Systems in many safety-critical application domains are subject to certification requirements. For any given system, however, it may be the case that only a subset of its functionality is safety-critical and hence subject to certification; the rest of the functionality is non-safety-critical and does not need to be certified, or is certified to lower levels of assurance. The certification-cognizant runtime scheduling of such mixed-criticality systems is considered. An algorithm called EDF-VD (for Earliest Deadline First with Virtual Deadlines) is presented: this algorithm can schedule systems for which any number of criticality levels are defined. Efficient implementations of EDF-VD, as well as associated schedulability tests for determining whether a task system can be correctly scheduled using EDF-VD, are presented. For up to 13 criticality levels, analyses of EDF-VD, based on metrics such as processor speedup factor and utilization bounds, are derived, and conditions under which EDF-VD is optimal with respect to these metrics are identified. Finally, two extensions of EDF-VD are discussed that enhance its applicability. The extensions are aimed at scheduling a wider range of task sets, while preserving the favorable worst-case resource usage guarantees of the basic algorithm.


In this study, to increase the blood stability and circulation time of polymeric nanoparticles as well as to investigate the effects of the structure on therapeutic indexes, 2 types of N-(2-hydroxypropyl)methacrylamide (HPMA) block copolymer–doxorubicin (copolymer–DOX) conjugates, including an amphiphilic linear one and a core cross-linked one, were designed. Comparative studies on their self-assembled nanoparticles, as advanced drug delivery systems, were investigated. Both conjugates could self-assemble into polymeric nanoparticles (block copolymer-NPs and cross-linked copolymer-NPs) with sizes of ∼20 nm. Those cross-linked nanoparticles demonstrated pH-sensitive drug release features as a much higher accumulative drug release (∼80.2%) in the presence of glutathione (GSH) and pH 5.0 was observed than that in PBS (pH 7.4) without GSH (about 27.0%, 24 h). The degraded segments with low MW (MW ∼28 kDa) can be observed in the presence of a reduction agent. In addition, in vivo pharmacokinetic behaviour studies showed that the cross-linked copolymer-NPs resulted in good blood stability and long-lasting circulation time compared with the linear block copolymer-NPs and the free drug. The cell viability test and migration and invasion assay showed that both nanoparticles can inhibit cancer cell proliferation. Finally, the cross-linked copolymer-NPs exhibited the best in vivo anticancer efficacy due to the highest tumor inhibition rate of 77.75% on the A549 lung tumor model. These results suggested that cross-linked copolymer-NPs could be a potential delivery system in cancer therapy.


In Blind Source Separation (BSS) the objective is to extract source signals from their linear mixtures. Algorithms developed for Independent Component Analysis (ICA) have proven useful in the field of BSS. The Projection Approximation Subspace Tracking with Deflation (PASTD) algorithm, originally developed for subspace tracking, has been extended by using a nonlinear cost function so that it may be used for ICA/BSS. Such algorithms most often require the input signals to be white. In this report we extend the PASTD algorithm so that it can be used to whiten signals as a pre-processing step before ICA. The performance of the ICA-algorithm is then evaluated for different choices of whitening algorithms. The algorithms are also evaluated for Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) modulated data over Rayleigh fading channels usually encountered in wireless communications.


This paper evaluates the potential effects of future commercial shipping through the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage on the spread of nonindigenous species (NIS) between Europe, the United States, and the Asia-Pacific region. We modeled NIS spread risk as a function of two factors: NIS introduction and NIS establishment. The change in risk of NIS introduction from one region to another is based on the expected commodity trade flow between the two regions given Arctic shipping routes. The risk of NIS establishment is based on current marine climate similarities between regions and projected 2030 terrestrial climate similarities. Results indicate that the United States, China, and Japan are at greatest risk for increased terrestrial and marine NIS spread to and from one another given their relatively high levels of trading activity and terrestrial and marine climate similarities. While increased trade between European and Asia-Pacific countries is expected in the future, only Japan has terrestrial climate similar enough to that of European countries to be considered a substantial terrestrial NIS spread risk, while China has the potential to increase the risk of marine NIS species spread in Europe.


This study describes a vision, how technology can help improving the efficiency in research. We propose a new clean-slate design, where more emphasis is given on the correctness and up-to-dateness of the scientific results, it is more open to new ideas and better utilize the research efforts worldwide by providing personalized interface for every researcher. The key idea is to reveal the structure and connections of the problems solved in the scientific studies. We will build the system with the main focus on the solved problems itself, and treat the studies only as one presentation form. By utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning on the network of the solved problems we could coordinate individual research activities in a large scale, that has never been seen before.


Introduction: Vesiculobullous diseases are a group of disorders in which primary lesion is a vesicle or a bulla on the skin or mucous membrane or both. Though some of the veisculobullous lesions are characteristics in their appearance and distribution, clinically many a times a definitive diagnosis cannot be made by physical examination alone. Then the dermatologists are forced to resort to histopathology for a definite diagnosis and classification. In the present scenario, even though histopathological study is sufficient in most of the cases, it is often accompanied by immunofluorescence antibody tests for confirmation of the diagnosis and monitoring of the disease. Direct immunofluorescence antibody test is a gold standard to confirm the disease and the indirect test helps to monitor the disease.
Objectives: This study was carried out to find out clinical and histopathological correlation in diagnosing the disease.
Materials and Methods: In the present study, histopathological evaluated vesiculobullous lesions over the period of 2 years. A total number of 35 cases were encountered. Staining procedures done are haematoxylin – eosin staining, leishmann staining and direct immunofluorescence stain.
Results: A total number of 35 cases were encountered which constituted 0.70% of overall biopsy specimen and 12.32% of skin biopsy specimen. The pemphigus vulgaris formed commonest disease encountered accounting for 34.30% of all skin lesions. Bullous pemphigoid formed the second most common disease observed (31.34%) affecting both sexes equally.
Conclusions: All though the 'primary' vesiculobullous lesions of skin are seen in a small group of people, they have been associated with significant a morbidity and mortality. It is important to distinguish each of these entities and separate them appropriate for management and treatment. Even though clinical examination has its own importance, both histopathological and DIF testing is must, as it confirms the diagnosis and


BACKGROUND The chin is a critical component to the perception of facial attractiveness. Dermal fillers offer a nonsurgical, temporary method of correcting mild to moderate chin retrusion and resorption. Thus far, discussion of this procedure has been largely limited to the plastic surgery and otolaryngology literature. OBJECTIVE To review pertinent aspects of anatomy, patient evaluation, injection technique, concomitant therapies, and complications in chin augmentation using injectable fillers. METHODS A brief review of the literature surrounding chin augmentation using injectable fillers, as well as the authors' experience in this area, is provided. RESULTS Chin augmentation using injectable fillers can be performed effectively and safely with adequate background knowledge of the regional anatomy and appropriate patient selection. The authors discuss both injection techniques in the published literature and their own approach. Potential complications and concomitant therapies are also reviewed. CONCLUSION As chin augmentation is increasingly recognized as an essential component to complete facial aesthetic rejuvenation, dermatologic surgeons should be familiar with how to safely and effectively perform augmentation with injectable fillers to achieve an optimal cosmetic outcome.


In this article, we present a new protein structure modeling approach based on multi-scoring functions sampling. The rationale is to integrate multiple carefully-selected physics-or knowledge-based scoring functions to tolerate insensitivity and inaccuracy existing in an individual scoring function so as to improve protein structure modeling accuracy. We apply the multi-scoring function sampling approach to protein loop backbone structure modeling. Our computational results show that sampling the scoring function space of a physics-based soft-sphere potential function and a knowledge-based scoring function based on pairwise atoms distance has led to resolution improvement in the predicted decoy populations in a set of 12-residue benchmark loop targets.


We investigated the purported association between developmental changes in grip selection planning and improvements in an individual's capacity to represent action at an internal level [i.e., motor imagery (MI)]. Participants were groups of healthy children aged 6–7 years and 8–12 years respectively, while a group of adolescents (13–17 years) and adults (18–34 years) allowed for consideration of childhood development in the broader context of motor maturation. A group of children aged 8–12 years with probable DCD (pDCD) was included as a reference group for atypical motor development. Participants' proficiency to generate and/or engage internal action representations was inferred from performance on the hand rotation task, a well-validated measure of MI. A grip selection task designed to elicit the end-state comfort (ESC) effect provided a window into the integrity of grip selection planning. Consistent with earlier accounts, the efficiency of grip selection planning followed a non-linear developmental progression in neurotypical individuals. As expected, analysis confirmed that these developmental improvements were predicted by an increased capacity to generate and/or engage internal action representations. The profile of this association remained stable throughout the (typical) developmental spectrum. These findings are consistent with computational accounts of action planning that argue that internal action representations are associated with the expression and development of grip selection planning across typical development. However, no such association was found for our sample of children with pDCD, suggesting that individuals with atypical motor skill may adopt an alternative, sub-optimal strategy to plan their grip selection compared to their same-age control peers.


Abstract: Gastric-duodenal ulcer is one of the most common digestive disorders. Medicinal plants are often used in traditional medicine to prevent and treat symptoms such as inflammation, gastritis and gastric-duodenal ulcer. This study evaluates the protective effect of the prepared functional food from Oryza sativa L., Coix lachryma jobi L., Codonopsis javanica (Blume), Atractylodis macrocephala Koidz and Dioscorea persimilis Prain et Burkill against indomethacin-induced gastric ulceration and cysteamine-induced duodenal ulcer in rats. In the gastric lesion model, rats were divided into five groups, and were given distilled water or ranitidine (50mg/kg) or functional food (3.5 g/kg or 7g/kg) for seven days. On day 7, gastric ulceration was induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of indomethacin (30 mg/kg). In the model of duodenal ulcer, rats were also divided into 5 groups and were given distilled water, or ranitidine or functional food for seven days. On day 7, gastric ulceration was induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of cysteamine (400 mg/kg). The results show that the functional food powder had a gastroprotective effect by significantly reducing the gastric ulcer index and gastric ulcer lesions. In addition, the results also show that the functional food powder had a protective effect on the duodenum by significantly reducing the duodenal ulcer index and duodenal ulcer lesions.
Keywords: Functional food, indomethacin, cysteamine, gastric ulcer, duodenal ulcer.
References:
[1] Chattopadhyay I, Bandyopadhyay U, Biswas K, Maity P, Banerjee RK. Indomethacin inactivates gastric peroxidase to induce reactive-oxygen-mediated gastric mucosal injury and curcumin protects it by preventing peroxidase inactivation and scavenging reactive oxygen. Free radical biology and medicine, 2006; 40: 1397-1408.[2] Minalyan A, Gabrielyan L, Scott D, Jacobs J, Pisegna JR. The Gastric and Intestinal Microbiome: Role of Proton Pump Inhibitors. Current Gastroenterology Reports, 2017; 19: 42.[3] Kim JW. NSAID-induced gastroenteropathy. The Korean journal of gastroenterology= Taehan Sohwagi Hakhoe chi, 2008; 52: 134-141.[4] Wallace JL, Keenan CM, Granger DN. Gastric ulceration induced by nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs is a neutrophil-dependent process. American Journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, 1990; 259: G462-G467.[5] Allam MM, El-Gohary OA. Gastroprotective effect of ghrelin against indomethacin-induced gastric injury in rats: possible role of heme oxygenase-1 pathway. General physiology and biophysics, 2017; 36: 321.[6] Miller SL, Schlesinger G. Prebiotic syntheses of vitamin coenzymes: I. Cysteamine and 2-mercaptoethanesulfonic acid (coenzyme M). Journal of molecular evolution, 1993; 36: 302-307.[7] Dohil R, Gangoiti JA, Cabrera BL, Fidler M, Schneider JA, Barshop BA. Long-term treatment of cystinosis in children with twice-daily cysteamine. The Journal of pediatrics, 2010; 156: 823-827.[8] Selye H, Szabo S. Experimental model for production of perforating duodenal ulcers by cysteamine in the rat. Nature, 1973; 244: 458.[9] Warzecha Z, Ceranowicz D, Dembinski A, Ceranowicz P, Cieszkowski J, Kuwahara A, Kato I, Dembinski M, Konturek PC. Ghrelin accelerates the healing of cysteamine-induced duodenal ulcers in rats. Medical science monitor: international medical journal of experimental and clinical research, 2012; 18: BR181.[10] Inas Z, Hala AK, Gehan HH. Gastroprotective effect of Cordia myxa L. fruit extract against indomethacin-induced gastric ulceration in rats. Life Sci J, 2011; 8: 433-445.[11] Desai JK, Goyal RK, Parmar NS. Gastric and Duodenal Anti‐ulcer Activity of SKF 38393, a Dopamine D1‐Receptor Agonist in Rats. Journal of pharmacy and pharmacology, 1995; 47: 734-738.[12] Abdel‐Raheem IT. Gastroprotective Effect of Rutin against Indomethacin‐Induced Ulcers in Rats. Basic & clinical pharmacology & toxicology, 2010; 107: 742-750.[13] Szabo S, Haith LR, Reynolds ES. Pathogenesis of duodenal ulceration produced by cysteamine or propionitrile. Digestive diseases and sciences, 1979; 24: 471-477.[14] Jeitner TM, Lawrence DA. Mechanisms for the cytotoxicity of cysteamine. Toxicological sciences, 2001; 63: 57-64.[15] Khomenko T, Szabo S, Deng X, Ishikawa H, Anderson GJ, McLaren GD. Role of iron in the pathogenesis of cysteamine-induced duodenal ulceration in rats. American Journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, 2009; 296: G1277-G1286.[16] Min B, Gu L, McClung AM, Bergman CJ, Chen M-H. Free and bound total phenolic concentrations, antioxidant capacities, and profiles of proanthocyanidins and anthocyanins in whole grain rice (Oryza sativa L.) of different bran colours. Food Chemistry, 2012; 133: 715-722.[17] Wu T-T, Charles AL, Huang T-C. Determination of the contents of the main biochemical compounds of Adlay (Coxi lachrymal-jobi). Food chemistry, 2007; 104: 1509-1515.[18] He J-Y, Ma N, Zhu S, Komatsu K, Li Z-Y, Fu W-M. The genus Codonopsis (Campanulaceae): a review of phytochemistry, bioactivity and quality control. Journal of natural medicines, 2015; 69: 1-21.[19] Peng W, Han T, Xin W-B, Zhang X-G, Zhang Q-Y, Jia M, Qin L-P. Comparative research of chemical constituents and bioactivities between petroleum ether extracts of the aerial part and the rhizome of Atractylodes macrocephala. Medicinal chemistry research, 2011; 20: 146-151.[20] Saleha S, Saidi N, Rasnovi S, Iqbalsyah TM. Nutritional Composition of Dioscorea Hispida from Different Locations around Leuser Ecosystem Area. Jurnal Natural, 2018; 18: 1-6.[21] Sathish R, Vyawahare B, Natarajan K. Antiulcerogenic activity of Lantana camara leaves on gastric and duodenal ulcers in experimental rats. Journal of ethnopharmacology, 2011; 134: 195-197.


Effective science communication is challenging when scientific messages are informed by a continually updating evidence base and must often compete against misinformation. We argue that we need a new program of science communication as collective intelligence—a collaborative approach, supported by technology. This would have four key advantages over the typical model where scientists communicate as individuals: scientific messages would be informed by (a) a wider base of aggregated knowledge, (b) contributions from a diverse scientific community, (c) participatory input from stakeholders, and (d) better responsiveness to ongoing changes in the state of knowledge.


Background The treatment for stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) often involves multi-modality treatment. This retrospective study aimed to evaluate whether multidisciplinary team (MDT) discussion results in better patient survival. Materials and methods MDT discussion was optional before February 2016 and was actively encouraged by the MDT committee beginning February 2016. We reviewed the medical charts and computer records of patients with stage III NSCLC between January 2013 and December 2018. Results A total of 515 patients were included. The median survival of all the patients was 33.9 months (M). The median survival of patients who were treated after MDT discussion was 41.2 M and that of patients treated without MDT discussion was 25.7 M (p = 0.018). The median survival of patients treated before February 2016 was 25.7 M and that of patients treated after February 2016 was 33.9 M (p = 0.003). The median survival of patients with stage IIIA tumors and those with stage IIIB tumors was 39.4 M and 25.7 M, respectively (p = 0.141). Multivariate analysis showed that MDT or not (p<0.001), T staging (p = 0.009), performance status (p<0.001), and surgery (p = 0.016) to be significant prognostic factors. Conclusion The results of the study show that MDT discussion results in survival benefit in patients with stage III NSCLC. The MDT discussion, performance status, and if surgery was performed were independent prognostic factors for patients with stage III NSCLC.


In this paper, a novel framework is presented to estimate protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and domain-domain interactions (DDIs) based on a belief propagation estimation method that efficiently computes interaction probabilities. Experimental interactions, domain architecture, and gene ontology (GO) annotations are used to create a factor graph representation of the joint probability distribution of pairwise protein and domain interactions. Bound structures are used as a priori evidence of domain interactions. These structures come from experiments documented in iPfam. The probability distribution contained in the factor graph is then efficiently marginalized with a message passing algorithm called the sum-product algorithm (SPA). This method is compared against two other approaches: maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) and maximum specificity set cover (MSSC). SPA performs better for simulated scenarios and for inferring high-quality PPI data of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This framework can be used to predict potential protein and domain interactions at a genome wide scale and for any organism with identified protein-domain architectures.


Qian et al. and Tuomisto and Ruokolainen critique our analyses of elevational and latitudinal variation in tree diversity. We address their points by reanalyzing different subsets of our data and by clarifying certain misconceptions, and reiterate that gradients in β diversity can be explained in the elevational and latitudinal tree data sets by variation in the size of species pools.


The DAX-1 (also known as AHC) gene encodes an unusual member of the nuclear hormone receptor superfamily. DAX-1 plays a critical role during gonadal and adrenal differentiation since mutations of the human DAX-1 gene cause X-linked adrenal hypoplasia congenita associated with hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. In recent studies, DAX-1 was reported to function as a transcriptional suppressor of Ad4BP/SF-1, a critical transcription factor in gonadal and adrenal differentiation. With respect to implication of Ad4BP/SF-1 in the transcriptional regulation of the DAX-1 gene, inconsistent findings have been previously reported. We investigated the upstream region of the mouse Dax-1 (also known as Ahch) gene and identified a novel Ad4/SF-1 site by transient transfection and electrophoretic mobility shift assays. In addition, immunohistochemical analyses with a specific antibody to Dax-1 indicated the presence of immunoreactive cells in steroidogenic tissues, pituitary gland, and hypothalamus. Although the distributions of Dax-1 and Ad4BP/SF-1 were very similar, they were not completely identical. The expression of Dax-1 was significantly impaired in knock-out mice of the Ftz-f1 gene, which encodes Ad4BP/ SF-1. Taken together, our findings indicate that Ad4BP/SF-1 controls the transcription of the Dax-1 gene.


Abstract Immature teratoma in association with SIADH is rare. A 17-year-old patient presented with a pelvic mass and serum sodium concentration of 121 mmol/l. Subsequent investigation confirmed SIADH and grade 2 ovarian immature teratoma. No other causes of SIADH were found apart from the immature teratoma. There was no further recurrence of SIADH after the curative surgery and chemotherapy. We postulate that immature teratoma consists of neurohypophyseal structures which account for the ADH release.


In late 1998, birders and biologists in central Florida were thrilled to observe a record number of species visiting the Lake Apopka restoration project. Unfortunately, what initially appeared to be a great ecological restoration success story soon turned into an ecological nightmare. By March of 1999, hundreds of birds were sick and dying. As the National Audubon Society reported shortly thereafter, "hundreds of fish-eating birds were dying, some convulsing and bleeding from the eyes and beak, symptoms of pesticide poisoning." The poisoned birds included protected species such as American white pelicans, wood storks and even the bald eagle. By 1999, the St. Johns River Water Management District ("SJRWMD"), the agency in charge of the Lake Apopka restoration project, saw itself morph from the natural resources agency responsible for a successful project that attracted record numbers of birds to the subject of a federal criminal investigation for alleged violations of several federal laws including the Endangered Species Act ("ESA"), the Migratory Bird Treaty Act ("MBTA"), and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act ("BGEPA"). At this point, SJRWMD could have chosen to throw in the towel on its Lake Apopka restoration efforts and shift all of its resources and attention to defending itself against the criminal allegations. Instead, SJRWMD chose to push on and continue with the restoration project, and use the bird kill tragedy to guide future research and restoration decisions. In other words, SJRWMD chose to "adapt" to the new information gleaned from the tragedy and learn from its mistakes, a process fairly characterized as "adaptive management." For decades, scientific and legal scholars alike have promoted the concept of "adaptive management" as a necessary approach to meaningful environmental management, restoration, and regulation. Unfortunately, adaptive management success stories are few and far between. The Lake Apopka Restoration Project provides a real-world illustration of adaptive management at work. In this Article, I use adaptive management theory to explore mechanisms to make environmental law better able to address the uncertainties and changing nature of natural systems to restore and protect ecological resilience using the Lake Apopka restoration project as a case study. The case study involves more than fifty years of experience with environmental contamination, pollution control, clean-up, and restoration and demonstrates the need for an adaptive approach to respond to new information, unintended consequences, and changed economic and ecological circumstances. The case study involves a number of federal and state regulatory and incentive-based programs. This Article evaluates which approaches used on Lake Apopka were "adaptive" and which were not and how a multifaceted approach using a number of complex regulatory and non-regulatory tools may be needed to adequately deal with environmental restoration issues. Specifically, this Article takes an in-depth look at what SJRWMD did to shift Lake Apopka back to its non-eutrophic state and to reintroduce resilience mechanisms back into the lake. The Article also evaluates the adaptations that were necessary at virtually every step in the restoration process to respond to legal losses, changed circumstances, new scientific understandings, unintended consequences of restoration activities, and even tragic mistakes. The Article concludes by offering observations on the lessons from Lake Apopka that can be used to make future environmental restoration projects more adaptive and more successful at restoring ecological resilience.


In August 2004, for the first time, France experienced a public health crisis triggered by the entry of a rabid dog within its borders. In the past, similar events had remained confined within the professional community. To shed light on the onset of this first public rabies crisis, this paper shows how the transformation of a "business-as-usual" professional problem into a bona fide public health crisis may be interpreted as a sudden renegotiation of the historical compromise which previously existed around the management of rabies. Public health changes and reorganizations which had occurred prior to this episode allowed human health authorities to reposition themselves at the center of the rabies management programs, when they used to remain at their periphery. By reformatting crisis perception and allowing the emergence of new specific rabies-related expertise, a series of health-related crises, from the 2003 heat wave to various rabies alerts, triggered the transformation of a rabies alert into a public health crisis. Furthermore, confronting various action frameworks played a part in modifying the perception and analysis of the August 2004 alert, thus contributing to the radicalization of implemented management decisions. Thus, to understand the August 2004 rabies crisis, it is necessary to consider it both within the history of rabies as a public concern, as well as within the larger moving landscape of health crisis management as a whole.


BACKGROUND
Geocoding, the process of converting textual information (addresses) into geographic coordinates is increasingly used in public health/epidemiological research and practice. To date, little attention has been paid to geocoding quality and its impact on different types of spatially-related health studies. The primary aim of this study was to compare 2 freely available geocoding services (Google and OpenStreetMap) with regard to matching rate (percentage of address records capable of being geocoded) and positional accuracy (distance between geocodes and the ground truth locations).

METHODS
Residential addresses were geocoded by the NRW state office for information and technology and were considered as reference data (gold standard). The gold standard included the coordinates, the quality of the addresses (4 categories), and a binary urbanity indicator based on the CORINE land cover data. 2 500 addresses were randomly sampled after stratification for address quality and urbanity indicator (approximately 20 000 addresses). These address samples were geocoded using the geocoding services from Google and OSM.

RESULTS
In general, both geocoding services showed a decrease in the matching rate with decreasing address quality and urbanity. Google showed consistently a higher completeness than OSM (>93 vs. >82%). Also, the cartographic confounding between urban and rural regions was less distinct with Google's geocoding API. Regarding the positional accuracy of the geo-coordinates, Google also showed the smallest deviations from the reference coordinates, with a median of <9 vs. <175.8 m. The cumulative density function derived from the positional accuracy showed for Google that nearly 95% and for OSM 50% of the addresses were geocoded within <50 m of their reference coordinates.

CONCLUSION
The geocoding API from Google is superior to OSM regarding completeness and positional accuracy of the geocoded addresses. On the other hand, Google has several restrictions, such as the limitation of the requests to 2 500 addresses per 24 h and the presentation of the results exclusively on Google Maps, which may complicate the use for scientific purposes.


The objective of this thesis is to describe the fundamental concepts relating to the reformulation of quantum mechanics in phase space. It is assumed that the interested reader is familiar with the principles and techniques of ordinary quantum mechanics. In classical statistical mechanics the expectation values of physical quantities are calculated as averages over phase space distribution functions. It is possible to obtain a similar procedure in quantum mechanics. However, phase space is a classical concept and thus has no quantum mechanical equivalent, owing to the non-commutability of the operators p and q. A sensible basic requirement for the formulation of quantum mechanics in phase space is a linear one-one mapping between quantum operators and classical functions. This was achieved by the pioneering work of Weyl, Wigner and Moyal. The phase space that they devised we shall call "pseudo phase space". It is completely quantum. The pseudo phase space variables are represented by commuting c-numbers of momentum, p, and position, q; they are the result of applying the Weyl correspondence rule to the operators p and q, respectively. In some ways the pseudo phase space formulation of quantum mechanics appears to return us to an "almost" classical arena, since we dispense with the calculus of non-commuting operators for purely algebraic methods. The pseudo phase space formulation of quantum mechanics is self-contained. That is, there is no need, in principle, to switch to the Schroedinger or Heisenberg pictures when solving physical problems, although it may often be convenient to do so. The classical appearance of the pseudo phase space scheme is especially useful when considering the semi-classical limit of quantum mechanics. In fact, for potentials up to and including the harmonic oscillator the equations represent classical motion. The structure of the thesis is such that it takes the reader steadily through the major concepts of pseudo phase space theory. The mathematical techniques that shall be needed are developed early in Chapter 1. These are used throughout the thesis. This presents the advantage that the reader is not faced with learning new mathematical methods as the thesis proceeds. The pseudo phase space formulation of quantum mechanics as found applications in all areas of mathematical physics. Hence, there is a considerable amount of specialist literature available on the subject. It is hoped that this thesis serves has an introduction.


This study investigates self-efficacy and motivation regulation as possible mediators of the relationship between social and interpersonal resources (i.e., social network, social support, social acknowledgment as a victim, and disclosure) and adjustment disorder (AJD) symptoms in a sample of 121 adults aged 65–97 years. AJD was conceptualized as a form of stress-response syndrome, core symptoms of which are intrusions, avoidance, and failure to adapt after having experienced a critical event. Motivational variables mediated the relationship between social acknowledgment and AJD symptoms. Contrary to expectations, motivational variables were not found to mediate the link between reluctance to disclose and AJD symptoms. This study casts new light on the psychological processes that enable older adults to adjust to critical life events and to exhibit resilience, which is important for successful aging.


This study analyzes the characteristics of the top-100 most cited articles published in international dental journals with at least one coauthor affiliated to Brazil. A search in Scopus database for articles published between 1996 and 2017 was carried out in the 178 journals belonging to the category "Dentistry" identified in SCImago Journals & Country Rank. From the top-100 most cited articles, variables related to the journal, article, and authors were collected. Annual citation averages (ACA) and relative citation ratios (RCR) were calculated. Data were analyzed descriptively. There were 75 original reports and 25 reviews in the sample. The number of citations ranged between 124 and 657 (mean=202, median=168). The papers were published in 31 different journals (46% in only four journals), none based in Brazil. The most frequent subjects (61%) were Dental Materials, Endodontics, and Periodontology, which accounted for 63.6% of the total citations. The subject with the highest ACA was Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and the subject with the highest RCR was Oral Radiology. Only 12 articles were cited more than 300 times. International collaboration was present in 61 articles and funding was reported in 49 articles. The first author was from Brazil in 70% and corresponding author in 55% of the papers. Southeast (83%) and South (20%) were the regions of Brazil with most presence of coauthors. This top-100 list is presented to provide an overview of the most cited articles and aid in supporting further analyses regarding publication and citation behaviors of Brazilian dentistry.


Privacy has been one of the major concerns for customers in smart grids. Randomized perturbation based privacy-preserving smart metering methods, which are efficient and easy to implement, have recently become one of the commonly adopted solutions. However, it is a challenging task to meet utility companies' data collection requirements while protecting customer privacy. This paper analyzes the privacy protection capability of randomized perturbation based privacy-preserving smart metering methods. Both theoretical analysis and empirical studies show that statistical information of individual customers can still be accurately obtained from these randomly perturbed data. Also, an appliance usage inference method is proposed to accurately identify appliance operations of individual customers using randomly perturbed smart metering data. Evaluations using real-world smart metering data demonstrate that the proposed method can identify appliance operations with an accuracy between 92% and 99%.


Bound propagation based incomplete neural network verifiers such as CROWN are very efficient and can significantly accelerate branch-and-bound (BaB) based complete verification of neural networks. However, bound propagation cannot fully handle the neuron split constraints introduced by BaB commonly handled by expensive linear programming (LP) solvers, leading to loose bounds and hurting verification efficiency. In this work, we develop $\beta$-CROWN, a new bound propagation based method that can fully encode neuron splits via optimizable parameters $\beta$ constructed from either primal or dual space. When jointly optimized in intermediate layers, $\beta$-CROWN generally produces better bounds than typical LP verifiers with neuron split constraints, while being as efficient and parallelizable as CROWN on GPUs. Applied to complete robustness verification benchmarks, $\beta$-CROWN with BaB is up to three orders of magnitude faster than LP-based BaB methods, and is notably faster than all existing approaches while producing lower timeout rates. By terminating BaB early, our method can also be used for efficient incomplete verification. We consistently achieve higher verified accuracy in many settings compared to powerful incomplete verifiers, including those based on convex barrier breaking techniques. Compared to the typically tightest but very costly semidefinite programming (SDP) based incomplete verifiers, we obtain higher verified accuracy with three orders of magnitudes less verification time. Our algorithm empowered the $\alpha,\!\beta$-CROWN (alpha-beta-CROWN) verifier, the winning tool in VNN-COMP 2021. Our code is available at http://PaperCode.cc/BetaCROWN


Deep learning has recently achieved significant progress in trajectory forecasting. However, the scarcity of trajectory data inhibits the data-hungry deep-learning models from learning good representations. While mature representation learning methods exist in computer vision and natural language processing, these pre-training methods require large-scale data. It is hard to replicate these approaches in trajectory forecasting due to the lack of adequate trajectory data (e.g., 34K samples in the nuScenes dataset). To work around the scarcity of trajectory data, we resort to another data modality closely related to trajectories-HD-maps, which is abundantly provided in existing datasets. In this paper, we propose PreTraM, a self-supervised pre-training scheme via connecting trajectories and maps for trajectory forecasting. Specifically, PreTraM consists of two parts: 1) Trajectory-Map Contrastive Learning, where we project trajectories and maps to a shared embedding space with cross-modal contrastive learning, and 2) Map Contrastive Learning, where we enhance map representation with contrastive learning on large quantities of HD-maps. On top of popular baselines such as AgentFormer and Trajectron++, PreTraM boosts their performance by 5.5% and 6.9% relatively in FDE-10 on the challenging nuScenes dataset. We show that PreTraM improves data efficiency and scales well with model size.


A necessary and sufficient condition is given for the exact reduction of systems modeled by linear fractional transformations (LFTs) on structured operator sets. This condition is based on the existence of a rank-deficient solution to either of a pair of linear matrix inequalities which generalize Lyapunov equations; the notion of Gramians is thus also generalized to uncertain systems, as well as Kalman-like decomposition structures. A related minimality condition, the converse of the reducibility condition, may then be inferred from these results and the equivalence class of all minimal LFT realizations defined. These results comprise the first stage of a complete generalization of realization theory concepts to uncertain systems. Subsequent results, such as the definition of and rank tests on structured controllability and observability matrices are also given. The minimality results described are applicable to multidimensional system realizations as well as to uncertain systems; connections to formal powers series representations also exist.


The spin dynamics in narrow ferromagnetic rings is studied in the frequency range from 45MHzto20GHz at room temperature. Our broadband spectrometer allows us to monitor the ferromagnetic resonance of characteristic spin configurations as a function of an external field μ0H. We observe hysteresis and irreversible jumps of the resonance frequencies which we attribute to onion-to-vortex and vortex-to-reversed-onion transitions.


The relative contributions of muscle force, moment arm, and tendon compliance were determined as a function of joint angle in the frog semitendinosus-hip joint system. Muscle, joint, and tendon properties were individually measured and then combined to predict the torque generated at the hip joint as a function of joint angle (i.e., the hip torque profile). Predicted torques were then compared to experimentally measured torques using a stepwise regression model to quantify the relative importance of muscle, joint, and tendon contributions to the hip torque profile. Variation in moment arm accounted for 74% of the variability observed in the hip torque profile, while addition of the muscle's intrinsic sarcomere length-tension property accounted for an additional 19% of the torque profile variability. Tendon compliance, which permitted a small amount of sarcomere shortening, accounted for only about 4% of the torque profile variability. We conclude that in this muscle-joint system, the relative fiber length-to-moment arm ratio is the major determinant of the shape of the isometric joint profile. The fiber length-to-moment arm ratio in other mammalian systems is also discussed.


Vehicle re-identification (re-ID) is to identify the same vehicle across different cameras. It's a significant but challenging topic, which has received little attention due to the complex intra-class and inter-class variation of vehicle images and the lack of large-scale vehicle re-ID dataset. Previous methods focus on pulling images from different vehicles apart but neglect the discrimination between vehicles from different vehicle models, which is actually quite important to obtain a correct ranking order for vehicle re-ID. In this paper, we learn a structured feature embedding for vehicle re-ID with a novel coarse-to-fine ranking loss to pull images of the same vehicle as close as possible and achieve discrimination between images from different vehicles as well as vehicles from different vehicle models. In the learnt feature space, both intra-class compactness and inter-class distinction are well guaranteed and the Euclidean distance between features directly reflects the semantic similarity of vehicle images. Furthermore, we build so far the largest vehicle re-ID dataset "Vehicle-1M," which involves nearly 1 million images captured in various surveillance scenarios. Experimental results on "Vehicle-1M" and "VehicleID" demonstrate the superiority of our proposed approach.


Epidemiological findings point to very low blood alcohol levels heightening the risk of sleep‐related fatal road crashes. This was further assessed using a full sized interactive car simulator. Twenty, sleep restricted, healthy young men underwent a 2 h simulated afternoon monotonous drive, having previously consumed nil alcohol or 3 units >90 min previously, and having near‐zero breath alcohol (BrACs) at the start of the drive. In a repeated measures, double‐blind, balanced design, driving performance, subjective sleepiness and EEG were monitored throughout. Compared with nil alcohol, the alcohol condition initially increased sleepiness‐related driving impairment. However, this was not mirrored by subjective sleepiness or EEG. An unexpected reversal (i.e. improvement) in driving impairment occurred with the alcohol group, in the second hour of the drive. This was supported by a trend for improved subjective alertness. Alcohol continued to interact with sleepiness‐related driving impairment after BrACs had reached zero. However, a lack of subjective perception of increased sleepiness, at this time, further points to the dangerous combination of even modest alcohol intake and sleepiness, and confirms the road crash findings. BrACs are a poor guide to driver impairment. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Background: We aimed to extract the ingredients from leaves of Gossypium hirsutum (Bt cotton) using different solvents and evaluate for potential use to control different larval stages of mosquito species, Aedes aegypti and Anopheles stephensi. Methods: Qualitative and quantitative estimation of ingredients from Go. hirsutum (Bt) plant extract was carried out and their inhibitory action against mosquito larvae was determined using mosquito larvicidal assay. Results: LC50 values of water, ethanol, ethyl acetate and hexane extracts for Ae. aegypti were 211.73±21.49, 241.64±19.92, 358.07±32.43, 401.03±36.19 and 232.56±26.00, 298.54±21.78, 366.50±30.59, 387.19±31.82 for 4th instar of An. stephensi, respectively. The water extract displayed lowest LC50 value followed by ethanol, ethyl acetate and hexane. Owing to the comparatively better activity of water extract, its efficacy was further evaluated for mosquito larvicidal activity, which exhibited LC50 values of 133.95±12.79, 167.65±11.34 against 2nd and 3rd instars of Ae. aegypti and 145.48±11.76, 188.10±12.92 against 2nd and 3rd instars of An. stephensi, respectively. Crude protein from the water extract was precipitated using acetone and tested against 2nd, 3rd and 4th instars of Ae. aegypti and An. stephensi. It revealed further decrease in LC50 values as 105.72±25.84, 138.23±23.18, 126.19±25.65, 134.04±04 and 137.88±17.59, 154.25±16.98 for 2nd, 3rd and 4th instars of Ae. aegypti and An. stephensi, respectively. Conclusion: Leaves extracts of Go. hirsutum (Bt) is potential mosquito larvicide and can be used as a potent alternative to chemical insecticides in integrated pest management.


This paper presents a proposed framework for the crime and criminal data analysis and detection using Decision tree Algorithms for data classification and Simple K Means algorithm for data clustering. The paper tends to help specialists in discovering patterns and trends, making forecasts, finding relationships and possible explanations, mapping criminal networks and identifying possible suspects. The classification is based mainly on grouping the crimes according to the type, location, time and other attributes; Clustering is based on finding relationships between different Crime and Criminal attributes having some previously unknown common characteristics. The results of both classifications and Clustering are used for prediction of trends and behavior of the given objects (Crimes and Criminals). Data for both crimes and criminals were collected from free police departments' dataset available on the Internet to create and test the proposed framework, and then these data were preprocessed to get clean and accurate data using different preprocessing techniques (cleaning, missing values and removing inconsistency). The preprocessed data were used to find out different crime and criminal trends and behaviors, and crimes and criminals were grouped into clusters according to their important attributes. WEKA mining software and Microsoft Excel were used to analyze the given data.


Diabetes is a chronic disease that affects over 400 million people globally. With 5.5% increase in diabetes re- lated deaths in 2010, as compared to the 2007 and World Health Organisation's projection of diabetes as the 7 th leading cause of death by 2030, has dazed the current drug discovery fraternity. The major focus of drug discovery has been to- wards the control of hyperglycemia while the severe complications arising due to it have been overlooked. Plant based natural products (pure phytochemicals or in the form of crude extracts) have been the mainstay of drug discovery program for treatment of numerous human diseases. In addition, indigenous systems of medicines like Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) possess a rich plethora of knowledge about clinically used medicinal plants for controlling the diabetic complications. With India becoming the capital of diabetes and its associated complications, the present natural products perspective is more evident and highlights the current natural products based research that has been done for the last five years in tackling diabetic complications.


Meteorological parameters are one of the factors that will affect the concentration and distribution of particulate matter but the strength of the relationship is different depends on the certain parameters such as geographical location; land use, rapid growth of industrialization and transportation activity in the study area. The main objective in this study is to establish the relationship between PM₁₀ concentration and meteorological parameters in seasonal pattern for these three years (2004-2006). The highest value of correlation coefficient for PM₁₀ and wind speed was measured at - 0.18 during spring intermonsoon in 2004 at Kuala Selangor station. It shows that that PM₁₀ was increased as wind speed decreased. Relationship between PM₁₀ and temperature has showed positive relationship PM₁₀ where PM₁₀ increases as temperature increases. The r-square value ranged from 0.14 to 0.36. Klang and Petaling Jaya station has recorded the higher r-square value with 0.36 and 0.34 as compared with other stations. The highest correlation between PM₁₀ and humidity was observed at Klang station during autumn intermonsoon in 2005. The second objective is to analyze spatial distribution of PM₁₀ concentration distribution in seasonal pattern and the third objective is to compare the spatial interpolation technique for distribution of PM₁₀ concentration. In the spatial analysis of PM₁₀ concentration, Ordinary Kriging was chosen as best interpolator as less Root mean Square Error achieved by this technique. Another set of PM₁₀ data in 2010 was being tested with 2006 data by using the similar technique and 81.5% similarity result was obtained.


We propose a dual step µ-3D printing (two-photon lithography) strategy, which is the 3D version of the classic lithography etching-mask strategy, to achieve selective gold metallization for the realization of reflective micro-optics. We apply this strategy to obtain right-angle prism micro-mirrors used to create dynamic counterpropagating optical traps for biological samples in a holographic optical trapping setup with a single low-NA objective. We print the prisms on standard glass coverslips to create integrated optical trapping chips. We show the automatization of alignment between prisms and masks by a computer vision software.


Background Non-traumatic shoulder injuries are common in overhead sports, however many athletes still participate in their sport despite pain. Non-optimal scapula kinematics at the instant of maximal humeral external rotation (HumExtRot) is considered a risk factor in overhead throwing sports. Objective The aim of the study was to investigate whether a functional fatigue protocol affects scapula kinematics during throwing, and whether this effect is different between players who are pain-free and participating with pain. Design A controlled intervention study. Setting 3D Motion Analysis Laboratory with 8 cameras (Vicon T40, Oxford, UK). Patients (or Participants) 16 adult, mean age 21,9(2,4) years, elite female team handball players were recruited from top 2 leagues in Denmark. The participants were divided into two groups; 8 subjects playing with pain(P) and 8 subjects playing without pain(NP) served as controls. Interventions (or Assessment of Risk Factors) Measurements of scapula and gleno-humeral kinematics were collected during maximal throws before and after a fatiguing protocol, containing 60 alternated submaximal-and maximal throws. Main Outcome Measurements Maximal HumExtRot in relation to scapula, scapula posterior tilt (ScapPostTilt), scapula retraction (ScapRetr) and scapula upward rotation (ScapUpRot) at the instant of maximal HumExtRot were selected as outcome parameters. Overall effects for the whole group, between groups and differences in fatigue development between groups were evaluated using 2-way repeated measures ANOVA. Results As a result of fatigue, the group (n=16) showed less ScapPostTilt (Mean=5,5°, SD=6,3°, p=0.004), ScapUpRot (Mean=3,7°, SD=4°,p=0,003), and less ScapRetr (Mean=2,7°, SD=4°, p=0,044), and the HumExtRot increased (Mean=3,3°, SD=5,9°, p=0,048). No significant differences between groups were found, however a tendency towards greater HumExtRot was observed (Mean difference=15.2°, SD=16.9°, p=0,089), for players with NP. Conclusions The results indicate that fatigue has a detrimental effect on scapula and gleno-humeral kinematics, which may increase the risk of non-traumatic shoulder injuries. However P-players did not respond differently to fatigue-development.


Vehicular accidents from fatigue due to sleep-deprived driving are rapidly increasing among heavy vehicle drivers. Consequently, a critical analysis of drivers' fatigue in real time, using established clinical parameters, and subsequent scoring is of dire need in automobile sector. Such a scoring system would be helpful in validating the fatigue detecting devices based on non-contact features that can be installed onboard. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze and quantify physical fatigue during sleep-deprived simulated driving and their utility in developing objective score for fatigue assessment. The genesis and progression of physical fatigue was also analyzed in apparently healthy and pathological condition such as tauopathy. In the first set of experiments, the behavioral changes, cognition and motor performance in response to induced fatigue was analyzed in αCAMK-II-4R tau (transgenic/Tg) mice model of tautopathy (n=24) and were compared with those of wild-type mice (n =24). The mice were subjected to Accelerated Rotarod Test (ART), Open Field Test (OFT), Elevated Plus Maze Test (EPMT), Light and Dark Transition Test (LDT) and Forced Swimming Test (FST) for a comprehensive motor and cognitive performance analysis. Results showed that, genesis and progress of fatigue followed similar trend under physiological condition and pathological condition like tauopathy although the signs and symptoms of physical fatigue in mice models of tauopathy were more pronounced compared to healthy ones. Thus, a fatigue score system developed on healthy individuals may also be applied on pathological conditions that make the subjects vulnerable to fatigue. Subsequently, to quantify the manifestations of physical fatigue, twelve seasoned drivers were subjected to simulated driving session for 30 h and electroencephalogram (EEG),electrocardiogram (ECG) and spirometer recordings were taken for each individual at 3h intervals. In addition, peripheral blood samples were collected and analyzed at 8 h intervals for random blood sugar (RBS), blood urea (BUN) and serum creatinine. Results revealed that, energy and entropy features of EEG showed significant discrimination across time points in α and θ-bands at Cz electrode. The power spectrum density of HF (high frequency) components of ECG decreased with advancing stress and fatigue indicating sympathetic predominance with severity in fatigue. Spirometer recording confirmed gradual decrease in FEV1/FVC ratio (Forced Expiratory Volume at 1stsec / Forced Vital Capacity) as fatigue progressed. On the other hand, all blood biomarkers increased with the progress of fatigue but RBS and creatinine showed better discrimination across time-points.....


Solar energy, since it is available every day, is seen as one of the most valuable renewable energy resources. Thus, the energy of sun should be efficiently used in various applications. The most known applications that use solar energy are heating water and spaces. High efficiency solar collectors need appropriate selective surfaces to absorb the heat. Selective surfaces (Selektif-Sera) used in this study are applied to flat collectors, which are produced by a roll to roll cost effective coating of nano nickel layers, developed in Selektif Teknoloji Co. Inc. Efficiency of flat collectors using Selektif-Sera absorbers are calculated in collaboration with Institute for Solar Technik Rapperswil, Switzerland. The main cause of high energy consumption in industry is mostly caused from low temperature level processes. There is considerable effort in research to minimize the energy use by renewable energy sources such as solar energy. A feasibility study will be presented to obtain the potential of solar thermal energy utilization in the textile industry using these solar collectors. For the feasibility calculations presented in this study, textile dyeing and finishing factory located at Kahramanmaras is selected since the geographic location was an important factor. Kahramanmaras is located in the south east part of Turkey thus has a great potential to have solar illumination much longer. It was observed that, the collector area is limited by the available area in the factory, thus a hybrid heating generating system (lignite/solar thermal) was preferred in the calculations of this study to be more realistic. During the feasibility work, the calculations took into account the preheating process, where well waters heated from 15 °C to 30-40 °C by using the hot waters in heat exchangers. Then the preheated water was heated again by high efficiency solar collectors. Economic comparison between the lignite use and solar thermal collector use was provided to determine the optimal system that can be used efficiently. The optimum design of solar thermal systems was studied depending on the optimum collector area. It was found that the solar thermal system is more economic and efficient than the merely lignite use. Return on investment time is calculated as 5.15 years. Keywords—Solar energy, heating, solar heating.


SUMMARY: The electrokinetic behaviour of intact conidia and cell walls of Neurospora crassa was studied using a micro-electrophoresis technique. By chemical and enzyme treatments it has been established that amino, carboxyl and phosphate groups are integral components of the spore surface; acid phosphate groups, however, were not found on the surface of washed cell walls. The fungicide dodine acetate reduced the negative charge on conidia to zero and, with increasing concentration, gave a positive charge to the spores: at lower fungicide concentrations the negative charge on the surface of cell walls and stabilized protoplasts was also neutralized. These results are consistent with an ionic reaction between the dodine cation and the carboxyl and phosphate groups of the cell. There was no evidence that the toxic reaction between dodine acetate and N. crassa conidia is located on the spore surface—the spores were completely killed before there was a perceptible reduction in electrophoretic mobility.


212) 280-2736 email@example.com Production systems have pessimistically been hypothesized to contain only minimal amounts of parallelism [Gupta 1984]. However, techniques are being investigated to extract more parallelism from existing systems. Among these methods, it is desirable to fmd those which balance the work being performed in parallel evenly among the rules, while at the same time decrease the amount of work which must be performed sequentially in each cycle. The technique of creating constrained copies of culprit rules accomplishes both of the above goals. Production systems are plagued by occasional rules which slow down the entire execution. These rules require much more processing than others and thus cause other processors to idle while the CUlprit rules continue to match. By creating the constrained copies and distributing them to their own processors. each performs less work while others are busy, yielding increased parallelism, improved load balancing, and less work overall per cycle. Improving Production System Performance on Parallel Architectures by Creating Constrained Copies of Rules


ABSTRACT The worldwide slum population currently stands at over one billion, with substantial growth expected in the coming decades. Traditionally, slums have been mapped using information derived mainly from either physical indicators using remote sensing data, or socio-economic indicators using census data. Each data source on its own provides only a partial view of slums, an issue further compounded by data poverty in less-developed countries. To overcome such issues, this paper explores the fusion of traditional with emerging open data sources and data mining tools to identify additional indicators that can be used to detect and map the presence of slums, map their footprint, and map their evolution. Towards this goal, we develop an indicator database for slums using open sources of physical and socio-economic data that can be used to characterize slum settlements. Using this database, we then leverage data mining techniques to identify the most suitable combination of these indicators for mapping slums. Using three cities in Kenya as test cases, results show that the fusion of these data can improve the mapping accuracy of slums. These results suggest that the proposed approach can provide a viable solution to the emerging challenge of monitoring the growth of slums.


Verb–particle constructions are a notoriously difficult aspect of English to acquire for second-language (L2) learners. The present study investigated whether L2 English speakers are sensitive to gradations in semantic transparency of verb–particle constructions (e.g., finish up vs. chew out). French–English bilingual participants (first language: French, second language: English) completed an off-line similarity ratings survey, as well as an on-line masked priming task. Results of the survey showed that bilinguals' similarity ratings became more native-like as their English proficiency levels increased. Results from the masked priming task showed that response latencies from high, but not low-proficiency bilinguals were similar to those of monolinguals, with mid- and high-similarity verb–particle/verb pairs (e.g., finish up/finish) producing greater priming than low-similarity pairs (e.g., chew out/chew). Taken together, the results suggest that L2 English speakers develop both explicit and implicit understanding of the semantic properties of verb–particle constructions, which approximates the sensitivity of native speakers as English proficiency increases.


produce rethinkings and encourage or demand a basic reorientation of approach. Too many others tend to illustrate a theoretical method or problematic, rather than either break new ground or make fresh illuminations. The book is rather like a collection of journal articles (a significant minority are rather card-indexy). The editorial introductions give very elegantly condensed outlines of the various fields, each taking a declaredly partial journey from basics (the Saussurean sign, the Freudian project) to fields of contestation (especially around the 'post' discourses). They are rather too condensed to support unaided undergraduate reading, but make useful maps. The contraction of this excellent material leaves the book not quite the 'comprehensive introduction to critical theory's rich and diverse contribution' to the study of performance its blurb claims it to be, but it has many stimulating parts of lasting use-value.


C4 photosynthesis is considered one of the most remarkable examples of evolutionary convergence in eukaryotes. However, it is unknown whether the evolution of C4 photosynthesis required the evolution of new genes. Genome-wide gene-tree species-tree reconciliation of seven monocot species that span two origins of C4 photosynthesis revealed that there was significant parallelism in the duplication and retention of genes coincident with the evolution of C4 photosynthesis in these lineages. Specifically, 21 orthologous genes were duplicated and retained independently in parallel at both C4 origins. Analysis of this gene cohort revealed that the set of parallel duplicated and retained genes is enriched for genes that are preferentially expressed in bundle sheath cells, the cell type in which photosynthesis was activated during C4 evolution. Furthermore, functional analysis of the cohort of parallel duplicated genes identified SWEET-13 as a potential key transporter in the evolution of C4 photosynthesis in grasses, and provides new insight into the mechanism of phloem loading in these C4 species. Key words: C4 photosynthesis, gene duplication, gene families, parallel evolution.


SIR,-In the summer of 1963 a cytological -service became available. I have since taken woutine smears at post-natal examinations and whenever vaginal examination was indicated. On a few occasions I have failed to obtain a suitable specimen. No attempt has been nade to screen patients who would not otherwise have been examined, and I have only started taking smears from patients on oral -contraceptives this month. No request has been made for a smear in spite of the widespread publicity. Practising in a group it is not possible to state the exact number of patients for whom I am responsible, but a fair estimate would be .2,8QQ. When it occurred to me that the figures might be of interest, our cytologist Dr. Margaret Wolfendale kindly analysed the smears I had sent in. To the middle of November 1964 141 smears had been taken of which 47% were post-natal specimens. The monthly rate was nine, and I had picked up one carcinoma in situ, subsequently confirmed. Assuming that 25% of my patients are women in the significant age-group, without modifying my pattern -of practice 20% of my patients have been -examined, and within three years of starting ,the figure may rise to half my population. Some women will be re-examined, but I 'believe nmy monthly rate will rise as I add the -contraceptive-taking group. It is only fair to state that my rate is rather higher than that of other family doctors snaking use of the service; facilities for the -examination of smears are limited anyway. The Lancet, discussing Professor Scott's Mackenzie Lecture,' points out that general practice is perpetually if inconspicuously absorbing the techniques of the hospital, thereby relieving special departments of part -of their load. This can only happen if practitioners are not too heavily burdened to accept new responsibilities, and at present few -of us feel our lot is so comfortable that we -can extend our services in new directions without restrictions elsewhere. I have not seen estimates of the rate of .screening in routine family practice prewiously, but I now feel that progressive -examination of a practice population can be -carried out. It is probable, however, that this can only be done in practices that at sacrifice to themselves have kept their list size within bounds and employed adequate ancilAlary help.-I am, etc., Bletchly, Bucks. GEOFFREY RIVETT.


We construct and estimate an equilibrium search model with on–the–job–search. Firms make take–it–or–leave–it wage offers to workers conditional on their characteristics and they can respond to the outside job offers received by their employees. Unobserved worker productive heterogeneity is introduced in the form of cross–worker differences in a "competence" parameter. On the other side of the market, firms also are heterogeneous with respect to their marginal productivity of labor. The model delivers a theory of steady–state wage dispersion driven by heterogenous worker abilities and firm productivities, as well as by matching frictions. The structural model is estimated using matched employer and employee French panel data. The exogenous distributions of worker and firm heterogeneity components are nonparametrically estimated. We use this structural estimation to provide a decomposition of cross–employee wage variance. We find that the share of the cross–sectional wage variance that is explained by person effects varies across skill groups. Specifically, this share lies close to 40% for high–skilled white collars, and quickly decreases to 0% as the observed skill level decreases. The contribution of market imperfections to wage dispersion is typically around 50%


The early-stage damage detection in offshore structures requires continuous structural health monitoring and for the large area the position of sensors will also plays an important role in the efficient damage detection. Determining the dynamic behaviour of offshore structures requires dense deployment of sensors. The wired Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems are highly expensive and always needs larger installation space to deploy. Wireless sensor networks can enhance the SHM system by deployment of scalable sensor network, which consumes lesser space. This paper presents the results of wireless sensor network based Structural Health Monitoring method applied to a scaled experimental model of offshore structure that underwent wave loading. This method determines the serviceability of the offshore structure which is subjected to various environment loads. Wired and wireless sensors were installed in the model and the response of the scaled BLSRP model under wave loading was recorded. The wireless system discussed in this study is the Raspberry pi board with Arm V6 processor which is programmed to transmit the data acquired by the sensor to the server using Wi-Fi adapter, the data is then hosted in the webpage. The data acquired from the wireless and wired SHM system were compared and the design of the wireless system is verified.


Employing fibers particularly those from renewable materials as an alternative to inorganic fibers in composites is part of the effort to promote bio-based products as well as to broaden recycling of solid wastes. In this work, the use of agro waste Alpinia galanga (AG) as composite reinforcement was investigated in terms of tensile properties, thermal stability, morphology and water absorption. Composites based on AG fibers and high density polyethylene (HDPE) were prepared together with an additive, eco- degradant (ECO) and a compatibilizer, polyethylene-g-maleic anhydride (PE-g-MA) in a mixer, Brabender Plastograph EC at various AG fiber loadings. The results reveal that the composite formulation enabled AG fibers to function as reinforcement in HDPE-based composites. The presence of ECO at 15 wt% fiber loading improved tensile strength up to 33.6 MPa, about 21 % higher than that of pristine HDPE (27.8 MPa). The addition of MA-g-PE at 10 wt% fiber loading also indicates comparable tensile strength to pristine HDPE of about 27.5 MPa. The Young's modulus of AG/HDPE composites with the addition of ECO was enhanced up to 4874 MPa as compared to 1012 MPa of pristine HDPE. The elongation at break of the AG/HDPE composites however is somewhat lower than that of pristine HDPE. The water absorption of AG/HDPE composites with ECO at 15 wt% fiber loading was improved to 0.96 % as compared to 1.40% of the AG/HDPE composites. The proposed formulation containing ECO and PE-g- MA also slightly improved thermal stability of AG/HDPE composites. Scanning electron microscopy examination indicates a much better adhesion between AG fibers and HDPE matrix with the presence of ECO. The composite formulation with ECO, an environment-friendly additive which helps degrade polyolefin composites to the basic elements with no harmful effects contributed to noticeable improvements in properties of AG/HDPE composites.


It is crucial to prevent low yields in the semiconductor industry. Since many factors affect variation in yield and they are deeply related, preventing low yield is difficult. There have been substantial researches in the field of yield prediction. Many researchers had used the statistical methods. Many studies have shown that artificial neural network (ANN) achieved better performance than traditional statistical methods. However, despite ANN's superior performance some problems such as over-fitting and poor explanatory power arise. In order to overcome these limitations, a relatively new machine learning technique, support vector machine (SVM), is introduced to classify the yield. SVM is simple enough to be analyzed mathematically, and it leads to high performances in practical applications. This study presents a new efficient classification methodology, Stepwise-SVM (SSVM), for detecting high and low yields. SSVM is step-by-step adjustment of parameters to be precisely the classification for actual high and low yield lot. The objective of this paper is to examine the feasibility of SVM and SSVM in the yield classification. The experimental results show that SVM and SSVM provides a promising alternative to yield classification for the field data.


One of the most crucial steps in the design of embedded systems is deciding which components of the system should be implemented in software and which ones in hardware. Inspired by genetic algorithm (GA) and tabu search (TS), this paper puts forward a hybrid strategy (GATS) to solve the software-hardware partitioning problem in embedded system. The main frame of GATS is provided by genetic algorithm and the tabu search is taken as the mutation operator. Here the tabu search is used for the solution space in the process of mutation. And the results show that GATS has multiple starting-points, strong mountain-climbing ability and memory function instead of inferior mountain-climbing ability of GA and the single starting-point feature of TS. The experimental results indicate that GATS is superior to the single GA and TS in terms of both required time and system cost, which testify the effectiveness of GATS and produce better portioning results.


The biopsy of 148 clinically occult lesions of the breast found at mammographic examination yielded 21 instances of carcinoma (14.2 per cent). Five malignant lesions were lobular or in situ carcinoma, 16 were infiltrating ductal carcinomas and 11 were minimal carcinoma of the breast. Carcinomas found by mammographic examination were smaller and less likely to be associated with metastases to the axillary nodes than carcinomas of the breast diagnosed by palpation during the same time period. Biopsy of the breast was performed by several methods: 1, quandrantectomy with the patient under general anesthesia (the results of 29 biopsies yielded five instances of carcinoma, 17.2 per cent); 2, generous excision of breast tissue with the patient under general anesthesia and the lesion being localized by geometric co-ordinates based upon the mammograms (the results of 35 excisions yielded four instances of carcinoma, 11.4 per cent), and 3, mammogram-directed needle localization (the results of 84 procedures yielded 12 instances of carcinoma, 14.3 per cent). Because needle-directed biopsy causes less distortion of the breast, we prefer it to other biopsy techniques in the evaluation of occult lesions of the breast.


Major structural cardiovascular diseases are associated with cardiac arrhythmias, but their full spectrum remains unknown in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), which we addressed in this systematic review. Atrial fibrillation/atrial flutter (AF/AFL) prevalence is 16–22% in heart failure, 10–28% in rheumatic heart disease, 3–7% in cardiology admissions, but <1% in the general population. Use of oral anticoagulation is heterogenous (9–79%) across SSA. The epidemiology of sudden cardiac arrest/death is less characterized in SSA. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is challenging, owing to low awareness and lack of equipment for life-support. About 18% of SSA countries have no cardiac implantable electronic devices services, leaving hundreds of millions of people without any access to treatment for advanced bradyarrhythmias, and implant rates are more than 200-fold lower than in the western world. Management of tachyarrhythmias is largely non-invasive (about 80% AF/AFL via rate-controlled strategy only), as electrophysiological study and catheter ablation centers are almost non-existent in most countries. Highlights: - Atrial fibrillation/flutter prevalence is 16–22% in heart failure, 10–28% in rheumatic heart disease, 3–7% in cardiology admissions, and <1% in the general population in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). - Rates of oral anticoagulation use for CHA2DS2VASC score ≥2 are very diverse (9–79%) across SSA countries. - Data on sudden cardiac arrest are scant in SSA with low cardiopulmonary resuscitation awareness. - Low rates of cardiac implantable electronic devices insertions and rarity of invasive arrhythmia treatment centers are seen in SSA, relative to the high-income countries.


The bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) of snow was measured from a 32-m tower at Dome C, at latitude 75°S on the East Antarctic Plateau. These measurements were made at 96 solar zenith angles between 51° and 87° and cover wavelengths 350–2400 nm, with 3- to 30-nm resolution, over the full range of viewing geometry. The BRDF at 900 nm had previously been measured at the South Pole; the Dome C measurement at that wavelength is similar. At both locations the natural roughness of the snow surface causes the anisotropy of the BRDF to be less than that of flat snow. The inherent BRDF of the snow is nearly constant in the high-albedo part of the spectrum (350–900 nm), but the angular distribution of reflected radiance becomes more isotropic at the shorter wavelengths because of atmospheric Rayleigh scattering. Parameterizations were developed for the anisotropic reflectance factor using a small number of empirical orthogonal functions. Because the reflectance is more anisotropic at wavelengths at which ice is more absorptive, albedo rather than wavelength is used as a predictor in the near infrared. The parameterizations cover nearly all viewing angles and are applicable to the high parts of the Antarctic Plateau that have small surface roughness and, at viewing zenith angles less than 55°, elsewhere on the plateau, where larger surface roughness affects the BRDF at larger viewing angles. The root-mean-squared error of the parameterized reflectances is between 2% and 4% at wavelengths less than 1400 nm and between 5% and 8% at longer wavelengths.


Myofascial pain syndrome in the pelvic floor is a common condition, originally described by Drs Janet Travell and David Simons, involving the musculoskeletal system; there is a high percentage of misdiagnosis and a high failure rate of medical interventions and, therefore, of frustrated specialists and patients. The etiology includes urologic, gynecologic, gastrointestinal, proctologic, neurological, and musculoskeletal problems. Muscle injury can occur when soft tissues are exposed to single or persistent episodes of muscular overload. Myofascial pain syndromes are characterized by the development of myofascial trigger points that are locally painful when stimulated. These trigger points are hyperirritable spots within a taut band of hypercontracted extrafusal muscle fibers. The trigger point and the taut band can be palpated, which provokes the typical referred pain. Affected muscles are usually shortened and have an increased tone and tension. Diagnosis is done based on the history, physical examination, and neurophysiologic tests. Treatment requires medical, psychological, and physical therapies, including local infiltrations with lidocaine, dry needling, botulinum toxin injections, and several physiotherapeutic and psychological techniques.


: The influence of quercetin on electron transport and photophosphorylation of pea isolated chloroplasts with methylviologen and NADP+ has been studied. Quercetin inhibits ATP synthesis and phosphorylating electron transport but does not affect the basal electron transport in the presence of methylviologen. In view of these data and because of the increase of the proton uptake by chloroplasts in the presence of quercetin we consider it as an inhibitor of energy transfer. Under conditions of NADP+ photoreduction quercetin acts also as an inhibitor of electron transfer, interacting with ferredoxin, though a complete inhibition of electron transfer has not been observed. This last phenomenon may be of importance for the understanding of the detailed mechanism of NADP+ reduction by chloroplasts.


My work asks, "What are we capable of and what might be holding us back?" I survey of themes of mortality and human frailty, psychological susceptibility, dependence and codependence, established ideas of being and an increased mediation of our experience through the screen.\r\nI make strange and confounding objects that seek to entice as much as they repel. Though I gain method, means and motivation from the Dadaists and Neo-Dadaists, my work fits within the pluralism of the postmodern. By making material and stylistic choices to fit the narrative of each piece, I utilize the familiar and the uncanny with an assemblage methodology and seamless collage to construct a narrative that prods at issues of the human condition. Within the recognizable I create an access point for the viewer to engage with on some level. I find that the physical immediacy of the object is prime for this engagement, entering a persons sphere of being mentally, if not physically by interacting directly with it.


Objective: Analyzing the occurrence of Tuberculosis registered in Sao Luis. Method: This is a descriptive epidemiological study, with data obtained from the Notifiable Diseases Information System (SINAN/Tuberculosis) from 2014 to 2016. Descriptive statistics with the calculation of absolute and relative frequency was applied for categorical variables and position and dispersion measures for metric variables. Results: 2,306 cases were found in 378 residential neighborhoods. In 2014, the most affected District was the Vila Cidade Olimpica with 50 cases; in 2015, it had 39 cases, and in 2016 it had 25 cases. Conclusion: The study broadens the knowledge since it presents the epidemiological profile of Tuberculosis cases in Sao Luis. It was observed that the majority of cases were male, with economically active age, brown ethnic group, and complete secondary education.


Articulatory vibrating screen is composed of multi-section screen with articulatory vibrating. The principle of even-thickness screening is referenced on its layout, with linear vibrating screen as the discharge end, with round vibrating screens as the feeding end, and also the intermediate screen. In accordance with the structural features of articulatory vibrating screen and under the condition of assembly module in Pro/E, mechanical components of articulatory vibrating screen are assembled in the light of the arrangement, the sequence, the restrictions and the modifications of installation. With the visualized research on the operational process, the three-dimensional illustrations of assembly model are established to ensure the correct design on every mechanical component of articulatory vibrating screen. The finite element model of vibrating screen is set up by its analysis software to carry out the analysis of finite element calculation and modal according to two operating modes of the regular work and the machine halt beyond resonance region. The analysis result indicates that the intensity and the rigidity of the vibrating screen are safe; the machine operation is stable; and no resonance phenomenon would happen. This study provides the theoretical reference for the design of similar machinery. It is of practical importance and economic value to apply the visualized design method into the design of articulatory vibrating screen.


In this paper, we tackle the important yet under-investigated problem of making long-horizon prediction of event sequences. Existing state-of-the-art models do not perform well at this task due to their autoregressive structure. We propose HYPRO, a hybridly normalized probabilistic model that naturally fits this task: its first part is an autoregressive base model that learns to propose predictions; its second part is an energy function that learns to reweight the proposals such that more realistic predictions end up with higher probabilities. We also propose efficient training and inference algorithms for this model. Experiments on multiple real-world datasets demonstrate that our proposed HYPRO model can significantly outperform previous models at making long-horizon predictions of future events. We also conduct a range of ablation studies to investigate the effectiveness of each component of our proposed methods.


This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the nonlinear properties of multifactor pricing models. Beginning with the generalized geometric Brownian motion, we develop a method whereby the log returns of a set of d-assets or portfolios admit a scale mixture model. This is followed by an analytical study on the conditional behavior of a subset of assets given another subset. Expressions for the first two conditional moments are provided under the scale mixture family. The regression equation when the scaling variable is constant (unity) corresponds with the renowned APT. Computable conditional moment expressions for the scaling variable are derived under both inverse gamma and gamma distributions. These moment equations are nonlinear in parameters, apart from containing the usual linear terms under the APT. We then apply the above nonlinear methodology to the log asset returns of four major companies in the U.S. stock market.


As air pollution problems become increasingly serious and the environmental awareness continues to rise, a source of cheap and simple air filtration active material is also required. Here, we demonstrated the use of hydrothermal carbonization-derived activated carbon for such an application. By doing so, we hope to develop a biodegradable filtering material which can combine filtering capability with biodegradable functionalities. To this end, an air filtration paper using activated carbon and pulp as materials was synthesized. Activated carbon was prepared by hydrothermal carbonization of sucrose and further activation. Hydrochar synthesis parameters including reaction time, reaction temperature, sucrose concentration, pH effect of hydrothermal solution, and nitrogen doping were investigated. The air filtration application was demonstrated using activated carbon obtained from a dramatic chemical reaction with KOH at 800 °C as the biodegradable active filler material. The morphology of hydrochar and activated carbon was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used to investigate the mechanism of hydrochar formation with different pH of hydrothermal solution. Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) was used to confirm activation. The results of elemental analysis showed evidence of nitrogen doping. Surface area and pore size analysis results allow for comparison of the degree of activation. The highest surface area of activated sample obtained in this study is up to 3026 m2 g−1 and the filtering abilities of our samples were measured by TSI model 8130 testing method with results of filtering efficiency achieving a quarter of that of the commercial air filter product.


This paper considers the implications for developing countries of a new wave of technological change that substitutes pervasively for labor. It makes simple and plausible assumptions: the AI revolution can be modeled as an increase in productivity of a distinct type of capital that substitutes closely with labor; and the only fundamental difference between the advanced and developing country is the level of TFP. This set-up is minimalist, but the resulting conclusions are powerful: improvements in the productivity of "robots" drive divergence, as advanced countries differentially benefit from their initially higher robot intensity, driven by their endogenously higher wages and stock of complementary traditional capital. In addition, capital—if internationally mobile—is pulled "uphill", resulting in a transitional GDP decline in the developing country. In an extended model where robots substitute only for unskilled labor, the terms of trade, and hence GDP, may decline permanently for the country relatively well-endowed in unskilled labor.


The ICH E14 guidelines recommend performing a 'thorough QT/QTc study' to support the safety profile of a drug. The standard way of analyzing a 'thorough QT/QTc study' to assess a drug for its potential for QT prolongation is to construct a 90% two-sided (or a 95% one-sided) confidence interval (CI), for the difference in baseline corrected mean QTc (heart-rate corrected version of QT) between drug and placebo at each time-point, and to conclude non-inferiority if the upper limit for each CI is less than 10 ms. The intent of the ICH E14 guidelines is to establish that the mean effect of the drug is less than 5 ms and the standard approach may not be well suited to achieve this goal. In this paper, we propose a novel Bayesian approach to address this problem directly keeping in line with the intent of the ICH E14 guidelines. We assess the performance of our proposed approach using simulated data, discuss its advantages over the standard approach, and illustrate the method by applying it to a real data set obtained from a GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) conducted thorough QT study.


An increasing number of modern real-time systems and the nowadays ubiquitous multicore architectures demand the application of programming techniques for reliable and efficient concurrent synchronization. Some recently developed Compare-And-Swap (CAS) based nonblocking techniques hold the promise of delivering practical and safer concurrency. The ABA2 problem is a fundamental problem to many CAS-based designs. Its significance has increased with the suggested use of CAS as a core atomic primitive for the implementation of portable lock-free algorithms. The ABA problem's occurrence is due to the intricate and complex interactions of the application's concurrent operations and, if not remedied, ABA can significantly corrupt the semantics of a nonblocking algorithm. The current state of the art leaves the elimination of the ABA hazards to the ingenuity of the software designer. In this work we provide the first systematic and detailed analysis of the ABA problem in lock-free Descriptor-based designs. We study the semantics of Descriptor-based lock-free data structures and propose a classification of their operations that helps us better understand the ABA problem and subsequently derive an effective ABA prevention scheme. We supplement our analysis with a statistical model of the probability for an ABA event in a concurrent system. Our ABA prevention approach outperforms by a large factor the use of the alternative CAS-based ABA prevention schemes. It offers speeds comparable to the use of the architecture-specific CAS2 instruction used for version counting. We demonstrate our ABA prevention scheme by integrating it into an advanced nonblocking data structure, a lock-free dynamically resizable array.


Discovery of influential genetic variants and prediction of phenotypes such as antibiotic resistance are becoming routine tasks in bacterial genomics. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) methods can be applied to study bacterial populations, with a particular emphasis on alignment-free approaches, which are necessitated by the more plastic nature of bacterial genomes. Here we advance bacterial GWAS by introducing a computationally scalable joint modeling framework, where genetic variants covering the entire pangenome are compactly represented by unitigs, and the model fitting is achieved using elastic net penalization. In contrast to current leading GWAS approaches, which test each genotype-phenotype association separately for each variant, our joint modelling approach is shown to lead to increased statistical power while maintaining control of the false positive rate. Our inference procedure also delivers an estimate of the narrow-sense heritability, which is gaining considerable interest in studies of bacteria. Using an extensive set of state-of-the-art bacterial population genomic datasets we demonstrate that our approach performs accurate phenotype prediction, comparable to popular machine learning methods, while retaining both interpretability and computational efficiency. We expect that these advances will pave the way for the next generation of high-powered association and prediction studies for an increasing number of bacterial species.


The Journal of Childhood Obesity is an open access, peer reviewed international journal publishing scientific articles related to childhood obesity and its causes, effects, cure, prevention etc. Recently volume 1 issue 2 of the journal had been published. The current issue carries articles representing advanced research from the reputed scientists and academicians from different counties. Rutkow et al. from USA discusses the factors that motivates Stakeholder Groups to address the Childhood Obesity Prevention Policies, Meucci et al. from USA discussed about the Cardiac Autonomic Modulation in the Preadolescents, Jain et al. from India talked on Childhood obesity and hypertension, while McCrady-Spitzer et al. from USA discussed about the Promotion of Physical Activity in Preschool Children, Jelena et al. from USA mentioned about the Relationship between Body Mass Index and Body Fat Percentage among Adolescents. Rutkow et al. studied the behaviour of Stakeholders regarding the childhood obesity prevention policymaking attitudes. They have noticed that the stakeholder and researcher engagement is necessary to take this problem to policy-makers' attention. Authors interviewed academics, NGO representatives, policy-makers and have identified key factors such as, available research, collaborations, funding, etc., play a pivotal role in framing childhood obesity prevention policies and designing strategies for the implementation [1]. Meucci et al. in their studies have examined the effectiveness of the play-based activity on blood pressure, heart rate and baroreflex sensitivity in preadolescents. They have concluded that 8 weeks of supervised, play-based physical activity among obese preadolescents could improve the autonomic nervous system activation. They observed favorable changes in sympathovagal balance in recreationally active during their summer break [2]. Bhatt et al. in their commentary article stated that Hypertension and pre Hypertension are underdiagnosed in children as Blood Pressure levels may vary due to physiological and environmental stimuli. They suggested that Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) may characterize BP levels, which will be helpful in the prediction of cardiovascular disease in children. They also stated that ABPM is useful to identify WCH (White Coat Hypertension). Authors concluded through their systemic review and meta-analysis that obesity prevention programs have moderate effect on reducing BP, and have recommended programs targeting both diet and physical activity [3]. McCrady-Spitzer et al. in their research proposed an approach to deploy a low-cost, safe, and scalable ways to promote physical activities without the assistance of specially trained teachers or specialized equipments. They concluded that three 5-minute activity breaks for preschool children and increased school time physical activity would improve their learning abilities [4]. Jelena et al. conducted studies to determine the body mass index (BMI) and body fat percentage (% BF) relationship in healthy adolescents of ages, 15–19 years in Serbian Republic (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina). Their studies concluded that majority of adolescents in the Serbian Republic were having normal body weight but among girls, who are more prone to unbalanced diet they observed tendency of increasing body weight. They observed that the strong relationship between BMI and BF percent among the children studied. Authors suggested that Obesity Prevention programs related to physical activities and diet might improve Serbian adolescents with a reduction in sedentary activities and improving dietary behaviour [5]. These published articles were selected from more than 40 submissions with a hope that the Journal will continue to attract submissions from a wide range of scientists, Doctors, academicians and research scholars. In addition, we thank the reviewers who played a pivotal role by giving their valuable opinions and suggestion of modifications on the quality of the published article.


'Terrorism' has been a mainstream discussion since the early 2000s. Though much academic and government research has been produced on the subject, consistent and appropriate application of the term seems to be elusive. As a result, the modern incarnation of the word carries baggage of the event that inspired its political appropriation and relies on synonyms to maneuver the limitations of legal definitions. I use critical discourse analysis to explore how terrorism and terrorist identity have been discursively constructed in the 2017 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada and its predecessors. My analysis suggests that this series of reports strategically manipulates Canadian readers by artificially inflating the 'terrorist threat' and securitizing policies and Canadians themselves. The 'war on terror' narrative persists as the difference between 'political' and 'legal' terrorism becomes increasingly unclear. These findings indicate the need for further discursive analysis of the politicization of terror in Canada.


In this study the aim was to investigate empirically the role of energy consumption in economic growth for the Turkish economy. The data used include annual energy consumption and economic growth series from 1960 to 2008. We used aggregate as well as various disaggregate data on energy consumption, including, oil, electricity, coal and renewable energy. Our contribution is that we take a structural breaks modeling approach in this paper. In the literature, the Kejriwal cointegration test has not been applied to date. The main conclusion of the study was that Turkey's energy consumption and economic growth has a positive relationship varying quantity with structural breaks.