Novel filter media-water quenched slag particles (WQSP) were prepared using waste material- Water quenched slag, clay and pore-forming material with a mass ratio of 3:2:1. Compared with haydite, WQSP had higher total porosity, larger total surface area and lower bulk and apparent density. Tests of heavy metal elements in lixivium proved that SGSP were safe for wastewater treatment. In order to ascertain the application of WQSP ,WQSP and haydite were applied as the media of biological aerated filters (BAF) to treat municipal wastewater in two lab scale upflow BAFs. The results showed that WQSP reactor brought a relative superiority to haydite reactor in terms of chemical oxygen demand (CODcr) and ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) removal at the conditions of water temperature ranging from 200C to 260C and DO ≥4.00 mg·L-1. Therefore, WQSP application, as a novel process of treating wastes with wastes, provided a promising way in water quenched slag utilization.


The work of Adam Smith is often interpreted as a justification of the natural order of economy, an apology which harmonizes individual and public interests. In addition to the concern for the economic system, Smith's books comprise valuable passages in which the role of the state is explored within its both negative and positive implications. Generally, the corpus of his work includes three problem areas of fundamental importance for public economics. The first of these fields consists in the presentation of the tendency toward reciprocity as a significant trait of human behaviour. The second main topic constitutes a definition of the role of the State in economy, and it is based not only on the strictly economic assumption that the State ought to finance activities not profitable for a private person, but also on numerous exceptions. The third central issue then concerns the opportunism of individuals in its various forms. As the outlined topics are crucial for public economics, a further insight into Adam Smith's ways of approaching them may be rewarding.


The advancement in semiconductor circuit design, particularly its miniaturization has increased the circuit sensitivity to electrical stresses. To protect the circuits, transient voltage suppressor (TVS) diodes are used. This device must be tested with the use of high-power tester that is capable to surge high inrush power. In a test manufacturing company that employs manual testing of TVS diodes, the cycle time increases which results to a decrease in the number of unit per hour (UPH). In this study the, the Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) methodology is used to develop an interface test adapter (ITA) that is interconnected between a manual test machine and the unit under test (UUT). The ITA consists of an electromechanical relay (EMR) for switching, a linear actuator for mechanical shifting, and an Arduino-based microcontroller. The ITA is used to automate the testing of eight bidirectional TVS diodes device in a single unit of vertical array package to reduce the test cycle time. This also minimizes human intervention that avoids human handling error and lowers the chances of possible injuries that might happen during the process. Results show that there is sufficient improvement in the test cycle time.


Reusing rubber particles from used tires is good for the environment and, moreover, the world's population is becoming progressively conscious that a very high demand for natural resources is unsustainable. As the concrete industry consumes high amounts of natural resources, both for clinkering and gravel aggregate production, one must focus on its sustainability, considering environmental and economic issues. Therefore, reuse of waste tire rubber in concrete or in other composite materials is a logical solution for sustainable production of construction materials. Hence, the paper is aimed at the development and testing of lightweight concrete composed of a high volume of crushed waste tire rubber used as partial replacement of natural silica aggregate. In order to access the effect of incorporation waste tire rubber-based aggregate in concrete composition, reference concrete mix based on silica aggregate only is studied as well. The crushed waste tire rubber is characterized by its powder density, specific density, and particle size distribution. Specific attention is paid to thermal transport and storage properties of waste rubber that are examined in dependence on compaction time. For the developed lightweight concrete, mechanical, hygric, and thermal properties are tested. The tested lightweight concrete is found to be alternative and environmentally friendly construction material possessing improved thermal insulation function, interesting hygric parameters and sufficient mechanical resistance.


Nanoparticles (NPs) are the particles between 1 and 100 nm. They are widely used in the medical field as delivery vehicles, therapeutics and contrast agents in cancer diagnosis and treatment. There are different types of NPs divided according to the source of used materials. The agglomeration of NPs can be prevented by adding different polymers to their surfaces. The optical properties of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) make them a good system for following the behaviour of NPs in vivo. The surface properties are determined according to the purpose and type of the target. The protein layers covering GNPs is called corona. The composition of corona depends on the particle material, size and surface properties. In this study, different methods (DLS, disc centrifuge and SDS-PAGE) were used to investigate the effect of different proteins, including PGB1, IgG and plasma proteins (cow and calf) on the aggregation of GNPs and how these aggregations could be prevented. It was found that PGB1 did not aggregate the particles while IgG did and the amount of aggregation depends on IgG concentration. In addition, PBS aggregated the particles while the water stabilized them. Finally, some experiments were done on carboxylated and biotinylated GNPs trying to conjugate to PGB1 and streptavidin respectively, but the results were unclear and more studies are needed.


Three new polyoxometalate (POM) supramolecular assemblies constructed from phosphotungstate clusters and S-containing pyridine-based cations had been successfully isolated and characterized. Structural analysis revealed that their formula were (H2PySSPy)3[PW12O40]2·6H2O (1), (H3/2PySPy)2[PW12O40]·6H2O (2) and [Ag(HPyS)]4[Ag8(H2O)9][P2W18O62]2·4H2O (3) (PySSPy = 4,4′-dipyridine disulfide; PySPy = 4,4′-thiodipyridine; PySH = pyridine-4-thiol), respectively. The three crystals were assembled by means of multiple weak intermolecular cooperative interactions of hydrogen bonding, S⋯O, C–H⋯π, etc. In particular, the peculiar supramolecular bond of the 'polyanion–π' binding interaction between the polyanion receptor and the six-membered pyridine ring was described in some detail. These complex and noncovalent contacts efficiently induce the construction of the crystal supramolecular lattices of 1–3. During the formation process of 2 and 3, organic moieties were achieved through the in situ cleavage of S–S chemical bonds in PySSPy. Crystal 3 contains a 3D network constructed from Dawson-like polyanions and Ag–PyS cationic units through Ag–O and Ag–S coordination bonds. One anionic [P2W18O62]6− cluster is bonded to eighteen Ag ions through many Ag–O interactions, presenting an interesting Ag18-supported Dawson structure.


: In the recent JET experimental campaigns with the new ITER-like-Wall (ILW), major progress has been achieved in the characterisation of the H-mode regime in a metallic first wall: i) plasma breakdown and L-mode operation have been recovered in a few days of operation. ii) Stable type I ELMy H-modes with b N ~1.4 have been achieved in low and high triangularity ITER–like shape plasmas and their operational domain at H=1 is significantly reduced with the ILW for equivalent amount of deuterium gas injection than with the carbon wall. iii) Deuterium gas injection (10 22 D/s) are needed to control the core radiation. iii) In contrast, the hybrid H-mode scenario has reached H factor close to 1.3 at b N of 3 for 2 to 3s. iv) In comparison to carbon equivalent discharges, total radiation is similar but the edge radiation is lower and Z eff of the order of 1.3-1.4. It appears that at low gas fuelling (0.5 10 22 D/s), impurity transport plays a key role in the behaviour of the H-mode discharges. This paper reviews the major physics and operational achievements and challenges that JET has to face to produce stable plasma scenarios with maximised performance in an ITER-like wall.


Search and rescue (SAR) mission always takes place when disasters happen. Disaster could be defined into two categories, namely natural disaster and man-made disaster. Natural disasters normally cover a large area making the SAR mission's team require an aerial view from airplane. This is because it changes the geographical landscape of the affected areas in huge perimeters. The impact is not only changing the whole landscapes, but it also impacts on residences, commercial buildings, transportations and communication infrastructures. This is always the primary reason of choosing an air vehicle as a first respond for any natural disaster. Meanwhile, made-made disasters occur in small areas relative to natural disaster. Terrorist bombing, structural collapse because of human failures or serious accident are some examples of man-made disaster. In addition, the effect from natural disaster such as earthquake also resulting horrendous structural collapse. The challenges for this rescue operation are focused on the interior of the rubble and entire external extent of the damage often not as primary interest because most victims are trapped inside, under the rubbles. Locating, extracting and rescuing any survivors will become the main goal for any rescue mission. Besides, the mission also deals with a lot of potentially dangerous situation such as further collapse, explosions, hazardous gas leaks and fire. Extreme high temperature from fire or explosions prevent rescuer to go down further into rubbles. Urban search and rescue (USAR) is the term that is being used recently for the rescue operation after man-made disaster. Conventionally, dog has been used to identify location of any potential survivors in the rubble. Again, capabilities of dog rescuer are restricted by certain working temperature, uncertainty of void size and fatigue factor. USAR operation is like race against time where trapped survivors cannot wait any longer. Further collapse or explosion may happen anytime. Therefore, the rescue team should have ideal strategy and tactic in order to maximize numbers of survivors being extract from rubble but also minimise the risk face by rescuer. Hazards is everywhere at disaster site. Human rescuers as well as dog are exposed to danger such as further collapse which would trap them in rubble and resulting an increased number of victims. This kind of situation make USAR uncertain. As a result, hazard identification and situation awareness have to be conducted concurrently with finding survivors. Robotic system, in many ways, have shown its versatility in wide range of applications. For instance, a modern and sophisticated automative assembly plant employ robotic systems in the production line in order to fullfil a specific part assembly task. On the other hand, robotic systems also started to be used as exploration vehicle in unknown world such as deep sea and outer space exploration purposes. In many aspects, the implementation of robotic systems in these applications have a significant impact to the overall process flow of the specific application. Having said that, mobile robots use in many deep sea explorations help scientists to discover the 'underworld' where human cannot explore. Therefore, implementation of robotic system in USAR operation is inevitable. In fact, it has been used in several USAR operation including the 9/11 World Trade Centre tragedy and Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The physical design of mobile robot is one of the main challenges to implement robotic system in USAR operation. The ability to manouver and negotiate with rough terrain is highly essential. In addition, the physical design is also need appropriate sensors in order to sense the environment. Therefore, the overall mechatronic structure must consist a robust platform equipped with sensors and actuators and able to navigate seemlessly on extreme rough terrain as well as perform designated task (e.g., find survivors, clean debris or conduct onsite disaster assessment). In order for a mobile robot to operate in unknown world such as USAR environment, it is crucially important for the mobile robot to have certain level of autonomy to plan a desired behaviour and act according to the surrounding. Eventhough it is very challenging to program a mobile robot for this type of environment, a comprehensive control architecture provide a systematic overview of the overall programming structure whilst simplifiying the programming procedure. On top of that, the ability of the overall robot system to plan and track its mission is clearly present in the control architecture. Navigation problem, which is one of the common problem in any exploration robot, also can be solved systematically. In general navigation task, a mobile robot is required to move according to the prior designated trajectory, normally in 2-dimension (flat surface). However, a mobile robot that is design for the USAR operation should be able work and navigate in unknown, uncertain and complex environment. This thesis describes the development of a mobile robot system motivated by the shape-shifting or variable geometry tracked vehicle (VGTV) configuration. The mobile robot is designed with expectation to be able to traverse on various types of terrain and enhance stability to prevent tip-over mishap. The practical work is evaluated by experimental trials on prepared terrains such as staircase, ramp and curb. On top of that, the control framework is outlined to set the objectives of the mobile robot system based on the control hierarchy. This set of works is further simulated with the aim to solve navigation problems as well as to determine the mobile robot behaviour when it is required to travel on uneven surface.


Received: October 12, 2019 Accepted: November 15, 2019 Published: December 31, 2019 Volume: 2 Issue: 7 DOI: 10.32996/ijllt.2019.2.7.1 The theme of "identity" in Orhan Pamuk's works, and in specific to this study in The Black Book is prominent. This article aims to approach this work of Pamuk in a psychoanalytic Lacanian criticism. Lacan as a psychologist with a post-structuralist viewpoint, believes that the unconscious is structured like a language. He explains that the language, the signifying chain with a perpetual sliding of the signified under the signifier, never provides "ultimate meaning" or a "transcendental signified". Accordingly, this article, provides a Lacanian reading of Orhan Pamuk's The Black Book with emphasis on the main roles of the "other", and language in forming of the unconscious and individual identity. "Galip", the protagonist of the novel, is in search of his lost wife "Rüya". But in fact, following this lack, he starts his search for knowing himself through a chain of signifiers. His search does not lead him to reach to a complete ultimate meaning of his "self". His bewildered subject cannot anchor at a fix point of integrated and wholeness of the "self". KEYWORDS


Training literature and previous studies on transfer of training provide evidences to support the claim that training works when it is theoretically driven, focused on required competencies, designed to provide trainees with realistic opportunities to practice, and to give and receive feedback. However, some important questions about the transfer of training have not yet been critically examined to explain success or failure of training as intervention strategies used for human resource development. Some of these questions are, for example: What are the critical factors that facilitate or inhibit the process of transfer of knowledge, skills and attitudes from training to workplace? Which of those factors in the organizational environment can be manipulated to maximize transfer? What are the supervisory behaviors or patterns of behavior that can facilitate generalization and maintenance of knowledge and skills from a training context to the work-environment? What could be the roles of different actors in the organizational set up and workplace contexts so as to facilitate positive transfer of learning from training to job? This article presents a brief review of related literature and previous research on organizational and workplace related factors that influence transfer of learning from the training to workplace contexts. In addition to the design and delivery, the extent of transfer of training interventions largely depend upon the culture of the organization and contexts of workplaces where employees are expected to apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they have gained through training and development interventions. This review captures some of the critical aspects of transfer of training that include the influence of workplace and supervisory roles that in fact need further research. Key words: Training; transfer of knowledge; post training supervision; workplace; human resource development Socio Economic Development Panorama ; Vol. 1; No. 4, 2009; January-June


This report assesses progress in implementing the government of India's power sector reform agenda and examines the performance of the sector along different dimensions. India has emphasized that an efficient, resilient, and financially robust power sector is essential for growth and poverty reduction. Almost all investment-climate surveys point to poor availability and quality of power as critical constraints to commercial and manufacturing activity and national competitiveness. Further, more than 300 million Indians live without electricity, and those with power must cope with unreliable supply, pointing to huge unsatisfied demand and restricted consumer welfare. This report reviews the evolution of the Indian power sector since the landmark Electricity Act of 2003, with a focus on distribution as key to the performance and viability of the sector. While all three segments of the power sector (generation, transmission, and distribution) are important, revenues originate with the customer at distribution, so subpar performance there hurts the entire value chain. Persistent operational and financial shortcomings in distribution have repeatedly led to central bailouts for the whole sector, even though power is a concurrent subject under the Indian constitution and distribution is almost entirely under state control. Ominously, the recent sharp increase in private investment and market borrowing means power sector difficulties are more likely to spill over to lenders and affect the broader financial sector. Government-initiated reform efforts first focused on the generation and transmission segments, reflecting the urgent need for adding capacity and evacuating it and the complexity of issues to be addressed at the consumer interface. Consequently, distribution improvements have lagged, but it is now clear that they need to be a priority. This report thus analyzes the multiple sources of weakness in distribution and identifies the key challenges to improving performance in the short and medium term. The report is aimed at policy makers and government officials, academics, and civil society in the fields of energy, governance, and infrastructure economics and finance, as well as private investors and lenders in the energy arena.


In this study, an attempt was made to find reasons why tourists go to particular attractions. Tourists may be either motivated by the attractions or simply make the choice to satisfy their needs and desires. Based on the attractions in Hong Kong, this research was conducted to explore the attraction-related concepts to discuss how the attraction system works. Due to the limited studies on exploring the attractiveness of attractions through tourist movement patterns, the study aims to evaluate such indicators to determine whether tourists are motivated by attractiveness or their own needs. The investigation is conducted through the comparison of different source markets Mainland China, short haul markets (excluding Mainland China) and long haul markets. The latest finding of Departing Visitor Survey (DVS) implemented by the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) is employed for the analysis. Various tourist movement patterns are drawn from the practical data. The managerial implication to destination management organizations (DMOs) is suggested to better allocate attractions according to the needs of tourists. Keywords—Attractions, attraction system, Hong Kong, tourist movement patterns


Oil-based macroinitiator (MI) obtained from sunflower oil was styrenated using reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer polymerization (RAFT) in the presence of phenacyl morpholine dithiocarbamate (PMDC) as chain transfer agent. The solvent effect and effect of the molar ratio of the transfer agent, PMDC, on polydispersity and molecular weight of the polymers were investigated. The obtained results showed that, 1,4-dioxane is a better solvent and 1/4 molar ratio of [MI]/[PMDC] provides relatively low polydispersities. No homopolystyrene was detected under these conditions, indicating the efficiency of PMDC in the chain transfer process. Livingness of the polymerization process was confirmed by chain extension with styrene using the preformed polymer as macrotransfer agent. The film properties of styrenated oil samples were determined according to the related standards. To improve film properties, the polymer obtained by RAFT technique was modified by reaction with MI. The resulting material gave transparent films with good film properties. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012


1.1. Aim To assess the prevalence of MEFV mutations in Caucasian children with Henoch-Schi?½nlein purpura (HSP) and to investigate a possible association between the two diseases in a population with presumably low incidence of familial Mediterranean fever (FMF). 1.2. Methods One hundred and two children diagnosed with HSP between January 2002 and February 2009 were included in the study. Clinical data were obtained from medical charts. Children were tested for 6 common MEFV mutations. To find out the carrier rate of mutations in MEFV gene in Slovenian population a control group of 105 apparently healthy adults was screened. 1.3. Results Heterozygous MEFV gene mutations were found in 6% of children with HSP and in 7% of apparently healthy adults. The most common allelic variants found in both groups were as follows: V726A in 5 participants, K695R in 4 participants, E148Q in 3 participants and M694V in 1 participant. No significant differences in HSP clinical picture between the group of children with and without mutations in MEFV were found. HSP patients with MEFV mutations were younger than patients without MEFV mutations. 1.4. Conclusion In contrast to previously published researches, MEFV mutations are not more frequent in children with HSP comparing to apparently healthy population and have no influence on the clinical presentation of HSP.


This study aims to determine the effect of giving PPC interaction with different frequencies when not flooded in the medium periodically flooded peat on the growth of seedlings of oil palm ( Elaeis guineensis Jacq.). This research has been carried on in the greenhouse UPT Faculty of Agriculture, University of Riau, Pekanbaru, from November 2013 to February 2014. This study used a completely randomized factorial design consisting of two factors and three replications. The first factor is the concentration of PPC consists of 4 levels K0: no PPC, K1: 0.2%, K2: 0.4%, K3: 0.6% and the second factor spraying frequency F1 PPC Consist 3 levels: 1 times, F2: 2 times, F3: 3 times. Parameters those observed: change of plant height, increase the number of leaves, stem diameter, length of the primary root, root number, root volume, the ratio of the shoot root ratio. The data mean separation use DMRT at %. The results show that there is interaction between the concentration and frequency of PPC spraying were the parameters plant height, primary root length, shoot root ratio. A PPC concentration of 0.4% and 0.6% to add 3.17 to 3.78 of the leaves, concentrations of 0.4% and 0.6% to add 9.05 cm to 9.40 cm in diameter rod, concentrations of 0, 4% and 0.6% to add 15.22 to 16.55 strands strands, number of primary roots, a PPC concentration of 0.2% to 0.6% shows the root volume amounted to 95.22 ml to 98.88 ml. Keywords: oil palm, flooding, complementary liquid fertilizer and peat


Concern towards power quality (PQ) has
increased immensely due to the growing usage of high technology devices which
are very sensitive towards voltage and current variations and the de-regulation
of the electricity market. The impact of these voltage and current variations
can lead to devices malfunction and production stoppages which lead to huge
financial loss for the production company. The deregulation of electricity
markets has made the industry become more competitive and distributed. Thus, a
higher demand on reliability and quality of services will be required by the
end customers. To ensure the power supply is at the highest quality, an
automatic system for detection and localization of PQ activities in power
system network is required. This paper proposed to use Slantlet Transform (SLT)
with Support Vector Machine (SVM) to detect and localize several PQ
disturbance, i.e. voltage sag, voltage swell, oscillatory-transient,
odd-harmonics, interruption, voltage sag plus odd-harmonics, voltage swell plus
odd-harmonics, voltage sag plus transient and pure sinewave signal were
studied. The analysis on PQ disturbances signals was performed in two steps,
which are extraction of feature disturbance and classification of the dis- turbance
based on its type. To take on the characteristics of PQ signals, feature vector
was constructed from the statistical value of the SLT signal coefficient and
wavelets entropy at different nodes. The feature vectors of the PQ disturbances
are then applied to SVM for the classification process. The result shows that
the proposed method can detect and localize different type of single and
multiple power quality signals. Finally, sensitivity of the proposed algorithm
under noisy condition is investigated in this paper.


High expression of SQSTM1/p62 (p62) protein, which functions as a hub for various cellular signaling pathways, has been detected in several human cancers. However, the clinicopathological impact of high p62 expression is largely unknown in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). Here, the expression level of p62 in primary EOCs (n=266) was assessed by immunohistochemistry, and its clinical significance was analyzed. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to determine the impact of p62 expression on overall survival. p62 was expressed in the cytoplasm (Cyto) and/or nucleus (Nuc) in primary EOCs, and an expression subtype (CytoHigh/NucLow), showing high expression in the cytoplasm but low expression in the nucleus, was significantly correlated with serous carcinoma (P<0.001), advanced stage (P=0.005), presence of residual tumor (P<0.001), and low overall survival rate (P=0.013). Furthermore, in serous carcinomas (n=107), the p62 CytoHigh/NucLow subtype was significantly correlated with low overall survival rate (P=0.019) as an independent factor (P=0.044). Thus, our findings suggest that high expression of cytoplasmic p62 may be a novel prognostic biomarker in EOC, particularly in serous carcinoma.


So-called word combinations – also referred to as multi-word combinations or multi-word expressions – take shape when certain words regularly combine with certain other words or grammatical constructions. When exploring the word combinations of a language, both collocations and idiomatic expressions to a large extent examined. Collocations and idioms are usually taken to be multi-word expressions whose meaning is more than the sum of the meaning of their components. Focusing on multi-word expressions in bilingual dictionaries, this contribution accounts for an ongoing research and editorial project guiding the elaboration of an English-Spanish dictionary of multi-word combinations. After presenting the lexicographic process leading the elaboration of the dictionary as such, this contribution will proceed to describe the principles determining the inclusion of entries and their presentation in the dictionary. The rationale for this project is based on current lexicographic practices (Hartman 2001) having comprised four stages: (1) pre-lexicographic work, which consisted of a thorough examination of the market of English-Spanish dictionaries given the lack of specific dictionaries dealing with multi-word expressions in this area; (2) the research undertaken for the elaboration of the macrostructure of the dictionary and the use of various sources (e.g. existing English monolingual or multi-word dictionaries; bilingual dictionaries, and corpora), especially as far as usage examples, equivalents and their idiomaticity is concerned; (3) description issues, with a special emphasis on both the description of the multi-word expressions included in the dictionary, and the actual structure of dictionary entries; and (4) final formatting, which entails final presentation and revision prior to editing and publishing the dictionary. Considering Spanish-speaking students of EFL and – to a lesser extent – translators as the potential users of this dictionary, this contribution will conclude with some final remarks of the educational implications of the project herein presented.


We present a data-driven approach for Twitter geolocation and regional classification. Our method is based on sparse coding and dictionary learning, an unsupervised method popular in computer vision and pattern recognition. Through a series of optimization steps that integrate information from both feature and raw spaces, and enhancements such as PCA whitening, feature augmentation, and voting-based grid selection, we lower geolocation errors and improve classification accuracy from previously known results on the GEOTEXT dataset.


Cytosolic NADPH can be directly oxidized by a calcium-dependent NADPH dehydrogenase, NDB1, present in the plant mitochondrial electron transport chain. However, little is known regarding the impact of modified cytosolic NADPH reduction levels on growth and metabolism. Nicotiana sylvestris plants overexpressing potato (Solanum tuberosum) NDB1 displayed early bolting, whereas sense suppression of the same gene led to delayed bolting, with consequential changes in flowering time. The phenotype was dependent on light irradiance but not linked to any change in biomass accumulation. Whereas the leaf NADPH/NADP+ ratio was unaffected, the stem NADPH/NADP+ ratio was altered following the genetic modification and strongly correlated with the bolting phenotype. Metabolic profiling of the stem showed that the NADP(H) change affected relatively few, albeit central, metabolites, including 2-oxoglutarate, glutamate, ascorbate, sugars, and hexose-phosphates. Consistent with the phenotype, the modified NDB1 level also affected the expression of putative floral meristem identity genes of the SQUAMOSA and LEAFY types. Further evidence for involvement of the NADPH redox in stem development was seen in the distinct decrease in the stem apex NADPH/NADP+ ratio during bolting. Additionally, the potato NDB1 protein was specifically detected in mitochondria, and a survey of its abundance in major organs revealed that the highest levels are found in green stems. These results thus strongly suggest that NDB1 in the mitochondrial electron transport chain can, by modifying cell redox levels, specifically affect developmental processes.


During the last decade, S-genotyping has been extensively investigated in fruit tree crops such as those belonging to the Prunus genus, including plums. In plums, S-allele typing has been largely studied in diploid species but works are scarcer in polyploid species due to the complexity of the polyploid genome. This study was conducted in order to analyze the S-genotypes of 30 diploid P. salicina, 17 of them reported here for the first time, and 29 hexaploid plums (24 of P. domestica and 5 of P. insititia). PCR analysis allowed identifying nine S-alleles in the P. salicina samples allocating the 30 accessions in 16 incompatibility groups, two of them identified here for the first time. In addition, pollen tube growth was studied in self-pollinated flowers of 17 Tunisian P. salicina under the microscope. In 16 samples, including one carrying the Se allele, which has been correlated with self-compatibility, the pollen tubes were arrested in the style. Only in one cultivar ("Bedri"), the pollen tubes reached the base of the style. Twelve S-alleles were identified in the 24 P. domestica and 5 P. insititia accessions, assigning accessions in 16 S-genotypes. S-genotyping results were combined with nine SSR loci to analyze genetic diversity. Results showed a close genetic relationship between P. domestica and P. salicina and between P. domestica and P. insititia corroborating that S-locus genotyping is suitable for molecular fingerprinting in diploid and polyploid Prunus species.


Activation of poly(ADP-ribose)polymerases 1 and 2 (PARP-1 and PARP-2) is one of the earliest responses of mammalian cells to DNA damage by numerous genotoxic agents. We have analysed the influence of PARP inhibition, either achieved by over-expression of the DNA binding domain of PARP-1 or by treatment with 3,4-dihydro-5-[4-(1-piperidinyl)butoxyl]-1(2H)-isoquinolinone, on the repair of single-strand breaks (SSB), pyrimidine dimers and oxidative base modifications sensitive to Fpg protein (mostly 8-hydroxyguanine) in mammalian cells at very low, non-cytotoxic levels of DNA damage. The data show that the repair rates of all three types of DNA damage are significantly lower in PARP-inhibited cells. Importantly, the retardation of the repair of base modifications is not associated with accumulation of intermediates such as SSB or abasic sites. Moreover, the influence of the PARP inhibition is not observed in cells deficient in Cockayne syndrome B protein (Csb). The results indicate that PARP activation and Csb are both involved in a novel mechanism that accelerates the global repair of various types of DNA modifications.


This paper begins by recounting the extent to which speculating buyers contributed more than proportionately to housing price volatility and the rate of mortgage foreclosure. The second section turns to the way spec buyers deceived mortgage lenders by committing occupancy fraud, claiming falsely that they were buying as owner occupants so they could benefit from more favorable mortgage rates and terms. The third section starts by describing the mischief spec buyers caused home builders and condo developers by signaling phantom housing demand, and degrading 'for sale' housing tracts and condo developments by leaving newly bought homes vacant or filling them with short term rentals. The fourth section explores the rationale for a government imposed ban on home flipping. This would be a publicly imposed constraint on alienability.


ABSTRACT Based on the job demands–resources model, the study developed and validated an instrument that measures physical education teachers' job demands–resources perception. Expert review established content validity with the average item rating of 3.6/5.0. Construct validity and reliability were determined with a teacher sample (n = 397). Exploratory factor analysis established a five-dimension construct structure matching the theoretical construct deliberated in the literature. The composite reliability scores for the five dimensions range from .68 to .83. Validity coefficients (intraclass correlational coefficients) are .69 for job resources items and .82 for job demands items. Inter-scale correlational coefficients range from –.32 to .47. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the construct validity with high dimensional factor loadings (ranging from .47 to .84 for job resources scale and from .50 to .85 for job demands scale) and adequate model fit indexes (root mean square error of approximation = .06). The instrument provides a tool to measure physical education teachers' perception of their working environment.


Information, education and communication (IEC)related
activities being undertaken by the various
actors in the solid waste management (SWM) system of the Addis Ababa City Administration (AACA)
were reviewed employing a rapid appraisal methodology. Brochures, posters, awareness enhancing and
skills training workshops, compost demonstration sites and event based
radio and
TV based
educational
programs are found to be the major media employed with varying levels of importance in disseminating
SWM related
messages. The coverage and level of coordination among the various IEC related
interventions is found to be low, which precluded achieving synergetic impact. The absence of a citywide
IEC strategy for SWM is highlighted as a missing link in the rather bad state of affairs in the city's SWM
system and hence its sanitation situation. The study has identified a number of issues that should be taken
up in the attempt to create sufficient capacity to plan, execute and coordinate IEC activities in SWM.


From the moment we're born to the moment we die, we produce it. It's as natural as breathing. But many of us can't bear to look at it, touch it or smell it. We dispose of it behind closed doors, flush it down clean white toilets, don't mention it in polite company. It's one of ""civilized"" society's last taboos. Enough! It's the world's most underrated resource. We can cook with it, build with it, admire it, wear it. It's unique (no two examples are alike). It's as old as creation. It will never run out. It's time to celebrate shit.Cacas, the first ever encyclopedia of shit, is a project of Colors. The magazine about the rest of the world, Colors has been on sale bimonthly since 1992 in 80 countries worldwide, in 8 bilingual editions: English paired with Italian, Japanese, Croatian, German, Spanish, Greek, Russian and French. As is the case with every issue of Colors, this book explores a single theme. And, as is the case with the magazine, the book Cacas exists thanks to United Colors of Benetton.-- ""All that glitters is not gold"" Oliviero Toscani-- Explores 68 different types of animal shit from Antelope to Zebra-- A unique cultural anthropology about shit-- Features interesting and fascinating stories around the most natural thing of the world


Spiny dogfish and thornback ray caught from Turkish waters in the northern part of the Sea of Marmara are mainly exported to Greece for human consumption. Therefore, assessing the health risks from heavy metals via consumption of these species is of importance for the Turkish and Greek consumers. The mean levels of heavy metal concentrations were below the guidelines. The weekly intakes through these species were generally lower than the limits for both communities. However, the percent of the provisional tolerable weekly intake of Hg was above 100% for the spiny dogfish, indicating a potential risk only for the Greek consumers. In general, the target hazard quotients (THQs) and total THQs of heavy metals (TTHQs) were below 1. On the other hand, for the Greek population, THQ of Hg and TTHQ indicated a potential risk due to spiny dogfish consumption. The Hazard Index (HI) was above 1 for both populations, but the HI value of the Greek population was more than three times that of the Turks. The total diet THQ (TDHQ) of Hg also indicated a potential health risk for the Greek population. Differences in consumption rates should be taken into consideration when assessing health risks for various populations.


Amat, S., Hendrick, S., McAllister, T. A., Block, H. C. and McKinnon, J. J. 2012. Effects of distillers' dried grains with solubles from corn, wheat or a 50:50 corn:wheat blend on performance, carcass characteristics and serum sulphate levels of feedlot steers. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 92: 343-351. Two trials were conducted to evaluate the effects of corn (CDDGS), wheat (WDDGS) or a 50:50 corn:wheat blend (BDDGS) dried distillers' grains with solubles (DDGS) on performance (Trials 1 and 2), carcass traits (Trial 2) and serum sulphate level (Trial 2) of steers. In Trial 1, 396 steers (281.1±19.6 kg) were fed one of three backgrounding diets. The control diet was 34.3% barley grain, 26.0% grass hay, 10.3% barley straw, 22.8% barley silage and 6.7% supplement [dry matter (DM) basis]. For the two treatments, 17% of the barley was replaced with CDDGS or WDDGS. In Trial 2, 288 steers (273.9±18.5 kg) were backgrounded and finished. Backgrounding diets were identical to Trial 1, with a third treatment where 17% of the barley grain was replaced with BDDGS. The control finishing diet was 86.8% barley grain, 7.4% barley silage and 5.8% supplement (DM basis). Treatments included replacement of 40% of the barley grain (DM basis) with CDDGS, BDDGS or WDDGS. In Trial 1, there was no effect of DDGS on dry matter intake (DMI) (P=0.49), average daily gain (ADG) (P=0.64), feed efficiency (P=0.06), ultrasound fat (USFAT) (P=0.90) or longissimus dorsi (USLD) (P=0.071) area. In Trial 2, overall, DMI of cattle fed WDDGS was higher (P=0.03) than control or CDDGS cattle, with BDDGS intermediate. In contrast, ADG was higher (P<0.01) for the CDDGS and BDDGS than either the control or WDDGS fed cattle. The CDDGS and BDDGS cattle were more efficient (P<0.01) than those fed WDDGS with the controls intermediate. Cattle fed CDDGS or WDDGS exhibited higher (P<0.01) serum sulphate levels compared with BDDGS or control cattle, reflecting differences in sulphur intake. The results indicate that CDDGS is a superior energy source to WDDGS and that both sources of DDGS can be used as a partial replacement for barley in backgrounding and finishing diets for cattle.


The palatine tonsil is a lymphatic structure, part of the pharyngeal ring described by Waldayer. Anatomically, we can discover the palatine tonsils into the palatine fossa of the oro-pharynx, but sometimes in current medical practice we encounter a bilateral hypertrophy of the tonsils which can get very close to one another. Unilateral hypertrophy of the palatine tonsil is not so common in practice and has a wide etiology. The authors try to make an up-to-date of the causes of unilateral hypertrophy, focusing on the different therapeutic modalities on each specific pathology.


As the
competition in the market is increasingly fierce, increasing consumers'
switching cost has already become an important strategy for enterprises.
However, existing research lacks discussion about switching costs in the
standard competition market. This research develops a model of switching costs'
impact on customer retention in the standard competition market. The findings
suggest that in the standard competition market, different factors that affect
customer switching costs have different effects on switching costs. Technology
standard complexity, technology upgradability, and customer investment have
significant positive influences on switching costs, but the customer experience
presents the negative correlation with switching costs. Furthermore, switching
cost is positively related with customer retention, especially the lost benefit
cost which has the largest impact on customer retention. This study improves
the researches of switching costs antecedent influencing factors, and it is of
much importance for enterprises in the standards competition to manage
switching costs better and implement customer retention.


The paper examines the contributions of the Marine Department to the development of the colonial economy and its impact on the maritime development of Nigeria. It further investigates how the colonial Maritime Department could be described as the chief exploitative instrument used by the British to perpetuate their exploitative policies in the Colonial Nigerian State. The paper relies on both primary and secondary sources. The primary sources were based on oral interviews and archival materials. Secondary sources on the other hand, included literature such as books and newspapers. The oral interviews were recorded and transcribed for analysis. The documentary data were subjected to internal and external criticism for authentication and then to textual and contextual analysis The paper finds out that the activities of the Marine Department opened up the littoral routes through the dredging of Nigeria's maritime environment for trade between the coastal states and their hinterland counterpart fostering a merger of both economies, paving the way for the colonial economic exploitation of Southern Nigeria. The paper proves that the Marine Department was a significant revenue earner for the colonial administration. This means that it was the Marine Department that opened up littoral routes through the dredging of the maritime floor between coastal and hinterland states and it merged both economies, in the Southern Nigeria.


It is now recognized that the beta-subunit of the interleukin-6 (IL-6) receptor, also known as gp130, is a common signal transducer shared by other cytokines, including ciliary neurotrophic factor, leukemia inhibitor factor, oncostatin M, and IL-11. In this study, the biosynthesis and glycosylation of hepatic gp130 were investigated using a specific polyclonal antibody to the 287 amino acid cytoplasmic domain of gp130. Immunoprecipitation and metabolic labeling experiments demonstrate, in addition to a mature surface expressed gp130, the presence of a major immature form of the molecule within the cell. The immature form can shift to become a functional gp130 only after being terminally glycosylated. The kinetics of gp130 maturation and surface expression were determined. When both forms of gp130 are deglycosylated the resulting core peptides migrate to identical positions in a denatured protein gel, indicating that the principal difference between the two forms resides in the extent of their glycosylation. IL-6 and other members of this cytokine family activate only the mature form, demonstrating its location at the membrane surface. Protein and mRNA turnover studies reveal gp130 to be a stable, slowly renewing population under nonstimulated conditions. These findings provide novel information on the intracellular events leading to the expression of this critically important signal transducing protein.


There are two groups of traffic models that usually used in telecommunication network design, planning and performance evaluation. They are aggregate and individual models. In case of individual models, measurement-based studies are the most common approach used to obtain an accurate traffic model. The common assumption used in this approach is that the data link layer protocol (i.e., layer 2 of OSI Reference Model) does not significantly affect traffic characteristics of its higher layer where the traffic characteristics are of interest. In other words, this hypothesis assumes that traffic characteristics at the input of the data link protocol is statistically the same as the traffic characteristics at its output, i.e., the physical layer where the measurement can be easily done. This hypothesis is addressed as the null hypothesis. This thesis is concerned with testing the validity and investigating the sensitivity of . the null hypothesis against several parameters. For these purposes, an Ethernet network simulation model is developed and several statistical methods are utilised. Several simulation network configurations are considered as test configurations which represent different combination of test parameters, namely network parameters, protocol parameters and user parameters. Those configurations are used l to test the null hypothesis under two different traffic source models, i.e., Poisson and Pareto traffic models. Statistical test results indicated that the validity of the null hypothesis mostly depends on traffic model under consideration and is sensitive to the activity level of monitored station. The comprehensive statistical test results concluded that the null hypothesis is valid for relatively low-level activity stations (stations having packet departure rate up to 10 packets/second) and sensitive only to the user parameter of user activity level. In addition, this thesis also presents a case study that demonstrates the liability of applying the null hypothesis in measurement-based traffic modelling without further formal validation.


Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), an immune checkpoint, is a promising target for cancer immunotherapy. However, current IDO inhibitors are not approved for clinical use yet; therefore, new IDO inhibitors are still demanded. To identify new IDO inhibitors, we have built naive Bayesian (NB) and recursive partitioning (RP) models from a library of known IDO inhibitors derived from recent publications. Thirteen molecular fingerprints were used as descriptors for the models to predict IDO inhibitors. An in-house compound library was virtually screened using the best machine learning model, which resulted in 50 hits for further enzyme-based IDO inhibitory assays. Consequently, we identified three new IDO inhibitors with IC50 values of 1.30, 4.10, and 4.68 μM. These active compounds also showed IDO inhibitory activities in cell-based assays. The compounds belong to the tanshinone family, a typical scaffold family derived from Danshen (a Chinese herb), the dried root of Salvia miltiorrhiza, which has been widely used in China, Japan, the United States, and other European countries for the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Thus, we discovered a new use for Danshen using machine learning methods. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) experiments proved that the inhibitors interacted with the IDO target. Molecular dynamic simulations demonstrated the binding modes of the IDO inhibitors.


Introduction: We evaluated a national pilot project on wait-list management using pooled in-patient and day case surgical waiting list across two public hospitals in Ireland - a Level 4 Hospital and a Level 3 Hospital 120km away. We evaluated patients' experiences of the pilot through a survey, and explored the factors contributing to the successful implementation of the pooling project via key informant interviews of members of the receiving site. Methods: A mixed methods study comprising an anonymous questionnaire survey for all patients treated under the project (N=79); and semi-structured interviews with project members in the receiving Hospital. Results: The survey revealed minor issues experienced by patients were related to the pre-admission process. Patients would prefer more information about the transfer process and transport options. Factors that enabled successful pilot implementation: the openness and willingness of both hospitals to try something new, teamwork and open communication, and clinical and administrative leadership. Barriers included: lack of dedicated administrative staffing, and lack of clinician involvement from the originating hospital. For the pilot to operate sustainably and scale up, interviewees recommended the development of a pre-screening questionnaire, and having a single point of contact on each hospital site. They also identified the lack of infrastructural and informational resources, and administrative and clinical capacity, as constraining factors that would restrict further implementation of this pilot. Discussion: The positive patient experiences demonstrate how a pooled waiting list across hospitals could be a feasible means of improving patient flow by transferring patients to appropriate facilities. The qualitative findings corroborate the barriers and facilitators identified in Pomey et al (2013)'s framework as being key to the implementation of wait-list management (Pomey et al 2013). Moreover, we have identified new critical factors that influence the successful implementation of waiting time management strategies at the local level, such as the need to establish proof of concept, the importance of central coordination, a single point of contact and the role of geography. Conclusion:  The pooled waiting list is a good mechanism to enhance the flow of patients across hospital sites within a hospital group. Running the pooled waiting list across hospital sites smoothly require certain enabling conditions such as agreed pre-assessment criteria and central coordination. Lessons Learned: Clinician involvement on the original hospital site is essential if the project is to become sustainable. The importance of central coordination and having a single point of contact on each site would be crucial to the scaling up of the project. More involvement from the originating hospital in setting pre-assessment criteria and in providing patients with pre-travel information would also improve patient experience. Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research: The survey was only sent to patients who had their surgery and not those who declined. The qualitative interviews only involved members from the receiving hospitalFuture research should include the involvement of members on the originating hospital site in exploring implementation factors from their perspectives. More research to identify whether there is a difference between patients who accepted treatment and those who declined.


Recent studies have shown candesartan to be an effective therapy for heart failure (HF) patients, producing a significant reduction in cardiovascular mortality and morbidity. Importantly studies have shown that candesartan is effective in HF patients intolerant to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and in patients already receiving angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors as well as and providing evidence that it may also be effective for HF patients with preserved ejection fraction. The primary end point in the latter group failed to achieve statistical significance owing to the small number of events. This paper will review the data supporting the use of candesartan to treat all HF patients, regardless of their ejection fraction.


There has been a considerable growth in research in recent years into the history of both journalism and sport, two hugely influential areas of popular culture. The two fields cover a wide spectrum of interests and there is much ground that is common to both. However, studies of journalism and the growth of the newspaper industry have largely ignored the role of the sports journalist and the place of sport within a developing press. Moreover, studies of the expansion of commercial sport and the games-playing habit, whilst touching on the place of the press in their development, and utilising newspapers as primary source material, have paid little or no attention to the place of the sports reporter in the promotion and recording of the sporting sub-culture. This thesis aims to address the shortcoming in current research with a study centring on the growth of the occupation of sports reporting from the mid-Victorian era to the inter-war years. The thesis notes the adoption of sport as a circulation aid by the popular press, considers the type of recruit attracted to sports reporting, the job's practical aspects, the position of the sports journalist within the editorial hierarchy, and the acceptance of sports reporting as a legitimate specialism within a widening editorial agenda. The career of journalist James Catton is introduced to the study to examine in detail the manner in which occupational trends impacted upon the individual reporter, and in order to trace the manner in which sports reporting could be said to have adopted a 'professional' outlook during the period of this study.

The thesis reveals the uncertain standing of the sports journalist within the newspaper industry, the part-time nature of much sports reporting, with sport regarded as an occupational rite of passage for the young and the trainee, and the struggle to rid the occupation of a reputation sullied by a perception of hackneyed journalism. The biographical section of the thesis introduces a contemporary voice, that of James Catton, to let it speak to an experience that might otherwise prove difficult to capture. Catton's working life highlights the possibilities and the demands of a career in sports journalism, and the success that the adoption of a 'professional' approach to the work could secure.


Introduction. This subgroup analysis assessed the effects of treatment based on the direct renin inhibitor, aliskiren, or the angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, ramipril, on plasma renin activity (PRA), plasma renin concentration (PRC) and other biomarkers in a 26-week randomised, double-blind trial. Changes in PRA and PRC after stopping treatment were also assessed. Methods. After placebo run-in, 842 patients (mean sitting diastolic blood pressure (BP) 95—109 mmHg) were randomised to aliskiren 150 mg or ramipril 5 mg. Dose titration and hydrochlorothiazide addition were allowed after Week 6 and 12, respectively, for inadequate BP control. Patients completing active treatment were re-randomised to current regimen or placebo during a 4-week posttreatment phase. Results. BP reductions were independent of baseline PRA at Week 12, were greater with aliskiren- than ramipril-based therapy at Week 26 (17.9/13.3 vs. 15.2/12.0 mmHg, p<0.05) and persisted for longer after stopping aliskiren. Aliskiren-based therapy reduced geometric mean PRA (−63%, p<0.05; n=103), while ramipril-based therapy increased PRA (+143%, p<0.05; n=100) at Week 26; PRC increased in both groups (aliskiren: +224% [n=33], ramipril: +145% [n=39], both p<0.05). Four weeks after stopping aliskiren-based therapy, PRA remained 52% below pre-treatment baseline; PRA returned to baseline 2 weeks after stopping ramipril-based therapy. Conclusions. Aliskiren-based therapy produced sustained BP and PRA reductions over 26 weeks; ramipril-based therapy lowered BP and increased PRA. PRA reductions persisted 4 weeks after stopping aliskiren, suggesting an inhibitory effect beyond the elimination half-life of the drug.


Patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) often present a preponderance of small, dense LDL particles (small-LDL), which are associated with a high risk of myocardial infarction. Some studies suggest that PPARγ-agonists increase LDL cholesterol but have divergent effects on various LDL subclasses in T2DM patients. We studied the effect of rosiglitazone on the LDL subclass profile in T2DM patients with verified coronary artery disease (CAD). 58 patients with T2DM (HbA1c < 8.5%) and CAD were enrolled in a 16week, randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled trial with rosiglitazone 8mg/day (n = 29) or placebo (n = 29). The LDL subclass profile was measured with gel electrophoresis. Rosiglitazone improved insulin sensitivity and glycemic control. Total cholesterol did not change after rosiglitazone treatment (p = 0.062, ANCOVA adjusted for gender and baseline values), whereas LDL (including IDL) cholesterol increased from 2.33 ± 0.48 to 2.67 ± 0.61 mmol/l (p = 0.002 vs. baseline, p = 0.0497 vs. placebo) and large buoyant LDL (large-LDL > 250Å) increased from 1.31 ± 0.36 to 1.46 ± 0.42 mmol/l (p = 0.010 vs. baseline, p = 0.044 vs. placebo) in the rosiglitazone group. No significant changes occurred to the concentration of small-LDL (< 250Å), the average LDL particle size, or HDL or triglyceride concentrations. Whole-body insulin sensitivity was associated with the average LDL particle size after intervention in the whole population (r = 0.40, p = 0.002) and in the rosiglitazone group (r = 0.43, p = 0.020). In conclusion, in T2DM patients with CAD, rosiglitazone treatment significantly increases the concentration of large (buoyant) LDL cholesterol, but not of small dense LDL cholesterol. The long term consequences of this divergent effect of rosiglitazone on LDL subfractions require further exploration.


Sexualized torture of men of the enemy front has not gained as much critical attention as that of women. Recently the sexual abuse of the bodies of 'enemy' men at Abu Ghraib have, nonetheless, increasingly drawn attention to the gendered torture of men, though much of the theorizing about such torture remains to be done. In this paper I will draw on Abu Ghraib prison photography to read the logic of military-police torture of male bodies that have been criminalized as the enemy. Of particular interest to such an understanding will be a transnational feminist inquiry into figures of female torturers of male bodies that are differently raced/cultured/nationed. What role do the bodies of women torturers in war literature and war photography play vis-A-vis their male victims? How do we theorize a responsible transnational feminist response to women who torture? Where does transnational feminism stand with respect to "enemies" of the nation?


Microstructure and tensile properties of as-cast and T6-treated Al-4%Cu-3%Si alloy with different applied solidification pressures were investigated. The pressure has significant effect on the formed microstructure. It is observed that as the pressures increase, the porosities were removed, and the size and the secondary dendrite arm spacing of primary α-Al grains decreased evidently, and the morphology of eutectic Si particles changed from long acicular to small granular type. Hence, the tensile properties of the alloy were improved. The research has shown that the aspect ratio (A.R.) of the Si particles decreased after the solution and aging treatment. The A.R of the Si particles in the alloys with applied solidification pressure decreased more remarkably and this indicated that the Si particles can be more prone to be dissolved into α-Al matrix. Thus, the increase of the elongation was achieved.


After surgery most of the surgical patients have to be admitted in a ward in the hospital. Due to financial reasons and an decreasing number of available nurses in the Netherlands over the years, it is important to reduce the bed usage as much as possible. One possible way to achieve this is to create an operating room (OR) schedule that spreads the usage of beds nicely over time, and thereby minimizes the number of required beds. An OR-schedule is given by an assignment of OR-blocks to specific days in the planning horizon and has to fulfill several resource constraints. Due to the stochastic nature of the length of stay of patients, the analytic calculation of the number of required beds for a given OR-schedule is a complex task involving the convolution of discrete distributions. In this paper, two approaches to deal with this complexity are presented. First, a heuristic approach based on local search is given, which takes into account the detailed formulation of the objective. A second approach reduces the complexity by simplifying the objective function. This allows modeling and solving the resulting problem as an ILP. Both approaches are tested on data provided by Hagaziekenhuis in the Netherlands. Furthermore, several what-if scenarios are evaluated. The computational results show that the approach that uses the simplified objective function provides better solutions to the original problem. By using this approach, the number of required beds for the considered instance of HagaZiekenhuis can be reduced by almost 20%.


OBJECTIVE
To describe a new subtype of chronic daily headache in women of a specific age group.

METHODS
Case series.

RESULTS
Eight patients were included in the presented case series. The average age of onset of this distinct headache condition is 57 years. All patients were either perimenopausal or in menopause when the headaches started. The syndrome is marked by bilateral head pain that starts daily from onset and is typically at its most severe intensity the first thing in the morning before arising or when in the supine position. Immediate worsening in Trendelenburg appears to be an almost diagnostic test for the syndrome and occurred in all patients. The majority of the patients had a history of episodic migraine, but the migraines were either very well controlled or had ceased by the time the new headache arose. The bulk of the patients (6/8) were either overweight or obese, although two patients were of normal body mass index (BMI). Neuroimaging showed no abnormalities. All patients responded to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pressure-/volume-lowering medications (acetazolamide or spironolactone), but only one patient was able to completely taper off treatment without headache recurrence.

CONCLUSION
This newly defined subtype of chronic daily headache appears to be caused by a state of elevated CSF pressure. It is hypothesized that a combination of an elevated BMI and the presence of cerebral venous insufficiency leads to this form of daily headache.


The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) entered into force in December 2000; it marks a decisive turn in European water governance and related policies, management practices and restoration trends. After 20 years of implementation through two management cycles, EU member states have transposed the WFD requirements into national law, performed baseline assessments of water bodies, and implemented first measures such as hydromorphological river restoration which aims to achieve 'good ecological status', or at least the potential level targeted for that particular water body, by 2027. So far, however, WFD implementation has shown limited Water Alternatives – 2020 Volume 13 | Issue 3 Zingraff-Hamed et al.: Perception of bottlenecks in the implementation of the WFD 459 success; this weak result has given rise to studies, which are mainly discussions about possible technical limitations of WFD implementation and the appropriateness of monitoring procedures. This paper complements these studies by exploring governance-related bottlenecks that have emerged in the last two decades, as perceived by scientists and practitioners. An online survey was conducted which built on a list of 24 barriers to WFD implementation; these barriers had been identified previously by more than 40 researchers during a workshop in January 2019 and through a literature review. In this survey, the list of perceived barriers to WFD implementation was shared to 130 scientists and practitioners, who were asked to prioritise the items on list. Taken together, four main barriers to WFD implementation were identified: 1) problems related to horizontal intersectoral communication, 2) insufficient land reserves, 3) insufficient staff capacities, and 4) inadequate funding. The results of the analysis of WFD implementation indicated a bottleneck at the governance level that was due to insufficient horizontal collaboration and communication. This result is not in line with previous surveys that identified policy integration as the main bottleneck. We conclude from this that the governance dimension of WFD implementation merits more attention in terms of both research and political consultation in order to identify the needs for action that are key to improved WFD implementation.


This paper presents the modeling of high-voltage direct current (dc) transmission systems with voltage-source converters (VSCs) in security-constrained unit commitment (SCUC). The impact of VSC-DC transmission system on the economics and the security of integrated ac/dc transmission systems is discussed. The nonlinear ac/dc equations are linearized and the Newton-Raphson method is utilized to solve the linearized network in the base case and contingencies. The SCUC solution will determine the optimal hourly schedule of controllable VSC-DC transmission systems in electricity markets. Numerical examples show the efficiency of the proposed model.


Background: Canine demodicosis is an inflammatory parasitic skin disease associated with the presence of excessive numbers of Demodex mites. The pathogenesis involving demodicosis is not completely recognized. It is suggested that demodicosis occurs because of the inability of the host to regulate mite intensity, rather than from an elevation of the mite virulence. The acute phase response is a part of the innate defence system of the host against trauma, inflammation, and infection. Some of the cytokines involved in pathogenic phenomena in canine demodicosis are known as inducers of the acute phase response. Among the large group of acute phase reactants, C-reactive protein (CRP) may have special attention in canine demodicosis, because of its relationship with cytokines involved in the development of skin inflammation. In this study we sought to elucidate the relationship between generalized demodicosis and the serum concentration CRP in dogs. Materials, Methods & Results: Twenty two dogs (n = 14 demodicosis, n = 8 healthy), enrolled in the study were recruited from the dogs referred to 5 different veterinary practices participated. Dogs of various breed, both sexes, entire/neutered were included in the study on the basis of being Demodex canis mite positive on microscopic examination of skin scrapings. Cytological examination of the skin scraping showed no yeast nor bacteria. The animals exhibited at least one of the following clinical signs of generalized demodicosis: presence of = 5 spot lesions, involvement of = 25% of the dogs face or of its body surface, pododemodicosis involving two or more feet. None of the dogs completing the study had been treated with ectoparasiticides or steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in the last 30 days before the onset of the study. Plasma CRP concentration was determined using commercial ELISA test kit and an ELISA reader according to the manufacturer instructions. Statistical analysis were performed by Mann-Whitney U test. P values of less than 0.05 were regarded as significant. Serum CRP concentration was significantly higher in dogs with generalized demodicosis compared to those of control dogs Discussion: The present study presents for the first time a survey of the acute phase protein expression regarding CRP in serum of dogs affected by demodicosis. Results indicated that the concentration of investigated, including serum CRP, significantly increased in infected dogs. From a clinical perspective, acute phase protein measurement is a useful clinical tool in veterinary medicine but further studies are required to assure their value in particular diseases, because the acute phase response shows variation in different species and pathological processes. The mean plasma levels of the C-reactive protein measured in the peripheral blood of the 14 dogs included in the present study with generalised demodicosis were significantly elevated compared to those of the healthy controls. The results indicated that in generalised demodicosis acute phase response can be mobilized. According to results of this study, we thought that Demodectic mite may have the potential to stimulate an inflammatory response in dogs with generalized demodicosis. This information provides a remarkable potential for use in clinical practice for dogs, hence these biological markers may be very useful for the early diagnosis of inflammation due to the demodectic mange. Although the numbers of dogs investigated in this study was small, CRP concentration could be beneficial in monitoring the response to treatment in dogs with generalized demodicosis. Further studies are warranted for evaluating the clinical usage of this parameter for monitoring the efficacy of therapy in dogs with demodicosis.(AU)


Emerging quantum computing technologies, such as Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices, offer potential advancements in solving mathematical optimization problems. However, limitations in qubit availability, noise, and errors pose challenges for practical implementation. In this study, we examine two decomposition methods for Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) designed to reduce the original problem size and utilize available NISQ devices more efficiently. We concentrate on breaking down the original problem into smaller subproblems, which are then solved iteratively using a combined quantum-classical hardware approach. We conduct a detailed analysis for the decomposition of MILP with Benders and Dantzig-Wolfe methods. In our analysis, we show that the number of qubits required to solve Benders is exponentially large in the worst-case, while remains constant for Dantzig-Wolfe. Additionally, we leverage Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition on the use-case of certifying the robustness of ReLU networks. Our experimental results demonstrate that this approach can save up to 90\% of qubits compared to existing methods on quantum annealing and gate-based quantum computers.


AIMS
This study aims to identify the needs, concerns and problems of pregnant women when using maternity support garments.

BACKGROUND
Maternity support belt is regarded as helpful in reducing low back pain during pregnancy. However, several garment-related problems exist which might lead to poor adherence behaviour undermining the benefit of garment therapy.

DESIGN
A qualitative exploratory study. METHODS. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 pregnant Chinese women who experienced low back pain during pregnancy. All the interviews followed an interview guide and different maternity support garments were shown to the participants as a method of tangible objects to stimulate responses. Content analysis was used to analyse the data.

RESULTS
The results showed that 60% of pregnant women discontinued using maternity support garments due to excessive heat, perceived ineffectiveness, itchiness, excessive pressure around the abdomen and inconvenience of adjustment. The content analysis generated five main themes of needs including effective function, safety, skin comfort, ease to put on and take off and aesthetics of maternity support garments.

DISCUSSION
The findings of the five main themes of needs were largely consistent with previous studies examining medical garments for overall satisfaction and compliance. The results revealed that women's physiological and psychological changes during pregnancy influenced their clothing preferences on both functional and aesthetical values.

CONCLUSIONS
Maternity support garments are convenient and easily-accessible therapy to manage LBP during pregnancy and are frequently recommended and worn by pregnant women. However, inappropriate choice of garment therapy not only led to ineffectiveness but also undesirable effects. The key findings of the five main themes of garment needs in pregnant women will facilitate healthcare professionals in providing evidence-based advice to assist patients in the selection of an appropriate and optimal maternity support garment.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
These recommendations in the clinical practice will assist patients in making well informed treatment decisions and ultimately improve the quality of care.


Georeferencing--relating information to geographic location--has been incorporated into today's information systems in various ways. We use online services to map our route from one place to another; science, business, and government increasingly use geographic information systems (GIS) to hold and analyze data. Most georeferenced information searches using today's information systems are done by text query. But text searches for placenames fall short--when, for example, a place is known by several names (or by none). In addition, text searches don't cover all sources of geographic data; maps are traditionally accessed only through special indexes, filing systems, and agency contacts; data from remote sensing images or aerial photography is indexed by geospatial location (mathematical coordinates such as longitude and latitude). In this book, Linda Hill describes the advantages of integrating placename-based and geospatial referencing, introducing an approach to "unified georeferencing" that uses placename and geospatial referencing interchangeably across all types of information storage and retrieval systems.After a brief overview of relevant material from cognitive psychology on how humans perceive and respond to geographic space, Hill introduces the reader to basic information about geospatial information objects, concepts of geospatial referencing, the role of gazetteer data, the ways in which geospatial referencing has been included in metadata structures, and methods for the implementation of geographic information retrieval (GIR). Georeferencing will be a valuable reference for librarians, archivists, scientific data managers, information managers, designers of online services, and any information professional who deals with place-based information.


An efficient regeneration protocol through in vitro direct organogenesis was developed for a valuable medicinal plant Aristolochia tagala Champ. using nodal segments as explants. Multiple shoot buds were induced directly from nodal explants cultured on MS (Murashige and Skoog 1962) basal medium supplemented with 2.0 mg/l BAP (N6- benzylaminopurine) and 0.5 mg/l NAA (a-naphthalenacetic acid). The average number of shoots induced per culture was found to be six. Excised shoot roots were cultured on half-strength MS medium containing 0.5 mg/l IBA. The rooted plantlets were transferred to natural environment after proper acclimatization.   Key words: Aristolochia tagala , rare medicinal plant, direct organogenesis. doi: 10.3329/jbs.v15i0.2204 J. bio-sci. 15: 63-67, 2007      Â


In this research, the reasons of preservice teachers' choice of the teaching profession has been studied using the method of pair-wise comparison. Data was acquired by 1137 preservice teachers studying in various departments of seven different universities in Turkey. Overall, it was found that preservice teachers have chosen the teaching profession due to easy work conditions. It was found that female preservice teachers chose the teaching profession because of their sympathy towards it, whereas male preservice teachers chose it since their university admission exam scores were just enough for teaching programs. According to the departments of faculties of education, it was determined that psychological counseling and guidance department preservice teachers chose the teaching profession since it ensured employment, Turkish and English teaching department preservice teachers chose it since they liked it, primary school teachers and primary Math preservice teachers chose it because the work conditions were convenient. According to the places they lived in and the departments, there was no hierarchy regarding reasons why they choose the teaching profession. When the reasons of choosing the teaching profession according to level of income were examined the results that the first reason was the same in all three departments. While this was the seventh reason for the preservice teachers who had teachers in their families, it was the eighth reason for the preservice teachers who didn't have any relatives who are teachers.


This paper addresses the design and analysis of feedback-based online algorithms to control systems or networked systems based on performance objectives and engineering constraints that may evolve over time. The emerging time-varying convex optimization formalism is leveraged to model optimal operational trajectories of the systems, as well as explicit local and network-level operational constraints. Departing from existing batch and feed-forward optimization approaches, the design of the algorithms capitalizes on an online implementation of primal-dual projected-gradient methods; the gradient steps are, however, suitably modified to accommodate feedback from the system in the form of measurements, hence, the term "online optimization with feedback." By virtue of this approach, the resultant algorithms can cope with model mismatches in the algebraic representation of the system states and outputs, they avoid pervasive measurements of exogenous inputs, and they naturally lend themselves to a distributed implementation. Under suitable assumptions, analytical convergence claims are established in terms of dynamic regret. Furthermore, when the synthesis of the feedback-based online algorithms is based on a regularized Lagrangian function, $\boldsymbol{Q}$-linear convergence to solutions of the time-varying optimization problem is shown.


Using optical tweezers (OT) and a haptic device, microspheres having diameters ranging from 3 to 4 m (floating in a fluid solution) are manipulated in order to form patterns of coupled optical microresonators by assembling the spheres via chemical binding. For this purpose, biotin-coated microspheres trapped by a laser beam are steered and chemically attached to an immobilized streptavidin-coated sphere (i.e., the anchor sphere) one by one using an xyz piezo scanner controlled by a haptic device. The positions of all spheres in the scene are detected using a CCD camera and a collision-free path for each manipulated sphere is generated using the potential field approach. The forces acting on the manipulated particle due to the viscosity of the fluid and the artificial potential field are scaled and displayed to the user through the haptic device for better guidance and control during steering. In addition, a virtual fixture is implemented such that the desired angle of approach and strength are achieved during the binding phase. Our experimental studies in virtual and real environments with eight human subjects show that haptic feedback significantly improves the user performance by reducing the task completion time, the number of undesired collisions during steering, and the positional errors during binding. To our knowledge, this is the first time that a haptic device is coupled with OTs to guide the user during an optical manipulation task involving steering and assembly of microspheres to construct a coupled microresonator.


We test the performance of four-component relativistic density functional theory by calculating the static and frequency-dependent electric dipole-dipole polarizabilities of all (ground-state) closed-shell atoms up to Ra. We consider 12 nonrelativistic functionals, including three asymptotically shape-corrected functionals, by using two smooth interpolation schemes introduced by the Baerends group: the gradient-regulated asymptotic connection (GRAC) procedure and the statistical averaging of (model) orbital potentials (SAOP). Basis sets of doubly augmented triple-zeta quality are used. The results are compared to experimental data or to accurate ab initio results. The reference static electric dipole polarizability of palladium has been obtained by finite-field calculations using the coupled-cluster singles, doubles, and perturbative triples method within this work. The best overall performance is obtained using hybrid functionals and their GRAC shape-corrected versions. The performance of SAOP is among the best for nonhybrid functionals for Group 18 atoms but its precision degrades when considering the full set of atoms. In general, we find that conclusions based on results obtained for the rare-gas atoms are not necessarily representative of the complete set of atoms. GRAC cannot be used with effective core potentials since the asymptotic correction is switched on in the core region.


ABSTRACT Major fluvial valleys located in sediment-transfer zones that link hinterland drainage basins with their depositional basins are an important, but neglected, element of fluvial systems. Studies of present-day examples are limited and, to date, no examples have been described from the geological record. Tertiary synorogenic fluvial successions in the Spanish Pyrenees include regional-scale, unconformity-based, linear bodies of conglomerate that are interpreted as the fills of transfer-zone paleovalleys. These paleovalleys are sited mainly in the external zones of the mountain belt, between the internal Axial Zone, on which the drainage basin was largely established, and the depositional basins. One body, here termed the Sis conglomerate, is preserved in a growth syncline between two th ust-related, lateral structures. Growth of the syncline during sedimentation permitted a 1400 m succession of clast-supported, pebble and cobble conglomerates to accumulate during a c. 18 m.y. period between the middle Eocene to Oligocene. The paleovalley served not one but a series of evolving thrust-sheet-top and foreland basins during this period. The stability of the paleovalley was governed by its location between long-lived, pre-existing structures that were inverted during compressional deformation. This example demonstrates that fluvial paleovalleys located in transfer zones can, when structurally controlled, be long-term features capable of accumulating and preserving a significant thickness of strata.


Power sharing, mostly understood as including political opponents in a joint executive coalition government, is today a dominant approach to solving conflict. Almost as a panacea it has been introduced in numerous war-affected countries and is often recommended as a political solution to overcome deep divisions between groups. Researchers, mediators and policy-makers applaud such solutions as forward-looking, peace-strengthening and democratic. However, many have criticized power sharing and its failed ability to create peace and development in divided and conflict-ridden countries. The literature on power sharing can reach such divergent conclusions because there is no consensus on what power sharing is, what the aim of it is and how to study it. Apart from broad inclusion in joint government, the understanding of power sharing varies and recommendations to 'share power' give little guidance to policy-makers aiming to mitigate conflict. Therefore, this article reviews 40 years of research on power sharing by elaborating on four central aspects within the literature: (1) conceptualization; (2) domain; (3) causal mechanism; and (4) measurement. While there may be no 'true' power sharing or 'truth' about power sharing, the article concludes that it is crucial that researchers and policy-makers are clear about which type of power sharing they are discussing in specific situations. Given that power sharing is increasingly recommended and implemented in many fragile and post-conflict societies, it is important to understand what is meant by power sharing in these contexts.


A review of measles notifications in Mashonaland Central Province, Zimbabwe from 1st September 1987 to 31st October 1989 was done. Data reviewed were from monthly maternal and child health summary forms and from hospital in-patients disease statistics. There was an increase in the incidence of measles first towards the end of 1987 and secondly after August 1988. The overall case fatality rate (CFR) for in-patients was 2.0%, with 2 peaks in CFR. The second peak of CFR coincided with the peak of the epidemic in December 1988. CFR was highest in infancy, intermediate in the 1 to 4 year age group and least for older children (above 5 years). The highest age specific attack rate was observed in infancy. The efficacy of the measles vaccine (Schwartz freeze dried measles vaccine given as a single dose at 9 months) was estimated to be 84.9% A large pool of susceptibles who possibly maintained the epidemic include an accumulation of unimmunised children and adults. Despite a measles immunisation coverage rate of 67.6% for Mashonaland Central Province in 1988, a sustained effort to maintain and increase immunisation coverage is vital to contain measles together with other EPI target diseases.


The investigation was conducted to evaluate mechanism of Cr(VI) resistance and reduction by a bacterial strain named FJ under different conditions. This strain, identified as a member of Rhizobium larrymoorei by analysis of its 16S rRNA gene sequence was previously isolated from a paddy soil contaminated by e-waste recycling. Good Cr(VI) reduction ability catalyzed by growing cells of R. larrymoorei FJ was observed in batch cultures conducted at different initial Cr(VI) concentrations. Up to 83.23% reduction was shown in LB medium supplemented with 2.50 mM Cr(VI). Cr(VI) was transformed to some soluble form of Cr(III) due to anaerobic respiration. Biosorption was also observed in the process of bioreduction. But only loosely cell-surface binding Cr(VI) was detected in cells grown in medium supplied with different concentrations of Cr(VI). Present of yeast or citrate could enhance Cr(VI) reduction of resting cells. However, Cr(VI) reduction by resting cells was only observed at Cr(VI) concentration lower than 0.25 mM. R. larrymoorei FJ exhibited a high efficiency of Cr(VI) reduction at temperatures from 28°C to 37°C and pH values from 6.0 to 7.0.


Magnetic clouds are a subset of interplanetary coronal mass ejections characterized by a smooth rotation in the magnetic field direction, which is interpreted as a signature of a magnetic flux rope. Suprathermal electron observations indicate that one or both ends of a magnetic cloud typically remain connected to the Sun as it moves out through the heliosphere. With distance from the axis of the flux rope, out toward its edge, the magnetic field winds more tightly about the axis and electrons must traverse longer magnetic field lines to reach the same heliocentric distance. This increased time of flight allows greater pitch-angle scattering to occur, meaning suprathermal electron pitch-angle distributions should be systematically broader at the edges of the flux rope than at the axis. We model this effect with an analytical magnetic flux rope model and a numerical scheme for suprathermal electron pitch-angle scattering and find that the signature of a magnetic flux rope should be observable with the typical pitch-angle resolution of suprathermal electron data provided ACE's SWEPAM instrument. Evidence of this signature in the observations, however, is weak, possibly because reconnection of magnetic fields within the flux rope acts to intermix flux tubes.


The nuclear acceptor proteins for poly(ADP-ribose) were investigated in mouse liver and testis. In liver, histones are ribosylated preferentially, whereas in testis the major acceptors are non-histone proteins. An analysis of the purified testicular acceptor proteins suggests that they are high- and low-mobility-group-like proteins.


AWAKE is a plasma wakefield acceleration experiment using the 12cm-long, 400GeV proton bunch of the CERN SPS. In order to reach an acceleration gradient in the GeV/m range, the plasma electron density is 7$\times$10$^{14}$cm$^{-3}$. The transverse self-modulation, strongly seeded by an laser ionization front (seeded self-modulation or SSM), turns the long bunch into a train of micro-bunches at the plasma wavelength scale ($\sim$1mm) that resonantly drives the wakefields to large amplitude. Low energy electrons ($\sim$15MeV) can then be externally injected and accelerated to GeV energies.

The plasma source is a laser-ionized rubidium vapor source. The vapor density is measured with $<0.5\%$ accuracy at both ends of the source.

The detection of the SMI is based on diagnostics aimed at measuring the proton bunch modulation: fluorescent screens for measuring the proton bunch transverse density profile at two locations, optical transition radiation (OTR) and streak camera for direct observation of the modulation, and coherent transition radiation (CTR) for modulation frequency measurements.

The first experiments focus of the study of the SMI. Experimental results obtained in late 2016 show signs of self-modulation on all diagnostics. Further SMI experiments will be conducted in 2017, together with the installation of the RF-gun and of the electron spectrometer. Injection and acceleration experiments will be conducted in 2018.

After a general introduction to AWAKE and to its physics, the experimental apparatus will be briefly described and the most recent experimental results will be presented. Mid- and long-term plans, including future experiments, the development of scalable plasma sources and possible applications to HEP will be discussed.


The article presents five concepts of the creative economy based on creative economy theories and interpretations developed by five authors. John Howkins interpretation is based on the theory that the creative economy consists of fifteen creative industries (classified by the author). The creativity and economics is nothing new, but new is the relationship between them in its nature and extent. Broad interpretation of creativity led to the theory of creative class developed by Richard Florida. The creative class is a group of professionals, scientists and artists, whose existence creates economic, social and cultural dynamism, especially in urban areas. Richard Caves characterizes creative industries by seven economic properties and states that creative industries themselves are not unique, but sectors of the creative industries which are driven by creativity generate new approaches to business processes, new product supply and demand both in terms of economic and socio-economic development indicators of countries. Charles Landry has developed a concept of the creative city. The author argues that cities have the single most important resource - its people. Creativity substitutes the location, natural resources and access to the market, becoming a key engine in the dynamic growth of the city. This term is used to define a city where varied cultural activities are an integral part of economic and social functioning of the city. A theory developed by John Hartley is based on the concept of creative identities. The main factors behind the rapid growth of the creative industries worldwide are connected both to the technology and the economy. Digital revolution and economic environments in which this revolution took place has caused technological and communicational changes which have merged creating the conditions for the development of the creative economy.


The growing interest of the biomedical sector for the use of degradable polymers and biocompatibles due to the use that for the implants, prosthesis, sutures, artificial skin film, vascular implants and drugs dosage, has motivated the realization of countless investigations directed to the development of new materials obtained from natural products. In the work the result of an exhaustive bibliographical revision is shown. The synthesis, characterization, and degradation processes of polyamides and polyesteramides due to the potential application in biomedicine were studied with the objective of including these contents in the Programs of the Engineering and Medicine careers. It is framed in combined research in didactics applied to new materials that are carried out between the Methodological Department of the Medical Sciences University and the Group of Investigation of Materials and Environment of the Holguin University.


An Y2O3@rGO nanocomposite was synthesized via an impregnation method and the catalytic effect of the nanocomposite on the hydrogen-storage properties of a Mg–Al alloy was investigated. The pressure composition isotherm measurement results revealed that the Mg–Al–Y2O3@rGO composite underwent a reversible hydrogenation/dehydrogenation process at 250 °C. Furthermore, the onset temperatures of hydrogenation and dehydrogenation were significantly (i.e., 102 °C and 122 °C, respectively) lower than the respective values corresponding to the Mg–Al alloy. The Y2O3@rGO nanocomposite enhanced the hydriding kinetic properties of the alloy. The hydrogenation kinetic parameter of the Mg–Al alloy increased from 0.008 to 0.195 at 300 °C with 5 wt% of the Y2O3@rGO composite. The values of 162.6 kJ mol−1 H2 and 145.9 kJ mol−1 H2 were obtained for the dehydrogenation energy barrier (evaluated by means of a Kissinger plot) of the Mg–Al alloy and the Mg–Al–Y2O3@rGO hydride, respectively. The reaction enthalpy of hydrogenation/dehydrogenation (determined from a van't Hoff plot) of the alloy decreased with the addition of the Y2O3@rGO nanocomposite. For example, the values of 70.7 kJ mol−1 H2 and 54.3 kJ mol−1 H2 were obtained for the reaction enthalpy of hydrogenation associated with the Mg–Al alloy and the Mg–Al–Y2O3@rGO composite, respectively. Therefore, the addition of the Y2O3@rGO nanocomposite is conducive for improving the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of hydrogenation/dehydrogenation of the Mg–Al alloy.


Chronic infections affect a majority of the population globally. The death toll of chronic disorders is also huge. With the advancement of technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI) can play an important role in healthcare systems.Machine Learning (ML) is a branch of AI, where a computer program is trained to predict the outcome of a decision. Computer simulation models are programs built on the principles of ML and these programs can build computer models that simulate the same physiological environment outside the human body and not only forecast the diseasestatus for upcoming years but also estimate the cost of treatment and the health condition of the patient. We reviewed literature about these computer simulation models built-in Python environment takes in data in the form of attributes of patients and predict the outcome of a disease. Majority of these models have shown significant efficiency and accuracy about predicting the disease with true veracity. We reviewed the prediction models for asthma, cardiovascular disorders, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes mellitus and liver diseases. Keywords: Chronic diseases, Computer modelling, Machine learning, Python, Predictive models