bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Smart Water Level Monitoring System for Farmers
Authors: Suresh Nalina , Hashiyana Valerianus , Kulula Victor Panduleni , Thotappa Shreekanth
Published: July 2019

With advancement in technology and ever-changing weather conditions, accurate and affordable water level measurement systems has become necessary for farmers. This therefore brings about the need for a system incorporating the use of IoT technology that will monitor water levels at a cost-effective price with accurate and dependable results. The prototype will monitor water levels on a regular basis and the data captured will be stored in a database to help farmers improve the way they manage their water resource. Farmers will be able to monitor the water levels from any location at any given time. This chapter focuses on a Smart Water Level Monitoring System for Farmers and provides a smart way to manage water resources on farms in the most cost-effective and convenient manner for farmers.
Mobile-Assisted Language Learning From Language Instructors' Perspectives
Authors: Ortiz Brenda I. Lopez , Luna Mara J.
Published: July 2019

This chapter explores instructor use of MALL in EFL/ESL classrooms. It begins with a discussion of instructor ownership as well as personal use of mobile technology. The chapter includes a discussion of overall perceptions and/or reported educational use and benefits and barriers (not tied to specific language skills.) The chapter goes on to describe how instructors use mobile devices while teaching reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. This is followed by a brief discussion of mobile devices in situations that integrate all four skills. For each language skill, the authors also discuss perceived and/or reported benefits and barriers. Thereafter follows a discussion of trends in the focus of research questions, research methodologies, geographic location of studies, and a brief comparison in trends between earlier and later studies. The review ends with a conclusion that provides directions for future research and reminds the reader of the utility of this literature review.
mHealth Interventions for Self-Management of Chronic Disease
Authors: Sumilang Cristina A.
Published: July 2019

Chronic diseases are long-term conditions that require ongoing medical treatment and are among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, imposing a high socioeconomic burden. Self-management is a critical element of chronic disease management and requires considerable effort from patients. The pervasive adoption of mobile health (mHealth) technology has the potential to revolutionize healthcare delivery and support patients in the self-management of their chronic conditions – thereby improving health outcomes and reducing healthcare expenditures. Although a variety of mHealth interventions are widely used by diverse populations for chronic disease self-management, there is limited evidence regarding their efficacy. This chapter explores the literature regarding the effectiveness of mHealth interventions in the self-management of hypertension, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), asthma, and cancer. The mHealth issues pertinent to each disease process are addressed, as are the areas that warrant further research.
Redundancy Management and Host Intrusion Detection in WSN
Authors: Singh Vijander , Poonia Ramesh C. , Raja Linesh , Sharma Gourav , Trivedi Narendra Kumar , Mathur Gaurav Narayan
Published: July 2019

Intrusion detection system (IDS) is a software application that gives the facility to monitor the traffic of network, event, or activities on networks and finds if any malicious operation occurs. Hackers use different types of attacks to capture the information and use brute force attacks to match the authenticated key with the key, which the hacker has in its stable. When there is a match, the hacker gets the authenticated key through which he can connect with the hotspot or AP. IDS finds invalid or any other misbehavior in the system. The protocol will take care of it; protocol checks the MAC address of the device which wishes to connect with the hotspot or AP, and if any device repeatedly enters a wrong password, the protocol will gives a pop up on the administrator system. The objective of this chapter is to provide information about the protocol that behaves like IDS and is pre-implemented in the routers, which gives the alert to the administrator if any intruder tries to connect with the hotspot or AP (access point) with the rapid wrong key.
Issues and Challenges in Smart Farming for Sustainable Agriculture
Authors: Ramdinthara Immanuel Zion , Shanthi Bala P.
Published: July 2019

Sustainable agriculture helps to promote farming practices and methods in order to sustain farmers and resources. It is economically viable, socially supportive, and economically sound. It assists to maintain soil quality, reduce soil erosion and degradation, and also save water resources. Sustainable agriculture improves the biodiversity of the land and thus leads to the healthy and natural environment. The sustainable agriculture is very essential to ordinate with the increasing demand for the food, climate change, and degradation of the ecosystem in future. It plays a major role for preserving natural resources, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, halting biodiversity loss, and caring for valued landscapes. Sustainable agriculture is applied to farming in order to preserve the nature without compromising the quality of the future generation basic needs and thus enable to make smartness in farming. The common practices included in smart farming for sustainable agriculture are crop rotations that mitigate weeds, disease, insect, and other pest problems.
Computer Vision for Green Plant Segmentation and Leaf Count
Authors: Praveen Kumar J.  , Domnic S.
Published: July 2019

Image-based plant phenotyping plays an important role in productive and sustainable agriculture. It is used to record the plant traits such as chlorophyll fluorescence, plant growth, yield, leaf area, width and height of plants frequently and accurately. Among these plant traits, plant growth is an important trait to be analyzed that directly depends on leaf area and leaf count. Taking benign conditions of quick advancement in computer vision and image processing algorithms, many methods have been developed in recent days to find the leaf area and leaf count accurately. In this chapter, the recent techniques in image-based plant phenotyping and their limitations are discussed. Also, this chapter discusses a new plant segmentation method based on wavelet and leaf count methods based on Circular Hough Transform and deep learning model, which overcomes the drawbacks of recent methods. These methods are experimented with Computer Vision Problems in Plant Phenotyping (CVPPP) benchmark datasets.
Automatic Data Acquisition and Spot Disease Identification System in Plants Pathology Domain
Authors: Rajesh T. M.  , Dalawai Kavyashree , Pradeep N.
Published: July 2019

Plants play one of the main roles in our ecosystem. Manual identification for the leaves sometimes leads to greater difference due to look alike. People often get confused with lookalike leaves which mostly end in loss of life. Authentication of original leaf with look-alike leaf is very essential nowadays. Disease identification of plants are proved to be beneficial for agro-industries, research, and eco-system balancing. In the era of industrialization, vegetation is shrinking. Early detection of diseases from the dataset of leaf can be rewarding and help in making our environment healthier and green. Implementation involves proper data acquisition where pre-processing of images is done for error correction if present in the raw dataset. It is followed by feature extraction stage to get the best results in further classification stage. K-mean, PCA, and ICA algorithms are used for identification and clustering of diseases in plants. The implementation proves that the proposed method shows promising result on the basis of histogram of gradient (HoG) features.
Applications of Data Mining Techniques in Smart Farming for Sustainable Agriculture
Authors: Muniasamy Anandhavalli
Published: July 2019

Smart farming is a development that highlights the use of technologies such as the internet of things, cloud computing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence in the farm management cycle. For sustainable agriculture to adapt the ongoing change in climate and social structure is a major challenge for scientists and researchers. The approach needs information from various sources and its use in the relevant field, which lead to a growing interest in knowledge discovery from large data. Data mining techniques provide effective solutions for this problem as it supports the automation of extracting significant data to obtain knowledge and trends, the elimination of manual tasks, easier data extraction directly from electronic sources, and transfer to secure electronic system of documentation, which will increase the agriculture productions from same limited resources. In a nutshell, the aim of this chapter is to gain insight into the applications of data mining techniques in smart farming, which direction to employ sustainable agriculture and identify the challenges to be addressed.
Implementation of Deep Learning Neural Network for Retinal Images
Authors: Murugan R.
Published: July 2019

The retinal parts segmentation has been recognized as a key component in both ophthalmological and cardiovascular sickness analysis. The parts of retinal pictures, vessels, optic disc, and macula segmentations, will add to the indicative outcome. In any case, the manual segmentation of retinal parts is tedious and dreary work, and it additionally requires proficient aptitudes. This chapter proposes a supervised method to segment blood vessel utilizing deep learning methods. All the more explicitly, the proposed part has connected the completely convolutional network, which is normally used to perform semantic segmentation undertaking with exchange learning. The convolutional neural system has turned out to be an amazing asset for a few computer vision assignments. As of late, restorative picture investigation bunches over the world are rapidly entering this field and applying convolutional neural systems and other deep learning philosophies to a wide assortment of uses, and uncommon outcomes are rising constantly.
Prediction of High-Risk Factors in Surgical Operations Using Machine Learning Techniques
Authors: Anitha N.  , Devi Priya R.
Published: July 2019

Prediction of risk during surgical operations is one of the most needed and challenging processes in the healthcare domain. Many researchers use clinical assessment tools to predict perioperative outcomes and postoperative factors in surgical operations. Even though traditional model yields better results, they are not able to achieve promising accuracy due to the enormous growth of data in medical domain. Since the data size grows seamlessly every day, some of the investigators over the past decade use machine learning techniques in their model to predict the risks before and after surgery. Most of the existing systems produced better accuracy by impute missing values in dataset through some common imputation method. However, in order to increase the accuracy level further, two new techniques proposed in this chapter to handle missing values using iterative deepening random forest classifier and identification of surgical risk by using iterative deepening support vector machine. Both of the methods worked well in experimental data set and obtained promising accuracy results.
Introduction to the World of Artificial Intelligence
Authors: S. G. Shaila , A. Vadivel , V. Naksha
Published: July 2019

Today, artificial intelligence is a technology which is completely advanced and very fast growingIt has a very strong and significant influence in our daily lives. Artificial intelligence have created tools and techniques linked to various disciplines such as computational logic, the theory of the probability, the theory of the decision, management science, linguistics and philosophy, etc. This technical area is a standout amongst the new fields in science and designing.
Machine Learning Techniques Application
Authors: Karthikeyan P.  , Velswamy Karunakaran , Harshavardhanan Pon , Rajagopal R.  , JeyaKrishnan V.  , Velliangiri S.
Published: July 2019

Machine learning is the part of artificial intelligence that makes machines learn without being expressly programmed. Machine learning application built the modern world. Machine learning techniques are mainly classified into three techniques: supervised, unsupervised, and semi-supervised. Machine learning is an interdisciplinary field, which can be joined in different areas including science, business, and research. Supervised techniques are applied in agriculture, email spam, malware filtering, online fraud detection, optical character recognition, natural language processing, and face detection. Unsupervised techniques are applied in market segmentation and sentiment analysis and anomaly detection. Deep learning is being utilized in sound, image, video, time series, and text. This chapter covers applications of various machine learning techniques, social media, agriculture, and task scheduling in a distributed system.
Muslim Worldviews
Authors: Bagasra Anisah
Published: July 2019

This chapter seeks to provide an overview of traditional and contemporary Muslim worldviews, specifically beliefs and attitudes that may relate to help-seeking and interaction with human services such as counseling, health services, educational systems, and social services. Traditional Islamic beliefs and views, combined with contemporary issues and the experiences of living as a religious minority, can impact successful interaction between members of the Muslim community and service providers. In addition, basic knowledge of Muslim worldviews can aid helping professionals in providing effective, culturally competent care. This chapter focuses on traditional Islamic concepts of health and illness, common lay beliefs that stem from traditional views, attitudes towards treatment, and help-seeking patterns. The interplay of religiosity, acculturation, gender, family dynamics, and other relevant factors on help-seeking and service utilization are also presented to provide the reader with a holistic perspective of prevalent Muslim worldviews.
Social Work in Islam, Socio-Religious Revelations, and Conflicts
Authors: Khan Naila Iqbal
Published: July 2019

To provide effective social services to different cultural groups requires cultural understanding which is often missed in recent social work education programs and textbooks. The use of fundamentally different social work knowledge and a different approach in every different cultural group is the key to effective social work in different areas. How to adopt social work in working with Muslim communities is an unresolved question so far. It can be done only by focusing on possible client characteristics, understanding the level of difficulties, and requirements from the perspective of the social workers. Issues of spirituality, different levels of understanding and working knowledge of working professionals, and understanding expectations of clients are relevant. All the educational institutions, agencies, and social workers must put up coordinated efforts to achieve the objective of localized social work for Muslim clients.
Performance Mapping and Gap Analysis
Authors: Beresford Bonnie , Vincent Milica
Published: July 2019

When the learning and development manager of a financial services firm wanted to improve organizational performance, she stated, “I want to understand what the best performers do, and make the rest more like the best.” By studying high-performing salespeople, the organization discovered behaviors and practices that such performers did that made them more successful than their colleagues. Using a structured performance mapping process, the team documented the unconscious competence of in-role experts. A gap analysis of all performers objectively identified, quantified, and prioritized curriculum and performance support needs. This case study follows the journey of an organization that adopted this evidence-based process and now executes the gap analysis every third year to ensure continued relevance amid organizational and industry changes. The approach has yielded a highly regarded curriculum, the elimination of development costs for unneeded courseware, a reduction in training time, and changes in hiring profiles.
Building Performance Systems That Last
Authors: Monaco Joe , Schneider Edward W.
Published: July 2019

LIFTOR is a human performance system that promotes the safe and efficient operation of industrial forklift trucks. The original installation occurred in 1985. In the ensuing 30 years, it was installed at 16 sites. In spite of meeting its design goals, not all of these installations have survived, but because the same problem existed, and the same system was used to solve it, we can attribute the failures to differences between the sites. Some sites were closed for reasons unrelated to LIFTOR. Others failed because of systemic conflicts, but most of them failed after specific events occurred, such as new managers, new budgeting or contracting policies, or loss of support from corporate headquarters. Most of them could have been prevented by relying less on a corporate champion, and more on good cost-effectiveness reporting, coupled with more systematic training and involvement of front-line managers.
The Balancing Act
Authors: Sentz Justin A.
Published: July 2019

Upon hearing a multitude of complaints from faculty members about the required training module prior to teaching online courses at Great Plains University for the first time, the instructional designers at GPU's North Central Campus decided to work with a faculty fellow to create a local version of the training. Before discussing specific modifications to the training module, the group delved into the interpersonal aspects of the relationship between instructional designers and faculty members in higher education. They suspected that these relationship dynamics had something to do with the shortcomings of the existing training module, and they wanted to ensure that they addressed them in the new version of the training. The result was a set of recommendations sent to the Provost at NCC that aligned the modifications to the training intervention to the performance problems in the institution, while simultaneously accounting for the interpersonal aspects identified in their discussions.
A Decade's Worth
Authors: Roy Ria
Published: July 2019

After witnessing a year-on-year growth of 50% since its inception in 1993, Ziggurat Developers was well on its way to being the next niche, technically sophisticated, and edgy construction company in Mumbai, India. This case takes a deep dive into how winning a prestigious construction contract in the country led to Ziggurat's loss of revenue, cash flow deficits, year-on-year losses, high financing costs, loss of banking, idling of resources, loss of credibility, and high employee turnover rate. Instead of these significant contracts providing a strong foothold in the construction industry, it destroyed Ziggurat and the recovery took a decade. Performance improvement is often the study of how to improve performance when discrepancies are confined to a silo or a subset of functions within an organization. But how do you get back to exemplary performance when you are boxed in and there is no way out?
Using Training to Address Excessive Turnover in a Fast Food Organization
Authors: Jinks Jill Karen , Watkins Karen E.
Published: July 2019

The purpose of this case is to present a story about an effort to address a threatening business problem for a company in an industry that relies on low-wage, minimally-skilled employees. The industry is characterized by high turnover that makes training efforts difficult. The designers and developers had to be flexible, creative and innovative in creating their project plan and instructional intervention. The dynamics of the organization were fluid. The team had to consider these dynamics in selecting their approach. They had to be comfortable with using approximations and assumptions in developing the inputs for their design and development decisions. Ambiguity and uncertainty were constants for the team members.
Capitalizing on Franchisee Know-How
Authors: Cumberland Denise M. , Gosser Kathleen E.
Published: July 2019

While the current labor market is a dream for aspiring future employees, the low unemployment rate and the pervasive availability of hourly jobs makes it much more difficult in the quick service restaurant industry for employers. Hiring and retaining a solid team is a common concern across the industry; often it is easier to hire than to retain. Entry level employees are easily persuaded to work for a competitor for very little added pay. This current phenomena requires organizations to find differentiating tactics to retain their workforce. This case study explores a franchise restaurant chain in their quest to become an Employer of Choice in this very competitive industry. Franchise consultants were hired to explore best practices. The authors detail how a benchmarking tool was used to secure the information as well as the outcomes of the study. Specific actions are cited that can improve the retention of hourly employees in the quick service restaurant industry.
Leading Edge Training for Leading Edges
Authors: Hanshaw George O. , Lowell Victoria Lynn
Published: July 2019

Ruben, the learning and development manager for Aerosector, was tasked to help the composite manufacturing team increase their production rate and lower the defect rate for the manufacturing of composite leading edge parts for a newly designed aircraft. Initially, it took approximately 28 days to build one of the parts, and the defect rate for the parts was over 30 percent. Ruben put together a cross-functional team to devise a solution that would decrease the production rate of the parts to 15 days or less and reduce the defect rate to less than 0.5 percent for non-repairable defects and less than 2 percent for repairable defects. After performing a gap analysis, the team came up with the solution to build a training class utilizing experiential learning to quickly increase performance in the shop and meet the build requirements.
Learning Outcomes and Affective Factors of Blended Learning of English for Library Science
Authors: Wentao Chen , Jinyu Zhang , Zhonggen Yu
Published: July 2019

English for Library Science is an essential course for students to command comprehensive scope of library knowledge. This chapter aims to compare the learning outcomes, gender differences, and affective factors in the environments of blended and traditional learning. Around 1000 participants from one university were randomly selected to answer questions in questionnaires. It was found that (1) the pass rates under blended learning increased compared with traditional multimedia learning and the dropout rates under blended learning decreased compared with multimedia learning; (2) males and females did not show any significant differences in learning outcomes; (3) affective factors under blended learning were significantly more favorable than those under multimedia learning; and (4) under the blended learning model, male motivation was significantly higher than female; male attitude was significantly more favorable than female; males held higher self-esteem than females. However, male anxiety was significantly less than female. Reasons for the findings, as well as future research directions, were also explored.
Development of Students' Programming Abilities With the Means of Non-Programming Disciplines and Activities
Authors: Razakhovich Sakibayev Spartak , Razakhovna Sakibayeva Bela
Published: July 2019

The chapter contains the results of the research dedicated to the topic that has not been given much attention so far in the professional literature – discovering effective ways of developing students' programming abilities with the means of non-programming disciplines and activities. The authors argue that the process of forming capacities of students in programming becomes effective if students participate not only in programming lessons themselves but also dedicate a significant amount of time to other academic disciplines and extracurricular activities such as solving number-theoretic and chess endgame problems. The authors find that these disciplines and activities provide efficient means for developing programming capacities and therefore, their methods are the essential prerequisites for programming course. The significance of the obtained results is that they provide an effective alternative approach to organization of programming teaching process in those educational institutions where the traditional methodology does not bring the desired pedagogical effect.
Adopting E-Textbooks in Higher Education
Authors: Hartsell Taralynn , Wang Sirui
Published: July 2019

E-textbooks make digital learning content portable, transferrable, and searchable, increase students' engagement, and enable highly interactive learning opportunities. However, adopting e-textbooks in higher education is far from its confirmation stage. This chapter examines the relationship between the perceived attributes of using e-textbooks by instructors and their actual use of e-textbooks in higher education settings. Further, the study explores factors that prevent instructors from fully adopting e-textbooks in teaching and explains how to circumvent such challenges. Challenges of adopting e-textbooks for instructors in higher education have been revealed by the survey. The findings suggest that instructors, institutions, and e-textbook publishers should work collaboratively to enhance the adoption of e-textbooks in higher education.
Separation and Purification of Wax from Nyamplung (Calophyllum inophyllum) Seed Oil
Authors: Hapsari Safrina , Susanto David Febrilliant , Aparamarta Hakun Wirawasista , Widjaja Arief , Gunawan Setiyo
Published: July 2019

Nyamplung (Calophyllum inophyllum) is a multi-functional plant which is spread widely over the coast of Indonesia. Its seed produces a high content of oil, but its utilization is still limited. It is because C. inophyllum seed oil contains toxic compounds. Therefore, C. inophyllum seed oil has been used as a biodiesel raw material for many years. It was reported that C. inophyllum seed oil contains wax, but its percentage remains unknown. Wax has been used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, foods, and coatings industries as oil binder, water repellent, scratch resistance, and dispersion medium. In this work, wax was separated from C. inophyllum seed oil by solvent crystallization with and without separating non-polar lipid fraction (NPLF) from crude oil. Non-polar lipid fraction was separated by batch-wise solvent extraction using petroleum ether to methanol mass ratio of 3:1 (w/w) for eight stages. After eight stages, non-polar lipid fraction was collected for further separation by solvent crystallization method. The ratios of non-polar lipid fraction to acetone were 1:10, 1:20, and 1:40 (w/v). Then, the isolated wax was analyzed by gas chromatography. It was found that wax (purity of 40% and yield of 0.35%) was successfully isolated by separating non-polar lipid fraction from crude oil (batch wise solvent extraction for eight stages) and followed by solvent crystallization (non-polar lipid fraction to acetone ratio of 1:40 (w/v)).
Analysis of Large Bell Angle in Double Bell System on Burden Material Distribution and Layer Deformation in Mini Blast Furnace with Capacity 250 Ton/Day Using Solid Particle Model
Authors: Pintowantoro Sungging , Hidayat Mas Irfan P. , Abdul Fakhreza , Syaifullah Hamzah
Published: July 2019

The abundant of nickel ore resources in Indonesia and the regulations of Law of Coals and Minerals No. 4 year 2009 cause the development of nickel ore processing technology. One of the proven nickel ore processing technology is Mini Blast Furnace (MBF). When, the raw materials were fed to the MBF, there is a charging system to ensure good distribution of raw materials in MBF. The double bell charging system has an important role on the distribution of burden material in MBF. By optimizing the distribution and layers of the material burden, it will increase the stability and efficiency of the MBF process. Therefore, this study focused on analyzing the effect of large bell angle on the distribution of burden material in MBF using discrete element method. After analyzed, large bell angle differences produce different burden material distribution. For particle distribution, particles of small density (coal and dolomitee) tend to be concentrated in the center zone and particles of large density (ore) tend to be concentrated in the intermediate and peripheral zone. The larger angle of the large bell will increase particle falling velocity and the kinetic energy of the burden material. The most stable layer in MBF was obtained when using 65o bell angle. The MBF with 65o large bell angle is the best bell angle for MBF with capacity of 250 ton/day due to the greatest possibility of central working furnace operation.
The Effects of Nickel Doping on the Structure of LiNixFe1-xPO4/C Cathode Material
Authors: Suci Purnama Sari , Zainuri Mochamad , Endarko E.
Published: July 2019

This study has been successfully synthesized Nickel (Ni)-doped olivine-type LiNixFe1-xPO4/C with x= 0, 0.01, 0.02, 0.03 as cathode materials, using the solid-state reaction method was in order to investigate the effect on the structure and morphology. The precursor material of ion Ferro (Fe) is used natural material from ironstone of Tanah Laut Kalimantan Indonesian which combined with proanalis materials. The X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) patterns on the structure magnetite iron have shown that single phase of Fe3O4 and the patterns of structure LiNixFe1-xPO4/C indicated that doping Ni2+ have shown the orthorhombic structure with space group Pnma for all LiNixFe1-xPO4/C samples. Base on Rietveld method by Rietica software, the formation of phase resulted in olivine structure except at the concentration x = 0.02 and 0.03 have a second phase, that is nasicon structure with a smaller percentage than olivine structure. The general condition, coating carbon on LiNixFe1-xPO4/C particles by solid state reaction can be perfect which demonstrate the homogeneous existence of carbon on the surface of LiNixFe1-xPO4/C particles shown by images Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The increased doping of Ni ions causing the Fe ions to decrease base on Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDS) observations.
Effects Analysis of Forced Cooling Rate on Microstructure, Tensile Strength and Hardness of Superheater Tube in Pulverized Coal Boiler
Authors: Andri  , Sutikno
Published: July 2019

The availability (readiness) of a Steam Power Plant (PLTU) is an important factor, since one income from a Power Plant is based on its readiness reflected in the EAF (Equivalent Availibility Factor). Factor opposite to Availibility is Outage. Outage occurs when a unit is out of sync to a network and not in a Reserve Shutdown state.
Complex and Multilayered Role of IL-21 Signaling during Thymic Development
Authors: Moretto Magali M. , Hwang SuJin , Chen Keer , Khan Imtiaz A.
Published: July 2019

Unlike IL-7, which is known to be critical for T cell thymic development, the role of IL-21 in this process is still controversial. IL-21 has been shown to accelerate thymic recovery in mice treated with glucocorticoids and revives the peripheral T cell pool in aged animals. However, mice with a defect in IL-21 signaling exhibit normal thymic cellularity, challenging the importance of this cytokine in the thymic developmental process. Using mixed bone marrow chimeric mice, our studies describe a multilayered role for IL-21 in thymopoiesis. In this system, IL-21R–deficient cells are unable to compete with wild-type populations at different stages of the thymic development. Using a mixed bone marrow chimeric animal model, IL-21 seems to be involved as early as the double-negative 1 stage, and the cells from the knockout compartment have problems transitioning to subsequent double-negative stages. Also, similar to IL-7, IL-21 seems to be involved in the positive selection of double-positive lymphocytes and appears to play a role in the migration of single-positive T cells to the periphery. Although not as critical as IL-7, based on our studies, IL-21 plays an important complementary role in thymic T cell development, which, to date, has been underrecognized.
Continuous Aspiration Mechanical Thrombectomy for Treatment of Thrombosed Hemodialysis ReliableOutflow Grafts
Authors: Ahmed Osman , Hadied Mohamad Omar , Madassery Sreekumar , Ozen Merve , Tran Patrick , Lizardo Adolfo E. , Tasse Jordan C. , Turba Ulku Cenk , Arslan Bulent
Published: July 2019

Aims: To determine the safety and feasibility of continuous aspiration mechanical thrombectomy (CAT) for restoring patency to thrombosed hemodialysis reliable outflow (HeRO) arteriovenous grafts. Subjects and Methods: Between December 2016 and August 2017, eleven consecutive patients (average age 63, range 39–80 years) with thrombosed HeRO grafts underwent percutaneous thrombectomy procedures (n = 21) using the Penumbra Indigo® CAT 8 or CAT D (Alameda, CA, USA) thrombectomy catheter as the primary device to clear the venous outflow tract before removing the arterial plug with a compliant balloon. A total of 21 hemodialysis declot procedures using CAT were documented and analyzed. Average procedure length and fluoroscopy time, length of thrombus cleared, blood loss, complications, and time between thrombectomy procedures were recorded and compared to the same patient's previous three thrombectomy procedures. Results: All procedures were technically successful (100%) at restoring graft patency; however, reocclusion within 5 days occurred in four (19.0%) cases. Three (14.3%) interventions required additional balloon maceration or sweep to clear the venous outflow following thrombectomy. Average thrombus length treated by suction thrombectomy measured 23.15 cm (range 2.2–65 cm). Average blood loss was 162.6 mL (range 50–250 mL). No procedure-related complications were recorded. The average procedure length and fluoroscopy time using suction thrombectomy was 74.7 and 14.2 min, respectively, compared with 82.0 and 14.0 min, respectively, in the previous thrombectomy procedures using standard methods (P > 0.05). Seventeen (81%) HeRO grafts treated by CAT presented with rethrombosis at a mean of 42.47 days (range 1–208 days, median 22 days, standard deviation [SD] 28.2 days) since CAT procedure compared to patients treated by conventional methods who presented for rethrombosis at a mean of 55.33 days (range 1–321 days, median 34 days, SD 43.1 days) since standard thrombectomy – no statically significant difference (P > 0.05). Conclusion: CAT is a safe and feasible method for removing thrombus and restoring patency to thrombosed HeRO grafts. Further studies are required to elucidate the advantages of CAT over standard thrombectomy techniques.
External Sector Report, July 2019
Authors:   International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
Published: July 2019

The IMF’s 2019 External Sector Report shows that global current account balances stand at about 3 percent of global GDP. Of this, about 35–45 percent are now deemed excessive. Meanwhile, net credit and debtor positions are at historical peaks and about four times larger than in the early 1990s. Short-term financing risks from the current configuration of external imbalances are generally contained, as debtor positions are concentrated in reserve-currency-issuing advanced economies. An intensification of trade tensions or a disorderly Brexit outcome—with further repercussions for global growth and risk aversion—could, however, affect other economies that are highly dependent on foreign demand and external financing. With output near potential in most systemic economies, a well-calibrated macroeconomic and structural policy mix is necessary to support rebalancing. Recent trade policy actions are weighing on global trade flows, investment, and growth, including through confidence effects and the disruption of global supply chains, with no discernible impact on external imbalances thus far.
“España se ha estrenado en el campo de la Arqueología de Tierra Santa” Mogaret Dalal (1960-1961)
Authors: Vidal Jordi
Published: July 2019

En el presente artículo se estudia la correspondencia entre Joaquín González Echegaray y Julio Martínez Santa-Olalla, relacionada con las excavaciones en Mogaret Dalal (1960-1961), las primeras excavaciones en Oriente dirigidas por un arqueólogo español. Dicho estudio permite conocer mejor los métodos de trabajo de González Echegaray, las relaciones sociales y académicas que condicionaros sus trabajos en Jordania, así como su proyecto inédito de excavar en el yacimiento de Tulul adh-Dhahab (Penuel).
Evaluando la rentabilidad y productividad de la prospección arqueológica: el Valle del Tajuña (Madrid)
Authors: Benito López José Enrique
Published: July 2019

El presente estudio muestra los resultados de un proyecto de investigación sobre un área unitaria de la Meseta Sur española, el Valle del río Tajuña (Madrid) -216,1 km2-, basado en la prospección arqueológica intensiva de superficie, con cobertura total del terreno y aplicando los métodos de la arqueología territorial con una innovadora metodología, dirigida a optimizar los recursos y resultados que pueda mejorar la gestión del Patrimonio Arqueológico. Siguiendo esta línea de investigación, este trabajo pretende definir unos parámetros imprescindibles y válidos (la rentabilidad y la productividad, entre otros) en cualquier contexto y que permitan la comparación de los resultados de otras prospecciones arqueológicas, con independencia del medio físico y el contexto crono-cultural en que se desarrollen. Para ello se acude a la experiencia acumulada de este proyecto de investigación.
The Role of Effective Accounting System on Import-Export Trade in Ethiopia: The Case of Anbessa Shoe Share Company
Authors: Wassie Fekadu Agmas
Published: July 2019

The main purpose of this study is to examine the role of effective accounting system on import-export trade in Anbessa Shoe Share Company. This study is focused on Ethiopian import-export companies specifically, Anbessa Shoe Share Company and there are 208 target populations considered in the study who are accountants and some higher management personnel’s employing in Company. Randomly selected 51 accountants and some higher management personnel of the company are the source of the necessary data to the researcher through the administered questionnaires and interviews. Besides, the objective of this study is to assess the role of proper and effective accounting system employment on import-export trade in Anbessa Shoe Share Company. According to the study findings, an effective accounting system have an important role on import-export trades of the company. In addition, based on the non-parametric test made using Chi-Square distribution the accountant’s competency measured in terms of their profession, educational level and work experience was statistically not significance. The company should understand that the contributions of effective accounting system on its import-export trade is very vital for those activities performed in its trade and for the overall performances.
Prospective Study of Acute Opioid Use After Adolescent Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction Shows No Effect From Patient- or Surgical-Related Factors
Authors: Beck Jennifer J. , Cline Kelly , Sangiorgio Sophia , Serpa Rebecka , Shifflett Kendall A. , Bowen Richard E.
Published: July 2019

Introduction:

Patient-reported pain scores and opioid use have not been quantified after outpatient adolescent anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR).

Methods:

Patients aged 12 to 18 years undergoing primary isolated ACLR, with or without meniscal treatment, were prospectively recruited. Patients actively taking opioids or with previous extended use of opioids were excluded. Two orthopaedic surgeons performed ACLR and determined the use of a hamstring or bone-patellar tendon-bone autograft. For postoperative pain management, patients were prescribed 40 tablets of hydrocodone/acetaminophen 5/325 mg. Patients were instructed to document daily pill consumption and side effects through a daily log for 6 weeks. Patients completed the American Pain Society Patient Outcome Questionnaire at the end of weeks 1 and 6.

Results:

One hundred three patients were enrolled, with age: 12.5 to 18.9 years (mean 16.2 y ± 1.3), weight: 41.3 to 113.6 kg (mean 72.4 kg ± 17.2), and body mass index: 17.8 to 40.1 (mean 25.9 ± 4.9). Sixty-nine patients received a hamstring autograft, and 34 received a bone-patellar tendon-bone autograft. Fifty-six received additional meniscal procedures. The median number of postoperative opioids taken by patients was 17 (range 0 to 40). No notable differences were found in total pill consumption with regard to age, weight, body mass index, sex, block type, autograft type, or meniscal treatment at 1 week post-op or 6 weeks post-op. No correlation was found between the self-reported “worst pain in the past 24 hours” at the end of the first postoperative week or after 6 weeks (r = 0.112, P = 0.26, and r = 0.093, P = 0.36). No correlation was found between the level of satisfaction with pain treatment and total number of pills taken during the first postoperative week or at the end of 6 weeks (r = −0.090, P = 0.37, and r = −0.172, P = 0.08).

Conclusion:

Patients take most pain medication during the first postoperative week after adolescent ACLR, although patient and surgical variables had no notable influence on pill consumption.

Level of Evidence:

Level IV, case series
Perioperative Clindamycin Use in Penicillin Allergic Patients Is Associated With a Higher Risk of Infection After Shoulder Arthroplasty
Authors: Yian Edward H. , Chan Priscilla H. , Burfeind William , Navarro Ronald A. , Singh Anshuman , Dillon Mark T.
Published: July 2019

Background:

This study determines whether infection rates differ between prophylactic antibiotic use for patients with or without penicillin allergy before shoulder arthroplasty surgery.

Methods:

Seven thousand one hundred forty primary shoulder arthroplasties operated between 2005 and 2016 were identified. We compared deep surgical site infection risk of patients who received perioperative vancomycin alone (6.2%, N = 444) or clindamycin alone (7.1%, N = 508) for penicillin allergy versus patients who received cefazolin alone without penicillin allergy (86.7%, N = 6,188).

Results:

Seventy deep infections (1.2% 5-year cumulative incidence) were observed. The most common organism was Cutibacterium acnes (39.4%, N = 27). Compared with patients treated with cefazolin, infection risk was not different for those treated with vancomycin (hazard ratio = 1.17, 95% confidence interval 0.42 to 3.30, P = 0.8), but a higher risk of infection was identified for those treated with clindamycin alone (hazard ratio = 3.45, 95% confidence interval 1.84 to 6.47, P < 0.001).

Conclusion:

A higher risk of postoperative infection is found after prophylactic use of intravenous clindamycin antibiotic after shoulder arthroplasty. Vancomycin is preferred over clindamycin for patients with penicillin allergy.

Level of Evidence:

III, retrospective cohort study
Enterprise Cybersecurity: Investigating and Detecting Ransomware Infections Using Digital Forensic Techniques
Authors: Thomas Jason E. , Galligher Ryan P. , Thomas Macalah L. , Galligher Gordon C.
Published: July 2019

As the world continues to grow and embrace technology ransomware is growing problem. When ransomware encrypts storage sytems, systems shutdown, productivity grinds to a halt, and serious long-term damage takes place. As this is a known problem many firms have developed functionality to address ransomware issues in key security technologies such as intrusion protection systems. Many firms, especially smaller ones, may not have access to these technologies or perhaps the integration of these technologies might not yet be possible due ot varying circumstances. Regardless, ransomware must still be addressed as cyber miscreants actually target weak and unprotected environment. Even without tools that automate and aggregrate security capability, systems administrators can use systems utilities, applications, and digital forensic techniques to detect ransomware and defend their environemnts. This paper explores the literature regarding ransomware attacks, discusses current issues on how ransomware might be addressed, and presents recommendations to detect and investigate ransomware infection.
Reader-Response Theory and Dialogic Analysis of Gerald Vizenor’s The Heirs of Columbus
Authors: Rashid Ghazala , Kharal Ali Ahmed
Published: July 2019

This article has employed the theory of Bakhtin’s (1895–1975) dialogism, and Wolfgang Iser’s (1926–2007) reader-response theory to examine the socio-political, and historical implications of Gerald Vizenor’s The Heirs of Columbus. The Heirs of Columbus (Heirs) was written to dismantle the historical oppression of Native Americans (NA) throughout the post Columbian era. Dialogism is an umbrella term that creates difference between historical and Native American discourse, providing new passages to comprehend the marginalized silenced other; in other words, it helps create a voice for the vanishing Indian. We have systematically identified the use of dialogic techniques like subversion, carnival, polyphony and heteroglossia in Heirs while, at the same time, analyzing his text through the framework of Iser’s reader-response theory. We have come to the conclusion that Iser’s theory is not enough to analyze Vizenor’s revolutionary text since Vizenor provokes his readers to draw their own conclusions rather than conforming to set of fixed ideals of author.
Code comprehension as a distributed construction of meanings
Authors: Cofta Piotr
Published: July 2019

Code comprehension, a sub-domain of reverse engineering and software maintenance, does not provide useful explanation of common situations where developers, distributed and isolated from each other in time and space, come to a similar understanding of a code. This limits our ability to develop tools to support this popular aspect of code comprehension. This paper investigates this phenomenon from the perspective of sociology, intentionally distancing itself from the dominating psychological approach. The analysis, conducted mostly from the standpoint of social systems theory, highlights that as the construction of meanings is subjective, in the absence of any significant interactions, the dominant influence on the construction of meanings comes from current states of various social systems to which the developer belongs to. Thus, the similarity of meanings (hence a better comprehension of the code) can be achieved by understanding systems to which the developer belongs to and by coordinating their states.
Keywords: computer science, code comprehension, social systems theory, reverse engineering, software maintenance
Construction of a local location program on the basis of “decision tree”
Authors: Duer Przemysław , Duer Stanisław , Wrzesień Paweł
Published: July 2019

The article presents the problems of building a damage location program in a technical facility based on the theory of the “decision tree”. The basis in such a decision-making process is the functional and diagnostic analysis of the tested technical device. The result of this analysis process is a set of basic (functional) elements with a set of weighting factors assigned to them. An algorithm of fault location is developed in the theory of the “decision tree” in the process of locating faults in the tested vehicle power supply system.
Keywords: technical diagnostics, diagnostic reasoning, artificial intelligence.