OBJECTIVE To analyze sociodemographic inequalities in prenatal and childbirth care and their consequences on birth weight. METHODS The study was based on a sample of 10,072 postpartum women treated at public (those outsourced by the National Health System) and private maternity hospitals in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 1999 to 2001. To test the association between birth weight and maternal so...

The syntax and semantics of bare nominal expressions has been the subject of much research over the past few years. Two fundamental distinctions are generally assumed: bare nominals are generally restricted to plural and mass terms (unless they are proper names) and the "interesting" cases of bare nominals are those that appear in argument positions. We will call the first distinction the singu...

We describe the implementation and performance of a bare PC SIP server that runs without the support of an operating system (OS) or kernel. A bare PC SIP server provides immunity against OS vulnerabilities and yields performance gains due to the elimination of OS overhead. We discuss server design focusing on its novel architectural features and illustrate key implementation aspects by examinin...

A strong positive relation between parents' schooling and child's schooling does not necessarily re ect a causal relation. The recent empirical literature has used di erent approaches to identify intergenerational schooling e ects and produces contradictory ndings. This paper uses a new approach to investigate the e ect of parents' schooling on child's schooling: a nonparametric bounds analysis...

abstract—digital foot scanners have been developed in recent years to yield anthropometrists digital image of insole with pressure distribution and anthropometric information. in this paper a hybrid algorithm containing gray level spatial correlation histogram and shanbag entropy is presented for analysis of scanned foot images. an evolutionary algorithm is also employed to find the optimum par...

The welding of shear stud connectors to structural steel in construction requires a prolonged stooped posture that exposes ironworkers to biomechanical and welding fume hazards. In this study, biomechanical and welding fume exposures during stud welding using conventional methods were compared to exposures associated with use of a prototype system that allowed participants to weld from an uprig...

There has been a growing trend among shoe manufacturers to introduce customized shoes to satisfy varying customer style, fit, and comfort needs, thus to increase the product’s added value. This study presents a computer-aided design (CAD) system for designing a customized shoe last based on the chosen shoe style and customer’s foot features. The CAD system first automatically extracts 18 import...