The Alexandria Library and the work of the International Friends = Iskenderiye Kütüphanesi ve Uluslararasi “Dostlar” Gruplarinin Çalismalari

The Alexandria Library is well known, less known is the work of the International Friends. International friends’ groups have been set up with support from UNESCO. The original library’s origins and how it met its end are obscure. The rebuilding of the new library concluded with its being opened in 2002. An acquisitions policy is in place and materials are provided with support from Friends. looking to the future the library is hosting a mirror of the Internet Archive

Evaluation of the propensity of strain burst in brittle granite based on post-peak energy analysis

Available online 11 October 2019The increasing demand for resources and depletion of near ground mineral resources caused deeper mining operations under highstress rock mass conditions. As a result of this, strain burst, which is the sudden release of stored strain energy in the surrounding rock mass, has become more prevalent and created a considerable threat to workers and construction equipment. It is, therefore, imperative to understand how strain burst mechanism and stored excess strain energy are affected due to the high confinement in deep underground conditions. For this purpose, post-peak energy distributions for brittle rocks were investigated using a newly developed energy calculation method associated with acoustic emission (AE). A series of quasi-static uniaxial and triaxial compression tests controlled by the circumferential expansion was conducted. Snap-back behaviour known as Class-II behaviour associated with energy evolution and the material response under self-sustaining failure were analysed on granites under a wide range of confining pressures (0–60 MPa). The experimental results underline that the energy evolution characteristics are strongly linked to confinement. Stored elastic strain energy (dUE), energy consumed by dominating cohesion weakening (dUCW) and energy dissipated during mobilisation of frictional failure (dUFM) showed a rising trend as increasing the confining pressure. An intrinsic ejection velocity was proposed to express the propensity of strain burst that was purely determined by the excess strain energy released from Class II rock.Selahattin Akdag, Murat Karakus, Giang D. Nguyen, Abbas Taheri, Thomas Brunin

Real-time myocardial landmark tracking for MRI-guided cardiac radio-ablation using Gaussian Processes

The high speed of cardiorespiratory motion introduces a unique challenge for cardiac stereotactic radio-ablation (STAR) treatments with the MR-linac. Such treatments require tracking myocardial landmarks with a maximum latency of 100 ms, which includes the acquisition of the required data. The aim of this study is to present a new method that allows to track myocardial landmarks from few readouts of MRI data, thereby achieving a latency sufficient for STAR treatments. We present a tracking framework that requires only few readouts of k-space data as input, which can be acquired at least an order of magnitude faster than MR-images. Combined with the real-time tracking speed of a probabilistic machine learning framework called Gaussian Processes, this allows to track myocardial landmarks with a sufficiently low latency for cardiac STAR guidance, including both the acquisition of required data, and the tracking inference. The framework is demonstrated in 2D on a motion phantom, and in vivo on volunteers and a ventricular tachycardia (arrhythmia) patient. Moreover, the feasibility of an extension to 3D was demonstrated by in silico 3D experiments with a digital motion phantom. The framework was compared with template matching - a reference, image-based, method - and linear regression methods. Results indicate an order of magnitude lower total latency (<10 ms) for the proposed framework in comparison with alternative methods. The root-mean-square-distances and mean end-point-distance with the reference tracking method was less than 0.8 mm for all experiments, showing excellent (sub-voxel) agreement. The high accuracy in combination with a total latency of less than 10 ms - including data acquisition and processing - make the proposed method a suitable candidate for tracking during STAR treatments

AI for Everyone? Critical Perspectives

We are entering a new era of technological determinism and solutionism in which governments and business actors are seeking data-driven change, assuming that Artificial Intelligence is now inevitable and ubiquitous. But we have not even started asking the right questions, let alone developed an understanding of the consequences. Urgently needed is debate that asks and answers fundamental questions about power. This book brings together critical interrogations of what constitutes AI, its impact and its inequalities in order to offer an analysis of what it means for AI to deliver benefits for everyone. The book is structured in three parts: Part 1, AI: Humans vs. Machines, presents critical perspectives on human-machine dualism. Part 2, Discourses and Myths About AI, excavates metaphors and policies to ask normative questions about what is ‘desirable’ AI and what conditions make this possible. Part 3, AI Power and Inequalities, discusses how the implementation of AI creates important challenges that urgently need to be addressed. Bringing together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and regional contexts, this book offers a vital intervention on one of the most hyped concepts of our times

Transparent 2-Element 5G MIMO Antenna for Sub-6 GHz Applications

YesA dual-port transparent multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna resonating at sub-6 GHz 5G band is proposed by using patch/ground material as transparent conductive oxide (AgHT-8) and a transparent Plexiglas substrate. Two identical circular-shaped radiating elements fed by using a microstrip feedline are designed using the finite element method (FEM) based highfrequency structure simulator (HFSS) software. The effect of the isolation mechanism is discussed using two cases. In case 1, the two horizontally positioned elements are oriented in a similar direction with a separate ground plane, whereas in case 2, the elements are vertically placed facing opposite to each other with an allied ground. In both cases, the transparent antennas span over a −10 dB band of 4.65 to 4.97 GHz (300 MHz) with isolation greater than 15 dB among two elements. The diversity parameters are also analyzed for both the cases covering the correlation coefficient (ECC), mean effective gain (MEG), diversity gain (DG), and channel capacity loss (CCL). The average gain and efficiency above 1 dBi and 45%, respectively with satisfactory MIMO diversity performance, makes the transparent MIMO antenna an appropriate choice for smart IoT devices working in the sub-6 GHz 5G band by mitigating the co-site location and visual clutter issues.This work is supported by the Moore4Medical project, funded within ECSEL JU in collaboration with the EU H2020 Framework Programme (H2020/2014-2020) under grant agreement H2020-ECSEL-2019-IA-876190, and Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (ECSEL/0006/2019)

Structure and photophysics of indigoids for singlet fission: Cibalackrot

We report an investigation of structure and photophysics of thin layers of cibalackrot, a sturdy dye derived from indigo by double annulation at the central double bond. Evaporated layers contain up to three phases, two crystalline and one amorphous. Relative amounts of all three have been determined by a combination of X-ray diffraction and FT-IR reflectance spectroscopy. Initially, excited singlet state rapidly produces a high yield of a transient intermediate whose spectral properties are compatible with charge-transfer nature. This intermediate more slowly converts to a significant yield of triplet, which, however, does not exceed 100% and may well be produced by intersystem crossing rather than singlet fission. The yields were determined by transient absorption spectroscopy and corrected for effects of partial sample alignment by a simple generally applicable procedure. Formation of excimers was also observed. In order to obtain guidance for improving molecular packing by a minor structural modification, calculations by a simplified frontier orbital method were used to find all local maxima of singlet fission rate as a function of geometry of a molecular pair. The method was tested at 48 maxima by comparison with the ab initio Frenkel-Davydov exciton model. Published under license by AIP Publishing

HLA tapasin independence: broader peptide repertoire and HIV control.

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I allotypes vary in their ability to present peptides in the absence of tapasin, an essential component of the peptide loading complex. We quantified tapasin dependence of all allotypes that are common in European and African Americans (n = 97), which revealed a broad continuum of values. Ex vivo examination of cytotoxic T cell responses to the entire HIV-1 proteome from infected subjects indicates that tapasin-dependent allotypes present a more limited set of distinct peptides than do tapasin-independent allotypes, data supported by computational predictions. This suggests that variation in tapasin dependence may impact the strength of the immune responses by altering peptide repertoire size. In support of this model, we observed that individuals carrying HLA class I genotypes characterized by greater tapasin independence progress more slowly to AIDS and maintain lower viral loads, presumably due to increased breadth of peptide presentation. Thus, tapasin dependence level, like HLA zygosity, may serve as a means to restrict or expand breadth of the HLA-I peptide repertoire across humans, ultimately influencing immune responses to pathogens and vaccines

Long term hemodialysis aggravates lipolytic activity reduction and very low density, low density lipoproteins composition in chronic renal failure patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Dyslipidemia, particularly hypertriglyceridemia is common in uremia, and represents an independent risk factor for atherosclerosis.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To investigate the effects of hemodialysis (HD) duration on very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) and low density lipoprotein (LDL) compositions and lipopolytic activities, 20 patients on 5 to 7 years hemodialysis were followed-up during 9 years. Blood samples were drawn at T0 (beginning of the study), T1 (3 years after initiating study), T2 (6 years after initiating study) and T3 (9 years after initiating study). T0 was taken as reference.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Triacylglycerols (TG) values were correlated with HD duration (r = 0.70, P < 0.05). An increase of total cholesterol was noted at T2 and T3. Lowered activity was observed for lipoprotein lipase (LPL) (-44%) at T3 and hepatic lipase (HL) (-29%) at T1, (-64%) at T2 and (-73%) at T3. Inverse relationships were found between HD duration and LPL activity (r = -0.63, P < 0.05), and HL activity (r = -0.71, P < 0.01). At T1, T2 and T3, high VLDL-amounts and VLDL-TG and decreased VLDL-phospholipids values were noted. Increased LDL-cholesteryl esters values were noted at T1 and T2 and in LDL-unesterified cholesterol at T2 and T3.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Despite hemodialysis duration, VLDL-LDL metabolism alterations are aggravated submitting patients to a greater risk of atherosclerosis.</p

Does the unification of health financing affect the distribution pattern of out‐of‐pocket health expenses in Turkey?

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149529/1/ijsw12389_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149529/2/ijsw12389.pd