Background: There is no consensus regarding the spread of local anesthesia in thoracic epidural space to obtain regional analgesia or anesthesia. We aimed to determine the distribution of Bupivacaine injected into the thoracic epidural space to evaluate its cranial or caudal spread in patients undergoing epidural anesthesia. Materials and Methods: In a prospective clinical trial, thirty adults patients (12 males and 18 females) with ASA class I and II, scheduled for elective cholecystectomy under thoracic epidural anesthesia with 0. 5% Isobaric Bupivacaine were studied. Clinical and radiological outcomes were evaluated to assess the correlation between the volume of the local anesthetic injected to the thoracic epidural space and the extension of its spread within the epidural space. Immediately after insertion and fixation of epidural catheter, patients were transferred to MRI unit to receive 8 mL of 5% Bupivacaine plus 1 mL Magnevist through the epidural catheter. Then, the patterns of spread were evaluated. Data were obtained prospectively during the procedure. Results: Mean distribution of bupivacaine in thoracic epidural space was 0. 64 level/ml of local anesthetics and the average of spread was 5. 21 levels. The mean spread of bupivacaine was more in females (5. 5 ± 1. 1) than males (4. 8 ± 1. 1); but the difference was not significant. Unlike Patients’ age and weight, the height and body mass index had a significant negative correlation with the distribution of Bupivacaine. Conclusion: Distribution of Bupivacaine in epidural space in female patients is more than male ones and the tendency of spread is more toward the cephalad direction than caudal.

Precipitation is one of the most important weather elements which variability in it can lead to risks such as flood and famine. This study concentrated on features of precipitation using Kriging Interpolation, regression, partial and total correlation to reach a clear result about spacetime distribution of precipitation for the entire zone. This study also uses daily precipitation data of 1436 synoptic, climatologic, and pluviometry stations in the period between 1340-1389 applying descriptive and analytical statistic techniques. The average annual precipitation was 251.8 mm.The results showed that the relationship between partial correlation coefficient with spatial parameters in the entire zone, and the roles of height and latitude were crystal-clear in space distribution of precipitation.However, the longitude had less important role in this part. Also in terms of time, winter as the rainy season had the most amount of precipitation (44.7 %) in the entire zone. The most coefficient variability was related to the winter (37.2 %) and the spring (31 %). The less coefficient was related to the summer (8.3%) and the fall (22.7%). So, according to climate change and inappropriate use of the earth source, inconsistency in time-space distribution was clearly seen.

One of the obvious reasons for most disorders in network service provisioning is network path congestion. Congestion avoidance in today's networks is too costly and sometimes impossible. With the introduction of SDN, centralizing the equipment's control plane has become possible. This paper presents an enhanced method named ESV-DBRA to avoid congestion in multi-tenant SDN networks. At first, ESV-DBRA monitors the traffic load and delay of all network paths for each tenant individually. Then, by merging the parameters obtained from the monitoring, the Service Level Agreements (SLA), and a novel proposed cost function, it calculates the cost of the network paths per tenant. As a result, traffic for each tenant is routed through the path/paths at the lowest possible cost from the tenant's perspective. Next, the bandwidth quotas will be calculated and assigned to the tenants over their optimal routes. Afterward, whenever congestion is likely to occur in a path, ESV-DBRA automatically changes the route or bandwidth of the tenants' traffic related to this path to avoid congestion. Related algorithms are also proposed.Eventually, simulations show that the proposed method effectively increases bandwidth utilization by 10.76%.

Different types of contact, including contact between node pairs, any-contact of nodes, and contacts of the entire network, are used to characterize social relations in mobile social networks. Different modes of routing, from the point of view of message delivery semantics, encompass unicasting, multicasting, any-casting, and broadcasting. Studies have shown that using probability distribution functions of contact data, which is mainly assumed to be homogeneous for nodes, improves the performance of these networks. However, there exists an important challenge in studies on distributions. A lot of works apply the distribution of one type of contact to other types. Hence in routing applications, it causes to use of the distribution of one type of contact for any mode of routing. This study provides a complete solution to model each type of homogeneous contact data distribution and to use them in different modes of routing. We propose a routing algorithm that uses this new model. Results show that our solution improves the average latency of comparing methods Epidemic, TCCB, and DR about 3.5-times, 30%, and 45%, respectively. It achieves a delivery rate of about 5% and 6%, and average latency about 6% and 8% better than that of DR and TCCB, respectively.

It is henceforth a commonplace; the science-fiction would be a refractory genre by nature against the definitive assimilation to the literary mainstream. We can say that the usual thematic of the genre, to which is added the irresistible propensity to prospect the future in all its forms, immunizes the SF against the “academic confinement” to the benefit of other forms of confinement. Indeed, the SF belongs to the great family of the paraliterature where the more or less listed subgenres are waiting to receive a likely definition. Popular genre which relies on a remarkable poetic, the SF is an open place to the imagination, to the verbal and the figurative creativity. It owns itself its subgenres, among other things, the space opera which was, in a way, the original matrix of the speculative fiction and of its contemporary imitators. The Sternberg’s work did not have a special vocation to feed the already rich world of the science-fiction. It constitutes however a new step liable to bring a touch of self-reflexivity, we will notice that, to the history of this genre. French: “Le Navigateur” de Jacques Sternberg ou la phylogenese parodiee du space opera C’est dorenavant un lieu commun, la science-fiction serait un genre par nature refractaire a l’assimilation definitive au mainstream litteraire. Nous dirons que les thematiques habituelles du genre, auxquelles viennent se meler l’irresistible propension a prospecter l’avenir sous toutes ses formes, immunisent la SF contre “l’enfermement academique” au profit d’un enfermement d’un autre genre. En effet, celle-ci appartient, comme on le sait, a la grande famille de la paralitterature ou se cotoient les sous-genres plus ou moins repertories en attente de recevoir un semblant de definition. Genre populaire s’appuyant sur une poetique singuliere, la SF est un lieu ouvert a l’imagination, a la creativite verbale et figurative. Elle possede elle-meme ses sous-genres, entre autres, le space opera qui fut en quelque sorte la matrice originelle de la fiction speculative et de ses emules contemporaines. L’oeuvre sternbergienne n’eut guere pour vocation de nourrir le repertoire deja riche de la science-fiction. Elle constitue neanmoins une etape non repertoriee susceptible d’apporter, nous le constaterons, une touche d’auto-reflexivite a l’histoire du genre.Keywords: Jacques Sternberg, Nouvelle, Science-Fiction, Space Opera, Aventure, Fiction Speculative

In this paper, we consider admissible estimation of the parameter λr in the gamma distribution with truncated parameter space under entropy loss function. We obtain the classes of admissible estimators. The result can be applied to estimation of parameters in the normal, lognormal, pareto, generalized gamma, generalized Laplace and other distributions.  

Background: Cement space is necessary for seatabillity and fitness of cast crowns, but can affect crown's retention. In this study the interrelationship between them was investigated via die spacing.Materials and Method: For evaluating the effect of die spacing (cement space) on crown retention after cementation, 50 similar machined metallic dies were prepared and divided into five groups and coated with 0.2, 4, 6, 8 layers of paint-on standard die spacer, respectively. Cast crowns. Were fabricated on the dies using base metal alloys, and then cemented with zinc phosphate cement under a constant load of 5kg for 10 minutes. The samples were started in distilled water for 48 hours. Then the force required to remove each crown from the die was measured with instron.Results: Statistical analysis revealed a significant increase in the force required (crown retention) by adding layers of die spacer (p<0.05).Conclusion: Because retention didn't show any significant increase with more than 4 layers of die spacer, so optimum thickness of die spacer (or cement space produced) is suggested to be 4 layers equal to 40 microns.