Dear Editor Toxoplasmosis is one of the most common opportunistic infections in immunocompromised people, especially those with human immunodeficiency virus infection. In contrast, up to 90% of toxoplasmosis in immunocompetent hosts are either asymptomatic or very mild cognitive, motor or somatosensory deficit. Here we presented a 64-year-old man with rapid progressive cognitive decline within 1 month. He regularly fed wild cats and dogs for years. On admission, his body temperature was 36.8C, systolic-diastolic blood pressure was 160/98 mmHg, pulse rates was 80/minutes and respiratory rates was 16/minute. Physical examination revealed no remarkable finding. Upon neurological examinations, slow response, impairment of delayed recall, abstraction of idiom description, calculation, repetition, reading, and writing, and magnetic and wide-base gait with right-side deviation were noted. Conventional serology studies were all non-remarkable. Surprisingly, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain revealed lesions over left internal capsule and thalamus (Figure 1). Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) study revealed elevated opening pressure (26 cm/H2O) and protein (50 mg/dL) with normal cell counts (no white blood cell) and CSF sugar (81 mg/dL). The result of tuberculosis, syphilis, and cryptococcus were all negative. However, elevated toxoplasma IgG in serum 62.2 IU/mL (normal<8) and CSF (21.7 IU/mL, normal<1.6), detected by electrochemiluminescent immunoassay (ECLIA) were noted. CSF toxoplasma IgM was negative. Trimethoprim and sulfamethoxazole were prescribed. However, his condition kept deterioration until the regimen shifted to pyrimethamine and leucovorin after consulting the infection specialist. His cognitive and neurological condition improved obviously and the regression of lesions was found in follow-up brain MRI (Figure 1). In most of occasion, Toxoplasmosis is thought as an asymptomatic infection for immunocompetent hosts and it reactivates upon the immunocompromised status. When toxoplasmosis resumes active, the organism may present in different organs of host. For instance, it caused atypical pneumonia and the diagnosis is challenging only if the immunoglobulin M-specific antibody is detected. Central nervous system (CNS) involvement of toxoplasmosis is mostly seen in immunocompromised patients as well, especially for those with exposure to the raw, undercooked food, and kittens.The diagnosis of our reporting patient was hinted by the animal contact history. Furthermore, based on the subacute onset and rapid deterioration disease course, traditional neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, corticobasal degeneration, diffuse Lewy body disease, frontotemporal lobar degeneration with motor neuron disease, and progressive supranuclear palsy were less likely. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) should be taken into consideration at first place. However, the patient presented neither electroencephalographical nor neuroimaging evidence for CJD. In addition, positive responses to current treatment also help to exclude the possibility of CJD. Metabolic encephalopathy such as hypoglycemic, hepatic or uremic encephalopathy were all excluded by serological studies.


During the course of changing the mode of economic growth,developing circular economy and constructing the ecological city in Nanjing Metropolis,environmental monitoring should play an initiative role.The leading tasks are development of ecological monitoring,automated monitoring,information and internet construction.The based tasks are reform of the management system,rational allocation of human resources,development of personnel training and team building.At the same time,the overall goal of the environmental management system standard should be focused on.All would give the technical support to building a new Nanjing with harmonious coexistence of man and nature.


Fisheries resource management is in a state of transition from managing populations at the species level to managing living marine resources at the ecosystem level. This transition will require changes in the way data are collected, analyzed, integrated, and finally utilized in management decisions. C. S. Clay "Clay" was a pioneer in underwater acoustics, but my first experiences and interactions with him were as a graduate student biologist learning to observe and understand the underwater environment in new and innovative ways. Clay's collaborations with biologists, ecologists, and oceanographers spawned novel methods of integrating and analyzing disparate data sets and many of these methods are being used today. While Clay's influence on fisheries acoustics has been monumental, his approaches to understanding the ocean environment may be most valuable to ecosystem-based management strategies. I will highlight examples of Clay's innovative approaches that have been used and ways they could be applied to...


Kinesitherapy has a wide application in both the prevention and treatment of overweight and obesity. The purpose of this study is to determine the applied kinesitherapy methodology with varying weekly frequency's effect on the static strength of the abdominal musculature in overweight and obese young people. The static strength endurance of the abdominal musculature (in sec) was measured. The analysis of the study's results shows that the static strength endurance significantly increased in the experimental group (EG 2), where the experimental kinesitherapy methodology was applied three times a week to EG 1, where was applied once a week and the difference is statistically significant (temp=2,15, P(t)=96,23%).


The French Atomic Energy Commission (C.E.A.) is developing a hydrogen risk analysis code (safety code) which incorporates both lumped-parameter and multi-dimensional formulations. In this paper we present the governing equations, numerical strategy and schemes used for the lumped parameter approach as well as for the multi-dimensional one. Typical numerical studies will be presented for hydrogen distribution and combustion applications in realistic large geometries.Copyright © 2002 by ASME


The objective of the course of "Foundation of Information Technology" is to enable the non-computer majors to use computers. A better way is found through practice: the combination of selecting teaching contents and proper teaching methods,aided by practical examples.


It has been predicted that between 1950 and 2000 in developing nations, the population living in towns will rise from 500M to 2200M. Tables are presented which show the forecast population growth rate in various cities between 1970 and 1985 and also the changes in urban populations in various developing countries from 1968 - 1972. Along with the growth in population, increases in car ownership are to be expected. In many developing countries a high proportion of all cars in the country is concentrated into one major city, making the traffic situation there very difficult. The congestion in third-world cities is mainly due to three factors: the layout of the road network; poor utilisation of roads; ineffective traffic management schemes. All these factors result in a decline in the standard of public transport. In the short term, the situation may be improved by using traffic management schemes to increase the efficiency of the present system. Careful planning in the long term should aim at reducing the volume of travel and improve employment, social amenities and the environment. Examples of successful long term schemes are discussed. /TRRL/


Telomere length genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have become well-powered to detect novel genes in telomere length regulation. However, no prior work has validated these putative novel genes to confirm the contribution of GWAS loci to telomere length regulation. We conducted a trans-ancestry meta-analysis of 211,369 individuals. Through enrichment analyses of chromatin state and cell-type heritability we identified blood and immune cells as the most relevant cell type to examine telomere length association signals. We validated specific GWAS associations by overexpressing KBTBD6, a component of an E3 ubiquitin ligase complex, and POP5, a component of the Ribonuclease P/MRP complex, and demonstrating that both lengthened telomeres as predicted by our statistical analyses. CRISPR/Cas9 deletion of the predicted causal regions of these association peaks in K562 immortalized blood cells reduced expression of these genes, demonstrating that these loci are related to transcriptional regulation of KBTBD6 and POP5, respectively. Together our results demonstrate the utility of telomere length GWAS in the identification of novel telomere length regulation mechanisms and highlight the importance of the proteasome-ubiquitin pathway in telomere length regulation.


Abstract Starting from the premise that the normative foundation of legal systems is widely considered to be imaginary, this article addresses the question how actors in those systems are able to experience this fictional basis and consider it binding. As the answers already given in legal and political philosophy tend to be limited to instrumental explanations, it is argued that insights from aesthetic philosophy, and more specifically mimesis theory, can help to gain a more profound understanding of both the nature of fictions and the human capacity to use them. Drawing from Kendall Walton's work, fiction use is reconceptualized as an interactive game of make-believe that has active and passive players, involves the use of props, and is governed by both constitutive and regulative rules. It is claimed that human beings are able to play and appreciate this game on the basis of a dual consciousness in which their minds are partly devoted to going along in the fiction of legal hegemony, and partly having to derivate experiences. Tentatively, it is argued that these derivate experiences form our main gratification, and hence the prime motive, for playing the game and accepting its outcomes.


Schistosoma mattheei in domestic stock, especi ally sheep and to a lesser extent cattle, has been studied by a number of workers at Onderstepoort, both at the time of the outbreak at Humansdorp in 1926, and subsequent to the outbreak in Zululand in 1963. A great deal of valuable detailed information has emerged from this work, especi ally on the pathology of the condition and on the behaviour of the parasite. However it appears that the condition is not as yet one of great eco nomic significance in the Republic of South Africa, Outbreaks of clinical disease have been reported at very irregular intervals, and are very scattered. In Rhodesia, although the known losses due to schistosomiasis have been slight on a national basis, the outbreaks of 1967 did evoke a considerable interest in the veterinary profession and the farming public as they gave some idea of the losses that might arise under certain cir cumstances, as yet undefined. We in Rhodesia are therefore in a favoured position to contribute to this seminar an account of some of the circum stances in which outbreaks have occurred and to relate this to the changing pattern of agriculture in an attempt to forecast the future importance of the parasite.


The network approach to internationalization of the firms has warranted the research focus of many international business scholars. Firms are increasingly involved in international business endeavors and arguably need to learn to adapt to idiosyncratic milieus they encounter in the foreign markets. This paper proposes a conceptual model suggesting that integration in networks strengthens corporate competitiveness in international markets. Network membership provides access to knowledge that facilitates adaptation to the various dimensions - economic, political, legal, cultural ? of the international business environments. Membership in social and business networks are likely to ease internationalization by reducing firms? perceived psychic distance.


During the industrial process of glass fabric manufacture in Latvia, an oil that has earlier been added to the fabric must be removed. To accomplish this, the fabric is passed through a furnace where the oil is removed by burning. It is known that the oil removal process reduces the tensile strength of the fabric. The burning process is analysed via a simple mathematical model that allows the furnace parameters to be optimized. Using some of the well-established properties of glass, it is shown that it is the cooling rather than the heating process that adversely affects the final product. A thermoviscoelastic model is developed to predict the permanent stress in the glass fabric. Some suggestions for modifications to the process are also examined, and it is shown that, to a large extent, the strength of the fabric may be preserved without significantly adding to the cost or intricacy of the production process.


There is a need to identify suitable longitudinal joint construction techniques for multilane hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavements, which can minimize or eliminate cracking at the joint and/or ravelling adjacent to the joint. It is believed that the longitudinal cracks primarily result from the density gradient which is usually encountered across the joint. This density gradient can be attributed to the low density at the unconfined edge when the first lane is paved, and a relatively high density at the confined edge when the adjacent lane is paved. Seven different longitudinal joint construction techniques were used on Interstate 25 in Colorado in 1994. The techniques included different rolling procedures to compact the joint, providing a vertical face with a cutting wheel, and using a rubberized asphalt tack coat on the face of the unconfined edge. Two longitudinal joint construction techniques were used on Interstate 79 in Pennsylvania in 1994. These consisted of the conventional technique (control) and New Jersey type wedge joint. The latter technique uses a 3:1 taper at the unconfined edge of the first lane. The face of the taper is heated with an infrared heater just prior to placing the adjacent lane. Pavement cores were taken on the joint and 305 mm (1 foot) away from the joint for density measurements in all experimental test sections. Different joint construction techniques have been ranked based on statistical analysis of all density data. Various joints were also evaluated visually by a team of at least four engineers in June 1995. The performance or ranking of the joints on both Colorado and Pennsylvania projects after one winter seems to have been influenced by the overall density of the joint. The joints with high densities show better performance than those with relatively low densities. These rankings may change in the future based on the long term performance (in terms of cracking and ravelling).


By means of questionnaire and literature,the author makes an investigation and analysis on the sophomore sunlight-sports activities in Nanyang Institute of Technology.The purpose is providing some references for organizing and managing on our college student sunlight-sports activities.The result indicates that our sophomores by 91.7% participate in sunlight-sports activities with favorable attitudes;main goals of participation are as follows:health,recreation and releasing tensional emotion;there are sophomores,respectively by 54% and 57.4%,taking three time or more exercises during extracurricular time in average per week and working about an hour per exercise;selecting of events to sophomore is with obvious sexual symbol,but not the same as selecting of exercising mode;the mainly negative factors on the sophomore sunlight-sports activities are as follows:deficiency of sports places and equipments,burden on learning.


The purpose of this study is to propose a novel algorithm with grey measure for scoring stroke order of Chinese Character handwriting in a computer-based assessment system. The learning of stroke order is very important for a fixed stroke handwriting character system therefore this study based on the theory of "five indexing system of Chinese characters" and combine the features of strokes develops a stroke order assessment system to real-time evaluate learners' stroke order and score their character handwritings. Except using traditional additive scoring method and a non-additive fuzzy scoring, a new approach based on grey measure was developed. A real data set with 65 samples was examined and experiment results show that the performances of this novel scoring model based on grey measure outperform the performance of traditional scoring and the fuzzy approach.


We present in this paper an alternative model based on game theoretic approach. Cooperative game theory studies those situations where participants' objectives are partially cooperative and partially conflicting. The biggest interest of the participants is to cooperate because in this way they can achieve the greatest possible total benefits. When it comes to sharing the benefits of cooperation, however, individuals have conflicting goals. Such cases are usually modeled as n-person cooperative games in characteristic function form. Many authors applied game theory ideas to the analysis of a reinsurance market, but recently, Aase [1–3], created some new connections between them finding the correspondences for "collective rationality" or Pareto optimality, "social stability" and "individual rationality". For other results focus on Pareto optimality relative to some optimization problems see for example [11–13]. The solutions of risk allocation problem end up in the core, concept introduced in the game theory by Gillies in 1959, [8]. Later, in 1963, Debreu and Scarf [5] have proved that solution for the core in a market of pure exchange is nonempty and in 1981, Baton and Lemaire have found the core solution with the negative exponential utilities [4]. This paper begins with some preliminaries and the connections between the game theory and a reinsurance market. In Section 2 we include a brief


Abstract : This report is an abridged documentation source for the Air Force Human Resources Laboratory (AFHRL) mathematical and statistical software library for use by Air Force personnel researchers. It provides a single reference which researchers may quickly scan to identify mathematical or statistical computer software which is currently operational on the AFHRL Univac 1108 computer system and which is available to them for use in their research projects. The report is comprised of four chapters with the first chapter devoted to introductory information; the second chapter, to descriptions of 27 computer programs; the third chapter, to descriptions of the library's subroutine systems; and the final chapter, to the nationally recognized statistical packages available in the software library. (Author)


Text to speech (TTS) systems hold promise as an information access tool for literate and illiterate including visually challenged. Current TTS systems can convert a typical text into a natural sounding speech. However, auditory rendering of mathematical content, specifically equation reading is not a trivial task. Mathematical equations have to be read so that appropriate bracketing such as parentheses, superscripts and subscripts are conveyed to the listener in an accurate way. Earlier works have attempted to use pauses as acoustic cues to indicate some of the semantics associated with the mathematical symbols. In this paper, we first analyse the acoustic cues which human-beings employ while speaking the mathematical content to (visually challenged) listeners and then propose four techniques which render the observed patterns in a text-tospeech system. The evaluation considered eight aspects such as listening effort, content familiarity, accentuation, intonation, etc. Our objective metrics show that a combination of the proposed techniques could render the mathematical equations using a TTS system as good as that of a human-being.


The article considers different images concepts in design process.Image as the category of art and means of design, participates in moral, esthetic and ethical transformation of the environment. But it also provides an exceptional opportunity to re-discover the creative potential of territory and re-construct its own image.


The weed in the cultivation of green onion (Allium fistulosum L.) is a critical factor in its growth and production. Therefore efficient strategies are required for its management in this crop. An experiment was conducted under field conditions to determine the critical period of weed competition in A. fistulosum. The experiment consisted of periods with the weed-free cultivation and weed in competition, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 days after planting (DAP) and two controls, the culture weed free and the culture weedy. The study variables were weed density, pseudostem diameter, plant height and yield. The critical period of weed competition was estimated by nonlinear regression analysis. The weed species, Chenopodium murale (17.5 Plants m–2) and Amaranthus albus (5.5 Plants m–2) were presented in high density during the experiment. Plant height and pseudostem diameter decreased to 110 DDS in treatments L10E and ETC. Weed competition decreased the total yield, yield of thin green onions and yield of medium green onions by 96.21, 95.5 and 97.05% respectively. The period of weed competition in A. fistulosum is between 12 and 90 DDS, of periods.


Average Annual Daily Bicyclists (AADB) is commonly used by researchers and practitioners as a metric for cycling studies (demand analysis, infrastructure planning, injury risk, etc.). It is estimated in one of two ways: by averaging the daily cyclist totals measured throughout the year using a long-term automatic bicycle counter, or by using a long-term bicycle counter to extrapolate data from a short-duration counting site. AADB extrapolation is a process that can face two issues: it can produce considerable errors when using traditional factoring methods, and it is laborious as many steps in the process require manual validation. To help lessen these two problems, this study proposes a novel methodology that can reduce estimation error and facilitate automation of the AADB estimation process. The proposed methodology performs AADB estimation in a three- step process: data validation, matching and extrapolating. The data validation process can be the most laborious process, requiring a human to sift through large datasets in search for missing and erroneous values. A method is proposed for validating long-term bicycle demand data by using other available long-term bicycle demand data. Secondly, a matching process is proposed using k-means clustering and three indexes. Lastly, for the AADB extrapolation process, two novel disaggregated factor methods (DFM)s are proposed. The results are compared to the results obtained from a previously reported method, standard DFM. The first method, the DFM with filtering, improved the AADB estimation accuracy: average absolute error was 5.6% compared to 4.2%. The second method, the DFM with separate treatment of weekdays and weekends reduced AADB estimate error from 6.0% to 4.9%.


We investigate the wavelet transforms of tempered distributions in a way that closely links their Fourier transforms and wavelet transforms. Two exchange formulas of the convolution and the multiplication of wavelet transforms of tempered distributions are established. We call these formulas the quasi-exchange formulas for wavelet transforms of distributions, because of the resemblance between these formulas and the well-known exchange formula for Fourier transforms.


Overview of Demographic Findings and Cultural Variants across African Americans, American Indians, Asian, and Hispanics Cultural Variations in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV Assessment in a Cultural Context Treatment in a Cultural Context Applications of Cultural Variables with Childhood and Adolescent Psychiatric Disorders Applications of Cultural Variables with other Psychiatric Disorders in Children, Adolescents, and Adults Cross-Cultural Variations with Other Conditions That May Be the Focus of Clinical Attention Practicing Clinical Cases


One of the most crucial components of reducing the risk of serious mental disease is mental health prediction. Meanwhile, the department of public health may apply mental health prediction as a theoretical foundation to develop plans for behavioral therapies for health care workers. This study uses machine learning to make predictions about mental health. Conventional machine learning techniques, however, have difficulty providing reliable high accuracy values and generate a lot of false alarms. This is because the presence of concept drift in the continuous data. Concept drift is the term used to explain unforeseen changes in data features over time. Therefore, novel technique is needed to handle the presence of concept drift. In this study, we presented the Fixed Sliding Windowing (FSW) approach and studied its effects. In order to predict mental health, we employed the AdaBoost classifier, and we began retraining the model based on statistical tests. AdaBoost has been found to have a higher accuracy ratio after applying the proposed method.


Several problems in accounting teaching methods and accounting teaching means are discussed in this paper. The idea of modernizing accounting education must be defined. Teachers should give full scope to their leading role and foster students' ability to make a start, settle problems, innovate and cooperate with each other. The contents of accounting teaching will be made further optimization.


During the 1960s, hydrophone arrays at seven MILS stations around the north Pacific were used to locate earthquakes using the T phase. Much of our knowledge of the characteristics of the T phase and of oceanic earthquakes came from this early study, which located more than 20 000 events in slightly more than 2 years. There were 3794 sources located by the T‐phase project in 1966 in the Aleutian Islands region compared to 431 earthquakes located by the coast and geodetic survey in the region. Earthquakes of about 0.7 magnitude units lower than the C&GS threshold could be located by T phase. Study of these events resulted in recognition of mechanisms for propagation ofT ‐phase energy from the earth to the ocean. Classical slope generation at continental margins and islands feeds energy directly into the sound channel by multiple down‐slope reflections. Scattering from the ocean floor and surface appear to account for the energy in the T phases from earthquakes beneath the deep ocean floor. More recent long‐...


The natural population of Taxus sumatrana in several areas in southern Asia, including Indonesia, has decreased in number. In Sumatra, populations of less than 20 trees/ha were found in the Gunung Kerinci and Gunung Tujuh areas, in Kerinci District, Jambi. Conservation efforts to protect this species from extinction are being carried out, for example, exploring seeds from natural populations for ex-situ plantations. The genetic diversity information of Taxus is required to develop conservation strategies for this species. This research aimed to observethe genetic diversity of Taxus from Gunung Tujuh and Gunung Kerinci populations in Jambi. The level of genetic diversity of 44 individuals from those populations was analyzed using ten markers of RAPD. The application of thosemarkers produced 104 loci used in data analysis using the GenAlex version 6.5 software. The result showed the heterozygosity value described the moderate level of genetic diversity of the two observed populations of 0,33±0.14 (Gunung Tujuh) and 0,35±0.14 (Gunung Kerinci). The genetic distance between the two populations (0,097) and genetic similarity (0,908) indicate that the two populations have a moderate variation in genetic structure. This study shows that the two populations have variations in geneticstructure at medium level although geographically close. Genetic conservation efforts for Taxus species in the future should involve more individuals from both populations and separate them as two different populations


Nowadays Digital Watermarking is widely used in the health care centers to secure the patient's records. In India, nowadays the hospitals are adapting the telemedicine technology where it is providing facility for the patients and doctors to transmit the reports and as well as to access it easily as and when it is required to do so. In order to protect the privacy, authenticity and the integrity of the Electronic Health Record (EHR), some measure has to be employed. In this regard Digital watermarking (DWM) plays a major role. Digital watermarking is implemented in mainly two domains: one at the pixel level usually called as the spatial domain and the other is at the frequency components of the information called as the frequency domain. Of the two methods, second method is most commonly adapted by most of the researchers. It includes the transforms like Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and the variations of DWT viz. Lifting Wavelet Transform (LWT) and Integer Wavelet Transform (IWT). In this paper DWM for the medical scanned images and the medical video is implemented using DWT. The watermark is patient information which will be converted to quick response (QR) code using the built in function. A simple key is used at the embedding part of the DWM technique and the same key is used at the decoder side to retrieve the information which enhances the security of both medical images/videos and the patient details.


The grinding product particle size is the most crucial operational index of mineral grinding processes. The size and consistency of the product directly affects the subsequent dressing and sintering. In this paper, a novel expert system is proposed for guiding the operating variables to keep the product stable with the wildly varying ore properties. First, case-based reasoning (CBR) is introduced to describe the whole grinding process with the historical data and expert experience. Second, the generative adversarial network (GAN) is employed to extend the raw data to enhance the flexibility of CBR. Moreover, the weights of different features in CBR is optimized by improved non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II). Finally, the proposed method is validated by a set of actual data collected from a Chinese dressing plant. The experimental result demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.


Digitalization provides an increase in the efficiency of production management, and also opens up wide opportunities for the formation of models of management decisions using predictive technologies. Digital technologies systematize and combine information flows of different origins. Thus, a predictive model of strategic and tactical production management is created. A condition for the successful digital transformation of economic sectors is the development of a set of measures for the technical re-equipment of enterprises. This article proposes an integrated controlling model based on the concept of continuous improvement of PDCA processes. The PDCA cycle model is adapted to the process of technical re-equipment of the enterprise and is integrated with the controlling mechanism based on the process approach. Such integration will ensure an increase in the controllability of the technical re-equipment process, improve the coordination of personnel actions, and create effective feedback mechanisms. The proposed model will increase the validity and efficiency of management decisions.


We prove a $q$-refined tropical correspondence theorem for higher genus descendant logarithmic Gromov--Witten invariants with a $\lambda_g$ class in toric surfaces. Specifically, a generating series of such logarithmic Gromov--Witten invariants agrees with a $q$-refined count of rational tropical curves satisfying higher valency conditions. As a corollary, we obtain a geometric proof of the deformation invariance of this tropical count. In particular, our results give an algebro--geometric meaning to the tropical count defined by Blechman and Shustin. Our strategy is to use the logarithmic degeneration formula, and the key new technique is to reduce to computing integrals against double ramification cycles and connect these integrals to the non--commutative KdV hierarchy.


Abstracting overmuch water from rivers to provide services like hydropower has greatly damaged river ecosystem. Therefore, restoration of the degraded river ecosystem is very urgent. A lot of methods have thereby been proposed, and partial restoration of natural flow is a kind of prescription in reality. During the restoration process, to monitor or evaluate the health of river is very important and necessary. Traditional methods to assess the condition are structural or physicochemical ones and their powers are limited. Therefore, in our study, we tried to employ some functional indicators, which are critical parts of the ecosystem, to monitor the river health based on a reference-control-impact (RCI) design. Results showed that the partial restoration of flow was effective and the functional indicators were better than the traditional ones.


This study carries on the hydrologic analysis and develops the planning procedures to determine the storage capacity of the rainwater retarding practices for the urban flood mitigation after development.The planning procedures employ the concept of the on-site control and the distributed management of small-scale rainwater retarding facilities.The computational procedure for determining rainwater retarding practices is also demonstrated by an example.The conventional urban flood control method procedure is only to maintain the pre-development peak runoff by installing the detention ponds at downstream.However,the procedures developed by this study can maintain both flood peak and the volume of the pre-development with less volume compared to conventional one.


A kinetic theory, allowing finite ion Larmor radii, general magnetic field geometries and plasma equilibria, has been developed for hydromagnetic Alfven waves excited within the Earth's magnetosphere by the storm-time energetic ring-current particles. In particular, assuming adiabatically injected particles, it is found that the excitation mechanism is due to the magnetic drift-bounce resonances of highly energetic protons and the various predicted instability properties are consistent with satellite observations.


The aim of the current study was to determine if a technique called 'pumping' had a significant effect on velocity production in BMX cycling. Ten National standard male BMX riders fitted with sEMG sensors completed a timed lap of an indoor BMX track using the technique of pumping, and a lap without pumping. The lap times were recorded for both trials and their surface sEMG recorded to ascertain any variation in muscle activation of the biceps brachii, triceps brachii, vastus lateralis and medial gastrocnemius. The findings revealed no significant differences between any of muscle groups (p > 0.05). However, significant differences (p < 0.001) were observed between the pumping and non-pumping trials for both mean lap velocity (42 ± 1.8 km.h-1, 33 ± 2.9 km.h-1 respectively) and lap times (43.3 ± 3.1 s, 34.7 ± 1.49 s, respectively).The lap times recorded for the pumping trials were 19.50 ± 4.25 % lower than the non-pumping. Whereas velocity production was 21.81 ± 5.31 % greater in the pumping trial when compared to the non-pumping trial. The technique of pumping contributed significantly to velocity production, though not at the cost of additional muscle activity. From a physiological and technical perspective, coaches and riders should prioritise this technique when devising training regimes.


Course scheduling is closely related to the allocation of teaching resources in colleges and universities, which is an important problem in teaching tasks. It belongs to the NP-complete problem of typical combinatorial optimization, which needs to consider many constraints. Based on the learning of various algorithms and usage feedback of existing scheduling systems, this paper adopts a genetic algorithm which can flexibly consider constraints and has a huge optimization space to construct a course scheduling system. In the system, we design a special fitness function and use the value of this function to measure the degree that the scheduling result of a certain course satisfies the constraint. At the same time, the design of fitness function facilitates the addition of more constraints. In addition, we add a roulette algorithm with skip and filter functions to make the matching of Course-Teacher-Class and locations more reasonable. In conclusion, through the improved genetic algorithm, the system has accomplished many works, such as the convenient addition of constraints, the reduction of data space complexity and the optimization of chromosome genetic strategy. As a result, we realize a widely used course scheduling system, which is conducive to the efficient development of teaching work.


More than thirty years have passed since the publication of a large Russian universal encyclopedia (Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia [Great Soviet encyclopedia], 3rd edition, 1970–1978), but beginning in 2004 the publishing house Bol'shaia rossiiskaia entsiklopediia began to release its new universal encyclopedia of the same name, Bol'shaia rossiiskaia entsiklopediia (the two titles hereafter are referred to as BSE and BRE respectively). A new up-to-date Russian encyclopedia is certainly warranted, for much has happened in Russia and the world since the publication of BSE in the 1970s: the demise of the Soviet Union, the transformation to a capitalist economy, the obsession with terrorism, the wars in Afghanistan, Chechnia, Former Yugoslavia, and Iraq, two Russian Nobel Laureates in literature, to name just a few significant events. In fact, the creation of a new encyclopedia was so desirable that Vladimir Putin issued presidential decree Number 1156, October 14, 2002, appointing Iurii S. Osipov, the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, to be the chairman of the editorial board charged with producing the work and ensuring its high level of quality. The decree also requires that the committee inform the President of the encyclopedia's progress and recommends that the Russian Academy of Sciences and other scholarly organizations take part in its preparation.


As a social and historical phenomenon, urbanization is not only the embodiment of material civilization progress, but also the motive force of spiritual civilization progress. In recent years, the state has paid more attention to the protection and promotion of ancient culture, and ancient village culture has become an important scenic spot for many towns to develop their economy. This paper focuses on the rapid rural urbanization as the background, and deeply discusses the cultural protection of ancient villages under the background of rapid rural urbanization. Only by protecting the interests of the peasants can we truly protect the ancient villages. In the process of protection, we must pay attention to the concept of protecting ancient villages, promote scientific and rational development, and improve the cultural relics protection system.


Age and Ageing 2020; 1 © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact firstname.lastname@example.com


The problem of how birds find their way can be examined by studying natural migration movements and also by forcing birds to undertake long journeys more or less under conditions which can be decided by the experimenter. The racing pigeon is an ideal subject for these homing experiments, but they have also been conducted with many species of wild bird and Fig. i shows some of the more remarkable flights that have been achieved with these. The use for these experiments of birds breeding in colonies has many advantages as large numbers can be caught and transported together, and their return watched for in a small area. Conspicuous birds such as gulls can be made individually recognizable by a code of plumage marks or by putting coloured leg rings on them.


We present a theoretical model that synthesizes and expands current explanations of the failure of decision-making groups to effectively use information that is distributed among their members. We propose that groups can outperform individual decision makers and voting schemes if certain asymmetries in information distribution are present and certain asymmetries in information processing are absent. How to achieve this we deduce from a review of the relevant literature. Finally, we discuss directions for future research and practical implications.


Introduction June 15, 2011, I boarded an airplane leaving Dallas, TX headed toward Cleveland, OH. As I walked through the aisle to take my seat, I noticed that almost every European American's eyes were fixed on me; the usual "Black person present" scene in situations where White and Black people unknown to one another share physical spaces. Their various eyes read curiosity--of many sorts--anxiety, and annoyance at my presence. Worse than the reality of relative obscurity that I found myself at the center of, I became acutely aware of the dissonance felt by the European American passengers around me. Standing just over five feet and four inches tall, although not quite five-five, weighing about 150 lbs., wearing glasses and carrying a laptop bag full of books, few would describe me as threatening. Yet, the White man and White woman seated next to me, apparently strangers to one another also, fumbled over their words with me as we arranged ourselves in our seats. They all but jumped to answer minor questions, their eyes meeting mine for only short spurts of time. The European flight attendants acted in much the same awkwardness and discomfort when serving me the drinks and snacks that come complimentary on most American airlines. To the contrary, however, the interactions between the White attendants and my White seatmates seemed fluid, comfortable, and essentially effortless. Fast-forward about three hours, and I am sitting in a restaurant with my close friend who had picked me up from the airport. It was just past 3:00pm, and therefore past the lunchtime rush. The restaurant was sparsely peopled and we had our choice of many dining tables or booths. As the host sat us, my friend objected to the selected seating and opted to sit toward the far end of the restaurant. The host obliged, although confused, sat us, and left us to view the menus. As he walked away, my friend explained to me, "I'm sorry, but I don't feel like being around White people," through a look of combined exhaustion and repugnancy. The irritation that I felt from my uncomfortable three-hour-long flight evaporated with sudden immediacy at the revelation that both sides, Black and White, feel much the same about the other. My African American friend had just expressed much of the same sentiment that an airplane full of White people had demonstrated to me just a few minutes prior; only we were confined to an airplane and had not the luxury of changing seats. Rather than a revelation, what my friend gave me, unbeknownst to her, was confirmation of my own estimation regarding the layered coexistence between Black and White people, layering unknown to any other two ethnic groups due to many historical events, and also distinct cultural dialectics. I have described the quality of Black-White relationships as one of interracial dissonance (Chandler, 2010), defined as feelings of physical, psychological, and social disconnect resulting in divergent ideas and intentions which serve to order the phenomenological properties that shape the perceptions and interactions of people in cross-racial situations. Where the ultimate humanitarian goal seeks human understanding and progress, the precarious nature of interracial interactions between those born of African ancestry and those born of European ancestry is one still requiring serious and sensitive consideration. In the particular work that introduced the term, for instance, focus was placed on the ramification of underutilization of mental healthcare in the Black community stemming from the collective realization that our ways of living and our self-strivings differ significantly from Whites' both in their concerns for us and their own cultural tendencies. The dissonance felt by an overwhelming number of the Black community has led to disengagement from other Eurocentric systems as well, most noticeably the schools. Where Terrell and Terrell (1981) have coined the term of cultural mistrust to describe distrust of White people based on a history of discrimination and prejudice in the sectors of education, interpersonal relations, business, politics, and law, interracial dissonance contends that the tumultuous associations that Black and White people share extend beyond social and political equality to cultural and even spiritual fields. …


This paper presents a very general method for the computation of a suitable measure of similarity between two images. The proposed measure relies on the parsimony of some suitable representation of one image using the information of the other. Two quite different theories which capitalize on the parsimony of representation are - Sparse representation and Kolmogorov complexity. The first is used to efficiently model the structures of an object while the latter measures the length of the shortest program that can effectively reconstruct it. This work understands and exploits the link between Sparse representation and Kolmogorov complexity. We show that for an image having a sparse representation w.r.t. some bases, the sparsity of its representation can be used as a practical analog to its Kolmogorov complexity; and the sparsity can be used to develop a meaningful measure of (dis)similarity. The generality of the proposed distance measure is demonstrated through a variety of tasks such as perceptual similarity measurement, clustering, and texture classification. The usefulness of the measure is indicated by the accurate experimental results achieved on a diverse collection of datasets. Index Terms—Image similarity, Compression, Kolmogorov complexity, Overcomplete dictionary, Sparsity, F


Statement of the problem: "Advancing the Technological Fluency of Pre-Service Teachers" provides an appropriate catalyst for a response to new challenges that face educational professionals. This proposal incorporates an innovative approach to effectively improve candidates' preparation for the varied technology found in diverse school settings. Experience a dynamic, one-of-a-kind, diagnostic, and prescriptive online technology assessment and learning program designed to prepare quality professionals for the way of the future in education.


A blistering report by government auditors has dealt what could be a fatal blow to the 9 year old, £11bn (€12.6bn; $17.8bn) programme to computerise the NHS in England.

In unusually forthright language the National Audit Office said yesterday that the attempt to install electronic care record systems across the NHS "does not represent value for money" and that prospects for the remainder of the programme are no better.

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, which reports to parliament, said bluntly that the original vision of the NHS National Programme for IT (information technology) will not be realised. "The NHS is now getting far fewer systems than planned, …


d-Xylose (xylose) isomerase was extracted from xylose-grown cells of a methanol yeast, Candida boidinii (Kloeckera sp.) No. 2201. The enzyme was purified 70-fold, over the original cell- free extract, with a yield of 2.4% in a homogeneous state, as judged on sodium dodecyl sulfate- polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and high performance liquid chromatography. The molecular weight of the enzyme was determined to be 130,000, the enzyme being composed of two subunits of 65,000. The optimum pH and temperature for activity were 4.5 and 37~45°C, respectively. The enzyme activity was markedly enhanced by Mn2+, Mg2+ and Co2+, and the enzyme isomerized aldopentoses and aldohexoses. The Km values for xylose and d-glucose were 5.6 × 10−1m and 4.1 × 10−1m, and the Vmax values were 5.8 × 102 and 3.3 × 102 µmol/min/mg, respectively. NaHAsO4 7H2O and NaCN strongly inhibited the activity, but HgCl2, NaN3, dithiothreitol, monoiodoacetate and polyols such as d-sorbitol, xylitol and d-mannitol did not inhibit the activity.


The fabric with both light-emitting and light-reflecting effect has light guiding fiber as weft and bright yarn as warp, and has complete mutual interweaving or partial interweaving of light guiding fiber with bright yarn. Or, the light emitting fabric has light guiding fiber and bright yarn as weft and bright yarn as warp, and has complete mutual interweaving or partial interweaving of light guiding fiber with bright yarn.


To eliminate individual manipulation, as many as 10 grids, each held firmly by a small notched bar of polyethylene plastic, are simultaneously stained, then washed. If the stain used is reactive with atmospheric CO2 it can be forced through a Millipore filter into a small chamber made of glass tubing which contains the grid holder. The stain, cleared of any solid particles, has very little contact with air and remains free of lead carbonate contamination. Washing is carried out by submerging the chamber and removing the grid holder under water (Feldman, D. G., J. Cell Biol., 15: 592-5, 1962). Washing is minimized because there is not the risk of contaminating grids and wash water with stain trapped between the points of forceps. The polyethylene is nonadherent to the wash water, and the grids can therefore be dried quickly on the holder. With this method, the relative stainability of different materials may be observed because each grid within a batch receives identical treatment.


Purpose: To quantify the effect of increased intrathoracic pressure (IP) on hemodynamics and to determine the optimal IP for surgery. Materials and Methods: Five male piglets weighing 30 to 32 kg were used. Each animal was anesthetized by gas inhalation with endotracheal intubation. A 5-mm laparoscopic valved trocar was inserted through the right fifth intercostal space, and insufflation using carbon dioxide gas was started. An IP of 5 mm Hg was maintained for 5 minutes, followed by a stepwise increase to 10 and 15 mm Hg for 5 minutes each. The heart rate, end-tidal CO2 (ETCO2), percutaneous saturation of O2 (SaO2), arterial blood pressure, and ECG were monitored during the procedure and measured at each IP. Results: The heart rate increased from 99.6 ± 17.5 to 96.4 ± 9.7, 118.9 ± 11.9,* and 155.0 ± 21.2* beats/min at 0, 5, 10, and 15 mm Hg, respectively. The ETCO2 increased from 44.2 ± 7.0 to 43.2 ± 8.6, 53.4 ± 12.2, and 54.5 ± 7.8* mm Hg, respectively. Arterial blood pressure decreased reciprocally from...


Development of a computer numerical control program for the machining of a piston is a work that involves the casting and machining of a piston on a computer numerical control
machine tool. Aluminum scraps were collected and heated. The molten metal at 7200C was poured into a mould and allowed to cool under atmospheric conditions. A computer numerical control program was written for the turning, grooving and boring of the piston. After cooling, the piston was mounted on a Computer numerical control lathe machine and the program was used to machine the piston. Examination of the dimensional accuracy of the piston showed that the piston with O52.553mm had a tolerance value of ±0.004mm which falls within acceptable standard of limit for a piston. Comparison of the piston produced shows that it is of reduced price compared with what is present in the market and with shorter time of production.

 Keywords : Computer Numerical Control, Turning, Grooving, Boring


Objective To evaluate capabilities of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in detection of liver metastasis and to investigate the perfusion and echogenicity of liver metastasis using contrast tuned imaging (CnTI). Methods Thirty-five patients with known liver metastasis were evaluated by conventional ultrasound and CnTI gray-scale ultrasound respectively. The perfusion patterns of liver metastasis were evaluated. QontraXt software was used to analyze the hemodynamic parameters (peak, TP, sharpness and AUC). Results In 35 patients, 182 liver metastases were found by conventional ultrasound, 386 liver metastasis were found by CEUS. During the arterial phase, the perfusion patterns of 76 major investigated lesions were in four types. 26.3% enhanced in rim-like and the central region was defected; 46.1% enhanced in rim-like and the inside region was homogeneous enhancement but was hypoechoic; 11.8% enhanced in rim-like and tortuous vessels were detected in the lesion; 15.8% bolus-enhanced quickly and was hyperechonic. A significant difference (P0.05) was found in the values of peak, TP and AUC between the type of bolus-enhanced and other three types. In portal vein phase and late phase, all 76 lesions of 35 patients were hypoechoic in relation to the surrounding parenchyma. Conclusion CnTI markedly improve the detection of liver metastasis. The enhancement patterns of liver metastasis is helpful to characterization. Quantitative analysis of the perfusion of liver metastasis is helpful to explain the reason of the enhancement patterns.


In order to solve the problem of disturbance due to data sparsity for the baseline phone n-gram system, a method based on Phone N-gram pruning and KPCA is brought forward. The phone n-gram with low probability is firstly pruned in the phone n-gram super vector. The kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) is then adopted to remove the bias which is brought about due to data sparse. When applying this method to the NIST 2006 speaker recognition evaluation (SRE) database, experimental results shows that a relative reduction of up to 29% in Error Equal Ratio (EER) is achieved over the previous baseline phone n-gram system.


The positive relationship of firm-level entrepreneurship and performance has received much attention in recent years and has become an attractive title in the entrepreneurship literature. This popu ...


Heat storage has become more important because it u tilizes the wasted energy to improve the overall efficiency of energy systems. This study was aimed to develop a chemical he t storage system using magnesium hydroxide (Mg(OH) 2) and its endothermic and exothermic reactions to recover the thermal energy of the exhaust gas in internal combustion en gin s. It was proposed that the reactor receives the thermal ener gy of exhaust gas in the dehydration of Mg(OH) 2 to become MgO and H 2O, and releases the stored energy in the hydration of MgO. To increase the thermal conductivity of pure Mg(OH) 2 for enhancing the reactor's performance, the working material use d, EM8 block, is the mixture of Mg(OH) 2 and expanded graphite at a ratio of 8:1. Experiments were conducted on a 6-cyl inder spark ignition engine (Toyota Aurion 2GR-FE 3.5L) at stoi chiometric air/fuel ratios to estimate the amount of energy lo ss in the exhaust gas. Experimental data of exhaust gas temperature a nd volume ratios of exhaust gas constitutions were used to ca lculate the energy rates of each of the exhaust gas constituent s a d to estimate the reactor efficiency in the dehydration process. Results of the preliminary investigation show that the prop osed chemical heat storage system may be feasible to recover appr oximately 5.8 % of the heat loss in the exhaust gas.


In this study, the performance of hierarchical transform coding is analysed with design of an order-16 integer transform kernel. The proposed hierarchical transform-coding structure is constructed with a set of 4 × 4, 8 × 8 and 16 × 16 integer transforms of variable transform block sizes, which takes the advantages of both lower and higher transform kernels by flexibly adapting to varying image characteristics of video sequences with homogeneous and complex regions. The proposed hierarchical transform-coding structure is implemented as an extension to H.264/advanced video coding joint model. The authors show the effectiveness of the hierarchical variable-sized block transform scheme by analysing the quantisation effects and the correlation among neighbouring pixels in video sequences of different spatial resolutions. The experimental results show that: (i) the variable-sized block transform scheme with the hierarchical structure is advantageous to the texture regions with strong local edges and (ii) the higher-order-16 integer transform kernel itself is more effective for the homogeneous texture regions, which are often encountered in higher resolution sequences. Therefore these two features can complementarily work in an rate-distortion (RD) optimised manner for various characteristics of the input signals.


Various research has been done on the application of Reinforcement Learning for adaptive controllers for aerospace, due to its core simplicity of design and its model-free capabilities resulting in a great (cid:13)exibility of application. During real-life exploration of the environment, such a controller will employ various algorithms to accelerate the collection of signi(cid:12)cant data and therefore the convergence of the value function. If the environment presents any form of danger for the agent, these algorithms need to cope with the additional requirement of avoiding actions leading to such dangers, even when a de(cid:12)nite model of the agent in the environment is not available. In this paper, computing a safety-weighted graph based on a tiling of the state space, and with the introduction of two different metrics for action selection is shown as a promising method for avoiding dangers during exploration. As proof of concept, the method is applied on two simulated tasks: a high-level navigation task for an autonomous UAV, and a classical, low-level task of controlling the elevator de(cid:13)ection of an aircraft.


On the basis of the variational principle proposed by GYARMATI we determine the canonical equations of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. It was demonstrated that the transport equations governing irreversible processes are similarly determined by GYARMATI's principle, further on the canonical equations equivalent to them, as in mechanics the wellknown Lagrangian equations of motion and their Hamiltonian forms are determined with the HAMILTON principle.


The invention relates to the control equipment and can be used for contactless measurement of linear dimensions and shape of objects in motion. The inventive system for the automated measurement of the geometrical parameters of moving objects in a contactless manner comprises a radiator structured illumination measuring chambers with an optical bandpass filter, the supporting structure fixed thereto emitters structured illumination and measuring chambers, the object speed sensor, the processing unit, wherein the measurement of the profile of the moving object produced by triangulation. Structured illumination forms on the surface of the object line of dots and emitter structured illumination is only switched on exposure time measuring chambers. Each measuring chamber with an optical bandpass filter and its corresponding structured illumination emitter are combined in a single measuring unit. Speed measurement is carried out optically. The technical result - an increase in the maximum size of the measured object, the possibility of using the complex in an open area in terms of natural sun exposure. 2 ZP f ly-2-yl.


Abstract: This article attempts to show the asymmetry in the framework of theoretical sociology. This asymmetry concerns the unambiguous domination of Western sociological theoretical systems over theoretical systems from outside the West's boundaries. We have in mind here the intellectual domination of representatives of countries of the North over countries of the South. It may be agreed simultaneously that such an asymmetry is acceptable and reasonable, and that it is unjust to ascribe unique truth and appropriateness to the theories of the North in explaining all the phenomena of the whole world-North and South alike. Thus in this article we present, in the historical perspective, selected sociological theories-in our opinion the most important ones-which confirm the validity of the domination of sociological theories of Europe and North America. We reach back to the first sociological systems of, among others, Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber, and the theories of social development. These latter are important in that it is precisely within their framework that two kinds of theories emerged with clear input from scholars of the South: dependency theory and endogenous theories of social development.Keywords: sociological systems and theories, world as North and South, modernizing development, dependent development, theories of endogenous developmentProlegomenaA few years ago we came across a book by Raewyn Connell, Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science (2007), which addresses the question of social life from a different perspective than the North world. In Connell's opinion, theoretical sociology has been, and still is, dominated by scholars from this part of the globe. At the same time, analysis of the contemporary world's problems, which are mired in global processes, requires a holistic view, and thus a look at sociological theories that emerged outside of Europe and North America. In attempting to include Southern theories-as Connell defines theories that have developed in the South, outside of Western thought-we have to be conscious that, from the beginning, social concepts and theories have appeared in the northern part of the globe, which is universally acknowledged to be richer and better developed. This civilizational and economic primacy combines with the intellectual domination from which many theoreticians and analysts have described the transformation occurring in the South.The North-South dichotomy appeared in the 1960s, displaying the division of the world into the industrialized, mostly rich North and the poor, largely farming South, occupying, roughly, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.1 The real and clear differences in the levels of economic development between Europe and Africa, or the United States and Canada contrasted with Latin America, legitimized the use of the terms North and South to name the highly developed world on the one side, and on the other, a world that was for the most part-undeveloped. This distinction was made fairly often in appraising the scholarship of representatives of the two worlds. Within the social sciences in the broad sense, including sociology, we refer very often, as is natural, to such names as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, or Talcott Parsons, and with unusual rarity to scholars from South regions of the world. Their work, is qualitative and valuable in the academic world. It is entirely obvious that the paradigmatic views-to use Thomas Samuel Kuhn's term here-emerged without competition on two continents-in Europe and North America-particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, in the last decade of the last century, ideas, concepts, and theories created in the South have appeared and are worth a closer look, critical analysis, and empirical application. We are thinking, for instance, of the post-colonial perspective (theory), which since the 1980s has aimed to change how relations between people of the North part of the globe and those outside it are perceived. …


The proposed 100TW laser system to be built at AWE is based upon LLNL technology currently under development for the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The optical configuration of the AWE system is somewhat different to that for the NIF and presents different problems. This paper illustrates some of the problems and proposed solutions.


This article addresses teacher evaluation of the first blended edition of the Certificate for interpreter trainers course, ETI, University of Geneva. A total of five teachers - two in Geneva, two in the United States and one in Israel-, nineteen participants - five males, seventeen females, from over twelve countries-, one tutor, one technical support staff and one pedagogical advisor were involved in the course. This article reports on the findings of qualitative semi-guided interviews with teaching staff : 1) teachers praised the integration of on-line with face-to-face parts both for pedagogically enhanced activities and for enhanced social community building; 2) teachers' training success is the result of modelling of integrated practices and of the coherence of the pedagogical approach, content and learning environment; 3) instructional design of on-line courses is still viewed as consisting mainly of technological issues and the pedagogical engineering part occupies a less prominent role at this stage; 4) although conducting a blended socio-constructivist oriented course in the first run is exhausting for teaching staff, it is rewarding and teachers are ready to engage in follow-up projects.


AbstractHydrogen trapping sites in a submerged arc welding (SAW) weld metal were investigated using tritium autoradiography. Diffusible tritium was able to escape from the present specimens within 72 h, and transmission electron microscope (TEM) observation of thin foil specimens that were kept at room temperature for 72 h before tritium autoradiography showed that dislo cations were the main trapping sites. No evidence was found to indicate that oxides or carbides behaved as trapping sites, but further investigations into this are needed. The present experimental procedure is expected to provide a powerful method for analysis of hydrogen trapping sites in weld metal.


Although it is generally accepted that revision total elbow replacement may be necessary for loosening, instability, peri-prosthetic fracture and infection there is less agreement as to whether surgery should be performed as a one or two stage procedure. This can be of vital importance since the soft tissues around the elbow are often relatively poor making a single operation desirable. However, a one stage procedure in the presence of undetected low grade infection will result in joint failure with early loosening. In our unit we have found the use of a preliminary aspiration/drill biopsy prior to revision surgery helpful in evaluating whether a one or two stage procedure should be performed. Over an 8 year period 18 revision total elbow replacements have been undertaken. 9 patients were revised for aseptic loosening, 4 for proven infection, 3 for instability of an unlinked implant and 2 for peri-prosthetic fracture. With this experience we have devised the following management plan. Early instability of an unlinked implant is due to either poor implant positioning or soft tissue balancing and is suitable for a one stage revision without the need for aspiration/drill biopsy. Late instability is due to implant wear or low grade infection. In this situation we regard an aspiration/drill biopsy as necessary. A negative result allow a one stage revision whereas a positive aspiration indicates the need for a two stage revision. In a peri-prosthetic fracture if the bone cement mantle is intact a one stage revision without aspiration/ drill biopsy can be performed. If, however, there is bone cement lucency we would advise an aspiration/ drill biopsy. We have found the aspiration/drill biopsy helpful prior to revision total elbow replacement and we have used it to guide us as to whether a one or two stage procedure should be performed.


In article the estimation of morphological changes in a pancreas is given at the complicated chronic pancreatitis. The analysis of the presented material testifies, that changes ductucal epithelium of pancreas have mosaic character, degrees of expressiveness fibrosis and duration of disease do not depend on expressiveness of inflammatory process in pancreas.


There has been a strong move towards entrepreneurial education in high schools and at universities over the past few years. This has been echoed by a call from state governments around Australia to promote enterprise thinking and education in high schools. It also parallels the push within engineering to learn across the traditional boundaries , particularly between engineering and business. To meet this call, The Engineering Link Group (TELG) developed the Future Engineers Australia Management Project (FEAMP) in 2003. The project is based around Enterprise Education, and was inspired by the Smallpeice Year 12 Engineering Management course in the UK5. The idea was to take high school students in years 11 and 12 and turn them into 'engineering entrepreneurs'. This paper presents the design, development and evaluation of FEAMP as a five day residential course for year 11 and 12 students who want to learn more about being entrepreneurs and managers. It is a hands-on activity where the students invent, develop and sell an engineering concept to venture capitalists and ultimately to customers at a trade fair. It has been run successfully for two years, going from strength to strength.


A new diterpene glucoside, borapetoside A (1), and its aglycone, borapetol A (2), were isolated from the stems of Tinospora tuberculata BEUMEE as the bitter principles, and their structures were elucidated.


It discloses protection of printed circuits sensitive element substrate using a flat transient protection material in one or more layers of printed circuit board laminates. .FIELD 12A


The ability of monosodium urate monohydrate (MSUM), hydroxyapatite and diamond crystals to stimulate phagocytosis, degranulation and secretion of cell movement factors (CMF) from polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) was determined. The ability of each crystal to adsorb PMN derived enzymes and CMF was also compared. MSUM crystals stimulated greater enzyme release and generation of CMF than hydroxyapatite; in contrast, hydroxyapatite crystals exhibited greater adsorption of PMN products. This was partly due to the greater surface area (at a given concentration) of hydroxyapatite crystals. Diamond crystals clearly interacted with PMN, but they did not stimulate degranulation or CMF production.


A center solenoid coil structure for a superconducting tokamak device is provided to achieve a sufficient strength resistant to electromagnetic force and absorb contraction strain. A center solenoid coil structure for a superconducting tokamak device comprises a joint(10), a floating plate(20), a CS(Center Solenoid) structure body(30), and an elastic support(40). The joint is joined to an inner upper part of the toroidal coil. The floating plate is connected to the bottom of the joint. The CS structure body is connected to the other end of the floating plate and is positioned inside of the toroidal coil. The elastic support is connected to the bottom of the CS structure body and slides in the bottom of the toroidal coil according to the variation of the CS structure body. One or more spaces(21) penetrate the floating plate and therefore the floating plate floats according to the variation of the CS structure body.


INTRODUCTION: At present big interest assumes so much on a global scale like national to the formation of investigations skill development in medical sciences students, being emphasized like a need to increase the quality of the public health. PURPOSE: To describe the scientific production of medical sciences students in Cuban journal. iii. METHODOLOGY: Bibliometric study. We analyzed the articles from 30 Cuban medical journals in the period from 1995 to January 2015 to determine the student contribution. i RESULTS: A total of 17040 articles in Cuban medical journals, in 2,26 % was student contribution mostly like coauthors and original articles. The magazine with more articles was MediCiego (154 articles), and that there exist 9 magazines where there are no articles with student participation. There was not any article which authors belonged to two or more centers or different countries. v. CONCLUSIONS: The scientific production of medical sciences students is scarce and there isn´t collaboration among students of different universities.


griseus group Song is a fast series of notes (trill or rattle) with highest pitch and amplitude about in the middle. Depending on the level of excitement, amplitude and frequency in the middle of the song varies somewhat. Within this group, there are slight differences among the different races: S. g. jaliscensis: 15-20 notes, 0.9-1.1s long, 0.035s note length, max. freq. 4400-6000Hz, min freq. 2000Hz S. g. sylvioides: 22-27 notes, 1.1-1.6s long, 0.032s note length, max freq 5200-6000Hz, min freq. 2200-2700Hz S. g. gracileus : S. g. perijanus S. g. tachirensis no recordings on XC S. g. griseus: Differs in starting slower, with longer more whistled notes before switching to a longer rattle. 35-42 notes, 2.7-3.4s long, 0.038s note length, max freq 4200-5200Hz, min freq 1700Hz. (S.g. griseus thus has a higher number of notes, a longer song strophe and reaches lower frequencies, which may be scored according to Tobias criteria about 2+2 vs. other races within this group)(Fig. 1).


In this paper, 11 factors including water temperature, transparency, salinity, pH, chlorophyll a, phytoplankton cell density, COD, 4NH+-N, 3NO--N, 2NO--N and 3 4PO--P in inshore and offshore pearl-cultivating areas of Liusha bay in Guangdong from Feb. 2011 to Jan. 2012 were surveyed. The results showed that the annual variation ranges of water temperature, transparency, salinity and pH were similar. Water temperature exhibited significant seasonal variations, and transparency, salinity and pH were stable in anniversary, which revealed that water exchange in inshore and offshore pearl-cultivating sea areas of Liusha bay was better at present. Chl-a and phytoplankton cell density have similar annual variation, with a higher value in summer and autumn than in winter and spring. From April to July, and from September to October, the chl-a and phytoplankton cell density showed a significant increasing trend, which significantly decreased after October. From Feb. to Apr. and from Dec. to next Jan, the chl-a and phytoplankton cell density were quite low. In addition, the chl-a and phytoplankton cell density in offshore sea areas were significantly lower than in inshore sea areas from May to November. The annual variation ranges of COD content in the inshore and offshore sea areas were 0.2-0.7 and 0.1-0.8 mg/L, respectively, reaching the first class water quality standard of the nation. The annual variation ranges of IN content in inshore and offshore sea areas were 1.9-8.0 and 3.4-8.7 μmol·dm-3 respectively, both reaching the second class water quality standard of the nation. The IN content in inshore and offshore sea areas in winter and spring is higher than summer and autumn, which was opposite to the annual variation trend of chl-a and phytoplankton cell density. The IP content exhibited a similar annual variation in inshore and offshore sea areas, which was opposite to seasonal variation trend of IN, with a higher value in summer and autumn than in winter and spring. From June to August, the IP content in the inshore sea area beyond the second class water quality standard of the nation was up to 44.67%, 96.33% and 210%, respectively, and the IP content in the offshore sea area beyond the second class water quality standard of the nation was up to 75.67%, 86% and 230.67%, respectively, which revealed that breeding density of shellfish and surrounding environment pollution should be reasonably controlled in summer and autumn.


A building construction elevator precipitation downhole, the method comprising the steps of: digging down the elevator bottom sump; sump filler metal tube; sump gravel backfill, to backfill cushion elevation, and the metal tube is fixed to the sump; self-priming pump for pumping operations, and pouring concrete cushion while pumping; waterproofing membrane laid; concrete cover construction work; basis floor construction operations. The present invention is a building construction elevator downhole precipitation method, can effectively control the elevator shaft due to excessive water practical difficulties to the construction of the next process can not be performed; to ensure the normal construction of the cushion; effectively prevent the waterproofing membrane The bottom surface water due to bulging basis.


Introduction: Lipomatous neoplasms account for approximately 50% of soft tissue tumors with well-differentiated liposarcoma (WDL) being the most common histological subtype. WDL are lowgrade neoplasms with low propensity for local recurrence and metastasis. Surgery is the primary treatment and the role of radiation therapy is highly debated for this subtype. This study compares demographic, clinical characters, and the impact of radiation therapy on the long-term survival of extremity (EX) versus retroperitoneal (RP) WDL. Materials and Methods: 1,358 patients with EX and RP WDL were identified in the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database (1973-2008) and analyzed for age, gender, race, stage, surgical treatment, radiation therapy, and long-term survival. Chisquare test was used to compare categorical data and the Student's t test was used for continuous data. Kaplan Meier survival analysis was performed to examine the impact of surgery and radiation therapy on longterm actuarial survival.Mantel-Cox log rank test was used to establish statistical significance. Data analysis was performed using SPSS version 20.0 (SPSS, Inc.). Results: The mean age at WDL diagnosis was 61.4 ± 14.5 years for both groups. There was no Male: Female difference overall or between primary sites (p = 0.6). EX WDL were more common in non-whites compared to RP WDL (p< 0.001). The majority of patients in both primary sites had localized disease however, regional spread and distant metastasis was more common in RP WDL (p= 0.001). Surgery was performed in 95% of all WDL patients though slightly more commonly for EX WDL (p= 0.001).Radiation therapy was used in 19.1% of all patients, and substantially higher percentage of EX WDL (p = 0.02). Mean survival was higher and mortality rates were lower in EX WDL compared to RP WDL (p = 0.01). 5-year survival rates were 34% for both RP and EX WDL, while the10-year mortality rate was 8% for RP and 6% for EX WDL. Multivariate analysis identified age at diagnosis (Odds Ratio [OR] = 2.9), no surgery (OR = 5.4), and RP WDL (OR = 2.4) as associated with increased mortality. Conclusion: RP WDL occurs more commonly in younger patients and whites, have a higher rate of metastasis, and are associated with a worse overall survival compared to EX WDL. Increased age at presentation, RP location, and failure to perform surgery are associated with increased mortality among all WDL patients. The addition of radiation therapy did not improve median survival in either the EX or RP WDL patient subgroups.


ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to identify associations of six paper-and-pencil instruments with a composite index of sexual risk behavior among adolescents. Adolescents (N = 478) were sampled from community-based organizations, two homeless shelters, a detention center, and a drug treatment center. Participants completed a battery of 12 risk behavior questions and six scales: Attitudes Toward Prevention, Social Provision Scale, AIDS Knowledge Test, Condom Attitude Scale for Adolescents, Impulse Control Scale, and the Risk Taking Propensity Inventory. Multiple linear regression assessed associations for males and females separately. The Millon Impulse Control Scale and the Risk Taking Propensity Inventory were associated with risk outcome for males and females. The Condom Attitudes Scale predicted risk outcome in males. For both genders, the Risk Taking and the Millon Impulse Control Scales were collinear. The Millon Impulse Control Scale was the best measure of risk outcome for both genders, bu...


In television, it is taken for granted that the best possible picture will be produced. In the theatre, a level of automation is required to create scenic effects, so that the attention of the audience is not distracted from the illusion being created to the mechanics of the illusion.


Ireland's economic situation in the 1950s had grown dire at the very moment when much of Western Europe was experiencing remarkable economic growth. Suffering from an unstable agricultural economy, high emigration, declining wages, and high unemployment, the Irish state's protectionist economic policy and its unequal economic relationship with neighboring Great Britain left the Republic without the flexibility necessary to fix its economic deficiencies.1 In response, the Fianna Fail party, under the leadership of Sean Lemass and, later, Jack Lynch—the dominant political force in Ireland at the time, though one that had been out of office twice during the 1950s—boldly connected Ireland's national interests with those of the European Economic Community (EEC). They argued that Ireland's economic fortunes could no longer remain static behind a tariff wall while the rest of Europe moved toward further integration. Such a path, Lemass warned in 1962, would leave Ireland "a beggar amongst the nations, seeking to maintain a dying economy on the crumbs of charity from our wealthier neighbors."2 Instead, aligning with the EEC and embracing liberalization would allow Ireland to rebuild its economy and control its own economic destiny. This was a stunning reversal of nearly thirty years of protectionist economic policy, made more remarkable in that it was Lemass who had crafted the earlier policy in the first place. To allay concerns over EEC membership's impact on Ireland's political sovereignty, Lemass and Lynch skillfully connected Ireland's future political independence with a nar-


Important fish life history and ecological information may be obtained from fish eggs, larvae, and juveniles; therefore, these developmental stages play an important role in environment impact assessments, fishery stock analyses, fish propagation, seeding release, and fish farming. Fish eggs, larvae, and juveniles are mainly found in near鄄surface waters. Growth and survival during the earliest life stages of fishes are important, because variability in survival during these early developmental stages may lead to great differences in the number of recruits that survive to catchable size. Physical factors, such as ocean circulation, frontal systems, and turbulence, represent major parameters that control the survival and growth of fish eggs, larvae and juveniles. The Yangtze River Estuary is an important spawning ground for many commercially important fishes. Furthermore, salinity and temperature have also been shown to be the most important parameters affecting the distribution and abundance of fish eggs, larvae, and juveniles. In recent decades, the Yangtze River Estuary has been


Educators often speak of a classroom's environment, climate, ambience, tone, atmosphere, or ethos and consider it to be important and influential. Although the notion of classroom environment is somewhat subtle and nebulous, enormous progress has been made over the past 20 years in terms of conceptualizing, measuring and analysing it. What are the determinants of a classroom's climate and what are its effects in terms of students' satisfaction and learning? Is there a discrepancy between actual and preferred environment, as judged by students or teachers, and does this discrepancy matter? Do teachers and students perceive the same classrooms similarly? Can teachers conveniently assess the climates of their own classrooms and can they change these environments? Does the nature of a classroom's environment influence curriculum implementation in important ways, and can new curricula be evaluated in part in terms of their impact on classroom environment? These questions represent the thrust of the work on classroom environment over the previous two decades and constitute the main areas that are covered in this paper. Traditionally curriculum evaluations and school-effects research have tended to rely heavily and sometimes exclusively on the assessment of academic achievement and other valued learning outcomes. Although few responsible educators would dispute the worth of outcome measures, these measures cannot give a complete picture of the educational process. Because students spend up to 15,000 hours at school by the time they finish senior high school,1 students certainly have an important stake in what happens to them at school, and students' reactions to, and perceptions of, their school experiences are significant. This paper focuses on one approach to conceptualizing, assessing and investigating what happens to students during their schooling. In particular, the main emphasis is upon students' and teachers' perceptions of important social and psychological aspects of the learning environments of school classrooms. In contrast to methods which rely on outside observers, the approach described here defines classroom environment in terms of the shared perceptions of the students and teachers in that environment. This approach has the dual advantage of characterizing the class through the eyes of the actual participants and capturing data which the observer could miss or consider unimportant. Students are at a good vantage point to make judgements about classrooms because they have encountered many different learning environments and have enough time in a class to form


Renaissance ogival domes of unreinforced stone masonry can be analyzed as structures of rigid material with no tensile strength. Solutions can be obtained for the static equilibrium of the structure; the results represent an extension or variant to membrane shell theory. A limiting shell thickness is found at which a kinematic collapse mechanism develops. The limit state analysis also identifies the role of hoop stress in permitting the construction of such a shell without centering. The analysis has its counterpart in a study published in 1742, that being the first modern structural analysis. The analysis procedure shows the clear relation between geometry (shell shape) and internal forces.


One of urgent task in developing science of da'wah is seek what is foundation to it. Because of the foundation so that the science of da'wah having a clear of frame of think. One of the foundations is named epistemology, a foundation of science that study how the science is got and developed. Based on it's developing, epistemecally the science of da'wah as developed through three methods: dig up the science from Islamic doctrine source and muslim intellectual tradition (thuruqul istinbath), accepting the social science elements and modern technology (thuruqul iqtibash), and a set of research (thuruqul istiqra') .


This study assessed whether the media are influenced by the 'cultural complex of innocence' first proposed by psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung using content analysis. The cultural complex proposed is that Western society may be culturally conditioned to view blonde-haired (and possibly blue-eyed) Caucasian women as the archetypal image of innocence. In this study it was reviewed 53 missing persons' cases of women across the United States between the years 2000 and 2009. The characteristics of the missing persons analyzed included age, race, hair color, eye color, socioeconomic status, prostitution history, drug history, history of mental illness, etc. Media related to each of the 533 cases was collected from Google News, CNN online, and MSNBC online. The articles were reviewed to determine frequency of keywords relating to the portrayal of the victim used by the three media outlets.


The objective of this paper is to define the theoretical basis and clarify the fundamental concept of the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting (CFFR). This is because the theoretical basis for CFFR has not been properly defined, and the articulation of the fundamental concept in the document does not correspond to its actual meaning. In clarifying, we will analyse these attributes from a critical perspective and propose an alternative articulation.
We apply a research method widely used in the USA based on semiotics, which construes accounting as a business language and requires analysis of the key accounting concepts from three viewpoints: syntactic, semantic an pragmatic. Two different theories form the theoretical basis for CFFR: the organisation theory and the residual equity theory. We further propose that the articulation of the fundamental concept of "objective of financial reporting" is self-contradictory, which is aggravated by the fact that the document deals with users of financial reporting and their objectives.
We identify major drawbacks in both theories. The organisation theory requires specific financial reporting which is incompatible with standardisation, and the residual equity theory is extremely difficult to understand and is not completely satisfactory for any of its user groups. These drawbacks and inaccuracies occlude understanding of CFFR and financial reporting.As a result, we propose that it is advisable to do the following when developing the next version of CFFR:
• define the uniform theoretical basis in CFFR clearly;• use the proprietary theory as the uniform theoretical basis;• the definition of financial reporting oriented to informational needs of company owners should be the fundamental concept of CFFR.
This will enable CFFR and financial reporting to be simpler understand and the primary needs of all user groups will be satisfied.


Did the expansion of Europe create large numbers of unfree labourers in Africa, Asia and the New World or was the use of unfree labour in a colonial setting nothing else but an adaptation to the labour traditions of the non-European world? It is fascinating to see how unique free labour actually was in the early modern world. Historically speaking, free labour was usually the exception and unfree labour the rule, especially when we consider non-European controlled labour systems.


The concentration of antidiphtheric serum has been carried on for a considerable period, but the process is still largely empirical as our knowledge of the chemistry of blood proteins is incomplete. The relation of antitoxic content to the blood protein is one of much interest both from a scientific and practical point of view, and any research which throws light on this question must be of value.


10107 Background: Biochemical markers of bone turnover, such as N- and C-terminal cross-linking telopeptide of type I collagen have been evaluated as prognostic matkers in patients with BM. In one of such study, we found that ICTP was not affected by bisphosphonate (BP) therapy (Costa, et al., JCO 2002; 20:850-856). In this prospective study we analyzed whether the baseline level of ICTP was predictive of skeletal related events (SREs) as defined by: pathologic fractures (PF), radiation to treat BM (RT) or spinal cord compression (SCC); time to progression (TTP) and overall survival (OS) in patients with BM from solid tumors under BP therapy.

METHODS
We studied 116 BM patients, median age: 64 years; 67% females; 61% breast cancer; 19% prostate cancer; and 20% other tumor types. The x-ray pattern of BM was lytic in 54% patients, blastic in 23%, and mixed in 21%. At the time of study entry, all patients had serum ICTP levels measured with RIA reagents from Orion Diagnostica (reference range: 2.5-4.0 μg/L). A serum ICTP cutoff of 6.2 μg/L was established using the mean + 2D. The occurrence of SREs was recorded during the study and an objective evaluation of BM status was performed every 4-6 months. During the time period on study, patients received treatment with IV zoledronate (57%), IV pamidronate (28%), or more than one BP. The proportional hazards model was used to investigate the correlation of ICTP baseline level with time to first SRE (TTSRE), TTP, and OS; and Poisson regression with the skeletal morbidity rate (SMR): number of SREs/person/year.

RESULTS
The median follow-up was 21 months. 81.9% patients had ICTP level above 6.2 μg/L and the mean value of ICTP was 15.1 (SD 11.9) μg/L. During the time period on study, 38% had PF, 57% had RT, and 9.5% had SCC. Median TTSRE was 20 months and the SMR was 0.84. Median TTP was 12 months and median OS time was 29 months. ICTP levels above 6.2 μg/L were associated with increased mortality risk (hazard ratio (HR) 2.86, 95%CI 1.37-6.00, p=0.005) and increased SMR (incidence rate ratio 1.88, 95%CI 0.98-3.60, p=0.057), but not with TTP (HR 1.18, 95%CI 0.67-2.07, p=0,57) or TTSRE (HR 1.59, 95%CI 0.82-3.08, p=0.17).

CONCLUSIONS
Elevated serum ICTP levels is associated with decreased survival and increased incidence of SREs in BM patients on BP therapy. No significant financial relationships to disclose.


To analyze the transient heat transfer of wet friction plates,a 3-D finite element model for friction plates with oil grooves was established,and the thermal-solid coupling analysis of heat generation was carried out,and the plate transient temperature distribution,stress distribution and deflection were presented,as well as the influence of the combined time and oil groove size was analyzed.The results show that the largest heat stress intensity exists along the outer edge,and the temperature and stress intensity can increase in a linear with the increasing of combinedime and the increase of oil groove size can decrease the stress of friction plate.


This paper presents a systematic methodology, using design applicable equations aided Ka-band Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) design. The LNA design is based on cascode amplifier topology with common-emitter configuration using 0.12$-\mu$m Silicon Germanium (Si-Ge) hetero-junction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology. The designed LNA exhibited a gain S21 greater than 20 dB across the Ka-band frequency range. A noise Figure of less than 3 dB is obtained over the Ka-band. The input reflection coefficient S11 and output reflection coefficient are below -10dB, and the reverse isolation S12 is below −10dB. The systematic methodology is presented as a sectioning of the LNA design into parts that contribute to the performance. Then, by optimizing of the building parts, and the connection between them, we achieve a highly performing LNA. Applicable theory equations are used to optimize performance parameters and synthesize inductors layout. The LNA design provides sufficient gain, low noise Figure and lower circuit complexity. To our knowledge, these are state-of-art results and show validity of the design technique.


Based on the quantitative analysis of corpus, this paper studies the high-frequency monosyllable adjective xiao (小), and distinguishes the gradation and non-gradation of adjective meaning-item, and then makes a description and interpretation of the selective relation of combination of monosyllable adjectives and nouns from the perspective of semantics.


Moore Business School is one of the best business schools in America.It ranks the top position for 14 years on the international business survey of "Best Post-graduate School in America" in〈American News and World Report〉.Through study the think of the course setup,the content,the target and practicing experience on International Business Major in Moore Business School,it provides the practical experience for International Business course set up in domestic university.


Performance budgeting is the same as program budgeting, except that one additional component–performance–is included to tie expenditures for each program to specific goals established for that program. For example, the amount budgeted for street sweeping would be tied to an expected level of performance, such as sweeping "X" number miles of streets during the fiscal year. Performance budgeting provides spending data that can be examine at the end of the fiscal year to identify the amount of service that each city department has actually produced. Additionally, by knowing the exact cost of each service, wel can determine its relative usefulness compared to the other spending priorities. The negative aspect of performance budgeting is that it is difficult to develop measurable performance goals for simple programs, such as street sweeping. It is hard to set measurable goals for emergency medical services and other less-quantitative programs. Also, data collection can be difficult.


Knowledge of escape behavior contributes to an understanding of a species' natural history and provides insights into the physical capabilities of that animal in a natural setting. Using an "approach stick" to standardize the "threat" to which an animal responded, we examined reactions of the Anguillian anole, Anolis gingivinus. As in other anoles, A. gingivinus allowed relatively close approaches, followed by the behaviors of squirreling, running, jumping, or combinations thereof. The most important factors determining which action was taken were the diameter of the lizard's perch and the direction the lizard was facing. Amount of sun exposure also had an effect on behavior, whereas sex of individuals did not. Some visual aspect of the putative predator also had an effect, determining in part the distance at which the animal fled.


The relationship between DM and Psychiatry is becoming obvious and may be traced through a huge research material over the last few decades. However the nature of the relationship is still an unanswered question: is there a causal relationship or is it a mere comorbidity? As the relationship is becoming more and more complicated with the discovery of antipsychotic induced DM all over the world, biologically based research is still needed to clarify the obscure areas of this relationship.


An infrared detector is proposed that is based on a ferroelectric tunnel junction (FTJ) working under bolometer-like principles. Electron tunneling, either direct or indirect, through the ferroelectric barrier depends on the temperature of the devices. During tunneling, infrared radiation alters the polarization of the ferroelectric film via pyroelectricity, resulting in a change in the barrier height of the tunnel junction. A high temperature coefficient of resistance of up to −3.86% was observed at room temperature. These results show that the FTJ structure has potential to be adapted for use in uncooled infrared detectors.