Search

Background: Exposure to air pollution may be a risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) because air pollution may alter body water distribution and aggravate OSA manifestations. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the mediating effects of air pollution on the exacerbation of OSA severity through body water distribution. Methods: This retrospective study analyzed body composition and polysomnographic data collected from a sleep center in Northern Taiwan. Air pollution exposure was estimated using an adjusted nearest method, registered residential addresses, and data from the databases of government air quality motioning stations. Next, regression models were employed to determine the associations between estimated air pollution exposure levels (exposure for 1, 3, 6, and 12 months), OSA manifestations (sleep-disordered breathing indices and respiratory event duration), and body fluid parameters (total body water and body water distribution). The association between air pollution and OSA risk was determined. Results: Significant associations between OSA manifestations and short-term (1 month) exposure to PM2.5 and PM10 were identified. Similarly, significant associations were identified among total body water and body water distribution (intracellular-to-extracellular body water distribution), short-term (1 month) exposure to PM2.5 and PM10, and medium-term (3 months) exposure to PM10. Body water distribution might be a mediator that aggravates OSA manifestations, and short-term exposure to PM2.5 and PM10 may be a risk factor for OSA. Conclusion: Because exposure to PM2.5 and PM10 may be a risk factor for OSA that exacerbates OSA manifestations and exposure to particulate pollutants may affect OSA manifestations or alter body water distribution to affect OSA manifestations, mitigating exposure to particulate pollutants may improve OSA manifestations and reduce the risk of OSA. Furthermore, this study elucidated the potential mechanisms underlying the relationship between air pollution, body fluid parameters, and OSA severity.

Hysterectomy is the most common gynaecological surgery, performed mainly for benign uterine pathologies in women. Studies have suggested that hysterectomy is associated with osteoarthritis (OA); however, the association remains controversial. This study aimed to investigate the association between hysterectomy and the risk of OA. We performed a population-based nested case–control study using the National Health Insurance programme database from 2000 to 2016 in Taiwan. All medical conditions for each case and control were categorized using the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) and ICD-10. A multiple conditional logistic regression model was applied to analyse the adjusted odds ratio (aOR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the association between hysterectomy and OA. Our analyses included 16 592 patients with OA and 66 368 matched controls. After adjustment for possible confounders, hysterectomy had a significant association with OA (aOR = 1.19, 95% CI = 1.09–1.30), especially knee OA (aOR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.13–1.38). Furthermore, women who received oestrogen therapy (ET) alone and patients who underwent hysterectomy without ET showed a greater risk of OA development compared to women who did not receive ET (aOR = 1.14, 95% CI = 1.07–1.23, and aOR = 1.19, 95% CI = 1.08–1.31, respectively). Our findings indicate that hysterectomy is associated with OA, especially knee OA. We also found that women who received ET alone and patients who underwent hysterectomy without ET had an increased risk of OA.

Constraining the Galactic foregrounds with multi-frequency Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations is an essential step towards ultimately reaching the sensitivity to measure primordial gravitational waves (PGWs), the sign of inflation after the Big-Bang that would be imprinted on the CMB. The BICEP Array telescope is a set of multi-frequency cameras designed to constrain the energy scale of inflation through CMB B-mode searches while also controlling the polarized galactic foregrounds. The lowest frequency BICEP Array receiver (BA1) has been observing from the South Pole since 2020 and provides 30 GHz and 40 GHz data to characterize the Galactic synchrotron in our CMB maps. In this paper, we present the design of the BA1 detectors and the full optical characterization of the camera including the on-sky performance at the South Pole. The paper also introduces the design challenges during the first observing season including the effect of out-of-band photons on detectors performance. It also describes the tests done to diagnose that effect and the new upgrade to minimize these photons, as well as installing more dichroic detectors during the 2022 deployment season to improve the BA1 sensitivity. We finally report background noise measurements of the detectors with the goal of having photon noise dominated detectors in both optical channels. BA1 achieves an improvement in mapping speed compared to the previous deployment season., Comment: Proceedings of SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2022 (AS22)

Nucleic acid-based vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection are effective in the general population. However, it is unknown whether this is true in Asian patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases (ARDs) who have received various combinations of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs). We designed a large prospective observational study recruiting 228 patients with ARDs in a tertiary rheumatology centre in Taiwan. Altogether, 142 received biological or targeted synthetic DMARDs and 86 received only conventional synthetic (cs) DMARDs. Serum levels of immunoglobulin G antibody against SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins were measured 2–6 weeks after COVID-19 vaccination with mRNA-1273 (Moderna®) or ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (Oxford/AstraZeneca®). The immunomodulatory therapies were not modified before or after vaccination. Overall, 194 patients (85.09%) exhibited antibodies (758.33 ± 808.43 ng/mL) but 34 patients did not (103.24 ± 41.08 ng/mL). Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus or rheumatoid arthritis had significantly lower humoral responses to COVID-19 vaccination than those with other ARDs (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference in immunogenicity among patients on different csDMARD treatments. Compared to patients treated with only csDMARDs, those on rituximab or abatacept therapy had significantly lower immune response to the vaccination (p = 0.008 and p = 0.035, respectively). Patients who were treated with anti-tumour necrosis factor-α or interleukin-6 inhibitor exhibited higher titres of vaccination antibodies than those treated with direct lymphocyte inhibitors. mRNA-1273 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccines were immunogenic in the majority of ARD patients. Rituximab and abatacept were associated with significantly diminished COVID-19 vaccination immunogenicity.

The goal of predictive analytics monitoring is the early detection of patients at high risk of subacute potentially catastrophic illnesses. An excellent example of a targeted illness is respiratory failure leading to urgent unplanned intubation, where early detection might lead to interventions that improve patient outcomes. Previously, we identified signatures of this illness in the continuous cardiorespiratory monitoring data of Intensive Care Unit patients and devised algorithms to identify patients at rising risk. Here, we externally validated three logistic regression models to estimate the risk of emergency intubation developed in Medical and Surgical ICUs at the University of Virginia. We calculated the model outputs for more than 8000 patients in the University of California – San Francisco ICUs, 240 of whom underwent emergency intubation as determined by individual chart review. We found that the AUC of the models exceeded 0.75 in this external population, and that the risk rose appreciably over the 12 hours before the event. We conclude that there are generalizable physiological signatures of impending respiratory failure in the continuous cardiorespiratory monitoring data.

BackgroundTransforming patient-specific molecular data into clinical decisions is fundamental to personalized medicine. Despite massive advancements in cancer genomics, to date driver mutations whose frequencies are low, and their observable transformation potential is minor have escaped identification. Yet, when paired with other mutations in cis, such ‘latent driver’ mutations can drive cancer. Here, we discover potential ‘latent driver’ double mutations.MethodWe applied a statistical approach to identify significantly co-occurring mutations in the pan-cancer data of mutation profiles of ∼80,000 tumor sequences from the TCGA and AACR GENIE databases. The components of same gene doublets were assessed as potential latent drivers. We merged the analysis of the significant double mutations with drug response data of cell lines and patient derived xenografts (PDXs). This allowed us to link the potential impact of double mutations to clinical information and discover signatures for some cancer types.ResultsOur comprehensive statistical analysis identified 228 same gene double mutations of which 113 mutations are cataloged as latent drivers. Oncogenic activation of a protein can be through either single or multiple independent mechanisms of action. Combinations of a driver mutation with either a driver, a weak driver, or a strong latent driver have the potential of a single gene leading to a fully activated state and high drug response rate. Tumor suppressors require higher mutational load to coincide with double mutations compared to oncogenes which implies their relative robustness to losing their functions. Evaluation of the response of cell lines and patient-derived xenograft data to drug treatment indicate that in certain genes double mutations can increase oncogenic activity, hence a better drug response (e.g. in PIK3CA), or they can promote resistance to the drugs (e.g. in EGFR).ConclusionOur comprehensive analysis of same allele double mutations in cancer genome landscapes emphasizes that interrogation of big genomic data and integration with the results of large-scale small-molecule sensitivity data can provide deep patterns that are rare; but can still result in dramatic phenotypic alterations, and provide clinical signatures for some cancer types.

Autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) is encouraged for transplant-eligible multiple myeloma (MM) patients. A portion of MM patients received ASCT in an isolation room with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration. The effectiveness of the HEPA filtration on reducing treatment-related mortality (TRM) is controversial. We enrolled patients with newly diagnosed MM in Taiwan between 2000 and 2017. The primary endpoint of the study was TRM, which was defined as death within 100 days after ASCT. A total of 961 MM patients received ASCT. Of them, 480 patients (49.9%) received ASCT in an isolation room with HEPA filtration (HEPA group). The median overall survival from ASCT was 7.52 years for the HEPA group and 5.88 years for the remaining patients (non-HEPA group) (p = 0.370). The 100-day mortality rate was 1.5% and 1.0% for the HEPA and non-HEPA groups, respectively. In the multivariate analysis, the 100-day mortality had no difference between the HEPA and non-HEPA groups (adjusted hazard ratio 1.65, 95% CI 0.52–5.23). The median cost for ASCT inpatient care was $13777.6 and $6527.6 for the HEPA and non-HEPA groups, respectively (p

BackgroundThe global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic offers the opportunity to assess how hospitals manage the care of hospitalized patients with varying demographics and clinical presentations. The goal of this study was to demonstrate the impact of densely populated residential areas on hospitalization and to identify predictors of length of stay and mortality in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in one of the hardest hit counties internationally.MethodsThis was a single-center cohort study of 1325 sequentially hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in New York between March 2, 2020, to May 11, 2020. Geospatial distribution of study patients’ residences relative to population density in the region were mapped, and data analysis included hospital length of stay, need and duration of invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV), and mortality. Logistic regression models were constructed to predict discharge dispositions in the remaining active study patients.ResultsThe median age of the study cohort (interquartile range [IQR]) was 62 (49–75) years, and more than half were male (57%) with history of hypertension (60%), obesity (41%), and diabetes (42%). Geographic residence of the study patients was disproportionately associated with areas of higher population density (rs = 0.235; P = .004), with noted “hot spots” in the region. Study patients were predominantly hypertensive (MAP > 90 mmHg; 670, 51%) on presentation with lymphopenia (590, 55%), hyponatremia (411, 31%), and kidney dysfunction (estimated glomerular filtration rate < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2; 381, 29%). Of the patients with a disposition (1188/1325), 15% (182/1188) required IMV and 21% (250/1188) developed acute kidney injury. In patients on IMV, the median (IQR) hospital length of stay in survivors (22 [16.5–29.5] days) was significantly longer than that of nonsurvivors (15 [10–23.75] days), but this was not due to prolonged time on the ventilator. The overall mortality in all hospitalized patients was 15%, and in patients receiving IMV it was 48%, which is predicted to minimally rise from 48% to 49% based on logistic regression models constructed to project disposition in the remaining patients on ventilators. Acute kidney injury during hospitalization (odds ratioE, 3.23) was the strongest predictor of mortality in patients requiring IMV.ConclusionsThis is the first study to collectively utilize the demographics, clinical characteristics, and hospital course of COVID-19 patients to identify predictors of poor outcomes that can be used for resource allocation in future waves of the pandemic.

We report a measurement of the E-mode polarization power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) using 150 GHz data taken from July 2014 to December 2016 with the POLARBEAR experiment. We reach an effective polarization map noise level of $32\,\mu\mathrm{K}$-$\mathrm{arcmin}$ across an observation area of 670 square degrees. We measure the EE power spectrum over the angular multipole range $500 \leq \ell

Background Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) is a major global health concern and is typically diagnosed by in-lab polysomnography (PSG). This examination though has high medical manpower costs and alternative portable methods have further limitations. This paper develops a new model for screening the risk of OSAS in different age groups and gender by using body profiles. The effects of body profiles for different subgroups in sleep stage alteration and OSAS severity are also investigated. Methods The data is derived from 6614 Han-Taiwanese subjects who have previously undergone PSG in order to assess the severity of OSAS in the sleep center of Taipei Medical University Shuang-Ho Hospital between March 2015 and October 2019. Characteristics of subjects, including age, gender, body mass index (BMI), neck circumference, and waist circumference, were obtained from a questionnaire. Pearson regression was used to evaluate the correlations between body profiles and sleep stages as well as sleep disorder indexes. To develop an age and gender independent model, random forests (RF), which is an ensemble learning method with high explainability, were trained by the four groups by gender and age (older or younger than 50 years old) with ratios of 70% (training dataset) and 30% (testing dataset), respectively. Prediction performance was evaluated by sensitivity, specificity and accuracy. Variable importance was assessed by averaging the impurity decrease to account for the effect of different factors. Results Results indicate that high BMI, neck circumference and waist circumference decreased the duration of slow-wave sleep and increased the sleep disorder indices and the percentage of wake and N1. Additionally, screening models for different gender and age utilizing anthropometric features as predictors via RF were established and demonstrated to have high accuracy (75.63% for younger males, 74.72% for elder males, 78.81% for younger females, and 72.10% for elder females). Feature importance indicated that waist circumference was the highest contributing factor in females and elder males, whereas the BMI was the highest contribution in younger males. Conclusions The authors recommend the use of the prediction models for those with Han-Taiwanese craniofacial features.

The Visual Object Tracking challenge VOT2019 is the seventh annual tracker benchmarking activity organized by the VOT initiative. Results of 81 trackers are presented; many are state-of-the-art trackers published at major computer vision conferences or in journals in the recent years. The evaluation included the standard VOT and other popular methodologies for short-term tracking analysis as well as the standard VOT methodology for long-term tracking analysis. The VOT2019 challenge was composed of five challenges focusing on different tracking domains: (i) VOT-ST2019 challenge focused on short-term tracking in RGB, (ii) VOT-RT2019 challenge focused on "real-time" short-term tracking in RGB, (iii) VOT-LT2019 focused on long-term tracking namely coping with target disappearance and reappearance. Two new challenges have been introduced: (iv) VOT-RGBT2019 challenge focused on short-term tracking in RGB and thermal imagery and (v) VOT-RGBD2019 challenge focused on long-term tracking in RGB and depth imagery. The VOT-ST2019, VOT-RT2019 and VOT-LT2019 datasets were refreshed while new datasets were introduced for VOT-RGBT2019 and VOT-RGBD2019. The VOT toolkit has been updated to support both standard short-term, long-term tracking and tracking with multi-channel imagery. Performance of the tested trackers typically by far exceeds standard baselines. The source code for most of the trackers is publicly available from the VOT page. The dataset, the evaluation kit and the results are publicly available at the challenge website(1). Funding Agencies|Slovenian research agencySlovenian Research Agency - Slovenia [J2-8175, P2-0214, P2-0094]; Czech Science Foundation Project GACR [P103/12/G084]; MURI project - MoD/DstlMURI; EPSRCEngineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) [EP/N019415/1]; WASP; VR (ELLIIT, LAST, and NCNN); SSF (SymbiCloud); AIT Strategic Research Programme; Faculty of Computer Science, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Background Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) remains critically encountered every day for pediatricians and neonatologists along with the medical progress in prematurity neonatal care. In this study, we aimed to stratify premature neonates by their initial postnatal 24-hour clinical characteristics and maternal and gestational histories to early predict the risk of PDA at unfavorable treatment responses. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on preterm newborns who were consecutively admitted to a pediatric-neonatal-intensive-care-unit from 2008 to 2013 except some exclusion criteria. Data relating to birth histories, maternal histories, and clinical data from the first 24 hour of life were collected and analyzed according to three types of PDA outcomes—non-treated, medically-responded, and surgically-ligated PDA. Univariate analysis was performed using Mann-Whitney U test and Chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test. Multivariate analysis was performed using multinomial logistic regression to determine the independent risk factors for the PDA outcome. Results This study involved 682 preterm infants, composed of 352 male and 330 female neonates with median gestational age of 31 (interquartile, IQR: 28–34) week and BBW of 1360 (IQR: 1085–1861) g. Inclusively, 83% of PDAs in prematurity did not need any medical or surgical treatment, 8.8% of PDA medically responded and 7.9% needed surgical ligation. All subjects were further sub-grouped according to birth body weight (BBW) owing to significant differences in clinical characteristics and the rate of surgically-ligated PDA between neonates with BBW less than 1500 g (as the very low birth weight, VLBW group) and those with BBW greater or equal to 1500 g (as the non-VLBW group). The VLBW group had a significantly higher percentage of surgically-ligated PDA. For the VLBW group, the amount of first 24-hour intravenous fluid per kilogram, surfactant use and gynecological disorder were independent factors in predicting PDA outcomes. For the non-VLBW group, placenta previa, parity, BBW and intrauterine growth retardation were independent factors. Conclusions Neonatal care should be meticulously personalized according to their BBW. The first 24-hour perinatal factors, maternal and gestational history plays differential importance on PDA treatment outcome based on BBW.

Background: Individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus are at increased risk for heart failure (HF), particularly those with coexisting atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and/or kidney disease. Some but not all dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors have been associated with increased HF risk. We performed secondary analyses of HF and related outcomes with the dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor linagliptin versus placebo in CARMELINA (The Cardiovascular and Renal Microvascular Outcome Study With Linagliptin), a cardiovascular outcomes trial that enrolled participants with type 2 diabetes mellitus and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and/or kidney disease. Methods: Participants in 27 countries with type 2 diabetes mellitus and concomitant atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and/or kidney disease were randomized 1:1 to receive once daily oral linagliptin 5 mg or placebo, on top of standard of care. All hospitalization for HF (hHF), cardiovascular outcomes, and deaths were prospectively captured and centrally adjudicated. In prespecified and post hoc analyses of HF and related events, Cox proportional hazards models adjusting for region and baseline history of HF were used. Recurrent hHF events were analyzed using a negative binomial model. In a subset of participants with left ventricular ejection fraction captured within the year before randomization, HF-related outcomes were assessed in subgroups stratified by left ventricular ejection fraction > or 50%. Results: CARMELINA enrolled 6979 participants (mean age, 65.9 years; estimated glomerular filtration rate, mL/min per 1.73m(2); hemoglobin A1c, 8.0%; 62.9% men; diabetes mellitus duration, 14.8 years), including 1873 (26.8%) with a history of HF at baseline. Median follow-up was 2.2 years. Linagliptin versus placebo did not affect the incidence of hHF (209/3494 [6.0%] versus 226/3485 [6.5%], respectively; hazard ratio [HR], 0.90; 95% CI, 0.74-1.08), the composite of cardiovascular death/hHF (HR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.82-1.08), or risk for recurrent hHF events (326 versus 359 events, respectively; rate ratio, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.75-1.20). There was no heterogeneity of linagliptin effects on hHF by history of HF at baseline, baseline estimated glomerular filtration rate or urine albumin-creatinine ratio, or prerandomization left ventricular ejection fraction. Conclusions: In a large, international cardiovascular outcome trial in participants with type 2 diabetes mellitus and concomitant atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and/or kidney disease, linagliptin did not affect the risk of hHF or other selected HF-related outcomes, including among participants with and without a history of HF, across the spectrum of kidney disease, and independent of previous left ventricular ejection fraction. Clinical Trial Registration: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01897532.

IMPORTANCE Type 2 diabetes is associated with increased cardiovascular (CV) risk. Prior trials have demonstrated CV safety of 3 dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP-4) inhibitors but have included limited numbers of patients with high CV risk and chronic kidney disease. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of linagliptin, a selective DPP-4 inhibitor, on CV outcomes and kidney outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes at high risk of CV and kidney events. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Randomized, placebo-controlled, multicenter noninferiority trial conducted from August 2013 to August 2016 at 605 clinic sites in 27 countries among adults with type 2 diabetes, hemoglobin A(1c) of 6.5% to 10.0%, high CV risk (history of vascular disease and urine-albumin creatinine ratio [UACR] > 200mg/g), and high renal risk (reduced eGFR and micro-or macroalbuminuria). Participants with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) were excluded. Final follow-up occurred on January 18, 2018. INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive linagliptin, 5 mg once daily (n = 3494), or placebo once daily (n = 3485) added to usual care. Other glucose-lowering medications or insulin could be added based on clinical need and local clinical guidelines. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Primary outcomewas time to first occurrence of the composite of CV death, nonfatalmyocardial infarction, or nonfatal stroke. Criteria for noninferiority of linagliptin vs placebo was defined by the upper limit of the 2-sided 95% CI for the hazard ratio (HR) of linagliptin relative to placebo being less than 1.3. Secondary outcome was time to first occurrence of adjudicated death due to renal failure, ESRD, or sustained 40% or higher decrease in eGFR from baseline. RESULTS Of 6991 enrollees, 6979 (mean age, 65.9 years; eGFR, 54.6 mL/min/1.73m2; 80.1% with UACR > 30mg/g) received at least 1 dose of study medication and 98.7% completed the study. During a median follow-up of 2.2 years, the primary outcome occurred in 434 of 3494 (12.4%) and 420 of 3485 (12.1%) in the linagliptin and placebo groups, respectively, (absolute incidence rate difference, 0.13 [95% CI,-0.63 to 0.90] per 100 person-years) (HR, 1.02; 95% CI, 0.89-1.17; P

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is an important complication of mechanical ventilation in preterm infants, and no definite therapy can eliminate this complication. Pulmonary inflammation plays a crucial role in its pathogenesis, and glucocorticoid is one potential therapy to prevent BPD.To compare the effect of intratracheal administration of surfactant/budesonide with that of surfactant alone on the incidence of death or BPD.A clinical trial was conducted in three tertiary neonatal centers in the United States and Taiwan, in which 265 very-low-birth-weight infants with severe respiratory distress syndrome who required mechanical ventilation and inspired oxygen (fraction of inspired oxygen, ≥50%) within 4 hours of birth were randomly assigned to one of two groups (131 intervention and 134 control). The intervention infants received surfactant (100 mg/kg) and budesonide (0.25 mg/kg), and the control infants received surfactant only (100 mg/kg), until each infant required inspired O2 at less than 30% or was extubated.The intervention group had a significantly lower incidence of BPD or death (55 of 131 [42.0%] vs. 89 of 134 [66%]; risk ratio, 0.58; 95% confidence interval, 0.44-0.77; P 0.001; number needed to treat, 4.1; 95% confidence interval, 2.8-7.8). The intervention group required significantly fewer doses of surfactant than did the control group. The intervention group had significantly lower interleukin levels (IL-1, IL-6, IL-8) in tracheal aspirates at 12 hours and lower IL-8 at 3-5 and 7-8 days.In very-low-birth-weight infants with severe respiratory distress syndrome, intratracheal administration of surfactant/budesonide compared with surfactant alone significantly decreased the incidence of BPD or death without immediate adverse effect. Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT-00883532).

The Industry Council for Electronic Equipment Recycling (ICER) has published estimates of waste generation based on both assumptions and analysis regarding the relationship between the market sales of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) in a given year and the expected lifetime of products as well as by employing market saturation factors. Waste EEE (WEEE) has an adverse impact on the environment. Therefore, it is important to reduce the quantity of WEEE through recycling. While attempting to improve the recycling rate of WEEE by enhancing the disassembly processes, two issues must be considered simultaneously-economy and safety. In this paper, a Petri Net (PN) based analysis approach is proposed to deal with the disassembly and recycling problems in End-Of-Life (EOL) WEEE. By using the PN analysis, the optimal tradeoff between the cost and environmental effectiveness of the disassembly processes is determined. A case study is used to illustrate the proposed analysis method.

The WISE satellite surveyed the entire sky multiple times in four infrared (IR) wavelengths ($3.4,\ 4.6,\ 12,$ and $22\, ��$m, Wright et al. 2010). This all-sky IR photometric survey makes it possible to leverage many of the large publicly available spectroscopic redshift surveys to measure galaxy properties in the IR. While characterizing the cross-matching of WISE data to a single survey is a straightforward process, doing it with six different redshift surveys takes a fair amount of space to characterize adequately, because each survey has unique caveats and characteristics that need addressing. This work describes a data set that results from matching five public redshift surveys with the AllWISE data release, along with a reanalysis of the data described in Lake et al. 2012. The combined data set has an additional flux limit of $80\,��$Jy ($19.14$ AB mag) in WISE's W1 filter imposed in order to limit it to targets with high completeness and reliable photometry in the AllWISE data set. Consistent analysis of all of the data is only possible if the color bias discussed in Ilbert et al. (2004) is addressed (for example: the techniques explored in the first paper in this series Lake et al. 2017b). The sample defined herein is used in this paper's sequel paper, Lake et al. 2017a), to measure the luminosity function of galaxies at $2.4\, ��$m rest frame wavelength, and the selection process of the sample is optimized for this purpose., 44 pages, 22 figures, 20 tables, associated data on Figshare under DOIs 10.6084/m9.figshare.3860016 and 10.6084/m9.figshare.4003680, accepted by ApJ

The WISE satellite surveyed the entire sky multiple times in four infrared wavelengths (3.4, 4.6, 12, and $22\,��$m; Wright et al. 2010). The unprecedented combination of coverage area and depth gives us the opportunity to measure the luminosity function of galaxies, one of the fundamental quantities in the study of them, at $2.4\ ��$m to an unparalleled level of formal statistical accuracy in the near infrared. The big advantage of measuring luminosity functions at wavelengths in the window $\approx 2$ to $3.5\,��$m is that it correlates more closely to the total stellar mass in galaxies than others. In this paper we report on the parameters for the $2.4\,��$m luminosity function of galaxies obtained from applying the spectroluminosity functional based methods defined in Lake et al. (2017b) to the data sets described in Lake et al. (2017a) using the mean and covariance of $2.4\,��$m normalized SEDs from Lake & Wright (2016). In terms of single Schechter function parameters evaluated at the present epoch, the combined result is: $��_\star = 5.8 \pm [0.3_{\mathrm{stat}},\, 0.3_{\mathrm{sys}}] \times 10^{-3} \operatorname{Mpc}^{-3}$, $L_\star = 6.4 \pm [0.1_{\mathrm{stat}},\, 0.3_{\mathrm{sys}}] \times 10^{10}\, L_{2.4\,��\mathrm{m}\,\odot}$ ($M_\star = -21.67 \pm [0.02_{\mathrm{stat}},\, 0.05_{\mathrm{sys}}]\operatorname{AB\ mag}$), and $��= -1.050 \pm [0.004_{\mathrm{stat}},\, 0.03_{\mathrm{sys}}]$, corresponding to a galaxy number density of $0.08\operatorname{Mpc}^{-3}$ brighter than $10^6\, L_{2.4\,��\mathrm{m}\,\odot}$ ($10^{-3} \operatorname{Mpc}^{-3}$ brighter than $L_\star$) and a $2.4\,��$m luminosity density equivalent to $3.8\times10^{8}\,L_{2.4\,��\mathrm{m}\,\odot}\operatorname{Mpc}^{-3}$. $\ldots$, 25 pages, 7 figures, 10 tables, posterior chains on Figshare under DOI 10.6084/m9.figshare.4109625, accepted by ApJ

Plant cells can be sensitized toward a subsequent pathogen attack by avirulent pathogens or by chemicals such as beta aminobutyric acid (BABA). This process is called priming. Using a reverse genetic approach in Arabidopsis thaliana we demonstrate that the BABA responsive L type lectin receptor kinase VI. 2 (LecRK VI.2) contributes to disease resistance against the hemibiotrophic Pseudomonas syringae and the necrotrophic Pectobacterium carotovorum bacteria. Accordingly LecRK VI.2 mRNA levels increased after bacterial inoculation or treatments with microbe associated molecular patterns (MAMPs). We also show that LecRK VI.2 is required for full activation of pattern triggered immunity (PTI); notably lecrk VI.2 1 mutants show reduced upregulation of PTI marker genes impaired callose deposition and defective stomatal closure. Overexpression studies combined with genome wide microarray analyses indicate that LecRK VI.2 positively regulates the PTI response. LecRK VI.2 is demonstrated to act upstream of mitogen activated protein kinase signaling but independently of reactive oxygen production and BOTRYTIS INDUCED KINASE1 phosphorylation. In addition complex formation between the MAMP receptor FLAGELLIN SENSING2 and its signaling partner BRASSINOSTEROID INSENSITIVE1 ASSOCIATED KINASE1 is observed in flg22 treated lecrk VI.2 1 mutants. LecRK VI.2 is also required for full BABA induced resistance and priming of PTI. Our work identifies LecRK VI.2 as a novel mediator of the Arabidopsis PTI response and provides insight into molecular mechanisms governing priming.

We present a novel neural network algorithm, the Tensor Switching (TS) network, which generalizes the Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) nonlinearity to tensor-valued hidden units. The TS network copies its entire input vector to different locations in an expanded representation, with the location determined by its hidden unit activity. In this way, even a simple linear readout from the TS representation can implement a highly expressive deep-network-like function. The TS network hence avoids the vanishing gradient problem by construction, at the cost of larger representation size. We develop several methods to train the TS network, including equivalent kernels for infinitely wide and deep TS networks, a one-pass linear learning algorithm, and two backpropagation-inspired representation learning algorithms. Our experimental results demonstrate that the TS network is indeed more expressive and consistently learns faster than standard ReLU networks.

The inter-connected fluidized bed (IFB) cold model with four 10 cm x 10 cm compartments was built to establish operational parameters and provide the information for future commercial design of an IFB gasification system. Glass beads, dolomite and limestone were employed as bed materials to investigate the effects of those materials. The effects of the particle weight, gas velocity, orifice diameter, and orifice height on the circulation rate of solids (CRS) in the IFB were investigated. The preliminary results show that the CRS increases with increasing gas velocity of the lean bed, bed weight and orifice diameter. The diameter of limestone decreases during the operation and the value changes from 0.2483 mm in the beginning to the 0.1799 mm after 30 minutes. The diameter of dolomite keeps near constant value of 0.18 mm during the operation. It shows that dolomite is better than limestone if the CO2 capture sorbent is require to cycle use. The hot model will be designed and commissioned based on the present results to carry out the further investigation., Proceedings of the 24th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 6-9 June 2016, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, pp. 941-943

The astronomy community has at its disposal a large back catalog of public spectroscopic galaxy redshift surveys that can be used for the measurement of luminosity functions. Utilizing the back catalog with new photometric surveys to maximum efficiency requires modeling the color selection bias imposed on selection of target galaxies by flux limits at multiple wavelengths. The likelihood derived herein can address, in principle, all possible color selection biases through the use of a generalization of the luminosity function, $��(L)$, over the space of all spectra: the spectro-luminosity functional, $��[L_��]$. It is, therefore, the first estimator capable of simultaneously analyzing multiple redshift surveys in a consistent way. We also propose a new way of parametrizing the evolution of the classic Shechter function parameters, $L_\star$ and $��_\star$, that improves both the physical realism and statistical performance of the model. The techniques derived in this work will be used in an upcoming paper to measure the luminosity function of galaxies at the rest frame wavelength of $2.4\operatorname{��m}$ using the Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)., Accepted to AJ 14 pages, 6 figures

Both the general public and governmental agencies highly prioritize resource optimization (energy and material) and environmental issues such as ozone, acid rain and global warming in the life-cycle context. Disassembly and recycling are also increasingly important in most industrial countries due to the significant increase in the quantity of used products being discarded. Disassembly of used products has been recognized as necessary to make recycling economically viable in current state-of-the-art reprocessing technology. This emerging trend requires incorporating environmental considerations into design strategies. This study presents a graph-based heuristic method for disassembly analysis of end-of-life products, which incorporates the Eco-Design concept. Product components and their assembly relationships from the bill of material BOM are adopted to split the graph into sub-graphs denoting modular sub-assemblies. The life-cycle analysis LCA is then used to analyze disassembly trees, from which a disassembly sequence can be derived. Designers can use the analytical results to evaluate the dis-assemblability and recyclability of products when they are designed.

Many birds in breeding seasons engage in vigorous dawn singing that often turns to a prominent chorus. We examined dawn chorus variation of avian assemblages in a tropical montane forest in Taiwan and tested the hypothesis that onset sequence is affected by eye sizes, foraging heights, and diet of birds. Chorus onset and duration varied between sampling months, but generally peaked in the prime breeding season. Overall dawn chorus length increased with, but mean duration per species was negatively correlated with, species richness. The inter-correlation among trait variables in phylogenetic independent contrasts was calculated and examined. Both foraging height and relative eye size were selected as positively explanatory factors, but no dietary effects were detected, for chorus onsets. Dawn singing onsets also tended to delay as decreasing log (eye sizes) that, however, was not selected with enough explanatory power. The positive relationship of chorus onsets versus relative eye sizes contradicts our prediction, yet the negative correlation of relative eye sizes with log (eye sizes) indicates an allometric constraint on eye sizes along with increasing body sizes. Lowerlayer species initiated singing earlier than upper-layer species, which complies with the positive correlation of onsets with foraging heights and supports our prediction. This pattern may be condition-specific and more likely occurs in forests lacking a sufficient canopy height and layering and a distinct light difference among forest layers. Foraging heights were additionally found negatively correlated with canopy coverage and slightly positively correlated with ground coverage of perches. Our results concord that foraging height is a relevant factor as eye size in determining the onset and sequence of dawn chorus, yet, suggest that forest settings and vegetation structure may likely complicate the prediction.

The implementations of design for assembly and design for manufacture (DFM) led to enormous benefits including simplification of products, reduction of assembly and manufacturing costs, improvement of quality, and reduction of time to market. More recently, environmental concerns required that disassembly and recycling issues should be considered during the design stages. The effort to reduce total life-cycle costs for a product through design innovation is becoming an essential part of the current manufacturing industry. Therefore, researchers begin to focus their attention on design for environment, design for recyclability, design for life-cycle (DFLC), etc. These studies are sometimes referred to as Design for X (DFX). Since the late 1990s, hundreds of papers have been published pertaining to DFX applications in manufacturing. Most of them are widely distributed over many different disciplines and publications. This makes it very difficult for one to locate all the information necessary for the application of DFX in manufacturing. A paper that can help researchers and practitioners applying this emerging technology is highly desirable. The objective of this paper is to present the concepts, applications, and perspectives of ‘DFX’ in manufacturing, thus providing some guidelines and references for future research and implementation.

Original equipment manufacturers are facing more pressure to improve the recyclability of their products. The concept of environmentally conscious design and manufacturing has been adopted in an effort to improve the environmental compatibility of manufactured goods. This new trend requires that environmental considerations be incorporated into design strategies. This paper presents a graph-based heuristic approach to perform disassembly analysis for electromechanical products. The components of a product and their assembly relationships are represented using a component-fastener graph. A cut-vertex search procedure is used to split the graph into sub-graphs representing modular sub-assemblies. Disassembly precedence analysis is then applied to generate a disassembly tree, from which a disassembly sequence can be derived. The results of the analysis can be used by designers to evaluate the 'disassemblability' and 'recyclability' of products they are designing. Desirable changes can then be made at the ear...

For companies, the improvement of the recyclability performance of their newly designed products is becoming an integral part of product development process. The concept of environmental conscious design (ECD) has been adopted to assist the environmental performance of the products at the early stage of designing. This new trend requires that the design strategies need to be modified by integrating the environmental constraints. This paper provides the disassembly sequence and cost analysis for the electromechanical products during the design stage. The disassembly planning is divided into four stages: geometric assembly representation, cut-vertex search analysis, disassembly precedence matrix analysis, and disassembly sequences and plan generation. The disassembly cost is categorized into three types: target disassembly, full disassembly, and optimal disassembly. The result of this approach shows that the electromechanical products can be disassembled systematically and economically.

Network planning of bus services requires addressing the trade off between frequency and coverage. Planning for good coverage of bus services using the rule of thumb that people will walk four hundred meters to access bus based public transport services means sharing the available budget between many services. For the same budget, the alternative approach of concentrating frequency on core corridors implies lower coverage and that some travellers would need to walk further to access bus based services. An understanding of to which extent people are willing to walk to a bus stop with higher frequency would provide empirical information for bus network planning. The research question addressed by this paper is whether travellers are willing to walk further to a more frequent bus service in the context of Australian cities. A Stated Choice Experiment approach is used to elicit the trade off between walking further to access more frequent bus services. In doing so the paper investigates the potential success of reorientating a coverage approach to network planning, prevalent in many Australian cities to one predicated on concentrating frequency in corridors. The results show travellers in Australian capital cities are willing to walk around 206m to 327m further for a ten-minute reduction in bus headways. These research outcomes provide valuable Australian evidence confirming travellers are prepared to walk further to a more frequent bus service.

This study presents a new and simple method for the synthesis of hollow carbon spheres possessing nanocage sizes of 7.1, 14, and 20 nm in diameter. The core-shell (i.e., Cu@C) nanoparticles prepared by carbonization of the Cu2+–cyclodextrin (CD) complexes at 573 K for 2 h was etched with HCl (6N) to yield the hollow carbon spheres. The carbon-shell of the hollow carbon nanospheres, which consisted of mainly diamond-like and graphite carbons, is not perturbed during etching. In addition to the nanocages, the hollow carbon nanospheres also possess micropores with an opening of 0.45 nm, allowing small molecules to diffuse in and out through the carbon-shell. Many elements (such as Zn2+ or Cu2+) can therefore be filled into the nanocages of the hollow carbon nanospheres. With these unique properties, for instance, designable active species such as Cu and ZnO encapsulated in the carbon-shell can act as Cu–ZnO@C yolk-shell nanoreactors which are found very effective in the catalytic decomposition of methanol.

The Industry Council for Electronic Equipment Recycling (ICER) has published estimates of waste generation based on both assumptions and analysis regarding the relationship between the market sales of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) in a given year and the expected lifetime of products as well as by employing market saturation factors. Further, today, it has become extremely important to reduce the quantity of waste EEE (WEEE). While attempting to improve the recycling rate of WEEE by enhancing the disassembly processes, two issues must be considered simultaneously — economy and safety. In this paper, a Petri net (PN) analysis has been proposed to deal with the disassembly and recycling problems in end-of-life (EOL) WEEE since it can describe the disassembly processes dynamically. By using the PN analysis, the optimal solution between the cost and environmental effectiveness of the disassembly processes is determined. Finally, a case study is illustrated for the disassembly tree model.

Phylogenetic analyses of Microstegium (Andropogoneae, Poaceae) and some other Andropogoneae species were conducted inferred from the ITS/5.8S sequences. As a result of this study, Microstegium is polyphyletic. There are two rather distant monophyletic clades, one with Microstegium nudum (type of Leptatherum), M. japonicum and M. somae, the other one with M. ciliatum, M. fauriei, M. geniculatum and M. vimineum (type of Microstegium). Therefore we feel justified to reinstate the genus Leptatherum and three new combinations, Leptatherum boreale, L. nudum and L. somae, are proposed.

Ceriops zippeliana, a member of the mangrove Rhizophoraceae, was first reported in 1849. It was considered to be a synonym of C. decandra, which is still widely accepted. We present morphological and molecular evidence to show that C. zippeliana is significantly distinct from C. decandra, and illustrations and an identification key to both spe

OBJECTIVE. Budesonide is an inhaled steroid with a strong topical effect but with minimal systemic effects; it has been effectively delivered to animal lungs using surfactant as a vehicle. The purposes of this study were to determine whether early intratracheal instillation of budesonide using surfactant as a vehicle would improve pulmonary status, reduce mortality, and reduce chronic lung disease morbidity. PATIENTS AND METHODS. We conducted a prospective, randomized blind trial in 116 very low birth weight infants ( RESULTS. Infants in the treatment group required significantly lower mean airway pressure on day 1 and day 3 and had significantly lower oxygen index and Pco2 during the first 3 days than infants in the control group. More infants were extubated in the treatment group than controls at 1 and 2 weeks. The combined outcome of deaths or chronic lung disease was significantly lower in the treatment group than in the control group (19 of 60 vs 34 of 56). No clinically significant adverse effects were observed during the study. CONCLUSIONS. This pilot study indicated that early postnatal intratracheal instillation of budesonide using surfactant as vehicle significantly improved the combined outcome of death or chronic lung disease in small premature infants without causing immediate adverse effects. The results are encouraging, and a large sample multicenter trial is warranted.

Similar to the optimal-doped, weak-ferromagnetic (WFM induced by canted antiferromagnetism, T$_{Curie}$ = 131 K) and superconducting (T$_{c}$ = 56 K) RuSr$_{2}$GdCu$_{2}$O$_{8}$, the underdoped RuSr$_{2}$EuCu$_{2}$O$_{8}$ (T$_{Curie}$ = 133 K, T$_{c}$ = 36 K) also exhibited a spontaneous vortex state (SVS) between 16 K and 36 K. The low field ($\pm$20 G) superconducting hysteresis loop indicates a weak and narrow Meissner state region of average lower critical field B$_{c1}^{ave}$(T) = B$_{c1}^{ave}$(0)[1 - (T/T$_{SVS}$)$^{2}$], with B$_{c1}^{ave}$(0) = 7 G and T$_{SVS}$ = 16 K. The vortex melting transition (T$_{melting}$ = 21 K) below T$_{c}$ obtained from the broad resistivity drop and the onset of diamagnetic signal indicates a vortex liquid region due to the coexistence and interplay between superconductivity and WFM order. No visible jump in specific heat was observed near T$_{c}$ for Eu- and Gd-compound. This is not surprising, since the electronic specific heat is easily overshadowed by the large phonon and weak-ferromagnetic contributions. Furthermore, a broad resistivity transition due to low vortex melting temperature would also lead to a correspondingly reduced height of any specific heat jump. Finally, with the baseline from the nonmagnetic Eu-compound, specific heat data analysis confirms the magnetic entropy associated with antiferromagnetic ordering of Gd$^{3+}$ (J = S = 7/2) at 2.5 K to be close to $\it{N_{A}k}$ ln8 as expected., Comment: 7 figures

Tsai, C. - F., Tsai, S. - C., Liaw, G (2000): Two new species of protandric pheretimoid earthworms belonging to the genus Metaphire (Megascolecidae: Oligochaeta) from Taiwan. Journal of Natural History 34: 1731-1741, DOI: 10.1080/00222930050122156

Metaphire bununa sp. nov. typica (®gure 4) Type material HOLOTYPE: A mature specimen (dissected) picked up 9 July 1998 in the morning after rain on the paved road across Mt Chidong between Chichi and Chungliau, Nantou Prefecture (®gure 1) by S. C. Chi (coll. no. 1998-32). Other material Seven mature specimens collected in the vicinity of the type locality (®gure 1): a specimen (266 mm) picked up 13 May 1998 in the morning after rain on Road 139, Chungliau, Nantou by G. J. Liaw (coll. no. 1998-21); ®ve specimens (289±294 mm) collected 7 August 1998 in the wet ditch along mountain cliOE, Kochin village, Chungliau, Nantou by C. F. Tsai and G. J. Liaw (coll. no. 1998-44); a mature specimen (290 mm, dissected) collected 2 December 1998 on the mountain slope along the Koushing Road, Suili, Nantou by C. F. Tsai, S. C. Tsai and G. L. Liaw (coll. no. 1998-67). Also, three mature specimens (328±352 mm) collected 29 January 1999 from the mountain road side ditch near Fushin Village, Chungliau, Nantou by G. L. Liaw (coll. no. 1999-2). External characters Length (mature) 255 mm, weight 20.3 g, clitellum width 10.6 mm. Prostomium prolobous. Segment number 189. Number of annulets per segment three in IV± VI, ®ve to seven in VIII±XIII, XVIII, and ®ve in body segments after XVII. Setae 103 in V, 114 in VII, 125 in XX, 19 between male pores. First dorsal pore in 12/13. Clitellum XIV±XVI, smooth, saddle-shaped, length 10.18 mm, dorsal pores present, seta absent. Spermathecal pores four pairs in 5/6±8/9, distance between the pores 0.36 circumference apart. The pore areas of two posterior pairs light grey, contrasting to dark purplish blue of the head region. Female pore single, medio-ventral in XIV. Male pores paired in XVIII, latero-ventral, distance between the pores 0.23 circumference apart. Each pore C-shaped with swollen and folliculated edge surrounded with circular folds, which extend to the inter-segmental furrows of XVIII with XVII and XIX (®gures 4A, B). Genital papilla absent in both male pore and spermathecal pore regions. Preserved specimen dark purplish blue on dorsum, light grey on ventrum, greyish brown on clitellum. Internal characters Septa 5/6±7/8 thickened, 8/9 and 9/10 absent, 10/11 and 12/13 greatly thickened. Gizzard in VIII±X, round, white in colour. Intestine enlarged from XV. Intestinal caecae paired in XXVII, extending anteriorly to XXVI, light yellow, with slightly wrinkled surface (®gure 4F). Lateral hearts in IX, XII, XIII enlarged, X, XI small. Two pairs of nephridial tufts in V and VI in front of 5/6 and 6/7 septa. Spermathecae four pairs in VI ±IX, each with an elongated, peach-shape d ampulla and a slender stalk. Diverticulum with a long stalk, its proximal portion straight and distal portion coiled or twisted with a small white seminal chamber (®gure 4D). Ovaries paired, medio-ventral in XIII. Protandry: testis sacs paired in X, large, white in colour. Seminal vesicles paired in XI, smooth, light yellow. A pair of small vestiges of seminal vesicles in XII (®gure 4E). Prostate glands paired in XVIII, large, racemose, folliculated, extending anteriorly to XVII and posteriorly to XX. Prostatic duct slightly curved, wide at the distal end connecting to the prostatic gland and narrowed toward the proximal end connecting to copulatory pouch. A small bunch of white, parallel muscular ®bres connecting between the central portion of the copulatory pouch and the medio-ventral portion of body wall (®gure 4C). Locality and habitat The var. typica is apparently a night crawler and often found on paved roads in hill regions in the morning after rain. Based on coll. nos 1998-44 and 1998-67, this worm lives on wet mountain slopes, elevation about 200 m, where ground is composed of clay or clay mixed with gravel, and often covered with grasses., Published as part of Tsai, C. - F., Tsai, S. - C. & Liaw, G, 2000, Two new species of protandric pheretimoid earthworms belonging to the genus Metaphire (Megascolecidae: Oligochaeta) from Taiwan, pp. 1731-1741 in Journal of Natural History 34 on pages 1736-1738, DOI: 10.1080/00222930050122156, http://zenodo.org/record/4748115

Metaphire paiwanna sp. nov. typica (®gure 2) Type material HOLOTYPE: A mature (clitellate) specimen (dissected) collected 22 July 1998 from Boutang Village, Pingtung Prefecture, west of the Central Mountain Range near the southern tip of Taiwan (®gure 1) by C. F. Tsai, S. C. Tsai and S. C. Chang (coll. no. 1998-40). PARATYPES: A mature (dissected) and an immature specimens (same collection of holotype). External characters Length (matures) 292±293 mm (immature 264 mm), clitellum width 6.8±7.4 mm, weight 9.3±12.9 g. Prostomium prolobous. Segment number 132±140. Number of annulets (secondary segments) per segment three in V ±IX, ®ve in X±XIII, three in body segments after XVII. Setae minute 108±115 in VII, 100±103 in XX, 22±26 between male pores. First dorsal pore in 12/13. Clitellum XIV±XIV, smooth, saddleshaped, length 8.5±9.7 mm, dorsal pores present, setae absent except two setae remained on ventrum XVI of the 292 cm specimen. Spermathecal pores four pairs in 5/6± 8/9, distance between the paired pores about 0.5 body circumference apart, edge of each pore slightly swollen, wrinkled, pale in colour. Female pore single, medio-ventral in XIV. Male pores (openings of copulatory pouches) paired, ventro-lateral in XVIII, the distance between the pores 0.25±0.30 circumference apart. Each pore C-shaped or slightly S-shaped, bordered laterally by a thick skin wall and medially by a male disc, which has a horizontal ridge, extending from the setal line to the middle of the pore, along with tubercles and folds. The male pore area surrounded by circular folds, which extend anteriorly to the post-setal annulet of XVII and posteriorly to the pre-setal annulet of XIX. Male aperture located at the distal end (tip) of the horizontal ridge, coiling into the copulatory pouch (®gure 2A, B). Genital papillae absent in the male pore and spermathecal regions. Preserved specimens bluish or purplish brown on dorsum, light gray on ventrum. Clitellum colour similar to that of the head. Internal characters Septa 5/6±7/8 slightly thickened, 8/9 and 9/10 absent, 10/11± 13/14 greatly thickened. Gizzard in VIII±X, large, yellowish white, cylindrical, with a slight constriction at 9/10 that divides the gizzard into a long anterior part in VIII and IX and a short posterior part in X. Oesophageal pouch small in VII. Intestine enlarged from XV. Intestinal caecae paired in XXVII, simple, extending anteriorly to XXIV, wrinkled, with a brown longitudinal stripe with yellowish white borders (®gure 2H). Lateral hearts enlarged in XI±XIII, small in V ±X. Nephridial tufts (bush-shaped ®lamentous nephridia) paired in V and VI in front of 5/6 and 6/7 septa. Spermathecae four pairs in VI ±IX, each with a slightly tuberculate ampulla, about 0.07 mm long, and a very short stalk, about 0.03 mm long. Diverticulum small with an oval, white seminal chamber, and a short, twisted stalk, reaching to or beyond the middle of ampulla (®gure 2D, E). Ovaries paired in XIII, medio-ventral position posterior to 12/13. Protandry: testis sacs paired in X, smooth, oval, white in colour, medio-ventral in front of 10/11 (®gure 2F). Seminal vesicles paired in XI, each with an oval dorsal lobe (®gure 2G). Prostate glands paired in XVIII, large, racemose, yellowish white, lobulated, extending to XVII. Prostatic duct short, stout, slightly curved (®gure 2C). Locality and habitat The type locality was a ¯at ®eld below a small pond on the mountain slope at an elevation of about 150 m. The ground was composed of clay and soil with a dense covering of tall grasses. The ground surface was very wet but not muddy from water draining from the pond. M. paiwanna was the only form of earthworm found at this locality., Published as part of Tsai, C. - F., Tsai, S. - C. & Liaw, G, 2000, Two new species of protandric pheretimoid earthworms belonging to the genus Metaphire (Megascolecidae: Oligochaeta) from Taiwan, pp. 1731-1741 in Journal of Natural History 34 on pages 1732-1734, DOI: 10.1080/00222930050122156, http://zenodo.org/record/4748115

Metaphire bununa sp. nov. typica (®gure 4) Type material HOLOTYPE: A mature specimen (dissected) picked up 9 July 1998 in the morning after rain on the paved road across Mt Chidong between Chichi and Chungliau, Nantou Prefecture (®gure 1) by S. C. Chi (coll. no. 1998-32). Other material Seven mature specimens collected in the vicinity of the type locality (®gure 1): a specimen (266 mm) picked up 13 May 1998 in the morning after rain on Road 139, Chungliau, Nantou by G. J. Liaw (coll. no. 1998-21); ®ve specimens (289±294 mm) collected 7 August 1998 in the wet ditch along mountain cliOE, Kochin village, Chungliau, Nantou by C. F. Tsai and G. J. Liaw (coll. no. 1998-44); a mature specimen (290 mm, dissected) collected 2 December 1998 on the mountain slope along the Koushing Road, Suili, Nantou by C. F. Tsai, S. C. Tsai and G. L. Liaw (coll. no. 1998-67). Also, three mature specimens (328±352 mm) collected 29 January 1999 from the mountain road side ditch near Fushin Village, Chungliau, Nantou by G. L. Liaw (coll. no. 1999-2). External characters Length (mature) 255 mm, weight 20.3 g, clitellum width 10.6 mm. Prostomium prolobous. Segment number 189. Number of annulets per segment three in IV± VI, ®ve to seven in VIII±XIII, XVIII, and ®ve in body segments after XVII. Setae 103 in V, 114 in VII, 125 in XX, 19 between male pores. First dorsal pore in 12/13. Clitellum XIV±XVI, smooth, saddle-shaped, length 10.18 mm, dorsal pores present, seta absent. Spermathecal pores four pairs in 5/6±8/9, distance between the pores 0.36 circumference apart. The pore areas of two posterior pairs light grey, contrasting to dark purplish blue of the head region. Female pore single, medio-ventral in XIV. Male pores paired in XVIII, latero-ventral, distance between the pores 0.23 circumference apart. Each pore C-shaped with swollen and folliculated edge surrounded with circular folds, which extend to the inter-segmental furrows of XVIII with XVII and XIX (®gures 4A, B). Genital papilla absent in both male pore and spermathecal pore regions. Preserved specimen dark purplish blue on dorsum, light grey on ventrum, greyish brown on clitellum. Internal characters Septa 5/6±7/8 thickened, 8/9 and 9/10 absent, 10/11 and 12/13 greatly thickened. Gizzard in VIII±X, round, white in colour. Intestine enlarged from XV. Intestinal caecae paired in XXVII, extending anteriorly to XXVI, light yellow, with slightly wrinkled surface (®gure 4F). Lateral hearts in IX, XII, XIII enlarged, X, XI small. Two pairs of nephridial tufts in V and VI in front of 5/6 and 6/7 septa. Spermathecae four pairs in VI ±IX, each with an elongated, peach-shape d ampulla and a slender stalk. Diverticulum with a long stalk, its proximal portion straight and distal portion coiled or twisted with a small white seminal chamber (®gure 4D). Ovaries paired, medio-ventral in XIII. Protandry: testis sacs paired in X, large, white in colour. Seminal vesicles paired in XI, smooth, light yellow. A pair of small vestiges of seminal vesicles in XII (®gure 4E). Prostate glands paired in XVIII, large, racemose, folliculated, extending anteriorly to XVII and posteriorly to XX. Prostatic duct slightly curved, wide at the distal end connecting to the prostatic gland and narrowed toward the proximal end connecting to copulatory pouch. A small bunch of white, parallel muscular ®bres connecting between the central portion of the copulatory pouch and the medio-ventral portion of body wall (®gure 4C). Locality and habitat The var. typica is apparently a night crawler and often found on paved roads in hill regions in the morning after rain. Based on coll. nos 1998-44 and 1998-67, this worm lives on wet mountain slopes, elevation about 200 m, where ground is composed of clay or clay mixed with gravel, and often covered with grasses.

It has been recognized that appropriate disassembly of used products is necessary in order to make recycling economically and environmentally viable in the current state of the art reprocessing technology. This paper describes a graph-based heuristic approach to automatically generate the disassembly planning for electromechanical products. The planning is divided into four stages, geometric assembly representation, cut-vertex search analysis, disassembly precedence matrix analysis, and disassembly sequences and plan generation. A personal computer is used to illustrate the example of disassembly sequences generation.

Environmentally conscious design and manufacturing (ECD&M) is a view of manufacturing which includes the social and technological aspects of the design, synthesis, processing, and use of products in continuous or discrete manufacturing industries. The benefits of ECD&M include safer and cleaner factories, worker protection, reduced future costs for disposal, reduced environment and health risks, improved product quality at lower cost, better public image, and higher productivity. Environmentally conscious technologies and design practices will allow manufacturers to minimize waste and to turn waste into a profitable product. This paper updates information about ECD&M, which will in turn provide some general information, guidelines and references for research and implementation. In the meantime, more clear definitions of related terms used in the ECD&M area are provided. A brief future trend is also provided at the end of this paper.

Thin AuGa2 films were grown by codeposition from separate Au and Ga evaporation sources on clean GaAs(001) substrates in ultrahigh vacuum, and were studied by Auger electron spectroscopy, electron energy-loss spectroscopy, low-energy electron diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and x-ray diffractometry. The morphology and crystallinity of the AuGa2 were highly dependent upon the film deposition and annealing history. Films grown on room-temperature substrates were continuous, specular, and polycrystalline, but the dominant orientation was with the (001) planes of the crystallites parallel to the substrate surface. Annealing to temperatures between 300°and 480°C caused the film to break up and coalesce into rectangular crystallites, which were all oriented with (001) parallel to the surface. An anneal to 500°C, which is above the AuGa2 melting point, resulted in the formation of irregular polycrystalline islands of AuGa2 on the GaAs(001) substrate. No interface roughening or chemical reactions between the film and substrate or interface were observed for even the highest-temperature anneals.