Proteomics focuses on the high throughput study of the expression, structure, interactions, and, to some extent, function of large numbers of proteins. A true understanding of the functioning of a living cell also requires a quantitative description of the stoichiometry, kinetics, and energetics of each protein complex in a cellular pathway. Classical molecular biophysical studies contribute to understanding of these detailed properties of proteins on a smaller scale than does proteomics in that individual proteins are usually studied. This perspective article deals with the role of biophysical methods in the study of proteins in the proteomic era. Several important physical biochemical methods are discussed briefly and critiqued from the standpoint of information content and data acquisition. The focus is on conformational changes and macromolecular assembly, the utility of dynamic and static structural data, and the necessity to combine experimental approaches to obtain a full functional description. The conclusions are that biophysical information on proteins is a useful adjunct to "standard" proteomic methods, that data can be obtained by high throughput technology in some instances, but that hypothesis-driven experimentation may frequently be required.


At high energies the energy resolution of gamma -ray spectrometers using large-diameter coaxial germanium detectors can be dominated by ballistic-deficit effects, particularly when short processing times are used to permit high-rate operation. This results because that rise-time variations in the detector signal are reflected in amplitude fluctuations after the signals pass through pulse shapes. A method is described for compensating for these effects on a pulse-by-pulse basis, using the observation that the loss of amplitude for slowly rising signals is accompanied by a delay in the peak time of the shaped output signal. The simple analog corrector circuit uses a relationship whereby the amplitude deficit is roughly proportional to the square of the time delay in the peak. Results show considerable improvements in the energy resolution of germanium gamma -ray spectrometers at high energies. >


This article is devoted to the comparative analysis of patterns of adaptation changes of spectral indices of heart rate variabil ity (HRV) in air-traffic-controllers and engineering personnel. The resulted patterns of changes of HRV are characterized by centralization of cardiac rhythm management in both professional groups. The higher spectral power in the range of VLF in the engineering personnel in comparison with air-traffic-controllers was established. The higher activity of the central sym pathetic contour in the engineering personnel was found.. The resulted changes indicate that more higher tension of regula tion mechanisms and higher physiological cost of work is specific for the engineering personnel.


We undertook a randomised controlled trial to assess whether a music therapy (MT) scheme of administration, including three working cycles of one month spaced out by one month of no treatment, is effective to reduce behavioural disturbances in severely demented patients. Sixty persons with severe dementia (30 in the experimental and 30 in the control group) were enrolled. Baseline multidimensional assessment included demographics, Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), Barthel Index and Neuropsychiatry Inventory (NPI) for all patients. All the patients of the experimental and control groups received standard care (educational and entertainment activities). In addition, the experimental group received three cycles of 12 active MT sessions each, three times a week. Each 30-min session included a group of three patients. Every cycle of treatment was followed by one month of wash-out. At the end of this study, MT treatment resulted to be more effective than standard care to reduce behavioural disorders. We observed a significant reduction over time in the NPI global scores in both groups (F 7,357 = 9.06, p < 0.001) and a significant difference between groups (F 1,51 = 4.84, p < 0.05) due to a higher reduction of behavioural disturbances in the experimental group at the end of the treatment (Cohen's d = 0.63). The analysis of single NPI items shows that delusions, agitation and apathy significantly improved in the experimental, but not in the control group. This study suggests the effectiveness of MT approach with working cycles in reducing behavioural disorders of severely demented patients.


Travel surveys collect trip data such as origin, destination, mode, duration, distance and purpose of trips, as well as socioeconomic and demographic data for analysis. Transportation planners, policymakers, state departments of transportation, metropolitan planning organisations, industry professionals and academic researchers use survey data to better understand the current demand and performance of the transportation infrastructure, and to plan in preparation for future growth. Next-generation travel surveys will utilise global positioning systems (GPS) to collect trip data with minimal input from survey participants. Owing to their ubiquity, GPS-enabled mobile phones are developing into a promising survey tool. TRAC-IT is a mobile phone application that collects real-time GPS data and requires minimal input from the user for data such as trip purpose, mode and vehicle occupancy. To ease survey burden on participants and enable real-time, mode-specific location-based services, new techniques must be explored to derive more information directly from GPS data. As part of travel survey collection, TRAC-IT is able to passively determine trip mode using GPS-enabled mobile phones and neural networks. The mode detection technique presented in this article can be optimised using a critical point, pre-processing algorithm to reduce the size of required GPS datasets obtained from GPS-enabled mobile phones, thus reducing data collection costs while conserving precious mobile phone resources such as battery life.


OBJECTIVE
The investigators examined whether outcomes differ by race-ethnicity for patients with major depressive disorder in acute- (12 weeks) and continuation-phase (weeks 12-28) treatment with one of two antidepressant combinations or one selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.

METHODS
This single-blind, seven-month prospective, randomized trial enrolled 352 non-Hispanic white (59%), 169 black (28%), and 79 white Hispanic (13%) participants from six primary and nine psychiatric care U.S. sites. Patients had nonpsychotic chronic or recurrent major depressive disorder (or both) of at least moderate severity. Escitalopram plus placebo, bupropion sustained-release plus escitalopram, or venlafaxine extended-release plus mirtazapine were delivered according to measurement-based care. The primary outcome was remission (last two consecutive 16-item Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Self-Report ratings <8 and <6); secondary outcomes included side effects, adverse events, quality of life, function, and attrition.

RESULTS
Black participants had greater baseline psychiatric and medical comorbidity. Baseline depression severity did not significantly differ between groups. In both phases more blacks than those in other groups exited the trial early. There were only minor differences in side effects, no significant differences in remission rates, and no significant differences between groups in other outcomes for each treatment.

CONCLUSIONS
Despite differences in sociodemographic characteristics and comorbidities, when measurement-based care was used, members of different minority groups had similar outcomes when treated with one antidepressant or a combination of two antidepressants. Black participants had the highest attrition rate, an important issue to address in clinical care.


The objectives of this study are to measure and analyze the factors that significantly impact the performance of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) container shipping industry in Indonesia. This research will then formulate recommendations on SSCM performance improvement strategy using SEM-PLS method. The results show that currently the business actor and service user perceive the SSCM performance of container shipping industry in Indonesia as low. Furthermore, four latent variables give significant and positive impact to SSCM performance. The latent variables include Technology, Integrated Logistic System, Sustainable Market Orientation and Fair-Trade System. The Technology and Integrated Logistic System as the priority should be give more attention. The conclusion of the research result shows that strategy to improve the SSCM performance of container shipping industry in Indonesia must be carried out through a holistic approach and seen as a system. The managerial implication of this study is that the four latent variables of the model sorted, according to their priorities from the total effect coefficients, can be applied as a strategy to improve SSCM performance. Keywords: sustainable supply chain, container shipping, SEM, SSCM


Abstract Background: Photovoice is a participatory action research method in which people take photographs to represent real-world experiences, so that issues of interest/concern can be documented. There are no published studies in which photovoice has been used in audiological rehabilitation (AR). The purpose of this feasibility study was to examine whether photovoice could have application in audiology. Purpose: A feasibility study was designed to determine whether photovoice could be adapted for use as a clinical auditory rehabilitation tool (1) to facilitate provision of tailored communication strategy counseling, (2) as a post–hearing aid fitting counseling tool, (3) to enhance communication between partners regarding hearing loss, and (4) to provide an understanding of the emotional impacts of hearing loss. Research Design: In this combined qualitative and quantitative feasibility study, a photovoice intervention was given to four groups of participants. Study Sample: Twenty-four individuals were recruited from a research subject data repository at the National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research. Data Collection and Analysis: The study involved two visits to the laboratory during which participants received instruction in photovoice methodology (visit 1) and then, one to two weeks later, discussed their photographs during a debriefing session (visit 2). Results: The mean number of photographs taken by participants was 12.6 (range: 4–29); the mean duration of the debriefing sessions was 40:39 min:sec (range: 14:30–66:22 min:sec). Participants reported that participating had made them think more about their hearing problems, appreciate their hearing aids more, and be more aware of the situations in which their hearing aids did and did not help. The taking and discussion of the photographs was also described as a learning tool, and it had facilitated conversations with others about hearing problems. Participants who completed the study with their communication partner (use case 3) said it had assisted with problem-solving and gave insight into the perspective of their partner. The research team noted that photovoice facilitated highly tailored counseling and provision of evidence-based recommendations for hearing assistive technology, enhanced interaction between communication partners, provided insight into participants' lifestyle and communication needs, and seemed to generate rapport and trust. Conclusions: This feasibility study indicated that participants were willing to engage in photovoice and that it could be used to guide selection of rehabilitation recommendations and for postfitting counseling. Its application in audiological practice would seem timely and valuable for improving patient-centered and family-centered AR.


Abstract— —The explosive vaporization of melanosomes in situ in skin during pulsed laser irradiation (pulse duration <1 μs) is observed as a visible whitening of the superficial epidermal layer due to stratum corneum disruption. In this study, the ruby laser (694 nm) was used to determine the threshold radiant exposure, H0 (J/cm2), required to elicit whitening for in vitro black (Negroid) human skin samples which were pre‐equilibrated at an initial temperature, Ti, of 0, 20, or 50°C. A plot of H0 vs Ti yields a straight line whose x‐intercept indicates the threshold temperature of explosive vaporization to be 112 ± 7°C (SD, N = 3). The slope, ∂H 0/∂T i, specifies the internal absorption coefficient, μa, within the melanosome: μa = −ρC/(slope(1 + 7.1R d)), where ρC is the product of density and specific heat, and Rd is the total diffuse reflectance from the skin. A summary of the absorption spectrum (μa for the melanosome interior (351–1064 nm) is presented based on H0 data from this study and the literature. The in vivo absorption spectrum (380–820 nm) for human epidermal melanin was measured by an optical fiber spectrophotometer and is compared with the melanosome spectrum.


Based on the interpretation of the restoration process as a backward diffusion process, an optimal filtering in terms of the spectral characteristics of an image is proposed. The restored image is given as the solution of the optimal backward diffusion equation (BDE). Several aspects of applying the backward diffusion on the blurred image are given. The ill-posedness of the backward diffusion is subdued by regularizing the speed at which the high-frequency components should be recovered by the use of a decreasing function. In manipulating the recovery speed, the spectral characteristics of an image are taken into account. The proposed scheme uses an exponentially decreasing speed function on the recovery of high-frequency components. The use of the decreasing function makes it possible to include more significant low-frequency components without failing the system, and thus yields results of better quality than the constant bounded scheme.


The dietary advice that is generally followed nationally and internationally closely follows the Dietary Guidelines for Americans which was first published in 1980 and which has been through eight editions. All of the editions of the Dietary Guidelines recommend a diet that is low in fat, and most editions recommend the replacement of saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat. This recommendation is based on the saturated fat-cholesterol-heart disease hypothesis that was first proposed by Ancel Keys in the 1950s. Coconut oil was labeled as unhealthy because of its high saturated fat composition. However, this label is unwarranted. Re-analysis of the work that Keys undertook reveals that he used some inappropriate assumptions that invalidate his hypothesis. Keys undertook a large controlled feeding study, called the Minnesota Coronary Survey (MCS), to prove his hypothesis but he did not publish the results of this work. A recent re-analysis of this work has shown that his results do not support his hypothesis. Further, historical documentary evidence has revealed the significant involvement of the American sugar industry in influencing dietary policy by blaming saturated fat for heart disease. Populations that have adhered to the low-saturated fat dietary recommendation have become significantly overweight and obese. In contrast, populations that continue to follow their traditional diet which includes coconut have not had high rates of obesity. The Keys hypothesis needs to be abandoned.


Study Design. In vitro biomechanical comparison of 3 C7 posterior fixation methods. Objective. To investigate the posterior cervical construct stability afforded by this novel C7 intralaminar screw with lateral mass and transpedicular screw. Summary of Background Data. The intralaminar screw method is recently introduced and used in C7 fixation. However, no biomechanical comparisons of the C7 intralaminar screw with lateral mass screw or transpedicular screw technique have been performed. Methods. Ten fresh frozen human cadaveric C6-C7 motion segments were tested before and after 3 different types of C7 screw fixation (lateral mass screw, intralaminar screw and pedicle screw). After the kinematic study was completed, the pull out strength test for each type of C7 screw was performed. Results. To compare 3 C7 fixation techniques, normalized range of motion (ROM) of each type of screw was analyzed relative to the intact state. There were no significant differences between 3 types of C7 screws in terms of mean ROM in flexion/extension. The mean lateral bending ROM of C7 intralaminar screw construct (30.5% ± 9.2%) was significantly larger than C7 pedicle screw construct (19.2% ± 6.9%, P < 0.05). The mean axial rotation of C7 lateral mass construct (52.0% ± 27.1 %) was significantly larger than C7 pedicle screw construct (38.7% ± 23.8%, P < 0.05). The pull-out strength of lateral mass screw was significantly weaker than other 2 types of C7 screw (intralaminar and pedicle screw). However, there was no significant pull-out strength difference between the C7 intralaminar and C7 pedicle screw techniques. Conclusion. This study demonstrates that the pedicle screw fixation is the strongest instrumentation method for C7 fixation. However, if C7 pedicle fixation is unfavorable, in case that vertebral artery course through the C7 transverse foramen or C7 pedicle is not large enough to insert screw, the C7 laminar screw can be an alternative fixation point with similar limitation of motion except in lateral bending.


This paper presents a convex relaxation of a class of smart building-grid energy management models using a semi-definite programming approach. A smart building-grid energy system is roughly defined as an interconnection of buildings and electric power grid energy resources within a clearly defined boundary, here called a smart site. A smart site is a strategic or self-interested entity that seeks to maximize some utility function subject to all applicable technical and budget constraints. The utility function is here a measure of energy efficiency. A smart site may purchase energy from or sell energy to its external environment. On one hand, traditional building energy management systems have focused on meeting the energy requirements of one or more buildings assuming that the buildings are connected to a strong or infinite-capacity utility grid. On the other hand, electric grid management systems have traditionally modeled relatively large sites as single grid nodes with simple lump load models. The contribution of the present paper is two-fold: to provide a general model that integrates and extends building and energy management models, and (b) to develop a convex relaxation of the ensuing model a solution of which yields a global lower bound. The proposed approach also provides a means to test whether any solution, for example, obtained using a heuristic method, is global, and the corresponding optimality gap.


A Wireless Networked Control System exploits a shared wireless network to logically link its sub-systems. Due to the peculiarities of the wireless channel, it is important to understand in which measure the Quality of Service provided by the communication infrastructure affects the Quality of Control. The aim of this work is to analyze the performance of a Wireless Networked Control System based on the IEEE 802.11 MAC. For that purpose, a model of such a system has been built using the ns-2 simulator and the impact of MAC parameters on the system dynamics has been evaluated. Simulation results have highlighted strengths and limitations of this kind of Wireless Networked Control System.


This paper presents a novel framework for multi-folder email classification using graph mining as the underlying technique. Although several techniques exist (e.g., SVM, TF-IDF, n-gram) for addressing this problem in a delimited context, they heavily rely on extracting high-frequency keywords, thus ignoring the inherent structural aspects of an email (or document in general) which can play a critical role in classification. Some of the models (e.g., n-gram) consider only the words without taking into consideration where in the structure these words appear together. This paper presents a supervised learning model that leverages graph mining techniques for multi-folder email classification. A ranking formula is presented for ordering the representative - common and recurring - substructures generated from pre-classified emails. These ranked representative substructures are then used for categorizing incoming emails. This approach is based on a global ranking model that incorporates several relevant parameters for email classification and overcomes numerous problems faced by extant approaches used for multi-folder classification. A number of parameters which influence the generation of representative substructures are analyzed, reexamined, and adapted to multiple folders. The effect of graph representations has been analyzed. The effectiveness of the proposed approach has been validated experimentally.


Understanding the preferences of transient types for host galaxies with certain characteristics is key to studies of transient physics and galaxy evolution, as well as to transient identification and classification in the LSST era. Here we describe a value-added database of extragalactic transients—supernovae, tidal disruption events, gamma-ray bursts, and other rare events—and their host galaxy properties. Based on reported coordinates, redshifts, and host galaxies (if known) of events, we cross-identify their host galaxies or most likely host candidates in various value-added or survey catalogs, and compile the existing photometric, spectroscopic, and derived physical properties of the host galaxies in these catalogs. This new database covers photometric measurements from the far-ultraviolet to mid-infrared. Spectroscopic measurements and derived physical properties are also available for a smaller subset of hosts. For our 36,333 unique events, we have cross-identified 13,753 host galaxies using host names, plus 4480 using host coordinates. Besides those with known hosts, there are 18,100 transients with newly identified host candidates. This large database will allow explorations of the connections of transients to their hosts, including a path toward transient alert filtering and probabilistic classification based on host properties.


Several observers have noted signs of a growing plurality in mainstream economics. At the same time there has been a growing emphasis in heterodox economics on commonality. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of plurality in economics in order to make sense of these characterisations, and to consider the issues raised by this plurality. The critical factor is to distinguish between plurality at the level of theory and evidence, at the level of methodological approach (plurality of methods), and at the meta-methodological level (a plurality of methodologies). First it is argued that, while there is plurality at the level of theory and even of type of evidence in orthodox economics, there continues to be monism in terms of methodological approach, and in attitude to methodological alternatives. In heterodox economics, the commonality of methodological approach does not go far before emerging pluralistically into a variety of approaches. Indeed there is, at the meta-methodological level, a range of arguments in heterodox economics for a plurality of methodologies, that is, a recognition that it is legitimate (if not inevitable) that there is more than one approach to economics.


Current theories of motor control emphasize forward models as a critical component of the brain's motor execution and learning networks. These internal models are thought to predict the consequences of movement before sensory feedback from these movements can reach the brain, allowing for smooth, continuous online motor performance and for the computation of prediction errors that drive implicit motor learning. Taking this framework to its logical extreme, we tested the hypothesis that movements are not necessary for the generation of predictions, the computation of prediction errors, and implicit motor adaptation. Human participants were cued to move a computer mouse to a visually displayed target and were subsequently cued to withhold those movements on a subset of trials. Visual errors displayed on both trials with and without movements to the target induced single-trial learning. Furthermore, learning on trials without movements persisted when accompanying movement trials were never paired with errors and when movement and sensory feedback trajectories were decoupled. These data provide compelling evidence supporting an internal model framework in which forward models generate sensory predictions independent of the generation of movements.The brain can learn to update movements that are not performed, representing a mechanism for learning based only on movement planning and sensory expectation.Supports a fundamental role for prediction in adaptation.Provides further support for the role of forward models in predictive motor control.


: Analyses of several body fluids are reported on Beagle dogs and compared with previous studies. All of the spinal fluid data and most of the urine data have not been previously reported in Beagles. Values of creatine phosphokinase, urine 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, and urine vanillymandelic acid are reported in the present study.


microRNAs (miRNAs) are small endogenous non-coding RNAs that function as the universal specificity factors in post-transcriptional gene silencing. Discovering miRNAs, identifying their targets and further inferring miRNA functions have been a critical strategy for understanding normal biological processes of miRNAs and their roles in the development of disease. In this review, we focus on computational methods of inferring miRNA functions, including miRNA functional annotation and inferring miRNA regulatory modules, by integrating heterogeneous data sources. We also briefly introduce the research in miRNA discovery and miRNA-target identification with an emphasis on the challenges to computational biology.


Several studies have been carried out to produce biofuels by anaerobic digestion of stillage from ethanol fermentation. This type of process, known as ABE Fermentation, generates by-products such as acetone, butanol and ethanol. This fermentation can use pure or mixed cultures of anaerobic bacteria, mainly of the genus Clostridium. In this context, there is the need for deeper studies for proper disposal of the residue resulting from Anaerobic Fermentation of ethanolic stillage, hereinafter referred to as AF stillage (stillage from Anaerobic Fermentation), obtained after this fermentation. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the biodegradation and toxicity of stillage from Anaerobic Fermentation. The biodegradation of AF stillage in soil samples in the presence and absence of commercial inoculum was evaluated using a respirometric method described by Bartha & Pramer, according to the standard NBR 14283 (ABNT, 1999). The production of CO2 was evaluated for 57 days. Additionally, quantification of microorganisms was carried out at the beginning and end of the experiment. Toxicity tests were performed with the microcrustacean Daphnia similis using raw AF stillage and leachate from the respirometry test, according to the standard NBR 12713 (ABNT, 2009). The results of the respirometry test showed that, after 13 days of incubation, the biodegradation efficiency of all samples was above 30%. Using the Friedman statistical test, results showed  that adding the inoculum caused no statistically significant difference in the biodegradation of AF stillage. The acute toxicity tests were performed on raw AF stillage and on the leachates showed that toxicity was removed after biodegradation in soil at all concentrations used. Thus, discharge of AF stillage into soil is an alternative viable disposal.

 Key words: Biodegradation, stillage, anaerobic fermentation, toxicity.


Decision makers at times find it difficult to make a rational decision when many criteria and sub-criteria are to be considered while choosing an alternative. The purpose of this study was to find a solution for such a situation in a footwear company, which was confronted with a dilemma in determining the best advertising medium. The project incorporated multi - criteria decision - making (MCDM) methodology ; in specific, it used the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) along with the hierarchical structural model approach. It considered five criteria and four sub-criteria obtained from previous research studies. The application of the technique was successful in finding the best advertising medium. Visual media was found to be the best
advertising media, followed by print media, closely followed by social media, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. The study provides the decision makers in confining their choices to four alternatives namely visual media, social media, print media, and CSR. The study was set to help the marketing managers in the future if they were faced with a situation
to choose the best alternative based on several criteria. The study presented insights into the importance of advertising for a footwear company, importance of selecting an efficient media for advertising, and the implementation of CSR as a marketing strategy for a footwear company.


Public policies have been essential in addressing many of the most pressing public health problems in the USA and around the world. A large and convincing body of multidisciplinary research has established the impacts or effectiveness of public policies, such as smoke-free air laws and nutrition standards, on improving health outcomes and behaviors. Most of this research assumes that because an evidence-based policy is adopted or takes effect, it is implemented as intended. This assumption, however, is often incorrect. Like with clinical guidelines and other interventions, implementation science has an important role to play in promoting the uptake and implementation of evidence-based public policies that promote public health. To realize this potential, there remains a critical need to first establish a common understanding of what public policy is, the role of specific policies in the context of implementation (i.e., is it the evidence-based intervention or the implementation strategy?), and to establish an appropriate methodological foundation for the field of policy implementation science. We recommend that the field must evolve to (i) include policy experts and actors on policy implementation science study teams; (ii) identify theories, models, and frameworks that are suitable for policy implementation science; (iii) identify policy implementation strategies; (iv) adapt and/or identify study designs best suited for policy implementation science research; and (v) identify appropriate policy implementation outcome measures.


Knowledge transfer from synthetic to real data has been widely studied to mitigate data annotation constraints in various computer vision tasks such as semantic segmentation. However, the study focused on 2D images and its counterpart in 3D point clouds segmentation lags far behind due to the lack of large-scale synthetic datasets and effective transfer methods. We address this issue by collecting SynLiDAR, a large-scale synthetic LiDAR dataset that contains point-wise annotated point clouds with accurate geometric shapes and comprehensive semantic classes. SynLiDAR was collected from multiple virtual environments with rich scenes and layouts which consists of over 19 billion points of 32 semantic classes. In addition, we design PCT, a novel point cloud translator that effectively mitigates the gap between synthetic and real point clouds. Specifically, we decompose the synthetic-to-real gap into an appearance component and a sparsity component and handle them separately which improves the point cloud translation greatly. We conducted extensive experiments over three transfer learning setups including data augmentation, semi-supervised domain adaptation and unsupervised domain adaptation. Extensive experiments show that SynLiDAR provides a high-quality data source for studying 3D transfer and the proposed PCT achieves superior point cloud translation consistently across the three setups. The dataset is available at https://github.com/xiaoaoran/SynLiDAR.


Ever since the passing of the Jammu & Kashmir Consumer Protection Act, 1987, the doctor-patient's relationship came under critical scrutiny, controversy and litigation. The inadequacy of consumer protections laws results in unavoidable contingency, spiralling cost shifting and inordinate health care complexities. It examines health care services as a matter of consumer rights under Consumer Protection Act, 1986, Jammu and Kashmir Consumer Protection Act, 1987 and Consumer Protection Act, 2019. It makes consumers to navigate between hope and despair for access to health care. The paperis driven to analytical study of the inadequacy of consumer laws in dealing effectively deficiency of medical service, insufficiency of health care services, lack of medical professionalism and negligence a case study of Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Srinagar is undertaken by encompassing a legislative survey of consumer laws in inculcating Consumer Right Awareness (CRA) and toning of structural governance of grievance redressal mechanism. The gap between the precept and practice of consumer justice and compensation in health care services is identified for adoption of a robust infrastructural and schematic revamping.


A study was conducted in the Guinea and Sudan Savannah zones in the Upper East Region of Ghana to investigate the effects of Faidherbia albida on some important soil fertility indicators. Soil sampling and analysis, litter trap, and litter bag techniques were employed to determine the soil's content of major nutrients, the rate of litterfall production and litter decomposition, respectively. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to determine differences among treatment means, while Tukey's highest significant difference (HSD) was used to perform post hoc tests among means within the same sample set. Soils under F. albida tree canopies were found to contain significantly higher organic carbon and total nitrogen than those outside the canopies. Peak leaf litter production occurred during the first three months of the onset of the rainy season. Annual leaf litterfall was 340 g m-2 year-1 in the Guinea Savannah zone and 264 g m-2 year-1 in the Sudan Savannah zone. The high leaf litterfall, followed by high decomposition and mineralization at the beginning of the cropping season, the high nutrient content of its leaves, coupled with its nitrogen fixing ability, make F. albida a potential candidate for soil improvement and improved productivity of major crops in smallholder farming systems. About 37 and 59 adult F. albida trees will be required to supply significant amounts of nitrogen in the Guinea and Sudan Savannah zones, respectively.

 Key words: Litter bag technique, litter decomposition, litter fall, litter trap technique, soil organic carbon, soil


Abstract. Water quality data for the Nant Tanilwyth stream, Plynlimon (an acidic upland stream, the waters of which are of such low ionic strength that measurement is difficult), has been recorded using a new integrated field instrument system. The negligible drift of the pH electrode allows the system to operate for extended periods (months) without re-calibration, whilst maintaining a standard deviation of 0.19 pH units between its readings and laboratory reference measurements. Conductivity measurements, although within the sensor manufacturer's specification, did not provide meaningful readings at conductivities below 50 μS cm -1 . Using the pH data as a surrogate tracer, a high temporal resolution estimate of the stream dynamics, in terms of the contributions of groundwater and soil-water is presented; the dependence of these relative proportions on instantaneous flow and antecedent conditions is shown. It is concluded that, whilst improvements in instrumentation have been made, greater accuracy is still desirable for some scientific applications and ways forward are described.


This report is an attempt to present data regarding the sensitivities of Gram-negative bacilli to antibiotics in a manner that will be of maximum use to practicing physicians. Experience at the Milwaukee County General Hospital has shown that many cases of severe infections must be treated with antibiotics before the results of sensitivity tests are available to the ward physician. In these cases therapy which has been based on previous experience regarding the sensitivities of bacteria to the antibiotics usually has been successful. As a result of this experience the majority of cases of infections are now treated successfully with antibiotics that are selected on the basis of statistical studies rather than by specific sensitivity tests on each causative strain of bacteria. This has markedly reduced the number of sensitivity studies that must be done by the laboratory and allowed us to use the highly sensitive tube-dilution method for determining


The transformation towards EPCglobal networks requires technical equipment for capturing event data and IT systems to store and exchange them with supply chain participants. For the very first time, supply chain participants thus need to face the automatic exchange of event data with business partners. Data protection of sensitive business secrets is therefore the major aspect that needs to be clarified before companies will start to adopt EPCglobal networks. This book contributes to this proposition as follows: it defines the design of transparent real-time security extensions for EPCglobal networks based on in-memory technology. For that, it defines authentication protocols for devices with low computational resources, such as passive RFID tags, and evaluates their applicability. Furthermore, it outlines all steps for implementing history-based access control for EPCglobal software components, which enables a continuous control of access based on the real-time analysis of the complete query history and a fine-grained filtering of event data. The applicability of these innovative data protection mechanisms is underlined by their exemplary integration in the FOSSTRAK architecture.


Network-on-Chip (NoC) paradigm is rapidly evolving into an efficient interconnection network to handle the strict communication requirements between the increasing number of cores on a single chip. Diminishing transistor size is making the NoC increasingly vulnerable to both hard faults and soft errors. This paper concentrates on soft errors in NoCs. A soft error in an NoC router results in significant consequences such as data corruption, packet retransmission and deadlock among others. To this end, we propose Soft Error Tolerant NoC Router (STNR) architecture, that is capable of detecting and recovering from soft errors occurring in different control stages of the routing pipeline. STNR exploits the use of idle cycles inherent in NoC packet routing pipeline to perform time redundant executions necessary for soft error tolerance. In doing so, STNR is able to detect and correct all single transient faults in the control stages of the pipeline. Simulation results using PARSEC and SPLASH-2 benchmarks show that STNR is able to accomplish such high level of soft error protection with a minimal impact on latency (an increase of 1.7 and 1.6 percent respectively). Additionally, STNR incurs an area overhead of 7 percent and power overhead of 13 percent as compared to the baseline unprotected router.


Based on mass experiments, gain the relation between the consistence of diamond bit and life, power consumption and granularity. Considering the relation of them, deduce a new method of calcuation for consistence design of diamond bit according to the given depth map of incising rock with diamond. Proved by practice, the method of calculation has a better practicability and veracity.


University business incubators (UBIs) are organizations that provide new startup companies with a support environment. However, there are split opinions on the UBIs' contributions to the startups and the regional economy and, consequently, there are also split opinions on how to assess UBI performance. According to the resource-based view (RBV), a company's competitive advantage results from the various resources the company has access to. The biotechnology industry is characterized by high research intensity, weak entrepreneurial and managerial skills of the entrepreneur, huge capital requirements, and long product development approval processes. Previous research has showed that these characteristics imply certain challenges for new biotech ventures. In this study, these industry specific characteristic and challenges were believed to affect what constitutes successful bioincubation and how bio-incubators' performance should be assessed. The purpose of this report is, thus, to examine how bio-incubator performance can, and should be, assessed. An existing framework for assessing UBI performance is used as a basis for performing semistructured interviews with 18 incubator managers in order to examine what performance indicators are perceived as robust for assessing bio-incubator performance. The findings show that the value contributions of bio-incubators mainly include space and network provision, support services, and coaching. The perceived value contributions, in combination with the perceived challenges, imply that it is particularly appropriate to assess bio-incubators performance in terms of Job Creation, Economy Enhancement, Access to Funds, and the Incubator Offer and Internal Environment. However, Job Creation and Economy Enhancement are closely related and are therefore suggested to be merged into a single performance indicator. Hardware and Services, on the other hand, seems to be less relevant for assessing bio-incubator performance as it depends on the incubator's strategy. The study concludes that there are additional ways of assessing bio-incubator performance, such as shortened time to graduation, links with universities, and the flexibility of the incubator. Further research may include the entrepreneurs' point of view or use the approach of this study to examine incubator performance in other high-technology industries. Key-words: Biotechnology incubation; entrepreneurship in biotechnology; incubator performance; resource-based view; university business incubators


This paper aimed to assess the relations between the state and civil society in Zambia in the last thirty years of the country's plural political dispensation. The study sought to establish the extent to which the state and civil society regard each other as genuine associates to the cause of national development. The areas of study focused on human rights protection, adherence to the rule of law, economic accountability, and transparency. In the wake of greater importance being attached to good governance practices globally, these relations are critical to the realization of human development of citizens. Data for this study were collected from secondary research sources through academic journals, scholarly books, reports, and online publications. The study showed that the relations between the state and civil society are not conducive to advance development. The study revealed that on one hand, cheerleaders of government see civil society as being dog-eared with a belligerent anti-establishment prejudice, while on the other hand, civil society argue that the state's abuse of power and lack of respect for human rights is retarding Zambia's quest for transformation into a modern state. The study concluded that the absence of strong political institutions has encouraged a continuation of bad governance practices by the state. Therefore, civil society needs to strengthen its agency by forging new and otherwise unconventional collaborations with other stake holders. It is only by expanding the network of synergies that civil society will be able to successfully champion the cause of the citizens.


Research on social network sites has examined how people integrate offline and online life, but with a particular emphasis on their use by friendship groups. We extend earlier work by examining a case in which offline ties are non-existent, but online ties strong. Our case is a study of bodybuilders, who explore their passion with like-minded offline 'strangers' in tightly integrated online communities. We show that the integration of offline and online life supports passion-centric activities, such as bodybuilding.


In order to establish the influence of temperature upon the effect of varying doses of strychnin injected into frogs, the animals must be kept under observation for several days and at various definite degrees of temperature. Statements that the animal was kept "cold," "at room temperature," or "warm" are insufficient. With a certain dose tetanus may result constantly at 30° C. yet never appear at 21° C., and either of these temperatures might be described as warm, when compared to a room temperature of 15° C. Furthermore an animal may apparently fail to respond in the cold to an injection of certain doses of strychnin and yet be found in tetanic convulsions the next day. That an animal may have late, long lasting, or strong tetanus while kept at such a low temperature as 5° C. after an injection of a dose of strychnin smaller than 0.01 of a milligram per frog emphasizes the fact that great caution must be exercised in formulating laws as to the influence of temperature on drug action. The main results of this investigation may be summarized as follows: Doses of strychnin amounting to 0.0006 of a milligram per gram of frog will cause tetanus at all temperatures between 5° C. and 30° C., although at low temperatures the tetanus may appear late. A dose of 0.0003 of a milligram per gram of frog will frequently produce tetanus at 5° C. as well as at 30° or 27° C., but may nevertheless fail to produce any reaction at such an intermediary temperature as 21° C. Smaller doses, 0.0002 of a milligram per gram, will cause tetanus in the cold but not at high temperatures. It may be stated in general that in frogs kept at low temperatures the tetanic state sets in later, continues longer, and each tetanic attack is of longer duration, while in the interval between the attacks the state of tonus is higher and the animals are more irritable than when they are kept at higher temperatures.


Diversity combining is a technique in wireless network that uses multiple antenna system to improve the quality of radio signal. Mobile radio system suffers multipath propagation due to signal obstruction in the channel. A new hybridized diversity combining scheme consisting of Equal Gain Combining (EGC) and Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC) was proposed in this paper. Theperformance of the hybrid model was evaluated using Outage Probability (Pout) and Processing time (Pt) at different Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and Signal Paths (L=2,3) for 4-QAM and 8-QAM Modulation Schemes. A mathematical expression for the hybrid EGC-MRC was realized using the Probability Density Function (PDF) of the Nakagami fading channel. MATLAB R2015b software was used for the model simulation. The result shows that hybrid EGC-MRC outperforms the standalone EGC and MRC schemes by having lower Pout and Pt values. Hence, hybrid EGC-MRC exhibits enhanced potentials to mitigate multipath propagation at reduced system complexity.


In this paper, we map the distribution of scale-rayed wrasse Acantholabrus palloni in eastern Skagerrak based on a combination of verified and personally communicated angling records. Long thought to be occasional vagrants outside its known range in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, we ask if this rare and understudied labrid has expanded its range and become established in Swedish waters. A recent surge in verified angling records in the Swedish Anglers Association's specimen database Storfiskregistret provides information to suggest that this species should no longer be considered an occasional guest, but rather a species established in the Swedish parts of Skagerrak. These records are supported by additional personal communications with anglers. The species is currently well spread geographically along the Swedish Skagerrak coast, with many locations providing repeated captures of adult fish over multiple years. The typical Swedish catch sites are rocky reefs located between the general 40- and 80-m depth curves, likely influenced by currents bringing higher-salinity water from the North Sea. The present study show that angling records can provide an important, but underutilized, resource for mapping the distribution of data-deficient fish species.


Segregation distortion describes the transmission of an allele or alleles of a heterozygous locus at a higher frequency than expected in a Mendelian ratio. From the organism's view, segregation distortion is the preferential retention of chromosomal blocks carrying genes beneficial to its fitness and reproductive viability. In wheat the best studied segregation distorters are those introduced from Aegilops species; these selfish genetic elements are named gametocidal (Gc) genes and the chromosomes carrying them are called Gc chromosomes. This genetic mechanism causes chromosome breakage in gametophytes lacking the Gc carrier chromosome, thus favoring its own retention in the genome. While the mode of action of the Gc genes is not yet known, they have been used extensively in wheat genetics for the development of deletion stocks, a key resource for elucidating the structure of physical regions containing important genes. The objective of this study was to develop the tools necessary to map the Gc2 gene derived from Ae. sharonensis and perform map-based cloning. Extensive physical and genetic mapping located the gametocidal gene on the distal 1% of the 4BL arm present in the T4BS . 4BL-4S sh #1L translocation chromosome. Comparative genomics using rice provided markers distal and proximal to the Gc2 locus; however, synteny broke down at the locus. The characterization of this chromosomal region has provided insight into its recombination frequency, synteny and composition; however, the dynamic architecture of the end of the chromosome has made comparative mapping of this region difficult. GENOMIC TARGETING AND MAPPING OF A GAMETOCIDAL GENE IN WHEAT


Several commercially available and newly synthesized riluzole analogs were evaluated in vitro as voltage-gated skeletal muscle sodium-channel blockers. Data obtained from the patch-clamp technique demonstrated that potency is well correlated with lipophilicity and the introduction of a protonatable amino function in the benzothiazole 2-position enhances the use-dependent behavior. The most interesting compound, the 2-piperazine analog of riluzole (14), although slightly less potent than the parent compound in the patch-clamp assay as well as in an in vitro model of myotonia, showed greater use-dependent Nav1.4 blocking activity. Docking studies allowed the identification of the key interactions that 14 makes with the amino acids of the local anesthetic binding site within the pore of the channel. The reported results pave the way for the identification of novel compounds useful in the treatment of cell excitability disorders.


Background: Indwelling urinary catheters are frequently used in critically ill patients. Approximately 66% of patients in intensive care have a urinary catheter in place. Catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, affecting all ages. Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest public health challenges of our time. Infection with antibiotic-resistant bacteria has become an increasingly complex problem in ICU.  Objective: To identify catheter-associated uropathogens and their antimicrobial susceptibility pattern by VITEK2 automated system in intensive care unit patients in Rajshahi Medical College Hospital.
Material and Method: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in the Microbiology department of Rajshahi Medical College, the Intensive Care Unit of Rajshahi Medical College Hospital, and a commercial laboratory in Rajshahi during the period of January 2021 to December 2021. The specimen (urine) was inoculated in blood agar, nutrient agar, and MacConkey's agar media and incubated aerobically at 37˚C for 24 hours. Bacterial isolations and susceptibility tests were done by VITEK2 automated system.
Result: Out of the total 96 samples, culture yielded growth was 36 (37.50%), and culture-negative cases were 60(62.50%). In all age groups, males were predominant, totaling 63 (66.20%). A maximum of 33 cases were found in the age group of 18-30 years where males 23(69.70%) and females 10(30.30%). Among the culture-positive isolates, gram-negative organisms were higher (87.17%) than gram-positive (12.82%). Among 39 isolates, Escherichia coli was the predominant organism of 12(30.76%). Other isolates were Klebsiella spp. 10(25.64%), Pseudomonas spp. 5(12.82%), Acinetobacter spp. 4(10.25%), Enterobacter spp. 2(05.12%), CoNS 3(07.69%) respectively. Regarding the antimicrobial susceptibility test, gram-negative organisms were highly susceptible to Colistin, followed by Ertapenem, Imipenem, Meropenem, and Amikacin. The most effective drugs for Gram-positive were Linezolid. Other susceptible drugs against Gram-positive bacteria were Vancomycin and Tigecycline.
Conclusion: Most of the isolated bacteria are multidrug resistant. Determining antimicrobial susceptibility by VITEK2 will aid the physician in choosing appropriate antibiotics and treating multidrug-resistant cases.
TAJ 2022; 35: No-2: 43-49


ABSTRACT Parasitic gastropods of the genus Annulobalcis Habe, 1965 (family Eulimidae), associated with the crinoids (comatulids) are common in Nhatrang Bay (Southern Vietnam). Morphological examination of Annulobalcis specimens, collected in this area revealed four distinct forms, significantly different also in host specificity. Mitochondrial cox1 sequence data have shown these forms to comprise four distinct species, their relationships are discussed. As a result of morphological and molecular studies, four new species of the genus Annulobalcis are described: A. albus n. sp., A. wareni n. sp., A. maculatus n. sp., and A. vinarius n. sp. The three former species appeared to be strictly species specific in their choice of host (parasitizing a single host species each), while the latter was found on a number of hosts, although mostly on a single species. Speciation in relation to host specificity of Annulobalcis is discussed.


Three recent papers published in Nature, Science and Cell, all present clear evidence that there is cross-reactive T-cell immunity between human coronaviruses (229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1), linked with the common cold, and SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19. Can we use this information to design and build a new vaccine based on the less pathogenic, common cold coronaviruses, for the prevention of COVID-19? If we look at the history of medicine and vaccine development, from the point of view of Edward Jenner, the answer just might be yes.


This mixed-method study aimed to investigate the effect of Oral feedback (OF) vs. Written feedback (WF) on overall L2 writing performance and on the relevant sub-scores: organization, lexis, grammar, and coherence & cohesion. EFL (English as a Foreign Language) university students (N=74) from English Preparatory Program at a state Turkish University were selected and then divided into comparison (N=35) and experimental group (N=39) through convenient sampling. While completing three writing tasks on an argumentative essay for four weeks, the comparison group was exposed to traditional WF and the experimental group was exposed to OF. The quantitative data was collected from the scores of the first and last writing papers and was analyzed through independent and paired samples t-tests. The qualitative data was collected from semi-structured interviews with three participants from the experimental group and was analyzed through open and structural coding. The empirical findings indicated a significant effect of OF on both the overall writing performance and on the sub-scores. The qualitative results showed that the opportunity for meaningful interaction, clarification, and negotiation between the students and the teacher during OF helped the students from the experimental group to receive more detailed and constructive feedback, and to significantly improve their writing skills.


DOWNLOAD PDF The drainage system in Makassar City of Indonesia is intended to efficiently deliver waste water  (stormwater and greywater)  to the  receiving waters  downstream. There is no wastewater processing plant available. Thus, waste water,  from  households and industries located in  residential areas  was delivered  directly  to  the  drainage  system.  Nutrients,  like nitrogen and phosphorus, contained in the waste water was also delivered to the receiving waters. There is no data available on how much nutrient has entered the receiving waterbodies. We conducted a survei on the concentration of total- and soluble- nitrogen and phosphorus in surface water of Sinrijala Drainage and Pampang River that drained a heavily populated area in this city in November 2009. The cadmium reduction method was used to measure nitrogen, and the ascorbic acid method for phosphorus. Our survey showed that the surface water was potentially very eutrophic at the time of sampling. The concentration of TN (0,056-3,697 mg/L), TP (3,140-13,03 mg/L), and the respective soluble species (FRP: 0,028-2,935 -NO 3 -N: 0,187-0,601 mg/L) were well beyond the internationally accepted levels. The probable sources of these nutrients were domestic waste like deterjent, food scrapes and human waste. Key words:  Nutrients concentration, total nitrate, total phosphorus, nitrate-nitrogen, nitrite-nitrogen, urban drainage, Makassar.


This paper investigates the effect of exporting activities on the innovation strategies of European firms in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK. The paper puts forward the hypothesis that such a positive effect is driven two main mechanisms. The first is a technological learning effect that allows firms active in international markets to benefit from foreign knowledge spillovers in technologically advanced markets and decrease their research cost for the development of innovations. The second is a demand effect induced by fast-growing foreign markets that increase the potential output of firms. The empirical analysis, which addresses important endogeneity issues related with the strategic choice of the markets of destination operated by firms, shows that the two effects induce the adoption of different innovation strategies. While the technological learning effect positively affect the decision of firms to introduce brand new product innovations, the demand effect fosters the adoption of efficiency and imitation strategies. The paper shows that the effect of exporting activity on innovation strategies crucially depends on the type of export destinations. The lower levels of the technological learning effect which is found among the export destinations of Italian and Spanish firms might represent a possible obstacle for the ability of these countries to increase their future innovative capacities.


: Purpose: This paper is devoted to evaluating the efficiency of production systems using classification methods. These methods are not popular in application to manufacturing companies, therefore the possibility of their use in the process of system improvement and enhancement of business models is presented. Design/methodology/approach: The article uses classification methods, emphasizing their practical significance in assessing the performance of production processes. They allow the construction of a model for classifying new objects based on the relationships found in the collected empirical observations. Such data mining methods may find application primarily in non-computerized systems with limited information processing capabilities. Findings: The result of the publication is the presentation of a comprehensive method for assessing the efficiency of the production system. As a result, this solution will allow for more effective planning of processes and tasks, their ongoing correction, adequate to the available human, material and equipment resources, and reducing the risk of the system not being ready to perform the activities for which it is intended. Practical implications: The presented method is primarily used to assess the impact of selected factors on the efficiency of production processes as well as to support decisions in the area of production planning. Originality value: The presented model is built on the basis of archival data, but allows the transfer of the solution to cloud computing and obtaining readings in real time (online), which will allow for ongoing assessment and support of the operation of the investigated system in terms of monitoring and ongoing analysis of the implemented processes in real time, but also through the creation of simulation scenarios, considering decision-making options.


A cohort study of workers exposed to the chemical acrylonitrile (AN) was carried-out in the late 1980s by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to determine if there were any excess cancer risks associated with workplace exposures to AN. The results of the study did not show any overwhelming evidence that AN exposure was related to increased cancer risk, but did yield several results worth noting. Firstly, the authors reported an overall lung cancer risk of 3.6 for ever-smokers versus never-smokers, which appeared to be much too low. Secondly, there was a slight increase in the lung cancer relative risk due to exposure in the upper quintile of cumulative AN exposure. Lastly, there was a large proportion of missing smoking information for the employees selected in the sample.Because results of occupational cohort studies such as the NCI's are used as the basis for determining health risks associated with workplace exposures and because acrylonitrile is widely used in the manufacturing of plastics, it is very important from a public health perspective to eliminate any possible sources of confounding or bias. The goal of this reanalysis is to address the issues of missing smoking information and the low overall lung cancer relative risk in ever-smokers to determine if the slight excess in the highest AN exposure category appears to be valid. This was accomplished using imputation, a procedure that predicts a smoking status for the missings based on complete observations. The NCI analyses were then repeated with the imputed data to see if there were any differences in the overall smoking lung cancer RR or the lung cancer RR in the upper quintile of AN exposure.The overall lung cancer RR due smoking could not be increased dramatically using the weighting schemes in this paper. Also, the lung cancer RRs in the upper quintile of AN exposure were not much lower than those in the original NCI study, so their analysis with the missing smoking information does not appear to have been biased. However, the smoking adjusted lung cancer RRs for cumulative AN exposure using the imputed data have a much flatter exposure-response trend than the NCI analysis, which, when combined with the only slightly elevated RR in the upper exposure group, could be used as evidence against an increased lung cancer risk due to high AN exposure.


Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a rare condition that affects individuals aged 60 to 70. The underlying cause of the disorder is unknown. The main symptoms are dyspnoea and cough. Auscultation of the lungs reveals early inspiratory crackles. Diagnosis is made by high-resolution computed tomography. The evolution is progressive and variable, the average survival after diagnosis being 2-3 years. Although there is no specific treatment, various different treatments seem to improve the survival. Late diagnosis is the main issue because it limits the benefits of an early treatment. The solutions are to raise the awareness of family doctors, educate patients, strengthen the support provided by the health system, and adapt legislation to improve the accessibility of patients to appropriate diagnostic and treatment.


The secretory cells in the epithelium of mammalian oviducts produce and release various secretory materials into the lumen. Secretions from such cells provide a suitable environment for the events that occur in the oviductal lumen. This review focuses on the regional differentiation of the secretory cells in mammalian oviducts. Many histological studies have demonstrated regional variations in both the morphological and ultrastructural features of the secretory cells in the oviductal epithelium. Regional differences have been found, for example, in the number of putative secretory granules in the oviductal secretory cells. Histochemical and immunocytochemical studies have also revealed regional differences in the localization of various materials in the oviductal epithelium, suggesting the possibility of regional specificity in the production of various secretory materials by the oviductal epithelial cells. Recent biochemical and immunoelectron microscopical studies have shown that biosynthesis of specific proteins or glycoproteins is associated with region-specific variations in epithelial cells in different oviductal segments. In particular, certain oviduct-specific glycoproteins are produced by secretory cells in specific regions of the oviduct and these glycoproteins may affect fertilization, embryonic development, and sperm functions. The oviductal epithelial cell also provide physiological support to gametes and embryos. The interactions of oviductal epithelial cells with gametes support the development of embryos and the maintenance of sperm functions in vitro. Some studies using coculture systems have suggested regional differences associated with such physiological support by oviductal epithelial cells. Moreover, the expression of functional proteins, such as growth factors, show segmental variations within the oviduct. The regional variations demonstrated in these studies may reflect distinct functional differences among the various segments of the mammalian oviduct. The proposal is presented that despite the fact that the mammalian oviductal tissue is not very complex in terms of structure, the oviductal secretory cells may be highly differentiated along the length of the oviduct.


In today's fast paced world, the time available to watch long sports programmes is decreasing, while the number of sports channels is rapidly increasing. Many viewers desire the facility to watch just the highlights of sports events. This paper presents a simple, but effective, method for generating sports video highlights summaries. Our method detects semantically important events in sports programmes by using the Scale Factors in the MPEG audio bitstream to generate an audio amplitude profile of the program. The Scale Factors for the sub- bands corresponding to the voice bandwidth give a strong indication of the level of commentator and/or spectator excitement. When periods of sustained high audio amplitude have been detected and ranked, the corresponding video shots may be concatenated to produce a summary of the program highlights. Our method uses only the Scale Factor information that is directly accessible from the MPEG bitstream, without any decoding, leading to highly efficient computation. It is also rather more generic than many existing techniques, being particularly suitable for the more popular sports televised in Ireland such as soccer, Gaelic football, hurling, rugby, horse racing and motor racing.


Author(s): Li, Bo | Advisor(s): Ghosh, Abhijit | Abstract: Faults show complex slip behaviors at different sections depending mainly on their stress and friction distributions. In the seismogenic zone, a fast earthquake happens when the frictional resistance to fault movement reduces faster than the decrease in elastic stress due to fault slip, and it releases seismic energy that causes ground shaking. Increases in depth, temperature and pressure change the frictional properties from velocity weakening to strengthening. This deeper section is referred to as the creeping zone and shows stable sliding without any stress drop. In between, there is a transition zone where slow slip can occur on asperities embedded in the creeping region [Bartlow et al, 2011; Obara et al., 2011; Ghosh et al., 2012]. The slip cannot reach high enough velocities to produce regular earthquakes, but sometimes it is still able to radiate low amplitude and low frequency seismic waves [Peng a Gomberg, 2010]. Seismicity in the seismogenic zone can trigger slow slip in the transition zone. It can also change the stress and accelerate or decelerate the seismicity on adjacent faults or even on faults hundreds to thousands kilometers away when the earthquake is large enough. Conversely, slow slip in the transition zone can also change the surrounding stress field and increase the stress in the up-dip seismogenic zone, potentially advancing the timing of earthquake failure. In this dissertation, I study the broad spectrum of fault behaviors and explore the potential relationships between them. In Chapter 1, we give an introduction to fast and slow earthquakes and briefly introduce the main methods used to study them. In Chapter 2, I apply the back-projection method to two case studies: the 2015 Mw 8.3 Illapel earthquake, using one array with both low- and high-frequency bands imaging multiple rupture patches, and the 2015 Mw 7.8 Gorkha earthquake using multiple global arrays to image the rupture process and detect aftershocks. The back-projection results of the Gorkha earthquake imaged by different global arrays show similar rupture processes but vary in detail. One array shows continuous eastward rupture for ~60s while other arrays show a branching rupture to the northeast at ~45s. In addition, we combine multiple global arrays to improve the resolution of the back-projection method. The higher resolution also allows us to detect 2.6 times the number of aftershocks than that recorded in the global catalog. In Chapter 3, we apply the multi beam back-projection method (MBBP) to study the slow earthquakes of the Unalaska-Akutan region in the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone. We detect near-continuous tremor and low frequency earthquakes for nearly two years. The slow earthquakes are distributed heterogeneously in three clusters and are located deeper than those in other subduction zones. The tremors show both short and long-term migrations along strike and dip directions with a wide range of velocities. In addition, tremors and LFEs show strong spatio-temporal correlations. They are located in the same patches, and when there are LFEs bursts during tremor signals. We also observe some cases where local or regional earthquakes can terminate or amplify slow earthquake activity. In Chapter 4, we use the move-max matched filter method to detect small local earthquakes along the San Jacinto fault (SJF) zone that are triggered by the 2014 Mw 7.2 Papanoa earthquake. Using the catalog events as templates, the move-max matched filter method detects 5.4 times the number of earthquakes recorded in the ANSS and SCSN catalog, while the matched-filter method only distinguishes 3.2 times the number of catalog events using the same detection threshold. After relocation using hypoDD, we find a new normal fault with strike almost perpendicular to the SJF. More than one mechanism may be responsible for triggering earthquakes. The transient dynamic stresses may have triggered slow slip or fault creep, and lead to the increased and protracted seismicity along the San Jacinto Fault (SJF). In addition, the time-dependent acceleration to failure process initiated by the dynamic stress change can result in the enhanced seismicity on the new fault.


Idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) is a treatable, neurological disorder affecting the elderly population causing gait, balance, cognitive and micturition impairments. Treatment results in a clinical improvement in up to 80% of patients. Unfortunately, the pathophysiology is still incompletely understood, the clinical picture needs to be clarified, and no reliable, predictive biomarkers exist. The overall aim of this thesis was to elucidate on the development and pathophysiology of iNPH by describing the clinical and radiological phenotype as well as the involvement of known vascular risk factors in the disease, and by investigating the specific role of the brainstem in iNPH. A further aim was to explore the predictive potential of several clinical and radiological biomarkers. In Study I, radiological and clinical signs of iNPH were associated with vascular risk factors and white matter lesions in a large, population-based sample. Study II showed that a majority of patients have symptoms from at least three of four symptom groups at the time of diagnosis, but the severity is greatly varied. In addition, paratonia, a less well-recognized symptom is seen in most patients and should be considered a core finding of iNPH. Further, the postoperative improvement seen in the majority of patients involve all symptom groups. Study III showed that while all patients have ventriculomegaly, several other morphological MRI findings are seen only in a subgroup of patients and should not be required for the diagnosis. In addition, no morphological MRI marker had any predictive value, and, as such, they should not be used to exclude patients from shunt surgery. In Study IV, diffusion changes in the mesencephalon and pons were evident preand postoperatively in all patients, and responders showed a significant relative cerebral blood flow increase postoperatively, correlating to the degree of clinical improvement. In conclusion, vascular changes are probably involved in the development of iNPH. While several clinical and radiological findings are characteristic of the disease, the severity is profoundly varied among patients and cannot be used for prediction. The brainstem seems to be involved in the core symptom generation in iNPH and further studies focusing on this area are warranted.


RELIABILITY OF DIGITAL DENTAL CAST MEASURES AS COMPARED TO CONE-BEAM COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY FOR ANALYZING THE TRANSVERSE DIMENSION Brian M. Michel, D.D.S. Marquette University, 2017 The purpose of this study was to assess the consistency in diagnosing the transverse dimension on cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images as compared to digital dental models. The study consisted of 11 patients with posterior crossbite at the level of the first molar and 17 patients with no crossbite at the level of the first molar. 13 patients were male and 15 patients were female with an overall mean age of 13.6 years. Eight linear measurements and two angular measurements were made on CBCT images of the patients and six linear measurements were made on the corresponding digital dental casts. CBCT and model measurements were compared using One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Pearson correlation tests were used to seek relationships between the dental and skeletal measurements on CBCT. All ratios between maxillary and corresponding mandibular measurements were larger in non-crossbite patients than in crossbite patients. The central fossa (CF) was found to be the most representative and reliable tooth measurement in judging dental and skeletal transverse dimensions. A normative CF-CF ratio was determined to be equal to or greater than 1.10 for non-crossbite patients. High correlations were found between dental and skeletal measurements for non-crossbite patients with a CF-CF ratio equal to or greater than 1.10, but were not found for crossbite patients with a CF-CF ratio less than 1.10. In conclusion, CBCT scans may not provide additional diagnostic information as compared to dental models for non-crossbite patients. However, CBCT scans may be diagnostically beneficial for crossbite patients. Further studies with a larger sample size are needed to determine the validity of this study.


Introduction: Multistaged surgical management of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), culminating in ileal pouch-anal anastomosis (IPAA), can provide cure for refractory IBD symptoms while maintaining fecal continence. Surgical approaches to IPAA historically included a three-stage approach done by subtotal colectomy (STC) followed by IPAA with diversion. Recently, a variant two-stage approach without diversion at IPAA has become increasingly utilized, yet evidence of the efficacy of this approach is limited. Methods: Retrospective review of patients aged 5-21 years who underwent initial STC, followed by a total proctocolectomy with IPAA +/- diversion for medically refractory IBD from January 2010 to August 2018 (n = 25). Results: Majority of IPAA procedures were done laparoscopically (88.5%). Thirteen patients (52%) underwent two-stage variant IPAA. There were no differences in readmission rates (66.7% versus 53.8%, P = .5) or reoperation rates (50% versus 30.8%, P = .3) between groups. Forty percent of patients experienced a complication after IPAA. Complication rates were similar between two-stage and three-stage IPAA groups (38.5% versus 50%, P = .33). Complications within the two-stage group included anastomotic leak, pouchitis, wound infection, anastomotic stricture, and incarcerated hernia. Complications within the three-stage group included bloody ostomy output, dehydration, anastomotic stricture, small bowel obstruction, and pouch volvulus. Conclusions: Treatment of refractory IBD in children remains challenging, but STC followed by IPAA is an approach that provides symptom relief and preserves continence. Complication rates remained unchanged regardless of whether IPAA was conducted with or without diversion, demonstrating that the two-stage variant approach is a safe and feasible treatment that may reduce subsequent anesthesia exposure and trips to the operating room.


In an earlier study, we reported that chronic intravenous administration of the V1 agonist [Phe2,Ile3,Orn8]vasopressin (V1AG) results in sustained hypertension. The present study was designed to determine whether V1-induced hypertension may be related specifically to intrarenal actions of this peptide. Chronic infusion of the V1 agonist into the medullary interstitial space of a single remaining kidney of normal, conscious Sprague-Dawley rats at the rate of 2 ng.kg-1.min-1 for 14 days resulted in a sustained rise of 18 mmHg of mean arterial pressure (MAP). After withdrawal of V1AG, MAP returned to the baseline level. During the first day of V1AG infusion, there was a net loss of body sodium and no evidence of fluid retention throughout the period of hypertension. Plasma osmolality, sodium and potassium concentration, and water intake and body weight were not significantly affected by medullary interstitial infusion of V1AG. Renal medullary interstitial infusion of an equimolar amount of arginine vasopressin (AVP) did not affect MAP. Chronic medullary interstitial infusion of the selective V1 antagonist d(CH2)5[Tyr(Me)2,Ala-NH(2)9]AVP in equimolar amounts (2.5 ng.kg-1.min-1) prevented the MAP increase elicited by intravenous V1AG. However, intravenous administration of the V1 antagonist at the same rate together with V1AG (n = 7) failed to prevent hypertension. The results indicate that hypertension can be elicited by chronic stimulation of renal medullary V1 vasopressin receptors. They also suggest that some V2 agonistic properties of AVP may restrict the hypertensive action of this hormone. The mechanism for the rise of arterial pressure remains to be determined.


Netherlandish Sculptors as Designers of Architecture in Sixteenth-Century Northern Europe This paper discusses the complex process of architectural design in the sixteenth century Netherlandish tradition, in particular the diffusion of architectural knowledge between various crafts. Moreover, it demonstrates how architectural drawings served as the key tool of communication between various individuals involved In architectural design, including the patrons. Sixteenth century witnessed a widespread dissemination of architectural knowledge among exponents of various crafts, in particular sculptors. Motivated by a variety of factors, ranging from the inflence of Vitruvian theory to purely economic considerations, sculptor-architects became actively involved in designing architecture as well as the actual building works. Such sculptor-architects were highly versatile artists, involved in designing civil and military architecture, town planning and the like. Quite often they also acted as consultants, conducting a quality control of a building project. The growing involvement of sculptors in architectural design corresponded to a profound transformation of Netherlandish sculpture itself, where architectural elements began to play a central role. Embarking on architectural design, sculptor-architects had to closely cooperate with building masters, engineers and other professionals involved in the building industry. In this highly flxible and competitive environment, architectural drawing became the main tool of communication, the primary carrier of architectural ideas allowing for an exchange between architects, building masters, engineers and their learned patrons.


Based on the theory of unbalanced growth, we analyze priority strategy of different regions in China. It is prior to enhance the quality of urbanization in the East, make a long-term planning for construction of small towns, focus on harmony between human and nature, so as to realize its development to integrate with international urbanization level. For the middle areas, urbanization and construction of new countryside should be developed simultaneously, take a road of interactive development of urban and rural areas, finally to raise the level of urbanization. As to the western areas, it is required to firstly build new countryside, focus on construction of infrastructural facilities, adjust and optimize structure of agricultural production, and push forward the agricultural industrialization.


Embryonic stem cells offer hope for new therapies, but their use and research entail an ethical problem, which does not have a certain solution. Therefore, we can ask: What exactly are the ethical arguments? Why are they so tricky to resolve?Embryonic stem cell research poses a moral dilemma. It forces us to choose between two moral principles: The duty to prevent or alleviate suffering The duty to respect the value of human life To obtain embryonic stem cells, the early embryo has to be destroyed. This means destroying a potential human life. Although embryonic stem cell research could lead to the discovery of new methods of treatment of many diseases (mostly for Parkinson''s disease and Alzheimer disease) that would alleviate the suffering of many people. Which moral principle should have the upper hand in this situation depends on how we view the embryo.The moral status of the embryo is a controversial and complex issue. On the one hand, an early embryo that has not yet implanted into the uterus does not have the psychological, emotional or physical properties that we associate with being a person. So, it does not have any interests to be protected and we can use it for the benefit of patients. On the other hand, by taking embryonic stem cells out of an early embryo, we prevent the embryo from developing in its normal way, from becoming what it was programmed to become – a human being.Another point of view is that the embryo has increasing status as it develops. There are several stages of development that could be given increasing moral status: 1) implantation of the embryo into the uterus wall around six days after fertilization; 2) appearance of the primitive streak – the beginnings of the nervous system – at around 14 days; 3) the phase when the baby could survive if born prematurely; 4) birth.Different religions view the status of the early human embryo in different ways. For example, in Christianity the embryo has the status of a human from conception and no embryo research should be permitted. Judaism and Islam emphasize the importance of helping others and argue that the embryo does not have full human status before 120 days, so both religions permit some research on embryos.So, if we are not sure whether a fertilized egg should be considered a human being, then we should not destroy it. A hunter does not shoot if he is not sure whether his target is a deer or a man.


Can we develop visually grounded dialog agents that can efficiently adapt to new tasks without forgetting how to talk to people? Such agents could leverage a larger variety of existing data to generalize to new tasks, minimizing expensive data collection and annotation. In this work, we study a setting we call "Dialog without Dialog", which requires agents to develop visually grounded dialog models that can adapt to new tasks without language level supervision. By factorizing intention and language, our model minimizes linguistic drift after fine-tuning for new tasks. We present qualitative results, automated metrics, and human studies that all show our model can adapt to new tasks and maintain language quality. Baselines either fail to perform well at new tasks or experience language drift, becoming unintelligible to humans. Code has been made available at this https URL


Selection can act to maintain alleles within a population through many mechanisms that, taken together, constitute balancing selection. Over the course of primate and human evolution, balancing selection has repeatedly acted upon the species. Though ancient causes and effects may never be fully known or appreciated, current, ongoing, balancing selection can be observed in the human genome today. This is particularly true in genes related to immune response and pathogen defence, reproductive fitness and environmental stressors. In understanding balancing selection, it is possible to see the history of humanity's natural challenges as well as evolution's response.

Keywords:

balancing selection;
human evolution;
overdominance;
MHC;
human polymorphism


Worldwide, an estimated 63,000 children a year are born with s-thalassemia, most of them in Southeast Asia and the Mediterranean. The exact number of cases in China is not known, but it is clear that the disease strains health resources. To ease the disease burden, the Chinese government has embarked on a comprehensive prevention program featuring population screening, prenatal diagnosis, and genetic research funding. The goal is to do as well as a program in Cyprus that reduced s-thalassemia incidence from 1 per 158 births in the 1970s to close to zero today. But combating the disease could prove challenging.


The objective of this study was to investigate the reliability and validity of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) in a non-clinical sample consisting of younger and older adults. There has been little research validating the PSQI with respect to multinight recording as with actigraphy, and more validation is needed in samples not specifically selected for clinical disturbance. Also, the degree to which the PSQI scores may reflect depressive symptoms versus actual sleep disturbance remains unclear. One-hundred and twelve volunteers (53 younger and 59 older) were screened for their ability to perform treadmill exercises; inclusion was not based on sleep disturbance or depression. Internal homogeneity was evaluated by correlating PSQI component scores with the global score. Global and component scores were correlated with a sleep diary, actigraphy, and centers for epidemiological studies — depression scale scores to investigate criterion validity. Results showed high internal homogeneity. PSQI global score correlated appreciably with sleep diary variables and the depression scale, but not with any actigraphic sleep variables. These results suggest that the PSQI has good internal homogeneity, but may be less reflective of actual sleep parameters than a negative cognitive viewpoint or pessimistic thinking. The sleep complaints measured may often be more indicative of general dissatisfaction than of any specifically sleep-related disturbance.


The crystal structure of ferrites including garnets and their methods of preparation are first reviewed. This is followed by an examination of microwave ferrite devices and their application to actual systems. Sufficient theoretical details as well as an extensive though not exhaustive list of references are included for ready reference. The most widely used microwave ferrite device is the isolator, a device which possesses nonreciprocal properties. The function of this device in various configurations is therefore studied in some detail. Then, ferrite-phase shifters, including the latching variety, circulators, modulators, power limiters, switches, amplifiers, delay lines, and filters are examined in turn. Microwave ferrite devices, in particular isolators and circulators, are commonly used in the laboratory. Other devices, such as modulators, limiters, and switches, are used respectively in microwave systems in carrier modulation, receiver protection, and antenna switching, etc. Much of the ferrite device research and development in recent years has been concerned with the Y -junction circulator and the coincidence power limiter.


Shape optimization of the airfoil with high aspect ratio of long endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is performed by the multi-objective optimization technology coupled with computational fluid dynamics (CFD). For predicting the aerodynamic characteristics around the airfoil the high-fidelity Navier-Stokes solver is employed and SMOGA (Simple Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm), which is developed by authors, is used for solving the multi-objective optimization problem. To obtain the optimal solutions of the design variable (i.e., sectional airfoil profile, wing taper ratio and sweep) for high performance of UAVs, both the lift and lift-to-drag ratio are maximized whereas the pitching moment should be minimized, simultaneously. It is found that the lift force and lift-to-drag ratio are linearly dependent and a unique and dominant solution are existed. However, a trade-off phenomenon is observed between the lift-to-drag ratio and pitching moment. As the result of optimization, sixty-five (65) non-dominated Pareto individuals at the cutting edge of design spaces that are decided by airfoil shapes can be obtained. Keywords— Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), Airfoil, CFD, Shape optimization, Lift-to-drag ratio, Genetic Algorithm.


ABSTRACT This paper reviews the latest mechanisation programme by the Mozambican government, asking how it is politically driven and how it shapes and is shaped by agrarian structures. Old ideas about agrarian dualism are reproduced today, albeit with a new language of public-private partnerships that are seen as potentially driving the modernisation of the peasantry. State-sponsored and privately-run service centres, featuring zinc roofed warehouses, are the government's preferred route to modernisation, yet failing to reach the average farmer and understanding the motives and predicaments of private managers. Emerging small to medium farmers, who keep tractors under shady mango trees in their backyards, are also offering mechanisation services to their peers, which are instrumental to stepping up their production and commercial activities. The state's push for mechanisation feeds uneven patterns of accumulation and social differentiation.


We investigated in a murine model whether UVB irradiation of lymphohemopoietic cells would prevent the development of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Preliminary experiments showed that spleen colony (CFU-S) formation by hemopoietic cells was preserved at UVB doses that eliminated lymphocyte proliferation. In a parent into F1 model, UVB irradiation (5 to 15 mJ/cm2) of spleen cells added to normal marrow cells prevented the development of GVHD, whereas all recipients given untreated spleen cells developed GVHD. Syngeneic recipients of marrow exposed to 2.5 to 10 mJ/cm2 of UVB achieved normal hemopoietic reconstitution. Based on these observations, B6D2 F1 (H-2b x H-2d) recipients were given 1,000 cGy of total body irradiation (TBI) followed by transplantation of 5 x 10(6) parental B6 (H-2b) bone marrow cells and 10 x 10(6) B6 spleen cells, either unirradiated or exposed to UVB before infusion. All mice transplanted with cells exposed to 10 or 12.5 mJ/cm2 of UVB survived without GVHD. At 2.5 and 5.0 mJ/cm2, mice showed signs of GVHD, beginning at day 30, and 100% and 80%, respectively, eventually developed chronic GVHD. At 7.5 mJ/cm2, mice had weight loss, from which 60% recovered and survived without GVHD, while 40% died with GVHD. At 15 mJ/cm2, some recipients died from graft failure, while some survived without GVHD. All surviving mice were complete donor-type chimeras. Spleen size and cellularity and in vitro lymphocyte responses correlated inversely with the development of GVHD. Mice without GVHD showed specific tolerance to skin grafts from the second parent strain, while animals with GVHD rejected their skin grafts. Thus, in a murine model UVB irradiation of transplanted hemopoietic stem cells allows for hemopoietic reconstitution and prevents GVHD.


The use of policies within autonomic computing has received significant interest in the recent past. Policy-driven management offers significant benefit since it makes it more straight forward to define and modify systems behavior at run-time, through policy manipulation, rather than through re- engineering. In this paper, we present an adaptive policy-driven autonomic management system which makes use of reinforcement learning methodologies to determine how to best use a set of active policies to meet different performance objectives. The focus, in particular, is on strategies for adapting what has been learned for one set of policy actions to a ";similar"; set of policies when run-time policy modifications occur. We illustrate the impact of the adaptation strategies on the behavior of a multi-component Web server.


Incentivized experiments in which individuals receive monetary rewards according to the outcomes of their decisions are regarded as the gold standard for preference elicitation in experimental economics. These task-related real payments are considered necessary to reveal subjects' "true preferences". Using a systematic, large-sample approach with three subject pools of private investors, professional investors, and students, we test the e ↵ ect of task-related monetary incentives on risk preferences elicited in four standard experimental tasks. We find no systematic di ↵ erences in behavior between subjects in the incentivized and non-incentivized regimes. We discuss implications for academic research and for applications in the field.


An original model based on first principles is constructed for the temporal correlation of acoustic waves propagating in random scattering media. The model describes the dynamics of wave fields in a previously unexplored, moderately strong (mesoscopic) scattering regime, intermediate between those of weak scattering, on the one hand, and diffusing waves, on the other. It is shown that by considering the wave vector as a free parameter that can vary at will, one can provide an additional dimension to the data, resulting in a tomographic-type reconstruction of the full space-time dynamics of a complex structure, instead of a plain spectroscopic technique. In Fourier space, the problem is reduced to a spherical mean transform defined for a family of spheres containing the origin, and therefore is easily invertible. The results may be useful in probing the statistical structure of various random media with both spatial and temporal resolution.


Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the world to change its approach to medical education with most of the undergraduate (UG) teaching shifting to online mode. As in other colleges in India, we also switched to online classes for both UG and postgraduate (PG) students in April 2020. We intend to share our preliminary experience about the acceptance and performance of these online classes in Pediatrics. Methodology: For UGs, we studied the attendance and marks of term ending summative assessment of batch of 2020 who attended online classes and compared them to the attendance and marks of the term ending summative assessment of the previous three batches (2017, 2018, and 2019). We also obtained a feedback on a prevalidated questionnaire from the UG as well as PG students. Results: The mean ± standard deviation (SD) attendance of the batch of 2020 was 81.6 ± 16.2%, while that of the 2017, 2018, and 2019 batch during the same period was 84.9 ± 10.9%, 92.6 ± 4.8%, and 83.0 ± 7.6% respectively. Similarly, the mean ± SD marks for the batch of 2020 was 74.8 ± 6.5% while it was 66.9 ± 9.4%, 58.6 ± 10.1%, and 60.9 ± 9.7% for 2017, 2018, and 2019 batches, respectively. The feedback obtained from both UGs and PGs was satisfactory in relation to the acceptance of the online mode. Conclusion: The online classes in Pediatrics are a reasonable alternative to the onsite classes in the prevailing situation.