The non-invasive detection of debonding conditions and cavities beneath the wall of a steel tank are common applications in a variety of engineering and construction fields. Compressional ultrasonic waves have been used for the evaluation of steel plate thicknesses; however, they lack energy for penetrating a Portland cement grout in contact with a steel wall to detect debonding conditions. In this work, a joint analysis of surface waves and Lamb waves (high and low frequency) is used for the detection of debonding conditions in a scale model grouting steel tank. The propagation of high frequency ultrasonic waves generated by a 50-kHz transmitter along the side of the tank model is analyzed in the time domain and the frequency domain. In addition, using instrumented hammers with plastic or aluminum tips (low frequency sources) and a 50-kHz transmitter, three different configurations are used for the analysis of surface waves. The lowfrequency Rayleigh waves generated by the hammer are used for void detection.Fourier spectra of the measured signals indicate that the effect of a void on the waves propagating through the medium is reduced when there is debonding. The comparisons of theoretical (high frequency) dispersion curves with experimental ones, computed from frequency wavenumber (FK) spectra, show that Lamb waves dominate the surface response in the wall of the steel tank. High frequency Lamb waves are successfully used in the detection of debonding between the tank wall and the grout because of the lower attenuation measured on top of the void.


Our subjective sense that something we encounter is familiar to us is reflected by changes in pupil size. Although pupil dilation effects of familiarity have been well documented, familiarity is not the only, or even the strongest, contributing factor to pupil dilation. Changes in pupil dilation also reflect changes in brightness, affective or emotional responses, hormonal release, expected value or utility, and surprise, among others. Because many factors can affect pupil dilation, important questions remain about how pupil dilation changes reflect high-order cognitive processes, like attention and memory. For example, because surprise and familiarity are often difficult to fully distinguish (since new experiences can be surprising or unexpected), it can be difficult to tease apart pupil dilation effects of surprise versus familiarity. To better understand the effects of surprise and familiarity on pupil dilation, we examined pupil responses during a recognition memory task involving photographs of faces and outdoor scenes. When participants rated novel face images as "familiar," we observed a robust pupil dilation response.


Most analyses of urban transportation and residential location ignore the effects of labor force experience or individual skills upon the location of the worksite; they also ignore the potential effect of these factors upon the tradeoff between housing and community costs. This paper, in contrast, analyzes the spatial distribution of worksites by industry, occupation, and educational requirements within a large metropolitan area. In a parallel fashion, we investigate the spatial distribution of the residential sites of workers, differentiated in a similar manner. We use this spatially disaggregated information to analyze regularities in commuting and transport behavior. We also develop alternative measures of regional homogeneity, more descriptive alternatives to ratios of jobs to income and similar summary statistics measuring regional "balance."


Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a second messenger that mediates the biology of wound healing, apoptosis, inflammation, aging, neurodegenerative diseases, and more. Its presence has been fluorometrically imaged with protein- or small molecule-based sensors. However, only protein-based sensors have afforded temporal insights with the resolution of seconds. Small molecule-based fluorogenic probes are preferred for various reasons; however, current electrophilic chemosensors react with H2O2 slowly, requiring >20 minutes for a sufficient response. Here, we report a fluorogenic probe that selectively reacts with H2O2 and undergoes a [2,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement (seleno-Mislow-Evans rearrangement) followed by an acetal hydrolysis to produce a green fluorescent molecule in seconds. The mode of reaction is based on the umpolung of previously developed sensors; the probe acts as a nucleophile rather than an electrophile. The fast kinetics outcompete the reaction between thiols and H2O2, enabling real-time imaging of H2O2 produced inside the subcellular compartments of cells in 8 seconds. Further, the probe was able to recapitulate data previously observed only with a genetically encoded protein-based sensor. The present probe design provides a platform that can match the temporal resolution of protein-based H2O2 detection.


Maximum a posteriori estimates in inverse problems are often based on quadratic formulations, corresponding to a least-squares fitting of the data and to the use of the L2 norm on the regularization term. While the implementation of this estimation is straightforward and usually based on the Gauss–Newton method, resulting estimates are sensitive to outliers and result in spatial distributions of the estimates that are smooth. As an alternative, the use of the L1 norm on the data term renders the estimation robust to outliers, and the use of the L1 norm on the regularization term allows the reconstruction of sharp spatial profiles. The ability therefore to use the L1 norm either on the data term, on the regularization term, or on both is desirable, though the use of this norm results in non-smooth objective functions which require more sophisticated implementations compared to quadratic algorithms. Methods for L1-norm minimization have been studied in a number of contexts, including in the recently popular total variation regularization. Different approaches have been used and methods based on primal–dual interior-point methods (PD-IPMs) have been shown to be particularly efficient. In this paper we derive a PD-IPM framework for using the L1 norm indifferently on the two terms of an inverse problem. We use electrical impedance tomography as an example inverse problem to demonstrate the implementation of the algorithms we derive, and the effect of choosing the L2 or the L1 norm on the two terms of the inverse problem. Pseudo-codes for the algorithms and a public domain implementation are provided.


This report provides designs and solutions to develop an airflow system that would be placed inside the C-series cabin at Downsview testing facility. Designing a smart air quality system proved to be problematic, such as the interference with other research projects, and the requirement of having to mimic the G7500 HVAC system. However, the design proposed managed to solve those problems, in addition this report provides basic information about how ventilation system works in aircrafts, and their different types. It also provides information about the various harmful particles found inside aircraft cabins, and what kind of sensors can be used to catch and measure those particles. Finally, a sample simulation was shown to give a starting point for future research to be done.


This paper explores a recent suggestion to use a bivariate form of the Gaussian 'error propagation law' to propagate uncertainty in the measurement of complex-valued quantities (Ridler N M and Salter M J 2002 Metrologia 39 295–302). Several alterative formulations of the law are discussed in which the contributions from individual input terms are more explicit. The calculation of complex-valued sensitivity coefficients is discussed and a matrix generalization of the notion of a 'component of uncertainty' in a measurement result is introduced. A form of a 'chain rule' is given for the propagation of uncertainty when several intermediate equations are involved.


Many mining towns have faced or are about to face challenges regarding keeping their region economically stable and its image attractive. With mineral resources exhausted and mining activities shutting down, alternative opportunities for jobs are difficult to establish and the regional image may be unappealing and not eco-friendly. Furthermore, the closure of a mine comes with large maintenance costs. This is the case in the small town of Pyhajarvi, where the underground operation of the Pyhasalmi mine will shut down in 2021. The depth of the Pyhasalmi mine, 1,445 m underground, offers a unique environment, with large-scale possibilities to utilise the infrastructure and resources, such as for the purposes of establishing a geothermal energy facility. Renewable, low-carbon energy sources are not only at the centre of the fight against climate change, but they also provide profitable and stable energy solutions. Therefore, using existing operation environments such as the Pyhasalmi mine presents an opportunity to create and use green technology solutions, and thus transform an extractive industrial locality into a forerunner that offers new business opportunities in the clean energy sector.
Structural industrial change would require strong regional resilience. A resilient region is able to adapt its activities, markets and local political structures during the change; however, restructuring processes are challenging due to functional, cognitive and/or political lock-in when regions tend to fall into path dependency (Hasslink 2010a; Martin 2012). Recent developments in economic and social systems (caused by globalisation, decarbonisation and the rise of digital technologies) are influencing all regions that should be able create new paths (Giacometti and Teras 2019; Hasslink 2010b). This study discusses whether the structural change of the region can be turned into an economical and environmental opportunity and what kind of social, economic and political conditions can either make this a reality or act as a hindrance.


BACKGROUND
Cell-based therapy has great potential to treat patients with lung diseases. The administration of cells into an injured lung is one method of repairing and replacing lost lung tissue. However, different types of delivery have been studied and compared, and none of the techniques resulted in engraftment of a high number of cells into the targeted organ. In this in vitro study, a novel method of cell delivery was introduced to investigate the possibility of delivering aerosolized skin-derived fibroblasts.

METHODS
Skin-derived fibroblasts were trypsinized and resuspended in growth medium. A syringe filled with cells (10(5) cells/mL) was attached to MicroSprayer(®) Aerosolizer, a device that can modify a liquid into an aerosol. The tip of the MicroSprayer Aerosolizer was channeled into a T25 flask containing growth medium. Survivability following aerosolization was observed on a daily basis. HeLa cells were used for comparison. The same aerosolization and culture methods were used to treat HeLa cells.

RESULTS
One day following aerosolization, skin-derived fibroblasts showed no sign of vacuolation due to cell stress. They attached to the surface of the flask, indicating that most of them survived aerosolization. The surviving cells were also able to proliferate rapidly, forming a confluent monolayer of cells at day 4. In contrast, HeLa cells were unable to proliferate even after 21 days of culture.

CONCLUSIONS
This study provides the first evidence that cells can be aerosolized without the risk of low cell survivability and stress. The high survival rate of fibroblast cells following aerosolization illustrates the potential for delivering of such cells in future aerosol cell-based therapy to treat lung diseases.


The aim was to find out the incidence of retention of placenta in 175 zebu cattle with regard to age, body condition score (BCS), parity, and feeding system. Pretested questionnaire was used for collecting the information. The overall incidence of manually removed placenta was 10.3%. Age, body condition score and feeding system had significant effect (P<0.05) on incidence of manual removal of placenta. The effect of parity was not significant. The highest incidence of 14.3%, 16%, 11.8% and 12% was in cows over 7 years of age, 6th parity, poor BCS and stall-feeding, respectively. It is suggested that animals aged 4 to 7 years, fair body condition, and free-range grazing were less susceptible to retained placenta.
Bangl. vet. 2021. Vol. 38, No. 1-2, 17–23


This paper presents a methodology to design and manufacture a chip breaker in a PCD turning tool. The objective is to avoid the surface roughness and chip evacuation problems produced by long chips in turning processes. An analysis of the process is made to design a suitable chip breaker shape for semi-roughing and finishing operations in aluminum turning. FEM simulation and experimental test are used to understand the chip formation and breakage processes leading to improved chip breaker geometry. The new designed geometries are micromachined with laser in the PCD tools, and the improvement in the chip control is proved experimentally.


Mineral wool products, composed of stone wool fibers and organic binder, are used in many construction applications. Among all their beneficial properties, the most important requirement is safety for human health, such as when fibers are inhaled. For determining long term toxicity, biosolubility and biopersistence studies in vitro and in vivo are essential. In vitro fiber dissolution rate, which depends on the medium, fiber composition and the surface available for dissolution, is a key parameter in determining biopersistence of the material in vivo. We investigated how organic binder (phenol-urea-formaldehyde), that can partially shield fiber surfaces from the solution, influences fiber dissolution kinetics in synthetic lung fluid (modified Gamble's solution) at pH 4.5 and temperature 37 ºC, in vitro. Dissolution experiments were made in batch and continuous flow using stone wool fibers with typical insulation product binder amounts (0 - 6 wt. %), applied by the standard industrial process. Dissolution rates were determined from element concentrations in the reacted solution and changes in fiber surface composition and morphology were monitored. Stone wool fiber dissolution was close to stoichiometric and was similar, whether or not the material contained binder. The high dissolution rate (508 ng of fiber/cm2/h) is explained by Al and Fe complexing agents, i.e. citrate and tartrate, in the synthetic lung fluid. The organic binder mainly forms micrometer size discrete droplets on the fiber surfaces rather than a homogeneous thick coating. During in vitro tests, fibers with organic binder preferentially dissolved in the areas free of binder, forming cavities, whereas the untreated fibers dissolved homogeneously. Propagation of cavities undermined the binder droplets, leading to complete fiber dissolution. Thus, presence of organic binder on stone wool fibers, produced by the standard industrial process, had no measurable effect on dissolution rate in synthetic lung fluid containing Al and Fe complexing agents.


We performed the studies of optical, photoelectric, and transport properties of a hydrothermal bulk n-type ZnO crystal by using the contactless optical techniques: photoluminescence, light-induced transient grating, and differential reflectivity. Optical studies revealed bound exciton and defect-related transitions between the donor states (at ∼60 meV and ∼240 meV below the conduction band) and the deep acceptor states (at 0.52 eV above the valence band). The acceptor state was ascribed to VZn, and its thermal activation energy of 0.43 eV was determined. A low value of carrier diffusion coefficient (∼0.1 cm2/s) at low excitations and temperatures up to 800 K was attributed to impact the recharged deep acceptors. Electron and hole mobilities of 140 and ∼80 cm2/Vs, correspondently, were determined at room temperature. The decrease of carrier lifetime with excitation was ascribed to increasing rate of radiative recombination at low temperatures and nonradiative recombination above the room temperature.


The presented effort employs a combination of publish-subscribe distribution and ABAC (Attribute Based Access Control) methods to control the information exchange between security domains. It follows strictly the "separation of duty" principle so a message router only has infrastructure duties while the identity management entity deals with management of authorizations and security policies. The presented work also implements a novel model for message protection and subject authorization. One characteristic of the resulting transfer protocol is that an external bump-on-the-wire device can verify the integrity of the messages and that the security policies are observed. This device can be carefully constructed for the purpose of high assurance and offer fail-safe mechanism in case the message router is malfunctioning or compromised.


Solutions of a mathematical model for gas solubility in a liquid are attained employing an algorithm based on the generalized Galerkin B-poly basis technique. The algorithm determines a solution of a fractional differential equation in terms of continuous finite number of generalized fractional-order Bhatti polynomial (B-poly) in a closed interval. The procedure uses Galerkin method to calculate the unknown expansion coefficients for constructing a solution to the fractional-order differential equation. Caputo?s fractional derivative is employed to evaluate the derivatives of the fractional B-polys and each term in the differential equation is converted into a matrix problem which is then inverted to construct the solution. The accuracy and efficiency of the B-poly algorithm rely on the size of the basis set as well as the degree of the B-polys used. The fractional-order B-Poly technique has been applied to the mathematical model for a gas diffusion in a liquid with gas volume functions f(t) = 1 − t1/2 and f(t) = 1 − t3/2. The solutions of the model were obtained which converged with a small number of B-polys basis set. In case of the power series solution, the solution did not converge due to alternating terms present in the solution. We used a Pade approximant on the power series solutions to extract the useful information which showed the solutions are convergent and those solutions were compared with the solutions obtained from the B-poly approach. Excellent agreement was found between the solutions. A Pade approximant was not used on the B-poly solutions because those were convergent with a smaller number of B-polys.


The Norton equivalent model for harmonic load modeling is used widely. The parameters of the model are usually calculated analytically. These calculations are based on measured or simulated voltage/current waveforms. In this case, harmonic analysis is needed to obtain the harmonic spectra. After this step, model parameter values are calculated for each harmonic separately. Relative phase shifts of all measured harmonic voltages and currents are most important for correct calculation of Norton model parameters. Different estimations in the power network are used to determine the phase shifts. The use of an evolutionary algorithm to determine the voltage and current harmonic phase shifts is researched in the paper. The proper optimization problem is defined and an evolutionary algorithm is used to solve the problem. The verification of the method will be done by comparing simulated waveforms obtained by a computer program.


Background and Purpose: Clinical mentoring remains important in improving the quantity and quality of human resources for health (HRH) within lowand middle-income countries (LMIC). Few digital health solutions exist to support in-field mentoring. We herein describe the development and implementation of a robust HRH mentoring application for use within LMIC care settings. Our objective was to improve the quality of health care services through the collection of high-quality mentoring information that could be utilized expeditiously to improve programming. Methods: We adopted a user-centered approach to gather key features needed for the mHealth mentoring application, and internally developed the system leveraging agile approaches. Usability testing was conducted, and system improvements were made prior to wider-scale implementation of the mentoring application. Results: The developed mentoring application had three key components: (1) an android-based mHealth application for mentors, (2) a server-side application, and (3) a web-based front-end for platform administration. The mHealth application was used during routine mentoring sessions through smartphone devices capacitating users to collect mentoring session data, synchronize collected data to a secure server, and view individualized summary mentoring reports. The application was successfully implemented at health facilities supported by Friends in Global Health in Zambézia Province, Mozambique. By June 2019, 172 mentors were using the application and over 5,500 mentoring sessions were recorded into the system. Conclusions: An HRH mentoring mHealth application extends the reach of conventional solutions to support the provision of continuous provider education by placing digital technology in the hands of mentors performing on-site mentoring activities.


This article investigates empirically the effects of currency mismatches on economic growth and volatility of growth in emerging market economies. Using the Arellano–Bond dynamic panel data approach, the analyses provide evidence on the presence of adverse growth effects of currency mismatches. This illustrates the crucial role played by foreign currency denominated debts in the propagation mechanism of contractionary depreciations in emerging economies in the last decade. Further evidence from estimations implies that the adverse effects of mismatches on growth and growth volatility are more pronounced with higher exchange rate fluctuations.


The book could be a good companion for any graduate student in partial differential equations or in applied mathematics. Each chapter brings indeed new ideas and new techniques which can be used in these fields. The differents chapters can be read independently and are of great pedagogical value. The advanced researcher will find along the book the most recent achievements in various fields.


PURPOSE
Reverse transcriptase (RT) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with multiple markers has been demonstrated to be highly sensitive in detecting circulating cells from patients with malignant melanoma (MM). We evaluated the clinical significance of the presence in peripheral blood of specific PCR-positive mRNA markers as an expression of circulating melanoma cells.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Total cellular RNA was obtained from the peripheral blood of 235 patients with either localized (n = 154) or metastatic (n = 81) melanoma. We performed RT-PCR using tyrosinase, p97, MUC18, and MelanA/MART1 as gene markers. The PCR products were analyzed by gel electrophoresis and Southern blot hybridization. In addition, 20 healthy subjects and 21 patients with nonmelanoma cancer were used as negative controls.

RESULTS
Although detected at various levels among assessable patients, each mRNA marker was significantly correlated with disease stage. A significant correlation with disease stage was demonstrated for patients who were positive to all four markers (P < .0001) or to at least three markers (P < .001). Univariate analysis showed a significant correlation between risk of recurrence (evaluated in stage I, II, and III patients) and increasing number of PCR-positive markers (P = .0002). Logistic regression multivariate analysis indicated that each single marker (except tyrosinase) and, more especially, the presence of four PCR-positive markers remained statistically independent prognostic factors for tumor progression.

CONCLUSION
Our data establish the existence of a significant correlation among clinical stages, tumor progression, and presence of circulating melanoma-associated antigens in peripheral blood of MM patients. Preliminary assessment of a subset of patients with a higher risk of recurrence needs longer follow-up and further studies to define the role of RT-PCR in monitoring MM patients.


Organizational secrets enable firms to protect their unique stocks of knowledge, reduce the imitability of their capabilities and achieve sustained competitive advantages (Hannah, 2005). In today's business environments, the loss of valuable proprietary organizational knowledge due to intentional employee disclosure represents a substantial threat to firm competitiveness. Anecdotal evidence suggests that firms in the United States lose more than $250 billion of intellectual property every year, with intentional employee disclosure accounting for a significant portion of these losses (Dandliker, 2012; Heffernan & Swartwood, 1993). Thus, understanding factors that influence such intentional secret disclosure is a key concern, especially in knowledge-intensive industries. While prior research has primarily focused on the disclosure of personal secrets, family secrets or 'dark' organizational secrets, very few studies have examined the disclosure of value-creating organizational secrets – i.e., strategic secrets that encapsulate knowledge about a firm's plans from competitors and social secrets that create valued identity categorizations within organizations (Goffman, 1959). This dissertation begins to address this gap in the literature by putting forth a personsituation interaction model of secret disclosure. Specifically, drawing on the resource-based view of the firm and social identity theory, it explores how certain characteristics of value-creating organizational secrets (e.g., market value of knowledge and social value of concealment) may interact with certain individual-level variables (e.g., moral identity and need for status) to influence employees' secret disclosure intent. Using scenario-based surveys of undergraduate and EMBA students and a cross-sectional sample of working adults in the United States, this dissertation finds evidence for the key proposition that employees' perceptions of market value of knowledge and social value of concealment shape their secret disclosure intentions. Individual-level factors like moral identity and organizational disidentification were also found to play important roles in the disclosure of organizational secrets. This dissertation contributes to the emerging field of organizational secrecy by integrating key informational and social perspectives to address concerns regarding secret protection in organizations.


Since the advent of distributed computer systems an active field of research has been the investigation of scheduling strategies for parallel applications. The common approach is to employ scheduling heuristics that approximate an optimal schedule. Unfortunately, it is often impossible to obtain analytical results to compare the efficacy of these heuristics. One possibility is to conducts large numbers of back-to-back experiments on real platforms. While this is possible on tightly-coupled platforms, it is infeasible on modern distributed platforms (i.e. Grids) as it is labor-intensive and does not enable repeatable results. The solution is to resort to simulations. Simulations not only enables repeatable results but also make it possible to explore wide ranges of platform and application scenarios. In this paper we present the SimGrid framework which enables the simulation of distributed applications in distributed computing environments for the specific purpose of developing and evaluating scheduling algorithms. This paper focuses on SimGrid v2, which greatly improves on the first version of the software with more realistic network models and topologies. SimGrid v2 also enables the simulation of distributed scheduling agents, which has become critical for current scheduling research in large-scale platforms. After describing and validating these features, we present a case study by which we demonstrate the usefulness of SimGrid for conducting scheduling research.


Conflict of Interest Disclosures: The author has completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest and reported being an unpaid board member of the American Lyme Disease Foundation; being a consultant for Baxter for the Lyme vaccination program; providing expert testimony for litigation involving Lyme disease and babesiosis; receiving grants (to his institution) from the National Institutes of Health, Immunetics, Rarecyte, BioMerieux, and the Institute for Systems Biology; receiving payment for lectures from various medical centers and professional organizations; holding stock in Abbott; and receiving travel expenses from the Infectious Disease Society of America. No other disclosures are reported.


Learning-based image harmonization techniques are usually trained to undo synthetic random global transformations applied to a masked foreground in a single ground truth photo. This simulated data does not model many of the important appearance mismatches (illumination, object boundaries, etc.) between foreground and background in real composites, leading to models that do not generalize well and cannot model complex local changes. We propose a new semi-supervised training strategy that addresses this problem and lets us learn complex local appearance harmonization from unpaired real composites, where foreground and background come from different images. Our model is fully parametric. It uses RGB curves to correct the global colors and tone and a shading map to model local variations. Our method outperforms previous work on established benchmarks and real composites, as shown in a user study, and processes high-resolution images interactively. Code, and project page available at: https://kewang0622.github.io/sprih/


The Section III on Emerging Measures and Models included in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, introduces a hybrid alternative approach, dimensional-categorical, to diagnose personality disorders. The Criterion A establishes the assessment of the impairment in personality functioning in terms of two dimensions: self and interpersonal. The present study was aimed at developing a short scale to measure both dimensions. The sample was composed of 342 adults from Buenos Aires city and its outskirts, with ages ranging from 19 to 82 years old (M = 39.90, SD = 13.75). Data were gathered using the Personality Functioning Scale, developed in this study, as well as the Personality Inventory for DSM‐5 Brief Form, the Mental Health Continuum Short Form, and the Symptom Check List-27. A principal components analysis conducted on 28 items found 2 factors, interpersonal and self. Internal consistency, estimated by ordinal Alphas, achieved values between .92 and .86 whilst Cronbach's Alphas were .88 and .87. Significant and positive correlations between the Personality Functioning Scale scores on the one hand, and the Personality Inventory for DSM‐5 Brief Form scores and the Symptom Check List-27 score on the other, were found. Negative correlations between PFS scores and the Mental Health Continuum Short Form were calculated. As a result, a short scale with adequate psychometric features, suitable to assess Criterion A in adult Argentinian population has been developed.


Background: Optimal surgical approach for appendectomy during pregnancy remains controversial. The objective of this study is to evaluate (LA) during pregnancy as regard safety and outcome compared with open appendectomy (OA).Methods: Patients with acute appendicitis during pregnancy who were admitted to Sohag University Hospital from August 2014 to April 2018 were randomized to 2 groups: Group A (OA, 22 patients) and group B (LA, 20 patients). The primary end point was incidence of fetal loss. Secondary endpoints comprised preterm delivery, operative time, length of hospital stay, conversion rate and surgical complications.Results: Forty-two patients were enrolled after exclusion of three cases due to severe cardiac disease. Fourteen patients (33.3%) presented during first trimester 7 patients per group, 19 (45.2%) during second trimester 10 in group A (23.8%) and 9 in group B (21.4%) and 9 (21.4%) during third trimester 5 in group A (11.9%) and 4 in group B (9.5%). Mean maternal age was 22.3±4.2 (range, 18-38) years in group A and 21.3±3.6 (range, 17-35) years in group B. Fetal loss occurred in one patient in group A (4.5%) and in 2 patients in group B (10%). No pre-term delivery occurred in either group. Operative time was slightly longer in group A (mean op. time was 42±12 min vs. 40±11min) than in Group B. No intra operative complications occurred in either group. Hospital stay was significantly shorter in group A (1.2±1.8 days) while it was (3.6±1.1days) in group B. Wound infection occurred in two patients (10%) in group B while no post-operative complications occurred in group A.Conclusions: Forty-two patients were enrolled after exclusion of three cases due to severe cardiac disease. Fourteen patients (33.3%) presented during first trimester 7 patients per group, 19 (45.2%) during second trimester 10 in group A (23.8%) and 9 in group B (21.4%) and 9 (21.4%) during third trimester 5 in group A (11.9%) and 4 in group B (9.5%). Mean maternal age was 22.3±4.2 (range, 18-38) years in group A and 21.3±3.6 (range, 17-35) years in group B. Fetal loss occurred in one patient in group A (4.5%) and in 2 patients in group B (10%). No pre-term delivery occurred in either group. Operative time was slightly longer in group A (mean op. time was 42±12 min vs. 40±11min) than in Group B. No intra operative complications occurred in either group. Hospital stay was significantly shorter in group A (1.2±1.8 days) while it was (3.6±1.1days) in group B. Wound infection occurred in two patients (10%) in group B while no post-operative complications occurred in group A.


New concepts are presented that allow the design of gas proportional scintillation counters with large areas and medium-size photomultipliers. These designs are based on the compensation of the radial decrease of the scintillation light collected in the photomultiplier due to solid angle and reflection effects, with a radial increase of the light production due to a nonuniform electric field produced by a properly shaped curved grid. An implementation of these concepts based on a 2 in.-diameter photomultiplier is presented. It shows a pulse amplitude variation along the radial position (0 to 10 mm) of less than 0.5%, and an energy resolution of 8.0% for a broad 5.9-keV X-ray beam entering the detector through the full 25-mm-diameter window.<<ETX>>


The comparative analsis of the effectiveness of surgical interventions performed by the standard method and using electric welding technology in endocrine surgery was hold. Compared duration of surgery, amount of intraoperatve blood loss, frequency of intra- and early postoperative complications. Found that the use of weding technology ensures shorter duration of surgery, on average by 30%, amount of blood loss--by 20-50%, the frequency of intra- and early postoperative complications.


SARS-CoV-2 whole genome sequencing has played an important role in documenting the emergence of polymorphisms in the viral genome and its continuing evolution during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we present data from over 360 patients to characterize the complex sequence diversity of individual infections identified during multiple variant surges (e.g., Alpha and Delta). Across our survey, we observed significantly increasing SARS-CoV-2 sequence diversity during the pandemic and frequent occurrence of multiple biallelic sequence polymorphisms in all infections. This sequence polymorphism shows that SARS-CoV-2 infections are heterogeneous mixtures. Convention for reporting microbial pathogens guides investigators to report a majority consensus sequence. In our study, we found that this approach would under-report sequence variation in all samples tested. As we find that this sequence heterogeneity is efficiently transmitted from donors to recipients, our findings illustrate that infection complexity must be monitored and reported more completely to understand SARS-CoV-2 infection and transmission dynamics. Many of the nucleotide changes that would not be reported in a majority consensus sequence have now been observed as lineage defining SNPs in Omicron BA.1 and/or BA.2 variants. This suggests that minority alleles in earlier SARS-CoV-2 infections may play an important role in the continuing evolution of new variants of concern.


Fibrous dysplasia (FD) of bone is a congenital non-heritable disorder that was first reliably reported by von Recklinghausen, when he described patients with pathologic condition of bone characterized by deformity and fibrotic changes that he termed as osteitis fibrosa generalisata. FD may involve one bone (monostotic) or multiple bones (polyostotic) and occurs throughout the skeleton with predilection for long bones, ribs, and cranio-facial bones. Seventy percent of the lesions are monostotic and asymptomatic, and identified incidentally. The polyostotic form of disease is often deforming and devastating, with multiple skeletal complications like repeated fractures, limb length discrepancies, and bone pains. The bone lesion of unknown origin is characterized by slow progressive replacement of normal bone by abnormal proliferative, isomorphic fibrous tissue. This case report documents a 40-year-old male with severe polyostotic FD that involved most of the skeleton, including long bones of all extremities, pelvis, facial bones, and skull base. Initial evaluation consisted of physical examination, plain radiographs, which was followed by computed tomography scan, Single-photon emission computed tomography scan, and biochemical and hematological examination. This paper stresses on the clinical implications and management of this rare debilitating disease.


Compared to centrifugal blood pumps, the high rotating speed of axial blood pumps lead to blood damage more easily. In order to improve blood compatibility of the axial blood pump developed by the authors, traditional method and three-dimensional streamlined method are used for axial impeller design, and rapid prototyping with ABS organic materials are adopted. Finally, hydraulic experiments and hemolysis tests have been conducted. The results reveal that the impeller design and the design parameters (diameter and length) affect the hydraulic performance and hemolysis of the axial pump obviously. The hemolysis index in axial flow impeller pump using traditional method is 0.12, while the minimum value of hemolysis index in the streamlined axial blood pump is 0.06, below the permitted hemolysis value of 0.1.


In the assessment of dose received from a nuclear accident, considerable attention has been paid to retrospective dosimetry using heated materials such as household ceramics and bricks. However, unheated materials such as mortar and concrete are more commonly found in industrial sites and particularly in nuclear installations. These materials contain natural dosemeters such as quartz, which usually is less sensitive than its heated counterpart. The potential of quartz extracted from mortar in a wall of a low-level radioactive-waste storage facility containing distributed sources of 60Co and 137Cs has been investigated. Dose-depth proliles based on small aliquots and single grains from the quartz extracted from the mortar samples are reported here. These are compared with results from heated quartz and polymineral fine grains extracted from an adjacent brick, and the integrated dose recorded by environmental TLDs.


A tight-binding sp3d5s* orbital basis quantum simulation is performed to study the uniaxial stress-modulated electronic properties of an InAs nanowire in three different crystallographic directions. Over the entire range of axial stress used in this study, the wire exhibits a direct band gap under uniaxial stress in 〈100〉 and 〈111〉 directions; however, a direct to indirect transition is observed in 〈110〉 direction at a relatively large tensile stress. The band gap variation with stress is linear in 〈100〉 and 〈111〉 directions, and the gap is relatively insensitive to external stress in 〈110〉 direction. However, after the direct to indirect transition in 〈110〉 direction, the band gap is reduced with stress. The electron and hole effective masses show the highest dependence on external stress in 〈100〉 direction, and a big jump in the hole effective mass is observed in 〈100〉 and 〈110〉 directions under tensile stress. From the projection of normalized wave function to different orbitals, it is found that the direct to indirect transition in 〈110〉 direction and the discontinuity in the hole effective mass in (100) and 〈110〉 directions result from the change in top valence band wave function symmetry.


This work presents a numerical strategy of large scale hydromechanical simulations to assess the risk of damage in caprock formations during a CO2 injection process. The proposed methodology is based on the development of a sequential coupling between a multiphase fluid flow (TOUGH2) and a hydromechanical calculation code (Code_Aster) that enables us to perform coupled hydromechanical simulation at a regional scale. The likelihood of different caprock damage mechanisms can then be evaluated based on the results of the coupled simulations. A scenario based approach is proposed to take into account the effect of the uncertainty of model parameters on damage likelihood. The developed methodology is applied for the caprock failure analysis of deep aquifer of the Dogger formation in the context of the Paris basin multilayered geological system as a demonstration example. The simulation is carried out at a regional scale (100 km) considering an industrial mass injection rate of CO2 of 10 Mt/y. The assessment of the stress state after 10 years of injection is conducted through the developed sequential coupling. Two failure mechanisms have been taken into account, namely the tensile fracturing and the shear slip reactivation of pre-existing fractures. To deal with the large uncertainties due to sparse data on the layer formations, a scenariobased strategy is undertaken. It consists in defining a first reference modelling scenario considering the mean values of the hydromechanical properties for each layer. A sensitivity analysis is then carried out and shows the importance of both the initial stress state and the reservoir hydraulic properties on the caprock failure tendency. On this basis, a second scenario denoted "critical" is defined so that the most influential model parameters are taken in their worst configuration. None of these failure criteria is activated for the considered conditions. At a phenomenological level, this study points out three key aspects for risk management. The maximum overpressure is reached rapidly after a couple of years, the lateral extension of the "overpressurized" zone induced by the injection is very large (> 50 km) and the most critical zone is the injection near zone (distance < 100 m) at the interface between the caprock and the reservoir layer.


Volcanic eruptions impact the global and the hemispheric climate, but it is still unknown how and to what degree they force the climate system and in particular the global carbon cycle. In this paper, the relationships between individual eruptions (reconstructed for the past using written records), tree primary productivity (estimated using ring widths), photosynthetic rate and stomatal conductance (assessed by carbon and oxygen isotope data) are investigated, to understand the impact of volcanic eruptions on net primary production. Data from a mixed stand of Fagus sylvatica L. and Acer pseudoplatanus L. located in the area of the Vesuvio volcanic complex (Southern Italy) showed a significant decrease in ring width following each eruption. Isotope analyses indicate a change in climatic conditions after such events. Specifically, the lower oxygen isotope ratio in the tree-ring cellulose strongly suggests an increase in relative humidity and a decrease in temperature, with the latter resulting in a strong limitation to tree-ring growth. The carbon isotope ratio was only moderately but not significantly reduced in the years of volcanic eruption, suggesting no major changes in C fixation rates. This work is a case study on the effects of volcanic eruptions resulting in strong climatic changes on the local scale. This is an opportunity to explore the process and causal relationships between climatic changes and the response of the vegetation. Thus, we propose here a realistic model scenario, from which we can extrapolate to global scales and improve our interpretations of results of global studies.


The study focuses on the Challenges of strategy implementation in Chemelil Sugar Company limited. This was a case study approach and was effected through open ended questionnaires used for In-depth Individual Interviews designed to facilitate adequate collection of data pertaining to the study focus. The data was collected from representative members of the workforce at the executive and business unit levels. The data collected was subjected to Content analysis with the conceptual approach to capture the dominating themes, categories, collate and aid in thematic analysis. Whereas it was evident that strategies and corresponding activities for implementation are well documented at Chemelil sugar company, the state of implementation of the strategies are far off the intended targets and as such the management is not able to achieve on its mission. There exist challenges at the firm to strategy implementation the main ones being resource availability and mobilization, lack of relevant policies and procedures, poor communication channels, Human resource elements, leadership, unrealistic goal setting and political environment amongst others. The current state of strategy implementation is far from what was envisaged in the strategy formulation. This arises from failure to put into place measures that would ensure operationalization and institutionalization of the strategies. There are inherent challenges to strategy implementation at Chemelil sugar company which if not deliberately well managed may not allow even the best laid plans to see the light of day.


With the rising demand for nature-based tourism at coastal environments in Sri Lanka, an in-depth understanding of visitor perceptions is vital in sustainable management of such natural ecosystems. Maduganga estuary is one of the famous nature-based tourism destinations which attracts both local and foreign tourists. There are limited or no published research on the experience and perception of visitors to coastal wetlands of Sri Lanka. Therefore, this study was focused on evaluating visitor motivations, behaviours, attitudes and knowledge on environmental concepts and the level of importance and satisfaction of recreational experience. The visitor experience at the destination was measured with 16 attributes, by using Importance Performance Analysis (IPA). The information was gathered by using a structured questionnaire which was administered via face-to-face interviews with visitors to Maduganga, who are 18 years of age and older. With a response rate of 53.9%, 326 questionnaires were completed during the survey period. The respondents were dominated by the young, well- educated, male visitor segment. According to results, "to be in a natural setting" was the main motivation to be in this location and followed by "to use free time" and "to be with family or friends". Relaxing / fun / enjoyment, enjoying boat rides and photography were the most popular activities among visitors. Importance Performance Analysis demonstrated that all the attributes related to visitor experience lie within the keep up the good work quadrant. "Feeling safe on the boat" was the attribute which had the highest importance (mean=4.41 in 5 point Likert scale) and "Abundance of wildlife had the lowest importance (mean=3.66). "Number of passengers in the boat" had the highest effect on satisfaction (mean=4.01) while "Guides' knowledge about the river, flora and fauna" was recorded as the attribute with lowest satisfaction (mean=3.43). Overall results of the study highlight the importance of management/ regulation of recreational activities and maintaining the quality of natural environment to enhance the visitor experience and satisfaction. Potential management implications and visitors' perception on recreation management are further discussed. Keywords: Importance, satisfaction, visitor motivations, tourism, boats, natural environment


BACKGROUND
The role of second-line therapy in metastatic pancreatic cancer is not clear. In this study, we aimed to explore the second-line efficiency of capecitabine and oxaliplatin (XELOX) in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer who have received gemcitabine-based first-line therapy.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We retrospectively evaluated 47 patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer previously treated with gemcitabine-based first-line regimens. Treatment consisted of oxaliplatin 130 mg/m2 and capecitabine 1000 mg/m2 twice daily with a 3 week interval, until unacceptable toxicity or disease progression.

RESULTS
Median number of cycles was 4 (range, 2-10). The overall disease control rate was 38.3%. The median overall survival and progression-free survival from the start of second-line therapy were 23 weeks (95%CI: 16.6-29.5 weeks) and 12 weeks (95%CI: 9.8-14.4 weeks), respectively. The most common grade 3-4 toxicities were nausea, vomiting and hematologic side effects.

CONCLUSIONS
Our result suggests that the combination of capecitabine and oxaliplatin was tolerated with manageable toxicity and showed encouraging activity as second-line treatment of advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer patients with ECOG performance status 0-2.


Purpose: Histogram Analysis in Radiation Therapy (HART) is an efficient dose‐volume histogram (DVH) computational tool in radiation therapy and radiationoncology research. Various applications of the software were also presented and published earlier in different journals (Med Phys 37(6), p.3217, 2010; J Appl Clin Med Phys 11(1), p.3013, 2010). The main objective of this work was to review the important applications of the program. Method and Materials:MATLAB based codes were primarily designed to read and write a simpler HART format of the DVH statistics, from the standard RTOG data formats exported from the Pinnacle3 treatment planning system (TPS; Philips Healthcare, Best, Netherlands). Various applications such as conventional DVH (cDVH) analysis, and spatial DVH (sDVH; x‐,y‐, and z‐DVHs respectively) analysis, universal‐plan indices (UPI) evaluation, biological modeling based outcome analyses (BMOA), radiobiological dose‐response modeling (DRM), and physical parameterization (PP) modules have been incorporated in the program. The fundamental results obtained in these applications, were thoroughly validated using the primary data derived from the DVH statistics extracted from the Pinnacle3 system. The program also comprises the simple computational mechanism, the graphical simulations, and the flexible interactive modules. Results: HART offers cDVH and sDVH computational modules, UPI evaluations, BMOA features, DRM simulations, and PP modules respectively for the radiotherapy plans. The cDVH and BMOA were the most applicable features among the HART users in the past year. Nearly 50% of the users (N=91) have found the program useful around the globe. The program is also available freely online. Conclusions: Several applications have been upgraded into a simpler, user‐friendly, and automated software package, HART. The program is useful to the medical physics and radiationoncology communities. We further expect to develop HART for various applications in radiotherapy research, and its expansion to other TPSs that utilize DICOM‐RT objects.


New specimens from a new locality at Chutoulang in eastern Nei Mongol were identified as Canis chihliensis , Coelodonta nihowanensis , Hipparion ( Proboscidipparion ) sinense , Equus sanmeniensis , Sus lydekkeri , Muntiacus cf. M. lacustris , Axis shansius , Eucladoceros boulei , Spirocerus cf. S. wongi and Bison palaeosinensis . They enriched the mammalian fauna of Chutoulang to 30 taxa together with the material from Dongliang, Dongcun Beigou and Dongcun Nangou localities. The mammalian fossils from these four localities are all from the same horizon and can be regarded as the same fauna, i.e. Chutoulang fauna. The composition of Chutoulang fauna is the closest to that of Nihewan ( s.s .) by binary faunal similarity coefficients. The age of Chutoulang fauna is between those of Nihewan ( s.s. ) and Juyuandong at Liucheng according to Brainerd-Robinson's sequence, extinction rates and antiquity coefficients. The numerical age of Chutoulang fauna is estimated between 1.4–1.6 Ma based on those of compared faunas. Carnivora are the most numerous in Chutoulang fauna with 11 taxa, but mostly the small sized ones. Perissodactyla and Artiodactyla make about half of the fauna. They are mostly large sized forms. The presence of numerous browsers or forest dwellers implies the existence of forest or woodland in Chutoulang area during that period. The presence of grazers and openland dwellers indicates the existence of larger area of grassland or steppes than that of woodland or forests. Most members of Chutoulang fauna are temperate habitat dwellers with a few cold-prone forms such as Ochotona and Coelodonta . The climate in Chutoulang area in the Early Pleistocene was thus similar to that of today. Chutoulang fauna is the most northeastern Early Pleistocene fauna in China and it can be recommended as a type site of the Early Pleistocene mammalian fauna in northeastern China.


Background
In recent years, the relationship between transparent corneal incision and endophthalmitis is attracting more and more attention.Transparent corneal incision configuration become a research hotspot.

Objective
This study was to analyze dynamic architectural changes of 2.8 mm clear corneal incisions with different angles using anterior segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) and safety.

Methods
A retrospective cases-control study was performed.Seventy-three eyes of 63 patients who received phacoemulsification combined with implantation of intraocular lens (IOL) were included in Ordos Central Hospital from January to October 2015.The patients were divided into incision≤45°group and incision>45°group according to the angle of incision revealed by OCT.Thirty-eight eyes of 32 patients was in incision≤45° group and 35 eyes of 31 patients was in incision > 45° group.Corneal incision quality was analyzed preoperative 1 day and postoperative 1 day, 1 week and 1 month by AS-OCT.The corneal thickness at the incision, the length of the healed incision, the opening of the outer incision and inner incision and the detachment of the posterior elastic layer were observed.Written informed concent was obtained from each patient before surgery.

Results
The mean angle of the incisions in the incision≤45° group was 31.6°±5.4°, and that in the incision>45° group was 54.3°±5.5°.The corneal thickness in the incision≤45° group was significantly thicker than that in the incision>45° group at postoperative 1 day and 1 week (t=5.96, P=0.00; t=4.69, P=0.00). The ratio of incision length without coaptation was higher in the incision≤45° group than that in the incision>45° group at postoperative 1 day, 1 week and 1 month, respectively (Z=-5.14, P=0.00; Z=-5.46, P=0.00; Z=-3.52, P=0.00). The incidence of endothelial gaping was significantly lower in the incision≤45° group than that in the incision>45° group at 1 day, 1 week and 1 month after surgery (χ2=6.88, P=0.01; χ2=14.87, P=0.00; χ2=9.07, P=0.00). The closure rates of outside incision were 100% in both two groups.There were no statistically significant differences in Descemet detachment at 1 day, 1 week and 1 month after surgery between two groups(χ2=0.15, P=0.70; χ2=1.29, P=0.36; χ2=0.02, P=0.89). Lip recession and contracture were observed in 3 eyes in the incision group.

Conclusions
At the early stage after phacoemulsification, when the intraocular pressure is changing constantly, small angle clear corneal incision appears to be a good closure and therefore is safer.

Key words:
Tomography, optical coherence; Anterior segment; Cataract; Cornea; Incision; Architecture


ABSTRACT In media effects research a fundamental choice is often made between (field) experiments or observational studies that rely on survey data in combination with data about the information environment or media coverage. Such studies linking survey data and media content data are often dubbed "linkage studies." On the one hand, such designs are the state of the art in our field and on the other hand, they come with a long list of challenges and choices. This article reviews the rationales for linkage studies, outlines different types of linkage studies, reviews the state-of-the-art in this area, discusses which survey and content items to use in an analysis, reviews different types of analyses, outlines considerations for alternative specifications, and provides a step-by-step example.


The effects of the addition of divalent metal oxides on the structure and thermophysical properties of the mixed alkali borosilicate glass system used for high level radioactive waste immobilisation have been studied. Densities, molar volumes, linear thermal expansivities and glass transition temperatures are reported and structural information has been obtained using B-11 and Si-29 magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR. Molar volume is controlled by ion size and by the formation of network polyhedra, whilst thermal expansion reflects the network rigidity. Changes in the glass transition temperature, T-S, are consistent with the different values of the heat of formation of the oxides added. Alkaline earth oxides produce an initial increase in the fraction of 4-coordinated boron, N-4, whereas PbO and ZnO reduce N-4. Si-29 NMR of the alkaline earth oxide glasses shows the presence of significant concentrations of nonbridging oxygens, consistent with a previous study of the aqueous corrosion behaviour of these glasses. PbO and ZnO reduce and ultimately eliminate the nonbridging oxygens. Estimates of the quantities of Q(4)(Pb) have been made and are shown to change with composition in the same manner as Q(4)(Me) in glasses with trivalent additions.


One of the best ways to eliminate environmental pollutions is biodegradation using microorganisms and plants. Biotechnology is key science and technology that is rapidly examining and developing in various environmental fields. Environmental biotechnology, in fact, allows to help preserve and develop the environment by utilizing the potential of plant biocatalysts and natural and recombinant microorganisms (Yeasts, fungi and bacteria). In this regard, biotechnology has contributed to the development of microorganisms and plants using genetic engineering technology and recombinant DNA. It has been effective in the purification of environmental pollution such as soil and water pollutants, and the removal of hydrocarbons from oil and heavy metals, and has been able to produce genetically modified organisms with high efficiency. Also, by creating advanced technologies related to the production of biofuels and bioplastics, it has significantly contributed to protecting health and preventing environmental pollution. Iran, as a developing country, is involved with numerous pollutants and various environmental crises. Therefore, it is necessary to plan and take necessary actions in the field of research and development of environmental science and biotechnology. In this work, a general overview of the most important applications of environmental biotechnology has been done to eliminate environmental pollution.


A thin layer of poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) (pNIPAAm) was synthesized in situ on the surface of hydrolyzed polyacrylonitrile (PAN) membrane. This thin layer exhibited both pH response due to the poly(acrylic acid) moiety and temperature response due to the pNIPAAm moiety. The swelling behavior of the membranes was evaluated under various temperatures and pH. The curve of the swelling ratio for the PAN-NIPAAm showed a lower critical solution temperature. Then, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) was loaded into the pNIPAAm layer. The effects of CLA on the blood coagulation and oxidative stress were evaluated with the use of human blood. The level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) was measured by the chemiluminescence (CL) method to evaluate the oxidative stress. Furthermore, the removal of bacterial endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide) by CLA-loaded PAN-NIPAAm was measured with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The results show that the LCST swelling curve was at 37°C. PNIPAAm chains form expanded structures under 37°C. At temperatures greater than 37°C, however, the chains form compact structures by dehydration. This makes PNIPAAM membrane due to rapid hydration and dehydration changes of the polymer chain. In addition, the swelling ratio increased by 71% when the pH increased from 5 to 10. The concentration of LPS can be reduced by CLA-loaded PAN-NIPAAm 2.1 and 1.2 times of that by unmodified PAN and PAN-NIPAAm membranes, respectively. In addition, the level of ROS against CLA-loaded PAN-NIPAAm was reduced significantly than that against unmodified PAN and PAN-NIPAAm. Therefore CLA-loaded PAN-NIPAAm membrane could offer protection for patients against oxidative stress and could also inhibit lipopolysaccharide for clinical applications. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009


In spatial dialog like in direction giving humans make frequent use of speechaccompanying gestures. Some gestures
convey largely the same information as speech while others complement speech. This paper reports a study on how speakers distribute meaning across speech and gesture,
and depending on what factors. Utterance meaning and the wider dialog context were tested by statistically analyzing
a corpus of direction-giving dialogs. Problems of speech production (as indicated by discourse markers and disfluencies), the communicative goals, and the information
status were found to be influential, while feedback signals by the addressee do not have any influence.


Objective To determine the effectiveness of interactive theatre as a knowledge translation and exchange (KTE) method to educate assisted human reproduction (AHR) service providers about lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) patients. Design We transformed data from the 'Creating Our Families' study, a qualitative, community-based study of LGBTQ peoples' experiences accessing AHR services, into a script for an interactive theatre workshop for AHR service providers. Based on forum theatre principles, our workshop included five scenes illustrating LGBTQ people interacting with service providers, followed by audience interventions to these scenes. Before and after the workshop, service providers completed surveys to assess their knowledge and comfort concerning LGBTQ patients, as well as the modality of the interactive theatre workshop as a KTE strategy. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to determine changes in preworkshop and postworkshop knowledge and comfort scores. Results Thirty AHR service providers attended the workshop. Twenty-three service providers (76.7%) fully completed the preworkshop and postworkshop evaluation forms. Service providers' knowledge scores significantly improved after the workshop, while their comfort scores minimally decreased. Most agreed that the interactive workshop was an effective KTE method. Conclusions In comparison with traditional forms of KTE, interactive theatre may be particularly effective in engaging service providers and addressing their attitudes towards marginalised patient populations. Although the evaluation results of our interactive workshop were mostly positive, the long-term impact of the workshop is unknown. Long-term evaluations are needed to determine the effectiveness of arts-based KTE efforts. Other considerations for developing effective arts-based KTE strategies include adequate funding, institutional support, attention to power dynamics and thoughtful collaboration with forum theatre experts.


This paper presents a multiband image fusion algorithm based on unsupervised spectral unmixing for combining a high-spatial-low-spectral-resolution image and a low-spatial-high-spectral-resolution image. The widely used linear observation model (with additive Gaussian noise) is combined with the linear spectral mixture model to form the likelihoods of the observations. The nonnegativity and sum-to-one constraints resulting from the intrinsic physical properties of the abundances are introduced as prior information to regularize this ill-posed problem. The joint fusion and unmixing problem is then formulated as maximizing the joint posterior distribution with respect to the endmember signatures and abundance maps. This optimization problem is attacked with an alternating optimization strategy. The two resulting subproblems are convex and are solved efficiently using the alternating direction method of multipliers. Experiments are conducted for both synthetic and semi-real data. Simulation results show that the proposed unmixing-based fusion scheme improves both the abundance and endmember estimation compared with the state-of-the-art joint fusion and unmixing algorithms.


Network software systems and groupware within organizations differ from other information technologies, requiring individuals to 'design' their own use. Users and groups can choose how to engage with these systems (Hassall, 1998), and use is dependent upon existing technological framing (Orlikowski, 1992). Groupware provides opportunities to study interaction between technological and organizational potentials. The action and structure duality of structuration theory (Giddens, 1984) points to the need for systemic understandings. Moreover, deconstructive schemes (e.g. Dudley and Hassall 1995,1996) demonstrate a plurality of overt and ulterior motivations in use. The Systemic Effector Model has been developed based upon longitudinal research in groupware implementation. This abstracted perspective relates choice of facility and design of action to important motivators at the individual and systemic levels. The genesis and explanatory power of the model is explored through survey and case study data.


The cell microenvironment is an integral component of cellular behavior. At a given moment, a cell is bombarded by signals and cues from the environment, which all are processed and integrated into specific behaviors. It is difficult examine how a particular cue affects a cell in its natural environment due to the interference of other signals. Therefore, the ability to control the microenvironment of cells and tissues is necessary to study cell interactions. Towards this end, four different devices were developed to aid in the study of cell and tissue behavior. First, oxygen-sensitive microwells were microfabricated microwells that were embedded with an oxygen responsive dye for the purpose of measuring the oxygen tension of isolated cell clusters. The device is a simple and quick method to measure the oxygen levels without disturbing the cells in culture and is compatible with high-magnification modalities. The second device is a calibration tool for fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV) that utilizes microfluidics to improve the electrode calibrations for FSCV. The µFC is simple device that switches between buffer and dopamine and this yielded electrode calibrations with faster rise times and a more stable peak current. The µFC reduced the number of external electrical components previously needed for this calibration and produced linear calibrations over a range of concentrations. The last two devices stem from a common idea – the ability to precisely control chemical delivery to cells and tissues. The automated chemical delivery device (ACDD) was utilized for the study of yeast chemotropism on agarose and was able to produce a consistent gradient that caused orientation of yeast cells towards the higher concentration end of the gradient. Lastly, an expanded ACDD was developed for a higher degree of control over chemical delivery to cells and tissues.


The cumulants of thermal variables are of general interest in physics due to their extensivity and their correspondence with susceptibilities. They become especially significant near critical points of phase transitions where they diverge along with the correlation length. Cumulant measurements have been used extensively within the field of heavy-ion physics, principally as tools in the search for a hypothetical QCD critical point along the transition between hadronic matter and QGP. The volume of individual heavy-ion collisions can be only partially constrained and, as a result, cumulant measurements are significantly biased by the limited volume resolution. We propose a class of moments called strongly intensive cumulants which can be accurately measured in the presence of unconstrained volume fluctuations. Additionally, they share the same direct relationship with susceptibilities as cumulants in many cases.


This paper quantifies the costs of adhering to a fixed-exchange-rate arrangement, such as a currency union, for emerging economies. To this end it develops a novel dynamic stochastic disequilibrium model of a small open economy with monetary nonneutrality due to downward nominal wage rigidity. In the model, a negative external shock causes persistent unemployment because the fixed exchange rate and downward wage rigidity stand in the way of real depreciation. In these circumstances, optimal exchange-rate policy calls for large devaluations. In a calibrated version of the model, a large contraction, defined as a two-standard-deviation decline in tradable output causes the unemployment rate to rise by more than 20 percentage points under a peg. The required devaluation under the optimal exchange-rate policy is more than 50 percent. The median welfare cost of a currency peg is shown to be enormous, about 10 percent of lifetime consumption. Adhering to a fixed exchange-rate arrangement is found to be more costly when initial fundamentals are characterized by high past wages, large external debt, high country premia, or unfavorable terms of trade.


Hardware/software (HW-SW) partitioning is a key problem in codesign of embedded systems, studied extensively in the past. This paper describes a new approach to hardware/software partitioning for synchronous model. We formalize the partitioning problem using timed automata, which captures the key elements of the partitioning. Then the tabu algorithm is applied to timed automata model to search for the solution efficiently. An industrial experiment is conducted to show our approach can handle large applications with hundreds of nodes in task graph effectively


Terrorist attacks in the United States and in Western Europe have been rare and the public awareness of the terrorist menace has largely been molded by a few horrific events. In contrast, other countries have experienced chronic terrorism, with attacks on busses, restaurants, coffee shops, and retail establishments. In this paper we assess the impact of terrorism on civilian society in the United States, Northern Ireland, and Israel. We examine the psychological effects, the adaptations made by individuals to enhance their safety, and the consequent adjustments made by institutional actors and by commercial establishments to ensure continued economic viability. We review the various theories of societal adjustments to exogenous shocks, and point out that a very different formulation is required for the case of chronic terrorism than for the societal experience of a one-time attack.


This paper revisits Ernst Engel's (1857) original article in which he systematically investigated the relationship between consumption expenditure and income. While he is mainly remembered today for the discovery of Engel's law, we highlight how Engel addressed in a particular way the issue of the relation between statistical empirical analysis and economic theorizing. Inspired by an inductive methodology, Engel's method to inferempirical regularities made no a priori assumption on the estimated functional form and anticipates many aspects of current non-parametric regression methods. Furthermore, Engel devised a quasi-behavioral theory of consumption centered on the concept of wants to justify and explain his empirical results which he used to asses population living standards. Although incomplete, Engel's consumption theory tackles a much neglected issue in consumption theory: what accounts for the manner in which consumption patterns change as income rises.


The yellow jacket of this yearbook reads like an examination paper of some 20 questions, but the answers to these can be found within. We are invited to test ourselves on "a 10 minutes quiz" consisting of such questions as, What is the one safe inhalation anaesthetic (" anaesthesia " is the word actually used) for patients with acute respiratory disease? and, Is there any hereditary factor in the development of ingrowing toe-nail? All this probably has some selling value, but to the discerning, and to those already familiar with this valuable perennial, is quite unnecessary. To our readers the value of the yearbook of surgery is too well known to need any such boosting. Like its predecessors, the present volume sums up well the year's contributions to surgery, and contains condensations of many of the most important papers. In an introduction the well-known and distinguished editor reminds us that much of the surgical literature of the last year has been devoted to war wounds, and yet most of the articles reveal nothing essentially new. Since the last war, chemotherapy and the tannic acid treatment of burns are perhaps the two outstanding contributions to, surgery, but there is still no general agreement as to what is the best local treatment for severe burns. In a ,rief review such as this it is difficult to know what .o choose as representative samples of its contents; but perhaps some idea of these will be gained by referring to one or two at random. such as the evaluation of the Miller-Abbott tube, the surgery of tumours of the pancreas, and the present position of the surgical treatment of hypertension. The busy surgeon will need this book to keep him in touch with recent developments.


Current estimates of Amish population growth often cite a "doubling time" figure, but fail to substantiate the source from which the estimate was derived. As well, some estimates of population increase, such as by the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, use net change in the number of church districts as a proxy to determine population change, rather than a more precise counting up of children and adults. Unfortunately, a direct "head count" of the Amish, and changes in this count overtime to create a doubling time estimate, would be very daunting, Until there is a valid database from which this can be accomplished, an alternative is to calculate doubling time based on net change in the number of households in various Amish settlements from one year to the next. In this article, end-of-year statistics submitted by scribes from hundreds of Amish settlements to a monthly periodical known as The Diary are used to estimate doubling time. Five time periods, each representing consecutive years from 2009 through 2014 for which the number of households for the same settlement is reported, are used to create a doubling time estimate. Altogether, there were 673 data-points for which consecutive year information about the same settlement was available. The article discusses possible limitations to using The Diary and households to calculate a doubling time, as well as the possible uses of an accurate doubling time estimate for research and


The diffusion length is a key parameter that controls the electron collection efficiency in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). In this work, we carry out a direct estimation of this parameter by means of the laser beam-induced current (LBIC) technique. The DSC devices are prepared on transparent conducting glass substrates, which were divided in two electrically isolated parts by means of a groove. The LBIC measurement is conducted by moving a highly focused laser spot over the DSC across the groove and monitoring the open-circuit voltage yielded by the solar cell. The resulting voltage profile can be fitted to a simple diffusion-recombination model such that the electron diffusion length can be extracted. Measurements carried out on DSC with various oxides (TiO2/ZnO) and electrolytes (organic, ionic-liquid) yield diffusion lengths in the 10–35 μm range, with longer values found for higher illumination and for cells of better efficiency.


This nonsystematic review provides a summary of current evidence on the use of β3-adrenoreceptor agonists (β3-ARAs) for the treatment for lower urinary tract symptoms. Soon after their discovery in 1989, β3-ARs were identified as a predominant adrenoreceptor subtype in the human urinary bladder. Although it is widely believed that β3-ARAs cause detrusor relaxation, the effect on bladder afferent signaling likely plays an important role in their mechanism of action as well. In 2011 and 2012, mirabegron was approved for clinical use in overactive bladder (OAB) patients. Pooled analysis of data from prospective randomized studies on >60,000 OAB patients showed that when compared to placebo, mirabegron was superior with respect to reducing the frequency, number, and severity of urgency episodes, number of incontinence episodes and increasing dry rate, but not in reduction of nocturia episodes. The only side effect showing significantly higher incidence than placebo was nasopharyngitis. Mirabegron is approved for OAB treatment in all age-groups and in pediatric patients with neurogenic bladder. Vibegron is another β3-ARA approved for OAB treatment in the US and Japan. Several large, multicenter, double-blind, randomized trials have documented statistically significant superiority of vibegron over placebo on all efficacy end points. Other β3-ARAs are being developed; however, to date none has been introduced to clinical use. All β3-ARAs provide efficacy similar to anticholinergics. They have a favorable safety profile and are well tolerated. Due to their different mechanisms of action, combination of β3-ARAs with anticholinergic compounds allows for increased efficacy.


This work aimed to study the effective population size and genetic gain in a population of robusta coffee (Coffea canephora Pierre) and verify the possibility of using recurrent selection. The experiment comprised 25 treatments, consisting of 21 C. canephora progenies and four C. arabica (cultivars) grown in Brazil. The experimental design was a 5x5 quadruple balanced lattice, with 24 replications, with one plant per plot. Six harvests were performed in each plant. Statistical analysis was carried out using the mixed model methodology. The analysis showed high additive genetic variability, and the magnitude of the additive components prevailed over that of the dominance components. These facts revealed the plant population liability to undergo recurrent selection, whose expected genetic gains were high. Results suggest that the effective population size and inbreeding degree throughout recurrent selection cycles be monitored. During selective cycles, cloning with weak selection is required due to few progenies.


ABSTRACT This paper describes Dragoon, a simple intelligent tutoring system which teaches the construction of models of dynamic systems. Modelling is one of seven practices dictated in two new sets of educational standards in the U.S.A., and Dragoon is one of the first systems for teaching model construction for dynamic systems. Dragoon can be classified as a step-based tutoring system that uses example-tracing, an explicit pedagogical policy and an open learner model. Dragoon can also be used for computer-supported collaborative learning, and provides tools for classroom orchestration. This paper describes the features, user interfaces, and architecture of Dragoon; compares and contrasts Dragoon with other intelligent tutoring systems; and presents a brief overview of formative and summative evaluations of Dragoon in both high school and college classes. Of four summative evaluations, three found that students who used Dragoon learned more about the target system than students who did equivalent work without Dragoon.


The Chinese government is pursuing e-learning policies which makes job-training with a knowledge-based society. To explain more fully the important role of the e-learning environment, this article undertakes some typical examples of the governments' job-training under e-learning environment. The main problems in servants' job-training in China are the low quantity in the servants' training, short of restriction, the uniform manner in the training and less fairness and availability of opportunities for educational training. In order to develop the e-learning system, the civil servant's job training policies are provided and the measures of the effective e-learning system are designed.


Most of the articles published in the last years highlight teaching and learning approaches and technologies integrated in complex applications and present the concepts used for creating and presenting the educational content. They refer to the methodologies used in self and collaborative learning, including problem- and project-based learning. The assessment process is also illustrated in several articles but there is no a generic framework that complies with the life-long learning rules.

Our proposal is focused on advanced concepts for improving the online training services and how a generic framework can be customized for life-long learning and effective recruitment techniques. The article is based on a virtual collaboration prototype that supports both interpersonal and inter-process collaborative learning and can be considered the core of an educational community.

The article highlights the Web 2.0 approach in e-service environments, especially online training and human resource management, it describes an open architecture adapted to the requirements of a generic collaborative learning infrastructure and the manner it can be easily customized for different business domains. It also illustrates how Computer-Supported Collaborative Training (CSCT) tools improve the knowledge building process and what kind of solutions should be adopted in order to avoid the CSCL weaknesses.

The presented Computer Supported Collaborative Training prototype fixes a set of issues met in the CSCT area: problems with the training staff, time management, responsibilities during the training process, human-system interaction, content management, and cost effectiveness.

This paper is organized as follows: after a suggestive introduction, the related works and proposals are presented in Section II. Section III is dedicated to the low cost architecture proposed. Section IV starts with the technological aspects and continues with the low cost prototype for online training and human resource management, deployment diagram of the e-service platform for blended learning (blended training). The experimental results are highlighted in Section V of this paper. In conclusion, the authors underline the importance of cloud computing paradigms in life-long learning and e-recruitment area by illustrating the solution for each problem met in the Computer Supported Collaborative Training.


Software Defined Networks (SDN) is a paradigm in which routing decisions are taken by a control layer. In contrast to conventional network structures, the control plane and forwarding plane are separated and communicate through standard protocols like OpenFlow. Historically, network management was based on a layered approach, each one isolated from the others. SDN proposes a radically different approach by bringing together the management of all these layers into a single controller.It is therefore easy to get a unified management policy despite the complexity of current networks requirements while ensuring performance through the use of dedicated devices for the forwarding plane. Such an upheaval can meet the current challenges of managing an increasingly dynamic network imposed by the development of cloud computing or the increased mobility of everyday devices. Many solutions have emerged, but all do not satisfy the same issues and are not necessarily usable in a real environment. The purpose of this thesis is to study and report on existing solutions and technologies as well as conceive a demonstration prototype to present the benefits of this approach. This project also focuses on an analysis of risks posed by these technologies and the possible solutions.


Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of alkanethiols on gold are a commonly used platform for nanotechnology owing to their ease of preparation and high surface coverage. Unfortunately, the gold–sulfur bond is oxidized at ambient conditions which alters the stability and structure of the monolayer. We show using scanning tunneling microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy that decanethiolate molecules oxidize into decanesulfonates that organize into a hitherto unknown striped phase. Air-exposed SAMs oxidize, as can be determined by a shift of the S 2p peak and the appearance of O 1s photoelectrons as part of the decanethiol monolayer transforms into a lamellae-like decanesulfonate structure when exposed to air. The herringbone structure of the Au(111) surface is preserved, indicating that the interaction between the molecules and the surface is rather weak as these findings are substantiated by density functional theory calculations.


Carbenicillin and gentamicin were tested on rats experimentally burned and infected by a selected strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Carbenicillin injection was found to be the best treatment as it decreased pus formation and enhanced healing. Gentamicin was less effective than carbenicillin. The use of hydrophilic base ointment containing antibiotics is contraindicated, as it probably provides a favourable environment for Pseudomonas aeruginosa growth. The administration of supernatant vaccines and cell vaccines alone and in conjunction with the antibiotics did not modify the course of infection and healing.


In this paper, we design a fast MapReduce algorithm for Monte Carlo approximation of personalized PageRank vectors of all the nodes in a graph. The basic idea is very efficiently doing single random walks of a given length starting at each node in the graph. More precisely, we design a MapReduce algorithm, which given a graph G and a length », outputs a single random walk of length » starting at each node in G. We will show that the number of MapReduce iterations used by our algorithm is optimal among a broad family of algorithms for the problem, and its I/O efficiency is much better than the existing candidates. We will then show how we can use this algorithm to very efficiently approximate all the personalized PageRank vectors. Our empirical evaluation on real-life graph data and in production MapReduce environment shows that our algorithm is significantly more efficient than all the existing algorithms in the MapReduce setting.


AbstractThis paper focuses on implementing two novel CMOS-MEMS type switches: buckling type and thermal type, by using commercially available TSMC 0.35 μm two-poly four-metal (2P4M) CMOS process. There are two novel designs in these two type switches: first, the soft contact structure with post-processing fabrication; second, using residual stress to achieve large structural deformation in buckling type and thermal type switches. To create the soft contact structure, residual gradient stress effect has been utilized to make bending-down curvatures. According to the experiments, the layer Metal1 has the largest negative residual gradient stress [1] effect that can achieve the largest negative deflection in z-axis. Because the structure will bend down after post-processing release, larger lateral contact area are set up to gain the lower contact miss ability. In the post-processing fabrication, 0.3μm thickness gold will be deposited on the contact tips. Due to the essence of gold, comparing with aluminum, has no oxidation issue, gold also has the advantage of higher conductivity to reduce the electrical power loss. In the buckling type design, the switch uses residual stress to achieve lateral buckling effect to solve long distance problem. In the thermal type design, this paper design a folded-flexure [2, 3] with the electro-thermal excitation to turn the switch on or off. In the prototype, the device size is 500 μm × 400 μm and the gap between two contact pads is 9 μm in offstate. on the experimental results, the switch can work stably at 3 volts, and the displacement of the thermal type switch can achieve 2.7μm, which is sufficient for the mechanism of switching-on or switching-off.


Antisacer compositum, a commonly prescribed speciality which associated phenobarbitone and phenytoin in a dose ratio of 1:4, was withdrawn after demonstration of a negative interaction of this formula. A retrospective analysis is presented of phenytoin plasma levels during bitherapy and after passage to monotherapy, in 13 adult epileptics followed as outpatients. Phenytoin plasma levels increased over twofold in 12 cases, of whom 5 continued to take the same doses, while 7 received higher doses on, and in one case two weeks after, the withdrawal of phenobarbitone. Plasma level decreased slightly in the thirteenth in spite of increased doses. Five phenytoin intoxications occurred after this change of prescription: one amongst the 5 cases with identical doses, and 4 amongst the 7 cases with increased doses. The initially high levels of phenytoin tend to decrease after several months. Physicians required to change the prescription should be aware of the risk of initial intoxication and later underdosage.


The Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) can be useful indicators of ecosystem change as a result of a disturbance event. We monitored changes in butterfly abundance in two restoration treatment units paired with adjacent untreated forest at the Mt. Trumbull Resource Conservation Area in northern Arizona. Restoration treatments included thinning trees to density levels comparable to densities at the time of Euro-American settlement, and reintroducing a low to medium intensity fire to the system. One unit was treated in 1996, the second in 1998. Butterfly communities, nectar availability, and herbaceous species richness were compared between treated and adjacent control forests, and between 3-year posttreatment and 1-year posttreatment forests. Butterfly species richness and abundance were two and three times greater, respectively, in restoration treatment units than in adjacent control forests. Nectar plant species richness ranged from two to 10 times greater in restoration treatment units than in adjacent control forests. Comparison of the 3-year posttreatment unit with the 1-year posttreatment unit showed little difference in butterfly species richness and abundance, although no statistical comparisons can be made due to sample size. These restoration treatments offer a unique opportunity to study responses to and recovery from disturbance and restoration at a landscape level.


Summary The glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) have been recognized to play an important role in the detoxification of xenobiotics. The tissue distribution and activities of GSTs in Apis cerana cerana Fabricius and Apis mellifera ligustica Spinola were assayed using 1-chloro-2,4- dinitrobenzene (CDNB) as substrate. GSTs were present at all the developmental stages of honeybee and widely distributed in different organs. GSTs from the midgut of both species showed the highest activity among all the detected organs. The enzymes were preferentially present in cytosol fraction of midgut. GSTs activities of each organ in A. cerana were lower than those in A. mellifera. In A. cerana, the activity and Michaelis Menten (Km) value of GSTs increased along with the development, no significant difference of activity and Km was observed among different tissues. The enzymes activities increased rapidly and reached a maximum at the pupal stage to 0.081 μmol.min−l.mg−l protein. A. mellifera samples represented a different pattern. Significant differences of activity and Km value were observed in different tissues. The GSTs in the midgut had the highest Km value. However, the highest activity was found in the larvae and the lowest in the adult. The GSTs activities in drone were higher than those in worker bee. During the life span of A. mellifera worker bee, enzymes activities fluctuated between 0.2 and 0.4 μmol.min−l.mg−l pro. from the first day to 20th day and reached a peak on day 21 of adulthood. Significant differences of specific activity and kinetic parameters of GSTs were observed among five honeybee subspecies. The highest activity was in A. mellifera caucasica and the lowest in A. cerana cerana. The GSTs from A. mellifera anatolica had the highest Km and those from caucasica had the lowest. In A. mellifera, it was GSTs from anatolica that had the highest Vmax and those from caucasica had the lowest. The GSTs from A. cerana had a higher affinity for CDNB than those from A. mellifera.


Aim: The aim of the present study is to identify bacterial etiology of surgical site infections and their antibiogram. Material and Methods: The study was a cross-sectional study which was carried in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, PMCH, Bihar, India.for 1 year. Using sterile cotton swabs, two pus swabs/ wound swabs were collected aseptically from each patient suspected of having SSI. Gram stained preparations were made from one swab for provisional diagnosis. The other swab was inoculated on nutrient agar, 5% sheep blood agar (BA) and Mac Conkey agar (MA) plates and incubated at 37°C for 24-48 hours before being reported as sterile. Growth on culture plates was identified by its colony characters and the battery of standard biochemical tests. All the isolates were tested for antimicrobial susceptibility by Kirby Bauer disk diffusion technique on Muller Hinton Agar. Results: Out of 610 samples, 200 samples were culture positive (32.8%). Maximum no. of culture positive samples in age 20-30 years (33.5%) followed by 30-40 (16.5 %) and then followed by 40-50 (14.5%) of age group respectively. Out of 200 culture positive samples S.aureus (26.5%) was the most common pathogen isolated followed by Escherichia coli. (22.5%), Citrobacter spp. (15.5%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (9.5%) respectively. Among gram negative bacilli, E.coli was most sensitive to Imipenem 88.89%) followed by Amikacin (77.77%) and Piperacillin Tazobactam (73.33%) whereas for Citrobacter spp., Imipenem (74.19%) followed by Gentamicin (45.16%), Ciprofloxacin (41.93%) was the drug of choice then for Klebsiella spp., Imipenem (76.47%) followed by Gentamicin (47.05%), Amikacin (47.05%) was the drug of choice. For Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Imipenem (68.42%) followed by Piperacillin Tazobactam (63.16%), Gentamicin (57.89%) was the drug of choice and for Enterobacter spp., Imipenem (76.92%) followed by Amikacin (53.84%), Piperacillin Tazobactam (53.84%) showed maximum sensitivity. Among gram positive organism, S.aureus showed maximum antibiotic sensitivity to Linezolid (96.22%) followed by Vancomycin (94.33%), Amikacin (83.02%) whereas CONS was sensitive to Linezolid (93.33%) followed by Vancomycin (86.67%), and Gentamicin (80%). Conclusion: Despite of modern surgical techniques and antimicrobial availability and use, SSIs are common among patients undergoing gynaecological surgeries. Bacterial resistance is a serious threat for treating infections and exists for more commonly available and used antimicrobials.


Introduction This paper will explore the role of the Assistant Practitioner (AP) in an innovative a 6 month collaborative pilot project between Leicestershire Partnership Trust and the Leicestershire and Rutland Hospice to test a model of care delivery through AP's working across the hospice and community settings as an integral part of both health care teams. Approaches Used 2 trainee assistant practitioners from each setting (n = 4), with the support of mentors, undertook 4 rotational work placements between the hospice and community, supplemented by monthly study days An action research model was used to evaluate the pilot and support a real-time development of the role and included qualitative interviews and focus groups (n = 4) with assistant practitioners, mentors (n = 5) and managers (n = 3), alongside analysis of the adopted competency framework and reflective diaries Findings The AP's : were skilled and able to provide continuity of care following patients through from home to hospice and back; they helped develop inter-organisational understanding of ways of working; freed – up registered nursing time, offered support to HCA's. The main challenge related to changing policies during the life of the pilot to allow the AP's to fully embrace an extended role. This presentation will focus on the success and challenges in the development of the cross organisational working and the AP role, the views of stakeholders and the benefits to patients. Conclusion Hospice and community settings were convinced of the value and utility of the role and are looking to recruit AP's as part of their long term staffing policy. However, each organisation sees a different focus for the role and they are not yet ready to embrace the concept of shared posts working across organisational boundaries.