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In computer engineering, out-of-order execution (or more formally dynamic execution) is a paradigm used in most high-performance central processing units to make use of instruction cycles that would otherwise be wasted.

Subjective logic is a type of probabilistic logic that explicitly takes epistemic uncertainty and source trust into account.

In mathematics, particularly in differential geometry, a Zoll surface, named after Otto Zoll, is a surface homeomorphic to the 2-sphere, equipped with a Riemannian metric all of whose geodesics are closed and of equal length.

A ria () is a coastal inlet formed by the partial submergence of an unglaciated river valley.

Magnetism A compass works on the principle of magnetism and points to the North Magnetic Pole.

Roots are negatively phototropic.

Learning and teaching computer programming have been acknowledged as being difficult and challenging. The metacognitive learning environment is needed for learning success in Computer Programming problem solving. In designing a support learning tool, the main principal of the instructional approach is to support metacognitive ability. Ontology has gained popularity in building E-learning, in which the formalism of ontology-based description can be achieved, thus giving a specification domain scope and offering an effective reuse of software patterns and systems of patterns. As there is no exact methodology for developing ontologies, here, in this paper, we present an approach for the development of MSSNP Ontology based on the general criteria and issues to be considered.

Summary 12.1 Chemical Reaction Rates The rate of a reaction can be expressed either in terms of the decrease in the amount of a reactant or the increase in the amount of a product per unit time. Relations between different rate expressions for a given reaction are derived directly from the stoichiometric coefficients of the equation representing the reaction. 12.2 Factors Affecting Reaction Rates The rate of a chemical reaction is affected by several parameters. Reactions involving two phases proceed more rapidly when there is greater surface area contact. If temperature or reactant concentration is increased, the rate of a given reaction generally increases as well. A catalyst can increase the rate of a reaction by providing an alternative pathway that causes the activation energy of the reaction to decrease. 12.3 Rate Laws Rate laws provide a mathematical description of how changes in the amount of a substance affect the rate of a chemical reaction. Rate laws are determined experimentally and cannot be predicted by reaction stoichiometry. The order of reaction describes how much a change in the amount of each substance affects the overall rate, and the overall order of a reaction is the sum of the orders for each substance present in the reaction. Reaction orders are typically first order, second order, or zero order, but fractional and even negative orders are possible. 12.4 Integrated Rate Laws Differential rate laws can be determined by the method of initial rates or other methods. We measure values for the initial rates of a reaction at different concentrations of the reactants. From these measurements, we determine the order of the reaction in each reactant. Integrated rate laws are determined by integration of the corresponding differential.

Frost is solid water that forms when water vapor undergoes deposition.

Special cells called collar cells pick up the planktonic food and start the digestive process.

Some viruses have an envelope of phospholipids and proteins.

Dams fragment aquatic networks and impact the evolutionary dynamics of migratory fish populations. Historically, the Lake Pend Oreille-lower Clark Fork River system in Idaho and Montana supported a large metapopulation of adfluvial westslope cutthroat trout (westslope). These fish matured in the lake and made upstream spawning migrations to their natal tributaries in the river. Currently, dams allow downstream passage for juvenile fish to the lake, but no upstream passage for adults. We examined 19 microsatellite and anonymous nuclear loci to characterize spatial patterns of non-native rainbow trout (rainbow) genetic introgression in westslope populations upstream and downstream of these dams. We detected hybridization at 20 of 42 sites sampled throughout the system, with rainbow introgression ranging from 1.1 to 99.8%. Rainbow introgression was higher in tributaries downstream of both dams (12 of 18 sites downstream vs 6 of 22 sites upstream). Within tributaries, hybrids were more common in lower sections and only one sampled site contained a hybrid swarm. Fish collected below both dams during the spawning migration were admixtures of westslope, rainbows and hybrids with an average rainbow introgression of 48%. Phenotypic criteria reduced rainbow introgression to less than 1% for putative westslope identified for selective upstream transport at both dams. Lack of upstream fish passage at these dams has likely constrained spread of hybridization and increased isolation among non-hybridized westslope populations by reducing the abundance of the migratory life history form in areas upstream of these dams.

Monte Carlo methods, or Monte Carlo experiments, are a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results.

Biodiversity, on the whole, increases towards the equator and decreases towards the poles.

Introduction Worldwide the transport sector faces several issues related to the rising of traffic demand such as congestion, energy consumption, noise, pollution, safety, etc. Trying to stem the problem, the European Commission is encouraging a modal shift towards railway, considered as one of the key factors for the development of a more sustainable European transport system. The coveted increase in railway share of transport demand for the next decades and the attempt to open up the rail market (for freight, international and recently also local services) strengthen the attention to capacity usage of the system. This contribution proposes a synthetic methodology for the capacity and utilisation analysis of complex interconnected rail networks; the procedure has a dual scope since it allows both a theoretically robust examination of suburban rail systems and a solid approach to be applied, with few additional and consistent assumptions, for feasibility or strategic analysis of wide networks (by efficiently exploiting the use of Big Data and/or available Open Databases). Method In particular the approach proposes a schematization of typical elements of a rail network (stations and line segments) to be applied in case of lack of more detailed data; in the authors' opinion the strength points of the presented procedure stem from the flexibility of the applied synthetic methods and from the joint analysis of nodes and lines. The article, after building a quasiautomatic model to carry out several analyses by changing the border conditions or assumptions, even presents some general abacuses showing the variability of capacity/utilization of the network's elements in function of basic parameters. Results This has helped in both the presented case studies: one focuses on a detailed analysis of the Naples' suburban node, while the other tries to broaden the horizon by examining the whole European rail network with a more specific zoom on the Belgium area. The first application shows how the procedure can be applied in case of availability of fine-grained data and for metropolitan/regional analysis, allowing a precise detection of possible bottlenecks in the system and the individuation of possible interventions to relieve the high usage rate of these elements. The second application represents an on-going attempt to provide a broad analysis of capacity and related parameters for the entire European railway system. It explores the potentiality of the approach and the possible exploitation of different 'Open and Big Data' sources, but the outcomes underline the necessity to rely on proper and adequate information; the accuracy of the results significantly depend on the design and precision of the input database. Conclusion In conclusion, the proposed methodology aims to evaluate capacity and utilisation rates of rail systems at different geographical scales and according to data availability; the outcomes might provide valuable information to allow efficient exploitation and deployment of railway infrastructure, better supporting policy (e.g. investment prioritization, rail infrastructure access charges) and helping to minimize costs for users. The presented case studies show that the method allows indicative evaluations on the use of the system and comparative analysis between different elementary components, providing a first identification of 'weak' links or nodes for which, then, specific and detailed analyses should be carried out, taking into account more in depth their actual configuration, the technical characteristics and the real composition of the traffic (i.e. other elements influencing the rail capacity, such as: the adopted operating systems, the station traffic/route control & safety system, the elastic release of routes, the overlap of block sections, etc.).

Lymph, a fluid rich in white blood cells, flows through the lymphatic vessels.

Noise pollution, also known as environmental noise or sound pollution, is the propagation of noise with ranging impacts on the activity of human or animal life, most of them harmful to a degree.

Objectives: To investigate the expression, DNA methylation status and its regulatory mechanism of tissue factor pathway inhibitor 2 (TFPI-2) in human placenta tissues of preeclampsia (PE). Material and methods: We studied the mRNA and protein expression and the promoter methylation levels of TFPI-2 in the PE placentas compared with those in the normal pregnant (NP) women. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, immunohistochemistry, western blot, and Sequenom Mass ARRAY were used for placenta tissue detection. Results: The expressions of TFPI-2 mRNA and protein were significantly elevated in the PE placentas when compared with those in the NP ones (P<0.05). Hypomethylation of the TFPI-2 promoter was detected both in PE patients and NP women, with a significant decrease in PE placentas (P = 0.005). The methylation level was significantly decreased at CpG_6 (-168 to -167), CpG_15 (-98 to -97) and CpG_18.19 (-68 to -65) in PE patients than that in normal placentas (P0.05). Conclusion: Over-expression of TFPI-2 and aberrant promoter mythylation status presented in the PE placentas, suggesting that epigenetic mechanism might contribute to the pathogenesis of PE. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Background: All countries face significant challenges from complex manifestations of malnutrition, which affects one in three people globally. Systematic reviews provide ready-to-use syntheses of quality-appraised evidence to inform decision-making for actions. To enhance the utility and quality of future Cochrane nutrition evidence, we described the scope and quality of all nutrition systematic reviews in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR). Methods: We screened all active CDSR records (31 July 2015) to identify reviews and protocols using pre-specified eligibility criteria and definitions. Duplicate, independent data extraction included criteria for inclusion of studies in completed reviews (PICOS). We assessed methodological quality (AMSTAR), use of GRADE, mapped reviews against 2013 Global Burden of Disease data, and categorised the paradigm (medical, lifestyle and socio-ecological) of the review question. We analysed our results using descriptive statistics. Results: We screened 8484 records, and included 470 (8%) completed reviews (in 45 Cochrane Review Groups (CRGs)) and 169 (7%) protocols (in 41 CRGs) published by 47 of 53 CRGs with reviews. Most completed reviews were produced by the Pregnancy and Childbirth (n = 73), Neonatal (n = 64), Metabolic and Endocrine Disorders (n = 33), Developmental, Psychosocial and Learning Problems (n = 26), Kidney and Transplant (n = 18) and Heart (n = 18) CRGs. Only 27% (n = 129) of reviews had searches for new studies in 2013 or thereafter. Supplementation/supplement interventions were most common (50%; n = 235; majority with micronutrients; 73%, n = 173), followed by food interventions (20%; n = 95). All reviews included randomised controlled trials; about 5% included other designs; 25% used GRADE; the median AMSTAR score was 9 (interquartile range: 7 to 10), 51% were high (AMSTAR 9-11) and 49% moderate (AMSTAR 5-8) quality. More than 80% framed questions using a medical paradigm. For top causes of years-of-life-lost, most reviews addressed preterm birth, diabetes and ischaemic heart disease; for leading risk factors for disability-adjusted-life-years, most targeted childhood undernutrition and high body mass index. Conclusions: Nutrition reviews comprised 8% of active CDSR records, were widely distributed across nearly all CRGs and reflected the double nutrition burden. This analysis presents a comprehensive description of the scope and quality of Cochrane nutrition reviews, and identifies gaps for future activities to support actions to address the nutrition burden, in line with the current nutrition agenda and impetus.

Purpose of review Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of clinical burden in the United States and worldwide, as a percentage of patients can develop complications such as cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Recent findings Therapy for chronic HCV infection was previously interferon-based, but with the advent of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs), there has been a dramatic improvement in eradicating the virus with favourable side effect profiles. Summary Emerging data are demonstrating new successful agents in difficult-to-manage populations. This review is aimed to provide a brief overview of currently accepted therapy, as well providing new information on upcoming therapeutic agents available for practioners going forward.

Controlling the nonlinear bistable mechanics is crucial for the development of advanced bistable devices ranging from quantitative mass sensing to smart material/structures. However, for a large amount of pre-shaped bistable mechanisms, one or two specific bistable characteristics such as two switching forces, stroke and bistable index parameter cannot fulfill the special application requirements. Due to the complex coupling effects among different bistable mechanical properties, it is really difficult to modify one specific bistable character without affecting others by just modifying the structure parameters once the bistable configuration and boundary constraints are fixed. With the accurate mechanical analysis of MEMS bistable mechanisms, a novel optimization based method for designing specific bistable characteristic is proposed by modifying the beam local segment's geometry for optimizing the bistable index parameter and two switching forces respectively. Accordingly, five bistable compliant mechanisms are reconstructed symmetrically or asymmetrically for achieving different bistable mechanics. Also, the sharp change on the nonlinear force- displacement curve induced by the mode switching is analyzed. For experimental study, a quasi-cosine-shaped beam with reinforced local segments is manufactured by hot forming beryllium bronze sheet. The good agreement between the numerical simulation and experimental results validates the effectiveness of the optimization-based bistability design method, thus expanding the potential application range of compliant bistable mechanisms. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Pressure control (PC) is a mode of mechanical ventilation alone and a variable within other modes of mechanical ventilation.

Maize dwarf mosaic virus (MDMV) is a widespread pathogenic virus that causes serious loss of yield in maize (Zea mays). RNA interference (RNAi) triggered by hairpin RNA (hpRNA) transcribed from a transgenic inverted-repeat sequence is an effective way to defend against viruses in plants. In this study, an hpRNA expression vector containing a sense arm and an antisense arm of 150 bp separated by an intron of the maize actin gene was constructed to target the P1 protein (protease) gene of MDMV and used to transform Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain EHA105. The transformed Agrobacterium strain was used to transform maize embryonic calli isolated from immature embryos by an improved culture technique. In all, 46 plants were regenerated after stringent hygromycin B selection, and 18 of them were certified to be positive by PCR amplification. Of these positive plants, 13 were grown to produce offspring, and nine were identified by Southern blotting to have the transgene integrated with one or two copies. The resistance of three T(2) lines was evaluated in a field trial of dual MDMV inoculation in two environments and was found to be improved compared with the non-transformed control. The disease indexes of the transgenic plant lines h2, 13, and h1 were not significantly different from the highly resistant control line H9-21. The viral titers of the inoculated plants were detected by double antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA), and the result was in accord with the resistance evaluated in the field trial. The addition of uniconazole S3307 (0.25 mg l(-1)) and ABT root-promoting powder (0.5 mg l(-1)) showed a significant improvement of hardening in regenerated plantlets, which were stronger and generated a better fibrous root system than the control. This improvement could facilitate the transgenic operation of maize.

An annotation is extra information associated with a particular point in a document or other piece of information.

In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme is a unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another in a particular language.

The practice of continuous integration has firmly established itself in the mainstream of the software engineering industry, yet many questions surrounding it remain unanswered. Prominent among these is the issue of scalability: continuous integration has been reported to be possible to scale, but with difficulties. Understanding of the underlying mechanisms causing these difficulties is shallow, however: what is it about size that is problematic, which kind of size, and what aspect of continuous integration does it impede? Based on quantitative data from six industry cases encompassing close to 2000 engineers, complemented by interviews with engineers from five companies, this paper investigates the correlation between the continuity of continuous integration and size. It is found that not only is there indeed a correlation between the size and composition of a development organization and its tendency to integrate continuously; there is evidence that the size of the organization influences ways of working, which in turn correlate with the degree of continuity, raising the question of software manufacturability. It is further observed that developer behavior in ostensibly continuously integrating cases does not necessarily match expectations, and that frequent integration of the product itself does not automatically imply that each individual developer commits frequently. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Education of nurses in the Republic of Croatia is being developed as a result of compliance with education in the European Union and the implementation of nursing research that leads to the growth of the whole profession. However, prejudice against the nursing profession is still present and therefore it is necessary to explore the attitudes of the general population and the population of nurses in the nursing profession in order to discover the causes of such prejudices and act on them. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to present transcultural adaptation and validation of the Nursing Image Questionnaire, which was created by Toth and associates (1998). The questionnaire, which includes 30 items and measures how an individual looks at the roles, values, and professional activities of nurses, was conducted as part of a preliminary study and was culturally adapted. The final study included 905 students who in 2011 and 2012 enrolled in the first year of full-time and parttime nursing study; the questionnaire was completed by 725 students. Toth and associates assumed that the attitude toward nursing is expressed as the sum of the responses of all the items, which would mean a factor structure with high item intercorrelation, but they also split the questionnaire into five thematic units. Results showed that, contrary to expectations, intercorrelations of items were extremely low and that following the completion of factor analysis, no satisfactory construct validity was established. From the obtained results, it can be concluded that it is not justified to create a latent dimension as established by research of Toth and associates, and the items, although there is a correlation between some of them, should be interpreted and analysed as independent constructs. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mutations and evolution There are often multiple alleles of a particular gene in the population and they all may be equally normal, that is have similar effects on reproductive success andin terms of the phenotypes they produce. If there is no significant selective advantage between them, their relative frequencies within a population will drift. At the same time, the phenotype associated with a particular allelecan be influenced by which alleles are present at other genetic loci, known as the genetic background. Since most traits are the results of hundreds or thousands of genes functioning together, and different combinations of alleles can produce different effects, the universe of variation is large. This can make identifying the genetic basis of a disease difficult, particularly when variation at any one locus may make only a minor contribution to the disease phenotype. On top of that, environmental and developmental differences can outweigh genetic influence on phenotype. Such genetic background effects can lead to a particular allele producing a disease in one person and not another.270 Mutations are the ultimate source of genetic variation – without them evolution would not occur. Mutations can lead to a number of effects, in particular, they can create new activities. At the same time these changes may reduce the original (and necessary) activity of an important gene. Left unresolved such molecular level conflicts would greatly limit the flexibility of evolutionary mechanisms. For example, it is common to think of a gene (or rather the particular gene product it encodes) as having one and only one function or activity, but in fact, when examined closely many catalytic gene products (typically proteins) can catalyze “off-target” reactions or carry out, even if rather inefficiently, other activities - they interact with other molecules within the cell and the organism. Assume for the moment that a gene encodes a gene product with an essential function as well as potentially useful (from a reproductive success perspective) activities. Mutations that enhance these “ancillary functions” will survive (that is be passed on to subsequent generations) only to the extent that they do not (overly) negatively influence the gene’s primary and essential function. The evolution of ancillary functions may be severely constrained or blocked altogether. This problem can be circumvented based on the fact that the genome is not static (→). There are molecular level processes through 270.

Confocal microscopy, most frequently confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) or laser confocal scanning microscopy (LCSM), is an optical imaging technique for increasing optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by means of using a spatial pinhole to block out-of-focus light in image formation.

BackgroundPatients frequently report antibiotic allergies; however, only 10% of labelled patients have a true allergy. AimWe investigated the documentation of antibiotic allergy' labels (AAL) and the effect of labelling on clinical outcomes, in a West Australian adult tertiary hospital. MethodsRetrospective cross-sectional analysis of patients captured in the 2013 and 2014 National Antimicrobial Prescribing Surveys was carried out. Data were collected on documented antibiotic adverse drug reactions, antibiotic cost, prescribing appropriateness, prevalence of multi-drug resistant organisms, length of stay, intensive care admission and readmissions. ResultsOf the 687 patients surveyed, 278 (40%) were aged 70 or above, 365 (53%) were male and 279 (41%) were prescribed antibiotics. AAL were recorded in 122 (18%) patients and the majority were penicillin labels (n=87; 71%). Details of AAL were documented for 80 of 141 (57%) individual allergy labels, with 61 describing allergic symptoms. Patients with beta-lactam allergy labels received fewer penicillins (P=0.0002) and more aminoglycosides (P=0.043) and metronidazole (P=0.021) than patients without beta-lactam labels. Five patients received an antibiotic that was contraindicated according to their allergy status. Patients with AAL had significantly more hospital readmissions within 4 weeks (P=0.001) and 6 months (P=0.025) of discharge, compared with unlabelled patients. The majority (81%) of readmitted labelled patients had major infections. Conclusions AAL are common, but poorly documented in hospital records. Patients with AAL are significantly more likely to require alternative antibiotics and hospital readmissions. There may be a role for antibiotic allergy delabelling to mitigate the clinical and economic burdens for patients with invalid allergy labels.

The objective of the paper is to evaluate the potential of tank-based rainwater harvesting systems as source control methods to mitigate runoff flow peaks in urban areas. Water balance simulations of the rainwater tanks at the resolution time scale of 1 minute were carried out for this purpose using both high-resolution rainfall series and toilet water demand data from a previous experimental campaign, which involved six experimental households in southern Italy. Simulations show that significant reduction of the flow peak may be obtained with rainwater tanks depending on the tank size and on the household water demand. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Background Serum vitamin D levels have been reported to be associated with individual components of body composition. However, the relationship between serum vitamin D and combined indices of adverse body composition is largely unknown. This cross-sectional study examined the association between serum vitamin D and osteosarcopenic obesity in a nationally representative sample of middle-aged and older adults. Methods We analysed the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (IV and V) conducted in 2008-2010, consisting of 5908 (2485 men, 3423 women) aged 50years. Serum vitamin D levels were determined by radioimmunoassay, and body composition was evaluated by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. The association between serum vitamin D levels and the number of abnormalities in body composition, including osteosarcopenic obesity, a low bone and muscle mass with concurrent high fat mass, was analysed by multinomial logistic regression adjusting for covariates. Results In men, after controlling for covariates, higher vitamin D levels were associated with a significantly reduced likelihood of the number of phenotypes of adverse body composition (P for trend<0.05). Those in the highest tertile group of serum vitamin D levels, compared with those in the lowest tertile, were less likely to have adverse body composition, numbering one (odds ratio [OR]=0.67, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.49, 0.92), two (OR=0.49, 95% CI: 0.33, 0.73), and three (osteosarcopenic obesity; OR=0.42, 95% CI: 0.26, 0.67). In women, those in the highest tertile group of serum vitamin D levels, compared with those in the lowest tertile, were less likely to have osteosarcopenic obesity (OR=0.55, 95% CI: 0.33, 0.93). Vitamin D deficiency (<20ng/mL) in men was significantly associated with an increased likelihood of a higher number of adverse body composition, especially for osteosarcopenic obesity (OR=2.08, 95% CI: 1.42, 3.03). Vitamin D deficient women, compared with those having normal levels of serum vitamin D, were also more likely to demonstrate osteosarcopenic obesity (OR=1.99, 95% CI: 1.30, 3.05). Conclusions A high serum vitamin D level in mid- and late-life was associated with reduced odds of multiple adverse body composition, especially osteosarcopenic obesity, suggesting potential health benefits of maintaining adequate levels of vitamin D.

Combined hormonal contraceptives (CHCs) contain estrogen and progestin, which can stimulate estrogen-sensitive and/or progesterone-sensitive breast cancer growth. Until recently, ethinylestradiol had been almost the only estrogen used for decades, and its dose has been greatly reduced over time. The first generations of birth control pills contained approximately five times more estrogen and four times more progestin than the latest contraceptives. Newer CHCs also contain steroids that more closely mimic the physiological estradiol (E2) and progesterone effects. The newer CHC formulations are thus expected to have less influence on the breast, although it is very difficult to demonstrate any difference among the recent available preparations in human studies. Recently, nomegestrol acetate (NOMAC), a neutral, nonandrogenic, progesterone-like profile progestin, has become available in combination with the 'natural' estrogen, E2. According to the literature, NOMAC/E2 is expected to have either a lesser stimulating effect or a neutral effect on estrogen-sensitive breast cancers. We performed an analysis of the available studies and a bibliographical review. The endocrine and metabolic effects of NOMAC/E2 formulation might lead to a lesser breast tissue stimulation. The data reported, confirmed through clinical studies, should be considered when choosing a hormonal contraceptive, especially when breast stimulation is a concern. Anti-Cancer Drugs 25:745-750 (C) 2014 Wolters Kluwer Health vertical bar Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

This study presents a protection method for fingerprint templates by using fused structures at the feature level. The authors compute two transformed features from minutiae points: namely, local structure and distant structure. These structures are represented as bit-strings. A fusion on bit-strings is done at the feature level to produce a cancelable template. An equal error rate (EER) of 2.19, 1.6 and 6.14% on Fingerprint Verification Competition (FVC) 2002 Database (DB)1 through DB3 databases and an EER of 11.89, 12.71, 17.6% on FVC 2004 DB1 through DB3 proves the tenability of the proposed method.

Pseudorandom binary sequences play a crucial role in cryptography. The classical approach to pseudorandomness of binary sequences is based on computational complexity. This approach has certain weak points thus in the last two decades a new, more constructive and quantitative approach has been developed. Since multidimensional analogs of binary sequences (called binary lattices) also have important applications thus it is a natural idea to extend this new approach to the multidimensional case. This extension started with a paper published in 2006, and since that about 25 papers have been written on this subject. Here our goal is to present a survey of all these papers. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

About 5% of earthquakes take place within a plate, away from plate boundaries. These intraplate earthquakes are caused by stresses within a plate. Since plates move over a spherical surface, zones of weakness are created. Intraplate earthquakes happen along these zones of weakness. The earthquakes may take place along ancient faults or rift zones.

Kawasaki disease is a multisystemic vasculitis that can result in coronary artery lesions. It predominantly affects young children and is characterized by prolonged fever, diffuse mucosal inflammation, indurative oedema of the hands and feet, a polymorphous skin rash and non-suppurative lymphadenopathy. Coronary artery involvement is the most important complication of Kawasaki disease and may cause significant coronary stenosis resulting in ischemic heart disease. The introduction of intravenous immunoglobulin decreases the incidence of coronary artery lesions to less than 5%. The etiopathogenesis of this disease remains unclear. Several lines of evidence suggest that an interplay between a microbial infection and a genetic predisposition could take place in the development of the disease. In this review, we summarize the state of the art of pathogenetic mechanisms of Kawasaki disease underscoring the relevance of haematological features as a novel field of investigation.

Emerging cloud applications are growing rapidly and the need for identifying and managing service requirements is also highly important and critical at present. Software Engineering and Information Systems has established techniques, methods and technology over two decades to help achieve cloud service requirements, design, development, and testing. However, due to the lack of understanding of software security vulnerabilities that should have been identified and managed during the requirements engineering phase, we have not been so successful in applying software engineering, information management, and requirements management principles that have been established for the past at least 25 years, when developing secure software systems. Therefore, software security cannot just be added after a system has been built and delivered to customers as seen in today's software applications. This paper provides concise methods, techniques, and best practice requirements engineering and management as an emerging cloud service (SSREMaaES) and also provides guidelines on software security as a service. This paper also discusses an Integrated-Secure SDLC model (IS-SDLC), which will benefit practitioners, researchers, learners, and educators. This paper illustrates our approach for a large cloud system Amazon EC2 service. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Carbon steel is a steel with carbon content from about 0.05 up to 2.1 percent by weight.

Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context.

Previous research has shown that neonatal rats can adapt their stepping behavior in response to sensory feedback in real-time. The current study examined real-time and persistent effects of ROM (range of motion) restriction on stepping in P1 and P10 rats. On the day of testing, rat pups were suspended in a sling. After a 5-min baseline, they were treated with the serotonergic receptor agonist quipazine (3.0 mg/kg) or saline (vehicle control). Half of the pups had a Plexiglas plate placed beneath them at 50% of limb length to induce a period of ROM restriction during stepping. The entire test session included a 5-min baseline, 15-min ROM restriction, and 15-min post-ROM restriction periods. Following treatment with quipazine, there was an increase in both fore- and hindlimb total movement and alternated steps in P1 and P10 pups. P10 pups also showed more synchronized steps than P1 pups. During the ROM restriction period, there was a suppression of forelimb movement and synchronized steps. We did not find evidence of persistent effects of ROM restriction on the amount of stepping. However, real-time and persistent changes in intralimb coordination occurred. Developmental differences also were seen in the time course of stepping between P1 and P10 pups, with P10 subjects showing show less stepping than younger pups. These results suggest that sensory feedback modulates locomotor activity during the period of development in which the neural mechanisms of locomotion are undergoing rapid development. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Skin wounds datation is one of the most challenging problems in forensic pathology. The vitality of a recent wound cannot be affirmed when no inflammatory cell is visible. There are in the literature numerous studies about wound vitality, looking for markers involved in coagulation or inflammation, using various methods such as enzymology, molecular biology or immunohistochemistry. In this update, we first introduce some methodological principles to respect. Then, we review the main studies available in the literature. We insist on immunohistochemistry, which seems to be the more valuable method, given its easiness to perform and the possibility to analyze the localization of the molecules of interest. Some markers are promising, such as TNF alpha, IL-6, IL-1 beta, TGF alpha or TGF beta 1. Before using them in daily practice, these first results need to be confirmed with other studies, driven by independent teams and integrating multiple controls. Most notably, the antibodies have to be tested in numerous postmortem wounds. Indeed, there is a critical risk of overexpression in post-mortem wounds, and some interesting markers have been secondary invalidated because of post-mortem false positivity (e.g. fibronectin, P-selectin). Finally, optimal sensibility and specificity values would be probably reached by combining several markers, validated with large groups of pre- and post-mortem wounds. (c) 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

A knowledge community is a community construct, stemming from the convergence of knowledge management as a field of study and social exchange theory.

In mathematics, the orthogonal group in dimension n, denoted O (n), is the group of distance-preserving transformations of a Euclidean space of dimension n that preserve a fixed point, where the group operation is given by composing transformations.

Evolution Evolution means change over time.

Surface engineering is the sub-discipline of materials science which deals with the surface of solid matter.

Although the Moon appears to shine, it does not give off light. Instead, we can see the Moon because it is lit up by the Sun. The part of the Moon that is both lit up by the Sun and facing Earth is called the Moon's phase.The Moon orbits, or goes around, Earth. As it does, the Moon's phase changes. The model below shows the Moon's phase at eight positions in its orbit. The smaller moons closer to Earth show where sunlight hits the Moon. The larger moons farther from Earth show how the Moon will look during that phase.To use the model, first pick one of the eight positions. Then, imagine standing on Earth and looking up at the Moon. Use the dotted white lines in the model to guide you. The picture of the Moon shows its phase for that position. If you are in the Southern Hemisphere, the Moon will appear flipped, left to right.

Population growth, urbanization, pollution, and climate change pose urgent water challenges in cities. In this study, the sustainability of integrated water resources management in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) was evaluated using the City Blueprint approach. The City Blueprint is a set of 24 dedicated indicators divided over 8 categories (i.e., water security, water quality, drinking water, sanitation, infrastructure, climate robustness, biodiversity and attractiveness, and governance including public participation). The analysis showed that the rapid increase of water use for urban, industrial, and agricultural activities in HCMC has resulted in depletion of groundwater and severe pollution of both groundwater and surface water. Surface water quality, groundwater quality, biodiversity, and the sanitation of domestic and industrial wastewater are matters that need serious improvement. Current and future water supply in HCMC is at risk. HCMC can cope with it, but the 7 governance gaps as described by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are major obstacles for HCMC. Rainwater harvesting, pollution reduction, as well as wastewater reuse are among the practical options. Wastewater reuse could lower the water stress index to 10%. The window to do this is narrow and rapidly closing as a result of the unprecedented urbanization and economic growth of this region. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2016;12:345-352. (c) 2015 SETAC

Real-time infrared simulation technology can provide a large number of infrared images under different conditions to support the design, test and evaluation of a system having infrared imaging equipment with very low costs. By synthesizing heat transfer, infrared physics, fluid mechanics and computer graphics, a real-time infrared simulation method is proposed based on the method of characteristics to predict the infrared feature of aircraft plumes, which tries to obtain a good balance between simulation precision and computation efficiency. The temperature and pressure distribution in the under-expansion status can be rapidly solved with dynamically changing flight statuses and engine working states. And a modified C-G (Curtis-Godson) spectral band model that combines the, plume streamlines with the conventional C-G spectral band model was implemented to calculate the non-uniformly distributed radiation parameters inside a plume field. The simulation result was analyzed and compared with the CFD++, which validates the credibility and efficiency of the proposed simulation method. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Intensity is a measure of the strength of shaking experienced in an earthquake.

The term mechanoluminescence (ML) refers to the light emission from various organic and inorganic materials in response to mechanical stimuli such as friction, tension, fracture, and compression. Recently, this interesting luminescence phenomenon has enabled us to explore various advanced sensor applications. In this review article, the overall ML mechanism that arises under different experimental conditions is discussed thoroughly. The recent research achievements of state-of-the-art sensors based on ML microparticles such as SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy (SAO), ZnS:Cu, and ZnS:Mn are then reviewed. As a new functional smart material, SAO ML microparticles can be used in possible substitutive and substantial methods for structural health monitoring (SHM) systems, owing to their relative simplicity but effectiveness in detecting arrested or propagating crack tips, and in assessing the in-situ structural state by means of fracture parameters such as stress intensity factors. The applicability of ML paint and thin films on various types of ceramics and concretes as fracture sensors is reviewed. The research on sensors based on different ML microparticles such as noncontact torque sensors based on ZnS:Cu, flexible pressure sensors and impact sensors using ZnS:Mn is also reviewed in this article. Potential applications using ML microparticles are also briefly discussed.

Total internal reflection allows the light to travel down the optical fiber and not pass through the sides of the tube. The light continuously reflects from the inside of the tube and eventually comes out the end. Optical fibers make interesting lamps but they are also used to transport telephone and television signals.

Many plants produce flowers.

Background: Early diagnosis and expeditious treatment of newborns with congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is necessary to avoid mental retardation. Methods: A survey of 44 practitioners in the southern US was conducted to better understand common practices regarding neonatal CH and the findings were compared with current guidelines in the US and Europe. Results: Responses indicated some consensus that 10-15 mu g of thyroid hormone/kg/day was the appropriate dosage. However, despite guidelines advocating their use, practitioners reported that they did not commonly use imaging or laboratory tests, though experienced providers apparently used them more often. Conclusions: Together, these results show moderate adherence to published guidelines for treating and diagnosing CH. Further research is needed to determine why providers deviate from these guidelines and to generalize these results to other populations.

In physics, coherence length is the propagation distance over which a coherent wave ( e.g.

Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces.

Special attention is required to the removal of nitrogen and phosphorous in treated wastewaters. Although, there are a wide range of techniques commercially available for nutrient up-take, these processes entail high investment and operational costs. In the other hand, microalgae growth can simultaneously remove inorganic constituents of wastewater and produce energy rich biomass. Among all the cultivation technologies, High Rate Algae Ponds (HRAPs), are accepted as the most appropriate system. However, the optimization of the operation that maximizes the productivity, nutrient removal and lipid content in the biomass generated has not been established. In this study, the effect of two levels of depth and the addition of CO2 were evaluated. Batch essays were used for the calculation of the kinetic parameters of microbial growth that determine the optimum conditions for continuous operation. Nutrient removal and lipid content of the biomass generated were analyzed. The best conditions were found at depth of 03 m with CO2 addition (biomass productivity of 26.2 g TSSm-2 d(-1) and a lipid productivity of 6.0 g lipids m(-2) d(-1)) in continuous mode. The concentration of nutrients was in all cases below discharge limits established by the most restrictive regulation for wastewater discharge. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Animal communication, like most other animal behaviors, increases the ability to survive and have offspring. This is known as fitness. Communication increases fitness by helping animals find food, defend themselves from predators, mate, and care for offspring.

You can read off the same type of information from the potential energy diagram in this case, as in the case for the body in vertical free fall, but since the spring potential energy describes a variable force, you can learn more from this graph. As for the object in vertical free fall, you can deduce the physically allowable range of motion and the maximum values of distance and speed, from the limits on the kinetic energy, 0 ≤ K ≤ E. Therefore, K = 0 and U = E at a turning point, of which there are two for the elastic spring potential energy,

An improved continuum model of three-span suspension bridges has been developed to study the effects of hanger extensibility on free vertical vibrations. This model can be applied to both hinged and continuous girders. To obtain the equations of motion, coupled differential equations describing the vertical deflections of the main cable and the girder are derived with dimensionless parameters. Following the Galerkin method, with shape functions for the main cable and for hinged and continuous girders, equations of motion are obtained in matrix form. A compatibility equation is used to eliminate the additional horizontal force of the main cable in the equations. Natural frequencies of hinged and continuous suspension bridges are evaluated as a function of six dimensionless parameters: the relative elastic bending stiffness of the girder, the relative elastic axial stiffness of the main cable, the relative elastic axial stiffness of the hangers, the relative mass of the girder, the relative length of the side span, and the ratio of the main span sag to the maximum hanger length. Parametric studies are conducted in which each of these parameters is varied individually to observe its effect on the natural frequencies and to identify differences between a conventional model with inextensible hangers and the improved model with extensible hangers. It is found that hanger extensibility affects the natural frequencies and mode shapes of higher modes for suspension bridges with a large relative girder stiffness. This effect is slightly more pronounced for antisymmetric modes and continuous bridges. In addition, even for a bridge with a large relative girder stiffness, the hanger extensibility rarely affects the natural frequencies of higher modes if the bridge either has a large relative mass of the girder or a large relative length of the side span. (C) 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.

In order theory, a Hasse diagram (; German : [ ˈhasə] ) is a type of mathematical diagram used to represent a finite partially ordered set, in the form of a drawing of its transitive reduction.

Cointegration is a statistical property of a collection (X1 , X2 , ... , Xk) of time series variables.

Using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) development board, a digital signal processor (DSP) builder, and the phase-to-amplitude conversion principle, a low-cost system for measuring the amplitude-to-amplitude (AM/AM) and amplitude-to-phase (AM/PM) distortion curves of radio frequency (RF) power amplifiers (PAs) is presented. The state of the art based on the measurements and preliminary studies of AM/AM and AM/PM distortion curves is discussed. A full digital control of the test bed simulated/emulated in Matlab/Simulink is introduced to recalculate the known AM/AM and AM/PM measurements stored as look-up table (LUT). Finally, the low-cost system comprises the memory polynomial model (MPM) that involves the nonlinearity order and memory effects of real PAs. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Endogenous alcohol has been applied for spontaneous ethanol production via different metabolic pathways of the human body. Auto-brewery syndrome describes the patients with alcohol intoxication after ingesting carbohydrate-rich meals. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of diabetes mellitus (DM), liver cirrhosis (LC) and presence of both (DM and LC) on blood alcohol concentration (BAC) especially after carbohydrate ingestion. BAC has been measured by headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry in three groups of humans namely control, DM, LC and both (DM and LC) groups. The results showed that BAC in control group was 0.01-.3 mg/dL with mean 0.3 +/- 0.41 mg/dL. In patients with DM, BAC is significantly higher than that of control group 4.85 +/- 3.96 mg/dL. In patients with LC, BAC was 3.45 +/- 2.65 mg/dL. In patients with both DM and LC, BAC increases to reach 10.88 +/- 5.36 mg/dL. Endogenous ethanol production appears to increase in DM and LC. Also, it increased much more in patients with both diseases, but it did not reach toxic levels. On comparing BAC and blood glucose level in each group, all groups show insignificant correlations (p >0.05).

High oxygen affinity hemoglobins are responsible for rare and heterogeneous autosomic dominant genetic diseases. They cause pure erythrocytosis, sometimes accountable for hyperviscosity and thrombosis, or hemolysis. Differential diagnoses must be first ruled out. The diagnosis is based on the identification of a decreased P50, and their possible characterization by cation exchange-high performance liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis. Finally, genetic studies of the responsible globin chain gene will confirm the mutation. The prognosis mainly relies on the P50 decrease rate and on the hemoglobin cooperativity impairment. Disease management should be personalized, and it should primarily depend on smoking cessation and physical activity. Phlebotomy and platelet aggregation inhibitors' prescriptions can be discussed. There is no contraindication to flights, high-altitude conditions, or pregnancy. Nevertheless, blood donation must be prohibited. (C) 2016 Societe Nationale Francaise de Medecine Interne (SNFMI). Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

In probability and statistics, a Markov renewal process (MRP) is a random process that generalizes the notion of Markov jump processes.

A systematic non-probabilistic reliability analysis procedure for structural vibration active control system with unknown-but-bounded parameters is proposed. The state-space representation of active vibration control system with uncertain parameters is presented. Compared with the robust control theory, which is always over-conservative, the reliability-based analysis method is more suitable to deal with uncertain problem. Stability is the core of the closed-loop feedback control system design, so stability criterion is adopted to act as the limited state function for reliability analysis. The uncertain parameters without enough samples are modeled as interval variables. Interval perturbation method is employed to estimate the interval bounds of eigenvalues, which can be used to characterize the stability of the closed-loop active control system. Formulation of defining the reliability of active control system based on stability is discussed. A novel non-probabilistic reliability measurement index is discussed and used to determine the probability of the stability based on the area ratio. The feasibility and efficiency of the proposed method are demonstrated by two numerical examples. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In computablity theory and computational complexity theory, enumeration reducibility is a method of reduction that determines if there is some effective procedure for determining enumerability between sets of natural numbers.

The free-living flatworm genus Macrostomum is an emerging model system for studying the links between sex allocation, sexual selection and mating system evolution, as well as the underlying developmental and physiological mechanisms responsible for wide intra- and inter-specific variability in reproductive phenotypes. Despite compelling comparative morphological evidence of sexual diversity, detailed experimental work on reproductive behaviour and physiology in Macrostomum has so far been largely limited to just two species, M. lignano and M. hystrix, an obligate and a preferential outcrosser, respectively. In this study, we establish that a third species, M. pusillum, exhibits a combination of reproductive traits strikingly different from both of its congeners. Unlike M. lignano, we demonstrate that M. pusillum does not adjust sex allocation or the speed of spermatogenesis to the prevailing social group size. Macrostomum pusillum's relatively simple sperm morphology likely explains the short spermatogenesis duration we report, and is linked to a hypodermically inseminating mode of fertilization, which we show also means that these worms are capable of self-fertilization. Surprisingly, and unlike M. hystrix, selfing in isolated worms commences after only a short (if any) delay compared with the onset of reproduction in grouped individuals, with little evidence of differential inbreeding depression in 'isolated' progeny. These combined results suggest that, in nature, M. pusillum may be regularly selfing, in contrast to the congeners studied to date. Our findings highlight the rapid and correlated evolution of reproductive traits, and reinforce the utility of the genus Macrostomum for understanding the evolutionary and developmental mechanisms responsible for this diversity.

The progression of Parkinson's disease (PD) seems to vary according to the disease stage, which greatly influences the management of PD patients. However, the underlying mechanismof progression in PD remains unclear. This study was designed to explore the progressive pattern of iron accumulation at different stages in PD patients. Sixty right-handed PD patients and 40 normal controls were recruited. According to the disease stage, 45 patients with Hoehn-Yahr stage= 3 were grouped into early-stage PD (EPD) and late-stage PD (LPD) groups, respectively. The iron content in the cardinal subcortical nuclei covering the cerebrum, cerebellum and midbrain was measured using quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM). The substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) showed significantly increased QSM values in the EPD patients compared with the controls. In the LPD patients, while the SNc continued to show increased QSM values compared with the controls and EPD patients, the regions showing increased QSM values spread to include the substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr), red nucleus (RN) and globus pallidus (GP). Our data also indicated that iron deposition was more significant in the GP internal segment (GPi) than in the GP external segment. No other regions showed significant changes in QSM values among the groups. Therefore, we were able to confirm a regionally progressive pattern of iron accumulation in the different stages of PD, indicating that iron deposition in the SNc is affected exclusively in the early stages of the disease, while the SNr, RN and GP, and particularly the GPi segment, become involved in advanced stages of the disease. This is a preliminary study providing objective evidence of the iron-related progression in PD. Copyright (C) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In the mathematical area of graph theory, an undirected graph G is strongly chordal if it is a chordal graph and every cycle of even length (≥ 6) in G has an odd chord, i.e., an edge that connects two vertices that are an odd distance (>1) apart from each other in the cycle.

A backbone or core network is a part of a computer network which interconnects networks, providing a path for the exchange of information between different LANs or subnetworks.

Road transport or road transportation is a type of transport by using roads.

The second line of defense attacks pathogens that manage to enter the body. It includes the inflammatory response and phagocytosis by nonspecific leukocytes.

Golay code may refer to : Binary Golay code, an error-correcting code used in digital communications Ternary Golay code (Golay) complementary sequences

A Vegetation Index (VI) is a spectral transformation of two or more bands designed to enhance the contribution of vegetation properties and allow reliable spatial and temporal inter-comparisons of terrestrial photosynthetic activity and canopy structural variations.There are many Vegetation Indices (VIs), with many being functionally equivalent.

Character-based video games do more than allow one to practice various kinds of behaviors in a virtual environment; they allow one to practice being a different kind of person. As such, we propose that games can alter self-perceptions of personal characteristics, attitudes, and values with broad consequences for behavior. In a multiwave, longitudinal study of adolescents, we examined the extent to which play of mature-rated, risk-glorifying (MRRG) games was associated with increases in alcohol use, cigarette smoking, aggression, delinquency, and risky sex as a consequence of its effects on personality, attitudes, and affiliations indicative of increased tolerance of deviance. Participants were selected with random-digit-dial procedures and followed for 4 years. Data were analyzed with linear mixed modeling to assess change over time and structural equation modeling with latent variables to test hypothesized mediational processes. Among those who play video games, playing MRRG games was associated with increases in all measures of behavioral deviance. Mediational models support the hypothesis that these effects are in part a consequence of the effects of such gameplay on sensation seeking and rebelliousness, attitudes toward deviant behavior in oneself and others, and affiliation with deviant peers. Effects were similar for males and females and were strongest for those who reported heavy play of mature-rated games and games that involved protagonists who represent nonnormative and antisocial values. In sum, the current research supports the perspective that MRRG gameplay can have consequences for deviant behavior broadly defined by affecting the personality, attitudes, and values of the player.

The aim of the paper is to investigate the influence of novel opening strategies for intake valves on the permeability and in-cylinder flow of a multivalve spark -ignition internal combustion engine. Specifically, the deactivation of an intake valve and asymmetric valves lifts are analysed and compared to the standard symmetric valves opening. To this purpose, a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis is performed by using a finite volume code and an experimental activity is done at a steady flow rig. The investigation is carried out for different intake strategies and engine load conditions and the comparison between CFD and experimental flow coefficients shows a good agreement. The results demonstrate that the proper combination of different valves strategies permits the effect of the throttling process at medium and low engine load to be minimised, improving the breathability of the intake system, and creating more organised and energised mean flow structures within the combustion chamber.

Airborne Wind Turbines (AWT) represent a radically new and fascinating concept for future harnessing of wind power. This concept consists of realizing only the blades of a conventional wind turbine (CWT) in the form of a power kite flying at high speed perpendicular to the wind. On the kite are mounted a turbine, an electrical generator and a power electronics converter. The electric power generated is transmitted via a medium voltage cable to the ground. Because of the high flight speed of the power kite, several times the actual wind speed, only a very small swept area of the turbine is required according to Betz's Law and/or a turbine of low weight for the generation of a given electric power. Moreover, because of the high turbine rotational speed, no gear transmission is necessary and the size of the generator is also reduced. For takeoff and landing of the power kite, the turbines act as propellers and the generators as motors, i.e. electric power is supplied so that the system can be maneuvered like a helicopter. In the present work the configuration of power electronics converters for the implementation of a 100kW AWT is considered. The major aspect here is the trade-off between power-to-weight ratio (W/kg) and efficiency. The dependence of cable weight and cable losses on the voltage level of power transmission is investigated, and a comparison made of low voltage (LV) and medium voltage (MV) versions of generators. Furthermore, the interdependence of the weight and efficiency of a bidirectional Dual Active Bridge dc-dc converter for coupling the rectified output voltage of a LV generator to the MV cable is discussed. Based on this, the concept offering the best possible compromise of weight and efficiency in the power electronics system is selected and a model of the control behavior is derived for both power flow directions. A control structure is then proposed and dimensioned. Furthermore, questions of electromagnetic compatibility and electrical safety are treated. In conclusion, the essential results of the work are summarized and an outlook on future research is given. To enable the reader to make simplified calculations and a comparison of a CWT with an AWT, the aerodynamic fundamentals of both systems are summarized in highly simplified form in an Appendix, and numerical values are given for the 100kW system discussed in this work.

Figure 19.24 Coral is the foundation species of coral reef ecosystems. (credit: Jim E. Maragos, USFWS).

Tremetol, a metabolic poison found in the white snake root plant, prevents the metabolism of lactate. When cows eat this plant, it is concentrated in the milk they produce. Humans who consume the milk become ill. Symptoms of this disease, which include vomiting, abdominal pain, and tremors, become worse after exercise. Why do you think this is the case? Alcohol Fermentation Another familiar fermentation process is alcohol fermentation ( Figure 7.15) that produces ethanol, an alcohol. The first chemical reaction of alcohol fermentation is the following (CO2 does not participate in the second reaction):.

a computer controls a robot

In software engineering and systems engineering, a functional requirement defines a function of a system or its component, where a function is described as a specification of behavior between outputs and inputs.Functional requirements may involve calculations, technical details, data manipulation and processing, and other specific functionality that define what a system is supposed to accomplish.

ChARMin is the first actuated exoskeleton robot for pediatric arm rehabilitation. The device was specifically designed to provide intensive rehabilitative training for children with affected arm motor function, e.g., due to cerebral palsy; therewith complementing conventional therapies. This paper gives a comprehensive overview of the ChARMin robot, which provides six actuated degrees of freedom, and is designed to cover the complete target group of children and adolescents aged 5-18 years. Moreover, the new audiovisual game-like interface is presented, which motivates active participation of the child. To support the child's arm movements with the exoskeleton, a patient-cooperative control strategy was implemented. The controller enables free arm movements, assistance-asneeded, and complete guidance of the arm. Five children aged 5-17 years with impaired arm motor function due to cerebral palsy, stroke, and traumatic brain injury tested the various training scenarios with different amounts of support, and robot settings depending on the therapeutic goals and the children's movement capabilities and preferences. These preliminary tests suggest that the ChARMin setup can be used as an advanced exercise tool for arm neurorehabilitation that optimally challenges children and adolescents with severely tomoderately affected armmotor functions.

Penguins keep warm with layers of insulation.

In robotics, the exploration problem deals with the use of a robot to maximize the knowledge over a particular area.

GeoNames (or GeoNames.org) is a user editable geographical database available and accessible through various web services, under a Creative Commons attribution license.

Introduction: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) remains an effective treatment for major depressive disorder. Since 1995, Texas has maintained an ECT database including patient diagnoses and outcomes, and reporting any deaths within 14 days of receiving an ECT treatment, encompassing a total of 166,711 ECT treatments administered in Texas over the previously unreported period of 1998 to 2013. Methods: Descriptive analysis summarized information on deaths reported during the 16-year period-cause of death, type of treatment (index or maintenance) and patient demographics. Multiple logistic regression of death incidence by treatment session was performed to determine whether patient age, sex, race, diagnosis, or year of treatment was associated with death after ECT. Results: Of those deaths occurring within 1 day of an ECT treatment, the death rate was 2.4 per 100,000 treatments. Looking at all deaths within 14 days of an ECT treatment, the death rate increased to 18 per 100,000 treatments but included all deaths regardless of likelihood of causal association with ECT, for example, accidents and suicides, the latter a leading cause of death among individuals with severe major depression or other disorders for which ECT is indicated. Death rate increased significantly with increasing patient age (P = 0.001) and male sex (P = 0.009), and there was a nonsignificant trend toward increased death amongst patientswith bipolar disorder or schizophrenia (P = 0.058) versus depression. Conclusions: Our data indicate that ECT is in general a safe procedure with respect to the likelihood of immediate death. Suicide remains a significant risk in ECT patients, despite evidence that ECT reduces suicidal ideation.

Enterogenous cysts (ECs) are endodermal lesions resulting from splitting anomalies in the neuroenteric canal. We report the case of a 64-year-old patient who presented with a sudden headache followed by collapse. Brain computed tomography revealed a hyperdense lesion in the anterior part of the third ventricle with obstructive hydrocephalus. A presumptive diagnosis of colloid cyst was made and he underwent a right transcortical approach for lesion resection. The histopathological examination revealed an EC. ECs are common lesions in the cervical-thoracic spine but rare in the supratentorial compartment with only two previously described cases occurring in the third ventricle.

An approach to the psychological profile of vulnerability to the injury of the athlete has become necessary in competitive sports. Subjects consisted of a total of sample were 285 males (23 non-injured) and 168 females (24 non-injured). The male athletes had an average age of 21.77 years and the female athletes of 20.55 years. The sample consisted of athletes of individual sports (tennis, athletics and swimming) and players of team sports (football, basketball and handball) belonging to different sports clubs in the Valencian Community. A Sport Competitive Anxiety Test (SCAT) was used for the evaluation of competitive anxiety; an EPR scale was used to evaluate hardiness; a Competitiveness-10 scale was used to assess competitiveness; and a specific registration form was used for the assessment of injury. The study was carried out basing on a quantitative methodology. The design of the study was observational, descriptive and correlational. The study was based on the hypothesis: the number of injuries will increase with lower levels of hardiness and success-oriented motivation, and higher levels of competitive anxiety and motivation addressed to avoid failure. The objective was to analyze the differences in the number of injuries among athletes who had a profile of vulnerability to injury (low hardiness, high competitive anxiety, low motivation for success and high motivation oriented to avoid failure) against those who did not fit that profile. According to the theoretical foundation, those placed in this profile would be more susceptible to injury. However, the results of the study indicate that men with a profile of vulnerability to injury (who should sustain more injuries) suffered fewer moderate injuries, and the total number of injuries and rate of injury were lower. Results are discussed and some conclusions of the study are indicated.

In mathematics, and more specifically in graph theory, a directed graph (or digraph) is a graph that is made up of a set of vertices connected by directed edges often called arcs.

Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space.

Three studies compared beliefs about natural and late blooming positive traits with those acquired through personal effort, extrinsic rewards or medicine. Young children (5-6 years), older children (8-13 years), and adults all showed a strong bias for natural and late blooming traits over acquired traits. All age groups, except 8- to 10-year-olds, treated natural and late-blooming traits as fixed essences that would persist over time and under challenging conditions. Older children and adults viewed traits acquired by intrinsic effort as more similar to natural and late-blooming traits than those acquired through bribes or medicine, suggesting that intrinsic effort itself comes to be seen as a more natural mechanism of change. A bias for the natural may therefore be an early emerging way of evaluating others that is reinforced by the ambient culture and becomes stronger with increasing age.

In the last two decades adiponectin, member of the adipokines family, gained attention because of its unique antidiabetic effects. However, the presence in the brain of adiponectin receptors and adiponectin itself raised interest because of the possible association with neuropsychiatric diseases. Indeed, clinical studies found altered concentration of adiponectin both in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid in several pathologies including depression, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer ' s disease and stroke. Moreover, recent preclinical studies also suggest its involvement in different physiological functions. Despite this evidence very few studies attempted to elucidate the functional role of adiponectin at the synapse. To address this question, here we investigated the effect of Adiporon, an agonist of both adiponectin receptors on synaptic transmission and LTP at Schaffer-collateral CA1 pathway. Surprisingly, increasing concentration of Adiporon correlated with lower CA1-LTP levels and paired-pulse ratio, whereas basal transmission was always preserved. Collectively, our data show that the adiponectin system, beyond its involvement in metabolic diseases, plays also a critical role in synaptic activity thereby representing a putative target for the treatment of synaptic pathologies.

You must have a GPS receiver to use the system. You can buy many types of these in stores. The GPS receiver detects radio signals from nearby GPS satellites. There are precise clocks on each satellite and in the receiver. The receiver measures the time for radio signals from satellites to reach it. The receiver uses the time and the speed of radio signals to calculate the distance between the receiver and the satellite. The receiver does this with at least four different satellites to locate its position on the Earth’s surface ( Figure above ). GPS receivers are now being built into many items, such as cell phones and cars.

High concentration photovoltaics, equipped with high efficiency multijunction solar cells, have great potential in achieving cost-effective and clean electricity generation at utility scale. Such systems are more complex compared to conventional photovoltaics because of the multiphysics effect that is present. Modelling the power output of such systems is therefore crucial for their further market penetration. Following this line, a multiphysics modelling procedure for high concentration photovoltaics is presented in this work. It combines an open source spectral model, a single diode electrical model and a threedimensional finite element thermal model. In order to validate the models and the multiphysics modelling procedure against actual data, an outdoor experimental campaign was conducted in Albuquerque, New Mexico using a high concentration photovoltaic monomodule that is thoroughly described in terms of its geometry and materials. The experimental results were in good agreement (within 2.7%) with the predicted maximum power point. This multiphysics approach is relatively more complex when compared to empirical models, but besides the overall performance prediction it can also provide better understanding of the physics involved in the conversion of solar irradiance into electricity. It can therefore be used for the design and optimisation of high concentration photovoltaic modules. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Reports point to an increase in problematic uses of social networking sites that may include swearing, interpersonally deviant and disadvantageous online behaviors. The etiology of such behaviors, though, is still unknown. Relying on models borrowed from the offline problematic behavior (e.g., gambling, substance abuse) and neurocognitive literatures, we theorize that such behaviors are driven, in part, by elevated motor impulsivity and poor sleep quality, which is also a growing concern in modern society; and that poor sleep quality strengthens the effects of motor impulsivity on the examined range of problematic behaviors, after accounting for stress effects. To test this model we conducted a time -lagged study involving 384 young adults from the US who use social networking sites. Findings based on structural equation modeling analyses reveal that (1) motor impulsivity drives some problematic online behaviors, (2) poor sleep quality (at normative levels) does not directly influence these behaviors, and (3) poor sleep quality augments the effect of motor impulsivity on swearing, interpersonally deviant, and disadvantageous online behaviors, after accounting for stress effects. The results point to possible etiological underpinnings of problematic online behaviors and can serve as a springboard for the development of interventions that target such factors. (C) 2016 Elsevier'Ltd. All rights reserved.

The present study aimed to investigate alterations in Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), interferon regulatory factor 5 (IRF5) and interferon-gamma-inducible protein-10 (IP-10), and evaluate whether these factors may be associated with a sustained virological response (SVR) among patients with hepatitis C virus genotype-1 (HCV-1) who were treated with peginterferon plus ribavirin (PEG-IFN-RBV). A total of 31 Chinese patients infected with HCV-1 were enrolled in the present study and 25 patients obtained SVR. The expression levels of IP-10 declined significantly during PEG-IFN-RBV therapy at the 24 and 48 week time-points, compared with the baseline (P<0.005, 0.001 and 0.001, respectively). In addition, it was observed that IRF5 mRNA expression and the number of TLR4(+) peripheral blood mononuclear cells exhibited similar correlations with IP-10 concentration (R-2=0.0726, P=0.001, R-2=0.1634, P<0.0001, respectively) in the SVR group patients; however, these correlations were not observed to be present in the non-SVR group patients. In conclusion, the results of the present study suggest that marked alterations in IP-10, TLR4 and IRF5 expression may serve as indicators for the development of SVR in patients with HCV-1 treated with PEG-IFN-RBV.

This paper includes country level virtual water data in an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for water pollution. Virtual water accounts for the total amount of water required to produce a good in all stages of production. This paper constructs a water independence index, defined as the water required in domestic production divided by the amount of water required for all imported goods. Results suggest an increase in trade openness and importing water intensive goods may lower water pollution levels.

Robot software combines the challenges of general purpose and real-time software, requiring complex logic and bounded resource use. Physical safety, particularly for dynamic systems such as humanoid robots, depends on correct software. General purpose computation has converged on unix-like operating systems standardized as POSIX, the Portable Operating System Interface for devices from cellular phones to supercomputers. The modular, multi-process design typical of POSIX applications is effective for building complex and reliable software. Absent from POSIX, however, is an interproccess communication mechanism that prioritizes newer data as typically desired for control of physical systems. We address this need in the Ach communication library which provides suitable semantics and performance for real-time robot control. Although initially designed for humanoid robots, Ach has broader applicability to complex mechatronic devices humanoid and otherwise that require real-time coupling of sensors, control, planning, and actuation. The initial user space implementation of Ach was limited in the ability to receive data from multiple sources. We remove this limitation by implementing Ach as a Linux kernel module, enabling Ach's high performance and latest-message-favored semantics within conventional POSIX communication pipelines. We discuss how these POSIX interfaces and design principles apply to robot software, and we present a case study using the Ach kernel module for communication on the Baxter robot.