The paper by Giacchino and his colleagues,7 on which your recommendations for management are so clearly based, was criticised in the subsequent discussion for its conclusions that colonoscopy should not be performed and it is surprising that you should perpetuate this erroneous conclusion. There is clearly much evidence to support a co-ordinated approach to the problem of massive bleeding from the large bowel, involving the gastroenterologist, endoscopist, radiologist, and surgeon in a joint and flexible approach to investigation and management rather than adherence to the more rigid flow chart suggested. RICHARD H HUNT


A brief review is provided of the capacity of neural tissue transplants to reinnervate the deafferented hippocampus and repair functional deficits induced by the lesion. The techniques for transplantation of solid pieces of embryonic septum, locus coeruleus or raphe nuclei, or tissue suspensions of embryonic septum, to the adult rat hippocampus are described. Such grafts manifest good long‐term survival. provide a good reinnervation of the hippocampus that is histochemically and biochemically appropriate and specific, can establish ultrastructural synaptic contacts with the host, and are electrophysiologically active. Rats with septal grafts manifest recovery of the capacity to learn certain aspects of radial 8‐arm maze, T‐maze alternation and Morris water‐maze tasks. Rats with locus coeruleus grafts manifest an amelioration of lesion‐induced hyperactivity. It is concluded that neural tissue transplantation provides a powerful new tool in the study of the functional organization of the hippocampus and its various neurotransmitter‐specific afferent systems.


Abstract This paper presents the application of Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Simulated Annealing (SA) techniques for optimal design and analysis of a DC—DC converter with synchronous rectification normally used in battery charge/discharge circuits in DC uninterruptible power supply systems. Converter models for simulation are designed for the forward and backup modes of operation. The results are analysed and compared to those of the expected ideal operation to confirm the validity of the models. An objective function of the converter efficiency in the forward mode operation is derived based on the steady-state values of simulation model. A constrained optimization on the objective function is performed using GA and SA, and optimal parameters are derived. The design and analysis of the converter are performed using software tools within the MATLAB/SIMULINK environment for GA. The derived optimal parameters of the converter from GA are compared with those obtained with SA technique.


In public announcement logic it is assumed that all agents pay attention to the announcement. Weaker observational conditions can be modelled in action model logic. In this work, we propose a version of public announcement logic wherein it is encoded in the states of the epistemic model which agents pay attention to the announcement. This logic is called attention-based announcement logic. We give an axiomatization of the logic and prove that complexity of satisfiability is the same as that of public announcement logic, and therefore lower than that of action model logic. An attention-based announcement can also be described as an action model. We extend our logic by integrating attention change. Finally, we add the notion of common belief to the language, we exploit this to formalize the concept of joint attention, that has been widely discussed in the philosophical and cognitive science literature, and we provide a corresponding axiomatization. This axiomatization also employs the auxiliary notion of attention-based relativized common belief.


Wild and domesticated animals can harbor a pathogenic Escherichia coli strain designated as O157:H7. Potential health problems could occur if strain O157:H7 is a more robust survivor in defecated waste than commonly used indicator bacteria. A laboratory study was conducted to assess E. coli O157:H7 survival relative to a nonpathogenic E. coli strain in two soils with different physical and chemical characteristics. Bacteria in the inoculated soils were enumerated on a weekly basis for 8 wk using a most probable number (MPN) technique. First-order decay models were used to describe bacteria mortality in the soils. Decay series were described slightly better by a two-stage function than by a single-stage function. Strain O157:H7 exhibited similar mortality patterns to the nonpathogenic E. coli in the same soil environment. Both E. coli strains had greater mortality rates in Pope silt loam (coarse-loamy, mixed, active, mesic Fluventic Dystrudept) than Zanesville silt loam (fine-silty, mixed, active, mesic Oxyaquic Fragiudalf). Differences in available soil water probably were the overriding factor in E. coli survival. Escherichia coli O157:H7 survival could be modeled in the same way as nonpathogenic E. coli and appears to have a slightly higher mortality rate.


The optimisation of alumina foam slurries for fast freeze-drying was determined and the final properties of the porous specimens were examined. The slurry solid loadings were varied from 50, 60, and 70 wt. %. The impact of a foaming agent (a naturally modified anionic surfactant), which generated bubbles, was investigated comparing samples without the foaming agent and with a 5 wt. % foaming agent. The amount of binder (polyvinyl alcohol) was varied from 5 and 10 wt. %. It was found that increasing the slurry solid loadings and the binder content resulted in a slower freeze-drying. This was due to the difficulty in breaking the bonds between ice crystals and the binder molecules during sublimation. Also, the high solid loadings decreased the porosities and narrowed the pore channels causing ice crystals to be trapped, which slowed down the process. A foaming agent addition could shorten the freeze-drying duration up to 25 % when the binder was present with no more than 5 wt. %. Therefore, the optimised formula found in this study was B5F5_60, which showed a porosity of 76 % and a strength of 4 MPa. This indicates that a highly porous material can be achieved with a fast freeze-drying technique.


In his Annales, Flodoard records year by year the events of his lifetime from 919 to 966. Yet a careful analysis of the opening — yearly — paragraphs reveals that the author, who both witnessed and participated in a significant number of the events he recorded, in all likelihood only began writing in 922 and 923. Indeed, the fact that he may have begun writing at this time is probably not accidental: when he witnessed the deposition and imprisonment of King Charles the Simple as well as the royal coronations of Counts Robert and Raoul, Flodoard clearly realized that he was living through extraordinary and historic events. These exceptional circumstances may have awakened his curiosity and driven him to undertake the writing of his opus. Thus it is possible to examine the context of Flodoard's writing and the state of mind of the Rheims cleric at the moment when he first takes up his quill.


Successful woodfuel value chain governance is dependent on the existence of known policies that are implemented, rules and regulations that are enforced and complied with by value chain actors and institutions with capacity to regulate and render support. Kenya has formulated policies
nd enacted legislation for guiding, managing and supporting woodfuel value chains. These policies and legal frameworks have evolved over the years, integrating provisions for sustainable production, distribution and use of woodfuel. However, even with well-developed policies and legislative frameworks, charcoal value chains are inadequately governed, beset by illegality, weak institutional arrangements, overlapping mandates and limited coordination and cooperation. Nonetheless, charcoal value chains have remained resilient despite the bans and moratoria throughout the decades and likely to continue in the foreseeable future. Limited knowledge, lack of incentives for sustainable production and limited support for organized efforts to manage woodfuel resources are contributing to low compliance with rules and regulations. Therefore, the development and implementation of interventions coupled with appropriate investments to incentivize and catalyze sustainable woodfuel production and trade cannot be over emphasized.


This study aims to explore learning organization practices and their relationship with
organizational performance in Yemeni Telecommunication Organizations (YTOs). A
survey approach using a version of Arabic translated Dimensions o f the Learning
Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) developed by Watkins and Marsick (1993) that
implies seven characteristics to the development of a learning organization, namely,
continuous learning, inquiry and dialogue, teamwork, embedded systems,
empowerment, systems connections, and provision of leadership are used. Five
communication organizations were participated in this study (3 local: Public Yemeni
Telecommunication, TeleYemen, and Yemen Mobile; and 2 Foreign: SabaFon and
MTN). A total of 577 questionnaires were distributed, to employees at both senior and
middle levels, and 447 questionnaires were returned with a response rate of 77.5%.
Results of the study revealed that the practices of the seven dimensions showed low
especially empowerment, while the highest dimension was continuous learning.
Correlation analysis showed that all of the correlation coefficients were significant at
the .01 level, and with an overall medium positive relationship with financial
performance while large with knowledge performance. On the other hand, the results
of the perceived measures of organizational performance that be explained by the
seven dimensions indicate that learning organization dimensions had statistically
positive and significant contributions to both organizational financial performance and
organizational knowledge performance, and also point out to the adequacy of the
measurement model with the collected data. In addition, The results of the influence
of gender, management role and type as moderating background variables indicated
that these tree variables moderate the relationship between learning organization
dimensions and organizational performance, and the models of male, middle role and
local organizations indicate more appropriate fit than the other three models (female,
senior role and foreign organizations). This study represents the first empirical attempt
to introduce the concept of the learning organization in YTOs. Thus, it contributes to
better understanding of the concept and issues related to apply it. In addition,
revalidation of DLOQ in the Arabic context is undoubtedly provide stakeholders and
practitioners in YTOs and other sectors in Yemen with reliable tool to assess and
monitor learning culture by which they will be able to initiate the concept of the
learning organization.


A combination of the two process-oriented approaches to studying profes-sional translation online: (i) verbal reporting, better known as TAP (think-aloud protocols), and (ii) Translog, a program used for logging keyboard activity, yields interesting data about what goes on in the translator 's mind during a translation task. Assuming that our interpretation of metaphorical expressions depend upon conceptual metaphors, examples selected from the online data of two experienced professional Norwegian translators are used to show how the translation of metaphorical concepts are handled. Possible ways of using the above-mentioned online data qualitatively to test the hypothesis according to which translation is more than an interlinguistic comparison, requiring the mobilisation of cognitive complements in the reformulation phase, are also suggested.


In monetary unions, monetary policy is typically made by delegates of the member countries. This procedure raises the possibility of strategic delegation - that countries may choose the types of delegates to influence outcomes in their favor. We show that without commitment in monetary policy, strategic delegation arises if and only if three conditions are met: shocks affecting individual countries are not perfectly correlated, risk-sharing across countries is imperfect, and the Phillips Curve is nonlinear. Moreover, inflation rates are inefficiently high. We argue that ways of solving the commitment problem, including the emphasis on price stability in the agreements constituting the European Union are especially valuable when strategic delegation is a problem.


The contamination of the environment with traditional therapeutics due to metabolic excretion, improper disposal, and industrial waste has been well-recognized. However, knowledge of the environmental distribution and fate of emerging classes of nanomedicine is scarce. This work investigates the effect of surface chemistry of polymeric nanoparticulate drug delivery systems (PNDDS) on their adsorption dynamics and transport in the vicinity of environmentally relevant surfaces for a concentration comparable with hospital and pharmaceutical manufacturing effluents. To this end, five different types of paclitaxel-based nanomedicine having different polymer stabilizers were employed. Their transport behavior was characterized via quartz crystal microbalance, sand column, spectrofluorometry, and dynamic light scattering techniques. PNDDS having positive zeta-potential displayed strong adsorption onto silica surfaces and no mobility in porous media of quartz sand, even in the presence of humic acid. The mobility of negatively charged PNDDS strongly depended on the amount and type of salt present in the aqueous media: Without any salt, such PNDDS demonstrated no adsorption on silica surfaces and high levels of mobility in sand columns. The presence of CaCl2 and CaSO4, even at low ionic strengths (i.e. 10 mM), induced PNDDS adsorption on silica surfaces and strongly limited the mobility of such PNDSS in sand columns.


Abstract. As a critical precursors of ozone (O3) and secondary organic aerosols, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) play a vital role in air quality, human health, and climate change. In this study, a campaign of comprehensive field observations and VOC grid sampling was conducted in Xi'an, China from June 20 to July 20, 2019 to identify the spatiotemporal concentration levels, sources, and secondary transformation potential of VOCs. During the observation period, the average VOC concentrations at the Chanba (CB), Di Huan Suo (DHS), Qinling (QL), and gridded sampling sites were 27.8 ± 8.9, 33.8 ± 10.5, 15.5 ± 5.8, and 29.1 ± 8.4 ppb, respectively. Vehicle exhaust was the primary source of VOC emissions in Xi'an, and the contributions of vehicle exhaust to VOCs at the CB, DHS, and QL sites were 41.3 %, 30.6 %, and 23.6–41.4 %, respectively. While industrial emissions were the second-largest source of VOCs in urban areas, contributions from ageing sources were high in rural areas. High potential source contribution function values primarily appeared in eastern and southern Xi'an near the sampling site, which indicates that Xi'an exhibits a strong local VOC source. Moreover, alkenes, aromatics, and oxygenated VOCs played a dominant role in secondary transformation, which is a major concern in reducing O3 pollution in Xi'an.


BACKGROUND
Cytosolic aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH1A1) is an important enzyme in the metabolism of acetaldehyde and the synthesis of retinoic acid. Two polymorphisms in the promoter region of ALDH1A1-ALDH1A1*2 and ALDH1A1*3-have recently been identified and described in small samples of Asian, Caucasian, and African individuals. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of these polymorphisms in a sample of Southwest California Indians and to test for associations with alcohol dependence and other substance-related behaviors.

METHODS
The participants in this study were 463 adult men and women recruited from 8 contiguous Indian reservations. A structured interview was used to gather information on demographics, psychiatric diagnoses, and personal drinking and drug use history. A blood sample was obtained from each participant, and leukocyte DNA was extracted and used to genotype for the presence of the ALDH1A1 promoter polymorphisms.

RESULTS
Twenty-seven participants (6%) possessed ALDH1A1*2 (frequency, 0.03), two participants possessed ALDH1A1*3, and one participant displayed both of these alleles. Individuals with an ALDH1A1*2 allele had lower rates of alcohol dependence and regular tobacco use than those without this allele. Individuals with ALDH1A1*2 also reported a significantly lower maximum number of drinks ever consumed in a 24-hr period, reported drinking fewer drinks per occasion when they first started drinking regularly, and reported lower expectations of alcohol's effects compared with individuals without this allele.

CONCLUSIONS
Results from this study suggest that ALDH1A1*2 may be associated with protection from the development of alcohol and other substance use disorders.


'in the ages of mediaeval Christian faith a " good death " was. regarded as the crown of life (not necessarily always of a goodmfe). Nowadays, surely, a healthy old age, with true "ripeness" and preservation of the intellect, has a just claim to becalled the crown of an active and well-spent life. Among themany (including some brilliant) medical and philosophical >ooks and essays on old age there is not one, so far as I know,, really similar to Dr. Vischer's. Dr. Vischer, who has had ,exceptional opportunity at Basle for a long and obviously sympathetic study of old persons, gives us the result of his Akperience and study regarding their physical and psychica? peculiarities and infirmities, their mental life, and how best to mbake them comfortable and happy in the feeling that they are still really playing a useful part in life. ' Paediatrics, in spite of considerable opposition, gained recognition as a medical specialty, and now, with the greatly in,creased proportion of old persons among the public, geriatrics can no longer be denied a place.


In this richly detailed study, James Naremore focuses on the work of film acting, showing what players contribute to movies. Ranging from the earliest short subjects of Charles Chaplin to the contemporary features of Robert DeNiro, he develops a useful means of analyzing performance in the age of mechanical reproduction; at the same time, he reveals the ideological implications behind various approaches to acting, and suggests ways that behavior on the screen can be linked to the presentation of self in society. Naremore's discussion of such figures as Lillian Gish, Marlene Dietrich, James Cagney, and Cary Grant will interest the specialist and the general reader alike, helping to establish standards and methods for future writing about performers and their craft.


The extent and impact of climate‐related extreme events depend on the underlying meteorological, hydrological, or climatological drivers as well as on human factors such as land use or population density. Here we quantify the pure effect of historical and future climate change on the exposure of land and population to extreme climate impact events using an unprecedentedly large ensemble of harmonized climate impact simulations from the Inter‐Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project phase 2b. Our results indicate that global warming has already more than doubled both the global land area and the global population annually exposed to all six categories of extreme events considered: river floods, tropical cyclones, crop failure, wildfires, droughts, and heatwaves. Global warming of 2°C relative to preindustrial conditions is projected to lead to a more than fivefold increase in cross‐category aggregate exposure globally. Changes in exposure are unevenly distributed, with tropical and subtropical regions facing larger increases than higher latitudes. The largest increases in overall exposure are projected for the population of South Asia.


We design an algorithm which finds an $\epsilon$-approximate stationary point (with $\|\nabla F(x)\|\le \epsilon$) using $O(\epsilon^{-3})$ stochastic gradient and Hessian-vector products, matching guarantees that were previously available only under a stronger assumption of access to multiple queries with the same random seed. We prove a lower bound which establishes that this rate is optimal and---surprisingly---that it cannot be improved using stochastic $p$th order methods for any $p\ge 2$, even when the first $p$ derivatives of the objective are Lipschitz. Together, these results characterize the complexity of non-convex stochastic optimization with second-order methods and beyond. Expanding our scope to the oracle complexity of finding $(\epsilon,\gamma)$-approximate second-order stationary points, we establish nearly matching upper and lower bounds for stochastic second-order methods. Our lower bounds here are novel even in the noiseless case.


Computation of efficient paths is very much essential for Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) due to frequent topological changes. In the context of IoT, MANETs could represent scenarios such as military applications, disaster recovery operations etc. In AODV, since at a time only one path is identified, due to link or node failure the current path becomes invalid. In AOMDV, the paths that are existing in the routing table are not node disjoint. i.e., whenever link or node failure occurs in the network, the current path becomes invalid. In this work, route discovery of the original AODV is altered by using the path accumulation feature of DSR to compute multiple paths. Among these, only node disjoint paths are selected using the path matrix method. The modified Multipath QoSe Aware Routing Protocol (MQARP) is compared with the original AOMDV. The proposed MQARP performs better in terms of delay, PDR and control overhead.


This paper reports on a newly developed fully coupled pressure-based algorithm for the solution of turbulent all-speed compressible flows implemented within the framework of the open-source OpenFOAM® library.In the algorithm the velocity and pressure fields are assembled into one extended system of equations that is diagonally dominant and then resolved simultaneously using a robust algebraic multigrid solver. At the heart of this algorithm is a re-derived fully coupled pressure equation that is very similar in form to the rhie-chow segregated pressure equation. After presenting the details of the coupled approach its performance is compared to that of a pressure-based SIMPLE compressible solver again implemented in OpenFOAM. A number of tests including laminar and turbulent flow problems are thus solved using both methodologies with their convergence history and computational cost compared.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


It has long been known that no exhaustive and authoritative reference book existed to which laymen, high school and college students, reporters, writers, and specialists in other fields could refer for information on mental health and illness. Professionals in this field are well aware of the avidity with which the public seeks information which it rarely obtains from reliable sources. At last a distinguished group of authorities chosen by the late Mr. Albert Deutsch has now produced the long-needed material compiled in six volumes. The language used is clear and easily understandable, yet the material is authentic. Each subheading is easily found through an adequate index referring to headings which can be found at a glance. Franklin Watts, Inc., is to be congratulated for the undertaking done so very well. Psychiatrists should be grateful to have such an adequate resource for referral.


Physical world enhancements through virtually drawn annotations on mobile devices are a core component of mobile augmented reality (MAR) experiences. However, resource intensive computer vision tasks typically limit the full deployment of MAR pipelines on-device due to a lack of required computation resources. As an alternative, a distributed scheme between client devices and edge servers enables offloading computation intensive tasks to powerful machines. This introduces challenges, such as maintaining low communication latency and high bandwidth channels between client and edge server. Current LTE and WiFi infrastructure do not fulfil such requirements. 5G networks are an ideal candidate to provide seamless MAR experiences. This research investigates the enhancement of MAR with both 5G and edge computing and aims to address two particular challenges: 1) the creation of a new 5G-based edge computing infrastructure to support reliable MAR, and 2) investigating which particular transport protocols allow for optimised quality of experience (QoE) for MAR applications within 5G infrastructure.


Concerns related to fairness of medical school admissions through selection have led some scholars to consider selection as an expensive lottery and suggest that lottery may be fairer. This paper considers the issue of selection versus lottery from the perspectives of three groups of stakeholders: 1) applicants, 2) medical schools, and 3) society. This paper contributes to the discussion by addressing advantages and disadvantages of the use of selection and lottery for these stakeholder groups, grounded in the findings from research. Themes that are discussed are reliability and validity issues, perceived influence on selection outcomes and student uptake, effects on student diversity, financial costs, impact on rejected applicants, transparency, and strategic behaviour. For each stakeholder group both lottery and selection yield a combination of advantages and disadvantages, which implies that none of the currently available admissions strategies completely fulfils stakeholders' needs. Research indicates that selection yields only small gains compared to a lottery procedure, while the student diversity, necessary for serving the increasingly diverse patient population, may be compromised. We argue that society's needs should drive admissions policies rather than institutional gains, which means that until a selection procedure is developed that does not disadvantage certain types of students, a lottery procedure should be preferred.


This research aims to understand consumer perception regarding the ethics which surround the fashion industry. The impact upon the environment from the fashion industry is growing due to consumer demand for an increased cycle of new fashion, decrease in garment price and the use of developing economies to reduce production costs. Although the fashion industry may not be at the fore of environmental concerns there is a body of evidence which suggests that current consumption levels are unsustainable and that consumer behaviour requires a change in order to be ethical. However, consumer behaviour is habitual and change will need to be facilitated easily and with additional consumer benefits (Memeryet al 2005; Schaefer and Crane 2005).


This literature review identifies the linkages between increases in agricultural productivity and poverty reduction. The evidence suggests that there are multiple pathways through which increases in agricultural productivity can reduce poverty, including real income changes, employment generation, rural non-farm multiplier effects, and food prices effects. However, barriers to technology adoption, initial asset endowments, and constraints to market access may all inhibit the ability of the poorest to participate in the gains from agricultural productivity growth.


This paper demonstrates the mutual relations between the various "voices" in Czech folk songs and the way in which these voices can be identified. The introductory section characterizes the specific features of the songs: the concision and condensation of their structure, as well as their emotionality of expression. The second section is devoted to the analysis of a selected corpus of folk songs from the perspective of heteroglossia. Their texture appears as a net of relations and functions which operate on different levels, stand in mutual complementarity, partly overlapping, and show differing relevance. Using methods of text linguistics, the author concentrates on two relations and functions – speech acts and compositional functions – as well as personal attitudes. The analysis focuses on utterances with the communicative function of appeal, i.e. on the interrogative and addressing turns which are quite frequent in Czech folk songs, on their interactive structure and modes of direct and indirect
speech. The author shows that the song genre has two faces: it is a compact combination of verbal text and its musical part (the tune) which may appear to be uneven in their mutual relations. The last section deals with the phenomenon of intertextuality in the song structure.


Uterine rupture during trial of vaginal birth after caesarean (VBAC) remains a rare but dramatic obstetrical emergency. Although several studies have shown that sonographic evaluation of the lower uterine segment (LUS) near term can predict uterine rupture, the best measuring technique and the cut-off values to be used remain controversial. While a large prospective study demonstrated that an abdominal measurement of the full LUS thickness over 3.5 mm had a strong negative predictive value, other authors suggested to measure the muscular layer only with a cut-off value of 1.5 to 2.0 mm. We report a case of uterine rupture in a healthy 31-year-old patient, which had a prior low transverse caesarean seven years earlier with a single layer closure of hysterotomy. At 36 weeks of gestation, the transvaginal sonographic measurement of the LUS was respectively 3.6 mm for the full thickness and 1.1 mm for the muscular layer only. At 39 weeks', induction of labor for premature rupture of membranes was initiated with oxytocin. A fetal bradycardia occurred approximately 12 hours after the initiation of induction. The patient underwent an emergency caesarean for clinical evidence of uterine rupture. Operative findings revealed a large uterine lateral tear from the cervix to the uterine cornu with the infant lying in the upper abdomen. In this case, there was a discrepancy between the normal full LUS thickness and the thin muscular layer. As the myometrium measurement could be more representative of the LUS resistance, we should perhaps give more credit to result of the later before proposing a trial of VBAC. Evidently, other risk factors must be taken into account, such as the type of closure of the uterine segment at prior caesarean and the intrapartum assessment. This case emphasizes the need for a consensus on the measuring techniques and cut-off values of the LUS thickness and to investigate its role in estimating the risk of uterine rupture among other predicting factors.


New research from MIT's Center for Information Systems Research and others reveals that successful companies are revolutionizing the way IT investments get decided. Investments are no longer justified merely on the basis of making a functional silo more profitable. Today the strategic needs of the whole company come first.

In the last 15 years, write professors Jeanne Ross of MIT's Sloan School of Management and Cynthia Beath of the University of Texas, a tidal wave of IT-enabled initiatives has elevated the importance of investing strategically. The Internet alone has created numerous opportunities: to reengineer processes, introduce online products and services, approach new customer segments and redo business models. The opportunities seem limitless, but the resources required ? capital, IT expertise, management focus and capacity for change ? are not. How to choose?

Traditionally, companies justified a given project by presenting a strong business case. But with IT's growing strategic importance, companies must now weigh individual ROIs against demands for organizationwide capabilities ? and must assess opportunities to leverage and improve existing systems and infrastructures, create new capabilities and test new business models.

The authors recommend a new investment approach based on a framework they developed after studying the e-business initiatives and supporting IT investments of 30 enterprises. The framework encourages simultaneous investment in four kinds of IT initiative.

Transformation investments are necessary if a company's core infrastructure limits its ability to develop applications critical to long-term success. Renewal investments maintain the infrastructure's functionality and cost-effectiveness. Process improvements allow business applications to leverage infrastructure by delivering short-term profitability. Experiments enable learning about opportunities and testing the capabilities of new technologies. The new tools are helping managers grapple with an increasingly complex world.


Sexual dimorphism (SD) has evolved in response to selection pressures that differ between sexes. Since such pressures change across an individual's life, SD may vary within age classes. Yet, little is known about how selection on early phenotypes may drive the final SD observed in adults. In many dimorphic species, juveniles resemble adult females rather than adult males, meaning that out of the selective pressures established by sexual selection feminized phenotypes may be adaptive. If true, fitness benefits of early female‐like phenotypes may constrain the expression of male phenotypes in adulthood. Using the common kestrel Falco tinnunculus as a study model, we evaluated the fitness advantages of expressing more feminized phenotypes at youth. Although more similar to adult females than to adult males, common kestrel fledglings are still sexually dimorphic in size and coloration. Integrating morphological and chromatic variables, we analysed the phenotypic divergence between sexes as a measure of how much each individual looks like the sex to which it belongs (phenotypic sexual resemblance, PSR). We then tested the fitness benefits associated with PSR by means of the probability of recruitment in the population. We found a significant interaction between PSR and sex, showing that in both sexes more feminized phenotypes recruited more into the population than less feminized phenotypes. Moreover, males showed lower PSR than females and a higher proportion of incorrect sex classifications. These findings suggest that the mechanisms in males devoted to resembling female phenotypes in youth, due to a trend to increase fitness through more feminized phenotypes, may provide a mechanism to constrain the SD in adulthood.


The report presents institutions and organisations involved in radioactive waste management (RWM) in several Members States (MSs) of the European Union (EU). It also identifies the responsibilities of different actors and the relationships and lines of accountability existing between them. The purpose is to provide a comprehensive overview of the RWM key stakeholders in the EU MSs. The report also locates RWM facilities in each country through the use of geographical maps. Detailed country profiles are provided for fifteen MSs: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.


A collection of symbiotic pea mutants consisting of 34 lines was created. The morphobiological and symbiotic description of different types of pea mutants is presented. The mode of inheritance of symbiotic characters is analyzed. For the first time in pea, hypernodulation mutations with dominant inheritance were isolated. Differences in the structure of bacteroid tissues of root nodules were revealed between mutants with effective and ineffective nodules. Using reciprocal root/stem and stem/root grafts, the plant organ producing nodulation-controlling factors was established. New hypernodulation-controlling genes--nod4 and nod6--were identified. For the first time in pea, using pure lines derived from cultivars with contrasting nodulation, the new gene Nod5--nod5 was found. The dominant allele of this gene controls abundant nodulation, high nitrogen fixation, and nitrate resistance. Pea cultivars carrying the Nod5 gene that can be used in selection for improved symbiotic properties were identified.


BACKGROUND
Improving the quality and efficiency of chronic disease care is an important goal.

OBJECTIVE
To test whether patients with chronic disease working with lay "care guides" would achieve more evidence-based goals than those receiving usual care.

DESIGN
Parallel-group randomized trial, stratified by clinic and conducted from July 2010 to April 2012. Patients were assigned in a 2:1 ratio to a care guide or usual care. Patients, providers, and persons assessing outcomes were not blinded to treatment assignment. (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01156974).

SETTING
6 primary care clinics in Minnesota.

PATIENTS
Adults with hypertension, diabetes, or heart failure.

INTERVENTION
2135 patients were given disease-specific information about standard care goals and asked to work toward goals for 1 year, with or without the help of a care guide. Care guides were 12 laypersons who received brief training about these diseases and behavior change.

MEASUREMENTS
The primary end point for each patient was change in percentage of goals met 1 year after enrollment.

RESULTS
The percentage of goals met increased in both the care guide and usual care groups (changes from baseline, 10.0% and 3.9%, respectively). Patients with care guides achieved more goals than usual care patients (82.6% vs. 79.1%; odds ratio, 1.31 [95% CI, 1.16 to 1.47]; P < 0.001); reduced unmet goals by 30.1% compared with 12.6% for usual care patients; and improved more than usual care patients in meeting several individual goals, including not using tobacco. Estimated cost was $286 per patient per year.

LIMITATIONS
Providers' usual care may have been influenced by contact with care guides. Last available data in the electronic health record were used to assess end points.

CONCLUSION
Adding care guides to the primary care team can improve care for some patients with chronic disease at low cost.


To establish a more comparable, compatible, and coherent system of higher education in Europe, the so-called Bologna Process (BP) has been adopted. As a measure to improve comparability, the BP requires that every study path, module, or course has to define a Learning Goal (LG) which is specified by the conveyed competences. Until now, the expectations towards the BP regarding comparability have not been fulfilled because competences are usually described in form of free text and not in standardized terms. The fact that since adoption of the BP more than 10.000 study programs have been created in Germany outlines a trend which demonstrates the need of improved solutions. Regarding comparability, so-called Competence Frameworks (CFs) with standardized, machine-readable competences are promising tools; therefore, they should be integrated into progressive software infrastructures concerned with creation, management, and execution of study paths, modules and courses. For this purpose, the so-called Qualifications Based Learning Model (QBLM) has been developed. In this paper, we introduce a general system architecture which is designed for realizing Competence-based Learning IT-infrastructures. Furthermore, the conceptual design and prototypical implementation of a Course Authoring Tool (CAT) is described which is based on the QBLM and the information-, content-, knowledge-, and learning management platform Knowledge Management Ecosystem Portal (KM-EP). The integration of the QBLM into Learning Management System (LMS) Moodle which is an underlying subsystem of the KM-EP platform is work in progress.


While most cases of intraoral cancer arise in the cancer-prone horseshoe comprised of the floor of the mouth, the posterolateral borders and ventral surface of the tongue, and the retromolar region, no intraoral site is immune. This article reviews the clinical features of squamous cell carcinoma of the gingiva, buccal mucosa and palate, as well as the less common oral malignancies that can arise at these intraoral sites.


This paper analyses recent industrial policy plans made by five leading countries: China, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and United States. This is done through the analysis of policy documents, using an original framework. Our analysis reveals that these policies have two main motivations. First, the acknowledgement of new technological opportunities and challenges, that allow not only for higher growth rates and competitiveness, but also for addressing 'societal challenges' (persistent socio-environmental problems). Second, the growing understanding that, because of the increasing complexity of innovation, private sector efforts alone are not enough, and a higher level of convergence between actors and institutions is needed. We also identify that the policy structures and proposed instruments of these strategies are quite conventional, which contrasts with the rhetoric of these policies. This reveals that the 'resurgence' of industrial policies is yet not a return to the 'old' policies of the twentieth century, but a new breed, which is much more cautious of interfering with market mechanisms.


An hybrid atomic force-scanning near-field optical microscope (AFM-SNOM) has been realized starting from a home-built AFM. The instrument uses a tetrahedral SiN tip for force and near field detection and is designed to provide, besides simple imaging, a full three-dimensional (3-D) mapping of force, friction and light intensity on the sample. High-resolution optical images of dielectric samples are presented together with curves describing the behavior of the collected optical intensity as a function of tip-object distance. AFM images and force-distance curves are reported as well and are compared with those obtained from the optical channel. Subwavelength features of the samples can be easily appreciated in both kinds of images, and the refractive index of the object can be computed from the attenuation constant of the tunneling light detected by the tip, with the AFM curve providing a convenient way of detecting the contact point. The spatial resolution of this kind of measurement is far better than that obtainable with any other index-measuring device. Homogeneous glass samples as well as monomode channel waveguides were analyzed in our experiments. The refractive index of several different prisms, made either of BK7 (n=1.519 at /spl lambda/=532 nm) or of SF58 (n=1.932) glass, could be measured with our near-field technique. As for the channel waveguides, the accuracy of our measurements lets us detect their presence and lateral extension in the substrate but is not yet sufficient to allow the reconstruction of their index profile.


This paper addresses the problem of synthetically evaluating the environmental performances of urban solid waste systems. This, in fact, represents a crucial point in the management process of complex systems that local administrations are called to cope with, in order to provide decisions about policy options that involve different issues characterising the quality of life of people. Suitable methods of evaluation are clearly required for this aim. This work introduces the dashboard of sustainability and the ecological footprint approaches as aggregate indicators of the performances of solid waste management systems. The methods have been selected due to their intrinsic simplicities, provided that the required data are available, although the first one can be defined as a political tool, while the second one can be defined as a technical tool. An application of both methods to the situation of Sicily is proposed here.


Krukenberg tumor originated from stomach in female patients is common in clinical practice, but it is still uncertain whether surgical resection of ovarian metastases could improve the outcome. Some studies suggested that a certain group of patients could benefit from the resection of ovarian metastases. However, conclusions were different between studies and there was no data to illustrate if certain molecular markers were associated with patients' survival. In this study, we analyzed the effects of resection of ovarian metastases, and investigated prognostic factors in 133 patients with ovarian metastases originated from stomach. Furthermore, we examined the expression of some cancer stem cells (CSCs) markers or related molecules in 64 ovarian metastases specimens and analyzed the correlation between these molecules and patients' survival. We found that the median overall survival (mOS) of all 133 patients was 16 months, and "gastrectomy" and "without ascites" were two independent prognostic factors associated with longer survival. The mOS of the patients with gastrectomy was longer than that of patients had not undergone gastrectomy (19 vs. 9 months, p = 0.048). Patients without ascites survived longer than those with ascites (mOS: 21 vs. 13 months, p = 0.008). We also found that Sox2, CD44 or CD133 positive expression in ovarian metastases were risk factors correlated with poor survival, and Sox2 expression was an independent prognostic indicator. These results suggested that ovarian metastasectomy might help to prolong the survivor of some patients with Krukenberg tumor originated from stomach. Patients without ascites, and with resected or resectable primary gastric cancer lesion could get benefit from and be potential candidate for surgical treatment. The expression of Sox2 might serve as a prognostic indicator for predicting patients' survival and be helpful for selecting patients in future.


It has been demonstrated that positive tissue samples from an active case in Turkana had viral RNA from a lineage III PPRV and the first available genome sequence was determined. Seven goats and sheep aged between 3-6 months that were tested to be negative for PPR antibodies by competitiveELISA were used for study. These animals were divided into two treatment groups and one control group. Each animal in the treatment groups was inoculated through intranasal route with 2ml of 30% infected mixed tissue suspension while the control group was inoculated with phosphate buffered saline. Animals were then examined daily for development of PPR clinical signs. Clinical signs were observed in treatment groups while the control remained apparently healthy. Fever started to develop from 6.6 ±1.14 and 8.6 ±1.34 days post infection (dpi) in goats and sheep respectively. There was a progressive rise in respiratory rates from 9 to 16 dpi in goats and from 9 to 14 dpi in sheep. Nasal discharges were recorded from days 8.2 ±2.28 and 9 ±1.83 post infection in goats and sheep respectively. Ocular discharges were observed from days 10±2.24 and 9.8±2.17 post infection in goats and sheep respectively. Oral lesions were observed only in one goat and two sheep. Diarrhea was observed from day 13.5±0.58 post infection in sheep and from day 14±1 post infection in goats.Gross pathology revealed lesions mainly in the lungs, body lymph nodes and the intestines. The results from this study indicate that whereas PPR is thought to mainly affect goats, the disease in Kenya appear to evenly affect both, goat and sheep.


The inability to unlock natural resource wealth for the benefit of developing countries' local populations, a phenomenon popularly known as the 'resource curse' or the 'paradox of plenty', has spawned extensive debate among researchers and policy makers in recent years. There is now a well-established body of literature exploring the links between natural resources and conflict, with some sources estimating that over the past 60 years, 40 percent of civil wars have been associated with natural resources. Following this introduction, Section two provides an overview of interstate tensions in West Africa in order to improve understanding of the drivers of fragility that trigger conflict between countries around extractive industry investment. Here, the discussion is grounded in examples in which interstate tensions have been apparent, including the case of the Mano River Union, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, a region with a history of conflict, and where the exploitation of commercial deposits of high-value resources may continue to have a potentially destabilizing effect. Section three focuses on the decentralization of natural resource revenues, a process that proponents believe can help manage grievances and defuse intrastate tension in areas directly affected by resource extraction, but one that is also not without challenges. Drawing upon the case of Ghana's Mineral Development Fund, the section explores the potential for conflict (and conflict triggers) to arise when the redistribution of extractive industry revenues to subnational regions takes place. In doing so, it becomes apparent that the capture and misuse of revenues from the fund is as much a political issue as it is a policy or technical one. This sets the stage for section four, which focuses in greater detail on extractive industry-related conflict within catchment communities, and how contestation is most often a result of unequal power relationships. Section five, the conclusion, summarizes and reflects upon some of the challenges and struggles over resource management associated with West Africa's recent resource boom, and draws out some of the cross-cutting themes. Here, suitable entry points for future lines of inquiry and engagement are identified.


Stability margin of the cable-in-conduit conductor is greatly influenced by current transfer performance among strands. When we estimate the stability margin analytically, we must assume the electrical circuit model among strands, but it is difficult to know it for real-scale cables, because the cable has many parallel circuits with a lot of strands and twisted stages. The measurement of the frequency characteristics of impedance among strands shows that the circuit can be regarded as two-wire model. By this measurement we can judge whether the circuit behaves like a distributed constant circuit or a lumped element circuit within the intended frequency band. When the circuit is a lumped element circuit, we can also get the interval distance between each contact point and its resistance. This paper also shows that stable conductors are often represented with a lumped element circuit that has well-contacted points with a short interval.


The development of intensive livestock farming in Western Europe after 1950 has been somewhat overlooked by historians, except in a number of macroeconomic works. This process has generally been understood as the application of the American agribusiness model to the European livestock sector through the direct and vertical connection between large feed companies and local farmers. Spain is a good place to test this idea, given the phenomenal expansion experienced by its livestock sector in the second half of the twentieth century and the strong influence large multinational, particularly American, feed manufacturers had on this growth. Oral histories offer insight into the microeconomic forces at work in the recent development of Spanish livestock farming and highlight the role of local entrepreneurs in the establishment of livestock agribusiness.


In most countries the agricultural sector, especially crop irrigation, is a considerable energy consumer. Farm irrigation studies in South Africa showed that energy and water is wasted on a large scale and there is a large potential for improving efficiency. The present study focusses on the measurement and verification (M&V) of irrigation pumping energy conservation measures (ECMs) under the Eskom Standard Product Programme funding mechanism in South Africa. A novel M&V methodology was developed to quantify ECM impacts under the Programme, which has special conditions and unique M&V requirements, which makes normal approaches inapplicable. Methods were designed to effectively determine conservative but representative impacts without continuous power demand profile measurement. The design involved unique methods to quantify operational demand reduction, annual energy consumption and annual average demand reduction impacts. The design was broadened to include pumps irrigating multiple crop areas and different kind of crops. The methodologies and techniques developed were validated and verified through establishing independent cross-check measures. The paper discusses a regional top-down M&V approach to verify the actual total energy efficiency and load reduction on the electricity grid for a specific region.


This paper provides evidence on the likelihood of formal finance usage among innovative small and medium enterprises (SMEs) operating in ASEAN countries. To this end, the SMEs are classified into four categories, namely non-innovators and product, process, and product-and-process innovator SMEs. Subsequently, a propensity score weighting (PSW) analysis is performed to adjust for diversity existing across innovative SMEs. The resulting propensity scores are further used to perform the causal effect analysis based on the average treatment effect (ATE) approach, which measures the likelihood of formal finance usage among different types of innovative SMEs. Our ATE results reveal that SMEs simultaneously engaged in product and process innovation show a higher likelihood of using formal finance than non-innovators. However, formal finance usage of SMEs perusing only product/service or process innovation is not any different from non-innovators. Furthermore, our pairwise analysis shows that product and process innovators also exhibit a higher likelihood of formal finance usage than product/service or process innovators. Besides, younger and medium-size product and process innovating SMEs are more likely to use formal finance. These results are robust for different subsamples and firm- and country-level controls.


Abstract:  Hispanics represent the largest and fastest growing minority in the United States. It is increasingly important to understand the skeletal morphology and regional variation within this diverse group. This research focuses on the eight cranial morphoscopic traits of Southwest Hispanics from Birkby et al. (J Forensic Sci 2008;53(1):29–33) and 18 additional traits. Frequency distributions assessed the prevalence of trait expressions in Southwest Hispanic, African‐American, and European‐American samples. Forward stepwise discriminant function analysis indicated the best traits for differentiating these three groups. Six of the Birkby et al.'s traits are prevalent in the Southwest Hispanic sample and the best traits to distinguish the three groups are as follows: incisor shoveling, anterior malar projection, nasal sill, oval window visualization, enamel extensions, anterior nasal spine, nasal aperture width, and alveolar prognathism. This research demonstrates the efficacy of morphoscopic traits in ancestry determinations and the utility of the aforementioned traits in discriminating Southwest Hispanics, African Americans, and European Americans.


Dionne Brand's memoir, A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging, touches on the author's childhood in Trinidad and adulthood in Canada but is equally concerned with understanding and intervening in the larger histories among which Brand situates her identity. A lush work of memories, poetry, and criticism, the work presents vignettes from the author's life alongside her meditations on writing, history, mapmaking, and most important for this essay, the archives. Brand's memoir is replete with supporting materials that range from fifteenth-century journals and letters to contemporary critical theory, from geographers' logs to films and pop culture. Her sources are rich and varied, and they can be broken down into three general types: the historical archives written during the "age of exploration" and the slave trade; the contemporary archives of newspapers and journals; and the creative archive of postcolonial writers, or what I am calling the neo-archive. Brand's memoir participates in an entire genre of postcolonial and in particular Caribbean literature that addresses the colonial archive. She thus provides a singular overview of the neo-archive by bringing many of these texts into dialogue with one another, and she explores as well the dialogue between such texts and the dozens of archival fragments she incorporates into her self-portrait.


Monogenetic volcanoes are a frequent type of volcanisms on Earth. They are frequently paired with polygenetic ones. We can distin- guish them by their place of origin. If a new vent opens on or near an existing volcano, it will join with a main crater of the volcano, or form a parasite on a flank of the volcano. If the vent opens at a certain distance from an existing volcano, its activities are independent of that volcano and its magma sources are also separate. At present we have difficulty in distinguishing between monogenetic and poly- genetic volcanoes, when we do not know the formers' history of eruptions. We are sure that Jorullo and Paricutin, both born before our eyes, are important and indispensable examples for discussion on monogenetic volcanism. The present discussion starts fundamentally from the knowledge of these two volcanoes. Among examples of monogenetic cones, we find clusters of monogenetic cones much smaller than Jorullo and Paricutin in volume, and densely distributed in a certain area of the world. The present paper discusses the three areas in the Far East. Morphological characteristics of the three areas show a strong volume contrast between component cones of the cluster areas and the twins of Jorullo and Paricutin. Averaged component volume of the former is approximately equal to 1 / 10 2  times as large as that of the latter. The present author tentatively presents qualitative interpretation of the above quantitative characteristics, mainly from a geophysical standpoint.


Calu-3, a cell line derived from a lung adenocarcinoma, forms tight junctions, expresses cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), and secretes Cl- in response to adenosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (cAMP)-elevating agents. Anion conductance of Calu-3 cells was assessed with isotopic flux and patch-clamp methods at 22 degrees C. Iodide efflux was increased by cAMP-elevating agents and brief trypsin treatment. A 7.1 +/- 0.4-pS voltage-independent Cl- channel with linear current-voltage relation was the most common channel observed in cell-attached recordings and was identified as CFTR on the basis of shared features with recombinant CFTR. In unstimulated cells, the mean minimum number of active CFTR channels per patch was 1 +/- 1 (n = 12), increasing to 6 +/- 8 (n = 40) after stimulation with cAMP-elevating agents or after brief trypsin treatment. Channel closure after excision was biexponential with tau 1 approximately 4 s and tau 2 approximately 79 s; typically channels were open continuously until closing permanently. In 11 of 12 excised patches, channels were reactivated by exposure to cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) plus ATP. Efficacy of reactivation was inversely related to the duration from excision to addition of PKA. Channels were blocked by 20-40 microM 5-nitro-2-(3-phenylpropylamino)benzoate on cytosolic but not external side. Active CFTR channels were recorded in 83% of total patches. Other types of Cl- channels were observed in 5 of 52 (10%) cell-attached patches and in 17 of 34 (50%) excised patches, including an outwardly rectifying channel in 2 patches. CFTR channels are the predominant pathway for cAMP-stimulated Cl- conductance in Calu-3 cells; the long open times in the absence of ATP are not explained by present models of CFTR activation.


Charpy impact tests were conducted on carbon reinforced epoxy composites fabricated by hand lay-up method using 0.47, 0.56 and 0.66 carbon fiber volume fractions; tests were conducted at temperatures between -60oC to 60oC. The impact strength was found, in general, to increase when the samples were fractured at temperatures above 0oC and the impact strength decreased with the increase of fiber content. The impact energy absorption was highest of 270 KJm-2 with 47 vol% fiber when fractured at +60oC and it reduced to 130 KJm-2 at -60oC. With decreasing the fracture temperature and increasing the fiber content the impact strength reduced significantly. The reduction of impact energy was from 235 KJm-2 to 107 KJm-2 for 56 vol% fiber and from 196 KJm-2 to 90 KJm-2 for 66 vol% fiber when fractured at +60oC and -60oC, respectively. Failure occurred mostly by fiber delamination; fiber splitting and matrix cracking were also present. Delamination was more in specimens tested at -60oC while fiber splitting and matrix cracking were more when fractured at +60oC.


The vast majority of all experimental results in particle physics can be described by the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. However, neither the existence of neutrino masses nor the mixing in the leptonic sector, which have been observed, can be described within this model. In fact, the model only describes a fraction of the known energy in the Universe. Thus, we know there must exist a theory beyond the SM. There is a plethora of possible candidates for such a model, such as supersymmetry, extra dimensional theories, and string theory. So far, there are no evidence in favor of these models.These theories often reside at high energies, and will therefore be manifest as effective theories at the low energies experienced here on Earth. A first example in extra-dimensional theories. From our four-dimensional point of view, particles which propagate through the extra dimensions will effectivel be perceived as towers of heavy particles. In this thesis we consider an extra-dimensional model with universal extra dimensions, where all SM particles are allowed to propagate through the extra dimensions. Especially, we place a bound on the range of validity for this model. We study the renormalization group running of the leptonic parameters as well as the Higgs self-coupling in this model with the neutrino masses generated by a Weinberg operator.Grand unified theories, where the gauge couplings of the SM are unified into a single oe at some high energy scale, are motivated by the electroweak unification. The unification must necessarily take place at energies many orders of magnitude greater than those that ever can be achieved on Earth. In order to make sense of the theoru, ehich is given at the grand unified scale, at the electroweak scale, the symmetry at the grand unified scale is broken down to the SM symmetry. Within these models the SM is considered as an effective field theory. We study renormalization group running of the leptonic parameters in a non-supersymmetric SO(10) model which is broken in two steps via the Pati-Salam group.Finally, the discovery of the new boson at the LHC provides a new opportunity to search for physics beyond the SM. We consider an effective model where the magnitudes of the couplings in the Higgs sector are scaled by so-called coupling scale factors. We perform Bayesian parameter inference based on the LHC data. Furthermore, we perform Bayesian model comparison, comparing models where one or several of the Higgs couplings are allowed, to the SM, where the couplings are fixed.


Reactions of 1,3-bis(trimethylsilyl)indene with Ln(CH2SiMe3)(3)(THF)(2) gave half-sandwich rare earth metal complexes (1,3-(SiMe3)(2)C9H5)Ln(CH2SiMe3)(2)(THF) (Ln = Y, Lu, Dy). These complexes were characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, which showed the eta(5) hapticity of indenyl ligands in all of the complexes. The catalytic behaviors of the complexes for intramolecular hydroamination of aminoalkenes were investigated. The catalytic activity increased with increasing the metal ion size. and the Y and Dy complexes showed excellent activities to a variety aminoalkenes.


Black-box test-generation requires a model of the system under test to describe what is to be tested. Testing criteria and test objectives define how it is to be tested. This paper describes an approach to black-box test-generation in which an AI (artificial intelligence) planner is used to generate test cases from test objectives derived from UML (Unified Modeling Language) Class Diagrams. The UML Class Diagrams are conceptual models of the systems under test. They differ from traditional design and requirements models in that they include information pertinent to test case generation. From these models, test objectives and a domain theory are: obtained, transformed to planner representations, and input to the planner. The planner uses the problem description to generate a test suite that satisfies the UML-derived test objectives. This paper describes the application of the testing approach to an industrial problem.


This article examines postmortem inventories and notarial records from Brazilian slaveholders in southern Brazil in the nineteenth century. By discussing selected cases in detail, it investigates the relationship between "precarious masters" (especially the poor and/or disabled, widows without family, and single elderly slaveholding women and men) and their slaves and former slaves to whom they bequeathed, in their testaments and final wills, manumission and property. The article reads these documents as intergenerational contractual arrangements that connected the masters' expectations for care in illness and old age with the slaves' and former slaves' expectations for compensation for their work and dedication. Following these uneven relationships of interdependence and exploitation as they developed over time, the article suggests a reassessment of the role of paternalism in Brazil during the country's final century of slavery. More than a tool to enforce relations of domination, paternalism articulated with the dynamics of vulnerability and interdependency as they changed over the life courses of both enslaved people and slave owners. This article shows how human aging became a terrain of negotiation and struggle as Brazilian slave society transformed throughout the nineteenth century.


Risk of neonatal mortality secondary to infections such as pneumonia and diarrhoeal diseases can be influenced by maternal hygiene, but little information is known about current maternal hygiene practices in low- and middle-income countries. This study aimed to assess the hygiene practices of mothers of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients in Lusaka, Zambia and associated epidemiological factors. A cross-sectional survey of the mothers of hospitalized neonates at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) in Lusaka was conducted. Study nurses orally administered questionnaires to mothers in their local languages about their hygiene practices related to newborn care. Of the 201 mothers surveyed, self-reported hygiene practice was associated with literacy (p = 0.013) and income (p < 0.0001). In contrast, adherence to recommended hygienic newborn care was less common, with only 36% of mothers practising recommended cord care practices. Forgetfulness (32%) and lack of hygiene resources (13%) were the major barriers to hygienic behaviours. Surveyed Zambian women who delivered babies requiring NICU care self-reported adequate hygienic practices and apparently faced difficulty practising them due to forgetfulness and a lack of hygiene resources. Future efforts should focus on improving cord care education, reinforcement of the importance of hygienic behaviours, and the supply of affordable antiseptic tools.


The determination of energy expenditure (EE) is central to many applications within exercise physiology. The quantification of EE is usually carried out using indirect calorimetry. This relies upon the accurate measurement of VO2 and VCO2 to determine the oxygen cost of the activity and the substrate oxidised. EE is calculated using the formula: Total EE (kJ/min)=kilojoules per litre O2 consumed×VO2, where kilojoules per litre of O2 consumed is calculated from the thermal equivalents of oxygen for nonprotein respiratory quotient (RQ). However, there is variation in the specific thermal equivalents used. The impact that this has on estimated EE has yet to be described. The authors examined nine different methods that were grouped into three different categories. Six methods (C1) were based on the thermal equivalents tables of Lusk.1 Another category (C2) consisted of a major revision of the Lusk table.2 The final two methods (C3) used fixed values for the thermal equivalents of O2.3 The different categories for calculating EE were applied to data with a fixed VO2 of 2.5 litre/min and RQ values between 0.71 and 1. Differences between categories were examined using a one-way analysis of variance. The EE values within C1 showed a variation of less than 1.1% at an RQ of 0.85 (p>0.05). The EE based on the Peronnet et al table (C2) of nonprotein RQ differed by 3.2% from C1 (p≤0.01). The fixed methods (C3) showed a difference of up to 6.3% compared with C1 (p≤0.01). Variation in thermal equivalents values has a large impact on calculated EE. Fixed methods are overly simplistic as they do not take into account the substrate being oxidised. The figures of Peronnet et al (1991) are preferable to those based upon Lusk's early work as they are based on more accurate values of energy released from fat and carbohydrates.


Macrophage activation syndrome can be primary with a genetic etiology, or secondary, associated with malignancies, infections or systemic diseases. Its a severe and potentially life-threatening complication of autoimmune diseases. The incidence of MAS among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus is not well known, as most of the previous studies were limited to a small number of case series or case reports. In recent years it has been suggested that macrophage activation syndrome in systemic lupus erythemaosus may be underrecognized because it can mimic the clinical features of the underlying disease or be confused with an infectious complication. The diagnosis of macrophage activation sydrome in adults is supported by hyperferritinemia (higher than 2000 ng/ml), and/or splenomegaly, pronounced cytopenias, hypofibrinogenemia, characteristic cytokine profile and hypertriglyceridemia. In the case of systemic lupus erythematosus flare, hyerferritinemia is the strongest indicator to differentiate them from MAS. So far, no validated and universally embraced diagnostic criteria for macrophage activation syndrome in adult secondary to systemic lupus erythematosus are available. It is important to know the parameters that can guide the clinician towards the diagnosis of macrophage activation syndrome in adult with systemic lupus. Early diagnosis and intensive therapy are essential in improving clinical outcomes. Hence, we decided to write this mini- review to focus on the demographic data, on the pathophysiological mechanisms, clinical and laboratory manifestations, treatments, and outcomes of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus associated macrophage activation syndrome.


The Synura petersenii species complex represents a common, cosmopolitan and highly diverse taxon of autotrophic freshwater flagellates. In this paper, we describe and characterize four new species (S. borealis, S. heteropora, S. hibernica and S. laticarina) that have been identified during our extensive sampling of freshwater habitats in 15 European countries. Morphometric analyses of siliceous scales led to the significant phenotypic differentiation of all four newly described species, and their separation from other related species of the S. petersenii complex. Two of these newly described species (S. hibernica and S. borealis) can be clearly distinguished by characteristic large colonies consisting of elongated, lanceolate-shaped cells. Development of strongly elongated, narrow cells in S. hibernica could be explained by the adaptation of this species to oligotrophic conditions. Though morphologically distinct, S. borealis possesses an exceptionally high degree of genetic diversity, possibly indicating recent speciation and evolutionary diversification within this taxon. Three of the four newly described species exhibit restricted biogeographic distribution. The evolutionarily related S. borealis and S. laticarina occur only in Northern Europe, and seem to be adapted to colder areas. The most remarkable distribution pattern was observed for S. hibernica, which has a geographic distribution that is restricted to western Ireland.


Objectives 3D scanning and stereolithographic printing technology becoming increasingly common, however its implementation into clinical practice is in its primacy. These technologies may be esoteric to the practicing neurosurgeon. We explored a range of 3D scanning and stereolithographic techniques to create patient-specific synthetic implants. Methods We simulated bilateral craniectomies from a single cadaveric specimen to create 3 methods of creating stereolithographically-viable virtual models. Firstly, we used 'pre-and-post operative' CT derived bony windows to create a virtual skull model, from which the flap was extracted. Secondly, we used an entry-level 3D light-scanner to scan and render models of the individual bone pieces. Thirdly, we used an arm-mounted, 3D laser-scanner to create virtual models using a real-time approach. Results Flaps were printed from the CT scanner and laser scanner models only, in a UV-cured polymer. The light scanner did not produce suitable virtual models for printing. The CT scanner derived models required extensive post-fabrication modification to fit the existing defects. The laser-scanner models assumed good fit within the defects without any modification. Conclusions The methods presented varying levels of complexity in acquisition and model rendering. Each technique required hardware at varying in price points from $0 to ∼$100,000. The laser-scanner models produced the best quality parts which bore near-perfect fit with the original defects. We discuss potential neurosurgical applications of this technology.


There is a lack of studies on the occurrence and diversity of Frankia in African soils, including those in northern African regions. The present study on Tunisian soils is an attempt to address this issue using AInus glutinosa, Elaeagnus angustifolia and Casuarina glauca in a plant capturing bioassay on 30 soil samples, followed by amplified 16S ribosomal DNA restriction pattern analysis (ARDRA). A total of seven ARDRA haplotypes of Frankia have been detected in root actinorhizas that have been affiliated to theoretical ARDRA haplotypes upon in silico digestion of selected 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequences retrieved from GeneBank and confirmed by their partial 16S rRNA gene sequencing. F/aeagnus-compatible Frankia isolates were widespread and form four ARDRA haplotypes affiliated to Frankia, colonizing Elaeagnaceae and Rhamnaceae in two different phylogenetic subgroups. Alnus-compatible strains occurring in northern subhumid area were closely related to AInus-Morella-compatible strains and clustered in two ARDRA haplotypes. Casuarina-compatible strains lack variability in several northern arboreta. The relatively wide diversity of Tunisian Frankia strains opens the perspective that African soil could be an interesting reservoir for the isolation of new actinorhizal strains that could be used as potential biofertilizers to counteract the progressive soil desertification which indeed is a crucial environmental problem in Northern Africa.


Background: Increased blood pressure and heart rate are the most frequent response to laryngoscopy which sometimes causes serious complications. Laryngoscopy technique and tools modification lessen the nociceptive stimulation, thus preventing hemodynamic response. BURP maneuver is used to lower Cormack-Lehane level, but it can cause additional pain stimulation during laryngoscopy. The aim of this study was to compare the cardiovascular response and the need of BURP maneuver during laryngoscopy between CMAC ® and conventional Macintosh. Methods: A randomized, single blinded, control trial was performed to 139 subjects who underwent general anesthesia with endotracheal tube. Subjects were randomised into a control group (conventional Macintosh) and an intervention group (CMAC ® ). The cardiovascular parameters (systolic, dyastolic, mean arterial pressure, and heart rate) were measured prior to induction (T1). Midazolam 0.05 mg/kg and Fentanyl 2 micrograms/kg were given 2 minutes before the induction. Moreover, they were given propofol 1 mg/kg followed by propofol infusion of 10 mg/kg/hour and Atracurium 0.8–1 mg/kg. After TOF-0 cardiovascular parameters (T2) were remeasured, it was proceeded to laryngoscopy. When Cormack-Lehane 1–2 was reached (with or without BURP maneuver), cardiovascular parameters were measured again (T3). Results: Unpaired T-test showed that cardiovascular response during laryngoscopy were significantly lower in the intervention group compared to the control group (p<0.05). The need of BURP maneuver was significantly lower in the CMAC ® group compared to the Convensional Macintosh group (13.9% vs 40.3%; p<0.05). Conclusion: Cardiovascular response and BURP maneuver during laryngoscopy with CMAC ® were significantly lower compared to conventional Macintosh.


Abstract We characterize complete atomistic lattices whose classification lattices are geometric. This implies an proper solution to a problem raised by S. Radeleczki in 2002.


Abstract. This paper describes the image recognition algorithm for on-board and stationary vision system. Suggested algorithm is intended to recognize the aerial object of a specific kind using the set of the reference objects defined by 3D models. The proposed algorithm based on the outer contour descriptor building. The algorithm consists of two stages: learning and recognition. Learning stage is devoted to the exploring of reference objects. Using 3D models we can gather set of training images by rendering the 3D model from viewpoints evenly distributed on a sphere. Sphere points distribution is made by the geosphere principle. Gathered training image set is used for calculating descriptors, which will be used in the recognition stage of the algorithm. The recognition stage is focusing on estimating the similarity of the captured object and the reference objects by matching an observed image descriptor and the reference object descriptors. The experimental research was performed using a set of the models of the aircraft of the different types. The proposed orientation estimation algorithm showed good accuracy in all case studies.


Prophylactic vaccination constitutes one of the most prominent medical achievements of history. This concept was first demonstrated by the pioneer work of Edward Jenner, dating back to the late 1790s, after which an array of preparations that confer life-long protective immunity against several infectious agents has been developed. The ensuing implementation of nation-wide vaccination programs has de facto abated the incidence of dreadful diseases including rabies, typhoid, cholera and many others. Among all, the most impressive result of vaccination campaigns is surely represented by the eradication of natural smallpox infection, which was definitively certified by the WHO in 1980. The idea of employing vaccines as anticancer interventions was first theorized in the 1890s by Paul Ehrlich and William Coley. However, it soon became clear that while vaccination could be efficiently employed as a preventive measure against infectious agents, anticancer vaccines would have to (1) operate as therapeutic, rather than preventive, interventions (at least in the vast majority of settings), and (2) circumvent the fact that tumor cells often fail to elicit immune responses. During the past 30 y, along with the recognition that the immune system is not irresponsive to tumors (as it was initially thought) and that malignant cells express tumor-associated antigens whereby they can be discriminated from normal cells, considerable efforts have been dedicated to the development of anticancer vaccines. Some of these approaches, encompassing cell-based, DNA-based and purified component-based preparations, have already been shown to exert conspicuous anticancer effects in cohorts of patients affected by both hematological and solid malignancies. In this Trial Watch, we will summarize the results of recent clinical trials that have evaluated/are evaluating purified peptides or full-length proteins as therapeutic interventions against cancer.


To alleviate the backhaul burden and reduce user-perceived latency, content caching at base stations has been identified as a key technology. However, the caching strategy design at the wireless edge is challenging, especially when both wired backhaul condition and wireless channel quality are considered in the optimization. In this paper, taking into account the conditions of the backhaul in terms of delay and wireless channel quality, joint design and optimization of the caching and user association policy to minimize the average download delay is studied in a cache-enabled heterogeneous network. We first prove the joint caching and association optimization problem is NP-hard based on a reduction to the facility location problem. Furthermore, in order to reduce the complexity, a distributed algorithm is developed by decomposing the NP-hard problem into an assignment problem solvable by the Hungarian method and two simple linear integer subproblems, with the aid of McCormick envelopes and the Lagrange partial relaxation method. Simulation results reveal a near-optimal performance that performs up to 22% better in term of delay compared with those in the literatures at a low complexity of  $O\left ({ {{{n{m^{3}}} /{\varepsilon ^{2}}}} }\right)$ .


Breeding for nutritional quality of food/feed crops had somewhat been neglected by plant breeders all through the years. The objectives had mainly been focused on disease resistance and yield. Current concerns about the global food security need to encompass the issue of breeding for nutritional quality of food plants. One of the issues that revolve around the nutritional quality is the presence of antinutrients. These substances reduce the bioavailability of nutrients such as proteins, vitamins and minerals which could result in malnutrition especially in developing countries. Designing breeding programmes for the enhancement of nutritional quality of food crops require information on the types and concentrations of these antinutrients in such crops. This study was thus initiated to obtain information on the concentrations of the antinutrients - cyanogenic glycosides, oxalates, phytic acids, tannins and alkaloids - of Annona muricata (a fruit), Corchorus olitorius (a vegetable/grain crop) and Pentaclethra macrophylla (a legume) which are common among the local people of South East of Nigeria. Results showed that mean contents of oxalate, phytic acid, tannins and alkaloids were within permissible limits while high contents of cyanogenic glycosides were observed in C. olitorius (0.551 ± 0.0165 mg/100 g) and P. macrophylla. Fermentation did not reduce the level in P. macrophylla. The values obtained in unfermented and fermented seeds were 0.577 ± 0.0004 mg/100 g and 0.575 ± 0.003 mg/100 g respectively. The results were discussed bearing in mind the need for plant breeders and nutritionists to design programmes that will balance the adverse and beneficial effects of these antinutrients since many of them have also been found to be pharmacologically beneficial.

 Key words: Antinutritional, contents, breeding, quality.


OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of seat height, wheelchair mass and grip on mobility performance among wheelchair basketball players and to investigate whether these effects differ between classification levels. METHODS: Elite wheelchair basketball players with a low (n= 11, class 1 or 1.5) or high (n= 10, class 4 or 4.5) classification performed a field-based wheelchair mobility performance (WMP) test. Athletes performed the test six times in their own wheelchair, of which five times with different configurations, a higher or lower seat height, with additional distally or centrally located extra mass, and with gloves. The effects of these configurations on performance times and the interaction with classification were determined. RESULTS: Total performance time on the WMP test was significantly reduced when using a 7.5% lower seat height. Additional mass (7.5%) and glove use did not lead to changes in performance time. Effects were the same for the two classification levels. CONCLUSIONS: The methodology can be used in a wheelchair fitting process to search for the optimal individual configuration to enhance mobility performance. Out of all adjustments possible, this study focused on seat height, mass and grip only. Further research can focus on these possible adjustments to optimize mobility performance in wheelchair basketball.


Since centralized data storage and search schemes often lead to high overhead and latency, distributed data-centric storage becomes a preferable approach in large-scale wireless sensor networks (WSNs). However, most of existing distributed methods lack optimization for spatial-temporal search to query events occurred in a certain geographical area and a certain time period. Furthermore, for data search routing, most methods rely on locating systems (e.g., GPS), which consume high energy. This paper proposes a distributed spatial-temporal Similarity Data Storage (SDS) scheme. SDS provides efficient spatial-temporal and similarity data searching service, and is applicable for both static and dynamic WSNs. It disseminates event data in such a way that the distance between WSN neighborhoods represents the similarity of data stored in them. In addition, SDS carpooling routing algorithm efficiently routes messages without the aid of GPS. Theoretical and experimental results show that SDS yields significant improvements on the efficiency of data querying compared with existing approaches, and obtains stable performance in dynamic environments.


The proportional Kalman filter (PKF) is formulated with integral action and generalized to the proportional-integral Kalman filter (PIKF). The PIKF can be utilized to improve the disturbance rejection property of the Kalman filter-based controller. Through extensive simulations, as applied to the lightly damped flexible structure of the 1992 ACC Benchmark, we show that the integral term of the PIKF allows effective estimation and rejection of arbitrary disturbances. As a result, a single PIKF-based controller robustly achieves full loop transfer recovery even when perturbed by an unknown shaped disturbance.


Pro-slavery, or apologist literature has, justifiably, been largely abandoned in humanities' discourse since Civil Rights; yet, due to the manipulation of superannuated slaves as involuntary spokespeople for enslavement within such works, no other genre offers more representations of the elderly enslaved in nineteenth-century America. Despite the racist rhetoric of apologist literature, a slippage exists between its "happy" fictions and the appalling realities of slavery, wherein its ugly truths and the agencies of the elder(ly) enslaved surface. What these schisms inadvertently reveal are coping mechanisms and acts of resistance by aged slaves significant to our understanding of this largely overlooked faction.
Plantation literature presumed that white masculinity was under constant attack, and apologists apparently believed the most effective means of reinforcing their status was representing black males as dependent, effeminate, eccentric, and frail. In deforming aged-slave men into groveling, grotesque caricatures and excluding younger slaves from their narratives, male apologists positioned their white protagonists (and themselves, by extension) as the superior masculine specimens in their readers' imaginations. This article is an in-depth consideration of 1) the ways in which white, male authors manipulated the slave "Uncle" to desexualize black men and argue the paternalism of chattel slavery, and 2) the unexpected acts of aged-slave agency that manage to reveal themselves through the blatantly racist caricatures of apologist fiction.


This paper describes a novel cost-driven disk scheduling algorithm for environments consisting of multipriority requests. An example application is a video-on-demand (VOD) system that provides high and low quality services, termed priority 2 and 1, respectively. Customers ordering a high quality (priority 2) service pay a higher fee and are assigned a higher priority by the underlying system. Our proposed algorithm minimizes costs by maintaining one-queue and managing requests intelligently in order to meet the deadline of as many priority 1 requests as possible while maximizing the number of priority 2 requests that meet their deadline. Our algorithm is general enough to accommodate an arbitrary number of priority levels. Prior schemes, collectively termed "multiqueue" schemes maintain a separate queue for each priority level in order to optimize the performance of the high priority requests only. When compared with our proposed scheme, in certain cases, our technique provides more than one order of magnitude improvement in total cost.


Automatic source code analysis in key areas of software engineering, such as code security, can benefit from Machine Learning (ML). However, many standard ML approaches require a numeric representation of data and cannot be applied directly to source code. Thus, to enable ML, we need to embed source code into numeric feature vectors while maintaining the semantics of the code as much as possible. code2vec is a recently released embedding approach that uses the proxy task of method name prediction to map Java methods to feature vectors. However, experimentation with code2vec shows that it learns to rely on variable names for prediction, causing it to be easily fooled by typos or adversarial attacks. Moreover, it is only able to embed individual Java methods and cannot embed an entire collection of methods such as those present in a typical Java class, making it difficult to perform predictions at the class level (e.g., for the identification of malicious Java classes). Both shortcomings are addressed in the research presented in this paper. We investigate the effect of obfuscating variable names during training of a code2vec model to force it to rely on the structure of the code rather than specific names and consider a simple approach to creating class-level embeddings by aggregating sets of method embeddings. Our results, obtained on a challenging new collection of source-code classification problems, indicate that obfuscating variable names produces an embedding model that is both impervious to variable naming and more accurately reflects code semantics. The datasets, models, and code are shared11https://github.com/basedrhys/obfuscated-code2vec for further ML research on source code.


Study Design: Prospective clinical study. Objectives: Although percutaneous pedicle screw fixation continues to be increasingly practiced, there remain few reports specifically addressing the accuracy and clinical safety of this technique. The goal of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of fluoroscopically guided pedicle screw placement in the lumbar spine. Summary of Background Data: Pedicle breach rates vary substantially in the literature. Pedicle breach rates have been reported to be as high as 29% with the traditional, open technique. With the use of computer-assisted 2-dimensional fluoroscopy, breach rates have been reported between 5% and 23%. Furthermore, in a series of 225 pedicles instrumented with 3-dimensional fluoroscopy, the reported breach rate was 1.8%. Methods: A total of 151 patients were evaluated after instrumented single-level or 2-level minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion with 601 screws placed for percutaneous fixation. The treated patients had an average age of 56.6 y (20–85 y) and there were 129 cases of single-level and 22 cases of 2-level. The levels of pedicle screw fixation included (level, patient numbers): L1/L2 (1), L2/L3 (2), L3/L4 (33), L4/L5 (101), L5/S1 (46). Radiographic results included postoperative computed tomographic scan. Patients were followed prospectively for potential clinical symptoms. Results: In a total of 601 instrumented pedicles, there were 37 pedicle breaches (6.2%). Of these, 22 (3.7%) were significant breaches (≥3 mm). The level of the breached pedicles were L3 (5/46, 10.2%), L4 (12/201, 7.0%), L5 (15/158, 9.5%), S1 (3/47, 3.4%). The side/location of breach was characterized as follows: medial (22), lateral (12), superior (2), and inferior (1). There were 2 symptomatic breaches, both associated with a medial breach at the L5 pedicle. Symptoms from these events were transient and did not require hardware repositioning. There were no other complications. Conclusions: Percutaneous pedicle screw fixation in the lumbar spine continues to be a technique embraced by modern spinal surgeons. The use of intraoperative fluoroscopic guidance is both a clinically safe and accurate method for instrumentation and is of comparable accuracy to other techniques. Although trajectory errors may occur, they are of rare clinical significance.


Population cycles are usually explained as a combination of deterministic mechanisms, such as predation, that drive density-dependent dynamics and stochastic forces that disrupt the neat patterns that would otherwise result.  It is often convenient to apply the signal vs. noise dichotomy in this context, where a deterministic signal is blurred by stochastic noise.  In some particularly fascinating situations, however, this dichotomy is unhelpful because the "signal" is inextricable from the "noise": stochasticity itself plays a role in shaping the overall pattern in the dynamics.  In this way, stochasticity has a qualitative effect on the dynamics, such that the population fluctuations look quite different from what should result from the underlying deterministic factors alone.  This creates quite a challenge: when we see patterns in ecological data, how can we tell if they were generated by mostly deterministic factors (with stochasticity simply adding some jitter) or if stochasticity played a key role in shaping the patterns themselves?  This question is important, because the answer determines whether stochasticity should be included explicitly in hypotheses for the observed patterns.  By studying models that can show both of these outcomes and comparing their assumptions and behaviors, I begin to dissect what allows stochasticity to have a qualitative effect and become part of the "signal".  This study suggests that developing a more nuanced understanding of how stochasticity and nonlinearity interact in ecological systems will likely be more fruitful than viewing stochastic perturbations as "noise" to be filtered out.


OBJECTIVE To analyze the clinical characteristics and long-term outcomes of patients underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with prior ischemic stroke. METHODS A total of 2053 patients underwent PCI in Peking union medical college hospital from January 2003 to December 2007 were included in this analysis and patients were followed up to December 2009. End-point included all-cause mortality, cardiac death, stent thrombosis, target-lesion revascularization, myocardial infarction, re-cerebral infarction. Major bleeding events were recorded during follow-up. RESULTS There are 1945 coronary heart disease patients were followed up and 222 patients with prior ischemic stroke. Compared patients without prior ischemic stroke, patients with prior ischemic stroke were older (P = 0.000), had higher hypertension morbidity (P = 0.000), higher diabetes mellitus morbidity (P = 0.005), higher incidence of multi-vessels disease (P = 0.000). During the follow-up of (35.0 ± 19.6) months, cardiac death rate (8.5% vs. 3.9%, P = 0.002) and re-cerebral infarction rate (5.8% vs. 1.4%, P = 0.000) were higher in patients with prior ischemic stroke than patients without prior ischemic stroke. Dual antiplatelet therapy treatment time [(13.77 ± 11.33) months vs. (13.94 ± 11.33) months, P = 0.986] and major bleeding events (5.8% vs. 3.6%, P = 0.100) were similar between the two groups and cerebral hemorrhage rate (1.8% vs. 0.5%, P = 0.028) were higher in patients with prior ischemic stroke than patients without prior ischemic stroke. CONCLUSION Patients with prior ischemic stroke were associated with increased rate of risk factors, multiple coronary artery disease, cardiac death and re-cerebral infarction and higher cerebral hemorrhage rate during follow-up despite similar dual-anti platelet therapy time.


Many tensor based algorithms have been proposed for the study of high dimensional data in a large variety of computer vision and machine learning applications. However, most of the existing tensor analysis approaches are based on Frobenius norm, which makes them sensitive to outliers, because they minimize the sum of squared errors and enlarge the influence of both outliers and large feature noises. In this paper, we propose a robust Tucker tensor decomposition model (RTD) to suppress the influence of outliers, which uses L1-norm loss function. Yet, the optimization on L1-norm based tensor analysis is much harder than standard tensor decomposition. In this paper, we propose a simple and efficient algorithm to solve our RTD model. Moreover, tensor factorization-based image storage needs much less space than PCA based methods. We carry out extensive experiments to evaluate the proposed algorithm, and verify the robustness against image occlusions. Both numerical and visual results show that our RTD model is consistently better against the existence of outliers than previous tensor and PCA methods.