The campaign that succeeded in pushing Britain out of the European Union focused on the perceived threat of unrestricted inward migration, obscuring the fact that over a million British citizens took advantage of open borders to settle in Europe. Post-Brexit, Britons no longer are entitled to automatic EU citizenship. The exit agreement secured the legal basis for their continued residency, but their rights remain uncertain.


Aims: Use of an electronic nose (e.nose) system to differentiation between anaerobic bacteria grown in vitro on agar media.
 Methods and Results: Cultures of Clostridium spp. (14 strains) and Bacteroides fragilis (12 strains) were grown on blood agar plates and incubated in sampling bags for 30 min before head space analysis of the volatiles. Qualitative analyses of the volatile production patterns was carried out using an e.nose system with 14 conducting polymer sensors. Using data analysis techniques such as principal components analysis (PCA), genetic algorithms and neural networks it was possible to differentiate between agar blanks and individual species which accounted for all the data. A total of eight unknowns were correctly discriminated into the bacterial groups.
 Conclusions: This is the first report of in vitro complex volatile pattern recognition and differentiation of anaerobic pathogens.
 Significance and Impact of the Study: These results suggest the potential for application of e.nose technology in early diagnosis of microbial pathogens of medical importance.


Signal transduction pathways play important roles in cell differentiation, proliferation, and survival. Specific protein-protein interactions mediate the assemblies of protein complexes in response to different signals therefore regulate the proper transmission of cellular signals. Inappropriate protein-protein interactions within signalling pathways can lead to many diseases, including cancer. Proteomics-based approaches, which enable the quantitative investigation of protein-protein interactions involved in signalling networks, provide us with techniques to define the molecules controlling various signalling pathways. The small GTPase Rap1 belongs to the Ras family and shares high similarity with Ras protein. Rap1 cycles between an inactive GDP-bound state and an active GTP-bound state. This cycle is regulated by guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs), such as Epac and GTPase activating proteins (GAPs), such as Rap1GAP. The most well-established processes where Rap1 is involved in include integrin-mediated adhesion and cadherin-mediated cell-cell adhesion. The GEFs are regulated by second messengers and are part of a protein-protein network, which regulates their temporal and spatial activities. The objective of the work described in this thesis was to investigate how Rap1 signaling pathway is regulated and to identify and characterize signaling proteins that direct the Rap1 pathway. In chapter 2, we studied the relation between AF6 and Rap1. We show that the overexpression of AF6 inhibits Rap1 induced adhesion. In addition, knocking-down the endogenous AF6 increases adhesion. These results show that in Jurkat T cells, AF6 functions to buffer GTP-Rap in resting cells and negatively regulates Rap1 function. In chapter 3 we analyze three Rap-like pseudogenes (mRap1A-retro1, mRap1A-retro2 and hRap1B-retro) in mouse and human genome. We show that all three retrogenes are expressed and encode functional proteins. These proteins appeared to stay more in a GTP-bound state compared to wild type Rap1. More interestingly, they exhibit clear differences in their ability to induce cell adhesion and spreading. To gain more insight in the protein interaction network, which controls the spatial and temporal organisation of Rap specific GEFs we performed yeast two-hybrid screens using Epac and PDZ-GEF as baits. This is described in chapter 4 addendum. A general summary of the results is given and candidate proteins were discussed. In chapter 4 and chapter 5 we characterized in detail the interaction between ERM (Ezrin-Radixin-Moesin) proteins and Epac1. We show that both Ezrin and Radixin interact with Epac1 in an activation-dependent manner. The Ezrin/Radixin binding region was identified in the N-terminus of Epac1. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this region is also required for the localization of Epac1 at microvilli in fully polarized cells. We show that Ezrin couples the activation of the ?-adrenergic receptor to Rap1 signalling via the recruitment of Epac1. In chapter 5 a novel Radixin mutant was characterized. This mutant Radixin in which both I577 and F580 are substituted for aspartic acids fulfils the classical criteria of being in an active state. Interestingly, active Radixin facilitates Rap1 activation and Rap1 mediated adhesion.


This thesis describes an approach for automated detection of concurrent liveness failures in the execution of Java programs. Concurrent programs are highly prone to failure because of the inherent nondeterminism. Developers of concurrent Java programs are not well supported in detecting concurrency failures, i.e. failures that are due to interactions between multiple threads. These failures are neither well documented nor do tools like debuggers allow developers to identify them at runtime. This thesis analyses and classifies liveness failures, a special kind of concurrency failures, and the associated potentials in Java. A UML statechart is developed that models the interaction of Java threads. Liveness failures and potentials are specified formally in terms of the states controlling the interaction of threads and in terms of the events exchanged by interacting threads. Detection algorithms are developed to identify the specified failures in a program execution. A UML profile extending UML interaction diagrams is developed to visualise the execution of concurrent Java programs and detected liveness failures and potentials. In order to deploy the algorithms and the UML profile, tool support concepts are provided. This involves the specification of a trace format and a tracing method to collect execution data from a running Java program, and the specification of methods to analyse the trace and to visualise the trace and the analysis results. The concepts are implemented in the JAVIS prototype, which consists of a Java tracer with an analysis facility for monitoring liveness in concurrent Java programs, and a plug-in extension to the UML CASE tool Together for importing and displaying concurrent Java traces including failures and potentials.


Background: In New York, Medicaid began covering diabetes self-management education and support (DSMES) services in 2009, but participation in these services remains low. This study sought to understand barriers and facilitators to referring and enrolling eligible Medicaid members to DSMES, and to yield recommendations for increasing referrals and enrollment.
 Methods: We conducted 14 virtual focus groups with primary care providers, endocrinologists, and certified diabetes care and education specialists (CDCESs) in New York City and the rest of the state. We used an inductive-deductive coding process to identify common themes and recommendations across participant types.
 Results: Participants recommended resources for addressing knowledge gaps about the benefits of DSMES and how to refer eligible Medicaid members: an online resource guide and directory of accredited services by location and insurance type; automated provider prompts; materials for exam rooms; and reimbursement guidance. Recommended strategies for disseminating resources to increase provider and patient awareness of DSMES included an advertising campaign targeting physicians and people with diabetes; academic detailing; e-mail blasts from credible sources (e.g., health department, Medicaid) ; and direct outreach (e.g., personal phone calls) to eligible Medicaid members.
 Conclusions: Increasing participation in DSMES hinges upon increasing provider referrals and addressing barriers to participation. CDCESs in NY reported limited capacity to provide DSMES to referred patients in a timely manner, highlighting a need to expand the workforce to meet current and future demands should referrals increase with improved awareness and buy-in. Although the strategies and recommendations identified in this study reflect the perspectives of NY providers, they may have broad applicability to other states in which Medicaid covers DSMES.

 L.Arena: None. N.S.Esquivel: None. R.Austin: None. S.Millstein: None. J.Kaelin-kee: None.

 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC NU58DP006523)


The MR imaging findings in two patients with the clinical diagnosis of oculomotor apraxia are presented. Both cases showed dysgenesis of the cerebellar vermis, and the colliculi were fused in one patient. No supratentorial abnormalities were seen in either patient.


This book covers mass media and the sensational crime.Centered on a series of dramatic murders in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Richmond, Virginia, "The Body in the Reservoir" uses these gripping stories of crime to explore the evolution of sensationalism in southern culture.In Richmond, as across the nation, the embrace of modernity was accompanied by the prodigious growth of mass culture and its accelerating interest in lurid stories of crime and bloodshed. But while others have emphasized the importance of the penny press and yellow journalism on the shifting nature of the media and cultural responses to violence, Michael Trotti reveals a more gradual and nuanced story of change. In addition, Richmond's racial makeup (one-third to one-half of the population was African American) allows Trotti to challenge assumptions about how black and white media reported the sensational; the surprising discrepancies offer insight into just how differently these two communities experienced American justice.An engaging look at the connections between culture and violence, this book gets to the heart - or perhaps the shadowy underbelly - of the sensational as the South became modern.


Desulphovibrio desulphuricans (strain El Agheila Z) oxidized malate, fumarate, succinate, lactate and pyruvate quantitatively to acetate in cultures containing excess sulphate. Polysaccharide accumulated in old cultures.
Cell suspensions harvested from malate media yielded theoretical amounts of sulphide and CO2 from malate, fumarate or succinate+ excess sulphate. Succinate was formed transiently during malate oxidation. Various inorganic sulphur-containing anions, methylene blue or oxygen acted as alternative hydrogen acceptors to sulphate for malate oxidation. In the absence of sulphate, malate was metabolized yielding acetate, CO2 and succinate in the molar ratio 3 malate → 2 succinate+ 2CO2+ acetate; in hydrogen, malate or fumarate were partly reduced to succinate. Malate or fumarate accelerated the reduction of sulphate, but not dithionite, in hydrogen. Suspensions treated with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide formed fumarate and lactate+ CO2 from malate. Fumarate was formed via a reversible fumarase: lactate was formed via a decarboxylase system independent of cozymase, Mn++, cocarboxylase or codecarboxylase.
Cell suspensions harvested from lactate media yielded theoretical amounts of sulphide and CO2 from lactate or pyruvate+ excess sulphate. In the presence of arsenite, pyruvate was formed from lactate; pyruvate formation was demonstrated with another strain.
Suspensions of strain California 43:63 harvested from lactate media reduced fumarate in H2 quantitatively to succinate; crotonate, maleate or acetylene-dicarb-oxylate were not reduced; malate was reduced slowly.
Hence the reaction sequence: succinate ⇌ fumarate ⇌ malate ⇌ lactate ⇌ pyruvate ⇌ acetate probably takes place in these bacteria: a reversible succinate ⇌ fumarate system may form a link between sulphate reduction and the oxidation of organic compounds or hydrogen.


The aim of this study was to extend allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation to leukemia patients without a matched donor. To prevent graft failure, large doses of T cell-depleted hematopoietic stem cells were transplanted following a highly myeloablative and immunosuppressive conditioning regimen. Fifteen children with high-risk acute leukemia received T cell-depleted hematopoietic stem cells from full-haplotype mismatched family members after a conditioning regimen that included single-dose TBI, thiotepa, ATG and fludarabine. To prevent GVHD, marrow cells were T-depleted by soybean agglutinin and E-rosetting, peripheral blood cells by E-rosetting followed by positive selection of the CD34+ cells. No post-transplant prophylaxis for GVHD was administered. In all patients full donor-type engraftment was achieved. None of the evaluable patients developed either acute or chronic GVHD. Regimen-related toxicity was minimal. Five patients are alive and event-free at a median follow-up of 18 months (range 13-28). All surviving patients have a good quality of life. Seven patients have relapsed. This study shows that GVHD and graft failure, which limited the use of full-haplotype mismatched bone marrow transplants, have been overcome. Since almost all children have a mismatched relative, advances in this area should make mismatched transplants a routine consideration for patients with high-risk leukemia without a matched related or unrelated donor.


Tests were conducted with a widely used herbicide (glyphosate) that is available in a range of formulations and a selection of commonly used nozzle types [XR TeeJet, extended range flat spray tip (XR), Turbo TeeJet, wide angle flat spray tip (TT), AI TeeJet, Air Induction spray tip (AI)] and determined the rebound characteristics of each combination using a difficult-to-wet foliar crop target (cabbage), an easy-to-wet hairy weed (velvetleaf), and a difficult-to-wet weed (lambsquarters). The rebound was determined under standard spraying conditions in a track room using a "bounce chamber" constructed at The Laboratory for Pest Control Application Technology (LPCAT). The amount of spray liquid retained and reflected from the leaf surfaces was determined by weight. The data showed that there were no significant differences between the nozzles, but that formulation differences did occur and were a reflection of surfactant level in the spray mixture. There was a significant formulation X leaf interaction and leaf X nozzle interaction, but not a formulation X nozzle interaction.


ABSTRACT Vector-based cellular automata (VCA) models have been applied in land use change simulations at fine scales. However, the neighborhood effects of the driving factors are rarely considered in the exploration of the transition suitability of cells, leading to lower simulation accuracy. This study proposes a convolutional neural network (CNN)-VCA model that adopts the CNN to extract the high-level features of the driving factors within a neighborhood of an irregularly shaped cell and discover the relationships between multiple land use changes and driving factors at the neighborhood level. The proposed model was applied to simulate urban land use changes in Shenzhen, China. Compared with several VCA models using other machine learning methods, the proposed CNN-VCA model obtained the highest simulation accuracy (figure-of-merit = 0.361). The results indicated that the CNN-VCA model can effectively uncover the neighborhood effects of multiple driving factors on the developmental potential of land parcels and obtain more details on the morphological characteristics of land parcels. Moreover, the land use patterns of 2020 and 2025 under an ecological control strategy were simulated to provide decision support for urban planning.


The wage gap between African-Americans and white Americans is substantial in the US and has slightly narrowed over the past 30 years. Today, blacks have almost achieved the same educational level as whites. There is reason to believe that discrimination driven by prejudice plays a part in explaining this residual wage gap. Whereas racial prejudice has substantially declined over the past 30 years, the wage differential has persisted overtime. This 'prejudice paradox' raises other reasons in explaining the absence of convergence of this racial differential. In this paper, I assess the impact which of the boom of jobs in contact with customers has on blacks' labor market earnings. I develop a search-matching model with bargaining to predict the negative impact which of the share of these contact jobs has on blacks' earnings in the presence of customer discrimination. I test this model using the IPUMS, the General Social Survey and the Occupation Information Network. My estimates show that black men's relative earnings are lower in areas where the proportions of prejudiced individuals and of contact jobs are high. I also estimate that the decreased exposure to racial prejudice is associated with a higher convergence of the residual gap, whereas the expansion of contact jobs partly explains the persistence of the gap. JEL classification: J15, J61, R23


Realistic geometries of magnetite grains from the Stardalur volcano, Iceland, were obtained by Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscopy nanotomography. These magnetite grains are subdivided by oxidation‐exsolution lamellae of ilmenite. Magnetic properties of these grains were modeled without internal stress using the three‐dimensional micromagnetic code MERRILL. The influence of grain shape and size was isolated by modeling hysteresis loops of the same grains with and without exsolution microstructures. The resulting coercivities Hc are up to 1.5 times higher, and the Mrs/Ms ratios are twice as high for the grains with exsolution than for those without. Both modeled values are a factor of 10 smaller than the measured bulk data from the same sample. This difference between stress‐free models and measured hysteresis loops suggests that the internal stress due to the formation of the oxidation‐exsolution lamellae is the dominant mechanism of coercivity and remanence enhancement. By comparing the approach‐to‐saturation behavior of modeled and measured hysteresis loops, the internal stress is quantified to about 100 MPa. The formation of lamellae has two effects on magnetic properties. (1) The apparent grain size is geometrically reduced. This effect increases Mrs and Hc by up to a factor of 2. (2) The formation of lamellae produces internal stress fields, which provide additional anisotropy energy that deflect the magnetic spins and apparently increase Mrs and Hc by up to a factor of 10. Accordingly, stress dominates the remanent magnetic properties in the Stardalur basalts and may be the decisive effect explaining its unusual remanent‐dominated ground magnetic anomaly of up to 27,000 nT.


The screening of potential therapeutic compounds using phenotypic drug discovery (PDD) is being embraced once again by researchers and pharmaceutical companies as an approach to enhance the development of new effective therapeutics. Before the genomics and molecular biology era and the consecutive emergence of targeted-drug discovery approaches, PDD was the most common platform used for drug discovery. PDD, also known as phenotypic screening, consists of screening potential compounds in either in vitro cellular or in vivo animal models to identify compounds resulting in a desirable phenotypic change. Using this approach, the biological targets of the compounds are not taken into consideration. Suitable animal models are crucial for the continued validation and discovery of new drugs, as compounds displaying promising results in phenotypic in vitro cell-based and in vivo small animal model screenings often fail in clinical trials. Indeed, this is mainly a result of differential anatomy, physiology, metabolism, immunology, and genetics between humans and currently used pre-clinical small animal models. In contrast, pigs are more predictive of therapeutic treatment outcomes in humans than rodents. In addition, pigs provide an ideal platform to study cancer due to their similarities with humans at the anatomical, physiological, metabolic, and genetic levels. Here we provide a mini-review on the reemergence of PDD in drug development, highlighting the potential of porcine cancer models for improving pre-clinical drug discovery and testing. We also present precision medicine based genetically defined swine cancer models developed to date and their potential as biomedical models.


To explore the regulatory potential of nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) coupled with alternative splicing, we globally surveyed the transcripts targeted by this pathway via RNA-Seq analysis of HeLa cells in which NMD had been inhibited. We identified putative NMD-targeted transcripts as those with a termination codon more than 50 nucleotides upstream of an exon-exon junction (premature termination as defined by the '50nt rule') and that significantly increased in abundance upon NMD inhibition. We additionally controlled for potential transcriptional up-regulation by requiring the putative NMD targets to increase in abundance substantially more than the isoforms from the same gene that do not contain a premature termination codon. This resulted in a conservative set of 2,793 transcripts derived from 2,116 genes as physiological NMD targets (9.2% of expressed transcripts and >20% of alternatively spliced genes). Our analysis identified previously inferred unproductive isoforms and numerous heretofore-uncharacterized ones. NMD-targeted transcripts were derived from genes involved in many functional categories, and are particularly enriched for RNA splicing genes as well as for those harboring ultraconserved elements. By investigating the features of all transcripts impacted by NMD, we find that the 50nt rule is a strong predictor of NMD degradation while 3' UTR length on its own generally has only a small effect in this human cell line. Additionally, thousands more transcripts without a premature termination codon in the main coding sequence contain a uORF and display significantly increased abundance upon NMD inhibition indicating potentially widespread regulation through decay coupled with uORF translation. Our results support that alternative splicing coupled with NMD is a prevalent post-transcriptional mechanism in human cells with broad potential for biological regulation.


In today's globalizing world an increasing number of companies design products and services for overseas markets and users. Designers face the challenge of creating solutions that fulfil users' needs, and this becomes more important as the cultural distance between them continues to grow. Unsuccessful international endeavours which resulted in market disasters have already been noted. For example, the Italian fashion company Dolce a Gabana recently made an advertisement that featured a Chinese model struggling to eat 'the great traditional Margherita Pizza', by using 'this kind of small stick-shaped tableware'- chopsticks, and many Chinese customers took cultural offense at being depicted in the caricature (Ng, Lam a Jane, 2018). As can be imagined, if designers do not carefully consider the local cultural context for which they hope to create designs, their solutions are likely to be mismatched, or perhaps even harmful to their users. To avoid such situations, rich stories about everyday experiences, shared by users, are valuable resources to help designers to develop empathic understanding of users. Contextual user research, using generative techniques, has been demonstrated to be an effective way of collecting insightful user stories and communicating them to designers in order to create meaningful solutions, and has become a recognizable part of design practice. However, most of the reported work has been with users and designers with a shared a cultural background, so that empathic understanding can be built on a tacit shared cultural basis. When conducting contextual studies with a cross cultural dimension, we found the problem to be twofold: first, these tools and techniques, when employed in user research, sometimes failed to facilitate social interactions or bring out expressions of users, due to mismatches with cultural inclinations. Second, designers found it difficult to empathise with the individual aspects of user insights (such as quotes and anecdotes) from a culture they had little experience with. This thesis focuses on conducting contextual user research in a cross-cultural setting. It investigates ways of supporting users in telling rich and relevant stories, and designers in building empathic understanding (the design goal of this thesis). By investigating the issues mentioned above – a framework will be proposed, various tools and techniques to support users and designers will be created. A new and rewarding process for conducting intercultural contextual user research, called Cultura, will be developed at the end of the research..


The role of the CTLA-4 antigen in the development of autoimmune diseases is well documented, with several autoimmune disorders showing association or linkage with the CTLA-4 locus. Its role in the aetiology of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) however, remains unclear, as the functional studies of the B7-CTLA-4 pathway in mouse models of RA and genetic studies in humans have given contrasting results. We have studied the single nucleotide polymorphism at position +49 (A/G) of the CTLA-4 gene, in a cohort of 421 RA cases and 452 healthy controls from the UK. Despite the high statistical power to detect even a weak susceptibility effect, no significant association was found. We also analysed the distribution of the allele and genotype frequencies with respect to the presence of the shared epitope (a known RA susceptibility factor) and found no statistically significant differences. We conclude that, although the importance of the B7-CTLA-4 interaction in the development of RA can not be excluded, the CTLA-4 gene is unlikely to be a predisposing factor to this disease.


Unlike unsupervised approaches such as autoencoders that learn to reconstruct their inputs, this paper introduces an alternative approach to unsupervised feature learning called divergent discriminative feature accumulation (DDFA) that instead continually accumulates features that make novel discriminations among the training set. Thus DDFA features are inherently discriminative from the start even though they are trained without knowledge of the ultimate classification problem. Interestingly, DDFA also continues to add new features indefinitely (so it does not depend on a hidden layer size), is not based on minimizing error, and is inherently divergent instead of convergent, thereby providing a unique direction of research for unsupervised feature learning. In this paper the quality of its learned features is demonstrated on the MNIST dataset, where its performance confirms that indeed DDFA is a viable technique for learning useful features.


The new boundary-integral method used in this paper illustrates a novel approach to solve the general Helmholtz equation in homogeneously filled waveguides. Based on the method-of-moments Laplacian solution, the main feature of this formulation is that the Helmholtz equation is "reduced" to the Poisson's equation, which is then solved by using a static Green's function. In other words, the Green's function used in this method is frequency independent, unlike the most conventionally used Hankel functions. Hence, the computational time, while analyzing the waveguide over a range of different frequencies, is reduced considerably compared to other well-known numerical methods, since the frequency term just appears as a scaling factor in the evaluation of matrix elements. The numerical results obtained using the present method compare well with actual results (in the case of rectangular waveguides) and published results (in the ease of L-shaped and single-ridge waveguides).


Under analysis are long-term results of the conservative treatment of 36 patients with ruptures of the kidney. It was found that sufficient information of primary structural injuries of the organ can be obtained with the help of such diagnostic methods as angiography, computed tomography added to traditional methods of examination which allows to make the treatment individualized for each patient. Conservative methods of treatment can be used in patients with superficial and deep ruptures and inconsiderable injuries of parenchyma. For deep ruptures with extensive injuries of the parenchyma early and organ-preserving, if possible, operations must be performed.


Most of the MCAO systems planned for astronomical telescopes use laser beacons to create at will a star constellation having the geometry required for a good tomographic reconstruction. The problem of undeter- mined LGS tip tilt prevents one from measuring the tilt of the reference sources. As a consequence the global tilt of the NGSs over the FoV and the altitude and amplitudes of the low order modes are not correctly estimated. In general to solve these problems several NGSs are used. However the use of a few NGSs can reduce the sky cov- erage of the LGS MCAO system by a significant factor. In this paper we present a technique to estimate the low order modes including overall Tilt in the tomographic distribution directly from the LGSs and a single NGS. In this way the sky coverage of the MCAO system is improved. This paper reports the performance of this technique for the case of a 42 m diameter telescope calculated using numerical and analytical simulations.


If available resources are limited, a computer novice with basic computer skills can develop and implement an electronic database management system. Commitment and determination to automate manual record keeping of birth registry data are crucial. Some of the database software systems available today were designed to be user friendly. Product reviews published in personal computer magazines will assist an end user to find such user-friendly programs. Once a system is selected and implemented, data can be easily retrieved and used for simple to advanced database functions. Hospital statistics, state-required maternity statistical reports, and research, quality assurance/quality improvement, staffing justification, market research, and critical path variance reports will benefit from the wide array of data manipulation techniques.


Abstract. El Niño has two different flavors, eastern Pacific (EP) and central Pacific (CP) El Niños, with different global teleconnections. However, their different impacts on the interannual carbon cycle variability remain unclear. Here we compared the behaviors of interannual atmospheric CO2 variability and analyzed their terrestrial mechanisms during these two types of El Niños, based on the Mauna Loa (MLO) CO2 growth rate (CGR) and the Dynamic Global Vegetation Model's (DGVM) historical simulations. The composite analysis showed that evolution of the MLO CGR anomaly during EP and CP El Niños had three clear differences: (1) negative or neutral precursors in the boreal spring during an El Niño developing year (denoted as yr0), (2) strong or weak amplitudes, and (3) durations of the peak from December (yr0) to April during an El Niño decaying year (denoted as yr1) compared to October (yr0) to January (yr1) for a CP El Niño, respectively. The global land–atmosphere carbon flux (FTA) simulated by multi-models was able to capture the essentials of these characteristics. We further found that the gross primary productivity (GPP) over the tropics and the extratropical Southern Hemisphere (Trop + SH) generally dominated the global FTA variations during both El Niño types. Regional analysis showed that during EP El Niño events significant anomalous carbon uptake caused by increased precipitation and colder temperatures, corresponding to the negative precursor, occurred between 30° S and 20° N from January (yr0) to June (yr0). The strongest anomalous carbon releases, largely due to the reduced GPP induced by low precipitation and warm temperatures, occurred between the equator and 20° N from February (yr1) to August (yr1). In contrast, during CP El Niño events, clear carbon releases existed between 10° N and 20° S from September (yr0) to September (yr1), resulting from the widespread dry and warm climate conditions. Different spatial patterns of land temperatures and precipitation in different seasons associated with EP and CP El Niños accounted for the evolutionary characteristics of GPP, terrestrial ecosystem respiration (TER), and the resultant FTA. Understanding these different behaviors of interannual atmospheric CO2 variability, along with their terrestrial mechanisms during EP and CP El Niños, is important because the CP El Niño occurrence rate might increase under global warming.


Vegetation responses to climate change will provide feedbacks that could amplify or moderate regional temperature and precipitation changes. However, systematic biases in the simulation of regional climate across general circulation models (GCMs) may lead to consistent misrepresentation of vegetation changes and associated ecological processes. This study uses Köppen classification driven by simulated climate with and without bias correction. Our results indicate that because climate biases lead to inaccuracies in land cover, corrected and uncorrected analyses result in distinct land cover changes in regions (the tropics and high‐latitude Northern Hemisphere) that have strong climate feedbacks, even though the climate change is identical. While a more realistic biosphere may ameliorate some model biases, our results illustrate the potential for existing errors to influence feedbacks and suggest that, as models become more complex, nuanced understanding of bias propagation will be critical in assessing the uncertainty of projections and common downscaling techniques.


The Optical System Simulator (OSS) provides a comprehensive platform for the analysis and design of isolated optical devices and entire optical systems, with special focus on semiconductor lasers and system exhibiting fast dynamics.
The OSS is able to simulate "1-D" (or fundamental mode) optical devices, such as ideal optical sources, narrow stripe semiconductor lasers, wave-guides, passive cavities, mirrors, beam splitters, etc. These individual elements can be combined to form into complex optical systems.
Once the optical system is defined, the user can interact with the simulation interactively using a set of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). These provide a visual representation of user-defined sensor outputs, and allow on-the-fly modification of system parameters, in a manner similar to that of an experimental setup.
Additionally; the user can use the simulator in a background mode, with no user interfaces required, allowing very long simulations that can run unattended for hours or days. The users may reattach the GUIs at any time to monitor the simulation progress or to modify system parameters.
The OSS provides a unique software simulation environment for teaching, research and design of broadband integrated optical and opto-electronic systems, where several Terahertz of optical bandwidth needs to be resolved, from femtoseconds to milliseconds time scales.


Author(s): Adams, Nicole; Tell, Lisa A.; Bandivadekar, Ruta R.; Bay, Rachael | Abstract: Recent research suggests that bird populations are declining at alarming rates across the United States. Over the last century, local, national, and international efforts to limit declines in bird populations have resulted in state and federal laws that now protect most of California's 650 bird species. To comply with these protections, transportation infrastructure projects often face strict mitigation requirements, which can be expensive and cause delays. Understanding a project's effects on specific bird populations can refine mitigation requirements and optimize infrastructure planning.The tools for identifying separate populations within species and understanding protected birds' seasonal movement have been limited until recently. New genetic and genomic tools now provide a method for understanding population differentiation, which is vital to a wide array of conservation goals including estimating population declines, identifying potential for adaptation to stressors, measuring connectivity between populations, and estimating inbreeding. Because infrastructure projects can directly impact genetic diversity and connectivity, a toolkit to assess population structure and the distribution of genetic variation could aid in predicting and mitigating the impacts of such projects. As a test case, researchers at the University of California, Davis, sequenced entire genomes for 40 individual Anna's hummingbirds (Calypte anna) from across California to identify breeding populations and develop a genetic toolkit to assign individuals to those populations. The presence of this species at bridge construction sites has resulted in construction delays in part because little information exists on the status of different populations within the species.This research brief summarizes findings and implications from the project.View the NCST Project Webpage


OBJECTIVES
To compare patients with hypercholesterolaemia (HC) for factors relating to the decision to treat a patient with medication or not; and to assess the suitability of a previously established protocol of HC diagnosis and treatment.

DESIGN
Retrospective, descriptive study.

SETTING
Primary care centre.

PATIENTS
331 patients diagnosed with HC in the register of risk factors at our centre. 175 patients treated with medication (TM) and 156 not treated with medication.

RESULTS
Mean age was 61.2 and 191 were women. 68.8% of the population under study had 2 or more factors of cardiovascular risk (FCVR). 56 patients were in secondary prevention (71.4% TM). 275 patients (83.08%) were in primary prevention. 135 of these received TM, which was indicated only in 45 (37.5%). Mean plasma concentrations (PC) of cholesterol (total and LDL) were greater in the patients treated. 99.3% of non-treated patients and 96.9% of treated patients received dietary counselling. This was maintained in 95% of non-treated patients. The reduction of cholesterol in the PC reached 8% in diet-treated patients by the end of the study. Initially 42.8% were treated with fibrates, 38.9% with statins and 18.3% with resins. By the end of the study 53.6% were treated with statins.

CONCLUSIONS
The association of HC and other FCVR is common. In primary prevention, a high proportion of patients treated present cardiovascular risk which does not justify medical prescription. In secondary prevention we are closer to the current guidelines.


Digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms exhibit an increasing need for the efficient implementation of complex arithmetic operations. Coordinate transformations of complex valued phasors and the computation of trigonometric functions is sort of naturally involved with modern DSP algorithms. One of the most computationally high algorithms called the Discrete Cosine Transform. Discrete cosine transform (DCT) is widely used transform in image and signal processing and it has a strong property which is energy compaction. Most of the signal information is concentrated in a few low-frequency components of the DCT. It's a real transform with better computational efficiency and it does not introduce discontinuity while imposing periodicity in the time signal. Many DCT algorithms were proposed in order to achieve high speed DCT and low power consumption. CORDIC algorithm can be widely used in Software Defined Radio, wireless communications and medical imaging applications. These are heavily dependent on signal processing. The algorithm is very much hardware efficient because it performs combination of shift-add operations and omits the dependence on multipliers. This article discusses the CORDIC algorithm and various DCT performances in the Digital Signal Processing.


The experimental investigations performed on the behaviour of reinforce concrete elements subjected to blast loading have revealed that the shear mechanisms and ductility play important roles in the overall response and failure mode of such structures.The main aim of this master thesis is to study the possibility of using finite element method as a tool for predicting the dynamic response of blast loaded reinforced concrete beams and evaluation of their shear strength. In this study, the commercial software, ABAQUS/Explicit has been used by implementing appropriate constitutive material models in order to consider the material nonlinearity, stiffness degradation and strain rate effects. The results of some blast loaded tested beams have been used for verification and calibration of the model. As a secondary objective, the calibrated model used to study the influence of some important factors on the shear strength of reinforced concrete beams and investigate their effects on the failure mode. The results used as a reference and compared with the calculations according to some design codes for blast resistance design.The results of the present research show that the implemented nonlinear finite element model successfully simulates the dynamic responses including displacement/reaction force time histories and induced damage patterns of blast tested beams with reasonable accuracy.The results of performed parametric study confirm that the ductility play important role in the failure behaviour of studied beams. The numerical simulations show that dynamic response of a soft element is more ductile than the stiffer one and the shear forces are thereby limited. Thus, although a soft element fails by large deformations in flexure, a stiff element may experience a brittle shear failure mode for the same load intensity.The comparison between the results of numerical analysis and design codes calculation show that the American approach in shear design of reinforced concrete elements subjected to blast loading is relatively conservative, similar to static design approach and do not consider the effect of ductility in the shear design procedure. On the contrary, the procedure that Swedish guideline implemented somehow considers the effect of ductility on the shear strength of reinforced concrete elements subjected to impulsive loads.Further research should involve the using the developed finite element model as a tool in order to theoretically study the dynamic response of blast loaded reinforced concrete elements and their failure modes. The results of numerical simulations can be used as a reference to derive simplified computational methods for practical design purposes.


The current study focuses on reviewing different traditionally practiced Indian textiles techniques used to upcycle and recycle textile waste, including fabric waste, rejected garments, used garments and fabrics, finished and processed textile products and other kinds of hard textile waste. The findings reveal that many artisans, weavers, craftspeople, self-help groups, and fashion and textile designers from different Indian states are practicing many traditional textile techniques to recycle and up-cycle textile waste. Among these techniques, the famous techniques identified include Kantha of West Bengal, Sujani of Bihar, Kathputlis of Northern Indian states, Panja Dari of Haryana, Namda and Gabba of Kashmir, Kausti of Karnataka, Patchwork and Chindi Rugs. There exists a strong need to make people aware of the methods of recycling textiles that not just increase manufactured textile product life cycle but also contribute towards a sustainable future of the fashion and textile industry in a developing country like India. It has been observed that these techniques play a crucial role in converting textile waste into creative functional products, thus silently contributing to the sustainable future of the textile industry. The objective of this study is to summarize and publicize the methods of these traditionally practiced Indian textile techniques used to recycle and upcycle tonnes of textile waste produced every year. It was found that these traditionally practiced recycling and upcycling techniques of various Indian states are contributing silently to the sustainable future of the Indian textile industry. The recycling of old cloth not just increases the product life cycle but also provides employment to millions of people.


Software pipelining is a loop optimization that overlaps the execution of several iterations of a loop to expose more instruction-level parallelism. It can result in first-class performance characteristics, but at the cost of significant obfuscation of the code, making this optimization difficult to test and debug. In this paper, we present a translation validation algorithm that uses symbolic evaluation to detect semantics discrepancies between a loop and its pipelined version. Our algorithm can be implemented simply and efficiently, is provably sound, and appears to be complete with respect to most modulo scheduling algorithms. A conclusion of this case study is that it is possible and effective to use symbolic evaluation to reason about loop transformations.


This dissertation is a critical assessment of the ecological and later human ecological planning curriculum as envisioned and promoted by Ian L. McHarg at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). An examination is made of the historical development—including its philosophical and academic antecedents—and the ultimate decline of the curriculum, covering the period 1954 to 2000, McHarg's tenure at Penn in the Graduate School of Fine Arts. The ecological and later human ecological planning curriculum became the essence of the Regional Planning program in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning that emerged in the 1969–1970 academic year and was finally terminated by 1994. The importance of this examination is twofold: first, to research the intellectual and pedagogical development of a curriculum that would train and prepare almost an entire generation of regional planners. It was widely recognized as the model interdisciplinary academic curriculum in the field of city and regional planning. Second, the importance of the decline and ultimate phasing out of the curriculum, as an intellectual and methodological base for training professional planners and designers, can establish certain parameters for the construction of future curricula that would emphasize ecological or environmental planning. Investigations relied on two basic sources. First, a group of twelve individuals were selected as a composite group, consisting of former members (or other associates of McHarg) in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, especially during his service as Chairman from 1957 to 1986. Second, extensive research utilized the Bulletins published by the Graduate School of Fine Arts for McHarg's entire tenure at Penn. The Bulletins (from 1954 to 1991) and later catalogues (after 1991) became the primary source of information to track development and changes to the Department's pedagogical statement, course offerings, and the composition of faculty. The conclusion is that there were many factors—personal, pedagogical-methodological, and external—that were responsible for the decline and ultimate termination of McHarg's human ecological planning curriculum. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group City & Regional Planning First Advisor John C. Keene This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3087 A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF LAN MCHARG'S HUMAN ECOLOGICAL PLANNING CURRICULUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA


We propose a novel fiducial-free approach for the registration of C-arm fluoroscopy to 3-D ultrasound images of prostate brachytherapy implants to enable dosimetry. The approach involves the reliable detection of a subset of radioactive seeds from 3-D ultrasound, and the use of needle tracks in both ultrasound and fluoroscopy for registration. Seed detection in ultrasound is achieved through template matching in 3-D radio frequency ultrasound signals, followed by thresholding and spatial filtering. The resulting subset of seeds is registered to the complete reconstruction of the brachytherapy implant from multiple C-arm fluoroscopy views. To compensate for the deformation caused by the ultrasound probe, simulated warping is applied to the seed cloud from fluoroscopy. The magnitude of the applied warping is optimized within the registration process. The registration is performed in two stages. First, the needle track projections from fluoroscopy and ultrasound are matched. Only the seeds in the matched needles are then used as fiducials for point-based registration. We report results from a physical phantom with a realistic implant (average postregistration seed distance of 1.6 $\pm $ 1.2 mm) and from five clinical patient datasets (average error: 2.8 $\pm$ 1.5 mm over 128 detected seeds). We conclude that it is feasible to use RF ultrasound data, template matching, and spatial filtering to detect a reliable subset of brachytherapy seeds from ultrasound to enable registration to fluoroscopy for dosimetry.


Background: A high-risk pregnancy is one in which some condition puts the mother or the developing fetus, or both, at an increased risk for complications during or after pregnancy and birth.
Aim of the study: To assess the effect of maternal age with risk factor of adverse pregnancy and pregnancy outcome in our setting.
Methods: A cross sectional study has been conducted in six hospitals in Baghdad for the period extended from 1st September 2018 to 28 December 2018. A detailed physical examination was conducted on all the participants. A questionnaire was completed for each case including basic socio demographic data. The statistical analysis was performed using the statistical package for the social sciences version 22 to analyses the data.
Results: From our data found that 73 (76.8%) of cases in the age group 35-39 years old, 81 (85.3%) were unemployed; read and write education in 28 (29.5%). The highest frequency of cases had a parity more than 6, 67 (70.5%) had a family history, 32 (33.7%) of cases had a previous still birth and 2 (2.1%) of cases had history of alcohol drinking. Anemia, diabetes and infertility are the main risk factor of pregnancy.
Conclusions: A statistically significant has been found between maternal age with hypertension, Diabetes and vascular disease at the p. value <0.05.


Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century is the fullest statement of the seventeenth-century crisis to date; it is an epic history with an enormous cast. But the people and institutions that it covers must share the historical stage with another agent of change—the Little Ice Age, which functions as the glue that holds together the era's myriad of events, producing an agricultural, political, and military crisis of global proportions. What is missing in Parker's account is a credible explanation for his version of the "great divergence"—the fact that resolution of the crisis took a different and fateful form in one region of Eurasia but in none of the others. Parker's claims about the Little Ice Age are ultimately testable, but his claim that it laid the basis for the "great divergence" remains mysterious.


On November 10, 2014, President Obama released a statement urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt rules governing the provision of broadband Internet access services, commonly called "net neutrality" rules. In the statement, the President recommended that the FCC reclassify the statutory definition of broadband Internet access services from information services to telecommunications services. Such reclassification would grant the FCC more clear authority to impose the rules that the President has recommended. Title II of the Communications Act permits the FCC to regulate the rates of services classified as telecommunications services and to prohibit unreasonable discrimination in the provision of those services, among other things. In other words, telecommunications services may be regulated as "common carriers," and if broadband Internet service providers were reclassified as telecommunications services, they may be regulated as common carriers as well. However, many that recommend that the FCC reclassify broadband Internet access services, including President Obama, recommend that the FCC forbear from applying many of the provisions of Title II to broadband Internet access services, including the provision authorizing rate regulation. Instead, many reclassification advocates argue that only network neutrality rules, which would require disclosure, would prohibit blocking or throttling of legal content, and would prohibit certain kinds of content discrimination on the part of service providers, should be implemented following reclassification.


In this paper, we propose a supervised color image segmentation using homotopy continuation method and Markov random field (MRF) model. We propose a constrained compound MRF model to take care of color texture and scene images. Ohta (I1, I2, I3) model is used as the color for image segmentation. We also have extended the proposed model to inter-color-planes as well as intra-color-planes of the color model and thus a double constrained compound MRF (DCCMRF) model is proposed. The a priori MRF model parameters are estimated using the proposed homotopy continuation based method. The model parameters are the maximum pseudo likelihood estimates. The DCCRMRF model with estimated model parameters exhibited improved segmentation accuracy as compared to DCMRF, MRF, double MRF (DMRF) and JSEG method.


OUR culture exercises certain values forcefully through our interracial arrangements, principally Negro and white. Comparison with other white-governed societies receiving Negroes reveals the uniqueness in American developments, above all in the operations of Negro status. Studies of American Negro life have been done chiefly by disciplines other than anthropology; American anthropological method has not contributed new insights to the already rich literature. No scholar employs intercultural comparisons of modern Negro groups. There is, regarding the American Negro, Powdermaker's study of the biracial functioning of a Southern town, giving the values of both segments of the community (1939); and anthropologists have participated in distinguished singleand multidiscipline presentations of Negro personality, culture, and society, of historical and culture origins, of separate institutions like family, church, and press. All the accounts are mutually elaborating and reinforcing despite some differences of interpretation, as reflected, for example, in the disputed terminology of "caste" and "class." There are, however, hidden commitments to cultural valuations and personal philosophies in the work of individual scholars, which Myrdal shows need enunciation (Myrdal 1944: 1036-64); cross-cultural surveys of Negro place in other white-ruled societies show how substantial for method and theory are the value cautions stressed by this foreign observer.The present article rests upon the whole literature, since no real anthropological differentiation is apparent, and statements are pointed cross-culturally by my studies of Negro life in other societies. American culture and society have a Negro or interracial aspect. It has shaped the life of each American Negro by rigid, clear formulas of relationships with whites, especially in the south and southwest, specifying conditions of residence, employment, schooling and burial, of sex and marriage, of separate conduct and speech for the races. The Supreme Court's decision ordering against segregation in public education reveals again how Negro life rests upon assumptions of the host society. They have been most completely defined as the traditional South saw them, including reciprocal injunctions upon whites which have not held so fast in other regions. Other regions of the country before World War I actually knew Negroes as little as Indians, except for "northern" centers like New York, Chicago, Detroit. Southern blacks began the Great Migration north during the first war, attracted by industry, and were later joined by demobilized soldiers, all groups equally footloose. Adrift from the clearly patterned South, the blacks conducted themselves essentially as they had at home, unrelatedly perpetuating fragments of the race-ways to which they were habituated in association with


Based on research in four communities in Veracruz, Mexico, this article traces the cultural biography of economic change from an economy based primarily on coffee production to one based on migration, bamboo furniture manufacturing, and other livelihoods. In line with other studies, the declining importance of coffee in peasant livelihoods came about with the withdrawal of state support and neoliberal policies that encouraged a shift from quality to quantity production of coffee. Labor scarcity also played a role, however, as families dealt with falling coffee incomes by migrating to wage labor jobs in Mexico and the United States (U.S.). Our work suggests that changing global labor markets, combined with labor scarcities in Mexican communities, are as important to consider in economic change as the more common explanations of state agricultural policy and neoliberalism.


High U.S. obesity rates have prompted calls for a tax on caloric sweetened beverages. Faced with such a tax, consumers are likely to substitute nontaxed beverages, such as bottled water, juice, and milk. A tax that increases the price of caloric sweetened beverages by 20 percent could cause an average reduction of 3.8 pounds of body weight over a year for adults and 4.5 pounds for children.


Convolutional neural network (CNN) delivers impressive achievements in computer vision and machine learning field. However, CNN incurs high computational complexity, especially for vision quality applications because of large image resolution. In this paper, we propose an iterative architecture-aware pruning algorithm with adaptive magnitude threshold while cooperating with quality-metric measurement simultaneously. We show the performance improvement applied on vision quality applications and provide comprehensive analysis with flexible pruning configuration. With the proposed method, the Multiply-Accumulate (MAC) of state-of-the-art low-light imaging (SID) and super-resolution (EDSR) are reduced by 58% and 37% without quality drop, respectively. The memory bandwidth (BW) requirements of convolutional layer can be also reduced by 20% to 40%.


The European Union institutional package launched in response to the financial crisis used Article 114 TFEU as its legal basis. The author explores the legal basis for one of the European Supervisory Authorities recently established – the European Banking Authority (EBA). The use of Article 114 TFEU, the main Treaty basis used to harmonise laws in order to further the internal market, as the foundation for the EBA, is considered in detail. A paradox of contemporary EU institutional law is assessed here, considering whether on the one hand, the EBA is functionally both too narrow and too broad as a matter of law, while on the other hand, it may prove to be central to restoring confidence in EU regulatory powers, rendering it 'too big to fail,' despite its slender foundations in Article 114 TFEU.


Background and Objectives:The first on-line registration of Korea Acute Myocardial Infarction patients (KAMIRs) has been carried out throughout the 41 primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) centers that are supported by the Korean Circulation Society (KCS), as reported in the memorandum of the 50th Anniversary of the KCS. Subjects and Methods:Between Nov 2005 and June 2006, 4905 patients were enrolled in KAMIR and 4110 eligible patients (2855 males and 1255 females; mean age=64.3±13.5 years) were analyzed. The treatment strategy for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) was analyzed according to the gender differences in the area of acute ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and non-ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). Results:For the initial selection of a treatment strategy for STEMI, primary PCI was more commonly performed in males than females (69.8% vs. 68.3%, respectively, p=0.008), but age was the most important predictors after multivariate adjustment. During the hospital stay, PCI regardless of its subtype was more commonly done in the males than in the females with both STEMI and NSTEMI (STEMI: 89.1% vs. 84.9%, respectively, p=0.004; NSTEMI: 74.7% vs. 63.5%, respectively, p<0.001). The success rate of PCI in STEMI patients was not different between the genders (95.0% vs. 93.6%, respectively, p=0.399), but that of NSTEMI was higher in the males than the females (96.9% vs. 95.8%, respectively, p=0.004). Conclusion:For the initial treatment of AMI in Korea, females are treated more conservatively than males, but age was the most important predictor for invasive treatment. The success rate of PCI was higher for the males than the females. (Korean Circulation J 2007;37:64-71)


Males of sexually cannibalistic species are thought to express behaviors that reduce the risk of being killed by the females. In several spider species the male modulates his approach to the female as a function of her feeding behavior. We tested this hypothesis in the preying mantid Mantis religiosa (L.). Males were placed behind perching females in a laboratory arena and their position was video-recorded. Females were presented with a prey item (prey-presentation period) and then either they were allowed to capture and eat the prey ("P" treatment), or the prey was removed before the female could capture it ("NP" treatment). For the next 10 min (betweenprey-presentation period) the females ate the prey (P), or perched without moving (NP). Total speed of approach of males was over 6-times higher in the P treatment (2.3 cm/min) than in the NP treatment (0.4 cm/min). Speed in the prey-presentation period was higher in P than in NP (4.4 cm/min and 1.3 cm/min, respectively), which shows that seeing a female striking and/or grasping the prey in itself stimulated faster male approach. Approach speed in the between-prey presentation period was also higher in P than in NP (1.9 cm/min and 0.2 cm/min, respectively), which indicates that seeing a female feeding on the prey and/or cleaning her forelegs also stimulates male approach. We conclude that males of M. religiosa can assess the activity state of the females and respond to this information by modulating their speed of approach, probably reducing the risk of being detected and possibly cannibalized.


EDITORIN-CHIEF: R. I. Sujith – (Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India) Dr. R. I. Sujith graduated with his B. Tech in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1988 with first rank. He received his M. S. (1990) and Ph. D. (1994) from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he received the "top graduate student in the college of engineering" award. He worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1995. He joined the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1995 and is a professor since 2006. He is a Hans Fischer Senior Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study of the Technical University of Munich. He is a recipient of the Alexander Von Humboldt Fellowship. As a Humboldt Fellow, Sujith worked at DLR Göttingen and at the Technical University of Munich. He has won the Young Engineer Award of the Indian National Academy of Engineering. He has been awarded the Swarnajayanti Fellowship by the Department of Science & Technology. He is a fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and an associate fellow of the AIAA. Sujith works on experimental and theoretical research in the areas of combustion instability, acoustics, fluid mechanics and propulsion. He is currently working on investigating the nonlinear dynamics of combustion-acoustic interaction.


: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the most prevalent and debilitating diseases in adults worldwide and is associated with a deleterious effect on the quality of life of affected patients. Although it remains one of the leading causes of global mortality, the prognosis seems to have improved in recent years. Even so, the number of patients with COPD and multiple comorbidities has risen, hindering their management and highlighting the need for futures changes in the model of care. Together with standard medical treatment and therapy adherence – essential to optimizing disease control – several nonpharmacological therapies have proven useful in the management of these patients, improving their health-related quality of life (HRQoL) regardless of lung function parameters. Among these are improved diagnosis and treatment of comorbidities, prevention of COPD exacerbations, and greater attention to physical disability related to hospitalization. Pulmonary rehabilitation reduces symptoms, optimizes functional status, improves activity and daily function, and restores the highest level of independent physical function in these patients, thereby improving HRQoL even more than pharmacological treatment. Greater physical activity is significantly correlated with improvement of dyspnea, HRQoL, and mobility, along with a decrease in the loss of lung function. Nutritional support in malnourished COPD patients improves exercise capacity, while smoking cessation slows disease progression and increases HRQoL. Other treatments such as psychological and behavioral therapies have proven useful in the treatment of depression and anxiety, both of which are frequent in these patients. More recently, telehealthcare has been associated with improved quality of life and a reduction in exacerbations in some patients. A more multidisciplinary approach and individualization of interventions will be essential in the near future.


Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastics (CFRP) can offer a great deal of automobile weight saving. For automotive applications, however, they are not used well due to their low energy absorption and long production cycle time. Hybrid composite laminates of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastics/Aramid Fibre Reinforced Plastics (CFRP/AFRP), based on thermosetting resin, have a high strength to weight ratio and high energy absorption capacity. When CFRP/AFRP hybrid composite laminates will be used for the mass-produced car, it is necessary to consider the recycling efficiency and productivity. Therefore, it is preferable to use thermoplastics resin. The high-speed compression moulding method using an electromagnetic induction heating system has a big advantage for the moulding of continuous fibre reinforced thermoplastic composites, because this thermoforming technique could reduce the production cycle time drastically. In this study, a Carbon Fibre/Aramid Fibre Reinforced Thermoplastics hybrid composite (CFRTP/ AFRTP) was manufactured by the high-speed compression moulding method using an electromagnetic induction heating system, and the optimum moulding condition and mechanical properties of CFRTP/AFRTP hybrid composites were investigated. An optimum moulding condition was sought by using the design of experiments method. The factors used in this study were moulding pressure, maximum temperature holding time, materials and stacking sequences. An optimum moulding condition was determined from the analysis of variance by mechanical properties. The optimum moulding condition of the CFRTP/AFRTP


An adaptive controller is demonstrated that is capable of both obtaining and maintaining high-energy, single-pulse states in a mode-locked fiber laser. In particular, a multi-parameter extremum-seeking control (ESC) algorithm is used on a nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) based laser using waveplate and polarizer angles to achieve optimal passive mode-locking despite large disturbances to the system. The physically realizable objective function introduced divides the energy output by the kurtosis of the pulse spectrum, thus balancing the total energy with the coherence of the mode-locked solution. In addition, its peaks are high-energy mode-locked states that have a safety margin near parameter regimes where mode-locking breaks down or the multipulsing instability occurs. The ESC is demonstrated by numerical simulations of a single-NPR mode-locked laser and is able to track locally maximal mode-locked states despite significant disturbances to parameters such as the fiber birefringence.


: Beginning of life and intellect on the Earth is determined by the fact that synthesis of semantic information about algorithms of chemical transformation for appointed classes of chemical compounds is not accompanied by the information synthesis, but is controlled by chance in genetic material. Genetic information as memorizing accidental choice always arises as a result of the environment interaction, when memorizing realization in the form of repeated reproduction occurs on the basis of processes radically different from those which created initial genetic chance. Such stepped synthesis of information has hierarchical character and it is described by entropy of different dimensions. Entropy is determined by conditional probabilities. Therefore as a form of life becomes complicated, the entropy is decreased within the limits of the given hierarchical step. The part of entropy depending on the number of elements of the system (cells, individuals, etc.) always increases in the memorizing process, i. e. life defines the maximum of entropy production (but not the minimum like in nature). This fact settles paradoxes of chance in Darwinism: as a result of entropy decrease within higher hierarchical step the simbiotic processes for more complex forms of life can arise with great probability. For instance, rapidity of evolution of human brain given by supplementary chance in the mechanism of fecundation under the conditions of biochemical pressure of androgenes both, on the brain development and on muscular force at the same time. Synthesis of information in the brain is determined by the same principles, but extremums of the thermo-dynamic potential (their analogues in logic) are based on an arbitrary system of axioms. As a whole life and intellect are not fluctuations pointed against entropy increases, but they arose according to spontaneous process of entropy development.


The optimal sensor placement of engineering structures problem with an emphasis on in-plane dynamic strain measurements and to the direction of modal identification as well as vibration-based damage detection for structural health monitoring purposes is revisited in this paper. The approach utilized is based on the maximization of a norm of the Fisher Information Matrix built with numerically obtained mode shapes of the structure and at the same time prohibit the sensorization of neighbor degrees of freedom as well as those carrying similar information, in order to obtain a satisfactory coverage. A new convergence criterion of the Fisher Information Matrix (FIM) norm is proposed in order to deal with the issue of choosing an appropriate sensor redundancy threshold, a concept recently introduced but not further investigated concerning its choice. The numerical model of a composite sandwich panel serves as a representative aerospace structure upon which our investigations are based


Semiconductor photocatalysis is a promising technology for solar fuel production and environmental remediation. However, the solar energy conversion efficiency is far from satisfactory, which restricts its practical application. The development of semiconductor materials is crucial to promote the solar energy conversion efficiency in photocatalytic systems. Owing to the Bi 6s and O 2p hybrid orbitals in the valence band, most of the bismuth-based photocatalysts possess a narrow bandgap for visible light utilization, which has attracted increasing attention. In the past few years, a rich family of bismuth-based photocatalysts have been developed, which are yet to be comprehensively reviewed. In this review article, the recent progress of bismuth-based nanomaterials for photocatalysis including pollutant degradation, water splitting, CO2 reduction, N2 fixation, and organic synthesis is critically reviewed. In particular, promising strategies for promoting the photocatalytic activity of each material system is discussed and the key challenges and prospects of bismuth-based materials for photocatalysis are presented, which are believed to promote the development of this important research field.


The Labour party has commissioned a report by Withers and Powell which recommends measures designed to locate 45 per cent of Australia's new settlers in regional areas (compared with 10 per cent currently). The recommendations will result in lower skill selection standards and weaker performance requirements for two stage visas than is the case with the existing regional migration schemes. Analysis of these schemes, particularly those connected with business migration, indicate that selection and performance standards should be tightened, not softened. In the case of the largest regional program, that providing selection concessions for relatives sponsored by residents who live in 'designated areas', nearly two-thirds of the sponsored migrants are locating in Melbourne.


Brain ischemia occurs in several diseases. One of the critical factors for recovery of patients is the duration of the ischemic process. Brain activity depends on the energetic supply, it suggests that the study of mitochondrial function can be useful for evaluation of neuronal damage. The purpose of the present research was to study the mitochondrial respiration by occlusion of the left middle cerebral artery by intraluminal suture technique. Adults Wistar rats were subdivided in 4 groups: control, 15, 30 and 60 minutes of occlusion. Results showed that there was no significant difference between the group of 15 minutes and the control group. The group of 30 minutes had significant decrease of state III of mitochondrial respiration compared with control group. The group of 60 minutes had significant decrease in state III and IV of mitochondrial respiration compared with control group. Mitochondrial respiration allowed an early and effective evaluation of focal ischemic process of the rat brain.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate use (both appropriate and inappropriate) of rescue corticosteroids before and after the implementation of a guideline for their use.

METHODS
We conducted a retrospective cohort study using a pharmacy log to identify women who received an initial course of antenatal corticosteroids in the year before (2008) and in the 4 years (2009-2012) after implementation of the guideline. The charts were then reviewed to determine eligibility and assess receipt of rescue corticosteroids according to the guideline. Our primary study outcome was a temporal change in the percentage of appropriate rescue corticosteroid administration.

RESULTS
Of 2,528 women who received a first course of corticosteroids, 142 (5.6%) were eligible for a rescue course, of whom 103 (73%) received it. The rate of appropriate administration increased from 18.2% (95% confidence interval [CI] 5-40%) in 2008 to 65.4% (95% CI 44-83%) in 2009, 93.5% (95% CI 79-99%) in 2010, 96.1% (95% CI 80-99%) in 2011, and 75.7% (95% CI 59-88%) in 2012 (P for test of trend <.001). Only 25 of these 103 eligible women (24.3%) delivered within 2-7 days of receipt of the rescue course. The rate of inappropriate administration among women who were not eligible for a rescue course (n=2,381) also rose from 0.4% (95% CI 0.04-1.4%) in 2008 to 1.9% (95% CI 0.9-3.5%) in 2009, 1.8% (95% CI 0.8-3.6%) in 2010, 2.4% (95% CI 1.2-4.3%) in 2011, and 2.2% (95% CI 1.1-4.0%) in 2012 (P for test of trend=.03). Among all recipients of rescue corticosteroids, 28% (41/144) were ineligible according to the guideline.

CONCLUSION
Implementation of an institutional guideline for rescue corticosteroids was associated with a high rate of use among eligible women.


Graphene has proven to be an interesting and exciting material for experimental and theoretical researcher. The unique properties have motivated proposed applications including high frequency transistors, flexible touch screens, sensors, and spin logic gates, all of which will require integration of graphene with other materials. Additionally, exotic theoretical predictions involving magnetic phenomena in doped and defected graphene provide a new area of physics to explore. A central issue for both fundamental and applied physics involves understanding how charge and spin transport properties are affected by the presence of foreign materials or defects, a topic investigated here by intentionally introducing the graphene surface to transition metals, insulators, water, atomic hydrogen and lattice vacancies. The first portion of this thesis provides the reader with a general introduction to graphene, the field of spintronics, device fabrication, measurement techniques, and sample characterization methods. Included are basic theoretical concepts of charge and spin transport in graphene. Details of the unique ultra high vacuum system (UHV) that combines in situ variable temperature electrical measurement, molecular beam epitaxy, hydrogen doping, and sputtering capabilities are provided. The second portion discusses experimental results. Firstly, all transition metals (Ti, Fe, Pt, Au) investigated result in ¬n-type doping for sub monolayer coverage. This behavior provides evidence for the presence of a strong interfacial dipole. Secondly, metallic and insulating dopants are directly compared by in situ oxidation of Ti. Monitoring the charge transport properties throughout oxidation provides evidence of short range scattering due to insulating titanium dioxide impurities. Thirdly, the spatial distribution of impurities is found to strongly affect charge transport. Using a fixed amount of gold impurities, the formation of clusters from point like charged impurities reduces the electronic doping and scattering. Fourthly, in regards to spin transport in graphene, exposure to water is found to result in a substantial enhancement of spin signal, providing a simple method by which researchers can improve graphene spin valve device performance. Finally, spin scattering experiments provide direct evidence for the formation of paramagnetic moments in graphene exposed to atomic hydrogen or lattice vacancies, resolving a long standing controversy in the field.


We report on a rare case of a child with persistent right upper lid eversion with conjunctival prolapse since birth that failed various attempts in repositioning the right superior fornix at other centre. He was found to have a right supero-temporal orbital mass above the prolapsed area. Computerized tomography (CT) scan of orbit confirmed a right lacrimal gland tumour with thinning of the right lesser wing of sphenoid. An excision biopsy of the tumour via anterior orbitotomy and eyelid reconstruction were performed. Histopathology report reviewed plexiform neurofibroma of the lacrimal gland. Further physical examination confirmed presence of multiple cafe-au-lait spots. He was diagnosed as Neurofibromatosis Type 1.


Objective. To develop statistical models, based on the analysis of data from phase III randomized placebo-controlled trials of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) inhibitors over a 24-week period, that may inform the definition of response measures for clinical trials in psoriatic arthritis (PsA). Methods. Data from phase III randomized controlled trials with anti-TNF agents were used. A training set using baseline and 24-week data from 2 trials was used to derive the models, which were then tested on a dataset using baseline and interim data from the third trial, and baseline and interim data from the first 2 trials. Logistic regression, tree analysis, and factor analysis were considered in the development of the models. Receiver-operating characteristic curves were constructed and area under the curve (AUC) calculated to assess performance of the models. Results. Two models were derived. One was based on differences between baseline and last-visit values, which identified the current 68 tender joint count (TJC68), baseline and change in C-reactive protein (CRP), and the measure with the highest difference among the patient and physician global assessment of disease activity (GDA), patient assessment of pain and the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ). The second model was based on percentage change from baseline and included TJC68, CRP, physician GDA, patient global assessment of arthritis pain, and HAQ. Both models provided high AUC of at least 0.8 for both the training and testing sets. Conclusion. Models for discriminating joint disease response patterns in PsA were derived from data from randomized controlled trials. These models can now be used to inform further consideration of response measures for trials.


Knowledge distillation is considered as a training and compression strategy in which two neural networks, namely a teacher and a student, are coupled together during training. The teacher network is supposed to be a trustworthy predictor and the student tries to mimic its predictions. Usually, a student with a lighter architecture is selected so we can achieve compression and yet deliver high-quality results. In such a setting, distillation only happens for final predictions whereas the student could also benefit from teacher's supervision for internal components.

Motivated by this, we studied the problem of distillation for intermediate layers. Since there might not be a one-to-one alignment between student and teacher layers, existing techniques skip some teacher layers and only distill from a subset of them. This shortcoming directly impacts quality, so we instead propose a combinatorial technique which relies on attention. Our model fuses teacher-side information and takes each layer's significance into consideration, then it performs distillation between combined teacher layers and those of the student. Using our technique, we distilled a 12-layer BERT (Devlin et al. 2019) into 6-, 4-, and 2-layer counterparts and evaluated them on GLUE tasks (Wang et al. 2018). Experimental results show that our combinatorial approach is able to outperform other existing techniques.


Traditionally a gear shift with clutch control makes the synchronisation phase unnecessarily long torque gap time. Gear shifting by engine control realizes fast gear shifts by controlling the engine instead of sliding the clutch to a torque-free state in the transmission. Detailed mathematical models of different driveline states are presented and to improve driving comfortable. Theoretical analysis results are compared with experimental ones from the road experience in equal conditions in order to prove the validity of the gear shifting control strategy.


The first two books of J. M. Coetzee's recent trilogy, The Childhood of Jesus (2013) and The Schooldays of Jesus (2016), are extremely strange. Just when "the Australian fiction," following the works set in South Africa and various international locations, was thought to be the last phase of Coetzee's career, the Nobel laureate changed tack. The Jesus books challenge readers and critics with their sparse tone, lengthy philosophical dialogues, and allegorical obscurity. Their difficulty seems to shed little light on some of the most intriguing questions about Coetzee's writing: namely, its form and its interaction with allegory. Beginning with a reappraisal of a classic work of Coetzee studies, this essay then lays out a theory about the connection between reading and writing allegory within traditions of what constitutes a "novel." In the second section, examples from Coetzee's earlier fiction are analyzed, with focus on In the Heart of the Country (1977) and Boyhood (1997). Parental roles are found to be vital in the connections between the novel form and allegory. The third section applies these analyses to Childhood and Schooldays. Focus on the books' references to Plato and Don Quixote helps scrutinize their philosophy and reach the thesis of this essay: that with these books, Coetzee experiments with a form that goes beyond the novel.


The machining process produces surfaces that require some form of finishing operation to improve the surface quality. Aiming at the problem of effective finishing for rough surface, the two stages high frequency short pulse electrochemical mechanical finishing (PECMF) technology is proposed. The composition of test equipment and principles of constant pressure regulating in flat and curve surface finishing process are discussed respectively, and the electrochemical finishing device and a series of cathode tools are designed. Systematic process parameters experiment for superalloyGH188 is carried using Taguchi methodology, the technology rule of process parameters on surface roughness is analyzed and a set of optimized process parameters were obtained. The results have shown that the constant pressure PECMP technology can significantly improve the surface roughness to Ra0.2175μm. The interaction effect between electrochemical anodic solution and mechanical polishing is important for improving the surface roughness in high frequency short pulse electrochemical mechanical finishing process.


Analysis and quantitative characterization of the spatial variability of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] protein and oil concentrations is an important task for site-specific soybean management. The objectives of this study were to spatially characterize the variability of soybean protein and oil concentrations in five fields of central Illinois, and to determine the influence of field topographical features, such as elevation range, terrain slope, and terrain curvature, on soybean protein and oil concentrations and their distributions within the studied fields. More than 200 samples for soybean quality analysis were collected from each of the three studied fields in fall of 1998, and from each of the two fields in fall of 1999. Dense elevation measurements were taken on each of the fields and topographical features, such as slope and curvature, were derived from the elevation data using the geographic information system (GIS). Both protein and oil concentrations were spatially correlated in all the studied fields as indicated by variograms. Field topography strongly affected soybean quality; however, its influence depended on the weather conditions during the growing seasons. Higher protein was observed at higher elevation sites, as well as at sites with higher slopes and convex curvatures during growing seasons with sufficient or excessive precipitation, while lower proteins were observed at such topographical conditions when the growing season was dry. Ranges of spatial cross-correlation between protein concentrations and elevation were related to the ranges and changes in shape of the elevation variograms, suggesting that spatial variability of field elevation can be used as an indicator of the spatial distribution of high protein or oil soybeans.


Page 1/14 10/27/2019 https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/the-book-of-mormon-witnesses-and-their-challenge-to-secularism/ There has been much comment recently on the growth in numbers of the religious "nones." Not all of them are actually non-theists, but secularism or naturalism is undoubtedly on the rise — and Latter-day Saints have not escaped damage from the trend. Several recent books and articles have sought to help their readers live with doubt, cope with uncertainty, or find value or joy in the Mormon community even when some, most, or perhaps even all of its founding narrative has come to seem untenable. I believe, however, that naturalism should be directly challenged and that the Book of Mormon is among our best tools for doing so. And the Witnesses to the Book of Mormon are, in turn, some of our best evidences for its truth — and the only "secular" evidence that the Lord himself has provided.


The Kazakhstani political landscape will not be shaken by similar tremors to those that have rocked North Africa and the Middle East in recent months. President Nazarbayev who has been at the helm of Kazakhstan's political architecture since the fall of the Soviet Union is destined to stay. This is in spite of hopes that economic development coupled with the 2010 OSCE Chairmanship would spur the democratisation of the oil-rich state and lead to the rise of a natural successor for the 70 year old leader.


The Au electrode plated nanostructure Pd was used to study the reaction mechanism of C.I. reactive blue 19 and reactive brilliant blue K-GR with atomic hydrogen in 0.2M H2SO4 solution by the electrochemical method. The nanostructured Pd/Au electrode showed the various forms of hydrogen. Through the result of cyclic voltammetry, Tafel curve and EIS, the protonation of dye molecule could accelerate the production of atomic hydrogen and the adsorption of dye on Pd/Au electrode. The decolorization efficiency using potentiostatic polarization at -0.18V was highest than that at other polarization potential because the proportion between adsorbed dye and adsorbed atomic hydrogen on electode was optimum.


Astrocytes are essential partners for neurons and their role in Huntington's disease (HD) is emerging. In HD, astrocytes change and become reactive. Astrocyte reactivity is characterized by morphological changes but its functional impact is still unclear. To understand the roles of reactive astrocytes in HD, we have developed viral vectors that infect selectively astrocytes in vivo and either block or induce reactivity, through manipulation of the JAK2-STAT3 pathway. We used these vectors to modulate astrocyte reactivity in two complementary mouse models of HD [knock-in Hdh140 mice and lentivirus-mediated expression of a fragment of mutated Huntingtin (mHtt) in striatal neurons]. In these two models, we found that reactive astrocytes decrease the number and size of mHtt aggregates. How can reactive astrocytes reduce the aggregation of mHtt within neurons? We performed whole-genome transcriptomic analysis of acutely sorted reactive astrocytes to identify genes regulated by the JAK2-STAT3 pathway in astrocytes. We found an enrichment in genes linked to autophagy-lysosome and ubiquitin-proteasome systems, suggesting that reactive astrocytes have an enhanced capacity for protein degradation and could siphon mHtt away from neurons. Moreover, we identified several chaperones upregulated in reactive astrocytes. Chaperones prevent protein aggregation and can be released extracellularly. They could reduce mHtt aggregation within neurons themselves. Our data show that astrocytes develop a protective response in HD that involves bidirectional signaling with neurons to reduce mHtt aggregation. Reactive astrocytes are not only defective cells as usually reported, but also acquire enhanced capacities to promote mHtt clearance, which has strong therapeutic relevance for HD.


For the first time, a comprehensive study is done regarding the stability under simultaneous application of light and gate dc bias in amorphous hafnium-indium-zinc-oxide (α-HIZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs). Subthreshold swing (SS) degradation, a negative threshold voltage (Vth) shift, and the occurrence of hump are observed in transfer curves after applying a negative gate bias and light stress. Based on the retention test at room temperature and the hysteresis analysis, it is revealed that all these phenomena result from hole trapping in the gate insulator. Moreover, it is proven that the SS degradation and hump occurrence are mainly attributed to hole trapping in SiO2 at the edge regions along the channel length/width directions and that a negative Vth shift is derived from hole trapping in the gate insulator far from the SiO2/HIZO interface.


In 2 cases of infants with the Chiari II malformation, a prepontine cyst presented in association with the hindbrain abnormalities characteristic of the Chiari II syndrome. Both infants presented with bulbar dysfunction and had poor outcome despite decompression of the cerebellar tonsillar herniation and drainage of the prepontine cysts. No such association between prepontine lesions and Chiari II has been described previously.


The mean uterine weight was 146 g (60-569 g). The mean operating time was 94 minutes (60-225 min.). Actual morcellation time was available in 19 cases by reviewing videotape with an average morcellation time of 11.8 minutes (4-23 min.). Average blood loss was 125 cc (20-600 cc) with one case of late postoperative bleeding requiring operative intervention. The average cost for the procedure was $7,998 ($6,989 - $11,581). Thirty-six patients were discharged within 23 hours from the time of admission and all patients were discharged within 48 hours of the time of admission.


Qualitative methodology is key to understanding the lived experience of people with acquired brain injury (ABI). However, as demonstrated during the global pandemic (COVID-19), face-to-face interviewing is not always viable. This lack of availability has been particularly relevant for people with disability who are at increased risk of contracting the virus and experiencing poorer outcomes. Fortunately, advancing technologies provide increasing opportunities for communicating online, thus it is plausible for qualitative disability researchers to adapt to remote interviewing. People with ABI often experience varying degrees of cognitive and communication impairments and therefore require specific considerations in the planning of research projects. In this paper, we examine learnings from existing literature around online qualitative research, specifically for videoconference, focus groups and email-interviewing methods. The key aim is to map out the practical, ethical and methodological considerations when adapting research to an online environment. As interviewing people with ABI online has received little attention in the literature, learnings from broader disability populations and the general population inform much of the considerations. Thus, the suggestions for practice are likely to be relevant to a broader population, but specific implications for people with ABI are discussed. Overall, we propose that it is viable, and sometimes preferable, to utilize online interview techniques but researchers must take care to consider the practical, ethical and methodological implications of doing so.


Current research argues that incumbents should respond to disruptive innovation by setting up a separate business unit. This recommendation stems from research predominantly carried out on disruptive technologies in high-tech industries but whether incumbents respond differently to other types of disruptive business model innovations and whether the type of response leads to a difference in performance have not been empirically analysed. By collecting data from 88 strategic business units (SBUs) and dividing the sample into incumbents responding to disruptive technology against those responding to disruptive market-driven innovations, the study shows that the latter type of firms can succeed in managing both disruptive and sustaining innovations without setting up structurally separated business units. We discuss the implications of our results and highlight areas for further research.


Background/Objectives: The aim of the study is to identify meaningful evaluation and approaches to building a model of the system of monitoring education quality and quality assurance at the university. Methods: The research methodology is based on a pedagogical qualimetry approach revealing a nature and characteristics of education quality, principles and methods for education monitoring, domestic and international theoretical foundations of independent evaluation of higher education quality. Findings: The international context of the changes specified by networks of agents-intermediaries Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) in the Washington Accord – an "American" model, EUR-ACE Framework Standard – a "European model", the International Energy Agency (IEA) International organization and European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education (ENAEE), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Engineer register have determined the new content for improving the quality of higher education in the activities of the Trans-Baikal State University as a supporting institution in the region. The objectives and mechanisms for the implementation of international requirements of independent quality evaluation in the supporting institution in the region indicate the search for management solutions for the study and introduction of international experience considered as a base for creating a new educational practice of monitoring of education quality and quality assurance at the university in accordance with the criteria and standards of the Russian Association for Engineering Education. Applications/Improvements: The result of the study is the model of the system of monitoring of education quality and quality assurance at the university, built on the basis of theoretical research.