A novel balanced electroabsorption modulated photonic link for simultaneous suppression of even-order distortions, third-order distortions, laser relative intensity noise (RIN), and common amplified spontaneous emission noise at the same modulator bias point was experimentally demonstrated for the first time. By biasing the balanced electroabsorption modulator at the third-order null, the third-order distortions were suppressed, while the balanced link architecture suppressed all even-order distortions and common mode noises. The fabricated balanced electroabsorption modulator (B-EAM) showed well-matched dc characteristics in terms of I-V and transfer curve. System experiments were performed to compare single-EAM and B-EAM links. In the B-EAM link, 2-dB suppression of laser RIN and 20-dB improvement in spurious free dynamic range over the single-EAM link were observed.


Cilia are complex cellular protrusions consisting of hundreds of proteins. Defects in ciliary structure and function, many of which have not been characterised molecularly, cause ciliopathies, a heterogeneous group of human syndromes. Here we report on the FOXJ1 target gene Cfap206, orthologues of which so far have only been studied in Chlamydomonas and Tetrahymena. In mouse and Xenopus, Cfap206 was co-expressed with and dependent on Foxj1. CFAP206 protein localised to the basal body and to the axoneme of motile cilia. In Xenopus crispant larvae ciliary beat frequency of skin multiciliated cells was enhanced and bead transport across the epidermal mucociliary epithelium was reduced. Likewise, Cfap206 knockout mice revealed ciliary phenotypes. Electron tomography of immotile knockout mouse sperm flagella indicated a role in radial spokes formation reminiscent of FAP206 function in Tetrahymena. Male infertility, hydrocephalus and impaired mucociliary clearance of the airways in the absence of laterality defects in Cfap206 mutant mice suggests that Cfap206 may represent a candidate for the subgroup of human primary ciliary dyskinesia caused by radial spoke defects.


Shredded wheat was invented in the late 19th century and has been marketed under the Nabisco brand name since 1925. In 1985 the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company acquired the Nabisco Company and in 1988 the RJR Nabisco Company underwent a leveraged buyout (LBO) led by Kolberg, Kravis, and Roberts that recapitalized the firm at a record $25 billion (Food Institute Report 1988, P. 2). The firm has continued to struggle under its LBO debt in a fashion that suggests the $25 billion price paid was too high. In September 1992, RJR Nabisco attempted to sell its ready-to-eat (RTE) breakfast cereal unit to General Mills for $450 million; however, the deal fell through because of active antitrust investigation. Two weeks later Nabisco and Philip Morris/Kraft General Foods (Post Cereals) announced a preliminary agreement whereby Philip Morris would acquire the Nabisco breakfast cereal franchise for the same price, $450 million. That deal was consummated in January 1993; however, it was immediately challenged by the state of New York on antitrust grounds. This paper is based to a large extent upon the public record of that ongoing antitrust case and detailed supermarket scanner data on the ready-to-eat cereal industry that the University of Connecticut Food Marketing Policy Center has purchased from Information Resources, Inc.


The Raft River Geothermal Resource Area in southern Idaho is the first location for an electric power plant utilizing a medium temperature (approx. = 145/sup 0/C) geothermal resource. For the projected 5 MWe pilot geothermal plant, a supply of 2500 gpm of the geothermal fluid is needed. The State of Idaho prefers that the spent brine be reinjected into zones deeper than the known agricultural aquifers. Wells RRGI-6 and 7 are to be used for injection. The objective of this study is to evaluate the injection capability of the formation. An analysis is presented of several injectivity tests performed by EG and G on RRGI-7 to characterize the injection capability of the formation. The available geological information about the area and preliminary results of a spinner survey have been included in the injectivity test analysis. A wellhead pressure limit of 500 psi has been imposed to prevent injection formation fracturing. The approach to analysis is to use a two dimensional radial numerical simulator with parameters determined by the test results and from geological data.


Jane Austen enjoyed and was greatly interested in the theatre. Many of her novels, with their memorable individual characters, dramatic confrontations and surprising denouements, owe part of their effect to theatrical inspiration. The dramatic impact of her novels is demonstrated by the ease with which they have been adapted for film. In "Jane Austen and the Theatre" Paula Byrne makes clear the important part the theatre played in both Jane Austen's life and work. There is no doubt about Jane Austen's own passion for the stage. She herself went to the theatre in London and Bath whenever she could, acted in private theatricals and wrote a number of her early works in play form. Living in a great age of English stage comedy, she drew inspiration from Sheridan as well as Shakespeare. "Sense and Sensibility", "Pride and Prejudice", "Emma" and "Mansfield Park" are, as Paula Byrne shows, all shaped by the comic drama of the period and by Jane Austen's own understanding of men and women as actors playing parts.


ThumbTrak is a novel wearable input device that recognizes 12 micro-finger poses in real-time. Poses are characterized by the thumb touching each of the 12 phalanges on the hand. It uses a thumb-ring, built with a flexible printed circuit board, which hosts nine proximity sensors. Each sensor measures the distance from the thumb to various parts of the palm or other fingers. ThumbTrak uses a support-vector-machine (SVM) model to classify finger poses based on distance measurements in real-time. A user study with ten participants showed that ThumbTrak could recognize 12 micro finger poses with an average accuracy of 93.6%. We also discuss potential opportunities and challenges in applying ThumbTrak in real-world applications.


Context. The 4th release of the SDSS Moving Object Catalog (SDSSMOC) is presently the largest photometric dataset of asteroids. Up to this point, the release of large asteroid datasets has always been followed by a redefinition of asteroid taxonomy. In the years that followed the release of the first SDSSMOC, several classification schemes using its data were proposed, all using the taxonomic classes from previous taxonomies. However, no successful attempt has been made to derive a new taxonomic system directly from the SDSS dataset. Aims. The scope of the work is to propose a different interpretation scheme for gauging u0g0r0i0z0 asteroid observations based on the continuity of spectral features. The scheme is integrated into previous taxonomic labeling, but is not dependent on them. Methods. We analyzed the behavior of asteroid sampling through principal components analysis to understand the role of uncertainties in the SDSSMOC. We identified that asteroids in this space follow two separate linear trends using reflectances in the visible, which is characteristic of their spectrophotometric features. Results. Introducing taxonomic classes, we are able to interpret both trends as representative of featured and featureless spectra. The evolution within the trend is connected mainly to the band depth for featured asteroids and to the spectral slope for featureless ones. We defined a different taxonomic system that allowed us to only classify asteroids by two labels. Conclusions. We have classified 69% of all SDSSMOC sample, which is a robustness higher than reached by previous SDSS classifications. Furthermore, as an example, we present the behavior of asteroid (5129) Groom, whose taxonomic labeling changes according to one of the trends owing to phase reddening. Now, such behavior can be characterized by the variation of one single parameter, its position in the trend.


This paper offers characteristic formula constructions in the real-time logic L ν for several behavioural relations between (states of) timed automata. The behavioural relations studied in this work are timed (bi)similarity, timed ready simulation, faster-than bisimilarity and timed trace inclusion. The characteristic formulae delivered by our constructions have size which is linear in that of the timed automaton they logically describe. This also applies to the characteristic formula for timed bisimulation equivalence, for which an exponential space construction was previously offered by Laroussinie, Larsen and Weise.


Abstract Purpose: The increasing role of digitalization in the operation of enterprises actualizes the implementation of the basic methods of proper digitalization processes. The selection of an appropriate method to introduce digitalization is crucial, as it affects the optimization level of the business processes. Methodology: Specific multicriteria selection method includes five steps to identify these approaches, considering the relative error for each approach, as it affects the outcome with the performance indicator of business process digitalization. The strongest criterion value is used to identify the optimal approach. The evaluation of the methods showed that the performance of the logistic, administrative, and innovative methods is not worse than the Pareto principle. Findings: Introducing digitalization in the administrative method has the biggest impact. The chosen method showed that Human Resources processes require modification to reduce costs. A mechanism to digitalize the personnel management processes using artificial intelligence was developed. Implications: The results of multivariate multicriteria analysis show that the implementation of artificial intelligence minimizes human factors and optimizes time and costs. Originality: The main contribution is the development of the method for the selection of an appropriate digitalization approach, which encompasses an implementation mechanism that can be adapted to enterprises' needs.


Abstract Treatment with traditional medicine during pregnancy is believed to prevent miscarriage, ensuring proper growth of the foetus and to strengthen the womb against witchcraft and to prevent childhood illnesses. The purpose of the study was to determine how Traditional Health Practitioners (THPs) perceive their management of pregnant women with traditional medicine in Capricorn district of Limpopo province. A qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual research design was used. A non-probability purposive, snowball sampling method was used to select eight Traditional Health Practitioners. Data was collected through unstructured face-to-face interview and analysed qualitatively using open coding method. Theme and sub-themes emerged, namely: Traditional medicine used during 1st, 2nd and 3rd trimesters. Contextual health information sessions by health professionals should be held with the THPs, to empower them on the potential risk to the foetus when the mother is given traditional medicine while pregnant. Pregnant women should be discouraged from self-medication and taking the traditional medicine.


Collective data transfers among sets of processes over high-bandwidth, low-latency data center networks are anintegral part of Big Data computations (e.g., the data shuffle in MapReduce). In this paper, we use a carefullyarchitected microbenchmark that emulates a data shuffle, to gather network traces and perform detailed analysis. The key result of our analysis is that having more than two competing bi-directional flows per node in the transfer reduces throughput by 10%. What this means is that, even at very low cardinality (3- or 4-node shuffle), only 90%of the possible throughput can be achieved when commodity Ethernet-based switches are employed. TCP contention among multiple flows is the reason for the throughput loss experienced by collective data transfers. Though we identify system parameter configurations that minimize such packet losses, we believe application-layer flow management is necessary to circumvent this network-level problem. Towards this end, we designed and implemented a technique, Max2Flows, that generates and orchestrates a schedule of coordinated data exchange stages. Each stage limits the number of competing flows per node to two or fewer, thus avoiding negative networklevel effects. Experimental results show that, when incorporated into our microbenchmark, Max2Flows can operate at ≈ 99% of the peak throughput on a 1 Gigabit Ethernet network for small shuffles.


Efficient extraction of photogenerated charge carriers is of significance for acquiring a high efficiency for perovskite solar cells. In this paper, a systematic strategy for effectively engineering the charge extraction in inverted structured perovskite solar cells based on methylammonium lead halide perovskite (CH3NH3PbI3−xClx) is presented. Intentionally doping the chlorine element into the perovskite structure is helpful for obtaining a high open circuit voltage. The engineering is carried out by modifying the aluminium cathode with zirconium acetylacetonate, doping the hole transport layer of nickel oxide (NiOx) with copper and using an advanced fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate. This improves the bandgap alignment of the whole device, and thus, is of great benefit for extracting the charge carriers by promoting the transport rate and reducing the trap states. Consequently, an optimized power conversion efficiency of 20.5% is realized. Insights into how to extract charge carriers efficiently with a minimum energy loss are discussed.


The functional gulabjamun, a dairy product was developed by using soy fortified milk to enhance the functional properties. The chemical composition, energy value and sensory attributes are important parameters for commercial acceptability of any food product and thus, the present study was aimed to explore the product formulation and its functional characterisation. Five different ratios of buffalo milk and soya milk i.e. 1:0 (T0), 1:1 (T1), 1:2 (T2), 1:3 (T3) and 1:4 (T4) and three different levels of maida i.e. 30% (M1), 33%(M2) and 35% (M3), respectively were taken for the mix formulation. These treatment combination (T0, T1M1, T1M2, T1M3, T2M1, T2M2, T2M3, T3M1, T3M2, T3M3, T4M1, T4M2 and T4M3) used in the study were replicated six times. Sensory evaluation of the prepared functional gulabjamun was carried out by using nine point Hedonic scale. The Highest overall acceptability of gulabjamun was found for sample T0M (8.35) and soya fortified milk T1M1 (8.49). Among the different treatment combinations, the highest flavour and taste score was found in T0M (8.25) followed by T1M1 (8.37). The treatment combination T1M1was most acceptable in terms of body and texture as it has the highest score of 8.47. For colour and appearance, the treatment combination T0M (8.35) was recorded be the most acceptable followed by T1M1 (8.64). The highest energy value of gulabjamun (T4M3) was (340.82 kcal/100 gm).


Spring tidal currents produce homogeneous water columns in a number of estuaries that are moderately stratified during neap tides. In the York River estuary, this destratification redistributes ammonium and phosphate regenerated by the benthos as well as oxygen from the surface. This redistribution has significant implications for nutrient cycles, organism distributions, and the management of estuaries.


There is conclusive evidence that aspirin is beneficial in patients with unstable angina and that a combination of preoperative dipyridamole with post-operative aspirin is beneficial after coronary artery bypass. The evidence for a beneficial effect of aspirin after myocardial infarction is consistent but inconclusive. The evidence for the use of aspirin alone following coronary bypass is inconclusive. There is convincing evidence that aspirin will reduce the rate of recurrent TIA, stroke, and death in patients with TIA.


Objective. To assess the response to treatment, remission, and minimal disease activity (MDA) in a group of patients with predominant axial psoriatic arthritis (axPsA). Predictors of response were also evaluated. Methods. Patients fulfilling the ClASsification of Psoriatic ARthritis (CASPAR) criteria and treated with anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) agents adalimumab, etanercept, and golimumab were enrolled and prospectively followed every 4 months for 1 year in a clinical practice setting. Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) 50 was assessed as a set of response criteria to treatment; Composite Psoriatic Disease Activity Index (CPDAI) < 4, Disease Activity Index for Psoriatic Arthritis (DAPSA) score ≤ 3.3, and partial remission (PR) were also evaluated as remission criteria. Patients were considered in MDA when they met at least 5/7 of the criteria previously defined. Patients achieving BASDAI 50, PR, and MDA were compared to identify outcome predictor factors. Concordance between the outcome measures was also performed. Results. Of the 58 patients treated with anti-TNF, at baseline no patients were in PR or MDA. No patients had a CPDAI < 4 or a DAPSA score ≤ 3.3. After 12 months, BASDAI 50 was achieved in 15/48 patients (31.2%). CPDAI < 4, DAPSA score ≤ 3.3, PR, and MDA were achieved, respectively, in 17/48 (35.4%), 11/48 (22.9%), 11/48 (22.9%), and 24/48 (50%) patients. No difference was found among the 3 anti-TNF. Predictors for MDA were male sex, young age, low disease duration, low Health Assessment Questionnaire score, and absence of enthesitis. Conclusion. This longitudinal observational study, based on a clinical practice setting, showed that remission and MDA are achievable targets in axPsA treated with anti-TNF. Predictors of remission and MDA were also identified.


Nitroglycerin is a commonly employed pharmacological agent which produces vasodilatation by release of nitric oxide (NO.). The mechanism by which nitroglycerin releases NO. remains undefined. Recently, glutathione S-transferases have been implicated as important contributors to this process. They are known to release NO2- from nitroglycerin, but have not been shown to release NO.. The present studies were designed to examine the role of endogenous glutathione S-transferases in this metabolic process. Homogenates of dog carotid artery were incubated anaerobically with nitroglycerin, and NO. and NO2- production was determined by chemiluminescence. The role of glutathione S-transferases was studied by incubating homogenates with nitroglycerin in the presence of 1 mM GSH or 1 mM S-hexyl-glutathione, a potent inhibitor of glutathione S-transferases. Homogenates released 163 pmol of NO./h per mg of protein from nitroglycerin, and 2370 pmol of NO2-/h per mg. Adding GSH decreased NO. production by 82% and increased NO2- production by 98%. S-Hexylglutathione inhibited glutathione S-transferase activity by 96% and decreased NO2- production by 78%, but had no effect on NO. release. A linear relationship between glutathione S-transferase activity and NO2- production was observed, whereas glutathione S-transferase activity and NO. release were unrelated. Western-blot analysis demonstrated that dog carotid vascular smooth muscle contained Pi and Mu forms of glutathione S-transferases, with a predominance of the former. Purified preparations of human Pi and rat Mu isoforms metabolized nitroglycerin only to NO2- and not to NO.. On the basis of these findings, we conclude that (1) glutathione S-transferases do not contribute to the bioconversion of nitroglycerin to NO., but instead act as a degradative pathway for nitroglycerin, and (2) the release of NO. from nitroglycerin is not dependent on the formation of NO2-.


The idea of "just war" is not alien to Chinese thought. The term "yi zhan" (usually translated as "just war" or "righteous war" in English) is used in Mencius, was renewed by Mao Zedong, and is still being used in China today (zhengyi zhanzheng). The best place to start exploring this Chinese idea is in the enormous Art of War corpus in premodern China, of which the Seven Military Classics is the best representative. This set of treatises served as the military bible in imperial China from 1078 CE. Ideas analogous to ius ad bellum and ius in bello can be found in these texts. These norms are present in these military texts, elaborated in subsequent commentaries, understood as a matter of fact in Chinese political history, and recently and briefly acknowledged by a few Chinese military scholars in the mainland and in Taiwan. This Chinese just war ethics has its distinctiveness vis-a-vis James Turner Johnson's articulation of the Western classic view. It differs from Johnson's claims that military lethal violence is intrinsically morally neutral and that last resort is not a primary consideration in deciding for war. Contemporary Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) military publications show that the PLA understands the general idea of just war, but they acknowledge only the ad bellum part, not the in bello components.


Divisive normalization in primary visual cortex has been linked to adaptation to natural image statistics in accordance to Barlow's redundancy reduction hypothesis. Using recent advances in natural image modeling, we show that the previously studied static model of divisive normalization is rather inefficient in reducing local contrast correlations, but that a simple temporal contrast adaptation mechanism of the half-saturation constant can substantially increase its efficiency. Our findings reveal the experimentally observed temporal dynamics of divisive normalization to be critical for redundancy reduction.


Uptake of cadmium by leaves and root-rhizomes of the seagrass H. tasmanica was studied in laboratory and field experiments. In laboratory experiments, cadmium concentration in leaves approached constant levels after exposure for 192 h to dissolved cadmium at concentrations of 40 and 400µg I-1. Root-rhizomes, separated from leaves in a partitioned container: did not attain constant cadmium levels under similar conditions. Translocation of cadmium between the leaf and the root-rhizomes was not observed. In field experiments, H. tasmanica containing cadmium at concentrations of 1.8 and 0.4 µg g-1 in the leaves and root-rhizomes, respectively, and growing in sediment that did not contain measurable cadmium, concentrated that element principally in the leaves when transferred to seawater containing cadmium at concentrations of up to 1.8 µg I-1. Leaves and root-rhizomes initially containing cadmium at concentrations of 15 and 14 µg g-1, respectively, lost cadmium when transferred to seawater containing cadmium at less than 0.2 µg I-1. Approximately 70% of the cadmium accumulated by leaves of H. tasmanica was associated with solid cellular material, 20% with cell fluids and the remainder was sorbed on the leaf surfaces.


The short-term recovery of hardened pyrogenic SiO2 MOS capacitors exposed to pulsed electron-beam irradiation was studied as a function of oxide thickness between 200 and 1000 Å. Two sets of samples were studied: one set grown to a single thickness and then etched back to various thicknesses, and the other set grown for different lengths of time to varying thicknesses. In both cases, the recovery time was observed to vary approximately as the fourth power of oxide thickness. This anomalous superlinear dependence of recovery time on the SiO2 thickness agrees with the predictions of the stochastic model of hole transport based on a continuous-time random walk. Combining the highly field activated character of hole transport in SiO2 with the thickness dependence reported here demonstrates that very significant gains in the short-term recovery speed can be made by reducing the oxide thickness and/or increasing the oxide field.


The effectiveness of learning in any language is usually determined by the type of learning styles adopted by the language learner himself. This study traces the heterogeneous learning style used by EFL undergraduate students in the department of English language, Faculty of Education, University of Khartoum in Sudan. The study took place during the academic year 2016 / 2017. Undergraduate students have miscellaneous strategies they recommend to use promptly inside the classroom. To function productively in classrooms, teachers should think about their students' favored learning styles because at this university level students have different backgrounds, strengths, weaknesses, concerns, desires, and even they have different levels of motivation and styles to studying. Thus, teachers should be more acquainted with the divergent methods to their students' better learning. A questionnaire was given out to (205) male and female students which covered twenty-five indispensable items in learning styles. Students responses were analyzed statistically to measure the efficiency of these learning styles used by the students in the department of English language and work out whether the distribution of learning styles was distinct over the four years of the program. Results revealed that there existed notable mismatch and correspondences in learned style choices. This indicated that students have affirmative perspective towards learning styles. Thus, teachers should regard their students' preferred learning styles and try to use different teaching styles inside the classroom to avoid monotonous classes that are not harmonized with their students' learning styles. Suggestions are stated for required future research in finding out how language learning styles can reinforce students in becoming more competent foreign language learners. Keywords : Learning styles, Evaluation techniques, Sudanese EFL students DOI : 10.7176/JEP/10-3-15


Artesian springs are particularly sensitive freshwater ecosystems, characterized by specialized flora and fauna which, owing to their isolation, are often endemic. Thus, protection of spring habitats and endemic spring biota is important for biodiversity conservation, particularly because human impacts such as invasive species, habitat destruction, and fragmentation can have such devastating effects.
This study investigated the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genetic diversity and structure of two critically endangered (IUCN) freshwater fish species: red-finned blue-eye Scaturiginichthys vermeilipinnis, and Edgbaston goby Chlamydogobius squamigenus, with the aim of assisting management agencies to establish relocated populations that conserve the genetic integrity and evolutionary potential of both species.
2862 bp from multiple mtDNA genes were amplified from 111 red-finned blue-eye individuals (17 from the 1990s and 94 from 2010), and a 660 bp segment of mtDNA cytochrome b was amplified from 111 Edgbaston goby individuals (from 2010). In total, 14 concatenated mtDNA haplotypes were identified in red-finned blue-eye and three cytb haplotypes were identified in Edgbaston goby.
Overall assessment of the genetic diversity and structure of the endemic fish fauna from the Edgbaston springs revealed low levels of diversity in both species and a loss of haplotypes in red-finned blue-eye over time. In addition, both species displayed significant genetic structure: at the spring scale for red-finned blue-eye and at the spring group scale for Edgbaston goby. It is concluded that without the appropriate management of relocated populations, such as considering genetic structure and diversity and selecting high quality habitats, these species are at a severe risk of losing evolutionary potential and becoming extinct. This study provides a valuable example for conservation managers of the contribution that population genetic studies can make regarding the adaptive management of endangered species.

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Indigenous people have often been linked with 'nature'. Recently this has been complimentary, based on the assessment that nature is good, but this was not always the case. This paper is interested in the construction of indigeneity as environmentalist, and in the construction of environmentalism with reference to indigeneity. It is particularly concerned with challenging various relevant Western notions from the perspective that indigenous religious traditions might offer quite different ontologies and engagements. It takes note of the wider context of a conflict between colonialism and sovereignty which entangle these issues in traumatic crises but also underpin significant possibilities for change.


Cell-based therapy is a promising therapy for myocardial infarction. Endogenous repair of the heart muscle after myocardial infarction is a challenge because adult cardiomyocytes have a limited capacity to proliferate and replace damaged cells. Pre-clinical and clinical evidence has shown that cell based therapy may promote revascularization and replacement of damaged myocytes after myocardial infarction. Adult stem cells can be harvested from different sources including bone marrow, skeletal myoblast, and human umbilical cord blood cells. The use of these cells for the repair of myocardial infarction presents various advantages over other sources of stem cells. Among these are easy harvesting, unlimited differentiation capability, and robust angiogenic potential. In this review, we discuss the milestone findings and the most recent evidence demonstrating the therapeutic efficacy and safety of the transplantation of human umbilical cord blood cells as a stand-alone therapy or in combination with gene therapy, highlighting the importance of optimizing the timing, dose and delivery methods, and a better understanding of the mechanisms of action that will guide the clinical entry of this innovative treatment for ischemic disorders, specifically myocardial infarction.


Techniques used to design and produce silicon monolithic integrated circuits for use in the radiation environment found near a nuclear detonation are reviewed. The procedures used to define an anticipated threat are given, and interactions between typical radiations and IC materials are discussed. Circuit selection and design with respect to these interactions are considered process developments needed to implement these designs reviewed. The electrical and radiation performance currently available in production from several sources is described.


This paper presents a methodological approach for the evaluation of the urban regulation and its application to a real case in the district of Providencia in Santiago, Chile. As opposed to the traditional textual-discursive and two-dimensional elaboration of the urban regulation, the digital instruments allow an immediate verification of the generated volumes, as well as the alternatives of variation and contradictions that it contains. The three-dimensional modelling is used as an instrument capable of showing efficiently the immediate verification of the instruments proposed within the urban changes and dynamics. It also offers the possibility of generating the norm itself from a sequence of procedures that gathers the dynamics of transformation and models them like a series of possible situations. Considering that all urban norms have a pretension and formal result, the methodological approach proposed starts from the shape and the dynamics for the creation of the norm. This paper will show particularly the three-dimensional model of the norms on the existing property layout, and the volumes that it proposes in relation to the property division and its variation (property fusion, highly frequent condition in the cities of the developing countries), and evaluates its effects according to the site coverage, plot area ratio, and setback. The three-dimensional modelling of the volumes generated by the regulation was made using the software AutoCad, 3dStudio, FormZ, Excel, and its linkings.


In this study, 11 cases of serious encephalopathy following splenorenal or splenocaval shunt were treated by anastomotic coarctation, in 4 of the 11 cases, portoazygos disconnection was added. All symptoms and signs disappeared soon after the procedure. The portal hepatopetal blood flow increased. Liver function improved. Blood ammonia concentration decreased. Follow-up of 6 to 48 months found, no recurrent encephalopathy or variceal bleeding. Anastomotic coarctation is effective method to treat serious post-splenosystemic shunt encephalopathy.


The 1957 Berlin Interbau, the international building exhibition, represented an array of superlatives, beginning with its size. When German Federal President Theodor Heuss opened the show on 6 July 1957, the newly built Hansaviertel was presented and thus for the first time an entire new city district as a component of an architectural exhibition. Centrally located in the heart of Berlin, across an area of 25 ha, a total of 1,300 dwellings were established along with community facilities, including two churches, a library, a retail centre and a school (which was built outside the official exhibition zone). In other words, a miniature model city was created within a city centre, an unprecedented step for a German building exhibition.
Besides the size of the exhibition area and the model-city character of the demonstration district, the large number of prominent national and international architects who took part was likewise unique. A total of 53 architects from 14 different countries presented their experimental designs, primarily for public sector housing. In addition, there were experiments with a whole range of different residential building types: tower blocks with 16 to 17 storeys, apartment blocks with seven to nine storeys, rows of apartments with three to four storeys and detached and interlinked single-family houses. Eye-catchers were the high-rise buildings with split-level homes by J.B. Bakema and J.H. van den Broek, Walter Gropius's lightly curved nine-storey apartment block, and Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer's seven-storey flats, which stood on V-shaped pilotis. Finland's Alvar Aalto came up with a hybrid tower block and apartment building that was erected close to the flats created by Sweden's Sten Samuelson and Fritz Jaenecke, as well as Frenchman Pierre Vago's building. Outside the exhibition zone, other highlights were the Berlin version of Le Corbusier's Unite d'habitation and Hugh Stubbins' Kongresshalle, which the Americans gifted to Interbau.1 In addition to the architecture of the buildings, the Hansaviertel's urban context emphasized the exhibition zone's character as a model city. Once a densely built residential district with its blocks of houses aligned to the streets, property division no longer played a role in the urban design and concentration of the residential volumes gave rise to large communal green zones.
Interbau was a huge success in terms of the number of visitors. Over 1.3 million members of the general public and professionals visited the exhibition, many of them from East Berlin and abroad. However, the favourable reception from the general public and the publicity the Hansaviertel buildings received was in sharp contrast to the largely negative judgement passed on the urban design concept by the architectural world at large. The most frequent criticism voiced was that 'the exhibition lacked an idea, an underlying concept'.2 The Hansaviertel was accused of being merely a platform for showcasing individual buildings by prominent architects, without a trace of convincing urban design coherence. The Bauwelt trade journal commented in resignation that perhaps the only successful idea was 'the presentation of the top architects themselves',3 and that it was 'an array of missed opportunities, due to the lack of an urban design concept'.4 While preparations were still underway, Sigfried Giedion, CIAM's Secretary, advised the Berlin Bausenator to prevent 'an urban design disaster at so prominent a location'.


Based on the similarity between charged-particle beam transversal transport and transmission of ellipse Gaussian light beam in paraxial approximation, it is shown that charged-particle beam transversal transport in real space is governed by the ABCD-type law for a complex curvature radius of the charged-particle beam in which the beam transverse emittance plays the role of wavelength; from this, a novel technique for characterizing charged-particle beam is proposed. Finally, this analogy provides an insight observation that it is hopeful to attain possible coherent charged-particle beam in favourable accelerator environment.


In the era of the industrial revolution 4.0, the preparation of mastery of maritime technology and the preparation of human resources is the urgency of the Navy's education. STTAL as one of the Navy's educational institutions has a strategic role as a producer of the Navy's human resources capable of merging themselves in technological development. Demands for the development of science and technology that are so fast affect the development of modernization of technology in the rank of maritime technology and graduate qualifications, it is necessary to make adjustments by conducting an evaluation and development in the education curriculum. A concrete step in addressing this requires a strategy to develop STTAL education curriculum in response to scientific vision, efforts to achieve graduate qualifications expected in accordance with societal needs and stakeholder needs. With SWOT analysis, a matrix will be obtained which shows the strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats which will later be used as a reference to make the right and appropriate strategies.Keywords: SWOT Analysis, STTAL Education Curriculum, Industrial Revolution 4.0


The digital twin concept is more and more appearing in industrial applications including the field of the predictive maintenance. This paper, initially, summarizes and presents studies that use the digital twin concept for digital twin concept for condition monitoring and predictive in manufacturing. Following, the gaps in the existing literature are identified and analyzed and a brief proposition of the way that the already existing state of the art can go further is presented. A future outlook of the research in the particular field is provided.


Summary Previous studies in humans and animals have reported that nicotine administration decreases body weight and caloric intake. Opiate and cigarette have been used concomitantly as drug abuse. The aim of the present study was, therefore, to analyze the effect of chronic co-administration of nicotine and morphine on food intake, body weight and on some feeding-associated peptides. All experiments were carried out on male Wistar rats. Animals were randomly assigned to the free-fed and pair-fed control groups, nicotine- and morphine-treated and nicotine plus morphine groups. Morphine sulfate (20 mg/kg for 14 days s.c.) and nicotine (4 mg/kg for 14 days i.p.) were injected to the rats. The serum levels of leptin and neuropeptide Y (NPY) were measured by enzyme immunosorbant assay and radioimmunoassay, respectively. The results showed that nicotine had a greater suppressing effect on total food intake than morphine alone or nicotine plus morphine. Furthermore, chronic injection of nicotine significantly decreased body weight as compared with before injection, while body weight changes were not observed in morphine-treated rats. The mean body weight in the morphine-treated rats was lower than that in the free-fed control animals. The serum level of NPY was decreased just in the nicotine-injected group. A significant decrease in leptin levels was observed in the drug treated and pair-fed groups. In conclusion, morphine modulates the decreasing effect of nicotine on food intake, and it seems that the mechanism underlying the attenuating effects of morphine on the nicotine effects involves mediation, at least in part, by preventing the effect of nicotine on NPY levels.


Purpose: To reconstruct the motion manifold defined on anatomical interfaces from real‐time MR imaging.Methods∷We have developed a novel method to construct the evolving motion manifold in real‐time by preserving the point correspondence when a level set function is updated to track moving anatomical interfaces. The key to our development is to define a correspondence function in a Eulerian system and advecting it along the level set function under the same velocity. The motion manifold is 'grown' by concatenating the point correspondence maps. The proposed method was tested with renal MR imagesequences under both synthetic and physiological motion. The synthetic sequence was generated by shifting a static MR image continuously in one dimension to a maximum of 29mm. Performance of the estimation was analyzed by comparing the reconstructed motion manifold and the known truth. Physiological motion manifold was reconstructed from real‐time EPI data acquired from human subjects under heavy breathing condition. Results: In the synthetic motion test, the reconstructed motion manifold translates each particle to closely follow the underlying motion. The mean error along and perpendicular to the motion direction is −2.58mm and 0.03mm respectively. These are reasonable results considering the low signal‐to‐noise ratio of the real‐time MR images with pixel size equals 1.52mm. The motion manifoldreconstructed from physiological real‐time renal MR exhibits a semiperiodic pattern that agrees with respiratory behavior. Spatially varying motion pattern from different parts of the kidneyinterface can be observed. Conclusions: We have proposed a novel level set method to track and estimate anatomical moving interface while preserving the point correspondence during the dynamic evolution. The generated motion manifold provides important knowledge about the characteristics of a particular organ movement and facilitates further model development for retrospective analyzing dose impact of motion or predicting motion for real‐time delivery adaptation. NIH grant 1R01CA159471. PI: Michael Gach.


Abstract Experimental and analytical studies on the thermal behavior of reactor vessel penetration have been performed under external vessel cooling during a severe accident in the Korean next-generation reactor APR1400. Two types of tests, SUS-EXT and SUS-DRY with and without external vessel cooling, respectively, have been performed using sustained heating by an induction heater. Three tests have been carried out varying the cooling conditions at the vessel outer surface in the SUS-EXT tests. The experimental results have been thermally estimated using the LILAC computer code. The experimental results indicate that the inner surface of the vessel was ablated by the 45-mm thickness in the SUS-DRY test. Despite the total ablation of the welding material, the penetration was not ejected outside the vessel, which could be attributed to the thermal expansion of the penetration. Unlike the SUS-DRY test, the thickness of the ablation was ~15 to 20 mm at most, so the welding was preserved in the SUS-EXT tests. It is concluded from the experimental results that the external vessel cooling highly affected the ablation configuration and the thermal behaviors of the vessel and the penetration. An increase in coolant mass flow rate from 0.047 to 0.152 kg/s had effects on the thermal behavior of the lower head vessel and penetration in the SUS-EXT tests. The LILAC analytical results on temperature distribution and ablation depth in the lower head vessel and penetration were very similar to the experimental results.


Objective: To determine the safety and efficacy of botulinum toxin type B (BoNT/B) in patients with cervical dystonia (CD). Background: BoNT/B is a form of chemodenervation therapy for the treatment of patients with CD. Methods: The authors performed a 16-week, randomized, multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of BoNT/B in patients with CD who continue to respond to botulinum toxin type A. Placebo, or 5,000 U or 10,000 U of BoNT/B was administered in two to four muscles involved clinically in CD. The Toronto Western Spasmodic Torticollis Rating Scale (TWSTRS)-Total score at week 4 was the primary efficacy measure. Clinical assessments and adverse events were recorded for treatment day 1 and at weeks 2, 4, 8, 12, and 16. Results: A total of 109 patients were enrolled randomly across all three treatment groups. The mean improvement in the TWSTRS-Total scores in each group at week 4 was 4.3 (placebo), 9.3 (5,000 U), and 11.7 (10,000 U). For the prospectively defined primary contrast (10,000 U versus placebo), highly significant differences were noted for the primary (TWSTRS-Total, baseline to week 4, p = 0.0004) and supportive secondary (Patient Global Assessment, baseline to week 4, p = 0.0001) outcome measures. Improvement in pain, disability, and severity of CD occurred for patients who were treated with BoNT/B when compared with placebo-treated patients. Overall, improvements associated with BoNT/B treatment were greatest for patients who received the 10,000-U dose. The duration of treatment effect for BoNT/B was 12 to 16 weeks for both doses. Conclusion: Botulinum toxin type B (NeuroBloc) is safe and efficacious at 5,000 U and 10,000 U for the management of patients with cervical dystonia.


Energy expenditure has become a significant fraction of data center operating costs. Recently, "geographical load balancing" has been proposed to reduce energy cost by exploiting the electricity price differences across regions. However, this reduction of cost can paradoxically increase total energy use. We explore whether the geographical diversity of Internet-scale systems can also provide environmental gains. Specifically, we explore whether geographical load balancing can encourage use of "green" renewable energy and reduce use of "brown" fossil fuel energy. We make two contributions. First, we derive three distributed algorithms for achieving optimal geographical load balancing. Second, we show that if the price of electricity is proportional to the instantaneous fraction of the total energy that is brown, then geographical load balancing significantly reduces brown energy use. However, the benefits depend strongly on dynamic energy pricing and the form of pricing used.


"Hypoxic training has been reported to enhance athletes' altitude and sea-level performance by augmenting oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, as a consequence of increases in hematocrit and hemoglobin concentrations. However the effect of intermittent hypoxic training on hematological responses remains unresolved."This study investigated the effect of two intermittent hypoxic training regimens on the response of hematological indices. Healthy male Ss (N = 27) were equally assigned to a control group, a live low-train high (LL-TH) group, or a intermittent hypoxic exposure group. Ss performed a one-hour submaximal endurance exercise on a cycle ergometer, five days per week for four weeks, at an intensity corresponding to 50% of normoxic peak power output for the control and intermittent hypoxic exposure groups, and to 50% of hypoxic peak power output for the LL-TH group. Thus, all groups trained at the same relative work rate. The absolute work rate during training was 18-20 W lower for the LL-TH group compared to the other two groups. All groups lived at an altitude of ~300 m above sea level. The control and intermittent hypoxic exposure groups also trained at this altitude, whereas the LL-TH group trained in a hypoxic chamber, breathing a hypoxic mixture (FIO2=12%). In addition to the daily exercise training, the intermittent hypoxic exposure group also inspired a hypoxic gas mixture at rest, and prior to the cycle ergometry. The intermittent hypoxic training comprised breathing a hypoxic mixture during seven phases. Each phase consisted of five minutes of breathing a hypoxic mixture, followed by three minutes of breathing a normoxic gas mixture. Prior to, during, at the end, and 10 days after the training period, blood samples were taken from all Ss in order to measure hemoglobin, hematocrit, erythrocytes, ferritin, and transferrin concentrations.No significant differences were observed between groups in any measured hematological variables. Similarly, no significant differences were found within groups at the different testing periods.Implication. Although it has been reported that both LL-TH and intermittent hypoxic exposure protocols provide hematological benefits, that was not confirmed by this study. The tested protocols did not induce any changes in the measured hematological variables; therefore no improvements of the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood should be expected following this type of hypoxic training.


When dictators seize power, they face a choice about how to deal with the pre-existing political parties. Some simply repress all parties, some ally themselves with one of the traditional parties and use it to help organize their rule, and others repress pre-existing parties but create a new party to support themselves. This study examines how these decisions affect the subsequent development of party systems after redemocratization. Looking at the experience of Latin America, a region that has experienced its share of dictatorships, we show that dictators who allied with traditional parties or repressed existing ones have contributed to very stable party systems. By contrast, dictators who repressed the old parties but created a new one destabilized their countries' party systems for some time after the return of democracy.


Poor outcome has been considered by many psychiatrists as intrinsic to the concept of schizophrenia. A major issue has been whether a diagnostic concept of schizophrenia, based on symptoms alone, can identify patients who will have the poor outcome considered by many to be the validating criterion of "true" schizophrenia. The strongest evidence that poor outcome schizophrenia can be identified by symptoms alone has come from studies using Langfeldt's symptom criteria of schizophrenia. The present investigation uses methodological controls not employed in earlier studies to evaluate the relationships between symptoms and outcome. Results show that the symptom criteria of Langfeldt do not discriminate selectively a poor outcome category of schizophrenia. This challenges the major empirical basis for the view that symptom criteria alone can account for a poor outcome concept of this disorder.


The role of the brain kallikrein-kinin system in the regulation of arterial blood pressure of normotensive and spontaneously hypertensive rats was evaluated. Intracerebroventricular administration of the kinin antagonist [DArg0]Hyp3-Thi5,8[DPhe7]bradykinin caused no change in mean blood pressure in Wistar-Kyoto, Sprague-Dawley, or spontaneously hypertensive rats. The antagonist proved to be very potent in blocking the pressor effect of intracerebroventricular bradykinin (32 +/- 3 vs. 3 +/- 1 mm Hg, p less than 0.01). It was specific, as the pressor effect induced by other unrelated peptides was similar during the infusion of either vehicle or kinin antagonist (angiotensin II, 25 +/- 4 vs. 26 +/- 2 mm Hg; prostaglandin E2, 48 +/- 3 vs. 47 +/- 8 mm Hg; norepinephrine, 17 +/- 2 vs. 18 +/- 2 mm Hg; leucine-enkephaline, 15 +/- 2 vs. 16 +/- 1 mm Hg; neurotensin, 18 +/- 2 vs. 19 +/- 1 mm Hg; substance P, 19 +/- 2 vs. 19 +/- 2 mm Hg). Intracerebroventricular administration of 1 mg captopril, an inhibitor of kininase II (one of the enzymes responsible for kinin degradation), caused no change in mean blood pressure in normotensive rats, whereas it increased mean blood pressure by 44 +/- 9 mm Hg (p less than 0.01) in spontaneously hypertensive rats. This increase in mean blood pressure was blocked and then reversed into a hypotensive effect (22 +/- 6 mm Hg, p less than 0.05) during the infusion of kinin antagonist. Our data suggest that the pressor effect induced by intracerebroventricular captopril is due to a transient elevation in endogenous brain kinin levels, supporting the hypothesis that the brain kallikrein-kinin system plays a role in the central regulation of blood pressure in spontaneously hypertensive rats.


Many companies provide neural network prediction services to users for a wide range of applications. However, current prediction systems compromise one party's privacy: either the user has to send sensitive inputs to the service provider for classification, or the service provider must store its proprietary neural networks on the user's device. The former harms the personal privacy of the user, while the latter reveals the service provider's proprietary model. We design, implement, and evaluate DELPHI, a secure prediction system that allows two parties to execute neural network inference without revealing either party's data. DELPHI approaches the problem by simultaneously co-designing cryptography and machine learning. We first design a hybrid cryptographic protocol that improves upon the communication and computation costs over prior work. Second, we develop a planner that automatically generates neural network architecture configurations that navigate the performance-accuracy trade-offs of our hybrid protocol. Together, these techniques allow us to achieve a 22× improvement in online prediction latency compared to the state-of-the-art prior work.


Lengthening of a nonfunctional posttraumatic below elbow stump via Ilizarov technique is described. Preoperatively, the 5 cm ulna in the residual forearm provided an insufficient lever arm for practical use of a standard below elbow prosthesis. An additional 5 cm of ulnar length was achieved (100% increase) by distraction histogenesis, ultimately limited by impending necrosis of adherent skin covering the tip of the residual limb. Utilizing the Ilizarov technique, ulnar lengthening converted the functional level of the patient's amputation from elbow disarticulation to below elbow status.


Evolutionary autonomous agents whose behavior is determined by a neurocontroller "brain" are a promising model for studying neural processing. Nevertheless, they are missin g an important quality prevalently found in all levels of natu ral systems,fault-tolerance, the lack of which results in overly simplistic neurocontrollers. We present a way of modifying a given evolutionary process for encouraging the creation o f neurocontrollers that manifest high levels of fault-toler ance, using both direct and incremental evolutions. The evolved neurocontrollers are more robust not only against the fault s introduced during the evolutionary process, but also again st much more extreme ones. This robustness poses a great challenge for an analysis of the workings of the neurocontrollers, the latter being the focus of this paper: We utiliz e the Multi-perturbation Shapley value Analysis (MSA) to uncove r the important neurons, as well as the interactions between them, revealing the mechanisms underlying the evolved faul ttolerance.


Scientific model-building can be a time- intensive and painstaking process, often involving the development of large and complex computer programs. Despite the effort involved, scientific models cannot easily be distributed and shared with other scientists. In general, implemented scientific models are complex, idiosyncratic, and difficult for anyone but the original scientific development team to understand. We believe that artificial intelligence techniques can facilitate both the model-building and model-sharing process. In this paper, we overview our effort to build a scientific modeling software tool that aids the scientist in developing and using models. This tool includes an interactive intelligent graphical interface, a high-level domain- specific modeling language, a library of physics equations and experimental datasets, and a suite of data display facilities.


Clustering on hypergraphs has been garnering increased attention with potential applications in network analysis, VLSI design and computer vision, among others. In this work, we generalize the framework of modularity maximization for clustering on hypergraphs. To this end, we introduce a hypergraph null model, analogous to the configuration model on undirected graphs, and a node-degree preserving reduction to work with this model. This is used to define a modularity function that can be maximized using the popular and fast Louvain algorithm. We additionally propose a refinement over this clustering, by reweighting cut hyperedges in an iterative fashion. The efficacy and efficiency of our methods are demonstrated on several real-world datasets.


Producing an officially commissioned curriculum resource calls for expert pedagogical and content knowledge and the application of theory. From the viewpoints of developer, teacher and teacher educator, all involved in the design and use of a selected resource, this paper reviews the layers of theories which underpinned the shaping of a drama education video intended to support teacher professional knowledge and practice. Multiple layers of theory are evident: the theory guiding developers, the theory behind content area and pedagogy, the theory for action of the participating practitioners, and critically informed theory for teacher education. The paper examines how theorising informed the preparation of the resource and influenced its outcome, and reflects critically on future possibilities for effective design and use of resources. It discusses how the particular resource has continued to be used in teacher education, validating the original aim that teachers could innovate with the material to suit context. Finally, the author argues that from such educational initiatives, valuable knowledge may build capacity for further teacher development, and that, as an act of research, such theorising can contribute to the scholarship of teaching.


Funding information TUBITAK, Grant/Award Number: CAYDAG-113Y533 Abstract Polymer-derived ceramic components (SiOC, sample W) were produced from preceramic polymer mixture and a catalyst. After curing and pyrolysis, some of the samples etched by hydrofluoric acid to obtain carbonaceous SiOC (C-rich SiOC, sample W-HF). W and W-HF were tested as an adsorbent material to remove both heavy-metal ions (Cr (III), Pb (III), and Cd (II)) and cationic dyes (Methylene Blue (MB), Rhodamine B (RB), and Crystal Violet (CV)) from aqueous solutions. HF-treated high surface area SiOC samples had quite high adsorption affinity for cationic dyes. According the Langmuir isotherm model the maximum dye uptake values were found to be around to 50 mg/g for sample W, whereas those for sample W-HF ranged from 104 to 186 mg/g. Regeneration studies were conducted both by heat treatment and leaching, high recovery yields (always above 97%) of MB adsorption were obtained.


Most patients with hepatic cell adenomas present dramatically with an acute abdominal crisis associated with hemorrhage and an upper abdominal mass. We present an unusual case of hepatic cell adenoma presenting as a right lower quadrant mass and review the current literature concerning this tumor.


The visual acts theory aims to provide intelligent assistance for camera viewpoint selection during teleoperation. It combines top-down partitioning of a task and bottom-up monitoring of the operator to select task-relevant camera viewpoints. Previous experimental studies have shown that visual acts provides camera views of sufficient quality to allow an operator to complete a task. In cases where the camera system is complex and difficult to master, it selects better viewpoints than the operator. In this paper we present an alternative architecture incorporating a viewpoint selection algorithm that places emphasis on what the operator should do next, rather than on what he is currently doing. Experimental results are presented showing that this simpler algorithm performs as well as the more pedantic visual acts algorithm, and raises greater awareness of the operator to 3D information. The results contribute to a better understanding of human-robot interaction in telerobotic scenarios.


It is sometimes easily assumed that an experimental measurement will closely mimic the results from an associated theoretical model. The purpose of this project is to determine how close to a theoretical model - involving the component buildup method and the quadratic drag polar assumption - a Piper Archer II will perform in an actual test flight.During the test flight, the Archer II showed a similar correlation between air speed and performance as the model. The actual performance numbers were, however, consistently lower than their theoretical counterpart.


The United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and eBusiness (UN/CEFACT) provides the Core Components approach for defining standard business document types based on all-embracing, reusable building blocks. For utilizing standard business document types in concrete business scenarios, these standard business document types need customizing resulting in business document type variants. However, the current approach is missing sufficient mechanisms for managing the resulting variants. First, customizing standard business document types is currently based on a textual specification only. Hence, variability within business document types is missing an explicit representation. Second, supporting the process of customizing standard business document types requires dedicated tool-support. In this paper, we formalize variability within the Core Components approach by adopting concepts from variability management and introduce a declarative approach based on variability models for validating the process of business document type customization. Furthermore, we present an evaluation of the approach proposed by means of a feasibility study. The approach provides a generic method for validating customized standard business document types.


Pediatric medulloblastomas are radiosensitive and mostly curable tumors if they are non-metastasized. Postsurgery adjuvant radiation therapy remains the corner-stone therapy in the curative intent treatment. In case of children less than three years, pre-irradiation chemotherapy is given to defer radiotherapy till the child is three year old. Introduction of conformal radiotherapy in addition to technical improvements in surgery and radiotherapy, risks definition and molecular analysis of prognostic factors has most likely contributed to the improved survival rates. Children should ideally be referred in time to an appropriate higher center with adequate infrastructure, expertise and radiotherapy facilities for better outcome of the disease.


COVID-19 poses an immense and immediate threat to global public health. Population level interventions (PLIs) impact this threat, with estimable large effects on reducing mortality. Many countries worldwide have currently zero/low mortality and many have yet to implement such PLIs. The importance of timing of PLI implementation on mortality outcomes is poorly understood. We extracted cumulative country-specific COVID-19 mortality for France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK to examine country-specific mortality trends and found that all five countries experienced COVID-19 mortality epidemics initially of exponential nature. We estimated the magnitude of effect on mortality of the nationwide PLI implemented on day 18 of Italy's mortality epidemic and assessed the importance of timing of PLI implementation by computing the effect of implementation of a PLI of this magnitude at various times on subsequent mortality. The nationwide PLI in Italy saved an estimated 6,170 lives by day 30 of the Italian epidemic. Implementing a PLI with this effect magnitude in a country of 60 million people on the day of the first death, and on days 7, 10, 14 and 17 thereafter, compared to implementation on day 18, resulted in substantially greater numbers of lives saved. Implementation on day 1 resulted in an additional 3,477 lives saved, 6,955 intensive care unit admissions and 52,162 hospital admissions prevented, beyond that achieved by implementation on day 18. PLI implementation earlier than day 18 substantially enhances benefit. Intervention on the day of the first mortality event in a country achieves the greatest benefit.


: In this study the Clock Drawing Test (CDT) is used in a geriatric department to search for dementia in a population with somatic disorders (N=236). The demented group (N=113) has significant lower scores on every item and on the total score of the scoring method, compared to the non-demented group (N=123). A factor analysis of the scoring method shows that the fourteen items can be grouped into the three groups "contour", "digits", and "hands". A logistic regression shows that "hands" is the most discriminating, although this effect is moderate (sensitivity 59.3%, specificity 75.6%). Considering however that the CDT, compared to other screening tasks, appeals to an unique combination of cognitive functions, including visual semantic memory, working memory, visuospatial skills, attention and executive functions, it can be concluded that this test can contribute to the diagnoses of dementia, besides the traditionally used instruments.


BACKGROUND
Chronic pain is a major health and socioeconomic burden, which is prevalent in children and adolescents. Among the most widely used interventions in children and adolescents are physical activity (including exercises) and education about physical activity.

OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the effectiveness of physical activity, education about physical activity, or both, compared with usual care (including waiting-list, and minimal interventions, such as advice, relaxation classes, or social group meetings) or active medical care in children and adolescents with chronic musculoskeletal pain.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, PEDro, and LILACS from the date of their inception to October 2022. We also searched the reference lists of eligible papers, ClinicalTrials.gov, and the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

SELECTION CRITERIA
We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that compared physical activity or education about physical activity, or both, with usual care (including waiting-list and minimal interventions) or active medical care, in children and adolescents with chronic musculoskeletal pain.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two review authors independently determined the eligibility of the included studies. Our primary outcomes were pain intensity, disability, and adverse events. Our secondary outcomes were depression, anxiety, fear avoidance, quality of life, physical activity level, and caregiver distress. We extracted data at postintervention assessment, and long-term follow-up. Two review authors independently assessed risk of bias for each study, using the RoB 1. We assessed the overall certainty of the evidence using the GRADE approach. We reported continuous outcomes as mean differences, and determined clinically important differences from the literature, or 10% of the scale.

MAIN RESULTS
We included four studies (243 participants with juvenile idiopathic arthritis). We judged all included studies to be at unclear risk of selection bias, performance bias, and detection bias, and at high risk of attrition bias. We downgraded the certainty of the evidence for each outcome to very low due to serious or very serious study limitations, inconsistency, and imprecision. Physical activity compared with usual care Physical activity may slightly reduce pain intensity (0 to 100 scale; 0 = no pain) compared with usual care at postintervention (standardised mean difference (SMD) -0.45, 95% confidence interval (CI) -0.82 to -0.08; 2 studies, 118 participants; recalculated as a mean difference (MD) -12.19, 95% CI -21.99 to -2.38; I² = 0%; very low-certainty evidence). Physical activity may slightly improve disability (0 to 3 scale; 0 = no disability) compared with usual care at postintervention assessment (MD -0.37, 95% CI -0.56 to -0.19; I² = 0%; 3 studies, 170 participants; very low-certainty evidence). We found no clear evidence of a difference in quality of life (QoL; 0 to 100 scale; lower scores = better QoL) between physical activity and usual care at postintervention assessment (SMD -0.46, 95% CI -1.27 to 0.35; 4 studies, 201 participants; very low-certainty evidence; recalculated as MD -6.30, 95% CI -18.23 to 5.64; I² = 91%). None of the included studies measured adverse events, depression, or anxiety for this comparison. Physical activity compared with active medical care We found no studies that could be analysed in this comparison. Education about physical activity compared with usual care or active medical care We found no studies that could be analysed in this comparison. Physical activity and education about physical activity compared with usual care or active medical care We found no studies that could be analysed in this comparison.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
We are unable to confidently state whether interventions based on physical activity and education about physical activity are more effective than usual care for children and adolescents with chronic musculoskeletal pain. We found very low-certainty evidence that physical activity may reduce pain intensity and improve disability postintervention compared with usual care, for children and adolescents with juvenile idiopathic arthritis. We did not find any studies reporting educational interventions; it remains unknown how these interventions influence the outcomes in children and adolescents with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Treatment decisions should consider the current best evidence, the professional's experience, and the young person's preferences. Further randomised controlled trials in other common chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions, with high methodological quality, large sample size, and long-term follow-up are urgently needed.


Upcoming radio interferometers are aiming to image the sky at new levels of resolution and sensitivity, with wide-band image cubes reaching close to the Petabyte scale for SKA. Modern proximal optimization algorithms have shown a potential to significantly outperform CLEAN thanks to their ability to inject complex image models to regularize the inverse problem for image formation from visibility data. They were also shown to be scalable to large data volumes thanks to a splitting functionality enabling the decomposition of data into blocks, for parallel processing of block-specific data-fidelity terms of the objective function. In this work, the splitting functionality is further exploited to decompose the image cube into spatio-spectral facets, and enable parallel processing of facet-specific regularization terms in the objective. The resulting Faceted HyperSARA algorithm is implemented in MATLAB (code available on GitHub). Simulation results on synthetic image cubes confirm that faceting can provide a major increase in scalability at no cost in imaging quality. A proof-of-concept reconstruction of a 15 GB image of Cyg A from 7.4 GB of VLA data, utilizing 496 CPU cores on a HPC system for 68 hours, confirms both scalability and a quantum jump in imaging quality from CLEAN. Assuming slow spectral slope of Cyg A, we also demonstrate that Faceted HyperSARA can be combined with a dimensionality reduction technique, enabling utilizing only 31 CPU cores for 142 hours to form the Cyg A image from the same data, while preserving reconstruction quality. Cyg A reconstructed cubes are available online.


A self-collimation splitting sensor truncated in a two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystal has been proposed and demonstrated theoretically. Intensity of transmitted light and reflected light, which varies with the width of the splitter, is detected at two output ports. Calculation results validated by the 2D finite-difference time-domain technique show that with the increase of width, the transmittivity decreases while the reflectivity increases and their summation decreases. Considering the trade-off between the sensitivity of the optical detector and the loss of power, including the difficulty of fabrication, the width of 0.4a is meet for the sensor. The simulated relative intensity monotonously increases from 1.63 to 2.94 nonlinearly.


Background In 2011 northern Germany experienced a large outbreak of Shiga-Toxigenic Escherichia coli O104:H4. The large amount of samples sent to microbiology laboratories for epidemiological assessment highlighted the importance of fast and inexpensive typing procedures. We have therefore evaluated the applicability of a MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry based strategy for outbreak strain identification. Methods Specific peaks in the outbreak strain's spectrum were identified by comparative analysis of archived pre-outbreak spectra that had been acquired for routine species-level identification. Proteins underlying these discriminatory peaks were identified by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry and validated against publicly available databases. The resulting typing scheme was evaluated against PCR genotyping with 294 E. coli isolates from clinical samples collected during the outbreak. Results Comparative spectrum analysis revealed two characteristic peaks at m/z 6711 and m/z 10883. The underlying proteins were found to be of low prevalence among genome sequenced E. coli strains. Marker peak detection correctly classified 292 of 293 study isolates, including all 104 outbreak isolates. Conclusions MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry allowed for reliable outbreak strain identification during a large outbreak of Shiga-Toxigenic E. coli. The applied typing strategy could probably be adapted to other typing tasks and might facilitate epidemiological surveys as part of the routine pathogen identification workflow.


Abstract Currently the use of natural estradiol as estrogenic component in oral contraceptives is more and more extended. It is unknown whether the application of this estrogen is associated with a different breast cancer risk as compared to the common use of the synthetic ethinylestradiol. In addition with the intention to reduce menstruation associated symptoms and bleeding periods an extended-cycle regimen is currently considered. In the present in vitro work, we have compared the effect of these different estrogenic compounds and the different treatment regimens on breast cancer risk. Human breast cancer cells (ZR75-1 and HCC1500) were incubated with equimolar concentrations of estradiol or ethinylestradiol combined with various progestogens, dienogest, drospirenone, keto-desogestrel, levonorgestrel, and nomegestrel. Usual and extended cycle was mimicked by incubation periods of 3 days with 1 day hormones off and 4 days, respectively. Molecular markers for proliferation and apoptosis were investigated by Western blot. In both cell lines estradiol and ethinylestradiol elicited a significant increase in the proliferation rate without difference between the 2 estrogens. The effect in the long-term cycle tended to be more pronounced than in the intermitted cycle. Progestogen addition most significantly reduced the estrogen-induced proliferation rate. The molecular markers were influenced by the progestogens mostly in the same manner, reducing the proliferation/apoptosis rate. Our results indicate that both estrogenic based combinations with progestogens may not increase breast cancer risk independent from the regimen, intermitted or long-term cycle. However clinical studies are necessary to prove these in vitro results.


Cross-sectional studies have reported associations between frequency of eating, snacking, breakfast skipping, night-eating and obesity.  However, there have been few investigations of longitudinal trends in time-of-day of energy and macronutrient intake.  We investigated trends in time-of-day of energy and macronutrient intake in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Diet was assessed using 3d estimated diaries at ages 10 and 13 years. Diaries were divided into seven time slots: breakfast, mid-morning, lunch, mid-afternoon, dinner, late evening and extras. Trends in energy and macronutrient intake at different eating occasions between ages 10 and 13 years were assessed using linear mixed models after adjustment for age, maternal employment and child's BMI.  Lunch and dinner were found to contribute the greatest proportion of energy and macronutrient intake in both girls and boys at both ages.  However, there was a shift in time-of-day of energy and macronutrient intake for both sexes, with greater proportions of intake between meals (mid-morning, late evening, extras) and lower proportion of intake at main meals (breakfast, dinner) at age 13 years compared to 10 years.  Factors contributing to changes in energy and nutrient distribution warrant investigation and the implications of such changes in time-of-day of energy and nutrient intake on long-term health remains to be examined.


Part I. 5-Nitro-N-(p-toluenesulfonyl)-1,2,3-benzoxathiazole-2,2-dioxide was synthesized and reacted with various nucleophiles. Nitrogen nucleophiles attacked the exocyclic sulfur atom resulting in cleavage of the tosyl group. This is due in part to the acidity of the parent benzoxathiazole ring. A series of substituted NH-1,2,3-benzoxathiazole-2,2-dioxides were synthesized and their pK$\sb{\rm a}$ values were determined. An ab initio study was also undertaken on a simple sulfamate model in order to determine the origin of the increased acidity of the cyclic sulfamates, compared to their acyclic analogues. It was determined that the increased acidity was directly affected by the conformation of the neighboring heteroatoms. This is primarily due to heteratom-sulfur delocalization. Investigations of the role of d-orbitals on the stabilization of the system were inconclusive. An ab initio study of the increased acidity of the cyclic compounds compared to their acyclic analogues of sulfamide, methyl sulfonamide and vinyl sulfonamide was undertaken. The sulfamide and methyl sulfonamide models gave results consistent with experimental results, the former showing an increased acidity, the latter showing no change in acidity. Vinyl sulfonamide gave results contrary to those observed experimentally. The calculation suggested no increase in acidity, although one is observed experimentally. Part II. The synthesis was undertaken of several compounds capable of endocyclic nucleophilic substitution through a five-membered intermediate or transition state. The synthesis of two amino alcohols was unsuccessful. N-methyl-N-p-toluenesulfonyl-2-phenyl-ethylenediamine was synthesized and treated with nbutyllithium and lithium diisopropylamide. In each case, the anticipated rearrangement product was not observed. N-p-toluenesulfonyl-1,8-naphthosultam was also synthesized and treated with n-butyllithium and lithium diisopropylamide. The former resulted in nucleophilic attack of the base and ring opening. The latter resulted in an elimination-addition reaction yielding an undesired sultam. N-2-bromobenzyl-1,8-naphthosultam was also synthesized and treated with n-butyllithium. The sultam rearranged to a thiazocine through an endocyclic nucleophilic substitution, presumably by way of a fivemembered intermediate or transition state, thus providing the first example of a rearrangement through this intermediate.


Parity indicators in human skeletal material are highly desirable yet elusive. In this study, the relationships of dorsal pits and pubic tubercle elongation to parity are investigated in a sample of 148 modern female sets of pubic bones with associated birth information. The elongation of the pubic tubercle shows no significant correlation with number of births, but instead is associated with the distance this feature is from the pubic symphysis (p < 0.01) and the size of the arcuate angle (p < 0.05). Dorsal pits show a strong association with increasing numbers of births (p < 0.01), especially in younger women. However, in women over 50 years old, dorsal pitting is correlated with BMI (p < 0.05) and is not significantly correlated with number of births. While this study lends support to the correlation of dorsal pitting and parity, it currently does not reach the level of accuracy needed for forensic applications at the level of the individual.


Foodservice Management Fundamentals focuses on the tools necessary for managing foodservice operations in today's aggressive business environment. Reynolds & McClusky show readers how to position, manage, and leverage a successful food service operation--commercial and non-commercial--in a variety of venues. Using a menu-driven approach, the book will be full of management tools, best practices, and techniques. Reynolds brings a hospitality and business background while McClusky brings experience and expertise in nutrition & dietetics.


Spectral keying (SK) is a novel UWB modulation scheme that combines properties of both frequency shift keying and pulse position modulation. An SK symbol consists of a number of pulses where each pulse is from a different frequency band. It relies on dividing the available spectrum into multiple bands. The information is encoded by the sequence of the sent bands. It is found that the SK available symbol set scales factorially with the number of frequency bands in use. Theoretical analysis and simulations of a five band SK system are provided. Measurement results from an experimental SK system are also included.


Bioenergy has become one of the most promising renewable energy alternatives to fossil-based energy. Many scientific tools have been developed to enhance the conversion of biomass to biofuels. Novel plant breeding and cropping technologies have been used to develop and produce energy crops to meet the growing demand for the next generation biomass feedstocks. In this chapter, the classification of biofuels based on the first and advanced generations will be covered. In addition, recent developments made in the production of cellulosic biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass will also be discussed.


The antagonistic properties of indigenous microflora from cassava starch, flour and grated cassava were investigated using the conventional streak, novel ring and well diffusion methods. Antagonism was measured by zone of inhibition between the fungal plug and bacterial streak/ring. Bacillus species were more effective to inhibit the growth of Aspergillus niger , A. fumigatus , Fusarium moniliforme and Rhizoctonia sp. Pseudomonas fluorescens, Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces sp . inhibited the growth of A. niger, A. flavus and F. moniliforme . There were considerable variations in inhibitory activity. The zone of inhibition was more apparent in the novel ring method. Percentage inhibition increased to 78% in the Ring method and 62% in streak method after 168 h of incubation. Lactobacillus brevis, L. acidophilus and Bacillus subtilis inhibited the growth of E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus . Inhibition of the pathogenic microorganisms was probably due to the production of organic acids and bacteriocins. African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 4 (7), pp. 627-632, 2005


Original scientific paper The problem of a robot to create a map of an unknown environment while correcting its own position based on the same map and sensor data is called Simultaneous Localization and Mapping problem. As the accuracy and precision of the sensors have an important role in this problem, most of the proposed systems include the usage of high cost laser range sensors, and relatively newer and cheaper RGB-D cameras. Laser range sensors are too expensive for some implementations, and RGB-D cameras bring high power, CPU or communication requirements to process data on-board or on a PC. In order to build a low-cost robot it is more appropriate to use low-cost sensors (like infrared and sonar). In this study it is aimed to create a map of an unknown environment using a low cost robot, Extended Kalman Filter and linear features like walls and furniture. A loop closing approach is also proposed here. Experiments are performed in Webots simulation environment.


Spray drying is an essential unit operation for the manufacture of many products with specific powder properties. It is characterized by atomization of a solution or suspension into droplets, followed by subsequent drying of these droplets by evaporation of water or other solvents. Spray drying is used for the manufacture of many consumer and industrial products such as instant food products, laundry detergents, and pharmaceuticals. It is well suited to continuous production of dry solids in powder, granulate or agglomerate particle form from liquid feed-stocks. Spray drying starts with the atomization of a liquid feedstock into a spray of droplets. Next, the droplets are put in contact with hot air in a drying chamber. The sprays are produced by either rotary (wheel) or nozzle atomizers of different types. Evaporation of moisture from the droplets and formation of dry particles proceed under controlled temperature and airflow conditions. Powder is continuously discharged from the drying chamber and recovered from the exhaust gases using a cyclone or a bag filter. The whole process generally takes no more than a few seconds. Correct atomization and air distribution are the keys to the spray drying process, as both greatly influence the final powder structure and quality. Often, spray dryers are equipped with high-speed centrifugal atomizers ensuring sturdy and reliable operation. High-Pressure nozzle atomization is used especially for products where a rather coarse powder with narrow particle distribution and high bulk density is required. In the nozzle atomizer, fines are returned around one or more central nozzles in order to facilitate optimum agglomeration. Two-Fluid nozzle agglomeration is typically applied in small chambers allowing maximum flexibility in particle design and particle engineering for both super-fine and agglomerated particles.


[1] In this study we propose the assimilation of topside in situ electron density data from the Republic of China Satellite (ROCSAT-1) along with the ionosonde measurements for accurate determination of topside ionospheric effective scale heights (HT) using an α-Chapman function. The reconstructed topside electron density profiles using these scale heights exhibit an excellent similitude with Jicamarca incoherent scatter radar (ISR) profiles and are much better representations than the existing methods of Reinisch-Huang method and/or the empirical International Reference Ionosphere–2007 model. The main advantage with this method is that it allows the precise determination of the effective scale height (HT) and the topside electron density profiles at a dense network of ionosonde/Digisonde stations where no ISR facilities are available. The demonstration of the method is applied by investigating the diurnal, seasonal, and solar activity variations of HT over the dip-equatorial station Jicamarca and the midlatitude station Grahamstown. The diurnal variation of scale heights over Jicamarca consistently exhibits a morning time descent followed by a minimum around 0700–0800 LT and a pronounced maximum at noon during all the seasons of both high and moderate solar activity periods. Further, the scale heights exhibit a secondary maximum during the postsunset hours of equinoctial and summer months, whereas the postsunset peak is absent during the winter months. These typical features are further investigated using the topside ion properties obtained by ROCSAT-1 as well as Sami2 is Another Model of the Ionosphere (SAMI2) model simulations. The results consistently indicate that the diurnal variation of the effective scale height (HT) does not closely follow the plasma temperature variation and at equatorial latitudes is largely controlled by the vertical E × B drift.


Transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS), is a non-invasive, painless brain stimulation treatment that uses direct electrical currents to stimulate specific parts of the brain. This is achieved by placing two electrodes--one positive (the anode) and one negative (the cathode)--on the scalp and running current across them. Altering the cortical excitability in this manner has been associated with changes in a variety of cognitive and motor tasks, those thought to be controlled by the underlying regions. While most of the existing literature has focused on the effects of placing the anode over the target region (often benefitting the associated performance), there is some evidence suggesting that switching the polarity and placing the cathode over the target region reverses the behavioral effect, such that an improvement might turn into a decrement. For my Senior Project, I conducted an experiment manipulating the polarity of the electrode placed over my target region of interest (the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (L DLPFC) in order to test whether cathodal stimulation temporarily impairs motor skill performance. As far as I am aware, all previous tDCS work targeting this region has focused exclusively on anodal stimulation as it pertains to motor skill performance. I compared the accuracy and reaction times involved in a standard motor task (using a finger-tapping task) across three different (within-subject) conditions: (a) anodal stimulation (b) cathodal stimulation and (c) sham stimulation on the L DLPFC. In contrast to anodal stimulation, which I predict will replicate an improvement in motor performance, I predict that cathodal tDCS will lead to a relative decrease in reaction time from baseline. These conditions should be distinct from the sham condition, for which no reliable change from baseline is expected, save for any changes reflecting expectancy effects. The result revealed an unexpected reversed effect of Cathodal tDCS in RT which suggests that Cathodal tDCS may also have the ability to improve motor ability. Potential possibilities and limitations of this study were discussed.


Galectin-12 is a member of an animal lectin family with affinity for β-galactosides and containing consensus amino acid sequences. Here, we found that galectin-12 was expressed in macrophages and thus aimed to determine how galectin-12 affects inflammation and macrophage polarization and activation. The ablation of galectin-12 did not affect bone marrow cells to differentiate into macrophages, but reduced phagocytic activity against Escherichia coli and lowered the secretion of nitric oxide. The ablation of galectin-12 also resulted in the polarization of macrophages into the M2 direction, as indicated by increases in the levels of M2 markers, namely, resistin-like β (FIZZ1) and chitinase 3-like 3 (Ym1), as well as a reduction in the expression levels of a number of M1 pro-inflammatory cytokines. We found that the diminished expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines in macrophages resulting from galectin-12 deletion was due to reduced activation of IKKα/β, Akt and ERK, which in turn caused decreased activation of NF-κB and activator protein 1. The activation of STAT3 was much higher in Gal12(-/-) macrophages activated by lipopolysaccharide, which was correlated with higher levels of IL-10. Adipocytes showed higher insulin sensitivity when treated with Gal12(-/-) macrophage-conditioned media than those treated with Gal12(+/+) macrophages. We conclude galectin-12 negatively regulates macrophage polarization into the M2 population, resulting in enhanced inflammatory responses and also in turn causing decreased insulin sensitivity in adipocytes. This has implications in the treatment of a wide spectrum of metabolic disorders.


The renewable energy sources are going to become the long-term solution for future energy. Adequate infrastructure development is of crucial importance to harness power from them. This paper accumulates state-of-the-art issues and feasible solutions associated with large scale deployment of the renewable energy technologies. Various alternatives presented here are likely to change the look of the future power system. The role of existing technologies, automation, and communication for sustainable development is explained here. A case study of solar photovoltaic installation is presented to show efforts of India in sustainable energy development.


We study Kummer varieties attached to 2-coverings of abelian varieties of arbitrary dimension. Over a number field we show that the subgroup of odd order elements of the Brauer group does not obstruct the Hasse principle. Sufficient conditions for the triviality of the Brauer group are given, which allow us to give an example of a Kummer K3 surface of geometric Picard rank 17 over the rationals with trivial Brauer group. We establish the non-emptyness of the Brauer--Manin set of everywhere locally soluble Kummer varieties attached to 2-coverings of products of hyperelliptic Jacobians with large Galois action on 2-torsion.


OBJECTIVE
To develop and validate a disease-specific quality of life (QOL) measure for osteoarthritis (OA), the OAQoL, using the needs-based conceptual model.

METHODS
In the first phase of this study, in-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with 44 OA patients to explore the issues associated with impact of OA and to derive items for a draft OAQoL questionnaire. In phase 2, 17 OA patients were interviewed on the relevance, clarity, and ease of completion of the measure in structured interviews. In phase 3, the draft questionnaire was mailed to 635 patients to test the psychometric properties of the questionnaire using Rasch analysis. Test-retest assessment of the revised questionnaire was performed in phase 4 by mailing the questionnaire to an additional 201 participants, with a second questionnaire repeated 2 weeks later.

RESULTS
A 38-item draft measure was devised during phase 1 and mailed in phase 2. Rasch analysis of the draft questionnaire (n = 259) indicated initial misfit, which was rectified with the removal of 13 problematic items (chi(2)[75] = 83.602, P = 0.232). For the test-retest assessment (n = 60), 3 additional items were removed, leaving a 22-item OAQoL that demonstrated good fit to the Rasch model (chi(2)[44] = 44.559, P = 0.533) with excellent test-retest correlation (rho = 0.925, P < 0.001; z = -0.06, P = 0.995).

CONCLUSION
The OAQoL is a simple and easy to use 22-item unidimensional questionnaire developed specifically to assess the impact of OA on QOL. The measure has been developed as a true patient-based questionnaire and demonstrates good psychometric properties, including test-retest reliability.


Physiological parameters affecting reactivated ciliary beat in spermatozoids of braken fern (Pteridium aquilinum) were studied using a Triton/glycerol permeabilized cell model system. Reactivation frequencies of polylysine-tethered cells equalled in vivo rates at neutral pH. Frequency was dependent on ATP and Mg2+ concentration, and reactivation was inhibited by millimolar or greater free calcium. Reactivation was reversibly inhibited by micromolar concentrations of sodium ortho-vanadate, while intact cells were not affected by millimolar levels of the inhibitor. This is the first characterization of in vitro ciliary beat in a non-algal plant cell and demonstrates that the nucleotide and ionic requirements for reactivation of bracken cilia are similar to those of other systems.


Pharmacoinformatics research has experienced a great deal of successes in detecting drug‐induced adverse events (AEs) using large‐scale health record databases. In the era of polypharmacy, pharmacoinformatics faces many new challenges, and two significant challenges are to detect high‐order drug interactions and to handle strongly correlated drugs. In this article, we propose a super‐combo‐drug test (SupCD‐T) to address the aforementioned two challenges. SupCD‐T detects drug interactions by identifying optimal drug combinations with increased AE risks. In addition, SupCD‐T increases the statistical powers to detect single‐drug effects by combining strongly correlated drugs. Although SupCD‐T does not distinguish single‐drug effects from their combination effects, it is noticeably more powerful in selecting an individual drug effect in the multiple regression analysis, where confounding justification between two correlated drugs reduces the power in testing the individual drug effects on AEs. Our simulation studies demonstrate that SupCD‐T has generally better power comparing with the multiple regression analysis. In addition, SupCD‐T is able to select meaningful drug combinations (eg, highly coprescribed drugs). Using electronic health record database, we illustrate the utility of SupCD‐T and discover a number of drug combinations that have increased risk in myopathy. Some novel drug combinations have not yet been investigated and reported in the pharmacology research.