Dedicated to Godfried Toussaint on the occasion of his 60th birthday. ABSTRACT We extend linkage unfolding results from the well-studied case of polygonal linkages to the more general case of linkages of polygons. More precisely, we consider chains of nonoverlapping rigid planar shapes (Jordan regions) that are hinged together sequentially at rotatable joints. Our goal is to characterize the familes of planar shapes that admit locked chains, where some configurations cannot be reached by continuous reconfiguration without self-intersection, and which families of planar shapes guarantee universal foldabil-ity, where every chain is guaranteed to have a connected configuration space. Previously, only obtuse triangles were known to admit locked shapes, and only line segments were known to guarantee universal foldability. We show that a surprisingly general family of planar shapes, called slender adornments, guarantees universal foldability: roughly, the inward normal from any point on the shape's boundary should intersect the line segment connecting the two incident hinges. In constrast, we show that isosceles triangles with any desired apex angle < 90 • admit locked chains, which is precisely the threshold beyond which the inward-normal property no longer holds. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.


This study was carried out in the District Marine Conservation Area (DMCA) of Gili Sulat and Gili Lawang, East Lombok. DMCA of Gili Sulat and Gili Lawang have established by Co-Fish Project of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Ministry of Indonesia in 2004 as part of participative management sustainability to coastal resources. The aim of establishing DMCA is to decrease destructive fishing activities such as bombing and poisoning that has been practices for long time. In this study, data were collected through semi structure questionnaires, personal interview, participant observation, document reviews, and life history. Discussions were held with the fishermen in Sugian Village, fisheries management committee of DMCA, local communities who living in Sugian Village and government in village, local and regional level. In order to analyze the findings, an analyzing of legal and institutional arrangements is used combining with the theories of legal pluralism and property rights. The study revealed that there are two laws coexist in DMCA as state laws and customary laws called awig-awig. State laws are covered legal status of DMCA as property of state where local government has authority to manage it. Meanwhile, customary laws are more to control people behaviors towards DMCA. Moreover, a fisheries management committee (KPPL) has formed by government to enforce day-to-day awig-awig practices towards DMCA and has its authority to invoke sanctions for rule breaking. Because of this, several problems arose in Sugian Village concerning to DMCA. This required better management of coastal resources where planning should be come from and involve grass root level. Finally, the study revealed that management of DMCA should be reinforced to all parties particularly on communities' level, so that the problem foci can be clear for all.


This article contributes to a growing literature on international bureaucracy by exploring the relationship between bureaucratic structure and administrative behaviour. The ambition of this study is twofold: first, it explores the extent to which international bureaucracies combine two inherent behavioural logics: a logic of hierarchy and a logic of portfolio. Second, two key empirical lessons are used to modify four conventional claims in existing research. Drawing on a rich body of data from three international bureaucracies (the European Commission, the OECD Secretariat, and the WTO Secretariat), this study suggests that administrative behaviour among international civil servants is profoundly shaped by the bureaucratic structures of international bureaucracies. Variation in the abovementioned behavioural logics is conditioned by two aspects of bureaucratic structure: First, the accumulation of relevant organisational capacities at the executive centre of international bureaucracies, and second, the vertical and horizontal specialisation of international bureaucracies.


Recently, an article on welfare reform that appeared in the publication of an education group conveyed a message that essentially said, "Don't worry. The details don't affect us much." True. The specifics of the legislation probably won't mean much more to schools than some changes on the fringes, but this analysis fails to look at the big picture. From a wide-angle perspective, virtually everyone is in the view finder, and even the most privileged students and their families will be drawn in eventually because what is done (or not done) for the least of us will affect us all. The poor and their problems are so complex that blame is passed around freely and solutions are fractured into pieces too small to have much impact. Some maintain that teachers and administrators, even those in the most disadvantaged schools, are justified in believing that they cannot have much of an effect on the lives of the poorest children because of what happens outside the school and what has occurred before these youngsters are old enough even to attend school. That is pure nonsense. At the core of the problems of those on or nearly on welfare is the inadequacy of the schools' efforts to teach what they should teach first and foremost - language. Above all else, young children must be taught to read, write, speak, and listen so well that they can use these skills competently and can interpret increasingly challenging material. Unfortunately, three-fourths of all welfare/food stamp recipients perform at the lowest levels of literacy as defined by the National Adult Literacy Survey. And this is not a problem of race and ethnicity. The largest number of welfare mothers who will soon be required to be skilled enough to join the work force are white. Higher percentages of blacks and Hispanics are on welfare, but whites outnumber them. This is a problem of class. Similarly, low levels of literacy result in low employment rates and lower wages. Not having literacy skills usually makes it impossible for an individual to break out of the intergenerational cycles of poverty. In the long run, the higher the income of a family, the more education succeeding generations receive. This is a puzzle that only higher literacy skills among citizens in the lower economic strata can solve. Drawing from the same data provided by the National Adult Literacy Survey, researchers at the Educational Testing Service found that two-thirds of prison inmates are also at the lowest levels of literacy. If the current trend toward higher prison rates continues, according to the ETS researchers, there soon will be more people in prison than in four-year colleges. It is chilling to think of a society that fills its prisons with uneducated (mostly young) men and women and fails to see the connection between good education and good lives. But how do we break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy? It becomes clearer if we start by sorting out the populations and setting priorities for immediate attention. There are young mothers and fathers whose literacy skills must be made good enough to prevent their children from reliving the cycle of low skills/low wages. There are teenage mothers with poor literacy skills who must be prepared for an increasingly demanding workplace, and there are teenagers at risk of dropping out and/or starting families too early. Finally, there are the unborn, who should be able to count on entering families that are prepared to think of the future of their newest members from the moment of their births. Here are four research-based proposals that - if adopted by educators, schools, and communities - might finally break the intergenerational cycle of poverty that blights the lives of children. * For young children already in the system, educate their parents, especially the mothers, to the hilt. …


The knowledge of human walking behavior has primary importance for mobile agent in order to operate in the human shared space, with minimal disturb of other humans. This paper introduces such an observation and learning framework, which can acquire the human walking behavior from observation of human walking, using CCD cameras of the intelligent space. The proposed behavior learning framework applies fuzzy-neural network to approximate observed human behavior, with observation data clustering in order to extract important training data from observation. Preliminary experiment is shown to demonstrate the merit of the introduced behavior


ABSTRACT Acanthamoeba keratitis is a serious infection with blinding consequences and often associated with contact lens wear. Early diagnosis, followed by aggressive topical application of drugs, is a prerequisite in successful treatment, but even then prognosis remains poor. Several drugs have shown promise, including chlorhexidine gluconate; however, host cell toxicity at physiologically relevant concentrations remains a challenge. Nanoparticles, subcolloidal structures ranging in size from 10 to 100 nm, are effective drug carriers for enhancing drug potency. The overall aim of the present study was to determine whether conjugation with gold nanoparticles enhances the antiacanthamoebic potential of chlorhexidine. Gold-conjugated chlorhexidine nanoparticles were synthesized. Briefly, gold solution was mixed with chlorhexidine and reduced by adding sodium borohydride, resulting in an intense deep red color, indicative of colloidal gold-conjugated chlorhexidine nanoparticles. The synthesis was confirmed using UV-visible spectrophotometry that shows a plasmon resonance peak of 500 to 550 nm, indicative of gold nanoparticles. Further characterization using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-mass spectrometry showed a gold-conjugated chlorhexidine complex at m/z 699 ranging in size from 20 to 100 nm, as determined using atomic force microscopy. To determine the amoebicidal and amoebistatic effects, amoebae were incubated with gold-conjugated chlorhexidine nanoparticles. For controls, amoebae also were incubated with gold and silver nanoparticles alone, chlorhexidine alone, neomycin-conjugated nanoparticles, and neomycin alone. The findings showed that gold-conjugated chlorhexidine nanoparticles exhibited significant amoebicidal and amoebistatic effects at 5 μM. Amoebicidal effects were observed by parasite viability testing using a Trypan blue exclusion assay and flow-cytometric analysis using propidium iodide, while amoebistatic effects were observed using growth assays. In contrast, chlorhexidine alone, at a similar concentration, showed limited effects. Notably, neomycin alone or conjugated with nanoparticles did not show amoebicidal or amoebistatic effects. Pretreatment of A. castellanii with gold-conjugated chlorhexidine nanoparticles reduced amoeba-mediated host cell cytotoxicity from 90% to 40% at 5 μM. In contrast, chlorhexidine alone, at similar concentrations, had no protective effects for the host cells. Similarly, amoebae treated with neomycin alone or neomycin-conjugated nanoparticles showed no protective effects. Overall, these findings suggest that gold-conjugated chlorhexidine nanoparticles hold promise in the improved treatment of A. castellanii keratitis.


At least ninety percent (90%) of American parents, mothers and fathers, say they are experiencing an acute shortage of time spent with family and an intense work-family conflict. This article provides a history and a theory that should inform our conceptualization of work-family regulation. It points to the neglected history of working-class social feminism. It shows how working-class social feminists at the beginning of the twentieth century advocated for "constructive feminism" — government support, by way of labor regulation, of what this article terms "multidimensionalism" — a life enriched by meaningful dimensions of work, family, civic participation, and culture. The Article extends this history to a theory of work-family balance for today's world, which centers on multidimensionalism by way of regulation. It claims this theory should provide a framework for designing and evaluating public policy, and should inform measures to ameliorate the work-family conflict, such as paid leave, "daddy quotas," and quality childcare. The Article concludes that to adhere to constructive feminism's multidimensional paradigm, Congress should further enhance the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).


The intertwined relationship between Customs valuation and transfer pricing has caused significant concern of costs for international trade compliance and efficiency. There are sets of international and national rules for the two related matters of similar purpose, and the gap between the rules and administrations is obvious and room to improve significant. The China case study calls the public and private sectors to work together for a better business climate for compliance and efficiency in this regard. Especially, we propose that the public sector to improve: (1) Awareness and willingness of rule-based fair and efficient administration; (2) Capacity Building; (3) International Model Legislation; (4) Transparency and Consistency with Detailed Implementing Rules and Reasoning-based Ruling Program; (5) Data Sharing and Risk Management; (6) Inter-agency Cooperation; (7) Functional Reorganization; (8) Standards, Methods, Documentation Compliance Requirements and Liabilities for Encouraging Compliance; (9) Analysis from the Legal and Reasoning Perspectives; (10) Reconciliation and Refund Mechanism.


Due to several unfavorable epidemiological changes, chronic kidney disease (CKD) and treatment of its associated cardiovascular morbidity have become a worldwide problem. Thus, atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia and frequently associated with renal impairment: prevalence for AF is up to 27% in long-term hemodialysis patients and in general more than 25% in all CKD patients 70 years and older. Thromboembolism and stroke are the major complications of AF. Two-year death rates for CKD patients after stroke range between 55% and 74%. Although treatment of AF in the general population is well defined, patients with CKD and AF are often undertreated due to lack of studies and guidelines. In this review recent data concerning incidence and prevalence of AF, stroke, and major bleedings in CKD patients are presented. Particular attention is paid to the available data about the different types of oral anticoagulation therapy with regard to CKD stage, including the new oral anticoagulant drugs dabigatran, rivaroxaban, and apixaban. Stratification algorithms for stroke risk in general, and individualized risk stratification for oral anticoagulation in CKD patients are discussed in detail.


The fracture resistance of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) the most popular denture base materials, is not satisfactory. The aim of this study is to improve the mechanical properties of PMMA by adding filler particles. Different inorganic filler particles including micronised glass flakes, acryl silane micronised, glass flakes 350nm, TiO2 and ZrO2 with different ratios by weight were incorporated into heat-cure plain PMMA and processed with optimal condition [2.5:1 Powder/ monomer ratio, conventional packing method and water bath curing for 2 hours at 95°C] to produce 12mm diameter and 2mm thick discs. Plain PMMA without additives was prepared as a test control. Three types of mechanical tests, biaxial flexure, microindentation fracture toughness and Vickers hardness were carried out on the samples. It was found that incorporating the particles did not improve the biaxial flexural strength of the resin. However, TiO2, ZrO2 and micronised glass flakes increased the fracture toughness of the resin. The hardness of PMMA was improved by the incorporation of all the particles.


Book description: In 2001 AFIHM and the British HCI Group combined their annual conferences, bringing together the best features of each organisation's separate conference series, and providing a special opportunity for the French- and English-speaking HCI communities to interact.This volume contains the full papers presented at IHM-HCI 2001, the 15th annual conference of the British HCI group, a specialist group of the British Computer Society and the 14th annual conference of the Association Francophone d'interaction Homme-Machine, an independent association for any French-speaking person who is interested in Human-Computer Interaction.Human-Computer Interaction is a discipline well-suited to such a multi-linguistic and multi-cultural conference since it brings together researchers and practitioners from a variety of disciplines with very different ways of thinking and working. As a community we are already used to tackling the challenges of working across such boundaries, dealing with the problems and taking advantage of the richness of the resulting insights: interaction without frontiers.The papers presented in this volume cover all the main areas of HCI research, but also focus on considering the challenges of new applications addressing the following themes:- Enriching HCI by crossing national, linguistic and cultural boundaries;- Achieving greater co-operation between disciplines to deliver usable, useful and exciting design solutions;- Benefiting from experience gained in other application areas;- Transcending interaction constraints through the use of novel technologies;- Supporting mobile users.


Background: Brief behavioural support can effectively help TB patients to quit smoking and improve their outcomes. In collaboration with TB programmes in Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan, we evaluated implementation and scale-up of cessation support using four strategies: i) brief tobacco cessation intervention ii) integration of tobacco cessation within routine training iii) inclusion of tobacco indicators in routine records and iv) embedding research within TB programmes.Methods: We used mixed methods of observation, interviews and routine data within WHO's ExpandNet framework for scale-up. We aimed to understand the extent of, and strategies which facilitated vertical scale-up (institutionalisation) within 59 health facility learning sites in Pakistan, 18 in Nepal and 15 in Bangladesh and horizontal scale-up (increased coverage beyond learning sites). We observed training and surveyed 169 TB health workers to measure changes in their confidence to deliver cessation. Routine TB data from the learning sites was analysed to assess delivery of the intervention and use of TB forms revised to report smoking status and cessation support provided. A purposive sample of TB health workers, managers and policymakers were interviewed (Bangladesh: n=12; Nepal n=13; Pakistan n=19;). Costs of scale-up were estimated using activity-based cost-analysis. Results: Routine data indicated health workers in learning sites asked all TB patients about tobacco use and offered them cessation support. Qualitative data showed use of intervention materials, often with adaptation and partial implementation in busy clinics. Short (1-2 hours) training integrated within existing programmes increased mean confidence to deliver cessation by 17% (95% CI: 14% to 20%). A focus on health system changes (reporting, training, supervision) facilitated vertical scale-up. Dissemination of materials beyond learning sites and changes to national reporting forms and training indicated horizontal scale-up. Embedding research within TB health systems was crucial for horizontal scale-up and required dynamic use of tactics e.g. alliance-building, engagement in wider policy process, use of insider-researchers, and deep understanding of health system actors and processes. Conclusions: System-level changes within TB programmes may enable routine delivery of cessation support to TB patients. These strategies are inexpensive and, with concerted efforts from TB programmes and donors, tobacco cessation can be institutionalised at-scale.


Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA

Background: Cancer cells, including melanoma, can be highly resistant to traditional treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy. As a result, a lot of effort has been put into developing immune therapies to treat cancer patients. The main barrier to design effective immunotherapies is the immunosuppression induced by the tumor. Matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) is over-expressed in most cancers including melanoma, and its expression is associated with increased dissemination and poorer survival/prognosis. Here, we not only uncovered an immunosuppressive role of MMP-2 in inducing ineffective/detrimental TH2 immune responses, but also the underlying mechanisms.

Methods: Human dendritic cells (DCs) were cultured in the presence of MMP-2 and/or various TLR agonists. DCs responses were monitored using immunostaining, ELISA or cytometric bead array methods. Autologous CD4+ T cells were stimulated using these conditioned tumor-associated antigen (TAA)-pulsed DCs. TAA-specific CD4+ T cells were cloned and characterized using mainly the same techniques as for DCs.

Results: Here we showed that MMP-2-conditioned human DCs primed naive CD4+ T cells to differentiate into an inflammatory TH2 phenotype, i.e. mainly secreting TNFα, IL-4 and IL-13 and expressing GATA3. Accordingly, we detected MMP-2-specific CD4+ T cells displaying the same inflammatory TH2 profile in tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes from melanoma patients. Patients displaying such responses tended to have a poorer survival outcome. We revealed the underlying mechanisms for these T cell skewing: on the one hand, MMP-2 was found to degrade the type-I IFN receptor IFNAR1, thereby preventing STAT1 phosphorylation, which is necessary for IL-12 production. On the other hand, MMP-2 triggers the Toll-like receptor (TLR)-2 on DCs, which leads to NF-κB activation and OX40L expression. Both lack of IL-12 and over-expression of OX40L were found responsible for skewing T cell responses towards a detrimental TH2 phenotype.

Conclusions: MMP-2, therefore, acts as an endogenous TH2 "conditioner" and may underlie the prevalence of detrimental TH2 responses in cancer. Our findings also described the responsible MMP-2-dependent mechanisms, which open the way to novel therapeutic strategies and/or targets to skew anti-tumor CD4+ T cell responses towards a more efficient anti-tumor TH1 phenotype to treat cancer patients.

Citation Format: Emmanuelle Godefroy, Anne Gallois, Juliana Idoyaga, Francine Jotereau, Nina Bhardwaj. Matrix metalloproteinase-2 dysregulate anti-tumor immunity. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-252. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-LB-252


[1] The main sources of international humanitarian law (IHL) are international treaty and customary law. In addition, domestic traditional law can improve the protection of victims of armed conflict. The ICRC's online Customary IHL Database was recently updated with the practice of five additional countries: Denmark, Djibouti, Poland, Tajikistan and Somalia. Omar Odeh, deputy head of the ICRC's delegation in Somalia, explains the importance of such traditional law. How useful is traditional law in Somalia?


Reconnaissance and surveillance are important activities for both military and civilian organizations, for hostage and survivor rescue, drug raids, response to chemical or toxic waste spills etc. We have developed a distributed heterogeneous robotic team that is based mainly on a miniature robotic system. Because some operations require covert action, most of the robots are extremely small. This also allows them to be easily transported and allows for a greater number to be brought into use for a single operation. This makes them expendable without jeopardizing the overall mission. We call these small robots scouts. Their individual components must all be exceedingly small, and their overall design must make maximum use of all available space. They must make efficient use of resources (e.g., batteries). We meet these challenges with an innovative design and creative use of additional support. We team the scouts with larger ranger robots, which can transport the scouts over distances of several kilometers, deploy them rapidly over a large area, coordinate their behavior, and collect and present the resulting data. We present the scouts and rangers, discuss their capabilities along with the associated software, and describe demonstrations conducted to test the innovative aspects of the system. We also discuss related work, analyze our results, and draw conclusions.


Computing devices and applications are now used beyond the desktop, in diverse environments, and this trend toward ubiquitous computing is accelerating. One challenge that remains in this emerging research field is the ability to enhance the behavior of any application by informing it of the context of its use. By context, we refer to any information that characterizes a situation related to the interaction between humans, applications, and the surrounding environment. Context-aware applications promise richer and easier interaction, but the current state of research in this field is still far removed from that vision. This is due to 3 main problems: (a) the notion of context is still ill defined, (b) there is a lack of conceptual models and methods to help drive the design of context-aware applications, and (c) no tools are available to jump-start the development of context-aware applications. In this anchor article, we address these 3 problems in turn. We first define context, identify categories of contextual information, and characterize context-aware application behavior. Though the full impact of context-aware computing requires understanding very subtle and high-level notions of context, we are focusing our efforts on the pieces of context that can be inferred automatically from sensors in a physical environment. We then present a conceptual framework that separates the acquisition and representation of context from the delivery and reaction to context by a context-aware application. We have built a toolkit, the Context Toolkit, that instantiates this conceptual framework and supports the rapid development of a rich space of context-aware applications. We illustrate the usefulness of the conceptual framework by describing a number of context-aware applications that have been prototyped using the Context Toolkit. We also demonstrate how such a framework can support the investigation of important research challenges in the area of context-aware computing.


Abstract The iron sulfate FeOHSO4 studied was obtained as a dehydration product of metahohmannite Fe2(H2O)4[O(SO4)2] during a synchrotron real-time powder diffraction experiment. As quoted in the literature, FeOHSO4 has iron atoms octahedrally coordinated with two hydroxyl groups and four sulfate O atoms, while each hydroxyl group is bonded to two iron atoms. This compound is commonly described in the orthorhombic system with space group Pnma, lattice parameters aJ = 7.33, bJ = 6.42, and cJ = 7.14 Å (aJ, bJ, and cJ are the Johansson lattice parameters), and Z = 4. However a preliminary Rietveld refinement of the pattern at about 220 °C using the structural model from the literature yielded a poor fit of the observed data and a final Rp value of about 23%. A careful analysis of the calculated powder diffraction pattern showed unexpected peaks, not observed in the experimental trace, for h = 2n + 1, while sharp reflections for h = 2n seemed to point to different lattice constants and space group. The recognition of the order-disorder character of the FeOHSO4 compound was the key to successfully interpreting the unexpected features of the experimental powder pattern and the misfit with respect to the calculated pattern. In fact, FeOHSO4 belongs to a family of OD structures formed by equivalent layers of symmetry Pbmm. Only two MDO (Maximum Degree of Order) polytypes are possible. MDO1 results from a regular alternation of stacking operators 21/2 and 2-1/2, and yields an orthorhombic structure with space group Pnma and lattice parameters aJ = 7.33, bJ = 6.42, and cJ = 7.14 Å. MDO2 results from the 21/2|21/2 |21/2... sequence of symmetry operators and yields a monoclinic structure with space group P21/c, aM = 7.33, bM = 7.14, cM = 7.39 Å, and β = 119.7°. The analysis of one-dimensional stacking disorder was performed by fitting the observed XRPD pattern with a calculated intensity curve generated by DIFFaX. The disorder model was investigated by taking into account a probability matrix for the occurrence of OD layer sequences. The best fit (Rp = 0.009) to the observed powder pattern was obtained with a 61:39 ratio of monoclinic and orthorhombic polytypes for a fully disordered OD layers sequence.


Purpose: Rapid Prototyping (RP) methods have for quite some time been utilized to construct complex 3-Dimensional (3D) models in the field of medicine since the 1900s. This paper intends to offer a thorough audit of different RP strategies, especially in Prosthodontics that are relied upon to carry numerous enhancements to this field.
Materials and Methods: A pursuit was made using the Google scholar web and the PubMed database as a search engine. The keywords; 'RP', 'rapid prototyping', '3D printing', 'dentistry' and 'prosthodontics', 'stereolithography', 'selective laser sintering', 'fused deposition method', and 'inkjet-based system' were looked at in the title/abstract of distributions. References of selected articles were additionally looked into for conceivable incorporation in the study. The selected articles utilized RP procedures in different fields of dentistry through various methods. Nonetheless, distributions concerning the dental utilization of RP advancements are as yet uncommon.
Results: Although the concept of layering 3D objects is almost as old as human civilization, this technology has only lately been applied to the construction of 3D complex models in dentistry. Many additional methods appear to be on the horizon that could alter standard dentistry practises in the near future. More unit hours should be included in dentistry curriculums to familiarise dental professionals with the various advantages of this unique technology.
Conclusion: Lately, RP using the property of adding substances or layering strategies have advanced quickly in different fields of dentistry as they can overcome known disadvantages of subtractive and regular procedures. RP has as of late proposed effective uses in different fields of dentistry, like fabrication of implant surgical guides, structures for Removable Partial Dentures (RPDs), Fixed Partial Dentures (FPDs), wax designs for the dental prosthesis, maxillofacial prosthesis, zirconia prosthesis, and molds for metal castings now as well for complete dentures.


Experimental characterization through electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and confocal luminescence microscopy (CML) of a Ge-doped glass (preform and fiber) reveals the generation of several point defects by 10 keV X-ray radiation-induced attenuation: GeE', Ge(1), Ge(2), and Ge-ODC. The generation mechanisms of Ge-ODC and charged defects like GeE' centers are studied through ab initio simulation. Our calculations used a 108 atom supercell with a glass composition comparable to the Ge-doped core or to the pure-silica cladding of the canonical sample. The large size of our cell allows us to study the influence of the local environment surrounding the X-ODC defect (X=Si or Ge) on its structure parameters (e.g. Si-X bond length) and its energy of formation. We found a statistical correlation between these two characteristics for pure- and Ge-doped silica-based glasses suggesting that the Si-ODC and Ge-ODC will be preferentially generated at sites leading to the shortest Si-X distances. We also evaluated the possible influence of the local environments of the defect on their generation mechanisms. From the whole set of possible X-ODC in the amorphous cells, we calculated the charged structures that can be obtained through the removing of one electron of the cell. For pure-silica glass, about 80% of the oxygen vacancies lead to a dimer structure and 20% to puckered ones. For the doped glass, the percentage of the final dimer structures is reduced to 42% while the puckered charged percentage increases to 36%. We also note the appearance of 22% of divalent centers. Further simulation shows that the presence of the Ge inside the glass strongly affects the generation mechanisms of Si-related centers.


In summary, carcinoma is the most frequent cancer that metastasizes to the skin; lung cancer in men and breast cancer in women. Clinically distinctive patterns of cutaneous metastasis of epithelial origin include alopecia neoplastica, pulsatile nodules, Sister Mary Joseph's nodules, morpheaform, and cellulitis-like lesions. Biopsying these lesions reveals adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, or anaplastic carcinoma. The type of histologic pattern seen can be a clue to the organ of origin giving rise to the cutaneous metastasis. Skin that is damaged allows for circulating malignant cells, often of epithelial or leukemic origin, to lodge and proliferate locally (inflammatory oncotaxis). The commonest form of leukemia to affect the skin of elderly males is chronic lymphocytic leukemia. However, when leukemia involves the mucous membranes, acute myeloid leukemia (acute monocytic and acute myelomonocytic leukemia) is the most likely diagnosis. When papules, nodules, or plaques develop on the head, neck, or torso in a middle-aged male accompanied by lymphadenopathy, there must be a high index of suspicion that these lesions are metastatic lymphomatous deposits. Definitive histologic diagnosis on a skin biopsy specimen is difficult. In this situation, it is best to rely on histologic patterns seen in lymphoid tissue along with cellular marker studies. An elderly patient having bone pain, anemia, elevated blood calcium level, and renal failure along with purplish or skin-colored nodules and plaques on the trunk has a good chance of having multiple myeloma. Biopsying these lesions is most certain to reveal atypical plasma cells, and blood immunoelectrophoresis will demonstrate characteristic monoclonal gammopathy. There are two malignancies seen in children under 3 years of age that often times affect the skin in a characteristic fashion. Letterer-Siwe disease, which is distinguished from other histocytic disorders by its cell of origin, the Langerhans cell, clinically shows maculopapular and erosive lesions distributed in a seborrheic pattern. Neuroblastoma derived from cells of the neural crest demonstrates clinically widespread bluish papulonodules. Kaposi's sarcoma, a multifocal vascular malignancy, has a wide spectrum of clinical expression. Those patients who are immunocompromised secondary to concomitant disease or immunosuppressive therapy are more susceptible to a disseminated fulminant course accompanied by opportunistic infection. In conclusion, although specific signs of internal malignancy are less common than nonspecific ones, they are just as important; if the clinician managing the cancer patient is familiar with these clues to internal disease, proper patient management will ensue.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


This paper intends to analyze the presupposition triggers at both lexical and syntactic levels in selected online English and Kurdish political news texts.  This is for the purpose of figuring out how texts in political news are achieving their political intentions via the use of presupposition triggers. Presupposition as a feature of language use is commonly exploited by language users. Expressions and constructions carrying presuppositions are called "presupposition triggers". Its role in the news text is of specific importance in that writers of text tend to make use of this property so as to create either a favorable or unfavorable bias throughout the text this is to manipulate readers' view. A descriptive analytic method has been used in this study. The data of this study is the political news texts in online English and Kurdish news channels, then 18 political news texts, which are released in the first half of the year 2020, have been selected randomly.  Based on Levinson (1983), Yule (2010), and He's (2003) classification of presupposition triggers the data have been analyzed and compared. The result of this study has shown that both English and Kurdish political news texts basically use both lexical and syntactic items of presupposition triggers. As for the lexical triggers, English political news texts constituted 530 times of occurring and Kurdish political news texts constituted 361 times. Regarding the syntactic level, the frequency of occurrence has been 185 times in the English news texts while it is 99 times in the Kurdish texts. All the syntactic items were more frequently used in the English texts except for the counter-factual conditionals which was the same as the Kurdish texts occurring 11 times. Adverbial clauses have recurred 23 times in the Kurdish texts and therefore ranking first among the other structural triggers. Finally, in the English texts, implicative verbs were noted only 1times while 11 occurrences were noted in the Kurdish texts.


With the coming of 21 century ,the need of developing multimedia courseware in psychological health education of college students arises which also meet the need of reform and further development of this field. However, there exists many unresolved problems which suggests that appropriate use of multimedia course ware is necessary . Recently, due to pressure from study , life , future employment , fierce competition in society , broke off the family ,some of the students tend to have mental problems such as obsessive--compulsive inclination , anxiety , distress , depression inconfidence etc. emerged in college students and they even take some extreme behaviors such as suicide murder . Mental heath of the college students become a significant issue highly concerned by school and the society . As to how to create an effective way for emotional health education prevent and solve the mental problems in college students , enhance their capability to let out emotional problems become an urgent issue confronting the professional psychological health education . Compared with traditional method , the advanced approach armed with multimedia , not only presents the updated educational concept and theory but also meet the demand to develop the modernized individual who is equipped with creative spirits , healthy physically and mentally and armed with practical skills . E--learning provide a new way for education reform, so the psychological health school should and will develop with the advanced technology.


Development of a system is always driven by the thermodynamic irreversible process and also the nonlinear dynamics process.The entropy equilibrium equation,which combines the equation set of atmosphere dynamics and the Gibbs relation in which kinetic energy change is taken into account,can describe the thermodynamic irreversible process and the nonlinear dynamics process.Up to now,the principle of minimum entropy production has been demonstrated only using the Onsager linear phenomenological relation in the nonequilibrium state thermodynamics.This paper demonstrates the principle of minimum entropy production by using the new entrop y equilibrium equation that is established with the atmosphere kinetic equation. As a result the principle of minimum entropy production is universal in the line ar and nonlinear regions of thermodynamics.A system arrives at a state of minimu m entropy production with the weakest irreversible process,when it is in heat tr ansportation balance;vapor transportation balance and momentum transportation ba lance.This minimum-entropy-production state is a stationary state,when the syste m is also in dynamic equilibrium and with out advection.This stationary state co rresponds to a certain ordered structure of the atmosphere system, when it devia tes from the equilibrium state.


The expression of tenascin, a constituent of extracellular matrix (ECM), was studied during the embryonic development of the amphibian Pleurodeles waltl. An antiserum to chick fibroblast tenascin was shown to cross-react with the homologous molecule of the amphibian. Immunostaining of embryo sections with anti-tenascin antiserum revealed that tenascin appears just after the completion of neurulation. At the tailbud stage, tenascin is present in the ECM located at sites of directed cell migration (neural crest cell migration pathways, extension of the pronephretic duct) and mesenchyme condensation (endocardium, aortic arches). The accumulation of tenascin immunoreactivity in the embryonic ECM is correlated with the synthesis of the 220×103Mr polypeptide of the molecule. To provide data on the patterning of tenascin, ectoderm and dorsal blastoporal lip isolated at early gastrula stage were cultured for a period of 3 days. Epidermal vesicles differentiating from isolated ectoderm completely lack tenascin. Conversely, axial mesoderm derivatives present in cultured dorsal blastoporal lip were found to produce tenascin. Neural induction of ectoderm isolated at early gastrula stage was performed in vitro with the dorsal blastoporal lip or concanavalin A. The induced neural tissue was found to accumulate tenascin. Spemann experiments confirmed in vivo that tenascin is expressed by ectodermal cells as a response to neural induction.


Text visualization is a rapidly growing sub-field of information visualization and visual analytics. There are many approaches and techniques introduced every year to address a wide range of tasks and enable researchers from different disciplines to obtain leading-edge knowledge from digitized collections. This can be challenging particularly when the data is massive. Additionally, the sources of digital text have spread substantially in the last decades in various forms, such as web pages, blogs, twitter, email, electronic publications, and books. In response to the explosion of text visualization research literature, the first survey article was published in 2010. Furthermore, there are a growing number of surveys that review existing techniques and classify them based on text research methodology. In this work, we aim to present the first Survey of Surveys (SoS) that review all of the survey and state-of-the-art papers on text visualization techniques and provide an SoS classification. We study and compare the surveys, and categorize them into 5 groups: (1) document-centered, (2) user task analysis, (3) cross-disciplinary, (4) multifaceted, and (5) satellite-themed. We provide survey recommendations for researchers in the field of text visualization. The result is a very unique, valuable starting point and overview of the current state-of-the-art in text visualization research literature.


The aim of the study was to compare the effectiveness and safety of rivaroxaban and warfarin as well as to determine the appropriateness of dosing and prescribing of rivaroxaban in Omani patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF).

 This retrospective cohort study was conducted using the Royal Hospital data registry. The study included all adults newly diagnosed with NVAF and treated with rivaroxaban or warfarin. The outcomes measured include ischaemic stroke, gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB), non-gastrointestinal bleeding (NGIB), as well as appropriateness of dosing and prescribing of rivaroxaban.

 The analysis included 96 rivaroxaban users and 183 warfarin users; 51% of the cohort included males. There were no significant differences observed in the risk of ischaemic stroke between the two groups (hazard ratio (HR), 1.1; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.4-3.4; p=0.8). However, those on rivaroxaban exhibited a significantly higher rate of GIB compared to those on warfarin (HR, 5.9; 95% CI: 2.9-11.7; p=0.001). There were no differences observed with regards to NGIB between the two groups (HR, 0.9; 95% CI: 0.4-1.9; p=0.8). Dosing and prescribing of rivaroxaban were found to be appropriate in 89% of the patients, with only 6% being prescribed an inappropriately lower dose.

 The study demonstrated no significant differences in the risk of ischaemic stroke or NGIB between rivaroxaban and warfarin groups in newly diagnosed NVAF patients. However, rivaroxaban users were found to have a significantly higher risk of GIB. Rivaroxaban was appropriately prescribed to the majority of the patients, and only a small proportion of the group received an inappropriately lower dose of rivaroxaban.


BACKGROUND
Biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) are being used increasingly to diagnose early Alzheimer's disease (AD). A CSF profile that is suggestive of ad is an abnormal ratio of the proteins Ab1-42 to total tau.

AIM
To describe the prevalence and prognosis of a CSF profile in patients without dementia but with subjective memory problems and mild cognitive impairments (MCI) at a memory clinic.

METHOD
A multi-centre study.

RESULTS
A European multi-centre study showed that a CSF AD profile was often present in patients with subjective complaints and patients with MCI . The CSF AD profile predicted a decline in cognition and daily functioning over a period of 3 years in patients with MCI. Patients with amnestic MCI and a CSF AD profile developed AD more often within this period than patients without this profile.

CONCLUSION
CSF markers suggestive of ad are common in persons without dementia. It may be possible to use these markers for the prognosis of patients who have MCI .


This paper has two objectives. First, it will summarise and develop my critique of the sociology of 'race relations' and the way in which it utilises the idea of 'race' as an analytical concept. It will be concluded from this that it is necessary to show why and how the idea of 'race' is employed in social relations rather than take for granted its commonsense status. The concepts of racialisation and racism will be shown to be central to this task. Second, as a way of illustrating the significance of this argument, I shall consider a key phase in the racialisation of domestic English politics. I show, first, how the 1964/ 70 Labour government initially employed the idea of 'race' to problematise the migrant presence in favour of the ex-posure of racism and, second, how Enoch Powell subverted a later attempt to do the latter by an ideological intervention which employed the category of 'nation' as an allusion to the idea of 'race'.


Almost every natural disaster is accompanied by some sort of technological one. A number of studies also show a correlation between technological disasters and vari- ous global processes such as solar disturbances, geophysical field variation etc. In this study we attempted to ascertain and codify the relationship between different types of tech- nological disasters and natural hazards. Two types of natu- ral hazards were found, based on their genesis, distribution in time, and impact pattern on the technosphere. Solar and geomagnetic disturbances generally affect technological risk through the failure of automatic machinery and the reduction of operator reliability. They increase the probability of trans- port accidents, fires, and catastrophic toxic emissions. These types of technological disasters are widely prevalent through- out Russia and in all federal regions. Geological, climatic, hydrological, and other natural hazardous processes increase technological risk through direct mechanical impacts. Their occurrence in space and time depends on the character of the natural process and the specific regional environment. The total number and proportion of technological disasters in federal regions results mainly from the concentration of industrial units and their type, as well as the local natural and social environment. Temporal changes in the number of technological disasters of different groups depend on the pre- vailing type of natural processes.


Macrodasyidan gastrotrichs are hermaphrodites with complex reproductive organs that function in sperm transfer and receipt, but homology among the organs of members of different clades remains undetermined, as does a broader understanding of evolutionary trends in the reproductive biology of macrodasyidans. In this study, we investigate the evolution of reproduction in Urodasys, a clade of 15 macrodasyidan species that shows variability in reproductive mode (hermaphroditic and parthenogenetic) and sexual anatomy. We use partial 18S rDNA sequence data from 30 specimens representing five described species, sequence data from one undescribed species in GenBank, and sequence data from a potentially new species found at Capron Shoal, Florida, to gain insight into the phylogeny of the clade and clarify evolutionary trends in reproductive modality. Based on a total of 33 specimens of seven potential species, we found that members of Urodasys can be separated into three clades reflective of different reproductive modalities: Clade I, species with paired male and female gonads but without accessory sexual organs; Clade II, species with a single left testis, paired ova, and accessory organs including a sclerotic stylet; and Clade III, parthenogenetic species without testes or accessory organs. In addition, we find that the potentially new species from Florida can form spermatophores, a condition shared with another species in Clade I. Herein, we describe this novel spermatophore-bearing species and discuss the significance of spermatophore formation in the genus.


Multifocal head and neck paragangliomas are exceptionally rare. We present a patient with 4 synchronous tumors including a sympathetic chain lesion. This is a case report and literature review conducted from September 2021 to the present. Our 69-year-old male patient presented to the clinic with multifocal paraganglioma involving the right carotid body, right cervical sympathetic trunk, right glomus jugulare, and left glomus tympanicum. After preoperative embolization, successful surgical resection was performed for the right sympathetic trunk and right carotid body tumor. Postoperatively, the patient had a right Horner's syndrome but a strong voice and intact recurrent laryngeal nerve function. He also had first-bite syndrome and right cranial nerve XII weakness which resolved. Of interest, patient also has a strong family history of paragangliomas: his sister has malignant paragangliomas with lymph node involvement and his mother and nephew have non-malignant paragangliomas. To our knowledge, multifocal tumors including synchronous carotid body, sympathetic chain, glomus jugulare, and glomus tympanicum lesions occurring in 1 person have not been reported until now. As a result of this study, there is new light shed on the treatment and evaluation of patients who present with multifocal paraganglioma involving the sympathetic chain.


Inhibition of non-structural protein 5B (NS5B) represents an attractive strategy for the therapeutic treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV). In this study, machine learning classifiers such as artificial neural network (ANN), support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF) and decision tree (DT) analyses were used to classify 970 compounds based on their physicochemical properties, including quantum chemical descriptors, constitutional descriptors, functional groups and molecular properties. Good predictive performance was obtained from all classifiers, providing accuracies ranging from 82.47-89.61% for external validation set. SVM was noted as the best classifier, indicated by its highest accuracy of 89.61%. The analyses were performed on data sets stratified by structural scaffolds (nucleoside and non-nucleoside) and bioactivities (active and inactive properties). In addition, a molecular fragment analysis was performed to investigate molecular substructures corresponding to biological activities. Furthermore, common substructures and potential functional groups governing the activities of active and inactive inhibitors were noted for the benefit of rational design and high-throughput screening towards potential HCV NS5B inhibitors.


Region/country: European Union Timeframe/dates: 2010 2012 Funder: European Commission Partners: European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), Article 19, Lithuanian Journalists' Union (LZS), Journalists' Union of Macedonia and Thrace Daily Newspapers (ESIEMTH), and Slovak Syndicate of Journalists (SSN). The 'Ethical Journalism Initiative' is a 2-year project, run in partnership with the European Federation of Journalists, Article 19, Media Diversity Institute and three European journalists' associations. Through a series of studies, and conferences involving all stakeholders, as well as training for journalists, NGOs and lawyers, the campaign aims to promote responsible media coverage of diversity in Europe, primarily through strengthening journalism standards, and developing understanding of the relationship between equality and freedom of expression. For more information visit the project website


Due to expanding trade and increasing concentration of production during the past few decades, small local farms have faced ever-growing competitive pressures. We investigate the impacts of this globalization on production of local food by examining Hawai'i's open island economy and econometrically evaluating impacts of import competition on the growth and survival of individual fruit and vegetable farms. We find evidence that rising levels of imports significantly hinder farm growth in Hawai'i and have a smaller impact on farm survival. Increased foreign competition increases the likelihood of exit for commercial farms but has little effect on small noncommercial farms.


Let $N$ be a finite set, let $p \in (0,1)$, and let $N_p$ denote a random binomial subset of $N$ where every element of $N$ is taken to belong to the subset independently with probability $p$ . This defines a product measure $\mu_p$ on the power set of $N$, where $\mu_p(\cal{A}) := Pr[N_p \in \cal{A}]$ for $\cal{A} \subseteq 2^N$. In this paper we study monotone (upward-closed) families $\cal{A}$ for which all minimal sets in $cal{A}$ have size at most $k$, for some positive integer $k$. We prove that for such a family $\mu_p(\cal{A}) / p^k $ is a decreasing function, which implies a uniform bound on the coarseness of the thresholds of such families. We also prove a structure theorem which enables one to identify in $\cal{A}$ either a substantial subfamily $\cal{A}_0$ for which the first moment method gives a good approximation of its measure, or a subfamily which can be well approximated by a family with all minimal sets of size strictly smaller than $k$. Finally, we relate the (fractional) expectation threshold and the probability threshold of such a family, using linear programming duality. This is related to the threshold conjecture of Kahn and Kalai.


Both the incidence and prevalence of coral disease are rapidly increasing, and as a consequence, many studies involving coral microbial associates have been conducted. However, very few of these have considered microbial functional genes. This is an underutilized approach for studying coral disease etiology which is capable of revealing the molecular processes of the coral microbial community. This review presents a summary of the known microbial functional genes that have been linked to coral health and disease. Overall functional gene diversity tended to be lower in healthy corals than diseased or bleached corals, and respiration and photosynthesis functional genes appeared to be crucial to coral health. Genes associated with the nitrogen cycle were the most studied, were highly represented within the coral holobiont, and their expression often shifted in diseased or stressed individuals. Carbon metabolism, such as fatty acid and amino acid catabolism, also tended to shift in unhealthy corals. Genes associated with sulfite respiration as well as dimethylsulfoniopropionate degradation have been detected, although they have yet to be directly associated with coral disease. In addition, genes associated with xenobiotic degradation, antibiotic resistance, virulence, and oxidative stress may all be involved in maintaining coral health. However, the links between these functional genes and their roles in interacting with the coral host are not clear. Continuing identification of coral-associated microbial functional genes within the coral holobiont should facilitate advances in the field of coral health and disease.


ABSTRACT The role of the source of discrimination in relation to minority Muslim youths' psychosocial well-being has received remarkably little attention in the post-9/11 climate. We have examined one of the aspects of psychosocial well-being that is given prominent attention in the media and public discourse, namely externalising behaviour. The article reports whether perceived discrimination by four sources (school peers and teachers, peers, and adults outside the school) is related to externalising behaviour. Links between perceived discrimination sources and externalising behaviour among Dutch Muslim youths (n = 308, ages 14–18) were examined through surveys. The quantitative findings guided our qualitative analyses of interviews with 10 Muslim Dutch youths on their accounts of discrimination in the school context. When comparing different discrimination sources, only teacher discrimination was found to predict externalising behaviour significantly (explaining 15% of the variance). The qualitative follow-up illustrated the significance of teacher discrimination: Some Muslim youths felt that their teachers held back their school progress, while others reported receiving insults from teachers about their parents' native country and their religion. We argue that students' perceived powerlessness within the teacher-student relationship deserves further attention, as some Dutch Muslim youths reported painful experiences, with perceived teacher discrimination linked to higher levels of externalising behaviour.


By international standards, Norway has an inclusive education system. However, immigrant students, on average, have weaker education outcomes than their native peers at all levels of education. Norway is undertaking universal and targeted measures to improve the situation of immigrant students. There is scope to improve access to quality early childhood education and care, especially for immigrant children; enhance capacities of teachers and school leaders to be more responsive to the growing linguistic and cultural diversity of students; mainstream language support into curriculum, teacher education and research; provide more support in vocational education programmes such as technical language acquisition and career guidance; compensate for the gaps in learning environments at home through extending school hours, assisting with homework, providing mentors from immigrant backgrounds and supporting migrant parents; manage regional variations by strengthening accountability of schools and promoting knowledge sharing; and monitor progress and use formative evaluation at all levels.


The study analyses the determinants of urbanization in semi-arid regions and the role of institutions in dealing with the issue. Focusing mainly on three semi-arid districts of Pakistan, i.e. Mardan, Faisalabad, and Dera Ghazi Khan (D.G Khan), the study draws on qualitative information gathered through the in-depth interviews of rural to urban migrants and key stakeholders. The push factors described by majority of urban respondents in all three districts are mainly economic, i.e. lack of employment and business opportunities in rural areas. Few respondents considered death of family members/relatives, conflict with other tribes and lack of health facilities as significant push factors behind their decision of migration. Although socioeconomic factors were the primary cause of migration, climate change was not considered a direct reason. Nevertheless, a few respondents agreed that climate change had indirect effect on their decision to migrate. The pull factors are almost common in all three districts. These include better employment opportunities, proximity to their village and access to basic facilities such as educational institutions, hospitals, road and transport networks, sanitation amenities, etc. in the cities. The urban migrants faced a number of issues as a result of their migration, viz lack of proper accommodation, inaccessibility to pure drinking water, guarantor issues, finding employment or setting up business, and lack of information about public services. This has further exacerbated the situation vis-à-vis congestion of the cities as well as an increase in slum settlements. According to development authorities, major reasons for unplanned urbanization and slums creation were lack of internal migration monitoring policy and coordination gaps between service providers and authorities concerned. Furthermore, stakeholders emphasized the need for immediate attention for overall agriculture sector development, including climate resilient and agriculture smart policies to lower the push factors of migration in rural areas.


The Image and the Humanities: visual poetics as the possibility of construction of knowledge. The article proposes a new perspective on the role of image in the production of knowledge, particularly with respect to the humanities. In the scientific modernity, image was regarded as an entity of imperfect ontology. Nowadays images have acquired a new importance: they have become our chief means of expression and communication, apart from their important role in research strategies. On the other hand, the production of knowledge through experimental and poetic images is still taboo in academia. Against such notion, many artists and thinkers have created a new way of conceiving the relations between images and science: the image is real and immanent to our world, since both are nothing more than action. The poetic image produces a large variety of transformations in our ways of seeing the world, resulting in an interesting research strategy.


OBJECTIVES
Subjective aging, indexed by subjective age and self-perceptions of aging (SPA), is consistently related to cognition in adulthood. The present study examined whether blood biomarkers mediate the longitudinal associations between subjective aging indices and memory.

METHODS
Data of 5,369 individuals aged 50 to 94 years (Mean= 66.89 years, SD= 9.22; 60% women) were drawn from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Subjective age, SPA, and demographic factors were assessed in 2012/2014. Interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, albumin, cystatin C, N-terminal pro B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), fasting glucose, Vitamin D, hemoglobin, red cells distribution width, and epigenetic aging were assessed as part of the HRS Venuous Blood Study in 2016. Memory was measured in 2018. The mediators (except for epigenetic aging, which was assessed in a subsample) were tested simultaneously in models that accounted for demographic covariates.

RESULTS
An older subjective age was related to worse memory partially through higher fasting glucose, higher cystatin C, higher NT-proBNP, and accelerated epigenetic aging. Negative SPA were related to worse memory through lower Vitamin D3, higher fasting glucose, higher cystatin C, higher NT-proBNP, and accelerated epigenetic aging. The biomarkers explained between 2% and 10% of subjective age and between 1% and 8% of SPA associations with memory. Additional analysis revealed that biomarkers continued to be significant mediators when physical inactivity and depressive symptoms were included as additional mediators.

CONCLUSION
The present study adds to existing research on the association between subjective aging and memory by providing new evidence on the biological mediators of this association.


We used the Root Zone Water Quality Model to simulate runoff and seepage below the root zone from a 2.7 hectare watershed to look at rates of ground water recharge under long-term, no-till crop production systems in the Piedmont of Georgia. The watershed is located at the USDA-ARS-JPCNRCC (J. Phil Campbell Sr., Natural Resource Conservation Center) in Watkinsville, Georgia. It has been in crop production under no-till and winter cover cropping management practices since 1974. The model over predicted soil moisture and slightly over predicted runoff, however, the pattern of deep seepage to ground water was distinctly different for rainfall patterns that were small and consecutive versus large rain events. Ground water depth immediately responded when root zone soil moisture was at field capacity or greater. This indicates that under saturated or field capacity soil moisture conditions, larger rain events of short duration (> 15 cm and < 30 hours in this case) are recharging ground water rather than creating significant runoff. Simulations of watershed management practices such as long-term no-till and cover cropping can serve as a useful tool to show the effects of long-term management on potential surface water contamination.


This study investigates the influence of both phonotactic and acoustic cues on the segmentation of spoken English. Listeners detected embedded English words in nonsense sequences (word spotting). Words aligned with phonotactic boundaries were easier to detect than words without such alignment. Acoustic cues to boundaries could also have signaled word boundaries, especially when word onsets lacked phonotactic alignment. However, only one of several durational boundary cues showed a marginally significant correlation with response times (RTs). The results suggest that word segmentation in English is influenced primarily by phonotactic constraints and only secondarily by acoustic aspects of the speech signal.


Most experimental work in the space of bioconjugation chemistry focuses on using new methods to construct covalent bonds between a cargo molecule and a protein of interest such as a monoclonal antibody (mAb). Bond formation is important for generating new diagnostic tools, yet when these compounds advance to preclinical in vitro and in vivo studies, and later for translation to the clinic, understanding the fate of potential metabolites that arise from chemical or enzymatic degradation of the construct is important to obtain a full picture of the pharmacokinetic performance of a new compound. In the context of designing new bioconjugate methods for labeling antibodies with the positron-emitting radionuclide 89Zr, we previously developed a photochemical process for making 89Zr-mAbs. Experimental studies on [89Zr]ZrDFO-PEG3-azepin-mAb constructs revealed that incorporation of the tris-polyethylene glycol (PEG3) linker improved the aqueous phase solubility and radiochemical conversion. However, the use of a PEG3 linker also has an impact on the whole-body residence time of the construct, leading to a more rapid excretion of the 89Zr activity when compared with radiotracers that lack the PEG3 chain. In this work, we investigated the metabolic fate of eight possible metabolites that arise from the logical disconnection of [89Zr]ZrDFO-PEG3-azepin-mAb at bonds which are susceptible to chemical or enzymatic cleavage. Synthesis combined with 89Zr-radiolabeling, small-animal positron emission tomography imaging at multiple time points from 0 to 20 h, and measurements of the effective half-life for whole-body excretion are reported. The conclusions are that the use of a PEG3 linker is non-innocent in terms of its impact on enhancing the metabolism of [89Zr]ZrDFO-PEG3-azepin-mAbs. In most cases, degradation can produce metabolites that are rapidly eliminated from the body, thereby enhancing image contrast by reducing nonspecific accumulation and retention of 89Zr in background organs such as the liver, spleen, kidney, and bone.


We present FrankWolfe.jl, an open-source implementation of several popular Frank–Wolfe and conditional gradients variants for first-order constrained optimization. The package is designed with flexibility and high performance in mind, allowing for easy extension and relying on few assumptions regarding the user-provided functions. It supports Julia's unique multiple dispatch feature, and it interfaces smoothly with generic linear optimization formulations using MathOptInterface.jl.


The beta multiplier voltage reference (BMVR) is discussed as a direct replacement for the bandgap voltage reference in a CMOS process especially when substrate current is a concern. Performance of the BMVR with regard to temperature and process variations is covered. Experimental results from a 2-micron MOSIS test chip indicate that the BMVR can be tuned to within 10 mV of a desired value while maintaining a temperature coefficient below 1000 ppm/C and a supply sensitivity under 50 mV/V.


Advances in climate science have rendered obsolete the gridded observation data widely used in downstream applications. Novel climate reanalysis products outperform legacy data products in accuracy, temporal resolution, and provision of uncertainty metrics. Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop a workflow through which to integrate these improved data into biological analyses. The ERA5 product family (ERA5 and ERA5-Land) are the latest and most advanced global reanalysis products created by the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasting. These data products offer up to 83 essential climate variables at hourly intervals for the time-period of 1981 to today with preliminary back-extensions being available for 1950–1981. Spatial resolutions range from 30 × 30 km (ERA5) to 11 × 11 km (ERA5-Land) and can be statistically downscaled to study-requirements at finer spatial resolutions. Kriging is one such method to interpolate data to finer resolutions and has the advantages that one can leverage additional covariate information and obtain the uncertainty associated with the downscaling. The KrigR R-package enables users to (a) download ERA5(-Land) climate reanalysis data for a user-specified region, and time-period, (b) aggregate these climate products to desired temporal resolutions and metrics, (c) acquire topographical co-variates, and (d) statistically downscale spatial data to a user-specified resolution using co-variate data via kriging. KrigR can execute all these tasks in a single function call, thus enabling the user to obtain any of 83 (ERA5)/50 (ERA5-Land) climate variables at high spatial and temporal resolution with a single R-command. Additionally, KrigR contains functionality for computation of bioclimatic variables and aggregate metrics from the variables offered by ERA5(-Land). This R-package provides an easy-to-implement workflow for implementation of state-of-the-art climate data while avoiding issues of storage limitations at high temporal and spatial resolutions by providing data according to user-needs rather than in global data sets. Consequently, KrigR provides a toolbox to obtain a wide range of tailored climate data at unprecedented combinations of high temporal and spatial resolutions thus enabling the use of world-leading climate data through the R-interface and beyond.


The ethical principles underlying screening are reviewed. It is concluded that the ethical requirements for the introduction of screening are stringent, and that screening should not be offered in the absence of unequivocal evidence of effectiveness except in a carefully conducted research study. Part of the reasons for this are the risks associated with screening, which extend beyond the risk of the test itself, to those associated with invitations for screening, false reassurance for false negatives, the diagnostic process and the problem of false positives, and the overtreatment of those with borderline abnormalities. Finally, the benefits expected from screening are considered, especially reduction in mortality from the disease, but also reduction in incidence if a precursor is detected by the test, less radical treatment for cases detected, reassurance for those who test true negative, and resource savings, though it has to be demonstrated that these exceed resource costs.


Amid the ruins of Western civilization after World War I, Steiner pointed to the urgency for the renewal of spiritual life as Europe struggled to return to normal. He challenged his listeners to understand the deeper causes the spiritual roots of the modern situation. This kind of reexamination is even more pressing today as Europe stands on the threshold of a new destiny and faces the fears arising from terrible new dangers. These are some of Steiner s most important statements about the role of the English-speaking peoples in terms of spiritual history."


The paper offers a brief presentation of business ethics as an academic field, and of how it has approached the moral dimension of cross-cultural business activity, i.e. when companies operate in different countries, where stakeholders live in different societies and where norms and values reflect and are affected by cultural differences. Introductory definitions are illustrated by classic case examples and important issues addressed in this field. In a next step, cultural and ethical relativism are discussed, with reference to a four-fold table with combinations of both relativisms and to a process model. This model departs from cultural and moral relativism and outlines how one could transcend such relativism. Among several concluding theses the most important one is a claim that intercultural communication as an academic field can profit from using highly controversial business ethics cases for testing its competence (and for staying humble).


Hispanic women have higher rates of neural tube defects and report lower total folic acid intakes than non-Hispanic white (NHW) women. Total folic acid intake, which is associated with neural tube defect risk reduction, has been found to vary by acculturation factors (i.e. language preference, country of origin, or time spent in the United States) among Hispanic women. It is unknown whether this same association is present for blood folate status. The objective of this research was to assess the differences in serum and red blood cell (RBC) folate concentrations between NHW women and Mexican American (MA) women and among MA women by acculturation factors. Cross-sectional data from the 2001-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were used to investigate how blood folate concentrations differ among NHW or MA women of childbearing age. The impact of folic acid supplement use on blood folate concentrations was also examined. MA women with lower acculturation factors had lower serum and RBC folate concentrations compared with NHW women and to their more acculturated MA counterparts. Consuming a folic acid supplement can minimize these disparities, but MA women, especially lower acculturated MA women, were less likely to report using supplements. Public health efforts to increase blood folate concentrations among MA women should consider acculturation factors when identifying appropriate interventions.


Objective: To investigate changes in the urine metabolome of very low birth weight preterm newborns with necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and feed intolerance, we conducted a longitudinal study over the first 2 months of life. The metabolome of NEC newborns was compared with two control groups that did not develop NEC: the first one included preterm babies with feed intolerance, while the second one preterm babies with good feed tolerance. Methods: Newborns developing NEC within the 3 weeks of life were identified as early onset NEC, while the remaining as late onset NEC. Case-control matching was done according to the gestational age (±1 week), birth weight (± 200 g), and postnatal age. A total of 96 urine samples were collected and analyzed. In newborns with NEC, samples were collected before, during and after the diagnosis over the first 2 months of life, while in controls samples were collected as close as possible to the postnatal age of newborns with NEC. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopy was used for metabolomic analysis. Data were analyzed by univariate and multivariate statistical analysis. Results: In all the preterm newborns, urine levels of betaine, glycine, succinate, and citrate positively correlated with postnatal age. Suberate and lactate correlated with postnatal age in preterms with NEC and in controls with food intolerance, while N,N-dimethylglycine (N,N-DMG) correlated only in controls with good digestive tolerance. Preterm controls with feed intolerance showed a progressive significant decrease of N-methylnicotinamide and carnitine. Lactate, betaine, myo-inositol, urea, creatinine, and N,N-dimethylglycine discriminated late-onset NEC from controls with good feed tolerance. Conclusion: Our findings are discussed in terms of contributions from nutritional and clinical managements of patients and gut microbiota.


Deep learning experiments by Cohen et al. [2021] using deterministic Gradient Descent (GD) revealed an Edge of Stability (EoS) phase when learning rate (LR) and sharpness (i.e., the largest eigenvalue of Hessian) no longer behave as in traditional optimization. Sharpness stabilizes around $2/$LR and loss goes up and down across iterations, yet still with an overall downward trend. The current paper mathematically analyzes a new mechanism of implicit regularization in the EoS phase, whereby GD updates due to non-smooth loss landscape turn out to evolve along some deterministic flow on the manifold of minimum loss. This is in contrast to many previous results about implicit bias either relying on infinitesimal updates or noise in gradient. Formally, for any smooth function $L$ with certain regularity condition, this effect is demonstrated for (1) Normalized GD, i.e., GD with a varying LR $\eta_t =\frac{\eta}{\| \nabla L(x(t)) \|}$ and loss $L$; (2) GD with constant LR and loss $\sqrt{L- \min_x L(x)}$. Both provably enter the Edge of Stability, with the associated flow on the manifold minimizing $\lambda_{1}(\nabla^2 L)$. The above theoretical results have been corroborated by an experimental study.


Introduction: Most of the patients clean their dentures only once a day. However, according to ideal practices, the complete dentures should be cleaned regularly at least twice a day to prevent ulcers, periodontal diseases, and various lesions in the oral cavity. Like natural teeth dentures also should be cleaned with a brush or with denture cleaners. This must be done regularly to prevent food accumulation and plaque formation. The most common outcome of improper cleaning of the dentures may lead to a condition called denture stomatitis which is the inflammation of the mouth due to poor oral hygiene. Hence, it is necessary to clean the dentures properly to avoid the above-mentioned problems. Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted with 50 patients of age groups ranging from 40 to 65 years. A questionnaire was prepared, and the information was collected based on details such as age, gender, duration of denture wearing, frequency of denture cleansing, the materials used to clean the dentures, and nocturnal denture wearing habits. The purpose of the study was explained to the patients and their consent along with their signature and was recorded on the questionnaire. The data were later tabulated, and statistical analysis was done using the SPSS software, and the results were given. Results: The present study reveals that most of the patients were aware about importance of denture cleansing and materials used to clean the dentures. They were also aware about the technique to clean dentures and also about the nocturnal use of dentures and adverse effects of not maintaining their dentures properly. Conclusion: Based on the study, the denture hygiene of patients has significantly improved with patients brushing their dentures twice a day or sometimes thrice a day with cleansing liquid and tablets. However, there are a few patients who slept with their dentures at night which should be avoided. Thus, dentists should take the responsibility of providing postplacement denture hygiene instructions and also to motivate the patients.


Open source software (OSS) released under various license terms is widely used as third party libraries in today's software projects. To ensure open source compliance within an organization, a strategic approach to OSS management is needed. As basis for such an approach, we introduce an organizational-technical concept for dealing with the various OSS licenses by using procedural instructions and build automation software. The concept includes the careful consideration of OSS license conditions. The results obtained from this consideration and additional necessary commitments are documented in a so-called license playbook. We introduce procedure instructions enabling a consistent approach for software development using OSS libraries. The procedure instructions are described in a way such that they can be implemented for example for Java projects using the popular build automation tool Apache Maven and the software repository tool Nexus. We give guidance on how to realize such an implementation on basis of automation tools in practice.


: Searching the way out for posterior capsule opacification was one of our goals in improving current cataract surgery techniques. The second goals was restoring accommodation but this goal prooved to remain unsolved. The bag-in-the-lens concept of IOL and implantation technique has been used in 271 patients of which 15 children. These patients have a follow-up of one month to 5 years. The optical axis of all these patients remained crystal clear, which allows us to conclude that the problem of PCO is solved by the bag-in-the-lens implantation concept. These very encouraging results inspired us to new ideas, which will receive priority in our research: accommodation and optimising the quality of vision by compensating for the ocular aberrations.


Bus operators around the world are facing the transformation of their fleets from fossil-fuelled to electric buses. Two technologies prevail: Depot charging and opportunity charging at terminal stops. Total cost of ownership (TCO) is an important metric for the decision between the two technologies; however, most TCO studies for electric bus systems rely on generalised route data and simplifying assumptions that may not reflect local conditions. In particular, the need to reschedule vehicle operations to satisfy electric buses' range and charging time constraints is commonly disregarded. We present a simulation tool based on discrete-event simulation to determine the vehicle, charging infrastructure, energy and staff demand required to electrify real-world bus networks. These results are then passed to a TCO model. A greedy scheduling algorithm is developed to plan vehicle schedules suitable for electric buses. Scheduling and simulation are coupled with a genetic algorithm to determine cost-optimised charging locations for opportunity charging. A case study is carried out in which we analyse the electrification of a metropolitan bus network consisting of 39 lines with 4748 passenger trips per day. The results generally favour opportunity charging over depot charging in terms of TCO; however, under some circumstances, the technologies are on par. This emphasises the need for a detailed analysis of the local bus network in order to make an informed procurement decision.


Cars will eventually be equipped with a control system to either warn the driver when he gets too close to another car, or even to keep him automatically at an adequate distance. In both cases automatic traffic scene analysis will be needed. We want to base this on a new optical range sensor which acquires distance and intensity information. We present a detection and tracking scheme which is fast, simple and operates with a small basic instruction set. Our region growing algorithm ensures robust segmentation and detects objects even in ambiguous data. Objects are represented by bounding boxes and tracked along the image sequence. The tracking process also provides the velocities for calculating the time to collision with each object. We show results of some experiments with simulated traffic scenes.


The social sciences, especially economics, management, and organizational science, are experiencing a tremendous renewed interest for their epistemological and methodological statutes, as witnessed by the many books and specialized journals established during the last two decades.Relational Methodologies and Epistemology in the Economics and Management Sciences identifies and presents the four main network-based methodologies including network analysis, Boolean network simulation modeling, artificial neural network simulation modeling, and agent-based simulation modeling in addition to their conceptual-epistemological implications and concrete applications within the social and natural sciences. Featuring a critical assessment of relational methodologies and their practical applications, this timely publication is ideal for use by corporate R&D departments, researchers, theorists, and graduate-level students.


Based on nonlinear finite element method, the character of embankment reinforced with geotextile on sloping weak foundation has been studied. It is shown that the lateral displacement of embankment has been distinctly effected by the sloping of foundation, the value of lateral displacement on sloping foundation is greatly bigger than that of horizontal foundation. The peak value of lateral displacement can be effectively reduced by geotextile. With the same condition, geotextile in sloping foundation acts a more important effect than that of horizontal foundation. The development of plastic zone of embankment has been impeded and separated by geotextile, which enhanced the stability of embankment. The results also indicated that, if necessary, reinforcement such as anti-slide pile should be layout at lower toe of embankment on sloping weak foundation.


This study documents the spatiotemporal patterns of mountain pine beetle infestations by applying a novel approach based on a landscape infestation dynamics conceptual model in combination with morphological spatial pattern analysis using the mountain pine beetle infested pine mortality data (1960–2010) collected by the annual British Columbia aerial overview survey. The pattern analysis at the provincial level reveals that the 1980s outbreak did not crash as originally thought. The current outbreak is most likely a result of the progressive buildup of the epidemic infestations during the transition period (1985–1995) under favourable weather conditions and substantially improved host resources. This is also true for the Northeast and Cariboo areas of the province specifically, even though the infestations in the Cariboo area remained at incipient-epidemic levels during the transition period after the 1980s outbreak crashed in 1985. In the Southeast area, the current outbreak apparently continued from the outbreak that initiated in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The 1980s outbreak originated from multiple spatially separate locations whereas the current outbreak initiated from a single location in Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. The centralized and self-amplifying buildup of the current outbreak implicates at least three substantial expansions that occurred in 2002, 2006, and 2008. This study suggests that at the provincial level, as well as for the Northeast and Southeast areas of the province, the current outbreak is declining but most likely will continue for many years given the ongoing and future warming climate and a large proportion of pines that remain in the habitats of mountain pine beetles. This study also suggests that dispersals, particularly long-distance dispersal, may play a key role in driving the spread and expansion of the current outbreak although uncertainty remains due to the local dynamics of the beetle populations.


In this study we attempt to understand the relationship between regional growth in population, employment, and per capita income, and farmland development in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. A spatial simultaneous equations model is estimated using county-level data. Results indicate that while county income growth and agricultural land value increases in neighboring counties increase the rate of farmland loss, growth in county agricultural land values, increases in agricultural land density in neighboring counties, and increases in agricultural income per farm reduce farmland losses. Farmland protection policies were not significant in reducing agricultural land development. This approach, focused on regional growth, provides insight into linkages between growth and agricultural land development that can potentially enhance land use planning.


Semantic Hashing technique wraps the meaning of short texts into compressed binary codes. So, to find out that whether two short texts are alike or not in their meaning, their binary codes need to be matched. A deep neural network is used for encoding. Bag-of-words representation of texts is used to train the neural network. Unfortunately, the fundamental semantics are not sufficiently captured by the above mentioned form of representation for short texts such as titles, tweets, or queries. We propose adding additional semantic signals to better group short texts using their meaning. More specifically, we procure the co-occurring terms and concepts of every term in the short text via a knowledge database to further enhance the short text. Additionally, we use a k-Nearest Neighbor based approach id for hashing. Multiple experiments provide evidence that by increasing the number of semantic signals, our neural network is better capable to capture the meaning of short texts, which enables various uses like retrieving information, classifying data, and processing of short texts. keywords: Short Text, k-Nearest Neighbor, Semantic Enrichment, Hashing.


Challenged by the LTE system, Mobile WiMAX is set to be the next generation broadband wireless system. Providing high data rates over large distances gives unlimited possibilities for services provided to the end users. As for all undeveloped systems, Mobile WiMAX has also been exposed to rumors and hypes. This thesis is based on the work performed in cite{prosjekt}, and aims to provide radio planning of a Mobile WiMAX network in the populated areas of Trondheim, Norway. Moreover, preparatory work and suggestions for field testing of the deployed system have been provided. The coverage prediction have been performed by using Astrix 5.0, the radio planning tool of Teleplan. A total of 32 base stations have been suggested to provide ubiquitous coverage of -94 dBm using 92 sectors within the $35.63 km^2$ large area. Furthermore, it has been recommended that fixed or nomadic users purchases the si-CPE or CPE PRO for better channel quality and throughput performances at indoor locations. In the preparatory phase prior to field testing, a python script has been created to perform automated performance testing. The reason for automating the performance measurements has been to increase the test efficiency, and to reduce the possibility of human errors in parameter setting, and file naming. This thesis will hopefully serve as a guide for future radio planners, where an Astrix user case, measurement scripts, and data processing codes are provided for revision and editing. The work has been performed on the initiative of Wireless Trondheim.


Ion‐sensitive field effect transistor‐based pH sensors have been shown to perform well in high frequency and long‐term ocean sampling regimes. The Honeywell Durafet is widely used due to its stability, fast response, and characterization over a large range of oceanic conditions. However, potentiometric pH monitoring is inherently complicated by the fact that the sensors require careful calibration. Offsets in calibration coefficients have been observed when comparing laboratory to field‐based calibrations and prior work has led to the recommendation that an in situ calibration be performed based on comparison to discrete samples. Here, we describe our work toward a self‐calibration apparatus integrated into a SeapHOx pH, dissolved oxygen, and CTD sensor package. This Self‐Calibrating SeapHOx is capable of autonomously recording calibration values from a high quality, traceable, primary reference standard: equimolar tris buffer. The Self‐Calibrating SeapHOx's functionality was demonstrated in a 6‐d test in a seawater tank at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (La Jolla, California, U.S.A.) and was successfully deployed for 2 weeks on a shallow, coral reef flat (Lizard Island, Australia). During the latter deployment, the tris‐based self‐calibration using 15 on‐board samples exhibited superior reproducibility to the standard spectrophotometric pH‐based calibration using > 100 discrete samples. Standard deviations of calibration pH using tris ranged from 0.002 to 0.005 whereas they ranged from 0.006 to 0.009 for the standard spectrophotometric pH‐based method; the two independent calibration methods resulted in a mean pH difference of 0.008. We anticipate that the Self‐Calibrating SeapHOx will be capable of autonomously providing climate quality pH data, directly linked to a primary seawater pH standard, and with improvements over standard calibration techniques.


It has been generally accepted that renal ischemia, tubular obstruction, and the back-leak of glomerular filtrate are major factors involved in the pathogenesis of acute renal failure (ARF). Experimental studies have been conducted using various therapeutic measures to eliminate the adverse effects of these factors and thereby preserve renal function. These therapeutic measures include the use of pharmacologic agents such as vasodilators, diuretics, and calcium channel blockers, and saline or Ringer's volume expansion. Though experimental results appear encouraging, attempts to prevent ARF in humans have been generally unsuccessful. The administration of furosemide, however, has resulted in the conversion of oliguric ARF to nonoliguric ARF in some patients. With the development of experimental ARF models in which renal function is preserved, such as our splenectomized model, the mechanism(s) involved in the pathogenesis of ARF can be further delineated. Thus, more effective therapeutic interventions may be available for the treatment and prevention of human ARF.


The appreciative character of any theatre production with theatrical elements is enshrined in its visual symbolism. Experience has shown that no two productions, directed by the same director, performed by the same artistes, given the same venue and even same script, can be the same. This difference is cropped from the director's perception, conception, imaginative and creative impetus. Visual symbolism in the theatre as a medium traverse forms, textures, symbols, lines, lighting, circles and balance in creating an everlasting theatre experience. Visual symbolism is influenced by style, concept, forms, creativity, materials, technological advancement; it is resultoriented, though it must meet certain conventional objectives. Even though in Nigeria its role is in the main, supportive and complementary, its functions are numerous to the point that a production will be void without their application. This is because visual symbols are culturally bound and theatre is culture. This research was adopted in parts, on practical-oriented observations, examining aspects of visual symbols in contemporary stage productions as performed in the Chinua Achebe Arts Theatre in the University of Calabar - Nigeria, was chosen to strengthen this essay. It was equally observed that some directors attached little or no attention to visual symbols. This work, thus recommended a complete overhaul of the mentality of placing visual symbols as an insignificant measure in our theatrical existence. LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research , 8(4), 205-219, 2011


This study presents the method for detection and isolation of component faults and degradation modes in industrial gas turbine engine. Performance of gas turbine engines gradually deteriorate over the service life due to degradation of the gas path components such as compressor, combustor and turbines. These physical faults gradually evolve over a prolonged period of operation and lead to degradation of the performance parameters, such as efficiency and flow capacity of individual gas-path components. Performance degradation, in turn, causes changes in the measurable engine parameters, such as temperature, pressure, rotational speed, and fuel flow rate. Traditionally these component degradation modes and faults in the engine have been detected by measuring the changes in these observable parameters through appropriate usage of signal processing and pattern recognition tools. In this contribution model-based diagnostic approach has been applied, where measureable parameters have been used to estimate so-called engine health parameters, i.e. component efficiencies and flow capacities. Health parameter deviations from nominal conditions are subsequently used to obtain health indices and the best signature match is then used to identify likely component degradation modes and faults. Performance diagnostic and fault isolation process is based on multidimensional complex health vector space which contains generated health indices, i.e. component capacity and efficiency indices for different gas turbine components. Simulated gas turbine degradation modes have been diagnosed and isolated by comparing gas turbine health vector against bank of fault signatures for different gas-path components.