A test for the admissibility of expert evidence, partly derived from Daubert, has recently been introduced into English criminal law by the unusual mechanism of a Practice Direction. This article compares the Daubert trilogy and the English Practice Direction as responses to the problem of epistemic deference by juries to experts. Juries are often justified in deferring to experts as to the relevance of the underlying evidence examined by the expert, including what inferences can be drawn from it. There is a concern, however, that juries may also defer to experts' claims about the weight of their own evidence: how strongly or confidently those inferences can be stated. Overly deferential jurors may place excessive weight on forensic science evidence that rests on shaky foundations. The new English admissibility regime (drawing on recommendations by the Law Commission) appears better tailored than Daubert to address this issue about the strength of inferences presented by expert witnesses. As a result, however, it places considerable demands in judges, advocates and expert witnesses, and how successful it will be in practice remains to be seen. Introduction Until very recently, England and Wales had nothing like a Daubert test for admissibility of expert evidence. Civil judges, who normally decide cases without juries, play an active 'gatekeeping' role but it is focused explicitly on casemanagement and cost reduction – which are arguably the real aims of Daubert (Jacob 2009; Faigman 2013). In the criminal courts there have been few reported decisions to exclude any kind of expert evidence except that of psychiatrists or psychologists. Effective 7 October 2014, however, an admissibility test recognizably derived from Daubert has been introduced into the criminal courts by the somewhat unusual mechanism (for such a significant change) of a Practice Direction issued by the Lord Chief Justice (Thomas 2014a). As Lord Thomas has acknowledged, the Practice Direction amounts to "a novel way of implementing an excellent report" by the Law Commission, an advisory body whose proposals for a new statutory admissibility test were rejected by the government (Thomas 2014b, 6). The Commission's report, in turn, was a response to the recommendation of a parliamentary committee that an admissibility test based on Daubert was needed to reduce the risks posed by unreliable forensic science or medical evidence (House of Commons 2005). Those risks had been highlighted by a series of notorious miscarriages of justice, including major cases of terrorism in the


ABSTRACT Civics education in the United States often is designated as a low priority in the curriculum and is typically characterized by passive, rote learning that is centered around content and materials provided by textbook companies. Results from recent assessments of America's students suggest that the current generation possesses only a superficial knowledge of civics and is less engaged in traditional political activities. Some educators are looking beyond traditional methods of instruction and exploring how technology, computing, and gaming may be integrated with student learning, including service learning. This article describes the implementation of Legislative Aide software into high schools to support community-based research and service learning. Young people use this technological tool to role-play as aides to an imaginary local elected official in a virtual legislative office. The software guides the students in investigating real community problems and proposing real community action plans to address the problems.


The aim of this study id to analyze the influence of job satisfaction, employees employment, and job stress on organizational commitment. The data was collected by distributing questionnaires to the respondents on general division. Questionnaires distributed to 58 respondents. The findings can be summarized as follows. First, job satisfaction (X1) has an influence on organizational commitment. Second, employees employment (X2) has an influence on organizational commitment. And third, job stress (X3) has no influence on organizational commitment.


Manufacturing systems are subject to predictable and unpredictable occurrences of disturbances, which may alter pre-set organization, degrade performance and generate significant risks (direct and indirect consequences) that need to be addressed. In the literature, ontologies were used to capture past occurrences of disturbance and risk scenarios and capitalize reaction decisions in order to enable reuse of this experience in case of future occurrences of similar disturbances and risks. Unfortunately, existing works do not suggest similarity measures that take advantage of semantic and syntactic similarities between new and stored scenarios. This article fills in this gap by suggesting such similarity measures. A retrieval algorithm is developed to compare new disturbance and risk scenarios with stored ones, and to evaluate their similarity in terms of nature and severity of disturbances and risks. A case study shows competitive and promising results.


Geological hazards such as landslide,rock fall,debrise flow,occur frequently and bring about heavy damage to people's life and property,and thread to sustainable development of society.The ability to study the law of hazards distribution and predicate geological hazards is of significance for local government to evaluate future planning policies.The purpose of this paper is to study the law of hazards distribution and the prone zone of locate geological hazards in Qingjiang River Valley with effort application of information processing and GIS technology.Some conclusions are made:①The systematic research shows that geological hazards are produced by interaction of geoenvironment,②Mathematical models have been developed to quantify likely hazard exposure factors such as geology,human engineering activity,geomorphology,rainfall,river erosion and so on and multiple factors,③Geological hazards risk forecasting and risk assessment map have been done based on GIS.


The biomass of oat (Avena sativa L.) production can be  estimated by area, by plant and duration. This work was carried out at  the Centro Agropecuario da Palma - CAP/UFPel in Capao do Leao/RS  Brazil. A completely randomized block design was used with 9  replications. The evaluated populations were 100, 200, 300 and 400  plants m -2  with the modern cultivar UPF 18. In each experimental unit,  the parameters evaluated were biomass (Kg ha -1  and g plant -1 ) of  shoot (leaf, culm and chaff), biomass duration (Kg.day), plant height  (cm), grain yield (Kg ha -1 ) and harvest index (%). Plant density did not  influence grain yield, however other parameters such as biomass (Kg  ha -1  and g pl -1 ), biomass duration and harvest index, were affected.  Key words: biomass, oat, plant population, intraespecific,  interaction


There is a growing body of work focused on the relationship between public opinion and public policy. Public preferences for policy are extraordinarily difficult to measure, however. In most domains, we are only able to capture relative preferences (for policy change); rarely are we able to directly examine absolute preferences for policy. We accordingly have only a very partial understanding of whether absolute preferences change over time, and, if so, what drives that change. We seek here to take a step towards estimating absolute preferences for policy, focusing on a particular domain — spending on welfare in the US —, and pooling data from the General Social Survey in different years to form a pseudo panel of individual-level preferences. In the absence of direct measures of the public's preferred levels of spending, we consider indirect attitudinal measures. These tell us something about differences in preferences across individuals, but they reveal almost nothing about change over time; indeed, responses to some extent (thermostatically) reflect spending, which means that they are not pure indicators of absolute preferences. We then consider proxies. Specifically, we examine the relationship between measures of relative preferences on the one hand and macroeconomic indicators and linear trend on the other, controlling for welfare spending itself, attitudes, and numerous other individual-level variables. Results indicate that absolute preferences for welfare spending do indeed change over time, and that while attitudinal measures tell us almost nothing about this change, macroeconomic conditions tell us quite a lot (i.e., welfare preferences are strongly pro-cyclical). The results help clarify what survey-based measures capture where public preferences for policy are concerned, and also make clear(er) the relationship between redistributive policy preferences and macroeconomic trends.


Biofouling in salmon aquaculture is an important issue. The use of copper based antifoulants contributes to marine pollution and managing biofouling on untreated nets incurs a heavy cost on the industry. What is needed is an antifoulant coating that balances the needs of the industry with good environmental practices. This study describes the effectiveness of seven alternative netting treatments and two copper based treatments as compared to an untreated nylon net. Effectiveness was measured in terms of percent net occlusion, percent cover of major fouling groups and biomass. Following eight months immersion, results show that the alternative treatments did not out-perform the untreated nylon control, and that the two copper treatments significantly outperformed the control and all of the alternative treatments tested in this study. The results demonstrate that the alternative treatments tested in this study were unable to meet the performance standards set by industry, that more research is needed into alternative antifoulant coatings for aquaculture, and that the effectiveness of copper based treatments will continue to be a barrier to the implementation of alternative antifouling treatments. keywords: biofouling; salmon; copper antifoulant; image analysis


Three alkali-resistant disperse dyes of Orange HA, Red HA-3B and Blue HA are applied to polyester dyeing. The influences of the dosages of sodium hydrate and dispersant, dyeing temperature and time on dyeing behaviors are analyzed, and the building-up property and color fastness of the dyeings are discussed. The results show that three alkali-resistant disperse dyes feature good alkali resistance,and are suitable for alkali dyeing of polyester fabric. The optimum dyeing process is dyes 2%(omf), sodium hydrate 2 g/L,dispersant NNO 2 g/L, and dyeing at 130 ℃ for 60 min. The polyester dyeings have a higher K/S value and good color fastness to washing and rubbing, and three dyes have good building-up property within the dye dosage of 2%(omf).


We examine how corporations should choose their optimal mix of linear and non-linear derivatives. We present a model in which a firm facing both quantity (output) and price (market) risk maximizes its expected profits when subject to financial distress costs. The optimal hedging position generally is comprised of linear contracts, but as the levels of quantity and price risk increase, the use of linear contracts will decline due to the risks associated with over-hedging. At the same time, a substitution effect occurs towards the use of non-linear contracts. The degree of substitution will depend on the correlation between output levels and prices. Our model also allows us to provide insight into the relation between a firm's derivatives usage and its transaction-cost structure.


Syngenta, an agrochemical and seed company based in Basel, Switzerland, was formed in 2000 by the merger of the agribusiness units of Novartis and AstraZeneca. For centuries, plant breeding has been a labor-intensive process that depended largely on trial and error. Luck played a decisive role, as breeders relied heavily on intuition and guesswork to decide which varieties to cross-pollinate. Syngenta set out to use open innovation to harness the power of data analytics so we could identify genetic combinations that unlock desirable characteristics in soybean plants, such as the highest yield. Syngenta's vision was to create a suite of software tools that would replace intuition in plant breeding with data-backed science. The tool Syngenta envisioned would conduct what's known as a residual analysis the calculated difference between the observed value of a genetic trait and the predicted value of that trait based on a statistical model across many locations. Over the past eight years, Syngenta has used open- innovation platforms to develop more than a dozen tools in its data analytics suite.


Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) is a form of vasculitis involves small and medium-sized blood vessels. It commonly involves the upper and lower respiratory tract. However, multisystemic involvement and involvement of kidneys are possible and may lead to a life threatening condition. Therefore early diagnosis is important. Timely beginning of clinical management may considerably influence the further course of disease. Although, it may present as oro-pharyngeal mass surgical procedure is not indicated method of treatment of Wegener's granulomatosis, because it can increase the pathologic process. Here we report a case of Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) presenting as a tissue growth over the soft palate . DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjo.v18i1.10423 Bangladesh J Otorhinolaryngol 2012; 18(1): 74-76


The fact that Iva Polak's monograph Futuristic Worlds in Australian Aboriginal Fiction is the first volume in Peter Lang's World Science Fiction Studies series, edited by Sonja Fritzsche, is symbolic of the actual novelty and relevance of Polak's work. It is, in fact, the first book-length study in English dedicated to the analysis of Australian Aboriginal fiction from the point of view of the theory of the fantastic.


It is difficult to obtain linear output displacements for stepping piezoelectric platform due to their discontinuous outputs. Inspired by the theory that the maximum static friction force is greater than the sliding friction force, in this letter, we propose a bipedal alternating inertial actuation mode (BAIAM) to improve the displacement linearity of the stepping platform. The output displacements are measured, the linear fitting is carried out by the least square method, the correlation coefficient and linear fitting function are used to evaluate the displacement linearity, and the correlation coefficients of the forward and backward motions are calculated as 0.9998 and 0.9999 in BAIAM, respectively, which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method. The closed-loop experiments in BAIAM are also carried out, and the steady-state errors for the target position of ±40 μm within ±0.2 μm in the point-to-point positioning control experiments are achieved. The experimental results confirm that the developed platform can be applied to precision fields requiring a large travel range, planar two-degree-of-freedom motion, and linear outputs.


Abstract:Presented here is the editio princeps of a new fragment of the late-5th-century B.C. Athenian calendar of sacrifices. The fragment, Agora I 7577, was discovered during excavations conducted in the Athenian Agora by the American School of Classical Studies. Inscribed on both faces (Face A: 403-399 B.C., Face B: 410-404 B.C.), it is associated with, but does not join, the group of fragments of Athenian legal inscriptions often referred to as the Law Code of Nikomachos. The text provides important additional evidence for the form of the calendar and the manner of its publication, and casts new light on broader issues of Athenian cult and topography.


Objective To explore the role of CCT6A in the migration and invasive abilities of human colon cancer cell lines.Methods Nine colon cancer cell lines were cultured.The cell line that expressed the highest level of CCT6A was selected by real-time PCR and Western-blotting.Three siRNA oligo segments targeting CCT6A were designed to transfect the selected cell lines;after transfection,the efficiency of siRNA oligo segment were detected by real-time PCR and Western-blotting.Furthermore,after being transfected with the most efficient siRNA oligo segment,the changes of migration and invasive capabilities of the selected cell line were evaluated by the Transwell test.Results Colon cancer cell line SW1116 was selected as having the highest expression of CCT6A on both the mRNA and the protein levels.The expression of CCT6A in SW1116 was reduced by all the three siRNA oligo segments to varying degrees;of them the No.2 siRNA oligo segment was the most efficient.In the migration test,the number of cells crossing through chambers in the CCT6A-siRNA group was(6±2),which was lower than that of the negative-control(23±12) and the blank-control groups(21±11);in the invasion test,the number of cells crossing through chambers in the PLK1-siRNA group was(9±2),which was lower than that of the negative-control(40±12) and the blank-control groups(43±10);the difference being significant statistically(P0.05).Conclusions By knocking down chaperonin CCT6A,siRNA could significantly inhibit the migratory and invasive capabilities of the colon cancer cell lines;suggesting that CCT6A might play an important role in the infiltration and metastasis of colon cancer.


This thesis is concerned with the experimental and numerical study of capillarity
in cementitious materials. Capillarity is a phenomenon that has been researched
by many; however, literature shows few studies completed on capillarity in
cementitious materials, in particular discrete cracks. This thesis presents
experimental and numerical data to further those areas in research that rely on
capillary flow mechanisms, such as the deterioration process in concrete and the
flow of healing agents in self‐healing cementitious materials.
Experimental simulations of capillary flow through five different crack
configurations in cementitious materials have been studied. Alongside the
experimental work capillary flow theory has been used to validate the
experimental results with the use of numerical formulae. This thesis presents
details of the Lucas‐Washburn equation traditionally used in capillarity and glue
flow theory in chapter 5 and the experimental results alongside the theory are
used to assess the performance of the numerical models.
Some of the conclusions that have been made are listed below however, a more
in depth view is shown in chapter 4:
• results looking at the effect of crack configuration show that the crack
path does not have a large effect on capillarity;
• specimen age of mortar was another area that was looked at and results
and readings do show that the rate of rise is affected by age;
• the difference between the healing agents used in experiments does
show that viscosity does play a large part in rate of capillarity and
• specimen saturation, one of the parameters also touched on in this thesis
does show that the more saturated the specimen, the higher the flow of
the healing agent.
iv
Conclusions are made and are presented in chapter 6 based on the analysis of
the experimental results and the validation of the numerical solution.
Comparisons between the experimental work and numerical solution show that
the numerical solution for various crack configurations is reliable to determine
the glue flow theory for healing agents.


Primary total knee arthroplasty with all-polyethylene resurfacing by a single surgeon was studied retrospectively in 121 knees of 91 patients. The technique of patellofemoral resurfacing emphasizes on accurate anterior and distal femralcut based on lateral femoral condyle and accurate patellar cut to preserve height of the patellofemoral composite and thus avid excessive stress on lateral retinaculum both in extension and flexion. Lateral retinacular release was performed at the end of the surgery to meet the "rule of no thumb". The mean follow-up period was 50 months. The Hospital for Special Surgery Knee Score improved from a preoperative mean of 47.5 to 92.4 at the last evaluation. The mean range of motion was 111.9 degrees. At the latest follow-up, 78% tracked centrally, 6% tited laterally, and, interestingly, 16% tilted medially. There were no cases of patellar subluxation, dislocation, and lossening; nor was there polyethylene wear. Only two minor complications occurred. One asymptomatic transverse patellar fracture developed in an obese female 3 years postoperatively. One patellar impingement occurred in a rheumatoid patient who was found to have late PCL insufficiency. The authors conclude that, using a standardized in routine and consistent surgical technique, satisfactory results can be achieved in routine patellar resurfacing in any type of prosthesis by cemented all-polyethylene component.


[1] The transport and deposition of aeolian dust represents an important material input pathway for many marine and terrestrial ecosystems and may be an ecologically significant source of exogenous phosphorus (P) to alpine lakes. In order to assess the abundance and elemental composition of atmospheric mineral dust over the Sierra Nevada of California, we collected size-fractionated atmospheric particulate matter (PM) samples during July 2008 to March 2009 at a mixed conifer site located in Sequoia National Park. PM concentrations were at their highest levels during the dry season, averaging 8.8 ± 3.7 and 11.1 ± 7.5 μg m−3 for the coarse (1 μm < Da < 15 μm) and fine (Da < 1 μm) fractions, respectively, while winter months were characterized by low (<1 μg m−3) PM concentrations in both size fractions. Using Al as a diagnostic tracer for mineral aerosol, we observed a significant and uniform contribution (50–80%) from aeolian dust to the total coarse PM load, whereas submicron particles contained comparatively little crustal material (7–33%). The mass concentrations of elements (Fe, Ca, Mg, P, and V) in the coarse PM fraction were significantly correlated with Al throughout the study, and coarse PM exhibited elemental signatures that were temporally consistent and distinguishable from those of other sites. Conversely, higher elemental enrichments were observed in the fine PM fraction for Fe, V, and P, indicating a greater contribution from anthropogenic emissions to the fine particle load. Fe/Al and Fe/Ca ratios suggest a mixture of mineral dust from regional agricultural activities and long-range transport of mineral dust from Asia. Asian sources comprised 40–90% of mineral dust in July 2008 and then declined to between 10 and 30% in August and early September.


Despite the availability of large amount of biomedical literature; extracting relevant information catering to the exact need of the user has been difficult in the absence of efficient domain specific information retrieval tools. Biomedical question answering (QA) systems require special techniques to address domain-specific issues, since a wide variety of user-groups having different information needs; terminology and level of understanding, etc., may access the information. While specialised information retrieval tools are not suitable for beginners, general purpose search engines are not intelligent enough to respond to domain specific questions. This paper presents an intelligent QA system that answers natural language questions while adapting itself to the level of user. The system constructs answers from multiple documents for complex comparison seeking questions. The system utilises metadata knowledge for addressing specific biomedical domain concerns like heterogeneity, acronyms, etc. Experiments ...


In Lower Linsley Pond, Connecticut, chemical tests indicated a phenolic or enolic character with probable unsaturation. Elemental analyses showed 1.4% ash, no halogens or sulfur, and resulted in an empirical formula of (C/sub 50/H/sub 62/O/sub 27/N)/sub n/. The nitrogen was believed to be an impurity, resulting in an empirical formula of C/sub 21/H/sub 26/O/sub 11/ on the basis of the detemined mean molecular weight of 456. The mean equivalent weight of the mixture was 228. The salts of the acids were dialysable and the acids were amorphous as shown by x-ray diffraction. Infra-red spectroscopy of various derivatives indicated a mixture of hydroxy carboxylic acids and admitted the possibility of unsaturation and aromaticity, although the indications are that if aromaticity exists it is relatively inconsequential. The materials were very resistant to chemical oxidation. Lower Linsley Pond surface water contained between 4.5 and 9.0 milligrams of acids per liter, of which about 40% was estimated to be yellow. Raising the pH from 3 to 11 increased the color by 50%. Solutions of the salts obeyed Beer's Law in the range studied from 5 to 70 mg/l. The materials may affect organisms through alteration of light and by their buffering action. They were more » reasonably stable to biological decomposition over a period of 4 1/2 months. Concentrations of up to 50 mg/l had no effect on pure cultures of Chlamydomonas reinhardi, but Hematococcus pluvialis and Scenedesmus quadricauda were stimulated in their growth by concentrations of between 5 and 50 mg/l. The materials were able to retain iron in a filterable state at pH values up to 13.2. Eleven lakes showed very similar chromatographic patterns on the same date and on different dates. Some of the numerous colored fractions may be different salts of a small number of acids, or may result from soil decomposition. The name humolimnic acids is suggested. « less


ABSTRACT Non-Indigenous-led organizations and education programs have long been criticized for sanitized teachings of Aboriginal perspectives in history, while scholarship touts the transformative benefits offered up via decolonial and immersive pedagogical approaches. In this case study, we explore the impact of a cross-cultural venture, titled Hidden Histories: The Wadawurrung People, between a living history museum, the local Aboriginal community, and a regional university on teacher preparedness to incorporate Aboriginal perspectives in history curricula. Through a cultural interface lens, we examine the ontological and epistemological developments of 112 preservice teachers postinteraction with an intercultural digital-kinaesthetic education tool. Our findings suggest that PSTs enjoy engaging with the tool, yet while on site, they prefer to immerse themselves in the museum environment. Our findings indicate also, however, that the tool is an accessible cross-cultural predatory tool that encourages a lifelong commitment to integrating Aboriginal perspectives in history curricula.


This study proposes a novel method to determine the minimum number of early jobs on a single machine, and demonstrates that this problem can be solved in polynomial time. The method's complexity is O(n log n). This study also provides computational performance of this method on problems with various sizes.


Abstract Sub 5 nm particles are more and more detected, measured and monitored since few years. They appear in many fields including combustion, atmosphere, automotive industry, filtration, … They are studied because of the development during the last decades, of their different instrumentation in terms of generation, classification, detection and counting (CPCs, PSMs, DMAs, and mass spectrometers). These instruments need to be calibrated with stable sources of particles down to 1 nm. Electrospray source plays a major role in the generation of singly charged ions, soluble in water or alcohols from 1 to 1.8 nm. Unfortunately, clusters larger than 1.8 nm produced with electrospray atomization are multi charged. Charge reduction with a neutralizer or bipolar electrospray source are then required to bring their electrical charge to unity. Heated wires have shown their ability to produce non-soluble hydrophobic singly self-charged particles from 1.3 nm to 20 nm without any external device to bring their electrical charge to unity. The heated wire method have been widely used with noble and inert gases (N2, He, Ar) to produce clean and pure nanoparticles. The present work focuses on the generation in air of hydrophobic nickel chrome oxides and hydrophilic and water-soluble chlorides particles. The study focuses on the generation of sub 5 nm. A high flow and high resolution DMA is used for this purpose. The method produces concentrations up to 5 104 p/cc after classification with a DMA. The generation presents a long-term high stability in terms of concentration. The losses and rate of agglomeration inside the chamber and in the DMA are not taken into account. The results given in the article are the distributions available after classification and ready to be used. Copyright © 2022 University Paris Est Creteil


One of the goals of mathematics learning is that students are expected to have good understanding mathematics concept abilities. The application of discovery learning model in the process of learning mathematics is one of the learning modelsthat can improve students understanding of mathematics concepts. The learning process uses the discovey learning model so that students can find the concepts of the material being studied and can conclude their own concepts that have been found based on their ability to understand. This research aims to determine that: (1) students understand the mathematics concepts of discovery learning model in effective;(2) students understand the mathematics concepts of conventional learning model in effevtive; (3) the effectiveness of discovery learning model and conventional learning for understanding mathematics concepts, and to know in 11 th Senior High School at SMA N 1 Gamping. This type of research is an experimental quasi experiment with research design Posttest Only Control Design. The population in this study were students of class XI IPS SMA N 1 Gamping. The sample in this study was class XI IPS 1 as an experimental class and class XI IPS 2 as a control class. The instrument used in the study was the observation sheet of the implementation of learning and the students understanding mathematics concepts test questions. Analysis of the data used is the t-test and the prerequisite test used are normality and homogeneity test. The result showed that using discovery learning model and conventional learning model were effective that students understand the mathematics concepts, and learning using discovery learning model was more effective than conventional learning model when viewed from students understand the mathematics concepts.


We experimentally demonstrate multilayer neural networks using ultrafast nonlinear optics, to perform audio and image classification. The proposed framework for constructing and training neural networks is general and applicable to other complex non-linear systems.


In this paper, two typical single plate framing connections are discussed and illustrated. In both cases, the connection comprises a single plate, with prepunched bolt holes, that is shop welded to the supporting member. The standard design procedure for the single plate framing connection is too assume each bolt carries an equal portion of the total shear load and, in agreement with the simple support assumption, that relatively free rotation occurs between the end of the beam and the supporting member. In order to evaluate the end moment generated by the single plate framing connection, the beam line method of analysis was used. Included in the discussion is an explanation of moment-rotation curves as well as results and summaries a various full beam tests--three- bolt test, five-bolt test, seven-bolt test and three-bolt test with six-inch bolt pitch. Also, design formulas and recommended design procedures are discussed.


Modelling responses of groundwater levels in aquifer systems, which occur as a reaction to changes in aquifer system boundary conditions such as river or stream stages, is commonly being studied using statistical methods, namely correlation, cross-correlation and regression methods. Although correlation and regression analysis tools are readily available in Microsoft Excel, a widely applied spreadsheet industry standard, the cross-correlation analysis tool is missing. As a part of research of groundwater pressure propagation into alluvial aquifer systems of the Sava and Drava/Danube River catchments following river stages rise, focused on estimating groundwater pressure travel times in aquifers, an Excel spreadsheet data analysis application for cross-correlation modelling has been designed and used in modelling surface water – groundwater interaction. Examples of fi eld data from the Zagreb aquifer system and the Kopacki rit Nature Park aquifer system are used to illustrate the usefulness of the cross-correlation application.


This article reports research that explored children's information retrieval behavior using an online public access catalog (OPAC) in an elementary school library. The study considers the impact of a variety of factors including user characteristics, the school setting, interface usability, and information access features on children's information retrieval success and breakdown. The study reports the overall patterns of children's behavior that influence success and breakdown in information retrieval as well as findings about the intentions, moves, plans, strategies, and search terms of children in grades one through six. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


New technologies have enabled the production of traffic signals that have significant advantages over standard incandescent signals, including greater energy efficiency and lower maintenance costs. Before the new signals are installed in the field, it is important to assure that they as visible as the older signals. We have developed a quality index we term the usability factor (UF) which can be used to evaluate the visibility of a new device relative to that of a standard reference lamp. We have measured UF's of a variety of new types of lamps by means of heterochromatic flicker photometry. We have found UF's ranging from 0.55 to 1.35 for centrally-viewed targets under standardized viewing conditions. We also report measurements made under conditions of reduced visibility. We attribute the wide range of UF's to spatial factors in the distribution of light among the various sources. Keywords: Traffic Signals, Energy Efficiency, Usability Factors, Flicker Photometry, LED, Human Factors


Data blending was introduced by Christie and MacIntyre (1, 2) to eliminate statistical fluctuations in the presentation of data obtained in scintillation scanning. Beck (3, 4) pointed out the improvement in perception obtained by eliminating or filtering out the high-frequency "noise" caused by statistical variation. For this he used a recording light spot which simulated the response of the detector collimator at its focal point. On the other hand, the method has been criticized for duplicating the poorest feature of the system, the collimator, and for a resultant loss in resolution (5, 6). We have employed a data-blending technic in our laboratory for the past two years (7). It has appeared to be quite satisfactory and is preferred over conventional methods of recording. We felt it necessary, however, to investigate further the capabilities of the method and compare it with a conventional technic. Methods Two scanners were used in these studies. A 3 × 2-in. crystal detector, Picker Magnascanner, was mod...


Venezuelan migrants access social assistance, social security and labor market programs with the intention of improving their level of life opportunities, within the framework of social inclusion and protection.
The migratory process of Venezuelans to Ecuador and Peru affects the socioeconomic conditions and distribution of benefits within a territory, causing in some cases the denial of access to services.
The methodology used is to carry out a questionnaire to Venezuelan migrants who are in Peru: in Trujillo and Tumbes and in Ecuador: in Huaquillas and Guayaquil, carrying out a comparative study and after that, processing the information, tabulating it, analyzing it and preparing the final report.
As Social Workers, it is important to know the social programs and institutions that support Venezuelan migrants in Ecuador and Peru, determining that there is inclusion, protection and non-discrimination.


Mutations in Ras result in increased signaling through the MAPK pathway, resulting in increased cell proliferation and survival. These activating mutations are found in 30% of all cancers, making inhibition of Ras a key therapeutic strategy. However, due to its lack of small-molecule binding pockets, Ras-based therapies have been difficult to develop, leading to the assumption it is "undruggable." A novel method of inhibiting aberrant signaling through the MAPK pathway is to prevent the activation of Ras by inhibiting its guanine nucleotide exchange factor Sos. Our aim is to isolate and characterise Affimer reagents to aid the identification of druggable pockets on Sos. Affimer reagents are a nonantibody binding scaffold designed to mimic the binding properties of antibodies. Affimers present two variable regions for molecular recognition that have been used to probe for hot spot regions on protein surfaces. 57 Affimers have been isolated that bind to the catalytic domains of Sos; of these, 17 have been shown to inhibit Sos catalysed nucleotide exchange in vitro, a selection of which have IC50 values in the nano-molar range. We are currently studying the effects of expressing these Affimer reagents in mammalian cells on MAPK signaling, cell proliferation, survival and migration and have shown the Affimers are capable of inhibiting EGF-stimulated signaling through the MAPK pathway. Structural studies are also ongoing and will be used to determine the binding properties of the Affimers in the hope of identifying novel binding pockets on Sos and possible sites of allosteric regulation as demonstrated with anti-Ras Affimers. Citation Format: Sophie E. Saunders, Christian Tiede, Thomas Edwards, Alexander Breeze, Darren Tomlinson. Inhibition of Ras signalling by targeting Son of Sevenless with Affimers [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Targeting RAS-Driven Cancers; 2018 Dec 9-12; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Res 2020;18(5_Suppl):Abstract nr B07.


It analyzed the display of the traditional Chinese ethical thinking in the art design according to design ethics proposed by Victor·Babanake,nnd united the spirits of the times to critically absorb and inherit.It aimed to strengthen the designer ethical thinking in the design,build a harmonious relationship between people and t nature,realize the harmonious development of the design form four aspects of the Chinese ethics:moral education,nature imitation,benefit estimation and religion display.


In this paper, we propose a new weighted round robin (WRR) algorithm for fixed length packets. Two well-known algorithms in the scheduling discipline are the packet-by-packet generalized processor sharing (PGPS) and the worst-case fair weighted fair queueing (WF/sup 2/Q). The WF/sup 2/Q has been suggested to eliminate the PGPS burstiness problem exhibited in a flow packet departure process. To the best of our knowledge, the smallest delay bound in the modification approaches of WRR was acquired from emulating the WF/sup 2/Q algorithm. Our proposed algorithm determines the packet service sequence without emulating the WF/sup 2/Q, which results in a low implementation complexity. The proposed scheduling algorithm also guarantees to a flow having a backlog continuous at a node that the departure time of each packet in that flow is no later than that in the GPS discipline.


Recently, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) is getting a lot of attention mainly for two reasons. First, it is one of the most commonly f ound childhood behavioral disorders. Around 5-10 % of the children all over the world are diagnosed with ADHD. Se cond, the root cause of the problem is still unknown and therefore no bi ological measure exists to diagnose ADHD. Instead, doctors need to diagnose it based on the clini ca symptoms, such as inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity, which are all subjective. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data has beco m a popular tool to understand the functioning of the brain such as identifying th e brain regions responsible for different cognitive tasks or analyzing the statistical differences o f the brain functioning between the diseased and control subjects. ADHD is also being studied using the fM RI data. In this dissertation we aim to solve the problem of automatic diagnosis of the ADHD subje cts using their resting state fMRI (rs-fMRI) data. As a core step of our approach, we model the functions of a brai n as a connectivity network, which is expected to capture the information about how synch ronous different brain regions are in terms of their functional activities. The network is constr uc ed by representing different brain regions as the nodes where any two nodes of the network are conne ted by an edge if the correlation of the activity patterns of the two nodes is higher than some t hr shold. The brain regions, represented as the nodes of the network, can be selected at differe nt granularities e.g. single voxels or cluster of functionally homogeneous voxels. The topologic al differences of the constructed networks of the ADHD and control group of subjects are then explo ited in the classification approach. We have developed a simple method employing the Bag-of-Word s (BoW) framework for the classification of the ADHD subjects. We represent each no de in the network by a 4-D feature vector: node degree and 3-D location. The 4-D vectors of all t he network nodes of the training data are then grouped in a number of clusters using K-means; where each such cluster is termed as a


Excerpt I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. e. e. cummings In a recently published conference on acute leukemia and Burkitt's tumor (1) th...


CONCLUSION: Differences in HRV were observed between EXP and SEN athletes, with the major significance in HF Power indicating EXP athletes demonstrated greater parasympathetic activity at rest compared with SEN athletes. Most HRV studies have focused on endurance trained athletes. This finding is of interest as cardiovascular variability studies in explosive athletes have potential to elucidate autonomic and cardiovascular regulation. Supported by Miami University Student Tech Grant


: There is a felt difference between following an argument to its conclusion and keeping up with an argument in your judgments while failing to see how its conclusion follows from its premises. In the first case there's what I'm calling an inferential seeming, in the second case there isn't. Inferential seemings exhibit a cluster of functional and normative characteristics whose integration in one mental state is puzzling. Several recent accounts of inferring suggest inferential seemings play a significant role in the process, but none provides a fully satisfactory understanding of inferential seemings themselves. In this paper I critically examine theoretical options on offer in the existing literature, then develop an alternative view. I discuss implications for recent debates about general principles governing inference, such as Fumerton's Principle of Inferential Justification and Boghossian's Taking Condition. "Inferential seeming" is not a familiar term, but I'm using it to pick out what I take to be a familiar experience. This is a kind of experience that occurs in the context of consciously drawing a conclusion from some premises. Inferential seemings can be described as states of seeing how a conclusion follows from some premises, or how those premises support that conclusion. These are natural ways to pick out the relevant experiences, but they shouldn't be read as importing controversial assumptions about the nature of those experiences. For example, I am not assuming they are success states. Maybe some inferential seemings are mere seemings to see support rather than genuine seeings of support . Nor am I assuming that inferential seemings are attitudes toward propositions about the support given to a conclusion by some premises. At the outset, I want to leave it open whether inferential seemings are representations with propositional contents such as that a conclusion follows from some premises . A inferential relevant to addressing


This paper deals with the statistical analysis of the instantaneous capacity of shallow underwater acoustic communication (UWAC) channels under the assumption that the scatterers are randomly distributed on the surface and bottom of the ocean. We start by deriving exact closed-form expressions for the probability density function (PDF) of the total propagation path length from which the PDF of the path gains is obtained. Then, we study the distributions of the channel envelope and the capacity under line-of-sight (LOS) conditions. By performing the chi-square goodness-of-fit test, it is shown that the channel envelope is Rice distributed. Moreover, we investigate the effect of the ocean depth as well as the distance between the transmit and receive hydrophones on the investigated statistical quantities. The correctness of the derived closed-form expressions is confirmed by computer simulations.


Histories and Homilies People and the Environment The Individual and the Group The Old and the Young females and Males The Rich and the Poor Us and Them This World and the Other World Style, Change, and Social Transformation.


PURPOSE OF REVIEW
Physical therapy is recommended for the management of axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) with the focus of promoting physical activity and prescribing exercise within four domains, outlined recently by the European League against Rheumatism (EULAR): aerobic, resistance, flexibility and neuro-motor exercise. There is an increasing evidence base to support physical therapy interventions in axSpA.

RECENT FINDINGS
We present evidence supporting the use of exercise as treatment for patients with axSpA, recent updates among different exercise modalities, and make clear its critical place in the management of this condition. Recent large, multicentre data have shown that high-intensity exercise can improve disease activity and also positively impact cardiovascular risk factors in these patients. Although international treatment guidelines advocate the inclusion of physical activity and exercise for the optimal management of axSpA, specific guidance about the amount of exercise required to produce a beneficial effect is lacking.

SUMMARY
Exercise must be used in the management of axSpA, and whilst hydrotherapy and flexibility exercises are traditionally the main focus, other applications, such as strength training, may be underutilized domains. Further studies are needed to determine the dose-response relationship between exercise and axSpA patient subsets.


Abstract For a scientific educational approach toward empathy, this study newly defined empathy in science as "empathy with a problematic situation and other people." In 6 competency frameworks, content related to empathy was extracted, and exploratory factor analysis was conducted through an online survey of 150 teachers. Three factors of empathy with other people and four factors of empathy with the problem situation were extracted. Based on this content, the study modified the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980) for use in a scientific situation. This scale was applied to 357 high school students in Korea, and the scale's validity was confirmed through exploratory factor analysis. Finally, scientific empathy with others was defined as the ability to understand the emotions, thoughts, feelings, and intentions of others and share their viewpoints with accurate emotional responses. And this consisted of perspective-taking in cognitive factor and empathic concern and empathic arousal in emotional empathy. Scientific empathy with the problem situation was defined as an intellectual mechanism deeply involved in the phenomenon of inquiry to clearly understand the scientific problem situation and to share the viewpoint. And this turned out to be perspective-taking and scientific imagination as cognitive factors.


The physical education curriculum is an important part of the school curriculum system, is to achieve the goal of school physical education, quality education, promoting students to adapt to society, students complete an effective way to cultivate individuality. In this study, aerobics as the college physical education curriculum reform and the practice object, on the base of the comprehensive analysis the development status, according to "National College of Physical Education Curriculum Guidelines" spirit, combining with the college aerobics teaching characteristics and rules, system theory is curriculum ideas, from the target system of aerobics courses, teaching content, teaching form, teaching methods, curriculum evaluation, and other aspects, to construct the aerobics curriculum system of higher education. Effectively cultivate student's sports consciousness, physical ability and innovation capabilities, to meet the needs of the student physical and mental health, and lay a solid foundation for lifelong physical reserves.


The objective of this article was to review the epidemic of cholera disease that affected Peru in 1991, its epidemiologic impact and the natural regions most affected. Also it is reviewed the state of this epidemic two years after. A description of the incidence of natural regions, the main mechanisms of transmission and the control strategy that public health authorities hold on. This review concludes that professionals and public health authorities should be prepared to control this disease, that can suddenly erupt in any country or region, due to the easy way of transmission of Vibrio cholerae.


Globally with growing industrialization and increased dependence on crude oil for products such as fuel, plastics, asphalt led to unintentional release of some million gallons of oil to the environment. This poses a serious threat to our environment as these hydrocarbon components are toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic to both aquatic and terrestrial environment. The traditional physico-chemical methods employed for clean up are laborious, expensive and also do not completely remove the oil contaminants. The popular effective, safe and economic alternative in today's world is bioremediation which uses biological organisms to detoxify environmental contaminants into harmful forms. Bioremediation by oil eating microbes are acknowledged to be the most eco-friendly and sustainable technology in the present world. Thus this paper briefly reviews of the various oil eating microbes existing today to remediate the remains of crude oil contaminants in the environment.


Purpose: To conduct a systematic review of the quality and extent of psychometric examinations of disease-specific outcome measures for complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). Methods: Health database searches yielded 23 papers covering 19 assessment instruments. Each article was scored for quality using a 12-item structured tool; data were also extracted for comparison of tool content. Results: Article quality ratings ranged from 25 to 88%. Six of the tools were specific to the upper extremity; 5 for the lower extremities while the remaining 8 were general. Many 'general' tools focused on a single construct, such as pain, skin temperature or allodynia. Most psychometric data was based on small studies (mean n = 33); only one study addressed all relevant issues of reliability, validity and responsiveness. Conclusions: Despite the variety of outcome measurement tools reported for CRPS rehabilitation, large gaps in both comprehensiveness and supporting psychometric evidence remain. Comprehensive, relevant and psychometrically sound tools for monitoring treatment outcomes are needed to address the pain and functional limitations experienced by this population. Implications for Rehabilitation Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a neurological disorder with signs and symptoms that vary with activity, environment and stress. Although there is no diagnostic test for this syndrome, a need exists for tools to monitor treatment outcomes that address the pain and functional limitations experienced by this population. This review suggests that at present, there is no single comprehensive outcome measure for clinical practice and/or research which has strong supporting psychometric evidence for the evaluation of persons with CRPSAPPENDIX, a scoring sheet and scoring guidelines for critical appraisals for the evaluation of persons with CRPS.


As the student of SMA Negeri 1 Makassar though of swear words, they truly realized that it is prohibited to express, in certain time and condition. In other cases, they as the student oftentimes express it in their daily conversation. The researcher isinterested indiscussingthe utterances which contain swear words on the student of SMA Negeri 1 Makassar as one ofspeech communityin Makassar. This research aims todetermine the category and to find outthe intended meaningof the swear words they express. The researcherusesthe descriptive qualitative method to describe the mentionedscope of the problem abovebecause this research has the primary data in the form of utterances that contains swear words which provides rich description about its meaning and category.The approach of this research uses pragmaticsfor the analysis of the context and SPEAKING factors to assist pragmatics in describing the context and find the intended meaning. As the results, the researcher found that the categories of expressed swearing words in this research are 1. One's Mother in Law ( Sundala; Bitch ); 2. Certain Game or Animal ( Tolo; Bangsat; Goblok/Geblek; Anjing/Anjay/Anjir; Damn; Asu ); 3. Sex/Copulative Term ( Fuck ); 4. Death ( Setan ); and 5. Excretion ( Tai; Telaso; Shit ).The intended meaning of swearing words which expressed by the student of SMA Negeri 1 Makassar is mostly based on its connotative meaning, as the expression of startled and anger. Thus, the intended meaning of the expressions are as the normal response of what is being happened, for casual conversation.


The purpose of this work is to review the existing basic methodological approaches to experimental ecosystem accounting within the framework of the natural-economic accounting system, as well as their practical application in statistical analysis, taking into account existing information resources. The authors substantiate the choice of the object of research – the Baikal natural territory. The paper prepares a list of ecosystem services typical for the Baikal nature territory ecosystem, analyses the dynamics and structure of some of them in the period 2013 – 2017, assesses the contribution of the Baikal nature territory ecosystem to the total volume of ecosystem services in individual regions of Russia in physical terms, calculates the share of anthropogenic load obtained by the Baikal nature territory ecosystem from the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, formulates conclusions about the relevance of ecosystem accounting for the Russian Federation.


Geological evidence is given for the existence of a major flexure, trending NW.–SE., the amplitude of which is 40,000 feet in the Bakhtiari and Kuhgalu Mountains. decreasing to the north-west and south-west. The date of the major flexuring is discussed and is it concluded that it is to some extent contemporary with the folding of the foothill belt. Gravity profiles are given which provide supporting evidence for the flexuring.


In this paper optimum size and location of distributed generators (DGs) are determined for maximizing voltage profile and minimizing line losses in distribution systems. For this purpose, Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm (PSO) approach is proposed. The significant innovation of this research paper is using new coding in (PSO) which includes both active and reactive powers of DGs to achieve better voltage profile improvement and line loss reduction. Furthermore, four set of weighting factors are chosen based on the importance and criticality of the different loads. The effectiveness of the proposed method is examined in the 33 bus distribution systems. The results show that determination of optimum size and location of DGs has a considerable effect on voltage profile improvement and line loss reduction.


Objective
To explore the relationship between blood pressure variability and different types of stroke.

Methods
One hundred and twenty-five ischemic stroke subjects, 78 hemorrhagic stroke patients and 66 non-stroke individuals, collected in our hospital from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2015, were enrolled according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. All indicators of blood pressure variability were calculated from 24 h ambulatory blood pressure, including nighttime blood pressure fall (BPF), morning surge in blood pressure (MBPS), standard deviation (SD), weighted SD (wSD), and coefficient of variation (CV).

Results
As compared with non-stroke subjects, ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke individuals had significantly increased systolic MBPS (P<0.05), and the systolic MBPS of ischemic stroke group was significantly lower than those of hemorrhagic stroke group (P<0.05). CV, wSD and BPF of systolic blood pressure (SBP) in the ischemic and hemorrhagic groups were significantly higher than those in the non-stroke subjects (P<0.05); CV and SBPF of diastolic blood pressure in hemorrhagic group were significantly different as compared those in the non-stroke subjects (P<0.05). The factors which were significantly associated with ischemic stroke in Logistic regression, included high-density lipoprotein, nighttime SBP, wSD of SBP, CV of SBP, while smoking, nighttime SBP, wSD of SBP, MBPS, and CV of SBP were observed as important influence factors for hemorrhagic stoke patients.

Conclusion
Whether ischemic stroke, or hemorrhagic stroke are associated with short-term blood pressure variability.

Key words:
Stroke; Blood pressure variability; Morning surge; Standard deviation; Nighttime blood pressure fall


Corticosteroid use as a component of immunosuppression protocol is widespread, even though their mechanisms of action are imprecise. The burden of metabolic side effects of steroids and the impact on quality of life in kidney allograft recipients has led to attempts in minimizing steroid exposure.


In order to improve the transmission performance in intersymbol interference (ISI) channel, high rate lower-order modulation transmission employing ISI is studied and the error rate performance of lower-order modulation and higher-order modulation are compared. Since high rate lower-order modulation transmission employing ISI makes full use of the potential anti-jam capability of the system, the threshold signal to noise ratio is greatly decreased by more than 10 dB. Simulation results show that lower-order modulation transmission, which is interfered by ISI and employs sequence detection, obtain great performance gain according to higher-order modulation, which is not influenced of ISI and detected symbol by symbol.


In HAc solution, chitosan is depolymerize by H 2O 2. The factors affecting the depolymerizing rate are concentrations of H 2O 2, HAc and chitosan, reaction temperature and time using orthogonal design method, the optimum reaction conditions are: n (oxidant)∶ n (chi)=1.5; t =80°C; θ =6 h; C HAc =1% and C chi =5%.


A valveless single-cylinder type middle-low air pressure downhole impactor comprises an outer sleeve. A rear connector is arranged at one end of the outer sleeve, and a drill head is arranged at the other end of the outer sleeve; an inverted valve is arranged in the outer sleeve; a flexible spring is arranged in the inverted valve; a radial hole is formed at one end of a gas distribution rod; the gas distribution rod is matched with a piston; a central passage is formed in the piston; an inner annular groove is formed on the central passage; an upper air hole is formed at the lower part of the piston and communicated with the inner annular groove through an inclined hole; a gas tank is arranged at the upper part of the piston; one end of an upper inclined hole is communicated with the gas tank, and the other end thereof is matched with the radial hole; the piston is matched with the drill head and a guide sleeve; and a positioning device is arranged on a valve base. The utility model enlarges the effective working diameter of a cylinder body to lead the piston to obtain greater impact energy, simplifies the gas distribution passage, reduces the gas pressure loss, is capable of being used under the middle-low air pressure, improves the hole drilling efficiency and reduces the energy consumption; moreover, the problem of positioning and guiding the gas distribution rod is solved by adopting the positioning device, so that the impactor can be in effective and stable operation.


Ecosystems generally have a great number of interacting processes, and their characteristics can vary rapidly across both space and time. With such complexity, it can be difficult to collect sufficient data to adequately understand the behaviour of the observed system. This paper describes a method being used to examine the relationship between sampling accuracy and classification fuzziness. A simulation model acts as a surrogate for a "real-world" resource-habitat system. Samples are collected from the running simulation according to different classification schemes, and the ability to map species habitat by resource levels from each sample are compared to the actual simulation behaviour. The balance between sampling accuracy and the vagueness within the classification scheme compared to the complexity of the modelled system is discussed.


Colleen Anne Lynch Court of Appeals No. H-02-022 Appellant Trial Court No. DRE-93-766 v. Keith A. Lynch DECISION AND JUDGMENT ENTRY Appellee Decided: March 7, 2003 * * * * * Thomas J. Stoll, for appellant. John D. Allton, for appellee. * * * * * HANDWORK, P. J. {¶1} This case is before the court on appeal from a judgment of the Huron County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Division, which named appellee, Keith A. Lynch, the residential parent and legal custodian of his minor son, Marcus. Appellant, Colleen A. Lynch, appeals that judgment and asserts the following assignments of error:


Objective To explore the significance of dynamic determination of arterial blood gas for early diagnosis,treatment and prognosis of patients with acute respiratory stress syndrome(ARDS). Methods The results of 700 times arterial blood gas assayed in 110 patients with ARDS were analysed retrospectively. Results (1)Types of acid-basic disturbance; The simply acid-base disturbances were 41 cases, Complex acid-base disturbances were 53 cases, Triple acid-base disturbances were 16cases. (2)The oxygenation indexes of all 110 patients were less than 26.7kpa. (3) The cured rate in 110 cases was 50 and the mortality was 60. Conclusions dynamic determination of arterial blood gas and calculation of oxygenation were of important clinical value in diagnosis and treatment of ARDS.


For the production of thermostable endoglucanase from Clostridium thermocellulum the celC gene was cloned into Escherichia coli BL 21 (DE3) host. The recombinant E. coli was grown in shake flask cultures. The intracellular recombinant protein was extracted from the cells after applying supercritical CO 2 cell disruption. The supercritical CO 2 cell disintegration was optimized and then compared to the traditional ultrasonic cell disruption technique. With the supercritical cell disruption the cellulase recovery was approximately 17 % lower than that of obtained with sonication.


In most software projects, particular requirements significantly drive the design of the software architecture by forcing architectural decisions to be made. As requirements and architecture are refined iteratively, their extensions and improvements need to be aligned continuously. Much research has been conducted to identify such requirements and their impact on architecture. However, it remains a problem how to collaboratively document such requirements and architectural knowledge under development. In particular, knowledge of architectural decisions such as assumptions or alternatives for the system erodes over time and can even vaporize completely. A major reason is the inability to easily manage informality and complexity of knowledge when performing both requirements engineering and architecture design. Therefore, we propose a documentation model for decisions supporting the intertwined documentation of related requirements and architecture knowledge. It provides documentation elements, which are common to both disciplines. In order to support refinement in documentation, knowledge can be iteratively accumulated at different levels of granularity. So the model fits to the twin peaks model of requirements and architecture. In consequence, the comprehension and collaboration between requirements engineers and system architects is improved by negotiating and refining the same documentation together in an ongoing process. We apply our approach to an example in order to demonstrate that it is applicable and useful for managing architectural decision knowledge in relation to the grounding requirements.


Ecological planning and construction of elderly residential area is the new trend under the present aging development background. Aimed at the demand gap of elderly residential area on the market currently, based on the generalization and summarization of pension settlements development history, the inevitability and feasibility of elderly ecological residential areas development has been demonstrated. Changzhou Taihu Yaoxianshan Yiyang Villa, as the elderly ecological residential area project, provides referential experience in terms of the practice of elderly residential area; it has a certain value of the Construction and popularization of elderly residential area.


The result of studies on the morphological character, rate of the upper three leaves contribution to grains and analysis of grain filling characteristics of Super Rice varieties with different plant and panicle types indicated that: 1. The response to nitrogen supply and density of transplants varied with different plant and panicle types, but the growth curves of all varieties fitted to formula: Y=b1X+b2X2. Under high fertility and high plant density,eaf area of the semi-erect type varieties increased rapidly in the early season and reduced slowly in the late season. So the LAI was high in the heading stage and the light extinction coefficient(K) of canopy was small. The average leaf angle was less than other type of varieties. The light regime in lower parts of canopy was improved,so total effective leaf area increased and yield raised. 2. The LAI was significantly positively correlated with the mass growth and the yield was positively correlated with the growth in early season. 3. The contribution rate of upper three leaves to grain varied with different plant and panicle types.In semi-erect panicle varieties, the third leaf contribution rate was the highest an the contribution rate of second leaf and flag leaf was similar. In curved panicle type varieties, the contribution rate of flag leaf was the highest,whereas that of second and third leaf was smaller, Although contribution rate of the third leaf in erect panicle varieties was the highest, the contribution of the second and third leaf is less than that in semi-erect type varieties. 4. Significant correlation was observed between the number of the large vascular bundles in neck-panicle and grain numbers per panicle. The number of the large vascular bundles in neck-panicle was positively correlated with nitrogen application. 5. The curvature of panicle neck was significantly positively correlated with length, length-width ratio and angle of flag leaf, but it negatively correlated with the number of vascular bundle.


In vitro and in vivo assays of spray-dried and lyophilized cold water extracts of overground plant material and of rhizomes of Lithospermum ruderale are reported. The weight increase in chick testes was used as the end-point for LH and FSH assays and the depression of blood pressure in fowl was employed to measure oxytocin activity. The activity of both anterior pituitary LH and of oxytocin was inhibited after in vitro mixture for one or two hours at room temperature with lithosperm. The data suggest, however, that different substances may inhibit the two hormones. Rhizome extracts were consistantly more potent than the overground plant preparations. In vivo inactivation of LH and FSH also was observed in cockerels when the hormone and lithosperm were administered subcutaneously at different sites. More lithosperm was needed to inhibit FSH action than that of LH. Rhizome extracts also were more potent in vivo than were the overground plant extracts. Extracts which were stored for several months retain inh...


The purpose of this paper is to advance a conceptual framework for the notion of human development as an important component of a forgotten and censored old question that has been recovered some years ago by social sciences relates to the question of good society. This question involves more than an ethic and axiological appeal. In fact, the repercussions of this notion are profound and possess an inevitable social, political, economic and judicial significance. The challenge then consists in recovering a question beyond the techno-scientific positivism, which has transformed the quantitative data, the economistic approaches, the numbers, and the lack of criticism into a new way of alienation. In this apparent towards nowhere trip, it is not enough to recog- nize ourselves as either co-participants of Sisifo's destiny, touched by the carpe diem of Baco, or hypnotized by Prometo and Vulcano's vocation. It is my conviction that human development has been a new paradigm and a change of referents, and a rediscovering of old words.


Early childhood caries has been defined with multiple names; in recent decades has been described as a multifactorial origin disease, present in infants up to 71 months. The aim of this review is to describe the classification, clinical features, epidemiology, etiology and determinants external factors of early childhood caries, through an extensive literature review, conducted by a group of study of the Peruvian Society of Dentistry for six months (2013-2014); in order to provide information and tools to health workers in Peru, useful in the diagnosis of disease and identification of associated risk factors. The characteristic of the etiology of early childhood caries, lies in the influence of unique factors in infants, related to the early implementation of cariogenic microorganisms, to the immaturity of the host defense system, as well as behavioral patterns associated with food and poor oral hygiene in children. According to the study, the prevalence of early childhood caries in Peru varies between 31.5% and 93%. Sociocultural factors have a marked influence on the onset, progression and severity of disease; additionally, certain external factors such as the child's behavior, the level of knowledge and parents attitude, malnutrition and the presence of chronic diseases or specific infectious conditions such as ear infections, have been associated with an increased risk of dental caries in infants.


The article highlights the problem of distinguishing the category of phraseomatic units through establishing linguistic and extralinguistic factors leading to their stability. The paper traces new developments in the recent research carried out on different aspects of this type of word combinations and illustrates them by analyzing units of "business phraseology".


One approach to predict a protein fold from a sequence (a target) is based on structures of related proteins that are used as templates. We present an algorithm that examines a set of candidates for templates, builds from each of the templates an atomically detailed model, and ranks the models. The algorithm performs a hierarchical selection of the best model using a diverse set of signals. After a quick and suboptimal screening of template candidates from the protein data bank, the current method fine‐tunes the selection to a few models. More detailed signals test the compatibility of the sequence and the proposed structures, and are merged to give a global fitness measure using linear programming. This algorithm is a component of the prediction server LOOPP (http://www.loopp.org). Large‐scale training and tests sets were designed and are presented. Recent results of the LOOPP server in CASP8 are discussed. Proteins 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


A prototype of a bulk bauxite analyzer based on fast neutron activation analysis has been developed for simultaneously determining the chemical concentrations of alumina and silica in both dried and undried bulk bauxite samples (about 3.5 kg). The determination of alumina is based on measuring the count rate in the 0.844 MeV ..gamma..-ray peak emitted by /sup 27/Mg formed in the activation of aluminum. The determination of silica is based on measuring the count rate in the 1.78 MeV ..gamma..-ray peak emitted by /sup 28/Al formed in the activation of silicon. The interference from alumina in the determination of silica was eliminated by measuring an additional parameter, the thermal neutrons underneath the bulk sample. The technique enables up to 10 analyses per hour with an accuracy (1 sigma) of 0.28% silica and 0.9% alumina. The samples analyzed contained 48 to 62% alumina and 2 to 11% silica. The tests indicated that the accuracy of analysis was similar for samples which had been oven-dried (0 to 5% free moisture) and samples which were taken from the benefication plant with free moisture varying in a narrow range (10 to 14% free moisture). The results also indicated that crushing and grinding of samplesmore » did not significantly improve the accuracy.« less


A data-gateway,a gateway-based framework,is proposed to solve the problems in grid data interoperation,such as heterogeneous storage resources,different job requirements,and numerous failures.The data-gateway is a professional solver for data interoperation that can make the data interoperation as an independent and general modular separated from job interoperation,and promote parallel processing of the interoperation tasks.A job description language based on ClassAD is introduced in the data-gateway,which can provide a very flexible and extensible data model,and can be used to describe arbitrary services and constraints,as well as the scale mechanism in a plug-in style so that the scalability of the data-gateway for heterogeneous storage resources is improved well.Dynamic protocol selecting mechanism and failure recovering mechanism used in the date-gateway can provide a nice environment like failure-free network and storage devices,and enhance the system's availability.Experiment results show that the data-gateway can implement data interoperation between heterogeneous grid infrastructures rapidly,recover failures automatically without any human interaction,and complete all kinds of data interoperation tasks efficiently.


The "Mais Medicos" Program (PMM) of the Federal Government of Brazil implemented in 2013 counts among its main actors with Cuban doctors (around 63% of the registered professionals), who participate through an Agreement with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). As in any intervention, a primary objective is to evaluate the results. In this case, for Primary Health Care, there is an evaluation tool such as PCATool, an instrument already validated in Brazil. For practical time and economic reasons, it was decided to evaluate the feasibility of applying this instrument, in the case of the professional version, through the Internet. The results validate the online application of this evaluation tool. Key words: validation studies; analysis of Variance.


Based on the analysis of advantages and disadvantages of present single station passive location methods,and contrapossing the characteristics of fast locating immobile targets with mobile platforms,a fast passive location method has been put forward in this paper via resolving the relations of angle and its changing rate between observation station and the target.According to the GDOP(Geometric Dilution of Precision) of location error,the simulation of location precision with single or multiple times validates its high precision and quickness.


Introduction. There has been a recent trend toward a gradual increase in the incidence of rectal cancer and a decrease in the average age of patients. These changes interpret the need to personalize treatment in each case.Objective – to evaluate the association of polymorphic variants of some genes with the results of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy of rectal cancer.Materials and methods. We analyzed polymorphic variants of MTHFR, XPD, XRCC1, XRCC1, P53, VEGF, EGFR, TNF, CHEK2 and MMP1 genes in 76 patients with rectal cancer who underwent preoperative chemoradiation therapy followed by surgical treatment. Genotyping was performed by DNA isolation from venous blood leukocytes of the subjects followed by polymerase chain reaction with electrophoretic detection of the result.Results. Statistical analysis of the association of polymorphic variants of the studied genes with the treatment pathomorphosis revealed significance in relation to the MMP1-1607 gene (1G >2G) (p = 0.033). There was also an association of co-carrying polymorphic variants of TNF (G / A) + MMP1 (2G / 2G) genes with grade III–IV therapeutic pathomorphosis (p = 0.007).Conclusion. Carriage of recessive allele of MMP1 gene can be a predictor of favorable prognosis of preoperative chemoradiotherapy in patients with rectal cancer.


Prior to the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, medicine in the United States was in a deplorable state. Predatory patent medicine hucksters preyed on a medically unsophisticated population, hawking worthless and dangerous remedies that promised to cure every disease known to man, including cancer. The practice of selling unproven remedies was known as "quackery." Quackery was once a well-respected and widely understood term. Virtually all legitimate health professionals deplored quackery, often understanding that it contained elements that were intentionally fraudulent in nature. In 1906, the legal machinery to stop quackery was put into place with the Pure Food and Drug Act. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continued to gain the power necessary to control quackery during the ensuing century. However, since the 1990s, unproven products have had an unparalleled resurgence of popularity among the American public. This is partly due to the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), a law that granted unprecedented legitimacy to "dietary supplements,"a broad group of heterogeneous products that had not gone through the prestigious and well-respected FDA OTC review process, and therefore, were wholly lacking in sufficient proof of safety and efficacy. The FDA is the leading agency charged with determining safety and efficacy of nonprescription products, but one of the effects of DSHEA was to nullify its powers in regard to unproven products. FDA cannot require that dietary supplements be proven safe or effective. These unproven products would once have been held up as prime examples of quackery by pharmacy journals and professional organizations. However, in the years since DSHEA, pharmacy's journals and professional organizations often embrace these products through several means. For instance, they seldom address the issue of quackery in regard to dietary supplements, they recommend their use in editorials and related articles, they help boost their sales by accepting their advertising revenue, they allow their manufacturers to rent booth space at their conventions, and they publish textbook chapters that present uncritical, one-sided, biased views of


A supergraph containment search is to retrieve the data graphs contained by a query graph. In this paper, we study the problem of efficiently retrieving all data graphs approximately contained by a query graph, namely similarity search on supergraph containment. We propose a novel and efficient index to boost the efficiency of query processing. We have studied the query processing cost and propose two index construction strategies aimed at optimizing the performance of different types of data graphs: top-down strategy and bottom-up strategy. Moreover, a novel indexing technique is proposed by effectively merging the indexes of individual data graphs; this not only reduces the index size but also further reduces the query processing time. We conduct extensive experiments on real data sets to demonstrate the efficiency and the effectiveness of our techniques.


This article seeks to identify the main discursive strategies employed by Langston Hughes in constructing entities, people's images and entire social reality in his poetic discourse. More specifically, this article examines how the discursive strategies contribute to the construction of whiteness and blackness. Data was generated from sixty purposively selected Hughes' poems, which were analysed using thematic analysis and Van Dijk's critical discourse analysis. Van Dijk's CDA was selected as a theoretical framework in this study as it draws knowledge from several fields, including sociology, psychology, politics and economics, which contribute to deepening the insights of this study. The analysis of data revealed that Hughes constantly constructs whiteness and blackness through four discursive strategies, which are actor description, resource description, self-identity descriptions and norm and value descriptions. The findings also show that these strategies contribute to the construction of whiteness and blackness by means of highlighting the positive-self and negative other-representations as well as the power relations between Whites and Blacks. It is hoped that this study deepens the understanding of Hughes' poetic discourse and adds novel insights into whiteness and blackness in the American context.


Neutron-capture reactions on very neutron-rich nuclei are essential for heavy-element nucleosynthesis through the rapid neutron-capture process, now shown to take place in neutron-star merger events. For these exotic nuclei, radiative neutron capture is extremely sensitive to their $\gamma$-emission probability at very low $\gamma$ energies. In this work, we present measurements of the $\gamma$-decay strength of $^{70}$Ni over the wide range $1.3 \leq E_{\gamma} \leq 8 $ MeV. A significant enhancement is found in the $\gamma$-decay strength for transitions with $E_\gamma < 3$ MeV. At present, this is the most neutron-rich nucleus displaying this feature, proving that this phenomenon is not restricted to stable nuclei. We have performed $E1$-strength calculations within the quasiparticle time-blocking approximation, which describe our data above $E_\gamma \simeq 5$ MeV very well. Moreover, large-scale shell-model calculations indicate an $M1$ nature of the low-energy $\gamma$ strength. This turns out to be remarkably robust with respect to the choice of interaction, truncation and model space, and we predict its presence in the whole isotopic chain, in particular the neutron-rich $^{72,74,76}\mathrm{Ni}$.


Background: Acute renal failure (ARF) is a serious clinical problem with high rate of mortality and morbidity. Currently used prophylactic and therapeutic strategies to address ARF are limited and warrant further studies. In the present study an attempt was made to investigate the effect of guanosine against glycerol induced AKI in rats. Methods: Male Wistar rats were divided in to three groups. After 24 h of water deprivation rats in group 2 received glycerol once whereas rats in group 1 served as control. In group 3 rats received intraperitonial injection of guanosine then animals were sacrificed, blood and kidney were collected for various biochemical and histopathological studies. Results: Glycerol treatment produced significant renal structural abnormalities and functional impairment (increased urea and creatinine). Guanosine dose dependently attenuated glycerol induced structural and functional changes in kidney. Conclusion: The reversal of glycerol induced AKI by guanosine points towards a role in improve the pathogenesis of renal injury. The result of this study suggests that guanosine may offer an alternative mode of treatment for AKI.


The exponential growth of network traffic and the growing sophistication of network attacks call for faster, efficient and scalable intrusion detection systems (IDS) that will be able to quickly look into the traffic and timeously produce alerts when malicious traffic has been detected. Snort has been the de-facto standard of IDS for so many years but has been ineffective under heavy loads. In both multi-core and single core hardware configuration snort shows no improvement in detection capability of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) flooding Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. This has led to the development of alternative IDS which try to address the limitations of Snort. Bro is a flexible script-driven intrusion detection system, which provides a 'worker' based architecture to utilize multiple processors. The aim of this paper is to evaluate Bro in terms of performance and packet handling against TCP flooding DDoS attacks under different hardware configurations. To achieve this aim, Bro was installed on different hardware configurations. Tests were conducted to assess its performance under each configuration. Packet loss, Throughput and resource utilization metrics were measured. The results show that utilizing better hardware increases resources availability hence gives the system better performance.


Objective of this study is to identify the attitudes of Ayurvedic physicians about Ayurvedic drug safety in clinical practice. A sample attitude survey among institutionally qualified Ayurvedic physicians from a prespecified part of India through a self administrable questionnaire was adopted as a method to reach at this objective. Survey shows majority of the respondents accepting the potential adversity from Ayurvedic drugs. A substantial number of the respondents have also accepted their ignorance about the idea of pharmacovigilance in Ayurveda. It highlights the need of more guidance about drug safety and usage to Ayurvedic physician to ensure a safe Ayurvedic clinical practice.


This paper describes laboratory experiments (using a high-speed wind-wave flume) of the effects of water waves on heat and momentum exchange in the near-water atmospheric boundary layer at high win...


Isolation of Haemophilus parasuis from clinical samples is still a challenge for many veterinarians. Although this organism may be detected in clinical samples by polymerase chain reaction (PCR),1 isolation is necessary for further characterization of isolates by serotyping2–4 and genotyping.5 Factors that may influence H parasuis isolation include selection of animals for sampling and handling of samples prior to submission to a diagnostic laboratory.6,7 This article will describe in detail some important measures that may improve the chances of isolating H parasuis from clinical samples.


It is a great pleasure and honor to greet you to the annual conference, 2016 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC 2016) at Budapest, Hungary. SMC 2016 is the flagship conference of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society. It provides an international forum for researchers and participants to report up-to-the-minute innovation and development, summarize state-of-the-art, and exchange ideas and advances in all aspects of systems science and engineering, human-machine systems, and cybernetics. SMC2016 is dedicated to the Hungarian born John von Neumann "a Pioneer of Modern Computer Science". In honor of him, the theme of the conference is "A theory that transformed the world to a Cyberspace". We hope that this conference provides a good platform for valuable meeting and you will enjoy Budapest as well, which is frequently called the "Little Paris of Middle Europe" since it has rich historical and cultural heritage.


OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to oboerve the diagnosfic value of hospital acquired lower respiratory infections with antibody coated bacteria (ACB) in spurum samples. METHODS Quantitative culture of pathogenic organisms in sputum samples and immunofluorescence method were used to detect ACBs and their types. RESULTS ACB positive rate in sputum of pathogenic samples was 64.4% and that in mpm pa thogenic free specimens was only 11.9%. There was significant difference between them. CONCLUSION ACB are closely related to the concentation of sputum pathogenic bacteria, so it may be capable of important clinical value for diagnosis of hospital acquired lower respiratory infections.


The use of tetrachloroethylene as a dry cleaning agent, chemical intermediate, and metal degreasing agent has led to its release to the environment. Tetrachloroethylene has also been shown to be produced naturally by several temperate and subtropical marine macroalgae, but the majority of exposure to tetrachloroethylene is still through anthropogenic sources. It is primarily released to the air where it is slow to degrade, with estimated atmospheric half-lives of approximately 100 days. Data compiled from the EPA Air Quality System indicate that the ambient atmospheric level of tetrachloroethylene is typically <1 μg/m3. Due to its long atmospheric half-life, it is subject to long-range transport and has been identified in atmospheric samples in remote locations such as Antarctica where no local sources of this substance exist. Levels for tetrachloroethylene in the indoor air tend to be higher. The median value for indoor air in the United States, from 2,195 entries in the EPA's database of volatile organic contaminants (VOC-AMBI), was approximately 4.9 μg/m3, with an average value of 20.7 μg/m3.


In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), information carried in data sensor is very important for everyone, especially for critical data such as disaster warning, location based in military, and other high-risk data. Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) which informs data sensor of body status, such as blood pressure, electrocardiogram, air-flow of breathing, body temperature, patient position and falls, galvanic skin response, etc. as well as environment conditions such as humidity, gases, noise, etc. Such data sensor should be transferred through wireless to the data center server securely and can be easily accessed by everyone at anytime and anywhere. However, data exchange in WSNs has a big possibility to be illegally intercepted by many threats and attacks. Hence, security mechanism would be desirable to address the problem. In fact, sensor nodes usually have low power, low performance and limited resources. In this paper, we propose a security system in WSN for e-healthcare system that satisfies confidentiality, authenticity, and data integrity with consideration on low overhead of cryptographic computation. Our experimental results showed that total computation time for cryptographic is about 3.61 seconds on Waspmote ATmegal281 microcontroller 14MHz.


In this paper, we propose a novel method to calculate the Web page importance based on a conditional Markov random walk model. The main assumption in this model is that given the hyperlinks in a Web page, users are not really randomly clicking one of them. Instead, many factors may bias their behaviors, for example, the anchor text, the content relevance and the previous experiences when visiting the Web site that a destination page belongs to. As one of the results, the user might tend to visit those pages in high-quality Web sites with higher probability. To implement this idea, we reformulate the Web graph to be a two-layer structure, and the Web page importance is calculated by conditional random walk in this new Web graph. Experiments on the topic distillation task of TREC 2003 Web track showed that our new method can achieve about 18% improvement on mean average precision (MAP) and 16% on precision at 10 (P@10) over the PageRank algorithm.


The "smart village" concept is relatively new among EU decision- and policy it is a result of many-it is a result of many years of debate, economic and territorial inequalities, social exclusion, diversification of certain areas, gradual reduction of agricultural activities and the interaction of cohesion, regional, and common agricultural policy. The concept of smart villages implies saving villages and their inhabitants, protecting cultural heritage and using local potentials to meet modern challenges. In its initial stages, it requires activities of all stakeholders, from individuals living in the rural area in question to decision-makers participating in identifying the strengths, threats, opportunities, and weaknesses of a certain rural area. Apart from the theoretical definition of smart villages, this paper aims to analyse European regulations of smart villages, and to define the challenges and smart village traps in rural development and ways in which they can be prevented.


We investigate the impact of a policy reform, which introduced free formal personal care for those aged 65 and above, on caregiving behaviour. We show that free formal personal care reduced the probability of co-residential informal caregiving by 12.9%. Conditional on giving co-residential care, the mean reduction in the number of informal care hours is estimated to be 1.2 hours per week. The effect is particularly strong among older and less educated caregivers. In contrast to co-residential informal care, we find no change in extra-residential caregiving behaviour. We also observe that the average labour market participation and the number of hours worked increased in response to the policy introduction.


The current understanding of cadmium impacts to avian species has been improved by recent studies and the extensive literature review completed during the development of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Ecological Soil Screening Levels (EcoSSLs). Therefore, we sought to update the cadmium toxicity reference value (TRV) for birds used by regulatory agencies and resource trustees in California for predictive ecological risk assessments. We surveyed the available secondary and primary literature sources to identify the lowest, ecologically relevant no observable adverse effect levels (NOAELs) for oral exposure of birds to cadmium. Review focused on evaluating TRVs between the currently used TRV (0.08 mg/kg/d) and the Eco-SSL TRV (1.47 mg/kg/d), considering the application of an updated ingestion rate model (Nagy et al., 2001) and uncertainty factors. After consideration of the endpoints and evaluation of the experimental results, we propose an ecologically protective NOAEL TRV of 0.7 mg/kg/d, based primarily on the kidney toxicity data in wood ducks (Mayack et al., 1981), but supported by other studies that indicate the kidney is a critical target organ for cadmium toxicity. This TRV is also protective of reproductive effects (Leach et al., 1979), another sensitive endpoint for cadmium toxicity. In addition, a lowest observable adverse effect level (LOAEL) of 1.0 mg/kg/d was identified based on kidney nephrosis in mallards (Cain et al., 1983). Overall, these updated TRVs incorporate more recent studies and reviews on cadmium toxicity in birds while establishing thresholds based on ecologically relevant endpoints.


Despite considerable research on the topic of 'tourist experience', its contribution to tourism theory and its exploitation for the purpose of creating practical benefits for marketing practices, remain unclear. The present study reviews the existing literature and then presents a novel approach to interpreting experience in tourism by: (a) integrating the space and time dimensions into the 'tourist experience' concept, thereby shedding light on its nature and significance; and (b) examining tourists' spontaneous annotations on their travel experiences. Marketing implication and suggestions are provided for the benefit of tourism practitioners.


The province of Quebec in Canada has begun to implement an important plan to bring a digital shift to the educational system. One of the key aspects of this plan is to implement a global electronic student file system. These electronic files encompass a lot of information that can in turn be used to monitor the progress of the students. In this paper, our team was able to obtain a large dataset from this new technological platform and used it to predict the grade of students. We tested up to 328 features and produced different datasets for classification. Moreover, different features selection methods were used. Finally, we were able to predict the end of the year final grade with up to 75% accuracy.