The thesis discuses reliability estimation of individual predictions in the supervised learning framework. This research field is rather new and currently attracts little attention from experts and users alike. The main indicators of success of machine learning models are consequently still measures of average performance, for example classification accuracy or root mean square error. However, averaged statistics are not able to provide a full view of models' performance and an increasing number of today's users of machine learning have interest for additional information that can help them to better understand the models' results. This additional information is even more important in cases where wrong predictions may lead to serious financial losses or medical complications. It happens that experts become reluctant to use prediction systems if their predictions are not backed up by their reliability assessments. The prevalent methods for model assessment are insufficient among fields where decision support is of crucial importance or where the average performance is not of paramount importance, information on the reliability of single predictions may prove very beneficial.
The greatest concern with use of machine learning algorithms is whether the chosen model represents the data well and if the predicted values conform to the dataset or has the model learned a wrong concept or even over-fitted to noise in the data.
As we want to take into account all possible machine learning models, we have to deal with them as with black-boxes, which means we only have access to their input (the training examples) and their output (their predictions).
This work presents a complete overview of reliability estimators for supervised learning. This framework consists of classification and regression, due to their inherent differences. We also distinguish between point-wise and interval estimators, but interestingly, point-wise estimators can be applied both to classification and regression, whereas interval estimators are defined only for regression.
The first contribution of this thesis is a new comparative study of the usefulness of point-wise estimators in the classification setting. The analysis and comparison with a reference function shows that this kind of reliability estimation is rarely useful on real-world datasets. But in cases when we have to deal with a suboptimal model and the point-wise estimators conform with the data, they can prove to improve the results and provide additional information.
Regarding interval estimation, the thesis contributes a novel, unifying view of reliability estimation enabling their comparison, which was not possible before. Our analysis shows the dual nature of the two families of approaches: methods based on bootstrap and maximum likelihood estimation provide valid prediction intervals and methods based on local neighborhoods provide optimal prediction intervals. Based on this finding, we present a combined approach that merges the properties of the two groups. Results of this method are favorable, indicating that the combined prediction intervals are more robust.
Existing statistics that provide information merely on the models' average accuracy are not truly informative, while on the other hand, appropriate graphic visualizations are known to be very useful for developing users' intuition and understanding of the models behavior. After demonstrating an existing visualization tool for comparing prediction intervals we present a new visualization technique that enables model comparison and has potential for knowledge discovery.
The final contribution is a model aggregation procedure based on a combined statistic for robust selection and merging of regression predictions. This new evaluation statistic and aggregation procedure provides confirmatory and consequently more reliable predictions.


The paper examines profitability and market performance of small-scale fish traders selected randomly from a cross-section of nine fish markets in four districts in Central Uganda. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire which was designed to solicit information on traders' socio-economic characteristics, marketing characteristics, operating costs and returns, and problems associated with fish marketing in the study area. Percentages were used to describe the socio-economic characteristics, market characteristic and problems associated with fish marketing while gross profit and marketing performance models were used to determine profitability, marketing margin and operational efficiency, respectively. The results suggest that fish trade is carried out by both men and women. More men are involved in the trade of fresh fish while more women are involved in the processed (sundried/smoked) fish trade. Some traders dealt in more than one species of fish although a majority sold exclusively in one species. Gross profit was estimated at USh358.40/kg and USh234.73/kg for wholesalers and retailers, respectively, with marketing margins of 19.32% and 16.67% for wholesalers and retailers, respectively. The market operational efficiency was 279.27 percent, implying high efficiency in fish marketing in the study area. The major pressing concerns which included high supply cost, low prices, low fish supply and increased arrests for selling immature fish were common to both retail and wholesale marketing channels.


This paper presents the results of a study that investigated the relationship between characteristics of firms and their experience with applying for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding.  The basic issues investigated are (1) the relationship between firm characteristics and the decision to apply for SBIR funding, and (2) the relationship between firm characteristics and whether the SBIR application was successful. The results of the study demonstrate that local efforts to promote the SBJR program  by encouraging firms to apply and by increasing the visibility of workshops can lead to a greater number of firms to apply for SBIR funding. Efforts directed at firms in small communities may be even more effective than efforts directed towards firms in large communities. The results also suggest that organizations that provide SBIR assistance may consider screening potential clients according to the business goals of firm's owners. Owners of "life-style" firms may need extra encouragement and, perhaps, assistance to apply for SBJR funding. Finally, the results also imply that firms that are smaller (as compared to larger firms), have more limited experience raising capital, and serve a smaller market may need greater assistance in pursuing SBIR funding.


In this paper, we propose to leverage the simple and explicit parity checks inherent in low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes to detect dominant error events without code rate penalty. This is enabled by enforcing a very weak constraint on the LDPC code parity check matrix structure. Such a constraint can be readily satisfied by most structured LDPC codes reported in the open literature, such as quasi-cyclic (QC) LDPC codes. Moreover, this zero-redundancy dominant error events detection can be extended to handle the bit errors that occur when deliberate bit-flipping is used to enforce -constraints. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method in computer simulations.


To have value for an individual tasked with arranging a meeting, a scheduling tool must actively account for the individual's scheduling preferences, especially when the meeting request must be relaxed. We develop a preference model designed to capture user scheduling preferences for overconstrained meeting requests between multiple people, and a methodology for preference elicitation to initially populate this model. The model is built around a 2-order Choquet integral representation. We explain a natural-language-based elicitation of the meeting request details and constraints, and outline the solving of the resulting constrained scheduling problem (with preferences). We then describe the display of solutions to the scheduling problem to the user, as candidate scheduling options with explanations, and detail unobtrusive learning of revisions to the preference model from the user's choices among the candidates. We report on initial assessment of the efficacy of such a preference model in terms of elicitation, learning, and reasoning.


Today, migration from the countryside to the big cities is one of the problems facing the spatial and population structure of countries. In order to solve this problem, strengthening small towns and improve facilities in these cities has been considered by planners. The present study investigates the role of small towns in economic development of villages of penetration areas by studying the city of Nosrat Abad. The study population of this research is residents of villages near the city of Nosrat Abad which the sample size is 309 people based on Cochran formula. A researcher making questionnaire made by simple random sampling method was distributed among statistical sample. SPSS and GIS software have been used for studying the data and testing the hypothesis. Based on the analysis results, according to the statistical community, the second hypothesis was confirmed (t=6/914, p<0/05). If the economic infrastructure in the city of Nosrat Abad improves, this city can could influence the economic development of villages of its penetration areas.


MODELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS by JACOB WATSON (Under the Direction of Jed Rasula) ABSTRACT This thesis interprets Don DeLillo's more recent novels and video artist Nam June Paik's video installation TV Buddha as parallel critiques of the presentation of media and consciousness in Western thought. It argues that Western philosophy has used the dominant visual media technology of the given era as a conceptual model for understanding human cognition and perception since Plato. It then gives a thorough analysis of Paik's TV Buddha, leading to the conclusion that the work is a Buddhist deconstruction of Cartesian consciousness that reveals the vanity and circularity of the traditional Cartesian way of imagining human cognition. Finally, it attempts to show that a similar critique runs through DeLillo's work in the form of a career-long exploration of the relationship between media and consciousness that culminates in three works, Cosmopolis, Falling Man, and Point Omega, that strongly critique the use of technological media as models for consciousness.


Abstract Not Available – First paragraph follows:
SIMAZINE (PRINCEP), a persistent pre-emergence herbicide, has given broad-spectrum weed control in orchard crops. Generally it has been used by orchardists with excellent results. As it depends on water to activate it and move it into the soil, simazine's effectiveness is dependent on soil environment and the cultural practices employed.


A 78-year-old woman with a history of colon cancer with metastasis to the liver was presented to our emergency department because of bilateral groin pain and difficulty in walking, which had gradually increased during the previous 5 days. The pain was of sudden onset, radiating to the back, without aggravating or relieving factors. It was associated with constipation, dysuria and vaginal discharge. She reported passing fecal matter from the vagina one month ago. On physical examination, she appeared malnourished. Her blood pressure was 98/65 mmHg, with a 108 beats/min heart rate and 28 breaths/min respiratory rate. She was afebrile. Physical examinations were unremarkable, except for pale conjunctiva, abdominal distention, and diffuse tenderness especially over the umbilicus with guarding tenderness. Bowel sounds were decreased. Pelvic examination showed a yellowish odorous vaginal discharge from the external orifice of uterus. A complete blood cell count showed the following: leukocyte count, 34,200/mm3; segmented neutrophils, 87.5%; hemoglobin level of 7.4 mg/dl; hematocrit, 18.8%; and platelet, 180000/uL. Other laboratory studies included: glucose, 86 mg/dL; serum urea nitrogen, 28 mg/dL; serum creatinine, 0.87 mg/dL; sodium, 142 mEq/L; potassium, 4.8 mEq/L; albumin, 2.5g/dL; a carbohydrate antigen 19-9 level of 3,244 U/ml, and a carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) level of 64.6 ng/ml. Coronal and axial cuts of patient's abdominopelvic computed Tomography (CT) are shown in figures 1 and 2.


Electrocardiogram (ECG) artefact removal is the major research topic as the pure ECG signals are an essential part of diagnosing heart-related problems. ECG signals are highly prominent to the interaction with the other signals like the Electromyography (EMG), Electroencephalography (EEG), and Electrooculography (EOG) signals and the interference mainly occurs at the time of recording. The removal of the artefacts from the ECG signal is a hectic challenge, for which, a novel algorithm is proposed in this work. The proposed method utilizes the adaptive filter termed as the (Dragonfly optimization + Levenberg Marqueret learning algorithm) DLM-based Nonlinear Autoregressive with eXogenous input (NARX) neural network for the removal of the artefacts from the ECG signals. Once the artefact signal is identified using the adaptive filter, the identified signal is subtracted from the primary signal that is composed of the ECG signal and the artefacts through an adaptive subtraction procedure. The clean signal thus obtained is used for effective diagnosis purposes, and the experimentation performed to prove the effectiveness of the proposed method proves that the proposed method obtained a maximum Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 52.8789 dB, a minimum error of 0.1832, and minimum error of 0.428.


The topic of the paper is an approach to find optimal regimes of miscible gas injection into the reservoir to maximize cumulative oil production using a surrogate model. The sector simulation model of the real reservoir with a gas cap, which is in the first stage of development, was used as a basic model for surrogate model training. As the variable (control) parameters of the surrogate model parameters of gas injection into injection wells and the limitation of the gas factor of production wells were chosen. The target variable is the dynamics of oil production from the reservoir. A set of data has been created to train the surrogate model with various input parameters generated by the Latin hypercube.
 Several machine learning models were tested on the data set: ARMA, SARIMAX and Random Forest. The Random Forest model showed the best match with simulation results. Based on this model, the task of gas injection optimization was solved in order to achieve maximum oil production for a given period. The optimization issue was solved by Monte Carlo method. The time to find the optimum based on the Random Forest model was 100 times shorter than it took to solve this problem using a simulator. The optimal solution was tested on a commercial simulator and it was found that the results between the surrogate model and the simulator differed by less than 9%.


The report contributes to the debate surrounding land use in the Brazilian Amazon. It sets the context by reviewing the evidence concerning the deleterious effect of increasing levels of rainfall on agricultural settlement, and productivity. Next, it compares the economic future of an Amazonian community, under the traditional "predatory logging followed by ranching" model, and under sustainable logging. Last, the authors investigate the potential to create a system of national forests. The authors make four conclusions: 1) they demonstrate that increasing levels of rainfall, seriously undermine agricultural productivity, and sustainability. At the highest extreme, in the 45 percent of the Amazon with annual rainfall of over 2,200 mm, only forestry, and possibly some palm crops, are likely to be economically viable; 2) the authors assert that in this area of the Amazon, and much of the transition area (rainfall between 1,800 mm and 2,200 mm), sustainable forestry would provide more stable communities, and a higher standard of living than agriculture; 3) the authors conclude that regulatory competition, and a short local political time horizon, prevent sustainable forestry from being adapted, despite its better long-run performance; and, 4) some 10 percent of the Amazon could be put into national forests, in a way that would both meet current demand for Brazilian Amazonian timber, and reinforce the Amazon park system, which is expected to fully conserve 10 percent of the Brazilian Amazon.


Embracing micro-propagation method for large scale production of plantlets and also for protection of appropriate germplasm is a prerequisite that needs to be undertaken in order to develop a rapid in vitro  regeneration protocol for Ocimum sanctum L. Shoot tips as well as nodal segments were subjected to numerous shoots inducement. Explants were cultured on Murashige and Skoog Basal Medium (MS) supplemented for different plants' development controllers. HgCl 2 was utilized as a surface disinfecting agent. Nowadays, many researchers do not use HgCl 2 , so 1% sodium hypochlorite can be used. Cleaned explants were chiseled to 3-4cm length at right edges. The explants were inoculated vertically on the culture medium. The cultures were incubated at 25±2°C under cool fluorescent light. The photoperiod was set at 16 h light and 8 h darkness by automated timer. Data on shoot induction and expansion and root induction were recorded following three weeks of inoculation and utilized for figuring. Built up plantlets were transplanted in earthen pots under circumstances and outliving degree was recited. The practically viable surface sanitization medication for explants of O. sanctum was discovered at 0.1% HgCl 2 for 7 min. 1% sodium hypochlorite also showed same result. Maximum number of shoots per culture was recorded in MS medium containing 2.0 mg/l BAP in a mixture of 0.5 mg/l NAA. Regenerated shoots of O. sanctum were rooted most effectively in full MS medium supplemented with 1.0 mg/l NAA. It was observed that nodal segments are more responsive to micropropagation than shoot tips. This protocol is used to explore the opportunities of utilizing O. sanctum  L., as important medicinal plant of Bangladesh, in modern medical health care system by rapid clonal propagation, and germplasm conservation. The developed plants were acclimatized in pot successfully and also maintained in normal environment. Keywords: Ocimum sanctum , micro-propagation, explants, nodal segments, medicinal plant, regeneration


Abstract This paper discusses the use of WebQuests as an activity to combine competencybased learning and digitalization in a CLIL context through social tasks. In the 21st century, people need to use the knowledge they acquire in multiple scenarios. Thus, the educational system must provide learning contexts where students develop competences so that they are able to apply the knowledge they need in a culturally heterogeneous world. Integrated learning advocates the use of social tasks in bilingual scenarios. In order to solve a problem or explore an issue while creating a specific learning product, students connect different types of knowledge and thus acquire a more contextualized perspective of learning as a socially relevant activity. This kind of learning can be perceived as a bridge between the students' educational context and daily lives. The digitalization of education is crucial for understanding how society advances and works as many of the jobs that appear in the future will require digital literacy. In this paper, an example of a WebQuest in a CLIL class in Spain is presented as a model for competency-based learning and digitalization through a social task.


This experimental study is aimed at investigating the effect of superficial gas velocity, liquid phase properties and gas distribution on gas holdup, bubble characteristics and drag coefficient in two-phase bubble column. Various liquids covering a sufficiently broad range of viscosity and surface tension values were employed, while the gas phase was atmospheric air. Aqueous glycerine solutions were used to simulate the behavior of coalescing viscous liquids whereas aqueous alcohol solutions were used to simulate the behavior of non-coalescin g organic liquids. The experimental results obtained with two different types of gas distributor in the coalescence solutions and in non coalescence solutions were compared with data on standard air-water system. A computerized conductivity probe system and high speed digital camera were used for the systematic measurements of bubble size, velocity and gas hold-up. Correlations based on dimensionless groups were proposed for the prediction of gas holdup and drag coefficient in the homogeneous flow regime.


: The functional activity of some arboviruses of groups A and B, of the antibodies and serum inhibitors was studied on a model of the kinetic hemagglutination inhibition test (HAI) by different avidity criteria (velocity, completeness and stability of formation of a neutral complex). The avidity indices of the antigens, antibodies and the inhibitors proved to depend on the group, species and strain peculiarities of the arboviruses, the method of preparation of the antigen, the biological species of the donor of the immune and normal blood sera, the method of treatment of the sera and a number of other factors. There proved to be no constan-correlation between the avidity of the strain and the avidity of the serum immune to it. Inhibitors of the normal rabbit and human sera were not less effective in comparison with the specific antibodies to a number of viral strains of tick-borne encephalitis and Japanese encephaliti or even exceeded them by the avidity indices to the antigens in the HAI test. The most active (functionally) strains can be recommended for obtaining high-quality viral (antigenic and serum) preparations.


Introduction. Given the importance of the issue of the widespread impact of scientific and technical publications in today's world, and the diversity and multiplicity of indicators for measuring these publications, it is a necessity to classify these indicators from different angles and through different tools and methods. Method. This study used documentary analysis and Delphi technique methods. The members of the Delphi panel were twenty-one experts in metric fields in information science who answered the research questionnaires several times until reaching a consensus. Analysis. Kendall's coefficient of concordance and a one-sample t-test were used to measure the agreement of the panel members as raters on the questionnaire items. Results. A total of thirty-four sub-categories of indicators of assessment were identified which were categorised according to their similarities and differences into eight main categories as follows: measurement method, measurement unit, measurement content, measurement purpose, measurement development, measurement resource, measurability, and measurement environment. Conclusion. Classification of the indicators of evaluation for scientific and technical publications and related factors can lead to improved understanding, critique, modelling and development of indicators. The findings of this study can be considered a basis for further research and help develop evaluative theoretical foundations in scientific and technical publications and related factors.


The effects of hydrogen and proton irradiation on stacking fault formation in 4H-SiC are investigated by an optical pump-probe method of imaging spectroscopy. We report optically stimulated nucleation and expansion of stacking faults (SFs) in 0.6 keV 2H+ implanted n-/n+ and p+/n-/n+ structures. The activation enthalpy for recombination enhanced dislocation glide (REDG) in hydrogenated samples (~0.25 eV) is found to be similar to that in a virgin material. Our results indicate that SFs mainly nucleate at the internal n-/n+ interface, beyond reach of hydrogen, thus justifying minor SF passivation effect. No REDG could be initiated optically in 2.5 MeV proton irradiated samples due to radiation defects providing alternative recombination channels to bypass the REDG mechanism. The radiation damage was verified by DLTS, revealing several new levels below EC in the range 0.4-0.80 eV, and by PL, showing the onset of D-center related luminescence band and concurrent increase of the nonradiative recombination rate.


A shortcut review was carried out to establish whether ultrasound is an effective diagnostic tool for the diagnosis of sternal fractures. 27 papers were found of which 4 presented the best evidence to answer the clinical question. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of these best papers are tabulated. The clinical bottom line is that in patients with blunt thoracic injury and suspected isolated sternal fracture, ultrasound seems superior to conventional radiology to diagnose sternal fracture.


Cognitive radio (CR) was coined to address evolving user needs two decades ago. Since then, it also has been considered a way to mitigate perceived spectrum scarcity in various application areas. In this article, the status of military CR research is assessed through a systematic literature review of 193 articles, from 2013 to 2020, using IEEE thematic topics, technology readiness levels, as well as comprehensive capability meta-model as analytical frameworks. The annual distribution of military CR research indicates continuing interest. The military CR research seems to be prolific on topics like waveform design and security, not forgetting a steady interest in CR networking topics. Significantly low numbers of papers address applications, services, and standardization. In general, military CR research seemed sporadic and scattered. Our data suggest that a transition from individual techniques, component-level subsystem research in the direction of systems engineering approach, and system-level studies has not yet happened, and the overall TRLs remain low. The absence of publicly articulated comprehensive treatment of the notion of military cognitive radio system is graphic and has led to disjointed, scattered research at the subsystem level.


We propose a new family of market-based distributed planning algorithms for collaborative multi-agent systems with complex shared constraints. Such constraints tightly couple the agents together, and appear in problems ranging from task or resource allocation to collision avoidance. While it is not immediately obvious, a wide variety of constraints can in fact be reduced to generalized resource allocation problems; the translation is straightforward for task or resource allocation problems, and for general problems any shared constraint between agents can be considered a resource. For example, satisfying collision-avoidance constraints is equivalent to assigning to a limited number of agents the right to claim a particular space at a particular time.
Market-based algorithms have become popular in collaborative multi-agent planning, particularly for task allocation, due to their intuitive and simple distributed paradigm as well as their success in domains such as robotics and software agent systems. However, they suffer from several main drawbacks: 1. it is somewhat of an art to create a reasonable pricing in each domain, requiring a human designer and parameter tuning, 2. they rarely guarantee optimality, 3. they do not often have a natural way to incorporate uncertainty in planning, and 4. most existing algorithms require a central trusted auctioneer. This thesis presents a solution to address the drawbacks by providing mechanisms that automatically and optimally price the resources as well as simple, optimal bidding strategies for the agents.
We formulate multi-agent planning as factored mathematical programs that are optimized in a distributed fashion. Like other market-based planning algorithms, our methods allow for the optimization of each agent's local planning problem at the agent with limited communication; however, they are able to deal with more complex constraints than those usually used in market-based planning settings. We consider three different settings and give algorithms for each that compute resource prices automatically, and do so to guarantee (near-)optimality. First, we formalize factored mixed integer linear programs (MILPs), and give a novel distributed optimization algorithm by combining Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition, a distributed method for optimizing linear programs, with a cutting-plane algorithm. Second, we relax the framework with Lagrangian relaxation, for more efficient, convex optimization. Lagrangian relaxation yields an approximation to the original MILP, but we give a simple yet effective randomized rounding algorithm whose chance of failure can be bounded, and the result is a near-optimal approximation algorithm for problems with a very large number of agents contending for the resources. Finally, we study planning under uncertainty in the Lagrangian relaxation framework via stochastic programming, and give efficient algorithms for representing and optimizing uncertainty in factored Markov decision processes.
We evaluate our algorithms on domains ranging from task allocation and path planning to supply chain management, and demonstrate the power of wielding complex shared constraints in distributed planning, which we hope will continue to be studied in a wide range of domains.


PURPOSE
We aimed to assess the MRI findings and follow-up of multiple focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH)- like lesions in pediatric cancer patients diagnosed by imaging findings.

METHODS
We retrospectively analyzed clinical data and MRI examinations of 16 pediatric patients, who had been scanned using gadoxetate disodium (n=13) and gadobenate dimeglumine (n=3). Hepatic nodules were reviewed according to their number, size, contour, T1- and T2-weighted signal intensities, arterial, portal, delayed and hepatobiliary phase enhancement patterns. Follow-up images were evaluated for nodule size, number, and appearance.

RESULTS
All 16 patients received chemotherapy in due course. Time interval between the initial diagnosis of cancer and detection of the hepatic nodule was 2-14 years. Three patients had a single lesion, 13 patients had multiple nodules. The median size of the largest nodules was 19.5 mm (range, 8-41 mm). Among 16 patients that received hepatocyte-specific agents, FNH-like nodules appeared hyperintense in 11 and isointense in 5 on the hepatobiliary phase. During follow-up, increased number and size of the nodules were seen in 4 patients. The nodules showed growth between 6-15 mm.

CONCLUSION
Liver MRI using hepatocyte-specific agents is a significant imaging method for the diagnosis of FNH-like lesions, which can occur in a variety of diseases. Lesions can increase in size and number in pediatric patients.


RYA was designed to avoid biliary reflux, which complicated earlier forms of gastrojejunostomy. The emerging popularity of the procedure was squelched by the frequent complication of gastrojejunal stomal ulceration. RYA returned from surgical oblivion after World War II in its use in replacing the esophagus and stomach. It is now commonly used to drain other organs, mainly the biliary system, and in various remedial operations for complications from gastrectomy. Conversion to RYA is efficacious for the treatment of inflammation of the stomach and esophagus caused by alkaline reflux. The main complication of RYA is Roux Y syndrome, secondary to gastric or efferent jejunal stasis, or both. Peptic ulceration is much less a problem since the advent of vagotomy. Better understanding of the physiologic characteristics of various forms of RYA should soon better define the limits of its clinical application.


The amount of extracted natural gas from low permeable organic rich shale has increased rapidly over the past decade. The technologies used to improve the permeability of a shale gas reservoir are horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The potential environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing motivates research aiming at alternative permeability enhancement methods. In this paper we investigate the possibility of in-situ combustion to improve permeability. We consider two possibilities for the in-situ fuel source, viz., methane or kerogen. A one dimensional model is considered. Under simplifying hypotheses a quasi-analytical solution for the corresponding Riemann problem is obtained using advanced mathematical techniques. The solution was analysed with parameters that correspond to resonance conditions, i.e., conditions for which the speeds of the heat wave and the combustion wave are equal. We conclude that methane combustion cannot generate enough heat to enhance the permeability. However kerogen, if present in sufficient quantities, makes this possible. We present the set of parameters for which the combustion reaches the optimal temperature to improve the permeability. Finally we validate the analytical approximation with direct numerical simulations. With the numerical model we can calculate the pressure distribution in the reservoir and the production improvement by the thermal treatment.


"Should we head towards 'self-government' required by many of the participants, would that be a selfgovernmentof the citizens or the elect representatives? Whatever would happen, decentralization is, ina way, the book of our society, a book in which we find its aspirations, discrepancies and questions…It is well led from above, but it is well administered from the bottom."(Xavier Frege, Paris, 1986) This article presents the results of study regarding the decentralization process, which is currentlyunderway in the Republic of Moldova. The purpose of the study is to highlight the fundamental concept ofdecentralization, the areas of administrative decentralization, the forms of manifestation of financialdecentralization (fiscal decentralization and budget decentralization), to identify the priorities of thedecentralization process, and to establish the indicators for measuring the degree of decentralization. Inbase of the statistical analysis and synthesis method, it was determined the current state of the art in theadministrative-territorial entities in the course of the decentralization process in relation to the publicfinance management reform. It were formulate proposals to accelerate the process of financialdecentralization and self-government.


That plastids were once free-living cyanobacteria is now taken for granted by many, and for good reasons, for there is a wealth of data – in particular from the comparison of plastid and cyanobacterial genomes – that support this view. There is currently no seriously entertained alternative hypothesis to the view that plastids descend from cyanobacteria. But that was not always the case. Well into the 1970s there was a generally favoured alternative hypothesis, namely that early in evolution plastids arose de novo from within a non-plastid bearing cell (an autogenous origin) rather than through invasion by a cyanobacterium into a non-plastid-bearing cell with subsequent intracellular coexistence and reduction to an organelle (an endosymbiotic origin). Interestingly, the shift from autogenous to endosymbiotic hypotheses during the 1970s was a reversal of state for during the first two decades of this century, the endosymbiont hypothesis for the origins of plastids (and mitochondria, which will not be further discussed here) was very popular among biologists. It fell into disfavour shortly after the First World War, for reasons that are very difficult to summarize briefly, and remained scorned for 50 years (see Sapp, 1994, for an historical account in English, and Hoxtermann, 1998, for a succinct historical account in German). So where did the first version of the endosymbiont hypothesis come from? In a nutshell, it came from Konstantin Sergejewiz Merezkovskij (usually written as Constantin Mereschkowsky), a Russian botanist of little standing who worked at a rather small and by no means prominent university in Kasan and who published a very remarkable paper in 1905. We are not aware of any true precedent for his paper, which draws upon three lines of evidence known at the time.


The accretionary wedge in the incipient arc‐continent collisional zone offshore southwestern Taiwan is rich in gas hydrates as inferred from reflection seismic data and the geochemical analyses of shallow sediments. In this study, 2D and 3D seismic data were used to investigate the role of structural factors including mud diapirism on the formation of gas hydrates and associated free gas in the Quaternary Lower Fangliao Basin, a semi‐enclosed slope basin situated on the upper accretionary wedge. Albeit limited drilling information on lithostratigraphy and petroleum potential in the area together with seismic reflection data show that mud diapirs have influenced the formation of bottom‐simulating reflectors (BSRs) and the distribution of gas hydrates and free gas. On reflection seismic profiles, five seismic facies were observed and are characterised by: stratified parallel reflections; contorted reflections; semi‐parallel, high‐amplitude reflections; oblique, continuous high‐amplitude reflections; and generally transparent reflections. These seismic facies were respectively interpreted as hemipelagic sediments, mass transport deposits (MTDs), sandstone‐rich turbidites, overbank deposits and mud diapirs. The gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ) is characterized by (i) high amplitude reflections with an analogous phase to that of seafloor, possibly indicating potential porous sandstone‐rich turbidite reservoirs; (ii) BSRs showing polarity reversal relative to seafloor, suggesting higher impedance gas hydrates overlying lower impedance intervals with free gas; (iii) blanking reflections in fault zones, interpreted as gas‐bearing fluid conduits; (iv) strong reflections on the flanks of mud diapirs (e.g. flank drags) and above buried mud diapirs, demonstrating the presence of gas hydrates; (v) high amplitude reflections dragging on diapiric flanks with reversed phase to that of seafloor, indicating free gas ‐charged zones abutting mud diapirs; and (vi) the presence of focused advection and diffusion flow through mud diapirs and faults, which is interpreted to control the migration of thermogenic gas. Based on the distribution of seismic amplitude characteristics and reflection strength with respect to depth of the BSRs, hydrocarbon prospects can be divided into gas‐hydrate compartments above BSRs, free gas compartments above BSRs, and free gas compartments below BSRs. From a combination of geobody extraction and Monte Carlo simulation, the prospects appear to hold about 2048 Bcf (billion cubic feet) of total gas volume over a study area of 60 km2. These observations provide first‐order estimates of methane resources in the Lower Fangliao Basin offshore southwestern Taiwan.


The disposal of spent pickle liquor (largely spent sulfuric acid and sulfate of iron) has long been a problem of the steel industry. Ferrosul, a neutralized and precipitated pickling material, was applied to field plots at rates of 200,000 and 400,000 pounds per acre. Corn was grown with and without starter phosphorus fertilizer treatments to determine if phosphorus was fixed by the iron in Ferrosul. The ferrosul and phosphorus treatments had little effect on corn grain yield when compared to check plots. Corn and alfalfa were grown in the greenhouse on Plainfield sand and Miami silt loam soils treated with 1, 10, 20, and 40% Ferrosul on the weight basis, as well as an untreated check. It was found that corn yields were best on the 1% treatment with the Plainfield sand as a result of a sulfur deficiency of the check. Corn yields were decreased at the 40% level with both soils. Alfalfa yields were generally best with the Ferrosul treatments. The highest total yield of eight harvests was with the 20 and 40% treatments with the Miami and Plainfield soils, respectively. Phosphorus fixation was not found to be a problem when additions of phosphorus fertilizer were made. It is concluded that large amounts of Ferrosul can be applied to agricultural land without detrimental effects on crops and soils.


Fly ash emerges as the major waste material of many thermal power plants. It mainly comprises of oxides of silicon, aluminium, iron, and titanium along with some other minor constituents. The present investigation explores the coating potential of this industrial waste. It envisages the processing and characterization of a series of plasma sprayed coatings made with fly ash premixed with quartz, which is a low cost mineral available in plenty. These materials do not belong to the so-called "plasma sprayable" category. These have been deposited on mild steel and copper substrates by atmospheric plasma spraying. Utilization of such kind of industrial waste as coating material minimizes the cost of plasma spray deposition process, which posed to be the major hindrance to its wide spread application due to high cost of the spray grade powders.

Using atmospheric plasma spraying system coatings are deposited on metal substrates at different operating power levels of the plasma torch ranging from 11kW to 21kW and then characterization of the coatings is carried out. The properties of the coating depend on the materials used, operating condition and the process parameters. The plasma spraying process is controlled by the parameter interdependencies, co-relations and individual effect on coating characteristics. The particle sizes of the raw materials used for coating are characterized using Laser particle size analyzer. Deposition efficiency is an important factor that determines the techno economics of the process. It is evaluated for the deposited coatings. Coating interface bond strength is evaluated using coating pull out method, confirming to ASTM C-633 standard. In view of tribological applications, hardness is one of the most required mechanical properties. Hardness measurement is done on the polished cross section of the samples using Leitz Micro-Hardness Tester. Coating porosity is measured by image analysis technique. To ascertain the phases present and phase changes / transformation taking place during plasma spraying, XRD analysis is made. Coating surface & interface morphology is studied with Scanning Electron Microscope.

To study the suitability of the coatings for wear resistance application, wear properties of these coatings are studied. The erosion wear behaviour of these coatings is evaluated with solid particle erosion tests under various operating conditions. In order to control the wear loss in such a process, one of the challenges is to recognize parameter interdependencies; correlations and their individual effects on wear so that the coating can be useful for tribological application. Statistical analysis of the experimental results using Taguchi experimental design is presented. Spraying parameters such as impact angle, size of the erodent, standoff distance and impact velocity are identified as the significant factors affecting the coating erosion wear. Other statistical techniques like ANN and SYSTAT have also been very much useful in predicting the experimental data with a larger domain. This work establishes that fly ash-quartz mixture can be used as a potential coating material suitable for depositing plasma spray coating. It also opens up a new pathway for value added utilization of this industrial waste and low-grade ore mineral.


In this paper, we proposed the use of gold nanoparticles as plasmon scattering probes for dark-field multiplex imaging of live cancer cells. By carefully engineering the surfaces, aqueous dispersions of anti-EGFR antibody-conjugated gold nanospheres and gold nanorods are prepared. We demonstrated the receptor-mediated delivery of antibody conjugated gold nanospheres and gold nanorods into EGFR receptor-positive oral squamous cell carcinoma cell line by using darkfield microscopy technique. Our result suggests that gold nanospheres and gold nanorods formulations could provide up to 7 types of plasmon scattering probes based on their tunability range with a 100 nm spectral separation in absorption bands.


Procurement holds significant business value, as most organisations spend at least one-third of their overall budget on purchasing goods and services. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of an Intelligent Decision Support System (IDSS) for electronic purchasing. The theory of purchasing decision traditionally assumes that the offered quantity and quality are fixed prior to source selection. Decision Support Systems (DSS) are the need of the hour to assure results at a faster rate that best match the buyers' preferences and give valid recommendations. A two-dimensional approach is proposed: first, the Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) approach is used, which is a novel paradigm that solves a new problem by remembering a previous similar situation and reusing the information on and knowledge of that situation to bring out similar cases at a faster rate, depending on the predetermined similarity criteria. Second, the slope one predictors for online rating-based Collaborative Filtering (CF) and item-to-item CF are combined to produce accurate recommendations on the basis of the resources rating given by the users to help each other find better content. Our approach is database-driven, which provides buyers with more flexibility in the specification of their purchasing request and allows for an efficient information exchange among the participants. Finally, the purchaser can improve his profit.


Introduction Despite ongoing studies, the relationship of plaque echomorphology with increased risk of stroke in patients undergoing carotid angioplasty and stenting (CAS) remains elusive. The aim of this study is to examine whether carotid plaque echolucency is associated with greater plaque instability as determined by the quantification of captured embolic debris in CAS patients. Methods A total of 41 consecutive CAS patients with high-grade carotid stenosis were prospectively evaluated. B-mode images for 21 patients were available for analysis. Plaque echolucency was determined by grayscale median (GSM), a computer-assisted measure of echogenicity. Images were standardized with a GSM value of 0–5 for the vessel lumen and 185–195 for the adventitia. Echolucent (EL) plaques were defined by GSM < 25, and echogenic (EG) plaques were defined by GSM ≥ 25. Protective filters were visualized by stereomicroscopy along three perpendicular axes and quantified through video imaging software. Because of heterogeneity in particle shape, individual particle sizes were determined by greatest length. Results Mean GSM was 45.5, and 10% plaques were echolucent. Particulate debris was detected in all filters. Plaques with lower GSM were associated with a greater number of particles (EL: 33.5 ± 10.6 particles, EG: 14.0 ± 10.3 particles; p = 0.02). Echolucent plaques also demonstrated particles of greater size: maximum size (EL: 3490 ± 1954 μm, EG: 1026 ± 1186 μm; p = 0.015) and number of particles >1000 μm (EL: 3.5 ± 2.1 particles, EG: 0.7 ± 1.4 particles; p = 0.019). Conclusions Echolucent carotid plaques, as determined by GSM, may cause increased embolization of greater-sized embolic debris during CAS. Our study confirms previous findings that suggest that a GSM cut-off point of 25 may be linked with the release of more embolic debris. Therefore, increased plaque echolucency may place patients at greater risk for perioperative embolic events, making patients with such lesion characteristics more likely to experience postprocedural neurologic complications.


After heat treatment, the surface hardness and effective depth of hardened layers of automotive transmission countershaft, determines the quality of the part itself as well as the normal and reliable operation of the transmission assembly. The paper analyzes the specific reasons for such problems as soft zone on the hardened surface of transmission countershaft when proceeding with carbonitriding in the controlled atmosphere furnace, a multi-purpose furnace. And with process parameters adjusted, the process parameters of heat treatment are corrected that the soft zone has been eliminated and the quality of parts has been effectively controlled.


With the increasing capacity of today's integrated circuits, a number ofheterogeneous system-on-chip (SoC) architectures in embedded systemshave been proposed. In order to achieve energy and design cost efficientstreaming applications on these systems, new design space explorationframeworks and performance analysis approaches are required. Thisthesis considers three state-of-the-art SoCs architectures, i.e., themulti-processor SoCs (MPSoCs) with network-on-chip (NoC) communication,the hybrid CPU/FPGA architectures, and the run-time reconfigurable (RTR)FPGAs. The main topic of the author?s research is to model and capturethe application scheduling, architecture customization, and bufferdimensioning problems, according to the real-time requirement. Sincethese problems are NP-complete, heuristic algorithms and constraintprogramming solver are used to compute a solution.For NoC communication based MPSoCs, an approach to optimize thereal-time streaming applications with customized processorvoltage-frequency levels and memory sizes is presented. A multi-clockedsynchronous model of computation (MoC) framework is proposed inheterogeneous timing analysis and energy estimation. Using heuristicsearching (i.e., greedy and taboo search), the experiments show anenergy reduction (up to 21%) without any loss in application throughputcompared with an ad-hoc approach.On hybrid CPU/FPGA architectures, the buffer minimization scheduling ofreal-time streaming applications is addressed. Based on event models,the problem has been formalized decoratively as constraint basescheduling, and solved by public domain constraint solver Gecode.Compared with traditional PAPS method, the proposed method needssignificantly smaller buffers (2.4% of PAPS in the best case), whilehigh throughput guarantees can still be achieved.Furthermore, a novel compile-time analysis approach based on iterativetiming phases is proposed for run-time reconfigurations in adaptivereal-time streaming applications on RTR FPGAs. Finally, thereconfigurations analysis and design trade-offs analysis capabilities ofthe proposed framework have been exemplified with experiments on bothexample and industrial applications.


Ectoparasitic flatworms from the family Diplozoidae (Platyhelminthes, Monogenea) represent a serious bloodfeeding fish pathogens. Until now, the running research has been focused mainly on morphological and phylogenetical characteristics of these worms and the information related to the biochemical and molecular nature of the physiological processes is rather sporadic. To this date only two monogenean genomes are deposited in public sequence databases. Genomes of Gyrodactylus salaris (Monopisthocotylea, Gyrodactylidae) and Protopolystoma xenopodis (Polyopisthocotylea, Polystomatidae). Therefore, we designed whole-genomic sequencing of selected monogenean representative - Eudiplozoon nipponicum Goto 1891, which was performed by three sequencing techniques. 454/Roche (Junior sequencing platform), Illumina (MiSeq and HiSeq sequencing platforms) and modern Oxford Nanopore technique (MinION sequencing platform). Using 454/Roche Junior and both Illumina sequencing platforms, 164,773,962 short raw reads were originally generated. After trimming of low quality reads (Trimmomatic v. 0.36) and removing contaminatinon - reads given by fish host (Cyprinus carpio), 130,741,241 reads were used for the draft of genome assembly. Finally, 766,162 scaffolds were generated in total length 1,322,576,402 base pairs (1.3 Gb). But most of assembled scaffolds were identified as a Spiroplasma sp. or Emticicia oligotrophica (bacterial contaminations), which could mean that significant number of E. nipponicum reads could be unintentionally filtered out and final scaffold is incomplete. For purpose to improve E. nipponicum genome draft, we have additionally included reads generated by modern third generation sequencing method – nanopore sequencing. The MinION platform is a small and portable, real time working, low-cost USB device, producing long-read (theoretically up to 250 Kb). 500 working channels produced 1,097,634 reads with length up to 198,101 base pairs.


Kalimantan, located in the island of Borneo, represents a rare region in Indonesia, which has a relatively low seismic activity as it is located far from subduction zones. The number of existing seismic stations in this region is also quite low. Therefore, in order to investigate the mantle discontinuities beneath Kalimantan, we employed SS precursor data with SS bounce points within the study region (northern Borneo and its surroundings), located more or less halfway between earthquakes and receivers. In this study, we used data from several events in Fiji and Tonga recorded by the seismographic stations UOSS (the United Arab Emirates) and RAYN (Saudi Arabia). We used SS precursors resulting from a strict data selection with criteria: (i) earthquake depths ≤ 75 km; (ii) earthquake magnitudes > 5.8; and (iii) epicentral distances between 120o and 145o. There are two main steps in the data processing: (i) seismogram stacking by employing a Radon transform and (ii) ray tracing by using a shooting method. From the stacking results we obtained a strong energy focus in the Radon domain associated with a discontinuity at ~690 km depth. Another energy focus – which is weak – was also observed that is related to a discontinuity at ~290 km depth. We did not observe the global 410-km discontinuity beneath the study region. We focused our discussion on the strong discontinuity at the depth of 690 km, which is quite significantly deeper than the global average of seismic discontinuity; i.e., at 660 km depth. This observation is related to the subducted oceanic lithospheric slab that penetrates into the lower mantle and is then deflected horizontally below the 660 km depth beneath the study region before going down to a depth of at least 1500 km as depicted by previous tomographic models.


With the relative recent growth of rural tourism, there is a need to understand better both the long-term societal changes along with possible future advances in technology, to ensure that rural destinations are more aware of their consumer's future tourism expectations.
Existing future rural tourism studies tend to focus on the relatively short-term (in terms of future studies timescales) and often assume that the future will be a reflection/extension of today, and lack any understanding of how possible future scenarios options may influence the future development of rural tourism. The objectives of this study are 1: To explore the major social trends that are likely to influence the future of rural tourism in the UK by 2050, and 2: To examine two possible rural development scenarios resulting from such trends.
Through an exploration of both futures and tourism futures literature, a number of issues will be developed over two periods: the near and to some extent the known future scenario (next 10-20 years) and the far future scenario (20-40 years). The debate/discussion about these scenarios is framed within the context of both societal trends and future technology developments and their possible impacts on the rural tourism recreation experience. In terms of the future of rural tourism, there is likely to be a shift from functional leisure activities such as walking/hunting to experience/pleasure focused activities. We may also see the development of segregated/ protected/exclusive rural tourism areas that are only available to elite tourists who can afford to pay for the experience. For the great majority of tourists, driven by land use conflicts, labour and land shortages, they may expect to see an increase in the use of technology to deliver the future rural tourism experience, but this rural experience may be in an urban environment.


The 2014–2015 Ebola epidemic is the largest in history, affecting multiple countries in West Africa. In late July 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a Grade 3 emergency, its highest level of any emergency response. In early August, they declared it a public health emergency of international concern, meaning it is a serious public health event that endangers international public health. Indeed, by the end of September 2014, the United Nations stated the outbreak is "a threat to international peace and security." Guinea located on the Atlantic coast of West Africa, is the first country in this geographical region in which an outbreak of Ebola virus disease has occurred. Cases having been confirmed in other countries include Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. There were a small number of cases reported in Nigeria and Mali and a single case reported in Senegal; however, these cases were contained with no further spread in these countries. Confirmed imported cases have occurred in the United States, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The WHO declared the end of the Ebola outbreak in Liberia on May 9, 2015 but on June 29, routine surveillance again detected a new confirmed case of Ebola in Liberia. On November 18, 2014, India has quarantined a man who was cured of Ebola in Liberia. As of August 21, 2015, the cumulative number of probable, suspected, and laboratory-confirmed cases attributed to Ebola virus (EBOV) is 28,036, including 11,301 deaths. Zaire EBOV strain has been identified as causative agent for 2014 Ebola epidemic.


Internet of Everything (IoE) provides scalable service support for a heterogeneous class of users and applications. Concorde service delivery and quality are the focused problems retaining the user's satisfaction in the next-generation Wireless Networks (WNs). However, the flexible support for applications and users remains biased due to WN connections and unstable network architectures. This article introduces a Mutable Service Distribution Model (MSDM) for providing unified IoE application response. The proposed model handles the bias in IoE supporting WN connections and service drops between successive intervals. In this process, deep recurrent learning identifies the continuity between different intervals, preventing service overlapping. The service overlapping that degrades the Quality of Service (QoS) is distributed for different resource providers and WN architectures for delay-less responses. The bias is monitored by the learning output, ensuring re-assignment of application/ user service requests. Therefore, the service response drops are reduced with controlled time, aiding flexibility. Besides, the proposed model's performance is verified using response ratio, overhead, and assigning time.


The purpose of this study is to identify a map of the SME sector in the region and the understanding/appreciation of the owner or manager of SMEs towards accounting information systems. Then identify the needs of the SMEs sector in the regions related to the financial information system. Furthermore, identify all activities related to SME financing in each regional sector. This study is a survey research data collection via questionnaires. The sample study was 25 SMEs sector in the regions that are already exporting or potentially exporting in the region of Indonesia. The data were analyzed using the descriptive analysis method. The results of this study indicate that the SME sector in the regions does not yet utilize the accounting information system well; even some SMEs have not done the appropriate financial reporting standards requiring comprehensive financial information system development. With comprehensive financial information systems, SME management can generate financial statements following applicable regulations and standards and disseminate such statements more easily.


The current resource reservation protocol (RSVP) design has no reliability mechanism for the delivery of control messages. Instead, RSVP relies on periodic refresh between routers to maintain reservation states. This approach has several problems in a congested network. End systems send PATH and RESV messages to set up RSVP connections. If the first PATH or RESV message from an end system is accidentally lost in the network, a copy of the message will not be retransmitted until the end of a refresh interval, causing a delay of 30 seconds or more until a reservation is established. If a congested link reuses a tear-down message (PATHTEAR or RESVTEAR) to be dropped, the corresponding reservation will not be removed from the routers until the RSVP cleanup timer expires. We present an RSVP enhancement called staged refresh timers to support fast and reliable message delivery that ensures hop-by-hop delivery of control messages without violating the soft-state design. The enhancement is backwards-compatible and can be easily added to current implementations. The new approach can speed up the delivery of trigger messages while reducing the amount of refresh messages. The approach is also applicable to other soft-state protocols.


Contemporary theorists critical of the current vogue for compassion might like to turn to Friedrich Nietzsche as an obvious ally in their opposition to the sentiment. Yet this essay argues that Nietzsche's critique of compassion is not entirely critical, and that the endorsement of one's sympathetic feelings is actually a natural outgrowth of Nietzsche's immoralist ethics. Nietzsche understands the tendency to share in the suffering of their inferiors as a distinctive vulnerability of the spiritually strong and healthy. Their compassion, however, is an essential element of the imaginative creativity that Nietzsche holds to be the goal of human existence. Although shared suffering may prove debilitating for some, great individuals must come to affirm their compassion as necessary in achieving accurate knowledge of the human condition.


Abstract:Fats extracted from plants and animals are an important and understudied part of the industrialization of the "global North" in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Demand for soap, lamp oil, candles, lubricants, and other products drove European and American efforts to extract fats from animals across the continents and oceans, and by the late nineteenth century a proportion of this fat entered the North's food supply. Simultaneously, demand for edible and industrial fats appeared to be outstripping supplies. Plants emerged as an important source of fat in this period, as new technologies allowed plant fats to be transformed into more versatile and edible products. The transition to plant fats represented an important move down the food chain for Northern consumers, allowing for the efficient use of existing resources, as well as contributing to the ongoing extraction of raw materials from the tropics.


The underground water is the only source of drinking water in Buzău County. As a consequence the investigation of the underground water has a major importance. In the present study, a number of seven groundwater sources, located in Bisoca commune, NE of Buzău County, were selected in order to investigate the underground water quality. Several physico-chemical (temperature, pH, total dissolved solids, electrical conductivity, oxidationreduction potential, salinity and turbidity) and chemical (Li + , Na + , K + , Mg 2+ , Ca 2+ , NH4 + , F , Cl , Br , NO2 , NO3 , PO4 3, SO4 2, Cu, Cd, Cr, Zn, Fe, Ni and Pb) parameters were analyzed. The waters proved to have low salinity values (0.10.8‰) and electrical conductivity (89.5 – 1993.0 μS/cm). The dissolved ions distribution is dominated by the presence of sodium (3.6 – 232.9 mg/l), calcium (6.8 – 365.43 mg/l), sulphates (10.9 – 1301.4 mg/l), bicarbonates (427 – 793 mg/l) and chloride (5.1 – 166.1 mg/l). In the case of iron and lead there were registered exceeding's of maximum permissible limits for drinking water.


Co-channel interference is one of the major factors limiting the capacity in modern cellular networks. Interference rejection combining (IRC) is an effective technique to suppress co-channel interference, requiring receivers with multiple antennas. For terminals using IRC, the larger the number of available antennas, the more interfering signals that can be suppressed. However, production cost, size and energy consumption of the required radio-frequency units impose a limit in the number of practical antenna elements. In this paper, we investigate the combination of IRC with antenna selection (AS), as a cost-effective approach to improve the interference suppression performance of wireless receivers, and present different low-complexity AS algorithms. In addition, we propose algorithmic modifications in case the estimates of interfering channels are unknown at the receiver, and an estimate of the interference-plus-noise covariance matrix (CM) has to be used. It is found that, in the presence of channel estimation errors, AS techniques using the CM approach are able to provide better performance than techniques using estimates of interfering channels. These findings and the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms are validated by both computer simulations and experimental testing using a hardware prototype.


In this field-based study, we interview top- and middle-level managers at Insteel Industries and conduct statistical analysis of firm-level data in order to shed light on whether activity-based costing (ABC) provides new information to managers and whether activity-based management (ABM) significantly influences product and customer-related decisions. We find that after the ABC analysis, Insteel undertook a number of process improvements that resulted in significant cost savings. Additionally, Insteel displayed a higher propensity to discontinue or increase prices of products and discontinue customers that were found comparatively unprofitable in the ABC study. Thus we provide empirical evidence that ABC influences both strategic and operational managerial decisions. Copyright (c) 2002 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


This thesis is a description of the prosodic patterns in Jaminjung, a language spoken in the Victoria River District in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is a quantitative and qualitative examination of the features associated with the intonational phenomena in Jaminjung. It is based on the idea that, while some aspects of prosody may be universal, each language has its unique characteristics. In this study I will make use of the PENTA model of intonation, a recent development that places communicative functions and articulatory constraints at the core of prosody, thus providing a clear explanation of prosodic phenomena, linking phonetics to semantics. The analyses are based on carefully selected representative tokens of the speech used in specific communicative situations by the Jaminjung speakers from recordings of spontaneous speech. The features associated with the grouping function, that is, in the demarcation or organization of a string of words (or rather syllables) into chunks, are examined. Four main prosodic constituents are recognized: the prosodic word, the phrasal constituent, the intonation unit, and the prosodic sentence. They are distinguished at their left boundaries by pitch resets which increase from unit to unit. The larger constituents are cued at the right edge with F0 lowering and syllable lengthening, cues associated with finality in many languages. The encoding parameters of some major information structural categories, topic and focus and contrast are investigated. A prominence is usually perceived on the first syllable in the focus domain. A [fall] pitch target is associated with this syllable; it is also marked by wider pitch excursions and longer durations. Topics, for their part, are marked by a [high] target on their initial syllables. The prosodic encoding of topics follows a scale of ?givenness?, where more given topics are less marked than less given topics. Contrast in focused arguments and topics is encoded with a [fall] target on the initial syllable and thus share this feature with focus, but they also display a wider pitch excursion on all the syllables. This last feature marks contrast as an independent information structure category from focus and topic. Declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives sentences are all predominantly uttered with a falling contour, however, they are clearly differentiated by pitch register ? declaratives use lower reaches, imperatives higher reaches, and interrogatives somewhere in between.


Background and Aims: Clinical hospitals need to correctly identify extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing bacteria in infected patients to correctly treat the patient and avoid spreading antibiotic resistance. Kuwaiti hospitals use one laboratory test for detecting ESBL bacteria. This study evaluated whether that was sufficient to detect ESBL bacteria, and compared the Vitek system with other detection systems. Methods: (Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, K oxytoca and Enterobacter cloacae) were collected from five different Kuwaiti main hospitals, all of which were flagged as ESBL-positive by the Vitek 2 system. The isolates were retested by the Vitek 2 system, and were also tested by double disc diffusion (DDD), the disc approximation test, the E-test and the MicroScan system for the detection of ESBLs. Results: Retesting with the Vitek system revealed 100% compatibility with the results of the source hospitals. The MicroScan system, DDD, disc approximation test and E-test could detect ESBL in 199, 192, 178 and 205 isolates, respectively. Conclusions: Technically, the MicroScan and Vitek 2 systems were the least demanding method to detect ESBL as it is an integral part of the routine susceptibility test card. E-test strips were reliable but the most expensive of all techniques used. The DDD test and disc approximation, while relatively inexpensive, were technically subjective. The Vitek system may be very suitable in clinical laboratories, but would be better if accompanied with another test for detection of ESBL bacteria.


Twenty-five per cent of the patients using corticosteroids for long periods of time develops at least one fracture. Corticosteroids lead to osteoporosis through increase of renal calcium excretion and decrease of intestinal calcium absorption, bone formation by osteoblasts and serum levels of sex hormones. In spite of guidelines according to which patients protractedly using corticosteroids should take sufficient calcium and cholecalciferol, only about one-tenth of them takes any form of medication to prevent osteoporosis. It seems advisable to prescribe additional anti-osteoporosis medication for patients using > or = 7.5 mg prednisone during at least 3 months and who have a low mineral density of bone; only of biphosphonates a preventive effect clearly has been demonstrated. For postmenopausal women, hormonal supplementation therapy may offer additional benefit, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease.


Protists appeared relatively early in evolution, about 1.8 billion years ago, soon after the first prokaryotic organisms. During this time period, most species developed a variety of behavioral, morphological, and physiological strategies intended to improve the ability to capture prey or to avoid predation. In this scenario, a key role was played by specialized ejectable membrane-bound organelles called extrusomes, which are capable of discharging their content to the outside of the cell in response to various stimuli. The aim of this chapter is to describe the two main strategies adopted in ciliate predator-prey interactions: (a) the first is mediated by mechanical mechanisms and involves, for example, extrusomes called trichocysts and (b) the second is mediated by toxic secondary metabolites and involves different kinds of chemical extrusomes.


Transitional cell carcinoma is a common tumour, with over 10 000 cases diagnosed each year and almost 5000 deaths. Traditional prognostic factors are grade, stage, size, multiple tumours, bladder neck involvement and age, and the tumour, node, metastasis criteria1 for staging are widely accepted. Tumours invading the subepithelial connective tissue are classified as pT1. Publications have looked at the depth of infiltration of transitional cell carcinoma with infiltration of the lamina propria for about 10 years.2–7 The publication of Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guideline 85 "Management of Transitional Cell Carcinoma of the Bladder"8 cites two references as evidence of microstaging being an independent prognostic variable. However, there was concern after the publication of this guidance that there would be significant training requirements for histopathologists and concerns regarding the consistency of interpretation. Furthermore, published literature includes different staging systems for pT1 transitional cell carcinoma including a two-stage and a three-stage system. The three-stage system is variably defined; although all systems show prognostic information, one three-stage system was adopted here as it was believed to be the most straightforward (table 1).

View this table:

 Table 1
 Stratification of pT1 bladder TCC into two-tier2 and three-tier systems5

It was thought important to test the consistency of microstaging of transitional cell carcinoma by general pathologists before the roll-out of microstaging by the West of Scotland Urology Cancer Network. The aim of this study was therefore to determine whether general pathologists were able to reproducibly microstage pT1 transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder and whether the two-stage or three-stage system was more consistent (table 1). Another aim of the study was to see whether pathologists were reliably able to recognise muscularis mucosae and whether this affected the microstaging.

Using records from the weekly urology multidisciplinary team meetings for NHS Ayrshire and Arran, a …


Your Ruby on Rails application is sick. It's got bugs. Nobody remembers what that tricky piece of code was supposed to do, and nobody can tell what it actually does. Deadlines are looming, but every time you make the slightest change to the code, something else breaks. You need Test-Driven Development (TDD), a proven process for improving the design, maintainability, and long-term viability of software. In TDD, the tests come first, and then code is written to match the expectation of the test. Using TDD means writing better code faster. Ruby on Rails has unparalleled support for TDD. In addition to the tools that Rails has built-in, a large and thriving testing community adds new tools at an accelerating rate. Rails Test Prescriptions is your guide to the entire Rails testing ecosystem. Containing both practical code examples and discussion of why testing works, this book starts with the most basic features delivered as part of core Ruby on Rails. Once you've integrated those features into your coding practice, you'll want to use popular third-party testing tools such as RSpec, Shoulda, Cucumber, Factory Girl, and Rcov. Rails Test Prescriptions will show you how to use these tools and when they are appropriate. Rails Test Prescriptions will cover both the current Rails 2.3.x version as well as the initial 3.0 release. If you are a Rails programmer who tests code, this book is an invaluable guide to the latest in available testing tools. If you are a Rails programmer who doesn't test code, then start testing immediately: this book can help.


Most extrahepatic bile duct carcinomas (EBDC) are characterized by a striking stromal response (desmoplasia). Our previous studies showed deposition of type IV collagen in the desmoplastic stroma beyond the basement membrane. Although type IV collagen is expressed in EBDC, little is known about the pattern of deposition in tumor stroma and how this matrix component influences the behavior of tumor cells. With the progression of desmoplasia in EBDC, different changes occurred in the quantity and localization of type IV collagen from that of type I collagen. Type I collagen was diffusely distributed in the stroma and appeared to be concentrated in the center of the tumors. In contrast, type IV collagen was deposited in the interstitium alongside carcinoma cells at the tumors' periphery. Weak or no type IV collagen deposition was detected in the more central portion of the tumors containing sclerotic collagens. To investigate the role of stromal type IV collagen in tumor cell proliferation, EBDC cell lines were cultured in a three-dimensional matrix containing varying compositions of type I collagen and type IV collagen. They were also assayed for cell adhesion and migration using in vitro models. Type IV collagen more extensively stimulated tumor cell proliferation, adhesion and migration in a dose-dependent manner than did type I collagen. All of these results suggest that modified tumor stroma with the presence of type IV collagen in EBDC provides a better environment for tumor growth and invasion.


In aspect-oriented programming (AOP), the join point selection depends heavily on the context exposed to aspects by means of special pointcut constructs. This context is either local to the join point (e.g. target of method calls) or non-local (e.g. call-stack). Path expression pointcut (PEP) is a special kind of pointcut that provides aspects with the access to non-local object information. In order to implement PEP, a well-defined unambiguous semantics for PEP is needed. This paper proposes a denotational semantics for PEP, which unambiguously describes the result of evaluating the PEP. Moreover, it helps to guide future developments of the PEP and its integration with AOP system.


The investigation was carried out at the Laboratory facilities of Dobrudzha Agricultural Institute (DAI), General Toshevo, Bulgaria during 2010 - 2012, and involved 15 doubled haploid fertility restorer sunflower lines (R-lines). The lines were obtained by the gamma-induced parthenogenesis method under greenhouse conditions in 2007 from three hybrid combinations developed at DAI. The resistance of the plants to downy mildew - one of the main pathogens on sunflower, and to the parasite broomrape was followed. The breeding materials were infected with downy mildew (Plasmopara halstedii), race 731, and broomrape (Orobanche cumana Wallr.) under greenhouse conditions. The evaluation for resistance was done according to a scale from 0 % (susceptible genotype) to 100 % (resistant genotype). To determine the resistance to downy mildew, standard methodology was applied, adapted for work under the specific conditions of DAI; the methodology of Panchenko (1975) was used to determine the resistance to broomrape. Four lines demonstrated complex resistance to downy mildew and broomrape. Among the other eleven lines, three lines showed 100 % resistance to downy mildew race 731, and five lines were resistant to Orobanche (races A-F).


Pressure maintenance by gas injection in gas cap is one of the well-established methods for improving the ultimate recovery. Gas injection in the crestal part of reservoir into the primary or secondary gas cap for pressure maintenance is generally used in reservoirs with thick oil columns and good vertical permeability and this process is called gravity drainage. This paper comprises methodology and results of study to evaluate the feasibility of gas injection in gas cap for maintenance of reservoir pressure and to envisage incremental oil gain of a mature offshore carbonate field located in western offshore of India.
 Field has already produced more than 30% oil of its initial inplace volume. Water injection was started after 4 years of production and currently field is producing oil with 90% water cut. After one year of initial production phase the field producing GOR rose to two to three fold of its initial value mainly due to contribution of gas from gas cap. Depletion of gas cap gas made significant adverse impact on reservoir pressure and also fast pressure depletion from crestal part had allowed water breakthrough of injection and aquifer water to oil producers. At this stage to reduce the decline rate of wells for maximizing the future recovery without drilling of new wells and also without extension of existing infrastructure, the injection of gas in depleted small gas cap have been studied.
 In order to evaluate the feasibility of gas injection in depleted gas cap and its overall impact on oil recovery, three aspects were seen. First the optimized quantity of gas injection and its sensitivity along with the number of gas injectors were decided through reservoir simulation. Therefore, suboptimal oil producers falling within gas cap area are chosen for conversion to Gas injectors. Secondly injection gas requirement for the process will be fulfilled partly through the recycling of produced gas and rest from free gas production from another pay of the same field. Finally it is examined that current existing facility of gas compression will sufficiently cater the additional requirement of gas compression. The process will have additional 10 to 11% contribution in future oil production.
 The process of charging gas cap will provide additional support over ongoing water injection leading to a significant additional oil recovery by reducing the oil decline rate.


Highway, especially expressway plays a very important role in economic development of today. To deal with the traffic load, the surface of expressway should have the nature of strength, load-bearing ability, skid-resistance, free of penetration and duration. AC is one of the high type pavements. With the rapid development of highway, most of the AC pavement will be destroyed by heavy traffic loads, and should be maintained with millions of waste materials produced. Plant-mixed hot-regenerated AC is to recycle these waste materials, and apply part of them as one of the ingredients of the new AC of the new pavement. Method of mix design of the Plant-mixed hot-regenerated AC is discussed is this article. The method was applied in the maintenance of the Chang-Ying expressway and has obtained relatively obvious economic effect and social effect.


To test the hypothesis that growth retardation in nonanion gap acidosis may be associated with impairment of growth hormone (GH) secretory patterns, we examined GH secretion in rats made acidotic with ammonium chloride ingestion. Considerable growth retardation was demonstrated in pair-fed and acidotic rats after 1 wk of ammonium chloride ingestion compared with control. With stable metabolic acidosis sustained on the 8th day of experiment, pulsatile secretion of GH was evaluated by blood samples drawn every 10 min for 6 h. Using deconvolution analysis to quantitate in vivo GH secretory rates, we found significant inhibition of pulsatile GH secretion in acidotic rats. Changes in amplitude of GH pulses and mean mass of GH pulses correlated with changes in body weight. These studies showed that chronic metabolic acidosis causes growth impairment, reduced food efficiency, and amplitude-specific inhibition of pulsatile secretion of GH. We propose that this GH axis suppression, whether mediated by decreased nutrients or not, contributes significantly to growth failure in children with renal tubular acidosis. Because a similar degree of inhibition of GH secretion was seen in pair-fed rats, we infer that insufficient calorie intake in metabolic acidosis may contribute to disruption of normal GH secretion patterns. These changes in GH secretion were specific, because acidotic rats were different from pair-fed controls in that they showed no change in either half-life of GH in circulation or in pulse frequency. Such observations offer a rationale for more detailed clinical investigations into the impact of metabolic acidosis on physiological regulation of pulsatile GH secretion in humans.


A silicon-aluminum heterocycle LAl(SiH2SiH2)2AlL (L = PhC(NtBu)2) (1) was prepared. Compound 1 exhibits a unique (N2Al)2(SiH2)4 centrosymmetric six-membered ring structure with a chair conformation, which is comparable with that of cyclohexane. Furthermore, two intermediate analogues, silylene-alane adduct LSi(AlMe3)-Si(AlMe3)L (2) and silylene-alane oxidative product [LAlHSiH2Mes]2 (3) were obtained. Compound 3 has an interesting arrangement of an Al-H and an SiH2 unit, which are in close vicinity to each other. 3 might be important to function as a catalyst, due to the already activated bridging Al-H bonds.


The crisis of music and the proliferation of the digital pose unique challenges to thinking about sound. In an attempt to recenter a philosophy of music within - and radiating out from - the figure of resonance, Peter Price formulates a new philosophy of the sonic, offering an incisive reading of Heidegger, Deleuze, Ronell, and Schirmacher, among many others. His approach divests itself of the traditional metaphysics with which music in the West has been so intimately intertwined to become a vibrational ontology and an aesthetics of experimental sonic practice. Reviews: -Resonance in music and in media is both magic and fatal. In his brilliant book Peter Price follows the trace of this ambivalence with philosophical and musical inspiration.- Michael Schmidt, Coordinator of Classical Music Online at Bavarian Radio and John Cage Chair at the European Graduate School -This radical contribution to the discipline of sonic theory finds no comfort in the grand narratives of the music establishment. Equally critical of New-Age conceptions and the euphoria of remix culture apologists, Peter Price offers a contemplation in the spirit of a John Cage/Martin Heidegger assemblage that points to openings for a joyful practice of experimental arts.- Christian Hanggi, media ecologist About the author: Peter Price is a composer, digital artist, and media theorist. He co-directs thefidget space in Philadelphia, a research laboratory for new forms of art, performance, and media. He holds a PhD from the European Graduate School in Switzerland.


[11] Filename: 4.3.a.quesada-aguilar-l.aguilar.pdf Size: 152.88 KB Summary A gender-sensitive process to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) will allow countries to address gender inequalities from the onset of the process. in an effort to address gender considerations in REDD+, the international union for conservation of nature (IUCN) and the Women's Environment and Development organization (WEDO) launched an initiative to develop gender and REDD+ road maps in cameroon, Ghana and uganda. implementation of the road maps will ensure that both women and men are recognized as important forest stakeholders and are given equal opportunities to learn about REDD+; build their capacity; participate in and contribute to decision-making processes; have access to technology; own land and benefit from REDD+.


Sound to meaning correspondences in spoken language are assumed to be largely arbitrary. However, research has identified a number of exceptions to the arbitrariness assumption. In particular, non-arbitrary mappings between sound and shape, the bouba/kiki effect, have been documented across diverse languages and both children and adults are sensitive to this type of sound symbolic mapping. The cognitive basis for the associations between nonword labels and particular shapes remains poorly understood making it difficult to predict how findings generalize beyond the limited stimuli tested. To identify systematic bases for sound-to-shape mappings, we collected ratings of roundedness and pointedness for a large database of pseudowords. We find that attributes of both consonants and vowels are systematically related to judged shape meanings of pseudowords, and offer hypotheses as to the cognitive mechanisms underlying the observed patterns.


The objective of this study was to examine the utility of using electronic health record (EHR) data for periodic community health surveillance of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors through 2 research questions. First, how many years of EHR data are needed to produce reliable estimates of key population-level CVD health indicators for a community? Second, how comparable are the EHR estimates relative to those from community screenings? The study takes place in the context of the Heart of New Ulm Project, a 10-year population health initiative designed to reduce myocardial infarctions and CVD risk factor burden in a rural community. The community is served by 1 medical center that includes a clinic and hospital. The project screened adult residents of New Ulm for CVD risk factors in 2009. EHR data for 3 years prior to the heart health screenings were extracted for patients from the community. Single- and multiple-year EHR prevalence estimates were compared for individuals ages 40-79 years (N=5918). EHR estimates also were compared to screening estimates (N=3123). Single-year compared with multiyear EHR data prevalence estimates were sufficiently precise for this rural community. EHR and screening prevalence estimates differed significantly-systolic blood pressure (BP) (124.0 vs. 128.9), diastolic BP (73.3 vs. 79.2), total cholesterol (186.0 vs. 201.0), body mass index (30.2 vs. 29.5), and smoking (16.6% vs. 8.2%)-suggesting some selection bias depending on the method used. Despite differences between data sources, EHR data may be a useful source of population health surveillance to inform and evaluate local population health initiatives.


As part of the Hurricane Sandy Science Plan, the U.S. Geological Survey is expanding National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards and forecast products to coastal wetlands. The intent is to provide federal, state, and local managers with tools to estimate the vulnerability of coastal wetlands to various factors and to evaluate their ecosystem service potential. For this purpose, the response and resilience of coastal wetlands to physical factors need to be assessed in terms of the ensuing change to their vulnerability and ecosystem services. Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge (EBFNWR), New Jersey, was selected as a pilot study area. As part of this data synthesis effort, hydrodynamic and sediment transport modeling of Barnegat Bay Little Egg Harbor (BBLEH) has been used to create the following wetland data layers in Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge (EBFNWR), New Jersey: 1) Hydrodynamic residence time , 2) salinity change and 3) salinity exposure change in wetlands, and 4) sediment supply to wetlands. The residence time layer was based on the hydrodynamic and particle tracking modeling of the period 3/1/2012 to 5/1/2012 by Defne and Ganju (2015). For this data layer, the residence time map of estuarine water has been projected over the EBFNWR salt marshes. The rest of the layers were derived from the BBLEH hydrodynamic modeling for the Hurricane Sandy period that spans from 10/27/2012 to 11/04/2012 (Defne and Ganju, 2016a). The model estimated changes in salinity and sediment concentrations over the salt marshes caused by storm-induced coastal flooding. The results are summarized over the previously determined conceptual salt marsh unit polygons (Defne and Ganju, 2016b).


The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine if business leadership practices by Texas public school principals have an impact on principals' campus student achievement in mathematics and reading, as measured by TAKS scores. The survey instrument was the Leadership Assessment Instrument (LAI), developed by Warren Bennis in 1989. The survey instrument was electronically distributed to a sample of 300 public school principals in Texas. Of the 300, 140 principals completed and returned the survey, for a response rate of 47%. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), version 16.0, was used for the analysis of data, which included descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and regression. In addition, reliability for the LAI was also calculated. The LAI consists of the following five categories of effective business practices: focused drive, emotional intelligence, building trust, conceptual thinking, and systems thinking. No significant relationships were found between principals' use of LAI elements and student achievement in mathematics and reading. However, the lack of significant relationships between the business model as used in public schools and student achievement reveals that current models of principal preparation programs do not result in school leaders who are adequately prepared to increase student achievement. Further research is recommended as public school leaders continue to seek alternative strategies and innovative practices to improve student achievement.


The properties of non-treated and hydrochloric acid (HCl)-treated oil palm ash (OPA)-filled natural rubber (NR) composites were investigated in terms of swelling behavior, rubber-filler interaction, ageing resistance, dynamic mechanical analysis, and thermal stability. The incorporation of OPA resulted in a lower degree of swelling in the NR composites, which was even lower after HCl treatment. Concerning the rubber-filler interaction, the HCl-treated OPA had better interfacial interaction with the NR matrix than that of non-treated OPA, resulting in higher crosslink density and improved ageing resistance. The dynamic mechanical properties of NR composites were better with the incorporation of HCl-treated OPA compared to non-treated OPA, in that they showed a higher storage modulus and lower mechanical loss factor. Thermogravimetry analysis revealed that the HCl treatment process did not affect the thermal stability of OPA-filled NR composites.


The presence of multiple sellers in the provision of (non-substitutable) complementary goods leads to outcomes that are worse than those generated by an integrated monopoly, a problem also known as "tragedy of the anticommons". In this paper we identify some conditions under which the tragedy is solved and a complementary oligopoly is preferable to a multiproduct monopoly. First, we introduce several substitutes for each complement and determine their minimum number for the result to hold. Second, we study asymmetric complementarity and the presence of essential goods, stressing the role of the degree of differentiation across substitutes for the persistence of the "double mark-up" problem. Third, we verify whether the inefficiency result holds in dynamic terms, discussing the adoption of new technological standards in complementary oligopolies. The focus will be on indirect network externalities, checking under which conditions an inefficient standard emerges or the market becomes "locked-in" in an old one.


From seismograms of nine shallow, coastal earthquakes recorded at a pair of broadband stations, we estimate Q of Lg waves in the part of central Mexican Volcanic Belt (mvb) that includes the Valley of Mexico. The two stations straddle the central mvb and are located on Cretaceous limestone. A weighted least-square fit to the Q −1 ( f ) data in the frequency range 0.25 to 8 Hz yields Q ( f ) = 98 f 0.72 . This estimate of Q is lower than the corresponding Q in the forearc region that is given by Q ( f ) = 273 f 0.66 . Note that our estimate of Q ( f ) corresponds to a 200-km-wide zone of the mvb. The result of this study sheds light on the characteristics of seismic waves as they traverse through the mvb where they undergo dramatic amplification in the Valley of Mexico. It also provides one of the critical elements needed in the estimation of expected ground motions at sites to the north of the mvb from future coastal earthquakes. The lower Q of Lg waves in the mvb as compared with the forearc region seems correlated with lower resistivity reported in the mvb relative to the forearc region.


Airway hyperresponsiveness induced by adenosine‐5'‐monophosphate (AMP) is regarded as a reliable model for allergic asthma and for the evaluation of anti-asthmatic drugs. Single-dose inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) are known to be protective in this model, but the duration of action of these drugs in this model has never been studied. The duration of ICS protection was determined by administration of single-dose fluticasone propionate (FP; 1,000 µg) up to 26 h before AMP challenge. A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, four-way crossover study was performed in 13 mild asthmatics (mean±sd predicted forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) 98±7%). Each subject received placebo and FP (at 26, 14 or 2 h prior to the AMP challenge). Furthermore, the marker exhaled nitric oxide (eNO) was studied after administration at these time points to investigate whether eNO also demonstrates the duration of action of ICS. The doubling concentrations difference (DCD) of AMP causing a 20% fall in FEV1, when FP was administered 26, 14 or 2 h prior to challenge, was significantly increased as compared with placebo: DCD (95% confidence interval) at 26 h, 0.73 (0.20–1.26), p=0.008; 14 h, 1.50 (0.99–2.01), p<0.001; and 2 h, 2.89 (2.37–3.40), p<0.001. However, eNO was not significantly affected at these time points. In conclusion, a single dose of 1,000 µg inhaled fluticasone propionate protects against adenosine‐5'‐monophosphate airway hyperresponsiveness up to 26 h after dosing. This study suggests that adenosine‐5'‐monophosphate challenge can be used as a sensitive marker to study the duration of action of inhaled corticosteroids.


The current scale of features size in the microelectronics industry has reached the point where molecular level interactions affect process fidelity and produce excursions from the continuum world like line edge roughness (LER). Here we present a 3D molecular level model based on the adaptation of the critical ionization (CI) theory using a fundamental interaction energy approach. The model asserts that it is the favorable interaction between the ionized part of the polymer and the developer solution which renders the polymer soluble. Dynamic Monte Carlo methods were used in the current model to study the polymer dissolution phenomenon. The surface ionization was captured by employing an electric double layer at the interface, and polymer motion was simulated using the Metropolis algorithm. The approximated interaction parameters, for different species in the system, were obtained experimentally and used to calibrate the simulated dissolution rate response to polymer molecular weight and developer concentration. The predicted response is in good agreement with experimental dissolution rate data. The simulation results support the premise of the CI theory and provide an insight into the CI model from a new prospective. This model may provide a means to study the contribution of development to LER and other related defects based on molecular level interactions between distinct components in the polymer and the developer.