Abstract Background Varicella (VAR) and measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccines are recommended for children at ages 12–15 months and 4–6 years. These are administered as separate MMR and VAR vaccines (MMR+VAR) or as combined measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMRV) vaccine. Herpes zoster (HZ), caused by wild-type or vaccine-strain varicella-zoster virus, can occur in children after varicella vaccination. It is unknown whether HZ incidence after varicella vaccination varies by vaccine formulation or simultaneous receipt of MMR. Methods Using data from six integrated health systems, we examined HZ incidence among children who turned 12 months old during 2003–2008 and received varicella and MMR vaccines according to routine recommendations. All HZ cases ≥ 21 days after first varicella vaccination were identified using ICD-9 codes from inpatient, outpatient, emergency room encounters, and claims data, through 2014. HZ incidence was examined by vaccine formulation (MMR+VAR, MMRV, or VAR without same-day MMR) and doses received and compared using incidence rate ratios (IRR). Results Among 199,797 children, we identified 601 HZ cases. Crude HZ incidence after first-dose MMR+VAR (18.6 [95% CI 11.1–29.2] cases/100,000 person-years) was similar to the rate after first-dose MMRV (17.9 [95% CI 10.6–28.3] cases/100,000 person-years), but approximately double the rate among those with first-dose VAR without same-day MMR (7.5 [95% CI 3.1–15.0] cases/100,000 person-years); see Table 1. The IRR for HZ after first-dose MMR+VAR or MMRV, compared with VAR, was 2.5 (95% CI 1.4–4.4; P = 0.002). When examining any first or second dose formulation, crude HZ incidence was lower after the second varicella vaccine dose (13.9 cases/100,000 person-years), than in the period before the second dose (i.e., between first and second doses or after the first dose in children with only one dose; 21.8 cases/100,000 person-years, P < 0.0001). HZ incidence was also lower after two varicella vaccine doses in each of the three first-dose formulation groups. Conclusion HZ incidence among children varied by first-dose varicella vaccine formulation and number of varicella vaccine doses. Regardless of the first-dose varicella vaccine formulation, children who received two vaccine doses had lower HZ incidence after the second dose. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.


The measured thermodynamic phase diagram of the quasi-two-dimensional magnet [Cu(HF{sub 2})(pyz){sub 2}]BF{sub 4}(pyz=pyrazine=N{sub 2}C{sub 4}H{sub 4}) exhibits an unusual nonmonotonic dependence of the Neel temperature T{sub N} as a function of magnetic field H. The nonmonotonic behavior of T{sub N}(H) results from two competing effects induced by the field: while H suppresses the amplitude of the order parameter by polarizing the spins along a given direction, it also reduces the phase fluctuations by changing the order parameter space from the sphere S{sup 2} to the circle S{sup 1}. The latter effect dominates at low fields only if the system is close enough to its lower critical dimension (d{sub c} = 2), i.e., when fluctuations become important. Our theoretical results reproduce the measured phase diagram and demonstrate that this unusual effect is realized in [Cu(HF{sub 2})(pyz){sub 2}]BF{sub 4}.


Traditionally dermatological therapy has been associated with a degree of mystery and an unenviable number of well-worn cliches. This series aims to outline an up-to-date and rational approach to the treatment of common skin disorders. The first article will describe the structure and function of normal skin, as a knowledge of these is needed to understand the mechanisms of disease and the effects of drug action. The second introductory article will deal with more practical problems of prescribing.


Edward Jenner developed the first vaccine in 1796 after observing that milkmaids who had contracted cowpox did not become infected with smallpox. He tested his theory by vaccinating willing volunteers with cowpox, and as a result pioneered a development which not only eradicated smallpox but also led to the development of many other vaccines in the future, which have successfully improved health and extended life expectancy.


BackgroundThere is ongoing debate about the effect of hormones on the lateralization of the developing brain. In humans, there are conflicting theories of how testosterone during development should affect lateralization. Empirical studies linking prenatal and postnatal testosterone levels to hand preference (a proxy for lateralization) are similarly mixed. Links between hand preference and health may also suggest a mediating role of steroid hormones such as testosterone and estradiol. Studies to date of adult steroid hormones and handedness have been hindered by samples that contain small numbers of non-right-handers. ResultsIn the largest study of the phenomenon to date, I find that the testosterone (n = 7290) and estradiol (n = 3700) levels of left- and mixed-handed adults are no different to those of right-handers. All Bayesian 95% highest density intervals contained 0.Discussion and ConclusionsThe results have implications for studies that show elevated risk of hormonal-related mental and physical disorders in left-handed individuals.


When Medea discovers that Jason has deserted her and married Glauce, the daughter of Creon, she vows a terrible vengeance. Her nurse, although she loves Medea, recognizes that a frightful threat now hangs over Corinth, for she knows that Medea will not let the insult pass without some dreadful revenge. She fears especially for Medea's two sons, since the sorcerer includes her children in the hatred she now feels for their father.


A method of sterilisation, sanitisation and/or decontamination comprises the steps of producing a humidified environment having a relative humidity which is higher than ambient humidity; discharging ozone into the humidified environment; maintaining the ozone level at a concentration that will achieve the required degree of decontamination and sterilisation of the humid environment; reducing the relative humidity of the decontaminated and sterilised environment and passing the environment through a catalyst to reduce the concentration of ozone to a predetermined level. The ozone level may be reduced by introducing a hydrocarbon containing a carbon-carbon double bond, such as an alkene or a cyclo-alkene to the environment. Apparatus for carrying out the method is also claimed.


Electrochemical and nonelectrochemical reactions of the H 2 O 2 /CO system on a Pt electrode were studied in 2 M H 2 SO 4 with cyclic voltammetry and on-line mass spectrometry. It was found that a complete CO monolayer is chemically stable in the presence of dissolved H 2 O 2 . However, H 2 O 2 oxidizes adsorbed CO to CO 2 at lower potentials than those required for electro-chemical CO adsorbate oxidation when the Pt electrode is partially covered by CO. Furthermore, it was observed that a complete CO monolayer on Pt inhibits the electrochemical reduction of H 2 O 2 to H 2 O in CO-containing electrolyte.


The overall purpose of this Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA)project was to facilitate the transfer of the geocomposite capillary barrier drain (GCBD) technology to engineering practice through demonstration and documentation of GCBD fabrication, field installation and performance, and the development of the capability to incorporate the GCBD in subsequent designs. The transport layer is the key element of the GCBD, and a material referred to as TGLASS was selected as the best available transport layer material. This material was used in the MnROAD field test. There has been discussion with a geosynthetic manufacturer regarding the production of a lower cost transport layer. A method to connect the GCBD to the edgedrain pipe system was developed in the laboratory and used in the MnROAD demonstration. Details and specifications regarding the field installation of the GCBD system were developed and implemented at MnROAD. The laboratory testing, field measurements and design calculations conducted during this project indicate that the GCBD provides specific benefits, including: reduced equilibrium water content in base course; prevention of positive pressures in base course; reduced wetting of underlying subgrade due to infiltration; and prevention of capillary rise of water from subgrade into base.


Extended Abstract Due to the water problem, our attention is focused on developing innovative membranes for water purification. Among the biodegradable biopolymers, the ones based on polysaccharides like chitosan have presented great interest. After cellulose, chitosan is produced by chitin's deacetylation, the most bountiful natural polysaccharide. The The FTIR analysis confirmed the characteristic peaks related to chitosan and nanoparticles and the interactions developed between the components. The SEM/ EDX analyses confirm the presence of nanoparticles in the membranes' structure and their relatively homogeneous distribution conferring the premises of using them as reproducible membranes for water purification applications. The TG/ DSC analysis on the subjected samples illustrated the thermal behaviour and the composition very close to the theoretical ones, again confirming a good homogeneity of the samples. Following the antimicrobial assessments, the composite membranes have inhibited the adherence of the tested microbial strains. Therefore, E. coli ATCC 25922 and Citrobacter sp. were the most sensitive to the as-developed membranes. Also, the composite membranes had moderate antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive strains resistant to antibiotics ( E. faecalis VRE 2566 and S. aureus MRSA 5578), which indicates that the as-presented composite membranes showed great perspective in developing membranes for water purification applications.


Method and apparatus for identifying the media, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for decoding the identifier after the broadcast is disclosed. An exemplary method includes determining a portion of the identification code from the media signal, comprising the steps of determining a section of the look-up table based on the part of the identification code, the compartment identification code look-up table one It includes a reference signature associated with the section, and determining the signature extracted from the media signal, by comparing the reference signatures in the compartment of the look-up table, identifying a media signal. .The 10


The measured phonon-density of states of bulk GaN by time-of-flight neutron spectroscopy has been recently reported by Nipko et al. [CITE]. The authors have also calculated the true partial and total DOS as well as the phonon dispersion curves along major symmetry directions in the Brillouin zone. However, the group-theoretical phonon assignments have not been provided. Based on calculated symmetry allowed modes spanned by displacement representation and on the derived connectivity relations along the major directions in the Brillouin zone we have assigned Nipko's phonon dispersion curves to irreducible representations (species) of the (P6 3 mc) space group of GaN.


Objective of this research is knowing the knowledge by the mother's behavior in the exclusive breastfeeding in infants at the hospital Evasari Jakarta in 2016. Research methodology used is analytic. Population in research it is a whole mother who the baby is that visit evasari jakarta hospital in january 2017, with the sample of the some 50 people. Based on the research done analysis univariat most among respondents who do not give breastfeeding exclusive (54.0%) and analysis bivariate knowledge show the connection with the behavior mother in the provision of breastfeeding exclusive in infants in a hospital evasari jakarta with the p = 0.004.


This article proposes a Distributed Realtime Fault-tolerant model, priority Real-time Fault-tolerant algorithm and computational architecture of Distributed Real-time Fault-tolerant. According to this model, the problem of how to schedule a weighted Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) in Distributed computing system for high reliability can be solved in the presence of multiprocessors faults. When some tasks in a DAG have dependence on each other, a task must be scheduled to make sure that maximum communication efficiency and high reliability can be guaranteed due to a processor failure. Firstly, this paper propose task model, communication model and reliability model for evaluating fault-tolerant performance of the system, and define the priority of a task so that a critical task is defined as one with the highest priority. To add some constrained conditions that do not influence the earliest start time of its successors in the process of scheduling task, The Distributed Realtime Fault-tolerant Scheduling Algorithm (DRFACS) targets maximizing reliability to dynamically schedule dependent, non-preemptive, non-periodic real-time tasks to improve the quality of service through scheduling in the case of arising massive resource failures. Finally, Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed algorithm.


A system for providing driving information of an electric includes a telematics terminal configured to collect driver information, internal state information, and external environment information, and transmitting the collected driver information, internal state information, and external environment information. A path information server is configured to transmit road information and traffic information to the outside. A telematics server is configured to accumulate information received from the telematics terminal and the path information server, calculate a driving pattern of a first driver based on the accumulated information, calculate one or more candidate paths based on the driving pattern, and transmit the calculated one or more candidate paths to the telematics terminal.


AbstractIn my study I have investigated how a constructed outdoor green environment can beused, managed and how it works. The study also investigates the concept of socialsustainability, where, for ...


The men and women being recruited to lead U.S. science agencies in President Obama9s second term are generally more experienced managers, and more familiar with Washington, than his first-term team, which was loaded with big names. How will that different set of skills affect their ability to carry out the president9s long-term goals for science?


The molecular stopping cross sections of the organic ring compounds cyclopentane, cyclohexane, cyclooctane, cyclopentene, cyclohexene, 1,3‐cyclohexadiene, benzene, toulene, phenylacetylene, cyclohexanone, and p‐dioxane have been measured for helium ions with energies from 0.3 to 2.0 MeV. It is found that the ring structure of molecules with less than six CH2 groups in the ring as well as the nature of the bonds involved correlate with deviations from Bragg's rule as great as 14.7%. Evidence of resonance in the ring structure which correlated with the stopping cross section of the compound benzene is also observed. A qualitative relationship between chemical bond strain and deviations from Bragg's rule is given.


Reforming curricula has been likened to relocating graveyards. The implication, presumably, is that cur ricular reform should be done only when necessary, should be carried out respectfully, and demands a good deal of time and care. The creation of a new Sustainability in the Urban Environment program at City College of New York (CCNY)—a program that will graduate its first class in June 2011—certainly exhibited these characteristics. Given the dramatically increasing interest in sustainability and cleantech—in the academic world, the corporate world, the media world, and the planet in general—some sort of serious academic offering in sustainability seemed a virtual necessity. Of course it had to be done respectfully, given that much of the terrain of sustainability was at least partially covered, in differing ways, by existing programs and/or courses in environmental studies, earth sciences, environmental engineering, economics, management, law, and policy. We had to make clear that a new master's degree program in Sustainability is not in any sense a replacement of existing disciplines, but rather a new focal point that draws heavily from the insights of these existing disciplines and juxtaposes these insights in ways that can be extremely useful in working toward solutions of real-world problems.


Special verb sentences are an important type of grammatical phenomena closely related to the conversion of parts of speech in Old Chinese, and can be categorized from a semantic viewpoint. To analyze them, a general categorization is preferable to a detailed or complex one. In view of its semantic vagueness and indefiniteness, verb object (OV) construction with the meaning of"V for O"needs no sub categorization. Verbs in VO constructions of this sort can either be causative or static. The ambiguity is ascribable to the referent embodied by the object following a converted verb (from a noun or adjective). Ambiguity arises if the referent is not in or has not reached a given state before the exertion of influence by the subject.


Because of the low height of the prestressed short rib T-beam bridge and the poor torsion resistance of the main beam, the positive moment in the middle span of the bridge deck will increase correspondingly compared with the normal rib beam bridge. At present, there is little research on the calculation method of the bridge deck of the prestressed short rib T-beam bridge. In this paper, the space finite element method and the continuous one-way slab method are used to calculate the forces on the bridge deck, based on the space finite element method, a finite element elastic supported continuous beam method is proposed to calculate the forces on the bridge deck. By comparing the calculation results of the three methods with the test results, the reasonable calculation method of the bridge deck is studied. The results show that the spatial finite element analysis method can simulate the mechanical performance of the deck of the bridge of the prestressed short rib T-beam bridge well, the stress calculation results are consistent with the test results, and the calculation accuracy is high, which can be used in the actual engineering design; The finite element analysis method of elastic support continuous beam can also simulate the mechanical performance of the deck of the bridge of the prestressed short rib T-beam bridge. The concept of the method is clear, the calculation is convenient, and it is more suitable for the application of engineering design; The calculation results of the continuous one-way slab method are too large to be safe for design.


Steven T. Taylor, P.E., is a principal and Jeff Stein, P.E., is a senior engineer at Taylor Engineering in Alameda, Calif. Taylor is a member of TCs 4.3 and 1.4. He is a former member of ASHRAE Standing Standards Project Commitee (SSPC) 90.1 and former chairman of SSPC 62.1. ow, and indeed whether, to balance variable flow (twoway valve) hydronic systems has been debated for many years.1,2,3 In most of the literature, either the analysis has been limited to only a few of the many balancing options, or analyses of flow control problems and their energy impacts were based on simplified or atypical hydronic systems. Few references compare in detail the first costs and energy costs of the various balancing options. This article attempts to fill these gaps by analyzing the balancing of variable flow systems in a detailed and comprehensive manner.


The vertical pressure profile of a powder column is usually described by the Janssen equation. Using uniaxial compression of polyethylene powders this was integrated assuming a linear dependence of the bulk density on the stress allowing to work out reasonable values for wall friction angle and lateral stress ratio. INTRODUCTION Powder compression is largely used in many industrial applications. This unit operation in mechanical process engineering is often preliminar to subsequent shearing to test the flowability of the powder. The pressure profile of a granular solid column in a cylindrical container is described using the well-known Janssen equation, which is often used even when additional surcharge stress is applied on the top of the column13. One of the controversial assumptions of this equation is the hypothesis of a constant bulk density. The significant pressure developed during compression and the simple fact that the volume decreases, even if only slightly, leads to experimental evidences that this conjecture cannot be made. One evidence, observed in this work, is the column height dependence of the measured "average bulk density". If a pressure dependence of the apparent density has to be effectively taken into account, then only an average density value can be inferred during uniaxial compression tests. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND The Janssen equation, deduced using the method of differential slices and a force balance on a discoidal element of volume in a cylindrical bin containing a cohesionless granular material, has the following form: !!!!(!) !" = − ! λ !!! ! + !" (1) where σzz is the normal stress along the column z axis (with origin at the center of the flat top surface), ρ is the granular material bulk density, g is the gravity acceleration and λ is a characteristic length which in turn is a function of the wall friction angle φ, of the container diameter D and of the Janssen coefficient K for the lateral stress transmission:


Baris coerulescens Scopoli is a pest attacking the tap root of oilseed rape and other cruciferae. Sampling plans based on 6 yr of surveys were devised to estimate the mean number of immatures per plant. When the required precision (SE/ ¯x ) is around 0.10, sampling must be based on insect counts in the roots, and sequential sampling based on a variance-mean model provides a reasonable tool. When using the proportion of plants infested with at least 1 insect, a binomial sampling plan can be used to estimate the mean density with a level of precision ≥0.40. A better precision can be reached (≥0.25) and a smaller sample size is required, when using the proportion of plants infested with at least 2 insects. Sampling characteristics of the binomial sampling plan developed with the proportion of plants with at least 2 insects and precision 0.30 showed that it can be used for intermediate means from 2 to 6 insects per plant. In these conditions, means are well estimated and the sampling time is reduced when compared with sampling based on insect counts. Minimizing sampling time led to developing a sampling strategy with precision 0.30, consisting of using binomial sampling when the proportion of infested plants with at least 2 insects is in the range 0.50–0.80 and in using numerical sequential sampling in other cases. Simulations of these sampling plans were carried out on 16 bootstrap samples that cover a wide range of means from 0 to 10 insects per plant.


An intriguing question in evolution is what would happen if one could "replay" life's tape. Here, we explore the following hypothesis: when replaying the tape, the details ("decorations") of the outcomes would vary but certain "invariants" might emerge across different life-tapes sharing similar initial conditions. We use large-scale simulations of an in silico model of pre-biotic evolution called GARD (Graded Autocatalysis Replication Domain) to test this hypothesis. GARD models the temporal evolution of molecular assemblies, governed by a rates matrix (i.e. network) that biases different molecules' likelihood of joining or leaving a dynamically growing and splitting assembly. Previous studies have shown the emergence of so called compotypes, i.e., species capable of replication and selection response. Here, we apply networks' science to ascertain the degree to which invariants emerge across different life-tapes under GARD dynamics and whether one can predict these invariant from the chemistry specification alone (i.e. GARD's rates network representing initial conditions). We analysed the (complex) rates' network communities and asked whether communities are related (and how) to the emerging species under GARD's dynamic, and found that the communities correspond to the species emerging from the simulations. Importantly, we show how to use the set of communities detected to predict species emergence without performing any simulations. The analysis developed here may impact complex systems simulations in general.


The greatest achievement of a civilisation is not to have a collective identity to be stressed, simultaneously, by all individuals. It is precisely, the contrary: to have reached a level of economic development, of culture and freedom that allow citizens to emancipate themselves from collective identities – throwing off the yoke – and to choose their own identity, in harmony or disharmony with the rest of the tribe. In that way, the individual can exercise his or her sovereignty, becoming authentically free. In using this quote Anthony Everitt in his book Europe: United or Divided by Culture ii points out that that with the rise of individualisation we should not hold out any great hope for a European consciousness as it essentially is not desirable. He is of course right; however what we can hope for is an increased understanding of the cultures that are contained within the countries that make up the Union. The emphasis on cultures not countries is important. However it is clear that at times the centralised administration of European cultural funding has failed to grasp the point made by Mario Vargas Llosa. This paper will address the theme of the conference by considering the appropriate competences that will need to be developed in cultural management education to achieve 'intercultural dialogue'. It will be argued that a capacity to evaluate risk and trust in communication and partnerships are becoming the most valuable competencies. However these are unlikely to be developed within a system driven by a dysfunctional funding mechanism. This is not because it does not 'fund' but that in doing so it creates a sense of uncreative cynicism. The paper will alternate iii between a consideration of appropriate competencies or capacities and a critique of the mechanism of EU funding. These two areas are connected as they try to function side by side the appropriate competencies belong to a contemporary understanding of management practice and the current EU funding system belongs to an earlier period of hierarchical management practice I will argue that the key competency needed to create intercultural dialogue is communication, this may seem obvious. However If you wish to achieve this through actions as suggested above then this does not mean just 'speaking' across cultures but understanding within each culture the other


Protocol of the next meeting of the Society of Physicians of the Imperial University of Kazan dated 29 October 1902. It was chaired by prof. L.O.Darkshevich under the secretary of Dr. S. Petrulis.


For the individual, a joke may release and redirect repressed feelings of stress. Within a social group, gibes about outsiders communicate collective self-image of group superiority. Our utterances...


The deviation cycles in the manufacturing industry of nine OECD-countries are identified by applying the Christiano-Fitzgerald band-pass filter. Turning points, low- and high-growth phases and other descriptive statistics are derived from these deviation cycles. A regression based test statistic is applied to test for duration dependence. Moreover, the international linkage between the cyclical motions in the manufacturing industry of two countries is investigated by measuring the degree of synchronisation. In addition to measuring the cyclical fluctuation, a composite leading indicator is constructed which replicates and predicts the deviation cycle in the manufacturing industry. This composite leading indicator is a single index composed of economic, financial and expectation variables possessing leading properties.


A lossy mode resonance (LMR)-supported fiber optic sensor in which a uniform fiber core is placed among two identical tapered regions, is investigated numerically. Indium tin oxide (ITO) and aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) are considered as LMR active materials used to excite several lossy modes and gold and silver are used as surface plasmon resonance (SPR) active materials. In this probe design, a central uniform core coated with ITO/AZO is the active sensing region, whereas tapered regions are meant for bringing the incident angle close to the critical angle. The sensitivity of the present fiber optic bio-sensor is evaluated for first two LMRs utilizing both ITO and AZO separately, along with its variation with the taper ratio (TR). For ITO, the maximum sensitivity values are observed to be 18.425 μm RIU−1 (refractive index unit) and 0.825 μm RIU−1, corresponding to the first and second LMRs, respectively, at a TR of 1.6 and for AZO, equivalent values are 0.79 μm RIU−1 and 0.35 μm RIU−1, respectively, at a TR of 2.0. The results illustrate that the first LMR is more sensitive than the second LMR and the ITO-coated probe possesses greater sensitivity than the AZO-coated probe for both LMRs. Similarly, for the fiber optic SPR sensor, the maximum value of sensitivity is 5.6425 μm RIU−1, in the case of gold and 5.0615 μm RIU−1 in the case of silver, at a TR of 1.6. Hence, the result shows that the sensor with the present fiber optic probe design has around a 3-fold enhancement in sensitivity compared with conventional SPR sensors. This study will have applications in many sensing schemes where the requirement of large sensitivity is vital.


The validity of the Rayleigh hypothesis (RH) has been a long-standing issue in the applicability of the T-matrix method to near-field calculations, and despite numerous theoretical works, the practical consequences for numerical simulations have remained unclear. Such calculations are increasingly important in the field of nano-optics, for which accurate and efficient modeling tools are in high demand. We here tackle this challenge by investigating numerically the convergence behavior of series expansions of the electric field around spheroidal particles, which provides us with unambiguous examples to clarify the conditions of convergence. This study is made possible by the combination of alternative methods to compute near-fields accurately, and crucially, the recent improvements in the calculation of T-matrix elements free from numerical instabilities, as such errors would otherwise obfuscate the intrinsic convergence properties of the field series. The resulting numerical confirmation for the range of validity of the RH, complemented by a better understanding of the convergence behavior of the field expansions, is a crucial step toward future developments.


The possibility of communication nowadays depends fully on the usage of modern technology. Several digital divides exist with respect to Mobile Phone (MP) usage, and they further aggravate the interpersonal relationship. In personal connection, the availability of MP users can be measured by several indicators, such as phone number sharing behaviour and phone answering strategies. The MP users also look over the necessity of using their MP to communicate with others in daily life. The 'dual availability' model distinguishes active/passive attitude and behaviour of individual's calling and receiving styles. In the relational connection, the usage of MP, which shows multiple dimensions, such as phone contacts, face-to-face contacts and spatial distance effects, implies the openness and closeness of interpersonal relationships. In our research, MP use is a proxy of human behaviour as well as relationships, and it represents a digital opportunity for users to improve their relationship. With regard to the personal connections, caller effects show overwhelming domination over either the media use or relationship change, while the receiver effects show weaker influence. Unilateral relationships and network relationships are respectively influenced by personal and relational connections and consequently demonstrate different appearances.


This is a commentary on the recent Demand-Avoidance Phenomena (DAP, sometimes called Pathological Demand Avoidance) by Kildahl et al (2021). I am supportive of the observations on the rigour of the limited evidence base for DAP; that at present no firm conclusions can be made upon what features are associated with it, and it is premature to definitively conceptualise DAP as a distinct Disorder, autism subtype, or autistic trait. Building upon these results by highlighting crucial issues with the axiology of most DAP research, which views it to be an autism spectrum disorder, and detailing some of its adverse impacts. Drawing particular attention to the limitations of the Extreme Demand Avoidance-Questionnaire, for instance, that Comfortable in role play and pretending trait does not cluster with other demand-avoidance traits. DAP research is contextualised in research excellence guidelines, stressing the importance of including non-autistic persons with DAP in its research, by conceptualising it as a discrete disorder. There is a need to investigate the potential bias in the United Kingdom "PDA is an ASD" community, and the conflicts of interest plausibly present in much DAP research. Persons with DAP and autistic persons deserve better than viewing it as an autism spectrum disorder.This is only the first draft, and it is currently awaiting suggestions from the journal's editors before being formally submitted. Substantial amount of the draft is likely to be removed as it is over the word and reference limits for the journal. There is no guarantee that this commentary will be accepted for publishing. If it is published it should open access, as London South Bank University has a deal to publish articles open access with many Sage journals, including Autism.


Seasonality in stock markets implies some kind of regular and repetitive phenomenon occurring at some regular interval of time, which may generate abnormal or excess returns. Seasonality includes day-of-the-week effect, month-of-the-year effect, quarterly effects, monthly effects, weekly effects, holiday effects etc. The present study attempts to explore the existence of seasonality in Indian stock market in four forms namely day-of-the-week effect, month-of-theyear effect, quarterly effects, and monthly effects. It was also aimed the general awareness regarding seasonality. For this purpose 18 indices of BSE & 19 of NSE were taken as sample. Their daily closing, opening, high and low prices were collected and averages were calculated. For stationarity, Graphical analysis, Correlogram and ADF tests were used. These tests confirmed nonstationarity for original series; therefore, returns were calculated by log differencing. These return series were stationary in nature, so for further analysis return series were used. Thereafter dummy variable regression was used for testing seasonality. The obtained results were having autocorrelation which was removed using ARIMA modeling whereas heteroskedasticity was taken care of by GARCH (p, q) model. Before estimating different AR and MA terms for ARIMA and p and q terms for GARCH, several diagnostic checkings were attempted and best terms were selected on the basis of AIC, SBC and adjusted R. After analyzing all the four calendar effects namely day-of-the-week effect, month-of-the-year effect, quarterly effects and monthly effects, it was found that all the four effects are present in the Indian stock market. For most of the indices of both BSE and NSE, Monday was found to be most significant day; September and December were the two months providing significant returns as compared to other months. First quarter was emerged as the most significant quarter, when quarterly effects were tested while in case of monthly effects, returns of first-half of the month were found to be significant. Thus existence of seasonality in Indian stock markets was proved. Further, it was tried to explore whether the pattern of seasonality has been changed over the years. For this purpose the whole time series was classified into three sub-time series. The change was confirmed for all the four effects tested for both SENSEX and Nifty. Surprisingly the changes were drastic from one period to next consecutive period. In addition to, it was also discovered that initially there was no similarity in the results of SENSEX and Nifty. But gradually with the passage of time and with more and more developments in the environment of stock markets all over the world, both SENSEX and Nifty showed co-movement in terms of significant returns generating days, months, quarters or halves of a month in their respective subtime period, thereby depicting strong co-integration between them. After confirmation of existence of seasonality in Indian stock market, it was also attempted to discover the general awareness regarding seasonality. For discovering investors' perceptions regarding various trading strategies, an opinion survey was conducted and results were analyzed using z-test and ANOVA. Market participants' perception was analyzed regarding various trading strategies proposed to them. It was found that investors were hardly interested in seasonality based strategies. Rather strategies based on company fundamentals were highly preferred. The biggest reason observed behind less inclination towards seasonality was less understandings of jargons.


An embedded Runge–Kutta method with phase-lag of order infinity for the numerical integration of Schrodinger equation is developed in this paper. The methods of the embedded scheme have algebraic orders five and four. Theoretical and numerical results obtained for radial Schrodinger equation and for coupled differential equations show the efficiency of the new methods.


This article is dedicated to Fyodor Stepun"s history of philosophy. The author concentrates on the problems of methodology of historical cognition and traces neo-Kantian motifs in the oeuvre of the Russian philosopher


With the advent of e-learning, learners are able to repeatedly take quizzes at an opportune juncture. However, there is little research on this style of examination. In this research, a "consistency index", which was defined for a series of answers from repeated attempts of quizzes, was used to classify students into groups. The difference in the structure of the acquired knowledge for each group was clarified by Bayesian networks. As a result, a student who required additional individual counseling could be objectively detected. This method does not increase the student's workload and does not use a learner's subjective information


George B. Forgie argues that the crisis of the Union was decisively structured by one obvious, overbearing fact: the dominant figures in American public life in the 1850s were born in the early Republic. They were raised to think of its founders as immortal fathers whom they must imitate, themselves as brothers, and the Union as an inherited house to be preserved.


Efficiency and fairness are two important goals of disaster rescue. However, the existing models usually unilaterally consider the efficiency or fairness of resource allocation. Based on this, a multiobjective emergency resource allocation model that can balance efficiency and fairness is proposed. The object of the proposed model is to minimize the total allocating costs of resources and the total losses caused by insufficient resources. Then the particle swarm optimization is applied to solve the model. Finally, a computational example is conducted based on the emergency relief resource allocation after Ya'an earthquake in China to verify the applicability of the proposed model.


With the rapid development of the high-speed-trains (HSTs), companies are paying more and more attention on HST wireless communication system. Although some schemes have been proposed to enhance the system performance, there are still many challenges, e.g. high penetration loss, large Doppler shift, low data rate and so on. Single frequency networks (SFNs) can offer many advantages including better coverage, less interference, less power, and higher reliability. Under the SFN scenario of HST, multiple links will lead to different frequency offsets of data from different remote radio heads (RRHs) when the downlink signals arrive at user equipment (UE). Thus, it will be found that the legacy UE performance under SFN scenario will degrade significantly, especially for the higher order modulation scheme. In this paper, in order to solve this issue, we proposed two methods which are the base station (BS) frequency pre-compensation and the UE receiver enhancement respectively. The simulation results show the significant downlink performance improvements can be achieved by the two solutions especially for high-speed users in SFN.


The reasons for concrete cracking were analyzed in this paper.The results showed the cement hydration causes chemical shrinkage cracking,while water-losing causes dry-shrinkage cracking.The effect of improving anti-cracking for concrete of HLC-1 admixture was experimentally studied and some advice was given to avoid appearing concrete cracks.


The large bandwidth makes CMUT based transducers interesting for both conventional and harmonic imaging. The inherent nonlinear behavior of the CMUT, however, poses an issue for harmonic imaging as it is difficult to dissociate the harmonics generated in the tissue from the harmonic content of the transmitted signal. The generation of intrinsic harmonics by the CMUT can be minimized by decreasing the excitation signal. This, however, leads to lower fundamental pressure which limits the desired generation of harmonics in the medium. This work examines the output pressure and harmonic characteristics of a CMUT as function of bias and excitation voltage. The harmonic to fundamental ratio of the surface pressures declines for decreasing excitation voltage and increasing bias voltage. The ratio, however, becomes unchanged for bias levels close to the pull-in voltage. The harmonic limitations of the CMUT is emphasized by a maximum ratio of -12 dB between harmonics generated in the medium and total harmonics measured at 10 mm.


The demand by certain Muslims living in Europe to wear the Islamic headscarf has led to important cases, before the courts of the Member States of the Union as much as before the European Court of Human Rights, above all with regard to public education. The Court of Human Rights and the Member States have taken different positions concerning the licitness of wearing the headscarf. The solutions adopted are, in fact, strongly influenced by the classical concept of relations between Church and State. In schools in Germany, where a relationship of cooperation exists between Church and State, the wearing of the veil is allowed, but only for the pupils, not for their teachers. In France, which has a model of strict separation between Church and State, neither teachers nor pupils are allowed to wear the veil. The tensions linked to wearing of the headscarf are but one example of conflict between sharia and the fundamental principles of Europe. These conflicts are not insurmountable. However, they do require efforts from both sides. The EU and the Member States must break with discriminatory practices against Muslims. The Muslims of Europe must construct a European Islam, re-reading sacred texts in light of the characteristics and the values of the European societies in which they live.


In the debate on the place of victims in international criminal proceedings, the 'search for truth' takes centre stage as an important concern of victims, international criminal tribunals and the wider international community. However, the various claims about the importance of telling and receiving the truth for different parties at such tribunals often fail to enquire into the implications and complications of combining different aspirations to truth at the specific stage of an international criminal trial. In light of the embracement of a 'victim-centred' approach at the International Criminal Court (ICC), a discourse emerges in which the search for truth appears to be a multidirectional effort. The complex web of truth-exchanges and conceptions of truth-telling at the ICC is marked by both an interdependence and an incompatibility between the court's and the victims' search for truth. By scrutinizing the invocation of three important ways in which this search for truth is operationalized at the court, namely through the provision of information, contextualization and acknowledgment, this article shows that the relationship between the victim, the truth and the ICC is mutually reinforcing yet also mutually disruptive.


From the opinion of this article,the way to understand the climatic variation is by largescale physical effects in the solarterrestrial space,and it is also the key to forecasting problems of complex systems.Three largescale geomagnetic rules are suggested by diagrams:(1) the crab paws law;(2) the magic bottle law;(3) the soft gear law,with which the mechanism of the longterm geophysical effects on Earths stroms is discussed then.


Epithelioid sarcoma like hemangioendothelioma (ES-H) is recently added vascular soft tissue tumor in WHO list, with high propensity for infiltrative growth, local recurrence and low metastatic potential. We present a twenty year old male with right mid thigh swelling with pain since five months whose x-rays showed osteolytic, scalloped lesions of mid shaft femur. On workup was diagnosed ES-H for which wide excision of  tumor was done and limb salvaged with biological reconstruction using free vascularised fibula.


Gut lymphatic vessels (LVs) are crucial for maintaining immunity and abdominal fluid homeostasis. In experimental liver cirrhosis with ascites, gut LVs are dilated and dysfunctional with impaired gut immune response. Therapy with pro-lymphangiogenic factor, vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C), promotes functional LVs growth and attenuates inflammation. However, therapeutic role of VEGF-C in cirrhosis has not been explored. Here we developed a nanoformulation comprising VEGF-C-loaded reverse-micelles (E-VEGF-C) and delivered orally in rat models of liver cirrhosis to specifically target mesenteric LVs (mLVs). E-VEGF-C treated cirrhotic rats displayed increased density of mLVs, improved functional drainage, and reduced abdominal fluid/ascites and portal pressures without any adverse events. E-VEGF-C also enhanced the proliferation of LVs in mesenteric lymph nodes triggering active immune responses, which helped to contain spreading of bacteria to other organs preventing systemic infection. Collectively, E-VEGF-C in cirrhotic rats ameliorates drainage of mLVs, ascites formation, and immunity; thus, represents potential treatment to manage ascites and immune dysfunction in cirrhosis . vitro 90% uptake by LyECs vitro release release hrs. alternate days for 2 weeks during the 13 th -14 th week. Ascites was graded as mild, moderate, or severe based on fluid volume. Less than 10 ml was mild, 10-30 ml was moderate, and >30 ml was severe. These rats were sacrificed 48 hrs. after the last dose of saline, vehicle, or E-VEGF-C, after performing the hemodynamic studies. The two groups were prepared for the PPVL study. PPVL vehicle (PPVL with nanocarriers alone) and PPVL+E-VEGF-C. Non-cirrhotic animal models of portal hypertension were developed using partial portal vein ligation (PPVL), as previously described 48 . Briefly, under isoflurane anesthesia, using a single ligature of 3-0 silk tied around the portal vein, a calibrated constriction was performed with a 19-gauge blunt-tipped needle. The needle was then removed, leaving a calibrated constriction of the portal vein. For the PPVL animals, the two groups were randomized. In the PPVL+vehicle group, the lipid nanocarrier formulation was administered orally on alternate days for 2 week after the PPVL surgery. In the PPVL+E-VEGF-C group, E-VEGF-C was orally administered at a dose of 600 μ g/kg of the body weight of the animal on alternate days for 2 weeks one day after the PPVL surgery week. In a few rats, the plasma volume was measured using Evans Blue dye. cell lakh test. compared using one-way ANOVA followed by a post hoc Tukey test. Bar diagrams with various data points, dot plots, and box whisker plots were plotted using GraphPad Prism (version 8.0.1.; GraphPad Software, USA), and statistical analysis was performed using GraphPad Prism. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. E-VEGF-C


Record Deduplication refers to the task of finding and deleting records in a data set that refer to the same entity across different data sources. Record Deduplication is necessary when joining data sets based on entities that may or may not share a common identifier, as may be the case due to differences in record shape, storage location, and/or curator style or preference. In this paper, we present the detailed analysis of deduplicating the data. We have discussed the different deduplication techniques and analysed the same. For non duplicate set, the two cooperating classifiers, a Weighted Component Similarity Summing Classifier (WCSS) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) are used to iteratively identify the duplicate records from the non duplicate record and a genetic programming (GP) approach to record deduplication. The GP-based approach is also able to automatically find effective deduplication functions.


This paper reports on tracking of multiple objects using color histogram backprojection and motion cues. Four tasks which facilitate this are discussed. The first is an adaptive color histogram backprojection (which builds upon the works of Swain and Ballard) and its application to tracking of multiple objects in video sequences. The second task is designing efficient fast blob detectors for selecting regions of interest in video sequences. The third is motion detection based on color histogram backprojection. Achieving these tasks led to multi-objects tracking. Various video sequences were used to demonstrate effective tracking of multiple objects. Notably, we created an interactive multiple objects tracker (CLICK-IT) which in its present form is set at three objects but can be extended easily. CLICK-IT (CSIRO Laboratory for Imaging by Content and Knowledge?Interactive Television) is a PC-based system which provides the user with an intelligent highlighter pen for sports action replay. It is intended as a truly interactive improvement on the drawing pad technology currently used for video annotation in sports broadcasting. The system uses computer vision techniques to focus attention and track particular objects (player(s), ball, horse(s), ?) and semi-automatically annotate the dynamic scene. This paper describes the system including the user interface, the tracking technology based on color and motion information, and system performance evaluation in applications to surveillance-like sequences, running, rugby league football, basketball and soccer. Finally, video scene detection based on color histogram is discussed.


Abstract A new metal-organic framework, {[Tb(O-IDC)(O-HIDC)] (H2O)}n(1), (O-H3IDC = 2-(pyridine-N-oxide-2-yl)-1H-imidazole-4,5-dicarboxylic acid) has been constructed through hydrothermal reaction using 2-(pyridine-2-yl)-1H-imidazole-4,5-dicarboxylate(H2IDC) and Tb(NO3)3•6H2O. During the reaction, O-H2IDC resulted from the in situ oxidation reaction of H2IDC. The compound 1 has been characterized by elemental analysis, IR spectra, the Powder Diffraction and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Compound 1 crystallizes in monoclinic space group P21 /c with a = 15.116(3), b = 10.641(2), c = 13.398(3) Å, β = 92.057(4) °, V = 2153.8(8) Å3, Dc = 2.073 g/cm3, Mr = 672.28, F(000) = 1312, Z = 4, R = 0.0373 and wR = 0.0964. Compound 1 displays an infinite 1 D chain structure. Moreover, through intermolecular hydrogen bonds, these 1 D chains extend into a 3 D supramolecular framework. Furthermore, the solid-state luminescent properties have also been investigated. (CCDC 1856803)


In the new era,to strengthen and improve the ideological and political education work in colleges,we must follow five "necessary "."Changing" is important in mental trends,"active" should be emphasized on the aspect of situation,ways and means of mental education,"Fact" is used for the effect of education and "cooperation" is applied on development pattern,and we should pay more attention on "innovation" of researching method.By these methods,the ideological and political education in colleges can be brought into a scientific,standardized and institutionalized system.In the end,we receive the best consequent.


The technological parameter of the purification process of capsaicin with macroporous adsorption resin was studied.Using orthogonal experiments,the significant factors of adsorptive characteristics and elutive parameters of the process which were the discharge of solvent、the concentration of elutant and distill time were studied by yield of capsaicin.The purification with macroporous adsorption resin is employed.On the basis of spectroscopic data(HPLC),the white crystal is a mixture composed of 71.79% of capsaicin and 19.93% of didydrocapsaicin and 4.97% of nordidydrocapsaicin,the content of total capsaicin is 96.69%.The macroporous adsorption resin can be used in the purification of capsaicin.


The £12bn (€18bn; $23bn) programme to computerise the NHS in England has lost its second largest contractor. Accenture, a consulting and information technology (IT) services company that is based mainly in the United States but registered in Bermuda last week announced that it is withdrawing from contracts worth some £2bn to create electronic health records in the northeast and east of England.

Although expected, the move rekindled speculation about the future of the world's largest civil IT programme.

Accenture was one of four firms awarded contracts in 2003 worth £5bn for packages of …


A new method to study the cross-section of a compressed sheet of paper is presented. A sandwich of paper and printing blanket is compressed in a Hoffman tube clamp, embedded in epoxy and studied in a scanning electron microscope (SEM). 2 improved news grades, 2 news grades and 2 book grades were examined. The presented data reveals that the roughness (Ra) was reduced by 18%, the thickness by 6%, the specific surface area by 2%, the average pore height by 18% and the porosity by 16% on average when the sandwich was compressed with 1 MPa pressure. The paper was most compressed on the side facing the printing blanket, something which may be explained by a more evenly distributed pressure on the blanket side. The printing blanket had a higher change in roughness than the paper, thus showing that the printing blanket was the softest material. Roughness for compressed paper and porosity for uncompressed paper in the upper 40% of the paper thickness showed a high linear correlation with ink demand (r of 73.4% and 84.9% respectively). There was a high linear correlation between uncompressed porosity in the upper 40% of the paper thickness and the Bendtsen and PPS readings. This may be due to the bulk dependencies of the air-leakage readings. The compression method gave reasonable results, and may be used to increase the understanding of ink pigment distribution on the paper surface during printing.


What is given below is a brief description of the two systems, called gFCONV and c-VAE, which we built in a response to the 2020 Duolingo Challenge. Both are neural models that aim at disrupting a sentence representation the encoder generates with an eye on increasing the diversity of sentences that emerge out of the process. Importantly, we decided not to turn to external sources for extra ammunition, curious to know how far we can go while confining ourselves to the data released by Duolingo. gFCONV works by taking over a pre-trained sequence model, and intercepting the output its encoder produces on its way to the decoder. c-VAE is a conditional variational auto-encoder, seeking the diversity by blurring the representation that the encoder derives. Experiments on a corpus constructed out of the public dataset from Duolingo, containing some 4 million pairs of sentences, found that gFCONV is a consistent winner over c-VAE though both suffered heavily from a low recall.


The thermodynamical properties of the Reissner-Nordstr\"om-anti-de Sitter black hole in the grand canonical ensemble are investigated using York's formalism. The black hole is enclosed in a cavity with finite radius where the temperature and electrostatic potential are fixed. The boundary conditions allow us to compute the relevant thermodynamical quantities, e.g. thermal energy, entropy and charge. The stability conditions imply that there are thermodynamically stable black hole solutions, under certain conditions. Instantons with negative heat capacity are also found.


Lijiang has become a striking tourism city in China and it is one of the first Chinese historie cultural famous cities listed on the World Cultural Heritage The crux of keeping sustainable development in tourism of Lijiang is to uphold a unique style of theme and to develop in an all-round way at the same time In order to give pull play to the advantages of the tourism resources in Lijiang,we must stress the localism and nationalism of the touristy pattern,touristy lines designed,dietetic culture and national dresses Dongba culture tourism,ecological tourism,scientific investigation tourism,business affairs and meetings tourism can also be further opened up, In order to last the vital periods of Lijiang toursm and to prorect the natural ecology at present,more and better scenes should be opened up,from the angle of studying the guiding ideology and ways of the continued advance of Lijiang tourism,we can see the valuableand practical significance


In its quest for quality education, Higher Education Institutions (HEI) ascribed to the UN's SDG 4 Quality Education in ensuring that inclusive and equitable quality education will promote lifelong learning and opportunities for all. The critical role of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in building teaching skills, fostering knowledge, and engagement with society are significant factors in developing its human resources, particularly, the faculty.  The benefits and challenges brought about by Industry 4.0 drive the universities to integrate quality education into their mission of promoting positive change, lifelong learning, and competitiveness.  The study utilized qualitative and descriptive design to probe the variabilities and similarities of Human Resource Development strategies, quality education initiatives, and university competitiveness of HEIs in Bandung and Manila. Thematic analysis was carried out to produce more conclusive results. The researchers applied a data condensation process to form a perceived relevant category and a theme was created based on strategies and competitiveness. The significant result shows a deficit in the strategy to target specific faculty KSAs in the personal development in-service programs instituted by the HEIs in Manila.  Remarkable are the many organizational strategies employed by both cities that yields quality education indicator (management) particularly the essential role of the HEI in instituting policies for faculty's wholistic development.  Results on competitiveness denote compliance to most functional capacities of both cities as a valuable means of mobility as the education workers meet the demands of their job.  Moreover, the strong partnership with local and international agencies solidifies various developmental programs and the social relevance of the university.  The study recommends further study on the impact of the educational global ranking system in the retention of human resources and employment of graduates.


...... ..................................................................................................................... i List of Figures ................................................................................................................. vii List of Tables ................................................................................................................. viii Attestation of Authorship ................................................................................................. ix Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ x Foreword..... ................................................................................................................... xii Chapter


The current situation of college English teaching in China is over-inflated textbook system and too much teaching content information which resulted in more and more burdens of teachers and students.Thus,English comprehensive abilities are not ideal.This paper put forwards the idea of building "the Spaces of College English Teaching and Learning" and college English "Space Teaching Method" through research according to the inspiration of "Field" theory.Teachers can carry out selective teaching according to the demands,and students can choose the content learnt according to their demands and interests in the framework of space system.Thus,teaching and learning are more targeted and the result is ideal.


ONE OF THE BIG PROBLEMS facing the editor of an unabridged dictionary is deciding what words to leave out. Only the linguistically unsophisticated -with whom the world seems overpopulated-think a dictionary can contain all the words in the language. Omitting words that are nongeneric and encyclopedic is relatively easy-in the case of Webster's Third New International Dictionary (NID 3) just a binary taxonomy and a break with tradition brought about results?.' The question of omitting words that are rare, archaic, and obsolete in the standard language can be settled fairly satisfactorily by a combination of policy, negative evidence, and judgment. To be sure, ignorance may be an operational factor, but ignorance seldom creates problems-at least, not until after all the decisions have been made. But to try to decide what words are self-explanatory is a complicated and frustrating business. I am not aware of the existence of any satisfactory guidance. The lexicographer can start out honestly, and perhaps a little pompously, by answering the question with a laconic "none." Expediency, however, soon tempts him to consider some exceptions, and exceptions soon multiply. One compromise results in definitions like those of inharmonious reading 'not harmonious' and of deerskin reading 'the skin of a deer.' On the printed page these may look like a silly waste of space. The following numbered paragraphs (I-37)--mutatis mutandis -constitute the guidance given to definers working on the NID 3, on September zo, I954. They fall far short of being a complete success. Before another unabridged is made, the question of what is self-explanatory should be studied more thoroughly.


It is vital to engineer robust and secure software. Many security strategies and techniques have been proposed. However, technological growth increases security concerns and demands persistent software security analysis. The objective of our study is to analyze vulnerable code components of real-world software code repositories and mine developers' frequent programming mistakes, resulting in information disclosure in the software. Finding common programming mistakes during the implementation phase is a primary step towards building secure software. We investigate the published vulnerabilities in two open-source applications: Apache Tomcat and Android. We focus on the information disclosure vulnerability reported as security advisories and analyze the code to extract or mine the causes of the vulnerability. We found that improper or lack of bound checking is the most frequent programming mistake that can potentially cause information leakage. Our findings can help create awareness among developers of the common programming mistakes that lead to disclosing sensitive information to avoid it, or if such mistakes are already present in the code, they can be handled during the implementation phase. Moreover, our results can be incorporated in tools such as static analyzers to help detect information disclosure instances more accurately prior to software delivery.


Behind every community, as Derek McKiernan's excellent study Cinema and Community explains, lie political, social, cultural and most of all ethical questions. How 'should we live together?' Every part of this phrase is problematic. Cultural theory has rightly become suspicious of any 'we' and its presupposed phatic consensus. 'Living together', cohabitation, usually presupposes a common reality, maybe even a 'habitat', which, however, as social and cultural constructivists tell us, is strictly speaking merely a discursive and 'performative' act – it only exists in 'texts' and by virtue of the sharing of symbolic representations and values. 'Should' is an unusual modal verb for 'non-normative' cultural studies with its insistence on a descriptive notion of culture, namely as 'a way of life' (i.e. one among many other possible ways of life). And still, community seems more desirable than ever. Frequent outbreaks against 'rampant individualism', social fragmentation and alienation, and against political isolationism vs the growing need for a new global community in the face of global threats and tasks. On the other hand, one could say that the number of undesirable communities also rises – what indeed is 'fundamentalism' if not a blind belief in or the sheer will to close commonality? Community, thus, is pervasive, but curiously, in many areas of the humanities and social sciences, it is a neglected, undertheorized theme. It has almost become commonsense to define culture as somehow symbolically 'shared', or as communal one might say, yet the idea of community that this sharedness of culture presupposes, a community of those who are willing or able to share, hasn't been the topic of much concern. It seems therefore that at the very heart of the reigning culturalism there is an almost unavowable sense of community. McKiernan's excellent study addresses this strange omission or repression. It focuses on the ambivalence within the concept of community and illustrates the (cultural) politics at work in the representation of community in film. Especially in film studies, as McKiernan argues, the 'intellectual failure' has been to engage with community as social practice, and as a psychological and aesthetic issue or theme. In a word, this book is more than timely, it is overdue. Although it focuses on the role of community in contemporary, mainly mainstream cinema, it raises important general philosophical, ethical and cultural theoretical questions that remain both urgent and unresolved. It has another great merit: it is readable, clear, frank, methodical and it successfully combines theory with careful and close readings of filmic narratives with mutual benefit to both. McKiernan's major allies are Zygmunt Bauman's sociology of culture and Raymond Williams's (cultural materialist) analysis of culture. Culture and structure are, for Bauman (2001), interlinked – culture creates structures, structures place limits on culture – and form a kind of dialectic between change and stability, (personal) freedom and (communal) E U R O P E A N J O U R N A L O F C O M M U N I C A T I O N 2 4 ( 1 )


With an estimated 945 million online users in the year 2004, the Internet provides psychologists with a unique opportunity to gain insight into a myriad of psychological constructs and phenomena in nonclinical settings. Transcending geographical barriers, the Internet offers a quick, convenient and inexpensive method of data collection from a large population of widely dispersed participants. Whilst there are significant benefits involved with employing the Internet and its many applications, there is still considerable debate surrounding the use of this methodology. This paper examines the benefits, challenges and ethical considerations involved in undertaking a psychological study on the Internet. Current guidelines for conducting research via the Internet are reviewed and recommendations are made with regard to informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, and debriefing.


Based on the actual engineering situations,the effectiveness of flyash in restraining alkali-silica reaction(ASR) has been tested by the ASTM method,the accelerated mortar bar method,the mortar length method and the concrete prism method.According to test results,the paper analyzes the restraining mechanism of flyash and test methods.


Purpose

In this volatile and increasingly fast-revolving world, it has become crucially important to monitor, measure and manage nation image and its dynamic changes in real time. However, few studies have been conducted on a model to measure the image and/or its changes. The purpose of this paper is to find an economically affordable methodology to measure nation image and its changes online in real time.

Design/methodology/approach

The study took an approach to build dynamic ontology that may reflect to change nation image in real-time. With it, the authors attempted to measure nation image in real time.

Findings

Among many social media, the authors found that Wikipedia is particularly suitable for the purpose of measuring nation image. An ontology of nation image was built from the keywords collected from the pages directly related to the big three exporting countries in East Asia, i.e. Korea, Japan and China. The click views on the pages of the countries in two different language editions of Wikipedia, Vietnamese and Indonesian were counted.

Originality/value

The study confirms the objective: the data from a social media service, Wikipedia, may work very well as an economically affordable real-time supplement to offline nation image indices that are currently used.


The utility model discloses an aluminum-lined rubber pipe automatic cutting machine which is high in cutting efficiency, good in workpiece length consistency and smooth in cutting end face. The aluminum-lined rubber pipe automatic cutting machine comprises a machine frame, a clamping cylinder motor, a cutter feed air cylinder, a PLC and a clamping air cylinder. A baffle, a clamping chuck, a clamping cylinder and an ejector pin are sequentially and coaxially arranged on the machine frame. The clamping cylinder is arranged on a clamping cylinder support in a rotatable mode through two bearings. A clamping cylinder gear which is in transmission connection with the clamping cylinder motor is arranged on a clamping cylinder outer ring. A cutting motor is arranged on a piston rod of the cutter feed air cylinder, a main shaft of the cutting motor is provided with a cutting blade, and the cutting blade is matched with the baffle and the clamping chuck in position. The clamping air cylinder is in transmission connection with the clamping chuck. The ejector pin is movably arranged on the machine frame through an ejector pin support and rolling devices, the ejector pin support is movably arranged on the machine frame through the rolling devices which are arranged below the ejector pin support and can walk in the axial direction, and the ejector pin support is connected with a counter weight.


Composite materials are becoming more popular than ever. The increasing envi-ronmental concerns results in new challenges, where one of the biggest is to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Bo ...


Objective: To investigate the characteristics and strategy of the therapeutic divergence phenomenon of gefitinib,an inhibitor of epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase(EGFR-TKI),in the treatment of nonsmall cell lung cancer(NSCLC).Methods: The authors analyzed the therapeutic divergence phenomenon in 4 patiens with NSCLC during treatment with gefitinib at Bejing Military Area General Hospital between 2006 and 2008.Results: The therapeutic divergence phenomenon occurred in patients with NSCLC,who were complicated with bone and brain metastases and treated with gefitinib.In one of the four patients,NSCLC was controlled,but the disease recurred in the bone and gefitinib therapy continued,and the clinical benefit continued.Conclusion: The therapeutic divergence phenomenon is common in the patients with NSCLC treated with gefitinib.The available evaluation criterion for oncotheropeutic effect may be not completely suitable to biologically targeted therapy.The intrinsic mechanism of this phenomenon needs further research for the formulate evaluation criterion and therapeutic strategy suitable for the biologically targeted therapy.


Main duties of relay protection are correctly and quickly judging and clearing system faults, which greatly derive voltage sags in a distribution system. Whereas, it is less reported for the evaluation and application of sag mitigation capabilities to relay protection. By introducing the protection operation characteristic into the CBEMA (Computer Business Equipment Manufacturing Association) curve, the secure work region of sensitive equipment under voltage sags and the sag mitigation capabilities provided by current protection under system faults are presented and modeled. And then the maximum sag protection capabilities of current protection and the size of the secure work region can be achieved. Theoretical analysis and simulations prove that sag mitigation with relay protection is valid. Also, it is concluded that the only effective improvement is the extension of the instantaneous relay protection zone.


Excretion of steroidal hormones by isolated perfused rat livers was examined with five isotopic steroids: estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, methyltestosterone and cortisone. A single dose of each steroid disappeared rapidly from the perfusion fluid with a half-time of less than two minutes. Excretion into the bile required substantially longer time than disappearance from the perfusion fluid. All of the "steroid" recovered from the bile had been altered from the material which had been injected. Hepatic excretion was also examined during continuous infusion of steroids. Concentrations of isotope in bile were approximately 1000 times greater than in perfusion fluid, attesting to a highly effective concentrating mechanism. Excretion of isotopic steroid metabolites was depressed by probenecid suggesting that steroid metabolites participate in a hepatic transport process for organic anions.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the treatment value of adoptive immunotherapy (dendritic cells and cytokine-induced killer cells, DC-CIK) combined with chemotherapy on patients with multiple myeloma (MM) and its effect on secreting function of T lymphocytes in MM patients.

METHODS
A total of 36 patients with MM were randomly divided into two groups, among them 28 patients in chemotherapy group were treated by chemotherapy only, 28 patients in combined therapy group were treated by adoptive immunotherapy (DC-CIK) combined with chemotherapy, and the clinical outcomes and the levels of IL-2, IFN-γ, IL-4, IL-10 secreted by T lymphocytes between two groups were compared.

RESULTS
After treatment, the quality of life, clinical index and survival in combined therapy group were better than those in chemotherapy group (P <0.05); the levels of IL-2 and IFN-γ in combined therapy group was higher than these in chemotherapy group (P <0.05), and the levels of IL-4 and IL-10 in combined therapy group were lower than those in chemotherapy group (P <0.05).

CONCLUSION
DC-CIK combined with chemotherapy can be an effective and promising treatment for patients with MM, and it maybe strengthen the anti-tumor action of bodies by regulating the balance between Th1 and Th2 reaction.


This work analyses the effects of hydrogen-assisted rolling-contact fatigue on bearings of wind turbines. To this end, the well-known ball-on-rod test to evaluate the resistance to rolling-contact fatigue was simulated by the finite element method for obtaining the stress-strain state undergone by the bearings considering their in-service conditions. Results of this paper allow a simple estimation of the hydrogen amount in potential damage zones of the specimen.


For courses in Digital Communications. Exceptionally accessible, this book presents the often "difficult" concepts of digital communications in an easy-to- understand manner-without diluting the mathematical precision. Using a student-friendly approach, it develops the important techniques in the context of a unified structure (in block diagram form)-providing organization and structure to a field that has, and continues, to grow rapidly, and ensuring that students gain an awareness of the "big picture" even while delving into the details (the most up-to-date modulation, coding, and signal processing techniques that have become the basic tools of our modern era). It traces signals and key processing steps from the information source through the transmitter, channel, receiver, and ultimately to the information sink.


Biometrics has been in the spotlight for over a decade. A biometric system authenticates people's identities using biological and/or behavioral traits. Various biometric applications have been developed, and a vast amount of people have benefited from the convenience of biometrics. The applications of biometrics in everyday life have expanded dramatically. In the meantime, there are new challenges to biometric systems when being used by the general public. In this work, the focus is to investigate the methodology of conventional biometrics design, to improve current biometrics, to practice new biometrics design methodology, and to create new biometrics. Palmprint recognition is the foundation of this improvement. Palmprint recognition is a hand-based biometrics with excellent performance for the large region of interest, stable and unique features, and fast feature extraction and matching method verified by researchers all over the world. However, the applications of palmprint recognition are limited. One major reason for the palmprint recognition not being utilized widely is the lack of a small and compact acquisition system. Then we proposed a line-scan palmprint acquisition system (LPS). LPS uses line scan imaging that makes the system small and flexible. LPS comprises the line scan sensor, the synchronizing unit, and the controller board. With the proposed acquisition system, we collected 8000 images from 250 people. In this huge data set, the equal error rate of LPS is 0.048%, which is comparable to conventional palmprint acquisition systems. Moreover, the volume of the proposed LPS is 94% smaller than conventional systems at least. After the line scan palmprint system, it is realized that a new biometrics design model and new biometric systems are required. This new biometrics design model should emphasize user experience, because the improvements in system level is not enough. The conventional biometrics design model focuses on security performance. They are under the assumption that biometric traits can be extracted better in the standard pose and position than in a deformed pose. This assumption is true with the limitations of both hardware (imaging technology) and algorithms (feature extraction and classification methods). With the recent development in both hardware and algorithms field, this situation has altered. For hardware, the lens and cameras have become tiny in volume. The precision and the resolution of the lens and cameras are far better than five years ago. For algorithms, new feature extraction method and classification method are robust to various interference and deformations. Thus, we proposed the new ergonomic biometrics design model. In this ergonomic biometrics design model, the human factor, both physical and psychological factors, is one of the major concerns in the design stage of building a biometric system. Using this model, we proposed the door knob hand recognition system (DKHRS).


During the past few decades a considerable number of developing countries have managed to chalk up impressive records of social and economic growth. In some cases rich endowments of raw materials have helped in the process. For the most part, however, success has depended on the capacity of the people in the developing country to absorb and apply the technologies that the more advanced countries had already created and put in place. Scholars have long realized that a nation's capacity to absorb and apply foreign technology is a critical factor in its growth, and they have undertaken many studies aimed at increasing an understanding of that process. This volume attempts to set down the principal lessons that these studies suggest. The first chapter draws its lessons from history. It explores the reasons for the unheralded and unanticipated emergence of Great Britain in the early nineteenth century as the world's industrial leader, and it reviews the factors that allowed the United States, Germany, Russia, and Japan to challenge that leadership in later decades. The lessons that emerge appear just as relevant for developing countries today as they were a century ago. The second chapter attempts to extract from a large, diverse literature the lessons to be learned from developing countries' experiences since the end of World War II in the adaptation and application of existing technologies.


Vowels both in isolation and in /bVb/ syllables can be well identified from brief (30 ms) windowed portions taken from the beginning (head) and end (tail) of the syllable [T. Nearey and J. Andruski, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 83, S83 (1988)]. Despite similar confusion matrices, formant measurements of windowed /bVb/ data show substantial undershoot compared to initial and final targets of isolated vowels. It is of interest to construct stimuli that are minimally specified but are nonetheless categorized like more complex natural stimuli. Vowels were synthesized with linear transitions based on fundamental and formant frequency measurements from four brief sections of the windowed /bVb/ stimuli. (These sections correspond roughly to transition onset, initial vowel target, final vowel target, and transition offset.) Preliminary listening tests indicate that these simple stimuli are well identified. Results from experiments comparing listeners' error patterns for such minimalist synthetic syllables with th...


This paper provides an overview over the relationship between Petri Nets and Discrete Event Systems as they have been proved as key factors in the cognitive processes of perception and memorization. In this sense, different aspects of encoding Petri Nets as Discrete Dynamical Systems that try to advance not only in the problem of reachability but also in the one of describing the periodicity of markings and their similarity, are revised. It is also provided a metric for the case of Non-bounded Petri Nets.


Single-satellite positioning system can provide support for the rapid deployment of target positioning, under the circumstance of access denied such as planetary detection, war damage and other navigation constellations, however, the larger orbit determination error will bring larger positioning error. Therefore, this paper presents a single satellite positioning method based on factor graph co-location assistance. Firstly, it constructs the positioning hyperboloid by using the pseudo range difference of different sets of satellites at different time, which provides continuous positioning for the positioning target. And then establishes the synergy factor graph to assist the positioning result of the single satellite positioning system by using the high-precision ranging information between multiple positioning targets, so as to improve the positioning accuracy. The method proposed in this paper is compared with the existing Doppler single star positioning method and radial acceleration single star positioning method from three aspects of satellite orbit determination error, ranging error and positioning error, and the simulation results show that the localization error of the proposed method is only 10% of the other two methods.


Migmatite gneiss within the Precambrian basement rocks around Awo, southwestern Nigeria were studied with a view to determine origin and compositional relationship of the paleosomes and neosomes. Other rocks associated with the migmatite gneiss are biotite gneiss, banded gneiss, syenite, granite, pegmatite and aplite. X-Ray Fluorescence geochemical studies reveal minor variations in the bulk chemical composition of paleosomes and neosomes. The composition is dominated by silica (w ≈ 62 %) and alumina (w ≈ 15 %). The migmatite gneiss magma type was high K-calc-alkaline to calc-alkaline. The Total Alkali Silica (TAS) plot shows the protolith of the migmatite gneiss to be dioritic and quartz-dioritic rocks while the xenoliths were originally gabbro. The migmatite gneisses are mostly of sedimentary parentage. Trace element data revealed high Ba content, indicating its concentration in felsic minerals. Large Ion Lithophile Elements (LILE) such as Ba, Rb and Sr generally exhibit positive anomaly while High Field Strength Elements (HFSE) notably Ta, Nb, Hf and Zr display weak anomaly. The REE geochemistry revealed strong enrichment of LREE (La, Ce, Pr and Nd) while HREE (Ho, Er, Tm, Yb and Lu) are weakly anomalous. The paleosomes and neosomes of the migmatite gneiss displayed marginal compositional variation which indicates their evolution from the same magmatic source.


Spinal tuberculosis drug efficacy studies have shown that a drug's clinical efficacy mainly depends on its concentration in the target tissue. To improve the local drug concentration of spinal tuberculosis, we studied the release of isoniazid and rifampin-loaded nano-hydroxyapatite biological substitutes in vitro and in animal models. In vitro experiments, isoniazid produced burst release, releasing 44.57% and 98.31% of drug at 24 h and four weeks, respectively. The rifampin release was relatively stable without obvious burst release. The release time of rifampin was longer, with 98.26% release in the 12th week and the remaining 1.74% in biological substitute. In animal models, isoniazid concentration in biological substitutes of the vertebral body and paravertebral muscle gradually decreases and can be maintained until the 8th week. The drug concentration in inferior vena cava reached its maximum at 72 h and then gradually decreased. No drug concentration was detected in the second week. The rifampin concentration in the vertebral body and parallel muscle reached the maximum in the first week, then decreased gradually and maintained to the 12th and 8th weeks. No drug concentration was detected in inferior vena cava after 72 h. Nano-hydroxyapatite biological substitute loaded with isoniazid and rifampin can be degraded stably in vitro and has good sustained-release properties. In animal models, antituberculosis drugs can be released continuously in the long term.


ABSTRACT Building on the SESAM model, influences of self-consistency motivation (evident in bias toward partisanship-consistent messages) and self-enhancement motivation (evident in same-group bias) on selective exposure to political messages were hypothesized. A selective exposure experiment (N = 113) displayed political messages on eight topics, with messages associated either with male or female authors. Selective exposure patterns demonstrated both partisan bias and same-gender bias. Corroborating the notion that self-enhancement motivation affects exposure to even political content, identity importance and perceptions of public esteem were associated with longer exposure times for messages from same-gender authors.


Power industry is facing a rapid development toward larger-capacity supercritical and ultra-supercritical coal-fired power generating units. The big inertia, large time delay and nonlinear characteristics of the superheater system for a supercritical boiler are becoming more and more obvious. The conventional cascaded PID control scheme is often difficult to obtain satisfactory steam temperature control effect over wide-range loading conditions. In this paper, an intelligent predictive optimal controller based on neural network (NN) modeling and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is presented for superheated steam temperature control. Aiming at the known drawbacks of the NN predictive optimal controller, a time-delay BP neural network is used to establish the nonlinear dynamic model of the superheater system to improve the model's real-time prediction accuracy and generalization ability. A new simplified high-efficiency PSO algorithm discarding the concept of velocity is adopted to search the optimal controls with faster convergence rate to meet the real-time control demand. An elastic search space is updated dynamically based on the real-time steam temperature control error to prevent oscillation and to enhance stability. By taking a full-scope simulator of a 600MW supercritical power unit as the object investigated, the neural network model of the superheater system is built and trained with historical wide-range operating data. The new control scheme is programmed with MATLAB software and it communicates two-way with the simulator. Extensive control simulation tests are made. It is shown the proposed intelligent predictive optimal control scheme can greatly improve the superheated steam temperature control with good application prospect.


This work presents a generic approach for constructing implicit homotopies using Analog and Mixed Signal (AMS) Hardware Description Languages (HDL). The proposed method uses the most basic features of various AMS HDLs thus making it suitable for a wide variety of commercial and publicly available simulators. This approach does not require any modifications to the underlying circuit simulator.


Most of the existing malicious webpage detection technologies are single-mode, without considering the internal relationship between the content of the webpage and the image. In view of the above problems, this paper proposes a malicious webpage detection technology based on Transformer-MDA-ESIM multi-modal fusion. Use the BERT model and the VGG16 model to extract the feature vectors of the content of the web page and the image. The two extracted feature vectors are input to the Transformer layer for encoding, which solves the problem of difficulty in capturing long-distance dependencies. The text semantics is enhanced by mining the connection between the content of the web page and the image through the dual attention mechanism of the semantic enhancement layer. The ESIM interactive attention layer is used to obtain the similar features of text content and images, realize the fusion of text features and image features and improve the model's ability to understand web pages. The experimental results show that this method has better performance in malicious webpage identification compared with single modality malicious webpage detection technology.


Door-to-door road transport, whether as a sole mode of transport or as a partner to other modes, provides irreplaceable services, irrigating the local or global economy, while uniting people and distributing wealth more effectively, thus ensuring social and economic development. The global economy cannot function without road transport and the challenge is to make this transport compatible with sustainable development, a priority issue for the International Road Transport Union (IRU) and its Members. Therefore, the IRU and its Members are doing their best to achieve this goal through improved productivity and road safety, energy savings at source, reductions in emissions and other environmental impacts. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E219320.


The Roentgen manifestations of neuropathic arthropathies are well known (1–4). The correlation between the onset of disease and significant roentgen changes, however, is not clear and deserves further consideration. Cases of syringomyelia have been described (7, 8) in which joint changes developed within a relatively short time, yet the exact mechanism was not always satisfactorily established. Pathogenesis and Pathology Several theories (9) have been advocated to explain the pathogenesis of syringomyelia: (a) that cavities arise in gliotic tissue within ependymal cell rests; (b) that the condition is a developmental anomaly related to imperfect formation of the central canal, which, however, does not explain the frequent finding of cavities in the dorsal part of the posterior horn, where ependymal cells are never found; (c) that the significant factor is the presence of intramedullary vascular anomalies (9). Vascular hemorrhage and occlusion, with a concomitant alteration of blood flow, would account for...


Introduction: Mother is an important care provider and she is strongly responsible to the safety of the children. Children are the most vulnerable group of our population. Childhood accident is a sudden cause of death in children. Accident means "sudden, unexpected harmful event", An accident is often a harmful event that could be avoided by a little careful thought. Child accidents are very common among toddlers. Objectives: This study was done to assess the effectiveness of structure teaching programme regarding knowledge and practice of mothers. to assess the knowledge of mothers regarding prevention of accidents among toddlers, to assess the practice of mothers regarding prevention of accidents among toddlers, to find out the effectiveness of structured teaching program regarding knowledge and practices of mothers on the prevention of accidents among toddlers, to find out the association between the selected demographic variables with knowledge and practice score of mothers regarding prevention of accidents among toddlers. Material and Method: The present study has been carried out in Mashobra village and sample was included 320 mothers of toddlers. A structured questionnaire sheet was developed by the researcher to collect data. A simple random sampling approach was followed in this study and interviewing each mother at her home performed collection of data. The main results obtained from the study were as follows: most of the mothers were very poor knowledge of prevention of common accidents among toddlers and nearly all home had at least two or three potential environmental hazards. RESULTS: The present study revealed that the overall pre-test mean knowledge score of mothers regarding prevention of accidents among toddlers was found 31.67% and post test score was 73.33% in area of overall accidents, According to mothers practice in different type of accidents the present study indicated that the majority of mothers had 100% poor practice and post practice score was 62.5% mothers have moderate practice and 37.5% of mothers have good practice score regarding prevention of accidents among toddlers. After administration of STP the knowledge and practice level of mothers increased tremendously. The present study recommended health promotion classes about causes of accidents, first aid, preventive measures and safety for mothers at MCH center, in service educational program toward first aid should be established for community health nurses at rural health units and MCH center, a well planned health education program about causes of accidents, first aid and prevention introduced to the curriculum. Interpretation and Conclusion: The study findings revealed that structured teaching programme was highly effective in improving knowledge and practice of mothers regarding prevention of accidents among toddler. Key Word: Effectiveness, Knowledge, Practice, Structured teaching programme, toddler.


Research investigating inflammatory stress responses in the hematopoietic system have mainly focused on one time-point and one defined cell population. Surface markers typically used to isolate hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) massively change upon inflammation, which questions the reliability of using flow cytometry to study the system upon inflammation. Here we will investigate the dynamics of stress responses in the hematopoietic stem and progenitor compartment at the single-cell level, independent of the use of defined surface markers. Methods: Methods: Hence, we performed a time series single-cell sequencing experiment on sorted HSPCs (Lin neg cKit + ), 3, 24 and 72 hours after injection of mice with the pro-inflammatory cytokine IFNa to investigate the acute inflammation response of bone marrow hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) in time. Results: Results: Marker independent abundance analysis in our dataset based on the transcriptional profile of the cell clusters highlight both an HSC enrichment as well as a myeloid depletion over time. The dramatic depletion of myeloid progenitors was not restored within 72h post treatment and is possibly linked to impaired myeloid differentiation programs in the HSCs, suggested by decreased expression of myeloid differentiation factors (ex. MPO, Elane and Ctsg). A longitudinal single-cell dataset covering multiple timepoints after treatment poses new challenges for the computational analyses. Current single-cell algorithms studying the progression of cells in time rely on the assumption that proximity of two cell states is a measure for the typical transition time between them. However,