The development of ultra-low carbon emission electric vehicles (EVs) has been grown rapidly over the last years in response to the large share of greenhouse gas emissions contributed by the transportation sector. One of the main issues among EV drivers is range anxiety, which mainly results from the long charging battery durations. DC fast charging, the latest charging technology, aims to shorten charging duration; however, the success of e-mobility will be also related to the capacity of the distribution network to integrate the new EVs and their chargers. Specifically, the integration of EVs and DC fast chargers will increase the peak demand and may pose significant challenges for MV and LV distribution networks if adequate control measures are not implemented. This paper introduces a topology for the modelling and connection of a DC fast charger on a real MV/LV distribution network and ensures that the network operates within acceptable limits and that consumers connected to it are minimally affected. Simulation results show that DC fast chargers stress the LV distribution network by causing grid congestions; however, local voltage control measures and a vehicle-to-grid technology can improve some of the grid-side challenges.


Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is mainly characterized by formation of cysts in kidney with associated kidney malfunction. The cysts eventually grow larger leading to end stage renal failure (ESRF) requiring kidney dialysis or transplant. There are various genetic forms of PKD: autosomal dominant type 1 (ADPKD1), type 2 (ADPKD2) and even a third type (ADPKD3) is known to exist. There is also a recessive form of PKD (ARPKD). The autosomal dominant type is caused due a single defective dominant gene in a single chromosome of the homologous pair among the autosomes and the recessive type is caused due to defect in both genes of a homologous pair. Each of these PKD types adversely impact structure and function of their associated protein products. For instance, ADPKD1 impacts polycystin-1, ADPKD2 impacts polycystin-2, and ARPKD impacts fibrocystin. There are several known mutations for each of these PKD disease types, e.g., there are over 250 known mutations of ADPKD1 gene. In this paper we restrict ourselves to ADPKD1 and a specific mutation (L845S) to demonstrate how a genetic mutation leads to malfunction of PKD1 gene.


All complex system development projects involve analysis of the system architecture. Thus far it has been assumed that there is some correct system decomposition that can be used in the architectural analysis without consideration of the sensitivity of the results to the chosen level of decomposition. We represent 88 idealized system architectures and a real complex system as a design structure matrix at two different levels of decomposition. We analyze these architectures for their degree of modularity. We find that the degree of modularity can vary for the same system when the system is represented at the two different levels of granularity. For example, the printing system used in the case study is considered slightly integral at a higher level of decomposition and quite modular at a lower level of decomposition. We further find that even though the overall results can be different depending on the level of decomposition, the direction of change toward more modular or more integral can be calculated the same regardless of the level of decomposition. We conclude that the level of decomposition can distort the results of architectural analysis and care must be taken in defining the system decomposition for any analysis.


Artificial intelligence has smoothly penetrated several economic activities, especially monitoring and control applications, including the agriculture sector. However, research efforts toward low-power sensing devices with fully functional machine learning (ML) on-board are still fragmented and limited in smart farming. Biotic stress is one of the primary causes of crop yield reduction. With the development of deep learning in computer vision technology, autonomous detection of pest infestation through images has become an important research direction for timely crop disease diagnosis. This paper presents an embedded system enhanced with ML functionalities, ensuring continuous detection of pest infestation inside fruit orchards. The embedded solution is based on a low-power embedded sensing system along with a Neural Accelerator able to capture and process images inside common pheromone-based traps. Three different ML algorithms have been trained and deployed, highlighting the capabilities of the platform. Moreover, the proposed approach guarantees an extended battery life thanks to the integration of energy harvesting functionalities. Results show how it is possible to automate the task of pest infestation for unlimited time without the farmer's intervention.


Abstract The objective of this study was to assess the efficiency of a package of motivational stimulation techniques in reducing school truancy rates among adolescents. The program was carried out between March and June 2007 and it comprised 8 group counseling sessions per week, each session lasting one hour. The techniques used combined intrinsic motivational stimulation strategies, motivational interviewing and solution-focused counseling, with strategies focusing on extrinsic methods, such as successive approximation of behavior, behavior contracts and reinforcement techniques. Participants were adolescents, aged 16-17 years, divided into two groups, 19 students in the experimental group, and 19 in the control group. Our data indicated a 61% decrease in truancy rates for the experimental group, a significant difference compared to the control group, where no drops in truancy rates were observed. The results of this non-randomized pilot study suggest that group interventions such as the one described here can prove to be useful in reducing adolescent truancy, and deserve further investigation in controlled randomized studies. Keywords: truancy, adolescent, motivational interview, solution-focused counseling Truancy is one of the major problematic issues in education in many countries and, more recently, in Romania too. It is a major problem since it can entail school abandonment, it can lead to criminal activities and it is an opportunity for students to get involved in delinquent actions related to violence, alcohol and drugs. Research shows that, at an individual level, truancy is associated to emotional problems (Reid, 1984), substance abuse (Miller & Plant, 1999) and a high rate of adolescent pregnancy (Hibbett & Fogelman, 1990). In addition, truancy is associated with family problems including abuse and neglect, physical and mental health disorders, financial difficulties (Elizondo, Feske, Edgull, & Walsh, 2003). At the community level, chronic truancy has been associated with delinquent behavior ranging from vandalism to criminal violence (Kaplan, Peck, & Kaplan, 1994; Miller & Plant, 1999; U.S. Department of Education, 1996). The American literature focusing on interventions to reduce truancy shows an evolution from unidimensional to multidimensional castigation models (Fantuzzo, Grim, & Hazan, 2005). Among measures used for preventing truancy, in the United States we mention: - In New York, Court of Justice action is the first intervention measure (Walls, 2003); - In Georgia, there are alternative school for truants (McGiboney, 2001); - In some states, the driving license is conditioned by school grades; - Some schools offer to ensure waking up measures, and one school actually distributed alarm clocks; - In some schools there is a person in charge of contacting the parents and the Youth Court; - In Minnesota, the Truancy Intervention Program comprises 3 stages (Walls, 2003): (1) an informative session about the laws and the legal consequences of truancy; (2) the signing of a legal attendance contract involving the student, the parents and school representatives (including the counselor); (3) submission of the contract to the Youth Court. In several states, the parents of truant students are liable to jail in the absence of a noticeable improvement in their child's behavior (Pascopella, 2003) since they are considered to bear the main responsibility for their child's school attendance. It was nevertheless observed that sending parents or students into detention was not very productive, since such measures are traumatizing for families, they entail high costs and they often keep children away from school (ABA, 2001; Garry, 1996; Mogulescu & Segal, 2002;). The question is: "when can we talk about truancy?" In the USA, the conditions to be fulfilled differ from one state to another. For example, in Arizona, a student is truant if he/she skips at least one class a day without having a good reason, or at least 5 days during the entire school year. …


In the last few years, text analysis has grown as a keystone in several domains for solving many real-world problems, such as machine translation, spam detection, and question answering, to mention a few. Many of these tasks can be approached by means of machine learning algorithms. Most of these algorithms take as input a transformation of the text in the form of feature vectors containing an abstraction of the content. Most of recent vector representations focus on the semantic component of text, however, we consider that also taking into account the lexical and syntactic components the abstraction of content could be beneficial for learning tasks. In this work, we propose a content spectral-based text representation applicable to machine learning algorithms for text analysis. This representation integrates the spectra from the lexical, syntactic, and semantic components of text producing an abstract image, which can also be treated by both, text and image learning algorithms. These components came from feature vectors of text. For demonstrating the goodness of our proposal, this was tested on text classification and complexity reading score prediction tasks obtaining promising results.


This paper, after providing a critique of standard monetary theory based on the transactions demand for money, examines the effect of monetary policy (changes in reserve requires and open market operations) in a model with competitive, risk averse banks. The effects of changes in bank net worth and bank's risk perceptions are also analyzed. In deep recessions, monetary policy may be ineffective because banks are unwilling to lend. The effects of monetary policy are, at most, only partially mediated through changes in the interest rate. The implications for traditional IS-LM analysis are briefly noted.


Background: The purpose of this study was to asses the efficacy of a humanitarian eye clinic and with this data determine the prevalence of legal blindness and visual impairment due to refractive error in Ghana, Africa. Methods: A humanitarian eye clinic was established for 5 days in surrounding villages of Kumasi, Ghana. 1125 patients were evaluated for refractive error and ocular health. An entering visual acuity was taken both at distance and near and an exiting visual acuity was taken after a spectacle correction was dispensed, at both distance and near. Results: Out of the 1125 patients, a total of 923 records were complete. 182 distance spectacle corrections and 264 near corrections were dispensed within the usable study sample. Hyperopia and presbyopia were the foremost causes of reduced entering acuity in the patient population. The most prevalent ocular disease was cataracts, totaling 145 patients. Of this population, 50 (34.5%) demonstrated improved acuity with spectacle correction. Average entering acuity of the patients with cataracts was 20/87.5, exiting with a mean of 20/78.4. The mean of the reduced distance entering acuity group was 20/59.2, with a mean exiting acuity of 20/29.7 after spectacle correction. The mean of the reduced near entering acuity group was 20/62.0, with a mean exiting acuity of 20/24.9 after spectacle correction. Of the 923, 68 (7%) patients had an entering distance acuity that met the criteria for legal blindness, while 53 (6%) exited with legal blindness after spectacle correction. Eighty-six (9%) patients entered as visually impaired in the distance and only 49 (5%) exited as visually impaired. Those with 20/ 70 or worse vision at near made up 196 (21%) patients, while only 73 (8%) exited as visually impaired. Conclusion: With the provision of spectacle corrections at near and far, the prevalence of preventable visual impairment and blindness was markedly reduced in this underserved population. These results, especially the improvements in near vision, add to the mounting body of evidence that uncorrected refractive error accounts for a larger proportion of visual impairment in underserved populations worldwide than ocular disease conditions.


The paper deals with certain questions and problems of the constitutionalization of the European Union which did not receive very much attention from the Convention on the Future of Europe and from the observers of that Conventions work, but which, nevertheless, may be relevant whenever the results of the Conventions work are assessed and evaluated. The paper mainly deals with background problems associated with traditions of political thought in general and with basic understandings of European integration in particular. The paper also expounds on how the more recent constitution discussion, initiated due to the founding of the European Union, manifests continuities with the debates that have taken place over the past decades (since the start of the integration policy based on the Community method). However, it shows that the discussion context has become more complex. In the last section of the paper, the relationship of statics and dynamics in relation to European constitutional conceptions is treated as a subject. The question arises as to whether and to what extent the constitution concept itself is in doubt and whether or not, in connection with this, important functions, whose very performance is expected of a constitution of the European Union, remain unfulfilled.


Epistemic communities can be understood as networks of knowledge-based experts that hold in common a set of principled and causal beliefs, have shared notions of validity, exchange knowledge, and shape, demarcate, and articulate the identities of present and future knowledge producers. In Knowledge Organization, epistemic communities have been likened to the term "domain" in the domain-analytic paradigm. Acknowledging the important role that ISKO C-US, the International Society for Knowledge Organization: Chapter for Canada and United States, plays in the international production of scientific knowledge, we aim to characterize this epistemic community based on the publications of the five North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization (NASKO) meetings proceedings. The results allow us to conclude that the ISKO C-US community is a productive, dialogical, and a continuously well-developed community with a well-balanced trajectory between an epistemological dimension, in search of its theoretical and methodological bases, and a social dimension, considering different cultural backgrounds. These aspects demarcate and shape the road for future research on knowledge organization.


In 2019 Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder (CSBD) has been officially included in the forthcoming 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases published by the World Health Organization (WHO). The placement of CSBD as a new disease entity was preceded by a three-decade-long discussion on the conceptualization of these behaviors. Despite the potential benefits of WHO's decisions, the controversy around this topic has not ceased. Both clinicians and scientists are still debating on gaps in the current knowledge regarding the clinical picture of people with CSBD, and the neural and psychological mechanisms underlying this problem. This article provides an overview of the most important issues related to the formation of CSBD as a separate diagnostic unit in the classifications of mental disorders (such as DSM and ICD), as well as a summary of the major controversies related to the current classification of CSBD.


Aim: To describe the availability of injecting paraphernalia in the UK following the introduction of legislation that permits supply for harm reduction purposes. Methods: A postal questionnaire undertaken 18 months after the law change, sent to all identified UK drugs services. Those providing needle exchange were asked to respond. Co-ordinators of their schemes completed the questionnaires. Findings: A total of 469 services were identified and contacted, 403 (86%) responded. Of these, 231 provided needle exchange (NX) from 1521 outlets. On average, they were responsible for 1.6 agency-based, 4.2 pharmacy, 0.7 outreach and 0.2 'other' NX outlets. Of those providing NX, 212 (92%) supplied one or more items of paraphernalia, most commonly swabs (n = 220, 87%), followed by citric acid sachets (n = 155, 67%), filters (n = 106, 46%), spoons (n = 102, 44%), vitamin C sachets (n = 69, 30%) and sterile water (n = 52, 23%). Other items supplied were citric acid loose powder (n = 34, 15%), tourniquets (n = 34, 15%) and vitamin C loose powder (n = 6, 3%). Only 4% (n = 10) said their services supplied all six items necessary in the injection process (sterile water, spoons, an acid, filters, tourniquets and swabs). Most commonly only two items were supplied, usually swabs and one acid and 63% (n = 144) supplied 3 or less items. Most commonly finances were said to limit supply. Sharing paraphernalia is associated with an increased risk of IDUs being hepatitis C (HCV) antibody positive. These data suggest that the range of paraphernalia supplied by needle exchanges could be extended from the majority of outlets, in the absence of information that can attribute risk to the sharing of specific items. Conclusions: Although the majority of services supplied some form of paraphernalia, most did not supply the full range. Further research is needed to establish the impact of this supply on blood-borne virus and bacterial infections and whether increased supply is warranted.


The clinical and histological appearance of gingiva was evaluated in renal transplant recipients (RTR) receiving immunosuppressive drugs, in patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) undergoing hemodialysis, and systemically healthy individuals with periodontitis. Although the amount of bacterial plaque accumulation was similar among the groups (P greater than 0.05), the gingival inflammation was significantly less in RTR when compared to the other 2 groups (P less than 0.05). In light microscopic investigation the overall appearance of the connective tissue was similar in all of the groups. A mononuclear cell infiltration was present in all of the specimens; however, the number of inflammatory cells in patients with periodontitis was significantly higher than the other 2 groups (P less than 0.05). Prominent epithelial changes in the superficial layers of the oral epithelium; i.e., areas showing desquamation-like appearance, were noticed in patients with CRF. In electron microscopic investigation, fibroblasts and plasma cells with well-developed granular endoplasmic reticulum were found in connective tissue in RTR patients. In patients with CRF, epithelial cells presented swollen granular endoplasmic reticulum cisternae resembling vacuoles, indicating the presence of degeneration. It was suggested that with the use of immunosuppressive drugs the response to bacterial plaque did not diminish completely.


The use of diffusion theory in calculations on photon waves necessitates a new look at boundary conditions, since the standard boundary conditions have been derived under static conditions. When the underlain process satisfies the transport equation, the proper boundary conditions are obtained by solving the Milne problem. This paper presents benchmark- quality values for extrapolation distances calculated by transport theory, for various values of absorption and three models of the phase function -- isotropic, linearly anisotropic and Henyey-Greenstein scattering. The results show that the static boundary conditions are perfectly adequate up to photon wave frequencies of 1 GHz or even more. Specifically, the quantity (Sigma) trd, where (Sigma) tr' equals (Sigma) tr - ik, where (Sigma) tr is the macroscopic transport cross section and k the wave number in the medium and d the linear the linear extrapolation distance, is essentially independent of frequency over this range. We have also examined the ratio of the diffusion length as given by transport theory to that given by diffusion theory itself. This is extremely insensitive to frequency, but for substantial absorption, using the diffusion theory result can lead to substantial errors in thick media, especially for Henyey-Greenstein scattering.


Biglycan, a member of small leucine-rich repeat proteoglycan family, expresses on the skeletal muscle surface and provides a critical link between the basal lamina and the cytoskeleton. As one of the extracellular matrix protains, the glycosaminoglycan-binding form of biglycan is concerned with a linkage to the actin cytoskeleton and thereby contributes to synaptic stability. In addition, as confirmed by the mutation experiment, the non-glycanated form of biglycan links to the muscle-specific tyrosine kinase (MuSK) extracellular domains (immunoglobulin-like domain 1 (Ig1 domain, mediating agrin-signaling) and cysteine-rich domain (CRD, mediating Wnt-signaling)) which constitute the postsynaptic receptive complex in cooperation with low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 4 (Lrp4), so that this form takes part in the rapsyn-anchored acetylcholine receptor clustering and possibly in the trans-synaptic communication mediated by Lrp4 and MuSK CRD. In the manner similar to the collagen Q-acetylcholinestease (AChE) complex, the linkage of biglycan with AChE contributes to the localized sensitivity to acetylcholine at the postsynaptic membrane. Since biglycan is an important constituent of the extracellular matrix positioned as the the MuSK-binding protein responsible for synaptic function, it is worth investigating to determine whether biglycan could be directly targeted by a humoral immune response. The antibody assay of biglycan was done in the serum samples from myasthenia gravis (MG) patients positive for antibodies against MuSK Ig1/2 domains and CRD, but we obtained negative results. However, taking the linkage of biglycan with MuSK into consideration, the MuSK antibodies in MG may cause an impairment in the synaptic stability based on the MuSK-linked biglycan, in addition to a misalignment in the pre- and post-synaptic functional organizations. We also briefly discuss about biglycan as a molecule regulating the multifunctional proinflammatory signaling and also participating in the MG thymus pathology (hyperplastic change) on one hand, and a molecule to counter the pathologies in skeletal muscle and bone formation on the other hand. The present review points out both signaling and structural roles of biglycan which has relations with MuSK function.


Peer-to-peer file sharing systems, most notably Bit-Torrent (BT), have achieved tremendous success among Internet users. Recent studies suggest that long-term relationships among BT peers could be explored for peer cooperation, so as to achieve better sharing efficiency. However, whether such long-term relationships exist remain unknown. From an 80-day trace of 100, 000 real world swarms, we find that less than 5% peers can meet each other again throughout the whole period, which largely invalidates the fundamental assumption of these peer cooperation protocols. Yet the recent emergence of online social network applications sheds new light on this problem. In particular, a number of BT swarms are now triggered by Twitter, reflecting a new trend for initializing sharing among communities. In this paper, we for the first time examine the challenges and potentials of accelerating peer-to-peer file sharing with Twitter social networks. We show that the peers in such swarms have stronger temporal locality, thus offering great opportunity for improving their degree of sharing. We further demonstrate a practical cooperation protocol that utilizes the social relations. Our PlanetLab experiments indicate that the incorporation of social relations remarkably accelerates the downloading time.


Thousands of in-hospital deaths each year in the UK are potentially preventable, being often preceded by physiological deterioration. The current standard of clinical practice for patient monitoring on general wards is the periodic observation of vital signs by nursing staff. The use of early warning score (EWS) systems should enable a more timely response to, and assessment of, acutely ill patients. The investigations described in this thesis seek to apply principled approaches based on machine learning to the analysis of vital-sign data from patients who are recovering from major surgery. A dataset comprising observational vital-sign data from 407 post-operative patients taking part in a two-phase clinical trial in the Oxford Cancer Centre is introduced. A second independent dataset collected from clinical data obtained from 24,212 patients admitted to the Medical Assessment Unit of a different hospital is used for validation purposes. When applied to post-operative patients, currently-used EWS systems achieve values of Area Under the Receiver-Operating Characteristic curve (AUROC) that range from 0.717 to 0.841 for predicting a composite outcome of death, emergency admission to the Intensive Care Unit, and cardiac arrest within 24 hours. We also demonstrate that the method of recording vital signs on the ward plays a fundamental role in the design and performance of EWS systems. Using the same set of physiological variables, kernel density estimators and support vector machines give equivalent results to those of EWS systems which have been carefully optimised by trial and error. A method for describing the physiological trajectories of post-operative patients is developed using machine learning techniques. We further introduce the concept of variability of vital signs over a 24-hour period, and propose a strategy for incorporating this information into the machine learning models studied. The resulting model leads to an improvement in performance (AUROC = 0.856). An approach based on Gaussian processes is then discussed for exploring and representing patterns of vital-sign time-series data. The approach allows different types of normal physiological trends to be identified in patients recovering from surgery. Knowledge of different patterns among hospitalised patients and their incorporation in monitoring systems improves early-warning scoring systems for the identification of physiological deterioration in specific patient groups.


We posit a standard model of an asymmetric double auction with interdependent values in which each trader observes a private signal about a hidden state before submitting a bid or ask price for a unit demand or supply. The state and signals are one-dimensional, traders' signals are independent conditional on the state, and their distributions have the strict monotone likelihood ratio property. The model encompasses auctions by allowing sellers to be non-strategic. We study a version in which there are n replicates of each type of trader, with each replicate observing a signal drawn independently from the same conditional distribution as the original trader of that type, and all traders of the same type using the same strategy. The limit economy with a countable set of traders has a unique Walrasian equilibrium, whose clearing price reveals the state. If this equilibrium is totally monotone in that each buyer's (resp. seller's) probability of trading decreases (resp. increases) with the state, then the limit auction has a monotone equilibrium yielding the Walrasian price as the clearing price. We present four asymptotic results as n grows large: (1) a sequence of monotone strategies comprises epsilon-equilibria iff limit points are monotone equilibria of the limit auction; (2) for a sequence of monotone strategy profiles converging to a monotone equilibrium, the Strong Law of Large Numbers for prices holds, in that the sequence of price functions converges a.s. to the price function of the limit equilibrium; (3) if the effect of the state on traders' valuations is symmetric (around the equilibrium) then large but finite auctions have monotone equilibria whose outcomes approximate the Walrasian equilibrium outcome when bidders are restricted to sufficiently fine bid-grids; and (4) the same conclusion holds true without the symmetry assumption when we discretize the state space as well. Total monotonicity seems to be crucial: an example has a Walrasian equilibrium that is not the outcome of a Nash equilibrium of an auction.


As the urban population increases in major cities of Iran, many of them face different issues. In Iran, new towns are built and located near cities to absorb their overflow population. Golbahar new town was built near Mashhad metropolis to reduce demographic, economic, social and physical problems of Mashhad, but in practice considering its goals, the town has not been able to reduce the problems of Mashhad metropolis. In this study, the relationship between the effects of living conditions on social, economic and physical aspects on the repopulation process in new towns has been investigated from the citizens' perspective. This study has been carried out in an empirical method and in some parts, descriptive-analytical methods have been applied; data collection was carried out using field methods (questionnaire) from a sample of 250 urban households. The study results show that there is a significant relationship between the living conditions and the repopulation process in the new towns from the citizens' perspective. They had a correlation coefficient of 0.570. Physical living conditions accounted for 35.7 percent of changes related to repopulation in new towns, and the living conditions in economic aspect only accounted for 20% of the dependent variable. Taking study results into account, the following guidelines were recommended for Golbahar new town: providing evenly distributed urban infrastructure and facilities, creating employment opportunities in various fields, making way for easy and good communications with metropolitan cities, building recreation and cultural centers and sport clubs for the youth and teenagers, providing and maintaining security as the basis of development in every place.


Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 59/283 dated 2 June 2005, the Secretary-General established the Redesign Panel on the United Nations system of administration of justice, which was charged with redesigning the system of the administration of justice at the UN. It was created to address the gravity of the issues that arose out of the immense challenges posed by the management of internal disputes at the UN. The Redesign Panel found that the system of internal justice at the UN was unprofessional, lacked independence, was ineffective, did not accord staff members their due process rights, and the staff had little confidence in the system. The UN is the body charged with the protection of the global order, and it is ironic that its internal justice system was found to be in manifest violation of the rights of its own employees. After years of efforts to reform the internal justice system, a new system of the administration of justice became operational at the UN on 1 July 2009. This paper discusses the establishment and the working of the newly established UN internal dispute resolution machinery. The paper is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1 sets out the context within which international administrative law works, and discusses two issues in particular, the rule of law and due process, and immunities. Chapter 2 deals with the old regime, and Chapter 3 deals with the newly established system. Chapter 2 and 3 not only discuss the working of the now abolished United Nations Administrative Tribunal, and the newly established United Nations Disputes Tribunal and United Nations Appeals Tribunal, but attempt to analyze the dispute resolution process from its very inception. The paper concludes that the newly established machinery at the UN is a genuine attempt to improve the internal dispute-resolution mechanism. However, in addition to a change in the machinery and rules, attitudes of managers and relevant UN staff, including the Secretary-General must change if significant improvement in the manner in which internal disputes are handled at the UN is to be achieved.


The transient thermal stresses in a long cylinder with a square cross section resulting from convective heating or cooling by a sudden change in ambient temperature were calculated by the finite element method. On heating, the maximum tensile stresses occur in the center of the rod, whereas the maximum principal stresses occur along the diagonal of the cross section. On cooling, the maximum tensile stresses occur at the center of the faces. The results obtained are discussed in terms of experimental measurement of the thermal stress resistance of brittle ceramics. Possible failure modes during heating and cooling are discussed. Comparison with literature data shows that for a given value of the Biot number the magnitude of the maximum tensile stresses on cooling, in a rod with a square cross section, exceeds those in a rod with a circular cross section.


The Future production systems' increasing significance will impose work, which maintains not a competitive, but a collaboration basis, with concentrated resources and expertise, which can help to reach the general purpose. One form of collaboration among medium-size business organizations is work in clusters. Clusterization as a phenomenon has been known from quite a long time, but it offers simple benefits to researches at micro and medium levels. The clusterization process evaluation in macroeconomic dimensions has been comparatively little investigated. Thereby, in this article, the clusterization processes is analysed by concentrating our attention on macroeconomic factor researches. The authors analyse clusterization's influence on country's macroeconomic growth; they apply a structure research methodology for clusterization's macroeconomic influence evaluation and propose that clusterization processes benefit macroeconomic analysis. The theoretical model of clusterization processes was validated by referring to a biomass cluster case. Because biomass cluster case is a new phenomenon, currently there are no other scientific approaches to them. The authors' accomplished researches show that clusterization allows the achievement of a large positive slip in macroeconomics, which proves to lead to a high value added to creation, a faster country economic growth, and social situation amelioration.


Thin film solar cells on CIGSSe basis require the utilization of a buffer layer between the absorber and the front electrode. Besides the task of the formation of the pn-hetero-junction as well as the electrical and optical alignment between the neighbouring layers, the buffer protects the absorber during subsequent process steps. Commonly, this is accomplished by a wet chemical deposition of CdS onto the absorber. However, the inherent toxicity and the process management diminish the attractiveness of this compound for a commercial application. A promising alternative to CdS is the utilization of In2S3.
The present work analyses the structural, chemical and optical properties of InxSy buffer layers as a function of their S/In ratio. The observed changes are associated to the electrical properties of solar cells with the help of the respective diode characteristics and discussed, subsequently. It is shown, that the optimal efficiency is reached at an In-content of about 42 at%. Any deviation from this composition results in a degradation of the efficiency towards both, In- and S-richer films. By evaluating the secondary parameters, a model is developed that explains the observed behaviour, ascribing it to the band alignment at the absorber-buffer-interface. An optimal composition is connected to a slight type inversion of the absorber's surface. Due to a more pronounced crystallinity for S-rich layers, an increased Cu-diffusion from the absorber is induced, which reduces the charge carrier density inside the buffer. This leads to a loss of the inversion and deteriorates the electrical properties of the solar cells because of enhanced interface recombination. For higher In-contents inside the buffer the proportion of In6S7 and InS phases increases, which also reduces the effective charge carrier density and diminishes the inversion.
Since the utilization of a pure InxSy buffer leads to a significant discrepancy in the achievable efficiency compared to CdS, a doping process for the buffer layer has been developed in this work, using Na2S. The structural, optical and electrical properties of the improved buffer allow a considerable increase of the absorber's type-inversion, enabling a complete closure of the observed efficiency gap on a level of up to 14.9 % for a 10x10 cm² module.


Mutualism can evolve when organisms make novel connections that happen to benefit all parties. When such connections involve a host that provides a public good for multiple visitor species, selection for reciprocal cooperation is only likely if the host has the power to preferentially increase the fitness of those visitors that provide a better quality service. In contrast, when interactions form between multiple visitors and a host that lacks the power to partition the public good, we predict that interactions are likely to persist only as by-product mutualisms, in which symbiosis benefits both host and visitor, but in which neither partner makes costly investments. Focusing on the symbiosis between ants and litter trapping epiphytes in the canopy of lowland dipterocarp rain forest in Borneo, we show that at least 71 ant species share the public good of housing within the root-mass of epiphytic bird's nest ferns (Asplenium spp.). Ferns supporting a higher biomass of ants experienced less herbivory, and experimental exclusions of ants from fronds confirmed that this is caused by the ants protecting the ferns from herbivores. These results establish that there are clear by-product benefits for both parties of housing for ants and protection for ferns. If these benefits were to drive selection for reciprocal cooperation, we would expect larger ferns to support ant colonies that were larger or colonies that produce more reproductive individuals. This was not the case. Larger ferns instead supported more ant colonies, indicating that the housing provided by the fern is a public good that is not restricted to better cooperating ant species. Mutualism via novel connections is thus unlikely to evolve between a host and multiple partners, even if there are clear by-product benefits to all parties, unless the host can direct benefits to cooperators.


We study the effect of varying the boundary condition on: the spectral function of a finite one-dimensional Hubbard chain, which we compute using direct (Lanczos) diagonalization of the Hamiltonian. By direct comparison with the two-body response functions and with the exact solution of the Bethe ansatz equations, we can identify both spinon and holon features in the spectra. At half-filling the spectra have the well-known structure of a low-energy holon band and its shadow-which spans the whole Brillouin zone-and a spinon band present for momenta less than the Fermi momentum. Features related to the twisted boundary condition are cusps in the spinon band. We show that the spectral building principle, adapted to account for both the finite system size and the twisted boundary condition, describes the spectra well in terms of single spinon and holon excitations. We argue that these finite-size effects are a signature of spin-charge separation and that their study should help establish the existence and nature of spin-charge separation in finite-size systems.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate and compare the predictive powers of clinical examination, electroencephalography (EEG), and studies of short-latency somatosensory evoked potentials in determining the prognosis in anoxic coma.

DESIGN
Prospective case series of patients in anoxic coma, whose prognoses were uncertain based on previously established clinical criteria. The clinical features, EEG, and somatosensory evoked potentials results were correlated with outcome.

SETTING
A 40-bed intensive care unit in a university teaching hospital.

PATIENTS
Thirty-four consecutive patients admitted over a 2-yr period with anoxic coma as the principal diagnosis.

INTERVENTIONS
None.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
Twenty-seven (79%) patients never recovered consciousness and seven (21%) patients made a good recovery. One of six patients whose pupillary reflexes were present but whose other cranial nerve reflexes were absent on day 1 recovered, but none of the seven patients with these features still present on day 3 survived. None of the patients with motor responses of extension to painful stimuli or worse on days 1 or 3 recovered. The EEGs were classified into benign, uncertain, and malignant categories. The results of both EEG and somatosensory evoked potentials studies were strongly associated with outcome. With malignant EEG, the sensitivity was 74%, the specificity was 71%, and the positive predictive value was 90% [corrected] for the prediction of no recovery (death or persistent vegetative state). However, two patients with an initially malignant EEG eventually made a good recovery. The sensitivity for low amplitude or absent somatosensory evoked potentials for prediction of no recovery was 66%. There were no falsely pessimistic predictions with somatosensory evoked potentials, as all 18 patients with absent or low-amplitude responses had no recovery (specificity and positive predictive value were 100%). EEG and somatosensory evoked potentials studies were complementary to clinical examination in the determination of prognosis. Using a combined clinical and electrophysiologic approach, 63% of patients who had no recovery could be identified by day 3. Repeat EEG and somatosensory evoked potentials studies were of value in patients whose prognoses were uncertain, as their evolution invariably correlated with outcome.

CONCLUSIONS
Based on the present data and a literature review, we propose that clinical examination combined with the results of EEG and somatosensory evoked potentials can be used to establish an early, definitive prognosis in a significant proportion of patients in anoxic coma. On day 3 or thereafter, patients with motor response of extension to pain or worse and malignant EEG, or those patients with flexor posturing or worse and bilaterally absent cortical somatosensory evoked potentials invariably have poor outcome. However, some patients with initially malignant EEG and normal somatosensory evoked potentials may recover and should be supported until their prognoses become more definitive.


We investigated electrically conductive nanocomposites made of thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs) and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) that exhibit highly enhanced stretchability, low electrical percolation threshold, and improved electromechanical durability after cyclic loading. The TPV/CNT nanocomposites were fabricated by compounding pre-vulcanized rubber (PVR) fine particles with a maleic anhydride grafted polyethylene (MA-g-PE)/CNT compound. Our microstructural and morphological investigations showed that using PVR particles, rather than their more common virgin elastomer counterparts, locked the carbon nanotubes in the MA-g-PE phase. This guaranteed the formation of a segregated structure. Furthermore, it was confirmed that the chemical bonding forms between the PVR particles and the MA-g-PE matrix produced an excellent interfacial adhesion between the two phases. This engineered structure increased the TPV/CNT nanocomposites' stretchability by 300%. Meanwhile their electrical percolation threshold was decreased by ∼50%, when compared with their MA-g-PE/CNT counterparts. Interestingly, the cyclic electromechanical properties were also improved, suggesting the nanocomposites' great potential for flexible and stretchable electromechanical applications. The mechanisms linking the microstructure and their consequent characteristics were also discussed. Such property combinations can be extremely beneficial in flexible electronics, soft robotics, and health monitoring devices.


Irrigation has been identified as an important tool to stimulate economic growth and rural development, and is considered as a cornerstone of food security in Tanzania. While a lot of efforts are being exerted towards irrigation development, a little attempt is being made towards the effectiveness of already constructed schemes. This study is an attempt to show whether already constructed scheme is effective or not, in the case of Uruila irrigation scheme in Nsimbo District Council, Katavi Region.
The major concern of this study was to assess effectiveness of the irrigation scheme with specific objectives to determine its contribution to food productivity, assessing how extension officers influence farmers to increase productivity and to explore the challenges of the irrigation scheme.
To realize these objectives, household questionnaires, focus group discussions, field visits, and field observations were used. For household survey questionnaires a total of 108 sampled households were randomly selected. Quantitative and qualitative data collected from primary and secondary sources were analysed using qualitative methods and descriptive statistics. SPSS software was used for the analysis of quantitative data.
The findings of the study reveals that the scheme has low crop productivity which ranges between 30--33% of potential production under irrigation in Tanzania, also there is poor extension services and low morale to use the extension officers in the study area as well as the scheme faces challenges of land ownership and allocation, lack of inputs and farm implements.
The study generally concludes that although there are many problems facing farmers in the scheme it is nevertheless profitable engaging in farming in the scheme. It therefore recommends better training of farmers in improved agronomic practices and involvement of other stakeholders in order farming in the scheme is improved.


An adaptive Kalman filter algorithm is adopted to estimate the state of charge (SOC) of a lithium-ion battery for application in electric vehicles (EVs). Generally, the Kalman filter algorithm is selected to dynamically estimate the SOC. However, it easily causes divergence due to the uncertainty of the battery model and system noise. To obtain a better convergent and robust result, an adaptive Kalman filter algorithm that can greatly improve the dependence of the traditional filter algorithm on the battery model is employed. In this paper, the typical characteristics of the lithium-ion battery are analyzed by experiment, such as hysteresis, polarization, Coulomb efficiency, etc. In addition, an improved Thevenin battery model is achieved by adding an extra RC branch to the Thevenin model, and model parameters are identified by using the extended Kalman filter (EKF) algorithm. Further, an adaptive EKF (AEKF) algorithm is adopted to the SOC estimation of the lithium-ion battery. Finally, the proposed method is evaluated by experiments with federal urban driving schedules. The proposed SOC estimation using AEKF is more accurate and reliable than that using EKF. The comparison shows that the maximum SOC estimation error decreases from 14.96% to 2.54% and that the mean SOC estimation error reduces from 3.19% to 1.06%.


Risks and uncertainties are inherent in construction projects and if neglected these risks often lead to project cost and time overruns. Traditional methods of forecasting risks
rely upon intuition and 'feel' which has proved inadequate for the needs of investors in modern construction projects. To cope with these recognised risks, a risk management
framework, which consists four components (risk identification, risk classification, risk analysis and risk response), has been developed. The present research focuses on financial risks in construction management, and in particular, the development of enhanced quantitative, probabilistic methods for risk analysis.

A comprehensive review of the treatment of risk and uncertainty in the construction industry is undertaken. Background knowledge of probability theory and Monte Carlo
simulation is reviewed, as is previous investigations into construction network analysis and project economics.

A comparison of the Programme Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and the Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) methods in construction networks risk analysis is carried out. Two example projects are analysed by both methods. When applying the MCS method, a sensitivity analysis is carried out by investigating the effect of different probability distributions (Normal, Log-Normal, Beta, Triangular and Uniform) for individual activity durations, the number of simulations used and the effect of the manner of how the mean and standard deviations are set for the different probability distributions.

A new analytical method, the Modified Stochastic Assignment Model (MSAM), is proposed for the prediction of project duration. Five example projects are used to
demonstrate the validity of the MSAM and to illustrate its application in construction project evaluations. The accuracy of the MSAM method is assessed by comparison to
the MCS method. A comparison of the MSAM with other analytical methods commonly used in construction network analysis, such as PERT and the Probabilistic Network Evaluation Technique (PNET), is also presented.

The First Order Second Moment (FOSM) method, a methodology previously used solely in system reliability analysis is applied to project economics. The definition of
the FOSM method is given and detailed mathematical treatments of these methods are described. The methodology of using the FOSM in construction economics is
explained and ten examples are analysed using both the FOSM method and the MCS to show the applicability and the degree of accuracy of these methods.

The current research shows that the MSAM method yields the probability of project completion within a prescribed target time, or the required project time at a specific probability. The research also shows that it is possible to use the FOSM methods for risk analysis in decision-making in construction economics in such areas as selection of project, elemental cost analysis, cash flow streams and setting of plant hire rates. Both methods require computational time that is significantly less than an equivalent MCS.


The pharmaceutical analysis of illicit drugs and the associated impurity profiling can contribute to a harm reduction approach. Impurities in illicit drugs represent a complex problem that requires detailed and reproducible analysis, in part because cutting agents are not often reported by the forensic science community. This research project is focussed on characterising Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) and determining their purity/impurity (adulteration) employing a wide range of spectroscopic and chromatographic methods, mainly NMR spectroscopy and Mass Spectrometry. Another aim is to develop a routine, rapid, and quantitative analytical protocol to identify illicit drugs and their impurities (cutting agents) in seized street samples. These two major aims were achieved. A comprehensive, but critical review of the current literature is provided with respect to the analytical chemistry aspects of illicit drugs and especially their cutting agents. This literature review has a focus on the global concern arising from the current and continuing emergence of NPS and their diverse public health effects. Evidence is provided of illegal drugs, mainly so-called "legal highs" (NPS), from detailed analysis of the contents of amnesty bins and their adulterants provided by the Police from a Bristol night club and from the 2013 Glastonbury music festival, besides other samples they had seized. An accurate chemical assignment of flephedrone regioisomers is made and compared with mephedrone. Impurity profiling of street mephedrone and ketamine samples and their adulterants is presented. A possible link between mephedrone samples is investigated by applying PCA and HCA statistical methods to the 1H NMR data.


This article explores the impact of public sector managerialism, and specifically the government's strategy of encouraging managers to adopt business values and associated behaviors, on cultural change in the Turkish health sector. The Turkish case provides a model of interdependence between managerial initiatives and cultural change, in that the government has tried to win over the hearts and minds of staff to a new attitude and style and has striven to overcome resistance from managers in a variety of ways in order to ensure that new managerial techniques and innovations "take root." Such cultural transformation has been enabled by the introduction of new managerial techniques into the public organizations. Although Turkish public organizations had an established hierarchicalprofessional culture, which has been resistant to new concepts and practices, there are signs that managerial initiatives in the health sector have begun to transform the existing organizational culture toward an entrepreneurial, adaptive, and innovative culture.


Pathological scar formation, i.e. fibrosis, is characterized by a disproportionate production and deposition of extracellular matrix proteins in tissues resulting in loss of organ function. Fibrotic diseases account for up to 45% of worldwide mortality, yet there are no effective antifibrotic therapies currently available. To improve and accelerate antifibrotic drug discovery, there is an urgent need for reliable and reproducible (human) in vitro methods that reflect the cellular diversity that epitomize specific organs. This thesis delineates the successful development of a novel ex vivo/in vitro model for intestinal and renal fibrosis, namely precision-cut intestinal slices (PCIS) and precision-cut kidney slices (PCKS) prepared from murine, rat and human tissue. Our results demonstrated that the slices remain viable during culture and maintain their organ-specific phenotype. Moreover, in both PCIS and PCKS we observed that fibrosis could be induced by either culture activation or treatment with a profibrotic stimulus. Based on these findings, both models were subsequently used to evaluate the efficacy of various putative antifibrotic drugs. Using PCIS, we demonstrated that pirfenidone, LY2109761 and sunitinib could mitigate fibrogenesis on a gene level, warranting further evaluation of these compounds for the treatment of intestinal fibrosis. In addition, we demonstrated that IFNγ could be used to halt renal fibrogenesis. Furthermore, studies with precision-cut liver and intestinal slices revealed that rosmarinic acid elicited organ- and species-specific effects, illustrating the pressing need for good translational models for drug discovery. Taken together, this thesis delineates that precision-cut tissue slices can be used to unravel fibrosis and evaluate the antifibrotic potential of therapeutics.


Molecular dynamics via broad-band dielectric relaxation spectroscopy (DRS) are obtained on a class 3 network-forming system: a generic cyanate ester resin. The potential for in-situ monitoring of the network-forming reaction is explored. The segmental dynamics of the growing network are investigated, and a hitherto unknown secondary relaxation process, β * , is found. This relaxation is distinctly different from the Johari-Goldstein slow β process. Model compounds and conformational strain analysis are used to elucidate the β * relaxation molecular mechanism. The α process in selected cyanate networks was analyzed with the Adam-Gibbs thermodynamics-based relations (AG model). The AG model provides a link between the relaxation time of a cooperatively rearranging domain (CRD) and configurational entropy. The model is explored via DRS and calorimetrically for various network structures. A good agreement is found between independent quantities derived from both techniques when examined in the AG framework. These results lend support to the CRD concept used in the AG model and, more generally, toward the establishment of the heterogeneous view of relaxations in glass-formers.


Generalizing visual recognition models trained on a single distribution to unseen input distributions (i.e. domains) requires making them robust to superfluous correlations in the training set. In this work, we achieve this goal by altering the training images to simulate new domains and imposing consistent visual attention across the different views of the same sample. We discover that the first objective can be simply and effectively met through visual corruptions. Specifically, we alter the content of the training images using the nineteen corruptions of the ImageNet-C benchmark and three additional transformations based on Fourier transform. Since these corruptions preserve object locations, we propose an attention consistency loss to ensure that class activation maps across original and corrupted versions of the same training sample are aligned. We name our model Attention Consistency on Visual Corruptions (ACVC). We show that ACVC consistently achieves the state of the art on three single-source domain generalization benchmarks, PACS, COCO, and the large-scale DomainNet1.


TAWARIKH: Journal of Historical Studies will provide a peer-reviewed forum for the publication of thought-leadership articles, briefings, discussion, applied research, case and comparative studies, expert comment and analysis on the key issues surrounding the history education and historical studies in general and its various aspects. Analysis will be practical and rigorous in nature. The TAWARIKH journal, with print ISSN 2085-0980 and online ISSN 2685-2284, was firstly published on October 28, 2009, in the context to commemorate the Youth Pledge Day in Indonesia. Since issue of October 2009 to date, the TAWARIKH journal has been organized and published by Minda Masagi Suci and ASPENSI (International Association for Historians and History Educators) in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. This journal is published twice a year i.e. every October and April. For period 2012 to 2017, the TAWARIKH journal was accredited by Ditjendikti Kemdikbud RI (Directorate-General of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia); and indexed also by SINTA Level 2 owned by Kemenristekdikti RI (Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia) in Jakarta. Bandung, West Java, Indonesia: April 30, 2021. Andi SUWIRTA, M.Hum. A Lecturer at the Department of History Education FPIPS UPI (Faculty of Social Studies Education, Indonesia University of Education); and Secretary-General of ASPENSI (International Association for Historians and History Educators) in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. E-mail: email@example.com


This work is directed towards understanding how the transformation of a regular object/traditional toy into an augmented toy may affect the dynamics of play behavior. We present an observational user study with 8 children from kindergarten to understand the play value of SparKubes. SparKubes are stand-alone tangible objects that accept light from one direction and pass it on in another direction. We found that children who were aware of the SparKubes' interactivity features displayed more variety of patterns and showed greater interaction with SparKubes as compared to the control group who were not aware of the features. The play behaviour revealed that SparKubes have constructive play value on the play pyramid and that adding light features changed the patterns of constructions by children. This knowledge opens up an exciting area of research in technology-mediated play and designing augmented toys for children.


Antibiotic resistance has become a growing worldwide concern as new resistance mechanisms are emerging and spreading globally, and thus detecting and collecting the cause – Antibiotic Resistance Genes (ARGs), have been more critical than ever. In this work, we aim to automate the curation of ARGs by extracting ARG-related assertive statements from scientific papers. To support the research towards this direction, we build SciARG, a new benchmark dataset containing 2,000 manually annotated statements as the evaluation set and 12,516 silver-standard training statements that are automatically created from scientific papers by a set of rules. To set up the baseline performance on SciARG, we exploit three state-of-the-art neural architectures based on pre-trained language models and prompt tuning, and further ensemble them to attain the highest 77.0% F-score. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to leverage natural language processing techniques to curate all validated ARGs from scientific papers. Both the code and data are publicly available at https://github.com/VT-NLP/SciARG.


The School Setting Interview (SSI) is an internationally used client-centred interview assessment that specifically investigates the student–environment fit for students with physical disabilities. In this study the Rasch measurement model was used to examine validity of the SSI; specifically, whether or not the SSI measures a unidimensional construct. Data for analysis included SSI assessments of 87 Swedish students with physical disabilities aged between 8 and 19 years of age. The results of the Rasch analysis revealed that all items had acceptable infit MnSq and z values supporting evidence of construct validity of the SSI. The established order of the difficulty of the items was also shown to be in acceptable congruence with the theoretical basis for item development. In addition, the analysis revealed aspects of the SSI that need improvements, such as the need for more challenging items and refinements of the manual. Further investigations of validity in different cultural contexts are recommended.


Prospect Theory predicts that people tend to be more risk seeking if their reference point is perceived as a loss and more risk averse when the reference point is perceived as a gain. In line with this prediction, Franken, Georgieva, Muris and Dijksterhuis (2006) showed that young adults who had a prior experience of monetary gains make more safe choices on subsequent decisions than subjects who had an early experience of losses. There are no experimental studies on how experiencing prior gains and losses differently influences young and older adults on a subsequent decision-making task (the Iowa Gambling Task). Hence, in the current paper, adapting the methodology employed by Franken et al.'s (2006), we intended to test the generality of their effect across the life span. Overall, we found that subjects who experienced prior monetary gains or prior monetary losses did not display significant differences in safe/risky choices on subsequent performance in the Iowa Gambling task. Furthermore, the impact of prior gains and losses on risky/safe card selection did not significantly differ between young and older adults. These results showed that the effect found in the Franken et al.'s study (2006) is limited in its generality.


The past vegetation and climate of West Antarctica and the evolution of its highly sensitive and dynamic ice sheet are poorly constrained by geological data. The few existing far-field data, and even fewer proximal records, indicate a major ice-sheet build-up in West Antarctica from the Oligocene to the Miocene, with partial or even complete ice-sheet collapses during warm Late Cenozoic intervals with near-modern atmospheric CO2-concentrations. Here we present first palynological results from the MeBo70 seabed drill cores collected in early 2017 from the Amundsen Sea shelf. The cores contain unconsolidated to highly consolidated sediments of Cretaceous to Holocene age. Preliminary analyses of pollen, spores and dinoflagellate cysts indicate that during the Cretaceous and early Paleogene the Amundsen Sea Embayment was covered by warm-temperate and temperate forests. The paper will focus on Turonian to Santonian (ca. 93-85 Ma) peat layers in the oldest sections of the cores, which contain micro- and macrofossils documenting the evolution of a highly diverse, conifer-rich swamp forest during the Late Cretaceous.


Self-injurious behaviour (SIB) is generally considered to be the product of interactions between dysfunction stemming from the primary developmental disability and experiences that occasion and reinforce SIB. As a result of these complex interactions, SIB presents as a heterogeneous problem. Recent research delineating subtypes of SIB that are nonsocially mediated, including one that is amenable to change and one that is highly invariant, enables classification of SIB across a broader continuum of relative environmental-biological influence. Directly examining how the functional classes of SIB differ has the potential to structure research, will improve our understanding this problem, and lead to more targeted behavioural and pharmacological interventions. Recognising that SIB is not a single entity but is composed of distinct functional classes would better align research with conceptual models that view SIB as the product of interactions between environmental and biological variables.


Mathematical and numerical modelling of the cardiovascular system is a research topic that has attracted remarkable interest from the mathematical community because of its intrinsic mathematical difficulty and the increasing impact of cardiovascular diseases worldwide. In this review article we will address the two principal components of the cardiovascular system: arterial circulation and heart function. We will systematically describe all aspects of the problem, ranging from data imaging acquisition, stating the basic physical principles, analysing the associated mathematical models that comprise PDE and ODE systems, proposing sound and efficient numerical methods for their approximation, and simulating both benchmark problems and clinically inspired problems. Mathematical modelling itself imposes tremendous challenges, due to the amazing complexity of the cardiocirculatory system, the multiscale nature of the physiological processes involved, and the need to devise computational methods that are stable, reliable and efficient. Critical issues involve filtering the data, identifying the parameters of mathematical models, devising optimal treatments and accounting for uncertainties. For this reason, we will devote the last part of the paper to control and inverse problems, including parameter estimation, uncertainty quantification and the development of reduced-order models that are of paramount importance when solving problems with high complexity, which would otherwise be out of reach.


Investigations carried out on Lake Dojran, fYR Macedonia, during the spring-autumn seasons in 2015 have been focused on detecting the degree of eutrophication in the lake, successive algal flora changes in the plankton communities and eventual presence of cyanotoxins (free microcystins) in the water. The obtained results revealed a co-existence of nine Microcystis species in the lake ( M. aeruginosa, M. botrys, M. flos-aquae, M. ichthyoblabe, M. novacekii, M. protocystis, M. smithii, M. viridis and M. wesenbergii ), with domination of the pan and neo-tropical species M. protocystis , again confirmed in a European lake. Results also corroborate the necessity to change the accepted morphospecies concept into separation of Microcystis taxa as distinct species which are clearly delimited according to their constant morphological features. Toxicity analyses demand for a specific and targeted investigation, since the toxin production and presence depends on many factors, and the toxin dynamics including the highest peaks may be easily overlooked if other issues are in the focus of the performed monitoring. Detected values for free microcystins in the water reached 2.84 µg L -1 microcystin-LR equivalents.


Experience has shown that states lose business and stall the ensuing development of their economies because of a lack of quality and foresight in their education systems. Some states feel that they have a vast reservoir of unskilled citizens who will work for nothing and companies will buy into it, but Harlan Cleveland in his article, "Education for Citizenship in the Information Society," writes that "people who do not educate themselves, and keep re‐educating themselves to participate in the new knowledge environment will be the peasants of the information society." Many research libraries are also stunting their own development through a lack of foresight in the provision of service. These libraries feel that their "all‐encompassing" unconnected collections continue to be a drawing card for recruiting and retaining the best scholars. University administrators who are also strategic planners will not continue to financially support this attitude.


As agents in reform processes, Principals can be pressured to respond to government and private change agendas. Far from merely implementing policy, Principals engage in complex enactments where they demonstrate agency in their interpretations and recontextualisations. Drawing data from Principal interviews, the authors consider leader agency in relation to discourses of economic rationalism, change and change leadership. The operationalisation of schooling reform and the necessity to think critically about policy within limited official consultation frameworks is highlighted. The political control of school clustering can potentially impinge on leader agency, particularly when there are additional hierarchical layers of leadership.


Background : Cannabinoids and their principle psychoactive target, the cannabinoid type 1 receptor (CB1R), impact a number of alcohol-related properties, and although alcohol and cannabis are often co-used, particularly in adolescence, few animal models of this phenomenon exist. We modeled the co-use of alcohol and ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in adolescent mice using ingestive methods popular during this developmental period in humans, namely binge-drinking and edible THC. With this model, we assessed levels of use, acute effects, and tolerance to each substance. Methods : Adolescent male C57BL/6J mice had daily, limited access to one of two edible doughs (THC or control), to one of two fluids (ethanol or water), and in one of two orders (dough-fluid or fluid-dough). Home cage locomotor activity was recorded both during and after access. On the day following the final access session, a subset of mice were assessed for functional and metabolic tolerance to alcohol using accelerating rotarod and blood ethanol concentrations, respectively. The remaining mice were assessed for tolerance to THC-induced hypothermia, and whole-brain CB1R expression was assessed in all mice. Results : Ethanol intake was on par with levels previously reported in adolescent mice. Edible THC was well-consumed, but consumption decreased at the highest dose provided. Locomotor activity increased following ethanol intake and decreased following edible THC consumption, and edible THC increased fluid intake in general. Use of alcohol produced neither functional nor metabolic tolerance to an alcohol challenge. However, use of edible THC impaired subsequent drug-free rotarod performance and was associated with a reduction in THC's hypothermic effect. Conclusions : Adolescent mice self-administered both alcohol and edible THC to a degree sufficient to acutely impact locomotor activity. However, only edible THC consumption had lasting effects during short-term abstinence. Thus, this adolescent co-use model could be


This volume brings together scholars from the fields of history, political science, political economy, historical sociology and cultural studies, to comment on the theoretical and empirical unsettling of democratic transitions at the time of the economic crisis. The volume links together transitions in time and space, reappraising the democratic processes in Southern Europe in the mid-1970s, the post-1989 transformations in Eastern Europe, the effects of Southern Cone democratisations and the 2011 revolts in the Arab worlds, resisting both temporal particularities and national exceptionalisms. It further showcases how even supposed model transitions came under attack during the current economic crisis, thus highlighting the incloncusive nature of these events and the strong interconnections between past and present.


We continue our exploration of collisionally merged stars in the blue straggler region of the color-magnitude diagram. We report the results of new smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) calculations of parabolic collisions between two main-sequence stars, with the initial structure and composition profiles of the parent stars having been determined from stellar evolution calculations. Parallelization of the SPH code has permitted much higher numerical resolution of the hydrodynamics. We also present evolutionary tracks for the resulting collision products, which emerge as rapidly rotating blue stragglers. The rotating collision products are brighter, bluer, and remain on the main sequence longer than their nonrotating counterparts. In addition, they retain their rapid rotation rates throughout their main-sequence lifetime. Rotationally induced mixing strongly affects the evolution of the collision products, although it is not sufficient to mix the entire star. We discuss the implications of these results for studies of blue straggler populations in clusters. This work shows that off-axis collision products cannot become blue stragglers unless they lose a large fraction of their initial angular momentum. The mechanism for this loss is not apparent, although some possibilities are discussed.


Hypertensive encephalopathy (HTE) usually presents with progressive headache, confusion, visual disturbance and generalised seizures and may progress to coma and death. It is a common cause of the reversible posterior leucoencephalopathy syndrome,1 now more commonly referred to as the posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome, as grey matter is often also involved. Cranial imaging typically reveals parieto-occipital subcortical white matter oedema. The preferential involvement of the parietal and occipital lobes is unexplained but may be linked to the relative paucity of sympathetic innervation of the posterior cerebral arterial circulation. Impairment of autoregulation of cerebral blood flow because of an uncontrolled rise in arterial blood pressure, dilatation of cerebral arterioles and endothelial dysfunction are thought to underlie the vasogenic oedema which occurs.1 We report a rare presentation of uncontrolled hypertension with episodic vertigo and ataxia, isolated cerebellar oedema on cranial MRI and secondary obstructive hydrocephalus.

A 52-year-old man presented with a 3 week history of recurrent episodes of severe vertigo, nausea, ataxia and mild headache. The initial episodes improved spontaneously over the course of several days but onset of the third such episode led to his admission to hospital. He had experienced mild persistent bifrontal headache …


In this paper we examine the concept of staged analysis through a case study on visualizing urban mobility exhibited in a public gallery space. Recently, many cities introduced bike-sharing in order to promote cycling among locals and visitors. We explore how citizens can be guided from evocative impressions of bicycling flows to comparative analysis of three bike-sharing systems. The main aim for visualizations in exhibition contexts is to encourage a shift from temporary interest to deeper insight into a complex phenomenon. To pursue this ambition we introduce cf. city flows, a comparative visualization environment of urban bike mobility designed to help citizens casually analyze three bike-sharing systems in the context of a public exhibition space. Multiple large screens show the space of flows in bike-sharing for three selected world cities: Berlin, London, and New York. Bike journeys are represented in three geospatial visualizations designed to be progressively more analytical, from animated trails to small-multiple glyphs. In this paper, we describe our design concept and process, the exhibition setup, and discuss some of the insights visitors gained while interacting with the visualizations.


Abstract Remote Sensing provides a variety of data and resources useful in mapping of forest. Currently, one of the common applications in forestry is the identification of individual trees and tree species composition, using the object-based image analysis, resulting from the classification of aerial or satellite imagery. In the paper, there is presented an approach to the identification of group of tree species (deciduous - coniferous trees) in diverse structures of close-to-nature mixed forests of beech, fir and spruce managed by selective cutting. There is applied the object-oriented classification based on multispectral images with and without the combination with airborne laser scanning data in the eCognition Developer 9 software. In accordance to the comparison of classification results, the using of the airborne laser scanning data allowed identifying ground of terrain and the overall accuracy of classification increased from 84.14% to 87.42%. Classification accuracy of class "coniferous" increased from 82.93% to 85.73% and accuracy of class "deciduous" increased from 84.79% to 90.16%.


A L\'evy process is said to creep through a curve if, at its first passage time across this curve, the process reaches it with positive probability. We first study this property for bivariate subordinators. Given the graph $\{(t,f(t)):t\ge0\}$ of any continuous, non increasing function $f$ such that $f(0)>0$, we give an expression of the probability that a bivariate subordinator $(Y,Z)$ issued from 0 creeps through this graph in terms of its renewal function and the drifts of the components $Y$ and $Z$. We apply this result to the creeping probability of any real L\'evy process through the graph of any continuous, non increasing function at a time where the process also reaches its past supremum. This probability involves the density of the renewal function of the bivariate upward ladder process as well as its drift coefficients. We also investigate the case of L\'evy processes conditioned to stay positive creeping at their last passage time below the graph of a function. Then we provide some examples and we give an application to the probability of creeping through fixed levels by stable Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes. We also raise a couple of open questions along the text.


Purpose. The purpose of this study was to assess novel methods of health education and promotion to increase physical activity among adults with intellectual disabilities. Design. A pre-post delayed treatment design was employed to assess the effect of the intervention. Setting. The intervention was administered at two agencies that serve adults with intellectual disabilities. Subjects. Forty-two adults ranging in age from 19 to 62 with mild to moderate intellectual disability participated in the study. Participants were equally divided by gender. Intervention. An eight-session intervention employed a combination of video instruction, pictorial memory tools, and interactive class activities as educational methods. Measures. Physical activity knowledge was evaluated using Illingworth, Moore, and McGillivray's Nutrition Activity Knowledge Scale (NAKS) and the Physical Activity Recommendations Assessment (PARA). Average daily minutes of physical activity were measured using dual-axis accelerometers. Analysis. Paired and independent samples t-tests were used to assess the knowledge scales. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and Mann-Whitney U-tests were used to assess physical activity participation. Results. Overall, there were mean improvements in scores for both the NAKS (p < .05) and the PARA (p < .001) following the intervention. Physical activity also improved, but not significantly. Conclusion. The education and training methods used in this curriculum are promising for future health education programs in this population. Additional interventions may be necessary to improve physical activity participation.


The study was aimed at increase the solubility of poorly soluble drug Felodipine and formulating it in sustained release dosage form. Solid dispersion of drug was prepared using Poly vinyl pyrollidone (PVP) and hydroxyl propyl methyl cellulose (HPMC) as inert hydrophilic carriers by kneading method. A 17-fold increase in dissolution rate of Felodipine was observed with solid dispersion prepared with HPMC. Optimized solid dispersion was further characterized by Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) which suggest transformation of crystalline Felodipine in amorphous form and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) suggesting no possible interaction. Sustained release microcapsules of Felodipine were formulated using ethyl cellulose (EC) and Eudragit® RL 100 (EDRL) as coating material with solid dispersion of Felodipine as core by emulsion solvent evaporation method. Gelatin was used as microencapsulating agent employing coacervation-phase separation technique. Microcapsules from all the batches were found to discrete, spherical and free flowing and % entrapment efficiency was found to be in range of 88% to 96%. All the batches of microcapsules showed sustained release curve in pH 7.4 phosphate buffer up to eight hours with microcapsules prepared with gelatin giving Felodipine release up to 86% after 8 hrs. XRD pattern studies of the microcapsules made of gelatin showed drug still present in the amorphous form and thus maintaining its solubility in the microcapsule system.


ABSTRACT This study attempts to investigate the long-run Granger causality relationship between energy consumption, carbon emissions, economic growth, and trade openness in Sri Lanka. Our analysis reveals that, there exists long-run causal relationship between carbon emission and economic growth for Sri Lanka over the period of 1971–2006. In addition, there is unidirectional causality running from economic growth to the carbon emission and energy consumption. The result implies that carbon emission reduction policies will hurt economic growth if no supplementary policies are taken to modify this causal relationship.


Supporters of Stand Your Ground laws claim that these laws are necessary to protect public safety, but all available credible evidence indicates that these laws seriously undermine public safety. As the brainchild of the National Rifle Association (NRA), Stand Your Ground laws serve to merge self-defense and gun use in the American public imagination. The lethality and volatility of firearms make them poor instruments of self-defense, particularly in the hands of untrained individuals. The effects of Stand Your Ground laws on public safety are grim: more gun use, more aggression, and more deaths, none of which has had the slightest deterrent effect on crime rates. The laws have moreover widened the gap between the powerful and the marginalized, endangering vulnerable communities while reinforcing the privileges of those least at risk. Stand Your Ground proponents have cynically exploited Americans' irrational fear of crime, carefully avoiding any acknowledgment of the racism, sexism, and classism that structures criminal victimization and violence. Encouraging people to resolve conflicts with firearms has unequal effects on the populations most vulnerable to violence, in particular women and minorities.


An analytical micromechanics-based strength prediction methodology was developed to predict failure of notched metal matrix composites. The stress-strain behavior and notched strength of two metal matrix composites, boron/aluminum (B/AI) and silicon-carbide/titanium (SCS-6/Ti-15-3), were predicted. The prediction methodology combines analytical techniques ranging from a three-dimensional finite-element analysis of a notched specimen to a micromechanical model of a single fiber. In the B/AI laminates, a fiber failure criterion based on the axial and shear stress in the fiber accurately predicted laminate failure for a variety of layups and notch-length-tospecimen-width ratios with both circular holes and sharp notches when matrix plasticity was included in the analysis. For the SCS-6/Ti15-3 laminates, a fiber failure based on the axial stress in the fiber correlated well with experimental results for static and post-fatigue residual strengths when fiber-matrix debonding and matrix cracking were included in the analysis. The micromechanics-based strength prediction methodology offers a direct approach to strength predictions by modeling behavior and damage on a constituent level, thus, explicitly including matrix nonlinearity, fiber-matrix interface debonding and matrix cracking. INTRODUCTION Metal matrix composites (MMCs) have several inherent properties, such as high stiffness-to-weight ratios and high strength-to-weight ratios, which make them attractive for advanced aerospace applications. These composites also have a higher operating temperature range than polymer matrix composites. Like polymer composites, MMCs are very notch sensitive. The degree of notch sensitivity depends on notch size and shape, laminate orientation and material properties. Fiber-matrix interfaces can also play a key role in the mechanical behavior of MMCs 1. The interfaces govern the mode and extent of load transfer between the fiber and matrix. When the interfaces are strong and transmit all loads fully, isolated fiber fractures tend to spread more rapidly to other fibers and hasten failure '_. To design damage-tolerant structures, or to simply understand the effects of fastener holes, the laminate fracture strength must be known for a wide range of laminates, notch geometries, loading conditions, and material properties. To avoid testing all possible parametric combinations, an analytical method for predicting the fracture strength of notched MMCs is needed. Over the past decade, researchers at NASA Langley Research Center have analyzed a number of notched MMC laminates for a variety of behaviors and have developed an analytical micromechanics-based strength prediction methodology to predict failure of notched MMCs. This paper will review the analytical methodology and present selected results. The micromechanics-based strength prediction methodology combines analytical techniques ranging from a three-dimensional (3D) orthotropic finite element (FE) model of a notched specimen to a micromechanical model of a single fiber. Work with B/AI MMCs showed that in this low yield strength matrix, extensive yielding of the matrix occurred at the notch tips, such that specimens with sharp notches and center holes failed at similar stress levels 3. In brittle polymeric matrix composites, similar notch insensitive results have been observed for quasi-isotropic laminates 4. However, in polymeric composites, the notch-insensitivity was caused by extensive matrix cracking and delaminations near the crack tip that significantly reduced the local stress concentration 5. The fiber-matrix interface plays a particularly significant role in MMCs with a matrix having a high yield strength, such as silicon-carbide/titanium (SCS-6/Ti-15-3). Debonding of the fiber-matrix interface was found to be a primary damage mechanism in SCS-6/Ti-15-3 composites 1. Extensive fiber-matrix debonding occurred such that specimens with sharp notches and center holes failed at similar stress levels 6. Matrix cracking was found to be a significant factor in predicting the post-fatigue residual strength of SCS-6/Ti-15-3 specimens containing center holes / . Traditional strength prediction approaches do not lend themselves to MMCs when highly nonlinear behavior is observed or when excessive matrix damage (i.e., fiber-matrix debonding, matrix cracking) proceeds laminate failure. For example, linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) methods, (see, for example, work by Waddoups, Eisenmann, and Kaminski 8) would not apply when the material behaves nonlinearly. A LEFM approach could possibly be used in cases of matrix damage without material nonlinearity but this would re'quire orthotropic stress-intensity factor solutions for extremely complex crack configurations. The two-parameter approaches, such as introduced by Whitney and Nuismer 9'1u, use elastic stress solutions for undamaged configurations and attempt to account for damage through the use of some characteristic length. (An extensive review of commonly used fracture models for predicting the notched strength of composite laminates is presented elsewhere11.) The new micromechanics-based strength prediction methodology described herein presents a more direct approach by modeling behavior and damage on a constituent level, thus, accounting for the matrix nonlinearity, fiber-matrix interface debonding and matrix cracking. The following sections will briefly describe the prediction methodology and present results for notched metal matrix composites. MICROMECHANICS-BASED STRENGTH PREDICTION METHODOLOGY The micromechanics-based strength prediction methodology developed at NASA Langley is based on constituent level behavior and combines three analytical techniques to predict various aspects of the specimen and material behavior of notched MMCs. The first analytical technique, a three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) analysis (PAFAC 12), was used to analyze the global behavior of notched specimens with and without damage. The second, a discrete fiber-matrix (DFM) finite element model was used to analyze fiber-matrix interface stresses. The third, a macro-micromechanical analysis (MMA) 13, combines the 3D FE analysis with the unit cell DFM model. The MMA was used to analyze notch-tip stress states in notched configurations with no damage. In all cases, the bulk matrix properties were obtained from matrix material that was subjected to the same processing cycles as the composite laminates 1'3 Three-Dimensional Analysis, PAFAC The overall specimen behavior was analyzed with a three-dimensional finite element program called PAFAC 12, which was developed from a program written by Bahei-EI-Din 14'15 PAFAC (Plastic and Failure Analysis of Composites) uses a constant strain, eight-noded, hexahedral element. Each hexahedral element represents a unidirectional composite material whose fibers can be oriented in the appropriate direction in the structural (Cartesian) coordinate system. The PAFAC program uses the vanishing-fi.ber-diameter (VFD) material model developed by Bahei-EI-Din and Dvorak ]4'] b,]/ to model the elastic-plastic matrix and elastic fiber based on the constituent properties. Either the Ramberg-Osgood equation 18 or a piece-wise linear approximation may be used to model the nonlinear stress-strain curve of the matrix. The fiber is modeled as an linear-elastic material. The PAFAC program predicts fiber and matrix stresses at each element centroid. Using this material model, the analysis calculates the fiber and laminate stresses and predicts when yielding occurs in each element of the finite element mesh. The program PAFAC was used to predict the laminate behavior and first fiber failure. PAFAC predicts first fiber failure to occur when the fiber stresses within an element exceed a given criterion. For the analysis of the B/AI composites 3, a fiber failure criterion based on the axial and shear stress in the fiber was used. Due to limited computer resources available at the time, the elements at the notch tip were approximately three fibers wide in the FE meshes used to analyze the B/AI laminates. Thus, "first fiber failure" actually indicated failure of all three fibers within an element in the B/AI analyses. In later work 6'7, meshes were refined so that the smallest elements, located next to the notch or hole, were one fiber spacing wide. The appropriate fiber spacing was calculated using the composite fiber volume fraction, the fiber diameter, and the ply thickness. For the analyses of titanium MMCs 6'7, a fiber failure criterion based on the axial stress in the fiber was used. Tests of unnotched SCS-6/Ti-15-3 laminates I indicated interfacial debonding in the 90 ° plies at applied stresses that were as low as 20% of the yield strength of the matrix. To account for the debonding, the PAFAC analysis was modified to include a failure criterion to approximate interfacial debonding in the 90 ° plies. When the transverse stress in the elements in the 90 ° plies reached a specified critical value, the material properties of the 90 ° plies were modified to represent a ply with a completely debonded interface. For the SCS-6/Ti-15-3 material, the critical transverse stress was chosen to be 155 MPa based on the observed stress-strain behavior of unnotched [90] 8 laminates I . The PAFAC analysis was also modified to account for interface debonding in the 0 ° plies at the notch tip in a specimen with a sharp notch 6. The FE meshes were designed to contain one layer of elements per ply where the elements at the notch tip were one fiber spacing wide. The elements next to the notch tip, which were one fiber spacing wide, were modified to include isotropic layers next to the notch and between each ply. To model the fiber-matrix debonding of the 0 ° fiber next to the notch, the elastic modulus of the additional isotropic elements in both 0 ° plies was reduced. The remaining elements in the 0 ° plies were modeled as composite elements w


Silicon carbide is a very promising material for next generation nuclear physics experiments at high beam luminosity. Such activities require devices able to sustain high fluxes of particles (up to 1014 ions/cm2) in order to determine the cross sections of very rare nuclear phenomena. One of these activities is the NUMEN project, which aims, through the double charge exchange reactions, to impact in the determination of nuclear matrix elements entering in the expression of half-life of the neutrino-less double beta decay. Due to the very low cross sections, these features can just be explored at fluences which exceed by far those tolerated in state of the art solid state detectors, typically used in this kind of experiments. The SiC technology offers today an ideal response to such challenges, giving the opportunity to cope the excellent properties of silicon detectors with the radiation hardness, thermal stability and visible blindness of SiC material.


Nearest neighbours (NN) approaches are a statistically-based pattern classification technique used extensively for computer-assisted decision making in tasks such as ski area and winter road management and backcountry avalanche forecasting. The essential hypothesis behind NN assumes that the available data (normally current meteorological and snowpack data) usefully select similar avalanche conditions from the past which are thus of interest to the forecaster. Most evaluations of NN rely on verification schemes based on avalanche events and delivering summary statistics of performance in the form of contingency tables. We argue that such approaches, whilst useful, oversimplify NN's information output, and present a complementary approach to verification.
Over two winters qualitative information was reported by forecasters, describing meteorological conditions, snowpack conditions, snow stability and related information. These information were entered in a web log, where forecasters could quickly and easily enter their assessment of the current situation.
Using these data we have reevaluated the quality of information delivered by NN, by comparing NN forecasts with randomly generated forecasts. Our results suggest that, although the performance of NN may appear good when measured by summary statistics, the usefulness of the information presented to the forecaster may often be low with the events selected by NN as 'examples' not corresponding to the general avalanche situation - e.g. NN selects single, skier triggered avalanches though on the forecast day large natural avalanches occurred.
These findings demonstrate that, firstly, our previous evaluation approaches insufficiently described the information content that we wished to evaluate and secondly, suggest weaknesses in the NN approach. While NN demonstrates considerable skill in selecting similar weather patterns, it has considerably less skill in selecting similar snowpack and stability patterns.
Finally, forecasters reported that filling in web logs was itself a useful process and led to more self reflection in their decision making process.


Histopathological effects on the gills of a few fish species of polluted Singhiya river, Biratnagar sub-metropolis was made. The gills sections of Oxygaster bacaila, Neomacheilus botia,, Glossogobius giuris , Puntius sophore , Barillius barana , Channa gachua and Silorhynchus sucatio were found much deformed. Lesions, abnormal growth of taste buds and inter-lamellar space, fusion at the tips of primary as well as secondary lamellae, shifting of epithelial layer, deformation of gill head and that of outer margin, tilted secondary lamellae were found common. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/njbs.v2i0.7498 Nepalese Journal of Biosciences 2 : 113-117 (2012)