This study aims to provide an understanding of the economic hardship of individuals with unintentional injuries and economic recovery options in rural Bangladesh by assessing the variation in mortality and morbidity due to injuries and estimating the economic burden of injuries by type of injury. Data were obtained from an annual demographic and injury surveillance system conducted in 7 sub-districts in rural Bangladesh during fiscal year 2014–2015. We tabulated injury prevalence and care-seeking patterns by injury type, age group and socioeconomic status (SES) and applied Chi square tests. A two part model of spending applied a generalised linear model to estimate the probability of any spending and amount of out-of-pocket costs per injury type. Lastly, a Markov model was developed to estimate the probability and cost for each type of injury. There were 1,163,290 individuals and 119,669 self-reported injuries. The most common injuries were from falls (38%), cuts (22%), blunt objects (10%), and transport (9%). Drownings and violence injuries were more common among low SES, while electrocution were more common among high SES. Most injuries (88%) sought treatment, 81% used village doctors, 3% were hospitalised for a median of 5 days, and 25% of the hospitalised had surgery. Of those treated, 4% reported no improvement in health. The mean and median cost for treated injuries, in 2015 BDT, was $1,302 and $250, respectively. Most treatments incurred expenditures on medicines (95% median $250), 31% on transport cost (median $100) and 15% on consultation fees (median $220). The most expensive injury treatments were other ($6,125), attempted suicide ($2,000), violence ($680), and unintentional poisoning ($600). Other results will be shown later. Data highlights injuries common among lowest or highest SES, treatment outcome patterns, and most common and most expensive health care services and injury types. This new evidence can improve understanding on health care use, the economic hardship and recovery options of individuals with injuries in rural Bangladesh.


The objective of this study was to examine the potential of Al-5Ti-1B and Al-1Ti-3B master alloys in reducing the hot tearing susceptibility of AZ91E magnesium alloy. The low penetration of magnesium alloys for structural automotive applications can be attributed to their poor castability during permanent mould casting. An improvement in the castability of magnesium alloys will result in the production of larger castings for automotive applications and a reduction in vehicle weight. The addition levels examined for both master alloys were 0.1, 0.2, 0.5 and 1.0 wt.%. The master alloys were added to the AZ91E alloy and stirred for 30 seconds. For the graphite mould castings used to observe grain refinement, the pouring and mould temperatures were 720 and 750 °C respectively. The hot tear castings were produced using a "dog bone" shaped H-13 tool steel mould. The pouring and mould temperatures were 720 and 180 °C respectively. Without master alloy addition, the base AZ91E casting had severe hot tears. The addition of Al-5Ti-1B slightly reduced hot tears while Al-1Ti-3B addition significantly reduced hot tears. The addition of Al-1Ti-3B also significantly reduced the grain size of the castings from 113 µm in the base alloy to 72 µm with 1.0 wt.% addition. The addition of Al-5Ti-1B did not lead to a reduction of hot tears because of large TiAl3 particles acting as stress risers during solidification.


This study investigates the factors that affect oral communication in English as Foreign Language classrooms at City University in Saudi Arabia. The concept 'oral communication' in this study refers to the ability of learners to listen effectively and speak fluently using the correct use of language structure, that is, syntax, grammar and vocabulary, resulting in successful communication. The study investigated the nature of and reasons for the oral communication difficulties experienced in English as Foreign Language classrooms in the university. These issues were addressed in terms of teaching and learning with the aim of improving the learning experiences of students in English as Foreign Language courses at the university.
This is a qualitative study. For data collection, I used a triangulation method. The data have been obtained through focus group discussions followed by individual interviews. The study included 33 participants: 30 students of English language, and three teachers from the department of English language. For my data analysis, I adopted a modified grounded theory approach of data analysis.
The results of the analysis indicate that the factors that affect participants' willingness to communicate are grouped under two main types: external and internal. Internal factors relate to the students themselves, i.e. their behaviours and nature, whereas the external factors are caused by something outside them. Internal factors include language proficiency, motivation, and culture and psychological factors including confidence and shyness. The external factors include classroom management (class time and students' number), teacher's role (opportunity, teaching aids and topic relevancy), and teaching methods. It also includes first language use and code-switching.
The main purpose of this study is to contribute to our knowledge and understanding of the factors that affect oral communication in English as Foreign Language classrooms at the university and to contribute to increasing our understanding of students' reticence to participate orally in English as Foreign Language classrooms. The results of this study are intended to help to provide teachers, decision makers and course designers at the university with knowledge about teaching oral communication skills in English as Foreign Language classrooms.


Statistical reconstruction (SR) of X-ray CT data may lead to images that are seriously affected by edge artifacts that are not present in filtered back projection (FBP) images. These artifacts appear as interference patterns and as severe overshoots in the areas of sharp intensity transitions. We attribute this inherent property of iterative reconstructions to discretization errors. A fundamental solution to the problem is to perform the reconstructions on an image grid that is finer than typically employed for FBP reconstruction, followed by a downsampling of the resulting image to a granularity normally used for display. We show that such a procedure strongly suppresses the edge artifacts and is a much more effective solution than post-filtering of the reconstructions.


This thesis analyzes the thermodynamics of a power
system coupling two renewable heat sources: low-temperature
geothermal and a high-temperature solar. The process, referred to
as a dual-temperature geothermal-solar Kalina hybrid cycle, is
analyzed in detail and then compared to appropriate single-heat
source power systems, in order to assess any thermodynamic
synergies. With increasing demand for more efficient renewable
sources of power generation, a plant design where the working fluid
is heated (and partially vaporized) by low- to medium-temperature
geothermal brine, before being further vaporized by solar heat,
presents an opportunity for efficient operation of the power plant.
Given a set of design parameters and the constrained optimization
of decision variables, a design basis plant configuration is first
chosen. Then, the power output attained by the Kalina hybrid is
compared to that attained by a combination of a geothermal organic
Rankine cycle and a solar standalone steam cycle, with the same
boundary conditions. The Kalina hybrid plant is found to produce
9.5 MW of power, with 100 kg/s of geothermal brine and a
solar-to-geothermal heat input ratio constrained to 1. The system
performance is increasing in the working fluid low pressure and
decreasing in the ammonia molar concentration, at the cost of a
corresponding increase in solar-to-geothermal heat input ratio. On
a design power comparison basis, the hybrid configuration displays
no thermodynamic synergy between geothermal and solar energy modes.
Specifically, the hybrid plant produces 29% less net power than the
combined single-energy mode plants. No assessment of possible
economic synergies is attempted. Potential changes to the current
Kalina hybrid cycle that can lead to higher thermodynamic
performance include regenerating heat within the cycle; using the
solar high quality heat source in alternative locations in the
cycle; employing one pressure-turbine loop instead of two; using
reheat between the two turbines; and investigating other plausible
working fluid mixtures including hydrocarbons and
refrigerants.


A dissertation submitted to the School of Statistics and Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for award of Bachelor of Science in Business Statistics Degree of Makerere University


In this study, an interleaved boost converter cascaded with a battery charger buck converter is designed and implemented. The converter also has maximum power point tracking capability and the battery charge operation is designed for purpose of long life requirements of batteries. Proposed interleaved boost converter operates in conventional converter mode and in interleaved boost converter mode with different switching frequencies according to programmed power level to achieve maximum efficiency. A hybrid maximum power point tracking method is also introduced to provide obtainable maximum power from photovoltaic systems. If the batteries are not fully charged and the photovoltaic power more than the load power, charger starts to operate and charges the batteries. Batteries can be used as a backup power source when photovoltaic system power is incapable of supplying the load. Proposed system is controlled with a low cost PIC18F452 microcontroller. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed interleaved converter structure has higher efficiency than other topologies and the proposed maximum power point tracking method provides fast and dynamic response.


Believable virtual characters enhance the experience of interactive virtual worlds. BDI-based state-space narrative planners make their characters more compelling by granting them specific goals to pursue and different (possibly wrong) beliefs about the state of the world. However, such systems do not account for character individuality. We extend work on narrative planning by proposing a personality model based on the Big Five. This paper discusses how each factor of the Big Five is represented by narrative planning features. We also present a study to evaluate whether human readers can perceive the modeled personality traits through simple action patterns in short stories.


Marked hyperemia may develop in brain following temporary cessation of blood flow and is associated with the morbidity following cardiac arrest, stroke, and head injury. Regional cerebral blood flow was measured using radiolabeled microspheres and compared in 10 symmetrical regions after chronic unilateral trigeminal ganglionectomy (n = 8), trigeminal rhizotomy (n = 4), or sham operation (n = 4) following 10 min of combined brachiocephalic-left subclavian occlusion and hypotension (mean arterial blood pressure less than 50 mmHg) in cats. Blood flow was symmetrical at rest in the three groups and was undetectable during the ischemic period. Within 30 min after re-establishing flow, values in cortical gray matter increased symmetrically to approximately 250 ml.100 g-1.min-1 in the rhizotomy and the sham groups. Increases of similar magnitude were measured on the intact side following trigeminal ganglionectomy but flow was attenuated by greater than 50% ipsilateral to the ganglionectomy. Marked hyperemia developed during reperfusion in thalamus, caudate, deep cortical white matter, midbrain, and pons, but no asymmetries were present in the three groups. These data suggest that cortical hyperemia is mediated by trigeminal neurogenic mechanisms via axonal reflexlike mechanisms and suggest the importance of therapeutic strategies based on blockade of this nerve or its constituent neuropeptides.


This paper provides some new empirical features on price setting behaviour for French producers using micro data underlying the producer and business-services price indices over the period 1994-2005. Some crucial methodological issues on the collection of producer prices are raised. Then, the main features of producers' price setting are presented: producer prices are modified quite frequently and by small amounts. A high heterogeneity across sectors is also observed: business-services prices change less often than industrial producer prices. The data lend some support to predictions of both time- and state-dependence models: Taylor contracts are not unusual but prices also respond to the changes in the firm's economic conditions. Nevertheless, time-dependent models are shown to be the most relevant theories to explain the producer price rigidity.


Predicting the effects of the fracture penetration ratio and fracture conductivity in hydraulically- fractured vertical wells in dry-gas and wet-gas reservoirs is important in determining the well performance in a given formation. A fracture length and conductivity which provide the highest ultimate gas recovery factor at the earliest time to reach abandonment conditions is the proper fracture type which has to be selected for developing the reservoir.
 A three dimensional reservoir simulation model is used to evaluate the performance of hydraulic fractured vertical wells as a function of fracture penetration ratio and fracture conductivity. Accurate determination of initial gas reserves, average reservoir pressure at abandonment time, and the time to reach abandonment conditions is very important to the petroleum industry. Material balance technique and volumetric method, currently used in the petroleum industry to determine the reserves, which do not consider well performance and, as a result, predict a very high recovery factor at abandonment pressure for hydraulic fractured vertical wells in volumetric dry-gas and wet-gas reservoirs.
 Well performance in hydraulic fractured vertical wells depends on fracture penetration ratio and fracture conductivity. A comparison with horizontal wells of same penetration ratio is also provided in this paper as an alternative to hydraulic fracturing. A number of simulation runs were performed on a square shape reservoir of horizontal permeability 0.01 md, 0.1 md and 1 md with a penetration ratio of 0.2, 0.4 and 0.8. Our results quantify and show that the ultimate recovery factor and abandonment time are function of fracture penetration ratio regardless of fracture conductivity. In addition, our results shows that in low permeability reservoirs a hydraulic fractured vertical well of similar penetration ratio to a horizontal well perform twice in terms of recovery factor and abandonment time. The effects of formation thickness, well parameters and reservoir rock properties on the average reservoir pressure at abandonment time and on the time to reach the economic limit are also presented in this paper. Based on the results of fracture penetration ratio and fracture conductivity in volumetric dry-gas and wet-gas reservoirs, this paper presents recommendations regarding the proper well type with which the reservoir should be developed.


The estimated new kidney cancer cases diagnosed each year in the United Sates and in the world are ~63,000 and ~300,000, respectively (1,2). Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) represents over 90% of kidney cancer and consists of a group of malignancies arising from the renal epithelium and exhibiting distinct histopathological features (3-6). The 2004 WHO classification listed 12 different subtypes of RCC (4). With a better understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of RCC, the 2013 International Society of Urological Pathology (ISUP) consensus conference added several new entities (6).


Parallel coordinate plots (PCPs) are a well‐known visualization technique for viewing multivariate data. In the past, various visual modifications to PCPs have been proposed to facilitate tasks such as correlation and cluster identification, to reduce visual clutter, and to increase their information throughput. Most modifications pertain to the use of color and opacity, smooth curves, or the use of animation. Although many of these seem valid improvements, only few user studies have been performed to investigate this, especially with respect to cluster identification. We performed a user study to evaluate cluster identification performance – with respect to response time and correctness – of nine PCP variations, including standard PCPs. To generate the variations, we focused on covering existing techniques as well as possible while keeping testing feasible. This was done by adapting and merging techniques, which led to the following novel variations. The first is an effective way of embedding scatter plots into PCPs. The second is a technique for highlighting fuzzy clusters based on neighborhood density. The third is a spline‐based drawing technique to reduce ambiguity. The last is a pair of animation schemes for PCP rotation. We present an overview of the tested PCP variations and the results of our study. The most important result is that a fair number of the seemingly valid improvements, with the exception of scatter plots embedded into PCPs, do not result in significant performance gains.


Field trees are an integral part of the farmed parkland landscape in West Africa and provide multiple benefits to the local environment and livelihoods. While field trees have received increasing interest in the context of strengthening resilience to climate variability and change, the actual extent of farmed parkland and spatial patterns of tree cover are largely unknown. We used the rule-based predictive modeling tool Cubist® to estimate field tree cover in the west-central agricultural region of Senegal. A collection of rules and associated multiple linear regression models was constructed from (1) a reference dataset of percent tree cover derived from very high spatial resolution data (2 m Orbview) as the dependent variable, and (2) ten years of 10-day 250 m Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) composites and derived phenological metrics as independent variables. Correlation coefficients between modeled and reference percent tree cover of 0.88 and 0.77 were achieved for training and validation data respectively, with absolute mean errors of 1.07 and 1.03 percent tree cover. The resulting map shows a west-east gradient from high tree cover in the peri-urban areas of horticulture and arboriculture to low tree cover in the more sparsely populated eastern part of the study area. A comparison of current (2000s) tree cover along this gradient with historic cover as seen on Corona images reveals dynamics of change but also areas of remarkable stability of field tree cover since 1968. The proposed modeling approach can help to identify locations of high and low tree cover in dryland environments and guide ground studies and management interventions aimed at promoting the integration of field trees in agricultural systems.


In emotion regulation research, it is common to distinguish adaptive from maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. However, little is known about their interactional impact (compensational or interfering effects) on adolescents' adjustment. We collected longitudinal, multiple informant questionnaire data from N = 608 adolescents and their parents to examine the prevalence of adolescents' anger regulation profiles using latent profile analysis. We identified five anger regulation profiles—an adaptive, a maladaptive, a low, a medium, and an undefined profile. The first three profiles could be replicated 1 year later, as could one additional multiple and another undefined profile. Findings supported the assumption that adaptive strategies compensate for the negative impact of maladaptive strategies, yielding negative psychosocial consequences, particularly for the maladaptive profiles. Moreover, different profiles were divergently related to adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems concurrently and over time. Results highlight the importance of considering both adaptive and maladaptive anger regulation strategies in prevention and psychotherapy.


THE REVOLUTION BEGINS AT 3PM: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF A STATEWIDE 21 CENTURY COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTERS PROGRAM by Corrie L. Davis The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how teachers and staff members demonstrated caring toward their students within a statewide 21 Century Community Learning Centers (21 CCLC) afterschool program. The participants in the study included 17 program directors, 22 site coordinators, 16 teachers, 3 paraprofessionals, 11 parents, 11 principals, and 18 other stakeholders associated with the program. This multisite case study utilized the naturalistic paradigm of qualitative research. The data collection process included 98 semi-structured interviews, 22 participant observations, 112 photographs, and document analyses with materials from the 20 grantees selected in the sample. The qualitative software program, Atlas.ti: The Knowledge Workbench (2003) assisted with the management and analysis of data during the coding, categorizing, and interpretation process. Findings from the study revealed 3 central themes: (a) staff members that care about the whole child educate the whole child, (b) using culture as an asset increases students' desire to learn and (c) building character promotes positive change. By incorporating these attributes, the program's staff demonstrated their commitment to the academic and democratic advancement of the students in their care. This study will help inform policy makers, afterschool advocates, and 21 CCLC stakeholders about the importance of incorporating caring, culturally relevant pedagogy, and character education within local and national afterschool programs. THE REVOLUTION BEGINS AT 3PM: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF A STATEWIDE 21 CENTURY COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTERS PROGRAM by Corrie L. Davis


ABSTRACT mRNAs encoding mitochondrial proteins are enriched in the vicinity of mitochondria, presumably to facilitate protein transport. A possible mechanism for enrichment may involve interaction of the translocase of the mitochondrial outer membrane (TOM) complex with the precursor protein while it is translated, thereby leading to association of polysomal mRNAs with mitochondria. To test this hypothesis, we isolated mitochondrial fractions from yeast cells lacking the major import receptor, Tom20, and compared their mRNA repertoire to that of wild-type cells by DNA microarrays. Most mRNAs encoding mitochondrial proteins were less associated with mitochondria, yet the extent of decrease varied among genes. Analysis of several mRNAs revealed that optimal association of Tom20 target mRNAs requires both translating ribosomes and features within the encoded mitochondrial targeting signal. Recently, Puf3p was implicated in the association of mRNAs with mitochondria through interaction with untranslated regions. We therefore constructed a tom20Δ puf3Δ double-knockout strain, which demonstrated growth defects under conditions where fully functional mitochondria are required. Mislocalization effects for few tested mRNAs appeared stronger in the double knockout than in the tom20Δ strain. Taken together, our data reveal a large-scale mRNA association mode that involves interaction of Tom20p with the translated mitochondrial targeting sequence and may be assisted by Puf3p.


Normal Coordinate calculations of pyridne have been carried out using wilson's FG matrix mechanism on the basis of General Valence Force Field (GVFF) for both in-plane and outof-plane vibrations. The potential energy constants obtained in this study are refined using numerical methods.


INTRODUCTION
Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) deficiency (<50 nmol/l or 20 ng/ml) has been associated with increased blood pressure (BP) in observational studies. A paucity of data on this relationship is available in Latin American or child populations. This study investigates the association between 25OHD levels and BP in adolescents at risk for vitamin D deficiency in 2 Peruvian settings.

METHODS
In a population-based study of 1,441 Peruvian adolescents aged 13-15 years, 1,074 (75%) provided a serum blood sample for 25OHD analysis and BP measurements. Relationships between 25OHD and BP metrics were assessed using multiple linear regressions, adjusted for anthropometrics and sociodemographic factors.

RESULTS
25OHD deficiency was associated with an elevated diastolic BP (DBP) (1.09 mm Hg increase, 95% confidence interval: 0.04 to 2.14; P = 0.04) compared to nondeficient adolescents. Systolic BP (SBP) trended to increase with vitamin D deficiency (1.30 mm Hg increase, 95% confidence interval: -0.13 to 2.72; P = 0.08). Mean arterial pressure (MAP) was also greater in adolescents with 25OHD (1.16 mm Hg increase, 95% confidence interval: 0.10 to 2.22; P = 0.03). SBP was found to demonstrate a U-shaped relationship with 25OHD, while DBP and MAP demonstrated inverse J-shaped relationships with serum 25OHD status. The association between 25OHD deficiency and BP was not different across study sites (all P ≥ 0.19).

DISCUSSION
Adolescents deficient in 25OHD demonstrated increased DBP and MAP and a trend toward increased SBP, when compared to nondeficient subjects. 25OHD deficiency early in life was associated with elevated BP metrics, which may predispose risk of hypertension later in adulthood.


Background/Aims: Celiac disease is caused by environmental and genetic factors, and the relatives of celiac patients are at higher risk of developing celiac disease than the general population. This prospective study evaluates the prevalence of celiac disease in the asymptomatic siblings of celiac patients. Methods: Forty-eight siblings (22 males; mean age 13 years) of 39 celiac children (20 males; mean age 4 years), and 120 siblings (55 males; mean age 33 years) of 55 adult celiac patients (12 males; mean age 31 years) were serologically screened for celiac disease. Positive cases were considered for endoscopic duodenal biopsies. Results: Forty of the 168 asymptomatic siblings (23.8%) were affected by celiac disease. There were no differences between the index cases with and without affected siblings in terms of age at diagnosis, symptoms at onset, order of birth, associated disorders or other affected relatives. The male siblings of pediatric patients were affected in 40.9% of cases and female siblings in 26.9%; the corresponding figures for adults were 16.4 and 23.1%. Conclusions: Silent celiac disease is 24–48 times more frequent in the siblings of celiac patients than in the general population. No predictive factors for sibling involvement were found. Adult females seem to tolerate gluten less than adult males.


The operating conditions of low pH and high potential at the anodes of polymer electrolyte membrane electrolysers restrict the choice of catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) to oxides based on the rare metals iridium or ruthenium. In this work, we investigate the stability of both the metal atoms and, by quantitative and highly sensitive 18O isotope labelling experiments, the oxygen atoms in a series of RuOx and IrOx electrocatalysts during the OER in the mechanistically interesting low overpotential regime. We show that materials based on RuOx have a higher dissolution rate than the rate of incorporation of labelled oxygen from the catalyst into the O2 evolved ("labelled OER"), while for IrOx-based catalysts the two rates are comparable. On amorphous RuOx, metal dissolution and labelled OER are found to have distinct Tafel slopes. These observations together lead us to a full mechanistic picture in which dissolution and labelled OER are side processes to the main electrocatalytic cycle. We emphasize the importance of quantitative analysis and point out that since less than 0.2% of evolved oxygen contains an oxygen atom originating from the catalyst itself, lattice oxygen evolution is at most a negligible contribution to overall OER activity for RuOx and IrOx in acidic electrolyte.


This paper addresses the problem of adaptive state and parameter estimation of open loop unstable plants using a multiple model structure. A state estimate is obtained as a probabilistically weighted sum of the estimates produced by a bank of individual observers. Model identification and convergence of the dynamic weights in the Multiple Model Adaptive Estimation (MMAE) for open-loop unstable plants are analyzed and the effect of the control action (by a controller in the loop) is studied. In the present paper we show that the techniques introduced in MMAE for open-loop stable plants and in the absence of control action are applicable to open-loop unstable plants with a stabilizing controller in the loop. A distance-like pseudo norm between the true plant and the identified model is developed and furthermore we show that the model identified is the one that is the closest to the true plant model in the defined norm among all models in the bank. The performance and convergence of the MMAE procedure are illustrated with Monte-Carlo simulation runs using the model of an inverted pendulum installed on a system of masses, springs, and dampers.


Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) offer a principled approach to control under uncertainty. However, POMDP solvers generally require rewards to depend only on the state and action. This limitation is unsuitable for information-gathering problems, where rewards are more naturally expressed as functions of belief. In this work, we consider target localization, an information-gathering task where an agent takes actions leading to informative observations and a concentrated belief over possible target locations. By leveraging recent theoretical and algorithmic advances, we investigate offline and online solvers that incorporate belief-dependent rewards. We extend SARSOP — a state-of-the-art offline solver — to handle belief-dependent rewards, exploring different reward strategies and showing how they can be compactly represented. We present an improved lower bound that greatly speeds convergence. POMDP-lite, an online solver, is also evaluated in the context of information-gathering tasks. These solvers are applied to control a hexcopter UAV searching for a radio frequency source—a challenging real-world problem.


In Canada, it is estimated that one-third of bullying occurs outside of educational settings, including sport and recreation spaces (Shannon, 2013). Beyond important academic literature on abuse in athlete-coach relationships, however, there is little research on peer-to-peer bullying in sport. This is a noticeable absence considering assertions that there is a high potential for bullying to occur (Kerr, Jewett, MacPherson, & Stirling, 2016; Shannon, 2013). Moreover, bullying has been connected to children and youth drop-out rates (Fraser, 2015). Our interest in this project was to determine how Canadian national sport organizations (NSOs) address peer-to-peer bullying through policy. Although antibullying strategies that rely solely on policy are ineffective (Short, 2013), clearly communicated and implemented policies remain important (Mountjoy et al., 2016; Olweus & Limber, 2010; Walton, 2004). Thus, we focused our analysis on policy documents available to the public on NSO websites. A total of 118 documents were retrieved, consisting of various codes of conduct and harassment policies. Of these 118 policy documents, only three had been produced that addressed peer-to-peer bullying specifically. In the remaining 115 documents, bullying was mentioned just 19 times and only defined in five documents. The absence of specific policy and policy statement addressing peer-to-peer bullying is important to highlight. Well-written and implemented policies are needed in order to help create safer spaces in sport for children and youth. More specifically, it is imperative for sport and recreation organizations to have clearly defined policies on peer-to-peer bullying, which are openly communicated to members of the organization. It is also important for organizations to make it clear how members should report incidents of bullying. Finally, policies that adequately define bullying and that address its root causes such as sexism, racism, ableism, and LGBTQphobia are considered best practice as they are determined to be more complete. Policies that highlight the root or ideological causes of bullying may have more long-term impact on reducing bullying behaviours and incidents, as children and youth are encouraged to embrace difference and demonstrate empathy, respect, and compassion (Short, 2013). These policies should co-exist with educational programs on bullying, such as those offered by Respect in Sport and the Canadian Red Cross. Subscribe to JPRA


This paper demonstrates several strengths and shortcomings of models of sectoral reallocation. Although such models demonstrate that sectoral reallocation can be an important amplification and propagation mechanism for exogenous shocks, they are essentially unable to explain any effects of sectoral reallocation on aggregate productivity or related quantities (such as the real wage or observations of aggregate increasing returns to scale), unless a wedge is introduced into the model that drives the marginal products of inputs in different sectors apart in steady state. In particular, costs of adjustment and lags to adjustment are not sufficient. This paper offers a solution to the problem in the form of variable sectoral capital utilization, the marginal product of which can differ across sectors in steady state. Reallocations of production between sectors in this setting are then shown to have first-order effects on aggregate productivity and real wages, and can explain the procyclicality of these variables without reliance on large, exogenous, and persistent shocks to technology.


Nanocrystalline titania pigments were produced by a novel synthesis route consisting of a high temperature forced hydrolysis in a coordinating high-boiling solvent. The effect of synthesis conditions as well as doping with Cr, Sb and V on the particle size and on the anatase-to-rutile transformation was studied by temperature-resolved synchrotron powder diffraction. The experiments were performed directly on as-synthesized low concentration suspensions of titania nanoparticles (up to 230°C) and on dried titania nanoparticles (up to 950°C). Crystallite size of as-synthesized nanoparticles is in the 5 to 50 nm range, being affected by the synthesis conditions as well as by doping and exhibits a slow-rate coarsening trend with temperature. The anatase-to-rutile transformation is drastically influenced by both synthesis conditions and doping. In particular, doping affected the anatase-to-rutile transformation rate, while the synthesis conditions influenced the phase composition, causing the appearance of brookite.


This article examines the relationship between Irish law and British Imperial law in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary focus concerns the question of whether the Colonial Laws Validity Act, 1865 applied to the Irish Free State as a Dominion of the British Empire. This important piece of legislation ensured that British Imperial statutes overrode the laws of British colonies and Dominions. This article will examine the importance of the 1865 Act as a means of preventing the Irish Free State from making unilateral changes to the settlement imposed by the Anglo Irish Treaty of 1921. It will also analyse the arguments put forward by the British and Irish governments as to the relationship between Irish law and the Colonial Laws Validity Act. It will conclude by examining the changes made by the Statute of Westminster which ensured that the Irish Free State finally achieved a position of undisputed legislative sovereignty.


This paper describes the methodology behind the partial safety factors and design fatigue factors of the DNV GL standard for certification of tidal turbines. The standard follows a risk based approach that allows the adjustment of the design requirements to the identified risk level of the system.The work undertaken in this study has involved the identification of the uncertainties during the design process. Tidal turbines are located in highly energetic sites which are very difficult to characterise, hence site conditions are one of the largest sources of uncertainty. Key parameters like turbine inflow conditions or predictions of extreme values are still grey areas. Load simulation tools are still quite uncertain and are often dependent on the experience of the people running them.Both partial safety factors and design fatigue factors have been calibrated to different target safety levels with due account for the uncertainties introduced by load models as well as site characterisation. The different target safety levels have been selected in accordance to the risk associated to structural failures of tidal turbine support structures and aim for a more streamlined design from the safety requirements point of view.Copyright © 2015 by ASME


This paper examines the hypothesis that the superior return to so-called value stocks is the result of expectational errors made by investors. We study stock price reactions around earnings announcements for value and glamour stocks over a 5 year period after portfolio formation. The announcement returns suggest that a significant portion of the return difference between value and glamour stocks is attributable to earnings surprises that are systematically more positive for value stocks. The evidence is inconsistent with a risk-based explanation for the return differential.


Glycoprotein hormone receptors such as the lutropin/chorionic gonadotropin receptor (LHR) are characterized by a large N-terminal ectodomain (ECD), which is responsible for hormone-receptor interactions. For the closely related TSH receptor (TSHR), it has been proposed that the ECD also serves as a tethered inverse agonist. However, the exact role of the LHR-ECD for receptor activation remains elusive. Functional analysis of N-terminally truncated LHR mutants expressed in COS-7 cells revealed that the LHR-ECD does not act as an inverse agonist but facilitates active LHR conformations. This notion is supported by two observations: first, removal of the ECD tended to decrease basal LHR activity and secondly, mutationally induced constitutive receptor activity was diminished for most activating mutations in LHR lacking the ECD. In addition, swapping of the LHR-ECD for the ECD of the closely related TSHR was not sufficient to restore constitutive receptor activity induced by naturally occurring activating heptahelical LHR mutations. Thus, the ECD stabilizes an activation-competent conformation of the heptahelical region. While the full-length LHR fused to the cognate agonist, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), showed increased basal activity, fusion proteins between hCG and N-terminally truncated LHR did not yield constitutive receptor activity suggesting an important role of the ECD also for agonist-dependent LHR activity. Our experiments strengthen the concept of a major contribution of the LHR-ECD in the activation mechanism apart from hormone binding and provide evidence for a cooperative model with structural and functional interactions of the ECD and the transmembrane domain.


To be able to deliver customised flavours from cheese matrices that have different textures and compositions, it is important to understand how the cheese matrix affects the perception of flavour. It is known that perceived flavours depend not only on the combination of tastants and aroma compounds in a food, but also on the way in which those flavour compounds are released from the food matrix. In addition, flavour perception can be influenced by cross-modal sensory interactions between taste, aroma and texture. In a collaborative research project between Fonterra Research Centre, The University of Otago in New Zealand and CSIRO in Australia, we are evaluating flavour release and cross-modal sensory interactions in a cheese base. Our aim is to understand how perceived flavour is affected by the texture and composition of the cheese and by the combination of tastants and aroma compounds making up the flavour. Sets of cheese bases were created with similar textures but different compositions, and similar compositions but different textures. Flavour compounds were added, and the equilibrium flavour release was studied using proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry, and related to flavour perception using descriptive sensory analysis.


We study an accurate method for the lattice calculation of the B Bp-coupling in the static limit, paying particular attention to excited state contamination. As this coupling is a parameter of the heavy meson chiral Lagrangian, it is useful for constraining the chiral behaviour of various observables in B-physics. We present a precise study of the continuum limit in the quenched approximation and preliminary results with 2 flavours of improved Wilson quarks (using CLS lattices) for pion masses down to around 250 MeV. With dynamical quarks both the lattice spacing and the light quark mass dependences are found to be very weak. We can quote g = 0.51(2) for the continuum value in the chiral limit, where the error will be reduced when a more complete analysis has been performed.


In recent years, the demand of polarizer films has increased since that liquid crystal displays are widely used in consumer electronics products such as smart phones, tablet computers and large-size TVs. For improving production yields, manufacturers actively adopt automated inspection equipment to detect in-line polarizer film defects. This study uses computer vision techniques to develop a cost-effective optical detection system for the tiny bump defects of polarizer films. The proposed system applies digital fringes and image processing techniques to detect the tiny bump defects. Experiments show that the proposed system can effectively detect the tiny bump defects, and complete the defect inspection of a sample polarizer film with an area of 1600 × 1200 pixels (36mm × 27mm) within 0.3 seconds.


Mexico faced significant financial crises during the late seventies and early eighties emanating from the Mexico City, due to its centrality. These crises were connected to the introduction of neoliberal reforms in the country. Simultaneously, a form of children and youth organization appeared in some of the incipient and impoverished neighbourhoods in the West of the city, the bandas ; parallel to the inception of 'City Santa Fe,' a luxurious utopia. Difficult urban and social conditions, violence and uncertainty not only gave birth to the bandas , but became their insignia. A temporal distance of nearly three decades from the birth of the bandas allows for a procedural analysis that overcomes the temptation to limit a research on youth groups to their 'ethnographic present.' The bandas' members narrate their life trajectories as search for better scenarios and, along the way, find meaning and order in otherwise chaotic events. Belonging to a banda serves as a coordinate from where to array a set of events and processes, and assess their outcomes, a coordinate for framing certain 'masculinity projects', allowing feelings of progression, satisfaction and even redemption.


Increasing global background concentrations of tropospheric ozone (O(3)) are expected to affect both crops and forest ecosystems negatively. The phytotoxic effects of O(3) are mainly associated with the O(3)-induced production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in excess of the ability of the plant to maintain ROS below the tolerance threshold. It is the balance between O(3) uptake and cellular antioxidant potential that determines O(3) effects on vegetation. The greater sensitivity to ambient O(3) exposure (60 nl l(-1) O(3), 15 days, 5 h a day) of poplar clone Eridano (Populus deltoides x maximowiczii) compared with clone I-214 (P. x euramericana) was reflected in a lower photosynthetic efficiency, higher stomatal conductance and hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) accumulation and more pronounced leaf tissue membrane injury in Eridano than in I-214. We checked if the differences in clonal responses to O(3) fumigation were related to differing capacities for antioxidant defense and phenylpropanoid metabolism and found that the increases in foliar ascorbate and phenolic concentrations and phenylpropanoid metabolism in Eridano were insufficient to counteract H(2)O(2) accumulation and the consequent oxidative stress. This was probably because the higher influx of O(3) into Eridano leaves compared with I-214 leaves resulted in a lower potential detoxification capacity per unit of O(3) influx.


INTRODUCTION
Up to the half of twentieth century, Chievitz organ was considered an embryonal organ, disappearing with growth. But Zenker, in 1953, demonstrated the existence of this organ in adult life, too4.

REVIEW
In this article we review the embryology, the macroscopic and microscopic anatomy, the ultrastructure, the functional significance and the pathology of the Chievitz'Juxtaparotid Organ (CJO). The CJO is not a macroscopic apparent organ, but it looks like a nerve. The CJO takes connections with buccinator muscle, at the level of the parotid duct, and the medial pterygoid muscle. The cell parenchyma is enveloped by the connective tissue, that is divided into three layers15, 16: the inner layer -"stratum fibrosum internum"-, composed of collagenous and elastic microfibrils; the middle layer - "stratum nervosum" - containing a lamellar inner core and Ruffini SNF5; the external layer - "stratum fibrosum externum", that is a collagen capsule. The parenchymal cells show a rich enzyme activity. The parenchymal cells may play the same role as glomus cells of the 1st type and Merkel cells20, 21. When a surgical resection is performed for an oral carcinoma, the CJO may be present in the specimen25. The CJO may be wrongly diagnosed as perineural invasion by carcinoma26, 27, 28.

CONCLUSION
We report that Chievitz' organ is the only organ in which the cancer does not occur.

KEY WORDS
Chievitz' organ, Juxtaoral organ, Parotid gland.


BACKGROUND: The Dutch cabinet considers changing the law in order to provide for the opportunity to make Ulysses arrangements (Ulysses contracts) in psychiatry. A Ulysses arrangement would entail a client's deliberate and freely given consent that, in case of a future crisis situation, involuntary commitment or treatment may be opted for on a less strict basis than current law allows for. The moral justification for involuntary commitment or treatment would reside in the autonomous choice made previously by the client. AIM To explore what an ethics of care perspective can contribute to the debate on Ulysses arrangements. METHOD: Qualitative analysis of interviews with persons directly involved in the issue of Ulysses arrangements. RESULTS: An ethics of care perspective clarifies how Ulysses arrangements might 'work' in the relationships between the persons involved. Furthermore, it introduces moral concepts such as responsibility and mutuality into the debate on Ulysses arrangements. CONCLUSION: An ethics of care perspective broadens and deepens the debate on Ulysses arrangements by paying due respect to relational moral considerations which get too little attention in an individual autonomy perspective.


Introduction. The activating role of non–rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep on epileptic cortex and conversely, the seizure remission brought about by antiepileptic medications, has been attributed to their effects on neuronal synchrony. This study aims to understand the role of neural synchrony of NREM sleep in promoting interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs) in patients with epilepsy (PWE) by assessing the peri-IED phase synchrony during awake and sleep states. It also studies the role played by antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) on EEG desynchronization in the above cohort. Methods. A total of 120 PWE divided into 3 groups (each n = 40; juvenile myoclonic epilepsy [JME], temporal lobe epilepsy [TLE]. and extratemporal lobe epilepsy [Ex-TLE]) were subjected to overnight polysomnography. Each patient group was subdivided into drug-naive and on treatment (Each n = 20). EEG phase synchronization analysis was performed to compare peri-IED phase synchronization indices (SI) during awake and sleep stages and between drug naïve and on treatment groups in 4 frequency bands, namely delta, theta, alpha, and beta. The mean ± SD of peri-IED SI among various subgroups was compared employing a multilevel mixed effects modeling approach. Results. Patients with JME had increased peri-IED cortical synchrony in N3 sleep stage, whereas patients with partial epilepsy had increased IED cortical synchrony in N1 sleep stage. On the other hand, peri-IED synchrony was lower during wake and REM sleep. We also found that peri-IED synchronization in patients with JME was higher in drug-naive patients compared with those on sodium valproate monotherapy in theta, alpha, and beta bands. Conclusion. The findings of this study suggest that sleep stages can alter cortical synchrony in patients with JME and focal epilepsy, with NREM IEDs being more synchronized and wake/REM IEDs being less synchronized. Furthermore, it also suggests that AEDs alleviate seizures in PWE by inhibiting cortical synchrony.


In the next generation of Cloud computing systems, it is expected that multiple Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) will cooperate together to advertise their services and prices to their end users, which may choose the one that best meets their budgetary and technical needs. Despite this benefit of having multiple CSPs to select from, several issues may arise. For instance, how does an IT entrepreneur select a CSP to offload his/her service request?
How does the underlying Inter-Cloud system handle this service request? To address these questions, this thesis proposes a novel Optimal Cloud Broker design for Inter-Cloud Systems in the form of a Semi-Markov Decision Process (SMDP) based model. Under the long-run expected average cost criterion, the optimal policy is derived, which aim at maximizing the overall virtual machine utilization while giving the end users the best possible prices. The effectiveness of the proposed Broker design is validated by numerical results.


The Classicist period in Slovakia developed between 1760 and 1830. At that time Slovakia was a part of the territory of the Hungary. Musical culture during the reign of Maria Theresa, Joseph II and Francis I evolved in three stages under the infl uence of the European musical tradition and contacts with foreign composers from Austria, Germany and Czechia. People could listen to all sorts of music in opera houses, concert halls, noblemen's courts, petty bourgeois salons and in the countryside. Musical professions in Slovakia were comparable with those in Central Europe. Musicians' jobs included those of performers, composers, teachers, writers, theoreticians and organizers of cultural life. Usually, one person held two or more of these positions. Composers wrote works which were performed at various occasions. Music teachers taught at state-run music schools, pedagogical colleges and parochial schools. Manufacturers of musical instruments created a number of new instruments, especially wind instruments, violins and organs, many of which were regarded as being highly signifi cant throughout Europe.


Deep learning on graphs has attracted significant interests recently. However, most of the works have focused on (semi-) supervised learning, resulting in shortcomings including heavy label reliance, poor generalization, and weak robustness. To address these issues, self-supervised learning (SSL), which extracts informative knowledge through well-designed pretext tasks without relying on manual labels, has become a promising and trending learning paradigm for graph data. Different from SSL on other domains like computer vision and natural language processing, SSL on graphs has an exclusive background, design ideas, and taxonomies. Under the umbrella of graph self-supervised learning, we present a timely and comprehensive review of the existing approaches which employ SSL techniques for graph data. We construct a unified framework that mathematically formalizes the paradigm of graph SSL. According to the objectives of pretext tasks, we divide these approaches into four categories: generation-based, auxiliary property-based, contrast-based, and hybrid approaches. We further describe the applications of graph SSL across various research fields and summarize the commonly used datasets, evaluation benchmark, performance comparison and open-source codes of graph SSL. Finally, we discuss the remaining challenges and potential future directions in this research field.


The bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) produces two carbohydrate binding lectins, designated PA lectin-I and lectin-II (PA-IL, PA-IIL). Both lectins are used by the bacterium to adhere to the glycocalyx of mammalian cells. In addition, the lectins immobilize ciliary beat. The kinetics of ciliary beat inhibition by each individual lectin have been analysed; however, their joint action on cilia has not been reported. Here we demonstrate that PA-IL and PA-IIL inhibit ciliary beat in a similar time-dependent manner. If applied simultaneously, ciliary beat inhibition after five hours of incubation was weaker than if each lectin was applied separately. Thus it can be hypothesized that the lectins compete for the same binding site(s) of the glycocalyx. Sugar inhibition experiments demonstrate that D-galactose and L-fucose inhibit both lectins, although clear preferences of D-galactose for PA-IL and of L-fucose for PA-IIL exist. These interactions have to be kept in mind when designing sugar-based therapies.


A large number of high quality Open Source Software (OSS) reuse libraries has been developed, and has been becoming increasingly adopted by many software development organizations. Programmers who reuse such OSS libraries often rely on the online peer support platforms such as dedicated mailing lists to seek help from other programmers. However, there is little research in understanding and evaluating how effective such online peer support platforms are for OSS reuse libraries. By detailed studies of mailing lists of two popular OSS libraries (Lucene-Java and Apache Commons), this paper attempts to understand the effectiveness of mailing list-based peer support system. The results indicate that mailing lists are very responsive to the needs of reusing programmers, and this responsiveness is largely fueled by the strong involvement of library developers.


We propose an observer-based approach to circumvent the issue of unbounded approximation errors -- with respect to the length of the time window considered -- in the discretization of wave-like equations in bounded domains, which covers the cases of the wave equation per se and of linear elasticity as well as beam, plate and shell formulations, and so on. Namely, taking advantage of some measurements available on the system over time, we adopt a strategy inspired from sequential data assimilation and by which the discrete system is dynamically corrected using the discrepancy between the solution and the measurements. In addition to the classical cornerstones of numerical analysis made up by stability and consistency, we are thus led to incorporating a third crucial requirement pertaining to observability -- to be preserved through discretization. The latter property warrants exponential stability for the corrected dynamics, hence provides bounded approximation errors over time. Special care is needed to establish the required observability at the discrete level, in particular due to the fact that we focus on an original observer method adapted to measurements of the main variable, whereas measurements of the time-derivative -- admissible, of course, albeit less frequent in practical systems -- lead to a stability analysis in which existing results can be more directly applied. We also provide some detailed application examples with several such wave-like equations, and the corresponding numerical assessments illustrate the performance of our approach.


Introduction: Tacrolimus is known to have a narrow therapeutic window. The intra-patient variability (IPV) is defined as the fluctuation in tacrolimus concentration within an individual patient over a certain period of time. Although the high IPV of tacrolimus has been reported to be associated with long-term inferior outcomes of renal transplantation, there are only a few studies which shows an association of tacrolimus IPV and renal toxicity. In addition, the influence of genetic polymorphism on the tacrolimus IPV remains still controversial. Methods: A total of 101 patients who received the renal transplantation in Seoul national university hospital were prospectively enrolled in this study. The coefficient of variation (CV) which represents the ratio of the standard deviation (SD) to the mean, was used for the quantification of the IPV. We divided the cohorts into High IPV group and Low IPV group based on the several criteria using mean and subdivided SD of CV. Genetic analysis was conducted to determine which genes were associated with tacrolimus IPV. Results: When we divided the cohorts as criteria of the mean + 0.25SD, there are more biopsy-proven tacrolimus nephrotoxicity in High IPV group than in Low IPV group (64.3% vs 35.7%, p = 0.012). Follow up periods was not different between two groups (3.34 ± 0.59 years and 3.23 ± 0.66 years, respectively, p = 0.514). There were no differences in mean tacrolimus concentration (6.82 ± 1.23 mg/dL vs 7.30 ± 1.05 mg/dL, p = 0.438) and time in therapeutic range (60.29 ± 27.26%, 51.65 ± 16.68%, p = 0.09) between groups. However, time above the therapeutic range was higher in High IPV group than in Low IPV group. (8.10 ± 16.34% vs 14.38 ± 11.51%, p=0.022) The genomic analysis showed that variant of ABCA1 (rs2274873), F5 (rs13306345), ABCG2 (rs200170071, rs201108974, rs202008680) and NAT2(rs1799931) were related to tacrolimus IPV (p=0.005, p=0.006, p=0.004, p=0.007, p=0.003, p=0.005, respectively). Discussion: It is well known that graft and patient survival were associated with IPV in tacrolimus exposure. But association between IPV and biopsyproven tacrolimus nephrotoxicity is first reported by our study. This result was due to High IPV group has more time above therapeutic range than Low IPV group. ABCA1 and ABCG2 were a member of the ABC protein subfamily which involve the ABCB1 already known as a tacrolimus transporter. Due to expression in the liver, the genetic variants of NAT2 have been associated with several drug metabolism and toxicity but not yet been identified in tacrolimus. Mutation of F5 encodes an essential cofactor of the blood coagulation cascade and has yet reported to be associated with tacrolimus pharmacokinetics. Conclusion: The high IPV of tacrolimus concentration is associated with biopsy-proven nephrotoxicity in renal transplantation. The mutations of ABCA1, ABCG2, NAT2, and F5 genes affected the IPV of tacrolimus concentration. Further studies are required to validate for this results. P-11.133


What we know about the horizon of possibilities in the writers' discourse is largely influenced by two relevant scholars studies who defined literature as a field in which many pressures converge. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the aims and pressures that have Harkaitz Cano has to cope with when writing about the Basque context. In the aforementioned discussion I thoroughly identify different cycles of literary recreation by taking into consideration three essential stages: first, reflections from a novel's main figure, secondly, an essay on artist and character building and finally, conversions based on metaliterature. To conclude, the single most striking observation to emerge from the analysis might be the correlation between the artist's necessity and impossibility to represent reality around him.


Barium hexaferrite (BaFe12O19) powders of particle size of 130 and 180 nm were synthesized by a single microemulsion technique. The influence of the concentration of Ba2+ and Fe3+ metallic ions in the aqueous phase in the microemulsion system on the particle size distribution, crystallinity and magnetic properties of BaFe12O19 was studied. The coercive force and saturation magnetization of the sample obtained at a lower concentration of metallic cations in the aqueous phase were higher than those of the sample obtained at higher concentration.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
The case of a patient with thrombotic manifestations and severe activated protein C resistance due to an anti-factor V antibody has recently been described. Since activated protein C (APC) is also profibrinolytic we wanted to determine whether the presence of antibodies interfering with the anticoagulant activity of APC also inhibits its profibrinolytic effect.

DESIGN AND METHODS
Plasma clots were formed in the presence of tissue plasminogen activator, thrombin, phospholipids, Ca++, and various concentrations of APC, and the rate of lysis was monitored over time by the reduction in turbidity. Generation of endogenous thrombin and activation of thrombin activatable fibrinolysis inhibitor (TAFI) were also determined during fibrinolysis by clotting and spectrophotometric assays, respectively.

RESULTS
Addition of APC to the patient's plasma failed to stimulate fibrinolysis even at a concentration 4 times higher than that needed to produce the maximal effect in control plasma. Removal of IgG from the patient's plasma fully restored the fibrinolytic response to APC. Accordingly, addition of the patient's IgG to control plasma caused a concentration-dependent inhibition of APC-dependent fibrinolysis. The patient's IgG did not, however, inhibit the profibrinolytic effect of heparin. Determination of thrombin and activated TAFI generation during clot lysis showed that APC inhibited the generation of these enzymes by less than 20% in plasma supplemented with the patient's IgG as opposed to >80% in a control sample.

INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS
Our data suggest that the anti-factor V antibody inhibits fibrinolysis by antagonizing the anticoagulant effect of APC thereby favoring thrombin generation and TAFI activation. Impaired fibrinolysis may represent an additional mechanism contributing to thrombosis in patients with severe APC resistance phenotype.


Diagnoses in patients with paraproteinaemia are diverse; few (mostly single centre based) studies are known that describe incidence, diagnoses and follow-up in patients with paraproteinaemia. In the region of the Comprehensive Cancer Centre West in the Netherlands (population 1.6 million, 1992) a population-based registry was set up in the period 1991-1993. Patients (n = 1464; median age: 72 years; range: 16-102) were entered by clinical chemists, internists, haematologists, and pathologists. Multiple myeloma and plasmacytoma were diagnosed in 261 patients (18%), paraprotein-related haematological diseases in 159 patients (11%) and paraprotein-related internal diseases in 210 patients (14%). After bone marrow examination monoclonal gammopathy of unknown significance (MGUS) was diagnosed in 207 (14%) patients. No further diagnosis could be made in 627 (43%) patients mostly for lack of supplementary bone marrow and (or) X-ray examinations. Consequently, more than two-thirds of all patients with a newly found paraprotein did not show any sign of a haematological malignancy. Using these data a 'myeloma risk score' was developed to predict the presence of a multiple myeloma based on paraprotein type and concentration, aiding the physician in determining which patients should undergo further bone marrow and skeletal examinations.


The specialist part of the thesis discusses communication and expression of emotions of a teenager with high-functioning autism, discordant mental abilities and suspected hyperkinetic disorder. In addition, the teenager suffers from selective mutism and shows a great interest in trains and timetables. The thesis examines the possibility to approach the teenager with high-functioning autism by use of drama activities and theatrical techniques as well as other art-related therapeutic methods and consequently gain as much information regarding his communication and expression of emotions as possible. Moreover, the thesis studies whether art techniques can help develop and improve his social skills, his verbal and non-verbal communication and influence on his ability to focus. The case study is carried out as a qualitative interpretive action research. Among others, I introduce a special copyright method of research »8 wagons« which includes elements of theatrical activities that consistently apply to the teenager's particular interest. An integral part of the research represents a questionnaire which the teenager fills out (either orally or in writing) after each meeting and is thematically related to the drama activities of each wagon. The teenager's wish is to become a train driver and it is noteworthy that certain interests of people with high-functioning autism eventually become their source of revenue, permanent employment or even career. I would also like to point out a special appendix to the thesis - a comparative analysis of autobiographical short film about the mentioned teenager, which is a graduate work of young director Katarina Morano of the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in Ljubljana, with the survey's results. Interviews with Benjamin's mother, brother, teachers, special pedagogy teacher, psychologist, director Katarina Morano and his peers are another important contribution to the description of Benjamin's communication and emotions. The action research results of the qualitative study of the teenager with high-functioning autism show that various theatrical techniques, drama activities and other art-related methods, such as music and dance activities, greatly contributed to the teenager's (and my own) understanding of his way of communication and emotion expression. With the help of drama activities, the teenager managed to improve his verbal and non-verbal communication, gained new social skills and developed greater ability to focus.


In this thesis a rural network in Norrbotten, Sweden, has been to designed and planned with the purpose of improving distribution reliability by exchanging existing overhead lines with underground cables. General network design considerations are discussed as well as the ones for the specific low voltage grid. During the design phase the maximum power of domestic consumers has been estimated using Velander's method. Currents, voltage drop and impedance of the network have been calculated and fuse operation and selectivity has been considered. The network has been planned, parts lists have been compiled and an economical estimation of the project costs has been made. The project comprises of a local low voltage grid and high voltage cables and overhead lines. It has been concluded that with the suggested dimensioning and material, the network design criteria are met.


Many artificial intelligence (AI) tasks, such as product configuration, decision support, and the construction of autonomous agents, involve a process of constrained optimization, that is, optimization of behavior or choices subject to given constraints. In this paper we present an approach for constrained optimization based on a set of hard constraints and a preference ordering represented using a CP‐network—a graphical model for representing qualitative preference information. This approach offers both pragmatic and computational advantages. First, it provides a convenient and intuitive tool for specifying the problem, and in particular, the decision maker's preferences. Second, it admits an algorithm for finding the most preferred feasible (Pareto‐optimal) outcomes that has the following anytime property: the set of preferred feasible outcomes are enumerated without backtracking. In particular, the first feasible solution generated by this algorithm is Pareto optimal.


COVID-19 when left undetected can lead to a hazardous infection spread, leading to an unfortunate loss of life. It's of utmost importance to diagnose COVID-19 in Infected patients at the earliest, to avoid further complications. RT-PCR, the gold standard method is routinely used for the diagnosis of COVID-19 infection. Yet, this method comes along with few limitations such as its time-consuming nature, a scarcity of trained manpower, sophisticated laboratory equipment and the possibility of false positive and negative results. Physicians and global health care centers use CT scan as an alternate for the diagnosis of COVID-19. But this process of detection too, might demand more manual work, effort and time. Thus, automating the detection of COVID-19 using an intelligent system has been a recent research topic, in the view of pandemic. This will also help in saving the physician's time for carrying out further treatment. In this paper, a hybrid learning model has been proposed to identify the COVID-19 infection using CT scan images. The Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) was used for feature extraction and Multilayer Perceptron was used for classification. This hybrid learning model's results were also compared with traditional CNN and MLP models in terms of Accuracy, F1-Score, Precision and Recall. This Hybrid CNN-MLP model showed an Accuracy of 94.89% when compared with CNN and MLP giving 86.95% and 80.77% respectively.


Eighteen febrile patients experienced 24 episodes of Bacillus bacteremias from January 1978 to June 1986. Bacillus species isolated included Bacillus cereus (eight cases), Bacillus circulans (three), Bacillus subtilis (two), Bacillus pumilus (two), Bacillus licheniformis (one), Bacillus sphaericus (one), Bacillus coagulans (one), and six that could not be speciated. Fifteen patients had lymphoma or leukemia and three had breast cancer. Nine patients were neutropenic (polymorphonuclear neutrophil count, less than 1.0 x 10(9)/L), seven patients had a Hickman catheter in place, and 14 had recently received chemotherapy. Twelve of the bacteremic episodes were clinically significant, and four of these 12 involved Hickman catheters. Catheter removal was ultimately necessary in all four patients. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy was performed on one of the removed Hickman catheters and showed Bacillus organisms embedded in a biofilm composed of gram-positive cocci and glycocalyx. Bacillus species were uniformly susceptible to vancomycin, imipenem, and aminoglycosides, with penicillin susceptibilities being variable. Bacillus appears to be another gram-positive organism now being recognized as a bacterial pathogen for compromised hosts. When such infections involve long-term indwelling venous access devices, treatment should include immediate catheter removal as well as antibiotic therapy.


This essay, through montage rather than monologue, seeks to open a debate about the politics of training for learning disabled actors. The journey of the disabled actor from participant in social drama to specialised agent in a professional theatre economy has involved experiments in different forms of actor training. Drawing on interviews with actors, directors and allied professionals involved in Mind the Gap's Staging Change training programme, the essay examines what barriers exist to the establishment of learning disabled artists as professionals intheir own right. The article reflects the contested nature of current training provision: its position in the wider theatrical economy and its relation to both disability studies and applied theatre. Debate in this latter field centres on 'authenticity': exactly what kind of performance are these actors being trained for? Is there such a thing as an authentic learning disability culture? If so, how might performance, and its professional shadow, training, represent, conceal, critique and even threaten this culture? Furthermore, must the required training be radically different: more an undoing of repressive social mechanisms than a goal-driven acquisition of a set of formal skills? The article reverses this concern and suggests that withholding 'mainstream' training opportunities from disabled performers risks continued disablement. Via a collage of diverse voices the article argues for a close examination of the meaning and implications of authenticity as a value system. It suggests a move toward an engagement with the politics of craftsmanship: a reframing of the work of learning disabled artists as vocational labour rather than a supposed 'authentic' presentation of self.


An increased isolation of fungi from the respiratory tract of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) has been reported. The prevalence of different fungi in CF patients from Turkey is not known. Our aim was to determine the frequency of fungi in the respiratory tract of Turkish CF patients. We investigated a total of 184 samples from 48 patients. Samples were inoculated on Medium B+ and CHROMagar Candida. Candida albicans was the predominant yeast isolated [30 patients (62.5%)], followed by C. parapsilosis [6 (12.5%)] and C. dubliniensis 5 (10.4%). Aspergillus fumigatus was the most common filamentous fungus [5 (10.4%)] and non‐fumigatus Aspergillus species were isolated from four (8.3%) patients. Staphylococcus aureus was the most frequently detected bacterium in C. albicans positive samples (53.57%). A. fumigatus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa or S. aureus were detected together in 75% of A. fumigatus positive samples each. No statistically significant relationship was detected between growth of yeast and moulds and age, gender, the use of inhaled corticosteroids or tobramycin. No significant correlation was found between the isolation of C. albicans, A. fumigatus and P. aeruginosa, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia or S. aureus, and the isolation of C. albicans and Haemophilus influenzae. Other factors which may be responsible for the increased isolation of fungi in CF need to be investigated.


Background: Oxidative stress is the result of an imbalance between the production and scavenging of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Recently, oxidative stress has been introduced as a major cause of male infertility. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to determine the correlation between total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and malondialdehyde (MDA) as markers of oxidative stress in relation to idiopathic male infertility and sperm parameters. Patients and Methods: This case control study was conducted using 35 men with idiopathic infertility and 34 men with proven fertility. Seminal plasma TAC and MDA were measured by ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP) and thiobarbituric acid (TBA) reaction methods, respectively. Results: Seminal TAC levels were significantly lower and seminal MDA levels were significantly higher in men with idiopathic infertility than in fertile men (P < 0.0001 and P = 0.004, respectively). A positive correlation was shown between sperm motility, sperm morphology, and TAC levels in men with idiopathic infertility (P = 0.002 and P = 0.002, respectively). In addition, there was a correlation between sperm motility and TAC levels in fertile men (P = 0.005). There was no correlation between sperm count and TAC levels in eithermenwith idiopathic infertility or in fertile men. Negative correlations were observed betweenMDAlevels and sperm motility, morphology, and sperm count only in men with idiopathic infertility (P = 0.003, P = 0.001, and P = 0.006, respectively). Conclusions: Our results show that oxidative stress could play an important role in male infertility as well as in sperm motility and sperm morphology.


The review considers mechanisms of an alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) which possess the second after telomerase but not less important place in telomere length regulation. The general data about ALT are shown. An alternative lengthening of telomeres in normal and cancer cell lines are characterized. Special attention is given to the features of recombinational and retrotranspositional mechanisms of ALT.


Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Society of Animal Science 2020. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US. This Open Access article contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0 (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2/). Transl. Anim. Sci. 2020.4:S48–S52 doi: 10.1093/tas/txaa096


Lean Product Development is a knowledge-based business concept in order to maintain high quality, meetcustomer requirements and to make product development more efficient. An important part of the processis to add a lot of resources at an early stage and execute the development as an iterative process betweendepartments exploring many alternatives thoroughly. The work focuses on how Lean ProductDevelopment is carried out and explores how to manage interaction between different departments andexpertise with regard to cross-functional collaboration and knowledge sharing i.e. learning.The information for the studies was gathered at a major Swedish company from two projects. The projectswere carried out as cross-functional and possible key factors for cross-functional collaboration wasidentified.The results have been correlated with theories of Lean, Product development, Lean product developmentand Learning. The analysis shows that to carry out activities according to Lean product development willrequire more than to follow the concept's framework for successful implementation. Factors that areidentified as important in cross-functional collaboration is also recognised in the Lean productdevelopment theory. However the theory does not indicate how the factors is implemented and carried outbut how it should be implemented. This will create opportunities and problems for companies that want towork and implement Lean product development.


Below is a full transcript of the audio introduction to our Special Section on Sonic Publics. In lieu of a traditional written introduction, we opted to interview the authors who contributed pieces to this section, and to present those interviews in a format that, in its audibility, reflects the common theme of the publications themselves. The audio quality varies from interview to interview due to logistics, circumstances, and the affordances of sound technology, so we hope this written transcript will augment the recording, as well as make it more broadly accessible and searchable.


Objective: This paper aimed to analyze the importance of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) EV71 antibody on the diagnosis of patients with severe hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) accompanied with encephalitis.
Method: Data were collected from 224 children patients with severe HFMD from March 2015 to March 2017. According to the occurrence and types of encephalitis, the participants were divided into control group (no encephalitis, n=72), bacterial encephalitis group (HFMD with bacterial encephalitis, n=86), and viral encephalitis group (HFMD with viral encephalitis, n=66). Serum and CSF EV71 antibody levels were detected. The sensitivity and specificity of CSF EV71 antibody for the early prediction of HFMD accompanied with encephalitis were measured using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The relationship of serum EV71 antibody on severe HFMD accompanied with encephalitis was determined based on logistic multivariate regression analysis.
Results: The serum and CSF EV71 antibody levels of the bacterial encephalitis and viral encephalitis groups were significantly higher than those of the control group (P 0.05). ROC curves showed the relatively high sensitivity and specificity of serum and CSF EV71 antibody for the early prediction of severe HFMD accompanied with encephalitis (P<0.05). Results of logistic multivariate regression analysis showed that when encephalitis complication was used as the dependent variable, all the impact factors of serum and CSF EV71 antibody exhibited statistical significance (P<0.05).
Conclusions: Severe HFMD with encephalitis complication can cause brain tissue damage among children and induce the sharp growth of serum and CSF EV71 antibody levels. The detection of serum EV71 antibody is characteristic of simple operation and small trauma. Thus, this antibody plays an important role in the early prediction of severe HFMD with encephalitis complication.


This study provides evidence that anticipation of daily water access in hamsters is regulated by nonphotically entrainable circadian oscillators located outside of the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN). Intact and SCN-ablated hamsters receiving 2 h/day water access ate large meals (representing 17-55% of daily food intake) during the 2-h access time. Two of nine SCN-intact hamsters, five of five hamsters with partial SCN ablations, and seven of nine hamsters with total SCN ablations showed anticipatory wheel-running rhythms synchronized to water access time. These anticipation rhythms usually disappeared during subsequent ad libitum water access but reappeared when the hamsters were water deprived for 2 days. When the water restriction schedule was shortened to an 18-h interval in six SCN-ablated hamsters, an 18-h activity rhythm emerged that usually did not persist during water deprivation. When the schedule was lengthened to 30-h intervals, several hamsters showed 27- to 29-h rhythms that did not stably synchronize to water access time. These results indicate that hamsters, like rats, possess a non-SCN-based water- and/or food-entrainable, self-sustaining oscillator with circadian limits to entrainment.


Trains running through railway lines often accumulate some delay. When this happens, rescheduling and rerouting decisions must be quickly taken in real time. Despite the fact that even a single wrong decision may deteriorate the performance of the whole railway network, this complex optimization task is still basically performed by human operators. In very recent years, the interest of train operators to implement automated decision systems has grown. Not incidentally, the railway application section (RAS) of INFORMS has issued a challenge devoted to this problem concomitantly with the INFORMS Annual Meeting 2012. In this article, we describe two heuristic approaches to solve the RAS problem based on a mixed integer linear programming formulation, and we report computational results on the three RAS instances and on an additional set of instances defined on a more congested network. Computational results on the challenge test bed show that our algorithms positively compare with other approaches to the RAS problem. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, Vol. 62(4), 315–326 2013


Although a population of T cells with CD3ζ chain deficiency has been found in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, and infectious disease, the role of CD3ζ chain in the disease pathogenesis remains unknown. To understand the contribution of CD3ζ deficiency to the expression of organ injury, we have performed the following studies. We used CD3ζ-deficient mice to investigate the role of CD3ζ in the pathogenesis of organ tissue inflammation. We found that the CD3ζ−/− mice can spontaneously develop significant organ inflammation that can be accelerated following the administration of polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid or allogeneic cells (graft versus host). T cells from CD3ζ−/− mice display increased expression of the adhesion molecules CD44 and CCR2 and produce increased amounts of IFN-γ blockade, which mitigates tissue inflammation. Our results demonstrate that CD3ζ deficiency bestows T cells with the ability to infiltrate various tissues and instigate inflammation. Decreased CD3ζ expression noted in T cells from various diseases contributes independently to tissue inflammation and organ damage. Approaches to restore CD3ζ expression of the surface of T cells should be expected to mitigate tissue inflammation.


This article discusses the gender-specific effects of armed conflict on girls and women that are addressed by the Machel Study. Among the most traumatic of these effects is sexual exploitation and gender-based violence, each having profound psychosocial consequences. Other gendered effects occur when girls are recruited as child soldiers, girls and women become internally and externally displaced refugees, and public health services, such as reproductive health care, are inadequate or unavailable. The Machel Study emphasizes women's proactive roles as peacebuilders and challenges governmental and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to focus greater attention upon building women's capacities in order to better protect children's physical and psychosocial well-being.


This ten Raa, author of the acclaimed text The Economics of Input–Output Analysis, now takes the reader to the forefront of the field. This volume collects and unifies his and his co-authors' research papers on national accounting, Input–Output coefficients, economic theory, dynamic models, stochastic analysis, and performance analysis. The research is driven by the task to analyze national economies. The final part of the book scrutinizes the emerging Asian economies in the light of international competition. Contents: National Accounts: National Accounts, Planning and Prices; Commodity and Sector Classifications in Linked Systems of National Accounts; Accounting or Technical Coefficients: The Choice of Model in the Construction of Input–Output Coefficients Matrices; The Extraction of Technical Coefficients from Input and Output Data; Neoclassical and Classical Connections: On the Methodology of Input–Output Analysis; The Substitution Theorem; Dynamic Input–Output Analysis: Dynamic Input–Output Analysis with Distributed Activities; Applied Dynamic Input–Output with Distributed Activities; Stochastic Input–Output Analysis: Primary Versus Secondary Production Techniques in US Manufacturing; Stochastic Analysis of Input–Output Multipliers on the Basis of Use and Make Tables; Performance Analysis: A Neoclassical Analysis of TFP Using Input–Output Prices; Competition and Performance: The Different Roles of Capital and Labor; The Canadian Economy: A General Equilibrium Analysis of the Evolution of Canadian Service Productivity; The Location of Comparative Advantages on the Basis of Fundamentals Only; Asian Economies: Competitive Pressures on China: Income Inequality and Migration; Competitive Pressure on the Indian Households: A General Equilibrium Approach; and other papers.


When the real (imaginary) part of the transfer function of a causal linear system is known for all frequencies, the imaginary (real) part may be calculated for all frequencies from the Kramers–Kronig relations. For physical systems, the real part could be the refractive index or the amplitude, and the imaginary part could be the extinction coefficient or the phase. Experimentally these quantities are known only for limited-frequency intervals. This paper presents generalized Kramers–Kronig relations, from which the real and imaginary parts may be calculated for all frequencies from knowledge of these parts for at least partly overlapping frequency intervals. When the procedure is applied to experimental data, errors are introduced. Certain types of errors of the known real and imaginary parts completely destroy the possibility of calculating the unknown parts, whereas others give negligible errors. The existence of a filter with the property of allowing the restoration of a truncated spectrum is established. The transfer function and the impulse response function of this filter are given.


Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) has revolutionized the way in which mobile subscribers across the globe leverage services on the go. The mobile devices have evolved from mere devices that enabled voice calls only a few years back to smart devices that enable the user to access value added services anytime, anywhere. MCC integrates cloud computing into the mobile environment and overcomes obstacles related to performance (e.g. battery life, storage, and bandwidth), environment (e.g. heterogeneity, scalability, availability) and security (e.g. reliability and privacy). This paper explains about Mobile cloud computing and SWOT analysis of MCC. This analysis is useful for mobile providers.


Option pricing dates back to the turn of the century with Bachelier's doctoral dissertation on speculation theory. In 1964 Bonness developed a formula for option pricing similar in nature to that of Black-Scholes's but that relied upon an unknown interest rate. It was not until 9 years later that Black and Scholes came up with a formula to price European options, which would revolutionize financial theory. Unlike most theoretical breakthroughs, Black-Scholes's formula became increasingly popular among practitioners, and nowadays it is widely used in the main exchanges around the world.

In recent years Hull, White and Rubinstein, among many others, have worked on pricing the so-called exotic options. Meanwhile Trigeorgis, Brennan, Schwartz and others have illustrated how option theory can be used in assessing the profitability of investment opportunities(real options. Option theory has been also applied to the pricing of many other financial instruments, such as warrants, callable bonds, and callable-convertibles bonds.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the progress that option theory has made since Black and Scholes developed their seminal formula. We will review the most outstanding models, mention some numerical methods used in option pricing when no analytical solution exist, and discuss the importance of real options as a new technique for assessing investment opportunities.


Making Senseof Design Effective design is at the heart of everything from software development to engineering to architecture. But what do we really know about the design process? What leads to effective, elegant designs? The Design of Design answers these questions. This new book by Fred Brooks contains extraordinary insights for designers in every discipline. Brooks pinpoints the constants inherent to all design projects and uncovers processes and patterns most likely to lead to excellence. Drawing on the observations and intuitions of dozens of exceptional designers, as well as his direct experiences in several design domains, Brooks argues convincingly that bold design decisions lead to better outcomes. The author tracks the evolution of the design process, delves into complex systems based on distributed design, and illuminates what makes a truly great designer. He examines the nuts and bolts that affect all design processes, including budget and other constraints, aesthetics, design empiricism, and tools, and then grounds this discussion in his own real-world examplescase studies ranging from home construction to IBMs Operating System/360. Throughout the book, Brooks reveals the keys to success that every designer, design project manager, and design researcher should know.


The aim of this study was to estimate the heart rate variability and blood pressure in dipper and nondipper, mild to moderate hypertensive patients and evaluate the correlation of these data. 41 patients were included in this study. All patients underwent the bifunctional ambulatory blood pressure and ECG monitoring ("Cardiotens-01", Medithech, Hungary). The correlative analysis was done with the programme "Microsoft Excel". The dipper and nondipper patients with mild to moderate arterial hypertension were found not to have any significant differences in average heart rate variability patterns, but nondippers had more significant vegetative disorders, that was reflected in converse correlation between heart rate variability and blood pressure patterns. In dippers there was noted the direct correlation characterizing the activation of the compensatory mechanisms.


A 1 MW class superconducting synchronous motor is designed considering several conditions such as superconducting wire length, machine efficiency and size. As the machine is larger and larger, the superconducting machine shows the advantages more and more over the conventional machines. Although the advantages at 1 MW rating are not so great, the design approach to get an appropriate result would be very helpful for larger super- conducting synchronous machine design. Major design concerns are focused on reducing expensive Bi-2223 HTS (High Temper- ature Superconducting) wire which is used for superconducting field coil carrying the rating current around 30 K while the machine efficiency is higher than conventional motors or generators with the same rating. Furthermore, some iron-cored structure is considered to reduce the HTS wire requirement without bad effect on machine performances such as sinusoidal armature voltage waveform, synchronous reactance and so on. Index Terms—Machine efficiency, superconducting syn- chronous motor, superconducting wire length, 1 MW class.


The rat 3-methylcholanthrene-inducible family of liver cytochromes P-450 contains two proteins (P-450c and P-450d) that are immunochemically related, possess 68% total sequence homology, and are induced by a number of toxic or carcinogenic compounds. To determine whether equivalent isozymes of hepatic cytochrome P-450 are expressed in humans, as they are in several mammalian species, we performed immunoblot analyses on microsomes prepared from 14 human liver specimens and found that each one contained a 52.5-kDa protein (termed HLd) that reacted with antibodies specific for rat P-450d. In addition, one specimen contained a 54-kDa protein (termed HLc) that reacted with antibodies specific for rat P-450c. HLd was purified through the use of immunoaffinity chromatography and was found to be 56% homologous to rat P-450d and 61% homologous to the equivalent isozyme in the rabbit (P-450 LM4) through their first 18 NH2-terminal amino acids. Finally, levels of immunoreactive HLd varied more than 10-fold among these patients but were unrelated to the patients' drug treatments, smoking habits, or amount of immunoreactive HLp, a human liver cytochrome P-450 related to the glucocorticoid-inducible family of rat cytochromes P-450. We conclude that, in man, there is a cytochrome P-450 family composed of two isozymes (HLc and HLd) that are immunochemically and structurally related to the 3-methylcholanthrene-inducible family observed in several other species.


Video streaming services are considered as the new standard method of delivering entertainment to the public. Netflix, one of the leading providers of video streaming, has reported that piracy continues to be their biggest competitor, referring to Popcorn Time specifically. Popcorn Time uses illegal means of providing video streaming. Popcorn Time offers a similar or even better video streaming experience compared to Netflix. In this paper, we study the competition between legal and illegal video streaming services. In particular, this paper elaborates on the analysis of network effects in relation to video streaming services and explains how an individual who uses video streaming can affect the overall value of the network where a particular video is being streamed. We propose the Competitive Video Streaming Model (CVSM), based on the Bass Diffusion model. The CVSM is applied to model the competition between Netflix and Popcorn Time. The main findings show that the timing of the onset of network effects is significant for the temporal evolution of adopters. Our results also suggest that the competitiveness of video streaming services depends on how the service provider is distributing the video streaming contents. It shows that distributing video streaming contents through P2P network subsidizes the growth of adopters to a greater extent compared to a client-server network. As such, the results of this study support the hypothesis that network effects can strengthen the competitiveness of illegal video streaming services.


The paper presents a biometric recognition methodology based on hand thermal information. We start with a hardware presentation, specially designed for this research in a form of thermal sensor plate delivering hand thermal maps, which is a significantly cheaper alternative to thermal cameras. We use a heuristic feature selection technique employing mutual information (mRMR) and well known space transformation methods (PCA and its combination with the LDA) to develop optimal biometric features by selecting those parts of the hand, which deliver the most discriminating personal information. Two different classifiers (k-NN and SVM) are applied and evaluated with a database of hand thermal maps captured for 50 different individuals in three sessions: two at the same day (enrollment attempts), and the third captured a week apart (verification attempt). We achieved 6.67% of an average equal error rate (EER), what suggests that temperature distribution of an inner part of human hand is individual. This may serve as e.g. supporting modality of two-modal biometric recognition (merged with hand geometry or palm print techniques), or may be a good candidate for hand liveness detection approach, as hand thermal maps are difficult to be copied and reconstructed on an artificial object imitating a human hand. To our best knowledge, this is the first work presenting the use of a human hand thermal maps as a direct source of biometric features.