn infants were evaluated by a controlled clinical trial. The inclusion criteria of newborn neonates were as follows: (1) gestational age of 37-41 weeks, (2) birth weight of 2,800-3,600 g, (3) Apgar score at birth of 8-10, and (4) being a healthy neonate without neonatal asphyxia and hemolytic condition. Breastfed newborns without phototherapy were included: 20 in the massage group and 22 in the control group. We found the mean stool frequency of the massaged infants on day 1 and day 2 (4.6 and 4.3) was significantly higher than that of the control group (3.3 and 2.6) (p<0.05). The transcutaneous bilirubin levels on the second to fifth day and serum total bilirubin levels on fourth day were significantly decreased in the massage group, compared to the control group. In conclusion, baby massage at an early stage after birth could reduce neonatal bilirubin levels. We suggest baby massage is beneficial for ameliorating neonatal jaundice.


p120 catenin (p120ctn), an armadillo protein and component of the cadherin adhesion complex, has been found recently to induce a dendritic morphology by regulating Rho family GTPases. We have identified specific serines within the Arm repeat domain that, when mutated to alanine, promote p120ctn association with interphase microtubules, leading to microtubule reorganization and stabilization. The mutant p120ctn also localized to the mitotic spindle and centrosomes. In contrast to wild-type p120ctn, the microtubule-associated p120ctn mutant did not activate Rac1 and did not induce a dendritic morphology. In addition, we show that a basic motif within the p120ctn Arm repeat domain known to be required for the inhibition of RhoA is also required for binding to microtubules. We therefore propose that binding of p120ctn to microtubules is inversely related to its ability to regulate Rho GTPases.


Twelve-hour shifts are highly contentious in nursing, with mixed opinions about whether there are any real benefits for patients, staff or management. Research has highlighted issues such as tiredness, reduced teaching opportunities and even the possibility of a negative effect on staff recruitment ( Todd et al 1993, Turner et al 1987 ). However, our recent pilot study demonstrated potential benefits ( Bloodworth et al 2001 ). This article aims to take the debate a step further and suggests that 12-hour shifts can actually improve the implementation of the newNational Service Framework for Older People in a hospital setting ( DoH 2001 ). We are aware that these are controversial arguments and hope to provoke thought and discussion.


Proposes a conceptualisation of "entrepreneurial marketing" based on the practices of successful entrepreneurs. The methodology took account of specific issues in researching entrepreneurs such as lack of common understanding of management terms, and the influence of ego on participants' responses. Depth interviews used critical incident technique to elicit accounts from entrepreneurs of their marketing practices. Focus groups supplemented individual interviews to test the candour of responses. The results indicated that successful entrepreneurs undertake marketing in unconventional ways. They tend to focus first on innovations, and only second on customer needs. They target customers through a bottom‐up process of elimination, rather than deliberate segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies. They rely on interactive marketing methods communicated through word‐of‐mouth, rather than a more conventional marketing mix. They monitor the marketplace through informal networks, rather than formalised ma...


Palaeozoic Amalgamation of Central Europe summarizes recent research designed to clarify the timing, geometry and processes by which discrete terranes of Central Europe became amalgamated during the Palaeozoic Era. The area studied extends from the southern North Sea to Central Poland along the Trans-European Suture Zone, covering much of Germany, Denmark, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Poland.

The 16 papers within the volume are divided into five sections: biostratigraphic/provenance evidence; isotopic constraints; petrological and geochemical evidence; structural evolution; seismic traverses and deep crustal structure. The first section contains papers summarizing continent-specific micropalaeontological and sediment provenance information backing current debates about microcontinent derivation and timing of their accretions to the proto-European continent, Baltica. The section on isotopic constraints discusses the use of isotopic dating to constrain the timing of accretions of rock units exposed in the northern Bohemian Massif, while the following section has more detailed studies of metamorphosed ophiolitic complexes adjoining palaeosutures in the same area. The two papers on the structural evolution of the area contrast a detailed review of the structural evolution of the Sudetes, with a broader, more regionally based hypothesis for the structural evolution of all Central Europe. The final section discusses models based on extensive seismic traverses in contrasting parts of the area - Belgium, the southern North Sea and Poland. This wide-ranging study thus encapsulates the most up-to-date ideas on the Palaeozoic amalgamation of Central Europe from the leading international researchers in the field.

The volume will be of interest to those earth scientists in industry and academia with a broad-based interest in the construction of the European continent, primarily biostratigraphers, geophysicists, structural geologists and geochemists.


The influence of sentiment polarization and ex-change in online social networks has been growing and studied by many researchers and organizations worldwide. For example, the sentiments expressed in a text concerning a topic in the discussion tend to influence a community when a Twitter user retweets the original text, causing a chain of reactions within a network. This paper investigates sentiment polarization in Twitter, focusing on tweets with the hashtags #Coronavirus, #ClimateChange #Immigrants, and #MeToo. Specifically, we collect the tweets mentioned above and classify them into five categories: hate speech, offensive, sexism, positive, and neutral. In this context, we address the problem as a multiclass classification problem by using the pre-trained language models ULMFiT and AWD-LSTM, which achieved a Fmicro of 0.85. Finally, we use the classified dataset to conduct a case study in which we capture the sentiment orientation during the network evolution.


Lectures on the Science of Language [1861/4], Friedrich Max Mueller Life and Growth of Language [1875], W.D. Whitney On the Study of Words [1851], R.C. Trench History of the European Languages [1823], Alexander Murray On the tendency of some late philological speculations [1810], Dugald Stewart Comparative Study of Languages [1836], Nicolas Wiseman Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation [1844], Robert Chambers History of Language [1900], Henry Sweet.


In software-defined networks (SDNs), the abstracted control plane is its symbolic characteristic, whose core component is the software-based controller. The control plane is logically centralized, but the controllers can be physically distributed and composed of multiple nodes. To meet the service management requirements of large-scale network scenarios, the control plane is usually implemented in the form of distributed controller clusters. Cluster management technology monitors all types of events and must maintain a consistent global network status, which usually leads to big data in SDNs. Simultaneously, the cluster security is an open issue because of the programmable and dynamic features of SDNs. To address the above challenges, this paper proposes a big data analysis-based secure cluster management architecture for the optimized control plane. A security authentication scheme is proposed for cluster management. Moreover, we propose an ant colony optimization approach that enables big data analysis scheme and the implementation system that optimizes the control plane. Simulations and comparisons show the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed scheme. The proposed scheme is significant in improving the security and efficiency SDN control plane.


The paper is prepared to analyze their usage in Poland in 2005-2012. In that term the steady increase was observed. For agriculture the plant protection means are among the most important production means. The sales of the imported means of plant protection was on the increase, though, there was the decline in sales of domestic means .The increase was noticeable in almost every means of plant protection use. Furthermore, the highest increase in use of herbicides and insecticides was observed. According to Polish farmers the means of plant protection are expensive in Poland. However, the recent growth in their prices is not too high. The improvement of relation of their prices to agricultural products ones in 2010-2012 was held up as the result of the growth of some agricultural products prices.


The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is the most widely used method for assessing implicit bias and prejudice. By avoiding the need for introspection, the IAT is suggested to be a more valid indicator of prejudice than explicit measures of attitudes (i.e. questionnaires). However, implicit attitudinal literature has demonstrated highly variable associations between IAT scores and various outcomes. Such inconsistencies imply IAT scores may be significantly influenced by measurement error, which could thwart efforts to accurately estimate underlying attitudes. The aim of the present thesis was to examine the construct validity of the IAT using Confirmatory Factor Analytic models (CFA) to account for the confounding influences of measurement error. Three studies examined various aspects of the validity of IATs using data from 198
student participants of the University of Tasmania, Australia. Study One assessed the internal consistency and internal convergent validity of traditional verbal IATs, fully pictorial IATs and Affective Priming Tasks (APTs) using single-group CFA. The study revealed high amount of random error variance in the implicit attitudinal data, comprising around 55% of IAT scores and 95% of APT scores. Despite the high proportion of random error, the IATs appeared to consistently assess the trait attitude constructs, though this was not true for the APTs. The APTs were consequently deemed invalid measures of implicit attitudes. Study Two added to the findings of Study One by further accounting for method
variance in the IAT data using the CTCM CFA-MTMM analytical approach. This study indicated that method variance accounts for a further third of the IAT scores, suggesting that an average IAT score is comprised of around 80% error variance (random error and method variance). Notwithstanding this, after accounting for measurement error, strong convergence was evident between the verbal and pictorial IAT formats and two of the four IATs were found to possess good construct validity. Such findings provided some optimism for the future development of psychometrically robust implicit attitude techniques. Study Three examined the application of IATs to assess implicit attitudes whilst
using latent modelling techniques to account for the significant error component of
the scores. Specialised CFA models were used to reveal anti-Arab/pro-European bias
in the present sample, as well as determine the effect of certain participant characteristics, such as age, on the IAT scores. In summary, the studies of this thesis suggest that IAT scores are likely to be confounded substantially by error variance at the individual level. However, if
random error and method variance are partialled out, IAT scores can provide an adequate assessment of implicit attitudes. This suggests that future IAT applications would profit from analysing sample data using CFA or other latent modelling techniques to account for the significant error component of IAT scores.


One of the most important activities in the management of companies is the continuous improvement of products quality concerning their sustainability and better market position. The submitted paper aims to optimise the production process in the production of weldments. The study revealed a significant number of dimensional and threaded defects on the welded chassis of the loader. One possibility of continuously increasing the required performance of a company is to eliminate the number of non-conforming products using the tools of the Six Sigma methodology. This policy must be introduced by a company into the business processes management if a company wants to successfully meet the customers ́ needs and improve the processes while cutting the costs of production. The resulting analysis focused on the selected type of defects to reduce their occurrence using the Six Sigma tools, specifically the DMAIC improvement cycle. The presented approach and the results obtained highlight the importance of applying quality tools in practice and their undeniable contribution in improving performance and quality, reducing the number of defects occurring and reducing the cost of poor quality in production, both now and in the future.


BACKGROUND: Variants in RBM20 are reported in 2% to 6% of familial cases of dilated cardiomyopathy and may be associated with fatal ventricular arrhythmia and rapid heart failure progression. We sought to determine the risk of adverse events in RBM20 variant carriers and the impact of sex on outcomes. METHODS: Consecutive probands and relatives carrying RBM20 variants were retrospectively recruited from 12 cardiomyopathy units. The primary end point was a composite of malignant ventricular arrhythmia (MVA) and end-stage heart failure (ESHF). MVA and ESHF end points were also analyzed separately and men and women compared. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) contemporary to MVA was examined. RBM20 variant carriers with left ventricular systolic dysfunction (RBM20LVSD) were compared with variant-elusive patients with idiopathic left ventricular systolic dysfunction. RESULTS: Longitudinal follow-up data were available for 143 RBM20 variant carriers (71 men; median age, 35.5 years); 7 of 143 had an MVA event at baseline. Thirty of 136 without baseline MVA (22.0%) reached the primary end point, and 16 of 136 (11.8%) had new MVA with no significant difference between men and women (log-rank P=0.07 and P=0.98, respectively). Twenty of 143 (14.0%) developed ESHF (17 men and 3 women; log-rank P<0.001). Four of 10 variant carriers with available LVEF contemporary to MVA had an LVEF >35%. At 5 years, 15 of 67 (22.4%) RBM20LVSD versus 7 of 197 (3.6%) patients with idiopathic left ventricular systolic dysfunction had reached the primary end point (log-rank P<0.001). RBM20 variant carriage conferred a 6.0-fold increase in risk of the primary end point. CONCLUSIONS: RBM20 variants are associated with a high risk of MVA and ESHF compared with idiopathic left ventricular systolic dysfunction. The risk of MVA in male and female RBM20 variant carriers is similar, but male sex is strongly associated with ESHF.


The Department of Economy, Planning and Environment of the Council of the City of Gold Coast commissioned this study to investigate independent screen production activity and capacity in the City of Gold Coast. The research investigates the industry's size, value chain and workforce; the screen business ecology and content formats created; and the views of above-the-line content creators on the state of the industry. The research examines both core screen content—including short-form and long-form narrative-based feature film, documentary and television series, online content creation, and virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) production—and commercial corporate video production. This study defines Gold Coast independent production as that which is independent of Hollywood, but also that which is independent of, and occurs outside of the Village Roadshow Studios. It does not examine foreign or Australian feature film and television production filmed at the Village Roadshow Studios, although it does interrogate the interdependencies between local independent and studio production. The study focuses on the activities of screen workers who live and work on the Gold Coast, or those who may live outside the region but whose primary place of work or business is the Gold Coast. Surveys and interviews focus specifically on the productions of independent Gold Coast above-the-line screen content creators, which includes producers, directors, screenwriters, and online content creators.


Surface modification of fused silica windows caused by the ablation of surface-bound microparticles under short pulse laser irradiation is investigated and related to beam propagation effects. Particle material dispersal and subsequent surface pitting after multiple pulses of 351 nm, ∼9  J/cm2 laser light were found to depend strongly on material type and particle size. Surface pitting was most significant for opaque materials (aluminum, steel, acetal homopolymer), yielding pits as deep as 600 nm for ∼30  μm diameter particles. Transparent particles (PET polymer, glass) tended to disperse material more widely and caused less pitting (∼100  nm) than the opaque materials. Paraxial light propagation analysis showed that phase objects created by ablated opaque materials resulted in higher peak intensification (∼3x) than those created by transparent materials (∼1.5x). The fragmentation of ablated material is discussed in terms of brittle or ductile failure at high strain rates, indicating reasonable agreement between experiment and theory. An approximation for the laser-induced plasma pressure and size of the dispersal pattern is derived, indicating an inverse correlation with material density.


Angles of incidence for s- and p-polarized light have been computed and confirmed experimentally for which monochromatic interference in transparent thin films on absorbing substrates results in optimum interference fringe contrast (visibility = 1). Under these angles of incidence and with polarized light, film thickness determinations which are not possible at normal incidence or with unpolarized light can be carried out by use of thin-film interference.


Provides analysis for a practical action planto implement pro-poor policies through macroeconomic initiatives. The study covers sequencing and implementation issues and provides estimates of both macro and significant microeconomic impacts. The major components of the study are (a) a general dynamic macroeconomic model of the impact of tariff reform that forecasts the likely impact on overall economic activity, fiscal revenues, inflation, unemployment, balance of payment and the exchange rate; (b) a partial-equilibrium analysis at the product-specific level; (c) sector and industry specific analyses; and (d) economy-wide analysis using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model.