Generation of artificial metalloenzymes (ArMs) has gained much inspiration from the general understanding of natural metalloenzymes. Over the last decade, a multitude of methods generating transition metal-protein hybrids have been developed and many of these new-tonature constructs catalyse reactions previously reserved for the realm of synthetic chemistry. This perspective will focus on ArMs incorporating 4d and 5d transition metals. It aims to summarise the significant advances made to date and asks whether there are chemical strategies, used in nature to optimise metal catalysts, that have yet to be fully recognised in the synthetic enzyme world, particularly whether artificial enzymes produced to date fully take advantage of the structural and energetic context provided by the protein. Further, the argument is put forward that, based on precedence, in the majority of naturally evolved metalloenzymes the direct coordination bonding between the metal and the protein scaffold is integral to catalysis. Therefore, the protein can attenuate metal activity by positioning ligand atoms in the form of amino acids, as well as making non-covalent contributions to catalysis, through intermolecular interactions that pre-organise substrates and stabilise transition states. This highlights the often neglected but crucial element of natural systems that is the energetic contribution towards activating metal centres through protein fold energy. Finally, general principles needed for a different approach to the formation of ArMs are set out, utilising direct coordination inspired by the activation of an organometallic cofactor upon protein binding. This methodology, observed in nature, delivers true interdependence between metal and protein. When combined with the ability to efficiently evolve enzymes, new problems in catalysis could be addressed in a faster and more specific manner than with simpler small molecule catalysts.


The effect of pressure up to 1800 kg/cm2 on the refractive indices of ethyl alcohol, water, and five intermediate aqueous solutions of alcohol at 25°C, was measured for the Hg arc lines of wave-lengths 579, 546, 436, and 406 mμ. There is an approximate decrease of 0.6 to 1 percent in the Lorentz-Lorenz "constant," 0.1 to 0.45 percent deviation in the Gladstone and Dale "constant," and 0.2 to 0.6 percent deviation in the empirical Eykman formula. It is concluded that with none of these formulae can the compressions of the solutions be computed from the refractive-index measurements with any great accuracy.The specific refractions of Gladstone and Dale are found most suitable for a mixture formula which holds as well through the pressure range of 1500 atmos. as at atmospheric pressure.Compressions calculated from refraction formulae are found to be a linear function of the observed compressions of the solutions. An equation is given which reproduces with great precision the refractive indices of alcohol, water, and their mixtures; its logartihmic term is the same as that in the Tait equation for compressibilities, and the part containing the refractive indices involves the same function which appears in the formulae of Gladstone and Dale, Lorentz-Lorenz, etc.


OF DISSERTATION RICHARDSON EXTRAPOLATION-BASED HIGH ACCURACY HIGH EFFICIENCY COMPUTATION FOR PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS In this dissertation, Richardson extrapolation and other computational techniques are used to develop a series of high accuracy high efficiency solution techniques for solving partial differential equations (PDEs). A Richardson extrapolation-based sixth-order method with multiple coarse grid (MCG) updating strategy is developed for 2D and 3D steady-state equations on uniform grids. Richardson extrapolation is applied to explicitly obtain a sixth-order solution on the coarse grid from two fourth-order solutions with different related scale grids. The MCG updating strategy directly computes a sixth-order solution on the fine grid by using various combinations of multiple coarse grids. A multiscale multigrid (MSMG) method is used to solve the linear systems resulting from fourth-order compact (FOC) discretizations. Numerical investigations show that the proposed methods compute high accuracy solutions and have better computational efficiency and scalability than the existing Richardson extrapolation-based sixth order method with iterative operator based interpolation. Completed Richardson extrapolation is explored to compute sixth-order solutions on the entire fine grid. The correction between the fourth-order solution and the extrapolated sixth-order solution rather than the extrapolated sixth-order solution is involved in the interpolation process to compute sixth-order solutions for all fine grid points. The completed Richardson extrapolation does not involve significant computational cost, thus it can reach high accuracy and high efficiency goals at the same time. There are three different techniques worked with Richardson extrapolation for computing fine grid sixth-order solutions, which are the iterative operator based interpolation, the MCG updating strategy and the completed Richardson extrapolation. In order to compare the accuracy of these Richardson extrapolation-based sixth-order methods, truncation error analysis is conducted on solving a 2D Poisson equation. Numerical comparisons are also carried out to verify the theoretical analysis. Richardson extrapolation-based high accuracy high efficiency computation is extended to solve unsteady-state equations. A higher-order alternating direction implicit (ADI) method with completed Richardson extrapolation is developed for solving unsteady 2D convection-diffusion equations. The completed Richardson extrapolation is used to improve the accuracy of the solution obtained from a high-order ADI method in spatial and temporal domains simultaneously. Stability analysis is given to show the effects of Richardson extrapolation on stable numerical solutions from the underlying ADI method.


Deep neural networks have been widely applied in many areas, such as computer vision, natural language processing and information retrieval. However, due to the high computation and memory demands, deep learning applications have not been adopted in edge learning. In this paper, we exploit the sparsity in tensors to reduce the computation overheads and memory demands. Unlike other approaches which rely on hardware accelerator designs or sacrifice model accuracy for the performance by pruning parameters, we adaptively partition and deploy the workload to heterogeneous devices to reduce computation and memory requirements and increase computing efficiency. We had implemented our partitioning algorithms in Google's TensorFlow and evaluated on an AMD Kaveri system, which is an HSA-based heterogeneous computing system. Our method has effectively reduced the computation time, cache accesses, and cache miss rates, without impacting the accuracy of the learning models. Our approach achieves 66% and 88% speedup for the lenet-5 model and the lenet-1024-1024 model, respectively. For reducing memory traffic, our approach reduces 71% instruction cache references, 32% data cache references. Our system has also improved cache miss rate from 1.6% to 0.5% during the training of the lenet-1024-1024 model.


Large evidence is available in hematological malignancies and
solid tumors for elevated level of various regulatory and
suppressor cells which impede anti-tumor responses. Therefore,
targeting the regulatory cells could be a useful strategy to
enhance the anti-tumor immunity. Approaches of depletion or
inhibition of regulatory cells showed countable benefits in
pre-clinical and clinical studies of some cancers including
renal cell carcinoma, metastatic melanoma and colorectal
carcinoma. Targeting regulatory T cells in a non-specific
approach might cause detrimental autoimmune toxicities which is
the key issue. Further studies are necessary to identify tumor
associated regulatory cells which will enhance the depletion of
specific regulatory cells but not the global population of
regulatory cells.


Recent advancements in technology has led to the development of sophisticated software tools revitalizing growth in different domains. Taking advantage of this trend, urban energy domain have developed several compute intensive physical and data driven models. These models are used in various distinct simulation softwares to simulate the whole life-cycle of energy flow in cities from supply, distribution, conversion, storage and consumption. Since some simulation software target a specific energy system, it is necessary to integrate them to predict present and future urban energy needs. However, a key drawback is that, these tools are not compatible with each other as they use custom or propriety formats. Furthermore, they are designed as desktop applications and cannot be easily integrated with third-party tools (open source or commercial). Thereby, missing out on potential model functionalities which are required for sustainable urban energy management. In this paper, we propose a solution based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Our approach relies on open interfaces to offer flexible integration of modelling and computational functionality as loosely coupled distributed services.


Nucleosides, such as uridine, inosine, guanosine and adenosine, may participate in the regulation of sleep, cognition, memory and nociception, the suppression of seizures, and have also been suggested to play a role in the pathophysiology of some neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases. Under pathological conditions, levels of nucleosides change extremely in the brain, indicating their participation in the pathophysiology of disorders like Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia. These findings have resulted in an increasing attention to the roles of nucleosides in the central nervous system. The specific effects of nucleosides depend on the expression of their receptors and transporters in neuronal and glial cells, as well as their extracellular concentrations in the brain. A complex interlinked metabolic network and transporters of nucleosides may balance nucleoside levels in the brain tissue under normal conditions and enable the fine modulation of neuronal and glial processes via nucleoside receptor signaling mechanisms. Brain levels of nucleosides were found to vary when measured in a variety of different brain regions. In addition, nucleoside levels also depend on age and gender. Furthermore, distributions of nucleoside transporters and receptors as well as nucleoside metabolic enzyme activities demonstrate the area, age and gender dependence of the nucleoside system, suggesting different roles of nucleosides in functionally different brain areas. The aim of this review article is to summarize our present knowledge of the area-, age- and gender-dependent distribution of nucleoside levels, nucleoside metabolic enzyme activity, nucleoside receptors and nucleoside transporters in the brain.


Background Whether mice are an appropriate model for S. aureus infection and vaccination studies is a matter of debate, because they are not considered as natural hosts of S. aureus. Sparked by an outbreak of S. aureus infections in laboratory mice, we investigated whether laboratory mice are commonly colonized with S. aureus and whether this might impact on infection experiments. Methods We characterized 99 S. aureus isolates from laboratory mice (spa typing, virulence gene PCR), and quantified murine antibodies using FlexMap technology. Results Specific-pathogen-free mice from various vendors were frequently colonized with S. aureus (0-21%). S. aureus was readily transmitted from murine parents to offspring, which became persistently colonized. Most murine isolates belonged to the lineage CC88 (54%). Murine strains showed features of host adaptation, such as absence of hlb-converting phages and superantigen genes, as well as enhanced coagulation of murine plasma. Importantly, S. aureus colonization induced a systemic IgG response specific for numerous S. aureus proteins, including several vaccine candidates. Conclusion Laboratory mice are natural hosts of S. aureus and, therefore, provide better infection models than previously assumed. Pre-exposure to S. aureus is a possible confounder in S. aureus infection and vaccination studies.


Objective To investigate whether invitations for publicly funded cervical screening provide sufficient information to enable an informed choice about participation. Design Cross-sectional study using a checklist of 23 information items on benefits and harms from cervical screening and the risks related to cervical cancer. Material Invitations to publicly funded cervical screening in 10 Scandinavian and English-speaking countries. Setting Ten Scandinavian and English speaking countries. Participants Sixteen screening units representing 10 Scandinavian and English speaking countries. Main outcome measures Number of information items presented in invitations for cervical screening. Results We contacted 21 coordinating units from 11 countries and 20 (95%) responded. Of these, four units did not issue invitations, but the remaining 16 coordinating units in 10 different countries supplied a sample. The invitations for cervical screening were generally information poor and contained a median of only four out of 23 information items possible (17%), ranging from 0 to 12 (0–52%). The most important harms of cancer screening, overdiagnosis and overtreatment, were typically downplayed or unmentioned. The same applied to other important harms, such as false-positive results and the psychological consequences from an abnormal test result. The majority of invitations took a paternalistic approach. While only two invitations (17%) included a pre-assigned appointment date, eight (70%) of the invitations contained strong appeals for participation. Conclusions Invitations to cervical cancer screening were information poor and biased in favour of participation. This means that informed choice is not possible, which is in conflict with modern requirements for personal involvement in medical decisions.


MicroRNAs regulate and control the growth and development of cells and can play the role of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, which are involved in the occurrence and development of cancers. In this study, DNA fragments obtained by target-induced rolling-circle amplification were constructed to complement with self-cleaving deoxyribozyme (DNAzyme) and release fluorescence biomolecules. This sensing approach can affect multiple signal amplification permitting fluorescence detection of microRNAs at the pmol L−1 level hence affording a simple, highly sensitive, and selective low cost detection platform.


At the heart of psychological counseling, based on the systemic thinking activity approach, is the idea of sign mediation. In the process of consulting, incomplete images of the client's consciousness are objectified by a consultant in the external tablet of thinking in the form of signs. The artificially organized transformation of signs in the tablet of thinking conducts natural changes in  images in the inner field of consciousness. As an instrument for counseling management, the scheme of thinking-activity, developed by G.P. Shchedrovitsky, is being used. Using the scheme allows the consultant to objectify and discuss the client's problem operating with external tablet of thinking. The problem is that the original scheme of thinking-activity does not introduce the processes of problematization, occurring in the internal field of the client's consciousness. The task is to construct a scheme that introduce both: the operations on the external tablet, as well as changes occurring on the internal field of consciousness. The article represents a scheme that removes the problem of communication between thinking-activity and consciousness. It also describes the way of the scheme usage as means to organize and manage the communication during psychological counseling. There are analyzed seven forms and technologies of counseling based on the scheme. Future directions of the scheme development is discussed, which are associated with the possibility to involve changes occurring in the sensory-emotional layer of consciousness. Keywords: thinking, communication, consciousness, counseling, organization, management, situation, reflection, scheme, problematization. Accepted: 12. 0 9 .2018 Reviewed: 24 .0 9 .2018 Published: 12 .10.2018 * * * * * Завантажити/прочитати статтю PDF


The presence of subcritical damage in notched composites significantly affects the ultimate failure mode and strength. This article presents a detailed study of four different layups of E-glass/913 tested using a double-edge-notched specimen loaded in tension. For each layup three different in-plane dimensions are tested. Results are presented in terms of failure mode, strength, and subcritical damage development. Subcritical damage development is consistent between the layups and between scaled specimens of a single layup. Ultimate failure, however, shows some variations both with layup and size and this is examined in some detail. The trend of decreasing strength with increasing specimen size is observed for all cases except those where there is a change in failure mode between different size tests. The strengths are compared with predictions from two analytical techniques, which show some ability to achieve correlation across a subset of the test data. Correlation is not possible where variations in failure mode occur for a single layup.


The guideline stipulated in the Large-Scale Retail Stores Location Law enacted in 2000 is uniform across the nation and does not reflect the characteristics unique to local cities. Therefore, this paper examined the actual situations in Tochigi Prefecture, and proposed improvement of measures that conform well to local city environments. Basic unit of daily visitors was analyzed using the result of customer satisfaction level survey. The analysis revealed cause of fluctuation of basic unit of daily visitors that takes attribute and behavioral pattern of individual customer into consideration. In addition, a proposal was made with regard to the establishment of basic unit of visitors to other facilities such as furniture stores.


This research is entitled An Analysis of Ten Symbol of Grandma's Death As Reflected In The Edward Albee Sandbox. Where in the short story the 85-year-old grandmother who had been left by her husband and after the death of her husband the grandmother fought alone to support her child `namely mommys. But the child that grandmother hoped didn't care about him. Mommy treats grandma very inhumanely. He put my grandmother under the kitchen and only had a thin blanket and used potluck utensils. Then mommy took grandma to a place and put her in a sandbox where I interpreted this as the last time for grandmother's care and that was very tragic, like waiting for grandmother to die so they could live in peace. They did not care about mommy until mommypun died. This research aims to : (1) To explain the reader understand the extrinsic elements of The Sandbox drama. (2) To explain the reader understand and be able to describe what symbols are used from the drama The Sandbox. (3) To analyze the absurd symbols of The Sandbox drama.
This study uses the theory of Roland Barthes who put forward a sign or symbol and a little supporting theory from Saussasure. The method used in this research is descriptive analysis method and qualitative method, which is describing the collected data and then compiled it by analyzing a semiotic drama script which can be seen from its extrinsic elements that have absurd symbols. Based on the results of this analysis it can be said that in this analysis the writer found ten absurd symbols contained in the sandbox drama. From the results of this analysis there is also a picture of the theme raised for this drama is about the emptiness, emptiness, and loneliness of a person in which we as humans need love and affection from other humans.


The wavefield extrapolation operator for ellipsoidally anisotropic (EA) media offers significant cost reduction compared to that for the orthorhombic case, especially when the symmetry planes are tilted and/or rotated. However, ellipsoidal anisotropy does not provide accurate focusing for media of orthorhombic anisotropy. Therefore, we develop effective EA models that correctly capture the kinematic behavior of the wavefield for tilted orthorhombic (TOR) media. Specifically, we compute effective source-dependent velocities for the EA model using kinematic high-frequency representation of the TOR wavefield. The effective model allows us to use the cheaper EA wavefield extrapolation operator to obtain approximate wavefield solutions for a TOR model. Despite the fact that the effective EA models are obtained by kinematic matching using high-frequency asymptotic, the resulting wavefield contains most of the critical wavefield components, including the frequency dependency and caustics, if present, with reasonable accuracy. The methodology developed here offers a much better cost versus accuracy tradeoff for wavefield computations in TOR media, particularly for media of low to moderate complexity. We demonstrate applicability of the proposed approach on a layered TOR model.


Multidimensional scaling (MDS) represents objects as points in an Eu- clidean space so that the perceived distances between points can reflect similarity (or dissimilarity) between objects. To be practical, the dimension of the projected space usually is kept as low as possible. Thus, it is unavoidable that part of the information in the original proximity matrix will be lost in the MDS plot. To as- sess the overall quality of projection, classical MDS diagnostic indices and plots are available. However, these global-fitness methods do not address another issue: how well represented is a specified individual object or a pair of objects in the projected space? Here, via the concept of color-linkage, a dynamic graphical sys- tem is developed for revealing the subtle spatial lack-of-fit pattern for any specified individual object. The proposed method is illustrated by using a data set from a psychopathological research project.


Initial-boundary value problems for several systems of partial differential equations from fluid dynamics are discussed. Both rigid wall and open boundary problems are treated. Boundary conditions are formulated and shown to yield well-posed problems for the Eulerian equations for gas dynamics, the shallow-water equations, and linearized constant coefficient versions of the incompressible, anelastic equations. The "primitive" hydrostatic meteorological equations are shown to be ill-posed with any specification of local, pointwise boundary conditions. Analysis of simplified versions of this system illustrates the mechanism responsible for ill-posedness.


Background Increases in gonorrhoea infection in young heterosexuals have been reported in two distinct areas of the North East of England over the past 6 months. Multi-agency working between GUM, public health, health protection and communication teams has attempted to increase awareness and reduce transmission. From initial case and partner notification information, there appeared to be misunderstandings about the routes and risks of transmission, along with a perception that a negative chlamydia test could be regarded as an STI "all clear". Methods Following the report of increase in area 1 in September 2011, a number of interventions were put in place, including enhanced surveillance, network mapping of contacts and cases, raising awareness among healthcare professionals, other organisations working with young people and with young people themselves. An increase in cases in area 2 was reported in November 2011. Similar interventions are being introduced and ongoing work to explore any links between the clusters. Results 65 cases of gonorrhoea have been reported in area 1 since May 2011 (compared to a usual annual number of 15); in area 2 clustering of cases has occurred at higher rates than previously seen, although overall number of cases has not increased. Partner notification and network mapping has shown multiple casual partners although no large extended sexual networks. Dual-testing of chlamydia screening samples is now being considered to further outbreak control. We report the lessons learnt from managing these two clusters and how they can be applied to future STI clusters.


The emergence of the Internet of Things and the proliferation of mobile wireless devices has brought the area of mobile cognitive radio sensor networks (MCRSN) to the research spot light. Notwithstanding the potentials of CRSNs in terms of opportunistic channel usage for bursty traffic, the effect of the mobility of resource-constrained nodes to route stability, mobility-induced spatio-temporal spectral opportunities and primary user (PU) protection still remain open issues that need to be jointly addressed. To this effect, this paper proposes a mobile reliable geographical forwarding routing (MROR) protocol. MROR provides a robust mobile framework for geographical forwarding that is based on a mobility-induced channel availability model. It presents a comprehensive routing strategy that considers PU activity (to take care of routes that have to be built through PU coverage), PU signal protection (by the introduction of a mobility-induced guard (mguard) distance) and the random mobility-induced spatio-temporal spectrum opportunities (for enhancement of throughput). It also addresses the issue of frequent route maintenance that arises when speeds of the mobile nodes are considered as a routing metric. As a result, simulation has shown the ability of MROR to reduce the route failure rate by about 65% as against other schemes. In addition, further results show that MROR can improve both the throughput and goodput at the sink in an energy-efficient manner that is required in CRSNs as against compared works.


This thesis examines the role of historical reference in the representation of homosexuality in British literature since the late nineteenth century. The texts it examines are both literal fictions novels, short stories and poems and less 'imaginative' forms, such as biography, historiography and sexology: its main project is to disentangle the network of discourses facilitating and restricting representation of the homosexual past. It identifies the history of this representation as a series of moments the turn of the century, the 1930s, the 1950s, for example when homosexuality was redefined, and lesbian and gay traditions correspondingly reinvented. This continual reinvention was often the work of homosexuals themselves: the thesis demonstrates how historical representation has allowed lesbians and gay men to intervene in sexual debate when more obviously 'contemporary' dissident voices were being publicly silenced. Chapters I and 2 examine the invocation of historical example within the late Victorian homophile subculture, and argue that the ancient Greek practice of paiderastia provided tum-of-the-century homosexuals with an affirmative model with which to counter juridical and sexological prescription. Chapters 3 and 4 consider the extent to which Antinous and Sappho became established in the same period as homosexual icons, but were subtly reconstructed by different, sometimes competing, sexual discourses. Subsequent chapters explore the influence of literary models such as Radclyffe Hall's The Well ofLoneliness (1928) upon lesbian historical fiction and biography of the 1930s, and uncover some hitherto forgotten lesbian texts; examine the role of male homosexuality in the women's historical romance of the 1950s; and discuss the homoerotic historical fiction of lesbian authors Mary Renault and Bryher. The final chapter considers recent lesbian and gay historical fiction, and finds reflected in the genre the modem homosexual self-image with all its gender and racial tensions.


In this thesis, I have explored the different approaches towards proving Artin's 'primitive root' conjecture unconditionally and the elliptic curve analogue of the same. This conjecture was posed by E. Artin in the year 1927, and it still remains an open problem. In 1967, C. Hooley proved the conjecture based on the assumption of the generalized Riemann hypothesis. Thereafter, the mathematicians tried to get rid of the assumption and it seemed quite a daunting task. In 1983, the pioneering attempt was made by R. Gupta and M. Ram Murty, who proved unconditionally that there exists a specific set of 13 distinct numbers such that for at least one of them, the conjecture is true. Along the same line, using sieve theory, D. R. Heath-Brown reduced this set down to 3 distinct primes in the year 1986. This is the best unconditional result we have so far. In the first part of this thesis, we will review the sieve theoretic approach taken by Gupta-Murty and Heath-Brown. The second half of the thesis will deal with the elliptic curve analogue of the Artin's conjecture, which is also known as the Lang-Trotter conjecture. Lang and Trotter proposed the elliptic curve analogue in 1977, including the higher rank version, and also proceeded to set up the mathematical formulation to prove the same. The analogue conjecture was proved by Gupta and Murty in the year 1986, assuming the generalized Riemann hypothesis, for curves with complex multiplication. They also proved the higher rank version of the same. We will discuss their proof in details, involving the sieve theoretic approach in the elliptic curve setup. Finally, I will conclude the thesis with a refinement proposed by Gupta and Murty to find out a finite set of points on the curve such that at least one satisfies the conjecture.


This is a good time for parallel-computer development and research in both academia and industry. The performance improvements predicted by Moore's Law has proven itself quite accurate over many years. However, the doubling of processor performance every 18 months cannot keep up with the growing demand of many applications. The performance of database applications has been doubling every 9-10 months. At last, parallel-computer technology has come to play an important role in the commercial marketplace. Multiprocessing has been an active research area for almost 40 years and commercial parallel computers have been available for more than 35 years. After getting off to a slow start, this area has now taken off . Shared-memory multiprocessors have dominated this development. This is an area that has sprung out of tireless research and numerous published breakthrough results. This article analyzes some of the reasons for the sudden acceptance of the relatively old parallel computing field, outlines the key properties of a successful parallel computer of the '90s and identifies some important research areas and key technologies for the future.


PURPOSE
To compare the value of hydro-MRI with that of barium studies in patients with Crohn's disease.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
After an oral bowel opacification using 1000 ml of a 2.5% mannitol solution, axial and coronal breath-hold sequences (T2W HASTE +/- FS, contrast-enhanced T1W FLASH FS) were acquired in 46 patients with Crohn's disease at 1.0 T. The findings of hydro-MRI were compared with those of barium studies.

RESULTS
In the stomach and the small bowel, hydro-MRI and barium studies demonstrated similar numbers of Crohn's involvements (39 vs. 36); in the colon, hydro-MRI showed clearly more affections (23 vs. 10). Hydro-MRI showed 12.7 cm of inflamed bowel per patient, on average (barium studies: 10.4 cm; p = 0.004). There was a good agreement between the two methods regarding the assessment of the extent of Crohn's disease and the severity of bowel stenoses (r = 0.89 and 0.88, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
For the assessment of Crohn's disease, hydro-MRI is preferable to the barium study because of the superior imaging quality and the lack of radiation exposure.


Background The Nightingale Macmillan Unit is a purpose built 20 bed specialist palliative care unit within an acute hospital. Staff identified that patients with impaired upper limb function had difficulty or were unable to summon assistance of staff on the ward. In addition, some patients who had environmental controls at home reported to feel extremely vulnerable and dependant during respite admissions, as there were no such facilities at the unit. During respite admissions we wish to maintain the patients function and condition to ensure that they can return home with the pre-existing care package and equipment. Methods Having identified the problem, discussions were had with patients from the respite list as to what equipment they used at home, and what was most important to them. A number of different staff groups then worked together to obtain a range of non-standard nurse call switches and an environmental control system to facilitate control of electrical appliances. Results Patients with impaired upper limb function can now use the nurse call system to summon assistance when they need it. Patients now also have control over lighting, TV, radio and a fan. Discussion These improvements have enabled patients with impaired upper limb function to feel more empowered during their respite admissions. The non-standard nurse call switches have allowed patients to summon assistance when they need it. Therefore patient's privacy and dignity are greater and demands on nursing staff time are reduced. "When I wake up in the night, I can now turn on the light instead of being stuck in the dark" Gordon (patient). It has been both a positive and rewarding experience for staff to be able to use technology to promote patient independence and quality of life.


Mobile computing imposes a profound level of challenges on human-computer interaction because applications are used in the move and services are accessed in different situations. Current approaches favor the design of an interactive system that is suited for a predefined set of contexts. For this reason, an adaptive middleware is needed to generate the user interfaces and adjust their characteristics to the different usage scenarios. To achieve this goal, the middleware needs to enable the separation of the adaptation mechanisms from the core operations of the interaction. Furthermore, a more structured approach is needed to describe the different aspects of the human-computer interaction, which can then be used by the middleware to generate adaptive user interfaces. Specifically, this paper describes a run-time framework that enables the generation of user interfaces on portable devices by a process of mapping and transformation of a set of abstract models, and their adaptation to suit the current context-of-use. We also present a prototype mobile application to illustrate our approach.


Osteoarthritis (OA) develops when the cartilage that protects the bone gradually destroyed within the synovial joint. The condition progresses slowly and the initial changes of cartilage includes pitting, fibrillation and cleft formation, which will eventually becomes ulcerated and irregular [1]. In the mature articular cartilage, chondrocyte is the only type of cells that is responsible for production and maintenance of extracellular matrix. Therefore, any reduction in their density will play a role in the development of OA [2]. Currently, there are no commercially available drugs definitively proven to modify the progression of OA. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are widely used for the treatment of OA pain. But the long term use of such drugs may cause suppression of platelet aggregation, erosions and ulcerations in upper gastrointestinal tract mucosa [3]. Such adverse side effects may be ameliorated by the use of plant extracts alternatives. Zingiber officinale (ZO) is one such candidate that is believed to be potential to reduce pain and symptom caused by OA. ZO has been shown to suppress cyclooxygenase, lipooxygenase metabolites and arachidonic acid [4]. Therefore this study was conducted to compare and quantify the histopathological changes of cartilage between ZO treated rats and control rats in Monosodium idoacetate (MIA)-induced OA. Twenty adult male Sprague Dawley rats were divided into control (n=10, treated with normal saline) and treatment group (n=10, treated with ZO extract). Prior to treatment, all rats were injected with 60mg/ml MIA intra-articularly in their right knee joints to induce OA [3]. All rats were treated by administration of the suggested therapies using feeding catheter for 28 days. At day 28, rats were sacrificed. Whole right and left knee joints were dissected free from all soft tissues. Joints were fixed in 5% neutral buffered formalin for 2 days and subsequently decalcified with 10% formic acid for 5 days. Joints were dehydrated in ethanol, embedded in paraffin, sectioned and stained with either hematoxyline and eosin or with Safranin-O fast green stain. Evaluation of OA changes in the knees was assessed with the aid of histopathological scores [5]. The data is analysed with Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests. ZO treated group showed significantly low degeneration of the cartilage and significantly less severity of the subchondral bone compared to control group. This study concluded that oral administration of ZO revealed the curative effects of the extract on OA joints.


An integrated approach involving the Electromagnetic (EM) and Vertical electrical sounding (VES) survey methods, has been used to locate potential drilling sites to find groundwater for twenty (20) rural communities in the Bawku West District of the Upper East Region of Ghana. The EM method involved the use of the Geonics EM 34-3 equipment to obtain traversing data for the horizontal dipole (HD) and vertical dipole (VD) modes at station intervals of 10 m for a 20 m coil separation. The EM survey provided subsurface information relating to positions of high electrical conductivity anomalies which presumably pointed to locations for groundwater structures. As a follow up, the VES was carried out with respect to the anomalous positions, using the dipole-dipole configuration with the McOhm-EL resistivity meter. The VES enabled the estimation of the depth of the weathered layer to the bed rock. The results of the VES data were interpreted quantitatively by modeling using IX1D V.3 software. The study identified prospective sites for drilling of boreholes to provide potable water for the communities. Results for the VES suggested that the aquifer zones in the area under study are mainly deeply weathered and fractured. The lithology for some of the recommended drilled points correlated well with the results obtained from the EM and VES investigations. The aquifer depth was found to be between 10 and 40 m with an average value of 21.5 m. The depth of the basement rock from the surface was 21.4 m. The estimated yield of the boreholes drilled within the area was between 10 and 500 litres/min with an average value of 136.8 lit/min. the success rate was found to be about 95%. The integrated use of EM and VES surveys has been found to be very successful in locating groundwater resources for the rural communities with the area studied.


The massive use of new technologies, especially the Internet, creates many challenges for the understanding of contemporary society. On the one hand, traditional methodological approaches already have serious weaknesses in explaining networked life forms. On the other hand, native digital methods still need reinforcing its scientific structures. This paper presents and analyzes the information system of the Living Lab on Media Content and Platforms (LLMCP), an online panel of Internet users able to monitor, in real time, online behaviour of users.With the combination of the areas of Panel Studies and Big Data, LLMCP's goal is to develop an extension of Google Chrome to collect navigation actions and to map connectivity trends. Results reveal that the complexity of network life requires the articulation of innovative research themes and robust software tools, indicating the potential of browsing history as a digital object for the social sciences.


"Pushing the Envelope," a survey history of the American aircraft (now aerospace) manufacturing industry, is the most comprehensive history on the subject ever completed. Though it covers the development of the industry from the beginnings of flight to the present, it provides far more than a simple chronology by analyzing key economic, military, technical, and international influences on the industry and showing how the industry has been instrumental in American military and technological leadership from its modest beginnings.Using original sources whenever available, "Pushing the Envelope" focuses on the business of aircraft. It is neither an aeronautical nor a production history of the industry, although both aspects are addressed. Instead, Donald M. Pattillo features the development and production of aircraft in different periods in the context of aeronautical progress. "Pushing the Envelope" also establishes that the central fact of the industry's existence, its dependence on military contracts, has been simultaneously its greatest strength and greatest vulnerability. Even during periods of military expansion, Pattillo illustrates, it has always been an unstable and insecure enterprise.Carefully researched, "Pushing the Envelope" also assesses the environmental impacts on the industry, including those pressures that have often led it into ethical dispute. Unlike any other technological industry, the unique qualities of the aircraft industry are truly paradoxical--although it provides vital technical and production capability to the nation, demand for its capabilities may be influenced by external developments that it cannot foresee or influence."Pushing the Envelope" transcends narrow disciplines, commingling aeronautical science and technology, business management, international business, the history of science and technology, national security studies, and international relations. Written in nontechnical language, it can easily be understood by a diverse audience, including industry and military professionals as well as the general public interested in aviation and technology. With "Pushing the Envelope," Pattillo fills a most conspicuous gap in the literature of both aviation and industrial history.Donald M. Pattillo is an educational consultant in Acworth, Georgia.


In this paper, group technology and lean production, two kinds of very productive theories in production organization and management, are analyzed. The adaptability as to whether these two theories can be integrated is discussed. The lean production model based on group technology and its benefits to enterprises are proposed. An enterprise that is actualizing lean production based on group technology is presented and analyzed. The principles of "collectivity programming, across-the-board training, benefits driving, and step by step implementing" are brought out.


This paper proposes three types of series resonators which serially connect two or more series stubs and investigate their applications in coplanar stripline (CPS) filter design. With the proposed resonators, transmission zeros close to the resonant frequency could be obtained. The key concept to obtain the transmission zeros is the utilization of serially-connected-series-stub (SCSS) in the series resonators. Moreover, this kind of structure is capable of increasing and adjusting the equivalent total line impedance of the resonator so as to ease the design procedure to meet the Q-values requirements of the resonators in filter design. Based on this concept, a CPS 5-order bandpass filter with attenuation poles is designed and fabricated. The simulations and experiments results are presented which show that the proposed resonators can be used to improve the skirt selectivity and stopband performance of the filters.


Many inhibitors prevent the oxidation of the primary electron-accepting quinone (QA) by the secondary quinone (Qв) in photosystem II by displacement of Qв from its binding site. On the other hand, plastoquinone-1 and 6-azido-5-decyl-2,3-dim ethoxy-p-benzoquinone displace herbicides. Binding studies show the herbicide/quinone interaction to be (apparently) competitive. The herbicide binding is influenced differentially by various treatments. In this paper it is shown that the affinity of, for example, bromoxynil is decreased by thylakoid unstacking or by light-or reductant-induced reduction of certain thylakoid components, whereas atrazine affinity remains unchanged. Furthermore, absence of HCO-3 in the presence of form ate leads to an affinity decrease of bromoxynil and atrazine, but to an increase in i-dinoseb affinity. Other differential photosystem II herbicide effects are known from the literature. Since different and unrelated groups of Q-A oxidation inhibitors have been found, and because of the above-mentioned dissimilarities in binding characteristics for different inhibitor groups, the hypothesis of non-identical, but "overlapping" binding sites for different herbicide groups and the native quinone must be more extensively defined. In this manuscript we evaluate both the competitive herbicide/quinone binding model, and a model in which binding of one ligand alters the protein conformation resulting in a dramatic decrease in the binding affinity of ligands from other chemical groups; in this model ligands from the same or related chemical groups bind competitively. Thus, the latter model proposes that only one herbicide or quinone molecule can be bound with high affinity to the herbicide/quinone binding environment, but it depends on the chemical structure of the ligands whether the binding interaction between two ligands is truly competitive or more indirect (allosteric), mediated through the protein conformation.


Background & Objective : Inflammation is an undesirable condition resulted from the effect of Arachidonic Acid metabolites especially prostaglandins. With regard to the side-effects of chemical anti-inflammatory medicines, this study was done aiming at examining the effect of 3D music on the extent of inflammation. Materials & Methods : In this experimental study, 20 male Wistar rats (200-250 g) were randomly divided into 4 groups of 5 each, including healthy control group, inflammatory control group, inflammatory recipient of 50 ml of carrageenan1%, treated inflammatory with 2 mg per kg body weight dexamethasone and treated inflammatory with three-dimensional music player (8h). Finally, CRP blood test and weight difference between the injected right foot and the left foot were measured. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the data through SPSS software . There was a significant mean difference between groups, using Tukey test at (p <0.05). Results : CRP levels in treated groups by dexamethasone (10.6±3.24mg/l), and music (16±9.95mg/l), compared to the control group (37.8±5.24mg/l), were significantly decreased, which this decrease was more discernable in treated groups that received dexamethasone. The weight difference between the left and right foot in the treatment group (0.016±0.007g), (0.044±0.044g) compared to the control group (0.154±0.056g), was significantly decreased. Conclusion : Dexamethasone can remove inflammation and three-dimensional music can reduce inflammation less than dexamethasone in the inflammatory animals.


It is known that one factor that affects the operation of optoelectronic devices is the effective protection of the semiconductor materials against environmental conditions. The permeation of atmospheric oxygen and water molecules into the device structure induces degradation of the electrodes and the semiconductor. As a result, in this communication we report the fabrication of semiconductor membranes consisting of Magnesium Phthalocyanine-allene (MgPc-allene) particles dispersed in Nylon 11 films. These membranes combine polymer properties with organic semiconductors properties and also provide a barrier effect for the atmospheric gas molecules. They were prepared by high vacuum evaporation and followed by thermal relaxation technique. For the characterization of the obtained membranes, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) were used to determine the chemical and microstructural properties. UV-ViS, null ellipsometry, and visible photoluminescence (PL) at room temperature were used to characterize the optoelectronic properties. These results were compared with those obtained for the organic semiconductors: MgPc-allene thin films. Additionally, semiconductor membranes devices have been prepared, and a study of the device electronic transport properties was conducted by measuring electrical current density-voltage (J-V) characteristics by four point probes with different wavelengths. The resistance properties against different environmental molecules are enhanced, maintaining their semiconductor functionality that makes them candidates for optoelectronic applications.


The current research paradigm of social influence in customer satisfaction in the digital age focuses on peer effects in the expectation formation stage. We propose that the broad class of publicly observable service interactions can also have satisfaction externalities for customers who observe these interactions. We test the social influence of observable peer service interactions in the context of managers' response to online reviews. At the time of writing her review, a focal customer has already purchased and experienced the product or service. Even so, managers can still influence focal customers post-consumption satisfaction through their responses to other customers' reviews. Through a novel natural-experiment, we find empirical evidence using a dataset of more than 17 million hotel reviews that publicly stated satisfaction is positively (negatively) influenced by managers' responses to negative (positive) reviews of previous customers. In addition, we apply latent Dirichlet allocation methods to model the tailoring of manager response to customer reviews. We find that response tailoring to negative (positive) reviews enhances (exacerbates) the positive (negative) effect on subsequent opinion.


The main focus of this work is on the inclusion of vehicle dynamics for the control of spatially distributed processes utilizing mobile actuators and sensors. It is assumed that spatially collocated actuator/sensor pairs, affixed on vehicles, are capable of moving within the spatial domain and a combined control law-plus-guidance law is proposed in order to better address the effects of spatiotemporally varying disturbances. The proposed control architecture is simplified by using static output feedback combined with adaptation of the feedback gains. A Lyapunov redesign approach is employed to derive the guidance laws via the appropriate use of the vehicle control torques. Such guidance laws are gradient-based and tend to move the vehicle to spatial locations with large spatial gradients. The novelty here is that vehicle dynamics are directly coupled to the process dynamics and their motion is solely and explicitly dictated by the control performance of the spatially distributed process. Extensive numerical studies of a 2-D diffusion PDE with a mobile robot are included and which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed combined control law-plus-guidance law.


The viral infectivity factor (Vif) is essential for the productive infection and dissemination of HIV-1 in non-permissive cells, containing the cellular anti-HIV defense cytosine deaminases APOBEC3 (A3G and A3F). Vif neutralizes the antiviral activities of the APOBEC3G/F by diverse mechanisms including their degradation through the ubiquitin/proteasome pathway and their translational inhibition. In addition, Vif appears to be an active partner of the late steps of viral replication by interacting with Pr55Gag, reverse transcriptase and genomic RNA. Here, we expressed and purified full-length and truncated Vif proteins, and analyzed their RNA binding and chaperone properties. First, we showed by CD and NMR spectroscopies that the N-terminal domain of Vif is highly structured in solution, whereas the C-terminal domain remains mainly unfolded. Both domains exhibited substantial RNA binding capacities with dissociation constants in the nanomolar range, whereas the basic unfolded C-terminal domain of Vif was responsible in part for its RNA chaperone activity. Second, we showed by NMR chemical shift mapping that Vif and NCp7 share the same binding sites on tRNALys3, the primer of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase. Finally, our results indicate that Vif has potent RNA chaperone activity and provide direct evidence for an important role of the unstructured C-terminal domain of Vif in this capacity.


Glyceraldehyde 3–phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) is a key glycolytic enzyme, which is crucial for the breakdown of glucose to provide cellular energy. Over the past decade, GAPDH has been reported to be one of the most prominent cellular targets of post-translational modifications (PTMs), which divert GAPDH toward different non-glycolytic functions. Hence, it is termed a moonlighting protein. During metabolic and oxidative stress, GAPDH is a target of different oxidative PTMs (oxPTM), e.g., sulfenylation, S-thiolation, nitrosylation, and sulfhydration. These modifications alter the enzyme's conformation, subcellular localization, and regulatory interactions with downstream partners, which impact its glycolytic and non-glycolytic functions. In this review, we discuss the redox regulation of GAPDH by different redox writers, which introduce the oxPTM code on GAPDH to instruct a redox response; the GAPDH readers, which decipher the oxPTM code through regulatory interactions and coordinate cellular response via the formation of multi-enzyme signaling complexes; and the redox erasers, which are the reducing systems that regenerate the GAPDH catalytic activity. Human pathologies associated with the oxidation-induced dysregulation of GAPDH are also discussed, featuring the importance of the redox regulation of GAPDH in neurodegeneration and metabolic disorders.


For several decades, research in instructed second language acquisition (SLA) has focused on identifying the facilitative role that interaction plays in second language (L2) development (e.g., Gass, 1997; Long, 1996; Pica, 1996). Within this area of interest, a considerable amount of attention has been directed toward the feedback that learners receive though the interactional processes and how this information may serve to modify their interlanguage system. In fact, through a detailed analysis of the literature, Russell and Spada (2006) found 56 studies that examined the effects of corrective feedback (CF) on L2 learning. However, few studies have explored the effects of different types of corrective feedback on learner performance or the conditions in which feedback is most effective. These aspects of feedback are of particular importance in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) environment where the L2 learners do not receive individualized feedback tailored to their output nor do they have the opportunity to seek further clarification regarding their incorrect language usage. Not only do few studies exist that have explored feedback in CALL (Nagata & Swisher, 1995; Nagata, 1997; Sanz, 2004; Sanz & Short, 2004), but they have failed to reach a consensus regarding the effectiveness of feedback within this context.
This dissertation explored possible reasons for these conflicting finding and to address the need for additional research on the relative effectiveness of feedback types examining the effects of two different types of feedback (text enhancement and metalinguistic information) on the improvement of learner performance of three uses of the Spanish preterite and imperfect (preterite with achievements, imperfect with state verbs, and imperfect with activity verbs). Eighty seven native speakers of English enrolled in a fourth semester Spanish course at a large public university in the United States were randomly assigned to one of four groups, of which two groups received corrective feedback (metalinguistic or text enhancement) as part of the treatment task, one group performed the treatment task but receive no type of corrective feedback, and one group will served as a control group who performs only the pretest and posttest assessments. All participants completed a pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest that consisted of language production task (structured video retelling) and a time-controlled language recognition task (binary choice). The treatment groups also completed 42 task-essential multiple choice items for which they selected the verb that best completes the sentence. Feedback was supplied immediately following each response.
Analysis of the pretest/posttest measures revealed that text enhancement resulted in significant improvement for both the production and the recognition task, but only for state verbs. This finding is interpreted in relation to Pienemann's Teachability Hypothesis (1984) and suggests that learner readiness to acquire a syntactic structure may play an important role in the effectiveness of feedback. In addition, both feedback groups exhibited a decrease in gains from immediate posttest to delayed posttest, suggesting that there are limits to long-term effects of corrective feedback.


This study presents a stochastic typhoon model (STM) for estimating the characteristics of typhoons in the present and future climate conditions. Differences between statistical characteristics of present and future typhoons were estimated from projections by an Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCM) under a climate change scenario and are taken into account in the stochastic modeling of future typhoons as a climate change signal. From the STM results which utilize the Monte Carlo simulation, it was found that the frequency of typhoon landfall in Japan, especially in three major bay areas, will decrease and the mean value of typhoon central atmospheric pressure will not change significantly. An important point is that the arrival probability of stronger typhoons will increase in the future climate scenario.


This paper critically reviews the effects of the global food and financial crises on developing countries, with specific focus on Africa. While assessments of the intertwined effects of the crises have often focused on short-term transitory causal factors, this paper takes the view that the causes of the food crises in Africa are long term and fundamentally structural. Policy measures to address the food crises therefore should focus on resolving the long-term structural impediments to accelerated agricultural growth. The paper argues that market fundamentalist policy prescriptions have failed in Africa and are at the root of the high poverty and food insecurity being experienced by African countries. Externally imposed policy prescriptions of one size fits all are inimical to the growth of African agriculture, and to self-reliance in food production, given the increasing unreliability of global markets for accessing food. Africa needs to take bold steps to accelerate food production using home-based policies that are better aligned with its state of economic growth and development, as well as level of poverty. Policy recommendations to accelerate food production include greater investments to raise the productivity of staple food crops; 'growth enhancement support' (GES) to unlock poverty traps by combining public farm support for farmers with risk sharing instruments that will unlock financing for farmers and agribusinesses, and speed up the process of commercialization of smallholder agriculture; policies to promote expanded use of fertilisers; seed policies to expand the use of improved seeds and the growth of the private sector seed industry; leveraging commercial bank financing into agriculture through risk-sharing instruments; focusing investments within the breadbasket areas of African countries, where the rate of returns on investments will be high; policies to improve climate change adaptation; and a greater strategic role for the state in correcting for market failures, making investments in public goods, supporting farmers, and guiding the market systems to accelerate food production.


A soil bacterium capable of using oligo- and polyethylene glycols and ether alcohols as sole sources of carbon for aerobic growth was isolated. The effects of substituent groups added to the ether bonds on the acceptability of the compounds as substrates were studied. Mechanisms for the incorporation of two-carbon compounds were demonstrated by the observation that acetate, glyoxylate, ethylene glycol, and a number of the tricarboxylic acid cycle intermediates served as growth substrates in minimal media. The rate of oxidation of the short-chained ethylene glycols by adapted resting cells varied directly with increasing numbers of two-carbon units in the chains from one to four. The amount of oxygen consumed per carbon atom of oligo- and polyethylene glycols was 100% of theoretical, but only 67% of theoretical for ethylene glycol. Resting cells oxidized oligo- and polyethylene glycols with 2 to 600 two-carbon units in the chains. Longer chained polyethylene glycols (up to 6,000) were oxidized at a very slow rate by these cells. Dehydrogenation of triethylene glycol by adapted cells was observed, coupling the reaction with methylene blue reduction.


Choosing a good novel, a fancy restaurant, artwork, or a qualified specialist practitioner cannot be understood with the help of theories of exchange mechanisms offered by economics. Lucien Karpik suggests the concept of "singularity" for analyzing consumer choice of high-quality unique goods. The main attributes of "singularities" include multidimensionality, uncertainty, and incommensurability. The important traits of markets for singularities include opacity and opportunism, the necessity for coordination mechanisms, the dominance of quality competition over price competition, and the impossibility to explain price setting with the supply-demand equilibrium. Markets for singularities contain judgment devices (e.g. guides, expert reviews, laureate lists) which help consumers to make a choice. These devices are used in order to reduce uncertainty, providing consumers with necessary knowledge. These devices include networks, certificates of quality, expert systems, ratings (composed by experts or developed by the market), techniques of consumer manipulation and forms of product demonstration at points of sales. Markets for singularities are governed on the basis of several coordination regimes. Thus, the "regime of authenticity" can be found within markets of expensive wine based on guarantees of quality. "Mega-regime" refers to situations where brand names signal a certain quality, such as global movie producers, luxury apparel manufactures, and so on. The "regime of expert opinion" exists within constrained markets, including books, movies, theatre performances, etc. The "regime of professional coordination" is applied to markets of personal services such as physicians or architects, where service suppliers are governed by professional ethics and associations. Prices for singularities are not determined by the standard equilibrium mechanism of supply and demand, but instead are set based on restraints of volume production. A market for a singularity also implies great discrepancies in prices for top-tier products by ratings versus goods produced for mass consumption.


The point of departure in this article is to describe pre-schoolers" learning during the study and the teachers" expectations of each child learning experience through lesson study. Lesson study is a tool for building and sharing practitioner knowledge which the teachers are part of the research; they do planning, teaching, observing, and discussion about the lesson applied in a classroom. In Indonesia, lesson study is started to be commonly implemented in elementary to university level. But nowadays, preschool level is also improving to make the lesson study for early childhood education proper to be applied. One of preschool in Bandung which has opened a class for lesson study is Gagasceria preschool Bandung. In this case, qualitative descriptive, as a design, to describe the phenomenon, was utilized to get information on how the activities in the classroom carried out. The data were obtained from observation, field notes, and photos, as the units of analysis to research and understand the way teachers create meaning in their aims in teaching. Analysis of observation data showed that lesson study implementation of pre-schoolers is conducted by implementing the sequence of activity that generally can be divided into one set of preparation, before, during, and after teaching. By conducting lesson study, not only the pre-schoolers who got fun and meaningful learning, the teachers also got many benefits to improve their skill in teaching. With the references to findings, it is recommended that lesson study to preschool level is implemented to provide teaching-learning improvement in preschool.


Objective: To review Her-2/neu and Tp53 status and their correlation with all other prognostic clinicopathologic features of infiltrative ductal breast carcinomas. Materials and Methods: This cross sectional study was performed on 139 patients with infiltrative ductal breast carcinoma who were diagnosed between May 2000 and March 2006 at the surgery and pathology departments of Alzahra Hospital, Isfahan, Iran. Immunostaining (IHC) for Tp53 and Her-2/neu were performed on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues based on an avidin-biotinperoxidase complex technique. The relationship of these markers with clinicpathologic parameters including age, axillary lymph nodes status, tumor size and histological grade were evaluated. Results: It was found out that Her-2/neu-positive cases were greater among metastatic lymph nodes than in patients without metastasis, however it was not significant (p=0.1). A significant association was also observed between Her-2/neu status and tumor grading (p=0.01). On the contrary, no association was found with other clinicpathologic parameters. In this study, Tp53 presentation in high-grade carcinomas was significantly more as compared to low grade ones (p=0.03). A significant association was also observed between Tp53 and tumor size (p =0.01). There was no association with menopausal status and lymph node status. Conclusion: IHC determined that Her-2/neu and Tp53 expressions are not associated with nodal and menopause status. Conversely, a correlation was found between Her-2/neu, Tp53 expressions and high histological grade of tumor. However, to validate these findings, long-term prospective studies on patients' survival are necessary.


In this paper, nickel coatings (on phosphor bronze substrates) were prepared using pulse electrodeposition method. The friction and wear behaviors of nanocrystalline nickel coating compared with coarse-grained nickel coating against AISI 52100 steel were investigated using l-butyl-3-octylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ionic liquid and perfluoropolyether as a reference lubricant on reciprocating ball-on-flat UMT-2MT sliding tester. The morphologies of the worn surfaces were observed using a scanning electron microscope. The chemical states of several typical elements on the worn surfaces were examined by means of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The results indicated that NC nickel coatings have better tribological properties than that of coarse-grained nickel coatings under lubricated conditions. This was partly attributed to the high hardness of the NC nickel coating and L-B408 ionic liquid formed tribochemical reaction films under NC nickel coatings.


Abstract Machines acting as artificial agents are increasingly operating in environments populated by human beings, and are interacting directly with people. In order for artificial agents to be accepted by society, they must act in a manner that reflects society's norms. Since a society's norms are grounded in ethical rules of behaviour, artificial agents will also need to follow ethical norms of the society in which they operate, if they are to be accepted by human agents. In addition to an artificial agent's goals, tasks and actions for which it is designed such as operating as a care giver or an autonomous vehicle, an artificial agent needs to also incorporate ethical considerations when choosing which task to perform. To achieve this, an ethical component needs to be added to the artificial agent's programming. I present one such approach to achieve this based on Kent Beck's Test-Driven Development methodology


. Smart Grids (SG) have smart meters and advance metering infrastu-rutre (AMI) which generates huge data. This data can be used for predicting energy consumption using big data analytics. A very limited work has been carried out in the literature which shows the utilization of big data in energy consumption prediction. In this paper, the proposed method is based on Genetic Algorithm – Long Short Term Memory (GA-LSTM). LSTM memorises values over an arbitrary interval that manages time series data very effictively while GA is an evolutionary process that is used for optimization. GA combines with LSTM to process hyperparameters such as hidden layers, epochs, data intervals, batchsize and activation functions. Hence, GA creates a new vector for optimum solution that provides minimum error. These methods provide the best performance when compared with existing benchmarks. Moreover, GA-LSTM is used in a multi-threaded environ-ment which increases the speed of convergence. Here, the multi-core platform is operated for solving one-dimensional GA-based inverse scattering problems. The result shows that GA-LSTM provides better convergence as compared to random approach techniques. For validating the results, Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection (PJM) energy consumption data has been used while adopting different performance evaluation metrics.


Objective Large cerebral arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) are often not amenable to direct surgical resection or stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) treatment. An alternative treatment strategy is staged endovascular embolization followed by SRS (Embo/SRS). This study examined the experience at Washington University in St Louis with Embo/SRS for large AVMs, and reviewed results in earlier case series. Methods 21 patients with large AVMs treated with Embo/SRS between 1994 and 2006 were retrospectively evaluated. AVM size (before and after embolization), procedural complications, radiological outcome and neurological outcome were examined. Radiological success was defined as AVM obliteration by catheter angiography, CT angiography (CTA) or MR angiography (MRA). Radiological failure was defined as residual AVM by catheter angiography, CTA or MRA performed ≥3 years post-SRS. Results All AVMs in this series were >3 cm in maximal diameter (mean 4.2 cm); 12 (57%) were high grade (Spetzler-Martin 4 or 5). Clinical follow-up was available in 20/21 patients; radiographic follow-up was available in 19/21 patients (mean follow-up time 3.1 years). Of the 43 embolization procedures performed, eight complications occurred, leading to transient neurologic deficits in five patients (24%), minor permanent neurologic deficits in three patients (14%) and no major permanent neurologic deficits (0%). Of the 21 SRS procedures performed, one (5%) radiation induced complication occurred, leading to a permanent minor neurologic deficit. Of the 20 patients with clinical follow-up, none experienced cerebral hemorrhage. Of the 19 patients with radiographic follow-up, AVM obliteration was confirmed by catheter angiography in 12, MRA in two and CTA in two. Residual nidus was found in three patients. In patients with follow-up catheter angiography, AVM obliteration rate was 80% (12/15). Conclusions Embo/SRS provides an effective means of treating large AVMs not amenable to standard surgical or SRS treatment. The outcomes and complication rates reported in this series compare favorably with other reported therapeutic strategies for this very challenging patient population.


We apply correlation analysis to random fields in numerical simulations of the supernova-driven interstellar medium (ISM) with the magnetic field produced by dynamo action. We solve the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations in a shearing Cartesian box representing a local region of the ISM, subject to thermal and kinetic energy injection by supernova explosions, and parameterized, optically thin radiative cooling. We consider the cold, warm, and hot phases of the ISM separately; the analysis mostly considers the warm gas, which occupies the bulk of the domain. Various physical variables have different correlation lengths in the warm phase: 40 , 50 , and 60 pc for the random magnetic field, density, and velocity, respectively, in the midplane. The correlation time of the random velocity is comparable to the eddy turnover time, about 10 7 year , although it may be shorter in regions with a higher star formation rate. The random magnetic field is anisotropic, with the standard deviations of its components b x / b y / b z having approximate ratios 0.5 / 0.6 / 0.6 in the midplane. The anisotropy is attributed to the global velocity shear from galactic differential rotation and locally inhomogeneous outflow to the galactic halo. The correlation length of Faraday depth along the z axis, 120 pc , is greater than for electron density, 60 – 90 pc , and the vertical magnetic field, 60 pc . Such comparisons may be sensitive to the orientation of the line of sight. Uncertainties of the structure functions of synchrotron intensity rapidly increase with the scale. This feature is hidden in a power spectrum analysis, which can undermine the usefulness of power spectra for detailed studies of interstellar turbulence.


Few-shot class-incremental learning (FSCIL) aims at learning to classify new classes continually from limited samples without forgetting the old classes. The mainstream framework tackling FSCIL is first to adopt the cross-entropy (CE) loss for training at the base session, then freeze the feature extractor to adapt to new classes. However, in this work, we find that the CE loss is not ideal for the base session training as it suffers poor class separation in terms of representations, which further degrades generalization to novel classes. One tempting method to mitigate this problem is to apply an additional naïve supervised contrastive learning (SCL) in the base session. Unfortunately, we find that although SCL can create a slightly better representation separation among different base classes, it still struggles to separate base classes and new classes. Inspired by the observations made, we propose Semantic-Aware Virtual Contrastive model (SAVC), a novel method that facilitates separation between new classes and base classes by introducing virtual classes to SCL. These virtual classes, which are generated via pre-defined transformations, not only act as placeholders for unseen classes in the representation space, but also provide diverse semantic information. By learning to recognize and contrast in the fantasy space fostered by virtual classes, our SAVC significantly boosts base class separation and novel class generalization, achieving new state-of-the-art performance on the three widely-used FSCIL benchmark datasets. Code is available at: https://github.com/zysong0113/SAVC.


This study was performed to examine whether the brain activities induced by noxious algesic chemical substances in anesthetized animals could be detected by blood oxygen-leveldependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (BOLD-fMRI). Multislice gradient echo images of the primary somatosensory cortex were obtained using a 7.05 T superconducting system and a one-turned surface coil centered over the primary somatosensory cortex of the 1.0%isoflurane-anesthetized rat. The Z-score t-map of BOLD signals and its time-course analysis revealed that subcutaneous injection of formalin into the left forepaw immediately induced an early response in the contralateral primary sensory cortex lasting for a few minutes, followed by a late response until 20 min after stimulation. In contrast, injection of capsaicin into the left forepaw evoked only the early response. Furthermore, pretreatment with morphine completely abolished these responses induced by the chemical algesic substances. Thus BOLDfMRI is a useful method to analyze the brain activities of painful stimulation in anesthetized animals.


The turbulent environment in which businesses operate forces them to undertake a large effort to obtain and maintain competitive advantage on the market. In association with the economic slowdown that we have been observing since 2008, many companies have been forced to look for savings, often in the area of employee remuneration. In association with this, the Chair of Human Capital Management of the Cracow University of Economics in the years 2009-2010 has undertaken surveys regarding trends in remuneration systems in the scope of changes in the labour market. The prepared paper contains an analysis of changes that have taken place in recent years on the Polish labour market in the context of markets of the European Union, as well as a presentation of original research findings with particular discussion of companies' approach to problems of remunerations in years 2009-2010.


PURPOSE
We examined the relationship between human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matching and the development of cyclosporine (CyA) neurotoxicity in patients undergoing allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, and determined the frequency and imaging characteristics of CyA neurotoxicity in these patients.

METHODS
Records of 87 patients who underwent allogeneic bone marrow transplantation were reviewed. Eight patients who presented with visual disturbance and/or seizures and had MR imaging within 24 hours were identified. Transplant donor relatedness was examined, and patients' imaging studies were reviewed. Clinical parameters, including blood pressure, CyA, creatinine, and magnesium levels, and the presence of graft-versus-host disease were reviewed.

RESULTS
CyA neurotoxicity was seen more frequently in HLA-mismatched and unrelated donor transplants. The frequency of CyA neurotoxicity was 4% for patients with a 5/6 or 6/6 HLA match, 13% for matched unrelated donor transplants, and 50% for haplotypic 3/6 or 4/6 transplants. Patients with matched unrelated donor transplants and haplotypic transplants presented earlier in the posttransplant time course and had decreased survival time relative to patients with HLA-matched transplants. Imaging abnormalities most commonly affected the occipital lobes and the posterior cerebral hemispheres; both cortical and white matter involvement was identifiable as T1 hypointense and T2 hyperintense signal with associated gyral swelling and sulcal effacement on the initial MR studies. Hypodensity in the affected areas was noted on CT scans. Contrast enhancement was seen in HLA-mismatched and unrelated transplants only. Follow-up imaging showed interval decreases in subcortical edema; however, residual signal abnormality, primarily affecting the cortex, was present in all cases and seen best on proton density-weighted MR images.

CONCLUSION
The frequency of severe CyA neurotoxicity increases with increasing HLA disparity, suggesting that immune factors may play a role. CyA neurotoxicity appears to represent a spectrum of disease processes. Disruption of the blood-brain barrier as well as hypoxic or vasculitic cortical injury resulting in MR-detectable cortical signal abnormalities may occur in severe cases.


Local food systems are an emerging way for communities to build vibrant economies, improve health outcomes, and limit their environmental impact. Studies have shown local food engagement differs significantly between generations; however, what remains unclear is how generations' perceptions and engagement compare to each other so the agricultural community can most effectively communicate about local food systems. Leveraging audience segmentation theory from social marketing, this study sought to address how the five living generations in the United States – Generation Z, Millennials, Generation X, Baby Boomers, and The Silent Generation – perceived and engaged with local food systems. To address this question, a non-probability opt-in sampling of 863 adults in the state of Georgia was used. Each participant was asked four questions pertaining to different aspects of local food systems – the purchase of local foods from grocery stores, use of local food markets, participation in local food events, and level of engagement with local food related media. Millennials and Generation X'ers expressed significantly higher levels of engagement with local food systems when compared to Baby Boomers and The Silent Generation, this was not observed between Generation Z and any other group. While Millennials and X'ers engaged at higher levels, significant opportunities remain for engagement through generation-specific media to turn the universal tepid interest in local food systems into action. Future research should seek to identify the relationship between generational media preferences and how effective they are at transforming interest in local food systems into action.


Wireless sensor networks consist of tiny devices
 that usually have severe resource constraints in terms of energy, processing power and memory. In order to work efficiently within the constrained memory, many operating systems for such devices are based on an event-driven model rather than on multi-threading. While event-driven systems allow for reduced memory usage, they require programs to be developed as explicit state machines. Since implementing programs as explicit state machines is hard, developing, maintaining, and debugging programs for event-driven systems is difficult. In this paper, we introduce protothreads, a programming abstraction for event-driven sensor network systems. Protothreads simplify implementation of high-level functionality on top of event-driven systems, without significantly increasing the memory requirements. The memory requirement of a protothread is that of an unsigned integer.


The objective of the study is to identify the perception of the students on aggressive attitude in five secondary schools in Johor Bahru town. This study also attempts to identify the factor of aggressive and types of aggressive attitude in the school. About 260 questionnaires were distributed at random stage to aggressive student from form one, two and four. The instrument used was the Mooney Problem Check List which was later analysis by the SPSS11.5 (Statistical Package For Sosial Science). It contained 64 likert skill items. The reliability value (alpha croanbach) of the instrument was 0.81. Descriptive statistic in the form of mean, standard deviation and percentage was used in data analysis. As a whole, the result of the study shows the level students aggressiveness in secondary schools in Johor Bahru area were quite high. The hypothesis shows that there is no significant difference between aggressive factor and student rate. There is significant relationship between types of aggressive and family income. Students' perception between aggressive attitude in secondary school show that environment of school is dominant (mean 4.1), less attention from family background (mean 3.8), students' attitude (mean 3.88), psychology (mean 3.65) and their friends (mean 3.68). The most aggressiveness among student was shown that physical attitude (mean 3.57), verbal (mean 3.53) and anti social (mean 3.34). Thus this research shows that the aggressive attitude among students in Johor Bahru town is quite high. The study suggested that the school should identify aggressiveness culture among the students and should implement the peer program therefore the problems will be decrease.


Operating-system-level virtualization is becoming increasingly important for server applications since it provides containers as a foundation of the emerging microservice architecture, which enables agile application development, deployment, and operation - the essential characteristics in modern cloud-based services. Agility in the microservice architecture heavily depends on fast management operations for containers, such as create, start, and stop. Since containers rely on administrative kernel services provided by the host operating system, the microservice architecture can be considered as a new workload for an operating system as it stresses those services differently from traditional workloads. We studied the scalability of container management operations for Docker, one of the most popular container management systems, from two aspects: core and container scalability, which indicate how much the number of processor cores and number of containers affect container management performance, respectively. We propose a hierarchical analysis approach to identify scalability bottlenecks where we analyze multiple layers of a software stack from the top to bottom layer. Our analysis reveals that core scalability has bottlenecks at a virtualization layer for storage and network devices, and that container scalability has bottlenecks at various components that inquire mount points. While those bottlenecks exist in a daemon process of Docker, the root causes are a couple of interfaces of the underlying kernel. This implies the operating system has room for improvement to more efficiently host emerging microservice applications.


Major advances have been made in the HELIOS code, resulting in the impending release of a new version, HELIOS-2. The new code includes a method of characteristics (MOC) transport solver to supplement the existing collision probabilities (CP) solver. A 177-group, ENDF/B-VII nuclear data library has been developed for inclusion with the new code package. Computational tests have been performed to verify the performance of the MOC solver against the CP solver, and validation testing against computational and measured benchmarks is underway. Results to-date of the verification and validation testing are presented, demonstrating the excellent performance of the new transport solver and nuclear data library. ∗ Corresponding author, firstname.lastname@example.com Tel: +1 208 522 1629; Fax +1 208 522 1187.


Abstract Purpose To evaluate the diagnostic performance of strain elastography (SE) and 2 D shear wave elastography (SWE) and SE/SWE combination in comparison with conventional multiparametric ultrasound (US) with respect to improving BI-RADS classification results and differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions using a qualitative and quantitative assessment. Materials and Methods In this prospective study, 130 histologically proven breast masses were evaluated with baseline US, color Doppler ultrasound (CDUS), SE and SWE (Toshiba Aplio 500 with a 7–15 MHz wide-band linear transducer). Each lesion was classified according to the BIRADS lexicon by evaluating the size, the B-mode and color Doppler features, the SE qualitative (point color scale) and SE semi-quantitative (strain ratio) methods, and quantitative SWE. Histological results were compared with BIRADS, strain ratio (SR) and shear wave elastography (SWE) all performed by one investigator blinded to the clinical examination and mammographic results at the time of the US examination. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was calculated to evaluate the diagnostic performance of B-mode US, SE, SWE, and their combination. Results Histological examination revealed 47 benign and 83 malignant breast lesions. The accuracy of SR was statistically significantly higher than SWE (sensitivity, specificity and AUC were 89.2 %, 76.6 % and 0.83 for SR and 72.3 %, 66.0 % and 0.69 for SWE, respectively, p = 0.003) but not higher than B-mode US (B-mode US sensitivity, specificity and AUC were 85.5 %, 78.8 %, 0.821, respectively, p = 1.000). Conclusion Our experience suggests that conventional US in combination with both SE and SWE is a valid tool that can be useful in the clinical setting, can improve BIRADS category assessment and may help in the differentiation of benign from malignant breast lesions, with SE having higher accuracy than SWE.


There has been considerable recent interest in distribution-tests whose run-time and sample requirements are sublinear in the domain-size k. We study two of the most important tests under the conditional-sampling model where each query specifies a subset S of the domain, and the response is a sample drawn from S according to the underlying distribution. For identity testing, which asks whether the underlying distribution equals a specific given distribution or ǫ-differs from it, we reduce the known time and sample complexities from Õ(ǫ−4) to Õ(ǫ−2), thereby matching the information theoretic lower bound. For closeness testing, which asks whether two distributions underlying observed data sets are equal or different, we reduce existing complexity from Õ(ǫ−4 log k) to an even sub-logarithmic Õ(ǫ−5 log log k) thus providing a better bound to an open problem in Bertinoro Workshop on Sublinear Algorithms [Fisher, 2014].


In recent times, forest tenure reform has become one of the most discussed agendas among local and global policymakers. Forest tenure is a contract that specifies who has rights to forestry resources and depicts who should utilize, maintain, and acquire them. It can have a significant impact on whether farmers invest in their forestland. The study's primary purpose is to explore whether and how the reform of forest rights affects farmers' investment in public welfare forestry. More specifically, the study thoroughly analyzes the impact of primary and supplementary reforms on farmers' investment in public welfare forest areas. We have outlined the theoretical framework using the theory of property rights and utilized the fixed-effect model and the Difference in Differences (DID) model to achieve research objectives. However, the empirical setup of the study has comprised time series data of 500 farmers, which was collected via interviews conducted at regular time intervals (2011—before the reform; 2013, 2015, and 2017— after the reform). The collective forest land welfare areas in Gansu Province, China, have been selected as the key data collection area. The study concludes that: (i) although the principle reform of forest tenure can stimulate farmers' investment intensity in the short term, it is insufficient in the long term. (ii) The supplementary reform of forest tenure can significantly promote farmers' long-term effective investment. There is a significant difference in forest land investment between the experimental and control groups, and this difference gradually expands over time. The study suggests that the government should pay more attention to the relevance of additional reforms to encourage the growth of forest rights mortgages and circulation. Moreover, the core themes of sustainable development in forestry should be highlighted.


Trend investigation is one of the key characteristics of time series. However, all common trend tests (e,g. Kendall and Mann-Kendall) are based on stationary time series and with this assumption that there is no long-memory in the time series. Based on both classical Kendall and Mann-Kendall tests, it was shown in this study that there was a significant (p-value<0.001) increase in annual Mashhad temperature (with a record length of 127 years spanning 1885-2011). However, considering the time series as a long-memory process (fractional Gaussian normal with Hurst exponent of 0.92), standard deviation of the test statistics were increased by a factor of greater than 6. As a result, the increasing trend in temperature was not accepted at common significant levels of 0.01 and 0.05. Some regression equations were developed for correction of standard deviations of Kendall and MannKendall trend tests as a function of record length and Hurst exponent, for the first time. The results remained identical for incomplete time series. A stochastic method, based on frequency factor of Chow, was proposed for data filling and showed that the results are stable.


Considering the prevalence of Ambient Intelligence, this work aims to enhance the interaction between farmers and Intelligent Environments, in order to support their various daily Agricultural activities, aspiring to improve the quality and quantity of cultivated species. Towards this direction, the Greta system was designed and developed, following a user-centered design process, permitting farmers/agronomists to easily monitor and control an Intelligent Greenhouse via a set of useful and usable applications. Greta offers a progressive web app (PWAs) targeting PCs, handheld devices, and technologically-enhanced artifacts of Smart Homes, while it also delivers an Augmented Reality application that visualizes the greenhouse's interior conditions in a sophisticated manner, and provides context-sensitive assistance regarding cultivation activities. In more detail, the system interoperates with the ambient facilities of an Intelligent Greenhouse allowing end-users to: monitor the conditions inside the greenhouse, remotely control the state of various actuators, be notified regarding the available/active automations, be aware of the optimal conditions for their plants to grow and receive relevant guidelines, be informed regarding any diseases, and communicate with experts for receiving treatment advice. This work describes the design methodology and functionality of Greta, and documents the results of a series of expert-based evaluation experiments.


Rangeland use rights privatisation based on a tragedy of the commons assumption has been the backbone of state policy on rangeland management and pastoralism in China. Through an empirical case study from Pelgon county, Tibet Autonomous Region in China, this paper provides an empirical analysis of rangeland use rights privatisation. It shows that the tragedy of the commons is not the correct model to apply to Tibetan pastoralism because pasture use in Tibet has never been an open-access institution. Thus, when the tragedy of the commons model is applied as a rationale for rangeland use rights privatisation, the result is not what is intended by the policy, but rather a misfit to features of pastoralism and thus disruption of the essence of pastoralism, i.e. mobility and flexibility. The paper further shows that a hybrid institution combining household rangeland tenure with community-based use with user fees is a restoration of the pastoralist institution. This demonstrates the capacity of pastoralists to create adaptive new institutions congruent with the interdependent and integrated nature of pastoralism consisting of three components: pastoralists, livestock, and rangeland.


Summary In most research on smoothing splines the focus has been on estimation, while inference, especially hypothesis testing, has received less attention. By defining design matrices for fixed and random effects and the structure of the covariance matrices of random errors in an appropriate way, the cubic smoothing spline admits a mixed model formulation, which places this nonparametric smoother firmly in a parametric setting. Thus nonlinear curves can be included with random effects and random coefficients. The smoothing parameter is the ratio of the random‐coefficient and error variances and tests for linear regression reduce to tests for zero random‐coefficient variances. We propose an exact F‐test for the situation and investigate its performance in a real pine stem data set and by simulation experiments. Under certain conditions the suggested methods can also be applied when the data are dependent.


Dr. Valiollah Assefi, an infectious disease specialist borne in 1927, has been one of the prominent researchers in Pasteur Institute in Iran. He played an important role in improving the health of the country during 40 years of his glorious activities. Dr Assefi did huge activities especially in the field of control of leprosy disease in Iran, and was the director of the leprosy control organization in Iran and the World Health Organization consultant for many years. He published numerous articles about the epidemiology and treatment of various infectious diseases in Iran.


Finding relevant video content is important for producers of television news, documentanes and commercials. As digital video collections become more widely available, content-based video retrieval tools will likely grow in importance for an even wider group of users. In this thesis we investigate language modelling approaches, that have been the focus of recent attention within the text information retrieval community, for the video search task. Language models are smoothed discrete generative probability distributions generally of text and provide a neat information retrieval formalism that we believe is equally applicable to traditional visual features as to text. We propose to model colour, edge and texture histogrambased features directly with discrete language models and this approach is compatible with further traditional visual feature representations. We provide a comprehensive and robust empirical study of smoothing methods, hierarchical semantic and physical structures, and fusion methods for this language modelling approach to video retrieval. The advantage of our approach is that it provides a consistent, effective and relatively efficient model for video retrieval.