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ObjectiveWe estimated meaningful change thresholds (MCTs) for Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Fatigue and Pain Interference in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).MethodsThe responsiveness of several patient-reported outcomes (PROs) was assessed among 521 patients with RA in the Arthritis, Rheumatism, and Aging Medical Information Systems (ARAMIS) cohort. PROMIS Fatigue (7-item) and Pain Interference (6-item) short form instruments were administered at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months. Self-reported retrospective changes over the previous 6 months (a lot better/worse, a little better/worse, stayed the same) were obtained at 6 and 12 months’ follow-up. We estimated MCTs using the mean change in PROMIS scores for patients who rated their change “a little better” or “a little worse.”ResultsBaseline fatigue and pain interference scores were near normal (median 54 and 56, respectively). At 6 months, 7.9% of patients reported their fatigue was a little better compared to baseline (mean change [SD]: –2.6 [4.8]) and 22.8% a little worse (1.7 [5.6]). Pain was a little better for 11.5% of patients (–1.9 [6.1]) and a little worse for 24.2% of patients (0.6 [5.7]). At 12 months, results were similar. Thus, the MCT range was 1–2 points for both fatigue and pain interference. Correlations between change scores and retrospective ratings were low (0.13–0.29), indicating possible underestimation of MCT.ConclusionThe group-level MCT for PROMIS Fatigue and Pain Interference is roughly 2–3 points and corresponds to a small effect size, which is consistent with earlier work demonstrating an MCT of 2 points for PROMIS Physical Functioning.

Background Bladder outlet obstruction (BOO) is an uncommon entity in women. The incidence is only 2.7–8% of women referred for voiding symptoms. It is common to treat female urethral strictures by repeated urethral dilatations with subsequent self-intermittent catheterisation, which often leads to stricture recurrence. We aim to review the technique and outcomes of Dorsal vaginal graft Urethroplasty (DVGU) to manage urethral strictures in females. Methods This study is a retrospective chart review of 24 women with urethral stricture who underwent dorsal vaginal graft urethroplasty by a single surgeon. Patients were selected based on history, physical examination, uroflowmetry, urethral calibration, urethroscopy and voiding cystourethrography. We compared the pre- and postoperative values of variables such as the peak flow (Qmax), post-void residual (PVR) and self-reporting satisfaction score. Results Mean (range) age of the patients was 46.54 (38–55) years. The mean PVR was 6.35 ml/s and 148.12 ml/s, respectively. The mean Qmax before and after surgery was 6.35–25.12 ml/s, respectively (p p p Conclusion Dorsal onlay vaginal graft urethroplasty is a simple, safe and practical approach to treat female urethral stricture with a reasonable success rate. It can be considered as a first-line option for definitive repair.

En este trabajo se ofrece el estudio y transcripción literal del único documento conservado de la Cofradía del Rosario de la Cartuja de Granada (1578-1796). Se trata de una corporación eminentemente monástica y con escasa participación seglar, que contó con una vida irregular, a causa de los frecuentes rechazos de la orden frente a un uso devocional que podía transformar las propias costumbres piadosas de los cartujos. Con todo, las generosas indulgencias que se des-prendían de la conformación y pertenencia de esta peculiar hermandad, posibilitaron la existencia de periodos de aceptación, todo lo cual se refleja en este libro que hace posible conocer un poco mejor la vida de la comunidad cartuja de Granada. This paper presents the study and literal transcription of the only preserved document of the Brotherhood of the Holy Rosary of the Charterhouse of Granada (1578-1796). It was an eminently monastic corporation with little secular participation, which had an irregular life. The reason was the frequent rejections of the Carthusian Order in the face of a devotional use that could transform the pious customs of the Carthusians. However, the generous indulgences that emerged from the formation and membership of this peculiar brotherhood, made possible the existence of periods of acceptance reflected in this book that makes possible to know a little better the life of the Carthusian community of Granada.

Objectives The objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of a gentle yoga program for women with urgency urinary incontinence (UUI). Also, these preliminary data can evaluate if yoga improves symptom burden, quality of life, and inflammatory biomarkers for women with UUI. Methods This prospective nonrandomized single-arm pilot study evaluated the effectiveness of a twice-weekly, 8-week gentle yoga intervention to reduce UUI symptom burden. Changes in symptom burden were measured using the Pelvic Floor Distress Inventory 20. Secondary measures included quality of life, depressive symptoms, sleep, stress, anxiety, and inflammatory biomarkers. Outcomes were evaluated with paired t testing. Results Twelve women completed the yoga intervention with no adverse outcomes noted. Urgency symptom burden was significantly improved after the intervention (P = 0.01), and women reported an increase in quality of life (P = 0.04) after the yoga intervention. Following the yoga intervention, the majority of women reported symptoms as "much better" (n = 4 [33%]) and "a little better" (n = 5 [42%]), with 3 women (25%) reporting "no change." Women also reported significant reduction in depressive symptoms (P = 0.03) and better quality of sleep (P = 0.03). No significant changes were found in anxiety or stress perception. Plasma levels of the inflammatory biomarker tumor necrosis factor α were reduced after yoga intervention (P = 0.009); however, no significant postyoga changes were found for interleukin 6 or C-reactive protein. Conclusions This study provides preliminary evidence that yoga is a feasible complementary therapy that reduces incontinence symptom burden, along with improving quality of life, depressive symptoms, and sleep quality. Additionally, yoga may lower inflammatory biomarkers associated with incontinence.

La presente investigación analiza la representación de la novela total en la obra Conversación en La Catedral de Mario Vargas Llosa a través de las nociones de oposiciones y realidades quebradizas. Para ello, se propone la categoría de “cristales quebrados” para entender un poco mejor el hecho de que la destrucción de los esquemas culturales se realiza a manera de la partición de trozos más o menos visibles; y que, por más que configuren una nueva estética y que hayan explosionado en el centro mismo de su eje, restan trozos de momentos climáticos de la historia del arte, permanentes y vigentes en cualquier nueva estética. A partir de esta concepción, la investigación abordará el aprovechamiento que hizo Vargas Llosa del realismo, la literatura norteamericana, europea, el cine, entre otros. Asimismo, en esta reconstrucción de una totalidad, se observará que ésta en realidad es aparente, ya que resultará en esencia escindida. A pesar de ello, se reconocerá el aporte y virtuosismo narrativo que el autor legó en los años notables del Boom latinoamericano.

PurposeWith the popularization of electronic products, the electromagnetic radiation pollution has been the fourth largest pollution after water, air and noise pollution. Therefore, electromagnetic shielding property of textiles is attracting more attention. In this paper, the properties of electromagnetic shielding yarns and fabrics were studied.Design/methodology/approachTen kinds of yarn, stainless steel short fiber and polyester blend yarn with three different blending ratios T/S 90/10, T/S 80/20 and T/S 70/30, stainless steel short fiber, polyester and cotton blend yarn with blending ratio C/T/S 35/35/30, core-spun yarn with one 30 um stainless steel filament C/T28tex/S(30 um), core-spun yarn with two 15 um stainless steel filaments (C/T28tex/S(15 um)/S(15 um)), twin-core-spun yarn with one 30 um stainless steel filament and one 50D spandex filament C/T28tex/S(30 um)/SP(50D), sirofil wrapped yarn with one 30 um stainless steel filament feeding from left S(30 um)+C/T28tex, sirofil wrapped yarn with one 30 um stainless steel filament feeding from right C/T28tex+S(30 um), sirofil wrapped yarn with two 15 um stainless steel filaments feeding from two sides S(15 um)+C/T28tex+ S(15 um), were spun. The qualities of spun yarns were measured. Then, for analyzing the electromagnetic shielding properties of fabrics made of different spun yarns, 20 kinds of fabrics were woven.FindingsThe tested results show that comparing to the T/S 80/20 blend yarn, the resistivity of composite yarns with the same ratio of the stainless steel filament is smaller. The possible reason is that comparing to the stainless steel short fiber, the conductivity of stainless steel filament is better because of the continuous distribution of stainless steel in the filament. Comparing with the core-spun yarn, the conductivity of the sirofil wrapped yarn is a little better. Comparing to the fabric woven by the blend yarn, the electromagnetic shielding of the fabric woven by the composite yarn is better, and comparing to the fabric woven by the core-spun yarn, the electromagnetic shielding of the fabric woven by the sirofil yarn is a little better. The possible reason is that the conduction network can be produced by the stainless steel filament wrapped on the staple fiber yarn surface in the fabric, and the electromagnetic wave can be transmitted in the network.Originality/valueIn this paper, the properties of electromagnetic shielding yarns and fabrics were studied. Ten kinds of yarn, including three stainless steel short fiber and polyester blend yarns, one stainless steel short fiber, polyester and cotton blend yarn, two core-spun yarns, one twin-core-spun yarn, three sirofil wrapped yarn, were spun. Then, for analyzing the electromagnetic shielding properties of fabrics made of different spun yarns, 20 kinds of fabrics were woven. The effects of fabric warp and weft densities, fabric structures, yarn kinds, yarn distributions in the fabric on electromagnetic shielding were analyzed.

Term weight algorithms based on inverse document analysis are widely used in the expression of characteristic information for text. According to the finding that frequently occurring terms always cover less feature information for the text, the terms with lower frequency will be endowed higher weight. However, the terms with little occurrences always display unimportant information or even error information, such as rare terms and misspelled terms. To tackle such a problem, this paper proposed a novel term weight algorithm that focuses on the terms with low frequency rather than little occurrences. With the statistics based on non-homogeneous compression of term frequency, the action of terms with concerned frequency will be highlighted. And logarithmic function combined with the number of terms with the same frequency is utilized to weight the terms with different frequency based on different compression intervals. Comparing with TF-IDF and SIF, the proposed approach has a similar performance with SIF and a little better than TF-IDF. According to the difference among such methods, a finding shows that the term with a low frequency rather than little occurrences may dominate the feature information of the text.

The proposed different classification schemes based on modified RVM and Optimized RVM were implemented, and observed the classification outputs. The proposed Optimized RVM classification technique is successfully applied to the classification of the input images. The quantitative and qualitative classification results are evaluated and compared. The accuracy of the proposed modified RVM is improved by applying the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) technique. The kernel parameter of the modified RVM is optimized using ACO, and the results got improved a little better than the modified RVM based classifier. The general agreement between all classification techniques discussed in the above sections indicates that the inclusion of ACO for RVM parameter optimization adds very accurate classification in various multispectral satellite images. The performance evaluations confirm that the proposed ACO based Optimized RVM (ACO-RVM) classifier greatly improved the accuracy of final classification outputs.

In the paper the problem of the facial landmark detection is investigated. This task is considered as the stage of the pipeline for micro-expression analysis. The classification of the known facial landmark detection methods is represented. The most promising methods are selected for the experimental comparison. These methods are based on the cascaded regression and on the deep learning. The known open source software implementations for them are chosen, viz. the OpenFace library and the MediaPipe framework. The experiments are carried out on the images from the Spontaneous Actions and Micro-Movements (SAMM) dataset. To evaluate and compare the obtained results for the two tested methods the reference image is constructed manually. Average deviations of the detected landmarks from the referenced are estimated. The comparison shows that a little better precision of the facial landmark detection is achieved using the deep learning based method.

In Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine , McCarthy and colleagues share the results of their retrospective cohort study evaluating the effects of implementing additional transversus abdominis plane (TAP) blocks to a robust enhanced recovery protocol on opioid consumption and other perioperative

In this paper, a kind of novel unequal interval intermittent (UII) micro grinding tool is proposed and fabricated, and an equal interval intermittent (EII) micro grinding tool and a regular cylindrical (RC) micro grinding tool are also fabricated as comparison. Machined surface quality of three different grinding tools was studied, a grinding force model considering the discontinuous grinding tool was built, and a contrast experiment was designed and carried out by using abovementioned three kinds of micro grinding tools to verify the force model. The machined results, including grinding force, machined surface quality, and grinding tool wear among three kinds of grinding tools, are compared, and the advantages and disadvantages of the new proposed discontinuous grinding tool (EII and UII tools) over a continuous tool (RC tool) and those of the UII tool over an EII tool are compared and analyzed. In respect to grinding force, it is found that EII and UII tools own a much lower grinding force than the RC tool, and the grinding force period in tool one rotation is divided into three from the original one period of the RC tool. In respect to machined surface quality, the RC tool is a little better than EII and UII tools in the early machining stage (fv ≤ 200 μm/s) but is much worse in the middle and late machining stages (fv ≥ 300 μm/s). In respect to tool wear, EII and UII tools own a much lighter tool wear and, therefore, a much longer tool life than the RC tool. The difference between EII and UII tools was compared in terms of grinding force, tool wear, and machined surface, and it is found that the UII tool is better than the EII tool. The proposed grinding force model is verified by dry-side micro grinding of titanium alloy, and the simulated grinding force also agrees well with the experimental force. The new proposed UII tool is anticipated not only to make the machined quality better in middle and late machining stages but also to extend the tool life.

The presented research results indicate the usefulness of ant algorithms in the optimization of the road length. Admittedly, ant algorithms do not guarantee an optimal solution, but they provide a suboptimal (rational) solution. In a situation where we have limited time to solve the optimization problem, the guarantee of terminating the algorithm and obtaining a rational, acceptable solution is an attractive alternative for conducting long-term calculations and finding a little better solution.

O objetivo deste texto é apresentar uma reflexão sobre religiosidade, Deus e o Diabo presentes em algumas partes do Grande Sertão: Veredas, de Guimarães Rosa. Visando refletir os quesitos apresentados, adotamos como método, além da leitura da obra, consultas a diversificadas abordagens, criando possibilidades para compreendê-la um pouco melhor. Grande Sertão: Veredas é um clássico da literatura brasileira que a partir de uma riquíssima combinação de gêneros literários, traz à tona “subconscientes” do Brasil. Uma realidade múltipla, que ao envolver inúmeros fatores, revela-nos um universo bastante expressivo sobre religiosidade, Deus e o Diabo que emanam das ideias do homem do sertão. Este, que diante das intempéries da vida, busca incessantemente explicações para o bem e do mal que vivencia no seu dia a dia.

Introduction and hypothesis This study aimed to investigate the evaluation and management of complications after pelvic floor reconstructive surgery for pelvic organ prolapse in China. Methods Complications of pelvic floor reconstructive surgery for pelvic organ prolapses from 27 institutions were reported from November 2017 to October 2019. All complications were coded according to the category-time-site system proposed by the International Urogynecological Association (IUGA) and the International Continence Society (ICS). The severity of the complications was graded by the Clavien-Dindo grading system. Four scales were used to evaluate patient satisfaction and quality of life after management of the complications: the Patient Global Impression of Improvement (PGI-I), the Pelvic Floor Impact Questionnaire Short Form (PFIQ-7), the Pelvic Organ Prolapse Symptom Score (POP-SS), and a 5-point Likert-type scale that evaluated the patient’s choice of surgery. Results Totally, 256 cases were reported. The occurrence of complications related to transvaginal mesh (TVM) and laparoscopic sacrocolpopexy (LSC) had a significantly longer post-surgery delay than those of native tissue repair surgery (p p = 0.010, respectively). Both PFIQ-7 and POP-SS score were lower after management of complications (p Conclusions The occurrence of complications related to TVM surgery and LSC had a longer post-surgery delay than native tissue repair surgery. Long-term regular follow-up was vital in complication management. Patient satisfaction with the management of TVM complications was acceptable.

Layered space–time coding is one of space–time codes with the maximum multiplexing gain. In the paper, we investigate the using of iterative detection in the field of mobile satellite communication systems and analyze the performances of the algorithm in three typical channels. The performances of the simulation results meet the law that the open case is better than the urban case and suburban case. During the process of implementing the receiver, a new method of implementation with FPGA is proposed. The comparison between results by soft simulation and ones by hardware implementation shows the performance of soft simulation is a little better than the one of hardware implementation. At last, we analyze the differences of the situation.

In the story of the International Criminal Court as briefly told in a speech given on 15 October 2019, at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, Accra, ICC President Chile Eboe-Osuji recounts how the Court so far exemplifies the facility of the rule of law and multilateral cooperation to make the world a little better for humanity.

Data-driven method has been used to carry out distribution transformer connectivity verification. The imbalanced dataset always results in bad performance of machine learning algorithms. In order to solve this problem, two kinds of over-sampling methods have been studied in this paper. Voltage curves of 3967 distribution transformer which belong to 197 10kV feeders have been collected. The performance of over-sampling methods under different sampling rate has also been studied. Pareto optimality has been carried out in order to obtain the best sampling rate. Results show that with the increase of sampling rate, the value of true negative (TN) increase and the value of true positive (TP) and accuracy decrease. The performance of synthetic minority over-sampling technique (SMOTE) is a little better compared with simple copy method (SCM). When the lower limits of TN, TP and accuracy are set as 0.93, the best sampling rate of SCM is 17 and the values for SMOTE are 16, 17 and 18.

In this work, the $$\gamma $$-unstable Bohr Hamiltonian with quasi-exactly solvable decatic potential with a centrifugal barrier is considered to describe nuclei near the critical point of the vibrational to $$\gamma $$-unstable (shape) phase transition. Analytical expression of the wavefunctions and the corresponding eigen-energies are derived under the two quasi-exactly solvable constraints on parameters of the potential. The theoretical results are compared with those of the E(5) model and those of the same Hamiltonian with the quasi-exactly solvable sextic potential. Low-lying level energy ratios and B(E2) ratios of some nuclei near the critical point are fitted and compared with the experimental data and the fitting quality of previous models. The fitting results show that the E(5) model is indeed the best in description of nuclei near or at this critical point, while the decatic model seems a little better than the sextic one near the critical point. Furthermore, though further check on the fitting quality to the B(E2) values is needed, the fitting results for even-even $$^{118{-}128}$$Xe show that the decatic model seems the best in fitting the energy ratios, while the fitting qualities of both the decatic model and the E(5) model to the B(E2) ratios are quite the same, which are always better than the sextic model.

Cognitive content, that a lot of IoT application on home automation have implemented, the methodical to build an IoT device is still an obscure. So building an architecture based on microservices for the home automation makes things a little better. The primary objective of this paper is to design microservices architecture for home automation. The service for each sensor is done through microservices based on microservices architecture. The designed system follows rather than a Monolithic Architecture. Microservices architecture is purely a concept when we have so many sensors, where service is created for each sensor which is not dependent on other sensor services. The prototype has been designed to prove that architecture is workable.

Currently, many studies on the severity of traffic conflicts only considered the possibility of potential collisions but ignored the consequences severity of potential collisions. Aiming toward this defect, this study establishes a potential collision (serious conflict) consequences severity model on the basis of vehicle collision theory. Regional vehicles trajectory data and historical traffic accident data were obtained. The field data were brought into the conflict consequences severity model to calculate the conflict severity rate of each section under different TTC thresholds. For comparison, the traditional conflict rate of each section under different TTC thresholds that considered only the number of conflicts was also calculated. Results showed that the relationship between conflict severity rate and influencing factors was somehow different. The conflict severity rate seemed to have a higher correlation with accident rate and accident severity rate than conflict rate did. The TTC threshold value also affected the correlation between conflicts and accidents, with high and low TTC threshold indicating a lower correlation. The results showed that conflict severity rate that considered each single conflict consequence severity was a little better than the traditional conflict rate that considered only the numbers of conflicts in reflecting real risks as a new conflict evaluation indicator. The severity of traffic conflicts should consider two dimensions: the possibility and consequence of potential collisions. Based on this, we propose a new traffic safety evaluation method that takes into account the severity of the consequences of the conflict. More data and prediction models are needed to conduct more realistic and complex research in the future to ensure reliability of this new method.

After the millennium I could see clearly that the medical profession and the general public had been, and still were, oblivious to the fact that whooping cough was quite common and almost invariably missed as a diagnosis. Figure 15.1 shows the flatlined notifications after the millennium. But because it was not life threatening to the patients I saw, and the national death rate in infants was low, it was a situation I could live with. I thought that perhaps I knew a little better, but it was not of immense importance. I also knew from whoopingcough.net that under-recognition was a worldwide problem and not just happening in my small corner of the world. I was content to believe that the truth would eventually become clearer to everyone, but nevertheless it was frustrating. I wanted to make the information known but I didn’t know what more I could do other than my website to overcome the diagnostic paralysis.

Prediction of squeezing conditions is an outstanding issue for appropriate support design and suitable construction procedures in tunneling projects. In this paper, two data mining-based models are presented for prediction of tunnel squeezing. In one of these models, the k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) classifier is used and in the other one the C5.0 decision tree classifier is employed. A database including 115 case histories from different tunneling projects in Himalayan region is applied for development of the models. These models predict the squeezing conditions based on three input parameters, i.e. overburden depth (H), tunnel span or diameter (B), and rock mass quality (Q). The evaluation of proposed models illustrates that both models have good performances, but the k-NN model is a little better than C5.0 model. Furthermore, these models have higher prediction capacities than the common empirical equations. Finally, the results indicate that the H is the most effective input parameter for squeezing perdition based on both k-NN and C5.0 models.

The growth of entitlements has weighed on domestic saving, and foreign borrowing is now a very large source of funding for domestic investment. If foreign capital flows slow, and domestic saving continues to be crowded out by entitlements, there would be serious consequences for investment and productivity, even though the recent figures on output per hour are a little better. The growth of populist sentiment has hampered the ability of our political system to handle important issues such as tackling entitlements. There is no precedent, in Western civilization, where you can expand the money supply as much as going to be necessary to fund this deficit, without engendering inflation. In the very near term, though, the near-term outlook for capital investment is favorable.

Summary Objectives There is no strong evidence for second line therapy after male sling failure for post-prostatectomy urinary incontinence (PPUI). We report the outcomes after periurethral balloons implantation for persistence or recurrence of mild PPI symptoms after male sling implantation. Methods All patients implanted of a ProACT™ device (Uromedica, Inc., MN, USA) following I-STOP transobturator male sling (TOMS) failure, in a tertiary reference center between 2009 and 2016, were included. Patients were evaluated by 24-hour pad-test before and after implantation, and after each balloon repressurizing procedure. PGI-I and Likert scale patient satisfaction were estimated during a telephone interview conducted in 2016. Objective and subjective cure of urinary incontinence were defined by a 24-hour pad-test Results Fourteen patients were included. Median follow-up was 34 months [4–89]. Objective and subjective cure were 29% ( n = 4) and 57% ( n = 8), respectively. Median pad-test decreased from 95 g [IQR: 130] to 34 g [IQR: 83] ( P = 0.022). ProACT™ significantly decreased median pad-test by a factor 2.73 [1.19–6.29]. Eighty-eight percent patients were feeling a little better, much better or very much better and 77% were satisfied or very satisfied at the end of follow-up. Reoperation rate was 28% ( n = 4): 3 balloons were changed for caudally migration ( n = 2) or deflation ( n = 1) and 1 had a urinary sphincter implanted for severe UI. Conclusions ProACT™ is a safe and efficient treatment that can be used in second line therapy after TOMS failure for PPUI. Level of evidence 4.

David T. Blackstock, my father, was an exceptional and esteemed scholar, scientist, and teacher. He was an even more exceptional human being: a pillar of integrity, a kind and generous friend, a devoted husband, and a loving father. Like many in the audience, I learned so much from him. I have never understood how he had the energy to be so engaged in his research and teaching and, also, so attentive to his family. One of my older brother's childhood friends remarked, shortly after David's passing: “What made him so special was that he remained a good dad despite all the pressures of his professional life.” In this talk, I’ll explore this mystery, and I hope that, along the way, you’ll get to know David Blackstock, the person, a little better. David taught many students how to be good scientists. He taught me how to be a good human being.

In this paper, two different designs of self-healing asphalt mixtures were promoted, the asphalt mixtures were healed through heating fibers or aggregate respectively. Induction heating and microwave heating were applied respectively to provide healing atmospheres. The thermal conductivity and temperature raising tests were conducted to measure the heating performance of those two self-healing asphalt mixtures. Infrared images were used to demonstrate the temperature field of asphalt specimens during heating. Cyclic fracture-healing test with three-point bending method was recorded to investigate the healing performance of the designed asphalt mixtures. It is concluded that asphalt mixtures containing steel fibers or steel slags could be healed with appropriate heating methods. It is also indicated that the healing performance of samples with microwave heating was a little better than the healing performance of steel fiber modified asphalt mixture with induction heating. The steel slag asphalt mixture showed a better performance of healing with the microwave as the temperature distribution was more uniform. Furthermore, the locally overheating and temperature uneven distribution remained to be big problems in the self-healing performance of asphalt mixtures in practical application.

The world is more connected than it ever has been before, and with our pocket supercomputers and IoT (Internet of Things) future, the next generation of the web might just be delivered in a peer-to-peer model. It’s a giant problem space, but the necessary tools and technology are here today. We just need to define the problem a little better.

Objectives/Hypothesis The validated Empty Nose Syndrome 6-Item Questionnaire (ENS6Q) identifies empty nose syndrome (ENS) patients. The unvalidated cotton test assesses improvement in ENS-related symptoms. By first validating the cotton test using the ENS6Q, we define the minimal clinically important difference (MCID) score for the ENS6Q. Study Design Individual case–control study. Methods Fifteen patients diagnosed with ENS and 18 controls with non-ENS sinonasal conditions underwent office cotton placement. Both groups completed ENS6Q testing in three conditions—precotton, cotton in situ, and postcotton—to measure the reproducibility of ENS6Q scoring. Participants also completed a five-item transition scale ranging from “much better” to “much worse” to rate subjective changes in nasal breathing with and without cotton placement. Mean changes for each transition point, and the ENS6Q MCID, were then calculated. Results In the precotton condition, significant differences (P < .001) in all ENS6Q questions between ENS and controls were noted. With cotton in situ, nearly all prior ENS6Q differences normalized between ENS and control patients. For ENS patients, the changes in the mean differences between the precotton and cotton in situ conditions compared to postcotton versus cotton in situ conditions were insignificant among individuals. Including all 33 participants, the mean change in the ENS6Q between the parameters “a little better” and “about the same” was 4.25 (standard deviation [SD] = 5.79) and −2.00 (SD = 3.70), giving an MCID of 6.25. Conclusions Cotton testing is a validated office test to assess for ENS patients. Cotton testing also helped to determine the MCID of the ENS6Q, which is a 7-point change from the baseline ENS6Q score. Level of Evidence 3b. Laryngoscope, 127:1746–1752, 2017

Boilers manufactured by using the down-fired technology of British Mitsui Babcock Energy Limited Corp. (called as MBEL down-fired boiler) account for an about 20% Chinese down-fired boiler’s market share. The published work showed that MBEL down-fired boilers suffered similarly from problems of asymmetric combustion and high NOx emissions, while combustion status and burnout rate varied greatly among boilers manufactured at different times. To uncover the airflow, coal combustion, NOx emissions, and slagging characteristics with respect to various boiler’s parameters (including furnace configuration, burner layout pattern, and air-distribution model), cold-modeling airflow experiments and full-load industrial-size experiments under design parameters were performed for three typical MBEL down-fired boilers (with a boiler capacity of 350, 300, and 600 MWe, respectively). All boilers present flow-field deflection, with the downward airflow in one side penetrating much deeper than that in the other side. Consequently, asymmetric combustion appears in real operations, with large gas temperature gaps existing between the front- and rear-half furnace sides. The 350 MWe boiler, which has a leptosome furnace pattern and owns the highest secondary-air velocity and volumetric heat capacity, shows the weakest flow-field deflection and highest furnace gas temperature levels corresponding to the lowest burnout loss, but unfortunately, suffers from particularly high NOx emissions and serious furnace-arch slagging. On the contrary, the 300 MWe boiler generates the lowest gas temperature levels and NOx emissions and highest burnout loss, without such a slagging problem that appearing in the 350 MWe boiler. Although the 600 MWe boiler also presents a poor furnace performance, its combustion status, gas temperatures, and burnout rate are all a little better than those of the 300 MWe boiler, with the exception of higher NOx emissions and the deduced furnace-arch slagging problem. Finally, the three boilers’ performance comparison generates an appropriate parameter assemble recommended for new MBEL down-fired boiler designs.

This study compares the performance of market-weighted Shariah-compliant portfolios (SCPs) with conventional benchmark portfolios (CBPs) from the USA, Canada, Europe, the GCC, and Japan. Portfolios are constructed from constituent-level monthly price data using the Shariah screening criteria as proposed by MSCI, FTSE, Dow Jones, S&P and AAOIFI. The unique SCP construction approach used in this study removes any concerns of performance deviation due to the portfolio construction methodology, rebalancing timing, and management skills for security selection or market timing. Empirical results indicate that SCPs are generally less risky than CBPs. We also find that Shariah screening standards are insignificant in their effect on return performance. SCPs using the BVTA approach usually report a little better nominal and risk-adjusted returns than SCPs using the MVE approach for financial screening. The negligible difference in risk-adjusted performance and rebalancing based on different criteria indicate a need for greater consistency in applying Shariah screening standards.

Objective The goal of this study was to determine the minimal change in pain score recognized by patients as meaningful known as minimal clinically important difference (MCID). Methods Pain was recorded upon admission, 30 and 60 min later and patients were asked to describe the extent of pain change on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “much better” to “much worse”. Patients reported their pain by two common pain scales comprising numeric rating scale (NRS) and visual analog scale (VAS). We used receiver operating characteristic curve to assess the accuracy of pain scales. We then calculated the mean change in pain scores among patients who reported their pain change as “a little better” or “a little worse” and also analyzed regression to evaluate the MCID. Results A total of 150 patients and 253 pain changes were recruited. The MCID ± SD (95% CI) was 1.65 ± 1.58 (1.32–1.97) for NRS and 16.55 ± 17.53 (12.96–20.15) for VAS. The area under the curve by NRS and VAS were 0.86 and 0.89. For linear regression, the line slope and the y-intercept were 17.56 and 1.88, for VAS; these values were 1.73 and 0.31 for NRS, respectively. Conclusions Recognizing the extent of change in pain score that really matters to patients is crucial for the evaluation of treatment effect. Patients perceived a change of 1.65 points on NRS and 16.55 on VAS in their pain severity as meaningful. This value was not different whether the pain was perceived alleviated or aggravated.

Prostate cancer (PCa), an epithelial malignancy that occurs in the prostate, reminds the second leading cause of cancer-related incidence in men worldwidely. Androgen receptor antagonists are the main therapeutic strategy of PCa, which can block the binding of androgen to androgen receptors. However, the long-term treatment of marketed anti-androgens in patients can inevitably cause drug resistance problem. The research of searching for new drugs with novel skeleton is always on the way. Recently, a series of 3-phenylpyrazole derivatives were reported to antagonize the function of AR, but their efficiencies are not good enough and need to be improved. In this work, comparative molecular field analysis and comparative molecular similarity indices analysis methods were employed to study the structure activity relationships of these derivatives. Two different methods were used to obtain the optimal molecular conformation alignments, one is based on atomic alignment and the other is based on molecular docking. The final result shows that both these two strategies can obtain satisfactory results and the atomic alignment performs a little better than docking. The models illustrate the key structural features highly related with the androgenic bioactivity and provide valuable suggestions for the design of new androgen receptor antagonists in future.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Several different kinds of reaction mechanisms are developed for the numerical simulation of supersonic combustion problem, which contains substantial intricacy interactions of shock/boundary and shock/flame, and crucial phenomena such as self-ignition, local extinction and re-ignition. Three typical mechanisms are discussed to test their performance in the prediction of temperature and self-ignition position in this paper. It can be seen that the Evans’s mechanism predict a later ignition position, while the other two detailed mechanisms show good agreement with the experiment data. Meanwhile, lower temperature predicted by Evans’s mechanism can be observed which matchs the later ignition position prediction. The numerical results suggest that detailed mechanisms are more suitable for supersonic combustion simulation and LaRC’s mechanism seems a little better than the other.

Aim: To evaluate the outcome of adjustable continence balloons in the treatment of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) after transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP). Methods: In two tertiary centers, adjustable continence balloons were implanted in 29 patients with post‐TURP SUI between 2007 and 2018. Endpoints of this retrospective multicenter study were patient‐reported changes in pad count and complications. Dry was defined as no pad or one security pad. Results: Preoperative urinary incontinence was mild in 7 (24%), moderate in 12 (41%), and severe in 10 (35%) patients. The median follow‐up duration was 21 (interquartile range [IQR], 11‐43) months. Within 30 days postoperatively, a Clavien‐Dindo grade less than or equal to II complication occurred in 24% of the patients. Reintervention rate was 24%. Six and 12 months after implantation, the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) quality‐of‐life item improved significantly from 5 (IQR, 5‐6) preoperatively to 3 (IQR, 1‐4.5) and 1 (IQR, 0‐3), respectively. At last visit (median 21 months after implantation), the outcome on continence had improved in 76% of the patients, including, 45% dry patients. After a median follow‐up of 28 months (IQR, 13‐63; N = 23), all but one patient reported improvement on the Patient Global Impression of Improvement (PGI‐I) scale. In detail, 10 patients reported “very much better” condition compared with before the implantation, 10 patients “much better,” two patients “a little better,” and one patient “no change.” Daily pad use decreased from three (IQR, 2‐5) to one (IQR, 0‐2) pads/day (P < 0.001). Conclusions: This is hitherto, the first study reporting results of adjustable continence balloons in the treatment of post‐TURP SUI. The therapy was found to be safe and efficient. The majority of our study population reported improvement on their condition and greater than or equal to 50% reduction in daily pad use.

Chromatic adaptation transforms are used to predict corresponding colours viewed under a different adapting illuminant. In colour management it is often necessary to apply such a transform in order to achieve a corresponding-colour match on a reproduction medium. A linear version of the Bradford CAT has been standardized for this purpose, due to its advantages of computational simplicity and invertibility. Despite being in use in colour management since 2001 the performance of this linear Bradford transform has had limited evaluation. In this paper it is tested for the first time on a comprehensive corresponding-colour data set, and it is shown that the performance is not significantly different from the original Bradford transform, and is a little better than the more recent CAT16 transform. Other issues related to the use of chromatic adaptation in colour management workflows are also discussed.

We study here the application of the “descent with mutations” metaheuristic to a problem arising from the field of classification and cluster analysis (dealing more precisely with the aggregation of symmetric relations) and which can be represented as a clique partitioning of a weighted graph. In this problem, we deai with a complete undirected graphe G; the edges of G have weights which can be positive, negative or equal to 0; the aim is to partition the vertices of G into disjoint cliques (whose number depends on G in order to minimize the sum of the weights of the edges with their two extremities in a same clique; this problem is NP-hard. The “descent with mutations” is a local search metaheuristic, of which the design is very simple and is based on local transformation. It consists in randomly performing random elementary transformations, irrespective improvement or worsening with respect to the objective function. We compare it with another very efficient metaheuristic, which is a simulated annealing method improved by the addition of some ingredients coming from the noising methods. Experiments show that the descent with mutations is at least as efficient for the studied problem as this improved simulated annealing, usually a little better, while it is much easier to design and to tune.

Based on the SDSS and SDSS-WISE quasar datasets, we put forward two schemes to estimate the photometric redshifts of quasars. Our schemes are based on the idea that the samples are firstly classified into subsamples by a classifier and then photometric redshift estimation of different subsamples is performed by a regressor. Random Forest is adopted as the core algorithm of the classifiers, while Random Forest and kNN are applied as the key algorithms of regressors. The samples are divided into two subsamples and four subsamples depending on the redshift distribution. The performance based on different samples, different algorithms and different schemes are compared. The experimental results indicate that the accuracy of photometric redshift estimation for the two schemes generally improve to some extent compared to the original scheme in terms of the percents in \frac{|\Delta z|}{1+z_{i}}, Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, 6 tables, accepted by Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics (RAA)

Background:Different tools are commonly used to assess fatigue in RA including single items (visual analogue (VAS), numeric rating (NRS), and Likert scales), SF-36 Vitality, and PROMIS. Evidence is needed to identify scores that reflect meaningful change to patients to interpret fatigue results in trials and for clinical care.Objectives:To use symptom-specific and RA change anchors to estimate meaningful and detectable change scores from the patient perspective across several fatigue measures.Methods:Stable RA patients (ACR/EULAR 2010 criteria) were recruited from 3 academic clinical practices across the Southern, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeastern United States. Scales were administered at 2 consecutive visits to capture PROs including fatigue. We also asked a fatigue-specific change question (How would you rate your fatigue since the last visit?). Response options were a lot better, a little better, the same, a little worse, and a lot worse. An RA disease activity change question followed a similar format. We compared mean change between visits across fatigue and RA change categories for the Fatigue NRS, Fatigue 5-point Likert (none to very severe), SF36 Vitality, and PROMIS Fatigue 4a, 7a, and 8a.Results:The sample included 282 patients with stable RA who completed questionnaires 4.6 (SD 2.4) months apart. Patients were mostly white (78%) women (82%) with RA duration of 13 (11) years. At V1, most were in CDAI LDA (57%) or MDA (30%) with 5% in REM and 8% in HDA states. Using the Fatigue change anchor, 6% were a lot better, with mean change ranging from |1-11|points across scales (Table 1); among 13% a little better, smaller changes |0.4 to 5|were reported. Across all measures score changes for meaningful and minimal improvement were numerically larger for improvement than worsening.Fatigue Change CategoriesLot Better 6%Little Better 13%Same 49%Little Worse 22%Lot Worse 10%NMeanSDNMeanSDNMeanSDNMeanSDNMeanSDFatigue 11 point NRS19-2.22.437-0.72.3137-0.51.9610.41.9261.32.1Fatigue 5-point Likert19-0.81.236-0.41.21370.00.9600.20.9270.61.2SF36 Vitality (0-100)1911.216.1364.913.71370.310.659-3.215.326-11.416.6PROMIS Fatigue 7a19-5.98.537-2.67.51380.06.462-0.36.5274.38.3PROMIS Fatigue 8a19-6.110.237-2.77.1138-0.37.1621.36.9275.611.0PROMIS Fatigue 4a19-6.89.937-3.38.2138-0.47.4601.27.2275.211.5Using the RA change categories, more people rated their RA as at least a little better compared with fatigue (28% vs. 19%, respectively) at the second visit (Table 2). Similar patterns were evident across RA change categories, though score changes associated with improvement and worsening were about half those observed using fatigue change anchors.RA Disease Activity Change CategoriesLot Better13%Little Better15%Same42%Little Worse21%Lot Worse9%NMeanSDNMeanSDNMeanSDNMeanSDNMeanSDFatigue 11 point NRS36-0.82.343-0.62.7117-0.21.958-0.21.9260.72.2Fatigue 5-point Likert35-0.31.242-0.31.11180.11.0580.10.8260.31.3SF36 Vitality (0-100)356.417.4433.813.0117-0.612.957-3.711.325-6.017.0PROMIS Fatigue 7a37-1.69.543-1.57.4118-0.37.0590.55.6261.37.5PROMIS Fatigue 8a37-2.19.543-1.79.01180.17.6590.74.8263.011.4PROMIS Fatigue 4a36-2.79.643-2.39.01180.18.1590.45.6252.612.0Conclusion:The score change associated with meaningful improvement and worsening between visits on commonly used fatigue scales was much larger with fatigue vs. RA change categories. More people rated their RA improved as compared with fatigue at the 2nd visit. Symptom-specific anchors are likely to offer more relevant change scores associated with meaningful improvement and worsening than RA change anchors. These estimates offer new information about meaningful and detectable improvement and worsening on common measures for trialists, researchers, and clinicians monitoring fatigue in people with RA.Acknowledgements:The primary research data included within this report were acquired through funding in part from a PCORI Methods Award (SC14-1402-10818). This work was also supported by the NIH through the Rheumatic Diseases Resource-based Core Center (P30-AR053503 Core D, and P30-AR070254, Core B), the Camille Julia Morgan Arthritis Research and Education Fund, and the Rheumatoid Arthritis Discovery Fund.Disclosure of Interests:None declared

Based on daily minimum, maximum, and mean surface air temperatures (Tmin, Tmax, Tmean) from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast's reanalysis from 1979 onwards (ERA Interim), the accuracy of daily Tmin and Tmax reanalysis is assessed against in situ observations from four automatic weather stations (Zhongshan, EAGLE, LGB69, and Dome A) in East Antarctica from 2005 to 2008. ERA Interim generally shows a warm bias for Tmin and a cool bias for Tmax, with an underestimation of the diurnal temperature range. The reanalysis explains more than 84% of the daily and annual variance, and the replicating ability decreases gradually from the coast to the interior, with annual root mean square errors of 2.4 °C, 2.6 °C, 3.0 °C, and 4.3 °C for daily Tmin, and 2.2 °C, 3.1 °C, 3.4 °C, and 4.9 °C for daily Tmax at Zhongshan, LGB69, Eagle, and Dome A, respectively. ERA Interim shows little seasonal variability, although it performs a little better in the austral spring and worse in winter and autum...

A multispectral imaging (MSI) system, using four discrete wavelengths (685, 850, 904 and 980 nm), has been developed and validated for making spatially resolved reflectance spectroscopy (SRRS) measurements. The primary aim was to evaluate the potential of MSI for high-speed firmness grading of apples. The MSI system validations were made using Intralipid solutions of known concentration and comparing the results against measurements made using a laboratory based inverse adding-doubling method (IAD). The results compared well for scattering properties with both the MSI and IAD measurements in reasonable agreement with known properties. For the absorption properties only the MSI measurements were close. Performance of the MSI system was then compared with a near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) system using 100 ‘Royal Gala’ apples ( Malus domestica Borkh.). The apples were measured non-destructively by both the MSI and NIRS systems. Cut apple surfaces were also examined by the MSI system and excised slices of apple tissue were measured using the IAD system. Actual apple firmness was measured by destructive penetrometer. The MSI data analysis involved use of both a phenomenological diffusion model and a heuristic modified Lorentzian model for describing the scattering images at each wavelength. The best MSI results of R = 0.87 and RMSECV = 7.17 N were obtained when the Lorentzian model parameters derived at each wavelength were combined using multiple linear regression (MLR). The NIRS system measurements were still a little better, with a best correlation on R = 0.90 and RMSECV = 6.99 N.

The efficacy of intravesical onabotulinumtoxinA (BTXA) in the treatment of overactive bladder (OAB) has been well documented. The use of BTXA injection in orthotopic neobladders is yet to be studied. We present 4 cases of patients injected with intravesical BTXA for overactive orthotopic ileal neobladder. We recorded patient demographics, presenting and follow-up symptoms, urodynamic profiles, and Patient Global Impression of Improvement (PGI-I) scores. The 4 patients reported varying degrees of subjective improvements in the symptoms, including urgency, urge incontinence, and pad usage. Mean follow-up duration was 8.3 months (range, 5-14 months). Average PGI-I score was 3 ("a little better") (range, 2-4). To our knowledge, the current study is the first case series examining BTXA injection for orthotopic neobladder overactivity. BTXA injection yielded varying degrees of objective and subjective improvements, without significant complications. Intravesical BTXA injection is feasible and may be considered as a potential treatment alternative for OAB in orthotopic neobladders, although further study is warranted.

Several roads in Iceland with bio-oil modified surface dressings exhibited severe distresses such as bleeding, binder drain down, and eventually as surface dressing sticking to tires. Samples from six road sections were evaluated in the laboratory to determine the causes of the failure. Binders with and without bio-oil, rapeseed oil and fish oil, were evaluated through a comprehensive rheological and chemical characterization. Both oils, exhibited solubility issues with the bitumen; consequently, the oils covered the aggregates, preventing bonding between binder and stones. It appears that fish oil worked a little better than rapeseed oil for binder modification.

Overexpressing myeloid cell leukemia sequence 1 (Mcl-1) protein is an important way to confer the resistance of cancer cells to conventional anti-cancer treatments. Therefore, developing Mcl-1 inhibitors has become an attractive strategy for cancer therapy. In the studies, a series of new indazole-acylsulfonamide hybrids were designed, synthesized and evaluated as potent Mcl-1 inhibitors. Among them, the most potent compound 17 (Ki = 0.43 μM) showed a little better inhibitory activity against Mcl-1 protein than positive control AT-101 (Ki = 0.45 μM). Pleasingly, it displayed > 40-fold selectivity over Bcl-2 (Ki = 18 μM) and Bcl-xL (no activity). Furthermore, compound 17 had good inhibitory activities against PC-3, MDA-MB-231 and K562 cells (IC50 = 12.3, 10.6 and 6.62 μM, respectively) and could effectively induce apoptosis and the activation of caspase-3 in a dose-dependent manner in K562 cells.

BACKGROUND The 5-dimensional EuroQol questionnaire (EQ-5D) is validated to measure general health-related quality of life (QOL). Our objective was to determine the responsiveness and minimal clinically important difference (MCID) of the EQ-5D health utility value (EQ-5D HUV) and visual analog scale (EQ-5D VAS) in chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS). METHODS 203 adults undergoing medical management for CRS were prospectively recruited. General health-related QOL (using EQ-5D HUV and EQ-5D VAS) and CRS-specific QOL (using the 22-item Sinonasal Outcome Test [SNOT-22]) were measured at enrollment and a subsequent follow-up time point 2-12 months later. At follow-up, participants also rated change in general health as Much worse, A little worse, About the same, A little better or Much better compared to enrollment. The EQ-5D HUV and EQ-5D VAS MCIDs were calculated using distribution-based, anchor-based, and receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve-based methods. RESULTS Change in SNOT-22 score was correlated with EQ-5D HUV and EQ-5D VAS change. Using the different methods of calculating MCID, we find the EQ-5D HUV MCID to be 0.04 and EQ-5D VAS MCID to be 8.0. The calculated EQ-5D MCIDs had approximately a sensitivity of 40-50% and specificity of 80% in detecting patients experiencing noticeable improvement in general health. CONCLUSIONS The EQ-5D responds well to changing CRS symptomatology. We propose MCIDs for EQ-5D HUV of 0.04 and EQ-5D VAS of 8 in CRS patients, which although specific, are not sensitive for detecting patients experiencing improvement in general health.

Aim: Among HIV-infected adults receiving efavirenz fixed-dose combination tablets, genotyping could guide efavirenz dose reduction but would require more pills. Methods: We assessed willingness to dose reduce among 129 patients at an HIV primary care clinic in the southeastern USA. Results: When told that switching from one pill to two or three pills “might make you feel a little better”, 47% expressed definite or possible willingness. This decreased to 9% if there was “a small chance it might not control your HIV as well”. Clinical variables were not associated with willingness. Conclusion: Many patients receiving a fixed-dose combination tablet may be willing to take more pills in order to dose reduce, guided by genetic testing, but only if virologic control is not compromised.

This paper proposes a general floorplanning methodology which can be applied to 3D ICs with an arbitrary bonding style. Some researches have shown that a 3D IC with the hybrid bonding style, which includes face-to-back and face-to-face, may obtain better results than that simply using the face-to-back bonding style. We respectively present an approach to assign modules to tiers for each kind of bonding style. Further, a new utilization function, called cosine-shaped function, is proposed to estimate utilizations of bins required by the analytical-based approach. Our experimental results show the cosine-shaped function can obtain a little better result than the bell-shaped function on IBM benchmarks for 2D floorplanning. We also show that the proposed 3D floorplanning methodology consumes less TSVs and induces shorter wirelength compared to previous work in the hybrid bonding style.

In this paper, tunability of four near-infrared semiconductor lasers which typically lase at 783nm, 808 nm, 892 nm and 980 nm is studied. Both Littrow (wavelength dependent beam direction setup) and Littman (wavelength independent beam direction setup) configurations have been used for single mode tuning. In addition, the tunability of 783 nm laser in dual mode tuning is studied in both Littrow and Litman configurations. The wavelength and the power of the output beam of the laser have been measured. In all four cases, Littrow configuration shows a little better tuning range. In both Littrow and Littman configurations, the wavelengths near the main wavelength of the laser had more power. The highest achieved power of these lasers in the Littrow setup was more than that of the Littman setup. Moreover, the tuning speed and effect of tuning on the bandwidth of the laser were investigated.

To evaluate dose delivery between Dynamic Conformal Arc (DCA) - Segment Shape Optimization (SSO) - Variation Dose Rate (VDR) and Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT) techniques for fifteen SRS patients using Versa HD® lineer accelerator. Fifteen SRS / SRT patient’s optimum treatment planning were performed using Monaco5.11® treatment planning system (TPS) with 1 coplanar and 3 non-coplanar fields for VMAT technique, then the plans were reoptimized with the same optimization parameters for DCA - SSO - VDR technique. The advantage of DCA - SSO - VDR technique were determined less MUs and beam on time, also larger segments decrease dosimetric uncertainities of small fields quality assurance. The advantage of VMAT technique were determined a little better GI, CI, PCI, brain V12Gy and brain mean dose. The results show that the clinical objectives and plans for both techniques satisfied all organs at risks (OARs) dose constraints. Depends on the shape and localization of target, we could choose one of these techniques for linear accelerator based SRS / SRT treatment.To evaluate dose delivery between Dynamic Conformal Arc (DCA) - Segment Shape Optimization (SSO) - Variation Dose Rate (VDR) and Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT) techniques for fifteen SRS patients using Versa HD® lineer accelerator. Fifteen SRS / SRT patient’s optimum treatment planning were performed using Monaco5.11® treatment planning system (TPS) with 1 coplanar and 3 non-coplanar fields for VMAT technique, then the plans were reoptimized with the same optimization parameters for DCA - SSO - VDR technique. The advantage of DCA - SSO - VDR technique were determined less MUs and beam on time, also larger segments decrease dosimetric uncertainities of small fields quality assurance. The advantage of VMAT technique were determined a little better GI, CI, PCI, brain V12Gy and brain mean dose. The results show that the clinical objectives and plans for both techniques satisfied all organs at risks (OARs) dose constraints. Depends on the shape and localization of target, we could choose one of these ...

This research chose two representative online encyclopedias, Wikipedia (English) and Baidu Baike, to compare their performance on historical entries. This research purposefully chose 6 entries and developed a framework to evaluate their performance in accuracy, breadth, depth, informativeness, conciseness and objectiveness. The result shows that: Wikipedia is superior in most cases while Baidu Baike is a little better in the entries on Chinese history. The operating mechanism is the main reason for it. The result implies that in the field of history, well-established online encyclopedias can be reliable for common users although improvement such as developing operating mechanisms is still needed.