Background This study aimed to describe patterns of long-term antithrombotic use in acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) in Korea and their impacts on clinical events before introduction of non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOAC) into practice in 2015. Methods Patients with NVAF who were admitted due to the AIS and discharged no later than 2008 were enrolled retrospectively. Data were collected at 11 time points during the first 3 years of follow-up. The primary outcome event was a composite of stroke recurrence, major bleeding, and death. Vitamin K antagonist (VKA) users were categorized into a well-controlled INR group and a poorly-controlled INR group (modified TTR ≥47.0% vs <47.0%). Results Of 1,350 patients enrolled in this study, 95% were on antithrombotic medications at discharge. The rate of VKA usage decreased over time (77% and 40% at discharge and 3 years, respectively). The cumulative event rates of the primary outcome differed by treatment patterns. Among the 10 most frequent treatment types, the highest outcome rate was observed in patients who started with VKA-only therapy but discontinued VKAs during follow-up without restarting (70.2%); this was followed by those starting with antiplatelet-only therapy and stopping it without restart (66.7%). Among VKA users, the 3-year cumulative primary outcome rates were higher in the poorly-controlled INR group than the well-controlled INR group (24.5% vs 15.7%; p = 0.015). Conclusion Our study revealed that, in pre-NOAC era, there was a wide spectrum of long-term antithrombotic use. The incidence of the composite outcome also varied by patterns of antithrombotic use.


High temporal resolution observations enable the study of rapid phenomena such as the flux varia¬tions in binary system objects, e.g. cataclysmic variables, compact binary systems, the flux variations in young star clusters, stellar occultations and more. The 2.4-m Thai National Telescope (TNT) is ideally suited for this niche research, being the largest facility in Southeast Asia and being equipped with ULTRASPEC, a high-speed imager based on a low-noise frame transfer electron-multiplying CCD. In the sub-window mode, ULTRASPEC can record uninterrupted sequences with frame rates as fast as few milliseconds. We present some of the key results obtained in the area of high time resolution with ULTRASPEC. We also present the results of a recent worldwide campaign to observe the current series of lunar occultations of Aldebaran (α Tauri) carried out in close collaboration with the Devasthal facilities, the out-of-eclipse variations on the post common-envelope system J1021+1744, and pre-main-sequence variables in young open cluster Stock 8.


Generating a Boltzmann distribution in high dimension has recently been achieved with Normalizing Flows, which enable fast and exact computation of the generated density, and thus unbiased estimation of expectations. However, current implemen-tations rely on accurate training data, which typically comes from computationally expensive simulations. There is therefore a clear incentive to train models with incomplete or no data by relying solely on the target density, which can be obtained from a physical energy model (up to a constant factor). For that purpose, we analyze the properties of standard losses based on Kullback-Leibler divergences. We showcase their limitations, in particular a strong propensity for mode collapse during optimization on high-dimensional distributions. We then propose strategies to alleviate these issues, most importantly a new loss function well-grounded in theory and with suitable optimization properties. Using as a benchmark the generation of 3D molecular configurations, we show on several tasks that, for the first time, imperfect pre-trained models can be further optimized in the absence of training data.


The study of Gaskell's use of place lies at the heart of the argument in this thesis. Recollections of her early years and places visited during her writing career help to create vividly evoked, topographically secure locations, which provide the structural foundations for her narratives. The major novels, the biography of Charlotte Bronte, and several short stories are used to illustrate the argument, although all her work is underpinned by a belief in the intimate connections between human beings and their environment. Chapter I offers an original landscape classification of her work and sets out the concepts that support the argument, e. g. Moretti's model of narrative structure and the concept of 'environmental determinism'. Chapter 2 focuses on Manchester's urban- industrial environment as portrayed realistically in Mary Barton and as a fictional representation in North and South. The argument focuses on the way in which Gaskell's familiarity with the town, and her compulsion to write about its people, combined to produce a narrative structure founded on a selective morphology of a town undergoing rapid urbanisation, manifest in it shalf-finished streets'. The physical conditions of Manchester are seen as one of the factors determining human destiny. Chapters 3,4 and 5 deal with the works of the 'wildscape' phase of her writing. Although discussed separately, Ruth, The Life of Charlotte Bronte and Sylvia's Lovers are linked by featureless, treeless expanses of moorland and seascape with 'illimitable horizons'. Chapter 6 establishes the topographical security of Gaskell's fictionalised rural and provincial landscapes. It explores the extent to which lives are dominated by the 'enclosed intimacy' of their physical and social environment in Wives and Daughters and a selection of shorter fiction. In conclusion, Chapter 7 identifies Gaskell as a 'northern' novelist whose work has been found to be enriched by a belief in the close connection between character and environment.


Courtship and copulation behaviour of the tropical spider Cyrtophora cicatrosa were observed in the laboratory. They are described and compared with the behaviour of C. citricola. Emphasis is placed on the roles of pheromones and web tapping, and on the species' different ways of overcoming the problems resulting from extreme sexual dimorphism.


OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the effect of tack cure on polymerization shrinkage (PS) of resin-based luting cements.

METHODS AND MATERIALS
One composite resin cement, Duo-Link (Duolink); two self-adhesive resin cements, RelyX U200 (U200) and G-CEM LinkAce (GCem); and one resin-modified glass ionomer cement, RelyX Luting Plus (Luting+), were used for measuring PS in light-cure (LC group), self-cure (SC group), and two tack-cure modes that were light cured (TC-LC group) or self-cured (TC-SC group) after tack cure. PS was measured by a modified bonded disc method for 1600 seconds and analyzed with two-way analysis of variance and Tukey honestly significant difference test. To investigate the effect of tack cure on light cure or self-cure, data were analyzed with an independent-samples t-test with tack cure as a variable. The significance level was 5%.

RESULTS
Regarding cure mode, Duolink showed a significantly lower PS in the TC-SC group compared with the other groups. Luting+ showed a significantly lower PS in the TC-SC group than in the SC group. U200 showed a significantly lower PS in the self-cure groups compared with that in the light-cure groups. The PS of GCem was not affected by cure mode. Regarding cements, Luting+ showed the highest PS, followed by GCem, Duolink, and U200 (p<0.05). Self-cure of Duolink and Luting+ was negatively affected by tack cure, while light cure was not affected. U200 and GCem were not affected by tack cure either in the self-cure or light-cure groups.

CONCLUSION
For the tested cements, tack cure decreased the PS of Duolink and Luting+ when they were self-cured after tack cure. When the cements were light cured after tack cure, PS was not affected by tack cure in any cement.


Background Although several national organizations have declared the ability to work with electronic health records (EHRs) as a core competency of medical education, EHR education and use among medical students vary widely. Previous studies have reported EHR tasks performed by medical students, but students' self-perceived readiness and comfort with EHRs are relatively unknown. Objective This study aimed to better understand medical students' self-perceived readiness to use EHRs to identify potential curricular gaps and inform future training efforts based on students' perspectives. Methods The authors deployed a survey investigating self-perceived comfort with EHRs at 2 institutions in the United States in May 2019. Descriptive statistics were generated regarding demographics, comfort level with various EHR-related tasks, and cross-institutional comparisons. We also assessed the impact of extracurricular EHR experience on comfort level. Results In total, 147 medical students responded, of which 80 (54.4%) were female, with equal distribution across all 4 years of training. Overall confidence was generally higher for students with longer extracurricular EHR experience, even when adjusted for age, gender, year of training, and institution. Students were most comfortable with tasks related to looking up information in the EHR and felt less comfortable with tasks related to entering new information and managing medications. Fourth-year students at both schools reported similar levels of comfort with EHR use, despite differences in preclinical EHR training. Open-ended comments emphasized the value of experiential training over didactic formats. Conclusions Information entry and medication management in the EHR represent areas for future curricular development. Experiential training via extracurricular activities and early clinical exposure may be high-yield approaches to help medical students achieve critical EHR competencies.


The Symposium on the Impact of Technology on Agricultural Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa funded by AID/AFR/ARTS and AID/RD/EID under the Michigan State University Food Security Cooperative Agreements, was held in Washington, D.C., Oct. 14-16, 1992. A primary purpose of the symposium was to present evidence which would either confirm or contradict the perception that the accomplishments of TDT were insufficient to justify continued funding. A secondary objective was to consider the adequacy of available analytical tools for impact assessment. The rate of return (ROR) is the most commonly used valuative measure of investments in technology development and transfer. Examined as a group, the estimated RORs support the proposition that African agricultural research has had people-level impacts, and that these impacts are large enough to justify the level of investment that led to the impacts. An important part of the impact assessment story is the analysis of factors that had a positive or negative effect on the impact of TDT. Five major factors emerged from the studies presented and comments by symposium participants: agroclimatic conditions, civil unrest, research system performance, policy, and markets. Progress has been made in moving forward with the process of TDT, in spite of adverse conditions. This progress includes enhancing the capabilities of national, regional and international institutions to generate new techniques, pushing forward the technology frontier, transferring technology, and increasing productivity both in farm production and post-harvest activities. Activities such as structural adjustment, improvements in agricultural and macroeconomic policy, greater reliance on democracy and capitalism, investments in infrastructure, and a greater willingness to work with the private sector have increased the potential for TDT to have significant impact. Given the importance of raising productivity in agriculture as a step towards agricultural transformation, continued investment in agricultural TDT is merited. The evidence of impact achieved from previous investments shows that those investments have paid off. Coupled with the evidence of beneficial changes in the macroeconomic policy environment in many countries, this provides the basis for expecting that future investments will pay off. What is perhaps unique about the symposium is the movement towards a commodity sector perspective as the next logical step toward including more demand-side considerations in the TDT agenda.


This paper narrates the evolution of The Open University of Tanzania (OUT) since approval by Parliament in 1992, its establishment in 1993 and operationalisation in 1994. The paper shows that OUT has grown tremendously from being simply a national institution into a strong and vibrant university with an international status, serving students from the east and central African regions by 2011. The paper further discusses evolution milestones that OUT has witnessed during the seventeen years of its operation. As part of the major milestones, OUT has established twenty four Regional Centres that are supplemented by the four Coordinating Centres of Zanzibar, Pemba and as well as the two Kenyan Coordination Centres located within Nairobi and Nakuru premises of the Egerton University in Kenya. Three more regional Centres will be inaugurated in July in the envisaged new regions of Njombe, Katavi and Simiyu. In terms of academic programmes, OUT currently offers 20 undergraduate degrees, 3 certificates, 4 diplomas, 2 postgraduate diplomas, 20 masters and 5 PhDs. In order to strengthen the quality assurance of the academic, discourse in teaching, research and consultancy services as well as security and confidentiality of examination matters at The Open University of Tanzania, the Directorate of Examinations Syndicate was established in 2008 to oversee all activities regarding administration of examinations and processing of students results and awards. The quality assurance unit that was established in 2009 is also due to be elevated to a full fledged directorate. Moreover, in order to ensure the culture of strategic planning is consistently cultivated, nurtured and sustained, OUT has over the last six years conducted 12 six monthly review workshops. In an effort to ensure that the strategic planning culture is embraced in the hearts and minds of staff, OUT has since the academic year 2008/09 piloted and adopted the Open Performance Review and Appraisal System (OPRAS) in order to improve objectivity of the annual review process. This has necessitated the abandonment of the old annual confidential review forms used by most east African universities. The paper ends by highlighting the main prospects and challengesthat OUT has faced over the last seventeen years of delivery of ODL education as well as the manner in which it has sought to exploit any emerging opportunities apart from facing the challenges head.


Investigation of γ -channel widening behavior in a nickel-base single crystal superalloy during uniaxial tensile creep tests was carried out. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was adopted to reveal the microstructural evolution of γ -channel and the dimension of γ -channel. It was found that different tests condition such as temperature, time and stress in tensile creep tests all influenced the γ -channel widening behavior, and a parabolic rate law governs the mean increase value of γ -channel width. The stress and temperature enhanced the γ -channel widening. The γ -channel widening was the result of directionally diffusion of multiatom.


Why do authoritarian regimes permit elections in some settings but not in others? Focusing on the decision to hold subnational elections, we argue that autocrats can use local elections to assuage powerful subnational elites. When subnational elites control significant political resources, such as local political machines, leaders may need to co-opt them to govern cost-effectively. Elections are an effective tool of co-optation because they provide elites with autonomy and the opportunity to cultivate their own power bases. We test this argument by analyzing variation in the decision to hold mayoral elections in Russia's 207 largest cities between 2001 and 2012. Our findings suggest that Russian mayoral elections were more likely to be retained in cities where elected mayors sat atop strong political machines. Our findings also illustrate how subnational elections may actually serve to perpetuate authoritarianism by helping to ensure elite loyalty and putting the resources of powerful elites to work for the regime.


Mental health concerns are the most serious and prevalent health problems among students in higher education. Increasingly effective psychopharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatments have facilitated matriculation for students with histories of anxiety, mood, personality, eating and substance abuse disorders. This phenomenon has been accompanied by a striking increase in the number of previously undiagnosed students requesting treatment. College and university mental health programs struggle to care for larger numbers of students, necessitating greater interdisciplinary collaboration in treatment, research, outreach, and educational services.


The AMPHORA Project is a 4 years project funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission which aims to contribute with new evidence on scarcely explored or unexplored areas of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm in Europe. In this introductory article we describe the background of the Project and its main features. The research areas covered by AMPHORA are wide and diverse. Some of the most relevant are: an update on European epidemiological data; the definition of standard common indicators of alcohol consumption and harm; the measurement of the strength of alcohol policies; the study of contextual determinants of alcohol consumption, the analysis of the impact of marketing on youth; the availability of treatments at a European level; and two areas of harm reduction (contamination of illegal or surrogate alcohols and the reduction of harm in drinking venues).


In this study, nanocomposites reinforced with cellulose nanowhiskers (CNWs) were prepared by employing three different fabrication methods. These methods include electrospinning of nanofiber webs using a single-component nozzle, electrospinning of nanofiber webs using a coaxial bi-component nozzle, and film casting followed by compression molding. Maleic anhydride grafted elastomeric polymer was used as the polymer matrix. Nanocomposite samples obtained from these three different systems were characterized in terms of morphology, and mechanical and thermal properties. The processing–structure–property relationships of the nanocomposites are discussed in this paper.


This paper assessed the application of the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM)–maize module as a decision support tool for optimizing nitrogen application to determine yield and net return of maize production under current agricultural practices in the Nigeria savannas. The model was calibrated for two maize varieties using data from field experiments conducted under optimum conditions in three locations during the 2017 and 2018 cropping seasons. The model was evaluated using an independent dataset from an experiment conducted under different nitrogen (N) levels in two locations within Southern and Northern Guinea savannas. The results show that model accurately predicted days to 50% anthesis and physiological maturity, leaf area index (LAI), grain yield and total dry matter (TDM) of both varieties with low RMSE and RMSEn (%) values within the range of acceptable statistics indices. Based on 31-year seasonal simulation, optimum mean grain yield of 3941 kg ha−1 for Abuja, and 4549 for Kano was simulated at N rate of 120 kg ha–1 for the early maturing variety 2009EVDT. Meanwhile in Zaria, optimum mean yield of 4173 kg ha–1 was simulated at N rate of 90 kg ha−1. For the intermediate maturing variety, IWDC2SYNF2 mean optimum yields of 5152, 5462, and 4849 kg ha−1, were simulated at N application of 120 kg ha−1 for all the locations. The probability of exceeding attainable mean grain yield of 3000 and 4000 kg ha−1 for 2009EVDT and IWDC2SYNF2, respectively would be expected in 95% of the years with application of 90 kg N ha−1 across the three sites. Following the profitability scenarios analysis, the realistic net incomes of US$ 536 ha–1 for Abuja, and US$ 657 ha−1 for Zaria were estimated at N rate of 90 kg ha−1 and at Kano site, realistic net income of US$ 720 ha–1was estimated at N rate of 120 kg ha−1 for 2009EVDT.For IWDC2SYNF2, realistic net incomes of US$ 870, 974, and 818 ha−1 were estimated at N application of 120 kg ha−1 for Abuja, Zaria, and Kano respectively. The result of this study suggests that 90 kg N ha−1 can be recommended for 2009EVDT and 120 kg N ha–1 for IWDC2SYNF2 in Abuja and Zaria while in Kano, 120 kg N ha−1 should be applied to both varieties to attain optimum yield and profit.


In this research paper, a 10 minute period measured wind speed data at 10 m, 30 m, and 40 m heights are presented for one of the major provinces of Iran. Four stations in Khuzestan- Abadan, Hosseyneh, Mahshahr, and Shushtar- are analyzed to determine the potential of wind power generation in this province. From the primary evaluation and by determining mean wind speed and also the Weibull function, the results show that the measurement site falls under class 2 of the International System Wind Classification for Abadan, Hosseyneh, and Mahshahr and class 1 for Shushtar station. It means that the first three stations have mediocre conditions for installing and operating wind farms, but Shushtar does not have a significant condition for connection to national power grid applications. By using wind roses of speed, turbulence, and the power distribution, the best direction of installing wind turbines for each station was determined. Finally, by utilizing power curves of five typical wind turbines, the annual wind energy, which is produced by a typical wind turbine for one of four stations, Mahshahr, was determined for showing the appropriate annual energy received from a wind turbine.


Specific Aims:The specific aim of this study was to explore student nurses' perceptions of the benefits of being an undergraduate research assistant. Background: Undergraduate student nurses gain benefits from collaborating outside of the classroom with faculty as a research assistant. Students can explore the faculty role of researcher through their experiences, and these experiences may encourage students to become faculty in the future. Boise State University School of Nursing (BSU SON) students have been encouraged to participate with faculty members through the Faculty-Student Research Support Initiative, funded by the DeMeyer Endowment. Through this research experience, undergraduate research assistants from BSU SON have participated in local, regional and national research conferences to present their research. However, students' perceptions of the program have not been investigated. Methods:This study used a mixed methods research design. Quantitative data was collected using a survey which consists of a list of 37 potential benefits, skills, and abilities that undergraduate research assistants may experience. Qualitative data was collected from two open-ended questions. Former and current SON students were contacted by email and invited to participate in the study using a web-based cover letter. Those interested in participating completed an on-line Qualtrics survey. Data were analyzed using the following statistics. Mean responses for the "achieve" and "importance" dimensions were analyzed using descriptive statistics. A principal component, varimax rotation factor analysis was used to analyze the 37 importance items. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze participants' responses to the two open-ended questions. The themes related to students' descriptions of the undergraduate research assistant experience were identified. Results: Cronbach's alpha estimates of internal consistency was 0.9. Rotated component matrix resulted in a three factor scale: 1)the benefits of being an undergraduate research assistant; 2) gaining research skills; and transferrable skills for the future. Significance to Nursing. This research will provide the School of Nursing with valuable information about student outcomes of the SON Faculty-Student Research Support Initiative, which can be used by faculty in writing NIH R15 AREA grant proposals. The study findings could be used by other nursing education programs to develop similar projects that encourage their undergraduate students to partner with faculty in conducting research.


Several DNA viruses have recently emerged as useful eucaryotic vectors. The ability to incorporate large amounts of foreign DNA in the vaccinia virus genome without loss of infectivity, evidence to correct glycosylation and processing of expressed proteins and the wide host range of vaccinia virus all contribute to the versatility of this system as a research tool. The development of recombinant DNA technology and its use in genetic engineering has provided opportunities to construct DNA-recombinant viruses that can provide protection against a spectrum of diseases. A brief account is given of current developments and future prospects of DNA recombinant viruses, with particular reference to vaccinia virus.


Built in the 1890s at the center of the nation, Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary was designed specifically to be a replica of the US Capitol Building. But why? The Prison of Democracy explains the political significance of a prison built to mimic one of America's monuments to democracy. Locating Leavenworth in memory, history, and law, the prison geographically sits at the borders of Indian Territory (1825–1854) and Bleeding Kansas (1854–1864), both sites of contestation over slavery and freedom. Author Sara M. Benson argues that Leavenworth reshaped the design of punishment in America by gradually normalizing state-inflicted violence against citizens. Leavenworth's peculiar architecture illustrates the real roots of mass incarceration—as an explicitly race- and nation-building system that has been ingrained in the very fabric of US history rather than as part of a recent post-war racial history. The book sheds light on the truth of the painful relationship between the carceral state and democracy in the United States—a relationship that thrives to this day. "The imaginative rereading, through primary sources, of Fort Leavenworth and a host of other subjects including abolitionism, border prisons, North-South relations, and the campaign against Native Americans adds up to an original and exceptionally significant piece of research and scholarship." DESMOND KING, author of Separate and Unequal "A significant contribution to the literature regarding race, crime, and punishment. The analytical insight that the author provides through a rereading and recentering of Leavenworth is both a contribution to and an immanent critique of racialized notions of mass incarceration." DANIEL KATO, author of Liberalizing Lynching SARA M. BENSON is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at San Jose State University and teaches at Oakes College at the University of California, Santa Cruz.


The addition of a uniform increment of light to a high-contrast image that has been stabilized on the retina reveals marked perceptual nonlinearities. When the increment is small, the pattern appears in its original phase (OP), large increments produce an apparent phase reversal (APR), and intermediate increments may yield an apparently blank field or an oscillation of the apparent phase. In the present series of studies the threshold values used to produce a stable OP and APR were determined as a function of adaptation time before the application of the increment. The stabilized target had a luminance profile consisting of the difference of two Gaussians. A model of detection incorporating a multiplicative gain controlled by a filtered version of the stimulus was used to account for the occurrence of the OP and the APR and the transitory phenomena following the uniform increment. It is argued that the midpoint of the transition zone between the OP and APR, corresponding to blanking, enables us to estimate the shape of the step response function of the gain filter independently of the subsequent detection processes.


Background and Aims: Although adenomas may be precursors to colorectal cancers (CRC), knowledge concerning the development of metachronous CRC is scarce. We assessed whether differential expression of cell-cycle and apoptosis-regulating proteins and a monotonous population of elongated cells (MPECs) in colorectal adenomas could predict metachronous CRC. Methods: Application of immunohistochemistry on tissue microarrays in consecutive, population-based colorectal adenomas. Influence of classic features (e.g., intraepithelial neoplasia grade, histological type, size) was examined. Results: Of 171 patients with colorectal adenoma 86% (n = 147) were eligible for study; 10 (7%) developed metachronous CRC. Median time to cancer was 69 months (range, 25–256). Median follow-up was equal for the non-cancer and cancer groups. Elevated expression of cellcycle regulators p16INK4A, p21CIP1, and cytoplasmic/nuclear α-catenin correlated with increased CRC risk (all P <0.0001), as did elevated expression of the anti-apoptosis protein survivin (P <0.0001) and human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT; P <0.001). Survivin, hTERT, and nuclear α-catenin were the most predictive molecular markers (hazard ratios [HRs]: 6.3, 9.4, and 5.8, respectively). In a combined multivariate model, MPECs had the best overall prognostic ability (HR 28.2, 95% CI: 3.6–223.0), together with survivin, and hTERT. Within adenomas containing MPECs, several molecular markers further defined high-risk patients. Conclusions: Among several markers predictive for metachronous CRC development in colorectal adenomas, MPECs, survivin and hTERT may, when validated, provide information superior to conventional histology, with relevance for the clinical management of patients with colorectal adenoma.


Rectangular-shaped and disk-shaped heat pipes, as innovative heat sinks, are investigated to optimize the thermal performance of three-dimensional integrated circuits (3D ICs) in this work. Finite volume numerical analysis is employed to carry out the simulation of the thermal performance of 3D ICs. Both rectangular-shaped and disk-shaped heat pipes substantially improved the overall thermal performance and reduced the hotspot temperatures by 7 K and 11 K on average, respectively. Furthermore, utilizing the rectangular-shaped or the disk-shaped heat pipe as the heat spreader in place of a solid copper heat spreader further optimizes the thermal performance by reduction of the junction temperatures 14 K and 16 K on average, respectively. These reductions are achieved while the weight of the set-up is also significantly reduced. The results indicate that the innovative flat-shaped heat pipes significantly optimize the thermal performance of 3D ICs. The model and results presented in this work aim to pave the way to markedly alleviate the thermal issues of the 3D ICs.


A novel pyrene derivative containing a benzilmonohydrazone moiety has been prepared following a facile synthetic procedure and exploited for the selective detection of Cu2+ under four different channels (colorimetric, absorption, emission and bio-imaging). In the presence of Cu2+, the chemosensor L provided a significant fluorescence enhancement with an easily detectable colour change from yellow to colourless, whereas other metal ions produced only minor changes in colour or fluorescence intensity. The sensitivity of the fluorescence based assay is 7.8 nM for Cu2+, which is far below the limit mentioned in the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for drinking water. 1H NMR data, the Job plot and the ESI-MS spectrum prove 1 : 1 stoichiometric complexation between L and Cu2+. The sensing behaviour of the probe has also been well supported by DFT studies. Receptor L exhibits remarkable detection ability in a wide pH range of 4–11 and is successfully utilised in the determination of Cu2+ in real samples. Moreover, L shows its application potential in the detection of Cu2+ in living cells.


This policy brief is about access and use of credit in Uganda by small holder farmers. The brief uses the secondary data to shed light on the extent of the problem and further uses successful case studies in agricultural financing to demonstrate how improvements can be achieved. The major problem established from available information is that despite several agricultural financing initiatives and other reforms in the financial sector in the last 20 years, access to credit by small holder farmers in Uganda has remained very low in the region of about 10 percent. Examining the several agricultural financing initiatives since 1990s tends to suggest that the problem could largely be attributed to weak institutional framework and policy inconsistency on agricultural financing over the years, notwithstanding household demand factors. The key policy recommendation drawn from this assessment is that if agricultural financing is to improve, there is need to have strong institutional framework that focuses on financing frameworks, monitoring and implementation. A better option is for government to support the establishment of a rural or agricultural development bank that prioritises agricultural financing.


A 47-year data base (1948-1994) derived from 15 stream and 8 rain gaging stations was used to analyze the effects of antecedent rainfall upon subsequent runoff within the Coastal Plain of Georgia. One hundred and twenty 12-month periods were used to classify antecedent rainfall into "high" (+15 to +59% normal), "low" (-11 to -42% normal), and "normal" (-9 to+ 8%normal) populations. Subsequent rainfall following each of these 120 periods was classified in a similar manner. A "production ratio" (runoft7rainfall) was defined for each subsequent period and then normalized with the longterm ( 4 7-year study period) average production ratio for those months. This permitted the comparison of normalized production ratios fornine subpopulations consisting of various pairings of antecedent and subsequent rainfall conditions. Drought (below normal rainfall for at least one year) depresses streamflow in southern Georgia for a period of one to two years, given a return to normal rainfall. Production ratios associated with above normal antecedent rainfall remain greater than normal for a period of two years following areturn to normal rainfall conditions.


a Series). Robert C. Lewis. The Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 3, November 1984, pp. 64-77. School of Hotel Administration, 327 Statler Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-0223. $25 annual subscription. The factors that motivate guest's hotel choice-and the characteristics of the market-can be isolated through multivariate analysis. This article begins the explanation of how hotel operators can simplify complex data to understand the lodging market.


This thesis is laid out in three parts: Part I. The life and death of Andrew Mullen. The life is based, to a large extent, on a long letter to his mother, Catherine Mullen, dated 7 January 1810. The letter gives a definite insight into his spirituality based on his membership of the Archconfraternity of the Blessed Sacrament. There is a hint that he had a premonition of an early death. Part II. The burial of Andrew Mullen and the immediate cult to him This is based on documentary evidence. Part III. Most of this part is a catalogue of testimonies taken from 1993 onwards. Then there is the conclusion on the popular devotion to Andrew Mullen stressing the theological aspect of the subject. In the course of writing the thesis it was decided to separate the documentary evidence from the oral tradition. This was advantageous in developing the thesis, and the documents provided a secure basis for the oral tradition. Two pieces of information were found in March 1997. They are death notices: 2 January 1819, The Leinster Journal and 7 January 1819, The Car low Morning Post. There is a slight discrepancy between the two on the date of his death. Also this discrepancy shows a slight difference from the date of the tombstone.


Chemerin, highly expressed in adipose and liver tissues, regulates glucose and lipid metabolism and immunity in these tissues in ruminants and mice. Our previous reports showed that chemerin is involved in adipogenesis and lipid metabolism in adipose tissue as an adipokine. The aim of the present study was to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the coding region of the chemerin gene and to analyze their effects on carcass traits and intramuscular fatty acid compositions in Japanese Black cattle. The SNPs in the bovine chemerin gene were detected in 232 Japanese Black steers (n = 161) and heifers (n = 71) using DNA sequencing. The results revealed five novel silent mutations: NM_001046020: c.12A>G (4aa), c.165GT (92aa), c.321 A>G (107aa), and c.396C>T (132aa). There was no association between 4 of the SNPs (c.12A>G [4aa], c.165GG [107aa], and c.396C>T) and carcass traits or intramuscular fatty acid compositions. Regarding the remaining SNP, c.276C>T, we found that cattle with genotype CC had a higher beef marbling score than that of cattle with genotype CT, whereas cattle with genotype CT had a higher body condition score (p<0.10). Further, cattle with genotype CC had significantly higher C18:0 content in their intramuscular fat tissue than that of cattle with genotype CT (p<0.05). On the other hand, cattle with genotype CT had significantly higher C14:0 and C16:0 content in their intramuscular fat tissue (p<0.05). Moreover, the number of individuals carrying the minor allele of c.276C>T SNP is small. It is suggested that the c.276C>T SNP of the chemerin gene has potential in cattle breeding using modern methods, such as marker assisted selection. So, further functional and physiological research elucidating the impact of the chemerin gene on bovine lipid metabolism including fatty acid synthesis will help in understanding these results.


It is difficult to estimate precisely the number of children exposed to domestic violence. In a review of Victorians domestic violence legislation it was revealed that children under five years were present in: 65 per cent of domestic disputes involving the threat or use of a gun; in 79 per cent of disputes involving a weapon (usually a knife); and in almost two-thirds of disputes where property was damaged (Wearing 1992). While in a more recent survey of Australian youth, one quarter of young people sampled reported having 'witnessed' (1) an incident of physical domestic violence against their mother or step-mother (Indermaur 2001) (2). Such research highlights the size of the 'living with domestic violence' problem. Yet it is only quite recently that attention has begun to be paid to this issue. Most domestic violence research and practice has focused primarily on the incidence of violence against women, with relatively little attention being paid to the plight of children who have been exposed to the violence (Smith, O'Connor & Berthelsen 1996; Sullivan, Bybee & Allen 2002). Similarly, the child protection and family support systems have, until recently, tended to overlook children who have been exposed to domestic violence in the mistaken belief that 'children are untouched by the chaos happening around them in the family home' and a belief that the absence of physical harm meant that no real harm had occurred (Blanchard 1993:31). Thus, children who live with domestic violence have been called the 'silent', 'forgotten', or 'invisible' victims of domestic violence (Osofsky 1998; Edleson 1999). Throughout the 1990s however, there was increasing evidence of both the widespread nature of domestic violence and the serious impact that being exposed to violence may have on children and young people. Studies in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia have produced substantial evidence to suggest that many children who have been exposed to domestic violence develop a variety of social and mental health problems as a result of their experiences (Bookless-Pratz & Mertin 1990; Mathias, Mertin & Murray 1995; Kolbo, Blakely & Engleman 1996; Henning, Leitenberg, Coffey, Bennett & Jankowski 1997; Osofsky 1998; Laumakis, Margolin & John 1998). Further, while the majority of children who have been exposed to domestic violence do not participate in further family violence, research has identified an association between growing up in a violent family and subsequent involvement in violent adult relationships as either an offender or victim (for example, Edleson & Tolman 1992; Avakame, 1998; Markowitz 2001). Although the extent of the intergenerational transmission of violence attributed to exposure to domestic violence is not known, the best estimates put the extent of the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment, as a whole, at 30-37 per cent (Kaufman & Zigler 1987; Ryan, Davies & Oates 1977; all cited in Tomison & Poole 2000). In recognition of the size and impact of the problem, children who have been exposed to domestic violence have recently become the target of research and therapeutic interventions across both the domestic violence and child protection/family support sectors. However, while knowledge about the impact of exposure to domestic violence has been increasing, and programs specifically aimed at supporting the children of battered women have begun to be documented, there is currently a paucity of information available about the nature and effectiveness of such interventions and their outcomes for children (Blanchard 1993; Carter, Weithorn & Behrman 1999, Graham-Bermann 2000). In order to begin to address the knowledge 'gap' about interventions for children who have been exposed to domestic violence in Australia, data collected from a national audit of child abuse prevention programs (Tomison & Poole 2000) was analysed. …


Gene expression data hide vital information required to understand the biological process that takes place in a particular organism in relation to its environment. Deciphering the hidden patterns in gene expression data proffers a prodigious preference to strengthen the understanding of functional genomics. The complexity of biological networks and the volume of genes present increase the challenges of comprehending and interpretation of the resulting mass of data, which consists of millions of measurements; these data also inhibit vagueness, imprecision, and noise. Therefore, the use of clustering techniques is a first step toward addressing these challenges, which is essential in the data mining process to reveal natural structures and identify interesting patterns in the underlying data. The clustering of gene expression data has been proven to be useful in making known the natural structure inherent in gene expression data, understanding gene functions, cellular processes, and subtypes of cells, mining useful information from noisy data, and understanding gene regulation. The other benefit of clustering gene expression data is the identification of homology, which is very important in vaccine design. This review examines the various clustering algorithms applicable to the gene expression data in order to discover and provide useful knowledge of the appropriate clustering technique that will guarantee stability and high degree of accuracy in its analysis procedure.


Abstract We consider the complex case of the S-inequality. It concerns the behaviour of Gaussian measures of dilations of convex and rotationally symmetric sets in Cn. We pose and discuss a conjecture that among all such sets measures of cylinders (i.e. the sets {z ∈ Cn | |z1| ≤ p}) decrease the fastest under dilations. Our main result in this paper is that this conjecture holds under the additional assumption that the Gaussian measure of the sets considered is not greater than some constant c > 0.64.


The Norma Research Programme started out fifteen years ago – in 1996 – at the Law Faculty of Lund University with funding from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. The programme was initiated by Professor Ann Numhauser-Henning and a former colleague, Professor Anna Christensen, who sadly passed away in March 2001. Norma is short for 'Normative Development within the Social Dimension, Studies on the Normative Patterns and Their Development in the Legal Regulation of Employment, Housing, Family and Social Security from a European Integration Perspective'. The purpose of the programme was to create a research environment where basic normative patterns and their development and relationship to the ongoing changes in society within the area of the Social Dimension in Europe could be studied in depth and from a long-term perspective. The research is conducted within a multi-disciplinary legal science framework, including a labour law, social security law, family law, competition law, Union law and comparative law approach, also encompassing legal theory. Furthermore, the programme draws upon a common body of economic and sociological research. As regards current research within the programme, focus can now be said to be on the interaction between changing labour market conditions, 'sustainable' social security schemes and new – more flexible – family patterns.


Abstract Background The prevention of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and the rise of multi-resistant organisms are significant public health issues. Infections caused by multi-resistant organisms (MRO) can have similar clinical manifestations to infections caused by non-multi-resistant organisms (non-MROHAI) but antibiotic treatment options are more limited, which can result in treatment failure. This study aimed to reduce the incidence of MRO HAI in a specific South Australian hospital setting by identifying factors that are associated with MRO transmission. Methods Using a case-control design, we analysed data from 1017 adult patients who developed an HAI in the 9-year period from 2003 to 2011 in a private South Australian hospital. We compared risk factors in patients who developed MRO HAI (cases) with risk factors in patients who developed non-MRO HAI (controls). Data were collected from the hospital's patient management database and individual medical records, and analysed using univariate and multivariate techniques. Results Independent predictors for the development of MRO HAI were the presence of an indwelling urinary catheter and renal disease. The development of a secondary infection was significantly more likely in MRO relative to non-MRO HAI, as was secondary bloodstream infection following a primary urinary tract infection. Conclusion All effective interventions for reducing MRO, specifically in UTI, should be implemented where feasible. Increased healthcare worker education on aseptic non-touch technique, and safe insertion and management of an IDC, particularly important in patients with underlying renal disease, could assist in decreasing the risk of MRO HAI in this setting.


This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact firstname.lastname@example.com © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. CORN (SWEET): Zea mays L., 'BSS1075'


We have proposed the field confined holey fiber which simply consists of air holes constructed in a step index core region. As far as we know, the fiber provides the first structure to realize both large anomalous dispersions and low bend losses. The structure is useful for a practical fiber to take full advantage of the dispersion of holey fibers. The boundary element method based on a formulation in terms of transverse magnetic fields has been used to verify the characteristics of the fiber. It is shown that the proposed fiber exhibits large anomalous dispersion over +150 ps/nm/km at 1.55 /spl mu/m. Compared with conventional all-silica holey fibers, the proposed fiber should have better bend losses because the fields are more concentrative in the core.


WARP is a recently identified extracellular matrix molecule with restricted expression in permanent cartilages and a distinct subset of basement membranes in peripheral nerves, muscle, and the central nervous system vasculature. WARP interacts with perlecan, and we also demonstrate here that WARP binds type VI collagen, suggesting a function in bridging connective tissue structures. To understand the in vivo function of WARP, we generated a WARP-deficient mouse strain. WARP-null mice were healthy, viable, and fertile with no overt abnormalities. Motor function and behavioral testing demonstrated that WARP-null mice exhibited a significantly delayed response to acute painful stimulus and impaired fine motor coordination, although general motor function was not affected, suggesting compromised peripheral nerve function. Immunostaining of WARP-interacting ligands demonstrated that the collagen VI microfibrillar matrix was severely reduced and mislocalized in peripheral nerves of WARP-null mice. Further ultrastructural analysis revealed reduced fibrillar collagen deposition within the peripheral nerve extracellular matrix and abnormal partial fusing of adjacent Schwann cell basement membranes, suggesting an important function for WARP in stabilizing the association of the collagenous interstitial matrix with the Schwann cell basement membrane. In contrast, other WARP-deficient tissues such as articular cartilage, intervertebral discs, and skeletal muscle showed no detectable abnormalities, and basement membranes formed normally. Our data demonstrate that although WARP is not essential for basement membrane formation or musculoskeletal development, it has critical roles in the structure and function of peripheral nerves.


In this study, deep drawing using plastic die was investigated to prevent seizure during forming. In the deep drawing process of aluminum and titanium sheets, seizure was found to occur during forming due to a high reactivity with other metals. For the prevention of seizure, plastic dies were used in this study. These plastic materials have a good resistant to seizing, since no seizure occurs in the contact surface of the metal and plastic material. Moreover, the effects of seizure and wearing die on the dimensional accuracy of drawn cups were examined using nylon die. The blanks used were pure aluminum, aluminum alloy A5052 and pure titanium. The blanks could be successfully formed with a water lubricant. To increase the dimensional accuracy of the drawn cups, deep drawing using fiber-glass-reinforced nylon and plastic composite steel die was also attempted. It was found that the use of plastic die was very effective in preventing of seizure.


We describe basic considerations in the Lagrangian modeling of aquatic vehicles developing liftlike forces in a controlled way. We introduce the aquatic Flettner rotor as prototypical of this class of vehicles, and demonstrate the compatibility of Lagrangian formalism with experimental data describing a laboratory rotor. We analyze the controllability of a model for the rotor, connect its structure to that of models for Lagrangian systems subject to nonholonomic constraints, and present numerical evidence that our model can behave chaotically given physically motivated inputs and disturbances. We conclude with a description of a fishlike robotic vehicle employing a rotor in place of a caudal fin


Various robotic applications including surgical instruments, wearable robots and autonomous mobile robots are often constrained with strict design requirements on high degrees of freedom (DoF) and minimal volume and weight. An intuitive design to meet these contradictory requirements is to embed locking mechanism in under actuated robotic manipulators to direct the actuation from a single and remote source to drive different joints on demand. Mechanical clutches do serve such purposes but often are bulky and require auxiliary mechanism making it difficult to justify the high cost adding the additional DoF, especially in cm scale. Here, we introduce an under-actuated robotic arm with shape memory polymer (SMP) joints. Through controlling the temperature, the stiffness of the joints can be adjusted and selected joints will be activated while the rest are fixed in their position. The presented prototype can control the joints independently with a coupled actuation from two stepper motors. Since we have redundant DoFs in the arm, there can be more than one configuration to reach a given position. We use a probabilistic technique to determine the optimum configuration with the minimum number of active joints that can yield the desired posture. In this paper, we report on the performance of the proposed design for the hardware and the configuration planner.


The Church of Pantokrator (Zeyrek Mosque) is a Byzantine located in the Zeyrek district of Istanbul which was included in the World Heritage List in 1985 by UNESCO. The church suffered from earthquakes, fires and alterations in its history. In this paper, a brief history of the church, description of the northern structure with its damages and a preliminary analysis of the structure including an intervention proposal is presented. The reason to choose the northern part of the complex was due to its fragile condition in comparison with the other parts of the monument. This part has severe cracks on its structural elements and consequently during a possible repair and conservation work, it has priority.


In 1998 Bleichenbacher presented an adaptive chosen-ciphertext attack on the RSA PKCS #1 v1.5 padding scheme. The attack exploits the availability of a server which responds with different messages based on the ciphertext validity. This server is used as an oracle and allows the attacker to decrypt RSA ciphertexts. Given the importance of this attack, countermeasures were defined in TLS and other cryptographic standards using RSA PKCS #1 v1.5.

We perform the first large-scale evaluation of Bleichenbacher's RSA vulnerability. We show that this vulnerability is still very prevalent in the Internet and affected almost a third of the top 100 domains in the Alexa Top 1 Million list, including Facebook and Paypal.

We identified vulnerable products from nine different vendors and open source projects, among them F5, Citrix, Radware, Palo Alto Networks, IBM, and Cisco. These implementations provide novel side-channels for constructing Bleichenbacher oracles: TCP resets, TCP timeouts, or duplicated alert messages. In order to prove the importance of this attack, we have demonstrated practical exploitation by signing a message with the private key of facebook.com's HTTPS certificate. Finally, we discuss countermeasures against Bleichenbacher attacks in TLS and recommend to deprecate the RSA encryption key exchange in TLS and the RSA PKCS #1 v1.5 standard.


We investigate the determining mechanisms of the inversion-layer capacitance Cinv in the high-k/metal gate stacks, focusing on the two perturbative effects related with the dielectric properties. Those effects are the penetration of inversion-layer carriers into the dielectrics with a finite potential barrier and the image potential acting on the carriers adjacent to the dielectrics with permittivity different from that of the silicon substrate. The experimental and the theoretical analyses of the Cinv dependency on the crystal orientation of silicon substrates enable us to separate the two effects and to prove that the observed Cinv modulation in the high- k/metal gate stacks is attributable not to the image potential effect, but to the penetration effect. Moreover, we investigate the reduction of the total gate capacitance due to the Cinv in the advanced gate stacks scaled down to 0.66-nm equivalent oxide thickness. The influence of the elementary composition, the physical thickness, and the interface layer on a scaling loss due to the Cinv is experimentally evaluated.


Losses of calves in beef herds to Clostridial diseases continues to be a problem. In a large 1991 Colorado study 1 of 47 herds with 11,767 cows reported that two of the most common causes of calf mortality were enteric and sudden death diseases. Both of these entities are consistent with Clostridial disease. Unfortunately, less than 1% of the calves that died were ever presented to a diagnostic lab for confirmation of death and 99% was based on producer perception. A smaller study 2 conducted in 1992-93 of 15 beef herds in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska with 3,273 calves born attempted to at least get a better handle on the extent of Clostridial related disease. In this study, a total of 153 died (4.7%) with 93 calves dying between 48 hours and branding at about 2 months of age. All 93 calves were submitted for field necropsy and sample submission for confirmatory laboratory diagnosis. This was a cooperative effort involving 8 local veterinary practitioners who received uniform training and 2 state diagnostic laboratories. Causes of death were categorized into 1) abomasitis, 2) abomasal ulcer, 3) clostridial enteritis, 4) general enteritis, 5) respiratory/pneumonia, and 5) other causes of death. Samples were submitted to diagnostic labs in Colorado and Nebraska and the information assimilated into the same six categories reported by the practioners. field


Population informatics is the systematic study of populations via secondary analysis of massive data collections about people, called the social genome. A major challenge in building the social genome is the difficulty in data integration of heterogeneous and uncoordinated data while protecting the confidentiality of the data subjects. Here, we present our work in designing a flexible computerized third party linkage platform, Secure Decoupled Linkage (SDLink), which can provide both privacy protection and accurate high quality integrated data using a hybrid human-machine data integration system. Our evaluation results show that chaffing used in combination with universe manipulation is very effective in blocking inferences during the clerical review process.


It is a common observation that there is variability in the rate of activation of C1, the first component of complement, when bound to immune complexes. The cause of this variation has been investigated with experiments designed to assess separately the effect of antibody, antigen and C1 density. Using 125I‐labeled C1 and a rat monoclonal antibody specific for the class I antigen, it has been found that the rate of activation is primarily dependent on antibody density on the cell surface and not on antigen or C1 density. This finding supports the suggestion that direct contact between the Clr2Cls2subcomponent of C1 and antibody may be required for potentiation of C1 activation.


Background There is a consensus among the halachic authorities that life-saving actions override Sabbath prohibitions. They are painstaking in securing that the sanctity of the Sabbath is maintained but that not a single life be lost. Objective This manuscript examines if and when a relative's presence at the bedside of a seriously ill individual is potentially life-saving against the backdrop of the scientific literature. It specifically addresses the permissibility of traveling in a motorized vehicle, generally prohibited on the Sabbath, to be with one's relative in hospital for the provision of emotional support. Methods Discourse of the halachic issues in the context of the scientific literature. Results Stress, mental or physical, has been determined as a potentially life-threatening condition in many disease entities. The literature attests to both the patient's and the professionals' perception of the curative potential of the presence of loved ones by advocating for the patient and relieving stress in the hospital experience. Emotional support from a loved one is perceived by some patients as vital to survival. There is halachic consensus that a patient's perception of the emotional need for a relative's presence is sufficient to permit overriding rabbinic prohibitions. Torah prohibitions, which may be overridden for medical needs, may be overridden for emotional support, providing a health professional or family member attests to the fulfilment of this specific need as diminishing the danger to the patient's life. In certain cases, the latter contingency is unnecessary. Conclusions Emotional support has an impact on the patient's health status; the degree to which its impact is strong enough to save life is still being studied. As more data from scientific studies emerge, they may be relevant to sharpening the halachic rulings with respect to the issue at hand.


Abstract Radio and optical observations from December 2001 and January 2002 of the active RS CVn-like binary CC Eri are presented. The star was monitored at 4.80 and 8.64 GHz over 3 × 12 h allocations with the Australia Telescope Compact Array on 28 to 30 December 2001. The Anglo-Australian Telescope was used for simultaneous optical spectropolarimetry during a 0.5 h period on 30 December. Data from four nights of broadband photometry gathered around the same period are also included in this present multiwavelength study. The low levels of radio emission were circularly polarised at ∼20% with slightly positive spectral indices of ∼0.26. Two flare-like increases were observed on successive nights with steep positive spectral indices and no detectable polarisation. Cross-correlation analysis of the 4.80 and 8.64 GHz intensities over the stronger flare showed that the higher frequency emission preceded that at the lower frequency by ∼5 min, a result consistent with the propagation of a hydromagnetic disturbance outwards through the corona. On the same night, a significant cross-correlation in the 'quiescent' emission indicates the presence of micro-flaring, although its low intensity does not permit the evaluation of a time delay. The emission parameters on the three nights are compatible with a gyrosyncrotron mechanism, in which the radio source becomes optically thick during strong flaring. We develop a simple model, which is based on assuming that the number of radiating electrons is a given function of the magnetic field in the source region, and derive feasible values for the field, source radius, and number of emitting electrons, which are not strongly dependent on the field modelling function or the aspect ratio of the source. Spectropolarimetry demonstrates the presence of a strong surface magnetic field. Optical photometry, covering a sufficient amount of the orbit, indicates a maculation region of significant size (∼14° radius). The results help develop a three-dimensional picture of a large stellar magnetically active region and encourage more detailed follow-up multiwavelength studies of this and similar stars.


The last decade has seen a significant increase in empirical research into the nature of art and aesthetic experience in the Anglo- American scientific community. Much of the impetus for this came from the publication of three special issues of the present journal on the theme of 'Art and the Brain' (Vol. 6, no. 6-7, 1999; Vol. 7, no. 8-9, 2000; Vol.11, no. 3-4, 2004). A decade or so later, it seems timely to consider the extent to which these new approaches have filtered through into wider philosophical understanding. Many philosophers express scepticism towards empirical aesthetics. This paper seeks to re-examine the grounds for any such scepticism and proposes a new reading of the explanatory power of scientific approaches. It begins by separating the data provided by such theories into three categories. Having identified a particular conceptual problem, it argues that many empirical accounts fail to distinguish sufficiently between the aesthetic and the artistic, and that this is a source of considerable philosophical concern. It then suggests that empirical aesthetics should be divided into two branches, namely empirical aesthetics and empirical art theory. Although such a division may seem to restrict the explanatory reach of scientific accounts somewhat in philosophy, it highlights the numerous ways in which empirical investigations can nonetheless strengthen and benefit philosophical analyses.


Histone modifications are important epigenetic features of chromatin that must be replicated faithfully. However, the molecular mechanisms required to duplicate and maintain histone modification patterns in chromatin remain to be determined. Here, we show that the introduction of histone modifications into newly deposited nucleosomes depends upon their location in the chromosome. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, newly deposited nucleosomes consisting of newly synthesized histone H3-H4 tetramers are distributed throughout the entire chromosome. Methylation of lysine 4 on histone H3 (H3-K4), a hallmark of euchromatin, is introduced into these newly deposited nucleosomes, regardless of whether the neighboring preexisting nucleosomes harbor the K4 mutation in histone H3. Furthermore, if the heterochromatin-binding protein Sir3 is unavailable during DNA replication, histone H3-K4 methylation is introduced onto newly deposited nucleosomes in telomeric heterochromatin. Thus, a conservative distribution model most accurately explains the inheritance of histone modifications because the location of histones within euchromatin or heterochromatin determines which histone modifications are introduced.


Novel imidazolium-based norbornene polymerized ionic liquids (PILs) with different counterions (CH3SO3−, CF3SO3−, CF3(CF2)3SO3−, FSI−, Tf2N−) for self-healing are synthesized via ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) utilizing the Grubbs third generation catalyst (G3). As proved by the changes in the chemical shift of the imidazolium proton in 1H NMR spectra in CDCl3, variation of the counterion brings different interaction intensities between imidazolium and counterions. The glass transition temperature (Tg) was mainly influenced by the size of the counterion. For large counterions such as FSI− and Tf2N−, they not only formed loose ionic aggregates leading to weak physical cross-links, but also acted as plasticizers in the polymer matrix, resulting in a decrease of Tg. X-ray scattering tests also proved that small counterions were prone to forming packed ion clusters leading to intensive ion aggregation. The ionic associations in the polymer matrix serve as physical cross-links, restricting the mobility of the surrounding polymer chain and improving the mechanical strength. However, sufficient chain mobility was in favor of the dynamic rearrangement of ion aggregation over the fracture surface that imparted the self-healing behavior. To balance the mechanical properties and healing performance, PIL blends with appropriate Tg were prepared by blending a high Tg PIL (such as CH3SO3−, CF3SO3− or CF3(CF2)3SO3−) with varying amounts of a low Tg PIL (i.e. Tf2N−). Via this approach, the Tg of the resulting blends could be systemically tuned by adjusting the blending ratio and counterion. As expected, both excellent mechanical performance and self-healing capability of the well-designed PILs were achieved simultaneously.


The growth of existing tourist in this time create emulation of tight business. To win an emulation, a company of including tourist have can give satisfaction to consumer, one of  its way is optimal of variables had by company that is marketing mix. This  research is executed at " Wisata Bahari Lamongan" Lamongan, East Java. The purpose of this research are to analysis : (1) the influence of marketing mix by together to level satisfacation of tourism; (2) the influence of marketing mix by parsial to level satisfacation of tourism; (3) marketing mix variable most dominant  to level satisfacation of tourism. The methods of this reseach is survai. Random sampling is technique to take the sampel. To determine the amount of sampel to be taken by Maxsimum Likelihood Estimation (MLE). Result of research indicate that F calculate (16.262) > F tables (2.09), this means satisfacation of tourism influenced by various factor by together that is: product which is offer have taste beauty and typically; reached price; strategic location; in accordance with reality of promotion; accuracy and comunicative employees; clean phisycal evidance and the axistence of adequate facility. Although separately, the variable give influence to satisfacation of tourism, can be seen that t calculate > t tables. From seven variable, there is one valuable variable of negative, that is price. Its meaning, if to be increasingly of price hence satisfacation of tourism will be decrease. Location variable is dominant variable of invluence satisfacation of tourism, becouse is have value of t calculate highestly. Keyword : marketing mix, ancient and tourism satisfacation


New linear triblock thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) comprising a rubbery polyisobutylene (PIB) midblock flanked by two glassy endblocks of various styrenic polymers have been synthesized by living carbocationic polymerization by sequential monomer addition. First isobutylene (IB) was polymerized by a bifunctional tert-ether (dicumyl methyl ether) initiator in conjunction with TiCl4 coinitiator in CH3Cl/methylcyclohexane (MeCHx) (40/60 v/v) solvent mixtures at −80°C. After the living narrow molecular weight distribution PIB midblock ( = 1.1–1.2) has reached the desired molecular weight, the styrenic monomers together with an electron pair donor (ED) and a proton trap (di-tert-butylpyridine, DtBP) were added to start the blocking of the glassy segments from the living ⊕PIB⊕ chain ends. While p-methylstyrene (pMeSt), p-t-butylstyrene (ptBuSt) and indene (In) gave essentially 100% blocking to the corresponding glassy endblocks, the blocking of 2,4,6-trimethylstyrene (TMeSt) and α-methylstyrene (αMeSt) were ineffective. Uncontrolled initiation by protic impurities was prevented by the use of DtBP. In the simultaneous presence of DtBP and the strong ED N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMA), TPEs with good mechanical properties (10–20 MPa tensile strength, 300–600% elongation) were prepared. The products exhibit a low and a high temperature Tg characteristic of phase separated rubbery and glassy domains. The service temperature of these new TPEs exceeds that of PSt–PIB–PSt triblock copolymers due to the higher Tgs (PpMeSt = 108, PptBuSt = 142 and PIn = 220–240°C) of the outer blocks. The Tg of the glassy blocks can be regulated by copolymerizing two styrene derivatives; a triblock copolymer with outer blocks of poly(pt-butylstyrene-co-indene) showed a single glassy transition Tg = +165°C, i.e., in between that of PptBuSt and PIn. Virgin TPEs have been repeatedly compression molded without deterioration of physical properties. The high melt flow index obtained with a TPE containing PptBuSt endblocks suggests superior processability relative to those with PSt end-blocks. The tensile strength retention at 60°C of the former TPE is far superior to that of a PSt–PIB–PSt triblock of similar composition.


With the raise of the sustainable production concept and intense global industrial competition, companies' pressure on retaining profit becomes heavier. Without devoting to reduce the environment impact, company should identify a competitive business model to stand out from others. As a solution, productservice system (PSS) has been proposed. PSS is a concept which attaches importance to balance economic, environmental, and social aspect by adding service into product to elevate the product value and improve the utilization of products. Although PSS seems to be a win-win idea in both customers and suppliers, companies still struggle to develop customized PSS. The purpose of this study is to provide a process which could guide the companies to evaluate and develop their specialized profitable and sustainable PSS business model based on core competence. Also, two umbrella related cases were applied to prove that this methodology could assist company in developing customized PSS business model. The result would be presented in the value interaction model.


The images of maidens in Italian opera and German lieder from the period 1800-1850 are vivid. In the plots of the operas and the scenes and stories of the lieder almost invariably these characters focus enthusiastically on heartfelt love. This exegesis explores the relationship between the expression of love by unmarried women in selected lieder and opera of the first half of the nineteenth century and performance of these works by the young soprano in the twenty-first century. In the period when these songs and operas were written, performers of lieder would often have been of a similar age to the maiden characters portrayed in the songs, and in the case of Italian opera at the time, the singers who created such roles were usually in their twenties or early thirties. As a young soprano myself, in my study I consider some questions which are relevant for twenty-first century female singers who choose to perform these nineteenth-century portrayals of virgin characters. The figures in the works I have selected to study display a wide variety of personalities, moods and emotions, from the tenacious wild rose in Schubert's 'Heidenröslein', to his passionate Gretchen and the melancholic Amina in Bellini's La Sonnambula. I consider how the soprano may express the different emotions involved and approach performing young maiden characters such as these, whose experiences of life and status in society may be substantially removed from twenty-first century experiences.   In order to address these questions, I examine the selected song and aria texts in terms of the relationship between the content of the stories and the characters, as well as analyzing the vocal skills that can be used and vocal effects that may be applied when shaping these roles according to the music as written. In addition, I combine the background to the story and the plot with the musical markings in selected phrases to explore the emotional variety of the characters so as to interpret the deeper significance in the compositions. Through learning and performing these particular pieces I have explored the vocal techniques which are required in singing them from a practical perspective and this enables me to contribute insights I have gained to the general understanding of the skills required for this particular area of the repertoire. Having chosen repertoire for this study which combines Italian opera arias and lieder, and I also consider how the differences I have found in the vocal works may reflect their respective genres and distinguish the skills required for each. Through writing about my own research into the performance of these works, I provide new insights and ideas about these maiden characters which may be applicable to any young sopranos who sing repertoire from this period, and useful for their own vocal perfo


This paper analyzes probability of bit-error (P/sub e/) performance of asynchronous bandlimited direct-sequence code-division multiple-access systems with binary phase-shift keying spreading. The two present methods of P/sub e/ analysis under bandwidth-efficient pulse shaping: the often-cited standard Gaussian approximation and the characteristic function (CF) method suffer from either a low accuracy in regions of low P/sub e/ (< 10/sup -3/) or a prohibitively large computational complexity. The paper presents an alternate method of P/sub e/ analysis with moderate computational complexity and high accuracy based on a key observation. A sequence of chip decision statistics (whose sum yields a bit statistic) forms a stationary, m-dependent sequence when conditioned on the chip delay and phase offset of each interfering signal. This observation permits the generalization of the improved Gaussian approximation previously derived for the rectangular pulse and the derivation of a numerically efficient approximation based on the CF method. Numerical examples of systems using the square-root raised-cosine and IS-95 pulses illustrate THE P/sub e/ performance, user capacity and the accuracy of the proposed method.


The main objective of this research paper is to empirically evaluate the theoretical relationship between unemployment and some key macroeconomic determinants including among others trade openness policy and real economic growth for Arab countries. The main question of the study is whether achieving economic growth and liberalizing international trade contribute to creating more jobs and hence resulting in less unemployment. The study utilizes a cross time series sample coving the period 1990-2015 for seven selected Arab countries. The study estimated the unemployment model using panel WLS. The study provides evidence of large and significant impact of trade openness on unemployment rates in the selected Arab countries when taken as one pooled group. On the other hand, as expected real economic growth affected favorably unemployment rates in this group of countries.


The memory intellectual property (IP) is a key component for video coding systems as using system on one chip design methodology. In this paper, cost-effective memory design and complex address generation are presented for high-definition television coding applications. The addressing method uses a bit-allocation approach to simplify the computational circuit and significantly improves the memory access speed. For the bit-allocation requirement, a new memory structure is designed using pseudoaddress decoding concept to reduce the I/O complexity and to shorten the access time. The memory IP integrated to practical video coding systems is also presented. The experiments show that the proposed memory IP can provide better performance than the conventional one.


The research paper proposes the "Smart Fire Alarm System Using IOT" in smart building by integrating IOT devices, including fire alarm devices (smoke and temperature detectors), Arduino and other complementary equipment. The idea of the research paper is when a fire occurs, the sensors will send a message to the security of the building and the official, and this massage includes location and time. The internet of things is predicted to provide businesses and people with better visibility and has the power to control 99% of environments and available objects that are at this time out of reach of the internet. So therefor, IOT make opportunity to people and businesses to be attached with the outside world even more than before that will achieve more meaningful work in higher levels. The traditional fire alarm system contains several types of devices each has a specific role in system operation to detect people and worn them through visual and audible devices if there is a fire, smoke, carbon monoxide or any other emergencies. This type of alarm can automatically have activated from heat and smoke detector and it could be activated by manual fire alarms such us manual focal point or intake station. Alarms can come as a motorized bell; horns or wall-mounted speaker they can also be luminous sound for speakers that actually sound an alarm, and add an audio evacuation message that for example will warn people against using elevator.


Amputees face a number of gait deficits due to a lack of control and power from their mechanically-passive prostheses. Of crucial importance among these deficits are those related to balance, as falls and a fear of falling can cause an avoidance of activity that leads to further debilitation. In this thesis, we investigate the role that prosthesis control strategies play in maintaining balance with a powered robotic transfemoral prosthesis. Our approach involves comparing state-of-the-art prosthesis controllers on a common platform and learning from this experiment to propose two new prosthesis controlstrategies that directly address observed causes of falls in both the swing and stance phases. We begin by designing and manufacturing our own powered transfemoral prosthesis capable of large torques for stumble recovery and accurate reproduction of desired torques from different controlstrategies. We also propose a pair of optimization methods that allow us to select prosthesis control parameters using qualitative preference feedback from the user. Next, we test a hypothesis that a stance control approach based ona model of the human neuromuscular system may help improve gait robustness and user satisfaction over the commonly used impedance control method. This hypothesis stems from previous research applying neuromuscular control to simulated biped models and to poweredankle prostheses that suggests that this approach can adapt to changes in speed, incline, and rough ground. While our experiment did not find a significant reduction in falls using neuromuscular control, it did reveal that a lack of robust gait phase estimation caused a large number of falls for the impedance control strategy and that both controllers suffered from trips during swing. Therefore, we next proposed and tested two new control strategiesthat directly address these causes of falls. In the first, we use information from an inertial measurement unit and a LIDAR distance sensor to estimate the position, orientation and future trajectory of the hip. This information is then used to plan trajectories for the prosthesis' knee and ankle that avoid tripping during swing. Second, we propose using an extended Kalman filter to improve phase estimationduring stance. We show the resulting control strategy significantly reduced the number of falls compared impedance control when users step on uneven terrain. These results demonstrate the importance of state estimation for improving gait stability.


The photocatalytic efficiencies of three commercially available TiO2 samples were evaluated and compared for TiO2 powder dispersed system with respect to pH and the water to be used for the perpetration of TiO2 slurry. All the TiO2 samples of P-25, NT-C, NT-20 showed a significant dependence of the photocatalytic efficiency on pH and exhibited higher photocatalytic efficiency in the pH between 5 and 7. The water used for the preparation of the TiO2 slurry also affected the photocatalytic efficiency of the TiO2 samples presumably due to a few cation ions existing in the water. The photocatalytic properties of TiO2 samples varied significantly depending on the key experimental conditions applied to the TiO2 slurry.


Color plays a vital role in visual experiences. Professionals in design, fashion, architecture, and art are constantly exploring to find good solutions regarding color. In a globalizing world, color requires less time to "read" than any other means of communication. Recent experiments by artists and designers reveal a never-ending fascination with and attraction to color. Research aimed at the urban environment shows how color identifies cultures and can be used to attract attention. Color provides more than a visual experience, however. Scientific studies have proved that other senses, such as touch and taste, are stimulated as well. Projects devoted to well-being and healing provide solid evidence of an increasing interest in color. Colour Hunting: How Colour Influences What We Buy, Make and Feel presents projects---all richly illustrated with photographs and drawings---that pioneer techniques and experiments with fabrication processes on a small scale, with a do-it-yourself attitude as well as large-scale research projects on paints and coatings, carried out by international companies. The book is divided into three chapters: commerce (sell, buy), aesthetics (make), and well-being (feel). Illustrated pages are followed by in-depth case studies and interviews regarding the use of color for these three purposes. Experts explain why color matters in branding and how knowledge of color and its effects determines the selection of colors that designers apply to their work and the materials involved. Colour Hunting also offers lucid insights into the work of international "trend teams." Interviews with well-known professionals--including Issey Miyake, Leatrice Eiseman of the Pantone Color Institute, and Matthias Sauerbruch of Sauerbruch Hutton Architects--highlight the pages of this book. Jeanne Tan has written for many international magazines, including Wallpaper*, i-D, and Metropolis.


The present study aims at studying the Delay of Gratification in studies among students of creative courses i.e., fashion designing, journalism and fine arts. The instrument used to measure the delay of gratification in academics was delay of gratification in studies scale constructed by "Bembenutty and Karabenick (1996)". Sample subjects of the study included 150 students (91 girls and 63 boys) who voluntarily agreed to participate in the study. For data analysis, mean, standard deviation, standard error and point-biserial correlation coefficient are used as measures under descriptive statistics. Under inferential statistics, t-test and F-test are used to find the significance of results for level of significance α=0.05.


Waste fish oils (FOs) and used cooking vegetable oils (UCOs) are increasingly becoming alternative renewable fuels. However, different physicochemical aspects of these renewable fuels, including the effect of storage, are not well-known. In this work, the effect of the storage period on physicochemical properties of selected samples of FOs and UCOs was investigated. The bio-oils were stored at 4 °C for up to five years before each experimentation. The chemical properties were characterized using capillary gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC-FID) and high-performance size exclusion chromatography including an evaporative light scattering detector (HPSEC-ELSD). Water contents and acid numbers of the bio-oils were determined using the Karl Fischer (KF) titration and the ASTM D 664 methods. Furthermore, the average heating values and surface tension of the bio-oils were determined. According to the results obtained, for all bio-oil types, the concentrations of polymerized triglycerides, diglycerides, and fatty acids and monoglycerides had increased during the storage periods. The physical properties of the bio-oils also showed a small variation as a function of the storage period. The overall results observed indicate that the deterioration of the physicochemical properties of bio-oils can be controlled through storage in dark, dry, and cold conditions.


Modern vaccines must be designed to generate long-lasting, high-affinity, and broadly neutralizing Ab responses against pathogens. The diversity of B cell clones recruited into germinal center (GC) responses is likely to be important for the Ag-neutralization potential of the Ab-secreting cells and memory cells generated upon immunization. However, the factors that influence the diversity of B cell clones recruited into GCs are unclear. As recirculating naive Ag-specific B cells arrive in Ag-draining secondary lymphoid organs, they may join the ongoing GC response. However, the factors that limit their entry are not well understood, and it is not known how that depends on the stage of the ongoing follicular T cell and GC B cell response. In this article, we show that, in mice, naive B cells have a limited window of time during which they can undergo Ag-driven activation and join ongoing immunization-induced GC responses. However, preloading naive B cells with even a threshold-activating amount of Ag is sufficient to rescue their entry into the GC response during its initiation, peak, and contraction. Based on these results, we suggest that productive acquisition of Ag may be one of the main factors limiting entry of new B cell clones into ongoing immunization-triggered GC responses.


The study of species distributions is fundamental for environmental research, conservation planning, and resource management. However, it is not always possible to obtain access to these data, making it difficult to reach the goal of quantifying biodiversity. The distribution of many crustacean groups is poorly studied; such is the case of the superfamily Raninoidea (frog crabs). In order to reduce this information gap, herein we mapped and described the world distribution of members of this superfamily by performing a data visualization analysis. We carried out an extensive review of species records and distribution data from different databases, collections, and unpublished data. Furthermore, we conducted a species richness analysis and an agglomerative cluster analysis to identify biogeographic regions. Both analyses were carried out using the software Biodiverse (v. 2.0). Results showed that Raninoidea is composed of 46 species across a pantropical distribution. For this study, the globe was divided into 30 pre-established biogeographical regions, ranging from the Indo-Pacific seas & Indian Ocean (IPSIO) region, represented by 19 species and a maximum richness of eight species, to the Southern Ocean (SO) region, represented by only one species. Some species are distributed across regions while some are found exclusively in a single region. Due to issues with accuracy and sufficiency of raw data, we also calculated the Chao 1 and ACE indices, which suggest that other species have yet to be recorded.


Third-harmonic generation (THG) has been investigated in the monoclinic BiB(3)O(6). The symmetry and birefringence analysis revealed that there are phase-matching conditions for the direct third-order nonlinear process, where the cascading second-order processes are precluded by the zero effective nonlinearity. The first phase-matched pure chi((3)) THG in a noncentrosymmetric crystal is presented together with the improved Sellmeier and thermo-optic dispersion formulas.


Taking |D(H(2)O)(x)|[AlSiO(4)] based materials (where D is Li, Na, K, Rb or Cs) as an archetypal aluminosilicate system, we use accurate density functional theory calculations to demonstrate how the substitution of silicon cations in silica, with pairs of aluminium and (alkali metal) cations, changes the energetic ordering of different competing structure-types. For large alkali metal cations we further show that the formation of porous aluminosilicate structures, the so-called zeolites, is energetically favored. These findings unequivocally demonstrate that zeolites can be energetic preferred reaction products, rather than being kinetically determined, and that the size of the (hydrated) cations in the pore, be it inorganic or organic, is critical for directing zeolite synthesis.


The authors propose two regenerative hybrid adaptive arrays in which a self-generated reference signal is obtained through a detection-modulation procedure from the array output. The proposed arrays do not depend on spectrum spreading and are therefore applicable when this feature is not available. It is shown that at steady state the performance of these regenerative hybrid arrays is approximately the same as that of a hybrid array with a perfect reference signal. As to transient behavior, these arrays are shown to converge if the available imperfect steering vector can result in a few dB output signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio with the self-generated reference disabled. >


Motzkin paths are simple yet important combinatorial objects. In this paper, we consider families of Motzkin paths with restrictions on peak heights, valley heights, upward-run lengths, downward-run lengths, and flat-run lengths. This paper presents two fully automated methods for enumerating the paths of such families. The first method uses numeric dynamic programming. While this method oftentimes works, it can be slow and may not work for larger problems. The second method uses symbolic dynamic programming to solve such problems. These methods are implemented in Maple packages accompanying this article.


OBJECT
Over the past decade, the use of intraoperative MR (iMR) imaging in the pediatric neurosurgical population has become increasingly accepted as an innovative and important neurosurgical tool. The authors summarize their experience using a mobile 1.5-T iMR imaging unit with integrated neuronavigation with the goal of identifying procedures and/or pathologies in which the application of this technology changed the course of surgery or modified the operative strategy.

METHODS
A database has been prospectively maintained for this patient population. The authors reviewed the hospital charts and imaging results for all patients in the database. This review revealed 105 neurosurgical procedures performed in 98 children (49 male and 49 female) between March 1998 and April 2008. Intradissection (ID) and/or quality assurance images were obtained at the discretion of the surgeon.

RESULTS
The median age at surgery was 12 years (4 months-18 years). One hundred intracranial and 5 spinal procedures were performed; 22 of these procedures were performed for recurrent pathology. Surgical planning scans were obtained for 102 procedures, and neuronavigation was used in 93 patients. The greatest impact of iMR imaging was apparent in the 55 procedures to resect neoplastic lesions; ID scans were obtained in 49 of these procedures. Further surgery was performed in 49% of the procedures during which ID scans had been obtained. A smaller proportion of ID scans in the different cranial pathology groups (5 of 21 epilepsy cases, 4 of 9 vascular cases) resulted in further resections to meet the surgical goal of the surgeon. Two ID scans obtained during 5 procedures for the treatment of spinal disease did not lead to any change in surgery. Postoperative scans did not reveal any acute adverse events. There was 1 intraoperative adverse event in which a Greenberg retractor was inadvertently left on during ID scanning but was removed after the scout scans.

CONCLUSIONS
The application of iMR imaging in the pediatric neurosurgical population allows, at minimum, the opportunity to perform less invasive surgical exposures. Its potential is greatest when its high-quality imaging ability is coupled with its superior neuronavigation capabilities, which permits tracking of the extent of resection of intracranial tumors and, to a lesser extent, other lesions during the surgical procedure.


Delineating seismic and aseismic slip on faults allows the exploration of the complex relationship between these different modes of slip. Further, quantifying them helps in the assessment of seismogenic potential. We present a distributed slip model of the rate of aseismic slip along the Leyte island section of the Philippine Fault and make comparisons with the extent of seismic slip from the latest significant earthquakes in July 2017. We derived both coseismic and aseismic slip distributions from kinematic inversions of synthetic aperture radar interferometric (InSAR) observations using a probabilistic (Bayesian) framework. Velocity maps from stacking and time series analysis of ALOS interferograms spanning 4 years (2007–2011) show a step change in ground deformation right on the fault. Inverting for slip at depth reveals along‐strike variations of aseismic slip rate over ∼100 km. Aseismic slip on the surface reaches rates of more than 3 cm/yr, equivalent to the long‐term slip rate (3.3 ± 0.2 cm/yr). Over the same period, a 20‐km segment in Tongonan appears to be locked. This segment ruptured in Mw 6.5 and Mw 5.8 earthquakes on 6 and 10 July 2017, respectively, as constrained by Sentinel‐1 and ALOS‐2 InSAR data. Seismic slip appears to be restricted within the Tongonan segment, with up to 152 ± 21 cm of left‐lateral displacement. The slip budget and complementarity between the extents of interseismic and coseismic slip suggest that a seismogenic asperity exists in Tongonan. The presence of active hydrothermal systems and rate‐strengthening materials provide physical conditions that can promote aseismic slip.


This article summarizes the design and findings – both at 3 months and at 1 year follow-up – of the Fragmin during Instability in Coronary Artery Disease (FRISC) II trial. This multicentre randomized trial compared both an early invasive with an early non-invasive stategy, and prolonged treatment with dalteparin as opposed to placebo, in patients with unstable coronary artery disease. The results show that an early invasive strategy with coronary angiography and, if appropriate, revascularization procedures within 7 days after admission reduces the subsequent rate of mortality and myocardial infarction. The benefits of the invasive treatment were noticeably more marked in patients with any high-risk indicator – for example, male gender, age above 65 years, previous severe angina, or signs of ischaemia (ST depression on ECG) or of myocardial damage (elevated levels of troponin T). Treatment with dalteparin reduced the risk of death and myocardial infarction in high-risk (i.e. troponin-positive) patients, particularly during the first month of treatment. However, continuation with dalteparin therapy after revascularization procedures conferred no benefit. It is concluded that extended treatment with dalteparin is useful as a bridge to revascularization in this high-risk subgroup of patients with unstable coronary artery disease.