Arrowtooth flounder (Atheresthes stomias) has the highest biomass of any groundfish species in the Gulf of Alaska, is a voracious predator of age 1 walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma), and is a major component in the diet of Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus). Owing to its ecological importance in the Gulf of Alaska and the limited
information available on its reproduction, interest has intensified in describing its spawning and early life history.

A study was undertaken in late January–February 2001–2003 in the Gulf of Alaska to obtain information on adult spawning location, depth distribution, and sexual maturity, and to obtain fertilized eggs for laboratory studies. Adults were found 200–600 m deep east of Kodiak Island
over the outer continental shelf and upper slope, and southwest along the shelf break to the Shumagin Islands. Most ripe females (oocytes extruded with light pressure)
were found at 400 m and most ripe males (milt extruded with light pressure) were found at depths ≥450 m. Eggs were
fertilized and incubated in the laboratory at 3.0°, 4.5°, and 6.0°C. Eggs were reared to hatching, but larvae did not survive long enough to complete yolk absorption and develop pigment. Eggs were staged according to morphological hallmarks and incubation data were used to produce a stage duration table and a regression model to estimate egg age based on water temperature and developmental stage.

Arrowtooth flounder eggs (1.58–1.98 mm in diameter) were collected in ichthyoplankton surveys along the continental
shelf edge, primarily at depths ≥400 m. Early-stage eggs were found in tows that sampled to depths of ≥450 m. Larvae,
which hatch between 3.9 and 4.8 mm standard length, increased in abundance with depth. Observations on arrowtooth flounder eggs and early-stage larvae were
used to complete the description of the published partial developmental series.(PDF file contains 34 pages.)


Transmedia storytelling is a concept emerging in the field of communication and media. The concept was first popularized by Jenkins. He defined it as a representation of a process in which integral elements of given fiction are disseminated systematically through multiple media platforms. Even though many researchers have studied the concept, not enough studies have been done with respect to its limitations, especially in the context of the entertainment and education sectors. Therefore, this research study was meant to explore the limitations of transmedia storytelling as it relates to entertainment and education. Hence, the researcher sought to achieve two objectives: to explore the limitations of transmedia storytelling in the entertainment industry and to explore the limitations of transmedia storytelling in the education system. Qualitative research methods were preferred for this study. An exploratory research design was employed, with interpretivism adopted as the research paradigm. A purposive sampling technique was used in selecting 13 people to participate in this study. The methods of data collection included semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions (FGD). The data that were collected were analyzed using a thematic approach. With regard to the entertainment industry, this study showed that the limitations included difficulties in collaboration between different media platforms, failure to take into account consumers who were not interested in more than one media platform as a source of various story elements, and inconsistencies regarding co-creation. In relation to education, the limitations included the fact that transmedia storytelling ignored the issue of cognitive maturity, ignored the credibility issues regarding various media platforms being sources of accurate academic knowledge, the slow pace at which transmedia projects are developed, and the disadvantages to learners who are neither able to access appropriate technologies nor able to use them.

 Key words: Transmedia, transmedia storytelling, media convergence, new media.


Modern environmental activists unified behind calls for a change in how humans understood their relationships with nature. Yet they approached their concerns through a variety of historical lenses. Countering arguments that suggest environmentalism had its deepest roots in outdoor leisure, the countercultural back-to-the-land movement turned to a markedly American practice of pastoral mythmaking that held rural life and labor as counter to the urban-industrial condition. Counterculturalists relied specifically on notions of simple work in rural collective endeavors as the means to producing a healthy body and environment. Yet the individuals who went back-to-the-land often failed to remedy conflicts that arose as they attempted to abandon American consumer practices and take up a "primitive" and down-to-earth pastoral existence. Contact with rural nature time and again translated to physical maladies, impoverishment, and community clashes in many rural countercultural communes. As the back-to-the-land encounter faded, the greater movement's ethos did not disappear. Counterculturalists used the consumption of nature through rural labor as a fundamental idea in a growing cooperative food movement. The back-to-the-land belief in the connection between healthy bodies, environments, a collective identity helped to expand a new form of consumer environmentalism.


Lot of attention is paid to vitamin D in last few years due to
brighter spectrum of influence in human organs. As a main
mechanism of action are proved nuclear vitamin D receptors
(VDR). More and more evidence of negative influence of vitamin
D deficit on cardiovascular system appears together with low
vitamin D serum levels in current population mostly due to life
style with little exposition of unprotected skin to sun beams.
The course of ischemic heart disease can be worsened by low
serum level of vitamin D because of higher risk of myocardial
infarction a cardiac failure with more frequent
hospitalisations. Higher risk of arrythmias during vitamin D
deficiency is explained by higher production of parathormone
and its binding to receptors stimulating phospholipase C
followed by increased activity of catecholamines, angiotensin
II and endothelin in ischaemic myocardium. There is no evidence
of any association of vitamin D and cholesterol levels, on the
other hand normal level of vitamin D helps to keep the
triglyceride serum concentration in normal range. Hypertension
is influenced negatively by low level of vitamin D due to
stimulation of renin-angiotensin-aldosteron system, parathormon
secretion and lower antiiflammatory and vasculoprotective
effect. Conclusion. The course of cardiovascular diseases can
be positively modulated by keeping vitamin D level within
normal range. The adequate exposition od unprotected skin to
sun is to recommend for the supplementation as a nature and
effective source of vitamin D.


1) This study examines the destination choices of pan-American migrants using census data for migrants from 23 Latin-American and Caribbean origin groups opting for one of ten North and South American destination countries. Descriptive �findings suggest that Caribbean and Central American migrants overwhelmingly migrate to the United
States, while South Americans show more diverse choice patterns. Using discrete choice models, the multivariate analysis shows that migrants are more likely to choose a country of destination which portrays a higher relative expected wage ratio, a lower relative income
inequality, a smaller geographic as well as cultural distance, a larger co-ethnic community and policy conditions that are more favorable towards immigrants. The results also indicate that some of these characteristics lead to skill selection diff�erentials. Accordingly, destinations are more likely to attract highly educated migrants if the co-ethnic community is small and relative political freedom, geographic
distance and cultural distance are above average.

2)Focusing on macro-level processes, this article combines Decennial Census and Current Population Survey data to simultaneously test longitudinal and cross-sectional effects on ethnic intermarriage using structural and cultural explanations. Covering a 130 year period, the results of our multilevel analysis for 140 national-origin groups indicate that structural characteristics explain why some origin groups become more open over time while others remain relatively closed. Ethnic intermarriage is more likely to increase over time when the relative size of an immigrant group decreases, sex ratios grow more imbalanced, the origin group grows more diverse, the size of the third generation increases and social structural consolidation decreases. Cultural explanations also play a role suggesting that an origin groups' exogamous behavior in the past exerts long-term effects and exogamous practices increase over time when the prevalence of early marriage
customs declines. For some of the discussed determinants of intermarriage, longitudinal and cross-sectional effects differ calling for a more careful theorizing and testing in terms of the level of analysis (e.g., longitudinal vs. cross-sectional).

3)Combining Decennial Census (1980-2000) and American Community Survey (2008-2011) data, this article documents Mexican generational and ethnic intermarriage patterns across 543 Consistent Public Use Microdata Areas and evaluates the impact of changes in structural conditions on changes in marital behavior. Descriptive findings point to a generational differentiation with 2nd+ generation Mexicans firmly on the path towards marital assimilation while 1st generation intermarriage rates declined. Moreover, we find strong variation in intermarriage across settlement areas with intermarriage rates generally being higher in new settlement areas. Multivariate analyses suggest that increases in the availability of co-ethnics and Spanish language
retention over time deter intermarriage in traditional settlement areas. In re-emerging destination only increases in cultural retention seemed
to matter. Finally, we test two competing hypotheses posited by the immigrant replenishment literature. Our results indicate that the impact of immigrant replenishment is moderate by cultural retention
and by the degree of negative feelings towards Hispanics experienced in the local context.


Study design Multivariate analysis of retrospective registry data. Objective To report the perioperative complication in a large cohort of surgery for elderly degenerative lumbar scoliosis (DLS) patients and to analyze the risk factors. Summary of background data The perioperative complication rate and risk factors for patients with DLS remain unclear, especially in elderly population. Methods Between November 2015 and June 2018, 98 patients aged 70 or older with DLS received decompression and intervertebral fusion by one spine surgeon at Beijing Xuanwu Hospital. The medical history and comorbidities of all patients were recorded. Results The perioperative complication rate was 34.7% in all patients, 11.2% of all patients had major complications, and 31.6% had minor complications. The major complication most commonly seen was wound infection, and the most common minor complication was hypoproteinemia. Elderly patients (>75) had longer hospital stays (17.5 ± 7.9) when compared to younger patients. Two risk factors of perioperative complications were chosen after binary logistic regression analysis: lower BMI and longer instrumented segments. The only risk factor for major complications was longer instrumented level (≥3), and the only risk factor for minor complications was lower BMI. Conclusion Our findings indicate that in elderly patients with DLS, lower BMI is a risk factor for minor perioperative complication. Obesity is not a major problem in this population, on the contrary, BMI is a protective factor for perioperative complications. The risk factors for major perioperative complications in elderly patients with DLS are longer instrumented segments but not related to the number of decompression and intervertebral fusion levels. Preoperative comorbidities and advanced age were not associated to a higher perioperative complication rate in elderly patients. The perioperative complication rate in patients with DLS over 70 years of age is found to be acceptable with appropriate perioperative management.


Less Industrialised Countries (LICs) are faced with globalisation of Manufacturing and
business organisations, a reorganisation that requires use of new manufacturing systems and
business organisation concepts like Agile corporation, Virtual organisation, Networks of
Business Structures, Holonic and Bionic manufacturing organisation, just to name a few, all
taking advantage of developments in electronic communication systems, computers and
transportation networks which have reduced the distance between the customer, supplier and
the manufacturer. LICs are likely to remain the candidates of further underdevelopment if
manufacturing and business organisations ignore these necessary changes.
It is therefore the aim and objective of this research to investigate the influence of culture on
manufacturing and business organisation and propose ways and procedures where possible for
the LICs to take advantage of these modem manufacturing systems and technologies, which
seem to offer their advantages at lower capital costs as compared to what AMTs used to offer. [Continues.]


While researchers have encouraged more research on the causal chains between information technology investments and Business performance, the results of empirical studies have been inconclusive. This is partly due to the exclusion of IT-business strategic alignment. This study has
examined the impact of IT-business strategic alignment antecedents in terms of leadership, structure and process, service quality, and value and belief on IT business strategic alignment in terms of alignment gap, followed by the impact of IT-business strategic alignment on sustainable
competitive advantage. In order to explore the above research relationships, the study further utilizes the positivism paradigm by applying a mixed research method both quantitative and qualitative data. Such triangulation would help to provide more insight into the issues studied in this research. Particularly, this study has tested the research model by conducting 172 survey questionnaires with public shareholding firms in Jordan. After that, the study conducted several follow-up interviews in Jordan in order to further validate the research results. Thus, the results
obtained from the structural equation modeling (SEM technique and supplementary qualitative analysis of the interviews offer a valuable insight into the research. However, the universal applicability of this research may be limited due to the fact that the results are based only on the cross-sectional data from the Jordanian public shareholding firms. Consequently, further research is needed with regards to several countries since this would help to advance understanding of the IT-business strategic alignment issue and the conditions and outcomes of achieving it in different contexts.


Approximately 40% of cases of spontaneous preterm birth (sPTB) are associated with ascending intrauterine infections. The cervix serves as a physical and immunological gatekeeper, preventing the ascent of microorganisms from the vagina to the amniotic cavity. The cervix undergoes remodeling during pregnancy. It remains firm and closed from the start until the late third trimester of pregnancy and then dilates and effaces to accommodate the passage of the fetus during delivery. Remodeling proceeds appropriately and timely to maintain the pregnancy until term delivery. However, risk factors, such as acute and chronic infection and local inflammation in the cervix, may compromise cervical integrity and result in premature remodeling, predisposing to sPTB. Previous clinical studies have established bacterial (i.e., chlamydia, gonorrhea, mycoplasma, etc.) and viral infections (i.e., herpesviruses and human papillomaviruses) as risk factors of PTB. However, the exact mechanism leading to PTB is still unknown. This review focuses on: (1) the epidemiology of cervical infections in pregnant patients; (2) cellular mechanisms that may explain the association of cervical infections to premature cervical ripening and PTB; (3) endogenous defense mechanisms of the cervix that protect the uterine cavity from infection and inflammation; and (4) potential inflammatory biomarkers associated with cervical infection that can serve as prognostic markers for premature cervical ripening and PTB. This review will provide mechanistic insights on cervical functions to assist in managing cervical infections during pregnancy.


The use of sewage sludge (SS) and solid waste composts in agriculture is considered as one of the best disposal options. In this study, impact of different composts and SS was evaluated on the soil quality, growth, and yield performance of rice and wheat crops. Four types of composts and SS were collected from different sources and applied in soil at 0.5% (5 g kg−1 soil) and 1.0% (10 g kg−1 soil) in comparison with chemical fertilizer (no SS/compost). The application of all types of composts at all the tested rates increased the straw and grain yields of both the crops compared with control. Nevertheless, application of Lahore compost and all SS (1.0%) resulted in a significant increase in the concentration of cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn) in plant parts. The Cd concentration in rice grains with Lahore compost and Kasur SS applied at the rate of 1.0% was above the safe limit. The trace elements in wheat grains with all composts and SS at all the tested rates remained within safe limits. The release of amendment bound trace elements in soil solution was highly dependent upon dissolved organic carbon and concentration of these trace elements especially for Cu and Zn. Application of SS at low level (0.5%) and compost (except Lahore compost) at both levels could be a better strategy to exploit their benefits in terms of crop performance and soil quality. However, application of SS and compost at high rates may lead to accumulation of trace elements in rice grains limiting its suitability for human consumption.


Abstract The existing market is full of uncertainties and there exist a huge competition among the public and private sectors. With globalization and liberalization many foreign players are also entering the market to give equal competitions to the public and private sectors. The entry of fresh players creates opportunities and also enhances the efficiency and effectiveness in the existing situation. In this highly competitive scenario, the current research paper will demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of public, private and foreign banks in our country. It will thoroughly analyze the present situation of banks in the competitive market. The study will focus from time period of 2009-2013. The data supported for this paper is secondary data and the research design is descriptive research. To understand the performance of banks several parameters were considered for analysis such as no of branches, deposits, investments, income, other income, no of employees, business per employee and profit per employee. Statistical test is undergone to test the hypothesis framed for validating the performance of banks. Through this research work the researcher made a sincere attempt to understand the performance as well as relation of employee productivity on performance. Keywords – Banks (Public, Private & Foreign Sector)


In multi-agent systems, norms are being used to regulate the behavior of the autonomous agents. Norms describe the actions that can be performed, must be performed, and cannot be performed in the system. One of the main challenges on developing normative systems is that norms may conflict with each other. Norms are in conflict when the fulfillment of one norm violates the other and vice-versa. In previous works, the conflict checkers consider that conflicts can be detected by simply analyzing pairs of norms. However, there may be conflicts that can only be detected when we analyze several norms together. In this paper, we present a conflict checker that is able to check direct conflicts among multiple norms and a strategy developed to minimize the complexity of such problem, since the checking of multiple norms is a NP-hard problem. The algorithms are presented, a discussion about its complexity is provided and the validation of the conflict checker is described.


Since the legacy IEEE 802.11 standard offers inadequate QoS support, IEEE 802.11e was proposed to provide QoS support for multimedia applications. However, for the enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) of IEEE 802.11e, when a channel is occupied with high priority traffic, low priority traffic may suffer starvation due to its little chance of contending for the channel. The starvation of low priority traffic may result in failure of these digital home applications, which is unacceptable. DDRR was proposed to achieve this goal; however, it cannot be adapted to traffic condition dynamically. In this paper, we propose a QoS scheme, called starvation prevention for low-priority traffic (SPLPT), for digital home applications in IEEE 802.11e WLANs. SPLPT prevents starvation of low priority traffic by providing adequate contention-free channel access with its compensation procedure for starving traffic (CPST) when starvation is about to occur; and it has the same behavior as EDCA when the CPST is not activated. SPLPT integrates both EDCA and HCCA (HCF controlled channel access) of the IEEE 802.11e to provide high throughput performance as well as starvation prevention, and it is fully compatible to IEEE 802.11e. Simulation results have shown that when the WLAN is heavily loaded with high priority traffic, SPLPT shortens the IMAC delay of low priority traffic by 3.9 and 5.1 times, respectively, compared to EDCA and DDRR. In addition, the throughput of low priority traffic is raised up from 0% to 5% of the maximum throughput to avoid starvation


This report is the first of three volumes which describe a comparative study of concrete tie track in U.S. revenue service and at the Facility for Accelerated Service Testing (FAST). The work was undertaken to develop an understanding of the degree to which FAST represents the "real world" of revenue service. The loading environment, structural characteristics and long-term performance of concrete tie track at FAST were compared with corresponding data from four concrete tie track segments in revenue service. The major conclusions of the study include: (a) Impact loads of high magnitude relative to nominal wheel loads occur because of small percentages of freight and passenger traffic in revenue service. These impact loads are caused by wheel tread irregularities and produce bending cracks at the rail seats of concrete ties. Without detection and removal of the worst wheel tread conditions or attenuation of the impact loads, the service lives of the concrete ties may be significantly shortened. (b) While FAST has the higest mean loads of any site examined, crackproducing impact loads do not occur at FAST because of the extremely good (untypical) FAST consist wheel maintenance program. (c) Track surfacing maintenance (raising and tamping) loosens the ballast structure, reduces the uniformity of support and contributes to larg variations in relative track settlement. Uniformity of initial track support conditions is a key to good track performance.


Abstract We developed jMorp, a new database containing metabolome and proteome data for plasma obtained from >5000 healthy Japanese volunteers from the Tohoku Medical Megabank Cohort Study, which is available at https://jmorp.megabank.tohoku.ac.jp. Metabolome data were measured by proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS), while proteome data were obtained by nanoLC–MS. We released the concentration distributions of 37 metabolites identified by NMR, distributions of peak intensities of 257 characterized metabolites by LC–MS, and observed frequencies of 256 abundant proteins. Additionally, correlation networks for the metabolites can be observed using an interactive network viewer. Compared with some existing databases, jMorp has some unique features: (i) Metabolome data were obtained using a single protocol in a single institute, ensuring that measurement biases were significantly minimized; (ii) The database contains large-scale data for healthy volunteers with various health records and genome data and (iii) Correlations between metabolites can be easily observed using the graphical viewer. Metabolites data are becoming important intermediate markers for evaluating the health states of humans, and thus jMorp is an outstanding resource for a wide range of researchers, particularly those in the fields of medical science, applied molecular biology, and biochemistry.


Tackling poverty and injustices, protecting the environment and ensuring equality, all underpin ideas of being a responsible business. There are many arbitrators of what constitutes a responsible business and rethinking the United Kingdom's farm business, post BREXIT, post COVID-19 and in relation to the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of farmers is timely and essential to tackle crisis, uncertainty and sustain a healthy rural ecosystem. This is an ethnographic study into contextual dualities. Data from one case farm are presented, and findings are triangulated through a grounded thematic data analysis of five in-depth interviews with other farms from the same community. An empirically informed framework is constructed explaining how, through duality, EO is moderated across six themes. The contributions to policy and practice are intertwined. Through identification of moderators of (and for) duality, the rural ecosystem can be better managed through effective policy design and responsible practice at grass roots. Accelerated professionalisation in the agricultural industry involves combining the rich, irreplaceable knowledge of older generations with shaping the values and behaviours of new generations. By synthesising EO with farmer mentality, we theorise and inform how to re-educate future generations in responsible and sustainable farm businesses.


Iodinated contrast media is widely used in radiology for instrumental examinations and procedures. It is used at least 100 million times per year worldwide [1,6,10]. First time iodine as contrast agent was used in 1920s. From that time doctors noticed some side effects, which physicians and patients describe as ''iodine allergy''[2,4]. The real iodine allergy is a very rare case. Side effects of Iodinated contrast media or sensibilization of iodine are common in radiologist clinical practice. This article describes allergy and sensibilization of Iodinated contrast media, its etiology, pathogenesis, clinical features, prophylaxis and denies the myth of supposedly frequent ''iodine allergies''. There was getting more and more side effects after iodinated contrast media was discovered and widely used in radiology. Doctors and patients started to use terminology 'iodine allergy'. Nowadays this terminology is used widely in radiologist clinical work. This terminology often confuses patients and doctors. Allergy of iodinated contrast media is a rare condition. However, side effects caused by allergy of iodinated contrast media are common. Some physicians and patients think that allergy of seafood, allergy of local antiseptic, allergy of amiodarone have interface with allergy of iodinated contrast media which is not true. Iodine is not an allergen. This article presents allergy of iodinated contrast media, its pathogenesis, clinical features, real allergy and pseudoallergy differences, what kind of actions is recommended of suspected iodine allergy. Also, this article presents recommendations which would help to avoid this terminology that confuses patients and doctors.


: Communication concerning the diagnosis and treatment of noninflammatory vascular exophthalmos: (1) 12-year-old boy suffering from a 4 mm proptosis on the left eye, and a hemangioma of the left upper lid. Computerized tomography showed an orbital tumor whose dilated vessels extended into the foramen opticum. Since the patient was amblyopic the treatment was merely cosmetic, consisting in diathermic puncture of the lid hemangioma. -(2) 45-year-old woman suffering from an axial proptosis of the right eye. Computerized tomography showed a retrobulbar tumor compressing the optic nerve. Surgical removal of a cavernous hemangioma by the neurosurgeon led to restitutio ad integrum. -(3) 8-year-old boy with intermittent exophthalmus on the left. No tumor detectable in routine examinations. External carotid angiography finally revealed an arteriovenous shunt between the A. maxillaris and the V. orbitalis superior. -These three descriptions of patients suffering from exophthalmus illustrate currently available possibilities of ophthalmologic and neurosurgical collaboration for diagnosis and treatment.


The concept of wrongful birth, which is based on the premise that a person would have been better off never having been born, is a serious matter for Catholic obstetricians, especially in the context of prenatal screening. This principle, in conjuncture with the belief that individuals with disabilities have a decreased quality of life, has been used to promote a eugenic mentality. Consequently, prenatal screening tests often are used to identify fetuses with disabilities, who subsequently are aborted. Not only is this practice ethically reprehensible, but its presuppositions about quality of life find little support in the medical literature. In fact, in the case of Down syndrome, there is considerable evidence to the contrary: individuals living with Down syndrome have a high quality of life and are accepted by their families. These data illuminate the discrepancy between how physicians portray Down syndrome to expectant parents and what the literature shows regarding this condition.


We present three diagonal reflecting matrices for the CN vertex model with open boundary conditions and exactly solve the model by using the algebraic Bethe ansatz. The eigenvector is constructed and the eigenvalue and the associated Bethe equations are achieved. All the unwanted terms are cancelled out by three kinds of identities.


In 2011 a particle number (PN) limit was introduced in the European Union's vehicle exhaust legislation for diesel passenger cars. The PN method requires measurement of solid particles (i.e. those that do not evaporate at 350 °C) with diameters above 23 nm. In 2013 the same approach was introduced for heavy duty engines and in 2014 for gasoline direct injection vehicles. This decision was based on a long evaluation that concluded that there is no significant sub-23 nm fraction for these technologies. In this paper we examine the suitability of the current PN method for L-category vehicles (twoor three-wheel vehicles and quadri-cycles). Emission levels of 5 mopeds, 9 motorcycles, 2 tricycles (one of them diesel) and 1 quad are presented. Special attention is given to sub-23 nm emission levels. The investigation was conducted with PN legislation compliant systems with particle counters measuring above 23 nm and 10 nm. In addition other approaches using catalytic strippers and counters from 3 nm or particle sizers were used to confirm the nature of the particles. The results showed that there is a significant portion of solid particles not counted with the current PN method. On the other hand, the high amount of volatile material can lead to artifacts below 23 nm, and thus great care has to be taken when measuring the PN of this category. CITATION: Giechaskiel, B., Zardini, A., and Martini, G., "Particle Emission Measurements from L-Category Vehicles," SAE Int. J. Engines 8(5):2015, doi:10.4271/2015-24-2512. 2015-24-2512 Published 09/06/2015 Copyright © 2015 SAE International doi:10.4271/2015-24-2512 saeeng.saejournals.org Downloaded from SAE International by Alessandro Zardini, Wednesday, July 29, 2015


The conversion of quinoline over ReS2 supported on g-Al2O3, SiO2, ZrO2 and TiO2 catalysts in a batch reactor at 300◦C and 5 MPa of hydrogen pressure was studied. The catalysts were prepared by wet impregnation with a loading of 1.5 atoms of Re per nm2 of support. The catalysts were characterized by N2 adsorption, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). The Re(x)/supports catalysts displayed high activities for the conversion of quinoline, although negligible formation of N-free compounds (hydrodenitrogenation) were observed. The intrinsic activities of ReS2 were modified by the support decreased in the order: Re/TiO2 > Re/ZrO2 > Re/SiO2 > Re/g-Al2O3. The highest activity displayed by the Re/TiO2 catalyst was correlated with the Re dispersion and formation of ReS2 species. Meanwhile, the lower conversion of quinoline over the Re/ZrO2, Re/SiO2 and Re/g-Al2O3 catalysts was related to the combined effect of the textural properties of catalysts and the formation of ReS(2-x) species on the supports.


We perform general relativistic simulations of self-gravitating black hole-disks in which the spin of the black hole is significantly tilted ($45^\circ$ and $90^\circ$) with respect to the angular momentum of the disk and the disk-to-black hole mass ratio is $16\%-28\%$. The black holes are rapidly spinning with dimensionless spins up to $\sim 0.97$. These are the first self-consistent hydrodynamic simulations of such systems, which can be prime sources for multimessenger astronomy. In particular tilted black hole-disk systems lead to: i) black hole precession; ii) disk precession and warping around the black hole; iii) earlier saturation of the Papaloizou-Pringle instability compared to aligned/antialigned systems, although with a shorter mode growth timescale; iv) acquisition of a small black-hole kick velocity; v) significant gravitational wave emission via various modes beyond, but as strong as, the typical $(2,2)$ mode; and vi) the possibility of a broad alignment of the angular momentum of the disk with the black hole spin. This alignment is not related to the Bardeen-Petterson effect and resembles a solid body rotation. Our simulations suggest that any electromagnetic luminosity from our models may power relativistic jets, such as those characterizing short gamma-ray bursts. Depending on the black hole-disk system scale the gravitational waves may be detected by LIGO/Virgo, LISA and/or other laser interferometers.


This work describes the technology developed for the transportable gravity gradiometer, ''GGtop", constructed at the University of Birmingham. The device aims to simultaneously interrogate two physically separated, free-falling cold atom clouds using the technique of Raman interferometry to perform differential gravity measurements. Such a technique will suppress common-mode noise sources, such as vibrations, that otherwise limit classical gravimeters and cold atom interferometers based on single-cloud measurements. The technique is expected to improve speed and sensitivity for field measurements greatly.
Using a combination of commercially available components and novel designs, intended to enhance portability and robustness, allowed for demonstration of atomic interference with the apparatus via Ramsey's method of separated oscillatory fields. The achieved fringe contrast of ~2%, defined as the difference in the number of atoms detected in IF = 2>, was limited by drifts stemming from some of the novel designs which prompted continued optimisation of the underpinning subsystems. To address performance issues parts of the experiment were redesigned with the goal of improving reliability at the expense of some portability. Using the retrofitted experiment, interference was once again achieved with fitted fringe spacing of 134.7±2.0 uS in good agreement with the 133.9 uS defined by the experimental control. A factor of 10 improvement in contrast was found with the central fringe demonstrating 18% of the atoms detected in the IF = 2> state when normalised to the total 3D MOT number. The 3.71 ± 0.01 kHz fitted linewidth of the central fringe gives a frequency uncertainty of 5.43 ± 0.01 x 10 - 7. This result leaves the experiment in a good position to begin making measurements of gravity.


Young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are attending institutions of higher education more than ever before (Smith, 2007). All college students with disabilities have the right to accommodations under the American with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA; P.L. 110-325); however, these accommodations frequently do not address barriers that prevent students with ASD from successfully completing their academic programs. The Autism Services Center at a public, four-year university provides services to its college students with ASD to address difficulties with communication and social skills, unique emotional and behavior characteristics, insufficient executive function, and difficulties with independent living skills. Programs providing additional support to students with ASD are becoming more prevalent. The effectiveness of these services is unknown, and more studies and evaluations are needed to determine what services are beneficial to student success (Longtin, 2014). This study applies the Context, Input, Process, and Product (CIPP) model to evaluate the preliminary services being provided to college students with ASD through the Autism Services Center (Stufflebeam & Shinkfield, 2007). The CIPP model provides a comprehensive, systematic review of projects often used for formative evaluations of service programs. Online surveys, interviews, a focus group, and review of existing student documents were used to gather data from the students with ASD, their parents, instructors, and staff; data were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Retention rates, GPA, and percentage of credits completed suggests the Autism Services Center is having a positive impact on academic success. Responses from surveys, interviews, and a focus group highlight satisfaction of the services from all groups. Common suggestions for improvement of services include more training in the area of ASD for staff and instructors and more social events for students with ASD. A discussion of possible changes to the program, limitations of the study, and future research directions is included.


This project is about making an embedded system in order to control different functionalities of a stepper motor. The main functions of this stepper motor are to control the speed and direction. The whole hardware consists of two parts. One is the transmitter side and the other side is the receiver side. The transmitter side consists of PC, Encoder, a microcontroller and RF (Radio Frequency) transmitter. On the receiver side there is an RF receiver, a decoder, a microcontroller, a motor driver and a stepper motor. During this project a wireless system is going to be used to enhance the stepper motor operated manually. This system will actually adapt the requirements of the modern technology. With the help of this system one can control the speed of the stepper motor controller from remote sites. It can also control the direction of the stepper motor. In order to make it user friendly we make a GUI for controlling it from the PC. The data is sent and received via transmitter and receiver respectively. This data will be encoded and decoded and sent to the motor driver from where it is sent to the stepper motor in order to perform the operations.


The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on SMEs in Georgia, identify the challenges of SMEs in pandemic conditions, and analyze government economic policy measures. For this purpose, 102 small and medium entrepreneurs from different regions of Georgia were interviewed. The survey was conducted by sending a questionnaire through digital channels. The results were processed using data analysis, quantitative and qualitative research methods, and presented graphically. As a result, key challenges and development directions that are typical for SMEs operations in Georgia during the pandemic were identified. For 60.8% of surveyed SME owners, lockdown is the main challenge. Sales volume of 45.1% of SMEs decreased. In addition, 39.3% of the surveyed SME owners increased the innovative capabilities of a company and 37.2% increased the sales volume of a company through digital channels. The main challenge of the pandemic, lockdown, gave impetus to a change in entrepreneurial behavior. In a pandemic, entrepreneurial activity has become more favorable through digital channels. During the pandemic, there is a need to continue the government's program of tax incentives and subsidies for SMEs. In addition, the government should promote education in the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology.


Community based health insurance schemes are becoming increasingly recognized as an instrument which help farmers in rural areas of low income countries to better manage health. Health risks present a permanent threat to the income earning capacity of poor people. Beside direct economic cost for treatment and lost working time, indirect cost such as a reduction in labor supply materialize which increases the vulnerability of the household. It is often hypothezised that community based health insurance improve social protection, but quantitative analysis is largely missing. Against this background, this paper analyzes if members in a mutual health insurance scheme have a better access to health care than non-members taking "les mutuelles de santes" (mutual health organization) in rural Senegal as an example. Limited dependent and log linear regressions are used to capture the impact of health insurance on the probability of visiting a health care provider and the out-of-pocket expenditure at the point of use . The results of the analysis show that while community based health insurance schemes reach otherwise excluded people, the poorest of the poor in the communities are not covered. Regarding the impact on the access to health care, members have a higher probability of using hospitalization services compared to non-members and pay substantially less when they need care. Given the results from this study, community financing schemes have the potential to improve the risk management capacity of rural households.


This paper describes the analysis of the failure of a Zr-2.5Nb pressure tube in a CANDU reactor. The failure sequence was established as: (1) the existence of an undetected manufacturing flaw in the form of a lamination, (2) in-service development of the flaw by oxidation of the lamination, (3) delayed hydride cracking, which extended the flaw through the wall of the tube, resulting in leakage, and (4) rupture of the tube by cold pressurization while the reactor was shut down. The comprehensive failure analysis led to a remedial action plan that permitted the reactor to be returned to full-power operation and ensured a low probability of a similar occurrence for all CANDU reactors.


The purpose of study was asses the genetic diversity of soybean varieties by SSR markers and investigate their productivity formation as affected by organic fertilizer, growth regulators and moisture retainer treatments in the Forest-Steppe zone of Ukraine. The effects of agronomical practices were assessed based on yield, protein and oil content. The study was carried out during 2016-2018. As result it was found that the most similar varieties based on 4 SSR markers were varieties with genetic distances 1.73. The most different was Aliaska variety with genetic distances 3.16-3.87. Hieba, Kano and Ustia varieties, which are early-season varieties, were distributed in different clusters. It was determined that maximum of yield was obtained for Kano variety with combining moisture retainer, organic fertilizer and growth regulator "Vermystym D". The highest protein content in studied varieties was determined in case of combining organic fertilizer and growth regulators. The maximum of oil content was noted in Ustia and Kano varieties with application moisture retainer, organic fertilizer, growth regulators "Vermystym D". Thus, the biological features and applied nutrition affected studied indicators.


Get the definitive guide to writing secure code and developing more-secure applications for Windows Vista-straight from the experts. Security is one of the greatest enhancements in Windows Vista, and developers will be urged to write more secure code on the platform to support a growing customer base. This reference delivers the straight scoop from the authors who wrote the immensely popular, award-winning book Writing Secure Code. Developers get first-hand insights into design decisions and practical advice for solving real-world security issues. The book covers new features, including ACLs and BitLocker™, as well as enhancements to familiar concepts, such as firewalls and authentication. In addition, there are plenty of code samples in C# on the Web. Designed to complement and extend Writing Secure Code, this book is essential for developers of Windows Vista.


Biliary tract cancer affects approximately 7500 Americans each year. Tumors arising from the gallbladder are the most common; those of bile duct origin, or cholangiocarcinoma, are less frequently encountered, constituting approximately 2% of all reported cancers. Although cholangiocarcinoma can arise anywhere within the biliary tree, tumors involving the biliary confluence (i.e., hilar cholangiocarcinoma) represent the majority, accounting for 40 to 60% of all cases. Twenty to 30% of cholangiocarcinomas originate in the lower bile duct, and approximately 10% arise within the intrahepatic biliary tree and will present as an intrahepatic mass. Complete resection remains the most effective and only potentially curative therapy for cholangiocarcinoma. For all patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and nearly all patients with hilar tumors, complete resection requires a major partial hepatectomy. Distal cholangiocarcinomas, on the other hand, are treated like all periampullary malignancies and typically require pancreaticoduodenectomy. Most patients with cholangiocarcinoma present with advanced disease that is not amenable to surgical treatment, and even with a complete resection, recurrence rates are high. Adjuvant therapy (chemotherapy and radiation therapy) has not been shown clearly to reduce recurrence risk.


We propose a novel graph-based reformulation for the concept of evolutionarily stable strategies. Evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) analysis cannot always explain the long-term behavior of a natural selection-mutation process. Stochastic stability is a more general analysis tool as compared to ESS analysis because it can precisely characterize long-term stochastic behavior. However, one of the reasons why ESS analysis is still widely popular is its computational simplicity. Our objective is to provide a balance between the convenience of ESS analysis and the generality of stochastic stability. The fundamental object in our development is the transitive stability (TS) graph of an evolutionary process. From the TS-graph, we show that we can efficiently compute the smallest set of strategies that always contains the stochastically stable strategies (SSS) for a particular class of evolutionary processes. In particular, we prove that each terminal class of the TS-graph is potentially a stochastically stable group of strategies. In case there is a unique terminal class, then it corresponds exactly to the set of SSS. In case there are multiple terminal classes, then these contain the set of possible SSS, and we show that a unique determination is impossible without higher order analysis.


This report is the fifth of a series giving the results obtained from wind tunnel tests on the interference drag and propulsive efficiency of nacelle-propeller-wing combinations. This report gives results of tests of an NACA cowled air-cooled engine nacelle with tractor propeller located in 12 positions with reference to a Clark Y biplane cellule.


Charlemagne's Early Campaigns is the first book-length study of Charlemagne at war. The neglect of this subject has truncated our understanding of the Carolingian empire and the military success of its leader, a true equal of Frederick the Great and Napoleon.


This research proposes a conceptual framework for achieving a secure Internet of Things (IoT) routing that will enforce confidentiality and integrity during the routing process in IoT networks. With billions of IoT devices likely to be interconnected globally, the big issue is how to secure the routing of data in the underlying networks from various forms of attacks. Users will not feel secure if they know their private data could easily be accessed and compromised by unauthorized individuals or machines over the network. It is within this context that we present the design of SecTrust, a lightweight secure trust-based routing framework to identify and isolate common routing attacks in IoT networks. The proposed framework is based on the successful interactions between the IoT sensor nodes, which effectively is a reflection of their trustworthy behavior.


Aims and background The major cause of death in breast cancer patients is metastasis. Various biomarkers have been used for the early detection of circulating tumor cells in the peripheral blood of breast cancer patients. The aims of the current study were to analyze circulating tumor cells in the blood of breast cancer patients by investigating EGFR, CK19, CK20 and HER2 expression profiles and to evaluate their prognostic importance. Methods CK19, CK20 and EGFR gene expression profiles were evaluated in the blood samples of 84 female patients with primary invasive ductal breast cancer and 20 healthy female volunteers using SYBR green-based real-time qPCR assays. HER2 expression analyses were conducted in 46 patients who had an HER2-positive primary tumor and in 30 healthy women to determine the cutoff level of positivity. Results The positive rates of CK20, EGFR, CK19 and HER2 mRNA expression in the peripheral blood were 28.57% (24/84), 20.23% (17/84), 5.95% (5/84) and 2.17% (1/46), respectively. The high positive ratio of CK20 mRNA expression in the peripheral blood of breast cancer was identified for the first time in the current study. Significant differences were identified in CK20 expression status and several clinical parameters related with aggressiveness of tumors using a binary logistic regression analysis. Higher CK20-positive levels were observed in patients who had lymph node metastasis and advanced-grade primary tumors, which were estrogen receptor-negative. We have demonstrated that CK20 may be a novel biomarker that is useful to identify circulating tumor cells and predict breast cancer progression. Conclusions The results suggest that the investigation of CK20 mRNA with other biomarkers in the peripheral blood of breast cancer patients may be useful to monitor the presence of disseminated tumor cells in the blood circulation and to predict the prognosis of breast cancer.


The present study addresses children's performance on the 'faux pas' test of social understanding. Based on previous tasks reported in Baron-Cohen et al. (1999) and Banerjee (2000). a computer interface was used to administer a new version that required children to answer forced-choice questions about four hypothetical stories involving unintentional insults. In a sample of 308 children the 5- to 6-year-olds were significantly poorer on the faux pas test then the 8- to-9-year-olds, as expected. Although the children performed well in identifying that feelings had been hurt and in answering comprehension questions, they found three questions relatively difficult: detecting faux pas in the first place, seeing that the insult was unintentional, and recognising the ignorance that led to the faux pas. Importantly, success on the key questions of the faux pas task was negatively associated with peer rejection. Rejected and controversial children, who receive relatively high numbers of negative sociometric nominations from their classmatess, performed significantly worse on this task than other children. This pattern was evident only for the older age group. Results are discussed in the light of recent research linking theory of mind performance with social adjustment.


Abstract Mount Dromedary pluton is one of several predominantly monzonite plutons and smaller intrusive bodies which constitute the Dromedary igneous complex in southeastern New South Wales. The pluton exhibits a striking arrangement of petrographically, but not always chemically, distinct zones ranging from mafic monzonite at the outside to quartz monzonite in the centre. The rocks display a mineralogical and geochemical integrity which indicates a consanguineous relationship. Minor compositional discontinuities between zones, together with observed and inferred minor intrusive zone boundaries, suggest that each zone has to some extent evolved independently. Negative Eu anomalies in REE abundance patterns show that some of the zones have been affected by fractionation of feldspar, but complementary accumulates are not found at the present levels of exposure. The pattern of zoning can be explained by a process of shallow fractional crystallization in which variations within zones are the result of lateral accretion of alkali feldspar as well as settling and/or lateral accretion of mafic phases at lower levels in the intrusion and upward displacement of fractionated magma. The parental magma of the pluton probaby originated by partial melting of an alkali basalt composition with an amphibolite mineralogy at the base of the crust.


The increasing penetration of renewable/distributed sources with non-linear characteristics demands a clear methodology for determining the amount of generation which can be connected to the system without deteriorating the performance (the "hosting capacity"). This paper proposes a methodology for determining the hosting capacity regarding harmonic distortions. To exemplify an application of the proposed procedure, a simple case study is performed and analyzed.


Within the framework of potential efforts and strategies to boost employment and job creation for young people, entrepreneurship is increasingly accepted as an important means and a valuable additional strategy to create jobs and improve livelihoods and economic independence of young people. Regrettably, problems of unemployment as experienced by the educated youths and even the uneducated but skilled youths have become more pathetic in many developing economies, despite the neo-liberal strategies in addressing the issue of enhancing human capital. The aim of this paper is therefore to examine the constraints that impede young people in search of non-existing jobs and the urgent need to orient people of these affected economies particularly Nigerians on imbibing self- employment and entrepreneurship through vocational and entrepreneurial training programmes as a short-term intervention mechanism.


Lipid abnormalities are common in diabetes mellitus and in essential hypertension, but their contributions to diabetic and hypertensive nephropathy are unclear. Relevant data from several clinical trials are summarized here, as is a longitudinal study of diabetes mellitus showing that cholesterol correlates with both angiotensin II and blood pressure. The significant association of blood pressure and the renin-angiotensin system with declining renal function provides a mechanism whereby cholesterol may possibly impact adversely upon kidney function in diabetes.


I. Global Assessment and Outlook After a remarkable performance during the expansionary phase of the global business cycle, the major industrial countries led by the United States appear to experienced uneven declines from their cyclical peaks that reached in the first half of 2000. The disparities in the current economic weakening among industrial countries have increased uncertainty and, consequently, instability in the financial markets. In the United States, the business and policy environment supporting investments in information technology at a rapid pace reached its cyclical high in 2000. With a year lag, the rest of the world, in particular the industrial countries, underwent the US-led technology transformation with restructuring and adjustments at a slower than the United States pace resulting in divergent productivity gains and economic growth developments. The extent and the timing of the current global slowdown have not yet been well identified because of the lag in the availability of overall economic data such as GDP. The current assessment of the situation by businesses and policy makers relies on monthly data. In the United States, several indicators such as the National Association of Purchasing Managers (NAPM) index, the Conference Board's leading indicator and consumer confidence are falling to cyclical lows and point to a substantial economic slowdown or even a recession. It is widely accepted that the manufacturing sector of the United States economy has been already in a recessionary phase of the cycle. Similarly, in the Euro Area overall economic growth weakened in the second half of 2000. Monthly industrial production indicators declined and leading confidence indicators for consumers and businesses have been falling pointing to a deterioration of the European economic conditions. The current slowdown has its roots in structural, cyclical and policy elements of the business cycle. The uneven and desynchronized technology stimulus has generated the structural forces that partially have shaped the current path of the global economic slowdown. The cyclical factors of the lead/lag relationship of investment, profits, consumer expenditures and inventories have substantially contributed to the recent phase of the cycle. An investment-led growth has been the characteristic of the last United States economic boom. Another important factor that identifies each country's strength and position in the global cycle is economic policy, particularly monetary policy, and its relation to domestic and external imbalances. There were two important factors under consideration in building the baseline forecast for the global economy: Will investment growth stagnate? The recent economic boom has been driven by a remarkable growth in investment, especially in the technology area. Declines in investment, caused by a profits slowdown and/or unrealistic and unsustainable high investment levels in the recent past, will have serious consequences on the overall economic activity and may lead to recessions in several countries. What will be the monetary policy? Central banks have the ability to quickly react to economic conditions. The effects of monetary policy appear on the economy with a lag of about one-year. It is, therefore, apparent that an assessment of current economic conditions and an evaluation of the anticipated design of monetary policy will be of enormous importance for the short-term forecast of the global economy. About 700 business executives from around the world have provided an input to answer these two questions. Looking at Table 4, the business experts from all geographic areas except in the United States and Canada have evaluated investment capital expenditures - to have increased in the first quarter of 2001 compared to the same quarter in 2000. When the business executives were asked to anticipate capital expenditures in the next two quarters, they projected declines from current levels, with the exception of the developing countries in Africa and the countries-in-transition Eastern Europe and the former states of the Soviet Union, the Confederation of Independent States (CIS). …


Absent a viable knowledge management strategy, organizational effectiveness declines, including within Aviation squadrons of the United States Navy. The recent declines in retention of aviation officers and the short career cycles of the squadron pilots have helped to erode the body of knowledge that should be alive within each unit. Grounded by the information industry's best practices and Navy doctrine, this research organizes and prioritizes the assets and functions of knowledge management strategies.


In the advancement of technology multicarrier transmission is of great importance. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a promising multicarrier technology for wireless communications. It facilitates high data rate for communication. The biggest drawback which OFDM encounters is high PAPR. The high PAPR results some interference to the system. This paper analyses the PAPR reduction technique called Partial Time Sequence (PTS) with different sub block and concludes that PTS technique is the most promising technique for PAPR reduction in OFDM system. OFDM – MIMO system with reduced PAPR is the best method for multicarrier transmission with higher data rate.


Pirfenidone is a pyridine-derived, double-ringed molecule that has a number of biologic effects including anti-inflammatory and antifibrotic properties in rodent models of acute lung injury and fibrosis, in addition to scavenging reactive oxygen species. These effects are clinically relevant, because idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive and increasingly prevalent disease characterized by diffuse lung scarring due to alveolar epithelial cell injury, which typically leads to death 3-5 years after diagnosis. No proven therapy for IPF exists, and many IPF patients eventually require lung transplantation, making the need for pharmacologic therapy great. Pirfenidone is rapidly distributed in body water and metabolized by the liver. Several clinical trials have tested pirfenidone in patients with IPF and found it well-tolerated with acceptable side effects. Pirfenidone in clinical trials has been found to improve progression-free survival and pulmonary function of IPF patients. Although the specific mechanism accounting for its benefits is not known, pirfenidone decreases collagen synthesis and fibroblast prolifera- tion, and it may down-regulate inflammation by virtue of its effects on mitogen-activated protein kinases. Pirfenidone has gained regulatory approval for marketing in Japan and in the European Union. It could prove to be a useful therapeutic agent for patients with IPF.


Evaluating a multivariate function is a crucial and ubiquitous task whose importance has inspired countless different computational models. These models are made by restricting the function's class, changing the computational elements, moderating the computation error probability, adding assumptions on input probabilities, assuming noisy queries, etc. In most function-computation problems, the major cost of calculating the function is the price of samples or queries. The query meaning may change from one model to another but the aspiration to minimize the number of queries is unavoidable in all the models. In this dissertation, we consider and optimize the number of queries for two models in Part I and II. In part I, we study maximum selection and sorting of n numbers using pairwise comparators that output the larger of their two inputs if the inputs are more than a given threshold apart, and output an adversarially-chosen input otherwise. We consider two adversarial models. A non-adaptive adversary that decides on the outcomes in advance based solely on the inputs, and an adaptive adversary that can decide on the outcome of each query depending on previous queries and outcomes. Against the non-adaptive adversary, we derive a maximum-selection algorithm that uses at most 2n comparisons in expectation, and a sorting algorithm that uses at most 2n ln n comparisons in expectation. These numbers are within small constant factors from the best possible. Against the adaptive adversary, we propose a maximum-selection algorithm that uses [Theta](n log(1/ epsilon)) comparisons to output a correct answer with probability at least 1 -- epsilon. The existence of this algorithm affirmatively resolves an open problem in [5]. Our study was motivated by a density-estimation problem where, given samples from an unknown underlying distribution, we would like to find a distribution in a known class of n candidate distributions that is close to underlying distribution in l1 distance. Scheffe's algorithm [19] outputs a distribution at an l₁ distance at most 9 times the minimum and runs in time [Theta](n2 log n). Using maximum selection, we propose an algorithm with the same approximation guarantee but run time [Theta](n log n). In Part II, we consider and propose a new method for function computation. The function's computation query complexity is the lowest expected number of queries required by any query order. Instead of computation, it is often easier to consider verification, where the value of the function is given and the queries aim to verify it. The lowest expected number of queries necessary is the function's verification query complexity. We show that for all symmetric functions of independent binary random variables, the computation and verification complexities coincide. This provides a simple method for finding the query complexity and optimal query order for computing many functions. We also show that after relaxing any of the symmetry, independence, or binary inputs restrictions, there are functions whose verification complexity is strictly lower than their computation complexity


Background. Neuroendocrine differentiation in the prostate gland ranges from clinically insignificant neuroendocrine differentiation detected with markers in an otherwise conventional prostatic adenocarcinoma to a lethal high-grade small/large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma. The concept of neuroendocrine differentiation in prostatic adenocarcinoma has gained considerable importance due to its prognostic and therapeutic ramifications and pathologists play a pivotal role in its recognition. However, its awareness, reporting, and resource utilization practice patterns among pathologists are largely unknown. Methods. Representative examples of different spectrums of neuroendocrine differentiation along with a detailed questionnaire were shared among 39 urologic pathologists using the survey monkey software. Participants were specifically questioned about the use and awareness of the 2016 WHO classification of neuroendocrine tumors of the prostate, understanding of the clinical significance of each entity, and use of different immunohistochemical (IHC) markers. De-identified respondent data were analyzed. Results. A vast majority (90%) of the participants utilize IHC markers to confirm the diagnosis of small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma. A majority (87%) of the respondents were in agreement regarding the utilization of type of IHC markers for small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma for which 85% of the pathologists agreed that determination of the site of origin of a high-grade neuroendocrine carcinoma is not critical, as these are treated similarly. In the setting of mixed carcinomas, 62% of respondents indicated that they provide quantification and grading of the acinar component. There were varied responses regarding the prognostic implication of focal neuroendocrine cells in an otherwise conventional acinar adenocarcinoma and for Paneth cell-like differentiation. The classification of large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma was highly varied, with only 38% agreement in the illustrated case. Finally, despite the recommendation not to perform neuroendocrine markers in the absence of morphologic evidence of neuroendocrine differentiation, 62% would routinely utilize IHC in the work-up of a Gleason score 5 + 5 = 10 acinar adenocarcinoma and its differentiation from high-grade neuroendocrine carcinoma. Conclusion. There is a disparity in the practice utilization patterns among the urologic pathologists with regard to diagnosing high-grade neuroendocrine carcinoma and in understanding the clinical significance of focal neuroendocrine cells in an otherwise conventional acinar adenocarcinoma and Paneth cell-like neuroendocrine differentiation. There seems to have a trend towards overutilization of IHC to determine neuroendocrine differentiation in the absence of neuroendocrine features on morphology. The survey results suggest a need for further refinement and development of standardized guidelines for the classification and reporting of neuroendocrine differentiation in the prostate gland.


Banking crime is one of the widespread phenomena in 2016 are closely associated with the used of computer-based technology and internet networks that constantly evolving. One of them is the burglary of customer accounts through the internet banking facility. To overcome this, we need a method of how to detect a conspiracy of bank burglary case of customer accounts. The way to scalable is by get a mining decision to get a decision tree and from the decision tree to get a decision attribute value to determine the level of anomalies. Then of all the attributes decision point is calculated rate of fraud. The rate of fraud is classified through level of security of attack by the attacker then entropy gain is used to calculate the relative effort between the level of attacks in the decision tree. The results show that the method could classify three levels of attacks and the corresponding entropy gains. The paper uses decision trees algorithm, alpha++ and dotted chart analysis to analyze an attack that can be scalable. The results of the analysis show that the accuracy achieved by 0.87%.


A weakly time-dependent equation for the evolution of the solid-liquid interface in spherical coordinates, driven by internal heat generation, is derived for constant surface temperature boundary conditions. The derivation comes by making an assumption that the interface moves slowly compared to the changes in the temperature so that the technique of separation of variables may be applied for Stefan numbers less than one. Under this approximation, we can separate the nonhomogeneous heat diffusion equation into transient and steady-state terms, then integrate to get the temperature relations. With the temperature equations in hand, the derivatives are inserted into the interface equation giving a first-order differential equation for the location of the solid-liquid interface as a function of time. The results are compared to a previously derived quasi-static solution and a numerical simulation generated using the method of catching of the front. This method allows for direct tracking of a moving boundary via the calculation of the time it takes to move from node to node in a discretized grid characteristic of classical finite difference methods. Plots of the interface evolution show excellent agreement between the three methods, especially for lower Stefan numbers. The quality of the approximation decreases as the Stefan number increases, but the model is more accurate than the previously studied quasi-static model. For the Stefan numbers St = 1.0 and 10.0, the weakly time-dependent solutions are in better agreement with the numerical results than the quasi-static solutions.


Large terrestrial planets are expected to have muted topography and deep oceans, implying that most super-Earths should be entirely covered in water, so-called waterworlds. This is important because waterworlds lack a silicate weathering thermostat so their climate is predicted to be less stable than that of planets with exposed continents. In other words, the continuously habitable zone for waterworlds is much narrower than for Earth-like planets. A planet's water is partitioned, however, between a surface reservoir, the ocean, and an interior reservoir, the mantle. Plate tectonics transports water between these reservoirs on geological timescales. Degassing of melt at mid-ocean ridges and serpentinization of oceanic crust depend negatively and positively on seafloor pressure, respectively, providing a stabilizing feedback on long-term ocean volume. Motivated by Earth's approximately steady-state deep water cycle, we develop a two-box model of the hydrosphere and derive steady-state solutions to the water partitioning on terrestrial planets. Critically, hydrostatic seafloor pressure is proportional to surface gravity, so super-Earths with a deep water cycle will tend to store more water in the mantle. We conclude that a tectonically active terrestrial planet of any mass can maintain exposed continents if its water mass fraction is less than ∼0.2%, dramatically increasing the odds that super-Earths are habitable. The greatest source of uncertainty in our study is Earth's current mantle water inventory: the greater its value, the more robust planets are to inundation. Lastly, we discuss how future missions can test our hypothesis by mapping the oceans and continents of massive terrestrial planets.


The (3+ 1) resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization spectrum of carbon dioxide has been investigated for the (211s3,2,1,2)nf Rydberg states. The excitation spectrum has been obtained for the n =4- 13 members, while photoelectron spectra with a resolution of 15 meV have been measured for the ?z =4-7 members. The photoelectron spectra demonstrate that a delicate balance exists between direct and indirect ionization processes as evidenced by the large differences in vibrational activity observed in the spectra obtained via various members of the ("II g3,2,1,2jnf Rydberg series. Strong vibrational activity, which would be forbidden by simple selection rules, is found and interpreted to arise in part from vibronic coupling between various ionic states. Long vibrational progressions, mainly involving the symmetric stretch vibration of the X 211, state of the ion, indicate further severe deviations from Franck-Condon behavior. Two-color excitation of the (2III,s,2, t12)nf Rydberg states provides strong evidence that the superexcited states accessible at the four-photon level have a profound influence on the vibrational progressions and distributions in the photoelectron spectra. Finally, r,esonances associated with multiphoton excitation of atomic carbon and oxygen have been observed. The processes which might be responsible for the occurrence of these atoms are discussed.. 0 1994 American Institute of Physics..


In this paper, the raising voltage process is defined as stepping up the applied voltage, whereas the reducing voltage process means turning down the applied voltage, which follow on the termination of the raising voltage process. Discharge images, the waveforms of applied voltage and discharge current, Lissajous figures, and the optical emission spectra of the two different processes were acquired in needle-plate alternating current dielectric barrier discharge in humid nitrogen at atmospheric pressure. Conclusively, the characteristics of the discharges with the same applied voltage in the raising and reducing voltage processes are pretty different. The discharge in the reducing voltage process is more intense and the power consumption is about three times than that in the raising voltage process at the same applied voltage. Analysis shows that the phenomena would be interpreted by the effect of the space charges in the discharge gap, and worth taking more efforts in the practical applications.


High throughput mass-spectrometry-based proteomics data from clinical studies brings challenges to statistical analysis. The challenges originate from the hierarchical levels of protein abundance data and interactions between clinical study design and experimental design. The non-random missingness of the measurements from a vast amount of information also adds complexity in data analysis. We propose multivariate multilevel models to analyse protein abundances and to handle abundance-dependent missingness within a Bayesian framework. The proposed model enables the variance decomposition at different levels of the data hierarchy and provides shrinkage of protein-level estimates for a group of proteins. A logistic missingness and censored model with informative prior is used to handle incomplete data. Hamiltonian MC/No-U-Turn Sampling and Gibb MCMC algorithms are created to derive the posterior distribution of study parameters; Hamiltonian MC is demonstrated to gain more efficiency for these high-dimensional correlated data. Improvements of the proposed missing data model is compared to the univariate mixed effect model and the multivariate-multilevel model using complete data in a simulated study and a clinical proteomics study. The proposed model framework can be used in other types of data with similar structure and Non Random Missingness mechanism (MNAR).


The effect of intraoperative tidal volume (VT) on clinical outcomes after off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (OPCAB) has not been studied. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between intraoperative tidal volume (VT) and acute kidney injury (AKI ) after OPCAB. A total of 1049 patients who underwent OPCAB between January 2009 and December 2018 were analyzed. Patients were divided into high (>8 ml/kg) and low VT (≤8 ml/kg) groups (intraoperative median VT standardized to predicted body weight). The data were fitted using a multivariable logistic regression model. Subgroup analyses were performed according to age, sex, comorbidities, preoperative laboratory variables, operative profiles, and Cleveland score. The risk of AKI was not significantly higher in the high than the low VT group (OR: 1.15, 95% CI: 0.80–1.66; P = .459); however, subgroup analyses revealed that a high VT may increase the risk of AKI in males, patients aged < 70 years, with chronic kidney disease, a left ventricular ejection fraction < 35%, or a long duration of surgery. High intraoperative VTs were not associated with an increased risk of AKI after OPCAB. Nonetheless, it may increase the risk of AKI in certain subgroups, such as younger age, male sex, reduced renal and cardiac function, and a long surgery time.


This talk will briefly introduce the "Illuminating the Druggable Genome" knowledge management center, with focus on its protein-centric data aggregator, Pharos (https://pharos.nih.gov/), and the DrugCentral online pharmaceutical compendium (https://drugcentral.org/). Using Pharos/DrugCentral data, we then examine the question, "what proteins that could potentially be ligandable, are currently not?", in a disease context. To do this, we examine proteins available in the RSCB PDB (https://www.rcsb.org/) – the "PDB-ome" => 347 proteins that lack known ligands; Proteins for which chemical matter is known, N=2644 – the "SAR-ome" => of these, 115 proteins meet the "ligandable" criteria; the "Pocket-ome", i.e., proteins that have a close – by sequence identity – homologue with known 3D structure, which leads to ~700 ligandable proteins with PDB structures; 180 that have close homologues but lack 3D structures; and N=2623 proteins that could be modeled with reasonable confidence; last but not least, the "Phen-ome", which looks at this entire list (N = 6742) from the perspective of rare and common diseases, GWAS and mouse phenotype data, etc, and narrows down the previous lists. The "almost druggable genome" contains 715 ligandable (3D exists) proteins, 180 proteins for which chemical matter is likely to be found, and at least 100 proteins that could be subject to chemical probe optimization.


In the course of the past six years the Victoria Cave, near Settle, has become by name at least well known to Yorkshiremen, and has attracted the attention of many outside the county. Many notices and papers have been written upon it, but are mostly not easy of access, and scattered up and down in. various Transactions of Scientific Societies. In his interesting work on " Cave Hunting," Prof. B. Dawkins has given a valuable resume of what has been done up to 1873. But very much has been done since that time, and some valuable results have accrued which deserve to be put on record in connection with what has been previously done. Moreover, as a considerable portion of the funds employed in the excavation is derived from Yorkshire, it is only right that scientific Yorkshiremen should have an opportunity of knowing in what those funds have been spent, what have been the results so far, and what may be the problems awaiting solution in our further work.

In giving a short summary of the work it will be necessary to recapitulate much that has been already published in various periodicals and other works.

The Victoria Cave is situated in a most picturesque locality in a line of limestone scars, which runs from the Settle rifle range at the Attermire Rocks, towards the N.N.W., and it faces S.S.W. It lies at a considerable elevation (about 1,450 feet) above the sea level, and 900 feet above the River Ribble at ...


Medical cyclotrons are now commonly used for the production of PET nuclides by the (pn) reaction. These devices are typically capable of delivering 10-15 MeV protons beams at suciently high intensity for timely production of + decaying nuclides. Non-conventional PET nuclides have emerged recently and oers new opportunities for diagnostic and therapy drug discovery. In this paper, we will review the production capabilities for such nuclides at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis and present their production. Finally, challenges for imaging imposed by the specic of the decay characteristics will be discussed.


Since the early 1980s, neo-liberal economics or economic liberalism has become a dominant ideology impacting on Australian modern public policies including education. Globalization, technology advancement and free markets with minimal government interference have contributed to uncertainty in the Australian labour market that has posed risks in employment. An ethos of equality in educational opportunities for all and job insecurity has led to growing numbers of mature age students entering Australian universities in recent years. The main purpose of this research is to explore why mature age students enter university after working for several years. In addition, the experiences of these students as they study at university as well as their perceptions about higher education in relation to employment are examined. A qualitative, narrative inquiry was employed to investigate the integration of higher education and career development among mature age students. Five mature age students from a range of faculties in the University of Gold Coast participated in the study. Face-to-face interviews, email discussions and document reviews provide the consistency of evidence across sources of data. The five stories with a thick description of the participants' experiences ensured the credibility of the research findings of the study. The outcome of the study illustrates that these mature age students believed that higher education could provide them with opportunities that could transform their lives. Engaging in higher education allowed them to pursue goals that would make them feel happy, fulfilled and empowered while meeting a range of social commitments. Most importantly, they developed a sense of agency after they succeeded through a very difficult process and grew in confidence. However, their anxiety for the future was not totally removed due to the expected gap between higher x education and the labour market. The study overall provides insights and guidelines for learning and career development of mature age students, and this will benefit both mature age students and higher education institutions. The major implications for universities from this study is they need to recognize mature age students as a special group and this means that their demands for career services, entry pathways to higher education and workbase learning are different from younger age students. For mature age students, they need to positively take advantage of the valuable resources of their rich life and work experience in the uncertain labour market.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to investigate gestational changes of cervical light-induced fluorescence, an index of cross-linked collagen, and the relationship between light-induced fluorescence and the time-to-delivery interval.

STUDY DESIGN
Fifty patients were included in one of two groups. (1) Twenty-one healthy pregnant women without signs of labor underwent repeated cervical light-induced fluorescence measurement during the last trimester. (2) Light-induced fluorescence was measured in 29 patients with signs of labor, and the time from measurement to delivery was noted. Cervical light-induced fluorescence was obtained noninvasively with a prototype instrument that was designed specifically for this purpose. Spearman correlation and the Student t test and receiver-operator characteristics analysis were performed (P <.05).

RESULTS
Light-induced fluorescence correlated negatively with gestational age and positively with time-to-delivery interval, was significantly lower in patients who were delivered <24 hours compared with those patients who were delivered >24 hours later, and was predictive of delivery within 24 hours.

CONCLUSION
Cervical light-induced fluorescence decreases significantly as gestational age increases. Light-induced fluorescence may be a useful tool to identify patients in whom delivery is imminent.


The Eurographics Symposium on Geometry Processing (SGP) is the premier venue for disseminating new research ideas and cutting-edge results in geometry processing. In this research area, concepts from mathematics, computer science, and engineering are studied and applied to offer new insights and design efficient algorithms for acquisition, modeling, analysis, manipulation, simulation, and transmission of complex 3D models.


Filters built from resistors (R), inductors (L) and capacitors (C) are known as RLC or passive filters and are the dominant type of filter for high frequency applications. The performance of these filters is typically limited by the inductors which are large, expensive and far from ideal in an electrical sense. By using amplifiers and feedback, the same filter characteristics can be achieved without the use of inductors, these filters are known as "active filters". An active filter will perform well only to the extent that the amplifiers in it behave in an ideal sense, so traditionally active filters have been limited to applications at frequencies below 1 MHz. With the advent of low cost, very high speed operational amplifiers, it is now feasible to realize active filters with frequency ranges in the tens of MHz. With some of the newer high speed amplifiers such as the CLC449 – a 1.2 GHz bandwidth amplifier, filters with corner frequencies above 100 MHz have been built. This application note will provide a recipe to realize active filters using low cost, high speed operational amplifiers. The filter topology that is used is the Sallen-Key Filter which uses the operational amplifier as a fixed gain block. This filter topology can be used with current feed-back or voltage feedback amplifiers, and you will be shown how to design low pass, high pass and band pass filters using this filter topology. This application note discusses a printed circuit board which will allow you to prototype active filters of up to 8 pole complexity (As of 1/13/05, board is no longer available). This is not a complete treatment of the subject of active filters, there are several good books published on that topic, some of which are listed in the bibliography. This is a simple method of getting a circuit that will work for most applications. The topics covered are:


Faculty in the School of Technology at BYU believe that for students to excel in 21st century economies, cross-disciplinary interaction and innovation methods need to be experienced in each of
the schools six disciplines: Industrial Design, Manufacturing Technology, Information Technology, Construction Management, Facility Management and Technology and Engineering Education.
This research paper demonstrates how this goal was accomplished through the development and implementation of a two day Innovation Boot Camp. Each student in the School of Technology is
requested to attend this Boot Camp which:
• introduces and practices principles of Design Thinking
• practices problem definition (strategic thinking), rather than problem solving (implementation)
• provides inviting and engaging experiences and projects to reduce anxiety in this new, cross disciplined environment
The innovation boot camp is an intensive two day, hands on, experiential learning experience where students exercise multiple design thinking concepts and define problems and design solutions for two projects. This paper and presentation will describe the purpose, curriculum, activities and outcomes developed and implemented for the innovation boot camp. The presentation will include a documentary video of the first boot camp which outlines the desired outcomes and activities of the boot camp. Finally, the paper includes an assessment on how the boot camp has affected the school and students a year after its implementation.


The exponential distribution is applied in a very wide variety of statistical procedures. Among the most prominent applications are those in the field of life testing and reliability theory. When there are two record samples available for estimating the scale parameter, a preliminary test is usually used to determine whether to pool the samples or use the individual sample. In this paper, the preliminary test estimator and shrinkage estimator are studied. The optimum level of significance for preliminary test estimation and the optimum values of shrinkage coefficient are obtained based on minimax regret criterion under the weighted square error loss function.


The behaviour of classical mechanical systems is characterised by their phase portraits, the collections of their trajectories. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle precludes the existence of sharply defined trajectories, which is why traditionally only the time evolution of wave functions is studied in quantum dynamics. These studies are quite insensitive to the underlying structure of quantum phase space dynamics. We identify the flow that is the quantum analog of classical particle flow along phase portrait lines. It reveals hidden features of quantum dynamics and extra complexity. Being constrained by conserved flow winding numbers, it also introduces topological order into quantum dynamics.


Evidence based medicine assists in clinical decision-making by integrating critically appraised information with patient's values and preferences within an existing clinical context. A fundamental concept in this paradigm is the hierarchy of information. The randomized clinical trial is recognized as one of the designs that is less prone to bias and therefore of higher methodological quality. Clinical guidelines are one of the principal tools that evidence based medicine uses to transfer scienti�耀c information to clinical practice and many of their recommendations are based on these type of studies. In this review we present some of the limitations that the results can have, in even well designed and executed randomized clinical trials. We also discuss why valid results in these types of studies could not necessarily be extrapolated to the general population. Although the randomized clinical trial continues to be one of the best methodological designs, we suggest that the reader be careful when interpreting its results. (Key words: Evidence-Based Medicine, clinical trial, clinical guideness, methodology). Rev Chil Pediatr 2014; 85 (5): 533-538


Teaching is a teacher's daily job. Nevertheless, it turns out that teaching students about how they should study is not easy. This research is included as Research and Development—also known as RnD—which aims to give an actual example of how to teach and to embed submarine concept in a simple way through Curriculum 2013. The result of the research, which is a student-oriented learning design which in turn is an implementation of scientific approach, is the output resulted from a long term study, development and experience obtained by the writer team through teaching and training a number of supervisors, school principals, and teachers in various areas of Indonesia. The responses for this teaching model obtained from the teachers have been very positive, whereby 95% teachers claimed that they are very interested in the design, and only 5% claimed that they are mildly interested. This thus indicates that this teaching model can become a model to be referred to in teaching using scientific approach in Curriculum 2013.


The mixing algorithm for low bit-rate audio streams plays an important part in a decentralized multipoint conference system. In this article, from the fundamental principle of linear prediction codecs, a new mixing scheme for low bit-rate audio streams based on a comparison between the energy of the exciting series of the input bit streams is deduced to overcome the main disadvantages of the traditional mixing schemes. By its embodiment of the speech signals in line with ITU-T Recommendation G.723.1, it can be concluded that this solution is reliable, practical and of low complexity, satisfying the acoustical quality and the effective suppression of the accumulated background noise.


User experience design is one of the fastest-growing specialties in graphic design. Smart companies realize that the most successful products are designed to meet the needs and goals of real people-the users. This means putting the user at the center of the design process. This innovative, comprehensive book examines the user-centered design process from the perspective of a designer. With rich imagery, Interactive Design introduces the different UX players, outlines the user-centered design process from user research to user testing, and explains through various examples how user-centered design has been successfully integrated into the design process of a variety of design studios worldwide.


Due to rapid urban development, the Geographic Information System (GIS) database needs to be updated with timely and accurate road network information. This paper presents an approach to design a module for image pre-treatment of roads (or roads seeds) and help to decide the most suitable emergency transportation route in disastrous area. Also, in such situation, the quality of the image may degrade during capture or transmission as the entire process becomes prone to noise and instability. Therefore for any kind of information processing or decision making image pre-treatment is a significant part. This paper presents a Multistage Hybrid Median filtering (MHMF) technique to significantly improve noise reduction performance of satellite/aerial road images while preserving the integrity of edge and detail information. Further, the images are divided into subparts and they are processed using the proposed MHMF. Then the two filtered sub-images are combined and we can improve overall performance even further. To support the above claim, a case study has been carried out on two recent natural disasters happened in India along with other benchmark problems and the studies show the effectiveness of the proposed system in real environment.


Geological anomaly is geological body or complex body with obviously different compositions, structures or orders of genesis as compared with those in the surrounding areas. Geological anomaly, restrained by the geological factors closely associated with ore-forming process, is an important clue to ore deposits. The geological anomaly serves as a geological sign to locate ore deposits. Therefore, it is very important to study how to define the characteristics of geological anomaly and further to locate the changes in these characteristics. In this paper, the authors propose the geological anomaly based on the remote-sensing images and data, and expound systematically such image features as scale, size, boundary, morphology and genesis of geological anomalies. Then the authors introduce the categorization of the geological anomalies according to their geneses. The image characteristics of some types of geological anomalies, such as the underground geological anomaly, are also explained in detail. Based on the remote-sensing interpretation of these geological anomalies, the authors conclude that the forecasting and exploration of ore deposits should be focused on the following three aspects: (1) the analysis of geological setting and geological anomaly; (2) the analysis of circular geological anomaly, and (3) the comprehensive forecasting of ore deposits and the research into multi-source information.


Orogenic gold deposits are unevenly distributed in geologic time. The richest period of orogenic gold deposit formation was the Phanerozoic, which followed a >1-b.y. period of relatively meager deposit generation during the Proterozoic. This Proterozoic low-gold period developed despite continent-building episodes, which should have been appropriate for orogenic gold genesis. Here, a brief review of the changes in global geochemistry brought on by evolving interactions between plate tectonics and the biosphere is conducted before the consequences for gold uptake into sedimentary pyrite are discussed. It is suggested that the extensive oxygenation of the deep oceans during the second Great Oxidation Event, over the period 635 to 510 Ma, produced conditions where gold was soluble in the deep oceans from that point on. Regions where bacterial sulfate reduction drove formation of sedimentary pyrite also destabilized this soluble gold, promoting its uptake into pyrite, and allowing formation of metallogenically enhanced sedimentary sequences. These sediments would have become ideal source rocks for gold deposits during subsequent collisional tectonics and metamorphism. This biogenic influence on source region enhancement may explain the association during the Phanerozoic eon between some of the world's most gold productive regions and sedimentary sequences that contain pyritic carbonaceous rocks.