In this paper, a session resumption-based end-to-end security scheme for healthcare Internet of things (IoT) is pro-posed. The proposed scheme is realized by employing certificate-based DTLS handshake between end-users and smart gateways as well as utilizing DTLS session resumption technique. Smart gateways enable the sensors to no longer need to authenticate and authorize remote end-users by handing over the necessary security context. Session resumption technique enables end-users and medical sensors to directly communicate without the need for establishing the communication from the initial handshake. Session resumption technique has an abbreviated form of DTLS handshake and neither requires certificate-related nor public-key funtionalities. This alleviates some burden of medical sensors tono longer need to perform expensive operations. The energy-performance evaluations of the proposed scheme are evaluated by developing a remote patient monitoring prototype based on healthcare IoT. The energy-performance evaluation results show that our scheme is about 97% and 10% faster than certificate-based and symmetric key-based DTLS, respectively. Also, the certificate-based DTLS consumes about 2.2X more RAM and 2.9X more ROM resources required by our scheme. While, our scheme and symmetric key-based DTLS have almost similar RAM and ROM requirements. The security analysis reveals that the proposed scheme fulfills the requirements of end-to-end security and provides higher security level than related approaches found in the literature. Thus, the presented scheme is a well-suited solution to provide end-to-end security for healthcare IoT.


This paper presents an effective approach to formally verify SystemC designs. The approach translates SystemC models into a Petri-Net based representation. The Petri-net model is then used for model checking of properties expressed in a timed formal verification SystemC designs Petri-net model model checking timed temporal logic . The approach is particularly suitable for, but not restricted to, models at a high level of abstraction, such as transaction-level. The efficiency of the approach is illustrated by experiments


A channel separation algorithm for the FDMA/TDM (frequency division multiple access/time division multiplexing) scheme is presented. A demultiplexing algorithm that would allow demultiplexing of only the carriers of interest from the wideband spectrum of the FDMA signal in a random and efficient manner is proposed. The computational requirements indicate that the proposed technique of approximation and subsequent correction is efficient when only a small number of carriers need to be demultiplexed. When compared to the conventional fast transform algorithms (such as the FFT), the efficiency of the proposed algorithm decreases as the number of carriers increases. If the number of carriers to be processed is less than 20 (out of 800), then this demultiplexing algorithm is superior to the FFT. For an earth station application where the interest may be in only a few carriers out of hundreds received, the proposed demultiplexing algorithm is highly applicable.<<ETX>>


Nanoscience promises to transform today's world in the same way that integrated semiconductor devices transformed the world of electronics and computation. In the post-genomic era, the greatest challenge is to make connections between the structures and functions of biomolecules at the nanometre-scale level in order to underpin the understanding of larger scale systems in the fields of human biology and physiology. To achieve this, instruments with new capabilities need to be researched and developed, with particular emphasis on new levels of sensitivity, precision and resolution for biomolecular analysis. This paper describes an instrument able to analyse structures that range from tenths of a nanometre (proteins, DNA) to micron-scale structures (living cells), which can be investigated non-destructively in their normal state and subsequently in chemical- or biochemical-modified conditions. The high-resolution scanning Kelvin nanoprobe (SKN) measures the work-function changes at molecular level, instigated by local charge reconfiguration due to translational motion of mobile charges, dipolar relaxation of bound charges, interfacial polarization and structural and conformational modifications. In addition to detecting surface electrical properties, the instrument offers, in parallel, the surface topographic image, with nanometre resolution. The instrument can also be used to investigate subtle work function/topography variations which occur in, for example, corrosion, contamination, adsorption and desorption of molecules, crystallographic studies, mechanical stress studies, surface photovoltaic studies, material science, biocompatibility studies, microelectronic characterization in semiconductor technology, oxide and thin films, surface processing and treatments, surfaces and interfaces characterization. This paper presents the design and development of the instrument, the basic principles of the method and the challenges involved to achieve nanometric resolution and sub-millivolt sensitivity, for both the topographic imaging of surface micromorphology and surface potential and work-function determination.


Recent studies have investigated that the synthetic progestins may lead to health issues to the aquatic organisms. Progesterone is a steroidal progestin and has been used as a contraceptive drug, which is detected in the aquatic ecosystem. However, the potential effects of progesterone on the fish reproduction are largely unclear. Here, we tested the effects of progesterone on the fish reproductive and endocrine systems. Adult zebrafish were exposed to progesterone for 10 days at environmental concentrations. The production of eggs was reduced in the exposed fish, and the circulating concentrations of estradiol (E2) and testosterone (T) in female fish or 11-keto testosterone (11-KT) in male fish were significantly diminished. Our results suggested that progesterone may cause adverse health effects on fish by disrupting the endocrine system, and short-term exposure to progesterone could overt affect the fish reproduction.


"A convincing case that careful analysis of the history, issues, individuals, and institutions can lead to better decisions-in business as well as in government" (BusinessWeek). Two noted professors offer easily remembered rules for using history effectively in day-to-day management of governmental and corporate affairs to avoid costly blunders. "An illuminating guide to the use and abuse of history in affairs of state" (Arthur Schlesinger).


Pulse coding techniques have been used in the past primarily to improve signal to (electronic) noise ratio. However, the flexibility inherent in pulse coding can be exploited to solve several problems in medical imaging and nondestructive testing. We have experimentally examined its potential for two such problems: (i) speckle reduction with multispectral imaging and data averaging; (ii) structural characterization of scattering medium on a scale below the resolution of the imaging system. The ability to change the point spread function and the spectral content with frequency modulated pulse coding has been utilized. Water filled sponge with pore size much smaller than the resolution cell volume was used as a speckle generating medium. A non-focused transducer was driven with FM coded pulses. The pulse compression processing was carried out digitally on a computer. FM pulses with 143 different combinations of center frequency f0 and 6 dB bandwidth Df were used. Normalized decorrelation factors were calculated to evaluate effectiveness for speckle averaging. Significant decorrelation was observed specially at lower Df, indicating a potential for frequency diversity processing for speckle reduction. Point signal to noise ratio (SNRA) was also calculated on the envelope detected signal for structural characterization. SNRA showed significant increase from its high density limit value of 1.91 (fully developed speckle) at certain specific frequencies. Both simulation and theoretical considerations are used to show that this resonance effect is a signature of the underlying semiperiodic scattering structure of the medium


Saba Aghaei,Pediatric Dentistry Dept, Faculty of Dentistry,Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran , firstname.lastname@example.com Background and Aim: Tooth eruption is a multifaceted physiological process, which can be delayed by factors such as malnutrition. This study aimed to compare the serum levels of vitamin D and calcium in infants with a longer than normal eruption time of the first deciduous tooth with the control group (normal eruption). Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, serum levels of vitamin D in 61 children with a mean age of normal dental eruption in Iranian children (8 months and less) were compared with 61 children with eruption age of more than 8 months. The children were matched in terms of age, sex, place of birth and residence, age of birth, birth weight, and other eruption-related items. Student's t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and chi-square test were used for statistical analysis. Results:The first erupted tooth in all infants was the mandibular incisor. The mean serum level of vitamin D was 38.1±24.1 ng/ml in infants with eruption age of 8 months or less and 40.0±21.5 ng/ml in the group of eruption age over 8 months (P=0.63). Serum calcium level was 10.03±0.55 mg/dl in the first group and 9.92±0.57 mg/dl in the second group (P=0.28). There was no significant relationship between gender, maternal education, A+D supplementation, infant nutrition (breast milk, formula, and combination), and different levels of vitamin D (deficient, inadequate, adequate, and toxic) with the average age of eruption of the first deciduous tooth (P>0.05). Conclusion: It seems that serum vitamin D and calcium levels in this age group do not affect the eruption time of deciduous teeth.


It is well-known that the prenucleolus on the class of TU games is characterized by singlevaluedness, covariance under strategic equivalence, anonymity, and the reduced game property. We show that the prenucleolus on the class of TU games restricted to the connected coalitions with respect to communication structures may be characterized by the same axioms and a stronger version of independence of non-connected coalitions requiring that the solution does not depend on the worth of any non-connected coalition. Similarly as in the classical case, it turns out that each of the five axioms is logically independent of the remaining axioms and that an infinite universe of potential players is necessary. Moreover, a suitable definition and characterization of a prekernel for games with communication structures is presented.


The research thus far on the relation of the immune system to gliomas has shown that a glioma associated antigen does exist. Small quantities of glioma associated antibodies probably circulate within the patient's serum but there is definite evidence of depression of the cell-mediated vanguard of the immune response. This depression is caused by a blocking factor that may be present as an antigen, antibody, or antigen-antibody complex. Both active and passive immunotherapeutic techniques have been employed in a small number of patients with little success. Considerable understanding of the alteration of the immune system is necessary before a rational approach toward immunotherapy of gliomas may be undertaken. However, it is apparent that reductive therapy consisting of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy will be necessary before the immune system will be effective against the tumor burden.


The lowest quadrupole mode of an empty nearly spherical metallic shell was excited by a novel form of EMAT (electromagnetic acoustic transducer) not having mechanical contact with the shell. An oscillating current is supplied to a coil located near the equator of the shell. The shell vibrates in response to the Maxwell stresses which are distributed over the shell's surface in a way especially favorable for excitation of the lowest quadrupole mode (a bending mode) which has a natural frequency near 64 kHz. The stresses are associated with the Lorentz forces on eddy currents around the equator. The mode is detected with a small microphone placed near the shell. In one version of the experiment a large dc bias magnetic field is superposed on a weaker oscillating field of frequency near 64 kHz. In another version of the experiment the bias field is removed and the frequency of the oscillating field is near 32 kHz (half of the excited mechanical frequency). The method may have applications to the inference of...


The role of hormones and growth factors in the pathogenesis and therapy of colon cancer is biologically intricate and medically important. The effects of the previously described hormones and growth factors on normal and neoplastic colonic growth and development suggest the mechanisms by which hormonal alteration might either enhance or suppress the cancer process. The high degree of association between the specific endocrine-related processes (breast cancer, acromegaly, hyperparathyroidism, gastrin sensitivity of colon cancer, and cancer cell lines) suggests a significant role for hormones in colonic carcinogenesis. The relationship between the specific hormones and cancers is often unclear. This is the result of many factors: the variable presence of specific hormone receptors on the surface of the tumor or cell line; the inconsistent response to exogeneous hormone administration in vivo and in vitro; and the occasional failure of specific hormone-blocking agents to affect cell proliferation. The relationship between growth factors and cancers is also unclear. The following questions must be resolved in order to understand the significance of growth factors and the neoplastic process: (1) Is a growth factor significant in either an autocrine or a paracrine capacity? (2) Are combinations of growth factors rather than individual growth factors more biologically significant? (3) Do structural alterations of the immunologically similar, but functionally different growth factors modify their effect on the neoplastic tissue? The potential for manipulation of hormones and growth factors in the prevention and treatment of colon cancer is evidence to date suggesting that such efforts are indeed justified.


This paper presents new imagery and spectrophotometric results for the N26 HII region in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The observations using monochromatic images and low-resolution spectra (3700{10 000 A) reveal a compact and complex nebula composed of two cores A and B where A in the region of H is brighter than B by a factor 5 and distance of 2 00 .T he core Ao fFWHM 2: 00 1 or 0.6 pc presents a high excitation (O III) 5007 + 4959=H up to 8 and a high reddening E(B V ) 0:6, while the core B is less excited but has a higher reddening0.8. Each core contains one exciting source; the brighter one should be responsible for the high excitation of A. The apparent spectral type of the two cores ranges from O7 to O9 V and the gas electron density and temperature were derived from the absorption and emission-line intensities. The total mass of the ionized gas is evaluated at 13 M. The chemical abundances of He, O, N, Ne, S, and Ar were computed. These abundances seem consistent with average abundances for SMC HII regions, except N that appears slightly overabundant. N26A-B is comparable to the objects previously observed in the LMC and SMC that we have called \blobs".


Understanding the extent to which natural streamflow characteristics have been altered is an important consideration for ecological assessments of streams. Assessing hydrologic condition requires that we quantify the attributes of the flow regime that would be expected in the absence of anthropogenic modifications. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether selected streamflow characteristics could be predicted at regional and national scales using geospatial data. Long‐term, gaged river basins distributed throughout the contiguous US that had streamflow characteristics representing least disturbed or near pristine conditions were identified. Thirteen metrics of the magnitude, frequency, duration, timing and rate of change of streamflow were calculated using a 20–50 year period of record for each site. We used random forests (RF), a robust statistical modelling approach, to develop models that predicted the value for each streamflow metric using natural watershed characteristics. We compared the performance (i.e. bias and precision) of national‐ and regional‐scale predictive models to that of models based on landscape classifications, including major river basins, ecoregions and hydrologic landscape regions (HLR). For all hydrologic metrics, landscape stratification models produced estimates that were less biased and more precise than a null model that accounted for no natural variability. Predictive models at the national and regional scale performed equally well, and substantially improved predictions of all hydrologic metrics relative to landscape stratification models. Prediction error rates ranged from 15 to 40%, but were ≤25% for most metrics. We selected three gaged, non‐reference sites to illustrate how predictive models could be used to assess hydrologic condition. These examples show how the models accurately estimate pre‐disturbance conditions and are sensitive to changes in streamflow variability associated with long‐term land‐use change. We also demonstrate how the models can be applied to predict expected natural flow characteristics at ungaged sites. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Policymakers should be aware of the potential trade-off between environmental effectiveness and competitiveness concerns involving water charge implementation. This trade-off can be particularly important in countries such as Brazil, which adopt a decentralized and participative water management approach through River Basin Committees. In such a regulatory framework, it is crucial for the consensus reaching process to evaluate in advance potential impacts of water charge schemes. This paper aims at assessing the economic and environmental impacts of industrial water charges in Brazil. The analysis is based on a survey of 488 plants located within the Paraiba do Sul River Basin. The survey indicates that a significant proportion of the industrial plants approves the water charge mechanism and that increasing water costs are already inducing them to undertake conservation measures. Simulations based on an econometric water demand model suggest that water charges can induce significant industrial water demand reductions with limited impact on firms9 costs. Regarding pollution control, the estimated marginal effluent treatment costs are far above the current values established for the pollution-related component of the water charge. These results indicate that competitiveness conflicts will not necessarily pervade the political economy of water charges in Brazil.


Abstract Enhancers are often studied as noncoding regulatory elements that modulate the precise spatiotemporal expression of genes in a highly tissue-specific manner. This paradigm has been challenged by recent evidence of individual enhancers acting in multiple tissues or developmental contexts. However, the frequency of these enhancers with high degrees of "pleiotropy" out of all putative enhancers is not well understood. Consequently, it is unclear how the variation of enhancer pleiotropy corresponds to the variation in expression breadth of target genes. Here, we use multi-tissue chromatin maps from diverse human tissues to investigate the enhancer–gene interaction architecture while accounting for 1) the distribution of enhancer pleiotropy, 2) the variations of regulatory links from enhancers to target genes, and 3) the expression breadth of target genes. We show that most enhancers are tissue-specific and that highly pleiotropy enhancers account for <1% of all putative regulatory sequences in the human genome. Notably, several genomic features are indicative of increasing enhancer pleiotropy, including longer sequence length, greater number of links to genes, increasing abundance and diversity of encoded transcription factor motifs, and stronger evolutionary conservation. Intriguingly, the number of enhancers per gene remains remarkably consistent for all genes (∼14). However, enhancer pleiotropy does not directly translate to the expression breadth of target genes. We further present a series of Gaussian Mixture Models to represent this organization architecture. Consequently, we demonstrate that a modest trend of more pleiotropic enhancers targeting more broadly expressed genes can generate the observed diversity of expression breadths in the human genome.


Traceability means it is possible to trace food back to its origin. If consumers become ill from the food they have eaten, or food is found to contain a harmful chemical, traceability allows this food to be traced from the shop where it was purchased, to the trader who delivered it, to the factory that processed or packed it, and ultimately to the farm where it was grown. In this way, the source of the problem can be identified and corrected [1]. Traceability is considered a fundamental component of modern food safety systems.


The 1991-2002 Eurobarometer surveys show a steady decline in optimism about biotechnology in the United Kingdom (UK) through the 1990s. After 1999, there is more optimism and less opposition to agri-food biotechnologies. The paper discusses possible causes of these changes and argues that the UK public is still open to persuasion.


: We evaluated the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) as a diagnostic method in superficial corneoconjunctival herpes and compared it to viral culture. A total of 38 patients were included and divided into 3 groups according to the clinical aspect. Fourteen patients that had a typical clinical aspect for herpes served as reference to evaluate the method. Nine patients had atypical lesions (herpes-suspects) and 15 patients (13 foreign corneal bodies and 2 adenovirus keratoconjunctivitis) made up the control group. All culture positive cases were also positive with the PCR method (in total 10 cases). In the group of herpes-suspects, one case had both a positive viral culture and a positive PCR; four patients that responded well to antiviral therapy had a negative culture and a positive PCR and four patients were negative with both methods. In the control group two cases of foreign bodies were false-positive. As culture was not performed for these cases it is impossible to known if it was a contamination during the PCR procedure or if concomittant viral shedding occurred. Compared to viral culture, a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 87.5% was calculated. PCR seems to be a very sensitive diagnostic method having an acceptable specificity for the diagnosis of superficial ocular herpes simplex disease that proved useful in atypical cases.


The Veterans Affairs Cooperative Variceal Sclerotherapy Group. (1991) Prophylactic sclerotherapy for esophageal varices in men with alcoholic liver disease. The New England Journal of Medicine; 324: 1779-1784. Background. Sclerotherapy is an effective treatment for bleeding esophageal varices in patients with alcoholic liver disease. It has also been suggested that sclerotherapy might be effective in preventing initial episodes of bleeding and improving survival among such patients. 328 HPB INTERNATIONAL Methods. We conducted a prospective, randomized trial comparing prophylactic sclerotherapy and sham therapy in 281 men with alcoholic liver disease who had at least three variceai channels and no history of variceal bleeding. All the patients underwent endoscopy; 143 received sclerotherapy, and 138 received sham therapy. Results. The two patient groups were well matched at entry with respect to the extent of liver disease and other clinical indexes, except that other medical illnesses were significantly more common in the sclerotherapy group. The study's datamonitoring board terminated the trial 22.5 months after it began because the rate of mortality from all causes was singificantly higher in the sclerotherapy group (32.2 percent) than in the sham-therapy group (17.4 percent, p 0.004), despite the fact that the men who received sclerotherapy had significantly fewer episodes of esophageal variceai bleeding. The causes of death varied, and there is no obvious explanation for the excess mortality in the sclerotherapy group. After the termination of treatment, the excess mortality rate in the sclerotherapy group promptly declined. There were 53 episodes of upper gastrointestinal bleeding (including 10 from esophageal varices and 9 from esophageal ulcers) in the sclerotherapy group and 40 episodes (including 19 from esophageal varices) in the sham-therapy group. Complications of sclerotherapy were frequent but seldom life-threatening. Conclusions. For unknown reasons, prophylactic sclerotherapy is associated with increased mortality among men with moderate-to-severe alcoholic liver disease and esophageal varices. Sclerotherapy should not be performed until after an initial episode of bleeding from esophageal varices has occurred. (N.Engl.J.Med., 1991; 324: 1779-1784.)


Polymeric membranes are used on huge scales for kidney dialysis, wastewater treatment, and drinking water production. However, almost all polymeric membranes are fabricated by a process reliant on the use of unsustainable, expensive, and reprotoxic dipolar aprotic solvents. In this work, we propose an aqueous phase separation approach for preparing porous membrane films. Poly(4-vinylpyridine) (P4VP), a pH-responsive polymer, is first dissolved at low pH where the polymer is charged and subsequently cast as a thin film. Switching to a high pH where the polymer is uncharged and insoluble results in controlled phase separation and solidification of the polymer into porous membrane structures. This approach gives a large degree of control over membrane structure, leading to symmetric porous microfiltration membranes and asymmetric dense nanofiltration membranes. Moreover, the use of a pH-responsive polymer leads directly to a pH-responsive membrane, where the degree of responsive behavior can be tuned by the degree of cross-linking. Such responsive behavior allows effective cleaning of the membrane, without the use of harsh chemicals. This work outlines an approach toward preparing membranes in a more sustainable fashion—an approach that allows control over the membrane structure and one that naturally leads to advanced membranes with responsive properties.


OBJECTIVES
The objective of this study was to determine whether verified increased nasal mucosal reactivity among teachers, who had been working in a school with severe moisture problems, still persisted 6 years after remedial measures had been taken. The increased nasal mucosal reactivity, measured as the mucosal swelling reaction upon histamine provocation, had earlier been shown both 1 and 3 years after the renovation.

METHODS
Twenty-four teachers in the target school and sixteen teachers in the control school, who participated in all the investigations (1995, 1997 and 2000), answered a standardized questionnaire and underwent a nasal histamine provocation test. In addition to the registration of mucosal swelling, the microcircular reaction to histamine provocation was measured with laser-Doppler flowmetry.

RESULTS
The nasal histamine reactivity among the teachers, measured as the mucosal swelling reaction, was no longer increased. However, the laser-Doppler flowmetry showed that the teachers in the target school had significantly divergent microcircular perfusion (P = 0.0022) and a concentration of moving blood cells (P=0.0009) in the histamine provocation when compared with the teachers in the control school; this finding indicates more-pronounced plasma leakage and edema from the nasal mucosa.

CONCLUSIONS
Restored nasal histamine reactivity, measured as mucosal swelling reaction, was observed among the teachers 6 years after an obviously successful renovation of the school environment. However, changes in microcirculation indicate a remaining effect on the nasal mucosa.


The report by Caggiula et al 1 in the June 10, 1996, edition of theArchivescompared the effects of 2 dietary interventions on cholesterol levels. Physicians were recruited and randomized to deliver nutritional counseling to their patients with hypercholesterolemia by an "office assisted" method delivered largely by nurses and physicians or to refer them to a nutrition center. The patients who were referred to the nutrition center, as seen in Table 4 in Caggiula and colleagues' article, enjoyed a mean decrease in serum cholesterol levels of 0.56 mmol/L [21.6 mg/dL] compared with 0.38 mmol/L [14.7 mg/dL] for the office assisted intervention. The authors concluded that "based on the changes observed in the Nutrition Center Model... greater cholesterol responses can be obtained with specialized lipid-lowering programs." In addition, according to patient satisfaction data from Table 5, "patients in the Nutrition Center Model were more positive in regard to recommending the program


A rapid, sensitive and accurate liquid chromatographic tandem mass spectrometric method is described for simultaneous determination of rutin and quercetin in A. lakoocha Roxb. bark. Rutin and quercetin was extracted fromthe plant usingmethanol. The chromatographic separationwas achieved using a Thermo Hypurity C18 (50i'´4.6 mm) 5.0 i column interfaced with a triple quadrapole mass spectrometer. The mobile phase consisted of a mixture ofMethanol: 10 mMammoniumacetate buffer whose pH was adjusted to 3.00 ± 0.05 with acetic acid (85:15, v/v) and was delivered at a flow rate of 05 mL min-1. Electrospray ionization (ESI) source operated in the negative ion mode was used for the quantitation. Detection was performed using an Applied Biosystems Sciex API 5000 Mass spectrometer. The method was found to be simple, precise, accurate, fast, specific and sensitive and can be used for routine quality control analysis ofRutin and quercetin in A. lakoocha Roxb.


Measuring physiological parameters or vital sign using camera has become popular in recent years. Contact-less monitoring and extraction of vital signs can be important source of information in situations like medical care system and safety control system. This paper presents the implementation of real-time, non-contact method for extraction of vital signs, heart rate in this case. A better face tracking method is used for efficient face detection. This study extends some of the previous works done and have a comparison study with several methods. The developed system used filtering with window over the green channel of the signal and then Converted to frequency domain to analyze the signal to detect heart rate. The developed system achieved high correlation and showed small error while referencing with actual heart signal from ECG. This method delivers better result in better light condition but gives fairly good result on lower light as well.


Women use cosmetics to enhance their attractiveness. How successful they are in doing so remains unknown—how do men and women respond to cosmetics use in terms of attractiveness? There are a variety of miscalibrations where attractiveness is concerned—often, what one sex thinks the opposite sex finds attractive is incorrect. Here, we investigated observer perceptions about attractiveness and cosmetics, as well as their understanding of what others would find attractive. We used computer graphic techniques to allow observers to vary the amount of cosmetics applied to a series of female faces. We asked observers to optimize attractiveness for themselves, for what they thought women in general would prefer, and what they thought men in general would prefer. We found that men and women agree on the amount of cosmetics they find attractive, but overestimate the preferences of women and, when considering the preferences of men, overestimate even more. We also find that models' self-applied cosmetics are far in excess of individual preferences. These findings suggest that attractiveness perceptions with cosmetics are a form of pluralistic ignorance, whereby women tailor their cosmetics use to an inaccurate perception of others' preferences. These findings also highlight further miscalibrations of attractiveness ideals.


Offshore wind power has proven to be a renewable energy source with a high potential, especially in the North Sea, where an important development is going on. The location of the wind farms tends to move far from the coast to benefit stronger and more constant wind. In the same time, the power output of the wind farm is increasing to several hundreds of MW up to 1 GW. In the European liberalized electricity market, the interconnection of the countries become very important to facilitate the cross-border trade of electricity but also to improve the reliability of the grid. Combining this both aspects into one, a big offshore HVDC grid connecting countries and large wind farms spread allover the North Sea is currently being studied and developed. So in addition of the challenge given by a high penetration of the wind power production in the European power production scheme, new challenges are opened especially for the offshore transmission. This master thesis presents the integration to grid of a single 1 GW or a cluster of wind farms connected to an oil rig with different connection scheme based on HVDC transmission using the Voltage Source Converter (VSC) technology. The connection of the offshore wind farms is done either with a single HVDC transmission or two HVDC transmissions connected to the main grid at two different Points of Common Connection situated in the south-west of Norway. The wind farms are not represented in detail but by a single generator. They are equipped for the simulation with Double Fed Induction Generators (DFIG) to be representative of the reality, almost half of the wind turbines are today equipped with DFIG technology. Two disturbances are used to test the electrical stability of the system: a classical 150ms three fault phase in agreement with the grid code requirements on the ride fault through requirements and 100ms fault leading to the tripping of a line. The impact of using different types of generator is also investigated with the simulation of cluster wind farm where a wind farm is equipped with Fixed Speed Generator (FIG). The emphasis is put on the response of the VSC-converter and to a lesser extent on the behaviour of the wind turbine generator. It is demonstrated the capacity of the VSC-converter to stabilize a small grid alone and to "isolate" a disturbance. The voltage and the frequency offshore are practically unaffected by a fault onshore and vice versa. As expected, it is demonstrated that the multiplication of the VSC-HVDC converter in a grid improves the stability of the system. Finally, it has been noticed that there maybe some interactions if several different types of generators are used. The replacement of a generator by another type inside the wind farm cluster may change completely the dynamic behaviour after a disturbance. Simulations are performed with PSS/E.


in the potentialities and limitations of the tools of their trades. This also applies to the excellent chapters on the benefits of treatment, and management of anaesthesia in the hypertensive patient. In fact, the first 75 % of the book was a real pleasure to review, combining true educative value with the excitement of ongoing constructive research. Unfortunately, the last part of the book on treatment with different groups of antihypertensive drugs was to prove a disappointment for in some chapters it lacks the clarity and critical approach which marked the earlier part. The information presented in these chapters often appears to be parochial or to have been obtained more from an uncritical and incomplete review of literature than from wide personal experience of the authors. This is, perhaps, best illustrated by the unqualified statement-'The rauwolfia alkaloids have been largely superseded by more effective and better tolerated hypotensive agents'. The young author is, presumably, unaware that Rauwolfia is still the most widely used antihypertensive agent in the world and is considered by many of our overseas colleagues to be both effective and well tolerated. Nevertheless, the book as a whole was well worth reading, and should provide something of exciting interest to clinicians in most specialities.


Adenocarcinomas developing in endometriotic lesions have been reported, most commonly in the ovary. The rectovaginal septum is a rare location of this neoplastic transformation. We report a case of primary adenocarcinoma arising from endometriosis of the rectovaginal septum in a 25-year-old woman presenting with lower abdominal pain and dyspareunia. Diagnostic and treatment modalities were discussed. Immunohistochemical studies of different keratin subtypes and CA125 expression of the tumor cells are of interest for the diagnosis. Preoperative radiation therapy promotes clinical symptoms relief, tumor volume reduction, and better radical surgical approach.


Dry matter intake and BW data from 14 mature, nonpregnant, nonlactating Angus cows that were individually fed through two consecutive 70- to 80-d periods (maintenance and ad libitum) were used to predict ADG (ADG = -.512 + .213 DMI - .0017 BW, R2 = .95). This equation then was used to identify feed efficiency types among these cows. Cows were identified as average type (A) if ADG was within one SE of predicted ADG, and as efficient (E) or inefficient types (I) if ADG exceeded one SE above or below, respectively, its predicted ADG. Four, four, and six cows were identified and grouped as I, A, and E types, respectively. During the maintenance period, DM and ME intake and ADG were similar (P greater than .10) across all three efficiency types. But during the ad libitum period, voluntary DM and ME intakes of I cows were greater (P less than .05) than those of A or E cows. Average daily gains of I cows during ad libitum feeding were greater (P less than .10) than those of A cows. Daily ME required for maintenance of I cows was highest, that of A cows was intermediate, and that of E cows was lowest (180.2, 154.6, and 135.1 kcal/kg BW.75, respectively). Inefficient cows tended (P greater than .10) to have less fat and deposited more protein (P less than .05) than A and E cows (137.9 vs 77.2 and 46.2 protein g/d, respectively). Concurrent with higher protein accretion rates, liver weights of I cows were heavier (P less than .05) than those of A and E cows (8.58 vs 7.79 and 7.68 kg, respectively). Inefficient cows were characterized by higher energy requirements for maintenance. Their high protein accretion may partially explain their higher maintenance requirements.


Abstract. ZY-3 is the first civilian high resolution stereo mapping satellite, which has been launched on 9th, Jan, 2012. The aim of ZY-3 satellite is to obtain high resolution stereo images and support the 1:50000 scale national surveying and mapping. Although ZY-3 has very high accuracy for direct geo-locations without GCPs (Ground Control Points), use of some GCPs is still indispensible for high precise stereo mapping. The GLAS (Geo-science Laser Altimetry System) loaded on the ICESat (Ice Cloud and land Elevation Satellite), which is the first laser altimetry satellite for earth observation. GLAS has played an important role in the monitoring of polar ice sheets, the measuring of land topography and vegetation canopy heights after launched in 2003. Although GLAS has ended in 2009, the derived elevation dataset still can be used after selection by some criteria. In this paper, the ICESat/GLAS laser altimeter data is used as height reference data to improve the ZY-3 height accuracy. A selection method is proposed to obtain high precision GLAS elevation data. Two strategies to improve the ZY-3 height accuracy are introduced. One is the conventional bundle adjustment based on RFM and bias-compensated model, in which the GLAS footprint data is viewed as height control. The second is to correct the DSM (Digital Surface Model) straightly by simple block adjustment, and the DSM is derived from the ZY-3 stereo imaging after freedom adjustment and dense image matching. The experimental result demonstrates that the height accuracy of ZY-3 without other GCPs can be improved to 3.0 meter after adding GLAS elevation data. What's more, the comparison of the accuracy and efficiency between the two strategies is implemented for application.


PURPOSE Under certain pathophysiologic conditions, the corneal endothelium can produce an abnormal posterior collagenous layer (PCL) that reduces light transmission. Previous studies suggest that formation of PCLs can result from transformation of endothelial cells to a proliferative myofibroblast phenotype. The purpose of this study was to determine the potential role of transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta on corneal endothelial transformation. METHODS Three corneal buttons (6-mm diameter) were obtained from each cornea of 28 adult cats. After a 2-mm diameter mechanical scrape injury was made, each button was cultured for 24, 48, or 72 hours in serum-free medium (SFM) or SFM supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum, TGF-gamma1, TGF-beta2, TGF-beta3, basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), or TGF-beta1 and bFGF. Buttons were single and double labeled using phalloidin and antibodies to ZO-1, Ki67, fibronectin, alpha-smooth muscle (SM) actin, and vinculin. Counts of Ki67-positive cells were used as a measure of endothelial proliferation. RESULTS Organ culture in TGF-beta1, beta2, or beta3 induced myofibroblast transformation of corneal endothelial cells, with formation of stress fibers containing alpha-SM actin, loss of normal pericellular ZO-1 organization, development of extracellular fibronectin fibrils, and formation of focal contacts as indicated by punctate vinculin staining. However, TGF-beta3 did not stimulate endothelial proliferation above that in serum-free control samples. Serum and bFGF each stimulated proliferation significantly, without inducing myofibroblast transformation. A combination of TGF-beta1 and bFGF resulted in both myofibroblast transformation and increased proliferation. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that TGF-beta plays a key role in the loss of normal endothelial differentiation, abnormal extracellular matrix synthesis, and myofibroblast transformation, which can induce development of PCLs. However, other factors such as bFGF seem to be required to stimulate concomitant proliferation of corneal endothelium.


Employees today are spending more time in the workplace in response to job insecurity, workplace demands, financial pressures etc. The purpose of the study was to find out the current status of employees' self-efficacy and QWL, and the extent to which self-efficacy of employees influence their QWL. Descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation and the One-Way ANOVA were used to analyse the data. Sample: 70 from service institutions, 50 from financial institutions and 80 from educational institutions. There was a significant positive correlation between self-efficacy, educational level and QWL of employees; no significant influences of employees' age and tenure on their self-efficacy.


Mining frequent itemsets and association rules is a popular and well researched approach for discovering interesting relationships between variables in large databases. The R package arules presented in this paper provides a basic infrastructure for creating and manipulating input data sets and for analyzing the resulting itemsets and rules. The package also includes interfaces to two fast mining algorithms, the popular C implementations of Apriori and Eclat by Christian Borgelt. These algorithms can be used to mine frequent itemsets, maximal frequent itemsets, closed frequent itemsets and association rules.


The growth of higher education is a global phenomenon and provides challenges for educational leaders in schools and universities. Raising aspiration and participation requires an understanding of the sources of advice and information available to potential participants and how these are used when they decide whether or not to participate. This article draws on a qualitative study using social network analysis undertaken in England. This study examined the nature of decision making amongst individuals who have chosen not to participate in higher education despite possessing the qualifications and experience which would enable them to be admitted to a university programme. The research sought to identify their decision‐making processes within the 'networks of intimacy' that are their family, friends and significant individuals in their educational and/or working environments, past or present. Lying at the heart of the research is the belief that, in social network analysis, it is the interpersonal relationships rather than the individuals that form the unit of analysis. This article examines the role of information, advice and guidance (IAG) on individuals when they make the decision whether or not to participate in higher education. It considers the experience that individuals had at school, and explores their career decision making engaged in outside the school environment, and beyond the age of 18. It spells out the implications for educational leaders and managers in schools and universities as well as policy makers concerned about improving participation rates in all sectors of the community.


Background PAPP-A is a biochemical marker in first trimester screening undertaken at 11–13 weeks gestation. Studies have shown that low levels of it (<0.4 MoM) are descriptive of poor early placentation and can be an independent risk factor of complications associated with adverse obstetric outcomes. Objective Review existing management and pregnancy outcome of women with low PAPP-A levels and formulate guidelines to establish uniform standard practice for better outcomes. Method Following parameters were retrospectively analysed from case notes from January to December 2011: Maternal Age Parity Miscarriage PAPP-A levels Aspirin Uterine artery Doppler Growth scan Hypertension Delivery time Stillbirth APGAR SCBU admission Results 81 identified with low PAPP-A 90% received counselling 46% commenced on low dose aspirin 88% had uterine artery doppler 75% had growth scans 66% had no growth restriction 66% had further dopplers 38% received steroids 64% had no adverse outcomes 60% of babies born had weight greater than 3kg 25% had SCBU admission 36% had adverse outcomes Conclusion Low PAPP-A levels have limited value as a one-time single marker test and is poorly sensitive. Likelihood of an adverse outcome increases as PAPP-A level decreases. For pregnant women with a low PAPP-A level, monitoring of fetal growth and doppler indices can help identify high risk of adverse obstetric outcomes. Even if the ultrasound examination is normal it does not rule out an adverse outcome. Increased surveillance during pregnancy and low dose aspirin with uterine artery doppler were introduced in the guidelines for management of pregnant women with low PAPP-A.


Abstract : Spinal cord injuries now occur in nearly one quarter of the casualties from the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. We know our military treatment facilities are seriously challenged by these casualties for several reasons including co-morbidities associated with blast injuries and the lengthy rehabilitation required. We also now know medical treatments that promise to return the fractured bodies to approximate pre-injury function. Yet, we lack basic knowledge of the long-term outcomes defined as personally and socially meaningful by survivors and families who are seeking to heal the fractured relationships with valued communities. This gap limits our ability to deliver on the promise given by advances in battlefield trauma care and rehabilitation which is to enable a return to full lives in the community (Messinger 2010; Luborsky 1993, 1994a). Today's problem is that acute care treatments for the physical break are not matched by knowledge of how survivors continue life, conceptualize SCI and return to a full life. The US Surgeon General (DHHS 2004) faults the literatures??? narrow incident-based focus on acute medical events and neglect of ongoing processes after events; this narrowness neglects how people return to a valued life with disability(Verbrugge& Jette 1994). Yet, consensus is emerging that long-term outcomes are the next frontier (IOM 2005, WHO 2001) requiring us to ask new questions and use methods suited to cultural meanings and roles (Lysack et al 2007; Messinger 2010). An ample literature documents negative outcomes from inadequately treating the social and personal afflictions after SCI and other mobility loss. Thus, the hard earned knowledge of physical skills for living with altered bodies remains unmatched by societal practices to equip people with a culturally meaningful sense of community needed to thrive.


Nitric oxide (NO) has been implicated in the regulation of the lower urinary tract. However, the source(s) of NO production in the urinary bladder (UB) has not been determined. Accordingly, we used a porphyrinic microsensor placed on the surface of UB strips in vitro to directly measure endogenous NO production. The afferent neurotoxin, capsaicin, and the mixed α/β-adrenergic agonist, norepinephrine (NE), both evoked transient (1-3 s) NO release (range 50 nM to 1.4 μM). Adrenergic-mediated release was not decreased following denervation of the UB but was abolished following selective removal of the mucosa. On the other hand, release evoked by capsaicin (range 50-900 nM) was significantly decreased after UB denervation. These data indicate that NE releases NO from UB epithelium, and capsaicin releases NO from epithelium as well as nervous tissue in the UB. In light of reports that NO may regulate epithelial integrity and function in other tissues, agonist regulation of a constitutive nitric oxide synthase activity in the UB may provide a novel mechanism for modulation of bladder and urothelial function.


Listeners outperform automatic speech recognition systems at every level, including the very basic level of consonant identification. What is not clear is where the human advantage originates. Does the fault lie in the acoustic representations of speech or in the recognizer architecture, or in a lack of compatibility between the two? Many insights can be gained by carrying out a detailed human-machine comparison. The purpose of the Interspeech 2008 Consonant Challenge is to promote focused comparisons on a task involving intervocalic consonant identification in noise, with all participants using the same training and test data. This paper describes the Challenge, listener results and baseline ASR performance.


This article was created as a result of research conducted within the master thesis. The purpose of the measurements was to analyze the accuracy of the positioning of points by computer programs. Selected software was a specialized computer software dedicated to photogrammetric work. For comparative purposes it was decided to use tools with similar functionality. As the basic parameters that affect the results selected the resolution of the photos on which the key points were searched. In order to determine the location of the determined points, it was decided to follow the photogrammetric resection rule. In order to automate the measurement, the measurement session planning was omitted. The coordinates of the points collected by the tachymetric measure were used as a reference system. The resulting deviations and linear displacements oscillate in millimeters. The visual aspects of the cloud points have also been briefly analyzed.


Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) provide a formalism to quantify and calibrate uncertainty in deep learning. Current inference approaches for BNNs often resort to few-sample estimation for scalability, which can harm predictive performance, while its alternatives tend to be computationally prohibitively expensive. We tackle this challenge by revealing a previously unseen connection between inference on BNNs and volume computation problems. With this observation, we introduce a novel collapsed inference scheme that performs Bayesian model averaging using collapsed samples. It improves over a Monte-Carlo sample by limiting sampling to a subset of the network weights while pairing it with some closed-form conditional distribution over the rest. A collapsed sample represents uncountably many models drawn from the approximate posterior and thus yields higher sample efficiency. Further, we show that the marginalization of a collapsed sample can be solved analytically and efficiently despite the non-linearity of neural networks by leveraging existing volume computation solvers. Our proposed use of collapsed samples achieves a balance between scalability and accuracy. On various regression and classification tasks, our collapsed Bayesian deep learning approach demonstrates significant improvements over existing methods and sets a new state of the art in terms of uncertainty estimation as well as predictive performance.


Learning individual level treatment effects from observational data is a problem of growing interest. For instance, inferring the effect of delivery promises on purchase of products on an e-commerce site or selecting the most effective treatment for a specific patient. Although the scenarios where we want to estimate the treatment effects in presence of multiple treatments is quite common in real life, most existing works related to individual treatment effect (ITE) are focused primarily on binary treatments and do not have a natural extension to the multi-treatment scenarios. In this paper we present MEMENTO ? a methodology and a framework to estimate individual treatment effect for multi-treatment scenarios, where the treatments are discrete and finite. Our approach is based on obtaining matching representations of the confounders for the various treatment types. This is achieved through minimization of an upper bound on the sum of factual and counterfactual losses. Experiments on real and semi-synthetic datasets show that MEMENTO is able to outperform known techniques for multi-treatment scenarios by close to 10% in certain use-cases. The proposed framework has been deployed for the problem of identifying minimum order quantity of a product in Amazon in an emerging marketplace and has re- sulted in a 4.7% reduction in shipping costs as proved from an A/B experiment.


Background: Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) is a serious global public health threat. Antibiotic overuse, improper sanitation and unhygienic practices lead to large scale carriage and rapid spread. Biofilm formation by these strains can lead to far reaching consequences. Material and Method: This is a prospective hospital based study planned for a period of 3 months including all patients admitted to 14 bedded Trauma ICU of a tertiary care hospital in Rajasthan. Rectal swabs were collected from admitted patients and carriage of carbapenem resistant enterobacteriaceae looked for as per CDC guidelines. Screening of the Enterobacteriaceae colonies for carbapenemase production was done by Modified Hodge test. Carbapenem-resistant isolates were also tested for Metallobetalactamase production by phenotypic disc confirmatory test. Biofilm formation testing was done by Tissue culture plate method. Results: A total of 73 patients were screened and 27 CRE isolates were obtained, carriage rate being 37%. A high level of resistance was seen to aminoglycosides, fluoroquinolones and cephalosporins. 100% sensitivity was however seen to Colistin, Tigecycline and Fosfomycin. 5 out of 27 strains showed a positive MHT test. Metallo beta lactamase (MBL) production was seen in 21/25 strains as tested by meropenem and meropenem-edta discs. Of the 27 CRE isolates tested for biofilm production, 13 (48.15%) were found positive. Conclusion: The current study finds out the prevalence of CRE carriage and the biofilm forming potential of these strains among critically ill patients and stresses upon urgent need for stringent infection control measures.


Stable isotope analysis (SIA) has become a powerful and widely utilised tool in ecological studies, and more specifically has been used to answer conservation questions regarding key marine indicator species including marine turtles. Undertaking an exhaustive review of peerreviewed literature, we summarise the current knowledge of marine turtle spatial, foraging, and reproductive ecology gained through stable isotope studies and highlight the considerable flexibility and ecological complexities in the life histories of the six species that have been studied. We demonstrate how SIA can inform conservation initiatives, identify threats faced, and provide preand post-disaster information that is otherwise unavailable. We summarise isotope ratios at a global scale and demonstrate intraspecific regional differences and interspecific overlap. We identify the geographical gaps in the current knowledge and the bias in the species studied. To facilitate future research we identify a comprehensive list of recommendations including the need for standardised protocols for tissue collection and analysis; the use of a third forensic marker to provide greater power of inference; combining complementary techniques to enhance the information gained; conducting long-term research; and a need for meta-analytic approaches to combine research findings to better understand the complexities of marine turtle ecology. This review provides a complete list of all published marine turtle stable isotope studies which are summarised in an open access inventory to enable researchers to add new studies and target future work.


Under laboratory conditions, aerial and root extracts of Ulex europaeus L., obtained by methanol and aqueous extraction, used in chili pepper (Capsicum annuum L. cv) seedlings, were assessed. The treatments used were 6 doses (0, 20, 40, 80, 160 and 320 mg kg–1) of each type of extract: aqueous root (Ra), methanol root (Rm), aqueous aerial (Ha) and methanol aerial (Hm), and caffeine (C) and distilled water (A) as controls; with 6 replications. The effect of the extracts on the production of green matter (GM) and dry matter (DM) of C. annuum seedlings was assessed. The Ra extract obtained the highest rate in DM production (g), while in GM content (g) both extracts showed a higher yield compared to control. On the other hand, the highest Ra extract doses obtained the best results in GM and DM. All doses showed better results than controls; Rm showed the highest yield rates with the lowest doses. Regarding aerial extracts, it was observed that both had effects on GM and DM production, being significant higher than controls. 80 and 160 mg kg 1 doses showed the best results in GM. In high doses of Hm extract, an increase in GM was observed compared to control; but in DM, it was not. Therefore, feasibility of using U. europaeus extracts to increase GM and DM production in C. annuum can be ensured.


This paper demonstrates that a woman's propensity to separate from her husband or live-in partner depends positively on male wage inequality on her local marriage market the more heterogeneous potential future mates are in terms of earnings power, the more likely a woman is to end her relationship. This effect is strongest for couples, were one has a college education but the other one does not. Because of the high degree of assortative matching according to education on the marriage market, college educated individuals are those most likely to marry a college graduate if they are not currently married to one, they have the most to gain from divorcing and going back to the marriage market. This incentive becomes stronger if the college premium (the wage advantage college graduates enjoy over non-graduates) rises. The effect is robust to the inclusion of a variety of controls on the individual level, as well as state and time fixed effects and state specific time trends.


Relative differences between environmentally controlled variation and genetically controlled variation are important when investigating morphologic variation in general, especially when establishing species concepts. The colonial nature of bryozoans provides a means for distinguishing between the two sources; variation can be partitioned into within-colony (microenvironmental) and among-colony (environmental + genetic) components. For the Paleozoic order Cryptostomata, biologically and taxonomically significant morphologic characters are well defined and methods for recognizing morphotaxa are well established. The importance of within-colony variation to the morphometric treatment of fenestrate species was assessed after the discovery of a large specimen of Hemitrypa sp. Variation within the colony was compared to variation among and within two congeneric species. The distribution of study segments across the colony allowed assessment of variation both along the growth axis and laterally between segments of approximately equivalent generational age. Repeatability of methods was assessed using data measured independently from identical segments by three workers. Variation within the large colony is less than variation among congeneric species, indicating that genetic differences among species exceed variation resulting from combined phenotypic and genotypic sources within species. Neither astogenetic nor ontogenetic morphologic gradients are recognized. Variation between data collected from identical segments by pairs of workers falls within the range of variation for the entire colony. Thus, multiple workers can reproduce data to the finest level of meaningful resolution. Cryptostome morphospecies concepts are validated. The potential for partitioning genotypic versus environmental variation in reduced, multidimensional morphospace is reinforced. Studies of microevolution and speciation may be designed that account for these factors.


The detailed performance comparison of four orthogonal transforms for grayscale image colorization using Thepade's Transform Error Vector Rotation(TTEVR) algorithm is done here with five different color pallet sizes. The Thepade's transform error vector rotation algorithms use binary numbers represented by four error vector sequences (Haar, Cosine, Slant & Hartley). The proposed technique uses vector quantization to generate a color pallet to color the grayscale image. The proposed technique has two stages. The first stage uses source (color) image from which color traits need to be taken is used to generate color pallet using Thepade's transform error vector rotation algorithms. In the second stage colors are transferred to a arget (grayscale) image using generated color pallet. There exist no objective criteria for qualitative analysis of performance evaluation of the colorization quality of proposed TTEVR for the orthogonal transforms alias Cosine, Haar, Slant and Hartley is done here to find better transform to be used in TTEVR based grayscale image colorization, hence the grayscale version of original color image is recolored using proposed technique and the mean squared error between original color image and recolored image is used as quality comparison criteria. Experimentation is done on 15 different images for five different color pallet sizes in RGB. The proposed techniques are compared with existing colorization technique KEVR. KEVR performs better than the proposed techniques in RGB color space. Keywords— TCEVR, THEVR, THtEVR, TSlEVR, color pallet


To determine that two given undirected graphs are isomorphic, we construct for them auxiliary graphs, using the breadth-first search. This makes capability to position vertices in each digraph with respect to each other. If the given graphs are isomorphic, in each of them we can find such positionally equivalent auxiliary digraphs that have the same mutual positioning of vertices. Obviously, if the given graphs are isomorphic, then such equivalent digraphs exist. Proceeding from the arrangement of vertices in one of the digraphs, we try to determine the corresponding vertices in another digraph. As a result we develop an algorithm for constructing a bijective mapping between vertices of the given graphs if they are isomorphic. The running time of the algorithm equal to O ( n 5 ), where n is the number of graph vertices.


A recent comment in the Journal of Sports Sciences (MacNamara & Collins, 2011) highlighted some major concerns with the current structure of talent identification and development (TID) programmes of Olympic athletes (e.g. Gulbin, 2008; Vaeyens, Gullich, Warr, & Philippaerts, 2009). In a cogent commentary, MacNamara and Collins (2011) provided a short review of the extant literature, which was both timely and insightful. Specifically, they criticised the ubiquitous one-dimensional 'physically-biased' attempts to produce world class performers, emphasising the need to consider a number of key environmental variables in a more multi-disciplinary perspective. They also lamented the wastage of talent, and alluded to the operational and opportunistic nature of current talent transfer programmes. A particularly compelling aspect of the comment was their allusion to high profile athletes who had 'failed' performance evaluation tests and then proceeded to succeed in that sport. This issue identifies a problem with current protocols for evaluating performance and is a line of research that is sorely needed in the area of talent development. To understand the nature of talent wastage that might be occurring in high performance programmes in sport, future empirical work should seek to follow the career paths of 'successful' and 'unsuccessful' products of TID programmes, in comparative analyses. Pertinent to the insights of MacNamara and Collins (2011), it remains clear that a number of questions have not received enough attention from sport scientists interested in talent development, including:

(i) why is there so much wastage of talent in such programmes? And
(ii), why are there so few reported examples of successful talent transfer programmes?

These questions highlight critical areas for future investigation. The aim of this short correspondence is to discuss these and other issues researchers and practitioners might consider, and to propose how an ecological dynamics underpinning to such investigations may help the development of existing protocols...


The beta tropomyosin gene contains two internal exons which are spliced in a mutually exclusive manner. Exon 6B is specifically included in the mature transcripts expressed in skeletal muscle or cultured myotubes, while exon 6A is a myoblast- or smooth muscle-specific exon. The intron between them, which is never spliced in normal conditions, contains two characteristic features: first, the unusual location of the branch point at position -105 from the acceptor, and second, the presence of a very long pyrimidine stretch upstream of the skeletal muscle exon. In this study we designed a number of sequence modifications to investigate the role of these two elements and of a computer-predicted secondary structure in the mutually exclusive splicing of the two exons. We found that mutations in the skeletal exon as well as in the upstream intron could change in vivo the tissue-specific pattern as well as the mutually exclusive character of the two exons. Our results suggest that the unusual position of the branch point does not prevent the utilization of exon 6B in myoblasts and that the region around the acceptor site of exon 6B and the polypyrimidine tract have an important role in this control. Last, we discuss the possible implications of secondary structures.


The purpose of this research is, having examined the expression of mobbing as a psychosocial factor in organisations accessing or implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR), to form integrated actions for decrease and/or elimination of the phenomenon. Addressing the goals formulated in the project, it was proposed to extend and clarify the responsibilities of companies related to issues of labour well-being (WBCSD, 1998; European Commission, 2001, 2011), ethics and human rights (European Commission, 2001, 2011). Companies with corporate social responsibility, while addressing issues of well-being of employees as an interested party, ethics and human rights, must face up to their responsibilities to prevent the safety of employees from psychosocial stressors caused by mobbing and bullying, while both collaborating with organised employees' structures and accepting employees' reports on destructive relationships in working environment and taking them into consideration. While implementing the project, there were formed questionnaires for research into mobbing / bullying and CSR, creating a universal instrument for the research consisting of two parts. The first part (mobbing / bullying as a psychosocial stressor) comprises four categories (factors regarding relations between employees; factors regarding nature of tasks, work content and assessment; factors regarding organisation and management of work; factors regarding working environment and conditions) which are expanded into fifteen sub-categories implementing through 109 statements of the questionnaire. The second part of the questionnaire (corporate social responsibility) comprises two categories (behaviour of socially responsible organisation and behaviour of socially responsible employee) which are expanded into eight sub-categories through forty-eight statements of the questionnaire. The instrument was verified through the fixed high psychometric characteristics of the questionnaire (the percentage of the explained dissemination in calculation, Cronbach alpha and Spearman-Brown coefficients, also through measuring factorial weights and whole unit correlation at three levels (minimum, maximum and mean) and setting high statistic values. Having created the instrument that complies with the purpose of the project, an empiric research was completed conducting a survey among 1,512 respondents from 34 organisations in Lithuania that declared or did not declare CSR. It was discovered that CSR has a significant influence on the employees' approach to organisation's products, promotes greater confidence and loyalty and leads to greater personal initiative completing tasks. However, comparing the organisations which declared and did not declare CSR, approval of the statements about psychosocial well-being is more significant in the latter ones, while in the organisations which declared CSR, orientation towards external interested subjects was revealed, and the systematic work organisation advantages possessed are not used for ensuring functional relationships between employees and employee safety against psychosocial stressors.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.28.4.17911


Nanostructured SnO(x) films were obtained by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The morphology, structure, and optical properties of obtained films annealed in the temperature range of 200 °C–1000 °C were studied. The reflection high-energy electron diffraction during the film deposition by the MBE method and the x-ray phase analysis showed that the initial films are in the polycrystalline phase. A single orthorhombic SnO2 phase was obtained for the first time after annealing the SnO(x) film in the air at a temperature of about 500 °C. The sharp change in the optical constants near the temperature of 500 °C was established using ellipsometry. The pronounced absorption edge appears in the short-wave region at temperatures above 500 °C and it disappears at lower temperatures. The film thickness changed non-monotonically during the annealing in the air. At first, it grows from 45 nm to 65 nm (active oxidation to 500 °C), and then (above 600 °C) it begins to decrease. The annealing at temperatures of 500 °C–1000 °C leads to the film compaction, since the film thickness decreases to 50 nm, but the refractive index increases by 10%–15%. Optical constants track the progress of film phase and morphological changes.


Introduction: Antenatal care is concerned mainly with prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of general medical and pregnancy associated disorders. For it to be meaningful, early booking is recommended, however, late booking is still a major problem.  Objective: To determine the prevalence of late booking in our environment and factors related to it.  Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study using structured interviewer assisted questionnaires.  Results: Mean gestational age at booking was 20.3±6.2 weeks. Prevalence of late entry to antenatal care was 82.6%. Maternal education and age remained significant factors influencing late booking.  Conclusion: Late booking is still a major problem in this part of the world. Public enlightenment, health education coupled with women empowerment would be helpful in reducing the problem Item Type: Journal (On-line/Unpaginated)


The purpose of this thesis was to explore the socially constructed nature of coaching and its development within the context of Paralympic sport (Para coaching). The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) positioned the Paralympic Games as a global celebration of elite athletic prowess through which society's perceptions of disability can be challenged. In doing so, the IPC recognises that currently and historically people with disability are often marginalised by society (Brittain, 2016). Despite the social significance of the Paralympic games there is a dearth of research foregrounding Para coaching and this body of work lacks in-depth sociological analysis. To overcome this historical, cultural and social omission shaping our understanding of Para coaching, a critical sociological framework drawing on critical disability studies (CDS) and Pierre Bourdieu was employed to analyse interview data gained from coaches and athletes. Fourteen coaches and thirteen athletes (27 in total) participated in this research and represented different countries (e.g., US, SA, AUS & UK), sports (e.g., individual linear, racquet, team-based, target and riding) and impairment groups (Amputee, Spinal cord, Cerebral Palsy, Visually Impaired, Les Autres).Three key findings were identified from the data. First, Para coaching was revealed to be a commodity orientated, semi-autonomous field structured hierarchically according to an elite performance doxa emanating from the field of power. This meant participants contested for the unequal availability of differing species of capital - such as status, knowledge and experience, which implicitly worked to legitimise their position within the social hierarchy, of which, medals held the highest form of symbolic capital. Consequently, coaches held dominant positions over their athletes and ensured they submitted to the demands of high-performance sport. Against the elite performance doxa, disability was framed by medical model discourses and perceived to hold negative capital and therefore rejected. Second, the findings illuminated how through symbolic violence and associated temporal related strategies (e.g., planning a perpetual improvement, hard work and challenge, reconstructing disability, and misrecognition of empowerment) in pursuit of the forthcoming, coaching practice and knowledge served as a legitimised mechanism of athlete control, rather than empowerment. This meant disability was refashioned to serve coaches' practical necessity as they faced the reality of impairment effect. Finally, the findings relating to coach development identified the emergence of an ableist primary class habitus through early socialisation within sport, family and coaching. The class habitus then set the boundaries for future learning, development and knowledge by legitimising tastes and strategies associated with coaches' symbolic worth, position and dominance within the field. As a result, in the absence of effective coach education, coaches valorised learning from tertiary education, experts within the field and through their own practice. Therefore, learning and development was an act of social reproduction which refined the class habitus towards the class of conditions. This meant, learning to coach disabled athletes was an act of perceived symbolic worth mediated through taken-for-granted ableist technocratic practices and medical model discourses. The thesis closes with recommendations which offer a heuristic framework to develop coach's reflexive habitus and calls for formal and non-formal coach education to be infused with social relational understandings of disability.


: The direct effect of leukotrienes and other lipoxygenase products on prolactin release has been assessed. Arachidonic acid and its lipoxygenase metabolites 5-hydroxy-6,8,11,14-eicosatetraenoic acid (5-HETE) and 15-hydroxy-5,8,10,14-eicosatetranoic acid (15-HETE) stimulated the release of prolactin in superfused rat pituitary cells in a dose-dependent manner. Leukotrienes (LT) A4, B4, C4 and E4 provoked a very marked biphasic and dose-dependent secretion of prolactin from superfused cells. Maximal effects were achieved with leukotrienes at a concentration of 3 X 10(-11) to 3 X 10(-10) M but LTD4 did not affect peptide release under these conditions. The metabolites were more potent than arachidonic acid in affecting hormone secretion. Pulses of 4 minutes duration of these fatty acids may even elicit a more pronounced response than thyrotrophin-releasing hormone (TRH). Nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA 10(-6) M), a lipoxygenase inhibitor, prevented the effect of arachidonic acid on peptide secretion. Repeated TRH (10(-7) M) administration to pituitary cells led to a reduction in cell response, which may also be observed in cells pre-treated with pulsatile 5-HETE or 15-HETE. These data support previous findings that arachidonic acid and its lipoxygenase metabolites may play a role in the secretory mechanism of prolactin release in pituitary cells.


SDN simplifies network management by relying on declarativity (high-level interface) and expressiveness (network flexibility). We propose a solution to support those features while preserving high robustness and scalability as needed in carrier-grade networks. Our solution is based on (i) a two-layer architecture separating connectivity and optimization tasks; and (ii) a centralized optimizer called framework, which translates high-level goals expressed almost in natural language into compliant network configurations. Our evaluation on real and synthetic topologies shows that framework improves the state of the art by (i) achieving better trade-offs for classic goals covered by previous works, (ii) supporting a larger set of goals (refined traffic engineering and service chaining), and (iii) optimizing large ISP networks in few seconds. We also quantify the gains of our implementation, running Segment Routing on top of IS-IS, over possible alternatives (RSVP-TE and OpenFlow).


Abstract Based on specimens from Australia and Iran, five species of rhipidognathid conodonts, Appalachignathus delicatulus Bergström, Carnes, Ethington, Votaw, and Wigley, 1974, Bergstroemognathus extensus (Graves and Ellison, 1941), B. hubeiensis An (MS) in An, Chen, and Li, 1981, B. kirki Stait and Druce, 1993, and Rhipidognathus? yichangensis (Ni, 1981), are described and revised in terms of multielement morphology. All three genera comprising the Rhipidognathidae are interpreted as having a septimembrate apparatus, partially confirmed by bedding plane assemblages of B. extensus from Victoria. Occurrence of A. delicatulus in allochthonous limestones (about the Middle-Upper Ordovician boundary) of central New South Wales is the first record of the species outside North America. Recognition of Rhipidognathus? yichangensis in Early Ordovician strata of the Canning Basin, reinforces biogeographic affinities of Australia and South China. The three described species of Bergstroemognathus are mainly restricted to late Early Ordovician strata. Bergstroemognathus extensus is widely distributed in North America, western Argentina (Precordillera), China, and Australia. Bergstroemognathus hubeiensis, described from east-central Iran, has been previously recorded only from China, while the slightly younger B. kirki seems endemic to central and northern Australia, where it was restricted to shallow, warm water environments. In contrast, B. extensus and B. hubeiensis inhabited a spectrum of water depths from shallow to deep.


This paper presents a new approach for merging multiple aircraft flows in a Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA). This work is motivated by the current overloaded airspace near large airports and the need of more efficient methods to help controllers. Some attempts to alleviate airspace congestion such as the minimum spacing requirements, negotiation of voluntary reductions in scheduled service, and the construction of additional runways at major airports have been done. Even though, more fundamental changes are needed to improve the use of available air capacity. Present research consists of a new approach to optimize a set of aircraft planned to land at a given airport; it is proposed to merge the incoming flows from different routes by mean of speed and path changes. Due to the high combinatoric induced by such a problem, a stochastic optimization algorithm has been developed in order to propose to each aircraft a new route and speed profile. Those changes aim to remove conflicts at merging points and to maintain separation of aircraft following the same route link according to their wake turbulence constraint. The optimization criteria is based on the minimum deviation from the initial path planning. This algorithm has been successfully applied to Gran Canaria airport in Spain with real traffic demand samples for which conflict free flow merging is produced smoothly with optimal runway feeding.


In this article, the focus is on customer relationship management (CRM) and personalization, and the practical effect of ageing and lifestyle changes on personalization and CRM. By way of practical examples and scenarios, the inefficiencies of the current behavioural model (backward focusing) of CRM and personalization with regard to ageing individual client profiles are explained. Two forwardfocusing factors impacting on the individual are considered as possible areas of investigation, namely the lifecycle stages of the individual and managing changing expectations of the customer.


The article discusses two novels by Edgar Fawcett, a prolific poet and novelist active in the 1890s, as examples of materialist representation of psychology. Fawcett's literary materialism was not only a thematic reference to his contemporary science, but a certain convention of characterization, which emphasized mystery and drastic imagery as means of character development. Numerous other examples of this tendency in the 1890s are described as well. The theoretical background is derived from the recent materialist turn in literary criticism.


A handful of preventable health-risk behaviors-violence, substance use, suicide, and sexual activity-are responsible for much of the mortality and morbidity experienced in adolescence and early adulthood. Adolescents' participation in many of these health-risk behaviors has changed in recent years. Newspapers report increases in marijuana use among high school students one day and declines in their sexual or criminal activity another. Because changes in the prevalence of specific health-risk behaviors vary, some increasing and some declining, shifts in adolescents' overall exposure to health-risks are difficult to pinpoint. While it is well established that many risk behaviors co-occur changes in the extent and patterns of multiple risk-taking are unknown.


Sukuk structures rely on the performance of an underlying asset or on a contractual arrangement pertaining to that specific asset. This makes sukuk an important facility in Islamic finance since it can be used to provide regular payments throughout the life of the financing plan. This study highlights some important sukuk structures, such as ijarah for asset acquisition and sukuk with a sale and lease-backed structure. Additionally, this study suggests some important proposals to help overcome the Shari'ah issues in sukuk structures. This study suggests that sukuk structures involving the combination of sale and lease-backed contracts should involve a third party who enters into the Ijarah transaction with the investors rather than the originator himself. A benefit of this change will help avoid Inah Ijariyyah (Inah trick for) in the structure. The sukuk structure for asset securitization on the other hand, should not be traded in the secondary market because it involves a sale of debt for debt which is prohibited according to the Shari'ah principles. As for the forward lease sukuk, sukuk holders should wait for the commencement of the project before trading their sukuk in the secondary markets. This is to ensure that the Ijarah property exists before the sale process began.


When carrying Internet protocol (IP) traffic over an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, the ATM adaptation layer must determine how long to hold a virtual circuit opened to carry an IP datagram. We present a formal statement of the problem and carry out a detailed empirical examination of various holding time policies taking into account the issue of network pricing. We offer solutions for two natural pricing models, the first being a likely pricing model of future ATM networks, while the second is based on characteristics of current networks. For each pricing model, we study a variety of simple nonadaptive policies as well as easy to implement policies that adapt to the characteristics of the IP traffic. We simulate our policies on actual network traffic, and find that policies based on least recently used (LRU) perform well, although the best adaptive policies provide a significant improvement over LRU. >


ABSTRACT The Anne of Green Gables National Heritage Site in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, Canada, centers around the farmhouse where author, Lucy Maud Montgomery, was raised, and serves as the setting for her classic novel, Anne of Green Gables (1908). This is thus a heritage site about a fictional character, but very real and historical to the author of the well-loved book. This paper centers on a 2015 visit to the site, where I encountered not only the expected thousands of Canadian pilgrims traipsing up and down 'Lover's Lane', but a half-dozen Japanese college students interning for the summer – in costume, scattered around the site, demonstrating Japanese crafts and games for tourists. As a visitor to the site, I found myself asking: How do these Japanese traditions fit into the interpretation of this most quintessential of Canadian sites? And, how does their presence alter the touristic encounter for both Canadian and Japanese visitors? The presence of Japanese interpreters at the site will thus be used to interrogate notions of the production of knowledge about 'the other', as well as pointing to the creation of new narratives about cultural tourism, challenging traditional notions of heritage and authenticity.


With the widespread application of junction transistors in switching applications, the need for a general method of analysis useful in the region of collector voltage saturation has become apparent. Linear equivalent circuits using lumped elements have long been used for small signal calculations of normally biased transistors, but a comparable method for saturated transistors has been lacking. Recently Linvill"> proposed the method of lumped models which allow the analysis of complex switching problems with the case of linear circuit calculations. The method is shown to be equivalent to a well-known linear equivalent circuit under normal bias conditions. Examples of the application of the method and the use of approximations are drawn from practical circuit problems. Emphasis is placed upon the understanding of the physical phenomena involved, a necessary prerequisite to intelligent circuit design.


BACKGROUND
A clinical evaluation of the use of a 980 nm diode laser in the treatment of bladder outlet obstruction secondary to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), focused on perioperatory morbidity and results in a short-term follow-up.

METHODS
Fifteen patients were included in the study. All of them were evaluated by IPSS and Quality of Life (QoL) questionnaires, digital rectal examination, PSA, ultrasound scan and uroflowmetry. Prostate vaporization was performed with a laser of diode at 980 nm (Intermedic, Barcelona, Spain) using a 600 microns side-fire fiber. In the follow-up any event was recorded, as well as the IPSS and QoL scores and Qmax.

RESULTS
Mean age of the patients was 66.7 years(45-75). The range of prostate volume was 20-76 cc (median 41.3 cc). Mean delivered energy was 161,012 kJ (78,3-243). No patient showed either a significant hematic loss or fluid absorption syndrome. A 22F urethral three-way catheter was inserted and removed between 12-40 hours in the postoperatory period. After a mean follow-up of 5,5 months (2-9) the average IPSS and QOL questionnaires scores changed, respectively, from 22,4 (19-26) and from 3 (2-4) to an average of 6,8 (1-13) (p0,01) and 1,4(0- 3), respectively, at the end of follow-up (p 0,01). Qmax increased from 6,4 ml/s (5-11,9) baseline to 19,7 ml/s (13,9-24 (p 0,01). No patient showed urinary incontinence. Retreatment was not needed though three patients needed a short-time catheterization (24 hours) after developing acute urinary retention in the first 48h hours.

CONCLUSIONS
Our preliminary results suggest that prostate vaporization using 980 nm diode laser with output power up to 120 W, is effective and associated to minimal morbidity.


The growth of piezo science is phenomenal since the discovery of piezoelectricity in 1880. Among various piezoelectric materials, lead zirconate titanate (PZT) is a very popular and exhaustively studied piezo system which allows synthesis of large number of materials with wide range of properties due to formation of solid solutions over large range of Zr:Ti ratio. Also, this system accommodates wide range of dopants for modification of crystal structure. Due to this versatile nature, PZT has emerged as very popular among users and researchers worldwide. However, considering the toxicity of lead oxide, development of lead free piezo ceramics is encouraged in recent years. Some lead free piezo material systems such as BNT, BKT, KNN, BZT-BCT have been explored. However, development of lead free piezo devices and their performance in comparison with PZT devices are yet to be established. At this juncture, it was felt that an article reviewing the current status of development of piezo materials highlighting the change from PZT to various lead free systems would be of very much interest to the researchers. Therefore, efforts are made to bring out the recent developments on R&D of piezo materials in this review article.


Carbon monoxide (CO) is an important component of air pollution caused by traffic exhaust fumes. CO can cause chronic poisoning which shows its first symptoms as headaches, blurry vision, difficulty in concentration, and confusion. With the increasing number of vehicles in metropolitan areas of Turkey, the CO level has also increased in the city air as is the case in the capital city of Ankara, especially at certain locations. As far as the effects of CO on humans are concerned, traffic policemen are the population group under risk due to their inhalation of CO-rich air while on duty at the crowded cross-sections of the city. The traffic policemen on duty at these cross-sections are exposed to these high levels of CO for at least 6 h. This study was performed to investigate the traffic policemen (traffic organizers) who are exposed to high concentrations of CO at crowded cross-sections of Ankara City and to find out if chronic CO intoxication exits among this risk group. The CO levels in the ambient air at these cross-sections have also been compared to, and correlated with measurements of CO in the expired air of the target population. Additional factors like smoking, general health status, type of heating systems used at home, etc., have been taken into consideration by evaluating special questionnaires filled out by the policemen. A control group of clerk policemen, who were not engaged in street traffic activities was formed for comparative purposes.


Bamboo fibers with high mechanical properties can be a sustainable alternative to synthetic fibers for application in fiber reinforced polymer composites. The first aim of this study is to evaluate the dependence of mechanical properties of Dendrocalamus asper, known as bamboo Petung from Indonesia, on physical properties of the culm, including culm diameter, wall thickness, height, moisture content and specific density. Correlations between mechanical properties including tensile strength, modulus of rupture and modulus of elasticity in flexure and tension and culm physical properties have been studied. The results demonstrate that specific density is directly correlated with all these mechanical properties of bamboo while the moisture content values are correlated only with value of modules of rupture. Although wall thicknesses value of the culm are correlated with all of the mechanical properties studied, the culm diameter was only correlated with modulus of rupture and modulus of elasticity in flexure. Therefore, measurements of the culm geometry and specific density of raw bamboo have the potential for rapid, non-destructive evaluations of the quality of the bamboo, particularly in nurseries and forests where there is limited access to testing facilities. The second aim of this study is to evaluate whether such tests allow for an evaluation of the mechanical potential of the bamboo for production of high performance bamboo fiber reinforced polymer composites. Use of these formulas is illustrated through a case study of bamboo composite reinforcement for structural concrete. Pull-out tests and beam testing using this composite successfully validate the usefulness of this strategy for sustainable construction.


The role of RNA sequences in the 5' leader region between the cap site and initiating AUG in mediating translation was examined in vitro. Hybrid mRNAs were synthesized in which the cognate leader sequence was replaced with either optimized or compromised leader sequences, and translational efficiency was measured for six different coding regions. Translation was most efficient with a leader containing the 5' untranslated region from Xenopus beta-globin and an optimized initiation sequence. Compared with the cognate leaders, this hybrid was observed to increase translation of the various coding regions as much as 300-fold. The translational efficiencies of the different coding regions also varied substantially. In contrast to earlier suggestions that increased leader efficiency results from higher affinity of the leader for a limiting factor, our experiments suggest that increased translation from the beta-globin hybrid leader sequence results from more rapid initiation of translation.


Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensing relies on accurate spot centre measurement. Several algorithms were developed with this aim, mostly focused on precision, i.e. minimizing random errors. In the solar and extended scene community, the importance of the accuracy (bias error due to peak-locking, quantisation or sampling) of the centroid determination was identified and solutions proposed. But these solutions only allow partial bias corrections. To date, no systematic study of the bias error was conducted. This article bridges the gap by quantifying the bias error for different correlation peak-finding algorithms and types of sub-aperture images and by proposing a practical solution to minimize its effects. Four classes of sub-aperture images (point source, elongated laser guide star, crowded field and solar extended scene) together with five types of peak-finding algorithms (1D parabola, the centre of gravity, Gaussian, 2D quadratic polynomial and pyramid) are considered, in a variety of signal-to-noise conditions. The best performing peak-finding algorithm depends on the sub-aperture image type, but none is satisfactory to both bias and random errors. A practical solution is proposed that relies on the anti-symmetric response of the bias to the sub-pixel position of the true centre. The solution decreases the bias by a factor of ~7 to values of < 0.02 pix. The computational cost is typically twice of current cross-correlation algorithms.


This article provides an in-depth analysis of the pricing and structuring of contingent convertibles (CoCos) with extension risk. Under the new regulatory Basel III framework, CoCo bonds can be categorised as either belonging to the Additional Tier 1 or Tier 2 capital category. The Tier 1 CoCo bonds have cancellable coupons and do not have a predefined maturity. In addition, they contain no incentive, such as a coupon step-up, for the issuer to redeem at the first call date. This is in sharp contrast with the old-style hybrid bonds issued by financial institution before the 2008 financial crisis. At that time, banks issued callable bonds with a coupon-step up after the first call date. These bonds were categorised as additional Tier 1 and their step-up feature reduced the probability that the bank skipped the call and kept the bond alive. The existence of the coupon step up was considered by a lot of practitioners as a justification to categorise those bonds as fixed maturity bonds that expire on the first call date. The fact that coupon step-ups are no longer allowed in the new regulatory framework, forces us to think differently when dealing with Tier 1 bonds. We explain how to integrate this extension risk into a valuation method for CoCo bonds.