1. The equilibrium gliding performance of a bird is described by the relationship between sinking speed (VB) and air speed (V). When V3 is plotted against V, the points fall in a 'performance area' because the wing span is changed during gliding. 2. The lowest V, for each V in the performance area defines a 'maximum performance curve'. This curve can be predicted by a mathematical model that ch...

This paper introduces a distributed call admission controller for ad hod networks. The call admission controller is based on service curve provisioning. Service curve reflects the status of network and depends on the number of active nodes, their activity index, and the back-off procedure used for contention resolution. The service curve along with the aggregated traffic function can be used to...

Elliptic curve cryptosystems (ECC) are new generations of public key cryptosystems that have a smaller key size for the same level of security. The exponentiation on elliptic curve is the most important operation in ECC, so when the ECC is put into practice, the major problem is how to enhance the speed of the exponentiation. It is thus of great interest to develop algorithms for exponentiation...

Background: Major attention has been drawn to the prognostic value of plasma/serum neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) in detection of acute kidney injury (AKI) in children, but still no consensus has been reached. Accordingly, the present study aimed to assess the diagnostic value of this biomarker in detection of acute kidney injury in children through a systematic review and me...

soil conservation service curve number method (scs-cn) is a widely applied technique for predicting direct runoff from rainfall has been used around the world. in this study, the curve number maps and entry physical model data of kheyrud basin to hec-hms model, the hec-geohms extension in arcgis software and google earth satellite images were used. in addition to the statistical analysis of sur...

a neural network is developed for the determination of leaky confined aquifer parameters. leakage into the aquifer takes place from the storage in the confining aquitard. the network is trained for the well function of leaky confined aquifers by the back propagation technique and adopting the levenberg–marquardt optimization algorithm. by applying the principal component analysis (pca) on the a...

OBJECTIVE To validate a new symphysis-fundal curve for screening fetal growth deviations and to compare its performance with the standard curve adopted by the Brazilian Ministry of Health. METHODS Observational study including a total of 753 low-risk pregnant women with gestational age above 27 weeks between March to October 2006 in the city of João Pessoa, Northeastern Brazil. Symphisys-fund...

The early differentiation of Alzheimer's disease (AD) from frontotemporal dementia (FTD) may be difficult. The Tower of London (ToL), thought to assess executive functions such as planning and visuo-spatial working memory, could help in this purpose. Twentytwo Dementia Centers consecutively recruited patients with early FTD or AD. ToL performances of these groups were analyzed using both the co...

It is agreed among biostatisticians that prediction models for binary outcomes should satisfy two essential criteria: first, a prediction model should have a high discriminatory power, implying that it is able to clearly separate cases from controls. Second, the model should be well calibrated, meaning that the predicted risks should closely agree with the relative frequencies observed in the d...