Elucidating neuronal circuits and their plasticity in the cerebral cortex is one of the important questions in neuroscience research. Here we report novel axonal trajectories and their plasticity in the mouse somatosensory barrel cortex. We selectively visualized layer 2/3 neurons using in utero electroporation and examined the axonal trajectories of layer 2/3 neurons. We found that the axons of layer 2/3 neurons preferentially run in the septal regions of layer 4 and named this axonal pattern "barrel nets." The intensity of green fluorescent protein in the septal regions was markedly higher compared with that in barrel hollows. Focal in utero electroporation revealed that the axons in barrel nets were indeed derived from layer 2/3 neurons in the barrel cortex. During development, barrel nets became visible at postnatal day 10, which was well after the initial appearance of barrels. When whisker follicles were cauterized within 3 d after birth, the whisker-related pattern of barrel nets was altered, suggesting that cauterization of whisker follicles results in developmental plasticity of barrel nets. Our results uncover the novel axonal trajectories of layer 2/3 neurons with whisker-related patterns and their developmental plasticity in the mouse somatosensory cortex. Barrel nets should be useful for investigating the pattern formation and axonal reorganization of intracortical neuronal circuits.


We measured basal plasma prolactin concentrations (in samples obtained during the early follicular phase) in 25 normal (control) women and in a similar group of 40 patients with a long-standing history of infertility. The infertile patients were all ovulating regularly, and had been unsuccessfully treated with clomiphene and in some cases dydrogesterone and human menopausal gonadotrophin. Although none of the patients had plasma prolactin concentrations greater than 1000 muU/ml, 47.5% of the estimations were greater than 1 standard deviation (SD) above the mean established for our control group. This difference was highly significant (P less than 0.001). Treatment with various bromocriptine regimens effectively reduced prolactin concentrations to below normal in all cases, and 16 pregnancies followed-13 during bromocriptine treatment and three in the first post-treatment cycle. The cumulative conception rate was 63.4% after 10 months' treatment.


Spiking neurons usually change their membrane properties, especially ion channel activity, during adaptation or synaptic modification to improve information processing and transmission. Using simple and biophysically realistic models, our analyses reveal that activity-dependent regulation of membrane properties contributes to sensitivity adaptation that improves the neuron ability of detecting sub-threshold signals in the presence of background noises. The improvement is achieved by regulating the conductance of ion channels on the membrane, dependent on the neuron firing activity.


The gluon and Goldstone boson induced tensor interaction effect on the dibaryon mass and the D-wave decay width has been studied in the quark delocalization, color screening model. The effective S-D wave transition interactions induced by gluon and Goldstone boson exchanges decrease quickly as the increasing of the channel strangeness. The K and η meson tensor contribution is negligible in this model. No six-quark state in the light flavor world can become a bound one by the help of these tensor interactions except the deuteron. The partial D-wave decay width of Ijp = 1/2 2+NΩ state to spin 0, 1 ∧([1]) final state is 20.7 keV and 63.1 keV respectively. It is a very narrow dibaryon resonance and might be detected in the relativistic heavy ion reaction by the existing RHIC detectors through the reconstruction of the ∧([1]) vertex mass and the future COMPAS detector at CERN and FAIR project in Germany.


The present investigation was conducted to examine the effects upon normal lymphocyte activation of the addition of brain-tumor cyst fluid or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to an in vitro culture system. It was believed that factors present in these fluids may play a role in local and systemic immunosuppression in brain-tumor patients. The authors evaluated the effect of the cyst fluid, CSF, and serum from eight patients with brain tumors (one astrocytoma, five glioblastoma multiforme, one medulloblastoma, and one microglioma) on mitogen-stimulated lymphocyte function as measured by 3H-thymidine incorporation, cell size distribution, and cellular proliferation. Lymphocytes from normal volunteers were incubated for 90 hours in culture medium with 10% pooled human serum, mitogens (phytohemagglutinin, concanavalin A, and pokeweed mitogen), and a range of volumes of cyst fluid or CSF from the tumor patients. Significant suppression of mitogen-induced activation of the lymphocytes was demonstrated in the presence of cyst fluid from five out of six patients, but the mitogen response was only minimally affected by the addition of the CSF from these patients to the culture medium. The suppression of lymphocyte activation by cyst fluid was directly proportional in several cases to the concentration of the cyst fluid. The total protein, albumin, and immunoglobulin (Ig) concentrations in the cyst fluids were observed to roughly correspond to the serum levels and were much higher than in CSF. These studies suggest that brain-tumor cells locally produce lymphocyte-suppressive factors which may then be released into blood. Preliminary characterization of the suppressive factor(s) responsible for the inhibition of lymphocyte function indicates that they are non-dialyzable and do not appear to be an IgG.


Spurred by its successful delivery of credit to poor borrowers in diverse areas of the developing world, joint liability lending has caught the imagination of development theorists and practitioners. Various theories have arisen to explain why joint liability group-based lending can be an improvement over traditional individual-based lending. Here we exploit the idea that if a model were true, the repayment rate would vary in a systematic way with various covariates. We thus use observed repayment rates to test across four representative and oft-cited models of joint liability lending. The theoretical part of this paper develops the models' implications for repayment and derives new ones, signing the derivative of a project choice, monitoring, default, or selection equation. For example, we find that several models imply that higher correlation of output can raise the observed repayment rate, and in some the ability to act cooperatively leads to lower repayment rates. More generally, the models agree on some dimensions and conflict on others. The empirical part uses survey data from 262 Thai joint liability groups of the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) and from 2880 households of the same villages. Nonparametric, univariate tests and multivariate logits are used to evaluate the predictions of the models. A hybrid, partially linear procedure is used to understand any differences in the results between the two types of tests. We find that the Besley and Coate model of limited enforcement is strongly supported in the more rural, poorer region of Thailand covered by the data. In the more prosperous region, closer to Bangkok, support is found for the Stiglitz model of moral hazard and the Ghatak model of adverse selection.


Isotretinoin (13‐cis retinoic acid) is the most potent known inhibitor of sebum production. The multiple modes of action for isotretinoin, including suppression of sebaceous gland activity, normalization of the pattern of keratinization within the sebaceous gland follicle, inhibition of inflammation, reduction of growth of Propionibacterium acnes in a secondary manner and, as currently shown, normalization of the expression of matrix tissue metalloproteinases and their inhibitors make this compound the single most effective in the treatment of severe recalcitrant nodulocystic acne, and in the prevention of acne scarring. Several generic formulations for oral use have recently been introduced, in addition to the brand formulations Roaccutane® and Accutane™ (Roche). This development, considering the high risk of teratogenicity associated with oral isotretinoin use, has led the European Commission and the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) to release a directive towards the harmonization of the Summary of Product Characteristics (SPC). This has similarities to US FDA regulations, a matter that caused the reaction of the Forum for the Improvement of Clinical Trials in Acne. Physician's experience, coupled with proper patient selection, dose adjustment or discontinuation of treatment, and routine monitoring for potential toxicity, has allowed the successful prevention and management of most adverse effects associated with isotretinoin.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the validity of a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) by applying it to children and adolescents living in Salvador, Bahia.

METHODS
The validity of this FFQ with 98 food items was investigated among 108 children and adolescents who were selected from a sample of 1445 that had been planned for a study on the risk factors for asthma and other allergic diseases. The adults responsible for these children and adolescents gave responses for a 24-hour recall (R24h) and an FFQ. The average energy and nutrient values from the FFQ were compared with those from the R24h by means of the paired t test and Pearson correlation coefficients. The concordance was evaluated using the Bland-Altman method and kappa statistics.

RESULTS
The energy and nutrient intake estimated using the FFQ was significantly higher than what was obtained using the R24h. The correlation coefficients adjusted for energy were statistically significant for protein, fat, vitamin C and zinc. The weighted kappa values ranged from 0.06 for vitamin A (p = 0.24) to 0.34 for energy (p < 0.00). The results from the Bland-Altman plots for lipid, protein and zinc showed the most significant validity parameters, and zinc was found to show the best concordance.

CONCLUSION
The results suggest that the FFQ showed satisfactory validity for use in studies involving children and adolescents.


Health care spending has risen steadily in most countries, becoming a concern for decision-makers worldwide. Commentators often point to new medical technology as the key driver for burgeoning expenditures. This paper critically appraises this conjecture, based on an analysis of the existing literature, with the aim of offering a more detailed and considered analysis of this relationship. Several databases were searched to identify relevant literature. Various categories of studies (eg, multivariate and cost-effectiveness analyses) were included to cover different perspectives, methodological approaches, and issues regarding the link between medical technology and costs. Selected articles were reviewed and relevant information was extracted into a standardized template and analyzed for key cross-cutting themes, ie, impact of technology on costs, factors influencing this relationship, and methodological challenges in measuring such linkages. A total of 86 studies were reviewed. The analysis suggests that the relationship between medical technology and spending is complex and often conflicting. Findings were frequently contingent on varying factors, such as the availability of other interventions, patient population, and the methodological approach employed. Moreover, the impact of technology on costs differed across technologies, in that some (eg, cancer drugs, invasive medical devices) had significant financial implications, while others were cost-neutral or cost-saving. In light of these issues, we argue that decision-makers and other commentators should extend their focus beyond costs solely to include consideration of whether medical technology results in better value in health care and broader socioeconomic benefits.


Online advertising is one of the most widespread ways to reach and increase a target audience for those selling products. Usually having a form of a banner, advertising engages users into visiting a corresponding webpage. Professional generation of banners requires creative and writing skills and a basic understanding of target products. The great variety of goods presented in the online market enforce professionals to spend more and more time creating new advertisements different from existing ones. In this paper, we propose a neural network-based approach for the automatic generation of online advertising using texts from given webpages as sources. The important part of the approach is training on open data available online, which allows avoiding costly procedures of manual labeling. Collected open data consist of multiple subdomains with high data heterogeneity. The subdomains belong to different topics and vary in used vocabularies, phrases, styles that lead to reduced quality in adverts generation. We try to solve the problem of identifying existed subdomains and proposing a new ensemble approach based on exploiting multiple instances of a seq2seq model. Our experimental study on a dataset in the Russian language shows that our approach can significantly improve the quality of adverts generation.


This paper concerns the space-time evolution of the late Miocene to present contractional and extensional deformations within east-central Italy, with an analysis of the pattern and orientation of the related stress field, an insight into the cover-basement relations, and a discussion of the seismotectonic implications. The pattern and orientation of the deformation and stress fields have remained unchanged since late Miocene time and have been always characterized by the coexistence and parallelism in contiguous areas in a given time of shortening to the east and elongation to the west. With time, during a multistage deformation history, both the contraction and the extension fields have moved eastward. Basement-involved tectonics with a west-dipping multiple detachment system would have allowed the progressive eastward shift of crustal slices, corresponding at the surface to well-defined tectonic domains, with consequent crustal thinning in the Tuscan zone and crustal thickening beneath the Apennine mountain chain. By comparing macroseismic epicenters, hypocenters, and focal mechanisms with crustal structure and independently known active faults, it appears evident that the pattern, frequency, and distribution of the crustal seismicity are tectonically controlled and that a contraction-extension pair is active also at the present time. In fact, along the Adriatic coastline, contractional deformation prevails with involvement of Pleistocene layers, whereas beneath the Apennine Range, extensional deformation prevails. Both T-axes in the inner domain and P-axes in the outer domain are oriented southwest-northeast or west-south-west east-northeast, and this coaxiality reflects the situation depicted by the geologic stress field. On this basis, we have produced a seismotectonic zoning of east-central Italy with three distinct domains: Intramountain Seismic Zone (ISZ), Foothills Seismic Zone (FSZ), and Coastal Seismic Zone (CSZ). A plausible explanation for the genesis of the "active" seismic deformations of east-central Italy is that the locally intense extensional upper-crustal seismicity of the Intramountain Seismic Zone is confined to the hanging wall of a major, west-dipping, active extensional discontinuity, whereas the less frequent contractional seismic activity of the Coastal Seismic Zone is within the hanging wall of an outer major, active, west-dipping contractional discontinuity. An area of overlap between these two zones is represented by the Foothills Seismic Zone, where superposed epicentral patterns from different surfaces of weakness at different depths are the predictable result of the asymmetry of the deformation.


3D anthropometric data can be obtained more easily than several years ago, but to process 3D data is challenging and landmark identification is one of the most challenges. Traditional methods need to manually paste markers on landmarks of the subjects. It is time-consuming and greatly impacts the efficiency of future data analysis. Numerous methods for landmark identification have been proposed, but none with high efficiency, good robustness and strong adaptability has been found yet. In this paper, an approach combined spin image with Hidden Markov Model (HMM) together to automatically identify and locate facial landmarks from 3D face data was proposed. Two hundred 3D head data of young male Chinese were analyzed. Under Unigraphics software, data noise and redundancy were removed and 3D head models were generated. Spin image was adopted to describe the 3D facial landmark local features. With visual check, we defined our facial landmarks and calculated spin images of the facial landmarks. Subsequently, we created a Hidden Markov Model for each landmark, and then used 90 samples as training data to train the model. At last, 60 heads were used as testing samples. Preliminary results show that spin image is highly efficient and robust to pose and lighting. As for HMM, the maximum landmark recognition rate reached 98.33%. There were two landmark HMM models (right orbitale and left cheilion) successful other two models (sellion and right cheilion) quality in general, and the rest of the models had low recognition rate. Further investigation is necessary to evaluate the feature descriptive ability of spin image in future. There are also several aspects related with HMM need to be investigated, such as the convergence of Baum-Welch algorithm and initialization parameters of B etc. Also enhancing efficiency and robustness and using our method to identify other landmarks of human body segments is worth more investigation.


Theoretically, rate of penetration (ROP) model is the basic to drilling parameters design, ROP improvement tools selection and drill time & cost estimation. Currently, ROP modelling is mainly conducted by two approaches: equation-based approach and machine learning approach, and machine learning performs better because of the capacity in high-dimensional and non-linear process modelling. However, in deep or deviated wells, the ROP prediction accuracy of machine learning is always unsatisfied mainly because the energy loss along the wellbore and drill string is non-negligible and it's difficult to consider the effect of wellbore geometry in machine learning models by pure data-driven methods. Therefore, it's necessary to develop robust ROP modelling method for different scenarios.
 In the paper, the performance of several equation-based methods and machine learning methods are evaluated by data from 82 wells, the technical features and applicable scopes of different methods are analysed. A new machine learning based ROP modelling method suitable for different well path types was proposed. Integrated data processing pipeline was designed to dealing with data noises, data missing, and discrete variables. ROP effecting factors were analysed, including mechanical parameters, hydraulic parameters, bit characteristics, rock properties, wellbore geometry, etc. Several new features were created by classic drilling theories, such as downhole weight on bit (DWOB), hydraulic impact force, formation heterogeneity index, etc. to improve the efficiency of learning from data. A random forest model was trained by cross validation and hyperparameters optimization methods.
 Field test results shows that the model could predict the ROP in different hole sections (vertical, deviated and horizontal) and different drilling modes (sliding and rotating drilling) and the average accuracy meets the requirement of well planning.
 A novel data processing and feature engineering workflow was designed according the characteristics of ROP modelling in different well path types. An integrated data-driven ROP modelling and optimization software was developed, including functions of mechanical specific energy analysis, bit wear analysis and predict, 2D & 3D ROP sensitivity analysis, offset wells benchmark, ROP prediction, drilling parameters constraints analysis, cost per meter prediction, etc. and providing quantitative evidences for drilling parameters optimization, drilling tools selection and well time estimation.


Based on a case study in each country, this study documents the views of Mozambican and Tanzanian smallholders regarding Chinese agricultural investments and the extent to which investors abide by their legitimate land tenure rights as defined by the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Forests and Fisheries in the Context of National Food Security (VGGTs). The VGGTs offer guidelines to government on how to protect the land tenure of rural communities when land is being acquired for large-scale land investments. The study also assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on smallholders. Due to COVID-19, instead of fieldwork, we conducted telephone interviews with 20 smallholders in Mozambique and 35 in Tanzania. The Mozambican case showed that even when land set aside for investors was not in dispute, smallholders still had unmet expectations, especially regarding investors' corporate social responsibility activities. In the Tanzanian case, even though the land leased by the Chinese investor had been designated as general land, it had laid fallow for a long period, and smallholders had moved back onto the land, only to be displaced in 2017. Although smallholders' views on the investment were mixed, the case underscored the need for government to assess current land use before allocating it to investors—regardless of how the land is classified and especially in areas where land shortages are creating conflict. The cases show that even if communities are consulted about proposed land investments, guidelines need to include clauses that allow for ongoing communications between investors, communities and government officials such that if communities are unsatisfied with the results of the investment, renegotiation is possible. Further, in the event of crises, such as COVID-19, investors should partner with communities and government to limit the extent of harm in communities as a result of the crisis.


Dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers such as nicardipine are under evaluation for treating acute cerebral ischemia because they may increase cerebral blood flow by causing vasodilation and because they may be cytoprotective in part by limiting production of arachidonic acid metabolites. We demonstrated in a previous study that nicardipine improves postischemic neuronal function, as measured by somatosensory evoked potentials, without reducing the extent of light-microscopic CA-1 hippocampal histologic damage. To characterize further the effect of nicardipine on global ischemic injury, we administered the drug beginning 24 hours before 30 minutes of four-vessel ischemia in Wistar rats. We then measured hippocampal ATP, phosphocreatine, and glucose contents immediately and 2 hours after ischemia, and measured learning ability (working and reference errors) on an eight-arm radial maze beginning 30 days after ischemia. To gain insight into the possible mechanism of action, we measured production of arachidonic acid metabolites (eicosanoids: TXB2 and 6-keto-PGF1 alpha) and hemispheric and hippocampal cerebral blood flow by the [14C]butanol indicator fractionation technique immediately and 2 hours after ischemia. Nicardipine was associated with fewer working errors (p less than 0.02) but no difference in reference errors. The drug had no effect on energy metabolites, cerebral blood flow, or eicosanoids immediately after ischemia, but ATP, phosphocreatine, and cerebral blood flow all returned to normal levels significantly more rapidly during reperfusion in treated rats. Nicardipine improves behavioral, electrophysiologic, and mitochondrial function after ischemia without preventing cellular damage and improves postischemic reperfusion. The drug's positive effect appears to occur during reperfusion.


The current information society has been reported to have begun in 1976 and has included five different stages of development, from inception to globalization (Nevalainen 1999). Current society is in a new phase of transition, where applications of digitalization such as artificial intelligence and human-centered robotics are becoming a relevant part of every person's life in working life, school and leisure. There are already concepts for the future society called 5.0 (Sato & Arimoto 2015) where researchers have considered what issues may change and how changes may happen (Cabinet Office 2019).Wearable intelligence can be defined broadly but it combines textiles and technology and includes sensors (traditional, bacteria-based, etc.), software applications, intelligent textile materials (phase change polymers, textiles), smart design (mass customization, value-based design, etc.) and services (platform economy). The products of wearable intelligence can be wearable sensors, smart textiles and shoes, exoskeleton robots, and fabrics, which are smart and connected to sensor networks and services (AI cloud). Currently, the market expects that researchers would develop efficient, lightweight and reliable exoskeleton robots that make use of high-speed 5G mobile networks and AI. However, the greatest part of the developed exoskeletons is for upper body and they are made from traditional materials and with traditional approaches which emphasize technical issues.The aim of the study was to plan a new approach for designing footwear exoskeleton. The objective was to design a footwear exoskeleton design approach which takes into account smart textile materials, smart sensors, sustainable design, testing data and user expectations. We found that smart footwear exoskeleton design requires professionals from design and user experience, ICT and programming, material and textile technology, mechatronics and energy, and biomechanics domains. As conclusion the ecosystem of smart footwear exoskeleton robotics is still in novice stage and new design approaches are needed, especially now when Society 5.0 may increase demand for assistive technology.


Stochastic logic, also known as stochastic computing, provides very low computation hardware area, fault tolerance, and efficient hardware implementations for high clock rates. It has long been defined as the processing of signals encoded as Bernoulli random sequences. This assumed definition has created its most notable restriction: the requirement to sample much faster than the Nyquist rate, severely limiting the allowable signal bandwidth. We demonstrate that stochastic logic can be extended beyond Bernoulli sequences to include binomial (N, p) representations where N > 1. By expanding the definition of stochastic computing we create a new design methodology that enables the engineer to obtain greater signal bandwidth by increasing the circuit size.


AbstractThe aim of the study was to examine the relation between estimated fluidintake and real fluidintake among dialysis patients. The data were collected through study specific questionnaire and data from the medical record. Patients attached to eleven Swedish dialysis units were asked to participate. The number of patients that fulfilled the inclusion criteria were 222 persons of whom145 (65%) chose to participate in the study. The dialysis patients estimated their fluid intake for a day in average 9,06 deciliter. The dialysis patients real fluid intake for a day were in average 10,34 deciliter. The results showed that 58% of the dialysis patients that participated in the study had an estimated fluid intake less than what they actually consumed. The relation between estimated fluid intake and real fluid intake was r=0,288, which showed a fairly poor relation.


The purpose of this paper is to investigate shear strength and failure pattern of rock containing two parallel open joints with different horizontal separations using RFPA2D (rock failure process analysis) code. Specimens are placed in a direct shear box. The upper is invariably loaded with normal stress 0.15MPa, the left is controlled by a constant increasing horizontal displacement 0.002mm/step. The whole shear failure process is visually represented and the failure pattern in reasonable accordance with previous experimental results is obtained. In general, only mixed mode (tensile and shear) is observed for the failure pattern in the numerical tests. Tensile cracks initiate from the tips of pre-existing joints respectively with an initiation angle of about 45°, then propagate towards another joint in a single stria; Shear cracks occur in the further process and the main direction of shear failure surface is roughly parallel to shear loading. The failure pattern of bridged rock is mainly controlled by the joint separation and the roughness of wavy shear failure surface is different, which is mostly influenced by the joint separation in the same way. The peak shear load, related to the failure patterns, decreases with the increase of joint separation, but the shear strength of intact rock is invariable.


The freedom from distraction factor in the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: A short model. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) usually presents a profile in which the freedom from distraction factor of the WISC-R (FDF) is affected to a greater extent than the verbal comprehension factor (VCF) and the perceptual organisation factor (POF). The formulation FDF< (VCF + POF)/2 has good sensitivity for ADHD. The aim of this study was to reduce the number of tests needed for the formulation FDF< (VCF + POF)/2, maintaining the sensitivity for ADHD and concordance with the complete formulation. A clinical sample of 167 children with ADHD is analysed (6-16 years). The cases of ADHD were defined according to DSM-IV criteria and they were assessed with WISC-R, Child Symptom Inventory and Social and Occupational Activity Assessment Scale. Lineal regression method was used to reduce the number of tests. The results showed that the short formulation reduces the number of tests by half and it has 83% sensitivity for ADHD. This formulation presents a good concordance with the complete version. The FDF is significantly lower than the VCF, POF and intellectual quotient in cases of ADHD. Comorbidity, social or school activity do not have a significant influence on the probability that FDF< (VCF + POF)/2.


Circulating immune complexes were quantitated by Clq-binding assays of serum from 73 patients with active coccidioidomycosis, 5 patients with inactive disease, and 34 healthy subjects. Immune complexes were detected in serums of 8 (44%) of 18 patients with active pulmonary disease only and 22 (40%) of 55 patients with active disseminated disease. Results in none of 5 patients with inactive disease and in only 2 (9%) of 34 healthy subjects were positive by the Clq-binding assay. Immune complex levels did not differ in patients with pulmonary disease versus those with disseminated disease. However, immune complexes did correlate with disease involvement. Of 57 patients with coccidioidomycosis involving a single organ system (pulmonary or extrapulmonary), 19 (33%) had immune complexes compared with 6 (67%) of 9 patients with disease involving 2 organ systems, and 5 (71%) of 7 patients with disease of 3 or more organ systems. Immune complex levels correlated with serum IgG, but did not correlate with serum complement-fixing antibody titers to coccidioidin. Rather, the correlation curve between immune complexes and complement-fixing antibody titers yielded a bell-shaped distribution. This distribution pattern suggests that changes in antibody concentration may have effected the size and lattice of immune complexes, resulting in altered detection and/or clearance from the bloodstream.


A high EQE of 19.1% using TADF materials as host and sensitizer with a fluorescent emitter TBRb was obtained. The high performance was enabled by utilization of TADF molecules as sensitizer and host that permit efficient transfer of all electrically generated singlet and triplet excitons from the host to sensitizer then to the TBRb.


The uplink coverage and capacity of CDMA cellular systems with the conventional single user detector receiver are interference limited. Particularly, during the roll-out phase, the coverage of a CDMA system is uplink limited. Hence, using serial interference cancellation (SIC) at the base station is a low cost option to increase the overall performance. Considering the typical quality of service requirements of mixed services, i.e. voice and data, a new hybrid receiver structure for interference cancellation is proposed. In order to perform system level analysis, the calculation of signal-to-interference ratios is extended to the case of multiple service classes. Given this tooling, the optimum powers of the mobile stations are derived as a function of various system parameters and receiver structures. This enables an accurate calculation of the intracell and intercell interference and a derivation of coverage-capacity tradeoff expressions. Results show significant performance gains in terms of user capacity and cell coverage by using SIC receivers including the proposed hybrid structure that meets the delay and complexity requirements of the different service classes.


Just as specific age-related factors increase OTC use and risk, so age also complicates diagnosis. Drug abuse and alcoholism in older patients tend to present nonspecifically. This is also true for OTC drug overuse. Diagnosis of OTC misuse or abuse can only be made if clinicians have an index of suspicion, seek multiple sources of information, interview family members, obtain urine toxicologies, and critically analyze routine laboratory data.


Noradrenergic inputs to the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) play important roles in the regulation of neuroendocrine and autonomic functions. Previous reports show that noradrenaline increases the frequency of spontaneous inhibitory postsynaptic currents (sIPSCs) in a subpopulation of type II neurones, acting via alpha(1)-adrenoceptors (ARs), but reduces this frequency in most type I and another subpopulation of type II neurones, via alpha(2)-ARs on presynaptic GABA neurones. Here, we identified the subtypes of alpha-ARs mediating noradrenaline-induced increases and decreases in the sIPSC frequency of PVN neurones, by using slice patch recordings from PVN neurones. In both type I and II neurones, the noradrenaline-induced decrease in sIPSC frequency was completely blocked by BRL44408 (alpha(2A)-AR antagonist) at 1-3 micro M, which is approximately 1/100 of its equilibrium dissociation constant (pA(2) = 8.0), but not by prazosin (20-100 micro M, alpha(2B/C)-AR antagonist; pA(2) = 7.5). The effect of noradrenaline was mimicked by guanfacine (alpha(2A)-AR agonist) with an EC(50) of 0.1 micro M. In type II neurones, the noradrenaline-induced increase in sIPSC frequency was not blocked by any of the following antagonists: RS17053 (10 micro M, alpha(1A)-AR antagonist), BMY7378 (2 micro M, alpha(1D)-AR antagonist), prazosin (0.1 micro M, alpha(1)-AR antagonist; pA(2) = 10.5), or chloroethylclonidine (10 micro M, alpha(1B/D)-AR antagonist). However, the effect of noradrenaline was blocked by higher concentrations of prazosin (1 micro M) or RS17053 (100 micro M), suggesting the involvement of alpha(1L)-subtype, a low affinity form of alpha(1A)-ARs. Collectively, our results indicate that the alpha(2A)-, or alpha(1L)-ARs on the GABA neurones mediate the noradrenaline-induced decreases, or increases in the frequencies of the sIPSCs of PVN neurones, respectively.


Background: It is well known that severe lung impairment in cystic fibrosis (CF) may compromise respiratory muscle function at rest. Even though patients with CF and severe obstructive lung disease exhibit an abnormal breathing pattern during exercise (due to expiratory flow limitation), patients with CF and normal lung function reportedly have a normal breathing pattern. Objectives: The aim of the study was to assess the precise characteristics of the ventilatory pattern adopted during exercise by children with CF and mild to moderate lung disease. Methods: Nine children diagnosed as having mild to moderate CF and 9 healthy children with a similar age distribution participated in this study. Both groups performed a continuous incremental cycling protocol. Breathing and timing components were assessed during exercise. Results: Differences in the breathing pattern between children with CF and controls during exercise are illustrated in Hey plot which described a rapid shallow breathing pattern in children with CF. During exercise, children with CF showed a significantly lower mean inspiratory flow than healthy children (p < 0.001), whereas the mean expiratory flow was higher (p < 0.001). Children with CF also showed a significant increase in the end-tidal carbon dioxide pressure, which may indicate the emergence of hypercapnia. Conclusions: During exercise, children with CF (even those not suffering from advanced disease) showed signs of rapid, shallow breathing and an increase in the ventilatory response. This was essentially due to an increase in the mean inspiratory flow, which in turn suggests an expiratory flow limitation. The children were also predisposed to hypercapnia.


Linear and nonlinear optimal control have been investigated in transitional channel and boundary layer .ows. The flow phenomena that we study are governed by the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations and the main aim with the control is to prevent transition from laminar to turbulent flows. A linear model-based feedback control approach, that minimizes an objective function which measures the perturbation energy, can be formulated where the Orr– Sommerfeld/Squire equations model the flow dynamics. A limitation with the formulation is that it requires complete state information. However, the control problem can be combined with a state estimator to relax this requirement. The estimator requires only wall measurements to reconstruct the flow in an optimal manner. Physically relevant stochastic models are suggested for the estimation problem which turns out to be crucial for fast convergence. Based on these models the estimator is shown to work for both in.nitesimal as well as finite amplitude perturbations in direct numerical simulations of a channel flow at Recl = 3000. A stochastic model for external disturbances is also constructed based on statistical data from a turbulent channel flow at ReT = 100. The model is successfully applied to estimate a turbulent channel flow at the same Reynolds number. The combined control and estimation problem, also known as a compensator, is applied to spatially developing boundary layers. The compensator is shown to successfully reduce the perturbation energy for Tollmien–Schlichting waves and optimal perturbations in the Blasius boundary layer. In a Falkner– Skan–Cooke boundary layer the perturbation energy of traveling and stationary cross-flow disturbances are also reduced. A nonlinear control approach using the Navier–Stokes equations and the associated adjoint equations are derived and implemented in the context of direct numerical simulations of spatially-developing three-dimensional boundary layer .ows and the gradient computation is veri.ed with .nite-di.erences. The nonlinear optimal control is shown to be more e.cient in reducing the disturbance energy than feedback control when nonlinear interactions are becoming signi.cant in the boundary layer. For weaker disturbances the two methods are almost indistinguishable.


Background: Immunization is a common medical procedure that children experience during childhood. Many children experience fear of immunization, which can create problems for both children and their caretakers and meeting children, who fear immunization, can also become a difficult task for nurses. This indicates the need for more knowledge of what nurses and caretakers can do to reduce children's' fear of immunization. Aim: The aim with the study was to illuminate the encounter with children, who fear immunization, and their caretakers during the immunization procedure.Method: A literature review was performed, including searches performed in the databases CINAHL and MEDLINE. Thirteen articles were reviewed and analyzed with a method described by Friberg.Results: The results is presented by two main themes; "Communication during immunization" and "Collaboration during immunization". The result shows the importance for the nurse to create a relationship and trust through conversation, but it also highlights the influence of parent's attachment and parenthood, their physical presence and the use of distraction to reduce the child's fear. It shows that parents have an important role in interacting and helping the child during the immunization.Conclusion: In order to optimize the contact with children who fear immunization, it's necessary to create a positive interaction between nurse, parent and the child, through communication. With knowledge about how children experience the immunization and the influence of the parents, the nurse can guide parent and child to a successful immunization.


Much of the previous work on the role of atomic hydrogen in diamond growth has been focused on its formation on various refractory metal filaments, its reaction in the gas phase and its role in the growth mechanism. In contrast, the effect of atomic hydrogen recombination on substrate heating is addressed in this letter. Experiments were conducted in vacuum, helium, and hydrogen environments. Tantalum and carbon filaments were used to vary atomic hydrogen generation rates. Furthermore, methane was added in some experiments to determine its effect on hydrogen assisted ''chemical'' heating of the substrate. The results indicate that when substantial amounts of atomic hydrogen are generated at the filament, reactions of atomic hydrogen at the diamond growth surface have a pronounced effect on the substrate temperature. Use of carbon filaments lead to significantly diminished atomic hydrogen generation rates and much lower substrate temperatures. Additions of small amounts of methane to hydrogen also resulted...


In this paper, we examine the application of a psychophysical evaluation technique to quantify the fidelity of haptic rendering methods. The technique is based on multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis of similarity ratings provided by users comparing pairs of haptically-presented objects. Unbeknownst to the participants, both real and virtual deformable objects were presented to them. In addition, virtual objects were either presented under higher-fidelity rendering condition or under lower-fidelity condition in which force filtering and proxy-point filtering were removed. We hypothesized that reducing fidelity of virtual rendering would exaggerate the difference between real and virtual objects. MDS analysis of pairwise similarity data provided quantitative confirmation that users perceived a clear difference between real and virtual objects in the lower-fidelity, but not in the higher-fidelity condition. In the latter, a single perceptual dimension, corresponding to stiffness, sufficed to explain similarity data, while two perceptual dimensions were needed in the former condition. This study demonstrates how MDS analysis provides an opportunity to visualize and quantify the perceptual effects of changes in rendering parameters and how it can be used in the evaluation of haptic rendering scenarios.


Rosiglitazone (ROS) is an antidiabetic drug belonging to the thiozolidine class. Two simple, rapid, sensitive, accurate and reproducible UV-spectrophotometric methods were developed and subsequently validated for the determination of ROS in bulk and tablet form. The methods are based on the measurement of the absorbance of the drug solution either in 0.1 M NaOH (NaOH method) or in 0.1 M HCl (HCl method) at 316 nm in both instances. The developed methods were validated for several parameters as per the ICH guidelines. Beer's law was obeyed over the concentration ranges 4–72 µg ml-1and 2.5–45.0 µg ml-1, for both NaOH and HCl diluents, respectively, with corresponding molar extinction coefficients of 4.61 × 103 and 7.32 × 103 l mol-1 cm-1. The calculated limits of detection (LOD) and limits of quantification (LOQ) were 0.44 and 1.33 µg ml-1 (NaOH method) and 0.28 and 0.86 µg ml-1 (HCl method), respectively. The intraday and interday percent RE values, reflective of accuracy, were <2%; and the methods were also found to be repeatable and reproducible with %RSD values of <2%. Results of robustness and ruggedness were satisfactory. The methods were also shown to be selective as seen from the results of placebo and synthetic mixture analyses. When applied to tablets, results obtained were comparable with the label claim as well as those obtained by a reference method. As part of stress testing, the drug was subjected to forced degradation under the recommended stress conditions of ICH, and it was found to undergo substantial degradation under base hydrolysis and oxidation-induced stress conditions, but remained inert to acid hydrolysis, photolytic- and heat-induced stress conditions, thereby reflecting the stability-indicating ability of the methods.  Keywords: Rosiglitazone, determination, UV-spectrophotometry, pharmaceuticals, stabilityindicating   Cite this Article Basavaiah K, Rajendraprasad N. Two New, Useful and Facile StabilityIndicating UV Spectrophotometric Methods for the Determination of Rosiglitazone in Pharmaceuticals. Research and Reviews: A Journal of Pharmaceutical Science. 2017; 8(2):   8–19p.


Abstract. Co-located measurements of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon, radiocarbon (14C), speciated volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and OH radicals during the CalNex field campaign provide a unique opportunity to evaluate the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model's representation of organic species from VOCs to particles. Episode average daily 23 h average 14C analysis indicates PM2.5 carbon at Pasadena and Bakersfield during the CalNex field campaign was evenly split between contemporary and fossil origins. CMAQ predicts a higher contemporary carbon fraction than indicated by the 14C analysis at both locations. The model underestimates measured PM2.5 organic carbon at both sites with very little (7% in Pasadena) of the modeled mass represented by secondary production, which contrasts with the ambient-based SOC / OC fraction of 63% at Pasadena. Measurements and predictions of gas-phase anthropogenic species, such as toluene and xylenes, are generally within a factor of 2, but the corresponding SOC tracer (2,3-dihydroxy-4-oxo-pentanoic acid) is systematically underpredicted by more than a factor of 2. Monoterpene VOCs and SOCs are underestimated at both sites. Isoprene is underestimated at Pasadena and overpredicted at Bakersfield and isoprene SOC mass is underestimated at both sites. Systematic model underestimates in SOC mass coupled with reasonable skill (typically within a factor of 2) in predicting hydroxyl radical and VOC gas-phase precursors suggest error(s) in the parameterization of semivolatile gases to form SOC. Yield values (α) applied to semivolatile partitioning species were increased by a factor of 4 in CMAQ for a sensitivity simulation, taking into account recent findings of underestimated yields in chamber experiments due to gas wall losses. This sensitivity resulted in improved model performance for PM2.5 organic carbon at both field study locations and at routine monitor network sites in California. Modeled percent secondary contribution (22% at Pasadena) becomes closer to ambient-based estimates but still contains a higher primary fraction than observed.


A NBR membrane containing carbon black (36 wt.%) and di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP; 11 wt.%) that had been used at temperatures up to 45 C in pressurised air showed cracking after 2 years in service. Samples were aged in air at elevated temperatures and their mechanical properties were assessed by tensile testing, the glass transition temperature was obtained by DSC, and the DEHP content was determined by liquid chromatography. The loss of DEHP was controlled by the boundary conditions at low temperatures and the loss rate was constant at 90 C within a certain DEHP concentration range (8 to 11 wt.%). The presence of carbon black and DEHP made it impossible to determine oxidation products by infrared spectroscopy. Strain-at-break data were analysed in a way that enabled the effect of DEHP migration to be separated from the effect of thermal oxidation. This allowed extrapolation in both temperature and oxygen pressure domains of high temperature/low oxygen pressure data to the service conditions. The analysis showed that both DEHP evaporation and thermal oxidation had a significant impact on the strain-at-break, but that the latter was the more important. Data for the mechanical properties and the glass transition temperature indicated that oxidation was non-uniform with increasing depth in the specimens. This condition of the 4.5 mm thick samples meant that it was inappropriate to use the specimen Young's modulus for extrapolation purposes.


It is hypothesized that in the "more highly evolved" mammals, including the domesticated mammals, that the brainstem and the cerebellum receive arterial blood through the vertebrobasilar system whilst the internal carotid arteries primarily supply the forebrain. In camels, the arterial blood supply to the brain differs from that of ruminants since the internal carotid artery and the rostral epidural rete mirabile (RERM) are both present and the basilar artery contributes a significant proportion of cerebral afferent blood. In this study, we described the anatomical distribution of the vertebrobasilar system arterial supply in the dromedary. Secondly, we determined the direction of blood flow within the vertebral and basilar arteries using transcranial color doppler ultrasonography. Thirdly, we quantified the percentage arterial contributions of the carotid and vertebrobasilar systems to the dromedary brain. Fifty-five heads of freshly slaughtered male Omani dromedaries aged 2–6 years were dissected to determine the distribution and topography of the arterial distribution to the brain. Their anatomical orientation was assessed by casting techniques using epoxy resin, polyurethane resin and latex neoprene. The epoxy resin and polyurethane resin casts of the head and neck arteries were used to measure the diameter of vertebrobasilar arterial system and carotid arterial system at pre-determined locations. These arterial diameters were used to calculate the percentage of blood supplied by each arterial system. The vertebrobasilar system in dromedary camels consists of paired vertebral arteries that contribute to the ventral spinal artery and basilar artery at multiple locations. In most specimens the vertebral artery was the primary contributor to the basilar artery compared to that of the ventral spinal artery. In four specimens the ventral spinal arteries appear to be the dominant contributor to the basilar artery. Transcranial color doppler ultrasonography confirmed that the direction of blood flow within the vertebral and basilar arteries was toward the brain in animals examined in ventral recumbency and when standing. The vertebrobasilar system contributes 34% of the blood supply to the brain. The vertebrobasilar system is the exclusive supply to the medulla oblongata, pons and cerebellum.


Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus, transmitted to humans by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitos, and has also more recently been shown to transmit from human-to-human sexually and vertically from mother to fetus. ZIKV infection, typically causing mild clinical symptoms, has been linked to a range of neurological complications including microcephaly in fetuses and Guillain-Barre syndrome in adults. ZIKV's recent emergence poses a public health emergency, and new pathological information is required for developing effective interventions to ameliorate the burden of disease. The dendritic cell (DC), the key innate immune responder that ultimately drives anti-viral adaptive immunity, has known interactions with ZIKV. However, the nature of this interaction, and the DCs role in ZIKV pathology needs further elucidation. Here we hypothesize ZIKV can infect and modify the phenotype and function of dendritic cells, which influences the nature of their subsequent interplay with pre-existing ZIKV antigen responsive memory T cells. We found that ZIKV can indeed infect both immature and mature DCs, and that DCs can transfer infection to bystander cells. We also found that exposure of DCs to ZIKV alters their function, maturation status, and survival. Interestingly, we note that the capacity of ZIKV to infect DCs is greatly influenced by the environmental signals received by DCs during their maturation process, and that type-1 polarized DC are inherently more resistant than type-2 matured DC. Importantly, when activated by the CD4+ T cell helper signal CD40L, ZIKV infected DC proved to be more resistant to ZIKV-induced cell death. And finally, on the background of dengue virus immunity, we found that dengue antigen specific memory T cells cross-react with ZIKV antigen presented by DC, leading to enhanced DC activation rather than elimination. In terms of public health significance, these findings may contribute to our understanding of basic ZIKV and DC interactions, and may help to provide a better understanding of ZIKV pathogenesis leading towards the development of effective interventions to protect and treat those who may become exposed to ZIKV.


My major research paper (MRP) is grounded in the history of Somalia's first orthography implemented in 1972 by President Mohamed Siad Barre. This meant that for the first time Somali history, there would be a written
language that mirrored the Somali oral tradition in all its complexity. The nation's longstanding cultural tradition of oral poetry has both impacted, and been impacted by the implementation of the orthography. Through the use of semi-structured interviews and grounded theory as my method of analysis, the purpose of this MRP is to explore this reciprocal impact between Somalia's oral tradition and the implementation of the orthography, and also to explore how Somali poetry provides a unique lens into this reciprocal impact. After stating the data, I present the findings in two stages: (a) in the form of short stories that provide insight into the topic from the perceptions and perspectives of each interviewee, and (b) as overarching themes that have emerged from the interviewees collectively. The findings reveal that the colonial period in Somalia gave rise to the necessity of an orthography for the oral Somali language which then introduced a level of cultural anxiety as the oral tradition of knowledge preservation eventually weakened. Nonetheless, although the Somali orthography is now seen first and foremost as a means of knowledge preservation, the Somali culture still demonstrates a deep connection to their oral heritage.


Abstract Aqueous homogeneous reactors (AHRs) are liquid fuel nuclear reactors, typically consisting of an acidified nitrate or sulphate base solution of enriched uranium-235 (235U). The goal of this paper is to review both the report and research literature on the topic of materials corrosion issues related to uranyl nitrate base AHRs. The materials of interest are stainless steel (SS)347, SS304L, SS304L-NAG, SS316L and zirconium (Zr) base alloys. In nitric acid solutions, SS and Zr alloys are passive, although there is some increased susceptibility of SS347 to intergranular corrosion (IGC) and knife-line attack as compared to other alloys. This is likely a result of the higher carbon (C) content in SS347. In uranyl nitrate fuel simulants corrosion rates increased as compared with nitric acid alone with the corrosion rate of SS347 being the highest while SS316 was the lowest of the austenitic stainless steels tested. In comparison, corrosion rates of Zr based alloys remained relatively unchanged in uranyl nitrate base solutions. The most prominent issue for these materials appears to be iodide (I−) induced pitting corrosion on the walls of the off-gas extraction system with the potential for stress corrosion cracking. For Zr alloys, vapour phase I− pitting and SCC are well documented failure mechanisms with the threshold I− concentration being on the order of 1–2 ppm. In the off-gas extraction system of a 200 kW AHR calculations indicate that the I− concentration may be as high as 0·4–0·6 ppm warranting further study in this area. The influence of a prototypic AHR neutron flux on corrosion rates and susceptibility to underfilm corrosion, due to precipitation of UO2(OH)2, was not available from the literature.


Abstract Background and objectives: Programmed intermittent epidural bolus (PIEB) is a delivery mode associated with decreased local analgesia dosing, motor block, and physician-administered top-ups (PATUs) during labor analgesia. We hypothesized that PIEB delivery at different settings will result in fewer PATUs for labor analgesia than the same hourly volume of a continuous epidural infusion (CEI). Methods: "Before and after" study design of combined spinal–epidural (CSE) for labor, with bupivacaine 0.0625%–fentanyl 2 mcg/ml and patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA; 5 ml bolus with 10 min lock-out). The "before" group (N = 120) received a CEI at 10 ml/hour. PIEB groups received a programmed bolus of 10 ml: every 60 min (PIEB60, N = 120), every 45 min (PIEB45, N = 140), or every 45 min with high flow (500 ml/hour) (PIEB45HF, N = 25). Main outcome measures: Number of women requesting a PATU, time intervals from CSE to PATU and to delivery, and obstetric outcomes. Results: There was no difference in the proportion of women requesting PATUs between the CEI and PIEB60 groups (45/120 versus 52/120, respectively; p > .05). The PATU rate was lower in the PIEB45 group compared with the PIEB60 and CEI groups (23/140 versus 52/120 and 45/120, p < .005 and p < .05, respectively), and in the PIEB45HF versus PIEB60 groups (5/25 versus 52/120, p < .05). No difference in other outcomes was observed. Conclusions: The number of women requesting a PATU was lowest with the PIEB45 and PIEB45HF settings. There were no differences in any other outcomes between groups. This study emphasizes the many variations in programming that need to be further tested to establish the benefits of PIEB delivery compared with traditional CEI with PCEA.


The increasing number of mammalian genome sequences becoming available provides scientists with dramatic opportunities to computationally reconstruct ancestral mammalian genomic sequences by comparing the genomes of living descendants. In this article, we review computational genome reconstruction methods in different scales, from base-level reconstruction to chromosomal rearrangement reconstruction.

Keywords:

genome reconstruction;
substitution;
insertion and deletion;
rearrangement


The traditional matrix factorisation (MF)-based recommender system methods, despite their success in making the recommendation, lack explainable recommendations as the produced latent features are meaningless and cannot explain the recommendation. This article introduces an MF-based explainable recommender system framework that utilises the user-item rating data and the available item information to model meaningful user and item latent features. These features are exploited to enhance the rating prediction accuracy and the recommendation explainability. Our proposed feature-based explainable recommender system framework utilises these meaningful user and item latent features to explain the recommendation without relying on private or outer data. The recommendations are explained to the user using text message and bar chart. Our proposed model has been evaluated in terms of the rating prediction accuracy and the reasonableness of the explanation using six real-world benchmark datasets for movies, books, video games, and fashion recommendation systems. The results show that the proposed model can produce accurate explainable recommendations.


In feminist, as in mainstream, thinking, there has been a reassessment of the relationship between religion and politics. For much of the twentieth century, it was assumed that religion was at odds with gender equality, and campaigners for women's rights looked to the spread of secular principles and attitudes as an important engine of change. But the notion that secularism, understood as the complete separation of politics from religion, is the precondition for progressive politics has been challenged by critics of the secularization thesis, including Jose Casanova. Specifically within feminism, it has been challenged by the importance attached to women's agency, and the need to respect the choices of religious as well as non-religious women. Yet religions can and do threaten gender equality, and particularly so when their authority over their members is enhanced by a formal or informal role in the political system. The essay argues that Casanova does not engage sufficiently with the severity of this issue, and that his resolution is too complacent both in its celebration of the democratic engagements of civil society, and its reliance on movements for internal reform. Civil society is not a neutral zone, and the associations that constitute civil society can reproduce social hierarchies and exclusions as often as they contest them. Internal reform, moreover, will be hardest to mobilize precisely where it is most needed...


The dynamics of the first antigen specific stage of immune response to Brucella infection was experimentally studied with the method of binding adsorbed antigenic immunoreagents with lymphocytes. The study revealed that the content of antigen-binding lymphocytes (ABL) reached its maximum as early as on day 7 after infection, gradually decreasing afterwards (but even on day 90 ABL could be detected in the blood). The specificity of ABL was proved by the fact that they were absent in noninfected animals, while in the animals infected with Brucella their content was higher than that of ABL specific to Yersinia enterocolitica O9; Brucella-specific ABL bound Brucella lipopolysaccharide (LPS) more intensively than Yersinia LPS. The detection of Brucella-specific ABL was inhibited by Brucella LPS more actively than by Yersinia LPS. The evaluation of the affinity of ABL to homologous LPS, made by the ratio of binding immunoreagents of the same specificity, but with suboptimal and optimal specificity, proved that an increase in the avidity of ABL occurred in the dynamics of the infectious process, which corresponded to the increase of their specificity.


The entry of fowl plague virus, and avian influenza A virus, into Madin- Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells was examined both biochemically and morphologically. At low multiplicity and 0 degrees C, viruses bound to the cell surface but were not internalized. Binding was not greatly dependent on the pH of the medium and reached an equilibrium level in 60-90 min. Over 90% of the bound viruses were removed by neuraminidase but not by proteases. When cells with prebound virus were warmed to 37 degrees C, part of the virus became resistant to removal b neuraminidase, with a half-time of 10-15 min. After a brief lag period, degraded viral material was released into the medium. The neuraminidase- resistant virus was capable of infecting the cells and probably did so by an intracellular route, since ammonium chloride, a lysosomotropic agent, blocked both the infection and the degradation of viral protein. When the entry process was observed by electron microscopy, viruses were seen bound primarily to microvilli on the cell surface at 0 degrees C and, after warming at 37 degrees C, were endocytosed in coated pits, coated vesicles, and large smooth-surfaced vacuoles. Viruses were also present in smooth-surfaced invaginations and small smooth-surfaced vesicles at both temperatures. At physiological pH, no fusion of the virus with the plasma membrane was observed. When prebound virus was incubated at a pH of 5.5 or below for 1 min at 37 degrees C, fusion was, however, detected by ferritin immunolabeling. t low multiplicity, 90% of the prebound virus became neuraminidase- resistant and was presumably fused after only 30 s at low pH. These experiments suggest that fowl plague virus enters MDCK cells by endocytosis in coated pits and coated vesicles and is transported to the lysosome where the low pH initiates a fusion reaction ultimately resulting in the transfer of the genome into the cytoplasm. The entry pathway of fowl plague virus thus resembles tht earlier described for Semliki Forest virus.


Microlejeunea ulicina is one of the leafy liverworts species found in Universitas of Indonesia that has unique characteristics and its existence in Java Island has not been reported before. The ultrastructure analysis of Microlejeunea ulicina is important not only as the mean of identification but also for further exploration of their oil body which contains useful metabolites. Ultrastructure investigation can be accomplished by using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). However, the optimization of the preparation steps for biological sample observation by SEM, including liverworts, is necessary to be carried out. Drying step plays the important role in maintaining the structure of the sample as close-to-native as possible. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of the drying step in the preparation of Microlejeunea ulicina for SEM observation. Microlejeunea ulicina were fixed with 2.5% glutaraldehyde, post-fixed with 4% osmium tetroxide, dehydrated with ethanol series, and then subjected to different drying method, i.e. air-drying and freeze-drying. According to the data obtained, samples dried by using freeze-drying method showed the more detailed structure in conjunction with the up-and-down contour, without any artefact covering the surface of the samples, while air-dried samples showed the flat surface hiding the real structure of the cell. Our data suggested the advantages of freeze-drying in preparing Microlejeunea ulicina for ultrastructure investigation using SEM. The results of this study can further be applied as the basic procedure for other biological samples observation by using SEM.


Follicular bronchiolitis (FB) is a rare small-airway pathology that is associated mainly with connective tissue diseases. This case report presents a new, diagnosed, different airway disease in a non-smoker with rheumatoid arthritis in remission who was treated for presumed asthma, but was not controlled. She was ultimately diagnosed with FB after video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery. The clinical findings of FB were controlled successfully by colchicine after she did not respond to systemic steroid therapy. This is the first case report of FB associated with rheumatoid arthritis that responded to colchicine.


The underground facilities require to be inspected regularly for long term and safe-use. Several mobile inspection systems are widely used, but some crucial problems with the limited inspection distance still exist due to the unstable wireless communication and cable restrictions in complex facilities. To solve these problems, we propose a wheeled robot chain control system (RCCS) for underground facilities inspection based on visible light communication (VLC) and solar panel receivers. The RCCS consists of a leader and follower robot and can extend the inspection range with special "optical signal relay" technology. VLC can provide not only illumination for inspection but also less attenuation, higher information security, and stronger antielectromagnetic interference capability, compared with conventional radio communication in complex underground facilities. Using solar panels can increase the receiving area of optical signals, environmental adaptability, and system robustness, compared with conventional photodiode (PD) receivers. Moreover, to ensure longer and more stable communication, we develop an optical signal relay mechanism along-side an attenuation control module. We performed several experiments to evaluate the signal waveform, communication quality, effective communication region, and cooperative movement. The results indicated that the proposed system could extend the inspection range with higher communication quality and environmental adaptability than VLC-based system with PD receivers.


Weekend traffic congestion in the major urban centres in New Zealand has increased to the point where it is viewed as rivalling the weekday peak period commuting times. Regional and local government policy makers and planners are considering what action should be taken to manage weekend traffic. However, apart from alcohol and crash data analysis, very little study has been done internationally or in New Zealand to understand weekend travel behaviour and how to manage it. In this initial investigation, we have analysed data from the 1997/98 New Zealand Household Travel Survey for the three main urban centres (Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch) to identify the characteristics of weekend travel patterns compared with weekday travel behaviour. The variables considered include age, gender, mode, journey purpose, household characteristics, and vehicle occupancy, among others. Based on the characteristics of weekend travel patterns and other research efforts, we discuss how managing weekend traffic congestion may differ from managing weekday traffic congestion and assess several possible policy tools for their suitability to address weekend congestion.


The end of the Ancient Regime had a strong republican character in whole Spanish America. The only exception would be Mexico, that began its independent life with the offer of the crown to Ferdinand VII and, after his denial, with the proclamation of Iturbide as Emperor, during the First Mexican Empire. Years later, Mexico will also restore the monarchy with Maximilian of Habsburg, in the Second Mexican Empire. The aim of this article is not to analyze these monarchical experiences, to which several more Bourbon restoration attempts should be added, but the political-ideological background in which they were developed. The persistence of the monarchical ideology as a response to the decay sensation and, above all, as expression of the difficulties that the change in legitimacy brought in societies for which fidelity to the king had been the foundation of his entire political system.


In recent years, a team at the Geology and Paleogeography Unit, Marine Sciences Institute, University of Szczecin, has been performing geological, geochronological and paleogeographic surveys in (i) the Szczecin Lagoon and Świna Gate Sandbar and (ii) the estuary section of the Rega river valley near Mrzeżyno. These studies have helped to examine and identify not only the distribution of fossil marine sediments but also their lithological and sedimentological characteristics. The age of marine ingressions and regressions in the coastal zone of the Pomeranian Bay were determined using approximately 170 radiocarbon assays.It was found that the marine ingression associated with the 'Littorina transgression' was not synchronous at these two areas. It started earlier in the Mrzeżyno area, ca. 8300-8200 cal BP. In that first phase, marine sediments developed as tightly packed sands containing a few fragments of shells. In several profiles, these deposits were separated from the bottom and top with layers of peat, thus allowing an indirect determination of their age. The next phase of ingression began about 7300 cal BP. These younger marine sediments already contained quite numerous shells of marine malacofauna, especially Cardium glaucum, often found in a life position.In the area of the Szczecin Lagoon and Swina Gate Sandbar, the oldest marine ingression started as early as about 7350 cal BP. The quite clear trace is a considerably thicker series of marine sands with numerous sea shells representing marine and brackish-marine environments, including Cardium glaucum shells in a life position, which made it possible to identify the age and the rate of accumulation of marine sands.


Gold nanoparticle (GNP) boosted radiation therapy can enhance the biological effectiveness of radiation treatments by increasing the quantity of direct and indirect radiation-induced cellular damage. As the physical effects of GNP boosted radiotherapy occur across energy scales that descend down to 10 eV, Monte Carlo simulations require discrete physics models down to these very low energies in order to avoid underestimating the absorbed dose and secondary particle generation. Discrete physics models for electron transportation down to 10 eV have been implemented within the Geant4-DNA low energy extension of Geant4. Such models allow the investigation of GNP effects at the nanoscale. At low energies, the new models have better agreement with experimental data on the backscattering coefficient, and they show similar performance for transmission coefficient data as the Livermore and Penelope models already implemented in Geant4. These new models are applicable in simulations focussed towards estimating the ...


Results of experimental research into evolution of the structure and microhardness of the hard magnetic Fe-30Cr-8Co-0,7Ti-0,5V-0,7Si alloy during complex two-level loading (compression + torsion) in isothermal conditions at various temperatures in single-phase region are reported. It was revealed that the deformation leads to a strong refinement of initial coarse-grained structure in the whole volume of the sample, however the generated structure is non-uniform through the body of the sample. In an active zone of deformation, near to mobile head, there is a microcrystalline layer with a grain size of about 5 microns which thickness poorly depends on the formation. With removal from the active zone of deformation the grain size increases, and microhardness decreases.


The planned immunization of children aged 11 years with adsorbed DT vaccine in the years of influenza epidemics produced changes in unspecific resistance, occurring in phases: a decrease at the early postvaccinal period and an increase at the late postvaccinal period. When immunization was carried out, on the average, 10 days before the outbreak of influenza, the increased susceptibility phase coincided with the outbreak of influenza; as a reuslt, morbidity rate among the vaccinated children was 3 times higher than among the nonvaccinated children (P < 0.05). In children vaccinated, on the average, 30 days before the epidemic rise of influenza morbidity the increased resistance phase coincided with the peak of the epidemic outbreak; such children showed morbidity rate 6 times lower than the children in the control group. Planned immunization with adsorbed DT vaccine at definite seasons is proposed.


This study provides estimates of the private returns of tertiary nonconventional education (NCE) for management graduates in Malaysia. The term 'non-conventional education' used in this research refers to distance learning and part-time management degree program graduates. We evaluate the private returns using the basic concept of educational cost and benefit analysis. The data used were derived from alumni dataset from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and National University of Malaysia (UKM) alumni division. Calculating the private returns of lifetime earnings, we find that the internal rates of return for NCE graduates are similar in both public and private sectors. Nevertheless, the results presented in this study are the first approximation ever of the private rate of returns to NCE in Malaysia, based on surveys on management NCE graduates in the Malaysian labor market. This study also seeks to contribute to the existing knowledge of economic analysis on lifelong learning in Malaysia.


DNA binding with one finger (DOF) transcription factors play important roles in storage material accumulation and morphogenesis of developing seeds. Oil and protein contents varied in different cultivars in important oil crop peanut. DOF proteins have not been studied in this crop. In this paper, we analyzed all the DOF genes expressed in developing seeds from a cDNA library with 20,000 transcripts, cloned and compared similar genes of GW391729 from eight peanut cultivars, and analyzed similar genes expressed in root and leave with control and inoculated with Ralstonia solanacearum. The results indicate that total eight types of DOF genes were expressed in developing seeds of cultivar 063103. Most of DOF transcription factors expressed involved in developmental process in a complicated way. Among them, GW391729 is possible related to the seed number in fruit, and also is possible related to leafspot resistance. Detailed function of these DOF proteins need to be further studied.


Since the establishment of China's capital market, it has been imperfect. Many listed companies misappropriating the capital market, and some of them want to expand the size through the capital market. It seems that enhance corporate value is impossible, too. However, companies want bigger and stronger cannot do without a strong leverage of the capital market, and enterprises to enhance their value can be counterproductive in the capital markets, improve the efficiency of capital markets. This paper analyzes Kangmei Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, and the relationship between its financing and value growth in the Chinese capital market, research results exist mutually reinforcing mechanisms between capital market efficiency and core competitiveness of enterprises.


Massive upstream migrations of neritid snails (Neritidae: Gastropoda) occur in tropical and subtropical streams worldwide, but their seasonality and proximate causes are unknown. We monitored massive upstream migrations of Neritina virginea for 99 weeks, and conducted a detailed study of snail density, size, and hydraulic descriptors in lower Rio Mameyes, northeastern Puerto Rico. The study assessed the 1) timing and seasonality of upstream migration, 2) size composition of migratory aggregations, 3) patterns of habitat use, and 4) role of floods on upstream migration. Massive upstream migrations (500-3000 ind/m 2 ) were observed in 44 of 99 weeks of observation. While N. virginea aggregations occurred at random time intervals, they were clumped during rainy periods. Migratory aggregations consisted mostly of small individuals (5-7 mm). Greater mean density was consistently observed in a stable riffle than in an unstable run (115.7 and 17.8 ind/m 2 , respectively), but mean density increased and mean size reduced in both reaches during the first 7 upstream migratory events. N. virginea density and size dynamics differed between reaches as a function of habitat hydraulics. While juveniles used the stable riffle as a permanent habitat and preferred passageway, they also used an adjacent, unstable reach after storm events. Density variation was correlated with days postflood (>3.5 m 3 /s) in both reaches. Our observations indicated that massive upstream migrations of N. virginea juveniles occur at least once a month, presumably as habitat-dependent responses to floods.


[1] Thermal stress weathering may play a role in the evolution of terrestrial-planet landscapes, particularly those without atmospheres, by contributing to rock breakdown, regolith production, and crater degradation. Damage occurs in the form of microscopic cracks that result from a thermal cycle or thermal shock. Terrestrial studies typically evaluate the efficacy of this process by measuring the rate of surface temperature change (dT/dt), using a damage threshold of 2 K/min. While the extent of this damage is unknown, we investigate its relative efficacy by modeling rates of temperature change on various airless surfaces. The magnitude of dT/dt values is primarily controlled by sunrise/set durations on quickly rotating bodies, such as Vesta, and by distance to the sun on slowly rotating bodies, such as Mercury. The strongest temperature shocks are experienced by highly sloped east- or west-facing surfaces. Hot thermal shocks (dT/dt > 0) tend to be stronger than cold shocks (dT/dt < 0), and on some bodies, daytime shadowing may produce higher dT/dt values than those caused by diurnal sunrise/set if the topography is optimally oriented. We find that high dT/dt values are not, however, always correlated with high temperature gradients within the rock. This adds to the ambiguity of the poorly understood damage threshold, warranting further research on the topic that goes beyond the simple 2 K/min criterion.


Manganese has been a recurring seasonal issue at the Manchester, N.H. Water-Works Treatment Plant. Following pre-ozonation, Mn (II) is oxidized into colloidal MnOx solids that are difficult to remove by their anthracite and GAC biofilters without additional coagulation. This research has investigated ways to effectively treat manganese and organic precursors by biofiltration without making major alterations to the existing treatment plant. The most promising treatment was controlling the speciation of manganese with the addition of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) in conjunction with the existing ozone (O3) addition. Applying H2O2 immediately after ozonation appeared to convert particulate and colloidal manganese into its dissolved form (Mn2+). Biofiltration and/or MnOx filter coatings could then remove the dissolved manganese from solution. Visually, water dosed with a high concentration of manganese (approximately 0.5-1.0 mg/L) would turn from clear to a brownish color after the addition of O3 and then return to clear if H2O2 was then added. Analyses by membrane separation followed by inductively coupled plasma emission spectrophotometry (ICP) have confirmed that O3/H2O2 treated water samples have consistently resulted in almost all manganese in dissolved form while O3 alone resulted in almost all manganese in particulate/colloidal forms. The O3:H2O2 mass ratio controls the kinetics of converting manganese into its dissolved form. A 1:1 mass ratio of O3:H2O2 quickly (< 1 minute) converted manganese into a dissolved form while a 2:1 O3:H2O2 mass ratio also successfully converted the manganese but required a longer contact time (5 minutes). An even higher mass ratio of 4:1 O3:H2O2 did not convert the manganese into a dissolved form but rather stayed in particulate/colloidal forms regardless of contact time (> 2 hours). These results will be helpful in determining an optimal dose relationship between H2O2 and O3 such that dissolved manganese removals by either adsorption by available MnOx coatings or biological induced removals can be utilized. In addition, phosphorous was identified as a potentially rate-limiting nutrient for Manchester's biofilters due to significant reduction by sweep-floc alum coagulation pretreatment. This research also investigated how much phosphorous was taken out of the water by alum addition and if manganese could be removed by precipitation with orthophosphate. Alum coagulation was shown to significantly reduce the concentration of phosphorous in the water and chemical simulations with Visual Minteq showed that manganese would not complex with orthophosphate or precipitate so long as oxygen was present in the water. Keywords Fractionation, Hydrogen Peroxide, Manganese, Ozone, Phosphorus, Civil engineering, Environmental engineering This thesis is available at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository: https://scholars.unh.edu/thesis/989 CONTROLLING
  MANGANESE
  SPECIATION
  FOR
  OPTIMIZING
  REMOVALS BY JOSHUA
  A.
  COLLINS Bachelor
  of
  Science
  Microbiology,
  University
  of
  New
  Hampshire,
  2009 THESIS Submitted
  to
  the
  University
  of
  New
  Hampshire In
  Partial
  Fulfillment
  of The
  Requirements
  for
  the
  Degree
  of Master
  of
  Science In Civil
  Engineering December,
  2014


The essays in this volume explore the prospect for post-raciality. It is common to find the prefix "post" treated as an epochal synonym for "after" or "beyond," as somehow distinct from what came before. But the post as post-racial politics is better conceptualized in terms of a set of interrelated institutional and cultural changes that can neither be separated from historical relations nor which are reducible to the past. This volume presents a set of essays that collectively prioritize complexity over simplicity, progress over retrenchment, unity over diversity, and polemics over dogmatism. It seeks to inform discussion and debate about the prospect for a post-racial politics that is neither oblivious to the importance of racial classification nor the persistence of racism and injustice. The volume will leave readers better informed about race, racism and justice and with as many questions as answers.


Dealing with environmental sustainability in architecture is often the presentation of technological and financial power or just a reflection of some fashionable experimentation. Contrary to such developments in architecture is the pursuit of understanding the different contextual determinations of every place on which we build. Ideas that respecting regional cultural-historical, social, climatic, topographic and other natural parameters dating from the very beginnings of the modern movement in architecture. There are especially pronounced in the area of the Mediterranean countries, in contrast to the wealthier, north and west European countries where the modern is initially impressed with machine and technology and more oriented to internationalism. Traditional Mediterranean architecture is essentially rational, with recognizable materialization and technology, formally purified and conceptually clear. Mediterranean vernacular architecture became the basis for the emergence of the Mediterranean modernism recognizable by a specific attitude towards human needs, regional characteristics, design and organization of space, respecting nature and adapting to climate factors and use of traditional material and its combination with new technologically advanced materials. Modern architecture has evolved in its development especially in its relation to the context. Neo-modern expression, especially the one present in some of the Mediterranean countries insists on a bioclimatic definition, integration with the environment and mixture of local and modern in concept, design, materialization, but primarily in understanding the essence of these relationships.


This paper describes a novel 3-D segmentation technique posed within the Random Forests (RF) classification framework. Two improvements over the traditional RF framework are considered. Motivated by the high redundancy of feature selection in the traditional RF framework, the first contribution develops methods to improve voxel classification by selecting relatively "strong" features and neglecting "weak" ones. The second contribution involves weighting each tree in the forest during the testing stage, to provide an unbiased and more accurate decision than provided by the traditional RF. To demonstrate the improvement achieved by these enhancements, experimental validation is performed on adult brain MRI and 3-D fetal femoral ultrasound datasets. In a comparison of the new method with a traditional Random Forest, the new method showed a notable improvement in segmentation accuracy. We also compared the new method with other state-of-the-art techniques to place it in context of the current 3-D medical image segmentation literature.


In the paper we present results of our simulations of the influence of pumping beam parameters on power transfer characteristics of an optically pumped vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL). Calculations have been done with the aid of the comprehensive, fully self-consistent numerical model developed by our group. The research has focused mainly on an influence of the pumping beam size and shape on thermal and optical properties as well as power scaling of the modelled laser. Various beam profiles, such as: Gaussian, super-Gaussian and top-hat, have been investigated. An analysis of the optimal width of the emitted beam within the structure volume for pumping beams of different shapes has been also carried out.


The objective of the study was to develop a test system to determine the cytotoxicity and biocompatibility of different biomaterials used in orthopedic surgery. This system was based on the use of a human bone marrow cell culture and the purpose was to find a screening method as a alternative to early animal experimental methods. The established human bone marrow cell culture has certain advantages when compared with other cell culture models. The result demonstrated a high conformity with animal experimental results.


The temperature dependence of representative initial and terminal steps of organic carbon remineral~zation was measured at 2 temperate sites with annual temperature ranges of 0 to 30°C and 4 to 15'C and 2 Arctic sites with temperatures of 2.6 and -1.7"C. Slurried sediments were incubated in a temperature gradient block spanning a temperature range of ca 45°C. The initial step of organic carbon remineralrzat~on, macromolecule hydrolysis, was measured via the enzymatic hydrolysis of fluorescently labeled polysaccharides. The terminal steps of organic carbon remineralization were monitored through consumption of oxygen and reduction of 35S0,2At each of the 4 sites, the temperature response of the initial step of organic carbon remineralization was similar to that of the terminal steps. Although optimum temperatures were always well above ambient environmental temperatures, optimum temperatures generally decreased with decreasing environmental temperatures. Activity at 5°C as a percentage of highest activity was highest in the Archc sites and lowest in the warmest temperate site. The highest potential rates of substrate hydrolysis were measured in the Arctic, while the highest rates of oxygen consumption and sulfate reduction were measured at the warmest temperate site Potential rates of extracellular enzymatic hydrolysis (at least for this class of pullulanase enzymes) do not appear to llmit organic carbon turnover in the Arctic. These results suggest that organic carbon turnover in the cold Arctic is not intrinsically slower than carbon turnover in temperate environments; sedimentary metabolism in Arctic sediments may be controlled more by organic matter supply than by temperature.


Showing an uncle in Brazil a picture of the beautiful weather on holiday or sharing a video of the new puppy with a friend in Australia has never been easier. A mobile
phone with camera and Internet access is enough: take a picture or video, upload it on a weblog, picture- or videosharing site such as Myspace, Flickr or YouTube and
the whole world is informed about your latest adventures. The ease with which people create and publish information nowadays has revolutionized traditional media patterns. Up to now these patterns have been characterized by a limited number of sources (e.g., public and commercial media companies) using a limited range of media (e.g., newspapers, radio and television) dispensing information at fixed times. In contrast, people now create information on the fly using technologies like mobile phones and digital cameras and publish it directly on the Internet. People can share what they want, the way they want and users can access this information at a time and in a format of their choice. The potential of this concept is that everyone can become a publisher of information, and by using the Internet for distribution, the material becomes available around the world. Information that normally would not be published by traditional sources, such as a magnificent goal scored in a local soccer
game or a 5-year old opera singer from Russia, now becomes available for anybody. Whereas the big content providers firstly made information available for users, these
users are now the new big content providers. The result is an enormous source of original, specialised and exclusive content.


Due to the piecewise stationarity assumption required for the observable process of a hidden Markov chain, the application of hidden Markov models (HMMs) to the analysis of event-based random processes remains intricate. For such processes, a new class of HMMs is proposed: the hidden semi-Markov event sequence model (HSMESM). In a HSMESM, the observable process is no more considered as segmental in nature but issued from a detection-characterization preprocessing step. The standard markovian formalism is adapted accordingly. Results obtained in functional MRI sequence analysis validate this novel statistical modeling approach while opening new perspectives in detection-recognition of event-based random processes.


These essays all focus on and present new work in areas of research that Franco Modigliani has developed during his career - corporate finance, savings behavior, and macroeconomic theory. They are substantive contributions to the literature as well as evaluations of Modigliani's work.Ten of the twelve essays in this book appear for the first time; they were presented in Modigliani's honor at a conference held on Martha's Vineyard in September 1985 one month before it was announced that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. The other two essays were written later; they are Modigliani's Nobel lecture, "Life Cycle, Individual Thrift, and the Wealth of Nations," and a tribute to the economist and an evaluation of his contributions to micro- and macroeconomics by his fellow Nobel laureate and MIT colleague, Paul Samuelson.The other contributors include some of the most notable economists of our time; several collaborated with Modigliani in fundamental investigations that were to be cited by the Nobel Committee.Rudiger Dornbusch is Ford International Professor of Economics and Stanley Fischer is Professor of Economics, both at MIT.


BACKGROUND: The ASM3 extended for two-step nitrification–denitrification represents the most accurate model for the description of the activated sludge process with nitrate bypass nitrification–denitrification. This model includes 20 reaction rates, 15 state variables, and more than 35 parameters, which make its calculation costly and difficult to estimate. The lack of a fast and accurate model able to predict both concentration of nitrite and nitrate over time is the principal obstacle for efficient model-based optimization and model-based control. RESULTS: In this work, a fast and accurate model for the activated sludge process in a sequencing batch reactor is proposed. For this purpose, the ASM3 extended for two-step nitrification–denitrification, a 15-state variable model built for a general description of the ASP, is reduced to match the specific conditions of sequencing batch reactor systems with shortcut biological nitrogen removal to a nine-state model and then further to a six-state and five-state model under appropriate assumptions. The proposed model maintains the two-step nitrification–denitrification process feature of the original model and can thus describe the bypass of nitrate, showing increased tractability and lower computer costs. Different approaches for model reduction together with an exhaustive analysis of the extended ASM3 model as well as the process are discussed. CONCLUSIONS: The resulting model with only five differential equations reduces the calculation time by up to one order of magnitude, while maintaining a high description accuracy, demonstrating the advantages of model reduction.


1. Invitation acceptance rate: 80% and over. 2. Number of completed reviews (except editorials): five reviews or more;The way to calculate the number of the articles reviewed: a. Review/Original Articles/How I do it --------91 b. Letters/Video Articles/Case Reports --------90.5 c. Editorial --------90 3. Top 20 reviewers in average scores for review: eight points maximum and two points Minimum, Quality (5-point scale) + Timeliness (3-point scale).


Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Limited (TGTDCL) is the largest gas transmission and distribution company in Bangladesh. The company undertook a pilot project in July 2005 to implement pre-paid metering on a limited scale. The outcomes of the pilot project are analyzed and presented in this paper. Most of the customers under the project appear to be indifferent to the new system. The revenue of TGTDCL was less compared to the same number of un-metered customers. The pilot project has a lack of design, planning, and implementation errors. Calculations are therefore made based on the assumed parameters. Clear and conclusive results regarding the reduction of gas wastage and financial benefits are hard to determine.


Spatial modulation (SM) has recently drawn a great deal of attention, particularly due to the low complexity that it promises for both the transmitter and the receiver sides. However, this technique has a significant spectral efficiency loss with respect to spatial multiplexing (SMX) with the same number of transmit (Tx) antennas, and when the modulation order is increased to achieve the same spectral efficiency, it loses in terms of the bit error rate (BER). In this paper, a new type of SM (referred to as Enhanced SM) is proposed which increases the number of bits transmitted per channel use compared to conventional SM. Note that conventional MIσMO techniques including SMX and SM employ a fixed signal constellation. In our proposed technique, some information bits select not only the index(es) of the active antenna(s), but also the constellations to be transmitted from each of them. Both the closed-form analysis and the numerical results demonstrate that the proposed technique achieves better performance than conventional SM and that in most cases it also outperforms SMX.