Objective. To study the dynamics of the content of sodium, potassium, chloride, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus and iron of the serum and determine the possibility of their use as prognostic criteria for the outcome of treatment of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI).Material and methods. Two groups were formed of 76 patients with TBI. Group 1 - 46 patients with a favorable outcome of treatment, group 2-30 patients with an adverse outcome. Serum electrolytes between groups were compared during the first 10 days after craniotomy at 7 stages of the study.Results. Between groups of patients differences in the content of K+ at the initial stage of the study (1-2 hours before surgery); Na+ and Cl- at stage 2 of the study (11 (6; 17) hours after surgery) and iron at 5-7 stages of the study (at the 5th, 7th and 10th day after the operation) were revealed. At all stages of the study when comparing groups of patients by the content of phosphorus, magnesium and calcium in the blood serum no significant differences were revealed.Conclusion. The best predictor of an adverse TBI outcome was serum iron on the 5th day after surgery – 2.5 (1.9; 5.2) mmol/l, AUC=0.73, Se=68.8, Sp=60%; on the 7th day after the operation - 3.7 (2.6; 4.3) mmol/l, AUC=0.73,Se=64.7%, Sp=72%; on the 10th day after the operation, 3.6 (1.9; 5.7) μmol/l, AUC=0.69, Se=73.7%, Sp=52.4%.


ASJの切断特性の改善を図るものである. 気層被覆アブレシブサスペンションジェットによる水中切断 伊東 秀人,彭 國義,清水 誠二 Submerged Cutting by Air Coated Abrasive Suspension Jets Hideto ITO, Guoyi PENG and Seiji SHIMIZU *1 Graduate School of Engineering, Nihon University Nakagawara 1, Tokusada, Tamuramachi, Koriyama, Fukushima, 963-8642 Japan A ventilated sheathed nozzle for producing abrasive suspension jets (ASJs) has been developed as a means of extending the effective standoff distance and improving the cutting capabilities under submerged conditions. In the present investigation, submerged cutting tests were conducted with aluminum specimens at a jetting pressure of 30 MPa to clarify the effects of sheath length and air flow rate on the cutting capability of ASJs. The nozzle used in the tests was a conical convergent nozzle with a focusing section. For the range of experimental conditions used, improved cutting was achieved with a shorter nozzle sheath. High-speed observations and measurements of the flow rate distribution of water jets were also carried out at a jetting pressure of 10 MPa in order to investigate the flow structure of air coated ASJs under submerged conditions. The cutting capability was found to drastically improve for small standoff distances since air coated ASJs are formed downstream of the sheath exit.


The reseach on the related structures between stock market and bond market is important to realize the information flow and risk transfer.Based on the new Copula model——the threshold mixed-copula model,the correlation characters were tested by ICSS algorithm and EM algorithm.The results show that the divergence of opinions on related structures between stock market and bond market is the lacking of state-dependent correlation test.The new copula model describes the characters of stock market and bond market such as threshold effect,asymmetry and nonlinearity.The frequent change of related structures shows low efficiency in the allocation of financial resources.


Products of the reaction of α -aminomethylphosphine with a benzothiadiazole substituent (L) and CuCl in pyridine are studied. It is established that, depending on the crystallization conditions, new solid phases [CuClL(Py) 2


A valve fluid fetching device comprises a body, a valve (5) and a closing plate (3). The body is provided with the first chamber (11),the second chamber (26) and the third chamber (41) that are spaced and are all provided with a chamber bottom. The second chamber (26) locates on the top of the first chamber (11) and is connected to the first chamber (11) through a fluid entrance. The second chamber (26) is connected to the third chamber (41) through a valve port which is higher than the chamber bottom of the third chamber (41) in the gravity direction. The valve (5) is movably mounted at the valve port and is provided with a closing position for blocking the valve port and an opening position for disengaging the valve port. The closing plate (3) covers the body. When the fluid is to be fetched, a part of the fluid in the first chamber (11) is lifted to the second chamber (26) and temporarily preserved in it by overturn. Then, said part of the fluid flows into and is discharged from the third chamber (41) by controlling the valve and overturn. While said part of the fluid is being discharged, another part of the fluid is lifted to the second chamber (26) from the first chamber (11) again. Said valve fetching device enables the fluid to be fetched continuously and quantificationally with arbitrary volume.


The categories of concreteness and specificity are important for understanding the mechanisms of information representation and processing in human brain. These two categories are quite close, but still different. A method for quantifying the degree of correlation of these categories for the English has recently been proposed. This paper deals with a similar research of the Russian. Ratings from the Concreteness/Abstractness Dictionary (RDCA) are taken as a measure of the words' concreteness. The degree of a word specificity is estimated by its location in the RuThes thesaurus. The paper represents the comparison with the English data and shows the similarity of the results for Russian and English.


Specific changes are necessary to maintain cardiac system homeostasis during exercise activity. Those responses are promoted by the action of the autonomic nervous system on the heart [1]. The usual cardiac autonomic reaction to exercise presents abrupt parasympathetic withdrawal during the beginning of exercise leading to heart rate increase and following increase in the sympathetic nervous system activity. After exercise cessation heart rate reduces due to the vagal reactivation mechanism [2]. Cardiac autonomic regulation can be evaluated through heart rate variability (HRV) is a well recognized non-invasive method. HRV evaluates the oscillations in the intervals between consecutive heart beats (RR intervals) that are associated with the influences of the autonomic nervous system on the sinus node [3]. Alterations in HRV after exercise are featured by reduced vagal tone and global variability of HRV and progressive increase in HRV [4]. GEOMETRIC AND LINEAR INDICES OF HEART RATE VARIABILITY DURING AN EXERCISE WITH FLEXIBLE POLE


Public transportation passenger flow OD matrix is the basis of collocation of urban public transportation network. This paper applies OD matrix estimation in research on distribution of public transportation passenger flow, according to vehicle OD matrix estimation. With regard to analysis of pubic transportation travel distance, we suppose that pubic transportation travel is of medium-long distance so that few people choose it in case of too long or too short travel time. Causes of this condition are analyzed. This paper brings forward a few probability coefficients and OD matrix estimation by counting on-down passengers at each stop. Examples are particularized so the method is clearly shown. The method is simple and has been successfully used in Harbin public transportation passenger flow OD matrix estimation. Passenger flow OD matrix describing distribution of public transit travel is basis of collocation of urban public transportation network. Normally inquiry sheets are delivered to passengers getting on and drew back when they get off. Everyone should fill in the sheets according to facts. That has difficulties in practice, such as convenience and passengers willingness to cooperate. So veracity of data is not secured. If passenger flow OD matrix can be estimated by numbers of on-down passengers, then the only thing to do is to count them. And then manpower and material can be greatly reduced. OD matrix estimation stars from car OD matrix estimation, which means estimating actual sub-area traffic OD matrix with actual traffic on road network. Models in common use are Maximum Entropy Model on basis of maximum entropy, Generalized Least Squares Model on basis of least squares method. Info Minimum Model on basis of info theory, Maximum Likelihood Model on basis of maximum likelihood theory, and so on. Different estimation methods have been presented on calculation, such as Capacity Limited method, NN Estimation method, Iterative Estimation method, Operation on Chart method, and so on. These methods apply for different networks and their ranges differ. There has not been special research on distribution of urban transit passengers.


The invention belongs to the technical field of gas turbine equipment and particularly relates to a reversing turbine double-channel one-belt one-movable-blade structure used for a gas turbine. The structure comprises a forwarding blade, a reversing blade and a blade shroud, the forwarding blade is connected with the reversing blade through a blade extending connection structure, the blade shroud is arranged on the top of the reversing blade, and a tenon root is arranged at the bottom of the forwarding blade. A reversing blade extending part and a forwarding blade extending part of the blade extending connection structure are in a crossed shape, and the extending parts are provided with triangular notches. The blade extending connection structure is designed to be hollowed out. An outer duct casing with a larger diameter is designed on the outer layer of an original power turbine casing again, and a reversing through-flow channel of a turbine is formed between the outer duct casing and the original power turbine casing. By means of the structure, the gas turbine has the forwarding and reversing capacity, and accordingly direct reversing of the gas turbine is achieved during operation. The structure is reasonable in design, low in manufacturing cost and capable of achieving the reversing function.


Mende syntax (and even some Krio interference) is often evident. The use of brackets is also ambiguous. There is a select bibliography (which seems to be a selection from the works referred to in the text and cited in the footnotes) and a short general index which appears to have been rather arbitrarily compiled. Anyone consulting it to see what the book might have to say on 'father', 'mother', 'sister', 'brother', 'food', 'eating', 'cooking', 'medicine', 'death', may, erroneously, conclude very little, but would discover two references to the Xhosa concept ntsomi. However these are small points in what is otherwise an original and insightful book. CHARLES JEDREJ University of Aberdeen


What do criminal laws prohibit? A series of immoral or harmful acts? Or does the law also seek to prohibit performing those acts for certain reasons, acting on certain motives, or acting on the basis of certain character traits? In short, does the law look only at the quality of the act the defendant performs? Or does it look more broadly at whether the person who performed the prohibited act was righteous or ignoble, well-meaning or malign? The traditional view says that the criminal law focuses uniquely on acts. According to that view, character and motive are irrelevant to criminal liability. They are not relevant to the actus reus, since they merely serve to identify the prohibited conduct. And they are not relevant


The problem of quadratic stabilization with an Hinfin-norm bound is studied for a class of linear discrete-time switched systems in this paper. Under the assumption that none of subsystems is quadratically stabilizable with an Hinfin -norm bound, by using single Lyapunov function method, a sufficient condition for quadratic stabilization with an Hinfin -norm bound is derived via a state-based switching law. The switching state feedback controller and switching law are also given. We show this sufficient condition is also necessary if the number of subsystems is two. Finally, a simulation example is given to illustrate the validity of the results


We obtain two parametric solutions of the diophantine equation $\phi(x_1, x_2, x_3)=\phi(y_1, y_2, y_3)$ where $\phi(x_1, x_2, x_3)$ is the octic form defined by $\phi(x_1, x_2, x_3)=x_1^8+ x_2^8 + x_3^8 - 2x_1^4x_2^4 - 2x_1^4x_3^4 - 2x_2^4x_3^4$. These parametric solutions yield infinitely many examples of two equiareal triangles whose sides are perfect squares of integers. Further, each of the two parametric solutions leads to a family of elliptic curves of rank~$5$ over $\mathbb{Q}(t)$. We study one of the two families in some detail and determine a set of five free generators for the family.


A resist protective film material for forming a protective film on a photoresist layer and a method for forming a pattern by using the resist protective film material are provided to obtain a pattern of rectangular shape more precisely and more certainly. A resist protective film material comprises a polymer compound containing at least one repeating unit selected from a carboxyl group and an alpha-trifluoromethyl alcohol group; an amine compound; optionally a polymer compound containing at least one repeating unit selected from an alkyl group and a fluoroalkyl group; and optionally a solvent. Preferably the amine compound is at least one selected from a tertiary amine compound and a sulfonic acid amide compound.


An important task in developing new materials is the study of their structure (substructure). The present study uses a number of complementary methods to determine the size, morphology, phase composition and volume fraction of dispersed precipitates in high-strength medium-carbon steel tempered in the temperature range of up to 600°C. The methods of small-angle neutron scattering, X-ray and neutron diffraction were used. Such an advantage of neutrons as the ability to use large samples, which significantly increases the maximum permissible grain size to obtain statistically reliable results and takes into account texture data, explains the use of neutron sources along with the X-ray ones. The disadvantages include a lower resolution and more complex equipment. The combined use of different techniques made it possible to determine the kinetics of structural changes in the dispersed particles during tempering of steel. The increase in tempering temperature up to 300°C results in a decrease in the amount of retained austenite. At the tempering temperature of 300°C, the growth of Fe3C particles instead of retained austenite starts and continues up to 600°C up to which the studies were done. The phases of retained austenite and cementite were identified by means of neutron diffraction, while changes in sizes were determined by means of small-angle neutron scattering. The results obtained do not contradict the previous transmission electron microscopy data. A comprehensive study by means of diffraction and scattering methods of X-rays and neutrons allows one to obtain exhaustive information about disperse particles in steels.


To provide an optimized multiple view elements GUI in a view element size to maximize the most of the data found in. A view element adjuster (VEA) includes a web-page rewrite program and view element optimization program. Rewriting the program monitors the web page having a plurality of view elements, user configured preference sets, which dynamically retrieved for each of a plurality of priorities, and a plurality of portlets for each of the plurality of view element in accordance with the data, to change one or more sizes of the plurality of view elements. The VEA, window preference program, portlet preference program, and also has a portlet priority program. .FIELD 4


Replication has been widely adopted to build highly scalable services, but this goal is often compromised by the coordination required to ensure application-specific properties such as state convergence and invariant preservation. In this paper, we propose a principled mechanism to minimize coordination in replicated systems via the following components: a) a notion of restriction over pairs of operations, which captures the fact that the two operations must be ordered w.r.t. each other in any partial order; b) a generic consistency model which, given a set of restrictions, requires those restrictions to be met in all admissible partial orders; c) principles for identifying a minimal set of restrictions to ensure the above properties; and d) a coordination service that dynamically maps restrictions to the most efficient coordination protocols. Our preliminary experience with example applications shows that we are able to determine a minimal coordination strategy.


– On the Caribbean Slope of Costa Rica, obligate army-ant-following birds find army-ant swarms before other birds. In particular, Ocellated Antbirds (Phaenostictus mcleannani) arrived to swarms before other obligate ant-following species. In a systematic experiment with recorded vocalizations, the calls of Ocellated and Bicolored (Gymnopithys leucaspis) antbirds attracted other ant-following birds. These data indicate that some ant-following birds track the calls of obligate ant-following species to help finding army ants. Accepted 20 October 2002.


The full length cDNA of TOR(Target of Rapamycin) gene from the muscle of Fenneropenaeus chinensis was cloned for the first time.The cDNA was 7638 bp,containing the 7389 bp open reading frame,which encoded 2462 amino acids.The deduced TOR amino acid sequences of F.chinensis was compared with other known se-quences and domains.The results confirmed their homology.Real-time PCR was used to detect the tissue-specific expression of TOR in F.chinensis and response of TOR mRNA in muscle at 3,6,12,24h to injection of leucine or arginine.The results showed that TOR mRNA was 3~4 times that of the control 24 hours after the injection of leu-cine or arginine,indicating amino acids had a regulatory role in the expression of TOR.


Fruit beverages processed using ultrasound technology: physical properties, stability and enzyme inactivation This work studied the improvement of stability, physical properties and enzymatic inactivation in fruit beverages by applying the ultrasound technology (US). In the first part, the effect of the US application on peach juice processing was evaluated. The macroscopic changes on pulp sedimentation stability, turbidity, colour and rheological properties were evaluated. As a result, it was demonstrated that the improvement in each of the properties evidenced at the macroscopic level involves interaction of complex mechanisms which depend directly on changes at the microscopic level, such as the structure, size, composition and interaction between the continuous phase (serum) and dispersed phase (pulp) of the juice. These changes were assessed by microscopy and particle size distribution. In the second and third parts, the inactivation of the enzyme peroxidase (POD) was evaluated in coconut water. In the second part, the effect of the application of US was evaluated for first time for coconut water POD, using two types of ultrasonic equipment (US baht and US probe). It was demonstrated that the changes of enzyme activity during the US process depend on the many forms that the enzyme can adopt, mainly depending on the energy applied to the system. Subsequently, in the third part, the US was applied as a pretreatment of subsequent thermal processing. The evaluation was carried out under non isothermal conditions, being the POD inactivation kinetics modelled using the Weibull distribution function. Finally, it was observed that the pre-treatment using ultrasound slightly decreased the enzyme activity. Furthermore, the ultrasound effects resulted in a more homogeneous population and heat-sensitive enzymes, significantly reducing the needed time of thermal processing. In conclusion, this work studied and demonstrated that the ultrasound technology is an interesting alternative to improve the physical properties and enzymatic stability in fruit beverages, reflecting the importance from both the academic and industrial point of view.


Objective To examine the changes of tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α) and circulating intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (cICAM-1 ) in patients with multiple sclerosis(MS) and the correlation with blood-brain barrier(BBB) .Methods Levels of cICAM-1 and TNF-α from 31 patients with clinically definite MS were detected by ELISA, and BBB function was evaluated by CSF/serum ratio and the paired CSF and serum samples. Results ①There were 8 mild abnormal(25. 8%) and 23 normal of Alb ratio in 31 MS patients. Twenty one patients (68% ) out of 31 were abnormal of IgG-Index( 0. 7). ②In 31 MS patients, higher TNF-αlevels were determinated in serum and CSF, compared to control group(P 0.05 and P 0.01 respectively) .The level of cICAM-1 in CSF of MS patients was also elevated(P 0.01). ③TNF-α level of CSF in active MS patients was higher than that in patients with stable MS.④The level of cICAM-1 in CSF of MS patients with mildly damaged BBB was higher than that in patients with normal BBB and associated with the level of TNF-α in CSF which showed a moderate correlation(r = 0.478). Conclusion The high levels of cICAM-1 and TNF-α may play an important role in intrathecal inflammatory pathogenesis in MS and cICAM-1 might be marker of activity in MS.


The use of corticosteroids in the treatment of severe infectious diseases is still a controversial matter. In the case of bacterial infections thorough investigations have been carried out, and the initial enthusiasm has been replaced by a more sceptical attitude. The urgent need for a controlled investigation was met by the Cooperative Study Group (1963), and the results of this study have probably contributed more than anything else to the change of opinion. The results in viral infections are even more difficult to evaluate. Because of this, and also because of lack of effective antiviral treatment, corticosteroids are still in common use in many severe viral infections. They are used especially in the treatment of meningoencephalitis and other, more obscure, diseases of the nervous system (Foster, 1962). Theoretically there are indications both for and against the use of corticosteroids. They can enhance a viral infection in animals. On the other hand, they can inhibit the development of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis, a condition thought to have some features in common with the para-infectious or postinfectious meningoencephalitis in humans. Publications on the clinical investigations of these drugs in meningoencephalitis are deficient in many ways. The literature is full of reports of favourable but uncontrolled observations in seemingly hopeless cases. These reports may in fact describe nothing more than the natural history of the disease. For obvious reasons the unsuccessful cases are not recorded; and since the individual physician sees only a few cases of meningoencephalitis it is difficult for him to reach any conclusion about the value of corticosteroid treatment. Unfortunately there has been no double-blind study similar to that mentioned above for bacterial infections. A few investigators have tried to compare a group of corticoid-treated patients with a control group of untreated patients. Karelitz and Eisenberg (1961) studied 42 patients with measles encephalitis, 20 of whom were given A.C.T.H. and corticosteroids in varying doses. These authors raised serious doubts about the advisability of using these drugs in the management of measles encephalitis. Ziegra (1961) undertook a controlled study on 32 patients with measles encephalitis, half of them being treated with A.C.T.H., hydrocortisone, and cortisone in the dosage and regimen reported so favourably by Allen (1957). There was no apparent benefit related to corticosteroid therapy. The present report is a retrospective study on 346 cases of meningoencephalitis, 106 of whom were comatose during the acute stage of the illness.


Polyimide(PI) fibers were prepared by dry-spinning technology,and thermal stability was investigated by thermalgravimetric analysis(TGA).TGA results show that PI fiber derived from PMDA-ODA possess a good the r mal stability with a degradation temperature of 500 ℃,comparing to commercial P84 fiber.The apparent activation energy of thermal oxidative degradation of PI and P84 fiber in air was calculated and compared by Kissinger method and Flynn-Wall-Ozawa method.


This study investigated the prospective association between moral disengagement and bystander behaviors in bullying situations, including both defending and passive bystanding. A diverse sample of Canadian school children (N = 130; 68 boys and 62 girls; mean age = 11.36 years) participated in a three-wave longitudinal study over a 4-month period. Computer-based questionnaires were used to assess passive bystanding and defending by using both self-report and peer-report measures, as well as moral disengagement using self-report. Structural equation modeling was conducted to test longitudinal associations between moral disengagement and the bystander behaviors, resulting in an overall pattern that was consistent with sociocognitive theory of moral agency. Findings also revealed important sex differences and methodological issues, particularly with regard to the use of peer-nomination tools versus self-report tools.


Heavy water is moderator material of the heavy water reactor,the concentration affects the nuclear property of the reactor,which could be measured after the reactor closed.To change the situation,standard samples of different concentration of heavy water were measured on the density,a working curve of the density and concentrations of heavy water was established,and the program of heavy water on-line monitoring was designed,then the heavy water concentration could be measured when the reactor running.


Attention! This is a special internet edition of the article " Endangered Caucasian Languages in Georgia " by Jost Gippert (2005). It should not be quoted as such. For quotations, please refer to the original edition printed in " Lessons from Documented Endangered Languages " , ed.


Despite the new advances in planetary science and the new detailed imagery and maps, results in astrogeology communicated by maps rarely reach the general public and especially children. Also, planetary maps are more likely to be produced by astrogeologists for other professionals than cartographers for the general public. The authors developed planetary cartographic websites for outreach purposes. These sites use a playful approach to the theme, as the main target groups are children and teenagers. We present three recently developed planetary cartographic tools that target youth audiences. At http://childrensmaps.wordpress.com, newly produced, specialized planetary virtual globes are now available for the youths in 11 languages. The globes are based on the planetary map series for children developed in the co-production of graphic artists and members of the ICA Commission on Planetary Cartography. At http://terkeptar.elte.hu/em/?lang=en, "Blind Mouse on the Moon and Mars" helps disseminating topographic knowledge of the two best known Solar System bodies. The task is to find the place of features on a virtual globe based on their description. This tool can be used by educators as extracurricular activity. The game, originally developed using the recently deprecated Google Earth API, is currently being refactored to use the Cesium API. At http://mercator.elte.hu/~saman/countrymovers/, "Country Movers" is a tool to visualize size differences of planets and relative sizes on their surfaces. The outline of a chosen country or US state can be placed and moved on the surface of another planet, keeping its original size. This comparison can be done either on the surface of a rotatable globe model or on a 2D map in Web Mercator projection. This latter can also be also used to illustrate the area distortions of the map projection.


This paper investigates the many causes of delays in the pre-construction phase of State Sector Building Projects. The investigation was done through a questionnaire based survey that involved Clients, Consultants and Contractors to evaluate the causes of delays. The technique of Relative Importance Index was adopted to rank the causes of delays in a descending order. Based on this evaluation the causes of delays were identified and ranked, and two remedial measures were developed. Firstly, a process diagram for the pre-construction phase was designed in order to establish the systematic process and to represent useful inputs and outputs at various stages of the process. Secondly, a checklist was formulated in an effort to ensure that important actions are taken at the correct stages to minimise the opportunity for delays. Also, the study proposes suitable additions/ amendments to the 'Form of Agreement', an ICTAD publication, and recommends to make the use of these remedial measures mandatory.


Abstract Design of metal‐selective hydrogels is attractive due to potential applications in materials and biological sciences. Although much progress has been made, assembly of both l‐ and d‐amino acid derivatives was less explored for design of metallohydrogels. In this study, we synthesized a facile and small tryptophan derivative containing an imidazole ligand with both l‐ and d‐ configurations (denoted as l/d‐ImW). Intriguingly, the assembly of (l+d)‐ImW gelators was found to selectively form a Ni2+‐hydrogel in aqueous medium at room temperature, which shows a rare purple color and exhibits excellent multi‐responsiveness. In addition to insights into the gelation mechanism, this study provides a novel approach to the design of metallohydrogels, by the assembly of (l+d)‐amino acid derivatives containing both aromatic rings and multiple metal coordination sites.


A significant decrease of the cavitation threshold in aqueous suspensions of porous silicon nanoparticles (PSi NPs) with sizes about 100 nm as compared with pure water was observed for ultrasound irradiation (USI) with therapeutic frequency (0.88 MHz) and intensities (about 1 W/cm2). This effect is explained by porous morphology of PSi NPs, which promotes the nucleation of cavitation bubbles. In vitro experiments revealed a suppression of the proliferation of cancer cells with the introduced PSi NPs after exposure to USI related to the enhanced cavitation processes, which led to the cell destruction. The obtained results demonstrate that PSi NPs are prospective for applications as sonosensitizers in mild cancer therapy.


A software program that can be considered as a tool for the fault diagnosis of analog linear circuit is presented. The proposed program implements a numerically efficient approach to identify complex ambiguity groups in the case of circuit of great size and low testability. This approach is based on an efficient QR factorization technique applied to the testability matrix. An amplifier circuit is shown as example of application of the software program.


This Analysis/Model Report (AMR) documents the development of an expected-case model for unsaturated zone (UZ) flow and transport that will be described in terms of the representativeness of models of the natural system. The expected-case model will provide an evaluation of the effectiveness of the natural barriers, assess the impact of conservatism in the Total System Performance Assessment (TSPA), and support the development of further models and analyses for public confidence building. The present models used in ''Total System Performance Assessment for the Site Recommendation'' (Civilian Radioactive Waste Management System Management and Operating Contractor (CRWMS M&O) 2000 [1532461]) underestimate the natural-barrier performance because of conservative assumptions and parameters and do not adequately address uncertainty and alternative models. The development of an expected case model for the UZ natural barrier addresses issues regarding flow-pattern analysis and modeling that had previously been treated conservatively. This is in line with the Repository Safety Strategy (RSS) philosophy of treating conservatively those aspects of the UZ flow and transport system that are not important for achieving regulatory dose (CRWMS M&O 2000 [153246], Section 1.1.1). The development of an expected case model for the UZ also provides defense-in-depth in areas requiring further analysis of uncertainty and alternative models. In general, the value of the conservative case is to provide a more easily defensible TSPA for behavior of UZ flow and transport processes at Yucca Mountain. This AMR has been prepared in accordance with the ''Technical Work Plan for Unsaturated Zone (UZ) Flow and Transport Process Model Report'' (Bechtel SAIC Company (BSC) 2001 [155051], Section 1.3 - Work Package 4301213UMG). The work scope is to examine the data and current models of flow and transport in the Yucca Mountain UZ to identify models and analyses where conservatism may be reduced and uncertainty may be better characterized either through new analyses or development of new, alternative, models. This AMR supports Site Recommendation (SR) activities by documenting analyses and models reported in ''FY01 Supplemental Science and Performance Analyses, Volume 1: Scientific Bases and Analyses'' (BSC 2001 [155950]). However, except for the model results reported in Section 6.4.2, this AMR does not support TSPA as documented in either ''FY01 Supplemental Science and Performance Analyses, Volume 2: Performance Analyses'' (BSC 2001 [1546591]) or ''Total System Performance Assessment for the Site Recommendation'' (CRWMS M&O 2000 [153246]). Furthermore, this AMR represents scoping studies to aid in determining whether work beyond the scope of the models and analyses used to support TSPA-SR (CRWMS M&O 2000 [153246]) is warranted. If the decision is made to use any of these models and analyses for TSPA for License Application, further verification and validation will be required. The model results reported in Section 6.4.2 are used for TSPA sensitivity studies as documented in ''FY01 Supplemental Science and Performance Analyses, Volume 2: Performance Analyses'' (BSC 2001 [154659], Section 126.96.36.199).


In this paper, a proactive strategy is proposed to analyze the system reliability in electric vehicles (EVs). The EVs system reliability is crucial and difficult to estimate because more electrical subsystems are employed such that the system is more complicated. Besides the component failure, we consider the uncertain dependency between components by using uncertain the logical structures of failure. The proposed method is theoretically based on the probabilistic graphical model. Therefore other tasks related to system reliability, such as fault diagnosis, can be converted to the inference problems of graphical model. Simulation examples demonstrate the effectiveness of our strategy.


The problem of representing the visual signal in the harmonic space guaranteeing a complete characterization of its 2D local structure is investigated. Specifically, the efficacy of anisotropic versus isotropic filtering is analyzed with respect to general phase-based metrics for early vision attributes. We verified that the spectral information content gathered through channeled oriented frequency bands is characterized by high compactness and flexibility, since a wide range of visual attributes emerge from different hierarchical combinations of the same channels. We observed that it is preferable to construct a multichannel, multiorientation representation, rather than using a more compact one based on an isotropic generalization of the analytic signal. Maintaining a channeled (i.e.,distributed) representation of the harmonic content results in a more complete structural analysis of the visual signal, and allows us to enable a set of "constraints" that are often essential to disambiguate the perception of the different features. The complete harmonic content is then combined in the phase-orientation space at the final stage, only, to come up with the ultimate perceptual decisions, thus avoiding an "early condensation" of basic features. The resulting algorithmic solutions reach high performance in real-world situations at an affordable computational cost.


This paper investigates the effect of inducing a pre-strain state into the (111) silicon substrate on the piezoresistive coefficients. For this purpose, a ten-element sensing rosette has been fabricated on strained and unstrained silicon substrates and fully calibrated using uniaxial, thermal, and hydrostatic loading. The strained silicon technique was integrated during the microfabrication process using a highly compressive film produced by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition silicon nitride. This layer induces a tensile strain at the front side of the substrate where the sensing elements were fabricated. The calibration results show that the tensile strained silicon has smaller longitudinal and transverse piezoresistive coefficients than those on unstrained silicon. On the other hand, the shear piezoresistive and the pressure coefficients were increased by 23% and 30%, respectively.


The goal of corpus linguistics is to study the meaning of language in its use. Language engenders relationships through use,thereby conveys meaning. Text or discourse is taken as the sole data source for corpus linguistic studies. And textual meaning exists only inside the text; in other words,language meaning can only be explained by language. In corpus linguistics,textual meaning is studied through units of meaning,which are made up of structured lexical items. A unit of meaning can be interpreted from the paraphrases of other units of meaning either in the text or in the related texts. As a newly-arising discipline,corpus linguistics will undoubtedly contribute to linguistic research and even change our attitude toward and our understanding of language,with its unique perspectives,and reliable methodology and instrumentation.


The Alpha AXP family of processors provided a dramatic increase in CPU speed. Even with slower processors, many database applications were dominated by relatively slow I/O rates. To maintain a balanced system, database software must incorporate techniques that specifically address the disparity between CPU speed and I/O performance. The DEC Rdb version 6.0 database management system contains shorter code paths, fewer I/O operations, and reduced stall times. These enhancements minimize the effect of the I/O bottleneck and allow the AXP processor to run at its intended higher speeds. Empirical performance results show a marked improvement in I/O rates.


Objective To study the influence of Okadaic acid and beta-amyloid protein on the expression of CaMKⅡ and hyperphosphorylation of tau in the brains rat.Method Injecting Aβ1-42 and Okadaic acid into the hippocampus were used to establish the similar animal model of AD.The learning and memory ability,expression of CaMKⅡ and hyperphosphorylation of tau in rats were analyzed by water-labyrinth,Western blot,and Real-time PCR.Results Injection Aβ1-42 and Okadaic acid caused a reduction of learning and memory of rats and increased of the expression of CaMKⅡ(calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase Ⅱ)and hyperphosphorylation of tau.Conclusion Aβ1-42 and Okadaic acid can influence the learning and study ability,and increase the expression of CaMKⅡand hyperphosphorylation of tau.


Tumor rejection antigen (TSTA) has been prepared in soluble form and in good yield from the tissue‐culture‐adapted SV40‐induced sarcoma, mKSA, without resorting to the usual extraction procedures of proteolysis, 3 M KCI extraction or treatment with detergents. Chromatography on a Biogel A.5m column of the high‐speed supernatant material yielded a fraction, fraction 5, that contained the most active TSTA (and T antigen). This activity was purified in relation to the tumor‐rejection activity of the cell‐bound TSTA on intact cells or on membranes; a single immunization in the 1 μg to 10 μg protein range strikingly inhibited the growth of the syngeneic neoplasm, mKSA, in tumor‐cell challenges at 5×10″ (500×TD50), The soluble TSTA was immunologically specific and extremely stable. Inhibition of growth was not achieved against Meth A, another BALB/c syngeneic sarcoma, and preparations frozen for 6 months at −20°C maintained their strong specific immunogenicity. The immune deviations of the host that have been reported following inoculations of solubilized (extracted) tumor antigens or crude extracts were not observed in this study using our soluble TSTA. We found no evidence of antigen "overloading;" i.e. an optimal protective effect in a restricted dose range of antigen or with a particular size of tumor‐cell challenge; nor did we observe facilitated tumor growth or inhibition of cell‐mediated immune responses under a variety of conditions.


Because the correlations among engineering characteristics in quality function deployment were uncertain,unclear and fuzzy,based on some related methods in rough set theory,a method of determining them was presented.Corresponding to each of the customer requirements,each of the engineering characteristics constituted a set of decision-making attributes,and all the other engineering characteristics constituted its corresponding set of conditional attributes,and then corresponding to each of the decision-making sets,the decision-making system was respectively built.Based on some related methods of relative reduction and relative core in rough set theory,the correct system corresponding to each of the decision-making system was built.Using the method integrating information entropy into the equivalence classes in rough set theory,the importance ratings of the conditional attributes in these correct systems were determined.The concept of rating factor of the correlation was introduced,and then the correlations in quality function deployment were estimated.A case study of product development of washing machines in a company was provided to illustrate the application of the presented method.


To improve the electrical characteristics of the gas sensor, the following means may be used: Conductor tracks for the electrodes, as viewed in a plan view of the body of the layer plane of the sensor, outside the cavity provided in the body, in particular disposed outside of the reference air passage. Electrode is enlarged toward the end of the exhaust gas side of the sensor. Conductor tracks are formed as or bilayers has a layer thickness which is increased.


8050 Background: Systemic chemotherapy may damage gastrointestinal epithelium. IMD and mucositis are one of the most common side effect of chemotherapy. However, there is not a tool for direct meas...


The Portraits of Friends is a series of small black-and-white photos of a middle format (6 x 7) originating after 2004. I photographed my friends from my studies in Prague as much as yearlong friends from Slovenia.

Who are friends and what is the meaning of the friendship?

Many people have only some friends in the life. Some even less than that. They have no one to rely on somebody in the bad and good time, have no one with whom they should talk about troubles or good ideas. They have no one to call when it is the highest need. They are at the mercy of life, standing alone. At the other side there are people who have many friends. Wherever they go, people know them; they enjoy being with them even if they need help. They always know with whom to talk about different themes and troubles. Their life is full of fun and good relationships.

These are two extremes - the life is something in between. Jews say - the one who has many friends is on the sure way to a catastrophe. Friendships are rare in the life, and friends often change from bad to worse. There is much more important to be able to offer a friendship than to ask for it. There is not always fun with friends and friendship as it is about the real people. Expecting too much of them lead to disappointments. Friends are just the ordinary people with their bad and good side, we only like them more than the others.


Communist Party of China is the ministerial party, so the problem of its ruling validity puts forward while many people have their own ideas towards the problem. From a special point of view about how to build a harmonious society, this article analyses the ruling validity of Communist Party of China.


We review thermodynamic 4 variables and 4 potentials, and recommend precision optics interference. Measurement techniques for the phase transitions as follows. We consider the superconductivity as a Lambda (close to the 2nd order) phase transition phenomena. Then the quantum mechanics entanglement of two branches of superconductor wires that are made of YBCO 123 high temperature superconductor can be further increased one wire toward room temperature while still kept at zero resistance Ohm's law measured by precision Optics Phase Conjugated Interferometer.


Details GHGRP rulemaking actions affecting Subpart AA of the program and provides links to relevant fact sheets, rulemaking documents, and other supporting materials.


Effects of temperature, pH value and concentration of sodium chloride on the growth parameters of Clostridium sporogenes spores under laboratory conditions were investigated. The growth curves generated within different conditions were fitted using Baranyi function. Then two growth parameters (growth rate and lag-time) of the growth curves under combined effects of temperature, pH and sodium chloride, were modeled using a quadratic polynomial equation of response surface model (RSM). Additional combined conditions were randomly selected for model validation, and mathematical testing were applied for the developed models, including the standard error of prediction (%SEP), Root-Mean-Squares Error (RMSE), Accuracy factor (Af) and Bias factor (Bf). It indicated that the effects of temperature, pH and sodium chloride on the growth of C. sporogenes spores were significant, and RSM provided a useful and accurate method of predicting the growth parameters of C.sporogenes spores, and could be useful in ensuring the safety of meat products with respect to proteoltic C. botulinum.


In the last two decades, a large body of critical work has sought to de-naturalise childhoods and decentre the normative and universalistic models of childhood produced in the Global North (see Kay, Tisdall, and Punch 2012). In a bid to highlight the complex entanglements between local childhoods and wider global processes, scholars have examined the role of postcolonial state formation, modernisation, globalisation, developmentalism, neoliberalism and technologisation (e.g. Abebe 2007; Aitken, Lund, and Kjørholt 2007; Balagopalan 2014; Benei 2008; Froerer 2017; Holloway and Valentine 2000a; Millei and Imre 2021; Tiwary et al. 2017) and their contributions to the formation of 'multiple childhoods' (Balagopalan 2011, 2018) and 'multiple modernities' (Bhambra 2014; Popkewitz, Khurshid, and Zhao 2014) in the Global South. Presenting children in the Global South as a foil to the 'western, bourgeoisie childhoods' that were accepted as the 'ideal' (Balagopalan 2002), these accounts have shown how children categorised as 'marginal', 'abnormal', 'deviant', 'outcast', in the Global South, have been produced through cultural-, class-, and gender-specific 'expert discourses' emerging within the Global North (Brown 2011; Burman 1996; 2007; McLaughlin 2017). In contrast, several newer scholarly work on childhoods have challenged the neutrality of such expert discourses and argued that 'what constitutes 'normal', 'mainstream', or 'acceptable', outside the Global North requires a 'more nuanced, ethical, methodological, and theoretical interpretation' (Benson and Wilkinson 2019, 3). What significant contribution can this present volume on 'Childhood, Modernity and Schooling in India'make? What does it additionally seek to offer to the debates on childhood and the geographies of education? In putting together this volume, our intention was two-fold. First, we draw attention to institutionalised spaces of childhood, namely schools in this volume, as a site of inquiry to show how the project of decentreing normative childhoods remains incomplete. Specifically, we unpack the knowledge-systems and institutional practices forged around the modern figure of the child and circulated through compulsory schooling and its spatio-temporal rules for participation. Though critical scholarship has challenged the normative ordering of childhoods through schooling, this literature has mostly highlighted the problems of exclusion or difference. Few studies (Holt 2004) have examined the constituent routines and frameworks of schooling through which norms for children's development and participation, produced in the Global North, have been reified. We, therefore, pay attention to the underlying cognitive structures of schooling – namely their takenfor-granted spatial and temporal rules and arrangements that segment and segregate the social world in specific ways, producing inequalities and differences. As queer theorist Judith Halberstam (2005) argues, these ways of segmenting social time and space reference 'temporal frames of bourgeois reproduction and family, longevity, risk/safety, and inheritance' and serve to impose and sustain a heteronormative, capitalist social order, thus leaving no scope for alternate spatial and temporal frameworks for the organisation of everyday life, both within and outside school. Drawing attention to the temporal and spatial configurations of a diverse set of schools in India, we show how they nevertheless provide certain universal forms of training to fit children into


In the parietal cortex of the rat, sections cut tangentially show that profiles of medium and large apical dendrites are grouped into clusters. The number of apical dendrites in each cluster is variable and the usual separation between individual clusters is about 50 μ. Despite these variations the pattern does not appear to be random. Reconstructions from one micron serial sections show that neurons giving rise to the ascending dendrites forming clusters are located at different levels in layer V. The cell bodies of these neurons are arranged vertically below their dendrites and show a tendency to form groups. All of the neurons have apical dendrites that ascend through the cortex with a few secondary branches occurring close to the base. The principal secondary branching begins in layer III and spreads obliquely up through layer I. Furthermore, beginning in the inferior region of layer III apical dendrites are added to the clusters at their peripheries. These are from layer III pyramids. It is clear that the superior aspects of the cluster arrangements must intermingle with those of the neurons in adjacent clusters. The neuropil surrounding the dendrites forming clusters appears to contain a few smaller dendrites. Small unmyelinated axons are the most frequent component of the surrounding neuropil and these form terminals which synapse on the spines and trunks of the clustered dendrites. There is no obvious function that can be ascribed to the clusters other than they may form a component of the columnar organization in cortex described in part by physiological techniques.


AIM
To investigate the protective effect of ischemic preconditioning (IPC) on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with cirrhosis undergoing hepatic resection under hepatic inflow occlusion (HIO) and its possible mechanism.

METHODS
Twenty-nine consecutive patients with resectable 0HCC were randomized into two groups: IPC group: before HIO, IPC with 5 min of ischemia and 5 min of reperfusion was given; control group: no IPC was given. Liver functions, hepatic Caspase-3 activity, and apoptotic cells were compared between these two groups.

RESULTS
On postoperative days (POD) 1, 3 and 7, the aspartate transaminase (AST) and alanine transaminase (ALT) levels in the IPC group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P<0.05). On POD 3 and 7, the total bilirubin level in the IPC group was significantly lower than that in the control group (P<0.05). On POD 1, the albumin level in the IPC group was higher than that in the control group (P = 0.053). After 1 h of reperfusion, both hepatic Caspase-3 activity and apoptotic sinusoidal endothelial cells in the IPC group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P<0.05).

CONCLUSION
IPC has a potential protective effect on HCC patients with cirrhosis. Its protective mechanism underlying the suppression of sinusoidal endothelial cell apoptosis is achieved by inhibiting Caspase-3 activity.


This study brings together two threads of research on the residential patterns of racialized minorities in urban areas of the United States. One is the analysis of levels and trends of residential segregation. The other is the inequality in resources and opportunities that is associated with segregation. Despite the Supreme Court's now -obsolete insistence on the "separate but equal" doctrine (Plessy v. Ferguson 1896), residential segregation has historically been associated with disadvantaged conditions for racialized minorities, particularly for African Americans and Hispanics. Here we ask how closely interconnected these phenomena are to one another, and specifically what the trends in residential segregation may imply for racial/ethnic inequality.


The chief attraction: The R&S®DDF255 is a highly accurate radio direction finder based on the principle of the correlative interferometer. It also offers an extensive range of powerful measurement and analysis functions. It employs a patented R&S®DDF255 digital direction finder wi RADIOMONITORING / RADIOLOCATION | Direction finders


This paper draws on the contrasting experiences of Nigeria and South Africa to explore some interesting parallels in the transition to democracy in contemporary Africa. Undoubtedly, several issues have been raised regarding the representative and multi-party democracy in Nigeria and South Africa. This is in view of the fact both countries flaunt their democratic credentials, aspire for continental leadership and possess continental dreams inspired by differing visions that are popular, participatory and inclusive. Yet, Nigeria and South Africa are two of Africa's most divided countries, and the advent of their respective democratic dispensations indicate that the democracy in place today is initiated in line with a neoliberal agenda, and has so far failed to produce the desired outcomes.


Oculo-facio-cardio-dental (OFCD) syndrome is a gene disorder characterized by congenital cataracts, facial anomalies, congenital heart disease, and a number of different dental anomalies. Here we report a case involving a young girl with OFCD syndrome showing dental anomalies in the permanent tooth exchange process from the time of primary tooth eruption. We conducted regular dental checkups for this patient for over 12 years. Her dental anomalies included delayed eruption and prolonged retention of primary teeth, delayed eruption of permanent teeth, radiculomegaly of primary and permanent teeth, supernumerary teeth, and bulky fused teeth. Roots of primary anterior teeth and cuspids were remarkably long, and root resorption was inhibited. Using extracted pulp cells from the primary tooth, which was extracted to promote eruption of permanent teeth, we evaluated osteoclast differentiation; no differentiation was observed. After extraction of the primary teeth, the succedaneous teeth began to erupt immediately; however, absorption of the primary teeth was incomplete due to OFCD syndrome, which was caused by the lack of/inhibited osteoclast differentiation at the appropriate time. Additionally, this suggests that subsequent eruption of the permanent teeth will be delayed. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a case of OFCD syndrome involving radiculomegaly of primary teeth to be described in detail.


In this paper, for discrete time status updating system with infinite size, we derive the explicit expression of average age of information (AoI) and its stationary distribution. Notice that there is no packet loss in an infinite size system, we successfully characterize the random dynamics of discrete AoI using a two-dimensional state vector, which simultaneously tracks the value of AoI and the age of packet currently under service. A two-dimensional stochastic process is constituted and we completely solve all the stationary probabilities. Then, as one of the marginal distributions the stationary distribution of AoI is obtained, with which the average AoI is also determined.


Based on the fact that E-commerce promotes the development of modern agriculture, the paper summarizes the present situation of agricultural E-commerce through related materials. Taking Suzhou city as an example, the paper analyzes the features of modern agriculture. And the modern agriculture is characterized with apparent industrialization and scale requirements, the branded and particular agriculture has more advantages, leisure agriculture is the very special one. In order to upgrade the degree of agricultural industrialization of Suzhou, promote the communication of agricultural information and sales of products and lower the risks of agricultural production, the E-commerce countermeasures of modern agriculture have been put forward. Firstly, strengthen the network construction of agricultural information. Secondly, carry out the agricultural e-commerce business by B2B model. Thirdly, construct the e-commerce platform of leisure agriculture. Fourthly, construct the e-commerce platform of modern agriculture. Fifthly, perfect the logistics distribution network of agricultural products of Suzhou. The last point is that accelerate the e-commerce training of farmers and the introduction of talents.


Pyrazole derivatives have good herbicidal activities.In this paper,herbicidal activities and characteristics of structures of several pyrazole derivatives reported the most in the nearly ten years have been discussed.All researches indicate that these compounds have wide bioactivity and prosperous prospect as herbicides for further investigation.


This paper presents a novel cross-layer forwarding scheme, called UNified unicast and multiCast LabEling (UNCLE), for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Unlike traditional unicast and multicast forwarding schemes requiring two different protocol stacks, the proposed UNCLE forwarding method requires only one single protocol stack, and thus avoid the need of distinguishing unicast frames from multicast frames. Furthermore, the header of the stateless UNCLE forwarding scheme is designed based on a simple modulo approach, resulting in much lower protocol overheads than the traditional stateless unicast Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) and the Differential Destination Multicast (DDM) schemes. In addition to low forwarding latency the proposed UNCLE is very scalable for various network sizes and the multicast group sizes without table lookup in layers 2 and 3. Therefore, the UNCLE forwarding scheme can facilitate the deployment and management for providing both unicast and multicast services significantly.


Abstract This paper is focussed on the investigation of the strengthened column by steel-fibre-reinforced (SFR) and carbon fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) on a part or a whole of the length of the column under axial force, and to obtain the effective length, which is responsible for the increasing of the ability of the column to resist buckling. Seven samples were designed as slender reinforced columns with dimensions of 2000 mm length and cross-sections of 120 mm x 60 mm. It was shown that the strengthening of the middle half of the column length by SFR gave an ultimate load similar to the strengthening of the whole column with same material. Also, it was found that the column strengthened by SFR increased its ultimate load by 42.6 %, 42.1 % and 33.3 % for strengthened lengths of dimensions L, L/2 and L/3, respectively, compared to the non-strengthened column. The increase in ultimate load that could be borne by the column strengthened by CFRP were 53.0 % and 33.8 % for strengthened lengths of L and L/2, respectively, only. Interaction diagram had been depended as a theoretical analysis for slender concrete columns. The interaction diagram for the column strengthened by CFRP is greater than for the column strengthened by SFR, which in turn is greater than the non-strengthened column.


The Study was conducted in Pavagada taluk of Tumkur district based on highest area under Groundnut and implementation of seed village scheme.Three compact areas with 50 farmers from each, 40 farmers were randomly selected making a total sample of 120. Hundred per cent of farmers perceived as more useful about compact area approach to identify the areas/villages and training at different stages of crop for three days. Great majority of farmers perceived as useful on assistance for a period of two years (90.83%), followed by identification of new compact area after two years (84.17%), and farmers can take up programme independently after two years (81.67%). Majority of farmers perceived as less useful on assistance for seed storage bin (64.17%) and supply of seeds at 50 per cent of cost for half acre/farmer (55.83%). Out of nine characteristics considered, only six exhibited positive and significant relationship with their perception about usefulness of seed village scheme. It is inferred that seeds and seed storage bin need to be supplied at free of cost and also consider the personal characteristics of the farmer for effective implementation of the scheme.


Effects of twelve flavonoids and five catechins as well as gallic acid on two kinds of glutathione-related enzymes were investigated. Glutathione 5-transferase (EC 18.104.22.168) activity was measured by S-2,4-dinitrophenyl glutathione formation from 1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene and reduced glutathione. Glutathione reductase (EC 22.214.171.124) activity was followed by NADPH dehydrogenation. Fisetin and myricetin were potent inhibitors of glutathione S-transferase, while kaempferol, quercetin, baicalein, and quercitrin were medium inhibitors. Epicatechin gallate and epigallocatechin gallate also showed medium inhibition. Kinetic analyses indicated that fisetin was a mixed type inhibitor of glutathione S-transferase with respect to both substrates, while myricetin was a competitive inhibitor of the same enzyme with both substrates. Fisetin and myricetin were noncompetive inhibitors of glutathione reductase with both NADPH and oxidized glutathione. The inhibition patterns of GT and GR as well as the results of kinetic a...


Research concerning saltwater-freshwater interfaces in coastal aquifers is becoming more frequent due to the increasing number of groundwater salinization problems in coastal areas around the world. Groundwater is, so far, the only source of drinking water in the Itaipuacu district, Marica, in State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with great social and economic importance. The resource utilization is carried out without control with little, if any, regulation on the implantation and use of groundwater, usually shallow wells. The present work aimed to study the Itaipuacu coastal aquifer functioning through a geochemical characterization, enabling the preparation of a conceptual model as support for a subsequent mathematical modeling. As a secondary objective, an attempt was made to compare the temporal data generated by other authors in previous research in Itaipuacu. The information collected in this study aided the interpretation of the salt wedge behavior, held for more than a decade (2000 - 2010 / 2012). The method- ology included a survey of available databases, selection of compatible water points (as it involved collecting groundwater samples at intervals between samples of up to ten years), field campaigns to collect samples in a net- work of wells pre-existing monitoring parameters in situ measurements and chemical analyzes in a laboratory. The parameters examined in this study included the major ions (chloride, bicarbonate, sulfate, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium) and bromide, as well as pH and electrical conductivity (EC). This choice was elected to make possible the eventual application of ionic ratios, a valuable tool in identification of the origin and characteristics of aquifer salinity. Research results show that Itaipuacu region still has no significant problems related to the migration of the salt wedge, the geochemical evidence in the saline interface. Presence of groundwater with different dominant spatial and temporal geochemical processes were observed: dissolution of salts from the marine aerosol, ion ex- change, especially between calcium and sodium, evaporative processes. The results also indicate that the situation could become critical if breakup of the fragile site hydrodynamic balance occurred, such as the continuous increase in pumping due to house building boom and expansion of urban occupation and associated civil works (canals, land- fills, etc.).


Maternal depression and exposure to domestic violence are associated with physical punishment of children, particularly when depression and exposure to violence co-exist.


This paper classified the various pragramming languages from 4 points of view,and discussed their features.applications and present status on different kinds of programming languages. Also,it discussed in detail the languages which are classified from programming paradigm.


A noncoherent delay-lock loop (DLL) is proposed for code tracking in chip-interleaving (CI) direct sequence (DS) spread spectrum (SS) systems. Analyses show that the proposed loop achieves the same code-tracking performance as the traditional noncoherent DLL does for conventional DS SS systems.


This paper interrogates the concept of Student Union engagement in Irish higher education through an examination of the policy and practice related to the creation of Technological Universities (TU). The case study is situated within the emerging policy landscape for both the technological higher education sector and student engagement, and begins with an examination of the nature and scope of the policy landscape. The paper then considers the practice of student engagement in the creation of the first TU in Ireland, Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin). The aim of this paper is to explore student participation in institutional level decision making in the context of the creation of Ireland's inaugural Technological University. In this exploration, we draw mainly from the 'Ladder of Citizen Participation' model as proposed by Sherry Arnstein (1969) to draw insights into the Irish experience of student engagement in the creation of TU Dublin. The case study provides an understanding of the nature and quality of student engagement and student partnership, raising important questions for policy development in Irish higher education.


Institute of A University of II Business and California, Economic Research Berkeley CENTER FOR REAL ESTATE AND URBAN ECONOMICS WORKING PAPER SERIES " WORKING PAPER 82-53 THE PRICE ADJUSTMENT PRocEss FOR RENTAL HOUSING AND THE NATURAL VACANCY RATE BY KENNETH T. RosEN LAWRENCE B. SMITH These ers are preliminary in natu ; heir purpose ' to stimulate discussion comm . Therefore. t are n ted or q d in any pub' 'on wit the express permissi the author. GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION


communist orthodoxy, and attempt to apply his position to turn of the century conditions and events. I will conclude with a brief consideration of how Merleau-Ponty's left liberalism is community based and how he might regard the current Nordic Model of politics. Merleau-Ponty's Political Theory In Humanism and Terror, Merleau-Ponty's first political treatise, written shortly after WWII, he states that the liberal values of Western democracies are associated with individual conscience, truth based on knowledge, the order of law, and with an appeal to universality and equality, that is, to legal and moral principles applied consistently to all. Merleau-Ponty supports these values, as he believes Marx does, but finds, as does Marx, that they are often not practiced as they are preached by Western societies. In fact, these societies often display a dramatic gap between theory and practice, for their appeal to law frequently justifies exploitation and suppression by force both at home and abroad. Moreover, liberalism often justifies its use of force by appeal to rational argument, but, Merleau-Ponty argues, this rationality is its rationality, even the rationality of its dominant class, and it is neither absolute nor already established,


With the improvement of people's living standards and the increasing abundance of materials, acceptance has become an indispensable part of people's life. Nowadays, the application of smartphone is more and more widely used. A mobile APP based on Android system with the theme of acceptance is developed. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies as well as voice operation functions are applied to bring users a technological, convenient and novel experience of acceptance.


Based upon reviewing related literature,this paper proposes some principles of establishing competitiveness evaluation index system of manufacturing enterprises based on circular economy,and builds the "tree structure" evaluation index system.The index system assesses manufacturing enterprise' s economic benefit,environmental benefits,social benefits from objective layer,control layer,state layer,index layer respectively,fully reflecting the 3R(reduce,reuse,recycle) principles of circular economy.


Solitary fibrous tumor (SFT) is a fibroblastic tumor of the pleura, and subcutaneous and deep soft tissues of the extremities, abdomen, pelvis, and retroperitoneum. In the head and neck region, the sinonasal tract and soft tissues of the orbit are involved most frequently. However, the lacrimal sac is an extremely unusual location for this tumor, with occasional case reports in literature. Being superficially located and palpable, lacrimal sac masses are easily amenable to FNAC. Despite cytological features of SFT being well-documented, they are often underdiagnosed on FNAC. Immunocytochemistry for STAT6 is a sensitive and specific marker that can aid in accurate diagnosis, as is required for planning appropriate management. We describe the case of a 45-year-old lady who presented with a mass at the medial canthus of the right eye, and was diagnosed as SFT on FNAC, based on cytomorphological features and immunopositivity for STAT6. The diagnosis was subsequently confirmed on histological examination.


This work discusses the potential applications of deep learning method supported by the increasing amount of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data, in particular the Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). The generative and discriminative networks of a modified version named Wasserstein GANs (WGANs) are applied in the sea ice image analysis. The generated SAR images bear a great similarity to real images from both visual inspection and data modeling perspectives. Meanwhile, the discriminative network outputs are capable of providing direct representations of sea-ice regional proportions and indication of the overall ice concentration of the test images. Such results demonstrate a useful unsupervised or semi-supervised approach in sea characteristic studies. The network training and test scenes are from real RADARSAT -2 HH polarization SAR multi-looked intensity data covering marginal sea ice areas.


The pressure drop of slug flows in capillary tubes is mostly resulted from the pressure gradient of liquid slugs in the capillary tubes, which can be related to the radius of the Taylorbubbles behind the liquid slugs. The paper proposes a theoretical relation between the pressure gradient in a liquid slug and the radius of the following Taylor bubble in capillary tubes. The present relation is derived by assuming that the flow taking place around a Taylor bubble is incompressible laminar flow. Verification of the present relation is done by comparing the results predicted from the present relation with the results from empirical formulas. The present relation showed not only that it could predict additional pressure gradients, resulted from the presence of the Taylor bubbles. It also agreed well with the empirical results, and also it gave more insights about slug flows, for instance, the critical bubble-to-tube radius ratio and the velocity profiles in liquid slugs.


Since 1790, Antarctic living resources were becoming subjects of competition among the exploiters to be first in obtaining the maximum profit from them. This led to subsequent extinction of valuable species from fur seals and next penguins, large through small whales, industrial demersal fish, further to pelagic species and now toothfish, crabs and krill. Catch proportions of their numerous and biomass decrease. The biomass of South Georgia Icefish estimated for 40 years in spide of decreasing trend has one of the largest components—the oscillations with periods of 3 years or 4 years. Their models explain large biomass fluctuations in the years 1975 to 1981 with amplitudes ±15 × 10 tonnes around average 20 × 10 tonnes and further decline up to 2005 season with oscillation ±4 × 10 tonnes around average 5 × 10 tonnes. For future season, 2016 model predicts a little increase of the biomass oscillation at level of 8 × 10 tonnes with reduced amplitude 2 × 10 tonnes. Slowly increase density of adult fish was also reported for target similar and close related mackerel icefish. Additional references for biomass levels help reduce the risk of further depletion biomass of Pseudochaenichthys georgianus which already declined to 75%. As global warming promote phytoplankton growth, replacing krill fishery by algae farms can save unique Antarctic heritages.


Nostoc flagelliforme is a kind of terrestrial cyanobacterium of great economic value.C-phycocyanin is a kind of blue protein belonging to the photosynthetic apparatus,and of fluorescence molecular probe both with the characteristics of absorption spectra and fluorescence spectra.In the study,with N.flagelliforme as materials,the effects of the types of extraction liquid and concentration of ammonium sulfate on the extraction of C-phycocyanin were compared.An efficient procedure for isolation and purification of C-phycocyanin was studied and some of its properties were also investigated.The results showed that 50 mmol/L K phosphate buffer(pH 7.2) was more ideal extraction liquid,with solid ammonium sulfate at 40%~50% saturation was more ideal concentration for precipitation,and then followed by ion exchange chromatography on DEAE-Toyopeal 650 S column and gel filtration chromatography on SuperdexTM 200 column,pure C-phycocyanin was finally obtained from N.flagelliforme with purity ratio(A615/A280) 6.2.The max absorption and fluorescence emission of purified C-phycocyanin was at 615 nm and at 649 nm respectively.C-phycocyanin was composed of α and β subunits,and the molecular mass of α and β subunits were 18 051.17 and 19 142.27 Da respectively.Therefore,the more ideal procedure of extracting C-phycocyanin from N.flagelliforme was as follows:algae power →soaking with 50 mmol/L K phosphate buffer(pH 7.2) →crushing cells by French pressure(1 500 kg/cm2) →salting out with 40%~50% saturated ammonium sulfate→DEAE-Toyopeal 650 S column chromatography→SuperdexTM 200 column chromatography →gaining C-phycocyanin with high purity.


We present the results of systematic investigation into size dependent electronic and magnetic properties of ultra thin graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) of finite and infinite length using spin polarized density functional calculation. The rectangular GNRs with width up to 1.40 nm with finite (2.50 nm) and infinite length were investigated. The ultra thin GNRs are found less stable in comparison to larger GNRs with binding energy increasing with increase in the size. All GNRs have shown finite HOMO-LUMO gap which decreases oscillatory as a function of width. HOMO-LUMO gap in the Finite length armchair GNRs is in range of 0.01–0.36 eV, where as in infinite length GNR the energy gap is in the range of 0.30–1.41 eV. Zigzag GNRs have shown very small HOMO-LUMO gap in the range 50–80 meV. The zigzag GNR have shown opening of energy band gap. However, for N = 8 and 10 layers, GNRs with zigzag edges are found to be ferromagnetic. The edge C atom on zigzag edges contribute magnetic moment of 0.94 μ B per C atom with total magnetic moment remaining constant with increase in the width. The energy difference between ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic state decreases sharply with the increase in GNR width suggesting iso-energetic behavior in larger GNRs. The results are consistent with the reported experimental results.


The aim of this study is to evaluate the Burnout syndrome in monitors that act in a foundation of special protection. It also tried to identify associations of burnout dimensions with demographic, professional and psychosocial variables. The MBI- Maslach Burnout Inventory and a questionnaire specially designed for this study and other variables were used as a research tool. The sample was made up of 37 monitors and a protection foundation. Results obtained through the test of t de student, Anova and the correlation of Pearson reveal that the Burnout dimension is associated with the amount of hours spent, the experience in the position and in the place, the thoughts of giving up the profession, job satisfaction, and the perception of how stressful the profession is. Key words: Burnout, job-related stress.


This paper reports the synthesis and the antiviral activities of new double-prodrugs against HIV based on the known mixed SATE (S-acyl-2-thioethyl) prodrug approach. The monophosphate of the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) d4T was masked with one SATE group and one aromatic group through which a nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) was linked. Double-prodrug 1 was a hybrid between d4T monophosphate and the known NNRTI MKC-442, which were linked through a labile p-hydroxybenzoyl protection group in the N-3 position of MKC-442. Double-prodrugs 2 and 3 were conjugates between d4T monophosphate and the new NNRTIs 15 and 19 linked through a stable phenolic linker that was a part of the N-1 substituents of the NNRTIs. The double-prodrugs 1, 2, and 3 all had good activities against wild-type HIV-1, Y181C mutant, and also against a HIV-2 strain that was resistant to NNRTIs.


AIM
This investigation was endeavored to study the influence of the hospital's spiritual climate on nurse's work engagement in Saudi Arabia.

BACKGROUND
Creating a safe clinical environment for nurses to express their spirituality despite preferences or religiosity is essential to increase work productivity, satisfaction, and commitment.

METHOD
This quantitative and cross-sectional research surveyed a convenience sample of 302 nurses employing the "Utrecht Work Engagement Scale" and "Spiritual Climate Scale."

RESULTS
The overall average of the respondents in work engagement was 4.33 (SD = 1.10), with more nurses reporting high or very high work engagement (53.7%). The hospital, age, and spiritual climate were recognized as significant predictors of "vigor". The hospital's spiritual climate was the only significant factor influencing nurses' "dedication." The hospital and spiritual climate significantly influenced the variable "absorption."

CONCLUSION
Having a positive hospital spiritual climate was associated with better work engagement among nurses.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT
The findings underscore the significance of ensuring that hospitals have positive spiritual climate, a clinical area that respects, accepts, and welcomes various spirituality of nurses. Therefore, nurse managers should ensure that the spirituality of nurses has a safe home in the hospital.


We use a functional renormalization group (fRG) approach to investigate potential interaction-induced instabilities in a two-dimensional model for the Dirac nodal-line materials ZrSiS and ZrSiSe employing model parameters derived from ab initio calculations. Our results characterize the excitonic instability recently found in random-phase approximation for ZrSiS as an on-site spin-charge-degenerate exciton. Beyond this, we show that the fRG analysis produces an energy scale for the onset of the instability, in good agreement with the experimentally observed mass enhancement. Additionally, by exploring the parameter space of the model, we find that reducing the band splitting increases the instability scale and gives the chance to drive the system into an unconventional superconducting pairing state. The model parameters for the case of the structurally similar material ZrSiSe suggest the $d$-wave superconducting state as the leading instability with a very small critical scale.


I. THE PRESS AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. 1. The Mission of the American Press. 2. The Gigantic Engines of Publicity. II. THE NEWS MEDIA AND SOCIAL CONTROL. 3. Freedom of the Press. 4. The "Power" of the Press. 5. Henry Luce and the Competitive Marketplace. 6. TV and Cable: The Fabulous Rise of Ted Turner. 7. "We Don't Have News on TV We Have Entertainment". III. THE POLITICAL ARENA IN MARKET SOCIETY. 8. Power, Politics, and the Media in the United States. 9. Spin Doctors and Media Managers. 10. Diversity: Minorities, Women, and the Media. IV. THE POLITICAL ARENA IN COMMUNITARIAN AND ADVANCING SOCIETIES. 11. The Communitarian Press: The Role of Karl Marx. 12. From Lenin to Glasnost. 13. The Advancing Press: The Old Order Changes. 14. The Advancing Press: Africa, Asia, and Iran. 15. The Advancing Press: Peru. V. FREE FLOW AND BALANCE IN THEORY AND PRACTICE. 16. The World Challenge for Fairness in Expression. 17. The Attempt to Find a World Information Order. 18. Learning and Training for a Free and Balanced Press. 19. Ethics and the Explosion of Knowledge. VI. PAYMASTERS AND PIPERS: THE SYMPHONY OF THE PRESS. 20. The Lords of the Global Village. 21. Whither the Information Society? 22. Politics, Power, and Perceptions. Epilogue: The Seven Laws of Journalism. Appendix: The Absurdity of "Social Responsibility". Svetlana Starodomskaya's Comments on the Soviet Code. Will Irwin's View of 1911 Advertising. Charles Dickens's Comments on the American Press in 1842. Index.


Robustness analysis provides an alternative way to analyze a perturbed system to quickly respond to resource failures. Nonordinary Petri nets have weighted arcs and have the advantage to compactly model operations requiring multiple parts or resources. In this paper, we consider a class of non-ordinary flexible assembly/disassembly Petri net (NFADPN) models and study its robustness properties. Due to the routing flexibility in NFADPN, there may exist different ways to accomplish the tasks. To take advantage of the alternative routes without enforcing liveness for the whole system, we generalize the concept of persistent production proposed to NFADPN. We propose a condition for persistent production. We extend robustness analysis to NFADPN by exploiting its structure. We identify several patterns of resource failures and characterize the conditions to maintain operation in the presence of resource failures. Keywords—Petri net, robustness, failure


Pregnancy failure occurs in around 15% of all confirmed pregnancies in Thoroughbred mares ( Sanderson and Allen 1987) and over 60% of these losses take place during the first 45 days of gestation ( Morris and Allen 2002). The advent of high resolution ultrasound scanners has greatly improved the diagnosis and monitoring of early conceptus development and untoward losses but even with this increased diagnostic capability there is rarely anything the veterinary clinician can do to prevent the failure from occurring. So, what might be the causes of these early losses? arteries. Six these findings were confirmed in one mare of group In this peripheral resistance was significantly lower in the uterine artery with peripheral ligation than in the contralateral vessel. These results suggest that ligation of the uterine artery or partial hysterectomy as described here do not cause long-term effects of uterine perfusion measurable by Doppler ultrasonography or grey-scale analysis. These findings correspond to/are in accor-dance with the clinical findings of preserved fertility following arterial ligation in women. response of to evaluated by determining the of using and determined The present study focuses on initiation and persistence of post breeding endometritis (PBEI) analysing endometrial biopsies taken from oestrous mares after insemination with constant sperm doses, suspended in different volumes of extender. 15 oestrous mares (3 to 19 years of age, Hanoverian warmblood) were inseminated once with 600 x 10 6 progressively moti-le spermatozoa (pms) suspended in either 1 ml (group A: 5 mares); 20 ml (group B: 5 mares) and 50 ml (group C: 5 mares) of skim milk based extender. Semen from fertile warmblood stal-lions was collected and centrifuged (10'; 600 g). The sperm pel-lets were further diluted until 600 x 10 6 pms/ml, filled in 0.5 ml straws, and stored at +5°C in a refrigerator until use. Inseminates were prepared immediately before inseminations, which were carried out by resuspending 600 x 10 6 pms with skim milk based extender until the desired inseminate volume. Endometrial biopsies were taken before 0h, 6-8 h and 48 h after insemination, fixed in 4% buffered formalin and examined by light microscopy (enzym-, immunohistochemistry) allowing selec-tive labelling of inflammatory cells. 6-8 hours after treatment 93% of the examined mares showed an acute PBEI (mild, mode-rate, severe). Cellular infiltrations consisted predominantly of PMNs and lymphocytes and were found in the stratum compac-tum (SC) as well % of detected are the 6 of gestation, the of early embryonic (EEL) with age. EEL is a significant cause of economic loss to the equine ana-logy are put forward as a potential of EEL. is evidence that this is actually the case, not because the average embryo has a few nuclei that are in meta-phase and thus suitable for karyotypic analysis. FISH with chromosome-specific probes has been used on interphase nuclei to demonstrate that even macroscopically normal human and bovine embryos contain cells with abnormalities of ploidy (e.g. 3n or 4n). The aim of the current study was to develop FISH staining with chromosome-specific probes for equine interphase nuclei and to use this technique to examine the incidence of abnormal ploidy in early horse embryos. Twenty-two embryos were recovered on days 6 or 7 after ovulation by uterine lavage. After washing, the embryos were lysed in a drop of spreading solution at the centre of a glass microsope slide. The nuclei were then a 3:1 (v:v) methanol acetic the the the at until staining. For the development of FISH probes, bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs: a gift BAC-YAC the INRA) specific for equine chromosomes 2 (ECA 2) and 4 (ECA 4) were cultured and, after DNA isolation, labelled with biotin-14-dUTP or digoxigenin-11-dUTP, respectively, so that they could be distinguished with an epifluorescence microscope as red (avidin-CY3) or green (sheep-antiDIG-FITC) signals on a blue back-ground (DAPI-stained nuclear DNA). The veracity of the probes was tested using a standard FISH protocol on metaphase, and then interphase, cultured equine lymphocytes. the 22 cells and cells with triploid or tetraploid nuclei, of do in equine embryos, albeit at a relatively low rate (18%) and in only a proportion of the cells. In only one of these cases, was the abnormality likely to have rendered the embryo nonviable. Currently, 32 in vitro produced horse embryos are being examined to determine whether IVF increases the incidence of abnormal ploidy, as it does in human and cattle embryos. 17-ß (r = - 0.79), whereas the concomitant plasma progesterone levels showed no significant correlation. This study demonstrates that computer-assisted one-dimensional grey-scale analysis is a non-invasive method of high sensitivity for the objective assessment of cyclic changes in endometrial echotexture in horses. In contrast to examinations concerning the whole oestrous cycle, here no correlation was found between plasma progesterone concentrations and the endometrial mean median (mGl) during the periovulatory period. On the other hand the influence of estradiol 17-ß on endometrial echotexture during this narrowly restricted time frame was shown to be statistically significant. The objective of this study was to investigate the incidence of embryonic- and fetal loss rates in the Hanoverian warmblood breed. Analyses were based on data from breeding records deri-ved from 40 AI-stations of the National Stud of Lower Saxony, Celle, Germany. Mares were bred by artificial insemination (AI) with cooled semen (93%) and by natural service (NS; 7%). End of season embryonic- (ELRS) and fetal loss rates (FLRS) were ana-lyzed using data from 7.247 (range: 7.069 – 7.932) brood mares per breeding season over a period of five years (1997 to 2001). Live and registered foals were born by 67.1 % of the mares. 1.8 % of the foals died within the first 6 month of life (colts: 58.9%; fillies: 41.1%). FLRS was 3.8 % and ELRS 5.4 %. No pregnancy was noticed in 21.9 % of the mares. For investigations on fertility per cycle data from 9.431 brood mares, 33.664 estrous cycles and 74.950 coverings were used over a period of three years (1997 to 1999). Embyronic- (ELRC) and fetal loss rates (FLRC) per cycle were estimated by comparing nonreturn rates (NRR) on days 33, 55 and 77 after last service with pregnancy rate per cycle (PRC) and foaling rate per cycle (FRC). To estimate the incidence of embryonic- and fetal losses differences between PRC and NRR (PRC-NRR), between NRR at different times (NRR-NRR) and between NRR and FRC (NRR-FRC) were calculated. NRR were 52.9% ± 49.9 on day 33, 41.6% ± 49.3 on day 55 and 38.0% ± 48.5 on day 77. PRC was 37.2% ± 44.5, and FRC was 32.7% ±48.5. PRC-NRR33 was 15.7%, NRR33-NRR55 was 11.3%, NRR55-NRR77 was 3.6%, PRC–FRC was 4.5%, and NRR33-FRC was 20.2%. conclusion, a high number of mares showing an embryonic loss conceived and give birth to a foal at term after repeated breeding, the rate of pregnancy failure between initial pregnancy per cycle and Day 55 represents the major loss in the Hanoverian warmblood breed. placental labyrinth normal and physiological necrosis zone underlying this area of fetomaternal be detected. Alterations occurred in placental sites sonographically identified as resorptions in the treated dogs: the lon-ger the time after the onset of resorption, the thinner the placental labyrinth became. Simultaneously, the necrosis zones were more extended. Equine granulosa-theca cell tumors (GTCT) are hormonally active neoplasms with a suppressive effect on the estrous cycle. An enlarged neoplastic ovary and an inactive contra lateral ovary clinically characterize affected mares. It has been suggested that the contra lateral ovary is inactive due to increased inhibin secretion, which suppresses FSH. The objective of this study was to characterize the hormonal activity in mares with GTCT, and to determine how the tumor affects the pituitary-ovarian axis. Serum concentrations of a -inhibin (all a -subunit-containing forms of inhibin) and dimeric ab A -inhibin (forms that contain both an a - and b A -subunit) were determined in mares with GTCT (n=22), normal cycling mares (n=31; 23 in estrus / 8 in die-strus), and pregnant mares (n=5). FSH, LH, estradiol, and testosterone were determined in mares with GTCT (n=22), and normal cycling mares (n=31). In addition, blood samples were collected from one mare with a GTCT at 12 hour intervals for 21 days. Concentrations of a -inhibin, FSH, LH, estradiol, and testosterone were determined using RIA. Student's t-test was used to detect differences between hormone concentrations between the two groups of mares. Pearson's correlation coefficients were calculated to determine associations between concentrations of hormones,


The strength and effect of Coulomb correlations in the (superconducting when hydrated) x ≈1/3 regime of NaxCoO2 have been evaluated using the correlated band theory LDA+U method. Our results, neglecting quantum fluctuations, are: (1) there is a critical Uc = 3 eV, above which charge ordering occurs at x=1/3, (2) in this charge-ordered state, antiferromagnetic coupling is favored over ferro-magnetic, while below Uc, ferromagnetism is favored; and (3) carrier conduction behavior should be very asymmetric for dopings away from x=1/3. For x < 1 3 , correlated hopping of parallel spin pairs is favored, suggesting a triplet super-conducting phase. 1. Introduction Since the discovery of high temperature superconductivity in cuprates, there has been intense interest in transition metal oxides with strongly layered, (quasi) two-dimensional (2D) crystal structures and electronic properties. For several years now alkali-metal intercalated layered cobaltates, particularly Na x CoO 2 (NxCO) with x ∼ 0.50 − 0.75, have been pursued for their thermoelectric properties.[1] Li x CoO 2 is of course of great interest and importance due to its battery applications. The recent discovery[2] and confirmation[3–5] of su-perconductivity in this system, for x ≈ 0.3 when intercalated with H 2 O, has heightened interest in the NxCO system. The crystal structure[6–8] is based on a 2D CoO 2 layer in which edge-sharing CoO 6 octahedra lead to a triangular lattice of Co ions. Na donates its electron to the CoO 2 layer, hence x controls the doping level of the layer: x=0 corresponds to Co 4+ , S= 1 2 low spin ions with one minority t 2g hole, and x = 1 corresponds to non-magnetic Co 3+. Nearly all reports of non-stoichiometric


Quantum mechanics is known to provide significant improvements in information processing tasks when compared to classical models. These advantages range from computational speeds-up to security improvements. A key question is where these advantages come from. The toy model developed by Spekkens [R. W. Spekkens PRA 75, 032110 (2012)] mimics many of the features of quantum mechanics, such as entanglement and no-cloning, regarded as being important in this regard, despite being a local hidden variable theory. In this work we study several protocols within Spekkens' toy model where we see it can also mimic the advantages and limitations shown in the quantum case. We first provide explicit proofs for the impossibility of toy bit-commitment and the existence of a toy error correction protocol and consequent $k-$threshold secret sharing. Then, defining a toy computational model based on the quantum one-way computer we prove the existence of blind and verified protocols. Importantly, these two last quantum protocols are known to achieve a better-than-classical security. Our results suggest that such quantum improvements need not arise from any Bell-type non locality or contextuality, but rather as a consequence of steering correlations.


Celestial bodies in the neighbourhood of a 'planet' (in the loose sense of the word, so applying to the Galilean satellites as well) generate, by their gravitational field, gravity field variations, tides and rotation perturbations on the planet, and affect the trajectory of orbiting artificial satellites (figure 1). The magnetic field surrounding some of these neighbours, if time-varying as viewed from the planet, does also induce magnetic field variations on the planet, provided it contains a layer of conductive material. The magnitude of these effects depends on properties of the planet's interior, yielding a convenient way to study the interior. In planetary sciences, the gravitational and magnetic 'perturbations' induced by the neighbours are mathematically represented by a tidegenerating potential and an inducing magnetic potential in some planetary reference frame moving with the planet. For theoretical purposes, it is desirable that they be expressed in the form of harmonic (or Poisson) series. For a limited number of planets, accurate tidegenerating potentials have been built, either from analytical ephemerides (such as VSOP87 [2]) in Cartesian or spherical coordinates using Poisson series manipulators (e.g. [6], [9]), or from numerical ephemerides (such as DE405 [8]) along with spectral analysis methods (e.g. [4]). In general, approximate tide-generating potentials may be readily obtained from the neighbours' mean orbital elements (e.g. [3]). These orbital elements are usually referred to the planetary reference frame, and may therefore undergo very large variations if a neighbour and the planet do not actually orbit each other. A better way then is to choose intermediate points so as to split the neighbour's motion into perturbed twobody motions (this is possible if the planetary system is hierarchised). Furthermore, it is common to assume that the planet and its neighbours rotate uniformly and are spherically symmetric (see [1] for a generalisation to extended bodies). These approximations are not always sufficient: for instance, how strong is the influence of Jupiter's flattening J2 on the Galilean satellites? A similar method may be used to determine the spectrum of the inducing magnetic potential (we only address that part of the spectrum which arises from the astronomical motions, so we do not deal with plasma effects, e.g. in the planet's ionosphere; see [7] for a comprehensive investigation of the spectrum of the Galilean satellites' magnetic field). From a restricted set of physical and geometric quantities (planetopotential and magnetic potential multipolar coefficients, and mean orbital and rotational elements), it is thus possible to compute, in a general setting, the approximate spectrum of the tidegenerating and inducing magnetic potentials, and we apply this method to the Galilean satellites.


The results obtained in classical 1-D rational approximation are extended in this paper to rational approximation of M-D functions. A full analog of classical Montessus de Ballore theo- rem for the convergence of the rows of Pade's tables is obtained. It is shown that the appropriate theorem for uniform conver- gence inC 2 will really take place only in the case of choosing the necessary determinative (interpolation) sets Ij(n;m);j = 1;2. This theorem allows us to handle the problem of deriving the transfer function of a M-D digital system, that is described