In recent years much has been written in non-Adventist and non-clergy literature concerning role conflict and role ambiguity. Adventist perceptions of role and the importance Adventists attribute to such roles in ministry may differ from the perceptions of non- Adventist clergy and writers. Hence, a specific study of Adventist clergy was necessary to determine if such a problem exists in Adventism and if the conclusions of other studies are applicable in an Adventist context. It was proposed that an evaluation of the current status of Adventist clergy in the North Pacific Union Conference (NPUC) regarding role function and performance would indicate much 1 2 frustration, conflict, and ambiguity which is detrimental to the work of pastoral ministry. This project investigated, defined, and determined the sources and extent of role conflict and ambiguity experienced by pastors in the NPUC. It was discovered that role conflict and ambiguity are present in the working force of the NPUC and that serious consequences are engendered by the inherent dangers of role stress. Pastors exposed to excessive role strain experience such dysfunctional symptoms as tension, anxiety, depression, psychosomatic disease, alienation, communication breakdown, loss of integrity, and sexual attractions and involvements. Beyond the emotional/psychological consequences, several organizational consequences are evident such as: lower levels of productivity, job dissatisfaction, a sense of job threat, a propensity to leave employment, suspicion toward administration, high levels of turnover, and less job involvement. Person variables were found to moderate the degree to which role problems create such consequences. The most significant sources of role conflict appear to be the discrepancies that exist between: (1) The expectations that congregations have of pastors and the expectations held by administrators, (2) The actual expectations administrators have of pastors and the pastor's perception of administrative expectations. Although the problem is serious, it is not hopeless. The findings reveal that pastors must be proactive in minimizing role stress. Several self-help strategies appear useful: negotiating responsibilities and expectations with role senders, avoiding withdrawal behaviors, checking out perceptions to verify whether 3 conflict is legitimate or merely inaccurate perceptions, pursuing pastoral services, physical exercise, systematic relaxation exercises, and thought-stopping procedures. Further, the theological perspective was investigated in terms of the ministry of Jesus Christ and His response to conflicting expectations and strain inherent to ministry.


The success of the satellite subsystems engineering depends on the optimal design, modeling, simulation, and validation of the deliverables of the conceptual and mission design objectives. This paper presents the operational times analysis of the thermal control subsystem onboard a 97-kg microsatellite in low-Earth orbit during an eclipse period. Power-storing, communication downlink and uplink, payload processing, and thermal control overpower modes were implemented for a communication mission under worst-case orbital patterns. An embedded digital temperature and lighting controller circuitry was designed and practically validated to effect a desired logic. For an average eclipse period of 34.4 mins, the operational times of the thermal subsystem at altitudes of 400 km, 500 km, and 600 km are 38.6 mins, 38.1 mins, and 37.7 mins respectively. Moreover, the thermal control subsystem simulation reveals that reducing the operational times of non-thermal control subsystems during the eclipse period by 50 % can result in an operational factor of safety of over 1.5. At least 10 dB data link transmission margin can be achieved. The reported findings show that the operational times of spacecraft subsystems overpower modes can be reconfigured in orbit to reliably sustain the operating conditions of the capability-based satellite components for ubiquitous communication. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l.. This article is open access published under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).


This study investigates the motivation as the social needs motivator to the employee performance, a case of private schools in Tanzania. Specifically, the basic aim is to
identify social needs available in the Private Schools in Tanzania which influence employee performance, analyze factors which determine provision of social needs
motivation and assess the contribution of social needs to employee performance. It has been a descriptive and analytical study conducted at the Genesis International
School, Academic International School and Dar es Salaam International School.The sample consisted of 122participants. Purposive sampling has been used as a technique to obtain the data. The study as well employed a qualitative, case study
research design, using interviews, observation and documentary review. The
analyzed and collected data was subjected to content analysis. Examining research
findings of the study revealed that, poor performance has been caused by a several
factors like, poor and of education among employee, poor health services, as well as
poor housing/shelter among employees. The study found out that the Management
members had lacked knowledge of the effects of the social motivation in the
organization. Therefore, it came to myconclusion that lack of education and poverty
was a major cause of poor performance of the employee at the Private Schools in
Tanzania.To examine the situation of poor performance at the Genesis International
School, Academic International School and Dare es Salaam International School, it
was recommended that members of the organization should be educated on how
various skills which are special for their fieldcan help them to perform their work
without forgetting the entrepreneurial skills.


Introduction: Introducing how digital innovation in healthcare system has changed the lifestyle. The important goals of innovating the healthcare system digitally are to simplify physicians' work, improving patient outcomes, reducing human error, and lowering costs through amazing web and mobile experiences. Innovation is the change made in an existing product or idea or field. It is the introduction of something new from the old one. In a number of nations around the world, digital health innovation is at the heart of attempts to modernize health care. Despite some evidence of influence on quality and efficiency, its implementation in practice has been described as a plague of pilots, with innovations failing to become standard practice because to a lack of money or the inability to expand to other parts of the health-care system. Despite the growing quantity of information about the elements that underpin success and failure, translating evidence into practice remains a difficulty. Conclusion: Digital innovation van takes the health care system to different level where patients can be treated conveniently. These findings and recommendations might be reflected on by health care systems and stakeholders around the world to examine their utility in furthering local health innovation agendas. Evaluations of digital health innovations should focus on understanding the characteristics that impact adoption of a specific innovation, in order to promote the development beyond the pilot stage to broader adoption, in order to support policy efforts.


Direct measurement of the forces experienced by micro-spheres in an acoustic standing wave device have been obtained using calibrated optical traps generated with holographic optical tweezers. A micro-sphere, which is optically trapped in three dimensions, can be moved through the acoustic device to measure forces acting upon it. When the micro-sphere is subjected to acoustic forces, it's equilibrium position is displaced to a position where the acoustic forces and optical forces are balanced. Once the optical trapping stiffness has been calibrated, observation of this displacement enables a direct measurement of the forces acting upon the micro-sphere. The measured forces are separated into a spatially oscillating component, attributed to the acoustic radiation force, and a constant force, attributed to fluid streaming. As the drive conditions of the acoustic device were varied, oscillating forces (>2.5 pN pp ) and streaming forces (<0.2 pN) were measured. A 5 μm silica micro-sphere was used to characterise a 6.8 MHz standing wave, λ = 220 μm, to a spatial resolution limited by the uncertainty in the positioning of the micro-sphere (here to within 2 nm) and with a force resolution on the order of 10 fN. The results have application in the design and testing of acoustic manipulation devices.


Purpose: In the face of constant and rapid development achieving a work–life balance requires highly qualified and motivated professionals who can deal with stress and the demands of the future. In response, by facilitating school- and work-based learning, upper secondary vocational education and training (VET) prepares and qualifies adolescents for professional practice. In relation to VET, two fundamental salutogenic concepts can explain how humans cope with stressful and demanding situations: Sense of coherence (SOC), which entails comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness, and general resistance resources (GRRs), theorised as resources within individuals themselves (i.e., internal) and/or in their surroundings (i.e., external). Against that background, in our study we aimed to identify and explore which GRRs contribute to SOC among apprentices in VET and how they influence work-based learning. Methods: Data were collected from 11 VET student in Norway at three time points—at interviews during their final semester of school-based learning (i.e., spring 2020), at interviews during their work-based learning (i.e., spring 2022) and, for register data, following their completion of trade certificates (i.e., autumn 2022). The students' experiences of work-based learning as apprentices formed the basis of this study's analysis. The stepwise deductive–inductive method was used to generate and analyse the data. Findings: The apprentices' GRRs emerged in emotional, cognitive, physical, professional, social, relational, material and cultural dimensions. Identification and utilisation of GRRs were both individually and socially conditioned. The apprentices were able to identify, both consciously and unconsciously, internal GRRs to further identify external GRRs, and vice versa. Each identified GRR appeared to affect at least one, if not all, of the three components of SOC. Conclusion: Salutogenic VET can provide personal, social, environmental and physical resources (i.e., GRRs) that ensure coherent learning experiences. For that reason, by supporting VET students in identifying GRRs, teachers and supervisors can promote their SOC and work-based learning and thereby prepare them to be highly qualified and motivated professionals.


This thesis discusses an experimental study whose aim was to find out whether English pronunciation teaching can be improved in Thai schools, where English has recently been introduced at the primary level. The main study was first underpinned by a baseline study conducted to confirm the low level of achievement in English phonology in Thailand. Data were collected from a relatively small cross-section of Thai English learners (34 in total) from three levels: beginning (primary school), intermediate (secondary school), and advanced (university, both English majors and non-English majors). The results from the baseline study helped guide the direction of the experimental study. Results revealed that all across-levels, Thai learners share similar problems in English pronunciation including 1) mispronouncing the clusters in English either in initial or final position; 2) not pronouncing the final sound of English words; and 3) misstressing disyllabic and multi-syllabic English words. These non- target pronunciations lead to undesirable unintelligibity (Kenworthy, 1978). The thesis next considers the reasons for such problems and the conclusion is that this is due to the variety of English Thai learners are exposed to, that is from Thai teachers whose accents deviate from native English speakers (see Young-Scholten, 1995).How pronunciation is dealt with in Thailand inspired the main study. The experiment exposed two groups of learners to two types of English language lessons presented on tape, with voices of English native speakers the same age as the Thai learners. One type of lesson involved only primary linguistic input, similar to how a language is naturally learned (through interaction with English native speakers) and the other added awareness raising to this. Both lessons minimized the use of Thai. The content of the lessons was based on English syllable structure and primary stress and included 60 English words from the Thai national curriculum. These lessons were implemented with two different groups of 23 and 27 Thai first year primary school learners not yet exposed to English. The idea of investigating young learners was based on the grounds that the introduction of English to Thai learners has recently shifted to primary school. As a control group, a class of 30 learners who were the same age and at the same class level was selected to represent those who were learning English in Thai school fashion. Each experimental group had a 20-25 minute lesson every day for four weeks with the experimenter after a pre-test was administered. A control group who were learning English from Thai teachers received five to ten minutes of additional general tuition a day. Production test results from an immediate post-test and a one-month delayed post-test indicated the experimental groups performed significantly better on English syllable structure and stress than the control group. The errors produced showed the experimental group learners were similar in development to how first language learners of English acquire their native language and also closer to approximating the target language when compared with the control group. The study showed that both types of lessons using recorded native speakers input for the development of English phonology seemed to work equally well with young Thai learners. This indicates that pronunciation teaching for Thai learners can straightforwardly be improved. The large-scale development of lessons is recommended where the primary source of language input is from recordings from native speakers similar to those implemented with the two experimental groups.


Atherosclerosis is epidemic in our community. Symptomatic peripheral arterial disease affects five to seven per cent of the population by retiring age. The major risk factors are smoking, high blood lipids and diabetes. A clinical history and examination of the peripheral pulses will precisely define the atherosclerotic occlusive lesions. Arteriography is only used as a preoperative measure in those patients requiring reconstructive vascular surgery.


Transient cortical blindness after coronary angiography or angioplasty is a rare complication. Patients with aortocoronary bypass grafts such as internal mammary artery have a seperate risk factor probably because of the direct contrast injection to the vertebral artery during the catheterisation of the internal mammary artery ostium. In most cases, computed tomography scan revealed typical, symmetrical contrast enhancement in both occipital lobes Nevertheless, transient cortical blindness can be seen after coronary angiography without contrast enhancement at computed tomography scan.


Sponsored search is one of the enabling technologies for today's Web search engines. It corresponds to matching and showing ads related to the user query on the search engine results page. Users are likely to click on topically related ads and the advertisers pay only when a user clicks on their ad. Hence, it is important to be able to predict if an ad is likely to be clicked, and maximize the number of clicks. We investigate the sponsored search problem from a machine learning perspective with respect to three main sub-problems: how to use click data for training and evaluation, which learning framework is more suitable for the task, and which features are useful for existing models. We perform a large scale evaluation based on data from a commercial Web search engine. Results show that it is possible to learn and evaluate directly and exclusively on click data encoding pairwise preferences following simple and conservative assumptions. We find that online multilayer perceptron learning, based on a small set of features representing content similarity of different kinds, significantly outperforms an information retrieval baseline and other learning models, providing a suitable framework for the sponsored search task.


Abstract An investigation into the prospects for including political talks in the cross-strait dialogue enables a better assessment of cross-strait relations. China's push for political talks and Taiwan's resistance to them imply that their political positions on the fundamental issues of sovereignty and 'living space' for Taiwan remain unchanged. Considering Taiwan's complex domestic political scenario, which is largely against unification with Mainland China, the likelihood of Taiwan agreeing to political talks for unification is remote. While the ruling Kuomintang extends qualified support for political talks, the opposition parties reject them outright. In addition, deepening popular anxiety against closer cooperation with Mainland China further constrains prospects for political talks.


Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) and Mycoplasma synoviae (MS) are wellknown pathogens of poultry, which are distributed world-wide and significantly important for the poultry industry. Both pathogens are capable causing respiratory and joint diseases in chickens and turkeys, subsequently
leading to poor production due to poor growth and increase in mortality. Currently, studies on the prevalence of MG and MS, especially on concurrent infections with MG and MS, in commercial chickens as well as genetic diversity of MG and MS isolates are still lacking in Malaysia. Hence, the
present study was to detect the presence of MG and MS from commercial chickens (broiler, breeder, layer and village chickens) in Peninsular Malaysia using isolation and molecular methods; and to characterized multigene
families of MG (pvpA, gapA, mgc2, pMGA, crmA3 and crmC genes) and MS (vlhA gene) based on gene-targeted sequencing (GTS) analysis. A total of 814 samples of choanal slit and trachea swabs from 27 chicken farms within Peninsular Malaysia were taken from 472 commercial broiler, 105 broiler breeder, 131 layer and 106 village chickens. Mycoplasma gallisepticum was detected in three out of four types of commercial chickens farms (broiler, broiler breeder and village chickens), while MS were detected in all four commercial chickens farms (broiler, broiler breeder, layer and village chickens). Overall, both IFA and PCR methods detected high prevalence of MG infection (9.1% and 24.2%, respectively) than MS infection (2.0% and
5.7%, respectively), while concurrent infection of MG and MS (0.7% and 2.5%, respectively) was the least detected in this study. The prevalence of MG infection and concurrent MG and MS infections were detected higher in broiler chickens followed by broiler breeder, layer and village chickens. Mycoplasma synoviae was detected higher in broiler breeder chickens followed by broiler, layer and village chickens. These indices indicate that MG and MS are still persisting in commercial poultry production under current biosecurity and disease control programme. The analysis of multigene families of 20 MG field isolates on six cytadhesin genes revealed their G+C content within 27% - 50% and showed 91-100% sequence homology with
MG isolates from USA, Israel, Australia and Russia. Classification of field MG isolates based on a close relationship on nucleotide sequence analysis,sequence similarity identity matrix and phylogeny relations, revealed eleven (11) Malaysian MG field isolates were successfully grouped into 3 categories: 1) S6 strain, 2) ts-11 strain and 3) local field strain. Five isolates (KPR44 L,KPR16W44 L, THNG8W L, PF3H Br and PF7U Br), under local field strain category, were classified as Malaysian isolate as they were more diversified than the reference and published isolates. Analysis on eight MS local isolatesbased on size of proline-rich repeat (PRR) region of the vlhA gene revealed gene size polymorphism with 41 - 43% G+C content and 95 - 98% sequence homology with Australian and USA isolates. The lengths of PRR encoding
sequence of local isolates were within 19 - 35 amino acids and the isolates were classified according to PRR grouping (group A - E). Two field isolates (ALNH5 BB and LHMN L) were classified in group C with 32 a.a. and one isolate (JBSJ Br) was classified in group E with 19 a.a. However, five local isolates (KSVC4 VC, KSVC5 VC, LGW34H9 BB, PPB07 Br and ALNH6 BB) with 35 amino acid (a.a.) size were not classified within the PRR classification as there is no classification on 35 a.a. been published or recorded. These new findings show the unique entity of Malaysian MG and
MS field isolates compared to reference and other published isolates.


DGUOK [dG (deoxyguanosine) kinase] is one of the two mitochondrial deoxynucleoside salvage pathway enzymes involved in precursor synthesis for mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) replication. DGUOK is responsible for the initial rate-limiting phosphorylation of the purine deoxynucleosides, using a nucleoside triphosphate as phosphate donor. Mutations in the DGUOK gene are associated with the hepato-specific and hepatocerebral forms of MDS (mtDNA depletion syndrome). We identified two missense mutations (N46S and L266R) in the DGUOK gene of a previously reported child, now 10 years old, who presented with an unusual revertant phenotype of liver MDS. The kinetic properties of normal and mutant DGUOK were studied in mitochondrial preparations from cultured skin fibroblasts, using an optimized methodology. The N46S/L266R DGUOK showed 14 and 10% residual activity as compared with controls with dG and deoxyadenosine as phosphate acceptors respectively. Similar apparent negative co-operativity in the binding of the phosphate acceptors to the wild-type enzyme was found for the mutant. In contrast, abnormal bimodal kinetics were shown with ATP as the phosphate donor, suggesting an impairment of the ATP binding mode at the phosphate donor site. No kinetic behaviours were found for two other patients with splicing defects or premature stop codon. The present study represents the first characterization of the enzymatic kinetic properties of normal and mutant DGUOK in organello and our optimized protocol allowed us to demonstrate a residual activity in skin fibroblast mitochondria from a patient with a revertant phenotype of MDS. The residual DGUOK activity may play a crucial role in the phenotype reversal.


gonad anterior pituitary estrogen progesterone (Litter er size plays a major role in the economics of swine production. Even modest increases in average litter size can have considerable effects on overall profitability. Two major components of litter size, 1) ovulation rate, and 2) embryonic survival, have been used in a selection index project ongoing for several generations at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). To better understand the mechanisms of one component, ovulation rate, we are investigating the role of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) receptor in determination of this important trait. Although other factors may influence determination of ovulation rate, this receptor has an established physiological importance to the processes comprising ovulation rate, recruitment of follicles and regulation of ovulation. In addition, the GnRH receptor gene is located near a chromosomal marker for ovulation rate in the pig, providing a genetic rationale to study this receptor. Recently, the sequence for the porcine GnRH receptor gene has been determined, allowing comparisons between lines of pigs divergent for ovulation rate. Identification of unique genetic changes in swine strains with increased ovula-tion rates, such as the Chinese Meishan and the index selection line at UNL, may allow for a better understanding of prolificacy. This critical information may also be utilized to enhance litter size in other lines of pigs and improve efficiency of pig production.


Solar Flares (SF) refer to sudden increases of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun lasting from minutes to hours. Irradiance in the Extremely Ultra-Violet (EUV) or X band is enhanced and it can produce a sudden over-ionization in the ionosphere, which can be tracked by several techniques. On the one hand, this over-ionization increases the ionospheric delays of GNSS signals in such a way as can be monitored using measurements collected by dual-frequency GNSS receivers. On the other hand, this over-ionization of the ionosphere is the origin of electrical currents which, in turn, induce magnetic fields which can be monitored with ground magnetometers. In this work we propose the use of a GNSS Solar Flare Monitor (GNSS-SF) for its utility to confirm the presence of ionospheric ionization which is able to produce Solar Flare Effects (Sfe) in geomagnetism. A period of 11 years (2008–2018) has been analyzed and contingency tables are shown. Although most of the GNSS-SF detections coincide with SF and most of the Sfe have a detected origin in the ionosphere, there are some paradoxes: sometimes small flares produce disturbances which are clearly detected by both methods while other disturbances, originated by powerful flares, go by virtually unnoticed. We analyzed some of these cases and proposed some explanations. We found that suddenness in the variation is a key factor for detection. Threshold values of the velocity of change to remove the background noise and the use of the acceleration of change instead of the velocity of change as the key performance detector are other topics we deal with in this paper. We conclude that the GNSS-SF detector could provide warnings of ionization disturbances from SF covering the time when the Sfe detectors are "blind", and can help to confirm Sfe events when Sfe detectors are not able to give a categorical answer.


The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is one of the key institutions in the European political system, and amongst the less well known. Described as one of the most powerful international courts, and perceived as one of the reasons the UK left the European Union (EU) (their main argument being that they did not want to be held to account by an unelected and non-British court), the Court continues to be shrouded in mystery. The aim of this chapter is to facilitate an understanding of the structure, history, and workings of this Court, as a key actor in the EU's institutional system. As such, it is not only a judicial actor but a 'political' actor too. Its constitutional role, as well as its role during the economic and financial crisis, illustrates these multiple facets.


A twin-fluid atomizer configuration is simulated by means of the two-dimensional (2D) weakly compressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method and compared to experiments. The gas-to-liquid ratio (GLR), the momentum flux ratio, and the velocity ratio are set constant for different ambient pressures, which lead to different gaseous flow sections. The objectives of this study are (i) to investigate the effect of ambient pressure at constant global parameters and (ii) to verify the capability of 2D SPH to qualitatively predict the proper disintegration mechanism and to recover the correct evolution of the spray characteristics. The setup consists of an axial liquid jet of water fragmented by a coflowing high-speed air stream (Ug = 80 m/s) in a pressurized atmosphere up to 16 bar. The results are compared to the experiment and presented in terms of (i) mean velocity profiles, (ii) drop size distributions, and (iii) Sauter mean diameter (SMD) of the spray. It is found that there exists an optimal pressure to minimize the mean size of the spray droplets. Finally, two new quantities related to atomization are presented: (i) the breakup activity that quantifies the number of breakup events per time and volume unit and (ii) the fragmentation spectrum of the whole breakup chain, which characterize the cascade phenomenon in terms of probability. The breakup activity confirms the presence of the optimal pressure, and the fragmentation spectrum gives information on the type of breakup, depending on the ambient pressure.


Introduction: Congenital Heart Diseases are the commonest birth defects and the most common reason for out-country referral of pediatric patients in Bhutan.Without any qualified pediatric cardiologists in the country, early diagnosis and appropriate care of pediatric cardiac patients is often delayed or inappropriate. Collaboration through telemedicine between general pediatrician and pediatric cardiologist can improve the diagnosis of congenital heart diseases in Bhutan.
Methods: Pediatric patients clinically suspected to have congenital heart diseases underwent Echocardiography at Mongar regional referral hospital. The Echocardiograms, performed by general pediatrician, were e-mailed to Pediatric Cardiologist working in UK, who gave the diagnosis after viewing the Echo-loops. This was compared with the final diagnosis made at tertiary cardiac centre in India.
Results: 30 echocardiograms performed by general pediatrician at Mongar Hospital in eastern Bhutan were mailed to Pediatric Cardiologist working in UK. Of the thirty cases, 20 required no immediate referral and were put on medications and follow up plans. 10 of the 30 cases required early referral to tertiary care hospital in India. There was excellent concordance between the diagnosis made through tele-echocardiology and the final diagnosis made at tertiary cardiac centre.
Conclusions: Tele-echocardiography between a general Pediatrician and a Pediatric Cardiologist can greatly enhance the diagnosis of congenital heart diseases in children


The effects of gravity on flow through variably saturated soil layers are investigated quantitatively using two new analytical solutions and a numerical model. In all cases, steady state flow occurs laterally through a tilted, rectangular layer of soil with a constant hydraulic head on either end. The first solution is for gravity‐driven flow through a tilted layer with sublayering parallel to the slope. As intuitively suggested by earlier investigators, flow occurs parallel to the floor of the layer and the pressure head is a simple function of the normal distance from the floor of the layer. The second analytical solution is for a tilted soil layer described by a Gardner soil model with both gravity and pressure head gradients. Flow velocities remain parallel to the layer floor, which is confirmed by numerical simulations. This is in contrast with chosen non‐Gardner examples for which the flow does not necessarily remain parallel to the floor.


Hydrophobic Organic Contaminants (HOC) are a group of chemicals needed to determine the health of marine ecosystems, and passive sampling devices are promising tools that offer a convenient monitoring opportunity. Traditional biomonitoring studies involved different types of marine organisms, and it appeared that simultaneous deployment of passive samplers with biomonitoring organisms provided the necessary information for the calculation of the aquatic organisms' bioaccumulation factors (BAF). There was not any other parameter than BAF, that could be used to determine the biomagnification and fate of contaminants in the upper trophic levels, which eventually affect all marine and terrestrial ecosystem health. In the light of the essence of BAF, this study applied a modified version of BAF estimation dependent on the contaminant concentrations both in the passive and active samplers. Thus, BAF parameters could be calculated properly without any need of a contaminant concentration in the surrounding water environment. For this purpose, the HOC concentration detected from the anthropogenic settlements in the coastal regions of Turkey were collocated, evaluated, and represented for different HOC groups. It was concluded that the present method is appropriate and applicable for BAF calculations of different groups of HOCs, where there are simultaneous deployments of both active and passive samplers in the process of biomonitoring studies.


An on-line solid phase extraction coupled with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography in tandem with mass spectrometry (SPE-UHPLC-MS/MS) method for the determination of fourteen hormones (four oestrogens, three androgens, four progestogens and three corticosteroids) in waste water samples has been developed. All of the parameters involved in the on-line extraction process have been optimized: type of cartridge, sample volume, loading solvent, solvent of the wash step and the pH of the sample. Moreover, the chromatographic separation and all of the parameters involved in the detection by mass spectrometry have been studied too. The developed method allows for complete analysis (extraction and identification of the analytes) in 14.5 minutes. The method is selective, with satisfactory relative standard deviations (lower than 15% in most cases) and limits of detection and quantification that ranged from 0.5 to 13.2 ng L−1 and from 1.66 to 44 ng L−1, respectively. The recoveries were acceptable for most compounds for effluent samples from different waste water treatment plants (between 50 and 90%). The proposed method has been applied to study effluent samples from three waste water treatment plants from Gran Canaria (Spain). Four steroid hormones of different families have been detected at concentrations ranging from 3.1 to 52.8 ng L−1.


This book offers an overview of recent research on the psychology of judgment and decision making, the field which investigates the processes by which people draw conclusions, reach evaluations, and make choices. An introductory, historically oriented chapter provides a way of viewing the overall structure of the field, its recent trends, and its possible directions. Subsequent sections present significant recent papers by prominent researchers, organized to reveal the currents, connections, and controversies that animate the field. Current trends in the field are illustrated with papers from ongoing streams of research. The papers on 'connections' explore memory, explanation, and argument, affect, attitudes, and motivation. Finally, a section on 'controversies' presents problem representation, domain knowledge, content specificity, rule-governed versus rule-described behavior, and proposals for radical departures and new beginnings in the field.


Austenitic stainless steel type AISI 316LN (316LN SS) material has been nitrided by three different nitride techniques such as Sursulf, Gas and Plasma nitriding. The 316LN SS samples have been prepared with two different surface roughnesses. The effects of surface roughness on nitriding with respect to formation of coating, case depth, increase in surface hardness and coating adhesion strength have been evaluated. The coating thickness was high for mirror polished samples than ground samples for all nitriding techniques. The coating thickness was very high (76.5µm) for plasma nitrided (PN) mirror polished sample and thin (22.5µm) & uneven for Sursulf Nitrided (SSN) ground sample. However, the SSN sample produces high surface hardness and good adhesion strength than PN. The Gas nitided (GN) sample produces the moderate result between SSN and PN.


The pharmacological properties of progestins used in contraception and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) vary, depending upon the molecules from which they are derived. Very small structural changes may induce considerable differences in effects. It is unclear if the currently available progestins are able to bind specifically to the progesterone receptors, PR-A or PR-B. The clinical relevance of more specific binding to one or the other isoforms of the progesterone receptor is still unknown. The development of new generations of progestins, with improved receptor-selectivity profiles, has been a great challenge. Steroidal and non-steroidal progesterone agonists have also been synthesized, although these molecules are at a very early stage of development. Several new progestins have been synthesized in the past decade, including dienogest, drospirenone, Nestorone, nomegestrol acetate and trimegestone. Drospirenone differs from the classic progestins in its derivation from spirolactone. The major effect of drospirenone is antimineralocorticoid activity. By that property, drospirenone causes decreased salt and water retention, and thus lowering of blood pressure. The affinity of drospirenone for the mineralocorticoid receptor is about five times that of aldosterone, the naturally occurring mineralocorticoid. In addition, drospirenone has no androgenic effect, but does exhibit partial antiandrogenic activity; its antiandrogenic potency is about 30% of that of cyproterone acetate, the progestin with the most potent antiandrogenic activity. This property, shared by several new progestins, may counteract the negative effect of androgens on hair growth, lipid changes, insulin and, possibly, body composition in postmenopausal women. Drospirenone has a long terminal half-life (about 32 hours), and its bioavailability is about 76%. Drospirenone, which has pharmacodynamic properties very similar to those of progesterone, has been developed as a combined oral contraceptive (30 μg ethinylestradiol/3 mg drospirenone; Yasmin®, Schering AG, Berlin, Germany). Drospirenone is also available in combination with estradiol as an HRT preparation (1 mg 17β-estradiol/2 mg drospirenone; Angeliq®, Schering AG).


Background and Aims: Nowadays, calcium hydroxide is used as a dressing for canal sterilization and repair progression of apical lesions. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of calcium hydroxide as an intracanal medicament on the apical microleakage of root filling. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, 46 extracted single-rooted human teeth were instrumented with step-back technique to master apical file (MAF) size 35. Specimens were randomly divided into 2 groups (n=20). In group 1, the specimens were treated with calcium hydroxide intracanal medication; and in group 2, did not receive any medication. The teeth were incubated in 100% humidity at 37°C for one week. After that, calcium hydroxide was removed using irrigation with normal saline and reaming with MAF. The root canals were obturated with gutta- percha and AH26 sealer using lateral compaction technique. Specimens were incubated in 100% humility at 37°C for 72 hours and then immersed in India ink for 1 week. Finally, the teeth were cleared and the maximum linear dye penetration was measured under a stereomicroscope at 4X magnification. The data were analyzed by T-test and Chi-square. Results: There was no significant difference between the two experimental groups (P=0.068). Conclusion: The findings of this study indicated that using calcium hydroxide as an intracanal medicament did not influence the apical microleakage after final obturation of the root canal system.


Antibodies against HIV-1 proteins in HIV-1-infected individuals share a cross-reactive idiotype defined by the monoclonal antiidiotypic antibody 1F7 (5). Using a computer algorithm based on the molecular recognition theory, regions of inverse hydropathy between the variable sequence of 1F7 and human monoclonal anti-HIV-1 antibodies were identified, which are assumed to be involved in idiotype-antiidiotype contacts. A peptide was designed from the proposed contact in the variable heavy chain framework 3-complementarity determining region 3 (FR3-CDR3) of human antibodies and was synthesized. This peptide is recognized by the antiidiotype 1F7 and inhibits the binding of 1F7 to human anti-HIV-1 antibodies which express the 1F7 idiotype. A survey of normal and HIV-1-infected sera revealed the presence of antibodies in infected sera which bind to the FR3-CDR3 peptide. The biological relevance of autoantibodies against a self idiotope associated with HIV-1 infection is discussed in the context of the regulation of the antibody response to HIV-1.


A modular generator/converter system suitable for a 100 kV transformerless HVDC offshore wind turbine is analyzed in this paper. The large diameter generator combined with mechanical tolerances may result in substantial parameter deviations. Therefore, the impact of such parameter variations is analyzed. A steady-state model relating these variations to the imbalances between module DC voltages has been developed. Additionally, the impact of different control strategies was assessed through simulations in EMTDC/PSCAD. Finally, experimental verification of the system performed on a 45 kW laboratory prototype is presented. The theory is developed with the transformerless wind turbine concept in mind but is also applicable to other similar series connected converter topologies. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


An investigation of spectra, radiative and autoionization characteristics for the rare-earth elements is of a great interest as for development atomic spectroscopy as different applications in plasma chemistry, astrophysics, laser physics, quantum electronics etc. We present and review the results of studying spectra and autoionization resonance characteristics of a few lanthanide elements (ytterbium and thulium). Computing the spectra and autoionization resonance parameters is carried out within the relativistic many-body perturbation theory (RMBPT) and generalized relativistic energy approach. The accurate results on the autoionization resonance energies and widths are presented with correct accounting for the exchange-correlation and relativistic corrections and compared with other available theoretical and experimental data. In this chapter, we present a brief review of the theoretical and experimental works on spectroscopy of some lanthanide atoms. Spectroscopy of the Rydberg autoionization resonances in rare-earth atoms in an external electromagnetic field is expected to be very complex and unusual.


The article examines the potentials of the concept of othering to describe identity formation among ethnic minorities. First, it outlines the history of the concept, its contemporary use, as well as some criticisms. Then it is argued that young ethnic minority men in Denmark are subject to intersectional othering, which contains elements of exoticist fascination of the other. On the basis of ethnographic material, it is analysed how young marginalized ethnic minority men react to othering. Two types of reactions are illustrated: 1) capitalization on being positioned as the other, and 2) refusing to occupy the position of the other by disidentification and claims to normality. Finally, it is argued that the concept of othering is well suited for understanding the power structures as well as the historic symbolic meanings conditioning such identity formation, but problematic in terms of agency.


Two techniques based on a mode expansion formulation are applied to the analysis of a grounded dielectric slab periodically loaded with metal strips. When the thickness of the metal strips is considered in the formulation, mode matching is employed. When the thickness is assumed to be zero, some numerical errors arise using mode matching, and the point-matching technique is used. Both techniques allow the fields to be obtained in any region, and they determine the radiation characteristics of the structure. The numerical results obtained in both cases show good accuracy, and they agree with each other when the thickness of the metal strips is small. >


Efficiency of power conversion apparatus must usually be measured with very low uncertainty, and depending on the kind of apparatus under test and on the measurement method applied, more or less accurate instrumentation is required. The main issues to be faced, once the target uncertainty is fixed, concern the choice of the measurement method as well as the instruments to be used for fulfilling such requirement. This paper investigates by means of both theoretical analysis and experimental results on the relationship between target uncertainty and instrumentation accuracy in the measurement of uninterruptible power supply efficiency. The results show, amongst other things, that the measurement method allows obtaining very low uncertainty values by means of low accuracy instrumentation.


Exosomes, which are lipid membrane-bound nanovesicles (50-150 nm in diameter), have aroused extensive attention for their potential applications in invasive molecular and stand for a new therapeutic delivery system. However, they are limited by poor targeting ability and a lack of efficient isolation techniques. Here, we present a three-dimensional nanostructured microfluidic chip, in which arrays of micropillars were functionalized with crisscrossed multiwall carbon nanotubes by chemical deposition, to capture exosomes with high efficiency through a combination of a specific recognition molecule (CD63) and the unique topography of the nanomaterials. As is proven, this nanostructured interface substantially made the immuno capturing of exosomes more efficient. A high percentage of intact vesicles <150 nm were readily purified. As a further application, we added functionality to the exosomes by a chemical editing approach for targeted drug delivery. Donor cells were labeled chemically with dual ligands (biotin and avidin) in the phospholipid membrane and encapsulated drugs in the cytosol. Though the engineered donor cells secreted exosomes, the dual ligands, together with the drugs, were inherited by the exosomes, which were then isolated with the microfluidic chip. Then, the isolated exosomes were used as drug delivery vehicles and showed strong targeting abilities to tumor cells and highly efficient receptor-mediated cellular uptake when exposed to recipient cells. Thus, the anticancer effect of chemotherapeutic drugs was improved significantly. It suggested that this platform could provide a useful tool for isolating intact exosomes with high efficiency and exploiting their natural carrier function to deliver chemotherapeutic drugs to tumor cells with increased efficacy and targeting capacity.


We carried out photometric observations for HBC 722 in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey r, i, and z bands from 2011 April to 2013 May with the Camera for QUasars in EArly uNiverse attached to the 2.1 m Otto Struve telescope at McDonald Observatory. The post-outburst phenomena were classified into five phases according to not only brightness but also color variations, which might be caused by physical changes in the emitting regions of optical and near-infrared bands. A series of spectral energy distributions (SEDs) is presented to support color variations and track the time evolution of the SED in optical/near-infrared bands after the outburst. Given two years of data, possible periodicities of r, i, and z bands were checked. We found three families of signals around ∼6, ∼10, and ∼1 days in three bands, which is broadly consistent with Green et al. We also examined short-term variability (intra-day and day scales) to search for evidences of flickering by using the micro-variability method. We found clear signs of day scale variability and weak indications of intra-day scale fluctuations, which implies that the flickering event occurs in HBC 722 after outburst.


Two black aqueous tea extracts of Camellia sinensis, (selenium-rich black tea (Se-BTE) and regular black tea (R-BTE)) were assessed for their total phenolic content (TPC) and antioxidant properties. Aqueous tea extracts were prepared using different extraction temperature and time. TPC was measured using the Folin-Ciocalteu method, while antioxidant activity was measured by ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assays. The R-BTE showed significantly higher TPC (P < 0.05) and antioxidant activity (P < 0.05) than the Se-BTE, which may be due to these being different cultivars, or differences in growing conditions. Our findings demonstrate that both extraction temperature and time are important determinants of extracted TPC and antioxidant activities of these teas. In addition and in contrary to our expectations, the high level of organic selenium in black tea did not enhance the antioxidant activity when compared with black tea containing very low level of organic selenium. Other elements and minerals may contribute to the high antioxidant activity detected in the regular black tea.


In this paper the commercial CFD software package STAR-CCM+ 8.04 was validated against wind tunnel experiments and a qualitative comparison to a non-commercial code was made. NASA's generic ROBIN helicopter model was adopted for transient simulations to study Rotor-Body interaction (ROBIN). Two different CFD methods have been applied to model the main rotor rotation and the cyclic blade pitching. The first method uses a sliding interface approach where the volume around the entire rotor is modelled in a cylindrical region with a rotating mesh. The cyclic blade pitching has been modelled with a morphing mesh inside that rotating mesh region. The second method uses an overset grid approach where the volume around each blade is modelled in an individual overset grid region. In both methods the rotor rotation is resolved with 1 degree per timestep. The compressible ideal gas flow is solved with a classical ReynoldsAveraged-Navier-Stokes (RANS) solver by implicit spatial integration in an unsteady analysis, using a coupled algebraic multi-grid method with a courant number of CFL = 30. Turbulence is modelled with the well known SST (Menter) Komega model with 2 nd order convection. The helicopter is in straight forward flight with an advance ratio of μ = 0.15. Computational results were compared to NASA's existing experimental results. In the simulations the results became quasi periodic between the 2 nd and 3 rd rotation; 5 full rotor rotations were simulated. It was concluded that computational results for both motion modelling methods were in good agreement with unsteady pressure measurements at various locations along the fuselage. Along the top centreline over the nose and tail boom the periodic pressure fluctuations induced by the blade passages over one full rotor rotation were in good agreement with the experiments. In accordance with the experiments it was also found that the magnitude of the pulse increases with the thrust coefficient. The CFD simulations revealed detailed flow features surrounding the rotor and the fuselage. Detailed sections of the vorticity field and isosurfaces of the q-criterion reveal the propagation of the blade tip vortices until far downstream of the fuselage. This flow structure is also in good agreement with computational results from studies carried out with non-commercial CFD codes. The method presented using STAR-CCM+ 8.04 is capable to model the complex motion of helicopter rotor blades and predict the flow field and is a promising tool for future analysis of helicopter aerodynamics.


Cutting (1988) suggests that changes in the perceived orientations of pictured objects that occur with changes in viewing angle are caused by the geometrical changes that accompany these changes in viewing angle. His geometrical analysis does predict the differential rotation effect reported by Goldstein (1979, 1987), but fails to predict other important aspects of the data. Cutting's analysis does, however, support Goldstein's (1987) conclusion that in future research on picture perception it is important to clearly distinguish between the attributes of perceived orientation and spatial layout.


Seismicity accompanying subduction of one plate under the other is active in subduction zones. This seismicity is not uniformly distributed along strike; aseismic regions may be identified in a band of active seismicity. Such an uneven distribution may be attributed to the heterogeneity of frictional properties along the plate interface. Variations in the physical properties of the top-most layer over the subducting plate and rough topography along the plate interface are considered to be factors determining frictional properties. Recent active-source seismic surveys have revealed characteristics of the plate interface in detail and provide an understanding of how regional seismicity and slip distributions of major earthquakes are controlled. Seismicity around the northern limit of the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake shows a good correlation with seismic reflectivity along the plate interface, and suggests that the water content and/or the amount of clay minerals in a thin layer over the top of the subducting plate is a major factor. A subducting seamount was identified from a seismic survey around the southern limit of the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake off Ibaraki Prefecture. Repeating M 7 earthquakes share the same source at the subduction front of the seamount, while the source area of the largest aftershock of the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake lies next to it. The fault slip of these earthquakes, once initiated at the base of the seamount, did not propagate over the seamount. The same relationship between fault slip and subducted seamount is identified for a large slow slip at the Hikurangi margin. Physical or structural properties controlling seismicity or fault slip along the plate interface appear to be characteristics of the subducting plate. The importance of geophysical surveys of the incoming plate can now be further emphasized to provide a better understanding of seismicity along the plate interface.


The author is chancellor of the University of Maryland System, former chancellor of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and former deputy director of the National Science Foundation. In 1989, I chaired a panel of the National Research Council's Committee on Science, Education, and Public Policy (COSEPUP) that was charged with examining the uses of information technology (IT) in the conduct of research. Seven years later, our carefully drawn conclusions* seem extravagantly timid and understated. From my viewpoint at the helm of a large public university system, IT's extraordinary evolution is beginning to drive truly revolutionary changes in all university functions, because information is the elemental material—the silicon, as it were—of education and research. Any fundamental change in our ability to handle information must necessarily lead to fundamental change in academic activities. In his book Being Digital, † Nicholas Negroponte shows how profoundly different are the handling of atoms (as in ink on paper) and the handling of bits. We are used to dealing with the book, a permanently defined text that has an author or authors and is someone's copyrighted intellectual property. In contrast, a collection of bits from or about, say, the Galileo probe of Jupiter, can easily be reconfigured across many media to serve the needs of an individual user. What then is it called, who authored it, and who owns it? William A. Wulfhttp name and others (myself included) have speculated that many universities may die or may change beyond recognition as a result of the IT revolution. When asked what his light bulb would mean for the candle industry, Thomas Edison reportedly replied, "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles." We are entering an era in which most colleges and universities must decide whether to change a little (and thus remain in the academic candle industry) or a lot (and launch themselves into the academic electrical business). Barring a catastrophic reduction in the nation's commitment to research, the 100 or so major research universities probably will persist in recognizable form. Several hundred institutions whose primary focus is the liberal education of full-time, campus-resident, recent high-school graduates will persist as well. That leaves about 3000 institutions of higher education serving the vast majority of the nation's 14,400,000 college and university students in ways that will inevitably be profoundly transformed by IT. The U.S. higher education enterprise has changed radically in the past and has usually diversified in the process. The IT revolution will cause new institutions—and new kinds of institutions—to emerge. Indeed, some are already doing so. Some may be "virtual universities" that are delocalized across cyberspace. Others will successfully meld the best of the past with the opportunities of the future. Still others may fail to survive. It will be a time of turmoil and uncertainty. Resistance to radical change will probably be substantial within academe, many of whose members will argue that IT is a threat to the essential traditional values of real education and that its pervasive use can result only in pervasive mediocrity. I anticipate that much of higher education's clientele will decide otherwise. I expect that we will see academic examples of the phenomenon reported by a bank official who, when visiting a branch office, observed several unoccupied human tellers idly watching the progress of a long line of customers at the ATM. The outcome of the IT revolution seems likely to be a substantially diversified higher education enterprise that is capable of delivering high-quality education and training tailored to the requirements of any citizen, in a society in which work and learning are intertwined throughout almost everyone's lifetime. IT can and will make that possible. The challenge for today's colleges and universities is to decide whether they want to be in the candle industry or the electrical business, and how to get there, survive, and prosper. There's room for both sectors. In the words of Negroponte, "The future will not be one or the other, but both."


This thesis describes strategies to perform stray light testing in an earthbound laboratory while accounting for atmospheric and surface scattering phenomena that make these measurements difficult. We present a method to analyze and predict the stray light performance for a baffled star tracker optical system. This method involves a hybrid stray light analysis procedure that combines experimental measurements of a star tracker lens optics and uses ray-tracing to obtain attenuation curves. We demonstrate these analytical techniques using an engineering model ST-16 star tracker from Sinclair Interplanetary along with a baffle prototype. The system attenuation curve's accuracy is validated by comparing independently measured baffle attenuation curves with equivalent ray-tracing models. Additionally, exclusion angles are defined for the ST-16 sensor by calculating the false detection rate that varies with system attenuation levels. These techniques provide a versatile alternative to conventional testing for preliminary design stages for a star tracker baffle that emphasizes the use of modest infrastructure.


Based on the idea of integrated design, a drive-transmission integrated linear electromechanical actuator is developed. The actuator consists of a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM), a ball-screw and shells. By using coaxial assemblage, the ball-screw is inserted into the hole of the hollow motor rotor and the nut of the ball-screw connects with the motor rotor. In order to restrict the ball-screw rotating relatively to the shell, splines machined respectively on ball-screw and the shell come into being a spline pair. A driver based on a DSP processor and IGBTs plus a position feedback resolver forms a precise servo system.


Background: Children with disabilities are at a higher risk of visual impairment as compared to normal population. The present study was conducted to find out the prevalence of various ocular manifestations and to assess the possible aetiological factors including psycho-social and hereditary factors. Subjects and Methods: The present study was undertaken in the department of ophthalomology and paediatrics, S.N. Medical College, Agra. Two hundred and forty mentally retarded children between the ages of 3 months to 15 years of either sex were scrutinized to find out the prevalence of ocular manifestations in cases of mental retardation. A complete case history was taken. Results: In the present study, in 50% cases, the cause of mental retardation could not be identified clinically. Causes of mental retardation which could be identified in our study were developmental cranial anomalies -12.5%, down's syndrome (7.5%), post inflectional (6.7%), congenital cerebral palsy (5.8%) , epilepsy (3.3%), endocrine disorders, others 11.6%. Out of these 66.7% were males and 33.3% cases were females. Ocular examination of the mentally retarded children revealed that 60% cases were having one or other form of ocular abnormalities. Strabismus (30.5%) was the commonest ocular anomaly followed by refractive errors (27.8%). Other ocular manifestations in order of frequency were congenital cataract (12.5%), optic nerve disorders (7.5%), lid and orbital abnormalities (5.5%), nystagmus (2.7%) and retinal disorders (1.4%). Colour vision defects were found to be present in 13.2% mentally retarded children. Conclusion: The children with disabilities should undergo annual ophthalmic evaluation. We concluded from our study that visual function of the children should be assessed as soon as the child is admitted to the school. Earlier assessment and correction of the visual problems will have greater chance of achieving potential and will prevent unnecessary visual impairment.


In the UK, as organo-mineral soils are a significant store of soil organic carbon (SOC), they may become increasingly favoured for the expansion of upland forestry. It is important, therefore, to assess the likely impacts on SOC of this potentially major land use change. Currently, these assessments rely on modelling approaches which assume that afforestation of organo-mineral soils is "carbon neutral". This review evaluates this assumption in two ways. Firstly, UK information from the direct measurement of SOC change following afforestation is examined in the context of international studies. Secondly, UK data on the magnitude and direction of the major fluxes in the carbon cycle of semi-natural upland ecosystems are assessed to identify the likely responses of the fluxes to afforestation of organo-mineral soils. There are few directly relevant measurements of SOC change following afforestation of organo-mineral soils in the UK uplands but there are related studies on peat lands and agricultural soils. Overall, information on the magnitude and direction of change in SOC with afforestation is inconclusive. Data on the accumulation of litter beneath conifer stands have been identified but the extent to which the carbon held in this pool is incorporated into the stable soil carbon reservoir is uncertain. The effect of afforestation on most carbon fluxes is small because the fluxes are either relatively minor or of the same magnitude and direction irrespective of land use. Compared with undisturbed moorland, particulate organic carbon losses increase throughout the forest cycle but the data are exclusively from plantation conifer forests and in many cases pre-date current industry best practice guidelines which aim to reduce such losses. The biggest uncertainty in flux estimates is the relative magnitude of the sink for atmospheric carbon as trees grow and mature compared with that lost during site preparation and harvesting. Given the size of this flux relative to many of the others, this should be a focus for future carbon research on these systems.


Movements to reform teacher education are underway in many parts of the world, including Europe, Australia, North America and many other developing countries. The directions of and the approaches to these reforms vary in each country. Invariably changing educational policies across countries, innovations, research, and ongoing discourse in the field have contributed to new ways of understanding teacher education in different societies. This reflective paper examines the critical gaps in understanding the main causes underlying core issues facing teacher education and professional development in Pakistan; how the efforts and perspectives about reforming teacher education in Pakistan compare with the practices and the popular narratives shaping the discourse on teacher education in international/global context. The prevalent discourse around teacher education in Pakistan clearly reflects a narrow focus in that the literature produced in Pakistan tends to over emphasize the structural and organizational issues, and there is a clear tendency to over look the philosophical, conceptual and pedagogical underpinnings to teacher education practices, which have received greater attention in the international context. The Pakistani perspective on teachers' learning and development stresses upon the technical aspect of teaching profession, which involves subject knowledge and a fixed set of skills required to transfer that knowledge to students. Teachers' leaning in other critical domains such as personal, social and ethical, immensely emphasized in the international literature, have received little or no attention in Pakistani context. The narratives of reform, particularly approaches to teachers' continued professional development including reflective practice, action/collaborative research and ICT and many other informal way of learning have gained wide popularity in the literature in the international context.


Background: A series of conditions can leave the human mandible with a bony defect that is still difficult to compensate for with current clinical techniques. 3D bioprinting (computer-controlled, highly organized deposition of bio-materials and stem cells into a 3D structure) is a new tissue engineering strategy showing potential to contribute to the treatment of these defects. Objective: The aim of this review is to give clinicians an idea of how 3D bioprinting works, where this technology is currently at and how it is developing towards clinical application in the field of maxillo-facial surgery. Data sources: Bone tissue engineering literature was searched for articles that describe the use of additive manufacturing (collective term for layer-wise stacking of materials, including 3D printing) with use of biomaterials and stem cells. Study selection: 3D bioprinting reviews and research articles presenting bone tissue constructs were selected. Data Extraction: Information on 3D bioprinting background, design, applied techniques and used biomaterials for bone tissue were bundled. Research projects aiming at creating viable bone constructs were selected. Data Synthesis: This review presents a comprehensive summary of 3D bioprinting basics and shows how this technique is evolving towards bone tissue constructs with the potential of clinical application in the management of bony mandibular defects.


Many technological developments in automobile powertrains have been implemented in order to increase efficiency and comply with emission regulations. Although most of these technologies show promising results in official fuel economy tests, their benefits in real driving conditions and real driving emissions can vary significantly, since driving profiles of many drivers are different than the official driving cycles. Therefore, it is important to assess these technologies under different driving conditions and this paper aims to offer an overall perspective, with a numerical study in simulations. The simulations are carried out on a compact passenger car model with eight powertrain configurations including: a naturally aspirated spark ignition engine, a start-stop system, a downsized engine with a turbocharger, a Miller cycle engine, cylinder deactivation, turbocharged downsized Miller engine, a parallel hybrid electric vehicle powertrain and an electric vehicle powertrain. These are tested in seven driving cycles including the NYCC, FTP75, NEDC, WLTC, US06, HWFET and CADC. The impacts of different technologies on fuel economy and CO₂ emissions are analyzed, with respect to different operating conditions. Results reveal that a combination of certain driving cycles and vehicle configurations have a large influence on fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions. In general, Miller and downsized engines offer some improvements in all cycles while the start-stop system has benefits in city cycles with frequent stops. The HEV and EV configurations offer a substantial improvement compared to conventional technologies in lower speed conditions like city cycles, but their benefits are reduced at cycles including higher speeds.


Methods are presented for the forming of articles during shock compaction of powders in the cylindrical configuration. The forming methods make use of mandrels of either a polymer or a metal, since those materials can easily be machined in the required shape. The polymer mandrel decomposes during the shock compression process, forming a hole in the compact with the dimensions of the mandrel. Aluminum mandrels do not decompose, but may change their shape during the compaction process. The aluminum of the mandrel can also be used for a subsequent melt infiltration of the remaining pores in the compacts. In this way fully dense venturi shaped nozzles of TiB2-Al have been fabricated.


According to Nosti (2012) banks target youths to find new customers by giving them special offers such as debit cards from a relatively early age. However, Moschis and Churchill (1979) point out that age can affect the level of knowledge in the consumer. Therefore, this essay focuses on youths as consumers. Specifically, youths' awareness of security risks in using bank tools such as debit cards or internet banks was studied. The study was conducted by using four methods: a survey, a focus group, interviews with representatives from four banks on Gotland and a study of banks' webpages. The participants of the survey and focus group where 16-19 years of age. According to Proenca, Silva and Fernandes (2010), relationship marketing, or customer relationship management, is a strategy practiced by banks in which they sometimes use technology as a tool. However, a lack of awareness and knowledge among the customers can lead to misuse of the tools. Among other things, according to Harr (2012) it can lead to financial loss. The results that emerged from the study in this essay show that youths seem to have awareness within some areas, but further knowledge may be required in others, for example, in internet security. In addition, the results indicate that youths in some cases behave as if they do not believe anything harmful might happen to them, even though they are aware of the risks. Possible contributing factors to their actions may be group pressure, family influence and/or lack of knowledge.


Ionic liquids (ILs) as new media for synthesis and as functional fluids in technical applications are still of high interest. Cooling a steel component from an annealing temperature of nearly 850 °C down to room temperature in a liquid bath is a technically important process. The use of ionic liquids offers advantages avoiding film boiling of the quenching medium. However, such a high immersion temperature exceeds the thermal stability of the IL, for example such as [EMIm][NTf2]. To obtain information about formation of potential toxic decomposition products, potential fragments at varied states of decomposition of [EMIm][NTf2] were studied by various spectroscopic and gravimetric methods. For the first time it was possible to quantify fluorine-containing products via mass spectrometry coupled directly with thermogravimetric (TG) measurements. While chemical and spectroscopic analysis of thermally stressed ILs revealed no hints concerning changes of composition after quenching hot steel for several times, the mass-spectrometer (MS) coupled TG analysis gives information by comparing the decomposition behaviour of fresh and used ILs. A number of fragments were detected in low amounts confirming the proposed decomposition mechanism.


Dædalus Summer 2010 Over the last forty years, a number of Western democracies have signi1⁄2cantly increased their use of imprisonment. What explains this phenomenon? The most influential line of reasoning looks to the global economic changes that began in the 1970s: the contraction or collapse of manufacturing industries; the creation of a large sector of people who faced long-term unemployment or were employed in insecure forms of work; and consequent pressure on the welfare state. These changes, it is argued,1 have eroded the consensus that sustained postwar penal welfarism. A rise in recorded crime across Western countries gradually normalized criminal victimization and the management of the risk and fear of crime. Crime became, for the economically secure, an increasingly politicized issue, generating a "penal populism" that brought in its wake repressive and managerial criminal justice strategies. This is a powerful argument. However, its focus on structural forces and on general categories such as "late modern society" or "post-Fordism"2 directs attention away from variations in the institutional framework through which those forces are mediated in different countries. This is unfortunate; notwithstanding the wide diffusion of a political discourse of penal populism, there are striking differences in the extent to which that discourse has led to greater severity in penal practice. Not all "late modern" democracies have plumped for a "neoliberal" politics. Countries like Denmark, Germany, and Sweden have managed to sustain relatively moderate, inclusionary criminal justice systems–systems premised on reintegrating offenders into society–throughout the period in which the British and American systems have moved toward ever-greater penal severity. Even then, the differences in the scale and quality of punishment between British and American penal systems are striking, with the United States occupying an unenviable position as the unrivaled leader among advanced economies in the costly business of mass imprisonment. The baleful distinctiveness of the United States' incarceration record is epitomized, though not exhausted, by imprisonment rates between four and twelve times higher than those in other political economies at similar levels of development (see Figure 1). The picture becomes even more baffling when we consider variation among U.S. states' imprisonment rates, which, in the mid-2000s, ranged from less than double those of the most Nicola Lacey


Two-sample tests are important in statistics and machine learning, both as tools for scientific discovery as well as to detect distribution shifts. This led to the development of many sophisticated test procedures going beyond the standard supervised learning frameworks, whose usage can require specialized knowledge about two-sample testing. We use a simple test that takes the mean discrepancy of a witness function as the test statistic and prove that minimizing a squared loss leads to a witness with optimal testing power. This allows us to leverage recent advancements in AutoML. Without any user input about the problems at hand, and using the same method for all our experiments, our AutoML two-sample test achieves competitive performance on a diverse distribution shift benchmark as well as on challenging two-sample testing problems. We provide an implementation of the AutoML two-sample test in the Python package autotst.


Mechanical properties of DNA, for example the elastic modulus, are of vital importance for its biological function. Previously, the modulus is mainly obtained by bending, stretching and twisting DNA using various techniques and tools. By applying vibrating mode scanning polarization force microscopy (VPSFM), deformations of DNA under ultra-small indentation forces can be measured and so the radial modulus can be computed. In this paper, modeling of the VPSFM measuring system is presented. The system is modeled as a spring-mass-damper oscillator under various force fields, such as van der Waals force, attractive electrical force and repulsive interactions between the tip and sample. The electrical polarization force is described by using uniformly charged line model and the DNA is considered to be a simple elastic rod. By numerically integrating the equation of tip motion, the contact force and the radial modulus of DNA under different deformation can be calculated. We found that in measuring radial modulus of DNA, the existence of substrate cannot be neglected, especially when the relative large deformation is reached.


Motor control and motor learning as well as interpersonal coordination are based on motor perception and emergent perceptuomotor representations. At least in early stages motor learning and interpersonal coordination are emerging heavily on visual information in terms of observing others and transforming the information into internal representations to guide owns behavior. With progressing learning, also other perceptual modalities are added when a new motor pattern is established by repeated physical exercises. In contrast to the vast majority of publications on motor learning and interpersonal coordination referring to a certain perceptual modality here we look at the perceptual system as a unitary system coordinating and unifying the information of all involved perceptual modalities. The relation between perceptual streams of different modalities, the intermodal processing and multisensory integration of information as a basis for motor control and learning will be the main focus of this contribution. Multi-/intermodal processing of perceptual streams results in multimodal representations and opens up new approaches to support motor learning and interpersonal coordination: Creating an additional perceptual stream adequately auditory movement information can be generated suitable to be integrated with information of other modalities and thereby modulating the resulting perceptuomotor representations without the need of attention and higher cognition. Here, the concept of a movement defined real-time acoustics is used to serve the auditory system in terms of an additional movement-auditory stream. Before the computational approach of kinematic real-time sonification is finally described, a special focus is directed to the level of adaptation modules of the internal models. Furthermore, this concept is compared with different approaches of additional acoustic movement information. Moreover, a perspective of this approach is given in a broad spectrum of new applications of supporting motor control and learning in sports and motor rehabilitation as well as a broad spectrum of joint action and interpersonal coordination between humans but also concerning human-robotinteraction.


Superconducting power transmission cables are regarded as a key to realize the next-generation power systems with high capacity and high efficiency, and 4 mm coated conductors have been broadly used as a standard to develop such cables. Recent research shows that, comparing with standard 4 mm coated conductors, narrow 2 mm coated conductors prove to have a pronounced advantage on AC loss reduction for superconducting cables. Besides, thanks to laser cutting technique, it became possible to cut wide coated conductors into small tapes as narrow as 2 mm without considerable damage. Hence, narrow 2 mm coated conductors are attracting more and more attentions and have turned into a potential option for developing more efficient superconducting cables. So far, there have been many discussions on AC loss characteristics of the superconducting cables consisting of 4 mm coated conductors, whereas, the studies on cables comprising narrow 2 mm coated conductors are very few. This paper is to clarify the AC loss characteristics of superconducting cables consisting of narrow 2 mm coated conductors, especially to analyze the dependence of AC loss on the number of layers, with the intention of studying the effect of multilayer configuration on AC losses of such cables. A set of numerical models simulating such superconducting cables have been developed by applying 2-D FEM method. This set of models comprises 1-layer, 2-layer, 4-layer and 6-layer cables, with the former three types of cables as practical cables under development and the last one as a future option. Narrow 2 mm coated conductors with the same critical current and current distribution were selected for all the cables. Within these cables, numerical electromagnetic field analysis has been carried out for AC loss calculation and comparison.


This study was carried out from November 2013 to April 2014 to assess farmers' perception on the presence, management and the need of intervention programs of bovine trypanosomosis and tsetse fly through a semi-structured questionnaire survey as well as to determine the prevalence of bovine trypanosomosis using a cross-sectional study in Guangua and Dangila Woredas, Northwestern Ethiopia. Blood sample for thin blood smear examination was collected from 384 cattle of all age groups and both sexes. Of the 384 animals examined three animals were found positive for trypanosomosis, overall prevalence of 0.8%. The species of trypanosome identified were two T. vivax and one T. conglonse . The most important livestock constraints considered by farmers in the selected districts were disease (81.2%), improper grazing land management (12.1%) and feed shortage (6.7%). Trypanosomosis was considered the most economically important disease problem for 95% of the respondents.  Of these, 73.3 % of them assumed trypanosomosis as a problem of cattle, equines and small ruminants. Forty percent positive respondents in Dangila and 60% in Guangua appreciated the presence of the problem and the difference between the two groups is statistically significant (P=0.012). Trypanocidal drugs remain the principal method of animal trypanosomosis control. Overall preventive or curative treatments were administered in 40% of the cases by animal health assistant, while for the remaining 60 % was done by farmers themselves. Almost all farmers (100%) did not know the causal association between biting flies and trypanosomosis. As higher proportion of trypanocidal drugs were administered by livestock keepers there may be a development of drug resistance due to misuse of these drugs. Despite the low prevalence detected the study revealed the occurrence of T. vivax and T. congolense . In the study area trypanosomosis is considered as the most important livestock health problem by the majority of the farmers. Therefore, further study is needed on the prevalence of the disease in wet season using more sensitive diagnostic techniques to correlate the difference between the prevalence and the respondents' perception of bovine trypanosomosis. Keywords : Selected districts, Prevalence, Farmers' perception, Trypanosomosis, Bovine


This paper presents nonexperimental net impact estimates for the Adult and Dislocated Worker programs under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), the primary federal job training program in the U.S, based on administrative data from 12 states, covering approximately 160,000 WIA participants and nearly 3 million comparison group members. The key measure of interest is the difference in average quarterly earnings or employment attributable to WIA program participation for those who participate, estimated for up to four years following entry into the program using propensity score matching methods. The results for the average participant in the WIA Adult program show that participating is associated with a several-hundred-dollar increase in quarterly earnings. Adult program participants who obtain training have lower earnings in the months during training and the year after exit than those who don't receive training, but they catch up within 10 quarters, ultimately registering large total gains. The marginal benefits of training exceed, on average, $400 in earnings each quarter three years after program entry. Dislocated Workers experience several quarters for which earnings are depressed relative to comparison group workers after entering WIA, and although their earnings ultimately match or overtake the comparison group, the benefits they obtain are smaller than for those in the Adult program.


Diffuse alveolar hemorrhage (DAH) refers to the intra-alveolar accumulation of blood originating from the pulmonary microvasculature. This life-threatening condition is a medical emergency as patients often develop acute respiratory failure requiring invasive mechanical ventilation. This mandates for an early diagnosis with prompt and aggressive management strategies. A host of clinical disorders are known to cause DAH; however, warfarin-induced alveolar hemorrhage is a distinct clinical rarity. A search of the literature reveals few reports documenting this entity. A 27-year-old male presented with complaints of recent-onset hemoptysis and dyspnea. One month back, he was diagnosed with lower-limb deep-venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. He had been taking oral anticoagulants irregularly since then without monitoring of prothrombin time. Chest radiograph, done on presentation, revealed bilateral upper-lobe infiltrates, whereas computed tomography of the chest was suggestive of bilateral upper-lobe ground-glass opacities. Serial bronchoscopic alveolar lavage yielded samples which became progressively bloodier, whereas cytological evaluation of the sample revealed numerous alveolar macrophages with intracytoplasmic hemosiderin. A diagnosis of DAH due to warfarin was made, and the patient was administered Vitamin K followed by infusion of fresh frozen plasma. There was a marked clinical recovery, and the patient has been asymptomatic since then.


Transgenic mice that over-express B cell leukemia/lymphomas (Bcl)-2 in myeloid cells under control of the human MRP8 promoter (hMRP8-Bcl-2) or in T lymphocytes under the E (cid:1) promoter (E (cid:1) -Bcl-2) were compared with C57BL/6 control mice following cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). There was a significant difference in outcome between the hMRP8-Bcl-2 and control mice with 100% survival in the hMRP8-Bcl-2 mice vs 25% survival in the control mice. In separate experiments there was a significant difference between E (cid:1) -Bcl-2 and control mice with 87.5 and 22.2% survival, respectively. Adoptive transfer of CD11b-positive bone marrow cells from hMRP8-Bcl-2 or C57BL/6 mice to C57BL/6 mice subjected to CLP resulted in 100 and 0% survival, respectively. Adoptive transfer of CD11b-positive cells from either hMRP8-Bcl-2 or C57BL/6 mice to Rag-1 (cid:2) / (cid:2) mice (no mature T or B cells) subjected to CLP resulted in survival of 87.5 and 12.5%, respectively. The hMRP8-Bcl-2 mice had significantly more neutrophils and fewer bacteria in the peritoneum compared with C57BL/6 mice 24 h after CLP. These experiments show that Bcl-2 over-expression is protective in CLP and that protection is independent of lymphocytes. We propose that overexpression of Bcl-2 in T cells or myeloid cells induce release of a molecule(s) that protects against death following CLP. The Journal of Immunology, 2003, 171:


This study is a qualitative study of the application of the accrual-based Government accounting system to the Government of North Toraja Regency. The purpose of this study is to interpret the application of accrual-based Government Accounting Standards (SAP) to the Government of North Toraja Regency. Data in this study were collected through observation, documentation, and interviews with five informants directly related to the implementation of accrual-based Governent Accoutning Standards (SAP). The data that has been collectted is then analyzed and interpreted by qualitative methods using an interpretive approach. The results showed that the application of accrual-based Government Accounting Standards (SAP) in the North Toraja Regency Government was a reflection of a formality. This is supported by the existence of government regulations that require all local governments including the North Toraja Regency Government to implement accrual-based Government Accoutning Standards. The complexity of the financial statements is a major factor in the resistance attitude of the North Toraja Regency financial management in the accrual-based Government Standard implementation. Meanwhile, in terms of organizational culture, the North Toraja Regency Government is required to apply accrual-based Government Accounting Standards


Wearable sensors have applications in multiple aspects of health monitoring. In particular, real-time physiological and on-body measurements have benefits in many scenarios including monitoring chronic disease conditions, long-term rehabilitation programs, athletic training regimens, and tracking the wellbeing of first responders in highly dangerous environments. Sweat sensing is of particular interest due to the non-invasive nature of sampling. Comfortable wearable devices increase the likelihood of continuous use and therefore its tendency for adoption by users. However, the inherent complexity of chemical sensors has made them difficult to implement in reliable wearable systems. This is mainly due to the need for a representative sample to be in continuous contact with the sensor [1]. While this is a relatively simple task in the laboratory, environmental factors such as movement, temperature and signal interference affect real-time performance. This work presents the optimization of electrical parameters and sampling platforms to maximize the sensitivity of conductivity measurements for applications in wearable sweat sensing.
A TraceDec capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (C4D) system was used to determine the conductivity of a range of NaCl solutions using a commercially available thin-film interdigitated microarray electrode (Micrux, Figure 1). Both Au and Pt electrodes were tested using the arrangement shown in Figures 2 and 3. Voltage, frequency and gain were adjusted over the ranges 2.5-80Vpp, 75-300kHz, and 50-150%, respectively. During optimization, human safety was taken into account with the intention of using the parameters to create a wearable device. In this context, the minimum voltage required to achieve acceptable sensitivity was selected.
In addition, a range of PDMS microchips with different microchannel configurations were tested to find the maximum sensitivity over 10mM-130mM NaCl. The concentration range was chosen to encompass the average sweat conductivities in healthy ([NaCl] < 60 mM) and cystic fibrosis positive ([NaCl] ≥ 60 mM) adults before and during exercise. Multiple channels were created to optimize the design with respect to direction of flow and surface area achieved.
The electrodes displayed high sensitivity, repeatability and stability over time. A linear relationship was found between concentration and voltage at high concentrations and low concentrations as shown in Figure 4. Measurements also showed high repeatability over the calibration range (relative standard deviation between 0.0087%-0.0726% for n=3) and high stability over 5 minute measurements (relative standard deviation between 0.0017%-0.0860% for n=5940) as shown in Figure 5. Good performance characteristics like these obtained in laboratory experiments are a necessary prerequisite for achieving reliable real-time on-body measurements.
The results of this work will be implemented in a real-time, wearable device for monitoring the sweat conductivity. As sweat conductivity is dominated by NaCl concentration, conductivity can be used as an indicator for cystic fibrosis or to monitor the effectiveness of treatments, although it is not formally accepted as a diagnostic tool [2]. In addition, the device could aid in monitoring hydration levels of athletes in real-time. Most importantly, the optimization of a real-time sweat sampling platform could allow replacement or integration of other detection methods for sodium, or other physiological features.


Abstract Context Pediatric patients receiving chemotherapy experience unwanted therapy-induced side effects, commonly constipation and pain that diminish quality of life. To date, few studies have investigated the safety and feasibility of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) in pediatric oncology. Objectives The primary objective of this study is to investigate the safety and feasibility of OMT in pediatric oncology outpatient clinics. Methods This is a single institutional pilot study evaluating children aged ≥2–21 years receiving chemotherapy for an oncological diagnosis at Nationwide Children's Hospital (NCH). Permission was obtained from the NCH Institutional Review Board. Participants were enrolled for 8 weeks and received weekly OMT. OMT was deemed feasible by participating in six out of eight weekly treatments, and safety was assessed through adverse event grading per Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE). During the clinic visit, patients answered validated surveys on constipation (Bristol Stool Scale) and pain (FACES Scale) pre/post-OMT. Feasibility was analyzed utilizing a one-sided exact binomial test while validated tools and adverse events were summarized descriptively. Results A total of 23 patients were enrolled, with 21 included in feasibility analyses. The majority of the patients were female (n=13, 61.9%), with a median age of 12 years at enrollment (range, 2.7–20.8 years). There were no serious adverse events attributed to OMT intervention, and among the patients assessed for feasibility, 100% of them participated in at least two-thirds of their weekly OMT treatments, meeting our defined feasibility criteria. The intervention lasted an average of 14.2 min (range, 7.2–19.2 min). There were no FACES or Bristol Stool Scale scores that correlated with worsening pain on constipation post-OMT intervention. Conclusions Pediatric oncology patients were feasibly and safely able to receive OMT during a regularly scheduled chemotherapy visit. The limitations include the small sample size. These findings support the need to further investigate the safety and feasibility, as well as efficacy, of OMT in the pediatric oncology clinical setting.


When using optimal linear prediction to interpolate point observations of a mean square continuous stationary spatial process, one often finds that the interpolant mostly depends on those observations located nearest to the predictand. This phenomenon is called the screening effect. However, there are situations in which a screening effect does not hold in a reasonable asymptotic sense, and theoretical support for the screening effect is limited to some rather specialized settings for the observation locations. This paper explores conditions on the observation locations and the process model under which an asymptotic screening effect holds. A series of examples shows the difficulty in formulating a general result, especially for processes with different degrees of smoothness in different directions, which can naturally occur for spatial-temporal processes. These examples lead to a general conjecture and two special cases of this conjecture are proven. The key condition on the process is that its spectral density should change slowly at high frequencies. Models not satisfying this condition of slow high-frequency change should be used with caution.


Bivariate mixed lognormal distribution is a probability model used for representing rainfalls behavior at two monitoring stations. The paper discuss on the parameter estimation for bivariate mixed lognormal distribution in which all parameters are assumed to be unknown. Six cases were considered in the analysis and the parameters were estimated using the maximum likelihood. The optimal model was selected based on the minimum Akaike's information criterion (AIC) from selected model. The analysis is run by using the rainfall data observed for the time period of 33 years (1975-2007) from Arau, Perlis with each of the other 7 nearby monitoring stations and 5 far distance stations. Among the 7 stations studied, 6 stations (87.5%) choose the same case model (M2) as the minimum AIC procedures. Meanwhile, 4 of the far distance stations choose the case M2 as the best fit case model.


BACKGROUND: Infant mortality rate is the best indicator of effectiveness of maternal and child health services in general. Seventy percent of total infant deaths fall in neonatal period that is the neonatal mortality rate. The neonatal mortality is not uniform across the country. Substantial variations are observed in survival rates between the states and between districts within states. Focusing on local changes using local data can lead to improved outcomes. Health facility-based interventions can reduce neonatal mortality by 23%–50% in different settings. OBJECTIVES: This research article provides an overview of the causes of neonatal mortality and the relative public health importance of different causes that will help in reorganization and strengthening of neonatal services in our setup. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a record-based observational study of all the neonatal deaths in the neonatal unit over a period of 2 months from November 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019. Details of each neonatal death were analyzed. RESULTS: Most common cause of death was prematurity (56.44%) followed by neonatal sepsis (37.62%), birth anoxia (30%), and respiratory distress syndrome (26.73%). Seventy percent (71.29%) of deaths were inborn, whereas 24.75% and 3.96% were outborn and home-delivered, respectively. Sixty-seven percent (67.32%) were less than 2.5 kg among which 36.63% were less than 1.5 kg. Median weight was 2 kg. Fifty-seven (57%) of deaths occurred within 48 h after birth and median age at admission was 2 h and median hospital stay was 1.5 days. CONCLUSIONS: Improvement in female literacy rate, nutritional status of mother, providing good and essential antenatal care will reduce endogenous factors (prematurity and birth injuries) of neonatal mortality. Improving level 2 special newborn care and level 3 neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) beds, upgrading and operationalizing the newborn stabilization unit beds along with quality improvement and a functional back-referral system will substantially bring down neonatal mortality