Background. Physical therapy doses may need to be higher than provided in current clinical practice, especially for patients with severe paresis. The authors aimed to find the most effective and feasible dose of Mobilisation and Tactile Stimulation (MTS), which includes joint and soft-tissue mobilization and passive or active-assisted movement to enhance voluntary muscle contraction. Methods. This 2-center, randomized, controlled, observer-blinded feasibility trial compared conventional rehabilitation but no extra therapy (group 1) with conventional therapy plus 1 of 3 daily doses of MTS, up to 30 (group 2), 60 (group 3), or 120 (group 4) minutes for 14 days. The 76 participants had substantial paresis (Motricity Index [MI] < 61) a mean of 30 days (standard deviation [SD] = 20 days) after anterior circulation stroke. MTS was delivered using a standardized schedule of techniques (eg, sensory input, active-assisted movement). The primary outcome was the Motricity Index (MI) and secondary outcome was the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) tested on day 16. Adverse events were monitored daily. Results. No difference was found in the change in control group MI compared with each of the 3 intervention groups (P = .593) or in the ARAT. Mean actual daily treatment time for all MTS groups was less than expected. The attrition rate was 1.3%. No adverse events related to overuse occurred. Conclusion. The authors were not able to deliver a maximum dose of 120 minutes of daily therapy each day. The mean daily dose of MTS feasible for subsequent evaluation is between 37 and 66 minutes.


Quality of Service issues, at the heart of ATM, represented by bounded performance guarantees, are very closely related to reliability constraints in safety-critical systems. Reliability measures the effects of rare events on the operation of a network or system. Rare events, in this context, also impact on other QoS parameters, so developing reasoning tools for these will hopefully allow us to capture similar detail at a network performance level. This paper is concerned with reliability within safety-critical systems. It takes us from a fairly common notion of system equivalence to a method of minimal reasoning which allows us to justify a system''s overall reliability. By introducing a method of successive approximation to equivalences, we show how it might be possible to obtain a theoretical minimum for the amount of computation required to prove a system''s reliability. In doing so, it allows us to reason about operations on safety-critical systems--composition, restriction, specialisation--and still demonstrate operational reliability.


ABSTRACT:Two major forces are set to shape the quality of daily life in the twenty-first century: population ageing and urbanization. Both have become major concerns for public policy, with significant implications for all types of communities. Cities are now regarded as central to economic development, attracting waves of migrants and supporting new knowledge-based industries. However, the extent to which the new "urban age" will produce what the World Health Organization have termed "age-friendly" cities and communities, creating opportunities for older people as well as strengthening ties across different age and social groups, remains uncertain. This article examines the relationship between ageing and urbanization through the application of the concept of ageism. It argues that urban development, especially that operating over the course of the 2000s and 2010s, has both consolidated and introduced new inequalities in the lives of older people. This is examined in three main ways: first, in the context of research on urbanization and the field of urban sociology in particular; second, through examining a range of examples where ageism may be said to operate within the urban environment; and third, outlining the basis for promoting an "anti-ageist urbanism" focused upon challenging inequality and spatial injustice.


Oxide-rimmed, spherical structures interpreted as former gas bubbles have been discovered within a chromitiferous taxitic lithology of the Norilsk-Talnakh intrusions. These rocks are represented by variable grain size, presence of reworked country-rock xenoliths and millimeter- to centimeter-scale irregular spinel-rich aggregates, patches, or disrupted seams and stringers. They contain spherical and subspherical agglomerations that we interpret as amygdules, partially or completely filled with low-temperature hydrothermal minerals and locally with magmatic phases including sulfide globules. In places these amygdules form clusters that are interpreted as former bubble foams.
 The wetting relationships visible between vapor bubbles, silicate melt, sulfide liquid, and oxide were investigated in detail using 3-D μX-ray tomography and detailed 2-D X-ray fluorescence maps. They also reveal short-range spatial variability in silicate and oxide minerals, reflecting small-scale advanced fractionation of silicate melt.
 Three possible mechanisms are considered for the formation of these bubble-spinel foams: (1) the abundant spinel allows for the in situ nucleation of vapor bubbles, (2) the vapor bubbles ascend through the magma and collect spinel, or (3) the vapor bubbles cause rapid nucleation of chromite within these layers. Although none of these mechanisms can be exclusively ruled out, the texture and chemistry of the Norilsk-Talnakh chromitiferous taxitic lithology is most indicative of in situ nucleation of vapor bubbles on spinel surfaces (i.e., mechanism 1).


Human motion capturing has become an important tool in fields such as sports sciences, biometrics, and particularly in computer animation, where large collections of motion material are accumulated in the production process. Efficient storage, retrieval and transmission methods are needed to fully exploit motion databases for reuse and for the synthesis of motions. In this paper, a compression method for 3D Human motion data is proposed. We represent and compress the motion data using the clustering method and primary component analysis. The compressed data is adapted to network transmission with shorter time in order to maximize the use of network bandwidth and computational performance of local machines. At the client, we decompress the motion chips and rebuild corresponding human motion. Experimental evaluation of the method showed that the proposed method has high compression rate and is effective.


Summary An ageing population and changing lifestyles are increasing the burden of chronic diseases, among them chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). To reduce the impact on patients, healthcare systems and society as a whole, a new, integrated model of care is needed. This must bridge the gaps between strata of healthcare provision, and empower patients and carers. It must cover all aspects, from prevention and early diagnosis, through personalised care plans all the way to end-of-life care. A number of pilot studies have begun to address these issues, and a new European project aims to move towards a wider implementation of such a model, using information and communication technology (ICT) to link stakeholders at all levels. If such initiatives are successful, we can hope for a brighter future for COPD patients, and a lighter burden for society.


1. Plasma levels of atrial natriuretic peptide and several other hormones were measured and related to the renal responses to chronic changes in the dietary intake of protein and sodium, alone and in combination. Eight healthy subjects consumed four diets for 1 week: a basal diet containing 140 mmol of sodium/day and 1 g of protein day-1 kg-1, the same diet with isocaloric addition of 1 g of meat protein day-1 kg-1, the basal diet with addition of 170 mmol of sodium chloride/day and the basal diet with both additions. 2. Creatinine clearance was increased significantly both by protein and, to a smaller extent, by sodium. Plasma atrial natriuretic peptide and the urinary excretion of guanosine 3':5'-cyclic monophosphate were increased significantly by sodium but were not affected by protein. Protein induced a significant rise in plasma glucagon levels, whereas the rise in somatomedin C (insulin-like growth factor I) just failed to reach statistical significance. 3. These findings demonstrate that atrial natriuretic peptide does not mediate chronic protein-induced hyperfiltration, although it may contribute to the renal effects of sodium. Glucagon and somatomedin C (insulin-like growth factor I) may have contributed to chronic protein-induced hyperfiltration.


Some recent works reveal that there are models of differential equations for the mean and variance of infected individuals that reproduce the SIS epidemic model at some point. This stochastic SIS epidemic model can be interpreted as a Hamiltonian system, therefore we wondered if it could be geometrically handled through the theory of Lie--Hamilton systems, and this happened to be the case. The primordial result is that we are able to obtain a general solution for the stochastic/ SIS-epidemic model (with fluctuations) in form of a nonlinear superposition rule that includes particular stochastic solutions and certain constants to be related to initial conditions of the contagion process. The choice of these initial conditions will be crucial to display the expected behavior of the curve of infections during the epidemic. We shall limit these constants to nonsingular regimes and display graphics of the behavior of the solutions. As one could expect, the increase of infected individuals follows a sigmoid-like curve.
Lie--Hamiltonian systems admit a quantum deformation, so does the stochastic SIS-epidemic model. We present this generalization as well. If one wants to study the evolution of an SIS epidemic under the influence of a constant heat source (like centrally heated buildings), one can make use of quantum stochastic differential equations coming from the so-called quantum deformation.


Abstract Tannic acid (TA) complexes with various metal ions are prepared in buffer solutions by readily adjusting the pH, but there is no normalizing method to produce ferric tannate complexes. In this study, TA-Fe(III) complex was prepared in reverse microemulsion medium by reaction of TA as ligand with Fe(III) in 1:3 ligand:metal ion molar ratio. The complex was characterized by SEM, AFM, FT-IR, elemental analysis, AAS measurement, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method. Furthermore, magnetic susceptibility was tested with the Gouy method, and electronic spectral studies of TA-Fe(III) complex were completed with solid UV–vis measurements. The thermal stability was also studied by TGA analysis. These studies show that the ligand molecules have octahedral arrangement around Fe(III) and the complex is paramagnetic. The bandgap energy of the complex was calculated as 3.42 eV with solid UV–vis analysis. To determine antioxidant activity of the complex, Total Phenol Content (TPC) and Trolox Equivalent Antioxidant Concentration (TEAC) methods were used. The complex has great antioxidant properties with TPC = 45 ± 1 mg L−1 GAE and TEAC = 296 ± 2 mM trolox g−1 for dry sample.


The combination of multiple clusterings is a difficult problem in the practice of distributed data mining. Both the cluster generation mechanism and the partition integration process influence the quality of the combinations. We propose a data resampling approach for building cluster ensembles that are both robust and stable. In particular, we investigate the effectiveness of a bootstrapping technique in conjunction with several combination algorithms. The empirical study shows that a meaningful consensus partition for an entire set of objects emerges from multiple clusterings of bootstrap samples, given optimal combination algorithm parameters. Experimental results for ensembles with varying numbers of partitions and clusters are reported for simulated and real data sets. Experimental results show improved stability and accuracy for consensus partitions obtained via a bootstrapping technique.


Something strange happens to the First Amendment when it meets copyright law: it disappears. The prevalent judicial response to the argument that there is some tension or conflict between the two legal regimes, is a rosy story of harmonious coexistence, mutual support and admirable natural symbiosis. The Supreme Court held in Harper & Row Publishers v. Nation Enterprises that "Copyright is the engine of free speech", and by thus tying the two legal regimes together it in practice, separated them. The official position regarding this relationship is that copyright law has already taken free speech concerns into consideration, and therefore, the First Amendment is not welcome in the realm of copyright law. As a result, the most notable feature of the relationship between the two regimes is that it goes unnoticed. This article challenges this picture. I will examine the conflict by reversing the traditional mode of discussion. Instead of diving head on into the proposition that there is a conflict - an avenue taken by many scholars, but one that did not change the judicial repsonse to the conflict argument - I go back one step, and look at the denial of the conflict. The task is one of discourse analysis. I track the development and details of the discourse that has evolved around the conflict - or rather, the no-conflict. Two forms of denial are recognized. The early narrative assumed a conflict, only to reject it on the basis of the constitutional text, structure and history. I explore the foundations of the early narrative, and argue that it does not withstand scrutiny. The contemporary narrative is then reconstructed, analyzed and criticized. I conclude by pointing to the need to relocate the conflict discourse in a constitutional frame. The tension between copyright law and the First Amendment is especially crucial today, in the face of the dramatic expansion of copyright law. The rights accorded to authors are stronger than ever before, their duration has been extended, and they have conquered the digital environment, where they have recruited ancillary devices of protection. As the public domain keeps enclosing, it becomes clearer that our freedom of speech is affected. These observations do not necessarily mean that the tension between copyright law and free speech is irresolveable. But it does imply that there is some incompatibility that demands an explanation. It is this incompatibility that I focus on. The reversal of the order of the discussion draws our attention to some aspects that are overlooked when we begin with the proposition about the existence of a conflict. The article argues that we will be better equipped to engage in the conflict after we study its denial.


IntroductionCorHealth Ontario, formerly Cardiac Care Network (CCN), maintains a registry of patients undergoing select cardiac procedures/surgeries in Ontario, Canada. This population-based database contains over 35 datasets with complex structure, linked by unique primary key or multiple keys.
Objectives and ApproachWe aimed to simplify the complex CorHealth database so that research analysts could create study cohorts more efficiently and effectively, and to enrich the study cohort by getting more clinical information through database linkage. Through internal linkage, we could combine clinical fields from multiple CorHealth datasets. While the CorHealth dataset may not have all the clinical information needed for a given study, we may link the CorHealth study cohort externally to other administration databases to obtain additional fields via the probability matching (i.e., identical patient ID, hospital ID and procedure/surgery date).
ResultsAfter identifying the primary keys on the relational database flowchart, we designed new data structures by combining similar topic datasets. The total number of datasets was reduced from 35 to 13. This simplified CorHealth dataset includes one main CorHealth dataset (including demographic information, referral data, comorbidities) plus 12 other linkable specific datasets (including stent, vessel, TAVI, STEMI). Through internal linkage, we can get the stent numbers, lengths and types of Percutaneous Coronary Interventions from the Stent dataset. Linking to Discharge Abstract Database (DAD), we can get the hospital length of stay and the episode of care of hospital transfer for each procedure; linking to The Ontario Health Insurance Plan database (OHIP), we can find the graft numbers and vessel types of Coronary Artery Bypass Graft.
Conclusion/ImplicationsTo improve the research capacity and increase the value of the CorHealth database, analysts could create enhanced cardiovascular study cohorts derived from the simplified CorHealth database, plus internal linkage from other CorHealth datasets, and external data linkage from population-based administrative sources. We have accomplished three reports (PCI/CABG/TAVI) accordingly in 2017/18.


This thesis consists of a collection of poetry titled The Strangest Secret, and a reflective essay exploring areas of possible cross-fertilization between clinical psychology and writing practice. My primary focus is Keats' notion of 'negative capability' as incubatory practice in my creative process. I use a personal 'writing-block' or a period of being unable to produce poems as a method of isolating the variable of 'writing a poem' and test it against the nature of attentiveness and also the thinking process that could possibly occur while inhabiting an implied state of 'negative capability'. Hence, I treat and analyse two years of notebooks as 'raw data', paying attention to the creation and development of thought in my own artistic process. I also go on to trace how, from all the inchoate pre-lingual mark-making in notebooks, symbolic forms revealed themselves to be the most vital in mobilizing my creative capacity and resulted in the poems in The Strangest Secret. I was undergoing psychoanalysis during this time, and this research is based on the work of two leading psychoanalysts, Wilfred Bion and Carl Jung. First, drawing on Carl Jung's work on the Mandala and Wilfred Bion's concept 'O', I determine the nature of the pre-linguistic psychic space of experience (as recorded in my notebooks using language fragments, sketches, diagrams and dreams) while inhabiting a state of negative capability in my life as well as in creative practice. I also show how the Mandala played a central role as an invisible scaffolding in the development of organic form in my creative work. Secondly, I illustrate how I found Wilfred Bion's Theory of Thinking schematised in the 'Grid', a useful tool for analysing this record of the pre-linguistic psychic space by breaking down and categorizing the raw data, i.e. different types of notations in notebooks. Then, I trace the process between creative block to flow as a conceptual process. The way the pattern of a seed-head of a sunflower embodies the invisible schemata of the Fibonacci sequence, I adapt the Grid and present it as a schematic representation of my creative process from first notation to finished draft. Finally, I contemplate how the experience of inhabiting a negatively defined space, and the theoretical and personal quest to understand the psychological nature of its locale, led me to question and explore the stability of the lyric 'I' in my creative work.


Miniaturisation of electronic and optoelectronic devices have enabled the realization of system-on-a-chip technology in modern image sensors, where the photo sensor arrays and the corresponding signal processing circuitry are monolithically integrated in a single chip. Apart from intrinsic advantages, the drive towards miniaturisation has been further fuelled by the exotic properties exhibited by semiconductor materials at the nano scale. As the dimension of the material is gradually reduced from the bulk, interesting physical and chemical properties begin to emerge owing to the increased confinement of charge carriers in different spatial dimensions.
Solution-processed optoelectronics have revolutionised the field of device physics over recent years due to the superior performance, ease of processing, substrate flexibility, cost-effective production of large-area devices and other advantages associated with the technique. In the present work, solution-processed photo detectors have been fabricated on SiO2/Si substrate facilitating the ease of integration with conventional silicon CMOS technology. The present thesis deals with the successful exploitation of most common point defects in semiconductor
nanostructures to reduce the overlap of hole wave function with the envelop wave function of the ground state electron to improve photoconduction. As a result of the investigation process, successful strategies have been devised for the improvement of photoconduction by engineering the defect states.
In the first study, the intrinsic copper vacancies and the capping agent thiol have been employed to trap photo holes in photo detectors based on copper indium selenide nanoparticles, thereby allowing the photoelectrons to transit the device. In the second study, the optical excitation of charge carriers into the defect-related band originating from oxygen vacancies further raises the photoconductivity of molybdenum trioxide nanobelts based photodetectors. In the third study, the absence of photoconductivity in zinc selenide based quantum dots has been attributed to the radiative recombination of photogenerated carriers at the donor-acceptor states caused by the self-compensation of point defects in the dots. In the final study, the crucial role of the energy depth of trap states in determining the carrier relaxation dynamics (temporal response) of the photodetector based on SnO2 nanowires has been discussed in detail.
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Abstract Studies of phosphatic concretions and associated marine-shelf sediments in the Upper Cretaceous Ripley Formation, central Alabama, demonstrate the positive impacts that early diagenetic mineralization may have on ichnofossil preservation. Distinct ichnofossils are poorly expressed in highly bioturbated, calcareous, organic-rich muds owing to lack of three-dimensional expression, limited contrast between biogenic structures and ambient sediments, and compactional deformation. In contrast, phosphate concretions that formed at shallow sediment depths during early diagenesis exhibit a Cruziana ichnofacies assemblage. This assemblage indicates both (1) incidental preservation, whereby large burrows served as concretion nuclei, and (2) collateral preservation, whereby biogenic structures were incorporated within or on exteriors of concretions as diagenetic fronts migrated outward from body-fossil and other nuclei into surrounding sediments. Although most Ripley Formation ichnofossils were emplaced prior to mineralization, some apparently reflect burrowing that was contemporaneous with and influenced by phosphatization. In either case, concretion growth enhanced ichnofossil visibility by boosting contrast with host sediment, by rendering structures or portions thereof in three dimensions, and by precluding significant compaction. Concretion-hosted ichnofossil assemblages in the Ripley Formation and comparable deposits, analogous to conservation traps in the body-fossil realm, can be regarded as ichnofossil Lagerstätten.


The Microsoft Excel workbook "BPP Spreadsheet Solver" is an open source tool for representing, solving, and visualizing the results of Bin Packing Problems (BPPs). It can solve BPPs with up to 200 items and 50 bins. It is capable of solving the one-dimensional and two-dimensional BPPs, allows for multiple bin types and the possibility of adding item-item and bin-item compatibility constraints.


Interactive mobile technologies have become part of audience experiences of live performances in terms of both general media sharing and specific (sometimes official) extra content. At the same time, high bandwidth affords streaming of live events to mobile devices. We take advantage of these technologies in our high resolution, panoramic image video stream and study a scenario of audience members viewing the very same live event they are watching on a tablet. The video stream on the tablet is navigational and enables audience members to pan and zoom in the real-time video feed. We studied audience interaction and impressions in three performances of a dance and music show and found distinct uses of the second screen video stream. We emphasize that despite initial reluctance, the observed utilization of the technology opened up for new potential practices. Our study shows how working with perceived conflict in technology can still open up design space for interactive technologies.


In an age of increasing mobility, the house signifies stability. Its living spaces may seem a sanctuary, or a prison, or both at different times. Representing an achievement of men and women as makers, houses stand somewhere between the tent and the castle in the great chain of dwelling places, with aspirations generally expressed towards the latter. For at least a century, Australians have been majority suburban dwellers. Australian houses have generally been stand-alone structures, and the spaces within and between them are constituent elements in the identity of their inhabitants. There is an economics and a politics, but also a poetics of space which can be applied to housing.1 Creative writers often negotiate the limits of the various spaces they have inhabited, especially when they attempt to re-forge the houses of their childhood. This serial is available in Kunapipi: https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol6/iss2/31 Living Spaces: Some Australian Houses of Childhood 35 -----


A substrate that is designed to suppress parasitic modes while at the same time provides high-Q filtering capability is presented. High-density circuits require the integration of multiple functions in very limited space. More specifically, with the design of three-dimensional (3-D) circuits, parasitic effects caused by the excitation of surface waves result in a serious degradation of performance and impose limitations on circuit density and performance. Herein, an effort is presented to use advanced design concepts to enable embedded functionality within a substrate. The presented substrate geometries can easily be extended to 3-D to allow for the development of system-in-a-package which incorporates a high-Q filter bank to provide effective frequency selectivity. To demonstrate this concept, resonators and filters in LTCC are designed, fabricated and measured. Resonators in LTCC with unloaded Q up to 428 were measured. A narrow-band 2-pole filter is realized to show that a function of a relatively high-Q can be incorporated into the packaging. The 2.28% filter has an insertion loss of 1.7 dB due to the low loss nature of the design. Simulation and measurement of the structures are presented with good agreement achieved.


Pyroshocks are structural responses to transient excitation caused by the essential use of pyrotechnic devices in aerospace applications. In order to avoid damage in aerospace structures due to pyroshocks, tests are performed on earth prior to launching space modules. In these tests, explosive loads are often replaced by alternative excitation methods such as hammer pendulums or shakers simulating on earth the impact taking place in space. However, there does not yet exist an adequate excitation method satisfying all requirements of a fast, reliable, predictable and repeatable test setup. Whereas hammers are poorely controllable in terms of generating desired shock spectra, shakers show limitations in terms of the bandwidths of up to 10 kHz which are prescribed in the test specifications. The authors present a novel contactless and non-destructive excitation method for pyroshock test devices based on a mechatronic coupling by applying Lorentz forces to the carrying structure. For generating the corresponding magnetic field, the capacitor of a Resistor-Inductor-Capacitor RLC resonator circuit is initially charged and then discharged leading to high currents in the coil which is placed close to the carrying structure. Latter is then inducing a counter current in the aluminum structure which reacts with high multidirectional Lorentz forces. Any adjustments are done by tuning the properties of the circuit such as initial charge, capacitance and inductance. By connecting several different coils, frequency modulation and by splitting the currents more complex signals can be generated matching the natural frequencies of the structure. Almost all disadvantages of common excitation methods are eliminated by the proposed mechanism.


This thesis is concerned with the design and construction of an electromagnetic
acoustic transducer (EMAT) and the characterisation of its acoustic field both
conventionally, using a hydrophone and with high resolution laser illuminated
schlieren techniques. During the early 80s the introduction of the EMA T along with
the other types of shock wave source used for lithotripsy, revolutionised the treatment
of stone disease. The process of shock wave induced destruction of calculi and the use
of shock waves in other areas of medicine will be discussed, along with the causes and
effects of stone disease in man. For the first time high temporal and spatial resolution
schlierenimages of the shock waves and there interaction with simulation kidney
stones have been recorded. The technique provides a clearer picture of the
fragmentation process and may assist research into the suitability of shock wave
treatment in other areas of medicine currently under investigation.
Schlieren studies of the acoustic field have shown the complex structure of not only
the EMA T shock wave, but also that associated with cavitation in the field. The
primary source of cavitation is due to the rupture and subsequent collapse of bubbles
generated in the water by the strong rarefaction phase of the shock wave. The images
give evidence for the interaction of these 'primary' cavitation shocks with bubbles in
the field, the collapse of some of these bubbles giving rise to additional or 'secondary'
cavitation shocks. An optical lensing effect introduced by the shock has also been
investigated. Objects seen through or immersed in the field of an EMAT shock wave
such as cavitation, appear highly distorted, due to the strong positive and negative
lensing effects associated with the changing refractive index of the compression and
rarefaction cycles of the shock wave.


The 2nd Orban government and the more than two-thirds parliamentary majority behind a relatively heavy heritage took over in the summer of 2010. The left-liberal governments of GDP in 2006-2009, reaching 12% of the size of austerity (expenditure cuts and tax lifting) as a result of Hungary's policy is not developed in a similar situation as the crisis in Greece. The most difficult years of the crisis – between March and June 2009 – the international debt financing market premium for loans fall from six percent to two, the euro exchange rate is reduced from 270 to 315 HUF. The 2nd Orban government's so-called unorthodox economic policies – which happened to break with the IMF and serious political disagreements with the EU has been associated with – as a result of increased to HUF exchange rate of 300, the premium at the end of 2011 exceeded 6% again; currently around 3%, although the EU abolished the excessive deficit procedure against Hungary, and the sixth year of the current account is positive. Hungary's GDP after a 6.7% decline in 2009, in 2010 – faster than expected – increased by 1.2%, in 2011 was only 0.7% in 2012 and 1.7 % drop. Accelerated use of the 2007-2013 periods, EU investment funds due to a 1-1.5% in 2014 and expected in 2013 2-2.5% growth. The Hungarian economic performance in the last decade since EU accession has been at average of less than 0.5% per year increased. The durable and – at least – from 2.5 to 3.5% growth per year have failed to materialize in the domestic political economy foundations between 2010 to 2014.


: Modern concepts and indicators of quality of life used in gerontological practices are discussed. The influence of institutional care system with the elderly person as part of the quality of life indicators is shown. The theoretical and methodological combinations of approaches as innovations on the crossing of different scientific paradigms and professional ways of solving the problem are analyzed. Structural models, tools for the measurement of the quality of life and its modification in the institutional care system are defined. This approach stimulates elderly people to be active co-producer of own quality of life, strengthen their autonomy and resource potential.


Tribocharging of pulverulent materials in compressed-air devices is a typical multifactorial process. Quantification of the effects of the factors and of their interactions is a prerequisite for the development of new tribocharging devices for industrial applications. This paper aims at demonstrating the interest of using the design of experiments methodology in association with virtual instrumentation for the study of such processes, in view of their modeling and optimization. A classical 23 full-factorial design followed by a composite design were employed for conducting experiments simulating the tribocharging conditions of starch powder. The response function was the charge/mass ratio of the material collected in a modified Faraday cage, at the exit of the tribocharging device, the factors under investigation being the injection pressure, the dillution pressure, and the vortex pressure. The charge measurements were performed using a digital electrometer connected to a personal computer equiped with a data acquisition system. The data were processed by a custom-designed LabView virtual instrument. By using appropriate design of experiments software, it was possible to estimate the effects of these factors and then derive the model of the process as a quadratic polynomial function.


In England and Wales, two-thirds of drinking water comes from surface water. Rising dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations in surface waters have been reported in the past few decades, commonly attributed to climate and land use change. Peatlands have historically been drained to create new grazing land and this has been suggested as one of the causes of the rising DOC trend.
The experimental work in this thesis was undertaken in North and West Wales catchments and primarily examines the variations in DOC concentrations and how these are linked with trihalomethane formation potential (THMFP) in different field and laboratory settings.
Chapter 2. From July 2012 – Feb 2013 water samples were collected from three contrasting sites in North Wales: Llyn Conwy ("lake") a natural oligotrophic drinking water reservoir, Nant-y-Brwyn ("stream") a natural Stream outside the catchment of the reservoir but analogous to other upland streams within the area and four man-made drainage ditches ("ditches") within the predominately peat catchment of Llyn Conwy. The results of this study demonstrate that the drainage ditches have the potential to contribute more carbon per unit volume of water to the oligotrophic Llyn Conwy than the natural stream feeding into Llyn Conwy (equivalent to Nant-y-Brwyn). Mean DOC values were 6.32 mg/L higher in the drainage ditches when compared to Llyn Conwy. However, there were no statistically significant differences in the propensity to form trihalomethanes between the sites (p>0.05).
Chapter 3: From March 2014 until September 2014 monthly water sampling was performed to compare the effect of drought on a discontinuous peat-accumulating wetland experimental site in mid-Wales, UK. Porewater samplers were installed at both the droughted and control sites. The results demonstrated that peatland exhibited reduced porewater DOC and phenolics concentrations and a shift in quality to lower molecular weight and less aromaticity. The mean DOC concentration of the control being 14.1 ± 0.77 mg/L and the drought being 11.9 ± 0.45 mg/L (F=4.93, p 0.05).
Chapter 4: Twenty peat cores were collected from two locations in North Wales in June 2013; 10 each from Migneint bog and Cors Erddreiniog fen. The Mignent is the largest blanket bog in North Wales and Cors Erddreiniog is the largest area of fen on the island of Anglesey. These peat cores were transferred to the laboratory and kept under controlled temperature and levels of water table over a period of 160 days.
The results indicated is that artificially exposing peat cores to a drought treatment reduced DOC concentrations compared to control cores (DOC: mean of all controls (71.68 ± 53.30 mg/L), mean of all droughts (39.69 ± 38.66 mg/L)). The values determined for the correlated THMFP values were mean drought 57.75 ± 20.33 μg CHCl3/mg DOC and mean control 54.59 ± 23.63 μg CHCl3/mg DOC, but these differences were not significant
Chapter 5: The effect of constructed wetlands on DOC characteristics and THMFP of water sample from Llyn Cefni were measured twice a month from 2014 until March 2015. It was concluded that in the wintertime the constructed wetland is having a positive impact on water quality of the reservoir because it is still sequestering some nitrate and phosphate, but also reducing the DOC concentration of the water flowing into the reservoir by 18% on average.
Chapter 6: In order to investigate the effect of storage of water samples that contain THMs after disinfection treatment, samples were collected from two selected surface waters; Nant-y-Brwyn stream (oligotrophic) and Cefni reservoir (eutrophic) in North Wales, subject to experimental chlorination in the laboratory and then stored at 4°C and at room temperature for an 11 week period. The majority of the weekly measurements of the concentrations of key DBPs showed no statistical differences from the initial week 0 values, regardless of water source types or storage temperatures (p<0.05).


With the growing popularity of eSport games, eSport-related issues have gradually gained attention and discussion in academic research. However, the positive benefits (values) brought by playing eSport have not received too much attention in current research. Therefore, after reviewing related research in the past, this study proposed that eSport has the 5 Cs educational Value of cultivating the cooperative attitude, communication skills, critical thinking, self-confidence and continuous improvement attitude based on the three-domain model (TDM) of cognitive, affective and psychomotor, and developed an eSport educational values scale. In this study, a conceptual sampling method was adopted and players with eSport experience were invited to fill out the questionnaire. A total of 316 participants filled out the questionnaire, 51 invalid samples were deleted, the number of effective participants was 265, and the effective recovery rate was 83.9%. Then SPSS 23.0 and AMOS 20.0 were used to analyze the reliability and validity of the scale, and the verification results show the scale developed by this study has good reliability and validity. In addition, in this study, it was also found that the participants had a positive view (M 3.9) on the 5 Cs educational value of the MOBA type eSport, which shows that eSport is not only a casual game, moderate playing this game can also bring educational significance to players.


From the early 1960s to the late 1970s, Reed Paper dumped more than 50 000 pounds of mercury into the English-Wabigoon River system. At the time, Anishinabek people, whose territory encompasses the river system, were dependent upon the river for food and water. Fish from the river system were a staple in the diet of community members, and fishing was an important cultural and economic activity. People got their drinking water from the river and hunted and trapped animals that were also dependent on the same resources. Many community members suffered from severe mercury poisoning, and all communities dependent upon the English-Wabigoon river system continue to deal with the social, cultural and health impacts of living in a contaminated ecosystem. In 2003, a group of women from the communities of Asubpeechoseewagong Netum Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows) and Wabauskang First Nation, located in North-Western Ontario began to study the impacts of environmental contaminants on their traditional territories using both Anishinabek knowledge and western science. They were concerned about the impact of environmental contaminants on the health and well-being of women and their children. From 2001 to 2005,  the two communities completed a large traditional foods testing program and held two Anishinabek Knowledge workshops to discuss the impact of contamination on their communities. The purpose of this paper is to share the women's, Elders' and Anishinabek Knowledge Holders perspectives on how contamination continues to impact their communities.


OBJECTIVE
Documenting, defining and examining the state of Baja California's performance in decentralising public health service policy from the signing of the transfer agreement in 1996 up to 2004.

METHODS
This was a comparative study based on secondary information from 1996-2004. Four key categories were analysed: availability, accessibility, equity and health service quality. These categories formed part of the main goals in decentralising health service policy in Mexico and also took the health standards set by the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization into account.

RESULTS
The results revealed that decentralising health policy in Baja California from 1996-2004 had not ensured this policy's core objectives: availability, accessibility, equity, and health service quality.

CONCLUSIONS
The population in Baja California having medical insurance had more resources than that part of the population lacking it, a factor without doubt influencing health services not providing equity, availability, accessibility and quality.


The U.K. was the first industrialized country to issue index-linked government bonds. France has joined this group of issuers recently with two series indexed either to French inflation or to inflation in the euro area. This investigation of the efficiency of these markets tests the information content of inflation forecasts to develop trading strategies speculating on the movement of break-even inflation. The results indicate that the market for the French OATi offers the possibility of excess returns, a result that is fairly consistent regardless of market frictions introduced in the return calculation. These trading strategies are beneficial for practitioners tracking index-linked bond indexes in the particular markets.


This paper describes the use of an instrumented dilatometer (IDMT) equipped with sensors designed to record the continuous displacement of the membrane, the total pressure, and the pore water pressure. The IDMT was tested in the Connecticut Valley Varved Clay at the University of Massachusetts—Amherst National Geotechnical Experimentation Site. The results, presented in terms of profiles of pore pressure during insertion, corrected pressures, dilatometer indices, and shear modulus are compared to results from the standard dilatometer, the self-boring pressuremeter, the seismic cone, and the seismic dilatometer. The results from the tests suggest that the IDMT can be used to provide accurate and cost-effective values of unload—reload modulus and, the complete pressure—displacement curve could potentially be used to develop improved correlations for strength and initial in situ stresses. In addition, the continuous pressure—displacement response and the pore pressure measurements provided insight into the mechanics of the dilatometer expansion in partially drained conditions.


The most important function of the lungs is gas exchange. They are able to do so due to a sophisticated balance between ventilation and perfusion. Examples of diseases with a ventilation / perfusion mismatch are acute pulmonary embolism (PE, i.e. blood clots causing (partial) blockage of the pulmonary arteries) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA, i.e. repetitive breathing stops during sleep due to collapse of the upper airway). In both cases novel diagnostic tools are warranted. The research presented in this thesis focused on the development of novel diagnostic tools using the consequences of ventilation / perfusion mismatches in PE and OSA. For the exclusion of PE at the emergency department, the usability of volumetric capnography and combined measurement of the transfer factor of the lungs for nitric oxide (TLNO) and carbon monoxide (TLCO) were investigated. There was no difference in TLNO / TLCO ratio between subjects with and without PE whereas a novel volumetric capnography derived parameter showed promising results. External validation however showed that this parameter was indeed significantly decreased in subjects with PE but its diagnostic accuracy was too low to allow its use in clinical practice. To be able to find novel strategies to exclude OSA without the need for laborious and expensive tests (e.g. poly(somno)graphy), the oxygen desaturation index (ODI) and the apnea hypopnea index (AHI) were compared in a large polygraphy database. This showed that an ODI < 5 excludes OSA (defined as an AHI ≥ 5) with high certainty. Subsequently, a strategy using a questionnaire and oximetry to exclude OSA in primary care was prospectively validated. As hypothesized, this strategy (i.e. refer to a sleep center if either the oximetry or the questionnaire is aberrant) enabled reliable exclusion of OSA. Another potential tool for the exclusion of OSA was the measurement of exhaled breath profiles using an electronic nose. Though there was a significant relationship between the exhaled breath profiles and the AHI, the profiles could not be used to reliable classify subjects into OSA or non-OSA.


We summarize the 194 far-infrared lasing lines of hydrazine: 7 new lines, 144 lines that we reported recently, and 43 lines reported by other authors. Fewer than 5% of the 43 previously reported lines had wavelengths shorter than 200 μm, but 82% of our 134 lines (127 and 7 new), discovered in cw 12C16O2-laser-pumped hydrazine, were shorter than 200 μm; the shortest was at 49.2 μm. Of the 194 lines now known in hydrazine, 150 have been frequency measured. We present the pump line, the pump offset from the CO2 line center, the far-infrared wavelength and frequency, the optimum pressure, the relative intensity, and the relative polarization of each line.


ABSTRACT Gao, C.; Zheng, C.W.; Zhang, G.; Han, Y.; Tian, F.; Liu, X.; Wang, L.; Zhang, D., and Xiao, Z., 2020. Long-term projection of wind potential in the China seas. In: Zheng, C.W.; Wang, Q.; Zhan, C., and Yang, S.B. (eds.), Air-Sea Interaction and Coastal Environments of the Maritime and Polar Silk Roads. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 99, pp. 396–403. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. This study conducts the mid-long term predictions and assesses the multi-year average offshore wind energy in the China seas for the next five years based on CMIP5 wind data, in hope of providing reference for the long term prediction of wind energy. Results show that (1) large areas with multi-year average wind power densities (WPD) greater than 350 W/m2 are mainly found throughout the Ryukyu Islands and the Taiwan and Luzon Straits in the southeastern area of the Indo-China Peninsula. (2) From 2015-2019, the WPD in the Bohai Sea, Taiwan Strait and Beibu Gulf will be lower than the multi-year average level and thus will be similar to the multi-year average in the Yellow Sea and Gulf of Thailand but greater than the multi-year average in the East China Sea and South China Sea. (3) The predicted occurrences of exploitable wind speeds of the East China Sea and South China Sea are promising for the next five years, exceeding 60%. A value above 40% is predicted for the Yellow Sea, and a lower value is anticipated for the Bohai Sea. (4) The predicted occurrences of WPD > 50 W/m2 are more promising for the next five years.


Naltrexone (NTX) is an opioid receptor antagonist that acts at classical and non-classical opioid receptors including the opioid growth factor receptor (OGFr). Animal models of type 1 and type 2 diabetes, as well as normal rodents, have shown that topical NTX enhances the healing rates of corneal epithelium and full-thickness cutaneous wounds. The mechanism of this general opioid antagonist on growth, and in particular the specific receptor pathway involved, is not understood. Tissue culture studies using NIH 3T3 fibroblasts and primary rat auricular fibroblasts were established to evaluate growth following opioid receptor antagonist treatment. Treatment of cells with CTOP, naltrindole, or nalmefene, selective antagonists for mu, delta, and kappa opioid receptors, respectively, did not accelerate cell replication. Addition of the classical opioid receptor peptides DAMGO, DPDPE, or EKC did not alter cell growth, suggesting that the classical opioid receptors were not involved in cutaneous wound healing. However, NTX (10(-6) M) increased the growth of NIH 3T3 fibroblasts in culture over a 96-h period, and the specific ligand OGF decreased cell growth, supporting that the OGF-OGFr axis is tonically active and constitutively expressed in fibroblasts, the primary cell type in granulation tissue of the skin. Transfection of NIH 3T3 cells with OGFr siRNA reduced receptor protein; subsequent treatment with NTX did not accelerate cell proliferation. These data indicate that blockade of the OGFr pathway enhances proliferation of fibroblasts in vitro, and in a primary culture of auricular fibroblasts, suggesting that the effect of NTX on growth is mediated through the OGF-OGFr axis. Finally, antagonists for classical opioid receptors as well as NTX were topically applied to cutaneous wounds in type 1 diabetic rats; only NTX accelerated wound closure. These studies indicate that the mechanistic pathway underlying the effects of NTX to enhance cutaneous wound closure in diabetic and nondiabetic subjects is specific blockade of the OGF-OGFr regulatory axis.


Rifamycin and Cibacron Blue F3GA are powerful inhibitors of Escherichia coli deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) dependent ribonucleic acid (RNA) polymerase. In addition, both inhibitors strongly absorb visible light, making them suitable for use as acceptors in energy-transfer experiments. Transfer of energy to these acceptors from freely diffusing energy donors with long excited-state lifetimes (approximately 10(-3) s) depends strongly on whether donor and acceptor can make direct intermolecular contact. We observe that the rate constant for energy transfer from a small terbium chelate to enzyme-bound rifamycin is 1 X 10(7) M-1 s-1, which is about half as large as the rate constant observed for free rifamycin in solution. This relatively small change upon binding indicates that enzyme-bound rifamycin is highly accessible to small molecules in the solvent. In the case of Cibacron Blue, under conditions where approximately 90% of this inhibitor is bound to RNA polymerase, the small amount of unbound inhibitor accounts for practically all of the observed energy transfer. This implies that enzyme-bound Cibacron Blue is relatively inaccessible to energy donors in the solution. The dependence of energy transfer on the accessibility of the acceptor is illustrated by using simple geometric models. synthesis of a stable, electrically neutral terbium chelate which can be efficiently excited with UV radiation is also described.


This study evaluates the presence of intermediate water from the Greenland Sea in the Iceland Basin deduced from the observed excess of the tracer sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), released in the central Greenland Sea in 1996. The large tracer release experiment has served a unique opportunity to follow the spread of Greenland Sea intermediate water to the adjacent basins of the Nordic Seas and to the areas bordering this region. In the present study, using data from May–June 2001, the released tracer was detected at the sill in the Faroe Bank Channel and at several locations in the Iceland Basin of the North Atlantic, just downstream the sill and southeast of Iceland. The estimated excess of the released tracer at the Icelandic slope combined with reported values of the volume flow at this location suggest an annual transport rate of approximately 1.4 kg excess SF6. The results suggest an upper transit time from the central Greenland Sea to the area southeast of Iceland of approximately 4 years.


The effect of external calf compression on baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) during electrically evoked plantar flexion and postexercise circulatory occlusion (PECO) was studied. Subjects took part in two experimental trials: control and compression. In both trials, electrically evoked isometric plantarflexion (Stim) was performed at 30% maximum voluntary contraction force for 2 min. During compression, a cuff (inflated to 250 mmHg) was applied to the active calf during exercise and PECO. Sequence analysis carried out on the systolic blood pressure responses, and R-wave-R-wave intervals revealed a rightward shift of the regression line along the pressure axis during Stim in both trials. In the control experiment, BRS was significantly (P < 0.01) increased from 10.37 +/- 1.87 ms/mmHg during Stim to 12.79 +/- 1.62 ms/mmHg during PECO. With external compression, BRS was unaltered between Stim (10.84 +/- 1.86 ms/mmHg) and PECO (11.40 +/- 1.54 ms/mmHg). Because the metabolic conditions were the same in both experiments, the results may best be explained by reactivation of muscle mechanoreceptor activity by external compression during PECO.


Abstract Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the feasibility and impact of a fast-track referral pathway on clinical time intervals in penile cancer. Materials and methods: This observational study from a tertiary referral centre included 263 patients diagnosed before and after the introduction of an intervention to reduce clinical time intervals, the Cancer Patient Pathway (CPP). The CPP included fast-track referral and set time-frames for units participating in cancer diagnosis and treatment, and was introduced for penile cancer in Denmark on 1 January 2009. Median time intervals (in calendar days) with interquartile range were the main outcome measure. Results: A trend towards reduction was observed in all clinical time intervals, with a statistically significant reduction in the system interval (p = 0.01) and tertiary centre interval (p < 0.0001). The proportion of patients treated within the maximum accepted time-frame of 37 days after referral steadily increased after implementation of the CPP. In particular, unjustified waiting time was reduced significantly. This was mainly achieved through pre-booking of appointments and diagnostic time slots by a dedicated clinical coordinator. Conclusions: To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study examining the feasibility and impact of an intervention to reduce clinical time intervals in penile cancer. The Danish CPP was successful in reducing system and tertiary centre intervals. Future interventions need to address the long patient interval. Longer follow-up is needed to study the impact of CPP on mortality.


Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) represents a complex spectrum of gastrointestinal diseases. Incorporating Crohn?s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), IBD is characterised by recurrent and chronic inflammation, significant morbidity, and an increasing global prevalence. Scientific advances regarding the aetiology, pathogenesis and treatment of these relapsing immune-mediated diseases have developed in parallel to the study of experimental models of intestinal inflammation. The correlation of phenotype, histology and immune response with mucosal gene expression, permits the investigation of induced pathology for human translation.Trichuris muris (mouse whipworm) infection induces chronic colitis in susceptible strains (e.g. AKR). Chronic disease displays both a polarised CD4+ T-helper1 (TH1) immune response and histological, transmural colonic inflammation. Conversely, resistant mouse strains (e.g. BALB/c) exhibit transient infection and inflammation which quickly resolves under a presiding TH2 response. Work presented in this thesis investigates differential gene expression and biological pathways central to colonic outcome, and the genetic basis of chronic T. muris-induced colitis.This thesis demonstrates that the phenotypic and transcriptional profile of the T. muris model shared many similarities to widely used experimental models of colonic inflammation and to human IBD. Mice susceptible to chronic colonic inflammation displayed functional gene expression differences to those of resistant mice, including the up-regulation of pro-inflammatory, apoptosis and chemokine signalling pathway genes. Cellular homeostasis pathways and tight junction molecules were conversely down-regulated. Infected AKR demonstrated predominant TH1/ TH17 transcriptional activity, presenting this model as a platform to examine biological commonalities among chronic colitides. A Quantitative Trait Locus (QTL) study, performed by crossbreeding resistant and susceptible strains to T. muris infection, then identified key autosomal loci linked to chronic disease. Genes associated with known biological pathways, differential gene expression, and parental strain single nucleotide polymorphisms provided a novel and powerful strategy to reduce the number of candidate genes for further analysis. Of 7 T. muris (TM) QTL identified, 3 displayed overlap with other murine studies of parasite susceptibility. A separate locus, TM3, demonstrated overlap with published QTL in 3 unrelated experimental models of colitis and overlaid the Cdcs1 locus. TM3 possessed 33 significantly transcribed polymorphic genes (e.g. Ptpn22, Fcgr1, Rorc, Vcam1 and Vav3). Phenotypic pathway analysis, text mining and time-course qPCR all highlighted Vav3 (Human 1p13.3, murine Chr3 101.9 MB) as a key biological candidate in colitis susceptibility. As a final test of relevance to human disease, clinically proven IBD medications were administered to AKR mice post-T. muris infection, at a time-point when chronic disease was well established. Anti?TNF? Ab and corticosteroid therapy were shown to suppress TH1-driven experimental colitis, without affecting parasitic infection. Additionally, anti?TNF? Ab treatment was found to reduce pro-inflammatory macrophages yet preserve regulatory alternatively activated macrophage numbers within the colon. A previously unreported finding.Sharing biological commonalities with human CD, Trichuris muris colitis represents an advanced and tractable murine model for understanding the pathobiological mechanisms of chronic inflammatory disease. The key facet of this model is that despite identical injury some inbred mouse strains develop chronic colitis whilst others recover quickly and fully. The identification of differential mechanisms which govern outcome and a new platform to investigate novel targets of disease and disease therapy has implications for gastrointestinal inflammatory diseases and mucosal immunology.


Mammographie risk analysis is a useful means for the early diagnosis of breast cancer. There are many efforts have been devoted to improving the performance of the relevant assessment technologies. This paper presents an invasive weed optimization (IWO) based fuzzy-rough feature selection method for mammographic risk assessment. The advantage of IWO is that the offspring individuals are randomly spread around their parents according to a Gaussian distribution during the evolution process. Such Gaussian distribution is designated with a dynamical standard deviation. Therefore, the optimization algorithm can explore a new solution space aggressively. The diversity of the species can be maintained in the early and middle iterations, and the optimal individuals will be found in the final iteration of feature selection. The mechanism of IWO ensures a global optimal solution for the heuristic search. The performance of IWO is compared against the feature selection methods with ant colony optimization (ACO) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). In the last chapter, the experimental results indicate that the use of IWO entails better performance for the problem of mammographic risk analysis according to both dimensionality reduction and classification accuracy.


Wave propagation along a rectangular waveguide with slowly varying width has been investigated with the help of field theory and approximate circuit theory. In the field theory approach, two different methods of analysis have been attempted. Many properties of the modulated periodic structure, e.g., the frequency dependence of the propagation constant group and phase velocities and the electric field axial variation for the fundamental space harmonic and its filter-like property have been investigated. The magnetic field lines on the H-plane for a typical case exhibit an expected configuration. Experimental results show close agreement with analysis. It is concluded that this structure supports the fast fundamental space harmonic.


In this practice, with a family practitioner committee list of 9726 patients, we use a computer register for recall, screening, morbidity data, audit, and repeat prescribing. The computing techniques used to achieve accuracy in maintaining the register are described. After one year of full use the register was validated by using the computer to select a random sample of 200 patients from patients' computer records that had not been updated recently. Two patients were untraceable, and in only 11 records were errors of information found, none of which was important. We think that it is feasible and valuable to have a household index.


As the use of deep learning in high impact domains becomes ubiquitous, it is increasingly important to assess the resilience of models. One such high impact domain is that of face recognition, with real world applications involving images affected by various degradations, such as motion blur or high exposure. Moreover, images captured across different attributes, such as gender and race, can also challenge the robustness of a face recognition algorithm. While traditional summary statistics suggest that the aggregate performance of face recognition models has continued to improve, these metrics do not directly measure the robustness or fairness of the models. Visual Psychophysics Sensitivity Analysis (VPSA) [1] provides a way to pinpoint the individual causes of failure by way of introducing incremental perturbations in the data. However, perturbations may affect subgroups differently. In this paper, we propose a new fairness evaluation based on robustness in the form of a generic framework that extends VPSA. With this framework, we can analyze the ability of a model to perform fairly for different subgroups of a population affected by perturbations, and pinpoint the exact failure modes for a subgroup by measuring targeted robustness. With the increasing focus on the fairness of models, we use face recognition as an example application of our framework and propose to compactly visualize the fairness analysis of a model via AUC matrices. We analyze the performance of common face recognition models and empirically show that certain subgroups are at a disadvantage when images are perturbed, thereby uncovering trends that were not visible using the model's performance on subgroups without perturbations.


Mendelian disorders of the epigenetic machinery are a newly delineated group of multiple congenital anomaly and intellectual disability syndromes resulting from mutations in genes encoding components of the epigenetic machinery. The gene products affected in these inherited conditions act in trans and are expected to have widespread epigenetic consequences. Many of these syndromes demonstrate phenotypic overlap with classical imprinting disorders and with one another. The various writer and eraser systems involve opposing players, which we propose must maintain a balance between open and closed chromatin states in any given cell. An imbalance might lead to disrupted expression of disease-relevant target genes. We suggest that classifying disorders based on predicted effects on this balance would be informative regarding pathogenesis. Furthermore, strategies targeted at restoring this balance might offer novel therapeutic avenues, taking advantage of available agents such as histone deacetylase inhibitors and histone acetylation antagonists.


The irrigation systems modernization is a part of water resources management improvement process which requires a decision support system, the core of such system is an automated procedure for simulating the relevant processes governing the system. Simulation models have been used in two phases in this research for two specified areas within Maysan and Wasit provinces in Iraq with an area of 480×250 meters for each province, which have been taken as a case study to redesign and replace the existing open channel network with the new sprinkler irrigation system. The first phase is to find a crop water requirement and irrigation requirements for maize, wheat and barley using CROPWAT 8.0 simulation model, while the second phase includes t h e irrigation network design using EPANET 2.0 simulation model to perform extended period simulation of hydraulic behavior within pressurized pipe networks, in addition to, the SPAW model which have been used to evaluate soil characteristics. This study has revealed that the designed sprinkler system capacity is 113m3/hr with 5.04 mm/hr precipitation rate. The designed sprinkler system can be used to irrigate different crop types including maize, barley and wheat. Since, the sprinkler system has been designed to meet the maize irrigation water requirements which is the heights requiring water consumer crop the during the summer season, then it has the ability to meet the different winter cereals irrigation requirements. The designed system can be used in the different regions of Iraq generally and southern regions, especially because it has been designed to suit the soil that characterized by moderate, slow infiltration rates in addition to suit areas of relatively high wind speed which affecting the water distribution uniformity and slow infiltration rates of soils.


This study presents recent results on the impact of adopting Bt corn on farm profits, yields, and seed and insecticide use. The study employs an econometric model that corrects for self-selection and simultaneity and uses farm-level survey data for 2010. Results confirm previous findings that Bt adoption is associated with increased profits and yields. However the Bt adoption is not significantly related to insecticide use as infestation levels in 2010 are very low and 90 percent of the farmers in the sample did not use insecticides at all.


The cross-cultural consideration of our Psychiatric Epidemiology Program outlined the profile of the madman and his discourse as both mirror and enigma of his cultural community. This enigma occurs as a result of the suffering, the violence and the slyness inherent to creativity, in the sense that his own accomplishments are inexorably questionable because of the ubiquitous presence of the tragic and das Unheimliche. The madman "malgré soi" becomes a perfect interpreter of the cultural crisis and is a real key to his deepest structural interpretation. Therefore, we uphold a "tragic erasmism" and from then on discuss the hermeneutics of Nietzsche, Freud and Heidegger.


We describe a high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the quantitative determination of gentamicin in serum. The antibiotic was separated from serum by passage through a silicic acid column, derivatized with o-phthalaldehyde, and eluted with ethanol. The derivatized gentamicin was then separated into all three of its major components by reversed-phase chromatography and quantified by fluorometry. Concentrations in serum as low as 0.5 mg of gentamicin per liter could be accurately determined. A standard curve showed a linear response for serum containing gentamicin at concentrations ranging from 0 to 20 mg/liter. Tobramycin, amikacin, ampicillin, penicillin G, methicillin, carbenicillin, chloramphenicol, clindamycin, and cephalothin did not interfere with the gentamicin assay. Comparison with an accepted microbiological assay yielded a correlation coefficient of 0.99. This chemical assay is rapid (less than 30 min), sensitive, accurate, specific, and appears to be applicable to other aminoglycosides.


In interviews conducted last October, this issue's guest editors, Mehdi Mirakhorli and Jane Cleland-Huang, spoke with Daniel Dvorak and Jan Bosch, who shared their perspectives as software architects on the interweaving of requirements and architecture. Dvorak is the lead for the NASA software architecture review board and has worked on various technology development projects and space missions, including Deep Space One and Mars Science Laboratory. Bosch is a software architect and agilest with a wealth of experience designing and implementing software-as-a-service and Web 2.0 solutions that typically provide services to hundreds of thousands, even millions, of customers.


A dedicated test of the effects of Nitrogen contamination in liquid Argon has been performed at the INFN-Gran Sasso Laboratory (LNGS, Italy) within the WArP R&D program. A detector has been designed and assembled for this specific task and connected to a system for the injection of controlled amounts of gaseous Nitrogen into the liquid Argon. The purpose of the test is to detect the reduction of the Ar scintillation light emission as a function of the amount of the Nitrogen contaminant injected in the Argon volume. A wide concentration range, spanning from ∼ 10−1 ppm up to ∼ 103 ppm, has been explored. Measurements have been done with electrons in the energy range of minimum ionizing particles (γ-conversion from radioactive sources). Source spectra at different Nitrogen contaminations are analyzed, showing sensitive reduction of the scintillation yield at increasing concentrations. Direct PMT signal acquisition exploiting high time resolution by fast waveform recording allowed high precision extraction of the main characteristics of the scintillation light emission in contaminated LAr. In particular, the decreasing behavior in lifetime and relative amplitude of the slow component is found to be appreciable starting from 𝒪(1 ppm) of Nitrogen concentrations. The rate constant of the quenching process induced by Nitrogen in liquid Ar has been found to be kQ(N2) = 0.11 ± 0.01 μs−1ppm−1, consistent with a previous measurement of this quantity but with significant improvement in precision. On the other hand, no evidence for absorption by N2 impurities has been found up to the higher concentrations here explored.


Using the transition of US firms from annual reporting to semi-annual reporting and then to quarterly reporting over the period 1950-1970, we provide evidence on the effects of increased reporting frequency on firms' investment decisions. Estimates from difference-in-differences specifications indicate that increased reporting frequency is associated with an economically large decline in investments. Additional analyses reveal that the decline in investments is most consistent with frequent financial reporting inducing myopic management behavior. Our evidence informs the recent controversial debate about eliminating quarterly reporting for US corporations. JEL Classification: M40, M41, G30, G31


Studies of reduced neonatal lung function and wheezing illnesses during childhood show conflicting results. The aim of our study was to assess the association between resistance (Rrs) and compliance (Crs) of the respiratory system by using the single occlusion technique (SOT) and prospectively collected wheezing illnesses during the first 5 years of life in a large birth cohort. SOT was performed during natural sleep before the age of 2 months. Information about wheezing illnesses was collected from the electronic patient file. 549 infants had a successful SOT measurement and complete medical records. Every kPa·L−1·s−1 increase in Rrs was associated with 10% more consultations in the first 3 years of life. Every 10 mL·kPa−1 increase in Crs was associated with a 14% reduction in consultations in the first 3 years of life, 27% in the fourth to fifth years of life, and a lower probability of having asthma at the age of 5 years (OR 0.66). Children with late-onset or persistent wheezing had significant lower Crs values than their peers. An increased neonatal resistance is associated with more wheezing illnesses during infancy, while a reduced neonatal compliance is associated with more wheezing illnesses during the first 5 years of life, a late-onset or persistent wheezing phenotype, and asthma.


Electrochemical polish technology could enhance the chemo-mechanical polishing efficiency of copper material. During the electrochemical polishing process, both the components and operation parameters of electrochemical polish solution are the key factors influencing planarization ability. This work measured the surface topography and roughness of copper material after mechanical polish by an atomic force microscope (AFM), and added glycerol in different ratios to the phosphoric acid (85 wt %), which was the main composition of experiment solution. Electrochemical polish was conducted within the potential action range in passivation area, and the surface topography and roughness of copper material after electrochemical polish was measured by AFM. The difference in surface topography of copper material after electrochemical polish was compared as well.The experiment indicated that after electrochemical polish in pure phosphoric acid for 50 sec, the surface roughness of copper material obviously decreased from 6.921nm (Ra) to 0.820nm (Ra), and the planarization was more obvious with the increase of electrochemical polish time. The above results could appear in different electrolyte formulas, indicating that electrochemical polish was a good processing method for copper material planarization. This work also proposed the effect of analyzing the electrochemical polish time on planarization through planarization efficiency. Based on the analysis, the planarization efficiency was decreased with the increase of electrochemical polish time, which indicated that longer electrochemical polish time did not yield better result. This work also found that the surface is not only flattened, but also glossed after electrochemical polish.


This paper presents a methodology and set of validation criteria for the systematic creation of synthetic power system test cases. The synthesized grids do not correspond to any real grid and are, thus, free from confidentiality requirements. The cases are built to match statistical characteristics found in actual power grids. First, substations are geographically placed on a selected territory, synthesized from public information about the underlying population and generation plants. A clustering technique is employed, which ensures the synthetic substations meet realistic proportions of load and generation, among other constraints. Next, a network of transmission lines is added. This paper describes several structural statistics to be used in characterizing real power system networks, including connectivity, Delaunay triangulation overlap, dc power flow analysis, and line intersection rate. The paper presents a methodology to generate synthetic line topologies with realistic parameters that satisfy these criteria. Then, the test cases can be augmented with additional complexities to build large, realistic cases. The methodology is illustrated in building a 2000 bus public test case that meets the criteria specified.


Research for this article was initially prompted by a restitution claim for several early Chinese objects, which had been acquired by the Bavarian State Ethnological Museum, now Museum Funf Kontinente in Munich, at two sales in the Berlin auction house of the Jewish art dealer Paul Graupe in 1935. The title of the auction catalogue explained the circumstances of the forthcoming sale. The stock of the firm Dr. Otto Burchard & Co, Berlin was to be liquidated, with Chinese art in catalogue volume I, offered on 22 and 23 March 1935 (catalogue no. 140) and a further section catalogued in volume II, offered on 29 April 1935 (catalogue no. 143). From the wording on the catalogue cover, it seemed clear that an art dealing firm was in liquidation and that its stock in trade was being auctioned at Paul Graupe's. At the sale, the museum bid successfully on thirty-eight artefacts. In addition, two sculptures were donated to the museum after the Second World War which had been bought at the same sale by third parties. The need for investigation raised questions about the reasons that had prompted the auctions and the liquidation of the firm Dr. Otto Burchard in the first place, and about the previous provenance of the Chinese objects.


The Problem. In most publications on distributed real-time systems, even our own [2, 4], there is little, if any, discussion on the use of tools to enhance productivity in the software development process. To have the right tools, however, we need to know, first, for what? That is, we need to identify the right software architecture for distributed real-time software to make it a target of tool developers. The primary difficulty in developing such a generic software architecture is to abstract its meaningful components, which are shared among the majority, if not all, models and applications. It has to include a number of components suitable to interact with external entities via: process interface, user interface, communication interface, and mass storage interface. One such architecture, which is based on the principle of feedback control as a real-time system has been recently described in [5]. It comprises all known models of of real-time applications: including feedback control systems, programmed control systems, data acquisition systems, multimedia and real-time simulation systems. Software Architecture of a Distributed Real-Time System. This architectural pattern representing essentially a single processor real-time system can be extended to a distributed architecture presented in  Fig. 1.  The software components must include parties responsible for the following interactions with all external elements: inputs from and outputs to the plant interaction with a user communication with other controllers/processors interaction with storage devices enhanced by the processing (computational) capability and the time source. Figure 1:  Generic architecture of a distributed real-time system. Depending on what is the focus of a distributed real-time architecture, there may be a variety of its particular instances. The example shown in  Fig. 1  comes from the area of high-energy physics, where multiple data collection and control facilities are spread over a large area surrounding an elementary particle accelerator [1]. Multiple software units can be created to access various (maybe the same) sources and destinations of data and to exchange information among themselves. Any single unit can perform individual functions and communicate with every other unit. This architecture is dynamic, which means that the organization of components and their interconnections may change during program execution. Adding or deleting new components should have no impact or minimal impact on the operation, in a sense that no degradation of functionality should occur due to such dynamic changes. Communication links can operate individually or be lumped into a middleware layer, with program units communicating partially or exclusively via this layer. A number of new components can be created and the architecture expanded during the run of an experiment or operation of a process. Criteria for Tool Support. Developing software architectures for contemporary real-time applications, such as those described in [1] is too complex to be done manually by a single individual. Therefore automatic tools are needed to assist in the development process. To be fully useful in the development the automatic tools have to provide support in the following four dimensions  (Fig. 2): Figure 2:  Issues to consider when evaluating or selecting real-time design tools. internal, related to all aspects of expressing real-time models via the specific notation and respective transformations horizontal, related to means of communication with other models and other tools (for example, via TCP/IP protocol suite) vertical, related to the next and previous phases of the development process, with respect to support for code generation and prototyping, and support for design verification wrt. requirements diagonal, related to the use of architectural models in different projects and different processes. Several software tools with this concept in mind operate already in the commercial marketplace. One study [6] focused on those, which have solid methodological foundations, based on object-oriented approaches, ROOM and UML, revealed several shorcomings with respect to the above mentioned 4 groups of criteria (dimensions). In the internal dimension, the tools offer extensive capabilities to model both structure and behavior of distributed real-time software. The most important capability of this sort is to create executable models based on statecharts to study behavior (incl. animation). One serious disadvantage is the lack of capability to perform quantitative timing analysis at the design level. None of the underlying OO methodologies, ROOM and UML, supports that either. In the horizontal dimension, both tools allow simple communication of models with external objects at the TCP/IP level using sockets. This is possible for both communication with other models of the same type and totally independent program units running on a remote platform of almost any kind supporting TCP/IP protocol suite. In practice, this allows team development and testing of a complex distributed real-time system on different platforms, in different programming languages. In the vertical dimension, both tools allow code generation for most real-time kernels. What they lack, however, is the tracing capabilities to go back from the code or design to the requirements. What they partially allow, for example, is incorporating into design the modifications made to a class source file, but for the most primitive operations only, which is very inadequate for complex real-time systems. In the diagonal dimension, the tools have very limited capabilities of importing models from other types of tools and exchanging models among themselves. This may change in the future with convergence of the whole industry towards a UML notation. Bridging the Gap How to bridge the gap between software architectures and their support tools? Ideally, the design tools should allow timing and scheduling analysis, then correcting the design, and finaly code generation for a specific platform or implementation standard. With current tools, timing analysis is only possible after the code has been generated, which means employing third-party tools working on imported trace files produced by the executables. There is hope, however, that the industry is heading in the right direction with the development of a Real-Time UML [3]). When developing the basic structural components and defining their behaviors for distributed real-time systems, it turns out that a much more rigid communication structure is necessary for the whole design, than traditional distributed communication mechanisms can provide, based on sockets or remote procedure calls. This involves the necessity to use implementation level standards for distributed real-time communication: MPI/RT and Real-Time CORBA. The trouble is, however, that high-level design tools stop short of relating designs to any of the implementation standards, except real-time kernels. In summary, studying the suitability of industry-strength tools for real-time software development to meet the requirements of distributed real-time applications, the following observations can be made: developing distributed real-time software can be based on a simple architectural framework and a few standard patterns software tools used to assist in the development must meet the four sets of standard criteria representing different views of the process the most serious disadvantage of current tools is the lack of capability to do timing and schedulability analysis at the design level another disadvantage is that the tools do not focus on any particluar real-time communication architecture (such as MPI/RT or RT-CORBA) Janusz Zalewski University of Central Florida


In 1858, Catharine Barr wrote to the Pension Commissioner in Washington, D.C., seeking reinstatement of her widow's pension. Barr explained that she had been married to two men who had died in the service of the United States: first to George Bundick, "a young and beloved husband" who had died in the War of 1812; then to William Davidson in 1835, who had died in 1836 of injuries sustained while serving on the USS Vandalia. She acknowledged that she was not, strictly speaking, a widow, as her current husband, James Barr, was still living and they were still married. She nevertheless sought reinstatement of the pension she had been granted as Davidson's widow. Pursuant to the terms of the relevant pension statute, Barr's pension had terminated upon her remarriage to James. However, as Barr explained to the commissioner, James "has neither been with me or given me one Dollar for my support since 1849, and I know not his whereabouts." Having also lost her father in the War of 1812, Barr saw herself as particularly deserving of the federal government's assistance and believed that she and other widows in her position had a claim on the national coffers. "I for one," she implored, "have no Dependence on Earth only what comes through my relations."


Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to study the ion and water distribution around a spherical charged nanoparticle. A soft nanoparticle model was designed using a set of hydrophobic interaction sites distributed in six concentric spherical layers. In order to simulate the effect of charged functionalyzed groups on the nanoparticle surface, a set of charged sites were distributed in the outer layer. Four charged nanoparticle models, from a surface charge value of -0.035 C m(-2) to -0.28 C m(-2), were studied in NaCl and CaCl(2) salt solutions at 1 M and 0.1 M concentrations to evaluate the effect of the surface charge, counterion valence, and concentration of added salt. We obtain that Na(+) and Ca(2+) ions enter inside the soft nanoparticle. Monovalent ions are more accumulated inside the nanoparticle surface, whereas divalent ions are more accumulated just in the plane of the nanoparticle surface sites. The increasing of the the salt concentration has little effect on the internalization of counterions, but significantly reduces the number of water molecules that enter inside the nanoparticle. The manner of distributing the surface charge in the nanoparticle (uniformly over all surface sites or discretely over a limited set of randomly selected sites) considerably affects the distribution of counterions in the proximities of the nanoparticle surface.


The piezoelectric ceramics of Pb(ZrxTi1−x)O3 – Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3 – Pb(Mn1/3Nb2/3)O3; PZT-PZN-PMN with Zr/Ti ratios of 48/52, 50/50 and 52/48 were fabricated in order to investigate the effect of compositional modifications on the ferroelectric properties of PZT-PZN-PMN ceramics. The phase structure of ceramics sintered at 1,150°C was analyzed. Results show that the pure perovskite phase was in all ceramic specimens, and the phase structure of PZT-PZN-PMN piezoelectric ceramics transformed from tetragonal to rhombohedral, with the Zr/Ti ratios increased in the system. The PZT-PZN-PMN ceramics with a Zr/Ti ratio of 50/50 exhibited the most promising properties including high remanent polarization and low coercive field of 25.95 µC cm−2 and 12.5 kV cm−1, respectively. Furthermore, the transition temperature decreased when the Zr/Ti ratio increased in the system.


In most animals there is a need to quickly prevent the loss of blood or equivalent fluids through inflicted injuries. In invertebrates with an open circulatory system (and sometimes a hydroskeleton as well) these losses may otherwise soon be fatal. Also, there is a need to prevent microbes that have gained access to the body through the wound from disseminating throughout the open circulatory system. Therefore, many invertebrates possess a coagulation system to prevent such accidents from having too serious consequences. In this review we discuss recent developments in a few animals – mainly arthropods – where more detailed data are available. It is likely, however, that corresponding systems are present in most phyla, but this is still unchartered territory.


This paper synthesizes federal and state laws and bioethics literature with observations from an ongoing research protocol to identify, define, and clarify the unresolved legal and ethical issues regarding research involving adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Solutions that protect rights and minimize unnecessary impediments to valuable clinical and scientific inquiry are also illustrated using the same protocol. Research was performed at intensive care, inpatient rehabilitation, and long-term acute chronic hospitals. Our research protocol identified five areas of law impacting adults with TBI: advanced directives, healthcare surrogacy acts, probate acts, power of attorney acts, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The published bioethics literature and responses from local human subject institutional review boards (IRBs) suggest that some of the unresolved ethical issues in research include defining vulnerability, defining informed voluntary consent, determining competency and/or decision-making capacity, using caregivers as subjects, and conducting multisite cooperative studies. Collaboration with IRB members and administrators as well as legal and research ethic scholars developed procedures that protect rights while avoiding unnecessary impediments to research. Investigations of persons with TBI and other cognitive impairments are governed by complicated and inconsistent regulations within the Common Rule and federal and state statues. A need for clear and consistent regulatory guidance regarding multisite studies of TBI persists. In lieu of regulatory guidance, carefully researched solutions for critical peer review are needed to guide future multisite investigations of TBI.


The establishment of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines in 1998 served to set the pace for understanding the molecular biology behind the two hallmark features of stem cells: self renewal and pluripotency. The excitement was generated in the hope that understanding the molecular biology of hESCs would provide a good model for studying early human development, disease and drug discovery and also hold the promise for providing a cure for degenerative human diseases. In spite of the large number of studies, the molecular basis of pluripotency has remained a matter of intrigue ever since the embryonic stem cells (ESCs) were first identified. A considerable percentage of these studies have been transcriptome-based. Interestingly, significant differences are seen not only between mouse and human ESC transcriptomes but also amongst the hESC studies. Nevertheless, a key set of pluripotency genes seem to be common, reinforcing the utility of transcriptome-based approaches in identifying the molecular basis of pluripotency in hESCs.


High spin states in 107Ag are studied via the 100Mo(11B,4n) 107Ag reaction at an incident beam energy of 60 MeV. Prompt γ-γ coincidence and DCO ratios are measured by the detector arrays in CIAE. The level scheme has been updated and a new negative band belonging to 107 Ag is identified. The new negative side band has been constructed and its configuration is tentatively assigned to πg9/2νh11/2(g7/2/d5/2).


Inspired by Feynman integral computations in quantum field theory, Kontsevich conjectured in 1997 that the number of points of graph hypersurfaces over a finite field Fq is a (quasi-) polynomial in q. Stembridge verified this for all graphs with ≤ 12 edges, but in 2003 Belkale and Brosnan showed that the counting functions are of general type for large graphs. In this paper we give a sufficient combinatorial criterion for a graph to have polynomial point-counts, and construct some explicit counter-examples to Kontsevich's conjecture which are in φ theory. Their counting functions are given modulo pq (q = p) by a modular form arising from a certain singular K3 surface.


This paper assesses the relationships between public policy and the development of industrial clusters. A conceptual model of the relationship between public policies and the development of industrial clusters is developed and tested using data from 43 European industrial clusters. The results indicate that most government policies have no significant impact on the growth of industrial clusters or for the development of co-operation within industrial clusters. There is limited evidence that packages of government policies that are specifically geared towards improving the local asset base are effective in overcoming obstacles to growth of industrial clusters. However, when age is used as a control variable the weak relationship between policy packages and growth of industrial clusters disappear. The results indicate that individual and packages of public policies are not strongly connected to either high levels of co-operation, or high growth in industrial clusters. Moreover, no clear evidence was found that high levels of co-operation were associated with growth in industrial districts. In the light of the failure to find clear-cut associations between public policies and the development of industrial clusters the paper outlines a research agenda to help to increase our understanding of these issues.


Open cell metal foams show great potential as a heat exchangers, due to their permeability to fluids and the high conductivity of the metallic network. In this study, aluminum foams were produced using the replication technique with NaCl, flour, and water used to create the preform. The samples included both uniform pore sizes and examples where different pore sizes were created in different parts of the sample. A bespoke rig was used to measure the thermal and fluid flow performance of the foams, and results for heat transfer coefficient are presented. It is also found that asymmetric behavior can be obtained when non‐uniform pore sizes are present; a factor that could be exploited in heat exchanger design.


Pre-trained transformer language models (TLMs) have recently refashioned natural language processing (NLP): Most state-of-the-art NLP models now operate on top of TLMs to benefit from contextualization and knowledge induction. To explain their success, the scientific community conducted numerous analyses. Besides other methods, syntactic agreement tests were utilized to analyse TLMs. Most of the studies were conducted for the English language, however. In this work, we analyse German TLMs. To this end, we design numerous agreement tasks, some of which consider peculiarities of the German language. Our experimental results show that state-of-the-art German TLMs generally perform well on agreement tasks, but we also identify and discuss syntactic structures that push them to their limits.