The tax system may have welfare costs associated with the regional allocation of resources. Nominal income taxation distorts incentives to the disadvantage of high-cost regions. The incentive problem can be addressed by real income taxation internalizing cost of living differences. Our contribution is to expand the handling of regional allocation by including amenities in a broader horizontal equitable taxation. Good amenities and high quality of life allow for lower wages in migration equilibrium and may distort the resource allocation to the disadvantage of low amenity regions. We use a large dataset of individual wages and housing prices to identify regional wage and price differences. The regional resource allocation is analyzed in a calibrated migration equilibrium model of a representative household capturing the basics of the Norwegian income tax system. Tax reform handling the two types of distortions has important and opposite quantitative effects for the resource allocation across regions when amenities and cost of living are positively correlated as in the Norwegian data.


Classical planners presuppose complete and correct information about the world. This paper provides the syntax and semantics for uwl, a representation for goals and actions that facilitates planning with incomplete information about the world's state. While the expressive power of uwl is limited compared to previous work on logics of knowledge and belief, uwl has the advantage of being easily incorporated into planning algorithms. We describe a provably correct planning algorithm based on uwl. To demonstrate uwl's expressive power we encode a subset of the UNIX domain (planning to achieve UNIX goals, using UNIX shell commands as primitive actions), which is di cult to capture using existing planning languages. Authors' names are listed alphabetically within two status-oriented equivalence classes. Our research was funded in part by National Science Foundation Grants IRI-8957302 and IRI{9008670, O ce of Naval Research Grants 92-J-1946, 90-J-1904, a NASA Graduate Student Researcher's Fellowship, an O ce of Naval Research Graduate Fellowship, and a grant from the Xerox corporation. We thank Ernie Davis, Mark Drummond, Keiji Kanazawa, Craig Knoblock, Leora Morgenstern, Alicia P erez, Rich Segal, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on previous drafts. 1UNIX is a trademark of AT&T Bell Labs.


Free-electron laser irradiation can superheat tissue water, driving thermal vapor bubbles confined by tissue matrix and leading to mechanical tissue failure (ablation). Acoustic transients propagating from an ablation cavity were recorded with a polarization quadrature, interferometric vibrometer. For 3.0 μm infrared irradiation, the shocklike transients with peak pressures in the megapascal range indicate amplification due to bubble collapse. In contrast, for 6.45 μm irradiation, elastic transients with peak pressures in the 0.1 MPa range indicate tissue failure during bubble growth.


ABSTRACT This paper presents a metaheuristic approach for the resource constrained elementary shortest path problem (). arises as pricing problem, when the vehicle routing problem is solved by branch-and-price algorithms. The availability of efficient metaheuristic and optimal solution approaches has contributed to the success of solution procedures based on column-generation. We focus on rollout strategies integrated with local search strategies. The scientific literature considers metaheuristics based on a tabu search procedure in order to price out columns. A comparative analysis between the proposed rollout approaches and the tabu search is conduced and the effectiveness of our proposed algorithms is tested. A comparison with exact solution approaches is also carried out in order to assess the behaviour of the implemented solution strategies in terms of both efficiency and solution quality.


Traffic congestion, local and global air pollution and noise pollution are some of the negative externalities generated by the increased use of private vehicles in many urban areas. Significant shifts of citizen's travel habits towards sustainable modes of transport encouraged by longor short-term policies are needed to address these externalities. One short-term solution is to enhance individuals' awareness of the environmental impact of their travel choices and to use behavioural change interventions to motivate urban travelers towards the use of environmentally friendly multimodal options. In this context, this paper concerns the implementation of two motivating behavioural change strategies, namely i) persuasive technologies in the form of persuasive messages and ii) financial and non-financial rewards, tailored for and integrated in a route planning mobile application, and investigates their effect on changing travelers' behavior towards green mobility.


We have developed a new method (least residual iterative spectral mixture analysis (LRISMA)) to semiquantitatively determine major rock‐forming minerals (feldspar, pyroxene, olivine, high‐silica phases, and quartz) with multispectral thermal infrared data. Sublibraries of minerals are generated from a master library of minerals based on prior knowledge to produce a suite of realistic mineral end‐member combinations to fit the target spectra. Mineral abundances that correspond to the least root‐mean‐square errors (best fit) generally agree best with previous petrographic studies of laboratory‐measured rock samples and thermal infrared hyperspectral analysis of materials on the surface of Mars, given the greatly reduced spectral range and resolution of Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) spectra. The accuracy and reproducibility of LRISMA is ~4–16% and ~5–20%, respectively, while the accuracy of petrographic and previous hyperspectral studies is ~5–15%. LRISMA can be applied to semiquantitatively refine the bulk surface mineralogy of small‐scale (~1 km2) geologic features with high‐quality THEMIS spectral data (high surface temperature: >260 K, low atmospheric opacity: total ice < 0.04 and total dust < 0.15) with the ultimate goal of better understanding regional geologic processes.


A number of surveys, including many student surveys, rely on vague quantifiers to measure behaviors important in evaluation. The ability of vague quantifiers to provide valid information, particularly compared to other measures of behaviors, has been questioned both within both survey research generally and educational research specifically. Still, there is a dearth of research on whether vague quantifiers or numeric responses perform better in regards to validity. This study examines measurement properties of frequency estimation questions through the assessment of predictive validity, which has also been shown to be important in examining measurement properties of competing question formats. Data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), a preeminent survey of university students, is analyzed, in which two psychometrically tested benchmark scales, active and collaborative learning and student-faculty interaction, are measured through both vague quantifier and numeric responses. Predictive validity is assessed through correlations and regression models relating both vague and numeric scales to grades in school and two education experience satisfaction measures. Results support the view that the predictive validity is higher for vague quantifier scales, and hence better measurement properties, compared to numeric responses. These results are discussed in light of other findings on measurement properties of vague quantifiers and numeric responses, suggesting that vague quantifiers may be a useful measurement tool for behavioral data, particularly when it is the relationship between variables that are of interest.


We have found experimentally that the exciton oscillator strength decreases dramatically with increase of the QW width in a GaN/Al0.07Ga0.93N system. The collapse of the oscillator strength is a manifestation of the polarisation field effect, as confirmed by our variational calculation. We find that only excitons in very thin quantum wells have an oscillator strength exceeding that of the exciton in bulk GaN.


Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people in law enforcement face pervasive discrimination. The new report updates a 2009 report on discrimination in public employment, which found that over 40 percent of the reported cases of discrimination occurred against law enforcement and corrections department personnel. This updated report reviews evidence of discrimination against 95 law enforcement and corrections employees since 2000. Key findings include: • The discrimination encountered often went beyond firing or demotion and included severe verbal harassment and sexual harassment, including a death threat, discriminatory slurs, indecent exposure and inappropriate touching. • Many of the reports revealed physical harassment or violence towards the officers. These included reports of being slammed into a concrete wall, attacked with a chair, and repeated reports of officers being refused back-up, placing their personal safety in danger. • Over two-thirds of LGBT law enforcement officers in a 2009 study reported hearing homophobic comments on the job and over half reported being treated like an outsider by their colleagues. • A recent survey of 60 members of TCOPS, an organization for transgender law enforcement officers, found that over 90% reported negative experiences with their departments. • Surveys on non-LGBT officers also document high rates of discriminatory attitudes. For example, a 2008 study found that of surveyed police chiefs in Texas over one in four "indicated that they would have difficulty working with a gay man," and approximately 50% would have difficulty working with a lesbian officer.


WiMax system, which is defined by the IEEE 802.16 standard, also called broadband wireless metropolitan area network, supports real time and non-real time services. It has not defined the packet-scheduling algorithms, which was need for the requirement of quality of service (QoS) supporting for real-time services. Generally, the service station (SS) requests for bandwidth from the base station (BS), The BS then allocates the bandwidth to SS according to priority-based request. In this paper we propose a novel bandwidth scheduling algorithm for real time polling services (rtPS), the SS estimate the arrival of rtPS packets prior to the arrival and requests the BS for bandwidth in advance, based on the SS's request and the indeed bandwidth request by past. The analytical model and simulation show that, this adaptive algorithm provided better results with respect to the number of packets waiting at SS and average delay as compared to the widely accepted weighted scheduling algorithm and Mukul 's adaptive bandwidth request mechanism.


Deep neural networks are becoming increasingly popular in Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Their capabilities of fusing multiple sensor inputs and extracting temporal relationships can enhance intelligence in a wide range of applications. However, one key problem is the missing of adaptation to heterogeneous on-device sensors. These low-end sensors on IoT devices possess different accuracies, granularities, and amounts of information, whose sensing qualities are heterogeneous and vary over time. The existing deep learning frameworks for IoT applications usually treat every sensor input equally over time or increase model capacity in an ad-hoc manner, lacking the ability to identify and exploit the sensor heterogeneities. In this work, we propose SADeepSense, a deep learning framework that can automatically balance the contributions of multiple sensor inputs over time by exploiting their sensing qualities. SADeepSense makes two key contributions. First, SADeepSense employs the self-attention mechanism to learn the correlations among different sensors over time with no additional supervision. The correlations are then applied to infer the sensing qualities and to reassign model concentrations in multiple sensors over time. Second, instead of directly learning the sensing qualities and contributions, SADeepSense generates the residual concentrations that are deviated from the equal contributions, which helps to stabilize the training process. We demonstrate the effectiveness of SADeepSense with two representative IoT sensing tasks: heterogeneous human activity recognition with motion sensors and gesture recognition with the wireless signal. SADeepSense consistently outperforms the state-of-the-art methods by a clear margin. In addition, we show that SADeepSense only imposes little additional resource-consumption burden on embedded devices compared to the corresponding state-of-the-art framework.


Abstract DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK) plays a critical role in the non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) repair pathway and the DNA damage response (DDR). DNA-PK has therefore been pursued for the development of anti-cancer therapeutics in combination with ionizing radiation (IR). We report the discovery of a new class of DNA-PK inhibitors that act via a novel mechanism of action, inhibition of the Ku–DNA interaction. We have developed a series of highly potent and specific Ku–DNA binding inhibitors (Ku-DBi's) that block the Ku–DNA interaction and inhibit DNA-PK kinase activity. Ku-DBi's directly interact with the Ku and inhibit in vitro NHEJ, cellular NHEJ, and potentiate the cellular activity of radiomimetic agents and IR. Analysis of Ku-null cells demonstrates that Ku-DBi's cellular activity is a direct result of Ku inhibition, as Ku-null cells are insensitive to Ku-DBi's. The utility of Ku-DBi's was also revealed in a CRISPR gene-editing model where we demonstrate that the efficiency of gene insertion events was increased in cells pre-treated with Ku-DBi's, consistent with inhibition of NHEJ and activation of homologous recombination to facilitate gene insertion. These data demonstrate the discovery and application of new series of compounds that modulate DNA repair pathways via a unique mechanism of action.


Convergent orogens are typically linear with laterally continuous, orogen-parallel folds and thrusts. Over the years, geoscience research has revealed evidence for important orthogonal/cross structures as well as lateral heterogeneity in deformation style, igneous activity, metamorphic grade, geomorphology, and seismic activity. To assess the occurrence, causal mechanisms, and implications of these lateral heterogeneities, a selection of convergent orogens, with different tectonic settings and history are reviewed. The Appalachians, the North American Cordillera, the Alps, the Himalayas, the Zagros, the Andes, and several other belts all exhibit a degree of lateral heterogeneity. Major factors driving the lateral heterogeneity and/or cross structures include the pre-existing deformational history of the cratonic blocks involved, lateral change in lithology of crustal rocks, variations in crustal/lithospheric rheologic properties, or changes in plate kinematics. The Appalachian orogenic front mimics the Iapetan rift margin. Pre-existing basement structures have control on preand syn-orogenic sedimentation, which subsequently impacts how an orogenic wedge evolves. A thicker sedimentary column generally evolves into a salient (as opposed to a recess), which is further enhanced by the presence of weak horizons as seen in the Zagros and the Cordillera. Lateral variation in sedimentary facies also creates changes in thrust-ramp geometry. During orogenic contraction, inherited basement structures can be preferentially reactivated based on their orientation. Several cross faults in the Himalayas spatially coincide with orogen-perpendicular, lower plate, basement structures. In a similar way, oceanic subducting plate physiography can also influence deformation in the overriding plate. Along-strike variations in subduction dynamics have been reflected in the Andean deformation. Orogenic extension in the Alps has been accompanied by a system of orogen-parallel strike slip faults and extensional cross faults. It is evident that lateral heterogeneities can form crucial control on the evolution of orogenic belts and can influence seismic rupture patterns, resource occurrence, and landslide-related natural hazards.


The Internet has made possible the access to thousands of freely available music tracks under the Creative Commons or Public Domain licenses. This number keeps growing on a yearly basis. In practical terms, it is extremely difficult to browse this huge music collection, because it is widely dispersed throughout multiple websites. The work presented on this paper addresses the problem of indexing this large collection of free music. This is a very relevant problem because currently there are no integrated database or index holding information about this music material. Indexing this content will allow, for instance, the development of music recommendation systems that will also work with noncommercial content. In this paper the authors present a system proposal that has been developed to tackle the available free music indexing problem and how this system can be integrated with other systems (such as music recommendation systems) to allow the end users to enjoy free and open music content.


This study examines the structure and redox properties of Glassy Carbon surfaces and their influence on other solution phase electrochemical processes. Cyclic voltammetric technique is employed for surface characterization and evaluation of kinetic parameters of electron transfer and chemical reactions.
Even a freshly cleaned Glassy Carbon (GC) surface contains surface functional groups that show redox behavior. In the anodic potential region the surface carbon atoms undergo partial oxidation. In faster sweep cyclic voltammetric experiments these transient carbon-oxygen functional groups are reduced back to carbon skeleton in the reverse sweep. At slow sweep rates the oxidized surface gets stablised which imparts electrocatalytic activity to GC. At extreme cathodic potentials hydrogen adsorption takes place on GC electrode. The voltammetric behavior of GC electrode surface in aqueous sulphuric acid, sodium sulphate, sodium hydroxide and sodium chloride media have been thoroughly investigated.
The effect of GC surface structure has a great influence on electron transfer reactions as shown by the study of Ferricyanide/Ferrocyanide redox system. Mild oxidation of GC surface at slow sweep rates and its subsequent reaction to a thin stable oxide layer leads to fast charge-transfer kinetics for this reaction. Based on these studies proper pre-treatment procedures for GC electrodes for various pH regions have been evolved. The supporting electrolyte anions (chloride, sulphate, hydroxide, phosphate oxalate and citrate) either catalyse (chloride) or block and inhibit (oxalate, citrate) the Ferrocyanide/Ferricyanide redox process.
Titanous/Titanic redox system forms complexes of varying stability with a number of complexing agents. Among them, the thiocyanate, phosphate, oxalate and citrate complexes show well defined redox properties on GC electrodes. For all these complexes the charge transfer rate however is lower on GC when compared to mercury. As we would be expected the electrode material has no influence on the solution phase redox reactions (reduction of hydroxylamine by titanous ions) associated with electron transfer at the electrode (reduction of titanic to titanous ions). In tri-sodium citrate medium, hydroxylamine is more easily reducible when compared to Titanic citrate and hence the former functions as the redox catalyst and the later functions as a substrate. This probably is the first observation of catalyst-substrate interchangeability depending on pH


Text Complexity Analysis is an useful task in Education. For example, it can help teachers select appropriate texts for their students according to their educational level. This task requires the analysis of several text features that people do mostly manually (e.g. syntactic complexity, words variety, etc.). In this paper, we present a tool useful for Complexity Analysis, called Coh-Metrix-Esp. This is the Spanish version of Coh-Metrix and is able to calculate 45 readability indices. We analyse how these indices behave in a corpus of "simple" and "complex" documents, and also use them as features in a complexity binary classifier for texts in Spanish. After some experiments with machine learning algorithms, we got 0.9 F-measure for a corpus that contains tales for kids and adults and 0.82 F-measure for a corpus with texts written for students of Spanish as a foreign language.


This collection of ten original studies covers a wide range of issues related to the regional distinctiveness of welfare provision in the South and the development of the larger federal welfare state. The studies examine New Deal and Great Society programs from the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps to Social Security and Medicare. In addition, they draw attention to such private-sector organizations as the Salvation Army and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Some studies look at the degree of federal responsiveness to, or actual engagement with, recipients of assistance. One such study examines the dynamics between the New Deal bureaucracy, poor women who worked in WPA-organized sewing rooms in Atlanta, and local political activists concerned about the women's working conditions. The power of race and racism to shape the delivery of social services in the region, as well as the strong connections between social welfare and civil rights, is a concern common to many studies. One study shows how linking the availability of federal Medicare funds to racial equality helped end segregation in southern hospitals. Other studies focus on topics ranging from the pioneering North Carolina Fund, a state program that shaped Great Society initiatives, to the public health nurses and home economists of the Farm Security Administration, to Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge's maneuverings against the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The New Deal and Beyond is filled with many new insights into initiating and maintaining social programs in the South, a region whose welfare history is key to understanding the larger story of the American welfare state.


The social capital literature documents a connection between social connection and economic outcomes of interest ranging from government quality to economic growth. Popular authors suggest that housing and architecture are important determinants of social connection. This paper examines the connection between housing structure and social connection. We find that residents of large apartment buildings are more likely to be socially connected with their neighbors, perhaps because the distance between neighbors is lower in apartment buildings. Apartment residents are less involved in local politics, presumably because they are less connected with the public infrastructure and space that surrounds them. Street crime (robbery, auto theft) is also more common around big apartment buildings and we believe that this also occurs because of there is less connection between people in apartments and the streets that surround them.


The primary objective of this study was to examine the associations of ethnicity, diet (calcium, protein, energy), and weight‐bearing activity with dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry (DXA)‐measured bone mass and hip axis length (HAL) in 423 Asians, blacks, Hispanics, and non‐Hispanic Caucasians, aged 9–25 years. Bone mass was expressed as bone mineral content (BMC), bone mineral density (BMD), and bone mineral apparent density (BMAD). The data were analyzed using multiple linear regression, after stratifying for gender and pubertal stage and adjusting for height and weight. With few exceptions, Asians and Hispanics had comparable bone mass to whites at all pubertal stages. Greater femoral neck BMAD in black than white females was observed at all pubertal stages. Black males displayed greater BMD and BMAD than white males at all sites in early puberty and at the femoral neck in maturity. Calcium was positively and protein negatively related to BMAD at the femoral neck in early pubertal females. Among males, calcium was negatively associated with whole body BMC and BMD and spine BMD and BMAD in midpuberty. Weight‐bearing activity was not associated with bone mass in females; in males, it was positively related only to femoral neck BMC in early puberty. There was an absence of evidence for ethnic differences in HAL among females. In males, we observed shorter HAL in mature Asians and blacks than whites. Neither diet nor activity was associated with HAL.


In biological and biomedical research motif finding tools are important in locating regulatory elements in DNA sequences. There are many such motif finding tools available, which often yield position weight matrices and significance indicators. These indicators, p-values and E-values, describe the likelihood that a motif alignment is generated by the background process, and the expected number of occurrences of the motif in the data set, respectively. The various tools often estimate these indicators differently, making them not directly comparable. One approach for comparing motifs from different tools, is computing the E-value as the product of the p-value and the number of possible alignments in the data set. In this paper we explore the combinatorics of the motif alignment models OOPS, ZOOPS, and ANR, and propose a generic algorithm for computing the number of possible combinations accurately. We also show that using the wrong alignment model can give E-values that significantly diverge from their true values. Keywords—Motif alignment, combinatorics, p-value, E-value, OOPS, ZOOPS, ANR.


Protein-bound uremic toxins (PBUTs) are predominantly excreted by renal tubular secretion and hardly removed by traditional hemodialysis (HD). Accumulation of PBUTs is proposed to contribute to the increased morbidity and mortality of patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). Preserved PBUT excretion in patients with residual kidney function (RKF) and/or increased PBUT clearance with improved dialysis techniques might improve the prognosis of patients with ESKD. The aims of this study are to explore determinants of PBUTs in HD patients, and investigate whether hemodiafiltration (HDF) lowers PBUT plasma concentrations, and whether PBUTs are related to the outcome. Predialysis total plasma concentrations of kynurenine, kynurenic acid, indoxyl sulfate, indole-3-acetic acid, p-cresyl sulfate, p-cresyl glucuronide, and hippuric acid were measured by UHPLC-MS at baseline and after 6 months of follow-up in the first 80 patients participating in the CONvective TRAnsport Study (CONTRAST), a randomized controlled trial that compared the effects of online HDF versus low-flux HD on all-cause mortality and new cardiovascular events. RKF was inversely related to kynurenic acid (p < 0.001), indoxyl sulfate (p = 0.001), indole-3-acetic acid (p = 0.024), p-cresyl glucuronide (p = 0.004) and hippuric acid (p < 0.001) plasma concentrations. Only indoxyl sulfate decreased by 8.0% (−15.3 to 34.6) in patients treated with HDF and increased by 11.9% (−15.4 to 31.9) in HD patients after 6 months of follow-up (HDF vs. HD: p = 0.045). No independent associations were found between PBUT plasma concentrations and either risk of all-cause mortality or new cardiovascular events. In summary, in the current population, RKF is an important determinant of PBUT plasma concentrations in HD patients. The addition of convective transport did not consistently decrease PBUT plasma concentrations and no relation was found between PBUTs and cardiovascular endpoints.


When looking at modern music club settings, especially in the area of electronic music, music is consumed in a unidirectional way – from DJ or producer to the audience – with little direct means to influence and participate. In this paper we challenge this phenomenon and aim for a new bond between the audience and the DJ through the creation of an interactive dance concept: Experio. Experio allows for multiple audience participants influencing the musical performance through dance, facilitated by a musical moderator using a tailored interface. This co-creation of electronic music on both novice and expert levels is a new participatory live performance approach, which is evaluated on the basis of thousands of visitors who interacted with Experio during several international exhibitions


Purpose of the research: to analyze bullying and harassment as antisocial behaviors in the sport sector through socio-economic aspects.Methods of the research. This article is prepared using the methods of analysis and synthesis of academic literature. The analysis of academic sources and the citation follows the chronology according to the publishing year of the source. The methods of comparison and analogy are also used, the authors' insights and generalizations are provided. Findings. Besides the direct social effect bullying and harassment may have an economic efect. Persons who have experienced harassment in the future will show poorer social skills, which will affect their ability to work. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.29.5.19973


Tape-lifting and swabbing are two methods commonly used for collecting biological samples in the United Kingdom and United States to investigate vehicle crimes. Determining the optimal collection method may lead to an increase in generating DNA profiles and crime-solving. The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of adhesive tape and the double-swab collection methods for investigating vehicle crimes with possible touch DNA samples. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the use of tape-lifts and swabs on spiked common vehicle fabric materials. The efficiency of recovery between the two collection methods was performed using qPCR. The results from the collection of fabric materials indicated tape-lifts outperformed swabbing on cloth and vinyl substrates, while swabbing resulted in comparable recovery on leather substrates. By optimizing sample collection techniques, we aim to aid not only investigations involving vehicles but also other crimes with touch DNA evidence present.


LoC-SERS Technique Toward Drug Quantification in Complex Matrices Kumulative Dissertation
Zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
doctor rerum naturalium (Dr. rer. nat.)

vorgelegt dem Rat der Chemisch-Geowissenschaftlichen Fakultat
der Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat Jena
M. Sc. Izabella Jolan Hidi
geboren am 27. Februar 1987 in Deva, Rumanien

Abstract

Detection and quantification of drugs in complex matrices challenged each analytical method at its moment of development and implementation. On one side, clinical samples, i.e. blood and urine, are routinely analyzed for diagnosis and treatment follow-up purposes. On the other side, monitoring the successful removal of pharmaceutically active compounds in waste and surface water is of high interest to overcome the occurrence of antibacterial resistance in the ecosystem.
 Among the newly developed analytical techniques, surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has high potential to be considered as an alternative analytical technique for the detection of clinically and environmentally relevant molecules in complex matrices. The biggest barrier for its application is the low reproducibility of measurements and automation. A solution that requires low-cost SERS substrates and offers reproducible and automated measurement conditions at the same time is represented by the droplet based lab-on-a-chip SERS (LoC-SERS) technique. This platform offers the advantage of highly precise controlled manipulation of nanoparticle and sample solution via computer controlled systems and a direct, on chip detection.
The aim of the present thesis was to assess the potential and limitations of the LoC-SERS technique to detect and quantify drugs in various complex matrices. As SERS active substrates, easy-to-prepare silver nanoparticles in a colloidal solution were employed and as sample clean-up procedure filtration and dilution with water was carried out. Urine samples originating from healthy volunteers and patients with urinary tract infection, as well as river water sample were included in the present study. Analytical performances, such as lower limit of detection (LOD), linear and dynamic range and measurement reproducibility, were tested for methotrexate, levofloxacin, nitroxoline and ciprofloxacin. Furthermore, the potential of the LoC-SERS platform for on-site applications is also demonstrated by replacing the bench-top Raman microscope by a portable one.


Background: Chile has one of the highest obesity rates in Latin America. However, the factors that could explain this high prevalence of obesity are unknown. Aim: To determine the main risk factors for the development of obesity in Chile. Material and methods: We included 1398 obese and 1478 normal weight participants of the National Health Survey 2009-2010. The risk factors considered were socioeconomic variables, diet, physical activity, comorbidities and general wellbeing. Results: The main factors associated with a higher risk of being obese were age, high salt consumption and high alcohol intake. Education, income and living in rural or urban zones were protective for women and risk factors for men. The probability of being obese increases in women that sleep less than seven hours per day or have a poor health. Sedentariness and lack of physical activity were risk factors among men. Conclusions: The identification of these risk factors may help to implement public health interventions to tackle obesity in Chile.


Many exercises are used to strengthen the glenohumeral muscles, but there have been limited studies to evaluate the exercises. Thus, the purpose of this study was to decide how the muscles responsible for humeral motion can best be exercised in a rehabilitation program for the throwing athlete. Dynamic, fine wire, intramuscular electromyography was carried out in 15 normal male volunteers performing 17 shoulder exercises derived from a shoulder rehabilitation program used by professional baseball clubs. The four rotator cuff muscles were studied, as well as other positioners of the humerus, including the pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi, and three portions of the deltoid. The electromyographic activity was synchronized with cinematography and averaged over 30 degrees arcs of motion. An exercise was considered to be a significant challenge for a muscle if it generated at least 50% of its predetermined maximum contraction over three consecutive arcs (i.e., a 90 degrees range). Four exercises were consistently found to be among the most challenging exercises for every muscle. These shoulder exercises consisted of 1) elevation in the scapular plane with thumbs down, 2) flexion, 3) horizontal abduction with arms externally rotated, and 4) press-up. This study documents that the minimum for an effective and succinct rehabilitation protocol for the glenohumeral muscles would include these exercises.


PURPOSE
To assess changes in body composition and monitor cognitive function, subjective well-being, and physiological stress, as measured by salivary hormones and markers of mucosal immunity, during an Antarctic expedition.

METHODS
A 36-y-old man (188.2 cm height, 94.5 kg body mass) took part in a world-record attempt. A total-body dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scan and measurement of 8 skinfolds and 5 girths were performed before and after the expedition. In addition, daily subjective data were recorded (sleep quality, total hours of sleep, energy levels, perceived exertion, mood, muscle soreness, and muscle/joint pain) along with distance covered and hours of physical activity per day. As a measure of cognitive function, the athlete completed a computerized battery of tasks (Axon Sports Cognitive Priming Application) every third morning. Saliva samples were collected before, during, and after the expedition to determine salivary cortisol (sCort), testosterone (sT), alpha amylase (sAA), and secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA).

RESULTS
The athlete lost 5.3 kg body mass and sum of 8 skinfolds decreased from 73 mm to 59 mm from preexpedition to postexpedition. Psychomotor speed declined over the course of the expedition. sT increased and sCort decreased throughout, and sAA and sIgA peaked toward the end of the expedition.

CONCLUSIONS
This case study provides novel data about the physiological and cognitive impact of an Antarctic expedition. The findings may inform strategies for future expeditions, allowing individuals undertaking expeditions of this nature to better prepare for success.


This paper presents a novel data mining framework for the exploration and extraction of actionable knowledge from data generated by electricity meters. Although a rich source of information for energy consumption analysis, electricity meters produce a voluminous, fast-paced, transient stream of data that conventional approaches are unable to address entirely. In order to overcome these issues, it is important for a data mining framework to incorporate functionality for interim summarization and incremental analysis using intelligent techniques. The proposed Incremental Summarization and Pattern Characterization (ISPC) framework demonstrates this capability. Stream data is structured in a data warehouse based on key dimensions enabling rapid interim summarization. Independently, the IPCL algorithm incrementally characterizes patterns in stream data and correlates these across time. Eventually, characterized patterns are consolidated with interim summarization to facilitate an overall analysis and prediction of energy consumption trends. Results of experiments conducted using the actual data from electricity meters confirm applicability of the ISPC framework.


A coral trout grouper is the fishery commodities to generate foreign exchange through exports, to date cultivation continued. The purpose is to obtain data and information on the dose of the right artificial feeding and can increase the survival rate of the optimum seed nursery in the juvenile coral trout in controlled tank. Research has been conducted at the hatchery and the Institute for Mariculture Reasearch and Development Gondol, Bali. Containers experiment is used is a fiber with a size of 1 m³ up to 12 containers. t est animals used were seeds of coral trout, Plectropomus leopardus with initial body length on average 3 cm with each treatment density of 100 fish/m³. Coral trout, Plectropomus leopardus seed kept in fibers. This type of feed given in the form of commercial pellet feed with a protein content of 48%, and additional food such as shrimp Mysid (jembret) for 10 days. The frequency of feeding 3 times a day (morning 8:00. local time, lunch 13:00 local time, and afternoon 17:00 local time). Treatment feeding attempted is the treatment of A = 5% dose of artificial feeding, B = 10% dose of artificial feeding, C = 15% dose of artificial feeding, and D = 20% dose of artificial feeding. The study used a completely randomized design with 4 treatments, each treatment was repeated 3 times. Data were analyzed by analysis of variance. If the variance is different then conducted a further test using the smallest real difference test (BNT). The results showed that significantly different (P <0.05) on survival, feed conversion, weight gain and body length of coral trout. The highest survival rate in treatment C = 15% dose artificial feeding is. = 90.83 ± 1.80%, followed by treatment D, B, and A.


This paper connects the emergence and flourishing of civil media with the global struggle for social justice. It situates civic media in the framework of emancipatory communication activism, defined as the realm of grassroots sociotechnical practices that challenge the dominant powers in the contemporary mediascape. It offers an historical perspective on the emergence and evolution of forms of civil media over time, from miners' radio stations in Latin America to present-day 'liberation technology' projects. It illuminates the micro-sociological processes that sustain civil media and the complex relations with their communities of reference. It articulates the connection between the micro and local dimension of civil media and the transnational perspective of mobilization and exchange around issues of media democracy, citizenship, and participation. Finally, it connects the global mobilization around civil media to contemporary challenges like surveillance, corporatization and the role of the industry in the post-Snowden area.


The disinfection of potable water has dramatically reduced the instances of Cholera and similar ailments within a population drawing upon that water source. There is however the possibility that Natural Organic Matter (NOM) can interact with the disinfection compounds to form Disinfection By-Products (DBP). One group of DBPs are Trihalomethanes (THMs) with several compounds of the group being suspected carcinogens. Within the UK the total concentration of all THMs within drinking water must not exceed 100µg/l.

At present water authorities take samples of the water supply and return them to a central laboratory for analysis. This provides an accurate test but one which can involve a long lead time in discovering a potential hazard to public health.

A Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometer (FAIMS) sensor may be ideally placed to perform in situ continuous monitoring at particular sites. As part of a PhD co-sponsored by The Open University and Owlstone Nanotech Plc an investigation is ongoing to discover how sensitive a FAIMS device is with respect to THMs and humidity when sampling. Initial results and the method of data processing, which involves peak fitting to evolving spectra are presented.


This essay raises that the problem of credit lacking is the major reason which hinders the development of electronic commerce in China through investigating the existing environment in our electronic commerce. The credit problem of electronic commerce is showed in three aspects: the reliability of information flow, security of currency payment and the reliability of service and commodity delivery. From the practical environment of the Chinese cultural moral tradition , the planned economy transferring to the market economy and the analysis of the electronic commerce in social environmental system in which the China's government changes its duty, there are six key system factors will influence the credit environments: technological standardization, laws and regulations, cultural morality, property right institution, government , and information delivery and open scheme. This essay Sets up two models of structure model and dynamic model for electrical commercial credit system analysis. The focus is to discuss the effect of this system factors' relationship among laws and regulations, credit cultural morality's influence on electronic commerce, property rights institution and the functions government takes a role in setting up the credit system.


A number of people have been studying methods for realizing autonomous robots with the capability of perception-planning-execution in a real world. In most system, the computer directs attention serially to each feature in the environment by moving a couple of cameras as human eye balls. We, however, consider it is much easier to build the robot vision with an architecture different from the human's. The robot vision often needs to simultaneously execute different tasks using different eye motions. If the robot navigates in a real urban environment, it follows the road, finds moving obstacles and traffic signs, and views and memorizes interesting patterns along the route. We, humans, execute these tasks by moving our gaze and changing our attention, however the robot could accomplish these tasks by cooperation of independent agents with their own eyes and computing power. We built a system with 4 cameras moving independently each other. Each agent analyzes the image data and controls the eye motion, such as fixation to a moving target, fixation to a static target for vision-guided navigation, or monitoring a wide area to find obstacles. The perceptual zoom is, thus, placed upon multiple different agents and the information provided by the agents is integrated to determine the robot action.


Chaetognaths are elongated, slender, silindirical shaped and bileterally simetrical mostly zooplanktonic organisms. Their length change between 2 and 100 mm. Their bodies are consisted of three segments: head, trunk and tail. They have gasping spines and tooth on each sides of the head, there is a pair of eyes in the dorsal part of the head and corona cilliata streching onto the trunk part. There are gut diverticule, collerette, ventral ganglion, ovarium, anterior fins and part of posterior fins in trunk. In the caudal area there is another part of posterior fins and a pair of seminal vesicles. These characters show difference among chaetognath species and they are also used to characterize the species. A few studies were done about chaetognaths of Turkey coast in the literature so this study is aimed to be a written source for the systematic investigation of chaetognaths.


The results from the current long-baseline neutrino oscillation
experiments are reviewed. These experiments are designed to measure the
remaining unknown neutrino oscillation parameters via the oscillation of
accelerator neutrinos over long distances.The performance of
these experiments and their results are described and discussed, giving
a precise picture of the current status of the measurements for the
neutrino mass ordering, the value of \Delta m^2_{32}Δm322,
the \theta_{23}θ23
and the lepton CP-violating phase, \delta_{CP}δCP.


Plasma membrane Ca2+ pumps (PMCA pumps) are Ca2+-Mg2+ ATPases that expel Ca2+ from the cytosol to extracellular space and are pivotal to cell survival and function. PMCA pumps are encoded by the genes PMCA1, -2, -3, and -4. Alternative splicing results in a large number of isoforms that differ in their kinetics and activation by calmodulin and protein kinases A and C. Expression by 4 genes and a multifactorial regulation provide redundancy to allow for animal survival despite genetic defects. Heterozygous mice with ablation of any of the PMCA genes survive and only the homozygous mice with PMCA1 ablation are embryolethal. Some PMCA isoforms may also be involved in other cell functions. Biochemical and biophysical studies of PMCA pumps have been limited by their low levels of expression. Delineation of the exact physiological roles of PMCA pumps has been difficult since most cells also express sarco/endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ pumps and a Na+-Ca2+-exchanger, both of which can lower cytosolic Ca2+. A major limitation in the field has been the lack of specific inhibitors of PMCA pumps. More recently, a class of inhibitors named caloxins have emerged, and these may aid in delineating the roles of PMCA pumps.


This paper summarizes the experimental and simulation results in our studies of buried wireless sensor networks (B-WSN). The goal is to choose the suitable Industrial Scientific Medical Band (ISM) frequency which can be applied in the underground environment and then to investigate the underground communication ability of wireless modules based on the chosen frequency. As a key factor in point to point radio communication in WSN, the RF path loss in soil was evaluated and the results show that the attenuation significantly increases with high operating frequency. The penetration depth versus dielectric constant with various operation frequencies was also studied in this research. The simulation result shows that the penetration depth decreases with high moisture content and high operation frequency. Simulations indicate that the operation frequency in Sub-GHz range can acquire higher penetration depth and lower path loss compared to other high operation frequencies such as 2.4 GHz. The experimental results indicate that RSSI is significantly negatively related to the depth of filled soil. The results indicate that the maximal above ground horizontal transmission distance is 1.5m when the node was buried 1.3m underground


The CD38 cell surface receptor is a potent activator for splenic, B lymphocytes. The molecular mechanisms regulating this response, however, remain incompletely characterized. Activation of the nonreceptor tyrosine kinase, Btk, is essential for CD38 downstream signaling function. The major Btk-dependent substrate in B cells, phospholipase C- (cid:1) 2 (PLC- (cid:1) 2), functions to generate the key secondary messengers, inositol-1,4,5 trisphosphate and diacylglycerol. Surprisingly, CD38 ligation results in no detectable increase in phosphoinositide metabolism and only a minimal increase in cytosolic calcium. We hypothesized that Btk functioned independently of PLC- (cid:1) 2 in the CD38 signaling pathway. Accordingly, we demonstrate that CD38 cross-linking does not result in the functional phosphorylation of PLC- (cid:1) 2 nor an increase in inositol-1,4,5 trisphosphate production. Furthermore, splenic B cells exhibit a normal CD38-mediated, proliferative response in the presence of the phosphoinositide-PLC inhibitor, U73122. Conversely, protein kinase C (PKC) (cid:2) -deficient mice, or PKC inhibitors, indicated the requirement for diacylglycerol-dependent PKC isoforms in this pathway. Loss of PKC activity blocked CD38-dependent, B cell proliferation, NF- (cid:3) B activation, and subsequent expression of cyclin-D2. These results suggested that an alternate diacylglycerol-producing phospholipase must participate in CD38 signaling. Consistent with this idea, CD38 increased the enzymatic activity of the phosphatidylcholine (PC)-metabolizing enzymes, PC-PLC and phospholipase D. The PC-PLC inhibitor, D609, completely blocked CD38-dependent B cell proliferation, I (cid:3) B- (cid:4) degradation, and cyclin-D2 expression. Analysis of Btk mutant B cells demonstrated a partial requirement for Btk in the activation of both enzymes. Taken together, these data demonstrate that CD38 initiates a novel signaling cascade leading to Btk-, PC-PLC-, and phospholipase D-dependent, PLC- (cid:1) 2-independent, B lymphocyte activation. The Journal of Immunology, 2005, 174: 2687–2695.


Abstract. In Taiwan, numerous existing traditional buildings are constructed with wooden structures, brick structures, and stone structures. This paper will focus on the Taiwan traditional historic architecture and target the traditional wooden structure buildings as the design proposition and process the BIM workflow for modeling complex wooden combination geometry, integrating with more traditional 2D documents and for visualizing repair construction assumptions within the 3D model representation. The goal of this article is to explore the current problems to overcome in wooden historic building conservation, and introduce the BIM technology in the case of conserving, documenting, managing, and creating full engineering drawings and information for effectively support historic conservation. Although BIM is mostly oriented to current construction praxis, there have been some attempts to investigate its applicability in historic conservation projects. This article also illustrates the importance and advantages of using BIM workflow in repair construction process, when comparing with generic workflow.


A LINC transmitter provides linear amplification while employing two nonlinear high-efficiency power amplifiers. This work proposes a LINC architecture where the two constant-envelope components of the signal are separated in the baseband analog domain. The signal component separator can achieve a power consumption which is significantly lower than conventional digital implementations. A signal component separator for 64-QAM 802.11a/g Wireless LANs is implemented in a 0.25- mum CMOS process, the circuit occupies less than 0.1 and consumes 45 mW from the 2.5-V supply. The measured EVM, ACPR, and alternate-ACPR of the recombined signal components are , and , respectively.


A popular approach within the signal processing and machine learning communities consists in modeling signals as sparse linear combinations of atoms selected from a learned dictionary. While this paradigm has led to numerous empirical successes in various fields ranging from image to audio processing, there have only been a few theoretical arguments supporting these evidences. In particular, sparse coding, or sparse dictionary learning, relies on a non-convex procedure whose local minima have not been fully analyzed yet. In this paper, we consider a probabilistic model of sparse signals, and show that, with high probability, sparse coding admits a local minimum around the reference dictionary generating the signals. This paper considers the case of over-complete dictionaries, noisy signals, and possible outliers, thus extending the previous work limited to noiseless settings and/or undercomplete dictionaries. The analysis we conduct is non-asymptotic and makes it possible to understand how the key quantities of the problem, such as the coherence or the level of noise, can scale with respect to the dimension of the signals, the number of atoms, the sparsity, and the number of observations.


In this study, the simultaneous use of a multi-level converter (MLC) as a DC-motor drive and as an active battery cell balancer is investigated. MLCs allow each battery cell in a battery pack to be independently switched on and off, thereby enabling the potential non-uniform use of battery cells. By exploiting this property and the brake regeneration phases in the drive cycle, MLCs can balance both the state of charge (SoC) and temperature differences between cells, which are two known causes of battery wear, even without reciprocating the coolant flow inside the pack. The optimal control policy (OP) that considers both battery pack temperature and SoC dynamics is studied in detail based on the assumption that information on the state of each cell, the schedule of reciprocating air flow and the future driving profile are perfectly known. Results show that OP provides significant reductions in temperature and in SoC deviations compared with the uniform use of all cells even with uni-directional coolant flow. Thus, reciprocating coolant flow is a redundant function for a MLC-based cell balancer. A specific contribution of this paper is the derivation of a state-space electro-thermal model of a battery submodule for both uni-directional and reciprocating coolant flows under the switching action of MLC, resulting in OP being derived by the solution of a convex optimization problem.


In August 2009, we compared the trophic spectrum of syntopic Bombina variegata and Rana temporaria populations from the Bratia Valley in the Iezer Mountains. The separation of the trophic niche observed between the juveniles and the adults of R. temporaria is caused by the differences in size between them, differences that influence their jump. The main consumed prey taxa by Rana temporaria is represented by Arahnida, Gastropoda and Hymenoptera. Furthermore, the differences between the sizes of their mouths separate the trophic niche between the two species. Our results indicate a trophic selectiveness for B. variegata, which prefers ants. Despite the fact that the two species share the same habitat, the ants were consumed mostly by B. variegata. This is probably a consequence of the fact that B. variegata is a poisonous species, the toxins being able to originate from their preys – as are ants as well. The lack of competition for the two species indicates a rich trophic offer, enough to satisfy the energy needs of both species in contact in a


The growth of non‐standard or atypical forms of employment, such as part‐time, casual work and so on, represents one of the most dramatic changes in the structure of employment in Australia and other countries since the late 1970s. Management employment strategies have been identified as a major causal factor in the expansion of non‐standard employment. Employers are increasingly using these atypical forms of employment as a means of lowering direct labour costs. Argues, however, that there are a number of hidden costs involved in using non‐standard employment that are not commonly taken into consideration. Highlights the negative effects atypical employment can have on work relations, and the motivation of employees, based on a detailed hospital case study and other evidence. Argues that atypical labour may serve to undermine quality standards and the attainment of business strategies.


Isotretinoin is an effective therapy for severe nodulocystic acne. Several experimental studies suggest that it may have an effect on vitamin D physiology. In the present study, the authors aimed to investigate the effect of isotretinoin treatment on the metabolism of vitamin D in acne patients. A prospective analysis of 50 consecutive acne patients who were treated with isotretinoin for 3 months was done. Before and after 3 months of treatment, 25 hydroxy vitamin D, 1,25 dihydroxy vitamin D, and bone alkaline phosphatase, calcium, phosphate, and parathormone levels were measured. The 25 hydroxy vitamin D and serum calcium levels decreased significantly (p < 0.0001, p < 0.05, respectively), whereas 1,25 dihydroxy vitamin D, parathormone, and bone alkaline phosphatase levels increased significantly after 3 months of isotretinoin treatment (p < 0.005, p < 0.005, p < 0.0001, respectively). Aspartate aminotransferase, total cholesterol, low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglyceride levels also increased significantly after isotretinoin treatment. This prospective clinical study showed that isotretinoin has an effect on vitamin D metabolism. Further clinical studies with longer periods of follow‐up are needed to understand the effect of isotretinoin on vitamin D and bone metabolism.


by the erection of the temple, and at this point in time the votives more nearly correspond to those from other sanctuaries to Demeter. One notable contribution in this respect is the evidence of the animal bones, which in this period proved to belong overwhelmingly to the pig, confirming that the sacrifice of pigs to the goddess was the common practice here. Unusual votives to Demeter, however, are the silver lunule pendants, which Coldstream and Higgins suggest might have been originally intended for Britomartis. They also suggest that the miniature vessels, by this period far more prolific at Knossos, may have been used in much the same way as the kernoi of Eleusis—an attractive suggestion in view both of the excessively large number of vessels involved, and the absence of any true kernoi from the deposits. Furthermore the use of kernoi can be traced back, in Crete, at least to the Early Bronze Age so that again the question of origins and continuity arises. There is only one criticism to be levelled at the report, and that is the obvious one—its cost. Some of the material has been published in much greater detail than its importance merited, and for this the author must be held partly responsible. But the chief responsibility for the price of the volume must be the publishers'; even with today's inflated prices, it is difficult to see how a price of £16 for 191 pages of text and 100 plates can be justified.


Objectives—To evaluate injury rates, patterns, and risk factors in 4916 Ontario farm children aged 0–18 years. Setting—1765 full time family operated Ontario farms with a husband-wife couple where the wife was of reproductive age. Methods—Injury details were obtained from mothers, while parents and farm operators provided risk factor information retrospectively in a population based mail survey. Rates were calculated based on injury occurrence and person years at risk in different age groups. Descriptive analyses used cross tabulations of injury details by age, sex, and season. Injury risk factors were assessed using multiple logistic regression. Results—Age specific injury rates ranged from 6.3–22.6 per thousand person years, peaking in 1–4 year olds. Although consistently higher for boys, both sexes showed similar trends in age specific rates. Rates likely represent underestimates due to diminished recall of past events. Open wounds to the head/face region were the most prevalent type of injury (17.1%) followed by fractures/dislocations to the upper extremities (14.9%). Mechanism differed by age group, though falls and machinery consistently ranked in the top three. Occurrence peaked in summer. Regression analyses indicated child's sex and parental education were associated with injury risk across age categories. Other risk factors, such as numbers of livestock, parental owner/operator status, and mother's off-site employment, differed between ages. Conclusions—Patterns and risk factors for injuries to farm children are heterogenous across age categories. Observed age differences are useful for targeting prevention initiatives.


Cdc45p, a protein essential for initiation of DNA replication, associates with chromatin after "start" in late G1 and during the S phase of the cell cycle. Binding of Cdc45p to chromatin depends on Clb-Cdc28 kinase activity as well as functional Cdc6p and Mcm2p, which suggests that Cdc45p associates with the prereplication complex after activation of S-phase cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs). As indicated by the timing and the CDK dependence, binding of Cdc45p to chromatin is crucial for commitment to initiation of DNA replication. During S phase, Cdc45p physically interacts with minichromosome maintenance (MCM) proteins on chromatin; however, dissociation of Cdc45p from chromatin is slower than that of MCMs, which indicates that the proteins are released by different mechanisms.


Introduction:Premature delivery is the leading cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality. The early treatment and delaying of premature labor results in the increase in the survival of infant, improved quality of life and decrease in the cost of care of the premature neonate. In this study we have compared the safety, efficacy, side-effects and the cost of nifedipine and magnesium sulfate in treatment of preterm labor. Methods: In this clinical-trial study, 80 pregnant women experiencing preterm labor at 26-34 weeks of gestation who referred to obstetric clinic of Imam Reza and Ghaem hospitals were enrolled from 2007 to 2008.(regular uterine contractions with periods less than 10 minutes with effacement and dilatation that did not respond to bed rest, fluid therapy and pethidine)The patients received either oral nifedipine or intravenous magnesium sulfate. The efficacy and side effects related to nifedipine and magnesium sulfate were recorded. All data were analyzed by SPSS software, using t student, chi-squire and Fischer exact tests. Results: The response to tocolytic effects of the two drugs showed no significant difference within 48 hours and seven days of treatment (P=0.494), but the maternal side effects of nifedipine were significantly lower than the magnesium sulfate group (P=0.003).The mean cost of treatment was 13 times higher in the magnesium sulfate group than the nifedipine group and the difference was significant (P=0.001). Conclusion: According to our study, we can conclude that the oral nifedipine may be a suitable alternative to magnesium sulfate as a tocolytic due to its good efficacy, minimal side effects, low cost and easy route of administration in the prevention of progress of premature labor.


Author(s): Antonio, Anna Liza Malazarte | Advisor(s): Weiss, Robert E; Crespi, Catherine M | Abstract: In discrete choice experiments, patients are presented with sets of health states described by various attributes and asked to make choices from among them. Discrete choice experiments allow health care researchers to study the preferences of individual patients by eliciting trade-offs between different aspects of health-related quality of life. However, many discrete choice experiments yield data with incomplete ranking information and sparsity due to the limited number of choice sets presented to each patient, making it challenging to estimate patient preferences. Moreover, methods to identify outliers in discrete choice data are lacking. We develop a Bayesian hierarchical random effects rank-ordered multinomial logit model for discrete choice data. Missing ranks are accounted for by marginalizing over all possible permutations of unranked alternatives to estimate individual patient preferences, which are modeled as a function of patient covariates. We provide a Bayesian version of relative attribute importance, and adapt the use of the conditional predictive ordinate to identify outlying choice sets and outlying individuals with unusual preferences compared to the population. The model is applied to data from a study using a discrete choice experiment to estimate individual patient preferences for health states related to prostate cancer treatment.


River landscapes were largely used for energy generation. Along the 20th century, two forms have particularly marked creating new landscape archetypes : large dams and their reservoirs ; nuclear power plant and their cooling towers. The first should created "mirror lake", the second "cathedral of the 20th century", as conceived by the impact studies. Each time such equipment is built, some landscapes disappear, and others are constructed. These great works produce debates and conflicts taking part in the construction of landscapes. There are two processes : negatively, the mobilisation and the discourses "anti" bring a recognition of aesthetic and ecological values ignored. Positively, they create new forms and new practices that can bring lived landscapes. This contribution seeks to examine these dams and nuclear power plants impacts from an aesthetic of every day life in the Loire basin (Avril/Chouze-sur-Loire ; Grangent/Saint-Victor-sur-Loire) : landscape is understood in a social representation way ; and we have been interested in the lived dimension of river landscapes. In this way, one can show that these two energy landscapes are lived very differently : if the large dams (but in fact, especially their reservoir) break the relation between riparians and river ; it's not at all the case for riparians of nuclear power plant. How to understand it ? This contribution hypothesizes from the analysis of social representation : for example one can explain it starting from the expressions running waters, and dead waters ; or from the literary paradigms of the lake and the river. On the contrary, nuclear landscape, at a local scale, is lived like monuments, without affecting river landscape. But it interacts with the very heavy symbolic system of nuclear power, which affects the exogenous glance. The social acceptance of this large equipment requires to think about lived landscape scheme.


Augmented Reality (AR), defined as the holographic overlay of physical space with virtual objects in real time (Azuma, 1997), can be considered a prime example of mediatization. This development is particularly evident in the public space of the "mediatised city" (Hepp, Simon & Sowinska, 2018), being a focal point of the latest media technologies already overlaid with a multitude of AR content. But how does AR change the perception and meaning of urban space? And how can researchers capture methodically the appropriation of complex, large-scaled AR content experienced via high-tech AR glasses? To answer these questions, a historical building, that had been destroyed during the Second World War, was reconstructed as a holographic animation on a public city square. In order to resurrect this building in AR, old photographs, paintings and postcards were evaluated and used to create a virtual model in the original size and place it at its original location. The test subjects were then able to view the hologram from various different angles using AR glasses (Microsoft HoloLens 2), move freely around the square and even enter it. Combining quantitative, before-and-after questionnaires and qualitative thinking-aloud protocols, our results show that the holographic animation of a historical building can influence both the sensual-aesthetic perception and the personal meaning of a public square for city dwellers. Specifically, our test subjects perceived differences in its accessibility, coherence and aesthetics, simplicity, atmosphere and legibility. The meaning of the square was altered with regard to personal memories (= the self), typical groups of people (= others) and certain opportunities (= environment) associated with it by city dwellers.


INTRODUCTION Pelvic fractures are infrequent in pediatric patients; they account for 1% of hospital admissions. Acetabular fractures are still more infrequent, but when they are associated, they are life threatening. To distinguish pelvic fractures in children from those in adults, one first needs to know their anatomical differences. The magnitude of the trauma can usually cause injuries in other organs and systems, including the abdominal organs, the genitourinary system, vascular and nerve injuries, etc., as well as long bone, spinal and chest fractures. These injuries may be life threatening and must be treated before the pelvic fracture is addressed. OBJECTIVE To show the results obtained from the surgical treatment of Torode and Zieg type IV pelvic fractures. METHODS This is a retrospective, observational, longitudinal, descriptive study of 26 patients with Torode and Zieg type IV unstable pelvic fractures during a two-year period. RESULTS The age group 14-16 years was the most affected one, with 83.3% of the fractures, followed by the 12-14 years group with 8.33% and the group under this age with 8.33%. The most frequent mechanism of injury was trauma resulting from being run over, with 41.66%, car crash with 37.5%, and falls from a height with 20.83%; 37.5% of patients were polytraumatized and required intensive care; the mortality rate in the study was 7.69%. CONCLUSIONS According to the results and the patient assessment, we propose that unstable pelvic fractures be managed surgically. The mechanism of injury observed in these patients was not lateral compression, as the literature states, but rather a combined mechanism.


Introduction It is only natural for us to bring to our work the bias of our own ways of thinking, learning, and communicating. But unless we can adapt our communications to our audience, we will limit our audience to those who think as we do. The people we want to reach, however, include many for whom reading is not an important feature of everyday life. In fact, they prefer oral modes of communication. Many are non-readers who are more at home with oral communication methods. Research and experiments over the last two decades have shown that oral communicators learn best when these methods are used. In this paper 1 we will look at some of the principles that need to be understood and their implications for communicating God's Word.


Published as journal series article number 10967 of the University of Nebraska Agricultural Research Division. Summary: We evaluated the profitability of vaccinating sows against Escherichia coli using a partial budget analysis incorporated into a computer spreadsheet. Herd inputs intended to approximate the average swine operation were used to provide generalizable results. Vaccine efficacy was estimated using previous reports of reduced diarrhea morbidity and mortality in neonatal piglets associated with vaccination. Our results indicate that the average swine producer who does not currently vaccinate sows against E. coli could expect to generate $5.51 per sow in additional yearly profits by implementing a vaccination program. Losses attributable to piglet diarrhea would be reduced by nearly $10 per sow per year. Investment in a sow E. coli vaccination program is expected to result in a 124% return on investment. Sensitivity analysis found that these results were fairly insensitive to variations in vaccine efficacy, market value of pigs, vaccine cost, liveborn litter size, and diarrhea morbidity and mortality rates without vaccination. Threshold analysis suggests that herds with diarrhea morbidity and mortality rates in 1to 14day-old piglets of at least 3.5% and 0.8%, respectively, could expect returns adequate to justify investment. We therefore predict that E. coli vaccination of sows would be a cost-effective health management strategy for many United States swine producers.


Abstract The thermodynamic and transport properties of the aluminosilicate melts at the heart of most magmatic processes vary in complex ways with composition, temperature, and pressure. Insights into these properties can come from information on the structure of the melts themselves, and more commonly from their glassy, quenched equivalents. Although most such connections remain qualitative or semi-quantitative, they are fundamentally important in interpretation of observations on igneous systems in nature and the laboratory, and in the formulation of physically accurate models. This review presents some of the important concepts of aluminosilicate glass and melt structure and dynamics that are most relevant to furthering our understanding of the igneous processes so central to how our planet has formed and evolved. The relationships among glasses, melts, and crystals are introduced. The structural underpinnings of temperature and pressure effects on melt free energies, densities, and viscosities, constraints on the extent of order/disorder among cations and anions in melts, why silica activity varies so strongly with composition, and how liquid-liquid phase separation can be understood, are discussed. Some simple, but useful, general views are presented on melt disorder and the shapes of liquidus surfaces (key to magmatic phase equilibria), as are links between atomic-scale dynamics and viscous flow and diffusion.


Hardness of the pseudobinary transition metal aluminum nitride (T-Al-N) films is improved with increasing the AlN content as far as the B1structure is maintained. A drastic change in the compositional dependence of the hardness corresponds to the phase change of the pseudobinary nitride from B1(NaCl) to B4(wurtzite) structure. Predicted value of AlN content for the drastic change agrees with the AlN content determined experimentally. Hardness of various T-Al-N films was closely correlated with the bulk modulus calculated from interatomic distance based on the power functional formula. The improvement of hardness is attributed to the inherent increase of bulk modulus due to dissolution of AlN into transition metal nitride.


Video streaming is one of the most important applications that will make use of the high data rates offered by 4G networks. The current video transport techniques are already very advanced, and the more immediate problems lie in the joint optimization of video coding, AL-FEC, and PHY rate selection with the goal of enhancing the user perceived quality. In this work we provide an analysis of video broadcast streaming services for different combinations of layered coding and AL-FEC, using a realistic LTE PHY layer. Our simulation results show that the scalable content adaptation given by Scalable Video Coding (SVC) and the scheduling flexibility offered by the 3G-LTE MAC-layer provide a good match for enhanced video broadcast services for next generation cellular networks. Our proposed solution is compared to baseline algorithms and broadcast systems based on H.264/AVC streaming solutions. We emphasize the system quality improvement brought by our solution and discuss implications for a wide-scale practical deployment.


Associations between dry matter yield (DM), 120 powdery mildew epidemics, six climatic variables, and resistance index were assessed during three growing seasons in 40 sainfoin accessions. In contrast to a two-year greenhouse study, powdery mildew developed on all sainfoin accessions in field experiments. During three growing seasons, plant reactions to powdery mildew varied by accession and study year. Only one accession, Oshnavieh, was rated tolerant to powdery mildew. According to contingency and correspondence analyses, high DM yield in sainfoin crops corresponded to 17-23 days with average relative humidity (RH) below 50%, 13 days with maximum temperatures above 25°C, 4-7 days with average temperatures within 15-20°C and RH above 50%, powdery mildew severity lower than 40%, and 0-3 mm rainfalls during four weeks before disease assessments. Greater disease severity (>40%) was associated with lower DM yield levels (≤0.150 t/ha), fewer (12) days with average RH below 50%, 23-28 days with maximum temperatures above 25°C, no exposure to daily maximum temperatures above 35°C, 14 days with average temperatures within 15-20°C and RH above 50%, fewer (2-4) days with average temperatures within 20-25°C and RH below 50%, and total rainfall as high as 13 mm. Such field-scale epidemiological findings provide useful information to develop accurate predicting models for sainfoin powdery mildew.


Although developers of communication-support tools have certainly tried to create products that support group thinking, they usually do so without adequately accounting for social context, so that all too often these systems are jarring and even downright rude. In fact, most people would agree that today's communication technology seems to be at war with human society. Technology must account for this by recognizing that communication is always socially situated and that discussions are not just words but part of a larger social dialogue. This web of social interaction forms a sort of collective intelligence; it is the unspoken shared understanding that enforces the dominance hierarchy and passes judgment about it. We have found nonlinguistic social signals to be particularly powerful for analyzing and predicting human behavior, sometimes exceeding even expert human capabilities. Psychologists have firmly established that social signals are a powerful determinant of human behavior and speculate that they might have evolved as a way to establish hierarchy and group cohesion.


A study of on-farm tree/shrub species diversity, distribution and utilization by the local community of Asuret sub county, Soroti district was conducted from October 2008 to September 2009. The objectives were to (1) examine the diversity and distribution of tree/shrub species onfarm (2) identify tree/shrub species used and prioritized/preferred by the local communities; (3) assess the management and conservation of on-farm tree/shrub species and (4) assess the potential, opportunities and challenges of promoting on-farm tree/shrub species growing. To collect data, a structured questionnaire was administered to 60 randomly selected respondents to identify on-farm tree planting activities, management and utilization. Naturally growing spared/retained and/or planted tree/shrub species were identified, counted, and recorded from twenty four plots measuring 40 x 40 square meters established along transects on farmlands. Two transects were established in each parish hence, a total of six transects of 160 meters long were used. Data were entered in MS Excel and analyzed for tree/shrub species diversity and dominance. Weighted ranking was used to show the tree species preferred by farmers. On-farm tree/shrub diversity was relatively high with (H'=3.131 and J' = 0.800). Over 90% of the respondents retained/protected naturally regenerating tree/shrub species particularly Tamarindus indica, Vitellaira paradoxa, Ficus sycomorus, Acacia hockii, and Albizia zygia. On-farm tree/shrubs were spared/retained or planted to provide fruits, fuel wood, fodder, medicine and to enhance conservation of soil and water. The available opportunities included availability of land (38.3%), willingness and interest to plant trees (21.6%) time and labour (16.7%), extension services (NAADS) (10%) and willingness of farmers to learn and to be trained (5.0%). The major challenges identified by farmer households in managing and conserving tree/shrub species in the area included pests and diseases(05%), shortage of quality planting materials and tools (3.3%), limited land (3.3%), labour (3.3%) and poverty levels (3.3%)


Objective: to identify the degree of satisfaction of nurses with a training course for operationalization of protocol on pressure ulcers. Methods: a descriptive exploratory study made in a philanthropic hospital in the northeast of Brazil. An instrument on satisfaction was applied to 21 participant nurses of the course on pressure ulcer based on care protocol. Results: young adults predominated (23-33 years old), female (87.5%), with significant participation in events, courses and research activities (81.0%), and 19.0% of research publication. The overall rate of satisfaction with the course made at the workplace was 84.34%. Conclusion: when the fundaments of practice based on evidence were cleared, the rate of satisfaction of the professionals who participate in Permanent Education activities is high, which makes clinical protocol operationalization possible.


We propose a toolkit for creating Tangible Out-of-Body Experiences: exposing the inner states of users using physiological signals such as heart rate or brain activity. Tobe can take the form of a tangible avatar displaying live physiological readings to reflect on ourselves and others. Such a toolkit could be used by researchers and designers to create a multitude of potential tangible applications, including (but not limited to) educational tools about Science Technologies Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and cognitive science, medical applications or entertainment and social experiences with one or several users or Tobes involved. Through a co-design approach, we investigated how everyday people picture their physiology and we validated the acceptability of Tobe in a scientific museum. We also give a practical example where two users relax together, with insights on how Tobe helped them to synchronize their signals and share a moment.


Sterol-balance studies were performed in 10 control subjects, 10 normolipidemic obese patients, and 10 hypertriglyceridemic (type IV, mostly obese) patients on a low-cholesterol solid-food diet. Fecal elimination of cholesterol was markedly elevated in the overweight patients and tended to be high in the hypertriglyceridemic subjects also. A significant correlation was found between body weight and fecal excretion of neutral, acidic, and total steroids, indicating that the greater the body weight the higher was the rate of cholesterol synthesis. Sterol-balance data in obese subjects showed that excess daily cholesterol production roughly amounted to 20 mg/kg of adipose tissue. The control subjects produced only 12 mg/kg of body weight daily. Thus, obesity is associated with an increased rate of cholesterol synthesis in man. However, the correlation between serum cholesterol concentration and cholesterol production was low, suggesting that the overall rate of cholesterol synthesis was not the only factor determining the serum cholesterol level. That enhanced cholesterol production is not an irreversible phenomenon in obese subjects was indicated by the normalization of sterol-balance values in three overweight patients after their weights had been reduced by total fast followed by a low-calorie diet.


The COVID‐19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented challenge for the provision of critical care. Anticipating an unsustainable burden on the health service, the UK Government introduced numerous legislative measures culminating in the Coronavirus Act, which interfere with existing legislation and rights. However, the existing standards and legal frameworks relevant to critical care clinicians are not extinguished, but anticipated to adapt to a new context. This new context influences the standard of care that can be reasonably provided and yields many human rights considerations, for example, in the use of restraints, or the restrictions placed on patients and visitors under the Infection Prevention and Control guidance. The changing landscape has also highlighted previously unrecognised legal dilemmas. The perceived difficulties in the provision of personal protective equipment for employees pose a legal risk for Trusts and a regulatory risk for clinicians. The spectre of rationing critical care poses a number of legal issues. Notably, the flux between clinical decisions based on best interests towards decisions explicitly based on resource considerations should be underpinned by an authoritative public policy decision to preserve legitimacy and lawfulness. Such a policy should be medically coherent, legally robust and ethically justified. The current crisis poses numerous challenges for clinicians aspiring to remain faithful to medicolegal and human rights principles developed over many decades, especially when such principles could easily be dismissed. However, it is exactly at such times that these principles are needed the most and clinicians play a disproportionate role in safeguarding them for the most vulnerable.


We prove bounds for the number of solutions to$$a_1 + \dots + a_k = a_1' + \dots + a_k'$$ over $N$-element sets of reals, which are sufficiently convex or near-convex. A near-convex set will be the image of a set with small additive doubling under a convex function with sufficiently many strictly monotone derivatives. We show, roughly, that every time the number of terms in the equation is doubled, an additional saving of $1$ in the exponent of the trivial bound $N^{2k-1}$ is made, starting from the trivial case $k=1$. In the context of near-convex sets we also provide explicit dependencies on the additive doubling parameters. Higher convexity is necessary for such bounds to hold, as evinced by sets of perfect powers of consecutive integers. We exploit these stronger assumptions using a different methodology and avoiding the use of the Szemerédi-Trotter theorem, which has not been adapted to embrace higher convexity.As an application of our new estimates for $k>2$ we improve the best known bounds for sumsets of convex sets under additional convexity assumptions.


PANDA is an experiment that will run at the future facility FAIR, Darmstadt, Germany. A high intensity and cooled antiproton beam will
collide on a fixed hydrogen or nuclear target covering center-of-mass energies between 2.2 and 5.5 GeV. PANDA addresses various physics aspects from the low energy non-perturbative region towards the perturbative regime of QCD, for example:
the formation or production of exotic non-qqbar charm meson states connected to the recently observed XYZ spectrum;
the study of gluon-rich matter, such as glueballs and hybrids;
the spectroscopy of the excited states of strange and charm baryons, their production cross section and their spin correlations;
the behaviour of hadrons in nuclear matter;
the hypernuclear physics;
the electromagnetic proton form factors in the timelike region.

The PANDA experiment is designed to achieve the above mentioned physics goals with a setup with the following characteristics:
an almost full solid angle acceptance;
excellent tracking capabilities with high resolution (1-2 % at 1 GeV/c in the central region);
secondary vertex detection with resolution ~100 microns or better;
electromagnetic calorimetry for detections of gammas and electrons up to 10 GeV;
good particle identification of charge tracks (electrons, muons, pions, kaons, protons);
a dedicated interchangeable central apparatus for the hypernuclear physics;
detector and data acquisition system capable of working at 20 MHz interaction rate with an intelligent software trigger that can provide maximum flexibility.


The task of unpaired image-to-image translation has witnessed a revolution with the introduction of the cycle-consistency loss to Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). Numerous variants, with Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Network (Cy-cleGAN) at their forefront, have shown remarkable empirical performance. The involvement of two unalike data spaces and the existence of multiple solution maps between them are some of the facets that make such architectures unique. In this study, we investigate the statistical properties of such unpaired data translator networks between distinct spaces, bearing the additional responsibility of cycle-consistency. In a density estimation setup, we derive sharp non-asymptotic bounds on the translation errors under suitably characterized models. This, in turn, points out sufficient regularity conditions that maps must obey to carry out successful translations. We further show that cycle-consistency is achieved as a consequence of the data being successfully generated in each space based on observations from the other. In a first-of-its-kind attempt, we also provide deterministic bounds on the cumulative reconstruction error. In the process, we establish tolerable upper bounds on the discrepancy responsible for ill-posedness in such networks.


: Etiologic elements in ischemic ulcers include physical factors (pressure, shearing forces, friction and heat), nutrition and infection, as well as circulatory, metabolic and neurologic problems. Prevention is the primary objective of the management program. For patients in nursing homes who have already developed ulcers, low-intensity direct electric current (LIDC) has proved to be a useful adjunct to conventional management. The infection was more rapidly controlled and the wound size more quickly reduced. LIDC is readily accepted by the patient.


Aim Dispersal is often assumed to be a major force in shaping macroecological patterns, but this is rarely tested. Here I describe macroecological patterns for two groups of Lesser Antillean birds and then use population genetic data to assess if differences in dispersal ability could be responsible for the groups' contrasting patterns. Importantly, the population genetic data are derived independently from any data used to generate the macroecological patterns. Location The Lesser Antilles, Caribbean. Methods I used data from the literature to construct species–area curves and evaluate the decline in species compositional similarity with geographic distance (hereafter distance–decay) for two sets of bird communities in the Lesser Antilles, those found in rain forest and those in dry forest. I then used mitochondrial DNA sequences from island populations to assess the dispersal ability of rain forest and dry forest species. Results Rain forest species show steeper species–area curves and greater distance–decay in community similarity than dry forest species, patterns that could be explained by rain forest species having more limited dispersal ability. Both conventional analyses of M, the number of migrants per generation between populations, and alternative analyses of DA, the genetic distance between populations, suggest that rain forest species disperse between islands less frequently than dry forest species. Main conclusions Differences in dispersal ability are a plausible explanation for the contrasting macroecological patterns of rain forest and dry forest species. Additionally, historical factors, such as the taxon cycle and Pleistocene climate fluctuations, may have played a role in shaping the distribution patterns of Lesser Antillean birds.


The cyclic
AMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) exists in two isoforms, PKA-I (type
I) and PKA-II (type II), that contain an identical catalytic (C)
subunit but distinct regulatory (R) subunits, RI and RII, respectively.
Increased expression of RI α /PKA-I has been shown in human
cancer cell lines, in primary tumors, in cells after transformation,
and in cells upon stimulation of growth. We have shown previously that
a single-injection RI α antisense treatment results in a
reduction in RI α and PKA-I expression and sustained
inhibition of human colon carcinoma growth in athymic mice (M.
Nesterova and Y. S. Cho-Chung, Nat. Med., 1: 528–533,
1995). Growth inhibition accompanied reduction in
RI α /PKA-I expression and compensatory increases in
RII β protein and PKA-II β , the
RII β -containing holoenzyme. Here, we report that
these in vivo findings are consistent with observations
made in cancer cells in culture. We demonstrate that the antisense
depletion of RI α in cancer cells results in increased
RII β protein without increasing the rate of
RII β synthesis or RII β mRNA levels.
Pulse-chase experiments revealed a 3–6-fold increase in the half-life
of RII β protein in antisense-treated colon and prostate
carcinoma cells with little or no change in the half-lives of
RI α , RII α , and C α proteins.
Compensation by RII β stabilization may represent a novel
biochemical adaptation mechanism of the cell in response to
sequence-specific loss of RI α expression, which leads to
sustained down-regulation of PKA-I activity and inhibition of tumor
growth.


It is necessary to drill micro holes in some hard brittle materials. Comparing with electro discharge machining, electrochemical machining and laser machining, the ultrasonic machining (USM) has unique advantages in hard brittle materials machining. The aim of this paper is to present experimental work that has been done in micro holes machining by micro USM. The main machining mechanisms of USM are discussed. It is pointed out that the contributions of each mechanism to material removal rate are different in different cases. By using micro USM with workpiece vibration and tool feeding in constant rate, the experiments of micro holes machining are carried out and the process laws of tool wear are studied. Some phenomena are found and the causation of causing these phenomena is analyzed. A Ø13μm micro hole is obtained.


Finite element method (FEM)–molecular dynamics (MD) combined method is proposed for the microscopic stress analysis of steels. In this numerical method, FEM is applied to the stress analysis inside grains, and MD is applied to the calculation of the atomic configuration near the grain boundary in order to consider the microscopic heterogeneity and the deformation near the grain boundary that influences the stress distribution. Slip length between two grains caused by the mismatch of the displacement near the grain boundary is calculated by FEM. Slip resistance, which is necessary to calculate slip length, is obtained by calculating the atomic configuration near the grain boundary by MD. The combination of FEM and MD is realized by using slip resistance in FEM and slip length in MD. The validity of modelling of the deformation near the grain boundary is investigated by comparing the deformation near the grain boundary calculated by FEM–MD combined method to that observed in the experiment in the case of a load applied to the specimen. Calculated slip length coincides with measured slip length. FEM–MD combined method is applied to the investigation of the influence of change in the grain shape caused by the thermal history such as the weld zone upon the strength characteristic. The high stress region tends to increase the incidence of larger grain diameter and it is indicated that grain coarsening due to the weld thermal history increases the possibility of the crack initiation. FEM–MD combined method is expected to be helpful in investigating the mechanism of fracture or the strength characteristic of the complicated microstructure such as the weld zone by evaluating the microscopic stress distribution.


It is investigated to what extent the separation of overlapping acoustical sounds may be achieved by detecting and grouping comodulated frequency bands. Comodulation is defined by coherent envelope fluctuations which are detected by means of physiological motivated algorithms involving spike representation and coincidence detection. Groups of comodulated frequency bands are defined by cluster analysis and their temporal variations are traced. Every group detected can then be separated from its ''acoustical background'' by suppressing all channels not belonging to the given group. The paper addresses problems concerning the definition of suppression gain values and the problem of overlapping groups.


The maximization of a weighted sum of data rates is an essential point in cross-layer based resource allocation. Several algorithms have been proposed in the literature to solve this problem for the downlink of a multiple antenna system employing dirty paper preceding at the base station. However, they all suffer from a relatively slow convergence if the true number of objective function evaluations is taken into account. In this paper, an improved conjugate gradient method is presented, that takes the power constraint into account in the calculation of the search direction. Its superior convergence properties compared to existing approaches are verified by Monte-Carlo simulations for various scenarios.


The evolution from transaction marketing to relationship marketing in recent years has resulted in research indicating the need for more rigorous databases and greater utilization of current computerized tracking systems. Relationship selling has been examined and the results stress long‐term perspectives to the dyadic exchange process to enhance sales results. Considering the role of trust and culture in the relationship marketing process would indicate the need to pursue future research into a deeper understanding of the customer. Seeking knowledge of a customer's personal feelings concerning their comfort level with various communication approaches could enhance the reception of messages crafted for them. The discipline needs to move beyond the numbers to a more abstract analysis of the customer as an individual with specific feelings toward various marketing approaches.


The affect of the thickness deviation of reinforced concrete cover on the bearing capacity, bonding anchoring and durability of the concrete structures are introduced. The concrete covers of 74m×36m×8m large salty and oily biochemical pool at wastewater treatment plant are controlled and detected by Rebar Detection System in a certain branch, SINOPEC. The results show that the bars are fixed more accurately and stably by using the measures of applying main bars fixed by stirrups after cross-positioning of horizontal bar, adding closed stirrups, and fixing bar with support pads of fluted fine stone concrete pad between the bars and shuttering formworks. The testing data show that the qualified rate of concrete cover thickness is more than 95% and meets the requirements of design blueprints and GB50204-2002 "Code for acceptance of constructional quality of concrete structures".