Developing real-time safety and nonsafety applications for vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) requires understanding of the dynamics of the network topology characteristics since these dynamics determine both the performance of routing protocols and the feasibility of an application over VANETs. Using various key metrics of interest, including node degree, neighbor distribution, number of clusters, and link duration, we provide a realistic analysis of the VANET topology characteristics over time and space for a highway scenario. In this analysis, we integrate real-world road topology and real-time data extracted from the freeway Performance Measurement System (PeMS) database into a microscopic mobility model to generate realistic traffic flows along the highway. Moreover, we use a more realistic, recently proposed, obstacle-based channel model and compare the performance of this sophisticated model to the most commonly used and more simplistic channel models, including unit disk and lognormal shadowing models. Our investigation on the key metrics reveals that both lognormal and unit disk models fail to provide realistic VANET topology characteristics. We therefore propose a matching mechanism to tune the parameters of the lognormal model according to the vehicle density and a correlation model to take into account the evolution of the link characteristics over time. The proposed method has been demonstrated to provide a good match with the computationally expensive and difficult-to-implement obstacle-based model. The parameters of the proposed model have been validated to depend only on the vehicle traffic density based on the real data of four different highways in California.


The properties of polyethylene doped with Ca2+ salt of oxidized cellulose was studied by different techniques. FTIR spectroscopy was used for the determination of crystalline phase in polymer film, surface wettability was determined by standard goniometry and surface morphology was examined by SEM microscopy. Adhesion of mouse 3T3 fibroblasts on the doped polymer was studied in vitro. It was found that the polyethylene doped with the cellulose derivative can be sterilized in boiling water. The number and homogeneity of adhering cells were shown to depend on the surface wettability and morphology.


Prior treatment exposure in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma may affect outcomes with subsequent therapies. We analyzed efficacy and safety according to prior treatment in the phase 3 TOURMALINE-MM1 study of ixazomib-lenalidomide-dexamethasone (ixazomib-Rd) versus placebo-Rd. Patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma received ixazomib-Rd or placebo-Rd. Efficacy and safety were evaluated in subgroups defined according to type (proteasome inhibitor [PI] and immunomodulatory drug) and number (1 vs. 2 or 3) of prior therapies received. Of 722 patients, 503 (70%) had received a prior PI, and 397 (55%) prior lenalidomide/thalidomide; 425 patients had received 1 prior therapy, and 297 received 2 or 3 prior therapies. At a median follow up of ~15 months, PFS was prolonged with ixazomib-Rd vs. placebo-Rd regardless of type of prior therapy received; HR 0.739 and 0.749 in PI-exposed and –naïve patients, HR 0.744 and 0.700 in immunomodulatory-drug-exposed and -naïve patients, respectively. PFS benefit with ixazomib-Rd vs. placebo-Rd appeared greater in patients with 2 or 3 prior therapies (HR 0.58) and in those with 1 prior therapy without prior transplant (HR 0.60) versus those with 1 prior therapy and transplant (HR 1.23). Across all subgroups, toxicity was consistent with that seen in the intent-to-treat population. In patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, ixazomib-Rd was associated with a consistent clinical benefit vs. placebo-Rd regardless of prior treatment with bortezomib or immunomodulatory drugs. Patients with 2 or 3 prior therapies, or 1 prior therapy without transplant seemed to have greater benefit than patients with 1 prior therapy and transplant. TOURMALINE-MM1 registered at clinicaltrials.gov identifier: 01564537.


Multimedia networks need sophisticated and real-time connection admission control (CAC) not only to guarantee the required quality of service (QoS) for existing calls but also to enhance utilisation of systems. The power spectral density (PSD) of the input process contains correlation and burstiness characteristics of input traffic and possesses the additive property. Neural networks have been widely employed to deal with the traffic control problems in high-speed networks because of their self-learning capability. The authors propose a power-spectrum-based neural-net connection admission control (PNCAC) for multimedia networks. A decision hyperplane is constructed for the CAC using power spectrum parameters of traffic sources of connections, under the constraint of the QoS requirement. Simulation results show that the PNCAC method provides system utilisation and robustness superior to the conventional equivalent capacity CAC scheme and Hiramatsu's neural network CAC scheme, while meeting the QoS requirement.


A case of a solitary symptomatic non-parasitic cyst of the liver, was seen and treated at the Muhimbili Medical Centre, Dar Es Salaam. This is the first case report from Tanzania, cystic disease of the liver is rarely diagnosed clinically, the possibility should be seriously considered in any patient with an enlarged liver which is associated with few or no symptoms and little or no impairment of liver function. In African countries, it is suggested that non-parasitic cysts of the liver be considered in the differential diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma because of its high prevalence rate in these countries.


Technology has always played a role in the development of gambling practices, and new technologies such as Internet gambling may provide many people with their first exposure to the world of gambling. Further to this, Internet gambling could be argued to be more psychologically enticing than previous non-technological incarnations of gambling because of anonymity, accessibility and interactivity. This paper reports on the results of the first U.K. study of Internet gambling; 2098 people were interviewed for their behaviour and attitudes. Results indicated that only 1% of Internet users (n=495) had ever gambled on the Internet and that there was no evidence of problematic gambling behaviour associated with the Internet.


Global air temperature is unequivocally increasing and will keep rising, more rapidly in the Arctic than in other regions. Climate warming may affect not only soil factors, e.g. temperature, moisture and nutrient availability for plants, but also vegetation. Changes in species diversity, distribution, and plant traits are expected as a consequence of direct and indirect effects of climate warming, especially in high-latitude ecosystems. Two of the main changes expected in arctic tundra are shrub expansion and loss of cryptogam diversity. Tundra vegetation shifts will result in altered feedbacks with atmosphere and permafrost through the surface energy budget and the water and carbon cycle, which might affect regional climate. Despite the high vulnerability of arctic species to climate change and the importance of tundra vegetation‒climate feedbacks, uncertainties remain in relation to species diversity and plant trait response to climate.
In order to identify changes in species diversity, community composition, and plant traits that might take place under climate change in arctic tundra ecosystems, I combined observational, experimental, and dendroecological approaches. I established a set of observational plots in two contrasting habitats in northeastern Siberia, finding that species diversity and community composition were closely related to edaphic factors. These relationships were different among plant functional types, suggesting a higher vulnerability of cryptogam diversity to changes in edaphic factors and, therefore, to climate warming. Moreover, by sampling shrub individuals from experimental soil warming and fertilization plots, I found faster shrub growth with enhanced nutrient availability, a decrease in bark investment with faster growth rates, and a coordinated response of shrub traits to nutrient addition. These findings suggest a shift in growth strategy and resource acquisition towards more rapid ones with climate warming. Although shrub expansion is expected in the short term due to faster growth and denser covers, in the long term, shrubs might become more vulnerable to herbivory, pathogens, and climate extremes because of shifts in shrub resource allocation towards growth (growth‒defence trade-off).
This thesis contributes, therefore, to increase our knowledge of species diversity vulnerability and plant trait shifts in a changing Arctic, which is a first step to better understand vegetation effects on the surface radiation budget in tundra ecosystems. Such an understanding is essential for reducing the uncertainties in direction and magnitude of future vegetation‒climate feedbacks.


The recent financial crisis has shown that short-term collateralized borrowing may be highly unstable in times of stress. The present paper develops a dynamic equilibrium model and shows that this instability can be a consequence of market-wide changes in expectations, but does not have to be. We derive a liquidity constraint and a collateral constraint that determine whether such expectations-driven runs are possible and show that they depend crucially on the microstructure of particular funding markets that we examine in detail. In particular, our model provides insights into the differences between the tri-party repo market and the bilateral repo market, which were both at the heart of the recent financial crisis.


Carbonic anhydrase 1 (CA1) is an abundant enzyme in colon epithelia. In the gastrointestinal tract, carbonic anhydrase is vital for NaCl resorption, alkalinization of gut contents, and absorption of short-chain fatty acids. The CA1 gene has two promoters, one of which is specifically active in colon epithelia and the other in erythroid cells. We are investigating the factors that regulate CA1 expression from the colon-specific promoter. Colon-specific deoxyribonuclease I hypersensitive sites (DHS) have been mapped close to the colon transcription initiation site (DHS6c) and in the upstream intron (DHS5c). Using electrophoretic mobility-shift assays to search the 650-bp region which contains DHS6c, we have identified sequences that bind a colon-specific factor (COF1) and by deletion analysis we have narrowed down the COF1-binding motif to a 17-bp sequence. A comparison of this motif with a protein-binding motif in the sucrase-isomaltase gene promoter, competition assays, and antibody studies indicate that COF1 is identical to the homeodomain protein Cdx-2. We propose that Cdx-2 plays an important role in the intestine-specific expression of CA1.


The ability to reason about the difficulty of novel tasks is critical for many real-world decisions. To decide whether to tackle a task or how to divide labor across people, we must estimate the difficulty of the goal in the absence of prior experience. Here we examine adults' and preschoolers' inferences about the difficulty of simple block-building tasks. Exp.1 first established that building time is a useful proxy for difficulty. Exp.2 asked participants to view the initial and final states of various block-building tasks and judge their relative difficulty. While adults were near-ceiling on all trials, children showed varying levels of performance depending on the nature of the dimensions that varied across structures. Exp. 3 replicated the pattern. These results suggest that children can reverse-engineer the process of goal-directed actions to infer the relative difficulty of novel tasks, although their ability to incorporate more nuanced factors may continue to develop.


Rational choice perspectives maintain that seemingly irrational behavior on the part of terrorist organizations may nevertheless reflect strategic planning. In this paper we examine spatial and temporal patterns of terrorist attacks by the Spanish group ETA between 1970 and 2007. Our analysis is guided by a public announcement by ETA in 1978 that the group would shift from emphasizing attacks in the Basque territory to instead launch attacks more widely in the hopes of exhausting the Spanish government and forcing it to abandon the Basque territory. This announcement suggests that prior to the end of 1978 ETA attacks were based mostly on controlling territory in the Basque region that they hoped to rule; and after 1978 the organization decided to instead undertake a prolonged war of attrition. Accordingly, we argue that before the end of 1978 ETA was mostly perpetrating control attacks (attacking only within the Basque territories) and that the diffusion of attacks between provinces was mostly contagious (spreading contiguously). After the 1978 proclamation, we argue that the attack strategy shifted toward attrition (attacking in areas outside of the Basque territories) and that the attacks were more likely to diffuse hierarchically (spreading to more distant locations). As predicted, we find that after ETA moved toward a more attrition based attack strategy, subsequent attacks were significantly more likely to occur outside the Basque region and to target non-adjacent regions (consistent with hierarchical diffusion). We also find that hierarchical diffusion was more common when a longer time elapsed between attacks (a likely consequence of the fact that more distant attacks require more resources and planning) and that attacks against Madrid were unlikely to be followed immediately by more attacks on Madrid or surrounding provinces. After ETA announced a shift in policy, they maintained a highly dispersed attack strategy even during their period of decline. Using information about


Background and Purpose: Low back pain (LBP) may be associated with inadequate multifidus muscle function. Varying the frequency and timing of feedback may enhance acquisition and retention of multifidus muscle recruitment during exercise. Subjects: Subjects without LBP (n=30) were randomly assigned to a constant (CON) or variable (VAR) feedback group. Twenty-eight subjects (mean age=28 years, SD=8.0; mean body mass index=24 kg/m2, SD=0.70) completed training, and 23 completed retention testing. Methods: Eight training sessions over 4 weeks included multifidus muscle exercise with rehabilitative ultrasound imaging (RUSI) feedback. Retention was assessed at 1 week and ≥1 month. Results: At the start, both groups had similar performances of multifidus muscle recruitment (Fisher exact test, P=.26). Early in training, the CON group had good success (mean=80%) that was maintained at session 8 (mean=84%), with no difference between sessions 1 and 8 (Wilcoxon signed rank test, P=.19, 95% confidence interval [CI]=−9%, 42%). The VAR group gradually increased success (Wilcoxon signed rank test, P=.002, 95% CI=17%, 59%) between sessions 1 and 8. Both groups sustained their session 8 success when tested for short-term retention at 1 week (CON group: Wilcoxon signed rank test, P=.79; VAR group: Wilcoxon signed rank test, P=.36). At the long-term retention test, the VAR group outperformed the CON group (Wilcoxon score test, P=.04), indicating superior motor learning. Discussion and Conclusion: Variable feedback provided by RUSI resulted in greater success in lumbar multifidus muscle recruitment up to 3 to 4 months after training.


Infections remain a significant problem in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) in treated as well in non-treated patients and assume a particular complexity. The susceptibility to infections is due, in the absence of intensive chemotherapies, mainly to functional defects in the myeloid lineage with or without neutropenia. Furthermore, MDS includes a heterogeneous group of patients with very different prognosis, therapy and risk factors regarding survival and infections. You should distinguish risk factors related to the disease, like as neutrophils function impairment, neutropenia, unfavorable cytogenetics and bone marrow insufficiency; factors related to the patient, like as age and comorbidities, and factors related to the therapy. When the patients with MDS are submitted to intensive chemotherapy with and without hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), they have a risk factor for infection very similar to that of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and mostly related to neutropenia. Patients with MDS treated with supportive therapy only or with demethylating agent or lenalidomide or immunosuppressive drugs should have a tailored approach. Most of the infections in MDS originate from bacteria, and the main risk factors are represented by neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, and unfavorable cytogenetics. Thus, it is reasonable to give antibacterial prophylaxis to patients who start the therapy with demethylating agents with a number of neutrophils <500 × 109/L, or with thrombocytopenia and unfavorable cytogenetics. The antifungal prophylaxis is not considered cost/benefit adequate and should be taken into consideration only when there is an antecedent fungal infection or presence of filamentous fungi in the surveillance cultures. Subjects submitted to immunosuppression with ATG+CSA have a high rate of infections, and when severely neutropenic should ideally be nursed in isolation, should be given prophylactic antibiotics and antifungals, regular mouth care including an antiseptic mouthwash.


Variable selection, the search for j relevant predictor variables from a group of p candidates, is a standard problem in regression analysis. The class of 1D regression models is a broad class that includes generalized linear models. We show that existing variable selection algorithms, originally meant for multiple linear regression and based on ordinary least squares and Mallows's Cp, can also be used for 1D models. Graphical aids for variable selection are also provided.


Data on the structure, properties, and biosynthesis of C-reactive protein (CRP) are summarized. Special attention is paid to the specific interaction of C-reactive protein with Ca(2+)-dependent and Ca(2+)-independent ligands: phosphorylcholine-containing compounds, lipoproteins, chromatin, galactans, polycations, etc. The data on the interaction of CRP with Ca2+ are presented. The methods for the CRP isolation and purification are discussed with an emphasis on affinity chromatography as the most promising method for obtaining purified CRP.


:  Credit card debt is a ubiquitous feature of neoliberal capitalism. To explain the notable growth of credit card usage in the US, I adopt a historical materialist approach that employs two key analytical concepts—cannibalistic capitalism and the debtfare state—to capture the material, institutional and ideological dimensions of this process. Viewed within the bounds of cannibalistic capitalism, a mode of accumulation primarily based on the expansion of fictitious capital and secondary forms of exploitation, the debtfare state enhances the social power of money by allowing major credit card issuers (banks) to generate high levels of income from uncapped interest rates and policies that ensure the extension of plastic money to those who fall within Marx's category of the surplus population. While the expansion of debt subjects surplus workers to the disciplinary requirements of the market, it is unable to suspend the main tensions of cannibalistic capitalism, prompting ongoing reconstructions of the debtfare state.


This dissertation looks at health care technology using the tools and methods of economics. The particular focus is on the causes and implications of dynamic changes in health care technology over time. The dissertation utilizes methodologies developed in public finance to consider the effects of policy change on technological innovation and adoption. I first look at the impact of Medicare's prospective payment system and how it influences which technologies get developed and adopted. This presents an ideal case study because the government implemented the system nationwide in 1983, and there have been many years for innovators to respond to the different financial incentives. Prospective payment theoretically penalizes hospitals for adopting technologies that treat illnesses common among the elderly. This chapter evaluates weather we see empirical evidence that there has been fewer innovative developments targeting illnesses common among the elderly compared to illnesses common among the non-elderly. The data paint a picture that supports the theoretical predictions, and upholds the idea that payment incentives do indeed impact which technologies get developed in the first place.The next chapter looks at a much smaller government change and its short run effect on hospital behavior. Every year, the government adds a few new procedures to the list of icd-9-cm codes. These codes make it easier for hospitals to bill insurers for procedures. This chapter investigates empirically and finds that there is a sudden jump in the number of procedures performed in the quarter when a new code is introduced and that this jump persists going forward. It also looks at different sub-groups of insurers and hospitals, and finds that patients whose insurers depend most heavily on the icd-9-cm codes have the largest jump in the probability of undergoing the procedure in the quarter when it is introduced. The jump in treatment is non-existent for Medicare patients and self-pay patients, for whom the icd-9-cm procedure code is irrelevant. The final chapter investigates changes in ADHD medication over time. Understanding these changes is important in understanding the diffusion of new technology. This project looks at a time period, 2001 to 2003, when a long-acting version of ADHD medication was spreading, which makes it interesting from a technological standpoint. The project particularly asks why some counties have higher growth rates in medication than other counties. What factors lead to faster diffusion in a particular geographic region? My co-authors and I find that supply side characteristics, such as physicians per capita and a younger age distribution among physicians, leads to a faster rate of diffusion. These findings together shed light on some specific key questions about health care technology and how it changes over time. These issues will become increasingly important as health care costs escalate and as policymakers strive to make health care more affordable. Economists have long claimed that new technology plays the biggest role in cost growth. While new technology brings benefits as well as costs, economists will need more tools for evaluating technology cost-effectiveness if cost containment becomes an important enough political goal. This project sheds light on some of the matters that will need to be fleshed out in greater detail if we eventually want to understand innovation's role in rising costs.


Exposure of the operative field and adequate illumination are essential to cardiovascular surgery. The standard fixed surgical lamp may provide acceptable lighting for most surgical procedures, but the cardiovascular surgeon often needs more intense lighting to perform a small, tedious anastomosis. We have found the fiberoptic headlamp to be a satisfactory device for lighting the surgical field in all types of cardiovascular surgery. Optical loupes can also greatly enhance the ability of the surgeon to perform more accurately. These 2 devices are now surgical requisites to obtain the better results and to prevent hemorrhage and thrombosis after operation.


Eighteen extracts of spices commonly consumed worldwide and grown naturally in Turkey were tested against twenty three bacterial strains to compare their antibacterial effects with eleven antibiotics. Eight pathogens and fifteen lactobacilli isolated from chick intestine were used as the test microorganisms. Pathogens (six different Staphylococcus aureus strains, Escherichia coli ATCC 25922 and Yersinia enterocolitica ATCC 1501) were grown in Nutrient broth and lactobacilli in MRS broth. Hop extracts formed inhibition zones against S. aureus strains of upto 36 mm. Inhibitory effects of hop extracts against S. aureuswere generally higher than that of erythromycin as antibiotic. Helichrysum compactum extract produced an inhibition zone of 23mm to E. coli ATCC 25922 and 26mm to Y. enterocolitica ATCC 1501. Helichrysum compactum extract inhibited the growth of Y. enterocolitica ATCC 1501 more than other spice extracts. While inhibition zones of these extracts against lactobacilli were found smaller than on S. aureus strains, inhibition zones of the same extracts against lactobacilli were found similar to those of E. coli ATCC 25922 and Y. enterocolitica ATCC 1501.


The integration of carbon captured by forest ecosystems into forest management planning models has become increasingly more important, particularly in the areas of climate change, land use, and sustainable forest management. The main objective of this work is to develop a multiple-use forest management plan - ning model that focuses on the interactions of net carbon sequestration and timber production opportunities in a forest ecosystem including forest openings. The linear programming model is used to develop various forest management scenarios for a forest that yields timber and carbon objectives. The results of forest management planning scenarios showed that increased net carbon sequestration can be attained at a signifi - cant cost in terms of forgone timber harvest and financial returns. Results also showed that reforestation of forest openings and long-term protection of forest ecosystems provides high biomass and carbon storage over the planning horizon.


We present a new direct spectroscopic calibration for a fast estimation of the stellar metallicity [Fe/H]. This calibration was computed using a large sample of 451 solar-type stars for which we have precise spectroscopic parameters derived from high quality spectra. The new [Fe/H] calibration is based on weak Fe I lines, which are expected to be less dependent on surface gravity and microturbulence, and require only a pre-determination of the effective temperature. This temperature can be obtained using a previously presented line-ratio calibration. We also present a simple code that uses the calibrations and procedures presented in these works to obtain both the effective temperature and the [Fe/H] estimate. The code, written in C, is freely available for the community and may be used as an extension of the ARES code. We test these calibrations for 582 independent FGK stars. We show that the code can be used as a precise and fast indicator of the spectroscopic temperature and metallicity for dwarf FKG stars with effective temperatures ranging from 4500 K to 6500 K and with [Fe/H] ranging from –0.8 dex to 0.4 dex.


Historical intoduction: The origin of the human being is one of the major philosophical questions. One way of answering it is through an ontogenetic and evolutionary approach. Theories about the developmental origin in the mother's womb were first documented by Greek scholars in the 5th century BC (Breidbach 2015). Being dependent on the success of reproduction, fertility has triggered human thinking for a much longer period of human evolution as is documented in the art of the Paleolithic, the Mesolithic, the Neolithic, and later phases of human cultural evolution (Fig. 1). Fertility was manifested by the representation of stout mother goddesses with a demonstrative focus on their hips and breasts (Fig. 1C) and by the presentation of erect penises in men (Fig. 1G). In some cases, the process of birth was depicted as a key event of life (Fig. 1D). Birth, pregnancy, and lactation of other vertebrate species were also of interest to ancient cultures, and were illustrated, particularly among species that played an important role in everyday life, such as prey and domesticated, mostly mammalian, animals (Fig. 1A, I). Fertility rites, including hierogamy (Fig. 1H) and sodomy (Fig. 1J), are thought to have played a major role in prehistoric cults and were meant to increase the number of offspring and to guarantee their health (Frazer 1922, Campbell 1960).
These attempts to understand and to influence our own development culminated in the artificial representation of homunculi in the Renaissance age, in which a human was "created" by alchemists in a jar. The mental construct of a test-tube baby (Fig. 1K) was a symbol for the development of the human mind itself, which alchemists tried to raise to a higher level of cognition (Gebelein 1996, Wiesing 2004). The historical representation of homunculi also corresponds to the ideas of preformationists in the 17th century that the human being is fully present as a miniature in the male's sperms and only has to unfold to progress through embryological development to a fully formed human (Fig. 1F; Hartsoeker 1694)


The dynamic behavior of intermeshing rotor blades is complex and subjected to rotor-rotor-interactions like oblique blade-vortex and blade-wake interactions. To gain a better understanding of these effects a blade deflection measurement method is proposed in this paper. The method is based on a single camera per rotor blade depicting the rotor blade from a position fixed to the rotor head. Due to the mounting position of the camera close to the rotational plane the method is called In-Plane Blade Deflection Measurement (IBDM). The basic principles, data processing and measurement accuracy are presented in the paper. The major advantages of the proposed method are the applicability to both, flight and wind tunnel trials, as well as the usability for multi-rotor configurations having a significant rotor overlap. Furthermore comparisons to other blade deflection measurement methods are presented. Finally, experimental data of a flight test of an unmanned intermeshing helicopter is presented.


While Public Key Infrastructure has had its difficulties (like most new technologies) the unique value of public key authentication in paperless transactions is now widely acknowledged. The naive early vision of a single all-purpose identity system has given way to a more sophisticated landscape of multiple PKIs, used not for managing identity per se, but rather more subtle relationships, memberships, credentials and so on. It is well-known that PKI's successes have mostly been in closed schemes. Until now, this fact was often regarded as a compromise; many held out hope that a bigger general purpose PKI would still eventuate. But I argue that the dominance of closed PKI over open is better understood as reflecting the reality of identity plurality, which independently is becoming the norm through the Laws of Identity and related frameworks. This paper introduces the term "Public Key Superstructure" to describe a new approach to knitting together existing mature PKI components to improve the utility and strategic appeal of digital certificates. The "superstructure" draws on useful precedents in the security printing industry for manufacturing specialised security goods without complicated or unnatural liabilities, and international accreditation arrangements for achieving cross-border recognition of certificates. The model rests on a crucial re-imagining of certificates as standing for relationships rather than identities. This elegant re-interpretation of otherwise standard elements could truly be a paradigm shift for PKI, for it normalises digital certificates, grounding them in familiar, even mundane management processes. It will bring profound yet easily realised benefits for liability, cost, interoperability, scalability, accreditation, and governance.


We present a new method for automatically forecasting the occurrence of solar flares based on photospheric magnetic measurements. The method is a cascading combination of an ordinal logistic regression model and a support vector machine classifier. The predictive variables are three photospheric magnetic parameters, i.e., the total unsigned magnetic flux, length of the strong-gradient magnetic polarity inversion line, and total magnetic energy dissipation. The output is true or false for the occurrence of a certain level of flares within 24 hours. Experimental results, from a sample of 230 active regions between 1996 and 2005, show the accuracies of a 24-hour flare forecast to be 0.86, 0.72, 0.65 and 0.84 respectively for the four different levels. Comparison shows an improvement in the accuracy of X-class flare forecasting.


It is timely with the agenda of polytechnic educational transformation, this research was
initiated to examine the effects of Problem Based Learning (PBL) on students'
knowledge acquisitions, critical thinking ability, and intrinsic motivation and thus to
propose a PBL instructional procedure, for the polytechnic's electrical engineering
course. An experiment, consisting of pre-test and post-test, was carried out on 53
undergraduate students of electrical engineering course, who attended the Electrical
Technology Module (ET101) in their first semester. A control group was maintained in
order to verify the results of the experiment. The treatment used a special design of PBL
procedures in the experimental group for a ten weeks period, and the existing method of
conventional teaching was retained in the control group. Participants completed pre-test
and post-tests based on three instruments: knowledge acquisition test, translated version
of The Cornell Critical Thinking Test Specimen set, and intrinsic motivation
questionnaire. The data were analysed using MANCOVA and results were obtained.
Students' knowledge acquisition in the PBL group was significantly higher than that of
their counterparts [F (1, 44) = 5.37, p < 0.05], with medium effect size (d = .68).
Students' intrinsic motivation in the PBL group was significantly higher than that of
their counterparts, [F (1, 44) = 5.18, p < 0.05], with medium effect size (d = .68).
However, students' critical thinking ability in the PBL group was not significantly
different from that of their counterparts in the TLA group [F (1, 44) = .019, p > 0.05].
Therefore, it can be concluded that PBL enhances students' knowledge acquisitions and
intrinsic motivation, but does not improve students' critical thinking ability as compared
to conventional approach. The implication is that the PBL procedures used in this study
may be useful for educators in polytechnics, though some modifications are required to
fine-tune the original framework for future implementation.


Face recognition is considered as one of the emerging topics in computer vision application. Currently biometric research is mainly focused on automated face recognition in various applications such as surveillance application in various public security measures. Face recognition is a biometric system used to categorize or authenticate a person from a digital image by extracting its features and then distinguishing it, regardless external conditions. This learning version has mainly two motives: first one is the extensive assortment of profitable and regulation implementation claims, second is the convenience of possible skills. This paper is organised as three sections. The first section describes brief introduction to face recognition. The second section types of face recognition and various problems affecting the process and finally third section describes a comparative study of different face recognition methods.


We have designed and fabricated double-gate ambipolar field-effect transistors, which exhibit p-type and n-type characteristics by controlling the polarity of the second gate. In this work, we present an approach for designing an efficient regular layout, called Sea-of-Tiles (SoTs). First, we address gate-level routing congestion by proposing compact layout techniques and novel symbolic-layout styles. Second, we design four logic tiles, which form the basic building block of the SoT fabric. We run extensive comparisons of mapping standard benchmarks on the SoT. Our study shows that SoT with TileG2 and TileG1h2, on an average, outperforms the one with TileG1 and TileG3 by 16% and 10% in area utilization, respectively.


The main purpose of this thesis is to look at how and why some strikes are more successful than others by applying mobilization theory and organizational leaning (OL) theory in the case of the Korean banking sector. It aims to observe the relationship between the effectiveness of mobilization and OL in unions by looking at how learning from previous strikes influenced strategy-making and outcomes of subsequent strikes. By focusing on four strikes in the Korean banking sector, the research explores how OL in unions affects the effectiveness of mobilization. It is thus intended to revisit and contribute to the existing theories of mobilization and OL. The sector has undergone massive restructuring since the national financial crisis, which was part of an Asian foreign currency crisis, in 1997. The Korean Financial Industrial Union (KFIU) organized four strikes between 1998 and 2003 against the restructuring in order to protect employment security. The union failed to gain satisfactory results at the first and third strikes, but were successful at the second and fourth actions. The evidence, based on interviews and primary and secondary documentation, from these four strikes suggests that the more successful results derived from the existence of positive learning (or OL) from previous strikes. In other words, when the union conducted higher-level learning, such as the adjustment of overall norms or rules and the change of organizational structures, it was able to increase strategic capacity. It was able to devise a more effective strategy, thereby more effectively mobilizing resources and opportunities. This, in turn, led to successful outcomes from the following strike. Studying the learning processes in unions reveals the function of dialogical organization in power (or mobilization). Thus, unions are more likely to succeed in mobilization when they conduct meaningful dialogical learning.


Abstract The distribution of anionic groups in fibres, fines, the colloidal fraction, and the dissolved fraction of thermomechanical pulp (TMP) suspensions was determined. The influence of extraction, alkaline treatment, and peroxide bleaching of spruce TMP were also studied. Spruce TMP was extracted with hexane, treated with alkali, or bleached with peroxide. Suspensions were made at pH 5.5 or 8, and fractionated into long fibres, large fines, small fines, a colloidal fraction, and a dissolved fraction. The surface and total charge of the fractions were determined separately by polyelectrolyte titration. To determine the origin of the charges, the contents of fatty acids, resin acids, and acidic units in polysaccharides in the different fractions were determined by gas chromatography. Extraction of TMP with hexane prior to fractionation increased the measured total and surface charge of the fibres. The removal of wood resin probably uncovered some anionic groups on the fibre surface, or improved the penetration of the polymers into the pores of the fibres. The total charge, determined with polybrene titration, of the fines and the colloidal fraction was lower when the resin had been removed, while the surface charge, determined with poly-DADMAC, was not greatly affected. Alkaline treatment of the TMP increased both the total charge and the surface charge of the fibres and fines, mainly because of demethylation of pectins. Alkaline treatment also increased the total and surface charge of the dissolved substances, due to the release of pectic acids into the water phase. Alkaline peroxide bleaching further increased the total and surface charge of fibres and dissolved substances, most likely due to oxidation of lignin. The total charge and the surface charge of the colloidal substances, consisting mainly of wood resin, were only slightly affected by alkaline treatment and peroxide bleaching. The anionic charge in TMP suspensions originated mainly from free uronic acids in the xylans, arabinogalactans, and pectic acids. The contribution from the fatty and resin acids was substantial only for the colloidal fraction.


The World Health Organization (WHO) claims that each year approximately 303,000 newborns die due congenital anomalies. These such of diseases can produce long-term disabilities, and the three most critical congenital anomalies are heart defects, neural tube defects, and Down syndrome (DS). Ecuador is a country with a high prevalence of DS, since 1 out of every 700 children born with this disease. On the other hand, worldwide, the number of children born with DS is 1 per 1,000. For these reasons, in this paper, we present a technological tool aimed at supporting the school curriculum for children from 6 to 12 years with DS. This tool relies on a low-cost robotic assistant, a mobile app, and a module to suggest educational activities for the children. With the aim of determining the children's response to the robot as well as to the mobile application, we have conducted a first pilot experiment with 21 children (without disabilities). Each of the participating children interacted with the system, and after this activity, they responded a survey. The initial results have shown that children are very interested and motivated to perform educational activities with the robot.


The study aims to investigate lean manufacturing from a bibliometric perspective. A systematic analysis was performed on 1893 documents extracted from the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science (WoS) Collection under the "Lean Manufacturing" (LM) subject category between 1970 to 2020. The R programming is utilized for determining the evolution and progress of lean through the topmost contributing publications, authors, journals, and countries. The network representation is performed using VOS viewer, highlighting the focus areas of LM with co-occurrence, co-citation, and bibliographical coupling of the extracted data. The results indicate LM was initially focused predominantly on topics such as lean thinking and organizational performance by various authors. Later, the LM topic was integrated with six sigma, sustainability, and environmental assessments for overall process improvements. The major contributors in this research area are the United States of America and India. The study attempts to fully comprehend LM, its application, and trends to promote further research.


In the Midwest U.S. dominated corn-soybean landscape, agroforestry systems can be particularly valuable for increasing the provisioning and regulatory capacity of the agricultural landscape. However, these systems have not yet been broadly integrated into the landscape of this region since they are mostly relegated to marginal lands. A growing body of literature suggests a path to increase the adoption of agroforestry in the Midwest U.S. lies in the incorporation of low-input food-producing tree species that provide economic incentives for farmers. Studies of the system-level integration of such approaches have proceeded by using the currently available cultivars and breeding selections of various tree nut and fruit species. While existing varieties and breeding selections provide the opportunity for initial system development and integration, their broad adaptability to the Midwest U.S. and its marginal land-types is unexplored. Thus, a second tier of research includes the genetic improvement and adaptation of tree crop selections to their respective target environments throughout the Midwest U.S. Fortunately, select tree crops of interest are amendable to systematic breeding and have wild relatives that are endemic across the region. In this paper, we discuss the value of these wild relatives for broadening the adaption of cultivated tree crop selections by using the hazelnut as an example species. We present a framework using geospatial tools to define and prioritize target environments for breeding and, in turn, exploiting wild relative germplasm.


The thesis presents a novel Internet-based controller designed with the remote controller computer synchronizing its clock with the local computer. An observer-based state feedback control strategy is proposed to compensate the Internet delay and improve the system performance. Asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system is achieved without the assumption of reliable transmission from the controller computer to the local computer, which reduces the requirement for high performance Internet access. Computer simulations are conducted to evaluate the proposed control strategy, and the results have confirmed its effectiveness. The experimental result have demonstrated the supreme performance of the proposed control strategy.


CYPRESS BASIN OF FLORIDA by Daniel A. Crawford (Under the Direction of Richard B. Chandler and Karl V. Miller) ABSTRACT White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the Big Cypress Basin of Florida encounter a unique set of abiotic and biotic factors, including seasonal flooding and risk of predation, that affect resource selection and space use. Reported declines in local deer populations in recent years warrants renewed focus on the effects of hydrology and predation on deer populations, particularly in light of increased Florida panther (Puma concolor coryi) abundance. To assess the effects of predation risk and seasonal fluctuations in hydrology on the behavioral and spatial ecology of deer, I analyzed camera trap and GPS-telemetry data in the context of the white-tailed deer reproductive cycle and conclude that hydrology and risk of predation by panthers profoundly influence deer behavior and space use as deer attempt to forage optimally under the constraints of predation risk and unpredictable temporal variability in resource availability.


Consider qn a random pointed quadrangulation chosen equally likely among the pointed quadrangulations with n faces. In this paper we show that, when n goes to +∞, qn suitably normalized converges weakly in a certain sense to a random limit object, which is continuous and compact, and that we name the Brownian map. The same result is shown for a model of rooted quadrangulations and for some models of rooted quadrangulations with random edge lengths. A metric space of rooted (resp. pointed) abstract maps that contains the model of discrete rooted (resp. pointed) quadrangulations and the model of the Brownian map is defined. The weak convergences hold in these metric spaces.


Dr GILLIAN SLEIGHT (Community Health Offices, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford OX2 6HE) writes: Congratulations to Drs Angus Nicoll and Douglas Jenkinson for showing so clearly that 99% of children should be immunised against measles and 93-96% against whooping cough (6 August, p 406). If this common sense scheme were widely followed the rate of uptake would shoot up. Poor rates of immunisation are caused not by social deprivation as stated by Professor Brian Jarman and others (25 June, p 1775) but by the lack of knowledge of these simple facts by doctors and nurses. Professor Jarman and others found that "even allowing for social conditions the uptake of immunisation against diphtheria varied from 15% below . . to 10% above the predicted values." Why? Professional knowledge, enthusiasm, and organisation have been shown to correlate well with uptake. I Mothers in general wish to protect their children and need good advice. In Oxfordshire there is no correlation between low uptake and relative social disadvantage at electoral ward level. Professional disinterest and disorganisation should not hide under the cover of social deprivation.


We present gas temperature, density, entropy and cooling time profiles for the cores of a sample of 15 galaxy groups observed with Chandra. We find that the entropy profiles follow a power-law profile down to very small fractions of R500. Differences between the gas profiles of groups with radio loud and radio quiet BGGs are only marginally significant, and there is only a small difference in the LX : TX relations, for the central regions we study with Chandra, between the radio-loud and radio-quiet objects in our sample, in contrast to the much larger difference found on scales of the whole group in earlier work. However, there is evidence, from splitting the sample based on the mass of the central black holes, that repeated outbursts of AGN activity may have a long term cumulative effect on the entropy profiles. We argue that, to first-order, energy injection from radio so urces does not change the global structure of the gas in the cores of groups, although it can di splace gas on a local level. In most systems, it appears that AGN energy injection serves primarily to counter the effects of radiative cooling, rather than being responsible for the similarity breaking between groups and clusters.


This paper introduces the concept of workplace mobbing as a destructive organizational behaviour of psychological assaults perpetrated against the target causing them harm and loss of employment. The discussion is drawn from a three year Australian study of 212 self identified targets of workplace mobbing behaviours. The behaviours are typically covert with informal networks and friendship loyalties providing effective mechanisms for emotional abuse, including those arising from human resource management practices. This paper discusses the manipulation of informal sources of power, with the use of gossip, rumour, hearsay, and innuendo to discredit and demonise those targeted. The study explores some of the systemic reasons for these behaviours and identifies some of the contributing risk factors and suggests management practices that can minimise the harm caused.


The authors use existing, nationally representative surveys to assess the economic characteristics of individuals in three categories of seniors housing and care facilities: independent living communities (ILCs), assisted living residences (ALRs), and continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs). The findings highlight the strengths and weaknesses of using the Health and Retirement Study, National Long-Term Care Survey, and Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey to describe this segment of the population. The results suggest that residents in ILCs and ALRs have lower average incomes than the average costs of these care communities. Conversely, CCRC residents have higher incomes and more assets than those living in private homes, suggesting that CCRCs attract the wealthiest seniors. However, longitudinal analysis is prohibited by the small sample sizes.


Corrosion is a major concern for the durability of concrete structures under marine environment. In this paper three series of concrete was immerged in sea water to reseaech its development of compressive strength, microstructure and corrsosion production. The results showed that compressive strength of controlled concrete was decreased but it can further increased added fly ash and silicon fume after immerged in sea water. It can be observation by SEM and EDS that a number of complex salt was produced on the surface and AFt was produced inside controlled concrete. It can produce expand and lead to cracks. As result of fly ash and silicon fume added, the crystals of Mg(OH)2 was formed on the surface and no crystal and cracks was produced internal concrete. The compressive strength can still increase after immerged in sea water.


We employ a two-dimensional spectral element method to investigate the effect of various semi-circular blockages on the laminar flow between two flat plates. This simplified geometry has a general relevance to blocked flows, but more academically, also relates to work on the backward-facing step, presenting a qualitatively similar flow with a single, independent step, or blockage, parameter. The parameter space for Reynolds number between 50 and 3000, and blockage ratio ranging from 0.05 to 0.9 is mapped out. The results with blockage ratio of 0.5 compare favourably with previous work on the flow over a backward-facing step, with the analysis suggesting that the onset of three-dimensionality in the flow is likely to be closely matched. Flow phenomena associated with blockage ratios above and below the customary half-blockage are summarised, including smaller than expected flow separation lengths for lower blockages, and vortex shedding and unusual structures within the recirculation zones for higher blockages.


The folk-tales in this volume, which were collected in the Philippines during the years from 1908 to 1914, have not appeared in print before. They are given to the public now in the hope that they will be no mean or uninteresting addition to the volumes of Oriental Marchen already in existence. The Philippine archipelago, from the very nature of its geographical position and its political history, cannot but be a significant field to the student of popular stories. Lying as it does at the very doors of China and Japan, connected as it is ethnically with the Malayan and Indian civilizations, Occidentalized as it has been for three centuries and more, it stands at the junction of East and West. It is therefore from this point of view that these tales have been put into a form convenient for reference. Their importance consists in their relationship to the body of world fiction.


Hemophagocytosis (HP) constitutes a valuable sign in the diagnosis of a number of hematologic diseases such as malignant histiocytosis (MH). It has also been described in the course of hematologic neoplasias being extremely rare in solid tumors. We present the case of a patient with pancytopenia, hepatomegaly, skin lesions and rapidly fatal evolution in whom the finding of HP in bone marrow arouse the suspicion of a MH. The post mortem study revealed the existence of undifferentiated lung carcinoma with a high degree of invasiveness, not finding histiocytic proliferation. The cases in the literature of the association of HP with non hematological neoplasias are revised as well as its possible pathogenic mechanisms. We conclude that MH needs to be considered as a non specific finding and that exhaustive cytochemical studies are necessary for the correct identification of the phagocytic cell.


The new edition of this outstanding documents collection displays a stronger blend of social history-pieces reflecting everyday life, family, social networks, and culture-and political history-critical proclamations, treaties, laws, and other public acts. Many of the documents are translated into English for the first time and available only in this book. Informative headnotes accompany the selections, providing context and helping students with unfamiliar names, places, and events. This collection is the perfect source for a firsthand look at modern Chinese history.


The competition in Indonesia cosmetics industry is growing rapidly. Many brands of face powder available in the market have been popular and got a good qualityr. Wardah is one of halal cosmetics manufactured in Indonesia. This study aims to analyze the effect of brand trust, brand image, and celebrity endorsement on brand loyalty of Wardah face powder in Surabaya. Data collected with questionnaire which given to 97 respondents from community of Surabaya. The sample was selected by judgement sampling. The data were alanized by using MRA (Multiple Regression Analysis). The results found that brand trust has significant effect on brand loyalty. Brand image has no significant effect on brand loyalty and celebrity endorsement has no significant effect on brand loyalty. The results show that brand trust, brand image and celebrity endorsement effect significantly on brand loyalty. The implication is to improve the brand trust by holding event beauty class for consumert to get more trust  in the facial powderof  Wardah, and to increase the service for  the  consumers and adjust the price for them.


The first generation biofuels which is coming from food crops for instance grain and sugar beet are inadequate to achieve desirable oil products because of the scarcity to food supply, therefore the importance of second generation biofuels has increased. Another advantage of second generation biofuel is that the feedstock (non-food-biomass) could be farmed for energy purposes, which enables better production per unit area of the land; and we could utilize the land efficiency. The feedstock of 2nd generation biofuels which are ligno-cellulose in nature includes cereal straw, bagasse, forest residue and vegetable grasses. This project has theoretically assessed the use of hydrothermal media for direct liquefaction of biomass in a continuous flow tubular reactor using ANSYS Fluent and other relevant software?s. Micro-reactor is considered for better heat and mass transfer, also micro-reactor provides admissible control over unwanted side reactions. The exact reaction path of biomass dissociation is unknown therefore lumped kinetic is considered for model species like cellulose, hemi-cellulose and lignin. Computationally the velocity, temperature distribution, reaction kinetic, feed percentage and particle modeling are examined. It is being vindicated by results that the effect of fluid velocity over reactor domain is tremendous, and has high influence on temperature profile inside the reactor. The geometry of different dimensions is also investigated, which play integral role in the system. Furthermore, the effect of large or small eddies is examined by weightless particle and discussed in the result section. The optimum biomass particle size is proposed, which is suitable for our system. For future work, the predicted operating conditions for micro flow tubular reactor by simulation must be validated by experimental work. This computation work will facilitate and provide essential information to start experimental work.


On January 10th, 1979, the Labour prime minister James Callaghan landed at Heathrow Airport after an international summit on the sun-drenched French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. By contrast, snowbound Britain was in the midst of industrial chaos: strikes, go-slows and work-to-rules. The Sun newspaper famously misreported Callaghan's short-tempered reply to a reporter's question at a hasty airport press conference under the banner headline 'Crisis? What Crisis?' What Callaghan actually said was: 'I don't think other people in the world will share the view that there is mounting chaos.' But, as Tom (now Lord) McNally, then head of Callaghan's political office, later recalled, the prime minister handled the conference badly and appeared totally out of touch with the escalating industrial and political drama.


Recommendation systems play a vital role to keep users engaged with personalized content in modern online platforms. Deep learning has revolutionized many research fields and there is a recent surge of interest in applying it to collaborative filtering (CF). However, existing methods compose deep learning architectures with the latent factor model ignoring a major class of CF models, neighborhood or memory-based approaches. We propose Collaborative Memory Networks (CMN), a deep architecture to unify the two classes of CF models capitalizing on the strengths of the global structure of latent factor model and local neighborhood-based structure in a nonlinear fashion. Motivated by the success of Memory Networks, we fuse a memory component and neural attention mechanism as the neighborhood component. The associative addressing scheme with the user and item memories in the memory module encodes complex user-item relations coupled with the neural attention mechanism to learn a user-item specific neighborhood. Finally, the output module jointly exploits the neighborhood with the user and item memories to produce the ranking score. Stacking multiple memory modules together yield deeper architectures capturing increasingly complex user-item relations. Furthermore, we show strong connections between CMN components, memory networks and the three classes of CF models. Comprehensive experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of CMN on three public datasets outperforming competitive baselines. Qualitative visualization of the attention weights provide insight into the model's recommendation process and suggest the presence of higher order interactions.


Abstract: Experimental evidence from animal models has provided a framework for our current understanding of autoimmune disease pathogenesis and supports the importance of genetic predisposition, molecular mimicry, and immune dysregulation. However, only recently has evidence emerged to support the role of immune dysregulation in human organ-specific autoimmune disease. In the current study of the "late" manifestation of autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) in a cohort of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive patients following highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), we discuss how immune dysregulation and factors associated with the immunopathology of HIV infection fit the current understanding of autoimmunity and provide a plausible basis for our clinical observations. De novo diagnoses of thyroid disease were identified between 1996 and 2002 in 7 HIV treatment centers (5/7 centers completed the study). Patients were diagnosed as clinical case entities and not discovered through thyroid function test screening. Paired plasma specimens were used to demonstrate sequential rise in thyroid antibodies. Seventeen patients were diagnosed with AITD (median age, 38 yr; 65% were of black African or black Caribbean ethnicity; and 82% were female). The median duration of immune reconstitution was 17 months. Graves disease (GD) was diagnosed in 15 of 17 patients. One patient developed hashithyrotoxicosis with atypically raised C-reactive protein, and another developed hypothyroidism. One GD patient had associated secondary hypoadrenalism. The estimated combined prevalence of GD for 4 treatment centers for female patients was 7/234 and for males was 2/1289. The denominator numbers were matched controls, from 4 centers able to provide data, who commenced HAART during the same time (January 1996 to July 2002) and who did not develop clinical AITD. The mean baseline pre-HAART CD4 count was 67 cells/mL3, and the mean increase from nadir to AITD presentation was 355 cells/mL3. AITD patients were more likely than controls (95% confidence interval, chi-square test) to be severely compromised at baseline (as defined by a CD4 count < 200 cells/mL3 or the presence of an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome [AIDS]-defining diagnosis), and to experience greater CD4 increments following HAART. AITD may be a late manifestation of immune reconstitution in HIV-positive patients taking HAART, and immune dysregulation may be an important factor. Abbreviations: AITD = autoimmune thyroid disease, CDC = Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, GD = Graves disease, HAART = highly active antiretroviral therapy, HIV = human immunodeficiency virus, TSH = thyroid stimulating hormone, TSHR = thyroid stimulating hormone receptor, VL = viral load.


In patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), overexpression of programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) on tumour-infiltrating immune cells (IC) increases the propensity for cancer cells to evade immune surveillance. Atezolizumab (Tecentriq®), a monoclonal antibody designed to inhibit PD-L1, enables both the activation of T-cells and restoring their ability to effectively detect and destroy tumour cells. During the phase III, IMpassion130 trial, 902 treatment-naive advanced TNBC patients were randomised 1:1 to 840 mg atezolizumab IV or placebo IV on days 1 and 15, plus 100 mg/m2 nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane®) IV on days 1, 8, and 15 of every 28-day cycle, until disease progression or toxicity. Adding atezolizumab increased the rate of progression-free survival (PFS) by 6%, prolonged median PFS by 1.7 months, and reduced the risk of progression or death by 20% compared to chemotherapy alone. In the PD-L1-positive subgroup, adding atezolizumab increased the rate of PFS by 13%, prolonged median PFS by 2.5 months, and reduced the risk of progression or death by 38% compared to nab-paclitaxel alone. No statistically significant differences in overall survival (OS) were noted between groups (21.3 months atezolizumab- versus 17.6 months placebo combination). Combination therapy with atezolizumab increased the objective response rate (ORR) and duration of response (DOR) in the intention-to-treat (ITT) and PD-L1-positive group compared to chemotherapy alone (10% versus 16%; 1.8 months versus 3.0 months, respectively. Atezolizumab was associated with neutropenia, decreased neutrophils, peripheral neuropathy, fatigue, anaemia and immune-mediated adverse events. Overall, adding atezolizumab to nab-paclitaxel as first-line therapy for advanced TNBC prolongs PFS and reduces the risk of progression or death. The PFS benefit of atezolizumab combination therapy over chemotherapy alone was also consistent in the PD-L1-positive subgroup. These results are consistent with previous reports suggesting first-line atezolizumab, PD-L1 expression ≥1, and >10% tumour-infiltrating IC are independently associated with increased ORR and PFS. Mature OS data and quality of life measures are needed to ensure patients achieve a clinically relevant benefit over time despite manageable toxicity. Further studies are needed to identify predictive immune biomarkers selective of responders, combination strategies that enhance tumour immunogenicity, and to determine whether these findings extend to other chemoimmunotherapy combinations.


Obesity has reached pandemic proportions in the developed world. The discovery that white adipocytes have the capacity to undergo browning to become metabolically-active beige cells has generated significant interest in the field of metabolic medicine. However, the study of adipose tissue browning has been hampered by a lack of imaging modalities that permit longitudinal and non-invasive monitoring of this process. To this end, we designed near infra-red (NIR) fluorescence protein iRFP720-Ucp1 reporter construct, in which the expression of iRFP720 is driven by a mini UCP1 promoter. Non-invasive assessment of adipose beiging during adrenergic stimulation was performed by viral transduction of mouse white adipocytes, followed by multi-spectral optoacoustic imaging technology with ultrasound tomography (MSOT-US). We observed increased iRFP720 fluorescence coupled with attenuated lipid signals upon stimulation. As proof of concept, we validated our approach against the hybrid positron emission tomography combined with magnetic resonance (PET/MR) imaging modality, and quantified the extent of adipose browning by MRI-guided segmentation of PET signals. Notably, the browning extent detected by the iRFP720 reporter system with MSOT-US and the 18-FDG uptake in PET/MR are well correlated with Ucp1 induction. Together, these systems provide platforms for preclinical screening of compounds aimed to promote adipose browning and facilitate the translation of these discoveries into pharmacological treatments for obesity. Disclosure D. Chan: None. S. Sugii: Stock/Shareholder; Self; Celligenics. W. Han: None.


When the position of Director of Visual Resources was transferred from the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (the School) to the University Libraries a dramatic scope drift occurred. There was a physical move down the hall within the School, from the Visual Resources Collection room to the Architecture Branch Library. The Director was reassigned as Visual Resources Librarian (with faculty status) and would run the Visual Resources Collection within the Library. Within a month, as the Architecture Librarian was moved across the street to run the Art Library, various subject librarian tasks were added to the Visual Resources Librarian job description. Training in reference interviews, selecting a mentor, and gaining access to collection development funds followed quickly, as did a new position title; the Visual Resources Librarian became the next Architecture Librarian. Although initially intimidated by the sheer numbers of databases and journal subscriptions, it became apparent that collection development skills, student employee supervision skills, budget management experience, image cataloging knowledge, and photography instruction sessions could all be applied to the new job as the Architecture Librarian. The growth of the image collection is one part of the architecture librarian's job, along with all the other aspects of running the architecture branch library. The new librarian has been quite successful at this position, thanks to all the experience gained while running the School's Visual Resources Center.


To what extent does the law of armed conflict (LOAC) apply to the United States military fighting in armed conflicts? Though the question seems straightforward enough, the answer is anything but. This article explains, in general, why the answer is imprecise and unsatisfying as applied to the most prevalent type of contemporary armed conflict, non-international. More specifically, this article argues that the U.S. government's primary response of claiming to apply LOAC as a matter of policy when and where that law wouldn't otherwise apply is superficially persuasive but not substantively responsive.


Moving target defense provides opportunities for adaptive defense in embedded systems. A great deal of work has been done on incorporating moving target defense techniques into enterprise systems to increase the cost to attackers and level the playing field. A smaller body of work focuses on implementing these techniques in embedded systems, which can greatly benefit from adaptive self-defense techniques. This work implements a network shuffling proof of concept in the Zephyr real time operating system to tackle the challenge of incorporating shuffling techniques into embedded systems. A host-centric, high security implementation is provided which maximizes attacker uncertainty and minimizes the impact of host compromise. Identifiers are utilized at the datalink, network, and transport layers and rotated per connection using keys shared between host pairs. Existing shuffling schemes are explored, including those targeted to IoT contexts. Existing limitations in protecting embedded systems are considered along with the presented by moving target defense. The design details and implementation of incorporating a moving target defense module to in the Zephyr networking stack is provided. The protection provided by the scheme is evaluated and it is compared to existing address shuffling schemes. Future work in better handling data forwarding and collisions in the proof of concept scheme are considered. Options for adapting and building on the scheme to meet the needs of system designers are explored. This work provides system designers with insights into implementing address shuffling in embedded systems.


This paper reports on findings from an irrigation water management study conducted in northern Oman. Although numerous descriptive accounts exist, quantitative research on the management and costs of irrigation water has been limited. As a result, very little is understood about the technical and economic performance of dominant irrigation practices within the agricultural sector. Based on research results from farmer surveys and direct monitoring of water use in the region, an attempt is made to provide a more thorough understanding of the costs to the farmer for irrigation water and related levels of water use performance. This paper argues that there is an inverse relationship between the cost to the farmer for irrigation water and the way that the water is managed. When access to ground water is available at relatively low costs, there is a tendency for the resource to he used excessively and managed inefficiently. This, in turn results in serious environmental consequences and threatens the sustainability of irrigated agricultural production in the region. In such cases, alternatives must be sought by which unrestricted access to low cost water can be limited. The paper also discusses existing programs and suggests priorities, which will serve to facilitate effective development planning and the establishment of appropriate water management and irrigation programs


Accumulated evidence suggests that GLUT-2, in addition to its role in glucose transport, may also have other functions in glucose-stimulated insulin secretion. As a first step in addressing this possibility, we have engineered MIN6 cells overexpressing human GLUT-2 by transfection with human GLUT-2 cDNA. Stable transformants harboring human GLUT-2 cDNA exhibited an approximately twofold increase in 3-O-methyl-D-glucose uptake at 0.5 and 15 mM. Glucokinase activity or glucose utilization measured by conversion of [5-3H]glucose to [3H]H2O was not, however, altered in the MIN6 cells overexpressing human GLUT-2. Furthermore, glucose-stimulated insulin secretion was not affected by over-expression of human GLUT-2. An abundance of GLUT-2, therefore, does not correlate with the glucose responsiveness of cells in which glycolysis is regulated at the glucose phosphorylating step. These data suggest that GLUT-2 by itself does not have significant functions other than its role in glucose transport in glucose sensing by MIN6 cells.


Two intelligent-based models which do not require complete gas compositions are presented to estimate natural gas density correction factor using comprehensive datasets (nearly 60 000 instances) originating from the AGA8-DCM (Detail Characterization Method) standard: (1) NGDC-ANN model (Natural Gas Density Calculator based on Artificial Neural Network) and (2) AGA8-GCMD model (Gross Characterization Method Developed by applying genetic algorithm technique). In the suggested models, only five input variables (specific gravity at base condition, operating temperature and pressure and molar composition of CO2 and N2) are employed. The experimental datasets obtained from this work (68 instances) and literature (505 instances) are applied to validate the developed model showing a very good agreement between experimental and estimated data. Simplicity, improving accuracy and satisfactory results of the suggested models over a wide range of operational conditions show that these models would be excellent alternatives for the traditional standard methods, so that, the NGDC-ANN model prediction besides of its simplicity to use show the highest accuracy over a wide of operational range in comparison to similar models.


This volume comprises research papers presented at the International Conference on Informatics and Communication Technologies for Societal Development (ICICTS 2014) held at Karunya University, India. The content focuses on the recent advancements in image or signal processing, computer vision, communication technologies, soft computing, advanced computing, data mining and knowledge discovery. The primary objective of this volume is to facilitate advancement and application of the knowledge and to promote ideas that solve problems faced by society through cutting-edge technologies. The chapters contain selected articles from academicians, researchers and industry experts in the form of frameworks, models and architectures. Practical approaches, observations and results of research that promotes societal development are also incorporated. This volume will serve as a useful compendium for interested readers and researchers working towards societal development from the technological perspective.


A novel 3D porous copper foam (CF) with superhydrophobic or superhydrophilic properties is successfully fabricated and applied for oil/water and water-in-oil emulsion separations. The mechanical strength and pore size of the CF is easily tuned using an inexpensive and controllable electrodeposition method. A two-way channel separator is designed and made by the combination of two complementary modified CFs. It is found that such a system has a high separation efficiency and high-flux (about 186 800 L m−2 h−1) for continuous separation of oil/water with good reusability. Furthermore, due to the capillary tunnel effect in the material, the content of the oil in the purified water can be reduced to less than 20 ppm while the oil purity reaches higher than 99.99%. Surprisingly, the superhydrophobic CFs with a pore radius of less than 150 μm can completely separate the water-in-oil emulsion with high-flux (6560 L m−2 h−1) and high separation efficiency, and the oil purity reaches higher than 99.89%, even when the pore sizes are 7–30 times larger than those of droplet size in the water-in-oil emulsions. It is considered that the cage-like structure can promote demulsification and has a unique self-ascending effect, which can enhance demulsification by the micrometer-sized water droplet collision coalescence on gravity, and self-ascending coalescence. It is expected that such a technology can provide a new method for the separation of oil/water mixtures efficiently in a practical process.


BACKGROUND The method of multiple targets overall control is increasingly used to predict the main active ingredient and potential target group of Chinese traditional medicines and to determine the mechanisms involved in their curative effects. Qingdai is the main traditional Chinese medicine used in the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), but the complex active ingredients and antitumor targets in treatment of CML have not been clearly defined in previous studies. MATERIAL AND METHODS We constructed a protein-protein interaction network diagram of CML with 638 nodes (proteins) and 1830 edges, based on the biological function of chronic myelocytic leukemia by use of Cytoscape, and we determined 19 key gene nodes in the CML molecule by network topological properties analysis in a data bank. Then, we used the Surflex-dock plugin in SYBYL7.3 docking and acquired the protein crystal structures of key genes involved in CML from the chemical composition of the traditional Chinese medicine Qingdai with key proteins in CML networks. RESULTS According to the score and the spatial structure, the pharmacodynamically active ingredients of Qingdai are Isdirubin, Isoindigo, N-phenyl-2-naphthylamine, and Isatin, among which Isdirubin is the most important. We further screened the most effective activity key protein structures of CML to find the best pharmacodynamically active ingredients of Qingdai, according to the binding interactions of the inhibitors at the catalytic site performed in best docking combinations. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that Isdirubin plays a role in resistance to CML by altering the expressions of PIK3CA, MYC, JAK2, and TP53 target proteins. Network pharmacology and molecular docking technology can be used to search for possible reactive molecules in traditional chinese medicines (TCM) and to elucidate their molecular mechanisms.


[1] A model has been developed to retrieve phytoplankton absorption, a proxy for phytoplankton biomass, from observations of reflectance (R) and the diffuse attenuation coefficient (Kd) collected by moored radiometers in coastal waters, where high concentrations of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) confound conventional ocean color algorithms. The inversion uses simultaneously two forward models: (1) a look-up table (LUT) that accounts for instrument geometry and the effect of the solar angle on both R and Kd and (2) an analytical function describing the effects of Sun-induced fluorescence (SIF) of chlorophyll on R. Estimates of phytoplankton biomass (mostly from SIF), the absorption by colored matter, and the particulate backscattering coefficients (mostly from the LUT) are obtained by optimizing the amplitude and shape of the absorption and backscattering coefficients in the forward model to best match the observations. An equation describing the quantum yield of fluorescence (photons fluoresced/photons absorbed) as a function of incident irradiance constrains the model and allows estimates of phytoplankton absorption. Innovations include: the utilization of both R and Kd, providing good separation of the effects of backscattering from absorption; avoidance of reflectance bands between 400 and 600 nm, thereby avoiding interference from bottom reflection and CDOM fluorescence; utilization of the full emission band of SIF; and accounting for the irradiance-dependence of its quantum yield. The model effectively retrieved chlorophyll concentration from an independent data set — r = 0.76, n = 93, with a mean absolute percent error (MAPE) of 24%; this is better than a modern ocean color algorithm (OC4V4) on its validation data set, when restricted to the same range of chlorophyll (r = 0.67, n = 384, MAPE = 51%).


Twin elliptic inclined tandem jets are emitted within an oncoming cooler crossflow. The jets contain a non reactive fume whose dispersion is tracked all over the surrounding domain. Such a configuration may be found in chimney stacks, ships' chimneys, etc. We propose to evaluate in the present paper the impact of the jets' height on the resulting dispersion process. To reach this goal, a numerical simulation of a double jet model of variable height is carried out by means of the finite volume method together with a non uniform grid system. The model, validated by previous experimental data, allowed the tracking of the emitted fume by studying the evolution of a single particle contained within this fume, the Carbone dioxide (CO2) mass fraction. This is possible thanks to the assumption of handling a non reactive fume, which is adopted only to simplify the calculations. The CO2 mass fraction was mainly tracked between the emitting nozzles, in a try to find out the changes brought by the extension of the emitting jet nozzles on the flow trapped between them.


| Since the beginning of human civilization many herbs have so far been used for the treatment and management of various ailments. Spreading of bacterial resistance against antibiotics is consider one of the common problems in the medical world, so one of the most important steps in microbiological researches is to find a new antimicrobial compound with minimal side effects. One of wild herbs was Acacia ehrenbergiana Hayne commonly known as Salam, which was used as animal grazing herb especially camels, sheep and goat. Due to that it seems that this plant may contain considerable antimicrobial capacity. So the aim of this study is to investigate the antimicrobial activity of Acacia ehrenbergiana Hayne aqueous extracts on some medically important animal pathogens and to determine some phytochemical compounds. Hot and cold aqueous extract of Acacia ehrenbergiana Hayne were evaluated for their antimicrobial activity against some medically important pathogens isolated from animals and poultry farms (Staphylococcus epidermis, Escherichia coli, Streptococcus pyogens, Pseudomonas aerogenes, Salmonella typhimurium, Enterococcus, Bacillus cereus, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Candida albicans) by agar well diffusion method. Both hot and cold aqueous extract showed high antibacterial effect against the all examined pathogenic bacteria samples. While the extracts did not show any significant antifungal activity against Candida albicans. Also, phytochemical compoud of aqueous extract was determined, results of the chemical tests explain the extracts of Acacia ehrenbergiana Hayne contain alkaloids, flavnoids, tannins and saponin  compounds. So it could be concluded that the Acacia ehrenbergiana Hayne extract possess remarkable antibacterial activity against gram positive and gram negative bacteria and to be introduced as an alternative to chemical antimicrobial drugs, is required wider investigation.


This is a prospective survey performed in a large teaching hospital in the UK. The aim of the study is to assess the awareness amongst women of the benefit and use of folic acid during pregnancy and whether their knowledge improved following hospital visits. A total of 603 women participated in the study; some attending for the first time and others had more than one visit, either in their current or previous pregnancies. The survey consisted of 28 questions regarding demographic variables, including behavioural variables, and knowledge about folic acid and neural tube defects. In around 25% of cases the pregnancy was unplanned. Between 14–19% of the women that did plan their pregnancy consulted their doctor or other health care professional before conception. Nearly 98% of the women stated having heard of folic acid, however, only 42–52% knew the medical condition it protects against. The main sources of information in women who were aware of folic acid were midwives and GPs. Nearly 90% of women who attended their first antenatal visit were taking folic acid. However, only 40% knew that they should take it before pregnancy. Only between 36–46% of women knew the dietary sources of folic acid, although about 84% knew the foods that should be avoided during pregnancy. This study found that attending antenatal clinic hasn't increased women's awareness about folic acid. This study highlighted the importance of school education, Primary Care Team and Family Planning service in providing information to women about folic acid.


Large medical imaging data sets are becoming increasingly available. A common challenge in these data sets is to ensure that each sample meets minimum quality requirements devoid of significant artefacts. Despite a wide range of existing automatic methods having been developed to identify imperfections and artefacts in medical imaging, they mostly rely on data-hungry methods. In particular, the lack of sufficient scans with artefacts available for training has created a barrier in designing and deploying machine learning in clinical research. To tackle this problem, we propose a novel framework having four main components: (1) a set of artefact generators inspired by magnetic resonance physics to corrupt brain MRI scans and augment a training dataset, (2) a set of abstract and engineered features to represent images compactly, (3) a feature selection process that depends on the class of artefact to improve classification performance, and (4) a set of Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers trained to identify artefacts. Our novel contributions are threefold: first, we use the novel physics-based artefact generators to generate synthetic brain MRI scans with controlled artefacts as a data augmentation technique. This will avoid the labour-intensive collection and labelling process of scans with rare artefacts. Second, we propose a large pool of abstract and engineered image features developed to identify 9 different artefacts for structural MRI. Finally, we use an artefact-based feature selection block that, for each class of artefacts, finds the set of features that provide the best classification performance. We performed validation experiments on a large data set of scans with artificially-generated artefacts, and in a multiple sclerosis clinical trial where real artefacts were identified by experts, showing that the proposed pipeline outperforms traditional methods.


We examine the relationship between marijuana use and non-drug related crime using data on arrests from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) Program and Uniform Crime Reports. There is a positive association between self-reported use at the time of the offence and non-drug related violent, property and income-producing crime even after accounting for other substance use in the ADAM data. Reduced form equations using both data sets only provide evidence supporting a causal mechanism for property and income-producing crime. In the case of violent crime, we find a statistically significant association with arrests but not reported crime, suggesting that marijuana use may just influence the likelihood of getting caught committing these crimes.


This paper describes a doctoral research project that investigated the theme of openness in fashion, generating insights related to reworking, open design, and the lived experience of homemade clothes. A distinctive, practice-based approach to design research emerged from the project, which uses generative and participatory processes of designing and making to investigate research questions at multiple levels: from micro-scale practical challenges to much broader social issues. This multi-level structure emphasizes the theoretical contribution of the research and the methods used, and could be used to support future design-led research projects.


As a robust method of person authentication, iris biometrics is making its way in to consumer devices such as smartphones. Current iris image acquisition devices typically work under controlled environment and constrained acquisition conditions. In this paper, the adaption of iris biometrics for unconstrained, hand-held devices such as smartphones is investigated. A prototype device is presented with full system description. This device is equipped with a single image sensor with both visible and NIR sensing capabilities. The device is analysed in terms of its optical properties and iris imaging capabilities. Preliminary results indicate that there are challenges to achieve a reliable recognition performance from the images captured using this device. Current system acquires images with marginal optical quality and spatial resolution in an unconstrained acquisition scenario for iris recognition. Nevertheless, the analyses presented in this paper indicate a similar camera module with improved optics and sensor could combine iris biometrics with conventional front camera functions such as video call and the capture of selfie images.


The decision in Waltons Stores (Interstate) Ltd v Maher has been widely celebrated for liberalising the doctrine of promissory estoppel in Australian law. There has, however, been considerable disagreement as to the nature and extent of that liberalisation and, on its 25th anniversary, opinions as to the effect of the decision are more sharply divided than ever. This article analyses the three different models of promissory estoppel which have been articulated and applied in Australian law since Waltons Stores v Maher: the restraint on rights model (in which promissory estoppel can operate only as a restraint on a legal right), the legal relationship model (in which promissory estoppel can arise from a promise to enter into a particular legal relationship) and the independent source of rights model (in which promissory estoppel operates as an independent source of rights, and can arise from a promise that the promisor will behave in a particular way). All three models find both support and opposition in the post-Waltons case law. It will be argued that, as a matter of consistency and justice, the independent source of rights model is to be preferred. There are no compelling reasons of justice or policy to confine the doctrine in the manner required by the restraint on rights model or the legal relationship model.


In a European project – CoReflect – researchers in seven countries are developing, implementing and evaluating teaching sequences using a web-based platform (STOCHASMOS). The interactive web-based inquiry materials support collaborative and reflective work. The project methodology is based on the idea of design-based research, which seeks to bridge the often disconnected worlds of academia and educational practices. Hence, the teachers are engaged throughout the project. The learning environments will be iteratively tested and refined, first as pilot projects, then during local implementations, and finally during implementations and synthesis work at the European level. All learning environments are focusing "socio-scientific" issues. In this article we report from the pilot of the Swedish learning environment with an Astrobiology context. The socio-scientific driving questions were "Should we look for, and try to contact, extraterrestrial life?", and "Should we transform Mars into a planet where humans can live in the future?" The students are in their last year of compulsory school (16 years old), and worked together in triads. We report from the groups' decisions and arguments used. A majority of the groups express reluctance towards both the search of extraterrestrial life and the terraforming of Mars.


Vascular calcification significantly impairs cardiovascular physiology, and its mechanism is under investigation. Many of the same factors that modulate bone osteogenesis, including cytokines, hormones, and lipids, also modulate vascular calcification, acting through many of the same transcription factors. In some cases, such as for lipids and cytokines, the net effect on calcification is positive in the artery wall and negative in bone. The mechanism for this reciprocal relation is not established. A recent series of reports points to the possibility that two bone regulatory factors, receptor activator of NF-κB ligand (RANKL) and its soluble decoy receptor, osteoprotegerin (OPG), govern vascular calcification and may explain the phenomenon. Both RANKL and OPG are widely accepted as the final common pathway for most factors and processes affecting bone resorption. Binding of RANKL to its cognate receptor RANK induces NF-κB signaling, which stimulates osteoclastic differentiation in preosteoclasts and induces bone morphogenetic protein (BMP-2) expression in chondrocytes. A role for RANKL and its receptors in vascular calcification is spported by several findings: a vascular calcification phenotype in mice genetically deficient in OPG; an increase in expression of RANKL, and a decrease in expression of OPG, in calcified arteries; clinical associations between coronary disease and serum OPG and RANKL levels; and RANKL induction of calcification and osteoblastic differentiation in valvular myofibroblasts.


Interatomic potentials are widely used in computational materials science, in particular for simulations that are too computationally expensive for density functional theory (DFT). Most interatomic potentials have a limited application range and often there is very limited information available regarding their performance for specific simulations. We carried out high-throughput calculations for molybdenum and silicon with DFT and a number of interatomic potentials. We compare the DFT reference calculations and experimental data to the predictions of the interatomic potentials. We focus on a large number of basic materials properties, including the cohesive energy, atomic volume, elastic coefficients, vibrational properties, thermodynamic properties, surface energies and vacancy formation energies, which enables a detailed discussion of the performance of the different potentials. We further analyze correlations between properties as obtained from DFT calculations and how interatomic potentials reproduce these correlations, and suggest a general measure for quantifying the accuracy and transferability of an interatomic potential. From our analysis we do not establish a clearcut ranking of the potentials as each potential has its strengths and weaknesses. It is therefore essential to assess the properties of a potential carefully before application of the potential in a specific simulation. The data presented here will be useful for selecting a potential for simulations of Mo or Si.


Hydrogen doped AZO films (HAZO) were prepared by RF magnetron sputtering. A systematic study of the effect of substrate to target distance (Dst) on the structural, electrical and optical properties of the as-grown HAZO films was carried out. Compared with the Al-doped ZnO films, the hydrogen in the atmosphere influenced the growth of the films by incorporating in the films and bombarding the surface of the film, namely, the Dst, which induced the residual stress and the roughness of the films decreasedwith an increase of the Dst. The films showed a smaller grain size. The surfacework function of the films changed with the composition of the films, reaching a maximum at 7.5cm.


The last few years have seen significant progress toward an understanding of the interval-strength relationship of heart muscle, particularly in regard to the relation of the various constituent phenomena to one another. It has become clear that interval-dependent changes in myocardial contractility result both from changes in the duration of the active state and from changes in the degree of activation of the muscle; the changes in the degree of activation can be analyzed in terms of the interaction of three factors.

Unfortunately, knowledge about the interval-strength relationship is restricted almost entirely to the level of a descriptive analysis. The nature of the underlying processes in the myocardium remains unknown, though some hypotheses about them can now be rejected with certainty, and some promising clues have been uncovered. Interval-dependent changes in the duration of the active state appear to be related to changes in the duration of the action potential; those in the degree of activation fall in the broad category of changes in excitation-contraction coupling. The study of the cardiac action potential and that of excitation-contraction coupling in striated muscle are both fields of widespread interest and activity, and it can be anticipated that as more is learned about these subjects, the nature of the processes underlying the interval-strength relationship will become clearer. Light may be shed on the character of these processes by studies of the influence of various physical and chemical factors on the interval-strength relationship. It is not enough to determine the effect of such agents on the strength of contraction at various frequencies, however, or to examine the effect of an intervention on a special case of the interval-strength relationship, such as post-extrasystolic oil post-stimulation potentiation. Experiments must be designed in such a way that it can be determined which of the interval-dependent determinants of the strength of contraction are involved in any changes observed. Just as studies of the actions of drugs on the interval-strength relationship are likely to prove helpful in the effort to learn its basic nature, they also may lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms through which drugs alter myocardial contractility.