Objectives To survey internal medicine physicians and residents who have completed residency in three different eras of medical training regarding their experiences during their intern year and their perceptions of duty-hour reform. Methods An online survey was administered to 268 residents, fellows, and staff physicians who had completed or were completing residency during one of three eras of training: before the 80-hour work week, after the 80-hour work week (instituted in 2003), and after the 16-hour limit on continuous shifts for interns (instituted in 2011). The survey assessed experiences during their intern year of residency and perceptions regarding resident duty-hour reform. Results The majority of respondents (n = 32; 54%) indicated that duty-hour restrictions would result in residents being less prepared for their future careers. In addition, 36% (n = 21) of respondents anticipated a decrease in the quality of patient care under the restricted duty hours. A total of 41% (n = 24) were undecided regarding the impact of duty-hour reform on patient care. Respondents reported time spent on independent study, research, and conference attendance did not increase following the institution of duty-hour restrictions. Conclusions Survey responses indicated that after 18 months of experience with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education duty-hour restrictions, physician opinions were mixed and a substantial number remain undecided regarding the impact of duty-hour restrictions on resident career preparedness and the quality of patient care.


Plant Nomenclature is an essential requirement for publications in drug discovery and in pharmacological investigations in modern and traditional medical systems. Mostly names of plants can be presented by pharmaceutical names or scientific binomial names. In this paper, good and bad aspects of both systems are discussed in the context of the recent scientific nomenclatural framework and the systems for its practical applicability. WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring and is responsible for the WHO Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) database that currently contains 3.6 million records. Numerous plant species are used in various formulations of TCM but we are not sure which particular plant species is used as a whole plant or plant part is used for example Aloe and Piper . In order to monitor pharmacovigilance to herbal medicine products the following nomenclatural criteria are important: (i) only one species of plant name should indicate; (ii) author citation is essential; (iii) it should indicate which of plant part is used. Scientific botanical nomenclature as defined by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature will a better option. We are of the belief that the adoption of scientific names of plants to denote plant ingredients in traditional formulations are strongly endorsed. This decision if adopted will satisfies all criteria set up by upgrading an old inconsistent system used in publications and formulations will become obsolete.


This now famous book was the first treatise to be written by a potter on the workshop traditions handed down by Koreans and Japanese from the greatest period of Chinese ceramics in the Sung dynasty. It deals with four types of pottery: Japanese raku, English slipware, stoneware and oriental porcelain. With its help, potters can learn how to adapt recipes for pigments and glazes, and designs of kilns, to local conditions. It gives a vivid workshop picture of the making of a kiln-load of pots from start to finish, and is eloquent on the position of the individual or artist-potter in an industrial age. It is a book that is primarily intended for practical craftsmen and students, but it also has a strong appeal for all lovers of ceramics and for everyone with an interest in cultural interchange between East and West.


3D printing is contributing to a global trend toward customization, user innovation and democratisation of design and manufacture. A key element of 3D printing is that computer aided design ('CAD') files are used to instruct printers to create physical 3D products. This article explores patent liability for creators of CAD files that provide directions for the creation of potentially infringing products. This analysis compares the Australian position to that in the US and UK. One US commentator has suggested that 3D printing will leave patentees helpless to combat widespread infringement. By examining direct and indirect infringement case law this paper finds that Australian law creates relatively clear liability for the creation and distribution of CAD files.


The expression of five innate immune-related genes crustin (MjCrus), lysozyme (MjLyz), penaeidin (MjPEN), Toll-like Receptors (MjToll), and Tumor Necrosis Factor (MjTNF) in the lymphoid organ (LO) and intestine of kuruma shrimp (Marsupenaeus japonicus) was investigated after challenge with Vibrio nigripulchritudo. Bacteria (1 x 105 CFU/ml) were injected into the second abdominal segment of the shrimp. The LO and intestine were isolated at 3, 12, 24, and 48 h post-injection, and total RNA was extracted. The expression of MjCrus, MjLyz, MjPEN MjToll, and MjTNF was determined by semi-quantitative RT-PCR. In the LO, expression levels of MjCrus, MjLyz, MjPEN, MjToll, and MjTNF were significantly higher in infected shrimp than in uninfected animals. The intestine of shrimp infected with V. nigripulchritudo exhibited higher expression of MjCrus, MjLyz, MjPEN, and MjTNF than did that of uninfected animals. However, intestinal MjToll expression levels were similar in both groups. These results suggested that MjCrus, MjLyz, MjPEN, MjToll, and MjTNF may play an important role in the immune defense of kuruma shrimp exposed to V. nigripulchritudo.

 Key words: Kuruma shrimp Marsupenaeus japonicus, innate immune-related gene, infection, Vibrio nigripulchritudo.


Multi-task learning has the potential to facilitate learning of shared representations between tasks, leading to better task performance. Some sets of tasks are related, and can share many features that are useful latent representations for these tasks. Other sets of tasks are less related, possibly sharing some features, but also competing on the representational resources of shared parameters. We propose to discover how to share parameters between related tasks and split parameters between conflicting tasks, by learning a multi-clustering of the tasks. We present a mixture-of-experts model, where each cluster is an expert that extracts a feature vector from the input, and each task belongs to a set of clusters whose experts it can mix. In experiments on the CIFAR-100 MTL domain, multi-clustering outperforms a model that mixes all experts in accuracy and computation time. The results suggest that the performance of our method is robust to regularization that increases the model's sparsity when sufficient data is available, and can benefit from sparser models as data becomes scarcer.


The Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus (Stegomya albopicta) originating from south-east Asia, has spread primarily by the trade of used tyres to the United States, Europe, Latin America and Africa [1]. In Italy, the mosquito species was first detected in Genoa in 1990 and has since spread to several parts of the country, including border areas with Switzerland [2]. In 2000, an active monitoring system was established in southern Switzerland. The first tiger mosquito was detected in the canton of Ticino in 2003 [3]. Monitoring was gradually intensified due to growing mosquito densities in northern Italy. As the long-distance migration of Ae. albopictus depends on passive transport, the monitoring system consisted of strategically positioned oviposition traps along main traffic axes, including parking lots within industrial complexes, border crossings and shopping centres. In 2007, this monitoring system consisted of over 70 checkpoints with a total of 300 traps. Bi-weekly control visits to all traps were conducted between April and November 2007. As soon as eggs were detected, the surrounding vegetation within a perimeter of about 100 metres was sprayed with permethrin against adult mosquitoes. Stagnant water was treated with Bacillus thuringiensis and in some cases with diflubenzuron to control the larval stages.


The necessity of conducting regional genetic monitoring (GM) is substantiated, an experience on its organization and the procedure of its carrying out with the help of computer technology is provided. The analysis of GM indicated that the incidence of developmental defects registered and listed is in the population limits. Proceeding from the example of anencephaly , the role of GM in the assessment of the effectiveness of comprehensive measures on prevention of birth of children with grave defects has been demonstrated.


Purpose: Smoking is a potent inducer of cytochrome P450 (CYP) 1A2 and may affect the pharmacokinetics of CYP1A2 metabolized drugs. The effect of smoking on the pharmacokinetics of imatinib, which is metabolized by CYP3A4 and partly by CYP1A2, is unknown. We studied the effect of smoking on imatinib pharmacokinetics, safety, and efficacy. Experimental Design: Imatinib pharmacokinetics, safety, and efficacy was analyzed in 45 patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) or soft-tissue sarcoma included in two European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Soft Tissue and Bone Sarcoma Group trials, including 15 smokers and 30 nonsmokers. Apparent oral clearance, distribution volume, elimination half-life, and dose-standardized area under the concentration curve (AUC) were assessed in 34 patients using nonlinear mixed-effect modeling. Results: Mean ± SD pharmacokinetic variables in smokers (n = 9) versus nonsmokers (n = 25) groups were 9.6 ± 5.5 versus 9.2 ± 4.6 L/h (apparent oral clearance), 216.5 ± 114.3 versus 207.0 ± 116.9 L (distribution volume), 16.1 ± 6.0 versus 16.5 ± 6.0 h (elimination half-life), and 133.6 ± 71.0 versus 142.3 ± 84.0 ng h/mL mg area under the concentration curve; P > 0.05. Smokers experienced more grade 2/3 anemia (P = 0.010) and fatigue (P = 0.011) and those with GIST had a significantly shorter overall survival (P = 0.037) and time to progression (P = 0.052). Conclusions: This retrospective study suggests that the pharmacokinetics of imatinib is not affected by smoking. However, smokers have an increased risk of anemia and fatigue. Smokers with GIST have a shorter overall survival and time to progression.


This article argues that Aristophanes' Clouds treats Socrates as distinctly interested in promoting self-knowledge of the sort related to self-improvement. Section I shows that Aristophanes links the precept γνῶθι σαυτόν ('know yourself') with Socrates. Section II outlines the meaning of that precept for Socrates. Section III describes Socrates' conversational method in the Clouds as aimed at therapeutic self-revelation. Section IV identifies the patron Cloud deities of Socrates' school as also concerned to bring people to a therapeutic self-understanding, albeit in a different register from that of Socrates. Section V discusses a sequence of jokes connected to 'stripping' that give a concrete image to the search for self-knowledge. Both the action of the Clouds and the tales of cloak-stripping provide models for understanding self-knowledge in a Socratic key. Section VI argues that Socrates' other interest in the phrontistērion, myth-rationalization, is consistent with the promotion of self-knowledge. Section VII supports the claim that Plato's Phaedrus alludes constantly to the Clouds, and because the Phaedrus pays careful attention to self-knowledge, Plato must think that the Clouds does too. It notes in particular that we can explain the Platonic Socrates' famous self-knowledge-related curiosity about his similarity to Typhon (230a) as Plato's allusion to Aristophanes, an allusion made apt by Aristophanes' coordination of Socrates with self-knowledge. Section VIII concludes the paper.


Massless interacting scalar fields in de Sitter space have long been known to experience large fluctuations over length scales larger than Hubble distances. A similar situation arises in condensed matter physics in the vicinity of a critical point, and in this better-understood situation these large fluctuations indicate the failure in this regime of mean-field methods. We argue that for non-Goldstone scalars in de Sitter space, these fluctuations can also be interpreted as signaling the complete breakdown of the semi-classical methods widely used throughout cosmology. By power-counting the infrared properties of Feynman graphs in de Sitter space we find that for a massive scalar interacting through a λ 4 interaction, control over the loop approximation is lost for masses smaller than m √λ H/2π, where H is the Hubble scale. We briefly discuss some potential implications for inflationary cosmology.


An emerging literature has demonstrated an association between the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) gene and volumetric brain abnormalities in children with ADHD. However, these results have not been extended to adults and have not addressed the impact of comorbidity. Our objective was to examine the DRD4 7R gene and volumetric brain abnormalities in adults with ADHD while accounting for comorbidity with bipolar disorder (BPD). Subjects were male and female adult outpatient referrals stratified into two diagnostic groups: 24 with ADHD, 19 with ADHD and BPD, as well as 20 male and female adult community controls without ADHD or BPD. We measured volumes (cm3) of a priori selected brain regions (superior frontal, middle frontal, anterior cingulate, and cerebellum cortices) by structural magnetic resonance imaging. Among adults with ADHD, subjects with the 7‐repeat allele of the DRD4 gene had a significantly smaller mean volume in the superior frontal cortex and cerebellum cortex compared to subjects without this allele. In contrast, no such effects were detected in the adults with ADHD + BPD or controls. Our findings suggest that volumetric abnormalities in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and cerebellum may represent an intermediate neuroanatomical phenotype between DRD4 genotype and the clinical expression of ADHD in adults, but only in ADHD subjects without comorbid BPD. These result support the heterogeneity of ADHD and provides insights as to its underlying pathophysiology. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


In survival analysis, proportional hazards model is the most commonly used and the Cox model is the most popular. These models are developed to facilitate statistical analysis frequently encountered in medical research or reliability studies. In analyzing real data sets, checking the validity of the model assumptions is a key component. However, the presence of complicated types of censoring such as double censoring and partly intervalcensoring in survival data makes model assessment difficult, and the existing tests for goodness-of-fit do not have direct extension to these complicated types of censored data. In this work, we use empirical likelihood (Owen, 1988) approach to construct goodnessof-fit test and provide estimates for the Cox model with various types of censored data. Specifically, the problems under consideration are the two-sample Cox model and stratified Cox model with right censored data, doubly censored data and partly interval-censored data. Related computational issues are discussed, and some simulation results are presented. The procedures developed in the work are applied to several real data sets with some discussion.


This study is concerned with the Administration of Philip III of
Spainp and suggests that it was with that Administration rather
than with the Duke of Lerma that real power lay. Lerma himself is
seen as a courtier, concerned to enrich himself and his family and
quite unconcerned with affairs of state - save where they impinged
upon his own cupidity or upon his relationship with the King. It is
therefore argued that he had no faction and hardly any interest in
policymaking. The councils themselves are seen as being composed of
independent, properly professional men, and the study is particularly
concerned to analyse the councils of State, War and Finance; attendance
registers for these councils are used here.
Philip himself is described as a man at once reliant personally
upon the superficially brilliant Lerma and also, and more profoundly,
as a man who needed and valued enormously the advice of his councils.
He separated Court and Government, relaxing with Lerma while leaving
the business of government to the councils. Such policy as he had
beyond this is generally described as being belligerent.


Since heteroatom-doped carbon nanomaterials were proved to be one of the most promising alternatives to noble metal platinum-based cathode electrocatalysts in fuel cells over the past years, considerable efforts have been devoted to promoting their practical application. Although much progress has been made, the large-scale practical application of these heteroatom-doped carbon nanomaterials is presently inaccessible due to the lack of a facile synthesis method and low-cost heteroatom precursors with broad sources. Herein, we used the cost-effective, nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S)-containing coal tar which has an abundant supply of N and S precursors to synthesize value-added N and S-codoped carbon electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) by employing the evocating agent of dicyandiamide (DICY). The results demonstrated that DICY could effectively help coal tar to form N and S-codoped carbon nanotubes (NS-CNTs) on the surface of CoCl2 nanoparticles. The as-synthesized NS-CNTs exhibited highly comparable ORR activities to commercial Pt–C catalysts in both acidic and alkaline media. This report not only provides a novel, facile and scalable approach for the preparation of low-cost CNT electrocatalysts with superior ORR activities but also offers a new and clean-utilizing path for the harmful N and S elements in coal tar and helps to reduce environmental pollution.


How does a naive language learner deal with speaker variation irrelevant to distinguishing word meanings? Experimental data is contradictory, and incompatible models have been proposed. Here, we examine basic assumptions regarding the acoustic signal the learner deals with: Is speaker variability a hurdle in discriminating sounds or can it easily be ignored? To this end, we summarize existing infant data. We then present machinebased discriminability scores of sound pairs obtained without any language knowledge. Our results show that speaker variability decreases sound contrast discriminability, and that some contrasts are affected more than others. However, chance performance is rare; most contrasts remain discriminable in the face of speaker variation. We take our results to mean that speaker variation is not a uniform hurdle to discriminating sound contrasts, and careful examination is necessary when planning and interpreting studies testing whether and to what extent infants (and adults) are sensitive to speaker differences.


We present a polar coordinate lattice Boltzmann model for the detonation phenomena. In this model the fluid behavior is describe by a finite-difference lattice Boltzmann(FDLB) model in polar coordinates, and the chemical reaction is described by Cochran's rate function. The released chemical energy is naturally coupled with the flow behavior. We introduce an operator-splitting scheme to both the FDLB equation and Cochran's rate function. The temporal evolutions are calculated analytically and the convection terms are solved via the first-order upwind scheme. The model is validated and verified via comparing simulation results with analytical solution of steady detonation. We simulate the detonation phenomena in two cases: implosion and explosion. Finally, we study some non-equilibrium characteristics in the steady detonation procedure. Numerical results show that, the amplitudes of deviations from thermodynamic equilibrium in front of von-Neumann peak are much higher than those behind the peak. At the von Neumann peak, the system is nearly in its thermodynamic equilibrium. By comparing each component of the high-order moments and its value in equilibrium, we draw qualitative information on the actual distribution functions at the two sides of von-Neumann peak. Such observations are helpful for the physical modeling of detonation phenomena from the macroscopic level.


In this volume, a number of eminent historians, sociologists and political scientists who have spent their lives studying revolutionary processes reflect on the age of 20th century of revolution. They debate questions like: is the era of revolution over? What might the revolutions of the future look like? The face of transformative politics in the future and the directions of social change rest in large measure on the answers. A range of recent cases are taken up, from the intensely backward-looking movement of the Taliban in Afghanistan, to the magical revolution in progress in Chiapas.


This paper advocates a novel approach for mobile web browsing based on cooperation among wireless devices within close proximity operating in a cellular environment. In the actual state of the art, mobile phones can access the web using different cellular technologies. However, the supported data rates are not sufficient to cope with the ever increasing traffic requirements resulting from advanced and rich content services. Extending the state of the art, higher data rates can only be achieved by increasing complexity, cost, and energy consumption of mobile phones. In contrast to the linear extension of current technology, we propose a novel architecture where mobile phones are grouped together in clusters, using a short-range communication such as Bluetooth, sharing, and accumulating their cellular capacity. The accumulated data rate resulting from collaborative interactions over short-range links can then be used for cooperative mobile web browsing. By implementing the cooperative web browsing on commercial mobile phones, it will be shown that better performance is achieved in terms of increased data rate and therefore reduced access times, resulting in a significantly enhanced web browsing user experience on mobile phones.


The present work investigates the influence of phosphorus addition on the size distribution of retained austenite in TRIP steels containing 0.01%, 0.09% and 0.14% phosphorus. The size of retained austenite is measured by means of neutron depolarization technique and optical microscopy. It is found that the addition of phosphorous increases the size of the larger intergranular and inter-ferritic austenite grains and therefore also increases the volume fraction of retained austenite due to the strengthening effect of phosphorous on the surrounding ferrite and bainite grains. For all phosphorous additions the most frequently observed austenite size is around 0.2 μm, which is probably corresponds to the interlath film-type retained austenite. The average grain size from the neutron depolarization technique agrees in general with that from the optical microscopy and it is suggested that the accuracy can be improved by further development of the data analysis by taking into account the preferred shape and orientation of the austenite grains.


In order to graduate globally capable engineers who are not only technically savvy, but socially competent and business smart, Sheridan's School of Engineering has found both a process and a 'place' to meet these goals and align with their vision to create curricula that inspire innovation and creativity. The process: the CDIO methodology that helps graduate "ready to work" engineers. The place: Sheridan's Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Design Technologies (CAMDT). In the fall of 2013 Sheridan unveiled its new visual identity with a tag line that challenges people to "get creative." It's a bold and courageous statement that reflects Sheridan's belief that creativity is, among other things, an essential life skill. Our focus on creativity, which can best be described as 'creativity with purpose' or 'practical creativity,' extends across all programs. It's about challenging students to re-imagine ideas, experiment, collaborate, take risks and build a resourceful, resilient and flexible mind. How realistic and authentic is this Creative Campus philosophy at Sheridan? How did this notion of creativity make its way into our mission, values and strategic goals? For the CDIO methodology to translate into outcomes, students need the creative space to get the real world practice that makes CDIO such a powerful learning strategy. Operating like a research and development arm for small and medium sized enterprises, CAMDT unites engineering students, faculty and community partners to solve real world challenges and produce solutions that benefit the local economy. At Sheridan, CAMDT is not just a physical space, it's a creative space where the collaboration between engineering students, educators, industry and community partners not only benefits enterprise partners, but helps Sheridan shape engineering education. In travelling down the road to university recognition, Sheridan has engaged its academic community to describe the characteristics that best represent the Sheridan University of the future. It is through this process that the plan for the Creative Campus emerged. The paper reviews Sheridan's Creative Campus Strategy and draws parallels to the four high-level expectations in the CDIO syllabus.


In spite their significant wine heritage, even major wine-producing countries still lack a corresponding systemic vision. This research highlights the possible contribution of a relational perspective on the management of wine tourism systems, underlining the necessity for the development of chains, networks, constellations, flows, and service(s). Specifically, the research develops a scientific framework supportive of the relational perspective on wine tourism to aid all major stakeholders in understanding, designing, and developing a wine tourism structured system based on service-dominant logic. The research is based on a speculative analysis of relational governance in wine tourism, and develops a theoretical framework of the relational context of wine tourism. The research is further supported by a field investigation focusing on the Campania Region (Italy); and a case study that enhances the understanding of the subject and indicates the potential implications of the framework, as well as its practical and theoretical applications.


Thermosonic bond is widely used in package of semiconductor chip due to its advantages, such as simple process, high efficiency, and no pollution. Ultrasonic play important role inspired interconnection interface atomic energy and soften metallic materials in thermosonic bond. The vibration of bond tool is nonlinear and bond strength is unstable with contact interface condition changing due to discontinuity characteristic parameters of contact interfaces. In order to improve bond strength of chip, model of ultrasonic propagation across a rough contact interface was established. Aluminium wire bond was performed on a thermosonic bond test platform. The harmonic waves of bond tool and the bond strength were measured. The experiment results show that the best bond strength and the less higher order harmonic is achieve when the contact interface pressure is in moderate range.


A case of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma with intrabile duct tumor growth is presented. A 70-year-old female with prolonged obstructive jaundice and cholangitis was diagnosed with a mass lesion in the left lobe of the liver accompanied by an intrabile duct component which caused hilar bile duct obstruction. Percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage (PTBD) was performed via three routes with intensive care of the drainage catheters over a 2-month period to alleviate jaundice and cholangitis. Extended left hepatic lobectomy with combined resection of extrahepatic bile duct and regional lymph nodes were carried out curatively. Macroscopically, a tumor formed a 8 x 6 cm mass with a scalloped margin in the left lobe and had an intraductal component with a round smooth surface protruding from the lumen of the left hepatic duct into the common bile duct. The histologic type of the tumor was well differentiated tubular adenocarcinoma. The intraluminal tumor grew expansively without invasion to the bile duct wall. The postoperative course was uneventful and the patient has remained in good health without recurrence for 1 year and 3 months since surgery. This case report discusses a rare extension pattern in ICC and the management of malignant hilar obstruction during radical surgery.


New analytical upper bounds are derived for the performance of symbol-by-symbol maximum-likelihood (ML) Abend-Fritchman-type detectors for multi-amplitude/phase-modulated digital sequences transmitted over time-dispersive (generally) time-variant linear channels introducing finite intersymbol interference (ISI) and additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). The proposed bounds are obtained starting from a novel form of the standard Bhattacharyya bound and take explicitly into account the allowed decoding delay. Both deterministic and random multipath slow-fading Rayleigh transmission ISI channels are considered. Simulation results obtained for some test channels of practical interest show the tightness of the derived analytical bounds.


The knowledge of temperature field of oil-filled transformer directly related to the judgment of overheated fault. There are mainly heat exchange, convection and their coupling in the transformer. Lot of traditional methods are not enough direct-viewing, and ignore the actual situation. The geometrical model of the transformer first modeled by Solidworks, and then ANSYS CFX is used to simulate the temperature field and flow field. Get a set of computer experiment result which can be reference. This computer experiment bring forth the method and effect of the simulate using that software, and make a foundation for the research of transformer overheated fault.


The application of genetically encoded biosensors enables the detection of small molecules in living cells and has facilitated the characterization of enzymes, their directed evolution and the engineering of (natural) metabolic pathways. In this work, the LuxAB biosensor system from Photorhabdus luminescens was implemented in Escherichia coli to monitor the enzymatic production of aldehydes from primary alcohols and carboxylic acid substrates. A simple high-throughput assay utilized the bacterial luciferase—previously reported to only accept aliphatic long-chain aldehydes—to detect structurally diverse aldehydes, including aromatic and monoterpene aldehydes. LuxAB was used to screen the substrate scopes of three prokaryotic oxidoreductases: an alcohol dehydrogenase (Pseudomonas putida), a choline oxidase variant (Arthrobacter chlorophenolicus) and a carboxylic acid reductase (Mycobacterium marinum). Consequently, high-value aldehydes such as cinnamaldehyde, citral and citronellal could be produced in vivo in up to 80% yield. Furthermore, the dual role of LuxAB as sensor and monooxygenase, emitting bioluminescence through the oxidation of aldehydes to the corresponding carboxylates, promises implementation in artificial enzyme cascades for the synthesis of carboxylic acids. These findings advance the bio-based detection, preparation and transformation of industrially important aldehydes in living cells.


BACKGROUND
The determinants of a worse outcome in diabetic patients after an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) are controversial. They include delayed hospital admission, worse clinical presentation and lesser efficacy of accepted therapeutic interventions. Therefore, to improve our knowledge, we aimed to describe the clinical characteristics, treatment options and short-term outcomes of diabetic patients in a survey of consecutive AMI subjects admitted to the Italian coronary care unit (CCU) network in the current era of reperfusion.

METHODS
The BLITZ study prospectively enrolled patients with AMI, within 48 hours of symptom onset, admitted to 296 out of the 341 existing Italian CCUs from October 15 to 29, 2001. Diabetic status was recorded by collecting clinical history. In-hospital and post-discharge management and outcomes were collected up to 30 days from admission.

RESULTS
Overall, 434 of 1959 enrolled patients (22%) had a clinical diagnosis of diabetes. Diabetic patients were older, more frequently women, had a worse coronary risk profile, and an unfavorable clinical presentation compared to non-diabetics. Among 1275 patients with ST-elevation AMI, diabetics (20%) received a similar proportion of any reperfusion therapy (61 vs 66%, p = 0.10), but significantly less primary percutaneous coronary angioplasty (9 vs 16%, p = 0.003). Diabetic patients were treated less often with oral beta-blockers than non-diabetics both during hospitalization (56 vs 64%, p = 0.003) and at discharge (54 vs 61%, p = 0.01). In contrast, in-hospital use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (76 vs 67%, p = 0.0003), digitalis (10 vs 5%, p = 0.0005), and diuretics (54 vs 36%, p < 0.0001) was more frequent among diabetics. During their index admission, subjects with diabetes had higher in-hospital mortality (11 vs 6%, p = 0.0004), as well as higher rates of reinfarction (6 vs 2%, p = 0.0003), new congestive heart failure (28 vs 14%, p < 0.0001), cardiogenic shock (10 vs 5%, p = 0.0005) or recurrent angina (22 vs 16%, p = 0.0034). A similar pattern was observed at 30-day follow-up. At multivariate analysis, diabetic status was not confirmed to be an independent predictor of 30-day mortality.

CONCLUSIONS
Although diabetic patients with AMI admitted to the Italian CCU network have a higher in-hospital and 30-day morbidity and mortality rates compared to non-diabetics, a clinical diagnosis of diabetes has no independent predictive value on short-term outcome.


Abstract The landscape of China's rural land market has been changed by several significant land right reforms since the 1970s. It is always of great interest to both the government and the public to gauge the effectiveness of these reforms. We address this question by investigating the impact of a recent land use right reform, namely, the 'Three Rights Separation Policy', on agro-environmental sustainability. By separating land management right from land contracted management right, this new reform is believed to be a powerful tool to encourage land transfer, optimize land resource allocation, and increase the economy of scale in the agriculture sector. Using a PSM-DID model applied to panel data for the years 2008 and 2014, our study demonstrates that the new policy also increases the use of organic fertilizers by 48.641 kg/mu in total, which is a very important step to ensure agro-environmental sustainability in China. The new policy is more effective in encouraging the application of organic fertilizer when the issuing of land certificates is enforced and administrative barriers to land right transfers are removed. The findings add value to the growing literature on rural land right reforms in China and may also have significant implications in developing countries with similar rural land tenure systems and underdeveloped land and labor markets.


This Essay critically examines how medicine actively engages in the reproductive subordination of Black women. In obstetrics, particularly, Black women must contend with both gender and race subordination. Early American gynecology treated Black women as expendable clinical material for its institutional needs. This medical violence was animated by biological racism and the legal and economic exigencies of the antebellum era. Medical racism continues to animate Black women's navigation of and their dehumanization within obstetrics. Today, the racial disparities in cesarean sections illustrate that Black women are simultaneously overmedicalized and medically neglected—an extension of historical medical practices rooted in the logic of biological race. Though the principle of informed consent traditionally protects the rights of autonomy, bodily integrity, and well-being, medicine nevertheless routinely subjects Black women to medically unnecessary procedures. This Essay adopts the framework of obstetric racism to analyze Black women's overmedicalization as a site of reproductive subordination. It thus offers a critical interdisciplinary and intersectional lens to broader conversations on race in reproduction and maternal health.


In 2008, a list of engineering challenges put forth by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) identified the need for technological innovations for global progress. These challenges focused on education, energy, infrastructure, clean water, climate change, and much more. In an effort to help foster a generation of engineers that are more aware of their role in making the world a better place, a partnership was formed with the Adventure Aquarium Center for Aquatic Sciences (CAS). Funded by the National Science Foundation, the goal of this partnership was to form a multidisciplinary engineering team focused on adapting current experiments to more environmentally conscious alternatives. These experiments have begun to be implemented in freshman engineering courses, the STEM Academy at Glassboro High School, and K-12 outreach programs. Ultimately, the purpose of these experiments is to reduce environmental impact by replacing current environmental processes with algae based alternatives. By partnering with the CAS, the University gained access to its algae production facility, a powerful tool in researching the many uses of algae. Algae-based experiments and hands-on activities in the fields of water resources engineering, environmental engineering, cosmetics, and nutrition have been developed. By focusing on these fields, the positive impact that algae can have on issues faced by developing nations around the world was highlighted. Gas transfer and coagulation flocculation experiments have been used to research the sustainability of algae use in the water treatment process, with a focus on the feasibility of replacing current processes with algae based alternatives. Calorimeter tests have been conducted to research the potential nutritional benefit of algae based products. Exposure to social and environmental injustices along with ethics case studies are also an integral part of the project. Ultimately, the purpose of this project is to teach a generation of future engineers the impact that algae can have on solving humanitarian issues around the world.


The present approaches on predicting stability of delta-sigma (Δ-Σ) modulators are mostly confined to DC inputs. This poses limitations as practical applications of Δ-Σ modulators involve a wide range of signals other than DC such as multiple-sinusoidal inputs for speech modelling. In this study, a quasi-linear model for Δ-Σ modulators with non-linear feedback control analysis is presented that accurately predicts stability of single-loop one-bit higher-order Δ-Σ modulators for multiple sinusoids. Theoretical values are shown to match closely with the simulation results. The results of this study would significantly speed up the design and evaluation of higher-order single-loop Δ-Σ modulators with increased dynamic ranges for various applications that require multiple-sinusoidal inputs or any general input composed of a finite number of sinusoidal components.


ABSTRACT Enterococci that are nonsusceptible (NS; MIC > 4 μg/ml) to daptomycin are an emerging clinical concern. The synergistic combination of daptomycin plus beta-lactams has been shown to be effective against vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) species in vitro. This study systematically evaluated by in vitro time-kill studies the effect of daptomycin in combination with ampicillin, cefazolin, ceftriaxone, ceftaroline, ertapenem, gentamicin, tigecycline, and rifampin, for a collection of 9 daptomycin-NS enterococci that exhibited a broad range of MICs and different resistance-conferring mutations. We found that ampicillin plus daptomycin yielded the most consistent synergy but did so only for isolates with mutations to the liaFSR system. Daptomycin binding was found to be enhanced by ampicillin in a representative isolate with such mutations but not for an isolate with mutation to the yycFGHIJ system. In contrast, ampicillin enhanced the killing of the LL-37 human antimicrobial peptide against daptomycin-NS E. faecium with either the liaFSR or yycFGHIJ mutation. Antagonism was noted only for rifampin and tigecycline and only for 2 or 3 isolates. These data add support to the growing body of evidence indicating that therapy combining daptomycin and ampicillin may be helpful in eradicating refractory VRE infections.


This examination focuses on the supply conditions that affect federal political leaders' will and ability to create incentives that stimulate private investment in their nations' wind industry. Operating from a political economy approach rooted in institutional theory I investigate and compare the conditions, between 1970 and 2004, that influenced German and Canadian federal political leaders' motivation and capacity to design wind energy incentives for the private sector. I begin with a brief introduction that highlights the significance of this topic within the context of advanced industrial countries' policy landscape. I then outline and qualify my methodological and theoretical choices for this investigation. A detailed analysis of the supply conditions affecting German federal political leaders' willingness and ability to create wind energy incentives follows. I subsequently assess the supply conditions affecting Canadian federal political leaders' willingness and ability. I conclude by suggesting that political pressure on German leaders to address the climate change challenge valorized their perception of wind turbines, which in turn catalyzed their will to create attractive incentives for private investment in the wind industry. Conversely, the political and economic benefits for Canadian leaders to deregulate energy markets coupled with the low degree of political concern pertaining to climate change during the mid-1980s restricted their willingness. In both case studies federal political leaders' ability to implement their will was determined by the level of cooperation they received from political, energy and financial organizations


A nonlinear lumped element transmission line (NLETL) that consists of an LC-ladder network can be used to convert a rectangular input pump pulse to a series of RF oscillations at the output. The discreteness of the LC-sections in the network contributes to the line dispersion while the nonlinearity of the LC-elements produces the nonlinear characteristics of the line. Both of these properties combine to produce wave trains of high frequency. This paper describes a NLETL circuit model that is used to simulate RF generation for a given input pump pulse. The circuit model is used to study a NLETL with nonlinear capacitance (nonlinear C but linear L), and a NLETL with nonlinear inductance (nonlinear L but linear C). With the goal of better matching to a resistive load, an hybrid line that comprises both nonlinear elements L and C was also investigated using the circuit model. Parametric studies were carried out for the various NLETLs to understand the behaviour and characteristics of these lines.


Combined relay selection only requires two relays to forward signals transmitted on multiple subcarriers, but the optimal outage performance is almost surely achievable in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) region. However, because combined relay selection involves the generation of the full set of two-relay combinations, the selection complexity of combined relay selection is much higher than that of per-subcarrier relay selection when the number of relays goes large. This drawback restricts the implementation of combined relay selection in dense networks. To overcome this drawback, we propose to enable combined relay selection by supervised machine learning (ML). Because the training procedure is off-line, the proposed implementation scheme can considerably reduce the selection complexity and the processing latency. We carry out extensive experiments on TensorFlow 2.1 over a graphics processing unit (GPU) aided computing cloud server to validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. The experimental results confirm that supervised ML can provide near-optimal performance with lower computing latency that well matches that provided by brute-force search and the optimal relay selection in a per-subcarrier manner.


MBO is a dynamic process whereby the superiors and the subordinates of an organization jointly identify its goals define each individual's major areas of responsibility in terms of results expected and use these measures to assess the contribution of its members in the development of organization. MBO increases the value of communication, which will lead to an increase in the successful completion of goals in the business settings. As a performance appraisal technique It also affects the different aspects relating to job like promotion, Increments, placement and transfer, improving performance, self-development and setting higher goals for the future . The MBO method is supposed to enhance organizational effectiveness by getting the organization to become more result focused. Present paper focuses on how far the practice of MBO is helpful in improving the performance of employees, their self –development and setting higher goals for the future in LIC and HDFC. Helpfulness of MBO in enhancing communication between superior and subordinate is also examined in the paper.


Human growth hormone (hGH) is a major product of the anterior pituitary. In addition to its endocrine activities hGH overexpression in extra-pituitary tissues has been correlated with the oncogenic behavior of these tissues where it has been shown to function in an autocrine manner. hGH and its receptor (hGHR) have been shown to be expressed in prostate cancer (PCa) cells. Our preliminary work showed that expression of hGH and hGHR mRNA was elevated in PCa cell lines compared to normal prostate-derived epithelial cell lines suggesting hypersensitivity of these cells to exogenous hGH or establishment of autocrine signaling. Addressing these questions showed that PCa cells are sensitive to physiological concentrations of hGH which can increase cell proliferation depending on the cell line. As shown in LNCaP cells exogenous hGH increased DNA synthesis whereas endogenous autocrine hGH resulted in decreased DNA synthesis and increased apoptosis. Investigation of the hGH signaling mechanisms in LNCaP cells revealed that autocrine hGH affected hGHR trafficking resulting in the sequestering of hGHR inside the cell likely in the Golgi apparatus and endoplasmic reticulum in the contrast with exogenous hGH which activated canonical signaling pathways. However both exogenous and endogenous hGH increased LNCaP cell motility. This effect was accompanied by increased actin polymerization which indicates a potential direct action of hGH signaling on the motility mechanism in PCa cells. Investigation of the molecular mechanisms of hGH-N gene activation in LNCaP cells compared to rat somatotropes and normal prostate epithelial cells revealed multiple cis activities in the 5'-flanking hGH-N promoter and corresponding DNA-binding activities were observed in PCa cells that were absent in normal prostate-derived cell lines. This suggests that hGH-N expression in LNCaP cells may be differentially regulated compared to normal prostate epithelium and pituitary somatotropes. Taken together these studies indicate a hGH-N transcriptional activation mechanism associated with prostate cancer cells and the responsiveness of prostate cancer cells to hGH. However these results also suggest a distinction between the effects of endocrine and autocrine hGH which may be due to the unique effect of autocrine hGH on hGHR trafficking.


This study examines attitudes toward personal injury litigation and whether plaintiff's attorney advertising, income, gender and desire for vengeance play a significant role in attitude formation. The study measured adults aged 18+, the same population targeted by this form of advertising. The results demonstrate a statistically significant relationship between this form of television advertising and positive attitudes about the act of filing a personal injury lawsuit. The results further detail the contribution of vengeance, advertising, and income on attitudes toward personal injury litigation. Previous studies have separately examined legal services advertising and vengeance; however, none has examined how a desire for vengeance factors into the manner in which consumers receive and/or react to plaintiff's attorney advertising. These findings add to the literature related to legal services advertising and help expand the understanding of consumers' desire for vengeance and how marketing communication strategies may or may not affect their resulting behavior.


This study puts forward the technology of the precise reduction of micron-sized iron oxide: at lower temperature (<1000°C), the high purity metallic iron can be reduced, separated and extract from iron ore, slag, the iron oxide in the dust which are in micron size. Precise reduction experiments are planned for high phosphorus hematite in Enshi, magnetite in Kazuo and the steel dust of a factory, in order to do the study on their reduction characteristics. According to the L16 (215) orthogonal test on high phosphorus hematite and magnetite, the result shows that: in the atmosphere of pure H2 or 100% CO, the micron-grade mineral powder can be reduced at the condition of 650~850 °C; compared with the conventional particle size powder, the reduction temperature lowers about 300~350 °C in the same reduction degree. According to the L8 (27) orthogonal test on steel dust, the result shows that: by pure H2 or 100% CO, the average metallization rate can reach 95% at the temperature of 900~1000 °C; the product of reduction keeps power state and its interparticle sintering does not occur, which means that it is reasonable to separate iron from other impurity elements through the physical method in the non-melting state.


This thesis studies the literary exhaustion and its possible replenishment in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), John Barth's Chimera (1972), and John Irving's The World According to Garp (1978). The study mainly focuses on the postmodern experimentation in these novels to critique the spirit of literary exhaustion prevailing modern literature. This experimentation lies in manipulating the plot,narrator, and characters' discourse in order to provide remedial replenishment for such exhaustion. Therefore, a narrative conceptual framework is applied to analyze these literary elements. The dissertation is divided into six chapters and a conclusion. The first chapter introduces the main arguments of the study including the objectives, questions, statement of the problem, significance of the study, and methodology. Chapter two is the literature review. This chapter presents the selected novels within postmodern narrative and how the dissertation's argument differs from them. The third chapter is the conceptual framework. The selected conceptual framework comprises three narrative categories. The are 1) atricia augh's elf-reflective devices, imeticvices, and arrative evices, ) rard enette's levels of the focali ation factor, and 3) ikhail Bakhtin's mode of the dialogic discourse. Chapter four studies Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. It emphasizes the epresentation of fiction and realit in the novel. It uses augh's self-reflexive devices, enette's concept of the extradiegetic narrator, and Bakhtin's concept of dialogic discourse to accentuate the author's implied voice in the novel. The fifth chapter tackles the use of augh's mimetic devices, enette's concept of the intradiegetic narrator, and Bakhtin's concept of the dialogic discourse in John Barth's Chimera. The chapter also approaches the way in which Barth parodies previous literary works to innovate a postmodern parodic pastiche. Chapter six studies John Irving's The World According to Garp. This chapter emphasizes the authorial self-consciousness in the novel to highlight the author's critical voice which addresses the issue of literary exhaustion. Thechapter anal sis depends on augh's narrative devices, enette's concept of the extradiegetic narrator, and Bakhtin's concept of the dialogic discourse. Finally, the conclusion sums up the main arguments of the study.


Forty-two clinically diagnosed schizophrenic patients were re-diagnosed by Bleuler's 4A, Schneider's FRS, ICD-9, DSM-111, Research Diagnostic Criteria and St. Louis criteria. Defining schizophrenia by the presence of at least one of the 4A allocates the largest number of patients (36 cases), while St. Louis criteria attribute only 13 cases to the diagnosis of schizophrenia. All the criteria diagnosed 6 cases as schizophrenia, but 2 cases are diagnosed by none of them. There are different overlapping patterns among the criteria. Three groups are separated by using the cluster analysis. Almost all of the criteria attribute the cases to one group (concordant group, N = 17), and most of them don't allocate the cases to another group (undiagnosed group, N = 14), and discordance among the diagnoses is seen in the third group (discordant group, N = 11). In the concordant group, "restlessness" and "lack of concentration," as well as "any delusion," "any hallucination" and 7 items in FRS, are observed more frequently than in the other groups (p < .05). The discordant group shows the same pattern of symptom set, but the presence rate is less than the concordant group, while the undiagnosed group shows a different pattern, less auditory hallucination, delusion, and more depressive episodes. A Forensic-Psychiatric Case Showing Symptoms of So-called Atypical Psyehosis


2020 has seen the largest ever impact on education globally. COVID-19 has forced everyone to adopt and adapt new ways of teaching and learning at a speed like never before. With these current needs in mind, the HundrED's annual Global Collection highlights 100 leading innovations in K12 education from around the world to anyone for free. Now in our 4th Collection, the goal is to inspire a grassroots movement by helping pedagogically sound, ambitious innovations to spread and adapt to multiple contexts across the world. To make this year's Global Collection, a shortlist of innovations was reviewed by 150 Academy Members consisting of academics, educators, innovators, funders and leaders from over 50 countries.


We introduce Uniform Manifold Approximation with Two-phase Optimization (UMATO), a dimensionality reduction (DR) technique that improves UMAP to capture the global structure of high-dimensional data more accurately. In UMATO, optimization is divided into two phases so that the resulting embeddings can depict the global structure reliably while preserving the local structure with sufficient accuracy. In the first phase, hub points are identified and projected to construct a skeletal layout for the global structure. In the second phase, the remaining points are added to the embedding preserving the regional characteristics of local areas. Through quan-titative experiments, we found that UMATO (1) outperformed widely used DR techniques in preserving the global structure while (2) pro-ducing competitive accuracy in representing the local structure. We also verified that UMATO is preferable in terms of robustness over diverse initialization methods, numbers of epochs, and subsampling techniques.


The study presents stochastic optimal control/dynamic programming (SOC/DP) to derive the optimal debt level and consumption in farm models concerning two sources of uncertainty: the return on assets and interest rate. The SOC/DP analytic framework is used to analyze the impacts of risk-reducing farm policies on farm's financial and risk adjustments. The results show the violations of the risk-balancing concept, which theorizes that risk-reducing farm policies may lead to increases in financial leverage, total risk, and the expected returns. Also, this study examines the extent to which the estimates of the optimal debt level are biased when interest rate risk is ignored.


This study examined the influence of social capital on the school performance of left-behind children who were deprived of the physical presence of migrant parents. Social capital in the family, in school, and the community were examined through quantitative design. A survey was conducted among 384 left-behind children selected through multi-stage probability sampling. Results of regression analysis showed that higher levels of shared values and emotions in the family, social trust in the school, involvement in community life, and age of migrant parents determine a higher level of values learned. Higher levels of supportive relationship, social trust at school, and involvement in community life predict a higher level of right conduct. Higher levels of supportive relationship and supportive norms determine a higher average grade. Left-behind children with mother-present, father migrant draw more social capital in the family; while left-behind children with father-present, mother-migrant generate social capital in the school and the community. It is recommended that fathers should be involved in providing care and in the nurturing of left-behind children. Schools should cultivate an environment that invests in social capital especially for the left-behind children lacking in social capital at home. Government institutions serving for the welfare of migrant parents should educate and assist in the psycho-social needs of left-behind children and migrants' households.


Meat of snakehead fish (Channa striatus) has been reported can be used for wound healing  because contains proteins, essential amino acids, lipid and fatty acids that inuenced wound healing process. The present study was performed in order to formulate gels contain meat powders of snakehead fish for wound healing. The formulas were used 1 g (formula 1) and 2 g (formula 2) meat powder of snakehead fish as an active ingredient. Meat powder of snakehead fish have been made nanosuspension use ionic gelation method with chitosan and  sodium tripolyphosphate and formulated to gel form using HPMC as gelling agent. Suspenses have been physicochemical charactheried. The results showed that suspenses (formula 1 and formula 2) have particle sie in range of 41.665.5 nm and 41.2.1 nm respectively polidispersity inde of 0.512 and 0.456 respectively eta potential ()2.15 m and ()2.35 m respectively both of formulas have spherical particles.


Recent research has shown that unikernels, lightweight virtual machines tailored to specific applications, have great potential in terms of performance, tiny boot times, small memory consumption, and a reduced trusted compute base. Creating and optimizing them, however, is currently a painful, time-consuming process that often needs redoing for every application. With Unikraft, we introduce a system for automatically building unikernels that drastically reduces this time without negatively impacting performance.


CORAL, the Collaboration of Oak Ridge, Argonne and Livermore, is fielding two similar IBM systems, Summit and Sierra, with NVIDIA GPUs that will replace the existing Titan and Sequoia systems. Summit and Sierra are currently ranked No. 1 and No. 3, respectively on the Top500 list. We discuss the design and key differences of the systems. Our evaluation of the systems highlights the following. Applications that fit in HBM see the most benefit and may prefer more GPUs; however, for some applications, the CPU-GPU bandwidth is more important than the number of GPUs. The node-local burst buffer scales linearly, and can achieve a 4X improvement over the parallel file system for large jobs; smaller jobs, however, may benefit from writing directly to the PFS. Finally, several CPU, network and memory bound analytics and GPU-bound deep learning codes achieve up to a 11X and 79X speedup/node, respectively over Titan.


The goal of this master thesis was to develop life cycle management tools and methods for use in project management. The research questions concerned the practical integration of these tools in a system dynamics perspective and the contribution this can have in creating value. First an introduction of the research area is given, followed by the methods employed, an exploration of the theoretical foundation, a theoretical analysis of how life cycle management in project management can be used, an explanation of the tool that was developed, an explanation of the application of the tool on a project and how it contributes to value creation, and finally a discussion is given followed by a conclusion. The Sustainable Project Life Cycle Management (SPLCM) Guide is the tangible result of this thesis, and it is an easy to use tool that project managers at Faveo (and in other companies) can use in their projects to mitigate the environmental and social impacts of their projects. Using this guide will change the Faveo system (illustrated in the specialization project) and allows the project managers to have a direct relationship with the community and the environment in the life cycle of their projects. The SPLCM Guide not only has the potential to reduce the impact the projects at Faveo have on society and the environment, but it can also create value for the project owners and for Faveo itself. Sustainable value creation meets the needs of stakeholders while creating value for the company, and the SPLCM Guide (in conjunction with other initiatives) can realize this for Faveo.


__This editorial refers to 'Enhanced endothelin-1/Rho-kinase signaling and coronarymicrovascular dysfunction in hypertensive myocardial hypertrophy' by S.H. Tsai et al., pp. 1329–1337.__

Communication between cardiomyocytes and the coronary microvasculature is imperative for adequate cardiac function. The high metabolic rate of the heart requires sufficient myocardial oxygen delivery through the coronary microvasculature, which is accomplished by adjusting coronary microvascular resistance. Coronary microvascular resistance is modulated by a variety of factors including extravascular compressive forces and the regulation ofmicrovascular tone, which involves the interplay between metabolic, myogenic, neurohumoral, and endotheliumderived factors. Together these mechanisms modulate coronary blood flow and act to sustain an adequate balance between myocardial oxygen delivery (supply) and metabolism (demand). [...]


The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of adding three 1-hour sessions of continuous passive motion (CPM) each day to the entire postoperative program of patients who received a total knee replacement (TKR). A retrospective chart review was completed for 55 patients (8 with bilateral involvement, totaling 63 knees) who received a TKR between 1981 and 1984. The data analysis compared the following variables for 32 patients who received CPM and 23 patients who received no CPM: the length of hospital stay (LOS), the number of postoperative days (PODs) before discharge, the frequency of postoperative complications, and the knee range of motion at discharge. The CPM Group showed significant decreases in the frequency of complications (p less than .05), the LOS (p less than .01), and in the number of PODs (p less than .001). No difference was demonstrated in the ROM of the two groups. These results support the use of postoperative applications of CPM, but not as strongly as those reported from studies that used longer periods of CPM. Further research is indicated to delineate the minimum dosage of CPM needed to obtain the maximum beneficial effects.


In this dissertation, we propose conforming finite element methods that yield divergence-free velocity approximations for the steady Stokes problem on cubical and quadrilateral meshes. In the first part, we construct the finite element spaces for the two-dimensional problem on rectangular grids. Then in the second part, we extend these spaces to n-dimensional spaces. We use discrete differential forms and smooth de Rham complexes to verify the stability and the conformity of the proposed methods, and the solenoidality of the velocity approximations. In the third part, we shift our focus from a dimensionwise extension to a meshwise improvement by introducing macro elements on general shape-regular quadrilateral meshes. By utilizing a smooth de Rham complex, we prove that the macro finite element method yields divergence-free velocity solutions, and with the construction of a Fortin operator, we validate the stability of the method. To improve the pressure approximation properties, we compute a post-processed pressure solution locally. In addition, we describe the implementation process of the (velocity) macro finite element. We show that the methods developed in this dissertation yield optimal convergence rates and present numerical experiments which are supportive of the theoretical results. Moreover, we provide experimental results of our method for the Navier-Stokes equations and show that the convergence rates are preserved.


Most people think that breaking a promise is immoral, and that a breach of contract is a kind of broken promise. However, the law does not explicitly recognize the moral context of breach of contract. Using a series of web-based questionnaires, we asked subjects to read breach of contract cases and answer questions about the legal, financial, and moral implications of each case. Our results suggest that people are quite sensitive to the moral dimensions of a breach of contract, especially the perceived intentions of the breacher. In the first study, we framed the motivation for a contractor's breach as either the chance to make more money or the chance to avoid losing money. Subjects were more punitive when the motivation appeared to be greed (breach to gain) than when the motivation appeared to be fear (breach to avoid loss). In the second study, we manipulated the timing of the negotiation over damages, comparing cases in which the promisor asks to negotiate damages before definitively breaching (as in a liquidated damages clause) with cases in which the breach has already occurred. We predicted that once the contract is breached, the moral violation becomes very salient, and we found that subjects were less punitive when they setting damages ex ante. Finally, results from the third study suggest that subjects seemed to believe that intentionally breaking a contractual promise is a punishable moral harm in itself. When presented with identical losses, one from an intentional breach of contract and the other from a negligent tort, subjects were more punitive toward the breacher than the negligent tortfeasor. They treated willful breach as an intentional harm.


Introduction: COVID-19 is a major public health burden in the world, and chest computed tomography (CT) is the ideal imaging modality to diagnose and monitor disease progression. Objectives: The objective was to review the common and uncommon chest CT findings of patients with COVID-19 and to correlate the CT findings with short-term prognosis. Methods: All patients who had laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection and underwent CT scan were reviewed. The imaging features and the distribution of abnormality were evaluated. A CT severity score (CT-SS) system out of 40 was used. Mann–Whitney U-test and Chi-square or Fisher's exact test were used for analysis. Two-sided P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. A receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was performed to calculate the CT-SS cutoff for hospital admission and intensive care unit (ICU) admission. Results: A total of 149 individuals were eligible. The most common imaging features were ground-glass opacities (GGO) (88%), septal thickening (70%), and reticulations (50%). The least common imaging features were pneumothorax (1%) and vascular enlargement (1%). The most common distributions of GGO were bilateral (92%) and multifocal (95%), with peripheral (100%) and lower lobe predominance (77%). A higher CT-SS had a significant association with longer hospital stay and ICU admission, with CT-SS of 18 and 10 being optimal cutoff, respectively. Conclusion: Our study is one of the few studies to correlate the imaging finding with clinical outcomes in the south Indian population. The common findings in our study were consistent with the literature. CT-SS plays an important role in predicting prognosis.


The payment cards market is a two-sided market. Cost sensitivity of both consumers and merchants for card services influences total demand. Survey data of Dutch merchants shows that costs and cost perception affect acceptance as well as surcharging decisions. Merchants who find payment cards expensive are less likely to accept them and more likely to surcharge their customers for using them. Merchants who face any competition accept debit card payments relatively more often than merchants with monopoly power, and they are less likely to surcharge their customers for debit card usage. Intense competition leads to higher credit card acceptance.


Depth estimation and scene parsing are two particularly important tasks in visual scene understanding. In this paper we tackle the problem of simultaneous depth estimation and scene parsing in a joint CNN. The task can be typically treated as a deep multi-task learning problem [42]. Different from previous methods directly optimizing multiple tasks given the input training data, this paper proposes a novel multi-task guided prediction-and-distillation network (PAD-Net), which first predicts a set of intermediate auxiliary tasks ranging from low level to high level, and then the predictions from these intermediate auxiliary tasks are utilized as multi-modal input via our proposed multi-modal distillation modules for the final tasks. During the joint learning, the intermediate tasks not only act as supervision for learning more robust deep representations but also provide rich multi-modal information for improving the final tasks. Extensive experiments are conducted on two challenging datasets (i.e. NYUD-v2 and Cityscapes) for both the depth estimation and scene parsing tasks, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


Many examples of archaeological sites possess resemblances between ancient and traditional cultures regarding tangible and intangible features in means of adaptation skills to their environment, building skills, economical production systems, cultural motives and belief systems. In addition to their tangible values, they reflect intangible values with local belief systems, religious rituals, all types of local knowledge and skills regarding enhancement of natural resources or traditional production systems. Generation of 'sustainable development' paradigms for the past few decades caused significant changes in conventional management approaches for cultural heritage sites including archaeological areas. Therefore, archaeological site management policies today should consider environmental impacts, social integration and participation of local communities having cultural and economic bonds with that site, and development of an appropriate economic plan to achieve its sustainability as basic components of decision-making process. The purpose of this paper to evaluate relationships between sustainable development principles and archaeological management strategies in Turkey. Significance of sustainability paradigms and need for new approaches in relation with archaeological sites is discussed. For this purpose, results of case-study research project "Archaeological Park Management and Agro-Tourism Planning in Ancient Agricultural Lands of Aspat (Strobilos) and Its Territorium" is evaluated. Aspat project includes multidisciplinary researches in order to explore natural, cultural, anthropological, social values of project site; threats and problems of the area and prepare a sustainable management program and future strategies for the heritage site. This paper focuses on assessment of the outcomes of management studies in means of sustainable development principles. Comparative analysis to assess impacts of management studies on natural and cultural environment, social structure and economical resources are conducted by using SWOT analysis method. Discussions conclude with evaluations on necessity for comprehensive management approaches that will integrate values and potentials of archaeological values with sustainable development principles.


Primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) is a rare and typically fatal infection caused by the thermophilic free-living ameba, Naegleria fowleri. In 2010, the first confirmed case of PAM acquired in Minnesota highlighted the need for improved detection and quantification methods in order to study the changing ecology of N. fowleri and to evaluate potential risk factors for increased exposure. An immunomagnetic separation (IMS) procedure and real-time PCR TaqMan assay were developed to recover and quantify N. fowleri in water and sediment samples. When one liter of lake water was seeded with N. fowleri strain CDC:V212, the method had an average recovery of 46% and detection limit of 14 amebas per liter of water. The method was then applied to sediment and water samples with unknown N. fowleri concentrations, resulting in positive direct detections by real-time PCR in 3 out of 16 samples and confirmation of N. fowleri culture in 6 of 16 samples. This study has resulted in a new method for detection and quantification of N. fowleri in water and sediment that should be a useful tool to facilitate studies of the physical, chemical, and biological factors associated with the presence and dynamics of N. fowleri in environmental systems.


Abstract This paper introduces a new measure of management overconfidence, overconfident tone, and shows its association with excess investments, larger share repurchases, and higher stock portions in CEO compensations. Overconfident tone is composed of abnormal positivity and abnormal certainty. They are calculated by dividing conference call transcripts into management parts and analyst parts, and separately analyzing tones using Loughran-McDonald (2011) Dictionary for corporate documents. The results are consistent with previous literature on CEO overconfidence, with overconfident tone associated with excess investment and larger share repurchase. We also test abnormal positivity and abnormal certainty with CEO's exposure to firm-specific risk to confirm the viability of overconfident tone as a new measure of management overconfidence. ABSTRACT This paper introduces a new measure of management overconfidence, overconfident tone, and shows its association with excess investments, larger share repurchases, and higher stock portions in CEO compensations. Overconfident tone is composed of abnormal positivity and abnormal certainty. They are calculated by dividing conference call transcripts into management parts and analyst parts, and separately analyzing tones using Loughran-McDonald (2011) Dictionary for corporate documents. The results are consistent with previous literature on CEO overconfidence, with overconfident tone associated with excess investment and larger share repurchase. We also test abnormal positivity and abnormal certainty with CEO's exposure to firm-specific risk to confirm the viability of overconfident tone as a new measure of management overconfidence.


The Kyoto Protocol was agreed upon at the end of 1997 with the main goal of combating global warming by the reduction of the emissions of six greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and sulfur hexachloride (SH6). Like the Montreal Protocol (1987) – which was negotiated on the back of solid scientific evidence that the ozone layer is thinning dangerously, the grounds for the Kyoto Protocol were laid by solid scientific evidence about the negative side effects of global warming (rising sea levels, extreme weather, etc.) and the causal links with the above mentioned six gases. Back in the 1980s and 1990s the scientists correctly predicted that if greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were left unchecked, our planet will continue to warm and humanity will have to face the consequences.

Whereas the Montreal Protocol so far has turned out to be a moderate success – NASA projects ozone recovery in the Arctic by 2025, and global averages and the Antarctic recovering by 2040, the success of the Kyoto Protocol is quite limited. Only the Annex I countries – as a group – have managed to achieve reductions of GHG emissions compared to 1990 (the base year) levels. Globally however, territorial CO2 emissions have increased from 22.7 Gt in 1990 to 36.6 Gt in 2018 – or about 60%. Therefore, the Kyoto Protocol's main achievement seems to be playing the role of a limiting factor in a context of growing emissions. This paper examines the reasons behind the Protocol's puny success and suggests that for all its limitations and shortcomings it has played an important role in the organized response to the challenge of global warming.


We report the cloning and functional characterization of the first heat-shock transcription factor that is specifically expressed during embryogenesis in the absence of environmental stress. In sunflower embryos this factor, HaHSFA9,trans-activated promoters with poor consensus heat-shockcis-elements, including that of the seed-specificHahsp17.6G1 gene. Mutations that improved the heat-shockcis-element consensus at the Hahsp17.7G4promoter impaired transient activation by HaHSFA9 in sunflower embryos. The same mutations did not affect heat-shock-induced gene expression of this promoter in transgenic tobacco plants but reduced the developmental activation by endogenous heat-shock transcription factors (HSFs) in seeds. Sunflower, and perhaps other plants such as tobacco, differs from the vertebrate animal systems in having at least one specialized HSF with expression and (or) activation patterns strictly restricted to embryos. Our results strongly indicate that HaHSFA9 is a transcription factor critically involved in the developmental activation of Hahsp17.6G1 and in that of similar target genes as Hahsp17.7G4.


Operational activity-based models have been developed, and are being used, in North America and some mainland European cities, for policy analysis; in the UK the practical application of activity-based modelling is much more limited, despite the fact that available sources of travel and activity data enable such models to be developed. An extensive review of the literature reveals that most operational models do not fully embody the principles of an activity-based approach. In particular, (i) the models mainly concentrate on out-of-home activities, (ii) there is no explicit trade-off between taking part in an activity in home or out of home, (iii) they assume that only one activity takes place at each non-home location, and (iv) the basic unit of analysis in these models is the trip tour or the activity pattern. This research proposes an approach for the analysis and modelling of activities which addresses these shortcomings, using individual daily activities as the basic unit and starting point. The approach recognises that activity participation is influenced by physiological constraints, as well as socio-economic characteristics. Also, it considers time availability and overall time budget as further constraining factors. Inter-personal linkages and the tradeoff between in-home and out-of-home activity time allocation are also incorporated in the proposed activity based modelling framework. The model has two major sequential components: (1) an activity generation and household allocation model system, developed in depth, followed by (2) an outline activity/travel scheduling model system. The proposed modelling framework incorporates the possibility of engaging in multiple activities per non-home stop, and allows for trade-offs between in-home and out-of-home discretionary activity participation. The framework also allows for the joint engagement of household members in out-of-home activities. The predictive capability of the activity generation-allocation model system and some applications of the model in transport planning and policy are demonstrated.


Background and Hypothesis: Propofol is an IV anesthetic agent with many clinical applications, including general anesthesia, sedation, delirium, and palliative care. Despite its versatility and effectiveness, Propofol has been shown to have detrimental effects on the vascular interface between the brain and circulation. The Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB) acts as a selective interface that serves to protect the brain from its cerebrovascular network. BBB dysfunction can have lethal complications such as cerebral edema and stroke. Matrix Metalloproteinases (MMP's), specifically MMP-2 and MMP-9 have been linked to BBB breakdown. Using human induced pluripotent stem cell (IPSC) derived brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs), we evaluated the impact of inhibiting MMP-2 on restoring BBB integrity following exposure to Propofol with the intent to reveal the mechanism by which Propofol disrupts the BBB.
We hypothesized that inhibiting MMP-2 would lead to phenotype recovery after exposure to Propofol.
Methods: IPSC-differentiated BMECs were treated with MMP inhibitors at varying time points and concentrations relative to exposure to Propofol for 3 hours. Trans-endothelial electrical resistance (TEER) and sodium fluorescein permeability was used to assess BBB structural integrity. A MTT assay was conducted to assess cell viability.
Results: Inhibiting MMP-2 did not result in in recovery of BBB integrity following exposure to Propofol as no significant differences were observed in TEER and sodium fluorescein permeability between the Propofol control and Propofol + MMP-2 inhibitor groups.
Conclusions & Future Directions: Propofol-induced disruption of BBB integrity does not appear to be through MMP-2 activity. High concentrations of MMP-inhibitor compounds result in increased disruption of BBB tightness and permeability. It is plausible to suspect that Propofol may act through other MMP's to facilitate BBB break-down, thus future studies should investigate the effects of the other selective MMP inhibitors in their ability to achieve phenotype recovery following exposure to Propofol.


Traditionally, workflow management systems are used to support static processes, i.e., processes which do not change frequently. This has limited the scope of workflow management. Moreover, the networked economy of the new millennium requires workflow management systems which are able to deal with dynamically changing workflow processes. The paper addresses two notorious problems related to adaptive workflow: (1) providing management information at the right aggregation level, and (2) supporting dynamic change, i.e., migrating cases from an old to a new workflow. These two problems are tackled by using generic process models. A generic process model describes a family of variants of the same workflow process. It is a first step in the direction of truly flexible workflow management systems and provides a handle to solve the two problems mentioned.


Polyacrylamide-zeolite composite was prepared by direct polymerization of polyacrylamide in suspensions of β-zeolite. Phytic acid was then immobilized on the composite surface. Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Thermal gravimetry (TG) techniques were employed to characterize the synthesized adsorbent. The adsorptive features of the composite and the modified composite were investigated for the removal of Pb2+ from aqueous solution in view of dependency on pH, time, ion concentration, temperature, selectivity, kinetics and reusability. The adsorption isotherms were evaluated with reference to the Langmuir and Freundlich models. Thermodynamic of the system was calculated. ΔG<0 indicated that the adsorption process was spontaneous. Good compatibility of the adsorption kinetics to the pseudo-second-order model predicted that the rate-controlling step was a chemical sorption. The selectivity experiments showed that the adsorbents were selective toward Pb2+ in the presence of Zn2+ and Cd2+. The reusability of the adsorbent was tested for four regeneration cycles.


Advanced control systems for Wave Energy Converter (WEC) devices require the prediction of the exact time waveforms of ocean waves. In this paper, ocean waves are described as a sum of several plane waves of different frequencies and directions of travel while sensor measurements are assumed to be observed under Gaussian noise. A general expression for the Cramer Rao Bound (CRB) of the estimates is derived pertaining to the group of sensors analyzed in the paper. The CRB is used as the criterion for determining the recommended type of sensors to be used for ocean environments described by a single frequency and a single direction.


: Currently, the industry is experiencing an exponential increase in dealing with binary-based combinatorial problems. In this sense, metaheuristics have been a common trend in the field in order to design approaches to solve them successfully. Thus, a well-known strategy consists in the use of algorithms based on discrete swarms transformed to perform in binary environments. Following the No Free Lunch theorem, we are interested in testing the performance of the Fruit Fly Algorithm, this is a bio-inspired metaheuristic for deducing global optimization in continuous spaces, based on the foraging behavior of the fruit fly, which usually has much better sensory perception of smell and vision than any other species. On the other hand, the Set Coverage Problem is a well-known NP-hard problem with many practical applications, including production line balancing, utility installation, and crew scheduling in railroad and mass transit companies. In this paper, we propose different binarization methods for the Fruit Fly Algorithm, using S-shaped and V-shaped transfer functions and various discretization methods to make the algorithm work in a binary search space. We are motivated with this approach, because in this way we can deliver to future researchers interested in this area, a way to be able to work with continuous metaheuristics in binary domains. This new approach was tested on benchmark instances of the Set Coverage Problem and the computational results show that the proposed algorithm is robust enough to produce good results with low computational cost.


The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of participating in small (3v3), medium (6v6), and large-sided (12v12) games on the physical activity levels (pedometer step counts, accelerometer counts, and minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity) and ball touches of children in physical education class. Participants were 29 students (55% boys and 45% girls) age 10-11 yrs. All participants wore a Yamax SW-200 pedometer and had their ball touches monitored and recorded. Twelve participants also wore an ActiGraph GT3X accelerometer. Repeated measure ANOVAs were computed to test for significant differences for each dependent variable with corresponding post hoc tests. Results indicated the 3v3 and 6v6 game conditions yielded significantly higher accelerometer counts and ball touches than the 12v12 condition. The 3v3 game condition also produced significantly higher ball touches than the 6v6 condition. These findings highlight the importance of utilizing smaller-sided games in physical education to promote increased involvement and physical activity.


The present study involves discovery, validation and use of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in bread wheat utilizing 48 EST-contigs (individual contigs having 20-89 ESTs, derived from 2 to 11 different genotypes). In order to avoid a problem due to homoeologous relationships, the ESTs in each contig were classified into 175 sub-contigs (3.7 sub-contigs/EST-contig) using characteristic homoeologue sequence variants (HSVs), which had a density of 1 HSV every 136.7 bp. In silico analysis of sub-contigs led to the discovery of 230 candi - date EST-SNPs with a density of 1SNP/273.9 bp. Locus specific primers (each primer pair flanking 1-18 SNPs) were designed utilizing one sub-contig each from 42 EST-contigs that contained SNPs, the remaining 6 contigs having no SNPs. To provide locus specificity to the PCR products, each primer was tagged with an HSV at its 3' end. Only 10 primer pairs, which gave each a characteristic solitary band, were utilized to validate EST-SNPs over 30 diverse bread wheat genotypes; 7 SNPs were validated through resequencing the PCR products. Allele specific primers were designed and utilized for genotyping of 50 diverse bread wheat accessions (including 30 bread wheat genotypes previously used for validation of SNPs), with an aim to test their utility in genotyping and map construction. The allele specific primers allowed the classification of 50 genotypes in two alternative allele groups for each SNP as expected, thus suggesting their utility for genotyping. Of the above 7 validated SNPs, 4 belonged to a solitary locus (PKS37); 7 haplotypes were available at this locus. Altogether, the results suggested that EST-SNPs constitute an important source of molecular markers for studies on wheat genomics.


Effective resource management for distributed real-time embedded (DRE) systems is hard due to their unique characteristics, including (1) constraints in multiple resources and (2) highly fluctuating resource availability and input workload. DRE systems can benefit from a middleware framework that enables adaptive resource management algorithms to ensure application QoS requirements are met. This paper identifies key challenges in designing and extending resource allocation algorithms for DRE systems. We present an empirical study of bin-packing algorithms enhanced to meet these challenges. Our analysis identifies input application patterns that help generate appropriate heuristics for using these algorithms effectively in DRE systems.


We report on topics raised in encounters with a series of robotics oriented artworks, which to us were interpreted as a general critique to what could be framed as robotic fakelore, or mythology. We do this based on interviews held with artists within the community of ArtBots, and discuss how their approach relates to and contributes to the discourse of HCI. In our analysis we outline a rough overview of issues emerging in the interviews and reflect on the broader questions they may pose to our research community.


Wingless type mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV) integration site-10B (Wnt10B) is an important member of the Wnt protein family that functions as cellular messenger in paracrine manner. Aberrant Wnt10B activity is the cause of several abnormalities including cancers of breast, cervix, liver, gastric tract, esophagus and pancreas as well as physiological problems like obesity and osteoporosis. The objective of this study was to determine the possible inhibitors against aberrant expression of Wnt10B in order to prevent and treat the physiological disorders associated with it. Wnt10B3D structure was predicted by using comparative modeling and then analyzed by PROCHECK, Verify3D and Errat. The model having 84.54 % quality value was selected and acylated to satisfy the hydrophobic nature of Wnt10b. For search of inhibitors virtul screening was performed on Natural Products (NP) database The compounds were filtered and Ligand based screening was performed using the antagonist for mouse Wnt-3a. This resulted in a library of 272 unique compounds having most potent drug like activities for Wnt-4. Out of the 271 molecules analyzed three small molecules ZINC35442871, ZINC85876388 and ZINC00754234 having activity against Wnt4 abbarent expression were found common through docking experiment of Wnt10B. Therefore, the three molecules ZINC35442871, ZINC85876388 and ZINC00754234 can be considered as lead compounds for performing further drug designing experiments against aberrant Wnt expressions.


This study was part of a twelve- week project to introduce agroecology growing principles and educational models at the Community Garden on the campus of Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. This project was set up to be a demonstration for the further development of the garden space as an area for agroecology focused education, extension, and outreach. To accomplish this, three areas of change became essential components to developing a garden space that can serve as a living laboratory, demonstration area, and outdoor classroom. The first project goal was to develop and create a demonstration garden plot that would include diverse growing models in order to explore the best land management practices for small- scale community garden growing. The second project goal was to develop an agriculture education program that would include preschool students, K-12 students, and university students. These programs would be instrumental in introducing students to the diverse topics in agricultural education and to present the opportunity to experience working in outdoor fieldwork that adheres to ecologically aware principles. The third project goal was to use sustainability as a measure of the quality of our garden management while determining how to assess the environmental, resource consumption, and economic impacts of our garden. The purpose of this twelve- week project was to initiate a preliminary project to expand research and education in the future at the community garden site. The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of the work that was done throughout the summer as this project was sponsored by the Undergraduate Research Council at Grand Valley State University as part of the Student Summer Scholars (S 3 ) grant program.


We report a composite catalyst in which binary transition metal nitride nanoparticles (NPs) were mounted on nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide (TiCoNx/N-rGO). The catalyst exhibited outstanding oxygen reduction activity in an alkaline medium. In its optimal form, our catalyst yielded a half-wave potential of 0.902 V (vs. RHE), ∼30 mV more positive than that of the commercial Pt/C catalyst, and its current density at 0.9 V (vs. RHE) reached 2.51 mA cm−2. The ORR activity of our transition metal nitride-mounted N-rGO was much higher than the activities of transition metal nitride alone or N-rGO alone, revealing a strong synergistic effect between the two materials. Further, the catalyst mounted with Ti and Co binary NPs exhibited higher ORR activity than the catalyst mounted solely with Ti nitride NPs, indicating the significant improvement gained by the addition of cobalt. XPS analysis results showed that the mounting of transition metal nitride clearly changed the amount and distribution of N species in the catalyst, causing the percentage of active pyridinic-N species to increase significantly. Moreover, changes in the binding energies of C and Ti atoms proved the synergy between TiCoNx NPs and N-rGO. We therefore ascribe the superior electrochemical activity of our TiCoNx/N-rGO catalyst to this synergy and to the improvement resulting from the addition of Co. In addition to its outstanding ORR activity, this catalyst also showed excellent stability and methanol tolerance, making it a promising Pt-free ORR catalyst for alkaline H2/O2 fuel cells and direct methanol fuel cells.


In a switched reluctance motor drive, it is important to synchronize the stator phase excitation with rotor position because the position of the rotor is an essential information. Although high-resolution optical encoders or resolvers are used to provide precise position information, these sensors are expensive. Moreover, in a high-speed region, switching angles are fluctuated back and forth out of the preset value, which is caused by the sampling period of the microprocessor. In this paper, a low-cost analog encoder suitable for practical applications is proposed. In addition, the control algorithm to generate switching signals using a simple digital logic is presented. The validity of the proposed analog encoder with a proper logic controller is verified from the experiments.


The proportion of real-time traffic, being transported over Internet protocol (IP) networks, appears to be ever increasing. Real-time traffic may, for example, be video and audio, which have real-time constraints such as maximum delay and delay jitter. Such requirements can be hard to satisfy in a wired infrastructure, and are even more so in a wireless network. Therefore there is a need to make transmission over wireless local area networks (WLANs) more reliable. The aim of this paper is to outline transmission of MPEG-4 video over an IEEE 802.11b WLAN, and to experimentally verify its efficiency. Receiver-driven layered multicast has been proposed before, for dealing with band limitations and environments with heterogeneous terminals. We extend these ideas to handle packet loss, by adding receiver-driven unequal error protection (UEP). The proposal can be viewed as receiver-controlled joint source/channel (JSC) coding on the application level.


The curvaton scenario for the generation of the cosmological curvature perturbation on large scales represents an alternative to the standard slow-roll scenario of inflation in which the observed density perturbations are due to fluctuations of the inflaton field itself. Its basic assumption is that the initial curvature perturbation due to the inflaton field is negligible. This is attained by lowering the energy scale of inflation, thereby highly suppressing the amount of gravitational waves produced during inflation. We compute the power spectrum of the gravitational waves generated at second order in perturbation theory by the curvaton (isocurvature) perturbations between the end of inflation and the curvaton decay. An interesting property of this contribution to the tensor perturbations is that it is directly proportional to the amount of non-Gaussianity predicted within the curvaton scenario. We show that the spectrum of gravitational waves may be in the range of future gravitational wave detectors.