In an application of which processes an image, the method used widely CE referred as term Contrast of Enhancement is HE Histogram of Equalization. An algorithm for this may be effortlessly executed; even so, it has a tendency to transfigure the image brightness to the center point of scale of gray level. This document shows the modification scheme of a histogram which is elementary to take care of such sort of issues as per trait of implementation. The boundary estimations which are two in quantity of backing of histogram chart are discovered and situated to relating qualities, individually. The probability density function for calculating probability of the image is then is enumerate & revised function of mapping is utilized to accomplish HE. Outcomes of trial demonstrate that the methodology suggested may viably enhance image standard improved by HE & HM routines, & even HR called as redistribution of histogram, for example, (GLG) grouping of gray level, RGB colour spacing and hue preserving methods. Taking R, G and B component individually and remap them.


Propagation of internal solitary waves has been experimentally observed within a region of sudden vertical density variation. The propagation speeds compare well with the theoretical predictions of Benjamin and Davis.


The present invention belongs to the plywood panel production in manufacturing technology. In bamboo as a raw material, which is flattened to the method employed, bamboo outer, split, after boiling, a wax softening treatment method after two flattened pressurized boil. The pressurized flattened bamboo by planing, shaping after drying, can be used as panels, backsheet, or core plate required the use of plywood. Made of plywood, thickness of the wood veneer is similar to its use. Strength, hardness, wear resistance than wood plywood, a good new structural materials.


Experiments reveal that the power output of an ordinary vertical silicon single‐crystal solar cell changes with the local illumination. The dark current is found independent of the location of the local illumination if the illuminated part is only a small porion of the surface area of the vertical solar cell. If the vertical solar cell is fully illuminated, then the dark current may either increase or decrease with the nonhomogeneity or homogeneity of impurity concentration in the single crystal, respectively, and the short‐circuit current is always increased. The energy conversion efficiency is different from place to place in a vertical solar cell and the exp(−x/L) law is only approximately followed because the impurity concentration is usually not uniform. The present experiments reveal the minute local variations.


To promote open-ended outdoor play experience of children, this demonstration pays attention to sound augmentation that can function as a playful motivator facilitating the play benefits, particularly when integrates with a wearable device. We present a bracelet-type wearable device, called SoundWear, with which children can explore, select, sonify, and transfer sounds for play outdoors. The results of user study confirmed that the presence and types of sound augmentation could affect children's outdoor play in physical, social, and imaginative perspectives.


* Please Note: This political book summary does not offer judgment or opinion on the book's contents. The ideas, viewpoints and arguments are presented just as the book's author had intended. General Overview: John Adams famously stated: "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." America today faces one of the greatest threats which have arisen since this nation's founding – the unsustainable spending of our own government. Sooner rather than later, this nation's "debt bomb" will go off. In fact, if we don't change course in the next two or three years, the America of the future will only be a hollow shell of its former self.


The study was conducted in 12 clinical cases presented to TVCC, Bidar. Twelve animals were randomly divided in to two groups viz., Group-I and Group-II consisting of six animals in each group. Group –I animals received Romifidine (10μg/kg) intravenously, 10minutes later ketamine was given @3mg/kg body weight intravenously for induction of anaesthesia. In Group-II animal's xylazine (0.1mg/kg) was administered intravenously, 10minutes later ketamine was given @3mg/kg body weight intravenously for induction of anaesthesia followed by immediate intubation, maintaenance of anaesthesia was done under isoflurane in both the groups. Anaesthetic combinations were compared by clinic physiological, haemodynamic and haematological observations. The induction and recovery were smooth and uneventful in both the groups. Induction was quicker in group-I animals. Physiological and haemodynamic parameters like heart rate, respiratory rate, rectal temperature, mean arterial pressure and haemoglobin oxygen saturation were fluctuated within normal limit.non significant bradycardia in groupI. Intermittent apnoea was observed in all animals, frequency was higher in group-I. heamoglobin packed cell volume and total erythrocyte count were decreased non-significantly in both the groups. Nuetrophilia and relative lymphocytopenia was recorded in both the groups. In conclusion romifidine as preanaesthetic for ketamine and isoflurane anaesthetic maintenance is a better combination than xylazine – ketamine and isoflurane anaesthetic mainatnanace in cattle.


31P and 125Te NMR data of trialkylphosphane tellurides are compared. The deviation of the shifts for Me3PTe and 'Bu3PTe from those of other phosphane tellurides is interpreted in terms of high s-character of the P–Te bond originating from the phosphorus (R = Me) and the tellurium (R = 'Bu) atom, respectively. The molecular structure of 'Pr3PTe has been determined by X-ray crystallography (P–Te 2.365 A). A reduction of the bond order is suggested based also on a comparison of the R3PSe and R3PTe NMR data.


Optical switches based on ring resonator cavities are fabricated in a silicon photonics foundry process and analyzed. Effective switching with P-i-N junction is shown for a 20Gbps signal with a bias voltage as low as 1 volt.


A color movie presentation is discussed that presents the various stages in assemblying the major subsystems of a synchronous wind generator, such as installing the rotor blades and the rotating platform at the top of the tower. In addition scenes are shown of the wind generator in operation.


This study aims to see (1) the process of applying for credit to AMER's Banjar suka duka, (2) the causes of uncollectible credit by AMER joy and sorrow members, (3) how to solve the problem of uncollected credit by AMER's joy and sorrow members. Methods of interview data, observation and documentation carried out in Banjar Suka Duka AMER. Processing the collected data then analyzed through data reduction, data presentation and drawing conclusions. The results showed that (1) the lending of credit by members of the AMER's joy and sorrow may use the names of other members based on mutual trust and solidarity between members. So that the borrowing of members' names in credit applications is commonplace and is accepted by AMER's Banjar Management. 2) The cause of uncollectible credit in the AMER joy and sorrow banjar is a very easy redit lending system without the use of collateral and regulations that bind members to repay their credit. (3) The problem of uncollectible credit in the banjar of AMERica, which did not find a solution for two years, was finally implemented as a cover. Where in applying as penenanggunga in the member credit interest is whitened and the principal of the member is able to pay.


As wind farms being coupled with power grid in large-scale,the new grid code is drafted to require the condition that wind turbines must have low voltage ride-through(LVRT) capability.To realize low voltage ride-through of doubly-fed induction generator(DFIG),Crowbar resistances in parallel are usually equipped to the rotor side to limit the over-current during the voltage dipping.Based on the currents mathematic models of the DFIG stator and rotor,the impact of Crowbar resistance on the DFIG operation performance is analyzed,and the optimized design strategy of the Crowbar resistance is implemented.Finally,the simulation model based on Matlab/Simulink is set up for 1.65 MW DFIG wind turbines,which validates the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed design technology.


On 19 September 1329 John XXII instructed Orsini, in his capacity as papal judge-delegate, to deprive a certain Francesco Calixti of his benefices in the Lateran basilica and to reassign them to Giovanni de Turre, a Roman cleric in the legate's familia. Orsini's familia was made up in the main of central Italians, perhaps half of whom were Romans. Their intimate knowledge of central Italian affairs would have made them particularly valuable agents, and several of them clearly did accompany the legate to Italy. One familiaris who almost certainly travelled with the legate was his chamberlain, magister Ligo of Orvieto, a papal chaplain, curial careerist and Orsini family protege who ended his days as bishop of the Orsini town of Nola.Keywords: Cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini; familia; John XXII; legatine administration


"Many believe current high first-round, NFL draft picks receive unjustifiably high compensation. The teams in possession of high draft picks are meant to use them to build towards future competitiveness. However, as contended, the cost of choosing a player within the first 5 selections is so astronomical, if a team makes a subpar pick, they can negatively affect their salary cap for years to come. Further, the tightened salary cap makes it harder to sign talented players, which, in turn, hurt team competitiveness. The fewer competitive teams in the leauge, the less entertaining the games become. Lagging entertainment value leads to decreased demand, which leads to decreased revenue.Through the use of several areas of Economics, the current compensation model and its underlying assumptions were examined. It was determined the model itself is correct, however many underlying assumptions are inaccurate, or worse -- invalid. Through exposing the inefficiences underlying the model, and devising methods with which to correct for these imperfections, the risk associated with high first-round selections is mitigated, and balance can be restored to the system.This is a very pressing issue because the current Collective Bargaining Agreement between Players and Owners is set to expire after the 2009 season, setting up an uncapped year in 2010, and a potential work-stoppage in 2011 -- a detrimental situation to both players and owners. This analysis does much to address a significant problem with the current CBA, and bring both parties one step closer to successfully negotiating a new CBA so a work-stoppage can be avoided."


This paper presents a design method for a model reference adaptive control system which can be applied to an unknown plant with zeros. In this method, the plant input is generated by an adaptive controller with variable parameters so that the plant output may closely approximate the desired response given by a reference model. In this case, the ord erof the reference model can be selected to be lower than the order n of the plant by at most the number m of the plant zeros. The number of variable parameters needed for generating the


Dermatozoonoses are diseases or infections naturally transmissible from vertebrates to humans and vice versa, that clinically in skin diseases (except systemic allergic reactions) in humans. In urban settings, the vertebrates responsible for dermatozoonoses are pets (dogs, cats, rodents, lagomorphs). People exposed to a zoonotic risk are the owners of the animals and a number of professions at risk, including veterinarians and their staff, breeders, groomers and other professionals in contact with the animal. Dermatozoonoses can be of mycotic, parasitic (mites, insects, helminths, protozoans), bacterial, or viral origin. Veterinarians and physicians must work in close collaboration in order to provide accurate and effective information to their clients and patients.


Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) offer tremendous potential as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms for early detection of security threats and for acquisition and maintenance of situation awareness in crisis conditions. However, using their capabilities effectively requires addressing a range of practical and theoretical problems. The paper will describe progress by the "Autonomous Rotorcraft Project," a collaborative effort between NASA and the U.S. Army to develop a practical, flexible capability for UAV-based ISR. Important facets of the project include optimization methods for allocating scarce aircraft resources to observe numerous, distinct sites of interest; intelligent flight automation software than integrates high-level plan generation capabilities with executive control, failure response and flight control functions; a system architecture supporting reconfiguration of onboard sensors to address different kinds of threats; and an advanced prototype vehicle designed to allow large-scale production at low cost. The paper will also address human interaction issues including an empirical method for determining how to allocate roles and responsibilities between flight automation and human operations.


We used late gestation fetal lambs to examine the effects of a selective COX-2 inhibitor (celecoxib) on fetal renal function. After a 2-hour baseline period, each fetus was exposed to either saline (control, n = 10), 'low-dose' celecoxib (plasma concentration 0.47 µg/ml, n = 4), or 'high-dose' celecoxib (1.4 µg/ml, n = 8) during a 5-hour study period. High-dose celecoxib (but not low-dose celecoxib) caused a significant decrease in urine volume, free water clearance, arterial pH, and an increase in blood lactate compared with the control group. There were no significant differences in creatinine clearance, fractional excretion of sodium and potassium, or in renal blood flow between the 3 groups. These effects are similar to those reported for the nonselective COX-1/-2 inhibitor, indomethacin. COX-2 appears to play an important role in promoting free water excretion in the fetal lamb.


Summary:One way to assess the value of preschool education programs is to compare their upfront costs with the economic benefits they produce, measured by such outcomes as less need for special education services, improved high school graduation rates, higher earnings and less criminal activity in adulthood, and so on. What do such benefit-cost analyses tell us about the wisdom of investing in greater access to preschool? In this article, Lynn Karoly carefully reviews the evidence.First, she identifies the biggest challenges in measuring the economic returns from preschool programs. Then she summarizes the range of estimates from various benefit-cost analyses and some of the methodological differences that can account for the differences among them. Last, she explores the implications of the research for using benefit-cost analysis results to make policy decisions about preschool education.One key challenge: Although many preschool programs have been evaluated for their educational effectiveness, few have been subject to economic evaluations. Most predictive studies of preschool education's long-term economic benefits rely on benefit-cost analyses of programs that were implemented decades ago, when a far smaller proportion of children attended preschool at all, and that followed their subjects well into adult life. Although analyses of those programs suggest returns from preschool as high as $17 for every dollar invested, Karoly concludes that in today's context, it may be more realistic to expect returns in the range of $3 to $4.In the end, Karoly writes, we need to improve the quality and usefulness of economic evaluations of preschool, particularly by calculating the true economic value of preschool programs' short-term and medium-term effects in areas such as cognitive, social-emotional, and behavioral development. We could then more easily evaluate the economic benefits of a preschool program without having to wait until the participating children grow to adulthood.


The present research studies detail anthelmintic activity of Drynaria quercifolia (L) J. Sm., a medicinal plant on Capra hircus (L). The present fern spp. was authenticated through taxonomic studies. Study also involved survey of endoparasites to understand prevalence of major endoparasites in different agroclimatic zones of Western Maharashtra, India. To facilitate invitro research studies, new methods have been experimentally tested and reported for indicating the efficacy of D. quercifolia (L) J. Sm., extracts on helminthes. Survey conducted for assessing prevalence of endoparasites in goat's confirmed the prevalence of endoparasites (Nematodirus spp., Trichuris spp., Eimeria spp. and Haemonchus contortus) under Western Maharashtra condition of India. H. contortus was most prominent; therefore further invitro and invivo studies were restricted to these species as representative parasites in C. hircus for studying the anthelmintic activities of D. quercifolia. The present investigation may form the basis for development of knowledge and formulation of drugs for preventing the endoparasites infection in C. hircus and can be used as a model for developing approach for livestock health improvement. Considering this usefulness of the same plant product having multipurpose medicinal values, D. quercifolia rhizome may be used as ecofriendly herbal low cost remedy available among the village people, a remedy for perennial problem of infections in C. hircus and to prevent the losses thereof. Present work also opens up paths to many more studies for further exploration, for example- the extracts to be tested against spectrum of vectors and pathogens, active compounds to be isolated which will lead this research in finding active drug molecules.


A Faculty Survey of the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, m a d e f o r t h e Bibliographical P lanning Committee of Philadelphia and published by the Univer sity of Pennsylvania Press in 1940 , has long been hopelessly out of print. W h i l e w e have recently thought of attempting a new edition of the volume in order to bring it up to date and reveal the progress that has been made since the survey was first issued, the wr i ter has recently learned with some surprise that the volume was so we l l regarded outside the Philadelphia circle that a brief report on the method by which it w a s produced might be desirable.


—Scientific workflows are generally programmed and configured to be executed by a specific grid-based system. The integration of heterogeneous grid computing platforms in order to build more powerful infrastructures and the flexible deployment and execution of workflows over them are still two open challenges. Solutions based on meta-scheduling have been proposed, but more flexible and decentralized alternatives should be considered. In this paper, an alternative framework based on the use of a tuple-based coordination system and a set of mediation components is proposed. As a use case, the First Provenance Challenge has been implemented using two different workflow technologies executed over the framework, Nets-within-Nets and Taverna, and transparently deployed on two different computing insfrastructures. The proposed framework provides users with scalability and extensibility mechanisms, as well as a complete deployment and scheduling environment suitable for a wide variety of scenarios in the scientific computing area.


Abstract The purpose of this article is to investigate the possible cointegration and direction of causality between foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow, trade openness, and economic growth in BRICS countries using panel data from 1993 to 2015. Besides these variables, money supply and domestic credit (DC) to private players are also added in the model to examine the impact of financial openness on economic growth. The Pedroni's panel cointegration test is used to examine the existence of long-run relationship, and coefficients of cointegration are examined by fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS). Further panel Granger causality test is used to examine the direction of causality among the competing variables. The results of Pedroni's panel cointegration test indicate that there exists a long-run relationship among the variables under considerations in BRICS countries. The coefficient of FMOLS and DOLS indicates that trade openness has a positive impact on economic growth in BRICS countries while FDI inflow has a negative impact in these nations. In addition, the results of panel Granger causality confirmed bidirectional causality between FDI inflow and economic growth in the short run. The study recommends that BRICS countries should liberalize trade openness as it strengthens the position of member countries in the world economy.


The peroxiredoxin family is closely associated with proliferation, differentiation and lymph node metastasis of tumors, and has been paid considerable attention recently. This review summarized the relationship between peroxiredoxin family and head and neck tumors.


Acid-induced enamel erosion leading to dentine hypersensitivity is a growing problem for both the young and ageing population worldwide. Dentinal hypersensitivity is rising for the ageing population because of additional enamel wear. Both conditions adversely affect lifestyle and potentially can harm the systemic health of the patients. Since the loss of enamel is an irreversible process in vivo, the only way for restoring it is via exogenous means. In this work a novel route for enamel restoration using an acid-resistant, calcium phosphate based bio-mineral and ultrafast (femto-second, fs) pulsed lasers in the near IR wavelength is demonstrated. A mixture of calcium phosphate (in the form of mineral brushite) powder with a bio-mineral gel was used to coat acid eroded bovine enamel surfaces. After forming the mineral layers, the samples were irradiated with two different 100 - 200 fs pulsed lasers, one at 800 nm with 1 kHz repetition rate, and the other at 1044 nm with 1 GHz repetition rate. The laser-irradiated samples were characterized using X-ray diffraction, SEM, and Raman microscopy. It was found that irradiation with 1 GHz transformed brushite crystals to β-calcium pyrophosphate while the bio-mineral gel coating was melted and formed a homogeneous film on the enamel surface.


While there is no advice on spelling in this book, Wolman tells the history of how English spelling has changed since the Anglo-Saxon period and American spelling since the American Revolution and explains how and why the changes occurred. His history is highlighted with astute comments, personal anecdotes, and even philosophical musings. The book should be entertaining and informative for anyone who might want to learn more about how our present-day spelling got to be in the shape it is in.


A landmark interdisciplinary conference on Resilience in Children was held February 26–28, 2006, in Arlington, Virginia, sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences and Brown Medical School. This volume of the Annals contains the proceedings of that conference that ushered in a new era in the study of resilience. This conference brought together a highly distinguished group of scientists to discuss the neurobiology of resilience together with its behavioral aspects. We started with an old question that has intrigued researchers for more than 30 years: Why is it that some children grow up in adverse circumstances and still have a relatively positive psychological outcome? Many children experience conditions such as war, poverty, maltreatment, chronic illness, catastrophic life events, and parental mental illness or substance abuse, yet manage to overcome hardship and grow into functioning and caring adults. Resilience research emerged in the 1970s, with the mission of exploring the individual and contextual influences that protect children growing up in adverse conditions against poor outcomes. A large body of research has accumulated on these protective factors, including cognitive and personality attributes, family dynamics, relationships with friends and adults, and the broader social environment. The resilience field has generated a tremendous amount of excitement in the scientific community because it provides another window to understanding developmental processes in atypical as well as typically developing children. Resilience research has also been vital to the development of prevention programs, which provide targeted interventions to help high-risk children thrive. Additionally, resilience science has matured beyond the identification of resilience predictors, toward the study of dynamic processes that explain successful adaptation, despite having experienced adversity. Until very recently, however, the complex questions of resilience were addressed primarily from a behavioral and psychosocial perspective, with less attention to biological influences. Advances in neuroscience now afford the opportunity to integrate neurobiology in the study of resilience and to ask if there are specific neurobiological processes and mechanisms that can contribute to our understanding of resilience. Neurobiological processes, including neural plasticity, gene–environment interplay, and neuroendocrine factors may play crucial roles in helping a child overcome adversity. We felt that the field of resilience research was poised for an important step in its evolution—the examination of potential biological mechanisms of


The exploration has been made on the optimum arrangement of the practice teaching according to the cultivating goal and the post requirement. A new model had been established for the optimum practice teaching. It is presupposed by the basic operation ability, main-lined by the technical application ability and wing-branched by the creating ability. The actual experiments indicate this new model is one of the effective ways for the high professional education to make practice teaching.


We derive the solutions of gravitational waves in the future (F) expanding and the past (P) shrinking Kanser spacetimes as well as in the left (L) and right (R) Rindler wedges in the Regge-Wheeler gauge. The solutions for all metric components are obtained in an analytic form in each region. We identify the master variables, which are equivalent to massless scalar fields, to describe the gravitational degrees of freedom for the odd parity and even parity modes under the transformation in the two-dimensional plane symmetric space. Then, the master variables are quantized, and we develop the quantum field theory of the gravitational waves in the F, P, L, and R regions. We demonstrate that the mode functions of the quantized gravitational waves in the left and right Rindler wedges are obtained by an analytic continuation of the left-moving and right-moving wave modes in Kasner spacetime. On the basis of these analyses, we discuss the Unruh effect of quantized gravitational waves for an observer in a uniformly accelerated motion in Minkowski spacetime.


Anxiety is a normal behavioral component. When it is too frequent or appears in inappropriate contexts, it can be considered pathological. Benzodiazepines (BDZs) are drugs with clinical success in anxiety treatment. BDZs act as allosteric modulators of the γ- aminobutyric acid A receptor (GABAAR). However, these drugs cause adverse effects. Despite the therapeutic advances obtained with BDZs, the search for anxiolytics with fewer adverse effects is ongoing. Studies with monoterpene (–)-borneol [(–)-BOR] demonstrated pharmacological properties such as a partial agonist effect of GABAAR and an anticonvulsive effect. On the other hand, no work has been developed evaluating the anxiolytic/sedative potential. The objective of this study was to investigate the anxiolytic/sedative effects of (–)-BOR in animal models at doses of 25, 50, and 100 mg/kg (i.p.) and whether there was a molecular interaction with GABAAR. The anxiolytic effect of monoterpene (–)-BOR was tested on Swiss mice (25–30 g) in three anxiety models: the elevated plus maze test, the open field test, and the light-dark box test. The thiopental-induced sleep time model was a drug screen for the sedative and hypnotic activity related to GABAARs. In the molecular docking, the interaction between the GABAAR molecule and (–)-BOR was performed using the AutoDock 4.2.6 program. The results demonstrated that (–)-BOR has sedative and anxiolytic activity. The molecular docking study revealed that (–)-BOR can interact with GABAARs through hydrogen bonds.


This paper presents an electric coupling structure with enhanced coupling coefficient based on double-layered SIW cavity resonators. Short-ended striplines are used to achieve electric coupling between two SIW cavities. The electric coupling depends on the width of the stripline. The proposed structure can achieve coupling coefficient more than 0.14. A fourth-order cross-coupled filter having centre frequency of 9.7 GHz and fractional bandwidth of 12% has been designed to verify the structure.


The amount of particle pairs created in a 3-flat Robertson-Walker Universe with an expansion law for the early Universe is calculated exactly when a homogeneous electromagnetic field is present. Under some restrictions a time-dependent particle creation rate is found. Finally it is shown that the low-frequency part of the cosmological 2.7K background radiation can be identified with the stationary electromagnetic field discussed before. According to this a large amount of particles of the order of the number of particles in the Universe should be created out of the vacuum in the immediate neighbourhood of the 'big bang'.


The purpose of this paper is to examine the international trade cooperation in order to determine the sustainable cooperative tariff rates in a political economy perspective. This paper establishes a tariff-setting game among two countries as a two-phase game : negotiation phase and implementation phase. Our results show the following points. First, the sustainable cooperative tariff rate depends on the political weight placed by government on domestic import-competing industry, on the political influence of the foreign export industry and on the economic stakes of domestic tariff policy in these two sectors. Second, international cooperation is sustainable when governments involved in tariff negotiation are patient enough. Third, difference in patience affects the relative bargaining power of governments.


Assessing water usage associated with urban green infrastructure is crucial for water resource management and sustainable planning of desert campus areas. A public university campus layout in the desert region is considered an urban city subject to urban water consumption (UWC) of significant intensity and extent, even though the urban layout is essential to all campus occupants' comfort and environmental sustainability needs. Hence, there is a need to reduce its detrimental effects through sustainable methods for campus water content. This study focuses on assessing urban xeriscaping landscape quantities as a practical potential approach to support university campus decision-makers in reducing urban water consumption and preserving the urban campus water content as asset management and life quality. Four selected landscape field experiments were undertaken by adopting xeriscaping landscape design instead of existing conventional urban design at King Faisal University's (KFU) campus layout, Al-Ahsaa, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia. The study built a specific practical sustainability retrofit approach in water conservation from conventional to xeriscaping method inside the existing public desert campus area. Applying the study approach framework considering xeriscaping layout design provided sustainability requirements, retrofit approach, and pathway to effective landscape mapping, based on reasonable and accurate quantities of xeriscaping landscape items, to convert the KFU campus layout as a low water consumption campus with an average reduction of 41% water consumption within the remaining campus layout. The results of this study contribute to the water conservation and management in university desert campus and opens the door for other studies on the use of this approach for thermal reduction, economic and environmental benefits beside its value for water reduction.


Low Code/No-Code (LCNC) software development has gained its share and popularity in today's software development market, especially in cloud-based application development. In addition to companies ...


The main purpose of this work is to present the ESR spectra and calculate the spin Hamiltonian parameters of 14N and 15N impurities in natural diamond. The ESR spectra of diamond crystal were measured on ESR spectrometer operating at X-band microwave frequency. The results of ESR spectra show that the diamond has a P1 center. This center gives rise to three strong resonance absorption peaks at θ = 90°, φ = 0° due to hyperfine interaction between electron spin and nuclear spin of 14N. The ESR spectra of 15N impurity consist of two satellites at the same rotation angle (φ). The effects of isolated substitution nitrogen on carbon atom produced a symmetric distortion from Td to C3V symmetry. According to this symmetry, the resonance magnetic field positions of ESR spectra for the rotation angles of 0°, 90° and 180° are almost overlap. The g-factor values and spin Hamiltonian parameters of 14N and 15N are: g = 2.0019, A⊥ = 29.73, A‖ = 40.24 and g = 2.0019, A⊥ = −39.90, A‖ = −57.05, respectively.


Docetaxel is a well‐recognized drug in patients with hormone‐refractory prostate cancer (HRPC), either alone or combined with estramustine. In this indication, a Phase II trial was conducted investigating a docetaxel‐capecitabine combination.


A survey of the distribution, nature, and biochemical composition of particulate matter (less than 153 μm diam) showed that small particles (< 18 μm) made up the bulk of the particulate matter during most of the summer. Relatively large amounts of microzooplankton (tintinnids) were also recorded during the period of stable hydrographic conditions. Diatoms and dinoflagellates were abundant only in early fall prior to the fall bloom. All cell counts were transformed into parts per million on a volume basis to compare with Coulter Counter data. Cell counts on preserved samples strongly underestimated the number and volume of small particles and did not take into account the detritus. Considerations of the ATP content strongly suggested that for naturally occurring particulate matter there is not a constant ATP to carbon ratio but rather an upper and lower limit. Small particles were the main repository for protein whereas phytoplankton was the repository for carbohydrates. The high variability of both qualit...


A system and method is provided for digitally encoding video signals within an overcomplete wavelet video coder. A video coding algorithm unit locates significant wavelet coefficients in a first video frame and temporally predicts location information for significant wavelet coefficients in a second video frame using motion information. The video coding algorithm unit is also capable of receiving and using spatial prediction information from spatial parents of the second video frame. The invention combines temporal prediction with spatial prediction to obtain a joint spatio-temporal prediction. The invention also establishes an order for encoding clusters of significant wavelet coefficients. The invention increases coding efficiency and provides an increased quality of decoded video.


The objectives significant improvement on students' reading comprehension score who are taught by using Annotation Strategy Nurul Iman Palembang, and to on students' reading comprehension score who are taught by using Annotation Strategy and those who are not to th Palembang. This study used quasi posttest design. In collecting the data, test was used. The test was given twice to experimental and control groups, as a pretest and the data of pretest and posttest of the experimental and control groups were analyzed by using independent sample t findings showed that the p which was lower than 0.05 (2.0244). The p-output of independent sample t 0.05 and the t-value (3.332) was higher than t that teaching narrative reading comprehension significant effects on the students' reading comprehension achievement.


Facing an unprecedented challenge of capacity increase, the wireless communications community is exploring many solutions. Among these solutions, the ones that brought the most attention in recent years are: the deployment of more network nodes leading to the densification of the existing traditional networks, the increase of spectrum resources with mmWave frequencies, and the increase of the number of antennas at the receiver and transmitter through massive MIMO. These three trendy solutions are the core of the fifth generation of wireless communications systems (5G) in which dense small-cells networks approach stands out because of its high scalability.

Ultra dense networks will be demanded in certain geographical areas by means of a contiguous layer of small coverage. These will deliver significant area capacity density through spatial reuse of spectrum resources along with tight scheduling coordination between adjacent cells and the macro base station layer. However, guaranteeing the efficient coexistence of a large number of small-cells with traditional macrocells as well as the interference from the overlapping small-cells from the perspective of resource management is a fundamental issue.

In the first part of this thesis, we propose a Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR) scheme for sector-based two-tier macrocell-femtocell networks joint with a Quality-of-Service (QoS)- aware admission control strategy. The optimal parameters for cell channel partitioning in the proposed FFR scheme and an analytical model for performance evaluation of the proposed system are developed. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the performance enhancement in term of blocking probabilities of the proposed framework.

In the second part, we investigate a cooperative approach for self-organizing small-cells networks. We propose a novel game theoretic approach for joint co-tier and cross-tier cooperation in heterogeneous networks that offers a significant improvement in performance for users from both tiers. First, we propose a coalition structure game with a weighted Owen value as imputation, where the Small-cell Base Stations (SBSs) and their connecting Macrocell User Equipments (MUEs) form a priori union. Second, we propose a canonical game with a weighted solidarity value as imputation to allow cooperation among SBSs and MUEs when they fail to connect to nearby SBSs. We compare through extensive simulations the proposed frameworks with state-of-the-art resource allocation solutions, access modes and legacy game-theoretic approaches. We show that the proposed framework obtains the best performances for the MUEs and SUEs in terms of throughput and fairness.

In the third part, we investigate the combination of dense small-cells deployment and spatial frequency reuse in millimeter-wave (mmWave) systems and show its great potential for achieving the 1 Gbps median throughput target in 5G networks. We propose a spatial frequency reuse model for two-tier ultra-dense networks in the mmWave frequency bands opened to mobile communications networks in 5G. We demonstrate in this work that an adequate frequency allocation and reuse in 5GmmWave networks with the support of a dense small-cells deployment enables very high throughputs and Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise (SINR) ratio coverage in ultra-dense systems. The performances of this scheme are evaluated both analytically in terms of coverage probability, and through system-simulation in terms of achieved throughput, and compared to traditional microwave systems and mmWave models with no spatial reuse.


Age-related differences in colon and rectal cancer survival have been observed, even after accounting for differences in background mortality. To determine to what extent stage, tumour site, or histology could contribute to these differences, we estimated 1-year relative survival (RS) age stratified by these factors. Colon and rectal cancer cases diagnosed between 2012 and 2016 and followed up until 2017 were retrieved from 18 United States Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results cancer registries. For colon cancer, 1-year RS ranged from 87.8% [95% Confidence Interval: 87.5-88.2] in the 50-64-year-old age group to 62.3% [61.3-63.3] in the 85-99-year-old age group and for rectal cancer ranged from 92.3% [91.8-82.7] to 65.0% [62.3-67.5]. With respect to stage, absolute differences in RS between 50-64-year-old and 75-84-year-old in RS increased with increasing stage (from 6 [5-7] %-points in localized disease to 27 [25-29] %-points in distant disease) and were the highest for cancers of unknown stage (>28%-points). With respect to topography, age-related differences in survival were smallest for those in right-sided colon (8 [7-9] %-points) and largest for tumours of the colon without topography further specified (25 [21-29] %-points). While age-related differences in survival varied by histology and tumour site, the overall age-related differences in survival could not be explained by differences in distribution of these factors by age, consistent with a hypothesis that stage at diagnosis or treatment are more likely drivers. Incorporating data on geriatric conditions such as frailty and comorbidity would support further understanding of the age gap in colon and rectal cancer survival.


Objective To improve the rat model of diffuse brain injury and establish a simple and practical animal model to study closed diffuse brain injury.Methods The marmarou-brain injury model was improved.The morphological changes of brain injury was detected by routine histochemical and silver staining.Results In the improved rat model diffuse heamorrhage were observed.Which included bleeding,swelling of nerve cells,glial cells eosinophilic change,loose brain tissue,nerve cell degeneration and necrosis,perineural phenomenon.Conclusions The improved marmarou-rat model could be used to study closed diffuse brain injury.


The model trained on speech at one SNR level is inappropriate for testing under various noise conditions. To improve the robustness of the recognizer, it is necessary to increase the types of speech to adapt to various test conditions. In order to enhance the performance of the baseline Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN) which is subjected to training set under different noise conditions, this paper provides DBN incorporating a discrete noise variable for speech recognition. The experimental results show this model can deal with the mixed training set and get a fair performance in comparison with that trained on training set containing only one SNR level.


The human neuron system consists of networks of highly interconnection neurons, each of which performs a computation at any given moment. The results are transmitted to other neurons a long of pathway. A single neuron can send the result to as many as 10000 other neurons as a signal to the inputs of other neuron s in the form of voltages. The voltage can either inhibit the other neurons from sending signals or excite them to sending to other neurons along the pathway.


This randomized controlled prospective experimental trial was conducted with 46 students with dysmenorrhea who were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to the heat treatment group (HTG) (
 n
 = 23) and control group (CG) (
 n
 = 23). To HTG, dry heat was applied for 20 minutes to the lower abdominal region of the subjects when their dysmenorrhea was most severe. Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), the Short Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ), the Menstrual Attitude Questionnaire (MAQ), and the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS) were used in this study. At the first menstrual cycle, both groups received the questionnaires, and no treatment was applied. At the second, third, and fourth menstrual cycles, VAS and SF-MPQ were applied before the treatment (T1), right after the treatment (T2), and 2 hours after the treatment (T3). MAQ and DASS were applied right after the treatment. Seven subjects from HTG and four subjects from CG were excluded from the study on account of their analgesic medicine usage, inability to menstruate, or by their own requests. When HTG and CG were compared, the decrease in the dysmenorrhea pain after the heat treatment in each of the three menstrual cycles was found to be statistically significant (
 P
 < 0.05). In each of the four menstrual cycles, depression, anxiety, and stress were detected in each subject in both groups. However, the effectiveness of the treatment was not determined (
 P
 > 0.05). In HTG, awareness of the changes during menstruation was diminished with time.

 [
 Psychiatr Ann
 . 2023;53(6):270–281.]


An exploratory study tried to identify the nature and severity of various problems influencing investment decisions in Bangladesh. The sample investors identified 48 different issues affecting investment. These involve Infrastructure, Governance, Tax policy, Finance policy, and Labour Policy. This paper focuses on policy issues relating to tax, and finance. The sample investors diagnosed the problems and suggested many ideas to overcome them. They proposed the creation of an investor council as an institutional apparatus. This council would facilitate public private partnership, and the support the formulation of more informed policies. They suggested simplification of tax laws and rationalisation of tax structures. They proposed financial stimulus packages for new investors.


Previous cask design experience indicates that the stress analysis and structural stability evaluation of the cask inner shell is a key factor in evaluating the adequacy of the cask's containment boundary. The yield strength of the shell material establishes the thickness required and, hence, the cask weight, which indirectly controls the cask capacity. This study concentrates on the effect of different materials and different shell thickness combinations on the cask capacity. Nuclear Assurance Corporation used the ANSYS finite element structural analysis code to perform a detailed structural analysis of an existing rail/barge cask. The cask's capacity is 31 assemblies in a burnup credit configuration. The stress results for the inner shell obtained from the ANSYS analysis are used for the buckling evaluation in accordance with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Code Case N-284 to determine the adequacy of the inner shell thickness. 2 refs., 1 fig., 5 tabs.


Objective: To explore how to avoid severe complication when placing internal fixator along linea terminalis of pelvis on operation of fracture of acetabulum and pelvis through anatomic study of linea terminalis of pelvis, such as lag screw enter hip joint or important blood vessel and nerve are injuried. Methods: Label point of O, Q, A, B, C, D, E, F, G on linea terminalis of pelvis of 12 cases of pelvic specimen were made and linea terminalis of pelvis was divided into 6 regions: pubic crest region, obturator foramen region, acetabulum region, posterior column region, greater sciatic notch region and sacrum ala region. Length and height of all regions were measure respectively. Results: The length of pubic crest region, obturator foramen region, acetabulum region, posterior column region, greater sciatic notch region and sacrum ala region was (18.98±0.74) mm, (37.42±1.52) mm, (40.87±1.69) mm, (18.71±0.61)mm, (20.39±1.13)mm and (23.63±1.84)mm respectively; The height of above 6 regions was (38.52±1.63)mm, (15.15±0.72)mm, (14.78±0.86)mm, (106.64±4.97)mm, (26.36±1.34)mm and (35.79±1.91)mm respectively. Conclusions: When placing internal fixator along linea terminalis of pelvis, we can divide linea terminalis of pelvis into 6 regions and use different fixation method on different region.


This concise guide explores styles of British decorative art from the time of Henry VIII to the death of Queen Victoria.


Background: Prostate is a compound tubuloalveolar exocrine gland of the male reproductive system in most mammals. It considers differ among species anatomically chemically and physiologically. Prostate cancer also known as carcinoma of the prostate, is the development of cancer in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system .Most prostate cancers are slow growing; however, some grow relatively quickly. Testosterone in the presence of a slow-growing prostate cancer is assumed to increase its growth rate. However, the association between testosterone supplementation and the development of prostate cancer is unproven. Aim: To measure testosterone level in prostate cancer patients and to correlate between testosterone level and PSA level with the duration of therapy. Material and Methods: The present study was is analytical cross-sectional study carried out during May to July 2016, at Al Zaiem Al Azhari University, Medical Laboratories Sciences College, and Clinical pathology department. A total one hundred individuals were enrolled in this study, and classified into two groups, 50 prostate cancer patients as case group and 50 healthy individuals as control group. Enzyme immunoassay analysis for testosterone level .The data of prostate cancer types, age, and sex of patients were collected from clinic records. Results: The results were expressed as (mean ± SD), study was found that the level of testosterone in patient with a mean of (3.8/14) it was lower than the control mean of (5.4/9) and also the study found that the level of PSA in patients group with a mean of (28.3/1) is significantly increase when compared to healthy individuals with a mean of (0.8/2) and there was significant difference between two group, the study was found that there was significant correlation between testosterone level and duration of therapy, in the other hand PSA showed no significant association with the duration of therapy. Conclusions: Finally the study concluded that significant reduction of testosterone level in patient with prostate cancer when compare to healthy individuals and there was significant correlation between testosterone level and duration of therapy.


Hyperphosphataemia is associated with increased mortality and morbidity in end stage renal disease. Despite phosphate binder therapy, a large proportion of patients do not reach the treatment target. In five contemporary binders we explored the influence of pH and phosphate concentration on phosphate binding. This interaction could be of relevance in clinical practice.


A technology for manufacturing the safety helmet with high antistatic effect, firmness and buffering power and beautiful appearance includes such steps as blanking die pressing, trimming, etc. Its main body is made up of canvas and rubber sheets through coating natural rubber and adhesive, hot die pressing and sulfurizing. Its liner is made of woven cotton band and waxed thread. Its main body has a R-shaped arc shape for higher toughness and strength.


A new method of the electromagnetic tomography that uses data of the 2-dimensional (2D) scanning of an inhomogeneous half-space along its plane interface has been worked out. Signal parameters should be measured in dependence on a parameter of the received signal that determines the effective depth of its formation. This method is based on the solution of 3D integral equation. The application of this method to the passive and active microwave sounding has been considered, as well as the possibility of its application in the scanning near-field optical microscopy


Abstract. A review of the existing literature regarding the outcome of infants delivered preterm after antenatal β‐receptor agonist treatment of the mother is presented. Some investigators have reported an increased rate of neonatal and long‐term hazards, while others have not found a higher incidence of such complications after antenatal β‐receptor treatment. In our own material of 54 preterm survivors with follow‐up up to 2 years of age, we found a modest rise in postnatal hypoglycemia rate but no other short‐term or long‐term sequelae. Postnatal monitoring of blood glucose and cardiovascular function is warranted at preterm deliveries after antenatal β‐receptor agonist treatment.


A case of partial avulsion of the upper lip in a nine year old boy, treated conservatively, is presented. The advantages of the non-operative treatment of a mostly mucosal and submucosal tissue loss of the lip are discussed, as opposed to the techniques of immediate repair.


The study indicated that the density was the key factor to output of ensiling maize. The best density of ensiling maize was 75 000~900 00/hm2. With a view to production, the density was no more than 900 00/hm2. Density had the most influences on length of bare top of ensiling maize, second was the weight of a thousand seeds.


This paper discusses a new lunar landing gear technology. The landing gear is designed to achieve 1~2 tons of lunar lander landing buffer. Technical indicators are met by the designing of structure and simulation, and the final prototype model is designed and tested at last. Firstly, the design ideology of landing gear is introduced, and the choice of technical method is analyzed and compared. Secondly, the composition of landing gear is analyzed respectively. Finally, the landing gear is certified by landing impact test. The results prove the design rationality of landing gear. The landing gear has significant advantages, such as simple structure, light weight and small volume. The design ideology and experience of landing gear can be referenced by related research area.


We investigate the dynamical quantum fluctuation effect on an Andreev current through an ultrasmall superconductor in the Coulomb blockade regime. We calculate the current using a phenomenological gauge invariant model and the real-time path-integral method. We choose a special gauge which absorbs the scalar potential to convert the phase of a superconductor as a dynamical variable. A zero-energy phase fluctuation of the superconductor suppresses the Andreev current at low bias voltage. This suppression is expected to be observed in samples with large level spacing and small charging energy which allow the coexistence of a large quantum fluctuation and Andreev reflection process.


In recent years, deep learning approaches have gained significant interest as a way of building hierarchical representations from unlabeled data. These deep learning approaches have been applied to image recognition, voice recognition and text processing. However, to our knowledge, the deep learning approaches have not been extensively studied for web data. In this paper, we apply deep belief networks to web data and evaluate the algorithm on various classification experiments by comparing its performance with that of the SVM classification algorithm. In addition, the experiments show good performance of the deep belief networks for various classification tasks.


Calculation formulae of space vector pulse width modulation(SVPWM) subarea voltage vector operation time were deduced.A type of subdivided sector space vector control was given.Vector diagrams of each subdivided sector and the selecting principles of the zero voltage vector were given.An experiment was carried out to adopt DSP in practice.


This paper presents the preparation of Ti-doped barium ferrite powders BaFe(12−x)TixO19 for (x = 0.32 and x=0.36) nanomaterial using sol-gel route followed by the thermal insulation process and heattreatment, recently reported by Wangchang Li et.al.,[1]. The pH of the medium and varying 'x' values were the aspects of concentration of our study in this communication. Nanomaterial is synthesized for the value of(x = 0.32 and x=0.36) at 950C temperature. The phase structure and morphology were analysed by standard XRD, FTIR and SEM techniques.


This paper presents an approach to the relationship between land use planning and socioeconomic residential segregation, from the location of social housing in Medellin, Colombia, during the period 2006-2011. The first part introduces the land use regulations regarding the location of social housing, identifying ambiguities in the current spatial plan. Next, we present the intersection of  regulatory information and the location of the projects that were under construction during the  study period, highlighting the need to consider the location as an important characteristic of social housing and residential segregation as a phenomenon that must be recognized and worked on land  use planning in our cities.


Abstract : This paper contains the proceedings and abstracts of the 26th Midwinter Conference of Immunologists. The topic is 'Immunoglobulins and disease, also included is a program of events speakers. Sessions held at the conference included: CELL ACTIVATION AND DIFFERENTIATION; ANTIBODY EXPRESSION AND REGULATION; ANTIBODY GENETICS AND MECHANISMS OF DISEASE; and IMMUNE RESPONSE TO PARASITES.


"Ruling of law and constructing the socialist legal country" has clearly recorded in constitution of China.The core and sticking point of ruling of law is in accordance with the constitution of the country.The prerequisite of administering the country according to the constitution is that the citizens should set a firm faith of the constitution.The faith of the constitution is the soul of ruling of law and also the moral support of realizing constitutionalism.However,because of the negative effect by traditional consciousness,the faultiness in constitution and some immature conditions in socialist ruling of law in real life,the lack of citizens' faith of constitution are still problems which both our constitution and legal construction faced.This article analyzed the importance of setting a faith of constitution and the reasons of the lacking of citizens' faith of constitution.We hope to set a firm faith of the constitution by cultivating the citizens' sentiment and attitude on constitution,preserving the relative stability of the constitution and improving the supervision of the implementation of the constitution and the protection mechanism and so on.


The formation of the situation of the great unification established and gradually perfected the systems and policies of economy,politics and culture which had had a great influence on China for hundreds of years.Besides it promoted the national mixture and created the favourable conditions of the formation of the Han nation.In the period of the Qin and the Han Dynasties,the cultural education was well-developed,science and technology advanced,the area of people's activity expanded,people's practical ability improved,and the democratic consciousness budding.Then the moral quality represented by filial duty became the typical characteristics of people's quality,and people's quality of social culture was in a rising state.


The oxidation of irradiated Chernobyl nuclear fuel at 670 to 1,170 K for 3 to 21 h resulted in its destruction into fine particles, the dispersal composition of which is well described by lognormal distribution regularity. The median radius of the formed particles does not depend on the annealing temperature and decreases with the increase of the annealing period from 10 to 3 {micro}m. Proceeding from the dispersal composition and matrix composition of the Chernobyl hot fuel particles, it can be concluded that the oxidation of nuclear fuel was one of the basic mechanisms of hot fuel particle formation during the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. With oxidation in air and the dispersal of irradiated oxide nuclear fuel at as low as 670 K, ruthenium, located on the granular borders, is released. Ruthenium is oxidized to volatile RuO{sub 4}, sublimated, and condensed on materials of iron. Nickel and stainless steel can be efficiently used at high temperatures (tested to 1,200 K) for radioruthenium adsorption in accidents and for some technological operations. As the temperature of hot fuel particles annealed in inert media increases from 1,270 to 2,270 K, the relative release of radionuclides increases in the following sequence:more » cesium isotopes; europium isotopes; cerium isotopes; americium isotopes; and ruthenium, plutonium, and curium isotopes.« less


In this paper we present a relation extraction system that given a text extracts pedagogically motivated relation types, as a previous step to obtaining a semantic representation of the text which will make possible to automatically generate questions for reading comprehension. The system maps pedagogically motivated relations with relations from ConceptNet and deploys Distant Supervision for relation extraction. We run a study on a subset of those relationships in order to analyse the viability of our approach. For that, we build a domain-specific relation extraction system and explore two relation extraction models: a state-of-the-art model based on transfer learning and a discrete feature based machine learning model. Experiments show that the neural model obtains better results in terms of F-score and we yield promising results on the subset of relations suitable for pedagogical purposes. We thus consider that distant supervision for relation extraction is a valid approach in our target domain, i.e. biology.


Aim: The aim of this prospective clinical trial was to evaluate the effects of antibiotic therapy following different administration times on the postoperative complications of surgical removal of lower impacted third molars.

Materials and Methods: Three hundred and twenty seven consecutive patients (128 males and 199 females) aged 18 to 40 years old (mean=23.1±3.9 years) were recruited into this study. The lower third molars of all recruited patients were surgically extracted. Participants received either intravenous Velocef 1 gram or intra-oral 500 mg Cephalexin pre- (Group A, n=122), pre- (Group B, n=70) or post-operatively (Group C, n=135). Immediate and late complications following the surgery; including pain, swelling, trismus, paraesthesia, bleeding, dry socket, infection and fracture of mandible; were assessed 3 days and 7-14 days following the surgery.

Results: The most frequent complications were slight pain, swelling, and trismus. The most frequent complications were associated with post-operative antibiotic administration and least complications were associated with pre-operative antibiotic administration (p=0.000). Post-operative administration of antibiotic was associated with more pain (r=0.186, p=0.001), swelling (r=0.181, p=0.001), trismus (r=0.277, p=0.000), and dry socket (r=0.335, p=0.000).

Conclusions: Following surgical extraction of third molars, preoperative antibiotic administration is more effective in reducing the post-surgical complications than pre-operative antibiotic administration which in turn is more effective than post-operative antibiotic administration


Second-grade, low-achieving students experienced a year of either transactional strategies instruction or highly regarded, more conventional second-grade reading instruction. By the end of the academic year, there was clear evidence of greater strategy awareness and strategy use, greater acquisition of information from material read in reading group, and superior performance on standardized reading tests by the transactional strategies instruction students. This is the clearest validation to date of educator-developed transactional strategies instruction.


Each year, lightning and overvoltage transients cause hundreds of millions of dollars of damage in different industries. Rail systems and infrastructure are no exception. They are very prone to lightning discharges and electrical damage due to the presence of many interconnected systems exposed to the environment and because of their wide geographical distribution. The main goal of this paper is the articulation of a comprehensive lchecklist approachr to managing and reducing the risk of damage and losses in the rail industry due to lightning discharges. This approach commences with an effective means to capture and conduct the lightning energy into the earth, and then continues with clamping and diverting transients that are induced into electrical systems or which arrive at the site from external sources. Since the physical separation and network of interconnecting cables makes the various signal, communication and power systems prime targets for damage from earth potential rise and potential differences arising from lightning strikes attaching to a structure or point on the ground, a specific focus of the paper is on effective earthing practices for lightning transients.


The Catholic Roots of the Protestant Gospel is concerned with anti-Catholic bias in Protestantism. It wishes to show that the special concepts of salvation in Protestantism actually arose from Catholic ideas and that these same concepts became distorted or one-sided as Protestantism sought to negate their orthodox Catholic opponents. Among the doctrines discussed are included the following: justification by faith, assurance of salvation, imputation of righteousness, covenant theology, penal substitution, limited atonement, and supralapsarianism. The work is filled with historical analysis, theological insights, and ecumenical exhortations. The historian will find a thorough analysis of primary and secondary sources of the Reformation. The theologian will be challenged with fresh approaches to traditional doctrines. The ecumenist will be heartened by its spirit and analysis of subjects that suffer too often from anti-Catholic bias.


Can a museum save the suburbs? When the poor neighbourhoods of the French banlieues, peopled by immigrants and their children (French-born, French citizens), erupted in riots in November 2005, the planners of the Cite nationale de l'histoire de l'immigration (CNHI), could well ask the question. If one of the purposes of the projected national museum of immigration history is to solidify the social contract, or, as the Minister of Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres said recently, to play 'un role de tout premier plan... pour maintenir et faire vivre le pacte qui unit nos concitoyens entre eux', this may be a tall order.1 Besides the political agenda behind the project, to which I will return, the pertinent question for historians seems to be why now? After two centuries of immigration to France, three decades of historiography on the subject and twenty years of museum projects, at a time when the impoverished suburbs have erupted, when the sans-papiers (undocumented immigrants) continue to make headline news and when debates over history and memory and France's colonial past have surged, why have the French decided to commemorate their immigrant ancestors now? More generally, why do questions of memory arise at certain moments and not at others? History, historiography, and memory are not identical; each has its own timeline. But they are not entirely disconnected. Ellis Island has at times been invoked in France as a museum to emulate. A very early French 'mission' of historians went there to investigate.2 I would like to take up the Franco-American comparison here, both with regard to history and especially to its representation through museums. The French frequently compare their country to the United States, often lamenting a French lag with regard to things American. In a rhetoric of comparison from Tocqueville to the present, 'America' has been called upon as an example to follow or to avoid at all costs. American immigration history more generally has been pointed to as proof that the history of immigration can and should be part of France's history, as in the United States. I have argued elsewhere that the French invocation of American immigration history has frequently 'flattened' the latter, assuming erro neously that immigration has been a constant of American history, historiography and memory, and remaining impervious to the great


This research is a quantitative descriptive, which is to analyze the factors that cause delinquency in class VIII SMP Negeri 2 Limboto, Gorontalo Regency. Members of the population in this study were class VIII students, totaling 175 students. The sampling technique was random sampling so that it got 44 people (25%) students. The data collection technique is a questionnaire instrument. Based on the results of research and discussion that what has been described regarding the factors that cause juvenile delinquency in class VIII SMP Negeri 2 Limboto, Gorontalo Regency, the percentage results data are obtained, namely indicators (1) factors in children show an average percentage value of 58%, indicators (2) factors in the household show an average percentage value of 56%, indicator (3) factors in the community show an average percentage value of 61%, and indicator (4) factors originating from schools show an average percentage value of 60%.


Study Objective: To evaluate the relationship between acute response to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) and long‐term clinical outcome in patients with drug refractory heart failure.


The present study was conducted to assess the response of drip method of irrigation (DMI) over flood method of irrigation (FMI) on productivity of Bt. cotton in Sirsa district of Haryana in year 2013. Forty farmers were selected on random basis from villages namely Jodhpuria, Kharia, Panniwala mota and Gigorani. The study revealed that DMI system not only reduces cost of cultivation (25 %) but also increases the productivity (27.2 %) over FMI of cotton crop. Water and electricity saving are the significant advantages of DMI farmer were able to save 2.95 H.P hours of water per hectare, which was about 33 percent saving over FMI. The major constraints faced by the producers in the production of Bt. cotton were non-availability of good quality seeds in time, lack of technical know-how, high fixed capital and imbalanced use of fertilizers. In marketing of cotton the major problem reported was under-pricing of produce, lack of storage facilities, high transportation cost and lack of credit facilities. Some of factors which inhibiting the adoption rate of micro irrigation system are subsidy is not easily available for farmers, labour-intensive operation, free electricity and low price of canal water, low quality drip material and after sale service is not satisfactory, fear about system clogging, least suitability for marginal and small farmers were observed. Therefore, it is need of hours that cotton cultivation by DMI should be promoted through appropriate policy interventions that not only helps in saving scare natural resources but also increase area and productivity of the cotton in the state.


Biological control is an eco-friendly approach for the management of crop diseases. Trichoderma isolate ( Th azad), isolated from field soil is a new potential local isolate identified as Trichoderma harzianum. Trichoderma isolate ( Th Azad) was tested against lentil wilt pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lentis (Fol) for it's abiotic stress tolerance and its antagonistic potential both in vitro and in vivo conditions. Th. Azad effectively inhibited the growth of Fol (69.23%) under i n vitro and field conditions against the seven seed quality attributes viz . germination, shoot length, root length, seedling length, seedling dry weight, vigour index I and vigour index II. Treatment ( Th Azad+Vitavax) was found to be significantly superior and effective as it has increased germination of lentil by 8.26% over control. Trichoderma isolate ( Th Azad) was identified by morphological and molecular characterization using 18S rRNA gene sequence with the help of a universal Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) marker that gives an amplicon of a total of 1173 base pairs that is later sequenced and allotted with Gene Bank Accession no. JX119211. So, Th Azad is a potential abiotic stress tolerant isolate and can be used for effective management of wilt disease with quality yield of lentil crop when applied as seed dresser at a concentration of 5 g kg -1 under field conditions.


Four writers in an Eastern European country work under the constant threat of listening devices, and American workers experience the Depression.


A voltage converter apparatus (1) for receiving an input signal (Si1), which has a high input voltage (Vi_high) and a low input voltage (Vi_low), and converting the voltage level of the input signal (Si1) to output the resultant signal as an output signal (So1), comprising a first input part (In1) for receiving the input signal (Si1); a first output part (Out1) for outputting the first output signal (So1); and voltage converting means having a TFT (2) for performing switching between at least two states including a connection state in which the first input part (In1) is connected to a first node (N1) and a disconnection state in which the first input part (In1) is disconnected from the first node (N1); wherein the voltage converting means has first voltage dropping means for dropping the voltage at the first node (N1) prior to a change from the state in which the first input part (In1) is disconnected from the first node (N1) to the state in which the first input part (In1) is connected to the first node (N1).


The Reluctant Move Toward Abolition By the last decades of the nineteenth century, the African social order was more firmly rooted in slavery than ever before. This meant that Africa and Europe were on a collision course in which slavery was a major issue, even if Europeans did not always recognize it as such. The imperialist momentum thrust a new social and political system on Africa, in which there was no room for slavery. Even though the pressure for change came from without, African societies were far from passive participants. The internal dynamics of the political economy were closely associated with the transformation of slavery into a productive system, sometimes connected with the external market and sometimes part of regional developments. The transformation was far from uniform. In large parts of Bantu Africa, slavery was linked to the regeneration of social and political institutions, as before. But along the East African coast, in the northern savanna, and on parts of the West African coast, slavery had become essential to the organization of production, no matter what social and political roles were also satisfied through slave use. The greater use of slaves, involving a transformation in the means of production, demonstrates an adjustment to the world economy of the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, alternatives to slavery were not seriously considered until late in the century, and then primarily as a result of European pressures on the African political economy. The long history of slavery had established the flexibility of the institution in controlling people, organizing production, arranging marriages, and bypassing custom. As long as slaves were readily available, they could be used in every conceivable capacity. Only when the source of slaves and the means of distributing them within Africa were undermined did slavery cease to be a viable institution. From the middle of the nineteenth century, the European colonial role was to whittle away at the means of enslavement and distribution. Despite a mythology of abolition, this role was not readily accepted. If there was a passive agent in the history of slavery during the nineteenth century, it was Europe, not Africa. Africa struggled to reform slavery in a changing context. The various European colonial powers did their best to avoid or circumscribe the commitment to abolition, reluctantly pursuing the fight whenever compromise proved impossible. Abolition was eventually achieved not so much because of the desire to end slavery but because the modern industrial system and a slave-based social formation were incompatible. In Marxist terms, the clash was based on the contradictions between different modes of production. The demise of slavery was inevitable in the context of absorption into a capitalist world economy.


Spiny mice of the genus Acomys traditionally have been classified as members of the Murinae, a subfamily of rodents that also includes rats and mice with which spiny mice share a complex set of morphological characters, including a unique molar pattern. The origin and evolution of this molar pattern, documented by many fossils from Southern Asia, support the hypothesis of the monophyly of Acomys and ail other Murinae. This view has been challenged by immunological studies that have suggested that Acomys is as distantly related to mice (Mus) as are other subfamilies (e.g., hamsters: Cricetinae) of the muroid rodents. We present molecular evidence derived from DNADNA hybridization data that indicate that the spiny mouse Acomys and two African genera of Murinae, Uranomys and Lophuromys, constitute a monophyletic clade, a view that was recently suggested on the basis of dental characters. However, ourDNADNA hybridization data also indicate that the spiny mice (Acomys) are more closely related to gerbils (Gerbillinae) than to the true mice and rats (Murinae) with which they have been classified. Because Acomys and the brush-furred mice Uranomys and Lophuromys share no derived morphological characters with the Gerbillinae, their murine morphology must have evolved by convergence, including the molar pattern previously considered to support the monophyly of the Murinae. The genus Acomys includes at least eight species of small murid rodents, called spiny mice, that have been placed in the Murinae, which includes mice (Mus), rats (Rattus), field mice (Apodemus), etc. (1, 2). The relationships ofAcomys, which was considered to be a close relative of Mus sensu lato, the true mice (3-5), have been challenged by immunological data published by Sarich (6) who suggested that quantitative precipitin assays involving Acomys, Mus, Rattus, Praomys, and other murid rodents related to the Murinae showed that Acomys is as distantly related to Mus as are some other subfamilies of the Muridae. This conflict between biochemical and morphological evidence was cited by Wilson et al. (7) as evidence that the traditional classification of rodents is incorrect. The spiny mouse Acomys was placed in the Murinae because it shares a unique and complex tooth pattern with the Murinae (1, 5, 8). Jacobs et al. (9) defined the Murinae by the presence of two additional lingual cusps on the first upper molar (Ml/), a derived character also found in Acomys. However, the spiny mice were also characterized by the structure of their third upper molar (M3/), (10) and this morphological pattern, also found in two other African genera of murids, is not present in most fossil and living murines (11). The fossil record pertaining to the origin and evolution of the spiny mouse does not help, because the oldest Acomys, from the Lower Pliocene (dated at 4.5 to 6.0 million years B.P.) ofLangebaanweeg, South Africa, look like recent taxa; hence, they yield no clues to the affinities of this genus (12). In response to the challenge of the immunological data (6, 7), two phylogenetic studies based on cladistic analyses of morphological characters suggested that Acomys was either a murine (13) or an early offshoot ofthe murine radiation (14). A taxonomic survey of murid rodents by isozyme electrophoresis (15) indicated thatAcomys was more closely related to the Murinae than to the other subfamilies tested, but nevertheless emphasized its isolated position within the Murinae. Similarly, chromosomal studies by G-banding (16) did not exclude Acomys from the Murinae but suggested that the spiny mouse, as well as other murine genera such as Uranomys, Mus, or Rattus, were derived from the ancestral murid karyotype. To resolve this contradiction between molecules and morphology, we have used liquid-phase DNADNA hybridization of the nonrepeated fraction of the genome. This method, which has been critically examined for its use in evolutionary systematics (17-19), produced evidence that Acomys and its two sister genera, Uranomys and Lophuromys, form a monophyletic group that is not allied to the Murinae but clusters with the gerbils (subfamily Gerbillinae). These data, confirming and expanding the hypothesis of Sarich (6), support the dental morphology that has united Acomys, Lophuromys, and Uranomys (11).


ion and regularity characterize the unique map of Palestine located in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, 52 which is also included in a codex of the long version. (Figure 3) The map with the boxes appears uniform and undifferentiated. This regularity is apparently intentional. The red-framed text entries in black are, at least for the most part, distributed uniformly across the surface; there are a total of 406. Only a few patches were left empty. The amount of text in the fields varies from one word to multi-line sentences. All fields should be identifiable by name and have a concrete meaning. The "imprisoned" texts became pictorial elements, which were subject to the primacy, so to speak, of regular distribution. The temporal dimensions, which were dominated by a higher-ranking principle of order, were thus equalized. The well of Rachel and the crusader fortresses are placed next to each other on the same level, as are the grave of Cain and the Mountain of the Leopards. This Holy Land presents the picture of a predominately systematically arranged square ruptured by a few borders, mountain ranges and roads. Even Jerusalem and Acre obey this regularity and dare not obtrude. However, this uniformity can be deceiving. The legends contain toponyms of the most different origins, including terms from the Bible, classical antiquity, contemporary times, and words in Arabic. Similar to the account, they discuss biblical foundations, secular control, and religious differences; they specify the bastions and crusaders, as well as the intercultural 51 Kaeppeli, Scriptores, 258 still listed it in 1970, when he wrote the book. 52 Florence, BML, Plut. 76.56, fol. 97 v -98 r . Cf. Röhricht, "Marino Sanudo," (as note 30) 93-105 and plate 7 with the typographical rendering but without the coastline or other geographical details; Gautier Dalché, "Cartes de terre sainte," 607f. Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture, Vol. 4, Iss. 1 [2013] https://digital.kenyon.edu/perejournal/vol4/iss1/2 25 competitors there. Signs of biblical significance are mixed with those of secular control. Therefore, it is not always easy to understand the meanings and their multiple layers, and, at times, the meanings of the entries can be found only after reading the account. In order to interpret it in greater depth, it will be necessary to transcribe and examine more closely the long version, transmitted in the same codex, which is difficult to read. Therefore, the following specifies only a few examples of the interplay between account and map. To achieve this, attention is placed on contemporary references and individualized statements, which more likely deviate from other accounts than the biblical motives, which, in a more or less unified form, were received in this map like everywhere else. Figure 4 a-b Map of Palestine according to Burchard of Mount Sion: Florence, BML, Plut. 76.56, fol. 97v, section. Photo: Florence, BML A section of the territory around Tripoli (Figures 4a-b) provides us with insight and references to once contemporary events. First we see the mighty Margat (merrgad, 2; mons, 3), one of the most important crusader fortresses in Syria. 53 The Hospitallers, as the long version reports, expanded the castle from which they ruled the area into their main settlement, not far from the sea on the mountain above the city of Valenia/Bâniyâs (ualania, 4). In the 53 Burchard, "Descriptio," ed. Laurent 30f. on the location in a distance of seven leagues from Antaradus; Pilgrimage, ed. Pringle 252-253. Cf. Röhricht, "Marino Sanudo," 105 and plate 7: Merigard and Mons. Baumgärtner Published by Digital Kenyon: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Exchange, 2013 26 end, they even allowed the seat of the bishop to be moved there from the less-protected town, due to the invasions of the Saracens, until they also lost the fortification to the Muslims in 1285. Not far from there one finds the famous crusaders' territory of Nephin (nephyn, 5) and its impressive castle, whose location by the sea and fortress are described by Burchard, in addition to its excellent wine and the fact that it belonged to the Principality of Antioch. 54 The long version mentions that Tripoli (Tripolis, to the left of 5), which is surrounded by the sea, has a large population of Nestorians, Greek and Latin Christians. The long version also describes the economic prosperity of the region. 55 Finally, the presence of the crusaders is set abreast the round and tall Mountain of the Leopards (Mons eleopar/dorum, 1). It marks the place where the Muslims would visit the tomb of the prophet Joshua, which Burchard believed to be the tomb of Canaan, a grandson of Noah, while Joshua would be buried in Timnath-heres near Mount Ephraim. 56 The framed short entries on the map can be understood only in combination with Burchard's longer description of the Holy Land, which defines the location of the places with precise distance data and specifies the operational framework. On the cartographic representation, we are unable to account for the activities of regional rulers, pilgrims, or crusaders. Dynamic motifs, such as the approaching crusader ships depicted on the map of Matthew Paris, are missing completely. 57 This region is subject to other principles of construction: it is not to be measured; indeed, it is immeasurable. The simple text and image 54 Burchard, "Descriptio," ed. Laurent 27-28; Pilgrimage, ed. Pringle 250. Cf. Röhricht, "Marino Sanudo," plate 7: Nephyn. 55 Burchard, "Descriptio," ed. Laurent 28; Pilgrimage, ed. Pringle 250. Cf. Röhricht, "Marino Sanudo," plate 7: Tripolis. 56 Röhricht, "Marino Sanudo," plate 7: Mons leopardorum. Burchard, "Descriptio," ed. Laurent 28; cf. Pilgrimage, ed. Pringle 250-251. Jacob of Verona adopted this passage including this doubt circa 1335; cf. Liber peregrinationis fratris Jacobi de Verona, ed. Ugo Monneret de Villard (Rom: La Libreria dello Stato, 1950), c. 14. 57 London, BL, Royal Ms. 14 C VII fol. 4 b -5 a ; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Ms. 16, fol. III v and IV r ; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Ms. 26, fol. III v -IV r . Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture, Vol. 4, Iss. 1 [2013] https://digital.kenyon.edu/perejournal/vol4/iss1/2 27 structure unite salvific history with localities of war; religious differences and Christian dominance are placed on the same level. One could say that text and image merge time and space. Despite this, the regular scheme is ruptured in some places. Borders that signify historical developments traverse carefully designed space. For example, the borders between the different crusader states as well as the boundaries between them and the outside world remain visible, even though they were no longer operative. (Figures 5a-b) We can see the frontier (7) between the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Principality of Antioch, which Figures 5 a-b Map of Palestine according to Burchard of Mount Sion: Florence, BML, Plut. 76.56, fol. 97v, section. Photo: Florence, BML along with the northern part of Syria had been lost since 1268. The clearly intentional borderline on the map stresses the territorial setback and conceals it at the same time by refering to crusader possessions on both sides of the double line. The text inserted above the borderline (Figure 4a-b, 6) explains the graphical symbol in language that is nearly identical to the textual account. 58 58 Cf. Röhricht, "Marino Sanudo," plate 7: Hic terminatur patriarcatus Jerosolimitanus ab Antioceno. Cf. almost literally in Burchard, "Descriptio," ed. Laurent 27: Terminatur similiter patriarchatus ierosolimitanus, et incipit patriarchatus antiochenus et comitatus tripolitanus; cf. Pilgrimage, ed. Pringle 249. Baumgärtner Published by Digital Kenyon: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Exchange, 2013 28 Figure 6a-b Map of Palestine according to Burchard of Mount Sion: Florence, BML, Plut. 76.56, fol. 97v, section. Photo: Florence, BML In most cases, a deeper understanding can be obtained only after reading that account. The Teutonic Knights built Castle Judin (Judyn, 8) in 1192. 59 (Figures 6a-b) Burchard's account not only explains its location in the mountains of Sharon (mons, 9), above the city of Acre, but also the fact that the buildings had long been destroyed. Not far from here, located at the foot of the mountain, we see Lambert cottage by the sea (casale lan/berti, 10). 60 At nearby Castle Scandalion (sandalion, 11), Burchard does not fail to highlight the fact that the castle was located on a historical site. It was rebuilt in 1116 by King Baldwin I, who intended to pass it on to his vassals, and is tellingly located at the place between Acre and Tyre where Alexander the Great is said to have built his camp, Alexandroskena, during the siege of Tyre. 61 59 Burchard, "Descriptio," ed. Laurent 34; Pilgrimage, ed. Pringle 257. Cf. Röhricht, "Marino Sanudo," plate 7: Iudyn and mons. 60 Burchard, "Descriptio," ed. Laurent 23; Pilgrimage, ed. Pringle 246 identified it as Al-Zīb, the biblical Akhziv. Cf. Röhricht, "Marino Sanudo," plate 7: Cattanberti; Hartmann, Wilhelm Tzewers 372, note 39, identified it as ez-Zib, 14 km north of Acre. 61 Burchard, "Descriptio," ed. Laurent 24; Pilgrimage, ed. Pringle 246. Cf. Hartmann, Wilhelm Tzewers, 372, Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture, Vol. 4, Iss. 1 [2013] https://digital.kenyon.edu/perejournal/vol4/iss1/2 29 What is striking is the lasting presence of impressive fortresses that once secured the coastal and mountainous borders of crusader states that had long been lost to the enemy. East of the Jordanian valley, far to the southeast, one finds al-Karak, not far from the hilltop fortress Montréal (Mons Regalis), founded in 1115, or al-Shawbak, which had already been surrendered to Saladin. Both the account and the map mention that the sultans kept their treasures there since that time. 62 The author did not try to hide his admirati


Many spectral indices have been proposed to derive plant nitrogen (N) nutrient indicators based on different algorithms. However, the relationships between selected spectral indices and the canopy N content of crops are often inconsistent. The goals of this study were to test the performance of spectral indices and partial least square regression (PLSR) and to compare their use for predicting canopy N content of winter wheat. The study was conducted in cool and wet southeastern Germany and the hot and dry North China Plain for three winter wheat growing seasons. The canopy N content of winter wheat varied from 0.54% to 5.55% in German cultivars and from 0.57% to 4.84% in Chinese cultivars across growth stages and years. The best performing spectral indices and their band combinations varied across growth stages, cultivars, sites and years. Compared with the best performing spectral indices, the average value 2 of the R for the PLSR models increased by 76.8% and 75.5% in the calibration and validation datasets, respectively. The results indicate that PLSR is a potentially useful approach to derive canopy N content of winter wheat across growth stages, cultivars, sites and years under field conditions when a broad set of canopy reflectance data are included in the calibration models. PLSR will be useful for real-time estimation of N status of winter wheat in the fields and for guiding farmers in the accurate application ategie of their N fertilisation str


The purpose of this study is to identify the effect of ethnic networks on firms' location decisions using social network theory and the homophily principle.,A traditional gravity model is used on a sample composed of high-skilled and low-skilled ethnic networks and multinational enterprises (MNEs) from Latin America, North America and the European Union.,Contrary to findings of previous studies, ethnic networks do not appear to influence location decisions of Latin American firms expanding into countries from North America and the European Union. This might be because of weak ethnic connections among the players.,Managers must be aware that ethnic networks not always can be used for the strategy of the firm, at least regarding location.,Governments and entrepreneurial and immigrant associations from home and host countries could develop initiatives addressed to strengthening the links between the members of the networks.,This study extends the social network theory in the sense that ethnic networks do not always positively affect firms' location. Moreover, it is important to consider the specific context or features of the members of a network before analyzing its effects on firms' location.


Abstract Cerebellar liponeurocytoma (LNC) is a very rare neuroepithelial tumor. About thirty eight cases have been reported, in literature till date, mostly in the form of isolated case reports due to rarity of the occurrence. Authors report interesting case in 27-year old male presented with headache and cerebellar signs. MRI imaging revealed posterior fossa mass. He underwent sub occipital ctraniectomy with gross total resection of lesion. Histopathological report of specimen was consistent with liponeurocytoma with range of MIb index less than three. He is under regular follow-up. However he was not advised any adjuvant therapy. Diagnosis of LNC requires high index of suspicion and neuroimaging with typical MRI findings may be help to confirm the diagnosis. The tumor needs to be differentiated from medulloblastoma, which is far more common and aggressive and requires post-operative chemo-radiation and carries poor prognosis Management and pertinent literature will be reviewed


Abstract : Most Americans don't realize what is at stake in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) with respect to American freedom and democracy. Just like the Cold War, the stakes in the Long War are high. It is imperative that the United States present a unified front to deal with GWOT issues. Its citizens are the backbone of this country. Leaders have a duty to make sure a solid foundation is laid for future generations of Americans by teaching citizens their roles and responsibilities in providing for the nation's defense. Building strong citizens by teaching them civic responsibility could be the greatest accomplishment of this generation. It is readily apparent that the GWOT is taking a toll on our military forces. The need to supplement our homeland security forces is real. Universal national service will provide the means for more citizens to shoulder their responsibilities on the home front as citizen soldiers. We must act now for the common good and a stronger nation.


Waste tires are widely used for geotechnical applications as backfill material that is either a substitute for natural soils or combined with them. This paper determines the shear strength parameters of tire chipsand-geotextile mixtures using a triaxial test apparatus. For this purpose, tire chip–sand mixtures with mixing ratios of 0:100, 15:85, 25:75, 35:65, and 100:0 by volume were used as fill materials. Also, for the reinforcing of these mixtures, the layer of geotextile is used. In all tests, the strain rate has been kept the same. Three confining pressures have been applied in all experiments. The influences of the tire chip content, number of geotextile layers, and confining pressure at the strain levels of 3%, 6%, 9%, 12%, 15%, and 18% on the sample were studied and described. This paper focuses on the stress-strain behavior of different mixtures. The results show that the imposed strain level on the samples plays an essential role to increase the strength of the tire chip-sand mixtures compared with sand alone. It implies that the beneficial effect of tire chip content to enhance the strength of samples appears in high strain, especially for reinforced samples with geotextile, while in low strain, tire chip does not have a beneficial effect. Hence, it is necessary to consider the strength of tire chip-sand mixtures compared with sand alone at the imposed strain level.


Barriers to treatment for depression and anxiety are prevalent among older adults and caregivers living in the community. We designed and implemented an evidence‐based psychotherapy program to reduce obstacles to care.


ABSTRACT This article provides an introduction to the contributions in this special issue of Ocean Development & International Law. It offers an overview of the dispute settlement provisions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, placing them in the context of dispute settlement in international law generally, and explaining the extent to which they have been used so far.


[La(NO{sub 3}){sub 3}(OH{sub 2}){sub 2}(phen)]{center_dot} 15-crown-5 is hexagonal, P6{sub 5}, with a = 10.955(2), c =43.769(9) {Angstrom}, and D{sub calc} = 1.668 g cm{sup {minus}3} for Z = 6. In the complex, two nitrogen atoms (from phen) and eight oxygen atoms (six from three bidentate nitrate anions and two from water molecules) are coordinated to the central La(III) ion, forming a coordination polyhedron which is approximately a bicapped square antiprism. The coordinated water molecules donate hydrogen bonds to the oxygen atoms of the crown ether, forming polymeric hydrogen bonded chains which wrap helically along the unit cell direction c.


• A new view on the root-function. • Numbers used in their particular, mathematical function – as the value of a measure in a unit. • By example, a view on that multiplications (genuine multiplication) which produce new units. • The way to understand why the square-root of a negative radicand is solvable by an operational way and why we have to define the root-function new. • Altogether the first step of a restructuring of whole the numerical mathematics – a reform of the signs