Making communication more resilient is a main focus for modern decentralised networks. A current development to increase connectivity between participants and to be resilient against service degradation attempts is to support different communication protocols, and to switch between these protocols in case degradation or censorship are detected. Supporting multiple protocols with different properties and having to share resources for communication with multiple partners creates new challenges with respect to protocol selection and resource allocation to optimally satisfy the applications' requirements for communication. This paper presents a novel approach for automatic transport selection and resource allocation with a focus on decentralised networks. Our goal is to evaluate the communication mechanisms available for each communication partner and then allocate resources in line with the requirements of the applications. We begin by detailing the overall requirements for an algorithm for transport selection and resource allocation, and then compare three different solutions using (1) a heuristic, (2) linear optimisation, and (3) machine learning. To show the suitability and the specific benefits of each approach, we evaluate their performance with respect to usability, scalability and quality of the solution found in relation to application requirements.


Background Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is one of the common complications that occur during pregnancy. Early intervention is essential to prevent the development of the disease in the non-pregnant state but also helpful in preventing the occurrence of GDM. The aim of the study was to assess the effect of aerobic exercises on insulin sensitivity and fasting plasma glucose level in pregnant women with risk for gestational diabetes mellitus. Materials and Methods Forty multigravidae women between 20–24 weeks of gestation with risk for GDM were randomly selected (age range was 25–35 years), body mass index ranged from 30–35 kg/m2. Women were divided into two equal groups: intervention group (A), which followed an aerobic exercise program in the form of walking on treadmill, three times weekly until the end of 37 weeks of gestation in addition to diet control. Control group (B) which received diet control with usual care given by obstetricians and midwives. Evaluation of the women in both groups was carried out before and after treatment program through assessment of fasting blood glucose and insulin levels. Results There was a highly statistically significance decrease in fasting blood glucose level, fasting insulin level in both groups where the p value was 0.0001 favoring group (A). Conclusion Moderate intensity of aerobic exercises were effective in reducing fasting blood glucose level and fasting insulin level in pregnant women with risk for gestational diabetes mellitus.


SUMMARY The assessment and treatment of chronic pain remains an international challenge for healthcare providers among aging patients and rising healthcare costs. This article provides a brief overview of studies on the use of electronic pain diaries and innovative software programs for pain assessment and monitoring among providers and persons with chronic pain. The advent of software pain monitoring programs on smart phones, personal digital assistants and internet-based tracking allow for the collection of large datasets of momentary data to better assist in the management of chronic pain. Electronic tracking in the home and clinic can improve data quality and reduce the biases of recalled information compared with paper diaries and questionnaires. Furthermore, 3D pain mapping programs can enable patients to represent the location and intensity of their pain with greater accuracy. However, despite the benefits, there are a number of barriers to incorporating electronic pain assessment into daily clinical practice. Additional control trials and clinical investigations are needed to demonstrate the efficacy and benefit of electronic pain assessment over and above standard practices.


The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a difference in the number of diagnostic tests and interventions, pain and function scores, or satisfaction of patients discharged to inpatient rehabilitation facilities vs to home. From February to May 2015, 171 consecutive patients were prospectively recruited following primary total knee arthroplasty. Six weeks postoperatively, based on the patients' recollections, the number and types of diagnostic imaging tests, number of blood transfusions, and overall satisfaction whether discharged to inpatient rehabilitation facilities (n=85) or to home (n=86) were assessed. A significantly greater proportion of patients discharged to inpatient rehabilitation facilities reported undergoing at least 1 diagnostic imaging test compared with patients discharged to home (25.9% vs 8.1%; P=.013). Multivariate logistic regressions revealed that patients discharged to an inpatient rehabilitation facility were more likely to have a greater number of diagnostic tests (odds ratio, 5.01; 95% confidence interval, 1.69-14.92; P=.004) and radiographs (odds ratio, 16.10; 95% confidence interval, 1.54-169.70; P=.020) performed. There was no significant difference in readmission rates for patients discharged to home (2.3%) vs to an inpatient rehabilitation facility (0%) (P=.246). No significant differences were observed in postoperative Knee Society pain or function scores (P=.083 and P=.057, respectively) or visual analog scale satisfaction scores (P=.206). Twenty-nine (34.1%) patients were discharged under the care of the visiting nurse service after leaving the rehabilitation facility. Patients discharged to an inpatient rehabilitation facility underwent more diagnostic testing, especially radiographs, than patients discharged to home. There were no clinically relevant differences in Knee Society pain or function scores or patient satisfaction. [Orthopedics. 2018; 41(6):e841-e847.].


Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an ongoing global pandemic in over 200 countries and territories, which has resulted in a great public health concern across the international community. Analysis of X-ray imaging data can play a critical role in timely and accurate screening and fighting against COVID-19. Supervised deep learning has been successfully applied to recognize COVID-19 pathology from X-ray imaging datasets. However, it requires a substantial amount of annotated X-ray images to train models, which is often not applicable to data analysis for emerging events such as COVID-19 outbreak, especially in the early stage of the outbreak. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a two-path semi-supervised deep learning model, ssResNet, based on Residual Neural Network (ResNet) for COVID-19 image classification, where two paths refer to a supervised path and an unsupervised path, respectively. Moreover, we design a weighted supervised loss that assigns higher weight for the minority classes in the training process to resolve the data imbalance. Experimental results on a large-scale of X-ray image dataset COVIDx demonstrate that the proposed model can achieve promising performance even when trained on very few labeled training images.


Quantifying the different sources of nitrogen (N) within the N cycle is crucial to gain insights in oceanic phytoplankton production. To understand the controls of primary productivity and the associated capture of CO2 through photosynthesis in the southeastern Indian Ocean, we compiled the physical and biogeochemical data from four voyages conducted in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. Overall, higher NH4+ assimilation rates (~530 µmol m−2 h−1) relative to NO3− assimilation rates (~375 µmol m−2 h−1) suggest that the assimilation dynamics of C are primarily regulated by microbial regeneration in our region. N2 fixation rates did not decline when other source of dissolved inorganic nitrogen were available, although the assimilation of N2 is a highly energetic process. Our data showed that the diazotrophic community assimilated ~2 nmol N L−1 h−1 at relative elevated NH4+ assimilation rates ~12 nmol L−1 h−1 and NO3− assimilation rates ~6 nmol L−1 h−1. The small diffusive deep water NO3− fluxes could not support the measured NO3− assimilation rates and consequently point toward another source of dissolved inorganic NO3−. Highest NO2− values coincided consistently with shallow lower dissolved O2 layers (100–200 m; 100–180 µmol L−1). These results suggest that nitrification above the pycnocline could be a significant component of the N cycle in the eastern Indian Ocean. In our analysis we provide a conceptual understanding of how NO3− in the photic zone could be derived from new N through N2 fixation. We conclude with the hypothesis that N injected through N2 fixation can be recycled within the photic zone as NH4+ and sequentially oxidized to NO2− and NO3− in shallow lower dissolved oxygen layers.


By the end of the 21st century models of climate change predict that the air temperature over most of the British Isles will increase by between 2 and 3 °C and sea-level will rise by 40–50 cm. Over that period it will become windier and mean wave height will increase, as will the frequency of storms. These changes in climate and weather will impact the intertidal zone of the UK and will cause distribution changes in many of the common invertebrate species that live there. Where these changes are severe they may well impact on patterns of distribution of ducks and wading birds. In the British Isles a number of organisms live close to their geographical limits of distribution. Some of these species might be expected to extend their range as climatic restraints are relaxed. Species currently limited by cool summers or winter cold will move northwards. In most cases the effects on the distribution of waterbirds will be small. For example, the replacement of the Northern Limpet Patella vulgata by the Southern Limpet P. depressa is unlikely to adversely affect Eurasian Oystercatchers Haematopus ostralegus. Of wider concern is the possibility that as climate warms the abundance and productivity of brown algae will decrease. This is likely to have two significant effects for waders. First, it would represent a loss of potentially rich feeding grounds for species such as Ruddy Turnstone Arenaria interpres that feed on small easily desiccated invertebrates living on or below the seaweed. Secondly, as algae die or are broken away the resulting debris is exported to sediment habitats where it considerably boosts the in situ production of bacteria at the base of the food web. An increase in sea-level will only have a major impact on the extent of rocky shore invertebrate communities where shore topography prevents the upward migration of the biota. Where a seawall limits shores, for example, biological production will be curtailed as the area available for colonization decreases. Increases in the size of waves and the frequency of storms will mimic increasing exposure and there will be a significant reduction in algal production in areas that are affected.


The deregulation of the financial markets that started over two decades ago in the developed countries has led to increased house prices and loan to value ratios. Home owners in western countries have over the last two decades steadily decreased their savings and at the same time increased the size of their mortgages and the amount of leverage used to purchase their homes. This development has increased the financial risk for homeowners which recently became clear in the United States when prices on homes started to fall rapidly in 2007. Due to this development Finansinspektionen in Sweden has enforced new regulation on mortgage lending making it more expensive for home owners to use high leverage ratios. Finansinspektionen is responsible for consumer protection in terms of financial products and the new regulation aims to protect mortgage borrowers. Finansinspektionen suggests that an insurance that protects the borrower from loss could be used as an alternative to the regulation restricting the amount of leverage. Finansinspektionen also mentions the Canadian mortgage market as an example where compulsory mortgage insurances are enforced today. In Canada the borrower must take out a mortgage insurance when the mortgage exceeds 80 percent of the house value. However, we find that the Canadian mortgage insurance system would not fulfil the aim of Finansinspektionen's regulation. The Canadian mortgage insurances are constructed to protect the lender against default and there purpose was initially to increase lending. When examining the basic structure of mortgage and home value insurance products we find that such products and systems are complicated to construct to match the Finansinspektionen requirements and purpose due to issues such as moral hazard, adverse selection, price, willingness to pay and systemic risk.


While the development of chiral molecules displaying circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) has received considerable attention, the corresponding CPL intensity, glum, hardly exceeds 10−2 at the molecular level owing to the difficulty in optimizing the key parameters governing such a luminescence process. To address this challenge, we report here the synthesis and chiroptical properties of a new family of π-helical push–pull systems based on carbo[6]helicene, where the latter acts as either a chiral electron acceptor or a donor unit. This comprehensive experimental and theoretical investigation shows that the magnitude and relative orientation of the electric (μe) and magnetic (μm) dipole transition moments can be tuned efficiently with regard to the molecular chiroptical properties, which results in high glum values, i.e. up to 3–4 × 10−2. Our investigations revealed that the optimized mutual orientation of the electric and magnetic dipoles in the excited state is a crucial parameter to achieve intense helicene-mediated exciton coupling, which is a major contributor to the obtained strong CPL. Finally, top-emission CP-OLEDs were fabricated through vapor deposition, which afforded a promising gEl of around 8 × 10−3. These results bring about further molecular design guidelines to reach high CPL intensity and offer new insights into the development of innovative CP-OLED architectures.


The New Standards Framework (NRC, 2012) explicitly calls for teachers to engage students in science and engineering practices (SEPs) as they develop knowledge of scientific phenomena and canonical disciplinary ideas. This study analyzed six pre-service secondary science teachers' (PSSSTs') incorporation of SEPs into their planning practices before, during, and after an instructional intervention. The intervention, which was nested into an instructional methods course, supported the PSSSTs by representing the practices they were to engage their own students with. The PSSSTs were then able to decompose and approximate those scientific practices in their lesson planning, thereby developing pedagogical design capacity (PDC). The PSSSTs were interviewed to determine what affordances and constraints they felt when planning for incorporating SEPs into their lesson planning.

Analysis of the lesson plans showed that 50% of the PSSSTs incorporated SEPs into their lesson plans when only provided a written description of the SEPs and prompted to do so. During the instructional intervention, 83% of the PSSSTs incorporated SEPs into their lesson plans. After the instructional intervention, the PSSSTs were no longer required to incorporate SEPs into their lesson planning nor were they required to hand in lesson plans for a grade. Instead, they wrote lesson plans for their cooperating teachers and for their own use. Surprisingly, the PSSSTs not only continued to incorporate SEPs into their lessons, but did so more completely by incorporating a diversity of sub-SEPs and more of them in their lessons. This is significant because this may indicate that the instructional intervention has longevity.

Interview data suggests that PSSSTs experience both internal and external affordances and constrains when attempting to incorporate SEPs into their lesson planning. Three categories of issues (epistemic, logistical, and curricular) emerged in the results and influence how teachers interact with the SEPs as they plan lessons. This study reiterates the need for teacher educators to engage in instruction that represents aspects of scientific practice, allows for its decomposition, and engages pre-service teachers in approximating those practices.


Medium conditioned by tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha)-stimulated polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) (CM-TNF) suppresses PMN migration. Therefore, we wished to identify the agent(s) in CM-TNF that mediated antichemotactic activity. CM-TNF was fractionated by high-performance liquid chromatography, and one fraction with antichemotactic activity contained the bactericidal protein human neutrophil protein 1 (HNP-1). We showed that HNP-1 suppresses PMN migration to formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine but not to interleukin 8.


Variceal haemorrhage is a major complication of portal hypertension that still causes high mortality in patients with cirrhosis. Improved knowledge of the pathophysiology of portal hypertension has recently led to a more comprehensive approach to prevent all the complications of this condition. Thus, optimal treatment of portal hypertension requires a strategy that takes into account the clinical stage of the disease and all the major variables that affect the risk of progression to the next stage and death. In patients with compensated liver disease, the correction of factors influencing the progression of fibrosis, in particular aetiologic factors, is now feasible in many cases and should be achieved to prevent the development or progression of gastroesophageal varices and hepatic decompensation. Once gastroesophageal varices have developed, non‐selective beta‐blockers remain the cornerstone of therapy. Carvedilol provides a greater decrease in portal pressure and is currently indicated as a first‐choice therapy for primary prophylaxis. The treatment of acute variceal haemorrhage includes a combination of vasoactive drugs, antibiotics and endoscopic variceal band ligation. In high‐risk patients, the early use of transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) lowers the risk of re‐bleeding and improves survival. Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt is the choice for uncontrolled variceal bleeding; a self‐expandable metal stent or balloon tamponade can be used as a bridging measure. The combination of non‐selective beta‐blockers and endoscopic variceal band ligation reduces the risk of recurrent variceal bleeding and improves survival. In these cases, statins seem to further improve survival. Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt is indicated in patients who rebleed during secondary prophylaxis.


Despite its intuitive appeal and the empirical evidence for it, the hypothesis of cognitive polyphasia (Moscovici, 1961/1976/2008) remains largely unexplored. This article attempts to clarify some of the ideas behind this concept by examining its operations at the level of individuals and by proposing a conceptual model that includes some elements of social cognition. Indeed, calls for a rapprochement between the theory of social representations and cognitive psychology have been made by Moscovici, in particular, in his 1984 paper on The myth of the lonely paradigm and in his paper on La nouvelle pensee magique (1992) in which he argues that the theory of social representations provides an explanatory framework for the descriptions offered by cognitive psychology and that their combining could translate into a finer understanding of contemporary social phenomena.

Building on the results of an empirical examination of the controversy that surrounded the MMR vaccination programme in the UK between 1998 and 2005, different ways of engaging into cognitive polyphasia are proposed, including what can be described as cognitive "monophasia", that is, the exclusive use of one type of knowledge, at least at the level of the individual. A brief discussion about the implications of the proposed conceptual model for our understanding of cognitive polyphasia and of the different ways of making sense of the world around us concludes this article.


Data visualization is a powerful skill for the demonstration of meaningful data insights in an interactive and effective way. In this survey article, we collected 70 articles from last five years (2017-2022) to identify, classify, and investigate the various scopes, aspects and theories of data visualization. We also investigated the powerful applications of data visualization in various domains and fields such as visualization apps for health sector, Internet of things (IoTs), business dashboards, urban traffic management, smart buildings and environmental data visualization. However, after thorough investigation and classification, we conclude that, a comprehensive study is still missing about interactive, effective and efficient data visualization survey explaining basic current state-of-the-art best interactive visualization techniques, web-based tools and platforms, best performance theories, data structures and algorithms. In this survey article, we perform a thorough investigation to fill the gap on theoretical, analytical, statistical models and techniques for improving the performance of visualization. Current primary and domain specific future challenges are also reviewed, and related future research directions and opportunities are recommended.


This paper discusses fault tolerance in discrete-time dynamic systems, such as finite-state controllers or computer simulations, with focus on the use of coding techniques to efficiently provide fault tolerance to linear finite-state machines (LFSMs). Unlike traditional fault tolerance schemes, which rely heavily-particularly for dynamic systems operating over extended time horizons-on the assumption that the error-correcting mechanism is fault free, we are interested in the case when all components of the implementation are fault prone. The paper starts with a paradigmatic fault tolerance scheme that systematically adds redundancy into a discrete-time dynamic system in a way that achieves tolerance to transient faults in both the state transition and the error-correcting mechanisms. By combining this methodology with low-complexity error-correcting coding, we then obtain an efficient way of providing fault tolerance to k identical unreliable LFSMs that operate in parallel on distinct input sequences. The overall construction requires only a constant amount of redundant hardware per machine (but sufficiently large k) to achieve an arbitrarily small probability of overall failure for any prespecified (finite) time interval, leading in this way to a lower bound on the computational capacity of unreliable LFSMs.


Kuchijirosho (snout ulcer disease) is a fatal epidemic disease which affects the tiger puffer, Takifugu rubripes, a commercial fish species in Japan and Korea. To assess the possibility that non-tiger puffer fish can serve as reservoirs of infection, 5 fish species were challenged by infection with the extracts of Kuchijirosho-affected brains from cultured tiger puffer: grass puffer T. niphobles, fine-patterned puffer T. poecilonotus, panther puffer T. pardalis, red sea bream Pagrus major, and black rockfish Sebastes schlegeli. When slightly irritated, all these species, especially the puffer fish, exhibited typical signs of Kuchijirosho, i.e., erratic swimming, biting together and bellying out (swelling of belly), as generally observed in tiger puffers affected by Kuchijirosho. Although the mortalities of the 2 non-puffer species were lower, injection of the extracts prepared from the brains of both inoculated fish into tiger puffer resulted in death, indicating that the inoculated fish used in this experiment have the potential to be infected with the Kuchijirosho agent. Condensations of nuclei or chromatin in the large nerve cells, which is a major characteristic of Kuchijirosho, were histopathologically observed to some extent in the brains of all kinds of puffer fish species infected. These findings suggest that the virus can spread horizontally among wild and cultured puffers and even among fishes belonging to different orders.


SUMMARY The primary hypothesis of the ROMA trial is that in patients undergoing primary isolated non-emergent coronary artery bypass grafting, the use of 2 or more arterial grafts compared with a single arterial graft (SAG) is associated with a reduction in the composite outcome of death from any cause, any stroke, post-discharge myocardial infarction and/or repeat revascularization. &NA; The secondary hypothesis is that in these patients, the use of 2 or more arterial grafts compared with a SAG is associated with improved survival. The ROMA trial is a prospective, unblinded, randomized event-driven multicentre trial comprising at least 4300 subjects. Patients younger than 70 years with left main and/or multivessel disease will be randomized to a SAG or multiple arterial grafts to the left coronary system in a 1:1 fashion. Permuted block randomization stratified by the centre and the type of second arterial graft will be used. The primary outcome will be a composite of death from any cause, any stroke, post-discharge myocardial infarction and/or repeat revascularization. The secondary outcome will be all-cause mortality. The primary safety outcome will be a composite of death from any cause, any stroke and any myocardial infarction. In all patients, 1 internal thoracic artery will be anastomosed to the left anterior descending coronary artery. For patients randomized to the SAG group, saphenous vein grafts will be used for all non-left anterior descending target vessels. For patients randomized to the multiple arterial graft group, the main target vessel of the lateral wall will be grafted with either a radial artery or a second internal thoracic artery. Additional grafts for the multiple arterial graft group can be saphenous veins or supplemental arterial conduits. To detect a 20% relative reduction in the primary outcome, with 90% power at 5% alpha and assuming a time-to-event analysis, the sample size must include 845 events (and 3650 patients). To detect a 20% relative reduction in the secondary outcome, with 80% power at 5% alpha, the sample size must include 631 events (and 3650 patients). To be conservative, the sample size will be set at 4300 patients. The primary outcome will be tested according to the intention-to-treat principle. The primary analysis will be a Cox proportional hazards regression model, with the treatment arm included as a covariate. If non-proportional hazards are observed, alternatives to Cox proportional hazards regression will be explored.


Learning the dynamics of a physical system wherein an autonomous agent operates is an important task. Often these systems present apparent geometric structures. For instance, the trajectories of a robotic manipulator can be broken down into a collection of its transitional and rotational motions, fully characterized by the corresponding Lie groups and Lie algebras. In this work, we take advantage of these structures to build effective dynamical models that are amenable to sample-based learning. We hypothesize that learning the dynamics on a Lie algebra vector space is more effective than learning a direct state transition model. To verify this hypothesis, we introduce the Group Enhanced Model (GEM). GEMs significantly outperform conventional transition models on tasks of long-term prediction, planning, and model-based reinforcement learning across a diverse suite of standard continuous-control environments, including Walker, Hopper, Reacher, Half-Cheetah, Inverted Pendulums, Ant, and Humanoid. Furthermore, plugging GEM into existing state of the art systems enhances their performance, which we demonstrate on the PETS system. This work sheds light on a connection between learning of dynamics and Lie group properties, which opens doors for new research directions and practical applications along this direction. Our code is publicly available at: https://tinyurl.com/GEMMBRL.


Structural variants (SVs) may play important roles in human adaption to extreme environments such as high altitude but have been under-investigated. Here, combining long-read sequencing with multiple scaffolding techniques, we assembled a high-quality Tibetan genome (ZF1), with a contig N50 length of 24.57 mega-base pairs (Mb) and a scaffold N50 length of 58.80 Mb. The ZF1 assembly filled 80 remaining N-gaps (0.25 Mb in total length) in the reference human genome (GRCh38). Markedly, we detected 17,900 SVs, among which the ZF1-specific SVs are enriched in GTPase activity that is required for activation of the hypoxic pathway. Further population analysis uncovered a 163-bp intronic deletion in the MKL1 gene showing large divergence between highland Tibetans and lowland Han Chinese. This deletion is significantly associated with lower systolic pulmonary arterial pressure, one of the key adaptive physiological traits in Tibetans. Moreover, with the use of the high quality de novo assembly, we observed a much higher rate of genome-wide archaic hominid (Altai Neanderthal and Denisovan) shared non-reference sequences in ZF1 (1.32%-1.53%) compared to other East Asian genomes (0.70%-0.98%), reflecting a unique genomic composition of Tibetans. One such archaic-hominid shared sequence, a 662-bp intronic insertion in the SCUBE2 gene, is enriched and associated with better lung function (the FEV1/FVC ratio) in Tibetans. Collectively, we generated the first high-resolution Tibetan reference genome, and the identified SVs may serve as valuable resources for future evolutionary and medical studies.


This article investigates the interaction between digital capital and some offline components (economic, cultural, political, social and personal) that represent the background against which we access and use the Internet. Based on a stratified sample of the UK population (868), six indexes (one for each component) were generated through factor analysis and univariate analysis. We summarised them into a unique model by performing a multiple linear regression to evaluate the role-played by offline components in the development/reinforcement of digital capital. The interaction between these new indexes and the digital capital index shows that, with the exception of the political component, all offline backgrounds positively contribute to digital capital. Moreover, the multiple regression analysis shows that the economic and social components have the strongest influence on digital capital.


Abstract. The impact of atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition on nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in forest ecosystems is still unclear. Our study assessed the direct contribution of N deposition to N2O emissions in temperate forests exposed to chronic high N depositions using a 15N labelling technique. In a Norway spruce stand (Picea abies) and in a beech stand (Fagus sylvatica) at the Solling, Germany, we used a low concentrated 15N-labelled ammonium-nitrate solution to simulate N deposition. Nitrous oxide fluxes and 15N isotope abundances in N2O were measured using the closed chamber method combined with 15N isotope analyses. Emissions of N2O were higher in the beech stand (2.6 ± 0.6 kg N ha−1 yr−1) than in the spruce stand (0.3 ± 0.1 kg N ha−1 yr−1). We observed a direct effect of N input on 15N-N2O emissions, which lasted for less than three weeks and was mainly caused by denitrification. No further increase in 15N enrichment of N2O occurred during a one-year experiment, which was probably due to immobilisation of deposited N. The annual emission factor for N2O from deposited N was 0.1% for the spruce stand and 0.6% for the beech stand. Standard methods used in the literature applied to the same stands grossly overestimated emission factors with values of up to 25%. Only 6–13% of the total N2O emissions were derived from direct N depositions. Whether the remaining emissions resulted from accumulated anthropogenic N depositions or native soil N, could not be distinguished with the applied methods. The 15N tracer technique is a useful tool, which may improve estimates of the current contribution of N deposition to N2O emissions.


Active fault zones are not simple frictional interfaces. They are complex, evolving 3‐D structures that contain pore fluids in drained or undrained conditions. They show stable or unstable slip, dilatant or contractant elastic or plastic local deformations in response to far‐field extensive or compressive displacements. Pore fluid pressure variations induce effective stress and fluid compressibility changes, possibly up to degassing. For these reasons, we choose to use an analytical model in which the fault zone is schematized by a mesoscale poroplastic interface surrounded by two symmetrical elastic pads to investigate the conditions that can lead to slow slip vs. seismic slip. The chosen end‐cap plastic failure criterion and associated flow rule account for hardening/softening regimes. The model computes stress paths, normal/tangential displacement, and fluid pressure variations of the fault zone with time. Depending on the initial stress, pore pressure conditions, far‐field loading rate, and fluid compressibility, scenarios emerge that link together stable plastic deformation regimes (months to years, small displacements) and unstable regimes (seconds, metric displacements). While some scenarios show the occurrence of instability preceded or not by slow slip events, others show slow events without instability (mainshock). Also investigated are the effect of a switch from undrained to drained condition and the role of the change in fluid compressibility due to dilatancy. Finally, we discuss the geodetic and geophysical data necessary to calibrate the parameters of the empirical relationships. Slow slip event areas are therefore not necessarily "safe" and might produce earthquakes if conditions change.


Reovirus genome segment S4 codes for polypeptide sigma3, a major outer capsid component of virions and a double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-binding protein implicated in viral cytopathogenesis. We have constructed a stable HeLa cell line (S4tTA) that produces functional sigma3 under tetracycline transactivator control. In the absence of tetracycline, S4tTA cells synthesized stable dsRNA-binding sigma3 that accumulated in the nucleus as well as in the cytoplasm. However, in induced S4tTA cells also expressing reovirus outer shell polypeptide mu1/mu1C, migration of sigma3 into the nucleus was blocked, probably as a result of formation of a complex with mu1/mu1C which was exclusively in the cytoplasm. Mutant analyses indicated a correlation between dsRNA-binding activity and nuclear entry of sigma3, suggesting an additional role(s) for this capsid protein in virus-cell interactions.


Factoring is very important in the field of cryptography, specifically in the Rivest, Shamir, Adleman(RSA) public-key cryptosystem, one of the most prevalent methods for transmitting and receiving secret data which its security relies on the fact that factoring large composite numbers (may be 300 digits) is computational ly intensive task . The General Number Field Sieve (GNFS) algorithm is the fastest known method for factoring large integers (100 digits and more), selecting a polynomial is the first and the most important step of the general number field sieve. Choosing a "good" polynomial as a first step in GNFS algorithm widely affect the time needed to factor the integer which we intend to factor .In this paper we concern about polynomial selection step in GNFS, we try to examine practically the affect of choosing two different degrees polynomial on the time needed to factor a 100 digits integer. Base – method is a reasonable first step for generating a suitable polynomial for the GNFS, in this method we first choose the degree of the polynomial ( =4 or 5 in our case) and looking for ≈ and a polynomial of degree for which ( ) =0 ,we begin with ( ) = ∑ where the are the coefficients of the base- representation, Brian Murphy in his PhD thesis considered being the first how deeply study the effect of choosing a good polynomial on the time needed to factor a number , he came out with a parameter ( ) to measure without sieving the quality of the polynomial ,many programs have been written using Murphy parameter ( ( ) ) and iterate on the leading coefficient of the base- polynomial till reaching the required ( ( )) value which we intend to reach, we get use from a program freely available on the net which help us to choose a good polynomial after feeding the program with the required parameter . We find a 4 th degree polynomial need less time than a 5 th degree polynomial to factor an integer of a 100 digits, we present the result of factoring showing the two factors and the coefficients of the two polynomials and other information related to the factoring jobs using a python script written by Brian Gladman's available for free use on the net called (factmsieve.py) in two appendices.


A 42-year-old man had undergone mitral valve (MV) replacement 12 years earlier with the use of a CarboMedics bileaflet mechanical prosthesis (Sorin Biomedica). On a routine visit, he was asymptomatic, and cardiac auscultation revealed closing and opening MV clicks. A transthoracic echocardiogram with the use of a 2-beat acquisition protocol showed normal excursion of both MV discs (Figure 1; Movie I in the online-only Data Supplement). Spectral Doppler of transmitral flow indicated normal peak gradients; however, abnormalities in the Doppler signal were intermittently noted. Whereas some cardiac cycles showed normal disc motion with near-simultaneous opening clicks, other cycles demonstrated a delay in 1 opening click or a single rather than dual opening clicks (Figure 2). The beats with a single opening click were associated with significant prolongation of the transmitral pressure half-time suggestive of obstruction to flow. The abnormalities on spectral Doppler prompted us to reimage the MV over several cardiac cycles. Intermittent delay in the opening of 1 disc with periodic disc entrapment in a closed position was noted (Figure 3;Movie II in the online-only Data Supplement). Interrogation with color Doppler showed intermittent …


In Sweden, during summer, grazing horses and cows are frequently exposed to bloodsucking flies. This study has been performed in the geographical areas of Gundrastorp (pasture) and Kamlehojalt (wood pasture), in northern Scania, Sweden where the occurrences of biting flies may represent a scourge for domesticated animals. The distribution of biting flies, Tabanidae and Stomoxys calcitrans (L) (known as stable flies) was studied by insect trapping using two Nzi traps, one for each habitat. No attractants have been used in order to improve trap capture rate. This research pointed out that tabanid and stable flies did not show any preference between the two landscape types or between hosts where they get their blood meal. Capture rates increased on days with high temperature. There were also differences in number between all types of weather for both tabanid and stable flies. In terms of species activity in all types of weather, 13 species of Tabanidae displayed some differences between them in each habitat. In the genus Tabanus, Tabanus bromius and Tabanus maculicornis showed similar patterns with regards to daily activity in different types of weather, being followed by Haematopota pluvialis and Hybomitra bimaculata . Moreover, with regards to the number of male and female tabanids collected in Nzi traps, a higher difference for each area was found. As a parallel survey, the landing behavior of each genus of collected tabanids on blue and black colors before going into Nzi traps showed the same variation during the experiments. Nzi traps set near the horses and cows have shown high efficiency in capturing biting flies, allowing animals to graze somewhat undisturbed.


The objective of this study was to examine the associations of childhood wheezing phenotypes with asthma, lung function and exhaled nitric oxide fraction (FeNO) in adolescence. In a population-based, prospective cohort study of 6841 children, we used latent class analysis to identify wheezing phenotypes during the first 7 years of life. Physician-diagnosed asthma, spirometry and FeNO were assessed at 14–15 years. Compared with never/infrequent wheeze, intermediate-onset and persistent wheeze were consistently strongest associated with higher risk of asthma (risk ratio (95% CI) 10.9 (8.97–13.16) and 9.13 (7.74–10.77), respectively), lower forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1)/forced vital capacity (FVC) ratio (mean difference in standard deviation units (SDU) (95% CI) −0.34 (−0.54– −0.14) and −0.50 (−0.62– −0.38), respectively), lower forced expiratory flow at 25–75% of FVC (FEF25–75%) (mean difference in SDU (95% CI) −0.30 (−0.49– −0.10) and −0.42 (−0.54– −0.30), respectively) and increased FEV1 bronchodilator reversibility (mean difference in SDU (95% CI) 0.12 (0.02–0.22) and 0.13 (0.06–0.19), respectively). Prolonged early and persistent wheeze were associated with a decline in FEV1/FVC ratio and FEF25–75% between 8–9 and 14–15 years. Intermediate-onset, late-onset and persistent wheeze were associated with higher FeNO ratios (ratio of geometric means (95% CI) 1.90 (1.59–2.29), 1.57 (1.39–1.77) and 1.37 (1.22–1.53), respectively, compared with never/infrequent wheeze). Early-onset wheezing phenotypes persisting after 18 months of age show the strongest associations with asthma, lower lung function, even worsening from mid-childhood, and higher FeNO levels in adolescence. Early persisting wheezing phenotypes relate to asthma, lower lung function and higher FeNO levels in adolescence http://ow.ly/Su3xG


OBJECTIVE To demonstrate that senior surgical residents would benefit from focused training by professionals with management expertise. Although managerial skills are recognized as necessary for the successful establishment of a surgical practice, they are not often emphasized in traditional surgical residency curricula. DESIGN Senior residents from all surgical subspecialties at McGill University were invited to participate in a 1-day management seminar. Precourse questionnaires aimed at evaluating the residents' perceptions of their own managerial knowledge and preparedness were circulated. The seminar was then given in the form of interactive lectures and case-based discussions. The questionnaires were readministered at the end of the course, along with an evaluation form. Precourse and postcourse data were compared using the Freeman-Halton extension of the Fisher exact test to determine statistical significance (P < .05). SETTING McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. PARTICIPANTS A total of 43 senior residents. RESULTS Before the course, the majority of residents (27 of 43 [63%]) thought that management instruction only happened "from time to time" in their respective programs. After the course, 15 residents (35%) felt that management topics were "well addressed," and 19 (44%) felt that management topics have been "very well addressed" (P < .01). Residents noted a significant improvement in their ability to perform the following skills after the course: giving feedback, delegating duties, coping with stress, effective learning, and effective teaching. On the ensemble of all managerial skills combined, 26 residents (60%) rated their performance as "good" or "excellent" after the course vs only 21 (49%) before the course (P = .02). Residents also noted a statistically significant improvement in their ability to perform the managerial duties necessary for the establishment of a surgical practice. CONCLUSIONS Surgical residency programs have the responsibility of preparing their residents for leadership and managerial roles in their future careers. An annual seminar serves as a starting point that could be built on for incorporating formal management training in surgical residency curricula.


In recent years, magnetic random access memory (MRAM) based run-time system on programmable chip (SOPC) has been proposed as a solution to the critical drawbacks of current field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), such as long (re)boot latency, high standby power, and limits for run time reconfiguration. However, the integration of MRAM in FPGA circuits brings its own problems, including large die area and high dynamic power for the switching circuit. In this paper, we present some solutions to overcome the power and area constraints and thereby improve the performance of MRAM based SOPC. We have done simulations and calculations based on the STMicroelectronics 90 nm design kit and a complete magnetic tunnel junction model.


ABSTRACT Kassem, H.; Sutherland, T.F., and Amos, C.L., 2021. Hydrodynamic controls on the particle size of resuspended sediment from sandy and muddy substrates in British Columbia, Canada. Journal of Coastal Research, 37(4), 691–707. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. A benthic annular flume, Sea Carousel, was deployed at both sand-dominated (Baynes Sound) and mud-dominated (Carrie Bay) stations in British Columbia, Canada, to examine the character of near-bed flow over these contrasting bottom types and its control on particle size of resuspended sediment. An assessment has also been made of the turbidity-induced drag reduction due to suspension of bottom sediments. The median sizes of suspended material from the sandy sites have been compared with the well-known Rouse theory, whereas the aggregates resuspended from muddy stations were scaled with the energy dissipation rate (ε) determined from high-frequency three-dimensional flow measures in the flume. There was no evidence in the turbulence spectra in the Sea Carousel of energy inputs in the paddle and lid rotational frequencies, and a f–5/3 slope for f > 2 Hz in turbulent transitional flows was evident. The bed roughness length of sandy sites was Reynolds-number dependent but was asymptotic to a constant value of 2 mm at high flows. This equated to a dimensionless drag coefficient at 1 m above bed of a constant, 3 × 10–3 (also at high Reynolds numbers), which agrees well with values reported in the literature. The median size of suspended sand (from the sandy sites) and equivalent still water settling rate (ws) scaled with the friction velocity (u*) in the form ws/u* = D*/8. The median size of resuspended aggregates (df) scaled inversely with dissipation (ε) in the form df = 5 × 10–6ε–0.24m, which is close to the relationship found in the literature.


This research paper analyzes the functions of myth in Galway Kinnell's The book of nightmares mainly utilizing the scholarly contributions of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. In this analysis, the quester learns about the different functions of myth in the development of individuals as well as their need to complete cycles in life that will allow them to grow emotionally and psychologically. Kinnell's use of imagery and unpretentious motifs of everyday living are enthralling; the "dead shoes, in the new light" allow readers to lose their way to find out who they are and what they want. XXI-century Western society has rendered the rites of passage it had previously upheld primitive. In a post-globalized era and a civilization that tends to favor capitalism and consumerism, although individuals encounter rites of passage and myth on a daily basis, they may be perceived as primeval and senseless. The book of nightmares discloses rites, rites of passage, and myths for the reader to discover opportunities of learning to mature in the world


An optimisation is a process of finding maxima or minima of the objective function. Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) is a nature-inspired, meta-heuristic, black box optimisation algorithm used to search for global minimum or maximum in the solution space. The sampling strategy in this algorithm mimics the flying pattern of a swarm, where each sample is generated randomly according to uniform distribution among three different locations, which marks the current particle location, the individual best found location, and the best found location for the entire swam over all generation. The PSO has known disadvantage of premature convergence in problems with high correlated design variables (high epistatis). However, there is limited research conducted in finding the main reason why the algorithm fails to locate better solutions in these problems. In this paper, we propose to change the traditional triangular flight trajectory of PSO to an elliptical flight path. The new flying method is tested and compared with the traditional triangular flight trajectory of PSO on five high epistatis benchmark problems. Our results show that the samples generated from the elliptical flight path are generally better than the traditional triangular flight trajectory of PSO in term of average fitness and the fitness of best found solution.


Gliogenesis in animal development is spatiotemporally regulated so that correct numbers of glia are present to support various neuronal functions. During Drosophila embryonic development, the glial regulatory gene, glial cell missing/glial cell deficient (gcm/glide), promotes glial cell fate and differentiation. Here we describe the ubiquitin–proteasome regulation of the Gcm protein and the consequence in gliogenesis without timely degradation of Gcm. Gcm binds to 2 F-box proteins, Supernumerary limbs (Slimb) and Archipelago (Ago), adaptors of SCF E3 ubiquitin ligases. Ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation of Gcm depend on slimb and ago. In slimb and ago double mutants, Gcm protein levels are enhanced. Concomitantly, glial cell numbers increase owing to proliferation, which can be phenocopied by Gcm overexpression only at the onset of glial differentiation. The glial lineage 5–6A in slimb ago mutants displays excess glial progenies and enhanced Gcm protein levels. We propose that downregulation of Gcm protein levels by Slimb and Ago is required for glial progenitors to exit the cell cycle for differentiation.


There is growing interest in the use of natural compounds such as phytochemicals in medicine. Turmeric is known to possess many health benefits and has been used for centuries for culinary and traditional uses. Its most potent phytochemical, curcumin, has been subject to extensive research andexhibits biological activities, including anti-cancer activities. However, it has not been approved for therapeutic use due to poor bioavailability. Recently, efforts have turned to improving its bioavailability, such as the use of adjuvant phytochemicals. Turmeric contains a variety of phytochemicals, many of which also possess anti-cancer activities themselves. In this review, theevidence for the superior bioavailability and chemopreventative activities of turmeric compared to curcumin alone are discussed, and mechanisms that may underlie these observations are highlighted. More research should be done to uncover the interactions of the phytochemicals within turmeric. Most research has focused on the use of curcumin and other phytochemicals as potential adjuvants in cancer treatment. However, a large proportion of cancers, particularly of the digestive system, are preventable, so the current review focuses on the chemopreventative potential of the phytochemicals discussed. Ultimately, consumption of turmeric and other foods rich in phytochemicals should be encouraged to reduce the incidence of cancer.


Images add a rich dimension to theatre historical studies, which have traditionally been dominated by the literary perspective. This is particularly true for the Commedia dell'Arte, whose patchy textual record reflects its reliance on brief scenarios rather than extant play-texts with fully-scripted dialogue. From its sixteenth-century beginnings, the Commedia dell'Arte's mixed-gender performances, distinctive costumes and gestures, and slick professional acrobatics, comedy and magic routines captured the attention of artists of every stripe. Their depictions range from reliable records of the appearance of staged events and actors, to imaginative evocations unrelated to any specific performance or performer


We have investigated the mechanisms by which a murine IgA mAb directed against the type III Ag (IgA anti-III mAb) of group B streptococci (GBS) protects neonatal rats from lethal infection with these organisms. Purified IgA anti-III mAb enhanced phagocytosis of type III GBS by rat peritoneal macrophages in vitro by fourfold compared with phagocytosis of buffer-treated GBS. In the absence of antibody, neonatal rat serum did not promote phagocytosis, but addition of neonatal rat serum to GBS opsonized with IgA anti-III led to a sevenfold increase in phagocytosis. Heat inactivation of C destroyed the ability of neonatal rat serum to enhance phagocytosis in the presence of IgA. C3 deposition was observed when GBS coated with IgA anti-III mAb were incubated in untreated neonatal rat serum or in serum treated with Mg/EGTA. This latter observation suggested that C3 deposition occurred through activation of the alternative pathway. The control IgA mAb MOPC 315 did not enhance GBS ingestion or C3 deposition on GBS. Depletion of C in vivo by using cobra venom factor abolished the protective effect of IgA anti-III mAb in the neonatal rat model. These data suggest that the ability of this IgA to activate C further enhances its opsonic activity and may be essential for its protective effect in vivo.


The study was conducted to isolate, identify and characterize bacterial samples from broiler meat collected from 20 different upazilla markets of Jamalpur, Tangail, Netrokona and Kishoreganj districts of Bangladesh. A total of 20 samples were subjected to bacteriological isolation and identification, and the isolated bacteria were subjected to antimicrobial susceptibility testing using disc diffusion method. Among the samples, 75% (n=15) were contaminated with Campylobacter spp., 70% (n=14) were with Salmonella species and 85% (n=17) were contaminated with Escherichia coli. The Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp. and E. coli were isolated and identified by culturing on Blood agar, Xylose-Lysine Deoxycholate (XLD) agar, and MacConky and eosin methylene blue (EMB) agar respectively. Isolates of Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp. and E. coli were biochemically analyzed. Campylobacter specific 16S rRNA genes were amplified from the isolates. Campylobacter spp. and E. coli isolates were positive to 16S rRNA gene based polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Almost all isolates of Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp. and E. coli showed highest susceptibility to ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin and gentamicin. However, most isolates were resistant to amoxicillin and erythromycin. Some isolates showed susceptibility to tetracycline, streptomycin and azithromycin. The findings of this study revealed that there is presence of multidrug resistant isolates of Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp. and E. coli in broiler meat. Results of this research project demonstrated the high level of microbial contamination and occurrence of pathogenic bacteria in broiler meat sold in markets of Bangladesh.

 Key words: Broiler meat, Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, molecular detection, characterization.


Modern file systems use ordering points to maintain consistency in the face of system crashes. However, such ordering leads to lower performance, higher complexity, and a strong and perhaps naive dependence on lower layers to correctly enforce the ordering of writes. In this paper, we introduce the No-Order File System (NoFS), a simple, lightweight file system that employs a novel technique called backpointer-based consistency to provide crash consistency without ordering writes as they go to disk. We utilize a formal model to prove that NoFS provides data consistency in the event of system crashes; we show through experiments that NoFS is robust to such crashes, and delivers excellent performance across a range of workloads. Backpointer-based consistency thus allows NoFS to provide crash consistency without resorting to the heavyweight machinery of traditional approaches.


The ability of a threat system to quickly detect, locate, identify, and accurately track an armored helicopter has a significant influence upon the safety of the target. RCS (radar cross section) reduction is a major consideration in the design of a stealthy armed helicopter. This paper is to provide a systematic method for qualitatively assessing the RCS reduction benefits on the helicopter detection probability. Considering the helicopter radar scatter signal of mirror reflection and edge diffraction at high radar frequency, the RCS computation methods of PO (physical optics) and ILDC (increment length diffraction coefficient) are firstly introduced. Then probability theory is employed to predict the radar detection probability. Moreover, two hypothesis armed helicopters, in which one is conventionally designed and another is stealthily designed with radar absorbent material, are used as an example to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method. Analysis shows that the benefits of radar signature reduction (i.e., radar absorbent material) include a decrease in the radar detection probability and an increase in the effectiveness of any radar countermeasures.


This book, newly available in paperback, gathers essays written by Geoffrey Bennington since the death of his friend Jacques Derrida in 2004. All continue the ongoing work of elucidating difficult and complex thought, often enough with reference to Derrida's persistent interrogation of the concepts of life and death, mourning and melancholia, and what he sometimes calls 'half-mourning'. Not Half No End relates this 'ethical' interruption of mourning to the persistent but still ill-understood motif of interrupted teleology, which, it is argued here, is definitive of deconstruction in general. This suspension or interruption of the end (which is none other than differance 'itself') has all manner of consequences for our thinking, and for how we attempt to categorize that thinking (as epistemological, ethical, political or aesthetic, for example). Not Half No End moves through all these domains, and the whole of Derrida's rich and varied corpus, in a weave of styles - from the expository and analytic to the autobiographical and confessional - in the ongoing process of deconstruction. Key Features * New collection of essays by major theorist * Expanded readings of late texts by Derrida * Research monograph on mourning and melancholy * First consideration of the legacy of Derrida by a co-author


BACKGROUND
Avoiding the risk of postoperative hemorrhage after brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) resection involves aggressive blood pressure control. Remodeling of the feeding arterial system is critical in reducing this risk.

OBJECTIVE
To investigate factors predicting time to return to normal on digital subtraction angiography (DSA) after AVM resection.

METHODS
For AVM in which the largest feeding artery (FA) on DSA was in the anterior circulation, the preoperative and postoperative diameter of the FA were compared with the diameter of the internal carotid artery (IC) immediately proximal to the posterior communicating artery. The preoperative FA/IC ratio (FA/IC preAVM) was compared with the first postoperative FA/IC ratio (FA/IC postAVM). Normal FA/IC ratio (FA/IC normal) was established from matched arteries in the contralateral hemisphere to the AVM.

RESULTS
Eighty-six patients were analyzed for postoperative DSA performed a median 4 d after resection. From the interval-censored proportional hazards regression analysis, FA/IC preAVM (hazard ratio of 0.0006; 95% confidence interval: 0.00-0.21; P = .013) and maximum AVM diameter (hazard ratio of 0.47; 95% confidence interval: 0.23-0.95; P = .036) were significant in time to return to normal. These 2 factors were poorly correlated with each other (r = 0.41). AVMs with FA/IC preAVMs <0.57 combined with a diameter <3.0 cm normalize within 7 d in more than 50% of cases. Any other combination of ratio and size has fewer than 20% normalizing within 7 d (log rank P < .001).

CONCLUSION
FA/IC preAVM and AVM size are both important in predicting the time taken for return to normal feeding arterial system on DSA after AVM resection.


This is an abstract of a conference paper presented at the Tissue and Cell Engineering Society (TCES) meeting 2015, University of Southampton, 19-21 July. This is an Open Access Article. It is published by European Cells & Materials Ltd under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


Functional dependencies (fds) express important relationships among data, which can be used for several goals, including schema normalization and data cleansing. However, to solve several issues in emerging application domains, such as the identification of data inconsistencies or patterns of semantically related data, it has been necessary to relax the fd definition through the introduction of approximations in data comparison and/or validity. Moreover, while fds were originally specified at design time, with the availability of massive data and computational power many algorithms have been devised to automatically discover them from data, including algorithms for discovering some types of relaxed fds. In this paper we present a technique that exploits lattice-based algorithms for the discovery of fds from data, in order to detect relaxed fds. Moreover, we introduce an algorithm to determine a proper distance threshold for a given relaxed fd holding over the entire database.


Background: Due to high content of fructose, honey has been introduced as a suitable natural sweetener for patients with type 2 diabetes. We investigated the effect of honey consumption on glycemic control and anthropometric measures of patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods: This randomized controlled crossover clinical trial was conducted on 53 patients with type 2 diabetes. The participants were randomly divided into groups of control (weight maintenance diet) or treatment (weight maintenance diet +50 g/day honey) for 8 weeks. After a 4-week washout, the second phase began, in which the role of the groups was interchanged. Blood glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), glucose, insulin, and anthropometric characteristics were measured. Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS. Repeated measures of ANOVA were used to test differences within- and between the two conditions. Results: Forty-two patients completed the study. HbA1c significantly decreased in control (−0.22%, P = 0.03) and nonsignificantly increased in honey condition (+0.17%, P = 0.22). There was a significant difference between the two conditions (P = 0.02). Fasting glucose did not significantly change in either honey or control condition but insulin concentrations (−0.85 μU/ml, P = 0.01) and insulin secretion (−10.7%, P = 0.01) decreased significantly in the control condition. There was no significant difference in any of these parameters between the two conditions. Waist circumference decreased by honey treatment with a significant difference between the two conditions (P = 0.02). Conclusions: Eight weeks consumption of 50 g/day honey increased HbA1c and decreased waist circumference of patients with type 2 diabetes.


The Industry Standard sought to chronicle the world of Internet business, but instead became one of its spectacular failures-and its collapse turned out to be a funnier story than you'd expect. . It was not that long ago that The Industry Standard was an international publishing phenomenon. Founded in 1998 with the grandiose goal of being "the Business Week of the Internet economy," it soared to unprecedented heights during the dot-com boom, with far-flung bureaus, a thriving conference business, and a seemingly endless supply of cash. In 2000 alone, The Standard published more than 7,000 ad pages, generating revenues of over $200 million-more than any other magazine in the history of America. Little did anyone imagine that the following August the entire organization would file for bankruptcy. Starving to Death on $200 Million a Year is James Ledbetter's mock-heroic chronicle of the magazine that lived large and died young: the wild dreams, the sudden success, the wanton excesses, the fatal hemorrhage. From his vantage point as one of The Standard's top editors, he saw up close how it succumbed to the same gold-rush fever as the Internet businesses it was supposed to be chronicling, realizing too late that he had been infected as well. As America continues to reckon with its post-nineties hangover, Ledbetter offers a sardonic look at a thriving business that died on the verge of taking on the world.


The business pressures which companies and organisations encounter are steadily growing. They continuously have to improve their efficiency to keep up with these new developments. One very important aspect in doing so is the reinforced adoption of computer based information systems. This paper focuses on a computer based system which is able to automate everyday business communication between distributed team members. Reliable and confidential message delivery, event notification, the integration of different end devices (mobile phones, PCs etc.) and the message transport across different networks (wireless, wired) have been allocated as the main system requirements. Based on these requirements the performance of two middleware technologies, namely CORBA and Web services, has been compared. The result of this comparison was that both technologies are suited to use for implementing such a system but both too, have strengths and weaknesses in achieving the stated requirements. CORBA for example, due to several supporting, already included services, allows the programmer to concentrate on the application development itself and use these services to ensure reliable and confidential message transmission. Additionally, CORBA is very efficient in using the bandwidth of the underlying communication network, but makes higher demands to the memory space available on clients. This is critical, if clients are mobile devices with limited resources. Web service technology is much more modest than CORBA with respect to the client side memory space, but message transmission requires much more bandwidth. Further one there are no built-in security and reliability services available for Web services, like there are for CORBA. Hence it is up the application programmer to manually implement these features; however he has not necessarily develop everything from scratch but can resort to already existing specifications, still having the freedom of developing specially tailored features. In short could be stated that CORBA is more consequential and consistent and WS technology is more adjustable and flexible.


Desperately waving a draft, a client standing in the doorway exclaims, "Can
someone help me with my commas? My essay's due in 10 minutes!" The lastminute
student is infamous and, unfortunately, extremely common in most
writing labs, as are a few other types: the socialite who, instead of working on
her freshman English essay, wants only to discuss the latest campus gossip; the
older, non-traditional student anxiously seeking reassurance; the international
student needing help with American rhetoric. Although many kinds of clients
exist (with the list being long and legendary), labs help all of them in two
fundamental ways: to discover their roles as students and to learn about the
writing process.


The aim of this PhD thesis was to evaluate the effect of a sub-lethal HPH treatment on some probiotic properties and on cell response mechanisms of already-known functional strains, isolated from Argentinean dairy products. The results achieved showed that HPH treatments, performed at a sub-lethal level of 50 MPa, increased some important functional and technological characteristics of the considered non intestinal probiotic strains. In particular, HPH could modify cell hydrophobicity, autoaggregation and resistance to acid gastric conditions (tested in in vitro model), cell viability and cell production of positive aroma compounds, during a refrigerate storage in a simulated dairy product. In addition, HPH process was able to increase also some probiotic properties exerted in vivo and tested for two of the considered strains. In fact, HPH-treated cells were able to enhance the number of IgA+ cells more than other not treated cells, although this capacity was time dependent. On the other hand, HPH treatment was able to modify some important characteristics that are linked to the cell wall and, consequently, could alter the adhesion capacity in vivo and the interaction with the intestinal cells. These modifications, involving cell outermost structures, were highlighted also by Trasmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) analysis. In fact, the micrographs obtained showed a significant effect of the pressure treatment on the cell morphology and particularly on the cell wall. Moreover, the results achieved showed that composition of plasma membranes and their level of unsaturation are involved in response mechanisms adopted by cells exposed to the sub-lethal HPH treatment. Although the response to the treatment varied according to the characteristics of individual strains, time of storage and suspension media employed, the results of present study, could be exploited to enhance the quality of functional products and to improve their organoleptic properties.


Document modeling is essential to a variety of natural language understanding tasks. We propose to use external information to improve document modeling for problems that can be framed as sentence extraction. We develop a framework composed of a hierarchical document encoder and an attention-based extractor with attention over external information. We evaluate our model on extractive document summarization (where the external information is image captions and the title of the document) and answer selection (where the external information is a question). We show that our model consistently outperforms strong baselines, in terms of both informativeness and fluency (for CNN document summarization) and achieves state-of-the-art results for answer selection on WikiQA and NewsQA.


This paper presents a differential algebraic approach of speed/position estimation for PMSM drive. The dynamic of the position is a function of the voltages, currents and their derivatives. In contrast to the other estimators like the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) that is complex and computationally expensive, the differential algebraic estimator is simple with a one-dimension model. Simulations and experimental results show the effectiveness of the method.


Maize is a staple food all over the world. Models for climate change suggest that, in the future, cloud formation might be reduced in the tropics increasing the exposure to Ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation, a DNA-damaging agent. UV-B (290 to 320 nm) has been shown to affect yield in maize. In this project we have determined the differences in DNA repair efficiencies between U.S. inbred lines B73 and Mo17, and Central American purple landraces from Guatemala and Costa Rica. Our results from single cell electrophoresis experiments (Comet Assay) suggest that the landrace Pujagua Santa Cruz (P1, Costa Rican) was resistant to damage caused by the radiomimetic agent zeocin (24h/100 micrograms per mL), while landrace Pujagua La Cruz (P2, Costa Rican) was able to repair DNA damage after one hour. On the other hand, line Mo17 (Missouri, USA) was unable to repair the damage, while B73 (Iowa, USA) and the landraces Jocopilas (Guatemalan), Orotina Congo (Costa Rican) and Talamanca (Costa Rican) were partially able to repair DNA damage. High Resolution Melting (HRM) curve analysis of putative homologous DNA repair gene ZeaATM1 showed that both P1 and P2 had differences in the melting temperatures for this gene compared to B73 and Mo17, while P1 showed additional differences in ZeaSOG1, ZeaRAD51 and ZeaBRCA1, suggesting that in this landrace the presence of polymorphisms may be common among key genes for this pathway. Taken together our results suggest that key adaptive differences in DNA repair efficiencies exist between inbred lines and landraces of maize and that some Central America landraces could be used as a valuable pool of alleles for plant breeding aiming to increase tolerance to radiation.


Fine-tuning visual models has been widely shown promising performance on many downstream visual tasks. With the surprising development of pre-trained visual foundation models, visual tuning jumped out of the standard modus operandi that fine-tunes the whole pre-trained model or just the fully connected layer. Instead, recent advances can achieve superior performance than full-tuning the whole pre-trained parameters by updating far fewer parameters, enabling edge devices and downstream applications to reuse the increasingly large foundation models deployed on the cloud. With the aim of helping researchers get the full picture and future directions of visual tuning, this survey characterizes a large and thoughtful selection of recent works, providing a systematic and comprehensive overview of existing work and models. Specifically, it provides a detailed background of visual tuning and categorizes recent visual tuning techniques into five groups: prompt tuning, adapter tuning, parameter tuning, and remapping tuning. Meanwhile, it offers some exciting research directions for prospective pre-training and various interactions in visual tuning.


The new environmental problems have common features that distinguish them {rom traditional scientific problems: facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent. For these new problems science usually cannot provide well-founded theories, based on experiments, for explanation and prediction; therefore environmental issues present new tasks for science. We range scientific problem-solving strategies on a biaxial diagram which exhibits them in terms of the two attributes of "system uncertainties" and "decision stakes"; the situation of post-normal science is one where both attributes are highest; here we find decisions with high stakes, for which the scientific inputs are irremediably uncertain. In these conditions the essential functions of quality assurance and critical assessment can no longer be completely performed by a restricted corps of insiders. The dialogue on quality, along with that on policy, must be extended to all those with a stake in an issue; these we call "the extended peer community". The task is to see what sorts of changes in the practice of science and in its institutions will be entailed by recognition of uncertainty, complexity and quality within policyrelevant research.


It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the 26th Annual General Meeting and Conference of the PSDE. I would like to thank you Deputy Chairman and Past President of the PSDE for your time to inaugurate the meeting. I would like to thank our members and many guests who have come from all over Pakistan and abroad to participate in the Conference. A special welcome to students of economics and business studies from PIDE and different universities in Islamabad and from different parts of Pakistan, who are I am sure, just as eager as the senior members to understand the issues to be discussed at the Conference better. Let me join Dr Musleh ud Din in welcoming our distinguished speakers, Dr Vito Tanzi, Dr Ehtisham Ahmed and Dr Anwar Shah who will be delivering the invited lectures this year. Our chief guest, I might add at short notice, will deliver the prestigious Quaid-i-Azam Lecture this year.


Many heterodimeric ATP‐binding cassette (ABC) exporters evolved asymmetric ATP‐binding sites containing a degenerate site incapable of ATP hydrolysis due to noncanonical substitutions in conserved sequence motifs. Recent studies revealed that nucleotide binding to the degenerate site stabilizes contacts between the nucleotide‐binding domains (NBDs) of the inward‐facing transporter and regulates ATP hydrolysis at the consensus site via allosteric coupling mediated by the D‐loops. However, it is unclear whether nucleotide binding to the degenerate site is strictly required for substrate transport. In this study, we examined the functional consequences of a systematic set of mutations introduced at the degenerate and consensus site of the multidrug efflux pump EfrCD of Enterococcus faecalis. Mutating motifs which differ among the two ATP‐binding sites (Walker B, switch loop, and ABC signature) or which are involved in interdomain communication (D‐loop and Q‐loop) led to asymmetric results in the functional assays and were better tolerated at the degenerate site. This highlights the importance of the degenerate site to allosterically regulate the events at the consensus site. Mutating invariant motifs involved in ATP binding and NBD closure (A‐loop and Walker A) resulted in equally reduced transport activities, regardless at which ATP‐binding site they were introduced. In contrast to previously investigated heterodimeric ABC exporters, mutation of the degenerate site Walker A lysine completely inactivated ATPase activity and substrate transport, indicating that ATP binding to the degenerate site is essential for EfrCD. This study provides novel insights into the split tasks of asymmetric ATP‐binding sites of heterodimeric ABC exporters.


With increasing pressure on the nation's retirement systems, questions about how long people stay in the labor force and why they decide to retire are of great importance. The big unknown going forward is whether the contraction of the retirement income system will cause workers to continue working at older ages. The literature to date suggests that the availability of benefits has a larger impact than the level of benefits on people's decision to retire. Indeed, 55 percent of men and 59 percent of women who claimed Social Security benefits in 2005 were 62 — the earliest age of eligibility. If availability of benefits is the main driver of retirement, future workers will be relatively insensitive to the coming decline in replacement rates from Social Security and employer-sponsored pension plans. On the other hand, if the level of benefits has a significant impact, future declines could trigger increased work. One avenue of investigation not previously explored is the variation in labor force activity of older workers across different states. In South Dakota, nearly 90 percent of men aged 55-64 are in the labor force compared to only 40 percent in West Virginia. The question is the extent to which this variation can be explained by differences in replacement rates — benefits relative to pre-retirement income — across states...


Mathematics teachers frequently provide concrete manipulatives to students during instruction; however, the rationale for using certain manipulatives in conjunction with concepts may not be explored. This article focuses on area models that are currently used in classrooms to provide concrete examples of integer and binomial multiplication. The innovation of combining the representations for negative numbers with both algebra tiles and Algeblocks is provided, with a mathematical justification for its development. Teachers' effective integration of tools such as these in mathematics instruction can help students develop conceptual understanding and procedural fluency.


The therapeutic approach to haemangiomas has changed slightly in recent years, moving from a generally conservative attitude to a more aggressive one in some cases. Chronic unaesthetic alterations that might be caused by haemangiomas, psychosocial traumas that can be caused during childhood, together with a better understanding of the behaviour of this type of lesions and advances in safer and more efficient surgical techniques are the basic factors behind this change of attitude. The present paper concentrates on the surgical treatment of haemangiomas, explaining their indications according to the stage of evolution at which they are found, and the surgical techniques employed to resect the lesion with the least morbidity. Similarly, a detailed treatment is given to those lesions that, because of their specific facial anatomical localization, require a special surgical treatment.


We present a low-cost fabrication procedure for the production of nanoscale periodic GaAs nanopillar arrays, using the nanosphere lithography technique as a templating mechanism and the electrochemical metal assisted etch process (MacEtch). The room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) and Raman spectroscopic properties of the fabricated pillars are detailed, as are the structural properties (scanning electron microscopy) and fabrication process. From our PL measurements, we observe a singular GaAs emission at 1.43 eV with no indications of any blue or green emissions, but with a slight redshift due to porosity induced by the MacEtch process and characteristic of porous GaAs (π-GaAs). This is further confirmed via Raman spectroscopy, where additionally we observe the formation of an external cladding of elemental As around our nanopillar features. The optical emission is enhanced by an order magnitude (∼300%) for our nanopillar sample relative to the planar unprocessed GaAs reference.


Objective Cardiovascular risk factors are associated with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) in the general population. However, long-term mortality and major kidney events in patients with new-onset POAG remain unclear. Methods Using the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database between 1997 and 2011, 15 185 patients with a new diagnosis of POAG were enrolled and propensity score matched (1:1) with 15 185 patients without ocular disorders (WODs). All-cause mortality and major kidney events were analysed by a multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression model and a competing risk regression model. Results The risk of all-cause mortality was significantly higher in patients with new-onset POAG than in those WODs (adjusted HR (aHR) 2.11, 95% CI 1.76 to 2.54; p<0.001). Patients with POAG had higher risks of acute renal failure (ARF) (competing risk aHR 2.58, 95% CI 1.88 to 3.55; p<0.001) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) (competing risk aHR 4.84, 95% CI 3.02 to 7.77; p<0.001) than those WODs. Conclusions Our data demonstrate that POAG is a risk of all-cause mortality, ARF and ESRD, thus needing to notice mortality and major kidney events in patients with new-onset POAG.


The purpose of this work is to study the properties of Si-doped ZnO (SZO) thin films, which were prepared using the non-reactive thermionic vacuum arc technique. The analysis of the elemental, optical, and surface properties of ZnO:Si thin films was carried out using energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, UV–VIS spectrophotometry, atomic force microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy, respectively. The current–voltage measurement was employed in order to study the electrical properties of the films. The effect of Si doping on the physical properties of ZnO films was investigated. The film thicknesses were measured as 55 and 35 nm for glass and PET substrates, respectively. It was clearly observed from the x-ray diffraction results that the Si and ZnO peaks were present in the coated SZO films for all samples. The morphological studies showed that the deposited surfaces are homogenous, dense, and have a uniform surface, with the existence of some cracks only on the glass substrate. The elemental composition has confirmed the existence of Zn, Si, and O elements within the prepared films. Using a UV–VIS spectrophotometer, the optical parameters such as transmittance, absorbance, refractive index, and reflectance were calculated. It should be noted that the transparency and refractive indices obtained from the measurements decrease with increasing Si concentration. The obtained optical bandgap values using transmittance spectra were determined to be 3.74 and 3.84 eV for the glass and PET substrates, respectively. An increase in the bandgap results demonstrates that the Si doping concentration is comparable to the pure ZnO thin films. The current versus voltage curves revealed the ohmic nature of the films. Subsequently, the development and fabrication of excellent transparent conducting electrodes enabled the appropriate use of Si-doped ZnO thin films.


Many countries are conducting studies to find appropriate medication, but until now there is no specific drug that can cure COVID-19. When the research had not reached its final conclusion, there were many promotion of drugs that were claimed to specifically cure the Corona virus. Excessive claims without referring to credible study findings would spread misinformation in the community and have the potential to hinder efforts to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.The purpose of this community service is to increase public knowledge through educational efforts about excessive drug claims, especially for COVID-19 patients who are being quarantined in the COVID-19 Tourism Ambassador Program at Almadera Hotel Makassar. Partners in this community service are the Task Force for the Acceleration of Handling COVID-19 in South Sulawesi Province. The methods used were lectures, discussions and questions and answers. Most of the participants had received misinformation regarding drugs that can prevent and cure COVID-19. Participants are expected to be more selective in receiving information, especially regarding excessive claims of the benefits of a drug in curing or preventing the Corona virus. In addition to counseling, the PKM team provided assistance in the form of a New Normal Starter Kit (Soap, Handbags, Masks, Vitamins) to the participants. The public should increase awareness by always ensuring that medicinal products in circulation are standardized and fit for consumption by using the BPOM Check KLIK application.


Hugo Bedau gives a clear and well-reasoned argument against the death penalty, based on the premise that the state ought to use the least harsh or intrusive means needed to ensure public safety. I share Bedau's feeling against the death penalty. But Bedau's argument puts most of its eggs in a consequentialist basket: the idea that punishment is justified only to deter crime (and to incapacitate criminals so long as they are dangerous). It seems to me that sufficiency-for-deterrence, on which Bedau concentrates, is uncertain, and hence problematic as a criterion for endorsing or opposing any particular punishment. Furthermore, Bedau, at least at some moments, seems to reject all retributive criminal justice, not just capital retribution. When he writes that punishment may be a necessary condition of social safety but is not an end-in-itself, Bedau unnecessarily dismisses Kantian and other non-consequentialist theories of punishment. These theories hold that doing justice is a socially and morally valid end, quite apart from, or at least in addition to, advancing public welfare or safety. Opponents of the death penalty need not reject deontological ideas about criminal justice. This may be just as well, since a more or less deontological view of punishment is probably held, no doubt side by side with consequentialist ideas, by many if not most citizens, who would have to be persuaded in order for the death penalty to be abolished. (1) I Retribution Bedau's argument against retributivism, or at least against capital retributivism, is this: We cannot or do not "retaliate" in literal kind for most crimes--how would you "retaliate" for rape or fraud or assault?--and therefore it is unprincipled to say we ought to retaliate in kind for murder. Bedau accepts that "the graver the crime the greater the punishment deserved," (2) but that idea does not provide a tariff for what the punishment should be for murder or for any particular crime, only that the graver crime should be punished more gravely than the less grave. This is a familiar truth about punishments. Logic as such lays down no table of sentences. Hence the Mikado's object all sublime--the sublime being always just out of reach--he only hoped to achieve in time, to let the punishment fit the crime, the punishment fit the crime. This argument, at least standing alone, suggests not only that any particular punishment is arbitrary, but that a $100 fine for murder would be proportionate as long as it was the stiffest punishment on the books and rape was punished by an $80 fine, and so forth. (3) I think Bedau would agree and would say that this is why we need to consider consequences--deterrence, public safety--and not retribution. In fact, Bedau says that if we could develop a response to crime that was less invasive than punishment and that was sufficient for public safety, then it would be difficult and perhaps impossible to justify punishment of any sort as a morally permissible practice. (4) Various forms of behavior modification, psychological conditioning, and perhaps electronic surveillance are the alternatives to punishment that come to mind. They seem unsatisfactory to many people, perhaps to most, precisely because these techniques do not punish and therefore do not respect the autonomy and moral responsibility of the offender. It is a root idea of justice that crime should be punished--that the world is out of joint when evildoers escape with impunity. (5) Of course, there can be retributive, non-instrumental punishment short of death. It might be well to recognize the widespread intuition, shared by opponents as well as supporters of the death penalty, that grave crimes deserve serious punishment, quite apart from whether the punishment is a useful instrument of safety or social welfare. (6) Bedau himself tacitly accepts retributivism when he insists that punishment should apply only to the guilty. …


Geophysical modelling and data inversion are important tools for interpreting the physical properties of Earth's subsurface. Solving the inverse problem involves several computational steps and is generally a time consuming task. Artificial neural networks have the potential to speed up large computations. Such networks provide the means to model the relationship between the inputs and outputs without needing to know the physical model of the underlying problem. There are two main aspects that affect the performance of neural networks: optimization of network architecture and pre-processing of data. In this article, we investigate several traditional pre-processing techniques including the min-max scaling, z-score scaling, and the logarithmic transform scaling, and propose some novel data pre-processing approaches for the 1-D forward modelling of time-domain electromagnetic data based on signal characteristics. We evaluate the performance of the conventional and the proposed pre-processing methods against a 3% relative error metric, which corresponds to the typical data uncertainty, to show that forward data pre-processing has significant effect on the performance of neural networks. The proposed gate-wise min-max scaling achieves the best performance with 96% of gates within a 3% relative error, while the commonly used logarithmic transform results only in 75% of gates within a 3% relative error. We provide insights into how various pre-processing methods affect the performance of these networks and recommend optimal pre-processing strategies that may be used where similar data content is encountered to achieve superior performance. Finally, we show the effect of forward modelling accuracy in inverse modelling.


The study of the road traffic accidents on selected highways and town/village roads of Sabarkantha district, Gujarat was conducted for the period of one year (from January 2002 to December 2002), during this period, total 512 event of road traffic accidents were recorded in the district, It is observed that the Pedestrian accident (37.78%) dominates overall the other types of accidents. Among the 193 events of Pedestrian accident, 158(81.87%) were non-fatal and 35(18.13%) fatal. The maximum number of events (62.69%) took place during daytime and 37.31% of events took place during dark hours. Analysis also shows that highest number of events (35.23%) took place on town/village roads.


Abstract Container-grown nursery crops in the southeastern United States are typically grown in a rooting substrate comprised primarily of the ground bark of pine trees. However, pine bark is becoming less available and more costly because of changes in production and marketing practices within southeastern pine forestry. This shortage has resulted in the economic incentive to seek pine bark alternatives. Two possible alternatives are clean chip residual and whole tree. These alternatives are like pine bark, because both are products of southern pine forestry. Unlike pine bark, which is a single part of the tree, these alternatives contain all parts of the tree, including wood and foliage in various portions. Registration of preemergence-active herbicides has been based solely upon data obtained from pine bark–based nursery production. Research was conducted to determine if the control of (1) large crabgrass with prodiamine, (2) eclipta with flumioxazin, and (3) spotted spurge with isoxaben would be comparable in these alternatives to what has been established in pine bark. Seed germination of all three weed species in no-herbicide controls was approximately 10% and equivalent between pine bark and the alternatives. Foliage fresh weight production of large crabgrass and spotted spurge was less in the alternatives compared to pine bark; eclipta was not affected. For all three weed species–herbicide combinations, weed control was nearly identical between pine bark and the alternative substrates, provided the herbicide had been applied at its registered rate. For all three herbicides, rates that are effective in pine bark substrates will be equally effective in the pine bark alternatives. Nomenclature: Flumioxazin; isoxaben; prodiamine; eclipta Eclipta alba (L.); large crabgrass Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop.; spotted spurge Chamaesyce maculata (L.) Small.


This paper studies optimal contracts when managers manipulate their performance measure at the expense of firm value. Optimal contracts defer compensation. The manager's incentives vest over time at an increasing rate, and compensation becomes very sensitive to short‐term performance. This generates an endogenous horizon problem whereby managers intensify performance manipulation in their final years in office. Contracts are designed to encourage effort while minimizing the adverse effects of manipulation. We characterize the optimal mix of short‐ and long‐term compensation along the manager's tenure, the optimal vesting period of incentive pay, and the dynamics of short‐termism over the CEO's tenure.


The role of the facial images in arousal and attraction has been examined before but never via penile plethysmography (PPG). This retrospective chart review aimed to determine the significance and magnitude of differences in arousal measured by PPG in 1,000 men exposed to slide stimuli with or without facial blurring in subjects of various ages. Arousal in response to blurred stimuli was significantly higher than nonanonymized stimuli with modest effect sizes for slides across age and gender categories. Facial blurring increased differences in arousal between adults and adolescents with a modest effect size. Our findings support the use of facial blurring to further protect the anonymity of models and limit the ethical and legal challenges of using slide stimuli with child models.


The motion of vortices in an anisotropic superconductor is considered. For a system of well-separated vortices, each vortex is found to obey a law of motion analogous to the local induction approximation, in which velocity of the vortex depends upon the local curvature and orientation. A system of closely packed vortices is then considered, and a mean field model is formulated in which the individual vortex lines are replaced by a vortex density.


Groundwater flow through coarse blocky landforms contributes to streamflow in mountain watersheds, yet its role in the alpine hydrologic cycle has received relatively little attention. This study examines the internal structure and hydrogeological characteristics of an inactive rock glacier in the Canadian Rockies using geophysical imaging techniques, analysis of the discharge hydrograph of the spring draining the rock glacier, and chemical and stable isotopic compositions of source waters. The results show that the coarse blocky sediments forming the rock glacier allow the rapid infiltration of snowmelt and rain water to an unconfined aquifer above the bedrock surface. The water flowing through the aquifer is eventually routed via an internal channel parallel to the front of the rock glacier to a spring, which provides baseflow to a headwater stream designated as a critical habitat for an at‐risk cold‐water fish species. Discharge from the rock glacier spring contributes up to 50% of basin streamflow during summer baseflow periods and up to 100% of basin streamflow over winter, despite draining less than 20% of the watershed area. The rock glacier contains patches of ground ice even though it may have been inactive for thousands of years, suggesting the resiliency of the ground thermal regime under a warming climate.