The relationship between cAMP levels and thermogenesis was investigated in brown fat cells from Syrian hamsters. Irrespective of whether the selective beta3-, beta2-, and beta1-agonists BRL 37344, salbutamol, and dobutamine or the physiological agonist norepinephrine was used to stimulate the cells, increases in cAMP levels were mediated via the beta3-receptor, as were the thermogenic effects. However, the relationship "thermogenesis per cAMP" was much lower for agents other than norepinephrine. Similarly, forskolin, although more potent than norepinephrine in elevating cAMP, was less potent in inducing thermogenesis. The selective alpha1-agonist cirazoline was in itself without effect on cAMP levels or thermogenesis, but when added to forskolin-stimulated cells, potentiated thermogenesis, up to the norepinephrine level, without affecting cAMP. This potentiation could not be inhibited by chelerythrine, but could be mimicked by Ca2+ ionophores. It was apparently not mediated via calmodulin-dependent protein kinase and was not an effect on mitochondrial respiratory control. The ability of all cAMP-elevating agents to induce thermogenesis in brown fat cells has earlier been interpreted to mean that it is only through the beta-receptors and the resulting increase in cAMP levels that thermogenesis is induced. However, it is here concluded that the thermogenic response to norepinephrine involves two interacting parts, one mediated via beta-receptors and cAMP and the other via alpha1-receptors and increases in cytosolic Ca2+ levels.


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Service providers want to reduce datacenter costs by consolidating workloads onto fewer servers. At the same time, customers have performance goals, such as meeting tail latency Service Level Objectives (SLOs). Consolidating workloads while meeting tail latency goals is challenging, especially since workloads in production environments are often bursty. To limit the congestion when consolidating workloads, customers and service providers often agree upon rate limits. Ideally, rate limits are chosen to maximize the number of workloads that can be co-located while meeting each workload's SLO. In reality, neither the service provider nor customer knows how to choose rate limits. Customers end up selecting rate limits on their own in some ad hoc fashion, and service providers are left to optimize given the chosen rate limits. This paper describes WorkloadCompactor, a new system that uses workload traces to automatically choose rate limits simultaneously with selecting onto which server to place workloads. Our system meets customer tail latency SLOs while minimizing datacenter resource costs. Our experiments show that by optimizing the choice of rate limits, WorkloadCompactor reduces the number of required servers by 30--60% as compared to state-of-the-art approaches.


Single-chip parallel processing requires high bandwidth between processors and on-chip memory modules. A recently proposed Mesh-of-Trees (MoT) network provides high through put and low latency at relatively high area cost.In this paper, we introduce a hybrid MoT-BF network that combines MoT network with the area efficient butterfly network. We prove that the hybrid network reduces MoT network's area cost. Cycle-accurate simulation and post-layout results all show that significant area reduction can be achieved with negligible performance degradation, when operating at same clock rate.


AT1 receptor activation leads to vasoconstriction, blood pressure increase, free radical release, and cell growth. AT1 receptor regulation contributes to the adaptation of the renin-angiotensin system to long-term stimulation and serves as explanation for the involvement of the AT1 receptor in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease. The molecular mechanisms involved in AT1 receptor regulation are poorly understood. Here, we report that angiotensin II accelerates AT1 receptor mRNA decay in vascular smooth muscle cells. A cognate mRNA region within the 3′ untranslated region at bases 2175 to 2195 governs the inducible decay of the AT1 receptor mRNA. Sequential protein purifications led to the discovery of a novel mRNA binding protein, calreticulin, which mediates destabilization of the AT1 receptor mRNA. Angiotensin II–caused phosphorylation of calreticulin enables binding of calreticulin to the AT1 receptor mRNA at bases 2175 to 2195 and propagates calreticulin-induced acceleration of AT1 receptor mRNA...


Background Cuba's life expectancy at 79 is third highest in Latin America. Many attribute this to social investments in health and education, but comparative research is sparse, thus we compare Cuba with neighboring Dominican Republic, Costa Rica due to its strong social protections, and the U.S. Given high cardiovascular mortality, we focus on cardiovascular risk factor levels. To assess the role of health care, we distinguish medically amenable biomarkers from behavioral risk factors. To assess the role of Cuba's focus on equity, we compare education gradients in risk factors. Methods We analyze Cuban data from the 10/66 Dementia Research Group baseline survey of urban adults ages 65 plus. Comparison samples are drawn from the Dominican Republic 10/66 survey, the Costa Rican CRELES, and U.S. NHANES. We analyze cross-country levels and education gradients of medically amenable (hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, access to health care) and behavioral (smoking, obesity) risk factors,–using sex-stratified weighted means comparisons and age-adjusted logistic regression. Results Neither medically amenable nor behavioral risk factors are uniformly better in Cuba than comparison countries. Obesity is lower in Cuba, but male smoking is higher. Hypertension, diabetes, and hypercholesterolemia levels are high in all countries, though Cuba's are lower than Costa Rica. Hypertension awareness in Cuba is similar to Costa Rica. Cuba has a higher proportion of hypertensives on treatment than Costa Rica, though lower than the U.S. Comparative gradients by education are similarly mixed. For behavioral factors, Cuba shows the strongest gradients (primarily for men) among the countries compared: smoking improves, but obesity worsens with education. Hypertension awareness also improves with education in Cuba, but Cuba shows no significant differences by education in hypertension treatment. Conclusion Smoking is comparatively high in Cuba, but obesity is low, and the resulting biomarkers show comparatively mixed patterns. Cuba's social protections have not eliminated strong educational gradients in behavioral risk factors, but the healthcare system appears to have eliminated disparities such as in hypertension treatment.


ABSTRACT Viral therapy of cancer (viral oncolysis) is dependent on selective destruction of the tumor tissue compared with healthy tissues. Several factors, including receptor expression, extracellular components, and intracellular mechanisms, may influence viral oncolysis. In the present work, we studied the potential oncolytic activity of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), using an organ culture system derived from colon carcinoma and healthy colon tissues of mouse and human origin. HSV-1 infected normal colons ex vivo at a very low efficiency, in contrast to high-efficiency infection of colon carcinoma tissue. In contrast, adenoviral and lentiviral vectors infected both tissues equally well. To investigate the mechanisms underlying the preferential affinity of HSV-1 for the carcinoma tissue, intracellular and extracellular factors were investigated. Two extracellular components, collagen and mucin molecules, were found to restrict HSV-1 infectivity in the healthy colon. The mucin layer of the healthy colon binds to HSV-1 and thereby blocks viral interaction with the epithelial cells of the tissue. In contrast, colon carcinomas express small amounts of collagen and mucin molecules and are thus permissive to HSV-1 infection. In agreement with the ex vivo system, HSV-1 injected into a mouse colon carcinoma in vivo significantly reduced the volume of the tumor. In conclusion, we describe a novel mechanism of viral selectivity for malignant tissues that is based on variance of the extracellular matrix between tumor and healthy tissues. These insights may facilitate new approaches to the application of HSV-1 as an oncolytic virus.


Virgin coconut oil (VCO) is growing in popularity as functional food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical oil. The high cost of VCO is due to its low recovery. In order to improve the recovery, the effect of milk expelling methods (manual and mechanical) and pretreatments (slicing, pulverizing and blanching) on coconut milk and hot process VCO recovery with respect to fresh coconut kernel weight was studied. The blanching and pulverizing yielded more milk and VCO recovery in both manual and mechanical expelling methods. The recovery of coconut milk and VCO ranged from 34.0 to 51.6 per cent and 14.2 to 22.4 per cent respectively. Among the different treatment combinations, pulverized, blanched and double screw pressed coconut kernel yielded the highest milk and VCO recovery. The per cent recovery of two important co-products namely coconut milk residue and VCO cake ranged from 38.5 to 55.6 and 6.3 to 8.8 respectively. An attempt was made to recover the oil from 8 per cent dried coconut milk residue and VCO cake in commercial oil expeller. The oil recovery from milk residue and VCO cake flour was 41.2±1.1 per cent and 25.8±1.0 per cent respectively. The dried coconut milk residue and VCO cake flour was utilized in the preparation of extrudates and sweet snacks along with the broken rice, maize grits and pearl millet grits.


Several small molecules that inhibit the PI3 kinase (PI3K)-Akt signaling pathway are in clinical development. Although many of these molecules have been effective in preclinical models, it remains unclear whether this strategy alone will be sufficient to interrupt the molecular events initiated and maintained by signaling along the pathways because of the activation of other pathways that compensate for the inhibition of the targeted kinase. In this study, we performed a synthetic lethality screen to identify genes or pathways whose inactivation, in combination with the PI3K inhibitors PX-866 and NVPBEZ-235, might result in a lethal phenotype in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) cells. We screened GBM cells (U87, U251, and T98G) with a large-scale, short hairpin RNA library (GeneNet), which contains 43 800 small interfering RNA sequences targeting 8500 well-characterized human genes. To decrease off-target effects, we selected overlapping genes among the 3 cell lines that synergized with PX-866 to induce cell death. To facilitate the identification of potential targets, we used a GSE4290 dataset and The Cancer Genome Atlas GBM dataset, identifying 15 target genes overexpressed in GBM tissues. We further analyzed the selected genes using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis software and showed that the 15 genes were closely related to cancer-promoting pathways, and a highly interconnected network of aberrations along the MYC, P38MAPK, and ERK signaling pathways were identified. Our findings suggest that inhibition of these pathways might increase tumor sensitivity to PX-866 and therefore represent a potential clinical therapeutic strategy.


Analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) restriction polymorphism carried out in a sample of Russians from Magadan (n = 150) showed that the frequency of the +4332AvaII variant (a T-C transition at nucleotide position 4336) in this population was 4.7%. All +4332AvaII types of mtDNA belonged to the mitochondrial group H. They were characterized by a back of the AluI restriction endonuclease site at position 7025. According to hypervariable segment 1 sequencing data, they contained the 16304C variant, and thus belong to the subgroup H1. Thus, the +4332AvaII (T4336C) variant is a marker of the mitochondrial subgroup H1, chiefly occurring in German-speaking populations. Utilization of the H1-mtDNA markers for the investigation of the genetic history and the origin of Slavs is discussed.


SUMMARY: Microtubules and microtubule-organizing centres of Dictyostelium discoideum were investigated using indirect immunofluorescence with antibodies against a microtubule-associated protein from a rabbit preimmune serum. The microtubule system showed a cell cycle dependent variation. The cytoplasmic microtubule network present in interphase disappeared in mitosis, in contrast to the astral fibres and central spindle fibres which remained evident. In both cell cycle stages microtubules radiated from microtubule-organizing centres which corresponded to the nucleus-associated organelles in interphase and the spindle pole bodies in mitosis.


Six essential plant micronutrients, copper (Cu), iron (Fe), zinc (ZN), manganese (MN), molybdenum (Mo) and boron (B) salt compounds, were investigated for their potential antibacterial activity against a group of 32 Xanthomonas citri subsp. citri (Xcc) isolates, as representative of the Iranian population of bacterial of citrus canker disease agents, and the sensitivity patterns of the isolates were characterized. For all tested compounds, a significant antibacterial activity against representative Xcc strains was determined. Bacterial growth was severely inhibited by Cu, Fe, Zn, Mn and Mo at 1/2 MIC, MIC and MBC concentrations, whereas B had only a moderate to slight impact. Among the salt compounds, Zn had the lowest MIC (0.6-1.25 mM) and MBC (2.5 mM). The highest MIC and MBC values were obtained for Mo at the dose of 30-40 mM and 40-50 mM, respectively. The results showed that 62.5% of the tested bacterial isolates were less susceptible to Fe, Zn, Mn and Mo and more susceptible to Cu and B. Nevertheless, only 37.5% of them showed a high degree of susceptibility to most of the compounds.


In recent years, biological control has become a promising alternative to chemical control in the management of soil borne disease A group of root-associated bacteria, plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), intimately interact with the plant roots and consequently influence plant health and soil fertility. Among these PGPR, fluorescent psuedomonads occur commonly in the rhizosphere of plants and help suppress disease establishment and spread by secretion of antibiotics. The present study focuses on the extraction and identification of the antifungal compound secreted by Psueudomonas fluorescens . Considering the global significance of antifungal metabolites in disease suppression and consequent applicability of psuedomonads in biological control strategies, the bio control potential of fluorescent pseudomonads against F. oxysporum and R. bataticola have been reported. These compounds were identified as phenazine-1-carboxylic acid (PCA) and 2-hydroxyphenazine (2-OH-PHZ).


Experiments were carried out for the study of culture spirochetes in their relation to various immunity reactions in vitro. Several strains of Treponema pallidum and one each of Treponema calligyrum, Spirochata refringens, Treponema microdentium, and Treponema mucosum were used. Tests were made of immune substances responsible for agglutination, complement fixation, spirocheticidosis, and opsonization. In cases of agglutination and complement fixation, cross titrations were made. 1. In the sera derived from rabbits immunized with various spirochetes agglutinins were demonstrated in varying quantities for the homologous antigens. The amounts of agglutinins developed were considerably higher in the pallidum immune sera than in the other groups. There was no parallelism between the amounts of antigens injected and the amounts of agglutinins developed. 2. Cross titrations among different pallidum strains revealed that the agglutiantion is not necessarily strongest when homologous antigens and immune sera are brought together. 3. On the other hand, the reactions between the immune sera and antigens belonging to different species were sufficiently specific to justify the grouping. 4. Certain degrees of group reactions were observed between the pallidum immune sera and the calligyrum, and occasionally very faintly also between the pallidum and the refringes antigens and vice versa. There was a much more pronounced group reaction between the calligyrum and refringes. The immune serum and antigen of the microdentium showed a slight affinity for the mucosum but none for the pallidum, calligyrum, or refringes, while the mucosum immune serum caused a slight agglutination with many members of the other groups. Hence, it appears that the pallidum is more or less related to the calligyrum, while the affinity between the calligyrum and refringes, and possibly also between the calligyrum and mucosum in a much smaller degree, seems close. The microdentium showed the least relation to any other spirochetes. 5. Titration of agglutinins in the sera obtained 3 months after the cessation of immunization revealed that the agglutinin contents were already greatly reduced, having fallen roughly to 0.01 of the original strenght. The rates of disappearance were irregular in different animals and bore no direct relation to the initial titers. Titration made of the immune sera which had been preserved aseptically in a refrigerator (6°C.) during the same period (3 months) indicated that the original strength of these sera was reduced to about one-tenth. The agglutinins for spirochetes disappear from the rabbit's body much more rapidly than they are reduced in the separated sera by deterioration on standing at 6°C. 6. Titration of the immune sera for complement fixation power showed with a few exceptions, in which there was only slight complement binding, that the titers were high enough to indicate the presence of this principle. The anti-pallidum sera possessed higher average titers than the other immune sera tested with correspondingly homologous antigens. The least active were the anti-refrigens sera. 7. Cross titration of anti-pallidum immune sera for complement fixation showed that a given serum with a high titer for its own strain of antigen was also strong with most of the other strains of the pallidum. Instances occurred also in which the titers with heterologous pallidum antigens fell far below those of the homologous. Group reactions between the different spirochetes) such as the pallidum and the calligyrum, the calligyrum and the refringens, and the microdentium and the mucosum, were also indicated. The mucosum and the pallidum showed a slight degree of group reaction. No anti-pallidum serum fixed complement with the microdentium. 8. The immune sera were tested for their spirochetiddal properties in vitro against the correspondingly specific and heterologous varieties with and without the addition of complement. Many of the anti-pallidum sera killed their own strains. Normal rabbit serum exhibited only a slight degree of inhibition. Without complement, the immune sera caused a considerable reduction in the number or density of colonies, but not a complete suppression of growth. Complement alone had no injurious effect upon the pallidum strains. The antisera for the calligyrum, refringens, and mucosum showed feeble spirocheticidal action, while the antisera for microdentium was stronger. A syphilitic rabbit serum tested against a strain of culture pallidum gave a feeble inhibitory effect. 9. Under the influence of immune sera and complement, the spirochetes undergo within a few hours complete disintegration or granular degeneration. Without complement, they are more powerfully agglutinated, but no disintegration occurs, even after 20 hours, and complement alone has no effect. 10. In the presence of homologous immune serum and complement, the culture pallidum may be ingested by the leukocytes, but phagocytosis is slight, possibly on account of the filamentous nature of the organisms. The spirochetes in such a mixture disintegrate within a few hours, disintegration being especially rapid when the immune leukocytes are used. In the absence of immune serum, phagocytosis is not noticeable, while without complement but in the presence of immune serum and leukocytes, some phagocytosis, without subsequent lysis, occurs. A virulent strain of pallidum, obtained from syphilitic orchitis in a rabbit, exposed to agglutination, lysis, and phagocytosis by an immune serum prepared by means of culture pallidum strains, showed only slight agglutination and phagocytosis but rapid immobilization without disintegration in the presence of complement.


Summary form only given. The 2010 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) predicted that bio-medical chips will soon revolutionize the healthcare market. These bio-medical chips should be able to sense and actuate, store and manipulate data, and transmit information. To realize such bio-medical chips, the integration of embedded systems and microfluidics inevitably leads to a new research dimension for More than Moore and beyond. This tutorial will introduce attendees to the emerging technology of digital microfluidics, which is poised to play a key role in the transformation of healthcare and the interplay between biochemistry and embedded systems. Advances in droplet-based "digital" microfluidics have led to the emergence of biochip devices for automating laboratory procedures in biochemistry and molecular biology. These devices enable the precise control of nanoliter-volume droplets of biochemical samples and reagents. Therefore, integrated circuit (IC) technology can be used to transport and transport "chemical payload" in the form of micro/nanofluidic droplets. As a result, non-traditional biomedical applications and markets (e.g., high-throughout DNA sequencing, portable and point-of-care clinical diagnostics, protein crystallization for drug discovery), and fundamentally new uses are opening up for ICs and systems. However, continued growth (and larger revenues resulting from technology adoption by pharmaceutical and healthcare companies) depends on advances in chip integration and design-automation tools. In particular, design-automation tools are needed to ensure that biochips are as versatile as the macro-labs that they are intended to replace. This is therefore an opportune time for the semiconductor industry and circuit/system designers to make an impact in this emerging field. This tutorial offers attendees an opportunity to bridge the semiconductor ICs/systems industry with the biomedical and pharmaceutical industries. The audience will see how a "biochip compiler" can translate protocol descriptions provided by an end user (e.g., a chemist or a nurse at a doctor's clinic) to a set of optimized and executable fluidic instructions that will run on the underlying digital microfluidic platform. Testing techniques will be described to detect faults after manufacture and during field operation. Sensor integration and close coupling between the underlying hardware and the control software in a cyberphysical framework will also be described. A number of case studies based on representative assays and laboratory procedures will be interspersed in appropriate places throughout the tutorial. Commercial devices and advanced prototypes from the major company in this market segment (Advanced Liquid Logic, Inc.) will be described, and ongoing activity on newborn screening using digital microfluidic biochips at several large hospitals in Illinois will be highlighted. The topics covered in the tutorial include the following: 1) Technology and application drivers: Motivation and background, actuation methods, electrowetting and digital microfluidics, review of micro-fabrication processes, applications to biochemistry, medicine, and laboratory procedures. 2) System-level design automation: Synthesis techniques: scheduling of fluidic operations, resource binding (mapping of operations to on-chip resources), module placement. 3) Physical-level design automation: droplet routing, defect tolerance, chip-level design, and design of pin-constrained biochips. 4) Testing and design-for-testability: Defects, fault modeling, test planning, reconfiguration techniques, sensor integration and cyberphysical system design.


The purpose of this study was to determine and compare the time to exhaustion (TE) and the physiological responses at continuous and intermittent (ratio 5:1) maximal lactate steady state (MLSS) in well-trained runners. Ten athletes (32.7 ± 6.9 y, VO2max 61.7 ± 3.9 mL · kg-1 · min-1) performed an incremental treadmill test, three to five 30-min constant-speed tests to determine the MLSS continuous and intermittent (5 min of running, interspaced by 1 min of passive rest), and 2 randomized TE tests at such intensities. Two-way ANOVA with repeated measures was used to compare the changes in physiological variables during the TE tests and between continuous and intermittent exercise. The intermittent MLSS velocity (MLSSint = 15.26 ± 0.97 km/h) was higher than in the continuous model (MLSScon = 14.53 ± 0.93 km/h), while the TE at MLSScon was longer than MLSSint (68 ± 11 min and 58 ± 15 min, P < .05). Regarding the cardiorespiratory responses, VO2 and respiratory-exchange ratio remained stable during both TE tests while heart rate, ventilation, and rating of perceived exertion presented a significant increase in the last portion of the tests. The results showed a higher tolerance to exercising during MLSScon than during MLSSint in trained runners. Thus, the training volume of an extensive interval session (ratio 5:1) designed at MLSS intensity should take into consideration this higher speed at MLSS and also the lower TE than with continuous exercise.


In this note, we present the first experimental results of in-beam PET measurements during high energy photon phantom irradiation. An inhomogeneous phantom was irradiated with pulsed 34 MV bremsstrahlung. The measurements have been conducted with a dedicated double head positron camera. A high material contrast could be achieved and furthermore production rates of 11C and 15O were derived from the time-dependent activity.


According to the following definition, taken from the literature, a fuzzy clustering mechanism allows the same input pattern to belong to multiple categories to different degrees. Many clustering neural network (NN) models claim to feature fuzzy properties, but several of them (like the Fuzzy ART model) do not satisfy this definition. Vice versa, we believe that Kohonen's Self-Organizing Map, SOM, satisfies the definition provided above, even though this NN model is well-known to (robustly) perform topologically ordered mapping rather than fuzzy clustering. This may sound as a paradox if we consider that several fuzzy NN models (such as the Fuzzy Learning Vector Quantization, FLVQ, which was first called Fuzzy Kohonen Clustering Network, FKCN) were originally developed to enhance Kohonen's models (such as SOM and the vector quantization model, VQ). The fuzziness of SOM indicates that a network of processing elements (PEs) can verify the fuzzy clustering definition when it exploits local rules which are biologically plausible (such as the Kohonen bubble strategy). This is equivalent to state that the exploitation of the fuzzy set theory in the development of complex systems (e.g., clustering NNs) may provide new mathematical tools (e.g., the definition of membership function) to simulate the behavior of those cooperative/competitive mechanisms already identified by neurophysiological studies. When a biologically plausible cooperative/competitive strategy is pursued effectively, neighboring PEs become mutually coupled to gain sensitivity to contextual effects. PEs which are mutually coupled are affected by vertical (inter-layer) as well as horizontal (intra-layer) connections. To summarize, we suggest to relate the study of fuzzy clustering mechanisms to the multi-disciplinary science of complex systems, with special regard to the investigation of the cooperative/competitive local rules employed by complex systems to gain sensitivity to contextual effects in cognitive tasks. In this paper, the FLVQ model is critically analyzed in order to stress the meaning of a fuzzy learning mechanism. This study leads to the development of a new NN model, termed the fuzzy competitive/cooperative Kohonen (FCCK) model, which replaces FLVQ. Then, the architectural differences amongst three NN algorithms and the relationships between their fuzzy clustering properties are discussed. These models, which all perform on-line learning, are: (1) SOM; (2) FCCK; and (3) improved neural-gas (INC).


In many societal resource allocation domains, machine learning methods are increasingly used to either score or rank agents in order to decide which ones should receive either resources (e.g., homeless services) or scrutiny (e.g., child welfare investigations) from social services agencies. An agency's scoring function typically operates on a feature vector that contains a combination of self-reported features and information available to the agency about individuals or households.
 This can create incentives for agents to misrepresent their self-reported features in order to receive resources or avoid scrutiny, but agencies may be able to selectively audit agents to verify the veracity of their reports.

 We study the problem of optimal auditing of agents in such settings. When decisions are made using a threshold on an agent's score, the optimal audit policy has a surprisingly simple structure, uniformly auditing all agents who could benefit from lying.
 While this policy can, in general be hard to compute because of the difficulty of identifying the set of agents who could benefit from lying given a complete set of reported types, we also present sufficient conditions under which it is tractable.
 We show that the scarce resource setting is more difficult, and exhibit an approximately optimal audit policy in this case.
 In addition, we show that in either setting verifying whether it is possible to incentivize exact truthfulness is hard even to approximate.
 However, we also exhibit sufficient conditions for solving this problem optimally, and for obtaining good approximations.


Reports that immunizations with leukemia-derived hybrid cells prolonged the survival of leukemic mice led us to attempt an analogous approach in two adult patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Hybrid cells were prepared from the pretreatment marrows of the newly-diagnosed patients with D98OR cells, in the first case, and with KR12 cells, in the second case. (D98OR and KR12 cells are human cell-lines.) Hybrids formed with KR12 cells expressed HLA antigens of both parental sources and some of the clonal isolates expressed myeloid-associated determinants. The immunizations were performed during the first complete clinical remission; the patients were demonstrably immunocompetent. Positive delayed type hypersensitivity responses to both (X-irradiated) hybrid cells and to (X-irradiated) autologous pretreatment marrow were observed following the immunizations. Mixed lymphocyte reactions toward autologous marrow were positive in one of the patients. In both, relapse occurred approximately two months after the first immunization and eight months after first diagnosis. The first patient remained in complete remission for two and one-half years following reinduction chemotherapy; reinduction chemotherapy was unsuccessful in the second patient.


This paper focused on the utility of the due process of law by teachers as a protection and corrective measures on academic dismissal in Nigerian post primary schools. It reviewed how 'right' and 'due process' are related as well as the essence of the due process in considering the crucial aspect of law by reviewing statutes, laws, edicts and decrees to improve some problematic areas faced by teachers in the teaching profession. This approach did not only ensure and allow harmony, peace and promote respect for each individual's right in the teaching profession but, also ensured satisfaction among teachers. In view of the technicality of the term 'due process', experts who are lawyers, judges and trained administrators read and interpret this term without difficulty. However, the layman can be kept well above water to know the essence of due process by simply following the definition and explanations provided. 'Due process' is subdivided into three areas which include constitutional, procedural and substantive due process.

 Key words: Due process, academic dismissal, Nigerian post primary schools.


This paper addressed the problem of computing practical time-to-go estimation,when constant relative acceleration and measurement distribution were considered . firstly,a time-to-go arithmetic was obtained based on missile and target engagement geometry. The method is a combination of three time-to-go estimate formulations . Then time-to-go estimator was designed by applying the modified gain extended Kalman filter theory.Simulation results show that the proposed estimator can estimate the time-to-go very effectively . The proposed method is simple and straightforward to implement for missiles.


Norway's Professor Roald Bahr recently highlighted that screening does not predict which athlete will sustain an injury.1 Some interpreted this to mean screening is useless for injury prevention. However, screening remains essential in our efforts to protect athletes' health. To extend what has been a robust discussion, we argue how screening can be important for an individual athlete , and offer potential reasons why and how individual screening tests still lack clinical utility.

Previous injury is a well-established injury risk factor. Figure 1 shows data on ACL (re)injuries from Krosshaug et al .2 Applying a traditional (predictive) diagnostic test on these data yields unimpressive results; a positive predictive value of only 29%, with most injuries occurring in previously uninjured athletes. If effective interventions target only previously injured athletes, it would be withheld from the majority of athletes who could benefit. Consequently, we agree with Bahr,1 that all athletes receive effective interventions.

Figure 1
The relationship between unilateral ACL injuries and ACL reinjuries in a multiseason prospective cohort study in female football and handball players. (Based on original data from Krosshaug et al .2

But consider another perspective on the same risk factor 'previous injury'. Regardless of the low predictive value, previous injury is …


The study of orbit characteristics of LAPAN-TUBSAT can be done by using some microsatellites which identical in the case of mission and its orbit. This knowledge is usefull to reduce the failure of mission. This characteristics can be seen from the change of orbital elements caused by perturbation forces. LAPAN-TUBSAT is placed in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at altitude about 630 km which has orbit near polar (i≈98˚). At this altitude, the perturbations come from non-gravitation force such as atmospheric drag and gravitation force from earth oblatness. From the simulation can be predicted that in the early years of its operation, the variation in altitude and semi major axis is relatively small. The means that this satellite could have the life time more than 50 years. The effect of earth oblatness will cause the regression of the nodes of about 1˚/day and the rotation of the line of apsides of about -3˚/day. These changes are not too critical for near polar orbit which means that satellite keeps conducted the mission goal such as satellite imaging.


The determination of atmospheric structure and molecular abundances of planetary atmospheres via spectroscopy involves direct comparisons between models and data. While varying in sophistication, most model spectra comparisons fundamentally assume one-dimensional (1D) model physics. However, knowledge from general circulation models and of solar system planets suggests that planetary atmospheres are inherently three-dimensional in their structure and composition. We explore the potential biases resulting from standard "1D" assumptions within a Bayesian atmospheric retrieval framework. Specifically, we show how the assumption of a single 1D thermal profile can bias our interpretation of the thermal emission spectrum of a hot Jupiter atmosphere that is composed of two thermal profiles. We retrieve spectra of unresolved model planets as observed with a combination of the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3)+Spitzer Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) as well as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) under varying differences in the two thermal profiles. For WFC3+IRAC, there is a significantly biased estimate of CH4 abundance using a 1D model when the contrast is 80%. For JWST, two thermal profiles are required to adequately interpret the data and estimate the abundances when contrast is greater than 40%. We also apply this preliminary concept to the recent WFC3+IRAC phase curve data of the hot Jupiter WASP-43b. We see similar behavior as present in our simulated data: while the abundance determination is robust, CH4 is artificially well-constrained to incorrect values under the 1D assumption. Our work demonstrates the need to evaluate model assumptions in order to extract meaningful constraints from atmospheric spectra and motivates exploration of optimal observational setups.


Inflammation is a very complicated phenomenon and consist a part of the immune response which is divided to a natural phase followed by an adaptive one. Tissue injury is followed by a cascade of events leading to the inflammatory response which is divided in three phases. The first phase of inflammation is manifested by the activation of the local tissue macrophagues which exert their phagocytic action and the mast cells which liberate cytokines and vasoactive substances. Cytokines are divided in proinflammatory, chemokines and immunoregulatory ones. Proinflammatory cytokines trigger the second phase of inflammation while chemokines create a chemotactic current. Immunoregulatory cytokines prepare the adaptive phase of the immune response. A certain number of vasoactive substances mediate an initial local vasoconstriction aiming to restrict the cause of tissue injury. This vasoconstriction is followed by a broader local vasodilatation and an increased permeability of the vascular wall. These last events permit to the inflammatory cells and macromolecules to reach the site of tissue injury. Many vasoactive substances like istamine, bradykinine, prospaglandins, leukotrienes and nitric oxide participate in these actions. During the second phase of inflammation, blood cells following the chemotactic current move to the site of injury and start their phagocytic activity. The third phase of inflammation is connected with the tissue restoration.


The ability to achieve atomic layer etch precision is reviewed in detail for a variety of material sets and implementation methods. For a cyclic approach most similar to a reverse ALD scheme, the process window to achieve a truly self-limited atomic layer etch (ALE) process is identified and the limitations as a function of controlling the adsorption step, the irradiation energy, and the reaction process are examined. Alternative approaches, namely processes to enable pseudo-ALE precision, are then introduced and results from their application investigated. Most of the recent work in plasma process development can be characterized by three fundamental approaches to atomic layer etching. Lastly, recent developments employing reactant flux control are briefly introduced, which have shown to provide a self-limited process that is able to exhibit high selectivity and pattern fidelity. The key feature of this novel method may be the ability to combine advances from the other atomic layer etch approaches.


This paper proposes an improved hybrid distribution static compensator (DSTATCOM) topology to compensate reactive and nonlinear loads with reduced VSI rating, DC link voltage and filter size. An LCL filter with small value of inductor compared to traditional L filter has been used at the front end of a voltage source inverter (VSI), which provides the elimination of switching harmonics. Voltage of the DSTATCOM can be reduced with capacitor to be connected in series with an LCL filter. Consequently the power rating of the voltage source inverter has been decreased. With reduced dc-link voltage, the voltage across the shunt capacitor of the LCL filter will be also less. It will reduce the power losses in the damping resistor as compared with the traditional LCL filter with passive damping. Therefore, the proposed DSTATCOM topology will have reduced weight, cost, rating, and size with improved efficiency and current compensation capability compared with the traditional topology. A systematic procedure to design the components of the passive filter has been presented. The effectiveness of the proposed DSTATCOM topology over traditional topologies is validated through simulation.


Following recommendations of the recent update of the European strategy in particle physics, CERN has undertaken an international study of possible future circular colliders beyond the LHC. This study considers an option for a very high energy (100 TeV) hadron-hadron collider located in a quasi-circular underground tunnel having a circumference of 80 to 100 km. The synchrotron radiation emitted by the high-energy hadron beam increases by more than two orders of magnitude compared to the LHC. To reduce the entropic load on the superconducting magnets' refrigeration system, beam screens are indispensable to extract the heat load at a higher temperature level. After illustrating the decisive constraints of the beam screen's refrigeration design, this paper presents a preliminary design of the length of a continuous cooling loop comparing helium and neon, for different cooling channel geometries with emphasis on the cooling length limitations and the exergetic efficiency.


Pose variation remains one of the major factors that adversely affect the accuracy of person re-identification. Such variation is not arbitrary as body parts (e.g. head, torso, legs) have relative stable spatial distribution. Breaking down the variability of global appearance regarding the spatial distribution potentially benefits the person matching. We therefore learn a novel similarity function, which consists of multiple sub-similarity measurements with each taking in charge of a subregion. In particular, we take advantage of the recently proposed polynomial feature map to describe the matching within each subregion, and inject all the feature maps into a unified framework. The framework not only outputs similarity measurements for different regions, but also makes a better consistency among them. Our framework can collaborate local similarities as well as global similarity to exploit their complementary strength. It is flexible to incorporate multiple visual cues to further elevate the performance. In experiments, we analyze the effectiveness of the major components. The results on four datasets show significant and consistent improvements over the state-of-the-art methods.


A small nonpeptidyl compoud extracted from Pseudomassaria sp. was found to induce the activity of human insulin receptor
tyrosine kinase in vitro. The compound
was identified as demethylasterriquinone B-1 (DMAQ-B1). DMAQ- B1 also induced
an increase in [Ca2+]i and insulin secretion in mice pancreatic beta-cells at low
glucose (3 mM)
concentration via insulin receptor substrate-1/phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3 kinase)
pathway. By using rat pancreatic perfusion technique, we found that 10 μM
DMAQ-B1 directly stimulated insulin secretion up to 240% in normal rat pancreas.
In the dosage from 1 to 20 μM, DMAQ-B1 stimulated insulin secretion in a dose
dependent manner. Furthermore, DMAQ-B1 enhanced glucose-induced insulin secretion by 17.6% (first stage) and 19.0% (second stage), respectively. The PI3 kinase inhibitors, LY 294002 (3.9 μM) or
wortmannin (100 nM), inhibited DMAQ-B1-induced insulin secretion by 46.3% and
57.4%, respectively. LY 294002 or wortmannin also inhibited DMAQ-B1 with10 mMglucose-induced insulin secretion by
70.3% and 79.0%, respectively. All the results suggested that DMAQ-B1 directly
stimulated insulin secretion and enhanced glucose-induced insulin secretion. The
effect of DMAQ-B1 may mediate through the activation of PI3 kinase pathway to
stimulate insulin secretion in normal rat pancreas.


The activity of sensory cortical neurons is not only driven by external stimuli, but is also shaped by other sources of input to the cortex. Unlike external stimuli these other sources of input are challenging to experimentally control or even observe, and as a result contribute to variability of neuronal responses to sensory stimuli. However, such sources of input are likely not "noise", and likely play an integral role in sensory cortex function. Here, we introduce the rectified latent variable model (RLVM) in order to identify these sources of input using simultaneously recorded cortical neuron populations. The RLVM is novel in that it employs non-negative (rectified) latent variables, and is able to be much less restrictive in the mathematical constraints on solutions due to the use an autoencoder neural network to initialize model parameters. We show the RLVM outperforms principal component analysis, factor analysis and independent component analysis across a variety of measures using simulated data. We then apply this model to the 2-photon imaging of hundreds of simultaneously recorded neurons in mouse primary somatosensory cortex during a tactile discrimination task. Across many experiments, the RLVM identifies latent variables related to both the tactile stimulation as well as non-stimulus aspects of the behavioral task, with a majority of activity explained by the latter. These results suggest that properly identifying such latent variables is necessary for a full understanding of sensory cortical function, and demonstrates novel methods for leveraging large population recordings to this end.


In this paper, it is aimed to analyze the linear vibrational behavior of functionally-graded (FG) size-dependent circular nano-plates using the integral form of the non-local strain gradient (NSG) model. The linear axisymmetric vibration of the circular FG nano-plates based on the non-local strain gradient (NSG) model is the focal point of this study. In this regard, the non-local elasticity theory (NET) and strain gradient (SG) models are used in conjunction with Hamilton's principle to obtain the governing equations. Discretization of the obtained governing equations is performed with the help of generalized differential quadrature rule (GDQR) and Galerkin weighted residual method (GWRM). The analysis is focused on the effect of non-local and material parameters, as well as the aspect ratio, heterogeneity index of FG material, different boundary conditions, and frequency number on the overall behavior of nano-plate. On using the Galerkin method, a system of linear differential equations is obtained and solved to determine the natural linear frequencies and mode shapes. The obtained results are then compared with the existing results in the literature. On using the proposed procedure in this paper, the dynamic behavior of nano-plate under different boundary conditions can be well described. In addition, the existing deficiencies in other non-local theories can be eliminated. The results of this investigation can be considered as a turning point in the improvement of theoretical results for achieving a better prediction of vibrational behavior in nanostructures.


The reaction mechanism in the synthesis of diazepines by the action of aliphatic diamines on the pyrone ring, which presents very important pharmacological properties, has been investigated using PM3 and DFT methods. The geometries for reactants, intermediates, transition states and products were completely optimized. All the transition states were verified by the vibrationnal analysis and the intrinsic reaction coordinate calculations. The reactivity of aliphatic diamines on DHA is done by using DFT-based reactivity descriptors. To identify the reactional and selectivity sites of these compounds towards electrophilic and nucleophilic attacks, various global reactivities and Fukui functions (FF) were used to probe the local reactivity and site selectivity. The dual descriptors k f  , k


Every abstract type of a belief-closed type space corresponds to an infinite belief hierarchy. But only finite order of beliefs is necessary for most applications. As we demonstrate, many important insights from recent development in the theory of Bayesian games with higher-order uncertainty involve belief hierarchies of order 2. We start with characterizing order 2 "consistent priors" and show that they form a convex set and contain the convex hull of both the naA¯ve and complete-information type spaces. We establish conditions for private-value heterogeneous naA¯ve priors to be embedded in order-2 consistent priors, so as to retro-fit the Harsanyi doctrine of having nature generate all fundamental uncertainties in a game at the very beginning. We then extend the notion of consistent priors to arbitrary finite order k. We define an abstract belief-closed space to be of order k if it can be mapped via a type morphism into the "canonical representation" of an order-k consistent prior. We show that order-k type spaces are those in which any two types of each player must be either identical implying one of them is redundant or separable by their order (k-1) belief hierarchies. Finite type spaces are always of finite orders. We consider "finite-order projection" or a type space and show that they are finite-order type spaces themselves. The condition of global stability under uncertainty ensures the convergence of the Bayesian-Nash equilibria with the projection type spaces to those with the original type space. By defining a total variation norm based on finite-order projections, we generalize Kajii and Morris's (1997) idea of equilibrium robustness to Bayesian games. We then establish the robustness of Bayesian-Nash equilibria that generalizes the robustness results of Monderer and Samet (1989) for complete-information games. We apply our framework of finite-order type spaces or consistent priors to review several important models in the literature and illustrate some new insights.


Health is the most crucial thing in the life of society, for that in every country must have a responsible institution in that case. Indonesian has an institution in charge of health. BPJS Kesehatan is a social insurance provider body established by the Indonesian government to give health insurance for the society. BPJS Kesehatan is a government-run social security agency that providing health insurance for the society. In accordance with vision of the BPJS Kesehatan that is Coverage Universe 2019, the entire population of Indonesian must have a national health insurance before January 1 2019. Therefore, it is necessary to mapping that can cover the subject, so that BPJS Kesehatan will be easier in prioritizing any regency or city in Indonesia (especially in North Sumatra) have given socialization first. These districts and cities would be informed of the benefits of health care and protection in meeting basic health needs organized by BPJS Kesehatan . Mapping has done using ArcView GIS.


Altering a dual system of education (special and ordinary) in South Africa to an inclusive system requires substantial change in terms of thinking and practice. After almost 20 years of implementing Education White Paper 6 (published by South Africa's Department of Education in 2001), it is very important that theories, assumptions, practices, models, and tools are put under intense scrutiny for such an inclusive policy to work. Such a single system of education should develop the capacity to address barriers to learning if it wants to include all learners into the system. What are the main barriers that deprive learners from access to a single system of education and what changes should take place so that a truly inclusive system can be created? South Africa introduced seven white papers in education but all of them were implemented in ways that were not entirely influenced by the theory and practice of inclusive education. Inclusive education requires the system to change at a structural level so that mainstream education takes ownership of the ideology and practice of inclusive education. This change should bring about consistency in relation to other white papers; for example, curriculum development, early childhood education, and adult education. In implementing inclusive education, South Africa did not take seriously the various barriers to inclusion, such as curriculum, in providing access to learners who experience difficulties. Thus, an in-depth analysis of the history of special education is provided, with a view toward specifying recommendations for attempts to create the right conditions for a truly inclusive system of education in South Africa.


Rationale Atrial fibrillation causes one-fifth of ischemic strokes, with a high risk of early recurrence. Although long-term anticoagulation is highly effective for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation, initiation after stroke is usually delayed by concerns over intracranial hemorrhage risk. Direct oral anticoagulants offer a significantly lower risk of intracranial hemorrhage than other anticoagulants, potentially allowing earlier anticoagulation and prevention of recurrence, but the safety and efficacy of this approach has not been established. Aim Optimal timing of anticoagulation after acute ischemic stroke with atrial fibrillation (OPTIMAS) will investigate whether early treatment with a direct oral anticoagulant, within four days of stroke onset, is as effective or better than delayed initiation, 7 to 14 days from onset, in atrial fibrillation patients with acute ischemic stroke. Methods and design OPTIMAS is a multicenter randomized controlled trial with blinded outcome adjudication. Participants with acute ischemic stroke and atrial fibrillation eligible for anticoagulation with a direct oral anticoagulant are randomized 1:1 to early or delayed initiation. As of December 2021, 88 centers in the United Kingdom have opened. Study outcomes The primary outcome is a composite of recurrent stroke (ischemic stroke or symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage) and systemic arterial embolism within 90 days. Secondary outcomes include major bleeding, functional status, anticoagulant adherence, quality of life, health and social care resource use, and length of hospital stay. Sample size target A total of 3478 participants assuming event rates of 11.5% in the control arm and 8% in the intervention arm, 90% power and 5% alpha. We will follow a non-inferiority gatekeeper analysis approach with a non-inferiority margin of 2 percentage points. Discussion OPTIMAS aims to provide high-quality evidence on the safety and efficacy of early direct oral anticoagulant initiation after atrial fibrillation-associated ischemic stroke. Trial registrations: ISRCTN: 17896007; ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03759938


Cinnamon is used in a variety of cuisines, herbal supplements, teas, and other unique variations. Use of it as a spice dates back thousands of years and is primarily found in the lower regions of Asia in places like Sri Lanka and India. This experiment was designed to examine the effects of cinnamon on visual motor reflexes. It was hypothesized that the longer a participant smelt cinnamon the faster their reflex time would be. Participants were used as an internal control to check their base reflexes when initially unexposed to cinnamon, before repeating the experiment with the smell of cinnamon diffusing through the air. This was recorded using an online computer program provided by Washington University that functions as a click the button test. Participants had to press the button every time they saw a computerized traffic light turn green. We then calculated the changes in visual motor response time in intervals of two minutes for ten minutes. The means and standard deviation of each trial for each participant was calculated through both a calculator and the computer program. Most participants showed similar trends in their results with only a few outliers. Afterwards, the means were compared which revealed a gradual decrease in reflex time and statistically significant data with a P value of 0.0026, which supports our hypothesis that the smell of cinnamon decreases reflex response time. This can support the idea that cinnamon may be utilized in everyday activities to enhance mental abilities and may act as a significant stimulant to prevent drowsy driving. The experiment did not account for reflex acclimation however, which may provide a possible source of error in our data set.


ABSTRACT Even a casual look at the history of the European Union (EU) since its inception in 1957 shows that at numerous junctures through its development the EU (or European Economic Community/European Community [EEC/EC] in its previous incarnations) has been portrayed as being in severe crisis. Of course, the EU continues to exist today, and it is arguably stronger and more integrated than ever. This article focuses on the role of international media coverage in framing certain events as crises and seeks to draw out a pattern across three prominent case studies: the 2003 Iraq crisis; 2005 constitutional crisis; and 2010–12 eurozone crisis. Detailed media content analysis shows that the international media was not just reporting on crises, it was framing challenges and setbacks to EU integration as existential threats. The authors introduce the concept of integrational panic to conceptualize the media's role in potentially contributing to the social construction of EU crises.


Implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions, which involve both technical and social uncertainties, is in practice a highly uncertain, risky endeavour. Traditional ERP practices address implementation of ERP as a static process; such practices focus on structure, not on ERP as something that will meet the needs of a changing organization. As a result, many relevant uncertainties that cannot be predefined are not easily accommodated. Options theory, which addresses uncertainties over time, resolves uncertainties in changing environments that cannot be predefined. In this paper, we propose an options perspective on the ERP implementation process with a focus on uncertainty. This perspective takes into consideration the often-changing nature of the companies that undertake ERP implementations. In addition, we present a practical example that demonstrates how to use options theory in context, enabling active management when implementing ERP. By actively managing ERP implementation, management can improve the flexibility of ERP implementation and can take appropriate actions to respond to the changing ERP implementation environment, to achieve more a successful ERP implementation that better meets the needs of the organization.


Four experiments were conducted to study the effect of media supplements on in-vitro maturation, cleavage and embryo development of buffalo oocytes. In experiment 1, oocytes were cultured in TCM-199+10% fetal calf serum (FCS) and kept at 39o C under 5% CO2 for in-vitro embryo development. In experiment 2, excellent quality oocytes were subjected to TCM-199 enriched with either 10% FCS or estrous buffalo serum (EBS; 20 to 40 pg/ml) and then fertilized using frozen semen in TALP medium containing heparin (0.02 mg/ml) and caffeine (3.89 mg/ml). In experiment 3, oocytes were cultured in-vitro maturation (IVM) medium supplemented or not with 20 IU/ml equine chorionic gonadotropins (eCG). Experiment 4 was carried out to examine the suitable capacitating agent, either heparin or caffeine or both. Excellent and good quality oocytes produced higher (P<0.05) maturation and morula development rates. In-vitro maturation and cleavage rates were significantly higher (P<0.05) in IVM medium plus EBS or eCG. Heparin and caffeine produced significantly (P<0.05) higher embryo developmental rates. In conclusion, excellent quality oocytes cultured with either EBS or eCG and fertilized with buffalo spermatozoa capacitated with heparin and caffeine progressively enhanced developmental competence of buffalo oocytes.


: The electrometric study of the hard dental tissues of patients with chronic inflammatory kidney diseases was carried out. The significant changes in the properties of the hard dental tissues were detected in the patients. The electrometric indicators exceeded the norm in all teeth. The most differences were determined in the fourth teeth (first premolars).


The University of Kentucky College of Dentistry (UKCD) established an implant training program that provides training in the use of a single implant system, evidence-based diagnostic and treatment protocols (standardized work practices), and a total quality management system (Implant Quality Assurance Program). The aim of this study was to assess the programmatic effectiveness of the UKCD implant training program by reporting the success and survival of implants placed, using patient-reported outcomes and comparing them to previously established benchmarks. A total of 415 patients (963 implants) were interviewed, approximately 50 percent of all qualified patients. The implant survival rate was 97 percent, and 88 percent of the implants were considered successful (as determined by patient-centric criteria). These outcomes were consistent with the program's previously established benchmarks of 90 percent. These results suggest that work standardization (in the form of specific treatment protocols) and the use of a formal, incremental learning system can result in positive patient outcomes. Clinical outcomes should be monitored in academic dental settings as part of clinical process improvement, and these outcomes can provide a means of assessing the effectiveness of the training program.


This article presents the design of and some results from a new prospective mortality study of a national cohort of about 50,000 U.S. veterans who were diagnosed as hypertensive in the mid 1970s, based on approximately 21 yr of follow-up. This national cohort is male with an average age at recruitment of 51 ± 12 yr; 35% were black and 81% had been smokers at one time. Because the subjects have been receiving care at various U.S. Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals, access to and quality of medical care are relatively homogeneous. The health endpoints available for analysis include all-cause mortality and specific diagnoses for morbidity during VA hospitalizations; only the mortality results are discussed here. Nonpollution predictor variables in the baseline model include race, smoking (ever or at recruitment), age, systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP), and body mass index (BMI). Interactions of BP and BMI with age were also considered. Although this study essentially controls for socioeconomic status by design because of the homogeneity of the cohort, selected ecological variables were also considered at the ZIP code and county levels, some of which were found to be significant predictors. Pollutants were averaged by year and county for TSP, PM10, CO, O3, and NO2; SO2 and Pb were considered less thoroughly. Both mean and peak levels were considered for gases. SO42 data from the AIRS database and PM2.5, coarse particles, PM15, and SO42 from the U.S. EPA Inhalable Particulate (IP) Network were also considered. Four relevant exposure periods were defined: 1974 and earlier (back to 1953 for TSP), 1975–1981, 1982–1988, and 1989–1996. Deaths during each of the three most recent exposure periods were considered separately, yielding up to 12 combinations of exposure and mortality periods for each pollutant. Associations between concurrent air quality and mortality periods were considered to relate to acute responses; delayed associations with prior exposures were considered to be emblematic of initiation of chronic disease. Preexposure mortality associations were considered to be indirect (noncausal). The implied mortality risks of long-term exposure to air pollution were found to be sensitive to the details of the regression model, the time period of exposure, the locations included, and the inclusion of ecological as well as personal variables. Both positive and negative statistically significant mortality responses were found. Fine particles as measured in the 1979–1984 U.S. EPA Inhalable Particulate Network indicated no significant (positive) excess mortality risk for this cohort in any of the models considered. Among the positive responses, indications of concurrent mortality risks were seen for NO2 and peak O3, with a similar indication of delayed risks only for NO2. The mean levels of these excess risks were in the range of 5–9%;. Peak O3 was dominant in two-pollutant models and there was some indication of a threshold in response. However, it is likely that standard errors of the regression coefficients may have been underestimated because of spatial autocorrelation among the model residuals. The significant variability of responses by period of death cohort suggests that aggregation over the entire period of follow-up obscures important aspects of the implied pollution–mortality relationships, such as early depletion of the available pool of those subjects who may be most susceptible to air pollution effects.


Small turbojet engines represent a special class of turbine driven engines. They are suitable for scientific purposes and research of certain thermodynamic processes ongoing in turbojet engines. Moreover such engines can be used for research in the area of alternative fuels and new methods of digital control and measurement. Our research, which is also presented in this article, is headed toward these aims. We evaluate and propose a system of digital measurement of a particular small turbojet engine – MPM 20. Such engine can be considered as highly non-linear large scale system. According to obtained data and experiments we propose different approaches to modeling of the engine with use of analytic experimental and certain methods of artificial intelligence as new methods of modeling of large scale systems.


This research discusses the influence of the degree of fit between an organization's CSR activities and its business practices on the media coverage of CSR. Businesses' role in society nowadays clearly goes beyond a simple economic responsibility and also includes a social and environmental aspect. Communicating this new role to the public organizations may encounter counterproductive effects. While stakeholders would like to know more about the organizations' CSR activities, "too much effort to create awareness can have a boomerang effect as stakeholders become cynical and skeptical" (Coombs & Holladay, 2012, p. 111) and CSR activities can lead to legitimacy destruction when one or several external stakeholders perceive these activities as window-dressing. Here, the media are a central actor, because they clearly codetermine the public discourse on CSR (Zhang & Swanson, 2006; Wang, 2007). They are not only a channel which organizations use to communicate to the public but also an independent monitor of organizations' activities representing the public's interest (Zhang & Swanson, 2006).
 In face of these possible obstacles and the central role the media play in the public discourse on CSR (Buhr & Grafstrom, 2006; Wang, 2007; Zhang & Swanson, 2006), internal CSR fit seems to be an interesting concept, because it focuses on the relevance of CSR in terms of the organizations' core business (Yuan et al., 2011). Since past research indicates a significant effect of internal CSR fit on the public perception (Becker-Olsen, Cudmore & Hill, 2006; Bloom, Hoeffler, Keller & Meza, 2006; Drumwright, 1996; Ellen, Mohr, & Webb, 2000; Elving, 2012) and the media, as independent monitor of organizational activities (Zhang & Swanson, 2006), have a great responsibility in informing the public in an adequate way, it is expected that internal CSR fit would influence the way in which the media present organizations and their CSR activities.
 513 news articles on organizations' CSR activities from newspapers and magazines were investigated via two different studies. First, an expert review of the fit between the CSR initiatives presented in the news articles and the core business of the organizations pursuing these initiatives was conducted. Second, a quantitative content analysis measured the tone of voice and framing of the media coverage. The statistical analysis, which combined the results from the two studies, revealed that the relationship between internal CSR fit and the presentation of organizations and their CSR in the media is rather weak. While internal CSR fit does not impact the tone of voice of the media coverage, it weakly predicts the framing in the news articles. In addition, there are single influences of internal CSR fit found on separate aspects of the frames applied in the media. The identified impacts are statistically weak and point in two opposite directions with some pledging for a positive and the others pledging for a negative influence of a high degree of internal CSR fit. Since the negative impacts slightly outweigh the positive impacts it might be concluded that high internal CSR fit has a weak, negative influence on the framing of the media coverage. However, one has to consider that whether there is a positive or negative impact depends on which specific aspects of the framing is considered, because for some CSR frame variables there was also found a positive impact. This weak relationship between internal CSR fit and media coverage offers two options for future research: looking for different CSR related factors that may impact media coverage or investigating the weak relationships identified more closely. Moreover, taking a more open approach future research may seek to identify the meaning of internal CSR fit to journalists and how they perceive their role in the public discourse on CSR. In addition, exploring possible interaction effects of internal CSR fit and media coverage on the public perception may also be a valuable direction for future research.
 Finally, adopting the theoretical insights derived from this research to the practice organizations are advised to engage in CSR, no matter whether deeply integrated into their core operations or in a superficial way. Since the perception of CSR in the media seems to be mainly positive, simply pursuing CSR can be expected to increase the likelihood of positive media coverage. Furthermore, the media should increase the transparency of their reporting in order to deliver the public an unbiased picture of the state of CSR and imply a more critical public discourse on this prominent topic. A good way to foster such critical perspectives among media professionals – and therefore also a more critical public perception – would be a form of CSR education for this specific target group.


In this paper, we focus on the strategic role of corporate venture financing by a corporation in securing own demand. When the headquarter finances the venture through the corporate venture capitalist, he commits himself to compensate the venture for the effort to increase the complementarity between its product and the headquarter's product. The headquarter therefore faces the following trade-off: either be more aggressive ex post in the product market (by undercutting more its rivals) or use corporate venture financing to affect the venture's product innovation outcome to weaken ex post competition with substitute products. This allows him to secure demand for his own product.


Mountainous areas of Switzerland are exposed to complex natural conditions, which combined with climate changes cause a variety of natural hazards. Rockfall is one of these hazards, and the risk associated with it tends to increase in recent years. The roads below the Lopper cliff at the shore of Lake Lucerne lead through one of these endangered areas. The roads are closed for traffic, following a rockfall incident in October 2009. Some rockfall protection galleries at the Lopper, which were built during 1979-1981, are subjected to a structural evaluation to allow for decisions on their further use. The current work covers estimation of the impact load carrying capacity of one of these galleries. The gallery analyzed is a cantilever pre-stressed concrete slab with variable thickness, covered by a cushion layer of soil. The behavior of the gallery is examined using finite element analyses as well as an analytical model based on a System of Multiple Degrees of Freedom (SMDF) method. The evaluation has shown that for the chosen loading case based on trajectory analyses with return periods of 30 years, the load carrying capacity of the gallery is satisfactory. However, for extreme rockfalls with return periods of 100 years, a local (punching) failure as well as a global (bending) failure can happen given that a critical section is hit


The magnetic chemically peculiar (mCP) stars of the upper main sequence exhibit strong, globally organized magnetic fields that are inclined to the rotational axis and facilitate the development of surface abundance inhomogeneities resulting in photometric and spectroscopic variability. Therefore, mCP stars are perfectly suited for a direct measurement of the rotational period without the need for any additional calibrations. We have investigated the rotational properties of mCP stars based on an unprecedentedly large sample consisting of more than 500 objects with known rotational periods. Using precise parallaxes from the Hipparcos and Gaia satellite missions, well-established photometric calibrations and state-of-the-art evolutionary models, we have determined the location of our sample stars in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and derived astrophysical parameters such as stellar masses, effective temperature, radii, inclinations and critical rotational velocities. We have confirmed the conservation of angular momentum during the main sequence evolution; no signs of additional magnetic braking were found. The inclination angles of the rotational axes are randomly distributed, although an apparent excess of fast rotators with comparable inclination angles has been observed. We have found a rotation rate of upsilon/upsilon(crit) >= 0.5 for several stars, whose characteristics cannot be explained by current models. For the first time, we have derived the relationship between mass and rotation rate of mCP stars, and provide an analysis that links mass and rotation with magnetic field strength. Our sample is unique and offers crucial input for forthcoming evolutionary models that include the effects of magnetic fields for upper main sequence stars.


Objective: We aimed to evaluate if the course of dyspepsia is influenced by medical consultation in primary care. Design, Setting and Patients: Australian general practitioners (n = 27) recruited 157 dyspeptic patients, of whom 94 were eligible for follow-up. Dyspepsia, comorbidity, quality of life, emotional status, locus of control and consultation satisfaction were measured at baseline and follow-up (mean 3 months). Main Outcome Measure: Response was defined as improvement of dyspepsia over time on the Nepean Dyspepsia Index score. Results: Dyspepsia improved in 82% (n = 77). There was no significant change in non-gastrointestinal symptoms. Half were worried or stressed by their symptoms, and 85% wanted reassurance, a need that (univariately) differentiated responders from non-responders (p = 0.02). Most patients seen in primary care with dyspepsia improved. If the doctor believed it was likely that the patient would follow their recommendations, the patient was nearly five times as likely to be a responder (OR 4.9, 95% CI 1.2–19.0). The only other significant predictor was acid suppression therapy (OR 3.5, 95% CI 1.1–10.9). Conclusion: Most primary care visits for dyspepsia are followed by improvement, which may be predicted in part by indicators of patient compliance. Prescription of acid suppression therapy may also improve outcome in dyspepsia.


Soft starters have been widely used in fans and pumps drives. It is difficult to start high-power heavy-duty induction motor for traditional soft starter. To solve the problem of soft starter for large power and heavy load in conventional soft starters, the soft starter based the theory of discrete frequency is studied in this paper, which can make motor start with high torque and little current. Using discrete frequency makes the start frequency of motor from 5.25Hz to 50Hz step by step, which can make start torque larger. This paper presents a method of the calculation of optimal triggering angle which can make the torque be the biggest and positive was produced. The simulation waveform by MATLAB is similar to the real waveform by experiment. Control hardware circuit is simple and dependable. The experiment of the high torque soft starter which has a DSP as microcomputer is completed. The experimental results show that discrete frequency soft starter can start motor smoothly with high starting torque and small starting current. The advantages of discrete frequency soft starting proposed in this paper are stable start process, simple structure, low starting current and high starting torque. The result of load test is identical that conforms the theory is correct and valid.


The self-supervised pretraining paradigm has achieved great success in skeleton-based action recognition. However, these methods treat the motion and static parts equally, and lack an adaptive design for different parts, which has a negative impact on the accuracy of action recognition. To realize the adaptive action modeling of both parts, we propose an Actionlet-Dependent Contrastive Learning method (ActCLR). The actionlet, defined as the discriminative subset of the human skeleton, effectively decomposes motion regions for better action modeling. In detail, by contrasting with the static anchor without motion, we extract the motion region of the skeleton data, which serves as the actionlet, in an unsupervised manner. Then, centering on actionlet, a motion-adaptive data transformation method is built. Different data transformations are applied to action let and non-actionlet regions to introduce more diversity while maintaining their own characteristics. Meanwhile, we propose a semantic-aware feature pooling method to build feature representations among motion and static regions in a distinguished manner. Extensive experiments on NTU RGB+D and PKUMMD show that the proposed method achieves remarkable action recognition performance. More visualization and quantitative experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. Our project website is available at https://langlandslin.github.io/projects/ActCLR/


We report results of a search for the lepton-family number violating decay K+-->pi(+)&mgr;(+)e(-) from data collected by experiment E865 in 1996 at the Alternating Gradient Synchroton of Brookhaven National Laboratory. We place an upper limit on the branching ratio at 3.9x10(-11) ( 90% C.L.). Together with results based on data collected in 1995 and an earlier experiment, E777, this result establishes a combined 90% confidence level upper limit on the branching ratio at 2.8x10(-11). We also report a new upper limit on the branching ratio for pi(0)-->&mgr;(+)e(-) of 3.8x10(-10) ( 90% C. L.).


Coupling the hemodynamics with the pathophysiology of human intracranial aneurysm (IA) has been a subject of interest for eventually obtaining the reliable prediction of subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by aneurysm rupture. In recent works, the stability of flow patterns, regions of impingement, size of jets, wall shear stress (WSS), and the formation of vortices are considered to be the major causes of aneurysm rupture. A trending conclusion from the qualitative analysis of patient-specific cases is that aneurysms with simple stable flow patterns and large impingement region are safer than those with complex unstable flow pattern and small impingement region. When it comes to clinic, some physical experiments such as the testing of medical devices could not be operated on human body. Thus, preclinical animal models are introduced as surrogates. In the study of human IA, the most commonly used elastase-induced rabbit model has been found that it could only generate limited flow pattern due to the unrealistic retrograde flow condition inside the aneurysm. A novel method of creating bifurcation-like rabbit model for limiting retrograde flow was proposed recently and two new bifurcation-like rabbit aneurysms with different geometry were created in Mayo clinic. However, only the performance of the one with relative generalized geometry was testified. In this paper, the other novel bifurcation-like rabbit aneurysm model with irregular long sac was investigated and its hemodynamics performance has been extensively evaluated by using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) method. The methodology of creating this rabbit aneurysm model, the construction of geometric model in the computer and the setting of boundary conditions will be described in detail. The robustness of this rabbit model has also been investigated by modifying the essential geometric variables of the model. Additionally, quantitative analysis of flow pattern changes was given as supplement for the robustness study. The result showed that this rabbit model with irregular long sac is capable of generating interest-relevant flow types and robust enough under geometric perturbation. It could serve as an extra evidence that the novel bifurcation-like rabbit model is powerful and robust enough for extrapolating results of animal experiments into human study.


International Relations theories colour modern approaches to political history and, hence, to classical studies. Since the Second World War, Realism and Neorealism have been amongst the most pervasive, portraying the international process as something inherently anarchical and self-interested, animated by acontextual variables of power and security. But such approaches leave little room for social, cultural, and ideational variables in the international process; and we know that Greek culture, like others, exerted a powerful influence in the social, political, and economic spheres.

This thesis accordingly uses a more recent IR paradigm, Social Constructivism, to challenge Realism, by accounting for things like rational choice and the role of ideas. It specifically appraises the period of Greek history marked by its early engagements with Rome (217-199), in order to explore the roles of Greek ideas, identities, and agents in animating interstate behaviour. Through this lens, it can be argued that the Greeks' conceptions of interest, whether we deem them to have been upright or cynical, were shaped as much by human variables as by structural ones. Ideas like Panhellenism, barbarism, and the freedom of the Greeks galvanised interstate action; and they militated Greek poleis, federal states, Hellenistic kings, and, later, Roman commanders towards acting (or wishing to be seen as acting) in accordance with popular conceptions of the 'Hellenic' interest.


The vertical component of earthquake ground motion has generally been neglected in the earthquake-resistant design of structures. This is gradually changing due to the increase in near-source records obtained recently, coupled with field observations confirming the possible destructive effect of high vertical vibrations. In this paper, simple procedures are suggested for assessing the significance of vertical ground motion, indicating when it should be included in the determination of seismic actions on buildings. Proposals are made for the calculation of elastic and inelastic vertical periods of vibration incorporating the effects of vertical and horizontal motion amplitude and the cross-coupling between the two vibration periods. Simplified analysis may then be used to evaluate realistic vertical forces by employing the vertical period of vibration with pertinent spectra without resorting to inelastic dynamic analysis. Finally, a procedure is suggested for combining vertical and horizontal seismic action effects which accounts for the likelihood of coincidence, or otherwise, of peak response in the two directions.


This review presents various hole transport layers (HTLs) employed in perovskite solar cells (PSCs) in pursuing high power conversion efficiency (PCE) and functional stability. The PSCs have achieved high PCE (over 23%, certified by NREL) and more efforts have been devoted into research for stability enhancement. Inorganic HTLs become a popular choice as selective contact materials because of their intrinsic chemical stability and low cost. HTLs and electron transport layers (ETLs) are critical components of PSCs due to the requirement to create charge collection selectivity. Herein the authors provide an overview on inorganic HTLs synthesis, properties, and their application in various PSCs for both mesoporous and planar architectures. Inorganic HTLs with appropriate properties, such as proper energy level and high carrier mobility, can not only assist with charge transport, but also improve the stability of PSCs under ambient conditions. The importance of interfacial chemistry and interfacial charge transport is further addressed to understand the underlying mechanism of related degradation and carrier dynamic. It is expected that the success of the inorganic HTL in PSCs can stimulate further research and bring real impact for future photovoltaic technologies.


Modern cars consist of a number of complex embedded and networked systems with steadily increasing requirements in terms of processing and communication resources. Novel automotive applications, such as automated driving, rise new needs and novel design challenges that cover a broad range of hardware/software engineering aspects. In this context, this paper provides an overview of the current technological challenges in on-board and networked automotive systems. This paper encompasses both the state-of-the-art design strategies and the upcoming hardware/software solutions for the next generation of automotive systems, with a special focus on embedded and networked technologies. In particular, this paper surveys current solutions and future trends on models and languages for automotive software development, on-board computational platforms, in-car network architectures and communication protocols, and novel design strategies for cybersecurity and functional safety.


The prognosis for bile duct carcinoma in dogs is generally believed to be poor. However, only a few studies have evaluated the postoperative outcomes in such cases. The objective of this case series was to describe the postoperative outcomes of localized intrahepatic bile duct carcinoma in dogs. The electronic medical records of 16 dogs with bile duct carcinoma were reviewed, and 6 dogs were included in the study. All cases were diagnosed as bile duct carcinoma using postoperative pathology, and five of them had already been diagnosed using preoperative core biopsy. The tumors in all of the dogs were confirmed as completely resected on histopathological examination. Two dogs received toceranib following the surgery. The median follow-up time was 693 days (range, 420-1386 days), with a median survival time of 894 days (range, 420-1386 days). Local recurrence or distant metastases were detected in two of the six dogs (33%) on 354 and 398 days following surgery, respectively. The median progression-free survival was 492 days (range, 354-1386 days). In conclusion, dogs with localized intrahepatic bile duct carcinoma had a good prognosis following complete surgical resection.


Feline rotavirus was detected by electron microscopy in the faecal samples of a cat, and was propagated in an established cell line of foetal rhesus monkey kidney, MA104, cell cultures. Morphologically, feline rotavirus was indistinguishable from known rotaviruses. Complete particles showed a characteristic "spoke-like' arrangement of inner capsomers surrounded by an outer layer. Intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies in different sizes and shapes were produced in infected MA104 cells. Reproducible clear-cut plaques were produced by feline rotavirus in MA104 cells under the overlay of carboxymethylcellulose in the presence of trypsin. Feline rotavirus was distinct from human, canine, bovine, porcine and simian rotaviruses by the plaque reduction neutralization test. Feline rotavirus, like canine and simian rotaviruses, was found to be less dependent upon trypsin than human, bovine, porcine, chicken and turkey rotaviruses. A seroepidemiological survey (September 1979 to August 1980) showed that 20 out of 61 (32.8%) randomly sampled hospitalized cats at the Cornell Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Ithaca, New York had antibody titres against feline rotavirus. Oral inoculation of cats with feline rotavirus did not produce any clinical disease, but most cats did mount an immune response to the virus following inoculation.


Vertically aligned ZnO nanorod arrays on a fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate were uniformly coated with visible light active CuInS2 nanoparticles using electrodeposition regulated by using an optimized frequency. As the diffusion of the fresh metallic precursor to the bottom of the one-dimensional nanostructure is the major challenge during electrodeposition, frequency tuning has demonstrated its effectiveness in balancing the diffusion and deposition of the secondary component (CuInS2) on the one-dimensional substrate (ZnO). The high quality of the heterojunction between CuInS2 and ZnO together with their intimate interaction facilitated efficient charge shuttling from CuInS2 to ZnO to yield a four-fold visible light response compared with traditionally synthesized CuInS2–ZnO nanostructures.


This is one of the first studies to evaluate the impact of personalized learning delivered through technology in a developing country. We randomly assigned 1,528 students in grades 6-8 in 15 "model" public schools who were using a computer-adaptive learning software to: (a) a control group, in which they were only able to access the activities for their enrolled grade level (i.e., the norm for most software products evaluated in developing countries); or (b) a treatment group, in which they were assigned exercises appropriate for their individual preparation level, across a wide range of grade levels, based on a diagnostic test. After nine months, personalized learning had a null effect on the math achievement of the average student. However, treatment students with low initial performance outperformed their control counterparts by 0.22 standard deviations. Our results suggest that personalized learning is most beneficial for relatively low-performing students, who need help to catch up with their peers. JEL codes: C93, I21, I22, I25


We illustrate the value to shareholders when closed-end funds re-purchase shares at a discount from net asset value. Repurchases increase share price even when there is no asymmetric information concerning the value of the underlying assets and the percentage discount remains unchanged following the repurchase. Expected gains to shareholders are derived from capturing the discount on the assets associated with the shares re-purchased. In an analysis of 27 open market repurchase an-nouncements by closed-end funds, the regression coefficien estimate that measures the association be-tween the actual excess return and the expected increase in share price is essentially 1.0.


Special Sensor Microwave /Imager (SSM/I) observations in cloud systems are studied over the tropics. Over optically thick cloud systems, presence of polarized signatures at 37 and 85 GHz is evidenced and analyzed with the help of cloud top temperature and optical thickness extracted from visible and IR satellite observations. Scattering signatures at 85 GHz (TbV(85) less than or = 250 K) are associated with polarization differences greater than or = 6 K, approx. 50%, of the time over ocean and approx. 40% over land. In addition. over thick clouds the polarization difference at 37 GHz is rarely negligible. The polarization differences at 37 and 85 GHz do not stem from the surface but are generated in regions of relatively homogeneous clouds having high liquid water content. To interpret the observations, a radiative transfer model that includes the scattering by non-spherical particles is developed. based on the T-matrix approach and using the doubling and adding method. In addition to handling randomly and perfectly oriented particles, this model can also simulate the effect of partial orientation of the hydrometeors. Microwave brightness temperatures are simulated at SSM/I frequencies and are compared with the observations. Polarization differences of approx. 2 K can be simulated at 37 GHz over a rain layer, even using spherical drops. The polarization difference is larger for oriented non-spherical particles. The 85 GHz simulations are very sensitive to the ice phase of the cloud. Simulations with spherical particles or with randomly oriented non-spherical ice particles cannot replicate the observed polarization differences. However, with partially oriented non-spherical particles, the observed polarized signatures at 85 GHz are explained, and the sensitivity of the scattering characteristics to the particle size, asphericity, and orientation is analyzed. Implications on rain and ice retrievals are discussed.


In this study, the control methods of a semi-active magneto-rheological (MR) suspension system for an armoured military vehicle were compared. System modelling and testing procedures were described and then control algorithms were tested and observed on a quarter car test setup, this setup was modified from passive to semi-active system. For tests and simulations, a special off-road profile was formed. This profile was formed depending on the standard military test courses and terrains. During the observation, control ability and personnel comfort were observed as main subjects. Finally, depending on the test results, displacements, accelerations and their effects on subsystems were compared and construed as advantages and disadvantages.


In this work, we develop a pair of rate-diverse encoder and decoder for a two-user Gaussian multiple access channel (GMAC). The proposed scheme enables the users to transmit with the same codeword length but different coding rates under diverse user channel conditions. First, we propose the row-combining (RC) method and row-extending (RE) method to design practical low-density parity-check (LDPC) channel codes for rate-diverse GMAC. Second, we develop an iterative rate-diverse joint user messages decoding (RDJD) algorithm for GMAC, where all user messages are decoded with a single parity-check matrix. In contrast to the conventional network-coded multiple access (NCMA) and compute-forward multiple access (CFMA) schemes that first recover a linear combination of the transmitted codewords and then decode both user messages, this work can decode both the user messages simultaneously. Extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) chart analysis and simulation results indicate that RDJD can achieve gains up to 1.0 dB over NCMA and CFMA in the two-user GMAC. In particular, we show that there exists an optimal rate allocation for the two users to achieve the best decoding performance given the channel conditions and sum rate.


Fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic can be used for efficient data mining, classification, and value prediction. We propose a genetically evolved fuzzy predictor to estimate the output of a Photovoltaic Power Plant. Photovoltaic Power Plants (PVPPs) are classified as power energy sources with unstable supply of electrical energy. It is necessary to back up power energy from PVPPs for stable electric network operation. An optimal value of back up power can be set with reliable prediction models and significantly contribute to the robustness of the electric network and therefore help in the building of intelligent power grids.


Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a fundamental mechanism that enables organisms such as bacteria to directly transfer genetic material between distant species. This way, bacteria can acquire new traits such as antibiotic resistance or pathogenic toxins. Current bioinfor-matics approaches focus on the detection of past HGT events by exploring phylogenetic trees or genome composition inconsistencies. However, this normally requires the availability of finished and fully annotated genomes and of sufficiently large deviations that allow detection. Thus, these techniques are not widely applicable. Especially in an outbreak scenario where new HGT mediated pathogens emerge, there is need for fast and precise HGT detection. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies can facilitate swift analysis of unknown pathogens but, to the best of our knowledge, so far no approach uses NGS data directly to detect HGTs. We present Daisy, a novel mapping-based tool for HGT detection directly from NGS data. Daisy determines HGT boundaries with split-read mapping and evaluates candidate regions relying on read pair and coverage information. Daisy can successfully detect HGT regions with base pair resolution in both simulated and real data, and outperforms alternative approaches using a genome assembly of the reads. We see our approach as a powerful complement for a comprehensive analysis of HGT in the context of NGS data. Daisy is freely available from http://github.com/ktrappe/daisy.