The Bin Packing Problem (BPP) is to find the minimum number of bins needed to pack a given set of objects of known sizes so that they do not exceed the capacity of each bin. This problem is known to be NP-Hard [5]; hence many heuristic procedures for its solution have been suggested. In this paper we propose a new representation scheme and solve the problem by a Genetic Algorithm. Limited compu...

We compared bacteremic pneumococcal pneumonia (BPP) and pneumococcal empyema (PE), in terms of clinical, radiological, and laboratory findings, in under-fives. A cross-sectional nested cohort study, involving under-fives (102 with PE and 128 with BPP), was conducted at 12 centers in Argentina, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic. Among those with PE, mean age was higher; disease duration was lon...

BACKGROUND Otitis media (OM) is a very common condition in children and occurs during years that are critical to the development of learning, literacy, and math skills. Therefore, among a large cohort of Danish conscripts, we aimed to examine the association between hospitalisation with OM in early childhood and cognitive function and educational level in early adulthood. METHODS We conducted...

This paper presents a single hysteresis model for limited-availability group that are offered Erlang, Engset and Pascal traffic streams. The occupancy distribution in the system is approximated by a weighted sum of occupancy distributions in multi-threshold systems. Distribution weights are obtained on the basis of a specially constructed Markovian switching process. The results of the calculat...

Reversible image watermarking enables the embedding of copyright or useful information in a host image without any loss of information. Here a novel technique to improve the embedding capacity i.e. reversible watermarking using an adaptive prediction error expansion & pixel selection is proposed. This work is an improvement in conventional Prediction Error Expansion by adding two new techniques...

BACKGROUND Psychotic symptoms have been linked to religious experience, but empirical evidence is scarce. We have investigated the impact of the Welsh religious revival (RR) of 1904-1905 on the number of admissions to the regional psychiatric hospital, their diagnostic features and lifelong course. METHOD All case-notes of patients admitted to the North Wales Hospital between 1902 and 1907 we...

This study was conducted to determine the content of infection control (IC) curricula, the extent of IC monitoring and compliance, and the number of bloodborne pathogen (BBP) exposures/year in U.S. dental schools. A questionnaire was emailed to persons responsible for predoctoral IC programs. The response rate was 60 percent. Most schools did not have an independent course and used classroom le...

OBJECTIVE Body mass index (BMI) and intelligence quotient (IQ) are associated. We examined whether this association varied by birth cohort. METHODS Among 37,414 Danish conscripts, the association between BMI and IQ overall and by birth cohort was examined. IQ was measured by the Børge Prien's Prøve (BPP) group intelligence test score. RESULTS Compared with men of normal BMI, mean difference...

For relativized arguments, we propose to restrict oracle queries to “stringent” ones; for comparing the power of two machine models relative to some oracle set, stringent relativization is to restrict machines of both types to ask queries on the same segment of the oracle. In particular, for investigating polynomial-time (or polynomial-size) computability, we propose polynomial stringency, boun...