Decay arising from pruning wounds in plantation-grown Eucalyptus spp. is a concern
for the Australian solid wood products industry, as the potential for decay spread within
the tree is unknown at present. Mechanisms of antimicrobial defence in the xylem of
Eucalyptus nitens were investigated. Key factors investigated within the host-fungal
interaction included phenolics, moisture content, mineral content and anatomical
alterations (tyloses and suberization).
A purple reaction zone was regularly observed at the sapwood interface of decay lesions
developing from naturally-infected pruning wounds in plantation-grown
E. nitens. Total phenols levels were increased substantially and vessel tyloses were
abundant in the reaction zone. A log incubation experiment showed that after 9 months
the reaction zone remained intact while sapwood became decayed. The reaction zone
was significantly drier than healthy sapwood, with lower levels of potassium, and a
lower pH than both sapwood and heartwood. These trends are more similar to conifer
reaction zones than deciduous angiosperms. The mode of reaction zone defence appears
to be a dynamic process (also similar to conifers) rather than a static process typical of
deciduous angiosperms.
The initial stages of antimicrobial defence formation were also studied. Xylem defence
responses occurring in young pot-grown E. nitens saplings were analysed within the
first few weeks following stem wounding and inoculation with the decay fungus
Ganoderma adspersum (which displayed relatively slow colonization of the wounded
xylem). Events occurring most quickly after wounding and inoculation were tylose
formation and phenol accumulation, which indicates that they are key defences. NMR
imaging revealed that changes in xylem moisture content were not rapid after
wounding.
Reaction zone extracts were inhibitory to test-fungi in thin-layer chromatography
bioassays. Analysis of extracts by liquid chromatography — electrospray ionization mass
spectrometry revealed that a diverse range of hydrolyzable tannins were present in E.
nitens wood, including over thirty gallotannins, ellagitannins and phenols. A number of
ellagitannins (particularly pedunculagin) were considerably more abundant in the reaction zone than the healthy sapwood and may contribute to the effectiveness of the
reaction zone as an antimicrobial barrier. The process of reaction zone formation may
be an accentuation of processes that occur when heartwood forms. Heartwood extracts
were qualitatively similar to reaction zone extracts but actual increases in ellagitannins
were not as great.
Conditions such as season of wounding and the type of fungi which become established
in wounds, appear to effect the degree of defence response. This was indicated by
phenol levels. More extensive decay lesions were generally associated with more
phenolic production. Sterile inoculations and weakly-aggressive fungi were associated
with no or little reaction zone formation, while aggressive fungi elicited more
discolouration and phenolic accumulation in advance of infection. This suggests that
non-aggressive fungi are less tolerant of the inherent xylem microenvironment and
active defence responses are not "required" or elicited.
Xylem defence responses appear to be relatively successful in E. nitens. This may be
facilitated (at least in part) by a fast and considerable accumulation of phenolic
compounds. Qualitative studies of phenolic compounds may be a useful indicator of
defensive capacity.


Crosshole seismic techniques can be used to gain a large amount of information about the properties of the rock mass between two or more boreholes. The bulk of this thesis is concerned with two crosshole seismic processing techniques and their application to real data. The first part of this thesis describes the application of traveltime and amplitude tomographic processing in the monitoring of a simulated EOR project. Two physical models were made, designed to simulate 'pre-flood' and 'post-flood' stages in an EOR project. The results of the tomography work indicate that it is beneficial to perform amplitude tomographic processing of cross-well data, as a complement to traveltime inversion, because of the different response of velocity and absorption to changes in liquid/gas saturations for real reservoir rocks. The velocity tomograms image the flood zone quite accurately. Amplitude tomography shows the flood zone as an area of higher absorption but does not image its boundaries as precisely, because multi-pathing and diffraction effects are not accounted for by the ray-based techniques used. Part two is concerned with the crosshole seismic reflection technique, using data acquired from a site in northern England. The processing of these data is complex and includes deconvolution, wavefield separation and migration to a depth section. The two surveys fail to pin-point accurately the position of a large fault; the disappointing results, compared to earlier work in Yorkshire, are attributed to poorer generation of compressional body waves in harder Coal Measures strata. The final part of this thesis describes the results from a pilot seismic reflection test over the Tertiary igneous centre on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. The results indicate that the base of a large granite body consists of interlayered granites and basic rocks between 2.1 and 2.4km below mean sea level.


In this essay, we have compared a conventional house to a passive house. The housesshared the same local conditions; they have the same living area and the same layout. Thedifferences between the houses were the different construction solutions for the roof, theouter walls, the floor and the heating system. Both the houses qualify the standards fromBBR and the passive house also lives up to FEBY's special conditions.The purpose with the essay was to examine if it really is profitable to build small hoses aspassive houses. We chose to answer the question through studying the investment costs onthe houses and investigate how different they were. Then, with consideration to thedifference in energy consumption between the two, do a cost analysis to reach a verdict.From our cost analysis, we gather that it will cost around 5 percent more to build the houseas a passive house. Although, at the same time the energy consumption will decrease with37 percent per year, this leads to a saved amount of 3424 kr per year. We gather that duringthe first 21 years of living in the house, we will not regain our investment. Finally at year 22and thereafter we will make a saving, it turns out to be about 96 000 kr over the time of 50years living in the house.


Abstract This paper embeds a technical progress function in a classical growth model and studies the effects of permanent changes in parameters and temporary shocks such as pandemics. Technical change is driven by dynamic economies of scale and responds to distributional forces: the wage share regulates labour-saving technical change and employment regulates its capital-using bias. The model features path dependence in the employment-population rate and the output-capital ratio. Population growth and distribution can respond to the employment rate. Interpreted through the model, secular stagnation under neoliberal capitalism has been driven by a combination of diminished investment and reduced worker bargaining power more than by slower technical change and population growth. A temporary unfavourable shock to the output-capital ratio will permanently reduce the employment rate. In the fully endogenous model, this will increase the profit share and reduce the rates of technical change, capital accumulation, and population growth.


Mesenteric ischemia is a fatal vascular emergency of the small intestine which, if not diagnosed and treated in time, has a very high mortality rate. Presenting with nonspecific symptoms such as abdominal pain, nausea, constipation, tachycardia, and gastrointestinal bleeds, it can masquerade as other causes of acute abdomen, particularly bowel obstruction. Ideal laboratory tests and markers are still lacking due to complexity in bowel's anatomy, physiology, blood supply, and drainage. We report 10 cases of mesenteric ischemia presented in our center with their demography, laboratory findings, approach to diagnosis, and treatment along with their outcomes at discharge. Out of the ten cases, six cases presented with signs and symptoms of acute bowel obstruction without passage of stool and one with passage of black stool. These seven patients underwent laparotomy, while the remaining three cases who either presented with milder symptoms or refused surgical interventions were managed conservatively. All patients were diagnosed with either acute or chronic mesenteric ischemia based on their operative and/or radiographic findings.


The roles of Th1 and Th17 responses as mediators of host protection and pathology in the intestine are the subjects of intense research. In this study, we investigated a model of intestinal inflammation driven by the intracellular apicomplexan parasite Eimeria falciformis. Although IFN-γ was the predominant cytokine during E. falciformis infection in wild-type mice, it was found to be dispensable for host defense and the development of intestinal inflammation. E. falciformis-infected IFN-γR−/− and IFN-γ−/− mice developed dramatically exacerbated body weight loss and intestinal pathology, but they surprisingly harbored fewer parasites. This was associated with a striking increase in parasite-specific IL-17A and IL-22 production in the mesenteric lymph nodes and intestine. CD4+ T cells were found to be the source of IL-17A and IL-22, which drove the recruitment of neutrophils and increased tissue expression of anti-microbial peptides (RegIIIβ, RegIIIγ) and matrix metalloproteinase 9. Concurrent neutralization of IL-17A and IL-22 in E. falciformis-infected IFN-γR−/− mice resulted in a reduction in infection-induced body weight loss and inflammation and significantly increased parasite shedding. In contrast, neutralization of IL-22 alone was sufficient to increase parasite burden, but it had no effect on body weight loss. Treatment of an E. falciformis-infected intestinal epithelial cell line with IFN-γ, IL-17A, or IL-22 significantly reduced parasite development in vitro. Taken together, to our knowledge these data demonstrate for the first time an antiparasite effect of IL-22 during an intestinal infection, and they suggest that IL-17A and IL-22 have redundant roles in driving intestinal pathology in the absence of IFN-γ signaling.


This paper presents a research about the software system to calculate cost estimation in plastic injection mould manufacturing which is named as mold cost estimation calculator (MCEC). The objectives for MCEC is to optimize the cost estimation problems in plastic injection mould, assists industrial practitioner in estimating budget for manufacturing and assists for teaching purposes. There are three target users for this project that is industrial practitioner, lecturers and students. MCEC is developed using JavaScript programming language which each embedding of JavaScript within a particular environment provides the means to interact with that environment. All users may use this software easily even those who are not expert in injection molding because this software are user friendly.


Against the background of enhanced hydraulic loads due to climate change there will be a need for improvement of the flood defence system in the Netherlands in the future. These days there is a growing interest in grass as a dike cover because it is a cheap and a sustainable dike protection. Yet at the moment there is a hiatus in the knowledge on the erosion resistance of grass covers on especially the outer slope. For this reason large scale tests have been performed in the Grose WellenKanal (Large Wave Flume) in Hannover in 2008 for both EroGRASS and FLOODsite. With the help of the EroGRASS data the MSc-study presented here aimed to develop a model that describes the initiation of erosion of a grass cover layer on the outer slope by wave attack. The erosion process was investigated first to gain some insight in the failure mechanisms on the outer slope. For wave-induced erosion of grass cover layers on the outer slope two failure mechanisms can be distinguished which can occur independently of each other. Aggregate erosion occurs when the soil is cracked and saturated with water. Uplift pressures can then develop underneath the aggregates shortly after a wave impact and on the surface small aggregates may be lifted and washed away. This eventually results in an erosion hole. Block erosion may occur when impact pressures can penetrate into the soil due to the presence of a large crack or irregularity. The balloon mechanism may then be triggered; at the location of minimum fracture strength a horizontal crack is formed. This crack gradually extends until it reaches a critical size. From this point a large block can instantly erode from the grass cover. For these erosion mechanisms the Wave Impact Pressure Erosion model has been developed, which describes the initiation of erosion of grass covers on the outer slope by wave impact pressures. The basic equation of the WIPE model can be adapted to obtain limit states for aggregate erosion block erosion. The WIPE model was calibrated and verified with the data of the EroGRASS experiments. For aggregate erosion the model behavior resembled the observed progression of aggregate erosion during the experiments after calibration. The WIPE model is considered suitable for the prediction of aggregate erosion of a good quality grass cover. Yet because the grass cover strength is dominated by the grass reinforcement, which decays with depth, the model will require adaptations to make it suitable for grass covers of lower quality. For block erosion the model was calibrated using a parameter that determines the moment of block erosion and a crack growth parameter, which determines the size of the eroded block. As the model was calibrated on merely two characteristic block erosion events, universal calibration factors for block erosion could unfortunately not be found. To obtain more reliable and uniform results for block erosion more data is required.


Swedish farmers are facing pressure from an international market and find it hard to differentiatetheir business when much is driven by large players in the value chain, both from the supplier andcustomer. The adoption and implementation of business model innovation practices can be aninteresting alternative to those farmers to thrive this competitive and challenging environment.However, the implementation of business model innovation in the farming industry might facesome challenges, due to the traditional and conservative character of the farm owners andmanagers. Thus, this study aims to understand the barriers to business model change in theperspective of the farmers in Skane region, Sweden. As methodology, focus groups has been usedwith nine participating farmers where three of those farming companies has been selected as unitof analysis. In the focus group, they were first asked to define current business model by usingbusiness model canvas as a tool. Thereafter they used the business model canvas to improve thecurrent business model and later were ask what barriers they could see in the process to improvetheir business model.The findings from the focus groups revealed many barriers that, according to the farmers, wouldchallenge the implementation of changes in their current business model. Those are mostlyexternal barriers, which are hard to control (e.g. weather, governmental laws). Another kind ofexternal barrier is the position of farming in the whole value chain, at the very beginning.Relevant internal barriers were also identified, such as farming and farmers overall mind-set,traditions, low business knowledge and lack of knowledge about the end user. The resultssupports action research as a suitable way to work with business model innovation in the farmingindustry.


OmpR is a multifunctional DNA binding regulator with orthologues in many enteric bacteria that exhibits classical regulator activity as well as nucleoid‐associated protein‐like characteristics. In the enteric pathogen Salmonella enterica, using chromatin immunoprecipitation of OmpR:FLAG and nucleotide sequencing, 43 putative OmpR binding sites were identified in S. enterica serovar Typhi, 22 of which were associated with OmpR‐regulated genes. Mutation of a sequence motif (TGTWACAW) that was associated with the putative OmpR binding sites abrogated binding of OmpR:6×His to the tviA upstream region. A core set of 31 orthologous genes were found to exhibit OmpR‐dependent expression in both S. Typhi and S. Typhimurium. S. Typhimurium‐encoded orthologues of two divergently transcribed OmpR‐regulated operons (SL1068–71 and SL1066–67) had a putative OmpR binding site in the inter‐operon region in S. Typhi, and were characterized using in vitro and in vivo assays. These operons are widely distributed within S. enterica but absent from the closely related Escherichia coli. SL1066 and SL1067 were required for growth on N‐acetylmuramic acid as a sole carbon source. SL1068–71 exhibited sequence similarity to sialic acid uptake systems and contributed to colonization of the ileum and caecum in the streptomycin‐pretreated mouse model of colitis.


SnO2 nanoparticles were prepared via a sol-gel method by heating the mixture of hydrous SnO2 nanoparticles and SiO2 nanospheres at 600 °C. The average particle size of the obtained SnO2 nanoparticles is 3.3 nm, smaller than that of the SnO2 nanoparticles (~ 6.4 nm) prepared by calcining the pure hydrous SnO2 at 600 °C. The SiO2 nanospheres play an important role in restricting SnO2 nanocrystal growth. The ~3.3 nm-sized SnO2 nanoparticles exhibited high sensitivity for ethanol as well as quick response and recovery time. The concentration detection limit can be as low as 5 ppm at room temperature.


We report on the observation of the many-atom dipole-dipole interaction in an ensemble of ultracold rubidium atoms strongly coupled to the standing-wave field of a weakly driven high-finesse optical cavity. The atoms split the cavity resonance into two normal modes. The many-atom light force changes the spatial distribution of the atoms, creating an asymmetry in the usually symmetric normal-mode spectrum, for intracavity photon numbers much less than one. This asymmetry is investigated as a function of the number of atoms and as a function of the intracavity photon number. Moreover, analytical expressions have been derived for the dipole force and the diffusion coefficient for an atom in presence of other atoms. These expressions allow us to simulate the trajectories of several atoms simultaneously. The calculated and measured spectra agree only if the full motional dynamics of all atoms is taken into account.


BACKGROUND : The control of bleeding in hepatectomy is a challenge for surgeons. The hepatic pedicle clamping is a surgical maneuver that can provide reduction in bleeding, but it provokes a hepatocellular suffering. This, along with reperfusion after the clamping finishes, leads to an injury known as ischemia/reperfusion injury. AIM: To examine the effects of the ischemia/reperfusion injury on the liver after continuous and intermittent hepatic pedicle clamping in an animal model, using the quantification of apoptosis for evaluation. METHOD: Twenty New Zealand rabbits were assigned to groups 1 (control), 2 (60 minutes of continuous ischemia) and 3 (60 minutes of intermittent ischemia alternating 12 minutes of ischemia and three minutes of reperfusion). Liver biopsies were collected before ischemia, at its end and after six hours of reperfusion, when the animals were killed. The liver fragments were subjected to histological analysis (paraffinization and hematoxilin-eosin staining) and histochemical (Tunel reaction). Microscope fields of view were scanned for characterization and quantification of apoptosis. RESULTS : Ischemia led to an increased apoptotic index in both experimental groups in comparison to controls, but similarly between them. After the reperfusion, the indexes returned to baseline values. CONCLUSION: Clamping of the hepatic pedicle, either continuous or intermittent, induces apoptosis in liver cells in a similar way.


Filopodia are cellular projections around 100nm in diameter and usually several micrometres in length. They are composed of filamentous actin fibres and have the molecular motor myosin10 localised at the tip. Filopodia are involved in processes of cell migration and have been linked with roles in diverse areas including angiogenesis, and the extension and path finding properties of neuronal growth cones. Filopodia can be induced in model cell lines by myosin10 overexpression, and live cell imaging shows they undergo stochastic cycles of extension and retraction. Myosin10 binds and transports cargo along bundled actin fibres to the tips of filopodia, forming a complex of proteins which is responsible for governing growth, retraction and adhesion. Electron cryo-tomography can be used to determine the native three dimensional ultrastructure of filopodia. These results reveal the arrangement and packing of actin filaments in the filopodia of rapidly frozen vitrified mammalian cells. Single molecule Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy (TIRFM) of fluorescently tagged myosin10 constructs shows the dynamics of whole filopodia and intrafilopodial trafficking of individual myosins, with super-resolution microscopy allowing for the precise localisation of molecules.


The authors reported 35 cases of chronic pneumothorax who failed to the treatment with bed rest, gas aspiration from cavity and simple closed drainage. In order to re-expand the collapsed lung, intermittent negative pressure aspiration and periodic injection of drugs into pleural cavity was performed with good results. During and after the negative pressure aspiration. There was no severe side effect such as hypotension, shock.


Abstract The interaction of resource availability and disturbance can strongly affect plant species richness and the spread of exotic plants. Several ecological theories posit that disturbance mediates the richness-reducing effects of increased competition as resource levels rise. In the low-nutrient serpentine grasslands of the San Francisco Bay Area, the fertilizing effects of atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition may threaten native species by promoting nitrophilic exotic grasses. Attempts to mitigate these N deposition effects have focused on cattle grazing as a strategy to reduce exotic grass cover. We simulated realistic N deposition increases with low-level fertilization, manipulated grazing with fencing, and monitored grazing intensity using camera traps in a 4 yr factorial experiment to assess the effects of grazing and N deposition on several measures of native and exotic species dynamics in California's largest serpentine grassland. Our results suggest that native species diversity may increase slightly under low-level N deposition with moderate grazing in this system. However, grazing may not be effective at limiting exotic cover as N accumulates in the future. Examination of treatment trajectories using principal response curves indicated that responses to grazing might be determined more by functional group (forb or grass) than origin (native or exotic). Grazing intensity varied dramatically within the single stocking rate used to manage this ecosystem. Given this variation and the contrasting effects of grazing on different functional groups, more targeted management may be required to improve conservation outcomes.


Going back to the initial question raised by Coase in his 1937 article, we discuss in this paper the firm boundary problem by analyzing a specific organizational form, the network-firm. We first focus on the functioning of the network-firm, taking a specific interest in the incentive and coordination devices it has to offer. We then show how the functioning mechanism of the network-firm challenges certain insights gained from transaction-cost and incomplete contracts theory, namely the impact ownership can have on investment incentives. Finally, regarding the organization of production, we show that the network-firm must be considered as a specific organizational form, distinct both from the market and from the firm.


The demand for buildings that can deal with current challenges such as environmental conservation, climate change, and sustainability etc., has increased as cities have grown more rapidly. Retrofitting of existing buildings utilizing ideas such as sustainability can enhance the energy performance of new and existing infrastructure while taking economic and cultural issues into account. Buildings account for over 40% of global power demand as well as 40% of CO2 emissions. This paper presents a thorough analysis of thermal performance parameters for composite building walls, including thermal transmittance. Renewable energy sources provide an endless supply of power. Solar energy can be used passively or actively to complement a building's energy demands. It is possible to minimize energy consumption for a building's heating, cooling, and lighting needs by using a climate-sensitive strategy in the design of architectural elements such as static sunshades, walls, and roofs. It has been observed that the basecase consumes 93134.4 kWh, whereas the proposed-case consumes 68317.7 kWh. There is a huge 26.65% reduction in the annual energy consumption by adopting passive design strategies.


The authors investigate the design of linear dispersion (LD) codes, aiming at flexible encoding schemes that allow various rate-performance tradeoffs under a common coding structure. First, the capacity of LD codes is studied. It is shown that the maximum attainable multiplexing gain of a linear dispersion code is the number of symbols per channel use of the code (i.e. coding rate in symbols). In addition, conditions on the construction of linear dispersion matrices for various multiplexing gains are established. A general multilayered linear dispersion coding scheme that allows various multiplexing gains is then proposed. In the proposed scheme, coding rate can be adapted by employing different numbers of dispersion matrices. Furthermore, phase shifting among input symbols is applied to optimise the error performance without loss of multiplexing gain. The construction of dispersion matrices and the optimisation of the phase shifts together constitute a structured approach for the design of linear dispersion codes. Simulation results demonstrate that the new codes outperform conventional LD codes at various data rates.


Background and Aims: Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a highly prevalent disease that induces low oxygen saturation due to repeated obstruction of the upper respiratory tract. In order to investigate these important diseases, an experimental model that reflects the characteristics of the disease is essential. Recently, several clinical studies suggest that OSA can affect the immune system in addition to the well-known cardiovascular complications. Therefore, we constructed and verified an animal model that reflects the characteristics of OSA. And we analyzed the effect of intermittent hypoxia on T cell distribution with the OSA mouse model. Methods: The inside of the chamber can be completely seal off from the external gas and the composition of the internal oxygen and nitrogen gas can be changed to the desired level by the researcher. Wild-type 5 week old male C57BL/6N mice were enrolled for studying the effects on the immune system of intermittent hypoxia. Randomly, the same numbers of mice were divided into normoxia and intermittent hypoxia (IH) groups. IH group were exposed to IH (120 seconds of 5% O2 followed by 120 seconds of 21% O2) 7 hours per day for 4 weeks during sleep time. And normoxia group were in the same sized chamber with normoxic condition. After 4 weeks, T cell distribution was analyzed with spleen. Results: Mean saturation results of the mice in IH chamber were similar to moderate to severe in sleep apnea patients. FACS, western blot findings showed decreased CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T cell, increased Th17 cell, and increased HIF1 molecules. We also showed lower CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T cell levels and higher Th17 cell levels in mice with high HIF1 molecules. Conclusions: We constructed an OSA mouse model that represents well the OSA patients and demonstrated that OSA can influence the immune system based on this chamber and model.


The text discusses the obstacles to the effective right to education, in face of which it is necessary to institute the National System of Education (SNE). Thus, it situates the limits of the Brazilian federalism, the legal framework and the educational and management policies, highlighting the asymmetries in the educational field and the reform of the federative pact, under the regulation of Intergovernmental collaboration and federal coordination. Finally, it points out the need to institute the SNE in conjunction with the other educational systems, to ensure the right to basic education and its democratization.


Papua New Guinea (PNG) relied heavily on exploitation of mineral wealth in the past for achieving economic growth. Although in terms of macroeconomic indicators, growth performance is not entirely unsatisfactory, the government failed to redistribute the benefits of this limited growth, and the beneficiaries have been localized and narrow. As a result, in terms of standard of living of its population, PNG remained one of the poorest nations in the world. In recent years, the new development strategy to a greater extent stresses renewable sources such as agriculture, fisheries, processing and downstream activities, and tourism. With its unique and pristine physical and cultural diversity, tourism can conveniently become the mainstream economic activity of this island nation. However, PNG tourism is entirely based on its natural, environmental and cultural resources. So any economic activity which disturbs these infrastructures is most likely to affect the tourism potential adversely. Development of agricultural activities, fisheries, forestry and mining, while undertaken indiscriminately (as it is done today), is actually affecting the potentiality of tourism growth and creating conflicts of economic interests. As a result, neither tourism nor other activities are being developed properly and the wellbeing of the country's population remained unchanged. More importantly, these conflicts are often generating significant and far‐reaching social and political tensions. Unless controlled at this initial stage of development, the process can lead to a very unbalanced situation from where a turnaround would be extremely difficult.


A new strategy for producing robust accident scenarios in quantitative risk assessment, which is performed in the process design or operation steps, is proposed. Worldwide chemical processes are in need of off-site risk assessment as well as the on-site risk management. Most governments over the world require industrial companies to submit proper emergency plans through the off-site risk assessment. However, there have been no systematic approaches or criteria for generating virtual accident scenarios reasonably, and it is very difficult to get the unified or coherent assessment results. To get over these shortcomings, this study proposes a strategy for analyzing process elements and then selecting and generating an accident scenario that simulates the worst accident most likely to happen, which should be given foremost consideration. The proposed scenario reasoning scheme consists of three types of knowledge base and four reasoning algorithms. The scenario reasoning structure consists of the following steps: macro decomposition, micro decomposition, equipment analysis, scenario selection, and the consequence analysis. In the macro decomposition, a process unit is selected through its function and the meteorological condition around the area. In the second step, the equipment behavior which consists of its property, flow rate, operating condition, safety devices, age, accident history and repaired history is analyzed using an equipment-screening algorithm, which is a sequential reasoning method. The analyzed process elements are ranked and risk grades are determined. According to the grades, risk assessment is performed. The result of the analysis enhances the reliability of the generated risk scenario and prevents the risks from being overestimated. The obtained result should be more helpful in the proper process design and emergency planning.


The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the urgent need to strengthen global scientific collaboration, and to ensure the fundamental right to universal access to scientific progress and its applications. Open Science (OS) is central to achieving these goals. It aims to make science accessible, transparent, and effective by providing barrier-free access to scientific publications, data, and infrastructures, along with open software, Open Educational Resources, and open technologies. OS also promotes public trust in science at a time when it has never been more important to do so. Over the past decade, momentum towards the widespread adoption of OS practices has been primarily driven by declarations (e.g., DORA, the Leiden Manifesto). These serve an important role, but for OS to truly take root, researchers also must be fully incentivized and rewarded for its practice. This requires research funders and academic leaders to take the lead in collaborating, with researchers in designing, and implementing new incentive structures, and to actively work to socialize these throughout the research ecosystem. The US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Roundtable on Aligning Research Incentives for OS is one such effort. This paper examines the strategy behind convening the Roundtable, its current participant makeup, focus, and outputs. It also explores how this approach might be expanded and adapted throughout the global OS community.


Freezing and its combination with emulsion-templating are investigated to systematically tune pore morphologies and volumes in macroporous materials. Macroporous structures with controllable pore morphologies are formed under defined freezing conditions. Oil-in-water emulsions are processed to produce porous polymeric materials with a controlled proportion of ice-templated pores and emulsion-templated pores by systematically changing the volume ratio of the internal oil droplet phase to aqueous continuous phase in the emulsions. Pore morphology, bulk density, and pore volumes of these macroporous materials can thus be systematically tuned. Chemical crosslinking and sol–gel processing are further employed to produce porous polymeric and inorganic materials (silica, silica–alumina, and zirconia) with enhanced mechanical stability and hierarchical porosity.


The goal of this collective monograph is to explore the relationship between the cognitive notion of number and various grammatical devices expressing this concept in natural language with a special focus on Slavic. The book aims at investigating different morphosyntactic and semantic categories including plurality and number-marking, individuation and countability, cumulativity, distributivity and collectivity, numerals, numeral modifiers and classifiers, as well as other quantifiers. It gathers 19 contributions tackling the main themes from different theoretical and methodological perspectives in order to contribute to our understanding of cross-linguistic patterns both in Slavic and non-Slavic languages.


In this work we investigate which aspects of data protection regulation must be carefully observed when implementing Blockchain-based projects in smart cities. This technology provides interesting properties and allows governments to develop flexible and innovative data management systems. Nevertheless, realizing the benefits of using Blockchains requires understanding the government processes along with the legal framework and political setting imposed on government. Though it is a buzzword, Blockchain may not always be the best solution for data processing, and carrying out a Data Protection Impact Assessment could allow an analysis of the necessity and proportionality of the mechanism. Furthermore, principles relating to security of data remain applicable to Blockchains. We discuss points of interaction between Blockchain technology and the European Union data protection framework, and provide recommendations on how to better develop Blockchain-based projects in smart cities. The findings of the study should provide public sector actors with a guideline to assess the real necessity and better format of a Blockchain-based application.


Data is fundamental to machine learning-based products and services and is considered strategic due to its externalities for businesses, governments, non-profits, and more generally for society. It is renowned that the value of organizations (businesses, government agencies and programs, and even industries) scales with the volume of available data. What is often less appreciated is that the data value in making useful organizational predictions will range widely and is prominently a function of data characteristics and underlying algorithms.

In this research, our goal is to study how the value of data changes over time and how this change varies across contexts and business areas (e.g. next word prediction in the context of history, sports, politics). We focus on data from Reddit.com and compare the value's time-dependency across various Reddit topics (Subreddits). We make this comparison by measuring the rate at which user-generated text data loses its relevance to the algorithmic prediction of conversations. We show that different subreddits have different rates of relevance decline over time.

Relating the text topics to various business areas of interest, we argue that competing in a business area in which data value decays rapidly alters strategies to acquire competitive advantage. When data value decays rapidly, access to a continuous flow of data will be more valuable than access to a fixed stock of data. In this kind of setting, improving user engagement and increasing user-base help creating and maintaining a competitive advantage.


The virtual force method is applied for deploying a mobile sensor network in an uncertain environment. A mobile sensor network is a distributed collection of nodes, each of which has sensing, computation, communication and locomotion capabilities. Previous studies of mobile sensor deployment adopted a round by round process, that is, sensors move iteratively until the maximum coverage is reached. However, the mobile sensors probably move in a zig-zag way that waste a lot of energy in comparison with that of moving directly to a final location. We proposed a cluster-based virtual force algorithm (CVFA), which is an energy efficiency deployment strategy. CVFA can enhance the coverage after an initial random placement of sensors. By constructing virtual force, each node is attracted or repelled by other nodes, thereby forcing the network to spread itself throughout the environment. In CVFA, global information of k-hop neighbours can be acquired by the inter-cluster communications, and sensors can grasp their target locations logically. Experimental result, using ns-2 simulator, suggests that CVFA can significantly reduce the energy consumption compared to previous work, especially on maintaining similar coverage.


Ebola![Figure][1]

Ebola virus isolated from patient blood samples

PHOTO: NIAID

Certain individuals, known as superspreaders, disproportionately infect more people with disease-causing organisms than the average infectious case. Lau et al. identified key drivers of Ebola virus (EBOV) superspreading during the 2014 West Africa outbreak. Unexpectedly, secondary cases largely did not transmit tertiary cases; thus, epidemic growth was fueled and sustained by a few superspreaders, and transmission occurred locally, within 2.5 km of the source. Community-based EBOV cases progressed more rapidly than those identified in clinical care settings. The most infectious age groups tended to be the young or people over 45 years old, which may reflect social structure, such as the intimacy of care needs, or immunological factors. This work helps to identify the most vulnerable groups and provide parameters for control efforts in future outbreaks of EBOV.

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 10.1073/pnas.1614595114 (2017).

 [1]: pending:yes


Introduction The World Intellectual Property Organisation reported more than 9750 patents of ritonavir from the discovery in December 1993. This intellectual property right aimed to encourage innovation. However, heatstable formulations or combinations with other chemicals might be patented and marketed at higher price and also when the original patent is about to expire, a so called evergreening strategy. We aimed to determine the financial incentive of marketing heatstable formulation using the proprietary melt-extrusion (Meltrex) technology allowing in addition to reduce the pill count from 6 to 4 per day. The Meltrex technology was applied to ritonavir stand alone formulation in Oktober 2010 almost 4 years after the lopinavir/ritonavir (December 2006). Methods Frequency of administration and dosage for all patients under ritonavir and lopinavir/ritonavir were collected from the Geneva Swiss HIV Cohort Study from January 2003 to June 2016. Extracosts were calculated for three different scenarios assuming the replacement with the corresponding Swiss market price de-escalation of (1) lamivudine (2) lamivudine/zidovudine and (3) efavirenz over time. Prices were adjusted by the inflation rate. Results Over the study period the total cost was USD2,805,135 for the ritonavir and USD13,351,886 for the lopinavir/ritonavir. The increase in cost for the Meltrex technology per patient was 17% for ritonavir 4% for lopinavir/ritonavir, leading to an extracost of USD166'358 and USD368'255 respectively.Theoretical savings if generic ritonavir would enter the market after original ritonavir patent termination would be USD994'080 for lamivudine price de-escalation, USD750,917 for lamivudine/zidovudine and USD600,741 for efavirenz. Conclusions The financial incentive encourage the pharmaceutical firm to be innovative leading to negotiate higher prices and at the same time to extent of the originator patent. The consequence is a financial impact for the society by preventing competition from generic equivalent and the delay in the accessibility of innovation for the patient.


1978 Methods of determining prognosis in breast, ovary, and colon cancer includes detection of molecular markers such as the estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and HER-2/neu. These markers are routinely assessed via immunohistochemistry (IHC) and Fluorescent In-situ hybridization (FISH). Flow cytometry (FC) has not yet been established for routine detection of these markers in tumors. We performed FC on cells from fourteen ovary, five breast, and four colon cancer tumors. FC was used to detect the presence of ER, PR, HER-2/neu, Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR), E-cadherin, RAS, ERK and TUJ1. Cells obtained directly from tumoral tissue were simultaneous analysized by cell cycle stage (G0, G2M, and > G2M) and presence of antigenic markers. In ovarian tumors, 7 of 14 samples demonstrated >50% of cells with her-2/neu expression in aneuploid fractions (>G2M), 9 of 14 in G2M phase, and only 2 of 14 in G0 phase. With respect to ER, 7 of 14 ovarian tumors exhibited >19% of cells in G2M and >G2M fractions, while only 1 of 14 samples had >19% at G0. The PR receptor was expressed in >19 % of cells in 8 of 14 (>G2M), 7 of 14 (G2M), and 2 of 14 (G0). In breast tumors, 4 of 5 tumors demonstrated >50% expression of HER-2/neu in G2M and >G2M cell phases, and only 2 of 5 demonstrated >50% her2neu expression in G0. Three of five tumors had >19% cellular expression of ER in the >G2M and G2M phases, while only one had >19% in G0. With PR, 3 of 5 breast tumors had >19% cellular expression in G0, G2M, and >G2M phases. In colon tumors, 2 of 4 had >50% cellular expression of her2neu in >G2M fractions, 4 of 4 in G2M, and only 1 of 4 in G0. Interestingly, cell fractions containing G2M and > G2M DNA had > 50% cellular expression for RAS and ERK in 2 of 4 colon tumors (Figure). No colon tumors expressed RAS and ERK significantly in G0 cells. We found that ER, PR, and HER-2/neu marker expression were consistent with established patterns. Additionally, these data point to specific expression patterns that are associated with the cell cycle stage. In particular, we note high expression of Her-2/nue, ER, and PR in aneuploid (>G2M) cells. These results suggest that patterns of expression can be assessed in tumor tissues using FC, and the potential for broad application to all solid tumors.


Leptospirosis is a globally important zoonotic disease caused by spirochetes
from the genus Leptospira. Transmission to humans occurs either directly from
exposure to contaminated urine or infected tissues, or indirectly via contact with
contaminated soil or water. In Malaysia, leptospirosis is an important emerging zoonotic
disease with dramatic increase of reported cases over the last decade. However, there is
a paucity of data on the epidemiology and genetic characteristics of Leptopsira in
Malaysia. The first objective of this study was to provide an epidemiological description
of human leptospirosis cases over a 9-year period (2004–2012) and disease relationship
with meteorological, geographical, and demographical information. An upward trend of
leptospirosis cases were reported between 2004 to 2012 with a total of 12,325 cases
recorded. Three hundred thirty-eight deaths were reported with an overall case fatality
rate of 2.74%, with higher incidence in males (9696; 78.7%) compared with female
patients (2629; 21.3%). The average incidence was highest amongst Malays (10.97 per
100,000 population), followed by Indians (7.95 per 100,000 population). Stratification
according to geographical distribution showed that the state of Malacca recorded the
highest disease incidence average (11.12 per 100,000 population) followed by Pahang
(10.08 per 100,000 population). In view of the recent rise in reported human cases, the
next aim was to isolate and characterize Leptospira species from the environment (water
and soils), and host reservoirs (rat, dog, cat, swine) from selected sites in different States
in Malaysia. Positive isolates were obtained from urine and kidney samples of 59/167
rats, 11/50 dogs and 5/81 swine. Among 151 environmental samples collected from
different sites, 35 samples (28 water, 7 soil) were positive with 8 (7 water, 1 soil) pure
culture samples. Microscopic agglutination test (MAT) identified 4 Leptospira spp.
serogroups (Javanica, Bataviae, Pomona and Canicola) in the zoonotic samples, while
environmental samples were unidentified. Molecular characterization by PFGE showed a high diversity among the environmental isolates (8 profiles), while only 5 different
patterns were generated among zoonotic and clinical isolates. RAPD-PCR using primer
pairs B11 and B12 subtyped 71 isolates into 32 RAPD profiles. A Multilocus sequence
typing (MLST) using 7 seven house-keeping loci generated a phylogenity tree with 7
different MLST type (STs) among the 63 isolates, however no environmental strains
were typed using this scheme. Antimicrobial susceptibilty analysis showed all 65
Leptospira spp. isolated from humans (n = 1), reservoir animals (rat, n = 60; dog, n = 1;
swine, n = 1) and the environment (n = 2) were resistant to trimethoprim,
chloramphenicol and sulfomethaxazole. Doxycycline, ampicillin and penicillin G were
only effective against the clinical and zoonotic isolates. Finally, multiplex PCR (mPCR)
was developed and proved to be a promising tool for the rapid early detection and
differentiation of leptospirosis from various specimens using two primer sets, LG1/LG2
for genus confirmation, which targeted the 16SrRNA gene and species identification
and pathogenicty determination using LP1/LP2 primers which targeted ligB gene.
These results highlight the need for close partnerships between scientists, clinicians,
veterinarians and public health officers in order to reduce the disease burden.


The vertical distributions of chlorophyll concentration and photosynthetic parameters of sediment-associated microalgae were measured with a resolution of 1 mm. Sediment and the overlying water were sampled at 3 sandy, shallow-water sites near Corpus Christi Bay, Texas, USA. All sediment samples had a floc in the surficial rmllimeter that contained as much as or more chlorophyll than the 0.2 to 0.6 m of water overlying them. The photosynthetic responses of the sediment-associated microalgae were comparable with those of the suspended phytoplankton. Below the surficial floc, constancy of chlorophyll concentration and photosynthetic-irradiance (PI) responses indicated the existence of a physically mixed layer in the underlying 8 to 15 mm. Photosynthetically competent algae were found below the mixed layer and well below the depth to which light penetrates the sediment (ca 1 mm). Primary production was more or less equally distributed between the surficial millimeter of benthos and the overlying water. The surficial floc and some of the underlying sediment may be readily resuspended so that 'benthic' microalgae can contribute significantly to both water column and benthic primary production.


The objective of this paper is to propose a human expert-based approach to electrical peak demand management. The proposed approach helps to allocate demand curtailments (MW) among distribution substations (DS) or feeders in an electric utility service area based on requirements of the central load dispatch center. Demand curtailment allocation is quantified by taking into account demand response (DR) potential and load curtailment priority of each DS, which can be determined using DS loading level, capacity of each DS, customer types (residential/commercial), and load categories (deployable, interruptible, or critical). The analytic hierarchy process is used to model a complex decision-making process according to both expert inputs and objective parameters. Simulation case studies are conducted to demonstrate how the proposed approach can be implemented to perform DR using real-world data from an electric utility. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach is capable of achieving realistic demand curtailment allocations among different DSs to meet the peak load reduction requirements at the utility level.


Prices of equity index put options contain information on the price of systematic downward jump risk. We use a structural jump-diffusion firm value model to assess the level of credit spreads that is generated by option-implied jump risk premia. In our compound option pricing model, an equity index option is an option on a portfolio of call options on the underlying firm values. We calibrate the model parameters to historical information on default risk, the equity premium and equity return distribution, and S&P 500 index option prices. Our results show that a model without jumps fails to fit the equity return distribution and option prices, and generates a low out-of-sample prediction for credit spreads. Adding jumps and jump risk premia improves the fit of the model in terms of equity and option characteristics considerably and brings predicted credit spread levels much closer to observed levels.


We explore Interactive Post-Editing (IPE) models for human-in-loop translation to help correct translation errors and rephrase it with a desired style variation. We specifically study verbosity for style variations and build on top of multi-source transformers that can read source and hypothesis to improve the latter with user inputs. Token-level interaction inputs for error corrections and length interaction inputs for verbosity control are used by the model to generate a suitable translation. We report BERTScore to evaluate semantic quality with other relevant metrics for translations from English to German, French and Spanish languages. Our model achieves superior BERTScore over state-of-the-art machine translation models while maintaining the desired token-level and verbosity preference.


This paper studies the private key generation of a cooperative pairwise-independent network (PIN) with M + 2 terminals, where Alice and Bob wish to generate a private key under the help of the M relays, M ≥ 2; such a private key needs to be protected not only from Eve but also from individual relays simultaneously. In this PIN, the correlated source observed by every pair of terminals is independent of those sources observed by any other pair of terminals. All the terminals can communicate with each other over a public channel which is also observed by Eve noiselessly. The private key capacity of this PIN model is established, whose lower bound is obtained by proposing a novel random binning (RB) based key generation algorithm, and the upper bound is obtained based on the construction of M enhanced source models. The two bounds are shown to be exactly the same. Then, we consider a cooperative wireless network and use the estimates of fading channels to generate private keys. Compared to the existing XOR-based algorithm whose achievable multiplexing gain is ⌊M/2⌋, the proposed RB-based algorithm is demonstrated to achieve the optimal multiplexing gain M - 1.


A diffusion behavior was observed for co-sputtered metals during thermal treatment, while these metals were fabricated as bonding mediums in 3D IC applications. This paper reports and discusses the mechanical behavior of co-sputtering metals before and after annealing. In addition, co-sputtering metal bonding seems to be an option for bonding technology based on their excellent bonding results.


Cytochrome c oxidase, the terminal enzyme of the respiratory chains of mitochondria and aerobic bacteria, catalyzes electron transfer from cytochrome c to molecular oxygen. The enzyme belongs to the haem-copper-containing oxidases superfamily. A recombinant plasmid carrying a 2.0 kb insert from a Burkholderia pseudomallei genomic library was subjected to automated DNA sequencing utilizing a primer walking strategy. Analysis of the 2002 bp insert revealed a 1536 bp open reading frame predicted to encode a putative cytochrome c oxidase. Further analysis using sequence alignments and tertiary structure analysis tools demonstrated that the hypothetical B. pseudomallei cytochrome c oxidase is similar to cytochrome c oxidases from other organisms such as Thermus thermophilus (36% protein sequence identity), Paracoccus denitrificans and bovine heart mitochondrial, the latter two which crystal structures available. The deduced 512 residue protein sequence includes the six canonical histidine residues involved in binding the low spin heme B and the binuclear center Cu B /hemeA. The predicted tertiary structure of the hypothetical protein is consistent with previous models of electron transfer for cytochrome c oxidase.


Abstract Eigenfunctions of the Finite Fourier Transform, often referred to as 'prolates', are band-limited and highly concentrated at a finite time-interval. Both features are acquired by the convolution of a band-limited function with a prolate. This permits interpolation of such a convolution by the Walter and Shen sampling formula in terms of prolates, although the Fourier transform of the convolution is not necessarily even continuous and the concentration interval is twice as large as that of a prolate. Rigorous error estimates are given as dependent on the truncation limits. The accuracy achieved is tested by numerical examples.


Considerable research highlights the value of mentorship to the professional development of early career faculty in academia, yet less research focuses on factors motivating individuals to provide formal guidance to junior colleagues. Given that new social work faculty, in particular, may not receive sufficient mentoring, understanding what attracts senior scholars to serve as mentors can inform the development of future endeavors to promote mentorship programs in social work. This article presents findings from interviews with eight out of nine faculty leaders from the Summer Institute on Aging and Social Work, an advanced training program in aging research for social work faculty, regarding what prompted their participation in an ongoing mentorship role and how they were impacted by serving in such a capacity. Results from thematic analysis reveal three primary domains in faculty mentors' narratives: (a) their role and experiences in the institute, (b) reflections on the program itself, and (c) advice for emergent social work scholars in aging. Faculty unanimously asserted that the personal and professional satisfaction stemming from mentoring early career academics strongly motivated their participation in the institute. In addition, they appreciated the mutual learning that arose as they shared expertise in research and grantsmanship, while gaining knowledge from institute participants regarding social work's unique perspective on aging-related issues. Advice for emergent scholars centered on encouraging resilience during the grant application and reapplication process and effectively aligning research agendas with the teaching and research expectations of their respective institutions.


The characteristics relating to high tensile ductility, High Performance Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Composites (HPFRCC) are being so that studied it'll be adopted in repair and retrofit of buildings. A series of three shear wall specimens were tested under constant axial stress and reversed cyclical lateral loading in order to evaluate the seismic retrofit that had been proposed for the shear wall with the opening. The retrofit involved the use of ECC and MDF, both of which are sprayed through the high pressure pump, over the entire face of the wall. The results indicate that two different types of retrofitting strategies cause the different effects on the strength and ductility of each specimen.


BACKGROUND
Several studies have reported what seem to be false-positive results using the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved HercepTest (Dako Corp, Carpinteria, CA) to profile Her-2/neu amplification and overproduction in breast carcinoma. False-positive status has been based on comparisons with gene copy enumeration by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and with comparisons to immunohistochemistry (IMH) results using a monoclonal antibody. However, simple overexpression by tumor cells that have normal gene copy has not been evaluated by profiling mRNA expression, ie, such cases could simply represent true-positive, transcriptionally upregulated overexpression.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Four hundred infiltrating ductal carcinomas of breast were evaluated by IMH using monoclonal (CB11; Ventana Medical Systems, Inc, Tucson, AZ) and polyclonal (HercepTest; Dako) antibodies after antigen retrieval (AR). A polyclonal antibody sans AR (PCA/SAR) was also used. All IMH stains were evaluated and scored according to the guidelines for the FDA-approved HercepTest. A total of 145 of 400 carcinomas were subsequently evaluated by direct and digoxigenin-labeled (Dig) FISH, and 144 of 400 were evaluated by detection of mRNA overexpression via autoradiographic RNA:RNA in situ hybridization.

RESULTS
Overall HercepTest/CB11 IMH discordance was 12%. Expression of mRNA was highly concordant with FISH and DigFISH amplification and with CB11 and PCA/SAR immunohistology. IMH false-positive cases (no Her-2/neu gene amplification) occurred with both HercepTest (23%) and CB11 (17%), and the majority of false-positive results (34 of 44) were scored as 2+. All 2+ false-positive cases were mRNA-negative. Combined results of HercepTest and CB11 showed that 79% (38 of 48) of 3+ cases were Her-2/neu gene amplified, but only 17% (seven of 41) of 2+ cases had increased gene copy.

CONCLUSION
Discordant HercepTest/FISH results, and to a lesser extent discordance with CB11 IMH, are most commonly false-positive results with a score of 2+. The 2+ score as defined in the guidelines for the FDA-approved HercepTest should not be used as a criterion for trastuzumab therapy unless confirmed by FISH. Determination of Her-2 gene copy number by FISH may be a more accurate and reliable method for selecting patients eligible for trastuzumab therapy.


One of the factors hindering the use of functional languages has been their relatively poor performance in comparison to more traditional languages such as C and Pascal. During the last decade tremendous progress has been made in building implementations of functional languages but the approaches adopted have employed specialist hardware andlor compiler optimisations that have been developed specifically for functional languages. Building specialist hardware may be the best long-term solution but in the short run it is possible to increase the use and acceptance of functional languages by exploiting the performance of commercially available machines. The goal of the project described in this paper has been to design an optimising compiler that produces fast code for functional languages on conventional sequential and parallel machines.


Increasingly large document collections require improved information processing methods for searching, retrieving, and organizing text. Central to these information processing methods is document classification, which has become an important application for supervised learning. Recently the performance of traditional supervised classifiers has degraded as the number of documents has increased. This is because along with growth in the number of documents has come an increase in the number of categories. This paper approaches this problem differently from current document classification methods that view the problem as multi-class classification. Instead we perform hierarchical classification using an approach we call Hierarchical Deep Learning for Text classification (HDLTex). HDLTex employs stacks of deep learning architectures to provide specialized understanding at each level of the document hierarchy.


Developments in large scale computing environments have led to design of workflows that rely on containers and analytics platform that are well supported by the commercial cloud. The National Science Foundation also envisions a future in science and engineering that includes commercial cloud service providers (CSPs) such as Amazon Web Services, Azure and Google Cloud. These twin forces have made researchers consider the commercial cloud as an alternative option to current high performance computing (HPC) environments. Training and knowledge on how to migrate workflows, cost control, data management, and system administration remain some of the commonly listed concerns with adoption of cloud computing. In an effort to ameliorate this situation, CSPs have developed online and in-person training platforms to help address this problem. Scalability, ability to impart knowledge, evaluating knowledge gain, and accreditation are the core concepts that have driven this approach. Here, we present a review of our experience using Google's Qwiklabs online platform for remote and in-person training from the perspective of a HPC user. For this study, we completed over 50 online courses, earned five badges and attended a one-day session. We identify the strengths of the approach, identify avenues to refine them, and consider means to further community engagement. We further evaluate the readiness of these resources for a cloud-curious researcher who is familiar with HPC. Finally, we present recommendations on how the large scale computing community can leverage these opportunities to work with CSPs to assist researchers nationally and at their home institutions. CCS CONCEPTS •CS→Computer Science; •Cybertraining→training on using cyberinfrastructure; •HPC→high performance computing


The basal dendritic arbors of over 500-layer III pyramidal neurones of the macaque cortex were compared by fractal analyses, which provides a measure of the space filling (or branching pattern) of dendritic arbors. Fractal values (D) of individual cells were compared between the cytochrome oxidase (CO)-rich blobs and CO-poor interblobs, of middle and upper layer III, and between sublaminae, in the primary visual area (Vi). These data were compared with those in the CO compartments in the second visual area (V2), and seven other extrastriate cortical areas. (V4, MT, LIP, 7a, TEO, TE and STP). There were significant differences in the fractal dimensions, and therefore the dendritic branching patterns, of cells in striate and extrastriate areas. Of the 55 possible pairwise comparisons of fractal dimension of neurones in different cortical areas (or CO compartments), 39 proved to be significantly different. The markedly different morphologies of pyramidal cells in the different cortical areas may be one of the features that determine the functional signatures of these cells by influencing the number of inputs received by, and propagation of potentials through, their dendritic arbors.


Information on the Occupy movement at its height, its many incarnations throughout the world and how it continues on today


Marine reserves can be effective conservation and fishery management tools, particularly when their design accounts for spatial population connectivity. Yet climate change is expected to significantly alter larval connectivity of many marine species, questioning whether marine reserves designed today will still be effective in the future. Here we predict how alternative marine reserve designs will affect fishery yields. We apply a range of empirically-grounded scenarios for future larval dispersal to fishery models of seven species currently managed through marine reserves in the nearshore waters in Southern California, USA. We show that networks of reserves optimized for future climate conditions differ substantially from networks designed for today's conditions. However, the benefits of redesign are modest: a set of reserves designed for current conditions commonly produces outcomes within 10% of the best redesigned network, and far outperforms haphazardly designed networks. Thus, investing in the strategic design of marine reserves networks today may pay dividends even if the networks are not modified to keep up with environmental change.


Three types of human odontogenic tumors histologically classified as compound composite odontoma, ossifying fibroma, and Pindborg tumor were characterized using mid-infrared spectroscopy (mid-IR) and solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR). For comparison, human jawbone and dental mineralized tissues such as dentin, enamel, and dental cement were also characterized. The studies focused on the structural properties and chemical composition of pathological tissues versus histochemically related tissues. All analyzed tumors were composed of organic and mineral parts and water. Apatite was found to be the main constituent of the mineral part. Various components (water, structural hydroxyl groups, carbonate ions (CO32–), and hydrogen phosphate ions (HPO42–)) and physicochemical parameters (index of apatite maturity and crystallinity) were examined. The highest organic/mineral ratio was observed in fibrocementoma, a finding that can be explained by the fibrous character of the tumor. The lowest relative HPO42– content was found in odontoma. This tumor is characterized by the highest mineral crystallinity index and content of structural hydroxyl groups. The Pindborg tumor mineral portion was found to be poorly crystalline and rich in HPO42–. The relative CO32– content was similar in all samples studied. The results of spectroscopic studies of odontogenic tumors were consistent with the standard histochemical analysis. It was shown that the various techniques of ssNMR and elaborate analysis of the mid-IR spectra, applied together, provide valuable information about calcified benign odontogenic tumors.


Porous materials such as engineering ceramics and metal foams have a specific feature such that internal structure has a significant influence on the mechanical properties from the viewpoint of porosity and morphology. This paper discusses the relationship between microscopic morphology and macroscopic properties of the porous materials based on the homogenization technique, in which pores are randomly distributed over the domain. Various types of pores are examined and the conjunction between different elemental types is discussed. A wide range of porosity is covered from a low porosity of 5% such as engineering ceramics to 80% of foam-like materials within the same numerical strategy. It is found that the macroscopic property with low porosity shows good agreement with both experimental curve and micromechanics prediction, in which the elasticity coefficient is affected by morphology of internal structure. In contrast with the low porosity, the morphology effect diminishes and is hardly observed in high porosity region where the macroscopic stiffness is almost linear on the porosity.


Modern embedded OS are designed to be used in control solutions in various hardware contexts. Control computers may differ in the architecture of the CPU, the structure of communication channels, supported communication protocols, etc. Embedded OS are often statically configured to create an OS image, which intended to be executed on some specific control computer. System integrator usually performs this configuration. Embedded OS are often developed by many companies. Joint development and integration is very complex if OS doesn't support modularity. Support of modularity and component assembly reduces the need of communication among companies during development and integration. This allows customers to create minimal solutions that are optimally adapted to the particular task and hardware platform. Furthermore, customers may be interested in adding their own low level components without OS modification. In this article, we present an approach to building modular embedded solutions from heterogeneous components based on the RTOS JetOS. The mechanism of components binding developed by us allows uniting heterogeneous components from different manufacturers within the same section of the address space. This mechanism allows component developer to independently develop their components. And system integrator can independently from developers configure what component he likes to see in OS image and how components should interact.


Dr. Macdonald-Laurs et al. reported 38 patients with bottom-of-sulcus dysplasia (BOSD), who underwent a limited corticectomy and whose seizure outcomes indicated minor neurologic complications,1 echoing previous literature.2,3 Although subtle changes can be found from structural MRIs, combined fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) and MRI imaging can produce high sensitivity in detecting these small lesions. Because these lesions are well confined, sulcus-centered resections could be considered for better function protection, while also guaranteeing the seizure outcome.4


In this study, the development of a numerical model simulating surface drip irrigation from equidistant line sources in stratified soils under various conditions is being presented. The developed numerical model was used to investigate the effects of hysteresis, discharge rate, and soil hydraulic properties on soil water dynamics in stratified soils under surface trickle irrigation. Soil water dynamics were simulated for two sequences of soil layers and for two drip lines discharge rates. Soil water distribution patterns, for all conditions examined, were computed first neglecting hysteresis by using the boundary wetting curve only and second considering hysteresis to evaluate the effect of hysteresis on the obtained results. The numerical results showed that hysteresis has a profound effect on the computed soil water distribution patterns and that the draining process progresses more quickly when hysteresis is neglected than when hysteresis is considered. The inclusion of hysteresis results in reduced water losses under the root zone. Moreover, this reduction seems to be more significant in the case that a fine soil is located below a coarse soil. The results also showed that the irrigation efficiency is higher in the same case; however, irrigation efficiency is generally high in all the examined cases of stratified soils.


Much work has been performed in the area of automatic recognition of sonar signals in order to reduce the operator load when confronted with many beams of data concurrently. This paper describes a neural network system which is capable of recognizing different types of sonar signals. The given results show that neural network techniques have potential as possible implementation solutions for the recognition functions of targets with complex geometrical shape.


This paper explores the role of a school kitchen garden in the lives of its volunteers. The garden, located at the Majura Primary School in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Australia, is the first Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden (SAKG) in the ACT. Since its launch on 25 March 2010, it has acted as the demonstration site for SAKG in the ACT. While other schools in the ACT have kitchen gardens, they do not operate under the management of a formal programme such as the SAKG scheme. Literature on school kitchen gardens provides some empirical evidence on the benefits of school kitchen gardens for children (primarily from the pedagogical, environmental and health perspectives), but there is scant literature on the various ways in which a kitchen garden may affect the various stakeholders involved in its community. These stakeholders include parents and volunteers associated with the establishment and ongoing support of the school kitchen garden. This paper begins to address this gap in the literature by exploring the experiences of adult volunteers associated with the Majura Primary School kitchen garden. A key finding was that volunteers experienced unexpected benefits, as well as challenges.


The purpose of this study is to get a new concept about the implementation of voter registration policy in regional elections in the effort to develop public administration science. The research uses a qualitative descriptive approach. The data collection used in this study is in-depth interview techniques. The results showed that the lack of support for having an electronic Residence Identification Card (e-KTP) was due to the community's socioeconomic status and the availability of technology that did not support this policy. This policy was not well prepared long before the simultaneous regional elections were held. Policy support instruments have not been tested and prepared correctly.


Herein, an electrocatalyst consisting of iron and nitrogen co-doped porous carbon (Fe–N/C) was prepared by catalytic carbonization of chitin with the assistance of FeCl3 and ZnCl2. The catalytic activity of Fe–N/C towards the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in both acidic and alkaline electrolytes was significantly enhanced by air-plasma etching for only 120 s, showing a four-electron ORR process with an onset potential and limiting current comparable to those of Pt catalysts. This performance enhancement originated from the removal of less stable sp3 and amorphous sp2 carbons which would expose more active catalytic FeN4 centers, as well as the transformation of a small fraction of iron-based nanoparticles into FeN4 species.


High resolution ultrasonic biometry was performed on 21 normal eyes of volunteers (18 to 30 years old) prior to and at 15-minute intervals after topical instillation of pilocarpine 2%. Pilocarpine has a measurable effect on the anterior chamber and lens thickness within 15 minutes, is maximal 45 to 60 minutes after instillation, and virtually gone after 100 minutes. Every eye measured demonstrated an axial thickening of the lens (average 0.32 mm), and narrowing of the anterior chamber (average 0.29 mm). In addition to axial thickening of the lens, there was a forward translational movement of the lens with pilocarpine-induced accommodative spasm. Pilocarpine-induced accommodation and voluntary accommodation produce similar changes in the anterior chamber and lens surfaces.


AbstractInterviews were conducted with 24 graduating veterinary students to examine (a) changes in their attitudes toward animals; (b) the types of experiences and procedures that they found personally distressing; (c) their perceptions of the most important ethical issues that they will face in private practice; and (d) their responses to euthanizing animals. Students' responses differed considerably. For example, about half of the students claimed that they were not affected by euthanasia, but another 25% still were struggling with this aspect of their professional role. Rationalization was a common mechanism by which the students attempted to deal with stressful experiences. It is argued that the moral dilemmas faced by veterinary students mirror the ethical ambiguities inherent in human-animal relationships.


This article develops a new theory of polymedia in order to understand the consequences of digital media in the context of interpersonal communication. Drawing on illustrative examples from a comparative ethnography of Filipino and Caribbean transnational families, the article develops the contours of a theory of polymedia. We demonstrate how users avail themselves of new media as a communicative environment of affordances rather than as a catalogue of ever proliferating but discrete technologies.As a consequence, with polymedia the primary concern shifts from the constraints imposed by each individual medium to an emphasis upon the social, emotional and moral consequences of choosing between those different media. As the choice of medium acquires communicative intent, navigating the environment of polymedia becomes inextricably linked to the ways in which interpersonal relationships are experienced and managed.Polymedia is ultimately about a new relationship between the social and the technological, rather than merely a shift in the technology itself.


We present an expanded distance catalog for 1710 molecular cloud structures identified in the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey (BGPS) version 2, representing a nearly threefold increase over the previous BGPS distance catalog. We additionally present a new method for incorporating extant data sets into our Bayesian distance probability density function (DPDF) methodology. To augment the dense-gas tracers (e.g., HCO(3–2), NH3(1,1)) used to derive line-of-sight velocities for kinematic distances, we utilize the Galactic Ring Survey (GRS) 13CO(1–0) data to morphologically extract velocities for BGPS sources. The outline of a BGPS source is used to select a region of the GRS 13CO data, along with a reference region to subtract enveloping diffuse emission, to produce a line profile of 13CO matched to the BGPS source. For objects with a HCO(3–2) velocity, ≈95% of the new 13CO(1–0) velocities agree with that of the dense gas. A new prior DPDF for kinematic distance ambiguity (KDA) resolution, based on a validated formalism for associating molecular cloud structures with known objects from the literature, is presented. We demonstrate this prior using catalogs of masers with trigonometric parallaxes and H ii regions with robust KDA resolutions. The distance catalog presented here contains well-constrained distance estimates for 20% of BGPS V2 sources, with typical distance uncertainties ≲ 0.5 kpc. Approximately 75% of the well-constrained sources lie within 6 kpc of the Sun, concentrated in the Scutum–Centaurus arm. Galactocentric positions of objects additionally trace out portions of the Sagittarius, Perseus, and Outer arms in the first and second Galactic quadrants, and we also find evidence for significant regions of interarm dense gas.


In this paper, we present the efficient content based image retrieval systems which employ the color, texture and shape information of images to facilitate the retrieval process. For efficient feature extraction, we extract the color, texture and shape feature of images automatically using edge detection which is widely used in signal processing and image compression. For facilitated the speedy retrieval we are implements the antipole-tree algorithm for indexing the images.


One of the challenges for 3D technology adoption is the insufficient understanding of 3D testing issues and the lack of DFT solutions. This article describes testing challenges for 3D ICs, including problems that are unique to 3D integration, and summarizes early research results in this area. Researchers are investigating various 3D IC manufacturing processes that are particularly relevant to testing and DFT. In terms of the process and the level of assembly that 3D ICs require, we can broadly classify the techniques as monolithic or as die stacking.


Epidemic Pseudomonas aeruginosa have been identified in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients worldwide. The Australian Epidemic Strain-2 (AES-2) infects up to 40% of patients in three eastern Australian CF clinics. To investigate whether AES-2 isolates from chronically infected CF adults differentially express well-conserved genes potentially associated with transmissibility, we compared the transcriptomes of planktonic and biofilm-grown AES-2, infrequent P. aeruginosa clones and the reference P. aeruginosa PAO1 using the Affymetrix PAO1 array. The most interesting findings emerged from comparisons of planktonic and biofilm AES-2. AES-2 biofilms upregulated Type III secretion system genes, but downregulated quorum-sensing (QS)-regulatory genes, except lasR, QS-regulated, oxidative-stress and iron-storage genes. QS-regulated and iron-storage genes were downregulated to a greater extent in AES-2 biofilms compared with infrequent clone and PAO1 biofilms, suggesting enhanced anaerobic respiration in AES-2. Chitinase and chitin-binding protein maintained high expression in AES-2 biofilms compared with infrequent clone and PAO1 biofilms. Planktonic AES-2 upregulated QS regulators and QS-regulated genes, iron acquisition and aerobic respiration genes, and had high expression of Group III Type IV pilA compared with low expression of Group I Type IV pilA in infrequent clones. Together, these properties may enhance long-term survival of AES-2 in CF lung and contribute to its transmissibility.


With the growth of cloud computing, the need arises for Private Set Intersection (PSI) protocols that can operate on outsourced data and delegate computation to cloud servers. One limitation of existing delegated PSI protocols is that they are all designed for static data and do not allow efficient update on outsourced data. Another limitation is that they cannot efficiently support PSI among multiple clients, which is often needed in practice. This paper presents "Feather", the first delegated PSI protocol that supports efficient data updates and scalable multi-party PSI computation on outsourced datasets. The clients can independently prepare and upload their private data to the cloud once, then delegate the computation an unlimited number of times. The update operation has O(1) communication and computation complexity, and this is achieved without sacrificing PSI efficiency and security. Feather does not use public key cryptography, that makes it more scalable. We have implemented a prototype and compared the concrete performance against the state of the art. The evaluation indicates that Feather does achieve better performance in both update and PSI computation.


This paper deals with the problem of reactive power and harmonics in a standard medium voltage (MV) distribution network. It presents the design of a shunt active filter implemented with a multilevel current source inverter (MCSI) connected to the medium voltage level of a power distribution system. The proposed MCSI is made by identical modules where all inductors carry the same amount of current. The current balance is achieved by a Phase-Shifted Carrier SPWM proper implementation. The performance of proposed active filter is thoroughly simulated with Matlab Simulink. It shows very good behavior in steady state and transient conditions.


Ferritin has been purified from normal full-term human placentae and its antigenic and molecular characteristics compared with adult liver ferritin. Placental ferritin is composed predominantly of a single subunit type, co-migrating with a liver ferritin standard on sodium dodecyl sulphate/polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis. Comparison of dose-response curves in an immunoradiometric assay indicated some tissue-specific antigenicity for placental ferritin. This was supported by immunofluorescence studies on cryostat sections of human placentae by using antibodies to placental and spleen ferritin. Specific staining for placental ferritin was demonstrated within placental syncytiotrophoblast, particularly localized towards the microvillus plasma membrane. Ferritin has also been shown by electrophoretic and antigenic analysis to be present in protein fractions solubilized from isolated human syncytiotrophoblast microvillus plasma-membrane preparations, suggesting that ferritin may play an active role in the transfer of iron from maternal transferrin across the syncytiotrophoblast plasma membrane.


Multicore processors are ubiquitous. Their use in embedded systems is growing rapidly and, given the constraints on uniprocessor clock speeds, their importance in meeting the demands of increasingly processor–intensive embedded applications cannot be understated. In order to harness this potential, system designers need to have available to them embedded operating systems with built–in multicore support for widely available embedded hardware. This paper documents our experience of adapting FreeRTOS, a popular embedded real–time operating system, to support multiple processors. A working multicore version of FreeRTOS is presented that is able to schedule tasks on multiple processors as well as provide full mutual exclusion support for use in concurrent applications. Mutual exclusion is achieved in an almost completely platform–agnostic manner, preserving one of FreeRTOS's most attractive features: portability.


As an important organelle, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) participates in the synthesis and secretion of various proteins, glycogen, lipids and cholesterol in eukaryotic cells. In this work, an endoplasmic reticulum-targeted reversible fluorescent probe (ER-Se) was designed and synthesized. The probe, based on a selenide group, shows high sensitivity and good selectivity toward HClO (LOD = 0.85 μM). In addition, the probe has reversible capability towards HClO/GSH. Most importantly, co-location experiment results indicated that the probe exhibited a great ability to target the endoplasmic reticulum. Furthermore, the probe was successfully applied to detect exogenous and endogenous HClO in ER and monitored the redox status changes during ER stress.


This paper describes the first VLSI implementation of lattice reduction (LR) aided multi-antenna broadcast precoding with vector perturbation. The considered LR, scheme is based on Brun's algorithm for finding integer relations. We analyze its high-level architectural issues, we devise a corresponding low-complexity implementation, and, finally, we develop a suitable VLSI architecture. The resulting circuit provides reference for the true silicon complexity of LR, for broadcast precoding with vector perturbation


The present study was aimed at improving the content of therapeutically active principle, andrographolide and whole plant biomass of Andrographis paniculata (Burm. F.) Wall.Ex Nees, by foliar application of plant growth regulators. The pot cultured plants were treated with Gibberellic acid (GA3), Indole acetic acid (IAA), Naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) and Benzyl amino purine (BAP), in the concentration of 25, 50, and 100mg/l each. The plants sprayed with distilled water were maintained as control. The foliar application of these growth regulators was initiated at 30 DAT and continued upto flowering stage at an interval of 10 days. The HPLC analysis revealed that, application of IAA-50mg/l was very effective to enhance the andrographolide content (45%), which was followed by NAA-50mg/l (37%) over control. The whole plant biomass (Panchang) of Andrographis is used in medicine and hence fresh and dry biomass was also determined. The results indicated that NAA (Fresh Weight: 221%, Dry Weight: 155%) and IAA (Fresh Weight: 215%, Dry Weight: 120%) emerged out as the best treatments for improving fresh and dry biomass over control. The treatments of IAA and NAA (50mg/l) were found to be most effective for improving whole plant biomass as well as andrographolide content which can be recommended for the growers.


Fossil fuels have been the prime mover of industrial life for some 200 years. The burning of coal and oil have saved inestimable amounts of time and labor while substantially raising living standards around the world. But many scientists now say the use of fossil fuels, which account for 85% of US energy use, contributes to global warming and could ultimately threaten the planet's future. That concern, coupled with America's growing dependence on insecure fuel sources, has sparked new interest in alternatives. Unlike in the 1970s, however, this time renewable energy may be more than just a fad. Technological advancements have made the economics of wind and solar power much more competitive. Moreover, public utilities are beginning to consider the environmental costs of cheap fossil fuels. This article discusses the background, energy strategies, wind power, solar power, nuclear power, biomass energy, alternative-fuel automobiles, and economic analysis of using renewable energy sources.


This paper considers a single machine scheduling problem in which n jobs are to be processed and a machine setup time is required when the machine switches jobs from one to the other. All jobs have a common due date that has been predetermined using the median of the set of sequenced jobs. The objective is to find an optimal sequence of the set of n jobs to minimize the sum of the job's setups and the cost of tardy or early jobs related to the common due date. Dominance properties are developed according to the sequence swapping of two neighborhood jobs. These dominance properties are further embedded in the simple genetic algorithm to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the global searching procedure. Analytical results in benchmark problems are presented and computational algorithms are developed


Regulatory T cells (Tregs) play a key role in immune system homeostasis and tolerance to antigens, thereby preventing autoimmunity, and may be partly responsible for the lack of an appropriate immune response against tumor cells. Although not sufficient, a high expression of forkhead box P3 (FOXP3) is necessary for their suppressive function. Recent reports have shown that histones deacetylase inhibitors increased FOXP3 expression in T cells. We therefore decided to investigate in non-Tregs CD4-positive cells, the mechanisms by which an aspecific opening of the chromatin could lead to an increased FOXP3 expression. We focused on binding of potentially activating transcription factors to the promoter region of FOXP3 and on modifications in the five miRs constituting the Tregs signature. Valproate treatment induced binding of Ets-1 and Ets-2 to the FOXP3 promoter and acted positively on its expression, by increasing the acetylation of histone H4 lysines. Valproate treatment also induced the acquisition of the miRs Tregs signature. To elucidate whether the changes in the miRs expression could be due to the increased FOXP3 expression, we transduced these non-Tregs with a FOXP3 lentiviral expression vector, and found no changes in miRs expression. Therefore, the modification in their miRs expression profile is not due to an increased expression of FOXP3 but directly results from histones deacetylase inhibition. Rather, the increased FOXP3 expression results from the additive effects of Ets factors binding and the change in expression level of miR-21 and miR-31. We conclude that valproate treatment of human non-Tregs confers on them a molecular profile similar to that of their regulatory counterpart.


Problems with social orienting, attention, and intermodal processing involving social events are considered to be important deficits in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study aimed to better understand how difficulties in attention are associated with intermodal processing difficulties in children with ASD using a novel eye-tracking experimental task. Sixto 16-yearold children with ASD were compared to ageand cognitive abilitymatched peers while engaging in a task involving intermodal processing and attentional experimental measures. Overall, results showed that attention may not be uniformly impaired in ASD in relation to intermodal processing abilities. However, for typically developing children, shifting attention performance and intermodal processing may be linked. Explaining the attentional differences in relation to intermodal processing difficulties will contribute to the field of ASD research in order to inform early interventionists, researchers, and clinicians in treating social deficits in this population.


The determination of the slip velocity, or whether a solid particle will sediment, during its transport is of prime importance for hole cleaning evaluations during drilling operations. Yet, this task is complexified by the asymmetry of the annulus when the central pipe axis does not coincide with the borehole central line and when the inner string rotates, especially since drilling fluids typically follow a yield stress power law rheological behavior.
 This paper describes the modelling of the movement of a particle in such conditions yet with the following simplifications: the inner tube is eccentric but has a uniform movement, the shape of the particle is assimilated to a prolate, the change of shear rates in the fluid around the slipping particle is neglected and collisions between particles are not considered. Otherwise, gravitational effects are incorporated by accounting for the mass density difference between the particle and the surrounding fluid mixture and by considering the borehole inclination. The particle spin is also estimated as it plays an important role in the determination of the drag and lift forces.
 The solution to the differential equations that describe the time evolution of the position and orientation of the particle, depend largely upon the initial conditions. Therefore, an ensemble of boundary conditions is generated at a starting cross-section along the annulus and the resulting particle trajectories are estimated. It is then possible to estimate a probabilistic slip velocity for particles of the considered dimensions, far away from the entrance region. This probabilistic approach allows to define a critical transport fluid velocity as the lower limit of the bulk fluid velocity by which no particle risk to settle. Similarly, one can define a critical settling fluid velocity as the upper limit of the bulk fluid velocity where every particle will sediment regardless of the initial conditions.
 With the described modelling of the particle movement and its associated statistical methods, it is possible to quantitatively estimate the spatial distribution of particles in any cross-section. For those particles that get trapped between the tool-joint and the borehole, it is then possible to estimate their size reduction by grinding, resulting from the rotation of the tool-joint on the borehole wall. The grinding process impacts the particle size distribution passed a tool-joint. By applying this method iteratively up to the annulus outlet, it is possible to estimate the particle size distribution of the drill-cuttings when they arrive at the shale-shakers.


The conditions surrounding oil and gas exploration are becoming more hazardous, especially in oil and gas fields with a high quantity of corrosive components such as CO2. CO2 causes localized corrosion of tools made from metal, rubber and other materials in humid environments; this leads to corrosion failure in metal equipment and downhole tools such as drills pipes, casings and oil pipes, thereby reducing their service life. In this study, the composition, lattice and crystalline forms of corrosion products and corroded materials were analysed using scanning electron microscopy, energy spectrum analysis, X-ray diffraction and polarization curves, in order to investigate the corrosion mechanisms and influential factors for several common tool materials. A CO2 corrosion model was established for two materials and the results were verified with optimal prediction values.


Improvement in quality and safety in health care often depends on eliminating errors. Using examples from our research on the medical testing processes in primary care medical practices, we argue that designing safer systems requires moving beyond frameworks that focus exclusively on error elimination to consider the broader system dynamics including information loops that can be critical to the overall stability of the system. We focus on describing the nature of information coupling in relation to the constructs of essential friction, autonomation, and ecological interface design and how these can lead to more resilient systems. With the recent push in the United States to move towards electronic medical records (EMR), we conclude with suggestions for improving EMR systems based on these concepts.