It has been proposed that strand exchange is reversible and that accumulation of products depends on their stability, which in turn is enhanced by correct nucleotide pairing [7, 8, 17] . Mismatch bubbles close to the position of strand exchange either retard ligation or promote cleavage [18] . If resolution of Holliday junctions with limited central mobility (CM1, CM3 and CM5) occurred at the normal cleavage positions, then each product should contain one mismatched base pair. The closer this mismatched bubble is located to the site of Int ligation, the more severe a delay in product accumulation is expected. Indeed, slowest kinetics were seen with the Holliday junction CM5, whereas resolution of CM1 was not negatively affected by the more internally located heterology (Fig. 2) . Although we have not demonstrated that resolutions take place at the normal positions, these results and the transient appearance of unligated resolution products of CM5 and CM3 at early timepoints (data not shown) are consistent with this assumption. The modest impediment to resolution of the CM5 Holliday junction with heterologies at overlap positions 1 and 7 contrasts with the severe block imposed by a heterology at position 7 in recombination reactions [5, 8] . We interpret this difference as reflecting a possibly slower dissociation rate of the more complex recombination machinery, combined with rapid reversibility of a unilaterally blocked reaction. In addition, the Holliday junction substrates are in a higher energy state than duplex DNA, which should favor their resolution.

It has been proposed that strand exchange is reversible and that accumulation of products depends on their stability, which in turn is enhanced by correct nucleotide pairing.

Mismatch bubbles close to the position of strand exchange either retard ligation or promote cleavage.

The modest impediment to resolution of the CM5 Holliday junction with heterologies at overlap positions 1 and 7 contrasts with the severe block imposed by a heterology at position 7 in recombination reactions.


Central mobility Holliday junctions 3 2 P-labeled synthetic Holliday junctions were constructed, in which the mobility of the strand crossover was limited to various extents ( Fig. lb and c) . To avoid a contribution to the bias of resolution by phage 'arm' sequences, or by the few base-pair differences among the four canonical core-type Int-binding sites (phage and bacterial), the design of all att sites used in this study was simplified to contain only the seven base-pair overlap region, flanked by the phage core-type Int-binding sites, C on the left and C' on the right. To confine branch migration to the overlap region, we constructed a Holliday junction containing a single base-pair change in the C site of arm 3, immediately to the left of position 1, and a single base pair change in the C' site of arm 4, immediately to the right of position 7. Top-strand and bottom-strand resolution of this Holliday junction is just as efficient as that of the parental Holliday junction, which has 32 base pairs of central homology (data not shown). This is consistent with previous studies showing that sequence changes located outside the seven base-pair overlap region in partner att sites do not interfere with normal recombination reactions [6, 9, 15] .

This is consistent with previous studies showing that sequence changes located outside the seven base-pair overlap region in partner att sites do not interfere with normal recombination reactions.


Acute HIV infection (AHI) is the period just following HIV infection when, due to a lack of an immediate immune response, the viral burden is dramatically high before receding to a lower set point [1] . During AHI, the HIV-transmission risk is sharply elevated, and up to 40 % of new HIV infections are attributed to transmission during this brief period of time [2] . Previous research has demonstrated that some individuals diagnosed with AHI continue to engage in sexual activity, including unprotected sex, suggesting that interventions beyond post-test counseling are needed to reduce forward transmission [3, 4] . Currently, no guidelines are available on the prevention of forward transmission of HIV during AHI and no behavioral interventions for individuals with AHI have been evaluated and published, to our knowledge.

Acute HIV infection (AHI) is the period just following HIV infection when, due to a lack of an immediate immune response, the viral burden is dramatically high before receding to a lower set point.

During AHI, the HIV-transmission risk is sharply elevated, and up to 40 % of new HIV infections are attributed to transmission during this brief period of time.

Previous research has demonstrated that some individuals diagnosed with AHI continue to engage in sexual activity, including unprotected sex, suggesting that interventions beyond post-test counseling are needed to reduce forward transmission.


Enhanced RSA performance after post-dynamic stretching could be attributed by an enhanced musculotendinous unit (MTU) stiffness [8] . The gain in flexibility have been primary attributed by decreased of musculotendinous unit (MTU) stiffness [21] . The key attributes of dynamic stretching include enhanced motor unit excitability and improved kinaesthetic sense, leading to improve proprioception and pre-activation [22] .

Enhanced RSA performance after post-dynamic stretching could be attributed by an enhanced musculotendinous unit (MTU) stiffness.

The gain in flexibility have been primary attributed by decreased of musculotendinous unit (MTU) stiffness.

The key attributes of dynamic stretching include enhanced motor unit excitability and improved kinaesthetic sense, leading to improve proprioception and pre-activation.


Saliva has been widely used in swine as a diagnostic sample to monitor disease status and metabolic state [14] . Metabolomic studies involving cattle have utilized milk, rumen fluid, urine, serum, and plasma to evaluate the presence of ketosis, heat stress, odor generation, feed digestion, and transition time in dairy cattle [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] . One study focused on differences in metabolomic profiles between young dairy calves with acute bronchopneumonia and normal contemporaries [20] . Plasma was collected from these calves and NMR was utilized to detect differences between the two groups. These groups had two distinctly different and distinguishable metabolic fingerprints using both water soluble and lipid extracts. Alterations in various metabolites were meaningful for pathogenic mechanisms of calf bronchopneumonia.

Saliva has been widely used in swine as a diagnostic sample to monitor disease status and metabolic state.

Metabolomic studies involving cattle have utilized milk, rumen fluid, urine, serum, and plasma to evaluate the presence of ketosis, heat stress, odor generation, feed digestion, and transition time in dairy cattle.

One study focused on differences in metabolomic profiles between young dairy calves with acute bronchopneumonia and normal contemporaries.


A recent review of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the main proteomic techniques used in human and animal studies is published [13] . These techniques included liquid or gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/MS), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). GC-MS gives the best overall view of primary metabolism in a biological system. The majority of metabolites found in the GC-MS data are lower molecular weight, primary metabolites, and those from core metabolic processes including amino acid metabolism, fatty acid metabolism, tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, and glycolysis.

A recent review of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the main proteomic techniques used in human and animal studies is published.


Recently, interest has grown in the identification of metabolic markers for various disease conditions in cattle using metabolomics. Metabolomics (proteomics) is the study of either primary or secondary metabolites of a biological system and their changes to better understand system responses to disease and other influences or manipulations on that biological system [13, 14] . Body fluids are composed of various electrolytes, hormones, and especially its proteome that may contain information about feeding status, nutritional requirement, and adaptations to diet and environment, and also about the health status of the animal. Biological fluids, oral fluids, serum, and plasma can be harvested and analyzed to map changes to cellular biology to better understand the effect that outside factors have on a biological system.

Metabolomics (proteomics) is the study of either primary or secondary metabolites of a biological system and their changes to better understand system responses to disease and other influences or manipulations on that biological system.


Until now the relationship between the variations of regional EAAM and polar motion excitation functions has not been known so well as the relationship between the variations of global or hemispheric EAAM excitation functions and the Earth's rotation, although the equatorial components v 1 and v 2 of some regional EAAM excitation functions were determined in the past (Salstein and Rosen, 1989; Nastula, 1995b) . To derive such data access to a huge amount of grid point data is necessary. The analysis of the regional EAAM excitation functions has shown that their pressure components, computed over dierent Earth surface regions, can be useful in studies of regional contributions to global phenomena. For example, strong variations of surface pressure found over the North Atlantic and North Paci®c, lead to the conclusion that these areas are important in studies of polar motion variations over intraseasonal time scales (Salstein and Rosen, 1989) .

Until now the relationship between the variations of regional EAAM and polar motion excitation functions has not been known so well as the relationship between the variations of global or hemispheric EAAM excitation functions and the Earth's rotation, although the equatorial components v 1 and v 2 of some regional EAAM excitation functions were determined in the past.

For example, strong variations of surface pressure found over the North Atlantic and North Paci®c, lead to the conclusion that these areas are important in studies of polar motion variations over intraseasonal time scales.


Microsporidia stromal keratitis has rarely been reported [10] . The clinical diagnosis of stromal microsporidiosis is challenging and it may occur in immunocompetent contact lens wearers [11] . The initial clinical presentation mimics HSV stromal keratitis, and clinical signs vary depending on the stage of disease [6] . Predisposing factors include contaminated water, trauma, or contact with domesticated animals. The diagnosis is confirmed on corneal scrapings or tissue sections. The organisms measure approximately 2 μm × 4 μm, polarize, and stain with acid fast stains.

Microsporidia stromal keratitis has rarely been reported.

The clinical diagnosis of stromal microsporidiosis is challenging and it may occur in immunocompetent contact lens wearers.

The initial clinical presentation mimics HSV stromal keratitis, and clinical signs vary depending on the stage of disease.


A classical synthesis of these compounds involves the condensation of acetophenones and aldehydes to give chalcones. The combination of solvents and long reaction time, costly chemicals / catalyst makes this method environmentally hazardous. This provided the stimulus to synthesize some new chalcones using grindstone technique [25] . In grindstone technique, reaction occurs through generation of local heat by grinding of crystals of substrate and reagent by mortar and pestle. Reactions are initiated by grinding, with the small amount of energy through friction. In some cases, a mixture and reagents turns to a glassy material. Such reaction are simple to handle, reduce pollution, comparatively cheaper to operate and may be regarded as more economical and ecologically favorable procedure in chemistry [26] . Solid-state reaction occurs more efficiently and more selectively than does the solution reaction, since molecules in the crystal are arranged tightly and regularly [27] .

This provided the stimulus to synthesize some new chalcones using grindstone technique.

Such reaction are simple to handle, reduce pollution, comparatively cheaper to operate and may be regarded as more economical and ecologically favorable procedure in chemistry.

Solid-state reaction occurs more efficiently and more selectively than does the solution reaction, since molecules in the crystal are arranged tightly and regularly.


The economic project model presented here is based on our workshop paper about Pair Programming [11] . The results of that workshop paper have been independently replicated and confirmed by Smith and Menzies [14] . Smith and Menzies are motivated by the question whether XP (or other lightweight methods) should be adopted by NASA, or not. We have also included results from our workshop paper about Test-Driven Development [12] .

The economic project model presented here is based on our workshop paper about Pair Programming.

The results of that workshop paper have been independently replicated and confirmed by Smith and Menzies.

We have also included results from our workshop paper about Test-Driven Development.


Lower CSD values represent more alignedor organizedcollagen fascicles; conversely, higher CSD values indicate less organized fascicles. This computational analogue for crossed polarizer imaging has characterized tendon damage in small animal studies [13, 15] . Recent work by our group demonstrated that this measurement has strong intra-and interrater reliability in healthy human tendon [r > 0.71, accepted manuscript].

This computational analogue for crossed polarizer imaging has characterized tendon damage in small animal studies.


In conclusion, young adults who participate in competitive-distance running have structurally different tendons than recreationally-active young adults. These differences do not appear to be correlated with age, sex, BMI, self-reported foot-strike pattern, or years running at the collegiate level. It remains unclear if these measurements of decreased tendon organization predict tendinopathy symptoms; however, trained runners are at an 10-times increased risk of Achilles tendon injuries [16, 37] . The non-invasive imaging technique used to quantify tendon structure can be used to track changes in tendon structure and better characterize the progression of tendinopathy. Prospectively quantifying tendon structure throughout a training season of distance running may identify imaging biomarkers that can predict painful tendinopathy before symptoms manifest. . The measurement ranges (solid) and 95% confidence intervals (dashed) for each group are plotted as well. Runners had 40% less organized, 48% thicker, and 41% less echogenic tendons compared to controls (p < 0.001).

It remains unclear if these measurements of decreased tendon organization predict tendinopathy symptoms; however, trained runners are at an 10-times increased risk of Achilles tendon injuries.


The major concern of multichannel CRN MAC protocols is that the sequential sensing of channels results in wastage of energy and time for SUs. In practical implementation, we also have to account for delays in channel switching and TX/RX mode switching apart from channel sensing time. Thus, the secondary network throughput can be improved if SU uses Channel Selection Algorithm (CSA) that finds unoccupied channels by monitoring a smaller subset of channels based on a priori probability of their idleness. In most of the existing literature, the channel occupancy pattern of PU is modelled either as two state Discrete Time Markov Chain (DTMC) or as exponential ON-OFF distribution [3] . The researchers have restricted themselves to the above models mostly due to analytical tractability and simplified characterization of problems in CRN. These assumptions might not be valid in all scenarios. In fact, extensive spectrum measurement campaigns suggest heavy-tail distribution as an appropriate fit for PU channel occupancy pattern [3] .

In most of the existing literature, the channel occupancy pattern of PU is modelled either as two state Discrete Time Markov Chain (DTMC) or as exponential ON-OFF distribution.

In fact, extensive spectrum measurement campaigns suggest heavy-tail distribution as an appropriate fit for PU channel occupancy pattern.


From the results, The MIC values of the selected plants extracts against Gram positive and Gram negative microbial pathogens were ranged from 100 to 500 μg/mL. The results indicated that the lowest MIC value (100 μg/ml) of the extracts of A. lividus was against S. aureus, K. pneumoniae and P. aeroginosa. MIC value was comparatively higher (500 μg/ml) against uropathogenic bacteria E. faecalis. The activity of the extracts against the Gram negative bacteria was interesting, especially, the extracts of C. colocynthis documented the lowest MIC (100 μg/mL) was recorded against P. aeruginosa and the highest MIC (250 μg/mL) was recorded against K. [29] . The present study confirmed that the Gram positive bacteria are more susceptible to all the tested extracts as they have a susceptible cell wall layer [30] . The urinary infection causing K. pneumoniae, E.coli and P. aeroginosa also revealed moderate activity against all the six extracts, even though the bacteria contains thick cell wall membrane which rarely permit the molecules inside the cells [30] .

The activity of the extracts against the Gram negative bacteria was interesting, especially, the extracts of C. colocynthis documented the lowest MIC (100 μg/mL) was recorded against P. aeruginosa and the highest MIC (250 μg/mL) was recorded against K..

The present study confirmed that the Gram positive bacteria are more susceptible to all the tested extracts as they have a susceptible cell wall layer.

The urinary infection causing K. pneumoniae, E.coli and P. aeroginosa also revealed moderate activity against all the six extracts, even though the bacteria contains thick cell wall membrane which rarely permit the molecules inside the cells.


Novel active lead molecules recovered from different medicinal plants throughout the world create the foundation for the development of new antibiotic or the therapeutic products for the treatment of infectious disease caused by pathogenic microbial strains including bacteria and fungi because of its safe use than the modern synthetic drugs with number of side effects [7] . It is estimated that 80% There antimicrobial mechanism of the extracts was determined by evaluating the enzyme concentration in the spent medium. Further, the in vitro antioxidant properties also evaluated.

Novel active lead molecules recovered from different medicinal plants throughout the world create the foundation for the development of new antibiotic or the therapeutic products for the treatment of infectious disease caused by pathogenic microbial strains including bacteria and fungi because of its safe use than the modern synthetic drugs with number of side effects.


There is considerable interest in the reduction of skin friction in turbulent boundary layers (TBL) of liquid flows. In general, skin-friction reduction can be achieved by a change of fluid characteristics or via morphological features (Bushnell & Moore 1991) . One example of the former approach is introducing a gas layer with a lower kinematic viscosity near the wall (Ceccio 2010) . For water flows, the reduction of fluid viscosity can also be readily achieved by wall heating, since the viscosity of common liquids decreases with increasing temperature. However, the effects of the gradual change of the viscosity, i.e. viscosity stratification, on boundary layer turbulence and in turn on drag are not clear. Therefore, the present study aims to examine the mechanics of skin-friction and turbulence modification in response to wall heating of turbulent boundary layers with temperature-dependent viscosity.

In general, skin-friction reduction can be achieved by a change of fluid characteristics or via morphological features.

One example of the former approach is introducing a gas layer with a lower kinematic viscosity near the wall.


An ideal combination of both methodologies could be achieved by performing heteroduplex analysis on automated capillary electrophoresis (CE-HDA), therefore making the most of the ability to tease out the clonal products of the former with the enhanced sensitivity and automation of the latter. In order to achieve this, PCR products need to be subjected to heteroduplex formation followed by CE analysis with non-denaturing polymer at low temperatures (20°C to 30°C) [14] [15] [16] [17] . Alternatively, PCR products can be subjected to full denaturation in formamide to obtain single-strand DNA products that can also be run on CE with nondenaturing polymer at low temperatures (20°C to 30°C). In this latter strategy, called CE-single-strand conformation analysis (CE-SSCA), the PCR products run exclusively based on conformation (i.e. DNA sequence) [18, 19] . Therefore, the polyclonal background containing multiple gene rearrangements of different sequences is dispersed across the electrophoretic range, leaving clonal PCR products to be detected as distinct peaks of variable size, depending on their conformation.

In order to achieve this, PCR products need to be subjected to heteroduplex formation followed by CE analysis with non-denaturing polymer at low temperatures (20°C to 30°C).

In this latter strategy, called CE-single-strand conformation analysis (CE-SSCA), the PCR products run exclusively based on conformation (i.e. DNA sequence).


Over the past few decades, an increasing number of manufacturing companies have undertaken various environmental strategies to enhance resource utilization and to reduce waste generation, such as energy efficiency, 3R strategy (reduce, reuse, recycle), waste minimization, resource efficiency, and material efficiency. Unlike other environmental strategies, the material efficiency strategy emphasizes the reduction of material intake, while, at the same time, minimizes the generation of industrial waste and the environmental impact. For example, manufacturers using green materials emphasize product light weighting and product design for longer life [1] [2] [3] . These practices can contribute to the implementation of material efficiency in manufacturing. Although there is a growing trend in material efficiency, its implementation and practice are still limited for various reasons [4, 5] . One such reason is the existence of barriers that hinder the implementation of this strategy, which could then result in manufacturers being unable to optimize the use of their raw materials and improve their business performance. Thus, by identifying and understanding these barriers, manufacturers can undertake appropriate countermeasures to optimize their raw material usage easily and effectively [6] .

For example, manufacturers using green materials emphasize product light weighting and product design for longer life.

Although there is a growing trend in material efficiency, its implementation and practice are still limited for various reasons.

Thus, by identifying and understanding these barriers, manufacturers can undertake appropriate countermeasures to optimize their raw material usage easily and effectively.


Mild steel is extensively used in industries for various applications including construction of tanks, gas cylinders, pipelines, heat exchangers among others due to its excellent mechanical strength and relatively low cost. Many industrial processes involve the use of acid solutions and other chemical substances that constitute aggressive media for steel corrosion [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] . As a result, researches on corrosion inhibition of mild steel are of considerable interest due to the importance of steel in industrial and/or structural applications.

Many industrial processes involve the use of acid solutions and other chemical substances that constitute aggressive media for steel corrosion.


While internet-based treatment methods reduce discomfort and anxiety of chronic pain patients, there are disadvantages as well. A main concern for this method is the unknown source of advice for online webpages and apps [26] . Based on the lack of designer credentials, patients may be receiving input from an untrustworthy source which may negatively impact their progress [9] . Another disadvantage is the lack of a standardized pain management scales, such as Visual Analogue scale, Face Rating Scale, and Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire. By not standardizing the patient's pain, treatment outcomes cannot be successfully quantified. Furthermore, additional, more robust studies are necessary to fully vet the validity of the utilization of specific apps for the treatment of chronic pain [27] .

A main concern for this method is the unknown source of advice for online webpages and apps.

Based on the lack of designer credentials, patients may be receiving input from an untrustworthy source which may negatively impact their progress.

Furthermore, additional, more robust studies are necessary to fully vet the validity of the utilization of specific apps for the treatment of chronic pain.


To remedy this issue, Simplified Models have been developed as a superior alternative that retain some of the desirable features of the EFTs (simple generic descriptions that approximate the relevant phenomenology of a broad spectrum of UV complete models) while remaining valid at higher energy scales. They do this through the explicit introduction of a particle that mediates the interactions of DM with SM fermions. The benchmark simplified models, outlined in the report of the LHC DM Forum (DMF), involve fermionic dark matter interacting via the exchange of a neutral spin-0 s-channel mediator, a neutral spin-1 s-channel mediator, or a charged spin-0 t-channel mediator [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] .

The benchmark simplified models, outlined in the report of the LHC DM Forum (DMF), involve fermionic dark matter interacting via the exchange of a neutral spin-0 s-channel mediator, a neutral spin-1 s-channel mediator, or a charged spin-0 t-channel mediator.


For scalar mediator models, indirect detection signals are expected to be too small to provide interesting constraints, as all the DM annihilation modes are p-wave suppressed by a factor of v 2 ∼ 10 −6 in the present universe (The p-wave suppression applies to both the χχ → f f annihilation via a scalar mediator, and also the χχ → SS annihilation to a pair of scalars [42] ). Note, though, that p-wave processes may play a role at freezeout where the v 2 suppression factor is much less severe. Even so, it will be difficult to obtain the correct relic density in the SM Higgs + singlet model, except perhaps on resonance. The less restrictive 2HDM+S model allows more freedom to reproduce the correct relic density, either via an s-channel resonance in χχ → f f (i.e. 2m χ m S , where m S is the mass of one of the mixed scalar states) or via annihilation into the scalars. Of course, adding additional particles into which the DM can efficiently annihilate, and which ultimately decay to the SM, is a way one can always fix the relic density, albeit at the expense of simplicity.

For scalar mediator models, indirect detection signals are expected to be too small to provide interesting constraints, as all the DM annihilation modes are p-wave suppressed by a factor of v 2 ∼ 10 −6 in the present universe (The p-wave suppression applies to both the χχ → f f annihilation via a scalar mediator, and also the χχ → SS annihilation to a pair of scalars).


Due to the vastness of available idea generation techniques, a systematic comparison of complete techniques is not feasible nor an efficient approach. This study uses a systematic method to efficiently study a number of idea generation techniques by dissecting a set of methods into key factors or parameters and using a design of experiments (DOE) approach to quickly identify the effects of these key factors. By understanding the factors or parameters that can be varied to create idea generation methods, new and better methods can be developed. This type of approach has been recommended previously [19] .

This type of approach has been recommended previously.


The 21-cm observations suffer from one fundamental problem, namely that it is completely insensitive to modes which vary slowly along the line of sight (that is low k modes), because these are perfectly degenerate with foregrounds which are orders of magnitude brighter that the signal [10] [11] [12] [13] . This effect alone severely limits the usefulness of 21-cm observations for cross-correlations with tracers that have wide kernels in the radial directions. This is in particular true for cross-correlations with the cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing reconstructions and shear field measured by the photometric galaxy surveys, such as that coming from LSST. Cross-correlations with CMB would allow us to use the 21-cm observations and CMB observations in conjunction to put the strongest limits on modified gravity by measuring growth. Cross-correlations with spectroscopic galaxies would allow us to characterize the source redshift of galaxy samples used for weak-lensing measurements, one of the main optical weak lensing systematics. Moreover, the foreground wedge (discussed below) can render further regions of the k-space impotent for cosmological analysis [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] . The foreground wedge is not as fundamental as the low k foreground contamination, because it only results as a consequence of an imperfect instrument calibration rather than being a fundamental astrophysical bane. Nevertheless, it is a data cut that will likely be necessary at least in the first iterations of data analysis from the upcoming surveys.

The 21-cm observations suffer from one fundamental problem, namely that it is completely insensitive to modes which vary slowly along the line of sight (that is low k modes), because these are perfectly degenerate with foregrounds which are orders of magnitude brighter that the signal.

Moreover, the foreground wedge (discussed below) can render further regions of the k-space impotent for cosmological analysis.


In section IV we search the tube in Dp-brane background [17] . We show that the possible stable tubes are the bound states of (mD0, D2), (nF c , mD0, D2), and (nF s , mD0, D2) which are in the D6-brane background. Especially, we also show that when a BPS (nF s , mD0, D2)-tubes, which is supported against collapse by the angular momentum in flat space, is put into the D2-brane or D4-brane curved background, it will become metastable or unstable.

In section IV we search the tube in Dp-brane background.


In recent years there has been a greater appreciation of the inter-relationship between teaching and research in Higher Education and it is argued that we should "move beyond the tired old teaching versus research debate" (Boyer, 1990) . In part this progression reflects a greater awareness and acceptance of research informed practice (Elton, 2001; Jenkins, Breen, Lindsay, & Brew, 2003) . Academics may develop a number of strategies to promote the integration of teaching and research. For example, supervision of dissertations may lead to publication and teaching may be based within a particular subject specialism.

In recent years there has been a greater appreciation of the inter-relationship between teaching and research in Higher Education and it is argued that we should "move beyond the tired old teaching versus research debate".

In part this progression reflects a greater awareness and acceptance of research informed practice.


On the other hand, candidates at postgraduate level have limited choices for the selection of supervisors in their specific field of research or area of interest. Sometimes students feel themselves bound to compromise to work on an area of research other than their field or interest. Otherwise during research they may have to face issues specifically related to the intellectual support from their supervisors (Ives & Rowley, 2005) .

Otherwise during research they may have to face issues specifically related to the intellectual support from their supervisors.


Another issue is the allocation of supervisor which is done by the decision of departmental doctoral program committees' members. In the latter case, candidates are bound to work with a supervisor probably with whom they have a mismatch of academic expertise or personality traits. Such types of situations can also influence the supervision experiences of supervisees regarding their different supervision needs. However, these practices vary from one institution to other institution and within one institution are also not practiced uniformly (Saleem, 2014) .

However, these practices vary from one institution to other institution and within one institution are also not practiced uniformly.


Some institutions are found eager to enroll the higher degree candidates but do not schedule appropriate time from the teaching loads of their staff members for supervision. Consequently, supervision is expected as a sideline activity in supervisors' own research time (Connell, 1985) . The situation is still true in the context of Pakistan where the teaching workload is not scheduled according to the supervision workload. Traditionally, the supervision workload of teachers is not considered while scheduling their teaching hours and institutional responsibilities. However, it consumes a considerable time of academics who supervise at postgraduate level.

Consequently, supervision is expected as a sideline activity in supervisors' own research time.


Hence, in managing this workload, sometimes the one important element of "quality" in supervising the research is being compromised which is already weak area in the higher education institutions of Pakistan (Virk, 2003) . Further, the increase in enrollment has been compounded with broadening of the disciplines and simultaneously the research areas in which supervisors are expected to provide supervision support and expertise. This has doubled the responsibility of supervisors in case when they have to supervise a supervisee other than their specialized field of research that definitely consumes more time of supervisors as compared to time that needs to supervise the supervisees from the same discipline and research area.

Hence, in managing this workload, sometimes the one important element of "quality" in supervising the research is being compromised which is already weak area in the higher education institutions of Pakistan.


Zinc, iron, and/or vitamin A, C, and E supplementation in young, malnourished or diseased children in developing countries reduces respiratory infection morbidity and helps counter impaired immunity [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] . The influence of mixed micronutrient supplementation on immune function and incidence of upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) in healthy children is largely unstudied [32] . Children suffer from a high rate of URTI, and the physiologic stress of rapid growth and suboptimal dietary quality may provide room for immune benefit through micronutrient supplementation [3] . We hypothesized that school-aged children would experience improvements in innate and adaptive immune function and a reduction in URTI during two winter months of supplementation with a mixture of immune-related micronutrients administered through a fortified breakfast cereal.

Zinc, iron, and/or vitamin A, C, and E supplementation in young, malnourished or diseased children in developing countries reduces respiratory infection morbidity and helps counter impaired immunity.

The influence of mixed micronutrient supplementation on immune function and incidence of upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) in healthy children is largely unstudied.

Children suffer from a high rate of URTI, and the physiologic stress of rapid growth and suboptimal dietary quality may provide room for immune benefit through micronutrient supplementation.


This argument is particularly relevant for resource-exporting countries within the context of the "Dutch disease" literature (Sachs and Warner 2000) . Basically, the argument goes, the resource sector brings hard currency into the country, reducing the incentive for domestic producers to make tradable goods because such goods become cheaper to purchase in the world market. The economy, in turn, reduces to extraction of natural resources and production of non-tradable services, and overall economic growth declines as neither sector creates demand for research and development. The central bank can react by buying up part of the currency inflow to prevent appreciation of the real exchange rate and stimulate production of finished goods that can compete with imports. While this strategy is clearly inferior to such fiscal measures as corrective taxation, it seems to offer a second-best option for a developing country unable to administer a discriminatory taxation scheme.

This argument is particularly relevant for resource-exporting countries within the context of the "Dutch disease" literature.


Image cytometry, the measurement of cell properties from microscopy images, has become an important tool for biological research. In particular, high-throughput experiments rely on automatic processing of images to deal with the large amount of data they produce [3] . A fundamental operation in cell-image analysis is identifying individual cell boundaries. This is often difficult because there are many different staining protocols, leading to dramatically different appearances for cells. Moreover, the difference between cell interior and cell border may not be very pronounced (see Figures 1 and 2 ). Identification of individual cells allows much more powerful analysis of the resulting data than methods that provide only mean measurements for cell populations. For example, expression data from a protein interaction chip cannot differentiate a bimodal population and a unimodal population if they have the same mean expression levels. Measurements of individual cells prevents conflation of subpopulations.

In particular, high-throughput experiments rely on automatic processing of images to deal with the large amount of data they produce.


The time varying nature of the load inertia and spatial distribution of load throughout the system makes the load inertia estimation quite challenging. Due to such difficulties, as well as a low contribution from load inertia in large power systems, it has been customary to assume fixed values for load inertia or just to neglect the effect of load in ROCOF calculations (Concordia and Ihara, 1982) . We will examine in this paper a white-box method for load inertia estimation through the use of time domain data of system frequency and generator output power, taking the power system of Ireland as a study case. As the method requires estimates of the overall contribution to system inertia from synchronous generators, a grey-box estimation of unit inertia is presented which can be invoked to verify the turbine-generator inertial constants. DC interconnector power as well as inertial contribution from FSIG-based wind turbines is taken into account. Since it can be difficult to obtain synchronized data for all units at sufficient resolution and accuracy, the effects of lower sampling rates, time shifting and averaging of data is examined and discussed using a simple test system. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 principles of system modelling and estimation, and applications to load modelling in power systems are reviewed. Section 3 presents a white-box estimation method for load inertia, while its application to the Irish power system is presented in Section 4. In Section 5 grey-box estimation of generating unit inertia based on time domain sampled data is presented. Section 6 considers the effects of sampling rate, time shifting and averaging estimation errors. Finally, Section 7 concludes this paper.

Due to such difficulties, as well as a low contribution from load inertia in large power systems, it has been customary to assume fixed values for load inertia or just to neglect the effect of load in ROCOF calculations.


With a general trend towards lower carbon emissions in future, renewable energy sources are gaining more interest in electricity markets, with an accelerated growth in wind power, especially in Europe. Consequently, thermal power plants are being displaced by large numbers of variable speed wind turbines with no contribution to overall system stored energy. A greater contribution from DC interconnectors is also more likely, which don't naturally contribute to system overall inertia. As a result, the ROCOF in a system is likely to increase and frequency control strategies could face another limiting factor (Doherty, et al., 2010; Kennedy, et al., 2011) . With variable speed wind turbines, the turbinegenerator inertia is decoupled from the power system, thus further exacerbating the issue of reduced system inertia (Ruttledge and Flynn, 2011) . Moreover, in small and/or isolated power systems, inertia plays a particularly significant role. From the system operational point of view, ensuring adequate system stored energy is becoming more important, implying a need for better strategies and methods regarding precise and fast estimation of generation and load inertia. Going forward with increasing wind power penetration levels, even real-time load inertia estimation may be required to ensure system security.

As a result, the ROCOF in a system is likely to increase and frequency control strategies could face another limiting factor.

With variable speed wind turbines, the turbinegenerator inertia is decoupled from the power system, thus further exacerbating the issue of reduced system inertia.


One of the main tasks of power system operators is to control system frequency excursions from nominal within safety margins to ensure reliable and secure operation and supply to customers (Kundur, 1994) . The sudden loss of a generator will lead to excursions from nominal frequency. For such an event, the total system inertia determines the initial rate of change of frequency (ROCOF) (Chan, et al., 1971) . Historically, the large rotating mass of thermal power units provided the greatest contribution to system inertia; however, other sources of inertia such as hydro units, fixed speed induction generator FSIG-based wind turbines and load inertia also play a role. FSIGs are essentially induction machines operating at a slip frequency higher than the system nominal frequency, with their response to frequency events naturally slower than synchronous generators. This results in a lower effective contribution to system inertia during the initial phase of a disturbance.

One of the main tasks of power system operators is to control system frequency excursions from nominal within safety margins to ensure reliable and secure operation and supply to customers.

For such an event, the total system inertia determines the initial rate of change of frequency (ROCOF).


We work in the analytical framework made possible by Mie's scattering theory [34] . Analytical results for the electric field near a deformed sphere do not exist at present, although certain considerations have been made, e.g., for the change in lasing properties [37, 38] . We will work with the internal and scattered electric laser field as for a spherical droplet whereas all other droplet dynamics take account of deformations to linear order. For the case of a short pulse, this is virtually exact since hydrodynamic motion takes place after the duration of the pulse, while for the case of a trapped droplet it is an approximation, the best such presently available short of direct numerical simulation for which it is harder to keep track of the individual physical effects. In the case of oil-emulsion systems the dielectric contrast is small and the difference in internal diffraction pattern will be modest due to a small deformation, whereas for higher contrast (e.g. water in air) a fully extended theory is certainly desirable and we plan to return to this in future work.

We work in the analytical framework made possible by Mie's scattering theory.

Analytical results for the electric field near a deformed sphere do not exist at present, although certain considerations have been made, e.g., for the change in lasing properties.


The continuous measurements (amount of monitoring block consumed, number of tracks, or proportion of a plate tracked) associated with monitoring block and track plate methods makes them well suited for calculating an index with variance components (Engeman et al. 1998) . With the GI, the number of stations contributing data each day is allowed to vary. Neither stations nor days are assumed to be independent. Thus, me derivation of the variance estimate does not rely on a potentially unrealistic assumption of inde- (Engeman et at. 1998) . The improved sensitivity of a continuous measurement over a binary measurement for detecting population change was evident in our pen and field tests, hi those settings, almost all monitoring block and track plate stations recorded visits regardless of population density. For monitoring blocks, we therefore calculated a binary index based on me proportion of blocks completely consumed. However, blocks were completely consumed on only 13% of occasions in pen tests and 2% of occasions in field tests, thus this method was not sufficiently sensitive to the presence of voles under the tested conditions.

The continuous measurements (amount of monitoring block consumed, number of tracks, or proportion of a plate tracked) associated with monitoring block and track plate methods makes them well suited for calculating an index with variance components.

Thus, me derivation of the variance estimate does not rely on a potentially unrealistic assumption of inde.


There are few reports of using non-toxic bait consumption as an index of rodent populations, although consumption of toxic bait has often been used to index rodent population declines during baiting programs (Cruz and Cruz 1987; Taylor and Thomas 1993) . A number of commercial formulations of non-toxic monitoring blocks are available (e.g. Detex Blox®, Bell Labs, Inc.), but marketed mainly for use in structural pest-control applications. These blocks are the non-toxic versions of baits and are used to detect rodent populations and to determine the potential acceptance of the toxic bait.

There are few reports of using non-toxic bait consumption as an index of rodent populations, although consumption of toxic bait has often been used to index rodent population declines during baiting programs.


As for electromagnetic emission for WCS, there are lots of research mainly focused on reducing the EMF which will exposure to humans. Different power levels of WCS have been researched to analyze the distribution characteristics of EMF. Some kinds of method were proposed to reduce magnetic field exposure, including adding a shield plate, optimizing coils shape and ferrite arrangement, matching impedance and adding a reverse magnetic field [14] [15] [16] [17] . The fast switching of these power semiconductor devices such as MOSFET used in invertor of WCS is controlled by PWM, as result in generation of conducted EMI and low power quality. In addition some radiated EMI due to conducted-EMI may be generated to influence or even damage some onboard components such as sensors, analog devices, wireless devices of EVs, etc. Therefore, it is very significant to predict and suppress the conducted-EMI for WCS.

Some kinds of method were proposed to reduce magnetic field exposure, including adding a shield plate, optimizing coils shape and ferrite arrangement, matching impedance and adding a reverse magnetic field.


Owing to the rapid depletion of fossil fuels and the government policy of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, more and more distributed generation (DG) plants are being developed, especially plants that exploit renewable energy such as wind turbines and photovoltaic (PV) plants. These are usually connected to low-voltage distribution lines. As the penetration and capacities of DG units increase, the power converters associated with these plants are required to operate more efficiently and effectively in order to maintain high power quality and dynamic stability [1] [2] [3] . To fulfill these requirements, advanced control techniques are essential.

As the penetration and capacities of DG units increase, the power converters associated with these plants are required to operate more efficiently and effectively in order to maintain high power quality and dynamic stability.


Attention has also been paid to the control of grid-connected inverters. Direct power control (DPC), derived from direct torque control of an AC machine, has become one of the most popular control strategies for grid-connected inverters because of its simplicity and excellent dynamic response. However, high power ripple is the main drawback of the conventional switching-table-based DPC (STDPC), leading to distorted line currents [14] . Recently some improved DPC methods have been developed for better performance [15] [16] [17] . Even more recently predictive control techniques have become an attractive alternative for the control of power converters.

However, high power ripple is the main drawback of the conventional switching-table-based DPC (STDPC), leading to distorted line currents.

Recently some improved DPC methods have been developed for better performance.


In a DG system, there are generally two operation modes: the islanded mode and the grid-connected mode. In the islanded mode, the DG sources and the local loads form an isolated small power system, where the loads are totally powered by the DG units. In this case, the inverters should be able to provide a stable and high quality voltage for the local loads. In addition, these DG units should be able to achieve grid synchronisation and re-connection. A basic requirement here is that the transfer process should be as fast as possible, and not have any negative effect on the utility grid or the DG itself [4, 5] . After grid connection, the DGs should flexibly regulate active and reactive powers injected into the grid. They could also be used to provide voltage support and power quality improvement at the low voltage distribution level [6, 7] .

A basic requirement here is that the transfer process should be as fast as possible, and not have any negative effect on the utility grid or the DG itself.

They could also be used to provide voltage support and power quality improvement at the low voltage distribution level.


The study was conducted at the Organization for Tropical Studies' La Selva Biological Station in the humid tropical lowlands of northeastern Costa Rica (10026'N, 84000'W). The average temperature is 260C and the mean annual rainfall is 3841 mm (Clark & Clark 1991) . Data were gathered on 14-month-old trees growing in three plantations (0.12 ha each) located on an 8-ha research site. All trees showed signs of having been attacked at least once by H. grandella. Forty-five trees were randomly selected from the subset of trees that met the following criteria: not currently under attack by H. grandella; 1.3 to 2.2 m tall; 14 to 31 leaves; and 3.9 to 7.9 cm basal diameter.

The average temperature is 260C and the mean annual rainfall is 3841 mm.


The UK Biobank is a large-scale study with all data accessible to researchers worldwide, and will eventually consist of CMR images from 100,000 subjects [11] . To maximize the research value of this and other similar datasets, automatic quality assessment tools are essential. One specific challenge in CMR is motion-related artefacts such as mistriggering, arrhythmia and breathing artefacts. These can result in temporal and/or spatial blurring of the images, which makes subsequent processing difficult [3] . For example, this type of artefact can lead to erroneous quantification of left ventricular (LV) volumes, which is an important indicator for cardiac functional assessment. Examples of a good quality image and an image with blurring motion artefacts are shown in Fig.1a-b for a short-axis view CINE CMR scan.

The UK Biobank is a large-scale study with all data accessible to researchers worldwide, and will eventually consist of CMR images from 100,000 subjects.

These can result in temporal and/or spatial blurring of the images, which makes subsequent processing difficult.


The purpose of this paper is to consider only one but important notion of model theory, namely, the notion of type. The model theoretic notion of type is well known [1] . Such a type is denoted in the paper by MT-type. MTtype is related to one-sorted logics. On the other hand, the ideas of universal logical geometry give rise to logically-geometric types (LG-types). This notion is related to multi-sorted logic [12] , [9] . Some of the problems discussed in the literature are the following ones: how are connected algebraically two n-tuples in an algebra whose types coincide and what we can say about two algebras whose types coincide.

The model theoretic notion of type is well known.

MTtype is related to one-sorted logics.

This notion is related to multi-sorted logic.


While the impact of epigenomics on mental health and disease is increasingly recognized, this field still faces a number of challenges due to postmortem tissue heterogeneity, temporal and spatial effects of epigenomic changes, and eventually functional causality. Crucially, differences in DNA methylation in case-control studies can reflect changes in the prevalence of different cell types following from immune activation during the disease process rather than the impact of the disease on cells of primary interest. As a corrective, statistical deconvolution techniques can improve DNA methylation analysis from mixed cell samples [82, 83] .

As a corrective, statistical deconvolution techniques can improve DNA methylation analysis from mixed cell samples.


Striated cells are usually confined to gill plates with lamellar septa (Fig. 19) and then restricted to areas near the excurrent hemolymph channel and close to the raphe. The striated cells are approximately 5.5 ~tm in height and display modest systems of apical plasmalemreal folds and prominent networks of basal folds. Basal folds penetrate deep into the cytoplasm, and a single mitochondrion typically appears within each fold (Fig. 21) . The folds of neighboring cells interdigitate freely. We have not identified intercellular junctions between the folds, although they have been reported between the folds of comparable cells in other crustaceans (Nakao 1974; Finol and Croghan 1983) .

We have not identified intercellular junctions between the folds, although they have been reported between the folds of comparable cells in other crustaceans.


Lamellae are densely packed in the phyllobranchiate gills of C. maenas. This organizational pattern should maximize the surface area for respiration and ionoregulation, and peripheral dilations o f the gill plates ensure the patency o f interlamellar spaces. The discovery o f gill spines over the excurrent h e m o l y m p h channels was unexpected. Similar structures have not been reported in the gills o f closely related species. Nerves have not been found previously in the gills o f C. maenas, although they have been described in the gills o f the shrimp Penaeus aztecus (Foster and Howse 1978) .

Nerves have not been found previously in the gills o f C. maenas, although they have been described in the gills o f the shrimp Penaeus aztecus.


It was shown by Høegh-Krohn, Landstad and Størmer that a homogeneous space has a finite trace [12] . But the class of quantum homogeneous spaces includes operator algebras of some other types. For instance, S. Wang showed that some type III factors and Cuntz algebras are quantum homogeneous spaces [27] . So there exists compact quantum spaces which are quantum homogeneous space, but not homogeneous. Thus on some compact quantum spaces, namely Cuntz algebra, although there are no enough symmetries to make these spaces to be homogeneous spaces, there are enough quantum symmetries such that these spaces are quantum homogeneous space.

It was shown by Høegh-Krohn, Landstad and Størmer that a homogeneous space has a finite trace.

For instance, S. Wang showed that some type III factors and Cuntz algebras are quantum homogeneous spaces.


The antenna under test (AUT) used here is the so-called Eleven antenna, which is a dual polarized log-periodic folded dipole array with a frequency band of 2-13 GHz (see Fig. 2 ) [17] . The Eleven antenna has eight feeding ports, where four ports for one polarization is marked as ports 1-4. The remaining four ports are for the other polarization. In this paper, only ports1-4 are used. Obviously, these ports can be combined in different ways to form different multi-port antennas. Due to the page limitation, only two configurations (specified in Section II) are measured and studied in this paper. The measurement setup is described in Section III-A, measured embedded radiation efficiencies, correlation coefficients, diversity measures, and ergodic capacities of these two Eleven antenna configurations are formulated and examined in Section III-B. Conclusions are given in Section IV.

The antenna under test (AUT) used here is the so-called Eleven antenna, which is a dual polarized log-periodic folded dipole array with a frequency band of 2-13 GHz (see Fig. 2 ).

In this paper, only ports1-4 are used.


In addition, the acceptance rate of the pharmacists' active recommendations was high across all settings in our study. This rate of acceptance is similar to those found in other pediatric studies [11, 21, 26] . This strengthen the established evidence supporting the confidence of other health care providers have in the significant contribution of pharmacists to improve the quality of patient care in pediatric settings [12, 18, 27, 28] .

This rate of acceptance is similar to those found in other pediatric studies.

This strengthen the established evidence supporting the confidence of other health care providers have in the significant contribution of pharmacists to improve the quality of patient care in pediatric settings.


In this study, the genotypes carrying TaALMT1 alleles V and VI showed the highest RRL while low RRL was observed for genotypes with TaALMT1 alleles I and II (Figure 2 ). This is in agreement with previous reports and could be explained by the higher gene expression, higher malate efflux and, consequently, greater Al tolerance commonly found in genotypes carrying alleles V and VI while the opposite is usually true for genotypes with alleles I and II (Aguilera et al., 2016; Pereira et al., 2015; Raman et al., 2008; Sasaki et al., 2006) . Nevertheless, two cultivars (BRS 208 and Veadeiros) showed the greatest RRL among those carrying inferior TaALMT1 and TaMATE1B alleles and they should be further evaluated for potential mechanisms to cope with Al other than organic acid efflux. Although the insertion in the TaMATE1B promoter showed no clear advantage when detected in genotypes carrying TaALMT1 alleles V and VI, it appears to be beneficial when associated with TaALMT1 allele IV. This allele shows lower repeat of blocks in the promoter and it is associated with lower TaALMT1 expression than alleles V and VI (Sasaki et al., 2006) . This suggests that this result corroborates a recent report showing that the insertion in the TaMATE1B promoter is advantageous if it is associated with an inferior TaALMT1 allele but not with a superior TaALMT1 allele (Han et al., 2016) .

This is in agreement with previous reports and could be explained by the higher gene expression, higher malate efflux and, consequently, greater Al tolerance commonly found in genotypes carrying alleles V and VI while the opposite is usually true for genotypes with alleles I and II.

This allele shows lower repeat of blocks in the promoter and it is associated with lower TaALMT1 expression than alleles V and VI.

This suggests that this result corroborates a recent report showing that the insertion in the TaMATE1B promoter is advantageous if it is associated with an inferior TaALMT1 allele but not with a superior TaALMT1 allele.


Numerous studies aimed at yeast diversity assessments report diverse and often very dissimilar yeast assemblages from various forest soils [8, [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] . The ultimate importance of the environment for development of soil yeasts has been long considered and variability in abiotic parameters explains to some extent observed differences between yeast communities [7, 21, 27, 28] . However, soil yeast communities may vary extremely on a rather small spatial scale, between different forest types or different forest management intensities. For example, recent studies showed that long-term alteration of the native broadleaf vegetation (beech forests) within three UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in Germany substantially changed soil yeast communities [8, 26] . Interestingly, yeast communities analyzed in these studies reflected forest properties even though their diversity and biomass patterns did not depend on basic soil properties such as pH, clay content, total nitrogen, C/N ratio, nitrate, ammonium and plant-available phosphorus concentrations [29] . Although these most common abiotic parameters did not explain the effects of forest management on soil yeasts, abundance patterns of saprotrophic fungi as a whole were significantly related to these soil properties. Besides the environment, nutrition is another important factor for microbial community development. Because the regular presence of large wood logs is typical for unmanaged forests, soil yeasts may rely not on belowground resources alone, but also respond to the activity of wood-inhabiting fungi as they make aboveground carbon stocks available for soil microbes.

Numerous studies aimed at yeast diversity assessments report diverse and often very dissimilar yeast assemblages from various forest soils.

The ultimate importance of the environment for development of soil yeasts has been long considered and variability in abiotic parameters explains to some extent observed differences between yeast communities.

For example, recent studies showed that long-term alteration of the native broadleaf vegetation (beech forests) within three UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in Germany substantially changed soil yeast communities.

Interestingly, yeast communities analyzed in these studies reflected forest properties even though their diversity and biomass patterns did not depend on basic soil properties such as pH, clay content, total nitrogen, C/N ratio, nitrate, ammonium and plant-available phosphorus concentrations.


In forests, organic carbon acting as nutrient source for soil-borne microbes originates mainly from plants in form of exudates or dead organic matter, like litter or entire wood logs [15] . Wood and litter deposits are a major pool of organic carbon and are an essential element for forest biodiversity, providing resources or habitats for wide groups of organisms [2, [15] [16] [17] [18] . A recent meta-analysis showed negative effects of forest management on different taxonomical groups [19] . One explanation for this effect is that natural disturbances of vegetation and soil cover in unmanaged forests provide a multitude of diverse habitats of different scales and properties. In contrast, managed forests are characterized by low spatial heterogeneity and complexity that also affects biodiversity parameters [20] . For instance, the presence of large wood logs of different decay stages is an essential factor supporting higher diversity of substrate dependent taxa such as bryophytes, lichens and wood-inhabiting fungi [18, 19] . Similar trends towards alteration of original community by forest management may be more common in nature and observed for other saprobic microorganisms that do not depend directly on the substrate.

In forests, organic carbon acting as nutrient source for soil-borne microbes originates mainly from plants in form of exudates or dead organic matter, like litter or entire wood logs.

Wood and litter deposits are a major pool of organic carbon and are an essential element for forest biodiversity, providing resources or habitats for wide groups of organisms.

A recent meta-analysis showed negative effects of forest management on different taxonomical groups.

In contrast, managed forests are characterized by low spatial heterogeneity and complexity that also affects biodiversity parameters.

For instance, the presence of large wood logs of different decay stages is an essential factor supporting higher diversity of substrate dependent taxa such as bryophytes, lichens and wood-inhabiting fungi.


In the first case, the value of health is determined by comparing the expected health gains of a health intervention to the health that is likely forgone elsewhere due to the displacement of activities within a fixed budget. This approach is also labelled as adopting a health care perspective, focussing only (or primarily) on costs to the health care sector and the health effects of an intervention. Cost-effectiveness analyses may suffice to prioritize healthcare in this case, operating under an exogenous budget constraint that is imposed by a higher authority (Claxton et al., 2010; 2011) . In general, the decision rule then indicates that only when the health gained exceeds the health forgone, a new intervention should be adopted. It is not possible within this framework to judge whether the budget itself has been set appropriately.

Cost-effectiveness analyses may suffice to prioritize healthcare in this case, operating under an exogenous budget constraint that is imposed by a higher authority.


This will enable us to test a proposal for the combinatorial expansion of a class of W N conformal blocks [11] . The proposed expansion, which we will summarize, is given for all values of c, assuming that all involved fields except two of them are almost fully degenerate. This assumption eliminates the problem of the infinite fusion multiplicities. We will compare our results for large c conformal blocks of that class, with the large c limit of the combinatorial expansion. The two expansions agree up to the order z 5 , which supports the validity of the proposed combinatorial expansion.

This will enable us to test a proposal for the combinatorial expansion of a class of W N conformal blocks.


As it is already routinely applied to many scientific fields, 3D scanning technology, including laser scanning and white light scanning, are now being used to explore applications in medicine. In healthcare, the technology has also been used in development of prostheses [1] . Translated scan data can be immediately usable in computer aided design software, improving the speed of development of prosthesis. One of the limitations of laser scanning technology is that it is only able to capture and reconstruct the outer surface of the body, therefore the scans do not have any internal structure and physical properties regarding skeleton, skin or soft tissues of the scanned human body, unless it is combined with cadaveric dissection [2] .

In healthcare, the technology has also been used in development of prostheses.

One of the limitations of laser scanning technology is that it is only able to capture and reconstruct the outer surface of the body, therefore the scans do not have any internal structure and physical properties regarding skeleton, skin or soft tissues of the scanned human body, unless it is combined with cadaveric dissection.


SIFT algorithm is a feature selection technique which depends on the appearance of the object at specific interest points. These interest points are not changed by image scale or rotation. The technique is robust to illumination change, to noise on image, and to minor changes in the image viewpoint (Bastanlar et al., 2010; Geng and Jiang, 2009) .

The technique is robust to illumination change, to noise on image, and to minor changes in the image viewpoint.


The Adaptive Market Hypothesis (AMH) emerged in the early 2000s as a middle of the road approach between the EMH and the behavioral schools of thoughts. The new school states that investors are intelligent but fallible, and they learn and adapt to dynamic market environments (Lo 2012) . Thus, markets are not efficient at all times but are usually competitive and adaptive, varying in their magnitude of efficiency as the environment and participants vary through time. Like the EMH, the AMH suggests that market participants act in their own interests. However, unlike the EMH, in which it is believed that individuals operate in a stationary and equilibrium market environment, and hence do not make mistake, the AMH holds that individuals make frequent mistakes, but they have the capability to learn from them and adapt their behavior accordingly (Lo 2005) . The AMH explains that adaptation and innovation are driven by competitive forces in the market and that the interaction among competitors is governed by the survival of the richest (natural selection) (Lo 2005) .

The new school states that investors are intelligent but fallible, and they learn and adapt to dynamic market environments.

However, unlike the EMH, in which it is believed that individuals operate in a stationary and equilibrium market environment, and hence do not make mistake, the AMH holds that individuals make frequent mistakes, but they have the capability to learn from them and adapt their behavior accordingly.

The AMH explains that adaptation and innovation are driven by competitive forces in the market and that the interaction among competitors is governed by the survival of the richest (natural selection).


The paper is organized as follow. In section 2, we are going to define the appropriate Green's function which is, later, used to define the operator of which the fixed points are the solutions of our boundary value problem (1) and (2) . The Krasnosel'skii fixed point theorem stated in that section 2 will be applied in section 3 to yield positive solutions for certain intervals of eigenvalues.

The paper is organized as follow.

In section 2, we are going to define the appropriate Green's function which is, later, used to define the operator of which the fixed points are the solutions of our boundary value problem (1) and.


Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. A passive orientation sensing system can enable many new Internetof-Things (IoT) applications ( Figure 1 ). For example, in smarthome environment, it can monitor the rotation and placement of daily objects (e.g., detecting door closure and monitoring activity of a rolling chair). In a supply chain, it can detect the tilt angle of orientation-sensitive cargo and warn the human workers when necessary. Orientation information of products on a conveyor belt can assist robotic arms to pick up an item using proper posture. Likewise, there exist numerous applications in mobile gaming (e.g., guiding the positioning of LEGO pieces) and library management (e.g., detecting upside down books). Existing passive orientation tracking solutions are predominantly based on computer vision [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] . Such systems often require extensive per-object perangle training. They are sensitive to background variation, ambient light condition, and occlusion. Therefore, they are unsuitable for ad-hoc IoT applications.

Abstracting with credit is permitted.

Existing passive orientation tracking solutions are predominantly based on computer vision.


Most of material testing performed earlier on SiC materials in isothermal conditions demonstrated that almost no physical/chemical interaction occurs between the SiC samples and PbLi, providing a special care was taken on purity of PbLi, and providing no dissimilar materials were used in the experiment. For example, specimens of high purity SiC made by CVD showed very low mass change in the temperature range up to 1200 • C using a CVD SiC capsule to prevent dissimilar material interactions [24] . When using a commercial PbLi eutectic alloy with a high oxygen content, no corrosion was observed either, instead a non-uniform oxide layer formed on the SiC surface resulting in the mass gain [25] . Similar conclusions about stable behavior of SiC material in hightemperature PbLi were made more recently based on static testing of samples made of CVD coated SiC f /SiC composite at 700 • C [26] . In the case of dissimilar materials, e.g. the PbLi containing capsule is made of steel, a few experimental studies (unpublished) in a static pool of PbLi suggest that corrosion does occur. Quantitative data are however scarce and need further verification. To our knowledge, no data exist on corrosion of SiC materials in dynamic conditions when the PbLi is flowing.

For example, specimens of high purity SiC made by CVD showed very low mass change in the temperature range up to 1200 • C using a CVD SiC capsule to prevent dissimilar material interactions.

When using a commercial PbLi eutectic alloy with a high oxygen content, no corrosion was observed either, instead a non-uniform oxide layer formed on the SiC surface resulting in the mass gain.

Similar conclusions about stable behavior of SiC material in hightemperature PbLi were made more recently based on static testing of samples made of CVD coated SiC f /SiC composite at 700 • C.


The principal contribution of the present paper is on the extended model allowing for ligand flux at the source end. The simple change from σ 0 = 0 to σ 0 > 0 in the end condition at x = 0 not only made the proof of existence much more difficult (as the monotone method no longer applies directly) but also led to some fundamentally different characterization of the morphogen activities. For instance, it no longer imposes any limitation on the ligand synthesis rate for the existence of steady state behavior (as it should be). A perturbation analysis for low morphogen synthesis rates enabled us to delineate the limitation of System C for modeling the morphogen activities of interest. Approximate analytic solutions for both low and high ligand synthesis rates have been applied to offer insight to issues of interest to the community of developmental biologists [16] .

Approximate analytic solutions for both low and high ligand synthesis rates have been applied to offer insight to issues of interest to the community of developmental biologists.


In earlier cancer chemoprevention studies using ginseng constituents, the aglycon of ginsenosides had a stronger antiproliferative effect than the ginsenosides [19] . Compared with PPT, PPD showed more potent anticancer activity [20] . We hypothesized that the anticancer potential of PPD could be enhanced by structural modification. To synthesize PPD derivatives, we prepared the leading compound, PPD, by hydrolyzing ginsenosides. Taking PPD as the leading compound, we synthesized a series of nine compounds, most with acetyl substitutions (Fig. 2) . The reaction conditions were moderate and the synthesis rates were reasonable. Among the nine compounds, five (compounds 5-9) are novel.

In earlier cancer chemoprevention studies using ginseng constituents, the aglycon of ginsenosides had a stronger antiproliferative effect than the ginsenosides.

Compared with PPT, PPD showed more potent anticancer activity.


Fiber fracture is shown to originate from defects of the bast cell wall [7] . As expected from probabilistic, defect-related fracture, the tensile strength of hemp fibers exhibits a scale effect in that fiber strength increases with the reduction of gauge length [5] . The most prominent defects of hemp fibers are kink bands or dislocations that are local misalignments of cellulose microfibrils in the cell wall [8] [9] [10] . Kink bands can be observed, e.g., by polarized light microscopy, as bright zones crossing most of or the entire fiber diameter and oriented roughly perpendicularly to fiber axis as seen in fig. 1 .

Fiber fracture is shown to originate from defects of the bast cell wall.

As expected from probabilistic, defect-related fracture, the tensile strength of hemp fibers exhibits a scale effect in that fiber strength increases with the reduction of gauge length.

The most prominent defects of hemp fibers are kink bands or dislocations that are local misalignments of cellulose microfibrils in the cell wall.


Natural fiber properties are highly variable, depending on the variety, growth conditions, retting and pre-processing methods and even fiber location in the plant stem. Hemp fiber strength is slightly (but statistically significantly) dependent of the time of growth (increasing from 99 to 114 days of growth, then decreasing again) [5] . Although both flax and hemp fibers extracted from the middle part of the stem exhibit higher strength than those from the top and bottom parts, the effect is almost negligible for hemp [6] . Hemp fiber strength is shown to decrease with the increase in fiber diameter (measured near the fracture point), and fibers tend to break within regions where diameter is smaller than average [6] .

Hemp fiber strength is slightly (but statistically significantly) dependent of the time of growth (increasing from 99 to 114 days of growth, then decreasing again).

Although both flax and hemp fibers extracted from the middle part of the stem exhibit higher strength than those from the top and bottom parts, the effect is almost negligible for hemp.

Hemp fiber strength is shown to decrease with the increase in fiber diameter (measured near the fracture point), and fibers tend to break within regions where diameter is smaller than average.


Apoptosis was another major cause for Chinese propolis and CAPE to inhibit LPS-stimulated MDA-MB-231 cells survival. We and other researchers all reported that propolis could induce cancer cells apoptosis [6, 31] . Here we also found that Chinese propolis and CAPE activated caspase 3-the executor of apoptosis in LPS-stimulated breast cancer cells, which might be induced by activating autophagy and depressing TLR4 signaling pathway.

We and other researchers all reported that propolis could induce cancer cells apoptosis.


Another intriguing link between Parkin and PACRG is their involvement in immunity and inflammation. Early studies by Schurr and colleagues found that single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the PACRG-Parkin promoter region were strongly associated with leprosy [13] . Parkin and PINK1 have recently been implicated in mitochondria-dependent inflammation, in response to bacterial infection or mitochondrial stress [8] [9] [10] . Intriguingly, SNPs and missense variants in LRRK2, a gene associated with autosomal dominant PD, have also been linked to susceptibility, inflammatory responses and type-1 reactions in leprosy [12, 45, 46] . LRRK2 is a large protein of the ROC-COR family of protein kinases, which regulates intracellular trafficking via phosphorylation of Rab GTPases, which are key mediators of pathways implicated in PD [47] .

Early studies by Schurr and colleagues found that single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the PACRG-Parkin promoter region were strongly associated with leprosy.

Parkin and PINK1 have recently been implicated in mitochondria-dependent inflammation, in response to bacterial infection or mitochondrial stress.

Intriguingly, SNPs and missense variants in LRRK2, a gene associated with autosomal dominant PD, have also been linked to susceptibility, inflammatory responses and type-1 reactions in leprosy.

LRRK2 is a large protein of the ROC-COR family of protein kinases, which regulates intracellular trafficking via phosphorylation of Rab GTPases, which are key mediators of pathways implicated in PD.


Notably, while PACRG-Glu86 forms a salt bridge with MEIG1-Arg61, mutations E86A and E86K do not disrupt the complex (Figure 2B,D) . However, this salt bridge contacts a-tubulin in the Atubule of the homology model ( Figure 3E) , and thus the E86K variant would perturb a network of interaction that might be essential for maintaining the axonemal inner junction. While the phenotype of humans carrying these variants is unknown, we would predict that they display phenotypes similar to those found in ciliopathies [42] . Loss-of-function mutations in PACRG will likely impair fertility and might also lead to neurodevelopmental and respiratory defects. Indeed, mice lacking PACRG display male sterility and hydrocephalus [19, 20] . Furthermore, PACRG is expressed in the epithelial bronchial cells, where cilia play a critical role in the clearance of mucus [18] . Thus, patients with loss-of-function mutations in PACRG may also display respiratory defects such as chronic bronchitis and sinusitis. We find that PACRG and MEIG1 levels are elevated in the Fallopian tubes, where motile cilia play an essential role in the maturation and transport of the oocyte [42] . PACRG/MEIG1 mutations may therefore also impair female fertility. Finally, it has not yet been established whether mammalian PACRG localizes at the primary cilia, a non-motile axoneme-based structure that coordinates a plethora of cellular signalling pathways [43] . C. elegans PACRG was found to localize to non-motile cilia involved in G-protein signalling and gustatory plasticity [25] . Thus, if PACRG is essential to the function of primary cilia, loss-of-function PACRG mutations would have long-ranging effects on Sonic hedgehog signalling, G-protein signalling and so on, which could have a profound impact on human health. Future studies should aim to determine the role of PACRG in the function of motile and primary cilia in mammals.

While the phenotype of humans carrying these variants is unknown, we would predict that they display phenotypes similar to those found in ciliopathies.

Indeed, mice lacking PACRG display male sterility and hydrocephalus.

Furthermore, PACRG is expressed in the epithelial bronchial cells, where cilia play a critical role in the clearance of mucus.

We find that PACRG and MEIG1 levels are elevated in the Fallopian tubes, where motile cilia play an essential role in the maturation and transport of the oocyte.

Finally, it has not yet been established whether mammalian PACRG localizes at the primary cilia, a non-motile axoneme-based structure that coordinates a plethora of cellular signalling pathways.

C. elegans PACRG was found to localize to non-motile cilia involved in G-protein signalling and gustatory plasticity.


This article is part of a project to understand the ways in which mapping class groups and automorphism groups of free groups can act on CAT(0) spaces. Here we focus mainly (but not exclusively) on actions that are by semisimple isometries. This includes all cellular actions on polyhedral complexes with only finitely many isometry types of cells [3] .

This includes all cellular actions on polyhedral complexes with only finitely many isometry types of cells.


A special preadaptation for migration is parthenogenesis within D. hungarica. As each adult specimen can produce eggs, thelytokous reproduction is twice as fast as bisexual reproduction where half of the population is males. Moreover, new localities can be colonized more quickly as a single individual can give rise to a new clone (Suomalainen et al. 1987) . Recent expansion of parthenogenetic clones is documented in isolated locations with anthropic habitats on the western edge of the distribution of D. hungarica (e.g., a commercial orchard in Prague).

Moreover, new localities can be colonized more quickly as a single individual can give rise to a new clone.


The calculated ratio of the detector readings for the different detectors as a function of the spot size of the primary electrons hitting the accelerator's target is given in figure 1 . As can be seen, this ratio strongly depends on the volume of the detector as well as on the electron spot size of the accelerator. The comparison of the calculated and measured ratios can be used for the determination of the true spot size [3] . The figure also contains the calculated field factor 1×1,10×10 Q 1×1 ,Q 10×10 , i.e. the ratio of the dose to water for different spot sizes. This ratio is free from all detector perturbations. Due to its large volume, the PTW 31010 chamber strongly underestimates the dose within the 1 cm × 1 cm field, i.e. the correction factor k f clin ,f msr Q clin ,Q msr is largest. The deviation for the PinPoint chamber is much smaller because of the smaller chamber volume. As is to be expected, the deviations are smallest for the diodes. Comparing both diodes, the unshielded one shows slightly smaller perturbations and should be the ideal detector for small field dosimetry measurements as already reported by Eklund and Ahnesjö [13] .

The comparison of the calculated and measured ratios can be used for the determination of the true spot size.

Comparing both diodes, the unshielded one shows slightly smaller perturbations and should be the ideal detector for small field dosimetry measurements as already reported by Eklund and Ahnesjö.


In the above example, it means 70,644 nodes, which is significantly smaller than 4.1 × 10 9 . With the IPO-Tree, query evaluation requires O(x m ) set operations where m is the number of nominal dimensions on which some preferences are specified by the user, x is the maximum number of values a user specifies for a dimension. Note that both x and m are often small numbers [9, 20] . For example, if the user specifies two preferences for each of the three nominal attributes that s/he is interested in, x m becomes 2 3 = 8 only.

Note that both x and m are often small numbers.


Past research shows that BIM adoption can be enhanced and accelerated with the help of a welldefined tool to facilitate BIM adoption. Various factors affecting BIM adoption have also been identified which can be grouped into two main areas: technical and functional requirements, and non-technical strategic issues (Gu & London, 2010) . Another study, while trying to understand adoption and use of BIM as the creation of actor networks, concludes that the possibility of increased BIM application on projects is well aligned with the character of the industrial context (Linderoth, 2010) .

Various factors affecting BIM adoption have also been identified which can be grouped into two main areas: technical and functional requirements, and non-technical strategic issues.

Another study, while trying to understand adoption and use of BIM as the creation of actor networks, concludes that the possibility of increased BIM application on projects is well aligned with the character of the industrial context.


To overcome the problem, we have developed a series of dung beetle-like robots with different bio-inspired control approaches (Sørensen and Manoonpong, 2016; Strøm-Hansen et al., 2017) . While our previously developed dung beetle-like robot systems can perform continuous locomotion as well as object manipulation and transportation, they can only stably move on a level floor. To expand the operational range of the beetle robot, we present here for the first time our new modular neural control mechanism that allows the robot to not only walk with a tripod gait but also use its hind and middle legs to roll a large ball (3 times of its body height) (see Figs. 1(c) and 1(d)). With the control approach, the robot manages to stably and continuously roll the ball on a level floor as well as up different slope angles up to 25 degrees. To the best of our knowledge, the dung beetle-like robot with multiple functions (i.e., locomotion with object manipulation and transportation) that can deal with different terrains (i.e., different slope angles) has not been investigated or shown so far. However, the rationale behind this study is not only to demonstrate the complex behaviors but also to show that this neural control approach with a modular structure can be a powerful technique to solve sensorimotor coordination problems of many degrees-of-freedom systems (like legged robots) and to effectively provide complex multi functions to the systems.

To overcome the problem, we have developed a series of dung beetle-like robots with different bio-inspired control approaches.


According to national guidelines, metastatic breast cancer in Sweden is treated with either endocrine therapy or chemotherapy, eventually in combination with biological treatment regimens. Women with metastatic disease have a relatively short expected survival time. Thus, the impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is an important factor to consider when making decisions about treatment at this stage of disease [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] .

Thus, the impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is an important factor to consider when making decisions about treatment at this stage of disease.


PHN is a neuropathic syndrome which manifests as ongoing pain along the cutaneous nerve/s located in the area of prior HZ rash and typically involves one or more of the following types of pain: spontaneous aching or burning; paroxysmal shooting; and allodynia and hyperalgesia [7] . While in the majority of cases this pain will resolve within a year of initial rash presentation, for some patients the pain may persist for five years or more [8] . As expected, given the relationship to HZ, the incidence of PHN increases markedly with age [9, 10] . However, incidence is also linked to the severity of the pain experienced during the HZ episode. Those patients experiencing the highest levels of acute pain during HZ presentation are most at risk of developing PHN [11] . PHN is also more prevalent amongst female than male HZ sufferers [12, 13] .

PHN is a neuropathic syndrome which manifests as ongoing pain along the cutaneous nerve/s located in the area of prior HZ rash and typically involves one or more of the following types of pain: spontaneous aching or burning; paroxysmal shooting; and allodynia and hyperalgesia.

While in the majority of cases this pain will resolve within a year of initial rash presentation, for some patients the pain may persist for five years or more.

As expected, given the relationship to HZ, the incidence of PHN increases markedly with age.

Those patients experiencing the highest levels of acute pain during HZ presentation are most at risk of developing PHN.

PHN is also more prevalent amongst female than male HZ sufferers.


In Nigeria, more emphasis is laid on domestic fowl to the neglect of other classes of poultry. As a result domestic fowl dominated the poultry industry. Of the 150 million poultry population, 120 million (80 %) were indigenous. Domestic fowl constituted 91 % of this while guinea fowl, duck, turkey and others were 4 %, 3 % and 2 % respectively (Adenowo et al., 1999) .

Domestic fowl constituted 91 % of this while guinea fowl, duck, turkey and others were 4 %, 3 % and 2 % respectively.


The subtle points of the transport in Lifshitz spacetime with two gauge fields are that the resulting DC electrical conductivity matrix is hard to interpreted. The first gauge field plays the role of an auxiliary field, making the geometry asymptotic Lifshitz, and the second gauge field makes the black hole charged, playing a role analogous to that of a standard Maxwell field in asymptotically AdS space. The mixture of the two gauge fluctuations leads to a 2 × 2 conductivity matrix with non-vanishing off-diagonal components in the absence of external magnetic field, although we consider electric perturbations only along the x-direction. In the presence of magnetic fields, the resulting DC electric conductivity becomes a 4 × 4 matrix. The physical interpretation of each component is a very tough task, since one does not expect so many components on the dual field theory side. To avoid ambiguities, we shall set the currents induced by the auxiliary gauge field to be vanishing so that the deduced electrical conductivity matrix is only related to the black hole charges [38, 39, 62] .

To avoid ambiguities, we shall set the currents induced by the auxiliary gauge field to be vanishing so that the deduced electrical conductivity matrix is only related to the black hole charges.


Holographic principle provides a powerful tool for calculating the properties of strongly coupled systems [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] . According to the principle, a classical weakly coupled gravitational theory is mapped to a strongly coupled large N gauge theory on the boundary. The property of strong-weak duality in this approach makes non-perturbative calculations possible.

Holographic principle provides a powerful tool for calculating the properties of strongly coupled systems.


Nevertheless, NP-complexity of the problems in this field of research drastically complicates method development. That is why the prediction of new materials by random search is impossible. An effective global optimization algorithm can help to overcome this problem. Evolutionary algorithms, particle swarm optimization, random sampling, simulated annealing, and metadynamics are the most popular methods for this purpose [1] .

Evolutionary algorithms, particle swarm optimization, random sampling, simulated annealing, and metadynamics are the most popular methods for this purpose.


Temporal synchrony (S) of CWP among lakes was estimated as mean Pearson correlation coefficient for time series of DOY of CWP vs. year of observation for all possible lake-pair combinations (Pham et al. 2008) . Mean lake-pair synchrony takes a value of 1.0 when CWP timing covaries perfectly among sites and 0.0 when events lack temporal coherence among lakes. Similar analyses of synchrony were performed for time series of DOY of ice melt, mean monthly temperature (April-August), and total hours of bright sunlight received per month (AprilAugust), the main factors regulating E influx to individual lakes. In the case of ice-melt synchrony, estimates were based only on direct observations of individual lakes and did not include missing data inferred by regression models (see above).

Temporal synchrony (S) of CWP among lakes was estimated as mean Pearson correlation coefficient for time series of DOY of CWP vs. year of observation for all possible lake-pair combinations.


Titanium aluminides, mainly the novel γ-TiAl alloys, exhibit attractive properties for several applications in the automotive and aerospace industries [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] . In fact, since 2006, γ-TiAl alloys have been used to produce blades for GEnxTM engines [3, 5] . However, a limiting factor in integrating these alloys into other applications is the lack of reliable and efficient joining techniques that will also enable to obtain appreciable properties or at least properties equal to the base materials. So, the development of new approaches is essential for the joining of γ-TiAl alloys mainly for dissimilar joints that could contribute to a widespread use of the applications.

Titanium aluminides, mainly the novel γ-TiAl alloys, exhibit attractive properties for several applications in the automotive and aerospace industries.

In fact, since 2006, γ-TiAl alloys have been used to produce blades for GEnxTM engines.


The meaning of language is the center of human communication, and the study of it has a long history in the philosophy of language, linguistics, psychology, and literature. Polysemy is an ordinary linguistic phenomenon, which is the result of word meanings extension (Cuyckens, 1997) . With the development of the society, old words die out, new words are added, and existing words change their meanings. Actually, adding new meanings to the already-existing words is the most economical way to satisfy people's needs of expression, which is simpler and more convenient than creating new words or borrowing words from other languages. With the passage of time, the primary meaning and extended meanings coexist in the language.

Polysemy is an ordinary linguistic phenomenon, which is the result of word meanings extension.


For many years, the finite element method (FEM) has been considered a standard and effective technique for numerically solving many applied problems in science and engineering [15, 16] . Due to several limitations, these techniques cannot solve some of the complex problems of today's world. For this reason, the development and formulation of new and effective numerical techniques in recent years has been an interesting field for some engineers and mathematicians. In recent years, meshless methods have gained considerable attention, in engineering and applied mathematics. Flexibility and simplicity are the advantages of these methods. Meshless methods overcome the shortcomings of the mesh-based techniques [17] . In these methods, a system of algebraic equations is created using a set of scattered nodes-called field nodes-within the domain and its boundary for representation (but not for discretization) the whole domain of the problem and its boundary, therefore it is not necessary to use a predefined mesh for the domain discretization.

For many years, the finite element method (FEM) has been considered a standard and effective technique for numerically solving many applied problems in science and engineering.

Meshless methods overcome the shortcomings of the mesh-based techniques.


It is worthwhile to note one study that considered E2E delay distribution [26] . However, its objective was only to estimate the E2E delay distribution using a given fixed routing path, rather than to control network parameters to improve network performance (e.g., satisfying the delay requirement or reducing energy consumption). In addition, it required random variables for one-hop delays to be identically distributed, which may not be practical in certain network scenarios.

It is worthwhile to note one study that considered E2E delay distribution.