Background/Context Teachers affect student performance through their interaction with students in the context of the classrooms and schools where teaching and learning take place. Although it is widely assumed that supportive working conditions improve the quality of instruction and teachers' willingness to remain in a school, little is known about whether or how the organizational structure of charter schools influences teacher working conditions. Purpose/Research Question This article compares teacher working conditions in charter and traditional public schools and among various types of charter schools. In doing so, it seeks to understand whether the different working conditions are influenced by the intrinsic institutional features of charter schools such as autonomy and competition, or by the extraneous factors such as measureable school and teacher characteristics. Research Design This study utilized data from the 2003–2004 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), the nation's most extensive survey of K–12 schools and teachers, both for charter schools and traditional public schools (TPSs). This article is a quantitative analysis that involves three main steps. First, based on the responses to the SASS teacher questionnaire, confirmatory factor analysis was performed to generate multiple factors corresponding to key dimensions of teacher working conditions. Second, propensity score matching was used to pair charter schools with TPSs that are similar in terms of school location, educational level, school type, and student demographics. This matching process mitigates the confounding effects of these extraneous factors on teachers' perceptions of working conditions. Finally, a series of weighted Hierarchical Linear Models were utilized to compare teachers' perceptions of working conditions between charter and traditional public schools, controlling for teacher and school characteristics. Conclusions/Recommendations The results show that charter and traditional public school teachers perceive their working conditions to be similar in many regards, including principal leadership, sense of community and collegiality, classroom autonomy, opportunities for professional development, and adequacy of instructional supplies. However, charter school teachers perceive that they have significantly more influence over school policies, but a heavier workload than traditional school teachers. Among charter schools, district-granted charter schools show consistently more supportive working environments than charters granted by other organizations. This implies that state policy can have some indirect influence over charter school working conditions by providing substantial administrative support and oversight to charter schools authorized by independent organizations other than the established structure of school districts.


Abstract Immunization of CBA/J mice with thryoglobulin (Tg) emulsified in complete Freund's adjuvant induces experimental thyroiditis (EAT), a well-characterized model of Hashimoto's disease. Recent studies have suggested that dietary factors play a role in the modulation of the immune response and that diet can have a profound effect on the induction of autoimmune diseases. In this study, we examined the influence of diet on autoimmune thyroiditis in mice. EAT was induced in mice fed ad libitum one of the three diets, a standard maintenance chow (Agway H1000), Purina 5020 Breeding Chow, and Purina 5010 Autoclavable (unautoclaved) Diet. Tg-immunized mice fed the Agway 1000 diet were found to be resistant to the development of autoimmune thyroid disease, with only 4 out of 25 mice developing mild thyroiditis. In contrast, 16 out of 25 mice fed the Purina 5010 diet developed moderate to severe thyroiditis. Mice fed the 5020 diet were partly susceptible: 7 out of 25 developed a mild to moderate thyroiditis. Histologic examination of thyroid glands of diseased mice fed the 5010 and 5020 diets showed marked lymphocytic infiltration with destruction of follicles, compared with mice fed the Agway diet, the latter showing only mild infiltration with preservation of thyroid follicles. Titers of antibody to Tg did not differ among the groups, and there was no significant difference in the IgG isotype subclass usage. The results demonstrate that diet can markedly affect the severity of autoimmune disease in the EAT model. In contrast, diet has little effect on the humoral autoimmune response in this system. These results implicate diet as a factor in the severity of cell-mediated autoimmune destruction and suggest that dietary modification could decrease pathology in some forms of autoimmune disease.


Almost all aerospace vehicles that depend on aerodynamic lift use changes in geometry for control. Examples include ailerons, elevators and flap deflections. As a theoretical concept these controls represent changes in one of the necessary boundary conditions for the solution of the Navier Stokes equations, which model the airflow. The complete boundary conditions require that the velocities and the temperature on the body surface be defined. In principle, the airflow can be changed by altering the temperature on the body surface. The effectiveness of controlling a vehicle by altering the surface temperature, which is equivalent to an extraction of energy from the airflow, is the topic of this research.


A composite film consisting of ZnO and Chitosan (CS) is obtained on carbon steel via cathodic electrodeposition. Optimal CS concentration of electrodeposition of ZnO/CS film is determined by the method of polarization curves. It is shown that the ZnO/CS film obtained at the concentration of 0.6 g/L has the best corrosion resistance. The deposit is studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectra (FT-IR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). XRD results indicate that ZnO could be fabricated by electrodeposition in composite film. FT-IR results evidence the existence of CS in composite film. SEM results demonstrate that the quality of film is improved because of the addition of CS. The anticorrosion property can be attributed to that the existence of the CS macromolecules can improve the stability of the composite film. This kind of composite film has an anticorrosion application for metal corrosion protection.


We examine the effect of buyer merger on bilateral negotiations between a supplier and n buyers. Merger may have bargaining effects in addition to the usual efficiency effects. The effect of merger on the buyers' bargaining position depends on the curvature of the supplier's gross surplus function: merger enhances (worsens) the buyers' bargaining position if the function is concave (convex). Based on a panel of advertising revenue in the cable television industry, our estimates indicate that the gross surplus function for suppliers of program services is convex. This result suggests that cable operators integrate horizontally to realize efficiency gains rather than to enhance their bargaining position vis-a-vis program suppliers.


(2R,4S,5S,1'S)-2-Phenylmethyl-4-hydroxy-5-(tert-butoxycarbonyl) amino-6-phenylhexanoyl-N-(1'-imidazo-2-yl)-2'-methylpropanamide (compound 2) is a tripeptide analogue inhibitor of HIV-1 protease in which a C-terminal imidazole substituent constitutes an isoelectronic, structural mimic of a carboxamide group. Compound 2 is a potent inhibitor of the protease (K(i) = 18 nM) and inhibits HIV-1 acute infectivity of CD4+ T-lymphocytes (IC50 = 570 nM). Crystallographic analysis of an HIV-1 protease-compound 2 complex demonstrates that the nitrogen atoms of the imidazole ring assume the same hydrogen-bonding interactions with the protease as amide linkages in other peptide analogue inhibitors. The sole substitution of the C-terminal carboxamide of a hydroxyethylene-containing tripeptide analogue with an imidazole group imparts greatly improved pharmacokinetic and oral bioavailability properties on the compound compared to its carboxamide-containing homologue (compound 1). While the oral bioavailability of compound 1 in rats was negligible, compound 2 displayed oral bioavailabilities of 30% and 14%, respectively, in rats and monkeys.


This paper looks at the well-being of children in transition economies in the light of greater economic integration. The different stages of integration of the transition economies into the world economy are marked by substantial variations in trade and capital flows. International labour mobility remains limited, and unemployment has been high since the beginning of transition. Because employment is the main determinant of household income, this has had a negative effect on the well-being of children. At the national level, a high degree of variation in regional unemployment rates has emerged which is symptomatic of the lack of integration of labour markets. High regional unemployment rates are further associated with increases in non-participation, while adjustments via wages and migration have been largely absent, or insufficient. Indicators of child well-being – such as infant mortality rates – are positively correlated with unemployment rates, suggesting that public service provision is, in general, not sufficient to offset the negative effect of unemployment on child well-being. A closer look at unemployment benefit schemes reveals not only large differences between countries but also scope for broader coverage and better targeting of programmes in order to reduce the risk of families falling into poverty when parents become unemployed.


Introduction: Neuraxial analgesia, is an effective treatment for labour pain, however this benefit was offset by possible association with increased risk of caesarean section and prolonged labour. The American college of Obstetrician and Gynaecologist recommended delaying the administration of epidural analgesia until cervical dilatation reach 4–5 cm, due to increase risk of CS up to 12 folds based on early studies Objective: To study the effect of epidural analgesia on the successes rates of vaginal birth in women undergoing trial of scar and labour outcome. Method: A prospective study conducted in Hospital Tengku Ampuan Afzan started June 2014, all consented women for trial of scar were counselled for either intrapartum epidural (study group) or control group were the women offered parenteral opioid or antanox, with the cervical dilatation of 3–4 cm. Result: Total of 42 ladies with the mean age of 30.7, mean gestational age was 39.4 (SD = 1.6) weeks, mean parity was 1.5, were recruited to this study from the labour room, divided into two equal groups, study group and control group. A sixty one point nine per cent (13/21) cases in the epidural group were induction of labour, versus 28.5% (6/21) cases from group. The mean duration of the first stage of labour was longer for the epidural group 6.3 (SD = 2.01) hrs, versus 4.4(SD = 2.68) hrs for the control groups but no statistical significant difference (P value 0.24). About 40.4% (17/42) cases had spontaneous vaginal delivery, with only 35% (6/17) cases from epidural group. Another 16.7% (7/42) cases had assisted delivery, four cases from epidural group. All indicated for fetal distress (FD) and only two cases indicated for prolong second stage both from the epidural group. The duration of AOCOG 2015 Abstract, Electronic Poster Presentations, Maternal Fetal Medicine © 2015 Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology 127 the second stage was 39.9 minutes in the epidural group versus 22 minutes in the control group which is statistically significant. About 42.8% (18/42) cases delivered abdominally, the majority 61.1% (11/18) cases were from the epidural group (6 were indicated for poor progress, one failed induction and 4 for fetal distress), but was statistically not significant from control (P value 0.21). in the control group 3/7 cases were indicated for poor progress. None have maternal or neonatal complications. Conclusion: Epidural analgesia may be associated with prolonged labour, significantly prolonged second stage of labour, with lower rate of successful vaginal birth after CS, without increasing the complications rate. However large sample size is required to evaluate the statistical significance


The entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae var. acridum is being developed for use as a mycoinsecticide against locusts and grasshoppers in Africa. In addition to causing significant mortality, studies have shown the pathogen to cause reductions in feeding of a number of target species during the disease incubation period. The present study extends this work by demonstrating significant reductions in feeding following infection in another important pest species, the brown locust Locustana pardalina (Walker). Insects collected from the field following a spray application and subsequently maintained in a field laboratory showed a significant reduction in per capita feeding, as indicated by faecal production, as early as 2 days after treatment; this was before any pathogen-induced mortality. This per capita reduction in feeding by infected individuals contributed to a total reduction in feeding of 65% relative to controls. In addition to this laboratory based assessment, experiments were conducted to examine the effects of infection on mortality, feeding and fecundity in the field. Mortality rates of infected individuals in the field were significantly slower than those in the laboratory (average survival time of approximately 39 days compared with 6 days), although total mortality and percentage mycosis were equivalent. Treated individuals showed a significant reduction in body fat accumulation at sexual maturity compared with controls. This may reduce dispersal ability and total reproductive fitness. However, treated individuals exhibited a reduced pre-oviposition period resulting in them laying more eggs than untreated individuals within the first weeks following fledging. Thus, no significant reductions in fecundity were recorded by the end of the assessment period when mortality of treated individuals exceeded 90%. Given that many untreated locusts were still alive and had the potential to continue oviposition for several more weeks, however, it is likely that differences in fecundity would have become apparent if the assessment had continued. These results provide important insights for evaluating overall impacts of spray applications of the mycoinsecticide.


In this paper, we give evidence that the posterior distribution of Naive Bayes goes to zero or one exponentially with document length. While exponential change may be expected as new bits of information are added, adding new words does not always correspond to new information. Essentially as a result of its independence assumption, the estimates grow too quickly. We investigate one parametric family that attempts to downweight the growth rate. The parameters of this family are estimated using a maximum likelihood scheme, and the results are evaluated. Email: email@example.com


Spinal cord injuries have a multifactorial process with diverse evolution over time. An acute injury produces severe pathological and physiological changes in the organism, homeostasis is recovered, and both adverse and favorable reactions occur for the individual. In this chapter, we describe the pathophysiological follow-up to spinal cord injuries, from their acute to chronic presentations. The importance of this knowledge lies in finding solutions to the multiple disorders generated from a spinal cord injury. These will depend on the specific needs of each stage, consider-ing the intensity of the injury, and the time elapsed from the beginning of the process until years later.


An 8 year old boy presented with fever of unknown origin in whom the diagnosis of liver abscess was made. He also had palmoplantar keratoderma and premature loss of teeth, consistent with the diagnosis of Papillon Lefevre syndrome.


This paper presents evidence from parallel field experiments in China, Germany, and the United States. We contacted the mayor's office in over 6,000 cities asking for information about procedures for starting a new business. Chinese and German cities responded to 36-37 percent requests; American cities responded to only 22 percent of requests. We randomly varied the text of the request to identify factors that affect the likelihood of receiving a response. American and German cities were more responsive to requests from citizens than foreigners; Chinese cities did not discriminate on this basis. Chinese cities were more responsive to requests from men than women; German cities did not discriminate on this basis and American cities had a slight bias in favor of women. Cities in all three countries were more responsive to requests associated with starting a construction business than a green business, but especially Chinese cities. Chinese cities were more responsive when the mayor was being considered for promotion than after a promotion decision, suggesting the importance of promotion incentives in China, but low responsiveness to green investment suggests limited incentives for environmental improvement. We argue that the response patterns are consistent with simple political economy theories of democracy and autocracy.


Electricity consumption is accelerating due to economic and population growth. Hence, energy consumption prediction is becoming vital for overall consumption management and infrastructure planning. Recent advances in smart electric meter technology are making high-resolution energy consumption data available. However, many parameters influencing energy consumption are not typically monitored for residential buildings. Therefore, this study's main objective is to develop a data-driven energy consumption forecasting model (next-hour consumption) for residential houses solely based on analyzing electricity consumption data. This research proposes a deep neural network architecture that combines stationary wavelet transform features and convolutional neural networks. The proposed approach utilizes automatically extracted features from smart-meter readings by applying wavelet decomposition, convolution, and pooling operations. This study's findings have demonstrated the advantage of integrating wavelet features with convolutional neural networks to improve forecasting accuracy while automating feature extraction.


Silver- polyvinyl alcohol (Ag-PVA) nano composite dispersion have been synthesized by facile chemical reduction method. The film obtained from this dispersion shows to have particle size varying from 10-50 nm. This wide range of variation is supported by broadening of UV-Vis spectra also by the red shift in photoluminescence (PL) peakwith the increase in excitation wave length. The observed effect may be assigned to contribution of particle size towards optical transition.


This study details the first experiment conducted to couple the information relative to fossil fuel subsidies with the database and structure of the ICES CGE model developed at the CMCC, and to test the general performance of the model simulating their potential removal. Data for multi country and multi-fuel analysis derive from a "reconstruction process" based upon the price gap method, created by the IEA. The policy exercise consists in an instantaneous phasing out of existing subsidies in 2050. Removals are implemented imposing an ad valorem tax exactly equal to subsidies estimated by IEA (2009). We also compare our results with Burniaux and Chateau (2011) which conducted a similar analysis with the OECD ENV-Linkages model. Both models predict the expected decrease in CO2 emissions which is more pronounced in countries where the subsidy size is larger (Russian Federation, Former Soviet Union Countries and Oil exporting Countries). On the contrary the EU, where subsidies are small, increases its emissions due to a leakage effect. In the next phase of the research fossil fuel subsidies will be introduced explicitly in the price structure of ICES model.


The big challenges facing the search techniques on Gnutella-like peer-to-peer networks are search efficiency and quality of search results. In this paper, leveraging information retrieval (IR) algorithms such as Vector Space Model (VSM) and relevance ranking algorithms, we present GES (Gnutella with Efficient Search) to improve search performance. The key idea is that GES uses a distributed topology adaptation algorithm to organize semantically relevant nodes into same semantic groups by using the notion of node vector. Given a query, GES employs an efficient search protocol to direct the query to the most relevant semantic groups for answers, thereby achieving high recall with probing only a small fraction of nodes. To the best of our knowledge, GES is the first to identify node vector size as an important role in impacting search performance and to show that the node vector size offers a good trade-off between search performance and bandwidth cost. Moreover, GES adopts automatic query expansion and local data clustering to improve search performance. We show that GES is efficient and even outperforms the centralized node clustering system SETS. For example, in the scenario where node capacity is heterogeneous, GES can achieve 73 percent recall when probing only 20 percent nodes, outperforming SETS by about 18 percent.


Establishment of the functional pulmonary vasculature requires intimate interaction between the epithelium and mesenchyme. Previous genetic studies have led to inconsistent conclusions about the contribution of epithelial Wnts to pulmonary vasculature development. This discrepancy is possibly due to the functional redundancy among different Wnts. Here, we use Shh-Cre to conditionally delete Gpr177 (the mouse ortholog of Drosophila Wntless, Wls), a chaperon protein important for the sorting and secretion of Wnt proteins. Deletion of epithelial Gpr177 reduces Wnt signaling activity in both the epithelium and mesenchyme, resulting in severe hemorrhage and abnormal vasculature, accompanied by branching defects and abnormal epithelial differentiation. We then used multiple mouse models to demonstrate that Wnt/β-catenin signaling is not only required for the proliferation and differentiation of mesenchyme, but also is important for the maintenance of smooth muscle cells through the regulation of the transcription factor Kruppel-like factor 2 (Klf2). Together, our studies define a novel mechanism by which epithelial Wnts regulate the normal development and maintenance of pulmonary vasculature. These findings provide insight into the pathobiology of congenital lung diseases, such as alveolar capillary dysplasia (ACD), that have abnormal alveolar development and dysmorphic pulmonary vasculature.


To the Editor: We have read with interest the article by Wong et al. about the use of analgesics for residents in nursing homes in which they demonstrate that patients are either undertreated or treated with analgesics with potential side effects in elderly patients. However, we noted that, even though there is a high prevalence of pain secondary to fractures and musculoskeletal causes in their database, calcitonin, a known treatment for osteoporotic fractures, was not mentioned in the list of patterns of analgesic drug at baseline. Consequently, two questions come to mind. First, was it possible that some of the patients considered to be ''undertreated'' were actually being treated with calcitonin as the analgesic treatment for their pain associated to either osteoporotic fractures or musculoskeletal causes? Second, is it possible that physicians are not considering calcitonin as a choice for analgesic treatment in these specific situations? Salmon calcitonin provides an effective analgesic effect in several nonmalignant painful conditions that happen frequently in elderly patients, including sympathetic dystrophy syndrome, adhesive capsulitis, osteoporotic vertebral micro fractures, and evident crush fractures. Although its use in the treatment of osteoporosis remains controversial, several reports have documented its ability to bring rapid and effective relief, due most likely to the release of b endorphin. The effect is rapid, and the undesirable effects are infrequent. In summary, it would be interesting to know whether calcitonin was included as an analgesic treatment in Dr. Wong's database and whether this analgesic treatment is really known to be a safe and effective choice for specific indications such as osteoporotic fracture and musculoskeletal conditions that occur frequently in the nursing home population.


Even though in Italy there are strict environmental rules concerning pollution emissions by industrial plants, sometimes there are emissions into the atmosphere containing remarkable polluting gasses owing to anomalous situations of faulty operations of equipment in the loop of manufacturing or chemical processes. In these cases emissions of heavy gases reach dangerous polluting concentrations, as testified by the environmental steady stations situated in large areas around the plants, but only monitored when gases reach the stations; a period of time after the emission. In such cases, the knowledge in real time of the trend of pollution concentrations into the atmosphere and the location of zones with dangerous concentrations could enable the planning of environmental controls before pollution can cause health problems to the inhabitants of the affected area. With this aim in mind, a three dimensional model of fluidynamic diffusion was tested, which allows, by the knowledge of chemical–physics data of gaseous flows continuously measured through the opening of chimney stacks and by the meteorological conditions of the site, to forecast in a medium-large area both the spatial and temporal distribution of polluting concentrations. The experimental test has been carried out in the oil refinery of Gela (Italy) by the analysis coming from geometrical modelling of sites and by data coming from the tabulation of flows and chemical compositions of gases discharged by chimney stacks running the time, that is: mass flow-rate, velocity of discharging and composition of gasses, trends of meteorological conditions during the discharge phases. By comparison between spatial and temporal data of concentration forecasted by fluidynamic code "Airpak" and ones both registered by environmental steady station and measured in situ by portable surveying equipment, it has been possible to find standard deviations between "forecasted values of concentrations" and "measured values of concentrations". Standard deviations range between 7% and 13%, whilst the absolute values of variance do not exceed 5 K μg/m for tested gas. On the grounds of the research carried out, the aim of this paper is to show that the technique of data processing by fluidynamic 3D code can be used as a good tool to forecast the atmospheric gaseous pollution in medium and large-scale territories. This preventive knowledge could permit the planned interventions of authorities in time to avoid a hazard to health.


Abstract Chinese sovereign wealth funds SWFs continue to expand rapidly and have become increasingly active in real-time strategic transactions recently. They have focused not only on financial markets in developed countries, but they also concentrate on commodity investment in emerging markets (mainly in African or Central Asian markets). The main goal of this paper is to examine investment patterns and performance of two large Chinese sovereign wealth funds: the State Administration of Foreign Exchange Investment Company (SAFE IC) and the China Investment Corporation (CIC). In the absence of official data on the activities of the funds, the article is based largely on press releases relating to the operation of funds and corporate reports of the companies invested in by the Chinese SWFs. The paper presents sectoral and geographical directions of China's SWFs investment and tries to describe how the investment strategy of the aforementioned vehicles changed until mid-2013. The main limitation of the adopted methodology derives from the lack of information and poor transparency of the analysed vehicles. Moreover to obtain the correct information on the details of fund investments (size, value, date) each press release requires extensive verification.


Based on the Talreja's tensor valued internal state variables damage model and the Helmhotlz free energy of piezoelectric material, the constitutive relations of the piezoelectric plates with damage are derived. Then, the nonlinear dynamic equations of the piezoelectric plates considering damage are established. By using the finite difference method and the Newmark scheme, these equations are solved and the effects of damage and electric loads on the nonlinear dynamic response of piezoelectric plates are discussed.


Bankruptcy has a tort problem. Chapter 11 predictably subordinates the claims of tort and other involuntary creditors to those of financial lenders, a fact which encourages firms to rely excessively on secured debt and discount the interests of those they might incidentally harm. For this reason, many scholars have advocated changing repayment priorities to move tort creditors to the front of the line. But despite broad academic support for a new "super priority," the idea has yet to inspire legislative action.

This article proposes an alternative solution rooted in tort claims' temporal durability rather than their priority. Chapter 11 subordinates tort claims only because of a convention that assets should emerge free-and-clear of pre-petition debts if those who control the reorganization so elect. Bankruptcy courts could buck the convention and insist that tort claims follow a debtor's assets out of Chapter 11 unless a deal otherwise is struck. The theoretical insight motivating our proposal is that durability and priority are close substitutes. In broad strokes, a super-durability norm should produce similar effects to a super-priority rule. In some respects, using durability may in fact be superior. It could avoid the need for costly, inaccurate judicial efforts to estimate the extent of debtors' tort liability. It could also be implemented by judicial fiat and without new legislation. Whatever one thinks of implementation, taking claim durability seriously as a design variable raises questions—and extends recent debates—about when bankruptcy law needs to crystallize otherwise fluid legal relationships to achieve its ends.


In order to form thin metal sleeve with the thickness of 0.03 mm, type 304 austenitic steel sheet was deeply drawn to a cup and spinning method applied to its body. The sleeve shows high strength with a dual-phase microstructure of fine austenite and transformed martensite. Pancaked austenite and martensite grains were highly elongated along RD (drawing direction) in the layer structure, and their grain width was about 100 nm. Dynamically recovered austenite grains were highly aligned from {101} to {101}. The strain-induced martensite grains mainly showed two components of {001} and {111}. Recover and recrystallization of the sleeve appeared at the temperature from 873 K to 1073 K. Annealed at 1073 K the austenite grains were mostly recrystallized with intensifying {101}, and the martensite grains were also reverse-transformed to austenite.


Background: The prevalence of food sensitization in adults shows differences owing to geographic, regional and cultural circumstances. Objective: To identify the prevalence and factors associated with food sensitization in adults with allergic diseases. Methods: Cross-sectional study, where medical records of adult patients with any allergic disease and who tested positive to airborne allergens on at least one skin test were reviewed. Age, sex, underlying allergic disease and skin test result were recorded. Statistical analyses included food sensitization prevalence with the corresponding confidence intervals (CI), as well as a multivariate analysis to determine associated factors. Results: We included 258 patients with a mean of 36 years of age; 75 % were of the female sex. The most common underlying condition was allergic rhinitis (59 %). The prevalence of food sensitization was 37 % (95 % CI, 31.5-43.3) and it did not vary significantly according to sex or allergic disease in question. The most sensitizing food was soybeans (44.8 %), and associated factors were sensitization to cat dander (OR = 1.8; 95 % CI, 1.03-3.2) and 5 or more positive skin tests (OR = 4.3, 95 % CI 2.3-8.1). Conclusions: The prevalence of food sensitization in people with allergic disease was 40 %. Further studies are required to determine its prevalence in the general population.


Spend time in New York City and, soon enough, you will encounter some of the Japanese nationals who live and work there--young English students, office workers, painters, and hairstylists. New York City, one of the world's most vibrant and creative cities, is also home to one of the largest overseas Japanese populations in the world. Among them are artists and designers who produce cutting-edge work in fields such as design, fashion, music, and art. Part of the so-called "creative class" and a growing segment of the neoliberal economy, they are usually middle-class and college-educated. They move to New York for anywhere from a few years to several decades in the hope of realising dreams and aspirations unavailable to them in Japan. Yet the creative careers they desire are competitive, and many end up working illegally in precarious, low paying jobs. Though they often migrate without fixed plans for return, nearly all eventually do, and their migrant trajectories are punctuated by visits home. Japanese New York offers an intimate, ethnographic portrait of these Japanese creative migrants living and working in NYC. At its heart is a universal question--how do adults reinvent their lives? In the absence of any material or social need, what makes it worthwhile for people to abandon middle-class comfort and home for an unfamiliar and insecure life? Author Olga Sooudi explores these questions in four different venues patronized by New York's Japanese: a grocery store and restaurant, where hopeful migrants work part-time as they pursue their ambitions; a fashion designer's atelier and an art gallery, both sites of migrant aspirations. As Sooudi's migrant artists toil and network, biding time until they "make it" in their chosen industries, their optimism is complicated by the material and social limitations of their lives. The story of Japanese migrants in NYC is both a story about Japan and a way of examining Japan from beyond its borders. The Japanese presence abroad, a dynamic process involving the moving, settling, and return to Japan of people and their cultural products, is still underexplored. Sooudi's work will help fill this lacuna and will contribute to international migration studies, to the study of contemporary Japanese culture and society, and to the study of Japanese youth, while shedding light on what it means to be a creative migrant worker in the global city today.


Abstract Carbonate-evaporite cycles in the Mississippian (Osagean) Midale Beds of southeastern Saskatchewan were deposited over a shallow homoclinal ramp along the northern margin of the Williston Basin. Fourteen lithofacies, including nine limestone facies (C1 to C9), two dolostone facies (D1 and D2), and three anhydrite facies (A1 to A3), were identified from cores (46 wells) and geophysical well logs (750 wells) in the Steelman-Bienfait area. These lithofacies represent a range of subtidal to supratidal settings and are interpreted to be related to four transgressive-regressive parasequences (S1 to S4, in ascending order). Paleosols and microkarst features (T1) characterize parasequence boundaries and provide evidence for subaerial exposure. Oolitic grainstones and packstones were deposited as shore-parallel, shoals and barrier islands in the S2 and S3 parasequences along the western margin of the Steelman and Bienfait oilfields. Paleotopographic hinge-zones were an important control on the distribution of shoals, lagoons, algal marsh sediments, salinas and algal/ostracod mounds. Abrupt thickness changes and lateral, carbonate-evaporite facies transitions were observed across the hinge-zones. Facies distributions in the Midale Beds were related to sea level fluctuations, paleotopography, and the availability of accommodation space. Minor sea level fluctuations in this shallow ramp setting resulted in major lateral shifting of facies, significant migration of the paleocoastline, and periodic exposure of the upper to middle ramp environments, producing stratigraphic traps as exploration targets, in addition to the traditional sub-crop "plays" in the study area.


We introduce an environment we've developed that helps designers represent, model, and explore design tradeoffs at the architectural abstraction level and synthesize designs at the behavioral level. The Design Analysis and Synthesis Environment (DASE) accomplishes this by supporting design capture, design space exploration, and validation for the final design synthesis. DASE specifically caters to design capture via the Design Specification Language (DSL) description, exploration through simulation, and behavioral synthesis through a translator that produces VHDL output for behavior synthesis. DASE has a support library for telecommunication systems, although DASE's library support system can he reconfigured for other domains. We illustrate the various capabilities of DASE, such as specification capture, design exploration, software and hardware modeling, and synthesis. We discuss models based on Petri nets, summarize other DASE designs, and present results reflecting synthesized code sizes-the resulting executable descriptions of the hardware and software. >


Abstract A storm bearing close structural resemblance to a katafront was observed from the ground with microwave radiometry and a vertically pointing Ka-band radar over the Sierra Nevada of California. The onset and duration of supercooled liquid water was determined and matched to a split front model used to describe the synoptic features of a katafront. Results indicate that prior to the passage of the upper front no supercooled liquid water was observed. This portion of the storm provided the deepest cloud and coldest cloud tops. Supercooled liquid water was most prevalent after the upper front passage, and persisted until the suspected surface front passage. The duration of measured supercooled water was 16 hours. This information broadens the knowledge regarding the presence of supercooled liquid water, and thus possible seeding potential, within winter storms so that treatment can be confined to the period of storms amenable to cloud seeding. Future studies may well confirm the ease with which these...


This paper analyzes how on-the-job search (OJS) by an agent impacts the moral hazard problem in a repeated principal-agent relationship. OJS is found to constitute a source of agency costs because efficient search incentives require that the agent receives all gains from trade. Further, the optimal incentive contract with OJS matches the design of empirically observed compensation contracts more accurately than models that ignore OJS. In particular, the optimal contract entails excessive performance pay plus efficiency wages. Efficiency wages reduce the opportunity costs of work effort and hence serve as a complement to bonuses. Thus, the model offers a novel explanation for the use of efficiency wages. When allowing for renegotiation, the model generates wage and turnover dynamics that are consistent with empirical evidence. I argue that the model contributes to explaining the concomitant rise in the use of performance pay and in competition for high-skill workers during the last three decades.


THIS QUESTION IS PRETTY NAIVE, in that we all know that during overall growth and development connective tissue structures such as bone, ligaments, cartilage, and tendons will enhance their size to match the overall growth of the body (6). Several animal studies have documented that intense loading will enlarge tendon structures (1, 3), but they all required long periods of time before adaptation was observed and were done in animals that were constantly growing or were in their "childhood/adolescence." In adult humans, it has been much harder to document any increase in tendon structures, and whereas cross-sectional studies predominantly have shown differences in tendon size in men (10), longitudinal studies have only been able to demonstrate moderate increases in tendon cross-sectional areas of the patella tendon (11) and not of the Achilles tendon (4). Because it is shown that acute exercise increases collagen synthesis (8), it suggests that collagen degradation increases simultaneously and/or that increased collagen turnover does not result in any major new formation of assembled nonsoluble collagen in tendon structures. The study in this issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology by Legerlotz et al. (7) attempts to study the influence of different training types and vibration on tendon structures in animals. One of the strengths in the present study is its comprehensiveness in regard to determining both tendon morphological, biomechanical, and biochemical parameters simultaneously in a setup with many exercise perturbation. The combination of evaluating changes in protein expression and protein content of growth-modifying factors, together with the determination of mechanical properties of the tendon tissue, is important for the full understanding of tendon tissue adaptation. The study is not without limitations, in that the training protocols did not always reflect what humans would follow in their training regimens. Furthermore, the overall question one can be left with after this study is whether the so-called control group of animals was actually "forced" from training and thus represents a relative inactive group (2). If so, this would fit with the view that training as such only has small impact on tendon structures, whereas inactivity has a collagen synthesis inhibiting effect and thus that is what we see. If so, maybe tendons have the size they should have in adults, and what is needed is continuous activity throughout life to keep the tendons fit. Furthermore, the lesson to be learned is that there are many more aspects of connective tissue biology than


The ability of specifically immunized lymphoid cells to kill H-2 incompatible target tumor cells in tissue culture was shown to depend on the source of the lymphoid tissue (spleen versus lymph nodes). Marked cytotoxic effects were obtained with regional lymph node cells 7 to 10 days after primary immunization, whereas spleen cells from the same animals had little or no effect. Hyperimmunization did not decrease the cytotoxic efficiency of lymph node cells. Experiments were performed to test the possibility that the weak effect of spleen cells is a result of humoral antibody production, antagonizing the cell-bound immunity. Humoral antibodies were cytotoxic in vitro in the presence of complement only. Their effect was manifested after 2 hours, whereas immune lymph node cells did not require complement and cytotoxicity was not expressed until 24 to 48 hours' incubation. Tumor cell cultures treated with specific humoral antibodies in the absence of complement became resistant to the cytotoxic effect of subsequently added immune lymph node cells, while no such protection was seen when normal serum was added. Thus, humoral antibodies led to an "efferent" inhibition of cell-bound immunity in vitro, in analogy with previous results in vivo.


An efficient optic disk localization and segmentation are important tasks in an automated retinal image analysis system. General-purpose edge detection algorithms often fail to segment the optic disk due to fuzzy boundaries, inconsistent image contrast or missing edge features. This paper presents a method to automatically locate and boundary detect of the optic disk. The detection procedure comprises two independent methodologies. On one hand, a location methodology obtains a pixel that belongs to the OD using iterative thresholding method followed by Principal Component Analysis techniques (PCA) and, on the other hand, a boundary segmentation methodology estimates the OD boundary by applying region-based active contour model in a variational level set formulation (RSF). The method uses an improved geometric active contour model which can not only solve the boundary leakage problem but also is less sensitive to intensity inhomogeneity The results from the RSF method were compared with conventional optic disk detection using a geometric active contour models (ACM) and later verified with hand-drawn ground truth. Results indicate 89% accuracy for identification and 95.05% average accuracy in localizing the optic disc boundary.


Background: Tuberculosis is one of Iran's most significant infectious diseases, which with the advent of new and chronic diseases, is still known as the most threatening disease of human community. The goal of this research was to assess the result of TB treatment in western Iran (province of Kermanshah) and its associated factors during 2005 to 2017.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, all patients who had tuberculosis from 2005 to the end of 2017 were evaluated. Treatment outcomes were categorized into four domains of "treatment completion," "death," "treatment failure," and "recoveries" based on national guidelines, and factors affecting outcome were identified using univariate and multivariate logistic regression.
Results: Tuberculosis incidence was 15.21 in males and 14.32 in females per 100,000 individuals. The therapy result was almost uniform during the years investigated. 32.2% had extra pulmonary TB; 58.7% completed treatment; 9.9% died, and 4.1% had treatment failure. After controlling for key factors, the odds of completion of therapy in females were 1.1 (1.0-1.3) times greater than in males, and therapy failure and mortality caused by tuberculosis were also smaller in females than in males 0.6(0.4-0.8) and 0.5(0.3-0.7) respectively). HIV was the greatest variable in the prevalence of tuberculosis with 9.5 (5.8–16.8) times greater chances of death in HIV-positive people than those without HIV.
Conclusion: Given the high prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis and public health concerns, early screening and infection diagnosis, education and protective measures are suggested to prevent tuberculosis patients.
Keywords: Epidemiology, Tuberculosis, Tuberculosis treatment results, Iran.


The auditory nerve serves as the only excitatory input to neurons in the avian cochlear nucleus, nucleus magnocellularis (NM). NM neurons in immature animals are dependent upon auditory nerve signals; when deprived of them, many NM neurons die, and the rest atrophy. Auditory nerve terminals release glutamate, which can stimulate second messenger systems by activating a metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR). Therefore, it is possible that the effectors of mGluR-stimulated signal transduction systems are needed for NM neuronal survival. This study shows that mGluR activation in NM neurons attenuates voltage-dependent changes in [Ca2+]j. Voltage-dependent Ca2+ influx was also attenuated by increasing cAMP with forskolin, VIP, or 8-bromo-cAMP, indicating that mGluR activation may stimulate adenylate cyclase. The main results may be summarized as follows. NM neurons possess high voltage-activated Ca2+ channels that were modulated by quisqualate, glutamate, and (+/- )trans-ACPD, in that order of potency. Glutamatergic inhibition of Ca2+ influx was not blocked by L-AP3 or L-AP4, which antagonize the actions of mGluRs in other neural systems; it was blocked by serine-O- phosphate. Finally, the attenuation of voltage-dependent Ca2+ influx was duplicated by cAMP accumulators. Since NM neurons have high rates of spontaneous activity and higher rates of driven activity, the expression of this mGluR turns out to be very valuable: without it, [Ca2+]j could reach lethal concentrations. These results provide an important clue as to the identity of an intracellular signal that may play an important role in NM neuronal survival.


We compute the imaginary parts of genus-one string scattering
amplitudes. Following Witten's i\varepsiloniε
prescription for the integration contour on the moduli space of
worldsheets, we give a general algorithm for computing unitarity cuts of
the annulus, Möbius strip, and torus topologies exactly in
\alpha'α′.
With the help of tropical analysis, we show how the intricate pattern of
thresholds (normal and anomalous) opening up arises from the worldsheet
computation. The result is a manifestly-convergent representation of the
imaginary parts of amplitudes, which has the analytic form expected from
Cutkosky rules in field theory, but bypasses the need for performing
laborious sums over the intermediate states. We use this representation
to study various physical aspects of string amplitudes, including their
behavior in the (s,t)(s,t)
plane, exponential suppression, decay widths of massive strings, total
cross section, and low-energy expansions. We find that planar annulus
amplitudes exhibit a version of low-spin dominance: at any finite
energy, only a finite number of low partial-wave spins give an
appreciable contribution to the imaginary part.


Aims: To compare workload with previous years and compare time to treat with national standards. Methods: A prospective audit conducted in June 2018. A proforma was completed for each patient attending hand trauma clinic and hand trauma theatre. Findings were analysed using Excel and compared with data from previous years. Results: A total of 408 patients were seen in June. The number of operations has increased since 2011 and 2014 when previous audits were done. The majority of patients were operated on by a consultant on a planned hand theatre list. The regional block was the favoured mode of anaesthesia in the unit. Overall, our mean time from injury to surgery had increased to 5.6 days compared to 2.5 days in 2014. With regards to the national guideline of a tendon or nerve injury being referred to a hand trauma unit within 72 hours, we were meeting this target 89% of the time. Our mean time from injury to operative repair of a tendon or nerve was 4 days with a median of 5 days; the national guideline recommends operative repair of the tendon of nerve with 5-7 days. Conclusion: Most patients were managed conservatively but when they did undergo surgery, most cases were performed on a planned list under a regional block. We were meeting the national guidelines for the treatment of tendon and nerve injuries much of the time. However, the system may be at risk in the future because of the high volume of patients being seen and the inherent challenges of providing a service to a wide geographic area.


Background : Rapid development of shrimp aquaculture has resulted in widespread use of antibiotics for preventing and curing diseases. In aquaculture, particularly shrimp hatcheries antibiotics are routinely used at therapeutic levels to treat disease and at sub-therapeutic levels as prophylactic agents to increase feed efficiency. Antibiotic residues in the environment are likely to lead to the development and maintenance of antibiotic resistance in microbial populations. The aim of this study was determine of antibiotic resistance to two shrimp pathogens Vibrio harveyi , V.alginolyticus , that they are agents of mortality in shrimp hatcheries. Material and Methods: After isolation and detection(by biochemical tests) of two species of bacterial pathogens from three hatcheries of Bushehr province, bacterial strains were tested for sensitivity to antibiotics including erythromycin, streptomycin, oxytetracyclin, and trimetoprim by disk diffusion method. Results : Results showed that all isolated bacteria Vibrio harveyi from three hatcheries were sensitive to oxytetracyclin and trimetoprim, but to streptomycin were resistant, and to erythromycin in hatcheries A, B, C was intermediate, resistance, sensitive respectively. Bacteria Vibrio alginolyticus isolated from three hatcheries were resistant to streptomycin. But they isolated from a hatchery to the other antibiotics erythromycin, oxytetracyclin and trimetoprim were resistant, intermediate and intermediate, respectively. Also they isolated from B hatchery were resistant, sensitive and sensitive to erythromycin, oxytetracyclin and trimetoprim, respectively And from C hatchery were intermediate, sensitive and sensitive to antibiotics, respectively. Conclusion: Isolated bacteria showed the most resistance to streptomycin and erythromycin respectively. These antibiotics is used frequently in medicine and veterinary, with entrance of human and animal's bacteria resistance via waste and fluid water to the sea, maybe transferred the resistant plasmid from resistant bacteria to Vibrio spp .


When a rider maintains contact on the reins, rein tension will vary continuously in synchronicity with the horse's gait and stride. This continuous variation makes it difficult to isolate the rein tension variations that represent a rein tension signal, complicating interpretation of rein tension data from the perspective of horse-rider interaction. This study investigated (1) the characteristics of a rein tension signal and (2) horse response to a rein tension signal for backing, comparing pressure applied by a bit (bridle), or by a noseband (halter). Twenty Warmblood horses (10 young, 10 adult) wearing a rein tension meter were trained to step back in the aisle of a stable. The handler stood next to the horse's withers, applying tension on the reins until the horse stepped back. This was repeated eight times with the bridle and eight times with the halter. Data analysis was performed using mixed linear and logistic regression models. Horses displaying behaviors other than backing showed significantly increased response latency and rein tension. Inattentive behavior was significantly more common in the halter treatment and in young horses, compared with the bridle treatment and adult horses. Evasive behaviors with the head, neck, and mouth were significantly more common in the bridle treatment than in the halter treatment and the occurrence of head/neck/mouth behaviors increased with increasing rein tension and duration of the rein tension signal. When controlling for behavior, the horses responded significantly faster and to a lighter rein tension signal in the bridle treatment than in the halter treatment. By scrutinizing data on rein tension signals in relation to horse behavior and training exercise, more can be learnt about the horse's experience of the pressures applied and the timing of the release. This can assist in developing ways to evaluate rein tension in relation to correct use of negative reinforcement.


A bio-assay by means of the tube technique indicated whether an inadequate aeration or mechanical impedance excludes roots from the soil beneath the plow pan in a sandy loam. The soil profiles assayed had normal ABC horizonation or inverted CBA horizonation, with the top soil, horizon A, lying beneath the plow pan, horizon B. Half of the buried and half of the normal A horizons were compacted somewhat. A mulch made the temperature and moisture regimes in the unburied topsoil nearly equal to those in the buried. Prior fertilization tended to equalize the available nutrients. Tomato roots were inserted into the normal and the buried A horizons by means of plastic tubes. Subsequent observation showed that the roots were in fact restricted to the intended horizons. Since the tomato plants elongated as rapidly, flowered as soon, and weighed as much when their roots were grown in soil beneath the plow pan as when their roots roots were grown in soil above the pan, the plow pan is evidently not a significant barrier to soil aeration beneath it. Therefore, the blocking of the roots by the plow pan in this soil must be caused by the mechanical inpedance and not lack of aeration.


An experiment was carried out under greenhouse conditions to evaluate the effect of Arthrobotrys spp. on Meloidogyne incognita in tomato cv. Duke. Three inoculum levels of Arthrobotrys , 5, 10 and 15 ml/ plant, and two controls were evaluated. The fungus suspension was added to the seedbed and to the soil 30 days before M. incognita inoculation, Arthrobotrys applied to the seedbed at a rate of 15 ml was the best treatment and showed a significant variation in most of the variables evaluated when compared to the M. incognita control and to the absolute control.


Surgical resection has been the preferred treatment for meningiomas since the era of the pioneering neurosurgeon, Harvey Cushing. The great majority of these tumors are histologically benign, circumscribed lesions that grow slowly and tend to compress and displace, rather than invade, the surrounding intracranial structures. In contrast to the intrinsic brain tumors of glial origin, most meningiomas have well-defined borders, enabling the surgeon to dissect the tumor capsule from the arachnoid lining of the adjacent brain, blood vessels, and cranial nerves. Consequently, complete removal can be accomplished without needing to sacrifice functional tissue. In these cases, surgery is often curative, and associated with the preservation of, if not improvements in, the neurological condition.


The adverse impact of the energy production from fossil fuels is now well recognized globally; therefore, the move toward renewable and sustainable energy has become an integral part to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This chapter presents a comparative study considering a waste-to-energy plant to produce electricity in Oman. A research strategy that includes both qualitative and quantitate research methods were adopted to evaluate the MSW generation and emissions, electricity consumption and emissions, public participation in waste segregation, and to estimate the reduction in emission by considering a 5000 tons/day waste-to-energy plant in Oman. The results show that the current emission from fossil fuels to meet the electricity requirement of 70,633.37 Million kWh/year is 161.781 Million tonnes (CO2/year). Similarly, the emissions from MSW which currently stood at 2.159 million tons/year are 3,424,247 tons CO2/year. A 5000 ton per day waste-to-energy plant will not only produce 29.30 million kWh daily but will also enable an annual reduction of 24,527 million kg CO2. Such an initiative will help Oman to improve its sustainability performance in energy, climate change, waste reduction, and economic growth and will pave the road to achieve the relevant SDGs by 2030.


Abstract. This paper proposes a new model for multi-criteria evaluation under uncertain condition. In this model we consider the interaction between criteria as one of the most challenging issues especially in the presence of uncertainty. In this case usual pairwise comparisons and weighted sum cannot be used to calculate the importance of criteria and to aggregate them. Our model is based on the combination of non-additive fuzzy linguistic preference relation AHP (FLPRAHP), Choquet integral and Sugeno λ-measure. The proposed model capture fuzzy preferences of users and fuzzy values of criteria and uses Sugeno λ -measure to determine the importance of criteria and their interaction. Then, integrating Choquet integral and FLPRAHP, all the interaction between criteria are taken in to account with least number of comparison and the final score for each alternative is determined. So we would model a comprehensive set of interactions between criteria that can lead us to more reliable result. An illustrative example presents the effectiveness and capability of the proposed model to evaluate different alternatives in a multi-criteria decision problem.


In recognition of walking gait modes using surface electromyography (sEMG), the use of sEMG sensor array can provide sensor redundancy and less rigorous identification of sEMG electrode placements as compared to the conventional sEMG electrode placements right in the middle of muscle bellies. However, the potentially lesser discriminative and noisier sEMG signals from the sEMG sensor array pose the challenge in developing accurate and robust machine learning classifier for walking activity recognition. In this paper, we explore the use of convolution neural network (CNN) classifier with frequency gradient feature derived from EMG signal spectrogram for detecting different walking activities using an sEMG sensor array on thigh circumference. EMG dataset from five healthy subjects and an amputee for five walking activities namely walking at slow, normal and fast speed, ramp ascending and ramp descending are used to train and test the CNN-based classifier. Our preliminary findings suggest that frequency gradient feature can improve the CNN-based classifier performance for walking activity recognition using EMG sensor array on thigh circumference.


We present a multiscale model based on many-body Green's functions theory in the GW approximation and the Bethe–Salpeter equation (GW-BSE) for the simulation of singlet and triplet exciton transport in molecular materials. Dynamics of coupled electron–hole pairs are modeled as a sequence of incoherent tunneling and decay events in a disordered morphology obtained at room temperature from molecular dynamics. The ingredients of the rates associated to the events, i.e. reorganization energies, site energies, lifetimes, and coupling elements, are determined from a combination of GW-BSE and classical polarizable force field techniques. Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations are then employed to evaluate dynamical properties such as the excitonic diffusion tensor and diffusion lengths. Using DCV5T-Me(3,3), a crystalline organic semiconductor, we demonstrate how this multiscale approach provides insight into the fundamental factors driving the transport processes. Comparing the results obtained via different calculation models, we investigate in particular the effects of charge-transfer mediated high exciton coupling and the influence of internal site energy disorder due to conformational variations. We show that a small number of high coupling elements indicative of delocalized exciton states does not impact the overall dynamics perceptively. Molecules with energies in the tail of the excitonic density of states dominate singlet decay, independent of the level of disorder taken into account in the simulation. Overall, our approach yields singlet diffusion lengths on the order of 10 nm as expected for energetically disordered molecular materials.


Context: A popular form of pregnancy physical activity (PA) is prenatal yoga. However, little is known about the intensity and energy cost of this practice. Aims: To examine the energy cost and intensity level of prenatal yoga. Methods: Pregnant women in a prenatal yoga class (n = 19) wore a Sense Wear Armband during eleven 60 min classes each, and self-reported demographic variables, height and weight, prepregnancy weight, and PA behaviors and beliefs. Sense Wear Armband data included kilocalories, metabolic equivalent (MET) values, and time spent in various intensities. Descriptive statistics and frequencies were utilized to describe energy expenditure and intensity. Results: Energy expenditure averaged 109 ± 8 kcals, and the average MET value was 1.5 ± 0.02. On average, 93% and 7% of classes were sedentary and moderate intensity PA, respectively. Conclusions: Time spent in a prenatal yoga class was considered to be primarily a sedentary activity. Future research should utilize larger samples, practice type, and skill level to increase generalizability.


to the spread of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the world has encountered an ongoing pandemic to date. It is a highly contagious disease. In addition to the vaccination, social distancing and isolation of patients are proven to be one of the commonly used strategies to reduce the spread of disease. For efficient social distancing, contact tracing is a critical requirement in the incubation period of 14-days of the disease to contain any further spread. However, we identify that there is a lack of reliable and practical social interaction tracking methods and prediction methods for the probability of getting the disease. This paper focuses on user tracking and predicting the infection probability based on these social interactions. We first developed an energy-efficient BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) based social interaction tracking system to achieve this. Then, based on the collected data, we propose an algorithm to predict the possibility of getting the COVID-19. Finally, to show the practicality of our solution, we implemented a prototype with a mobile app and a web monitoring tool for healthcare authorities. In addition to that, to analyze the proposed algorithm's behaviour, we performed a simulation of the system using a graph-based model.


Shared resource contention has been a major performance issue for CMPs. In this paper we focus on power, which is one of the most valuable shared resources of CMPs. We believe it is important to study power contention, especially with the prevalence of power capping features among modern commercial microprocessors. When multiple processes compete for power in such systems, the power management system attempts to mitigate the contention (i.e., reduce the power consumption) by slowing down the processor, which results in degraded total system performance. We characterize this phenomenon using a real testbed with an Intel processor with power capping capability realized by the RAPL technology. We observe noticeable performance degradation for SPEC CPU2006, especially at tighter power caps. In order to solve this problem, we develop a shared resourceaware scheduling algorithm that improves system performance by mitigating the contention for power and the shared memory subsystem at the same time. Evaluation results across a variety of multiprogrammed workloads show performance improvements over a state-of-the-art scheduling policy which only considers memory subsystem contention. In addition, we present a guard mechanism implemented on top of the proposed scheduler that greatly improves performance when there is severe power contention that introduces performance anomalies.


For the last twenty years phenomenology has been an intensely discussed topic in prehistoric archaeology. The phenomenological way of thinking has taken steps to embrace an understanding of the past based on bodily experience in the world. However, this process has been rarely applied to medieval studies despite a much richer dataset. Phenomenology has initiated a number of discussions concerning how we can think about human experience in the past (the lived experience of the past). The phenomenological approach has been criticised for a lack of methodological robustness and for being overly subjective. In the same period archaeological computing has developed alternative frameworks for sensory interaction with the material evidence of the past, and with its varied interpretations. Its underlying methodologies have been similarly critiqued, and also interconnected with phenomenological and other models for experience. Critiques of archaeological computing have been asking the same questions as those of phenomenology: namely how do we deal with uncertainty and subjectivity when interpreting the archaeological record. In this thesis I suggest digital techniques in archaeological computing that can offer new routes to approaching human experience in the medieval past. I present two case studies that demonstrate alternative and complementary techniques to explore the notion and implementation of a digital "lived experience" of late medieval buildings. My first case study based at Bodiam Castle uses visualisation techniques to explore the lived experience of the private apartments. I propose a mixed media approach for the presentation of visualisations. In my second case study I move away from visual experience of medieval sites. I present an assessment of a series of auralizations of Ightham Mote. The conclusions demonstrate that digital techniques that work across senses can provide a robust mechanism for exploring the concept of lived experience, and for exploring the lived experience of specific medieval buildings.


Research on green synthesis in nanotechnology is a forthcoming field in the modern material science area. Potentiality utilization of metal and semiconductor nanoparticles is an area of vast research that makes them a suitable candidate for expanding highly innovative technologies. This study evaluated the effect of the drying method for leaves of the plant, Azadirachta indica on phytochemicals characteristics of extracts, bioactivity attributes and characteristics of nanoparticles (NPs) accommodating varied keen compounds. Synthesis of iron (Fe) nanoparticles was done using the green bottom-up method, in which aqueous extract of A. indica leaves acted as an extremely promising reducing and stabilizing agent. Various characterization techniques such as EDX (Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis), FESEM (Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy), FT-IR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy), UV-VIS spectroscopy, XRD (X-Ray Diffraction) crystallography, Zeta potential and sizer confirmed the fabrication of iron nanoparticles. The quantification results established that oven-dried leaves extract had a higher total phenolic content (108.23 mg GAE/g) and free radical scavenging capacity (250.165 mg GAE/g) than air-dried leaves extract. Characterization results endorsed that air-dried leaves extract acted as an advanced reducing agent that can swap the time consuming and perilous chemical synthesis of nanoparticles for a scalable formulation. The clear, intense XRD peaks revealed the crystalline nature of NPs, EDX results confirmed the purity of samples and finally, FT-IR analysis exhibited the presence of phytomolecules along with Fe NPs in final product obtained.


Recent years have tested the definition of the crime of genocide, with mass atrocities in the Balkans, Rwanda, and Sudan sparking controversy over their legal characterization, and with a proliferation of international criminal tribunals and the International Court of Justice called upon to adjudicate. At times, the focus on genocide has threatened to become a distraction, as if to label these crimes something other than genocide is to diminish their gravity, rendering their victims less victimized, or less worthy of international attention. Lurking behind the technical, definitional debates, moreover, is a deeper question regarding the very coherence of genocide as a distinct offense. Is the crime reducible to a normatively satisfying legal definition, one that identifies distinct harms deserving of separate legal recognition. Or perhaps is the symbolic weight of genocide more than the law can bear?The bulk of May's argument develops a qualified normative justification of genocide as a crime focused on a distinct harm: the loss of identity and status suffered by members of groups on account of efforts to destroy to the group. This justification, May argues, flows from his nominalist position that groups themselves have no independent ontological status and thus cannot be said to suffer harms. The unique harm of genocide, therefore, is one suffered by victims whose lives find meaning in the inter-subjective experience of group identity. The central difficulties in the law of genocide are not, of course, ones of May's making, and his book deserves credit for carefully revealing both the necessity of a normative justification and the complex nature of that project. Whether May succeeds in justifying the offense's group-based focus is a more debatable question. I suspect that May's readers may be equally inclined to abandon the idea of genocide as a meaningful legal concept, or perhaps to agree with David Luban that the concept of genocide must extend beyond group destruction to include all large scale massacres that are currently proscribed by the crime against humanity of extermination. In either event, Genocide: A Normative Account will be required reading for those pursuing these questions.


To reduce nitrate concentrations in vegetables grown under artificial lighting, we determined nitrate accumulation under various conditions of nitrate availability. Butterhead lettuce plants were grown with nutrient solutions of various concentrations, which were maintained according to electrical conductivity (EC) throughout the cultivation period. Under these conditions, growth in nutrient solutions with lower EC led to slight decreases in nitrate concentrations in leaves, but also decreased fresh and dry weights of shoots, leading to the risk of a yield loss under EC control management (ECM). By contrast, when total nitrate requirement was supplied only at the start of cultivation, nitrate concentrations in leaves were decreased significantly with only slightly reduced plant growth. Hence, marketable-sized butterhead lettuces with lower nitrate concentrations can be produced by supplying total nitrate requirements in the nutrient solution at the start of cultivation.


More and more people have to combine work and care responsibilities, and
work part-time or use daycare and after-school care facilities to help them do
so. The Work and Care Act, which came into force on 1 December 2001, combined
all the existing schemes - such as parental and maternity leave - and
introduced new schemes, such as paternity leave for fathers after the birth of
their child and care leave to nurse sick relatives on a short-term basis.
Besides these statutory rights to certain forms of leave, some collective
labour agreements and internal company agreements include arrangements for
part-time working, leave and childcare. Little is known about employees' need
for and use of work-care schemes. More information is needed for the proper
evaluation of government policy in this area.
Does Leave Work? reports the results of a large-scale representative
survey of people in paid employment who were asked about their need for and use
of the various schemes, and the factors that influence them.


This article uses classical notions of convex analysis over euclidean spaces, like Gale & Klee's boundary rays and asymptotes of a convex set, or the inner aperture directions defined by Larman and Brondsted for the same class of sets, to provide a new zero duality gap criterion for ordinary convex programs. On this ground, we are able to characterize objective functions and respectively feasible sets for which the duality gap is always zero, re- gardless of the value of the constraints and respectively of the objective function.


A group of seven patients with increased transradiancy of one lung included four with chronic bronchitis. The function of the two lungs combined was assessed by measurement of the lung volumes, airway resistance, and carbon monoxide uptake at rest, and by measurement of pulmonary ventilation, gas exchange, blood gases, and cardiac output at rest and during steady state exercise. The contribution of the hypertransradiant lung to the overall functional abnormalities at rest was estimated using a radioactive gas technique. All the patients had airway obstruction. Pulmonary gas exchange was only mildly affected at rest because of equal reduction of ventilation and perfusion in the abnormal lung, but during exercise ventilation-perfusion inequality increased in some of the patients. Cardiac output was low in five patients during exercise and in four there was excessive lactate production. The greatest physiological abnormalities were seen in two of the chronic bronchitics who had abnormalities of ventilation and perfusion in both lungs. We suggest that a pulmonary vascular abnormality resulting in reduced cardiac output, as well as ventilatory impairment due to airway obstruction, may contribute to the limited exercise capacity of these patients.


Steady-state potential and current distributions resulting from internal injection of current in the squid giant axon have been measured experimentally and also computed from nonlinear membrane cable equation models by numerical methods, using the Hodgkin-Huxley equations to give the membrane current density. The solutions obtained by this method satisfactorily reproduce experimental measurements of the steady-state distribution of membrane potential. Computations of the input current-voltage characteristic for a nonlinear cable were in excellent agreement with measurements on axons. Our results demonstrate the power of Cole's equation to extract the nonlinear membrane characteristics simply from measurement of the input resistance.


Following the acquisition of Axwell Hall, a Grade II* listed building (IoE Number 303771), by Development and Regeneration Excellence (Northern) Ltd (DARE), who
proposed to restore the house and convert it to residential apartments, an archaeological building recording programme was recommended by Jennifer Morrison, the Tyne and Wear Archaeology Officer. This was to assess the significance of the building, provide a permanent record of the structure prior to redevelopment and to inform the proposed conservation and conversion process.
Historical research aimed at providing better understanding of the development of the building was also recommended.
The investigation comprised a detailed survey of the building in order to provide an outline of its form, development, and phases of alteration. Following the completion of this investigation recommendations for further investigation were made, including further inspection of the rear wing and terrace during any future development. It was
recommended that conversion of the building be carried out with due regard for the character and importance of the house (OA North 2004).


Companies are incurring enormous losses from the misappropriation of their trade secrets. In a 2002 survey of more than 130 firms, 40% reported actual or suspected losses, and the data suggest the true figure might be significantly higher. The study also estimated that the companies represented by the survey participants ? the Fortune 1000 corporations and 600 additional small and medium-sized companies ? were likely to have experienced trade-secret and other intellectual-property losses of more than $50 billion during a one-year period. Research has shown that the biggest threat to a company?s trade secrets comes not from spying competitors but from within: current and former employees. Consequently, the protection of trade secrets is largely a managerial issue, and firms need to take the appropriate measures to ensure that employees keep trade secrets from leaking. But many organizations make a number of crucial missteps, sometimes failing to implement the right precautions or relying on a well-intentioned but ineffective practice ? or worse, a wrongheaded policy that only leads to more information being divulged. The following are the most common mistakes: giving short shrift to new-employee orientations, not communicating regularly with employees, signaling to employees that they aren?t trusted, punishing instead of helping employees, not practicing what is preached, forgetting to clarify who owns ideas, defining the scope of trade secrets too narrowly and failing to address the subject of departing employees. By avoiding such mistakes, companies can help ensure that their trade secrets indeed stay secret.


According to the European Council decision of February 2011, the process of creating the European Union's internal gas market should be completed by the end of 2014. Therefore, it is worth summarising the changes which have taken place in the gas markets of Central Europe so far. The past few years have seen not only a period of gradual 'marketisation' of the national gas sectors, but also the building of new gas infrastructure, a redrawing of the gas flow map, and changes in the ownership of the Central European gas companies. Another change in Central Europe is the fact that individual states and companies are moving away from their traditional focus on their national gas markets; instead, they are beginning to develop a variety of concepts for the regional integration of Central European markets. This publication attempts to grasp the main elements of the ongoing transformation of Central Europe's gas markets, with particular emphasis on the situation in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.


In this study, we develop graphitic carbon-water nonbonded interaction parameters entirely from ab initio calculation data of interaction energies between graphene and a single water molecule. First, we employ the Møller-Plesset perturbation theory of the second order (MP2) method to compute the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)-water interaction energies, with proper size of basis sets and energy component analysis to extrapolate to infinite-sized graphene limit. Then, we develop graphitic carbon-water interaction parameters based on the MP2 data from this work and the ab initio data available in the literature from other methods such as random-phase approximation (RPA), density functional theory-symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (DFT-SAPT), and coupled cluster treatment with single and double excitations and perturbative triples (CCSD(T)). The accuracy of the interaction parameters is evaluated by predicting water contact angle on graphite and carbon nanotube (CNT) radial breathing mode (RBM) frequency shift and comparing them with experimental data. The interaction parameters obtained from MP2 data predict the CNT RBM frequency shift that is in good agreement with experiments. The interaction parameters obtained from RPA and DFT-SAPT data predict the contact angles and the CNT RBM frequency shift that agree well with experiments. The interaction parameters obtained from CCSD(T) data underestimate the contact angles and overestimate the CNT RBM frequency shift probably due to the use of small basis sets in CCSD(T) calculations.


We address the problem of network pruning for extending the service life of satellites in LEO constellations. Satellites in LEO constellations can spend over 30 % of their time under the earth's umbra, time during which they are powered by batteries. While the batteries are recharged by solar energy, the depth of discharge they reach during eclipse significantly affects their lifetime—and by extension, the service life of the satellites themselves. For batteries of the type that power Iridium satellites, a 15 % increase to the depth of discharge can practically cut their service lives in half. In this paper, we present the design and evaluation of two forms of network pruning schemes that reduce the energy consumption of LEO satellite network. First, we propose a new lightweight traffic-agnostic metric for quantifiying the quality of a frugal topology, the Adequacy Index (ADI). After showing that the problem of minimizing the power consumption of a LEO network subject to a given ADI threshold is NP-hard, we propose heuristcs to solve it. Second, we propose traffic-aware metric for quantifiying the quality of a frugal topology, the maximum link utilization (MLU). Also, with the problem being NP-hard subject to a given MLU threshold, we propose heuristics to solve it. We evaluate both forms using realistic LEO topologies and traffic matrices. Results show that traffic-agnostic pruning and traffic-aware pruning can increase the satellite service life by as much as 85 and 80 %, respectively. This is accomplished by trading off very little in terms of average path length and congestion.


The liver is a complex organ which requires constant perfusion for delivery of nutrients and oxygen and removal of waste in order to survive. Efforts to recreate or mimic the liver microstructure with grounds up approach using tissue engineering and microfabrication techniques have not been successful so far due to this design challenge. In addition, synthetic biomaterials used to create scaffolds for liver tissue engineering applications have been limited in inducing tissue regeneration and repair in large part due to the lack of specific cell binding motifs that would induce the proper cell functions. Decellularized native tissues such blood vessels and skin on the other hand have found many applications in tissue engineering, and have provided a practical solution to some of the challenges. The advantage of decellularized native matrix is that it retains, to an extent, the original composition, and the microstructure, hence enhancing cell attachment and reorganization. In this work we describe the methods to perform perfusion-decellularization of the liver, such that an intact liver bioscaffold that retains the structure of major blood vessels is obtained. Further, we describe methods to recellularize these bioscaffolds with adult primary hepatocytes, creating a liver graft that is functional in vitro, and has the vessel access necessary for transplantation in vivo.


: The influence of stresses of various etiology (prolonged isolation, inescapable electrostimulation) on the antiaggressive effect of anxiolytics was studied in outbread white male rats. It was established that, in contrast to the anticonflict effect (decreasing under the action of stress), then antiaggressive action of the drugs studied (diazepam, phenazepam, clonazepam, alprazolam) exhibits qualitative changes. In the absence of stress, the threshold of aggressive reaction is low and anxiolytics increase this level. Under the action of stress, the threshold of aggressive reaction increases, and the same drugs reduce this threshold to the normal level, thus producing proaggressive action. The degree of changes and the rate of restoration of the initial activity depend on the efficacy of anxiolytics, the strength and duration of stress, and on the duration of drug administration during the stress aftereffect. A possible mechanism of this phenomenon can be the interaction of the GABA-benzodiazepine and opiate endogenous systems.


When data maintained in a decentralized fashion needs to be synchronized or exchanged between different databases, related data sets usually get associated with a unique identifier. While this approach facilitates cross-domain data exchange, it also comes with inherent drawbacks in terms of controllability. As data records can easily be linked, no central authority can limit or control the information flow. Worse, when records contain sensitive personal data, as is for instance the case in national social security systems, such linkability poses a massive security and privacy threat. An alternative approach is to use domain-specific pseudonyms, where only a central authority knows the cross-domain relation between the pseudonyms. However, current solutions require the central authority to be a fully trusted party, as otherwise it can provide false conversions and exploit the data it learns from the requests. We propose an (un)linkable pseudonym system that overcomes those limitations, and enables controlled yet privacy-friendly exchange of distributed data. We prove our protocol secure in the UC framework and provide an efficient instantiation based on discrete-logarithm related assumptions.


DIVERSE PROVIDERS OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN BANGLADESH This policy brief on diverse providers of primary education in Bangladesh analyses the role of a range of different providers of education in the country. Drawing upon policy documents, literature as well as empirical research, it argues that official policies need to recognise the existing and potential future role of these diverse providers of education for achieving EFA. Sector Wide Approaches to Education and the next Primary Education Development Plan need to bring diverse providers of education into a coherent national policy framework. This policy brief is based on the CREATE Monograph "Debating Diversity in Access to Primary Education in Bangladesh" (Pathways to Access Series, No. 34) written by Zia-Us-Sabur and Manzoor Ahmed.


We present ManifoldPlus, a method for robust and scalable conversion of triangle soups to watertight manifolds. While many algorithms in computer graphics require the input mesh to be a watertight manifold, in practice many meshes designed by artists are often for visualization purposes, and thus have non-manifold structures such as incorrect connectivity, ambiguous face orientation, double surfaces, open boundaries, self-intersections, etc. Existing methods suffer from problems in the inputs with face orientation and zero-volume structures. Additionally most methods do not scale to meshes of high complexity. In this paper, we propose a method that extracts exterior faces between occupied voxels and empty voxels, and uses a projection-based optimization method to accurately recover a watertight manifold that resembles the reference mesh. Compared to previous methods, our methodology is simpler. It does not rely on face normals of the input triangle soups and can accurately recover zero-volume structures. Our algorithm is scalable, because it employs an adaptive Gauss-Seidel method for shape optimization, in which each step is an easy-to-solve convex problem. We test ManifoldPlus on ModelNet10 and AccuCity datasets to verify that our methods can generate watertight meshes ranging from object-level shapes to city-level models. Furthermore, through our experimental evaluations, we show that our method is more robust, efficient and accurate than the state-of-the-art. Our implementation is publicly available.


ABbTRACT Tradit_onal tests fall into two categories, both of whirth have several advantages and disadvantages that need to be considered when determining the type of test to use. Constructed-response tests, such as essay tests, ask students to construct their own responses. Thus, students are required not only to recall but to organize and often apply knowledge. On the other hand, selected-response tests, such as multiple choice tests, ask students to select an answer between or among alternatives. While questions for constructed-response tests are relatively easy to prepare, they are much more difficult to grade and often contain relatively few questions. One of the advantages to constructed-response tests is that responses are less affected by guessing, and clues about students' thought processes can be provided. Selected-response tests require much more time to create, but scoring is much easier. One major advantage of these tests is for measuring knowledge of specific facts. Essay and written retellings are the most common of the constructed-response item types. Other types of constructed-response test are the cloze, completion, and short answer items. Special caution should be taken when using cloze tests to measure reading ability, since the reading act itself seems to be disrupted by cloze testing. Selected-response items include true/false or alternate response, matching, and multiple choice. While there are several basic problems and limitations surrounding all types of assessments, many problems can be attributed not just to the test itself, but to misuse of the test. (Twenty references are attached.) (RS)


Technology that is increasingly sophisticated is very influential in human life. Countless types of technology can be found in this modern era. One example of a very popular technology is gadgets. Psychologically, gadgets are easy to create addiction, game facilities that exist in the gadget make children always challenged to reach a higher level. Waste and especially on the eyes that are always used to view gadgets for a long time and without rest can result in asthenopia or tired eyes. Namely, the pupils are slow to react to light, so there is a decrease in visual acuity. The design used in this study is an analytic correlation with cross-sectional approach. The population in this study were all 4-5 graders at Mlirip II Elementary School in Mojokerto. The sampling technique is to use total sampling, that is, the entire population is used as a sample, which is 95 respondents. The results of this study are the fit model, namely the model interpreting the influence between duration, frequency and type of gadget on visual acuity. The duration and frequency of gadget usage significantly affect visual acuity. While for this type of gadget is not significant and does not affect visual acuity. If the duration of gadget usage increases, the decrease in visual acuity ratio increases by 5,299 times. If the frequency of gadget usage increases, the ratio of decreased visual acuity increases by 5,986 times. The level of accuracy of the model in this study was 85.3%. Eye disease problems in children can be prevented by early detection to find out the vision status in children supported by eye examination as a measuring instrument, namely snallen card (Snellen card).


Finding or tracking the location of an object accurately is a crucial problem in defense applications, robotics and computer vision. Radars fall into the spectrum of high-end defense sensors or systems upon which the security and surveillance of the entire world depends. There has been a lot of focus on the topic of Multi Sensor Tracking in recent years, with radars as the sensors. The Indian Air Force uses a Multi Sensor Tracking (MST) system to detect flights pan India, developed and supported by BEL(Bharat Electronics Limited), a defense agency we are working with. In this paper, we describe our Machine Learning approach, which is built on top of the existing system, the Air force uses. For purposes of this work, we trained our models on about 13 million anonymized real Multi Sensor tracking data points provided by radars performing tracking activity across the Indian air space. The approach has shown an increase in the accuracy of tracking by 5 percent from 91 to 96. The model and the corresponding code were transitioned to BEL, which has been tested in their simulation environment with a plan to take forward for ground testing. Our approach comprises of 3 steps: (a) We train a Neural Network model and a CatBoost model and ensemble them using a Logistic Regression model to predict one type of error, namely Splitting error, which can help to improve the accuracy of tracking. (b) We again train a Neural Network model and a CatBoost model and ensemble them using a different Logistic Regression model to predict the second type of error, namely Merging error, which can further improve the accuracy of tracking. (c) We use cosine similarity to find the nearest neighbour and correct the data points, predicted to have Splitting/Merging errors, by predicting the original global track of these data points.


PURPOSE
The successful implementation of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in the clinical management of various solid tumors has raised considerable expectations for patients with epithelial ovarian carcinoma (EOC). However, EOC is poorly responsive to ICIs due to immunological features including limited tumor mutational burden (TMB) and poor lymphocytic infiltration. An autologous dendritic cell (DC)-based vaccine (DCVAC) has recently been shown to be safe and to significantly improve progression-free survival (PFS) in a randomized Phase II clinical trial enrolling patients with EOC (SOV01, NCT02107937).

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
We harnessed sequencing, flow cytometry, multispectral immunofluorescence microscopy, immunohistochemistry to analyze (pre-treatment) tumor and (pre-treatment and post-treatment) peripheral blood samples from 82 patients enrolled in SOV01, with the aim of identifying immunological biomarkers that would improve the clinical management of patients with EOC treated with DCVAC.

RESULTS
Although higher-than-median TMB and abundant CD8+ T cell infiltration were associated with superior clinical benefits in patients with EOC receiving standard-of-care chemotherapy, the same did not hold true in women receiving DCVAC. Conversely, superior clinical responses to DCVAC were observed in patients with lower-than-median TMB and scarce CD8+ T cell infiltration. Such responses were accompanied by signs of improved effector functions and tumor-specific cytotoxicity in the peripheral blood.

CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest that while patients with highly infiltrated, "hot" EOCs benefit from chemotherapy, women with "cold" EOCs may instead require DC-based vaccination to jumpstart clinically relevant anticancer immune responses.


The mineral and trace elements of Kargı Tulum cheese are investigated during the ripening period of 90 days. Calcium, potassium, phosphorus, sodium, magnesium, manganese, copper, zinc and iron quantities were determined by simultaneous inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The effect of maturation time on the sodium, phosphor and potassium content of cheese samples has been found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). Magnesium and calcium levels during ripening period showed significant statistical difference (p<0.01). Copper values of cheese samples demonstrated an increase throughout 90-day maturation time. The effect of maturation time on manganese and zinc value has been found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). According to obtained data, by consuming 100 g Kargı Tulum cheese in daily period, an adult can provide a remarkable portion of his/her minerals needs.


The appearance of the brailed rig and loose–footed sail at the end of the Late Bronze Age revolutionized seafaring in the eastern Mediterranean. The most famous early appearance of this new technology is found in history's first visual representation of a naval battle, on the walls of Ramesses III's mortuary temple at Medinet Habu, where both Egyptian and Sea Peoples ships are depicted with this new rig, as well as top– mounted crow's nests and decking upon which shipborne warriors do battle. The identical employment of these innovative components of maritime technology by opposing forces in this battle suggests either some level of previous contact between the invaders and those responsible for designing and constructing Egypt's ships of war, or shared interaction with a third party, perhaps on the Syro–Canaanite coast. This article examines the evidence for the development of the brailed rig in the eastern Mediterranean, and explores the possibility that at least one group of Sea Peoples, who may have comprised a key part of the international economy of the Late Bronze Age in their role as "pirates, raiders, and traders" (Georgiou 2012: 527) – Artzy's "nomads of the sea" (1997) – played a similarly integral role in the transference of maritime technology between the Levant, Egypt, and the Aegean.