This session is about integration. It models an approach to providing workshops on integrating academic sources into assessment texts, which addresses both academic and information literacies. These team-taught workshops have resulted from interprofessional collaboration between a Learning Development Tutor and Learning and Teaching Librarian. They are practical embedded sessions in which students engage in the practices required of them by their current assessments. As well as providing context for the development of information literacies, the workshops offer a contextually relevant focus on often neglected processes involved in reading-to-write. They also resist the division of these processes into discrete transferrable skills, as can often be the case.

The approach has emerged from closer collaboration arising out of a recent institutional reorganisation and the creation of a new Leaning Enhancement and Support team. This coincided with a move away from 'deficit' model and towards timetabled embedded provision. The integrated approach appears to have facilitated widespread commitment to the provision among academic course leaders and subject specialists.

The session itself will model this new approach with delegates working collaboratively on short texts and integrating sources taken from the Academic Literacies and Information Literacies literature. This will be followed by a reflective discussion on the challenges and potential of the approach taken.


In the age of Industry 4.0, the capability of health management is critical to the design and maintenance of gas turbines. This study presents a probabilistic method to estimate the low-cycle fatigue (LCF) life of a gas turbine compressor vane carrier (CVC) under varying operating conditions. Sensitivity analysis based on the finite element analysis (FEA) indicates that an operating cycle can be characterized by three predominant contributors to the LCF damage of the CVC among multiple parameters of an operating cycle. Two surrogate models mapping these three features to equivalent stresses are then built for fast computation of the LCF damage. Miner's rule is applied in a probabilistic way to calculate the distribution of accumulated LCF damage over varying operating cycles. Finally, the probabilistic LCF life of the CVC is assessed using real operational data. The proposed approach includes two novel solutions: (1) a new data processing technique inspired by the cumulative sum (CUSUM) control chart to identify the first ramp-up period as well as the shutdown period of each cycle from noisy operational data; (2) the sequential convolution strategy adapted from Miner's rule to compute the probability distribution of accumulated LCF damage (and hence LCF life) from the single-cycle damage distribution, and an approximative quick estimation method to reduce computational expense. Both the offline application for design and online implementation for predictive maintenance show that the expected LCF life at a critical location of the CVC is significantly longer than the deterministically assessed life.


Medical systems need to be understood from within, as experienced by healers, patients, and others whose minds and hearts have both become involved in this important human undertaking. Exploring how the performance of healing transforms illness to health, initiate to ritual specialist, the authors show that performance does not merely refer to, but actually does something in the world. These essays on the performance of healing in societies ranging from rainforest horticulturalists to dwellers in the American megalopolis will touch readers' senses as well as their intellects.


This article seeks to articulate the outlines of a framework that can be used for the development of a philosophy of ministry. Against the foil of the well-known model proposed by William K. Frankena in the 1960s, this model seeks to make room for a more comprehensive approach, highlighting four distinct ministry domains: learners, leaders, external communities, and systems. Seeking to delineate aims, practices, and missions for all four categories, the model attempts to recognize the need for focused theological, philosophical, and empirical attention in each domain. Finally, the article attempts to demonstrate how the model can be used as a means of facilitating the real-life implementation of the developed philosophy.


Business is one of the major power centres in modern society. The state seeks to check and channel that power so as to serve broader public policy objectives. However, if the way in which business is governed is ineffective or over burdensome, it may become more difficult to achieve desired goals such as economic growth or higher levels of employment. In a period of international economic crisis, the study of how business and government relate to each other in different countries is of more central importance than ever. These relationships have been studied from a number of different disciplinary perspectives - business studies, economics, economic history, law, and political science - and all of these are represented in this handbook. The first part of the book provides an introduction to the ways in which five different disciplines have approached the study of business and government. The second section, on the firm and the state, looks at how these entities interact in different settings, emphasising such phenomena as the global firm and varieties of capitalism. The third section examines how business interacts with government in different parts of the world, including the United States, the EU, China, Japan and South America. The fourth section reviews changing patterns of market governance through a unifying theme of the role of regulation. Business-government relations can play out in divergent ways in different policy and the fifth section examines the contrasts between different key arenas such as competition policy, trade policy, training policy and environmental policy.


The bats of tropical Australia are reviewed with some 51 species recognized, though a few are very poorly known. A new subspecies, Pipistrellus tenuis westralis is described and Rhinolophus megaphyllus ignifer is synonymized with R. m. megaphyllus. The two previously recognized subspecies of Macroderma gigas are also synonymized. A majority oftropical Australian bats are restricted to mesic areas, but a number are more or less arid tolerant. Only one species (Taphozous hilli) actually avoids mesic areas. The Cape York Peninsula has the greatest number of species with a falling off in numbers to the west and south. Of the three areas adjacent to tropical Australia, New Guinea shares a large number of species, whereas temperate Australia and the Lesser Sunda Islands share relatively few. New Guinea has probably been an important source area for tropical Australian bats, particularly those confined to the Cape York Peninsula. The low level ofendemism among Australian bats strongly implies that there were no bats in Australia prior to the Miocene, when Australia drifted far enough to the north to be able to receive species occurring on the extended Malay archipelago. Since then some low level endemism and adaptive radiation has developed in Australia.


1. Embryos of the domestic fowl have been incubated in normal conditions and in an atmosphere of 9% carbon dioxide from day 9 onwards. 2. There is a rapid increase in blood bicarbonate and base excess when the embryos are exposed to carbon dioxide. The increase amounts to about 14 m-equiv./l and is relatively constant from day 12 onwards. 3. There is no detectable increase in titratable acidity or ammonium ion content of allantoic fluid which would indicate that the extra plasma bicarbonate ions were formed by renal activity. 4. It is suggested that the extra bicarbonate of the blood is derived by resorption of eggshell minerals.


There have been significant recent advances in SPECT/CT and PET/CT for Oncology and Cardiology. In oncologic
imaging, some commercial SPECT/CT systems now output quantitative uptake values; calibration and calculation of these quantitative uptake values will be discussed. Advances in PET detector design and PET
data acquisition modes that have implemented in commercial PET/CT systems will be presented. Innovations in iterative reconstruction of SPECT/CT and PET/CT will also be described.
In cardiac
imaging, novel collimator designs, such as multi-pinhole and locally focusing collimators arranged in geometries that are optimized for cardiac
imaging have been implemented to reduce imaging time and radiation dose. These new collimators have been coupled with solid-state photon detectors. The new SPECT scanners demonstrate up to a 7-fold increase in photon sensitivity and up to 2 times improvement in image resolution. Although PET scanners are used primarily for oncological
imaging,
cardiac
imaging can benefit from the improved PET sensitivity of 3D systems without inter-plane septa and implementation of the time-of-flight reconstruction. Additionally, all major PET vendors now implement resolution recovery techniques. These new methods improve image contrast, image resolution, and reduce image noise for cardiac
imaging. New quantification techniques have been proposed for analysis of cardiac
SPECT and PET
images. These include direct change analysis, motion-frozen analysis, hybrid quantification of SPECT and anatomical CT angiography data, and integration of several quantitative parameters in composite scores.
Learning Objectives:
1.
To discuss clinical implementation of commercial quantitative SPECT/CT systems
2.
To describe advances in PET detector design and data acquisition
3.
To report on innovations in iterative reconstruction of SPECT/CT and PET/CT
1.
4 Describe novel hardware designed for cardiac
SPECT
4.
Understand how recent hardware advances in PET/CT are relevant to cardiology
5.
Describe new software techniques for quantification of cardiac
SPECT and PET


Adult educators have generally been interested in two aspects of the role of film and
television fiction. First, there is a growing literature on using these media within
conventional pedagogical situations (Thompson, 2007). This includes examining
their potential as tools that teachers use to raise awareness of social and political
issues and enable students to imagine a range of experiences and possibilities. It
also incorporates the development of critical media literacy, whereby students learn
to recognize the way ideas are constructed, reflected and reproduced. Guy, for
example, perceives the 'corrosive and dehumanizing messages of popular culture'
(2007:19) and explores the importance of classroom practices that develop
frameworks for critique. Coming, in contrast, from a Jungian perspective, Dirkx
examines the significance of the emotions in transformative learning and notes how
this 'may be fostered through the selective use of fiction, poetry and movies'
(2006:23).


An estimated 3 60 000 people fatally drown each year worldwide. The causes are often connected to daily activities like washing, bathing, playing and collecting water – and over 90% of these deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that drowning rates in sub-Saharan Africa are 10 times higher than in the UK. Despite this, global drowning is essentially a 'silent epidemic', barely recognised on the global health or development agenda. These deaths are largely preventable. The challenge is that nearly all traditional lifesaving interventions have been designed specifically for established and well-resourced entities based in high income countries. Most of these interventions are nontransferable, as often there is a need for expensive equipment, well established infrastructure, meaning they will not be appropriate or sustainable. The aim of the presentation is to share the RNLI's experience in developing a portfolio of suitable lifesaving interventions, and to facilitate a discussion with attendees investigating ways to disseminate these interventions to those that need them. Since 2012 the RNLI has actively designed and delivered a number of lifesaving solutions for lower resource settings. Interventions include Lifeguarding, Maritime Search and Rescue, Aquatic Survival (learn to swim) and Flood Rescue. They have been developed in consultation and partnership with others to ensure they are suitable for the local operating context. Each intervention is a complete training package, which includes Train the Trainer and service implementation guidance, which are focused on new and developing organisations. Through the presentation the RNLI will have the opportunity to pitch the lifesaving interventions to an audience of subject matter experts and to gain valuable feedback to assist with the dissemination strategy of these interventions Attendees will have a better understanding of the interventions available to them to support their work (if required).


WHAT IS IT?

This is an agent based implementation of the Linear Threhsold model of influence propagation described in Kempe et al. (2003).

HOW IT WORKS

The influence propagation process starts with a social network and an initial set of active agents (seeds or early adopters), and then at each time step those active ageents try to influence other agents into converting into active adopters according to the influence weights of their link. Depending on the threshold of an agent it may or may not become active. See the attached ODD for more information.

HOW TO USE IT

Fist set the number of nodes and number of initial seeds. Then choose the type of network to experiment with. If the chosen network type is "Small World" of "Spatially Clustered", then you can further change the generation parameters. After the network generation parameters are properly entered, click on the "setup network" button to create the network in the screen. Next you can either choose the initial set of adopters (seeds) randomly by clicking the the "select seeds randomly" button, or click the "select seeds by mouse" button and use the mouse to select seeds. Selecting seeds in this way will override the number-of-seeds parameter (i.e. you can choose more number of agents or less number of agents than the number-of-seeds parameter). Next hit "go" to run the model. To resent the thresholds for a new run click the "reset" button. By turning the "threshold-fixed-to-0.5" button you can configure the model to assign a fixed threshold of 0.5 to each agent. If this switch is turned off then each time reset will assign random values between 0 and 1.00 to assign to the threshold values of the agent.

THINGS TO NOTICE

See how the final number of active agents change over different runs. Also notice how the number of active users change over time (ticks elapsed).

EXTENDING THE MODEL

Add more options for creating the network. One new alternative is to read an external network written in graphML, pajek or SNAP format from a file.

RELATED MODELS

"Virus on a Network" model in NetLogo Model Library.

CREDITS AND REFERENCES

The original model was described in the following paper:

Maximizing the spread of influence through a social network - Kempe D, Kleinberg J,
Tardos E, SIGKDD 2003

Replicated by Kaushik Sarkar.


We analysed the ranking and market share dynamics of main British universities based on their research output production (publications and citations). The data that we analysed is dominated very much by research output in natural and medical sciences. We found that rankings based on citation counts are less variable than rankings based on publication counts. While ranking dynamics provides a coarse grained picture of the dynamics, the analysis of market share dynamics reveals more details of the mechanisms driving these dynamic processes. We suggest that most research output is produced in mature sciences producing normal science, and that this explains to a good extent the changes in market shares that we measured. We also suggest that having groups developing revolutionary science is critical for universities with large research output to keep their market share and for smaller universities to increase their market share rapidly.


Hybrid energy plants, which include both fossil fuel technologies and renewable energy systems, can provide an important step towards a sustainable energy supply. In fact, the hybridization of renewable energy systems with gas turbines which are fed by fossil fuels allows an acceptable compromise, so that high fossil fuel efficiency and high share of renewables can be potentially achieved. Moreover, electrical and thermal energy storage systems increase the flexibility of the energy plant and effectively manage the variability of energy production and demand.
 This paper investigates the optimal sizing of a hybrid energy plant which combines an industrial gas turbine, renewable energy systems and energy storage technologies. The considered renewable energy system is a photovoltaic system, while the energy storage technologies are electrical energy storage and thermal energy storage. Moreover, a compression chiller and a gas boiler are also considered. For this purpose, the load profiles of electricity, heating and cooling during a whole year are taken into account for the case study of the Campus of the University of Parma (Italy). The sizing optimization problem of the different technologies composing the hybrid energy plant is solved by using a genetic algorithm, with the goal of minimizing primary energy consumption. Moreover, different operation strategies are analyzed and compared so that plant operation is also optimized.
 The results demonstrate that the optimal sizing of the hybrid energy plant, coupled with the optimized operation strategy, allows high average cogeneration efficiency (up to 84%), thus minimizing primary energy consumption.


This monumental masterwork by the renowned nineteenth century scientist and authority on color, M.E. Chevreul, is unquestionably one of the greatest books ever written on color; the first English translation is reprinted here with the original color restored and an introduction and explanatory notes by Faber Birren, the leading color authority of the present time. Chevreul's book dominated the schools of Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, and exerted profound influence on later schools of painting including today's Op Art. Chevreul set forth principles that have become basic in color training throughout the Western world. In his illuminating commentary Mr. Birren shows how many of Chevreul's ideas on color harmony, contrast effects, optical mixtures, and legibility have been validated by modern scientific research in visual perception. mr. Birren also provides a helpful glossary of Chevreul's terminology. Lavishly illustrated, the volume contains many color plates, including 15 plates from the original French edition, photographs of Gobelins tapestries, and full-page reproductions of outstanding Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist paintings. Essential as a reference book for artist and art educators, this volume will also be a source of fresh inspiration for fashion designers, interior decorators, and all others concerned with color in any medium-and it makes good reading for all those interested in the history of men and ideas.


A new approach to image edge detection and feature matching is proposed. In which the edge detection employs SUSAN (Small Univalue Segment Assimilating Nucleus) method at low level image processing. And the integration feature matching is based on NMI (Normalized Moment of Inertia) in combination with intensity and configuration information, achieving object recognition and tracking. The feature detection with SUSAN method locates precisely and not sensibly for local noise. NMI of image has translation invariability, rotation invariability and scale invariability. The simulated experimental results show that the algorithm is efficient for intensity variety, geometry aberration and some noise images.


An all-optical clock recovery scheme for both the nonreturn-to-zero and the return-to-zero formats has been proposed and successfully demonstrated. Clock extraction, enhancement, and clock-to-data suppression were realized by a semiconductor optical amplifier and a fiber Bragg grating. Clock recovery was achieved using a two-section gain-coupled distributed-feedback laser. The scheme has large dynamic range of input power for both formats.


This article offers a sociological framework for understanding the functioning of pop-rock music, in its plentiful genres, styles and related phenomena through the years, as an agent in thrusting cosmopolitan youth identities, and thereby cultural cosmopolitanism in general. The article develops the notion of a global cultural market of youth identities, created by the structural emergence of 'youth' as an age based social category in modern societies. Following a discussion of cultural cosmopolitanism and an elaboration on the nature of pop-rock music as a global meta-category of musicking, the article discusses the functioning of pop-rock as a realm of content and meaning for youth identities across the world. This is developed and illustrated through the concept of aesthetic cultures of pop-rock; and by a focus on the notion of pop-rock knowledge.


In the following study, two methods were employed in which olive mill wastewaters were treated by using reverse osmosis membranes (BW30 and XLE). In the first, wastewater was centrifuged and then passed through the reverse osmosis whereas in the second, an ultrafiltration was placed between the centrifuge and the reverse osmosis. The reverse osmosis experiments were conducted under 10, 15, 20, and 25 bar. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiencies under 25 bar were found to be 97.5% for both BW30 and XLE membranes. The highest conductivity removal rates obtained under 25 bar for BW30 and XLE membranes were found to be 95.6 and 96.2%, respectively. As for the highest permeation flux values obtained under 25 bar, they were separately determined for BW30 and XLE as 15.3 and 21.2 L m−2 h−1, respectively. The performances of the membranes were also evaluated in terms of their mass transfer coefficients. According to this, all mass transfer coefficients were found to be <1 and also in proximate to one another; this clearly reflects the results as COD and conductivity removals were approximate and there was a lack of any significant difference, whether ultrafiltration was applied or not.


Effects of spatial compounding on image resolution and speckle noise are studied. Using computer simulation, it is shown that spatial compounding using averaged reconstruction can significantly improve lateral resolution while slightly deteriorate axial resolution. The amount of net resolution improvement depends mainly on the compound angle, but is insensitive to the number of component images used in compounding. While the fact that spatial compounding can effectively reduce speckle noise is well known, the analysis in this paper indicates that to maximize speckle reduction, the component echo amplitudes must meet two conditions: to be mutually independent and to have the same mean power. These findings provide useful guidelines for the analysis and optimization of the performance of an ultrasound scanning system that has been specially developed for imaging residual limbs.


In this paper, a two-layer approach is presented to guarantee the stable behavior of bilateral telemanipulation systems in the presence of time-varying destabilizing factors such as hard contacts, relaxed user grasps, stiff control settings, and/or communication delays. The approach splits the control architecture into two separate layers. The hierarchical top layer is used to implement a strategy that addresses the desired transparency, and the lower layer ensures that no "virtual" energy is generated. This means that any bilateral controller can be implemented in a passive manner. Separate communication channels connect the layers at the slave and master sides so that information related to exchanged energy is completely separated from information about the desired behavior. Furthermore, the proposed implementation does not depend on any type of assumption about the time delay in the communication channel. By complete separation of the properties of passivity and transparency, each layer can accommodate any number of different implementations that allow for almost independent optimization. Experimental results are presented, which highlight the benefit of the proposed framework.


In recent years, next-generation sequencing has unraveled the molecular landscape in chronic lymphocytic leukemia with the discovery of a number of recurrently mutated genes. Mutations in several of these genes, such as NOTCH1, SF3B1 and BIRC3, are linked to a more aggressive disease with early disease progression, short time-to-first-treatment and even chemorefractoriness. Although in its infancy, we have also begun to understand the complex dynamics of subclonal diversity and its impact on disease outcome. From pioneering studies, we know that certain genetic events are found in the majority of chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells and are considered as 'clonal driver mutations' (e.g., +12, 13q−), whereas others, present only in a fraction of the tumor, are deemed to be 'subclonal driver mutations' for example, TP53 and SF3B1. Over the coming years, we need to gain a deeper insight into the dynamics of this subclonal architecture to understand how, at an individual level, chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients should be followed, which will be particularly relevant as novel targeted therapies begin to emerge.


Energy conservation and carbon-dioxideemissions revamp energy management initiatives in institutions. Renewable energy powered equipment are employed to achieve this task. This paper integrates an energy mixture facility using heuristic techniques for allocating renewable energy facilities to power street lamps installed in academic premises. A case study is done on a college campus to analyze the feasibility of improved Hybrid optimization using genetic algorithm (iHOGA). The iHOGA offers simple steps and provides more allocation plans to satisfy minimum net-present cost (NPC), minimum carbon-dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions, and minimum unmet load (UL). The results demonstrate that the best solution obtained for solving multi-objective optimization considering three objectives include the exploitation of both solar and wind energy.


: Studies of the mechanical properties and electron microscopic examination of 12X18H9T steel surface in dentures have revealed their changes after mechanical load. Complex corrosive destruction of dentures in the oral cavity is regarded as stress corrosion.


This volume contains twenty-seven brief studies of New Testament texts, situations and characters, most of them taken from the Gospels. The author, an Englishman, possesses a rather imaginative quality of mind whi,ch he employs with some degree of skill in the interpretation of the passages selected. One receives the impression that he is a bit "breezy" at times. There is a series of studies on The Beatitudes that is suggestive and one will discover here and there throughout the volume pleasing descriptive writing and happy thoughts. EDWARD A. McDoWELL, JR.


The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing researchers, clinicians, and policymakers to accelerate the evaluation of treatments and vaccines. Critical to these evaluations is the ability to characterize the uncertainty of inferences in clear terms accessible to a broad set of stakeholders with varying statistical backgrounds. Here we quantify the uncertainty about inferences from Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) by quantifying how many patients would have to have experienced different outcomes to change the inference. For example, the inference of a positive effect of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) on pneumonia from an open label RCT would be overturned if one of the treatment cases characterized as improved had instead been characterized as unchanged or exacerbated. We generalize the technique to apply to thresholds defined by any effect size. We also apply the analysis to an inference of no effect of Remdesivir on mortality and an historical example of anti-hypertensive treatments on stroke. Quantifying the robustness of inferences in terms of patient outcomes supports a more precise dialogue among clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and the general public.


Galaxy models have long predicted that galactic bars slow down by losing angular momentum to their postulated dark haloes. When the bar slows down, resonance sweeps radially outwards through the galactic disc while growing in volume, thereby sequentially capturing new stars at its surface/separatrix. Since trapped stars conserve their action of libration, which measures the relative distance to the resonance centre, the order of capturing is preserved: the surface of the resonance is dominated by stars captured recently at large radius, while the core of the resonance is occupied by stars trapped early at small radius. The slow down of the bar thus results in a rising mean metallicity of trapped stars from the surface towards the centre of the resonance as the Galaxy's metallicity declines towards large radii. This argument, when applied to Solar neighbourhood stars, allows a novel precision measurement of the bar's current pattern speed $\Omega _{\rm p}= 35.5 \pm 0.8 \, {\rm km}\, {\rm s}^{-1}\, {\rm kpc}^{-1}$, placing the corotation radius at $R_{\rm CR}= 6.6 \pm 0.2 \, {\rm kpc}$. With this pattern speed, the corotation resonance precisely fits the Hercules stream in agreement with kinematics. Beyond corroborating the slow bar theory, this measurement manifests the deceleration of the bar of more than $24{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ since its formation and thus the angular momentum transfer to the dark halo by dynamical friction. The measurement therefore supports the existence of a standard dark-matter halo rather than alternative models of gravity.


The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 2 billion people in the world will be aged 60 and over by the year 2050. Along with the aging process, there will be declination of sensory, physical and cognitive factors. Vision impairment is a worldwide problem faced by people of all ages. The usage of smartphones has escalated exponentially. Smartphones are now equipped with features like text to speech converters, speech interpreters, voice guided navigation, and intelligent assistants. Appropriately designed, these can be valuable tools for the visually impaired. However, despite the advanced accessibility implemented in the smartphones, the elderly still seems to prefer ordinary phones which have physical buttons. The aim of this thesis was twofold; (1) to identify factors hindering the elderly and their use of smartphones, and (2) to develop smartphone interfaces to improve accessibility.Two Android applications were developed in this thesis. The Magnifier is a magnification tool for physical objects and text. EyesFree is a text to speech service that reads out the screen content to the user. The requirements for the apps were elicited by studying existing applications and also by interviewing potential users. EyesFree and Magnifier were evaluated using the think aloud protocol method and the results show that they are useful applications for the visually impaired.The Android operating system provides a number of accessibility features and services to help the users with different abilities to navigate the device easily. Paradoxically, these features are quite difficult to use, for example, they are not easily launched and closed. The meta application and user interface of EyesFree exemplifies how users can access the internal features of the OS such as the speech services more effectively.


A micro-scale abrasion test has recently been developed that allows measurement of the wear resistance of the surface regions of a material. The typical penetration depth is less than 30 μm. The test uses a simple mechanical and optical system and involves rotating a hard steel sphere against a specimen in the presence of small abrasive particles. The method has been used to investigate the wear resistance of thin PVD coatings (1 to 5 µm), metallic glass ribbons, and paint films in addition to bulk samples of metals, ceramics, and glasses. The associated theory has been extended so that results may be obtained from any curved surface. This furthers its applicability to practical surface-engineered components such as twist drills, bearings, turbine blades, and biomedical prostheses. A detailed characterization of the experimental procedure has been undertaken to provide an understanding of the repeatability and sensitivity of the test. In a study of cutting-tool coatings, the wear resistance measured by this method has been shown to correlate with scratch test response and with the performance of coated end-mills in cutting tests.


Entity Recognition is process of identifying predefined entities such as person names, products, or locations in a given document. This is done by finding all possible substrings from a document that match any reference in the given entity dictionary. Approximate Membership Extraction (AME) method was used for finding all substrings in a given document that can approximately match any clean references but it generates many redundant matched substrings because of approximation (rough calculation), thus rendering AME is not suitable for real-world tasks based on entity extraction. We propose a web-based join framework which combines a web search along with the approximate membership localization. Our process first provides a top n number of documents fetched from the web using a general search using the given query and then approximate membership localization(AML) is applied on these documents using the clear reference table and extracts the entities form the document to form the intermediate reference table using Edit distance Vector, Score Correlation.


The binary phase complementary code set has been used in stratospheric radar sounding. The quasi-complementary code technique presented here has nearly complementary properties and offers significant reduction of side lobes caused by imperfections in the radar transmitter. The new technique and its application are described; a simulation of the performance of the two techniques when certain imperfections are present in the transmitter is presented. The results are compared with the actual performance of the Arecibo 430-MHz radar transmitter.


The Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework [1] has been broadly used to analyse learning experience in online discussion forums for two decades. Cognitive presence, which is a primary dimension of the CoI framework, manifests the reflection of (re)constructing knowledge and problem-solving processes in the learning experience [2]. Researchers doing text analysis using machine learning techniques are making promising contributions to analysing phases of cognitive presence automatically [3]–[5] in online discussions. However, most studies of automated cognitive analysis focus on improving the accuracy and reliability of the classifiers. They ignored that another purpose of applying machine learning techniques in educational research should be to pinpoint research bias that scholars neither intended to nor can have found without computer support. This session will present the example of 'research bias' discovered from both manual and automated classification of cognitive phases, provoking scholars to rethink and improve the conflicting part in the taxonomies of cognitive presence under MOOC context.

The manual-classification rubric that used to label discussion messages of a target MOOC combines Garrison, Anderson and Archer's [2] scheme with Park's [6] revised version. The rubric describes four phases of cognitive presence (i.e. triggering event, exploration, integration and resolution), and indicators of each phase in online discussions. We reported the average inter-rater reliability between two human raters achieved 95.4% agreement (N = 1002) with a Cohen's weighted kappa of 0.96. Interestingly, we found the average inter-rater reliability decreased to 80.1% after increasing the size of data samples (N = 1918) and the number of human raters to three. After training the automated classifiers to predict phases of cognitive presence, the confusion matrix implies that most of the disagreements between computer raters occurred between adjacent phases of cognitive presence. The disagreements between human raters also have the same problems. We assume the additional categories may exist between cognitive phases in such MOOC discussion messages. These details will be discussed during the presentation.

References
[1]       D. Garrison, T. Anderson, and W. Archer, "Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education," Internet High. Educ., vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 87–105, 1999.
[2]       D. Garrison, T. Anderson, and W. Archer, "Critical thinking, cognitive presence, and computer conferencing in distance education," Am. J. Distance Educ., vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 7–23, 2001.
[3]       V. Kovanovic, S. Joksimovic, D. Gasevic, and M. Hatala, "Automated cognitive presence detection in online discussion transcripts," in Automated cognitive presence detection in online discussion transcripts' CEUR Workshop Proceedings (vol. 1137), 2014.
[4]       V. Kovanovic et al., "Towards automated content analysis of discussion transcripts," Proc. Sixth Int. Conf. Learn. Anal. Knowl. - LAK '16, pp. 15–24, 2016.
[5]       E. Farrow, J. Moore, and D. Gasevic, "Analysing discussion forum data: a replication study avoiding data contamination," 9th Int. Learn. Anal. Knowl. Conf., no. March, 2019.
[6]       C. Park, "Replicating the Use of a Cognitive Presence Measurement Tool," J. Interact. Online Learn., vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 140–155, 2009.


The emergence of drug resistance to chemotherapeutic agents is a major cause of treatment failure in cancer therapy. Therefore, much effort has been aimed at circumventing or reversing this undesired effect. Recently, we found that tumor cell lines selected for their multidrugresistant phenotype can also exhibit increased levels of TAP mRNA and MHC class I proteins. This raised the question of whether drug-resistant tumors are more readily recognized by MHC-restricted CTLs. In this report, we show that five of five MHC class I+ tumor cell lines grown in medium containing Adriamycin developed into variants that expressed higher levels of MHC class I than did their corresponding parental cell lines. This was not observed with a MHC class I cell line. No similar association was noted for changes in the expression of either HER-2 or intercellular adhesion molecule 1 protein. We also found that MHC class I+ drug-selected variants were more readily lysed by MHC-restricted, tumor-associated (Ils than were the drug-sensitive parental cell lines. When the drug-selected variants were cocultured with the same CTLs to eliminate tumor cells expressing higher levels of MHC-I (MHC-Ihl), the CTL-resistant tumor cells exhibited a drug sensitivity profile similar to that of the parental cell lines that were not exposed to Adriamycin. These findings suggest that certain chemotherapeutic drugs may increase the immunogenicity of some tumors, and that (II immunotherapy may help reverse drug resistance.


Abstract Objective To determine changes in ability to identify specific vegetables and fruits, and attitudes towards vegetables and fruit, associated with the introduction of a school-based food garden. Design A 12-month intervention trial using a historical control (control n 132, intervention n 120), class-based, self-administered questionnaires requiring one-word answers and 3-point Likert scale responses. Setting A state primary school (grades 4 to 7) in a low socio-economic area of Brisbane, Australia. Intervention The introduction of a school-based food garden, including the funding of a teacher coordinator for 11 h/week to facilitate integration of garden activities into the curriculum. Main outcome measures Ability to identify a series of vegetables and fruits, attitudes towards vegetables and fruit. Analysis Frequency distributions for each item were generated and χ2 analyses were used to determine statistical significance. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to detect major trends in data. Results The intervention led to enhanced ability to identify individual vegetables and fruits, greater attention to origins of produce (garden-grown and fresh), changes to perceived consumption of vegetables and fruits, and enhanced confidence in preparing fruit and vegetable snacks, but decreased interest in trying new fruits. Conclusions The introduction of this school-based food garden was associated with skill and attitudinal changes conducive to enhancing vegetable and fruit consumption. The ways in which such changes might impact on dietary behaviours and intake require further analysis.


The Make in India campaign, the brain child of the Indian Government, has been launched to boost the Manufacturing and Industrial Sector of the country. The main aims of the campaign are to galvanize the industrial sector and increase the domestic as well as international investment coming into the country. The Indian economy, with a large potential to be a leader on the world stage needs a thrust to achieve a high growth rate in its production and manufacturing sector. The way to do this is by reducing the archaic red tape-ism and changing the legislation to help India come on par with other countries such as China and Japan, which have undergone rapid industrialization and have become world leaders in a very short while. This paper attempts to compare these economies with that of India, outlining how the Make in India movement proposes to change the prevalent conditions and also how successful this endeavor may be. The campaign will help shape the future of the country and help it to grow, develop, become self-sufficient, increase capital formation, as well as reduce unemployment and raise the standard of living of its vast population. To do this, a multitude of measures must be taken, and this paper will try to enumerate and throw light on some important and key factors for this change and development to take place.


The study reported here investigated the query expansion behavior of end-users interacting with a thesaurus-enhanced search system on the Web. Two groups, namely academic staff and postgraduate students, were recruited into this study. Data were collected from 90 searches performed by 30 users using the OVID interface to the CAB abstracts database. Data-gathering techniques included questionnaires, screen capturing software, and interviews. The results presented here relate to issues of search-topic and search-term characteristics, number and types of expanded queries, usefulness of thesaurus terms, and behavioral differences between academic staff and postgraduate students in their interaction. The key conclusions drawn were that (a) academic staff chose more narrow and synonymous terms than did postgraduate students, who generally selected broader and related terms; (b) topic complexity affected users' interaction with the thesaurus in that complex topics required more query expansion and search term selection; (c) users' prior topic-search experience appeared to have a significant effect on their selection and evaluation of thesaurus terms; (d) in 50% of the searches where additional terms were suggested from the thesaurus, users stated that they had not been aware of the terms at the beginning of the search; this observation was particularly noticeable in the case of postgraduate students.


Humans can approximately infer the force of interaction between objects using only visual information because we have learned it through experiences. Based on this idea, in this paper, we propose a method based on a recurrent convolutional neural network that uses sequential images to infer the interaction force without using a haptic sensor. To train and validate deep learning methods, we collected a large number of images and corresponding data concerning the interaction forces between objects shown therein through an electronic motor-based device. To focus on the changing appearances of a target object owing to external force in the images, we develop a sequential image-based attention module that learns a salient model from temporal dynamics for predicting unknown interaction forces. We propose a sequential image-based spatial attention module and a sequential image-based channel attention module, which are extended to exploit multiple images based on corresponding weighted average pooling layers. Extensive experimental results verified that the proposed method can successfully infer interaction forces in various conditions featuring different target materials, changes in illumination, and directions of external forces.


We present low-temperature magnetoresistance measurements on lithographically defined bismuth wires. The phase-coherence time and the spin-orbit scattering time are obtained by analysis of weak antilocalization, with values for the phase-coherence time supported by analysis of the universal conductance fluctuations present in the wires. We find that the phase-coherence time is dominated by electron-phonon scattering above ≈2 K and saturates below that temperature, with saturation delayed to a lower temperature in wider wires. The spin-orbit scattering time shows a weak temperature dependence above 2 K, and also shows a dependence on wire width. The spin-orbit scattering time increases as the width is reduced, as is also observed in wires fabricated from spin-orbit coupled two-dimensional systems in semiconductor heterostructures. The similarity is discussed in light of weak antilocalization in the two-dimensional strongly spin-orbit coupled Bi(001) surface states.


The causative agent of human tuberculosis (TB), Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is an obligate pathogen that evolved to exclusively persist in human populations. For M. tuberculosis to transmit from person to person, it has to cause pulmonary disease. Therefore, M. tuberculosis virulence has likely been a significant determinant of the association between M. tuberculosis and humans. Indeed, the evolutionary success of some M. tuberculosis genotypes seems at least partially attributable to their increased virulence. The latter possibly evolved as a consequence of human demographic expansions. If co‐evolution occurred, humans would have counteracted to minimize the deleterious effects of M. tuberculosis virulence. The fact that human resistance to infection has a strong genetic basis is a likely consequence of such a counter‐response. The genetic architecture underlying human resistance to M. tuberculosis remains largely elusive. However, interactions between human genetic polymorphisms and M. tuberculosis genotypes have been reported. Such interactions are consistent with local adaptation and allow for a better understanding of protective immunity in TB. Future 'genome‐to‐genome' studies, in which locally associated human and M. tuberculosis genotypes are interrogated in conjunction, will help identify new protective antigens for the development of better TB vaccines.


The impact of diluted levels of polluted seawater from the Egyptian Mediterranean coast on reproductive, toxicological and hematological characteristics of Siganus rivulatus were determined. Mature fish were exposed to diluted levels of 7.5, 10 and 15 ml L(-1) polluted seawater. Hematological changes after 4, 15 and 30 days of exposure were measured. Erythrocytes decreased (p<0.05) as well as Packed Cell Volume (PCV) and Hemoglobin (Hb), indicating anemia developed to hypochromic macrocytic anemia at end of experiment. Leukocytes, increased (p<0.05), indicating susceptibility of fish to infection and stress. Granulocytic leukocytes, neutrophil and eosinophil increased. While lymphocytes decreased. Blood parameters of exposed fish revealed compensatory responses. The increase in developing hemocytoplast and myelocytes emphasize the compensatory and defensive reaction of fish to polluted water. Exposure to polluted water levels has a detrimental effect on gonads development, altered endocrine haemostasis, testosterone and progesterone levels decreased in females (p<0.05). While in male, progesterone level increased (p<0.01). Necrosis of spermatogenic cells and atresia of developing oocytes are pronounced at levels of 10 and 15 ml L(-1)polluted seawater. Also, has necrotic effect on fish organs. Vacuolation and necrosis occurs in liver and kidney. Melanomacrophage aggregates can be seen. Gills showed epithetial lifting and vascular widening. Results showed that, polluted water has serious consequences on Siganus rivulatus blood characteristics as well as organs cellular structure. It rendered fish anemiatic, altered reproductive hormones level, leading to necrosis of males spermatogenic cells and atresia of developing oocytes.


Beginning in the spring of 2001, a librarian and a member of the teaching faculty collaborated on an advanced information literacy instructional experience through the teaching faculty's "Issues in Science and Technology" classes. They collected data from the students both before and after the advanced information literacy instructional sessions that included the students' own attitudes about, and perceived level of, information literacy. Additionally, the instructor assigned point values to assignments directly related to the information literacy instruction her students received, thereby encouraging participation. The collaborators found that increasing the point values of the related assignments also increased student participation and performance. They also found strong indications that offering advanced library instruction to upper‐division students at their point of need, as they are facing more challenging research assignments in their regular coursework, also increases student interest and participation in the program.


Those calling for more evidence to support ever-increasing efforts to use information and communication technologies (ICT) in medical work argue that rigorous facts are necessary to make viable in practice substantiated use of these technologies. By contrast, socio-technical studies researchers, who focus on the use of ICT in everyday clinical practices, argue against the need for evidence produced under controlled, thus "unrealistic" conditions. Proponents of both positions, however, seem to operate with "a split reality," whereby they assume the "pseudo" can be readily distinguished from the "real," the "situated" from the "scientific." A comparative ethnographic approach can help mend this split reality approach. We compare how the same internet-based self-monitoring tool for asthmatics was used in a general practice setting and in a randomized clinical study, and thereby show how different effects were produced in these two settings. We propose that these effects are better conceptualized as enacting different assemblages of bodies, identities, and technologies, as opposed to creating either evidence or failed implementation.


Addresses a rate-based feedback approach to congestion control in packet switching networks where sources adjust their transmission rate in response to feedback information from the network nodes. Specifically, a controller structure and system architecture are introduced and the analysis of the resulting closed loop system is presented. Conditions for asymptotic stability are derived. A design technique for the controller gains is developed and an illustrative example is considered. The results show that, under appropriately selected control gains, a stable (nonoscillatory) operation of store-and-forward packet switching networks with feedback congestion control is possible. >


Motivation: Variant call format (VCF) files document the genetic variation observed after DNA sequencing, alignment and variant calling of a sample cohort. Given the complexity of the VCF format as well as the diverse variant annotations and genotype metadata, there is a need for fast, flexible methods enabling intuitive analysis of the variant data within VCF and BCF files. Results: We introduce cyvcf2, a Python library and software package for fast parsing and querying of VCF and BCF files and illustrate its speed, simplicity and utility. Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com or email@example.com Availability and Implementation: cyvcf2 is available from https://github.com/brentp/cyvcf2 under the MIT license and from common python package managers. Detailed documentation is available at http://brentp.github.io/cyvcf2/


A novel TIMP-1 polymorphism is associated with asthma in women O ver the last few years there has been increasing interest in the matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) in asthma. The MMPs are a family of over 20 zinc dependent endo-peptidases with a range of substrate specificities. Although originally classified into gelatinases, stromolysins, col-lagenases, and matrilysins by their ability to cleave extracellular matrix components, it is now clear that MMPs have an increasing range of other functions. Of potential relevance to asthma is the release and activation of growth and angiogenic factors including transforming growth factor b (TGFb) 1 and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), 2 apoptosis by release of Fas ligand, 3 and activation of cell surface receptors—collectively resulting in effects on cell differentiation, survival, proliferation, and migration. 4 MMP activity is tightly regulated at several levels. Gene transcription is enhanced by growth factors, cytokines and adhesion molecules and downregulated by TGFb and corticosteroids. 5 MMPs are secreted as zymogens which require activation by proteolytic cleavage either at the cell surface or in solution by other proteases including MMPs. 5 Once activated , natural inhibitors including tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs) bind different MMPs with varying specificities in a 1:1 ratio to inhibit proteolytic activity. 6 There are four TIMP proteins which, in addition to their antiprotease actions, also have other functions—with TIMP-1 modulating proliferation, apoptosis, and angio-genesis in various tumour cell types. It has been suggested that, in asthma, MMPs contribute to altered extracellu-lar matrix turnover, influx of proinflam-matory cells, epithelial repair, and angiogenesis. 9 In animal models of asthma, allergen challenge in MMP-9 and MMP-2 knockout mice results in reduced numbers of inflammatory cells in the airways compared with wild type mice due to deranged chemokine gradients. 10 The role of MMPs in asthma is complex as, paradoxically, in MMP-2 knockout mice, despite a reduction in airway inflammatory cells, there is an increase in parenchymal inflammatory cells due to impaired cell egress. 11 These and other data suggest specific roles for different MMPs, despite apparently equivalent substrate specificities. This level of complexity, brought about by differential activity of individual pro-teases both spatially and temporally within the lung, may explain the lack of efficacy of broad spectrum MMP inhibitors in models of asthma. In human asthma most studies have measured MMP and TIMP protein levels and estimated activity by the presence of the active protein or by the MMP/TIMP ratio. …


Titanium dioxide, a well-known adsorbent material, has been extensively tested in environmental applications, especially in separation technologies. In the present study, TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized by using sol-gel method for removing arsenic ions from water. Several water/titanium molar ratios were prepared in order to obtain optimum crystalline structure, morphology, and particle size of titanium dioxide nanoparticles. Two types of TiO2 minerals which were rutile and anatese were mainly synthesized at different calcination temperatures. After characterization of synthesized powders by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), batch adsorption experiments were carried out to analyze removal capacity of the titanium nanoparticles. The maximum % of removal of arsenic was found ~77% at pH 3, respectively when 0.1 g rutile type TiO2 nanoparticles were used at the As0 5 ppm. Anatase type of TiO2 nanoparticles had also closer adsorption capacity which was ~63% at pH 6 with the same initial arsenic concentration. In the light of experimental results, titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2) are found as a promising adsorbent material for arsenic removal from water. However, the effectiveness of TiO2 nanoparticles in removing arsenic species from water have been enhanced by the photocatalytic oxidation by conversion of arsenide ions (As3+) to arsenate ions (As5+), which adsorbs more strongly onto the solid phase of adsorbent than arsenite ions (As3+). Therefore, in the present study the photocatalytic oxidation of As3+ to As5+ is investigated in UV-illuminated and solar irradiated TiO2. Residual arsenic concentrations of the solutions treated with titanium dioxide nanoparticles were measured with a Varian, Vista-Pro CCD simultaneous inductively coupled plasma ICP-OES spectrophotometer. The adsorption isotherms, thermodynamic and kinetic parameters with and without presence of photocatalytic oxidation reaction are obtained to analyze arsenic removal capacity of the TiO2 nanoparticles.


Up to recently autonomous mobile robots were mostly designed to run within an indoor, yet partly structured and flat, environment. In rough terrain many problems arise and position tracking becomes more difficult. The robot has to deal with wheel slippage and large orientation changes. In this paper we will first present the recent developments on the off-road rover Shrimp. Then a new method, called 3D-Odometry, which extends the standard 2D odometry to the 3D space will be developed. Since it accounts for transitions, the 3D-Odometry provides better position estimates. It will certainly help to go towards real 3D navigation for outdoor robots.


A 7-year-old Golden Retriever with mild exercise intolerance and presence of an arrhythmia was referred to Nihon University. Electrocardiographic findings included wide QRS complexes, irregular R‒R intervals, small irregular baseline undulations and no P waves. Thoracic radiography revealed a large mass of soft tissue opacity obliterating the cranial cardiac silhouette and the dilation of the pulmonary artery silhouette. Transthoracic echocardiography showed a type III pulmonary artery flow pattern, but it did not reveal the presence of a mass in the cranial mediastinum. Computed tomography angiography identified an enlarged right auricle that was consistent with a right auricular aneurysm in the region of the suspected mass. This case was therefore diagnosed with a right auricular aneurysm. These findings suggest that computed tomography angiography may be a useful diagnostic tool in the diagnosis of the right auricular aneurysm.


It has been shown that a decentralized relay selection protocol based on opportunistic feedback from the relays yields good throughput performance in dense wireless networks. This selection strategy supports a hybrid-ARQ transmission approach where relays forward parity information to the destination in the event of a decoding error. Such an approach, however, suffers a loss compared to centralized strategies that select relays with the best channel gain to the destination. This paper closes the performance gap by adding another level of channel feedback to the decentralized relay selection problem. It is demonstrated that only one additional bit of feedback is necessary for good throughput performance. The performance impact of varying key parameters such as the number of relays and the channel feedback threshold is discussed. An accompanying bit error rate analysis demonstrates the importance of relay selection


Several progresses were made in evaluating the development policies for rural areas in the last years. Many indicators were introduced to assess the effectiveness of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and Rural Development Policies (RDPs), and their role on the convergence process of the EU members, but a shared definition of rurality is still missing. This paper offers a methodological contribution towards the identification of rural areas and the assessment of the changes occurred during the EU membership, with particular attention to the CAP contribution, in Hungary. Applying explorative techniques belonging to multivariate statistics and stepwise econometrics to a set of relevant variables, clustered maps of the changes occurred in the Hungarian agricultural and rural areas before (2003) and after (2007) the EU enlargement are provided. The author believes that more targeted – and therefore efficient – policies for agricultural and rural areas require a deeper knowledge of their structural and dynamic characteristics.


Objective. Pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) is a multienzyme complex situated on the inner mitochondrial membrane. Its principal function is to catalyze the irreversible oxidation of pyruvate to acetyl CoA. PDH is activated by a compound known as dichloroacetate (DCA). The principal metabolic effect of DCA administration is an increased availability of acetyl-CoA and acetylcarnitine for substrate phosphorylation, and a lowering of blood [lactate]. Studies using DCA during exercise have identified the availability of these acetyl groups as a major determinant of VO2 increase at the start of exercise, suggesting a functional stenosis to VO2 may reside at the level of PDH. It was the aim of these studies to further investigate whether DCA has an effect on the rate and magnitude of the VO2 response for sub-maximal and maximal work intensities. Procedures A ramped incremental exercise protocol and 2 sub-maximal constant exercise protocols were undertaken on a cycle ergometer. The constant work protocols were undertaken at work intensities above and below that corresponding to the individual blood lactate threshold. Measures of breath-by-breath VO2 and heart rate were made in conjunction with measures of muscle oxygen saturation (NIRS) and blood borne indices (Lactate, pH, Glucose, Bicarbonate). VO2 kinetics were estimated using non-linear least squares regression strategies. Results Dichloroacetate had no significant effect on submaximal oxygen uptake. This was evidenced as no change in the amplitude or time course of the kinetic response during exercise above or below the lactate threshold, and no change in the slow component response above the lactate threshold. DCA administration did promote a small but significant increase in VO2nmx. Blood [Lactate] was reduced at submaximal exercise intensities. However, no significant difference was evident during maximal exercise. DCA was shown to have chronotropic properties evident by an observed increase in heart rate at rest and during the initial stages of exercise. Conclusions The present studies clearly illustrate a haemodynamic response to DCA that has not been described previously. Control of oxygen uptake kinetics at the level of pyruvate dehydrogenase is not supported by this work.


The Fact Extraction and VERification (FEVER) shared task was launched to support the development of systems able to verify claims by extracting supporting or refuting facts from raw text. The shared task organizers provide a large-scale dataset for the consecutive steps involved in claim verification, in particular, document retrieval, fact extraction, and claim classification. In this paper, we present our claim verification pipeline approach, which, according to the preliminary results, scored third in the shared task, out of 23 competing systems. For the document retrieval, we implemented a new entity linking approach. In order to be able to rank candidate facts and classify a claim on the basis of several selected facts, we introduce two extensions to the Enhanced LSTM (ESIM).


The new phenomena of the multistate synchronization of Hindmarsh-Rose (HR) neurons with both excitatory chemical and electrical synapses over the complex network are analytically studied. The regions for coupling strengths to achieve local synchronization are explicitly obtained. Such regions are characterized by the second largest eigenvalue λ2 of the electrical connection matrix and the number k of chemical signals each neuron receives. The dynamics of the multistate synchronization includes the coexistence of stable regular bursting and periodic/steady-state behaviors. Our theory predicts that recurrent networks formed by a certain cell types in layers 4 and 6 in cat area 17 could lead to multistate synchronization. These are in contrast with coupled oscillator systems or coupled map lattices where only single-state synchronization is found. It should also be noted that if the parameters of HR neurons are chosen resulting in an irregular (chaotic) bursting, then the coexistence state would contain chaotic attractor. Our method employed here is quite general. For instance, it can be immediately applied to other coupled nervous systems such as FitzHugh-Nagumo and Morris-Lecar nervous systems. The analytical tools and concepts needed include coordinate transformations, matrix measures, monotone dynamics and time averaging estimates.


In this work we study periocular biometrics in a challenging scenario: a mobile environment, where person recognition can take place on a mobile device. The proposed technique, that models session variability, is evaluated for the authentication task on the MOBIO database, previously used in face recognition, and on a novel mobile biometric database named the CPqD Biometric Database, as well as compared to prior work. We show that in this particular mobile environment the periocular region is complementary to face recognition, but not superior, unlike shown in a previous study on a more controlled environment. We show also that a combination with face recognition brings a relative improvement of 7.93% in terms of HTER. Finally, the results of this paper are reproducible using an open software and a novel Web platform.


Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy has played an important role in the treatment of several groups of cancers. Although a life prolonging treatment, many side effects have been shown with ICI therapy. This study looked at individual level clinical characteristics and outcomes with ICI therapy in patients who developed ICI-related myocarditis. A comprehensive review of the National Library of Medicine PubMed database was performed. Inclusion criteria were all studies that were composed of case reports and case series of individual patients undergoing ICI therapy that developed myocarditis. To appreciate individual patient level data, observational studies, clinical trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses were excluded. Our search yielded 333 results with 71 cases reviewed of ICI therapy-related myocarditis. The findings included an average age of 68 years, higher incidence in men, and pretreatment cardiac history of hypertension. Melanoma was the most prevalent malignancy with nivolumab being the most used ICI therapy. Heart failure was the most prevalent adverse event that was co-prevalent with myocarditis. Corticosteroid therapy alone was the most utilized therapy to treat ICI-related myocarditis. Mortality was seen in nearly half of the patient population. Our study reviewed the preexisting literature of prior reported myocarditis secondary to ICI therapy. Periodic surveillance should be performed by the cardio-oncologist and internist. Due to the expanding role of ICI therapy in treating a variety of cancer patients, appreciation of its impact on the development of myocarditis is needed.


Abstract To tackle the fast-moving challenges of our age, law and policymaking must become more flexible, evolutionary and agile. Thus, in this Essay we examine 'crowdlaw', namely how city councils at the local level and parliaments at the regional and national level are turning to technology to engage with citizens at every stage of the lawand policymaking process. Aswe hope to demonstrate, crowdlaw holds the promise of improving the quality and effectiveness of outcomes by enabling policymakers to interact with a broader public using methods designed to serve the needs of both institutions and individuals. crowdlaw is less a prescription for more deliberation to ensure greater procedural legitimacy by having better inputs into lawmaking processes than a practical demand for more collaborative approaches to problem solving that yield better outputs, namely policies that achieve their intended aims. However, as we shall explore, the projects that most enhance the epistemic quality of lawmaking are those that are designed to meet the specific informational needs for that stage of problem solving.


Voices within both industry and academia contend that interaction design education
falls short in preparing students for their contribution in the workforce. While some of
this may indeed be due to inadequate education, industry practitioners themselves
disagree with one another on what interaction design education should include,
making it difficult for education to answer those needs.
This master's thesis focuses on finding and understanding what industry expects from
interaction design education. Based on literature reviews, interviews with industry
and academic personnel, analysis of job listings in the field, and surveys of design
practitioners, common factors emerged that identify critical aspects of this
understanding.
These factors—including disagreements within industry and within academia, the
limitations of education in covering the breadth of possible subjects, the importance
of the portfolio in hiring, and the de-emphasis industry gives to formal education—
make it clear that there is not just one ideal list of educational subjects that all
interaction designers should possess. Instead, thinking of competencies (i.e. the skills
and knowledge needed to be an interaction designer) in broader categories makes it
easier to accommodate differing perspectives while still considering them as part of
interaction design.
The Interaction Design Competency Framework formalizes these competency
categories, presenting the results in a format that provides a simple overview of what
areas are the most important for interaction design. This framework structure then
makes it possible to summarize the emphases of a given job, job category or degree
program, as well as provide a mechanism for comparing them with one another—
something that wasn't possible before. An accompanying website,
WhatsaDesigner.com, provides a survey for users to submit their own opinions on
what industry needs and expects and see the results of that information in an
interactive visualization of the Interaction Design Competency Framework. In this
way, one can determine what industry needs and expects from not just education but
from any interaction designer, who in turn can better prepare for jobs in interaction
design.


We propose PM (Project Management) patterns to prevent schedule delays caused by changes in requirements on empirical studies. Changes or late elicitation of requirements during the design, coding and test processes are one of the most serious risks, which may delay project schedules. However, changes and late elicitation of requirements are usually accepted during development processes. Therefore, the PM methods for preventing schedule delays caused by changes and late elicitation of requirements during development processes are an important area of study. In this study, we examined the actual conditions of various projects which succeeded in preventing schedule delays resulting from changes and late elicitation of requirements during development processes. We were able to extract various typical PM techniques for preventing these schedule delays. The techniques, known as "PM patterns", were also applied to other projects. The patterns were arranged on a two-dimensional framework. We discuss a framework of PM patterns aimed at solving the problems caused by changes in requirements.


The routes and kinetics of the degradation of thin films of methylammonium (MA)/formamidinium (FA) lead iodide perovskites (MA1−xFAxPbI3, 0 ≤ x ≤ 1) under dry atmospheric conditions have been investigated. MA-rich phases decompose to the precursor iodide salts and PbI2, while FA-rich phases convert mainly to the yellow hexagonal phase. The reactivity is strongly inhibited for mixed cation phases of MA1−xFAxPbI3, for x = 0.4 to 0.6, where the decomposition routes available to end member phases become less favourable. It is shown that for pristine films with x = 0.6, PbI2 formation can be completely suppressed for up to 10 days. Kinetic analysis reveals that the rate of PbI2 formation decays exponentially with increasing FA content until x = 0.7, beyond which the FA containing perovskite transforms rapidly to the hexagonal phase. Ab initio simulations of the decomposition reaction energies fully support the increased kinetic stability found experimentally for the mixed A-cation perovskites.


A new method derived from the relative toxicity equation termed as RICM, for the computation of IC50, is reported here. It is tested for both organic and organometallic compounds as HIV-1 capsid A inhibitors and cancer drugs. Computed results match very well with the experiment. This new method is very easily applicable for the organic molecules as well as organometallic compounds. Most importantly, this method does not require any computation facility provided we know the dipole moments of the unknown compound and reference compound. Applicability and accuracy of this method showed very good agreement with the experiment. Since RICM needs only the dipole moment of a compound for the computation of IC50, it may be used as a search criterion for the High Throughput Screening (HTS) used at the fi rst step of the in-silico drug designing. This would ease the algorithm for HTS and increase the success rate.


The use of e-learning has been believed to be a teaching tool to help the learning process be easier, practical, interesting, interactive, and motivating. E-learning is seen as one of the modes of teaching that helps students learn independently over the times and technological advances, so that its use has been widespread. However, its wide use seems to be a concern, where network availability, user access, and users become obstacles in its application in teaching. This study aimed to explore the effectiveness of e-learning usage in classroom teaching process to promote students' critical thinking ability at the Institute of Teacher Training and Education Mataram (IKIP Mataram) Indonesia, which is a private higher education institution in Indonesia. This study is an experimental research with the design of "one group pretest-posttest design". The research sample consisted of 17 students in the physics education program at IKIP Mataram. Students' critical thinking ability was assessed using the critical thinking ability test instrument adapted from the Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test. The data of critical thinking ability were analyzed statistically, where homogeneity, normality, and t-test were conducted. The research result showed that the use of e-learning was effective in promoting students' critical thinking ability. In this study the researchers also evaluated the use of the internet among lecturers in the learning process. The results analysis is explained further in this article. Keywords—e-learning, classroom teaching, critical thinking ability


Air-coupled capacitance transducers have been manufactured using anisotropically etched silicon backplates and commercially available dielectric films (Kapton and Mylar). The small backplate pits which result from etching, provide well ordered and highly uniform air layers between the backplate surface and thin dielectric film. Such uniformity allows the transducers to be manufactured with reproducible characteristics (a property difficult to achieve through conventional manufacturing). Impulse response studies in generation and detection, have indicated well-damped, wideband behavior, with bandwidths extending from <100 kHz to 2.3 MHz (at the -6 dB points). These bandwidths are investigated as a function of excitation pulse width, applied bias potential, and dielectric film thickness. An estimate of detection sensitivity is also provided by comparison with a calibrated laser interferometer.<<ETX>>


Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) exhibits a very variable clinical course. Altered DNA methylation of genes has shown promise as a source of novel prognostic makers in a number of cancers. Here we have studied the potential utility of a panel of methylation markers (CD38, HOXA4 and BTG4) in 118 CLL patients. Each of the three loci assessed exhibited frequent methylation, as determined by COBRA analysis, and individually correlated with either good (CD38, BTG4 methylation) or poor (HOXA4 methylation) prognosis. Using a combined approach to produce an overall methylation score, we found that methylation score was significantly associated with time to first treatment in CLL patients. Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that methylation score was the strongest predictor of time to first treatment, and was independent of IGHV gene mutational status and CD38 expression. This study provides proof of principle that a panel of methylation markers can be used for additional risk stratification of CLL patients.


The objective of consensus clustering is to find a single partitioning which agrees as much as possible with existing basic partitionings. Consensus clustering emerges as a promising solution to find cluster structures from heterogeneous data. As an efficient approach for consensus clustering, the K-means based method has garnered attention in the literature, however the existing research efforts are still preliminary and fragmented. To that end, in this paper, we provide a systematic study of K-means-based consensus clustering (KCC). Specifically, we first reveal a necessary and sufficient condition for utility functions which work for KCC. This helps to establish a unified framework for KCC on both complete and incomplete data sets. Also, we investigate some important factors, such as the quality and diversity of basic partitionings, which may affect the performances of KCC. Experimental results on various realworld data sets demonstrate that KCC is highly efficient and is comparable to the state-of-the-art methods in terms of clustering quality. In addition, KCC shows high robustness to incomplete basic partitionings with many missing values.


Fuel cell products and systems are still about to break through in their markets. Among many other applications which are currently under development most success for a market entry today is seen for stationary applications where conventional batteries often operate reach their technical limits. A fuel cell system in combination with a UPS application with a power output of netto 2 kW at - 48 VDC is available now. One of the major advantages is that the back-up time is free dimensionable, simply by the installation of a long lasting hydrogen storage (e.g. compressed gas bottles) at low cost. The key functionalities are furthermore: supply of reliable uninterruptible power for base transceiver stations (BTS) in a mobile network operators telecommunication network, mid-range UPS systems for Internet and other multimedia applications such as, due to free dimensionable back-up periods a more long-term power supply (for example in security demanding environments such as cable tv, fibre optical networks, backbones and more)


"Race, Rights, and Reparation: Law and the Japanese American Internment," is the first comprehensive course book that provides critical examination of the Asian-American legal experience. It analyzes the legal, social, and ethical ramifications of the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II as well as their successful reparations movement of the 1980s. Appropriate for a diverse set of law school and non-legal courses, it supplements carefully contextualized case law and social policies with dramatic oral histories, essays, commentary, and photographs sure to stimulate class discussion. This book is also designed as a research guide for policy-makers and scholars.The Second Edition represents a substantial revision of the original course book. Several new chapters expressly link the Japanese-American internment cases and redress to the civil liberties and national security issues raised post-9/11, making Asian-American legal history even more relevant to significant contemporary controversies. Other key updates to First Edition material include an even more comprehensive Overview Chapter and the addition of recent scholarly and judicial treatment of the World War II and coram nobis internment cases.Features: The only course book that covers Asian-American legal history and reparations; Accessible, multidisciplinary approach appeals to scholars, students, and instructors of ethnic studies, history, sociology, as well as law and legal studies; Contextualizes internment and reparations to facilitate understanding of what happened and why, including an overview chapter with key details and timelines; Examines how social policy and politics both enabled and constrained legal decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court; Discusses "headline" topics, such as redress for governmental misconduct and the national security implications of the Japanese-American experience; Provocative oral histories, litigation documents, photographs, essays, and commentary that enrich class discussion of judicial decisions; Flexible, modular organization accommodates the focus and interests of different courses and instructors; Authors' website provides updates and additional information.The First Edition of this text was funded in part by a grant from the United States Congress as part of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which created an educational fund as part of the redress for interning Japanese Americans during World War II.The Second Edition revision was funded in part by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program (CCLPEP), a State-funded grant project administered by the California State Library. Through the CCLPEP's generosity, two full chapters are publicly available and included in this SSRN download: "Chapter 1. Prologue: Willed Concealing, Forgetting, Remembering, and Repairing," and "Chapter 8. Epilogue: "Watchful Care Over the Loaded Weapon."


Abstract Late Pleistocene glaciation of the Australian mainland was restricted to a small area of the southeastern highlands. Geomorphic mapping of the area and exposure dating using the in situ produced cosmogenic isotope 10Be provides evidence for at least two distinct glaciations. The Early Kosciuszko glaciation consisted of a single glacier advance before 59,300 ± 5400 years ago (Snowy River Advance). The Late Kosciuszko glaciation comprised three glacier advances 32,000 ± 2500 (Headley Tarn Advance), 19,100 ± 1600 (Blue Lake Advance), and 16,800 ± 1400 years ago (Mt. Twynam Advance). The Early Kosciuszko glaciation was the most extensive and the Late Kosciuszko advances were progressively less extensive. These periods of glaciation in the highlands correspond to episodes of periglacial activity and peaks in lake levels and river discharge at lower elevations in southeastern Australia. Glacier advances on the Kosciuszko Massif correlate with advances in Tasmania, South America, and New Zealand and are broadly representative of hemispheric climate changes during the last glacial cycle.


These new essays on J. L. Austin's philosophy constitute the first major study of his thought in decades. Eight leading philosophers join together to present a fresh evaluation of his distinctive work, showing how it can be brought to bear on issues at the top of today's philosophical agenda, such as scepticism and contextualism, the epistemology of testimony, the generality of the conceptual, and the viability of the semantics/pragmatics distinction. The contributors offer in-depth interpretations of Austin's views and demonstrate why his work deserves a more central place in mainstream philosophical discussion than it currently has. The volume also contains a substantial introduction that situates Austin's thought in its original intellectual milieu and provides an overview of the many different ways in which his ideas have influenced later developments, in philosophy and elsewhere.


The East Greenland Ice-core Project (EastGRIP) aims to retrieve a 2650m long ice core by drilling through the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS). Scientists from a variety of physical sciences and engineers hope to gain new knowledge on ice stream dynamics and about the past climate. The project has many partners from all around the world, who contribute to the science, logistics and economics of the project. Most of the data is processed and analysed in the field. As there is limited capacity in the field camp, scientists and technical staff are encouraged to learn different working techniques to support their project partners. The community also invites scientists, who work on theoretical aspects on the ice stream to communicate the perspective on the procedures and challenges of data collection in the field. And so it happens that earth system modellers learn how to drill an ice core or non-scientific staff helps with the preparation of the ice core samples. Also, the project partners are motivated to bring together scientists at early stages in their careers to gain fieldwork experience. Once each season the field camp also welcomes high school students and teachers as a part of a joint science and education programme.


ABSTRACT This study uses a global climate-energy-economy model to investigate potential implications of linking credits from reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries to a global carbon market, focusing on reducing emissions from deforestation (RED) and effects on energy technology innovation. Integrating RED into a global carbon market lowers the estimated total costs of a policy to achieve 535 ppmv of CO2-equivalent concentrations in 2100 by up to 25 per cent. Alternatively, a global RED program could enable additional reductions of about 20 ppmv by 2100 with no added costs compared with an energy-sector-only policy. The results indicate that market linkage of RED induces modest reductions in clean energy innovation overall but slightly enhances development of particular technologies, including carbon capture and storage. We also find that RED in combination with credit banking encourages greater mitigation in the near term, enhancing flexibility to potentially tighten emission targets at lower cost in response to future information.


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Thermodynamic model is developed of which it follows that saturation value of solute segregated in grain boundary, provided all available sites occupied, must be close to the solute concentration, in the nearest in composition phase in grain as it follows from phase diagram. Based on the analysis of experimental data for three binary systems (Cu –Sb, Fe – P and Fe – Sn) it is shown that the surplus concentration of the solute atoms in GB as compared with a concentration in grain is distributed equally between two fracture surfaces but takes up more than one atomic layer. The thickness of the segregation region (with surplus concentration in grain boundary) averages usually from 3 to 6 interatomic distances. As a rule, solute distribution is symmetrical on each side of the fracture surface. It is shown that maximum of grain boundary concentration falls on the first layer on the fracture surface. The method is developed of the calculation of the first layer concentration. It is shown that this concentration is close to the solute concentration in the nearest in composition phase in grain.


The Panax ginseng species are traditional medicinal herbs having high value. The major pharmacologically active components are the ginsenosides of saponin group, which are dammarane type triterpene glycosides containing a tetracyclic glycose. Ginseng saponin, one of the secondary metabolites, is necessary for the growth and development of Panax genus plants. In pharmaceutical industry, triterpene saponins were purified to produce drugs for its promising healing and restorative properties. However, commercial applications are still obstacle for practical problems, because ginseng natural resources are rarely precious; and ginseng resources from field have low and variable yields dependent on season or quality of soil. Moreover, triterpene saponins have complex structures, making chemical synthesis an economically uncompetitive option for large-scale production. A current alternative optimal solution that is popular in the world is the application of cell and tissue culture to produce a large of cell or root yield in short time. But the difficulty in producing triterpene saponins from in vitro culture is that the triterpene saponin content is much lower than natural. To increase the triterpene saponin content, elicitors are added to the culture medium. Based on the effect of the elicitor, metabolic engineering in vitro is also able to enhance the overexpression of genes which translated enzymes or signals producing saponin in the isoprenoid pathway. Application of elicitor researches could improve triterpene saponin yields or adjust specific desired triterpene saponins from in vitro ginseng culture. Therefore, we review the recent studies of elicitor in Panax genus cultures and saponin biosynthetic gene to study and assess the efficiency of elicitors in triterpene saponin production and metabolic engineering of triterpene saponins.


The knowledge of multiple conformational states is a prerequisite to understand the function of membrane transport proteins. Unfortunately, the determination of detailed atomic structures for all these functionally important conformational states with conventional high-resolution approaches is often difficult and unsuccessful. In some cases, biophysical and biochemical approaches can provide important complementary structural information that can be exploited with the help of advanced computational methods to derive structural models of specific conformational states. In particular, functional and spectroscopic measurements in combination with site-directed mutations constitute one important source of information to obtain these mixed-resolution structural models. A very common problem with this strategy, however, is the difficulty to simultaneously integrate all the information from multiple independent experiments involving different mutations or chemical labels to derive a unique structural model consistent with the data. To resolve this issue, a novel restrained molecular dynamics structural refinement method is developed to simultaneously incorporate multiple experimentally determined constraints (e.g., engineered metal bridges or spin-labels), each treated as an individual molecular fragment with all atomic details. The internal structure of each of the molecular fragments is treated realistically, while there is no interaction between different molecular fragments to avoid unphysical steric clashes. The information from all the molecular fragments is exploited simultaneously to constrain the backbone to refine a three-dimensional model of the conformational state of the protein. The method is illustrated by refining the structure of the voltage-sensing domain (VSD) of the Kv1.2 potassium channel in the resting state and by exploring the distance histograms between spin-labels attached to T4 lysozyme. The resulting VSD structures are in good agreement with the consensus model of the resting state VSD and the spin-spin distance histograms from ESR/DEER experiments on T4 lysozyme are accurately reproduced.


A global assessment of carbon flux in the world ocean is one of the major undertakings of the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS). This has to be undertaken using historical in situ data of primary productivity. As required by the temporal and spatial scales involved in a global study, it can be conveniently done by combining, through appropriate models, remotely sensed information (chlorophyll a, temperature) with basic information about the parameters related to the carbon uptake by phytoplanktonic algae. This requires a better understanding as well as a more extended knowledge of these parameters which govern the radiative energy absorption and utilization by algae in photosynthesis. The measurement of the photosynthetic response of algae [the photosynthesis (P) versus irradiance (E) curves], besides being less shiptime-consuming than in situ primary production experiments, allow the needed parameters to be derived and systematically studied as a function of the physical, chemical and ecological conditions. The aim of the present paper is to review the significance of these parameters, especially in view of their introduction into models, to analyze the causes of their variations in the light of physiological considerations, and finally to provide methodological recommendations for meaningful determinations, and interpretation, of the data resulting from P vs E determinations. Of main concern are the available and usable irradiance, the chlorophyll a-specific absorption capabilities of the algae, the maximum light utilization coefficient (α), the maximum quantum yield (φm), the maximum photosynthetic rate (Pm), and the light saturation index (Ek). The potential of other, non-intrusive, approaches, such as the stimulated variable fluorescence, or the suninduced natural fluorescence techniques is also examined.


Underwater noise monitoring of a tidal stream is an important component of any Environmental Impact Assessment to assess the potential noise disturbances that a tidal turbine may have on marine life. Before monitoring operational noise, it is crucial to characterise ambient noise at different period of a proposed site. In May 2011, an acoustic survey of Ramsey Sound was undertaken over two entire tidal cycles. Ramsey Sound is a proposed site for the installation of a tidal turbine. It is an open channel measuring 2.5km long and 1km wide, varying between 25 and 70m deep and subject to tidal streams up to 4m.s-1. Continuous recordings have been carried out from 1Hz to 22kHz. The methodology used to monitor ambient noise was to immerse the hydrophone over the board and let the boat drift with the current flow, which allowed the reduction of unwanted noise such as water flow noise, cable strum. This paper presents the impact of the tide, the biological and the physical noise on the ambient noise. Sound Pressure Level during neap tide evolves between 95 and 125dBre_1μParms. During spring tide, background noise SPL is higher and evolves between 100 and 127dB re_1μParms.


As an essential fixture of modern society, electricity is often taken for granted. In many cases, it becomes invisible or is ignored until it is not there or it is time to pay the electric bill. Electricity has been around for well over a century, and the march of industry and progress have created the most complex interconnected system in existence. In a delicate balancing act, the amount of electricity generation must track the amount consumed to prevent the system from collapsing, as there is only very limited storage capacity on the grid. The balance is maintained via a combination of predictions and control systems distributed across the grid. How well this balance is maintained produces signals that propagate across the entire system from the large generators to the wall outlets that are ubiquitous across the world. Observing these signals can provide a great deal of insight into the current status and operation of the power grid and can be done cheaply and accurately from inside a home or office.


When the fluid flow passes through a cluster of rigid vertical cylinders, the overlap of shear layers and vortex resulted from the separation of the streamlines around each rod leads in the surface waves. These waves are categorized in three groups of standing oscillatory, transverse waves, and linear waves. The present study focused on this phenomenon based on laboratory tests in a rectangular flume. Wooden rods 0.35 meter in height and 0.025 meter in diameter are placed in the flow path screwed on the bottom of the laboratory flume. By changing the hydraulic conditions of the flow, four types of surface waves are observed across the laboratory flume. In the condition of wave resonance, there is a direct relationship between the wavelength and the width of laboratory flume. The current study compares the frequency of the waves for the in-line and staggered arrangements of rods. Moreover by using dimensional analysis and SPSS software, two equations are proposed for determination of frequency of free surface transverse wave generated by vortex shedding in open channels.


Electric charges exist on the clay particle surfaces and induce a micro-electric field which leads to the formation of adsorbed water surrounding clay particles and exerts an influence on the movement pattern of ions in pore water, resulting in the ion effect of seepage in clay. The two factors above will obviously change the characteristics of seepage in micropore of clays. The change of seepage property caused by the factors mentioned above is defined as micro-electric field effect on seepage (MEFES) in clay. The electric potential on the surface of micro particles of clay amounts to tens or hundreds of mV, and then the electric field on the particle surface greatly affects the regulation of seepage. Using theoretical analyses, MEFES in micro particle clays is discussed in this paper. A theoretical model of seepage is proposed for the quantitative description of MEFES. The theoretical model shows the influences of particle surface electric potential, pore sizes, soil conductance, ion concentration in pore water, ion valence , viscosity etc. on seepage characteristics. The equivalent permeability coefficient derived from the theoretical model can be also simplified to that of Darcy's law without regard to MEFES.