Customary law is the law that captures the norms, traditions and rules of behaviour of the people. It is the law propelled by the worldview, beliefs, philosophies and value system of the people. In traditional societies, customary laws were largely unchallenged save by compelling innovations that re-channeled aspects of the practices of the people and subsequently altered its traditions. Since the introduction of English law in the administration of justice in Nigeria about a century ago, customary law has been fighting for breath and a large chunk of it has not survived the conflict that was the necessary outcome of the contact. This paper has discussed the nature of justice that the hybrid legal system has produced. It has answered the question whether the judicial system that yields legal justice has produced social justice as well. It has also made projections into the future of customary law and examined the imperatives of a smoother marriage of convenience between the borrowed English legal system and native law and custom so as to achieve justice that is real and answers to the needs of the society. The topic is discussed under six sub-heads, namely: Introduction; conceptual analysis; application of customary law in Nigeria; customary law and justice; customary law and arbitration; and conclusion. Under conceptual analysis, the meaning, sources and progressive development of customary law have been examined including their relationship with the English common law. On the application of customary law, the standard requirements for the validity and enforcement of the law have been discussed critically. The capacity of customary law to produce both legal and social justice has been evaluated under the sub-head of customary law and justice while the content, context and legal status of customary arbitration and customary awards have been treated under customary law and arbitration. The co-relation between customary law and social development was examined and practical policy formulations suggested for enhancing the role of customary law in social development. The conclusion summarized salient points raised and evaluated in the work and projected the capacity of customary law to play a more pro-active role in the administration of justice in Nigeria when and after obvious negative tendencies by the operators have been eliminated or at least minimized.


The flurry of self-congratulation with which PMLA now opens has perhaps resulted in an academic consumerism which leads us to distrust "significant" and "of interest to the entire profession" as we have learned to doubt Madison Avenue's "whitest," "brightest," and "totally new process." Judgments of significance or interest are necessarily in part subjective, and therefore, understandably, scholars may differ in these matters. I would hope, however, that accuracy of fact and attentiveness to the text would be criteria that readers could unquestionably expect of PMLA. This, unfortunately, is not true of Max Byrd's article, "'Reading' in Great Expectations" -. (PMLA, 91, 1976,259-65). Byrd writes, "Wemmick's reading the newspaper aloud to his Aged Parent both mirrors and corrects Pip's reading aloud to Magwitch: despite the old Man's deafness, despite the absence of an intelligible language between them, Wemmick communicates with a father" (p. 265, n. 8). In Great Expectations (Ch. xxxvii), the roles are, in fact, exactly reversed: it is the Aged who reads to Wemmick. Rather than showing us a son who subjects a deaf old man to an unintelligible experience, Dickens clearly indicates the great tact and the generous love with which Wemmick contrives' to make his father feel not only wanted but needed. As a prelude to the newspaper reading, Pip and Miss Skiffins are entertained at tea. "The responsible duty of making the toast was delegated to the Aged," we are told, "and that excellent old gentleman was so intent upon it that he seemed to be in some danger of melting his eyes." After all have enjoyed the "haystack of buttered toast" so prepared, Wemmick asks his father to read, explaining to Pip that "this was according to custom, and that it gave the old gentleman infinite satisfaction to read the news aloud." Wemmick adds, "I won't offer an apology, for he isn't capable of many pleasures." The Aged, we are told, is "so busy and so pleased that it was really quite charming." What follows is one of Dickens' characteristically memorable scenes. The old father reads proudly, endangering himself and the newspaper by the closeness of the candle, watched over by Wemmick's "untiring and gentle" vigilance, and "quite unconscious of his many rescues." Byrd's reversal of the facts results in his overlooking the most important values in this scene. It is a tribute to Dickens' humane understanding that he shows us vividly how Wemmick's generosity is most evident in his efforts to make his father feel useful, and to preserve for him as far as possible the paternal role of feeding and instructing his son. While it would obviously be easier to take the role of reader, Wemmick goes to much trouble to give his father dignity. The contrast with Pip is indeed marked, and especially in Pip's condescension toward Joe. Wemmick's loving pride in his father, his acceptance of him without reserve, provides an exemplum which Pip will finally be able to follow with Joe and Magwitch. "Reading" is indeed our stock in trade, as we are reminded in the Editor's Column. Let it be our first concern to do it carefully.


Viroids of the family Avsunviroidae, such as eggplant latent viroid (ELVd), contain hammerhead ribozymes and replicate in the chloroplasts of the host plant through an RNA-based symmetrical rolling-circle mechanism in which oligomeric RNAs of both polarity are processed to monomeric linear RNAs (by cleavage) and to monomeric circular RNAs (by ligation). Using an experimental system consisting of transplastomic lines of the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a mutational analysis of sequence and structural elements in the ELVd molecule that are involved in transcript processing in vivo in a chloroplastic context was carried out. A collection of six insertion and three deletion ELVd mutants was created and expressed in C. reinhardtii chloroplast. All mutants cleaved efficiently except for the control with an insertion inside the hammerhead ribozyme domain, supporting the prediction that this domain is necessary and sufficient to mediate transcript cleavage in vivo. However, two deletion mutants that cleaved efficiently showed ligation defects, indicating that during RNA circularization, other parts of the molecule are involved in addition to the hammerhead ribozyme domain. This is probably a quasi double-stranded structure present in the central part of the molecule which contains the ligation site in an internal loop. However, the mutations prevented the viroid from infecting its natural host, eggplant, indicating that they affected other essential functions in ELVd infectious cycle. The insertion in the terminal loop of the right upper hairpin of ELVd did not have this effect; it was tolerated and partially maintained in the progeny.


Gene expression is modulated by transcription factors (TFs), which are proteins that generally bind to DNA adjacent to coding regions and initiate transcription. Each target gene can be regulated by more than one TF, and each TF can regulate many targets. For a complete molecular understanding of transcriptional regulation, researchers must first associate each TF with the set of genes that it regulates. Here we present a summary of completed work on the ability to associate 104 TFs with their binding sites using support vector machines (SVMs), which are classification algorithms based in statistical learning theory. We use several types of genomic datasets to train classifiers in order to predict TF binding in the yeast genome. We consider motif matches, subsequence counts, motif conservation, functional annotation, and expression profiles. A simple weighting scheme varies the contribution of each type of genomic data when building a final SVM classifier, which we evaluate using known binding sites published in the literature and in online databases. The SVM algorithm works best when all datasets are combined, producing 73% coverage of known interactions, with a prediction accuracy of almost 0.9. We discuss new ideas and preliminary work for improving SVM classification of biological data.


Studies of novel cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors such as adverse pregnancy events are hampered by the nature of the events in question; life events cannot be studied in randomised controlled designs and the events of interest are often separated by decades. Consequently, epidemiological studies are important in furthering our understanding of such risk factors. Adverse pregnancy outcomes have been linked to an increased risk of later cardiovascular events. Most well established is the association with pre-eclampsia,1 but in 2003, Smith et al 2 reported an association between miscarriage before first live birth and later risk of ischaemic heart disease in a cohort of 129 290 women. With the past decade's increased focus on CVD in women, risk factors specific to women, including adverse pregnancy events, have entered the spotlight. The American Heart Association's 2011 guidelines for the prevention of CVD in women specifically suggest that clinicians should ask focused questions about a history of pre-eclampsia and other pregnancy complications.3 The guidelines further call for new research to identify events during 'periods of potential vulnerability' in a woman's life that might influence her CVD risk.3 The time is therefore ripe to consider the impact of other adverse pregnancy events, including pregnancy losses.

Pregnancy losses have a wide range of underlying causes. Early miscarriages are often ascribed to major fetal chromosomal defects, while sporadic late miscarriages and recurrent miscarriages (both early and late) are often associated with one or more maternal risk factors, many of which overlap with traditional CVD risk factors: maternal infection, smoking, obesity, alcohol intake, diabetes, physical trauma, placental anomalies or dysfunction, maternal family history of recurrent miscarriage, systemic diseases characterised by immune or coagulation defects.4 As many as 25% of all women report having experienced a miscarriage; 10%–15% of recognised pregnancies are thought to …


Magnesium and its alloys have been considered for load-bearing implant materials due to their similar mechanical properties to the natural bone, excellent biocompatibility, good bioactivity, and biodegradation. Nevertheless, the uncontrollable corrosion rate in biological environment restrains their application. Hydroxyapatite (HA, Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2) is a widely used bio-ceramic which has bone-like mineral structure for bone fixation. Poor fracture toughness of HA makes it not suitable for load-bearing application as a bulk. Thus, HA is introduced into metallic surface in various forms for improving biocompatibility. Recently friction stir processing (FSP) has emerged as a surface modification tool for surface/substrate grain refinement and homogenization of microstructure in biomaterial. In the pressent efforts, Mg-nHA composite surface on with 5-20 wt% HA on Mg substrate were fabricated by FSP for biodegradation and bioactivity study. The results of electrochemical measurement indicated that lower amount (~5% wt%) of Ca in Mg matrix can enhance surface localized corrosion resistance. The effects of microstructure,the presence of HA particle and Mg-Ca intermetallic phase precipitates on in vitro behavior of Mg alloy were investigated by TEM, SEM, EDX,XRD ,and XPS. The detailed observations will be discussed during presentation.


Resources that summarize research-supported treatments (RSTs) are useful tools in clinical decision making. These resources can be particularly helpful when clinicians are uncertain about which treatment direction to take, when treatment does not seem to be working, when clinicians need to justify their approach to others, and when clinicians do not have time to review recent research on a particular clinical issue. This article describes resources for finding short, user-friendly summaries of research-supported group treatments, briefly describes several research-supported group treatments that are not well described in existing resources, and recommends several ways in which these research summaries can be used to improve group practice.


The rapid development of new technologies for the high throughput (HT) study of proteins has increased the demand for comprehensive plasmid clone resources that support protein expression. These clones must be full-length, sequence-verified and in a flexible format. The generation of these resources requires automated pipelines supported by software management systems. Although the availability of clone resources is growing, current collections are either not complete or not fully sequence-verified. We report an automated pipeline, supported by several software applications that enabled the construction of the first comprehensive sequence-verified plasmid clone resource for more than 96% of protein coding sequences of the genome of F. tularensis, a highly virulent human pathogen and the causative agent of tularemia. This clone resource was applied to a HT protein purification pipeline successfully producing recombinant proteins for 72% of the genes. These methods and resources represent significant technological steps towards exploiting the genomic information of F. tularensis in discovery applications.


Purpose
In the past few years, companies have made significant contributions towards Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) as a strategy to improve business image. Nonetheless, many of these strategies have been unsuccessful because companies have failed to recognise the importance of consumers' ethical beliefs and their religiosity in forming their perception towards CSR. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore the level of importance of consumers' ethical beliefs and social responsibilities (CnSR) and to examine the impact of consumers' religiosity and ethical beliefs on CnSR.

Design/methodology/approach
Data were derived from a sample of undergraduate and postgraduate students at three large universities (i.e. one public and two private universities) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (N = 416). Indonesia is the largest Muslim population in the world.

Findings
7The study found that consumers value social responsibilities differently and that not all dimensions are important. Moreover, consumer ethical beliefs and religiosity significantly influence CnSR. The results of this study will contribute to the debate on consumer ethics and social responsibility research.

Research limitations/implications
The current study has some limitations which, in turn, provide avenues for future research. The research context (one city in one country) may limit its generalizability. Future studies may focus on more cities and/or cross-country sections (developed versus developing countries) as well as use non-student populations.

Practical implications
Companies operating in Indonesia need to respect and value religiosity in Indonesia. Collaborating with a faith-based institution may help improve the effectiveness of CSR programmes launched by companies.

Originality/value
This is one of the first few studies exploring CSR in Indonesia.


Entity alignment is to find identical entities in different knowledge graphs. Although embedding-based entity alignment has recently achieved remarkable progress, training data insufficiency remains a critical challenge. Conventional semi-supervised methods also suffer from the incorrect entity alignment in newly proposed training data. To resolve these issues, we design an iterative cycle-teaching framework for semi-supervised entity alignment. The key idea is to train multiple entity alignment models (called aligners) simultaneously and let each aligner iteratively teach its successor the proposed new entity alignment. We propose a diversity-aware alignment selection method to choose reliable entity alignment for each aligner. We also design a conflict resolution mechanism to resolve the alignment conflict when combining the new alignment of an aligner and that from its teacher. Besides, considering the influence of cycle-teaching order, we elaborately design a strategy to arrange the optimal order that can maximize the overall performance of multiple aligners. The cycle-teaching process can break the limitations of each model's learning capability and reduce the noise in new training data, leading to improved performance. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed cycle-teaching framework, which significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art models when the training data is insufficient and the new entity alignment has much noise.


Recent results from Round 9 of the European Social Survey (ESS) indicate that
 Serbia differs from other European countries in terms of justice and
 fairness. Whereas the Serbian people?s dissatisfaction relating to unjust
 income distribution, unfair employment chances and political institutions
 may not be surprising, these findings still raise a dozen questions.
 Situated within contemporary discussions on normativity in sociology and
 survey methodology, this paper aims to reassess the moral grammar of these
 judgments. By endorsing tenets of pragmatic sociology and its principal aim
 to recognize the plural modes of valuation and criticism and reflective
 capacities of social actors to judge and evaluate, this paper develops
 around few major points. First, we underline how most major approaches to
 axiology remain stuck in a co-determinist framework, thereby renewing a
 number of dualisms. Instead, we opt for a relational approach and further
 present how the theoretical model of Boltanski and Thev?not enables the
 locating of different assessments of worth. After setting our methodological
 framework against the ?externalist? epistemology, we explore our key
 assumption that the above-mentioned high rates come as a problem of a
 feasible ?truce? between the domestic regime and the civic polity, ruled by
 proclaimed legality, representativeness and impersonal character. We trace
 the problem of incorporating multiple arrangements as a problem of
 generality, by relating these to two layers of information acquired through
 the ESS. One involves the analysis of the domestic polity covering the
 household situation in terms of organization and unveiling the specific
 worth given to care and protection. Another layer is derived from regression
 analysis which affirms that the absence of fairness in civic polity
 correlates with a higher degree of worth given to the domestic one, but also
 that the latter situation depicts a deeper ontological puzzle about making a
 mild transition to the assumed ?horizontality? of civic matters.


This descriptive cross-sectional retrospective study is designed to update the global burden of dengue and to analyse if the new case management has been effective in reducing mortality and morbidity.
The world is divided in two groups, each one using different case definitions for diagnosing dengue. SEAR uses the old 1997 WHO case definition while PAHO uses the new 2009 WHO case classification.
A literature review will be carried out in order to update the pros and cons of each case definition and national data will be used to analyse the impact of both methods on the mortality. Statistical tests will be performed to quantify the results.
Due to time limit, only the top five representative countries will be studied for each region


The Southern Ocean (SO) accounts for over 40% of anthropogenically derived CO 2 uptake. It is the world's largest High-Nutrient Low-Chlorophyll (HNLC) region and the scarcity of trace metals such as iron (Fe) drives phytoplankton composition and biomass build up. Besides Fe, manganese (Mn) is the second most abundant trace metal since it is present in the thylakoids. As dissolved manganese (dMn) concentrations in the Atlantic sector of the SO are very low (0.04 nM), phytoplankton growth may not only be limited by Fe but also by Mn availability, a theory previously described by Martin et al. (1990). However, mechanistic studies investigating the effects of multiple trace metals limiting or co-limiting on growth and photosynthesis are lacking. This study focuses on the identification of the Fe-Mn co-limitation of natural phytoplankton assemblages to elucidate the impact of different Fe and Mn additions on species composition. To this end, two shipboard Fe-Mn addition bottle incubation experiments were conducted during the 'RV Polarstern' expedition PS97 in the Western and Eastern Drake Passage (DP) in 2016. This study highlights the importance of Mn in the otherwise Fe-limited Drake Passage. From microscopy samples, the addition of Fe and Mn together triggered the highest abundance of the genus Fragilariopsis sp. in the Western DP. In the Eastern DP, the nanophytoplankton fraction, detected by flow cytometry, reached the highest abundance only when both trace elements were provided, confirmed by highest chlorophyll-a build up. Moreover, the distinct response of Mn depletion relative to the Fe depletion support the findings that Fe and Mn do not substitute to each other. This experimental study highlights that both trace elements act as drivers of the ecology across the Drake Passage.


Abstract Evaluation of infants with craniosynostosis for surgical intervention, as opposed to conservative management, remains a challenge within the field of craniofacial surgery. Studies have consistently demonstrated that surgical repair of craniosynostosis is ideally performed between 3 and 12 months of age. As such, there is limited data regarding neurocognitive development in infants who initially present with uncorrected craniosynostosis after 12 months of age. Moreover, the impact of cranial vault surgery on neurocognitive development at all ages remains under investigation. A prospective, nonrandomized study was performed. All children with nonsyndromic craniosynostosis who presented for initial evaluation after 12 months of age were enrolled. The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition (Bayley-III) was utilized to assess pre- and postoperative cognitive development and comparisons were made to normative values. Developmental delay is defined as scoring < 85. Five infants, average age 26 months (13–43 months) at initial presentation, underwent cranial vault remodeling and developmental testing. Fused cranial sutures involved: metopic (n = 4), and right coronal (n = 1). Cognitive testing demonstrated that 4 of 5 infants (80%) were developmentally delayed at presentation (scores: 60, 70, 72, and 80), and 1 infant was within normal limits (score: 100). Postoperative testing was performed between 2 and 12 months postoperatively. Universal improvement was observed in infants who were delayed prior to surgery (80, 80, 75, and 90, respectively). The infant who was not delayed prior to surgery remained within normal limits after surgery. This study demonstrates an association between cranial vault surgery and cognitive improvement in infants presenting late with developmental delay.


The article deals with experimental verification of three distinct UX web application testing methods in areas of agriculture, food industry, forestry, water management and rural development. The verification was conducted using agrarian WWW portal AGRIS. The three analyzed methods were five-second test, thirty-second test and usability test with preset scenario. The usability test yielded best results. The results of thirty-second test were satisfactory while the five-second test proved to be unsuitable for the given area.


Foreword of the First Edition. Preface. List of Abbreviations. 1. Basic Concepts and Theorems of Structural Analysis. 1.1 Introduction. 1.2 General Concepts of Structural Analysis. 1.3 Important Structural Theorems. Exercises. 2. Static Indeterminacy and Rigidity of Skeletal Structures. 2.1 Introduction. 2.2 Mathematical Model of a Skeletal Structure. 2.3 Expansion Process for Determining the Degree of Statical Indeterminacy. 2.4 The DSI of Structures: Special Methods. 2.5 Space Structures and Their Planar Drawings. 2.6 Rigidity of Structures. 2.7 Rigidity of Planar Trusses. 2.8 Connectivity and Rigidity. Exercises. 3. Optimal Force Method of Structural Analysis. 3.1 Introduction. 3.2 Formulation of the Force Method. 3.3 Force Method for the Analysis of Frame Structures. 3.4 Conditioning of the Flexibility Matrices. 3.5 Generalized Cycle Basis of a Graph . 3.6 Force Method for the Analysis of Pin-jointed Trusses. 3.7 Force Method Analysis of General Structures. Exercises. 4. Optimal Displacement Method of Structural Analysis. 4.1 Introduction. 4.2 Formulation. 4.3 Transformation of Stiffness Matrices. 4.4 Displacement Method of Analysis. 4.5 Stiffness Matrix of a Finite Element. 4.6 Computational Aspects of the Matrix Displacement Method. 4.7 Optimal Conditioned Cutset Bases. Exercises. 5. Ordering for Optimal Patterns of Structural Matrices: Graph Theory Methods. 5.1 Introduction. 5.2 Bandwidth Optimisation. 5.3 Preliminaries. 5.4 A Shortest Route Tree and its Properties. 5.5 Nodal Ordering for Bandwidth Reduction Graph Theory Methods. 5.6 Finite Element Nodal Ordering For Bandwidth Optimisation. 5.7 Finite Element Nodal Ordering for Profile Optimisation. 5.8 Element Ordering for Frontwidth Reduction. 5.9 Element Ordering for Bandwidth Optimisation of Flexibility Matrices. 5.10 Bandwidth Reduction for Rectangular Matrices. 5.11 Graph-Theoretical interpretation of Gaussian Elimination. Exercises. 6. Ordering for Optimal Patterns of Structural Matrices: Algebraic Graph Theory Methods. 6.1 Introduction. 6.2 Adjacency Matrix of a Graph for Nodal Ordering. 6.3 Laplacian Matrix of a Graph for Nodal Ordering. 6.4 A Hybrid Method for Ordering. Exercises. 7. Decomposition for Parallel Computing: Graph Theory Methods. 7.1 Introduction. 7.2 Earlier Works on Partitioning. 7.3 Substructuring for Parallel Analysis of Skeletal Structures. 7.4 Domain Decomposition for Finite Element Analysis. 7.5 Substructuring Force Method. 7.6 Substructuring for Dynamic Analysis. Exercises. 8. Decomposition for Parallel Computing: Algebraic Graph Theory Methods. 8.1 Introduction. 8.2 Algebraic Graph theory for Subdomaining. 8.3 Mixed Method for Subdimaining. 8.4 Spectral Bisection for Adaptive FEM Weighted Graphs. 8.5 Spectral Trisection of Finite Element Models. 8.6 Bisection of Finite Element Meshes Using Ritz and Fiedler Vectors. Exercises. 9. Decomposition and Nodal Ordering of Regular Structures. 9.1 Introduction. 9.2 Definitions of Different Graph Products. 9.3 Eigenvalues of Graphs Matrices for Different Products. 9.4 Eigenvalues of A and L Matrices for Cycles and Paths. 9.5 Numerical Examples. 9.6 Spectral Method for Profile Reduction. 9.7 Non-Compact Extended p-Sum. Exercises. References. Appendix A Basic Concepts and Definitions of Graph Theory. A.1 Introduction. A.2 Basic Definitions. A.3 Vector Spaces Associated with a Graph. A.4 Matrices Associated with a Graph. A.5 Directed Graphs and Their Matrices. A.6 Graphs Associated with Matrices. A.7 Planar Graphs: Euler's Polyhedron Formula. A.8 Maximal Matching in Bipartite Graphs. Appendix B Greedy Algorithm and its Applications. B.1 Axiom System for a Matroid. B.2 Matroids Applied to Structural Mechanics. B.3 Cocycle Matroid of a Graph. B.4 Matroid for Null Bases of a Matrix. B.5 Combinatorial Optimisation: the Greedy Algorithm. B.6 Application of the Greedy Algorithm. B.7 Formation of Sparse Null Bases. Index. Index of Symbols.


Most existing models or theories in IS focus on the cognitive and behavioral aspects of human decision-making processes and on individual reactions to using technologies in organizations and other contexts. The influence of affect or emotion is traditionally neglected. The affective aspect, however, is considered crucial, and has gained attention in psychology, marketing, organizational behavior, and other fields. Recently, affect and related concepts have attracted attention from researchers in information systems (IS) and human-computer interaction (HCI). Yet, studies of affect have been scattered and less systematic. This paper first examines the theoretical advancement of affect studies in several referencing disciplines to IS: psychology, organizational psychology , and marketing and consumer behavior. An abstract model of the individual interacting with an object (IIO) is developed to represent the important contributors to behavior intention and behavior of people interacting with objects. Then the chapter continues with a comprehensive survey of existing studies on affect in the IS discipline to demonstrate the current status of the research stream, some conceptual discrepancies and limitations, and some potential areas for future research. An IT-specific model of IIO, a model of individual interaction with IT (IIIT), is constructed as both a framework and a theoretical model to interpret and predict individual IT user behavior. This study is an attempt to highlight and systematically analyze the influence of affect in IS and therefore has great implications for both researchers and practitioners.


A new low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) transceiver is proposed for the coded single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) system over frequency selective fading channels. By exploiting the constant envelope of the Chu-sequence in both frequency and time domains, the parallel spreading scheme and M-ary cyclic shift mapping technique can support the coded SC-FDMA system with a low PAPR for transmission at a high data rate. Interleaved time and frequency domain orthogonal modulation can increase the frequency diversity gain through the frequency domain equaliser and the time domain despreader. Moreover, the maximum likelihood rule is designed to detect the M-ary mapping data, which can provide M-ary gain to improve system performance. Simulation results reveal that the proposed high-rate coded SC-FDMA system can provide a lower PAPR and a better bit error rate (BER) performance than the conventional interleaved SC-FDMA system.


Asiatic lily cultivars, bred by hybridization and (or) chromosome doubling of species of section Sinomartagon of Lilium, are diploid, triploid, or tetraploid, but the homology of the genomes among species of section Sinomartagon and Asiatic lilies remains unclear. In the present research, two tetraploid Asiatic cultivars were analyzed, using 45S rDNA as probe, for their FISH karyotypes and their chromosomal association, anaphase I, telophase II, and pollen viability were surveyed to assess the multivalent segregation. Chromosomal assortment of six progenies of the two tetraploid cultivars were also investigated. The results showed that the tetraploid cultivars had similar FISH karyotypes, they predominantly formed multivalents, and these were equally separated because their anaphase I, telophase II, and pollen viability were similar to those of diploid species. Apart from minor variations, FISH karyotypes of progenies were similar to each other and to their parents. Based on these results and considering the high crossability among species of section Sinomartagon and (or) Asiatic lilies, we concluded that species of section Sinomartagon and their resulting cultivars share a common genome; thus, polyploidy Asiatic lilies are autopolyploid.


Background When an athlete has more than one injury over a time period, it is important to determine if these are related to each other or not. The subsequent injury categorisation (SIC) model is a method designed to consider the relationship between an index injury and subsequent injury(ies). Objective The primary aim was to apply SIC to longitudinal injury data from two team sports: rugby union and cricket. The secondary aim was to determine SIC inter-rater reliability. Methods Rugby union (time-loss; TL) and cricket (TL and non-time-loss; NTL) injuries sustained between 2011 and 2014 within one international team, respectively, were recorded using international consensus methods. SIC was applied by multiple raters, team clinicians, non-team clinicians, and a sports scientist. Weighted kappa and Cohen's kappa scores were calculated for inter-rater reliability of the rugby union TL injuries and cricket NTL and TL injuries. Results 67% and 51% of the subsequent injuries in rugby union and cricket respectively were categorised as injuries to a different body part not related to an index injury (SIC code 10). At least moderate agreement (weighted and Cohen kappa ≥0.60) was observed for team clinicians and the non-team clinician for both sports. Including NTL and TL injuries increased agreement between team clinician and non-team clinician, but not between clinician and sports scientist. Conclusion The most common subsequent injury in both sports was an injury to a different body part that was not related to an index injury. The SIC model was generally reliable, with the highest agreement between clinicians working within the same team. Recommendations for future use of SIC are provided based on the proximity of the rater to the team and the raters' level of clinical knowledge.


The quantifying method for intrinsic data transfer rate of algorithms is provided. The provided quantifying method for an intrinsic data transfer rate includes steps of: detecting whether or not a datum is used; providing a dataflow graph G including n vertices and m edges, and a Laplacian matrix L having ixj elements L(i,j) when the datum is not reused, wherein each of the vertices represents one of an operation and a datum, each of the edges represents a data transfer, and vi is the ith vertex; and using the Laplacian matrix L to estimate a maximum quantity of the intrinsic data transfer rate.


Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterized by the degradation of elastin, the major insoluble protein of lung tissues. The degradation of elastin gives rise to desmosine (DES) and isodesmosine (IDES), two major urinary products typified by a hydrophilic pyridinium-based cross-linker structure. A high sensitivity method based on nanoflow liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry with multiple reaction monitoring was developed for the analysis of urinary DES and IDES. The analytes were derivatized with propionic anhydride and deuterated DES (D(4)-DES) was used as an internal standard. This method enables the quantification of DES and IDES in as little as 50 microL of urine and provides a detection limit of 0.10 ng/mL (0.95 fmol on-column). We report the analysis of DES and IDES in a cohort of 40 urine specimens from four groups of individuals: (a) COPD rapid decliners (11.8 +/- 3.7 ng/mg creatine (crea)), (b) COPD slow decliners (16.0 +/- 3.1 ng/mg crea), (c) healthy smokers (13.2 +/- 1.9 ng/mg crea), and (d) healthy nonsmokers (14.9 +/- 2.9 ng/mg crea). Our analysis reveals a statistically significant decrease in the level of urinary DES and IDES in COPD rapid decliner patients compared to healthy nonsmoker controls and COPD slow decliner patients. This methodology may be useful for monitoring DES and IDES levels in well controlled animal models for COPD or for longitudinal studies in COPD patients.


Facial emotion recognition from video is an exemplar case where both humans and computers underperform. In recent emotion recognition competitions, top approaches were using either geometric relationships that best captured facial dynamics or an accurate registration technique to develop appearance features. These two methods capture two different types of facial information similarly to how the human visual system divides information when perceiving faces. In this paper, we propose a biologically-inspired fusion approach that emulates this process. The efficacy of the approach is tested with the Audio/Visual Emotion Challenge 2011 data set, a non-trivial data set where state-of-the-art approaches perform under chance. The proposed approach increases classification rates by 18.5% on publicly available data.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) is an inflammation affect large number of patients, it caused by the retrograde flow of gastric contents into the pharynx and larynx, causing a variety of symptoms. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of PPI in the treatment of LPR by both clinical & endoscopic follow up. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This prospective observational study was conducted on 61 Consecutive patients attending the Otorhinolaryngology Clinic, Qena University Hospital from January 2018 to July 2018; patients were screened for symptoms of laryngitis. Patients were considered suitable for study if they had persistent laryngeal symptoms for at least 2 months. Laryngoscopic examination was performed using a flexible naso-pharyngoscope. The frequency and severity of patients' laryngeal symptoms were assessed by both reflux symptoms index & reflux finding score. All patients underwent an esophagogastroduodenoscopy before starting treatment, then 2 months and 6 months later (at the end of treatment). The degree of oesophagitis noted during EGD was graded according to Los Angeles classification. RESULTS: This study included 61 patients with persistent laryngeal symptoms with their mean ages were 31.62 ± 5.16; 21 females (34.43%) and 40 males (65.57%) and their mean body mass index for male and female were 20 ± 4.2 and 23 ± 3.9 respectively. sensation of lump in throat was the most common symptoms found in 54 patient (88.52%) while breathing difficulties was the least presenting symptom detected in 21 patient (34.43%). Patients treated with pantoprazole 20 mg twice daily for 6 months. There was significant post treatment improvement of all presenting symptoms 2 months of regular therapy. (p = 0.0001), with complete disappearance of symptoms by 6 months of therapy. Erythema is the most common laryngeal finding detected in 54 patients (88.52%) However, pseudosulcus was present in 12 patients (19.67%). Marked improvement in reflux signs were detected at the end of 6 months of therapy, (p = 0.0001). Endoscopic partial ventricular obliteration, mild vocal cord edema, mild laryngeal edema and persistence of granuloma were still detected 6 months post regular acid suppression therapy. Follow up esophagogastroduodenoscopy after 2 and 6 months of regular treatment reviles completely apparent healthy mucosa. CONCLUSIONS: Pantoprazole 20mg twice daily for 6 months was associated with significant improvement of laryngopharyngeal reflux symptoms and signs.


The expression of [alpha]- and [beta]-tubulin proteins in developing fibers and several other tissues of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum, cv Texas Marker 1) have been analyzed by immunoblots of one- and two-dimensional gels utilizing anti-tubulin antibodies as probes. As a percentage of total protein, fibers had greater amounts of tubulin than did hypocotyls, roots, leaves, or cotyledons. Both [alpha]- and [beta]-tubulin, having apparent molecular masses of approximately 50 kD and isoelectric points between pH 5 and pH 6, were resolved on a single two-dimensional gel. Under the conditions used, [alpha]-tubulin was less acidic in the isoelectric focusing dimension and migrated slightly faster in the sodium dodecyl sulfate dimension than did [beta]-tubulin. Nine [alpha]-tubulin isotypes that formed two distinct groups were identified on immunoblots of two-dimensional gels. The three most abundant [alpha]-tubulin isotypes were common to all tissues examined. Seven distinct [beta]-tubulin isotypes were also identified. Although their level of accumulation differed, four of the [beta]-tubulin isotypes were common to all tissues. Preferential accumulation of isotypes was more apparent in fibers than in the other tissues examined. Two [alpha]-tubulin isotypes and two [beta]-tubulin isotypes showed preferential accumulation in 10- and 20-d postanthesis fibers, respectively.


Arsenate [As(V)]-respiring bacteria affect the speciation and mobilization of arsenic in the environment. This can lead to arsenic contamination of drinking water supplies and deleterious consequences for human health. Using molecular genetics, we show that the functional gene for As(V) respiration, arrA, is highly conserved; that it is required for As(V) reduction to arsenite when arsenic is sorbed onto iron minerals; and that it can be used to identify the presence and activity of As(V)-respiring bacteria in arsenic-contaminated iron-rich sediments. The expression of arrA thus can be used to monitor sites in which As(V)-respiring bacteria may be controlling arsenic geochemistry.


At the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio in June 2012, world leaders committed to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (the high seas). Our analysis of gaps in high seas management indicates that a paradigm shift to a more systematic approach will be needed to safeguard high seas biodiversity from mounting threats. Experience from terrestrial and coastal areas indicates that a systematic approach to conservation planning and management can help to maintain ecosystem health and productivity while enabling sustainable use. Our analysis further demonstrates that the current legal regime on the high seas is insufficient to realize these objectives: management institutions have neither an adequate mandate for integrated planning nor the ability to effectively coordinate across multiple management regimes. We identify key elements for future high seas management and posit that a two‐pronged approach is most promising: the development of an improved global legal regime that incorporates systematic planning as well as the expansion of existing and new regional agreements and mandates. This combined approach is most likely to achieve the required ecosystem‐based, integrated and science‐based management that world leaders at Rio acknowledged should underpin ocean management.


Abstract. A combination of faster, cheaper and more accurate hardware, more sophisticated software, and greater industry acceptance have all laid the foundations for an increased desire for accurate 3D parametric models of buildings. Pointclouds are the data source of choice currently with static terrestrial laser scanning the predominant tool for large, dense volume measurement. The current importance of pointclouds as the primary source of real world representation is endorsed by CAD software vendor acquisitions of pointcloud engines in 2011. Both the capture and modelling of indoor environments require great effort in time by the operator (and therefore cost). Automation is seen as a way to aid this by reducing the workload of the user and some commercial packages have appeared that provide automation to some degree. In the data capture phase, advances in indoor mobile mapping systems are speeding up the process, albeit currently with a reduction in accuracy. As a result this paper presents freely accessible pointcloud datasets of two typical areas of a building each captured with two different capture methods and each with an accurate wholly manually created model. These datasets are provided as a benchmark for the research community to gauge the performance and improvements of various techniques for indoor geometry extraction. With this in mind, non-proprietary, interoperable formats are provided such as E57 for the scans and IFC for the reference model. The datasets can be found at: http://indoor-bench.github.io/indoor-bench .


Vegetative buffers may function better for filtering agricultural runoff in some locations than in others because of intrinsic characteristics of the land on which they are placed. The objective of this study was to develop a method based on soil survey attributes that can be used to compare soil map units for how effectively a buffer installed in them could remove pollutants from crop field runoff. Three separate models were developed. The surface runoff models for sediment and for dissolved pollutants were quantitative, based mainly on slope, soil, and rainfall factors of the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE), and were calibrated using the Vegetative Filter Strip Model (VFSMOD) for a standard buffer design and field management. The groundwater model categorized map units by the presence or absence of suitably-shallow groundwater and hydric conditions for interaction with the root zone of a buffer. The models were applied to a ~65 km 2 (~25 mi 2 ) agricultural watershed in northwestern Missouri. Data acquisition, calculations, and map production utilized the Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO). For surface runoff, soil survey-based values correlated strongly with corresponding VFSMOD estimates for sediment (R 2 = 0.94) and dissolved pollutant trapping efficiency (R 2 = 0.83) for a wide range of soil, slope, and rainfall conditions. A strong negative correlation between trapping efficiency and field runoff load was indicated. Mapped results revealed large differences in buffer capability for surface runoff across the test watershed (21 to 99 percent for sediment and seven to 47 percent for dissolved pollutants). Trapping efficiency for dissolved pollutants was much smaller than for sediment in every map unit. Lower values of trapping efficiency were associated with map units where runoff loads are higher and where a buffer will trap greater loads of sediment, but smaller loads of dissolved pollutants, than in units with higher values. Comparative rankings can be adjusted somewhat for site conditions that depart from the reference conditions, and recalibration may be desired to better account for them. For groundwater, the confluence of hydric conditions and shallow water table occurred only in the highest reaches of the test watershed, but a buffer can also interact with groundwater in most upland and riparian locations due to the prevalence of a seasonally shallow water table. By this approach, soil surveys may be used as a screening tool to guide planners to locations where buffers are likely to have a greater impact on water quality and away from those where impact is likely to be small.


This paper discusses the initial efforts to implement simulation modeling as a visual management and analysis tool at an automotive foundry plant manufacturing engine blocks. The foundry process was modeled using Pro Model to identify bottlenecks and evaluate machine performance, cycle times and production data (total parts, rejects, throughput, products/hr) essential for efficient production control. Results from the current system identified assembly machine work area as the bottleneck (although utilization was greater than 95% for two assembly machines) resulting in high work-in-process (WIP) inventory level, low resource and machine utilization. Based on these results, optimum numbers were identified through use of scenarios by varying the number of assembly machines and processing time of each machine. In addition to these scenarios, strategies for production control involving buffer sizes were also made.


As the frequency and intensity of heatwaves are growing in Australia, strategies to combat heat are becoming more vital. Cities are exposed to urban heat islands (UHIs) due to excess urbanisation. In this study, a definition of urban heatwave (UHW) is conceptualised to investigate the combined impacts of heatwaves and UHIs. To quantify the negative impacts of UHW, indicators—such as excess morbidity, electricity and water consumption—are considered. The intensity of UHWs is calculated using the unit of excess heat factor (EHF), developed by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. EHF enables the comparability of UHWs in different geographical locations. Using the indicators and the intensity of UHWs, a calculation method to quantify heatwave resilience at a precincts scale is proposed. The study summarises the assumed influential factors of precinct heatwave resilience based on the existing literature and propose a "cool retrofitting toolkit" (CRT). CRT creates the framework to assess the adaptation to and mitigation of UHWs available to retrofit existing precincts, and to evaluate potential retrofitting strategies in terms of energy and carbon efficiency, financial affordability and perceived acceptability by population. This study illuminates the importance of climate, function, built environment and population characteristics-conscious retrofitting.


Aim The present study investigated whether intraperitoneal treatment with the herbal formula B210 ([B210]; a herbal composition of Gastrodia elata and Cinnamomum cassia) can reduce snoring in aged rats. Also, we studied possible neural mechanisms involved in B210 treatment and subsequent reduced snoring in rats. Methods and result We compared pressure and frequency of snoring, activities of phrenic nerve (PNA), activities of recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLNA) and activities of hypoglossal nerve (HNA), inspiratory time (TI) and expiratory time (TE) of PNA, and pre-inspiratory time (Pre-TI) of HNA in aged rats between sham and B210 treatment groups (30 mg/mL dissolved in DMSO). We found that aged rats that received B210 treatment had significantly reduced pressure and frequency of snoring than rats who received sham treatment. Also, we observed that aged rats that received B210 treatment had significantly increased PNA, RLNA, and HNA, extended TI and TE of PNA, and prolonged Pre-TI of HNA compared to rats that received sham treatment. In other words, B210 treatment may relieve snoring through modulating activities and breathing time of upper airway related nerves in aged rats. Conclusion We suggested that the B210 might be a potential herbal formula for snoring remission.


A 6-week-old male kitten was evaluated because of stranguria and possible urethral blockage; a urinary catheter placed during general anesthesia penetrated the urethral and colonic walls and entered the colon. Treatment was conservative, with fluids administered i.v., administration of piperacillin, and supportive care. The kitten never became febrile or clinically ill and continued to thrive. There was no development of clinical signs consistent with stricture, diverticulum, or fistula formation. Complications from urethral perforation include infection and urethral stricture. Reconstructive surgery is considered the treatment of choice for traumatic urethral-colonic perforation. However, surgery may not be feasible or may be cost-prohibitive in certain situations. In such instances, medical management may provide a reasonable alternative to euthanasia.


BACKGROUND
H2S is a novel type of endogenous neural regulatory factor and gaseous mediator. Exogenous H2S can increase heroin-induced learning and memory damage in rat and alleviates heroin-induced rat hippocampus damage through antioxidant and anti-apoptosis effects.

OBJECTIVE
Aim of this study was to identify whether hydrogen sulfide (H2S) protects heroin withdrawal rat is related with adenylate cyclase (AC)-cAMP-protein kinase A (PKA)-cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) signaling pathway in heroin-dependent rat's nucleus accumbens or not.

METHODS
Male Spragne-Dawley rats were randomly divided into Saline + Saline group, Saline + sodium hydrosulfide (NaHS) group, Saline + Heroin group, NaHS + Heroin group according to the principle of increasing heroin dosage day by day, with the establishment of heroin-naloxone-induced withdrawal symptoms determined at day 10. Then the levels of H2S and cAMP and AC and PKA activities were assayed, and the level of phosphorylated CREB (p-CREB), the levels of phosphorylated N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor 1 subunit (p-NR1), phosphorylated N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor 2a subunit (p-NR2A) and phosphorylated N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor 2b subunit (p-NR2B) were assayed in nucleus accumbens.

RESULTS
Exogenous H2S can alleviate heroin withdrawal symptoms by increasing the level of H2S level in nucleus accumbens. Exogenous H2S can decrease the high activities of AC, PKA and the high levels of cAMP, p-CREB caused by heroin. Furthermore, exogenous H2S can decrease the high level of p-NR1 and can increase the low levels of p-NR2A and p-NR2B caused by heroin. It is surprising that exogenous H2S treatment alone was able to raise the activities of AC and PKA as well as the levels of cAMP, p-CREB, p-NR1, p-NR2A and p-NR2B.

CONCLUSIONS
Exogenous H2S decreases naloxone-precipitated withdrawal signs, maybe through decreasing AC/cAMP/PKA/CREB/NMDR signaling pathway in heroin-dependent rats' nucleus accumbens.


Bottom trawling alters the abundance, diversity, size-composition, and function of benthic communities. However, the ability to detect these impacts over large spatial scales can be obscured by various complicating factors, such as community adaptation to disturbance and co-varying environmental conditions. An ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management therefore requires ecological indicators which can 'disentangle' trawling effects from other natural and human drivers, and respond effectively to shifts in ecological quality. We collected benthic macrofaunal samples at 21 sites across a Norway lobster Nephrops norvegicus fishing ground in the Kattegat, and separated the benthic community into small (1-4mm) and large (>4mm) size fractions. Four taxonomic indicators (total density, species density, Shannon diversity, and biomass) and four functional indicators (functional diversity, functional richness, functional evenness, and functional dispersion) were calculated based on each size fraction, and the two fractions combined (pooled community). Here, we compare the ability of these indicators to detect trawling impacts across size categories. We show that indicators derived from large macrofauna were highly effective in this regard, and were less influenced by other environmental drivers, such as depth, sediment grain size, bottom current velocity, salinity, and temperature. This suggests that the taxonomic and functional characteristics of benthic communities display a size-dependent sensitivity to trawling disturbance, and therefore community metrics based on large benthic macrofauna may provide useful indicators. By contrast, indicators derived from the small fraction performed poorly, and those based on the pooled community demonstrated a varied ability to detect trawling. Small macrofauna are typically characterised by high density, diversity, and population growth rates, and their relative resilience to trawling may mask the response of the more sensitive macrofauna. This highlights an underlying issue with calculating indicators based on the whole benthic community. The approach outline here is easily applied, improves indicator performance, and has the potential to reduce laboratory workloads due to the fewer taxa and individuals required for analyses.


We describe the efficient algebraic reconstruction (EAR) method, which applies to cone-beam tomographic reconstruction problems with a circular symmetry. Three independant steps/stages are presented, which use two symmetries and a factorization of the point spread functions (PSFs), each reducing computing times and eventually storage in memory or hard drive. In the case of pinhole single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), we show how the EAR method can incorporate most of the physical and geometrical effects which change the PSF compared to the Dirac function assumed in analytical methods, thus showing improvements on reconstructed images. We also compare results obtained by the EAR method with a cubic grid implementation of an algebraic method and modeling of the PSF and we show that there is no significant loss of quality, despite the use of a noncubic grid for voxels in the EAR method. Data from a phantom, reconstructed with the EAR method, demonstrate 1.08-mm spatial tomographic resolution despite the use of a 1.5-mm pinhole SPECT device and several applications in rat and mouse imaging are shown. Finally, we discuss the conditions of application of the method when symmetries are broken, by considering the different parameters of the calibration and nonsymmetric physical effects such as attenuation.


Despite being the preferred route of drug administration, the oral formulation of biological drugs is limited due to its intrinsic instability, low permeability, and physical, chemical and immunological barriers. Various innovative swallowable technologies such as drug-loaded, dissolvable microneedles, mucoadhesive patches, and various microdevices present unique drug-carrying capabilities. The current work presents a novel soft stent platform that can facilitate contact between the small intestine tissue and drug carriers to enhance drug absorption and increase residence time. This study aims to prove the concept of this novel platform and determine if the soft stent will retain orally to the ileocecal valve longer than a capsule-shaped bolus. Benchtop studies on an intestinal simulator showed successful retention of the soft stent compared to a control capsule. In vivo studies in pig models also showed that the soft stent was retained longer than the control capsule. Overall, this study shows promise that this novel platform could be used for oral drug delivery of biologics.


We have derived an improved reverse time migration (RTM) scheme to image the medium without artifacts arising from internal multiple reflections. This is based on a revised implementation of Marchenko redatuming using a new time-truncation operator. Because of the new truncation operator, we can use the time-reversed version of the standard wavefield-extrapolation operator as initial estimate for retrieving the upgoing focusing function. Then, the retrieved upgoing focusing function can be used to directly image the medium by correlating it with the standard wavefield-extrapolation operator. This imaging scheme can be seen as an artifact-free RTM scheme with two terms. The first term gives the conventional RTM image with the wrong amplitude and artifacts due to internal multiple reflections. The second term gives a correction image that can be used to correct the amplitude and remove artifacts in the image generated by the first term. We evaluated the success of the method with a 2D numerical example.


The Personality Disorder Institute/Borderline Personality Disorder Research Foundation randomized control trial (PDI/BPDRF RCT) is a controlled outcome study for borderline personality disorder (BPD), in which 90 participants were randomized to one of three manualized and monitored, active psychosocial treatment conditions. These treatments are: (a) Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP; Clarkin, Yeomans, & Kernberg, 1999), a treatment for BPD based on object-relational and psychoanalytic principles first applied to BPD by Kernberg (1996), notable for its particular emphasis on interpretation of object relations activated in the ongoing therapeutic relationship; (b) Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993), a popular treatment for BPD, with evidence of efficacy (Linehan, Armstrong, Suarez, Allmon, & Heard, 1991) that emphasizes a balance between acceptance and change in its combination of cognitive-behavioral and Zen principles; and (c) supportive psychotherapy (Rockland, 1992), another object-relational and psychoanalytically based treatment for BPD which, in contrast to TFP, eschews transference interpretation and places primary emphasis on development of a collaborative engagement with the patient to foster identity development. Patients received medication, if clearly indicated, according to the treatment algorithm developed by Soloff (2000). This article describes the significance and rationale of the study and the overall design, methods, plan of analysis, and demographic characteristics of the recruited sample of patients.


This paper will examine how university art and design education can engage productively and profoundly with community. Taking as its key case study the Treatment Public Art project developed by Deakin University in tandem with Melbourne Water and the City of Wyndham in Melbourne's west in 2015 and 2017, this study will outline the assorted ways in which profound and ongoing dialogue and collaboration with a specific community and its varied constituencies can, and should, be core business of tertiary creative arts study. It will argue that such a pandisciplinary partnership model not only provides professional practice pathways for students, but achieves a social and cultural value that meshes research, teaching and community-building in mutually beneficial ways. As a riposte to the often erroneous, if persistent, accusation that art and design education does not prepare students for 'real world' encounters and engagement, the Treatment project has sought to build cultural resilience through dialogue, creative expression and collaboration. This paper will examine how such a project serves to build a complex skillset in students that combines dexterity across art making, curatorial practice, project management and socially-engaged community engagement strategies.


More than 1.3 million people lose their lives every year in traffic accidents. Improving road safety requires designing better vehicles and investigating drivers' abilities more closely. Driving simulators are constantly being used for this purpose, but the question which often arises as to their validity tends to be a barrier to developments in this field. Here we studied the validity of a simulator, defined as how closely users' behavior under simulated conditions resembles their behavior on the road, based on the concept of drivers' feeling of presence. For this purpose, the driving behavior, physiological state and declarative data of 41 drivers were tested in the Sherpa2 simulator and in a real vehicle on a track while driving at a constant speed. During each trial, drivers had to cope with an unexpected hazardous event (a one-meter diameter gym ball crossing the road right in front of the vehicle), which occurred twice. During the speed-maintenance task, the simulator showed absolute validity, in terms of the driving and physiological parameters recorded. During the first hazardous event, the physiological parameters showed that the level of arousal (Low Heart Rate/High Heart Rate ratio x10) increased up to the end of the drive. On the other hand, the drivers' behavioral (braking) responses were 20% more frequent in the simulator than in the real vehicle, and the physiological state parameters showed that stress reactions occurred only in the real vehicle (+5 beats per minute, +2 breaths per minute and the phasic skin conductance increased by 2). In the subjects' declarative data, several feeling of presence sub-scales were lower under simulated conditions. These results suggest that the validity of motion based simulators for testing drivers coping with hazards needs to be questioned.


In this paper we introduce a new cepstral coefficient extraction method based on an intelligibility measure for speech in noise, the Glimpse Proportion measure. This new method aims to increase the intelligibility of speech in noise by modifying the clean speech, and has applications in scenarios such as public announcement and car navigation systems. We first explain how the Glimpse Proportion measure operates and further show how we approximated it to integrate it into an existing spectral envelope parameter extraction method commonly used in the HMM-based speech synthesis framework. We then demonstrate how this new method changes the modelled spectrum according to the characteristics of the noise and show results for a listening test with vocoded and HMM-based synthetic speech. The test indicates that the proposed method can significantly improve intelligibility of synthetic speech in speech shaped noise.


2 Abstract: Punjabi (Omniglot) is an interesting language for more than one reasons. This is the only living Indo- Europen language which is a fully tonal language. Punjabi language is an abugida writing system, with each consonant having an inherent vowel, SCHWA sound. This sound is modifiable using vowel symbols attached to consonant bearing the vowel. Shri Guru Granth Sahib is a voluminous text of 1430 pages with 511,874 words, 1,720,345 characters, and 28,534 lines and contains hymns of 36 composers written in twenty-two languages in Gurmukhi script (Lal). In addition to text being in form of hymns and coming from so many composers belonging to different languages, what makes the language of Shri Guru Granth Sahib even more different from contemporary Punjabi. The task of developing an accurate Letter-to-Sound system is made difficult due to two further reasons: 1. Punjabi being the only tonal language 2. Historical and Cultural circumstance/period of writings in terms of historical and religious nature of text and use of words from multiple languages and non-native phonemes. The handling of schwa deletion is of great concern for development of accurate/ near perfect system, the presented work intend to report the state-of-the-art in terms of schwa deletion for Indian languages, in general and for Gurmukhi Punjabi, in particular.


The aim of eye muscle surgery is to restore alignment of the visual axes and ocular stability. Albeit compensatory and largely empirical, this surgery can be perfected with a better understanding of the physiopathological mechanisms involved, more detailed semiological analysis, the taking into account of intraoperative data and the use of microsurgical technique. The three parts of this book allow each of these factors to be discussed at length.


This study examined rates of teacher attrition and the multiple factors influencing teacher attrition in public secondary schools in Bayelsa and Delta States, Nigeria, between 2015 and 2019 with a view to providing empirically-based, lasting solutions to the challenges of teacher attrition in Bayelsa and Delta states, Nigeria. Relying on state teachers' evidence and data, two research questions were posed to guide the study. The population of the study consists of 1563 public secondary school teachers. Using Cochran's formula for sample size determination, 723 teachers were sampled randomly for the study. The structured instrument for the investigation was validated, and its reliability was determined using Croncbach's Alpha statistical tool. A reliability value of 0.73 was found. Data analysis shows that salary and remuneration are remarkably associated with teachers' exit. Non-monetary motivation is not a sustainable substitute for an improved competitive salary. The study recommends attractive and competitive remuneration and improved teacher conditions of service, among others.


Author(s): Russell, Nicole Lian | Advisor(s): Griggs, Gary B | Abstract: Global mean sea level increased by ~20 cm during the 20th century and the rate is expected to accelerate during this century. Many major cities are already exposed to damaging coastal storms and sea-level rise (SLR) will magnify storm impacts. SLR adaptation can reduce harm, but this new concept is complicated because adaptation plans must be tailored to each community's specifications, due to differences in geologic setting, development, etc. This study designed a process for local SLR adaptation planning, in part through the assessment of the city of Santa Barbara's vulnerability to SLR, including evaluations of shoreline topography and development, historical storm damage, and exposure to SLR. The risk of wave damage to Santa Barbara's shoreline development and infrastructure will be high by 2050 but very high by 2100. The risk of flooding and inundation of low-lying areas will be moderate by 2050 but very high by 2100. The risk of increased cliff erosion rates will be moderate by 2050 but very high by 2100. The threat of beach inundation will be low by 2050 but high by 2100. Most of the flooding and erosion along the U.S. West Coast are caused by storm surges and wind-driven waves, particularly during strong El Nino events. There is a need to predict El Nino occurrences for planning purposes, but forecasts from most of the best El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) prediction models have plateaued at a moderate level, leaving room for improvement in ENSO observing systems, models, and data assimilation methods. While the effects of ENSO on wave heights along the U.S. West Coast are well known, no prior studies have examined whether wave heights are also predictive of the phenomenon. This study finds that significant wave heights (Hsig) along the U.S. West Coast are slightly suppressed during the summers preceding El Nino winters, but the trend is weak and the data are noisy, so contributions to ENSO forecasts are negligible. The summer Hsig trend is strongly associated with the summer North Pacific (NP) Index, which measures the area-weighted sea-level pressure over the Gulf of Alaska.


The role of cannibalism in crayfish populations is not well understood, despite being a potentially key density-dependent process underpinning population dynamics. We studied the incidence of cannibalism in an introduced signal crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus population in a Scottish lowland river in September 2014. Animals were sampled using six different sampling techniques simultaneously, revealing variable densities and size distributions across the site. Cannibalism prevalence was estimated by analysing the gut contents of crayfish >20 mm CL for the presence of crayfish fragments, which was found to be 20% of dissected individuals. When seeking evidence of relationships between the sizes of cannibals and 'prey', the density of conspecifics <56% the size of a dissected individual yielded the best fit. The relationship between cannibalism probability and crayfish size and density was equally well described by three different metrics of crayfish density. Cannibalism increased with crayfish size and density but did not vary according to sex. These results suggest that large P. leniusculus frequently cannibalize smaller (prey) conspecifics, and that the probability of cannibalism is dependent upon the relative size of cannibal-to-prey and the density of the smaller crayfish. We suggest that removing large individuals, as targeted by many traditional removal techniques, may lead to reduced cannibalism and therefore a compensatory increase in juvenile survival.


Primary linitis plastica of the colon or rectum is a rare entity. Only 85 cases of this type cancer have been reported in the English medical literature. We report two cases, including the oldest known patient presenting uniquely with a sigmoid volvulus and another patient presenting with fecal incontinence and perianal pain. Linitis plastica of the colon or rectum is characterized by presentation in younger patients and is associated with metastatic disease, a high mortality, and insidious growth, often making detection difficult. A high degree of suspicion must therefore be held; a low threshold for endoscopic and echoendoscopic diagnostic intervention also should be maintained. Endoscopic ultrasound provides a unique view of its circumferential infiltrating pattern for diagnosis and staging, but further experience is necessary to establish whether the early use of endoscopic ultrasound favorably impacts mortality.


This is a re-interpretation of Mark's version of Jesus' teaching on divorce and remarriage text in 10: 1-12 in the context of the experience of the Christian church in Nigeria. The application of spiral hermeneutical method to the passage involved first the grammatical exegesis of the passage, second the exegesis of the Nigerian cultural experience, third the identification of challenges and conflicts in the findings of the two exegeses, and fourth, the re-visitation of the biblical text for better interpretation. The work points out that while the passage discourages divorce, it does not totally rule it out. The conclusion is that while it is biblical that the church in Nigeria discourages divorce, there are times when there may be no better alternative.


A total of 148 health and social care practitioners were trained in skills to support behaviour change: creating opportunities to discuss health behaviours, using open discovery questions, listening, reflecting and goal-setting. At three time points post-training, use of the skills was evaluated and compared with use of skills by untrained practitioners. Trained practitioners demonstrated significantly greater use of these client-centred skills to support behaviour change compared to their untrained peers up to 1 year post-training. Because it uses existing services to deliver support for behaviour change, this training intervention has the potential to improve public health at relatively low cost.


For more than 70 years, red sandstones of the Gobi Desert have yielded abundant articulated skeletons of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs, lizards, and mammals. At Ukhaa Tolgod, structureless sandstones are the only fossiliferous facies, and we present new evidence for deposition on dune-sand–sourced alluvial fans that were built at the margins of stabilized eolian bedforms during mesic climatic episodes. In laterally and vertically adjacent large-scale eolian cross-strata in which skeletons are absent, we have found abundant tracks of dinosaurs that walked on sparsely vegetated dunes that were active under xeric conditions. Our study of calcareous concretions in vaguely bedded eolian sandstones suggests that bedding was nearly destroyed by burrowing invertebrates and trampling dinosaurs. The accumulation of illuvial clays and pedogenic calcite in these sediments reduced infiltration of rainwater and, with attendant climatic change and heavy rainfall events, led to fan development.


This paper describes a solution to enhance Knowledge Management (KM) and Reuse at the early stages of space mission design in the frame of Concurrent Engineering (CE) studies via the implementation of an Expert System (ES). CE is a centralized engineering approach which significantly accelerates and increases the reliability of space mission feasibility assessment by having experts work concurrently, thus enhancing the communication flow. An ES is an AI-based agent capturing Human expertise in a computer program. There are many examples of ES being successfully implemented in the aeronautical, agricultural, legal or medical fields. To assess the feasibility of a mission, experts rely both on their implicit knowledge (i.e., past experiences, network, etc.) and on available explicit knowledge (i.e., past reports, publications, datasheets, books, etc.). This latter type of knowledge represents a substantial amount of unstructured data, continuously increasing over the past decades. The amount of information has become highly time consuming to search through within the limited timeframe of a feasibility study and is therefore often underutilised. A solution is to convert this data into structured data and store them into a Knowledge Graph (KG) that can be traversed through an inference engine to provide reasoning and deductions. Information is extracted from the KG via a querying module from a User Interface (UI) supporting the Human-Machine Interaction (HMI). The Design Engineering Assistant (DEA), the ES for space mission design, aims to enhance the productivity of experts by providing them with new insights on large amount of data accumulated in the field of space mission design. Not only will it act as a Knowledge Engine (KE) but, integrated to the design environment, it could play a much more active part into the design process, advising the Human experts on design iterations. This paper introduces the proposed integration of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) agent into the CE process, the preliminary architecture of the tool and identified challenges. The study will also present the outcomes of a set of experts interviews carried out at the European Space Research and Technology Center (ESTEC) of ESA in July-August 2018, to define the DEA requirements following a User-centred approach.


Amplitude versus offset inversion is widely used in reservoir characterization, but its implementation on unconventional reservoirs represents a challenge owing to the subtle changes of elastic parameters that demarcate profitable areas. For this reason, it is important to have an estimation of the uncertainty expected from seismic inversion to improve the interpretation of inverted results. We have implemented a systematic estimation of uncertainty of relative elastic properties obtained by damped least squares inversion of Aki and Richards and Fatti et al. approximations of Zoeppritz's equation. Well log data of the Vaca Muerta unconventional shale in Argentina was used to generate synthetic angle gathers, varying in terms of asignal-to-noise ratio, range of angle coverage and number of partial angle stacks. The inversion results provide a systematic estimation of the uncertainty of the inverted coefficients. Results show that signal-to-noise ratio and range of angle coverage of the seismic data are key parameters to assess the feasibility of the inversion. In case of characterization based on acoustic impedance, the inverted parameters show good correlation with the model, with these correlation values being predicted by the parameter resolution matrix values.


The aim of this study was to investigate the existence of sectorial undereducation and overeducation problems in the Turkish labor market. In order to cope with this issue, the 2009 Household Labor Force Survey (TurkStat), which covers 145,934 individuals within 27 sectors, was utilized. An objective measure of education-occupation mismatch based on the mean level of schooling was used as the main tool in the analysis. The results revealed two important points. Firstly, high levels of undereducation and overeducation problems in the sectoral job groups were found. Secondly, the results showed that these problems are not specific to a few sectors, but they are widespread among many sectoral job groups, which has created serious problems for the Turkish economy. Moreover, we employed Oaxaca decomposition to investigate the effects of overeducation and undereducation on wage outcomes, and the findings indicate that education-occupation mismatches in the Turkish labor market are also reflected on such outcomes. Finally, the Turkish labor market penalizes workers who acquire less education than the adequate level to perform their jobs, whereas it rewards the workers who obtain more education than the adequate level, but not to a considerable extent.


Objective: To investigate the clinical and imaging characteristics of Ondine's curse syndrome secondary brainstem infarction. Methods: Analysis bsaed on the clinical and imaging data of 3 patients with Ondine's curse syndrome secondary brainstem infarctions in last four years. Case Report: All the 3 patients were found in with brainstem lacunar infarction and had further afflicted with Ondine's curse syndrome. Among these 3 patients, 2 patients died and the other one survived by mechanical ventilation. Conclusion: Sleep-apnea should be closely monitored to prevent from the occurrence of Ondine's curse syndrome with brainstem infarctions. Timely treatment by mechanical ventilation can reduce the occurrence of fatal Ondine's curse.


Reliable detection of chemical, biological and explosive threats is the first step in a successful interdiction and control operation. In a laboratory environment, there are many techniques that can be used to identify unknown materials. In a non-laboratory environment, the detection process is compromised by the presence of various backgrounds and interferents. These materials are problematic because their responses have similarities with the materials to be interdicted; confusion of the detection algorithms results, which produces false positive and false negative identifications. If the error rate is large enough, first responders and security forces will refuse to use instrument. For the past few years, Kestrel Corporation has been developing a new spectroscopic technique called Differential Excitation Spectroscopy (DES) (patent pending). DES is a new pump-probe detection technique which characterizes molecules based on a multi-dimensional parameterization of the rovibrational excited state structure, pump and probe interrogation frequencies, as well as the lifetimes of the excited states. Under appropriate conditions, significant modulation of the ground state can result, providing a robust signal-to-noise ratio. The technique does not require special conditions—operation in both laboratory and outdoor environments has been shown to work equally well. While it is easy to understand how DES results provide a unique, simple mechanism to validate and understand various molecules in support of relevant science, the technique was developed to support the chemical detection and identification mission. The DES multi-dimensional parameterization provides an identification signature that is highly unique and has demonstrated high levels of immunity from common interferents and backgrounds, providing significant practical value for high-specificity material identification. The immunity of the technique may be understood on the basis of the several parameters that must be correct to force the molecule into the excited state; the greater the number of factors that must be correct, the harder it is to generate a false positive signal. In this paper, recent research using DES for identification of threat materials is reviewed. Results for common explosive materials such as AN, UN, RDX and TNT (in laboratory conditions as well as in the presence of interferents/backgrounds) are presented 1 . Testing on chemical warfare simulants such as DMMP and thiodiglycol illustrates the applicability of the technology to this class of threats 2 . Finally, ongoing work to detect vapors emitted by environmental hazards (solvents such as benzene, dichloroethylene, trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethane, chloroform and carbon tetrachloride) and physical security threats (such as sulfur dioxide, ethylene oxide, nitrogen dioxide and boron trifluoride) will be discussed 3 . The threat classes that will be discussed are precisely the same materials or types of materials that would be controlled and interdicted in the on-going effort to control domestic or international terrorist activities, ensure the safety of facilities and individuals, as well as address current environmental safety requirements. DES provides a high-specificity detection technique well-suited to the CBe mission.


This paper presents an improved both profit and cost based maintenance scheduling approach by using reactive tabu search (RTS) in competitive environment. In competitive power markets, electricity prices are determined by balance between demand and supply in electric power exchanges or bilateral contracts. So it is essential for system operation planners and market participants to take the volatility of electricity price into consideration. In the proposed maintenance scheduling method, the optimal combinatorial maintenance-scheduling problem is solved by using reactive tabu search in the light of the electricity prices trend. This method proposes a new objective function by which the most profitable maintenance schedule would be attained. As an objective function, opportunity loss of maintenance (OLM) is adopted to maximize the profit of generation companies (GENCOS). Finally, the proposed maintenance scheduling is applied to a practical power system test model to verify the advantages and effectiveness of the method


A striking feature of the marine ecosystem is the regularity in its size spectrum: the abundance of organisms as a function of their weight approximately follows a power law over almost ten orders of magnitude. We interpret this as evidence that the population dynamics in the ocean is approximately scale-invariant. We use this invariance in the construction and solution of a size-structured dynamical population model. Starting from a Markov model encoding the basic processes of predation, reproduction, maintenance respiration, and intrinsic mortality, we derive a partial integro-differential equation describing the dependence of abundance on weight and time. Our model represents an extension of the jump-growth model and hence also of earlier models based on the McKendrick-von Foerster equation. The model is scale-invariant provided the rate functions of the stochastic processes have certain scaling properties. We determine the steady-state power-law solution, whose exponent is determined by the relative scaling between the rates of the density-dependent processes (predation) and the rates of the density-independent processes (reproduction, maintenance, and mortality). We study the stability of the steady-state against small perturbations and find that inclusion of maintenance respiration and reproduction in the model has a strong stabilizing effect. Furthermore, the steady state is unstable against a change in the overall population density unless the reproduction rate exceeds a certain threshold.


It has been shown in experiments on rats anesthetized with thiopental that intravenous injection of phentolamine in a dose of 10 mg/kg enlarges the microvessels of the mesoappendix, pia mater, liver and kidneys and raises the number of functioning capillaries. Administration of etiron after phentolamine stabilized AP and corrects microcirculation. The drug raises the tone of the microvessels when applied locally in a dose of 0.15 ml (1 : 5000) or intravenously in a dose of 20 mg/kg. Etiron largely produces the constriction of the distal vessels of the arterial area of the microvascular bloodstream. The diameter of the microvessels diminished to a greater degree after intravenous injection of etiron in the presence of a alpha-adrenoreceptor blockade as compared to local application. The sensitivity of the microvessels to etiron administered after phentolamine is inversely proportional to their diameter. Combined use of etiron with alpha-adrenoblockers considerably widens the possibilities of drug control of the vascular tone.


Arthritis of the hip is a common cause of chronic disability. Although traditionally perceived as a condition occurring in the elderly, the detection of early hip arthritis in the young population must not be overlooked. The detection of subtle anatomical abnormalities giving rise to hip pain continues to pose a challenge. Recently, femoroacetabular impingement has been recognized as an etiological risk factor for early arthritis and hip pain in the young adult. The recent advances in imaging technology and the potential for joint-preserving surgical procedures allow early diagnosis and potentially better delivery of care to these patients. It is hence imperative that all those in the musculoskeletal community involved in the management of these young patients be familiar with this relatively common condition.


Complete recovery of upper-limb function occurs in less than 20% of surviving stroke patients. Functional task-oriented training has been demonstrated to be the most effective therapeutic intervention. However, the number of repetitions of an action required within a session to stimulate cortical changes is significantly higher than is achieved in standard hands-on therapy sessions. New technology is enabling patients to engage in high-intensity, repetitive training and has augmented feedback to improve performance.


Abstract Valuable conservation research on the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) has identified that its current endangerment is primarily due to human persecution, although habitat alteration, interference competition with other large predators, and disease also are factors. Numerous studies have thus determined what should be avoided to sustain an African wild dog population, yet in this study we identify what is needed to conserve a wild dog population by using Jacobs' index to determine its preferred prey species. Twenty-four assessments of wild dog prey preference were calculated from 18 studies involving 4,874 kills of 45 species from throughout its distributional range. Wild dogs prefer prey within a bimodal body mass range of 16–32 kg and 120–140 kg, which is abundant and less likely to cause injury when hunted. This bimodal range follows that of optimal wild dog pack sizes based on energetic costs and benefits. Greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) and Thomson's gazelle (Gazella thomsonii) are killed by wild dogs wherever they coexist and are significantly preferred. Impala (Aepyceros melampus) and bushbuck (Tragelaphus scriptus) also are significantly preferred. Our results allow wildlife managers to more accurately assess the survival chances of reintroduced or small wild dog populations by determining if sufficient preferred prey are available. These techniques are applicable to all adequately studied large predators.


In recent years biological strategies are being more widely used to treat cartilage lesions. One of the most exploited novel treatments is Platelet-rich Plasma (PRP), whose high content of growth factors is supposed to determine a regenerative stimulus to cartilaginous tissue. Despite many promising in vitro and in vivo studies, when discussing clinical application a clear indication for the use of PRP cannot be assessed. There are initial encouraging clinical data, but only a few randomized controlled trials have been published, so it is not possible to fully endorse this kind of approach for the treatment of cartilage pathology. Furthermore, study comparison is very difficult due to the great variability in PRP preparation methods, cell content and concentration, storage modalities, activation methods and even application protocols. These factors partially explain the lack of high quality controlled trials up to now. This paper discusses the main aspects concerning the basic biology of PRP, the principal sources of variability, and summarizes the available literature on PRP use, both in surgical and conservative treatments. Based on current evidence, PRP treatment should only be indicated for low-grade cartilage degeneration and in case of failure of more traditional conservative approaches.


Among various HLM techniques, the Multivariate Hierarchical Linear Model (MHLM) is desirable to use, particularly when multivariate criterion variables are collected and the covariance structure has information valuable for data analysis. In order to reflect prior information or to obtain stable results when the sample size and the number of groups are not sufficiently large, the Bayes method has often been employed in hierarchical data analysis. In these cases, although the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method is a rather powerful tool for parameter estimation, Procedures regarding MCMC have not been formulated for MHLM. For this reason, this research presents concrete procedures for parameter estimation through the use of the Gibbs samplers. Lastly, several future topics for the use of MCMC approach for HLM is discussed.


The study was made to determine whether the attitudes of the open education faculty students, will be changed or not by virtual museum application. The pre-test and post-test model of the experimental design was used in the research. A group of 20 was formed as an experimental group. The pre-test was given to the group before the study and the post test was given to the group at the end of the study. Furthermore t-test analysis was made on the data's to obtain whether the attitude scores of the open education faculty students, will be changed or not according to their computer knowledge. In qualitative section, the students were asked open-ended questions and their answers were given in frequency table. The data's were analyzed in two phases. In the first phase, the analysis of the pre test and post test was made. T test, arithmetic mean () and standard deviation (Ss) were used to analyse the data's. Statistical procedures were made in SPSS 11.0 programmes. The significance of the data's was tested at the 0,05 significance level. A significant difference was determined in the students' opinions concerning the post test data's prepared to measure the attitudes towards the history lesson after the application. As a result, the students had a favourable opinion on the virtual museum application in history lessons by observing variable documents and sources.


This study looks at the farm-level impacts of COVID-19 on six case study model operations created by local Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Risk Management Specialists. Texas High Plains producers faced many new uncertainties with the arrival of COVID19. Significant supply chain disruptions, reductions in consumer demand and decreases in travel negatively affected agricultural operations. In addition, efforts taken to stem contagion lessened the amount of food consumed away from home, and restrictions on movement sharply reduced gasoline usage, and with it demand for grain ethanol. Elevated cases among livestock processing facilities disrupted normal business practices and increased costs. In fact, early in the pandemic the Texas High Plains region was considered a COVID-19 "hot spot" as many area processing plants faced reduced workforces and slower production times due to high numbers of positive cases.


This paper investigates the outage behavior of peak interference power limited cognitive radio (CR) networks with multiple transmit antennas. In CR-multi-input single-output (MISO) channel, the total transmit power is distributed over the transmit- antennas. First, we use the orthogonal space-time codes (STC) to achieve the transmit diversity at CR-receiver (rx) and investigate the effect of the power distribution on the interference power received at the primary-receiver (P-rx). Then, we investigate the transmit antenna selection (TAS) scheme in which the CR system selects the best transmit antenna and allocates all the power to the selected best antenna. Two transmit antenna selection strategies are proposed depending on if feedback channel is available or not. We derive the closed form expressions of outage probability and outage capacity of all schemes with arbitrary number of transmit-antennas. We show that the proposed schemes significantly improve the outage capacity over the single antenna systems in Rayleigh fading environment. We also show that TAS based scheme outperforms the STC based scheme when peak interference power constraint is imposed on the P-rx only if a feedback channel from CR-rx to CR-transmitter is available.


For multi-class classification under class-conditional label noise, we prove that the accuracy metric itself can be robust. We concretize this finding's inspiration in two essential aspects: training and validation, with which we address critical issues in learning with noisy labels. For training, we show that maximizing training accuracy on sufficiently many noisy samples yields an approximately optimal classifier. For validation, we prove that a noisy validation set is reliable, addressing the critical demand of model selection in scenarios like hyperparameter-tuning and early stopping. Previously, model selection using noisy validation samples has not been theoretically justified. We verify our theoretical results and additional claims with extensive experiments. We show characterizations of models trained with noisy labels, motivated by our theoretical results, and verify the utility of a noisy validation set by showing the impressive performance of a framework termed noisy best teacher and student (NTS). Our code is released.


Abstract Background Routine sequencing of MRSA could bring about significant improvements to outbreak detection and investigation. Sequencing is commonly performed using DNA extracted from a pure culture, but overcoming the delay associated with this step could reduce the time to infection control interventions. Objectives To develop and evaluate rapid sequencing of MRSA using primary clinical cultures. Methods Patients with samples submitted to the clinical laboratory at the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust from which MRSA was isolated were identified, the routine laboratory culture plates obtained and DNA extraction and sequencing performed. Results An evaluation of routine MRSA cultures from 30 patients demonstrated that direct sequencing from bacterial colonies picked from four different culture media was feasible. The 30 clinical MRSA isolates were sequenced on the day of plate retrieval over five runs and passed quality control metrics for sequencing depth and coverage. The maximum contamination detected using Kraken was 1.09% fragments, which were identified as Prevotella dentalis. The most common contaminants were other staphylococcal species (25 isolate sequences) and Burkholderia dolosa (11 isolate sequences). Core genome pairwise SNP analysis to identify clusters based on isolates that were ≤50 SNPs different was used to triage cases for further investigation. This identified three clusters, but more detailed genomic and epidemiological evaluation excluded an acute outbreak. Conclusions Rapid sequencing of MRSA from clinical culture plates is feasible and reduces the delay associated with purity culture prior to DNA extraction.


In his famous undergraduate physics lectures, Richard Feynman remarked about the problem of fluid turbulence: "Nobody in physics has really been able to analyze it mathematically satisfactorily in spite of its importance to the sister sciences". This statement was already false when Feynman made it. Unbeknownst to him, Lars Onsager decades earlier had made an exact mathematical analysis of the high Reynolds-number limit of incompressible fluid turbulence, using a method that would now be described as a non-perturbative renormalization group analysis and discovering the first "conservation-law anomaly" in theoretical physics. Onsager's results were only cryptically announced in 1949 and he never published any of his detailed calculations. Onsager's analysis was finally rescued from oblivion and reproduced by this author in 1992. The ideas have subsequently been intensively developed in the mathematical PDE community, where deep connections emerged with John Nash's work on isometric embeddings. Furthermore, Onsager's method has more recently been successfully applied to new physics problems, such as compressible fluid turbulence and relativistic fluid turbulence, yielding many novel testable predictions. This note will explain Onsager's exact analysis of incompressible turbulence using modern ideas on renormalization group and conservation-law anomalies, and it will also very briefly review subsequent developments.