In this study, we are examining the effect of the length and polarity of peptide linker arms on the performance of enzyme analyte conjugates in a reagentlimited heterogeneous immunoassay which utilizes a solid phase format. In our model system, our goal is to attach benzoylecgonine, the primary urinary metabolite of cocaine, to glucose oxidase by a series of peptide linker arms. Peptide linker arms were synthesized using the fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl (Fmoc) solid phase peptide synthesis strategy described by Stewart and Young (1). We attached the BEC to the exposed amino terminal end of the peptide linker arm by the free carboxyl group of BEC prior to removal of the peptide from the solid phase to avoid the requirement for isolation of the peptide before reacting with the analyte. The BEC-peptide will be activated by the mixed anhydride method (2) and coupled to glucose oxidase. The BEC peptide can also be conjugated to the carbohydrate portion of glucose oxidase using peptides containing carboxy terminal hydrazides. The enzyme-analyte conjugates will be characterized immunochemically to determine the effect of the linker arm on conjugate performance in an immunoassay. We will focus mainly on the following three factors: binding of the conjugate to the antibody in the absence of benzoylecgonine; displacement of the bound enzyme analyte conjugate by the physiological concentrations of the analyte; and non specific binding. It is expected that the enzyme analyte conjugate containing the linker arm system should give better binding of the antibody to the enzyme analyte than the one without any linker arm. This system for binding an analyte to an enzyme through a peptide linker arm could be expanded to a variety of applications in the future.


In order to evaluate a roadway heating system which used the energy stored in the earth for snow melting, a 3200 square foot experimental heated pavement was constructed in Trenton, New Jersey. Heat was extracted from the earth by means of a grid of pipes buried 3 to 13 ft. below ground and transferred via an ethylene glycol-water solution to pipes embedded in a test pavement. For purposes of comparison, a section of pavement heated by electrical resistance wires was also included as part of the installation. Results of operation have indicated that the best snow melting has taken place on sections of portland cement concrete containing 3/4 inch and 1-1/4 inch wrought iron pipe spaced on 6 inch centers and embedded at a depth of 2 inches. These sections produced an average heat dissipation rate of approximately 100 BTU's per square foot of surface area per hour when 2 linear feet of pipe buried in the earth were coupled to 1 linear foot of pipe embedded in the test pavement. Snow melting rates were usually between 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch per hour. During the Summers of 1970 and 1971 the system was operated for the purpose of transferring heat from the warm pavement to the earth where it could be stored for use during the winters. Heat was successfully transferred; however, due to the loss of heat to the surrounding earth and the atmosphere during the fall, no significant storage of heat was achieved by the start of the snow season. The thermal insulation used with the pipes buried 3 to 13 feet in the earth was not effective in reducing heat loss during the fall. Though this installation was shown to be more economical to operate than an electrically heated pavement, the total cost was higher when construction cost was considered. (Portions of this document are not fully legible)


Homogenization is an important analysis approach of composite materials with structural hierarchy and can give the prediction of macroscopic properties of the composites. There are many homogenization theories and methods. The present paper discusses applications of some homogenization approaches including both direct and mathematical homogenizations for the analysis of anisotropic composites with periodic microstructures. The macroscopic properties of the composite are predicted by the direct homogenization and the mathematical homogenisation method. The periodic boundary conditions of a representative volume element are implemented by a transformation method of the degrees of freedom. The numerical results are demonstrated for two model composites. The study shows that these two homogenization methods gave the same results for the macroscopic elastic stiffness of the composites although they are of different mathematical forms and different operation procedures.


Fibre channel SAN (storage area network) is considered to be a promising solution to address storage problems caused by the sheer volume of data and their management. To adopt this new storage environment, we design and implement a high performance fibre channel network driver for SAN-attached RAID controllers in a real-time operating system. We describe the architecture of the fibre channel driver which consists of two modes; a target mode and an initiator mode. An exception handling mechanism for enduring a disk failure is also given. Lastly, we measured the performance of the fibre channel driver. Testing results reveal a moderately successful performance of the fibre channel driver.


Using radioactivity assays and radioautography, it has been confirmed that the majority of the guinea-pig anti-BSA cytophilic antibodies are found in the γ2 IgG fraction. The cytophilic activity was directly demonstrated to be present in the Fc portion of the IgG molecule. Furthermore, the Fc portion quantitatively accounts for the cytophilic activity of the whole IgG molecule.


: The role of catechol-o-methyltransferase (COMT) in functional interrelationship between testosterone (T), catechol estrogens (CE) and catecholamines (CA) during cerebral sex differentiation (CSD) was investigated in experiments on Wistar rats. Sex dimorphism in the level of CA in the rat hypothalamus was revealed on the 10th day of life. Noradrenaline concentration in male rats was significantly higher than in the female rats (p less than 0.05). It was shown that isolated CA accumulation in the hypothalamus of 10-day female rats by means of direct suppression of COMT with tropolon (300 micrograms on the 5th and 7th days of life) was insufficient for masculinization of sex cycling regulation centers. At the same time tropolon administered in a dose of 100 micrograms on the 4th-10th days of life enhanced the sterilizing effect of T administered in a dose of 25 micrograms on the 4th day of life. The development of anovulatory sterility (AS) was observed in 100% of cases. The neonatal effect of 2-hydroxyestradiol-17 beta (2-OH-E2 50 micrograms on the 5th day of life) and tropolon (300 micrograms on the 5th and 7th days of life) was ineffective with relation to AS induction indicating the absence of the inductor role of 2-OH-E2 in CSD. A conclusion is that CSD is a result of combined action of androgens, their metabolites (4-hydroxylated CE isomers) and COMT-mediated CA.


The Uyghurs, a Turkic group, account for half the population of the Xinjiang region in northwestern China. This ethnography presents a thick description of life in the Uyghur suburbs of Yining, a city near the border with Kazakhstan, and situates that account in a broader examination of Uyghur culture. Its four sections explore topics ranging from family life to market trading, from informal socializing to forms of religious devotion. Uniting these topics are an emphasis on the role folklore and personal narrative play in helping individuals situate themselves in and create communities and social groups, and a focus on how men's concerns to advance themselves in an agonistic world of status competition shape social life in Uyghur communities. The narrative is framed around the terms identity, community, and masculinity. As the author shows, Yining's Uyghurs express a set of individual and collective identities organized around place, gender, family relations, friendships, occupation, and religious practice. In virtually every aspect of their daily lives, individuals and families are drawn into dense and overlapping networks of social relationships, united by a shared engagement with the place of men's status competition within daily life in the community.


Purpose: The paper aims to build an index model for measuring microblog users' influence by taking microbloggers of Sina Weibo as a research sample. Design/methodology/approach: Our user infl uence index model emphasizes link analysis and user actions in the microblog network. We conduct experiments to investigate the performance of our model by using data crawling from Sina Weibo. Findings: The user influence is correlated to the attention that the user has received from his or her audience, the user's activities and his or her tweets' influence. Experimental results show that our model can reflect microbloggers' influence in a more reasonable way. Research limitations: More factors need to be considered to identify different influential users at different time periods. Practical implications: The results of the study provide us with insights into both the way to measure microblog users' influence and the way to rank users based on their influence. Originality/value: By combining link analysis and user actions, this index model can reduce the impact of dummy follower accounts on user influence, reflecting a user's real influence in the microblog system.


As observed in the World Color Survey (WCS), some universal properties can be identified in color naming schemes over a large number of languages. For example, Regier, Kay, and Khetrapal (2007) and Regier, Kemp, and Kay (2015); Gibson et al. (2017) recently explained these universal patterns in terms of near optimal color partitions and information theoretic measures of efficiency of communication. Here, we introduce a computational learning framework with multi-agent systems trained by reinforcement learning to investigate these universal properties. We compare the results with Regier et al. (2007, 2015) and show that our model achieves excellent quantitative agreement. This work introduces a multi-agent reinforcement learning framework as a powerful and versatile tool to investigate such semantic universals in many domains and contribute significantly to central questions in cognitive science.


The impact of betaine on the development of hypertension remains unclear, and prospective data are sparse. We aimed to investigate the association of serum betaine with repeated measurements of blood pressure (BP) and hypertension incidence. This study was based on the Guangzhou Nutrition and Health Study (GNHS), a community-based prospective cohort study in China. Baseline serum betaine was measured by high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. BP and hypertension status were assessed at the baseline and 3-year intervals. Linear mixed-effects models (LMEMs) were used to analyze the longitudinal association of serum betaine with BP (n = 1996). Cox proportional hazard models were used to evaluate the association of baseline serum betaine with hypertension incidence (n = 1339). LMEMs showed that compared with the lowest quartile group, the higher quartile groups had lower systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and pulse pressure (all P-trend < 0.05). Each standard deviation (16.3 μmol L-1) increase in serum betaine was associated with -0.92 (-1.52, -0.32) mmHg of SBP, -0.49 (-0.84, -0.13) mmHg of DBP and -0.43 (-0.81, -0.05) mmHg of pulse pressure. During a median follow-up of 9.2 years, 371 incident cases of hypertension were identified. Serum betaine was associated with lower risk of hypertension only when comparing the third quartile level with the lowest quartile (HR, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.56-0.99). A nonlinear association between serum betaine and the risk of hypertension was found (P-nonlinear = 0.040). A higher serum betaine level was associated with lower risk of hypertension below 54.5 μmol L-1. Our findings suggested that higher serum betaine was associated with favorable blood pressure in middle-aged and older Chinese adults. Higher concentrations of serum betaine were related to lower hypertension risk in people with relatively low serum betaine concentrations.


This paper reports on the progress of the NanoCleaR project, which began in Januaray of 2012. With funding awarded by the EU's Seventh Framework programme, this project seeks to develop integrated process inspection, cleaning, repair and control systems for nano-scale thin films on large area substrates.

The outcomes of NanoCleaR will benefit the many areas of active research involved in the manufacture of devices on large area plastic films. For example; flexible photovoltaics, lighting and display devices. These flexible devices are fabricated on polymer film by the repeated deposition, and patterning, of thin layer materials using roll-to-roll processes.

The surface of the starting polymer film must be of very high quality in order to avoid creating defects in the device layers. Since these defects reduce manufacturing yield, in order to prevent them, a thin, flexible coating is generally applied to the polymer film prior to structuring.

NanoCleaR is studying the ultra-thin aluminium oxide layers on the polymer film, which are designed as barrier layers for structured flexible photovoltaic modules. Barrier films are required to prevent the ingress of water vapour and oxygen from degrading the efficiency of solar energy conversion. Highly conformal aluminium oxide barrier layers have been produced by atomic layer deposition on plastic films with smooth surface coatings.

This paper begins by reporting the results of early stage measurements conducted to characterise the uncoated and coated polymer film surface topography using feature analysis. This paper will then describe how surface irregularities on the film can create defects within the nanometre-scale, aluminium oxide, barrier layer.

The need for improved, high speed, surface inspection for the quality control of large area flexible electronics manufacturing, is then discussed and illustrated for several stages of the manufacture of surface structured flexible electronics. The paper concludes by trying to understand the implications of the results for in-process defect detection in R2R manufacture.


We examined seasonal and spatial variations of dissolved free polyamines (DFPA) in the large mesotrophic prealpine Lake Zurich (Switzerland). An ion‐pairing liquid chromatography method with mass spectrometric detection was optimized for the quantification of DFPA without prior concentration or derivatization. Total DFPA concentrations varied between 0.4 nM and 11 nM in winter and spring of 2015, respectively. Polyamine concentrations were highest in the epilimnion during the phytoplankton growth phase, and reflected occurrence patterns of diatoms. Putrescine consistently dominated the DFPA pool throughout the season whereas norspermidine was detected only once in spring. Incubations with 13C‐labeled putrescine revealed concentration‐dependent uptake rates (3.2–5 nM h−1) and short turnover times (2.4–4.4 h). In contrast, incorporation rates into biomass measured with 14C‐labeled putrescine were substantially lower (0.9 nM h−1), indicating that this compound was predominantly respired. Uptake kinetics moreover suggested that putrescine in situ uptake rates were limited by low ambient concentrations. Competition assays revealed that putrescine uptake could only be inhibited by excess concentrations of another polyamine (spermidine), but not by amino acids. Bacteria affiliated with Limnohabitans and the acI lineage of Actinobacteria were identified as the taxa with the highest fraction (25–32%) of putrescine‐incorporating cells. This compound was also utilized by Alphaproteobacteria, Cyclobacteriaceae, diatoms, and cyanobacteria. Overall, our data point to fast turnover of putrescine by different microorganisms, implying the importance of this substrate as an attractive energy source.


genetics held in Glasgow in June 1966. Though much of the data have already been published in a variety of journals, the present work is a useful summary of the present situation in this important field. With the exception of one chapter on auto-immune disease in inbred mice, the volume is devoted to the study of clinical problems. The subjects include family studies in patients with thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, irondeficiency anaemia, lupus erythematous and other connective tissue disorders, and the incidence of autoantibodies in twins. There is a particularly pertinent chapter on the pitfalls of genetic studies as illustrated by a review of the 17 studies conducted on patients with rheumatoid arthritis in whom familial aggregation has been reported. Deficiencies in the criteria for selection of the patients are analysed and the too ready acceptance that familial aggregation of cases necessarily implies a genetic basis of the disorder is critically discussed. Clinicians of many disciplines will find this volume of value. J. H. THOMSON


This paper presents a revised version of the DIW Economic Barometer, the business cycle index of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). As in earlier versions, we put forward a factor model on a monthly frequency to filter the latent state of the aggregate economy. In the new version, the resulting business cycle factor is based on more than 300 variables. The main methodological changes relate to (i) the estimation procedure, (ii) treatment of publication lags and missings, and (iii) the decomposition of the index into contributions from different sectors of the economy. Alongside several practical advantages, we also document a better historical nowcasting performance of the new index.


Horacio Vázquez Rial (Buenos Aires, 1947–Madrid, 2012) was an Argentine writer, historian and ex-militant in the Trotskyite Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (People's Revolutionary Army, or ERP). He left Argentina for Spain in the mid-1970s and became an outspoken critic of the Latin American left and in particular of the Kirchner and Fernández de Kirchner governments in the 2000s. He also penned a series of pioneering, neo-noir thrillers that return time and again to the violence of the midto late-1970s in Argentina. This paper draws on the work of Andrew Popper on crime fiction, Fredric Jameson on Raymond Chandler and Joel Black on the aesthetics of murder. It also responds to the work of Neil Larsen on another writer with a similar political trajectory, Mario Vargas Llosa, and answers a recent call from Jens Andermann for cultural studies practitioners to examine the ideology and the technique of right-wing works, in this case those dealing explicitly with the author's own former armed militancy.


The wide range of measures undertaken and implemented by the Party in recent years to develop the productive forces in the countryside have borne fruit. Gross agricultural output in 1953-61 increased 1.6-fold. But this growth is clearly inadequate. The present level of production does not satisfy the ever-growing requirements of society in agricultural produce, especially livestock produce, nor does it permit us to solve the problem of raising the people's standard of living. Agricultural output in the first three years of the Seven-Year Plan period has fallen short of the planned level. This has provided the danger that the seven-year plan of agricultural development may not be fulfilled and has led to difficulties in keeping the population regularly supplied with meat and certain other products.


The trust region method is an algorithm traditionally used in the field of derivative free optimization. The method works by iteratively constructing surrogate models (often linear or quadratic functions) to approximate the true objective function inside some neighborhood of a current iterate. The neighborhood is called "trust region in the sense that the model is trusted to be good enough inside the neighborhood. Updated points are found by solving the corresponding trust region subproblems. In this paper, we describe an application of random projections to solving trust region subproblems approximately.


Pedestrian crowd simulation explores crowd behaviors in virtual environments. It is extensively studied in many areas, such as safety and civil engineering, transportation, social science, entertainment industry and so on. As a common phenomenon in pedestrian crowds, grouping can play important roles in crowd behaviors. To achieve more realistic simulations, it is important to support group modeling in crowd behaviors. Nevertheless, group modeling is still an open and challenging problem. The influence of groups on the dynamics of crowd movement has not been incorporated into most existing crowd models because of the complexity nature of social groups.
This research develops a framework for group modeling in agent-based pedestrian crowd simulations. The framework includes multiple layers that support a systematic approach for modeling social groups in pedestrian crowd simulations. These layers include a simulation engine layer that provides efficient simulation engines to simulate the crowd model; a behavior-based agent modeling layers that supports developing agent models using the developed BehaviorSim simulation software; a group modeling layer that provides a well-defined way to model inter-group relationships and intragroup connections among pedestrian agents in a crowd; and finally a context modeling layer that allows users to incorporate various social and psychological models into the study of social groups in pedestrian crowd. Each layer utilizes the layer below it to fulfill its functionality, and together these layers provide an integrated framework for supporting group modeling in pedestrian crowd simulations. To our knowledge this work is the first one to focus on a systematic group modeling approach for pedestrian crowd simulations. This systematic modeling approach allows users to create social group simulation models in a well-defined way for studying the effect of social and psychological factors on crowd's grouping behavior. To demonstrate the capability of the group modeling framework, we developed an application of dynamic grouping for pedestrian crowd simulations.


Prostate cancer (PC) is the most common cancer found in men in the Western world. Predominantly, the pathogenesis of PC is driven by aberrant androgen receptor (AR) signalling, resulting in heightened cell proliferation and cell survival. Current treatment options target the AR signalling cascade by androgen ablation therapy, whereby anti-androgens antagonistically bind to the AR. This prevents AR activity, thus inhibiting transcription of genes involved in cell proliferation, survival and metastasis. However, eventually androgen ablation therapy leads to relapse, as the cancer succumbs to a low androgen environment, leading to a poorer prognosis with limited treatment options, otherwise known as 'castration resistant PC' (CRPC). This is where new clinical interventions are urgently required. One mechanism that could allude to androgen independent PC, is the down-regulation of AR co-repressors. One such co-repressor is known as Prohibitin (PHB). PHB is ubiquitously expressed in mammalian cells and displays anti-proliferative functions. Prior to this project, it was identified that AR signalling leads to the down-regulation of PHB at both a transcript and protein level and causes PHB to dissociate from the chromatin. However, over-expression of PHB leads to the down-regulation of androgen responsive genes, and its increased association with the chromatin. Thus within PC, both the AR and PHB are in a dynamic opposition. This project identified that PHB has a repressive role on the cell cycle by holding the cell population within the G1 phase. RNA-sequencing and Q-PCR data identified that PHB had a significant repressive role on gene families involved in DNA replication and cell cycle regulation and progression. Such gene families include cyclins, E2Fs and MCMs. MCMs are gene targets of E2Fs, and therefore it was assessed if PHB had an effect on the promoter activity of two MCM genes; MCM5&6. Interestingly, with PHB over-expression, repression of both MCM5&6 promoter activity was seen. It was then identified that PHB physically interacts with E2F1 in androgen responsive PC cells. However this interaction was reduced upon androgen stimulation of the AR. This led to the preliminary mechanism that PHB can bind to E2F1, potentially preventing E2F from binding to MCM promoter regions, leading to an inhibition of the cell cycle in PC cells. Moreover, it was identified that androgen stimulation led to a likely dephosphorylation event happening to the PHB protein that could explain how PHB dissociates from the chromatin and E2F1. Signalling pathways that could lead to the non-genomic activation of the AR was narrowed down to the Src-pathway highlighted by a Kinexus™ protein array. Interestingly, inhibiting the Src-pathway stops PHB's likely dephosphorylation event. Accumulating previous data and data collected throughout this thesis, PHB up-regulation leads to cell cycle arrest through a direct interact of a key cell cycle regulator; E2F1. Moreover, PHB was found to have an inhibitory effect on both the migration and adhesion of PC cells, potentially through the down-regulation of wnt genes. Thus potentially, PHB up-regulation can inhibit the migratory potential of PC cells, stopping the progression of the disease.


Motivated by increasing demand in the community for intraseasonal predictions of weather extremes, predictive skill of tropical cyclogenesis is investigated in this study based on a global coupled model system. Limited intraseasonal cyclogenesis prediction skill with a high false alarm rate is found when averaged over about 600 tropical cyclones (TCs) over global oceans from 2003 to 2013, particularly over the North Atlantic (NA). Relatively skillful genesis predictions with more than 1-week lead time are only evident for about 10% of the total TCs. Further analyses suggest that TCs with relatively higher genesis skill are closely associated with the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) and tropical synoptic waves, with their geneses strongly phase-locked to the convectively active region of the MJO and low-level cyclonic vorticity associated with synoptic-scale waves. Moreover, higher cyclogenesis prediction skill is found for TCs that formed during the enhanced periods of strong MJO episodes than those during weak or suppressed MJO periods. All these results confirm the critical role of the MJO and tropical synoptic waves for intraseasonal prediction of TC activity. Tropical cyclogenesis prediction skill in this coupled model is found to be closely associated with model predictability of several large-scale dynamical and thermodynamical fields. Particularly over the NA, higher predictability of low-level relative vorticity, midlevel humidity, and vertical zonal wind shear is evident along a tropical belt from the West Africa coast to the Caribbean Sea, in accord with more predictable cyclogenesis over this region. Over the extratropical NA, large-scale variables exhibit less predictability due to influences of extratropical systems, leading to poor cyclogenesis predictive skill.


The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the jointness between agricultural production and ecosystem services using a spatial explicit economic-ecological programming model. Thereby, the consideration of non-agricultural competitors in the provision of ecosystem services allows a simultaneous assessment of economies of scope. A cost-effectiveness analysis for a case study region in Switzerland shows the least costs supplier of ecosystem services and spatial patterns in the supply for these services. Results imply strong jointness between agricultural production and the provision of ecosystem services. However, the potential for cost savings is considerable.


The purpose of this thesis is to examine the Canada-United States Safe Third Country Agreement. In the wake of Donald Trump's election as US president, the executive orders he has issued on matters of immigration, and various policies implemented by the administration, it is worth questioning the STCA. The STCA is an agreement between Canada and the United States which requires refugee claimants to request refugee protection in the first safe country in which they arrive in, unless they qualify for an exception to the agreement. The STCA violates both international and domestic law. Specifically, it violates the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. Domestically, it is in violation of the Canadian Charter or Rights and Freedoms. This thesis concludes that the cornerstone of the Convention, the principle of non-refoulement, has achieved the status of jus cogens.


Most of the reported object tracking methods achieved by estimating the object position cannot suit for large image deformations. For this reason, a new object tracking base on MCMC point matching method is presented in this paper. This method applies MCMC algorithm to solve the posterior probability distribution problem and obtain the optimal matching parameters include position, rotation, scale information. The test results prove this method can successfully cope with target scale or orientation variations in video tracking.


Steatosis is a common feature of chronic hepatitis C, and may be caused directly by the virus, as in genotype 3 infection, or be associated with host metabolic factors. The interaction of hepatitis C virus core protein with the lipoprotein secretion pathways causes the characteristic alterations of lipid metabolism observed in hepatitis C virus‐related steatosis. Several pathogenic mechanisms are likely involved into the pathogenesis of hepatitis C virus‐related steatosis, including hyper‐homocysteinaemia, hypoadiponectinaemia and insulin resistance. Steatosis is a major determinant of the liver damage progression in chronic hepatitis C (CHC), and negatively affects the response rate to the interferon (IFN)‐based anti‐viral treatment. Moreover, recent evidence suggests that steatosis may contribute to liver carcinogenesis. Chronic hepatitis C is a recognized risk factor for type 2 diabetes and it could be implicated into the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. The role of hepatitis C virus (HCV)‐related steatosis in these epidemiological associations remains to be determined.


Previous research has indicated that more than 50% of air travel passengers experience hypoxia above clinical threshold. This condition produces a number of aversive somatic sensations such as difficulty breathing, elevated heart rate, dizziness, etc. Because these symptoms closely resemble the somatic symptoms of anxiety, it is interesting to look into a possible relationship between hypoxia‐related symptoms and fear of flying. More specifically, the aim of this study is to clarify the role of anxiety sensitivity as a cognitive vulnerability marker in this relationship. Anxiety sensitivity is the specific tendency to interpret bodily sensations as threatening or harmful. Our hypothesis is that anxiety sensitivity moderates the relationship between hypoxia‐related symptoms and fear of flying. When people with high anxiety sensitivity fly and experience somatic symptoms, they will make threatening interpretations causing fear and as a possible consequence avoidance behaviour leading to flight anxiety. About 160 participants were asked to complete the Flight Anxiety Situations Questionnaire, the Flight Anxiety Modality Questionnaire and the Anxiety Sensitivity Index. Results of a moderator analysis indicated that the relationship between somatic sensations and in‐flight anxiety is stronger for people with high anxiety sensitivity than for people with low anxiety sensitivity. So it seems that anxiety sensitivity does indeed function as a moderator between the experience of somatic sensations while flying and in‐flight anxiety. Clinical implications are discussed, as well as suggestions for further research. Depression and Anxiety. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Efficiency in the capital markets requires that capital flows are sufficient to arbitrage anomalies away. We examine the relationship between flows to a "quant" strategy that is based on capital market anomalies, and the subsequent performance of this strategy. When these flows are high, quant funds are able to implement arbitrage strategies more effectively, which, in turn, leads to lower profitability of market anomalies in the future, and vice versa. Thus, the degree of cross-sectional equity market efficiency varies across time with the availability of arbitrage capital.


Background: Radioiodine (RI) is a commonly used treatment modality for primary hyperthyroidism. A single dose of RI has been reported to cure hyperthyroidism in the range of 50%–90% of the treated cases. The efficacy of RI treatment has not yet been investigated in the local population. Objectives: To assess the efficacy of RI therapy in patients with primary hyperthyroidism treated at Tawam Hospital, Al Ain, UAE. Patients and Methods: The electronic medical records of hyperthyroid patients who received RI treatment at Tawam Hospital between January 2009 and March 2017 were reviewed. The diagnosis was verified by reviewing clinical, laboratory, and imaging data. Following RI therapy, a cure was defined as the development of hypothyroidism or euthyroid status without the aid of antithyroid drugs (ATDs) within 6 months post-RI therapy. Multivariate analysis was used to assess predictors of RI response. Results: A total of 125 patients (68.8% women) met the study criteria. The mean age ± standard deviation (SD) at RI therapy was 40 ± 15.1 years. The etiology of hyperthyroidism was available for 121 patients; Graves' disease (GD) (n = 83, 68.6%), toxic multinodular goiter (TMNG) (n = 31, 25.6%), and toxic adenoma (TA) (n = 7, 5.8%). The majority of patients (109, 87.2%) were pretreated with ATDs; 70.3% of those were treated for a period exceeding 18 months. Almost quarter of the patients were referred to RI due to other compelling medical reasons including ATDs intolerance, neutropenia, and hepatotoxicity. The mean ± SD administered RI activity was 14.6 ± 3.7 mCi (range: 8–25). Treatment response evaluation was possible in 97 cases. Post a single dose of RI treatment, 91.8% of patients achieved either euthyroid or hypothyroid status. Patients with GD developed hypothyroidism more frequently than TMNG or TA (80.6% vs. 65.2% vs. 33.3%, respectively). The time to cure was within 3 months in 21% and 3–6 months in 79% of the patients. The given dosage of I131 was the only predictor of cure rate. No major adverse effects were reported. Conclusion: We found that there is a delay in referring potential patients with hyperthyroidism for RI treatment and the cure rate of a single dose of I131 is 91.8% within 6 months of posttreatment; patients with TA may require higher doses of I131 therapy. Further studies are needed to explore the patient–physician barriers in utilizing RI as a timely mode of treatment for appropriately selected patients.


Training-based estimation of channel state information in multi-antenna systems is analyzed herein. Closed-form expressions for the general Bayesian minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimators of the channel matrix and the squared channel norm are derived in a Rayleigh fading environment with known statistics at the receiver side. When the second-order channel statistics are available also at the transmitter, this information can be exploited in the training sequence design to improve the performance. Herein, mean square error (MSE) minimizing training sequences are considered. The structure of the general solution is developed, with explicit expressions at high and low SNRs and in the special case of uncorrelated receive antennas. The optimal length of the training sequence is equal or smaller than the number of transmit antennas.


Objective: We analyze the foreign body aspiration reports of our country to demonstrate a cumulative result and to form the aspect of issue. Material and Method: Turkish and English literature data were evaluated for the study. During evaluations, as there was a possibility of repeating data, we only took retrospective reports and we did not include studies like diagnostic correlations, case reports and prospective clinical investigations. Time periods and regions were defined in the report. Age, gender, foreign body types, negative explorations and complications were also evaluated. Complications were defined to illustrate the hazardous affect of foreign body aspirations on people. For the economic influence, preliminary financial evaluation was performed. Results: Fourteen articles match the criteria. From 1973 to 2007, 6633 patients were treated for foreign body aspirations and foreign bodies were found in 5014 patients. Male and females were 3343 and 2379 (M/F ratio was approximately 1.40) respectively. The median age for patients was 64.57 months. Total 46 thoracotomies were performed for failed bronchoscopies. Additionally, 9 tracheotomies, 4 pneumothorax and 7 cardiac arrests were reported. Most seen foreign bodies were seed and needle. Total costs of these procedures were 2.006.000, 00 TL preliminarily (approximately 1.330.000, 00 USD). Conclusion: All parameters correlate with international data. Nearly, forty thousand USD was consumed per year. Although correlation with international data was proved, we believe that number of reported patients were less than expected. Nevertheless, this is the first study complies our countries' data and we figured out the characteristics of foreign body aspiration.


In this study, we observed several patterns related to interaction and the synchronization of mouth actions and hands among L2 learners of Swedish Sign Language (SSL) compared to native signers. Previous research on signed languages has examined the synchronization of mouthings and mouth gestures (e.g. the edited volume by Boyes Braem & Sutton-Spence 2001; Crasborn et al. 2008; Johnston et al. in press). Another line of sign language research has investigated phonological errors made by L2 learners of sign languages (adult learners of signing as a second language) across a limited number of languages, primarily in the use of manual parts (e.g. Rosen 2004) as well as in the use of non-manual parts (e.g. McIntire & Reilly 1988), not including mouth actions. The current study draws from both of these research areas in an effort to answer two questions: (i) Do L2 learners use mouthings borrowed from spoken language to a greater extent than L1 (native) signers? And (ii) how do borrowed mouthings and mouth gestures interact with manual signs? In other words, what are the distribution and the scope of mouthings with respect to prosodic constituents of SSL? We based this study on an analysis of an L2 Swedish Sign Language corpus (Mesch & Schonstrom 2014), which consists of 9:06 hours of data from 17 different L2 signers, and a control group of 3 deaf native L1 signers who provided 0:34 hours of video. For the analysis, we sampled data consisting of various materials (interviews, picture and video retellings) from six L2 learners and compared it to parallel data from the control group. With respect to question (i), our analysis revealed a greater use of mouthings borrowed from spoken Swedish among the L2 group, and for (ii), we found a lack of prosodic features in spreading/interaction between mouthings and signs in SSL as an L2. Compared to the L1 control group, L2 learners either overused or avoided mouthing. Among L2 speakers, our analysis also revealed that Swedish function words (e.g. som 'as') often appeared as mouthings without corresponding manual signs, thus being articulated simultaneously with a "mismatched" sign (as in Example 1). Furthermore, the interaction of signs and mouthing was often dependent on Swedish mouthing: whereas L1 signers produced the pattern in Example 2, in which mouthing belonging to the first unit spread to the second unit, the L2 learners' mouthings often followed a strict 1-to-1 pattern, in which mouthings accompanied single manual signs and rarely spread across sign boundaries. As shown in this study, linguistic factors impacting SSL as an L2 include bilingualism and different modalities, i.e. how mouthing and signs interact. This has implications for L2 teaching, in how L2 learners should be taught to use "unvoiced" articulations of spoken words with manual signs. For future research, it would be useful to compare these results with those of deaf people who are late learners of SSL, since they rarely have a spoken language as an L1 (and thus lack that type of interference).


Prudential Financial was a financial-services company whose stock value has declined due to the financial crisis that took hold of the markets in 2008 and to investor concerns regarding the financial leverage of financial-services companies during this time. Prudential's balance sheet, income statement, and statement of stockholders' equity are shown in exhibits accompanying the case. Each statement was presented by the company in its 2007 annual report to shareholders. Students are asked to answers a series of questions using these exhibits.


If the publication of twelve drawings of the Prophet Mohammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which sparked the 'cartoon controversy', was wrong, why might this be the case? The article considers four arguments advanced in relation to the quite similar Rushdie affair for judging such publications to be wrong, and asks whether they provide plausible moral reasons against such publications, and whether they justify legal restrictions on freedom of speech. The arguments concern: (a) the consistent extension of group defamation legislation to cover Muslims; (b) offence to religious sensibilities; (c) issues of identity; and (d) oppression. The article also considers whether such arguments can be acknowledged within a liberal model of toleration. It is argued that versions of several of the arguments may in fact be thus accommodated, but that they nevertheless do not provide strong reasons for judging the kind of publications under consideration to be morally wrong or suitable objects for legal restrictions. The argument from oppression is different, however, in pointing to different kinds of factors, but its applicability is limited both by a number of conditions for when oppression provides the right kind of reasons, and by empirical constraints. The suggested conclusion is that the publication of the Mohammad cartoons was not wrong, at least not all things considered, for any of the noted reasons, but that there might be other kinds of factors that are not captured by traditional liberal models of toleration, which might provide reasons for moral criticism of this and similar publications.


The last 25 years have seen many important developments in tuberculosis chemotherapy in Singapore. Beginning in the 1950s, chemotherapy consisting of streptomycin (S), isoniazid (H) and p-aminosalicylic acid (PAS) was introduced at first with 2-drug and later 3-drug combinations (i.e., SPH/PH for a total of 18 to 24 months). In the 1960s, 2 early studies showed that thiacetazone (T) could not be substituted for PAS in standard chemotherapy as it was a more toxic and less potent drug. Routine tuberculosis treatment achieved good results for patients followed up for 5 years after completing treatment. A fully supervised regimen of streptomycin and isoniazid (S2H2) given twice weekly proved to be as effective as a largely self administered regimen of PAS/INH. Ethambutol (EMB) was shown to be effective in the initial treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis when combined with isoniazid. In the 1970s, rifampicin (R) was first investigated starting with an intermittent regimen of isoniazid and rifampicin given once or twice weekly. The success of this regimen led to 2 short course studies of 6-month regimens. Rifampicin was given daily for the full duration of 6 months (2SHRZ/HR; 2SHRZ/HRZ; Z = pyrazinamide) or intermittently 3 times a week in the continuation phase (2SHRZ/H3R3; 2HRZ/H3R3; 1SHRZ/H3R3). All the 6 months regimens were highly effective.


After Philemon Holland's influential English translation of Pliny's Natural History was first published in 1601, the Iliad-in-a-nutshell mentioned by Pliny became a commonplace motif of virtuosic compression in early modern England. Engaging with the popularity of this image, this article will explore its implications in early modern print culture. Although the frequently-appearing Iliad-in-a-nutshell might seem but a convenient rhetorical flourish, this article proposes that closer attention to it in the context of the small or miniature might help us to consider broader questions about the intertwining of physical and literary scale in early modern printed books as both texts and material objects. It argues that the miniature book, and more general desires to condense large works such as the Bible into smaller volumes, are not merely virtuosic or frivolous, but a manifestation of a wider anxiety about the relationship between physical size and literary weightiness.


The color word "青" frequently appears in Tang poetry and is deeply loved by poets because of its ambiguity. However, the multiple meanings of "青" also bring difficulties to translation activities. What color does it mean? Thus, from the perspective of Relevance Theory, this study discusses the three basic meanings of the color word "青", taking as examples the misunderstood words that contain "青"  in several classical poems by Li Bai. To achieve the accurate translation of the color word "青", the key is to achieve the optimal relevance, and thus the greatest contextual effect can be obtained.


Big longitudinal observational medical data potentially hold a wealth of information and have been recognised as potential sources for gaining new drug safety knowledge. Unfortunately there are many complexities and underlying issues when analysing longitudinal observational data. Due to these complexities, existing methods for large-scale detection of negative side effects using observational data all tend to have issues distinguishing between association and causality. New methods that can better discriminate causal and non-causal relationships need to be developed to fully utilise the data. In this paper we propose using a set of causality considerations developed by the epidemiologist Bradford Hill as a basis for engineering features that enable the application of supervised learning for the problem of detecting negative side effects. The Bradford Hill considerations look at various perspectives of a drug and outcome relationship to determine whether it shows causal traits. We taught a classifier to find patterns within these perspectives and it learned to discriminate between association and causality. The novelty of this research is the combination of supervised learning and Bradford Hill's causality considerations to automate the Bradford Hill's causality assessment. We evaluated the framework on a drug safety gold standard known as the observational medical outcomes partnership's non-specified association reference set. The methodology obtained excellent discrimination ability with area under the curves ranging between 0.792 and 0.940 (existing method optimal: 0.73) and a mean average precision of 0.640 (existing method optimal: 0.141). The proposed features can be calculated efficiently and be readily updated, making the framework suitable for big observational data.


ABSTRACT Background and objectives: DNA hypermethylation has been linked to poor treatment outcome in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Genes differentially methylated in the chemoresponsive pre-B-ALL compared to chemoresistant pre-B-ALL cases provide potential prognostic markers. Methods: DNA methylation profiles of five B-ALL childhood patients who achieved morphological complete remission (chemoresponsive) and five B-ALL patients who did not (chemoresistant) after induction treatments as well as four normal controls were compared on 27 000 CpG sites microarray chips. Subsequently, methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (MSP) on selected hypermethylated genes was conducted on an additional 37 chemoresponsive and 9 chemoresistant B-ALL samples and 2 normal controls. Results: Both methods were found to be highly correlated. Unsupervised principal component analysis showed that the chemotherapy-responsive and -resistant B-ALL patients could be segregated from one another. Selection of segregated genes at high stringency identified two potential genes (CDH11 and ADAMTSL5). MSP analysis on the larger cohort of samples (42 chemoresponsive, 14 chemoresistant B-ALL samples and 6 normal controls) revealed significantly higher rates of hypermethylation in chemoresistant samples for ADAMTSL5 (93 vs. 38%; p = 0.0001) and CDH11 (79% vs. 40%, p < 0.01). All control cases remained unmethylated. Conclusion: Chemoresistant B-ALL patients are associated with increased methylation in ADAMTSL5 and CDH11. These findings need to be validated in a larger group of patients, and the functional biological and prognostic significance of differential methylation needs to be studied further.


Current Doha Development Agenda (DDA) World Trade Organisation negotiations include proposals that would affect the trade barriers that protect Canada's chicken producers from foreign competition. This research analyses the effects of the most recent proposals to emerge from the DDA negotiation on Canada's chicken industry. We develop a partial-equilibrium model that generates welfare effects for the Canadian chicken industry supply chain. We also introduce stochastic prices to evaluate the effects of world price instability on the Canadian chicken industry. The model is also adapted to represent chicken as two distinct products; white meat and dark meat. Simulation results suggest that the welfare effects of the DDA proposals on the Canadian chicken industry would be small, providing that chicken receives the sensitive products designation. Liberalisation leads to higher total welfare in the chicken industry, which is accounted for by consumer welfare that increases by a larger amount than producer welfare decreases. These results hold across models that incorporate risk and that differentiate products.


Wherever Christianity has been a living power, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit has uniformly been regarded, equally with the Atonement and Justification by faith, as the article of a standing or falling church. The distinctive feature of Christianity as it addresses itself to man's experience, is the work of the Spirit, which not only elevates it far above all philosophical speculation, but also above every other form of religion. That the Holy Spirit is to be publicly owned and equally honored with the Father and the Son is very evident from the terms of the great commission, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."


Traditional real options models demonstrate the importance of the "option to wait" due to uncertainty over future shocks to project cash flows. However, there is often another important source of uncertainty: uncertainty over the permanence of past shocks. Adding Bayesian uncertainty over the permanence of past shocks augments the traditional option to wait with an additional "option to learn." The implied investment behavior differs significantly from that in standard models. For example, investment may occur at a time of stable or decreasing cash flows, respond sluggishly to cash flow shocks, and depend on the timing of project cash flows. Copyright (c) 2010 the American Finance Association.


A Numerical and experimental study of thermal and heat transfer processes in a steam condenser operating in steam power plant with steam engine was developed to built analytical model using to predict thermal profile of condenser. Iterative technique between Engineering Equations Solver (EES) and Matlab programming was developed to find water properties .The exit water temperature, steam flow rate, geometric dimension (diameter and tube length) ,convection heat transfer coefficient of water and condenser efficiency were computed using the analytic model. Experimental results for a range of water flow rate (0.0153 to 0.0121 kg/s) with constant inlet water temperature of 25 C ∘ were used to validate the analytical model. Compared with a validated model, the standard deviations of analytical model are less than 4%, and all errors fall into ±6%. Analytical model can be used to show the relation between thermal parameters.


We take another look at the Chu construction and show how to simplify it by looking at it as a module category in a trivial Chu category. This simpliies the construction substantially, especially in the case of a non-symmetric biclosed monoidal category. We also show that if the original category is accessible, then for any of a large class of \polynomial-like" functors, the category of coalgebras has cofree objects.


We hypothesize that individual investors treat trading as a fun and exciting gambling activity, implying substitution between this activity and alternative gambling opportunities. To examine this hypothesis, we study the lottery jackpots and the trading of individual investors in Taiwan. When the jackpots exceed 500 million Taiwan dollars, the trading volume decreases between 5.2% and 9.1% among stocks preferred by individual investors and between 6.8% and 8.6% among lottery-like stocks. The decline in individual buy volume is statistically indistinct from the decline in sell volume. Large jackpots are associated with less trading in options with high sensitivity to volatility.


In the context of GEN-IV heavy liquid metal-cooled reactors safety studies, the flow blockage in a fuel sub-assembly is considered one of the main issues to be addressed and one of the most important accidents for Lead Fast Reactors (LFR). In order to model the temperature and velocity field inside a wrapped fuel assembly under unblocked and blocked conditions, a detailed experimental campaign as well as 3D thermal hydraulic analyses of the fuel assembly are required. The present paper is focused on the CFD modeling and preliminary computational analysis of the new experimental facility "Blocked" Fuel Pin bundle Simulator (BFPS) that will be inserted in the heavy liquid metal NACIE-UP (NAtural CIrculation Experiment-UPgrade) facility located at the ENEA Brasimone Research Center (Italy). The BFPS test section aims to carry out suitable experiments to fully investigate different flow blockage regimes in a 19-pin fuel bundle providing experimental data in support of the development of the ALFRED (Advanced Lead-cooled Fast Reactor European Demonstrator) LFR DEMO. The BFPS test section, LBE cooled, was conceived with a thermal power of about 250 kW and a wall heat flux up to 0.7 MW/m 2 , which are relevant values for a LFR. It consists of 19 grid-spaced electrical pins placed on a hexagonal lattice with a pitch to diameter ratio of 1.4 and a diameter of 10 mm. The geometrical domain of the fuel pin bundle simulator was designed to reproduce the geometrical features of ALFRED, e.g. the external wrapper in the active region and the spacer grids. Different modeling approaches (e.g. meshing, turbulence modeling, codes and users) in RANS, URANS and LES will be compared to each other. The pre-test analyses presented here will facilitate the post-test analysis of the experimental data expected in 2017-2018. These calculations were carried out by applying unambiguous boundary conditions. In addition conjugate heat transfer is also considered. The comparison among different codes and turbulence models allows to make an overall assessment of different approaches to CFD modeling and simulation. ANSYS CFX, STAR-CCM+ and OpenFOAM simulations are compared to each other.


SUMMARY The incidence and causes of infectious intestinal disease (IID) in children aged <5 years presenting to general practitioners (GPs) were estimated. During a 12-month period, soiled nappies were collected from children presenting with symptoms suggestive of IID in a network of 65 GPs located across England. Molecular methods were used to detect a range of enteric pathogens including viruses, bacteria and parasites. Genotyping was performed on rotavirus and norovirus isolates. A total of 583 nappies were collected from 554 children; a pathogen was detected in 361 (62%) specimens. In the 43 practices 1584 new episodes of IID were recorded in a population averaging 19774; the specimen capture rate was 28%. IID incidence peaked during March and April. Norovirus (24·5%), rotavirus (19·0%) and sapovirus (12·7%) were most commonly detected, and mixed infections were detected in 11·7% of cases. Strain characterization revealed G1P[8] (65·8%), G4P[4] (8·1%) and G9P[8] (8·1%) as the most common rotavirus genotypes, similar to the UK national distribution. GII-3 (42·9%) and GII-4 (39·7%) were the most common norovirus genotypes; this was significantly different (P<0·005) to the national distribution.


Air travelers have become one of the strategic indicators in the transportation sector. The official data-released by Statistics Indonesia (BPS) for thirty days-lag, makes the condition of this indicator can't be known in real-time. By the utilization of web search data that has been briskly evolving in recent years, this study aims to explore the possibility of using web search data in performing short-term forecasting to know the general outlook of the indicator earlier. Based on this study, web search data and official statistics figures show a strong correlation and having similar movement patterns over time. The application of web search data as a predictor in time series modeling, especially on time series regression and autoregressive model (SARIMA and SARIMAX), turn out a predicted value that well-approach the actual value of the response variable. In addition, it is proven that the use of web search data can increase model accuracy. The analysis results using SARIMAX model shows that the number of air traveller's outflows from Bali in September and October 2021 will generally be higher than the number in August 2021. The increasing number of air travelers is thought due to a decrease in Covid-19 cases which has triggered the public's confidence in travelling about to rise again.


Rate monotonic analysis (RMA), a mathematical approach that helps ensure that a real-time system meets its performance requirements, is discussed. It does so through a collection of quantitative methods and algorithms that let engineers understand, analyze, and predict the timing behavior of their designs. An application of RMA to an air traffic control system is described.<<ETX>>


Participatory budgeting is a form of Participatory Democracy that is being increasinglyused in Brazilian cities. This dissertation describes research conducted on the participatorybudgets of two Brazilian cities, Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte. The research wasundertaken with the overall aim of examining and comparing the participatory budgetingexperiences in these two cities and then using this examination to identify the key localvariables that can influence the outcomes of participatory budgets. The research made useof both primary and secondary data sources. The primary data used the result of 22 semistructuredinterviews that took place in April and May 2004, and the secondary data wasthe already existing body of literature on participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre and BeloHorizonte. The key findings of this research are that participatory budgeting has had somesignificant successes in both Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte. At the same time thoughthe participatory budgets in Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte have encountered problemsthat have limited their abilities to produce results. There are also several areas where theoutcomes of participatory budgeting are, at present, unclear. Some of the outcomes of theparticipatory budgets in Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte are very similar yet there weredifferences in the processes' results. Two key variables are identified in the analysis: theability of the participatory budget to produce tangible results and the degree of need that acity's populace has for municipal services. Associated with these key variables are a rangeof secondary variables that also influence the outcomes of participatory budgets.


Real-time object detection is essential for many computer vision applications. Many rapid detection algorithms are based on using cascades of tests. But existing design criteria for cascades either ignore the time complexity of the tests or make over-simplified assumptions about them. This paper gives a criterion for designing a time-efficient cascade that explicitly takes into account the time complexity of tests (as evaluated by computer run time) including the time for pre-processing. We design a greedy algorithm to minimize this criterion (noting that the full problem is NP-complete). Finally, we illustrate our method on the task of text detection in city scenes. This gives a text detection algorithm that runs at 0.025 seconds per 320×240 image, which is equivalent to 40 frames per second. This is a speed up factor of 2.5 compared to our previous text detector. It gives a realtime system which can be used for applications to help the blind and visually impaired.


OBJECTIVES
Our purpose was to determine the mortality and morbidity rates for infants weighing 501 to 1500 g according to gestational age, birth weight, and gender.

STUDY DESIGN
Perinatal data were collected prospectively on an inborn cohort from January 1993 through December 1994 by 12 participating centers of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Neonatal Research Network and were compared with the corresponding data from previous reports. Sociodemographic factors, perinatal events, and the neonatal course to 120 days of life, discharge, or death were evaluated.

RESULTS
Eighty-three percent of infants survived until discharge to home or to a long- term care facility (compared with 74% in 1988). Survival to discharge was 49% for infants weighing 501 to 750 g at birth, 85% for those 751 to 1000 g, 93% for those 1001 to 1250 g, and 96% for those 1251 to 1500 g. The majority of deaths occurred within the first 3 days of life. Mortality rates were greater for male than for female infants. Respiratory distress syndrome was the most frequent pulmonary disease (52%). Chronic lung disease (defined as an oxygen requirement at 36 weeks after conception) developed in 19%. Thirty-two percent of infants had evidence of intracranial hemorrhage. Periventricular leukomalacia was noted in 6% of infants who had ultrasonography after 2 weeks. The average duration of hospitalization for survivors was 68 days (122 days for surviving infants weighing 501 to 750 g, compared with an average of 43 days for surviving infants 1251 to 1500 g). Among infants who died, the average length of stay was 19 days.

CONCLUSIONS
The mortality rate for infants weighing between 501 and 1500 g at birth continues to decline. This increase in survival is not accompanied by an increase in medical morbidity. There are interactions between birth weight, gestational age, sex, and survival rates.


Abstract. This study was designed to examine the fixation pattern and kinetics of zinc (Zn) in chelated (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, EDTA) and non-chelated mixed micronutrient systems of semi-arid alkaline soils from the Southern High Plains, USA. Soils were characterized for a suite of chemical and physical properties and data obtained from extraction experiments fitted to various kinetic models. About 30 % more plant-available Zn was fixed in the non-chelated system within the first 14 days with only about 18 % difference observed between the two systems by day 90, suggesting that the effectiveness of the chelated compounds tended to decrease over time. The strengths of the relationships of change in available Zn with respect to other micronutrients (copper, iron, and manganese) were higher and more significant in the non-chelated system (average R2 of 0.83), compared to the chelated (average R2 of 0.42). Fixation of plant-available Zn was best described by the power-function model (R2 = 0.94, SE  =  0.076) in the non-chelated system, and was poorly described by all the models examined in the chelated system. Reaction rate constants and relationships generated from this study can serve as important tools for micronutrient management and for future micronutrient modeling studies on these soils and other semi-arid regions of the world.


Stimulated Rayleigh-wing scattering is studied here in various liquids excited with a Bessel beam that allows a complete spatial separation between the transmitted exciting light and the scattered light. The results show that a large Stokes spectral band displaying substructures is obtained in the absence of self-focusing, cross-focusing, self-phase modulation, and cross-phase modulation. An interpretation is proposed based on the role of cascade Stokes–anti-Stokes coupled scattering processes.


Total Maximum Daily Load sediment limits need to be assessed for Georgia. There is a need to create sediment budgets to prioritize sediment reduction efforts loadings for Non Point Source Pollution. Early analysis for Murder Creek reveal that there is a large source of sediment in floodplain storage. Volume analysis of exported sediment indicate that there has been large amounts of sediment mobilized after 1950. Dendro-geomorphology data reveal that there has been slight floodplain accretion over that time period. These factors suggest that constant erosion of stored sediments from past land uses may lead to elevated and continued levels of sediment in Georgia's waterways.


The ancestor philosophers' dream of thousands of new worlds is finally realised: about 3500 extrasolar planets have been discovered in the neighborhood of our Sun. Most of them are very different from those we used to know in our Solar System. Others orbit their parent star inside the belt known as Habitable Zone where a rocky planet with the appropriate climate could have the availability of liquid water on its surface. Those planets, in HZ or not, will be the object of observation that will be performed by new space-/ground-based instrumentation. Space missions, such as JWST and the very recently proposed ARIEL (ESA M-Class Mission), or ground based instruments (SPHERE@VLT, GPI@GEMINI and EPICS@ELT) have been proposed and built to measure the atmospheric transmission, reflection and emission spectra over a wide wavelength range. Most of exoplanets have local counterparts in the Solar System planets that are available for comparative studies, but there are also interesting outsider cases like super Earths. In our own system, proto-planet evolution was flanked by an active prebiotic chemistry that brought about the emergency of life on the Earth. The search for life signatures requires the knowledge of planet atmospheres, main objective of future exoplanetary space explorations. As, for now, we have only one example of life in the universe, we are bound to study terrestrial organisms to assess possibilities of life on other planets and guide our search for possible extinct or extant life on other planetary bodies. The planet atmosphere characteristics and possible biosignatures will be inferred by studying such composite spectrum in order to identify the emission/absorption lines/bands from atmospheric molecules as water, carbon monoxide, methane, ammonia etc.


Anagrelide is often used in the treatment of thrombocythemia in myeloproliferative disease (MPD), but information concerning effects of treatment on cytokines involved in regulation of blood platelet levels is limited. Here, we investigated serum levels of thrombopoietin (TPO) and soluble IL-6 receptor (sIL-6R) in relation to response to treatment with and plasma concentrations of anagrelide. Samples from 45 patients with thrombocythemia due to MPD (ET=31, PV=14), being treated with anagrelide for 6 months, were analyzed for TPO, sIL-6R and anagrelide levels. The mean baseline platelet count was 983x109/L. A reduction of platelets to <600 in asymptomatic or <400 x 109/L in symptomatic patients was defined as a complete remission (CR), a reduction with >50% of baseline as partial remission, and <50% reduction as failure. At 6 months, 35 patients were in CR, 1 had a partial remission and 9 were treatment failures. For all patients, there was an increase in TPO of 44% from baseline; this change was more pronounced for patients with partial remission and failure. sIL-6R levels did not change significantly. There was no correlation between levels of anagrelide and cytokine levels at 6 months, and changes of cytokine levels did not relate to changes of platelet counts. Thus, a pronounced increase of TPO levels after 6 months of anagrelide treatment indicated that this treatment affected a major regulatory mechanism for megakaryocyte and platelet formation in MPD.


This work presents some contributions for optimization of the 2 ½ D pocket machining. The machining strategy considered is divided in internal machining and corners machining. The internal machining is carried through equidistant paths to the contour (offset) made by using Voronoi's Diagram and the corner machining follows the same principle. As the Voronoi Diagram is parametric, the spaces between the paths can change. Thus, the best situation of spacing between paths can be determined to optimize the process. By using Dynamic Programming, the best combination of dimensions of the available tools can also be identified to remove the material of the pocket in smaller time.


Stratosphere ozone depletion above the Arctic region has drawn increased attention recently. Here we present stratospheric ozone column densities above Ny-?lesund in the Arctic during summer 2010 and 2011, based on a self-developed passive differential optical absorption spectroscopy(DOAS) technique. By analyzing the received scattered solar spectrum, daily variations of ozone vertical column densities(VCDs) were obtained and correlated with satellite-borne ozone monitoring results and ozone sonde data. The comparisons showed good correlation, confirming the feasibility of DOAS in high-latitude Arctic regions. The preliminary analysis also demonstrated that abnormal low-level ozone columns found in spring 2011 had negative impacts on total ozone column densities over the entire year. The loss of stratospheric ozone may be correlated with low stratospheric temperatures, where heterogeneous atmospheric reactions were active.


The anthocyanin pigments in rosé (Vitis vinifera cv. Garnacha) and blanc de noir (V. vinifera cv. Monastrell) base and sparkling wines were studied by LC-DAD/ESI-MS. Anthocyanins of grape origin and pyranoanthocyanins resulting from C-4/C-5 cycloaddition of the former ones with pyruvic acid, acetaldehyde, 4-vinylphenol, 4-vinylguaiacol, and 4-vinylcatechol were identified in the different wines. Rosé wines presented a higher total pigment content than blanc de noir wines. Pyranoanthocyanins represented 68.9-76.0% of total pigment content in rosé wines and 49.4-60.7% in blanc de noir wines. Malvidin 3-glucoside-pyruvate was the most abundant pigment in both rosé and blanc de noir base wines. Important qualitative and quantitative changes were observed in terms of the anthocyanin and pyranoanthocyanin pigments after the second (bottle) fermentation and 9 months of aging on yeast lees, but not after a further time (3-9 additional months) of aging on lees. Evaluation of the wine color characteristics was consistent with a greater color stability for the rosé sparkling wines that could be associated with the high content, structural diversity, and spectroscopic features of the pyranoanthocyanins present in these wines.


In the present work a new testing method for assessing the wear resistance of matrix materials employed in the manufacture of diamond tools is presented and discussed. The method allows assessing the wear behaviour of different metallic matrices by simulating a circular cutting action of a tool where, instead of a normal abrasive element (matrix impregnated with diamond) only the matrix material is tested. This method has originated a preliminary model of continuum abrasive contact layer between a rotating circular element made of a metal matrix and a glass material. The model allows the determination of the matrix wear rate at different applied forces. To validate the methodology used, different matrix materials (with different mechanical properties) have been analysed in relation to the experimental wear rate.


Abstract:  Tracks and trackways of the vertebrate ichnotaxon Ichniotherium sphaerodactylum and a trace of the invertebrate ichnotaxon Striatichnium bromackerense are described for the first time in association outside of Europe. The tracks are identified as I. sphaerodactylum based on their characteristic rounded digit ends, the ovoid sole‐pad of the pedal imprint and the increase in digit lengths from digits I–IV, and the invertebrate trace is identifiable as S. bromackerense based on the band‐like systems of distally bifurcated striae. The tracks of I. sphaerodactylum are the largest known to date and represent rare evidence of large‐bodied terrestrial vertebrates in the Kildare Capes Formation of Prince Edward Island, Canada. Morphometric differences between ichnospecies of Ichniotherium and other ichnospecies previously collected from Prince Edward Island are examined in a multivariate analysis, and results suggest that the distance between the manus and pes of the same imprint pair, the width of pace and the length of certain digits is useful for species identification. The association between I. sphaerodactylum and S. bromackerense was previously known only from the Bromacker quarry, Tambach Formation, Germany, which is interpreted as a seasonally dry, semi‐arid upland environment. The co‐occurrence of these traces suggests that the Eldon locality of Prince Edward Island is similar in depositional environment to the Bromacker quarry in Germany, and allows for comparison of these two localities for the first time. As diadectids are thought to be the trackmakers of Ichniotherium, the Eldon locality of the Kildare Capes Formation may, with further work, be considered as another example of the rare, herbivore‐dominated palaeoenvironment, which is generally uncharacteristic of the Early Permian of North America.


Lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma of the skin (LELCS) is a rare and poorly differentiated variant of squamous cell carcinoma. The lesion is histologically identical to undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma (lymphoepithelioma), but with Epstein-Barr virus involvement documented rarely. The first case of LELCS was described in 1988 by Swanson et al. and since there has been less than a total of 60 cases documented. This case review discusses a 87 year old man who presented to his primary care physician with a 2.5 cm solitary ulcerated nodular lesion on his right chest for two weeks. The patient ultimately had the lesion excised and sent for histological examination. The microscopic examination, ancillary studies used and differential diagnosis considered are discussed in detail in the following report. This case review aims to provide insight and approach to a rare cutaneous neoplasm, with the conclusions supporting a theory that LELCS is a separate entity from lymphoepithelioma.


Attitudes toward graduate studies are an often overlooked, but potentially important factor in undergraduate engineering students' decisions of whether or not to pursue graduate studies in engineering. Graduate work, especially the Ph.D., requires extensive research, a skill not often emphasized in undergraduate engineering programs. A survey was developed to measure engineering students' attitudes toward graduate studies and examine the reasons students choose to not attend graduate school. The psychometric properties of the survey have been examined and are published elsewhere. The survey has been used to measure the effect(s) undergraduate research programs have on engineering students' attitudes toward graduate studies. Students who participated in the research programs showed increased attitudes from the beginning to the end of their programs and had significantly higher attitudes toward graduate studies than a group of students who did not participate in the programs. Research opportunities for undergraduates have expanded over the past several years with the initiation of federally funded programs such as Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) and the Ronald E. McNair Post-baccalaureate Achievement Program. During each of the last three years, New Jersey Institute of Technology has hosted two separate REUs as well as a McNair Program. Data across all three years have been combined to further examine changes in students' attitudes toward graduate studies after participating in one of the programs and to begin investigating possible differences between the students who attended the REU programs and the students who attended the McNair program. Students in the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program showed significantly higher attitudes toward graduate studies, were more positive about research and appeared more likely to pursue careers in academia.


ABSTRACT The silica contents of nine common sands calculated from mineralogic analyses are compared with the silica contents determined by chemical analyses. The maximum difference, a deficiency of 2.46 per cent in the mineralogic analyses was for a sand containing 89.8 per cent silica by chemical analysis. The differences decrease with increasing silica content, although not in a very regular way. The maximum silica content by chemical analysis, namely, 96.03 per cent, differs by 0.78 per cent from the corresponding silica content in the mineralogic analysis. A short method of mineralogic analysis gives results that differ by a minimum of 0.39 per cent and a maximum of 2.50 per cent from the results obtained by a detailed mineralogic analysis. The detailed mineralogic analyses show: (1) The percentage of silica in the heavy mineral portion is fairly regularly inversely proportional to the percentage of heavy minerals in the sands. (2) The abundance of grains of the different minerals in the various grain sizes varies regularly with some minerals and irregularly with others. Some minerals, e.g., zircon, are markedly confined to certain sizes. (3) Minerals with good cleavage are not uniformly more abundant in the smaller grain sizes. Kyanite, for example, was found to be regularly more abundant in the larger grain sizes.


Background: With the aim of better predicting the course of the community-acquired uncomplicated pneumonia (CAUP) the study presents the results of research of the cytokine profile based on the obtained rates of pro- (interleukin 1-beta [IL-1β], tumor necrosis factor-alpha [TNF-α]) and anti-inflammatory (interleukin 4 [IL-4]) cytokines in blood serum as well as results of the combined bacteriological and serological research of children with different level of physical development (PD), sick on CAUP. Methods: In order to reach the purpose of the research the work was carried out by controlled computer-generated randomization schedule in 2 stages. At the 1st stage the examination of 151 children with CAUP aged from 3 to 14 years from the onset of the disease and of 20 apparently healthy children (control group) was held. All children passed a study of sputum using staining of swabs according to Gram, culture test and determination of causative agents of pneumonia by the method of enzyme multiplied immunoassay (ELISA); in addition, the cytokine profile (IL-1β, IL-4 and TNF-α) was determined by the method of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. At the 2nd stage, according to the inclusion/exclusion criteria, 151 children in the dynamics of the disease were examined: on 7.2 ± 0.9 day from the onset of the disease, the cytokine profile rates were evaluated, and on 12.6 ± 0.9 day the level of IgM, IgG to atypical causative agents of pneumonia were recorded. Results: The results obtained during the research of the indices of the pro-inflammatory (IL-1β and TNF-α) and anti-inflammatory (IL-4) cytokines in blood serum of the children with CAUP and having different level of PD can be considered as factors for individually predicting the course of the CAUP of children with different PD. Conclusion: Data suggest that the ratio of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines during inflammatory process in children with CAUP with different PD can be one of the additional, but not unique, factors for predicting the course of the disease.


Inflammatory mediators stimulate arginine-derived nitric oxide (NO) production in a variety of cells. The purpose of this study was to determine if the inflammatory mediators, endotoxin (LPS) and interferon gamma (IFN), stimulate arginine transport and nitric oxide production in a murine breast cancer cell line. We also investigated the effect of the nitric oxide synthase (NOS) inhibitors, omega-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (LNAME) and aminoguanidine (AG), as well as the effect of varying the concentration of L-arginine in the cellular media, on arginine transport and NO production in these tumors cells. Confluent EMT-6 murine breast cancer cells were incubated with LPS (10 microgram/ml) and IFN (50 units/ml) in the presence or absence of the NOS inhibitors, L-NAME (2 mM) or AG (1 mM), and arginine transport (using L-[3H]arginine) and NO production (the stable end-product nitrite was assayed using the Greiss reagent) were measured at various time points. In addition, the effect of varying the concentration of L-arginine (0, 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 mM) in the cellular media on stimulated L-arginine transport and nitrite accumulation was assessed. Incubation of EMT-6 with LPS and IFN stimulated arginine transport approximately 70% over control levels at 12 hr and transport returned to basal levels at 24 hr. LPS/IFN-stimulated EMT-6 cells produced 25 microM nitrite at 24 hr and reached a plateau of 55 microM nitrite at 48 hr. The NO synthase inhibitors, L-NAME and AG, failed to inhibit basal and stimulated levels of arginine transport, but significantly inhibited nitrite accumulation, which was restored by 10 mM L-arginine. Finally, L-arginine was necessary in the media for nitrite accumulation by LPS/IFN-stimulated cells, with maximal accumulation at 1 mM L-arginine. In summary, LPS/IFN stimulate arginine transport and NO production in the EMT-6 breast cancer cell line. L-NAME and AG do not inhibit basal or stimulated arginine transport in this tumor cell line and extracellular L-arginine is required for NO synthesis in these cells. LPS/IFN stimulation of arginine transport may represent an adaptive response to provide increased substrate for enhanced tumor cell NO production.


Abstract. A simple and effective method of square-wave anodic
stripping voltammetry (SWASV) with screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCEs)
was used to determine the cadmium concentration in Malaysian herb samples. The
optimization process involved the selection of an optimized pH, an acetate
buffer as a supporting electrolyte, the deposition potential, deposition time
and the
surface modification process on an SPCE surface. The optimum conditions were a pH of 4.5, a deposition potential of −1.4 V and a deposition time of 120 s. The SPCE
surface was modified with the fabrication of the graphene–ionic liquid composite as
the sensing layer. Four herb samples were tested, where herbs A, D, M and C
contained 0.0035, 0.0237, 0.0267 and 0.0251 ppm of cadmium,
respectively. The sensitivity of the proposed sensor was compared with an
inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectroscopy (ICP–OES). The
relative standard deviation (RSD) between the sensor and the ICP–OES indicated that
the sensor was sensitive, as RSD was below 20 % with range of
7.93 % to 18.28 %.


Abstract This study analyses the period 1990 to 1996 of the current situation of the small and medium-sized industrial enterprises (SMIs) in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and St. Lucia. It describes the evolution of SMIs, the country experiences regarding linkages amongst firms and the policy instruments aimed at promoting SMIs and their impact. The small enterprises have well established support programmes and they are considered to be dependent on direct government support through subsidized financing and other mechanisms and are essentially inward looking in terms of development. The medium-sized enterprises, on the other hand, see themselves as having emerged from the small business group and moved to modernize business by the introduction of higher level technology and more efficient means of production, they are also considered by many financial and other support agencies as Emerging Enterprises". In each of the three countries, the respective Government has identified the manufacturing sector as important to national development and specifically the SMIs, as a group that requires special government attention. To this end special agencies have been established to address the specific needs of SMIs."


For many years, lithographic resolution has been the main obstacle in keeping the pace of transistor densification to meet Moore's Law. For the 32 nm node and beyond, new lithography techniques will be used, including immersion ArF (iArF) lithography and extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL). As in the past, these techniques will use new types of photoresists with the capability to print smaller feature widths and pitches. Also, such smaller feature sizes will require thinner layers of photoresists, such as under 100 nm. In previous papers, we focused on ArF and iArF photoresist shrinkage. We evaluated the magnitude of shrinkage for both R&D and mature resists as a function of chemical formulation, lithographic sensitivity, scanning electron microscope (SEM) beam condition, and feature size. Shrinkage results were determined by the well accepted methodology described in ISMI's CD-SEM Unified Specification. A model for resist shrinkage, while derived elsewhere, was presented, that can be used to curve-fit to the shrinkage data resulting from multiple repeated measurements of resist features. Parameters in the curve-fit allow for metrics quantifying total shrinkage, shrinkage rate, and initial critical dimension (CD) before e-beam exposure. With these parameters and exhaustive measurements, a fundamental understanding of the phenomenology of the shrinkage trends was achieved, including how the shrinkage behaves differently for different sized features. This work was extended in yet another paper in which we presented a 1-D model for resist shrinkage that can be used to curve-fit to shrinkage curves. Calibration of parameters to describe the photoresist material and the electron beam were all that were required to fit the model to real shrinkage data, as long as the photoresist was thick enough that the beam could not penetrate the entire layer of resist. In this paper, we extend this work yet again to a 2-D model of a trapezoidal photoresist profile. This model thus allows CD shrinkage in thin photoresist to be solved, which is now of great interest for upcoming realistic lithographic processing. It also allows us to predict the change in resist profile with electron dose and the influence of initial resist profile on shrinkage characteristics. In this work, the results from the previous paper will be shown to be consistent with numerically simulated results, thus lending credibility to these papers' postulations. Also, results from this 2-D profile model can also give clues as to how we might, in the future, model the shrinkage of contour edges of 3-D shapes. With these findings, we can conclude with observations about the readiness of SEM metrology for the challenges of future photoresist measurement, as well as estimate the errors involved in calculating the original CD from the shrinkage trend.


This chapter provides a theoretical overview of criminal law, claiming that it has multiple functions. Among other things, the criminal law operates to prevent certain kinds of wrongs, and to punish them when they occur. Those functions are compatible; but they are often thought to be in tension. Whether preventive, interrogative, or punitive, all parts of the criminal justice system need justification. The chapter then briefly introduces at five foundational principles for criminal law: culpability, legitimate enactment, moral responsibility, wrongdoing, and ascriptive responsibility. Culpability is served by moral responsibility, and it is entwined with wrongdoing: but the latter principles, and the doctrines they govern, are independently significant. The principle of ascriptive responsibility, on the other hand, is related more closely to wrongdoing and legitimate enactment than to culpability per se. Its primary function is to moderate the state's generic prohibition by identifying those defendants who fall within its scope. As such, it is primarily a criminalization principle.


Up to 14 billion dollars are spent in the construction industry annually as a result of work-related injuries. The current study was developed in an effort to minimize the costs associated with these short-and long-term injuries through the use of wearable technologies and a two-phase study that included 13 semi-structured interviews and a usability investigation with 12 participants. Through the user interviews, a system was developed that includes a wearable vibration feedback mechanism that alerts users of postures that impose a risk of incurring musculoskeletal disorders and a smartphone application that reports on their postures. The results of the usability investigation showed that the solution is perceived to be more informative and engaging in enhancing safety awareness than existing practices. The results of this study display the need and effectiveness of incorporating wearable technologies as a means of providing effective feedback to construction workers and, hence, mitigate the risks of incurring work-related injuries.


Purpose: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease with genetic profiling being the primary prognostic factor. The objective of this study was to examine if routinely acquired parameters may be used to improve the prognosis of AML prognosis. Methods: Karyotyping was performed using bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells of 244 de novo diagnosed AML patients and age, sex, total leukocyte count (TLC), platelet count and hemoglobin (Hb) levels at initial presentation were recorded. The patients were given standard treatment and overall survival (OS) for 1 year and 5 years were recorded. Results: As expected, patients with aberrant karyotype status had poor overall survival. Aneuploidy was strongly associated with poor patient survival; while patients presented with hyperploidy had significantly lower OS at both 1 year and 5 years of time points; hypoploidy was correlated only with poor 1 year OS. Interestingly, 146 patients with Hb levels ≤ 8 g/dl had significantly lower 1 year and 5 years OS compared to 95 patients with Hb levels ≥ 8 g/dl. Combining karyotype status or Hb levels with other parameters did not improve patient prognosis. Conclusion: In summary, our results show that in addition to karyotype status, Hb level is an independent prognostic marker that should also be considered for early identification of patients that may benefit from alternative therapies.


This study may act as a guide for online databases and interface design in the development of more accessible web products. Librarians caring about accessibility have information enabling them to make better procurement decisions and to challenge vendors through specific questions about their products functionality. The findings of this study may alert professionals who help online library databases users of assistive technology to the potential difficulties involved in searching specific library databases. The aim of this study was to examine the data retrieval techniques as offered and made available by online database providers and users expectation and feedback on this issues, different accessibility features of the online databases, different aspects of the feasibility of the sites of the online databases, different menu driven or command oriented retrieval techniques of online databases. Identification and evaluation of different data retrieval features on the basis of the performance among the online databases. Ranking of online databases on the basis of adoptability of data retrieval techniques and also to understand the university libraries using maximum online databases


AIM
To define the optimum safe angle of use for an eccentrically aligned proximal interlocking screw (PIS) for intramedullary nailing (IMN).

METHODS
Thirty-six dry cadaver ulnas were split into two equal pieces sagitally. The following points were identified for each ulna: the deepest point of the incisura olecrani (A), the point where perpendicular lines from A and the ideal IMN entry point (D) are intersected (C) and a point at 3.5 mm (2 mm safety distance from articular surface + 1.5 mm radius of PIS) posterior from point A (B). We calculated the angle of screws inserted from point D through to point B in relation to D-C and B-C. In addition, an eccentrically aligned screw was inserted at a standard 20° through the anterior cortex of the ulna in each bone and the articular surface was observed macroscopically for any damage.

RESULTS
The mean A-C distance was 9.6 mm (mean ± SD, 9.600 ± 0.763 mm), A-B distance was 3.5 mm, C-D distance was 12.500 mm (12.500 ± 1.371 mm) and the mean angle was 25.9° (25.9° ± 2.0°). Lack of articular damage was confirmed macroscopically in all bones after the 20.0° eccentrically aligned screws were inserted. Intramedullary nail fixation systems have well known biological and biomechanical advantages for osteosynthesis. However, as well as these well-known advantages, IMN fixation of the ulna has some limitations. Some important limitations are related to the proximal interlocking of the ulna nail. The location of the PIS itself limits the indications for which intramedullary systems can be selected as an implant for the ulna. The new PIS design, where the PIS is aligned 20°eccentrically to the nail body, allows fixing of fractures even at the level of the olecranon without disturbing the joint. It also allows the eccentrically aligned screw to be inserted in any direction except through the proximal radio-ulnar joint. Taking into consideration our results, we now use a 20° eccentrically aligned PIS for all ulnas. In our results, the angle required to insert the PIS was less than 20° for only one bone. However, 0.7° difference corresponds to placement of the screw only 0.2 mm closer to the articular surface. As we assume 2.0 mm to be a safe distance, a placement of the screw 0.2 mm closer to the articular surface may not produce any clinical symptoms.

CONCLUSION
The new PIS may give us the opportunity to interlock IMN without articular damage and confirmation by fluoroscopy if the nail is manufactured with a PIS aligned at a 20.0° fixed angle in relation to the IMN.


Point sets obtained by 3D scanners are often corrupted with noise, that can have several causes, such as a tangential acquisition direction, changing environmental lights or a reflective object material. It is thus crucial to design efficient tools to remove noise from the acquired data without removing important information such as sharp edges or shape details. To do so, Fleish-man et al. introduced a bilateral filter for meshes adapted from the bilateral filter for gray level images. This anisotropic filter denoises a point with respect to its neighbors by considering not only the distance from the neighbors to the point but also the distance along a normal direction. This simple fact allows for a much better preservation of sharp edges. In this paper, we analyze a parallel implementation of the bilateral filter adapted for point clouds. Source Code The ANSI C++ source code permitting to reproduce results from the on-line demo is available on the web page of the article 1 .


Aims To determine HoNOS-ABI and FIMFAM-UK sensitivity to change following cognitive-behavioural rehabilitation for brain injury, and to examine the psychometric properties of these outcome measures. Methods 324 brain injured survivors underwent cognitive-behavioural rehabilitation at one of three participating centres: Lishman, Blackheath, and Edgware. Effect sizes of pre- and post-rehabilitation ratings were examined at each centre. 194 HoNOS-ABI pre-rehabilitation ratings collected across all centres were entered into an analysis using RUMM2020 (Tennant et al). Results Preliminary results for sensitivity to change and Rasch analyses are reported. Sensitivity: Moderate to large effect sizes were found at individual centres for HoNOS and FAM. HoNOS was the most sensitive tool at Blackheath and LBIU, and FAM was the most sensitive measure at Edgware. Rasch: HoNOS-ABI was found to show significant misfit to the Rasch model. All but one of the questions (cognitive) showed disordered thresholds. A person separation index of 0.63 suggested the HoNOS to be internally unreliable. Visual inspection of Category Probability Curves was used to guide rescoring. A Principal Components Analysis on the Rasch-transformed data was used to identify two possible subscales within HoNOS-ABI with potentially better psychometric properties. Conclusions HoNOS-ABI and FAM total scores were moderately to highly sensitive to change following cognitive-behavioural rehabilitation. HoNOS was better able to pick up change at Blackheath and LBIU, whereas FAM would be the measure of choice at Edgware. Rasch analysis proved to be informative of the strengths and weaknesses of HoNOS as a neuropsychiatric outcome measure, and highlighted that further work is needed to refine it as a tool for rehabilitation outcome measurement. HoNOS total score showed sensitivity to change. However, psychometric issues highlighted with this analysis indicated that a modified version may make this tool more psychometrically robust and may even increase its sensitivity to change.