Two cases of neuroblastoma with marrow findings mimicking acute leukaemia. T. E. Parry. Department of Pathology, Llandough Hospital, Penarth, Glamorgan CF6 1XX. Two cases of neuroblastoma with multiple bone metastases in which marrow biopsy on first hospital admission presented findings indistinguishable from those of acute leukaemia occurred in a boy of 7 and a girl of 3 years, in both of whom the correct diagnosis was established at necropsy after an illness of some weeks. The features which may enable the two conditions to be differentiated during life are the absence of malignant cells from the peripheral circulation and the characteristic clumping of cells in the marrow with the formation of syncytial masses and ofpseudorosettes in neuroblastoma. Though well documented (Piney, Mallarme, and Ross, 1950; Gaffuey, Hansman, and Fetterman, 1959), the difficulty this differential diagnosis may present receives little attention in the standard textbooks of haematology.


Information theory and the framework of information dynamics have been used to provide tools to characterise complex systems. In particular, we are interested in quantifying information storage, information modification and information transfer as characteristic elements of computation. Although these quantities are defined for autonomous dynamical systems, information dynamics can also help to get a "wholistic" understanding of input-driven systems such as neural networks. In this case, we do not distinguish between the system itself, and the effects the input has to the system. This may be desired in some cases, but it will change the questions we are able to answer, and is consequently an important consideration, for example, for biological systems which perform non-trivial computations and also retain a short-term memory of past inputs. Many other real world systems like cortical networks are also heavily input-driven, and application of tools designed for autonomous dynamic systems may not necessarily lead to intuitively interpretable results.
The aim of our work is to extend the measurements used in the information dynamics framework for input-driven systems. Using the proposed input-corrected information storage we hope to better quantify system behaviour, which will be important for heavily input-driven systems like artificial neural networks to abstract from specific benchmarks, or for brain networks, where intervention is difficult, individual components cannot be tested in isolation or with arbitrary input data.


The non-stationary nature of the electroencephalogram (EEG) poses a major challenge for the successful operation of a brain-computer interface (BCI) when deployed over multiple sessions. The changes between the early training measurements and the proceeding multiple sessions can originate as a result of alterations in the subject's brain process, new cortical activities, change of recording conditions and/or change of operation strategies by the subject. These differences and alterations over multiple sessions cause deterioration in BCI system performance if periodic or continuous adaptation to the signal processing is not carried out. In this work, the covariate shift is analyzed over multiple sessions to determine the non-stationarity effects and an unsupervised adaptation approach is employed to account for the degrading effects this might have on performance. To improve the system's online performance, we propose a covariate shift minimization (CSM) method, which takes into account the distribution shift in the feature set domain to reduce the feature set overlap and unbalance for different classes. The analysis and the results demonstrate the importance of CSM, as this method not only improves the accuracy of the system, but also reduces the classification unbalance for different classes by a significant amount.


Models capable of accurate simulation of the microcantilever dynamics coupled with complex tip-sample interactions are essential for interpretation of the imaging results in non-contact atomic force microscopy (AFM). In the present research, a combination of finite element and molecular dynamics methods are used for modelling the AFM system to overcome the drawbacks of conventional approaches that use a lumped system with van der Waals interaction. To illustrate the ability of the proposed scheme in providing images with atomic resolution, some simulations have been performed. In the conducted simulations, a diamond tip is interacting with nickel samples having different surface plane directions. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed modelling method for measuring the surface topography with appropriate contrast and atomic details.


Date Presented 4/19/2018 This study examined short- and long-term effects of an evidence-based practice knowledge translation (KT) intervention with acute care occupational therapists. Significant positive results in attitudes and behavior were found in the short term. KT interventions are a practical means to bridge the gap between research and practice. Primary Author and Speaker: Katelin Iott Additional Authors and Speakers: Kelly Lawrence Contributing Authors: Susan Murphy


Research has demonstrated the effectiveness of empathy and perspective-taking in influencing environmental concern (Sevilliano, Aragones, & Schultz, 2007) Although there may be a number of internal factors that inhibit pro-environmental behavior, it is important to evaluate the ways by which we can use emotion to encourage this type of behavior. This study was designed to evaluate the impact of emotion on eco-friendly behavior by investigating the effect of viewing highor low-fear appeals on changing consumers' food choices will have on their attitudes and behaviors. Results show that the likelihood that a participant intended to partake in more pro-environmental behaviors was generally greater after viewing the low-fear video after viewing the high-fear video. The investigation of emotions' role in sustainability suggests that while high-fear interventions may have a positive effect on intention to be more sustainable, a low-fear intervention may have an even greater progressive influence. These results provide preliminary evidence for the importance of emotion in efforts toward a more sustainable environment.


Prostate cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer-related death for men in the United States. Mutations in tumor suppressor genes including retinoblastoma (Rb), p53, and PTEN have been linked to the development of prostate cancer in man and mouse models, and loss of heterozygosity of the Rb locus has been observed in up to 60% of clinical cases. In this study we demonstrate that conditional somatic deletion of even a single Rb allele in the epithelial cells of the mouse prostate causes focal hyperplasia, thereby establishing a causal relationship between Rb loss and development of early stage prostate cancer. As a consequence of Rb ablation we observed increased expression of E2F target genes and a concomitant increase in proliferation in the epithelial compartment. However, by 52 weeks of age these lesions had not become malignant and represent an early stage of the disease. Nevertheless, the multifocal nature of the phenotype in the mice closely resembled multifocality of clinical disease. Taken together, our data demonstrated that loss of pRB-mediated cell cycle control directly caused the initiation of proliferative prostate disease but was insufficient to cause malignancy. Establishment of this early initiation model will aid efforts to thoroughly characterize early prostate disease as well as the elucidation of molecular mechanisms that cooperate with Rb loss to facilitate progression and metastasis.


General relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) flows along magnetic fields threading a black hole can be divided into inflow and outflow parts, according to the result of the competition between the black hole gravity and magneto-centrifugal forces along the field line. Here we present the first self-consistent, semi-analytical solution for a cold, Poynting flux–dominated (PFD) GRMHD flow, which passes all four critical (inner and outer, Alfvén, and fast magnetosonic) points along a parabolic streamline. By assuming that the dominating (electromagnetic) component of the energy flux per flux tube is conserved at the surface where the inflow and outflow are separated, the outflow part of the solution can be constrained by the inflow part. The semi-analytical method can provide fiducial and complementary solutions for GRMHD simulations around the rotating black hole, given that the black hole spin, global streamline, and magnetizaion (i.e., a mass loading at the inflow/outflow separation) are prescribed. For reference, we demonstrate a self-consistent result with the work by McKinney in a quantitative level.


Emotional identification is necessary for example in Brain Computer Interface (BCI) application and when emotional therapy and medical rehabilitation take place. Some emotional states can be characterized in the frequency of EEG signal, such excited, relax and sad. The signal extracted in certain frequency useful to distinguish the three emotional state. The classification of the EEG signal in real time depends on extraction methods to increase class distinction, and identification methods with fast computing. This paper proposed human emotion monitoring in real time using Wavelet and Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ). The process was done before the machine learning using training data from the 10 subjects, 10 trial, 3 classes and 16 segments (equal to 480 sets of data). Each data set processed in 10 seconds and extracted into Alpha, Beta, and Theta waves using Wavelet. Then they become input for the identification system using LVQ three emotional state that is excited, relax, and sad. The results showed that by using wavelet we can improve the accuracy of 72% to 87% and number of training data variation increased the accuracy. The system was integrated with wireless EEG to monitor emotion state in real time with change each 10 seconds. It takes 0.44 second, was not significant toward 10 seconds.


Urogenital infections in postmenopausal women remain problematic. The use of estrogen replacement therapy has been shown to lower these infection rates, corresponding to increasing colonization by Lactobacillus species. Despite the gut's 500 microbial species and the proximity of the anus to the vagina, only a relatively few microbial strains appear to be able to colonize the urogenital area. In the present study, the sparsity of microbes in the vagina was confirmed by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis analysis of swabs taken at time zero and monthly for 3 months from 40 postmenopausal subjects receiving Premarin (conjugated equine estrogen in combination with progesterone) hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and 20 who were not on HRT. Lactobacilli were recovered from the vagina of 95% or more women in both groups, but in the HRT group, Lactobacillus were more often the dominant and only colonizers and significantly fewer bacteria with pathogenic potential were found. The incidence of bacterial vaginosis was significantly lower in the HRT group than in the non-HRT-treated women (5.6% versus 31%). The use of HRTs has recently come under criticism. The ability of drugs such as Premarin to help recover the lactobacilli vaginal microbiota appears to be at least one benefit of HRT use. In women not using HRTs, use of probiotics may be the only way to restore a nonpathogen-dominated flora.


Introduction: Students discover the properties of black holes based on their understanding of
gravity and velocity. They also analyze astronomical images from the Hubble
Space Telescope and Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Through an experiment, they
define escape velocity. Then they extend this idea to a black hole, which is an
object with an escape velocity equal to the speed of light. In the final activity,
students become astronomers in charge of a new database of super-massive
black holes. Their job is to evaluate new claims to decide if they are valid. They
design an evaluation rubric and apply their new understanding of black holes to
make their decisions. They also use real scientific data from Dr. Karl Gebhardt's
black hole database.


abstract:An analysis of contemporary megalith building, associated social endeavors, and material culture patterning among households in West Sumba, Indonesia can advance knowledge of the inner workings of past megalith building societies and how they can be identified archaeologically. As a reflection of broader sociopolitical dynamics, the household has become an essential unit of analysis in the examination of prehistoric social organization. This study of household ethnoarchaeology in West Sumba illustrates the utility of household-level analyses in the interpretation of megalith building societies of the ancient past. The results of household interviews and material culture inventories conducted in the Kodi area of West Sumba provide a nuanced view of the social entanglements linked to megaliths and related phenomena such as ritual feasting. A wide degree of inter-household variability is associated with investments of resources into these endeavors in Kodi, reflecting not only the traditional means of achieving power and renown but also the traditional emphasis on group-oriented sociopolitical power and prestige. An examination of the household material culture linked to this behavior reveals both the potential insights as well as the limitations of inferring the intricacies of social action from material culture patterning. The results of this study can provide a useful interpretive model for megalith-building societies in appropriate contexts.


Shannon-theoretic limits on the achievable throughput for a simple infinite cellular multiple-access channel (MAC) model (Wyner 1994) in the presence of fading are presented. In this model, which is modified to account for flat fading, the received signal, at a given cell-site's antenna, is the sum of the faded signals transmitted from all users within that cell plus an attenuation factor /spl alpha//spl isin/[0,1] times the sum of the faded signals received from the adjacent cells, accompanied by Gaussian additive noise. This model serves as a tractable model providing considerable insight into complex and analytically intractable real-world cellular communications. Both linear and planar cellular arrays are considered with exactly K active users in each cell. We assume a hyper-receiver, jointly decoding all of the users, incorporating the received signals from all of the active cell-sites. The hyper-receiver is assumed to be aware of the codebooks and realizations of the fading processes of all the users in the system. In this work we consider the intracell time-division multiple-access (TDMA) and the wideband (WB) protocols. We focus on the maximum reliably transmitted equal rate. Bounds to this rate are found for the intracell TDMA protocol by incorporating information-theoretic inequalities and the Chebyshev-Markov moment theory as applied to the limiting distribution of the eigenvalues of a quadratic form of tridiagonal random matrices. We demonstrate our results for the special case where the amplitudes of the fading coefficients are drawn from a Rayleigh distribution, i.e., Rayleigh fading. For this special case, we observe the rather surprising result that fading may increase the maximum equal rate, for a certain range of /spl alpha/ as compared to the nonfaded case. In this setting, the WB strategy, which achieves the maximum reliable equal rate of the model, is proved to be superior to the TDMA scheme. An upper bound to the maximum equal rate of the WB scheme is also obtained. This bound is asymptotically tight when the number of users is large (K/spl Gt/1). The asymptotic bound shows that the maximum equal rate of the WB scheme in the presence of fading is higher than the rate which corresponds to the nonfaded case for any intercell interference factor /spl alpha//spl isin/[0,1] signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values. This result is found to be independent of the statistics of the fading coefficients.


Although students with or at risk for emotional disturbance present significant academic challenges, few researchers have studied the outcomes of interventions designed to improve the reading skills of this population. In this study we assessed the outcomes of a supplemental daily Direct Instruction reading curriculum, Reading Mastery I., and fluency building program, Great Leaps, on the reading skills of students at risk for emotional disturbance and reading deficits. Over a period of 7 months, 6 students received a supplementary reading intervention and 12 students (6 control at-risk and 6 norm-referencing students without disabilities) received their regular classroom instruction. Curriculum-based measures assessing early phonemic awareness and basic reading skills (i.e., letter sounds, blends, and high-frequency sight words) were collected biweekly to assess student performance. The results of this study revealed that at-risk students receiving the Direct Instruction curriculum intervention met or outperformed their control at-risk and norm-referencing peers in all three reading measures. Implications of these findings and areas of future research are discussed.


Qualified teachers are a fundamental input for any education system. Yet, many countries struggle to attract highly skilled applicants to the teaching profession. This paper presents the results of a large-scale intervention to attract high performing high-school students into the teaching profession in Chile. The intervention was a three-arm email campaign which made salient three types of motivations typically associated with the teaching profession: intrinsic/altruistic, extrinsic, and prestige-related. The objective was to identify which type of message better appealed to high performing students to nudge them to choose a teaching major. The "intrinsic" and "prestige" arms reduced applications to teaching majors among high performers, while the "extrinsic" arm increased applications among low performers. A plausible interpretation could be that the "intrinsic" and "prestige" messages made more salient an issue that could otherwise be overlooked by high performing students (typically from more advantaged households), negatively impacting their program choice: that while the social value of the teaching profession has improved, it still lags behind other professions that are valued more by their families and social circles. In turn, the "extrinsic" arm made salient the recent improvements in the economic conditions of the teaching profession in Chile, thus appealing to low performing students who in general come from disadvantaged families and for whom monetary incentives are potentially more relevant. These results emphasize the importance of having a clear picture of the inherent motivations that could influence individuals career choice. Making salient certain types of motivations to the wrong target group could lead to undesired results.


Objective To determine major themes and significance of the Social Work Research Group (SWRG), founded in 1949. Methods Archival research, principally at Social Welfare History Archives, University of Minnesota; oral historical interviews of key informants. Results The Social Work Research Group (SWRG), founded in 1949, fostered research within the profession by creating an organization representing and promoting social work research, advancing the place of research in teaching and scholarship, and establishing what ultimately became Social Work Abstracts. It was one of seven organizations leading to the 1955 creation of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). Retaining NASW status, the SWRG (renamed NASW Research Section in 1955 and then Council on Social Work Research in 1963) moved from an earlier preoccupation with membership criteria and the place of research within the profession to conceptualizing and promoting research as an established social work method. Conclusion In doing so, the SWRG laid groundwork for the contemporary social work research movement.


This work used nanoindentation to characterize the local mechanical properties of the multi-wall carbon nanotube (MWCNT) reinforced aluminum (Al) composites. The Al-MWCNT (0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 wt.%) specimens were fabricated by spark plasma sintering (SPS) followed by hot extrusion. Different local regions of the as-extruded and tensile-fractured specimen over the longitudinal and transverse section were studied by nanoindentation. The nanoindentation results were compared with the conventional macro- and mircoscopic mechanical tests, and were found in good agreement. The values of hardness (H) and elastic modulus (E) obtained reached maximum at the 0.5 wt.% MWCNT adding Al samples. E was highest in the necking region then decreased with increasing distance from the localized deformed region; while H varied in different regions. In the same region, H and V were higher in the longitudinal than those in the transverse direction, due to the texture hardening and alignment of CNT.


Regulators have long been aware of the social aspects of communication. In the past, regulated monopolists have provided Universal Service Obligations, typically funded via a system of cross-subsidies. In this paper, we first review the rationale for imposing Universal Service Obligations, based both on theoretical arguments and empirical results. We then address some of the new questions raised by the ongoing liberalisation process. Regulators now face the challenging problem of organising the provision and financing of universal service in a competitive environment.


According to the phenomenal belief account of perceptual experience I have suggested elsewhere, experience is a kind of belief. These beliefs have contents of a special form or type: While their objects are ordinary material objects, the properties they ascribe to these objects are 'phenomenal' properties, properties such as looking red or looking round. In this paper, I shall further develop this account by defending it against two objections: a) the objection that ultimately, no plausible epistemology can be built upon experiences with phenomenal contents. And b) the objection that phenomenal 'looks' is a propositional attitude operator and therefore cannot be used in specifying the content of experience. First, however, I shall argue that the intuitive inferential integration of experience into our system of beliefs provides one of the strongest motivations for construing experiences as having propositional content in the first place. The phenomenal belief account provides one good way of accommodating this inferential integration. Defending it thus is one way of defending the claim that experience indeed has propositional content.


The aims of this research were to examine the cognitive and physiological reactions associated with the disclosure of a traumatic event. Cognitive-Experiential Self Theory (Epstein, 1991; 1998) suggests that there are two separate modes of information processing. One is the rational mode that is based on logic and the other is the experiential mode that is based on emotions and heuristics. The way these two modes of processing may be related to disclosure was examined using 60 undergraduate students at Illinois Wesleyan University. Participants engaged in one of four writing conditions; a trivial topic, the emotions surrounding a traumatic experience, the facts surrounding a traumatic experience, or both the facts and emotions surrounding a traumatic experience. Immediately after completing the writing task, participants engaged in a modified ratio bias task. The ratio-bias task consisted of 56 presentations of choices the participant had to make. The amount of optimal choices in this task is thought to be related to the mode . of cognitive processing the participant is in. Following this task, participants listed the thoughts they were having during the modified ratio-bias task. They then ftlled out a demographics questionnaire and the Rational-Experiential Inventory. Continuous cardiovascular measures were taken during all periods of the experiment including a rest period prior to the writing task. Writing condition did not have a significant effect on autonomic activation, the thought-listing task, or decisions across all 56 trials of the modified ratio-bias task. However, writing condition did have a significant effect on the first 14 trials of the


Gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a complex multifactorial disorder whose treatment is based on knowledge of its pathophysiology, natural history and evolution. Recently the relationship between the severest degrees of cardial incontinence and hiatus hernia has been emphasized, which causes the impairment of the mechanical properties of the gastro-oesophageal barrier and of oesophageal acid clearing. Among different types of hiatus hernia, those characterized by the permanent axial orad migration of the oesophago-gastric (EG) junction (nonreducible hiatus hernia) are correlated with severe GERD. Barium swallow may adequately differentiate hiatal insufficiency, concentric hiatus hernia and short oesophagus which are the steps of migration across or above the diaphragm. When associated with panmural oesophagitis and fibrosis of the oesophageal wall, these conditions may be the cause of recurrence of hiatus hernia and reflux after laparoscopic standard anti-reflux surgical procedures; in the presence of nonreducibility of the EG junction below the diaphragm without tension, dedicated surgical procedures are necessary. It is currently agreed that surgical therapy is indicated for patients affected by severe GERD who are not compliant with long-term medical therapy, require high dosages of drugs and are too young for lifetime medical treatment. While the existence of severe GERD correlated with an irreversible anatomical disorder represents an elective indication for surgery, warrants further investigation. Accurate identification of the functional and anatomical abnormalities underlying GERD is mandatory in order to decide whether medical or surgical therapy should be implemented, and to tailor the surgical technique, laparoscopic or open, to each patient.


Abstract. In recent years many earthquakes hit Italy and its Cultural Heritage. The topic of survey of buildings damaged by seismic events and their interpretation has become very relevant and involved many research groups and Italian Civil Protection. The damage survey has different roles: in the first stage, immediately after the emergency, the documentation is necessary for the shoring and protection of damaged structures (AEDES forms of Civil Protection). The aim of the second stage is the study and the documentation for the restoration, reconstruction and retrofitting of buildings. In this context, this study presents methods and instruments used in the survey of 24 churches in the province of Mantua, Lombardy, after the 2012 earthquake sequence. The paper examines the difficulties in surveying damaged buildings and presents the classification used to define, time by time, the most suitable survey approach in the field of Geomatics. In this classification, many aspects are taken into account, such as logistical and practical problems, safety conditions, time preserving methods, economic decisions, complexity of building and required results. The accurate documentation obtained as a three-dimensional architectural database allows for the observation and analysis of the damage, the definition of interpretative models and the development of intervention projects. Different results are obtained from the point cloud database: traditional 2D representations for architectural projects as well as 3D models for structural analysis or for the development of BIM.


The Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta (CGSM) is one of the world's most productive tropical wetlands and one that has witnessed some of the greatest recorded dieback of mangroves. Human-driven loss of hydrologic connectivity by roads, artificial channels and water flow regulation appears to be the reason behind mangrove mortality in this ungauged wetland. In this study, we determined the CGSM's current state of hydrologic connectivity by combining a remote sensing technique, termed as Wetland Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), with a hydrologic study of river water discharge. For this research, we processed 29 ALOS-PALSAR acquisitions taken during the period 2007–2011 and generated 66 interferograms that provide information on relative surface water level changes. We found that change in water discharge upstream on the main tributary of the CGSM could explain at most 17% of the variance of the change in water level in the CGSM. Fresh water inputs into the wetland were identified only when the mean daily water discharge in the river exceeded 700 m3 s−1, which corresponds to only 30% of the days during the period. The interferogram analysis also revealed that artificial channels within the wetland serve as barriers to water flow and contribute to the overall loss in hydrologic connectivity. We recommend increasing fresh water inputs from the Magdalena River by reducing water regulation of fresh water from the river and improving connectivity on either side of the artificial channels crossing the CGSM. This study emphasizes the potential of the application of wetland InSAR to determine hydrologic connectivity in wetlands that are completely or poorly ungauged and to define the necessary guidelines for wetland hydrologic restoration.


Kuwait has a cosmopolitan population of 1.7 million, mostly Arabs. This population is a mosaic of large and small minorities representing most Arab communities. In general, Kuwait's population is characterized by a rapid rate of growth, large family size, high rates of consanguineous marriages within the Arab communities with low frequency of intermarriage between them, and the presence of genetic isolates and semi-isolates in some extended families and Bedouin tribes. Genetic services have been available in Kuwait for over a decade. During this time it has become clear that Arabs have a high frequency of genetic disorders, and in particular autosomal recessive traits. Their pattern is unique and some disorders are relatively common. Examples are Bardet-Biedl and Meckel syndromes, phenylketonuria, and familial Mediterranean fever. A relatively large number of new syndromes and variants have been delineated in Kuwait's population, many being the result of homozygosity for autosomal recessive genes that occurred because of inbreeding. Some of these syndromes have subsequently been found in other parts of the world, negating the concept of the private syndrome. This paper provides an overview of autosomal recessive disorders among the Arabs in Kuwait from a personal perspective and published studies, and highlights the need for genetic services in Arab countries with the goal of prevention and treatment of genetic disorders.


A modified planetary rotation system has been developed to obtain high uniformity optical coatings on large substrates in an ion beam sputter coater. The system allows the normally fixed sun gear to rotate, thus allowing an extra degree of freedom and permitting more complex motions to be used. By moving the substrate platen between two fixed positions around the sun axis, averaging of the distributions at these two positions takes place and improved uniformity can be achieved. A peak-to-valley radial uniformity of ∼0.15% (∼0.07% rms) on a single layer film on a 400 mm diameter substrate has been achieved without the aid of masking.


There is a broad consensus that the study of social institutions is one of the fundamental concerns of the social sciences. The idea that phenomenology has ignored this topic is also widely accepted. As against this view, the present paper aims at demonstrating that especially Schutzian phenomenology—that is, the social-phenomenological tradition started by Alfred Schutz and continued by Thomas Luckmann and Peter Berger, among others—provides rich insights on the nature and workings of social institutions that could contribute to enriching the current social-scientific debate on the issue. In order to show this, the authors attempt to unearth and systematically reconstruct Schutz's and Berger and Luckmann's insights on social institutions and to confront them with current approaches.


We have successfully prepared an elastomeric material exhibiting excellent temperature-controlled self-healing characteristics. A synthetic procedure is provided to graft siloxane chains with maleimidocarboxyphenyl functional groups. A furan-modified polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane with flexible tethers was also synthesized to cross-link the siloxane chains via a Diels–Alder reaction. A model system was prepared to study the thermally reversible nature of the cross-linked entities using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments. Likewise, dynamic solid-state 1H NMR experiments confirmed the reversibility of the linkages in the polymeric materials. Elastomers that were completely severed could be reannealed to the point that signs of a defect were imperceptible even by scanning electron microscopy (SEM).


Images captured by a digital or cell-phone camera in low-light environments usually suffer from a lack of sharpness due to the failure of the camera's passive auto-focus (AF) system to locate the peak in-focus position of a sharpness function that is extracted from the image. In low-light, the sharpness function becomes flat, making it quite difficult to locate the peak.In this paper, a systematic approach is introduced to address the problem of low-light AF by performing computationally simple image enhancement preprocessing steps as part of the image pipeline. These enhancement steps elevate the sharpness function peak, leading to auto-focusing in low-light conditions. A sharpness junction quality measure along with experimental guidelines are presented for determining the most prominent enhancement steps for low-light AF. The implementation results on an actual digital camera platform are also shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of our solution.


The in vivo effects of hyperthermia combined with bleomycin, cis-platinum, or BCNU were studied. C3H mice with RIF tumors implanted on the dorsal aspect of their feet were used in these experiments. Heat alone (45 degrees C, 30 min) had a minimal effect on mean tumor growth delay (TGD), the time required for the tumor to reach twice the original tumor volume. The maximum tolerated dose (MTD), approximately equivalent to an LD10, of BCNU (50 mg/kg) gave a mean TGD of 24 days, while 40 mg/kg of BCNU (MTD for BCNU with heat) alone resulted in a mean TGD of only 5.5 days. No tumors were cured when treated with heat or chemotherapy alone. However, BCNU (40 mg/kg) given with concomitant heat (45 degrees C, 30 min) resulted in 9/12 cures (tumor control to 120 days). In the three remaining mice, there was one tumor growth, one foot amputation response and one death. The combinations of bleomycin-heat and cis-platinum-heat were inferior to BCNU-heat. Even the combination of bleomycin and cis-platinum with heat resulted in only 4/18 cures, with 5 tumor regrowths, 4 foot amputations, and 5 deaths. Thus, the combination of BCNU-heat gave the best in vivo response rate (75% cure) with acceptable toxicity.


Pulmonary dysfunction is one of the major factors for postoperative pulmonary complication. Preoperative pulmonary function test reveals possible operative risk. Particularly, in the patient with stage Ⅲ and Ⅳ chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), open heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass is at higher risk of complication. In these patients, safe and reliable surgical procedures are required. Preoperatively, quitting smoking and incentive spirometry can reduce the risk of pulmonary complications. Furthermore, noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (NPPV) on the appropriate indication can help to improve the outcome in the patients with pulmonary dysfunction.


Due to their architectural attraction, hyperbolic paraboloid shells have been constructed in increasing numbers during the last decade, although very little attention has been paid towards the development of accurate methods of analysis. Even the related membrane theories have not yet been summarized. This thesis is concerned with an analytical and experimental investigation of the stresses, deformations and stability of thin hyperbolic paraboloid shells subjected to uniform and non-uniform, vertical as well as horizontal loads. After a historical review, the general-shell-theory is discussed. It is not the purpose of this thesis to describe the general shell theory in great detail and it is explained here only from a certain viewpoint, by emphasizing the great importance of VLASOV's equations. It will be pointed out that these equations provide all the sufficient and necessary information on which the theoretical investigation for all the two and three dimensional problems of elasticity rests. As long as we resort to the domain of real numbers, the VLASOV equations are the bases for all the existing shell-theories as well as the further developments which can be made in this field. A comprehensive discussion for the membrane theory of hyperbolic paraboloid shells follows, where particular attention is paid to the various shapes and loading conditions. The possibility of the direct and indirect solution as well as the permissible boundary condition are discussed and the polynomial method, as a suitable approximation for indirect solution is also introduced. The edge-disturbance and the deformation of the rectangular timber shells are investigated for two different boundary conditions. A separate chapter is devoted to the analysis of laminated timber diamond shells, where particular attention is paid to the wind effect. The creep effect and the model-prototype correlation for timber shells are also investigated. It is observed, that the membrane theory seems to be a suitable approximation for timber shells, where the material can equally resist both tensile and compressive forces. The displacements, however, are critical sometimes and to reduce them the stiffness of the unsupported edge beams has to be increased. Based on test results, nomograms are presented for the determination of the necessary edge beam sizes for a given side length and predetermined vertical displacements. An additional chapter is devoted to the timber shell in general. A simplified bending theory is developed to analyse a rectangular, precast concrete hypar shell, where two opposite low corners are built-in and no edge beams are used along the perimeter. It is found that the edge-disturbance is not critical, and the failure of the shell occurs due to tangential shear. The analytical and experimental results are not in very good agreement and discrepancies are found in certain regions of the shell. This leads to the conclusion that the bending theory is not adequate for analysing all of the possible boundary conditions, and sometimes, as in the present case, it is also necessary to investigate the non-linear behaviour. Finally, the resistance of the free edge against buckling is examined. Analytical and experimental investigations are carried out on a black Perspex rectangular hypar shell, where two opposite low corners are built-in and no edge beams are used. The analytical and experimental, results are close to each other. It is observed, that the stiffness of the edge strip is of great importance and to increase the resistance of the hypar against buckling, the inertia of the edge strip has to be increased.


Statins and ursodeoxycholic acid: cooperation neutrality? Results of combined therapy of gallstone disease (GSD), non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and hypercholesterolemia (HCE) with statins and ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) are analyzed. In GSD statin therapy was often accompanied with reduction of bile lithogenicity but did not always accelerate stone lithol-ysis under their combination with UDCA. Statin induced liver injuries are often observed in NAFLD and NASH, adjuvant UDCA therapy shown positive effect on inflammatory and histological liver parameters in these diseases. Serum lipid levels in patients with HCE were reduced most effectively with statin combined with UDCA. Combined therapy with statin and UDCA is recommended in patient with HCE and chronic liver diseases. words:


The FEV1/FVC was less than 60 per cent in all of our COPD patients. Their 3-year, 5-year and 7-year survival rate was 64.7%, 49.1% and 34.1% respectively. The 7-year survival rate in FEV1 greater than 1.0L, 0.75-1.0L and less than 0.75L group was 58.1%, 40.7% and 14.1% separately. Other factors contributed to the poor prognosis of COPD were: hypoxemia, tachycardia, right ventricular hypertrophy etc.


Background Exposure of a cochlear implant electrode array in the middle ear or external auditory canal is an uncommon complication. We report a series of 7 patients with electrode array exposure, 5 of whom were managed without surgical intervention. Objective To report the outcomes of patients with electrode array exposure after cochlear implantation. Study Design Retrospective case series. Setting Tertiary neurotology practice. Patients Patients with cochlear implant electrode exposure in the middle ear or external auditory canal. Main Outcome Measure Length of observation without deterioration of implant function and without complications. Results Five patients were managed without revision surgery. One patient presented with a poorly functioning implant, but after reprogramming, the implant returned to its baseline performance. Four other patients required no reprogramming and were managed medically without deterioration of implant function. Follow-up time was between 2 and 6 years. There were no serious complications in any patient related to their cochlear implant. Conclusion Careful observation of patients with an exposed electrode array after cochlear implantation and a functioning implant seems to be a reasonable management option in select cases.


The Internet consists of about 13,000 Autonomous Systems (AS's) that exchange routing information using the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). The operators of each AS must have control over the flow of traffic through their network and between neighboring AS's. However, BGP is a complicated, policy-based protocol that does not include any direct support for traffic engineering. In previous work, we have demonstrated that network operators can adapt the flow of traffic in an efficient and predictable fashion through careful adjustments to the BGP policies running on their edge routers. Nevertheless, many details of the BGP protocol and decision process make predicting the effects of these policy changes difficult. In this paper, we describe a tool that predicts traffic flow at network exit points based on the network topology, the import policy associated with each BGP session, and the routing advertisements received from neighboring AS's. We present a linear-time algorithm that computes a network-wide view of the best BGP routes for each destination prefix given a static snapshot of the network state, without simulating the complex details of BGP message passing. We describe how to construct this snapshot using the BGP routing tables and router configuration files available from operational routers. We verify the accuracy of our algorithm by applying our tool to routing and configuration data from AT&T's commercial IP network. Our route prediction techniques help support the operation of large IP backbone networks, where interdomain routing is an important aspect of traffic engineering.


One of the audiences to whom political candidates must make persuasive appeals is campaign donors. US elections require private financing and are the most expensive in the democratic world. Candidates without personal wealth are, therefore, compelled to make appeals to potential donors on a regular basis. This chapter considers the barriers that low-resource candidates face in appealing to these donors to fund their campaigns and how candidates attempt to surmount these obstacles. While much attention has been given to the role of money in shaping policy outcomes, less attention has been given to how the process of raising money itself impacts candidates from the working-class. A striking aspect of US politics is the skewed class composition of its senior politicians. Not a single member of the US Senate lacks a four-year college degree, while two-thirds of Americans over the age of 25 are without degrees. This chapter argues that these facts are not unrelated, but shows that low-resource candidates do try to compensate through other bespoke, persuasive appeals to donors, especially ones which emphasize, rather than conceal, their outsider status and which appeal to non-traditional donors.


The ability of cultured lymphoid, erythroid and fibroblastic cells for ligand-induced redistribution of their surface receptors proved to be lower than that of lymphocytes. The process of surface receptors redistribution can be inhibited by low temperature and sodium azide in all the cells under study. Pretreatment with trypsin increased the ability for redistribution of surface receptors in some types of cultured cells, but had no such effect on lymphocytes. These differences between lymphocytes and cultured cells seem to be due to differences in organization of the surface and contractile systems of the respective cells.


A filmpoem commissioned by University of Sheffield for the Festival of the Arts and Humanities, Sheffield 2015.

The American poet Elizabeth Bishop arrived in Brazil in November 1951 on a travelling fellowship. She was to live there for the next fifteen years. In her poem 'Questions of Travel' Bishop asks: 'Is it a lack of imagination that makes us come/ to imagined places, not just stay at home.'

In this unique collaboration, artist Charlotte Hodes and poet Deryn Rees-Jones respond to Bishop's poem by creating a new poemfilm that experiments with the differences between image, text and voice to think more generally about the poetic process, and the parallels that might be drawn between actual journeys and the poetic and artistic journeys of reading, drawing, thinking and writing.

This animated version of Elizabeth Bishop's poem 'Questions of Travel' (1956) is the second in a series of commissioned collaborations by artist Hodes and poet and critic Rees-Jones using the poemfilm both as artistic practice and vehicle for critical interpretation. Our project uses work by women writers, set at historical intervals, to open debates about female creativity. It forms part of an ongoing research project, 'Reimaging the Muse'.

In the film we follow Bishop's poem in deconstructing the binaries of 'here' and 'there' to develop the idea of travel as a metaphor for creative practice: reading, drawing, thinking and imagining. Bishop's phrase 'must we dream our dreams and have them too?' is made central to our exploration of anxieties about empirical thinking and the workings of the imagination, anxieties also intrinsic to the poemfilm as an emerging genre. Hodes' ongoing work, which uses analogue and equivalent digital actions such as repeat, scale change, colour change, fragment, cut, paste (collage) and layering, enacts Bishop's engagement with modernist techniques which sought to disrupt linear time into an act of what Bergson calls 'continuous creation'. Rees-Jones' underpinning research on Bishop draws on Bishop's early writing and her desire for what she calls 'experience-time'; playing with screen, stage, frame, 'binocular' and 'monocular' visions we ally this notion with Bishop's use of the term 'stereoscopic' to dramatise her particular poetics of looking. Cutting and collage allow us to engage directly in a visualisation of Bishop's own aesthetic, which foregrounds what many have argued to be film's intrinsic relationship (through cutting) to libidinal attachment and loss. Ongoing collaborative processes are used to simultaneously work through our own individual artistic practice, exploring wider visual and poetic preoccupations with constructions of a female self, and our relation to the female body.


This paper will present a case study on how the London Borough of Lewisham is creating 'pull' services using technology to address specific community problems relating to the local environment by opening up new communications channels between residents, council staff and other local government stakeholders. The focus will initially centre on how the service design has been effective strategically, impacting internally on the organisational culture within Lewisham's Environment Office and, at the same time, involving residents in the service provision thus providing a feedback mechanism and voice of local residents. The paper will then explore the specific nature of 'Love Lewisham' through service marketing literature and discuss how the environment office has enhanced its relationship with the community through this service touch point.


Objective. The recovery time from abnormal levels of proteinuria with standard treatment in longitudinal studies of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus has not been well described. We aimed (1) to determine the recovery time from proteinuria in patients with lupus nephritis (LN) receiving standard treatment, and (2) to determine whether the initial level of proteinuria predicts time to improvement. Methods. We studied all patients with LN recorded in the database from 1970 until 2011. Proteinuria was defined as ≥ 0.5 g/24 h. Patients were grouped as follows: group 1 having 0.5–0.9 g/day, group 2 having 1–1.9 g/day, and group 3 having ≥ 2 g/day. Recovery from proteinuria was defined as proteinuria < 0.5 g/24 h. Time to recovery from proteinuria was studied with the Kaplan-Meier curves. Factors associated with proteinuria recovery were evaluated using proportional hazard models. Results. Among the 212 patients studied, 52% recovered from proteinuria within 2 years and an additional 22% recovered within 5 years, for a total of 74%. The level of proteinuria at baseline visit predicted the time to improvement. Patients with a higher level of proteinuria at baseline needed a longer time to normalize their proteinuria. Male sex, hypocomplementemia, high level of proteinuria at diagnosis of LN, and disease duration > 5 years at onset of LN each independently predicted late recovery of proteinuria and had an effect on the percentage of patients who recovered. Conclusion. The tempo of recovery from proteinuria in LN is slow and the level of proteinuria at baseline visit predicts the time to complete recovery.


Background & Aims Liver fibrosis is a multifactorial disease that can affect the development of cerebral small vessel diseases (SVDs) including cerebral microbleeds (CMBs), leukoaraiosis, and silent infarctions. Transient elastography can accurately assess the degree of liver fibrosis by measuring liver stiffness (LS). In the present study, we investigated the association between SVDs and LS values. Methods We recruited 300 participants (mean age 56 years, 170 men) who underwent a comprehensive medical health check-up between January 2011 and December 2012. Transient elastography was taken on the right lobe of the liver through intercostal space with patients lying in the dorsal decubitus position with the right arm in maximal abduction. Mild and significant fibrosis were defined as LS values >5.6 and >8.0 kPa, respectively. The presence of each SVD was determined using the FLAIR, GRE MR imaging as well as T1-, T2-weighted MR images. We tested whether the presence and burden of each type of SVD were different by LS values. Results Of the different types of SVDs, only the presence (p = 0.001) and number of CMBs (p<0.001) were positively associated with LS values. Multivariate analysis revealed that significant fibrosis (>8.0 kPa) was an independent predictor of CMBs (odds ratio 6.079, 95% confidence interval 1.489–24.819, p = 0.012). However, leukoaraiosis and silent infarctions were not associated with LS values (all p>0.05). Conclusions The degree of liver fibrosis, as assessed using transient elastography, was independently associated with the presence and burden of CMBs in healthy, asymptomatic participants. Understanding the link between the brain and liver may advance future research on the pathomechanisms of CMBs.


In an effort to develop new potent antimicrobial and anticancer agents, new pyrrole-based chalcones were designed and synthesized via the base-catalyzed Claisen-Schmidt condensation of 2-acetyl-1-methylpyrrole with 5-(aryl)furfural derivatives. The compounds were evaluated for their in vitro antimicrobial effects on pathogenic bacteria and Candida species using microdilution and ATP luminescence microbial cell viability assays. MTT assay was performed to determine the cytotoxic effects of the compounds on A549 human lung adenocarcinoma, HepG2 human hepatocellular carcinoma, C6 rat glioma, and NIH/3T3 mouse embryonic fibroblast cell lines. 1-(1-Methyl-1H-pyrrol-2-yl)-3-(5-(4-chlorophenyl)furan-2-yl)prop-2-en-1-one (7) and 1-(1-methyl-1H-pyrrol-2-yl)-3-(5-(2,5-dichlorophenyl)furan-2-yl)prop-2-en-1-one (9) were found to be the most potent antifungal agents against Candida krusei and therefore these compounds were chosen for flow cytometry analysis and Ames MPF assay. ATP bioluminescence assay indicated that the antifungal activity of compounds 7 and 9 against C. krusei was significantly higher than that of other compounds and the reference drug (ketoconazole), whereas flow cytometry analysis revealed that the percentage of dead cells treated with compound 7 was more than that treated with compound 9 and ketoconazole. According to Ames MPF assay, compounds 7 and 9 were found to be non-genotoxic against TA98 and TA100 with/without metabolic activation. MTT assay indicated that 1-(1-methyl-1H-pyrrol-2-yl)-3-(5-(2-nitrophenyl)furan-2-yl)prop-2-en-1-one (3) showed more selective anticancer activity than cisplatin against the HepG2 cell line. On the other hand, 1-(1-methyl-1H-pyrrol-2-yl)-3-(5-(4-nitrophenyl)furan-2-yl)prop-2-en-1-one (1) was found to be more effective and selective on the A549 cell line than cisplatin.


Context-aware STR methods typically use internal autoregressive (AR) language models (LM). Inherent limitations of AR models motivated two-stage methods which employ an external LM. The conditional independence of the external LM on the input image may cause it to erroneously rectify correct predictions, leading to significant inefficiencies. Our method, PARSeq, learns an ensemble of internal AR LMs with shared weights using Permutation Language Modeling. It unifies context-free non-AR and context-aware AR inference, and iterative refinement using bidirectional context. Using synthetic training data, PARSeq achieves state-of-the-art (SOTA) results in STR benchmarks (91.9% accuracy) and more challenging datasets. It establishes new SOTA results (96.0% accuracy) when trained on real data. PARSeq is optimal on accuracy vs parameter count, FLOPS, and latency because of its simple, unified structure and parallel token processing. Due to its extensive use of attention, it is robust on arbitrarily-oriented text which is common in real-world images. Code, pretrained weights, and data are available at: https://github.com/baudm/parseq.


Has the behavior of spammers changed over the last few years? To answer this question, we conduct a study from three recent data sources. Specifically, we focus on the following broad questions: (a) how are email addresses harvested, (b) where is spam coming from, and (c) how does spam evolve over time. First, we discuss whether spammers still use email harvesting: 34% of the honeypot accounts we publicised received spam after 72 days on average. Interestingly, we find that simple email address obfuscation is quite effective against harvesting. Second, we identify significant skew in the spatial distribution of the origin of spam in both the IP-level and AS-level of granularity. We find that 20% of the active IPs are responsible for 80% of the total volume of spam and that 10% of the spamming ASes are responsible for the 90% of the volume. Finally, we study the temporal characteristics of the spamming IPs and find that spam activity has spread to new /8 subnetworks since 2006. Considering these spatio-temporal trends, the future of anti-spam is mixed: the current skewed spatial distribution of spam sources could be helpful in filtering spam, but the fact that spam sources are spreading in the IP space is a worrisome sign.


On October 1, 1965, the teletype in the White House relayed the account of a supposed "coup" by a group of Indonesian army officers calling themselves the September 30th Movement. In Jakarta the movement, which had begun the night before under the alleged leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Untung with the kidnapping and killing of six generals of the Indonesian Army High Command, was already unraveling. The September 30th Movement was a relatively small-scale affair. It was poorly planned and so clumsily executed that it seemed almost preordained to fail. Major General Suharto…took control of the army, and blamed what he labeled a "coup attempt" entirely on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Within two weeks, a much more momentous army-led and U.S.-backed movement to exterminate the PKI and its supporters was under way. Working with Muslim organizations, student groups, and other anti-Communist organizations, the army proceeded over the next five months to murder hundreds of thousands of unarmed, alleged PKI members. The slaughter paved the way for the army's ouster of Sukarno in March 1966, its ascension to power, and the reconfiguration of Indonesian politics and foreign policy.… The liquidation of the PKI in Indonesia was "perhaps the greatest setback for Communism in the Third World in the 1960s" and an event with enormous implications for each of the Great Powers.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


BACKGROUND
Temporal trends in clinical characteristics, management and prognosis of patients with symptomatic heart failure (HF) remain to be elucidated in Japan.

METHODSANDRESULTS
From the Chronic Heart Failure Analysis and Registry in the Tohoku District-1 (CHART-1; 2000-2005, n=1,278) and CHART-2 (2006-present, n=10,219) Studies, we enrolled 1,006 and 3,676 consecutive symptomatic stage C/D HF patients, respectively. As compared with the patients in the CHART-1 Study, those in the CHART-2 Study had similar age and sex prevalence, and were characterized by lower brain natriuretic peptide, higher prevalence of preserved left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and higher prevalence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus and ischemic heart disease (IHD), particularly IHD with LVEF ≥50%. From CHART-1 to CHART-2, use of renin-angiotensin system inhibitors, β-blockers and aldosterone antagonists was significantly increased, while that of loop diuretics and digitalis was decreased. Three-year incidences of all-cause death (24 vs. 15%; adjusted hazard ratio [adjHR], 0.73; P<0.001), cardiovascular death (17 vs. 7%; adjHR, 0.38; P<0.001) and hospitalization for HF (30 vs. 17%; adjHR, 0.51; P<0.001) were all significantly decreased from CHART-1 to CHART-2. In the CHART-2 Study, use of β-blockers was associated with improved prognosis in patients with LVEF <50%, while that of statins was associated with improved prognosis in those with LVEF ≥50%.

CONCLUSIONS
Along with implementation of evidence-based medications, the prognosis of HF patients has been improved in Japan. (

TRIAL REGISTRATION
clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT00418041)


Knowledge of normal differentiations is indispensable for interpreting developmental disturbances in animal experiments. Accordingly, the investigations described in the present paper were aimed at explaining the process of myelinization of the optic nerve in the domestic mouse breed Agnes Bluhm Jena-Halle. First signs of myelin sheath formation can be seen on the sixth and seventh day post partum. The myelin sheath grew considerably up to the 20th day of life; under light microscopic examination this process was seen to end on approximately the 30th day post partum. Electron-microscopic examination provided proof that myelinization is effected by the oligodendrocytes. This process of differentiation continues even in the adult animal, though on a very small scale.


The study assessed the prevalence and patterns of fear of on-line victimization among students using a sample of 641 students enrolled in undergraduate studies in two urban public universities in North Western and South Eastern Nigeria, i.e, Bayero University, Kano and University of Nigeria, Nsukka respectively. Specifically, the study sought to answer the questions: How prevalent is the fear of on-line victimization among undergraduate students? What are the patterns of the fear of on-line victimization among undergraduate students? Data from the two universities were compared. The results indicate that there is a high prevalence of fear of online victimization among undergraduates in both universities. Among the five kinds of fears benchmarked, fear of fraudulent mails was the most expressed fear and it was more prevalent in the North West sample than in the South East sample. The study concluded that the fear of online victimization may impact negatively on the cashless Nigeria being proposed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, since online banking is one of its major components. Hence, sensitization on proper ways of utilizing ICT coupled with devising preventing strategies for self-protection while using on-line resources are recommended.


Abstract Meat is an important part of the human diet since it provides several nutrients. However, the amount of these nutrients can differ according to several factors. With this in mind, the present research was designed with the main objective of evaluating the effect of production system of broiler chickens (industrial, range and organic) on meat quality. The physicochemical, chemical and nutritional characteristics were determined in breast and drumstick meat. The organic chickens presented the lowest amounts of fat and cholesterol and the highest amounts of protein. The colour was also influenced by the production system, where organic and range chickens had the highest values of redness in both cuts (breast and drumstick). In addition, the content of essential fatty acids (C18:2n-6 and C18:3n-3) and other fatty acids with high biological importance, such as eicosapentanoic acid (EPA; C20:5n-3), docosapentanoic acid (DPA; C22:5n-3) and docosahexanoic acid (DHA; C22:6n-3) were higher in organic samples compared to industrial or range chickens. The amino acids content did not vary with the production system. With regard to mineral contents, organic chickens had the highest values of iron in drumstick and significantly lower values of magnesium in both cuts than industrial chickens. On the whole, the meat of the organic chickens showed better nutritional characteristics than those produced in range or industrial conditions.


Transnational organized crime has an adverse impact on the United States and the People's Republic of China. In the last thirty years, the mutual legal assistance agreement has emerged as an effective mechanism to streamline international judicial assistance in combating borderless crime. The accretion of these agreements has created a growing web of bilateral obligations that links sovereign jurisdictions. The U.S.-P.R.C. mutual legal assistance agreement (the "U.S.-P.R.C. MLAA") furthers U.S. interests by facilitating U.S. Attomeys' access to physical evidence and witnesses in the People's Republic of China. Significantly, the political offense exception in the U.S.P.R.C. agreement permits U.S. authorities to avoid complicity in Chinese prosecutions of political dissidents and religious minorities. Missing from these arrangements, however, is consideration of U.S. constitutional safeguards that should accompany the expanded power of U.S. law enforcement abroad. While prosecutors can exchange evidence directly under the U.S.-P.R.C. MLAA, defendants must resort to discretionary access to evidence abroad under the antiquated letters rogatory system. This imbalance may infringe on the defendant's right to compulsory process. Given the very broad "state secrets" exception under Chinese law, defendants may be unable to obtain exculpatory evidence from the People's Republic of China. The defendant's right to confrontation may also be compromised in the Chinese context. The widely acknowledged Chinese police practice of coercion of the accused and incarcerated may stifle truthfulness, undermining the genuine opportunity for defense counsel to reliably cross-examine a Chinese witness in police custody. By allowing defendants in U.S. criminal proceedings more reliable access to evidence in the People's Republic of China under the U.S.-P.R.C. MLAA framework, the protection of U.S. constitutional rights to compulsory process


Context. In the magneto-centrifugal mechanism for jet formation, accreting neutron stars are assumed to produce relativistic j ets only if their surface magnetic field is weak enough ( B∼ 10 8 G). However, the most common manifestation of neutron stars are pulsars, whose magnetic field distribution peaks at B∼ 10 12 G. If the neutron star magnetic field has at least this strengt h at birth, it must decay considerably before jets can be launched in binary systems. Aims. We study the magnetic field evolution of a neutron star that ac cretes matter from the wind of a high-mass stellar companion so that we can constrain the accretion rate and the impurities i n the crust, which are necessary conditions for jet formation. Methods. We solved the induction equation for the diffusion and convection of the neutron star magnetic field confin ed to the crust, assuming spherical accretion in a simpliflied one-dimensio nal treatment. We incorporated state-of-the-art microphysics, including consistent thermal evolution profiles, and assumed two di fferent neutron star cooling scenarios based on the superfluid ity conditions at the core. Results. We find that in this scenario, magnetic field decay at long time scales is governed mainly by the accretion rate, while the impurity content and thermal evolution of the neutron star play a secondary role. For accretion rates ˙ M& 10 −10 M⊙ yr −1 , surface magnetic fields can decay up to four orders of magnitude in ∼10 7 yr, which is the timescale imposed by the evolution of the high-mass stellar companion in these systems. Based on these results, we discuss the possibility of transient jet-launching in st rong windaccreting high-mass binary systems like supergiant fast X-ray transients.


The distributed source coding theory teaches that efficient compression can be achieved by exploiting the correlation between encoded sources at the decoder only. A critical issue in this coding paradigm is how to accurately estimate the correlation statistics at the decoder. This paper proposes a novel correlation channel estimation method designed for generic layered Wyner-Ziv (WZ) coding. Driven by real-life applications, i.e., video coding, the correlation noise is assumed to be memoryless zero-mean Laplacian with a block-stationary behavior. Unlike existing methods, the proposed technique derives a novel maximum likelihood estimate of the noise scaling parameter per stationarity block. Adhering to layered coding, the derived estimate is successively refined as more stages are decoded. The Crámer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) for our estimator is derived and the mean squared error performance of the proposed successive refinement algorithm is evaluated through simulations. Apart from achieving an accuracy close to the derived CRLB, the proposed algorithm is shown to yield a WZ rate-distortion performance approaching the ideal but unrealistic scenario where the decoder knows a priori the correlation statistics. Moreover, the proposed technique has been integrated into our latest WZ video codec for wireless capsule endoscopy. Experimentation reveals that the proposed method delivers improved compression performance compared to state-of-the-art techniques, while simultaneously reducing the overall decoding complexity.


This case study examined Palestinian English language teachers" views of the implementation of learning circles (LCs) and their impact on instructional practices and on promoting a collaborative learning culture for teacher professional development. These learning circles involved designated English language teachers teaching from fifth to tenth grade coming together twice a month for six hours during the one year leadership and teacher development program (LTD) to reflect on and share their insights, experiences, difficulties and challenges as leaders of change. Learning circles in the LTD program aimed at providing powerful opportunities for growth and professional development.The data sources included semistructured interviews, observation and analysis of teacher participation, presentations and reflections. The data also included several sub-questions that this study set out to be answered and explored by the teachers orally and through emails. A total of forty Palestinian teachers participated in this study. Half of the teachers were from Ramallah district and half from Qabatya-Palestine. The results of this study were a narrative description of teachers" views of the implementation of learning circles used to impact their instructional practices and their professional development. The data from the interviews and the observat ion of teachers" participation and presentations suggested that teachers have positive views towards learning circles that support and positively affect their instructional practices and professional development. Teachers" reflection revealed that LCs refined their teaching practices and encouraged them to create a collaborative culture that often leads to professional development. They helped them explore new methods and techniques to advance their professional practices. Through learning circles, English language teachers share their best practices in a safe, supportive and collaborative environment.


Results of studies on the modification of Al-7%SiMg alloy with a homogeneous modifier obtained by fast cooling of homogeneous modifiers at V=200 K/s are presented in the paper. Homogeneous modifiers are additions designed for modification of the alloys from which they were obtained at 0, 7, 12 and 20% Si. The components were put into a crucible containing liquid Al-Si alloy and kept there for one minute. The effects of cooling rate and w/w concentration of the modifier in the melt on structure and tensile strength, percentage elongation, Brinell hardness, abrasive wear are illustrated graphically. The analysis of the process of hypo-eutectic Al-Si alloy modification with a homogeneous modifier obtained from treated alloy by fast cooling shows that this modifying addition affected structural,physical and mechanical properties of Al-7%SiMg alloy.


We present a framework for differential modulation with multiple antennas across a continuously fading channel, where neither the transmitter nor the receiver knows the fading coefficients. The framework can be seen as a natural extension of standard differential phase-shift keying commonly used in single-antenna unknown-channel systems. We show how our differential framework links the unknown-channel system with a known-channel system, and we develop performance design criteria. As a special ease, we introduce a class of diagonal signals where only one antenna is active at any time, and demonstrate how these signals may be used to achieve full transmitter diversity and low probability of error.


OBJECTIVE
Concern over rising health care costs has put pressure on providers to reduce costs, purportedly by reducing inpatient care and increasing outpatient care.

METHOD
Inpatient and outpatient claims were analyzed for adult users of mental health services (180,000/year on average) from a national study group of 3.9 million privately insured individuals per year from 1993 to 1995. Costs and treatment days per patient were compared across diagnostic groups and stratified by whether patients were hospitalized.

RESULTS
Inpatient mental health costs fell $2,507 (30.4%) over the period, driven primarily by decreases in hospital days per patient per year (19.9%), with smaller changes in the proportion of enrollees who received inpatient care (increase of 0.8%) and a decrease in per diem costs (9.1%). Outpatient mental health costs also declined over the period, falling 13.6% for patients also using inpatient services and 14.6% for patients receiving only outpatient care. Patients whose primary diagnosis was mild to moderate depression saw the largest decreases in inpatient cost per patient (42.8%); those diagnosed with schizophrenia experienced the smallest decrease (23.5%). For patients using outpatient services only, those diagnosed with substance abuse experienced the largest decrease in costs (23.5%); those diagnosed with schizophrenia experienced the smallest decrease (8.6%).

CONCLUSIONS
Substantial cost reductions for mental health services are primarily a result of reductions in inpatient and outpatient treatment days. Declines in inpatient service use were not accompanied by increases in outpatient service use, even for severely ill patients requiring hospitalization. Managed care has not caused a shift in the pattern of care but an overall reduction of care.


The Information Technology curriculum at Linkoping University has as goal to form engineers with an integrated view of engineering. The teaching philosophy in this curriculum is Problem-Based Learning. The education in each term is organised in a number of themes where topics from different disciplines are integrated. We describe a particular term in the Information Technology curriculum as an example of the approach and the integration of computer science teaching with the teaching of other disciplines. An important advantage of the approach is that the students discover interactions between different disciplines and view the different topics as naturally connected. Also, the students seem to have a better understanding of the topics and are better motivated. Further, they obtain improved communication and co-operation skills. Another advantage is that the approach is appreciated by our female students, which has led to a higher percentage of female students in this curriculum compared to our other computer science curricula.


Influenza A viruses contain two S‐acylated proteins, the ion channel M2 and the glycoprotein hemagglutinin (HA). Acylation of the latter is essential for virus replication. Here we analysed the expression of each of the 23 members of the family of ZDHHC acyltransferases in human airway cells, the site of virus replication. RT‐PCR revealed that every ZDHHC acyltransferase (except ZDHHC19) is expressed in A549 and Calu cells. Interestingly, expression of one ZDHHC, ZDHHC22, is upregulated in virus‐infected cells; this effect is more pronounced after infection with an avian compared to a human virus strain. The viral protein NS1 triggers ZDHHC22 expression in transfected cells, whereas recombinant viruses lacking a functional NS1 gene did not cause ZDHHC22 upregulation. CRISPR/Cas9 technology was then used to knock‐out the ZDHHC22 gene in A549 cells. However, acylation of M2 and HA was not reduced, as analysed for intracellular HA and M2 and the stoichiometry of S‐acylation of HA incorporated into virus particles did not change according to MALDI‐TOF mass spectrometry analysis. Comparative mass spectrometry of palmitoylated proteins in wt and ΔZDHHC22 cells identified 25 potential substrates of ZDHHC22 which might be involved in virus replication.


A method is given whereby a transfer ratio that contains complex zeros can be realized by means of R-C (resistance-capacitance) ladder networks connected in parallel. It is an improvement on the method previously given by Guillemin in that fewer paralleled networks are required and the level of the transfer ratio is greater. The general procedure is (1) to convert the desired transfer ratio into the sum of several transfer ratios, each of which can be realized with a single ladder network, (2) to develop the theory of paralleling ladders, and (3) to develop the method of synthesis of the individual ladder networks in terms of a common driving-point admittance function.


The Portuguese public educational administration and management follows the norms established by the Decree-Law no. 75/2008, which was later reviewed by the Decree-Law no. 137/2012. The DecreeLaw no. 75/2008, in effect since 2008, intended to "strengthen the participation of families and communities in the strategic direction of educational establishments and in favouring the establishment of strong leadership". In addition to these two objectives, the preamble of this DecreeLaw mentions "the need to strengthen the autonomy of schools [which] has been called for by all sectors of opinion." In order to achieve these objectives, this Decree-Law reorganizes the configuration of public schools' administrative bodies, by introducing a major change: the institution of a strategic management body – the General Council made up of representatives from teaching and non-teaching staff, parents, students (if adults or secondary education students), municipalities and local community (representatives from institutions, economic, social, cultural and scientific organizations and activities). By introducing this change, this legal document establishes the following school administration and management bodies: i) the General Council; (ii) the School Director / Principal; (iii) the Pedagogical Council and (iv) the Administrative Council. The General Council is the strategic management body responsible for approving the fundamental rules of the school's functioning (internal regulations), the strategic and planning decisions (educational project, activities plan) and for monitoring their implementation (annual activity report). Moreover, this body is responsible for the election and destitution of the Principal, who reports to the General Council. None of the bodies or groups represented in the General Council holds, on its own, the majority of the seats. All the interested groups must be represented and the bodies that represent the school staff (teaching and non-teaching staff) may not hold the majority of seats in the council. An open-ended single question was applied to a sample of parents who have a seat in the General Council of their children's school, in order to collect their suggestions about ways to improve its action. We obtained a total of 42 answers that correspond to parents from 32 different General Councils across the country. A content analysis of the answers given reveals that the majority of respondents think that the General Council is dominated by the school Director / Principal, becoming a propaganda body for his action. Moreover, they affirm that parents should have an increased presence in this body, in order to counterbalance teachers' excessive power in the General Council. In terms of the decision-making processes, the results show that the General Council seems to be perceived by parents as a forum for the legitimation of previously made decisions, which leads to a deficit of parents' participation in these processes. The results of the study are presented and discussed under the light of some classical organizational theories.


We studied the effect of shift in the natural light/dark regimen (desynchronosis) and treatment with melatonin on behavioral characteristics of rats with different activity in the open-field test. Experiments were performed on 172 Wistar rats kept under conditions of the natural or shifted light/dark regimen. Some animals were intraperitoneally treated with 1 ml physiological saline or melatonin in doses of 1 and 2 mg/kg, while others did not receive the injections. Desynchronosis altered the normal rhythm of locomotor activity and abolished the differences between daytime and nighttime activity rats not receiving the injections. The influence of melatonin on locomotor activity of rats maintained under normal or shifted light/dark conditions depended on its dose, time of treatment, and initial behavioral characteristics of animals. Our results indicate that the use of melatonin for treatment of disturbances produced by a shift in the light/dark conditions should be performed taking into account individual behavioral characteristics of the organism.


The work presented in this master thesis deal with the issue of quenching, investigation regarding different cooling rates and its effect on the material properties of aluminum alloy in the 6xxx series used for crash purposes in cars, such as crash boxes, beams and other crash relevant parts.Precipitation of Mg2Si due to different cooling rates affects the material properties such as crash performance, thus the aluminum alloy used is sensitive to different cooling rates. In order to perform tests with different cooling rates a cooling rig was constructed.In order to evaluate the different cooling rates both mechanical testing such as tensile test and 3-point bending test and compression test were performed. Also analyses with scanning electron microscope/energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy were performed to estimate grain boundary decoration of Mg2Si due to the different cooling rates. Furthermore LOM analyses were performed to evaluate if the experimental setup had any effect on material properties such as grain size.The constructed cooling rig produced different cooling rates with reliable repeatability as intended. Cooling rates between 130 C/s and 20 C/s were accomplished.Mg2Si occurred in all investigated test samples with various amounts. Higher cooling rates decreases the precipitation of Mg2Si to the grain boundaries, higher cooling rates also increased the bending angle achieved from the 3-point bending test.Furthermore, extensive solution heat treatment at elevated temperatures leads to grain growth.


Loathed and Falling Limbs: A Sociological Exploration of Embodiment Troubles Claire Ashton This thesis explores unique problems of embodiment with particular emphasis on the desire for radical transformations of the self by disembodiment. Based on 10 interviews with informants, major focus is paid to 4 who identify as having Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BUD: the compelling sense that one is "trapped" in their fully able embodiment as is meant to be disabled) and an interview with a leading plastic surgeon, the coordinator of psychology at a correctional institute and a professional body modifier. This permits a triangulation of different practical and ideological perspectives, often mutually conflicting. These matters can be theororized through the work of Kristeva, Baudrillard and Butler. The body is a metaphor for society and these theorists of abjection and the relations between self and society offer some insights into these embodiment troubles (e.g. the desire for amputation or paralysis). The number of people suffering from somatoform disorders like Body Dysmorphic Disorder, BUD and Gender Identity Disorder seems to be increasing, along with the dramatic number of people accessing cosmetic surgery. These phenomena may reflect the embodiment deficit, to use Niemeyer's (2007) term: reflecting the desire for extreme physical engagements, to belong to or create a new identity, to experience a new reality, or as the transference of psycho-sexual trauma onto the limb(s) in question. The diagnosis of BUD is highly controversial: a neurological problem, perhaps, or psychological due to developmental issues, or social, facilitated by the internet. This thesis attempts to clarify this identity as meaningful to observers as it is to respondents.


The construction industry generates the greatest quantity of solid waste in the world, which is now becoming an environmental and social problem for future generations. Efforts to decrease the impact of construction and demolition waste (C&DW) through mechanisms like clean production agreements, laws, decrees and legislation, among others, are not producing results. Therefore, this article describes a methodology to create a construction and demolition waste management plan (C&DWMP) based on processes of innovation and productive thinking. The plan, implemented in a construction project, aims to include strategies that not only classify and manage C&DW, but also avoid its production and disposal in landfills. The results show a high level of participation, involvement and open-mindedness from the project members. Their ability to come up with ideas and increase awareness to minimize waste was also an achievement. It should be noted that the effectiveness of the C&DW management plan is not presented from a quantitative point of view.


Objective: To determine the pattern and forecast visitor accession trend of two national academic journal website: Indian Journal of Community Medicine (IJCM) and Indian Journal of Public Health (IJPH) for the period 2015-2020. Materials and Methods: The visitor accession details (number of times journal issue accessed online) for the period 2000-2014 (15 years) were collected and recorded on Microsoft Excel sheet. Time series analysis was then applied on the dataset using different forecasting models to predict the future trend of accession and value of a real dataset using R software (version 3.1). Results: Both the Indian journals are managed by independent professional bodies, but IJCM journal website was made online in 2007, 3 years ahead of IJPH (2010), leading to a very high accession (a proxy indicator for volume of readership) of IJCM during this period ranging between 100,000 and 120,000 counts, and thereafter accession was noticed to be slightly higher for IJPH than IJCM. The time series sequence showed that both had similar pattern, i.e., first stage: they have initial slow rise; second stage: sudden increasing trend from 2007 to 2010 (IJCM); and 2010 to 2012 (IJPH), respectively; and third stage: Both have then a decreasing trend with superimposed seasonal fluctuations. Future predicted accession details of IJCM and IJPH for 2015-2020 by Holt-Winter fitting model suggest stagnation with online accession of journal issue ranging from 30,360 to 31,860 counts for IJPH and 20,997 to 25,581 counts for IJCM though the range of accession for IJCM (4584) was higher than IJPH (1500), thereby reflecting that IJPH will attain stagnation earlier then IJCM. Autoregressive integrated moving average model also reflected similar results. Ljung-Box test indicated that the model was found statistically correct (P = 0.825 for IJCM and P = 0.50 (IJPH), and there was no statistically significant difference between actual values and predicted values by model. For IJCM dataset, value of R2 = 0.678 means that the model could explain 67.8% of the observed variation in the series, while it was able to explain 63.3% variations in IJPH series. Conclusion: To conclude within limitations, this study provides information on pattern and trend of visitor accession of public health journal website. The information unraveled from this study may further aids in planning, strengthening publication standards along with experimentation of innovative ideas to enhance visibility, global participation with a focus on retaining and enhancing journal user base.


This work aims at designing and implementing logic control structures that allow a combination of the advantages of classical techniques for the development of programmable logic controller code and elimination of disadvantages such as the lack of formal validation. This paper introduces a method to automatically generate code for a programmable logic controller from a validated textual description of this kind of Petri nets. A special compiler that generates code according to the standard IEC 1131 is discussed. The modeling and implementation of a logic control system for flexible assembly cell using the method describe serves as an example.


The structure of human microplasmin, prepared from plasmin in alkaline solution, has been studied. Microplasmin consists of two polypeptide chains connected by disulfide bonds. One polypeptide is the B chain of plasmin consisting of 230 amino acids, and the other peptide is the COOH-terminal portion of the A chain of plasmin consisting of 31 amino acid residues. Microplasmin has a molecular weight of 28,635, calculated from its primary sequence. It is slightly more positively charged than plasminogen and is a more hydrophobic molecule. The proposed scheme for the formation ofmicroplasmin involves autolysis at specific peptide bonds and scrambling of especially sensitive disulfide bonds in alkaline solution. E


The study of fatigue crack behavior in welded structures using AE technique during crack initiation and propagation is discussed in this paper. This was achieved both theoretically and experimentally using four point bending testing. A new averaging index known as AE intensity was used to analyze the fatigue crack initiation conditions in the specimen. A theoretical model based on acoustic emission energy rate was developed to determine the critical fatigue level and crack extension. The results were compared with fatigue crack growth using a non-contact non-destructive testing method known as the digital imaging correlation. It was realized that, AE technique was able to detect the unset of a crack at a length of 8 μm in welded connection and 10 μm in the base metal, this proved that, crack initiates faster in welded connection than base metal.

 Key words: Acoustic emission, fatigue, initiation, propagation, digital imaging correlation.


SUMMARY Redesign of shore protection projects in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany) is allowing landforms to become more dynamic after centuries of employing structures to increase stability. Current policies are designed to maintain sediment transfers, re-establish wetlands, ensure zero net loss of coastal habitat and apply the user-pays principle for restoring damaged habitat. Projects that achieve new nature-oriented goals include (1) relocating dykes landward or allowing dykes or protective dunes to erode to expose more land to episodic inundation by the sea; (2) reinstating sediment transfers from bluffs to adjacent low-lying shores; (3) increasing sediment transport rates through groyne fields; and (4) removing exotic vegetation from dunes. These actions create new habitat, add portions of the coast to the public domain, and provide a wider buffer against accelerated sea-level rise for developed lands further inland. The management actions have been relatively small in scale, applied where there has been little threat to human facilities and done to achieve specific environmental goals, but they provide examples of workable options to increase the dynamism of stabilized landforms on other exposed coasts. The need to restore natural functions while providing some stability places emphasis on a strategy of controlling dynamism rather than preventing it.


The clinical and morbid anatomy data on 295 patients with arterial hypertension were examined. Two hundred patients had moderate hypertension with the diastolic pressure under 110 mm Hg. Of these, 103 patients had received rauwolfia drugs and 13 patients had been given hypothiazide in addition. Eighty patients who died before 1953 had not received any specific hypotensive drugs. Early hypotensive therapy of moderate hypertension was noted to promote a decrease in arterial blood pressure to normal and to raise the mean lifespan by 8 years. Furthermore the number of fatal brain strokes and myocardial infarctions decreased almost 2-fold.


Background: In previous research on ethics case reflection (ECR) sessions about specific cases, healthcare professionals in childhood cancer care were clarifying their perspectives on the ethical issue to resolve their main concern of consolidating care. When perspectives were clarified, consequences in the team included 'increased understanding', 'group strengthening' and 'decision grounding'. Additional analysis of the data was needed on conditions that could contribute to the quality of ECR sessions. Objective: The aim of this study was to explore conditions for clarifying perspectives during ECR sessions. Research design: Data were collected from observations and interviews and the results emerged from an inductive analysis using grounded theory. Participants and research context: Six observations during ECR sessions and 10 interviews were performed with healthcare professionals working in childhood cancer care and advanced paediatric homecare. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by a regional ethical review board. Participants were informed about their voluntary involvement and that they could withdraw their participation without explaining why. Findings: Two categories emerged: organizational enablers and barriers and team-related enablers and barriers. Organizational enablers and barriers included the following sub-categories: the timing of the ECR session, the structure during the ECR session and the climate during the ECR session. Sub-categories to team-related enablers and barriers were identified as space for inter-professional perspectives, varying levels of ethical skills and space for the patient's and the family's perspectives. Discussion: Space for inter-professional perspectives included the dominance of a particular perspective that can result from hierarchical positions. The medical perspective is relevant for understanding the child's situation but should not dominate the ethical reflection. Conclusion: Conditions for ECR sessions have been explored and the new knowledge can be used when training facilitators as well as for those who organize/implement ECR sessions. Awareness of space for different perspectives, including the possible medical advantage over the nursing perspective, could reduce the somewhat unilateral attention and contribute to an inter-professionally shared reflection.


We propose a geometric method for visual tracking, in which the 2-D affine motion of a given object template is estimated in a video sequence by means of coordinate-invariant particle filtering on the 2-D affine group Aff(2). Tracking performance is further enhanced through a geometrically defined optimal importance function, obtained explicitly via Taylor expansion of a principal component analysis based measurement function on Aff(2). The efficiency of our approach to tracking is demonstrated via comparative experiments.


A new geological mapping and the availability of several geognostic data supplied by the Italian Railway Authority, allowed us to recognise an unconformity in the lithostratigraphic assemblages of the Vasto area Calabrian succession. Sediments grade upward from clay to sand and conglomerates according to a marine regression from off-shore ramp to beach and fluvio-lacustrine environments. The regional reconstruction of the stratigraphic setting points out a gentle angular unconformity between clay and sands. This tilting has been related to a regional uplift and tilting due to compressive deformation in the incoming near Apennine belt.


Abstract : Evidence is presented showing that bottom-up grouping of image features is usually prerequisite to the recognition and interpretation of images. The authors describe three functions of these groupings: segmentation, three-dimensional interpretation, and stable descriptions for accessing object models. Several unifying principles are hypothesized for determining which image relations should be formed: relations are significant to the extent that they are unlikely to have arisen by accident from the surrounding distribution of features, relations can only be formed where there are few alternatives within the same proximity, and relations must be based on properties which are invariant over a range of imaging conditions. Using these principles we develop an algorithm for curve segmentation which detects significant structure at multiple resolutions, including the linking of segments on the basis of curvilinearity. The algorithm is able to detect structures which no single-resolution algorithm could detect. Its performance is demonstrated on synthetic and natural image data. (Author)


Abstract Functional properties of technical lignins need to be characterized in more detail to become a higher added value renewable raw material for the chemical industry. The suitability of a lignin from different plants or trees obtained by different technical processes can only be predicted for selected applications, such as binders, if reliable analytical data are available. In the present paper, structure dependent properties of four industrial lignins were analyzed before and after successive organic solvent extractions. The lignins have been fractionated according to their molar mass by these solvents extractions. Kraft and soda lignins were shown to have different molar mass distributions and chemical compositions. Lignin carbohydrate complexes are most recalcitrant for extraction with organic solvents. These poorly soluble complexes can consist of up to 34% of carbohydrates in soda lignins. Modeling by principle component analysis (PCA) was performed aiming at prediction of the application potential of different lignins for binder production. The lignins and their fractions could be classified in different clusters based on their properties, which are structure dependent. Kraft softwood lignins show the highest potential for plywood binder application followed by hardwood soda lignin and the fractions of Sarkanda grass soda lignin with medium molar mass. Expectedly, the softwood lignins contain the highest number of reactive sites in ortho positions to the phenolic OH group. Moreover, these lignins have a low level of impurities and medium molar mass.