Of 64 patients with severe menopausal symptoms who were allocated to a four-month trial in which Premarin and placebo were each taken for two months, 44 had severe vasomotor symptoms; a further 56 patients with less severe symptoms were allocated to a longer, 12 month trial in which Premarin and placebo were each taken for six months. It is stressed that neither the patients nor the attending doctors knew which treatment was being given. Graphic rating scales,' I which are a widely accepted and sensitive method of measuring change, were used to assess the effects of therapy, and thus the argument that a flush count is not an objective way of evaluating therapy cannot apply to these trials. During placebo therapy, with respect to control values, there was a small, nonsignificant reduction in hot flushes in patients on the four-month trial, and in patients on the 12-month trial this reduction was just statistically significant (P < 005). However, during oestrogen therapy, with respect to placebo values, there was a statistically significant reduction in hot flushes in patients on both the four-month (P < 0001) and 12month (P < 0 001) trials. Furthermore, in the 64 patients on the fourmonth trial benefits of oestrogen therapy over placebo were observed for 11 additional symptoms. The improvement in such a large number of symptoms is to some extent a domino effect-that is, a reduction in vasomotor symptoms creates a favourable response in a large number of associated symptoms. This could be demonstrated by studying the 20 patients who had severe menopausal symptoms but no hot flushes; in this group significant improvements on oestrogen therapy were observed for only five (vaginal dryness, memory, anxiety, worry about self, and worry about age) of the 11 additional symptoms. However, the improvement in memory and anxiety in this subgroup suggests that the "mental tonic" effect of oestrogens described by Utian5 is an entity and is independent of vasomotor symptoms. The dearth of good placebo studies on the evaluation of oestrogen therapy in the treatment of the menopausal syndrome initiated these trials. Our results indicate that a significant reduction in hot flushes and a significant improvement in wellbeing, both psychological and symptomatic, will be achieved by oestrogen therapy. STUART CAMPBELL M WHITEHEAD


A servo system intended to steer antennas on board ships is designed, built and tested. It uses a Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motor with an encoder to keep track of its position, and Field Oriented Control (FOC) implemented on Toshibas microprocessor TMPM373 in order to control the current flowing to the motor. The servo system will be connected in cascade to another already existing servo system and controlled with two input signals. The first signal determines if the antenna axis should rotate clockwise or counter clockwise. The second signal is a stream of pulses, where each pulse means that the motor should move one encoder point. A printed circuit board is designed and built to complete these tasks. A proportional-integral regulator is used to control the position of the motor, using the position error as the controller input. The servo system is tested. The performance of the resulting servo system is sufficient to satisfy the required position error limit of 0.5 degrees. In order to reduce the periodic disturbances presented in the system in experiments, Iterative Learning Control (ILC) is implemented. It is shown that using ILC further decreases the position error.


This article describes the extent to which hospitals use different integrative processes to assimilate physicians and assesses the extent to which their use is associated with managed care penetration and hospital characteristics. Results from a national survey of 1,495 community hospitals indicate that these integrative processes are quite prevalent. The use of integrative processes tends to be more prevalent in hospitals that are large, urban, involved in teaching, and members of hospital systems. Use of particular integrative processes also appears to be associated with different thresholds of managed care penetration.


This paper presents an analysis of a non-linear control algorithm called incremental non-linear dynamic inversion. A Taylor series approximation is used in this algorithm, neglecting higher order terms. This could destabilize the controller if the error made is not bounded. By making use of the Taylor series remainder term and the bounding properties it has, a derivation is made showing that the control algorithm is able to reject these inaccuracies under certain conditions. It is also shown that the incremental non-linear dynamic inversion controller remains robust towards model uncertainties under the influence of the remainder.


For most of the infectious diseases on the wards of the Boston City Hospital in 1937, there was nothing to be done beyond bed rest and good nursing care. Then came the explosive news of sulfanilamide, and the start of the real revolution in medicine. I remember the astonishment when the first cases of pneumococcal and streptococcal septicemia were treated in Boston in 1937. The phenomenon was almost beyond belief. Here were moribund patients, who would surely have died without treatment, improving in their appearance within a matter of hours of being given the medicine and feeling entirely well within the next day or so we became convinced, overnight, that nothing lay beyond reach for the future. Lewis Thomas, The Youngest Science: Notes of a Medicine Watcher (1) In his splendid memoir, Lewis Thomas movingly describes what must have been the prevailing optimism at the time. Bacterial infections had been a tremendous scourge for young and old alike, and physicians had become accustomed to watching helplessly as patients succumbed to community-acquired infections caused by Streptococcus pyogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In relatively short order, however, therapeutic failures due to the emergence of antibiotic resistance were recognized. Patients whose tuberculosis had responded to streptomycin therapy returned months later with progressive disease due to streptomycin-resistant M. tuberculosis. Resistance to penicillin in Staphylococcus aureus spread rapidly, and within a few years more than 50% of nosocomial Staphylococcus aureus isolates were penicillin resistant. The emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance over the ensuing decades, first in the hospital and more recently in the community, led to a concerted effort on the part of academia and industry to understand the mechanisms underlying resistance and to develop new antimicrobial agents effective for treating resistant strains. By any measure, efforts in both areas have been an enormous success. We now know in detail the mechanisms by which many bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics and the means by which they distribute resistance determinants among and between species. We also have a large number of highly potent and effective antimicrobial agents for treating most infections encountered in the community or in the hospital. If bacteria are perceived as the enemy, we could posit that the major fighting in the battle is over, although it is clear that pockets of resistance (some strong and growing) remain. Pogo stated, We have met the enemy, and he is us! Our anthropocentric view of the universe generally specifies as human those cells that contain human DNA. A broader view of our existence would acknowledge that we also consist of a multitude of cells that do not contain human DNAour abundant colonizing microflora. In a sense, this microflora is yet another organ whose proper functioning is essential to our well-being. Among other functions, bacteria participate in our enteropathic circulation, as well as helping to break down oligosaccharides in the colon as fatty acids. Unfortunately, just as our properly functioning organs are sometimes the source of deadly cancer, our microflora is occasionally the source of the bacteria that cause serious infection. Antimicrobial agents do not distinguish colonizing from infecting flora; they simply inhibit or kill any susceptible microbe with which they come in contact. In short, it is rarely possible to successfully treat an infecting bacterium without also doing significant collateral damage to our friendly microflora. Two examples of collateral damage associated with the use of antimicrobial agents are presented in this issue. McMahon and colleagues (2) described a relationship between previous exposure to antimicrobial agents and resistance in gastric Helicobacter pylori. This relationship was particularly strong for previous exposure to macrolides and resistance to clarithromycin; the risk increased with repeated exposure to this class of antibiotics. A similar association was noted for previous exposure to metronidazole and resistance to this agent. The practical consequences of these resistance phenotypes were more obvious for clarithromycin than for metronidazole. Seventy-seven percent of patients infected with clarithromycin-resistant H. pylori (10 of 13) experienced treatment failure with clarithromycin-containing regimens, compared with only 13% (5 of 40) of those infected with susceptible isolates. In contrast, only 11% of patients infected with metronidazole-resistant isolates (2 of 18) experienced treatment failure with metronidazole-containing regimens. Macrolide resistance in H. pylori results from point mutations within the 23S ribosomal RNA genes. The frequency with which McMahon and colleagues found macrolide resistance in isolated H. pylori demonstrates the ease with which resistance due to point mutations may arise. More disturbing than the appearance of the resistant mutants is their apparent persistence over time, presumably in the absence of further antimicrobial selective pressure. The persistence of the resistant phenotype may be due to the accumulation of additional compensatory mutations that reestablish fitness in the presence of resistance (3), or it may reflect the fact that repeated exposures to H. pylori among adults in industrialized countries appear to be rare. Therefore, without susceptible competitors to displace them, the resistant variants persist. In a separate report from Sweden, Sjlund and colleagues (4) reported on fecal analysis in 5 patients after treatment with a 1-week regimen of clarithromycin, metronidazole, and omeprazole for H. pylori-related ulcer disease. Few if any clarithromycin-resistant enterococci were isolated from the patients' feces before treatment. After treatment, however, clarithromycin-resistant enterococci were isolated from all patients. In 1 patient, the presence of genetically similar clarithromycin-resistant Enterococcus faecalis was noted 3 years later. Clarithromycin-resistant enterococci were not isolated from a group of 5 untreated controls examined over a similar period. What is the likely source of the macrolide-resistant enterococci in these patients' gastrointestinal flora? The antimicrobial agent tylosin (a macrolide) was used in many European countries as a growth promoter in food animals in the 1990s. In a study from Switzerland, nearly 100% of enterococci isolated from pigs before tylosin was banned were resistant to erythromycin. After tylosin use was banned in 1999, rates of resistance were reduced to roughly 35% (5). Since enterococci can be acquired through the food chain, it seems likely that most if not all of the patients in Sjlund and colleagues' study may have been colonized at low levels by macrolide-resistant enterococci before H. pylori treatment was administered. The use of a combination of metronidazole, which promotes overgrowth of enterococci in the gastrointestinal tract through its strong antianaerobic activity (6), and erythromycin would predictably lead to overgrowth of enterococcal strains that are resistant to macrolides. Increasing the quantity of resistant enterococci in the stool has clinical consequences. Donskey and colleagues (7) demonstrated a correlation between the numbers of vancomycin-resistant enterococci in patients' feces and the ability to isolate the same bacteria from environmental surfaces in hospital rooms. Surface contamination, in turn, promotes nosocomial spread. So there is no free lunch. Antimicrobial therapy always incurs a significant risk for adverse effects, either because of the drug's interaction with the patient (generally rare) or the drug's interaction with the normal flora (virtually guaranteed). Against these risks must be weighed the benefits of therapy. Macrolide prescriptions to treat viral upper respiratory tract infections offer little hope of benefit and may doom the patient to later difficulties if H. pylori-related gastrointestinal disease develops. Conversely, widespread treatment of H. pylori disease exposes the patient to risks not only of resistant H. pylori but also of potentially long-term colonization with other resistant bacteria. These results should give pause to those who would promote prolonged antimicrobial therapy for treatment of diseases, such as atherosclerosis, for which a specific infectious cause is far from established. Consensus panels have generally recognized the inherent riskbenefit ratios of antimicrobial therapy for H. pylori disease by recommending treatment only for patients in whom there is a demonstrable benefit, such as those with history of active peptic ulcer disease, history of documented peptic ulcer, or gastric mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma (8). Complicating such limited recommendations is the possibility, as suggested in 1 study (9), that patients with H. pylori-associated nonulcer dyspepsia may be at greater risk for gastric cancer. It is clear that continued research into bacterial and host characteristics that predispose patients to serious sequelae of H. pylori infection will be critical to defining the patient population that will benefit most from treatment. More effective and tolerable therapeutic regimens must also be developed. As Lewis Thomas surmised, antibiotics are exceedingly powerful tools that can alter the natural relationships between humans and bacteria. But they are indiscriminate, and kill friend and foe alike. As such, they are best used sparingly and, most important, wisely.


Video can be considered one of the most complete and complex media and its manipulating is still a difficult and tedious task. This research applies pen-based technology to video manipulation, with the goal to improve this interaction. Even though the human familiarity with pen-based devices, how they can be used on video interaction, in order to improve it, making it more natural and at the same time fostering the user's creativity is an open question. Two types of interaction with video were considered in this work: video annotation and video editing. Each interaction type allows the study of one of the interaction modes of using pen-based technology: indirectly, through digital ink, or directly, trough pen gestures or pressure. This research contributes with two approaches for pen-based video interaction: pen-based video annotations and video as ink. The first uses pen-based annotations combined with motion tracking algorithms, in order to augment video content with sketches or handwritten notes. It aims to study how pen-based technology can be used to annotate a moving objects and how to maintain the association between a pen-based annotations and the annotated moving object The second concept replaces digital ink by video content, studding how pen gestures and pressure can be used on video editing and what kind of changes are needed in the interface, in order to provide a more familiar and creative interaction in this usage context.


This paper tackles the problem of precise car localization for advance driver assistance system applications. Localization is performed by loosely coupling proprioceptive data with exteroceptive perceptions. Two localization systems were designed, one based on differential GPS and the other on real time kinematic GPS. In both cases, sensor latencies were precisely measured and taken into account to minimize their effects. Track experimentations were carried out with two vehicles at different speeds. A methodology based on a comparison with a post-processed kinematic GPS reference is presented to evaluate performances of the two systems.


The Middle Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous strata of the NE Arabian Plate contain several prolific source rocks providing the charge to some of the largest world-class petroleum systems. They are located within the Zagros Fold Belt and Mesopotamian Foreland Basins covering the northern, central and southeastern parts of Iraq, Kuwait and western and southwestern Iran, particularly the Lurestan and Khuzestan provinces. These source rocks include the Bajocian–Bathonian Sargelu, the Callovian–Lower Kimmeridgian Naokelekan and the Upper Tithonian–Lower Berriasian Chia Gara formations of Iraq and their chronostratigraphic equivalents in Kuwait and Iran. They have charged the main Cretaceous and Cenozoic (Tertiary) reservoirs throughout Iraq, Kuwait and Iran with more than 250 billion barrels of proven recoverable hydrocarbons.
 These formations represent the transgressive system tracts of sequences deposited within deep basinal settings and anoxic environments. They are dominated by black shales and bituminous marly limestones, with high total organic carbon (TOC) contents (ranging from 1–18 wt%), and by marine Type IIS kerogen. Their Rock-Eval S2 yields may reach up to 60 mg HC/g Rock, particularly along the depocentre of the Mesopotamian Foreland Basin. The immature hydrogen index (HI) values might have been up to 700 mg HC/g TOC, whereas the present-day observed values vary depending on the location within the basin and the present-day maturity. The Source-Potential Index (SPI; i.e. mass of hydrocarbons in tons, which could be generated from an area of 1 sq m in case of 100% transformation ratio) averages around 2–3, but can even reach up to 14–16 along the basins' centres.
 The Sargelu and the overlying Naokelekan-basinal Najmah formations (and their equivalents) could represent the best potential shale-gas/shale-oil plays in Iraq, Kuwait and Iran, due to their organic richness, favourable maturity and the presence of regional upper and lower seals. The estimated oil-in-place for the potential Sargelu shale-oil play in Iraq only is around 1,300–2,500 billion barrel oil-equivalent (BBOE) and in Kuwait is about 7–150 BBOE.


B3LYP* functionals were used to model the sixteen iron(II) (1A, LS and 5T, HS) and iron(III) (2T, LS and 6A, HS) complexes of the 1 : 3 Schiff base condensate of tris(2-aminoethyl)amine and imidazole-4-carboxaldehyde, H3L1, and its deprotonated forms, [H2L1]1-, [HL1]2-, and [L1]3-. This ligand system is unusual in that [FeH3L1]3+, [FeH3L1]2+ and [FeL1]- all exhibit a spin crossover between 100-300 K. This makes these complexes ideal for a hybrid DFT computational approach and provides an opportunity to refine the value of the exact exchange admixture parameter, c3, and to predict properties of partially protonated complexes that are not experimentally available. The accepted value of 0.20 is larger than the value of approximately 0.13 that was found to best reproduce experimental data in terms of spin state predictions. With iron(III) B3LYP calculations showed that all of the complexes were low spin at 298 K with the exception of [FeH3L1]3+ which is spin crossover in agreement with experimental results. It was also shown for iron(III) that the ligand field increased as the number of protons decreased. In contrast all of the iron(II) complexes were close to the spin crossover region regardless of protonation state. Experimental structures are fairly well modeled by this system in regard to the key structural indicators of spin state, which are the bite and trans angles. The calculated iron to nitrogen atom distances are always larger in the high spin form than the low spin form but all iron to nitrogen bond distances are larger than the experimental values. In general non-bonded interactions are not well modeled by this methodology.


We propose an efficient resource allocation (RA) scheme for downlink of relay-aided orthogonal frequency division multiple access systems. To mitigate excessive computational complexity of the centralized RA where the base station (BS) is responsible for resource allocation of the entire cell, we take a distributed RA strategy with which each relay station (RS) and BS perform resource allocation for their respective receivers by themselves. The proposed RA scheme is composed of two parts, RS resource allocation (RS-RA) and BS resource allocation (BS-RA). Considering that multiple RSs compete for radio resource in a distributive manner, we design the RS-RA scheme according to noncooperative game framework. The proposed RS-RA scheme aims at allocating less resource to two-hop transmission via RS so that more resource can be used for one-hop (direct) transmission. This RA strategy greatly heightens the system performance. Simulation results show that the proposed RA scheme provides the high cell throughput and the low outage probability. In addition, we devise a heuristic RA scheme that can lower the computational complexity further with much smaller reporting overhead and also suggest an iterative algorithm that can easily implement the proposed RA scheme.


The following report describes the results of evaluation activities carried out during
the development phase of the simulated web browser developed by the WWAAC
project. The evaluations were conducted over a period of 6 months from April 2002
and consisted of three components:
• Expert Evaluations
• Preliminary User Evaluations
• User Workshops
The methodology for the evaluations can be found in Nicolle, Poulson, and Clarke
(Sept. 2001 and updated Nov. 2002), which includes Internal Deliverable i3 –
Simulation Study Setup. However, it must be noted that a certain amount of
flexibility was needed in the use of evaluation methods and techniques and this
methodology had to adapted to the diverse situations and characteristics of the
users.


Our goal was to use novel fibreoptic sensors to make the first direct PCO2 measurements in the digestive tracts of live freshwater fish (anaesthetized, artificially ventilated, 12°C). PCO2 levels in gastrointestinal fluids were substantially higher than in blood, and were elevated after feeding. In the carnivorous, gastric rainbow trout, the mean PCO2 in various parts of the tract increased from 7–13 torr (1 torr = 0.1333 kPa) during fasting to 20–41 torr after feeding, relative to arterial levels of 3.5–4 torr. In the agastric, omnivorous goldfish, the mean gut levels varied from 10–13 torr in fasted animals to 14–18 torr in fed animals, relative to arterial levels of 5–7 torr. These elevated PCO2 values were associated with surprisingly high HCO3− concentrations (greater than 40 mmol l−1) in the intestinal chyme. Incubations of food pellets with acid or water revealed endogenous PCO2 generation sufficient to explain gastric PCO2 in fed trout and anterior intestine PCO2 in fed goldfish. The impacts of possible equilibration with venous blood draining the tract are assessed. We conclude that fish are already coping with PCO2 levels in the internal gastrointestinal environment many-fold greater than those of current concern in the external environment for climate change and aquacultural scenarios.


Few economists have considered that the entrepreneur is at the center of the global dynamics of capitalism, which is more important than the economic actor itself. Nevertheless, three economists, Cantillon, Say, and Schumpeter, have developed an analysis where the entrepreneur is the main economic engine of the global process of capital accumulation. In their analysis, the entrepreneur is not an individual, but an economic function which represents a systemic link between socioeconomic structures of capitalism and entrepreneurial motivations (profit, challenge, social recognition, innovation, etc.), which makes it possible to understand their decisions and to analyze their consequences on the business cycles. From these historical foundations of the economic analysis of entrepreneurship, other economists have developed their analysis according to the economic and social problems (innovation, unemployment, employment, etc.) of their time.JEL Codes: B00


Forced convective heat rejection from electro-optical components maintained at different maximum operating temperatures, 60/spl deg/C and 100/spl deg/C above ambient (25/spl deg/C), on the same vertically orientated single circuit board (either FR4 or copper clad FR4) was experimentally studied. Reynolds numbers ranged from 0-20 000 in which forced ambient air was passed in the horizontal direction parallel to the plane of the board in a wind tunnel. The effect of component proximity and orientation on maximum power dissipation was explored. Observed thermal behavior patterns included an increase in power dissipation with Reynolds number, an increase in power dissipation with component spacing, and in increase in power dissipation with circuit board thermal conductivity. A significant influence of component arrangement (on the same horizontal plane versus on the same vertical plane) and relative location of the hotter component on the power dissipated was also observed and was influenced by board conduction, thermal wake interactions and/or wake shedding. Results provide placement criteria needed for designers to optimally place optical and electrical components in close proximity to each other while still achieving maximum power dissipation within given thermal management constraints.


The higher point density and mobility of terrestrial laser scanning (light detection and ranging (lidar)) is desired when extremely detailed elevation data are needed for mapping vertically orientated complex features such as levees, dunes, and cliffs, or when highly accurate data are needed for monitoring geomorphic changes. Mobile terrestrial lidar scanners have the capability for rapid data collection on a larger spatial scale compared with tripod-based terrestrial lidar, but few studies have examined the accuracy of this relatively new mapping technology. For this reason, we conducted a field test at Padre Island National Seashore of a mobile lidar scanner mounted on a sport utility vehicle and integrated with a position and orientation system. The purpose of the study was to assess the vertical and horizontal accuracy of data collected by the mobile terrestrial lidar system, which is georeferenced to the Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system and the North American Vertical Datum of 1988. To accomplish the study objectives, independent elevation data were collected by conducting a high-accuracy global positioning system survey to establish the coordinates and elevations of 12 targets spaced throughout the 12 km transect. These independent ground control data were compared to the lidar scanner-derived elevations to quantify the accuracy of the mobile lidar system. The performance of the mobile lidar system was also tested at various vehicle speeds and scan density settings (e.g. field of view and linear point spacing) to estimate the optimal parameters for desired point density. After adjustment of the lever arm parameters, the final point cloud accuracy was 0.060 m (east), 0.095 m (north), and 0.053 m (height). The very high density of the resulting point cloud was sufficient to map fine-scale topographic features, such as the complex shape of the sand dunes.


OBJECTIVES
A recent controlled trial has established that use of a 4-mg folic acid supplement before and during early pregnancy reduces the risk of recurrent neural tube defects (NTDs) by 72%. The present study was designed to determine whether folic acid also reduces the risk of first (occurrent) NTDs.

DESIGN
Case-control study.

SETTING
Tertiary and birth hospitals in metropolitan areas of Boston, Mass, Philadelphia, Pa, and Toronto, Ontario.

PARTICIPANTS
Mothers of 436 occurrent cases with NTDs and mothers of 2615 controls with other major malformations.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The prevalence of use of multivitamins containing folic acid was compared between mothers of cases and controls.

RESULTS
The mothers of 17% of cases and 3% of controls reported knowledge of the folic acid-NTD hypothesis and were excluded from further analysis. For daily use of a multivitamins containing folic acid in the periconceptional period (28 days before through 28 days after the last menstrual period), the relative risk (RR) (and 95% confidence interval) was 0.4 (0.2 to 0.6). The most commonly used dose of folic acid was 0.4 mg, and the RR estimate was 0.3 (95% confidence interval, 0.1 to 0.6). For dietary folate, there was a dose-related decline in risk according to the quintile of intake (P for trend = .02).

CONCLUSION
These findings suggest that daily periconceptional intake of 0.4 mg of folic acid (the dose most commonly contained in over-the-counter multivitamin preparations) reduces the risk of occurrent NTDs by approximately 60%. A relatively high dietary intake of folate may also reduce the risk.


We present an interesting case of a symptomatic high flow AV fistula between the right common iliac artery (CIA) and the inferior vena cava (IVC), successfully treated by endovascular coil embolization. The patient was found to have a right lower polar renal artery crossing the ipsilateral ureter arising from the CIA, causing pelvi-ureteric junction (PUJ) obstruction and recurrent pyelonephritis. It is hypothesized that this fistula arising from the lower polar renal artery and entering the IVC, may have occurred as a result of trauma during a previous pyeloplasty, or a pathologically induced process of angiogenesis stemming from recurrent pyelonephritis.


A new optical system to analyze three-dimensional deformations on crashed vehicles is in use at Porsche's Crash Test Facility. This technology is based on the mathematical law that the spatial location of a point is clearly definable if it is represented by at least two images. With the help of a high resolution digital camera, highly developed image processing, and photogrammetric algorithms, an automated deformation analysis system is realized. This new measurement technology has numerous advantages over conventional devices, such as coordinate measurement machines, multisection arms, and analog photogrammetry. In one example of crash tests, the applicaiton of this system is described. Comparisons with conventional measurement devices regarding accuracy, costs, and process optimization are presented. An outlook to further innovations in analysis of safety tests, if photogrammetry is used as a basic technology, is given.


The number of the server applications in the world is rapidly increasing. Many of them need to handle user access. A typical approach is to implement access control logic directly into an object which is responsible for storing and retrieving the data and performing required operations over the data. The object checks access to appropriate methods and permits or denies required operation. But the systems are usually constructed from many such objects which require similar access control system. This leads to a greater overhead because access control checking must be coded inside all those objects. More code brings more bugs into the system moreover if a programmer simply forgets to verify some of required rights in the code then the system may encounter a forbidden data access. This article deals with that problem area and designs a unified database layer operating over relation database management systems. Key benefits it brings are strong simplification of the access control system from the point of view of the application code and impossibility to access data without permissions.


This work reports on the continuing development of a small animal PET system designed to image mice. The key component of the system is our micro crystal element (MiCE) detectors. Each MiCE detector consists of a 22/spl times/22 array of 0.8/spl times/0.8/spl times/10 mm mixed lutetium silicate (MLS) crystals. The crystals are placed within a grid made of a highly reflective polymer film material. The grid optically isolates the crystals and additionally functions as a reflective wrap. The detector unit is directly coupled to a 6+6 cross-anode position sensitive PMT. The PMT signals are fed to a simple resistor network and front end amplifier card that produces four (X+, X-, Y+, V-) position and the summed energy signals. A partial ring consisting of six detector modules has been built. Tomographic data sets have been acquired by rotating the source object within the limited field of view. A simplified data acquisition system designed using a field programmable gate array and commercial NIM and CAMAC electronic modules has been assembled. Using a two detector module coincidence setup, a reconstructed image resolution of 1.0 mm full width at half maximum has been achieved for a line source centered within the field of view. Mouse images have been acquired using the full evaluation system. These images illustrate the resolution capabilities of the MiCE scanner. The final system will consist of four rings of detector modules (i.e., 72 modules) and utilize a high bandwidth firewire (i.e., EEEE 1394a) based acquisition system. This system is currently under development.


We study nonequilibrium dephasing in an electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer. We demonstrate that the shot noise at the beam splitter of the interferometer generates an ensemble of nonequilibrium electron density configurations and that electron interactions induce configuration-specific phase shifts of an interfering electron. The resulting dephasing exhibits two characteristic features, a lobe pattern in the visibility and phase jumps of pi, in good agreement with experimental data.


Abstract. Numerical simulations provide a considerable aid in studying past climates. Out of the various approaches taken in designing numerical climate experiments, transient simulations have been found to be the most optimal when it comes to comparison with proxy data. However, multi-millennial or longer simulations using fully coupled general circulation models are computationally very expensive such that acceleration techniques are frequently applied. In this study, we compare the results from transient simulations of the present and the last interglacial with and without acceleration of the orbital forcing, using the comprehensive coupled climate model CCSM3 (Community Climate System Model version 3). Our study shows that in low-latitude regions, the simulation of long-term variations in interglacial surface climate is not significantly affected by the use of the acceleration technique (with an acceleration factor of 10) and hence, large-scale model–data comparison of surface variables is not hampered. However, in high-latitude regions where the surface climate has a direct connection to the deep ocean, e.g. in the Southern Ocean or the Nordic Seas, acceleration-induced biases in sea-surface temperature evolution may occur with potential influence on the dynamics of the overlying atmosphere.


Abstract An excellent laboratory for studying large scale magnetic fields is the grand design face-on spiral galaxy M51. Due to wavelength-dependent Faraday depolarization, linearly polarized synchrotron emission at different radio frequencies gives a picture of the galaxy at different depths: Observations at L-band (1 – 2 GHz) probe the halo region while at C- and X-band (4 – 8 GHz) the linearly polarized emission probe the disk region of M51. We present new observations of M51 using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) at S-band (2 – 4 GHz), where previously no polarization observations existed, to shed new light on the transition region between the disk and the halo. We discuss a model of the depolarization of synchrotron radiation in a multilayer magneto-ionic medium and compare the model predictions to the multi-frequency polarization data of M51 between 1 – 8 GHz. The new S-band data are essential to distinguish between different models. Our study shows that the initial model parameters, i.e. the total regular and turbulent magnetic field strengths in the disk and halo of M51, need to be adjusted to successfully fit the models to the data.


 Abstract — The paper presents an approach to improve the reliability and reduce line losses of practical distribution system applying network reconfiguration. The change of the topology redirects the power flow within the distribution network to obtain better performance of the system. Practical distribution network (Pyigyitagon Industrial Zone (I)) is used as the case study network. The detailed calculations of the reliability indices are done by using analytical method and power flow calculation is performed by Newton-Rephason solver. The comparison of various network reconfiguration techniques are described with respect to power loss and reliability index levels. Finally, the optimal reconfigured network is selected among difference cases based on the two factors: the most reliable network and the least loss minimization.


Serological and molecular approaches to the diagnosis of myiasis causing Oestridae). Myiasis causing Oestridae (bot flies) infect several animal species world-wide, from palaearctic to subtropical/trop- ical areas. Oestrids affect livestock production causing abortion, reduced milk production, losses in weight and fertility, poor hide quality and an impairment of the host's immune system. In the last few years much research has been carried out on the immunology of these infestations, in order to acquire efficient and reli- able diagnostic serological tools; the genome of the different species of Oestridae has been studied to fur- ther their molecular identification, taxonomy and phylogenesis. The immunodiagnostic methods for many myiasis causing Oestrids have proven to be a viable alternative to the clinical parasitological examination or the post-mortem examination. Numerous serological tests have been developed for the diagnosis of bovine hypodermosis caused by Hypoderma bovis and Hypoderma lineatum, and ELISAs using larval hypodermin C as the antigen are currently used on serum, individual and pooled milk samples to detect the presence of circulating anti-Hypoderma antibodies. In Italy the best period to sample the animals is November-January, since it is in this period that the antibody kinetics of the animals reaches a peak. Recently the efficacy of the ELISA test on pasteurized milk samples has been demonstrated, allowing the diagnosis of bovine hypodermosis also in areas where there is no information on the presence of the dis- ease and the sampling of the animals is laborious. The cross-reactivity between Przhevalskiana silenus anti- gens and anti-Hypoderma antibodies led to assessing the usefulness of a simple and cost-effective ELISA for the diagnosis of goat warble fly infection. In particular, it has been demonstrated that infected goats dis- play an antibody peak in November-December in blood and milk, thus making this period suitable for sam- pling. Although no extensive data is available on the immunology of sheep and goat oestrosis caused by Oestrus ovis, the efficacy of ELISA has been demonstrated by correlating serological results with clinical post-mortem examinations. No immunological techniques are currently used to diagnose gasterophilosis of equids and only one study reports the efficacy of ELISA for detecting anti-Gasterophilus antibodies in infected equids. Several studies have been conducted into the molecular characterization of the mitochon- drial DNA (mtDNA) - in particular of the gene encoding for the cytochrome oxidase I (COI)- for many free- living and parasitic arthropods for diagnostic, taxonomic and phylogenetic purposes. As regards Oestridae causing myiasis, the first study features a PCR-RFLP assay of the most common Italian species (i.e. H. bovis, H. lineatum, Gasterophilus intestinalis, P. silenus, O. ovis), which showed clear genetic differences among the genera examined, but no inter-specific variation between the two species of Hypoderma con- sidered. The molecular characterization of the most variable region of the COI gene (encoding for the region from E4 to the terminal COOH ) was able to clearly differentiate H. bovis and H. lineatum. The E4-COOH region of the COI gene has been characterized for 18 oestrid species and from a taxonomical point of view, molecular data confirm the morphological classification, with the examined species divided into four sub- families. New insights have also been gained on the molecular differentiation of the most common species of Hypoderma (i.e. H. bovis, H. lineatum, Hypoderma actaeon, Hypoderma diana and Hypoderma tarandi) and, in particular, the restriction enzyme BfaI, provides a diagnostic profile that can be used to simultane- ously differentiate all the species examined. The characterization of the E4-COOH COI gene and the hyper- variable region of the gene encoding for the ribosomal lsu revealed the identity of Hypoderma sinense as a new species, infecting cattle and yaks in China. Finally, the molecular analysis of the same mitochondrial and ribosomal regions showed that P. silenus, Przhevalskiana aegagri e Przhevalskiana crossii are mor- photypes of the same species.


Specialized transporter proteins that are the products of two closely related genes, UT-A (Slc14a2) and UT-B (Slc14a1), modulate the movement of urea across cell membranes. The purpose of this study was to characterize the mouse variants of two major products of the UT-A gene, UT-A1 and UT-A2. Screening a mouse kidney inner medulla cDNA library yielded 4,047- and 2,876-bp cDNAs, the mouse homologues of UT-A1 and UT-A2. Northern blot analysis showed high levels of UT-A mRNAs in kidney medulla. UT-A transcripts were also present in testes, heart, brain, and liver. Immunoblots with an antiserum raised to the 19 COOH-terminal amino acids of rat UT-A1 (L194) identified immunoreactive proteins in kidney, testes, heart, brain, and liver and showed a complex pattern of differential expression. Relative to other tissues, kidney and brain had the highest levels of UT-A protein expression. In kidney sections, immunostaining with L194 revealed immunoreactive proteins in type 1 (short) and type 3 (long) thin descending limbs of the loop of Henle and in the middle and terminal inner medullary collecting ducts. Expression in Xenopus laevis oocytes showed that, characteristic of UT-A family members, the cDNAs encoded phloretin-inhibitable urea transporters. Acute application of PKA agonists (cAMP/forskolin/IBMX) caused a significant increase in UT-A1- and UT-A3-, but not UT-A2-mediated, urea transport.


We prove long‐time stability of linearly extrapolated BDF2 (BDF2LE) timestepping methods, together with finite element spatial discretizations, for incompressible Navier‐Stokes equations (NSE) and related multiphysics problems. For the NSE, Boussinesq, and magnetohydrodynamics schemes, we prove unconditional long time L2 stability, provided external forces (and sources) are uniformly bounded in time. We also provide numerical experiments to compare stability of BDF2LE to linearly extrapolated Crank‐Nicolson scheme for NSE, and find that BDF2LE has better stability properties, particularly for smaller viscosity values. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 33: 999–1017, 2017


Abstract Relationships between physical activity variables, developmental measures, socio-economic status, academic test scores, perceptual-motor tests and gender were examined for 261 year-six primary school students (137 females) with mean age = 12.3 years, SD = 0.3. Characteristics of child development were examined to identify those aspects most weighted towards academic performance. An exploratory principal components analysis with varimax rotation was undertaken. Principal components analysis showed that 59% of the variance in the data-set could be explained by four sub-types. Scores for perception of verticality of a rod against a tilted frame and for frontal plane semi-tandem dynamic postural stability loaded with scores for reading, writing, numeracy and socio-economic status on the first sub-type called the "Academic-Cognitive" component accounted for 22.24% of total variance with an eigenvalue of 3.3. Other components with Eigenvalues > 1 were "Pubescent Development", "Fitness, Strength and Body Mass" and "Physical Activity and Motor Coordination". The grouping of perceptual-motor and postural coordination tests with academic scores suggests possibilities for activities having synergy with academic performance and suggests further investigation to ascertain the extent of the associations.


In 2017, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia announced the new mega-city NEOM. The city is envisioned to be a "start-up the size of a country", and it aims at attracting the "best talents", offering them "technology with livability at its core." The paper foregrounds city branding to understand what NEOM is all about: its imagined society and proposed governance. It further explores how city branding strategies position NEOM and the Kingdom regionally and globally and reaffirm the Crown Prince's power. It also questions the conceptual nature of the branded object itself, as branding documents show that NEOM alternates between being a city, a start-up, a country, and the Crown Prince's legacy.


The dominant yet ageing IBM and HMM word alignment models underpin most popular Statistical Machine Translation implementations in use today. Though beset by the limitations of implausible independence assumptions, intractable optimisation problems, and an excess of tunable parameters, these models provide a scalable and reliable starting point for inducing translation systems. In this paper we build upon this venerable base by recasting these models in the non-parametric Bayesian framework. By replacing the categorical distributions at their core with hierarchical Pitman-Yor processes, and through the use of collapsed Gibbs sampling, we provide a more flexible formulation and sidestep the original heuristic optimisation techniques. The resulting models are highly extendible, naturally permitting the introduction of phrasal dependencies. We present extensive experimental results showing improvements in both AER and BLEU when benchmarked against Giza++, including significant improvements over IBM model 4.


Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation in order to attend this program, please contact the Biochemistry Department in advance at 335-7932 or email firstname.lastname@example.com.


Contamination and particle reduction are critical to semiconductor process control. Lots of failure analysis had been focused on finding the root cause of the particle and contamination. The particle and contamination effect were also easily found in circuit probing (CP) process, and therefore induced yield loss and wafer scrap. In the first part of this paper, an oven contamination case was studied. The second part of this paper focus on oven contamination monitoring.
 In the beginning, a die flying failure was papered at the stage of blue tape and die sawing. This event clearly indicated bad adhesion between die and plastic tape. This bad adhesion was suspected to be a particle/contamination layer formed on bad die surface. Three failure analysis (FA) approaches were performed to find out the root cause. The SEM/EDS result identified the main elements of big particle, but that is insufficient to identify the root cause. The OM/FTIR, however, showed the contamination may be related to polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The last failure analysis was the time of fly Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer (TOF-SIMS), the result confirmed that there was a thin PDMS layer formed on the contaminated bad die surface. The high temperature CP process induced PDMS is believed to be the contamination root cause. In order to prevent the oven contamination event, a methodology based on contact angle and wettability of Si matrix sample was set up for regular monitor in oven operation. The details of contact angle test (CAT) sample preparation, measurement and analysis results were also discussed in this paper.


Background There is little literature available regarding the use of radiology services within the hospice setting. St Gemma's Hospice in Leeds has a 32-bed inpatient unit with around 600 admissions per annum and a day unit and outpatient service reviewing 400 patients a year. It accesses the local hospital trust for imaging. Aims To collate all radiology requests over a year to determine the frequency of different imaging modalities and what proportion detected the anticipated result or an alternative explanation for symptoms. Secondary aims included the proportion of patients who died within 2 weeks of imaging and examining the cost of imaging. Method Data were collected retrospectively from the radiology IT department at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. It included details of all imaging requested for inpatients and outpatients between 1/1/10 and 31/12/10 by Doctors within the hospice. Results 51 patients had 62 scans: 21 CTs, 18 MRIs, 10 Ultrasound scans, 4 CXRs, 4 AXRs, 3 Nuclear bone scans and 1 barium swallow. The most common reasons for imaging were for possible brain metastases (13), or spinal cord compression (12), 29% and 25% respectively were positive. Imaging for venousthromboembolism (11), and disease progression (6), were the next most common reasons for scanning, 27% and 67% respectively were positive. Scans showed an explanation for symptoms in 5/12 (42%) for SCC, 5/13 (38%) for brain mets, 5/5 (100%) for PE and 5/6 (83%) for disease progression. 11% of patients died within 2 weeks of having their scan. The approximate total cost based on NHS average reference costs was just under £10,000. Conclusion Most scans were appropriately requested. Depending on the imaging between 25 and 100% showed some abnormality. Most imaging was avoided in the 2 weeks prior to a patient's death. The costs associated with imaging are significant.


Abdominal scintigraphy shows silent gut inflammation in patients with spondyloarthropathies (Sp) without clinical evidence of gut inflammation. Abdominal scintigraphy images are different than those obtained in patients with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease and are not related to the anti-inflammatory drugs administered. The aim of this study was to examine the clinical associations of findings on abdominal scintigraphy in patients with Sp. A total of 204 Sp patients (European Spondylarthropathy Study Group 1991 criteria) and 54 non-Sp controls receiving non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs were studied. Abdominal scintigraphy images were obtained at 30 and 120 min after injection of technetium-99m hexamethylpropylene amine oxime (99mTc-HMPAO)-labelled leucocytes. 99mTc-HMPAO-labelled leucocyte scans were positive in 104 Sp patients (50.9%) and in six non-Sp controls (2.9%) (P<0.001; OR=8.32; 95% CI=3.23-22.67). Silent gut inflammation was not associated with any of the following: age of onset, duration of evolution, sex, family history of Sp or psoriasis, articular manifestations, extra-articular manifestations, radiological findings or HLA-B27 positivity. Positive abdominal scintigraphy was associated with active disease (P < 0.0001; OR=52.7; 95% CI=19-145.6) and an increase in the C-reactive protein (P < 0.005; OR = 3.4; 95% CI = 1.5-7.4). It is concluded that (a) abdominal scintigraphy using 99mTc-HMPAO-labelled leucocytes is of value in detecting the silent gut inflammation in Sp patients, and (b) silent gut inflammation is related to the clinical activity, but is not associated with any particular type of illness or with HLA-B27.


We review the recent development of T-ray computed tomography, a terahertz imaging technique that allows the reconstruction of the three-dimensional refractive index profile of weakly scattering objects. Terahertz pulse imaging is used to obtain images of the target at multiple projection angles and the filtered backprojection algorithm enables the reconstruction of the object's frequency-dependent refractive index. The application of this technique to a biological bone sample and a plastic test structure is demonstrated. The structure of each target is accurately resolved and the frequency-dependent refractive index is determined. The frequency-dependent information may potentially be used to extract functional information from the target, to uniquely identify different materials or to diagnose medical conditions.


Oilseed crop production has increased greatly in the Northern Plains in recent years. Cultural practices to optimize oilseed production were studied for 4 years (1974-1977) to obtain information on safflower (Curthamus tinctoris L.) seed yield, oil concentration, and wateruse efficiency as affected by seeding date and plant population. Safflower was seeded on previously cropped or fallow land on three dates: early (16 May), midseason (6 June), or late (25 June) on Temvik silt loam (Typic Huploborolls). Soil water depletion by safflower was generally confined to the upper 150-cm soil depth. Average water use by safflower seeded in mid-May was greater by 4 and 8 cm than that used by the midseason and late seeding, respectively, and was unaffected by population. Significant positive correlations (r = 0.78) were obtained between oil concentration and degree days for the period after flowering. Correlation coefficients showed that 79% of the total variation in oil concentration was accounted for by variation in water use and temperature. Average water-use efficiency for mid-May, early June, and late June seeding was 34, 33, and 15 kg seed/cm water used, respectively. Seed and oil yields were highest for early and lowest for late seeding. In all years, seeding date affected seed yield and oil concentration. Population affected seed and oil yield in 1976. The results showed that safflower grown under dryland conditions in the Northern Plains should be seeded not later than midMay. Previous research in North Dakota showed that for best results safflower should be planted between 20 April and 10 May.


ABSTRACT Two late Miocene Tridacna (giant clam) shells from East Kalimantan (Indonesia) were investigated in order to evaluate their potential as subannually resolved paleoenvironmental archives. Via a combination of X-ray diffraction (XRD), laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) trace element analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and cathodoluminescence (CL) imaging, pristine versus diagenetically altered domains within the shells were identified. LA-ICPMS transects targeting altered aragonite and calcite zones reveal distinct compositional differences in elemental ratios (B/Ca, Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca/ Ba/Ca, Mn/Ca, Al/Ca, La/Ca, Ce/Ca) relative to primary shell aragonite. Pristine shell domains are characterized by an intact banding pattern of alternating dark and light growth bands, with which spatially resolved LA-ICPMS element/Ca and micromilled &dgr;18O records were aligned. Light &dgr;18O values correspond to dark growth bands, indicating growth during warm seasons. The Mg/Ca and/or Sr/Ca ratios covary with oscillating stable oxygen isotope profiles. Progressive increase in Mg/Ca with age demonstrates that besides temperature, growth kinetics exert control over Mg incorporation. If interpreted as temperature controlled only, &dgr;18O from both shells represents average seasonal sea-surface temperature (SST) variability of 2.7 ± 2.1 and 4.6 ± 1.7 °C, respectively. Using published temperature equations and assuming &dgr;18Osw  =  −0.88‰, corresponding mean annual paleo–sea-surface temperatures of 27.8 ± 0.2 and 28.5 ± 0.2 °C are estimated. Although the fossil Tridacna shells were noticeably affected by alteration on their external surfaces, their internal aragonitic structure is, to a large extent, well preserved. These corresponding paleoproxy records provide detailed insight into tropical SST variability of the Indo-Pacific region during the late Miocene.


This paper reviews the pros and cons of an early EU enlargement towards Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs hereafter). Firstly, the Maastricht criteria, which cannot be literally assessed during the catching up process, but that nevertheless mirror the huge efforts undertaken in order to (i) stabilise the economies, (ii) converge towards the EU, and then (iii) participate in the EMU, are analysed. Secondly, real convergence is observed to occur at different rates, depending upon the initial conditions faced and the productivity gains realised by each country. Thirdly, computing the correlation of demand and supply shocks in a sample of Euro countries, such as Ireland, Portugal and Spain, at the time when they were entering the EU and the CEECs, gives some indication of the similarity of the business cycles and economic structures of the CEECs on the one hand, and the EU on the other. However, we argue that looking at static correlation only (averaged over the last decade) is too simplistic, as these averages will be blurred by the transition process. Using the Kalman filter, we are able to compute time varying correlation, hence differentiating between the transition and the most recent period. Our results emphasise an ongoing process of demand shocks convergence, but supply shocks divergence. Various exchange rate strategies are then discussed.


Calculations of fuel element burnup for realistic mixed core conditions in a 250-kW TRIGA Mark II reactor are presented. Two types of fuel elements are considered. 70% enriched FLIP and 20% enriched standard fuel elements. Two calculation models are compared. The first is based on a one-dimensional two-group diffusion approximation (the TRIGAP computer code), and the second is based on a two-dimensional four-group diffusion equation (the TRIGLAV computer code). In both cases the unit-cell group constants are generated with the WIMS code. Results of the calculations are intercompared to evaluate the influence of the two-dimensional effects on fuel element burnup. The following two-dimensional effects are considered: mixed rings, in-core water gaps. vicinity of control rods, and asymmetric core loading patterns. Relative differences in fuel clement burnup of 10% on average and up to 80% in extreme cases are observed because of the two-dimensional effects. The accuracy of the calculation is estimated also by comparing the calculated results to the measurements using the reactivity method.


This review deals with a number of issues related to blood pressure variability. These include: historical aspects, with reference to the first pioneering observations; methodological aspects, focusing on the different methods for quantifying blood pressure variability; description of the characteristics of blood pressure variability over the 24 hours; mechanisms involved in determining the different magnitude of this phenomenon in different subjects, such as behavioral factors, central and reflex neural influences, humoral and mechanical factors; blood pressure variability as a probe to assess spontaneous baroreflex sensitivity; effects of aging and hypertension on blood pressure variability, with a discussion of the clinical relevance of this phenomenon in the prognostic evaluation of patients; effects of drugs on blood pressure variability. Finally methodological aspects related to the use of noninvasive ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in the assessment of blood pressure variability are discussed.


Based on a broad programme of research undertaken by Professor Stephen Hoskins and Mr David Huson, which led to the award of several AHRC-funded research projects ('The Fabrication of Three Dimensional Art and Craft Artefacts through Virtual Digital Construction and Output' and 'Solid Free-Form Fabrication in Fired Ceramic') this patent (PCT/GB2011/051069) was filed for a novel material with wide domestic and commercial applications and which allows the possibility to print ceramic objects directly in three dimensions. UWE has entered in to a licence agreement with Viridis3d LLC (Viridis) granting Viridis the exclusive rights to market ViriClay, a 3D printable ceramic material based on the patented material developed by Professor Stephen Hoskins and Mr Dave Huson.

The material will allow the user to produce unique works without incurring modelling and tool costs. It is directly applicable to the whiteware and tableware industry, where it will shorten ceramic production lead times. And will enable designers, makers and artists to produce works that would simply not have been possible without this technology.

ViriClay, has wide domestic and commercial applications for the arts and consumer product markets and offers these advantages:
• Reduces the total time, labour, and energy required to make a 3D printed ceramic objects by more than 30%
• Improves the surface finish of glazed parts
• Ceramic prints can be produced from many digital sculpting packages including CAD, 3D scan data, etc
• Compatible with standard 3D printers


[Abstract] There arose a serious pension record-keeping problem in Japan in May 2007. Around 50 million pension records of social security were found to be floating, not having been integrated into the unified pension numbers. Moreover, around 69,000 records of salaries were suspected of frauds by employers. The pending records are due to human errors made by enrolees, their employers and agencies. There has been no integrated collection of taxes and social security contributions in Japan, and additionally no monitoring organizations were effectively implemented in pension administration. The general public was under the illusion that government officials were able to do and did everything correctly without making any mistakes. However, human errors are inevitable anywhere. Regular and prompt examinations over possible errors are required for proper record-keeping of pensions. When a no-match is identified, an interactive notification and responding correction with confirmation should follow in due course. A trustworthy government with its competent and neat implementation is, thus, the basis for any pension system.


The purposes of the study were: to characterize the Generation Y as participants in the labour market; to recognize economic conditions of labour markets; to describe social and individual factors of job values/conditions that concern Generation Y. The article presents the results of the carried out research and its main conclusions. Following hypothesis were constructed: the countries that met the conditions for joining the European Union at the same time differ in their respective ways of developing the labour market and differ on these issues from the countries which joined the Union in other periods. Some hypotheses regarding the perception of the workplace were also tested. For this purpose, subjective variables were determined for the assessment of working and private life conditions. The Eurostat data (due to the homogeneity of variables on the labour market) as well as the data from the European Social Survey (due to the representativeness of the data and the subjective nature of respondents' assessments) were used to conduct the study. As to the analysis techniques, ordering methods were selected: Hellwig's and TOPSIS and also twostep cluster analysis. The indicated set of data and selected analysis methods fully enabled the characterization of the phenomenon. In addition, it was possible to compare the results obtained from both ordering methods. As a result, it was found that a higher level of GDP per Capita does not always affect rising the employment rate and lowering the Generation's Y unemployment rate. The methods of ordering made it possible to indicate the countries that in the period from 2005 to 2017 obtained the best characteristics of the labour market. The twostep cluster for Generation Y indicated that it is not important to divide this age cohort into older and younger group because their assessments of quality and working conditions didn?t differ. The analysis carried out over three years showed how the attitudes of the inhabitants of the selected countries towards the balance between private life and work, working conditions and the possibilities of influencing organizational issues at work have changed.The obtained results cannot be compared, in direct way, with the findings of other researches. There are no studies in which analogous methods would be used for a similar population, time range and age cohort.


Development of manipulators that interact closely with humans has been a focus of research in
fields such as robot-assisted surgery and haptic interfaces for many years. Recent introduction
of powered surgical-assistant devices into the operating theatre has meant that robot
manipulators have been required to interact with both patients and surgeons. Most of these
manipulators are modified industrial robots. However, the use of high-powered mechanisms in
the operating theatre could compromise safety of the patient, surgeon, and operating room staff.
As a solution to the safety problem, the use of actively restrained passive arms has been
proposed. Clutches or brakes at each joint are used to restrict the motion of the end-effector to
restrain it to a pre-defined region or path. However, these devices have only had limited success
in following pre-defined paths under human guidance.
In this research, three major limitations of existing passive devices actively restrained are
addressed. [Continues.]


This study aims to reassess the finance-growth nexus debate in China, and consequently illustrate the channels through which financial development gives impact on China's economic growth after 1978. Specifically, this study addresses two channels through which the effects operate, i.e., physical capital accumulation and productivity improvement. The study adopts an approach called channel decomposition which combines the conventional accounting framework and regression analysis. The empirical analysis, using a panel dataset of Chinese provinces between 1980 and 2004, argues that: (1) the relationship between financial development and economic growth in China tends to be a long-run one; (2) the direction of causality between financial development and economic growth has presumably run from the former to the latter in China; (3) the impacts induced by various measures of financial system exert on economic growth are different, and the channels through which they give impact on the growth are different as well; (4) the existence of inter-regional heterogeneity in the context of China's finance-growth nexus tends to be sensitive to the selection of financial variables.


The conditions of the deep subsurface, combined by perturbations caused by geological disposal of radioactive waste create multiple extreme conditions (limited space availability, high pH, high temperature etc.) for microbial communities. Microbial activity has the potential to cause corrosion of steel and alteration of bentonite clays used in geological disposal facilities. To understand the limits on microbial growth, and the potential for microbial activity to affect the swelling behaviour of the bentonite and metal corrosion, a suite of laboratory experiments is being conducted. In situ repository conditions have been replicated in the MIND (Horizon2020) project. Preliminary results show evidence of corrosion in all experiments, an increase in the basal spacings of smectites in the zone immediately surrounding the steel and inoculated samples had evidence of calcite crystal formation, accompanied by differences in the iron phases. These experiments simulate the in situ conditions well, but the complex nature of this experimental design (high pressure and flow) reduces the practicality of varying the environmental conditions. To complement these investigations, a low-tech solution has been implemented with unpressurised, hydrated bentonite batch experiments. The simpler nature of this set-up allows for investigation of more parameters. Microcosms with artificial groundwater used in the MIND set-up are being compared to the MIND groundwater composition, modelled to represent permafrost conditions. The effect of incubation temperature is also being investigated. Combined, these experiments will help to understand the influence of microbes under the extremes of geological disposal facilities and how their behaviour may change by external parameters.


Intrathoracic tumors in pediatric ages are unfrequent. A review of 138 cases in patients under 15 years of age showed in the first place, the same as in adults, malignant neoplasms represented by pulmonary metastases. However, in those of primary localization, the histologically benign are more frequent. Out of 69 cases, such tumors came up to 78.2% and 47% of them were cystic malformations. Among malignant primary neoplasms, out of 30.4%, neuroblastoma showed 8.6%, diverse sarcomas were 8.6% and the epithelial type added up to 4.3%. The main symptoms were: frequent bronchopulmonary infections, obstructive respiratory insufficiency and vascular stasis. Radiological examinations are of great diagnostic aid, but a full clinical evaluation is always necessary. A surgical treatment removing the mass leads to radical recovery leaving limited sequelae. The comparative group of 69 cases with pulmonary metastases showed that neoplasms considered of embryonal type are practically always multiple and appear during the final stage of the disease. Surgery may be attempted when they are single and the primary has been removed; however, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are always necessary.


Recent studies have shown that strong Natural Language Understanding (NLU) models are prone to relying on annotation biases of the datasets as a shortcut, which goes against the underlying mechanisms of the task of interest. To reduce such biases, several recent works introduce debiasing methods to regularize the training process of targeted NLU models. In this paper, we provide a new perspective with causal inference to find out the bias. On one hand, we show that there is an unobserved confounder for the natural language utterances and their respective classes, leading to spurious correlations from training data. To remove such confounder, the backdoor adjustment with causal intervention is utilized to find the true causal effect, which makes the training process fundamentally different from the traditional likelihood estimation. On the other hand, in inference process, we formulate the bias as the direct causal effect and remove it by pursuing the indirect causal effect with counterfactual reasoning. We conduct experiments on large-scale natural language inference and fact verification benchmarks, evaluating on bias sensitive datasets that are specifically designed to assess the robustness of models against known biases in the training data. Experimental results show that our proposed debiasing framework outperforms previous state-of-the-art debiasing methods while maintaining the original in-distribution performance.


Banking and communication are two of the fastest growing industries in India. There has been a very high penetration of the banking in the last ten year which leads to the high customer load in banking industry. Therefore, to handle this customer load banks are adopting different strategies and technologies. Mobile based Internet banking is one of the main strategy adopted by the banks. There is a need to identify the perception of the customer groups about mobile application based internet banking. Simple descriptive statistical techniques and ANOVA are used to analyze it.


In this paper, taking power-shifting transmission of ZL50 wheel loader as control object, an autocontrol system based on Intel-51 single-chip microcomputer has been developed. Chaotic neural networks (CNN) control technology in which chaotic optimizing algorithms is applied to improve neural networks' learning efficiency makes gear-shifting control system possess intelligentized characteristics. The results of experiment show that the intelligent control system could reliably and exactly realize an automatic transmission according to changed working conditions after gear-shifting strategy has been successfully regulated. The intelligent electronic control unit (ECU) works steadily and can accurately and duly complete gear-shifting. Finally, the study is helpful for designing intelligentized construction machinery. (Nature and Science 2003;1(1):86-90).


The features of the standard IEC 16850 with respect to intelligent applications in substations are summarized. These features refer not only to the use of mainstream communication means but also to its object oriented modeling power and services including real-time data exchange, and to its standardized engineering support. It is shown how modeling of functions independently from its allocation to devices allows optimizing existing applications and opening up for future intelligent applications. The data model provides all information in a substation needed not only for control and protection functions but also about the IEDs and the switchgear configuration. The data grouped in objects provide comprehensive information to the level of detail needed. The compatibility of the IEC 61850 model with the common information model on network level is highlighted. It is shown that all these features facilitate the implementation of intelligent applications and, especially, distributed functions with reasonable effort.


A wet-chemical surface texturing technique, including a two-step metal-catalyzed chemical etching (MCCE) and an extra alkaline treatment, has been proven as an efficient way to fabricate high-efficiency black multicrystalline (mc) silicon solar cells, whereas it is limited by the production capacity and the cost cutting due to the complicated process. Here, we demonstrated that with careful control of the composition in etching solution, low-aspect-ratio bowl-like nanostructures with atomically smooth surfaces could be directly achieved by improved one-step MCCE and with no posttreatment, like alkali solution. The doublet surface texture of implementing this nanobowl structure upon the industrialized acidic-textured surface showed concurrent improvement in optical and electrical properties for realizing 18.23% efficiency mc-Si solar cells (156 mm × 156 mm), which is sufficiently higher than 17.7% of the solely acidic-textured cells in the same batch. The one-step MCCE method demonstrated in this study may provide a cost-effective way to manufacture high-performance mc-Si solar cells for the present photovoltaic industry.


AIMS
Nitric oxide (NO) and endothelium-dependent hyperpolarization (EDH) play important roles in maintaining cardiovascular homeostasis. We have previously demonstrated that endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) plays diverse roles depending on vessel size, as a NO generating system in conduit arteries and an EDH-mediated system in resistance arteries, for which caveolin-1 (Cav-1) is involved. However, the physiological role of endothelial Cav-1 in microvessels remains to be elucidated.

METHODS AND RESULTS
We newly generated endothelium-specific Cav-1-knockout (eCav-1-KO) mice. eCav-1-KO mice showed loss of endothelial Cav-1/eNOS complex and had cardiac hypertrophy despite normal blood pressure. In eCav-1-KO mice, as compared to wild-type controls, the extent of eNOS phosphorylation at inhibitory Thr495 was significantly reduced in mesenteric arteries and the heart. Isometric tension and Langendorff-perfused heart experiments showed that NO-mediated responses were enhanced, whereas EDH-mediated responses were reduced in coronary microcirculation in eCav-1-KO mice. Immunohistochemistry showed increased level of 8-nitroguanosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (8-nitro-cGMP), a marker of nitrative stress, in the heart from eCav-1-KO mice. S-guanylation of cardiac H-Ras in eCav-1-KO mice was also significantly increased compared with wild-type controls.

CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that eCav-1 is involved in the protective role of EDH against nitrative stress caused by excessive NO to maintain cardiac microvascular homeostasis.


Sea-level rise increasingly affects low-lying and exposed coastal communities due to climate change. These communities rely upon the delivery of stormwater and wastewater services which are often co-located underground in coastal areas. Due to sea-level rise and associated compounding climate-related hazards, managing these networks will progressively challenge local governments as climate change advances. Thus, responsible agencies must reconcile maintaining Levels of Service as the impacts of climate change worsen over the coming decades and beyond. A critical question is whether such networks can continue to be adapted/protected over time to retain Levels of Service, or whether eventual retreat may be the only viable adaptation option? If so, at what performance threshold? In this paper, we explore these questions for stormwater and wastewater, using a dynamic adaptive pathway planning (DAPP) approach designed to address thresholds and increasing risk over time. Involving key local stakeholders, we here use DAPP to identify thresholds for stormwater and wastewater services and retreat options, and for developing a comprehensive and area-specific retreat strategy comprising pathway portfolios, retreat phases, potential land use changes, and for exploring pathway conflicts and synergies. The result is a prototype for an area near Wellington, New Zealand, where a managed retreat of water infrastructure is being considered at some future juncture. Dynamic adaptive strategies for managed retreats can help to reduce future disruption from coastal flooding, signal land use changes early, inform maintenance, and allow for gradual budget adjustments by the agencies that can manage expenditure over time. We present this stepwise process in a pathway form that can be communicated spatially and visually, thereby making a retreat a more manageable, sequenced, adaptation option for water agencies, and the communities they serve.


A polarization-state-independent binary frequency-shift-keying (FSK) optical heterodyne receiver, realized by splitting the received signal between two orthogonal polarization axes and combining the signals after demodulation, is described. Various receiver configurations are considered using a discriminator with a limiter for applications in which received-signal-envelope fluctuations can not be ignored and, without a limiter, when the fluctuations are negligible. For applications that require the limiter, a diversity method or a variable-gain limiter that improves the performance of the limiter/discriminator receiver is proposed. Numerical results indicate that, with diversity and a limiter/discriminator structure, polarization independence can be achieved with a system performance which is nearly that of an ideal receiver. Using a discriminator without a limiter, when there is no source of envelope fluctuations other than those due to Gaussian noise, the receiver performance degradation compared to the ideal baseline receiver is 0.5 dB.<<ETX>>


Many Pickering emulsions are simple spherical emulsions because surface tension gives liquid droplets a spherical shape, minimizing the surface area for a given volume. However, supracolloidal systems with complex structures have been produced to create new materials, such as multiple emulsions, non-spherical emulsions and bicontinuous structures. In this chapter, we discuss these complex systems stabilized by solid particles.


The wide use of ICT based e-technologies represents a great opportunity for underserved segments of the population, especially with the aim of reintegrating excluded individuals back into society through education. This is particularly true for people who may have difficulties while attending traditional onsite learning or traditional learning programs in schools , institutes or universities programs that are typically based on class room , books or printed learning resources. The creation and provision of accessible e-learning contents may therefore become a key factor in enabling people with different access needs to enjoy quality learning experiences and services. In modern time Computer Education is now indispensable for people of every stratification but due to the poor economic condition many in many states of our country and other countries are unable to introduce their citizens with rich technologies and innovation developed by computer system. Consequently a cloud based shared based system may help for uniform distribution of resources between people of every stratum. In this research work we are introducing an architecture of Cloud based e-Learning system for education sector and discuss the impact of our propose architecture on the availability of widespread resources to all around the country. We are presenting here a comparative analysis of our proposed architecture with the existing one to demonstrate the advantages of the proffered architecture over the current one.


Traditional media outlets are known to report political news in a biased way, potentially affecting the political beliefs of the audience and even altering their voting behaviors. Many researchers focus on automatically detecting and identifying media bias in the news, but only very few studies exist that systematically analyze how theses biases can be best visualized and communicated. We create three manually annotated datasets and test varying visualization strategies. The results show no strong effects of becoming aware of the bias of the treatment groups compared to the control group, although a visualization of hand-annotated bias communicated bias in-stances more effectively than a framing visualization. Showing participants an overview page, which opposes different viewpoints on the same topic, does not yield differences in respondents' bias perception. Using a multilevel model, we find that perceived journalist bias is significantly related to perceived political extremeness and impartiality of the article.


Pervasive sensing using wearables for health monitoring presents a promising and unique opportunity to widely manage illnesses and conditions. To better understand the capabilities and limitations of using wearable devices for health monitoring, systems need to be developed and studies conducted. We conducted one such study for monitoring patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), in which we aim to understand the disease and predict patient outcomes. However, despite a carefully well-planned and well-conducted study that resulted in a very large dataset, some non-obvious design oversights meant the data was much less useful. We analyze the shortcomings of our study to construct lessons and concrete actions to avoid these pitfalls. We ratify these lessons by briefly discussing a second iteration of our study, in which we apply these lessons and obtain much better outcomes. Real-world sensing studies are time consuming and expensive investments, for a promising research area. By sharing our failure and proposing actionable lessons, we hope to minimize the risk for others aiming to run such studies.


Network is the interconnectivity, or linkage of a set of components of a system into a complete whole to produce a spatial and structured pattern.  A network may be either a static feature at a point in time or a dynamic phenomenon, it grows with time or as such, it is subjected to change through time. In the course of making the nodes and linkages easily identifiable, a network is transformed into a topological graph. This is a representation of the geometry of a network showing the relationship between nodes and linkages without considering the scale of the map and morphology of the actual route. The nodes refer to the settlements while the edge refers to the roads. This study attempts to determine the degree of road network connectivity over three time periods and how such growth has led to an improvement in the economy of the people of Kaduna State. To determine the  degree of road network connectivity in the study area, the road network structures were converted into topological graphs. From the graphs, the following three graphic theoretic indices (alpha, beta and gamma ) were measured. Twenty-five (25) main settlements in Kaduna State were used as nodes on the topological map. The indices of the three periods were then pooled together to show the trend in the growth in road connectivity in the state. The study revealed  that the calculated values of  alpha increased from 17.8% to 51% , beta from 1.36 to 1.96 and gamma from 49% to 71% between 1957 and 2009. While the number of nodes on the road network in the state remains constant at 25, the number of roads, increased from 34 in 1957 – 1989 period, to 49 in the 1999 - 2009 period. The study has been able to determine that road connectivity indices increased over the three time periods. This is an indication that there has been an increase in road network from one period to another, and that the economic activities of the people of Kaduna State has improved thereby. Keywords: Network, Growth, Interconnectivity, Topological Graph, Nodes, Economy


Overhearing has been observed to be an important conversational resource in a number of cooperative work contexts. Participatory status describes a particular kind of overhearing where two or more primary participants are actively involved in some cooperative task with one or more peripheral participants who are not actively involved, but nevertheless have a legitimate reason for listening in. Our interest in participatory status is focussed on how the way an audio video link is configured could affect a peripheral participant. Clark's theory of language use is successfully used to model participatory status and to make predictions about these effects.


Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and is detrimental to several organs including the liver and kidneys. The flaxseed-derived polyunsaturated fatty acids including the omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids have been shown to blunt the effects of hypertension. It is however, unclear whether the flaxseed, which is rich in these essential fatty acids, could improve the liver and kidney dysfunctions observed in the hypertensive condition. To test this, functional markers of the liver and kidneys, including aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), uric acid (UA), creatinine, and renin were examined in hypertensive male Wistar rats fed a flaxseed diet. Normotensive rats maintained on a standard diet were rendered hypertensive with a daily administration of cyclosporin A (CYS) (25 mg/kg) for 4 weeks. Subsequently, hypertensive rats were either fed a standard diet alone or a flaxseed-supplemented standard diet (FLX; 10% W/W) for 8 weeks. Compared to normotensive rats, standard diet-fed hypertensive rats had significantly elevated blood pressure, altered lipid profile, and increased plasma levels of tissue markers measured immediately following the CYS treatment and thereafter at 4 and 8 week intervals. On the other hand, rats fed the FLX-supplemented diet had significantly lower blood pressure, an improved lipid profile and decreased tissue marker levels measured after 4 and 8 week durations. The data demonstrate for the first time the favourable effects of FLX in improving liver and kidney functions in the hypertensive condition. These effects are likely to be mediated by the alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and linoleic acid (LA) contents of flaxseed oil due to its demonstrated ability to lower the blood pressure.


The lungs are responsible for essentially all uptake of oxygen in Birgus latro . Elimination of CO 2 in resting crabs appears to occur largely across the gills but during exercise approximately half the output of CO 2 is pulmonary. Pa O 2 was high in resting crabs (43.8 mmHg; 1 mmHg = 133.3 Pa) but fell during exercise (to 27mmHg). Pv O 2 remained constant at 10–12 mmHg. Pa CO 2 rose substantially during exercise (from 7.1 to 14.6mmHg). Haemocyanin delivered 90% of oxygen in resting crabs rising to 97%following exercise. Oxygen delivery at rest was 0.46 mmoll −1 haemolymph rising to 0.72mmoll −1 following exercise. Pigment-bound oxygen capacity was 1.1 mmoll −1 . Oxygen delivery to the tissues was diffusion-limited during exercise. Anaerobic metabolism during exercise raised the concentration of L-lactate in the haemolymph 100-fold (from 0.25 to 25 mmoll −1 ) and concomitantly caused a fall in pH of 0.7 units. This acidosis was partially compensated by the end of the 30-min exercise period.


Microencapsulation of highly water soluble pharmaceutical substances (solubility more than 1g/ml), especially if high drug loading is required (more than 50%) is a big challenge. Biodegradable polylactide as coating material and polyvinyl alcohol as surfactant were found suitable for this purpose. Active substance was microencapsulated using slightly modified waterin- oil-in-water technique which involves dissolving of the drug in the water and polymer in methylene chloride and forming an emulsion in water using a surfactant. Procedure of microencapsulation was followed by filtration and drying of product obtained. Not only the developed method enables microencapsulation of highly water soluble pharmaceuticals, but it also predicts properties of products obtained. Microencapsulation technique developed allows encapsulation of highly water soluble pharmaceutical with drug load up to 80%, and encapsulation efficiency up to 65%. During the study such parameters as emulsification time, volume of outer water phase and amount of active ingredient in inner water phase on microencapsulation process and product properties were investigated


1. An extract has been prepared from the suprarenal cortex, which, when injected into rabbits, lowers the blood calcium to the extent of about 30 per cent.; the maximum fall occurs after 24 hours, and returns to normal in about 48 hours. 2. The extract prepared from the suprarenal cortex resembles that obtained from ovary and corpus luteum, both in physical characteristics, and in the production of a typical response on the part of the blood calcium. 3. It would appear that the hormone of the suprarenal cortex that is capable of lowering the blood calcium is very similar and possibly identical with the hormone of the ovary, having the same function. 4. A definite relationship has been established between the suprarenal cortex and the ovary, justifying the long-suspected connection between the two glands.


Balloon embolectomy catheters were studied in 2 to 3 mm canine arteries in vitro to evaluate the determinants of lateral wall pressure (LWP), balloon-artery shear force, and shear stress. LWP was determined by examination of the pressure-diameter curve of each artery and identification of the diameter at each level of infected volume. The following results were obtained: (1) LWP was determined by balloon diameter and was poorly related to balloon pressure. (2) When balloons were filled to clinical criteria, mean LWPs of 50 to 10 mm Hg for 24 Shiley catheters and 62 +/- 11 mm Hg for 24 Edwards catheters were recorded. (3) Shear forces increased directly with LWP. (4) In most cases, shear forces at any LWP were not significantly different for Edwards and Shiley catheters. (5) Shear forces had a high initial component and a lower dynamic component; the latter component was decreased slightly by increasing withdrawal velocity. (6) Shear forces were lower (P less than 0.05) with small catheters than with larger catheters, i.e., 3F less than 4F less than 5F. (7) Shear stresses were at least 84 times greater than the critical stress for the intima. These data suggest the following clinical guidelines: (1) Every effort should be made to achieve the low LWP since this strongly influences shear force. (2) The smallest effective catheter should be used. (3) Negligible benefit may be gained if catheters are withdrawn at moderate velocities.


The effect of prescribed burning on morphological parameters of Pinus laricio in Corsica was examined over a 3-year period. Morphological responses measured included height and diameter of the trees and shoot length and morphological characteristics of the needles. Variations on Pinus laricio growth between the years are influenced by climate factors, in particular by the rainfall during June, July, August and September and the mean temperature in August. The year following the prescribed burning, an increase of morphological parameters (e.g. shoot and needle length, number of needles) is observed. These observations could be linked with the soil nutriment, in particular with nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P). After two years, there are no differences in the measured parameters. These parameters can be considered as good indicators in the management of the prescribed burning.


This paper will present the development of a low cost autonomous flight control system for small unmanned aerial vehicles with the aim to support collaborative aerial systems. A low cost hardware solution was achieved by careful selection of sensors, integration of hardware subsystems, and the use of new microcontroller technologies. Flight control algorithms to guide a vehicle through waypoint based flight paths and loiter about a point were implemented using direction fields. A hardware in the loop simulator was developed to ensure proper operation of all hardware and software components prior to flight testing. The resulting flight control system achieved stable and accurate flight while reducing the total system cost to less than $250.


All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Cervical cancer is the second most frequent cancer in women around the world and affects half a million women per year. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 275,000 women die every year, and 80% to 85% of these deaths occur in low-resource countries in Africa and South America [18]. In Peru, cervical cancer has the highest incidence and the second highest mortality rates of cancers among women [18]. Currently, the screening techniques such as the Papanicolau (Pap) test, in which some cells from the cervix are examined under a microscope to detect potentially pre-cancerous and cancerous cells [20], and the Visual Inspection with Acetic Acid (VIA), in which the surface layer of the cervix is examined through visual inspection after washing it with 3% to 5% acetic acid (vinegar) for one minute [20], are part of the national health policy in Peru [36]. The Pap test is mainly used in urban areas in Peru. However, there are some challenges related to spreading the Pap test throughout the whole country: lack of quality and standardization of the readings of Pap smears [31], shortage of trained personnel, uneven processing of samples resulting in diagnosis and treatment delays, and lack of even basic laboratory infrastructure, all of which impacts greatly on the sustainability of this procedure in remote and/or poor settings. Extensive research has shown that computational solutions are a viable and suitable aid for overcoming these barriers [42] [17]. However, the majority of these solutions are commercial products that are not affordable for developing countries, such as Peru. In this context, developing a strategy, algorithm and open source computational implementation that recognizes normal vs. abnormal Pap smears can ultimately provide a cost-effective alternative for developing countries. The dissertation-specific objectives are to: 1) determine the characteristics of normal vs. abnormal Pap smears through expert consultation and relevant literature, 2) collect Pap smear data sets and run preliminary experiments to compare two pattern recognition algorithms in terms of features and classification performance, and 3) assess the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the proposed cervical cancer screening approach …