Informed by research on interpersonal perception, peer relationships, and classroom climate, this study examines predictors of children's agreement with classmates on their classroom social networks. Social network data, peer nominations of positive behavior, and classroom observations were collected from 418 second-grade to fourth-grade children (99% African American) and 33 teachers and classrooms in low-income, urban schools. Children's perceptions of their classroom social networks varied from minimal overlap to complete congruence with the consensus of their peers. Multilevel modeling with hypothesized predictors indicated that agreement on social relationships was predicted by factors at the level of the individual child (network centrality) and classroom context (grade level, class size, network density, teacher network perception, emotional climate). Findings are discussed in terms of advances in understanding of children's interpersonal perception, as well as implications of network agreement for children's ability to navigate the classroom social and academic learning context.


This article reports on an empirical study on translation revision. With the aim of investigating the possible link between revision procedure and quality, the research correlates an indicator of quality, error detection, with revision procedure. Error detection and revision procedure were studied drawing on a convergent parallel mixed-methods research design involving three different sources of data. Nine subjects performed a revision task and thus produced text data; their activities on the computer screen were captured and saved as video fi les; and retrospective interviews were conducted with the revisers upon completion of the task. Results show that the highest error detection scores were linked with a variety of revision procedures, but with one common denominator: the target text was consistently the point of departure. Revisers with high error detection scores thus engaged in various different revision procedures, but their focus of attention in the initial operations was the translation rather than the source text in all cases. Conversely, the revisers whose initial attention was directed towards the source text received the lowest error detection scores in the revision task.


All we have witnessed several summits of the so-called G-20 to overcome the crisis and attempt to delineate the "look" of new rules of the emerging new world economic system. However, according to many experts, these rules will not be able to radically change the current system of economic relations, which is based on the processes of globalization and economic interpenetration of the world. One can list the many elements of the system. Among them, as a manifestation of a growing specialization of production, and deepening of cooperative relations in the world the special role is played by multi-modal logistics centers (MLC), of both regional and global concern. If stock and commodity exchanges are the link in the global economy, meanwhile a multimodal logistics centers serve as their practical and technical support.


Antecedent variables under the broad categories of genetic, environmental and cultural influences have been linked to the risk for alcohol abuse. Such risk factors have not been shown to result in high correlations with alcohol consumption and leave unclear an understanding of the mechanism by which these variables lead to increased risk. This study employed covariance structure modeling to examine the mediational influence of stored information in memory about alcohol, alcohol expectancies in relation to two biologically and environmentally driven antecedent variables, family history of alcohol abuse and a sensation-seeking temperament in a college population. We also examined the effect of criterion contamination on the relationship between sensation-seeking and alcohol consumption. Results indicated that alcohol expectancy acts as a significant, partial mediator of the relationship between sensation-seeking and consumption, that family history of alcohol abuse is not related to drinking outcome and that overlap in items on sensation-seeking and alcohol consumption measures may falsely inflate their relationship.


Importance Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is diagnosed by a mean pulmonary arterial pressure (mPAP) value of at least 25 mm Hg during right heart catheterization (RHC). While several studies have demonstrated increased mortality in patients with mPAP less than that threshold, little is known about the natural history of borderline PH. Objective To test the hypothesis that patients with borderline PH have decreased survival compared with patients with lower mPAP and frequently develop overt PH and to identify clinical correlates of borderline PH. Design, Setting, and Participants Retrospective cohort study from 1998 to 2014 at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, comprising all patients undergoing routine RHC for clinical indication. We extracted demographics, clinical data, invasive hemodynamics, echocardiography, and vital status for all patients. Patients with mPAP values of 18 mm Hg or less, 19 to 24 mm Hg, and at least 25 mm Hg were classified as reference, borderline PH, and PH, respectively. Exposures Mean pulmonary arterial pressure. Main Outcome and Measures Our primary outcome was all-cause mortality after adjusting for clinically relevant covariates in a Cox proportional hazards model. Our secondary outcome was the diagnosis of overt PH in patients initially diagnosed with borderline PH. Both outcomes were determined prior to data analysis. Results We identified 4343 patients (mean [SD] age, 59 [15] years, 51% women, and 86% white) among whom the prevalence of PH and borderline PH was 62% and 18%, respectively. Advanced age, features of the metabolic syndrome, and chronic heart and lung disease were independently associated with a higher likelihood of borderline PH compared with reference patients in a logistic regression model. After adjusting for 34 covariates in a Cox proportional hazards model, borderline PH was associated with increased mortality compared with reference patients (hazard ratio, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.04-1.65; P = .001). The hazard of death increased incrementally with higher mPAP, without an observed threshold. In the 70 patients with borderline PH who underwent a repeated RHC, 43 (61%) had developed overt PH, with a median increase in mPAP of 5 mm Hg (interquartile range, −1 to 11 mm Hg; P < .001). Conclusions and Relevance Borderline PH is common in patients undergoing RHC and is associated with significant comorbidities, progression to overt PH, and decreased survival. Small increases in mPAP, even at values currently considered normal, are independently associated with increased mortality. Prospective studies are warranted to determine whether early intervention or closer monitoring improves clinical outcomes in these patients.


We report herein the synthesis, structural characterization and electrocatalytic properties of three new coordination polymers, resulting from the combination of divalent metal (Ca2+, Cd2+ or Co2+) salts with (2-carboxyethyl)(phenyl)phosphinic acid. In addition to the usual hydrothermal procedure, the Co2+ derivative could also be prepared by microwave-assisted synthesis, in much shorter times. The crystal structures were solved by ab initio calculations, from powder diffraction data. Compounds MII[O2P(CH2CH2COOH)(C6H5)]2 {M = Cd (1) or Ca (2)} crystallize in the monoclinic system and display a layered topology, with the phenyl groups pointing toward the interlayer space in a interdigitated fashion. Compound Co2[(O2P(CH2CH2COO)(C6H5)(H2O)]2·2H2O (3) presents a 1D structure composed of zig-zag chains, formed by edge-sharing cobalt octahedra, with the phenyl groups pointing outside. Packing of these chains is favored by hydrogen bond interactions via lattice water molecules. In addition, H-bonds along the chains are established with the participation of the water molecules and the hydrophilic groups from the ligand. However, the solid exhibits a low proton conductivity, attributed to the isolation of the hydrophilic regions caused by the arrangement of hydrophobic phenyl groups. Preliminary studies on the electrocatalytic performance for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) have been conducted for compound 3 and its pyrolytic derivatives, which were previously thoroughly characterized. By comparison, another Co2+ phosphinate, 4, obtained by microwave-assisted synthesis, but with distinct stoichiometry and a known structure was also tested. For the OER, the best performance was achieved with a derivative of 3, prepared by heating this compound in N2 at 200 °C. This derivative showed overpotential (339 mV, at a current density of 10 mA cm-2) and Tafel slope (51.7 mV dec-1) values comparable to those of other Co2+ related materials.


Hidden Markov models (HMMs) for automatic speech recognition rely on high dimensional feature vectors to summarize the short-time properties of speech. Correlations between features can arise when the speech signal is non-stationary or corrupted by noise. We investigate how to model these correlations using factor analysis, a statistical method for dimensionality reduction. Factor analysis uses a small number of parameters to model the covariance structure of high dimensional data. These parameters are estimated by an Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm that can be embedded in the training procedures for HMMs. We evaluate the combined use of mixture densities and factor analysis in HMMs that recognize alphanumeric strings. Holding the total number of parameters fixed, we find that these methods, properly combined, yield better models than either method on its own.


Patch testing was carried out in 23 patients with oral lichenoid lesions (OLL) topographically related to dental amalgam fillings. Twelve patients displayed positive reactions to several mercury compounds, whereas 11 patients were negative. An in vitro lymphocyte proliferation (LyPro) test was carried out using different mercury compounds and other metal salts. Mercuric chloride and phenyl mercuric acetate caused positive proliferation in 3/12 patch test-positive and in 5/11 negative patients. One out of seven healthy control subjects had a positive LyPro result. The mean stimulation index (SI) values between the patient groups or compared with the control subjects did not differ significantly. Zinc, tin, copper or silver salts caused in vitro lymphocyte stimulation in most of the patients and in healthy control people. Total (14) or partial (4) replacement of amalgam fillings was carried out in 18 patients. Complete healing of lichenoid lesions was seen in 4/6 LyPro test-positive and in 5/10 patch test-positive patients at follow-up examinations 12 months after the replacement of amalgam fillings. The in vitro proliferation assay seems not to be a specific test for identifying the patients who would benefit from amalgam replacement.


Cuba reported the first dengue hemorrhagic fever epidemic in the American region in 1981. More than 344 203 cases with 10 312 severe and very severe cases and 158 fatalities were reported. Thirty years after this epidemic, the established surveillance, the control actions and the performed research studies have allowed the country to keep free of dengue, although some epidemics and waves of transmission have occurred, which have finally been eliminated. This paper summarized some interesting aspects related with this epidemic as well as with the laboratory surveillance and results of some of the main research works.


The effect of fixation with acidified solutions of osmium tetroxide (pH 1.5 to 3.5 has been studied on the first (proximal) convoluted tubule cells of the kidney and the pancreatic exocrine cells of the mouse, by electron microscopy. Partially prepolymerized methacrylate was used for embedding. The various membranous structures and the ribosomes retain their individuality even after prolonged fixation in solutions containing 5% acetic acid (pH 1.5). However, the mitochondrial matrix and the ground cytoplasm are not preserved; the zymogen granules are also partially washed out.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of nanofluid over rotating disk with the exponential variable thickness

Z=ce−bRR0 (c > 0, b > 0) and to analyze Brownian motion and thermophoresis of Buongiorno model on the disk embedded in nanofluid-saturated porous media.

Design/methodology/approach
Using the generalized von Karman transformation, the boundary layer governing equations are transformed into semi-similar forms solved by bvp4c in MATLAB.

Findings
The effects of the thickness parameter a, the shape parameter b, the Brownian motion parameter Nb and thermophoresis parameter Nt on flow, heat and mass transfer are analyzed. With the increase of thickness parameter a, the radial velocity first decreases and then increases, showing the opposite trend on the two sides of the peak value. Moreover, temperature and concentration rise as the Brownian motion parameter Nb becomes larger.

Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first work that has been done on rotating disk with exponential variable thickness in nanofluid. The impact of the two slip effects, namely, Brownian motion and thermophoresis, on the nanofluid boundary layer flow, heat and mass transfer because of rotating disk with exponential variable thickness

Z=ce−bRR0 (c > 0, b > 0) has been addressed in this study.


Changes resulting from the cyclical nature of the sun's energy output result to variations in thermosphere-ionosphere system parameters. The prolonged low solar activity period of solar cycle 23 provides an opportunity to study the thermosphere-ionosphere system parameters when the sun was at its ground state. The CHAMP satellite has provided wind data that can be used for investigation of neutral thermospheric parameters such as zonal winds and density. Using zonal wind data from 2006 to 2008 generated from CHAMP accelerometer readings using an iterative algorithm, the diurnal variation of averaged zonal thermospheric winds in the high latitudes (70 - 80°N) has been investigated. In the analysis we grouped the data into four seasons; the March and September equinoxes, and the June and December solstices. The wind data is binned into local time bins and averaged to find the hourly mean speeds. The results reveal maximum eastward and westward wind speeds going above 150 m/s for each of the seasons considered. Of particular interest is the observation that despite the expected complex behavior resulting from the expected magnetospheric inputs, the diurnal patterns are similar to those obtained in the mid-latitudes in an earlier study with data from this algorithm. Due to likely errors arising from the longitudinal effects of mixing composite solar times, there is need for simultaneous measurements in the high latitudes.

 Key words: CHAMP satellite, high latitude, solar activity, thermosphere.


The non-associated plasticity model, based on the first and second invariant of the stress tensor, describes reasonably well the mechanical behaviour of crashoptimized high-strength adhesives in the automotive industry. This pressure sensitive model can be used only with three-dimensional solid elements which are not suitable for the discretisation of thin adhesive layers in bonded components for the simulation of a complete vehicle body in crash scenarios. In order to reduce the computing time, the thin polymeric adhesive layer is approximated with interface elements. Different proposals will be discussed in order to relate the strain tensor of the 3D-continuum to the displacement jump vector of the interface element and its stress vector to the three-dimensional stress tensor by means of an adequate model idealization. Hence, a multi yield surface function model can be advantageously expressed in terms of the components of the stress vector on the interface and be extended to material softening including damage and rate dependence. The material parameters are identified by means of the simulation of the experimental setup for a bluntly glued double steel tube sample with the adhesive BETAMATE 1496. A final comparison of the simulated results with the experimental data points out the validity of the introduced model. The combined shear and tension tests on a special bounded structure, denoted as the KS2-test, and the experiments, performed at the DCB specimen, reflect the peeling and shearing process of adhesively bonded steel sheets in a vehicle body. The crash performance of the constitutive model is finally tested at an adhesively bonded joint in the form of a Tintersection. Despite the simplicity of the constitutive model for the interface element, the complex material behaviour of the joint failure is well reproduced.


The evaluation of stocks and the selection of the 'best' ones is an important step in the process of constructing an optimal portfolio. This study proposes the multicriteria method UTADIS (UTilites Additives DIScriminantes) for the sorting of stocks in categories incorporating, not only quantitative measures, but also the knowledge as well as the preferences of experts. The study illustrates the application of the method on the construction industry stocks in Athens Stock Exchange. The model developed is evaluated according to its usefulness in a decision process. Further research and the application of the method in other industries' stocks can establish the method as an important tool in stock evaluation and the relative decision making process.


In recent years, a number of indigenous activists have gained celebrity status in ways that carry interesting implications for contemporary cultural politics. This article focuses on the celebrification of Tame Iti, arguably Aotearoa/New Zealand's best-known Māori activist, within a wider cultural context characterized by intensifying media convergence, an expanding politics of decolonization, and the continuing elaboration of global indigenous mediascapes, including the Māori Television Service. We draw on forms of conjunctural analysis to explore how wider historical forces and social dynamics come to be embodied in particular flesh and blood individuals, who are thereby constituted as resonant media figures, who operate as both objects and agents of struggle, and who at once intervene in and shape, while also being shaped by, key terrains of contemporary discourse and cultural politics.


Environmental sequencing regularly recovers fungi that cannot be classified to any meaningful taxonomic level beyond "Fungi". There are several examples where evidence of such lineages has been sitting in public sequence databases for up to ten years before receiving scientific attention and formal recognition. In order to highlight these unidentified lineages for taxonomic scrutiny, a search function is presented that produces updated lists of approximately genus-level clusters of fungal ITS sequences that remain unidentified at the phylum, class, and order levels, respectively. The search function (https://unite.ut.ee/top50.php) is implemented in the UNITE database for molecular identification of fungi, such that the underlying sequences and fungal lineages are open to third-party annotation. We invite researchers to examine these enigmatic fungal lineages in the hope that their taxonomic resolution will not have to wait another ten years or more.


Abstract. The safeguarding and conservation of built heritage and historical infrastructures represent complex tasks, especially for administrations and stakeholders operating on peculiar and unique territories with specific cultural, social, and economic problems, such as the historical centres of Inner Areas. However, heritage conservation and management processes can be facilitated by multidisciplinary knowledge methodologies based on solutions offered by digital technologies in the field of documentation. This paper aims at defining novel procedures able to enhance available tools towards a real heritage e-government and e-conservation. The integration of laser scanning and photogrammetric survey-based techniques, as well as on the data of the multidisciplinary analysis available in a virtual environment, the implementation of the parametric model of a historical infrastructure has been investigated for assessing the issues related to the preservation and maintenance of these infrastructures, also in relation to their safety and enhancement. The application to a real case study pointed out the opportunities offered by new technologies in the integration of data coming from different research fields, and the reliability of parametric models in visual inspections and, as a consequence, in the planning of interventions of safeguard and conservation as well as those of valorisation of the historical heritage.


To assess the skin irritant potential of a range of laboratory grown cyanobacterial species using skin-patch testing on human volunteers. Cell suspensions and extracts of cyanobacterial cultures of Microcystis aeruginosa (non-toxic strain), Anabaena circinalis and Nodularia spumigena were applied to 64 volunteers in one trial, and Microcystis aeruginosa (toxic strain), Apanocapsa incerta and Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii were applied to 50 volunteers in a second trial. Six cell concentrations of each organism in the range from less than 5000 to greater than 200,000 cells/mL were applied in random order using adhesive skin patches (Finn Chambers). In addition, the applications included two treatments of each cyanobacterial species, involving whole and lysed cells, and positive (sodium lauryl sulphate) and negative (culture media) controls. Patches were removed after 24 hours and assessment of erythema was made by a dermatologist blinded to the species, cell type and concentration. On average, between 20% and 24% of individuals with 95% confidence interval +/-8% reacted across the concentration range tested for these cyanobacterial species. The reaction rates were lower (11% to 15%) among the subset of subjects not reacting to negative controls. The reaction was mostly mild, and in all cases was resolved without treatment. This was the case for both whole and lysed cells with little difference in reaction rates between these two treatments. There was also no dose-response across the concentration range for any of the cyanobacterial species tested. A small proportion of healthy people (around 20%) may develop a skin reaction to cyanobacteria in the course of normal water recreation, but the reaction is mild and resolved without treatment.


Considering the increase of natural resource use, humanity is facing the problem of resource depletion. The building sector is a major consumer of resources. The most consumed resources are mineral and metal resources. Thereby, the identification, and then optimisation, of mineral and metal resource use in the building sector appears as a necessity. One tool to quantify the use of those resources is LCA. Currently, several authors develop absolute environmental sustainability assessment (AESA) methods, combined with LCA, to compare the pressures of the studied project with the global carrying capacity of the planet. However, most of the AESA approaches do not actually include normalization factors about the use of resources, and in particular mineral and metal resources. Besides, the mainly used LCIA characterization methods of mineral and metal resources present several limits when applied to Circular Economy projects within the building sector. Thereby, the goal of this research project is to answer the following question: Can the consumption of mineral and metal resources for a given building project be considered sustainable? To answer this question, a methodology was developed. This methodology is inspired by the AESA approach by proposing a sustainable resource budget for each mineral or metal substance and will combine the MFA methods to the LCA method to calculate sustainability indicators for each mineral and metal resource. The Mineral and Metal absOlute Sustainability Assessment (MiMOSA) method integrates the circular economy actions and considers an appropriate spatial scale for each resource and will be presented in this paper.


The main goal of this study is to investigate the nature of null elements used in German by early successive bilingual Polish-German children. The language pair offers the opportunity to investigate the possibility of cross-linguistic influence in the area of null arguments between two languages which differ significantly in the nature of the null arguments allowed in the grammars. Longitudinal data from four bilingual children who were first exposed to L2 German between the ages of 2;6 and 4;7 years is used in the investigation. The results show that early successive bilinguals have no underlying grammatical representation involving pro in their L2. Neither are the null elements exclusively a result of topic drop, as they are in German, or of discourse drop, as they are in adult Polish grammar. The findings suggest that early bilinguals transfer an L1 strategy of linking null elements to general pragmatic contexts.


This guide is designed to support the trauma-focused research needs of students in the Graduate School of Social Work and the Graduate School of Professional Psychology. Created by Chris Clair, the guide is updated by Jenny Bowers.


This thesis investigates the phonological adaptation of English loanwords in Ammani Arabic (AA) in order to enhance our understanding of phonological theory and of AA phonology. The thesis also serves as documentation of the dialect in a state of flux. In contrast to previous studies, this study accounts for the phonological adaptation of loanwords not only at the segmental level, but also at the suprasegmental/prosodic level, adopting moraic theory within an OT framework. To achieve this, a corpus of 407 established English loanwords are analysed as they are pronounced by 12 AA monolingual native speakers.
The study reveals that the adaptation process is mainly phonological, albeit informed by phonetics and other linguistic factors. AA native phonology accounts for the numerous modifications that English loanwords undergo. It is shown that the adaptation process is geared towards unmarkedness in that faithfulness to the source input is violated in order to render the output unmarked. Unmarked structures in the adaptation process may arise even though their marked counterparts are equally attested in AA native phonology, giving rise to the Emergence of the Unmarked.
With respect to segmental adaptation, results show that AA maps source segments onto their phonologically closest AA phonemes. However, source allophonic features that are contrastive in AA are faithfully mapped onto their AA phonemic counterparts. For syllabic adaptation, loanwords undergo a number of phonological processes, e.g. epenthesis and gemination, to accommodate ill-formed source syllables into AA phonotactic structure. The study shows that English source stress is mostly neglected in the adaptation process with stress assigned to the adapted phonological string according to AA stress constraints.
The introduction of English loanwords has given rise to new data that invoked hidden phonological constraints that would have remained latent in AA phonology. This study has resulted in a better understanding of AA phonology by shedding light on various AA phonological aspects chief among which are gemination, stress assignment constraints, and syllable structure.


In a significant change to Catholic Church doctrine, Pope Francis recently declared that capital punishment is impermissible under all circumstances. Counterintuitively, the Pope's pronouncement might make capital punishment less popular but more prevalent in the United States. This Essay anticipates this possible dynamic and, in so doing, explores how "death qualification" of capital juries can insulate the administration of the death penalty when community morality evolves away from capital punishment.


Genes involved in sex hormone pathways are candidates for influencing bone strength. Polymorphisms in these genes were tested for association with heel quantitative ultrasound (QUS) parameters in middle‐aged and elderly European men. Men 40–79 yr of age were recruited from population registers in eight European centers for the European Male Aging Study (EMAS). Polymorphisms were genotyped in AR, ESR1, ESR2, CYP19A1, CYP17A1, SHBG, SRD5A2, LHB, and LHCGR. QUS parameters broadband ultrasound attenuation (BUA) and speed of sound (SOS) were measured in the heel and used to derive BMD. The relationships between QUS parameters and polymorphisms were assessed using linear regression adjusting for age and center. A total of 2693 men, with a mean age of 60.1 ± 11.1 (SD) yr were included in the analysis. Their mean BUA was 80.0 ± 18.9 dB/Mhz, SOS was 1550.2 ± 34.1 m/s, and BMD was 0.542 ± 0.141 g/cm2. Significant associations were observed between multiple SNPs in a linkage disequilibrium (LD) block within CYP19A1, peaking at the TCT indel with the deletion allele associating with reduced ultrasound BMD in heterozygotes (β =−0.016, p = −0.005) and homozygotes (β = −0.029, p = 0.001). The results for BUA and SOS were similar. Significant associations with QUS parameters were also observed for the CAG repeat in AR and SNPs in CYP17A1, LHCGR, and ESR1. Our data confirm evidence of association between bone QUS parameters and polymorphisms in CYP19A1, as well as modest associations with polymorphisms in CYP17A1, ESR1, LHCGR, and AR in a population sample of European men; this supports a role for genetically determined sex hormone actions in influencing male bone health.


An electron-beam-fabricated subwavelength grating coupler for direct side coupling of light emission from a high-power laser diode array (LDA) was studied theoretically and implemented experimentally. A gold-embedded silica-based design for grating coupler was employed to minimize the thermal expansion caused by the accumulated heat from light absorption by metal part of the grating coupler. In addition, with the consideration of the backward diffraction loss and the groove wall nonverticality caused by fabrication distortion, the grating pitch and groove width were optimized for the highest coupling efficiency. According to the experimental results, the grating coupler is capable of coupling light power up to 21 W from a 976-nm continuous-wave-operated LDA into the inner clad of a 400-μm-diameter double-clad fiber with an overall coupling efficiency of 50%. Furthermore, an LDA side-pumped ytterbium-doped DCF laser by using the grating coupler was demonstrated. By fine tuning the slow-axis collimation lens array, the laser-pumping scheme can easily be switched between bidirectional pumping and unidirectional pumping. Compared with the unidirectionally pumped fiber laser of the same gain fiber length, the laser slope efficiency of the bidirectionally pumped fiber laser was increased by 18% because of a better gain distribution over the fiber length. Finally, the signal output power of 10 W with a slope efficiency of 61% was achieved for the bidirectional side-pumped fiber laser.


Although demonstrated evidence for hormesis of an agent could be important in setting occupational exposure limits (OELs) for industrial hygiene, several practical problems may limit the utility of toxicologic testing for hormesis. This commentary responds to the lead article of this section, in which Jayjock and Lewis propose using the results of tests for hormesis to guide the establishment of OELs. The principal difficulties may include: a different mechanism or even a different effect leading to the conclusion of hormesis; distinction between a threshold for a health effect and a crossover point in the dose response relationship; estimation of threshold or crossover point from limited test data and estimation of slope at this point; sensitivity of tests for hormesis; and cost of testing. Nevertheless, the proposals of Jayjock and Lewis have considerable merit, and exploratory testing could be useful.


Background: Significant gaps exist in access to evidence-based pediatric weight management interventions, especially for low-income families who are disproportionately affected by obesity. As a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration project (CORD 3.0), the Missouri team (MO-CORD) aims to increase access to and dissemination of an efficacious pediatric obesity treatment, specifically family-based behavioral treatment (FBT), for low-income families. Methods/Design: The implementation pilot study is a multisite matched-comparison group pilot of packaged FBT in pediatric clinics for low-income children with obesity, of ages 5 to 12 years old. The study is implemented in two Missouri pediatric primary care clinical sites, Freeman Health System Pediatric Clinics (rural Joplin) and Children's Mercy Hospital Pediatric Clinics (urban Kansas City). The design focuses on pragmatism through utilization of PRECIS (Pragmatic Explanatory Continuum Indicator Summary) domains, such as open eligibility criteria, limited follow-up intensity, reliance on medical records for creating a usual care comparison group data, and unobtrusive measurement of participant and provider adherence. The evaluation focuses on effectiveness as well as implementation outcomes and barriers to inform implementation scale up. Conclusions: Findings from this study will advance both science and practice by providing novel and immediately useful information to families, health care providers, health care organizations, payers, and other state Medicaid plans by developing and optimizing evidence-based pediatric weight management treatment for implementation and dissemination in health systems to address health disparities among low-income populations most affected by overweight and obesity.


— The existing ATM systems uses one magnetic card & a static PIN. Hence the security of present system is vulnerable as security of such systems can be breached by skimming devices, card trapping etc. The proposed system introduces transaction authentication code (TAC) which is dynamic 4 digit secrete code generated during transaction in addition with static PIN and send it to user's cell phone no. Here unless entered code by the user as well as generated code is matched the transaction doesn't get completed. This system is realized using LPC2148 which is a series controller of ARM 7 & peripherals like GSM module & RFID systems. Proposed system is complex and hence provides better security than systems before.


PURPOSE
Alveolar ridge preservation (ARP) was introduced to minimize postextraction alveolar bone loss and extraction socket remodeling; however, current knowledge of the ARP procedure for nonintact extraction sockets is still limited and inconclusive. This retrospective study aimed to evaluate the difference between using deproteinized bovine bone mineral with 10% collagen (DBBM-C) and deproteinized porcine bone mineral with 10% collagen (DPBM-C) when performing ARP procedures in damaged or periodontally compromised extraction sockets based on clinical, radiographic, and profilometric outcomes.

METHODS
In total, 108 extraction sockets were grafted with 67 DBBM-C and 41 DPBM-C. Changes in radiographic (horizontal width and vertical height) and profilometric outcomes were measured after the ARP procedure and before the implant surgery. Postoperative discomfort (including the severity and duration of pain and swelling), early wound healing outcomes (including spontaneous bleeding and persistent swelling), implant stability, and treatment modalities for implant placement were also assessed.

RESULTS
Radiographically, the DBBM-C group decreased by -1.70 ± 2.26 mm (-21.50%) and - 1.39 ± 1.85 mm (-30.47%) horizontally and vertically, and the corresponding DPBM-C group decreased by -1.66 ± 1.80 mm (-20.82%) and -1.44 ± 1.97 mm (-27.89%) horizontally and vertically at an average of 5.6 months. There were no serious or adverse complications in any of the cases, and none of the measured parameters differed significantly between the groups.

CONCLUSION
Within the limitations of this study, ARP with DBBM-C and DPBM-C showed similar clinical, radiographic, and profilometric outcomes in nonintact extraction sockets.


Autoimmune diseases are a major challenge for global health. From an evolutionary biology perspective, reproduction, particularly androgens, trades off against immune activity.1 Correspondingly, trials suggest androgens improve rheumatoid arthritis (RA).2 3 As such, dietary factors promoting reproduction might prevent or treat autoimmune disorders. Linoleic acid (LA) is a major n−6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) in widely used polyunsaturated vegetable oils, such as sunflower, corn, soybean and cottonseed oil. In animal experiments, LA stimulates the synthesis of testosterone.4 Observationally, endogenous LA is inversely associated with RA5 and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE),6 but these findings have not been confirmed in randomised controlled trials. Comparing autoimmune disorders according to naturally occurring LA-related genetic variants, that is, Mendelian randomisation (MR), provides a means of obtaining unconfounded estimates of causal effects.

We obtained strong, independent genetic predictors of LA using (1) the three most significant uncorrelated single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and (2) …


Many Sertoli functions are regulated by the receptor-mediated action of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). The interaction of FSH with its specific cell surface receptors leads to stimulation of a number of intracellular events, including the activation of guanine nucleotide binding protein (G protein), adenylate cyclase and the cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) pathway. In addition to positive regulation of cell functions, a phenomenon of refractoriness occurs after primary exposure of target cells to the hormone. Different sites of lesion have been suggested including down-regulation of FSH receptor, uncoupling of the receptor and the G protein/adenylate cyclase complex, and stimulation of nucleotide phosphodiesterases or inhibition of PKA activity. Alterations of cell responsiveness are mediated by a combination of these different mechanisms occurring over different time-scales and hormonal concentrations.


The purpose of this research is to explore how multimedia technologies such as the Internet, satellite TV, cable TV and mobile phones, combined with people's everyday practices, produce the hybrid city where the boundaries between binary territories are blurred; and to offer implications for understanding our everyday lives and cities. Here, multimedia technologies are crucial triggers by which the boundaries between binary categories such as time/space, actual/virtual, human/machine and so on are blurred. And, cities, where urban locales are connected to electronic networks and human bodies are wired to electronic machines, are locations where such boundary-blurring processes occur intensively. I call such a city the 'hybrid city' where we can observe various geographies of technocultural spaces formed by multimedia technologies. In this epistemological context, I investigate cities in South Korea, a country that is one of the most 'wired' to electronic networks in the world. My argument is that the hybrid city, composed of global-local networks, actual- virtual circuits, centripetal-centrifugal vectors and human-machine hybrids, cannot be explained as a singular and consistent space, but rather as multiple and complex spaces. This is because the hybrid city itself exists in between different categories or territories. That is, the hybrid city does not exist as A or B, but instead in between A and в which are deterritorialised towards each other through a-parallel evolution or co-evolution, and thus it can be seen as fractal and fluid. In this sense, the hybrid city can be defined as not a 'being', but 'becomings' always in motion through the continuous 'dis/appearances' or 'dis/connections' of heterogeneous networks. In Latour's, Deleuze and Guattari's and Haraway's terms, the hybrid city is not only composed of a number of actor-networks, rhizomes or cyborgs, but also a kind of actor-network, rhizome or cyborg itself. That is, the hybrid city is the 'middle kingdom' in Latour's terms.


An efficient methodology has been developed for the dynamic analysis of offshore
floating structures. In this methodology, special attention was given to the second
order difference frequency forces and responses. According to this numerical scheme,
a MATLAB program named TRSPAR was developed to predict the dynamic
responses of truss spar platform in time domain. In this program, the truss spar
platform was modeled as a rigid body with three degrees of freedom. Hydrodynamics
of the structure, which include the linear and second order wave forces, mean drift
forces, added mass, radiation damping, wave drift damping and system stiffness were
included in the program. Current and wind forces were also considered showing their
effects on the slow drift responses. The wave forces, including inertia and drag forces,
were calculated using Morison equation assuming the wave field as undisturbed. An
efficient time domain integration scheme was adopted based on Newmark Beta
method.
Comprehensive experimental studies were conducted and the numerical
predictions were systematically compared with model test results. These comparisons
consisted of structure's dynamic responses in different environmental conditions and
two structural situations. The first situation was the structure with intact mooring lines
and the other one was the structure under mooring line failure. The responses of the
platform with mooring line system damage were investigated with the emphasis on
finding the critical effects of line failure on the resonant responses.
The effects of the second order difference frequency wave forces on the truss spar
motion characteristics were examined numerically. Published numerical results were
used to verify the developed numerical model in predicting the truss spar dynamic
responses when subjected to combined wave, current and wind forces. The effects of strengthening mooring line system on the motion characteristics of the structure were
examined numerically. For the assessment of the fluid to mooring nonlinear
interactions, a deterministic approach based on lumped mass method with equations
of dynamic equilibrium and continuity was adopted. Finally, parametric studies on
deepwater mooring line analysis have been conducted for investigating the
contributions of the various design parameters on mooring line tension.
The experimental results verified the validity of the developed numerical scheme
for prediction of the wave frequency and low frequency motions of the truss spar
platform with its intact mooring and in the case of mooring line damage condition.
RMSD values for the numerical and the experimental results show that the simulated
wave frequency responses (WFR) trend was relatively agreed well with the
experiments compared to the low frequency responses (LFR). For the intact mooring
line condition, RMSD values for the WFR ranged from 109.9 to 182.4 while for LFR
were ranged from 499.6 to 550.2. The same has been noticed in the mooring line
damage condition in which RMSD values ranged from 107.4 to 323.6 and 209.1 to
1074 for WFR and LFR respectively. With regard to the peak responses, good
accuracy has been achieved between the predictions and the measurements. The
percentage errors for the peak responses in the intact mooring and the mooring line
damage conditions were ranged from 9.5% to 17.3%.


The Eclogite zone (Tauern Window, Eastern Alps, Austria) represents one of only a few examples of high-pressure units providing both the prograde and the retrograde metamorphic evolution. The eclogites are associated with rocks originating from continental and transitional crust that also have been affected by high-pressure metamorphism. Eclogites that formed along the prograde path indicate metamorphic conditions of 17-20 kbar (1700-2000 MPa) at 550-580 °C; the peak assemblages formed at 21-25 kbar (2100-2500 MPa) at 600-620 °C. Omphacite microstructures, in particular shape fabrics and crystallographic preferred orientations, indicate that the final phases of the prograde evolution were characterized by flattening strain. The evolution at the pressure peak and along the exhumation path shows a constrictional strain geometry. This change is interpreted to have been controlled by the force balance between slab pull (related to an oceanic slab) and the buoyancy of subducted adjacent continental crustal material, including the eclogites. At a certain lithospheric level, where the subducted continental rocks were entirely surrounded by high-density lower-crustal and upper-mantle material, the buoyancy forces exceeded the slab-pull forces. This force change resulted in the buoyancy-driven extrusion of continental material between two lithospheric plates. The part of the subducted slab that remained in buoyant equilibrium was therefore affected by constriction. Moreover, this process may have resulted in breakoff of the subducted oceanic slab. If so, the cessation of slab pull resulted in accelerated buoyancy-driven extrusion of the continental material. Extrusion of these high-pressure sheets would have been accompanied by constriction subparallel to the subduction channel as well.


Hypereutectic ductile iron was cast in green sand moulds with four plates with thickness of 1.5, 2, 3 and 4 mm in each mould. Temperatures were measured in the 3 and 4 mm plate. The temperature curves showed that eutectic solidification was divided into two stages: primary and secondary eutectic solidification. The first stage, which was relatively short, had none or very little recalescence. Further under cooling, followed by reheating during recalescence, was necessary to initiate the second part of the eutectic solidification. Both the secondary under cooling and recalescence was larger in the 3 mm plates than in the 4 mm plates. All 1.5 mm plates contained carbides but the other plates solidified without carbides. Metallographic examination showed two populations of graphite nodules. A small group of nodules was larger than rest of the nodules. Color etching revealing the segregation of Si showed a higher Si content in the ferrite around the larger nodules compared to the ferrite around the rest of the nodules. This indicates that solidification took place along the following path: The solidification starts with nucleation and growth of primary graphite nodules. This probably starts during the filling of the mould. The primary nodules act as nuclei for austenite. As austenite easily nucleates on graphite the temperature will be the same for the 3 and 4 mm plate for the first part of the eutectic solidification. This first part of the solidification ends when concentration of carbon around austenite dendrites is too large and new nodules have to nucleate and grow. The larger under cooling for the 3 mm plates compared to the 4 mm indicates that the nucleation of new nodules is governed by kinetics even in very well inoculated melts.


: Planning a radiology facility within existing space often creates compromises. A means of measuring the extent of compromise is presented together with an overview of the design process and advice on construction processes.


Doped ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized by three different methods – electrochemical deposition under oxidizing conditions (EDOC) , combustion method and wet chemical synthesis – for investigating the oxygen gas sensing response. Ga-doped ZnO was mostly synthesized but also In-doped ZnO was made. The samples were analyzed by XRD, SEM, EDX and TEM. Gas response curves are given alongside with Langmuir fitted curves and data for pure ZnO and Ga-doped ZnO. DFT quantum chemical investigation of cluster models ZnO nanoparticles were performed to evaluate defect effects and oxygen and nitrogen dioxide reactions with the ZnO surface. Defects were investigated by DOS and HOMO-LUMO plots , and are oxygen vacancy, zinc vacancy, zinc interstitial and gallium doping by replacing zinc with gallium. Oxygen and nitrogen dioxide reactions were investigated by computing Mulliken charges, bond lengths, DOS spectra and HOMO-LUMO plots.


Moral theorists often say such things as "But surely A ought to do such and such," or "Plainly it is morally permissible for B to do so and so," and do not even try to prove that those judgments are true. Moreover, they often rest weight on the supposition that those judgments are true. In particular, they often rest theories on them: they take them as data. Others object. They say that nobody is entitled to rest any weight at all on judgments such as those. They say, not that the judgments are false, but that there is no reason to believe them true. They say, more generally, that there is no reason to think of any moral judgment that it is true. I will call this The No Reason Thesis. Is there reason to think The No Reason Thesis true? There are lots of arguments for it in the literature, but I want to focus on one of them in particular. I think that the one I will focus on lies behind all the others, but no matter if it does not: I suggest that if this argument fails, they all fail.


Background: Overall, children less than five years old are seen more by a physician than a dentist. Physician need more knowledge and skills to address children's oral health due to the prevalence of dental diseases, the racial and socioeconomic disparities in disease burden, and the restricted access to dental care for many children. Thus, integrating oral health disease prevention and promotion strategies into these medical professionals' practice becomes essential.
Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate the knowledge and attitude of graduating medical students of Nepal towards infant oral health.
Methods: A self-administered questionnaire included questions on knowledge and attitude regarding infant oral health was distributed to 180 final year MBBS students of Nepal. Data were collected and entered in Microsoft Excel sheet and analysis was done using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 20.
Results: The mean age of the participants was 23.36 ± 1.12 years. Only 23.9% of them knew that dental caries is infectious and transmissible from mother to baby and 38.9% were aware of the association of poor maternal gum health and preterm, low birth weight baby. Almost 73.9% knew that gum pads should be cleaned regularly and 46.1% knew that first dental visit of a child should be as soon as the first tooth erupts.
Conclusion: This study shows that graduating medical students of Nepal were knowledgeable about some aspects of early childhood caries and infant oral health, but uncertain about other aspects like the association between poor maternal gum health and premature low birth weight babies.


It is generally assumed that the temperature in the inner part of the primordial nebula was too high to form and agglomerate ice bodies. Yet, water is present in most of the terrestrial planets of our solar system. To investigate the reason for this we concentrate on comets as a potential water deliverer to the inner planets. The data for this work is taken from 3D simulations of comet trajectories inside a gas-dust disk with embedded planet embryos. We have developed a MATLAB code that could read data files from these simulations containing orbital elements of the comets and planetary embryos. Comets experience inward migration due to friction with the remains of the disk. We study comets of four different sizes. We find that smaller comets migrate faster and therefore spend less time in the inner solar system. Smaller comets are numerous and are therefore destroyed in greater numbers than the larger comets. Larger comets on the other hand slow their migration and spending much more time among inner planets they are more massive and produce more massive collisions with the inner planets than the smaller comets. Therefore are larger comets a more promising source of water delivery to the inner planets. In Studying individual collisions we observe that a typical interaction involves regular close encounters with the same embryo during periods of 100000 years or more before the two orbits intersect. This also tells us that with a large number of comets expected at this stage of solar system evolution the collective effect of comets on low-mass planetary embryos may be significant.


In 1986, the Institut Haitien de Statistique et d'Informatique (IHSI) with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) implemented a nationwide Household Expenditure and Consumption Survey (HECS) to gather socioeconomic data to analyze nutrition, health, welfare, food pricing policies, and other issues related to Title III, and to provide IHSI with data to calculate consumer price indexes and national accounts. Data were gathered from November 1986 through September 1987. The 1986-87 HECS gathered data on food and nonfood expenditures including health services and medicines. It also recorded anthropometric statistics for children under five years of age and information on household demographics. This background paper details the health status indicators and health service consumption patterns reported through the survey data. This is one in a series of background, policy, and methods papers produced by the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD), Iowa State University, based on the HECS.


Researchers interested in the structure of scientific fields have documented increases in specialization and collaboration. How, if at all, are these two trends related? Is specialization so severe that scholars cannot collaborate unless they share specific research interests? Or, have specializing tendencies promoted research that joins specialty areas and broaches new topics? We answer these important questions for a single discipline, sociology, using both qualitative interviews and latent profile analysis. We empirically identify three collaborative styles that depend on both the areas and extent of specialization in coauthors' research programs. The prominence of the reinforcing generalist profile suggests that specialization in science mainly serves to encourage scholars to work with others in their specialty area. However, the existence of two other styles — a more complementary one and one that is characterized by migration into new intellectual terrain — suggests that subfields within sociology are permeable enough to permit boundary-spanning, original research.


This following study is a "meta-evaluation" of the way aid agencies evaluate and assess their trade-related operations – and was undertaken as part of the OECD's broader efforts to improve the effectiveness of aid-for-trade. It focuses on 162 evaluations of operations in two countries - Ghana and Vietnam - and two sectors - transport and storage - between 1999 and 2010. In particular, it looks at whether trade was a true objective of the operations under scrutiny, and whether trade and development outcomes were evaluated. More broadly, it asks whether the evaluations selected offer the information that policy makers in charge of international aid want – and need - to get from field evaluators.


Energy evaluation and planning are important in industry for overall energy savings. Traditionally these functions are realized in wired systems formed by communication cables and various types of sensors. However, the installation and maintenance of these cables and sensors is usually much more expensive than the cost of the sensors themselves. Recent advances in wireless communications, micro-electro-mechanical systems, and highly integrated electronics allowed the introduction of wireless sensor networks (WSN). A WSN has unique functional characteristics that enables low cost energy evaluation and planning in industrial plants. This paper proposes a closed-loop energy evaluation and planning system with the WSN architecture. The importance of the proposed scheme lies in its nonintrusive, intelligent, and low cost nature. As the focus of this paper, the properties and architecture of the WSN in this application are discussed in detail. The applicability of the proposed system is analyzed and potential challenges are addressed. Finally, a demo system is constructed and experimental results are presented


Using inbred strains of mice that differ widely in their innate preference for and consumption of ethanol, we demonstrate, in ethanol-preferring C57BL/6J (C57) mice, decreased dopamine (DA) content and turnover in the terminals of the mesolimbic and mesostriatal dopamine neurons, compared with ethanol-avoiding DBA/2J and BALBc mice. These data suggest that genetically determined hypodopaminergic function in these pathways plays a role in the predisposition to high voluntary intake of ethanol. DA turnover in these areas was selectively increased by ethanol in C57 mice, which suggests that these DA neurons are among the central substrates of ethanol action in brain. In keeping with this hypothesis, augmenting synaptic DA concentrations by enhancing the synthesis by L-3-4-dihydroxyphenylalanine with carbidopa, or by decreasing its degradation by monoamine oxidase-B blockade with selegiline, led to marked decreases in ethanol preference and in the high voluntary consumption of ethanol in C57 mice. The selegiline-mediated decrease in ethanol preference and drinking in C57 mice could be blocked selectively by D1 and D2 DA receptor antagonists, which suggests that DA activity at D1 and D2 receptors plays an important role in this behavior. Indeed, the high preference for ethanol in C57 animals could be attenuated by direct DA receptor activation by either D1 or D2 agonists.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Department of Dermatology, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima, 960-1295, Japan Abstract: Palmoplantar pustulosis (PPP) is a chronic inflammatory disorder characterized by sterile pustules predominantly involving the palms and soles. PPP is refractory to various therapies such as topical ointment, oral medicine, and phototherapies. Pustulotic arthroosteitis (PAO) is a major comorbidity of PPP that severely impairs patients' quality of life. Recently, guselkumab, a monoclonal antibody against IL-23, has been available for the treatment of PPP in Japan. The purpose of the present review is to describe the characteristics of Japanese PPP patients and biologic therapy of PPP/PAO using guselkumab. Most Japanese dermatologists consider PPP as a distinct entity and co-existence of PPP and psoriasis is rare. However, outside Japan, PPP is often considered to be palmoplantar psoriasis, and extrapalmoplantar lesions associated with PPP are regarded as psoriasis. PPP develops or exacerbates either with or without arthralgia, following focal infections, such as tonsillitis, odontogenic infection, and sinusitis. Treatment of focal infection results in dramatic effects on cutaneous lesions as well as joint pain. By contrast, we sometimes see patients whose skin/ joint symptoms do not improve after treatment of focal infection, whose focus of infection cannot be identified even in a detailed examination, and/or who refuse tonsillectomy even if strongly recommended. Such cases are considered to be indications of biologics. In this review, clinical features, pathophysiology and guselkumab therapy are discussed.


Automatic synthesis of realistic co-speech gestures is an increasingly important yet challenging task in artificial embodied agent creation. Previous systems mainly focus on generating gestures in an end-to-end manner, which leads to difficulties in mining the clear rhythm and semantics due to the complex yet subtle harmony between speech and gestures. We present a novel co-speech gesture synthesis method that achieves convincing results both on the rhythm and semantics. For the rhythm, our system contains a robust rhythm-based segmentation pipeline to ensure the temporal coherence between the vocalization and gestures explicitly. For the gesture semantics, we devise a mechanism to effectively disentangle both low- and high-level neural embeddings of speech and motion based on linguistic theory. The high-level embedding corresponds to semantics, while the low-level embedding relates to subtle variations. Lastly, we build correspondence between the hierarchical embeddings of the speech and the motion, resulting in rhythm- and semantics-aware gesture synthesis. Evaluations with existing objective metrics, a newly proposed rhythmic metric, and human feedback show that our method outperforms state-of-the-art systems by a clear margin.


Current and voltage are the two essential parameters that are frequently sensed and monitored in electrical systems like the electric power distribution systems and the condition monitoring systems, say, for large machines and ships. The tremendous advancement in the field of Internet of Things (IoT) has granted seamless access to important parameters of a system, covering a wide geographical area, such as the automatic meter reading or protection systems in a power system with the sensing nodes placed at remote locations. Also, the recent progress in data science has provided ways to effectively capture valuable information from such measured data. To realize such applications, simple, low-cost current and voltage sensors with sufficient accuracy and reliability are required. Also, they should be easy to install and maintain. Conventionally, alternating current is measured using current transformers (CTs). They are widely used for measurement and protection applications. CTs are bulky, expensive, and the output is affected due to the non-idealities of its magnetic core. Another approach, which is relatively new, involves core-less current sensors that employ highly sensitive semi-conductor based magnetic sensing elements. They have many advantages over CTs. The proposed thesis deals with the development and evaluation of new methods or schemes to improve the performance of the existing core-less current sensors.
The design and development of new non-contact and core-less current sensors/probes, that require limited access to the current carrying conductor, are presented in this research work. Since they require only limited access, they open up new applications such as measurement of current in a conductor concealed in a wall or current in a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) track. Another novel feature of the developed current sensors is that their outputs are not sensitive to the variation in the gap between the wire and sensing elements of the probe, which is a major advantage as this helps to provide reliable measurement for a long time. Furthermore, a modified version of the differential current probe, in which the sensing elements are kept on both sides of the conductor, is also presented in this thesis. This modified differential current probe significantly reduces the effect of vertical and horizontal misalignments between the conductor and the sensing elements in the output. Thus, it helps to provide precise and accurate measurement of current.
The existing core-less current sensors based on Ampere's circuital law need 360o access to the current carrying conductor. This approach has low sensitivity to the external magnetic field, but the output is sensitive to the misalignment between the sensing element and the conductor, deviation from the circular shape of the sensor array, etc. In this work, a detailed theoretical and experimental analysis has been conducted to evaluate the contribution of each of the misalignment parameters in the final output. This study will help the engineers focus on the relevant aspects required to keep the error due to the misalignments within the desired limits. Additionally, a simple and less expensive calibration system to test and verify the current sensor, say, the conventional CT, has been designed and realized. Suitable prototypes of the sensors/probes and the calibration system have been developed and tested in the laboratory to validate their functionality and performance.


This research aims to analyze  the marketing channel, marketing margin, and marketing efficiency of rubber on smallholder plantation of ex-UPP TCSDP. Research also analyzes the market structure and price transmition elasticity of rubber product (ojol) at Balam Merah Village. This research is using the survey method. Data was collected on 30 smallholders rubber plantation by purposive sampling technique, 6  the village merchant, and 3 the wholesaler by snowball sampling technique. The research results shows there are two rubber marketing channels which are  farmers - wholesalers - factory, and farmers - village merchant – wholesaler - factory.  The value of marketing margin on the first marketing channel as Rp. 928,21/kg , and is more efficient than the second marketing  channel (11,23 percent). Keywords : UPP TCSDP, Marketing, Margin, Efficiency, Price Transmission .


Introduction: Anemia in pregnancy is considered one of the major risk factors contributing to maternal deaths in developing countries. The present study was carried out to determine the prevalence of anemia among pregnant woman according the hematological and biochemical parameters in Kirkuk health care centers. Patients and methods: This study involved a total of 132 woman attending primary health care centers in Kirkuk city for the period from 1 st July 2010 to 30 th March 2011 in Iskan and Rahem-Awa region. They were consisted of three groups, Group one (G1) consisted of 87 pregnant women, second Group (G2) consist of 30 non pregnant women and third Group (G3) consisted of 15 were not married. They were investigated for hematological tests, Hb, PCV, RBC, WBC, MCV, MCH, MCHC, and biochemical test copper, magnesium, zinc, albumin. Anemia is classified as mild anemia from 10-10.9g/dl, moderate anemia from 8-8.9g/dl, and severe anemia < 8g/dl. Result: The result showed that there was significant difference in level of Hb, PCV, RBC, MCH, between the pregnant woman and control groups; regarding the difference in trimesters the most influenced parameters were Hb, PCV, RBC, and MCV. The educational state had significant influence on the level of PCV, MCV, and MCH. The pregnancy trimesters had significant effect on albumin level, copper and zinc, while there was significant difference in level of zinc according to education. Conclusion: It was concluded that there was no anemia in this study among pregnant woman although the Hb, PCV, RBC values among pregnant were lower than non pregnant but 37.9% of pregnant women had mild anemia. . t woman, Anemia, hematology parameter, zinc, copper, magnesium test pregnan :


Density-gradient ultracentrifugation of potato-leaf extracts on a Ficoll gradient resolved a fraction containing membrane-bounded particles equilibrating at a density of I .egg g ~ r n ~ . The fraction was heterogeneous by electron microscopy and contained several particle types, some of which had single and double membranes, with diameters between 0.05 pm and 1.0 pm, along with amorphous cytoplasmic material and ER-derived elements. A peak of acid phosphatase activity was associated with the fraction, from which varying amounts of enzyme were released by freezing and thawing, osmotic shock and treatments with Triton X-100, snake venom and phospholipase A. Infection of leaves by Plzytoplithora infestans resulted in a massive transfer to the supernatant-fluid fraction of one molecular form of acid phosphatase which was particle-bound in the uninfected leaves.


Human herpesvirus 6 (HHV6) encephalitis and Wernicke encephalopathy are treatable yet frequently undiagnosed causes of encephalopathy in pediatric recipients of allogeneic and autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation. Here we review representative cases of both conditions to highlight specific and relevant neurologic features that prompted effective diagnosis and treatment. Two patients with confusion accompanied by seizures, memory changes, or specific visual hallucinations and HHV6 detectable by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in cerebrospinal fluid had improvement in viral load with ganciclovir or foscarnet treatment. Two patients had confusion, ataxia, or ocular changes and low serum thiamine levels, which resolved with parenteral thiamine. In all cases, definitive diagnosis and treatment were facilitated by a high index of suspicion and search for specific pathognomonic neurologic deficits accompanying the confusional state. It is critical to clinically differentiate these 2 conditions from other common neurologic syndromes occurring after transplant, allowing potentially improved patient outcomes by prompt diagnosis and effective treatment.


In this, the first software review for Applied Psychological Measurement, XCALIBRE™, a marginal maxi mum-likelihood estimation (MMLE) program for computing item and trait (θ) parameters for the two-pa rameter logistic (2PLM) and the three-parameter logistic (3PLM) item response theory (IRT) models, is evaluated. The criteria used to evaluate this program were established, in part, by the Editor for Software Reviews, Richard Luecht, as well as by us. We identified criteria that should be satisfied to produce a computer program that is useful to both researchers and practitioners using IRT. The criteria are discussed throughout this paper and are also presented, more succinctly, in the Appendix. The review is divided into five sections: program description, program interface and performance, output, documentation, and our evaluative conclusion.


Technical details concerning the perfusion-fixation of liver needle biopsies are described. The biopsy (less than or equal to 0,5 cm length) migrated in a Pasteur pipette filled with heparinized Ringer solution and stopped when its diameter corresponded to the internal diameter of the pipette. The pipette was cut above the upper part of the biopsy. The biopsy was perfused with a thin needle (external diameter 0.2 mm) struck in the upper part of the biopsy under binocular microscopy control. Fixation medium, 2.5 p. 100 glutaraldehyde, was aspirated at the inferior extremity of the pipette. The aspiration speed was equal to the perfusion speed (0.15 ml/min). The biopsy was perfused for 5-8 min. This simple technique allows for detailed electron microscopic examination of sinusoids, sinusoidal and perisinusoidal cells as well as of the spaces of Disse.


This research presents an empirical study that explores the relationship between leading knowledge and organizational performance, revealing the importance of their integration. Empirical data related to the concepts are scarce in Lebanon, so to compensate, data was collected from managers in more than 102 IT companies in Lebanon. The study is based on a multimodal design aiming to understand the relationship between the knowledge creation and diffusion, and ultimately discern their relationship to performance. The review of literature and online search facilitates defining the standards; quantitative analysis of a survey is distributed to the study group; and qualitative analysis of face-to-face interviews is employed to corroborate the findings and to provide deeper understanding. Compiling the input from all participants revealed that knowledgeable employees, analytical adaptabilities and customer satisfaction are critical success factors for a firm's financial performance. Results of the study show that when knowledge and performance are employed together, they result in a synergy between the internal and external environments of the companies. Our theoretical model results and recommendations present new opportunities for future researches. They lead the way towards how to make potentials improvements while ensuring employees' participation and increasing clients' satisfaction.


A survey carried out by the Population Investigation Committee in 1959-1960 provides nationwide data on the marital mobility of marriage cohorts from 1920 to 1960. These mobility data are analysed by socio-economic class, religious affiliation and regional origin. After adjustment for the influences of covariates, the most important factors affecting mobility were the socio-economic class of wife's father, husband and husband's father in that order. Significant variation in mobility also exists with respect to regional origin, but differences in mobility between the adherents of different religions were much less striking. An attempt is made to account for the working of these factors using other material from the P.I.C. survey and from other sources.


This article analyses ethnographic material gathered in Sweden amongst dancers in the Church of Sweden. With the help of the writings of Sarah Coakley and Simone Weil I explore if, and how, dancing could be considered a contemplative practice in the Christian traditions of the Latin West.


Relevance feedback visualisation (RFV) is a technique developed to visualise the feature values of returned results in a content-based image retrieval system that incorporates relevance feedback. RFV is used also to re-sort retrieved results according to user requirements, enable the interactive investigation of pertinent features and permit the discovery of otherwise unidentifiable trends in the dataset. When large numbers of features are involved, manually determining which feature attribute graphs are the most important can be a burdensome task. In this paper, a method for automatically sorting attribute graphs according to their significance in the search operation is introduced. The result is that features worthy of further investigation are immediately identified, the user interface is improved, and the CBIR system is made more effective.


Nanotechnology delivers materials and nanoparticles (NPs) with high biological poten- tial, useful in bioengineering, nanomedicine, and human health protection. Silver nanoparticles (NPs), because of their wide spectrum of activities and physical and chemi- cal properties, are nowadays extensively researched. However, careful studies on living organism should be performed, with strong attention to biocompatibility. Multiple cel- lular effects, displayed after AgNP treatments, show interesting potential of metal-based NPs, not only in bio-nanotechnology but also in molecular medicine and anticancer ther- apy. AgNPs are promising anticancer agents, influencing the cell cycle, inhibiting cancer proliferation, and inducing oxidative stress and propagation of programmed cellular death (apoptosis). Additionally, they protect against bacterial, fungal, and viral infections. During chemo- and radio-therapies, such antimicrobial protection will be desir- able because of the decreased immunological resistance of cancer patients. In conclusion, AgNPs often present in the human environment should be studied for novel findings and better characteristic. This article discusses advantages of AgNP's "eco-friendly" production, followed by green synthesis, with particular consideration of antimicrobial and anticancer properties. Cellular processes, induced after AgNP treatments, are focused on antiproliferative, pro-oxidative, and pro-apoptotic activities of NPs.


The analysis and interpretation of risk play a crucial role in different areas of modern finance. This includes pricing of financial products, capital allocation and derivation of economic capital. Key to this analysis is the quantification of the risk via risk measures. A promising approach is to define risk measures by a set of desirable properties. This leads to the main topic of this research; the characterization of so called convex risk measures. First, we review the concept of convex risk measures on Lebesgue spaces and provide a structural basis for the following parts of the thesis by stating and proving the different characterization results and adjusting them to our definitions and notation. A key result of this thesis is the characterization of linear combinations and convolutions of convex risk measures. We study different dual correspondences, which are induced by the Fenchel-Legendre transform. In our case we investigated three different duality correspondences, which are sum and inf-convolution, difference and deconvolution and multiplication of scalars and epi-multiplication. These results are used to characterize linear combinations and convolutions of convex risk measures. We investigate when certain combinations of risk measures belong to the class of convex risk measures and investigate the basic properties. Furthermore, two applications based on theoretical results of the first part of the thesisare derived. In the first application we study the pricing and hedging problem for contingent claims in an incomplete market as a trade-off between a trader and a regulator. In our model the regulator allows the trader to take some risk, but insists that the residual risk, which is not hedged away, has to be covered. To achieve this, the regulator introduces an extra bank account, which serves as a capital reserve to cover for eventual losses of the trader, and is dependent on the risk of the trader's portfolio. The risk attitudes of the trader and the regulator are reflected by different risk measures. We derive risk measure price and the risk indifference price. In both cases, the resulting risk measure is given by a weighted sum of the regulator's and trader's risk measures. This new operator is also a convex risk measure as we have proven in the first part of the thesis. In the second application we consider the problem of partial hedging of a contingent claim. Under the assumption of a complete market, it is always possible to replicate the claim. In this case, the claim can be priced using the unique equivalent martingale measure. The question is of a different nature when the initial capital is less than the expectation under the equivalent martingale measure. Under this condition we derive a suitable hedging strategy such that the risk of the difference of the hedging portfolio and the claim is minimized. As risk measure we consider Average Value at Risk and a simple spectral risk measure. We discovered that overhedging may arise. Nevertheless this happens only in special situations, for example, when the level of Average Value at Risk is high or the initial capital is close to the value which is required for a perfect hedging strategy. The results are illustrated by solving the problem for a call and a put option in the Black-Scholes model


The governance and development discourse continues to embrace citizen participation as a fundamental mechanism of building local capacity towards poverty reduction and rural development. This article presents a review of the decentralization system of local governance in Uganda and evaluates its participatory mechanisms to establish how far they have enhanced the process of rural development. The review acknowledges achievements in human development, arising from citizen participation and representation, but these are yet to be translated into empowerment and shared benefits for the rural poor. Whereas some powers and functions have been devolved to local governments, the cardinal goals of decentralization seem to be elusive, whereby there is less support of the community's role in raising resources for local development, demanding accountability from their leaders, participating in planning, and choosing their leaders without manipulation from the local 'elite' at the time of elections. The unfolding central government (CG) control rekindles the 'recentralization' of decentralization. It is argued that tackling rural development in predominantly agricultural economies like that of Uganda requires participation to link to mechanisms that can boost agricultural production, increased employment and household incomes. Likewise, the central government's conceived development strategies should enlist participation in order to attain strong local ownership and empowerment. Points for practictioners The greatest challenge of local democratic representation is the failure of its associated human development elements to translate into production and improvement in household incomes. To realize the cardinal goals of decentralization and community participation in rural development requires invigoration of the local community's role in resource mobilization, demanding accountability from local leaders, participating in planning, and choosing leaders without manipulation from the local elite and central government. Thus, participation must translate into effective representation and empowerment before benefits for all can be realized to spearhead poverty reduction. Likewise, tackling rural development in predominantly agricultural economies requires participation to link to agricultural production, increased employment and household incomes.


Introduction: Non carious cervical lesion, (NCCL) is the loss of tooth structure at the cemento enamel junction, or CEJ level that is unrelated to dental caries. These lesions can affect plaque retention, tooth sensitivity, structural integrity, caries incidence, and pulpal vitality.
Objectives: To compare clinical effectiveness of Cention–N and Nanohybrid composite resin as a restoration of non-carious cervical lesion for gross fracture, marginal integrity & surface texture.
Materials and Methods: Total 24 patients having two class V non-carious cervical lesion in the same arch, approximately of same size and shape were selected. Entire study was carried out by two operators. Both teeth were restored, finished and polished by one operator with Cention–N and Tetric N Ceram (Ivoclar – Vivadent) respectively. Evaluation for marginal integrity & surface texture was done by second operator on the same day of restoration. (USPHS, Ryge criteria for direct clinical evaluation). Follow up was done for gross fracture, marginal integrity & surface texture after 1 week, 1 month, 3 month & 6 month. All the data were collected according to USPHS, Ryge Criteria. Statistical analysis was done by chi square test.
Results: Cention–N is as effective as Tetric-N-Ceram for gross fracture and marginal integrity till 6 months. But Cention–N showed inferior surface characteristics than Tetric-N-Ceram after 1 week.
Conclusion: Cention – N is as effective as Tetric N Ceram for gross fracture and marginal integrity but Cention – N has an inferior surface characteristics than Tetric N Ceram.

Keywords: Cention-N, Non-carious cervical lesion, Nano hybrid composite.


This is a unique era where the international tax community, most vocally represented by developed countries mainly through the OECD/G20, is engaged in a global fight against tax evasion and tax avoidance. It is thought that lack of tax cooperation increases the risk of cross-border tax evasion and avoidance. The recalcitrance shown by some countries to engage in deeper cooperation is something that is widely criticized. However, apart from the traditional notions of cooperation/assistance and exchange of information commonly viewed as instrumental in the fight against tax evasion/avoidance, another concept has emerged — that of good tax governance or tax good governance or fiscal good governance.
Countries are increasingly being asked to adopt standards of tax good governance either on a stand-alone basis or in the context of the fight against tax avoidance and evasion, without a common understanding of what this concept actually entails. Notwithstanding the uncertainties surrounding good tax governance, it is acquiring increasing importance and institutional backing, both internationally and within the European Union (EU). This paper examines how this concept has been received and developed internationally and especially in the context of the EU.
From an international perspective, it is shown that there are many facets of good tax governance and it is not always clear what the term actually covers. For international organizations such as the OECD and the UN, the focus is on developing countries and certain state functions such as domestic resource mobilization and capacity building. In a wider context, the focus also seems to be on the relationship between governments and their ability to (automatically) exchange some types of information and ensure transparency. To a lesser extent, the focus is also on the relationship between governments and taxpayers through regimes of enhanced cooperation between tax authorities and some taxpayers. The author considers the soft law initiatives that have been taken in these areas and examines how some of these initiatives are gradually morphing into hard law.
In the second half of this article, the author examines the development of the concept of good tax governance in the EU context. Here, it is shown that although the EU was more precise as regards the definition of this concept (at least in the early stages of its evolution), by linking the concept of good tax governance with fair tax competition this has enabled the Commission to inject a great amount of subjectivity in this area. Furthermore, by including the exchange of information and later on BEPS standards in the definition of this concept, this facilitated the Commission's more expansionist agenda both internally and externally. The author assesses the implications of what she calls the Europeanization of good tax governance — or good tax governance a la Europeenne — and the problems that this creates in so far as the global development of the concept is concerned.


Swimming not only is a kind of sports event, but also is a kind of recreational entertainment event. Swimming center is swimming exercise-based, and meanwhile organizes spa, fine food, hot spring, entertainment, fitness and health maintenance and others multiple activities which not only enriches people's life, but also have very important significances in physical health. Therefore, swimming center construction, development and utilization have become main problems that need to discuss at present. By applying analytic hierarchy process, the paper establishes swimming pool development and utilization influential AHP model, by comparing weights, it gets Chinese swimming pool development and utilization trend in a moment in future. Swimming pool opening hours, opening condition, swimming pool water quality, and swimming pool certificate qualified rate and others have certain impacts on swimming pool efficiency. By far, divide Chinese large-scale swimming pool into natatorium, school and privately operated the three kinds, on this basis, utilize analytic hierarchy process to establish target layer, scheme layer and criterion layer, so that get hierarchical structure. By analysis result, it is clear that natatorium occupied weight is largest, secondly is private swimming pool and school. So that it gets conclusion: China's large scale swimming center development and utilization in a moment in future are natatorium-based, encourage private swimming pool development, promote school swimming center to face to students and society, it mainly opens to students in school so that comprehensive enhance Chinese large-scale swimming center development and utilization degree.


We use a unique empirical setting to investigate the spillover of quality knowledge across supply chains and to the examine contingencies that affect such spillover. We analyze the quality performance of 191 suppliers, who utilize the same facilities to manufacture similar products for two distinct businesses: one that makes cars and the other that makes commercial vehicles. From 2006 to 2009, the car business undertook 2,121 quality improvement initiatives at these suppliers, while the commercial vehicles business did not undertake any such initiatives. We find that the quality knowledge developed through the quality improvement initiatives undertaken by the car business does not easily spill over to benefit the commercial vehicles business. Quality knowledge spills over under three conditions: (1) when quality improvement efforts are focused on organizational members, as opposed to when they focus on routines or technology; (2) when quality improvement efforts focus on the output activities of suppliers...


Introduction: Advances have improved survival among breast cancer (BC) patients and 89% can expect >5 year survival. The price for this survival, however, may be physical and psychosocial symptoms that persist many years into the survivorship trajectory. Unmet needs for symptom management and the relationships between unmet needs, symptom burden, and psychosocial adaptation remain unclear. We examined these relationships among longer term BC survivors. Method: Eligibility included non-metastatic BC survivors diagnosed > 3 years prior and attendance at a survivorship-focused appointment. Nineteen common symptoms of disease and treatment were evaluated and participants reported unmet need for assistance for each symptom they experienced. Psychosocial adaptation was assessed through the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Results: 103 primarily white (72%), middle aged (M=62.7 yrs) BC survivors were recruited. Participants were, on average, 11.4 yrs from diagnosis and most (78.2%) reported Stage I or II BC. Participants reported an average of 9.2 symptoms, most commonly fatigue (67%), joint pain (66%), weight gain (60%), decreased sexual drive (55%), and insomnia (52%). Participants reported an average of 2.8 unmet needs for assistance with symptoms, most commonly joint pain (29%), fatigue (25%), weight gain (23%), and difficulty with memory (21%). Overall levels of depressive (M=2.45) and anxiety (M=4.89) symptoms were low, and elevated depressive and anxiety symptoms were reported by 3% and 18% of the sample, respectively. Number of symptoms and anxiety were unrelated to any demographic, disease or treatment variables. Depressive symptoms and unmet needs were related younger age (p 0.49, p 0.31, p Conclusion: Among long term BC survivors symptoms are common, while unmet need and symptoms of anxiety and depression are more modest. However, both symptoms and unmet need are associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety and represent a potentially missed opportunity for improving outcomes among BC survivors. Citation Format: Palmer SC, Blauch AN, Pucci DA, Jacobs LA. Symptom burden, unmet need for assistance, and psychosocial adaptation among longer term breast cancer survivors [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2016 Dec 6-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P5-13-12.


The method of task evaluation is divided into the following classes. One is operating achievement to determine the ability of each operator, the other is the relationship between the efficiency of the mechanical system and control result to determine the human-machine system. Recently, a lot of research has been done in the latter field. Therefore, it seems that the performance of mechanical systems have been developed rapidly. However, at the point of the task evaluation, it is very important to consider not only performance of the total human-machine system but also the mental stress and degree of effort of the operator. Because human being have a high adaptability to surroundings. Therefore, in order to take into account these aspects, the research on the Mental Work Load of the operator has been done recent years. Therefore we construct the dynamic human model to describe the dynamics of the Heart Rate Variability, because a strong relation exists between the Mental Work Load and the Heart Rate Varibility which is determined by autonomic nervous system and is also easily measured. Therefore, it is possible to analyze the model to know the law of causation between the input and output.


We characterize the environments of local accreting supermassive black holes by measuring the clustering of AGNs in the Swift/BAT Spectroscopic Survey (BASS). With 548 AGN in the redshift range 0.01 < z < 0.1 over the full sky from the DR1 catalog, BASS provides the largest, least biased sample of local AGNs to date due to its hard X-ray selection (14–195 keV) and rich multiwavelength/ancillary data. By measuring the projected cross-correlation function between the AGN and 2MASS galaxies, and interpreting it via halo occupation distribution and subhalo-based models, we constrain the occupation statistics of the full sample, as well as in bins of absorbing column density and black hole mass. We find that AGNs tend to reside in galaxy group environments, in agreement with previous studies of AGNs throughout a large range of luminosity and redshift, and that on average they occupy their dark matter halos similar to inactive galaxies of comparable stellar mass. We also find evidence that obscured AGNs tend to reside in denser environments than unobscured AGNs, even when samples were matched in luminosity, redshift, stellar mass, and Eddington ratio. We show that this can be explained either by significantly different halo occupation distributions or statistically different host halo assembly histories. Lastly, we see that massive black holes are slightly more likely to reside in central galaxies than black holes of smaller mass.


Primary cavity-producers like woodpeckers are often considered as keystone species, because they produce nestsites also for several other cavity-nesting animals and, thus, maintain ecological webs of cavity-breeders. However, the detailed temporal dynamics of cavities and their lifetime occupancy rates and survival are not usually known which makes it difficult to assess the actual significance and full impact of primary cavitybreeders. In this study, we monitored cavities in a large forest landscape, covering the full lifetime of cavities. We focused on a mature and old-growth forest specialist cavity-breeder, the Three-toed Woodpecker Picoides tridactylus. The data include the annual occupancy history of 655 old cavities of the Three-toed Woodpecker in 86 territories in a 170-km area in southern Finland during 1987–2017. The study area included both managed and natural forest types. The median survival time of a cavity was 10 years, but there were significant differences between forest area types with a range of 7–13 years. The occupancy in all cavities was 21.3%, and the cavities were available for secondary cavity-breeders each year. There was a significant negative correlation between the occupancy and the age of the cavity. The first five years of a cavity were important for the total occupancy, and 86% of occupancies took place before the median age of the cavities. In cavities older than 15 years the occupancy was only 7%. The pattern was similar in all types of forests. Our results show that cavities made by Threetoed Woodpeckers have rather long lifespan but also that their active use by other cavity-breeding species is restricted mostly to few years only. The result indicates that new, fresh cavities are needed continuously in a forest landscape, in order to maintain the role that Three-toed Woodpecker has as a keystone species.


Comparison of the grades of 60 sensitive muscle spindle terminals on two actions: gradual stretch of the muscle and short intensive tetanization of the muscle nerve, showed that, irrespective of the mode of action, the character of adaptation remains the smae in majority of units. The speed of receptors adaptation depends not on the specific of testing precedures, but, apparently, on the means of connection of the sensitive terminals with different types of intrafusal muscle fibers with different elasticviscous properties. The possible reason for speedy adaptation of muscle receptors of elementary dynamic type, is discussed.


The dynamics of growth and the timing of release of the brain's prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH) in final instar larvae of Manduca sexta are consistent with the following hypothesis. When a 5th-stage larva reaches a critical weight of about 5 g an unidentified process is initiated which requires 24 h to be completed. At the completion of this process the brain is rendered competent to release PTTH. The actual release of PTTH is gated by the photoperiod and occurs when the gate opens during the very next photophase.


The self-attention module is a key component of Transformer-based models, wherein each token pays attention to every other token. Recent studies have shown that these heads exhibit syntactic, semantic, or local behaviour. Some studies have also identified promise in restricting this attention to be local, i.e., a token attending to other tokens only in a small neighbourhood around it. However, no conclusive evidence exists that such local attention alone is sufficient to achieve high accuracy on multiple NLP tasks. In this work, we systematically analyse the role of locality information in learnt models and contrast it with the role of syntactic information. More specifically, we first do a sensitivity analysis and show that, at every layer, the representation of a token is much more sensitive to tokens in a small neighborhood around it than to tokens which are syntactically related to it. We then define an attention bias metric to determine whether a head pays more attention to local tokens or to syntactically related tokens. We show that a larger fraction of heads have a locality bias as compared to a syntactic bias. Having established the importance of local attention heads, we train and evaluate models where varying fractions of the attention heads are constrained to be local. Such models would be more efficient as they would have fewer computations in the attention layer. We evaluate these models on 4 GLUE datasets (QQP, SST-2, MRPC, QNLI) and 2 MT datasets (En-De, En-Ru) and clearly demonstrate that such constrained models have comparable performance to the unconstrained models. Through this systematic evaluation we establish that attention in Transformer-based models can be constrained to be local without affecting performance.