The key to the recent success of coordinate descent (CD) in many applications is to maintain a set of auxiliary variables to facilitate efficient single variable updates. For example, the vector of residual/primal variables has to be maintained when CD is applied for Lasso/linear SVM, respectively. An implementation without maintenance is O(n) times slower than the one with maintenance, where n is the number of variables. In serial implementations, maintaining auxiliary variables is only a computing trick without changing the behavior of coordinate descent. However, maintenance of auxiliary variables is non-trivial when there are multiple threads/workers which read/write the auxiliary variables concurrently. Thus, most existing theoretical analysis of parallel CD either assumes vanilla CD without auxiliary variables (which ends up being extremely slow in practice) or limits to a small class of problems. In this paper, we consider a rich family of objective functions where AUX-PCD can be applied. We also establish global linear convergence for AUX-PCD with atomic operations for a general family of functions and perform a complete backward error analysis of AUX-PCD with wild updates, where some updates are not just delayed but lost because of memory conflicts. Our results enable us to provide theoretical guarantees for many practical parallel coordinate descent implementations, which currently lack guarantees (such as the implementation of Shotgun by Bradley et al. 2011, which uses auxiliary variables)


Abstract Objective There is a large literature linking current BMI to levels of cardiovascular risk biomarkers, but it is unknown whether measures of BMI earlier in the life course and maximum BMI are predictive of current levels of biomarkers. The objective of the current study was to determine how current, maximum and age-25 BMI among individuals over the age of 60 years are associated with their current levels of cardiovascular risk biomarkers. Design Cross-sectional study with retrospective recall. Setting Costa Rica (n 821) and the USA (n 4110). Subjects Nationally representative samples of adults aged 60 years or over. Results We used regression models to examine the relationship between multiple meaures of BMI with four established cardiovascular risk biomarkers. The most consistent predictor of current levels of systolic blood pressure, TAG and HDL-cholesterol was current BMI. However, maximum BMI was the strongest predictor of glycosylated Hb (HbA1c) and was also related to HDL-cholesterol and TAG. HbA1c was independent of current BMI. We found that these relationships are consistent between Costa Rica and the USA for HbA1c and for HDL-cholesterol. Conclusions Current levels of cardiovascular risk biomarkers are not only the product of current levels of BMI, but also of maximum lifetime BMI, particularly for levels of HbA1c and for HDL-cholesterol. Managing maximum obtained BMI over the life course may be most critical for maintaining the healthiest levels of cardiovascular risk.


The AAPL Practice Guideline for the Forensic Psychiatric Evaluation of Competence to Stand Trial provides a rich discussion of the legal standards and procedures for evaluating and determining a criminal defendant's trial competence and for restoring to competence defendants found to be incompetent. The document includes an up-to-date discussion of the applicable case law, examines ethics considerations for forensic examiners, addresses cultural issues, and offers practical templates for interviewing defendants and preparing reports. Although its focus is on trial competence in adult criminal court, the document also attends to competency considerations for minors facing delinquency proceedings in juvenile court. Comprehensive and incisive, if not optimally organized and tabulated, the Guideline will serve as the standard reference for psychiatrists asked to provide trial competence assessments in criminal and juvenile court cases.


This case study presents an in-depth review of network structures and costs associated with the implementation of traceability systems in California leafy green production, distribution, and retailing. The 2006 spinach outbreak is used to assess the economic impact of trace back/forward response time of the LGMA system, an example of a tightly coupled, linear supply network. Results suggest that the benefits of traceability systems may far outweigh the costs and that costs vary significantly by technology used and by grower size. Implications are derived for cost-effectiveness of rapid response, targeted trace back/forward systems in other types of supply networks.


Based on experimental and clinical data the authors propose a classification of closed thoracic traumas which allow to form relatively similar groups among patients with closed thoracic traumas having orientation of the leading pathogenetic factor. The proposed classification allows to form rational curative programs as early as at the prehospital and early hospital stages.


Gerrymandering is the manipulation of redistricting to influence the results of a set of elections for local representatives. Gerrymandering has the potential to drastically swing power in legislative bodies even with no change in a population's political views. Identifying gerrymandering and measuring fairness using metrics of proposed district plans is a topic of current research, but there is less work on how such plans will be perceived by voters. Gathering data on such perceptions presents several challenges such as the ambiguous definitions of 'fair' and the complexity of real world geography and district plans. We present a dataset collected from an online crowdsourcing platform on a survey asking respondents to mark which of two maps of equal population distribution but different districts appear more 'fair' and the reasoning for their decision. We performed preliminary analysis on this data and identified which of several commonly suggested metrics are most predictive of the responses. We found that the maximum perimeter of any district was the most predictive metric, especially with participants who reported that they made their decision based on the shape of the districts.


Short-term hyperchloremic metabolic acidosis can decrease sodium reabsorption by the superficial proximal tubule (PT), increase tubular fluid flow rate, and stimulate aldosterone release. We studied the effects of increased tubular fluid delivery (graded saline infusion) and mineralocorticosteroid administration on tubular fluid pH (TFpH), titratable acid (TA) generation, and ammonium (NH+4) secretion by superficial proximal and distal tubules (DT) of acidotic, phosphate-loaded rats. The TFpH was 6.4 +/- 0.1 at the late proximal tubule (LP); it was unaltered at the early (ED) or late distal tubule (LD), but urine pH (UpH) was 1 unit lower. The major fraction of TA or NH+4 was formed in the superficial PT. There was no net TA generation by the superficial DT even during supplemental mineralocorticosteroid and increased Pi delivery during saline infusion. TA excretion was increased only slightly by saline infusion in acidotic rats despite increased buffer delivery (caused by decreased Pi reabsorption, primarily in the loop segment) because this was offset by a rise in UpH. Ammonia was secreted into tubular fluid in the superficial PT and DT; there was loss of NH+4 in the loop segment and addition after the LD. Saline infusion did not modify TFpH in the PT or DT but increased NH+4 secretion by the DT in direct proportion to tubular fluid flow. DOCA administration increased the addition of NH+4 between the LD and the urine. In conclusion 1) the superficial PT is of major importance for acidification, generation of TA, and secretion of NH+4 in short-term metabolic acidosis. 2) The superficial DT does not generate TA even during dramatically high rates of buffer delivery and mineralocorticosteroid administration. 3) Excretion of NH+4 is increased by saline infusion, which leads to flow-dependent NH+4 secretion by the superficial DT. 4) Chronic administration of DOCA stimulates NH+4 secretion predominantly in the terminal or deep nephrons.


Abstract Continuous levodopa replacement still is the most efficacious treatment for patients with Parkinson's disease. Unfortunately, the neutral aromatic amino acids contained in dietary proteins may compete with this drug for intestinal absorption and transport across the blood–brain barrier, thus limiting its efficacy and being responsible for the occurrence of motor fluctuations. Current guidelines recommend low-protein dietary regimens with protein redistribution, as shifting protein intake to the evening has proved to ameliorate the response to levodopa. However, adherence to this dietary regimen does not seem to be satisfactory and response is variable. Recent studies have shown that low-protein products designed for chronic renal failure patients are safe, tasty, well-tolerated and useful in improving both adherence to low-protein dietary regimens and levodopa-related motor fluctuations. However, there still is the need to define the selection criteria for the patients who may benefit the most from adherence to this regimen.


Abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine the Swedish industry- and craftmanship trade, specifically the relationship between effort and reward and how it affects the meaningfulness during labour hours. Also, what are the possible effects on production efficiency as a whole? Discussed and analyzed through empirics and previous research.38 workers filled out a survey and two interviews were conducted to get a more analytic depth to the data.The results showed that there is little to no reward for high effort during labour hours on the evaluated workplaces, combined with low commitment and meaningfullness. My conclusions are that more ways of effort-based rewards would likely have a positive effect on meaningfulness and thereby the production as a whole. I also show that the theses of Karl Marx are still plausible and relevant in modern day industrial- and craftsmanship trades in capitalist countries.


A machine vision system designed to recognize Botswana license plates is presented. The system has an average processing time of about 2.41 seconds. The techniques used to perform the detection and recognition are: colour filtering; Niblack binarisation; blob selection; segmentation; template matching; neural networks; Euler number; positional checks


Lock-free objects offer significant performance and reliability advantages over conventional lock-based objects. However, the lack of an efficient portable lock-free method for the reclamation of the memory occupied by dynamic nodes removed from such objects is a major obstacle to their wide use in practice. We present hazard pointers, a memory management methodology that allows memory reclamation for arbitrary reuse. It is very efficient, as demonstrated by our experimental results. It is suitable for user-level applications - as well as system programs - without dependence on special kernel or scheduler support. It is wait-free. It requires only single-word reads and writes for memory access in its core operations. It allows reclaimed memory to be returned to the operating system. In addition, it offers a lock-free solution for the ABA problem using only practical single-word instructions. Our experimental results on a multiprocessor system show that the new methodology offers equal and, more often, significantly better performance than other memory management methods, in addition to its qualitative advantages regarding memory reclamation and independence of special hardware support. We also show that lock-free implementations of important object types, using hazard pointers, offer comparable performance to that of efficient lock-based implementations under no contention and no multiprogramming, and outperform them by significant margins under moderate multiprogramming and/or contention, in addition to guaranteeing continuous progress and availability, even in the presence of thread failures and arbitrary delays.


We describe a benchmark data generator for tracking methods for two- and three-dimensional time-dependent scalar fields. More and more topology-based tracking methods are presented in the visualization community, but the validation and evaluation of the tracking results are currently limited to qualitative visual approaches. We present a pipeline for creating different ground truth features that support evaluating tracking methods based on quantitative measures. In short, our approach randomly simulates a temporal point cloud with birth, death, split, merge, and continuation events, where the points are then used to derive a scalar field whose topological features correspond to the points. These scalar fields can be used as the input for different tracking methods, where the computed tracks can be compared against the ground truth feature evolution. This approach facilitates directly comparing the results of different tracking methods, independent of the initial feature characterization.


A seminal article by Margaret Baron, published in 1969, explored the history of set diagrams (Venn diagrams). However, Baron did not look beyond the evidence of European sources. This article presents evidence of a literary simile from ancient India that exemplifies the idea of a larger circle including within it many smaller circles, each circle standing for an ethical concept. The simile – an elephant's footprint enclosing the footprints of smaller animals – first appears in the Buddhist Canon, and it was used occasionally in South Asian literature through the following millennia until the eighteenth century. I argue that the Elephant's Foot simile can be added to Baron's catalogue of historical cases where ancient authors were using language that implied a simple concept of logical sets.


In many practical situations, the information comes not in terms of the original image or signal, but in terms of its Fourier transform. To detect complex features based on this information, it is often necessary to use machine learning. In the Fourier transform, usually, there are many components, and it is not easy to use all of them in machine learning. So, we need to select the most informative components. In this paper, we provide general recommendations on how to select such components. We also show that these recommendations are in good accordance with two examples: the structure of the human color vision, and classification of lung dysfunction in children.


Background/Aims: Previous studies have suggested that leptin was associated with atherosclerosis and involved in inflammation. Gender differences between leptin and inflammatory markers have been evaluated less in untreated patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD). Methods: In this study, a total of 394 consecutive Chinese patients who received coronary artery angiography were enrolled, including 243 patients with CAD and 151 non-CAD controls. The baseline clinical characteristics were collected and serum leptin levels were determined using ELISA. Results: The relation of serum leptin levels to inflammatory markers was found only in female patients. Leptin and white blood cell count (WBCC) as well as its subsets were significantly higher in female patients than female controls. In female patients, leptin was positively associated with C-reactive protein (CRP; r = 0.28, p = 0.016), WBCC (r = 0.261, p = 0.02), neutrophil, r = 0.268, p = 0.018, and monocyte, r = 0.228, p = 0.044. Multivariable regression analysis revealed that leptin was significantly and independently associated with CRP (β = 0.317, p = 0.004), WBCC (β = 0.278, p = 0.020), neutrophil (β = 0.262, p = 0.032), and monocyte (β = 0.245, p = 0.032). Conclusions: The serum leptin levels were higher in female patients and independently associated with CRP, WBCC, and its subsets, suggesting a potential interaction between leptin and inflammation in female CAD patients.


Many organizations use Information Technology (IT) to improve their performance in the business and operations. But, most of the IT projects suffer from a high risk of failure when implemented. Recently, many studies have been attended on the concept of critical success factors (CSFs) in order to affect the rate of success, but a little effort has been focused on developing strong models to facilitate the CSFs extraction and evaluation processes. We found that there are remarkable cultural, managerial, industrial differences and also, a considerable business atmosphere gap between the developing countries like Iran and the developed countries. Therefore, the related CSFs in the developed countries may not be directly applicable by Iranian project managers and they need to be adapted. Furthermore, it has been repeatedly reported that there are some limitations related to CSFs identification methods such as Rockart's methodology. In this paper, we have offered a new developed model to extract and evaluate the CSFs of IT projects. This model has brought the theoretical backgrounds, the experts' views and the AHP technique's benefits together and it may be applied as a means to improve the IT project management ability. Thereafter, we have used our model to identify and evaluate CSFs of an important IT project, known as: "using RFID technology in Iran Fuel Distribution System". The most important CSFs were identified and prioritized as: Support from senior management; Hardware substructure; Technology sanction; Pilot project; Beneficiary's participation and Data management.


Mg(BH4)2 exhibits a high hydrogen content of 14.9 wt% and thermodynamic stability in the overall decomposition reaction that corresponds to hydrogen desorption at around room temperature. However, the potential applications in hydrogen storage are restricted by high kinetic barriers. In this study, we show the synthesis of Mg(BH4)2/carbon nanocomposites by ball milling of MgH2 nanoparticles supported on carbon aerogel in a B2H6/H2 atmosphere. The nanocomposite exhibits a lower kinetic barrier as compared to bulk Mg(BH4)2. The temperature for major hydrogen desorption is decreased to 160 °C. Furthermore, re-formation of Mg(BH4)2 after full dehydrogenation is achieved under mild conditions (200 °C and 80 to 150 bar H2) in the nanocomposite. This work demonstrates nanoengineering as an effective approach to realize the reversible hydrogen storage of Mg(BH4)2 under mild conditions.


This paper presents a computer-aided design (CAD) of 3D porous tissue scaffolds with spatial control of encapsulated biomolecule distributions. A localized control of encapsulated biomolecule distribution over 3D structures is proposed to control release kinetics spatially for tissue engineering and drug release. Imaging techniques are applied to explore distribution of microspheres over porous structures. Using microspheres in this study represents a framework for modeling the distribution characteristics of encapsulated proteins, growth factors, cells, and drugs. A quantification study is then performed to assure microsphere variation over various structures under imaging analysis. The obtained distribution characteristics are mimicked by the developed stochastic modeling study of microsphere distribution over 3D engineered freeform structures. Based on the stochastic approach, 3D porous structures are modeled and designed in CAD. Modeling of microsphere and encapsulating, biomaterial distribution in this work helps develop comprehensive modeling of biomolecule release kinetics for further research. A novel multichamber single nozzle solid freeform fabrication technique is utilized to fabricate sample structures. The presented methods are implemented and illustrative examples are presented in this paper.


The need to recognize diverse actors, their knowledge and values is being widely promoted as critical for sustainability in contemporary land use, natural resource management and conservation initiatives. However, in much of the case study literature, the value of including indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) in the management and governance of landscapes tends to be overlooked and undervalued. Understanding ILK as comprising indigenous, local and traditional knowledge, this systematic review synthesizes how ILK has been viewed and incorporated into landscape-based studies; what processes, mechanisms and areas of focus have been used to integrate it; and the challenges and opportunities that arise in doing so. Queries from bibliographic databases (Web of Science, JSTOR, Scopus and Africa Wide) were employed. Findings from the review underscore that the literature and case studies that link landscapes and ILK are dominated by a focus on agricultural systems, followed by social-ecological systems, indigenous governance, natural resource management, biodiversity conservation and climate change studies, especially those related to early warning systems for disaster risk reduction. The growing importance of multi-stakeholder collaborations in local landscape research and the promotion of inclusive consultations have helped to bring ILK to the fore in the knowledge development process. This, in turn, has helped to support improved landscape management, governance and planning for more resilient landscapes. However, more research is needed to explore ways to more effectively link ILK and scientific knowledge in landscape studies, particularly in the co-management of these social-ecological systems. More studies that confirm the usefulness of ILK, recognize multiple landscape values and their interaction with structures and policies dealing with landscape management and conservation are necessary for enhanced sustainability.


Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) RNA load in sera and tissues during acute phase of infection was evaluated using a PCR- based quantitative assay. More than 80% of infected pigs (21/25) showed the peak level of viral RNA concentrations in serum (up to 8.6 x 10(8) copies/ml) at day 5 postinfection (PI), and started to clear the virus from the systemic circulation thereafter. Regression analysis using the viral RNA concentrations in sera obtained from days 5 to 14 PI showed that the viral RNA was cleared at the rate of 0.37 log reduction in the number of PRRSV RNA copies per day. It was estimated to be day 27 PI when the viral RNA in the serum of infected pigs becomes undetectable. When correlation analysis was performed between the systemic clearance rate and viral RNA concentrations in tissues of 9 infected pigs obtained at day 14 PI, moderately strong negative correlation was observed in the thymus (r = -0.62) and brain stem (r = -0.48), suggesting the capability of host animal to clear PRRSV from the systemic circulation appears to be related to the viral activity in the thymus and brain stem.


Dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) plays a pivotal role in nervous systems. Its dysfunction leads to the schizophrenia, Parkinson's diseases and drug addiction. Since the crystal structure of the D2R was not solved yet, discovering of potent and highly selective anti-psychotic drugs carry challenges for different neurodegenerative diseases. In the current study, we modeled the three-dimensional (3D) structure of the D2R based on a recently crystallized structure of the dopamine D3 receptor. These two receptors share a high amino acid sequence homology (>70%). The interaction of the modeled receptor with well-known atypical and typical anti-psychotic drugs and the inhibition mechanisms of drugs at the catalytic domain were studied via atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. Our results revealed that, class-I and class-II forms of atypical and typical D2R antagonists follow different pathways in the inhibition of the D2Rs.


Objective To study the prevalence of rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in schools (locally referred to as 'daaras') located in the city of Dakar and its suburbs using both clinical examination and echocardiography. Methods This is a cross-sectional study conducted from 9 August to 24 December 2011 involving 2019 pupils, aged between 5 and 18 years selected from the 16 'daaras' of the Academic Inspectorate (Inspection d'Académie) of the city of Dakar and its suburbs. Anamnestic, clinical and echocardiographic data were collected and entered into a questionnaire designed for the study. The World Heart Federation criteria for echocardiographic diagnosis were used to diagnose RHD. p<0.05 was considered statistically significant in bivariate analysis. Results About 60.1% of the pupils were men and the mean age was 9.7±3.3 years. 10 cases of definite RHD were detected, prevalence being 4.96 per 1000 (95% CI 2.4 to 9.1). This prevalence was five times higher with echocardiographic screening compared with clinical screening. 23 cases (11.4 per 1000) of borderline forms were detected. The populations at risk of definite RHD identified in our study were children over 14 years (p<0.001), those with recurrent sore throat (p=0.003) and those residing in the suburbs of the city of Dakar (p<0.001). Conclusion Our study shows a relatively high prevalence of RHD. Reducing its prevalence should focus on the implementation of appropriate policies, targeting at-risk populations and focusing on raising awareness and early detection.


There is much correlational research singing praises for the validity and importance of self-efficacy. As well most people believe that optimistic view of one's capabilities would lead to higher performance. Some experimental research has cast doubt over the pervasive assumption that higher self-efficacy leads to higher performance. Specifically Control theory as opposed to the widespread Social Cognitive theory, argues that lower self-efficacy should result in higher performance. In this study we aimed to better understand the link between self-efficacy and performance, through both within and between individual comparison and to test whether a change in self-efficacy would lead to change in performance. To do this we carried out a single blind randomized between group experiment, where self-efficacy was manipulated with false feedback. The results showed that indeed self-efficacy shows a positive correlation with performance. Nevertheless, after the false feedback the positive and negative feedback groups did not differ in their performance on the second trial. In addition, the initial self-efficacy was significantly higher than any of the later self-efficacy measurements and higher than the actual performance on both occasions, but all the other self-efficacy measurements where not different from the actual performance scores. From the results it seems that self-efficacy is more of an ability to predict one's performance rather than a belief in one's capabilities. Since the randomization allowed to assume that both group's capabilities are the same, a decrease in self-efficacy did not affect performance. It could be that the overall positive correlation of self-efficacy and performance found in most correlational research is due to the confounding of actual capabilities. Actual capabilities being the cause of higher self-efficacy and higher performance. At least this seems to be true for simple fine motor tasks.


To utilize P2P as the carrying technology for HD-VOD within MAN, the traffic distribution on every hierarchical links is analyzed, which shows the most traffic would pass through the core switch and induces the jam in the backbone. The optimizing method is proposed to eliminate the jam by selecting the nearest source node as the preferred. The analysis proves that the traffic through the core switch decreases greatly by regulating the traffic from the backbone to the edge of MAN. Then the P2P system is designed for HD-VOD in MAN with a topology server to control the P2P traffic distribution in the optimization mode, and the algorithm for the nearest source node is put forward.


BACKGROUND
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is a well-documented resuscitation method in patients with severe hemodynamic and/or respiratory impairment.

OBJECTIVE
To describe several aspects related to the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation in a pediatric heart center and determine its immediate and late outcomes.

METHODS
Between October 2005 and January 2007, 10 patients who were submitted to pediatric cardiac surgery underwent extracorporeal membrane oxygenation implant. Median age was 58.5 days (40% neonates) and median body weight was 3.9 kg. Circulatory assistance was initiated aiming at the recovery and the weaning protocols followed daily clinical and echocardiographic criteria. Support was discontinued when transplant was contraindicated, when the patient was unable to recover or when survival was considered to be limited by a multidisciplinary team.

RESULTS
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation was employed after corrective or palliative heart surgery in 80% and preoperatively in the remaining ones. It was most often indicated for irresponsive hemodynamic instability (40%), post-cardiotomy shock (20%) and post-cardiac arrest (20%). The mean duration on support was 58 +/- 37 hours. Weaning was successfully in 50% of the cases and 30% were discharged home. Actuarial survival was 40%, 30% and 20% at 30 days, 3 months and 24 months, respectively.

CONCLUSION
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is an effective and useful tool for the resuscitation of patients presenting severe hemodynamic and/or respiratory failure in the perioperative period of pediatric cardiovascular surgery.


The ripening of strawberry fruit is characterized by changes in the composition and structure of the cell wall polysaccharides leading to textural changes and loss of firmness of the fruit. An endo-β-1,4-glucanase (EGase) was purified from ripe strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.) fruit using cellulose affinity chromatography. The purified enzyme gave a single protein band of 54 kDa on sodium dqdecyl sulphate- polyaciylamide gel electrophoresis. A 25 amino acid N-terminal sequence showed strong homology with the proteins encoded by recently identified EGase genes from different strawberry cultivars and from Arabidopsis, pepper and tomato. The enzyme specifically cleaved the β-1,4-glucosyl linkages of xyloglucan but was unable to hydrolyze those of insoluble cellulose. The pH optimum and Km of the enzyme against the artificial substrate carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) were pH 5.0 to 7.0 and 1.3 mg ml-1 respectively. A cDNA of the corresponding ripening-enhanced, fruit-specific gene, cel1, was isolated from a ripe fruit cDNA library. This was used to down-regulate cel1 expression in transgenic strawberry plants in order to assess the potential role(s) played by Cel1 during strawberry fruit ripening. In several transgenic lines, Cel1 mRNA was suppressed to undetectable levels in ripe fruit. However, EGase activity and firmness of these fruit were indistinguishable from control fruit. A second strawberry EGase gene, cel2, is also expressed in ripening fruit and this presence has prevented specific down- regulation of cel1 from revealing its role in fruit softening. Southern analysis of cel1 and cel2 revealed the presence of related sequences in the strawberry genome indicating a small multigene family, consistent with the isolation of two different EGase cDNAs from strawberry.


CASE REPORTS Case 1 A 23-year-old woman presented with a 2-week history of bruising and fever. She was diagnosed as having acute myelogenous leukemia. Three days after beginning chemotherapy, she became disoriented and hypotensive. Her platelet count was 60×10 9 /L, and her white blood cell count was 1.0×10 9 /L, with an absolute neutrophil count of 0.48×10 9 /L. She was resuscitated with 3 L of saline and she was given dopamine at 5 μg·kg -1 ·min -1 and broad-spectrum antibiotics. Her chest radiograph revealed diffuse interstitial-alveolar infiltrates. She required mechanical ventilation for progressive hypoxemia. Pulmonary and radial arterial catheters were inserted and the following hemodynamic parameters were obtained: blood pressure, 90/35 mm Hg; mean arterial pressure (MAP), 53 mm Hg; heart rate, 124 beats per minute; cardiac index, 7.8 L·min -1 ·m -2 ; central venous pressure (CVP), 12 mm Hg; pulmonary artery pressure, 42/28 mm Hg; pulmonary capillary


This SpringerBrief explains the emerging cyber threats that undermine Android application security. It further explores the opportunity to leverage the cutting-edge semantics and contextaware techniques to defend against such threats, including zero-day Android malware, deep software vulnerabilities, privacy breach and insufficient security warnings in app descriptions. The authors begin by introducing the background of the field, explaining the general operating system, programming features, and security mechanisms. The authors capture the semantic-level behavior of mobile applications and use it to reliably detect malware variants and zero-day malware. Next, they propose an automatic patch generation technique to detect and block dangerous information flow. A bytecode rewriting technique is used to confine privacy leakage. User-awareness, a key factor of security risks, is addressed by automatically translating security-related program semantics into natural language descriptions. Frequent behavior mining is used to discover and compress common semantics. As a result, the produced descriptions are security-sensitive, human-understandable and concise. By covering the background, current threats, and future work in this field, the brief is suitable for both professionals in industry and advanced-level students working in mobile security and applications. It is valuable for researchers, as well.


Physical therapy following major surgeries is a branch of medicine that has seen its fair share of technologically inspired advances. One important facet of physical therapy, the "athome exercises" patients are prescribed to do, is still somewhat of a "black box" to many physical therapists (PTs). PTs have no way of knowing (1) whether the patient is doing the home exercises, or (2) whether the patient is doing the exercises in the correct and healthy manner. This lack of awareness makes it difficult for the PT to guide the patient, which can often lead to prolonged rehabilitation periods or (sometimes) can create life-long health problems for patients. In this thesis, we provide a means for a PT to remotely monitor patient's performance of at-home exercises. We combined the capabilities of wearable motion sensors with computational algorithms to provide patients feedback on the quality of their performed exercises. We evaluated this approach by asking 20 healthy volunteers to perform popular knee-rehabilitation exercises with various mistakes while wearing motion sensors. After preprocessing and extracting features from the sensor data, we trained machine-learning models on the extracted features. The models showed a high rate of accuracy during testing, which brings us a step closer to giving physical therapists and doctors a tool to automatically and objectively classify certain exercises and mistakes made during those exercises.


In order to prevent a loss of spectral efficiency due to the use of cyclic prefix (CP), a CP reconstruction (CPR) method, such as residual intersymbol interference cancellation (RISIC), has recently been developed. In this paper, we apply the RISIC method to Alamouli space-time block coded (STBC) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system with insufficient CP. It is shown that in the STBC OFDM, tail cancellation as well as cyclic restoration of the RISIC should be repeated. An iterative channel estimation method for the STBC OFDM system with CPR is proposed. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated by computer simulation in multipath fading environment.


The conversion of tropical forests by anthropogenic land-uses has generated a large variety of fragmented habitats, leading to changes in animal diversity. Dung beetles (DB) respond sensitively to both, changes in the composition of vertebrates whose excrements provide food and nesting material, as well as changes in the physical structure of their habitats. Changes in DB communities have been often described via the taxonomic identity, but difficulties in the delineation of DB species that are taxonomically difficult to determine and highly diverse, combined with fundamental changes in the taxonomic composition of DB communities between different biogeographical regions, have posed great challenges for the taxonomic identification and therefore hindered the generalization of results. Morphological traits of beetles instead directly reflect their environmental adaptations through natural selection across species borders, and may provide a more robust means to detect patterns of community change imposed by different land uses.
The main objective of the dissertation was to examine the effects of the conversion of primary forests (1st Forests) to secondary forests (2nd Forests) and to meadows on DB communities of tropical karst ecosystems, and the consequences for key ecosystem functions, using both taxonomic identity and morphological trait-based approaches. As the tropical karst ecosystems typically harbour unique flora and fauna, it was hypothesized that these ecosystems would also host unique DB communities with high potential of endemism, and accordingly may reveal particular patterns in responses to forest conversion. Further we hypothesized that changing environmental conditions would lead to morphological adaptations of DB, eventually measurable as distinct clusters of morphological traits. Finally, changes in DB morphological traits may affect dung removal rate, being an important ecosystem function.
This dissertation started with quantification and comparison of the structure and community attributes (i.e., species richness, abundance and biomass) of DB between land-use types in two spatially separated nature reserves (NR) in north-eastern and north-central Vietnam. Surprisingly, species composition and community structure differed remarkably between two NR. Clear patterns of responses of DB to forest conversion were found between forests and meadows, with meadows showing a higher abundance and species richness being compared to forests (Chapter 1).
In Chapter 2, we successfully used the morphological trait-based approach to identify and characterize three distinct morphological trait clusters reflecting DB adaptations to changing environmental conditions resulting from the forest conversion. Our results highlight the potential to further the use of morphological traits in examining anthropogenic impacts on community structure. In Chapter 2, we found that body length and body mass rather than abundance determined dung removal rate, but the large-bodied DB were particularly vulnerable to forest conversion. Accordingly, the forest conversion by human land uses resulted in a loss of DB functioning and resulting their key ecosystem service, dung removal rate.
Since large-bodied DB play a vital role in ecosystem functions and were highly sensitive to forest conversion, it is critical to focus on the large DB species in conservation management. However, the poor understanding of the taxonomy of SE-Asian DB is hindering conservation decisions, because reliable information on species composition, distribution and diversity is lacking. Therefore, in Chapter 3, we focussed on the taxonomy and distribution of the dominant and large-bodied DB of the genus Copris by providing a species list for Vietnam with detailed illustrations and identification keys to all Vietnamese members, and with the worldwide distributions of all these species. Two new Copris species, one country records and rare species recorded from the karst ecosystems were also described and included in the key. In addition, the little-known subgenus Copris (Paracopris) was reviewed along with description of a new species from Java (Indonesia).
The genus Synapsis contains remarkably large-bodied DB reaching a length of up to 52 mm (i.e., in S. tmolus Fischer, 1821). Since Synapsis spp. mainly occur in SE-Asian tropical forests, they may be useful bio-indicators for undisturbed forests. However, the species status of particular taxa has undergone repeated changes due to poorly defined species boundaries. In Chapter 4, we therefore presented a thoroughly illustrated key and diagnoses of all worldwide known Synapsis species based on morphological examinations of a great number of type specimens housed at European natural history museums. In addition, a new species and a rare species of the genus Synapsis recorded from the karst ecosystems were formally described.


Abstract. Atmospheric nitrogen deposition in China has attracted public attention in recent years due to the
increasing anthropogenic emission of reactive nitrogen ( Nr ) and its impacts on the
terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. However, limited long-term and multisite measurements have
restrained the understanding of the mechanism of the Nr deposition and the
chemical transport model (CTM) improvement. In this study, the performance of the simulated wet
and dry deposition for different Nr species, i.e., particulate NO 3 - and
 NH 4 + , gaseous NOx , HNO3 and NH3 have been
conducted using the framework of Model Inter-Comparison Study for Asia (MICS-Asia) phase III. A total of nine
models, including five Weather Research and Forecasting models coupled with the Community Multiscale
Air Quality (WRF-CMAQ) models, two self-developed regional models, a global model and a Regional Atmospheric Modeling System coupled with the Community Multiscale
Air Quality (RAMS-CMAQ) model have been selected for the comparison. For wet deposition, observation data from 83 measurement sites from the East Asia Acid Deposition Monitoring Network (EANET), Chinese Ecosystem Research Network (CERN), China Agricultural University Deposition Network (CAUDN), National Acid Deposition Monitoring Network (NADMN) and Department of
Ecological Environment (DEE) of China have been collected and
normalized for comparison with model results. In general, most models show the consistent spatial and
temporal variation of both oxidized N ( Nox ) and reduced N ( Nrd ) wet
deposition in China, with the normalized mean error (NME) at around 50 %, which is lower than the value of 70 %
based on EANET observation over Asia. Both the ratio of wet or dry deposition to the total
inorganic N (TIN) deposition and the ratios of TIN to their emissions have shown consistent
results with the Nationwide Nitrogen Deposition
Monitoring Network (NNDMN) estimates. The performance of ensemble results (ENMs) was further assessed
with satellite measurements. In different regions of China, the results show that the simulated
 Nox wet deposition was overestimated in northeastern China (NE) but underestimated in the
south of China, namely southeastern (SE) and southwestern (SW) China, while the Nrd wet deposition was underestimated in all
regions by all models. The deposition of Nox has larger uncertainties than the
 Nrd , especially in northern China (NC), indicating the chemical reaction process is one of
the most important factors affecting the model performance. Compared to the critical load (CL) value,
the Nr deposition in NC, SE and SW reached or exceeded reported CL values and resulted
in serious ecological impacts. The control of Nrd in NC and SW and Nox in SE
would be an effective mitigation measure for TIN deposition in these regions. The Nr deposition in
the Tibetan Plateau (TP) with a high ratio of TIN  ∕  emission ( ∼3.0 ), indicates a significant
transmission from outside. Efforts to reduce these transmissions ought to be paramount due
the climatic importance of the Tibetan region to the sensitive ecosystems throughout China.


The method suggested for qualitative estimation of the renal and hepatic vessels perfusion before an injection is based on measuring oscillations of the light beam diffused by the organ's surface (the source--a gas laser of continuous action of red spectrum). An absolute photometer protected by a red filter from external effects of light is used as a registrator. Successive injection of the renal and hepatic vessels with different masses and their investigation by means of roentgenography, preparation, carrosion demonstrate a satisfactory effectiveness of the method presented.


© 2018 Egyptian Nursing Journal | Published by Wolters Introduction Successful or healthy aging is a worldwide concept in gerontology. Older people such as academic emeritus can live healthy and can be economic contributors as well. They continue to be creative, grow, learn, have a network of friends and family, and share their experience in teaching, research, and community services. Gerntological health nurses can play a vital role in promoting health and wellbeing of the elderly by taking a holistic view of the biopsychosocial health predictors that contribute to successful aging. Aim The aim of this study was to assess the predictors of successful aging among Cairo University academic emeritus. Sample A convenience sample of 100 academic emeritus were selected. Setting The study was conducted in four health sciences sector faculties at Cairo University. An exploratory descriptive research design was utilized. Tool A structured successful aging questionnaire was developed that included three parts (personal characteristics, assessment of successful aging predictors such as physical health, mental/cognitive well-being, psychological well-being and social engagement, questions about what contributes to successful aging. Results The results of the study have shown that the majority of academic emeritus were independent, adopted a healthy lifestyle, maintained high resilience, have no depression or cognitive failure and have supportive social networks. Regression analysis showed that the age and total scores of successful aging predictors were significantly associated (P=0.000). Conclusion Physical independence, lifestyle, cognition, resilience, low depression, and social network contribute to successful aging. Recommendations Increase the awareness of the elderly about the predictors of successful aging through health education programs and replication of the study on a nationwide scale project.


Research on third-party logistics (3PL) service providers has focused more on managing customer relationships than on managing the frontline personnel who interact with customers on a daily basis. Thus, even though the overall need for 3PL's to be market-oriented is well-recognized, relatively little is known about how 3PL companies support and develop frontline service staff to provide better service. This study draws on 3PL company site managers' responses to a postal survey that examines the influences of internal communication, customer service training and managerial coaching for customer contact employees on the relationship between market orientation and frontline service recovery empowerment.


Asteroid 4 Vesta is the only largely preserved differentiated asteroid and thus is an excellent proxy to study early magmatism occurring on planets and moons. In this study, we focus on eucrite Pecora Escarpment (PCA) 82502, a medium‐ to fine‐grained eucrite which chemical analyses suggest belongs to the main howardite–eucrite–diogenite clan, albeit with some peculiarities. We carried out backscattered electron and electron backscattered diffraction microscopy analyses of the meteorite along with step‐heating 40Ar/39Ar dating analyses of various types of groundmass aliquots. We show that Pecora Escarpment 82502 is composed of medium‐grained igneous crystalline clasts and smaller fractured satellite clasts surrounded by approximately 50 µm wide impact melt veins of the same composition. Our results show that the large crystalline clasts and fine‐grained veins both display little evidence of shock processes. Six groundmass aliquots from large crystalline clasts returned concordant plateau (>70% of 39Ar) or mini‐plateau (50–70% of 39Ar) 40Ar/39Ar ages with a weighted mean of 4531 ± 6 Ma (P = 0.67). Thermodynamic cooling and 40Ar diffusion models suggest that the K/Ar system recorded and preserved the igneous age despite subsequent infiltration of hot and quickly quenched melt veins. Our new igneous age, combined with evidence for four other young volcanic and plutonic eucrites of similar age, shows that Vesta was still magmatically active around 4531 Ma. The lack of younger ages suggests that this age might well represent the end of the magmatic activity in the upper crust of Vesta. When combined with existing paleomagnetic constraints, our data suggest that 4 Vesta had an active dynamo that was still active ~35 Ma after accretion.


The purpose of the research is to describe the following things. 1. Structurally novel Akulah Istri Teroris. 2. The fact of humanity in the novel Akulah Istri Teroris . 3. The collective subject in the novel Akulah Istri Teroris. 4. The world view in the novel Akulah Istri Teroris . 5. The discriminatory behavior against the wives of suspected terrorist in the novel Akulah Istri Teroris . 6. The value of character education. The research is a qualitative research. The data in this research is a set of form events sentences and paragraphs relating to problems in the research. The source of data used in this research is the novel Akulah Istri Teroris by Abidah El Khalieqy. The research instrument is the researcher itself. Data collection methods using descriptive methods. Data collection techniques using observation and documentation. Methods of analysis data using qualitative methods. Data analysis techniques using analysis techniques model of Miles and Huberman. The results of the research are as follows. 1. The structure of the novel examined included the characters, plot, and setting. The main character of the novel is Ayu. In addition, there are some other figures, which acts as an additional character or story developers only. The groove of this novel is forward groove. The background of place in this novel is Jepara and Yogyakarta. The background of time occurred between the years 2000-2013. The social background which shows the intermediate social groups. 2. The fact of humanity showed social conditions, economic conditions, the condition of education, culture conditions, and social activities that occurred at the between the years 2000-2013. 3. The collective subject is shown through the social class that can be seen from the condition of education, economic, social or cultural. 4. The view of the world showing the world view of the main character. 5. The behavior of the wife discrimination against suspected terrorists include the violation of privacy rights, the right of secure, and the rights to justice. Behavior of discrimination experienced by Ardianto characters (Ayu's husband) who lost their legal rights and the right to presumed innocent until proven guilty. In addition, Ayesha (Ayu's children) also lose the right to education. 6. Character value includes religious character, honesty, tolerance, discipline, democratic, curiosity, love of homeland, friends / communicative, like reading, environmental care, social care.


The starting point of reasoning, developed here, for the construction of which I call metageography is, firstly, the recognition of a state of crisis in Geography, and secondly its role as a possibility, even though it is a science fragmentary, of understanding the modern world, since knowledge can be constituted as a movement toward an open totality. In a broader sense, it is about thinking the place of Geography in explaining the reality in constant change. If it is possible to think that, despite their advances, Geography is in a state of crisis? We face with the requirement to disclose their symptoms and consequently, the need to build a path forward the need to understand reality from or by geography. The metageography is to propose a theoretical-methodological way of overcoming the state of crisis in which the discipline is, from the social-spatial practice as an explanatory moment.


Polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies to human rhodopsin were used to identify and localize this principal glycoprotein of the photoreceptor outer segment discs on thin sections of human and monkey retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and on immunoblots of RPE subcellular fractions following gel electrophoresis. Antiopsin was visualized with protein A-gold labeling by electron microscopy or peroxidase-linked second antibody on immunoblots. In immunocytochemical studies using polyclonal antibodies, the rod outer segments (ROS) were heavily labeled whereas cone outer segments labeling was variable and more sparse. Phagosomes and other small bodies in the RPE, interpreted as secondary lysosomes, were labeled. In contrast, lipofuscin granules, osmiophilic residual bodies of the lysosomal system of the RPE, were negative. No reactive sites were found in Bruch's membrane or in drusen. A monoclonal antibody (MAB) specific for the amino terminus of human opsin and another MAB specific for the carboxy terminal region of bovine opsin produced labeling patterns similar to, but about one-half the density obtained with polyclonal antibodies. In the immunoblot analyses, the lipofuscin granule fraction from a sucrose density gradient of human RPE homogenates was positive for rhodopsin only in those specimens that were found, upon ultrastructural examination, to contain recognizable phagosomes. When phagosomes were lacking and therefore did not contaminate the lipofuscin granule fraction, the immunoblots were negative for opsin. Melanolipofuscin granule fractions were uniformly negative for opsin. We conclude that the superficial hydrophilic antigen binding sites on the opsin molecule for which the antibodies are specific have been altered or destroyed by lysosomal enzyme digestion within the phagolysosomal system of the RPE prior to formation of definitive lipofuscin granules. Thus, these antibodies are of limited value in revealing the ultimate fate of the whole rhodopsin molecule, eg, the hydrophobic sequences that are the most likely residues in lipofuscin granules.


This article is focused on the differences in the brand equity of the streaming service Netflix before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Czech Republic. Brand equity is measured by a specially modified conceptual model. Based on a two-wave questionnaire survey, the possible impact of the pandemic on the dimension of the conceptual model was examined. The results showed that there was no statistically significant change in the level of brand equity but there was a change in its structure. It was also found that although the number of people who tried Netflix's services increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, they did not become long-term users. © 2022 Diciembre 2015 Aspe. All rights reserved.


This paper evaluates the Highway Safety Manual (HSM) crash prediction model using data on twolane rural horizontal curves in North Carolina. An analysis of the local conditions calibration factor for the HSM predictive model in North Carolina found that a large number of sites (approximately 300) are required to meet HSM recommendations. The results showed that annual average daily traffic, curve radius, and curve length were the most important factors in determining crash prediction accuracy, but that average or default values may be used for other parameters with less risk to accuracy.


Other Worlds Than Ours. C. Maxwell Cade. Museum Press, London. 1966. 248 pp. Illustrations. Plates. Tables. Glossary. Index. 30s. Contemplating the prospect of intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe is not a new occupation: in 1145 belief in more than one world was a heresy; in 1600 a monk was burnt for (among other things) holding such a view, but in the 17th century Bernard de Fontenelle published "Conversations about the Plurality of Worlds" which at last had the whole matter recognised as a legitimate intellectual activity. Readers of the JOURNAL will recall the excellent paper by the author on "Radio Astronomy and Navigation" in November 1958 for which he was subsequently awarded the Society's Navigation Prize. Remembering this I was delighted to receive this book for review; I was not disappointed. We are all aware of the strong underlying currents of partly formed ideas about extra-terrestrial life; the space age has aggravated some of the controversies— and supplied some well-founded scientific facts too. So much new knowledge of the physical universe, e.g. radio astronomy, meteorites and quasars, is mixed together with stranger and less-well-authenticated material such as flying saucers, UFO's, BEMs, telepathy and ESP that one can be forgiven for being a little confused. He is a brave man who faces all the symptoms and produces an intelligent and coherent interpretation of so many of them. The author has worked in medical, physical and engineering sciences and this multi-disciplinary experience has given him a unique outlook well suited to the complex matters of this book.


A case of leptospirosis seen in the Netherlands but acquired in Surinam is described. Marked jaundice, disturbance of renal function, a first degree atrioventricular block and pancreatic irritation were observed.


This paper addresses the following general questions: What kind of consumption patterns (e.g., land, carbon footprint, traveling) are generated by the more compact and traditional structure of Curitiba vis-a-vis the modernist urban sprawl of Brasilia?; What kind of urban and transport policies and actions can help these cities to become less resource and carbon intensive?; and, what can city or metropolitan governments do to help cities achieve these goals? The paper will show how the carbon footprints of Curitiba and Brasilia - in regard to land use distribution and transportation - are reflected in their motorized and fuel consumption rates and will suggest what can be done in policy terms to improve the cities' performances in terms of carbon and resource efficiency. The central premise is that the shape of a city affects its energy patterns, and that there is a relationship between its urban form, block structure, size, density, and land use with its travel behavior, split transportation modes, and carbon footprint. This paper was presented at the 45th ISOCARP International Congress held in Porto, Portugal on October 18th-22nd, 2009.


For phased array receivers, the accuracy with which the polarization state of a received signal can be measured depends on the antenna configuration, array calibration process, and beamforming algorithms. A signal and noise model for a dual-polarized array is developed and related to standard polarimetric antenna figures of merit, and the ideal polarimetrically calibrated, maximum-sensitivity beamforming solution for a dual-polarized phased array feed is derived. A practical polarimetric beamformer solution that does not require exact knowledge of the array polarimetric response is shown to be equivalent to the optimal solution in the sense that when the practical beamformers are calibrated, the optimal solution is obtained. To provide a rough initial polarimetric calibration for the practical beamformer solution, an approximate single-source polarimetric calibration method is developed. The modeled instrumental polarization error for a dipole phased array feed with the practical beamformer solution and single-source polarimetric calibration was -10 dB or lower over the array field of view for elements with alignments perturbed by random rotations with 5 degree standard deviation.


The effector function of activated CD4+ T cells and secretion of cytokines are important in the establishment of productive immune responses and tolerance. We identified expression by CD4+ T cells of Notch receptors and ligands and enhanced Notch signaling upon activation. Notch1 expression was up regulated and co‐localized with CD4 upon T cell stimulation. Disruption of Notch signaling did not affect proliferation, but attenuated cytokine secretion following CD3 ligation in the absence of anti‐CD28 antibody. Notch signaling was absolutely necessary for transcription of IL‐10 by stimulated CD4+ T cells. CD4+ T cells transfected with constitutively active Notch1 failed to proliferate, but exhibited enhanced cytokine secretion upon stimulation. Our data indicates that Notch receptor signaling can influence both proliferative and cytokine responses of CD4+ T cells. In addition, the finding that Notch signaling is required for production of IL‐10 may allude to a role in immune regulation.


These are the guidelines for preventive care, diagnosis and treatment of diabetic foot syndrome. Diabetic neuropathy, peripheral vascular disease, bone deformity and altered biomechanics are foot-related risk conditions. The position statement is focused on screening methods and recommendations for clinical care for diabetics, who currently have no foot ulcers. A decision pathway is offered with respect to diagnosis and management of diabetic patients at increased risk or who manifest injuries.


Aims. We investigate the influence of turbulent viscosity on the collapse of a rotating molecular cloud core with axial symmetry, in particular, on the first and second collapse phase, as well as the evolution of the second (protostellar) core during its first accretion period. By using extensive numerical calculations, we monitor the intricate interactions between the newly formed protostar and the surrounding accretion disk (the first core) in which the star is embedded. Methods. We use a grid-based radiation-hydrodynamics code with a spatial grid designed to meet the high resolution required to study the second core. The radiative transfer is treated in the flux-limited diffusion approximation. A slightly supercritical Bonnor-Ebert sphere of 1 M ⊙ and uniform rotation according to a fixed centrifugal radius of 100 AU serves as the initial condition without exception. In a parameter study, we vary the β-viscosity driving the angular momentum transport. Results. Without viscosity (β = 0), a highly flattened accretion disk forms that fragments into several "cold" rings. For β = 10- 4 , a single "warm" ring forms that undergoes collapse due to hydrogen dissociation. For β = 10- 3 , ring formation is suppressed completely. The second collapse proceeds on the local thermal timescale, which is in contrast to the current view of a generally dynamical second collapse. During the first accretion period of the second core, the first core heats up globally and, as a consequence, a nearly spherical outflow occurs, destroying the structure of the former accretion disk completely. Finally, for β = 10 ―2 , we see the classical dynamical second collapse and a shorter but more rapid accretion phase. The impact on the surrounding accretion disk is even more pronounced. We follow the resulting massive outflow up to several kyr after the second collapse, where the central parts (R < 0.7 AU) are now cut out and replaced with an appropriate inner boundary condition. Matter is found to turn back to the center at a radius of 500 AU after about 4 kyr and to reach the protostar again after approximately 7 kyr. The results suggest that the star formation process consists of short and rapid accretion phases (lasting on the order of 100 yr) between long and quiet outflow periods (lasting several kyr).


In this paper, an analytical solution for the three-roll bending process of thin-plate was presented. Based on the theoretical analysis on continuously loading and unloading deformation of the plate during roll-bending, the curvature equations governing the bending behavior of thin-plate were set up and then solved by integration. Combing the solutions with the geometrical relationships in three-roll bender, the deflection and bending angles occurring during the steady continuous bending period were obtained by an iterative scheme. Numerical examples were given to illustrate the application of the solutions. The variation of the top roll's position with the intended bend radius, the curvature and deflection distributions on bent plate were shown in graphically and discussed.


Summary Goals: Hydrogen sulfide (H2S, "rotten egg" aroma) concerns winemakers due to its contribution to sulfur-like off-aromas, and convenient methods are needed for quantitation of H2S in wines at or below its reported odor threshold. The use of selective, colorimetric gas detection tubes (GDTs) for measurement of H2S during fermentation has been previously described, but this approach has not been adapted and validated for finished wines. We developed and validated protocols for rapid, inexpensive analysis of H2S using GDTs and aeration-oxidation (A-O) glassware commonly available in wineries. Video demonstration of the approaches is provided (Supplemental Video 1). Key Findings: Two approaches were validated for GDT-based quantitation of H2S in wine. In the first approach, H2S was sparged from the sample with N2 gas, analogous to Monier-Williams analyses of SO2. In the second approach, H2S was sparged by a vacuum-generated air stream, analogous to A-O analyses of SO2. Both approaches require <15 min/sample and achieve excellent linearity. The calibration curve for the N2 Method was identical to the curve predicted from the manufacturer's markings. The Aspiration Method was less sensitive, likely because of oxidative losses, but this method was simpler to set up, operate, and adapt to samples with higher concentrations. The limits of detection were 12 to 13 ng H2S for the methods, or ~0.2 μg/L using a 60-mL sample. The mean coefficients of variance were <5% for both approaches. Using these methods, we observed that commercial wines stored in aluminum cans have significantly higher H2S content than commercial wines in glass packaging. Impact and Significance: Wineries can use these novel methods for routine H2S analysis without significant equipment investment. In addition to cost savings, the ability to test H2S onsite, rather than sending samples to an external lab, decreases risk of H2S losses through oxidation or volatilization. These new analytical tools can be used for benchmarking, diagnosing faulty wines, or evaluating the effects of winemaking parameters, such as yeast selection, remediation treatments, and packaging options, on H2S.


This paper proposed a digital audio watermarking scheme based on independent component analysis (ICA) in DWT domain. The embedding process make full use of the multi-resolution characteristic of discrete wavelet transform (DWT), performing 3-level DWT. Selecting the low frequency coefficient appropriately as the embed location to make sure of the balance between the transparency and robustness. Then constructing the ICA model to embed the watermarking. The extraction process is similar with ICA's goal, it's used in extraction makes the scheme simple for implementation. The experiment results show that the proposed scheme has good robustness against common attacks, as well as transparency.


CCI4 has long served as a model compound for study of hepatotoxicity. While its simple chemical structure held the allure of a simple mechanism of action, decades of study have disclosed a complex series of responses. Significant early damage following CCI4 administration includes: (1) A number of alterations affecting Ca2+ homeostasis, which conspire to redistribute cellular Ca2+ from endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria to cytosol, and (2) hypomethylation of ribosomal RNA, which disrupts protein synthesis. The genesis of the injury in vivo appears to encompass early 'metabolism-dependent' effects (which appear to be largely independent of CCI4 concentration at the levels studied) and later 'metabolism-independent' effects, which parallel CCI4 concentration. The inability of injured hepatocytes to respond anabolically to early damage may be a critical feature in CCI4 hepatotoxicity.


The concept shasei ("sketching from life") has been central in the formation of modern Japanese haiku. Although much criticised by academics, especially when applied to the reading of classical haiku, it is undeniably an important concept in modern and contemporary haiku poetics. One may find arguments around shasei in the writings of the traditionalist Takahama Kyoshi as well as in the essays of the avant-garde haiku poet Kaneko Tōta. The concept is, however, defined in different ways by different authors and the reason for adhering to it as an ideal may thus vary.In this paper, the shasei concept will be analyzed in the light of how it has been discussed by some of the most influential modern and contemporary haiku poets. Critical and theoretical writings, from the early texts on the subject by Masaoka Shiki to contemporary essays by Mayuzumi Madoka will be investigated. By contrasting different ways of understanding shasei an argument will be attempted to reach a meaningful definition of the concept, by which it may be used as a tool for gaining a deeper understanding of contemporary haiku. It will also be shown how shasei, although originating in a different context, is closely related to the ecocritical way of questioning the anthropocentric perspective; the notion of getting into contact with and be affected by the the physical world, as expressed by Scott Slovic among others.A few examples of contemporary haiku will also be analysed to illustrate how the concept has relevance for reading a variety of styles. The gentle emotionalism of Mayuzumi Madoka as well as the drastic similes of Kaneko Tōta will be shown to be fully understandable only when studied in the light of this concept.


Phase selection and microstructural morphology change of the Cu47Ti33Zr11Ni6Sn2Si1 alloy were investigated through the droplet emulsion technique(DET). The emulsified Cu47Ti33Zr11Ni6Sn2Sil alloy powders showed several different microstructures depending on the amount of undercooling. The amount of undercooling of the powders was monitored by differential thermal analysis and was matched with the microstructures. The phase transition of Cu47Ti33Zr11Ni6Sn2Sil alloy powders according to the increase of undercooling proceeds by the process Cu4Ti3 +CuTi +Cu2Ti +Cu51Zr14 → Cu4Ti3 + CuTi + Cu2Ti + Cu51Zr14 + CuTi2 → Cu2Ti + Cu51Zr14 + CuTi2 → Cu51Zr14 +CuTi2. Specifically, the morphology and scale of the CuTi2 phase were examined by SEM observation, and area fraction measurement using an image analyzer, transmission electron microscopy studies, and microhardness tests showed that the amorphous phase could be synthesized by DET. A microstructure selection map of Cu47Ti33Zr11Ni6Sn2Sil alloy powders for tailored solidification was also suggested.


Aimed at fitness professionals, coaches and sportspeople, this is the definitive guide to lifting maximum weights from beginner level through to advanced. This applies to those who wish to build body strength and bulk as well as people wanting to improve their performance in a range of other sports. Heavy weights are very popular in gyms but there is a lack of supervision and good instruction. This is not only dangerous to the gym user but also bad news for the gym, and it prompted the Register of Exercise Professionals (REPS) to authorise a range of new courses designed by the book's author. The Complete Guide to Lifting Heavy Weights is required reading for students taking these courses, and an essential guide for anyone who works with or supervises the use of heavy weights. As with all titles in the Complete Guide series it is packed with information, tips, strategies and training plans. Well-illustrated and authoritative, it covers everything you need to know to deal with heavy weights safely and successfully.


This thesis describes a research study in the design,
implementation, evaluation and commercialisation of
pneumatic motion control systems for modular robots. The
research programme was conducted as part of a collaborative
study, sponsored by the Science and Engineering Research
Council, between Loughborough University and Martonair (UK)
Limited.
Microprocessor based motion control strategies have been
used to produce low cost pneumatic servo-drives which can be
used for 'point-to-point' positioning of payloads. Software
based realtime control strategies have evolved which
accomplish servo-controlled positioning while compensating
for drive system non-linearities and time delays. The
application of novel compensation techniques has resulted in
a significant improvement in both the static and dynamic
performance of the drive.
A theoretical foundation is presented based on a
linearised model of a pneumatic actuator, servo-valve, and
load system. The thesis describes the design and evolution
of microprocessor based hardware and software for motion
control of pneumatic drives. A British Standards based
test-facility has allowed control strategies to be evaluated
with reference to standard performance criteria.
It is demonstrated in this research study that the dynamic
and static performance characteristics of a pneumatic motion
control system can be dramatically improved by applying
appropriate software based realtime control strategies. This
makes the application of computer controlled pneumatic
servos in manufacturing very attractive with cost
performance ratios which match or better alternative drive
technologies.
The research study has led to commercial products
(marketed by Martonair Ltd), in which realtime control
algorithms implementing these control strategy designs are
executed within a microprocessor based motion controller.


In the near‐Earth environment, strong bulk plasma accelerations are frequently taken to be the diagnostic of the occurrence of magnetic reconnection. In this letter, we report new and unambiguous spacecraft observations and corresponding magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation of strong bulk plasma acceleration in the terrestrial magnetosheath during low Alfvén Mach number solar wind conditions, which is demonstrably not associated with magnetic reconnection. We illustrate this effect with Cluster spacecraft data that show plasma accelerations up to speeds of 1040 km/s, while the ambient solar wind speed is only 650 km/s (i.e., in excess by 60%). Based on a comparison with global MHD simulations of the magnetosphere, we show that the acceleration results from enhanced magnetic forces exerted on the plasma by "stiff" magnetic flux tubes in a low‐β magnetosheath that result from the low Alfvén Mach number solar wind. The MHD simulations demonstrate that the acceleration is asymmetric, as well as the magnetopause shape, and is the result of both magnetic pressure gradient and tension forces, showing that this effect is not a simple analogy to a "slingshot effect" for which magnetic tension would dominate. Like magnetic reconnection, this mechanism is capable of producing strong plasma acceleration in the near‐Earth's environment. The low Alfvén Mach number solar wind condition leading to this mechanism is often characteristic of coronal mass ejections (CMEs).


Abstract Objective: To perform a rigorous comparative evaluation of stepwise and couple approaches to antenatal carrier screening for cystic fibrosis. Design: Pragmatic randomised trial. Setting: Hospital antenatal clinic serving a regional population. Subjects: 2002 women (couples) attending for booking antenatal visit at less than 17 weeks' gestation with no family history of cystic fibrosis. Interventions: Offering counselling and carrier testing for cystic fibrosis, either to women in the first instance (stepwise) or to couples (couple screening). Main outcome measures: Uptake rates; anxiety; knowledge of cystic fibrosis and carrier status (both partners); attitudes to health, pregnancy, the baby, and screening (both partners); and uptake of carrier testing by relatives. Results: Uptake of screening was the same for both approaches (90%). After delivery most women remembered test results and their meaning, but 53/253 (21%) of those with negative results of couple testing had forgotten that repeat testing would be advisable if they had a pregnancy with a new partner. With stepwise screening women identified as carriers had high levels of anxiety when results were received (mean anxiety score 52.3). This dissipated with a reassuring partner's result (carriers' mean anxiety score 36.1) to levels similar to those receiving negative results from couple screening. Of those receiving negative results, women who had stepwise screening were significantly less anxious than those who had couple screening (mean score with result 32.1 v 35.4, 95% confidence interval for difference −4.7 to −2.1). Conclusions: Couple screening allows carriers to avoid transient high levels of anxiety, but is associated with more anxiety and false reassurance among most screenees who will test negative. Stepwise screening gives carriers and their relatives genetic information and is, in our opinion, the better method. Key messages Key messages This study compares the stepwise and couple approaches to antenatal screening for carriers of cystic fibrosis With stepwise screening carriers experience transiently high levels of anxiety that dissipate when the partner's negative result becomes available Carriers identified by stepwise screening inform most of their siblings about their genetic risk Couple screening is associated with more anxiety and more false reassurance among most screenees, who will have negative results On balance, the authors judge stepwise screening to be the better method


As intellectual property has grown in importance, the interaction between antitrust law and intellectual property has developed into a crucial part of the legal landscape. This new text is the first casebook expressly designed for a course on the intersection of intellectual property and antitrust law or for an advanced seminar on intellectual property misuse. It may also suitable for supplemental use in a course on intellectual property, licensing or litigation. Written by a professor who has worked in both the antitrust and intellectual property fields for over two decades, the casebook addresses both the rights of authors and inventors and the interest of society in promoting competition, expanding its base of knowledge, improving technology, and protecting consumer welfare.


Background: India has strengthened its fight against sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and reproductive tract infections (RTIs) by implementing syndromic approach at peripheral health centres. However, effective control of STIs and RTIs still remains a huge challenge. One of the biggest hurdles could be patient compliance towards the complete course of treatment. Yet, little is known about its association with the effectiveness of syndromic management of STIs and RTIs. Aim: This study aimed to assess the patient compliance with syndromic management and its effectiveness. Methods: A prospective, analytic study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital in Haryana, India, from March to November 2016. One hundred female patients suffering from any of the following complaints, (a) vaginal discharge; (b) cervical discharge; (c) lower abdominal pain; (d) burning micturition and (e) itching, were screened for RTIs. All eligible patients were interviewed in depth, and treatment was given to them according to syndromic management guidelines of National AIDS Control Organization (NACO). Patients were assessed in terms of clinical cure at the end of the treatment. Assessment of compliance to treatment regimen was made by using modified Morisky scale. Data were entered into excel sheet and analysed by SPSS software version 20 by IBM, Chicago, IL, USA. Chi-square and Fisher's exact test were applied. P <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Out of the 100 patients, 68 were cured. Of the 68 cured patients, 66 (97.1%) participants had high motivation, whereas 57 (83.8%) patients had high knowledge. Of the 32 patients who were not cured, 29 (90.6%) participants had low motivation and 30 (93.8%) participants had low knowledge. P values of motivation (<0.001) and knowledge (<0.001) between cured (66) and uncured (32) patients were highly statistically significant. Conclusion: This study showed the effect of compliance on the effectiveness of syndromic management but did not find the array of factors which could affect the compliance.


C# is a multi-paradigm programming language. The Modern C# Challenge covers with aspects of the .NET Framework such as the Task Parallel Library (TPL) and CryptoAPI. It also encourages you to explore important programming trade-offs such as time versus space or simplicity. There may be many ways to solve a problem and there is often no single right way, but some solutions are definitely better than others. This book has combined these solutions to help you solve real-world problems with C#.
In addition to describing programming trade-offs, The Modern C# Challenge will help you build a useful toolkit of techniques such as value caching, statistical analysis, and geometric algorithms.
By the end of this book, you will have walked through challenges in C# and explored the .NET Framework in order to develop program logic for real-world applications.


We consider a mean-variance portfolio optimization problem, namely, a problem of minimizing the variance of the final wealth that results from trading over a fixed finite horizon in a continuous-time complete market in the presence of convex portfolio constraints, taking into account the cost imposed by margin requirements on trades and subject to the further constraint that the expected final wealth equal a specified target value. Market parameters are chosen to be random processes adapted to the information filtration available to the investor and asset prices are modeled by Ito processes. To solve this problem we use an approach based on conjugate duality: we start by synthesizing a dual optimization problem, establish a set of optimality relations that describe an optimal solution in terms of solutions of the dual problem, thus giving necessary and sufficient conditions for the given optimization problem and its dual to each have a solution. Finally, we prove existence of a solution of the dual problem, and for a particular class of dual solutions, establish existence of an optimal portfolio and also describe it explicitly. The method elegantly and rather straightforwardly constructs a dual problem and its solution, as well as provides intuition for construction of the actual optimal portfolio.


Nepal like many other countries represents a multicultural characteristics having patriarchal social structure. Recognizing the need to effectively reduce the incidences of violence against women, Nepal ratified the CEDAW in 1991. But the incidences of DVAW have been repeatedly reported and the challenge to the human rights of the Nepalese women has been added. The heterogeneity of Nepalese society and social interaction among the different caste/ethnic groups make the issue of DVAW more complicated that eventually requires sociological study. The people of Hasandaha, Morang, represent the caste/ethnic heterogeneity and could be the representation of Nepalese villages. The women of that village are also suffering from multiple forms of violence against them. Physical assault, sexual abuse to psychological torture is among the forms of violence that they aspire to escape from. Rigid caste norms and patriarchal values constrict the freedom of movement among the women of Hasandaha village. These women express that the government, NGOs and civil society should have decisive roles with regard to the elimination of domestic violence against women. For this, effective mobilization of local communities, awareness generation among them and changes in the state's attitude towards DVAW only as of private concern are key to reduce the incidences of DVAW in Hasandaha village of Morang district, Nepal. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hjsa.v6i0.10689 Himalayan Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol.6 2014: 64-85


Background Cardiovascular morbidity and mortality can be prevented by identification and modification of specific risk factors. Ethnic minorities have a higher incidence of cardiovascular risk factors. Additionally, ethnic minorities often reside in medically underserved areas and are subject to health care disparities. We hypothesized that ethnic minorities residing in medically underserved areas would experience greater health care disparities related to cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention and treatment compared with those residing near an urban academic medical center. Methods We performed a retrospective chart review (N = 200) comparing an urban academic medical center with a rural community center. We evaluated the effects of ethnicity, demographics, and the absence or presence of CVD on cardiovascular risk factor prevalence, risk factor reduction, and CVD prevention and treatment. Results We found that Hispanics had more cardiovascular risk factors, including diabetes mellitus and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, compared with non-Hispanic whites. However, there were no ethnically based differences in risk factor prevalence by location. Additionally, ethnicity had no impact on the management of cardiovascular risk factors. However, patients with CVD residing in the rural location, regardless of ethnicity, received significantly fewer secondary prevention treatments compared with patients residing near the urban academic medical center, including aspirin or antiplatelets (p < .0001); beta-blockers or calcium channel blockers (p ≤ .0001); diuretics, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, or angiotensin receptor blockers (p = .014); and statins (p ≤ .0001). Conclusions Hispanics have more CVD risk factors than non-Hispanic whites but receive equivalent prevention initiatives. Residing in a rural, medically underserved area, regardless of ethnicity, was associated with the largest CVD treatment and health care disparity.


Shrinking communities face a myriad number of problems. The physical manifestation of urban shrinkage can best be noted in abandoned or underutilized properties, an oversupply or deteriorating housing stock and inadequate aging infrastructure. These physical manifestations lead to psychological impacts of poor perception of a community, lack of a sense of place, lethargic residents who lack the financial means or motivation to improve their living conditions. Planning for the regeneration and rightsizing of shrinking communities calls for intervention by government sectors. Valga is a small town in Estonia where housing vacancies, low quality of residential premises and the shortage of quality apartments are the result of decades of depopulation. As a result of housing privatization after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a large majority of the dwellings are privately owned. Housing demolitions and revitalization are a key part of the small town's strategy to deal with shrinkage. This paper addresses the question: in an area of urban shrinkage, what kind of housing policy can local government create in the conditions of prevailing private ownership of residential premises? Drawing on a qualitative case study of the town of Valga, the findings show that housing policy plays an important role in urban recovery for a shrinking community and the leadership capacity of local government in this process is critical. Ownership constrains in housing policy can be overcome but the lack of municipal finance and human resources together with insufficient legislation and missing cooperation with the private sector impedes the process.


EURISGIC (www.eurisgic.eu) was the first continental-scale study of the geomagnetically induced current (GIC) hazard to Europe's power transmission system. EURISGIC had a number of strands to it, including modelling GIC in the European system and understanding the possible extremes that the system could face. These project strands were represented by nine distinct work packages:
• The construction of the first ever European power transmission grid model and an update of the existing UK model
• The development of detailed conductivity models for Europe and, separately, the UK
• The building of geomagnetic, GIC and related science databases
• The production of a GIC risk map for Europe
• The investigation of worst case scenarios and extremes in the grid models
• The development of the NASA 'Solar Shield' magnetospheric and solar wind model for use in the European context
• The enhancement of a prototype GIC and geomagnetic forecast system for Europe
• The making of geomagnetic, geoelectric and GIC measurements to enhance our knowledge and validate models
• The education of the public and other stakeholders through scientific papers and other materials.
To assess and guide progress on the project a team of industry advisors was assembled. These advisors included senior power engineers from major electrical transmission system operators from across Europe, including National Grid in the UK. In this poster we demonstrate some of the major findings of the project.

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no 260330.


OBJECTIVE To determine the extent of interlaboratory variation and accuracy in the measurement of glycated hemoglobin (GHb). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS All laboratories that measure glycated hemoglobin in the State of Victoria, Australia, were invited to participate, and positive responses were received from 27 to 30 laboratories. An aliquot of blood drawn from three patients with diabetes and varied glycemia and from one nondiabetic subject was sent to each participating laboratory. Distribution of results was analyzed according to the reported results and their variance from an assigned reference value and were expressed as differing from this latter value as percentage bias and in absolute terms. A bias ≥ 10% or an absolute difference of ≥ 1% HbA1c from the reference value was considered significant. RESULTS Reported results for the same blood sample ranged from 4.1 to 5.8%, 5.1 to 8.2%, 6.7 to 9.3%, and 10.1 to 14.7% for the specimens from the nondiabetic subject and the diabetic patients with good, moderate, and poor glycemic control, respectively. The proportion of laboratories with results that differed by ≥ 10% bias from the reference value were 39% (12 of 30), 29% (9 of 30), 16% (5 of 30), and 32% (10 of 30), and the proportion reporting results that differed by ≥ 1% HbA1c in absolute terms from the reference values were 3% (1 of 30), 6% (2 of 30), 16% (5 of 30), and 23% (7 of 30) for the specimens from the nondiabetic subject and the diabetic patients with good, moderate, and poor glycemic control, respectively. CONCLUSIONS A substantial degree of interlaboratory variation for GHb measurement exists in Victoria, Australia. This may lead to difficulties in interpretation when GHb is assayed by different laboratories in the same patient over time. Interlaboratory standardization may be achievable by calibration to a standard assigned by a reference laboratory and distributed to all laboratories measuring GHb.


The human T cell repertoire is complex and is generated by the rearrangement of variable (V), diversity (D) and joining (J) segments on the T cell receptor (TCR) loci. The T cell repertoire demonstrates selfsimilarity in terms clonal frequencies when defined by V, D and J gene segment usage; therefore to determine whether the structural ordering of these gene segments on the TCR loci contributes to the observed clonal frequencies, the TCR loci were examined for self-similarity and periodicity in terms of gene segment organization. Logarithmic transformation of numeric sequence order demonstrated that the V and J gene segments for both T cell receptor α (TRA) and β (TRB) loci were arranged in a selfsimilar manner when the spacing between the adjacent segments was considered as a function of the size of the neighboring gene segment, with an average fractal dimension of ͠1.5. The ratio of genomic distance between either the J (in TRA) or D (in TRB) segments and successive V segments on these loci declined logarithmically with a slope of similar magnitude. Accounting for the gene segments occurring on helical DNA molecules in a logarithmic distribution, sine and cosine functions of the log transformed angular coordinates of the start and stop nucleotides of successive TCR gene segments showed an ordered progression from the 5' to the 3' end of the locus, supporting a log-periodic organization. T cell clonal frequencies, based on V and J segment usage, from three normal stem cell donors were plotted against the V and J segment on TRB locus and demonstrated a periodic distribution. We hypothesize that this quasi-periodic variation in gene-segment representation in the T cell clonal repertoire may be influenced by the location of the gene segments on the periodic-logarithmically scaled TCR loci. Interactions between the two strands of DNA in the double helix may influence the probability of gene segment usage by means of either constructive or destructive interference resulting from the superposition of the two helices.


In this paper, we compare the performance of different deep-learning architectures under a patch-based framework for the semantic labeling of sparse annotated urban scenes from very high resolution images. In particular, the simple convolutional network ConvNet, the AlexNet and the VGG models have been trained and tested on the publicly available, multispectral, very high resolution Summer Zurich v1.0 dataset. Experiments with patches of different dimensions have been performed and compared, indicating the optimal size for the semantic segmentation of very high resolution satellite data. The overall validation and assessment indicated the robustness of the high level features that are computed with the employed deep architectures for the semantic labeling of urban scenes.


DNA was extracted from the skeletal remains of seven individuals, six infants and one subadult, excavated from a terp near Wijnaldum, in Friesland (Netherlands). Their ages range from the 2nd to the 9th centuryadand they were excavated under clean conditions to facilitate DNA analysis.

Mitochondrial DNA was amplified from the extracts and the first hypervariable segment of the control region was sequenced. A comparison between the terp inhabitants and modern Frisian speakers shows that the early medieval Wijnaldum inhabitants resemble modern islander Frisian speakers in having a high level of diversity, while the modern mainland Frisians are not distinguishable from the north-west German populations.

The amplification of a fragment of the Y chromosome allowed us to determine the genetic sex of the seven individuals. In the case of the subadult, our result is in agreement with the morphological data. For the six infants, DNA analysis is the only way to obtain this information.


Background: The anticipatory prescribing of injectable medications to provide end-of-life symptom relief is an established community practice in a number of countries. The evidence base to support this practice is unclear. Aim: To review the published evidence concerning anticipatory prescribing of injectable medications for adults at the end of life in the community. Design: Systematic review and narrative synthesis. Registered in PROSPERO: CRD42016052108, on 15 December 2016 (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=52108). Data sources: Medline, CINAHL, Embase, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, King's Fund, Social Care Online, and Health Management Information Consortium databases were searched up to May 2017, alongside reference, citation, and journal hand searches. Included papers presented empirical research on the anticipatory prescribing of injectable medications for symptom control in adults at the end of life. Research quality was appraised using Gough's 'Weight of Evidence' framework. Results: The search yielded 5099 papers, of which 34 were included in the synthesis. Healthcare professionals believe anticipatory prescribing provides reassurance, effective symptom control, and helps to prevent crisis hospital admissions. The attitudes of patients towards anticipatory prescribing remain unknown. It is a low-cost intervention, but there is inadequate evidence to draw conclusions about its impact on symptom control and comfort or crisis hospital admissions. Conclusion: Current anticipatory prescribing practice and policy is based on an inadequate evidence base. The views and experiences of patients and their family carers towards anticipatory prescribing need urgent investigation. Further research is needed to investigate the impact of anticipatory prescribing on patients' symptoms and comfort, patient safety, and hospital admissions.


Current models describe aromatic rings as polar groups based on the fact that benzene and hexafluorobenzene are known to have large and permanent quadrupole moments. This report describes a quantitative study of the interactions between oxygen lone pair and aromatic rings. We found that even electron-rich aromatic rings and oxygen lone pairs exhibit attractive interactions. Free energies of interactions are determined using the triptycene scaffold and the equilibrium constants were determined by low-temperature 1H NMR spectroscopy. An X-ray structure analysis for one of the model compounds confirms the close proximity between the oxygen and the center of the aromatic ring. Theoretical calculations at the MP2/aug-cc-pVTZ level corroborate the experimental results. The origin of attractive interactions was explored by using aromatic rings with a wide range of substituents. The interactions between an oxygen lone pair and an aromatic ring are attractive at van der Waals' distance even with electron-donating substituents. Electron-withdrawing groups increase the strength of the attractive interactions. The results from this study can be only partly rationalized by using the current models of aromatic system. Electrostatic-based models are consistent with the fact that stronger electron-withdrawing groups lead to stronger attractions, but fail to predict or rationalize the fact that weak attractions even exist between electron-rich arenes and oxygen lone pairs. The conclusion from this study is that aromatic rings cannot be treated as a simple quadrupolar functional group at van der Waals' distance. Dispersion forces and local dipole should also be considered.