Background Despite ongoing prevention and educational efforts, the incidence of new HIV infections in 2011 in Italy is estimated at 3.9 per 100,000 and 21.0 per 100,000 among foreigners. Many new infections, more than half in AIDS stage (sex risk 78.8%), are caused by persons unaware of their HIV infection. Methods On February 2012, the NIHMP (National Institute for Health, Migration and Poverty, Rome) started a project aimed at promoting access of vulnerable people to HIV testing and at disseminating knowledge about STIs. A Rapid HIV-1 Antibody Test (MedMira, Halifax, Nova Scotia) is offered to patients of the infectious diseases unit together with STI counselling involving doctor, nurse, transcultural mediator and psychologist. The test is also proposed to people who had never performed it before. If the test is positive, a confirmatory venous test is required. Multilingual written consent and pre-counselling questionnaire about HIV/STI-related knowledge and stigma and sexual behaviours are provided. After 3–6 months, post-counselling questionnaire is administered. Results At November 2012, 121 people were enrolled: 72 males (59.5%), 1 transgender, 103 migrants (85.1%), 9 homeless people (7.4%), 4 Roma (3.3%). 118 people accepted to undergo the test. 61 migrants (59.8%) performed it for the first time. The test was offered for screening (54), past STI (22), including two cases of HIV positivity, new STI (21) and STI risk (13). Two AIDS cases were reported (1.6%). Two tests (1.69%) were false positive. 8 tests (6.7%) were not defined because of previous positive laboratory HIV test/negative WB, co-occurrence of hepatitis, syphilis and scabies or aspirin treatment. 85 questionnaires (70.2%) were filled in. Couple counselling was conducted in 4 cases. Conclusions Preliminary data show that rapid testing is accepted and effective as well as laboratory test. The experimental counselling approach for mobile populations involving transcultural mediators will be evaluated.


The replacement of parts manufactured with conventional materials by pieces manufactured with compound or composite materials contributes to the reduction of the weight of the vehicle, to greater efficiency in the consumption of fuel and to an improvement in the relation between power and weight of the vehicle what translates in a greater performance of the same. Historically, the use of composite materials in the automotive sector has seen limited had to, fundamentally, to the capacities of production. However, the new requirements in the automotive sector are promoting the use of materials composed in this sector. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 17 October 2016 Accepted 15 November 2016 Available online 30 December 2016


In the present study, we examined the UV excitations of a newly introduced molecular set, Halons-9, composed of nine gaseous halon molecules. The performance of the density functional-based multi-reference configuration interaction method (DFT/MRCI) and time-dependent density functional theory with CAM-B3LYP functional (TD-CAM-B3LYP) in the computation of singlet and triplet excited states of this set was evaluated against coupled-cluster with singles and doubles (CCSD). Excited states up to the corresponding ionization limits, including both localized and delocalized excitations, have been benchmarked. TD-CAM-B3LYP significantly underestimates excitation energies of the higher mixed valence-Rydberg and Rydberg states, with computed mean absolute deviations from the equation of motion (EOM)-CCSD results 1.06 and 0.76 eV, respectively. DFT/MRCI gives a significantly better description of higher excited states, albeit still poor, compared to the TD-CAM-B3LYP. The mean absolute deviations of mixed valence-Rydberg and Rydberg states from the reference EOM-CCSD values are 0.66 and 0.47 eV, respectively. The performance of DFT/MRCI for description of strongly correlated states with valence-Rydberg mixing is still not satisfactory enough. On the other hand, oscillator strengths of most of singlet states obtained with both methods are close to the EOM-CCSD values. The largest deviations, occurring in the case of several high-lying multiconfigurational states, are of an order of magnitude.


Abstract In this study, we investigate the 14 September 1988 U.S.–Soviet Joint Verification Experiment nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk test site in eastern Kazakhstan and two nuclear explosions conducted less than 10 years later at the Chinese Lop Nor test site. These events were very sparsely recorded by stations located within 1600 km, and in each case only three or four stations were available in the regional distance range. We have utilized a regional distance seismic waveform method fitting long‐period, complete, three‐component waveforms jointly with first‐motion observations from regional stations and teleseismic arrays. The combination of long‐period waveforms and first‐motion observations provides a unique discrimination of these sparsely recorded events in the context of the Hudson et al. (1989) source‐type diagram. We demonstrate through a series of jackknife tests and sensitivity analyses that the source type of the explosions is well constrained. One event, a 1996 Lop Nor shaft explosion, displays large Love waves and possibly reversed Rayleigh waves at one station, indicative of a large F ‐factor. We show the combination of long‐period waveforms and P ‐wave first motions are able to discriminate this event as explosion‐like and distinct from earthquakes and collapses. We further demonstrate the behavior of network sensitivity solutions for models of tectonic release and spall‐based tensile damage over a range of F ‐factors and K ‐factors.


[1] Gravity waves generated by convective clouds are numerically simulated using a two-dimensional mesoscale model that extends to the upper mesosphere (physical model top of 105 km), and characteristics of the waves are investigated before and after wave breaking occurred in the mesosphere. Gravity waves generated by convective clouds have wide spectrum corresponding to their sources, but large portions of the waves with short horizontal and vertical wavelengths are reflected, trapped, and filtered out before they reach to the upper mesosphere. After wave breaking occurs in the mesosphere (z = 65–85 km), secondary waves are generated by momentum forcing due to breaking of the primary waves. The mesospheric forcing has a wide spectrum with strong power not only for components at which the primary waves have strong power but also for components with short zonal wavelengths and periods. Interaction between upward-propagating primary waves (UPW) and downward-propagating secondary waves (DSW) are investigated below the mesospheric forcing region by comparing the result from an additional simulation with a lower model top (z = 60 km) that excludes wave breaking in the mesosphere. It was found that DSWs increase spectral powers for both short and long horizontal and vertical wavelengths and for westward-propagating components that are mostly filtered in the UPWs. For a given easterly basic-state wind in the middle atmosphere, DSWs produce negative momentum flux at wide phase speeds, and this cancels a large portion of the positive momentum flux by the UPWs. Consequently, the magnitude of the positive momentum flux decreases and the negative momentum flux increases, which is caused by DSWs. This change reduces the gravity wave drag significantly below the mesospheric forcing region. This result implies that current gravity wave parameterizations without considering DSWs may overestimate the momentum flux and resultant drag and suggests the need to include the effects of secondary waves in the parameterizations of gravity waves.


This paper presents comprehensive studies on two closely related problems of high speed collisionless gaseous jet from a circular exit and impinging on an inclined rectangular flat plate, where the plate surface can be diffuse or specular reflective. Gaskinetic theories are adopted to study the problems, and several crucial geometry-location and velocity-direction relations are used. The final complete results include flowfield properties such as density, velocity components, temperature and pressure, and impingement surface properties such as coefficients of pressure, shear stress and heat flux. Also included are the averaged coefficients for pressure, friction, heat flux, moment over the whole plate, and the averaged distance from the moment center to the plate center. The final results include complex but accurate integrations involving the geometry and specific speed ratios, inclination angle, and the temperature ratio. Several numerical simulations with the direct simulation Monte Carlo method validate these analytical results, and the results are essentially identical. Exponential, trigonometric, and error functions are embedded in the solutions. The results illustrate that the past simple cosine function approach is rather crude, and should be used cautiously. The gaskinetic method and processes are heuristic and can be used to investigate other external high Knudsen number impingement flow problems, including the flowfield and surface properties for high Knudsen number jet from an exit and flat plate of arbitrary shapes. The results are expected to find many engineering applications. AMS subject classifications: 82C40, 76P05, 65C05


This paper addresses the performance of pseudorandom Binary Amplitude Shift Keying (BASK) emission sequences for an ultrasonic multi-life location system in rescue robot. To improve the performance of multi-life location system, the BASK modulation were used to construct the spread spectrum emission sequences for ultrasonic sensors. Correlation technique in the receiving circuit was used to de-spread. Good correlation characteristics, i.e., sharp autocorrelation and flat cross-correlation, can help eliminate crosstalk between multichannel ultrasonic sensors. To improve the echo signal correlation effect, genetic algorithm was applied to optimize pseudorandom m sequences. In simulated post-earthquake environment, experimental verification of ultrasonic multi-life location system consisting of eight-channel SensComp 600 series electrostatic sensors with optimized BASK emission sequences was carried out. The experimental results demonstrate that the ultrasonic multi-life location system with the proposed method can realize multi-life location simultaneously.


Indonesia is one of the largest economics compared to others in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with a population of 240 million in 2016. Most of the country's economic and service-related activities are located on the island of Java, which is home to 50% of the population. A good and reliable transport infrastructure is therefore critical to ensuring that the movement of both passengers and goods is efficient, fast, reliable, and safe. The Indonesian government has initiated a High-Speed Train (HST) service to connect Jakarta and Surabaya, two big cities in the west and east of Java, respectively, in order to improve mobility and connectivity on Java. The first phase of the HST project is planned to connect Jakarta and Bandung. This study aims to understand the travel characteristics of potential HST passengers, which is important for predicting demand for the HST. The study conducts roadside interviews using a stated preference methodology for several passenger transport modes serving the Jakarta–Bandung route, namely the private car, 10-seater bus (shuttle), coach, and conventional rail. The survey asks respondents about their potential for shifting from their current transit mode to HST. The HST stations will be located in Halim (Jakarta) and Gedebage (Bandung). The study finds that most of the respondents have good economic welfare. A total of 64% of the respondents agreed that they would pay an HST ticket price of between 200,000 and 300,000 rupiahs to save 90 minutes' travel time. Furthermore, the average amount paid to use a passenger car on the same trip is 200,000 rupiahs, which is slightly higher than the amount paid by a train passenger (Rp. 150,000). This finding demonstrates that the passenger traffic vehicle capitulates the benefit of choosing HST in comparison with the existing transport modes. It should also be noted that there is greater uncertainty with regard to traffic conditions for road traffic in comparison to that faced by railway passengers. In more detail, a sensitivity analysis indicates that passengers traveling from Jakarta could be more easily shifted to the HST than could passengers traveling from Bandung. The fact that those in Jakarta indicate a greater preference to shift to a faster transport mode than those in Bandung indicates that people in Jakarta place a higher value on time. This information is also useful for operational policy, including ticket price differentiation based on travel time period and travel origin–destination.


ABSTRACT In the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, the EU discourse on migration has acquired a humanitarian dimension that deserves investigation. The European Commission in particular has provided a discursive conceptualisation of the European human and humane approach to migration, promoting a change in the EU migration frame. Qualitative discourse analysis suggests that the European Commission's programmatic discourse is not just a coordinative discourse among policy actors, it rather aims to shape the preferences of EU policy-makers emphasising strategic ideas and principles enshrined in EU Treaties. The Covid-19 crisis could thus be a window of opportunity for the European Union to embark on a new migration governance framed within a humane approach.


Data governance is an emerging trend in enterprise information management. This paper explores the relationship between IT Governance and Data Governance. Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance requires accurate financial data and to achieve this IT controls are designed to ensure that data is correct and protected from unauthorised change. Data quality is measured by its accuracy, timeliness, relevance, completeness, trustworthiness and contextual definition. Good data quality requires effective data management. The research looks at the need for Data Governance to manage data effectively. This study examines a large organisation that has adopted an ad-hoc Data Governance model to manage its data. It was found that its data management efforts were hampered mainly by the lack of clear roles and responsibilities and the lack of mandate to carry out data quality improvement initiatives. In order to promote effective data management, this research identifies a Data Governance Structure and Framework with the emphasis on collaboration between business and IT to support organisations.


It is perhaps symptomatic of the approach to municipal hospitals that many of the discussions focus on the hospital rather than on the patient. The patient is almost forgotten in the erudite and often thoughtful discussions of the institutional fate. Patient care at local governmental hospitals continues to be woefully inadequate in spite of the acknowledgement that medical care is a right and not a privilege, and in spite of an increase in governmental funds earmarked for indigent patients. A variety of forces, often at opposite poles of the political spectrum, combine, in effect, to deny proper care to the municipal hospital patient. The Basic Problem The major factor contributing to the second-rate quality of medical care given to patients in local gov- emmental hospitals has been the prevailing community attitude towards indigent patients. The municipal hospital, a direct descendant of the poorhouse, has traditionally provided care that was "good


1. One of the key threats to bats in Britain is loss of suitable roost sites, but little is known about roost requirements for most species. 2. Roost selection in the brown long-eared bat Plecotus auritus was demonstrated by comparison of buildings used as summer roosts in north-east Scotland with (i) random buildings in the same area, and (ii) a set of adjacent houses located in the same habitat. 3. Buildings containing roosts were situated closer to woodland and water relative to the random houses, and also had a greater area of woodland within a radius of 0.5 km, but not at distances beyond this. This suggests that feeding habitat in the vicinity of the roost is important for roost selection. 4. When compared with adjacent houses, roosts were older, and had roof spaces divided into more compartments, which were more likely to be fully lined with rough wooden planking. 5. The temperatures inside summer roosts (mean 17.9°C) were significantly warmer than those from random and adjacent houses (mean 16.7°C). 6. These results suggest that P. auritus is selective of its roosts, relative to the houses available. 7. The selection of specific types of roosts by P. auritus has implications for the management advice provided when roosts are threatened, and conservation actions should focus on efforts to avert significant change to, or destruction of, roost sites or the woodland in their vicinity.


Yields of macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia, M. tetraphylla, and hybrids) orchards tend to increase with increasing tree size up to 94% light interception. Beyond this, there is some indication that crowding leads to yield decline, but the evidence is limited to one site. Increasing tree size and orchard crowding also present numerous management problems, including soil erosion, harvest delays, and increased pest and disease pressure. The aim of this study was to better characterize long-term yield trends in mature orchards and to assess the effects of manual and mechanical pruning strategies on yield, nut characteristics, tree size, and economics. We monitored yield at four sites in mature '344' and '246' orchards for up to seven years and confirmed a decline in yield with crowding for three of the sites. There was a small increase in yield over time at the fourth site, which may reflect the lower initial level of crowding and shorter monitoring period compared with the other sites, and highlights the need for long-term records to establish yield trends. Pruning to remove several large limbs from '246' trees to improve light penetration into the canopy increased yield relative to control trees but the effect was short-lived and not cost-effective. Removal of a codominant leader from '344' trees reduced yield by 21%. Annual side-hedging of '246' trees reduced yield by 12% and mechanical topping of '344' trees caused a substantial reduction in yield of up to 50%. Removal of limbs in the upper canopy to reduce the height of '344' trees had less effect on yield than topping but re-pruning was not practical because of the extensive regrowth around the pruning cuts. Tree size control is necessary for efficient orchard management, but in this study, pruning strategies that controlled tree size also reduced yield. Research into the physiological response to pruning in macadamia is required to improve outcomes.


In this research, thermal energy discharging performance of metal foam/paraffin composite phase change material (MFPC) is investigated at pore scale through direct simulation. A thermal transport model is first developed for heat discharging of MFPC by incorporating the involved effects of solidification phase transition, foam structure, and paraffin volume shrinkage. With this model, the detailed phase interface evolutions, temperature fields, and heat flux distributions of MFPC are numerically obtained and analyzed. It is found that once phase change heat discharging of MFPC begins, the solidification front of paraffin quickly forms and extends along the foam skeleton, which results in remarkably extended thermal transport interface to release latent heat as well as improved spatial synergy in phase change. The effect of local thermal nonequilibrium between porous metal foam and paraffin proves to be intrinsic and significant, providing an efficient inner driving force for enhancing latent heat discharging within MFPC. The overall energy discharging performance of MFPC unit is remarkably improved as compared with pure paraffin unit, evidenced by a large enhancement in latent heat release rate (more than three times) with only small reduction (2.6%) in heat capacity. Simultaneously, it is found that the paraffin-air interface for MFPC unit descends much faster than that for pure paraffin unit due to accelerated volume shrinkage of solidified paraffin within metal foam, resulting in a threefold enhancement in thermally driven dynamic response rate. This study can help more deeply understanding the energy discharging performance of MFPC and providing fundamental guidance for its application in miniaturized thermal systems.


A dispersive full-wave finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) model is used to calculate the performance of elliptic cylindrical cloaking devices. The permittivity and the permeability tensors for the cloaking structure are derived by using an effective medium approach in general relativity. The elliptic cylindrical invisibility devices are found to show imperfect cloaking, and the cloaking performance is found to depend on the polarization of the incident waves, the direction of the propagation of those waves, the semi-focal distances and the loss tangents of the meta-material. When the semi-focal distance of the elliptic cylinder decreases, the performance of the cloaking becomes very good, with neither noticeable scatterings nor field penetrations. For a larger semi-focal distance, only the TM wave with a specific propagation direction shows good cloaking performance. Realistic cloaking materials with loss still show a cloak that is working, but attenuated back-scattering waves exist.


The class imbalance problem exists widely in vision data. In these imbalanced datasets, the majority classes dominate the loss and influence the gradient. Hence, these datasets have a significantly negative impact on the performance of many state-of-the-art methods. In this article, we propose a class imbalance loss (CI loss) to handle this problem. To distinguish imbalanced datasets in accordance with the extent of imbalance, we also define an imbalance degree that works as a decision index factor in the CI loss. Because the minority classes with fewer samples probably lose chances in descending the gradient in the training process, CI loss is introduced to make these minority classes descend further than the majority classes. In view of the imbalanced distribution of data in few-shot learning, a method for generating an imbalanced few-shot learning dataset is presented in this article. We conducted a large number of experiments in the MiniImageNet dataset, which showed the effectiveness of an algorithm for model-agnostic metalearning for rapid adaptation with CI loss. In the problem of detecting 15 ship categories, our loss function is transplanted to a rotational region convolutional neural network detection method and a cascade network architecture and achieves higher mean average precision than focal loss and cross-entropy loss. In addition, the Mixed National Institute of Standards and Technology dataset and the Moving and Stationary Target Acquisition and Recognition dataset are sampled to imbalance datasets to verify the effectiveness of CI loss.


55 Methods: We have quantified NK cells in endometrial biopsies from 50 fertile controls and 13,730 patients treated in approximately 200 fertility centers by immunohistochemical CD56 staining. Additionally, we have analyzed plasma cells in endometrium from >5,812 infertile women by CD138 staining. Results: Mean and median numbers of NK cells increased constantly from day 14 to day 28 of the cycle. We found significantly elevated NK cell concentrations in patients with idiopathic recurrent miscarriage, but also in several other subgroups. More than 4 plasma cells/mm2 were counted as pathological and have been detected in approximately 15% of patients. Upon doxycyclin treatment, their concentration has decreased significantly in >70% of patients and in a total of approximately 96% of patients upon a second antibiotic treatment. A slight correlation between plasma andNK cell number could be observed. Conclusions: We conclude that a well-tuned balance of endometrial immune cells is indispensable for successful implantation and pregnancy. Disorders may be detected by immunohistochemistry and may help to define individualized therapies. S11.2 Role of endocannabinoids in endometriosis Chandrakant Tayade Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada Endometriosis (EM) characterized by the growth of endometrial tissue (normal uterine lining) outside of the uterus, is estimated to affect 200 million women worldwide. EM remains one of the most important global health challenges due to staggering health care costs, lack of non-invasive diagnostic tests, lack of a cure and significant side effects with current treatments. Lesion proliferation, vascularization, and associated inflammation are the hallmark features of EM lesions. In this context, Cannabinoids has attracted lot of attention given their therapeutic potential as anti-proliferative, anti-angiogenic and analgesic properties. As more and more countries are now legalizing cannabis use, there is an unprecedented increase in cannabis based medications. This combinedwith unsatisfactory treatment options has led many EM patients to self-medicate with cannabis-based therapeutics to alleviate pain. Research in our lab revealed dysregulation of endocannabinoid family members in EM patient samples (plasma and lesions) compared to controls aswell as inmousemodel of endometriosis. We further showed that synthetic cannabinoid, WIN 55 reduced endometriosis lesion associated proliferation and angiogenesis in a mouse model of endometriosis via MAPK/Akt-mediated apoptosis. These findings will advance the knowledge of the role of endocannabinoids in endometriosis and their potential implications as therapeutic targets. S11.3 Gut microbiota-derived metabolites in endometriosis Ramakrishna Kommagani Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA Problem: Do microbiota-derived metabolites influence endometriosis disease progression? Method of Study: Murine models of endometriosis were used to identify the levels of microbiota-derived metabolites in fecal samples. Human endometrioma cells were treated with short-chain fatty acids (butyrate or acetate or propionate) and cell growth assays were conducted. Endometriotic lesions originating from either mouse or human origin inmicewere treatedwith physiological concentrations of SCFAs to assess the lesion growth. Subsequently, RNA-Seq analysis was performed to identify the butyrate transcriptome in endometrial cells from lesions derived from human endometriotic lesions. Results: We found that gut microbiota profiles are altered in mice with endometriosis. Additionally, we found that feces from mice with endometriosis contained less of the microbiota-derived short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) n-butyrate than feces frommicewithout endometriosis. Furthermore, treatment with n-butyrate reduced the growth of both mouse endometriotic lesions and human endometriotic lesions in a mouse model. Mechanistic studies revealed that butyrate protects against endometriosis by regulating GTPase-activating proteins. Conclusions:We conclude that gut bacteria that produce SCFAs inhibit endometriotic lesion growth and gut-derived butyrate protects against endometriosis. S11.4 (Oral Abstract Presentation) The autophagy protein, ATG14 prevents pyroptosis to support embryo transit and survival during early pregnancy Pooja Popli1,2, Sangappa B Chadchan2, Arin KOestreich2, Marina N Rowen2, Vineet KMaurya1,2, Kelle HMoley2, Ramakrishna Kommagani1,2 1Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA; 2Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA Problem: Successful establishment of pregnancy relies on a series of well-synchronized hormone-driven events. These events include timely transit of implantation-competent blastocysts from the oviduct to the uterus and the development of a receptive uterus to support embryo implantation and survival. Recently, a role for the key cellular recycling pathway autophagy was revealed in establishing the endometrial-specific program, stromal cell decidualization. However, the precise role of autophagy in cellular events that are necessary for embryo transport and its survival in the reproductive tract are not studied yet. Method of Study: We generated a conditional knockout mice model in which Atg14 was conditionally ablated in uterus (Atg14 cKO mice) and Isthmus of oviduct by expression of Cre recombinase under the control of progesterone receptor. SexuallymatureAtg14 cKOand control Atg14 f/f female mice were subjected to a series of reproductive assays, including uterine receptivity, implantation, and artificial decidualization. Uterus, oviduct, and ovarieswere collected, and immunofluorescence, qRT-PCR analysis were performed to detect the expression of various markers.


This work addresses the problem of communication-based autonomous vehicle cooperative inertial navigation and localization in GPS-challenged environments. Specifically, we examine decentralized state estimation strategies that allow vehicles to opportunistically augment their onboard navigation filters with moving maps obtained from exchanged relative sensing and dynamic target tracking information between vehicles. While decentralized state estimation theoretically allows agents to share information efficiently with one another in a scalable, asynchronous, and ad hoc manner, several key technical issues arise. Firstly, augmentation of each vehicles navigation filters for decentralized estimation requires maintaining correlations between ownship vehicle pose states, ownship nuisance states (e.g. rate gyro biases), and pose states for all other tracked vehicles; this leads to expensive and unscalable onboard filtering requirements. Secondly, the use of distinct strapdown navigation and target tracking models onboard each vehicle implies that decentralized state estimation must occur across heterogeneous state space models; this case is usually not handled by conventional decentralized estimation theory. We present two novel strategies for addressing these problems in the context of cooperative navigation: the approximate channel filter, and factorized covariance intersection. We provide simulated examples to illustrate these approaches in simplified and realistic cooperative navigation settings, including a cooperative UAV-UGV navigation application based on recorded UAV flight data.


: Hemodynamic parameters were compared in 28 patients with ischemic heart disease subject to cardiopulmonary bypass surgery with non-pulsatile (group 1) and pulsatile flow (group 2). Systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressure (MBP) was assessed, total peripheral vascular resistance (TPVR) was calculated, esophageal, rectal and skin temperature was measured. Volumetric perfusion rate was the same in both groups. Pulse pressure was maintained at the level of 35 mmHg. MBP at the stage of hypothermia plateau and during warming decreased in both groups. It was significantly lower in group 1 at the beginning of warming and during clamp relief from the aorta. At the end of cooling period TPVR was lower with the use of pulsatile than non-pulsatile flow. It increased drastically towards the end of hypothermia plateau in group 1. During clamp relief from the aorta TPVR values did not significantly differ from baseline in group 2 and remained high in group 1. The warming rate happened to be greater in pulsatile than in non-pulsatile flow.


A deoxygenative transformation of diarylketones leading to multiply arylated alkanes was developed. Diarylketones were reacted with diphenylphosphine oxide resulting in a phospha-Brook rearrangement, followed by palladium-catalyzed cross-couplings or a Friedel–Crafts type alkylation to afford the corresponding multiply arylated alkanes. A variety of diarylketones can be converted to multiply arylated alkanes such as diarylmethanes, tetraarylethanes, and triarylmethanes by reduction, dimerization, and arylation in one pot. Furthermore, a one-pot conversion from arylcarboxylic acids to diarylmethanes and tetraarylethanes, and a synthesis of tetraarylmethane and triphenylethane using sequential coupling reactions are also presented.


Several types of oscillating water column (OWC) type wave energy converters (WECs) are researched and developed in the world. They are floating types and fixed types. In case of a fixed type, wave dissipating caissons could be replaced to WECs of an OWC type. On OWC types, installation of the projecting-walls (PWs) is useful in order to improve PTO performance. In this study, it was considered that a double dissipating caisson was used as an OWC type WEC with PWs. A front caisson of the double caisson seems the area surrounded by PWs and a back caisson can be seen as an OWC. The paper studied basic property of the primary conversion from wave power to power of air from model tests in a wave tank. As a result, wave height strongly effects on behaviours of OWC motion as well as air pressure. Finally, the primary conversion was affected by wave height. Besides, the concept of use of a double caisson was useful from the primary conversion over 80 % evaluated using test data.


We present a new method, TrackSig, to estimate the evolutionary trajectories of signatures of somatic mutational processes. TrackSig uses cancer cell fraction (CCF) corrected by copy number to infer an approximate order in which the somatic mutations accumulate. TrackSig segments mutation ordering by CCF and fits signature exposures (activities) as a piece-wise constant function of the mutation ordering. TrackSig uses optimal segmentation to find the points of change in signature activities. We assess TrackSig's reconstruction accuracy using simulations. We find 2% median activity error on simulations with one to three change-points. The size and the direction of the signature change is consistent in 83% and 95% of cases respectively. There were an average of 0.02 missed change-points and 0.12 false positive change-points per sample. We provide a framework to estimate signature exposure trajectories across CCF scale as well as the way to determine active signatures. The code is available at https://github.com/YuliaRubanova/TrackSig.


Abstract This paper deals with the ways of reconceptualization and negotiation of a new ethnicity and identity within the Pentecostal and Charismatic pastoral discourse among the Gypsies/Roma of Slovakia. The analysis is based on three denominations: the Word of Life movement in Plavecký Štvrtok, the Maranata Christian Mission in Spišská Nová Ves and the St. Paul's Community within the Greek-Catholic Church in Čičava. The comparative analysis of pastoral and converts' narratives has shown that the "New Roma" category is constructed as an ahistorical category of practice, which is intentionally largely ethnically emptied and creatively filled with specific content according to the life goals and paths of particular users either at the individual level or at the community level in line with the creed of good, moral, useful and decent life (of a Christian = Human = Rom). Research has revealed that in spite of the strong trans-social and trans-ethnic discourse, according to which believers should lose the reason for taking into account the inter-group stratifications, they still remain ethnically and socially sensitive. An important change in this context is, however, that the previous paradigm Gypsies versus "Whites" turns, after conversion, into the paradigm Roma alongside other nations. This fundamentally changes the basic classificatory schemes and positional way of defining themselves in relation to others. The New Rom is primarily the negation of the Old Rom, not of the White/Gadjo. The way in which Pentecostal and Charismatic pastors positively reconstruct, reconceptualize and negotiate the "New Roma" identity at the individual, group, collective and national levels goes largely beyond the traditional (modern) perception of ethnic identities and does not take into account historical origin, country, language, culture, etc. as constitutive elements. From this viewpoint, the Pentecostal and Charismatic pastors operating among Gypsies/Roma in contemporary Slovakia would be considered to be engineers, mentors and tutors of ethnoreligious innovation based on the concept of relocation and accommodation of Gypsies into the new and positively reconceptualized label Rom/a.


For a networked control system, we consider the problem of encoder and controller design. We study a discrete-time linear plant with a finite horizon performance cost, comprising of a quadratic function of the states and controls, and an additive communication cost. We study separation in design of the encoder and controller, along with related closed-loop properties such as the dual effect and certainty equivalence. We consider three basic formats for encoder outputs: quantized samples, real-valued samples at event-triggered times, and real-valued samples over additive noise channels. If the controller and encoder are dynamic, then we show that the performance cost is minimized by a separated design: the controls are updated at each time instant as per a certainty equivalence law, and the encoder is chosen to minimize an aggregate quadratic distortion of the estimation error. This separation is shown to hold even though a dual effect is present in the closed-loop system. We also show that this separated design need not be optimal when the controller or encoder are to be chosen from within restricted classes.


: The accurate description of interface characteristics between organic molecules and metal surfaces has long been debated in theoretical studies. A well-founded description of interface geometry and adsorption energy is highly desirable for these hybrid inorganic/organic interfaces. Using first principles calculations with the inclusion of five van der Waals functionals (vdW-DF family), benzene (C6H6) adsorption on seven transition metal surfaces is studied to explore the performance of these vdW functionals under varying surface chemistry. Our results reveal that vdW interactions are crucial for an accurate description of bonding on transition metal substrates. We find that vdW interactions increase adsorption energy on coinage metal surfaces (Au, Ag, Cu) by about 0.7 eV, while they lead to even larger increases in the adsorption energies on the reactive transition metal surfaces (Pd, Pt, Rh, Ni). Our calculations also reveal that changes in adsorption energies stemming from vdW functionals show significant variation, and can be grouped. We find the adsorption energies and heights on the reactive transition metal surfaces obtained using vdW-DF and vdW-DF2 functionals to differ significantly from those of the opt-type functionals, revealing the intrinsic strong repulsion character at short ranges for the former functionals. A simple comparison between experimentally determined adsorption energies (averaged) and those of computed suggests that optPBE and optB88 functionals show systematically good agreement. The information acquired from our analysis on the performance of these functionals can be used as a basis for further refinement of these functionals for the adsorption Abstract The accurate description of interface characteristics between organic molecules and metal surfaces has long been debated in theoretical studies. All proposed methods revealed the importance of van der Waals interactions. Using first principles calculations with the inclusion of five van der Waals functionals, Benzene (C 6 H 6 ) adsorption on coinage and transition metal surfaces are studied to explore the performance of these functionals under varying surface chemistries. Our results reveal that van der Waals interactions are crucial for an accurate description of bonding not only for coinage, but also for transition metal substrates. Moreover, adsorption energy results stemming from these five functionals show significant variation, with a trend that allows a grouping based on the calculated adsorption strengths. A simple comparison between the averaged experimentally determined adsorption energies and those computed suggests that optPBE and optB88 functionals show systematically good agreements. The information acquired from our comprehensive analysis on the performance of these functionals is of broad interest, and in particular, can be used as a basis for further refinement of these functionals for varying surface chemistry.


The objective of this study was to investigate and compare the influence of Mn and Fe additions on the fracture behaviour of AA6000 series alloys in under, peak and overaged conditions. Testing was completed under uniaxial tension and the microstructures of the alloys were observed using optical and Transmission Electron Microscopy. Alloys with very low levels of both Mn and Fe underwent a transition from transgranular to intergranular fracture and a reduction in strain-tofracture when heat treated from the under aged (UA) to peak aged (PA) condition. Increasing Mn and Fe content prevents this transition in fracture mode such that the stain-to-fracture is similar in the UA and PA states. Despite the change in fracture mode, when comparing the strain-to-fracture for a given ageing condition, increasing Fe systematically reduces the strain-to-fracture. Conversely, increases in Mn systematically increase the strain-to-fracture for a given ageing condition.


The general traditions of Russian literature has been based on the requirement that any literary translation should be good literature in itself as well as preserving the author's manner of writing. It seems that understanding of J.R.R. Tolkien and his books is growing very slowly in Russia. There have never been any professional literary works on Tolkien or the problems of translating his works. A number of approaches to translating are connected with this fact. A short history of this subject shows that both the author's attitude and fairy-story reality should be reproduced correctly and with care. I am going to compare Russian published versions of The Lord of the Rings (by V. Murav'ev & A. Kistyakovskii, by V. Matorina, by N. Grigorieva & V. Grushetskiy, and by Z. Bobir). The following are discussed: • The author's and translator's attitudes to the story they tell (horror and humour, fairies and dragons) • Reliability of Middle-earth elements how this is achieved by different approaches (hobbits' names and manner of speech, Elvish languages and so on) • Folklore and the nature of the hero: ways to find analogies • The laws of Faerie must not be changed! A fully adequate version should find solutions for all these problems; but really the more is done the better the


Analysis
of human posture has many applications in the field of sports and medical science
including patient monitoring, lifestyle analysis, elderly care etc. Many of the
works in this area have been based on computer vision techniques. These are
limited in providing real-time solution. Thus, Internet of Things (IoT) based
solution are being planned and used for the human posture recognition and
detection. The data collected from sensors is then passed to machine learning
or deep learning algorithms to find different patterns. In this chapter an
introduction to IoT based posture detection is provided with an introduction to
underlying sensor technology, which can help in selection for appropriate
sensors for the posture detection.


The paper reviews a unified model of demand for health care inputs and health production, first proposed by Rosenzweig and Schultz (1982), and shows how the model can be applied to design and implement policies to improve reproductive health of the population. Although the focus of the applications is sub-Saharan Africa, the illustrative examples presented are of general interest. The key feature of the model is the link between demand for reproductive health services and the production of health by households and individuals. The demand for reproductive health services together with the associated health production technology is first analyzed in the context of a unitary model of the household, before positioning the analysis in a more general collective model. In one of the several illustrations presented, the control function approach is used on Kenyan data to estimate the effect of tetanus immunization on birth weight in a unitary-household setting. Vaccinating mothers against tetanus during pregnancy is found to increase birth weight but indirectly through complementary behaviors and health care consumption patterns that are induced by vaccination. The effects of unobserved variables on birth weight, such as the knowledge gaps among mothers about health care, are also found to be substantial. An investigation is required on how to extend information to mothers about essential health care during pregnancy. It is argued that if mothers do not possess such information, tetanus vaccination may never induce them to invest in activities that improve birth weight in line with the complementarity hypothesis. More generally, we find a need to implement what we term immunization plus interventions to empower women to use reproductive health services effectively. The types of data needed to estimate other models presented in the paper are briefly discussed.


The total energy stored in terrestrial biomass outnumbers the annual world energy consumption by a factor of more than fifty. Being highly available, renewable and geographically dispersed, biomass can form a substantial part of future energy sources and biomass-derived energy generation can result in both CO2-neutral and stable long-term energy supply for most areas in the world. Having a relatively low energy density, biomass processing in decentralised plants seems best suited to minimise transport cost of both the raw material and the products. To facilitate a wide-spread use of decentralised plants, their design has to be simple and they need to be easy-to-operate and flexible. This paper covers the two sequential steps of biomass power: conversion technologies to transform the raw feedstock into suitable intermediate energy carriers, and generation technologies to gain energy in the form of heat and/or electric power. A broad number of conversion technologies currently exist for both wet and dry biomass, ranging from research-stage up to commercialisation. In this paper the main ways of converting dry as well as wet feedstock will be discussed: combustion, gasification, pyrolysis and liquefaction for the further and fermentation and anaerobic digestion for the latter. Additionally, the common generation technologies will be analysed: internal combustion engines, Stirling engines and internally- and externally fired microturbines. Finally it will be recommended which technologies to use to meet a substantial part of the future energy demand on the basis of biomass in micro- or small-scale applications.


Although the porous metal bonded diamond grinding wheel, which has recently been developed, had an excellent grinding performance for hard-brittle materials, its applications were only in precision grinding in past study. A new method for fabricating the new porous metal bonded diamond grinding wheel by Ni-Cr alloy as bond and vacuum loose powder sintering was proposed in this paper. The morphology of cross section of the segments and microstructure of interface between diamond grits and bond were analyzed. The wetting mechanism between Ni-Cr alloy bond and diamond is reacting wetting. Machining performance experiments about grinding ratio and surface roughness have been carried out. The testing results show that the porous Ni-Cr alloy bonded diamond grinding wheel has certainly fine machining performance in high grinding force occasion, and the maximal grinding ratio and best surface roughness were 6660 and 1.08 m, respectively.


The effects of extreme phosphate (Pi) deficiency during growth on the contents of adenylates and pyridine nucleotides and the in vivo photochemical activity of photosystem II (PSII) were determined in leaves of Helianthus annuus and Zea mays grown under controlled environmental conditions. Phosphate deficiency decreased the amounts of ATP and ADP per unit leaf area and the adenylate energy charge of leaves. The amounts of oxidized pyridine nucleotides per unit leaf area decreased with Pi deficiency, but not those of reduced pyridine nucleotides. This resulted in an increase in the ratio of reduced to oxidized pyridine nucleotides in Pi-deficient leaves. Analysis of chlorophyll a fluorescence at room temperature showed that Pi deficiency decreased the efficiency of excitation capture by open PSII reaction centres (phi(e)), the in vivo quantum yield of PSII photochemistry (phi(PSII)) and the photochemical quenching co-efficient (q(P)), and increased the non-photochemical quenching co-efficient (q(N)) indicating possible photoinhibitory damage to PSII. Supplying Pi to Pi-deficient sunflower leaves reversed the long-term effects of Pi-deficiency on PSII photochemistry. Feeding Pi-sufficient sunflower leaves with mannose or FCCP rapidly produced effects on chlorophyll a fluorescence similar to long-term Pi-deficiency. Our results suggest a direct role of Pi and photophosphorylation on PSII photochemistry in both long- and short-term responses of photosynthetic machinery to Pi deficiency. The relationship between phi(PSII) and the apparent quantum yield of CO2 assimilation determined at varying light intensity and 21 kPa O2 and 35 Pa CO2 partial pressures in the ambient air was linear in Pi-sufficient and Pi-deficient leaves of sunflower and maize. Calculations show that there was relatively more PSII activity per mole of CO2 assimilated by the Pi-deficient leaves. This indicates that in these leaves a greater proportion of photosynthetic electrons transported across PSII was used for processes other than CO2 reduction. Therefore, we conclude that in vivo photosynthetic electron transport through PSII did not limit photosynthesis in Pi-deficient leaves of sunflower and maize and that the decreased CO2 assimilation was a consequence of a smaller ATP content and lower energy charge which restricted production of ribulose, 1-5, bisphosphate, the acceptor for CO2.


The primary objective of this study is to present and test an integrated model of turnover intentions which addresses the unique nature of the information technology (IT) profession. It identifies a multidimensional set of human resources (HR) practices likely to increase retention among IT employees. It also considers organizational citizenship behaviors and two distinct types of organizational commitment as key antecedents of turnover intentions. A second goal is to explore the moderating effects of organizational commitment and citizenship behaviors on HR practices-turnover intention relationships. A questionnaire was developed and sent to the Quebec members of the Canadian Information Processing Society. Data from 394 respondents were used to validate the measures and test the research model. Findings reveal that IT specialists are particularly sensitive to four types of HR policies and practices: distributive justice, competence development, empowerment, and recognition. Results also provide additional support for the generalizability of the two-component model of organizational commitment in the IT context. This study is the first to show that the effects of various HR practices on turnover intentions among IT specialists depend upon the nature of their commitment to the organization. Similarly, we found that citizenship behaviors not only mediate but also moderate HR practices–turnover intention relationships. Implications of these results for practice and research are discussed.


We aim for image-based novelty detection. Despite considerable progress, existing models either fail or face a dramatic drop under the so-called "near-distribution" setting, where the differences between normal and anomalous samples are subtle. We first demonstrate existing methods experience up to 20% decrease in performance in the near-distribution setting. Next, we propose to exploit a score-based generative model to produce synthetic near-distribution anomalous data. Our model is then fine-tuned to distinguish such data from the normal samples. We provide a quantitative as well as qualitative evaluation of this strategy, and compare the results with a variety of GAN-based models. Effectiveness of our method for both the near-distribution and standard novelty detection is assessed through extensive experiments on datasets in diverse applications such as medical images, object classification, and quality control. This reveals that our method considerably improves over existing models, and consistently decreases the gap between the near-distribution and standard novelty detection performance. Overall, our method improves the near-distribution novelty detection by 6% and passes the state-of-the-art by 1% to 5% across nine novelty detection benchmarks. The code repository is available at https://github.com/rohban-lab/FITYMI.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To describe the childhood cancer symptom course experienced by children with cancer from the perspectives of the children and their families.

DESIGN
Longitudinal, qualitative research approach.

SETTING
The participants' homes and inpatient and outpatient pediatric cancer units in western Canada.

SAMPLE
A theoretical purposive sample of 39 children (4.5-18 years of age) with a variety of cancer diagnoses and their family members.

METHODS
Open-ended formal interviews with children and their family members (N = 230) and participant observation of children and their family members for more than 960 hours during various periods during their illness, at various locations, and at different points in time during the study period.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Children's and their families' perspectives of cancer symptoms experienced by children with cancer.

FINDINGS
Children and families had definite beliefs and expectations about the cancer symptom experiences, including (a) short-term pain for long-term gain, (b) you never get used to them, (c) they all suck, (d) it sort of helps, and (e) they are all the same but they are all different. Underpinning all of the participants' beliefs and expectations was the experience of suffering. Their beliefs and expectations contributed to and were a direct result of cancer symptoms that were ignored, unrelieved, or uncontrolled.

CONCLUSIONS
Children with cancer live with symptoms on a daily basis and have experiences of unrelieved cancer symptoms. Although cancer symptoms resulted in suffering by the children and families, they accepted the symptoms as an integral part of overcoming cancer and never expected complete symptom relief.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Oncology nurses need to be more vigilant in their assessment and management of children's cancer symptoms. Further research is warranted detailing not only children's and family's beliefs and expectations of cancer symptom experiences but also nurses' understanding and interpretations of children's cancer symptom experiences. Intervention studies designed to relieve all types of cancer symptoms experienced by children must be undertaken.


This research aims at comparing the quality, price, users and interest of the society on IoS and Android. This research also directs readers to be more careful in choosing a product, wiser in comparing products. Both of IoS and Android products are good enough but it would be nice to choose the better one. The reason for conducting this research is to facilitate consumers in choosing products. The method research used is qualitative with natural observers, and the use of questionnaires to obtain data from several communities in the Pos Indonesia Polytechnic Campus.


Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is regarded as a brain disease with globally disrupted neuronal networks. Even though fMRI studies have revealed abnormal functional connectivity in ASD, they have not reached a consensus of the disrupted patterns. Here, a deep learning-based feature extraction method identifies multivariate and nonlinear functional connectivity patterns of ASD. Resting-state fMRI data of 972 subjects (465 ASD 507 normal controls) acquired from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange were used. A functional connectivity matrix of each subject was generated using 90 predefined brain regions. As a data-driven feature extraction method without prior knowledge such as subjects diagnosis, variational autoencoder (VAE) summarized the functional connectivity matrix into 2 features. Those feature values of ASD patients were statistically compared with those of controls. A feature was significantly different between ASD and normal controls. The extracted features were visualized by VAE-based generator which can produce virtual functional connectivity matrices. The ASD-related feature was associated with frontoparietal connections, interconnections of the dorsal medial frontal cortex and corticostriatal connections. It also showed a trend of negative correlation with full-scale IQ. A data-driven feature extraction based on deep learning could identify complex patterns of functional connectivity of ASD. This approach will help discover complex patterns of abnormalities in brain connectivity in various brain disorders.


The theory of neutron scattering by paramagnetic rare-earth ions has been given by Trammell and more recently by Odiot and Saint-James. Unlike the case for the iron series transition metals, for which the orbital angular momentum of the 3d electrons is almost completely quenched, the magnetic scattering of neutrons from the rare earths (except for gadolinium and europium) arises from both the spin and orbital contributions to the magnetization. Using recently determined Hartree-Fock wave functions for some of the trivalent rare-earth ions we have determined the functions 〈j n 〉 and 〈g n 〉 (for n = 0, 2, 4, and 6) which are necessary for the theoretical evaluation of the spin and orbital contributions respectively to the magnetic form factor. A comparison of these theoretical results with the experiments of Koehler and Wollan for Nd3+ and Er3+ and of Koehler, Wollan and Wilkinson for Ho3+ is presented. Differences are found between theory and experiment and some possible reasons for this are discussed.


5-Oxo-L-prolinase (5-OPase) is an enzyme of the gamma-glutamyl cycle involved in the synthesis and metabolism of glutathione (GSH), which is known to protect cells from the cytotoxic effects of chemotherapy and radiation. Previous studies on rats have shown that administration of the cysteine prodrug L-2-oxothiazolidine-4-carboxylate, a 5-oxo-L-proline analogue that is metabolized by 5-OPase, preferentially increases the GSH content of normal tissues while paradoxically decreasing it in the tumor and results in an enhanced in vivo tumor response to the anticancer drug melphalan. These observations initiated the present study of 5-OPase in experimental models and clinical specimens to investigate the potential role of this enzyme in the selective modulation of GSH in normal and tumor tissues. First, 5-OPase activity was measured in tissues of tumor-bearing rats, in the peripheral mononuclear cells of normal human subjects, and in surgically resected tumor and the adjacent normal tissues from patients. We found that the activity of 5-OPase in human kidney, liver, and lung is significantly lower than that found in rats. Second, we have raised a polyclonal IgG anti-5-OPase antibody by immunizing rabbits with purified 5-OPase from rat kidney. This antibody has very high affinity (shown by immunoprecipitation) and specificity (shown by Western blot) and cross-reacts with human 5-OPase (shown by Western blot and immunohistochemistry). It was then used to examine the distribution of 5-OPase in paired normal and neoplastic human specimens using Western blot and immunohistochemistry. Examination of paired normal and neoplastic tissues of stomach and lung revealed a significantly lower level of 5-OPase in tumor tissues than in the paired normal tissues. In colon tissues, there is no significant difference in 5-OPase level between the normal and tumor tissues. These findings could have implications for both carcinogenesis and therapy.


In this study, the authors propose a new group testing based (GTB) error control codes (ECCs) approach for improving the reliability of memory structures in computing systems. Compared with conventional single- and double-bit error correcting codes, the GTB codes provide higher reliability at the multi-byte error correction granularity. The proposed codes are cost-efficient in their encoding and decoding procedures. Instead of requiring multiplication or inversion over Galois finite field like most multi-byte ECC schemes, the proposed technique only involves bitwise XOR operations, therefore, significantly reducing the computation complexity and latency. For instance, to correct m errors in a Q-ary codeword of length N, where Q ≥ 2 , the compute complexity is mere O ( m N log  Q ) . The GTB codes trade redundancy for encoding and decoding simplicity, and are able to achieve better code rate than other ECCs of the same trade-off. The proposed GTB codes lend themselves well to designs with high reliability and low computation complexity requirements, such as storage systems with strong fault tolerance, or compute systems with straggler tolerance, and so on.


This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of ration supplemented with zinc on the electrocardiograms of 60 broiler chicks. The chicks were divided into four groups,one control and three experimental groups (II,III,IV). Zinc was given to the experimental groups at doses of 125, 500, 1000 mk/kg respectively, in their ration for 60 days.The electrocardiogram recordings were performed on chicks on the 60 th day of the experiment. Leads I, II, III, aVR, aVL and aVF were recorded in the electrocardiographs of the chicks.All electrocardiograms exhibited P, R, S and T waves but P wave generally interfered with the T wave. No Q waves were observed. All the waves in lead I were very low or almost isoelectric. The R and S waves in leads II and III were of about equal amplitude.The T waves in leads I,II,III and aVF were positive but in leads aVR and aVF they were negative. The heart rates of the groups were found to be 363, 362, 400 and 410 per minute respectively, but the differences among the groups were not statistically significant. In the groups, the mean electrical axis of heart was found to be between -60o and -110o , with their averages of -80o , -85o , -92o and -88o respectively.


Starting in 1910, the "Flexner Revolution" in medical education catalyzed the transformation of the US medical education enterprise from a proprietary medical school dominated system into a university-based medical school system. In the 21st century, what we refer to as the "Second Flexner Century" shifts focus from the education of medical students to the education of the general population in the "4 health literacies." Compared with the remarkable success of the first Flexner Revolution, retrofitting medical science education into the US general population today, starting with K-12 students, is a more daunting task. The stakes are high. The emergence of the patient-centered medical home as a health-care delivery model and the revelation that medical errors are the third leading cause of adult deaths in the United States are drivers of population education reform. In this century, patients will be expected to assume far greater responsibility for their own health care as full members of health-care teams. For us, this process began in the run-up to the "Second Flexner Century" with the creation and testing of a general pathology course, repurposed as a series of "gateway" courses on mechanisms of diseases, suitable for introduction at multiple insertion points in the US education continuum. In this article, we describe nomenclature for these gateway courses and a "top–down" strategy for creating pathology coursework for nonmedical students. Finally, we list opportunities for academic pathology departments to engage in a national "Democratization of Medical Knowledge" initiative.


We explore the capability of plain Vision Transformers (ViTs) for semantic segmentation and propose the SegVit. Previous ViT-based segmentation networks usually learn a pixel-level representation from the output of the ViT. Differently, we make use of the fundamental component -- attention mechanism, to generate masks for semantic segmentation. Specifically, we propose the Attention-to-Mask (ATM) module, in which the similarity maps between a set of learnable class tokens and the spatial feature maps are transferred to the segmentation masks. Experiments show that our proposed SegVit using the ATM module outperforms its counterparts using the plain ViT backbone on the ADE20K dataset and achieves new state-of-the-art performance on COCO-Stuff-10K and PASCAL-Context datasets. Furthermore, to reduce the computational cost of the ViT backbone, we propose query-based down-sampling (QD) and query-based up-sampling (QU) to build a Shrunk structure. With the proposed Shrunk structure, the model can save up to $40\%$ computations while maintaining competitive performance.


The alkaline phosphatase-antialkaline phosphatase (APAAP) immunocytochemical staining technique was used to look for circulating cells of megakaryocyte lineage in peripheral blood smears from 67 cases of myelodysplasia. Small numbers of micromegakaryocytes positive for platelet glycoprotein IIIa were found in 23 cases. These cells superficially resemble small lymphoid cells and are hence difficult or impossible to recognise in conventional Romanowsky stained smears. Circulating micromegakaryocytes were found most commonly in more aggressive types of myelodysplasia (such as refractory anaemia with excess blasts (RAEB) and refractory anaemia with excess blasts in transformation (RAEB-t], and their presence may therefore indicate a poor prognosis. Because of the simplicity of this immunocytochemical labelling technique, it could be of wide use in the initial assessment of patients with myelodysplasia, and possibly for the early detection of acute leukaemic transformation.


Abstract Generally, social justice has two sides which are intercorrelated and inter-dependend: a) constitutive social justice (for example, the so called commutative social justice); b) regulative social justice (for example, the so called distributive social justice). The paper approaches the regulative social justice, more exactly, an automatic mechanism to get it. To this end, an automatic stabilizer to provide distributive social justice, according to the Rawlsian principle of difference. Such an automatic stabilizer is grounded on the wealth, more precise, on the share of the wealth which is not invested in order to benefit to the more disadvantaged class of the society. Paper does not test empirically the proposal, such a propose remaining for next intervention in this publication.


Relatively simple genetic models have been thought to explain differences between populations of man and rodent with respect to some endocrine functions. In the case of resting plasma corticosterone levels, differences between two mouse strains have been accounted for by a two-gene model. Genetic analysis of adrenal corticosteroidogenesis in the mouse, particularly in strains carrying aid (adrenal lipid depletion) genes, has been limited by the use of relatively insensitive techniques. In the present study, the in vitro corticosterone productive capacities of adrenals from 7-17 week old, male, DBA/2J, CBA/FaCam, C57BL/Tb and hybrid mice were measured using a specially modified existing rat isolated adrenal cell technique, permitting greater sensitivity of measurement to be achieved compared with previously used mouse adrenal slice techniques. Inter-experimental repeatability was high, except in cases where inhibition of steroidogenesis occurred due to the use of certain batches of bovine serum albumin (BSA). This protein was used in incubation media and it was found that batches of BSA with the greater amounts of protein impurities inhibited steroidogenesis the most. Although such inhibition was observed to affect ACTH responsiveness, it was absent when steroidogenesis was stimulated with dbcAMP, suggesting inhibition was exerted extra-cellularly. Corrections were made, on the basis of discernible degrees of inhibition by different batches of BSA, to provide estimates of steroidogenesis where experiments had been performed using inhibiting batches of serum albumin. Using cell suspensions prepared from adrenals pooled from genetically uniform animals, dose response studies indicated that a concentration of 2.5 mU ACTH/ml incubation medium was likely to produce maximal steroidogenic responses in all genotypes. A time-course study revealed that under conditions of maximal ACTH stimulation, cells of strain DBA/2J, which carry a gene causing adrenal lipid depletion, produced markedly less corticosterone with time compared with C57BL/Tb cells. It was speculated, from F?1(C57* x DBA) time-course values, that an interaction between time-dependent and time-independent characters might exist in this hybrid, signifying the existence of at least a two-gene difference between parental types. Pooled DBA/2J cells, unlike those of strain C57BL/Tb, possessed significantly reduced responses (about -10%) to ACTH compared to dbcAMP, indicating a relative inefficiency of the ACTH response in this strain. Means for the specified phenotype 'R' (pgms corticosterone produced/viable cell/hour in response to 2.5 mU/ml ACTH) were measured, using a number of pooled adrenal experiments, for parental and F? hybrid lines. Significant differences in mean R values were observed; strains C57BL/Tb and CBA/FaCam possessing mean values that were approximately 2.5X and 2X, respectively, the mean DBA/2J R value. The F1(C57 x DBA) possessed a mean R value that was significantly different from either parental type, whereas the F1(CBA x DBA) value was indistinguishable from that of strain CBA/CamFa* strain of dam given first in hybrid crosses. Investigation of corticosterone production by cells derived from individual adrenal pairs confirmed the strain differences observed for pooled organs and indicated the presence of stimulated and re-pressed classes of adrenal functional state within genetically uniform strains. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).


One common predictive modeling challenge occurs in text mining problems is that the training data and the operational (testing) data are drawn from different underlying distributions. This poses a great difficulty for many statistical learning methods. However, when the distribution in the source domain and the target domain are not identical but related, there may exist a shared concept space to preserve the relation. Consequently a good feature representation can encode this concept space and minimize the distribution gap. To formalize this intuition, we propose a domain adaptation method that parameterizes this concept space by linear transformation under which we explicitly minimize the distribution difference between the source domain with sufficient labeled data and target domains with only unlabeled data, while at the same time minimizing the empirical loss on the labeled data in the source domain. Another characteristic of our method is its capability for considering multiple classes and their interactions simultaneously. We have conducted extensive experiments on two common text mining problems, namely, information extraction and document classification to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.


We wanted to demonstrate the value of multiparameter flow cytometry in detecting human tumor cells of breast cancer (BC) (SKBR‐3) in normal peripheral blood. In addition, we investigated a cluster of patients to compare the overall survival (OS) between advanced BC patients [circulating tumor cells (CTCs) ≥5 group] and limited BC patients (CTCs <5 group). SKBR‐3 human BC cells were serially diluted in normal whole blood to demonstrate the sensitivity of multiparameter flow cytometry for detecting CTCs, and we also compared the specificity with reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) method. On the other hand, we detected CTCs among 45 patients by multiparameter flow cytometry. OS was calculated by the Kaplan‐Meier product limit method, and compared it between CTCs <5 and CTCs ≥5 groups with the log‐rank test. Cox regression models were fitted to determine the associated factors on survival. Human BC cells (SKBR‐3) could be differentiated from normal blood based on the multiple light scatter and cell surface marker expression by multiparameter flow cytometry. The method was found to have a sensitivity limit of 10−5 and was effective for detecting human BC cells in vivo. It also found that this method had a higher specificity compared with RT‐PCR. For the retrospective study, the median OS was 95 weeks and 65.5 weeks (P < 0.05, 2‐tailed) for patients with CTCs <5 and CTCs ≥5, respectively. Kaplan‐Meier was used to analyze the patients' survival with Log Rank P = 0.004 and Breslow P = 0.003, which showed that these two groups had statistically significant difference. Cox regression analysis was performed, and we found CTCslevels, metastasis and age (P < 0.05) were three relative factors for patients' survival. Multiparameter flow cytometry can detect CTCs effectively and has the potential to be a valuable tool for prognosis assessment among BC patients in clinical situations in China. © 2010 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry


This paper presents a road vehicle detection approach for the intelligent transportation system. This approach mainly uses low-cost magnetic sensor and associated data collection system to collect magnetic signals. This system can measure the magnetic field changing, and it also can detect and count vehicles. We extend Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients to analyze vehicle magnetic signals. Vehicle type features are extracted using representation of cepstrum, frame energy, and gap cepstrum of magnetic signals. We design a 2dimensional map algorithm using Vector Quantization to classify vehicle magnetic features to four typical types of vehicles in Australian suburbs: sedan, VAN, truck, and bus. Experiments results show that our approach achieves a high level of accuracy for vehicle detection and classification. Keywords—Vehicle classification, signal processing, road traffic model, magnetic sensing.


Customization of automatic speech recognition (ASR) models using text data from a target domain is essential to deploying ASR in various domains. End-to-end (E2E) modeling for ASR has made remarkable progress, but the advantage of E2E modeling, where all neural network parameters are jointly optimized, is offset by the challenge of customizing such models. In conventional hybrid models, it is easy to directly modify a language model or a lexicon using text data, but this is not true for E2E models. One popular approach for customizing E2E models uses audio synthesized from the target domain text, but the acoustic mismatch between the synthesized and real audio can be problematic. We propose a method that avoids the negative effect of synthesized audio by (1) adding a mapping network before the encoder network to map the acoustic features of the synthesized audio to those of the source domain, (2) training the added mapping network using text and synthesized audio from the source domain while freezing all layers in the E2E model, (3) training the E2E model with text and synthesized audio from the target domain, and (4) removing the added mapping network when decoding real audio from the target domain. Experiments on customizing RNN Transducer and Conformer Transducer models demonstrate the advantage of the proposed method over encoder freezing, a popular customization method for E2E models.


In this paper, we derive two general adaptive methods with memory in the class of Newton‐type methods by modifying and introducing one and two self accelerators over a variant of Ostrowski's method. The idea of introducing adaptive self‐accelerator (via all the old information for Newton‐type methods) is new and efficient in order to obtain a higher high efficiency index. Finally, we provide convergence analysis and numerical implementations to show the feasibility and applicability of the proposed methods.


Fluorescent microscopy becomes an essential tool for medical and biological investigations due to its major advantages of allowing for minimally invasive observation and rapid optical imaging. It is also a highly desirable tool to study the three dimensional interior of living specimens at a small scale. However, the resolution of optical systems is fundamentally limited by the diffraction of light, which consequently coins the development of super-resolution imaging methods. Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) is one of the super-resolution techniques. SIM provides a two-fold lateral resolution improvement for those types of samples where the fluorescence emission intensity depends linearly on the intensity of the illumination pattern. The concept of SIM is based on the Moire effect. A structured illumination pattern is projected into the sample and high spatial frequency components of the biological sample, which are normally above the cut-off frequency of the optical transfer function and therefore lost, are then down-modulated to low spatial frequencies that reside inside the passband of the optical transfer function of the microscope. Typically, a lateral resolution of 100 nm becomes achievable in SIM. SIM is a wide-field technique and thus allows fast acquisition of large fields of view. This work discusses methods to improve the acquisition speed of SIM and to further enhance the resolution beyond the usual factor of two using nonlinear SIM (NL-SIM). Improvement of the acquisition speed is achieved by exploiting the advantages of a ferroelectric spatial light modulator (SLM) which offers fast switching of the illumination pattern, a modern sCMOS camera which provides fast readout and a novel synchronization approach between the different opto-electronical components.


Robotics makers and application engineers stand to benefit from replacing physical simulation with a digital simulation that can easily represent any number of robots on a terrain and provide ground truth data for comparison with sensor data during analysis. In this research, a digital proxy simulation (DPS) was developed to dynamically simulate any number of articulated robots in real-time using sophisticated robot-environment interaction models. 3D models of the robot and environment objects can be imported or placed conveniently. Parameters of the models can be fine-tuned to mimic the environment with high fidelity. Sensor simulation and control capabilities of the DPS are also highlighted. Common sensors can be simulated including lidar, image sensors, and stereo cameras. Control plugins can be added easily to accomplish complex tasks.


This presentation aims to highlight key activities, technical approaches, data discoveries, lessons learned and outcomes achieved while onboarding local hospitals for syndromic Meaningful Use Stage 2 through a local health information exchange. The federal meaningful use initiative is currently a major driver to enable greater establishment of syndromic surveillance capacity across the United States. The role and efforts by local and state public health agencies in the syndromic onboarding process varies greatly. We describe efforts from a local public health agency to onboard, validate and integrate meaningful use syndromic information.


When discussing negotiation of litigated cases, practitioners and academics often ignore pretrial litigation activities, treating them as if they are unrelated to the negotiation of the ultimate issues. Interactions leading up to the final settlement event often are considered merely preparation for the endgame, if they are considered at all. This narrow conception of negotiation in litigated cases misses critical parts of the dispute resolution process and thus leads to misconceptions about how it really works and what lawyers really do. In reality, lawyers don't just litigate or negotiate, they normally "litigotiate" throughout a case, in the words of Prof. Marc Galanter.This article is partially based on a study in which I interviewed respected lawyers about their negotiation processes in pretrial litigation. Based on accounts of actual negotiations, I define negotiation simply as a process of seeking agreement, regardless of whether there is a dispute or exchange of offers. This broad conception of negotiation describes lawyers' actual behavior better than narrower, conditional conceptions of negotiation. Through this lens, one can see that lawyers conduct a continuing stream of negotiations, not only with counterpart lawyers, but also clients and many others in a case.Most pretrial activity is oriented toward negotiation. Although the purported purpose of pretrial litigation is to prepare for trial, this preparation is inextricably intertwined with negotiation because the anticipated trial decision often affects the ultimate negotiation. When lawyers approach their cases as "litigotiation," their goal is to plan to reach agreement sooner, cheaper, and better. They take control of their cases and prepare to negotiate at the earliest appropriate time. This involves understanding the clients' interests, the interests of the other side, the relevant facts and law; using neutrals and courts as appropriate; and making strategic decisions about timing of the process.People with insight and initiative can take advantage of the great opportunities offered by understanding the realities of litigotiation. Lawyers who diligently use these techniques should increase their effectiveness as litigotiators, getting good settlements while being prepared to vigorously litigate and try cases if needed. This should lead to better service to clients, which can increase lawyers' professional satisfaction, produce goodwill, and relieve stress from unnecessary conflict. By recognizing the dynamics of litigotiation, neutrals can offer a broad range of services to help manage the process more efficiently. In addition to assisting with the ultimate resolution of a case, neutrals can promote good working relationships between counsel, exchanges of information and documents, planning for attendance of particular individuals (including experts), preparation of parties, scheduling and logistics, and documentation of procedural agreements. The broader conception of negotiation can open new scholarly agendas. Dispute resolution scholars, who previously might have focused only on final settlement events, can develop more realistic understandings of how lawyers negotiate throughout litigation. Law school faculty who teach about the dynamics of litigotiation in a wide range of courses can provide students with more realistic understandings of how lawyers actually work.


In low power analog circuit designs, the current variation caused by the STI stress must be taken into account. In this paper, we address an energy trade-off related to the STI stress in the design of a comparator composed of the preamplifier and the conventional latch. The power consumption of the pre-amplifier can be formulated as a function of the diffusion length of MOSFETs when considering the STI stress. The longer diffusion length tends to make the power lower. On the other hand, the power to drive the latch is associated with the parasitic capacitance at the output of the pre-amplifier, so shorter diffusion is preferable. To cope with the trade-off, we provide the energy model of the comparator based on the geometric programming. In the post-layout HSPICE simulation with the STI BSIM model, we reveal that the impact of the STI stress on the energy becomes significant especially in low power designs.


The neuropeptide hormone oxytocin, which is released from the posterior pituitary gland, is involved in a number of physiological processes. Understanding of its effects is gradually increasing due to new research in this area. While mostly recognized as a reproductive system hormone, oxytocin also regulates other organ systems such as the brain and cardiovascular system. Recently, research has focused on unraveling its involvement in cancer, and emerging evidence suggests a potential role for oxytocin as a cancer biomarker. This review summarizes observations linking oxytocin and cancer, with a special emphasis on prostate cancer, where it may promote cell proliferation. Research suggests that oxytocin effects may depend on cell type, concentration of the hormone, its interactions with other hormones in the microenvironment, and the precise localization of its receptor on the cell membrane. Future research is needed to further elucidate the involvement of oxytocin in cancer, and whether it could be a clinical cancer biomarker or therapeutic target.


Deep Cryogenic treatment (DCT) is a one time permanent process, carried out in such a way that the material is slowly cooled down to the cryogenic temperature, after which it is held at that temperature for a specified period of time and is heated back to room temperature at slow rate followed by low temperature tempering. In this study, the orthogonal experiment method was used to study the DCT process of YT30 cemented carbide inserts. The primary relation of the different factors of DCT was analyzed. TH300 sclerometer was used to measure the hardness of inserts. The microscopes were used to observe the wearing profiles of inserts and microstructures before and after DCT. The orthogonal experiment results show that the effect of soaking temperature on the properties of inserts is the first factor, the soaking time is second one, the cooling rate is third one, and the last one is the tempering temperature. DCT improves the multi-type martensite transformation of Co. Therefore DCT increases hardness and enhance wear resistance of the cemented carbide inserts.


Glottal source information has been proven useful in many applications such as speech synthesis, speaker characterisation, voice transformation and pathological speech diagnosis. However, currently no single algorithm can extract reliable glottal source estimates across a
wide range of speech signals. This thesis describes an investigation into glottal source parametrisation, including studies, proposals and evaluations on glottal waveform extraction, glottal source modelling by Liljencrants-Fant (LF) model fitting and a new multi-estimate fusion framework.

As one of the critical steps in voice source parametrisation, glottal waveform extraction techniques are reviewed. A performance study is carried out on three existing glottal inverse filtering approaches and results confirm that no single algorithm consistently outperforms
others and provide a reliable and accurate estimate for different speech signals.

The next step is modelling the extracted glottal flow. To more accurately estimate the glottal source parameters, a new time-domain LF-model fitting algorithm by extended Kalman filter is proposed.

The algorithm is evaluated by comparing it with a standard time-domain method and a spectral approach. Results show the proposed fitting method is superior to existing fitting methods.

To obtain accurate glottal source estimates for different speech signals, a multi-estimate (ME) fusion framework is proposed. In the framework different algorithms are applied in parallel to extract multiple sets of LF-model estimates which are then combined by quantitative data fusion. The ME fusion approach is implemented and tested in several ways.

The novel fusion framework is shown to be able to give more reliable glottal LF-model estimates than any single algorithm.


OBJECTIVE It is believed that an organism remains normoglycemic despite an increase in the β-cell mass because of decreased insulin production by β-cells on a per-cell basis. However, some transgenic mouse models with β-cell hyperplasia suggest that insulin production remains excessive and that normoglycemia is maintained by insulin resistance. METHODS Here, we investigated the effect of an increased β-cell mass on glycemia and insulin resistance by grafting excess normal islets in normoglycemic mice, as well as using targeted PLAG1 expression in β-cells, which leads to β-cell expansion. RESULTS In both models, fasting plasma insulin levels were increased, even though animals were normoglycemic. After an intraperitoneal glucose tolerance test, plasma insulin levels increased, which was associated with improved glucose clearing. Under these conditions, normoglycemia is maintained by hepatic insulin resistance as demonstrated by hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp experiments. CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, we demonstrate that when excess β-cells are grafted, insulin production on a per β-cell basis is not sufficiently decreased, leading to hyperinsulinemia and hepatic insulin resistance. This observation might be important for the design of stem cell-based islet replacement therapies.


A pattern of significant morphological over-dispersion among successfully introduced bird species has previously been documented on several islands. In a recent paper, Moulton et al. also document this pattern for game birds introduced to New Zealand and, in line with previous studies, infer that competition among morphologically similar species played an important role in determining the outcome of these introductions. Here, we show that competition among morphologically similar species could not have been responsible for the failure of most game bird introductions to New Zealand because most species were released at widely separated locations or at different times, did not spread and rapidly became extinct if they failed to establish, and would never have encountered other morphologically similar introduced game birds. Even when morphologically similar species were released in the same district at the same time, historical records suggest that it is unlikely that two species were ever released at precisely the same location and, even if they were, competition is an unlikely cause of introduction failures because most species were present in extremely low numbers. Our results imply that factors other than competition can generate patterns of significant morphological over-dispersion in introduced avifaunas. We show that greater introduction effort expended on more morphologically distinct species could account for over-dispersion in game birds introduced to New Zealand.


In this work, the mechanism of the epitaxial growth of 4H SiC using CH3Cl as the carbon source gas was investigated. The experiments were conducted with a H2 carrier gas flow rate reduced in comparison to the standard conditions used for device-quality, full-wafer C3H8 growth. Low-H2 conditions have been found favorable for investigating the differences between the two gas systems. A non-linear trend of the growth rate dependence on CH3Cl flow was observed. This dependence was quantitatively different for C3H8 growth, which serves as an indication of different kinetics of CH3Cl and C3H8 precursor decomposition, as well as differences in Si droplet formation and dissociation. The maximum growth rate that we were able to achieve was by a factor of two higher for the CH3Cl precursor than for the C3H8 precursor at the same temperature and flow conditions. The growth on lower off-axis angle substrates produced surface morphology degradation similar for both CH3Cl and C3H8 precursor systems.


The design of alarm or warning sounds appears to be far from a trivial challenge. Even if the basic principles of creating an alarming quality for a sound have been widely accepted and applied, there seems to be a constant need for knowledge about what a "good" alarm should sound like. In this paper, we analyse the challenge of alarm sound design. The analysis is carried out in terms of an application context, which is an anaesthesia workstation in an operating room. We conclude that to result in satisfactory sounds, the design should not only concentrate on stereotypic qualities of expected alarms, like a strong psycho-physiological reaction but should also take more aspects into an account. It is proposed that these context dependent aspects, in turn, are extracted from the communicative functions of the sound's intended usage. For such a conceptual design of alarm sounds, a basic taxonomy of communicative functions in terms of alarm priority levels is proposed. Even though this report concentrates on one application area, the approach would be applicable in several areas. Sound design for other safety critical applications, in particular, would benefit from our findings.


RATIONALE
Recent literature suggests vitamin D has an effect on lung function and on the lung's ability to fight infection, both important in the cystic fibrosis (CF) population as predictors of morbidity and mortality.

OBJECTIVES
Our study assessed associations between vitamin D and % predicted lung function, pulmonary exacerbations, and first Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection in children with CF. We hypothesized that children with CF who have 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25-OHD) levels less than 30 μg/L would have lower % predicted lung function and more pulmonary exacerbations than those with 25-OHD greater than or equal to 30 μg/L.

METHODS
This retrospective longitudinal study of 130 children aged 6 to 18 years between 2000 and 2012 examined 25-OHD levels classed in three vitamin D groups: sufficient (≥30 μg/L), insufficient (20-29 μg/L), and deficient (<20 μg/L). Longitudinal models followed individuals' changing vitamin D groups over time to compare numbers of pulmonary exacerbations (defined by hospitalization), incidence of first P. aeruginosa infection, and % predicted lung function. Cross-sectional comparisons between vitamin D groups were performed at ages 8, 12, and 16 years.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency increased slowly through adolescence. The rate of exacerbations for the deficient vitamin D group, aged 15 to 18 years, was 13.1 per 10 patient-years, significantly higher than 4.3 per 10 patient-years for the insufficient and sufficient vitamin D groups (P < 0.05), which were not significantly different There were no differences between vitamin D groups in pulmonary function or incidence of first P. aeruginosa infection, which was about 2 per 10 patient-years.

CONCLUSIONS
Higher 25-OHD levels in children with CF were associated with lower rates of pulmonary exacerbations and, in adolescents, higher FEV1.


BACKGROUND: Evidence is limited regarding the association between the combinations of multiple health practices and mortality. METHODS: In 1990, 28,333 men and women in Miyagi Prefecture in rural northern Japan (40-64 year of age) completed a self-administered questionnaire. A lifestyle score was calculated by adding the number of high-risk practices (smoking, consuming ≥22.8 g alcohol/d, walking <1 hr/d, body mass index <18.5 or ≥30.0). Cox regression was used to estimate relative risk (RR) of mortality according to the lifestyle score, with adjustment for age, education, marital status, past history of diseases, and dietary variables. During 11 years of follow-up, 1,200 subjects had died. RESULTS: We observed linear increase in risk of death associated with increasing number of high-risk practices: compared with men who had no high-risk practices, multivariate RRs for men who had 1 to 4 practices were 1.20, 1.66, 1.94, and 3.96, respectively (P for trend<0.001), and corresponding RRs for women were 1.31, 2.14, 3.98, 5.56, respectively (P for trend<0.001). A unit increase in the number of high-risk practices corresponded to being 2.8 and 4.8 years older for men and women, respectively. CONCLUSONS: In this prospective cohort study of middle-aged men and women in rural Japan, a larger number of high-risk practices was associated with linear increase in risk of all-cause mortality.


Determination of the heading and pitch of a ground vehicle are useful for a wide range of land-based applications. For some intelligent transport applications, such as map matching, a heading and pitch solution could be used as the adding information, particularly in the non-flat road or during turns. In addition, in the mobile-mapping system, the heading information could be used to aid the initial alignment of the INS. The vehicle heading and roll information could also be used by the logistic companies to monitor the inclination status of logistic vehicles, especially for these carrying liquids or dangerous goods. Vehicle attitude determination could be mainly obtained from various onboard sensors, including magnetic sensors, inertial sensors, GNSS and their combinations. However, the users may have the stringent requirements of cost performances due to the large quantities may be used in the land-based applications.
In order to reduce the cost but with an acceptable heading and pitch accuracy, we have proposed a novel algorithm that determines vehicle dynamic positioning and heading using only one single-frequency GNSS antenna. In particular, the time differenced carrier phase (TDCP) measurement model with the vehicle motion constraint is applied for the vehicle heading and pitch determination. The two assumptions based on the road geometry constraint used in this algorithm are: 1) the heading of the vehicle is approximately equal to its tangent to the trajectory curve when moving on the road and 2) the heading of the vehicle cannot be changed abruptly during the moving, therefore, the secant to the historical trajectory curve can be used to replace the tangent, which is the vehicle heading value.
In order to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed algorithm in practical work, we have evaluated the TDCP errors under different frequencies. The sensitively analysis results have shown that the proposed algorithm is applicable even at a measurement frequency of 0.1 Hz, which indicating non-sensitive for the input frequency of the measurements. Two dynamic tests are carried out to verify the performance of the algorithm on highway. The field results show that the proposed single antenna based algorithm is able to provide an economical but feasible solution for the heading and pitch estimation with an error under 1 degree, which is useful for many land-based applications.