The differences in small noncoding RNAs (sncRNAs), including miRNAs, piRNAs, and tRNA-derived fragments (tsRNAs), between X and Y sperm of mammals remain unclear. Here, we employed high-throughput sequencing to systematically compare the sncRNA profiles of X and Y sperm from bulls (n = 3), which may have a wider implication for the whole mammalian class. For the comparison of miRNA profiles, we found that the abundance of bta-miR-652 and bta-miR-378 were significantly higher in X sperm, while nine miRNAs, including bta-miR-204 and bta-miR-3432a, had greater abundance in Y sperm (p < 0.05). qPCR was then used to further validate their abundances. Subsequent functional analysis revealed that their targeted genes in sperm were significantly involved in nucleosome binding and nucleosomal DNA binding. In contrast, their targeted genes in mature oocyte were significantly enriched in 11 catabolic processes, indicating that these differentially abundant miRNAs may trigger a series of catabolic processes for the catabolization of different X and Y sperm components during fertilization. Furthermore, we found that X and Y sperm showed differences in piRNA clusters distributed in the genome as well as piRNA and tsRNA abundance, two tsRNAs (tRNA-Ser-AGA and tRNA-Ser-TGA) had lower abundance in X sperm than Y sperm (p < 0.05). Overall, our work describes the different sncRNA profiles of X and Y sperm in cattle and enhances our understanding of their potential roles in the regulation of sex differences in sperm and early embryonic development.


This essay discusses the formative processes while antropotechnic processes. The expectation is to contribute for the debate about the meanings inherent in speeches that promote and disseminate multiple devices for inclusion of differences. The central argument defends that the abandonment of reflection on the notion of plasticity has deprived the philosophy of education to think the exposure processes of lives that do not allow themselves to double the existing normative codes, hiding a possible becomingdeficient's own pedagogy. The becoming-deficient pedagogy goes through expressive manifestations of the life forms that explode and are made disaster. Plasticity is configured so as a condition of possibility and as a threat to domesticating humanism. Following the reflections of Peter Sloterdijk and Catherine Malabou, plasticity is thought of as an indication that all human life is an unavoidable accident, and disability only a limit on biopolitics attempts to reconstruct an ideal or totalizing model of the human. Disabled people can save some disturbing lessons about our pedagogical maxims. The becoming-deficient pedagogy points an ethical-political will to think about human development beyond the notion of perfectibility, jeopardizing one of the esoteric secrets of Western pedagogical reflection.


IL-27 is a novel IL-12 family member that plays a role in the early regulation of Th1 initiation, induces proliferation of naive CD4 (cid:1) T cells, and synergizes with IL-12 in IFN- (cid:2) production. It has been recently reported that IL-27 induces T-bet and IL-12R (cid:3) 2 expression through JAK1/STAT1 activation. In the present study, we further investigated the JAK/STAT signaling molecules activated by IL-27 and also the role of STAT1 in IL-27-mediated responses using STAT1-deficient mice. In addition to JAK1 and STAT1, IL-27-activated JAK2, tyrosine kinase-2, and STAT2, -3, and -5 in naive CD4 (cid:1) T cells. The activation of STAT2 and STAT5, but not of STAT3, was greatly diminished in STAT1-deficient naive CD4 (cid:1) T cells. Comparable proliferative response to IL-27 was observed between STAT1-deficient and wild-type naive CD4 (cid:1) T cells. In contrast, IL-27 hardly induced T-bet and subsequent IL-12R (cid:3) 2 expression, and synergistic IFN- (cid:2) production by IL-27 and IL-12 was impaired in STAT1-deficient naive CD4 (cid:1) T cells. Moreover, IL-27 augmented the expression of MHC class I on naive CD4 (cid:1) T cells in a STAT1-dependent manner. These results suggest that IL-27 activates JAK1 and -2, tyrosine kinase-2, STAT1, -2, -3, and -5 in naive CD4 (cid:1) T cells and that STAT1 plays an indispensable role


A covariant generalisation of Berry's phase, valid for both linear and non-linear wave equations, is applied to problems involving weak gravitational or inertial fields and to the decoupling and solution of the field equations of the Weyl-Dirac theory.


Abstract:This paper introduces a subfield of management studies, "critical management studies" (CMS) in order to rethink mainstream management practices in academic libraries, with strategic planning as an illustrative example. Mainstream management models from the corporate sector prioritize efficiency, productivity, and numerical measures for assessing impact. Academic libraries have generally borrowed uncritically from this mainstream management praxis, but how well does this serve our needs, especially when it comes to the most complex issues we face? CMS draws on critical theory to interrogate the methods and goals of mainstream management, with an emphasis on denaturalizing "taken for granted" practices and prioritizing ethics and worker equity. After providing a brief overview of the history and adoption of mainstream management in academic libraries, this paper focuses on strategic planning as an illustrative exploration of CMS principles in an academic library context. Strategic planning is a common managerial practice that has been embraced by academic libraries and generally modeled after mainstream approaches. Yet, CMS scholars contend that traditional strategic planning reproduces workplace inequities and universalizes managerial interests. In this article, I employ ideas from CMS to rethink library strategic planning by opening participation, reframing problems, and embracing our ethical agency.


All historians divide the past into periods, distinguishing moments of decisive change from times of relative stability. There is no other way to give the past a shape and thereby perceive it as something other than a random stream of events. Every label we put upon a historical period is already an interpretation and contains a story embedded within it. There is no escaping from this process into objectivity. Telling the story of the past in terms of centuries may appear to be a neutral process, but it is not, for the world flows on when centuries change. Italian theatre historians are relatively comfortable when framing books or essays around the cinquecento , the 1500s, because at the start of that century we find dramatists adapting Roman comedies into Italian in a decisive move into 'renaissance' drama, whilst at the end we find dramatists, again in imitation of antiquity, creating new forms of music-theatre that will later be defined as 'baroque opera'. English historians struggle harder to make 'sixteenth-century drama' work as a narrative frame and usually opt for 'Tudor drama', since the Tudor dynasty ruled from 1485–1603. Shakespeare's writing career straddled two centuries, not to mention two dynasties, and he has become the reference point for creating a sense of English theatre history. His mid-career Hamlet was probably written in 1601, while nothing remarkable seems to have happened in around 1500. The 'Sixteenth Century' works as an organising frame if the English historian wants to trace a process that culminated in the masterpieces of Shakespeare, but it yields a different kind of story to the Italian cinquecento . The word 'medieval' (i.e., of the 'middle ages') has proved one of the most resilient of all period labels. The idea of a time in the middle emerged as early as the fifteenth century, when Italian intellectuals tried to emulate a lost classical civilisation, believing that the ten centuries since the fall of the Roman Empire had been a time of cultural darkness. With the ruins of ancient buildings littered about their cities, Italians sensed the importance of a vanished civilisation and wanted to recoup what they saw as their own past; in the Germanic world of central Europe, on the other hand, the institution of the Holy Roman Empire implied that a line of continuity joined the first pagan emperors of Rome to their Christian successors, so the concept of a 'middle' ages dividing then from now was slower to emerge..


Editor,—Carey Franklin Coombs, 1879–1932, was a physician at the Bristol General Hospital. He made important studies of rheumatic fever describing the diastolic murmur of acute rheumatic mitral valvulitis, which bears his name, and taking a great interest in the prevention and management of heart disease in children. His 1924 monograph Rheumatic heart disease became a standard work on the subject. He also did pioneering work in coronary heart disease, and around 1910 he made a clinical diagnosis of coronary thrombosis at a time when the condition was almost unheard of. His patient survived, so without necropsy proof he did not achieve priority of recognition, which went to James Herrick of Chicago in 1912.1 His interest in the disease continued, and by 1932 he had studied and published 144 …


. We review the discrete evolution problem and the corresponding solution as a discrete Dyson series in order to rigorously derive a discrete version of Magnus expansion. We also systematically derive the discrete analogue of the pre-Lie Magnus expansion and show that the elements of the discrete Dyson series are expressed in terms of a tridendriform algebra action. Key links between quantum algebras, tridendriform and pre-Lie algebras are then established. This is achieved by examining tensor realizations of quantum groups, such as the Yangian. We show that these realizations can be expressed in terms of tridendriform and pre-Lie algebras actions. The continuous limit as expected provides the corresponding non-local charges of the Yangian as members of the pre-Lie Magnus expansion.


IEEE 802.15.4e Time Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) operates on a time-division scheme and uses 16 separate channels for each communication to ensure high reliability even in an industrial environment where many devices are concentrated. The process of participating in the network is indispensable because the entire network operates at the same time. However, there is a problem with TSCH's channel change technique, which results in longer network participation time for new nodes wanting to participate in the network. Previous research has randomly chosen channels for beaconing to reduce network formation time. However, this approach is effective for networks with fewer nodes, but conflicts in beacon messages in networks with approximately 20 or more networks result in network congestion, which increases network participation time. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a collision minimization scheduling technique. This strategy assigns a separate time zone to each node to exclude the possibility of beacon message collisions. This algorithm allocates timeslot based on RANK of RPL. By explicitly predicting the longest network joining time of the network participating nodes, the average network joining time was measured to be about 25 seconds to 27 seconds faster compared to the previous research.


Background Among pediatric rheumatologists there is an on-going discussion whether juvenile psoriatic arthritis is an entity of its own or not. It is recognized that psoriatic arthritis is a disease with both autoimmune and autoinflammatory features. The ILAR-classification of psoriatic arthritis is under debate. Objectives To study clinical signs, classification, and outcome in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and psoriasis/psoriasis-like rash in a population-based cohort during the first eight years of disease. Methods In total 440 children with JIA were included prospectively in a population-based cohort study. The presence of psoriasis and psoriasis-like rash during an eight years follow-up period was assessed in relation to clinical characteristics, ILAR-classification and remission. Results - Of the 440 children 14 developed psoriasis and 13 psoriasis-like rash during the first eight years of disease. 8/14 children with psoriasis and JIA were classified as juvenile psoriatic arthritis (JPA). 6/14 children with psoriasis and JIA were classified as undifferentiated JIA. One was RF positive and the other five had concurrent signs of enthesitis-related arthritis. Children with dactylitis and/or nail-pitting were spread among many ILAR categories. Children with JIA and psoriasis/psoriasis-like rash had significantly higher number of cumulative active joints during the first eight years from disease onset than children with no psoriasis/psoriasis-like rash (p=0.02). Dactylitis, nail pitting and enthesitis were significantly more common (0.01, <0.001, 0.03) in children with psoriasis/psoriasis-like rash compared to the rest of the cohort. Children with and without psoriasis/psoriasis-like rash had the same outcome with regards to remission status after eight years. Conclusions ILAR-criteria exclude children with spondylitis and enthesitis-related features from the JPA category. We suggest that this is not clinically relevant. Our results indicate a more severe disease course in children with psoriasis/psoriatisis-like rash and JIA, but the number of children with psoriasis/psoriasis-like rash was limited. There is a need to study children with psoriasis and arthritis in more detail regarding clinical pattern and prognosis. Disclosure of Interest None declared


This paper utilizes position errors, position error rates and payload variations as inner feedback loops for controlling the actuators of joint rotations in a pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) driven robot. The result is an algorithm that is able to adaptively regulate input signals for the proportional pressure valve that controls the air flow to the PAM, in an attempt to better mimic the point-to-point movement of human arm. Further, the algorithm is able to utilize the angular position information from an outer feedback loop to activate/deactivate a solenoid valve for a rapid damping of the non-oscillatory motion and thereby, able to quickly and accurately bring the joints to a rest at a desired position. The proposed method appears to be effective in overcoming some of the inherent drawbacks that arise from the viscoelastic shell and air compressibility of the PAM element.


Appreciation has grown for the impact of tropical forest seasonality and fallback foods on primate diets, behaviors, and morphology. As critically important resources in times of shortage, seasonal fallback foods may have an outsized role in selecting for form and function while the diversity of preferred plant foods has played an equally prominent role in shaping primate evolution. Here, hypotheses of primate origins are examined in the context of food choice models developed by Marshall and Wrangham [2007] and related to the broader concepts of adaptive zones and radiations. The integrated evolution of primate diet and positional behavior is consistent with a growing reliance on angiosperm products—not prey—as preferred and seasonal fallback foods, temporally and phylogenetically coordinated with evolutionary phases of the angiosperm adaptive radiation. Selection for an incisor oriented but non‐specialized heterodont dentition, in contrast with most other orders, attests to the universal role of a highly varied vegetation diet as the primates' primary food resource, with diverse physical properties, phenology and high seasonality. A preference by plesiadapiforms for eating small protein‐ and lipid‐rich seeds may have predisposed the primates and advanced angiosperms to diversify their evolving ecological interdependence, which established the primate adaptive zone and became realized more fully with the rise of the modern euprimate and angiosperm phenotypes. The "narrow niche" hypothesis, a recent challenge to the angiosperm co‐evolution hypothesis, is evaluated further. Finally, I note support for visual predation as a core adaptive breakthrough for primates or euprimates remains elusive and problematic, especially considering the theoretical framework provided by the Marshall–Wrangham model, updated evidence of primate feeding habits and the counterpoint lessons of the most successful primate predators, the tarsiiforms. Am. J. Primatol. 75:883–890, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


America's failing antitrust system is, in large part, to blame for today's market power problem. Lax antitrust law and enforcement have allowed troubling trends like corporate consolidation to remain unchallenged, further embedding our skewed economy. In highly consolidated markets, consumers have limited choice and little power to pick their price, quality, or provider for the goods and services they need; workers are met with massive employers and have little agency to shop around for competitive wages and benefits; and suppliers can't reach the market without paying powerful intermediaries or succumbing to acquisition.

Our paper offers an alternative to the consumer welfare standard. Ambiguous and inadequate, the consumer welfare standard identifies threats to competition only by the potential consequences for consumers and ignores adverse effects on workers, suppliers, product quality, and innovation.

The effective competition standard would restore the primary aim of antitrust laws, namely to protect competition wherever in the economy it has been compromised, including throughout supply chains and in the labor market. The changes we call for — including amendments to the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act — are essential to protect competitive markets in the U.S., as well as individuals and the economy at large. To stop harmful market consolidation, the antitrust rules must be updated and strongly enforced. The paper provides a progressive blueprint for a robust 21st century antitrust regime that can begin to address today's market power crisis.


Abstract Risk for autism can be influenced by genetic mutations in hundreds of genes. Based on findings showing that genes with highly correlated gene expressions are functionally interrelated, "guilt by association" methods such as DAWN have been developed to identify these autism risk genes. Previous research analyzes the BrainSpan dataset, which contains gene expression of brain tissues from varying regions and developmental periods. Since the spatiotemporal properties of brain tissue are known to affect the gene expression's covariance, previous research has focused only on a specific subset of samples to avoid the issue of heterogeneity. This analysis leads to a potential loss of power when detecting risk genes. In this article, we develop a new method called covariance-based sample selection (COBS) to find a larger and more homogeneous subset of samples that share the same population covariance matrix for the downstream DAWN analysis. To demonstrate COBSs effectiveness, we use genetic risk scores from two sequential data freezes obtained in 2014 and 2020. We show COBS improves DAWNs ability to predict risk genes detected in the newer data freeze when using the risk scores of the older data freeze as input. Supplementary materials for this article, including a standardized description of the materials available for reproducing the work, are available as an online supplement.


FEW PEOPLE today are better qualified to go out on the shaky limb of predicting progress in the war against cancer than Vincent T. DeVita, Jr, MD. And no time has been as good as today for going out on that limb, now that scientists have a good idea of how cells become cancerous. DeVita, a highly decorated five-star general in the campaign to conquer cancer, has been on the front lines since before the passage of the National Cancer Act of 1971, which was a turning point, he says, in the long and bitter struggle to defeat the disease. DeVita, now director of the Yale Cancer Center and professor of epidemiology and public health and professor of medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn, has witnessed, and played a large part in, the development of a wealth of research tools that has at last pried open


Coordinating multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (multi-UAVs) is a challenging technique in highly dynamic and sophisticated environments. Based on digital pheromones as well as current mainstream unmanned system controlling algorithms, we propose a strategy for multi-UAVs to acquire targets with limited prior knowledge. In particular, we put forward a more reasonable and effective pheromone update mechanism, by improving digital pheromone fusion algorithms for different semantic pheromones and planning individuals' probabilistic behavioral decision-making schemes. Also, inspired by the flocking model in nature, considering the limitations of some individuals in perception and communication, we design a navigation algorithm model on top of Olfati-Saber's algorithm for flocking control, by further replacing the pheromone scalar to a vector. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can yield superior performance in terms of coverage, detection and revisit efficiency, and the capability of obstacle avoidance.


Abstract Aedes albopictus (Skuse), an invasive disease vector, poses a nuisance and public health threat to communities in the Northeastern United States. Climate change and ongoing adaptation are leading to range expansion of this mosquito into upstate New York and other northeastern states. Organized mosquito control can suppress populations, but it is time consuming, costly, and difficult as Ae. albopictus oviposits in small, artificial, water-holding containers. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), with centimeter-resolution imaging capabilities, can aid surveillance efforts. In this work, we show that a convolutional neural network trained on images from a UAV is able to detect Ae. albopictus habitat in suburban communities, and the number of containers successfully imaged by UAV predicted the number of containers positive for mosquito larvae per home. The neural network was able to identify some, but not all, potential habitat, with up to 67% precision and 40% recall, and can classify whole properties as positive or negative for larvae 80% of the time. This combined approach of UAV imaging and neutral network analysis has the potential to dramatically increase capacity for surveillance, increasing the reach and reducing the time necessary for conventional on-the-ground surveillance methods.


forests of the coastal plain region of the southeastern United States are among the most productive in North America. Because they form the basis of a large timber and wood products industry, these forests are of considerable economic importance. Also, the forests are rich in plant and animal species. Because they are diverse as well as productive, they have considerable conservation importance. Therefore, understanding potential impacts of climate change on southern forests is critical.


An integrated flight and propulsion control system is designed for an experimental short take-off and vertical landing aircraft configuration using H/sup /spl infin// loop-shaping controller design techniques. The aircraft model used in the study is based on the Harrier airframe with the Pegasus engine replaced by a thermodynamic simulation of a Rolls-Royce Spey powerplant, to allow the incorporation of advanced engine control concepts. The controller follows a two-inceptor strategy to command flight path angle rate and velocity along the flight path, while simultaneously keeping several airframe and engine variables within specified safety limits. Nominal and robust performance properties of the centralised IFPC system are validated via nonlinear PC based simulation.


Objectives: To explore the material basis for saliva proteome of traditional Chinese medicine furs and biological markers among gastric cancer, chronic gastritis and peptic ulcer. Methods: The experiment included three pathological thin fur, thick fur, stripping fur groups and the normal fur control group. The corresponding peptide mass fingerprinting was acquired by detecting the saliva of subjects using MALDI-TOF-MS technology and Weak Cation Bead (WCX), and to established the classification prediction model. Results: 4 peaks had statistically significant differences (P≪0.05) among 187 differential protein peaks from four groups. The classification prediction model was established with identification rate of 85.31 percent and predictive capability of 39.91 percent. Conclusion: The saliva protein expression diagnosis model was established by using 4 protein peaks of 6447.39Da, 2938.47Da, 1472.34Da, and 1451.77Da as a model to distinguish normal fur from the saliva of different pathological fur.


T pleiotropic HBx oncoprotein of hepatitis B virus is well known to promote the expression of several host proteins that are known to support the development and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Further, HBx engages multiple signalling and growth-promoting pathways to enhance ribosome biogenesis and cell proliferation. Interestingly, hepatic tumors show elevated levels of host Upstream Binding Factor (UBF) and nucleophosmin (NPM) that are essential for rDNA transcription and ribosome biogenesis. However, their role in cell transformation remains elusive. We investigated the oncogenic activity of UBF and NPM after co-expressing them with HBx in immortalized human hepatocytes (IHH) and human hepatoma Huh7 cells. We found that HBx stabilized the intracellular levels of NPM protein and translocated it into the nucleolus where it facilitated the recruitment of RNA polymerase I transcriptional machinery and enhanced rDNA transcription. Besides, HBx stimulated the expression of UBF gene by enhancing c-Myc occupancy on the UBF gene promoter. Enhanced UBF expression led to a marked increase in cell proliferation and transformation of IHH cells. Thus, our study provides some compelling evidences in support of HBx-mediated increase in NPM and UBF levels that abet oncogenic onslaught in hepatic cells by increasing rDNA transcription and ribosome biogenesis.


Clinical utility, or the usefulness of a diagnostic system in clinical practice, has been identified as a potential limitation of alternative dimensional models of personality disorder, such as the five-factor model (FFM; McCrae & Costa, 1990), the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI; Cloninger, 2000), the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; Tellegen & Waller, 1987), and the Shedler & Westen Assessment Procedure-200 (SWAP-200; Shedler & Westen, 1998). Both proponents of and opponents to dimensional models of personality disorder have suggested that their clinical utility be assessed in preparation for DSM-V (e.g., Rounsaville et al., 2002; First et al., 2002; Verheul, 2005; First, 2005). Samuel & Widiger (2006) found the FFM to have significantly greater clinical utility than the existing diagnostic categories. In the current study, 1,572 practicing psychologists were asked to describe one of three cases using the DSM-IV and the constructs of one of four alternative dimensional models (FFM, TCI, MPQ, SWAP). Clinicians then rated each model on six aspects of clinical utility. Results indicate that clinicians find dimensional models to be higher in clinical utility than the DSM-IV on five of the six aspects of clinical utility, but not significantly different from each other. Implications of these findings are discussed.


. Plankton community modeling is a critical tool for understanding the processes that shape marine ecosystems and their impacts on global biogeochemical cycles. These models can be of variable ecological, physiological and physical complexity. Many published models are either not publicly available or implemented in monolithic and inflexible code, thus hampering adoption, collaboration, and reproducibility of results. Here we present Phydra , an open-source library for plankton community 5 modelling, and Xarray-simlab-ODE (XSO) , a modular framework for efficient, flexible, and reproducible model development based on ordinary differential equations. Both tools are written in Python. Phydra provides pre-built models and model components that can be modified and assembled to develop plankton community models of various levels of ecological complexity. The components can be created, adapted and modified using standard variable types provided by the XSO framework. XSO is embedded in the Python scientific ecosystem and is integrated with tools for data analysis and visualization. To demonstrate 10 the range of applicability and how Phydra and XSO can be used to develop and execute models, we present three applications: (1) a highly simplified nutrient-phytoplankton (NP) model in a chemostat setting, (2) a nutrient-phytoplankton-zooplankton-detritus (NPZD) model in a zero-dimensional pelagic ocean setting, and (3) a size-structured plankton community model that resolves 50 phytoplankton and 50 zooplankton size classes with functional traits determined by allometric relationships. The applications presented here are available as interactive Jupyter notebooks and can be used by the scientific community to build, 15 modify, and run plankton community models based on differential equations for a diverse range of scientific pursuits


Background: Early intervention can reduce the rate of progression and improve overall survival (OS) in smouldering multiple myeloma (SMM) patients (pts) (1, 2). The most powerful predictor of prognosis in active MM is whether pts achieve minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity in bone marrow with treatment (3), however treating MRD relapse has not been evaluated in a randomized fashion. The REMNANT study will evaluate whether treating MRD relapse after first line (1.L) treatment prolongs progression free survival (PFS) and OS for MM pts versus treating relapse after 1.L. treatment at progressive disease (PD) (4). To establish a homogenous group of MRD negative pts after 1.L treatment including autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT), pts are enrolled at diagnosis and treated with Norwegian standard of care (SOC) 1.L treatment. MRD negative pts will move on to the randomized part.
 Methods: The REMNANT study is an academic, multicenter, open-label, randomized phase II/III study of NDMM pts eligible for ASCT (see Figure 1). 391 pts across Norway will be included in the phase II part of the study and receive SOC 1.L treatment according to Norwegian national guidelines; VRd (V: 1,3 mg/m2 SC Days 1, 4, 8, 11; R: 25 mg PO Days 1-14; d: 20 mg PO Days 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12) for 4 pre-transplant induction and 4 post-transplant consolidation cycles (all 21-d cycles). After induction pts will undergo tandem or single ASCT, depending on toxicity and response to first ASCT. The primary endpoint of the phase 2 part of the study is the number of pts who achieve MRD negative (Euroflow NGF 10 -5) complete response (CR) 30-45 days post consolidation. Safety evaluations and pts-reported outcome assessment will be measured. Pts (176) achieving MRD negative CR will be randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to receive 2.L treatment at MRD reappearance (arm A) or at progressive disease (PD) as defined by the IMWG criteria (4) (arm B). Randomization will be stratified by R-ISS stage at diagnosis and single vs tandem ASCT. Pts in arm A will be followed with MRD assessment every 4 month and start 2.L treatment at loss of MRD negative CR. Pts in arm B will be followed up by standard criteria and start 2.L treatment at PD. Both arms will receive the same 2.L treatment; KdD (all 28-d cycles) (K: 70mg/m2 iv Days 1,8,15 d: 40 mg Days 1, 8, 15, 22 D: 1800 mg SC Days 1, 8, 15 during C 1-2, Days 1, 8 during cycle 3-6, Day 1 from cycle 7,). 2.L treatment will continue until disease progression, unacceptable AEs or patient withdrawal. In arm A MRD Euroflow will be assessed after 6 and 18 months of 2L therapy. In arm B MRD Euroflow will be assessed if >CR is achieved but not before 6 months of 2 L therapy, and again after 12 consecutive months. The co-primary endpoint is progression and death by any cause (PFS) and death by any cause alone (OS). Secondary endpoints includes TTNT and the proportion pf pts who achieve MRD negative CR during 2.L treatment in arm A and arm B, safety evaluations and pts-reported outcome.
 The trial is approved and will start enrollment Q3 2020.
 1. Mateos MV, Hernandez MT, Giraldo P, de la Rubia J, de Arriba F, Corral LL, et al. Lenalidomide plus dexamethasone versus observation in patients with high-risk smouldering multiple myeloma (QuiRedex): long-term follow-up of a randomised, controlled, phase 3 trial. Lancet Oncol. 2016;17(8):1127-36.
 2. Lonial S, Jacobus S, Fonseca R, Weiss M, Kumar S, Orlowski RZ, et al. Randomized trial of lenalidomide versus observation in smoldering multiple myeloma. 2020;38(11):1126-37.
 3. Munshi NC, Avet-Loiseau H, Rawstron AC, Owen RG, Child JA, Thakurta A, et al. Association of Minimal Residual Disease With Superior Survival Outcomes in Patients With Multiple Myeloma: A Meta-analysis. JAMA Oncol. 2017;3(1):28-35.5.
 4. Kumar S, Paiva B, Anderson KC, Durie B, Landgren O, Moreau P, et al. International Myeloma Working Group consensus criteria for response and minimal residual disease assessment in multiple myeloma. Lancet Oncol. 2016;17(8):e328-e46.

 Schjesvold: Amgen, Celgene, Janssen, MSD, Novartis, Oncopeptides, Sanofi, SkyliteDX, Takeda: Honoraria; Celgene, Amgen, Janssen, Oncopeptides: Research Funding; Amgen, Celgene, Janssen, MSD, Novartis, Oncopeptides, Sanofi, Takeda: Consultancy.

 Carfilzomib-dexamethason-daratumumab (KdD) as second line treatment


This study is the first to investigate the anticancer effect of tricetin in human breast adenocarcinoma MCF-7 cells. Results reveal that tricetin inhibits MCF-7 cells by blocking cell cycle progression in the G2/M phase and inducing apoptosis. Cell cycle blockade is associated with increased activation of ataxia telangiectasia-mutated (ATM). Activation of ATM by tricetin phosphorylated p53 at serine 15, resulting in increased stability of p53 by decreasing p53 and murine double minute-2 (MDM2) interaction. In addition, tricetin-mediated G2/M phase arrest was also associated with decreases in the amounts of cyclin B, cyclin A, cdc2 and cdc25C, and increases in the phosphorylation of Chk2, cdc25C and cdc2. The specific ATM inhibitor caffeine significantly decreased tricetin-mediated G2/M arrest by inhibiting the phosphorylation of p53 (serine 15) and Chk2. Tricetin-induced apoptotic cell death is associated with changes in the expression of Bax and Bak, decreasing levels of Bcl-2 and Bcl-X(L), and subsequently triggering the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway. In addition, pretreatment of cells with caspase-9 inhibitor blocked tricetin-induced apoptosis, indicating that caspase-9 activation is involved in tricetin-mediated MCF-7 cell apoptosis. These findings suggest that tricetin may be a promising chemopreventive agent against human breast cancer.


Seamless service provisioning strongly depends on Vertical HandOff (VHO) as key technology that is especially indispensable for the successful management of emergency operations. Latest mobility solutions, including vertical handoff decision algorithms and executions, are related to high technical and economic costs preventing the immediate introduction of VHO technologies. In order to benefit at an earlier stage from seamless emergency services, we present a holistic cost-effective Client based Secure Handoff for Mobile Units (CSH-MU) solution combined with an energy-efficient Vertical Handoff Decision Algorithm (VHDA) that considers the limited system resources of mobile phones (e.g., restricted access to decision metrics, battery life). For performance evaluation and as proof of concept, we develop a comprehensive simulation model and a real experimental test bed to analyze the gain of our energy-efficient decision algorithm for TCP and UDP based applications. For this purpose, the developed energy model is derived from real measurements based on a mobile phone. Confirmed by the results, using the proposed VHDA with energy model enhances the performance in terms of higher throughput and lower power consumption.


Background: IDO1 and COX2 have emerged as promising immunotherapy targets. It is unclear whether IDO1 and COX2 expression levels in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients with liver oligometastases could be independent predictors of overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation of IDO1 and COX2 expression levels with OS and PFS in CRC patients with liver oligometastases. Methods: The expression levels of IDO1 and COX2 were assessed by immunohistochemistry in 107 specimens from patients with liver oligometastases. The correlation between the expression of IDO1 and COX2 and the clinicopathological parameters and OS/PFS in patients was examined. Results: The expression level of IDO1/COX2 was significantly correlated with age and was not associated with gender, BMI, T stage, N stage, primary tumor size, liver metastasis size, CEA, CA19-9, CD3 TILs or CD8 TILs. In univariate analysis, we found that IDO1/COX2 expression, CEA and N stage all yielded significantly poor OS and PFS outcomes. In our multivariate Cox model, IDO1/COX2 coexpression, CEA and N stage were found to be significantly correlated with OS; IDO1/COX2 coexpression and CEA were significantly correlated with PFS. Conclusions: IDO1/COX2 coexpression plays a pivotal role and may act as a potential prognostic biomarker for survival in CRC patients with liver oligometastases.


Long-distance intervalence electron transfer can be monitored by the quantitative study of intervalence transitions in series of binuclear mixed-valence metal complexes, with metal–metal distances reaching 25 A. This allows the determination of the electronic coupling Vab, and its rate of decay with distance. Comparisons are made between several series of compounds, and also with organic mixed-valence systems. The decay is exponential with a coefficient varying in a relatively narrow range (0.08 to 0.12 A−1). Applications for molecular switching are discussed.


A radioconjugate composed of PSMA-617, a human prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeting ligand, conjugated to the beta-emitting radioisotope lutetium Lu 177 (177Lu), with potential antineoplastic activity against PSMA-expressing tumor cells. Upon intravenous administration of 177Lu-PSMA-617, the PSMA-617 moiety targets and binds to PSMA-expressing tumor cells. Upon binding, PSMA-expressing tumor cells are destroyed by 177Lu through the specific delivery of beta particle radiation. PSMA, a tumor-associated antigen and type II transmembrane protein, is expressed on the membrane of prostatic epithelial cells and overexpressed on prostate tumor cells. Qeios · Definition, February 2, 2020


A new design is proposed to achieve a diffractive optical elements (DOEs) array with wide field of view. It consists of several elements that focus the light from different angles into a photodetectors array that integrates with the DOEs array. This will increase the detection efficiency. The surface-relief equation of each element, which describes an aspheric surface profile, has been obtained. The structure and parameters of the designed DOEs array have been acquired. Simulation results will be presented. Combined with these efforts, the optimum parameters for fabricating the designed DOEs array by direct laser writing are determined.


Route Aggregation (RA), the method to supersede a set of routes by a single, more general route, is a fundamental mechanism to the Internet scalability. Yet, despite its importance, it is poorly understood. We present the first systematic analysis of RA via both bottom-up experimental and top-down analytical approaches. We first conduct a set of experiments on RA behaviors of all major routing protocols as implemented by the two leading router vendors. Our experiments show that the RA behaviors vary significantly across routing protocols and vendors. We propose two router level primitives and incorporate them into a canonical router model. The new model captures the diversity of the observed behaviors. With aid of the model, we have advanced the fundamental understanding of RA on three fronts. First, we expose four new types of routing anomaly that can derive from RA. Configuring RA on one router interface can influence how routes are advertised on other interfaces of the same router, impacting network reachability in surprising ways. Second, we demonstrate that determining whether a RA configuration can result in persistent forwarding loops is NP-complete. Finally, we present sufficient conditions for RA primitives to guarantee routing safety, and explore clean-slate designs for RA.


There is a continuous research effort worldwide to improve the reliability, efficiency, and accuracy of numerical calculations in various domains. One of the most promising research avenue is to exploit the structural properties of the mathematical problems to be solved. This paper investigates some improved algorithms for the solution of skew-Hamiltonian/Hamiltonian eigenproblems, which have applications not only in automatic control (linear-quadratic optimization and H∞-optimization), but also for multi-body systems, and in various areas of applied mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Such eigenproblems involve matrix pencils in which one matrix is skew-Hamiltonian and the other is either Hamiltonian or skew-Hamiltonian. Of much interest is to find the eigenvalues and certain deflating subspaces, mainly those associated to the stable eigenvalues. So-called J-congruence transformations are used, which preserve the pencil structure. By employing unitary J-congruence transformations, the best accuracy of the solutions is guaranteed, since the problem numerical conditioning is preserved. The algorithms reduce the original problem, or an equivalent problem of double size, to a structured Schur form, which reveals the eigenvalues. The embedding is needed when the structured Schur form does not exist for the original problem. The pencil matrices may have either real or complex entries.


The aim of the study was to investigate patterns of self-selection into the Prevention and Relationship Education Program (PREP) as it was offered universally to expectant couples attending maternity services in a Swedish town. The baseline questionnaire was answered by 141 couples, of whom 63% later participated in PREP, and 37% served as a comparison group. The results showed that couples who chose to participate in PREP had a shorter relationship, were more often unmarried first-time parents, and reported lower levels of relationship adjustment. PREP participants also had higher scores of depressive symptoms and poorer self-rated health. It seems that expectant couples are interested in preventive relationship education and that couples with more risk factors for vulnerable relationships self-selected into PREP when the program was offered universally during pregnancy. The selection pattern into PREP has interesting implications for public health interventions and their dissemination.


Paul's so-called "Christ-hymn" in Philippians 2:6-11 regarding its origins, purpose, format, and the theological components of its Christology. One factor in the determination of this Christology is the interpretation of doulos in 2:7 focusing on the question to whom was Christ a slave? While a number of answers have been put forward, it will be argued that the best explanation involves "double agency." That is, when the hymn is closely examined, as well as the theological character of the whole letter, Christ appears to be a subject and agent of the powers Sin and Death, but Paul knows and communicates the reality that he is really God's agent who subverts and enervates these hegemonic powers. This not only illuminates Paul's Christology, but can be identified as a model for other believers discussed in Philippians, including himself.


The authors describe the case of a palpable epigastric mass associated with dyspeptic symptoms in a young female patient with no previous pathologic history. Imaging studies demonstrated the presence of a gastric foreign body with an "entangled appearance". The patient underwent laparotomy and gastrotomy for removal of a trichobezoar weighing 1,950 grams.


Abstract Cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeO2) are widely used as the electrocatalyst in solar cells, fuel cells, water splitting, and electroanalytical experiments. Therefore, controlled electrodeposition of CeO2 on the surface of electrodes may improve the performance of electrochemical devices. CeO2 was electrochemically deposited on the surface of a graphenized carbon ceramic electrode (GCCE) for the determination of isoprenaline in biological samples. The pH, temperature, deposition time, and applied potential were optimized for the electrodeposition. According to differential pulse voltammetry, the linear range, detection limit, and sensitivity of the designed assay were from 5 to 310 nM, 3.03 nM and 25.21 × 10−5 µA µM−1 cm−2, respectively. Easy preparation, low cost, and high production repeatability of the developed CeO2/GCCE suggest further applications. The prepared modified electrode was successfully utilized for the determination of isoprenaline in human serum with satisfactory results.


In this paper, we propose a novel deep coherence model (DCM) using a convolutional neural network architecture to capture the text coherence. The text coherence problem is investigated with a new perspective of learning sentence distributional representation and text coherence modeling simultaneously. In particular, the model captures the interactions between sentences by computing the similarities of their distributional representations. Further, it can be easily trained in an end-to-end fashion. The proposed model is evaluated on a standard Sentence Ordering task. The experimental results demonstrate its effectiveness and promise in coherence assessment showing a significant improvement over the state-of-the-art by a wide margin.


Criteria suitable for measuring entanglement between two different potential wells in a Bose-Einstein condensation are evaluated. We show how to generate the required entanglement, utilizing either an adiabatic two-mode or a dynamic four-mode interaction strategy, with techniques that take advantage of s-wave scattering interactions to provide the nonlinear coupling. The dynamic entanglement method results in an entanglement signature with spatially separated detectors, as in the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox.


Forty leghorn chickens at the commencement of egg laying, were divided into two groups, each with 10 females and 10 males. One group was exposed to the odour of synthetic pyrazine (2-methoxy-3-isobutylpyrazine) for 16 weeks while the other acted as a control. During the first 4 weeks the hens exposed to pyrazine odour laid significantly fewer eggs (unfertilized) than the controls, but thereafter both groups laid a similar number. Mean egg mass of the pyrazine exposed hens was significantly ( P = 0.012) greater (5.5%) than that of the control group. No significant difference was found in body mass or eggshell thickness. Similarly, there were no consistent significant differences between groups in oestrogen and testosterone concentrations in the blood of females and males, respectively. No pyrazine could be detected in cloacal extracts. The experiment shows that an external odour can affect the internal reproductive system of the chicken. It is suggested that the pyrazine-engendered increase in egg mass involves neuroendocrine regulation within the hypothalamus rather than hormonal interactions 'downstream' of the brain.


We develop a dispatching policy for stochastic scheduling simulation especially for a continuous manufacturing system with machine breakdowns. The proposed dispatching policy computes an urgency index with the consideration of re-heating, setup cost and remaining due date. Prioritized by the index, we execute swapping or reassigning material sequences so as to minimize the total penalty cost. To evaluate the performance of the proposed policy, a discrete event simulation is developed. With 200 data sets and 20 iterations, we compare the performance of the urgency policy with those of SPT (Shortest Processing Time) and FCFS (First Come First Serve) which are the most common policies. The result shows that the proposed policy consistently gives the lowest total costs by reducing the penalty costs for lateness.


This paper presents the design and implementation of an energy efficient, scalable elliptic curve encryption processor over GF(2m) for portable application. The proposed processor contains three hierarchical controllers and one reconfigurable datapath to operate various finite field arithmetic. Scalable register is used to fit different elliptic curves and alterable field degree m (from 149 to 251), so the power is not wasted by the extra registers switching. In order to realize the reconfigurable architecture for portable application, we also adopt Montgomery's affine algorithm, MSB-first bit-serial multiplication and an extended binary Euclidean algorithm to perform an inversion computation efficiently. The processor is implemented using 0.35 mm CMOS process. The core area is 2.75mm2 with the peak frequency of 100MHz. This processor do one point multiplication in 5.5 ms over GF(2251) and its maximum power consumption is only 13.6mW.


The present study addresses two aspects of the use of nitinol in cranial bone defect repair. The first is to verify that there is substantial bone ingrowth into the implant after 6 weeks; the second is to determine the effect of pore size on the ability of bone to grow into the implant during the early (6-week) postoperative period. Porous equiatomic (equal atomic masses of titanium and nickel) nickel-titanium (nitinol) implants with three different morphologies (differing in pore size and percent porosity) were implanted for 6 weeks in the parietal bones of New Zealand White rabbits. Ingrowth of bone into the implants and apposition of bone along the exterior and interior implant surfaces were calculated. The mean pore size (MPS) of implant type #1 (353 +/- 74 microm) differed considerably from implant types #2 (218 +/- 28 microm) and #3 (178 +/- 31 microm). There was no significant difference among implant types in the percentages of bone and void/soft tissue composition of the aggregate implants. The amount of bone ingrowth also was not significantly different among the implant types. Implant #1 was significantly higher in pore volume and thus had a significantly higher volume of ingrown bone (2.59 +/- 0.60 mm3) than implant #3 (1. 52 +/- 0.66 mm3) and a greater amount, but not significantly greater, than implant #2 (1.76 +/- 0.47 mm3). Pore size does not appear to affect bone ingrowth during the cartilaginous period of bone growth in the implant. This implies that within the commonly accepted range of implant porosities (150-400 microm), at 6 weeks bone ingrowth near the interface of nitinol implants is similar.


Lag analysis can be used to inspect stability and change of behavior over a pre-determined time interval, the lag. In the analysis of metric variables, lag analysis is well known and used to identify such temporal effects as seasonal trends. In the analysis of categorical variables, the same can be done. Either approach can be employed in the analysis of both aggregated and individual data. In the domain of studying individual cells of contingency tables, that is, in configural analysis, only two sources exist in which lag analysis is discussed (von Eye, Mair, & Mun, 2010; von Eye & Mun, 2012). In this paper, we place the method of configural lag analysis in a person-oriented context and propose new variants for the comparison of individuals. Three approaches are considered. The first involves searching for configural types and antitypes separately for the comparison individuals. The second approach can be viewed parallel to twoor multiple group Configural Frequency Analysis. Both approaches are presented within a log-linear framework. Configural base models are specified for the original configural lag method as well as the extended comparative methods, and questions are defined that can be answered using configural lag analysis. The third approach allows researchers to test hypotheses concerning groups of cells. In an empirical example, data are analyzed from a study on the development of drinking behavior in alcoholics. Further extensions and alternative methods of analysis are discussed.


Jules Verne's original Voyages Extraordinaires contained over four thousand illustrations—an average of 60+ per novel in the popular Hetzel red and gold "luxury" French editions. These Victorian-looking wood-cut plates and maps constituted an integral part of Verne's early sf oeuvre and, intercalated into the text at intervals of every 6-8 pages, they provided a powerful and omnipresent visual support structure to the text's fictional narrative, its embedded pedagogical lessons, and its "arm-chair voyage" exoticism. The world-wide popularity of Verne's romans scientifiques was no doubt at least partly attributable to the presence of these illustrations in his works. 270 SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 25 (1998) Thus, given the hermeneutic and historical importance of the illustrations in Verne's oeuvre, it is somewhat surprising that, to date, they and the individuals who created them have been virtually ignored in both sf and Vernian criticism. This article discusses the many varieties and functions of the illustrations in Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires, the talented artists and engravers who produced them, their collaborative working relationship with Verne and the editor Hetzel, and the technological evolution of this craft itself from Verne's earliest works in the 1860s to his final posthumous novel published in 1919.


The nuclear matrix elements (NMEs) of the neutrinoless and two-neutrino double-$\beta$ decays of $^{48}$Ca are calculated by the quasiparticle random-phase approximation (QRPA) with emphasis on the consistency examinations of this calculation method. The main new examination points are the consistency of two ways to treat the intermediate-state energies in the two-neutrino double-$\beta$ NME and comparison with the experimental charge-exchange strength functions obtained from $^{48}$Ca$(p,n)$ and $^{48}$Ti$(n,p)$ reactions. No decisive problem preventing the QRPA approach is found. The obtained neutrinoless double-$\beta$ NME adjusted by the ratio of the effective and bare axial-vector current couplings is lowest in those calculated by several groups and close to one of the QRPA values obtained by another group.


Femoroacetabular impingement stems from an abnormal shape of the acetabulum and proximal femur. It is treated by resection of damaged soft tissue and by the shaping of bone to resemble normal features. The arthroscopic treatment of femoroacetabular impingement has many advantages, including minimal incisions, rapid recovery, and less pain. However, in some cases, revision is needed owing to the insufficient resection of damaged bone from a misreading of the surgical site. The limited view of arthroscopy is the major reason for the complications. In this research, a navigation method for the arthroscopic treatment of femoroacetabular impingement is developed. The proposed navigation system consists of femur attachable measurement device and user interface. The bone mounted measurement devices measure points on head-neck junction for registration and position of surgical instrument. User interface shows the three-dimensional model of patient's femur and surgical instrument position that is tracked by measurement device. Surgeon can know the three-dimensional anatomical structure of hip joint and surgical instrument position on surgical site using navigation system. Surface registration was used to obtain relation between patient's coordinate at the surgical site and coordinate of three-dimensional model of femur. In this research, we evaluated the proposed navigation system using plastic model bone. It is expected that the surgical tool tracking position accuracy will be less than 1 mm.


The inverse scattering series (ISS) has proven, and continues to prove, to be a highly effective formalism for the separate and isolated accomplishment of several key tasks of reflection seismic processing and inversion. In particular, Weglein et al. (2000), Shaw et al. (2003), and Shaw (2005) describe the development of an algorithm distilled from the ISS that concerns itself with the location of subsurface reflectors with no prior knowledge, or related intervening estimation, of the medium wavespeed. The specific non-linear data activity that accomplishes this goal has been investigated by Shaw as such for an idealized 1D pre-stack acoustic experiment; we here describe the extension of those ideas to accommodate media with lateral variation. This is a non-trivial step. Nevertheless, beneath the added algebraic complexity, recognizable patterns and mechanisms are visible. Analysis of these terms and patterns suggests that certain portions of the 2D reflector location mechanisms of the ISS are a good starting point for the creation of algorithms for the accurate depth location of reflectors with a moderate level of lateral variability. The partial 2D imaging capability within the ISS is examined in this paper for the special case of a constant density acoustic medium and taking kh=0. We demonstrate numerical implementations of these forms and discuss ongoing work towards capturing further imaging capability residing within the ISS, especially with regards to the accommodation of larger levels of contrast and rapidity of spatial variation in medium properties.


Numerical study of heat transfer of nanofluids has been conducted to investigate forced convective cooling in rectangular microchannel. A micro-electro-mechanical system is modelled by building with two heating resistors embedded in a silicon substrate. Microchannel made from polydimethylsiloxane is planted in the substrate with a length of 17.5mm. Two cross section areas with high and width of 100mm x 100mm and 100mm x 1000mm are being used for the study. TiO 2 /water nanofluid with different volume fractions are used as the coolant. Because of the not well-insulated micro-electro-mechanical system, heat generated by the heating resistors will be lost to the surrounding as well as carried away by the nanofluids through the microchannel. Temperature variations along the microchannel is calculated based on the concept of conjugate convective heat transfer. Force convective heat transfer is analyzed at low Reynolds number for different nanofluid concentrations. Numerical results are compared with experimental data available in the literature.


Barack Obama and Security In the East Baltic Sea Region This paper addresses a number of fears that prevail in the East Baltic Sea Region about Washington's commitment to their security under the administration of Barack Obama. While indicating that the Obama White House may have been cavalier about such concerns, they are unjustified. For example, the new anti-ballistic system that the U.S. intends to deploy in Europe is superior to the one favoured by the Bush Administration. Obama's campaign to reset relations with Russia is good for Europe. And Obama has demonstrated that while he seeks to enhance the image of the U.S. in the world through a display of soft power, he has been resolute in applying hard power in Afghanistan where Russia has been a helpful partner. In conclusion, the Central and East European nations should join the U.S. in its quest to reset relations with Russia although there is no guarantee that it will be a success. Russia in turn must reconcile its differences with the countries in the East Baltic Sea region if it hopes to achieve fruitful relations with the West. At the same time, the EU must develop an energy security program that meets both the needs of the energy producing and energy consuming nations. As yet, this has not happened. Hopefully, it will as the EU takes the measures necessary to respond to the various economic and political challenges that threaten the European Project. The CEE states can rely upon the support of the U.S. but to deny any hostile foreign power the opportunity to compromise their security, they must address problems of corruption within their societies and reconcile points of discord with their neighbours.


Computed tomography (CT) is used in medical applications to produce digital medical imaging of the human body and is acquired by the reconstruction process, where X-rays are the key component of CT imaging. The present coronavirus outbreak has spawned new medical device and technology research fields. COVID-19 most severely affects people with poor immunity; children and pregnant women are more susceptible. A CT scan will be required to assess the infection's severity. As a result, to reduce the radiation levels significantly there is a need to minimize the CT scan noise. The quality of CT images may degrade in the form of noisy images due to low radiation levels. Hence, this study proposes a novel denoising methodology for COVID-19 CT images with a low dose, where a convolution neural network (CNN) and batch normalization were utilized for denoising. From different output metrics such as peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and image quality index (IQI), the accuracy of the resulting CT images was checked and evaluated, where IQI obtained the best results in terms of 99% accuracy. The findings were also compared with the outcomes of related recent research in the domain. After a detailed review of the findings, it was noted that the proposed algorithm in the present study performed better in comparision to the existing literature.


ABS TRACT: Is there a role of gender in electroconvulsive therapy response? Objective: Gender difference is a significant determinant of treatment response. As in pharmacological agents, knowledge about this difference is also important for electroconvulsive therapy as an effective treatment modality. The current study aimed to examine the gender differences in terms of indications for electroconvulsive therapy, responses to treatment, and side effects that occur during its application. Methods: The hospital records of 176 adult patients (39 females and 137 males) having undergone bilateral temporal electroconvulsive therapy under anesthesia between 2007 and 2012 were examined retrospectively. Results: The mean age of women was higher than that of men, and the duration of hospitalization was longer in men. There was a significant difference between the genders in terms of the indications of electroconvulsive therapy. Major depression as a diagnosis and suicidal thoughts as an indication were more common in women, while catatonia was more common in men. The most frequent side effects were cardiovascular side effects and allergic reactions. No significant difference was determined in the response rates of the patients to electroconvulsive therapy according to their diagnosis and genders. Conclusion: Our results once again demonstrated that electroconvulsive therapy is a highly effective treatment in both genders. Some gender differences exist in terms of indication and diagnosis, although there was no difference in terms of response to electroconvulsive therapy. There is a need for prospective studies to identify the reasons for these differences.


One of the problems that always hit education in various parts of the world is the budget. The limited education budget will affect the quality of education services provided to the community. Therefore, increasing public awareness to participate in education funding is important. Not only for better quality but also to make education a shared responsibility. Good & Nelson in their article entitled With a Little Help from Our Friends: Private Fundraising and Public Schools in Philadelphia, highlights the practice of educational funding that is mostly carried out by non-profit organizations based on the school environment with various pros and cons and explains what strategies can be taken to support availability of an education budget that involves community participation (Good & Nelson, 2021). This paper will also discuss its practical application in the context of education in Indonesia with various intrigues and conflicts related to public education funding.


BACKGROUND
Patient participation is increasingly recognized as a key component in the redesign of health care processes and is advocated as a means to improve patient safety. We explored the usage of participatory engagement in patient-created and co-designed medical records for emergency admission to hospital.

METHODS
Design: Prospective iterative development and feasibility testing of personal health records.Setting: An Acute Medical Unit in a University affiliated hospital.Participants: Patients admitted to hospital for medical emergencies.Interventions: We used a design-led development of personal health record prototypes and feasibility testing of records completed by patients during the process of emergency admission. 'Express-check-in' records contained items of social history, screening questions for sepsis and acute kidney injury, in addition to the patients' ideas, concerns and expectations.Main outcomes measures: The outcome metrics focused on feasibility and a selection of quality-domains: Effectiveness of recording relevant history, time-efficiency of documentation process, patient centredness of resulting records, staff and patient feedback. The incidence of sepsis and acute kidney injury were used as surrogate measures for assessing the safety impact.

RESULTS
The medical record prototypes were developed in an iterative fashion and tested with 100 patients in which 39 patients were 70 or older, and 25 patients were classified as clinically frail. 96% of the data items were completed by patients with no or minimal help from healthcare professionals. The completeness of these patient records was superior to that of the corresponding medical records in that they contained deeply held beliefs and fears, whereas concerns and expectations recorded by patients were only mirrored in a small proportion of the formal clinical records. The sepsis self-screening tool identified 68% of patients requiring treatment with antibiotics. The intervention was feasible independent of the level of formal education and effective in frail and elderly patients with support from family and staff. The prototyped records were well received and felt to be practical by patients and staff. The staff indicated that reading the patients' documentation led to significant changes in their clinical management.

CONCLUSIONS
Medical record accessibility to patients during hospital care contributes to the co-management of personal health care and might add critical information over and above the records compiled by healthcare professionals.


Neurotransmitter receptors on taste bud cells (TBCs) and taste nerve fibres are likely to contribute to taste transduction by mediating the interaction among TBCs and that between TBCs and taste nerve fibres. We investigated the functional expression of P2 receptor subtypes on TBCs of mouse fungiform papillae. Electrophysiological studies showed that 100 μm ATP applied to their basolateral membranes either depolarized or hyperpolarized a few cells per taste bud. Ca2+ imaging showed that similarly applied 1 μm ATP, 30 μm BzATP (a P2X7 agonist), or 1 μm 2MeSATP (a P2Y1 and P2Y11 agonist) increased intracellular Ca2+ concentration, but 100 μm UTP (a P2Y2 and P2Y4 agonist) and α,β‐meATP (a P2X agonist except for P2X2, P2X4 and P2X7) did not. RT‐PCR suggested the expression of P2X2, P2X4, P2X7, P2Y1, P2Y13 and P2Y14 among the seven P2X subtypes and seven P2Y subtypes examined. Immunohistostaining confirmed the expression of P2X2. The exposure of the basolateral membranes to 3 mm ATP for 30 min caused the uptake of Lucifer Yellow CH in a few TBCs per taste bud. This was antagonized by 100 μm PPADS (a non‐selective P2 blocker) and 1 μm KN‐62 (a P2X7 blocker). These results showed for the first time the functional expression of P2X2 and P2X7 on TBCs. The roles of P2 receptor subtypes in the taste transduction, and the renewal of TBCs, are discussed.


In recent years, a new era of interventionism has emerged targeting the development of African cities, manifested in 'fantasy' urban plans, surging infrastructure investments and global policy agendas. What the implications of this new era will be for specific urban contexts is still poorly understood however. Taking this research agenda as a starting point, this article presents findings of in-depth empirical research on urban development in Beira city, Mozambique, which has recently become the recipient of massive donor investments targeting the built environment. Informed by current debates on urban geopolitics, the article unpacks these mounting global flows while locating them alongside pre-existing struggles over urban space. By doing so three distinct yet inter-related dimensions of urban geopolitics are identified, relating to the workings of the state, so-called 'informality' and international donors. Far from representing homogeneous categories, these dimensions each represent contradictory practices and interests which are shaping Beira's urban trajectory. The article concludes by arguing that the inflow of donor resources has exacerbated pre-existing struggles over urban space while contributing to new contentions in ways which have undermined social equity targets of contemporary global development agendas. In doing so it provides important contributions to current debates on urban development in Africa


BACKGROUND/AIMS
A retrospective analysis of therapeutic modalities used in postoperative recurrent esophageal cancer.

METHODOLOGY
Among 43 esophageal cancer patients who underwent esophagectomy between 2003 and 2010, recurrence was found in 15. Best supportive care was given to two patients and another patient was referred to another hospital. The remaining 12 patients were treated by the following modalities: Surgical resection: 2 cases; chemoradiotherapy: 7 cases; chemotherapy: 2 cases; and radiotherapy: 1 case. The median survival time, 1-year survival rates, and response rates were examined. Data from 13 esophageal cancer patients who underwent chemoradiotheray as an initial therapy in the same period were collected and compared with recurrent cases treated with chemoradiotherapy.

RESULTS
For all 12 patients, the median overall survival time was 19.5 months, and the 1-year survival rate was 83%. Among 7 chemoradiotherapy patients, the response rate was 57%. The median survival time was 23 months, and the 1-year survival rate was 86%. The response rate of 13 patients receiving chemoradiotherapy as an initial therapy was 69%. The median overall survival time was 12 months and the 1-year survival rate was 54%.

CONCLUSIONS
Re-operation and chemoradiotherapy for recurrent esophageal cancer might be as effective as the same treatment used initially.


This historical gazetteer will be useful for identifying the population of any city or town in the West throughout its history and for showing patterns of growth for historical or planning studies-Aberdeen (SD or WA) to Yuma (AZ or CO), Cripple Creek to Virginia City (MT or NV).


The pre-training of large language models usually requires massive amounts of resources, both in terms of computation and data. Frequently used web sources such as Common Crawl might contain enough noise to make this pre-training sub-optimal. In this work, we experiment with different sampling methods from the Spanish version of mC4, and present a novel data-centric technique which we name $\textit{perplexity sampling}$ that enables the pre-training of language models in roughly half the amount of steps and using one fifth of the data. The resulting models are comparable to the current state-of-the-art, and even achieve better results for certain tasks. Our work is proof of the versatility of Transformers, and paves the way for small teams to train their models on a limited budget. Our models are available at this $\href{https://huggingface.co/bertin-project}{URL}$.


This report describes the functioning and impact of Egypts Population and Development Project (PDP) begun in 1977 by the Population and Family Planning Board to transfer program implementation to local governing units. PDP goals are to 1) promote greater contraceptive use 2) use existing infrastructure and human participation to implement socioeconomic projects and 3) upgrade village level management capabilities. Beginning with 20 village councils by October 1980 the project reached 525 village councils covering 2915 villages or 70% of Egypts total rural population. A PDP Advisory Committee (PDPAC) is established in each village council. Differences between Lower and Upper Egypt include 1) more (61%) PDPAC members and 2) more female extension workers (Raiida) (65%) in Lower Egypt. The PDP also promotes small scale population related projects designed to benefit each village. Program outputs expected in 5 years 5-10 years or more than 10 years include 1) better contraceptive knowledge and higher continuation rates 2) lower infant and child mortality 3) decreased rural-urban migration 4) higher marriage age and 5) lower fertility and favorable attitudes to small families. The authors model tests 1) the programs goals and outputs with community characteristics and 2) differences between PDP and non-PDP villages. 1980-1983 surveys case studies and program records and data were analyzed for 1) demographic variables 2) individual variables and 3) community variables; results show that 1) greater development is associated with lower fertility 2) community development influences all interest measures and 3) PDP programs clearly influence contraceptive knowledge use and practice.


In the management of depression only two forms of the condition need consideration: psychotic depression (usually severe) requiring treatment with antidepressants, ECT or both; and 'other' depressions, for which psychotherapy is the treatment of first choice. The selection of therapy depends on the personality integration of, and the stresses on, the patient. General practitioners are encouraged to understand and use crisis intervention and supportive therapy techniques. If the depression does not respond to these techniques within a few weeks the diagnosis should be reviewed for physical illness, psychosis and drug abuse. Trial of antidepressant drug therapy may be warranted before referral.


Every organization strives for success, but it is not easily definable or measurable.
 The success of the organization must be determined by using different factors, different approaches and methods.
 The aim of this article is to identify organizational success factors and its' relationship with organisational
 main characteristics (size, age, sector). Using an extensive literature review and experts' assessment
 (questionnaire), an universal list of success basic factors and characteristics – based factors was created.
 The originality of the research stands in following that the model takes into account also the "soft" success
 metrics – bridging the literature focused on the financial factors view and on human-centred factors view on
 success and this research opens several possibilities for further researches and practical implementations
 and implications.


In smart cities, infrastructure-side sensors are already used to increase safety, to mitigate traffic congestion and to reduce pollution caused by vehicles. In the future, infrastructural safeguarding is expected to get a large potential due to availability of advanced infrastructure sensors (camera,radar,lidar) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications. In principle, installations of infrastructure-side sensor systems can be divided into two main categories as temporary and permanent. Permanent systems are typically installed for highly used part of urban environments such as city centers, whereas temporary systems are setup for events in cities (concerts,sports games,etc.) with a temporally high density of traffic participants. For both categories different networking options (wired,wireless) as well as sensor data fusion methods (centralized, decentralized data fusion) are possible in order to meet requirements of the specific use case. In this paper, we consider two main architecture options: (1) wired networking with centralized data fusion (centralize architecture) and (2) wireless networking with decentralized data fusion (decentralized architecture). In the centralized network architecture, the we assume that raw data from multiple sensors will be transmitted to a central processor unit (master). In this architecture, a single node handles the data processing and the fusion process. In the decentralized network architecture, every sensor is equipped with a computing and a communication component. Sensors use a co-located processor unit (slave) to, preprocess data and to transmit these data to a master node. In both architecture options, the master node will be responsible for combining all inputs from multiple sensors to form a common estimate for future state. A centralized architecture requires high-bandwidth connectivity between the sensors and the master, whereas the preprocessing in the decentralized approach has lower demands on the networking bandwidth. Considering the two architectures the synchronization of the sensor time strongly impacts the state estimation. Sensor nodes need to synchronize their operation and collaborate to accomplish the sensing task. For example, in order to track a vehicle, sensors need to report the location and detection time of vehicle to master node. Then, the master node combines the information to estimate the location and velocity of the vehicle. Evidently, if the sensors do not have a common timescale, the state estimation will be inaccurate. Other aspect is how old the fused data (estimation) are before it delivered to road participants. When road participants receive a current estimation at the timestamp T2, these data represent state at time T1. The time difference between T1 and T2 depends on primarily on the network delay and process time of sensor data. For performance evaluation of the network options with respect to time synchronization the data processing will be separated as an additional source of delay. In this paper, we study the two architecture options for a smart road infrastructure. The study is based on prototype system using the Robot Operating System (ROS) and cameras, whereas also other sensors (radar,LiDAR) are considered. We specifically assess the impact of sensor time synchronization on the reliability of the sensor data fusion and evaluate the latency between the acquisition of sensor data and reception of the data by the road participants.


The principal aim of a population-based cross-sectional survey was to generate information on the lifetime occurrence of prostatitis in Finnish men and their exposure to the disease, and also on the influence of prostatitis-related fears and disturbances on their sexual life. A second aim was to develop and clinically validate a new diagnostic tool for differential diagnosis between the forms of chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS), especially between patients belonging to categories IIIA and IIIB in the new NIH (National Institutes of Health) clinical classification. Altogether 1832 men out of 2500 aged 20–59 years chosen randomly from the two most northerly provinces of Finland (Oulu and Lapland) participated in the epidemiological study, a response rate of 75%. The overall lifetime prevalence of prostatitis was 14.2%. The risk of having had the disease increased with age, being 1.7 times greater in the men aged 40–49 years than in those aged 20–39 years, and 3.1 times greater in those aged 50–59 years. More than a quarter of the 261 men who had or had had prostatitis symptoms (27%) suffered from them at least once a year, while 16% suffered from chronic prostatitis symptoms throughout the year. 63% of the men with prostatitis had their worst symptoms during the wintertime (November–March) 17% of the men with chronic prostatitis reported a constant fear of undetected prostate cancer. Erectile dysfunction was reported by 43% of the symptomatic men and decreased libido by 24%. Selfassessment of personality showed that the men with prostatitis were more often busy and nervous and had a meticulous attitude to life and problems than were the non-symptomatic men. 197 patients with chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome participated in three clinical case-control studies during the years 1995–2000, at Oulu University Hospital, the District Hospital of Oulainen and Seinajoki Central Hospital. The first prostatic tissue pressure measurement (PTPM) study included 34 patients and 9 controls. A novel method was developed to measure intraprostatic tissue pressure with a Stryker ® intracompartmental pressure monitor. The PTPM showed a clear increase (p < 0.001) in the patients with symptoms of prostatitis and benign prostatic enlargement (BPE) relative to the controls and the patients with BPE but without pain symptoms. The second PTPM study included 42 patients with chronic prostatitis symptoms without significant BPE and 12 new controls. Significantly higher pressure readings (p < 0.001) were recorded at all three measurement points in the patients than in the controls. 48 new patients and 12 new controls were enrolled for the third PTPM study, the purpose of which was to confirm the results of the previous ones and to compare the prostatic tissue pressures of two clinical groups (IIIA and IIIB). The prostatic tissue pressure was again significantly higher in the patients with chronic prostatitis symptoms than in the controls (p < 0.001). An interesting finding was that prostatitis patients belonging to clinical category IIIA had significantly higher tissue pressures (p < 0.01) than those in category IIIB, probably reflecting more severe inflammation in the prostatic


Reforms of the public administration are necessary conditions for social andeconomic development of the country, competitive national economy, citizens'involvement and responsibility. Each country is specifi ed a set of reformswhich refl ect their economy and society development standard as well as politicaland cultural features. As for the Russian Federation the following trends of the enhancing ofthe executive power functioning in general and some administrative processes(functions, services) in particular are topical: implementation of the administrationtechniques according to their results; promoting the management personnelpotential; and, defi nitely, the search of the ways to solve the issue of corruptionand the civil service ethics.


Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are a group of haematological malignancies categorized by ineffective hematopoiesis that result in dysplasia. Although morphological diagnosis is a traditional and standard technique that is used for the diagnosis of MDS, the heterogeneous blood and bone marrow characteristics of MDS patients can potentially obscure the right diagnosis. Thus, we have utilized flow cytometric immunophenotyping as a supportive mechanism to obtain a more accurate and faster method for detection of abnormal markers in MDS. Flow cytometry was used for analyzing bone marrow samples from newly diagnosed MDS patients to investigate the abnormal antigen expression patterns in granulocytic, monocytic, erythroid, lymphoid lineages and myeloid precursors. The results were compared with those obtained from cases that had Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP) as a control. The most common abnormality found in the granulocytic lineage was the decrease of CD10. Low expressions of CD13 were the most frequent abnormality in the monocytic lineage. The erythroid lineage was found to have low expression of CD235A+/CD71+, reduce of CD71 and decreased CD235a. In conclusion, this method is useful for confirming cases in which it is difficult to make a diagnosis by morphology.


Recent experimental measurements of the energy spectrum of turbulence at very large wave-numbers have shown that the motion represented by these wave-number components is determined by the kinematic viscosity and the total turbulent energy dissipation, although the range of wave-numbers responsible for the bulk of the viscous dissipation is far from the condition of absolute equilibrium postulated in the theory of local similarity. To account for this anomaly and for the observed spatial inhomogeneity of the motion, it is suggested that the motion is essentially a random distribution of vortex sheets and lines, in which the vorticity distribution is effectively stationary in time, due to balance between the opposing effects of vorticity diffusion by molecular viscosity, and vorticity production and convection by the turbulent shear. The spectrum functions due to stationary vorticity distributions in two types of shear field, viz. plane shear and axial extension, have been computed and compared with experiment. A better fit is obtained for plane shear, which produces a vortex sheet, than for axial extension, which leads to a vortex line, and there is some experimental evidence that conditions suitable for the production of vortex sheets are more common than for production of vortex lines. Finally, the implications of the validity of this hypothesis are considered in relation to the applicability of the Heisenberg form for the turbulent energy transfer.


Ter similar rams were either vasectomized (VAS) or altered by securing the testes near the abdomen using elastrator bands (short scrotum, SS). Semen characteristics (electroejaculation) were similar (P>O.lO) between groups before treatment and ejaculate volumes remained relatively constant (P>O.?o) throughout the trial. Remaining sperm cells were nonmotile and 95% abnormal by 6 days after vasectomy. By 12 days after surgery, ejaculates contained no cells. Two SS rams had detectable sperm numbers at 12 days after treatment, but 95% were abnormal and all but 1% were nonmotile. Ejaculates collected 3 months after surgery were similar between treatments, in that all existing cells were nonmotile and abnormal. Partial spermatngenic function was regained in SS rsms 15 months after treatment as indicated by the presence of low concentrations of motile sperm. Three and 15 months after treatment , sexual activity was estinated hy exposing rams to a group of four estrous ewes. During the 15-minute exposure, VAS males exhibited more (P<O.iO) nonmating sexual approaches than did SS animals during the first year. However, nonmating approaches and incomplete and completed matings were similar (PXl.10) between VAS and SS rams during the second year. No treatment differences in serum testosterone were observed before, during or after either libido trial. Shortening the scrotum of 6-month-old ram lambs has little effect on libido or testosterone when compared with VAS rams. However, the SS method of alteration does not result in complete sterility as indicated by the presence of motile spermatozoa in ejaculates 15 months after SS treatment.


OBJECTIVES: The goals were to determine the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among minority children in a southern US city, to examine differences in serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels between non-Hispanic black and Hispanic children, and to determine dietary sources of vitamin D. METHODS: Low-income, minority children (N = 290; mean age: 2.5 ± 1.2 years) were recruited during well-child clinic visits. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and calcium levels were measured and dietary information was assessed. RESULTS: The mean 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 level was 26.2 ± 7.6 ng/mL, whereas 25-hydroxyvitamin D2 was not detected. Overall, 22.3% of children had deficient serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 levels (≤20 ng/mL), 73.6% had less-than-optimal serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels (≤30 ng/mL), and 1.4% had low serum calcium levels (≤9 mg/dL). A significantly larger proportion of non-Hispanic black children, compared with Hispanic children, had vitamin D deficiency (26% vs 18%; P < .05). Age and season of recruitment were significantly associated with vitamin D deficiency and low serum calcium levels. Older children (≥3 years) were less likely to have vitamin D deficiency (odds ratio [OR]: 0.89 [95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.81–0.96]; P < .001). Study enrollment during spring and summer reduced the likelihood of vitamin D deficiency by ∼20% (spring, OR: 0.85 [95% CI: 0.73–0.98]; P = .03; summer, OR: 0.82 [95% CI: 0.73–0.92]; P < .01). Fortified milk provided most dietary vitamin D (62%), with Hispanic children reporting greater intake. CONCLUSIONS: Suboptimal vitamin D status was common among apparently healthy, low-income, minority children. Age and season were significant predictors of vitamin D deficiency.


Rice is the world's most heavily consumed staple crop. Its production requires enormous volumes of water and emits large quantities of atmospheric methane, a greenhouse gas some many times more powerful than carbon dioxide - particularly during a medium term period of about seven years. In a global context of growing population, increasingly scarce water resources, and climate change, more productive, sustainable, and efficient rice production warrants clear priority. The incidence of droughts associated with climate change is projected to increase in rain fed rice-growing areas, and may very well extend further into water-scarce irrigated areas. A variety of climate-smart practices and technologies are available which can move rice production towards a triple win scenario which entails increased productivity, enhanced resilience, and improved greenhouse gas mitigation. This review of World Bank projects focus on the application of sustainable principles in rice production in 172 Bank projects that were approved between 1984 and 2011. These had a total lending volume of 10.9 billion dollars. Their development outcomes are gauged based on the projects' implementation completion reports, which also document lessons learned and results in greater detail.


OBJECTIVE
To describe a case of biopsy-proven pretibial myxedema in a man with normal thyroid function.

METHODS
We present the pertinent clinical and laboratory data for the current case and review previously published information on pretibial myxedema.

RESULTS
Our patient, a 53-year-old man, had the characteristic lesions of pretibial myxedema on the anterolateral aspects of his calves. Laboratory tests showed normal thyroid function. The thyroid-stimulating immunoglobulin value was above normal. No exophthalmos or goiter was present. This uncommon dermopathy is typically associated with Graves' disease, accompanied by clinical hyperthyroidism, ophthalmopathy, and goiter.

CONCLUSION
The pathogenesis of pretibial myxedema remains elusive. It is presumed to be an autoimmune phenomenon attributable to the presence of serum thyroid-stimulating immunoglobulin, although immunofluorescence studies have failed to demonstrate a direct role for such an immunoglobulin. Only two other cases of biopsy-proven pretibial myxedema in a euthyroid patient were found in the literature.


The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that impact the quality of the education service in a Peruvian private university, based on the perception of students and graduates.,The sample consisted of 29 students and 20 graduates from the Administration and Finance Program of a Peruvian private university. The data was collected through focus groups and in-depth interviews based on the students' and graduates' perspectives of their experiences. The collected data was subjected to content analysis.,The study identified ten factors or the underlying dimensions that drive the quality of the education service provided by a Peruvian private university. The factors are professors, lecturers, curriculum, extracurricular activities, position and recognition of the university, infrastructure, library, admission, adequate communication mechanisms with faculty and authorities and services. The main quality indicators of the education service were the professors and curriculum planning. As the students were using the education service, they were more focused on "how" they received the service, rather than "what" services they received, i.e. they evaluated the quality of the process. In contrast, graduates gave more importance to functional service quality. They evaluated the quality of "what they received," i.e. the result.,The study has several limitations. First, the qualitative approach does not allow generalizing data. The sample size was relatively small and only involved one Peruvian private university. The study was based on the respondent's perceptions, which were considered accurate.,Based on the study findings, the authors made recommendations to meet the needs of the students and graduates. These findings can help universities to develop strategies that improve educational quality and to allocate resources more effectively. Further research could focus on factors that impact service quality in higher education at different stages of the student lifecycle, namely, applicants (service expectations), students (quality of the process) and graduates (results). The authors suggest validating these results quantitatively.,The study proposes a framework of the higher education service quality based on the experiences of students and graduates that can be used by higher education institutions to continue improving educational quality. The originality of the study lies in the perspective on service quality according to the experiences of students and graduates. Also, this study provides empirical evidence on service quality research in Latin American higher education institutions.


Heart sound analysis plays an important role in early detecting heart disease. However, manual detection requires doctors with extensive clinical experience, which increases uncertainty for the task, especially in medically underdeveloped areas. This paper proposes a robust neural network structure with an improved attention module for automatic classification of heart sound wave. In the preprocessing stage, noise removal with Butterworth bandpass filter is first adopted, and then heart sound recordings are converted into time-frequency spectrum by short-time Fourier transform (STFT). The model is driven by STFT spectrum. It automatically extracts features through four down sample blocks with different filters. Subsequently, an improved attention module based on Squeeze-and-Excitation module and coordinate attention module is developed for feature fusion. Finally, the neural network will give a category for heart sound waves based on the learned features. The global average pooling layer is adopted for reducing the model's weight and avoiding overfitting, while focal loss is further introduced as the loss function to minimize the data imbalance problem. Validation experiments have been conducted on two publicly available datasets, and the results well demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of our method.


Abstract. Although much effort has been put into studying air pollution, our knowledge
of the mechanisms of frequently occurring intense haze episodes in China is
still limited. In this study, using 3 years of measurements of air
pollutants at three different height levels on a 325 m Beijing
meteorology tower, we found that a positive aerosol–boundary layer feedback
mechanism existed at three vertical observation heights during intense haze
polluted periods within the mixing layer. This feedback was characterized by
a higher loading of PM 2.5 with a shallower mixing layer. Modelling
results indicated that the presence of PM 2.5 within the boundary layer led
to reduced surface temperature, relative humidity and mixing layer height
during an intensive haze episode. Measurements showed that the
aerosol–boundary layer feedback was related to the decrease in solar
radiation, turbulent kinetic energy and thereby suppression of the mixing
layer. The feedback mechanism can explain the rapid formation of intense
haze episodes to some extent, and we suggest that the detailed feedback
mechanism warrants further investigation from both model simulations and
field observations.


Abstract : The National Strategy for Maritime Security seeks to protect U.S. national and global maritime security interests by preventing aftacks and safeguarding the ocean and its resources through maximum threat and situational awareness across the vast maritime domain The purpose of this project is to present a model for Strategic Maritime Domain Awareness that will enhance U.S. maritime security by linking the national and global maritime domains using the capabilities of the U%S Navy; U.S. Coast Guard; national state and local government agencies; and multi-national partners Strategic Maritime Domain Awareness will provide continuously seamless and transparent awareness of the entire maritime realm to support The National Strategy for Maritime Security by detern'ng disrupting or destroying threats; and enhancing international cooperation bolstering commercial security and ensuring the continuity of the marine transportation system


We have investigated the accuracy of pseudopotential (PSP) density-functional calculations with respect to the corresponding all-electron (AE) results for a variety of atoms and small molecules. It is found that most of the deviations between ab-initio PSP and AE calculations are due to the linearization of the exchange-correlation functional within the PSP approach. This problem can be eliminated by applying nonlinear core corrections (NLCC). We find that a correct description of spin-polarized states requires the NLCC, even for first-row atoms. This is essential for simulations of magnetic systems and reaction processes which involve radicals. The NLCC is also essential for a realistic description of elements with more long-range core states such as alkali atoms. A further improvement of pseudopotential accuracy may be achieved by explicitly including semi-core states in the calculation.