The authors of the article have determined the content basis of specialist in computer science vocational training which was grounded on the functional approach in the research process. In particular, the content of relevant curricula and programs has been analyzed. The curricula of Poland and Ukraine provide a set of disciplines that ensure the formation of the professional competence of a specialist in computer science. Based on the state standard of a specialist in computer science, we have identified the following teacher of informatics competences: information system, operative-informatics, computer networks, competence in the field of programming. We considered their formation through the prism of the disciplines that they form. The curricula for the training of computer science specialists from Poland and Ukraine have been analyzed. We note that the group of disciplines in the humanities and socio-economic training cycle to a lesser degree, as well as the cycle of educational disciplines of professional and practical training, to a greater extent serve as a fundamental basis for the formation of the professional competence of a specialist in informatics. As for the disciplines of the group of professional and practical training, we note that among the disciplines that contribute to the formation and development of teacher of informatics competence, there are subjects that are characteristic for all higher educational institutions, such as: programming (including systemic, object- oriented, WEB-programming), database design, computer network administration, computer architecture, computer networks, computer graphics, operating systems. Therefore, in higher education institutions which train specialists in computer science, the curriculum provides a large number of disciplines, the content of which is aimed at forming the computer science specialists professional competence. On the basis of the comparative analysis of the training of the future computer science specialists in Poland and Ukraine, the authors have made the conclusion that advanced ideas of the Polish experience of training future specialists of informatics could be used in the Ukrainian system of pedagogical education.


Desensitization to Streptomycin and P.A.S. SIR,-The paper by Dr. John Crofton (Journal, November 7, p. 1014) was of considerable interest and import. There have been few reports in the literature of attempts at desensitization to streptomycin-a most valuable procedure if it can be carried out successfully. The best route, frequency, and dosage of desensitizing injections have not yet been worked out. That being so, it should be useful for those faced with this problem in the future to know of the varied experiences of others, and I would like to record the technique used with a nursing sister under my care who gave a history that she had developed oedema and peeling of the eyelids and of the flexures of the elbows in the autumn of 1947 after handling streptomycin. The rash cleared after avoidance of streptomycin, but recurred in the spring of 1948 after a short re-exposure in which she had only given two injections. In the spring of 1952 there was a further slight recurrence after giving a single injection, and another in November, 1952, after checking injections: this became worse after giving some injections. On examination on December 19, 1952, there was peeling of the eyelids, the left more than the right. Patch-testing was performed with streptomycin 1/1,000,000, 1/100,000. 1/10,000, and 1/1,000, and all tests were negative except the 1/1,000 dilution, which at 70 hours showed slight redness and oedema. The left eye had becomne swollen about 60 hours after the application of the patch. On re-examination five days after the application there was still marked pinkness and papulation at the 1/1,000 site, but the other test sites were negative. Both eyelids had, however, recently been oedematous and pink. In view of the possibility of some other cause, such as plants, having an influence, patch-testing was also performed to chrysanthemums, with negative results. On September 25, 1953, an intradermal injection of 0.1 mg. of streptomycin was given and on the next day an injection of 0.2 mg. On September 27 erythema and oedema 1 cm. in diameter were noted at the site of the first injection, and this reaction had become more marked after receipt of the second injection. At the site of the second injection there was only a minor response. The eyelids had become sore six hours after the second injection, but this soreness subsided in 24 hours. Subsequent injections were as follows:


The ensemble density functional theory (E-DFT) is valuable for simulations of metallic systems due to the absence of a gap in the spectrum of the Hamiltonian matrices. Although the widely used self-consistent field (SCF) iteration method can be extended to solve the minimization of the total energy functional with respect to orthogonality constraints, there is no theoretical guarantee on the convergence of these algorithms. In this paper, we consider an equivalent model with a single variable and a single spherical constraint by eliminating the dependence on the fractional occupancies. A proximal gradient method is developed by keeping the entropy term but linearizing all other terms in the total energy functional. Convergence to the stationary point is established. Numerical results using the MATLAB toolbox KSSOLV can outperform SCF consistently on many metallic systems.


This article explores community well-being (CWB) outcomes of institutional trust (and distrust) through entrepreneurship in the context of a refugee-hosting society in Turkey. Existing studies show the positive relationship between institutional trust and quality of life (QOL) as well as entrepreneurship and QOL in subsistence contexts. This research, however, explores the relationship between institutional (dis)trust and entrepreneurship on a path to CWB with a special emphasis on refugee and local interactions in the marketplace. Three different paths to the QOL of refugees and/or locals are presented, but only two lead to CWB outcomes encompassing both refugees and locals. Consideration of refugees and locals as both consumers and business owners provides perspective on the interplay between social trust and institutional trust in a socio-culturally heterogeneous subsistence context. The article also discusses implications for theory and practice.


ABSTRACT Film policy in the United Kingdom is comprised of two complementary strands: the development of regional production clusters and the positioning of the United Kingdom as a film hub in the global film industry. This article examines the relationship between the regional, national and global scales in feature film production in three UK regions—Northern Ireland, Scotland and the South West of England—from 2004 to 2006. The results indicate that connections between the regions of the United Kingdom and the global film industry are limited, and that where they do exist these connections are either directly to or mediated through London, which functions as the dominant centre of distribution and finance—and therefore decision-making—in the UK film industry. Northern Ireland, by virtue of its cultural and economic relationship to the Republic of Ireland, stands out as a region in which its connections to other major decision-making centres are as important as its connections to London. The results suggest that while UK film policy has sought to redistribute the productive capacity of the industry, the autonomy of regional production centres remains limited.


BACKGROUND
Osteonecrosis of the femoral head is a debilitating condition characterized by progressive degeneration of bone that eventually leads to collapse of the femoral head in the majority of patients. Femoral head-sparing procedures have been more successful in pre-collapse stages of osteonecrosis than in post-collapse stages, although some patients with early post-collapse disease have had no additional progression of the disorder. Nevertheless, the effects of collapse on the articular cartilage are not well understood, and radiographic staging of femoral head collapse does not address the condition of the articular cartilage.

METHODS
In the current study, we investigated the relationship between the mechanical properties of post-collapse articular cartilage and the histologic findings and macroscopic grades of the articular cartilage from hips with stage-IV osteonecrosis, those with stage-V osteonecrosis, and those without osteonecrosis.

RESULTS
The cartilage from both stage-IV and stage-V hips showed significant degeneration compared with the normal control cartilage, but there was no significant difference between the two stages. There was significant variability in the histologic and mechanical properties of these samples that correlated strongly with the gross appearance of the cartilage surface but not with the lesion size.

CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that articular cartilage that appears macroscopically normal may remain mechanically functional even in patients with large osteonecrotic lesions or a late radiographic stage of the disease.


The field of nanomedicine is a rapidly evolving field driven by the need for safer and more efficient therapies as well as ultrasensitive and fast diagnostics. Although the advantages of nanoparticles for diagnostic and therapeutic applications are unambiguous, in vivo requirements, including low toxicity, long blood circulation time, proper clearance, sufficient stability, and reproducible synthesis have, in most cases, bedeviled their clinical translation. Nevertheless, researchers have the opportunity to have a decisive influence on the future of nanomedicine by developing new multifunctional molecules and adapting the material design to the requirements. Ultimately, the goal is to find the right level of functionality without adding unnecessary complexity to the system. This article aims to emphasize the potential and current challenges of nanoparticle-based medical agents and highlights how smart and functional material design considerations can help to overcome many of the current limitations and increase the clinical value of nanoparticles.


The first law of causal diamonds relates the area deficit of a small ball relative to flat space to the matter energy density it contains. At second order in the Riemann normal coordinate expansion, this energy density should receive contributions from the gravitational field itself. In this work, we study the second-order area deficit of the ball in the absence of matter and analyze its relation to possible notions of gravitational energy. In the small ball limit, a reasonable expectation for any proposed gravitational energy functional is that it evaluate to the Bel – Robinson energy density W in vacuum spacetimes. A direct calculation of the area deficit reveals a result that is not simply proportional to W . We discuss how the deviation from W is related to ambiguities in defining the shape of the ball in curved space, and provide several proposals for fixing these shape ambiguities.


Agriculture is the largest driver of deforestation globally, and this conversion of land from forests to agriculture, results in emissions which are contributing to climate change. This thesis focuses on exploring agriculture-driven deforestation at the country level, from the perspective of quantifying emissions, estimating the potential for mitigation, including identifying potential barriers to success, and highlighting enabling conditions for mitigation of these emissions. Efforts to reduce deforestation are being undertaken, for example through the mechanism REDD+; reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries. At the same time, efforts are underway to try to reduce hunger by increasing food security (for example through the sustainable development goals (SDGs)). Competition for land can result when both these goals are pursued at the same time, because forested land is protected for carbon storage, while agricultural land is expanded (often into forests) to provide sufficient land for growing food. There are several ways in which both goals, forest protection and food security might be achieved together, and we focus on assessing the potential of two approaches which can potentially spare forested land. These approaches are: increasing production on existing agricultural land, and expanding agriculture onto non-forested available land. Emerging phenomena such as Large Scale Land Acquisitions (LSLA, otherwise known as land grabs) add to the complexity of the challenge, and we discuss the potential threat which LSLA has on forested land, and how to avoid LSLA for agriculture in forested land. A transformational change of the land sector is proposed to ensure that both goals can be met. Several ingredients are required to achieve a transformational change, and linking REDD+ to Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) approaches is discussed. CSA interventions are those which are able to reduce emissions or store carbon while increasing the adaptive capacity of agriculture to climate change and increasing food production. Chapter 2 provides new estimates of emissions from agriculture-driven deforestation in 91 countries using a data-driven approach. Latin America was found to have the highest emissions, and these emissions peaked between 2000 and 2005 and then declined. Emissions in Africa has been rising since 1990, with the countries in the Congo Basin being particular contributors to this rise in emissions. Uncertainties of these country emission estimates are ±62.4% (average for 1990-2015), and emissions from Asia are the most uncertain. The uncertainty of the input datasets was used to estimate the uncertainty of the emissions estimate, and the area of deforestation, and fraction which agriculture is driving deforestation were found to be the largest contributors to uncertainty of the emissions estimates. Increasing the certainty of these two data types should be a priority, and will lead to an increased certainty for the emissions estimates. Chapter 3 compares direct and indirect emissions from agriculture at the national level, where direct are emissions from existing agricultural land, and indirect emissions are those from agriculture-driven deforestation. A decision tree was produced which can be used to guide decision making by identifying priority countries for mitigation initiatives. The decision tree uses several indicators related to the potential for mitigation, enabling environment, and associated risks to livelihoods to identify countries which have the most potential for the mitigation of either direct or indirect agricultural emissions. Six priority countries are highlighted as having a good mitigation potential for agriculture-driven deforestation while having a good enabling environment (in this case engagement in REDD+) and which also have low risks to livelihoods from the implementation of interventions in the agriculture sector. They are: Panama, Paraguay, Ecuador, Mexico, Malaysia and Peru. Chapter 4 focusses on LSLA, and their potential impacts on forests. A country level analysis was carried out, and the characteristics which are typically found in countries which have LSLA were described. Countries which have these characteristics and which do not yet have LSLA are for example considered to be at risk from LSLA. Countries which have LSLA or are at risk from LSLA were assessed for the risk of LSLA-driven deforestation. Other key targets for interventions to reduce deforestation are highlighted, such as those countries with large numbers of LSLA and which already have a lot of agriculture-driven deforestation. The potential conflicts between LSLA and REDD+ are discussed, and investor-side policies such as zero deforestation pledges from commodity producers, green procurement policies, and initiatives such as the Roundtable For Sustainable Palm Oil are highlighted as potential solutions to these conflicts. Lessons learned from implementing REDD+, which has a number of shared characteristics with LSLA, can be applied in order to reduce the negative impacts of LSLA. Chapter 5 discusses the potential for forest-land sparing interventions to be implemented in the agriculture sector. A transformative change which incorporates multiple interventions and brings together the forest and agriculture sectors is proposed. Climate Smart Agriculture approaches should be considered, but only when they do not lead to expansion of agriculture into forests. The need for supporting policies to avoid this occurring is discussed. Policy coherence is a barrier to this change as policies favouring both conversion to agriculture (including those which enable LSLA), and forest protection can occur in the same place. The use of the landscape approach as a platform to address this challenge is discussed. Landscape-level emissions accounting, which takes into consideration both direct and indirect emissions from agriculture, can be used to evaluate the impact of mitigation interventions across sectors. The need for transparency in the land sector, in relation to emissions reporting in particular is introduced, and is a key requirement for access to carbon finance which can potentially support forest land-sparing interventions. Chapter 6 concludes the thesis, and discusses the wider implications for this work. The link between the findings in this thesis and the SDGs is explored. The SDGs may lead to future competition for land due to goals which focus on reducing hunger, protecting forests and increasing the proportion of renewable energy unless action is taken. Future data needs are discussed, as although we provide (in chapter 2) new data on agriculture-driven deforestation, they are still uncertain and data on potential future trends in agriculture-driven deforestation are not available. The need for consideration of emissions related to the impact of agriculture on forest degradation and on carbon losses in soils is another data gap, and relates to recent efforts to restore degraded land – which could be one of the most promising mitigation efforts which can also support the production of more food for growing global populations. The urgent need to address climate change highlights the opportunities in the land sector, not only to mitigate emissions, but also to promote food security.


A distributed algorithm for the detection of deadlocks in store-and-forward communication networks is presented. At first, we focus on a static environment and develop an efficient knot detection algorithm for general graphs. The knot detection algorithm uses at most O(n2+ m) messages and O(log (n)) bits of memory to detect all deadlocked nodes in the static network. Using the knot detection algorithm as a building block, a deadlock detection algorithm in a dynamic environment is developed. This algorithm has the following properties: It detects all the nodes which cause the deadlock. The algorithm is triggered only when there is a potential for deadlock and only those nodes which are potentially deadlocked perform the algorithm. The algorithm does not affect other processes at the nodes.


Short-term forecasting of passenger flow is critical for transit management and crowd regulation. Spatial dependencies, temporal dependencies, inter-station correlations driven by other latent factors, and exogenous factors bring challenges to the short-term forecasts of passenger flow of urban rail transit networks. An innovative deep learning approach, Multi-Graph Convolutional-Recurrent Neural Network (MGC-RNN) is proposed to forecast passenger flow in urban rail transit systems to incorporate these complex factors. We propose to use multiple graphs to encode the spatial and other heterogenous inter-station correlations. The temporal dynamics of the inter-station correlations are also modeled via the proposed multi-graph convolutional-recurrent neural network structure. Inflow and outflow of all stations can be collectively predicted with multiple time steps ahead via a sequence to sequence(seq2seq) architecture. The proposed method is applied to the short-term forecasts of passenger flow in Shenzhen Metro, China. The experimental results show that MGC-RNN outperforms the benchmark algorithms in terms of forecasting accuracy. Besides, it is found that the inter-station driven by network distance, network structure, and recent flow patterns are significant factors for passenger flow forecasting. Moreover, the architecture of LSTM-encoder-decoder can capture the temporal dependencies well. In general, the proposed framework could provide multiple views of passenger flow dynamics for fine prediction and exhibit a possibility for multi-source heterogeneous data fusion in the spatiotemporal forecast tasks.


In this paper, using an OLG model with heterogeneous households, we investigate economic inequality in the recent decades in Japan. We decompose the causes of economic inequality into macroeconomic factors and a demographic factor, and demonstrate that the earning inequality in the model replicates the actual evolution of inequality in Japan. Based on a counterfactual simulation, we demonstrate that time-varying macroeconomic factors play an important role in the evolution of economic inequality. In particular, we show that the low growth rate of total factor productivity in the 1990s in Japan limited the dispersion of economic inequality.


Background Therapeutic management of Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer (LARC) involves pre-operative chemoradiotherapy (pCRT) followed by surgery. However, after pCRT the complete pathological response is approximately 20%, whereas in 20 to 40% of patients the response is poor or absent. Methods Cancer biopsy specimens (n= 38) and serum samples (n= 34) obtained before pCRT from 38 LARC patients were included in the study. Patients were classified in responders (R, tumor regression grade [TRG] 1-2; n= 16) and non-responders (NR, TRG 3-5; n= 22) according to the pathological response observed upon surgery. We performed miRNA microarrays analysis on biopsy specimens, and validated the selected candidates both by qRT-PCR (tissue and serum) and by in situ hybridization (tissue, miR-125b) analyses. Results Eleven miRNAs were significantly different between R and NR (miR-154, miR-409-3p, miR-127-3p, miR-214*, miR-299-5p and miR-125b overexpressed in NR; miR-33a, miR-30e, miR-338-3p, miR-200a and miR-378 decreased). In particular, miR-125b resulted to be the best candidate to discriminate the two groups (AUC of 0.9026; 95% CI, 0.7618-1.043). Additionally, miR-125b serum levels were significantly overexpressed in NR patients compared to R (p-value=0.0087), with an excellent discriminating power (AUC of 0.782; 95% CI, 0.6123-0.9518). Conclusions The obtained results further support the clinical impact of miRNA analysis. High miR-125b expression in tissue and serum were associated with a poor treatment response in LARC patients, therefore miR-125b could be considered as a possible novel non-invasive biomarker of response in LARC treatment.


Children's eating behavior influences energy intake and thus weight through choices of type and amount of food. One type of eating behavior, food responsiveness, defined as eating in response to external cues such as the sight and smell of food, is particularly related to increased caloric intake and weight. Because little is known about the potential determinants of such behavior, we focus herein on child and parent predictors of food responsiveness in a large community sample of Norwegian 6-year-olds, followed up at ages 8 and 10. To measure children's food responsiveness, parents completed the Children's Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Potential predictors were children's inhibition and symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and depression, and parents' instrumental and controlling feeding practices as well as parental restrained eating. After accounting for children's initial levels of food responsiveness within a hybrid fixed effects method that takes into consideration all unmeasured time-invariant confounders, more child attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms and greater restrained eating by parents predicted more food responsiveness at both ages 8 and 10. These results may provide important insights for efforts to prevent overeating.


Novel speech systems such as the conversational agents being developed by the Companions Project (www.companions-project.org) can be simulated using the Wizard of Oz methodology. In this approach technologies that are not yet ready for testing by people are replaced by a human, both for prototyping and collecting additional dialogue data. In the case of Companions we want to observe what it would be like for people interact with a fully functional embodied conversational agent (ECA) and to collect samples of typical dialogue in order to explore, evaluate and model dialogue strategies. One controversial aspect of the Wizard of Oz approach is whether people should be aware that they are interacting with a simulation or whether they should be "fooled" into thinking they are interacting with a real system. Clearly there are ethical issues involved in fooling people, but some argue that unless the participant believes the simulation to be real, the results of any experimentation will not be applicable to the real situation. Over the course of several previous Wizard of Oz experiments our observations suggest that the dialogues produced do not significantly differ whether the participants know that the technology is faked or not. This hypothesis was investigated by collecting dialogues from two groups of participants. One group of participants believed that the Wizard of Oz speech system was in fact a fully computerised prototype and the other group knew that they would be talking through the interface to a hidden person (the wizard). The dialogues were analysed for differences attributable to the participants' beliefs about the system. This analysis was undertaken by an independent "blind" reviewer, a dialogue expert who attempted to allocate participants to one group or the other. His guess was wrong for four out of the six participants. Thus it appears that whether people believe they are interacting with a real system or not does not effect the dialogues and other factors, for example the personality of the person engaged in a dialogue with an ECA, are more important.


A guide to measuring research impact of individual authors, articles, and journal titles. Discover the various ways of quantifying and capturing scholarly impact, such as traditional citation-based methods (bibliometrics) and alternative metrics.


Background: Social deprivation is a well-known risk factor for chronic kidney disease (CKD), however its association with glomerular diseases is less well understood. This study was aimed to evaluate the association of Socioeconomic Status (SES) with glomerular diseases among patients attending at a tertiary care hospital in Bangladesh. Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted at Department of Nephrology, Shaheed Sheikh Abu Naser Specialized Hospital, Khulna, Bangladesh from January 2016 to December 2020. A total of 184 diagnosed patients of glomerulonephritis (GN) were enrolled. Patient's socioeconomic status (SES) was assessed using Modified BG Prasad socioeconomic classification. Morphological pattern of glomerular diseases were assessed according to the histopathology report. Relationship of glomerular diseases with particular socioeconomic status (SES) was identified. Results: Among 184 study patients 99 were male and 85 were female, their mean age was 31.18 ± 13.55 years. It was observed that, in proliferative variety; Mesengial Proliferative Glomerulonephtis (Mes PGN) was the leading morphological variant (34.7%) followed by Membranoproliferative Glomerulonephtis [MPGN (16.8%)], Lupus Nephritis [LN (7.1%)], Focal Segmental Proliferative Glomerulonephritis [FSPGN (7.1%)], IgA Nephropathy (6.5%), IgM Nephropathy (4.3%) and Crescentic Glomerulonephtis [Cres GN (2.2%) serially. In the non-proliferative glomerulonephtis; Membranous Nephropathy (MN) was the commonest form (10.9%) followed by Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis [FSGS (7.6%)] and Minimal Change Disease [MCD (2.7%)]. All types of GN were significantly prevalent in the lower socioeconomic classes (Class- III, IV, V), while the frequency of Mes PGN and MPGN were significantly higher in Class- IV and Class- V socioeconomic classes. Conclusion: Lower socioeconomic classes are associated with a higher incidence of glomerular diseases particularly Messangial Proliferative Glomerulonephritis (Mes PGN) and Membranoproliferative Glomerulonephritis (MPGN) in Bangladesh.


Three Gram-negative bacterial strains (Cmf 17.2T, Rd 20.33 and Cmf 18.22T) isolated from reared clams in Galicia were subjected to a taxonomic study, based on genetic and phenotypic characterization. Analysis of the 16S rRNA gene allowed the identification of the strains as members of the genus Marinomonas, sharing the highest similarity with Marinomonas aquimarina CECT 5080T (97.8 %-98.5 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity). Phylogenetic analysis of the sequences showed that the three isolates formed two different groups distantly related to their closest relative, M. aquimarina. DNA-DNA hybridizations were performed to confirm the taxonomic position and the results were below the recommended threshold for species delimitation, specifically 44.5 % (Cmf 17.2T with M. aquimarina CECT 5080T) and 55 % (Cmf 18.22Twith M. aquimarina CECT 5080T). Furthermore, the average nucleotide identity (ANIb, ANIm and OrthoANI) and in silico estimated DNA-DNA reassociation values among Cmf 17.2T, Cmf 18.22T and M. aquimarina CECT 5080T were in all cases below the respective threshold for species differentiation. The estimated G+C content of the genomic DNA was found to be 45.3 % (Cmf 17.2T) and 44.6 % (Cmf 18.22T). The principal fatty acids of the strains were found to be summed feature 3 (C16 : 1 ω7c/C16 : 1ω6c), summed feature 8 (C18 : 1ω7c/C18 : 1ω6c), C16 : 0, C12 : 0 and C10 : 0 3-OH. The results obtained on the characterization of the clam isolates indicate that they represent two novel species of the genus Marinomonas, for which the names Marinomonas gallaica sp. nov. (type strain Cmf 17.2T=CECT 9049T=LMG 29243T) and Marinomonas atlantica sp. nov. (type strain Cmf 18.22T=CECT 9050T=LMG 29244T) are proposed.


Precision oncology, defined as molecular profiling of tumors to identify targetable alterations, is rapidly developing and has entered the mainstream of clinical practice. Genomic testing involves many stakeholders working in a coordinated fashion to deliver high-quality tissue samples to high-quality laboratories, where appropriate next-generation sequencing (NGS) molecular analysis leads to actionable results. Clinicians should be familiar with the types of genomic variants reported by the laboratory and the technology used to determine the results, including limitations of current testing methodologies and reports. Interpretation of genomic results is best undertaken with multidisciplinary input to reduce uncertainty in clinical recommendations relating to a documented variant. Non-small cell lung cancer has emerged as a prototype disease where genomic data from at least several well-documented alterations with approved targeted agents are essential for optimal treatment from diagnosis of advanced disease. Due to the development of resistance to targeted therapies, resampling and retesting of tumors, including using liquid biopsy technology after clinical progression, may be important in making treatment decisions. The value of molecular profiling depends on avoiding both underutilization for well-documented variant target-drug pairs and overutilization of variant-drug therapy without proven benefit. As techniques evolve and become more cost effective, the use of molecular testing may prove to add more specificity and improve outcomes for a larger number of patients.


In this paper, we focus on the bandwidth allocation issue in wireless access networks, which are made up of Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) networks, i.e., Fiber-Wire (FiWi) networks. Since the bandwidth allocation scheme largely determines the performance of the entire wireless access network, in the past decades, researchers have dedicated much effort to design bandwidth allocation algorithms based on different criteria in order to satisfy various performance requirements. Various types of bandwidth allocation scheme based on Max-Min Fairness (MMF) or Proportional Fairness (PF) criteria have been developed to increase not only system throughput but also user fairness. However, in general, there is a tradeoff relationship between maximizing system throughput and increasing the fairness among users in throughput, and the users satisfaction in their Quality of Service (QoS) cannot always be maximized by adopting fair bandwidth allocation methods. To cope with this issue, we propose a bandwidth allocation method which improves the QoS satisfaction of all users while maintaining the system throughput similar to standard schemes, such as MMF and PF. In our method, users satisfaction is quantified by using utility functions which can be different among users according to their applications and services. By transferring portions of bandwidth from fully filled users to others so as not to decrease the system throughput, the proposed scheme is able to eventually converge to a compromised point. The results of performance evaluation through computer simulations have demonstrated that our proposed scheme can successfully enhance the performance of wireless access networks.


Flexibility is often an unavoidable consequence of the desire for high speed and performance manipulators. This paper proposes a method that improves the performance of flexible manipulators through the employment of robust state estimation techniques. These techniques are based on discrete time Kalman filtering and sliding mode principles. A simple model for a single degree of freedom flexible manipulator is derived and a control scheme is chosen and implemented. The latter includes a robust non-linear estimator. Simulation and preliminary experimental results are presented that demonstrate the validity of the proposed control scheme.


PURPOSE
To determine the distribution of WDR36 sequence variants in a cohort of patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) in the United States.

METHODS
All of the 23 coding exons and flanking introns of the WDR36 gene were sequenced in 118 probands from families with at least two members affected by POAG, 6 probands from juvenile-onset POAG families, and 108 control individuals.

RESULTS
Thirty-two WDR36 sequence variants were found in this population of patients with POAG. Nonsynonymous single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), including those previously described as "disease-causing" and "disease susceptibility," were found in 17% of POAG patients and 4% of control subjects. Although the distribution of WDR36 variants in the pedigrees did not show consistent segregation with the disease, the WDR36 sequence variants were found more frequently in patients with more severe disease.

CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study suggest that abnormalities in WDR36 alone are not sufficient to cause POAG. The association of WDR36 sequence variants with more severe disease in affected individuals suggests that defects in the WDR36 gene can contribute to POAG and that WDR36 may be a glaucoma modifier gene.


The effects of periodic axis deformations on propagation in multimode optical fibers with single-mode excitation are investigated numerically and experimentally. The numerical study, based on ray theory, deals with helical rays in the presence of sinusoidal axis deformations for various shapes of index profile. The corresponding experimental observations and results, carried out on tubular modes, confirm the existence of resonance effects between the helical ray period and the fiber axis deformation. This technique permits the observation of mode-to-mode power transfer and provides a sensitive tool to investigate the mode-coupling mechanism in optical fibers.


ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE To describe the prevalence of common mental disorders in Brazilian adolescent students, according to geographical macro-regions, school type, sex, and age. METHODS We evaluated 74,589 adolescents who participated in the Cardiovascular Risk Study in Adolescents (ERICA), a cross-sectional, national, school-based study conducted in 2013-2014 in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. A self-administered questionnaire and an electronic data collector were employed. The presence of common mental disorders was assessed using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). We estimated prevalence and 95% confidence intervals of common mental disorders by sex, age, and school type, in Brazil and in the macro-regions, considering the sample design. RESULTS The prevalence of common mental disorders was of 30.0% (95%CI 29.2-30.8), being higher among girls (38.4%; 95%CI 37.1-39.7) when compared to boys (21.6%; 95%CI 20.5-22.8), and among adolescents who were from 15 to 17 years old (33.6%; 95%CI 32.2-35.0) compared to those aged between 12 and 14 years (26.7%; 95%CI 25.8-27.6). The prevalence of common mental disorders increased with age for both sexes, always higher in girls (ranging from 28.1% at 12 years to 44.1% at 17 years) than in boys (ranging from 18.5% at 12 years to 27.7% at 17 years). We did not observe any significant difference by macro-region or school type. Stratified analyses showed higher prevalence of common mental disorders among girls aged from 15 to 17 years of private schools in the North region (53.1; 95%CI 46.8-59.4). CONCLUSIONS The high prevalence of common mental disorders among adolescents and the fact that the symptoms are often vague mean these disorders are not so easily identified by school administrators or even by health services. The results of this study can help the proposition of more specific prevention and control measures, focused on highest risk subgroups.


The prevalence of contract farming in the cotton industry of Zimbabwe implies that it has become the dominant marketing system. Even the "free" (independently produced) cotton is eventually sold to the contracting cotton merchants owing to enacted regulations which compel all prospective cotton buyers to finance production through contract farming to be licensed to purchase seed cotton from farmers. However, the prevailing seed cotton marketing system is riddled with pricing related challenges characterised by price negotiation impasses that recur every marketing season, prompting Government intervention in a supposedly free market system. While farmers accuse cotton merchants of colluding in undertaking unfair pricing practices, the merchants blame it all on the farmers for failure to increase yield levels to international standards. This study seeks to conduct a comparative price analysis using secondary data, to identify farm-level profit margins for contracted and non-contracted seed cotton and explore the impact of different contract structures on farmer profit. Results of this study show that a non-contracted farmer realises better returns than a contracted farmer due to savings made from procurement of interest-free and cheaper inputs. Alternative options, though few, are available for the non-contracted farmer to minimise production costs unlike the contracted farmers. However, contracted farmers have guaranteed markets and less hassles in inputs sourcing. All things being equal, it would be advisable for farmers to produce their cotton independently and realise higher returns.


The study presents a self-commissioning procedure for the automatic parameter estimation of three-phase induction motor drives. The procedure consists of a step-by-step approach with different test signals to obtain the parameter values while maintaining the motor at standstill. The actual implementation is capable of mapping both inverter and motor parameters non-linearities, providing accurate data for the tuning of common current regulators and for advanced sensorless drives as well. Theoretical and experimental results are provided, proving the effectiveness of the procedure.


The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between gender role beliefs and intercultural relationship quality for individuals in committed relationships, and between gender role beliefs and willingness to date outside of your respective culture for individuals not in committed relationships. This study also examines romantic relationships using the homophily principle from social psychology, which states that we are more attracted to people who are more similar to ourselves—this may play a role in the prevalence of intercultural romantic relationships. I used Lafontaine's short version of the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale to measure relationships quality, the short version of the Gender Role Beliefs Scale by Brown & Gladstone, a demographics questions and lastly questions in regards to cultural similarity between couples to characterize the sample. I also measured individual participants' willingness to cross cultural boundaries when dating. I collected data through the University's research pool, as well as through researcher's social media using snowball sampling. The survey was available in both English and in Spanish to increase sample size and accessibility. I ran separate regressions for singles and couples to estimate the relationship between gender role beliefs and close relationships quality. I found there to be no significant correlation between gender role beliefs and couples' relationship quality (r = -.047, p = .659) or between gender role beliefs and singles' willingness (r = -.034, p = .711). The correlation between Gender Role Beliefs and Relationship Quality was also not significant (r = -.046, p = .611). I then ran a Welch's t-test and a Bayesian t-test (using the default Cauchy prior; Wagenmakers et al., 2018) comparing the two split couples group (different versus similar) with Relationship Quality and Gender Role Beliefs as the dependent variable. For relationship quality, almost all of my variables except religion had a Bayes Factor of less than .33 meaning that it would put me in the mild side of moderate evidence in favor of my null hypothesis. By doing Bayesian statistics, and with this project I am contributing to evidence that people shouldn't be afraid to enter relationships that are different because it doesn't seem to be the differences that define the quality of the relationship.


A spiritual anthology drawn from the Greek and Russian traditions, concerned in particular with the most frequently used and best loved of all Orthodox prayers--the Jesus Prayer. Texts are taken chiefly from the letters of Bishop Theopan the Recluse, along with many other writers.


Under the laboratory environment, speaker recognition has made great progress. But in real life, the performance of speaker recognition system is vulnerable to various factors, especially environmental noise and healthy condition. This paper studies the performance of speaker identification system when the tester suffers from the cold. The cold tends to induce inflammation and swelling of the nasal cavity, and then changes the modulation of nasals to sound source excitation signal and makes the speaker's voice changed. R.G. Tull[8] also found the speaker recognition system's performance significantly decreases when taking normal speech speaked by the healthy persons as train speech, while cold speech by persons who are catching cold as test speech. In this paper, through studying the composition of nasal and comparing the frequency domain properties of normal speech and cold speech, we find that the cold makes the low frequency components larger and high-frequency components smaller. So we propose the method using different pre-emphasis filter process normal speech and cold speech. Experimental results show that this method can improve the performance of the speaker identification system by 6% compared to general method all speeches are processed with the same filter.


Problem statement: The crop in the irrigated scheme has faced by mani fold problems contributed to low level of productivity and high c ost of production of wheat. The crop is commonly produced under pump irrigation from the River Nile. In River Nile State (RNS), wheat is grown under the irrigated sector, the State is considered as a suitable environment for producing this crop. The s tudy was conducted at Elzeidab irrigated scheme of RNS which is regarded as the oldest and biggest scheme belonging to the Ministry of Agriculture of RNS. Approach: Primary data was collected by using structured questionnaire for (70) randomly se lected respondents. More than one technique used to assess economic aspects of the crop. Cobb-Dougla s production function, descriptive statistics and partial budgeting have been employed to analyze the primary data. The study detected that the major socioeconomic characteristics of Elzeidab farmers w ere educated, the scheme tenants have had a cumulative experience in agriculture and average fa rm size is found to be small and the majority 50% of surveyed tenants in Elzeidab scheme were rented. The farming system of Elzeidab scheme is dominated by wheat production which counts to 25% of the farm land. The yield gab with the potential yield obtained by Agricultural Research C orporation (ARC) in the State amounts 66%. The microfinance market in Elzeidab scheme is not well developed. Water charges in the scheme were high. About 53% of the annual running expenses were allocated for fuel that made irrigation costs to be the highest single component of production costs of the crop, while irrigation water cost was considered as the most agricultural constraint, thi s item was found to be as 19% of the total cost of production as the highest percentage overall the va riable cost items. Results: The regression analysis revealed that the most factors affecting w heat productivity under the study were: the average of tenants' age, family labor, distance fro m home to field, hired labor, distance of farm to source of irrigation, number of irrigation, term of irrigation. Furthermore, the weakness of wheat production normally regards as a cost issue and lac k of awareness wheat grower especially about wheat technical package. Conclusion: The study concluded that wheat production contribut e significantly to farm sustainability and contribute to alleviation of malnutrition in the State. The actual production constraints restrict the sustaina bility of this important crop. The cooperation between international organizations and governmental institutions should tackle the hindrances of wheat production and achieve stability of wheat. Th ere is a great potential for improvement the yield of the crop and an intervention of the State is nee ded to ease having the inputs of production especially irrigation water inputs.


Background Fetal alcohol exposure causes in the offspring a collection of permanent physiological and neuropsychological deficits collectively termed Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). The timing and amount of exposure cannot fully explain the substantial variability among affected individuals, pointing to genetic influences that mediate fetal vulnerability. However, the aspects of vulnerability that depend on the mother, the father, or both, are not known. Methodology/Principal Findings Using the outbred Sprague-Dawley (SD) and inbred Brown Norway (BN) rat strains as well as their reciprocal crosses, we administered ethanol (E), pair-fed (PF), or control (C) diets to the pregnant dams. The dams' plasma levels of free thyroxine (fT4), triiodothyronine (T3), free T3 (fT3), and thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) were measured to elucidate potential differences in maternal thyroid hormonal environment, which affects specific aspects of FASD. We then compared alcohol-exposed, pair fed, and control offspring of each fetal strain on gestational day 21 (G21) to identify maternal and paternal genetic effects on bodyweight and placental weight of male and female fetuses. Conclusions SD and BN dams exhibited different baseline hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid function. Moreover, the thyroid function of SD dams was more severely affected by alcohol consumption while that of BN dams was relatively resistant. This novel finding suggests that genetic differences in maternal thyroid function are one source of maternal genetic effects on fetal vulnerability to FASD. The fetal vulnerability to decreased bodyweight after alcohol exposure depended on the genetic contribution of both parents, not only maternal contribution as previously thought. In contrast, the effect of maternal alcohol consumption on placental weight was consistent and not strain-dependent. Interestingly, placental weight in fetuses with different paternal genetic contributions exhibited opposite responses to caloric restriction (pair feeding). In summary, these novel findings demonstrate both maternal and paternal genetic contributions to in utero vulnerability to alcohol, refining our understanding of the genetically-based heterogeneity seen in human FASD.


Research on metal cluster catalysis is still at the early study stage and very attractive results can be expected if we are able to design a particular metal cluster suitable for each desired reaction. In this chapter, we will examine different factors, on which the catalytic properties depend, such as: the role of cluster size, the protecting ligands, the charge, the support nature. Nowadays great advances have been made in the monodisperse synthesis of clusters, which facilitate the subsequent study of their catalytic properties. Various studies sustain evidence that metal clusters exhibit intrinsic catalytic activity for some of the typical catalyzed reactions including CO oxidation, aerobic oxidations, reductions, homocoupling reactions among others. Herein, we highlight the progress of metal clusters—supported and unsupported—as efficient catalysts through different reactions.


Based on inequality techniques and matrix theory, linear feedback control both with one input and one state or two states and with multi-inputs is proposed to realize the globally exponential synchronization of two Chu chaotic systems. Some new sufficient algebraic criteria for the globally exponential synchronization of two chaotic systems are obtained analytically. The controllers here designed have simple structure. Numerical simulations are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed chaos synchronization scheme.


Periodontitis is a chronic infectious inflammatory disease, being the most common bone disease in humans. Porphyromonas gingivalis bacteria are quite common in periodontal lesions, thus considered among major causal agents of periodontitis. Monocytes play a crucial role in development of the infectious events and subsequent inflammation. The aim of this study was to investigate appropriate changes of the monocyte subpopulations, as well as to assess relationships between expression of CD14, CD16, CD45RA, HLA-DR on the monocyte surfaces in the patients with periodontitis. It was demonstrated that periodontitis is accompanied by increased counts of pro-inflammatory monocytes. These changes are characterized by decreased expression of CD14, along with occurence of CD16 marker. Concomitant activation of the monocytes is reflected by CD45RA expression. However, in spite of significant increase in CD14 low CD16 + HLA-DR + cell counts observed in patients with periodontitis, these monocyte populations are not likely to play a significant role in development of a specific immune response and suppression of periodontitis. (Med. Immunol., 2014, vol. 16, N 2, pp 165-172)


Polypeptides can be modified in the rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER) either during their synthesis (cotranslational) or after the initial synthesis has been completed (posttranslational). These structural modifications are also referred to as protein processing events, which can include N-linked glycosylation; O-linked glycosylation; glycolipid attachment; disulfide bond formation to generate secondary structure; modification to fold the polypeptide into a stable tertiary structure (low free energy state) and proteolytic processing of the nascent polypeptide or precursor protein to generate either protein subunits or mature functional protein. Cotranslational and posttranslational modification is therefore critical for generating stable protein structure and ultimately appropriate function. Protein processing is also used to generate appropriate targeting signals, which, following synthesis, are used to traffic each protein to either its correct subcellular compartment or extracellular destination.

Key Concepts:

Transcribed mRNA contains the code for polypeptide synthesis, which is exported from the nucleus to the cytoplasm to initiate protein translation.

For noncytosolic proteins, the mature mRNA is bound by ribosomes in the cytoplasm, to synthesise a signal sequence, and this complex is then transported to the RER for additional polypeptide synthesis.

Newly synthesised polypeptides undergo cotranslational modification in the RER.

N-linked glycosylation is an essential structural component that is added to the nascent polypeptide in the RER and is involved in the initial steps of protein folding.

Molecular chaperones in the RER facilitate protein folding to generate correct protein secondary and tertiary structure.

There is a quality control process to ensure that only correctly folded and processed proteins exit the RER.

Posttranslational modifications can take place in different cellular organelles such as the RER, Golgi, endosomes, lysosomes and secretory vesicles.

The Golgi is involved in posttranslational glycoprocessing and the generation of signals for targeting protein to its final destination.

Posttranslational proteolytic processing can be used to generate protein subunits and mature functional proteins.

Keywords:

ribosomes;
polypeptide synthesis;
N-linked glycosylation;
O-linked glycosylation;
molecular chaperones;
protein folding;
quality control in the RER;
protein structure;
proteolytic processing;
intracellular traffic


Prioritising competing transport infrastructure investment schemes is a common problem at national, regional and more local levels and often the number of potential schemes that has to be considered is substantial. With pressure on resources, growing awareness of the range of scheme impacts that has to be taken into account and public pressure to be able to demonstrate a transparent, consistent and effective ranking process, decision making bodies require comprehensive and reliable appraisal methods. In most European countries, a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) or multi-criteria method (MCA) is applied in the appraisal process. MCA has a number of advantages over CBA. Primarily it allows impacts that cannot be monetised or cannot be quantified easily to be included in an appraisal in a transparent way. Such impacts could include those on sites of outstanding beauty or of historic importance. A general criticism of MCA is that the rankings are dependent on the weights given by decision-makers' preferences and not generally accepted measures of social preference. Thus, weights often appear arbitrary and can be subject to change. Another shortcoming of MCA is that generally decision-makers require measures for value of money as well. Hence, in many countries the two methods are implemented alongside each other, but often with no synthesis of results into one joint framework. This leaves the final decision about the worthiness of investments to the decision-makers, but is open to interpretation and criticism. This paper presents an MCA methodology that addresses these challenges in an innovative way. It was developed for Ireland's National Roads Authority (NRA) and has been applied to a study examining the upgrade of Ireland's National Secondary Road network. This consists of 2,700 km of primarily rural single carriageway 'A-roads' that complement the national primary routes. From a policy and political perspective it is necessary to direct investment to those parts of the network where it is needed the most and to ensure the programme justifies the investment costs. MCA is a key instrument in delivering this. A specific innovation here was to develop a methodology that incorporates CBA elements in the MCA framework in a consistent manner and to test the stability of results. A further innovation is the method used to test the sensitivity of the rankings to variations in weights, as such weights can be quite reasonably contested by different stakeholder groups. A key message of the paper is that the methods can be introduced to make a national investment strategy developed through an MCA robust to the usual criticisms levelled at MCAs without losing its key advantages. In order to derive an overall appraisal measure that allows a comparison and prioritisation of projects, a scoring and weighting framework has been developed using a linear additive approach. In total, 566 projects have been scored and ranked accordingly. A BCR threshold was then applied to calculate the MCA score that projects needed to achieve to provide value for money. The so defined investment programme of worthwhile projects has been further condensed by applying an incremental analysis to decide between mutually exclusive projects. From the point of view of the decision maker it is important to have an understanding of the robustness of the size of, and rankings within, investment programmes created. For this reason, a variety of sensitivity tests have been devised and applied to explore the extent to which the initial rankings may be affected by changes in view about the relative importance of the different impacts. Based on this analysis, there is no strong evidence of very high sensitivities in the rankings that the assessment has constructed against changes in weights. While the size of the programme is sensitive to changes in weights, schemes that come towards the top of the ranking are good performers in terms of the criteria and the relative importance of those criteria that have been assessed in collaboration with the decision makers, and reasonably sized variations in the data do not induce drastic changes in the rankings obtained. Even under more radical changes in the structure of weight sets, the best performing schemes stay at the top of the rankings. This result gives a degree of assurance for the decision makers to proceed with investment in the best schemes in the shorter term and to draw up an indicative programme for future investment for the period after that.


This paper introduces the conceptualization and application of a method to analyse the decision making process of New Zealand's State Highway Organisations (SHO) during extreme events. The aim is to obtain an unbiased and complete overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the current decision making. Procedures and metrics to analyse the Quality of Decision Making (QDM) are proposed, based upon the study of theoretical and practical concepts of decision making processes. QDM analysis was applied to 3 real events and 4 exercises, which have been observed since 2005. The results of the QDM analysis indicate that SHO are capable, experienced and competent in dealing with major disruption or crises that may affect the State Highway Network of New Zealand. SHO have achieved High and Regular levels of resilience in terms of decision making activities during emergency response events and exercises.


Gastric inhibitory polypeptide (GIP) is considered to be the principal mediator of the enteroinsular axis. A glucose-insulin clamp technique was used to study the effects of differing blood glucose levels on the insulinotropic and glucagonotropic actions of fat-stimulated GIP in seven healthy subjects, as well as the effect of physiologic hyperinsulinemia on GIP secretion. Blood glucose levels were clamped for 4 h at 43+/-2 mg/dl (hypoglycemic clamp), 88+/-1 mg/dl (euglycemic clamp), and 141+/-2 mg/dl (hyperglycemic clamp) in the presence of a constant insulin infusion (100 m U/kg per h). Under hypoglycemic clamp conditions there was no increase in C-peptide nor glucagon after Lipomul ingestion, despite an increase of GIP of 51.7+/-8.7 ng/ml per 120 min. Under euglycemic clamp conditions, small and inconsistent increases in C-peptide and glucagon were observed after fat ingestion and a concomitant increase of GIP of 35.2+/-9.4 ng/ml per 120 min. Under hyperglycemic clamp conditions after fat ingestion and a GIP increase of 24.0+/-5.7 ng/ml per 120 min, C-peptide increased from 6.4+/-5 ng/ml to 11.0+/-1.1 ng/ml (P < 0.01) but glucagon did not change. These findings confirm that in healthy man GIP exerts its insulinotropic properties only under hyperglycemic conditions and indicate that GIP is not glucagonotropic. Under euglycemic clamp conditions (plasma glucose, 89+/-1 mg/dl) and physiologic hyperinsulinemia (serum immunoreactive insulin, 137+/-3 muU/ml) GIP responses to fat ingestion (39.7+/-9.8 ng/ml per 120 min) were not different from the GIP responses to fat ingestion in the absence of hyperinsulinemia (39.7+/-11.1 ng/ml per 120 min). Therefore, insulin under normoglycemic conditions does not exert an inhibitory effect on fat-stimulated GIP secretion. The higher GIP response to oral fat in the hypoglycemic clamp, and the lower GIP response in the hyperglycemic clamp compared to the response in the euglycemic clamp suggests an effect of glycemia itself on GIP secretion in the presence of hyperinsulinemia.


Stereotypes are often based on concepts of mentalities and 'images of the self' and the 'other'. This is the way they appear in language. In modern didactics of foreign language the focus is mostly set on cultural contrast. Meanwhile a more profound analysis and reflexion on stereotypes is lacking. This piece of work intends to illustrate, based on practical examples (in German as a foreign language), how the use of literature can contribute to a critical and productive work and discussion on stereotypes. Recent research on intercultural didactics of foreign languages as well as empirical studies are applied in this part of a model concept of teaching literature through dialogue and interaction. Students learn to comment thoughtfully on 'self' and 'foreign' imagery. It is, from here on, a didactical proposal for different intercultural settings.


Testate amoebae are routinely used as paleoenvironmental indicators. However, considerable variability occurs in test morphology, even within commonly identified taxa. Relationships between morphological variability and environmental conditions might be useful in paleohydrological studies of peatlands, assuming good preservation of characteristics. Hyalosphenia papilio is a common taxon, well preserved in Sphagnum peatlands, that displays variability in the number of pores on the broad side of the test. We assessed whether variability in pore number was related to substrate moisture by comparing the abundance of individuals with different numbers of pores to measured water-table depths at 67 sites in North America. Results indicated that the abundance of individuals with higher numbers of pores increased in wetter conditions. Individuals with 2 pores were relatively widespread, although they dominated drier habitats. Transfer functions developed with and without pore-number quantification suggest that when communities contain abundant individuals with greater than 2 pores, water-table depth reconstructions can be improved by including pore-number information. Results have implications for peatland paleohydrological studies and suggest that greater exploitation of morphological variability could improve testate amoeba-based reconstructions of past environmental change.


T lymphocytes obtained from pigs infected with a lethal dose of classical swine fever virus were analysed for phenotypic changes in the composition of T-cell subpopulations and for alterations in their immune responsiveness in vitro during the course of disease. Viral antigen detected in all subpopulations and the selective depletion of CD4- CD8- gamma/delta T cells showed that peripheral blood T lymphocytes were affected in the terminal stage (14-19 days post-infection) of classical swine fever whereas no implications for T lymphocytes were obvious during the first 10 days after infection. Furthermore, a depletion of CD1+ CD4+ CD8+ 'common thymocytes' was characteristic for the infected animals. Studies on immune functions of peripheral T lymphocytes revealed an abrogation of cellular immune responses as early as 3-5 days after infection and thus before detection of viral antigens in these cells. The data suggest that early immunosuppression represents a crucial event for the manifestation of classical swine fever.


City of San Luis Obispo: Community and Municipal Operations 2005 Baseline Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Geoffrey M. Chiapella The passage of AB 32 in 2006 initiated the need for city planners in California to consider the quantification of greenhouse gas emissions at the community level in order to develop policies and programs to reduce emissions in the future. Although local jurisdictions are not required to quantify and report emissions at this time, the AB 32 Climate Change Scoping Plan recommended a reduction goal for local governments of 15 percent below today's levels by 2020 to ensure consistent reduction goals at the state and local levels. ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability initiated the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign in 1993, which provides a framework for local governments to develop a baseline emissions inventory and identify reduction measures as part of a climate action plan. This inventory is developed under the framework of the CCP campaign. A review of the current practice of local greenhouse gas emissions inventories in California identified significant consistencies across jurisdictions in the overall framework of community and municipal emissions inventories– due largely to the framework provided by the CCP campaign. However, data sources used and methods of measurement vary greatly among local inventories, which limit the ability to compare results. This highlights the need for a standard reporting protocol for community inventories. This baseline emissions inventory document provides the technical information necessary for the city to set reduction goals and facilitates the development of the climate action plan outlining policies and programs that when implemented would reach those goals.


This study intended to determine the precise diameter of the popliteal artery in patients at risk for popliteal aneurysms. Accurate sizing is necessary to develop devices for endovascular treatment of popliteal aneurysms. Fifty-four patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) had computed tomography (CT) scans of the popliteal arteries. Ageand gendermatched control subjects were measured by ultrasound. NIH Image was used to measure the minor diameter at the adductor hiatus (proximal) and femoral condyles (midpopliteal artery). There were 4 unsuspected popliteal aneurysms (7.4%). The proximal popliteal artery was ectatic in these patients: 13.4 ±5.2 mm. Proximal and midpopliteal arteries were significantly larger in the other patients with AAAs compared with controls: 9.6 ±1.8 mm vs 7.9 ± 1.1 mm at the hiatus (p<0.001) and 10.2 ±2 mm vs 7.9 ±0.9 mm at the condyles (p<0.001). The popliteal artery was focally larger in patients with AAAs without popliteal aneurysms. The popliteal artery was larger in men compared with women; 9.8 ±1.8 mm vs 8.8 ±1.9 mm at the hiatus (p = 0.024) and 10.5 ±1.9 mm vs 9.0 ±2.4 mm at the condyles (p = 0.005). The proximal popliteal artery was 2 mm larger in patients at risk for popliteal aneurysms and 5 mm larger in patients with popliteal aneurysms compared to controls. Focal ectasia of the midpopliteal artery was common. Planning for endovascular treatment of popliteal aneurysms must incorporate this striking enlargement.


Using the Asset and Health Dynamics among the Oldest Old (AHEAD), this study presents the first longitudinal results analyzing factors associated with getting and dropping a financial advisor. We find that quantitative as well as qualitative factors are significant when evaluating the value of professional financial advice. Getting a financial advisor was positively associated with becoming a widow(er), asking family members for assistance with financial decisions, seeking professional help for emotional problems, and experiencing increases in income and net worth. Among single and widowed respondents, experiencing significant cognitive decline also increases the likelihood of getting a financial advisor. Dropping a financial advisor was negatively associated with becoming a new widow(er), getting married, and experiencing an increase in net worth. No longer involving family members in financial decisions was strongly related to dropping a financial advisor. We discuss implications for practitioners relevant to both client acquisition and client retention.


The U.S. Geological Survey conducted hydrologic studies and published three U.S. Geological Survey scientific investigations reports in cooperation with the Citizen Potawatomi Nation from 2011 to 2014 to characterize the quality and quantity of water resources. The study areas of those reports consisted of approximately 960 square miles in parts of three counties in central Oklahoma. This study area has multiple abundant sources of water, being underlain by three principal aquifers (alluvial/terrace, Central Oklahoma, and Vamoosa-Ada), being bordered by two major rivers (North Canadian and Canadian), and having several smaller drainages including the Little River in the central part of the study area and Salt Creek in the southeastern part of the study area. The Central Oklahoma aquifer (also referred to as the "Garber-Wellington aquifer") underlies approximately 3,000 square miles in central Oklahoma in parts of Cleveland, Logan, Lincoln, Oklahoma, and Pottawatomie Counties and much of the study area. Water from these aquifers is used for municipal, industrial, commercial, agricultural, and domestic supplies. Much of the water in the study area is of good quality; however, in some parts of this area water quality was impaired by very hard surface water and groundwater, large chloride concentrations in some smaller streams, relatively large concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients and large counts of fecal-indicator bacteria in the North Canadian River, and uranium concentrations that exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Maximum Contaminant Level of 30 micrograms per liter for public water supplies in water samples collected from a small number of wells. Most stream-water samples collected from the Little River by the U.S. Geological Survey in 2012–13 had dissolved solids concentrations exceeding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Secondary Maximum Contaminant Level for public water supplies of 500 milligrams per liter. Larger numbers of organic compounds were measured in water samples collected from the North Canadian River than the Little River. Numerical groundwater-flow models were created to characterize flow systems in aquifers underlying this study area and areas of particular interest within the study area. Those models were used to estimate sustainable groundwater yields from parts of the North Canadian River alluvial aquifer, characterize groundwater/surface-water interactions, and estimate the effects of a 10-year simulated drought on streamflows and water levels in alluvial and bedrock aquifers. Pumping of wells at the Iron Horse Industrial Park was estimated to cause negligible infiltration of water from the adjoining North Canadian River. A 10-year simulated drought of 50 percent of normal recharge was tested for the period 1990–2000. For this period, the total amount of groundwater in storage was estimated to decrease by 8.6 percent in the North Canadian River alluvial aquifer and approximately 0.2 percent in the Central Oklahoma aquifer, and groundwater flow to streams was estimated to decrease by 28–37 percent. This volume of groundwater loss showed that the Central Oklahoma aquifer is a bedrock aquifer that has relatively low rates of recharge from the land surface. The simulated drought decreased simulated streamflow, composed of base flow, in the North Canadian River at Shawnee, Okla., which did not recover to predrought conditions until the relatively wet year of 2007 after the simulated drought period.


The purpose of this study was to test the influence of the understanding of accounting system, government financial management and work environment on the performance of work units (a study in Regional Ministry Departments/ Work Units in Keerom Regency). Population of this research was the 62 respondents from finance managers in the Regional Ministry Departments/ Work Units. The sampling technique used was a non-Probability sampling in saturation sampling. Data collection was conducted through field studies and literature. A Multiple Linear Regression with the F-test and t-test was employed to analyse the data collected and test the hypotheses.

The study results showed that the understanding of the government financial accounting system did not influence performance of the work units. Government financial management had no effect on the performance of the work units. Work environment influenced work units performance. Lastly, understanding government accounting system, government financial management and work environment simultaneously influenced performance of work units.

Keywords : Understanding of Government Financial Accounting System, Financial Management, Work Environment, Performance of Work Units


Objectives To report outcomes and toxicities in women with locally recurrent or advanced pelvic gynecologic malignancies who received intraoperative electron beam radiotherapy (IOERT) after chemoradiation. Methods From April 2012 to October 2018, 6 patients with recurrent cervical cancer (n=3), vagina (n=2) and endometrial (n=1) were treated with IOERT (stage IIb-IVb). Previously unirradiated (n=2) patients received preoperative chemoradiation between 45–50.4Gy with cisplatin. Those who had already been irradiated (n=4) received 30Gy to pelvis with concomitant cisplatin. IOERT dose ranged between 10Gy–15Gy. Results With a median follow-up of 55 months (range, 24–162) the 3-year overall survival was 100%. The median time from initial cancer diagnosis to recurrence treated with IOERT was 4.1 years (range, 1.4–10.3 years). Performed surgeries included pelvic exenteration (n=3) and posterior pelvic exenteration (n=3) with or without lymph node dissection. All surgeries had gross macroscopic resections and were classified as R0 (n=5; 83.3%) or R1 (n=1; 16.6%). All patients remain disease free. No major IOERT-related toxicities were reported. Conclusions Radical resection combined with IOERT seems to be a valid curative treatment option for patients who have failed prior surgery and/or definitive radiation. The patient selection is crucial and in addition to consideration of disease related morbidity, other factors shall be considered including the time interval from initial therapy to recurrence and whether the patient is able to receive perioperative chemoradiation and pelvic exenteration in addition to IOERT.


We present a general analytical framework for the evaluation of the end-to-end outage probability of multihop wireless communication systems with nonregenerative relays over Nakagami fading channels. It is shown that the presented results can either be exact or tight lower bounds on the performance of these systems depending on the choice of the relay gain. More specifically, we obtain a closed-form expression for the moment generating function of the reciprocal of the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and we then use this expression to calculate the outage probability via numerical inversion of the Laplace transform. Numerical examples show that regeneration is more crucial at low average SNR and for multihop systems with a large number of hops.


Magnetic properties of layered materials have been studied by means of electronic structure calculations based on density functional theory.The occurrence of confined quantum-well states in thin films has been investigated and put into relation with the topology of the corresponding bulk Fermi surface. The quantum-well states are shown to give rise to small shifts of the magnetization in thin films embedded in a magnetic host material. Under certain circumstances this effect is found to induce magnetism in layered systems composed of materials which are nonmagnetic in bulk.The oscillatory magnetic interlayer coupling is investigated and connected to details of the electronic structure of the constituent materials. In addition, it is shown how interface roughness may influence the coupling.A long ranged oscillatory interaction between localized interface states is found and explained in terms of quantum interference.The interface magnetism of several 3d transition metals is calculated and the sometimes enhanced or reduced interface magnetization is explained in terms of the magnetic behavior of the corresponding bulk alloys.A superposition principle is proposed which makes it possible to determine the magnetic profile of a variety of layered systems, starting from a limited number of independent magnetization profiles of bilayer interfaces.The magnetic anisotropic energy of thin Ni films deposited on Cu is calculated and it is shown how the different contributions from the surface/interface, lattice distortion and quantum size effects can be separated.Spin density waves in chromium films embedded in different host materials have been calculated and analyzed.In order to analyze interface stabilities, an interface mixing energy is introduced and a rule of thumb estimate of the stability is proposed, involving a simple scaling relation between the bulk and interface mixing energy.Finally, an efficient supercell Green's function method with a computational cost scaling linearly with the number of atoms has been developed.


This paper attempts to survey the history of inflation. The author finds that the definition and nature of inflation develop over time. Among other things, he reviews inflation during the period of classical gold standard, first examples of hyperinflation, and macroeconomic characteristics of inflation in XX century.


The offshore displacement of commercial bottom trawling has raised concerns about the impact of this destructive fishing practice on the deep seafloor, which is in general characterized by lower resilience than shallow water regions. This study focuses on the flanks of La Fonera (or Palamós) submarine canyon in the Northwestern Mediterranean, where an intensive bottom trawl fishery has been active during several decades in the 400–800 m depth range. To explore the degree of alteration of surface sediments (0–50 cm depth) caused by this industrial activity, fishing grounds and control (untrawled) sites were sampled along the canyon flanks with an interface multicorer. Sediment cores were analyzed to obtain vertical profiles of sediment grain-size, dry bulk density, organic carbon content and concentration of the radionuclide 210Pb. At control sites, surface sediments presented sedimentological characteristics typical of slope depositional systems, including a topmost unit of unconsolidated and bioturbated material overlying sediments progressively compacted with depth, with consistently high 210Pb inventories and exponential decaying profiles of 210Pb concentrations. Sediment accumulation rates at these untrawled sites ranged from 0.3 to 1.0 cm y−1. Sediment properties at most trawled sites departed from control sites and the sampled cores were characterized by denser sediments with lower 210Pb surface concentrations and inventories that indicate widespread erosion of recent sediments caused by trawling gears. Other alterations of the physical sediment properties, including thorough mixing or grain-size sorting, as well as organic carbon impoverishment, were also visible at trawled sites. This work contributes to the growing realization of the capacity of bottom trawling to alter the physical properties of surface sediments and affect the seafloor integrity over large spatial scales of the deep-sea.


A new type of vibration absorber is developed to reduce the in-plane vibration of the feeding deck system in an optical disk drive. In order to derive the equations of motion for the feeding deck system with the absorbers, a vibration model is established. After the frequency response function is obtained from the equations, the effects of absorber mass, stiffness and damping are analyzed. The material properties and shape of the vibration absorber are determined from the analysis results. For the purpose of verification, the performance of the absorber is investigated through experiments. The test results show that the proposed absorber is able to considerably reduce vibration in a wide range of spindle motor speeds.


The experimental objective was to determine if whole cottonseed (WCS) could be used as a dietary supplement to reduce enteric methane emissions and profitably increase milk production from dairy cattle over the summer period when pasture is limited in quantity and has a low nutritive value. Fifty lactating cows, ~200 days in milk, were randomly allocated to one of two groups (control or WCS). Cows were offered lucerne hay (in the morning) and pasture silage (in the afternoon) made from a predominantly ryegrass sward in one group for 5 weeks. The hay and silage were placed on the ground in a bare paddock. Cows in each group were also individually offered cracked grain in a feed trough at 3 kg DM/cow.day at milking times. In addition, at milking times, cows in the WCS group were individually offered 2.7 kg DM/cow.day of untreated WCS with their grain supplement. Measurements of methane emissions (n = 12), using the SF6 tracer technique, were made in weeks 3 and 5 after the commencement of feeding treatments. Supplementation with WCS significantly reduced methane emissions by 12% (g/cow.day) and by 21% (g/cow.kg milk solids) and significantly increased yield of milk (n = 25) by 15%, milk fat by 19% and milk protein by 16%. WCS had no effect on concentration of milk fat or lactose, but resulted in a significant 3% decrease in protein concentration. WCS appears to be a promising supplement for reducing methane emissions and increasing milk production from dairy cattle when pasture is limited in quantity and has a low nutritive value.


Archetypal analysis (AA) proposed by Cutler and Breiman in [1] estimates the principal convex hull of a data set. As such AA favors features that constitute representative 'corners' of the data, i.e. distinct aspects or archetypes. We will show that AA enjoys the interpretability of clustering - without being limited to hard assignment and the uniqueness of SVD - without being limited to orthogonal representations. In order to do large scale AA, we derive an efficient algorithm based on projected gradient as well as an initialization procedure inspired by the FURTHESTFIRST approach widely used for K-means [2]. We demonstrate that the AA model is relevant for feature extraction and dimensional reduction for a large variety of machine learning problems taken from computer vision, neuroimaging, text mining and collaborative filtering.


Ascariasis is one of deasease wich coused by Ascaris worm infection. The deseases wich coused by Ascaris galli can attach to cicken at af all age. Known from the loss wich coused by this parasite worm is big, so the controling and preventivation to be a necessity. Wich provitable madicine plants wich have anthelmintik caracteristik so that in the future can less loss wich is suffed by chicken catles breeder. The peneaple (Ananas comosus L.Merr) represent kind of plant wich contens bromelin enzim that is one of proteolitic enzim that has fungtion to work as katalisator at separatition reaktion of protein molekul to be endomisosom handle. On the other hand activity of proteolitik bromelin at green peneaple higher than peneaple wich has ripe. The porpouse from this research is for see damage structur of Ascaridia galli worm after explaining with bromelin enzim in peneaple (Annanas comosus L. Merr) young queen varietas. Kind of this research is deskriptif. Wich free variable that is bromelin enzim from peneaple rough gist. Handle variable is damaged structure anatomy of Ascaridia galli worm which envelep part of linning kutikula wich around the body, bowels and muscle. Condition control is wide of Ascaridia galli worm that is about 3-12 cm. Population in this research is Ascaridia galli worm wich had taken from cutting chicken pleces at Dinoyo Malang Market. Conclution of this research is that organ (Kutikula, muscle and bowels) will be damage less at al of part in that organt. Wich content hidrolised protein by bromelin enzim at konsentrate 80% (the worm is dead). On the other hand at konsentrate 50% (worm illness) just a half that organt wich damage less. download


Heuristic methods are popular tools to find critical slip surfaces in slope stability analyses. A new genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed in this work that has a standard structure but a novel encoding and generation of individuals with custom-designed operators for mutation and crossover that produce kinematically feasible slip surfaces with a high probability. In addition, new indices to assess the efficiency of operators in their search for the minimum factor of safety (FS) are proposed. The proposed GA is applied to traditional benchmark examples from the literature, as well as to a new practical example. Results show that the proposed GA is reliable, flexible and robust: it provides good minimum FS estimates that are not very sensitive to the number of nodes and that are very similar for different replications


Serum albumin concentration is commonly used as an index of nutritional status and as an indicator of nutritional response in hospitalized patients receiving total parenteral nutrition (TPN). One hundred thirty-nine cancer patients receiving TPN for at least two weeks were studied. Albumin intake, serum albumin, fluid balance, and weight change was monitored from 14 to 100 days of TPN. Patients were classified into three groups: A) patients receiving no exogenous albumin; B) patients receiving less than 25 grams of exogenous albumin; and C) patients receiving at least 25 grams of exogenous albumin during their course of TPN. Linear regression analysis of serum albumin levels vs. time on TPN showed a minimal positive correlation for patients in groups B and C (r = 0.154 and r = 0.183, respectively). Further analysis showed a significant elevation of serum albumin levels only in patients in group C (p ± 0.05). Contingency table analysis showed statistically significant increase in the incidence of sepsis in patients treated with exogenous albumin (X2 = 10.50, df = 2, p < 0.01). There was no relationship between the change in serum albumin concentrations and the number of patient deaths. In addition, no relationship between tumor burden and subsequent response of serum albumin levels were identified. Serum albumin levels do not increase in cancer patients receiving TPN, unless exogenous albumin is given. Serum albumin appears to be a poor index of nutritional response in cancer patients receiving TPN.


A metal fuel performance code was coupled to a subchannel analysis code to predict, in a computationally efficient way, critical phenomena that could lead to pin failure for steady-state and transient scenarios in sodium-cooled fast reactors. The fuel performance and subchannel codes coupled are FEAST-METAL and an updated version of COBRA-IV-I, respectively. In coupling the codes, the importance of azimuthal temperature and stress effects in the fuel pin were analyzed; it was concluded that azimuthal temperature averaging around the fuel pin is an acceptable approximation. The codes were coupled using a wrapper, the COBRA And FEAST Executer (CAFE), written in the Python programming language. Data from EBR-II was used to confirm and verify CAFE. Finally, CAFE was used to predict the maximum allowable burnup of three different fuel assembly designs (driver fuel, radial blanket, and tight-pitch breed-and-burn fuel) as a function of operating temperature, linear power, fuel composition, cladding thickness, and smear density.


During the World War I (WWI), Asia Minor experienced another historic in and out population flow, specifically through the deportation of the Armenian people in 1915 and the mutual exchange of Muslim population in Balkans and Greek population in Asia Minor throughout the 1910s and afterwards. At the end of the WWI, following its century-old missionary activities among the Armenians and Greeks in Asia Minor, The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions came to the point of a vital decision regarding its future work: now the mission was to preach among Muslim population in Asia Minor through all missionary leftovers and its experience from the Ottoman past. In this paper, I aim to shed light on the massive shift of strategy towards the target groups and also the new mission of the American Board in Asia Minor by examining sheer amount of untouched archival documents, especially the Board's correspondences. Moreover, I will analyze the details of the prospective mission strategy of the Board missionaries in order to bring a retrospective understanding on the mission strategies during Ottoman past through the aforementioned archival materials.


PURPOSE
This study examined the speech acoustic characteristics of Jamaican Creole (JC) and English in bilingual preschoolers and adults using acoustic duration measures. The aims were to determine if, for JC and English, (a) child and adult acoustic duration characteristics differ, (b) differences occur in preschoolers' duration patterns based on the language spoken, and (c) relationships exist between the preschoolers' personal contextual factors (i.e., age, sex, and percentage of language [%language] exposure and use) and acoustic duration.

METHOD
Data for this cross-sectional study were collected in Kingston, Jamaica, and New York City, New York, United States, during 2013-2019. Participants included typically developing simultaneous bilingual preschoolers (n = 120, ages 3;4-5;11 [years;months]) and adults (n = 15, ages 19;0-54;4) from the same linguistic community. Audio recordings of single-word productions of JC and English were collected through elicited picture-based tasks and used for acoustic analysis. Durational features (voice onset time [VOT], vowel duration, whole-word duration, and the proportion of vowel to whole-word duration) were measured using Praat, a speech analysis software program.

RESULTS
JC-English-speaking children demonstrated developing speech motor control through differences in durational patterns compared with adults, including VOT for voiced plosives. Children's VOT, vowel duration, and whole-word duration were produced similarly across JC and English. The contextual factor %language use was predictive of vowel and whole-word duration in English.

CONCLUSIONS
The findings from this study contribute to a foundation of understanding typical bilingual speech characteristics and motor development as well as schema in JC-English speakers. In particular, minimal acoustic duration differences were observed across the post-Creole continuum, a feature that may be attributed to the JC-English bilingual environment.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21760469.


The Brunei coastline has been experiencing erosion for many years, ranging from small scale loss of beach to large scale cliff erosion which has been threatening coastal dwellings and infrastructure. This project was aimed at applying a range of numerical models to the coastal geomorphology, to assess the sediment budget and key mechanisms affecting sediment transport along the entire Brunei coastline and extending approximately 50km offshore. Numerical models which were applied included a 2D Lagrangian beach model and a hydrodynamic pollutant transport model coupled with a wave refraction model to assess both the nearshore surf zone transport and the offshore sediment transport regimes. The wave climate for the region is dominated by the Northeasterly Monsoonal conditions during the months of December to February. The objective of the numerical study was to determine the influence that coastal structures and offshore shoals have had on the coastline. The results from the numerical investigation indicate that significant wave focusing occurs at historical erosion regions and generates a nett westerly drift within the surf zone. Offshore of the surf zone, however, the numerical modelling indicated an easterly drift of sediment being indicative of a "Localised Sediment Cell" where the sand migrates along the coast towards the west and returns via ambient currents offshore.


This chapter describes photosynthetic antenna systems of cyanobacteria, with special emphasis on two points: (i) diversity of pigments and associated changes in proteins of antenna and reaction centers and (ii) stress-induced changes in antenna systems. The basic concepts of the constitution of pigment-protein complexes and energy transfer processes are very important for a general understanding of the systems. Furthermore, analyses of perturbed systems will also provide important information. After a short introduction, three kinds of photosynthetic pigments, chlorophylls, carotenoids, and phycobiliproteins, are briefly discussed with respect to their functions and diversity, including minor pigments. Secondly, we focus on the molecular architecture of the complexes and their functional relationships. A third point of the description is stress-induced changes in antenna, i.e., the iron-depleted condition, followed by considerations on changes in the stoichiometric ratio between photosystem I and photosystem II and their relevance for the antenna systems. Throughout this chapter, the evolution of cyanobacteria from anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria is always considered as a cryptic topic, like figured bass.


TiC is a preferred coating material for the components working under the extreme tribological condition, due to its high hardness, high melting temperature, and low density. In order to improve the hardness and wear resistance properties of stainless steel surface, TiC reinforced coating has been produced on AISI 304 stainless steel using pulsed Nd:YAG laser and Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) cladding process. Further, to enhance the efficiency of TIG cladding process as well as to amend the tribological properties of TiC based coating, Ni (for better bonding) and CaF2 (as a solid lubricant) have been incorporated in various phases of experiments. The produced composite coatings are then analyzed by using SEM, FESEM and XRD for microstructural evaluation and phase identification. Micro-hardness value of the produced TiC, TiC-Ni, and TiC-Ni-CaF2 coating has been measured by Vickers micro-indentation tester and the tribological behavior of the produced coatings have been assessed by sliding abrasive wear test through pin-on-disc wear testing machine. The experimental analysis revealed that TiC reinforced composite coating produced by TIG heat source improved the micro-hardness and abrasive wear resistance significantly. Further, with the incorporation of Ni, bonding between the substrate and TiC reinforcement enhances, and consequently augmented the wear resistance of the coating. In addition, by employing CaF2 with TiC and Ni, the coefficient of friction (COF) of the coating diminishes, which found become beneficial for the performance of the coating.


Certain results on one-dimensional signal representation and reconstruction from partial information in the frequency domain are related to and derived, using relevant results obtained in the time or positional information domain. In particular, we adopt Logan's approach and apply his results concerning zero-crossing representation of certain bandpass signals. We also apply Voelcker's results on demodulation of analytic SSB signals by an AM detector. Exploiting the duality of the Fourier-Stieltjes transform and its inverse, we rederive and extend to continuous one-dimensional signals some results concerning the representation of Fourier-transformed discrete time (finite) sequences by partial information such as one bit or complete Fourier phase, Fourier magnitude or signed-magnitude. The duality and interrelationship of characteristics and constraints attributed to time and frequency signal representation create further possibilities of drawing results and interpretations from one- to its counter-domain. In particular, we indicate possible extensions of certain results to problems of N-dimensional signals and to issues of stochastic signals. We also highlight basic issues concerning the structure of signals and their reconstruction from partial information.


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