Psidium cattleianum extract has shown activity against oral microorganisms and anti-inflammatory activity, and also tissue biocompatibility. These characteristics aroused interest in its use as an alternative to traditional intracanal medication. The aim of this study was to evaluate the aqueous extract of P. cattleianum cytotoxicity by structural and functional cell viability, in order to use as intracanal medication. The hypothesis is that aqueous extract of P. cattleianum should be used as intracanal medications due to better cytotoxicity response than cell culture medium. Positive control used was RPMI cell culture medium and negative control was water. Cell viability was analyzed after 1 h, 3 h, 6 h, 10 h and 24 h of incubation by exclusion method with trypan blue and MTT assay, using human mononuclear cells (PBMC) and human Periodontal Ligament Cells (PDL) in culture. By trypan blue assay, both PBMC and PDL cells showed an average viability higher (p>0.05) than RPMI when the cells were maintained in aqueous extract. Distilled water showed lowest average viability (p<0.05). By MTT assay, PDL cells showed increasing viability over time when maintained in aqueous extract culture. P. cattleianum was able to maintain the structural and functional cell viability, shoeing a higher performance than positive control. Also, this extract neutralized the detrimental effect of distillated water. The results about biocompatibility assays are promising to indicate the use of aqueous extract of P. cattleianum as an alternative to traditional intracanal medications.


Molecular fingerprint methods are widely used to compare microbial communities in various habitats. The free program StatFingerprints can import, process, and display fingerprint profiles and perform numerous statistical analyses on them, and also estimate diversity indexes. StatFingerprints works with the free program R, providing an environment for statistical computing and graphics. No programming knowledge is required to use StatFingerprints, thanks to its friendly graphical user interface. StatFingerprints is useful for analysing the effect of a controlled factor on the microbial community and for establishing the relationships between the microbial community and the parameters of its environment. Multivariate analyses include ordination, clustering methods and hypothesis‐driven tests like 50–50 multivariate analysis of variance, analysis of similarity or similarity percentage procedure and the program offers the possibility of plotting ordinations as a three‐dimensional display.


We are interested in Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) as a geophysical tool useful for determining the depth of the ground water table (GWT) and for monitoring shallow water infiltration in sandy soils. At hydrostatic equilibrium, the water content distribution in a homogeneous unsaturated soil down to the water saturated zone depends on the soil water retention function. A classical way to fit retention curve data is to use the van Genuchten continuous model. Using Finite Difference Time Domain simulations, we study the sensitivity of the GPR signal reflected by a van Genuchten type transition to the hydraulic parameters. We show a power type relationship between the reflected signal amplitude and the slope of the soil retention curve. Furthermore, for simulating GPR reflection data acquired above a transition from unsaturated to saturated soil, geophysicists often approximate the soil water retention curve by a piecewise linear model. We test the validity of such an approximation depending on the frequency of the radar signal and the abruptness of the retention curve. We illustrate our results with high resolution GPR data (1600 MHz) acquired above a fluctuating water table in a sand column at the laboratory scale.


Circadian clocks organize behavior and physiology to adapt to daily environmental cycles. Genetic approaches in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, have revealed widely conserved molecular gears of these 24-h timers. Yet much less is known about how these cell-autonomous clocks confer temporal information to modulate cellular functions. Here we discuss our current knowledge of circadian clock function in Drosophila, providing an overview of the molecular underpinnings of circadian clocks. We then describe the neural network important for circadian rhythms of locomotor activity, including how these molecular clocks might influence neuronal function. Finally, we address a range of behaviors and physiological systems regulated by circadian clocks, including discussion of specific peripheral oscillators and key molecular effectors where they have been described. These studies reveal a remarkable complexity to circadian pathways in this "simple" model organism.


: This papers outlines new approaches and concepts aimed at creating employment opportunities for disabled persons in a difficult labour market situation. It relates the new trends to interest engendered by the United Nations International Year of Disabled Persons and the recently proclaimed U.N. Decade of Disabled Persons (1983-1992) with greater participation and involvement of community groups, employers' and workers' organisations inrehabilitation activities. Much of the paper is devoted to changing patterns of sheltered employment including a centralised administration for groups of workshops, introduction of modern management techniques and development of profitable production or sub-contract work. The development of the enclave system of sheltered employment is highlighted whereby groups of severely disabled people work together under special supervision in an otherwise ordinary and undifferentiated working environment. Disable persons' co-operatives, a modular method of vocational training and the ergonomic approach to adaptation of jobs as means of creating jobs for the disabled are discussed in detail. The need to make good the acute lack of trained rehabilitation staff and to give higher priority to the employment needs of disabled people in rural areas, is stressed. Suggestions for research into ways and means of expanding employment opportunities for the disabled and for improving existing vocational rehabilitation services are outlined. Finally the paper refers to the newly adopted International Labour Office Convention and Recommendation Concerning Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (Disabled Persons) which will, it is envisaged, inspire world-wide action in creating wider employment opportunities for disabled persons.


Recently developed techniques have made it possible to quickly learn accurate probability density functions from data in low-dimensional continuous spaces. In particular, mixtures of Gaussians can be fitted to data very quickly using an accelerated EM algorithm that employs multiresolution kd-trees (Moore, 1999). In this paper, we propose a kind of Bayesian network in which low-dimensional mixtures of Gaussians over different subsets of the domain's variables are combined into a coherent joint probability model over the entire domain. The network is also capable of modeling complex dependencies between discrete variables and continuous variables without requiring discretization of the continuous variables. We present efficient heuristic algorithms for automatically learning these networks from data, and perform comparative experiments illustrating how well these networks model real scientific data and synthetic data. We also briefly discuss some possible improvements to the networks, as well as possible applications.


Shallow unconsolidated sediments, irregular refractors, rapid surface elevation changes and hidden karsts are geologic features in the Middle East that can significantly degrade the quality of recorded seismic data. Accurate handling of these complexities is critical for seismic interpretation as low relief structures, stratigraphic traps and fractures have become important exploration targets. Vertical Seismic Profiling (VSP) not only generates higher fidelity data when compared with surface seismic surveys, but VSP data can also be analyzed for reservoir properties via imaging, modeling and inversion for various seismic attributes. This paper describes a Kirchhoff prestack depth migration (PSDM) technique for 3D VSP data to produce common image gathers (CIGs) in both offset and angle domains. The offset domain CIGs are for use in migration velocity analysis (MVA) and the angle domain CIGs (ADCIGs) are for use in modeling and elastic inversion for reservoir properties. This extended Kirchhoff PSDM technique was applied for both synthetic and real data examples and the initial results are promising.


To meet surge capacity and to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, a regional crisis task force was established during the first pandemic wave to coordinate the even distribution of COVID-19 patients in the Amsterdam region. Based on a preexisting regional management framework for acute care, this task force was led by physicians experienced in managing mass casualty incidents. A collaborative framework consisting of the regional task force, the national task force, and the region's hospital crisis coordinators facilitated intraregional and interregional patient transfers. After hospital admission rates declined following the first COVID-19 wave, a window of opportunity enabled the task forces to create, standardize, and optimize their patient transfer processes before a potential second wave commenced. Improvement was prioritized according to 3 crucial pillars: process standardization, implementation of new strategies, and continuous evaluation of the decision tree. Implementing the novel "fair share" model as a straightforward patient distribution directive supported the regional task force's decisionmaking. Standardization of the digital patient transfer registration process contributed to a uniform, structured system in which every patient transfer was verifiable on intraregional and interregional levels. Furthermore, the regional task force team was optimized and evaluation meetings were standardized. Lines of communication were enhanced, resulting in increased situational awareness among all stakeholders that indirectly provided a safety net and an improved integral framework for managing COVID-19 care capacities. In this article, we describe enhancements to a patient transfer framework that can serve as an exemplary system to meet surge capacity demands during current and future pandemics.


Accurate software effort estimation is crucial for software consulting organizations to stay competitive in their software development costs and retain customers. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is an effective tool to obtain accurate effort estimates. In this paper, software effort estimation models using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) ensembles and regression analysis are developed based on data collected from 163 software development projects. The main emphasis of the paper is in developing an effective experimental design to achieve superior effort estimation results. In addition, we compare the software effort estimation of ANNs and multiple regression analysis. We found two interesting results. First, variables other than size (function points) are not especially helpful in predicting software development effort. Second, a properly designed ANN ensemble significantly outperforms estimation using regression analysis and can achieve better effort estimate predictions.


Evolution in natural environments has endowed humans with a cognitive system that is specialized in processing information about living things. Yet the presence of living things in the human living environment is ever decreasing, which leads to the underdevelopment of this system. The author speculates that biomorphic architecture or design can counteract this trend, which would have positive implications for various aspects of human functioning and could provoke subtle shifts in certain areas of human thinking.


In this paper we propose a new method of improving the performance of dynamic source routing (DSR) protocol. In DSR, as well as other on-demand routing protocols, every established path is considered as temporary to reflect the mobility effect, therefore, once a path is established, it is associated with an expiration time. After that expiration time the path is deleted from the route cache of the nodes. In practice the mobility of nodes are not equal all the time and we propose to treat paths differently according to their stationary, rather than deleting them after every expiration time to improve performance. By simulation we show that this method improves the performance of DSR


Background The Sultanate of Oman is country a low TB-incidence, with less than seven cases per 105 population detected in 2020. Recent years have witnessed a persistence in TB cases, with sustained incidence rate among expatriates and limited reduction among Omanis. This pattern suggests transmission from the migrant population. The present study examined the genetic profile and drug resistance-conferring mutations in Mycobacterium tuberculosis collected from Omanis and expatriates to recognise possible causes of disease transmission. Methods We examined M. tuberculosis cultured positive samples, collected from Omanis (n = 1,344) and expatriates (n = 1,203) between 2009 and 2018. These isolates had a known in vitro susceptibility profile to first line anti-TB, Streptomycin (SM), Isoniazid (INH), Rifampicin (RIF), Ethambutol (EMB) and Pyrazinamide (PZA). The diversity of the isolates was assessed by spacer oligo-typing (spoligotyping). Drug resistance-conferring mutations resulted from full-length sequence of nine genes (katG, inhA, ahpc, rpoB, rpsL, rrs, embB, embC, pncA) and their phenotypic relationship were analysed. Results In total, 341/2192 (13.4%), M. tuberculosis strains showed resistance to any drug, comprising mono-resistance (MR) (242, 71%), poly-resistance (PR) (40, 11.7%) and multi-drug resistance (MDR) (59, 17.3%). The overall rate of resistance among Omanis and expatriates was similar; however, MDR and PZAR were significantly higher among Omanis, while INHR was greater among expatriates. Mutations rpsL K43R and rpoB S450L were linked to Streptomycin (SMR) and Rifampicin resistance (RIFR) respectively. Whereas, katG S315T and inhA –C15T/G–17T were associated with Isoniazid resistance (INHR). The resistance patterns (mono-resistant, poly-resistant and MDR) and drug resistance-conferring mutations were found in different spoligo-lineages. rpsL K43R, katG S315T and rpoB S450L mutations were significantly higher in Beijing strains. Conclusions Diverse drug resistant M. tuberculosis strains exist in Oman, with drug resistance-conferring mutations widespread in multiple spoligo-lineages, indicative of a large resistance reservoir. Beijing's M. tuberculosis lineage was associated with MDR, and multiple drug resistance-conferring mutations, favouring the hypothesis of migration as a possible source of resistant lineages in Oman.


: This paper presents evidence of political legacies of exposure to a violent class conflict over 100 years. We revisit the Finnish Civil War of 1918 and first trace out the impact of local conflict exposure on electoral outcomes over a quarter-century period between the World Wars. The electoral performance of left-wing parties that backed the insurgents was persistently and negatively affected by civil war casualties on both sides of the conflict. Our evidence suggests that this effect can be attributed to at least three mechanisms: a mechanical effect of party supporters perishing in the civil war, a backlash against the losing side, and voters reacting to post-civil war concessions and reforms that most impacted war-affected municipalities. We also show that the civil war had a persistent impact on the Finnish electoral politics: left-wing parties have been less popular in conflict-hit municipalities even in modern-day elections.


Biochemists have long assumed that the flux through a metabolic pathway can be controlled by the activity of a key regulatory enzyme near the beginning of the pathway. We present the accumulating evidence that every step in this assumption is flawed. Instead, effective physiological control of metabolism is shown to involve simultaneous multisite modulation through action on a number of enzymes.


An unshrouded impeller is being developed for high head pumps to reduce costs and disk friction losses. On the other hand, research of internal flow in a diffuser did not clearly reveal flow structure. In this experiment, we measured the velocity distribution at the diffuser inlet and outlet plane using laser doppler velocimetry (LDV) to capture the flow from the unshrouded impeller. The relation between the total pressure and velocity distribution was evaluated. The circumferential velocity and meridian velocity were measured by short-focus LDV (Diode Laser, 74mW) about the circumferential and the height direction of the vane direction. Operating conditions in this steady measurement are at the design point flow rate. The result was compared with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations carried out in steady conditions at the previously defined operation points. In this experiment, a phenomenon that the streamline moved toward the shroud side was confirmed. There was also a region where the static pressure increased on the shroud side at the diffuser inlet. This phenomenon was caused by the influence of the tip leakage flow of the unshrouded impeller downstream and the gap of the impeller's main plate. Furthermore, two high velocity regions on the hub and shroud side at the diffuser outlet were observed because of the secondary flow in the diffuser. From the above studies, it was clarified that the ununiform flow in the diffuser was caused by the influence of the secondary flow in the unshrouded impeller.


The study investigated the performance of taro flour in different baked products. Taro from white variety was made into flour using brine and blanching methods to eliminate its acridity property. Results showed that processing of raw taro yielded 50-53% of flour. The processed taro flour was most acceptable for palitos de quezo and choco crinkles in terms of appearance, taste, aroma, texture, color, and their overall acceptability, while biscuits were rated to be like moderately along these parameters. Based on the results, acceptability differences of the quality attributes of palitos de quezo were found not significant in the appearance, taste, aroma and their overall acceptability, however, their texture and color were significantly noted. Similarly, results further showed that there were no significant differences in the quality attributes and overall acceptability in choco crinkles and biscuits. Generally, taro flour, with its acridity reduced, can be an alternative source of flour for baked products.


An evaluation of Pietro Aron9s understanding of "mode in polyphony" (Trattato della Natura et Cognitione di tutti gli tuoni [1525]) coupled with an analytical examination of Josquin9s motet oeuvre leads to a new theory of tonal coherence in sacred vocal polyphony from about 1500. This theory provides a designation for, and identifies the markers of, the tonalities represented in the motets of Josquin; it is based on a nomenclature derived from the technical vocabulary of modal theory and the exigencies of a musical tradition rooted in plainchant, hexachordal manipulation of the gamut, and counterpoint. Three main tonal categories are defined and identified by hexachordal function of final as Ut, Re, and Mi tonalities. Comments by Glarean (Dodecachordon [1547]) support the essentially practical basis of these tonal designations. Each of these tonalities consists of, and is defined by, a distinct collection of "modal types," melodic-contrapuntal paradigms of tonal coherence that are identifiable in a variety of structural guises, from simple contrapuntal contexts to more abstract frameworks. Analytical examples from Josquin9s motets illustrate procedural similarities in works belonging to different modal categories and structural distinctions within the same category, as well as demonstrating why diverse analytical approaches have seemed successful with certain works but inappropriate to others.


Objectives: To determine the incidence of fracture among aging HIV-infected (HIV+) and uninfected men (HIV−). To evaluate factors independently associated with fracture risk. Design: Prospective, multicenter cohort study of men with or at risk for HIV. Methods: Outcome measures: all fractures (excluding skull, face and digits) and fragility fractures (vertebral column, femur, wrist and humerus) were collected semiannually in 1221 HIV+ and 1408 HIV− men aged at least 40. Adjusted incident rate ratios (aIRR) with an interaction term for age (40–49, 50–59 and ≥60 years) and HIV serostatus were estimated with Poisson regression models accounting for additional risk factors. Results: Fracture incidence increased with age among both HIV+ and HIV− men. Although there was no significant difference in fracture incidence by HIV serostatus among men aged 40–49 years, the HIV+ men aged 50–59 years had a significantly higher incidence of all fractures [aIRR: 2.06 (1.49, 2.84)] and fragility fractures [aIRR: 2.06 (1.21, 3.50)] compared with HIV− participants of similar age. HIV modified the effect of age on all fractures (P = 0.002) but did not significantly modify the effect for fragility fractures (P = 0.135). Hypertension increased the rate of all fractures by 32% after adjustment for covariates [aIRR: 1.32 (1.04, 1.69)]. Conclusion: Fracture incidence increased with age among HIV+ and HIV− men but was higher among HIV+ men. A significant increase in fracture incidence was found among 50–59-year-old HIV+ men, highlighting the importance of osteoporosis screening for HIV-infected men above the age of 50.


We know men's violence against women is costly. Yet, we know little about the costs—or benefits—of women's efforts to end it. This study investigates the temporal dynamics of women's earnings and petitioning for a Protection from Abuse (PFA) civil restraining order. Women's earnings might rise or fall at the time of petitioning but quickly return to pre-petitioning levels, a short-term boost or shock; or, petitioning might precipitate a longer-term stall or upward shift in women's earnings. To test for these effects, we use latent growth curve analysis and evaluate women's earnings trajectories over six years. We find overwhelming evidence that the period around petitioning is one of exceptional earnings instability for petitioners, many of whom experience both shocks and stalls. Virtually no one experiences a boost in the quarter of petitioning or an upward shift in earnings growth in the year after petitioning for a PFA. Welfare, however, buffers negative effects of petitioning on women's earnings growth. We also calculate lost earnings as the difference between women's counterfactual projected and estimated earnings. Our findings inform theoretical and policy debates about interventions intended to address poverty and violence against women.


Container-based virtualization represents a flexible and scalable solution for HPC environments, allowing a simple and efficient management of scientific applications. Recently, Systems-on-a-Chip (SoC) have emerged as an alternative to traditional HPC clusters, with a good computing power and low costs. In this paper, we present how we developed a container-based solution for SoC clusters, and study the performance of WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) in such environments. The results demonstrate that although the peak performance of SoC clusters is still limited, these environments are more than suitable to scientific application that have relaxed QoS constraints.


Just days after the George Zimmerman verdict, the Truth N Trauma (TNT) Theatre Ensemble, comprised entirely of African American actors, performed the devised piece The Only Way Out Is the Way Through. Wearing a hoodie and holding a package of Skittles, the ensemble's only male actor delivered a monologue that spoke eloquently about the threats that young Black men face. By briefly embodying the figure of Trayvon Martin, this performance interrogated the perceived dangers of Black masculinity to reveal that the deadly violence levied against Black men is not an aberration, but rather is the norm. This article seeks to locate the death of Trayvon Martin historically, tracking similarities in the murders and trials of Trayvon Martin and Emmett Till. It then focuses on the monologue, interrogating its themes, its creation, and its effect in performance to discuss the multiple narratives surrounding Black masculinity that emerge through it, narratives which speak truth to the dominant discourse that normalizes the murder of Black boys. Finally, it demonstrates how theatre is an arena in which such divisive issues can be explored, deconstructed, and transformed into a vehicle for social change.


Many of the challenges organic producers and processors experience are caused by how organic standards compliance is monitored and enforced—in particular, the administrative procedures that are mandated to verify that operation practices meet organic certification requirements. In this policy analysis, we examine noncompliance documentation and verification by accredited certifiers under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Leveraging a novel and unique compilation of "Notice of Noncompliance" letters issued to organic producers and processors, we find a preponderance of administrative violations, relative to substantive ones. We discuss how the finding may help explain contemporary transformations in the organic market, as larger agri-food entities' capacity to absorb the administrative costs that frustrate smaller operations may contribute to organic market "conventionalization" and consolidation.


Abstract The auditory sensory system of the taxon Hetrodinae has not been studied previously. Males of the African armoured ground cricket, Acanthoplus longipes (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Hetrodinae) produce a calling song that lasts for minutes and consists of verses with two pulses. About three impulses are in the first pulse and about five impulses are in the second pulse. In contrast, the disturbance stridulation consists of verses with about 14 impulses that are not separated in pulses. Furthermore, the inter-impulse intervals of both types of sounds are different, whereas verses have similar durations. This indicates that the neuronal networks for sound generation are not identical. The frequency spectrum peaks at about 15 kHz in both types of sounds, whereas the hearing threshold has the greatest sensitivity between 4 and 10 kHz. The auditory afferents project into the prothoracic ganglion. The foreleg contains about 27 sensory neurons in the crista acustica; the midleg has 18 sensory neurons, and the hindleg has 14. The auditory system is similar to those of other Tettigoniidae.


Metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) field-effect transistor (FET) scaling is following the prediction of the Moore's law for the past 45 years, a key factor that enabled the IC industry to cope with the everlasting demand for higher performances. However, this scaling process becomes increasingly difficult as several limits from both process and device capabilities pop up as the technology node reaches 28nm and beyond. To stand the pace of downscaling, non-classical devices are currently introduced in the roadmap. In this context, the junctionless FET is part of these attempts. It is a new emerging device that can potentially withstand the downscaling of CMOS technology as it still has an excellent control from the gate, a low leakage current, an expected enhancement in carrier transport, besides easier fabrication processes. This dissertation focuses on the physics and modeling of nanoscale junctionless double-gate MOSFET and junctionless nanowire FETs. The first part of the thesis is focusing on junctionless transistors by discussing the advantages and limitations of such technology. A brief overview of existing models and the current status of symmetrical/asymmetrical operation of junctionless FETs in a planar double-gate configuration as well as junctionless nanowires topologies will be presented. Next, the model that is developed in this thesis is detailed in different chapter, each of which will cover a specific aspect. The model relies on Poisson-Boltzmann equation and on the drift-diffusion transport to derive charges and current in long-channel devices. It is based on two set of relationships to cover all the operating regions: from depletion to accumulation; from linear to saturation with no fitting parameter. Following a core analysis, more features are developed and added to the ideal long-channel concept. This includes modeling short-channel effects and DIBL, modeling full trans-capacitance matrix for AC simulations, modeling thermal noise and induced gate noise, modeling the inversion layer to predict off-state currents. Importantly, we have shown that equivalent symmetric devices could also be used to simulate asymmetric operation, which are likely to be the most common situation. In addition, the charge-based approach developed along the thesis has also been generalized to the quite popular junctionless nanowire architecture. Regarding junctionless FETs, technological parameter are very critical. For instance, the device cannot be made of any dimension and doping otherwise it cannot be effectively switched off at a given current. Therefore, we also derived rules providing a design-space tool with explicit links between silicon thickness and doping ensuring safe operation. Finally, since the mobility extraction in junctionless FETs is still an issue, we have developed a new method for a reliable measurement of free carriers mobility in real devices which does not assume any predefined mobility law. Based on these developments, the EPFL-JL-model was implemented into Hspice platforms to be used by circuit designers.


Abstract Introduction: Although obesity and its biomarkers have been intensively studied, little is known about the metabolomic signature of visceral adiposity independent of insulin resistance that frequently accompanies increased levels of visceral fat. Our study aimed to investigate specific changes in amino acid (AA) levels as biomarkers of increased visceral adiposity independent of insulin resistance, in healthy subjects. Methods: Forty-two adult women were included in this cross-sectional study. Serum samples were analyzed by AAs targeted metabolomics according to their visceral fat area (<100 cm2 and ≥100 cm2). Results: By corrected t-test and supervised partial least-squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) we identified 4 AAs that were significantly higher in the group with higher visceral fat: proline (variable importance in the projection [VIP] predicted value: 1.97), tyrosine (VIP: 2.21), cysteine (VIP: 1.19), isoleucine (VIP: 1.04; p-values <0.05). Also, glycine was significantly lower in the group with higher visceral fat (VIP: 1.65; p-value <0.05). All AAs identified were associated with visceral fat independent of homeo-static model assessment for insulin resistance (p-value for regression coefficients <0.05). Conclusion: Metabolic pathways that might be disrupted in persons with increased visceral fat are phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan biosynthesis; tyrosine metabolism; glycine, serine, and threonine metabolism; glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism, and cysteine and methionine metabolism.


Filtration of molten aluminium using porous reticulated ceramic foam was developed in 1974 by SELEE Corporation. Since that time, there have been significant technical advances in filter bowl design and construction, preheat systems, development of fine pore size filters, development of compact two-stage filtration systems, filter gasket materials, and equipment automation. One area that has remained relatively unchanged has been the refractory filter material technology. The refractory material utilized by all of the major cast house filter suppliers is based on an alumina aggregate grain bonded with aluminium phosphate (AlPO4). This filter material, commonly referred to as "PBA" in the aluminium industry, has become an industry wide standard and accounts for nearly 99% of the filters supplied to cast houses worldwide. There are significant technical limitations of PBA filters in terms of refractory performance, as well as potential environmental, health and safety concerns. This paper describes the development of a cost effective replacement filter material that overcomes the limitations of PBA filters. The new material utilizes a low expansion – low modulus aggregate material and a non-phosphate bond. The result is a significant reduction in mechanical failures during use, improved filtration performance and elimination of the issue of potential environmental, health and safety concerns.


One of the ways by which the legal system has responded to different sets of problems is the blurring of the traditional boundaries of criminal law, both procedural and substantive. This study aims to explore under what conditions does this trend lead to the improvement of society's welfare by focusing on two distinguishing sanctions in criminal law, incarceration and social stigma.
In analyzing how incarceration affects the incentive to an individual to violate a legal standard, we considered the crucial role of the time constraint. This aspect has not been fully explored in the literature on law and economics, especially with respect to the analysis of the beneficiality of imposing either a fine or a prison term. We observed that that when individuals are heterogeneous with respect to wealth and wage income, and when the level of activity can be considered a normal good, only the middle wage and middle income groups can be adequately deterred by a fixed fines alone regime. The existing literature only considers the case of the very poor, deemed as judgment proof. However, since imprisonment is a socially costly way to deprive individuals of their time, other alternatives may be sought such as the imposition of discriminatory monetary fine, partial incapacitation and other alternative sanctions.
According to traditional legal theory, the reason why criminal law is obeyed is not mainly due to the monetary sanctions but to the stigma arising from the community's moral condemnation that accompanies conviction or merely suspicion. However, it is not sufficiently clear whether social stigma always accompanies a criminal conviction. We addressed this issue by identifying the circumstances wherein a criminal conviction carries an additional social stigma. Our results show that social stigma is seen to accompany a conviction under the following conditions: first, when the law coincides with the society's social norms; and second, when the prohibited act provides information on an unobservable attribute or trait of an individual -- crucial in establishing or maintaining social relationships beyond mere economic relationships. Thus, even if the social planner does not impose the social sanction directly, the impact of social stigma can still be influenced by the probability of conviction and the level of the monetary fine imposed as well as the varying degree of correlation between the legal standard violated and the social traits or attributes of the individual.
In this respect, criminal law serves as an institution that facilitates cognitive efficiency in the process of imposing the social sanction to the extent that the rest of society is boundedly rational and use judgment heuristics. Paradoxically, using criminal law in order to invoke stigma for the violation of a legal standard may also serve to undermine its strength.
To sum, the results of our analysis reveal that the scope of criminal law is narrow both for the purposes of deterrence and cognitive efficiency. While there are certain conditions where the enforcement of criminal law may lead to an increase in social welfare, particularly with respect to incarceration and stigma, we have also identified the channels through which they could affect behavior. Since such mechanisms can be replicated in less costly ways, society should first try or seek to employ these legal institutions before turning to criminal law as a last resort.


Recent patent settlement agreements in pharmaceutical cases have involved payment of large sums by branded drug producers to generic challengers to abandon or delay entry. While the law generally favors settlements, patent and other intellectual property settlements can become powerful vehicles for antitrust abuse when patent rights are invalid. Some have called on antitrust courts to resolve the validity of the patent rights in antitrust cases, but such an approach is impractical. It would burden antitrust courts with intractable complexity and require litigation of an issue where the parties with the best information - the patentee and the alleged infringer - are both aligned against the antitrust plaintiff. We urge that a better approach is to modify the incentives of the economic actors to align them with the public interest in competition. This can be done in three ways: (1) changing patent law in ways that would reduce the number of invalid patents issued, (2) requiring disclosure to public antitrust agencies of heretofore undisclosed patent settlements, and (3) limiting the terms of settlement agreements to the date of entry by the alleged infringer and the royalty to be paid to the patent holder.


The US system for funding physician training should be overhauled to ensure that it produces a workforce better matched to the nation's needs, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine.1

Currently, US taxpayers provide $15bn (£8.9bn; €11.2bn) a year, primarily through Medicare, to pay for postgraduate medical training. Most of that money goes to teaching hospitals, with few strings attached. "This funding is essentially guaranteed—regardless of whether the funded programs reflect local, regional, or national healthcare priorities," the 21 member panel wrote.

This has resulted in a physician workforce with too many specialists and too few doctors who were prepared to work in primary care or in underserved communities, the panel said. It added that hospital based training left many physicians unprepared to practice in the ambulatory care settings …


Simulation modelling is an important tool for assessing the environmental level of a pollutant. By modelling the flow of anthropogenic substances from the technosphere into the ecosphere and through several environmental compartments, the concentrations of these in air, water and soil can be estimated. These values are a fundamental requirement for any estimation of environmental hazard and risk posed by a chemical or substance. In general, the input data needed for such models is uncertain and determining reliable values for environmental stocks and flows using a mass-flow model is a challenge. That is why Material flow Analysis (MFA) needs methods and tools to deal with this uncertainty. In static cases, this can be done via Probabilistic Material Flow Analysis (PMFA). But processes including time-dynamic behaviour cannot be handled with this. Therefore, the present thesis presents Dynamic Probabilistic Material Flow Analysis (DPMFA) as a new approach to close this gap. It includes:
– a mass balanced stock and flow representation,
– time-dynamic system behaviour and discrete period based time progress, and
– explicit uncertainty representation and propagation
In DPMFA, the existing Probabilistic Material Flow Analysis (PMFA) is linked to dynamic modelling means. In PMFA a system of dependent material flows is assumed to be in equilibrium for the investigated period (e.g. a year). Incomplete system knowledge is represented as Bayesian parameter distributions. On this basis, the dependent model variables (such as environmental stocks) are derived using Monte-Carlo simulation. To introduce dynamic behaviour of a system over a longer time span, in DPMFA, the flows of subsequent periods need to be calculated and the material accumulations in the sinks have to be added up. External inflows are considered for each period individually and intermediate delays are represented as stocks with specific release functions. As a result, environmental pollutant concentrations and exposures are determined based on the absolute material amounts in stocks. In addition to the theoretical modelling approach, a respective modelling-package in Python was implemented and provided1. The tool enables application experts from different fields to develop models for their domain. One important application field for this approach is the assessment of new substances such as engineered nano-materials (ENM), which are used in a growing number of products. At present, there are no analytic methods available to quantify environmental concentrations of ENM. Most of them are long-lasting, so they can accumulate in the ecosphere over a longer time period. This qualifies the modelling and simulation of ENM flows as suitable example of use to demonstrate the new approach. We describe the development and application of DPMFA in the form of four scientific articles, which constitute the core of this thesis. Article I (Chapter 2) presents the specific requirements for the new modelling approach and implements a small example model using several existing modelling approaches to identify their possibilities and limitations. In article II (Chapter 3), the new approach is theoretically developed in detail and then exemplarily applied in a case-study to assess the environmental concentrations of Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) in Switzerland. The new approach is further specified in Article III (Chapter 4). In particular, the representation of incomplete knowledge from several data sources, model-robustness regarding design decisions, as well as sensitivityand uncertainty analyses are discussed and resulting implications on the model and the investigated system are highlighted. A comprehensive application of the approach was performed in a modelling study in Article IV (Chapter 5). This way, the approach has been validated by applying it to realistic cases. These are modelling the concentrations of the materials nano-TiO2, nano-ZnO, nano-Ag and CNT in the European Union. For each of the materials the concentrations in surface water, sediment, natural and urban soil, sludge treated soil and air have been estimated for the year 2014. Thereby, the appropriateness of the approach could be proved for the investigated class of exposure models.


Comparability is the heart of transfer pricing. The OECD, U.K., Canadian, Australian, and U.S. transfer pricing rules all echo one another on how critically important the comparability analysis is. Performing this analysis and proving comparability, however, is a demanding exercise. What makes proving comparability so difficult is that the analysis is two sided. Both controlled and uncontrolled transactions must be thoroughly analyzed. Just as much effort needs to be applied to determine the functions, contract terms, risks and the economic conditions for the unrelated party comparables as is spent on analyzing the related parties (taxpayers). But there is more to this equation. On the "comparables side", there are not one but two steps. First a comparables search is needed. Then the differences must be carefully scrutinized and adjust for differences if they are material. Case law has always demanded balanced or dual comparability analysis. The OECD however, has recently become critical of database dumps - the extensive automated financial database searches for potential comparables that are then dumped on (or presented to) tax authorities as-they-are. This is problematical. The search is being substituted for meaningful analysis. A database dump, no matter how well the screens are fit or how carefully crafted are the filters, never provides solid proof of comparables. This paper considers a sequence in US and Australian cases where arguments based heavily on database searches are involved. Observations are extended to Canada and the UK. The paper concludes that if searches for comparables in commercial databases are becoming the norm in transfer pricing and if there is a growing tendency to substitute the search itself for sound comparability analysis (the database dump), then what is the likely result on audit or through litigation is a profit split.


Myocardial infarction in an infant due to anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the pulmonary trunk is reported. The pathological features, haemodynamics related to morphology and differential diagnosis are discussed.


Mycoplasma genitalium is an important pathogen that is transmitted through sexual contact. For patients diagnosed with M. genitalium infection, the current guidelines recommend 1 g of azithromycin as the first-line treatment. Moxifloxacin is used as a second-line drug due to its remarkable efficacy; however, increased use of moxifloxacin to treat M. genitalium infections has caused the emergence of cases of moxifloxacin treatment failure. This meta-analysis aims to estimate the treatment efficacy of moxifloxacin for M. genitalium infection. Electronic databases were searched for articles published from 1983 to the end of May 2016 using the following search terms: (Mycoplasma genitalium) AND (moxifloxacin OR 1-cyclopropyl–7-(2,8-diazabicyclo(4.3.0)non-8-yl)-6-fluoro-8-methoxy-1,4-dihydro-4-oxo-3-quinoline carboxylic acid OR Proflox OR moxifloxacin hydrochloride OR Octegra OR Avelox OR Avalox OR Izilox OR Actira OR [treatment efficacy]). All included studies were published in English; all participants were diagnosed with M. genitalium infection, and microbial cure times were measured within 12 months after treatment. Treatment efficacy was measured as microbial cure at the final follow-up after treatment. In total, 17 studies including 252 participants met the inclusion criteria. The majority of these studies were observational. The random-effects pooled microbial cure rate was 96% (95% confidence interval [CI], 90%–99%; I2 = 28.59%, P = 0.13). For studies with sample collection deadlines prior to 2010, the pooled microbial cure rate was 100% (95% CI, 99%–100%; I2 = 0.00%, P = 1.00). For studies with sample collection deadlines of 2010 and later, the pooled microbial cure rate was 89% (95% CI, 82%–94%; I2 = 0.00%, P = 0.59). The elimination rate of moxifloxacin for M. genitalium infection has decreased from 100% to 89% since 2010. This decline merits considerable attention. We suggest close follow-up to investigate the efficacy of moxifloxacin for treating M. genitalium infections. Additionally, sentinel points should be established to detect mutations in the gyrA/B and parC/E genes, which are associated with moxifloxacin resistance.


This paper is concerned with flow-rate limitations in open capillary channels under low-gravity conditions. The channels consist of two parallel plates bounded by free liquid surfaces along the open sides. In the case of steady flow the capillary pressure of the free surface balances the differential pressure between the liquid and the surrounding constant-pressure gas phase. A maximum flow rate is achieved when the adjusted volumetric flow rate exceeds a certain limit leading to a collapse of the free surfaces. In this study the steady one-dimensional momentum equation is solved numerically for perfectly wetting incompressible liquids to determine important characteristics of the flow, such as the free-surface shape and limiting volumetric flow rate. Using the ratio of the mean liquid velocity and the longitudinal small-amplitude wave speed a local capillary speed index $S_{ca}$ is introduced. A reformulation of the momentum equation in terms of this speed index illustrates that the volumetric flow rate is limited. The maximum flow rate is reached if $S_{ca}\,{=}\,1$ locally, a phenomenon called choking in compressible flows. Experiments with perfectly wetting liquids in the low-gravity environment of a drop tower and aboard a sounding rocket are presented where the flow rate is increased in a quasi-steady manner up to the maximum value. The experimental results are in very good agreement with the numerical predictions. Furthermore, the influence of the $S_{ca}$ on the flow-rate limit is confirmed.


The high demand for conservation work is creating a need for conservation‐focused training of scientists. Although many people with postsecondary degrees in biology are finding careers outside academia, many programs and mentors continue to prepare students to follow‐in‐the‐footsteps of their professors. Unfortunately, information regarding how to prepare for today's conservation‐based job market is limited in detail and scope. This problem is complicated by the differing needs of conservation organizations in both economically developed and developing regions worldwide. To help scientists identify the tools needed for conservation positions worldwide, we reviewed the current global conservation job market and identified skills required for success in careers in academia, government, nonprofit, and for‐profit organizations. We also interviewed conservation professionals across all conservation sectors. Positions in nonprofit organizations were the most abundant, whereas academic jobs were only 10% of the current job market. The most common skills required across sectors were a strong disciplinary background, followed by analytical and technical skills. Academic positions differed the most from other types of positions in that they emphasized teaching as a top skill. Nonacademic jobs emphasized the need for excellent written and oral communication, as well as project‐management experience. Furthermore, we found distinct differences across job locations. Positions in developing countries emphasized language and interpersonal skills, whereas positions in countries with advanced economies focused on publication history and technical skills. Our results were corroborated by the conservation professionals we interviewed. Based on our results, we compiled a nondefinitive list of conservation‐based training programs that are likely to provide training for the current job market. Using the results of this study, scientists may be better able to tailor their training to maximize success in the conservation job market. Similarly, institutions can apply this information to create educational programs that produce graduates primed for long‐term success.


: In today's world, information security is a trending as well as a crucial topic for both individuals and organisations. Cyber attacks cause financial loss for businesses with data breaches and production loss. Data breaches can result in loss of reputation, reduced customer loyalty, and fines. Also, due to cyber attacks, business continuity is affected so that organisations cannot provide continuous production. Therefore, organisations should reduce cyber risks by managing their information security. For this purpose, they may use ISO/IEC 27001 information security management standard. ISO/IEC 27001:2013 includes 114 controls that are in both technical and organisational level. However, in the practice of security management, individuals' information security behaviour could be underestimated. Herein, technology alone cannot guarantee the safety of information assets in organisations, thereby a range of human aspects should be taken into consideration. In this study, the importance of security behaviour with respect to ISO/IEC 27001 information security management implementation is presented. The present study extensively analyses the data collected from a survey of 630 people. The results of reliability measures and confirmatory factor analysis support the scale of the study.


Taking in such important themes as the powerful early city-states that dominated the plains, the technological developments that led to terrace farming and population growth in the highlands and the origins and influence of the Philistines, "The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Bible Lands" will explore the relationship between the books of the Bible and the land from which they came. Including detailed maps on topics ranging from the wanderings of Abraham to Modern Jerusalem, this book is a comprehensive timeline comparing developments in Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece and Rome and a gazetteer of biblical place-names. Coverage of the familiar events of the world's greatest book is supplemented by features on the alphabet, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Zionist movement as the book's scope continues beyond the biblical period to explore the Islamic conquests, the Crusades, the British Mandate and the current struggles between the Israelis and Palestinians.


The Global Positioning System (GPS) can determine the position of any person or object on earth based on satellite signals. But when inside the building, the GPS cannot receive signals, the indoor positioning system will determine the precise position. How to achieve more precise positioning is the difficulty of an indoor positioning system now. In this paper, we proposed an ultra-wideband fingerprinting positioning method based on a convolutional neural network (CNN), and we collect the dataset in a room to test the model, then compare our method with the existing method. In the experiment, our method can reach an accuracy of 98.36%. Compared with other fingerprint positioning methods our method has a great improvement in robustness. That results show that our method has good practicality while achieves higher accuracy.


The purpose of this study was explore the body image experiences of women who play tackle football. Data included semi-structured interviews with 15 players on a women's tackle football team in Western Canada. Data were analyzed thematically and objectification theory was used to interpret the findings. Themes that emerged included: a) improved body image through physical change, appreciation of function over appearance and shifting ideals of beauty; b) importance of a social atmosphere that celebrated diverse bodies; and c) negotiation of body image on and off the field. Research has documented a connection between body image and physically active leisure, but much about the nature of the relationship is still unclear. The findings of this study provide insight into elements of physically active leisure (e.g., social atmosphere or nature of the activity) which can be used to promote positive body image, health, and wellness in leisure settings.


The advent of COVID-19 has disrupted all facets of human lives. As of September 2020, there is no effective viral therapy for the disease, thus necessitating research efforts toward providing solutions to the diverse areas where the pandemic has wreaked havoc. As a way of reducing the spread of the disease, the South African government declared COVID-19 a national disaster and implemented nationwide lockdowns with several regulations. Nevertheless, the success of such synergized efforts primarily depends on the people's attitudes and perceptions toward the multifaceted management of the pandemic. Therefore, this current study aims to discover what topical issues relating to the pandemic are being discussed by the populace and what impacts these issues have on compliance with regulations, including how they can aid in the implementation of the measures put in place by the government, as we analyze discussions relating to COVID-19 using data harvested from Twitter – social media and opinion mining platform. The Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) algorithm was applied for the extraction of noteworthy topics. From the experiments conducted, it was observed that alcohol sale and consumption, staying home, daily statistics tracing, police brutality, 5G and vaccines conspiracy theories were among the topics discussed and around which attitudes and perceptions were formed by the citizens. The findings also revealed people's resistance to measures that affect their economic activities, and their unwillingness to take tests or vaccines as a result of fake news and conspiracy theories. These findings can assist the government and policymakers in redirecting their efforts by addressing the citizens' concerns and reactions to the instituted measures toward an anticipated overall success.


This paper develops an integrated model of playfulness and flow in virtual reality (VR) computer interactions using constructs drawn from the fields of occupational therapy, social psychology, applied psychology, and cultural anthropology. The purpose of this paper is to describe some ongoing research in our lab with disabled children and adults. We propose some testable hypotheses linked to constructs in the model that we have done some preliminary research in, and we suggest other hypothesis testing for future research. Key elements in the model that have been tested in our lab include self-efficacy and volition. They are seen as necessary characteristics of an individual that will influence his or her playfulness with the activity of VR. Flow and playfulness were two other constructs in the model that we hypothesize are related to volition and self-efficacy. We studied how flow is related to playfulness. The findings supported previous research on self-efficacy and volition as children and adults reported that being in control was important and stressed the value of being able to do new things. Playfulness was expressed as being able to feel presence with the activity. We looked at how playfulness was related to creativity, another construct in the model believed to be an outcome of playfulness. These studies will be reported in more detail in the paper as well as recommendations for further research.


The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) impairs a person's immune system against many infections and some types of cancer, leading to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), which is characterized by severe illnesses. The number of HIV infections in the Philippines has increased, more than doubled, within the last decade. This alarming HIV crisis in the country requires urgent actions. In this study, a mathematical model is developed to describe the disease transmission in the Philippines. Disease‐free and endemic equilibria are obtained, stability analysis is performed, and the basic reproduction number is computed. Sensitivity analyses and subset selection are performed to identify influential parameters and to determine an identifiable parameter set given measurements, respectively. Available data on the number of asymptomatic aware infectious, those who are in the AIDS stage, and those under treatment are utilized to estimate key epidemiological parameters such as transmission, treatment, and screening rates. Uncertainty of these parameter estimates is quantified through bootstrapping method. Furthermore, intervention strategies are investigated in the framework of optimal control theory. Control measures include precaution, HIV screening, antiretroviral treatment, and pre‐exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) treatment. These various control efforts are compared with regard to cost efficiency and effectiveness in reducing the number of infected individuals. Given limited available control measures, the PrEP‐only scenario is shown to be the most cost‐effective, followed by other scenarios that combine PrEP with other controls.


The endocannabinoid system is involved in a variety of effects of drugs of misuse, and blockade of the cannabinoid CB1 receptor by selective antagonists elicits marked reductions in opioid and alcohol self‐administration. The present study was designed to extend our knowledge of the role of the cannabinoid CB1 receptor in the modulation of alcohol misuse vulnerability in rats. Accordingly, using nonselected Wistar rats and genetically selected Marchigian Sardinian alcohol‐preferring (msP) rats, we investigated the effect of the CB1 antagonist SR141716A on operant alcohol self‐administration and on reinstatement of alcohol‐seeking behavior by environmental conditioning factors. In addition, in situ hybridization studies in both strains were performed to measure cannabinoid CB1 receptor mRNA in different brain areas of these animals. Results showed that intraperitoneal administration of SR141716A (0.03, 1.0 and 3.0 mg/kg) markedly inhibits ethanol self‐administration and conditioned reinstatement of ethanol‐seeking behavior in both strains of rats. ED50 analysis showed significantly higher sensitivity (P < 0.05) to the effect of SR141716A in msP rats than in heterogeneous Wistar rats. In situ hybridization studies revealed that, compared with Wistar rats, msP animals have consistently greater cannabinoid CB1 receptor mRNA expression in a number of brain areas, including the frontoparietal cortex, caudate‐putamen and hippocampus (CA1 and dentate gyrus areas). In conclusion, we provide clear evidence that blockade of CB1 receptors reduces both ethanol self‐administration and conditioned reinstatement of alcohol‐seeking behavior in rats. In addition, current pharmacological and neuroanatomical data suggest that an altered function of the CB1 receptor system exists between genetically selected alcohol‐preferring msP rats and a heterogeneous animal population.


Extracted from text ... SPOORNET OUTSOURCED a project for the
data collection, classification and population
of 6 344 km of railway track nation-wide to
a partnership consisting of e-Logics and
Computer Foundation (a wholly owned subsidiary
of Arivia.kom). Here, effective outsourcing
requires an understanding of linear
infrastructure maintenance management.
The integration of resources, processes and
technology forms the core of such an extensive
project. The output requirements for
delivery consists of data that contains
points, lines and polygons in GIS format,
representing assets with attributes (classifying
the assets). This data set is used to populate
the asset repository database used in
Spoornet's IAMM (Infrastructure ..


The antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), characterized by thrombosis and pregnancy loss that occur in the presence of antiphospholipid (aPL) antibodies, is a leading cause of miscarriage and maternal and fetal morbidity. Using a mouse model of APS induced by passive transfer of human aPL antibodies, we have shown that complement activation plays an essential and causative role in pregnancy loss and fetal growth restriction, and that blocking activation of the complement cascade rescues pregnancies. Given that the primary treatment for APS patients is anticoagulation throughout pregnancy, usually with sub-anticoagulant doses of heparin, we considered the possibility that heparin prevents pregnancy loss by inhibiting complement. We found that heparin inhibits activation of complement on trophoblasts in vivo and in vitro and that anticoagulation, in and of itself, is not sufficient to prevent pregnancy complications in our experimental model of APS. Our studies underscore the importance of inflammation in fetal injury associated with aPL antibodies and emphasize the importance of developing and testing targeted complement inhibitory therapy for patients with APS.


Normative-based distributional comparisons across countries and over time usually build upon the assumption that individuals are selfish. However, there is a consolidated evidence that individuals also care about what others have. In this paper we propose a framework for comparing and ranking distributions that includes non-individualistic possibilities. Specifically, we consider ranking criteria that account, in one case, for the feeling of compassion that is generated by those having lower resources and, in the other case, for the feeling of envy that is generated by those having higher resources. We illustrate our framework using CNEF data for Australia, Korea, Germany, Russia, Switzerland and the US and show that accounting for the presence of envy and compassion might lead to different rankings.


Through the integration of SPOT HRV, biophysical and socioeconomic information, the study identified population carrying capacities and their vulnerability to land degradation. Land use intensification on the landscapes was quantified into expansion, early and late phases based on the Ruthenberg index calculated using a biennial series of SPOT images for the period 1986-96. Subsequently, farmland dynamic on different landscapes was calculated while observed patterns were linked with agricultural intensification and population carrying capacity. Results show a pattern of agricultural land degradation due to increasing pressure of population and agricultural intensification within a system characterised by little or no use of inputs. Fifty-six percent of the study area supports a population density higher than the carrying capacity (≤ 15 pers/km-2). Sixty-three percent of the study area is under early to late phases of agricultural intensification. Between 1986-96, cultivation declined 2-3% annually on landscapes with Low risk of degradation but increased by 1-2% on those with Average/Extreme risks. This emphasises the process of land abandonment as farmers move on to cultivating marginal lands despite above normal seasonal rainfalls observed during most of the period. By 1996, cultivation tended to include fields much farther away from the vicinity of villages, compared with 10 years earlier. Furthermore, by 1996, farmlands in the zones of late intensification declined from 12 to 4% and increased from 6 to 11% in the zone under the expansion phase. Indicating that by 1996 substantial amount of the land area required increasing lengths of fallowing. The spatial GIS modelling approach allowed not only identification of zones but synthesis of the observed pattern of landscape degradation. The paper highlights the need for combining remote sensing, biophysical and socio-economic data in environmental degradation studies in developing countries with their poor data availability. The role of developing countries scientists is stressed in taking the forefront to tackle environmental problems, which affect their region. The paper calls for increased co-operation between these scientists and regional and international data providers to overcome data availability problems and pave the way for better local and regional studies on environmental degradation.


In current state-of-the-art resorbable orthopedic implant materials, loss of strength occurs before substantial mass loss in the degradation process. Materials such as 1:1 PLA:PGA copolymers become too weak to carry any load long before significant amounts of bone have grown to replace the eroded prostheses. An alternative is a two-stage implant material that is both load bearing and osteoconductive; a property of a material to encourage bone already being formed, to lie closely to or adhere to its surface. To achieve this, an interpenetrating network of osteoconductive material and strong (but degradable) biocompatible material is needed. In comparison to conventional prosthesis or scaffold manufacturing routes, rapid prototyping (RP) techniques are an attractive means of fabricating these two-stage implants. A poly butylene terephthalate polymer blend scaffold with 150-300 μm diameter interconnected pores was built using RP and coated with a thin coating of tricalcium phosphate (TCP) or hydroxy apatite suspension in a polycaprolactone matrix. Tissue culture results showed that scaffolds with such thin coatings were more conducive to growth of the cells, perhaps due to a more open scaffold, where the cells can proliferate more easily compared to the other types. The interpenetrating combination of the two biodegradable materials was designed to allow rapid bone in-growth while providing support. This preliminary study validates our hypothesis that the RP process combined with thin coating of HA can tailor an implant to the needs of a specific patient.


The interaction of different tectonic features on a short-distance scale of 100's of km produces the complexity of the Costa Rica region. The intraplate Caribbean earthquake activity of shallow-depth nature is mainly concentrated along an E-W axis in the central part of the country. All types of faults are presented in this region, although a strike-slip fault system, with NB-SW direction is proposed. Intraplate Caribbean esrthquakes in northwestem Panama are shallow and dominated by thrust fault motion. The seismicity along the Pacific coast is mainly associated with the subduction of the Cocos under theCaribbean plate, with predominant thrust fault mechanisms. The interaction of the Cocos and Nazca plates in southeastem Costa Rica, along the Panama fracture fault system produces events with strike-slip mechanism.A proposed 1D P-velocity model for the region is presented. Relocation of earthquakes of this area made through this ID-velocity model provides a reliable geometry of the Wadati-Benioff zone, with a slab dipping at 45° to a maximum depth of approximately 250 km.Station corrections and P- and S-velocity distribution correlate well with the major upper crust geological features of the area. The P- and S-velocity distribution for depth below 30 km shows a lateral velocity variation, which is associated with the subductionslab.


Stability constrained optimal power flow (SCOPF) has become increasingly important in modern power systems operation. The work presented in this paper describes a genetic algorithm (GA) based approach for tackling the SCOPF problem emerging in the UK electricity balancing market. The SCOPF problem is defined as optimizing the generation combination of balancing mechanism (BM) units to maintain the balance of generation and demand in the system subject to the physical limits of the BM units and the removal of stability constraints imposed by credible contingencies. Generation output levels of BM units, as the control variables for the solution to the problem, were put in the GA chromosomes. A properly constructed GA, employing feasible plane mapping of the genome, is used to determine the optimal generation combination. The proposed approach was tested on a reduced UK transmission system model with multiple contingencies taken into account at the same time. The simulation results demonstrate that the GA is capable of finding the optimal or sub-optimal solution based on which the power system being operated is absolutely stable against the specified contingencies. Numerical simulation results are presented.


ABSTRACT Opportunistic pathogenic bacteria can engage in biofilm-based infections that evade immune responses and develop into chronic conditions. Because conventional antimicrobials cannot efficiently eradicate biofilms, there is an urgent need to develop alternative measures to combat biofilm infections. It has recently been established that the secondary messenger cyclic diguanosine monophosphate (c-di-GMP) functions as a positive regulator of biofilm formation in several different bacteria. In the present study we investigated whether manipulation of the c-di-GMP level in bacteria potentially can be used for biofilm control in vivo. We constructed a Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain in which a reduction in the c-di-GMP level can be achieved via induction of the Escherichia coli YhjH c-di-GMP phosphodiesterase. Initial experiments showed that induction of yhjH expression led to dispersal of the majority of the bacteria in in vitro-grown P. aeruginosa biofilms. Subsequently, we demonstrated that P. aeruginosa biofilms growing on silicone implants, located in the peritoneal cavity of mice, dispersed after induction of the YhjH protein. Bacteria accumulated temporarily in the spleen after induction of biofilm dispersal, but the mice tolerated the dispersed bacteria well. The present work provides proof of the concept that modulation of the c-di-GMP level in bacteria is a viable strategy for biofilm control.


Introduction Along with a growth of machinery use and ageing population in Korean farms, risk of agricultural machine-related injury has been increasing. Agricultural machines have been reported as the main cause materials for agricultural injuries across many countries. The aim of this study is to examine risk and patterns of occupational machine-related injury among farmers in Korea. Methods This study analysed data from the South Korea Farmers' Occupational Disease and Injury Survey that was conducted in 2015 by the Rural Development Administration, South Korea. Farm samples across all provinces were chosen by a multistage stratified method to represent the whole farms in South Korea. Survey was conducted through trained farm-visiting interviewers. The experience of occupational injury occurred in 2014 was surveyed, and the incidence rate of injury were calculated. Results A total of 15 654 farmers over the age of 19 (9,983 farm families) were surveyed. Agricultural machine-related injury accounted for 33.2% of all agricultural occupational injuries that need convalescence of one day and more due to the injury. The rate of occupational agricultural machine-related injury was 1.15 per 100 person-years among farmers who used agricultural machines. Injury rates were higher for males (1.18) than females, and consistently increased with age. The three top injury-leading agricultural machines were Gyeong-ungi, tractor, and bush cutter. Conclusion Agricultural machines were the main cause of occupational injuries for Korean farmers. Priority for prevention efforts should be given to more vulnerable populations (i.e., older males). For effective prevention, comprehensive strategies that incorporate engineering safety and improvement of agricultural working environment (e.g., farm road) as well as safety training and education are needed. Funding Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea (Project No. PJ 01001705).


Abstract. Ice-core-based records of isotopic composition are a proxy for past
temperatures and can thus provide information on polar climate variability
over a large range of timescales. However, individual isotope records are
affected by a multitude of processes that may mask the true temperature
variability. The relative magnitude of climate and non-climate contributions
is expected to vary as a function of timescale, and thus it is crucial to
determine those temporal scales on which the actual signal dominates the
noise. At present, there are no reliable estimates of this timescale
dependence of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Here, we present a simple
method that applies spectral analyses to stable-isotope data from multiple
cores to estimate the SNR, and the signal and noise variability, as a
function of timescale. The method builds on separating the contributions from
a common signal and from local variations and includes a correction for the
effects of diffusion and time uncertainty. We apply our approach to firn-core
arrays from Dronning Maud Land (DML) in East Antarctica and from the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). For DML and decadal to multi-centennial
timescales, we find an increase in the SNR by nearly 1 order of magnitude
(∼0.2 at decadal and ∼1.0 at multi-centennial scales). The estimated
spectrum of climate variability also shows increasing variability towards
longer timescales, contrary to what is traditionally inferred from single
records in this region. In contrast, the inferred variability spectrum for
WAIS stays close to constant over decadal to centennial timescales, and the
results even suggest a decrease in SNR over this range of timescales. We
speculate that these differences between DML and WAIS are related to
differences in the spatial and temporal scales of the isotope signal,
highlighting the potentially more homogeneous atmospheric conditions on the
Antarctic Plateau in contrast to the marine-influenced conditions on WAIS. In
general, our approach provides a methodological basis for separating local
proxy variability from coherent climate variations, which is applicable to a
large set of palaeoclimate records.


Background: Improper disposal of abattoir waste without any treatment has severe impacts on the environment and human health. However, there lacks sufficient studies that quantify abattoir waste and physicochemical parameters of wastewater. Thus, this study aimed to estimate waste generation and physicochemical characteristics of wastewater discharged from Hawassa municipal abattoir.    Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Hawassa Municipality Abattoir. One year of cattle slaughtering data was collected from the Hawassa municipality registry from March, 2016 to February, 2017. Mathematical computational approach were used to evaluate magnitude and composition of waste generated from the actual number of cattle slaughtered. Samples were collected from two wastewater sites on sewer line into which the abattoir wastewater was discharged. Physicochemical characteristics of the wastewater were determined by different laboratory investigation methods. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 21 was used to analyze the mean, standard deviation and one tail of t-test for two mean sample value was assumed for equal variance with 95% Confident Interval (CI) to determine significant difference of each physicochemical parameter between the two sites.  Results: Hawassa Municipality Abattoir generated 2529.76 kg of waste per day and 923,994.84 kg of waste per year. The analyzed physicochemical parameters indicated high concentrations of Chemical Oxygen Demand  (COD) (579 mg/L), Biochemical Oxygen Demand  (BOD5) (641.30 mg/L), NH3 (56.32 mg/L), TDS (311.60 mg/L), Total Suspended Solid  (TSS) (122.16 mg/L), and EC (838.40 μS/cm) at wastewater site 2 and elevated concentrations of PO43- (43.50 mg/L), NO3- (92.24 mg/L), NO2- (23.99 mg/L), and DO (7.67 mg/L) at wastewater site 1.  The mean difference in the concentration of COD, BOD5, NO2-, NH3, TDS, TSS and EC obtained from two sites were statistically significant (P<0.05).  Conclusion: In this study, large quantity of abattoir waste was generated, which was directly discharged into the environment without any treatment. The mean value of most physicochemical parameters were higher than the Ethiopian Environmental Protection Agency maximum permissible limit. Therefore, Hawassa municipality office should design and implement safe abattoir waste treatment technology to safeguard public and environment.
Keywords: Abattoir; wastewater; Hawassa;  physicochemical parameters


No biological molecule in the field of oncology has been more extensively or more successfully targeted for therapeutic intent than the product of the c-erbB2 gene, HER2/neu. This is the second of a comprehensive three-part review of the foundation for and therapeutic targeting of HER2/neu. The distribution of HER2/neu overexpression and/or gene amplification by individual tumor sites and histologies will be comprehensively surveyed and described. This provides a bridge between the primarily basic science focused Part I, and the survey of clinical applications to follow in Part III. In combination, this comprehensive survey will identify opportunities and promising areas for future evaluation of HER2/neu-targeted therapies, highlighting the importance of HER2/neu as an increasingly important therapeutic target.


BACKGROUND
Measuring gastric residual volume (GRV) to guide enteral feeding is a common nursing practice in intensive care units, yet little evidence supports this practice. In addition, this practice has been shown to potentially contribute to inadequate energy delivery in intensive care, which remains a problem in critically ill children.

AIMS
We aimed to explore paediatric intensive care nurses' decision-making surrounding this practice.

METHODS
This is a cross-sectional electronic survey in a single mixed general and cardiac surgical PICU in the UK.

RESULTS
The response rate was 59% (91/154), and responding nurses were experienced, with a mean PICU experience of 10·5 years (SD 8·09). The three main reasons for stopping or withholding enteral feeds were: the volume of GRV obtained (67%), the appearance of this gastric aspirate (40%) and the overall clinical condition of the child (23%). Most nurses reported checking GRV primarily to determine 'feed tolerance' (97%) as well as confirming feeding tube position (94%). Nurses' perceived harms from high GRV were: the risk of pulmonary aspiration (44%), malabsorption of feeds (20%) and the risk of vomiting (19%). GRV was measured frequently in this PICU, with 58% measuring GRV before every feed, 27% measuring every 4 h and 17% measuring every 6 h. The majority of nurses (84%) stated they would be worried or very worried if they could not measure GRV routinely.

CONCLUSIONS
PICU nurses' decision-making surrounding initiating and withholding enteral feeds and determining 'feed tolerance' remains heavily based on GRV. PICU nurses have significant fears around patient harm if they do not measure GRV routinely.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
This nursing practice is likely to be one of the factors that impair the delivery of enteral nutrition in critically ill children, and as such, its validity and usefulness needs to be challenged and studied in future research.


Previous studies suggest that ANG II-induced hypertension in rats fed a high-salt (HS) diet (ANG II-salt hypertension) has a neurogenic component dependent on an enhanced sympathetic tone to the splanchnic veins and independent from changes in sympathetic nerve activity to the kidney or hind limb. The purpose of this study was to extend these findings and test whether altered autonomic control of splanchnic resistance arteries and the heart also contributes to the neurogenic component. Mean arterial pressure (MAP), heart rate (HR), superior mesenteric artery blood flow, and mesenteric vascular resistance (MVR) were measured during 4 control days, 14 days of ANG II delivered subcutaneously (150 ng·kg(-1)·min(-1)), and 4 days of recovery in conscious rats fed a HS (2% NaCl) or low-salt (LS; 0.1% NaCl) diet. Autonomic effects on MAP, HR, and MVR were assessed by acute ganglionic blockade with hexamethonium (20 mg/kg iv) on day 3 of control, days 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, and 13 of ANG II, and day 4 of recovery. MVR increased during ANG II infusion in HS and LS rats but remained elevated only in HS rats. Additionally, the MVR response to hexamethonium was enhanced on days 10 and 13 of ANG II selectively in HS rats. Compared with LS rats, HR in HS rats was higher during the 2nd wk of ANG II, and its response to hexamethonium was greater on days 7, 10, and 13 of ANG II. These results suggest that ANG II-salt hypertension is associated with delayed changes in autonomic control of splanchnic resistance arteries and the heart.


We develop a microscopic theory for the relaxation dynamics of an optically pumped two-level system (TLS) coupled to a bath of weakly interacting Bose gas. Using Keldysh formalism and diagrammatic perturbation theory, expressions for the relaxation times of the TLS Rabi oscillations are derived when the boson bath is in the normal state and the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) state. We apply our general theory to consider an irradiated quantum dot coupled with a boson bath consisting of a two-dimensional dipolar exciton gas. When the bath is in the BEC regime, relaxation of the Rabi oscillations is due to both condensate and non-condensate fractions of the bath bosons for weak TLS-light coupling and dominantly due to the non-condensate fraction for strong TLS-light coupling. Our theory also shows that a phase transition of the bath from the normal to the BEC state strongly influences the relaxation rate of the TLS Rabi oscillations. The TLS relaxation rate is approximately independent of the pump field frequency and monotonically dependent on the field strength when the bath is in the low-temperature regime of the normal phase. Phase transition of the dipolar exciton gas leads to a non-monotonic dependence of the TLS relaxation rate on both the pump field frequency and field strength, providing a characteristic signature for the detection of BEC phase transition of the coupled dipolar exciton gas.


This article presents two dynamic multilayer routing policies implemented in the photonic MPLS router developed by NTT for IP+optical generalized MPLS networks. According to IP traffic requests, wavelength paths called lambda label switched paths are set up and released in a distributed manner based on GMPLS routing and signaling protocols. Both dynamic routing policies first try to allocate a newly requested electrical path to an existing optical path that directly connects the source and destination nodes. If such a path is not available, the two policies employ different procedures. Policy 1 tries to find available existing optical paths with two or more hops that connect the source and destination nodes. Policy 2 tries to establish a new one-hop optical path between source and destination nodes. The performances of the two routing policies are evaluated. Simulation results suggest that policy 2 outperforms policy 1 if p is large, where p is the number of packet-switching-capable ports; the reverse is true only if p is small. We observe that p is the key factor in choosing the most appropriate routing policy. We also describe items that need to be standardized in the IETF to effectively achieve multilayer traffic engineering.


Hate speech and profanity detection suffer from data sparsity, especially for languages other than English, due to the subjective nature of the tasks and the resulting annotation incompatibility of existing corpora. In this study, we identify profane subspaces in word and sentence representations and explore their generalization capability on a variety of similar and distant target tasks in a zero-shot setting. This is done monolingually (German) and cross-lingually to closely-related (English), distantly-related (French) and non-related (Arabic) tasks. We observe that, on both similar and distant target tasks and across all languages, the subspace-based representations transfer more effectively than standard BERT representations in the zero-shot setting, with improvements between F1 +10.9 and F1 +42.9 over the baselines across all tested monolingual and cross-lingual scenarios.


We introduce Mind2Web, the first dataset for developing and evaluating generalist agents for the web that can follow language instructions to complete complex tasks on any website. Existing datasets for web agents either use simulated websites or only cover a limited set of websites and tasks, thus not suitable for generalist web agents. With over 2,000 open-ended tasks collected from 137 websites spanning 31 domains and crowdsourced action sequences for the tasks, Mind2Web provides three necessary ingredients for building generalist web agents: 1) diverse domains, websites, and tasks, 2) use of real-world websites instead of simulated and simplified ones, and 3) a broad spectrum of user interaction patterns. Based on Mind2Web, we conduct an initial exploration of using large language models (LLMs) for building generalist web agents. While the raw HTML of real-world websites are often too large to be fed to LLMs, we show that first filtering it with a small LM significantly improves the effectiveness and efficiency of LLMs. Our solution demonstrates a decent level of performance, even on websites or entire domains the model has never seen before, but there is still a substantial room to improve towards truly generalizable agents. We open-source our dataset, model implementation, and trained models (https://osu-nlp-group.github.io/Mind2Web) to facilitate further research on building a generalist agent for the web.


The brain uses recurrent spiking neural networks for higher cognitive functions such as symbolic computations, in particular, mathematical computations. We review the current state of research on spike-based symbolic computations of this type. In addition, we present new results which show that surprisingly small spiking neural networks can perform symbolic computations on bit sequences and numbers and even learn such computations using a biologically plausible learning rule. The resulting networks operate in a rather low firing rate regime, where they could not simply emulate artificial neural networks by encoding continuous values through firing rates. Thus, we propose here a new paradigm for symbolic computation in neural networks that provides concrete hypotheses about the organization of symbolic computations in the brain. The employed spike-based network models are the basis for drastically more energy-efficient computer hardware – neuromorphic hardware. Hence, our results can be seen as creating a bridge from symbolic artificial intelligence to energy-efficient implementation in spike-based neuromorphic hardware.


Elites in the United States legal academy have been uniform in their prediction of "global" convergence on a single model of governance for large publicly held corporations. That model is, of course, the U.S. model. The evidence, though, is only of some trans Atlantic convergence with an outlier here or there. Moreover, the existing scholarship is culturally and economically insensitive. U.S. style corporate governance, with its requirements for truly independent directors who will confront and remove badly performing CEOs, and which has as an element lawsuits brought by activist shareholders, is simply inappropriate for many cultural settings. Post Confucian and feudal value systems in countries such as Indonesia, the People's Republic of China, India, and others represent insurmountable barriers to importation of U.S. style corporate governance. Many other societies reject all or most U.S. or Westernizing influences. Convergence advocates "one size fits all" approach is culturally insensitive in the extreme. The dominant forms of capitalism in the world are family capitalism and other forms of "embedded capitalism" in which the economy is perceived to be part of and subservient to the society rather than the other way around. Value and governance systems emerging from the laissez faire eras in the United States and England during the 1980s, which appeared only once before in history (in mid Victorian England), simply are not reflective of reality in most other societies in the world, including even many European societies in which family and embedded capitalism predominate and are resistant to change. Elite U.S. scholars have made these errors because their scholarship is insular and chauvinistic. They also have an incorrect view of what globalization truly is or what it means, substituting homogenization for globalization in the same manner many U.S. multinationals do. Last of all, the growth in size and number of large multinational corporations in the 90s relegates the issue of 'global' convergence to secondary importance. U.S. style corporate governance is another solution to the Berle and Means separation of ownership from control conundrum U.S. scholars have wrestled with for 60 years. Regulatory arbitrage, environmental degradation, plantation production, economic imperialism, and other socio-economic problems posed by the accelerating growth of multinationals, not the separation of ownership from control, are the problems with which corporate law has to come to grips in the twenty first century.


Three decades have passed since the enactment in 1979 of the first piece of environmental protection legislation in China, entitled "The Trial Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China". In that time, august development of various academic theories concerning environmental protection has guided legal practice. These include the Theory of Environmental Rights, the Theory of Public Participation in Environmental Protection, the Scheme of Compensation for Environmental Harm, and the Theory of Ecological Damages. Together, these have played a significant role in the development of environmental protection in China across the legislative, judicial and law-enforcement planes.

Taking as a starting point the 'Five-Year Plan', this article introduces first the establishment and development of the Rule of law as it to the environment (hereinafter 'environmental rule of law', or ERL). This is done to enable a better understanding of topical issues, both theoretically and practically. Then, a brief survey will be undertaken of the above-mentioned theories attempting to trace their development. Finally, the author presents their conclusions.


Sealants are safe, cost-effective, and easy to apply. All of the pediatric dentists surveyed in this study reported using sealants. Only 46 percent, however, applied sealants more than ten times per week. Sealant use was most often for the six- to fourteen-year-old age-group.


Previous research efforts on developing an Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS) for Android mobile devices rely mostly on centralized data collection and processing on a cloud server. However, this trend is characterized by two major limitations. First, it requires a continuous connection between monitored devices and the server, which might be infeasible, due to mobile network's outage or partial coverage. Second, it increases the risk of sensitive information leakage and the violation of user's privacy. To help alleviate these problems, in this paper, we develop a novel Host-based IDPS for Android (HIDROID), which runs completely on a mobile device, with a minimal computation burden. It collects data in run-time, by periodically sampling features reflecting the utilization of scarce resources on a mobile device (e.g. CPU, memory, battery, bandwidth, etc.). The detection engine exploits statistical and machine learning algorithms to build a data-driven model for the benign behavior. Any observation failing to match this model triggers an alert, and the preventive agent takes proper countermeasure(s) to minimize the risk. HIDROID requires no malicious data for training or tuning, which makes it handy for day-to-day usage. Experimental test results, on a real-life device, show that HIDROID is well able to learn and discriminate normal from malicious behavior, with very promising accuracy of up to 0.9, while maintaining false positive rate by 0.03.


The closing decades of the twentieth century have been characterized as a period of disruption and discontinuity in which the structure and meaning of economy, polity, and society have been radically altered. In this volume Peter Drucker focuses with great clarity and perception on the forces of change that are transforming the economic landscape and creating tomorrow's society. Drucker discerns four major areas of discontinuity underlying contemporary social and cultural reality. These are: (1) the explosion of new technologies resulting in major new industries; (2) the change from an international to a world economy--an economy that presently lacks policy, theory, and institutions; (3) a new sociopolitical reality of pluralistic institutions that poses drastic political, philosophical, and spritual challenges; and (4) the new universe of knowledge based on mass education and its implications in work, leisure, and leadership. Peter Drucker brings to this work an intimate knowledge and objective view of the particular and general. The Age of Discontinuity is a fascinating and important blueprint for shaping a future already very much with us.