OBJECTIVE
To introduce the technique of subciliary incision and lateral cantholysis with tri-dimension reduction and rigid internal fixation to treat zygomatic complex fractures.

METHODS
The subciliary incision and lateral cantholysis combined with tri-dimension reduction and rigid internal fixation of zygomatic complex fractures with titanium microplates were applied in 56 patients with zygomatic complex fractures. Another lateral eyebrow incision or sublabial incision was used to simplify the operation.

RESULTS
The postoperative follow-up period ranged from 6 months to 5 years. During the follow-up period, all the patients had satisfying postoperative results. All clinical symptoms disappeared except the numbness in the infraorbital region in 2 patients. In 94.6% patients no complications such as obvious scar, ectropion, entropion or blepharoedema were found, only 5.4% of the patients had slight ectropion 6 months after operation.

CONCLUSIONS
The subciliary incision and lateral cantholysis have many advantages such as invisible scar, sufficient exposure, minimal injury, and few complications and combined with rigid internal fixation with titanium microplates this technique could be used as one of the routine operation methods to treat zygomatic complex fractures.


We developed a microfluidic droplet on-demand (DoD) generator that enables the production of droplets with a volume solely governed by the geometry of the generator for a range of operating conditions. The prime reason to develop this novel type of DoD generator is that its robustness in operation enables scale out and operation under non-steady conditions, which are both essential features for the further advancement of droplet-based assays. We first detail the working principle of the DoD generator and study the sensitivity of the volume of the generated droplets with respect to the used fluids and control parameters. We next compare the performance of our DoD generator when scaled out to 8 parallel generators to the performance of a conventional DoD generator in which the droplet volume is not geometry-controlled, showing its superior performance. Further scale out to 64 parallel DoD generators shows that all generators produce droplets with a volume between 91% and 105% of the predesigned volume. We conclude the paper by presenting a simple droplet-based assay in which the DoD generator enables sequential supply of reagent droplets to a droplet stored in the device, illustrating its potential to be used in droplet-based assays for biochemical studies under non-steady operation conditions.


Introduction Intra-plaque angiogenesis and inflammation are key promoters of plaque vulnerability. Angiogenic endothelial cells and macrophages express the integrin αvβ3. The novel RGD-based radiotracer 18F-Fluciclatide has high affinity for αvβ3 integrin and therefore may act as a surrogate marker of the unstable atherosclerotic plaque. Methods Forty-six subjects with a mixture of ischaemic heart disease and aortic stenosis, including 9 healthy subjects underwent CT-coronary angiography (CTCA) and combined PET/CT imaging of the thorax 40 min after the administration of 226 ± 13 mBq 18F-fluciclatide. Regions of interest were drawn around the thoracic aorta using serial axial slices on fused PET/CT images. 18F-Fluciclatide uptake in these regions was normalised for blood-pool activity in the superior vena cava using tissue to background ratio [TBR]. Reproducibility of this technique was assessed on 10 image-sets by two observers. Quantification and analysis of descending thoracic aortic atheroma on CTCA was performed using plaque analysis software. Results There was a close correlation between 18F-fluciclatide uptake and the extent of atherosclerosis within the aorta on CTCA, as measured by wall thickness (r = 0.62 [0.31–0.81], p= <0.001] and total plaque burden (r = 0.60 [0.27–0.80], p = 0.001). Furthermore, aortic 18F-fluciclatide uptake (expressed as mean TBRmax) correlated with total aortic calcium score (AU) (r = 0.36 [0.05–0.60], p = 0.02) and was significantly greater in subjects with ischaemic heart disease (1.34 ± 0.03 vs 1.25 ± 0.03; p = 0.02) and hypercholesterolaemia (1.35 ± 0.03 vs 1.25 ± 0.03; p = 0.01). There were no significant age (r = 0.20(–0.12–0.47), p = 0.21) or sex related differences (1.34 ± 0.05 vs 1.29 ± 0.02, p = 0.24) and reproducibility analysis showed no fixed or proportional bias (0.07[–0.13–0.27]) with excellent intra-class correlation (0.98[0.92–1.0]). Conclusion The quantification of αvβ3 integrin expression within the aorta using 18F-fluciclatide is a highly reproducible marker of atherosclerotic burden. This supports further work in establishing its role in the assessment of the unstable plaque.


Summary We have previously reported that two forms of von Willebrand factor (vWf) exist in cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells: a high molecular weight (HMW) form that is released and can be proteolytically cleaved into a series of plasma‐like multimers, and a non‐secreted low molecular weight (LMW) form. In this study, the mode of vWf release and the relationship between the two forms were examined. As determined by two‐dimensional analysis as well as by immunoreactivity with an antibody to the propolypeptide, the LMW form of endothelial cell vWf consisted of a 260 kD pro‐vWf polypeptide, while the HMW form consisted of a 225 kD mature polypeptide. Only the 260 kD polypeptide was susceptible to digestion with endoglycosidase H. Release of the HMW form into the culture media was accompanied by a decrease in cellular vWf. Treatment of endothelial cells with cycloheximide or tunicamycin caused a decrease in the LMW form but did not affect the secretion of the HMW form. These results suggest that two pools of vWf exist in endothelial cells—a LMW form of pro‐vWf in the endoplasmic reticulum and a HMW form of mature vWf in the storage compartment. Released vWf derives only from the storage pool.


links between family systems and the major systems of the body: including such topics as 'chronic illness and the family: the example of cardiovascular disease', 'cancer survival and the family' and 'the family system and failure to thrive'. There are four interesting articles on the influence of family upon health behaviour, including such fraught subjects as compliance with medical regimen. There are eight chapters exploring the correspondence between family systems and both chronic illness and behavioural disorders. The final part of the book summarizes what limited successes family medicine has achieved already, and what its future directions need to be. A priority for researchers will be to correlate the development of family systems theory with the results of experiments in which family and biological systems are measured simultaneously. A great deal of work will also be needed to develop methods to quantify information processing in the family. 'Family systems in medicine' is a must for those multidisciplinary teams who are keen to understand more about the linkages between family, individual and biological processes. For such a young science, there are no answers. The best we can look for is a starter pack. This volume stimulates and gives much food for thought. Reviewed by Mr Nick Smith, Principal Social Worker, Social Work Department, The Royal Marsden Hospital, Fulham Road, London SW3 6JJ, UK.


In electric discharge manufacturing, especially to the complex part finishing machining, electrode wear effects the electrode's life-span and the work pieces precision in both dimension and geometry. Although it is more difficult to explain the exact mechanism of metal erosion in sparking, the basic phenomenon that the work materials near the channels melted, vaporized, and then flushed off in the dielectric liquid has suggested that the mechanism of electrode wear is based on a thermal conduction process governed by heat generating from arc channels and dissipating into the tool and the work. On the basis of a review of the other researchers' work and analysis to the thermal conduction phenomenon, this paper presents an electrode wear model based on heat conduction. Finite element is employed to solve the heat conduction model of wear, and in addition, a theoretic planar sunken function at electrode surface impacted by plasma flow is established. Some experiments and simulations are made to verify the hypothetic model, and the conclusions that the simulation result of erosion figure and erosion trend of the material are correspond to the hypothetic model are confirmed.


We propose a hybrid approach to temporal anomaly detection in userdatabase access data — or more generally, any kind of subject-object co-occurrence data. Our methodology allows identifying anomalies based on a single stationary model, instead of requiring a full temporal one, which would be prohibitive in our setting. We learn our low-rank stationary model from the high-dimensional training data, and then fit a regression model for predicting the expected likelihood score of normal access patterns in the future. The disparity between the predicted and the observed likelihood scores is used to assess the "surprise". This approach enables calibration of the anomaly score so that time-varying normal behavior patterns are not considered anomalous. We provide a detailed description of the algorithm, including a convergence analysis, and report encouraging empirical results. One of the datasets we tested is new for the public domain. It consists of two months' worth of database access records from a live system. This dataset will be made publicly available. An extended version of this submission is available at https://arxiv.org/ abs/1705.10085.


Background. Our empirical research and analysis revealed characteristics of the axiological orientation of students' personalities. Objective.We identified the principal types of orientation, dominant values, and attitudes of the personality in the motivational-needs sphere through a variety of validated and reliable techniques and methods. Design We understand the axiological orientation of the personality as a relatively stable set of values, motivations, needs, and moral structures produced through the lens of actions, in and through various spheres of social life, which describes complex system of a person's perception of him-/herself, his or her perceptions of others, and his or her attitude towards work and other activities. Results. The results of the empirical research demonstrate that a set of axiological, motivational, and need characteristics form pragmatic-professional, social-communicative, or individual-egoistic types of axiological orientation of the personality, which in turn describe the subject's attitude to the surrounding external reality and to him/herself. The pragmatic-professional type of person is dominated by values such as work, results, money, and process. The least attractive value to this type appears to be power. Respondents with a social-communicative type of axiological orientation have altruism, result and money as their main personal values. Values such as egocentrism, power, money, and freedom are a distinguishing mark of those with the individual-egoistic axiological orientation. Conclusion. This study also addresses how and through what patterns and mechanisms the axiological orientation of students' personalities is expressed, which could enable professionals to develop educational programs aimed at harmonizing and aligning societal values and the individual's attitudes.


A series of lithium iron phosphate /polypyrrole (LiFePO4/PPy) composite powders were synthesized by chemical oxidation method with different doping agent and oxidation agent. The composite powders were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrum (FTIR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results showed that the composite powders composed of PPy and LiFePO4. And the doping of polypyrrole in LiFePO4 could weaken the XRD intensity of LiFePO4 , but could not destroy its crystallization. With the increase of pyrrole in LiFePO4/ PPy composite powders, the polypyrrole on the surface of LiFePO4 increased and dispersed more homogeneously. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) data indicated the heat-stability of LiFePO4/PPy was very good that the composite powders would not oxidate till 300°C in the air flow.


The comparative evaluation of the diagnostic value of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and the enzyme immunoassay (EIA) in the detection of intrauterine infection (IUI) in 48 newborn infants with cerebral lesions was made. Tests for the presence of the infective agents of IUI, most frequently occurring in the region (Cytomegalovirus, Herpes simplex virus, Chlamydia trachomatis), were carried out. The levels of serum IgA, IgG and IgM were evaluated in the course of the primary screening of IUI. Laboratory samples for PCR from infants with IUI were selected at random. The study demonstrated that in PCR the frequency of positive results was significantly greater than in EIA.


This article is about how one approaches images that are both disjunctive and disjointed. It studies a set of nineteen images by the Flemish printmaker Gaspard Bouttats, focusing on four specific examples. The nineteen prints are now in the Whitworth Gallery but come without any provenance beyond the signature of their maker. Hitherto, they have not been studied in detail, but were in fact made for a book, Prudencio de Sandoval's Historia de la vida y hechos del Emperador Carlos V, published in Antwerp in 1681 by Hieronymus Verdussen III. However, the prints now take the form of a set of loose sheets. Accordingly, the core argument rests on the fact that it is not helpful to study Bouttats's prints in the context of de Sandoval's book because this fails to account properly for their composite nature, their current state and their virtually limitless potential for circulation. The main contention is that such prints are best understood as collages. Therefore, they are viewed here through the lens of emerging scholarly literature on medieval and early modern texts and images that also fall into this category.


Perceptual learning is an important mechanism in the human visual system, and can lead to long-lasting improvements across a broad range of perceptual tasks. In this study we demonstrated how perceptual learning can be applied to improve word recognition in the peripheral visual field of a sample of older individuals. We have shown that improvements in thresholds can be equalised across age, simply by increasing the number of training sessions available to older observers.

Based on this initial finding we further sought to establish a protocol to induce improvements in reading ability for a sample of individuals with age-related macular disease (AMD). As a prelude to this work, we investigated the effects of crowding and fixation instability on similar tasks.

Having suffered damage to their central vision, our target population (individuals with AMD) must use peripheral vision for daily viewing tasks. Peripheral vision is known to be highly susceptible to crowding, the influence of which has previously been shown to strengthen with age. We investigated the relationship between age and crowding on a letter recognition task, and found that (for this task) crowding was age in-variant, implying that this key inhibitor to peripheral visual perception should not have an inordinate influence on learning in our AMD sample.

Our work on fixation stability also led to promising results. We demonstrated that our proxy for fixation instability (a dynamic target or dynamic fixation point) did not adversely affect letter recognition thresholds. Fixation instability is a common issue in AMD, but our data suggests that this may not adversely affect learning on our word recognition task.

The final part of this work has been the implementation of a small study in which we trained a sample of individuals with AMD on our word recognition task. Significant improvements in thresholds were observed, though these did not quite reach the level of an age-matched normally sighted sample.

Nonetheless, the trajectory of the learning curve suggests that further improvements would be possible with extended training sessions.

Crucially, we also observed significant transfer of learning – from the trained word recognition task to an untrained sentence reading task (the MNRead Acuity chart). This is a key aspect of the study, as we are primarily interested in developing training protocols that lead to real-world improvements in visual ability. Improvements on MNRead scores are promising, and suggest that our approach may prove to be a useful starting point in the development of a robust therapeutic protocol.


Ultra diffuse galaxies (UDGs) are a type of large low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies with particularly large effective radii (reff >  1.5 kpc) that are now routinely studied in the Local (z <  0.1) Universe. While they are found to be abundant in clusters, groups, and in the field, their formation mechanisms remain elusive and comprise an active topic of debate. New insights may be found by studying their counterparts at higher redshifts (z >  1.0), even though cosmological surface brightness dimming makes them particularly difficult to detect and study in this channel. In this work, we use the deepest Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging stacks of z >  1 clusters, namely, SPT-CL J2106−5844 and MOO J1014+0038. These two clusters, at z = 1.13 and z = 1.23, respectively, were monitored as part of the HST See-Change programme. In making a comparison with the Hubble Extreme Deep Field as the reference field, we find statistical over-densities of large LSB galaxies in both clusters. Based on stellar-population modelling and assuming no size evolution, we find that the faintest sources we can detect are about as bright as expected for the progenitors of the brightest local UDGs. We find that the LSBs we detect in SPT-CL J2106−5844 and MOO J1014−5844 already have old stellar populations that place them on the red sequence. In correcting for incompleteness and based on an extrapolation of local scaling relations, we estimate that distant UDGs are relatively under-abundant, as compared to local UDGs, by a factor ∼3. A plausible explanation for the implied increase over time would be the significant growth of these galaxies over the last ∼8 Gyr, as also suggested by hydrodynamical simulations.


Acoustic emission (AE) can be use to discriminate the different types of damage occurring in a constrained composite. However, the main problem associated with data analysis is the discrimination between the different acoustic emission sources. The objective of the cluster analysis is to separate a set of data into several classes that reflect the internal structure of the data. Indeed, cluster analysis is an important tool for investigating and interpreting data. In this paper, we intend to use two kinds of classifier techniques: a mathematical procedure that is called principal component analysis (PCA) and an unsupervised one fuzzy clustering means (FCM). Glass/polyester composites specimens used for the validation of the proposed methodologies. We worked on glass/polyester unidirectional specimens, subjected to duration of Mode I delamination within different configurations, awaiting preferential damage modes in the material.


Intimate partner violence (IPV) continues to be a problem within society, with many studies focusing on general attitudes toward violence against women as a gauge of positive societal change in this area. To investigate whether individual personal attitudes toward violence against women were predictive of prosocial bystander behaviours in situations of IPV, 157 Australian community members completed an online survey. This survey investigated the factors of bystander intention, bystander self-efficacy, general and privacy attitudes toward violence against women, fear of intervening and the effects/impact of psychological abuse as predictors of willingness to intervene in IPV situations. Bystander intention, self-efficacy and gender were significantly associated with willingness to intervene, whilst respondent's attitudes toward violence against women was not. The implications of these findings for promoting social control and bystander intervention in situations of IPV are discussed.


Context: Mood disorders such as postpartum blue are very prevalent in the postnatal period, while the underlying mechanism of postpartum blue is not well known. Aim: This research aimed to investigates the role of brain-behavioral systems activation in postpartum blue according to revised reinforcement sensitivity theory in mothers referring to Mashhad health-care centers. Settings and Design: This correlational study has been conducted during February–March 2018, on 172 cases who diagnosed with postpartum blue were chosen through the purposive sampling method. Materials and Methods: Participants completed demographic questionnaire, Jackson five-factor questionnaire, and the Edinburgh depression scale. Statistical Analysis Used: The normality of data distribution examined using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test. After, data were analyzed using descriptive methods (mean and standard deviation), Pearson confiscation, and stepwise regression method. Results: The results showed that brain-behavioral systems, including behavioral inhibition system (BIS) (P < 0.001; R = 0.31) and behavioral activation system (BAS), had a significant correlation with postpartum blue (P < 0.05; R = 0.39), while there was no significant relationship between fight-flight systems with postpartum blue. BAS (R2 = 0.15,P < 0.05) and BIS (|R2 = 0.08,P < 0.001), the predictive potential of BIS and BAS was equal to 21% of variance of postpartum blue. Conclusion: The findings suggest that behavioral-brain systems play a role in mothers' "postpartum psychological disorders such as postpartum blue and in the conception of mothers" distress after maternal delivery, the effects of these systems can be used in short-term interventions.


This letter has proposed a novel fiber Bragg grating (FBG) displacement sensor with a sub-micrometer resolution through the use of the transverse property of a suspended optical fiber with a pre-tension force. A wedge-shaped sliding block and a T-shaped cantilever beam formed a conversion mechanism to transfer the horizontal measured-displacement into the transverse movement of the optical fiber midpoint. Compared with existing FBG displacement sensors, this design does not only avoid the FBG-pasting process and its associated issues, such as the chirping failure and low repeatability, but also achieves a high resolution. The sensing principle has been presented, and the corresponding theoretical model has been derived and validated. Experiments show that this design has an excellent sensitivity of 2086.27 pm/mm and a high resolution of  $0.48~\mu \text{m}$  within a range of 1.0~2.0 mm. The displacement results from the proposed sensor closely agree with the values detected from the commercial laser displacement sensor, validating its effectiveness. Therefore, the proposed sensor can be directly utilized to measure the sub-micrometer displacement, and also support multi-point distributed detection.


Background: Desflurane with a laryngeal mask airway may have advantages during ambulatory anesthesia. However, desflurane-induced airway irritability makes the use of desflurane challenging, especially in children. This study compared desflurane with sevoflurane maintenance anesthesia in terms of respiratory events and the emergence characteristics in children with a laryngeal mask airway. Methods: This randomized controlled trial evaluated 200 children undergoing strabismus surgery allocated to desflurane or sevoflurane groups. After inducing anesthesia with sevoflurane and thiopental sodium 5 mg kg−1, the anesthetic agent was changed to desflurane in the desflurane group, whereas sevoflurane was continued in the sevoflurane group. Respiratory events, emergence time, recovery time, and emergence agitation were compared between the groups. Results: The overall respiratory events did not differ between the groups. However, the incidence of mild desaturation (90% ⩽ SpO2 < 97%) was significantly higher in the desflurane group (7%) than in the sevoflurane group (0%) (P = .007). Emergence was significantly faster in the desflurane group (6.6 ± 3.9 vs 8.0 ± 2.2 min, P = .003). The recovery time and emergence agitation in the postanesthesia care unit were comparable between groups. Laryngospasm developed in 5 children (1 in the sevoflurane group and 4 in the desflurane group, P = .365); of these, 4 patients were younger than 3 years. Conclusion: Desflurane maintenance anesthesia in children with a laryngeal mask airway shows a similar rate of overall respiratory events compared with sevoflurane anesthesia. However, anesthesiologists should be cautious of using desflurane in younger children concerning desaturation events during emergence.


The effect of water absorption on the dielectric response of polyethylene/hexagonal boron nitride nanocomposites has been studied by dielectric spectroscopy. The nanocomposites have been prepared with hBN concentrations ranging from 2 wt% to 30 wt%. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis revealed a very small amount of hydroxyl groups on the surface of hBN. Mass loss measurements showed that the nanocomposites did not absorb any water under ambient and dry conditions while there was some water absorption under wet conditions. The dielectric spectroscopy results showed a broad relaxation peak, indicative of different states of water with water shells of different thickness, which moved to higher frequencies with increasing water content. However, the dielectric losses were significantly lower than the losses reported in the literature of nanocomposites under wet conditions. In addition, all the absorbed water was successfully removed under vacuum conditions which demonstrated that the interactions between the water and the nanocomposites were very weak, due to the hydrophobic nature of the hBN surface. This is a highly useful property, when considering these materials for applications in electrical insulation.


Despite multiple decades' worth of credible data confirming the extent of sustainability problems, our society has subsequently shown very limited progress with finding viable solutions on such critical subjects. Indeed, there is growing evidence of a general misunderstanding regarding the challenges related to the climate change issue. More specifically, we point to evidence outlining sustainable development (SD) and climate change as complex meta-problems. This explains why current global environmental policies are inefficient in addressing the causes of SD and climate change and why they fail to induce sustainable practices in consumers and organizations. In this paper, we argue that the primary obstacles businesses face in adopting proper sustainable practices are found in their neoclassical business worldview and in the increased competition levels resulting from internationalization and market deregulation. To counter these obstacles, we suggest solutions that have the potential to bring true SD. First, we believe the use of specific economic tools such as sovereign funds, green investments and ethical financial indexes, can have significant effects on neoclassical businesses in stewarding them towards sustainable practices. Finally, we call for increased interdisciplinary interactions between the scientific community, policymakers and business leaders in order to better manage meta-problems related to climate change. Keywords: Sustainable development, policy, meta-problems, interdisciplinarity


As scores of projects to save North American forests get under way, new data on how those forests looked centuries ago are fueling a debate on what ecologists should aim for when restoring ailing ecosystems. In trying to reconstruct how ecosystems looked centuries ago, researchers hope to offer a handle on how much change is natural and how much is caused by human activity. Further dogging the debate is the issue of whether restoring a forest to its pre-European settlement state is even a legitimate goal, considering that Native Americans were shaping the land long before European settlers arrived.


The influence of the strain-holding conditions on shape recovery and secondary-shape forming was investigated. The results obtained are summarized as follows. (1) If strain is held at holding temperature Th = Tg+20K in a short time, irrecoverable strain starts to appear at the holding time th= 0.5h and strain is not recovered at all at th=8h. In the case of Th = Tg+10K, irrecoverable strain appears in a short holding time if holding strain is large and the rate of secondary-shape forming S is 42% at th=8h. (2) If strain of 50% is held at Th = Tg+10K in a long time, strain becomes not to be recovered and S is 93% at th =12h. In the case of Th = Tg, the increasing rate of S increases if th is longer than 40h. If Th is lower than Tg-10K for th= 72h, strain is recovered perfectly by heating and secondary-shape forming does not appear.


Gantry robots are used for precision manufacturing and material handling in the electronics, nuclear, and automotive industries. Light, flexible links require less power, but may vibrate excessively. An implementable boundary controller is developed to damp out undesirable vibrations in a flexible-link gantry robot driven by a brushed DC motor. Hamilton's principle produces the governing equations of motion and boundary conditions for the flexible link. The electrical subsystem dynamics for a permanent magnet brushed DC motor couple with the link dynamics to form a hybrid system of partial and ordinary differential equations. A boundary voltage control law is developed based on Lyapunov theory for distributed parameter systems. Through an embedded desired-current control law, the integrator backstepping controller generates the desired control force on the mechanical subsystem. A velocity observer estimates the gantry velocity, eliminating one feedback sensor. Modal analysis and Galerkin's method generate the closed-loop modal dynamics. Numerical simulations demonstrate the improved vibration damping characteristics provided by the backstepping boundary control law. Experimental results confirm the theoretical predictions, showing the high performance of backstepping boundary control.


We analyzed mutant alleles of adenine phosphoribosyltransferase (APRT) deficiency in Japanese patients. Among 141 defective APRT alleles from 72 different families, 96 (68%), 30 (21%), and 10 (7%) had an ATG to ACG missense mutation at codon 136 (APRT*J allele), TGG to TGA nonsense mutation at codon 98, and duplication of a 4-bp sequence in exon 3, respectively. The disease-causing mutations of only four (3%) of all the alleles among Japanese remain to be elucidated. Thus, a diagnosis can be made for most of the Japanese APRT-deficient patients by identifying only three disease-causing mutations. All of the different alleles with the same mutation had the same haplotype, except for APRT*J alleles, thereby suggesting that alleles with the same mutation in different families were derived from the same ancestral gene. Evidence for a crossover or gene conversion event within the APRT gene was observed in an APRT*J mutant allele. Distribution of mutant alleles encoding APRT deficiency among the Japanese was similar to that seen in cystic fibrosis genes among Caucasians and Tay-Sachs genes among the Ashkenazi Jews.


Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection (genotype 3) has been described in developed countries as a cause of chronic hepatitis in recipients of solid organ transplantation (SOT), with the first cases reported in 2008. Immunosuppression seems to play a major role in the pathogenesis of chronic infections. The current gold standard for the diagnosis of HEV infection is the detection of HEV RNA in serum, stools, or both. In liver transplant recipients, HEV infection is considered an uncommon disease; however, a high index of suspicion is needed for patients with graft hepatitis of an unclear etiology. Liver transplant recipients seem more likely to develop chronic HEV after an acute infection, and there is accelerated progression to advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis. A decrease in immunosuppression is considered the first line of treatment, and pegylated interferon can be considered the second line of treatment for liver transplant recipients. At the present time, there are not enough data to recommend treatment with ribavirin for adult liver transplant recipients, although this has been tried in other SOT populations. Liver Transpl 20:15–24, 2014. © 2013 AASLD.


purpose: discuss application of virtual reality in self-propelled agricultural machine test; Method: analyze current farm environment, establish 3D virtual scenario of a farm, construct a virtual reality system combining physical engine, mechanical kinematics and dynamics, and simulate whole performance of the self-propelled machine based on virtual reality; Result: the agricultural mechanical system based on virtual reality can accurately capture the realistic road conditions and accurately fit the navigation routes. The climbing and line brake test simulation results of the self- propelled agricultural machine indicate that the whole traction, speed and vertical shift comply with the actual conditions and validate relation between the speed and shift. Conclusion: the agricultural machine design based on virtual reality is valuable for research on the agricultural modernization, which can reduce design cycle of the agricultural machine, lower design cost of agricultural machines, and improve mechanical performance, so it should be emphasized in industrial production.


Motivation RNA-protein interactions are key effectors of post-transcriptional regulation. Significant experimental and bioinformatics efforts have been expended on characterizing protein binding mechanisms on the molecular level, and on highlighting the sequence and structural traits of RNA that impact the binding specificity for different proteins. Yet our ability to predict these interactions in silico remains relatively poor. Results In this study, we introduce RPI-Net, a graph neural network approach for RNA-protein interaction prediction. RPI-Net learns and exploits a graph representation of RNA molecules, yielding significant performance gains over existing state-of-the-art approaches. We also introduce an approach to rectify particular type of sequence bias present in many CLIP-Seq data sets, and we show that correcting this bias is essential in order to learn meaningful predictors and properly evaluate their accuracy. Finally, we provide new approaches to interpret the trained models and extract simple, biologically-interpretable representations of the learned sequence and structural motifs. Availability Source code can be accessed at https://www.github.com/HarveyYan/RNAonGraph. Contact firstname.lastname@example.com, email@example.com


In this paper, a high-performance and low-cost COFDM baseband processor is presented. With algorithm exploration in channel estimation and phase error tracking, synchronization becomes more robust to enhance system performance. And better design SNR (1.35/spl sim/7.16dB) can be achieved compared to current solutions. Moreover through architectural exploration, the proposed baseband processor designed in 0.18um CMOS process contains only 370K logic gates and 3.3Kbyte memory. Measurement results show that better hardware efficiency and performance enhancement is achieved for high-speed WLAN applications.


An ion-exchange terpolymer resin was synthesized from acrylic acid-maleic anhydride-vinyl acetate. The resin was characterized by FTIR. The thermal analysis (TGA) was performed at the heating rate of 20oC/min in N2 atmosphere. The ion-exchange property of the terpolymer showed a powerful adsorption towards specific metal ions like Cu2+, Fe2+, Ni2+ and Co2+. A batch equilibration method was adopted to study the selectivity of the metal ion between the resin and a solution containing the metal ion. The effect of external stimuli, such as the solution pH, ionic strength, resin quantity, contact time and temperature was investigated.


The purpose of this study was to determine the capability of Dynamic Governance aspects of thinking across the Building and Environmental Planning in the Kutai Timur Regency Strategic Area (RTBL KSK). This research method uses qualitative research with descriptive research type. Data collection is done by: Interview, Observation, and Documentation. Activities in data analysis, namely data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification. The results of the study show aspects of thinking across the Building and Environmental Planning in the Regency Strategic Area (RTBL KSK) East Kutai show indicators that are still weak in terms of evaluation and adjustment. Adopted from the Building and Environmental Planning (RTBL) can not be separated from the concept called Urban Design (UD). Urban design is three dimensional, short term, with more emphasis on safety, aesthetics/character, and harmony with the environment. The evaluation indicators that need to be considered are land use mismatches and land-use intensity. Furthermore, the KSK RTBL is a strategic program action plan for handling the problems of settlement and infrastructure development in the field of Cipta Karya in priority areas in urban areas as an area that can contribute to minimum food security for consumption in East Kutai Regency and is directed to be developed to meet the needs of East Kutai Regency.


Twist drill is widely used in hole-making process in industries, due their low production cost and ease of regrinding after wear. However, drilling of fiber reinforced plastics with twist drill often results in defects and damages, such as delamination, debonding, spalling and fiber pullout. The chisel edge of twist drill is the mainly influence for the thrust force and the hole quality in drilling carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) laminates. Pre-drilled pilot hole or reduce chisel edge can eliminate the threat for twist drill in drilling induced-delamination. Drilling-induced thrust force was selected as quality character factors to optimize the drilling parameters (drill type, feed rate and spindle speed) to get the smaller the better machining characteristics by Taguchi method. The results show that the feed rate and drill type are the most significant factor affecting the induced-thrust in drilling CFRP laminates.


Background Anatomical and experimental data indicate that onabotulinimtoxin A could be more efficient and cost-effective for treating chronic migraine with injections targeting the cranial sutures, where collaterals from the meninges penetrate the skull. Methods A new injection paradigm (FollowTheSutures) was tested for safety, tolerability and feasibility in a Phase II, open-label, non-controlled, single-center pilot study. Ninety units of onabotulinimtoxin A (Botox®), were injected in 18 sites over the area of the cranial sutures. Adverse events and potential beneficial effects were recorded in a headache diary at least 4 weeks before, and for 12 weeks after the injections. A higher dilution than normal of onabotulinimtoxin A was used to get better diffusion. Results Nineteen (of 20 included) women with chronic migraine received the injections and were evaluable. There was only one treatment-related adverse event (reduced power of chewing for some weeks). Otherwise, the procedure was overall well tolerated. Patients improved on most efficacy parameters after the injections. There was little or no effect on glabellar or forehead lines. Conclusions The protocol was safe and well tolerated. Lower risk of unblinding due to the absence of cosmetic effects should make the injection procedure well suited for a large, randomized, placebo-controlled study. If efficacy is confirmed, it will be markedly less costly than the standard procedure. Trial registration: EUDRACT (2017-002516-13), ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03543254).


Exotic grasses capable of increasing frequency and intensity of anthropogenic fire have invaded subtropical and tropical dry forests worldwide. Since many dry forest trees are susceptible to fire, this can result in decline of native species and loss of forest cover. While the contribution of exotic grasses to altered fire regimes has been well documented, the role of native grasses in contributing to fuel loads in dry forest has received little attention. We assessed differences in fuel conditions among native and exotic grasses within a subtropical dry forest preserve in Puerto Rico. We quantified fine fuel loads, fuel continuity, and seasonal changes in percent dead grass among the following grass patch types: (1) native grass with no known history of recent fire, (2) exotic grass that had burned once (single burn), and (3) exotic grass that burns frequently. Sampling was conducted during one wet season (August to October 2008) and again in the following dry season (February to March 2009). Overall, fine fuel loading was highest in native grass, but this was due to woody fuels rather than grass fuels. Percent of dead grass fuels increased with the transition from wet to dry season, and this increase was more pronounced for exotic grasses. Fuel continuity was highest in frequently burned exotic grass. Differences in grass phenology and fuel continuity may contribute to differences in fire frequency among native and exotic grass patches. Fuel management focused on prescribed fire should be used in conjunction with restoration of tree canopy to reduce fuels and limit development of a grass-fire cycle.


Carotid cavernous fistulae are an uncommon disease. They are classified as direct or indirect. In direct fistulas there is an abnormal communication between the internal carotid artery and the cavernous sinus. Indirect forms have an abnormal bypass between the meningeal branches of the internal and/or external carotid arteries and the same sinus. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the anatomy of the envolved area and the clinical findings, diagnostic evaluation and treatment.


Sharing multimedia content, without obtaining consent from the people involved causes multiparty privacy conflicts (MPCs). However, social-media platforms do not proactively protect users from the occurrence of MPCs. Hence, users resort to out-of-band, informal communication channels, attempting to mitigate such conflicts. So far, previous works have focused on hard interventions that do not adequately consider the contextual factors (e.g., social norms, cognitive priming) or are employed too late (i.e., the content has already been seen). In this work, we investigate the potential of conversational agents as a medium for negotiating and mitigating MPCs. We designed MediationBot, a mediator chatbot that encourages consent collection, enables users to explain their points of view, and proposes solutions to finding a middle ground. We evaluated our design using a Wizard-of-Oz experiment with N = 32 participants, where we found that MediationBot can effectively help participants to reach an agreement and to prevent MPCs. It produced a structured conversation where participants had well-clarified speaking turns. Overall, our participants found MediationBot to be supportive as it proposes useful middle-ground solutions. Our work informs the future design of mediator agents to support social-media users against MPCs.


We show that large public companies in the United States change the assumptions of the benefit formulas of the defined benefits pension plans for their top executives in anticipation of plan freezes and executive retirements. In particular, on average top executives receive a boost in annual bonuses (an input of the pension benefit formula) by 15–50% one year before pension freezes and executive departures. Such boosts are not driven by firm performance or other known determinants of annual bonuses. Our findings are also robust to alternative research designs that address potential endogeneity problems. Interestingly, we do not find significant increases in equity awards, which do not affect the value of pension benefits, before pension freezes or executive departures.


In this article it is maintained that the extant Zand ī Wahman Yasn is a work which was composed to be recited orally. In it mythological and historical material familiar to both storyteller and audience is woven into an integral text whose purpose is to interpret contemporary events. An analysis of each chapter shows how various rhetorical devices belonging to every level of language are used to underscore the contents and give cohesion to the text. These devices include alliteration and assonance, grammatical parallelism, and clusters of synonyms. Different types of dialogues and monologues are discussed and comparisons are made with other extant texts with apocalyptic themes.


This essay explores the concepts of karma and rebirth in the light of some key themes from the later work of Wittgenstein. After clarifying what it means to "bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use" it is considered how certain Wittgenstein-influenced philosophers, notably İlham Dilman and D. Z. Phillips, have sought to recover the meaning of "soul" from metaphysical misappropriations by invoking Wittgenstein's notion of a "picture" The sort of conceptual recovery involved in this task resembles, in some respects, the "demythologizing" and "psychologizing" approaches of certain interpreters of the doctrine of karma and rebirth, especially within the context of Buddhist studies. Illustrative examples of these approaches are compared and contrasted and discussed in relation to instances of individuals articulating their belief in karma and rebirth. On the basis of this discussion, it is concluded that the interpretive approaches in question fail to account for the sense of individual responsibility for one's own present circumstances that is central to how talk of karma and rebirth frequently operates "in the stream of thought and life."


"Without consciously looking at them, we breath in our surroundings with all our senses." - Christopher Day  Te Aō Māori revolves around a holistic world view and similarly, this paper too begins there. There is this opportunity here to understand that there is more to a space than just architectural form, especially an interior. These spaces encapsulate an atmosphere that is created by people, expressed through art; both visual and haptic.  Theoretical views that share this perspective all seem to converge at a point that describes these spaces through a more embodied outlook. A stronger appreciation is placed on the abilities of our suppressed bodily senses and the strength of presence in creating a spatial identity that places itself among our bodies memory.  Interior capacities that are full of atmosphere are like creative expressive mediums of simple translation between mind and body. Māori people convey this innate ability to shape space in a way that touches the skin with a presence and engraves a footprint memory in the mind. Embodiment is something recognized in Māoridom through this understanding of Te Aō Māori however it is missing from the interior spaces which Māori organizations are currently inhabiting in the corporate realm. This culture proudly structures itself around holistic values within a unique world of symbolism (Marsden, 1992, p12) and while being intricately informed by a cultural lense, this perspective isn't conveyed within western dominated corporate building facilities (see appendix 01).  Māori organizations are now finding themselves climbing higher within an economic domain that is prevalent to Western corporations (Berl). This is creating a scenario where cultural symbolism and values, all that contributes to this cultural identity seems compromised. (Marsden, 2003, p24-25) One of the higher three indigenous entrepreneurial persons in the world, (Himona) Māori people are quietly succeeding with credit to culturally embedded values.  Within this context there is a varying degree of material that ranges from design and research approached through purposeful intentions, to understanding the body and space in this scenario through a cultural lense, and implementing this into a western corporate structure. This context is complex and so the path of this research paper too should respond in such a way, before a finalized outcome can be sought and produced.  Miromoda, the Indigenous Māori Fashion Apparel Board (IMFAB) is one example, of a non-profit organization that strives to raise the standards and awareness for those in the Māori Fashion industry. Without a permanent physical site, as Miromoda crew co-ordinate during their spare time, the identity of this Māori organization becomes prevalent only at events and gatherings. Challenging and questioning how the presence of their entities essence can be portrayed in such a situation and temporary context.  It is inadequate to continue efforts of Western corporate framework application into an indigenous domain that deserves more distinction. There is disconnection within this economic society that differs to that of Māori culture (Marsden, 2003, p125-126). Their value of capitalizing overrides any spiritual and cultural considerations because profit is end game. To understand what is being compromised, leads to comprehension that cultural identity shouldn't be morphed for acceptance. There is a difference between applying superficial visual touches to a space to tick the correct boxes of acknowledgement than designing with more purposeful intent.


In this study, Eudragit S-100 has been covalently bound to the cellulase enzyme to form immobilized cellulase enzyme and then the effect of the treatment on ramie fabric properties is studied. The ramie fabrics treated with immobilized cellulase enzyme show lower quantities of reducing sugar, weight loss, and higher tensile strength than native cellulase enzyme-treated fabrics. Scanning electron microscopic analysis shows that the surface of ramie fabrics treated with cellulase enzyme is smoother than that of the untreated sample. Furthermore, treatment by the immobilized cellulase enzyme is less damaging to the fibres. X-ray diffraction studies show that there is hardly any loss in the crystallinity of ramie fabrics. Low-stress mechanical properties evaluated by the Kawabata Evaluation System for Fabric indicate that immobilized cellulase enzyme treatment improves the softness, flexibility, and elastic recovery of the ramie fabrics.


To the Editor. —Dr Stiell and colleagues 1 published a study comparing the effect of active compression-decompression (ACD) cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and standard CPR on outcomes of in-hospital and out-of-hospital victims of cardiac arrest. They concluded that ACD CPR did not improve survival or neurologic outcomes in any group of patients with cardiac arrest. However, testing ACD CPR in a system in which the ambulance services did not have the capability for endotracheal intubation is biased against successful application of ACD CPR. Since previous animal studies tested the method under conditions that included endotracheal intubation, it is a significant methodological error not to control for intubation. Intubation is an integral part of CPR research because, among other advantages, it ensures a patent airway and allows air to move freely in and out of the lungs. The ACD CPR technique involves the use of a suction-cup device applied to the sternum


The original goal of our labour market yearbooks is to review annually the main developments in the Hungarian labour market and to give an in-depth analysis on selected issues. Experiences accumulated through the publication of the previous volumes (seven in Hungarian and five in English) and their reception in Hungary and abroad confirmed our original idea and gave us the stimulation to enhance both the contents and the quality of the new volumes. This volume consists of four parts: 1. Labour market trends in Hungary: In this chapter we present the main labour market trends in 2006. 2. In Focus: This year we put "in focus" wage formation on the Hungarian labour market. 3. Legal and Institutional Environment of the Hungarian Labour Market: This year's study is a summary overview of the current legislation and rules, having unemployment benefits and active labour market policies in its focus. 4. Statistical data: The closing chapter presents a statistical data set, and gives comprehensive information on the main economic developments, such as demographic trends, employment, unemployment and inactivity, wages, education, labour demand and supply, regional differences, migration, commuting, and labour relations, together with some international comparisons and methodological remarks.


Abstract: Implementation of Faraidh's Provisions In Hibah Wasiat (A Case In Banjar,
South Kalimantan). This research illustrates the practice of inheritance in the Banjar
community of South Kalimantan. The aim is to see the extent to which the provisions
of Islamic inheritance law (farāidh) are applied by the member of society in everyday life.
This phenomenon is revealed through several field research methods, especially in-depth
interviews, the results of which are then analyzed to obtain conclusions. This study found
the fact that although in general, the majority of Banjar people of South Kalimantan
resolved their inheritance cases by farāidh (Islamic inheritance law), there was a tendency
for some citizens to put forward the spirit of "Badamai (Keeping Peace)" to bring up ways of
resolving inheritance cases that seemed varied and unique. In such a model, the formulation
of the inheritance distribution specified in the farāidh is not fully implemented but is
modified through the hibah wasiat (testamentary grant) method. In the case of ashābah bi
al-ghair (heirs of a different gender), the pattern of division of "two to one" is not carried
out by the mushi (testator) because of certain reasons/considerations related to the real
condition of the heirs (economic level, marital status, age, etc).


.The Limits of Rural Capitalism. is an important study of the social and economic development of the Municipality of Montcalm, a largely French-Canadian community in southern Manitoba. It challenges the view in prairie historiography that agriculture had commercialized before the west was opened to settlement, and that ethnic communities alone resisted the market's potential. Using a novel combination of demographic, financial, and legal evidence, Sylvester shows that both Ontario and Quebec migrants came west within family networks, and that neither economic individualism nor ethnic clustering overshadowed the importance of family strategies. In an environment where landed proprietorship was the norm, the demands of parents on the unpaid labour of their children constrained the growth of labour markets, and concerns for farm succession limited the accumulation of wealth. In the shadow of an industrializing and urbanizing world, these people, who came mainly from the District of Montreal and eastern Ontario, sometimes via New England, raised large families, drew largely on the unpaid labour of kin, owned their own farms, limited financial entanglements with outsiders, and established multiple heirs. While household autonomy diminished over time, the limits of rural capitalism persisted.


Reed Muller (RM) codes are known for their good minimum distance. One can use their structure to construct polar-like codes with good distance properties by choosing the information set as the rows of the polarization matrix with the highest Hamming weight, instead of the most reliable synthetic channels. However, the information length options of RM codes are quite limited due to their specific structure. In this work, we present sufficient conditions to increase the information length by at least one bit for some underlying RM codes and in order to obtain pre-transformed polar-like codes with the same minimum distance than lower rate codes. Moreover, our findings are combined with the method presented in [1] to further reduce the number of minimum weight codewords. Numerical results show that the designed codes perform close to the meta-converse bound at short blocklengths and better than the polarized adjusted convolutional polar codes with the same parameters.


The atomic structure variations on cooling, vitrification and crystallization processes in liquid metals face centered cubic (FCC) Cu are simulated in the present work in comparison with body centered cubic (BCC) Fe. The process is done on continuous cooling and isothermal annealing using a classical molecular-dynamics computer simulation procedure with an embedded-atom method potential at constant pressure. The structural changes are monitored with direct structure observation in the simulation cells containing from about 100 k to 1 M atoms. The crystallization process is analyzed under isothermal conditions by monitoring density and energy variation as a function of time. A common-neighbor cluster analysis is performed. The results of thermodynamic calculations on estimating the energy barrier for crystal nucleation and a critical nucleus size are compared with those obtained from simulation. The differences in crystallization of an FCC and a BCC metal are discussed.


In the last decade, information and communication technologies have been highly developed. For convenience, many applications have been installed in smartphones instead of desktop computers. As a popular platform, Google Play presents thousands of mobile applications. Because there are so many dazzling applications, it is difficult for users to determine which are suitable for their needs. Many factors are likely to influence the purchase of an application, such as advertisements, word of mouth, and other media. In deciding whether to purchase an application, users probably refer to customer reviews. Indeed, users may take a significant amount of time to evaluate the legitimacy of the reviews. In this paper, we introduce a concept for recommending applications. Based on pointwise mutual information, we calculate the positive or negative score of semantic orientation in each review. We also consider subjective factors (i.e., public opinion, anonymous opinion, and star rating) and objective factors (i.e., download number and reputation).


An InGaN-GaN thin-film vertical-type light-emitting diode with a two-dimensional photonic crystal (PC) on the emitting surface and a TiO-SiO omnidirectional reflector on the bottom was fabricated. The device was investigated by performing a series of experiments and numerical computations. Electroluminescence measurement revealed a strong extraction enhancement in the vertical direction at 433-nm wavelength. The emission spectrum of the light was found to be strongly modified by the PC to have a significantly narrow linewidth of 5 nm. Our experimental results were in accord with those obtained from our numerical findings.


In the membrane bioreactor (MBR) treating municipal wastewater, the effect of sludge retention time (SRT) on the contents of the extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), tightly bound EPS (TB) and loosely bound EPS (LB) and the ratios of protein and polysaccharide in TB and LB was studied. With the extension of SRT the EPS increased and the ratios of protein and polysaccharide in TB and LB changed. The above changes influenced the charge distribution of bacterial surface, increased the proportion of hydrophilicity and hydrophobicity on the bacterial surface, changed the bacteria from the instable (R-type) to the stable (S-type), decreased the Zeta potential and increased the values of sludge volume index (SVI). The correlation analysis for the main parameters of fouling resistance was performed by SPSS software, and it was found that the correlation coefficient (rp) was -0.818 for Zeta potential, 0.853 for the content of suspended solids in supernatant and 0.832 for relative hydrophobicity, respectively. SRT of the MBR should be controlled below 120 times of the minimum generation-time of dominant bacteria considering the membrane fouling and sludge characteristics.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the current status of sustainability education in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Sample MOOCs were searched for from seven popular platforms and three search engines. After screening, 51 courses were identified as the final sample. Course description, content outlines, reading materials, recommended textbooks and discussion threads were coded to obtain insights into sustainability education learning contents, pedagogical methods, and interaction situations. Results indicated that: (1) Edx and Coursera are platforms that incorporated the most sustainability-related courses, and most instructors were senior academics with the title of professor. American and European countries outperformed other English speaking countries as early birds in sustainability education using MOOCs. The average course length of our MOOC samples is 7.6 weeks, which is much shorter than a typical face-to-face college course; (2) Current MOOCs provided mainly introductory-level courses without prerequisites. Fourteen sustainability-related hot topics and five most popular textbooks were identified; (3) The pedagogical means used most frequently were discussion forums and lecture videos, while pedagogies such as team-based learning were not used to a large extent; (4) Learner interaction flourished in MOOCs, and sub-forums regarding Lecture Reflection, Welcome and Introduction were posted with most threads, replies, and votes. Our findings suggest that the MOOC is an innovative method in sustainability education and research. A variety of information and strategies could be used when preparing sustainability-related MOOCs.


This report presents a programming language with deterministic multithreading and its compiler. The language demonstrates that when making IO and interthread communication sequential, most problems with multithreaded programming disappears, while most of the architectural and some of the performance benefits of multithreading are preserved. Much difficulty in modern programming is a result of insufficient abstraction, and while the popular embedded programming languages are unlikely to be replaced anytime soon, effort still has to be made to figure out the next step in the language evolution. In the language presented, there are also other changes meant to aid in the programming of critical systems besides determinism: Threads are written much like functions, dependencies between functions not contained in each other are explicit and arguments are distinguished by name, not sequence. Finally, threads and objects shared between threads are all visible in a single place.


A fuel quality traceable and remote system for monitoring and controlling fuel characteristics during transport from a fuel supply to a supplied device is provided. The system includes one or more subsystems that include at least one sensor monitoring the characteristics of the fuel. The sensor operably sends the data relating to the characteristics to a data register-transmitter which sends the data to a base station that uploads the data to a remote server. The remote server is remotely accessible by a user. The system can also generate warning messages to warn a user when the characteristics are outside a tolerable range. Further, the system can automatically or manually interrupt fuel transport when the characteristics are outside a tolerable range.


From the perspective of risk control, when hydrogen fuel and fuel cells are used on ships, there is a possibility of low-flash fuel leakage, leading to the risk of explosion. Since the fuel cell space (cabin for fuel cell installations) is an enclosed space, any small amount of leakage must be handled properly. In ship design, area classification is a method of analyzing and classifying the areas where explosive gas atmospheres may occur. If the fuel cell space is regarded as a hazardous area, all the electrical devices inside it must be explosion-proof type, which will make the ship's design very difficult. This paper takes a Chinese fuel cell powered ship as an example to analyze its safety. Firstly, the leakage rates of fuel cell modules, valves, and connectors are calculated. Secondly, the IEC60079-10-1 algorithm is used to calculate the risk level of the fuel cell space. Finally, the ship and fuel cells are optimized and redesigned, and the risk level of the fuel cell space is recalculated and compared. The result shows that the optimized fuel space risk level could be reduced to the level of the non-hazardous zone.


Over the last 10 years, the number of approved disease modifying drugs acting on the focal inflammatory process in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) has increased from 3 to 10. This wide choice offers the opportunity of a personalized medicine with the objective of no clinical and radiological activity for each patient. This new paradigm requires the optimization of the detection of new FLAIR lesions on longitudinal MRI. In this paper, we describe a complete workflow—that we developed, implemented, deployed, and evaluated—to facilitate the monitoring of new FLAIR lesions on longitudinal MRI of MS patients. This workflow has been designed to be usable by both hospital and private neurologists and radiologists in France. It consists of three main components: (i) a software component that allows for automated and secured anonymization and transfer of MRI data from the clinical Picture Archive and Communication System (PACS) to a processing server (and vice-versa); (ii) a fully automated segmentation core that enables detection of focal longitudinal changes in patients from T1-weighted, T2-weighted and FLAIR brain MRI scans, and (iii) a dedicated web viewer that provides an intuitive visualization of new lesions to radiologists and neurologists. We first present these different components. Then, we evaluate the workflow on 54 pairs of longitudinal MRI scans that were analyzed by 3 experts (1 neuroradiologist, 1 radiologist, and 1 neurologist) with and without the proposed workflow. We show that our workflow provided a valuable aid to clinicians in detecting new MS lesions both in terms of accuracy (mean number of detected lesions per patient and per expert 1.8 without the workflow vs. 2.3 with the workflow, p = 5.10−4) and of time dedicated by the experts (mean time difference 2′45″, p = 10−4). This increase in the number of detected lesions has implications in the classification of MS patients as stable or active, even for the most experienced neuroradiologist (mean sensitivity was 0.74 without the workflow and 0.90 with the workflow, p-value for no difference = 0.003). It therefore has potential consequences on the therapeutic management of MS patients.


State-of-the-art automatic augmentation methods (e.g., AutoAugment and RandAugment) for visual recognition tasks diversify training data using a large set of augmentation operations. The range of magnitudes of many augmentation operations (e.g., brightness and contrast) is continuous. Therefore, to make search computationally tractable, these methods use fixed and manually-defined magnitude ranges for each operation, which may lead to sub-optimal policies. To answer the open question on the importance of magnitude ranges for each augmentation operation, we introduce RangeAugment that allows us to efficiently learn the range of magnitudes for individual as well as composite augmentation operations. RangeAugment uses an auxiliary loss based on image similarity as a measure to control the range of magnitudes of augmentation operations. As a result, RangeAugment has a single scalar parameter for search, image similarity, which we simply optimize via linear search. RangeAugment integrates seamlessly with any model and learns model- and task-specific augmentation policies. With extensive experiments on the ImageNet dataset across different networks, we show that RangeAugment achieves competitive performance to state-of-the-art automatic augmentation methods with 4-5 times fewer augmentation operations. Experimental results on semantic segmentation, object detection, foundation models, and knowledge distillation further shows RangeAugment's effectiveness.


In this paper we prove that all initially-smooth solutions of the Euler-Weil-Petersson equation, which describes geodesics on the universal Teichm\"uller space under the Weil-Petersson metric, will remain smooth for all time. This extends the work of Escher-Kolev for strong Riemannian metrics to the borderline case of $H^{3/2}$ metrics. In addition we show that all initially-smooth solutions of the Wunsch equation, which describes geodesics on the universal Teichm\"uller curve under the Velling-Kirillov metric, must blow up in finite time due to wave breaking, extending work of Castro-C\'ordoba and Bauer-Kolev-Preston. Finally we illustrate these phenomena in terms of conformal maps of the unit disc, using the conformal welding representation of circle diffeomorphisms which is natural in Teichm\"uller theory.


BACKGROUND
Palliative sedation (ps), the continuous use of sedating doses of medication to intentionally reduce consciousness and relieve refractory symptoms at end of life, is ethically acceptable if administered according to standards of best practice. Procedural guidelines outlining the appropriate use of ps and the need for rigorous documentation have been developed. As a quality improvement strategy, we audited the practice and documentation of ps on our palliative care unit (pcu).

METHODS
A pharmacy database search of admissions in 2008 identified, for a subsequent chart review, patients who had received either a continuous infusion of midazolam (≥10 mg/24 h), regular parenteral dosing of methotrimeprazine (≥75 mg daily), or regular phenobarbital. Documentation of the decision-making process, consent, and medication use was collected using a data extraction form based on current international ps standards.

RESULTS
Interpretation and comparison of data were difficult because of an apparent lack of a consistent operational definition of ps. Patient records had no specific documentation in relation to ps initiation, to clearly identified refractory symptoms, and to informed consent in 60 (64.5%), 43 (46.2%), and 38 (40.9%) charts respectively. Variation in the medications used was marked: 54 patients (58%) were started on a single agent and 39 (42%), on multiple agents. The 40 patients (43%) started on midazolam alone received a mean daily dose of 21.4 mg (standard deviation: 24.6 mg).

CONCLUSIONS
The lack of documentation and standardized practice of ps on our pcu has resulted in a quality improvement program to address those gaps. They also highlight the importance of conducting research and developing clinical guidelines in this area.


A diel biogeochemical study was performed to assess the influence that periods of elevated biological activity have on the biogeochemical cycling of macronutrients and redox-sensitive elements in a natural estuarine environment. High-resolution data (15 min sampling) illustrates periodic extreme variations in dissolved oxygen (DO) in the shallow waters of Azevedo Pond, Elkhom Slough, California. During periods of low tidal flushing, DO values can range from highly oxic (>560 μM O2: >250% saturation) during sunny days to suboxic conditions (<5 μM) at night. Nutrient cycling and redox-sensitive trace element biogeochemistry were evaluated in response to the extreme daily DO fluctuations. A diel sampling study was conducted over a 26-h period, where O2 concentrations ranged from 346 μM to sustained non-detectable levels in the night hours. In concert with the DO fluctuations, diel phosphate cycling was on the order of 4 μM in response to tidal flushing events and biological assimilation and regeneration. The IO3−/I− redox couple quickly responded to suboxic conditions in the water column by a marked increase in I− concentrations and corresponding depletion of IO3−. The extreme fluctuations of the p∈ in the water column resulted in diel dissolved Mn2+ variations of nearly 5 μM, with observed dissolved Mn removal rates on the order of 1 μM h−1. The elevated biogeochemical cycling of oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, iodine, manganese, and iron found in this shallow estuarine environment suggest that tidal restrictions and anthropogenic nutrient enrichments can amplify diel variations and potentially hinder the functional and ecological stability of these systems. These data suggest that accurate chemical monitoring of the health of an estuarine ecosystem must account for the diel variability inherent in these highly productive environments.


Many science and engineering applications involve solving a linear least-squares system formed from some field measurements. In the distributed cyber-physical systems (CPS), often each sensor node used for measurement only knows partial independent rows of the least-squares system. To compute the least-squares solution they need to gather all these measurement at a centralized location and then compute the solution. These data collection and computation are inefficient because of bandwidth and time constraints and sometimes are infeasible because of data privacy concerns. Thus distributed computations are strongly preferred or demanded in many of the real world applications e.g.: smart-grid, target tracking etc. To compute least squares for the large sparse system of linear equation iterative methods are natural candidates and there are a lot of studies regarding this, however, most of them are related to the efficiency of centralized/parallel computations while and only a few are explicitly about distributed computation or have the potential to apply in distributed networks. This paper surveys the representative iterative methods from several research communities. Some of them were not originally designed for this need, so we slightly modified them to suit our requirement and maintain the consistency. In this survey, we sketch the skeleton of the algorithm first and then analyze its time-to-completion and communication cost. To our best knowledge, this is the first survey of distributed least-squares in distributed networks.


What is the role of political representation by ethnic parties in a multi-ethnic state that has undergone a transition from military rule, and is seeking to resolve protracted intrastate conflicts? The present article examines this question through a contextual case study of ethnic parties in Myanmar – a state that is characterised by unresolved ethnic grievances and conflicts; a political transition that has created new opportunities for ethnic representation; and multiple ethnic parties making representative claims on behalf of ethnic groups. Based on a mixed methods approach, the article documents that ethnic parties have been relatively ineffective in ensuring formal and descriptive representation and have had limited possibilities for substantive representation of ethnic interests. The article also identifies key explanations for the weak electoral performance of ethnic parties, emphasising party fragmentation and vote-splitting as well as weak party institutionalisation and limited capacity to make representative claims. Finally, the article analyses strategies for party-building, in preparation for the 2020 election. Based on the common emphasis on vote-splitting, most ethnic states have seen initiatives to merge parties, while a few parties have also sought to develop their political platform and sector policies. The article concludes that ethnic parties may gain improved formal representation after the next election but questions about the parties' capacity for substantive representation remains. The 2020 election will thus be a new test for how ethnic voters see themselves best represented, in the light of competing representative claims and past experiences: by ethnic parties or non-ethnic democracy parties?


The mass media are key social actors in the articulation of themes of common concern in the European public space, nowadays. Through mediation of messages, symbols and visions on important issues the media may infl uence on which themes to dominate the European public sphere. In this article we examine the patterns of media reporting on important EU-related issues, particularly the issues of Construction of the EU and Reform Treaty, in 16 European countries, incl. Turkey. We analyse the EU-related content of 77 print and broadcast media actors by focusing on two dimensions of media reporting: the frequency of reporting and the attitudes manifested by the media actors while reporting on EU-related issues. Our general fi ndings suggest that at the time of data collection (May-October 2008) there was a prevailing country-specifi c, instead of a unifi ed pattern of media reporting in Europe. Signifi cant interdependencies between the types of state membership (old, new and non-member) and the articulation of both discussed cases, as well as other topics of the EU integration in media are outlined. YOLANDA ZOGRAFOVA


Up until now there has been limited, contradictive data on the high energy range of the cosmic ray electron-positron, proton and helium spectra. Due to the limitations of the use of a magnetic spectrometer, over 8 years experimental data was processed using information from a sampling electro-magnetic calorimeter, a neutron detector and scintillator detectors. The use of these devices allowed us to successfully obtain the high energy cosmic ray particle spectra measurements. The results of this study clarify previous findings and greaten our understanding of the origin of cosmic rays.


The optimized handling of reductions on parallel supercomputers or clusters of workstations is critical to high performance because reductions are common in scienti£c codes and a potential source of bottlenecks. Yet in many high-level languages, a mechanism for writing ef£cient reductions remains surprisingly absent. Further, when such mechanisms do exist, they often do not provide the ¤exibility a programmer needs to achieve a desirable level of performance. In this paper, we present a new language construct for arbitrary reductions that lets a programmer achieve a level of performance equal to that achievable with the highly ¤exible, but low-level combination of Fortran and MPI. We have implemented this construct in the ZPL language and evaluate it in the context of the initialization of the NAS MG benchmark. We show a 45 times speedup over the same code written in ZPL without this construct. In addition, performance on a large number of processors surpasses that achieved in the NAS implementation showing that our mechanism provides programmers with the needed ¤exibility.


Introduction . This research aims at analyzing the novel by Vladimir Nabokov Transparent Things (1972) from the perspective of post-modernist philosophy. By post-modernist philosophy I mean the post-structural view of the sign theory, that focuses on iconicity, symbolic and iconic nature of the sign, the сoncept of deconstruction, the concept of rhizome, the concept of silence, the concept of differance (as stated by Derrida), the concept of difference and repetition introduced by G. Deleuze. This philosophy is linked to a more general view expressed, for instance, by Derrida (in his work the Gift of Death (Donner la mort)). The main innovative element of this research, therefore, is to study the prose by Nabokov as an example of post-modernist writing simultaneously applying the views and concepts introduced by cognitive linguistics, literary critics and post-modern writers like J. Derrida, U. Eco, R. Barthes. Methodology and sources . The research method used is semantic and structural analysis of the novel by Nabokov Transparent Things. Its main tool is the use of ideas introduced by French poststructuralists regarding the theory of sign, the symbolic nature of language, study of multiple meanings generated by a word in the process of its use and decoding. Results and discussion . The results of this research allow to outline main tendencies in the development of the 20th century narrative. It adheres to the general law of multi-level structure of the novel, play of words and sounds, which corresponds to the general view of difference (as coined by Derrida), deconstruction, rhizome, iconicity of sign. The rhizomorphic structure of the novel at the same time is mirror-like, which allows to apply the difference-repetition dichotomy put forward by G. Deleuze. If the micro-structure of Nabokov's texts allows to make generalization about the author's use of language, its macro-structure reveals deeper philosophical notions, implying that the death of the character in the novel leads to the study of the transcendental, or "the Other" in psychoanalytical terms, thus putting the plot on a different scale of values. The view of language and its structure in its relation to the notion of transparency, allows to see the sign in a Heideggerian way, as bearing the replica of the world, having more in itself about the world, than anything else. Conclusion . The novel Transparent Things by Nabokov falls into the category of similar novels in which the author develops symbolic language and explores its potential, following the general pattern and establishing the rules of narrative construction in postmodern tradition.


We present a GPU-based simulator engine that performs all steps of large-scale network simulations on a commodity many-core GPU. Overhead is reduced by avoiding unnecessary data transfers between graphics memory and main memory. On the example of a widely deployed peer-to-peer network, we analyze the parallelism in large-scale application-layer networks, which suggests the use of thousands of concurrent processor cores for simulation. The proposed simulator employs the vast number of parallel cores in modern GPUs to exploit the identified parallelism and enables substantial simulation speedup. The simulator adapts its configuration at runtime in order to balance parallelism and overheads to achieve high performance for a given network model and scenario. A performance evaluation for simulations of networks comprising up to one million peers demonstrates a speedup of up to 19.5 compared with an efficient sequential implementation and shows the effectiveness of the runtime adaptation to different network conditions.


Abstract Although L1 has been treated as a rigid system which is more likely to act as a sender than a receiver of CLI in bilinguals and multilinguals, recent studies have provided some evidence of the influence of both L2 and L3 on L1. The study is aimed at shedding further light on how Lns can influence the native language and how these changes can be explained by means of the Speech Learning Model. The first and second formant of L1 Polish vowels of three groups of multilinguals were compared. Evidence of a systemic influence of L2 on L1 was observed in the raising and backing of L1 Polish vowels due to L2 English and lowering and backing or fronting of L1 Polish vowels due to L2 German. No systemic influence of L3 on L1 was observed. The predictions derived from equivalence classification of SLM were tested for the Polish vowel /ɛ/ and the closest vowels from Lns. The majority of predictions regarding the convergence or divergence of the particular diaphone were supported by the data.


Catalyst is being used by various kinds of industries and most of it are in process plant as
booster for reaction.. After some time, the catalyst can no longer be used and then
reprocessed is needed to make it become useful. Results of the process, another undesired
product or catalyst wastes are being produced. These wastes are normally dumps into
landfill but the increasing quantities and occupy big areas and poses into danger of nature
pollution.
Concrete technology currently focuses on the cementreplacement material(CRM)in order to
find alternatives for cement usage. Pulverized fly ash (PFA) and silica fiune are the most
common cement replacement material which being utilized from waste material. The
contribution in term of strength, durability and permeability are the ultimate goal of
collaborating with CRM besides the economical point ofview.
The main objective of this project is to observe the possibility of recycling the catalyst waste
which is called 'moiinex' into concrete and cement mortar. The research is based on the
contribution of waste moiinex in mortar in term of compressive strength.The approach used
is to determine the oxide content of moiinex and cementitious material (silica oxide) are
expected from moiinex. Scanning electronic microscope is employed to examine this waste.
Study on moiinex as sand and cement replacement is also conducted. Effects of both
replacements on compressive strength are carried out at 3,7,28 days.
In conclusion, it has found that moiinex do contribute to the strength development of mortar
according to experimental casting ofmoiinex as sand replacement and cement replacement.


Previous research implementing stratification on the propensity score has generally relied on using five strata, based on prior theoretical groundwork and minimal empirical evidence as to the suitability of quintiles to adequately reduce bias in all cases and across all sample sizes. This study investigates bias reduction across varying number of strata and sample sizes via a large-scale simulation to determine the adequacy of quintiles for bias reduction under all conditions. Sample sizes ranged from 100 to 50,000 and strata from 3 to 20. Both the percentage of bias reduction and the standardized selection bias were examined. The results show that while the particular covariates in the simulation met certain criteria with five strata that greater bias reduction could be achieved by increasing the number of strata, especially with larger sample sizes. Simulation code written in R is included.


Surface conduction channels on both the n-type and the p-type region of a p-n junction of germanium have been produced and investigated. Channels on the n-type region were produced by an oxygen rich surface environment and those on the p-side were produced by high humidity. At an intermediate, 75 per cent relative humidity, a condition of high surface leakage and no channel was found. A model, based on bending of energy levels at the surface to produce opposite type majority carrier conductivity than is found for the body of the germanium is used to explain the results. The particular channels studied simulate trouble conditions in transistor fabrication and in reliability problems and provide a good linkage for explanation of anomalous effects that are frequently found.


Abstract In the Polish pastoralist tradition there have always been two seminal community events which bracketed the winter season. There was the autumn event of "Redyk Jesienny" when the sheep brought back from the summer alpine pastures were given back to their owners and there was also a spring "Redyk" also called "Mieszanie Owiec" which literally means the Mixing of Sheep. Historically, it was an important event in which the head shepherd, or the baca had to use his magical knowledge to ensure that the big herd made up of sheep from the individual owners would keep together as one and produce enough milk to make this summer venture profitable. To do that he used magic spells and performed rituals learned from his predecessors. The bacas' magical knowledge was frequently in opposition to the powers of the priests who viewed them with suspicion. Today, this spring event of "Mieszanie Owiec" is much changed. It is no longer a private affair of the baca and the sheep owners. Frequently, it is a public event, a tourist attraction, with the priests often taking centre stage. There is even a new, "invented" tradition of region wide "Mieszanie" at the sanctuary of Ludźmierz. There, a small herd of around 200 sheep is symbolically used to bless all the herds going up the mountain pastures for the season. The paper examines how these traditions changed from old ethnographic descriptions and how they are evolving in a modern economic and social reality.


This full-color atlas is the ideal quick consult for clinicians treating gynecologic and obstetric infections. It contains over 200 images to help clinicians recognize, diagnose, and treat a wide range of infectious diseases. Coverage begins with specific organisms - including Streptococci, Chlamydial infections, herpes simplex virus, and sexually transmitted diseases - and proceeds to specific diagnostic guidance for all common gynecologic and obstetric infections. Full-color illustrations aid in identifying definitive visual manifestations of infectious diseases. Abundant tables and graphs summarize essential facts on diagnosis and treatment. Cross-references to the textbook "Infectious Diseases of the Female Genital Tract, Fourth Edition" direct readers to additional information.


In 1828 the Duke of Wellington expressed the opinion that the country Great Britain was most likely to go to war with was the United States. With the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828, relations might reasonably have been expected further to deteriorate. After all, Jackson was a militarist, the Hero of New Orleans. But some Britons actually welcomed Jackson's election. They believed, rightly as it turned out, that Jackson's election heralded a change in American policy. This belief was based on the nature of the Jacksonian opposition to the foreign and domestic policies of the Adams Administration. While pragmatic, this opposition was also founded on some principles which, if put into practice, would greatly alter the policy stance of the United States. This study investigates the circumstances of the downturn in Anglo-American relations in the mid-1820s. Focusing on the economic nationalism of Adams and Clay, typified by their American system, it chronicles the developing crisis over the British West India trade. Jacksonian criticism of the foreign policy of Adams and Clay is detailed, and its contribution to the election of 1828 considered. Once in power, the Jacksonians - whose principles included promotion of overseas commerce, small-scale government, and sectional harmony - brought about a considerable rapprochement with Great Britain. The diplomatic manoeuvrings surrounding the settlement of the West India trade question are considered. So too is the settlement of other issues. This wider rapprochement is interpreted as part of the harmony of Anglo-American interests in this period. To provide balance, factors influencing British policy at this time are also considered. Overall, it is the intention of this thesis, by moving away from character-based interpretations and towards an amalgamation of foreign and domestic policies, to explain the rapprochement in Anglo-American relations presided over by Andrew Jackson.


One of the cause of corrosion is the attachment of bacteria or commonly called as bio-corrosion or Microbial Influenced Corrosion (MIC). This aim of the research was to determine effect of heat treatment process on the bio-corrosion rate of API 5L steel. The treatments were namely, without heat treatment as a control, and with the heat treatment (austempering process). The austenizing process was conducted before the austempering process. All specimens without and with the heat treatment were be used on bio-corrosion test. The bio-corrosion testing was conducted with immersion corrosion test method with artificial seawater salinity of 35‰. Three of species bacteria were be used, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas fluorescens, and Thiobacillus ferrooxidans. The result showed the corrosion rate on API 5L steel without bacteria was 2.7558 mpy, but it reached 3.4273, 3.6062 and 3.7699 mpy after addition with E. coli, P. fluorescens, and T. ferrooxidans, respectively. It was indicating that bacteria can accelerate the corrosion rate. The highest bio-corrosion rate due to T. ferrooxidans without heat treatment process was 3.7699 mpy. Meanwhile, the bio-corrosion rate due to T. ferrooxidans with austempering process was 3.5046 mpy. It was indicating that heat treatment can decrease the bio-corrosion rate.


This work aims to develop a multi-component evaporation model for droplets of urea-water-solution (UWS) and a thermal decomposition model of urea for automotive exhausts using the Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) systems. In the multi-component evaporation model, the influence of urea on the UWS evaporation is taken into account using a NRTL activity model. The thermal decomposition model is based on a semi-detailed kinetic scheme accounting not only for the production of ammonia (NH3) and isocyanic acid (HNCO), but also for the formation of heavier solid by-products (biuret, cyanuric acid and ammelide). This kinetics model has been validated against gaseous data as well as solid-phase concentration profiles obtained by Lundstroem et al. (2009) and Schaber et al. (2004). Both models have been implemented in IFP-C3D industrial software in order to simulate UWS droplet evaporation and decomposition as well as the formation of solid by-products. It has been shown that the presence of the urea solute has a small influence on the water evaporation rate, but its effect on the UWS temperature is significant. In addition, the contributions of hydrolysis and thermolysis to urea decomposition have been assessed. Finally, the impacts of the heating rate as well as gas-phase chemistry on urea decomposition pathways have been studied in detail. It has been shown that reducing the heating rate of the UWS causes the extent of the polymerization to decrease because of the higher activation energy.


The possible role of the most abundant structural protein of Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV), the nucleocapsid protein (NP), in inducing protective immune responses has only been evaluated preliminarily in mice but not in any natu- ral host species. In this study we demonstrate that a soluble recombinant RVFV subunit NP in combination with adjuvants (ISA50, Alhydrogel, TiterMax Gold or SaponinQ) is highly immunogenic in mice and sheep but the level of clinical pro- tection and virus replication in mice after lethal challenge was dependent on the adjuvant used. Immunization with NP in combination with Alhydrogel conferred 100% protection against morbidity, mortality and viral replication in mice, but sterilizing immunity could not be achieved in sheep with any NP/adjuvant combinations used. Although this is the first study showing that sterilizing immunity can be elicited in mice immunized with a RVFV subunit nucleocapsid protein, our findings seem to suggest that mice might not be the best animal model for studying the protective ability of RVF subunit vaccines. The results of our study also emphasize the importance of adjuvant selection when evaluating subunit RVF vaccines.


The construction industry is based on craftsmanship. Quality control and assurance procedures applied in manufacturing cannot usually be readily applied in construction, where there are higher degrees of uniqueness in each project. One category of companies, industrialized housebuilders, is attempting to bridge some of the gaps between construction and manufacturing. These companies prefabricate building modules for later assembly at the building site. Since they are wholly responsible for large parts of the building process, these companies have greater opportunities to control and improve quality in a more consistent way than ordinary construction companies. Thus, it could be hypothesized that the frequency and severity of defects should be lower in industrialized housing than in ordinary construction. The aim of the study presented here is to examine this hypothesis by measuring and characterizing defects in industrialized housing. The design and manufacturing processes at two Swedish timber module prefabrication firms has been analysed through interviews, site visits and document reviews. Quality audits from three phases of the building process were compiled, analysed and categorized to provide statistical measures of defects in industrialized housing. The results show that the case study companies are better in terms of product quality than conventional housing.


In the excitation of the resonant state followed by the sequential cluster-decay, the in-plane angular correlation method is usually employed to determine the spin of the mother nucleus. However, the correlation pattern exhibited in a two-dimensional angular-correlation spectrum depends on the selected coordinate system. In particular, the parity-symmetric and axial-symmetric processes should be presented in a way to enhance the correlation pattern, whereas the non-symmetric process should be plotted separately to reduce the background. In this study, three coordinate systems previously adopted for correlation patterns in the literature are described and compared to each other. The consistency among these systems is evaluated based on the experimental data analysis for the 10.29-MeV state in 18O. A spin-parity of 4+ is obtained for all three coordinate systems.