The powders of mineral materials with far infrared radiation (CTTP) were prepared using rare earth cerium nitrate, tourmaline and transition metal oxide by coprecipitation, and calcination at 1073K for 3h. The inorganic-organic mineral composite materials with far infrared radiation (CTTR) were prepared from CTTP and resin according to the weight ratio of 4:6. It was found by characterization with scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscope (FTIR), that the infrared radiance of the CTTR was 93%. The effects of the CTTR on the surface tension and the kinematic viscosity of diesel oil as well as the effects of the CTTR on oil consumption and air pollutant emissions of oil-burning boiler were investigated in this paper. The results showed that the diesel oil dealted with the CTTR resulted in the strengthenty of molecular movement and the decrease of intermolecular contacts. In laboratory, the surface tension of diesel oil was reduced from 27.287 to 27.254 mN/m and the kinematic viscosity of diesel oil was reduced from 2.85 to 2.81 mm2s-1. The oil-saving rate of the RBS•VH-1.5 boiler treated with the CTTR could reach 4.57%, and the reducing rates of CO and NO in the exhaust gas were 1.30 and 4.08%, respectively.


This article examines the way the Finns as national stereotypes are depicted in recent English-language fiction. In discussing several manifestations of Finns in the history of English literature, the article suggests that the earlier negative stereotype of the Finn as a figure of fun in English-language literature still exists but is transformed and exaggarated ad absurdum in present-day fiction writing, for example Malcolm Bradbury's To the Hermitage (2000) and John Irving's Until I Find You (2005). It is further proposed that even though Finns in these novels are depicted in humorous situations and presented as stereotypical figures of fun, as such they serve other than a simply comic function in these novels. Interestingly however, it turns out that the negative stereotype of the Finn – the drinking and fighting Finn – is rarely contradicted in these novels, whereas it is further elaborated and challenged in contemporary Finnish literature.


This article focuses on scholarly discourse on the science-policy interface, and in particular on questions regarding how this discourse can be understood in the course of history and which lessons we can learn. We aim to structure the discourse, show kinships of different concepts, and contextualize these concepts. For the twentieth century we identify three major phases that describe interactions on the science policy interface: the "linear phase" (1960s–1970s) when science informed policy-making in a unidirectional manner, the "interactive phase" (1970–2000s) when both sides found themselves in a continuous interaction, and the "embedded phase" (starting from the 2000s) when citizens' voices come to be involved within this dialogue more explicitly. We show that the communicative relationship between science and policy-making has become more complex over time with an increasing number of actors involved. We argue that better skill-building and education can help to improve communication within the science-policy interface.


Abstract About half of the world's population now lives in urban areas because of the opportunity for a better quality of life. Many of these urban centers are expanding rapidly, leading to the growth of megacities, which are defined as metropolitan areas with populations exceeding 10 million inhabitants. These concentrations of people and activity are exerting increasing stress on the natural environment, with impacts at urban, regional and global levels. In recent decades, air pollution has become one of the most important problems of megacities. Initially, the main air pollutants of concern were sulfur compounds, which were generated mostly by burning coal. Today, photochemical smog—induced primarily from traffic, but also from industrial activities, power generation, and solvents—has become the main source of concern for air quality, while sulfur is still a major problem in many cities of the developing world. Air pollution has serious impacts on public health, causes urban and regional haze, and has the potential to contribute significantly to climate change. Yet, with appropriate planning, megacities can efficiently address their air quality problems through measures such as application of new emission control technologies and development of mass transit systems. This review is focused on nine urban centers, chosen as case studies to assess air quality from distinct perspectives: from cities in the industrialized nations to cities in the developing world. While each city—its problems, resources, and outlook—is unique, the need for a holistic approach to the complex environmental problems is the same. There is no single strategy in reducing air pollution in megacities; a mix of policy measures will be needed to improve air quality. Experience shows that strong political will coupled with public dialog is essential to effectively implement the regulations required to address air quality problems.


We herein report a patient with erythema induratum/nodular vasculitis (EI/NV) associated with Crohn's disease (CD), which is considered to be a rare type of metastatic CD. A 54-year-old woman, who had a history of CD, presented with erythematous nodules on her legs. The histopathological features of the skin biopsy revealed a granulomatous, mixed septal and lobular panniculitis, which was characterized by many discrete epithelioid cell granulomas (necrobiotic/necrotizing-type and sarcoidal type), necrosis of the adipocytes, and granulomatous phlebitis in the muscular wall of a subcutaneous vein. A review of the pertinent literature and the presented case suggested the following: (1) panniculitis associated with CD may be either an erythema nodosum type or an EI/NV type; (2) so far, the reported cases of metastatic CD or granulomatous vasculitis in CD rarely presented with granulomatous panniculitis without dermal involvement, and most cases showed histopathological features that were similar to or indistinguishable from those of EI/NV; and (3) the finding of granulomatous vasculitis (especially the presence of discrete epithelioid cell granulomas involving the veins or venules) may be a characteristic feature of EI/NV associated with CD, in contrast to the finding of acute vasculitis, which is typically present in patients with EI/NV due to causative factors other than CD.


Cushing's syndrome accounts for approximately 20–30% of endogenous hypercortisolism cases, and adrenal involvement can be either unilateral or bilateral. Cushing's syndrome due to bilateral adrenal tumors is extremely rare. Adrenal oncocytomas are another rare cause of endogenous hypercortisolism: about 13 cases are described in the literature. Oncocytomas are rare epithelial neoplasms, characterized by abnormally excessive accumulation of defective mitochondria in the cytoplasm of cells, and make up 1.8% of all adrenal neoplasms. We describe a 58-year old patient with Cushing's syndrome and bilateral adrenal tumors. Multispiral computed tomography of the adrenals showed signs suspicious of lipid-poor atypical adenomas or malignant tumors. Surgical treatment was the method of choice, and the larger tumor was excised first. Due to the absence of remission of endogenous hypercortisolism the excision of the second tumor was performed. Morphological and immunohistochemical examination confirmed the diagnosis of bilateral oncocytic adrenocortical tumors with uncertain malignant potential. Cases of bilateral hormone-producing adrenal oncocytomas have not been described in the literature.


Cloud Computing is the next-generation Internet paradigm that is offered to the business environment, educational domain and, generally, to individual users. While educational institutions and individuals quickly embraced this new technology, companies were reluctant, most of their doubts being related to the security problems. With that in mind, companies prefer Private Cloud model due to their tight security policies for data and applications. Also, a preference to address the security problems on the client-side always existed and will continue to do so in order to keep control on the confidentiality of company data. In this paper we focused on the analysis of several security methods applied in Cloud Computing environments and we proposed two security models that can overcome the safety issues.


For many years the study of portal flow dynamics was limited to indirect methods because of inaccessibility of the portal vessels. The introduction of percutaneous splenoportography by Abeatici and Campi 1 in 1951 was a major advance which permitted, without operation, portal phlebography, estimation of splenic pulp pressure, preoperative determination of the patency and suitability of veins intended for portal systemic shunts, and postoperative determination of shunt patency. Atkinson et al., 2 Ekman, 3 and others have employed this technique in estimating the velocity of flow from the spleen to the portal vein bifurcation, using timed serial films. A transit time of 1-2 seconds was considered normal. They estimated the velocity in normal subjects to range from 10 to 24 cm. per second, with a mean of 18 cm. per second. In patients with chronic portal hypertension, the velocity ranged from 4 to 20 cm. per second, with a mean


Background We evaluated the performance of various commercial assays for the molecular detection of human papillomavirus (HPV); the recently developed AdvanSure HPV Screening real-time PCR assay (AdvanSure PCR) and the Abbott RealTime High Risk HPV PCR assay (Abbott PCR) were compared with the Hybrid Capture 2 HPV DNA Test (HC2). Methods All 3 tests were performed on 177 samples, and any sample that showed a discrepancy in any of the 3 tests was genotyped using INNO-LiPA HPV genotyping and/or sequencing. On the basis of these results, we obtained a consensus HPV result, and the performance of each test was evaluated. We also evaluated high-risk HPV 16/18 detection by using the 2 real-time PCR assays. Results Among the 177 samples, 65 were negative and 75 were positive in all 3 assays; however, the results of the 3 assays with 37 samples were discrepant. Compared with the consensus HPV result, the sensitivities and specificities of HC2, AdvanSure PCR, and Abbott PCR were 97.6%, 91.7%, and 86.9% and 83.9%, 98.8%, and 100.0%, respectively. For HPV type 16/18 detection, the concordance rate between the AdvanSure PCR and Abbott PCR assays was 98.3%; however, 3 samples were discrepant (positive in AdvanSure PCR and negative in Abbott PCR) and were confirmed as HPV type 16 by INNO-LiPA genotyping and/or sequencing. Conclusions For HPV detection, the AdvanSure HPV Screening real-time PCR assay and the Abbott PCR assay are less sensitive but more specific than the HC2 assay, but can simultaneously differentiate type 16/18 HPV from other types.


SIR,-It seems that cigarette smokers adjust the number of cigarettes smokzd to obtain a predetermined dose of nicotine (Dr. M. A. H. Russell and others, 1 December, p. 512). Would it not be much safer (no tar), and much cleaner for non-smokers in the vicinity, to market nicotine inhalers, similar to those used by asthmatics? The price of these could be adjusted so that the Government need not lose revenue. The nicotine addicts would presumably not be at risk from bronchogenic carcinoma and chronic bronchitis, and there would be no carbon monoxide to contribute to atheroma formation.-I am, etc., D. R. REDMAN Edinburgh


In this thesis, the refinement calculus is extended to support a variety of object-oriented programming styles. The late binding of procedure calls in object-oriented languages is modelled by defining an object-oriented system to be a function from procedure names and argument values to the procedures that are invoked by late binding. The first model allows multiple dispatch late binding, in the style of CLOS. This model is then specialised to the single dispatch case, giving a model that associates types with objects, which is similar to existing class based object-oriented languages.
Both models are then restricted so that they support modular reasoning. The concept of modular reasoning has been defined informally in the literature, both for non-object-oriented systems and for object-oriented systems. This thesis gives the first formal definition of modular reasoning for object-oriented languages. Intuitively, the definition seems to capture the minimum possible requirements necessary to support modular reasoning. For simplicity, the definition only allows data refinement between the implementation and specification of an object, not between types and subtypes. The removal of this restriction is discussed in the section on further work.
The definition of modular reasoning allows programs to make arbitrary observations about objects, such as testing the type of an object. In contrast, most existing formal methods for object-oriented programming assume that a subtype should be a transparent replacement of its supertypes, so do not allow programs to test the types of objects.
Other topics covered include the incremental construction of types from other types and a way of reasoning about the aliasing of objects, based on the collections of Euclid. The use of collections to handle aliasing is convenient because it is modular. That is, an object can encapsulate a collection and thus hide all aliasing from programs that use the object.


In this work, we present BasisNet which combines recent advancements in efficient neural network architectures, conditional computation, and early termination in a simple new form. Our approach incorporates a lightweight model to preview the input and generate input-dependent combination coefficients, which later controls the synthesis of a more accurate specialist model to make final prediction. The two-stage model synthesis strategy can be applied to any network architectures and both stages are jointly trained. We also show that proper training recipes are critical for increasing generalizability for such high capacity neural networks. On ImageNet classification benchmark, our BasisNet with MobileNets as backbone demonstrated clear advantage on accuracy-efficiency trade-off over several strong baselines. Specifically, BasisNet-MobileNetV3 obtained 80.3% top-1 accuracy with only 290M Multiply-Add operations, halving the computational cost of previous state-of-the-art without sacrificing accuracy. With early termination, the average cost can be further reduced to 198M MAdds while maintaining accuracy of 80.0% on ImageNet.


We repaired osteochondral defect of rabbits with tissue-engineered osteochondral graft composited by chondrocyte and nanohydroxyapatite/chitosan (nanoHA/CS) scaffold. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) were cultivated with chondrogenic differentiation medium and induced to chondrocyte. Seed the chondrocyte into the bottom of the nanoHA/CS scaffold with a boot-shaped structure and cultivated the composite in the chondrogenic differentiation medium for 2 weeks. Osteochondral defect of 4mm in diameter and 8mm in depth were created in the epicondyle of femur. The composite graft were grafted into the defects while the composite graft induced without boot-shaped structure as the matched group. Specimens were harvested at 4th and 12th week post operation respectively, general and histological examination was performed and graded. We found BMSCs were induced to chondrocyte after cultivated with chondrogenic differentiation medium. The interstice ratio and diameter of nanoHA/CS scaffold is 90% and 150μm. The scaffold has good adhesion with chondrocyte. The coupling between the bone and the cartilage in the experimental group is superior to the matched group obviously. This results indicate that tissue-engineered osteochondral graft composited by boot-shaped structure can be a new approach to attempt to overcome the technical surgical difficulties identified in this study.


Quick-Dry Region The Sahara Desert is one of the driest places on Earth. However, 11,000 to 5000 years ago, it was a relatively lush region containing savannah grasslands and humid tropical forests. This interval, the Early Holocene African Humid Period, ended, of course, but whether the drying occurred rapidly or gradually is unclear. Tierney and deMenocal (p. 843, published online 10 October; see the Perspective by Bard) report results from the Horn of Africa that suggest that the transitions both into and out of the humid period were abrupt—occurring within centuries rather than over millennia. The mid-Holocene African Humid Period ended abruptly, within centuries rather than millennia, in the Horn of Africa. [Also see Perspective by Bard] The timing and abruptness of the initiation and termination of the Early Holocene African Humid Period are subjects of ongoing debate, with direct consequences for our understanding of abrupt climate change, paleoenvironments, and early human cultural development. Here, we provide proxy evidence from the Horn of Africa region that documents abrupt transitions into and out of the African Humid Period in northeast Africa. Similar and generally synchronous abrupt transitions at other East African sites suggest that rapid shifts in hydroclimate are a regionally coherent feature. Our analysis suggests that the termination of the African Humid Period in the Horn of Africa occurred within centuries, underscoring the nonlinearity of the region's hydroclimate.


The incubation of planulae Obelia loveni in the actinomycin D solution (40 mug/ml) for 3 hrs at 17--20 degrees resulted in the marked inhibition of the process of attachment of planulae to the substrate and their transformation in polyps. A suggestion is put forward that at the final phase of larval development a special RNA is synthesized which participates in the genetically determined control of the complicated morphogenetic phenomenon of attachment and transformation of the planula in polyp.


A general model for decision problems is presented by a basic probability assignment of a body of evidence, which gives the information on distribution of states, situations or factors in the form of Dempster-Shafer belief structure. The rule for decision making is constructed from two steps by means of a composition of two functions -Dempster's lower and upper expected values. Shapley information entropy decreasing principal is received for the information inclusion relation constructed in the framework of the Dempster-Shafer belief structure.


Objectives: The use of cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) in pediatric patients during open-heart surgery is associated with excessive inflammation, fluid leakage, and end-organ dysfunction. To reduce these effects, various ultrafiltration (UF) techniques are utilized. In this study, we aimed to compare the effect and early outcomes of modified UF (MUF) and conventional UF (CUF) in infants undergoing pediatric cardiac surgery. Methods: A total of 232 infants who underwent open-heart surgery with CPB between February 2018 and January 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. Fifty-six patients weighing ≤15 kg with a history of any UF technique use were included. Patients were stratified into CUF (n=23) and MUF (n=33) groups. Preoperative patient characteristics and intraoperative and postoperative outcomes were recorded. Results: The MUF group had a lower patient size (height, weight, and body surface area), with no statistical difference. Intraoperative parameters (CPB and cross-clamp time) and prime solution components were similar between groups. MUF significantly shortened the mechanical ventilation (MV) time (p=0.048) in contrast to intensive care unit stay, which showed no significant difference. Conclusion: In our series, we demonstrated that the MV duration was shorter in the MUF group, which is consistent with prior literature. Additionally, although the lower weight of the patients in the MUF group showed no statistical significance, early hemodynamic effect and low mortality in this group support the potential benefits of MUF. With its cost-efficiency and early benefits, MUF is an effective UF method with a good safety profile, especially in low-weight infants.


PURPOSE
Researchers have used unscheduled telephone calls for many years during clinical trials to measure adult stuttering severity before and after treatment. Because variability is a hallmark of stuttering severity with adults, it is questionable whether an unscheduled telephone call is truly representative of their everyday speech.

METHOD
The authors studied the speech of 9 men and 1 woman for a 12-hr day during different speaking activities. On that day and 1 week prior to that day, participants received an unscheduled 10-min telephone call from a person unknown to them. The authors compared the percent syllables stuttered (%SS) for the unscheduled telephone call on the day to the %SS of the unscheduled telephone call 1 week prior to the day and to the %SS during the entire day.

RESULTS
No significant differences were found, and all confidence intervals with t tests included 0. The concordance correlation test also showed a strong positive correlation between %SS scores for the entire day and for the unscheduled 10-min telephone call.

CONCLUSION
The authors conclude that there is no reason to doubt that 10-min unscheduled telephone calls are a representative speech sample for %SS during clinical trials of stuttering treatments.


AFLP is a novel genomic fingerprinting method based on the selective PCR amplification of restriction fragments. The usability of this method for the differentiation of genomic species in the genus Acinetobacter was investigated. A total of 151 classified strains (representing 18 genomic species, including type, reference, and field strains) and 8 unclassified strains were analyzed. By using a single set of restriction enzymes (HindIII and TaqI) and one particular set of selective PCR primers, all strains could be allocated to the correct genomic species and all groups were properly separated, with minimal intraspecific similarity levels ranging from 29 to 74%. Strains belonging to genomic species 8 (Acinetobacter lwoffii sensu stricto) and 9 grouped together in one cluster. The closely related DNA groups 1 (Acinetobacter calcoaceticus), 2 (Acinetobacter baumannii), 3 and 13TU (sensu Tjernberg & Ursing 1989) were clearly distinguishable, with intraspecific linkage levels above 50%. Strains of the independently described genomic species 13BJ (sensu Bouvet & Jeanjean 1989) and 14TU linked together at a relatively low level (33%). Although a previous DNA-DNA hybridization study seemed to justify the unification of these genomic species, AFLP analysis actually divides the 13BJ-14TU group into three well-separated subgroups. Finally, four unclassified strains obtained from diverse sources and origins grouped convincingly together, with a similarity linkage level of approximately 50%. These strains showed no similarities in their AFLP patterns with any of the other 155 strains studied and may represent a thus-far-undescribed Acinetobacter species. Based on these results, AFLP should be regarded as an important auxiliary method for the delineation of genomic species. Furthermore, because AFLP provides a detailed insight into the infraspecific structure of Acinetobacter taxa, the method also represents a highly effective means for the confirmation of strain identity in the epidemiology of acinetobacters.


The 3a movement protein of cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), fused to the jellyfish green fluorescent protein (3a-GFP) generated surface punctate aggregates as well as tubules protruding from infected tobacco and Nicotiana benthamiana protoplasts. Fluorescent tubules also appeared on the surface of protoplasts prepared from transgenic tobacco plants expressing 3a-GFP, indicating that the 3a protein is the only viral component required for the formation of the tubules. CMV with a mutation in the gene encoding the 3a protein, M8 CMV, could infect tobacco systemically, but tubules were not detected protruding from infected protoplasts when the mutated 3a protein was fused to the GFP [(M8)3a-GFP]. This indicates that the ability of the 3a protein to generate tubules in the surface of protoplasts is not a function required for the spread of CMV in tobacco. On the other hand, the (M8)3a-GFP did not traffic through plasmodesmata interconnecting tobacco epidermal cells, in contrast to the wild-type 3a-GFP. This sugges...


Background: and purpose: Fatigue is among the most common persistent symptoms following post- acute sequelae of Sars-COV-2 infection (PASC). The current study investigated the potential therapeutic effects of High-De fi nition transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (HD-tDCS) associated with reha- bilitation program for the management of PASC-related fatigue. Methods: Seventy patients with PASC-related fatigue were randomized to receive 3 mA or


Salivary secretions are a key component of aphid-plant interactions. Aphids' salivary proteins interact with plant tissues, gaining access to phloem sap and eliciting responses which may benefit the insect. In an effort to isolate and identify key components in salivary secretions, we created a salivary gland cDNA library. Several thousand randomly selected cDNA clones were sequenced. We grouped these sequences into 1769 sets of essentially identical sequences, or clusters. About 22% of the clusters matched clearly to (non-aphid) proteins of known function. Among our cDNAs, we have identified putative oxido-reductases and hydrolases that may be involved in the insect's attack on plant tissue. C002 represents an abundant transcript among the genes expressed in the salivary glands. This cDNA encodes a novel protein that fails to match to proteins outside of aphids and is of unknown function. In situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry localized C002 in the same sub-set of cells within the principal salivary gland. C002 protein was detected in fava beans that were exposed to aphids, verifying that C002 protein is a secreted protein. Injection of siC002-RNA caused depletion of C002 transcript levels dramatically over a 3 day period after injection. With a lag of 1 – 2 days, the siC002-RNA injected insects died, on average 8 days before the death of control insects injected with siRNA for green fluorescent protein. It appears, therefore, that siRNA injections of adults will be a useful tool in studying the roles of individual transcripts in aphid salivary glands. MOLECULAR STUDIES OF THE SALIVARY GLANDS OF THE PEA APHID, ACYRTHOSIPHON PISUM (HARRIS)


Abstract. Precise determination of changes in organic carbon (OC) stocks is prerequisite to understand the role of soils in the global cycling of carbon and to verify changes in stocks due to management. A large dataset was collected to form base to repeated soil inventories at 12 CarboEurope sites under different climate and land-use, and with different soil types. Concentration of OC, bulk density (BD), and fine earth fraction were determined to 60 cm depth at 100 sampling points per site. We investigated (1) time needed to detect changes in soil OC, assuming future re-sampling of 100 cores; (2) the contribution of different sources of uncertainties to OC stocks; (3) the effect of OC stock calculation on mass rather than volume base for change detection; and (4) the potential use of pedotransfer functions (PTF) for estimating BD in repeated inventories. The period of time needed for soil OC stocks to change strongly enough to be detectable depends on the spatial variability of soil properties, the depth increment considered, and the rate of change. Cropland sites, having small spatial variability, had lower minimum detectable differences (MDD) with 100 sampling points (105 p 28 gC m−2 for the upper 10 cm of the soil) than grassland and forest sites (206 p 64 and 246 p 64 gC m−2 for 0–10 cm, respectively). Expected general trends in soil OC indicate that changes could be detectable after 2–15 yr with 100 samples if changes occurred in the upper 10 cm of stone-poor soils. Error propagation analyses showed that in undisturbed soils with low stone contents, OC concentrations contributed most to OC stock variability while BD and fine earth fraction were more important in upper soil layers of croplands and in stone rich soils. Though the calculation of OC stocks based on equivalent soil masses slightly decreases the chance to detect changes with time at most sites except for the croplands, it is still recommended to account for changing bulk densities with time. Application of PTF for the estimation of bulk densities caused considerable underestimation of total variances of OC stocks if the error associated with the PTF was not accounted for, which rarely is done in soil inventories. Direct measurement of all relevant parameters approximately every 10 yr is recommended for repeated soil OC inventories.


There is evidence that water may exist on Mars as brines in the subsurface. The chemistries of these brines will be greatly influenced by the local lithologies, which would impact on the organisms that could potentially live within them. There are multiple metabolisms that are theoretically viable under martian chemical conditions. In order to better establish which of these are capable of supporting persistent growth under martian conditions, we performed a series of enrichments using four geological simulants for Mars: a global composition, an early and unaltered basaltic composition, a sulfur-rich composition, and a haematite-rich composition. Enrichments were inoculated with sediment from Pyefleet mudflats in the Colne estuary (Essex, UK). Mudflat sediment was added to the simulant materials and a brine based on the chemistry of Rocknest. Enrichments were supplied with a H2/CO2 headspace at 1 bar pressure and incubated for 20 days. The enrichments were repeatedly subcultured into fresh simulant material and brines in order to effectively select for a community actively growing in this chemical environment. The enriched community was characterised through the isolation and identification of microbes, microscopy and the amplicon sequencing of 16S rRNA genes amplified from DNA extracted from each stage of the enrichment. Biotic and abiotic experiments were conducted to identify geochemical changes that occur due to the presence of microbial activity. We will present details on the communities enriched on the different martian simulants, metabolisms identified as present within the actively growing community and geochemical changes that were identified.


We present the first release of the MaNGA Stellar Library (MaStar), which is a large, well-calibrated, high-quality empirical library covering the wavelength range 3622–10354 Å at a resolving power of R ∼ 1800. The spectra were obtained using the same instrument as used by the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) project, by piggybacking on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV)/Apache Point Observatory Galaxy Evolution Experiment 2-N (APOGEE-2N) observations. Compared to previous empirical libraries, the MaStar library will have a higher number of stars and a more comprehensive stellar-parameter coverage, especially of cool dwarfs, low-metallicity stars, and stars with different [α/Fe], achieved by a sophisticated target-selection strategy that takes advantage of stellar-parameter catalogs from the literature. This empirical library will provide a new basis for stellar-population synthesis and is particularly well suited for stellar-population analysis of MaNGA galaxies. The first version of the library contains 8646 high-quality per-visit spectra for 3321 unique stars. Compared to photometry, the relative flux calibration of the library is accurate to 3.9% in g − r, 2.7% in r − i, and 2.2% in i − z. The data are released as part of SDSS Data Release 15. We expect the final release of the library to contain more than 10,000 stars.


Planning a collision free path for a robot in an environment with lots of obstacles is one of the most important issues in robotics. Path planning using robots draws the most attention when the planning environment is dangerous or inaccessible for human. In this paper a cellular automata based algorithm called SMPP (Straight Moving Path Planner) is presented for robot path planning problem. The advantage of this approach is that it prefers straight moves rather than zigzag steps. It is shown that how SMPP can help us finding a reasonable optimum path from the start point of the robot to the goal position in presence of obstacles. The proposed algorithm is then compared to the previous works done on the basis of cellular automata and the results are presented to validate the approach.


Dermatophilosis was clinically diagnosed and confirmed by isolation of Dermatophilus congolensis in three cows in a herd of seven zero-grazed dairy cattle. The lesions observed were matting together of hair into small tufts (greasy crusts) and discrete circumscribed lesions covered with creamy greasy crusts. The matting of hair into small tufts was found all over the body, while the discrete circumscribed lesions were mostly found in the distal extremities, dewlap, brisket, flank and dorsal midline. The circumscribed crusty lesions were similar to those of Trichophyton verrucosum infections that occur in similar production systems in Kenya, in that they were thick, horny and raised above the skin surface. However, unlike Trichophyton verrucosum infections, the crusts were held in place by penetrating hairs. Treatment of the severely affected cow with a single intramuscular injection of long acting tetracycline (20 mg/kg) resulted in regression of the lesions within 4 weeks, while in the mildly affected animals; the lesions receded on their own. Significant clinical Dermatophilosis has not been previously reported in stall-fed dairy animals in Kenya. The Kenya Veterinarian Vol. 21 2001: pp. 43-44


How does literacy work fit into the configuration I have been describing? One might answer, only a bit sardonically, that it doesn't have to—that higher education as a whole has reconfigured itself on the model of literacy work, having learned from English 101 how to give the customer decent service while keeping costs down and the labor force contingent. The professionalization of comp, while installing the usual apparatus (journals, conferences, a professional society, graduate programs and degrees), bringing a great advance in theoretical sophistication, and winning job security and good compensation for advanced practitioners, has made little if any difference in who does the front line work, under what regimen, for what pay, and so on. The idea that universal education underwrites a polity of free and equal citizens was contradictory to begin with. But an illusion can serve well as a common goal, and the dream of a mutually responsible, educated citizenry probably did help open the gates to higher education in the U.S., through the postwar period. In the present time of privatization and agile capital, the illusion shatters: education becomes a commodity among other commodities, with claims made for its contribution to the common good only on the basis of economic advantage. All that is solid melts into air, once again.


This study aims to determine the adaptation level of the individuals living in The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) to the Mediterranean diet and revealing the factors affecting the adaptation to the diet. Mediterranean diet is a dietary habit observed in Southern Italy, some regions in Greece and the Mediterranean islands where olive is planted traditional Mediterranean basin diets contain fresh and natural food, vegetable, fruit, grains, bread, fish, olive oil, nuts such as walnut, peanut, hazelnut, wine in moderate dose, low level of milk and meat products, and poultry animals. For this purpose, 422 participants between 18 to 65 years of age living in the TRNC were surveyed. The data collection tool contains General Information Form, Nutritional Habits Form, Food Consumption Frequency Form, and Mediterranean Diet Quality Index Form. 54% were women. 51.2% of the sample is average weight, 38.4% is overweight, and 10.4% is obese. In the evaluation of Mediterranean diet quality, 57.1% of the participants were found to have an optimal diet, 31.3% of the participants had required intervention in their diet, and 11.6% of the participants had a very low-quality index. The quality of the Mediterranean diet differentiates on gender, age, body mass index (p<0.05). The average of normal weighted participants is significantly higher than overweighed and obese participants. The quality of the Mediterranean diet differentiates by the change occurred in the body within the last 6 months, cohabitants and vitamin-mineral tablet usage within the last 12 months (p<0.05). When the findings of the study are evaluated in general, there is evidence that individuals living in the Turkish Republic of Northern adhere to the Mediterranean diet.


Abstract The goal of this work is to explore the applicability of fuzzy logic in multiagent systems for choosing the best bidding strategy in electronic auction. To find the multi-criterion ordering, agents use a fuzzy algorithm ARAKRI2 with direct aggregation operators MaxMin and MinAvg. The key difference between this new approach and known from the literature solution FTNA is in the lack of weighted coefficients. Despite the difference both algorithms give results that are similar. Therefore, the proposed approach can successfully solve the task for multi criteria selection of bidding strategy.


A major part of the Netherlands consists of meadows used for dairy farming. These meadows are relatively wet and are the main habitat for a group of bird species, known as 'meadow birds'. They are defined as bird species of which the population that occurs in the Netherlands is largely dependent on agriculturally used grasslands as a breeding site. Meadow birds are typically Dutch because nowhere else in the world does this assemblage of species breed together in the same habitat. The Netherlands is especially important for the Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa limosa) of which circa 50% of the European population breeds in Dutch meadows. Because of a recent decline of meadow bird species, various studies into many life characteristics have been started. It was found that the decline must be attributed to changes during the breeding season, especially to agricultural intensification resulting in a lowered breeding success. This thesis however focuses on nest site selection of meadow bird breeding pairs early in the season. Three habitat requirements are important then: land use, groundwater level and landscape openness. When quantifying the relative importance of these three requirements, landscape openness is found to be the most important, followed by land use and groundwater level. Similarly, an open landscape has been shown to be important in many other habitats characterized by openness like deserts, tundras, coasts, bogs and marshes. Predator visibility is the main reason for the importance of openness: meadow birds want to visually locate their potential predators and deter it from the breeding site. This is only possible in an open landscape setting with few landscape elements. A literature review confirms that meadow birds select nest sites at a distance from landscape elements. Apart from view-obstructing elements (like forest or buildings), also flat elements (like roads) result in disturbance distances. Human-used elements cause the largest disturbance distances, but elements that are not used by human beings also still do. Furthermore, occupied predator nests result in a surrounding area with lowered densities of meadow birds, irrespective whether the predator's nest is situated in an open or closed landscape. For Black-tailed Godwit, five core breeding areas in lowland Netherlands were identified where it still breeds in the Netherlands in 2020. These core areas are all open meadow landscapes with high water levels, resulting in an agricultural management that can sustain a healthy godwit population. The five core areas are not officially designated as reserves and, also, two of them are located in the western provinces where the largest pressure of landscape clutter, especially due to urbanization, occurs. For the conservation of the relevant flyway population of the Black-tailed Godwit, EU member states can appoint Special Protection Areas (SPAs). However, the Netherlands did not formally appoint SPAs for its breeding population, but only for the period outside the breeding season when the SPAs function as post-breeding staging areas. Connectivity between SPAs and core breeding areas was however found to be not optimal, resulting in a bottleneck in the protection of Black-tailed Godwit


We compare the turbulence statistics of the canopy/roughness sublayer (RSL) and the inertial sublayer (ISL) above. In the RSL the turbulence is more coherent and more efficient at transporting momentum and scalars and in most ways resembles a turbulent mixing layer rather than a boundary layer. To understand these differences we analyse a large-eddy simulation of the flow above and within a vegetation canopy. The three-dimensional velocity and scalar structure of a characteristic eddy is educed by compositing, using local maxima of static pressure at the canopy top as a trigger. The characteristic eddy consists of an upstream head-down sweep-generating hairpin vortex superimposed on a downstream head-up ejection-generating hairpin. The conjunction of the sweep and ejection produces the pressure maximum between the hairpins, and this is also the location of a coherent scalar microfront. This eddy structure matches that observed in simulations of homogeneous-shear flows and channel flows by several workers and also fits with earlier field and wind-tunnel measurements in canopy flows. It is significantly different from the eddy structure educed over smooth walls by conditional sampling based only on ejections as a trigger. The characteristic eddy was also reconstructed by empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis, when only the dominant, sweep-generating head-down hairpin was recovered, prompting a re-evaluation of earlier results based on EOF analysis of wind-tunnel data. A phenomenological model is proposed to explain both the structure of the characteristic eddy and the key differences between turbulence in the canopy/RSL and the ISL above. This model suggests a new scaling length that can be used to collapse turbulence moments over vegetation canopies.


Gastrodin, an active component of tall gastrodia tuber, is widely used in the treatment of dizziness, paralysis, epilepsy, stroke and dementia, and exhibits a neuroprotective effect. A rat model of spinal cord injury was established using Allen's method, and gastrodin was administered via the subarachnoid cavity and by intraperitoneal injection for 7 days. Results show that gastrodin promoted the secretion of brain-derived neurotrophic factor in rats with spinal cord injury. After gastrodin treatment, the maximum angle of the inclined plane test, and the Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan scores increased. Moreover, gastrodin improved neural tissue recovery in the injured spinal cord. These results demonstrate that gastrodin promotes the secretion of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, contributes to the recovery of neurological function, and protects neural cells against injury.


: The study was made to determine the clinical profile and laboratory of 10 paediatric patients whose diagnosis of cyclosporiosis was established by identifying the parasite in fecal matter, through a smear with modified Zehl-Nielsen and incubation in dichromate of potassium. We obtained clinical data form these patients correlating them with absorption tests (digestive activity, sugar reducers and fats in feces.)After treatment with trimethroprim-sulfamethoxazole and nitazoxanide patients were controlled by laboratory exams to determine the existence of the parasite and its viability.


Largely forgotten today, especially in the annals of northern science, Frederick Wilkerson Waugh was one of the very few Canadians to bridge the gap between amateur and professional anthropology during the discipline's transitional period in the early 20th century. Waugh was a self-taught ethnologist and natural historian, and his career with the Anthropological Division of the Geological Survey of Canada, founded in 1910, lasted a mere 11 years. Yet over that brief span, he made several original contributions to disciplinary knowledge of indigenous peoples and cultures, including research in Labrador among the northern Innu (Naskapi) and their Inuit neighbours.


ABSTRACT The Bowen Basin is a Permo-Triassic, back-arc extensional to foreland basin that developed landward of an intermittently active continental volcanic arc associated with the eastern Australian convergent plate margin. The basin has a complex, polyphase tectonic history that began with limited back-arc crustal extension daring the Early Permian. This created a series of north-trending grabens and half grabens which, in the west, accommodated quartz-rich sediment derived locally from surrounding uplifted continental basement. In the east, coeval calc-alkaline, volcanolithic-rich, and volcaniclastic sediment was derived from the active volcanic arc. This early extensional episode was followed by a phase of passive thermal subsidence accompanied by episodic compression during the late Early Permian to early Late Permian, with little contemporaneous volcanism. In the west, quartzose sediment was shed from stable, polymictic, continental basement immediately to the west and south of the basin, whereas volcanolithic-rich sediment that entered the eastern side of the basin during this time was presumably derived from the inactive, and possibly partly submerged, volcanic arc. During the late Late Permian, flexural loading and increased compression occurred along the eastern margin of the Bowen Basin, and renewed volcanism took place in the arc system to the east. Reactivation of this arc led to westward and southward spread of volcanolithic-rich sediment over the entire basin. Accordingly, areas in the west that were earlier receiving quartzose, craton-derived sediment from the west and south were overwhelmed by volcanolithic-rich, arc-derived sediment from the east and north. This transition from quartz-rich, craton-derived sediments to volcanolithic-rich, arc-derived sediments is consistent with the interpreted back-arc extensional to foreland basin origin for the Bowen Basin.


A study was made to reveal serological relationships among Brucella abortus, Francisella tularensis, Francisella novicida, and Yersinia philomiragia in bacterial agglutination and double agar-gel diffusion tests. All antisera used for the experiments were prepared in rabbits. In agglutination tests, cross-reaction occurred only between F. tularensis and B. abortus. Acetone-precipitated material showed common antigens for three species—F. tularensis, F. novicida, and Y. philomiragia in agar-gel diffusion tests—whereas polysaccharide preparations were shown to be species-specific for each of the four organisms. B. abortus acetone material reacted only with F. tularensis antiserum in agar-gel diffusion. F. tularensis antiserum, after absorption by intact B. abortus organisms, failed to react with B. abortus both in agar-gel diffusion and agglutination tests. The results show that B. abortus has surface antigens in common only with F. tularensis and that F. tularensis, F. novicida, and Y. philomiragia are antigenically related.


The garden is a rich site for framing the flows and contestations of culture because it is, on the one hand, a social practice with its own extensive history, methods, and concerns, and, on the other, a rich literary image. This interwoven history makes it a worthwhile object of study, but it has also resulted in studies that are either decidedly broad, very specific, or that focus exclusively on one kind of garden at the expense of the other. This thesis seeks to address these obstacles by challenging the line between real gardens and their images. Applying a novel working definition of "form", I argue that the constituent forms of real gardens can be conceptualised as a set of meaning-bearing resources which enable, when represented, kinds of figurative meanings. This thesis considers the real garden as reducible to three forms essential to all gardens: enclosure, internal arrangement, and cultivation by a gardener. Such a distillation allows us to interrogate persistent meanings of the garden image across literatures by fixing it as an object of inquiry. These three forms, I argue, enable political meanings, figuring the relationship of individuals to greater systems or wholes, their arrangement of elements, and dramatising the operation and limits of power. However, those forms have been emphasised, represented, and ultimately signified differently in images of various provenance and in various writers' hands.
My chapters trace the garden's persistent forms across time and place. Two of my chapters address Civil War England. The first considers how gardens respond to a specific discursive context to imagine a dystopian state in Andrew Marvell's "The Mower against Gardens" and the potential for utopian change in "The Garden". In my second chapter, I turn to Lucy Hutchinson's "Elegies", considering how her poetic garden operates within the elegy and country house genres and responds to literary precedents like Marvell's "Upon Appleton House" to characterise a grief that is intractably personal and political. My final two chapters shift in time and place to consider twentieth- and twenty-first-century New Zealand poetry, analysing in the third chapter the turn away from colonial settler verse in Ursula Bethell's poetry towards the domestic garden as a site of home and belonging. Finally, my last chapter considers Jenny Bornholdt's contemporary New Zealand verse, in which the garden image dramatises the power imbalance and artifice intrinsic to poetry itself. This thesis therefore seeks to produce general knowledge about how the garden, through its forms, can mean, while also producing specific knowledge about how garden images have meant in particular texts across different contexts. I argue that these are not contrary aims: a new approach to the garden as a set of forms proves an incisive tool with which to understand this important and variegated image.


Objectives Sickness absence is strongly associated with poor mental health, and mental disorders often go untreated. In this population-based cohort study, we identified people receiving fit notes from their general practitioner (GP) and determined access to mental health treatment stratified by health complaint and demographic variables. Design Longitudinal study of health records. Setting Primary care and secondary mental health care in the borough of Lambeth, South London. Forty-five GP practices in Lambeth and the local secondary mental healthcare trust. Participants The analytical sample included 293 933 working age adults (16–60 years) registered at a Lambeth GP practice between 1 January 2014 and 30 April 2016. Primary and secondary outcome measures Three indicators of mental healthcare in the year after first fit note were antidepressant prescription, contact with Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) services and contact with secondary mental health services. Results 75% of people with an identified mental health condition at first fit note had an indicator of mental healthcare in the following year. Black Caribbean and Black African groups presenting with mental disorders were less likely to have a mental healthcare indicator compared with White British groups. Conclusions The majority of those with an identified mental health need receive some treatment in the year following a fit note; however, our results suggest Black African and Black Caribbean groups with an identified mental healthcare need have less complete access compared to the White British group.


Environmental Context. Iron oxides, as suspended minerals or as a colloidal phase, are common in Australian freshwater systems. Freshwater systems are also loaded with carbon-based substances, 'dissolved organic matter', but not all is biologically available as food to freshwater organisms. However, photochemical interactions between these iron oxides and dissolved organic matter provide a mechanism for biologically resistant carbon to re-enter the food web. Suspended iron oxides thus need to be considered in carbon cycles in aquatic ecosystems. Abstract. The photochemical degradation of dissolved organic matter (DOM) derived from the leaves of River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) was examined, with a particular focus on the photochemical generation of CO2, consumption of O2, and the effect of particulate iron minerals on these photochemical reactions. Solutions of leaf leachate were irradiated with ultraviolet and visible light in the presence and absence of amorphous iron oxides. Addition of fresh iron oxide was found to increase the rate of photodegradation of the organic matter by up to an order of magnitude compared to the reactions without added iron oxide. The ratio of CO2 produced to O2 consumed was ~1:1 in both the presence and absence of iron oxyhydroxide. The reactivity of the iron oxides was dependent on the preparation method and decreased with increased storage time. These results suggest that photochemical reactions on particle surfaces should be considered when examining carbon transformation in aquatic ecosystems, especially at sites with potential for the production of iron oxyhydroxides.


The spontaneous rupture of the uterine vessels during pregnancy is a potentially lethal complication that usually is not suspected as cause of acute abdomen in pregnancy. The clinical presentation is often sudden abdominal pain, accompanied by signs of hypovolemic shock and reduction in hemoglobin levels. The case of a 23-year-old woman at 22 weeks of gestation with acute abdomen is reported, without traumatic antecedents, and signs of hypovolemic shock. During exploratory laparotomy as hemoperitoneum cause, a laceration in the right uterine artery was found. Bleeding vessel was repaired to continue with pregnancy until 38 weeks of gestation.


Emotion regulation is a crucial element in dealing with emotional events and has positive effects on mental health. This paper aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of emotional events by introducing a new French corpus of emotional narratives collected using a questionnaire for emotion regulation. We follow the theoretical framework of the Component Process Model which considers emotions as dynamic processes composed of four interrelated components (behavior, feeling, thinking and territory). Each narrative is related to a discrete emotion and is structured based on all emotion components by the writers. We study the interaction of components and their impact on emotion classification with machine learning methods and pre-trained language models. Our results show that each component improves prediction performance, and that the best results are achieved by jointly considering all components. Our results also show the effectiveness of pre-trained language models in predicting discrete emotion from certain components, which reveal differences in how emotion components are expressed.


Natural disasters affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide every year. Emergency response efforts depend upon the availability of timely information, such as information concerning the movements of affected populations. The analysis of aggregated and anonymized Call Detail Records (CDR) captured from the mobile phone infrastructure provides new possibilities to characterize human behavior during critical events. In this work, we investigate the viability of using CDR data combined with other sources of information to characterize the floods that occurred in Tabasco, Mexico in 2009. An impact map has been reconstructed using Landsat-7 images to identify the floods. Within this frame, the underlying communication activity signals in the CDR data have been analyzed and compared against rainfall levels extracted from data of the NASA-TRMM project. The variations in the number of active phones connected to each cell tower reveal abnormal activity patterns in the most affected locations during and after the floods that could be used as signatures of the floods - both in terms of infrastructure impact assessment and population information awareness. The representativeness of the analysis has been assessed using census data and civil protection records. While a more extensive validation is required, these early results suggest high potential in using cell tower activity information to improve early warning and emergency management mechanisms.


The cardiac electrical substrate is a challenge to direct measurement of its properties. Optical technology together with the capability to fabricate small electrodes at close spacings opens new possibilities. Here, those possibilities are explored from a theoretical viewpoint. It appears that with careful measurements from a well-designed set of electrodes one can obtain structural conductivities, separating intracellular from interstitial values, and longitudinal from transverse. Resting membrane resistance also can be obtained.


. There are few microbiological surveys on reptiles in Brazil. The study described here focuses on a species of snake of great medical interest and serves as basis for other studies and comparisons. The samples were collected directly from the colon of healthy adult Jararacas. The material was seeded in MacConkey Agar (Difco ® ) and XLT4 Agar (Difco ® ). The isolates were identified through the API 20E Identification System (BioMériux ® ). The isolates of Salmonella sp. were submitted to serotyping. Finally, the colonies were submitted to the antimicrobial sensitivity test. Several genera of the Enterobacteriaceae family were obtained ( Citrobacter , Enterobacter , Escherichia , Klebsiella , Kluyvera , Morganella , Proteus , Providencia and Salmonella ), as well as a genus of morphologically similar Gram-negative bacteria ( Aeromonas ). Salmonella, Citrobacter and Escherichia were the most frequent isolates. Fourteen (14) serotypes of Salmonella were identified; 13 are of the subspecies IIIb and 1 of the subspecies IV. Aeromonas , Enterobacter , Escherichia and Klebsiella presented a higher resistance rate to antibiotics. Kluyvera and Salmonella were the genera most sensitive to the tested drugs. Aminoglycosides presented good antimicrobial action, but chloramphenicol was the only drug to which no isolate presented resistance.


Purpose: (a) To explore current studies on Tai Chi and its impact on coronary heart disease (CHD), (b) provide critique of existing studies, and (c) provide recommendations for clinical practice and future research. Data sources: Comprehensive review of literature. Conclusions: Tai Chi is a safe alternative exercise for patients who are at risk of CHD or with existing CHD. Implementing Tai Chi exercise may improve serum lipids, blood pressure, and heart rate. Implications for practice: Nurse practitioners (NPs) are in an ideal position to facilitate health promotion and disease prevention. NPs may prescribe Tai Chi as an alternative exercise therapy for their patients who are at risk for developing CHD and even for those with existing CHD. Tai Chi exercise may help prevent and even reverse the progression of cardiac disease.


Emotion calibration is measured by the valence and arousal scales and the ideal center is used to directly divide valence arousal into high scores and low scores. This division method has a big classification and labeling defect, and the influence of emotion stimulation material on the subjects cannot be accurately measured. To address this problem, this paper proposes an EEG emotion recognition algorithm (DW-FBCSP: Distance Weighted Filter Bank Common Spatial Pattern) based on scale distance weighted optimization to optimize the classification according to the distance of the scores from ideal center. This method is a natural extension of CSP that optimize the user's EEG signal projection matrix. Then, the LDA classifier is used to recognize emotions using the features set which fused the selected features and the features extracted by the projection matrix. The results show that the mean correct rate of the valence and arousal achieves 81.14% and 84.45% using the DEAP dataset. The results demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms better than some other results published in recent years.


Recruitment success of anchovy Engraulis encrasicolus in the southern Benguela is thought to depend largely on the passive transport of eggs and larvae from their warm-water spawn- ing area, located in the southern part of their distribution range (Agulhas Bank), to their cold-water nursery grounds located 500 km away on the west coast of South Africa. In order to test this hypoth- esis, the output of a 3D hydrodynamic model was coupled to a particle-tracking model, allowing the quantification of different factors such as the timing and precise location of spawning activity, the fre- quency of spawning activity within a month, the level of aggregation of the spawning stock, and the interannual variability of transport due to mesoscale processes. Results from the model indicate that spawning season and area have a major effect on transport success. The most favourable period for spawning was September to March, peaking in November, and the western Agulhas Bank was the most favourable spawning area. A low success rate of passive transport to the core inshore nursery area in the model suggests that additional processes such as swimming or advection are required for larvae to reach this area. In general, there was good agreement between observed spawning patterns and the optimal temporal and spatial strata, where particle transport was most successful, suggesting that the spawning strategy of anchovy is mainly the result of an adaptation to the circulation patterns in the region. Nonetheless, some discrepancies were observed between the success of transport and actual spawning patterns, and temperature may also be an important factor to take into consideration to fully explain how this originally temperate species is able to survive in an area of highly contrast- ing temperatures.


Optimal osteogenic mechanical loading requires the application of high‐magnitude strains at high rates. High‐intensity resistance and impact training (HiRIT) applies such loads but is not traditionally recommended for individuals with osteoporosis because of a perceived high risk of fracture. The purpose of the LIFTMOR trial was to determine the efficacy and to monitor adverse events of HiRIT to reduce parameters of risk for fracture in postmenopausal women with low bone mass. Postmenopausal women with low bone mass (T‐score < –1.0, screened for conditions and medications that influence bone and physical function) were recruited and randomized to either 8 months of twice‐weekly, 30‐minute, supervised HiRIT (5 sets of 5 repetitions, >85% 1 repetition maximum) or a home‐based, low‐intensity exercise program (CON). Pre‐ and post‐intervention testing included lumbar spine and proximal femur bone mineral density (BMD) and measures of functional performance (timed up‐and‐go, functional reach, 5 times sit‐to‐stand, back and leg strength). A total of 101 women (aged 65 ± 5 years, 161.8 ± 5.9 cm, 63.1 ± 10.4 kg) participated in the trial. HiRIT (n = 49) effects were superior to CON (n = 52) for lumbar spine (LS) BMD (2.9 ± 2.8% versus –1.2 ± 2.8%, p < 0.001), femoral neck (FN) BMD (0.3 ± 2.6% versus –1.9 ± 2.6%, p = 0.004), FN cortical thickness (13.6 ± 16.6% versus 6.3 ± 16.6%, p = 0.014), height (0.2 ± 0.5 cm versus –0.2 ± 0.5 cm, p = 0.004), and all functional performance measures (p < 0.001). Compliance was high (HiRIT 92 ± 11%; CON 85 ± 24%) in both groups, with only one adverse event reported (HiRIT: minor lower back spasm, 2/70 missed training sessions). Our novel, brief HiRIT program enhances indices of bone strength and functional performance in postmenopausal women with low bone mass. Contrary to current opinion, HiRIT was efficacious and induced no adverse events under highly supervised conditions for our sample of otherwise healthy postmenopausal women with low to very low bone mass. © 2017 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.


Coherent-control protocols are introduced to selectively transport electrons, excitons, or pure two-particle correlations through semiconductor interfaces. The scheme is tested in a double-quantum-well structure where a sequence of terahertz pulses is applied to induce the vertical excitation transfer between the wells. Using a microscopic theory, it is shown that efficient and highly selective transfer can be realized even in the presence of the unavoidable scattering and dephasing processes.


Abstract. The PermaSense project is an ongoing interdisciplinary effort between geo-science and engineering disciplines started in 2006 with the goals to make observations possible that previously have not been possible. Specifically the aims are to obtain measurements data in unprecedented quantity and quality based on technological advances. This paper describes a unique ten+ year data record obtained from in-situ measurements in steep bedrock permafrost in an Alpine environment on the Matterhorn Hörnligrat, Zermatt Switzerland at 3500 m a.s.l. Through the utilization of state-of-the-art wireless sensor technology it was possible to obtain more data of higher quality, make this data available in near real-time and tightly monitor and control the running experiments. This data set (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.897640, Weber et al., 2019a) constitutes the longest, densest and most diverse data record in the history of mountain permafrost research worldwide with 17 different sensor types used at 29 distinct sensor locations consisting of over 114.5 million data points captured over a period of ten+ years. By documenting and sharing this data in this form we contribute to making our past research reproducible and facilitate future research based on this data e.g. in the area of analysis methodology, comparative studies, assessment of change in the environment, natural hazard warning and the development of process models.


An analytical model has been developed to investigate the tilt dynamics of a microbeam-supported rigid microplate which is positioned across a microchannel partially filled with an isotropic liquid. Physical phenomena included in this work are those associated with surface tension, buoyancy, hydrodynamics, interfacial microwaves and torsional stiffness of the microbeam supports. Consideration of surface tension results in nonlinear terms for the righting moment and for the forcing function terms of the ordinary differential equation of rotational motion. Response characteristics are investigated for varying microwave amplitudes and frequencies, as well as microplate and microbeam principal dimensions. Results show that the analysis presented in this work can be used in designing microdevices for measurement of fluid properties, microwave features and pulsating pressures.


A new standard, Software Life Cycle Processes (ISO/IEC 12207), developed over the past six years, has recently been approved by JTC1 (Joint Technical Committee 1 of the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission). While software has been established as an integral part of scientific and business disciplines, environments for developing and managing software have proliferated without a common, uniform framework for the software life cycle. This standard provides such a framework, so that software practitioners can speak the same language when they create and manage software. Practitioners can use the framework to acquire, supply, develop, operate, and maintain software. >


Obstruction of the upper airway during sleep (OSAS) is widely treated by having patients self-administer nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). To obtain objective evidence of the patterns of CPAP use, information was gathered from two urban sites on 35 OSAS patients who were prescribed CPAP for a total of 3,743 days. Patients were given CPAP machines that contained a microprocessor and monitor that measured actual pressure at the mask for every minute of each 24-h day for an average of 106 days per patient. They were not aware of the monitor inside the CPAP machines. Monitor output was compared with patients' diagnostic status, pretreatment clinical and demographic characteristics, and follow-up selfreports of CPAP use, problems, side effects, and aspects of daytime fatigue and sleepiness. Patients attempted to use CPAP an average of 66 ± 37% of the days monitored. When CPAP was used, the mean duration of use was 4.88 ± 1.97 h. However, patients' reports of the duration of CPAP use overestimated actual use by 69 ± 110 min (p <0.002). Both frequency and duration of CPAP use in the first month reliably predicted use in the third month (p < 0.0001). Although the majority (60%) of patients claimed to use CPAP nightly, only 16 of 35 (46%) met criteria for regular use, defined by at least 4 h of CPAP administered on 70% of the days monitored. Relative to less regular users, these 16 patients had more years of education (p = 0.05), and were more likely to work in professional occupations. At pretreatment they tended to report more episodes of daytime sleepiness (p = 0.062) and less ability to perform tasks (p = 0.069), and at follow-up after CPAP use they reported greater satisfaction with CPAP (p = 0.025) and an improved level of daytime energy (p = 0.046). The most frequently cited problems with CPAP were "inconvenience" (54%) and "stuffy nose" (46%), although the complaint that the mask caused "claustrophobia" was the only problem identified significantly more often by the 19 patients who used CPAP less regularly (p < 0.02). Surprisingly, only 2 of the 35 patients studied used CPAP for at least 7 h on ~ 70% of days, suggesting that frequent, longduration, quality sleep is a relatively rare occurrence in OSAS patients treated with CPAP. We conclude that actual CPAP use by OSAS patients falls short of the therapeutic goal of providing quality sleep all night, every night, and that patients' self-reports are rather poor estimates of actual use within and between nights. Efforts to enhance CPAP use are needed, especially early in treatment.


This LibGuide is created to provide Southern University Laboratory School Students with an overview of Library Services, and Resources avilable at John B. Cade Library.


The study sought to identify, quantify, value and compare the economic value of alternative wetland uses to the Namatala wetland adjacent community. The study drew on primary data obtained from households, and use market and contingent valuation techniques to establish the economic value of Namatala wetland. Market valuation results indicate high net monetary value of Namatala wetland to the local community, worth Uganda Shillings 487,879,340 for papyrus harvesting, 396,601,920 for wood fuel harvesting, 2,914,617,940 for grazing, 5,257,980,000 for fishing and 65,377,000 for paddy rice cultivation. This is comparable with the contingent valuation results which estimate the monetary value at Uganda Shillings 9,041,500,000 or 6,027,667 US$ annually. The findings of the study led to the conclusion that Namatala wetland has high economic value and degradation through conversion involves a high socio-economic cost in terms of foregone wetland goods and services. The study findings also reveal that conversion inconsistent wetland uses, contrary to the perception of the local community. This is due to the high labour cost involved. The findings of this study provide an economic justification and niche for policy makers to prioritize conservation of wetland ecosystems in Uganda, through appropriate policies and programmes that promote empowerment of the local community to manage the wetland resources sustainably.


More than 500 patients with mucopolysaccharidosis type IH (MPS IH; Hurler syndrome) have been treated with hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) throughout the world since the introduction of transplantation as therapy almost 30 years ago. More recently, the availability of recombinant α-L-iduronidase (IDUA) has resulted in the widespread treatment of less severe forms of MPS I with enzyme replacement therapy (ERT). In addition, over 50 MPS IH patients have been treated with a combination of ERT and HCT. The rationale for both ERT and HCT stems from the pivotal experiments performed 4 decades ago that showed α-L-iduronidase supplied in the environment can correct the accumulation of substrate in MPS I cells. Our purpose is to address the multiple applications associated with the therapeutic delivery of IDUA: intermittent delivery of recombinant protein (ERT), continuous administration through cellular therapy (HCT), the use of other stem cells or, potentially, correction of the enzyme defect itself through gene therapy approaches. Even though gene therapy and non-hematopoietic stem cell approaches, have yet to be tested in a clinical setting, it is possible that all these approaches will in the near future be a part of a paradigm shift from unimodal to multimodal therapy for MPS I.


Suramin is a polyanionic compound with potent antineoplastic properties. Because polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) are a crucial component of host defenses against bacteria and fungi, the effects of suramin on PMN function were studied in vitro. PMNs from healthy donors were incubated with concentrations of suramin of 1 to 1,000 micrograms/ml (within and exceeding the therapeutic range) for 30 min, and PMN functional parameters were subsequently assessed. Suramin had no effect on viability, chemotaxis to N-formylmethionyl leucyl phenylalanine, phagocytosis of Candida albicans, or superoxide anion production in response to phorbol myristate acetate and formylmethionyl leucyl phenylalanine. Fungicidal activity against C. albicans blastoconidia was unaffected at a suramin concentration of < 500 micrograms/ml, whereas at higher concentrations a slight suppression was observed (P = 0.04). Bactericidal activity against Staphylococcus aureus was significantly suppressed by concentrations of > or = 100 micrograms/ml (P < 0.01). Phagocytosis of S. aureus was also significantly impaired at > or = 10 micrograms/ml (P < 0.05). The presence of 10% human serum during pretreatment did not abrogate the suramin-induced suppression of bactericidal activity. Treatment of PMNs with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (4,000 U/ml) for 30 min prior to the addition of suramin (250 micrograms/ml) improved the bactericidal defect (P = 0.02). The PMN functional impairment may be related to increased susceptibility to bacterial infections, and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor may improve the defect.


In this paper, we report on the discovery of a
novel, robust protein cage (encapsulin) that we could use for packaging various
biocatalysts. We have elucidated the structure of the stable encapsulin by
electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Furthermore, we developed an effective expression system for the encapsulin and a facile protocol for preparing encapsulated enzymes. By packaging and testing
various enzymes (varying in size, oligomeric structure, and cofactor type) we
demonstrate that, through encapsulation, the enzymes become significantly more
stable. We also provide evidence that the pores of the encapsulin, through a
size-exclusion effect, can modulate the substrate acceptance profile of an
encapsulated enzyme.


Electronic government (e-government) has been transforming the relationship which governments have traditionally had with the citizens and render governments' services and information to be more efficient, accountable, effective and accessible. Web sites are the key tools of e-government and the right channel for communication and service provision. Web platforms provide governments to improve their efficiency and effectiveness, strengthen democracy and public trust. This is much more important at local levels as the most basic public services are provided in the cities and citizens are most connected to government. As web content and use continues to increase, local governments monitor regularly and enhance the quality of their sites to attract and satisfy users. This study tries to evaluate the e-government development and early practices in Turkey through greater municipalities. The research analyzes the official web sites of sixteen greater municipalities in Turkey and evaluates them in terms of main e-government categories. The categories determined for this research according to the literature are; services provided, information available, security, government transparency/openness, and citizen outreach/interactivity. It is important to see the results to assess and discuss the current condition of local e-government implications in Turkey by means of government transparency, information flow and citizen participation.


One of the problems that have traditionally plagued the teachers and researchers of Latin America in their day-to-day work is a lack of adequate bibliographical information. In an attempt to remedy this situation, in 1968 the Pan American Health Organization set up the Regional Library of Medicine and Health Sciences (BIREME) in the Paulista Medical School in Sao Paulo under an agreement with the Government of Brazil. In this article the Director of BIREME discusses the present state of an outlook for biomedical information in the Region and summarizes the work done by the Library in recent years. BIREME is doing an outstanding job not only of searching for and disseminating scientific information and training specialized staff, but also of promoting the establishment of national biomedical information subcenters (there are already eighteen in Brazil). It is also the hub of the Latin American network of biomedical and health information. With the help of the National Library of Medicine of the United States, BIREME has succeeded in developing into a center of high prestige in its field. Its most notable accomplishments include the compilation of the Index Medicus Latinoamericano, which is published semiannually since 1979 and embraces the output of 250 scientific publications, thereby filling the major gap that had existed in this field (Au)


International human trafficking—sometimes referred to as modern-day slavery—has increasingly come to be seen as a security threat. The question remains as to what kind of threat human trafficking poses. Traditional security approaches to international human trafficking call for analysis of trafficking as a threat to the state and to state control of borders. Traditional security analyses of trafficking therefore emphasize border security, migration controls, and international law enforcement cooperation. Feminist analyses of human trafficking challenge the traditional security framework, prioritizing the security of trafficked persons and recognizing the manner in which victims are threatened by both traffickers and the state itself. I argue that feminist approaches to human trafficking are essential for understanding and combating the phenomenon. Feminists identify the ethical and pragmatic grounds for broadening the analytical focus from states to people. Feminists' most important contribution, however, lies in the investigations of the social construction of human trafficking, which highlight the destructive role that sexist and racist stereotypes play in constructing the category of trafficking victims.


There is no accepted efficacious treatment for ischemic cerebral edema. We show in a cat model of focal cerebral ischemia that infarct volume can be reduced (p less than 0.05) by ventriculocisternal perfusion with an oxygenated fluorochemical emulsion (bis-perfluorobutylethylene). An accompanying effect of such ventriculocisternal perfusion is a reduction in intracranial pressure. At 18 hours following the start of the perfusion, there was a significant (p less than 0.05) difference in intracranial pressure between nonperfused controls (mean 11.4 [range 2.3-23.0] torr, n = 6) and cats perfused with an oxygenated nutrient solution not containing fluorochemical (mean 11.3 [range 3.0-29.0] torr, n = 8) or animals perfused with the oxygenated fluorochemical emulsion (mean 2.21 [range 0-3.5] torr, n = 7). Perfusion with this oxygenated fluorochemical emulsion warrants further study as a treatment for elevated intracranial pressure.


In this study, the conversion from Botryococcus braunii liquid to bio-jet fuel via a Ru/CeO2 catalyst was conducted. At first, novel Ru/CeO2 catalysts were prepared in order to increase the catalytic activity. "Ru/CeO2-alcohol thermal" showed the highest activity: the squalane conversion exceeded 90%, an increase of about 22% in comparison with "Ru/CeO2-impregnation". When the B. braunii liquid was used as the raw material, no obvious catalytic activity was noticed. Therefore, the influence of impurities in the B. braunii liquid on the Ru/CeO2 reaction were preliminarily analysed, confirming that the pigments (such as β-carotenoid) and the oxygen compounds (such as fatty acids) were the main factors influencing the Ru/CeO2 reaction. Based on these results, the reaction process was optimized: prolonging the reaction time and pretreating the B. braunii liquid with H2. Finally, the production of bio-jet fuel over Ru/CeO2 was successfully achieved.


For more than two decades, WHO and UNICEF have recommended a single formulation of oral rehydration salts (ORS) solution based on glucose and three salts. This product has proven safe and highly effective in treating and preventing dehydration from diarrhoea of all causes and in all age groups in worldwide use and has substantially contributed to the saving of lives in developing countries. However, oral rehydration therapy (ORT) using this formulation does not make diarrhoea any less severe or stop it sooner; which is what is required. During the last 16 yr numerous studies were undertaken to develop an improved ORS that could, in addition to being effective therapy to treat and prevent dehydration, reduce severity and duration of diarrhoea. Controlled clinical trials of ORS formulations containing aminoacids showed that, while they were substantially more absorption efficient in cholera, they were no more effective than standard ORS in infants and children with noncholera diarrhoea; none of these formulations are considered a suitable replacement for standard ORS. Rice-based ORS, in a number of studies, was found superior to standard ORS in adults and children with cholera and its use in such patients is recommended. However, the benefit of using rice-based ORS in infants and small children was either small or insignificant compared to standard ORS, when feeding during ORT was actively pursued. Rice-based ORS was also as effective as standard ORS in infants under 6 months of age and in severely malnourished children. Recently, several studies evaluated glucose-based ORS made hypoosmolar by reducing the concentration of glucose and sodium (with glucose concentration of 75-90 and sodium 60-75 mmol/l and osmolarity of 225-250 mosm/l). These hypoosmolar solutions showed clinically significant benefit in reducing the severity of diarrhoea and the need for supplemental i.v. therapy in infants and children. In limited studies, similar results were obtained in adults with cholera; however, marked hyponatraemia was noted in a small proportion of high purging cholera patients. Two multicentric trials of a hypoosmolar solution, one in adults with cholera and one in children with non-cholera diarrhoea, are ongoing; results of these trials should help us decide whether such a solution could be a practical replacement for standard ORS.


Capital financing is vital for the development of the new EU countries. Investors base their economic and financial decisions on the information available in the financial reports that listed EU companies must prepare following International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Studies show that the majority of listed companies worldwide are family owned and face Type II agency problem - the conflict between minority shareholders and large controlling shareholders (family), i.e. controlling family may seek to extract private benefits at the expense of minority shareholders and disclose information in financial reports for self-interested purposes to avoid minority contests. The research of Type II agency conflict effects on mandatory IFRS disclosure levels in the new EU countries is limited, however, with the reference to existing research literature and legal systems in the new EU countries, we find that minority protection is strongest in Malta, and weakest in Latvia. The biggest number of family controlled firms are in Poland and Romania, whilst family business in Poland, Estonia, Croatia, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria enjoy the largest market capitalisation. Nationally, the highest market capitalisation of family controlled firms are in Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia and Poland. This paper shows, that due to moderate minority protection in the new EU countries Type II agency conflict is important, and therefore, it is suggested further the research related to mandatory IFRS disclosure levels.


We ask the following question: what training information is required to design an effective outlier/out-of-distribution (OOD) detector, i.e., detecting samples that lie far away from the training distribution? Since unlabeled data is easily accessible for many applications, the most compelling approach is to develop detectors based on only unlabeled in-distribution data. However, we observe that most existing detectors based on unlabeled data perform poorly, often equivalent to a random prediction. In contrast, existing state-of-the-art OOD detectors achieve impressive performance but require access to fine-grained data labels for supervised training. We propose SSD, an outlier detector based on only unlabeled in-distribution data. We use self-supervised representation learning followed by a Mahalanobis distance based detection in the feature space. We demonstrate that SSD outperforms most existing detectors based on unlabeled data by a large margin. Additionally, SSD even achieves performance on par, and sometimes even better, with supervised training based detectors. Finally, we expand our detection framework with two key extensions. First, we formulate few-shot OOD detection, in which the detector has access to only one to five samples from each class of the targeted OOD dataset. Second, we extend our framework to incorporate training data labels, if available. We find that our novel detection framework based on SSD displays enhanced performance with these extensions, and achieves state-of-the-art performance. Our code is publicly available at https://github.com/inspire-group/SSD.


The bandgap of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) is studied using a unique set of a-Si:H films deposited by means of three different processing techniques. Using this large collection of a-Si:H films with a wide variety of nanostructures, it is demonstrated that the bandgap has a clear scaling with the density of both hydrogenated divacancies (DVs) and nanosized voids (NVs). The presence of DVs in a dense a-Si:H network results in an anisotropy in the silicon bond-length distribution of the disordered silicon matrix. This anisotropy induces zones of volumetric compressed disordered silicon (larger fraction of shorter than longer bonds in reference to the crystalline lattice) with typical sizes of ~0.8 up to ~2 nm. The extent of the volumetric compression in these anisotropic disordered silicon zones determines the bandgap of the a-Si:H network. As a consequence, the bandgap is determined by the density of DVs and NVs in the a-Si:H network.


In this paper, we present an efficient H.264 intra frame coder system that achieves real-time performance for portable consumer electronics applications with low hardware cost. The system includes a low cost intra prediction hardware design that implements all intra prediction modes used in H.264 video coding standard based on a novel organization of the intra prediction equations. The proposed hardware is implemented in Verilog HDL. The Verilog RTL code works at 71 MHz in a Xilinx Virtex II FPGA and it can code 35 CIF (352 times 288) frames per second. The system also includes software running on an Arm926EJS processor for implementing pre-processing and post-processing functions. The H.264 intra frame coder system is demonstrated to work correctly on an Arm Versatile Platform development board and it is verified to be compliant with H.264 standard.


An Organic Acid Mixture (OAM) was evaluated for efficacy against Salmonella enteritidis (SE) horizontal transmission and crop colonization in broiler chickens. The biocidal efficacy of the OAM (0.024% tannic, 0.042% lactic, 0.048% butyric and 0.048% acetic), was initially determined in vitro by treating a feed suspension inoculated with SE. The OAM was effective at reducing SE by at least 1 log unit in the feed suspension (P = 0.05). Treatment with the OAM was also assessed in combination with a probiotic treatment to evaluate effectiveness against horizontal transmission. One hundred newly hatched chicks were administered 3 treatments of OAM or probiotic, or 3 treatments of both OAM and probiotic over a 10 d period. Chicks (n = 20/group) were orally challenged with a 10 cfu mL-L culture of SE prior to treatment to act as 5 sources for horizontal transmission. Ceca were collected and cultured for SE after 10 or 20 d. Horizontal transmission was reduced with OAM treatment solely (P = 0.05) or in combination with probiotic (P = 0.05). However, no apparent advantage to using both treatments was observed. The ability of the OAM to reduce SE crop contamination was determined by challenging market aged broilers with a 10 cfu mL-L culture of 9 SE and administering the OAM in drinking water. Broilers were challenged with SE and immediately given the OAM or given the OAM 2 d prior to SE challenge. OAM was valuable in preventing horizontal transmission but did not eliminate crop colonization. The emergence of SE strains resistant to multiple antibiotics presents the need for alternative treatments and the results of these experiments show that an OAM may be a cost efficient and effective tool however the method of application of the OAM may alter effectiveness.


We report a study of sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) in a French county (Seine-Maritime) between 1978 and 1981 (rate of 2.71 per 1000 live births). The results agree with those of previous studies concerning sex ratio, seasonal variation, and peak age of death. No relation between gestational age and age of death was found. A comparison with matched living control infants was performed for 136 of the 207 total deaths for whom computerised medical data were available. Significant differences were found between these two groups in gestational age, birthweight, admission to a paediatric ward at birth, and proportion of single mothers. In analysing birthweight and gestational age separately, the birthweights of SUID cases were significantly lower than those of controls, whatever the gestational age. The converse was not true, however: in classifying infants by birthweight, a significant difference between the gestation period of SUID victims and controls was found only for low birthweight infants (less than 2500 g). It is considered that it may be possible to identify infants at particular risk of SUID within the group of babies admitted to hospital at birth for major problems, and a study is currently underway among infants born in Seine-Maritime in 1982.


Using immune complex dissociation (ICD), we retrospectively examined serum and plasma of 206 infants aged 0 to 4 months who were perinatally exposed to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). All samples were analyzed in a blinded manner. Infection status was determined based on the results of HIV culture and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classification. The overall diagnostic sensitivity of the assay was 59% (93 samples, 73 infants), and specificity was 100% (160 samples, 133 infants). When the samples were analyzed according to age, sensitivity was highest at age 1 to 2 months (17 of 21 infants, 81%). Sensitivities at other ages were 53% at < 1 month, 55% at 2 to 3 months, and 48% at 3 to 4 months (9 of 17, 11 of 20, and 12 of 25 cases, respectively). In 11 evaluable cases there was a possible correlation of p24 antigen quantitation (in picograms per milliliter) with disease progression. We conclude that, as determined in this study, the ICD p24 is a rapid diagnostic assay for HIV infection with a sensitivity of >80% at 1 to 2 months of age and 100% specificity, as evaluated, up to 4 months of age.


Distributed task scheduling in a heterogeneous computing environment is one of the most challenging problems. The optimally mapping of independent tasks onto heterogeneous distributed computing systems is known to be NP-complete. The most common objective function of a distributed task scheduling problem is to reduce the make span and increase the load balancing across the machines. In this paper, we introduce a new scheduling algorithm called, Efficient Algorithm on Heterogeneous Computing System (EAHCS) which balances the load well across the machines and reduces the make span time. In our evaluation study, a number of experiments with various simulation settings have been conducted. The results obtained using the proposed heuristic improves over the existing approaches.


Graft copolymer and graft terpolymer were prepared by solution grafting of maleic anhydride (MAH) or acrylonitrile (AN) alone and mixture of MAH and AN on to ethylene–propylene–diene terpolymer (EPDM) using benzoyl peroxide (BPO) as an initiator. The resulting EPDM-g-MAH, EPDM-g-AN and EPDM-g-(MAH-co-AN) have been used to obtain a binary blend of Nylon 6/functionalized EPDM and a ternary blend of polyethylene/Nylon 6/functionalized EPDM by melt blending. The effects of the nature and the amount of the grafted species on the phase morphology, crystallization behavior and mechanical properties of the blends were characterized through scanning electron microscopy, optical microscopy, infrared spectroscopy and using a dynamic mechanical analyzer. From the morphological study, it can clearly be seen that the presence of the functionalized EPDMs in these blends resulted in an improvement of the dispersion degree in incompatible polyethylene/Nylon 6 blends.


CONTEXT
Elevated areal bone mineral density (aBMD) in type 2 diabetes mellitus is inconsistent with increased fracture risk at some skeletal sites.

OBJECTIVES
Because aBMD is an imperfect surrogate for bone strength, we assessed bone structure and strength more directly using quantitative computed tomography.

DESIGN
Diabetic and nondiabetic subjects were evaluated in a cross-sectional study.

SETTING
Subjects were recruited from a random sample of the Rochester, MN, population.

PARTICIPANTS
Forty-nine subjects (28 women and 21 men) with type 2 diabetes were compared with age- and sex-matched nondiabetic controls.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS
We measured bone geometry, strength, and volumetric BMD (vBMD) at the hip, spine, and wrist, along with hip aBMD, using central and peripheral quantitative computed tomography and estimated bone load to bone strength ratios at each site.

RESULTS
Adjusted for differences in body mass index between cases and controls (29.8 vs. 27.6), hip aBMD was greater in diabetic subjects, but this was accounted for by greater trabecular vBMD. Cortical vBMD was similar in the two groups, as was bone cross-sectional area and cortical thickness. Bone strength measures were generally better in diabetic subjects, but bone loads were higher from their greater weight. Consequently, load to strength ratios (i.e. factor-of-risk) were similar.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with type 2 diabetes enjoy little benefit from elevated aBMD in terms of improved bone load to strength ratios. With no deficit in bone density, the rationale for antiresorptive therapy in diabetic patients is uncertain, but potential adverse effects of diabetes on bone quality need more study.


Multi-task learning (MTL) aims to solve multiple tasks jointly by sharing a base representation among them. This can lead to more efficient learning and better generalization, as compared to learning each task individually. However, one issue that often arises in MTL is the convergence speed between tasks varies due to differences in task difficulty, so it can be a challenge to simultaneously achieve the best performance on all tasks with a single model checkpoint. Various techniques have been proposed to address discrepancies in task convergence rate, including weighting the per-task losses and modifying task gradients. In this work, we propose a novel approach that avoids the problem of requiring all tasks to converge at the same rate, but rather allows for "asynchronous" convergence among the tasks where each task can converge on its own schedule. As our main contribution, we monitor per-task validation metrics and switch to a knowledge distillation loss once a task has converged instead of continuing to train on the true labels. This prevents the model from overfitting on converged tasks while it learns the remaining tasks. We evaluate the proposed method in two 5-task MTL setups consisting of internal e-commerce datasets. The results show that our method consistently outperforms existing loss weighting and gradient balancing approaches, achieving average improvements of 0.9% and 1.5% over the best performing baseline model in the two setups, respectively.


In the over three decades since the transition from authoritarian regimes began in Latin America, the most significant change has not been economic growth or the consolidation of democracy. Rather, it has been the rise of self-expression values that have formed individualistic societies that put collective goals in second place. At the same time, traditional values have been enhanced, so that self-expression values and traditional values are simultaneously present, thereby producing "value tensions" in society.