In this paper, I discuss in detail the approach taken in the implementation of two external objects in Max/MSP [11] that can extract musically relevant rhythmic information from dance movement as captured by a video camera. These objects perform certain types of analysis on the digitized video stream and can enable dancers to generate musical rhythmic structures and/or to control the musical tempo of an electronically-generated sequence in real time. One of the objects, m.bandit , 1 implements an algorithm that does the spectral representation of the frame-differencing video analysis signal and calculates its fundamental frequency in a fashion akin to pitch tracking. The fundamental frequency of the signal as calculated by this object, can be treated as a beat candidate and sent to another object, m.clock , an adaptive clock that can adjust the tempo of a musical sequence being played, thereby enabling the dancer the control of musical tempo in real time.


BACKGROUND
Heart failure (HF) is a health problem that particularly affects the elderly population. Its onset is associated with other chronic diseases, a circumstance that makes it a challenge for health care services. The aim of this study is to quantify the prevalence of HF in family medicine offices and describe the chronic co-morbidity associated with it.

METHODS
A cross-sectional, observational descriptive study set in a health area of the Community of Madrid, Spain. The study was carried out in a population of 198,670 individuals over 14 years of age, attended to by 129 specialists in family medicine. The patient was considered to have HF when this diagnosis (ICPC code K77) appeared in his or her electronic medical record. The prevalence of HF was quantified and its association with another 25 chronic diseases was analysed.

RESULTS
The prevalence of HF was 6.9‰, 7.9‰ among women and 5.9‰ among men. Patients with HF had a high rate of chronic co-morbidity, with an average of 5.2 + 2.1 chronic diseases. Only 3% of the patients present with isolated HF and >60% have four or more additional chronic problems. Hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, hyperlipidaemia, obesity and diabetes mellitus are the chronic diseases most frequently detected in HF patients.

CONCLUSION
Patients with HF frequently visit the offices of family physicians, presenting with a high rate of cardiac and non-cardiac co-morbidity that proves to be a challenge on the clinical level and in terms of the organization of health care services.


Unfortunately, the frequency of plagiarism is increasing in the nursing profession. We are encouraged to write, especially those of us in academia, and we all live very active lives. Pressure to publish, especially when coupled with lack of time, can lead to plagiarism, whether inadvertent or not. This article will discuss the problem of plagiarism and provide tips on how to avoid it in your own work.


Proc Amer Assoc Cancer Res, Volume 47, 2006

5275

The great majority of women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) will die of the disease. To date, the most significant results have come from advances in chemotherapy. There is considerable hope that novel biologically targeted therapy in combination with chemotherapy will improve survival. Bevacizumab, an antibody directed against the proangiogenic molecule vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) (Burger et al. 2005) shows great promise in ovarian cancer. There is little data, especially in human ovarian cancer cell lines, looking at how antiangiogenic agents and chemotherapy work together in combination. It is the specific purpose of this study to examine the growth inhibition that results from combination topotecan and bevacizumab in topotecan-resistant ovarian cancer cell lines that either did or did not express VEGF. To test the effect of chemotherapy on human ovarian cancer cells, seventeen ovarian cancer cell lines were treated with topotecan at different concentrations and time periods. Three pairs of these cell lines were further selected for assessing cell survival in the presence of bevacizumab alone or in combination with topotecan. Nine of seventeen cell lines showed resistant to topotecan treatment with a range of 62 to 100% cell survival. Three of these (OVCAR3; OVCAR5; SKOV3) have been previously shown to produce soluble VEGF (VEGF+). These cell lines were demonstrated relatively high resistance to 96-hours treatment with 0.3uM topotecan. When compared with a non-VEGF expressing cell line,A2780CP (VEGF-), VEGF+ cell lines (OVCAR3; OVCAR5; SKOV3) showed were significantly inhibited by bevacizumab when combined with topotecan after 24, 48 and 96 hours administration. This response was greater than the response to bevacizumab alone, suggesting synergy. This study demonstrates that topotecan resistant ovarian cancer cells that produce VEGF have a synergistic response to combination bevacizumab and topotecan. This opens further investigation into how other chemotherapeutics may behave when combined with antiangiogenic therapy in ovarian cancer.


The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory followed up 18 gravitational wave (GW) triggers from the LIGO/Virgo collaboration during the O3 observing run in 2019/2020, performing approximately 6500 pointings in total. Of these events, four were finally classified (if real) as binary black hole (BH) triggers, six as binary neutron star (NS) events, two each of NSBH and Mass Gap triggers, one an unmodelled (Burst) trigger, and the remaining three were subsequently retracted. Thus far, four of these O3 triggers have been formally confirmed as real gravitational wave events. While no likely electromagnetic counterparts to any of these GW events have been identified in the X-ray data (to an average upper limit of 3.60 × 10−12 erg cm−2 s−1 over 0.3–10 keV), or at other wavelengths, we present a summary of all the Swift-XRT observations performed during O3, together with typical upper limits for each trigger observed. The majority of X-ray sources detected during O3 were previously uncatalogued; while some of these will be new (transient) sources, others are simply too faint to have been detected by earlier survey missions such as ROSAT. The all-sky survey currently being performed by eROSITA will be a very useful comparison for future observing runs, reducing the number of apparent candidate X-ray counterparts by up to 95 per cent.


BACKGROUND
A recent meta-analysis raised doubt as to whether calcium supplementation in children benefits spine and hip bone mineral density (BMD).

OBJECTIVE
We used state-of-the-art measures of bone (fan-beam dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and 4 bone turnover markers) to determine whether girls with low habitual calcium intake benefited from supplementation with a soluble form of calcium (calcium citrate malate dissolved in a fruit drink).

DESIGN
The trial was an 18-mo randomized trial of calcium supplementation (792 mg/d) with follow-up 2 y after supplement withdrawal. Subjects were 96 girls (mean age: 12 y) with low calcium intakes (mean: 636 mg/d). The main outcome measure was change in total-body, lumbar spine, and total hip bone mineral content (BMC) during supplementation and 2 y after supplement withdrawal. Changes in BMD and bone turnover markers were secondary outcome measures.

RESULTS
The mean additional calcium intake in the supplemented group was 555 mg/d. Compared with the control group, the supplemented group showed significantly (P < 0.05) greater gains in BMC (except at the total hip site) over the 18-mo study. BMD change was significantly (P < 0.05) greater for all skeletal sites, and concentrations of bone resorption markers and parathyroid hormone were significantly (P < 0.01) lower in the supplemented group than in the control group after 18 mo. After 42 mo, gains in BMC and BMD and differences in bone resorption were no longer evident.

CONCLUSIONS
Calcium supplementation enhances bone mineral accrual in teenage girls, but the effect is short-lived. The likely mechanism for the effect of the calcium is suppression of bone turnover, which is reversed upon supplement withdrawal.


This work was undertaken with a view of studying the metabolism in the last month of pregnancy and determining the value of changes shown by the partition ofthe nitrogen of the urine, as an index to the preeclamptic or the eclamptic state. There has been tendency during the past few years to associate more closely the conditions known as pernicious vomiting of pregnancy occurring in the early months, toxemia of the middle period and eclampsia at or near term.1A similar condition of liver necrosis has been found to exist in some cases of each of these conditions, and this has given rise to the theory that the symptoms are due to faulty metabolism. It is thought that the liver is unable properly to transform the nitrogenous bodies delivered to it by the portal circulation. This theory has obtained so firm a foothold that to-day many obstetricians consider it


Factors that can interfere with the successful treatment of Mycobacterium avium lung infection have been inadequately studied. To identify a potent predictor of therapeutic responses of M. avium lung infection, we analyzed variable number tandem repeats (VNTR) at 16 minisatellite loci of M. avium clinical isolates. Associations between the VNTR profiling data and a therapeutic response were evaluated in 59 subjects with M. avium lung infection. M. avium lung infection of 30 subjects in whom clarithromycin-containing regimens produced microbiological and radiographic improvement was defined as responsive disease, while that of the remaining 29 subjects was defined as refractory disease. In phylogenetic analysis using the genotypic distance aggregated from 16-dimensional VNTR data, 59 M. avium isolates were divided into three clusters, which showed a nearly significant association with therapeutic responses (p 0.06). We then subjected the raw 16-dimensional VNTR data directly to principal component analysis, and identified the genetic features that were significantly associated with the therapeutic response (p <0.05). By further analysis of logistic regression with a stepwise variable-selection, we constructed the highest likelihood multivariate model, adjusted for age, to predict a therapeutic response, using VNTR data from only four minisatellite loci. In conclusion, we identified four mycobacterial minisatellite loci that together were associated with the therapeutic response of M. avium lung infections.


Children's eye movements were recorded to examine the role of word spacing and positional character frequency on the process of Chinese lexical acquisition during reading. Three types of two-character novel pseudowords were constructed: words containing characters in positions in which they frequently occurred (congruent), words containing characters in positions they do not frequently occur in (incongruent) and words containing characters that do not have a strong position bias (balanced). There were two phases within the experiment, a learning phase and a test phase. There were also two learning groups: half the children read sentences in a word-spaced format and the other half read the sentences in an unspaced format during the learning phase. All the participants read normal, unspaced text at test. A benefit of word spacing was observed in the learning phase, but not at test. Also, facilitatory effects of positional character congruency were found both in the learning and test phase; however, this benefit was greatly reduced at test. Furthermore, we did not find any interaction between word spacing and positional character frequencies, indicating that these two types of cues affect lexical acquisition independently. With respect to theoretical accounts of lexical acquisition, we argue that word spacing might facilitate the very earliest stages of word learning by clearly demarking word boundary locations. In contrast, we argue that characters' positional frequencies might affect relatively later stages of word learning.


Buffer tanks are widely used within the process industry to prevent flow variations from being directly propagated throughout a plant. The capacity of the tank is used to smoothly transfer inlet flow upsets to the outlet. Ideally, the tank thus works as a low pass filter where the available tank capacity limits the achievable flow smoothing. For infrequently occurring upsets, where the system has time to reach steady state between flow changes, the averaging level control problem has been extensively studied. After an inlet flow change, flow filtering has traditionally been obtained by letting the tank level deviate from its nominal value while slowly adapting the outlet to cancel out the flow imbalance and eventually bringing back the level to its set-point. The system is then again in steady state and ready to surge the next upset. By ensuring that the single largest upset can be handled without violating the level constraints, satisfactory flow smoothing is obtained. In this thesis, the smoothing of frequently changing inlet flows is addressed. In this case, standard level controllers struggle to obtain acceptable flow smoothing since the system rarely is in steady state and flow upsets can thus not be treated as separate events. To obtain a control law that achieves optimal filtering while directly accounting for future upsets, the averaging level control problem was approached using robust model predictive control (MPC). The robust MPC differs in the way it obtains flow smoothing by not returning the tank level to a fixed set-point. Instead, it lets the steady state tank level depend on the current value of the inlet flow. This insight was then used to propose a linear control structure, designed to filter frequent upsets optimally. Analyses and simulation results indicate that the proposed linear and robust MPC controller obtain flow smoothing comparable to the standard optimal averaging level controllers for infrequent upsets while handling frequent upsets considerably better.


Obesity has negative impacts on cardiovascular function and may increase cerebrovascular complications during exercise. We compared hemodynamic and cerebral oxygen changes during high-intensity exercise between overweight (OW) and normal-weight (NW) individuals. Eighteen NW and fourteen OW male individuals performed high-intensity (70% of peak oxygen uptake, VO2peak) cycling exercises for 30 min. Hemodynamics were measured using a bioelectrical impedance device, and cerebral oxygenation status was measured using a near-infrared spectrophotometer during and after exercise. The VO2peak of NW individuals was significantly higher than that of OW individuals (41.3 ± 5.7 vs. 30.0 ± 5.0 mL/min/kg, respectively; p < 0.05). During the 30 min exercise, both groups exhibited an increase in oxygenated hemoglobin (O2Hb) (p < 0.001), deoxygenated hemoglobin (p < 0.001), and cardiac output with increasing time. Post-exercise, cardiac output and systemic vascular resistance were significantly higher in the OW group than in the NW group (p < 0.05). The O2Hb in the NW group was significantly higher at post-exercise times of 20 min (13.9 ± 7.0 μmol/L) and 30 min (12.3 ± 8.7 μmol/L) than that in the OW group (1.0 ± 13.1 μmol/L and 0.6 ± 10.0 μmol/L, respectively; p = 0.024 vs. 0.023, respectively). OW participants demonstrated lower cerebral oxygenation and higher vascular resistance in the post-exercise phase than non-OW subjects. These physiological responses should be considered while engaging OW and obese individuals in vigorous exercise.


Real-Time Locating Systems (RTLS) belong to a class of locating systems capable of remotely determining the location of tagged assets in an environment within a relatively short time frame (real-time). Signals from tags are received wirelessly by readers, which use information about the signal, to continuously determine the location of the tag relative to each reader. Using readers positioned at several locations around a tag offers multiple location readings, which can be compiled together at a central host to estimate the location of a tag in a two or three dimensional space. Location information from several vantage points also reduces the chance of false location estimates of a tag when one or more readers' location estimates contain some error.Indoor asset tracking is a unique specialty of many types of RTLS, as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) have difficulty providing asset locations within buildings. RTLS deployments generally address the problems of determining the location of equipment and products in a warehouse or even tracking employees and files in an office. The most common RTLS uses a Wi-Fi infrastructure to determine the location of tagged assets. These systems employ Time-of-Arrival (ToA) or Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) techniques to wirelessly determine asset location. Scaling up a system that uses a Wi-Fi infrastructure to localize large numbers of tags introduces a significant wireless traffic burden, reducing data throughput for other users of the same Wi-Fi network. Both ToA and RSSI methods of localization suffer from significant inaccuracies in reported location of assets and often are unable to determine which room an asset resides.This thesis presents a new method for determining asset location that offers better accuracy than systems using ToA and RSSI techniques, and an RTLS that uses existing Wi-Fi infrastructures and commercial off-the-shelf parts (COTS) without placing excessive need on the Wi-Fi networks.


This study focuses on the 15 May 2005 geomagnetic superstorm and aims to investigate the global variation of positive and negative storm phases and their development. Observations are provided by a series of global total electron content maps and multi‐instrument line plots. Coupled Thermosphere‐Ionosphere‐Plasmasphere electrodynamics (CTIPe) simulations are also employed. Results reveal some sunward streaming plumes of storm‐enhanced density (SED) over Asia and a well‐developed midlatitude trough over North America forming isolated positive and negative storms, respectively. The simultaneous development of positive and negative storms over North America is also shown. Then, some enhanced auroral ionizations maintained by strong equatorward neutral winds appeared in the depleted nighttime ionosphere. Meanwhile, the northern nighttime polar region became significantly depleted as the SED plume plasma could not progress further than the dayside cusp. Oppositely, a polar tongue of ionization (TOI) developed in the daytime southern polar region. According to CTIP simulations, solar heating locally maximized (minimized) over the southern (northern) magnetic pole. Furthermore, strong upward surges of molecular‐rich air created O/N2 decreases both in the auroral zone and in the trough region, while some SED‐related downward surges produced O/N2 increases. From these results we conclude for the time period studied that (1) composition changes contributed to the formation of positive and negative storms, (2) strengthening polar convection and increasing solar heating of the polar cap supported polar TOI development, and (3) a weaker polar convection and minimized solar heating of the polar cap aided the depletion of polar plasma.


OBJECTIVE
We evaluated the relapse-free job retention rate and cost-effectiveness of return-to-work (RTW) programs for workers with mental illness.

METHOD
We retrospectively evaluated a group of 196 employees of a pharmaceutical company in Japan who had taken sick leave because of mental illness. We found that the old RTW program led to 142 employees returning to work and the new RTW program resulted in 54 employees returning to work. In the new program, we introduced the following improvements: evaluation of recovery and readiness to return to work by using the "Daily Activity Record Sheet"; planning for RTW with reasonable steps in 6 months; monthly interviews with an occupational health physician, to keep in touch with workers in the RTW process; and arranging a "Return-to-Work Coordination Meeting" with occupational health specialists, to make reasonable adjustments to a return-to-work plan.

RESULTS
The median duration of sick leave was 60 days longer in the new program. The relapse-free job retention rate within 1 year was 54.2% in the old program and was increased to 91.6% in the new program. The old and new programs cost 65,945 yen and 300,898 yen, respectively. The benefits of the old and new programs were 6,226,192 yen and 8,418,514 yen, respectively. The return on investment (ROI) was 933%.

CONCLUSION
The new RTW program is effective at improving the relapse-free job retention rate of workers with mental illness.


Introduction: The health professional´s occupational health can affect both the quality of the care provided and the degree of training and the therapeutic techniques available.In case of nurses, they usually are exposed to situations that affect their Quality of Working Life (QoWL). The aim was to measure the quality of working life among nurses in pediatric departments and its factors associated.
Methods: A cross-sectional pilot study conducted in nurses of Pediatric departments in public hospitals in Andalusian (Spain). Participants completed the biographical questionnaire and the validated 23-item Work-Related Quality of Life scale (WRQoL). A descriptive and multiple regression analysis were carried out.
Results: The average QoWL of pediatric nurses was of 78.13 19.89 according to WRQoL scale. In relation to factors associated to QoWL, the analyses showed that having a master – maximum educational level, having pediatric nursing specialty, being married or having a civil partner and having labor flexibility for the reconciliation of work and private life increased total WRQoL score except having pediatric nursing specialty which decreased it.
Conclusion: Although the total WRQoL is average, more efforts should be made to increase the total WRQoL among pediatric nurses and to ask about other aspects in which to work to maintain a high QoWL.

Keywords: Quality of Working Life, Pediatric Nurse, Occupational health.


: Focusing on the domestic ideals of settler colonialism, this essay provides an analysis of Katherine Mansfield's representations of house and home in several of her New Zealand short stories. The first part of the essay considers Mansfield's use of Gothic tropes to represent settler-Indigenous spatial relations in the story 'Old Tar' (1913), suggesting that the dread-tinged colonial house challenges settler colonial ideas about land-tenure and inheritance. The second part of the essay discusses the development of second-generation settler identities, analysing Mansfield's representations of class in the context of settler spatial relations in 'The Garden Party' (1921). The essay's broader claim is that 'Old Tar' and 'The Garden Party' challenge the domestic ideals of settler colonialism by showing the unpleasant realities of settler patriarchy and the racialised, gendered, and class-based underpinnings of second-generation settler sociability and culture.


The Niger Delta region, which is the hydrocarbon basket of Nigeria, appears to be sitting on an environmental time bomb due to degradation from widespread hydrocarbon pollution. The major sources of environmental degradation in the Niger Delta are oil spillage, gas flaring and improper disposal of wastes from oil drilling operations. Presently, it is estimated that there are over 5,000 massively polluted sites in the Niger Delta. Drawing data from secondary sources, this paper finds that despite the enormity of environmental pollution and its deleterious effects on the socio-economic wellbeing of the Niger Delta region, there is no implementable blueprint or policy for remediation. The paper links the economic cost of environmental pollution to the pervasive poverty and other socio-ecological crises that envelope the region in a smoke of underdevelopment. The paper therefore advocates a clear national remediation policy to sustainably deal with the degraded environment of the region.


Predictive models for micropollutant removal by membrane separation are highly desirable for the design and selection of appropriate membranes. While machine learning (ML) models have been applied for such purposes, their reliability might be compromised by data leakage due to inappropriate data splitting. More importantly, whether ML models can truly understand the mechanisms of membrane separation has not been revealed. In this study, we evaluate the capability of the XGBoost model to predict micropollutant removal efficiencies of reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membranes. Our results demonstrate that data leakage leads to falsely high prediction accuracy. By utilizing a model interpretation method based on the cooperative game theory, we test the knowledge of XGBoost on the mechanisms of membrane separation via quantifying the contributions of input variables to the model predictions. We reveal that XGBoost possesses an adequate understanding of size exclusion, but its knowledge of electrostatic interactions and adsorption is limited. Our findings suggest that future work should focus more on avoiding data leakage and evaluating the mechanistic knowledge of ML models. In addition, high-quality data from more diverse experimental conditions, as well as more informative variables, are needed to improve the accuracy of ML models for predicting membrane performance.


Abstract Numerous factors affect the rate of return that a financial institution earns. Some of these factors include external forces that shape earnings performance and internal elements found in each financial institution. Policy implications are determined by the type of explanation and should be taken seriously. This paper classifies determinants of bank profitability as well as reviews existing literature on bank performance. The second section of this study quantifies how external factors and internal determinants have influenced the profitability of EU banks. This paper constructs fixed-effect models and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), which sheds new light on understanding various factors influencing how the EU banking industry performs. The observation period was from 2012 to 2019, and the findings revealed that EU bank profitability is influenced by both external macroeconomic environment and management decisions. The results of this study suggest that equity to assets ratio (EA), Gap ratio, and GDP have a positive impact on bank profitability, while the loan to assets ratio (LA) and the provision for loan losses to total loans ratio (PLL/TL) hurt EU bank profitability. The empirical findings are consistent with the expected results, although, they are different from those of studies that investigated the structure-performance relationship of EU banks because they found that market share and concentration have a positive effect on bank profitability.


The paper describes a project aiming at content-based retrieval of coats of arms to facilitate information finding. The retrieval system should be usable by experts and by casual users. In order to make use of the specific nature of arms about 20 different features have been developed to allow an expert to fine-tune an image search. For the casual user different features are grouped into feature lists that are called query models. These models correspond to image clusters in the database. The paper discusses the customization of features for the retrieval of coats of arms and their grouping into query models. Experiments and test results show a good performance of query models. keywords: content-based image retrieval, image databases, coats of arms.


As the prominence of the service sector is increasing in developed nations, new and exciting opportunities are arising for operational researchers to develop and apply models which offer managers solutions to improve the quality of their services. The development of time-dependent stochastic models to analyse complex service systems and generate effective personnel schedules are key to this process, enabling organisations to strike a balance between the provision of a good quality service whilst avoiding unnecessary personnel costs. Specifically within the healthcare sector, there is a need to promote efficient management of an Emergency Medical Service (EMS), where the probability of survival is directly related to the speed of assistance.

Motivated by case studies investigating the operation of the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust (WAST), this thesis aims to investigate how operational research (OR) techniques can be developed to analyse priority service systems subject to demand that is of an urgent nature, cannot be backlogged, is heavily time-dependent and highly variable. A workforce capacity planning tool is ultimately developed that integrates a combination of forecasting, queueing theory, stochastic modelling and optimisation techniques into a single spreadsheet model in order to predict future demand upon WAST, set staffing levels, and optimise shift schedules and rosters. The unique linking together of the techniques in a planning tool which further captures time-dependency and two priority classes enables this research to outperform previous approaches, which have generally only considered a single class of customer, or generated staffing recommendations using approximation methods that are only reliable under limited conditions.

The research presented in this thesis is novel in several ways. Primarily, the first section considers the potential of a nonparametric modelling technique known as Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) to improve the accuracy of demand forecasts. Secondly, the main body of work is dedicated to adapting numerical queueing theory techniques to accurately model the behaviour of time-dependent multi-server priority systems across shift boundaries and evaluate the likelihood of excessive waits for service for two customer classes. The final section addresses how shifts can be optimally scheduled using heuristic search techniques. The main conclusions are that in addition to offering a more flexible approach, the forecasts generated by SSA compare favourably to those obtained using traditional methods, and both approximate and numerical modelling techniques may be duly extended to set staffing levels in complex priority systems.


This thesis examines secret intelligence cooperation between three asymmetric partners – specifically the UK, US and Turkey – from the end of the Second World War until Turkey's first military coup d'etat on 27 May 1960. The thesis shows that our understanding of the Cold War as a binary rivalry between the two blocs is too simple an approach and obscures important characteristics of intelligence cooperation among allies. To reveal a more comprehensive analysis of intelligence cooperation, this thesis develops our understanding of it more broadly, by developing a model called 'intelligence diplomacy'. This model explores a vital, if little understood, aspect of contemporary international relations given the prevalence of transnational threats today. Intelligence diplomacy involves negotiations and the exploitation of different aspects of joint intelligence activities, synchronized between diplomats and specialized intelligence officers. While such efforts often result in overlap between diplomats and intelligence liaison efforts, there is strong evidence that the acts of intelligence services vary from the instructions of their foreign ministries. The thesis also shows that a pragmatic approach offers states new opportunities to protect national interests, by conducting intelligence diplomacy to influence crucial areas such as nuclear weapons and to exploit cooperation in support of their own strategic imperatives. By doing so this thesis not only reveals previously-unexplored origins of secret intelligence cooperation between Turkey and the West, but also contributes to wider academic debates on the nature of the Cold War by highlighting the potential agency of weaker states in the Western Alliance.


Hepatitis delta virus (HDV) is a defective RNA virus that depends on hepatitis B virus (HBV) for its lifecycle. Treatment of chronic HDV infection is difficult as it does not have an enzymatic function as a target, such as polymerases and proteases of HBV and hepatitis C virus. Recently, it has been suggested that farnesyl transferase could be an enzymatic target. Currently, interferon is the only agent against HDV infection. Virological response has risen to 20–47% with pegylated interferon. Monotherapy of nucleos(t)ide analogs are ineffective against the HDV infection, but adefovir and pegylated interferon combination therapy have had some advantages for reduction of HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) levels. Recent studies suggest that measuring HBsAg levels during treatment could be more meaningful than HDV RNA negativity to predict virological response. Prenylation inhibitors that can affect the interactions between the large HDV antigen and HBsAg in the HDV virion are expected treatments for HDV infection. More studies are needed to understand the molecular mechanisms of HDV to manage the disease.


Use of the Internet and the World Wide Web have increased rapidly over the past few years. HP customers deploying Web servers want to understand how their servers are being used by Internet users, how those patterns of use are changing over time, and what steps they should take to ensure adequate server response to the incoming requests today and in the future. This requires an evaluation of the requests offered to the Web server and the characteristics of the server's response to those requests over a suitably long time interval. In this report we present the results of a study of one customer's Internet Web server system over a two month period. During that time the traffic to the site increased significantly in terms of incoming requests and outgoing bytes. We examine the request and response types, and characterize the traffic distribution on the basis of request size, response time, and other factors. We conclude with system performance recommendations and identify future directions for our Web research. Internal Accession Date Only


Social influence and social learning are important to the survival of many organisms, and certain forms of social learning also may have important implications for their underlying cognitive processes. The various forms of social influence and learning are discussed with special emphasis on the mechanisms that may be responsible for opaque imitation (the copying of a response that the observer cannot easily see when it produces the response). Three procedures are examined, the results of which may qualify as opaque imitation: the bidirectional control procedure, the two- action procedure, and the do-as-I-do procedure. Variables that appear to affect the emergence of opaque imitation are identified and other complex forms of response copying are discussed. Keywords: bidirectional control procedure; contagion; emulation; imitation; local enhancement; object movement reenactment; observational conditioning; opaque imitation; social enhancement; social facilitation; social influence; social learning; stimulus enhancement; two action procedure


To bridge the gap between science and practice in mental health care, scientific methods need to be developed that have direct applications in clinical practice. Studies that report 'average' effects document the efficacy of psychotherapy but have limited implications for decision making in clinical practice. Although it is very unlikely that statistical models will ever perfectly predict treatment outcomes, models that identify and describe changes in a patient's risk of treatment failure may be developed to support decisions during ongoing treatment. In the current study, the classification and regression tree (CART) method was applied to data from the German multicenter study on the relationship between treatment duration/intensity and outcome in inpatient treatment of eating disorders (Project TR-EAT). Within a sample of patients diagnosed with bulimia nervosa (n = 630), data on admission, treatment strategy, and treatment response were used to develop a CART decision tree. This has potential for treatment decision support because the tree structure identifies changes in risk status associated with available treatment options and is sensitive to a patient's unique presenting characteristics and observed treatment response.


We propose a variant of the 2-to-1 Games Conjecture that we call the Rich 2-to-1 Games Conjecture and show that it is equivalent to the Unique Games Conjecture. We are motivated by two considerations. Firstly, in light of the recent proof of the 2-to-1 Games Conjecture [16, 6, 5, 17], we hope to understand how one might make further progress towards a proof of the Unique Games Conjecture. Secondly, the new variant along with perfect completeness in addition, might imply hardness of approximation results that necessarily require perfect completeness and (hence) are not implied by the Unique Games Conjecture.


Iron oxide nanoparticles have been extensively used for energy production in fuel cells; however, the different phases of iron oxide have not been adequately investigated for their effect on the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The low temperature synthesis of four kinds of iron oxide nanoparticles with different phases was incorporated inside 3D reduced graphene oxide (rGO) aerogels and their electrochemical, catalytic and electron transfer properties were determined for ORR. The results showed that, at low potentials (0.20 V), rGO composites containing magnetite, maghemite and goethite catalyse ORR via four-electron transfer kinetics while hematite facilitated two-electron transfer kinetics. At higher potentials (0.70 V), all four catalysts proceeded via a two-electron pathway.


This thesis describes the effort of adapting Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) to the game of Hearthstone, a card game with hidden information and stochastic elements. The focus is on discovering the suitability of MCTS for this environment, as well as which domainspecific adaptations are needed. An MCTS agent is developed for a Hearthstone simulator, which is used to conduct experiments to measure the agent's performance both against human and computer players. The implementation includes determinizations to work around hidden information, and introduces action chains to handle multiple actions within a turn. The results are analyzed and possible future directions of research are proposed.


The classical method of metabolic engineering, identifying a rate-determining step in a pathway and alleviating the bottleneck by enzyme overexpression, has motivated much research but has enjoyed only limited practical success. Intervention of other limiting steps, of counterbalancing regulation, and of unknown coupled pathways often confounds this direct approach. Here the concept of inverse metabolic engineering is codified and its application is illustrated with several examples. Inverse metabolic engineering means the elucidation of a metabolic engineering strategy by: first, identifying, constructing, or calculating a desired phenotype; second, determining the genetic or the particular environmental factors conferring that phenotype; and third, endowing that phenotype on another strain or organism by directed genetic or environmental manipulation. This paradigm has been successfully applied in several contexts, including elimination of growth factor requirements in mammalian cell culture and increasing the energetic efficiency of microaerobic bacterial respiration. (c) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


We have recently proposed a two-dimensional quantum walk where the requirement of a higher dimensionality of the coin space is substituted with the alternance of the directions in which the walker can move [C. Di Franco, M. Mc Gettrick, and Th. Busch, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 080502 (2011)]. For a particular initial state of the coin, this walk is able to perfectly reproduce the spatial probability distribution of the nonlocalized case of the Grover walk. Here, we present a more detailed proof of this equivalence. We also extend the analysis to other initial states in order to provide a more complete picture of our walk. We show that this scheme outperforms the Grover walk in the generation of x-y spatial entanglement for any initial condition, with the maximum entanglement obtained in the case of the particular aforementioned state. Finally, the equivalence is generalized to wider classes of quantum walks and a limit theorem for the alternate walk in this context is presented.


Abstract
Debates over ritual slaughter, sacred food, fasts, and forbidden foods, perpetuated by religion and tradition, are nothing new. Dietary obligations and prohibitions, in all their diversity, have always been the object of comment, critique, or even concern from one human group towards another. The consumption of meat (or its prohibition) has always been about more than its nutritional function. Reducing religious dietary obligations to hygienic or gustatory practices would be an unrealistic attempt to erase the diversity of the procedures which people undertake to give meaning to life, death, and the world, and to locate themselves in relation to "others". These rites, legitimated by myths, inevitably provoke phenomena of influence, reciprocated within and outside groups. The selection of food – of meat in particular – plays a primordial role as a social marker, the rules of which contribute to the organisation of groups by tracing differences between individuals, between men and women, and between communities. Formerly attached to a totemic group and its territory, then to a religion and its society, dietary practices are globalising and encountering one-another. Questions are now raised about the management, in shared spaces, of a diversity of dietary prohibitions and obligations. These questions are at the core of this chapter, notably, what place should be reserved for dietary particularities in collective catering in human organisations? And what limits should be given to the expectations of each regarding dietary purity or fasting?


Amartya Sen's capability approach is a guiding light for international efforts to improve the measurement of national well-being. This article compares Sen's nuanced philosophical ideal with the New Zealand Treasury's Living Standards Framework, which identifies the capability approach as one of various influences. However, the idea of the capability – that is, people's freedoms to lead the kind of lives they have reason to value – remains an interpretive possibility, rather than a design feature. To give the capability its due importance, policymakers will need to utilise this idea when making sense of the Dashboard's indicators and instilling policy relevance.


The aim of this work was to benchmark respirable crystalline silica (RCS) exposures in brick manufacturing and stone working sectors in Great Britain. This will contribute to a larger programme of work, which will be used to better understand the role of health surveillance in preventing the development of further cases of silicosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. This work was undertaken by means of site visits to measure RCS and respirable dust exposures and assess exposure controls. In addition, historic exposure reports from the sites were collated to allow assessment of exposure trends. The survey, which was conducted in 20 sites (10 from each sector), found that in both sectors over 20% of the measured exposures exceeded the UK RCS 8-hour time-weighted averaged workplace exposure limit (WEL) of 0.1 mg/m3. In the stone sector over 40% of the 8 h time-weighted average RCS exposures were above the RCS WEL compared to 20% in the brick manufacturing sector. In the stone sector, 61% of RCS exposures where water suppression was present exceeded the RCS WEL. This indicates that a variety of exposure controls will be required to control RCS exposures, including respiratory protective equipment (RPE). The use of RPE in situations where RCS exposure exceeded the RCS WEL was more prevalent in stone working than in the brick sector. There were differences associated with RPE and the use of other exposure controls in both sectors. The contextual information in historic consultant's exposure reports was generally limited, with exposure controls either not mentioned or not fully described. This affects the usefulness of exposure monitoring to dutyholders. This work will provide information on exposures allowing construction of lifetime exposure estimates for use in analysis of the health effects data. A second survey to the sites is planned to determine how exposures have altered.


The structure of the IIBGlc domain of the Escherichia coli transporter for glucose was determined by multidimensional heteronuclear NMR. The glucose transporter (IICBGlc) belongs to the bacterial phosphotransferase system. It mediates uptake with concomittant phosphorylation of glucose. The N-terminal IICGlc domain spans the membrane, the C-terminal IIBGlc domain (residues 386-477) contains the phosphorylation site, Cys421. The structure of the subclonal IIB domain was determined based on 927 conformational constraints, including 744 NOE derived upper bounds, 43 constraints of ranges of dihedral angles based on measurements of vicinal coupling constants, and 70 upper and lower bound constraints associated with 35 hydrogen bonds. The distance geometry interpretation of the NMR data is based on the previously published sequence-specific 1H, 15N, and 13C resonance assignments [Golic Grdadolnik et al. (1994) Eur. J. Biochem. 219, 945-952]. The sequence of the secondary structure elements of IIB is alpha 1 beta 1 beta 2 alpha 2 beta 3 beta 4 alpha 3. The basic fold consists of a split alpha/beta-sandwich composed of an antiparallel sheet with strand order beta 1 beta 2 beta 4 beta 3 and three alpha-helices superimposed onto one side of the sheet. The hydrophobic helix alpha 1 is packed against helices alpha 2, alpha 3, and the beta-sheet. The phosphorylation site (Cys421) is at the end of beta 1 on the solvent-exposed face of the sheet surrounded by Asp419, Thr423 Arg424, Arg426, and Gln456 which are invariant in 15 homologous IIB domains from other PTS transporters.


Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2) is responsible for the worldwide pandemic, COVID-19. The original viral whole-genome was sequenced by a high-throughput sequencing approach from the samples obtained from Wuhan, China. Real-time gene sequencing is the main parameter to manage viral outbreaks because it expands our understanding of virus proliferation, spread, and evolution. Whole-genome sequencing is critical for SARS-CoV-2 variant surveillance, the development of new vaccines and boosters, and the representation of epidemiological situations in the country. A significant increase in the number of COVID-19 cases confirmed in August 2021 in Kazakhstan facilitated a need to establish an effective and proficient system for further study of SARS-CoV-2 genetic variants and the development of future Kazakhstan's genomic surveillance program. The SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome was sequenced according to SARS-CoV-2 ARTIC protocol (EXP-MRT001) by Oxford Nanopore Technologies at the National Laboratory Astana, Kazakhstan to track viral variants circulating in the country. The 500 samples kindly provided by the Republican Diagnostic Center (UMC-NU) and private laboratory KDL "Olymp" were collected from individuals in Nur-Sultan city diagnosed with COVID-19 from August 2021 to May 2022 using real-time reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). All samples had a cycle threshold (Ct) value below 20 with an average Ct value of 17.03. The overall average value of sequencing depth coverage for samples is 244X. 341 whole-genome sequences that passed quality control were deposited in the Global initiative on sharing all influenza data (GISAID). The BA.1.1 (n = 189), BA.1 (n = 15), BA.2 (n = 3), BA.1.15 (n = 1), BA.1.17.2 (n = 1) omicron lineages, AY.122 (n = 119), B.1.617.2 (n = 8), AY.111 (n = 2), AY.126 (n = 1), AY.4 (n = 1) delta lineages, one sample B.1.1.7 (n = 1) belongs to alpha lineage, and one sample B.1.637 (n = 1) belongs to small sublineage were detected in this study. This is the first study of SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome sequencing by the ONT approach in Kazakhstan, which can be expanded for the investigation of other emerging viral or bacterial infections on the country level.


Human neural threshold tuning curves are derived using Allen's [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 68, 1660–1670 (1980)] resonant tectorial membrane model of the cat cochlea by appropriately scaling the parameters. Because there is no measured neural threshold data available for the human to test the derived curves, a detection criterion, defined by a relationship among the bandwidth of the frequency tuning curves, expressed as an equivalent rectangular bandwidth (ERB), the width of the excitation patterns, expressed as an equivalent rectangular spread (ERS), and the psychophysical critical ratio, is explored and verified using cat data. The detection criterion can then be used to test the derived human curves using psychophysical data, and may also provide a deeper understanding of the frequency resolving properties of the cochlea.


Sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) from termites have been assigned to the genus Desulfovibrio. Desulfovibrio intestinalis lives in the gut of the Australian termite Mastotermes darwiniensis. For the first time we were able to enrich and identify a sulfate-reducing bacterium from the gut of the rose-chafer Pachnoda marginata, which showed the highest 16S rDNA sequence identity (93%) to Desulfovibrio intestinalis and Desulfovibrio strain STL1. Compared to Mastotermes darwiniensis (1x10(7) cells of SRB per ml gut contents), sulfate-reducing bacteria occurred in higher numbers in the gut contents of Pachnoda marginata reaching cell titers of up to 2x10(8) cells per ml gut contents. In vitro sulfate reduction rates were determined with SRB from the gut contents of the termite Mastotermes darwiniensis and the beetle Pachnoda marginata. Due to the higher cell titer, the sulfate reduction rate of Pachnoda marginata was 10(4) nmolxh-1xml-1 and therefore, 21 times higher than that of Mastotermes darwiniensis. In addition, we detected in vivo sulfate reduction in Mastotermes darwiniensis, which indicates that sulfate reducers play an active role in the sulfur metabolism in the termite gut.


The performance of patients with Parkinson's disease on two reach-to-grasp tasks was compared with that of age-matched control subjects. The aim of the study was to determine whether Parkinson's disease patients have problems coordinating concurrently executed tasks within the same system of effectors in a natural context and whether such problems would be exacerbated by increases in task difficulty. We examined how subjects concurrently executed the transport and grasp components of reach-to-grasp movements in the presence of two types of change in task demands: (i) increases in demands for accurate digit pad placement and (ii) use of two reach-to-grasp tasks, i.e. the standard unimanual task and a bimanual task which increased the control and coordination demands relative to the unimanual task. If Parkinson's disease patients have coordination problems they should demonstrate increased impairment with increasing accuracy demands and in the bimanual task; any such differences should be absent or much smaller in the control group. The Parkinson's disease group showed substantial impairments in all conditions, moving about 30% slower than the control group, with much increased jerking and with signs of difficulty controlling the speed of movement. However, there were no consistent indications that the Parkinson's disease group were differentially impaired on the bimanual task nor that movement deficits increased with increasing accuracy requirements. Grasp and transport components were coordinated similarly by Parkinson's disease and control groups in both reach-to-grasp tasks, and the Parkinson's disease group co-ordinated the two limbs in the bimanual task effectively and in a fashion similar to that of the control group. These results are interpreted to mean that higher levels (effector-independent levels) of motor programming are preserved in Parkinson's disease and that execution of a motor programme need not be compromised by increasing the number of muscle-/joint-level degrees of freedom which are used.


Wildfires are expected to increase in number, extent, and severity due to climate change. Hence, it is ever more important to integrate technological developments and scientific knowledge into fire management aiming at protecting lives, infrastructure, and the environment. In this paper, a decision support system (DSS) adapted to the Portuguese context and based on multi-sensor technologies and geographic information system (GIS) functionalities is proposed to leverage operational data, enabling faster and more informed decisions to reduce the impact of wildfires. Here we present a flexible and reconfigurable DSS composed of three components: an ArcGIS online feature service that provides operational data and enables a collaborative environment of users that share operational data in near real-time; a mobile client application to interact with the system, enabling the use of GIS technology and visualization dashboards; and a multi-sensor device that collects field data providing value to external services. The design and validation of this system benefitted from the feedback of wildfire management specialists and a partnership with an end-user in the municipality of Mação that also helped establish the system requirements. The validation results demonstrated that a robust system was achieved with fully interoperable components that fulfill the defined system requirements.


The role of friction in food texture sensations are reviewed with the focus on results from our own laboratory, concentrating on texture sensations that are affected by the lubricative properties (e.g., roughness and creaminess), by the viscosity (e.g., melting and thickness) and by the used thickeners (e.g., airiness and heterogeneity). A food's lubricative properties are affected by its fat content, fat droplet size, particle size and shape and thickener. Foods with lower fat contents, larger fat droplets, larger particles and specific thickeners exhibited higher friction while their creaminess and fattiness sensations, associated with good lubrication, are reduced. Roughness and dryness sensations, associated with poor lubrication, are increased. Taste and flavor compounds also affected these texture sensations, albeit via a different mechanism. Specific compounds can affect the lubricative properties of saliva resulting in friction-related sensations, such as astringency. Astringent compounds interact with proline-rich proteins in saliva, causing precipitation that may be sensed as discrete particles and/or increased roughness. Alternatively, the compounds may precipitate dead cells and other debris present in saliva. Astringent compounds may also directly affect the surface properties of the oral mucosa.


The authors reviewed all 51 State Wildlife Action Plans to glean a set of cross-cutting recommendations for future collaboration between wildlife and transportation agencies. As of October 1, 2005, every state wildlife agency, in conjunction with numerous partners, completed a comprehensive state wildlife action plan. Each plan is unique, but all plans were required to identify 1) declining species, 2) key habitats, 3) threats to those species and habitats and 4) actions to prevent further species decline. The authors reviewed the plans from all 50 states and the District of Columbia to determine the extent to which the plans identify and address transportation planning and development impacts. To do this the authors searched every plan for references to roads, transportation, transportation agencies, vehicles, and highways. From these searches the authors created a compilation of threat and action references and categorized each reference to identify common issues and strategies among the plans. The authors found that all 51 plans identified transportation infrastructure as a conservation issue. Specifically, the plans related the following general impacts to transportation planning and construction: (1) Habitat loss and fragmentation; (2) Spread of invasive species; (3) Road kill mortality; (4) Altered hydrologic regimes; (5) Modified population migrations and dynamics. The authors searched for actions tied directly to transportation issues and found that the states included a wide range of actions relating to transportation. Forty states recognized the need to work with transportation agencies by including one or more of the following actions: (1) Improve coordination between wildlife and transportation agencies; (2) Enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with transportation agencies; (3) Provide data and technical assistance to transportation planners; (4) Get more involved in transportation planning and permitting In addition to promoting coordination, the wildlife plans can provide transportation agencies with information about priority species and habitats and, in many cases, maps of priority conservation areas. The final section of the authors report presents a set of recommendations, based on information gleaned from the plans, for improving coordination and reducing transportation impacts on wildlife. The State Wildlife Action Plans are an opportunity for wildlife agencies and transportation planners to begin a dialogue about this issue and foster improved collaboration in the future. Future research should put these plans into action by overlaying geographic information system (GIS) layers of transportation plans with maps of conservation opportunity areas, priority habitats, and locations and ranges for species of concern. Further analysis of the plans by transportation planners to identify useful features and information gaps in the plans could help wildlife agencies improve their plans in the future.


BACKGROUND
Using agonists that selectively stimulate PGE2 receptors, the adverse effects that have limited the clinical utility of PGE2 can be avoided and there may be potential for their use as therapeutic agents in the treatment of bone loss in humans.

OBJECTIVE
A comprehensive review of the recent literature on the effect of prostaglandins and their agonists on bone mineral density and fracture healing.

METHODS
In vitro and in vivo evidence was collected using medical search engines MEDLINE (1950 to March 2008) and EMBASE (1980 to March 2008) databases.

RESULTS/CONCLUSION
EP4 receptors have been identified in human osteoblast cell lines and have also been shown to activate osteoblast directly and osteoclast indirectly via osteoblastic activation. Although there are strong in vitro and in vivo collective data indicating that EP2 receptors may have a role in mediating the anabolic effects of PGE2 on bone, to date no functional EP2 receptors have been identified on human osteoblasts or osteoclasts. This suggests that PGE2 effect on bone formation and resorption in humans may be governed by activation of the EP4 receptor on osteoblasts. Selective EP4 receptor agonists may therefore provide therapeutic potential for systemic use in the treatment of osteoporosis and fracture healing. Further studies need to be carried out in order fully elicit the role of EP2 receptor agonists in fracture healing and bone formation in humans.


Discussions about abstraction are so important and so profound that this topic can hardly be neglected. It has inevitably cropped up again in various periods of philosophical enquiry. Despite these ancient roots and after the great debate that characterised the empirical and rationalistic tradition, interest in the problem has unfortunately been absent in large measure from the mainstream of mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. It seems that there is a gap between the epistemological theorization, in which it is difficult to find new insights on the problem of abstraction, and the historical studies concerning the development of philosophical thought. Such studies, however, present a more fertile ground for such insights. Here the reader will find presented for the first time a collection of papers about the topic, considered from an historical point of view together with an awareness of the need for building a bridge between historical research and theoretical speculation. Accordingly the volume consists of both general overviews which sketch the signifcance and the fortunes of abstraction in science, philosophy and logic (the first part) and historical case studies which focus on abstraction in particular thinkers (the second part). This volume is of interest for both general philosophers and historians of philosophy.


Abstract: Babesiosis is a tick-borne protozoan disease affecting many mammalian species worldwide, caused by the intraerythrocytic multiplication of Babesia spp. The present study aimed to detect the presence of Babesia sp. in 13 American mink from Hokkaido, Japan. One of 13 animals was positive, as indicated by nested PCR targeting the 18S ribosomal RNA (SSU rDNA) and subunit 7 (eta) of the chaperonin-containing t-complex polypeptide 1 (CCT7) genes from species of Babesia and Theileria. Sequencing of the PCR product of SSU rDNA revealed 99% homology to the isolates of Babesia sp. SAP#131 found in raccoons in Hokkaido, whereas that of the CCT7 gene showed 80% homology to the isolates of Babesia gibsoni in dogs as determined by BLAST analysis. We refer to the cognate sequence as Babesia sp. NV-1. Phylogenetic analyses of SSU rDNA and CCT7 genes from Babesia sp. NV-1 revealed them to be most closely related to the Babesia sp. SAP#131 from a raccoon in Hokkaido and to canine B. gibsoni, respectively. Here, we provide the first molecular evidence of the Babesia sp. NV-1 parasite in feral American mink (Neovison vison) in Hokkaido, Japan.


In this paper, a Remote Technology Management (RTM) solution is presented for the purpose of elaborating on how it can bring about opportunities for new innovative services in the automotive winter testing industry. The idea is to visualise how service providers can go from a product focus to a future where they take an active role as an expertise in the testing activities. Based on the premise that technologies like RTM can become a basis for novel services, the activities at a proving ground are described from three actors' point of view and discussed in terms of service innovation.


Describing the bosonic AdS 3 × ?> S3 particle and string in SU(1,1) × SU(2) group variables, we provide a Hamiltonian treatment of the isometry group orbits of solutions via analysis of the pre-symplectic form. For the particle we obtain a one-parameter family of orbits parameterized by creation–annihilation variables, which leads to the Holstein–Primakoff realization of the isometry group generators. The scheme is then applied to spinning string solutions characterized by one winding number in AdS3 and two winding numbers in S3. We find a two-parameter family of orbits, where quantization again provides the Holstein–Primakoff realization of the symmetry generators with an oscillator-type energy spectrum. Analyzing the minimal energy at strong coupling, we verify the spectrum of short strings at special values of winding numbers.


The nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-κB) and c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathways regulate diverse biological processes, including the immune and inflammatory response, cell growth, apoptosis, and tumor formation. Not surprisingly therefore defects to either pathway contribute to the progression of numerous human disorders. Enhancing our understanding of the mechanisms that control signaling through these pathways is therefore significant as it may enable development of specific treatments. In this regard, CYLD was recently identified as a negative regulator of NF-κB and JNK signaling. CYLD has a C-terminal catalytic domain characteristic of deubiquitinating enzymes, and this is essential for CYLD to remove ubiquitin from certain proteins that positively mediate signaling through the NF-κB and JNK pathways. Recent studies have revealed a requirement for CYLD in many different processes and have provided some insight into the underlying mechanisms.


Steady-state growth rates of thermophilic algae can be determined directly in nature in the flowing waters of a hot spring channel by measuring the rate of loss of algal cells when the channel is darkened. The half time of the loss rate in the steady state is identical to the generation time. We studied the unicellular blue-green alga Synechococcus in Yellowstone National Park. Temperature and flow rate remained relatively constant throughout the experiment. Quantitative cores were taken and homogenized; the algal cells were then counted by use of a Petroff-Hausser counting chamber. After ascertaining that the algal population was in a steady state, the channel was darkened in such a way that neither flow rate nor temperature was altered. The population began to decrease within 1 day; the loss rate was exponential with time for 2 to 3 decades. Half times were then calculated from these loss rates. The growth rates found were considerably lower than those for the same organism in laboratory culture. The results suggest that in nature the organism may be an obligate phototroph. In two cases, after the algal populations decreased to an undetectable level, the dark covers were removed and the rate of recolonization was measured. The kinetics of recolonization were different from the kinetics of washout.


Studies that examine the effects of adolescent religiosity on the initiation of, persistence in, and desistence from delinquency are rare. Yet, religion may differentially affect dimensions of delinquency in the early life course. Therefore, using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we examine the relationship between measures of adolescent religion, as well as changes in religious involvement, and later patterns of marijuana use. We also examine the extent to which religious effects, if any, are mediated by key predictors of delinquency drawn from prominent criminological theories. The results suggest that the primary effect of religion on marijuana use is to prevent its initiation in the first place. Only part of religion's preventative effect on initiation is mediated by social bonds, delinquent peers, or self control. Although religious youth are less likely to ever use marijuana, adolescent religious involvement does not significantly predict desistence from marijuana use.


Hybrid solar cells based on conjugated polymer poly(2-methoxy,5-(2'-ethylhexyloxy)-p-phenylene vinylene (MEH-PPV) and inorganic n-type zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles were investigated. Polymer solar cells consisting of conducting polymer alone have low minority carrier mobility, for example, MEH-PPV has a high hole mobility but a low electron mobility. The intrinsic carrier mobility imbalance in the MEH-PPV severely limits the performance of pure polymer based solar cells. To overcome this imbalance, another material, i.e. n-type ZnO particles, is incorporated to act as an electron acceptor and a pathway for electron transport. In this experiment, as an active layer, ZnO nanoparticles synthesized in-house were blended with MEH-PPV purchased from Sigma-Aldrich. The front transparent conduction oxide (TCO) electrode used was commercial glass substrate coated with indium tin oxide (ITO) thin film. Blends of MEH-PPV with 0-30 wt% of ZnO in 1,2-dichlorobenzene were prepared and fabricated as active layers of the solar cells. The PEDOT:PSS and active layer were spin-coated onto ITO coated glass substrate. Aluminum was used for the top electrodes. The effects of ZnO solid content and film morphology on the performance of MEH-PPV:ZnO nanoparticle composite solar cells were investigated. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed that the ZnO nanoparticles consisted of a mixture of spherical and rod-like shapes. An increase in ZnO solid content resulted in an increase in size of the ZnO network. This was found to increase electron transport and, hence, improve solar cell performance.


This review article is the second of a pair of articles that introduce the field of Tourism Studies/Tourism Management (hereafter Tourism Studies) to the concept of worldmaking as an operational construct to help critically describe the creative/inventive role and function of tourism in the making of culture and place. In the first article"the companion manuscript, which appeared in the preceding issue of Tourism Analysis"the recent work of Meethan in Tourism in Global Society: Place, Culture, and Consumption (hereafter "Tourism as Global Society") was used as a conceptual catalyst to help make the case for deeper and more frequent critical and interpretive inspections of the power and reach of tourism in significantly and variously contributing to the making/demaking/remaking of peoples, places, and pasts, rather than just serving as a reproducing authority cum agency, which just mirrors what is already there in each location. While Tourism Studies was found (by Meethan) to be an as yet rather contained theoretical field, the concept of worldmaking was put forward in the first article as a thinking tool to assist critical understanding of the everyday articulation and the everyplace effectivity of tourism as a particular strong and pervasive producer of political meanings (or contested versions) of locality. In this follow-up article, an attempt is made to encourage more commonplace reflective and reflexive examinations of the creative and inventive manufacture capacity of tourism"as it works, or is worked upon, in collaboration with other formative and educative vehicles in society"to produce particular vistas of place and space, or to otherwise reconfigure the held visions of meaning and of becoming by populations. Such is the very prodigy of tourism (such are the potential prodigies of tourism!!), with all the immense myriad cultural, social, psychic, and political"as well as economic and environmental"ramifications that are entailed by that sort of sometimes-grand-and-magnificent/sometimes-petty-and-quotidian mediation of locality and heritage. While the article concludes by codifying (and damning!) a number of cliches that litter much hastily-derived contemporary commentary on and about tourismas drawn from the insight-loaded sociological work of Meethan" this second article is composed under the judgment that too many commentators in Tourism Studies (itself) are prone to reifying tourism as an almost undifferentiated industrial force of globalization. Such a judgment suggests that too many who work within Tourism Studies uncritically depict tourism as an almost-inevitable set of almost-neat impacts or almost-neat processes that affect places in almost-unstoppable and repeatable fashions across the globe. Such recurring (if generally implied rather than exhaustively shown) commentaries in the field of Tourism Studies are inclined to far too frequently envision local or involved populations merely as being nothing more than passive agents of "tourism""that is, as a sort of fodder for the unrelenting growth of the expansionist and almost-predictable industry. Running through both of these companion articles on the worldmaking role and function of tourism, therefore, is the view that the creative authority and inventive agency of tourism is something that can be (or is being) used positively by groups and communitie"in accordance with their own perspective, of course"at all levels of society to express new/corrective/fresh enunciative visions for local places. It can also be (and is being) used negatively"again, in perspectival regard"to silence, suppress, or subjugate other unwanted interpretations of place, space, or local inheritance. Such is the declarative and clearly pungently political force of tourism as it is deployed in worldmaking fashion in concert with (or at times, wholly against) other coproductive and co-generative narrative-issuing mediating forces in and across society. The two companion articles were first presented as one overall keynote delivery at the second Critical Tourism Studies Conference in Split, Croatia, in 2007. An earlier version of the combined/aggregate presentation may be found in a 400-page work by Ateljevic, Pritchard, and Morgan within the Elsevier Advances in Tourism Research series: The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies: Innovative Research Methods.


GROWING WINTER SPROUTING BROCCOLI INUNHEATED HIGH TUNNELS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE by Clifton A. Martin University of New Hampshire, December, 2010 Winter sprouting broccoli was grown in a two-year study in unheated high tunnels in Durham, NH. Eleven cultivars were grown in a 9.1 m by 18.2 m unheated high tunnel and evaluated for yield, duration of harvest, and number of days from seed to harvest. Secondary rowcover applications were also evaluated for effects on yield, duration of harvest, number of days from seed to harvest, and for their effects on air temperature at plant height. All cultivars were harvested between March and May of 2008 and 2009. Yields ranged from 0.6 to 1.4 kilograms per meter squared While mortality was observed in uncovered plants, plants under secondary rowcover in unheated high tunnels survived outdoor temperatures as low as -28°C. Preliminary experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of planting dates and to study low tunnel environments as alternatives to unheated high tunnels over winter.


Since most of the recent agricultural biotechnology innovations have been developed by private companies, the central focus of societal interest is on the distribution of the gains from these technologies among all stakeholders. In a partial equilibrium model, assuming perfect corporate pricing strategies given the heterogeneous population of potential adopters, we model the worldwide introduction of GM sugar beet. The introduction is modelled under both the old and new CMO for sugar in the EU. We see GM sugar beet could bring great benefits to both consumers in the world and sugar beet producers even when the innovation is protected by intellectual property rights and the innovator uses his restricted monopoly to the full extend.


Carbon Nanofibers (CNF) layers were synthesized nickel-based thin-films on flat fused silica substrates. CNF synthesis was performed via thermal catalytic chemical vapor deposition of ethylene using nickel as metal catalyst. Different underlayer metal thin films, viz. titanium, tantalum and titanium-tungsten were tested in order to obtain stable and well-attached CNF films on fused silica substrates. It is found in case of titanium CNFs are formed on the nickel, but due to severe Ni/Ti inderdiffusion the titanium film looses its adhesive function, as a consequence of which the formed CNF film detaches from the substrate. The use of tantalum or titanium-tungsten as adhesion layer resulted in stable and well-adhered CNF films on fused silica substrates, of which the morphology can be controlled by the growth time.


Abstract. The Cluster/CODIF sensor is a time-of-flight instrument that measures the ion composition over the energy range 40 eV e−1 to 40 keV e−1. It operated for 4 yr on S/C 1, 9 yr on S/C 3, and is still operational on S/C 4, after more than 12 yr. During this time the total ion detection efficiency has decreased by a factor of 50. In this paper, we describe the methods used to track the efficiency changes throughout the mission for the three different spacecraft and for the different ion species. The methods include calculations of the efficiencies using rate data collected in the instrument, comparisons with other instruments on the Cluster satellites, and checks based on geophysically reasonable assumptions.


Reviewing the present-day Soviet and foreign literature and analyzing their own findings, the authors discuss clinical and taxonomic aspects of pathomimesis and give their recommendations on classification.


Cognitive models of anxiety propose that selective attention to negative information plays a causal role in heightened anxiety vulnerability and dysfunction. However, there has been theoretical disagreement concerning whether anxiety-linked attentional biases reflect enhanced attentional engagement with, or impaired attentional disengagement from, negative information. We contend that previous methodologies have not been optimal in terms of their capacity to differentiate both types of bias. The present study introduces a refined methodology, in which the conventional dot-probe task is modified in a novel manner to enable the independent assessment of these components of attention. The findings demonstrate that facilitated attentional engagement and impaired attentional disengagement are both characteristic of elevated levels of anxiety vulnerability. Moreover, these prove to be unrelated facets of attentional selectivity that independently contribute to variation in anxiety vulnerability. We discuss the possibility that these two types of attentional bias may represent independent pathways to anxiety vulnerability.


Ca-Ti-O films were prepared on quartz substrates by MOCVD using the precursors of Ti(O-i-Pr)2(dpm)2 and Ca(dpm)2. The effects of deposition conditions on the crystal structure and microstructure of Ca-Ti-O films were investigated. The deposition temperatures (Tdep) were changed from 787 to 1187 K and the total pressures in the reaction chamber (Ptot) was kept at 0.8 kPa. The molar ratio of Ca to Ti precursors (RCa/Ti) was changed from 0.34 to 0.95. At temperatures higher than 1073 K, CaTiO3 perovskite films in a single phase were obtained. Mixtures of Ca2Ti2O6 in a pyrochlore structure and CaTiO3 in a perovskite structure were obtained at 787 to 1073 K and the content of Ca2Ti2O6 phase increased with decreasing RCa/Ti. Ca2Ti2O6 pyrochlore films in a single phase were obtained at Tdep = 1073K and RCa/Ti = 0.38. Ca2Ti2O6 is a face-centered cubic structure with a=0.990 nm. Pyrochlore showed a granular microstructure about 500 nm in grain size. The transmittance of the Ca2Ti2O6 films in a single phase was 50% to 70% in the wavelength range of 500 to 2500 nm. The band-gap of pyrochlore was about 3.3 eV that calculated by the transmittance. The permittivity of Ca2Ti2O6 films was about 100 from room temperature to 700K.


A potentiometric method was employed to determine the protective effects of the investigated heterofunctional organic compounds, which are potential inhibitors of corrosion of steel, by hydrogen sulfide. According to the results of potentiometric measurements, the most effective of the studied substances can be classified as film-forming inhibitors of mixed effect with anodic predominance. The analysis of the change of the inhibitory properties of aminodiesters was carried out to explain the connection of the protective effect of the inhibitors with their molecular structure. It was based on the principle of linearity of free energy. It was found that the most effective aminodiesters are characterized by the high hydrophobicity and electron-deficient property of the substituents. The article presents an explanation of the difference of the protective effects of the studied compounds based on their molecular structure and the nature of the corrosive environment. The obtained results can be used when synthesizing organic compounds with high inhibitory efficiency.


Abstract The transformation of pentlandite, (Ni,Fe)9S8, to violarite, (Ni,Fe)3S4, has been investigated under mild hydrothermal conditions, at constant values of pH (range 3 to 5) controlled by the acetic acid/sodium acetate buffer. At 80 °C, 20(4) wt% of the pentlandite transforms to violarite in 33 days; with the addition of small amounts of Fe3+(CH3COO)2(OH) and H2S the reaction reaches 40(4) wt% completion in this time. At 120 °C and a pressure of 3.5 bars the reaction is complete in 3 days at pH 3.9. Electron backscatter diffraction and backscattered electron imaging reveal that the reaction textures are typical of a coupled dissolution-reprecipitation reaction, rather than a solid state electrolytic process as has been previously reported. The gap between the dissolution front and the precipitation front of violarite is less than 400 nm. The violarite produced by these hydrothermal transformations is texturally similar to supergene violarite, being fine grained, porous and finely cracked.


Routine health information systems in most third world countries are woefully inadequate to provide the information support necessary for planning and management of the health services. In most countries they are centrally planned and managed. Indicators, data collection instruments, and reporting forms usually have been designed by centrally located epidemiologists, statisticians, and administrators (called data people), with minimal involvement of lower-level line managers and providers of the health services (called action people). Decentralized routine health information systems in developing countries allow health program managers at both peripheral (district and regional) and central (national) levels to better monitor and evaluate the health programs by making available at all levels the data necessary for decision making. Since information technology became increasingly affordable for developing countries, computerization of data processing and analysis has further contributed to the availability of quality and timely data. The decision support system (DSS) is a module added to an existing routine health information system that allows decision-makers to visualize health indicators and data elements collected by the system in graphical and geographical presentations. The user, after accessing the module, chooses a series of options to determine the specific analysis desired.


To achieve a full, theoretical understanding of a cognitive process, explanations of the process need to be provided at both symbolic (i.e., representational) and sub-symbolic levels of description. We argue that cognitive models implemented in vector-symbolic architectures (VSAs) intrinsically operate at both of levels and thus provide a needed bridge. We characterize the sub-symbolic level of VSAs in terms of a small set of linear algebra operations. We characterize the symbolic level of VSAs in terms of cognitive processes, in particular how information is represented, stored, and retrieved, and classify vector-symbolic cognitive models in the literature according to their implementation of these processes. On the basis of our analysis, we speculate on avenues for future research, and suggest means for theoretical unification of existent models.


We have analyzed and evaluated {sup 35}Cl, {sup 37}Cl, and {sup nat}Cl neutron cross section data in the resolved resonance region with the multilevel Reich-Moore R-matrix formalism. Energies and widths were determined for 388 resonances in the range 0.2 to 1200 keV. New J assignments were made for 33 resonances, and parities were assigned for 15 of these resonances. Neutron strength functions were calculated for both s and p waves; our results include the first reported p-wave values for Cl. Resonance analyses were carried out with the computer code SAMMY, which utilizes Bayes' method, a generalized least-squares technique. Because SAMMY now has the ability to calculate charged-particle penetrabilities, it was possible to include a proton exit channel in the analysis and to deduce proton widths for several resonances. Our resonance parameter representation describes the data much better than previous evaluations, and it should lead to improved criticality safety calculations for systems where Cl is present.


In recent years, periodically high peaks of attention and publications have documented severe adverse reactions to new molecules, which have raised many questions about the efficacy- efficiency of traditional methodological tools of phannacovigilance, as well as about the role of regulatory systems. Drugs cannot be considered as an independent variable: the evaluation of all of their effects must take into account the real context in which they are used, and in which they are expected have a role, not only in terms of efficacy, but also of tolerability and safety. Specific emphasis is given to recent and promising developments, which are focused on the participation of patient populations as key actors in producing knowledge that can also technically integrate what has been produced so far, and can allow the evolution of surveillance from a role of control to one of the promotion of rights. The replacement of phannacovigilance in an epidemiological context is the main aim of this project. This is applied across the development of various projects realised in different scenarios (e.g. hospital, community) using different methodologies (e.g. administrative database linkage, prospective studies, qualitative projects), and through the direct involvement of all of the actors involved in the process of care (e.g. clinicians, general practitioners, patients). In particular, despite the many recommendations, patient participation can be considered as an exception in the health care setting: for this reason the project was developed with the intention to give voice to patients. Promotion of the use of a more narrative style between health professionals and citizen-patients in phannacovigilance should be considered the most important outcome of a renewed phannacovigilance.


Based on the information of the type, capacity and priority of important load in an area, taking a distribution network under the condition of various faults for case study, this paper studies service restoration of the distribution network with distributed generation, using distributed generators (DG) to decrease the area of load shedding, and ensure the reliability and quality of the voltage for important consumers concerning the economy aspect in various fault conditions. First, in the theory aspect, the service restoration strategy of distribution system supported by distributed power is treated as a nonlinear optimization problem. The objective function of the nonlinear optimization problem is to maintain the power supply to the loads with high priority as much as possible and also giving consideration to the minimization of active power loss and, in the mean time, satisfy the constraint of stable operation of the distribution network. A special calculation method is raised to cope with abnormal power flow which is easy to occur when DG is connected to the distribution network. Second, the binary particle swarm optimization(BPSO) is used to solve the model. At last, the service restoration method is verified by 13-node benchmark, and the simulation results demonstrate the validity of the method.


This study investigates satisfaction with care among elderly Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in a health maintenance organization (HMO) and beneficiaries in fee-for-service (FFS) care in the same geographic area. Satisfaction with two dimensions of care, access/quality and costs, are examined, to investigate differences in enrollee/FFS evaluation of these dimensions of care as well as predictors of satisfaction with care. In addition, satisfaction among healthy and chronically ill elderly people in these two care settings is explored. Results indicate higher satisfaction with access/quality of care among those in FFS and higher satisfaction with costs among HMO enrollees. These relationships hold controlling for other variables and among the chronically ill elderly. Sources of variation in satisfaction are somewhat different among the HMO and FFS elderly. Satisfaction with paperwork and ease of getting to care, however, influences satisfaction with other aspects of care in both populations.


In the past years, cities are increasingly aware of the concept of "smart city" and actively developing strategies towards the goal of becoming "smart" and manage, more efficiently, city resources and addressing development and inclusion challenges. The growth of smart cities is helping the increase of government use of ICTs to improve political participation, implement public policies or provide public sector services.There are also sharp critics of smart city concept, regarding it only a marketing tool applied by all the cities using some forms of ICT, as a label or brand of successfulness. That is why the elaboration of smart city assessment tools and performance measurement systems are needed in order to sort out real smart cities and effective smart city methods and solutions. Various evaluation methods, models for understanding and conceptualizing smart cities have been developed to explain smart city concepts, which aim to define their scope, objectives and architectures. The multidimensionality of smartness coupled with cities' complexity, calls for specific assessments able to distinguish between different dimensions of smartness. The usage of indicators is relatively simple, clear, easily interpretable, easy to understand, visualize, compare and reproducible in time and space. Still, from the review of different smart city rankings and indexes some limits and problems can be derived. A meaningful smart city assessment method should be able to measure individual well-being and satisfaction in the city in a comparable and dynamic way which is a very complex goal. Methodological limits, practical and economical obstacles of data collection at settlement level are also affecting the elaboration of better evaluation system. More specific, focusing on city's vision, strength and weaknesses, using bottom-up approach assessment methods are needed.


Arterial and transcutaneous measurements of the oxygen saturation (SO2), the partial pressure of oxygen (PO2) and the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (PCO2 were compared during rest before and after cycling, and during submaximal and maximal exercise, in 12 adult patients with cystic fibrosis. SO2 was measured non-invasively using two different pulse oximeters (Radiometer and Ohmeda, respectively) and PO2 and PCO2 were registered with a transcutaneous electrode (Radiometer). The coefficients of correlation between arterial and transcutaneous values were respectively 0.95 (Radiometer) and 0.85 (Ohmeda) for SO2, 0.77 for PO2, and 0.75 for PCO2. On average the differences between arterial and transcutaneous values were small, but varied by 3-4% (2SD) for SO2, 2.0 kPa for PO2 and 1.0 kPa for PCO2. Our results indicate that pulse oximetry is a reasonably good way of detecting severe arterial hypoxemia during work, whereas the transcutaneous measurements of PO2 and PCO2 show such large variations that this method cannot be recommended for clinical use.


Abstract:Josie Rourke's Donmar Warehouse production of Coriolanus (2013–14) was broadcast by National Theatre Live (NT Live) to cinematic venues all over the world. Previous considerations of Shakespearean cinemacasts have explored the similarities and differences between watching an NT Live broadcast and viewing a theatrical version of the same production. With its preference for text over image, its acceptance of theatrical conventions, and its status as a special, ephemeral happening, the cinemacast does bear a resemblance to a theatrical performance. However, based on the cinemacast's shot selection, multicam approach, and editing process, it also resembles a televised event. Furthermore, the two-dimensional, large-screen showings in movie theaters; the cinematic camera work; and the control of the viewer's gaze intrinsic to cinemacasts make them similar to films. Cinemacasts lack the co-presence of actors and audience inimical to theater; they cannot achieve many of the editing and camera effects of moviemaking; and NT Live productions cannot be viewed on television. Thus, cinemacasts do not fit comfortably into any single existing category of media. By focusing on Tim van Someren's contributions as the director of the NT Live version of Rourke's production, I hope to demonstrate that cinemacasts constitute, not an original art form, but a new postmodern pastiche of the forms in which Shakespeare has taken shape in the past, including theater, cinema, and television. As such, they deserve to be compared with each other, rather than being considered only as cut-rate replacements for a theatrical experience of the play.


This paper introduces a shading model for light diffusion in multi-layered translucent materials. Previous work on diffusion in translucent materials has assumed smooth semi-infinite homogeneous materials and solved for the scattering of light using a dipole diffusion approximation. This approximation breaks down in the case of thin translucent slabs and multi-layered materials. We present a new efficient technique based on multiple dipoles to account for diffusion in thin slabs. We enhance this multipole theory to account for mismatching indices of refraction at the top and bottom of of translucent slabs, and to model the effects of rough surfaces. To model multiple layers, we extend this single slab theory by convolving the diffusion profiles of the individual slabs. We account for multiple scattering between slabs by using a variant of Kubelka-Munk theory in frequency space. Our results demonstrate diffusion of light in thin slabs and multi-layered materials such as paint, paper, and human skin.


In this paper, we propose the secure data storage in clouds for a new decentralized access. The cloud verifies the authenticity of the series without knowing the user's identity in the proposed scheme. Our feature is that only valid users can able to decrypt the stored information. It prevents from the replay attack. This scheme supports creation, modification, and reading the data stored in the cloud and also provide the decentralized authentication and robust. It can be comparable to centralized schemes for the communication of data, computation of data, and storage of data.


Using a case study approach, I show how transnational civil society networks both help and hinder community-based HIV/AIDS organizations by providing opportunities for community-state partnerships that favor some local organizations over others, and (re)produce intra-organizational stratification at the local level. In the case of Mexico City, transnational ties encourage community-based AIDS organizations to develop formal organizational forms and strategies (negotiating fronts) which often enhance organizational sustainability and draw organizations into a closer relationship with the state institutionalized sphere. However, such ties also create divisions (political fronts) between outsider and insider organizations that compromise local inter-organizational collaboration and service delivery. As a result, transnational networks and resources solidify outsider-insider conflicts and balkanize service provision along political lines. The conclusions of this research are helpful to international health practitioners and social scientists seeking to understand how transnational networks and resources shape global civil society, and can both challenge and reproduce existing community-state power regimes and health inequities at local and transnational levels.


Flow-mediated dilation (FMD) offers a mechanism to characterize endothelial function and, therefore, may play a role in the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. Computerized analysis techniques are very desirable to give accuracy and objectivity to the measurements. Virtually all methods proposed up to now to measure FMD rely on accurate edge detection of the arterial wall, and they are not always robust in the presence of poor image quality or image artifacts. A novel method for automatic dilation assessment based on a global image analysis strategy is presented. We model interframe arterial dilation as a superposition of a rigid motion and a scaling factor perpendicular to the artery. Rigid motion can be interpreted as a global compensation for patient and probe movements, an aspect that has not been sufficiently studied before. The scaling factor explains arterial dilation. The ultrasound sequence is analyzed in two phases using image registration to recover both transformation models. Temporal continuity in the registration parameters along the sequence is enforced with a Kalman filter since the dilation process is known to be a gradual physiological phenomenon. Comparing automated and gold standard measurements (average of manual measurements) we found a negligible bias (0.05%FMD) and a small standard deviation (SD) of the differences (1.05%FMD). These values are comparable with those obtained from manual measurements (bias=0.23%FMD, SD/sub intra-obs/=1.13%FMD, SD/sub inter-obs/=1.20%FMD). The proposed method offers also better reproducibility (CV=0.40%) than the manual measurements (CV=1.04%).


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