Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques are becoming useful as alternate approaches to conventional techniques or as components of integrated systems. They have been used to solve complicated practical problems in various areas and nowadays are very popular. They are widely accepted as a technology offering an alternative way to tackle complex and ill-defined problems. They can learn from examples, are fault tolerant in the sense that they are able to handle noisy and incomplete data, are able to deal with non-linear problems and once trained can perform prediction and generalization at very high speed. AI-based systems are being developed and deployed worldwide in a wide variety of applications, mainly because of their symbolic reasoning, flexibility and explanation capabilities. They have been used in diverse applications in control, robotics, pattern recognition, forecasting, medicine, power systems, manufacturing, optimization, signal processing and social/psychological sciences. They are particularly useful in system modeling such as in implementing complex mappings and system identification. This chapter presents a review of the main AI techniques such as expert systems, artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms, fuzzy logic and hybrid systems, which combine two or more techniques. It also outlines some applications in the energy sector. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-737-9.ch001


FIELD: medicine. SUBSTANCE: drive comprises a linear motion and rotation unit for an elongated instrument with an adjustable speed breaker and an elongated instrument tracking sensor. The linear motion unit for the elongated instrument and the adjustable speed breaker are assembled together in the form of a linear electromagnetic motor. The rotation unit with the adjustable speed breaker are presented in the form of the electromagnetic motor, wherein the elongated instrument is presented in the form of a tubular instrument with magnets from the inside and integrated inside the linear electromagnetic motor performing the controlled linear motion of the tubular instrument, which interacts with an electromagnetic motor rotor, e.g. by a sleeve connection. The linear motion and rotation motors are coaxial and provided with motor control units interacting with a coupler. EFFECT: higher accuracy of tactile sensations and enhancement of the drive technical capacities. 4 dwg


A novel power assisted steering measure and torque distribution control system were proposed in this paper, due to the independent driving characteristics of motorized-wheel-drive electric vehicle. The basic theory of differential drive assist steering method is introduced briefly at first. After that, the system architecture of differential drive assist steering control system and its compensators were presented. Therein, the proportional-integral (PI) feedback control loop was employed to track the reference steering effort by controlling the drive torque distribution between the two sides wheels of the front-axle. The direct yaw moment compensator performed by differential drive torque of two rear in-wheel motors and the stability compensator for tyre/road adhesion limit, which were employed to make the differential drive assist steering work well as wished were introduced simultaneously. After the preview following driver model was built, the driver-vehicle closed-loop simulation was performed. The results verified that, the proposed differential drive torque assisted steering system cannot only reduce the steering efforts obviously, as well as ensure the most possible "road feel" feedback at high vehicle speed, but also hardly change the vehicle motion direction and moving trajectory.


Constriction band syndrome is a relatively rare condition in which fetal parts become entangled in the amniotic membrane, leading to deformation, malformation and amputation. Ultrasonographic analysis allows prenatal detection of constriction band syndrome by visualization of amniotic bands attached to the fetus. Treatment of constriction band syndrome must be individualized, and ranges from cosmetic repair to emergency limb-sparing band release. We report an infant with deep amniotic bands who recived treatment with circumferential Z-plasty.


Some practices are losing a fortune, drip by drip, from embezzlement of $10 and $20 copays. Here's how to plug the leak.


With the execution of new class standards of sports and health,"students practice one hour every day" and sunshine sports activity,the status of lacking school P.E.teachers is terrible.How is the recent status of school P.E.teachers in Hubei province? How is the result of comparing the average data of the whole nation? This paper through using the methods of document literature and mathematical statistics discussed,and then found that the vacancy of school P.E.teachers in Hubei province is terrible,especially the middle school P.E.teachers.Meanwhile,the number of high school P.E.teachers is normal.The vacancy status of school P.E.teachers in Hubei province is more terrible than the whole nation.According to this,the paper puts forward suggestions as follows: increase the number of P.E.teachers,enlarge the training scale of P.E.teachers,improve the treatment status of P.E.teachers and strengthen the training of part-time P.E.teachers.


John Clark's most recent publication contributes to a growing body of work that responds to the still perplexing issue of how to expand our understanding of modernity as expressed through art and visual culture. In particular, he attempts to complicate the notion of a modernity that has conventionally been presented as a process originating from the West and then transmitted to other parts of the world, most notably those countries that experienced colonialism.


Background: Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) represents 10% of all strokes and 2% of spontaneous ICH are due to ruptured Brain Arteriovenous Malformations (BAVMs). The morbidity and mortality associated with AVM hemorrhage is as high as 35 and 10%, respectively. This study aimed to investigate the association between specific angioarchitectural features, demographic variables and hemorrhagic presentation of BAVMs. Methods: We conducted a retrospective observational chart review of all consecutive patients who presented with brain AVMs in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, over a period of 10 years. The demographic and clinical presentations were derived from patient's electronic medical record; Soarian® [Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlanger, Bavaria, Germany]. Radiological features were determined using axial Computerized Topography (CT) or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Scan. Angioarchitectural features were determined from Digital Subtraction Angiography (DSA). Simple and multiple logistic regression models were used to identify factors associated with brain AVM hemorrhage. Results: This study identified 157 patients with brain AVMs. Seventy-one (45%) patients presented with hemorrhage. Statistical analysis found deep AVM location (OR = 3.3; 95%CI: 1.4−7.7), exclusive deep venous drainage (OR = 3.3; 95%CI: 1.1–9.9) and presence of aneurysms (OR = 3.4; 95%CI: 1.4–7.9) to be significant predictors of brain AVM hemorrhage. Conclusion: The significant morbidity and mortality associated with brain AVMs hemorrhage behooves us to identify features that predispose these lesions to bleed. These angioarchtectural features may serve as therapeutic targets to reduce the risks of brain AVM hemorrhage.


Multiprocessor system consists of multiple processing units connected via some interconnection network plus the software needed to make the processing units work together. There are two major factors used to categorize such systems: the processing units themselves, and the interconnection network that ties them together. A number of communication styles exist for multiprocessing networks. These can be broadly classified according to the communication model as shared memory (single address space) versus message passing(multiple address spaces).


This paper shows that vertical foreign direct investment will reduce prices but the aggregate welfare e®ect is unambiguously positive only under free market entry. Using a standard model of imperfect competition, we develop this result by considering two di®erent cases. In the ¯rst case, the total number of ¯rms is ¯xed, and we show that national and multinational ¯rms may coexist. In the second case, we allow for market entry, and we focus on situations in which either only national or only multinational ¯rms are active. Furthermore, we discuss impact e®ects on labor demand. We show that a decline in foreign wages increases domestic employment.


Heart age is higher than actual age in most men and women, so many don't understand their risk of cardiovascular diseases and are missing opportunities to prevent them.


The purpose of the study described in this article was to explore factors contributing to effective student-led eservice-learning (SLESL) projects and to provide insights for educators to enhance the delivery of SLESL courses. Utilizing a case study methodology, the researchers interviewed 12 participants who successfully completed SLESL projects. Analysis of the transcribed interviews revealed categories of factors that facilitated project effectiveness, including reasons for engaging, project strategies, project assets and asset mobilization, course interaction, and project outcomes. In addition to highlighting the study results, this article discusses the transferability of the findings and explores their implications for practice.


Source rocks were deposited in northeastern Africa during a major Late Cretaceous transgression. The stratigraphic section begins with a series of phosphorites and oil shales and progresses up into an organically lean chalk. These deposits represent increasing water depths and depositional isolation from the continental landmass. Within the source sequences of the Duwi and Dakhla formations in the eastern desert of Egypt, variations in the organic matter are recorded. Understanding the systematics of this variability and predicting the geochemical attributes of the source system away from control can be important to resource assessment. Even though a general increase in both organic richness and liquid hydrocarbon generation potential is observed from the base to the top f the source section in Egypt, no clear, predictable trends are evident. The variability observed in source quality is best explained in a sequence stratigraphic framework. In Egypt, three third order eustatic cycles can be identified. The best oil-prone source rocks occur within the condensed sections at the top of the transgressive systems tracts of the three sequences. Little to no oil-prone source potential can be identified in the highstand systems tracts, where the bulk of the organic matter exhibits gas-prone attributes.


Reinforcement Learning (RL) is an attractive tool for learning optimal controllers in the sense of a given reward function. In conventional RL, usually an expert is required to design the reward function as the efficiency of RL strongly depends on the latter. An alternative has been presented by the concept of Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL), where the reward function is estimated from observed data. In this work, we propose a novel approach for IRL based on a generative probabilistic model of RL. We derive an Expectation Maximization algorithm that is able to simultaneously estimate the reward and the optimal policy for finite state and action spaces, which can be easily extended for the infinite cases. By means of two toy examples, we show that the proposed algorithm works well even with a low number of observations and converges after only a few iterations.


A clean and simple synthesis of 1H-pyrazolo [1, 2-b] phthalazine-5, 10-dione derivatives via one-pot four-component condensation reaction of phthalimide, hydrazine monohydrate, aromatic aldehydes derivatives and malononitrile in the presence of neodymium (III) chloride hexahydrate (NdCl3.6H2O) as an efficient and eco-friendly Lewis acidic catalyst under thermal and solvent-free conditions with good yields and short reaction times is developed. This present methodology has notable benefits such as highly efficient, non-toxic catalyst, one-pot, solvent-free conditions, simplicity of operation with no necessity of chromatographic purification steps and ecofriendly. And all products have been characterized by melting points and H NMR spectroscopy.


Phenol degradation was investigated by electrodeless ultraviolet irradiation.The effect of initial concentration,PH and H2O2 on the degradation of phenol were studied.Results showed there are maximum rate of phenol degradation when the concentration of phenol was 0.02 mg mL-1,PH was 4,and illumination time was 60 min and adding 6% H2O2 4 ml.


Objective: Analyze the relations between the parental stress experienced by fathers and mothers and the children's cognitive, communicative and motor development. Method: In the current research participated eighteen children, with their respectively fathers and mothers. All children were attending for the first time at the nursery. Parents filled the questionnaire of Parental Stress of Abidin (PSI short form) when their children age were between 12 months 6 days and 29 months 15 days, those children were assessed as well with the BSID-III scales. Results: The results indicate that mothers use to score higher than parents in the different dimensions of stress, but we only found significant differences between parental distress of the both parents, and the motor development of children which can be affected by maternal stress variables. Conclusion: The need to carry out prevention and promotion of child development's programmes, from the field of the primary prevention in early intervention, to provide families with information and protective factors which help them to reduce their levels of parental stress and improve the development quality of their children, is evident.


In a suspension culture of peanut cotyledons (Arachis hypogaea L.) the rate of protein synthesis decreased as the cell mass increased in diameter, with a decrease in free amino acids except in a cell mass of 0.15–0.5 mm. A high level of catalase and low level of peroxidase activity was related to a higher rate of protein synthesis in single cell (  0.5 mm in diameter. Another peroxidase isozyme appeared in a cell mass of 2–4 mm in diameter. Quantitatively there was a significant increase in peroxidase with a decrease in catalase activity between cell clumps of increasing sizes.


In their everyday efforts to put together how they "look," adolescents visually capture and articulate complex issues that society finds difficult to express verbally. In this paper we explore these "looks" as one example of youth appearance style and as a reflection of, and an impetus for, cultural anxieties. In doing so we draw on a series of multi‐method field studies conducted over the last ten years. A key feature of these studies has been the involvement of young people themselves as key informants and co‐investigators. Data from these studies can help clarify relationships between youth appearance style and cultural themes of sexuality and violence.


Ruthenium nanoparticles were assembled on carbon nanotubes and the resulting nanohybrid was used in the hydrazine-mediated catalytic hydrogenation of various nitroarenes, at room temperature. Depending on the solvent, a selective transformation occurred, giving either access to the corresponding aniline or hydroxylamine derivative.


This article took into consideration the questions of automation the process of budgeting on enterprises from the points of view of different authors. In the article some methods of automation of this process was defined and subject to this there are some recommendations of acceptance the decisions about ways of automation.


The article presents an assessment of the quantitative and qualitative composition
of zooplankton in the zoocenosis of the water bodies of Astrakhan. There have been analyzed
bioindicators that allow to determine the structure of zooplankton during the research period.
A comparative characteristic of the reservoirs has been carried out, according to the indicators
of species density (species richness), complexity of the community structure and dominating species. Samples of zooplankton collected in the autumn of 2016 and 2017 in the water bodies within the city limits (the Tsarev river (stations Strelka, Bridge) and the Kutum river (station Strelka opposite the Civil Registry Office and nearby N. Ostrovsky Street) served as the research material. According to the analysis results of biodiversity indices, it has been found that the highest increase in quality indicators (almost doubled in 2017, compared to 2016) was observed in relation to the density of organisms in the Tsarev river. At the same time, the indicator of complexity of the plankton community structure, expressed in quantitative terms, showed an increase by 1.4 times at all stations in 2017, compared to 2016. This is a signal of improvement in the environmental component in urban water bodies. According to the Simpson index values in 2017, plankton species can be assumed to dominate in the zoocenosis. The population of the zoocenosis in the water bodies of Astrakhan is exposed to the anthropogenic impact, which causes changes in the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of communities and their structure. However, increasing values of all three considered biodiversity indices in 2017 indicate a gradual restoration of the biocenosis structure, and an increasing proportion of species in composition of the plankton community.


Purpose: Deletions of 2q21 are known to occur rarely in prostate cancer but the clinical relevance is still unclear. Methods: To evaluate the clinical relevance of this deletion, a tissue microarray including more than 12,000 prostate cancers with clinical follow-up data was analyzed by dual labeling in-situ hybridization employing probes for 2q21 and centromere 2. Results: Deletions of 2q21 were found in 9% of 5,945 analyzable cancers. 2q21 deletions were linked to unfavorable tumor phenotype, including advanced tumor stage (p=0.0032), high Gleason score (p<0.0001), increased cell proliferation (p<0.0001), elevated preoperative PSA levels (p<0.0001), and early PSA recurrence (p=0.0002). 2q21 deletions were more frequent in ERG-negative than in ERG-positive cancers. Only 6% of ERG-positive cancers were 2q21-deleted, while 12% of ERG-negative cancers harbored 2q21 deletions. Separate analyses of ERG-positive and ERG-negative cancers revealed that all associations between 2q21 deletions and unfavorable tumor phenotype or prognosis were driven by ERG-negative cancers. In ERG-negative cancers but not in ERG-positive tumors or in the entire patient cohort the prognostic impact of 2q deletions was independent from established preand postoperative prognostic parameters (p≤0.05). Conclusion: In summary, our findings identify 2q deletion as an independent prognostic marker in the subgroup of ERGnegative prostate cancers. As FISH is precise analysis method delivering yes/no answers, it appears possible that 2q21 deletions may become a component for future multiparametric prognostic tests panels.


In the 1980s, several Program Offices of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) investigated the use of immunoassay methods for environmental applications with limited success. Most of the problems were with method ruggedness, i.e. they worked well in clean spiked matrices, but not very well on real world samples. The situation changed significantly in January of 1992, when the Office of Solid Waste (OSW) received its first rugged immunoassay method (for pentachlorophenol (PCP)) that worked on field samples. Several more followed, and through the early and mid-1990s, the USEPA initiated use of immunoassay methodology in its hazardous waste program. The first group of methods incorporated into the OSW's methods compendium, Test Methods for Evaluating Solid Waste, or SW-846, between 1993 and 1995 were a group of 10 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)-based screening methods for various environmental analyte classes. These methods were officially 'approved' by the USEPA in July, 1997. We provided a great deal of training on these methods to raise the comfort level of the environmental community for their use.

This chapter addresses several major topics including an overview of the USEPA's major Regulatory Programs; how analytical methods are used in Regulatory Programs; general guidelines for the development of screening methods; specific validation criteria for immunoassay methods; the current status of the USEPA immunoassay method development program; current and potential environmental applications for immunoassay technology; barriers to implementation of immunoassay methods and the steps being taken to overcome them; and future directions and new developments in immunoassay technology for regulatory programs.

The overall future of the technology for environmental monitoring and analysis looks very bright. It offers a cost effective way to generate reliable information upon which to base sound environmental decisions.


The Quesnel terrane underlies a large region in south-central and east-central British Columbia (BC), and extends both northward as a narrow fault-bounded sliver into southcentral Yukon and southward into northern Washington state (Figure 1; Nelson and Colpron, 2007). The main defining feature of the Quesnel terrane in south-central BC is the Late Triassic Nicola arc assemblage and associated plutons(Figure 1), which have been well studied (e.g., Mortimer, 1987; Mihalynuk et al., 2014), not least because they host several large copper-porphyry deposits.


Being shocked by the new ideas of education reform,the normal universities have entered the predicament of development. These predicaments can be traced to its traditional limitations such as the closed and once-for-ever system of teacher training,and the rigid mode of its curriculum teaching. Only we stick to striding forward comprehensive universities while basing themselves on the characteristic of normal universities, reinforce academic construction to promote their actual strength and innovate old education pattern , can our teacher-education be professional and unified and can our normal universities walk out of predicament .


Diagnosis of faults is a very important task because a fault can lead to a reduction in performance, or even to break-downs or catastrophes. In this paper, a diagnosis system, which takes into account the uncertainties in the model and measurements by means of an interval scheme, is shown. It states the fault detection, fault isolation and fault identification problems as a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) with continuous domain. The fault isolation scheme which consists of hypothesis generation and refinement uses the fault detection results, and the quantitative fault identification scheme refines the fault hypothesis test and estimates the fault magnitude. As a difference to more traditional approaches, in this paper we use overconstrained subsystems of the model, ARRs, to tackle the fault identification problem in smaller subproblems, and for the fault identification, instead of the least squares estimation, the interval-based consistency techniques prune the initial domains of the parameters associated with the fault hypothesis. In order to illustrate the different steps of the proposed approach, an application example composed by a well known hydraulic plant is presented.


This paper provides an appraisal of and proposes improvements to the Korean Land Suitability Assessment (LSA) System; a multi-criteria decision analysis procedure for land use planning that was introduced under the National Land Planning and Utilization Act (2002). This nationwide procedure was designed to protect the natural environment and reduce urban sprawl. It is used to assess the developmental or conservation suitability of land parcels with respect to future use. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a practical application and theoretical review of the official procedure with respect to sustainable land use management in Korea. This procedure is executed using a GIS-based method of assessment. Based on the results of a case study, problems in the procedure of the LSA, such as unavailability of efficient spatial data and no standardization of data format, were identified. In addition, there are no criteria for specific local indicators that can assess local situations and balanced development between regions, with respect to the entire nation, taken into consideration. Based on the results of the case study, practical and institutional problems are identified. Technical and institutional solutions are also suggested based on the use of local indicators, consistent data models and appropriate spatial units to improve the LSA into a multi-criteria analysis.


The scheme of the development and establishment of tooling foundry technology for a wide range of products made of steel, cast iron, non-ferrous metals and alloys is studied.


This paper presents the development of event-driven system level simulation tool SMPLE(smpl Extended, an extention of smpl) and its application to the performance analysis of multiprocessor computer systems. Because of its data structure, it is very difficult to change, expand or add new functions to simulation language smpl implemented by MacDougall. In SMPLE, we change data structure with structure and pointer, add new functions, and enable dynamic memory management. Using new data structure, facilities, and functions added in SMPLE, we simulate job processing of a shared bus multiprocessor system with autonomous hierarchical I/O subsystem. We set system performance criterion and analyze the performance contribution of subsystems and units. The impact of disk I/O on system performance is evaluated under various conditions of number of processors, processing power, memory access time and disk seek time.


We present the design of an autonomous underwater vehicle and a simulation system for AUVs as part of the initiative for establishing a new international competition for autonomous underwater vehicles, both physical and simulated. This paper describes the competition outline with sample tasks, as well as the construction of the AUV and the simulation platform.


According to the results of a high-accuracy comparative cartometric survey, the annual aeolian sediment migration rate of the Great Curonian dune ridge crest has slowed down from 4–5 m per year in 1909–1954 to 2–3 m per year in 1954–1990. The first and primary reason of the stabilization and flattening of the shifting Curonian dunes during the second half of the 20th century is the lack of marine sand supply, supported by the active dune stabilization and forestation policy which was conducted on both the Russian and Lithuanian sides of the border. Climate warming and a decreased herd of wild and domestic animals, which was usually detaining the expansion of vegetation on dunes, also contributed to this phenomenon. Application of remote sensing data is a very effective way for tracing the sediment migration rate and changes of the morphology of dunes. The remote sensing should be performed periodically as an integrated part of environmental monitoring and state-of-environment reporting.


Tritium technology development for the DOE fusion program is taking place principally at three laboratories, Argonne National Laboratory, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, and Mound Facility. This paper will review the major aspects of each of the three programs and look at aspects of the tritium technology being developed at other Laboratories within the United States.


Part I. Cultures and Identities: 1. Culture, power and identity 2. Dress, language and identity Part II. Building Identities: 3. Roman Italy: between Roman, Greek and local 4. Vitruvius: building Roman identity Part III. Knowledge and Power: 5. Knowing the ancestors 6. Knowing the city Part IV. The Consumer Revolution: 7. Luxury and the consumer revolution 8. Waves of fashion Epilogue: a cultural revolution?


This week Brian McEwan and Justin McGirr of the Bridge 2 Business team attended a meeting of the Scottish Textiles Academic Group


This paper comprehensively analyses the logical problems involved in conventional tests of economic theories. It also outlines some methodological problems with current econometric practice. An alternative test procedure which constitutes a logically complete and rigorous extension of conventional test procedures is proposed in order to attenuate some of the problems identified. The test is implemented in a practical context by considering the debate over the inclusion of real money balances in the neoclassical aggregate production function.


Certain cases pose diagnostic difficulty when it comes to discriminating between early squamous cell carcinoma, reactive processes, and dysplasia located at the head and neck. The gold standard test is confirming invasion of tissues beyond basement membrane. This study sought to verify whether basement membrane markers and usage of cytokeratin double immunostaining can improve the process. In total, forty retrospective cases of both neck and head biopsies have been used as the basis for this study. Out of the total, there were fifteen invasive squamous cell carcinoma cases (SCC), fifteen in-situ carcinoma cases (CIS), and ten pseudoepitheliomatous hyperplasia cases (PEH). The entire case distribution has received evaluation via immunohistochemistry. For this purpose, Cytokeratin (CK), Laminin and Collagen IV monoclonal antibodies have been used. In all cases, it has been found that the surroundings of the invasive tumor, and especially those of the malignant cells at the front, showed discontinuities or total absence of laminin and collagen IV staining. Therefore, it has been concluded that laminin and collagen IV may be used in the future as secondary differential diagnostic criteria besides double immunostaining for histological differentiation between SCC, CIS, and PEH. Churaiorn Unhasuta1, Koson Intarasut1 Affiliation: 1Institute of Pathology, Ministry of Public Health, Bangkok, Thailand. Corresponding Author: Churaiorn Unhasuta, MD, Institute of Pathology, 2/2 Phayathai Road, Bangkok 10400, Thailand; Email: email@example.com Received: 12 May 2018 Accepted: 09 July 2018 Published: 26 July 2018


In this study,a series of porous intelligent hydrogels were synthesized by radiation exhibiting the lower critical solution temperature(LCST) and fast response involving a combination of A'-isopropyl acrylamideas monomer, polyethylene glycol(PEG) as pore-forming agent and N,N-methylene-bis-acrylamide as crosslinking agent.The hydrogels were analyzed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy,and the influence of radiation doses on their swelling and thermal behaviors were studied.Their surface morphologies were examined by scanning electron microscopy.The results showed that PEG molecules only acted as pore-forming agent in the cross-linked polymerization.Their swelling ratios reduced with increasing radiation doses.The LCST was around 37℃,and varied little with the radiation doses.The frozen water content of PNIPAM/PEG6000 hydrogel reduced with increasing the radiation dose,and was greater than that of PN1PAM hydrogel at 15 kGy.Hydrogel macropores were prepared by PEG agent,and the hydrogels without PEG had a dense surface.The porous hydrogels are expected to be applied in the field of artificial intelligence material.


Optical Communication History: Alexander Graham Bell in 1880 reported the transmission of speech over 200 meter by modulating sunlight with a reflecting diaphragm ("photophone") To avoid the degradation of optical signals in the atmosphere, Kao and Hockman in England (and simultaneously Wirt in France) in 1966 suggested the use of dielectric wave guides or optical fibers. Historical reduction of optical loss after Suzanne R. Nagel. Increase in bit rate-distance product during the years 1850-2000. The emergence of a new technology is marked by a filled circle after Govind P. Agrawal. Progress in lightwave communication technology over the period 1974-1992. Different curves show the increase in the bit rate-distance product for five generations of fiberoptic communication systems after Govind P. Agrawal. Two Enabling Technologies: Lasers: coherent sources of light Glass: fibers with low optical attenuation The Advent of the Laser The Requisite Communication Resource Human-made vs. Natural Sources of Electromagnetic Radiation (coherent vs. incoherent light sources)  The classical picture of light emission: Radiating lines of force from an oscillating charge


A novel fusion method is proposed for multispectral and panchromatic satellite images using Principal Component Analysis(PCA)and Nonsubsampled Contourlet Transform(NSCT). This method first performs PCA on MS, and NSCT on PAN and the first principal componen(tPC1)to get corresponding low-frequency and high-fre-quency coefficients. Then fuses the approximation coefficients using PCA again for the tradeoff between the spectral and spatial information, and fuses the subbands coefficients based on Structural Similarity Index(SSIM)and lo- cal Sobel average gradient for the spatial detail information. A fused image is formed through inverse NSCT and inverse PCA. Experimental results show that the proposed fusion method can effectively preserve spectral information while improving the spatial quality, and outperforms the general IHS-, PCA-, Wavelet-, Contourlet-based fusion methods.


The authors have studied the basic electrical behavior of semiconducting materials employing a variety of CB (carbon black) loading amounts dispersed in several polyolefins. In the present work, the electrical conductivity of CB filled semiconducting materials is shown to depend on the nature of the CB network in the polymer matrix. The growth of the network may be accelerated by thermal vibration since higher molding temperature gives stable and enhanced conductivity. Both the amount of bound polymer and the dielectric breakdown strength seemed to predict the level of CB network development. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) observation of these semicon materials gave direct evidence for a well-grown CB network with high electrical conductivity.<<ETX>>


A group of Mr Ngxobongwana's Crossroads Committee's armed supporters, identified by white headbands, stand guard at the squatter camp last night in case of another outbreak of violence.


The aim of this study was to discuss the thermogravimetric kinetics of Tetra pak/high-density polyethylene flame retardant composites. In this paper, a wood/plastic composite with good properties was developed by extrusion followed by injection moulding using TPP waste and high-density polyethylene as raw materials, ammonium polyphosphate and melamine as intumescent fire retardants, and basalt fiber as a reinforced phase. Dynamics of thermal degradation of the developed composites was investigated by thermogravimetric analysis at 20~700℃in the heating rate of 5, 10 and20℃/min under N2 atmosphere. The Kissinger method showed that the activation energy of basalt fiber reinforced Tetra-pak/HDPE fire retardant composites was higher than that of the composites without any basalt fiber, demonstrating that the thermostability of Tetra-pak/HDPE fire retardant composites could be improved by the incorporation of basalt fiber into the Tetra-pak/HDPE matrix. The kinetic parameters and equations were also obtained by Coats-Redfern method for the basalt fiber reinforced Tetra-pak/HDPE fire retardant composites, and the results showed that the apparent activation energy of the first and the second thermolysis stage was 35.26 k J/mol and 171.16 k J/mol, respectively. The developed composite could be used as an alternative raw material in construction, packaging and other application fields. The utilization of Tetra pak packaging waste for value added products should be considered as new approach for paper/plastic/aluminum waste management and prevention of municipal solid waste environmental pollution.


BACKGROUND
Canine otitis externa (OE) is a common inflammatory disease that is frequently complicated by secondary bacterial and/or yeast infections. The otic microbial population is more complex than appreciated by cytological methods and aerobic culture alone.

HYPOTHESIS/OBJECTIVES
Differences in bacterial and fungal populations of the external ear canal will correlate with specific cytological and culture-based definitions of bacterial and Malassezia otitis.

ANIMALS
Forty client-owned dogs; 30 with OE and 10 with healthy ears.

METHODS AND MATERIALS
Prospective study comparing cytological samples, aerobic bacterial cultures and culture-independent sequencing-based analyses of the external ear canal. Subjects with OE included 10 dogs with only cocci [≥25/high power field (HPF)] on cytological evaluation and culture of Staphylococcus spp.; 10 dogs with rods (≥25/HPF) and exclusive culture of Pseudomonas aeruginosa; 10 dogs with only yeast on cytological results morphologically compatible with Malassezia spp. (≥5/HPF).

RESULTS
Staphylococcus was the most abundant taxa across all groups. Ears cytologically positive for cocci had decreased diversity, and all types of OE were associated with decreased fungal diversity compared to controls.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE
Cytological and culture-based assessment of the ear canal is not predictive of the diverse microbiota of the ear canal in cases of Pseudomonas or Malassezia otitis. Less abundant bacterial taxa in cases of staphylococcal OE are worth scrutiny for future biological therapy.


In a seminal paper Nagar (1959) obtained first and second moment approximations for the k-class of estimators in a general static simultaneous equation model under the assumption that the structural disturbances were i.i.d and normally distributed. Later Mikhail (1972) obtained a higher-order bias approximation for 2SLS under the same assumptions as Nagar while Iglesias and Phillips (2010) obtained the higher order approximation for the general k-class of estimators. These approximations show that the higher order biases can be important especially in highly overidentified cases. In this paper we show that Mikhail.s higher order bias approximation for 2SLS continues to be valid under symmetric, but not necessarily normal, disturbances with an arbitrary degree of kurtosis but not when the disturbances are asymmetric. A modified approximation for the 2SLS bias is then obtained which includes the case of asymmetric disturbances. The results are then extended to the general k-class of estimators.


We report preliminary results on 3-body B decays using a data sample of 21.3 fb−1 recorded at the Υ(4S) resonance with the Belle detector at the KEK e+e− storage ring. With no assumption on the intermediate mechanisms, the following branching fractions have been measured for the first time: B(B+ → K+π−π+) = (58.5 ± 7.1 ± 8.8)× 10−6,B(B+ → K+K−K+) = (37.0± 3.9 ± 4.4)× 10−6 and B(B0 → K+π−π0) = (35.6 −7.7 ± 5.2)× 10−6. Results of studies for various intermediate two-body decays are also presented. During the past few years, a considerable amount of new information on charmless hadronic B decays have been reported [1]. These charmless B decays are particular useful for understanding the dynamics of B meson decays and the origin of CP violation. However, because of large combinatoric backgrounds earlier experimental studies have concentrated mainly on two-body decay processes. In this paper, we report results of a search for B meson decays to h+h−h+ and h+h−π0 (h = K,π) final states without assuming intermediate hadronic resonances. Inclusion of charge conjugate modes is implied throughout the text. The data sample used in this analysis consists of 21.3 fb−1 on the Υ(4S) resonance and 2.3 fb−1 taken 60 MeV below the resonance. The data were collected by the Belle detector [2] at the KEK asymmetric e+e− storage ring [3]. A detailed description of the Belle detector can be found in Ref. [2] and the event selections of this analysis are described in Ref. [4]. Charged kaons and pions are identified using a likelihood ratio LK/(Lπ+LK). Here LK(π) is the likelihood of a particle being as a K(π) based on dE/dx, time of flight and the information from the aerogel Čerenkov counters. B meson candidates are identified using the beam constrained mass Mb = √ E2 beam − P 2 B and the energy difference ∆E = EB − Ebeam, where EB is the beam energy, and PB and EB are the momentum and energy of a B candidate in the Υ(4S) rest frame. Events with Mb > 5.2 GeV/c 2 and |∆E| < 0.2 GeV (−0.35 < ∆E < 0.25 for h+h−π0 mode) are selected for the final analysis. The dominant background for this analysis comes from the e+e− → qq̄ continuum. Various shape variables used to distinguish spherical decay ∗Speaker. P r H E P h e p 2 0 0 1 International Europhysics Conference on HEP Paoti Chang


Natural hydraulic lime (NHL) has drawn much attention due to its environmentally friendly nature. The characteristics of both hydraulic and pneumatic components make it a potential substitute for Portland cement in surface decoration and ancient building restoration. In this study, both doping and mixing with supplementary cementitious materials were investigated. Two types of NHL3.5 were fabricated through calcination at 1200 °C with B and B/Na doping, respectively. It is noted that B ion doping is beneficial to the early compressive strength of the specimens, and B/Na doping is beneficial to the later compressive strength of the specimens. The observed outcome is that the compressive strengths of B and coupled B/Na doped NHL3.5 are higher than the blank sample due to the appearance of α'-C2S. Thereafter, the blank and doping NHL were incorporated with fly ash and silica fume. The incorporation of fly ash and silica fume could enhance the early and late hydration rate. Of the two, silica fume shows more pozzolanic effect in the early age. In the supplementary cementitious materials dosed group, pozzolanic dominates the hydration process.


Intensive care units (ICU) epitomise the challenge of high technology medicine. They make heavy demands in terms of staff, equipment and other resources yet they have the potential to save lives and increase the chances of survival where alternative therapies have nothing to offer. Furthermore, while they undoubtedly bring benefit to some patients, ICUs also result in loss of the patient's dignity, privacy and autonomy. Balancing benefits and costs is not easy, and it was this issue that a multidisciplinary panel convened by the King's Fund sought to address at a number of meetings in 1988. The panel reviewed the published literature on ICUs (see Bibliography), considered submissions from a small number of invited experts, and drew on the experience of its members. It soon became apparent that lack of data in the United Kingdom would make it impossible to prepare a definitive statement on the role of ICUs in the National Health Service (NHS). Accordingly, the panel decided to produce a report summarising the current state of knowledge about intensive care, highlighting the absence of evidence and calling for a substantial programme of research.


Objective To understand hygienic status of drinking water in rural areas of Jincheng;Methods According to criterion to Detect the Drinking Water GB/T 5750.6-2006,the quality of 504 drinking water samples from 126 safety engineering were examined.Results The total qualification rate of 504 drinking water samples was 68.5%,the qualification rate of drinking water during dry season was 77.4%,the qualification rate of drinking water during high flow period was 59.5%;Conclusion Supervision for the quality of drink water from rural safety engineering,and investment of disinfection equipments should be strengthened in Jincheng city.


The research aimed to describe and analyze the profile of perpetrators of intentional
aggression by third parties, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, in the year 2015, according to
the data produced by the investigations of the Civil Police of the State of Rio de Janeiro,
As information obtained compose the macrocategory Violent Lethalities and are divided
into Dolicious Homicide, Robbery followed by Death (Latrocinios), Bodily Injuries
followed by Death and Homicide from Opposition to Police Intervention. After the data
collection, analyzes of the profile of the authors of each of these categories were
performed separately and also together, by means of the variables gender, age,
schooling, occupation, previous relationship between author and victim, and type of
aggression or circumstance of cause of that aggression. A cross-sectional quantitative
observational study was performed. Data were collected by searching the ROWEB /
PCERJ database and reading all Occurrence Records covered by this research. These
data demonstrated the weight of illegal activities organized as drug trafficking and those
carried out by militia in the production of these deaths. They are, in part, directly caused
by their actions as a form of coercion and legitimation of control, as well as by
repression by the State through security institutions that are also a relevant producer of
deaths. Likewise, coexistence in socially degraded spaces and lacking access to nonpolice public services and the domestic space presented themselves as producers of
interpersonal violence in its various forms, with extreme consequences as a result of
death. There is a degree of proximity between the profile of the authors verified in this
work and the victims of homicides in urban context similar to the one researched. A
profile of male, young, black, low education, and high levels of regular formal nonoccupation, often inserted in a socially depleted environment, lacking in new
perspectives, and with the strong influence of illegal productive activities such as drugs
and militia, an environment that contributes significantly to homicide situations.


Background: The University of Namibia-Oshakati Campus has a tradition to celebrate UNAM Health Day which coincided with the World Health Day annually. The day had always been celebrated within the Oshakati Campus premises. Nurse lecturers from the School of Nursing and Public Health always decide on the activities of the day and they volunteered themselves to take part in the event. The activities conducted were such as blood pressure monitoring, taking of weigh and giving general health education on different topics. In that case activities only catered for the University's staff members, some students and few distance students and individuals who might find them visiting the campus during that day. This year (2013), lecturers celebrated UNAM/World day on the 04th April and they decided to move out of the campus to the nearby "open market" community to sell their service and to raise awareness about the reality of diseases such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and obesity under the theme: "High blood pressure" (WHO's theme of the year). The "open market" is a place in Oshakati (Oshana region) in the northern Namibia where many self-employed local smalland medium business people, males and females gather to sell local food and some "okapana" (takeaways) to passerby. Aim: The aim is to take the service to the community around Oshakati to sell their service and to raise awareness about the reality of diseases such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and obesity under the theme: "High blood pressure". Method: No actual research was done. The service was carried out in April 2013. Results: No actual data analysis was done. The analysis of the findings was based on the users of the services. Many people who used the services were found to have high blood pressure up to 229/124mmHg, many of the women who sell "okapana" are overweight and seem to have lack the knowledge about balanced diet because they could not understand why they are overweight compared to their Body Mass Index (BMI). They prefer to keep their "fatness" because if they lose weight they will be laughed at and said to have AIDS. Many people were found to have high blood glucose levels (33.3mmol/L). Conclusion: The results indicate the need for health care providers to strengthen the community services and outreach to improve the knowledge and understanding of community members on the need for undergoing regular screening.


This work concerns robust sensor fault detection observer (SFDO) design for uncertain and disturbed discrete‐time Takagi–Sugeno (T–S) systems using H −  ∕ H ∞ criterion. The principle of the proposed approach is based on simultaneously minimizing the perturbation effect and maximizing the fault effect on the residual vector. Furthermore, by introducing slack decision matrices and taking advantage of the descriptor formulation, less conservative sufficient conditions are proposed leading to easier linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Moreover, the proposed (SFDO) design conditions allow dealing with unmeasurable premise variables. Finally, a numerical example and a truck–trailer system model are proposed to illustrate the efficiency of the SFDO design methodology. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The objective of this work is to get to know the willingness of students in their final university year to share business knowledge, despite their lack of wo...


"Wen Yuan Ying Hua",an anthology of one thousand volumes of works,doesn't contain the genre Ci,as is not out of the editors' carelessness,but out of the editors' scorn of Ci.Actually,people in early North Song Dynasty considered composing Ci as a trifling skill.The anthology is just one good example among many to demonstrate that people in North Song Dynasty belittled Ci.


lesions in the pancreatic tail, it does not appear to have reduced the high sensitivity of Ga-exendin-4 PET/CT in this case or published trials. Recently updated scatter correction protocols have reduced this problem, but if observed it can be resolved through re-processing PET data without use of 'scatter correction'. In our patient initially reported to have a normal pancreas on CT, Ga-exendin-4 PET/CT effectively localised an insulinoma at the splenic hilum enabling a curative laparoscopic resection. This case highlights the role of functional imaging with Ga-exendin 4 PET/CT for preoperative insulinoma localisation. Received 19 February 2017; accepted 19 June 2017.


The Upper Cambrian (Nopah Formation)Ordovician (Mountain Springs Formation) craton-margin section in the eastern Spring Mountains, southern Nevada and environs contains a variety of homoclinal ramp peritidal and subtidal carbonate facies and cycles. This section can be divided into four depositional sequences that reflect significant rises and falls in relative sea level. Sequence 1, which accumulated on a type-2 sequence boundary at the top of the Bonanza King Formation, consists of the Dunderberg Shale and basal part of the Halfpint members of the Nopah Formation. This type-2 sequence is composed of meter-scale, shallowing upward, cyclical shale-carbonate parasequences that comprise a dominant transgressive systems tract. A Sauk II-Sauk III cratonic disconformity has a subtle signature in the study area as a "condensed" zone within the Dunderbergia-Elvinia biozone boundary interval where it represents a type-2 sequence boundary and the top of sequence l. Sequence 2 is composed of the upper Nopah carbonate section, most of which is developed as subtidal microbial doloboundstone and genetically related carbonates of a major progradational microbial bioherm complex that represents a Sauk III highstand systems tract. The regionally abrupt contact between the uppermost shale of the Dunderberg and the overlying carbonates of the upper Nopah is not a classic Grand Cycle boundary because it does not represent a major paleoenvironmental shift. Sequence 3 consists of member A of the Mountain Springs Formation, the sharp basal boundary of which is interpreted as a marine flooding surface and type 2 sequence boundary. Member A consists of a thick Lower Ordovician peritidal to subtidal transgressive systems tract and a thin Middle Ordovician highstand systems tract. The type-1 unconformity that separates member A from overlying member B is the top of the first-order Sauk Sequence. Sequence 4 (Tippecanoe sequence) consists of meiriber B, which is part of a deeply truncated Upper Ordovician transgressive systems tract. This type-l sequence is bounded above by another type 1 unconformity that separates it from Lower Devonian rocks.


In this paper, we propose a continuous-time audio noise suppression algorithm for reducing stationary background noise in a single microphone signal. The algorithm is targeted for implementation in sub-threshold analog floating-gate transistor circuits for extremely low-power systems. The noise suppression algorithm divides the noisy signal into exponentially spaced sub-bands and estimates the noisy signal envelope and the noise envelope to calculate a time-varying gain for each sub-band based on each band's a posteriori SNR. A sigmoidal gain function in for use in the analog system is introduced and a normalized SNR is also proposed for consistent noise suppression for different input noise variances. Simulations of the system show promising results.


The Hooke's law force on a coil spring often constitutes a student's first introduction to the properties of simple harmonic motion. The usual treatment assumes a vertical massless spring, held fixed at one end and stretched by a hanging mass M at the other. An occasional text, however, points out that the treatment, in the case of a hanging spring, can be improved by taking into account the equivalent mass mo/3 of the spring. It is only necessary to addmo/3 to the hanging mass M in the expression that relates the frequency of the spring oscillations to M and to the spring constant k.


【Objective】 To study the status of media use of children and adolescents among health examination crowd.【Methods】 A cluster sampling survey was carried out from October 2010 to February 2012.Data were collected through self-administered structured retrospective questionnaire from 305 pairs of families in health examination department of affiliated children's hospital of Wenzhou Medical College.【Results】 46.23%(141/305)children and adolescents used media excess 2 hours per day.There was no significant difference among ages in the total time of electronic media use per week(referred to as the T/w)(F=1.294,P=0.272);Parents' restrictions on media use,morning TV viewing habit,media as children's main killing time tool could affect the T/w(t=4.848,-2.814,-6.174,all P0.01).Children whose sleep could not be affected by media use before sleep were more inclined to use media excess 14 hours per week(χ2=4.424,P=0.038).【Conclusions】 The children and adolescents spend substantial time on media,and their habit,favorite around media had formed at least before or at 6 years old;Parents' restriction on media use can affect the time children spend before screen media;TV-viewing before sleep can affect children's sleep,but the effect does not lie in the total time of TV-viewing.


Scene is context.It is the surrounding of applying speech to carry out communication.Any significant words of social communication are all ongoing specified condition.Active effect about the chapter of trauma of BJ being made use of scene teaching is all the better caused pupil penetrating to understand the content.Situation pedagogy is a teaching pattern and method,which giving advice to cite and set up invariably feeling and main body of image lively extensional scene by the working teacher,and affected the pupils and cultivated papillary sensibility,cognition,thinking and intelligence.


The civil case corpus system,is the civil law ories and lawmakings practice medium of important contents,especially such written laws of our country is national,the lawmaking of the civil case corpus is a pass important link of the development of the whole construction or purchase of civil law system and market economies.Under the condition that natural person and legal persons certainly and has ground become the civil case corpus of inside pit,this text tries to make with postpone outside under the new history condition and the environment of ageses to the content of the civil case corpus lately hermeneutic,special whether a great deal of existent "non-body corporate" should become "the third corpus" to make a thinking or not on the economy relation and the life relations.


Prevailing views are that the close ties between universities and industry and the establishment of high-technology clusters are keys to economic development.However,South Korea's successful experience has shown that the European and American model is not the only model.The core of Korean innovation system is large enterprises,while universities and government research institutions have played an important contribution to economic development,but this contribution is not reflected in the transfer of research results and innovation.The role of South Korea's universities and research institutions to cluster development is very small,because there are a number of institutional obstacles in the Korean economy.'Korean model' has better reference for China.


Calculations, based on a particular model Hamiltonian and the coherent potential approximation (CPA), of the partial densities of states and the k=0 spectral densities are reported for binary mixtures of C6H6/C6H5D, C6H6/C6H4D2, and C6H6/C6D6. The spectral density calculations are compared with the experimental absorptions for the C6H6/C6H5D and C6H6/C6D6 systems. Deviations between theory and experiment for the latter case seem to be more a result of a breakdown in the ideal‐mixed‐crystal assumption than in the CPA model. There is good agreement between‐theory and experiment for the C6H6/C6H5D system. Also, additional experiments to study directly the partial densities of states of binary mixtures are outlined.


L~z9HILDREN with epilepsy have, in addition to the usual childhood problems of adjustment, a great many anxieties and severe emotional disturbances which are related to the disorder and which stem from the nature of the illness and the prejudiced attitude of our culture toward it. The parents of epileptic children, likewise, have many anxieties about the medical and psychological effects of the illness upon their children. Treatment of epilepsy, therefore, should concern itself not only with an attempt to decrease or control the incidence of seizures, but should also be directed toward a solution of the associated emotional problems, which, in many instances, are as disabling as the disease itself. The treatment of epilepsy in our clinic has been approached from a combined medical-psychiatric point of view which aims at attaining control of seizures by the usual anti-convulsive medication and also at improving the emotional adjustment of both parent and child by means of individual and group psychotherapy. The study we wish to present this evening is a progress report of our experience with the use of group psychotherapy with epileptic children and their mothers. Group therapy appeared to be a logical form of psychotherapy with these subjects because the factor of the illness provided a common meeting ground. It was felt that direct discussion of seizures in a group would bring to the fore the emotional conflicts engendered by the disease and would thus help to relieve the associated anxiety and make for more rapid improvement in adjustment in the parent-child relationship than would be possible with individual therapy. This study, which began about one year ago, consisted of four groups -one group of boys, another group of girls and two groups composed of the mothers of these children. There were seven children


This paper focuses on the power flow calculation method for DC distribution system with voltage source converter operation mode consideration. To accurately calculating the dc power flow, the master-slave and droop control mode of VSC converter station is used. The structure and mathematical model of VSC converter are discussed. When performing DC power flow calculation, the converter station is equivalent to P node/Slack node/D node according to different control modes of the converter station. And the non-linear DC network equations is solved with the Newton-Raphson (NR) method. A study case which is based on 11 nodes DC distribution system is used to carry out the DC power flow method, and simulation results show that the proposed model and method are effective.


Two new simple, sensitive, rapid and economical Spectrophotometric Methods (A and B) have been developed for the determination of Nelfinavir Mesylate in pharmaceutical bulk and tablet dosage form. The method A is based on the reaction of Nelfinavir with ferric chloride, potassium ferricyanide and hydrochloric acid to form a bluish green colored chromogen. The Method B is based on the formation of blood red colored chromogen with Ferric chloride and 1,10-phenanthroline. The absorbances of the chromogen were measured at their respective wavelength of maximum absorbance against the corresponding reagent blank. The proposed methods have been successfully applied to the analysis of the bulk drug and its tablet dosage form. The methods have been statistically evaluated and were found to be precise and accurate.


Abstract This essay is a Lesbian radical feminist analysis of the representation of Lesbians in contemporary popular French pornography. It is an intervention in the pornography debate which shifts the ground in significant ways. Pornography is defined from a practical marketing standpoint as consumer product. The writer is not concerned with sensational, or overtly violent porn, but with the most widely sold, banal magazines. Curiously, Lesbianism emerges as the dominant fantasy produced for heterosexual men. But it is a particular version of Lesbianism, confined and contained within familial relations. The implications of the way in which Lesbianism is presented as part of the heterosexual continuum are examined and contrasted over against Lesbian pornography and the political perspectives of Lesbian radical feminism.


Abstract This study aims to explore the validity of Phillips curve for eight (8) countries from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), namely Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Malta, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia over the period of 1991–2019. The panel autoregressive distributed lag/pooled mean group (ARDL/PMG) estimation is employed in the study because of the nature of data. The results of ARDL/PMG reveal that there is no trade-off between inflation and unemployment rates in the panel of eight MENA countries in the long run, while there is a negative but insignificant relationship between these two variables in the short run. In addition, the trade-off between inflation and unemployment for each of the panel's countries has also been investigated. The empirical results indicate that there is no trade-off in the short run as the estimated coefficients found are statistically insignificant. Hence, it is concluded that there is no empirical evidence of the trade-off between inflation and unemployment rates in MENA countries.


AA-TP1 (Standard Test Procedure for Aluminum Alloy Grain Refiners; TP-1 test) is one of the evaluation tests of aluminum grain refiner. Although it is the most well-maintained test at present, it is not easy to perform the test by academic institutions because it requires a large amount of molten metal. In this study, we propose new evaluation method of grain refining performance of aluminum cast using TP-1 test mold. Effects of temperature of molten metal, holding time after addition of refiner (Al-5%Ti-1%B) and preheating temperature of the mold for microstruc ture of as-cast pure Al were examined. Obtained results were compared with the microstructure obtained by con ventional TP-1 test.


Several studies have examined the job satisfaction of university faculty in developed countries, little is known about job satisfaction faculty in the developing countries like Vietnam. The purpose of this study was conducted to explore the relationship between job satisfaction and demographic characteristics of university academic members in Vietnamese higher education. The study used a questionnaire to survey with 188 academic members from four public universities in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Results of this study showed that most academics were only a moderate level of job satisfaction. However, female faculty members were less satisfied than male counterparts. The present analysis also found that there was significant difference in job satisfaction level based on country of graduation; no evidence is adduced to support a gender, age, marital status, rank, academic qualification, length of employment, and discipline influence on job satisfaction of academic members.


Wilkinson provides biographical information on Moore and discusses individual works by the artist. Text features statements by Moore. 6 bibl. ref.


11100 Background: A molecular assay (GeneSearch™ BLN Assay, Veridex, LLC), CE marked and approved by the FDA, has been in clinical use at our institution for over 18 months to intra-operatively detect metastases ≥0.2 mm in the sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) in breast cancer patients. After a small validation study (N=78, sensitivity = 92.3%, specificity = 96.9%) the assay was adopted as the only intra-operative SLN test used at the Institut Jules Bordet. This is the first report of the post-market assay performance. Methods: One SLN per patient is cut into approximately 2 mm sections. Alternating sections are processed fresh in the BLN assay. The assay detects mRNA expression of mammaglobin and CK19. Predetermined cutoffs are set to detect metastases ≥0.2 mm. The BLN Assay results are used to make intra-operative decisions for same surgery axillary lymph node dissections (ALND). The remaining alternating sections of the SLN are examined later by permanent section H&E. Results: Since August 2006, the BLN Assa...


Nanostructures consisting of metals, especially of coinage metals, play a particularly important role in emitter coupled systems due to their strongly resonant behaviour when being excited by visible light. Such material and geometry dependent resonances (plasmon-polaritons) provide for extreme evanescent light localization as well as for efficient and if needed directed scattering. The tuning of these resonant phenomena by proper choice of the metals in combination with a specially designed geometry delivers the necessary degrees of freedom for spectrally matching in principle any type of coupling. One option to sensitively tune hybrid interactions is the dedicated arrangement of plasmonic building blocks as meta-atoms in two-or three-dimensional functional geometries, called metamaterials in general and hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) for 2D layered systems. Hyperbolic metamaterials belong to the anisotropic metamaterials showing metallic behaviour in-plane (ε⊥ < 0) and strong dielectric behaviour out of plane (ε∥> 0) or vice versa. Such indefinite permittivities can result in enhanced spontaneous emission rates of quantum emitters1.


There is an increasing need for low cost, fully integrated digital phone systems including telephony functions, fax, hands-free and answering machines. For the latter feature, a high quality, low bit rate speech coder is recommended. It should require only a reasonable complexity to stay competitive in this product range. Recent advances in CELP speech coding have shown the feasibility of this concept for this kind of consumer applications. A 4.8 kbps Hamming code excited linear prediction (HCELP) coder is proposed in this paper with an algebraic structure for the codebook. It features a very fast search algorithm which has been evaluated to be 3 times faster than usual algebraic codebook search procedures. Quality evaluation yielded satisfactory results. Implementation aspects and the integration of the coder in an advanced telephone set are also detailed.


A stable low-component active R circuit is given for the simulation of nonideal grounded inductance. It has low L and Q sensitivities. Independent Q tuning is possible. The circuit is extended to realise floating inductance. The theory is experimentally verified.


Wafers of silicon semiconductor material are stacked, bonded and severed to form a plurality of semiconductor diodes. One or more capacitor bodies are physically and electrically joined with these diodes, either by means of the capacitor bodies themselves or by means of an intermediate lead frame structure, in order to facilitate the handling and processing of the assembly as a unit.


Petersen, et al. "Liver repopulation with xenogeneic hepatocytes in B and T cell-deficient mice leads to chronic Hepadnavirus infection and clonal growth of hepatocellular carcinoma' PNAS USA 1998:95(1):310-315. Rhim, et al. "Replacement of diseased mouse liver by hepatic cell transplantation" Science 1994:263(5150): 1149-1152. Rhim, et al. "Complete reconstitution of mouse liver with xenogeneic hepatocytes' PNAS USA 1995:92(11):4942-4946. Ryan & Sigmund "Use of transgenic and knockout strategies in mice" Semin. Nephrol. 2002; 22(2): 154-160. Sandgren, et al. "Complete hepatic regeneration after Somatic dele tion of an albumin-plasminogen activator transgene' Cell 1991;66(2):245-256. Sarbah &Younossi"Hepatitis C: an update on the silent epidemic" J. Clin. Gastroenterol. 2000; 30(2):125-143. Sells, et al. "Production of Hepatitis B virus particles in Hep G2 cells transfected with cloned Hepatitis B virus DNA" ONAS USA 1987: 84(4): 1005-1009. Shapiro "Occupational risk of infection with Hepatitis B and Hepa titis C virus' Surgical Clinics North Am. 1995:75(6):1047-1056. Shibata, et al. "SCDI-bg mice as xenograft recipients' Lab Anim 31(2):163-168. Sureau "In vitro culture systems for Hepatitis B and Delta viruses' Arch. Virol. Suppl. 1993;8:3-14. Toth, et al. "Two distinct apolipoprotein Balleles in mice generated by a single in-out targeting Gene 1996:178(1-2):161-168. Vierlung, et al. "Xenografting of Human HCV-Infected Liver into Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID) Mice" Hepatology 1996; 24(4 Pt. 2): 218A. Vrancken-Peeters, et al. "Expansion of donor hepatocytes after recombinant adenovirus-induced liver regeneration in mice' Hepatology 1997:24(4):884-888. Wall "Transgenic livestock: progress and prospects for the future" Theriogenology 1996:45(1):57-68. Weglarz, et al. "Hepatocyte transplantation into diseased mouse liver. Kinetics of parenchymal repopulation and identification of the pro liferative capacity of tetraploid and octaploid hepatocytes' American Journal of Pathology 2000: 157(6): 1963-1974. Xie, etal. "Transmission of Hepatitis C virus infection to treeshrews' Virology 1998; 244(2):513-520.


Crocidolomia pavonana is a significant pest in the Brassicaceae family. The study aimed to determine the effect of applying several types of insect flour to M. anisopliae growth media to increase its virulence against C. pavonana pests. The experimental design in this study used a completely randomized design (C.R.D.). The treatment used was A = 25 gr corn rice medium, B = 25 gr corn rice medium + 1.25 gr Hong Kong caterpillar flour, C = 25 gr corn rice medium + 3.75 gr Hong Kong caterpillar flour, D = 25 gr corn rice medium gr + 1.25 gr Kroto flour, E = 25 gr corn rice medium + 3.75 gr Kroto flour, F = 25 gr corn rice medium + 1.25 gr cricket flour, G = 25 gr corn rice medium + 3.75 gr cricket flour. The addition of insect flour could not increase the virulence of M. anisopliae against C. pavonana pests to above 50% due to less than optimal humidity conditions for M. anisopliae. The comparison of the types of insect flour used to be added to the propagation media did not significantly affect some of the parameters that had been observed, but on average, the M. anisopliae fungi propagation medium was added with insect flour made from Hong Kong caterpillars, namely treatment B (25 gr corn rice medium + 1.25 gr Hong Kong caterpillar flour) can cause the highest mortality  against C. pavonana pests.


A new mathematical model for identifying pollution sources in aquifers is presented. The model utilizes Lagrange Constrained Optimization Method (LCOM) and is capable to inversely solve unsteady fluid flow in saturated, heterogeneous, anisotropic confined and/or unconfined aquifers. Throughout the presented model, complete advection-dispersion equation, including the adsorption as well as retardation of contaminant, is considered. The well-known finite element method is used to discretize and solve the governing equations. The model verification is implemented using a hypothetical example. Also, the applicability of the developed code is illustrated by the real field problem of Ramhormoz aquifer in southwestern Iran.


In order to reduce the cross and repeat between design activities,it presents a process planning method for design activities of distributed product development based on coordinates model of design activities and their information dependence.It firstly analysis what consists of design activities,and builds an element model based on the constitute elements of design activities.Based on the element model,a coordinate model for design activities is presented.Besides,associated models of design activities and coordinates rules under different models are described.Those provide theoretical basis for design activities'process planning.Following,information dependence among design activities is defined and a fuzzy number method is used to quantify it.A measure model for information dependence is set up.Using Analytic Hierarchy Process,a process planning method based on information dependence is proposed. This method is easy to carry out and is able to provide a good reference for design activities'process planning.At last,it uses the design process of single-stage reducer as an example to verify the process planning method.


Dynamical reflection electron microscopy (REM) can provide a wealth of time-resolved data pertinent to the initial and intermediate stages of cluster growth. REM allows one to follow and quantify the size and shape evolution of individual clusters. Average cluster size and cluster density data can be obtained as a function of time due to the large field of view produced by REM image foreshortening. We describe here a methodology for extracting these data from dynamical REM experiments, based on a geometrical model for the interpretation of REM images from two- and three-dimensional clusters. This methodology has been applied to studies of In cluster growth on InP(110) surfaces at 650°C. The average In cluster height and length initially increased as a fourth root of time, with a constant contact angle with the surface, consistent with surface-diffusion-limited growth of 3D clusters. The same behavior was found in the later stage of cluster growth, but the intermediate stage showed anomalous power laws for the cluster height and base length, accompanied by a decrease in the contact angle between the In clusters and the InP(110) surface. This anomalous regime can be explained by growth of In clusters into the InP substrate, when the true contact angle is no longer defined with respect to the InP(110) surface.


CASE REPORT A 72 year old man presented with multiple purpuric and necrotising skin eruptions (sized 2–20 mm) covering mainly the extremities and, to a lesser extent, the trunk. He had noticed a weight loss of 12 kg in the past 2 months. There was a history of smoking with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and partial colectomy because of a benign adenoma. Laboratory investigations showed a normal erythrocyte sedimentation rate (9 mm/1st h), but C reactive protein was raised (43 mg/l). Serological markers, such as antinuclear antibodies, antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies, cryoglobulins, and hepatitis B and hepatitis C were excluded. A diagnostic procedure was performed to exclude a neoplasm, but, chest radiography, abdominal ultrasonography, gastroscopy, and colonoscopy were normal. Prednisone was


To study the bearing characteristics of the composite foundation with rigid piles, a load test on a composite foundation with single pile was performed on the site of a certain building. In the test, a three-dimensional numerical model was built to carry out the numerical simulation of the load test. The simulation results were consistent with the actually measured data, indicating the validity of the simulation model. For the composite model with single pile, the effects of some factors, such as the pile length, the pile diameter, the pile spacing, the replacement rate and the cushion thickness on the bearing characteristics of the composite foundation were comprehensively analyzed. The result showed that the increase of the pile length was beneficial to improving the bearing capacity of pile, while an overlength pile would limit the pile side friction behavior. The increase of replacement rate could enhance the bearing capacity of the composite foundation and reduce the stress ratio of pile to soil, and further affect the bearing efficiency of pile. Based on the test results, a rational replacement rate was between 0.04 and 0.07. The cushion was helpful to coordinate the pile and soil to work together. When the cushion was set to be between 100 mm and 250 mm in thickness, it would bring little influence to the bearing capacity of composite foundation. According to the modeling results, a suggestion on the rational determination of various parameters is proposed.


The invention discloses an extraction method of an ipomoea nil polysaccharide. The extraction method comprises the steps: removing impurities of raw material, crushing and sieving, degreasing and decoloring, extracting with hot water, centrifuging, concentrating, deproteinizing, drying to obtain a crude polysaccharide, redissolving, carrying out graded alcohol precipitation, centrifuging, carrying out freeze drying to obtain the white ipomoea nil polysaccharide, wherein optimal extraction conditions obtained through tests and correction are that the extraction temperature is 85 DEG C, the extraction time is 4.25 h, the ratio of liquid to the raw material is 51:1 (mL/g). The extraction method has the advantages of simple scheme process and convenient operation, has relatively high polysaccharide yield which is up to 25.5%, enables the purity of the polysaccharide after carrying out graded alcohol precipitation to be also quite high, and is expected to realize industrialized application.


In 2007, the first Netbook PC is approaching the market by Asus as a new product with fairly low price to fit the need of customers. Although by the influence of financial crisis in these two years, the product has been welcome by the worldwide market significantly. Different competitors have also entered into market with similar products, which result in server competition. However, the key success factors (KSF) of Eeepc have rarely been discussed in the literature. This study intends to fit this research gap to identify a hierarchical framework for the KSF of Eeepc. Through a series of literature review and 14 indepth interviews, this study concludes three major dimensions, eight key factors, and 27 items for the success of Eeepc operations. A hierarchical KSF framework has been identified through Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the relative importance of each factors are also identified. The study results conclude that product design, product quality, and marketing methods are three major dimensions of the hierarchical framework for the KSF of Netbook PC. For the dimensions of product design, convenience, appearance and interior equipment are three of the most important factors. For the dimension of product quality, reliability and quality/price ratio are two of the most important factors. For the dimension of marketing methods advertising, channel and promotion are three of the most important factors. Among others, long battery life, promotion with 3.5G dongle, collaboration with the media, better quality than the competitor, bigger hard disk drive, and fashion of design and free gifts with the product selling are some of the most important items for the KSF of Netbook PC operations. To compare the current performance of the KSF among Asus, Acer, and MSI using the established KSF framework, the survey results indicate that Acer performs better than Asus, and MSI stays in the last place with most of the KSF items.


Organizations use data to support different business processes. Data may become unclean because of corruptions in the central quality aspects due to factors such as duplicate records, outdated data, inconsistent values, incomplete information, or inaccurate values. Real datasets are usually not available for reasons such as privacy constraints. In the existing systems that generate or corrupt synthetic data, the intrinsic characteristics of data may not satisfy the quality aspects, and the injected types of errors do not corrupt multiple data quality aspects. Also, a lack of common datasets is a primary reason that representative comparisons between algorithms of different data quality management approaches are not possible. To address these issues, we present datumPIPE, a system that allows for the generation of data that satisfies a set of integrity constraints, including functional dependencies (FDs), conditional functional dependencies (CFDs), and inclusion dependencies (INDs). Also, datumPIPE provides the functionality to generate other types of attribute values such as sensors and personal data. It also allows for the corruption of the generated data through the introduction of quality issues in the central data quality aspects.


A 19 month-old girl with Cushing's Syndrome due to primary adrenocortical nodular dysplasia (PAND) was treated preoperatively with a combination of OP'DDD, aminoglutetamide and metyrapone. There was a striking clinical improvement and Cortisol levels decreased significantly. No perioperative complications occurred and rapid recovery was achieved.


A built-in parametric measurement circuit is proposed for time-interval measurement and set-up/hold time measurement. The main idea is based on the dual-slope technique. The minimum resolution is set by resistor array configuration, which is 1/16 clock period in this paper, and easily extendable to desired precision. The imperfection, including the offset voltage and the settling time, is considered to improve the accuracy. Moreover, a simple calibration method is proposed to reduce the measuring error. Experiments on the SRAM access time measurement and the register set-up/hold time measurement show the practicality of the proposed unit.


Abstract
 Integrated crop management (ICM) is an all-inclusive, holistic approach to sustainable food production that focuses on conserving natural resources. One of the main objectives is to blend the use of modern technology with time proven methods of crop production, maintenance of soil fertility and care for the natural environment as part of an economically-viable horticultural business. Horticultural practices that avoid or minimise waste and pollution, incorporate energy efficiency, reduce external farm inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, and follow a long term strategy for conservation and management, are the basis of this system. Resource management is a key feature of integrated crop management to minimise the consumption of non-renewable resources, while at the same time safeguarding the environment and biodiversity of the land used for food production. Integrated crop management is often defined as a 'whole farm system' where the requirements for production of an economic product are balanced with the care of the land and environmental considerations. While integrated crop management seems a simple concept to understand, the implementation and approaches taken vary considerably depending on the site, production system, crops and many other factors. Being site specific means that individual producers must plan and develop their own individualised integrated crop management programme based on their local needs, crops, resources and areas for improvement.


A new spectral factorization method is presented for the estimation of a causal as well as a causally invertible ARMA operator from the correlation sequence of seismic traces. The method has been implemented for multichannel deconvolution of seismic traces with the aim of exploiting the trace‐to‐trace correlation that exists within seismograms. A layered earth model with a small reflectivity sequence has been considered, and the seismic traces have been considered as the output of a linear system driven by white noise reflection coefficient sequences.  The present method is the concatenation of three algorithms, namely Kung's method for state variable (F,G,H) realization using a singular value decomposition (SVD) algorithm, Faurre's technique for computation of the strong spectral factor and Leverrier's algorithm for ARMA representation of the spectral factor. The inverted ARMA operator is used as a recursive filter for deconvolution of seismic traces. In the example shown, two traces with a covariance sequence of 160 ms length have been considered for multichannel deconvolution of stacked seismic traces. The results presented, when compared with those obtained from a conventional deconvolution algorithm, have shown encouraging prospects.


Although each of the nations of Europe has a considerable volume of post-war agricultural legislation, it requires an economic mind keener than my own for translating this legislation into terms of national agricultural policies. Agricultural legislation of most European nations, like that of our country, appears as a group of enactments serving many and unrelated ends. England today furnishes an example of mixed emotions regarding a national agricultural policy-if one may be permitted to stray from the fertile home field in quest of examples. The statesmen of the leading political parties of England are expressing deep concern over the distressing condition of her agriculture. At the same time the Parliament has passed an Empire Settlement Facilities Act designed to subsidize the emigration of agriculturalists to the Dominions. In addition, the government has appropriated a considerable sum to encourage trade between the Dominions and the mother country. Presumably, a portion of this sum will be devoted to the promotion of the sale of Dominion-grown foodstuffs in England's markets. The English farmer is somewhat at a loss in interpreting the actions of a sympathetic Parliament which passes legislation depriving the home land of its best agriculturists, as well as legislation designed to encourage the bringing of Dominion farm products to English markets in direct competition with home-grown products. It is not the purpose of this paper to discuss the merits of the above acts or to analyze the claims of the farmer regarding them. They are mentioned in order to emphasize the point that agricultural policies have their elusive aspects. If there be a dominant note common to European nations in their attitude toward agriculture that note is "self-sufficiency." Although "self-sufficiency" is in most cases impossible of real-


This paper aims to highlight the link between competitive business higher education and action learning as an appropriate method for improving the educational process. A really competitive university should focus on both information and capabilities and should permanently adapt to its students and to demands in the work market. Although many ideas are very well understood by simply reading a text or seeing a documentary, every process is really "felt" only when "doing things". My paper aims to present the general benefits of action learning, by having as a case study a course of Operations Management. I use as a sample my students from the Faculty of Management (second year of study), in the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania. Students have to meet both the perspective of traditional learning and action learning. Students have participated in many projects looking as simple games (i.e. they have to organize themselves in teams in order to produce snowmen, hats, pancakes, etc). Debriefing is very important and leads to a series of conclusions for each student that he/she keeps in mind for a long period of time from then on. The main methods used for this paper are observation and a questionnaire in which my students gave a valuable feedback. Results confirm the hypothesis that action learning leads to deeper knowledge of the processes.


The proximate, minerals, functional properties, in-vitro multi enzyme protein digestibility of fortified sorghum with soybean composite meal flour have been determined using standard analytical methods. The sample contained moisture (3.52%), ash (3.40%), crude fat (27.44%), crude protein (39.33%), crude fibre (5.66%) and carbohydrate (22.65%). The magnesium was the highest mineral with the value of 40.78mg/kg while copper had the lowest value of 0.04 mg/kg. The results of functional properties showed that water absorption capacity (WAC) had the value of 142.62%, oil absorption capacity (OAC) had the value of 114.24%, foaming capacity/stability (6.50%/2.00%)while the least gelation concentration was 2.00%. The multi enzyme protein digestibility was 66%. Glutamic acid was the most concentrated amino acid with the value of 172.5 mg/g crude protein while cysteine was the least concentrated with the value of 20.5 mg/g crude protein. The average total amino acid in the composite sample was 915.5 mg/g crude protein and the total average percent essential amino acid was 44.7% (with histidine), 42.3% (without histidine). The composite sample would provide the required amino acids for the pre-school children (2-5yrs) since the values obtained were higher than 100% required standards recommended for the group.


Journal of Anaesthesia and Critical Care Case Reports 2016 May-Aug;2(2):13-15 Department of anesthesiology, Max Superspeciality Hospital, I.P Extension, Patparganj, New Delhi, India. Address of Correspondence


Based on Michel Foucault we present theoretical and conceptual analysis about discourse on science education, describe mechanisms by which practice and things that are saying in lessons in science produce individual and social subjects, build modes of subjectivity of reality, including the view that what scientific knowledge are, as they are produced and objectives for the teaching of science. We begin with the analysis of language while material basis for communication, used by historical subject, proceed with discussion of a vision of language in which the subjects are influenced by the conditions of use and ending up with consideration about the movement STS while discourse to the teaching of sciences. To launch critical look at such issues requires review of concepts such as language and discourse widely used by researchers in the field and elements to evaluate the relationship between teaching practices and science that human are we forming in our schools.


—Overhead line reclosing schemes are commonly used to minimize outage durations and maximize reliability on distribution feeders. While reclosing has shown reliability improvements (especially during temporary faults), reclosing into faults to test line segments subjects upstream power transformer windings to mechanical damage due to through-fault exposure. This paper demonstrates using the transformer through-fault capability curves of IEEE C57.109 to evaluate the through-fault damage of various reclosing sequences on an example distribution transformer. Reclosing sequences evaluated include fuse-saving schemes, trip-saving schemes, overcurrent curve enhancements to traditional schemes, and hybrid schemes using high-speed wireless fault sensors. These sequences are evaluated for both temporary and permanent fault conditions. The coordination of multiple reclosers and sectionalizers in series on a distribution feeder is also considered in the sequences that are evaluated. The method described in this paper provides distribution owners and operators with a tool to consider the reliability benefits of reclosing versus the loss of life of power transformers. Readers can apply their own distributions of fault currents, locations, durations, and frequencies to this method and quantify the benefits of enhancements to traditional reclosing schemes.


[Objective]The aim was to enrich the yellow Paeonia plant species during landscaping,and lay basis for promotion of new distant hybridization P. suffuruticosa variety. [Method]The phenological phase of new cultivar P. suffuruticosa'Jin Bo'was observed,and then studied their relationship between phenological phase with air temperature,air humidity and ground temperature to graspe its growth law. [Result] Sprouting time of 'Jinbo'started from March 4,for a period of 12 days; the period before blooming started from March 10,lasting for 10 days; the flowering time started from April 28,lasting for 22 days,at this period,the average temperature was 14. 8 ℃,the average soil temperature was 14. 8 ℃ and the air humidity was 78. 6%. The flowering date of the new variety P. suffuruticosa'Jin Bo'was later than that of the late flowering cultivars from the Central Plains,and its flowering period was longer than that of the Central Plains cultivars. [Conclusion]That promotion and use P. suffuruticosa'Jin Bo'prolongs the viewing period and enriches the ornamental P. suffuruticosa cultivars.


This thesis studies designs for learning in the extended digital interface in the Social Science classroom. The aim is to describe and analyse how pupils interact, make meaning and learn while depl ...


Groups of mice (C57Bl/6J strain) were repeatedly exposed by inhalation to aerosols of ${}^{144}{\rm CeO}{}_{2}$ at 60-day intervals for seven consecutive exposures to reestabli...


A variety of fabrication techniques have been used to make microfluidic microsystems: bulk etching in silicon and glass, plastic molding and machining, and PDMS (silicone) casting. Surprisingly the most widely used method of integrated circuit (IC) fabrication (surface micromachining — SMM) has not been extensively utilized in microfluidics despite its wide use in MEMS. There are economic reasons that SMM is not often used in microfluidics; high infrastructure and start-up costs and relatively long fabrication times: and there are technical reasons; packaging difficulties, dominance of surface forces, and fluid volume scaling issues. However, there are also important technical and economic advantages for SMM microfluidics relating to large-scale batch, no-assembly fabrication, and intimate integration of mechanical, electrical, microfluidic, and nano-scale sub-systems on one chip. In our work at Sandia National Laboratories MDL (Microelectronics Development Lab) we have built on the existing MEMS SMM infrastructure to produce a variety of microfluidic microsystems. These example microsystems illustrate the challenges and opportunities associated with SMM microfluidics. In this paper we briefly discuss two SMM microfluidic microsystems (made in the SUMMiT™ and SwIFT™ processes — www.mdl.sandia.gov/micromachine ) in terms of technical challenges and unique SMM microfluidics opportunities. The two example microsystems are a DEP (dielectrophoretic) trap, and a drop ejector patterning system.Copyright © 2005 by ASME


The religion of Buddhism attributed to Siddhartha Gautama (563-482 B.C). Afterwards he came to be known by the name of "Buddha"(mean: awakened). The religion he founded stressed on universal compassion and monasticism. His concept of compassion flowing freely towards all creatures or all living being. That is why, Buddha has forbidden all kind of wars, battles and conflicts as they cause ferocity or bloodshed. When Emperor Asoka (273-233 B.C.) accepted Buddhism as a true believer, then he set up good examples of piety, sympathy and compassion. If we look all around the modern age of Buddhism, they put off the peace living teachings of Gautama. The obvious example of that conduct is oppressive attacks on Rohingya Muslims. Since the £2012, (when the conflicts started between the Rohingya Muslims and the extremist Buddhist) innumerable Muslims are killed, mosques, houses and villages are being set on fire and destroyed.


Research methodology, like swimming, is a subject best learnt by actual practice. The author of this compact text has done a useful service for researchers in social sciences by giving a description of the various issues involved in a research study. The book covers aspects of research methodology ,including research design, participant observation, interviewing, sampling, scaling, sociometry, experimentation, content analysis and use of computers, which is described in detail. Indeed its utility is much more as many books of similar nature are by the foreign authors and presuppose a certain level of knowledge both of sociology and research. It is the special quality of this book that it does not demand any prior acquaintance with any of these. The book begins with a chapter on research design. A research design is a plan of action to be carried out in connection with a research project. It is, however, not an unbreakable rule, nor a hard and fast strategy. On the contrary, it is only a guideline for the researcher to enable him to keep the track of his actions and to know that he is going in the right direction in order to achieve his goal. The design may be a specific presentation of the various steps in the process of research. Participant observation is useful in identifying various variables involved in the social setting of the field of research. Data collection and interpretation go hand in hand in participant observation, rather than being discrete stages of research work. Here, the book unfolds highly useful tips on how to go about these matters. In the preparation of thi~ second, revised and enlarged edition of the book, while the author has not forgotten the interest of the most backward students, he has also taken enough care not to lower the standard of the book. He has used the simplest possible language, but without distorting the ideas in the least. Every chapter has at the end a list of standard references and this should help those who are interested in further improving their knowledge to go beyond the text. All in all, the book is yet another important addition to the existing literature oa social research.