There have been significant improvements in ice hockey equipment technology within the last decade; however, little is known about how these improvements are affecting puck mechanics. The purpose of this study was to develop a testing protocol using three-dimensional motion capture to improve ice hockey shot analysis by providing additional information to traditional shot analysis techniques. Then, the feasibility of this protocol was tested by performing a pilot study that analyzes the effects of a new grip tape on slap shot performance. Four elite hockey players performed four slap shots in each of the four conditions: (1) bare hockey stick/normal hockey gloves, (2) traditional hockey tape stick/normal gloves, (3) Greptile™ tape stick/normal gloves and (4) Greptile™ tape stick/Greptile™ gloves. Reflective markers attached to the puck, stick and target were tracked by a three-dimensional optical motion capture system recording at 200 Hz. Linear and angular velocities of the puck, accuracy and puck topple were not different between condition 1 and the remaining three grip conditions; however, there were accuracy differences between conditions 1 and 3. In addition, there were no correlations between angular velocity and shot accuracy, and puck topple and shot accuracy. Due to the small sample size, the effects of Greptile™ tape on slap shot performance must be further tested in order to compare the four conditions with more advanced statistics; however, the developed research strategy, using three-dimensional motion analysis, provides an approach to researchers and companies that are interested in identifying the effects of new hockey equipment/technologies on slap shot performance.


To the Editor .—In the article "Radiation-Induced Parotid Cancer," Walker et al claim to present evidence that parotid cancers have been produced by irradiation of the head or neck. In addition, they propose criteria for designating a parotid tumor as radiation induced. For at least three reasons, and considering the limited nature of their retrospective study, we are disappointed to see that the authors arrived at certain conclusions. First, the authors' analysis of their selected patients does not show an 8% incidence of radiation-induced parotid carcinoma; rather, it shows that 8% of these patients with parotid carcinoma also happened to have undergone irradiation at least two years before their parotid cancers were diagnosed. This association is random and without statistical significance. Furthermore, their Table 2 is a summary of 26 cases of parotid cancers in patients who have received therapeutic radiation, and not a summary of 26 cases of radiation-induced


Data Science and Artificial Intelligence have been all over the world lately,in almost every possible field be it finance,education,entertainment,healthcare,astronomy, astrology, and many more sports is no exception. With so much data, statistics, and analysis available in this particular field, when everything is being recorded it has become easier for team selectors, broadcasters, audience, sponsors, most importantly for players themselves to prepare against various opponents. Even the analysis has improved over the period of time with the evolvement of AI, not only analysis one can even predict the things with the insights available. This is not even restricted to this,nowadays players are trained in such a manner that they are capable of taking the most feasible and rational decisions in any given situation. Chess is one of those sports that depend on calculations, algorithms, analysis, decisions etc. Being said that whenever the analysis is involved, we have always improvised on the techniques. Algorithms are somethingwhich can be solved with the help of various software, does that imply that chess can be fully solved,in simple words does that mean that if both the players play the best moves respectively then the game must end in a draw or does that mean that white wins having the first move advantage. Let's figure it out.


Atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) and nitric oxide (NO) stimulate production of guanosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (cGMP) and are natriuretic. Split-drop micropuncture was performed on anesthetized rats to determine the effects of ANF and the NO donor sodium nitroprusside (SNP) on proximal tubular fluid absorption rate (Jva). Compared with control solutions, SNP (10(-4) M) decreased Jva by 23% when administered luminally and by 35% when added to the peritubular perfusate. Stimulation of fluid uptake by luminal angiotensin II (ANG II; 10(-9) M) was abolished by SNP (10(-4) and 10(-6) M). In proximal tubule suspensions, ANF (10(-6) M) increased cGMP concentration to 143%, whereas SNP (10(-6), 10(-5), 10(-4), 10(-3) M) raised cGMP to 231, 594, 687, and 880%, respectively. S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP) also raised cGMP concentrations with similar dose-response relations. These studies demonstrate inhibition by luminal and peritubular NO of basal and ANG II-stimulated proximal fluid absorption in vivo. The ability of SNP to inhibit basal fluid uptake whereas ANF only affected ANG II-stimulated transport may be because of production of higher concentrations of cGMP by SNP.


A study was conducted to investigate the hypothesis that individuals with prolonged musical experience are better able to report on speech in multi-talker listening situations. The results of the study suggest that prolonged musical experience may, in some cases, enhance a listener's ability to comprehend speech in complex listening environments. This may be due to an improved ability to process the various auditory cues due to spatial separation resulting in an enhanced ability to selectively attend to and/or divide attention among the competing talkers. The results also underscore the importance of top-down cognitive processing of auditory information. It also appears that this ability may help offset the detrimental effects that high-frequency hearing loss and chronic tinnitus might have on hearing, listening, and comprehending in complicated listening environments.


The aim of this research was to determine the proper comparison between
soy milk powder with skim milk and stevia with sucrose in the manufacture of
Chocolate Candy.
The experimental design used in this research was factorial pattern (3x3)
in a randomized block design (RBD) with three replications. The design of the
treatment carried out in this research consisted of two factors: the ratio of soy milk
powder with skim milk (A), which consists of three levels which are a1 = 1:0 (soy
milk powder : skim milk), a2 = 1:1 (soy milk powder : skim milk), and a3 = 0:1
(soy milk powder: skim milk) and a comparison of stevia with sucrose (B), which
consists of three levels which are b1 = 1:0 (stevia : sucrose), b2 = 1:1 (stevia :
sucrose), and b3 = 0:1 (stevia : sucrose). Therefore it has been obtained 27
experimental replication unit. Organoleptic response variables include taste,
flavor, texture and aftertaste. Chemical analysis conducted was fat content, protein
content, carbohydrate content, and moisture content as well as physical analysis
which was conducted towards the toughness of the Chocolate Candy.
The results indicated that the best Chocolate Candy product which is with
treatment a3b2 (comparison of soy milk with skim milk 0:1, and the comparison
of stevia with sucrose 1:1) based on panelist responses on organoleptic test by
11.05% fat content, 13.44% protein content, 25.28% carbohydrate content, water
content of 1.17% and has a toughness test value of 1.23 mm/sec/100gram.


Related to sustainability movement and minimizing the carbon footprint, timber structures are becoming more attractive. Wood, as main structural material, offers many benefits relate mostly to economic and ecological aspects, compared to other materials as steel or concrete. On the other hand, physical characteristics of wood complicate the usage of a timber for high-rise or large-span structures. It brings a new challenge for architects and engineers to deliver feasible solution for usability of timber, despite its features. One of the possible solutions could be implementation of CLT (Cross-Laminate Timber) panels in structural systems developed earlier for buildings made of prefabricated concrete slabs. SOM in cooperation with Oregon State University are currently testing composite slabs made of CLT and thin concrete layer reinforcing the wood and protecting it from fire. Although the system solution looks promising, and could bring the result, slabs limit using of the space in layout. On the other hand, frame structures would be much more efficient. This article comes up with an idea of modular frame structure, which could help to solve the problem. The scheme is based on "gridshell" type systems, where rods form a more efficient shell for dealing with stress forces.


Engineers are rediscovering that galvanizing is one of the longest lasting methods of imparting corrosion protection to steel bridges. It also avoids the stringent new EPA regulations that require recapture of lead-contaminated paint chips, dust and sand when a painted bridge is sandblasted. In Ohio, one county engineer designed a 108 ft long pony truss, assembled it, dismantled it for shipping to a galvanizing plant, then reassembled it on site. In another Ohio county, engineers have designed a three-span, continuous steel beam structure to be completely galvanized; contracts will be let late in 1991, with completion expected in 1992. Both these new structures follow the example of the first galvanized bridge in the U.S., built in 1966 in rural Michigan, which is still in excellent condition. Galvanized bridges in many other states are also reported in excellent condition, although eventually many will require painting after the galvanizing weathers.


The hot deformation behavior of Cu-0.35Cr-0.15Zr (wt.%) alloy was investigated by hot compression tests using a Gleeble-1500D thermal simulator system. The tests were performed under the conditions of 700°С- 820°С temperature and 0.01-10s-1strain rate. The results show that the flow behavior of the studied alloy could be described by the hyperbolic sine constitutive equation, and an active energy of 597.53 kJ/mol was calculated. The processing maps were obtained and analyzed according to the dynamic materials model. The optimum processing parameters of hot deformation of this alloy in the range of this experiment can be attained by the maps. The hot deformation temperature was 800-820°C and the strain rate was 0.01-0.1s-1.The instability zones of flow behavior can also be recognized by the maps.


AIM The aim of this study was to develop a valid and reliable measuring tool to determine the level of self-management of insulin treatment by individuals with diabetes. METHODS This was a methodological instrument development study. This study was conducted in a training and research hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, between January and June 2014.The sample of the study included 311 individuals with diabetes. The item pool was formed with 63 items. The content validity was assessed by 14 experts. The draft scale with 58 items was formed with a five-point Likert type scale. The structural validity of the scale was assessed via exploratory factor analysis. In the context of reliability analyses, the item-total score correlation, the split-half method, and the test-retest application were used. RESULTS The scale had 32 items and three subscales. The first factor was called "behavioral subdimension," the second as "cognitive subdimension," and the third, "affective subdimension." The total Cronbach alpha value of the scale was 0.91. CONCLUSION Preliminary validity and reliability was demonstrated for a newly developed scale for measuring insulin treatment self-management of adult individuals with diabetes.


The focus of this research study was to assess the perception of athletes about diet and its role in the maintenance of performance. The target population of this research study was comprised of all the players of different sports clubs of District Bannu. Two hundred and six (206) players were randomly selected as sample of the study. For the collection of data, the researcher developed a closed form of questionnaire. The developed questionnaire personally served by the researcher among the respondents and collected back after getting it filled by the respondents. The collected data were tabulated and analyzed by using percentage and mean average as statistical tool. After data analysis, the researcher arrived at conclusion that proper diet is the basic requirement of athletic performance. The data also revealed that carbohydrates, protein, fats, vitamins, minerals and water are more important to consume in proper amount for sports participation. Keywords : Athlete, Diet, Training, Sports Performance


Mycobacterium avium ssp. paratuberculosis (MAP) is the etiologic agent of Johne's disease, a chronic contagious enteritis of ruminants that causes major economic losses. Several studies, most involving large free-stall herds, have found environmental sampling to be a suitable method for detecting MAP-infected herds. In eastern Canada, where small tie-stall herds are predominant, certain conditions and management practices may influence the survival and transmission of MAP and recovery (isolation). Our objective was to estimate the performance of a standardized environmental and targeted pooled sampling technique for the detection of MAP-infected tie-stall dairy herds. Twenty-four farms (19 MAP-infected and 5 non-infected) were enrolled, but only 20 were visited twice in the same year, to collect 7 environmental samples and 2 pooled samples (sick cows and cows with poor body condition). Concurrent individual sampling of all adult cows in the herds was also carried out. Isolation of MAP was achieved using the MGIT Para TB culture media and the BACTEC 960 detection system. Overall, MAP was isolated in 7% of the environmental cultures. The sensitivity of the environmental culture was 44% [95% confidence interval (CI): 20% to 70%] when combining results from 2 different herd visits and 32% (95% CI: 13% to 57%) when results from only 1 random herd visit were used. The best sampling strategy was to combine samples from the manure pit, gutter, sick cows, and cows with poor body condition. The standardized environmental sampling technique and the targeted pooled samples presented in this study is an alternative sampling strategy to costly individual cultures for detecting MAP-infected tie-stall dairies. Repeated samplings may improve the detection of MAP-infected herds.


Apatite fission-track ages from opposite sides of the Norumbega fault zone in southern Maine reveal a significant Early Cretaceous time-temperature discontinuity across the structure. Ages west of the fault zone range from 113 to 89 Ma, while those to the east are significantly older, ranging from 159 to 140 Ma. Modeling of track length distributions reveals that at 120 Ma, an ∼55 °C difference in temperature existed between opposite sides of the fault zone currently exposed at the surface. This discontinuity is best explained by an episode of significant (to 2 km of net vertical separation) east-side-down vertical movement along the Norumbega fault zone in Late Cretaceous time. The modeling suggests contemporaneous cooling and that final movement along the fault zone occurred ca. 80 Ma. These results, when combined with earlier structural and thermochronological studies, suggest that faults mapped within the Norumbega fault zone were intermittently active from Middle Devonian to Late Cretaceous time, and that the structure is a fundamental zone of crustal weakness. The prolonged period of activity likely reflects stresses associated with late Paleozoic dextral transgression, early Mesozoic rifting associated with the initial opening of the North Atlantic Ocean basin, and processes associated with the late Mesozoic uplift and exhumation of the northern Appalachian orogen.


Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the development and preliminary effectiveness of a novel Prediabetes Decision Aid on adoption of intensive lifestyle interventions (ILIs) and metformin. Little research has focused on increasing uptake of these evidence-based treatments, especially among non-English speakers and those with low educational attainment. Methods Investigators developed an English and Spanish decision aid displaying information about type 2 diabetes (T2DM) risk and treatments to prevent T2DM and prompting patients to identify next steps for management. This pilot study was a single-arm, pretest-posttest trial of 40 adult patients with prediabetes, obesity, and ≥1 office visit within the prior 12 months. Participants reviewed this tool briefly with a study team member, and data were collected on 3 coprimary outcomes: knowledge about T2DM risk, decisional conflict, and intention to adopt treatment. Exploratory outcomes included subsequent documentation of prediabetes in chart notes and adoption of ILIs or metformin. Results Almost all participants were women, with nearly half expressing Spanish language preference and low educational attainment. A nonsignificant increase in knowledge was observed across all subgroups. Decisional conflict was significantly reduced from pretest to posttest and was similar between subgroups defined by language preference and educational attainment. While intention to adopt ILIs increased across all subgroups, this change was only significant among Spanish speakers and participants with low educational attainment. At 6 months, 17 participants had subsequent provider documentation of prediabetes, and 12 adopted ILIs or metformin. Conclusions The decision aid improved patient-reported outcomes and promoted treatment adoption in a diverse patient sample.


Several large Swedish wildfires during recent decades were caused by forestry machinery in operation, fires for which there is still no characterisation. We combined 18 years of data on dispatches, weather and fire danger and interviewed forestry workers to understand the spatial, temporal and weather distributions of these fires, and their underlying mechanisms. We estimate the average annual number of ignitions from forestry machinery in Sweden at 330–480 (2.0±0.4 ignitions per 1000ha clear-felling) of which 34.5 led to firefighter dispatches, constituting 2.2% of all forest fire dispatches and 40% of area burnt. Soil scarification causes the most ignitions and the main mechanism is likely high-inertia contact between discs and large stones, causing sparks igniting dry humus or moss, countering reports suggesting that such metal fragments cannot fulfil ignition requirements. We found a spatial relationship between forestry machine ignitions and abundance of large stones, represented by a Boulder Index generated from a nationwide dataset. Further, 75% of the dispatches occurred on days with relative humidity <45%, Duff Moisture Code (Canadian system) >26 and Fire Weather Index >12. 75% of the area burned when Fire Weather Index was >20. Results suggest machine-caused forest fires can be largely avoided by cancelling operations in stony terrain during high-risk weather.


Evaluations of private sector development programmes look at what changed to the workings of the system, and whether these changes are scalable, resilient, and sustainable. We present an evaluation lens that primarily qualifies changes to the systemic nature of food provisioning in markets. It converts theoretical frameworks into 'antennae' receptive to early signs of systemic effects of inclusive agribusiness that fosters food and nutrition security. The tools for this theory-informed approach were developed and applied in 2SCALE, a Dutch-funded programme aiming to incubate inclusive agribusiness and contribute to food and nutrition security goals in Africa. The article reflects on what to monitor to detect early signs of systemic effects and how monitoring can be embedded in unfolding business and partnering processes. It concludes that taking a theory-informed approach gives directionality to strategising and planning, and enhances capacities of partners in inclusive business projects to lead actions towards realising systemic effects.


The aim of this article is to look critically at the implications of gender equality concepts for individual freedom as conceptualised by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin. The scientific literature addressing the problem of freedom and gender equality with regard to public policy is considerably fragmented. Based on contextual literature, this article will offer four concepts of freedom that serve as analytical categories. I will analyse work/family reconciliation policy tools as introduced at the level of the European Union and reconnect them to three traditions of gender equality. The article reflects on historically embedded dichotomy between positive and negative freedom visible in gendered distinction between public and private. The main findings show that the relationship between freedom and equality is mediated by the selected policy tools suggesting that some policy tools expand freedom of all individuals while others indicate a possible limit for freedom.


The structural changes of the elderly's heart predispose to cardiac insufficiency. Treatment has to take into account the pharmacological aspects of aging which reduce drug tolerance. Success will be usually obtained after reducing preload in this type of diastolic heart failure.


The present paper was the result of a set of studies aiming at recognizing the problems and difficulties of Tourism industry in Iran. In this research, sampling was done in cross-sectional method from tourist hotels in Isfahan, i.e. 200 tourists from eight nationalities and 50 experts from Tourism industry were examined. In the theoretical framework of the research some theories such as the theory of exchange and the theory of sustainable tourism development were also considered. This research tried to answer the following questions: what are the effective factors in attraction and repulsion of Iran's Tourism industry? How satisfied are the foreign tourists traveling to Iran (Isfahan)? And what factors are involved in this satisfaction? Data analysis indicated that the following factors would affect the tourists' satisfaction and the boom in Iran's tourism industry: Improving tourist welfare facilities, providing more period of stay, establishing security, having more publicity campaign, decreasing religious restrictions, planning private investment in tourism industry, developing stable transportation, lifting commercial limitation, upgrading educational quality in tourist areas, expanding Iran's cultural relations with other countries, etc.


Quality of software producis is closely related to the elicitation requirement process. Several studies point out that elicitation techniques achieve different results when applied in different contexts. This paper presents some recommendations about the situations in which elicitation techniques are useful. Recommendations are based on a previous systematic review, which was updated and expanded with 13 new empirical studies and more than 60 new empirical results. The aggregation process generated 5 new evidences and modified 4 existing ones. In the previous review, it was found that interviews were one of the most adequate techniques in most situations. The new evidence supports the same conclusion


This paper gives an account of the Catapult Arts Caravan performances in North East and Central India from 2004 to 2010. Intermixing digital audio-visual techniques with performative folk-art practice, community participation, and debate, the Caravan process provokes community discussion on issues of common concern. In addition to providing an occasion for self-reflection, the performance event creates a Rabelaisian moment by allowing a mix of many local voices to express their particular views on a shared moment. As a technique for awareness and advocacy, the Caravan events become a means of critically evaluating the context and availability of shared natural resources. Treating oral performance as communication, the Caravan performance event serves as a public platform that is open for sharing, contestation, and reconciliation, and is an occasion for the fusion of text and context.


The ConferencingSpeech 2021 challenge is proposed to stimulate research on far-field multi-channel speech enhancement for video conferencing. The challenge consists of two separate tasks: 1) Task 1 is multi-channel speech enhancement with single microphone array and focusing on practical application with real-time requirement and 2) Task 2 is multi-channel speech enhancement with multiple distributed microphone arrays, which is a non-real-time track and does not have any constraints so that participants could explore any algorithms to obtain high speech quality. Targeting the real video conferencing room application, the challenge database was recorded from real speakers and all recording facilities were located by following the real setup of conferencing room. In this challenge, we open-sourced the list of open source clean speech and noise datasets, simulation scripts, and a baseline system for participants to develop their own system. The final ranking of the challenge will be decided by the subjective evaluation which is performed using Absolute Category Ratings (ACR) to estimate Mean Opinion Score (MOS), speech MOS (S-MOS), and noise MOS (N-MOS). This paper describes the challenge, tasks, datasets, and subjective evaluation. The baseline system which is a complex ratio mask based neural network and its experimental results are also presented.


We present a new, automated approach to selecting the cloud storage service that best matches each dataset of a given application. Our approach relies on a machine readable description of the capabilities (features, performance, cost, etc.) of each storage system, which is processed together with the user's specified requirements. The result is an assignment of datasets to storage systems, that has multiple advantages: the resulting match meets performance requirements and estimates cost; users express their storage needs using high-level concepts rather than reading the documentation from different cloud providers and manually calculating or estimating a solution. Together with our storage capabilities XML schema we present different use cases for our system that evaluate the Amazon, Azure and local clouds under several scenarios: choosing cloud storage services for a new application, estimating cost savings by switching storage services, estimating the evolution over time of cost and performance and providing information in an Amazon EC2 to Eucalyptus migration. Our application is able to process each use case in under 70 ms; it is also possible to easily expand it to account for new features and data requirements.


River meandering and anabranching have become major problems in many large rivers that carry significant amounts of sediment worldwide. The morphodynamics of these rivers are complex due to the temporal variation of flows. However, the availability of remote sensing data and geographic information systems (GISs) provides the opportunity to analyze the morphological changes in river systems both quantitatively and qualitatively. The present study investigated the temporal changes in the river morphology of the Deduru Oya (river) in Sri Lanka, which is a meandering river. The study covered a period of 32 years (1989 to 2021), using Landsat satellite data and the QGIS platform. Cloud-free Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 satellite images were extracted and processed to extract the river mask. The centerline of the river was generated using the extracted river mask, with the support of semi-automated digitizing software (WebPlotDigitizer). Freely available QGIS was used to investigate the temporal variation of river migration. The results of the study demonstrated that, over the past three decades, both the bend curvatures and the river migration rates of the meandering bends have generally increased with time. In addition, it was found that a higher number of meandering bends could be observed in the lower (most downstream) and the middle parts of the selected river segment. The current analysis indicates that the Deduru Oya has undergone considerable changes in its curvature and migration rates.


To successfully monitor power market operations and anticipate how market changes could affect the exercise of market power, indices of market power that are grounded in theory, reliable and easily calculated are needed. In this article, we present an index that we have found particularly useful in California: the Residual Supply Index (RSI). We demonstrate the empirical relationship between RSI and the mark-up of prices above competitive levels. We also describe two applications of this new index: using RSI to assess the overall competitiveness of the market during three years of dramatic changes in underlying structure, and estimating the benefits of increasing market competitiveness by upgrading Path 15. We also present some questions that market designers must consider when deciding how to mitigate market power when it is detected.


Women Challenging Unions is a collection of original papers that presents a vision of an invigorated and vibrant labour movement, one that would actively seek the full participation of women and other traditionally excluded groups, and that would willingly incorporate a feminist agenda. This vision challenges union complicity in the gendered segmentation of the labour market; union support for traditionalist ideologies about women's work, breadwinners, and male-headed families; union resistance to broader-based bargaining; and the marginalization of women inside unions. All of the authors share a commitment to workplace militancy and a more democratic union movement, to women's resistance to the devaluation of their work, to their agency in the change-making process. The interconnected web of militancy, democracy, and feminism provides the grounds on which unions can address the challenges of equity and economic restructuring, and on which the re-visioning of the labour movement can take place. The first of the four sections includes case studies of union militancy that highlight the experiences of individual women in three areas of female-dominated work: nursing, banking, and retailing. The second and third sections focus on the two key arenas of struggle where unions and feminism meet: inside unions, where women activists and staff confront the sexism of unions, and in the labour market, where women challenge their employers and their own unions. The fourth section deconstructs the conceptual tools of the discipline of industrial relations and examines its contribution to the continued invisibility of gender.


The South African Constitution is unlike any other in the world in terms of its inclusion of sexual orientation. The Constitutional Court has taken a clear position in interpreting the Bill of Rights and implementing its goal of protecting individuals and groups from discrimination. The Sodomy, Immigration, and Spousal Benefits Cases demonstrate that the Constitutional Court recognizes that homosexuals have a Constitutional right to equality, human dignity, and privacy, and that the Court is willing to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination and social prejudice.Section I of this Note will discuss some of the key provisions of the South African Bill of Rights that will effect the Court's consideration of same-sex marriage. Gays and lesbians in South Africa have strong textual arguments for the recognition of same-sex marriage based on the explicit language in the Constitution protecting sexual orientation. Section II will review the development of the Constitutional Court's Bill of Rights jurisprudence. The Constitutional Court has addressed sodomy, immigration, spousal benefits, and adoption under the sexual orientation provision and has outlined a clear analytical framework under the right to equality. Section III will consider same-sex marriage within the framework of the South African Constitution and the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court to determine how the Court should resolve the issue of whether same-sex marriage should be recognized as a constitutional right. This section will consider the textual and precedential arguments for same-sex marriage, as well as some of the social arguments against recognizing full marriage rights for gays and lesbians. This Note concludes that denying homosexual couples the right to marry is unconstitutional under the South African Constitution.


The directional and proximity models offer dramatically different theories for how voters make decisions and fundamentally divergent views of the supposed microfoundations on which vast bodies of literature in theoretical rational choice and empirical political behavior have been built. We demonstrate here that the empirical tests in the large and growing body of literature on this subject amount to theoretical debates about which statistical assumption is right. The key statistical assumptions have not been empirically tested and, indeed, turn out to be effectively untestable with existing methods and data. Unfortunately, these assumptions are also crucial since changing them leads to different conclusions about voter decision processes.


This paper presents an optimization procedure conceived to design parallel mechanisms (PMs) with legs of constant and/or variable length connected, at their endpoints, to a fixed base and a movable platform through universal and spherical joints, respectively. In the proposed procedure, the first natural frequency of the mechanism is the objective function to be maximized. The optimization problem is formulated by using dimensionless variables in order to identify the optimal geometry independently of mechanism size, platform density, and leg cross-sectional area and material. As a case study, the procedure is employed to find the optimal geometry of a 2-DOF spherical PM to be used as an orienting device in future space missions.


In this paper, green microfibers of barium titanate precursor were prepared by the combination of Sol-Gel processing and Gel-spinning technique. The piezoelectric microfibers of ceramic BaTiO3 were sintered, with diameter of 15μm and length of 20mm, respectively. Interdigitated electrodes were printed on an epoxy resin substrate. BaTiO3 microfibers were then aligned on the interdigitated electrodes and covered with the solution of epoxy resin, so as to obtain Inter-Digitated Electrodes Piezoelectric Fiber/polymer Composites, IDEPFC. The periodic output voltages with maximum value of 0.86V were obtained under harmonic excitation, by using a finger to apply a dynamic load on the top of the IDEPFC.


This paper presents a generalized model that describes the behavior of micromachined electrostatic actuators in conducting liquids and provides a guideline for designing electrostatic actuators to operate in aqueous electrolytes such as biological media. The model predicts static actuator displacement as a function of device parameters and applied frequency and potential for the typical case of negligible double-layer impedance and dynamic response. Model results are compared to the experimentally measured displacement of electrostatic comb-drive and parallel-plate actuators and exhibit good qualitative agreement with experimental observations. The model is applied to show that the pull-in instability of a parallel-plate actuator is frequency dependent near the critical frequency for actuation and can be eliminated for any actuator design by tuning the applied frequency. In addition, the model is applied to establish a frequency-dependent theoretical upper bound on the voltage that can be applied across passivated electrodes without electrolysis.


Theoretical and experimental investigations of the static and dynamic behaviour of thin-walled structures are carried out with the ultimate aim of improving prediction procedures for various aeroelastic phenomena. The dynamic stiffness matrix approach is used for structural idealization, while strip theory and Theodorsen's function C(k) are used for the aerodynamic idealization. The dynamic composite beam with with an axial load centroid, has been carried out using Special cases, that been identified and stiffness matrix for a thin-walled geometric and material coupling together (compressive or tensile) applied at the developed. An exact analysis was then the derived dynamic stiffness matrix. are derivatives of the general case have discussed. A three stage program was developed to compute various static and dynamic properties of thin-walled closed or open section composite beams. In the first stage, equivalent elastic constants (overall laminate moduli) were evaluated for a given stacking sequence and material properties. In the second stage, various sectional properties were computed. When the outputs from these two stages were combined, valuable data on sectional rigidities, mass per unit length, polar mass moment of inertia, and shear centre location from the centroid were obtained. In the third stage of the program, all these properties were used to compute the natural frequencies and normal mode shapes of thin-walled composite structures. These programs can be used individually as well as in a combined manner. An experimental investigation of composite thin plates with varying degrees of bending-torsion coupling was conducted. Flexural and torsional rigidities, natural frequencies, normal mode shapes and flutter speed and frequency were experimentally determined. The results obtained were in close agreement with the theoretical predictions. Various open composite sections were experimentally studied for their static and dynamic properties. The results demanded a more refined investigation of the theory. In addition to the experimental study of composite open sections, a parametric study of uncoupled and coupled frequencies of such sections with common boundary conditions was also conducted. Thin-walled closed aerofoil shaped cantilevered structures were tested to establish flexural and torsional rigidities, shear centre, and the polar-mass-moment of inertia. Natural frequencies and normal mode shapes were also determined. The aeroelastic behaviour of these sections was investigated to establish divergence and flutter characteristics. Comparisons of the experimental results with theoretical predictions of flutter speed and frequency were in general satisfactory and the results provided an insight into the aeroelastic behaviour of thin-walled composite beams. The results are discussed and commented on.


Abstract. Interaction of anthropogenic particles with radiation and clouds plays an
important role in Arctic climate change. The mixing state of aerosols is a key
parameter to influence aerosol radiation and aerosol–cloud interactions.
However, little is known of this parameter in the Arctic, preventing an
accurate representation of this information in global models. Here we used
transmission electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry,
scanning electron microscopy, nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry, and
atomic forces microscopy to determine the size and mixing state of
individual sulfate and carbonaceous particles at 100 nm to 2 µm
collected in the Svalbard Archipelago in summer. We found that 74 % by
number of non-sea-salt sulfate particles were coated with organic matter
(OM); 20 % of sulfate particles also had soot inclusions which only
appeared in the OM coating. The OM coating is estimated to contribute
63 % of the particle volume on average. To understand how OM coating
influences optical properties of sulfate particles, a Mie core–shell model
was applied to calculate optical properties of individual sulfate particles.
Our result shows that the absorption cross section of individual OM-coated
particles significantly increased when assuming the OM coating as
light-absorbing brown carbon. Microscopic observations here suggest that OM
modulates the mixing structure of fine Arctic sulfate particles, which may
determine their hygroscopicity and optical properties.


This study presents the mythological function of names in Greek myths, emphasizing though that most of the observed functions are not typical in mythology in general. Names were collected from the general work "Görög mitológia [Greek Mythology]" (1977/1997) by Károly Kerényi, a scholarly book paying attention even to the different versions of the myths, and, occasionally, from the popular work "Görög regék [Greek Tales]" (1976) by Imre Trencsényi-Waldapfel. The research focuses rather on the overall mythological function of names and name types, and also on the interrelations of names than on the etymologies of names. Topics presented in the paper include the specific transitionary state of mythological names between common and proper nouns and the frequent changes between these two categories; the synonymity of names (e.g. in connection with the several names of a god); names compressing the storyline of a myth; the appearance of a new name as a linguistic manifestation of the change in one's mythological role; pseudonyms as indicators of temporary mythological roles; and the magic function of names.


The late Miocene Cordillera Blanca Batholith lies directly over thick (50 km) crust, inboard of the older Cretaceous Coastal Batholith. Its peraluminous 'S* type mineralogy and its position suggest recycling of continental crust, which is commonly thought to be an increasingly important component in magmas inboard of continental margins. However, the peraluminous, apparent 'S' type character of the batholith is an artefact of deformation and uplift along a major crustal lineament. The batholith is a metaluminous 'I' type and the dominant high-silica rocks (>70%) are Na rich with many of the characteristics of subducted oceanic slab melts. However, the position of the batholith and age of the oceanic crust at the trench during the Miocene preclude slab melting. Instead, partial melting of newly underplated Miocene crust is proposed In this dynamic model newly underplated basaltic material is melted to produce high-Na, low HREE, high-Al Hrondhjemitic' type melts with residues of garnet, clinopyroxene and amphibole. Such Na-rich magmas are characteristic of thick Andean crust; they are significantly different from typical calc-alkaline, tonalite-grano-diorite magmas, and their presence along the spine of the Andes provokes questions about models of trondhjemite genesis by melting of subducted oceanic crust, as well as any generalized, circum-Pacific model involving consistent isotopic or chemical changes inboard from the trench.


A collection of technologies termed social computing is driving a dramatic evolution of the Web, matching the dot-com era in growth, excitement, and investment. All of these share a high degree of community formation, user level content creation, and a variety of other characteristics. We provide an overview of social computing and identify salient characteristics. We argue that social computing holds tremendous disruptive potential in the business world and can significantly impact society, and outline possible changes in organized human action that could be brought about. Social computing can also have deleterious effects associated with it, including security issues. We suggest that social computing should be a priority for researchers and business leaders and illustrate the fundamental shifts in communication, computing, collaboration, and commerce brought about by this trend.


Since the second half of the 20th century, there has been an increased interest in traditional forms of culture, which is probably associated with an increase in the national self-awareness of the peoples of the Russian Federation. Based on this, the authors considered the features of the use of the folklore heritage of Russian creative youth. The authors have studied the creative works of 24 young writers aged from 25 to 35. In particular, they have studied the types of folklorism in their creative works, provided the general estimate of the productivity and significance of the youth's experience of using the folkloric heritage in the modern literary process and generally in culture. The paper is defining the phenomena of the youth culture in the early decades of the 21st century (fiction, CG). The authors have made a conclusion on the diversity of the youth's creative works' connection with the folkloric samples: the construction of the social-ethnographic reality, the field of the characters' identity, a new 'cosmos', creation of the individual universes as well as the literary version of folkloric fairytale on their basis. We have also noted the tendency towards the use of the Russian folkloric characters with the purpose of giving them some universal traits of the characters of the popular computer games. The authors found that the fabulous texts are used by young authors in both the genre category and one of the ways to create on their basis new texts, various types of aesthetic experiments and games.


Despite the significant rise in obesity in the U.S., economic research on obesity is still in its infancy. This paper employs a microeconomic approach to investigate the effects of price and income changes on weight in an effort to determine how a high-calorie food tax, a low-calorie food subsidy, and/or an income changes affect body weight. Although raising the price of high-calorie food typically will likely lead to decreased demand for such goods; it is not clear that such an outcome will actually reduce weight. The model developed in this paper identifies conditions under which price and income changes are mostly likely to actually result in a weight loss. The model is easily implemented using data on own-and cross-price elasticities that are often readily available from extant literature. This is important because survey data that contain both economic information, such as food prices, and weight are extremely rare. Information on relationship between price and weight is critical in developing appropriate public policy and in determining when and where fat taxes, thin subsidies or income re-distribution will achieve the desired objective of reducing obesity.


Background: Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is comprised of multiple diseases with different outcomes, cell of origin and molecular pathogenesis. DLBCL derived from germinal center B-cells (GCB) and activated B-cells (ABC) constitutes over 80% of DLBCL. A small number of DLBCL tumors harbor MYC translocations, which are associated with a poorer prognosis. Primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma (PMBL) occurs in younger patients and is typically treated with intensive or combined modality therapy. R-CHOP is the standard of care for DLBCL but has not been prospectively studied within DLBCL molecular subtypes. DA-EPOCH-R is an alternative and more dose-intensive regimen that showed a PFS of 81% at 4-years in a phase II multicenter CALGB study (Haematologica 2012; 97:758). CALGB/Alliance undertook a phase III randomized study to compare R-CHOP and DA-EPOCH-R in DLBCL and specifically within the GCB and ABC subtypes. Methods: Patients had stage II or higher newly diagnosed DLBCL, age ≥ 18 years and were HIV negative. Subjects were randomized 1:1 to receive R-CHOP or DA-EPOCH-R as previously published. Central nervous system prophylaxis in at-risk patients was 12 mg intrathecal methotrexate in cycles 3-6 (4 doses total). All subjects with accessible tumor were required to have a biopsy or waiver. Subjects received a total of 6 treatment cycles. The primary study endpoints were EFS of R-CHOP (Arm A) versus DA-EPOCH-R (Arm B) and to develop a molecular predictor of outcome based on GCB and ABC DLBCL. Additional analyses include toxicity, pharmacogenomics and analysis of tumor genetics by next generation sequencing, and. Results: 524 patients registered (262 on each arm) between May 2005 and May 2013. Efficacy analysis includes R-CHOP (n=233) and R-EPOCH (n=231) assigned patients with confirmed eligibility who received any treatment. Characteristics of patients registered to Arm A and B did not differ with median age (58; 56), male sex (53.2%; 53.7%), high-intermediate/high IPI (33.6%; 38.2%) and primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma histology (6.9%; 5.2%). Therapy was completed per protocol in 89% and 83%, respectively, for Arm A and B, and disease progression on therapy was 2.6% and 1.7%. Adverse side effects leading to treatment discontinuation were 1.7% and 5.6%, respectively, for Arm A and B. Arm B compared to Arm A was associated with more grade 4 neutropenia (90%; 56%), grade 4 thrombocytopenia (35%; 6%), grade 3/4 febrile neutropenia (37%; 19%) and grade 3 neuropathy (motor: 8%;1% and sensory: 15%; 3%). Grade 5 events on study were the same in both arms. Preliminary analysis of EFS in confirmed eligible subjects shows no difference between Arm A and B with hazard ratio of 1.02 and p=0.89 at a median follow-up of 4.9 years. Overall survival is also similar with hazard ratio of 1.19 and p=0.40 at median 5.0 years. Additional analyses of EFS and OS by age ( =60) and by GCB versus ABC DLBCL are in process. Conclusions: There was no difference in EFS or OS between R-CHOP and DA-EPOCH-R when considering all patients. DA-EPOCH-R showed increased toxicity consistent with higher dose-intensity but not increased grade 5 toxicity. Compared to R-CHOP, more patients on DA-EPOCH-R did not complete treatment, which may reflect patterns of care or toxicity. Due to the clinical and genetic diversity of DLBCL, subset analyses are necessary to determine the effect of CNS relapse, GCB and ABC subtypes, age and IPI on outcomes of the two arms. These data do not address the efficacy of these regimens in PMBL or MYC+ DLBCL due to their low frequency, and where more dose-intense regimens appear to be important. Full molecular analyses are ongoing. Support: U10CA180821, U10CA180882, U10CA180888, CA180799, CA180820, CA180833, CA21076, CA21115. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier : NCT00118209. Disclosures Hsi: Cellerant Therapeutics: Honoraria, Research Funding; Eli Lilly: Research Funding; Abbvie: Honoraria, Research Funding; Seattle Genetics: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; HTG Molecular Diagnostics: Consultancy, Honoraria. Friedberg: Bayer: Honoraria, Other: Data Safety Monitoring Board. Cheson: Pharmacyclics: Membership on an entity9s Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Acerta: Membership on an entity9s Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Gilead: Research Funding. Bartlett: Gilead: Consultancy. Kahl: This study was coordinated by the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group (Robert L. Comis, MD and Mitchell D. Schnall, MD, PhD, Group Co-Chairs) and supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under the following award number: Research Funding. Zelenetz: Gilead Sciences: Research Funding.


Stephany Griffith-Jones and Stefano Pagliari point out, that containing "systemic risk" is one of the most important rationales for regulating financial markets. Our understanding of the sources of systemic risk has repeatedly been challenged by major episodes of financial instability. The crisis that started in the summer of 2007 has been no exception. They discuss how the latest global financial crisis urges analysts and regulators to rethink the origin of systemic risk beyond a narrow focus on the banking sector, beyond the "too big to fail problem", and beyond a narrow micro-prudential focus. They focus on two regulatory principles: comprehensiveness and countercyclicality.


Importance Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is the most serious acute complication of Type 1 diabetes. Detailed clinical data harbored by electronic health record (EHR) databases can be used to assess the impact of DKA performance improvement initiatives and generate novel disease insights. Objectives To examine trends in DKA outcomes surrounding performance improvement initiatives and identify clinical characteristics associated with treated cerebral edema. Design, Setting and Methods The EHR database at our tertiary children's hospital was interrogated using a business intelligence platform to identify patients admitted with DKA between April 2009 and May 2016. Multivariable regression using robust standard errors to cluster patients with multiple encounters was used to examine temporal trends in the incidence of hypoglycemia, treated cerebral edema, central line placement, development of severe hyperchloremia, head computed tomography utilization, and hospital length of stay. Trends in outcomes surrounding several performance improvement initiatives were examined. Results Central line placement, head computed tomography utilization and the incidence of severe hyperchloremia decreased significantly throughout the study period. Performance improvement initiatives were significantly associated with decreasing hospital length of stay and reduced variability in length of stay among patients with severe DKA. Systolic blood pressure at presentation and during hospitalization was significantly associated with treatment for cerebral edema after adjusting for other biochemical indicators of disease severity. Discussion In this large, retrospective cohort of children with DKA derived from an EHR database, system-level changes in management were significantly associated with improved outcomes. This study demonstrates the potential of EHR data to meet simultaneous quality improvement and research goals of health systems seeking to improve population and public health. Further study is necessary to clarify the relationship between blood pressure and cerebral edema in this population.


By drawing on material from popular legend and children's literature, Marco Kreuzpaintner's film Krabat presents a series of conventional leitmotifs—seduction by dark powers, a pact with the devil and ultimate redemption through love—to explore the tensions implicit in master-disciple relationships common to religious formulations. In depicting how a young boy was compelled to enter under a demonic master's protection, Krabat exploits the complex intersection of the fantastic genre, magical lore and structures of discipleship. The film is about growing up, about friendship and death, group dynamics, seduction "to the dark side," and finally, in terms of a positive message, about love which is capable of overcoming everything. Even though the film has no theological intention in the strict sense of the word, Christian values are conveyed by way of narrative elements that have been absorbed and transformed over the course of the reception history devoted to the Krabat material. In addition to marking the shifts between the genre of the literary fantastic and cinematic fantasy, this paper investigates Krabat's rich intertextuality and demonstrates how its examination may contribute to understanding the provocative interface between literary, cultural and religious studies.


The Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade has been subject to substantial judicial and scholarly criticism over the past forty-five years. Until now, there has been no comprehensive exploration of how Roe might be overturned through a majority opinion. And any past efforts would need to be updated to take account of factual and legal developments that are relevant to the Court's doctrine of stare decisis. This Article presents a majority opinion that would effectively overrule Roe. The state action vehicle is a twenty-week limit on abortion, which (as of 2018) has been enacted by twenty-one states. All of the six primary factors of stare decisis are applied to Roe. Although judges and scholars might disagree whether all six factors are relevant to an overruling decision, each factor illuminates specific defects in Roe. Much of the significant scholarly criticism of the past forty-five years is compiled and cited here. Much of the judicial criticism of Roe and its workability is likewise compiled and cited. The opinion overrules the first holding in Roe, that there is a federal constitutional right to "terminate pregnancy." This "draft" invites alternative formulations.


This article outlines a learning intervention which the authors call Learning by Design. The goal of this intervention is classroom and curriculum transformation, and the professional learning of teachers. The experiment involves the practical application of the learning theory to everyday classroom practice. Its ideas are grounded in pedagogical principles originally articulated in the Multiliteracies project, an approach to teaching and learning that addresses literacy and learning in the context of new media and the globalizing knowledge economy. The need for a new approach to learning arises from a complex range of factors — among them, changes in society and the economy; the potential for new forms of communication made possible by emerging technologies; and rising expectations amongst learners that education will maximize their potential for personal fulfillment, civic participation and access to work. The authors first brought together the Learning by Design team of researchers and teachers in 2003 in order to reflect upon and create new and dynamic learning environments. A series of research and development activities were embarked upon in Australia and, more recently, in the United States, exploring the potentials of new pedagogical approaches, assisted by digital technologies, to transform today's learning environments and create learning for the future — learning environments which could be more relevant to a changing world, more effective in meeting community expectations and which manage educational resources more efficiently. One of the key challenges was to create learning environments which engaged the sensibilities of learners who are increasingly immersed in digital and global lifestyles — from the entertainment sources they choose to the way they work and learn. It was also about enabling teachers to explicitly track and be aware of the relationship between their pedagogical choices and their students' learning outcomes.


— Web sites routinely monitor visitor traffic as a useful measure of their overall success. However, simple summaries such as the total number of visits per month provide little insight about individual site patterns, especially in a changing environment like the Web. In this paper it is described an approach to usage profiling based on clickstream data collected on several Web servers' sites and stored in a specialized clickstream data warehousing. We aim at providing valuable insights about common users, but also preventing unauthorised access to contents and any form of overload that might deteriorate site performance. Common crawler detection heuristics help to classify sessions, enabling the construction of site-specific profile training sets. Then, classification algorithms are used for building predictive models that can evaluate unseen sessions, namely their nature and potential site hazard, when they are still ongoing.


To prevent property damage and loss of human lives due to fire accidents, vision-based smoke detection is deemed to be a promising approach to early detection and prediction of fire disasters. Despite advances, challenges still exist for developing robust vision-based smoke detection algorithms, which include reliably quantifying the visual characteristics of smoke and overcoming the limitations of devices in real applications. This thesis has established computational models to address these challenges and developed novel methods based on the models for vision-based smoke detection. Specifically, an image formation model for smoke is derived based on atmospheric scattering models. To capture the texture feature of smoke, non-redundant local binary pattern is adopted to deal with the relative intensity between the bright/dark smoke and the background. In addition, algorithms are developed to separate the smoke component from the background and robust features are extracted from the smoke component for reliable detection. Specifically, three models, namely local smoothness, principal component and sparse representation, are proposed to model the smoke component for effective component separation. Detection performance is significantly improved compared with the traditional video-based methods. For the scenarios where video is not available, novel algorithms are developed for detecting smoke in single images. Specifically, sparse representation based on dualdictionary modeling is proposed for both the smoke and background components and the sparse coefficients are employed as a feature for smoke detection. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is validated by extensive experiments.


The relationship between the European jurisdiction regime and arbitration is one of the areas generating confusion and disputes. The Brussels I Regulation clearly excludes arbitration from its scope to avoid conflicts with the New York Convention, but arbitration-related issues, such as the validity of arbitration agreements, either as an independent claim or an incidental question, frequently arise in courts. The scope of the Brussels I Regulation in terms of arbitration has been addressed by the Court of Justice of the European Union in a number of decisions, such as Marc Rich v Societa Italiano Impianti, Van Uden, and Front Comor. None of them have provided a satisfactory answer. In order to provide clarification and to reconcile the European jurisdiction Regulation and the New York Convention, the Brussels I Recast has inserted a new recital specifically addressing the relationship between court jurisdiction and arbitration. This article aims to assess the effect of the new recital and whether it has appropriately resolved the difficult questions on the relationship between jurisdiction and arbitration in the European Union.


Increasing load growth, decreasing investments and increasing penetration of dynamic sources and loads have severely increased the stress on the electric grid. This growing stress has forced operators and regulators to think of delivering energy in a smart, controllable and reliable way to the customers. Tie-lines connecting two systems are one of the traditional methods used by utilities to improve the system reliability. However, often specially during contingencies, tie-lines get overloaded due to the lack of power flow controllability through them. Controllable Network Transformers (CNTs) are smart assets which can be realized by augmenting existing Load Tap Changing (LTC) transformers in order to achieve power flow control. This paper proposes the use of CNTs in tie-lines to make them smart and controllable, without compromising the system reliability.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the hazard risk of developing or worsening heart failure in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients treated with tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha) inhibitors.

METHODS
RA patients ages 18-75 years who started treatment with infliximab, etanercept, or adalimumab (n = 2,757), or conventional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (controls; n = 1,491) at the time of enrollment in a German biologics register were studied. Cox proportional hazards models were applied to investigate the influence of disease-related and treatment-specific risk factors on the incidence or worsening of heart failure.

RESULTS
The 3-year incidence rates of heart failure in patients with and patients without cardiovascular disease at the start of treatment were 2.2% and 0.4%, respectively. After adjustment for traditional cardiovascular risk factors, an increased risk of developing heart failure was found in patients who had a higher 28-joint Disease Activity Score at followup (hazard ratio [HR] 1.47 [95% confidence interval 1.07-2.02], P = 0.019). A residual nonsignificant risk related to treatment with TNFalpha inhibitors remained (adjusted HR 1.66 [95% confidence interval 0.67-4.1], P = 0.28). This residual risk was balanced by the efficacy of the anti-TNF treatment. When only baseline characteristics were taken into account, the HR related to TNFalpha inhibitor treatment decreased to 0.70 (95% confidence interval 0.27-1.84).

CONCLUSION
The findings of this study indicate that TNFalpha inhibitor treatment that effectively reduces the inflammatory activity of RA is more likely to be beneficial than harmful with regard to the risk of heart failure, especially if there is no concomitant therapy with glucocorticoids or cyclooxygenase 2 inhibitors. Furthermore, the data suggest that TNFalpha inhibition does not increase the risk of worsening of prevalent heart failure.


Objective: Comparing outcome of Veress Needle (VN) versus Direct Trocar insertion (DTI) for creation of Pneumoperitoneum in laparoscopic Cholecystectomy. Study Design: Randomized Controlled Trial. Settings: Khawaja Muhamamd Safdar Medical College Surgical Department, Faisalabad Medical University Surgical Department, Allama Iqbal Memorial Hospital and Govt.  Sardar Begum Teaching Hospital, Sialkot. Duration: 27-09-2017 to 26-09-2018. Methodology: A total number of 608 patients, having age 30 and 75 years planned for laparoscopic Cholecystectomy were selected. Detailed history, clinical examination & baseline investigations were carried out. Patients were divided into two groups. Group A (DTI), Group B (VN). All trocars and veress needle used were disposable, with a safety shield. Maximum 3 attempts were made and in case of failure open technique were used. The collected data was stored and analyzed in SPSS version 22. Chi-square test was used to compare no. of attempts between the groups. Results: Mean age of patients in present study was 47.99+11.01 years. There were 211 (34.70%) male patients and 297(65.30%) female patients. In DTI group, Pneumoperitoneum was created successfully in first attempt in 278 (91.4%) patients, in 2nd attempt in 20 (6.6%) patients and in 3rd attempt in 6 (2.0%) patients. While in VNI group Pneumoperitoneum was successful in first attempt in 256(84.2%) patient sin 2nd attempt in 38 (12.5%) patients and in 3rd attempt in 10 (3.3%) patients (p-value 0.02). Conclusion: Direct trocar is a safe alternative to veress needle insertion in laparoscopic cholecystectomy. It requires less number of attempts for successful creation of Pneumoperitoneum as compared to the veress needle.


Molecular imaging allows for the remote, noninvasive sensing and measurement of cellular and molecular processes in living subjects. Drawing upon a variety of modalities, molecular imaging provides a window into the biology of cancer from the subcellular level to the patient undergoing a new, experimental therapy. As signal transduction cascades and protein interaction networks become clarified, an increasing number of relevant targets for cancer therapy--and imaging--become available. Although conventional imaging is already critical to the management of patients with cancer, molecular imaging will provide even more relevant information, such as early detection of changes with therapy, identification of patient-specific cellular and metabolic abnormalities, and the disposition of therapeutic, gene-tagged cells throughout the body--all of which will have a considerable impact on morbidity and mortality. This overview discusses molecular imaging in oncology, providing examples from a variety of modalities, with an emphasis on emerging techniques for translational imaging.


The interaction of cells with polymers is important for their potential applications in medicine and various areas of biotechnology. Their physico-chemical surface properties strongly influence the cell morphology, adhesion and growth. Physical and chemical properties of pristine and modified polyethylene (PE) films were studied. PE was modified by Ar plasma (0–400 s, 2.0 W) and than grafted with amino acid (glycine). Structural and morphological changes of polymer were studied by goniometry and Rutherford back-scattering (RBS). The interaction of these samples with vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) from the rat aorta was studied. Number and morphology of the adhered and proliferated cell on the pristine and modified PE was studied in vitro method. It was found that wetting angle of the modified films decreased with exposure time. Experiments in vitro indicated that the adhesion and proliferation of VSMC is increasing function of degradation time and glycine grafting.


We perform a canonical, reduced phase space quantization of general relativity by loop quantum gravity (LQG) methods. The explicit construction of the reduced phase space is made possible by the combination of (a) the Brown–Kuchař mechanism in the presence of pressure-free dust fields which allows to deparametrize the theory and (b) Rovelli's relational formalism in the extended version developed by Dittrich to construct the algebra of gauge-invariant observables. Since the resulting algebra of observables is very simple, one can quantize it using the methods of LQG. Basically, the kinematical Hilbert space of non-reduced LQG now becomes a physical Hilbert space and the kinematical results of LQG such as discreteness of spectra of geometrical operators now have physical meaning. The constraints have disappeared; however, the dynamics of the observables is driven by a physical Hamiltonian which is related to the Hamiltonian of the standard model (without dust) and which we quantize in this paper.


With quality characteristics, the meat originated from Hereford, Braford and crossed breed animals, obtained a considerable increase in the meat market, seeking improvement. In order to have an expression of this quality in the market, through this idea came meat programs, with the purpose of offering quality to the final consumer. The objective of this work was to study the effect of the racial group on the carcass characteristics, classifications and declassifications within the Meat Hereford Program and aggregation and disaggregation of the value of the animals individually and of the batches of animals. Lots with Hereford predominantly presented higher mean carcass weight, higher percentage of animals with dentition 8, higher percentage of animals with 1 "thin" and 4 "uniform" finishing in relation to the others. The average number of animals finishing 5 "excess fat" in the lot is higher when the predominance of the lot is Braford animals. The declassification of animals with a racial pattern is similar between lots with predominance of Hereford, Braford or Hereford crossed, due to lack of finishing of the carcass or with dentition superior to 6 teeth. The value paid for certified heads did not differ between the evaluated groups. Disaggregation, although negative for groups with Hereford predominance, did not differ statistically from the other groups. Key-words: Productive Chain, Pampa Meat, Agroindustrial Markets, Racial Predominance, Disaggregation


This study conducted during 3 years period (2002-2004). Tick sampling was randomly carried out from domestic animals during seasonal activity of ticks from six provinces of Iran. 2170 ticks from 151 cattle , 629 sheep, 336 goats and 32 camels were collected proin 30 prosseces with a mean number of 1.9 tick per animal. 209 Dermacentor ticks collected from six provinces( Kordestan, Ardebil, East Azarbaiejan, Zanjan, Khorasan and Semnan) that included 23% of collected tick population in those provinces. The diversity of Dermacentor is restricted to three species; D.niveus (50%), D.marginatus (27%) and D.raskemensis (23%). The maximum occurance of D.raskemensis , D.niveus, D. marginatus, were occurred in provinces of Semnan, Khorasan and Kordestan, respectively. It can be concluded that livestock had almost different pattern of tick species in any localities thus distribution of D.raskemensis , D.niveus, D. marginatus, has been confirmed this matter.


License (open-access): This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. No warranty, express or implied, is given. Nor is any representation made that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The publisher shall not be liable for any actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.


A finite-difference algorithm was developed based on the Biot's equations of motion for modelling wave propagation in poroelastic media. In contrast with the elastic modelling, in the poroelastic approach the properties of the pore fluid are taken into account in the algorithm. Poroelastic modelling could be useful in cases where the fluid content of the rock is of interest, i.e. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects. We examined our program using a model based on the Quest CCS project in Alberta to investigate the detectability of CO2 after one year of injection. This was done by defining two models for baseline and monitor scenarios that represented the subsurface before and after injecting CO2. The difference between the calculated seismic sections for the two scenarios shows that the residual amplitude is comparable with the signal amplitude. With this result, the injected CO2 in the Quest project over a year could be detected providing the data have good bandwidth and a high signal-to-noise ratio. The effect of the porosity and the fluid properties on the output of the algorithm is being examined in an ongoing study.


Biofilms were cultivated in rotating annular reactors supplied with river water supple- mented with carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus or a combined nutrient addition. Confocal laser scanning microscopy and digital image analysis were used in combination with a panel of fluor-conjugated lectin probes to assess the changes in biofilm glycoconjugates with depth, time and in response to the nutrient additions. In addition, nucleic acid staining and autofluorescence were utilised to monitor bacterial and photosynthetic populations respectively. These analyses indicated that in lotic biofilms both quantitative and proportional differences in glycoconjugate composition developed under each nutrient regime. The differences in the biofilms were detected with time and with depth. Comparison of C, N, P, and CNP treatments with the control showed differences in the total amount of photosyn- thetic organisms, bacteria and extracellular polymeric substance (EPS)-specific glycoconjugates. For example, C, N, and CNP nutrient additions resulted in a minimal increase of 50% lectin-specific EPS glycoconjugates. Accumulation of different glycoconjugates over time in the different biofilms showed a similar pattern in the single nutrient treatments, with a maximum accumulation at 3 wk, followed by sloughing in Week 5 and regrowth in Week 7. In contrast, both the control and the com- bined CNP treatment showed a continuous increase and a plateau phase for the glycoconjugates as a whole. Both visualisation and quantification indicated that under each treatment the distribution of 4 specific glycoconjugates (Arachis hypogaea, Canavalia ensiformis, Glycine max, Ulex europaeus) varied with depth and, in addition, changed over time. Further, the glycoconjugate make-up of the single nutrient additions were similar to each other, as was the make-up of the control and combined nutrient treatment. Application of fluorescence in situ hybridisation analysis indicated that significant changes occurred in the beta-proteobacteria community composition as a consequence of nutrient addition. The results demonstrate the effect of nutrient regime on the cellular composition and glycoconjugate chemistry of lotic biofilms.


In this study, a novel method is proposed for the compensation of loads that vary frequently in time. The proposed scheme is based on the fuzzy logic controller (FLC) that is widely used in control of nonlinear processes. FLC architecture is used for regulating the gains of the basis Proportional-Integral (PI) as a self-tuning controller. On the other hand, the constant gains of the basis: PI controller are optimised by a genetic algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method shows better performance than that of the conventional PI controller.


A critical challenge in multi-agent reinforcement learning(MARL) is for multiple agents to efficiently accomplish complex, long-horizon tasks. The agents often have difficulties in cooperating on common goals, dividing complex tasks, and planning through several stages to make progress. We propose to address these challenges by guiding agents with programs designed for parallelization, since programs as a representation contain rich structural and semantic information, and are widely used as abstractions for long-horizon tasks. Specifically, we introduce Efficient Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning with Parallel Program Guidance(E-MAPP), a novel framework that leverages parallel programs to guide multiple agents to efficiently accomplish goals that require planning over $10+$ stages. E-MAPP integrates the structural information from a parallel program, promotes the cooperative behaviors grounded in program semantics, and improves the time efficiency via a task allocator. We conduct extensive experiments on a series of challenging, long-horizon cooperative tasks in the Overcooked environment. Results show that E-MAPP outperforms strong baselines in terms of the completion rate, time efficiency, and zero-shot generalization ability by a large margin.


Transportation engineering is one of the four focus areas of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Pretoria (UP). Students are educated on both undergraduate and postgraduate level in the disciplines of transportation, pavement and railway engineering. Current research projects focus on different aspects of these three disciplines. About 100 undergraduate students graduate from the department annually, while around 20 students achieve the Honours degree in Transportation Engineering and Applied Sciences, and five students the Masters degree in Transportation Engineering and Applied Sciences annually.


Changes in the thermal behavior of DMPC (dimyristoyl-L-phosphatidylcholine) and an equimolar mixture of DMPC and DMPE (dimyristoyl-L-phosphatidylethanolamine) induced by the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) have been investigated using fluorescent probes. The fluorescence decay of the hydrophobic probe 1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene (DPH) in these vesicles has been measured using frequency-domain fluorometry, and has been analyzed using both models of discrete exponential components and continuous lifetime distributions. In the DMPC vesicles, using the distributional approach, higher center and width values were observed in the presence of abscisic acid (ABA), indicating a decrease in the dielectric constant of the lipid phase that we attribute to a decrease in the water concentration within the bilayer. Moreover, the presence of ABA in the liposomes increased the phospholipid phase transition temperature. The addition of ABA to the DMPC/DMPE mixture strongly increased the microheterogeneity of the system as reported by the FWHM (full-width at half-maximum) of the distributional approach.


In this paper we have studied from first-principles the effect of magnetism on the hydrogen-metal interaction and the binding properties of palladium with 3d-alloying atoms in the presence of vacancies induced during hydrogenation process. Our first-principles calculations were carried out by means of state of the art ab-initio method based on density functional theory and all-electron PAW-potentials. We have analyzed the changes of the atomic and electronic structures of palladium crystal induced by the presence of substitutional 3d-alloying atoms, interstitial hydrogen and structural defect (palladium vacancy). The obtained results have shown that magnetism can strongly affect the hydrogen-metal interaction in palladium based alloys. We have also demonstrated that the presence of vacancies in the palladium matrix can alter the interaction energy between hydrogen and alloying transition metal atoms.


The ill-defined law-fact distinction often stands as the gatekeeper to judicial review of an agency deportation order, restricting non-citizens facing deportation to raising only questions of law when appearing before an appellate court. The restriction on review most affects cases whose dispositions typically turn on the resolution of factual issues, including claims under Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture and claims for discretionary relief from deportation like cancellation of removal. Convention Against Torture claims, for example, often involve extensive fact-finding on the part of the immigration judge regarding conditions in the applicant's home country and the applicant's personal circumstances. At the same time, these claims raise a plethora of issues that arguably are not purely factual, including such critical questions as: Does the feared mistreatment rise to the level of torture? Is the mistreatment likely to happen? Has the judge followed the standards governing factual adjudications? Whether or not a federal appellate court can answer these questions depends on which side of the law-fact divide they fall. This article demonstrates that the basic, analytical concept of a question of law in immigration court decisions is more expansive than is typically understood. It focuses on questions that involve the application of law to facts that have already been established - questions that are commonly called mixed questions. The article briefly traces the history of immigration judicial review, culminating with the REAL ID Act of 2005 and the jurisdictional savings clause contained in it. It discusses the concept of a mixed question of law and fact, offering a basic formula that captures the concept of a mixed question as a question of law. It also proposes a meta-rule formula for mixed questions that offers a way to identify and categorize mixed questions involving a breach of the rules of decision-making. Also addressed is the interplay between the concepts of law-fact and discretion, as this has been a focal point of confusion. The article concludes with thoughts about how courts and litigators should proceed in their thinking about the law-fact distinction.


The search process research topic is concerned for every doctoral student from all major colleges and all educational subjects. Previous studies indicate that the information literacy is a tool aids in the process of finding a research topic. This study aims to determine how the role of information literacy for doctoral students to find a thesis topic through interviews with doctoral students of engineering and non-engineering majors from several countries. The results showed that the use of information literacy required in the process of finding a research topic by using the channel information journal in websites and search engines is the most frequently used by students. Information literacy education in the form of short courses on material which is supporting the conduct of research, guides and self-learning module is a new discovery in this research.


The advance of medical and biological science and technology has presented us with new ethical and legal issues. Is embryonic stem cell research morally justified and legally allowed? What moral status do embryos have? Who can be a morally appropriate user of In Vitro fertilization? Who can use donated sperm and/or egg? What is the scope of reproductive liberty? What is the meaning of a family and that of reproduction? How far does our genetic intervention go? Scientists, lawyers, and laymen are waiting for clear answers from philosophers. Unfortunately, philosophers have not seemed to give satisfactory answers to them. We may have various reasons. One of main reasons, however, seems to me that the above philosophical questions have not been the main research topics for philosophers since philosophy gave up metaphysical and/or religious questions. Thus, I argue that biomedical ethical issues urge philosophers to change the philosopher's attitude of doing philosophy. Those issues make them consider and rethink our fundamental concepts of life, death, family, and values pursued by human beings. In addition, it is easy to find conflicting ethical and philoso-phical answers to the above questions. Thus, it is very hard to reach consensus on the above ethical issues. This makes philosophers consider how we make a group decision over ethical issues showing conflicting but reasonable ethical answers in a plural society. This requires philosophers, especially scholars of ethics, develop a new ethics and its relevant concepts. This ethics must be able to work in a plural society where reasonable comprehensive belief systems coexist. In these respects, I argue that bioethics has to struggle with a new challenge to philosophy.


Photodynamic therapy could provide an alternative to antibiotics for the treatment of local infections since a wide range of microorganisms have been shown to be susceptible to killing by photodynamic action (PDA) in vitro. The purpose of this study was to determine whether PDA was also able to affect the potency of two key bacterial virulence factors—lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and proteases. Suspensions of LPS from Escherichia coli and culture supernatants containing proteases of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were exposed to red light in the presence of toluidine blue O (TBO). The activity of each virulence factor was determined before and after irradiation. The limulus amoebocyte lysate (LAL) assay and the induction of proinflammatory cytokine (interleukin‐8 and ‐6) release from human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were used for assessing the biological activity of LPS. Protease activity was quantified by azocasein hydrolysis. The biological activities of the LPS (both the LAL activity and its ability to induce cytokine release from PBMC) and the proteases were reduced significantly by irradiation with red light in the presence of TBO in a dose‐dependent manner with respect to both the light energy dose and the TBO concentration. The ability of TBO‐mediated PDA to reduce the activities of key virulence factors may be an additional benefit of using light‐activated antimicrobial agents in the treatment of infectious diseases.


This chapter aims to establish a positive vision for the technology-enhanced learning design field. It commences by summarizing the current state of technology-enhanced learning research, as established by the previous analysis, in order to clarify the foundations upon which the field can build. The future of learning technology is considered, in the first instance, by extrapolating trends in information and communication technologies throughout history. This process showcases how the most impactful technologies are those that bring information closer to us, support sharing, and offer more visceral learning experiences. The nature of learning technology trends occurring in recent Horizon Reports, for instance, gesture-based computing, augmented reality, Massive Open Online Courses, and table computing, are analyzed and explained in terms of Roger's Diffusion of Innovation Theory and Gartner's Hype Cycle. This leads to identifying teachers as the critical lynch pin in order for society to derive greatest educational benefit from the exponential advances in technology. Consequently, support for educators is argued as essential. Into the future the learning technology field will only optimize its progress if educators and researchers work together to understand design issues and possibilities. Directions forward for educators and researchers are proposed, emphasizing a research-driven, pedagogically focused, creative, and collaborative approach to technology-enhanced learning design.


Aspergillus fumigatus is an important fungal pathogen and the main etiological agent of aspergillosis, a disease characterized by a noninvasive process that can evolve to a more severe clinical manifestation called invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) in immunocompromised patients. The antifungal arsenal to threat aspergillosis is very restricted. Azoles are the main therapeutic approach to control IPA, but the emergence of azole-resistant A. fumigatus isolates has significantly increased over the last decades. Therefore, new strategies are necessary to combat aspergillosis and drug repurposing has emerged as an efficient and alternative approach for identifying new antifungal drugs. Here, we used a screening approach to analyze A. fumigatus in vitro susceptibility to 1,127 compounds. A. fumigatus was more susceptible to 10 compounds, including miltefosine, a drug that displayed fungicidal activity against A. fumigatus. By screening an A. fumigatus transcription factor null library, we identified a single mutant, which has the rmiA (resistant to miltefosine) gene deleted, conferring a phenotype of susceptibility to miltefosine. The transcriptional profiling (RNA-seq) of the wild-type and the ΔrmiA strains and the Chromatin Immunoprecipitation coupled to next generation sequencing (ChIP-Seq) of a RmiA-tagged strain exposed to miltefosine revealed genes of the sphingolipids pathway that are directly or indirectly regulated by RmiA. Sphingolipids analysis demonstrated that the mutant has overall decreased levels of sphingolipids when growing in the presence of miltefosine. The identification of RmiA represents the first genetic element described and characterized which plays a direct role in miltefosine response in fungi. Author summary The filamentous fungus Aspergillus fumigatus causes a group of diseases named aspergillosis and their development occurs after the inhalation of conidia dispersed in the environment. Very few classes of antifungal drugs are available for aspergillosis treatment, e.g., azoles, but the emergence of global resistance to azoles in A. fumigatus clinical isolates has increased over the last decades. Repositioning or repurposing drugs already available on the market is an interesting and faster opportunity for the identification of novel antifungals agents. By using a repurposing strategy, we identified 10 different compounds that impact A. fumigatus survival. One of these compounds, miltefosine, demonstrated fungicidal activity against A. fumigatus. The mechanism of action of miltefosine is unknown and aiming to get more insights about it, we identified a transcription factor RmiA (Resistant to miltefosine) important for miltefosine resistance. Our results suggest that miltefosine plays antifungal activity against A. fumigatus interfering in the sphingolipids biosynthesis.


Agent Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) is defined as a new trend in computing with methodologies and modeling techniques for integrating agent entities in the software system, proposed to answer the increasingly complex distributed, large, open, dynamic, unpredictable, heterogeneous, and highly interactive application environments. Motivated by at least two main fields in computer science, Software Engineering (SE), and Agent Base Computing, with great amount of overlapping and related fields which create confusion and unclear view of a formal description of Agent Oriented System in terms of analysis, design and implementation, This paper helps the readers to clear the confusion toward the future of AOSE through returning to the basic definitions, based on the reflective relation between programming paradigms as the tool of software application and SE approach's evolutions


The PTT's present research and development policy is based on the company policy guidelines and directives. It centers around own activities in application-oriented and economically motivated projects based on results of basic research. Knowing the importance of assured basic knowledge the PTT highly values good relations with the universities. It supports and furthers coordination of research activities of the universities and industry and places contracts of a goal-oriented specific nature. The research assignments to universities increased from originally 0.35 million francs (1977) to the present 1.3 million francs this year. A list of current projects is shown. The total expenditures for these projects come up to about 2.8 million francs. This corresponds to about 50 p.c. of the total expenditure for outside research and development projects


This paper explores the implications of Dewey's laboratory model of learning to teach for the role of the mentor, which has been traditionally associated with an apprenticeship model. Is mentoring at all compatible with a laboratory model in which student and experienced teachers improve their practice collaboratively through experimentation and research at the level of the classroom? Drawing on the work of Lawrence Stenhouse and his idea of the 'teacher as a researcher' the author claims that there is room for a 'knowledgeable other' in the laboratory model, in the form of a curriculum expert who enables teachers to both translate theory into practice, in a manner that is not a matter of straightforward implementation, but tests and reconstructs the theory in the process. In this respect the author looks at Japanese Lesson Study as a form of teacher collaborative research and the role of the 'knowledgeable other' in conducting Kyouzai kenkyuu (curriculum analysis) with groups of teachers in relation to their lesson planning. The paper concludes by citing a case study of a theoretically informed Lesson Study in which practice and theory are developed in parallel to each other and locating a role for the mentor as a 'knowledgeable other' in this context.


Despite the numerous studies found in the literature on CYANEX® 301, very few explain its degradation in depth. To the best of our knowledge none has explained the inconsistency between the "common knowledge" of "CYANEX® 301 degrades into CYANEX® 272" (dithiophosphinic acid degrading into the corresponding phosphinic acid) and the 31P spectrum obtained by NMR of the degradation compound. The 31P {1H} NMR analysis of a solution of CYANEX® 301 in prolonged contact with nitric acid shows a very complex spectrum, with resonances about 20 ppm downfield from what could have been expected.
The degradation product giving those multiple resonances in a pattern that could be interpreted as a triplet of triplet is actually a dimer, where two molecules of CYANEX® 301 are linked by a disulfide bridge, corresponding to the condensation of the SH groups. The explanation of the complexity of the spectrum comes from the comparison with the spectrum obtained for the degradation of a stereoisomerically-purified CYANEX® 301. This purification led to the removal of the [R;S] and [S;R] isomers from the initial mixture, and yielded a white crystalline solid proven to comprise exclusively [R;R] and [S;S] isomers by XRD analysis. It was determined that the carbon chirality induced an asymmetry of the phosphorus atoms upon condensation, leading to a wide combination of magnetically non-equivalent P-31 nuclei, which can also exhibit coupling through the S-S bond The complete explanation of the NMR spectra was established and corroborated by elemental analysis


The images captured under improper exposure conditions often suffer from contrast degradation and detail distortion. Contrast degradation will destroy the statistical properties of low-frequency components, while detail distortion will disturb the structural properties of high-frequency components, leading to the low-frequency and high-frequency components being mixed and inseparable. This will limit the statistical and structural modeling capacity for exposure correction. To address this issue, this paper proposes to decouple the contrast enhancement and detail restoration within each convolution process. It is based on the observation that, in the local regions covered by convolution kernels, the feature response of low-/high-frequency can be decoupled by addition/difference operation. To this end, we inject the addition/difference operation into the convolution process and devise a Contrast Aware (CA) unit and a Detail Aware (DA) unit to facilitate the statistical and structural regularities modeling. The proposed CA and DA can be plugged into existing CNN-based exposure correction networks to substitute the Traditional Convolution (TConv) to improve the performance. Furthermore, to maintain the computational costs of the network without changing, we aggregate two units into a single TConv kernel using structural re-parameterization. Evaluations of nine methods and five benchmark datasets demonstrate that our proposed method can comprehensively improve the performance of existing methods without introducing extra computational costs compared with the original networks. The codes will be publicly available.


In this modern developing world finite element model is one of the main tools and they are becoming more and more advanced day by day in all mechanical fields. Before manufacturing a product the demands for finite element model is more between the manufacturers. The finite element method is considered as a powerful technique which is developed for solving the numerical solution of the complex problems in structural mechanics. In welded frame finite element modeling, finite element method is used and in for comparing the results, and its corresponding behavior, co-relation with the use of experimental modal analysis. Experimental modal analysis is nothing but a simple non-mathematical presentation. This thesis involves both analytical as well as experimental measurements. By means of using modal theory, analytical model is created so as to resemble the experimental data. The welded frame measurements are taken from college lab and the readings are observed by use of experimental modal analysis. The result of this thesis work includes updated model of the frame which is experimentally taken into consideration and there measurements are both analytically and experimentally co related. Here the initial finite element model of the welded frame showed a bit differences when compared to experimental data. There are four beams that are being investigated and compared with the experimental data. An acceptable error was secured for natural frequencies when compared with experimental results and with the updated version of finite element model.