ABSTRACT This article investigates the perspectives of seven adolescent Latinx students in relation to being bilingual and bicultural, and to their former K-8 elementary school, which offered a variety of culturally sustaining practices, including campus-wide use of both Spanish and English and a dual language program. Within this qualitative case study, students recount what they value from their elementary K-8 school and share how they've drawn from that experience to negotiate various challenges to their linguistic and cultural identities in high school. The students characterize their elementary years as providing a foundation of support, helping them in becoming who they are today. This study examines the curricular and instructional practices at a bilingual elementary K-8 school through the students' own perspectives and draws from the students' recollections to deepen our understanding of collaborative processes of empowerment for Latinx students in school.


Observations of a process in an environment happen over time and their validity can be ephemeral. Thus, knowledge of the environment may quickly become out of date, which matters especially in safetycritical applications. For example, emergency situations happen after sudden changes to the environment and are continuing to change the environment, while people are trying to evacuate based on their outdated spatial knowledge. This means, the value of time-stamped spatial knowledge fades over time. While historical spatial knowledge can be an accurate mapping of the historical environment, the validity of this knowledge in a changed or changing environment should be considered when used for decision making in the current environment. This paper combines spatial knowledge and the time when the knowledge has been acquired in investigating whether fading memory is beneficial in dynamic environments. Fading memory devalues spatial knowledge with time, trusting more recent explorations more than other ones. The hypothesis of this paper is that fading memory is beneficial for agents decision making in a dynamic environment. The models of fading memory, and route planning based on the age of knowledge have been implemented and tested for indoor evacuation scenarios through agent-based simulation with Repast Simphony. Experiments suggest that this model is potentially a better representation of the dynamic environment in terms of providing evacuation guidance, which also has implications for all kinds of spatial analysis. Although the test shows that in most cases decision making has benefited from fading memory, there is still some cases where applying fading memory deteriorates the results, which throws up fundamental ethical questions: A service devaluing information that actually still is true may come up with suboptimal (evaluation) information. The reason for this is not the imperfection of fading memory per se, but the simplicity of heuristics applied in the experiments when exemplifying fading memory for testing purpose. In the experiments of this paper, the correctness of the heuristics corresponds to its coincidence with the mechanism of how fire spreads, which is beyond the task in this paper. A sophisticate design of heuristic rules when applying fading memory should improve the performance, and in an ideal situation, guarantee in all cases that applying fading memory leads to better results.


Abstract: Integrated One-Stop School Evaluation Using Analysis SWOT-Analytic NetworkProcess (Case Study in Purwakarta Regency). One way to reduce dropout rates is through aSekolah Satu Atap Terpadu. One of the regencies in West Java that has organized a SekolahSatu Atap Terpadu as well as the object of this research is Purwakarta regency. By using SWOTAnalyticNetwork Process(ANP)analysis, thisstudyseekstoevaluatewhile providingalternativepolicies
for the development of Sekolah Satu Atap Terpadu in Purwakarta regency. The data inthis study were obtained by filling out questionnaires by respondents online through Google Form,where respondents were actors who were directly involved in the implementation of a SekolahSatu Atap Terpadu. From the analysis results obtained Strengths and Threats occupy the highestvalue. Strengths include students could continue their education up to junior high school level andlocal government supports both in terms of budget and curriculum. While Threats, among others,school management has become more complex and the delegation of authority from the central andregional governments is not clear. Therefore, the ST strategy can be used as an alternative policyin increasing Strengths and minimizing Threats.Keywords: Sekolah Satu Atap Terpadu; SWOT Analysis; Analytic Network Process (ANP).


The main purpose of this paper is to improve the automation system at home using the Arduino keyboard with Bluetooth controlled by any Android OS smart phone. Technology and electronics have become commonplace in the last year of technology. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of the Home Automation System in conjunction with Home Housing and the best features of home automation with remote access. In this research project part of the smart home technology, Bluetooth on a smart phone is used, so it is cheap and usable. The app includes four main features: an Arduino keyboard, a Bluetooth signal transmission module, a music speaker and an Android-powered smartphone to control devices. By using the smart phone app, we can control household items and provide security to deter people. The idea of paper is to control household items to avoid the risk of electric shock and ease of use for people with disabilities who have easy access and control of household items by staying in a certain place.


Cytological studies are made in nine species of liverworts belonging to seven genera collected from different areas of Chakrata and Deoban in Uttarakhand, W. Himalaya. The chromosome numbers in four species (Calypogeia renistipula Steph., n = 9; Cephalozia gollani Steph., n = 9; Chiloscyphus campanulatus Steph., n = 9; C. coadunatus ( Sw.) Engel & Schust., n = 9) are recorded for the first time. In Porella platyphylla (L.) Pfeiff. n = 9 is counted for the first time in India. Precocious disjunction of one bivalent in the chromosome complement is observed in Frullania retusa Mitt. Laggards are observed in Calypogeia renistipula.


MINI: Should Zero Harm Be Our Goal in Surgery? While the answer to this question may seem obvious, there are downsides to this strategy. The purpose of this Surgical Perspectives is to explore the conflicts associated with "Aiming at Zero," and to propose an alternative paradigm.


Abstract What is the Constitution? John Marshall says fundamental law, not as the alloy of compromise Alexander Hamilton intended "merely to regulate the general political interests of the nation," but as the puritanical fulfillment in law of the Paulist prescription "to come out among them and be separate." As Marshall admonished, "if a law be in opposition to the constitution, if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case," the resolution must conform to the "constitution disregarding the law." This is the accepted and universally acclaimed meaning of breaking the law in America. Yet as Socrates rhetorically inquired, and the Framers dogmatically insisted, whence could a constitution derive if not from the self, "what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections of human nature?" If it is also true that "justice is the end of government … the end of civil society," so it must also be in the beginning of man in man, his self-recognition as just. The Constitution, thus framed, is the latter-day mirror in which every man sees himself as "paramount" justice, privileged no less than John Marshall, to say what the law is for himself and against all others.


Background Preeclampsia, a perilous pregnancy complication, affects 4–5% of pregnancies worldwide, contributing to a significant proportion of maternal deaths, particularly due to pregnancy-related hypertension diseases. Adherence to antihypertensive medication is crucial for improving maternal and fetal health outcomes. However, evidence suggests that pregnant women often fail to comply with prescribed regimens, with reasons ranging from ignorance to amnesia. Methods This study proposes a cross-sectional, questionnaire-based approach to assess drug adherence among pregnant patients with preeclampsia in rural areas. The study aims to evaluate awareness levels and barriers to adherence. The study will be conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital and will involve 114 eligible patients. Sociodemographic data, diagnosis, medication details, awareness about antihypertensive use, and medication adherence will be collected through semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. The 8-Item Morisky's Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8) will be employed to assess adherence levels. Data analysis will involve descriptive statistics, Chi-square tests, and logistic regression. Expected results The study anticipates revealing insights into the level of drug adherence and awareness among pregnant women with preeclampsia. By identifying barriers to adherence, the study aims to tailor interventions to enhance compliance, reduce costs, and optimize drug therapy. The dissemination of results through publication in indexed journals and presentation at scientific conferences will contribute to the understanding of medication adherence in pregnancy-related disorders.


To study the effects of confinement by quantum-well potential discontinuities on ultrafast carrier dynamics, we performed pump-broadband probe studies of a series of In{sub 0.47}Ga{sub 0.53}As quantum wells excited 30 meV above the band edge. Our measurements show that the rate of carrier thermalization is well width independent; however, the rate of carrier cooling to the band edge is strongly influenced by confinement. This influence has two separate physical origins. First, the dimensionality dependence of the density of states results in a larger proportion of thermalized electrons that can emit LO phonons in three dimensions than in two. Second, modification of the phonon density of states by the ionic mass discontinuity at the well boundaries may reduce the electron{endash}LO-phonon coupling. {copyright} {ital 1998} {ital The American Physical Society}


New Orleans — The round face, the thin face and the sun-damaged face present varying challenges for the plastic surgeon, according to panelists at the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery's (ASAPS) Aesthetic Meeting 2005 here.


Remarkable results on purulent wounds following the use of ultra-violet irradiated petrolatum, reported by Eising, 1 prompted us to determine whether such petrolatum had any bactericidal effect in vitro. We used a mixture of 2 parts petrolatum molle and one part lanolin, the latter being added to increase tissue absorption of the irradiated petrolatum. Technic. A 2:1 petrolatum-lanolin mixture was melted and rendered sterile by infra-red heat. Twenty cc. of the mixture were placed in sterile petri dishes and irradiated directly for varying periods of time by a Burdick ultra-violet lamp at a distance of 12 inches. At the end of the time allotted for exposure 1 cc. of a normal saline suspension of organisms was thoroughly mixed with the petrolatum-lanolin. At varying intervals thereafter one loopful of the inoculated mixture was seeded on agar plates and the growth noted. For control we used: (1) Non-irradiated petrolatum-lanolin to which organisms had been added; (2) Petrolatum-lanolin to which organisms had been added before irradiation; (3) Petrolatum-lanolin which was irradiated for the same varying periods of time as the directly irradiated samples but with the petri dish covers left on to filter out the shorter ultra-violet rays as much as possible. The organisms used were Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus pyocyaneus. Staph. aureus was practically always killed within 24 hours by a 2-hour directly irradiated mixture. B. pyocyaneus gave less consistent results, but was usually killed within 24 hours by the 4-hour directly irradiated mixture. The plates irradiated with their covers on showed no bactericidal property except those exposed for 4 hours, which consistently killed Staph. aureus within 24 hours, thus suggesting that over the prolonged exposure time sufficient rays passed through the glass to irradiate the mixture.


In electrical impedance tomography, the primary task of image reconstruction process is to solve a discrete ill-posed inverse problem. The estimated solution is commonly obtained under a regularisation framework so that the noise amplified solution, which occurs during the matrix inversion process, can be avoided. The regularisation framework aims at balancing the model-data fitness while simultaneously constraining the solution space with additional prior (commonly prescribed through the regularisation matrix and solution-norm). In this study, a relationship between two robust regularisation matrices namely Newton one-step error reconstruction and fidelity-embedded regularisation is explicitly highlighted in both spatial and singular value decomposition domains. A hybrid regularisation matrix which encompasses the two prior knowledge, non-uniform sensitivity distribution and array response correlation, is then proposed as an alternative prior. Experimental results along with several evaluated performance parameters highlight the ability of the proposed prior to achieve a well-balanced and robust performance.


The possibility of obtaining quasi-analytical data with a combination of well designed filters and non-dispersive x-ray detectors is demonstrated with the help of simple mathematical arguments. The optimum choice for the filters is discussed with also the limitation of the proposed approach. Various experimental arrangements are suggested for taking advantage of the use of CCD cameras for x-ray imaging in total reflection x-ray fluorescence microscopy for instance, or of the use of single detectors with high counting rates for a rapid 2D mapping in the scanning electron mode of electron probe microanalysis. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The invention discloses a method and a system for providing multiple media services through a single node. A media file is transcoded on the basis of the single node so that a primary file is converted into a required code rate file; a code rate is adapted to a user terminal requiring a service, so that a media service url used for acquiring a corresponding code rate file is fed back to the user terminal; and the media service url points to the corresponding code rate file generated after transcoding. One medial file (i.e. the primary file) is required to be published, and is transcoded into different corresponding code rate files when services are required to be provided to a plurality of user terminals, so that the single node can provide the services to the user terminals, the distribution efficiency of the media file is improved, the cost is saved, and the media file distribution flow is simplified.


The electrophoretic mobility of quartz particles in methanol-ethanol mixtures has been measured. The ζ-potential has been shown to play a significant role in the internal structure of the electrophoretic coefficient (l 21 ) for the quartz-methanol-ethanol system. The ζ-potential has been calculated from the results of electrophoretic mobility and streaming potential experiments. The disagreement between the ζ values thus obtained has been adjusted to some extent by introducing a corrective factor, F s , into the streaming potential measurements. F s itself was calculated by two methods and its validity tested by comparing the values found for the ζ-potential according to both electrokinetic techniques


Thesis on ontology which in the cathedral church on the last day of June was expounded / by the Seminary students Cleric Aloysius (Louis) Vella, Fidelis (Fedele) Zammit, P. Paulus (Paul) Ciantar ; panel under the chairmanship of father Georgio (George) Carauna S.Theol. etc. each one expounding a third of the argument (i.e. a third of the thesis)


This investigation examined the eiect of prey condition on the growth and survival of juvenile cuttle¢sh (Sepia o⁄cinalis). In the ¢rst group, cuttle¢sh were fed with daily captured live Palaeomonetes varians from the wild [daily prey (DP)], the second group was fed 5 days stocked and starved P. varians [starved prey (SP)], while in the third group, cuttle¢sh were fed 8 days stocked P. varians fed with an arti¢cial diet [fed prey (FP)]. Mean instantaneous growth rate (IGR) was 2.8 1% body weight day 1 (bw day 1 ), 3.3 1.1% bw day 1 and 4.9 0.5% bw day 1 for SP, DP and FP respectively. At the end of the experiment, ¢nal weight gain (Wg )w as 121 21.6%, 153.8 17.3% and 295 29.8% for SP, DP and FP respectively. No signi¢cant diierences were found (P40.05) between growth curves for every group tested, or for the food conversions between those same groups (P40.05), but statistical diierences (Po0.05) were found in IGR between DP vs. FP and SP vs. FP. Mortality was 2 and1for SP and DP respectively. Results indicate that prey starvation should not be considered when feeding juvenile cuttle¢sh, as prey can only be stocked if proper arti¢cial diets are provided, to obtain optimal growth.


In this case report, the case of non-small cell lung cancer resection performed with surgeon-powered robotic surgery (sPRS) was evaluated in light of the literature. A 62-year-old male patient applied to our clinic with the complaint of non-specific chest pain. On the tomography of the patient, a mass of approximately 1 cm in the lower lobe of the right lung was detected, and there was no distant metastasis. A transthoracic needle biopsy was performed on the patient. Right lower lobectomy operation was performed using wristed instruments (Artisential® Wristed Instruments) in this non-small cell lung cancer patient. sPRS provides more mobility than VATS and we think that it is a more cost effective surgical instrument than robotic surgery. We think that surgeons should embrace new technologies in order to provide more benefits to patients.


Acknowledgments 1. Desperately Seeking a Successor to the Welfare State Progressive Theories of Social Welfare * Social-Democratic Perspectives * Marxian and Neo-Marxian Perspectives * Feminist Perspectives * The Anti-Racist Critique of the Welfare StateThe Green Critique of the Welfare State * The Emancipatory Needs-Articulation Approach to Social Welfare Towards a Theoretical Synthesis From Theory to Issues The Social Movements and Organizations Methodology 2. Who Works, Who Gets Paid, and Who Cares? Critical Issue in Social Welfare Policy Caring Work and Welfare Revisiting the Question of Job Creation The Social Economy as a Means of Job Creation Job Training and Labour-Market Entry Programs Towards a Fully Inclusive and Just Labour Market Improved Pay and Benefits for Part-timers Work-Time Reduction Overcoming Alienation on the Job and Democratizing the Workplace The End of (Paid) Work? Work, Time, and Economic Security 3. Economic Security in an Insecure World Critical Issue in Social Welfare Policy Reimagining Economic Security in Canada * Income maintenance * Security of food supply and adequate nutrition * Adequate and affordable housing * Good health and health care The Challenge of Social Welfare 4. The Multiple Axes of Social Equality and Welfare Critical Issue in Social Welfare Policy * Gender * Disability * Sexual Orientation * Race/Ethnicity * First Nations * Balancing, Blending, and Linking New Initiatives 5. New Dimensions of Citizenship: The Democratization and Greening of Social Welfare Critical Issue in Social Welfare Policy Expanding and Enriching Our Definition of Citizenship Democratization of Social Welfare Policy and Programs Protecting, Enriching, and Expanding the Civil Commons The Greening of Social Policy The Cutting Edge: Promising Responses, and Interconnections 6. Towards a New Vision of Social Welfare for the Twenty-First Century Taking Stock of Our Theoretical Approaches to Social Welfare Tracing the Influence of the Theoretical Approaches Reinventing Social Welfare A New Vision of Social Welfare Strategic Challenges in Moving Forward Notes Appendix I: Key Informant Interviews Appendix II: Glossary of Acronyms References Index


The effects of process parameters, specifically those related to silicon wet etch and metal deposition, on the performance of the microheaters in a peristaltic microfluidic pump are presented. The thermal resistance of the microheaters is strongly dependent upon the relative thermal isolation, which impacts maximum pumping speed (from a few Hertz to kilo-Hertz). Thermal isolation is shown to not be an issue in the pump design given the spacing of the neighboring microheaters.


It is necessary to strictly control the iron (Fe) impurity in Mg-Al alloys to guarantee good corrosion resistance and mechanical properties. In this work, the effects of alloying elements and temperatures on the solubilities of Fe in the Mg-Al-based alloy melts (Mg-rich liquid phases) at 963–1033 K were studied by combining the in situ sampling method for the high precision solution values and the multiple regression numerical analysis method for the feature analysis. The solubilities of Fe in Mg-xAl (x = 1 and 3 wt.%) alloy melts could be significantly reduced by adding the yttrium (Y) or manganese (Mn) elements. However, the solubilities of Fe in Mg alloy melts were not in a monotonous relationship with the contents of the alloying elements in the Mg alloys. For the addition of Mn or Y, the lowest solubilities of Fe presented in the Mg-rich liquid phases were for the Mg-xAl alloys with the addition of 2 wt.% Mn or 1 wt.% Y, respectively. Additionally, the Fe-containing precipitations in the related systems were analysed and the Fe was mainly combined with Mn or Y and precipitated, which contributed to the removal of Fe from the Mg melt. The present study provides fundamental thermodynamic information regarding Mg-Al-Fe based systems and the design principle for the removal of Fe in Mg alloys.


We consider the nonequilibrium quantum noise of electrical current in one-dimensional conductors, and clarify the mechanism that distinguishes macroscopic conductors from mesoscopic conductors. The noise does not become of the macroscopic type even when a strong dephasing is introduced. Macroscopic noise is obtained only when the energy of the total electron system is maximally dissipated when each electron traverses the conductor. Energy transfer from the electron system to other systems is therefore essential for noise suppression and for the noise to be macroscopic.


Presents data for the delay of metal crosslinked hydroxypropyl guar (HPG) fracturing fluids (utilized since the late 1960s) achieved with titanium acetylacetonate, triethanolamine titanate, and zirconium acetylacetonate. Experiment used 0.2-0.3 g of crosslinker and 150 g of a 50-lb/1,000-gal aqueous solution of HPG buffered to a ph of 7.0. Graph shows results as a function of time. Insights into the nature of the delaying process are given.


Abstract Nanocarbon composites present a new type of nanomaterials consisted of electric conducting carbon nanoparticles and a non-conducting matrix. A typical example of such composites is a polymer matrix doped with carbon nanotubes (CNT). Due to a high aspect ratio of nanotubes insertion of very small quantity of CNT (on the level of 0.01%) promotes the percolation transition resulting in an enhancement of the conductivity of the material by 10–12 orders of magnitude. Another type of nanocarbon composite is a film consisted of partially reduced graphene oxide (GO) produced as a result of thermal reduction of graphite oxide material. Distinctive peculiarity of both types of nanocomposites relates to the dependence of the specific resistivity of the materials on the applied voltage. Such a behavior is caused by non-ideal contacts between neighboring carbon particles involving into the composite. The resistance of this contact depends drastically on the intra-contact field, which promotes the dependence of the material resistivity on the applied voltage. The model description of such a non-linear dependence has been presented. The calculation results are compared with both literature data and the measured data obtained for reduced GO thermally treated at various temperatures.


The effect of a sustained (30% maximum) isometric clenching task on the maximum voluntary bite force level was evaluated on normal jaw function subjects as well as on abnormal jaw function subjects (MPD patients). The results indicate that the MPD subjects had a lower maximum voluntary bite force level and a shorter endurance time when compared to normal subjects. Neither the control subjects nor the MPD subjects demonstrated a change in their brief MVBF after a 'fatigue inducing' task. These results suggest a lack of contractile element failure in the jaw closing muscles following sustained submaximal isometric clenching on a force transducer.


Undergraduate research is a high-impact practice that increases student learning and is driven by engaging in mentoring relationships with faculty while building a culture of innovation and scholarship. This volume of the Russian Language Journal presents a special collection of articles entitled "Collaboration Beyond the Classroom: Undergraduate Research in Russian Language Studies." Undergraduate students have contributed to these articles as researchers and coauthors on topics related to Russian-language study, namely, the co-creation of teaching resources, methods, and sociolinguistic integration


A thermal barrier coating (TBC) system consists of a TBC topcoat (TC), a bond coat (BC), and a substrate. Residual stress acting on a coating is a important parameter for materials mechanics and hence need to be evaluated. We propose a simple method for evaluating the residual stresses acting on each layer of a TBC system by using a curvature method. First, a three-layered model was constructed based on the misfit strain between the coatings and the substrate. This method uses the curvatures of the substrate with a blast treatment, the BC system specimen with the blast and BC, and the TBC system specimen with the blast, BC, and TC instead of a change in curvature during thermal spraying. Next, the residual stresses acting on the TBC system specimen with varying thicknesses were evaluated by using the proposed method. It was confirmed that the proposed method provides reasonable residual stresses in the BC and TC. Finally, the thermal stress after the coating deposition was theoretically evaluated, and the quenching stress of the coating during the deposition was evaluated by using the difference between the experimentally determined residual stress and the theoretical thermal stress. The mechanism for generating the residual stress in the TBC system during thermal spraying was investigated using the quenching stress and thermal stress.


As well as covering the first train systems, such as the donkey-hauled Surrey Iron Railway which led the Stockton & Darlington of 1825, this work also shows why the railways began, free markets of transport open to all who would pay a toll. Parliament wanted to maximise competition, though.;By 1870 the railway companies had become great public institutions but did not make much money. Spasmodic bouts of competition increased speed and magnificence, though not profits. The railways finally amalgamated to form a national network by 1900 but by then there were new industries to attract away the capital they needed.


The invention discloses a composite inorganic insulation mortar, which comprises the following raw materials by weight: 1-3 parts of rosin, 40-60 parts of expanded perlite, 2-6 parts of gypsum, 2-6 parts of ground silica, 4-8 parts of lightly roasted dolomite dust, 5-10 parts of bean cake powder, 1-3 parts of beta-cyclodextrin, 70-90 parts of portland cement, 0.5-1 part of perfluorinated alkyl sulfonate, 0.5-1.5 parts of zinc acetate, 1-2 parts of sugar calcium and 5-10 parts of composite auxiliary agent. The insulation mortar has the advantages of strong waterproof performance, strong anti-aging performance, large anti-compression and breaking strength, acid and alkali resistance, corrosion resistance, good stability and wide application scope.


According to the damage of the sub-transmission,the dynamic model was set up under different conditions.For validating the dynamic model,the output speed,radial runout,horizontal runout were obtained about the power take-off of the transmission.Then under the low speed condition,the force curves of the bearing were obtained and used as the load for the finite element transient analysis.In the finite element analysis,the modal and transient analyses for the sub-transmission case were made,the natural frequency and the cycling stress were acquired,then the fracture parts were pointed out,and their stress curves were obtained.The improvement on structure of case was proposed.After being compared with the prototype,the result shows its rationality. The improved product passed the bench test of JB/T8582.3-2001.


It is the purpose of this paper to report the relative miles of transportation that can be obtained from a barrel of crude oil by using different types of engines and fuels. The options that have been studied are: 1. Use of leaded gasoline in an internal combustion engine. 2. Use of unleaded gasoline. 3. Maximum use of diesel engines. 4. Maximum use of the direct injection stratified charged engine. 5. Maximum use of gas turbine engines. It will be shown that the engine-fuel option chosen will have a large effect on the crude oil imports required which, in turn, will have a substantial impact on the United States domestic economy and balance of payments. /GMRL/


Manual visual analysis is the most used method in determining plant diseases. Although for many years, farmers and growers have depended on knowledge and experience in examining the condition of their plants for any possible ailments, which can be tedious and demanding. Bananas are the third most-sold crop in the Philippines. The Philippines is the top export of bananas within Asia, accumulating more than 80% of gross banana exports from Asian countries. Yet, for as long as the banana exportation industry has been running, banana plantations have constantly been suffering under the threat of various diseases emerging through the years. But the affliction that has significantly impacted the export trade in the Philippines is the Fusarium oxysporum, Panama Tropical Race 4, and Panama Wilt, more commonly known as the Panama Disease. By utilizing the YOLOv4 algorithm, we can save time and effort from manually analyzing and determining the possible presence of the disease, as well as achieve real-time judgment, thus, can potentially assist in reducing the tremendous loss caused by Fusarium oxysporum. The device developed has a 90.0% accuracy in determining the presence of Panama Disease through photos of banana leaves.


Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop an optimization model allowing the choice of parts feeding policy to assembly lines in order to minimize total cost. Design/methodology/approach – An integer linear programming mathematical model is developed to assign the optimal material feeding policy to each part type. The model allows choice between kitting, line stocking and just in time delivery policies. Findings – The choice of assembly lines feeding policy is not trivial and requires a thorough economic comparison of alternatives. It is found that a proper mix of parts feeding policies may be better that adopting a single material delivery policy for all parts. Research limitations/implications – The model is aimed at single-model assembly lines operating in a deterministic environment, but can be extended to the multi-model line case. While relevant quantitative cost drivers are included, some context-related qualitative factors are not included yet. The model assumes that information about prod...


Public transport operators often identify problems for travellers to manage the physical environment of transport service. The experience of travelling from door to door in a multimodal transport system is not an easy task. In the nodes between different transport modes, ordinary people have problems navigating the system. Physical prerequisites and communicative symbols, signs and artifacts are not always in accordance with customer thinking and physical movements. These problems are even bigger when it comes to disabled people. The door-to-door experience invites the passenger to substantial problems, especially in the nodes between transport modes. If these problems could be managed for these customers society would have a more accessible public transportation with social well being and much lower costs for the society as a whole. Public transportation would also be more appealing for a broad customer base. These problems are highlighted in this study where different customers with different kinds of handicap, are equipped with a mobile microphone to document customer perceptions, thoughts and emotions, during a trip from their home to different chosen destinations. During the transport a second person (researcher) uses a mobile video camera to document the physical and communicative environment perceived by the customer. The travellers are invited to contribute by a think-aloud methodology, a psychological method for documenting spontaneous and introspective perceptions of the travel experience. The authors catch empirical data "on the spot", which is more accurate, contextual and dynamic in comparison with traditional retrospective surveys. This study focuses on travellers' experiences as a resource for developing a more accessible and safe travel environment, with implications for marketing information procedure. On customer level the authors identify physical attributes, spatial factors, self service machines, guiding sounds, communicative signs (or lack of signs), transport noise etc. as critical factors. The travel process is perceived as difficult, less accessible and gives a sense of being unsecured. Travellers hesitate to use the public system with social segregation and high community costs as a consequence. The method, using natural occurring data "out there" is a tool to get more detailed information on actual purchase and consumption of the transport service. Travellers' perceptions could be a starting point for re-engineering different service components, produced by different actors in the transportation system. Different commercial transport sectors (bus, taxi, train, tram, airway, boat etc), community authorities, regional authorities and different customer representatives could use this kind of information as a platform for a more profound dialogue, promoting a long term, accessible and sustainable transport system


Collocation has become one of the most controversial linguistic terms of today. As evidence to this, linguists did not agree up till today as to its exact definition, types or patterns. This may explain, to some extent, the scarcity of collocational dictionaries and their late appearance regardless of the huge number of collocations that can be found in general (i.e. noncollocational) lexicons and dictionaries of nearly all languages. Added to this is the difficulty of compiling a collocational dictionary unless modern technological tools such as computers, huge corpora, and text analysis software are used. This is true as the first English collocational dictionary appeared in 1986, the BBI, while in Arabic, the first one to appear was Hafiz in 2004 which is the main focus of this paper. This is exactly the reason behind our interest in this dictionary as it is already the first of its kind in Arabic as is mentioned by its author on its front cover. Collocation dictionaries are indispensable tools for the translator, writer and learner of any foreign language. One of the reasons behind the errors translators make in rendering collocations from one language to another is that they consult general-purpose bilingual dictionaries that do not provide the translators with detailed explanation or examples of collocations. Hence, the significance of this paper as it represents an attempt towards introducing a modern-technology-based linguistic methodological and academic criticism for evaluating such a great effort aiming at elevating it to the best shape it can be and to help it become a model to be emulated in the field of compiling specialized as well as non-specialized Arabic/ English and English/Arabic dictionaries. Towards a Proper Evaluation of Al-Hafiz Arabic Collocations Dictionary: A Corpu based Study 219 As the dictionary's author has committed – according to AlHalawani– a number of methodological, editorial and translational mistakes; a matter which makes it incumbent upon specialists to look into its content to clarify such mistakes and attempt to amend them whenever possible. Significance of the dictionary It has become known that the concept of Lexical Collocation is largely controversial. This can be attested to by the fact that until now it is difficult to even state an all-inclusive definition of the phenomenon, or come to a consensus on its different types and patterns. Beside other issues, the problems involving lexical collocations are paramount in a very specific field, namely the translation from Arabic into English and vice versa. The basic problem in the process of translation lies in attempting to find a word in one language that perfectly matches another in another language. This, however, presupposes that the two languages in question are perfectly typical in terms of categorization, social and cultural backgrounds, figuration and linguistic usage, imagination, conceptualization, and so on. Nevertheless, this is not and can never be attained, as deemed by Umar (1998: 251-256). The disagreement among linguists regarding the definition, types and patterns of collocations is the reason behind the scarcity of collocational dictionaries and their late appearance among the works of different language aids, regardless of the fact that a huge number of collocations can be found in general (i.e. non-collocational) lexicons and dictionaries (Al-Wadarni 2006: 191). Added to this is the difficulty of compiling any collocational dictionary without adopting the recent methods of


This study investigates the drivers and practices of entrepreneurial marketing (EM). It explores how the entrepreneur's conception of the business environment, together with the companyand entrepreneur-specific factors, affect entrepreneur-led firm's EM actions. We establish a research model and test it with a sample of 3097 entrepreneur-led small firms from Finland. The results show that external pressure from important actors in the market have a significant effect on a small firm's EM practice. Marketing decisions in entrepreneur-led firms depend on the entrepreneur's ability to interpret changes and signals in the business environment. In addition, situational factors such as the company's internationalization goals and the entrepreneur's growth aspirations regarding the firm affect its EM actions.


We present a first-principles density-functional study of the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of the ferroelectric domain walls in multiferroic ${\text{BiFeO}}_{3}$. We find that domain walls in which the rotations of the oxygen octahedra do not change their phase when the polarization reorients are the most favorable and of these, the $109\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}$ domain wall centered around the BiO plane has the lowest energy. The $109\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}$ and $180\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}$ walls have a significant change in the component of their polarization perpendicular to the wall; the corresponding step in the electrostatic potential is consistent with a recent report of electrical conductivity at the domain walls. Finally, we show that changes in the Fe-O-Fe bond angles at the domain walls cause changes in the canting of the Fe magnetic moments which can enhance the local magnetization at the domain walls.


Objective/Hypothesis: The combination of intravenous sedation and local infiltration anesthesia is routinely utilized in otologic surgery. Advantages over general anesthesia with endotracheal intubation include ease and speed of induction and emergence, safety, and decreased postoperative discomfort. Anatomic and physiological patient constraints may preclude the use of intravenous sedation and anesthetists inexperienced in this technique may find it difficult to achieve a consistent level of anesthesia appropriate for major otologic surgery. Administration of anesthesia using the laryngeal mask airway (LMA) has been proposed to offer many of the advantages of intravenous sedation with less risk of oversedation and obstructive apnea. Study Design: A retrospective chart review. Methods: A review of 100 consecutive adult and pediatric patients undergoing major otologic procedures in which the LMA was utilized. Results: All laryngeal masks were introduced without a laryngoscope and successful placement was accomplished on the first attempt in 98%. Procedures were performed under spontaneous ventilation and in only one instance was surgery temporarily interrupted because of patient movement. No major complications occurred and no patients required endotracheal intubation. Only three patients complained of mild throat discomfort in the immediate postoperative period. Conclusions: The laryngeal mask airway is a safe and effective means of providing anesthesia during major otologic surgery.


In this brief report, we obtain the necessary and sufficient condition for a class of noncanonical single scalar field models to be exactly equivalent to barotropic perfect fluids, under the assumption of an irrotational fluid flow. An immediate consequence of this result is that the nonadiabatic pressure perturbation in this class of scalar field systems vanishes exactly at all orders in perturbation theory and on all scales. The Lagrangian for this general class of scalar field models depends on both the kinetic term and the value of the field. However, after a field redefinition, it can be effectively cast in the form of a purely kinetic k-essence model.


The structure and aerodynamic performance of the micro-turbine for the micro-machine tool spindle were designed and calculated,and the high speed airflow in the micro-turbine was numerically simulated by the software FLUENT.The analysis has indicated that the micro-turbine torque produced by airflow pressure changes little while that by air viscosity decreases dramatically with the increase of rotational speed at constant supply pressure,which causes a dramatic decrease in the total torque.The back pressure in the micro-turbine chamber increases with the increase of the supply pressure,which seriously affects the rotational speed.The airflow from the micro-turbine nozzle cannot directly go to the corresponding blade,but goes round the blade wheel under the action of the coming flow,which causes great flow loss.Finally the micro-turbine structure was improved and its torque increased by 13%,which satisfied the design requirement.


The authors developed and described an algorithm and technical aspects of lymphadenectomy performance in radical surgery based on structural variations of visceral vessels in 91 patients with stomach cancer. Preoperative helical computer tomography in regimen of angiography was carried out on 91 patients. Variant anatomy of visceral vessels was detected in 31 patients and that required change of surgical technique in order to minimize intraoperative risks of great vessel damage and allowed perforrming lymphadenectomy successfully.


SUMMARY

A simple representation of the sea-level variability in time at low and medium frequencies and at large and medium spatial scales is investigated that accounts for the correlation between sea-level heights and other atmospheric and oceanic parameters. The selected fields are sea-level height, sea-surface temperature, wind speed and sea-surface atmospheric pressure; they are considered in the interval between 1992 and 1997. The sea-level height data correspond to a single space altimetry mission (Topex/Poseidon) and provide a homogeneous data set. The dominant characteristics of the variability of each field and the coupled variability between two fields are analysed in the European seas using the spectral analysis method and the statistical methods of principal component analysis and canonical correlation analysis. In the single-field study, both the spectral and the principal component analyses show different characteristics of the sea-level height variability in the three seas. The strongest annual and semi-annual signals are in the Mediterranean Sea, whereas in the other two seas, especially in the Baltic Sea, the dominant spectral components have comparable power. The trends are interpreted as interannual variability due to the shortness of the investigated time interval. The highest positive trends are observed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. In the coupled-fields study, both the linear regression analysis and the canonical correlation analysis show a high correlation between the sea-level height and the sea-surface temperature in the Mediterranean Sea and between the sea-level height and the wind speed in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. The Mediterranean Sea is particularly suitable for building sea-level height models from the statistical methods because the first four modes of both the single- and the coupled-fields models account for about 90 per cent of the variance of the sea-level height field. It is therefore chosen as a test area to check the accuracy of the models and the ability of the canonical correlation method to predict the sea-level variability. The accuracy of the statistical models is assessed by computing dual crossover height differences between the Topex/Poseidon and ERS-1 and ERS-2 sea-surface heights corrected using the variability models. Both the single- and the coupled-fields models are found to be a good representation of the sea-level variability in the Mediterranean Sea, whereas the extrapolated canonical correlation model, derived using the sea-surface temperature as a predictor, is less accurate, but still acceptable. Relative bias and drift between the Topex/Poseidon and ERS data result from the analysis and reflect a non-homogeneous pre-processing of the altimetry data. The single-mission sea-level variability models are a first step towards the construction of a multimission sea-level model from unified multimission altimetry data.


West Sumbawa Regency (KSB) is one area with abundant natural resource potential, especially in the mining sector. This causes a high influx of migrant workers so that it has an impact on the absorption of the number of local workers and there is competition for jobs. This study aims to provide an overview of the internal and external conditions of the local workforce and formulate strategies for developing local workers in improving the regional economy of KSB. This research includes descriptive research. Determination of respondents was done by purposive sampling as many as 40 respondents. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive analysis and SWOT analysis. The results showed that the internal condition of the local workforce in KSB was still greater than the weakness factor compared to the strength factor, while for the external factor the opportunity factor was still greater than the threat factor. The strategy for developing local workers in improving the regional economy of  KSB is the WO or Turn Around strategy which includes improving the skills of workers in the formal and informal sectors, especially for local workers, improving facilities and infrastructure as well as supporting human resources for BLK for training and improving business skills. local workers in various sectors, accelerating services and business investment regulations in KSB so that they can absorb more local workers.


Ferromagnetic Shape Memory Alloys (FSMA) are a grou p f materials which posses an unique property of changing its shape by an externa l magnetic field. This effect has been termed Magnetic Field Induced Strain (MFIS). One of the most promising materials for potential applications are the off-stoichiometric N i2MnGa single crystals. MFIS was discovered in 1996 and at that time for the applied external magnetic field of 8kOe the value of longitudinal strain initially obtained in Ni-MnGa single crystals was 0.19% [1]. Further intensified research in this field have led to a di scovery of giant MFIS of about 10% of longitudinal strain with good reproducibility and t he frequency of operation from several Hz to several kHz [2,3]. Bearing in mind that, for exa mple Terfenol D, a material characterized as that possessing the largest magnetostriction effect of being equal to 0,16% found already practical applications, the single crystals of Ni-M n-Ga alloys with this exceptional large functional strain became very attractive. Other fun ctional features of Ni-Mn-Ga alloys: thermal shape memory effect [4] and magnetocaloric effect [5] as well as pre-martensitic transformation [6], the latter not fully understood to date were a subject of further intensified interest in this group of materials.


The invention relates to a storage cell, a storage cell arrangement, and a method for producing a storage cell. Said storage cell comprises a substrate that contains charge carriers having a first type of conductivity, a first source/drain area in a first surface zone of the substrate, and a second source/drain area in a second surface zone of the substrate. A channel area is provided in a surface zone of the substrate, which is located between the first and the second source/drain area, while a charge storage area is disposed above the channel area. Also provided is a control gate which is located above the charge storage area and is electrically insulated therefrom. A trench structure is formed in the substrate. Said trench structure comprises material that delivers charge carriers and is provided with charge carriers having a second type of conductivity, and an insulating area located between the substrate and at least one portion of the material delivering charge carriers. The first type of conductivity is different from the second type of conductivity such that a diode junction is formed between the substrate and the material of the trench structure, which delivers charge carriers. The storage cell is designed in such a way that electric charge carriers can be introduced from the material of the trench structure, which delivers charge carriers, into the charge storage area by applying predefined electrical potentials to the storage cell.


Isotonic contractile responses of helically cut canine vascular strips to vasopressin, angiotensin, l -epinephrine and histamine were determined. There was a specific caudal increase in the sensitivity of aortic strips to vasopressin between the thoracic aorta and the bifurcation. At the height of the maximum response of the aorta to vasopressin at any anatomic level, further vasoconstriction could be elicited by angiotensin or l -epinephrine. Maximum responses of renal and main pulmonary artery strips to angiotensin and l -epinephrine, and of common mesenteric veins to histamine and l -epinephrine, were determined. The maximum response of main pulmonary artery and of renal artery to angiotensin, and of mesenteric vein to histamine, was significantly less than the maximum response of the same strips to l -epinephrine. The difference between the maximum response of main pulmonary and renal artery to angiotensin was highly significant. The presence of high concentrations of histamine or angiotensin had no significant effect upon maximum responses to l -epinephrine. A simple model was introduced which describes the response of the aorta to vasopressin and the different response maxima of vascular strips to drugs acting on separate receptor systems. The model is based upon a pharmacologically heterogeneous population of smooth musele cells within a single vessel, and employs the proportion of cells sensitive to a given drug as a parameter for calculation of drug response.


ABSTRACT Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), crystalline materials with high internal surface area and pore volume, have demonstrated great potential for many applications. In the past decade, as large number of MOFs have come into existence, there has been an effort to model them using computers. High-throughput screening techniques in tandem with molecular simulations or ab-initio calculations are being used to calculate their properties. However, the number of MOFs that can be hypothetically created are in the millions, and though computer simulations have shown remarkable accuracy, we cannot deploy them for all structures due to their high-computational cost. In this regard, machine learning (ML)-based algorithms have proven to be effective in predicting material properties and reducing the need for expensive calculations. Adopting this methodology can save time and allow researchers to explore materials in unchartered chemical space, thus ushering an era of high-throughput in-silico material design using ML. In this work, we present what is ML, its associated workflow, selecting descriptors, and how it can help build reliable models for discovering MOFs. We present some popular and novel ones. Thereafter, we review some of the recent studies with respect to ML-based implementation for MOF discovery emphasizing descriptors selected and the workflow adopted.


Systematic investigations were made of transitions in aluminum oxide hydrates and aluminum crystalline salts at 200 to 1300 deg C. (R.V.J.)


Computational fluid dynamic CFD was used for simulating air flow, indoor air distribution and contamination concentration. Gases pollution and thermal discomfort affected occupational health and productivity of work place. The main objectives of this study are to investigate the impact of air change rate in CO2 concentration and to estimate the profile of CO2 concentration in the offices building. The thermal comfort and gases contamination are investigated by numerical analysis CFD which was validated by experiment. Thus the air temperature, air velocity and CO2 concentration were measured at several points in the chamber with four occupants. Comparing between experimental and numerical results showed good agreement. In addition, the CO2 concentration around human recorded high, compared to the other area. Moreover, the thermal comfort in this study is within the ASHRAE standard 55-2004.


Electro-Mechanical Actuator (EMA) has played an important role as there are more EMAs incorporated in the flight control actuation of More Electric Aircraft. However, the difficulty of EMA Health Indicator (HI) extraction caused by limitation of sensor installation hinders the development of EMA Prognostic and Health Management (PHM). As a result, to address this issue, a new HI extraction method based on Continuous Hidden Markov Model (CHMM) is proposed for EMA. In the CHMM-based HI extraction method, the monitoring data in health condition of EMA are utilized to train a CHMM with log-likelihood function. Based on the CHMM and the monitoring data in the degradation condition of EMA, the output of log-likelihood function for EMA degradation condition can be obtained, which implies the similarity between the degradation condition and health condition. Furthermore, the normalized similarity is used as an EMA HI. Thus, the sensors with high correlation to the extracted HI (i.e. normalized similarity) no longer need to be installed or can be removed. This study provides a new way of EMA HI extraction with the limitation of sensor installation. To validate the effectiveness of CHMM-based HI extraction method for EMA, experiments are conducted, in which the data derived from NASAs Flyable Electro-Mechanical Actuator (FLEA) test stand are utilized. Experimental results show that the CHMM-based method has a good performance in EMA HI extraction.


It is not the purpose of this paper to make a survey of the work suggesting that serotonin is a central neurohumoral agent, since much of this is being discussed by other contributors to this monograph. Rather, we should like to offer a concept that implicates serotinon and norepinephrine as chemical mediators of mutally antagonistic centers in the brain. This thesis, which is admittedly oversimplified, endeavors to explain the actions of the tranquilizing agents reserpine and chlorpromazine and the hallucinogenic agents LSD and mescaline in terms of interactions with serotonin and norepinephrine in the central nervous system. As presented here this concept may begin to trace the outlines of a coherent picture, but one, we are sure, that will bear only a faint resemblance to the picture that will ultimately emerge. The concept is only a working hypothesis, but i t has already proved useful in linking a number of unrelated observations and in suggesting certain experiments that might test it. It is fascinating to learn how the discovery of serotonin, a substance that appears to have no part in the general metabolism of cells, has proved to be of such significance to the pharmacologist, the biochemist, the neurophysiologist and, possibly, to the psychiatrist. When the vasoconstrictive material in blood platelets was finally isolated and identified as 5-hydroxytryptaminel1, i t was soon proved identical with the enteramine that Erspamer3 had extracted years before from the gastrointestinal tracts of the vertebrates and from other organs in the invertebrates. A number of notions concerning its role in the body were considered, most of which took into account its profound contractive action on smooth muscle. Among these possibilities were the control of vascular tone and, therefore, of systemic blood pressure; control of gastrointestinal motility; regulation of water excretion by affecting kidney arterioles; and regulation of hemostatic action by affecting blood vessels after release from platel e t ~ . ~ . Several of these suggestions can be more or less summarily dealt with a t once. Since serotonin is normally present in the body almost entirely in a bound and therefore presumably inactive form, i t is doubtful that there is enough of the free form circulating in plasma to affect the vascular tone either of the body as a whole or of the kidneys in particular. Results from our laboratory indicate that it is not involved in any obvious way in hemostasis, since animals and humans whose platelets have been depleted of serotonin by the administration of reserpine show no change in bleeding or clotting time.6 It is possible that serotonin controls some aspects of gastrointestinal motility, although no direct evidence is as yet forthcoming in this connection. The clue pointing to a role for serotonin in the functioning of the central


A material measurement system (500) includes a THz generator including at least one laser source (111) for emitting optical pulses, the optical pulses coupled to a THz emitter (51) operable for emitting pulsed THz radiation at a sample location on material while being processed (14) by a manufacturing system. A receiver (52) is operable to receive the optical pulses and to detect reflected or transmitted THz radiation from the sample location (14) synchronously with the optical pulses and provide electrical detection signals. Synchronizing optics (112, 113, 114) is operable to receive the optical pulses from said laser and provide the optical pulses to both the receiver (52) and the THz emitter (51). A controller (25) includes at least one processor (87) for receiving the electrical detection signals and providing a processed electrical detection signal, and an analyzer (88) operable to determine at least one, and generally a plurality of properties of the material from the processed electrical detection signal.


In this paper the problem of tracking multiple objects in im- age sequences is studied. A Hidden Markov Model describ- ing the movements of multiple objects is presented. Previ- ously similar models have been used, but in real time sys- tem the standard dynamic programming Viterbi algorithm is typically not used to find the global optimum state se- quence, as it requires that all past and future observations are available. In this paper we present an extension to the Viterbi algorithm that allows it to operate on infinite time sequences and produce the optimum with only a finite de- lay. This makes it possible to use the Viterbi algorithm in real time applications. Also, to handle the large state spaces of these models another extension is proposed. The global optimum is found by iteratively running an approximative algorithm with higher and higher precision. The algorithm can determine when the global optimum is found by main- taining an upper bound on all state sequences not evalu- ated. For real time performance some approximations are needed and two such approximations are suggested. The theory has been tested on three real data experiments, all with promising results.


As part of its "War on Terror", the United States (US) provided immense sums of money and advanced equipment to Afghan warlords in order to defeat and dismantle the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Nearly two decades after the 2001 US-led intervention in Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban regime, the US continues supporting the warlords in various ways. As the intervention was also aimed at establishing a functioning state and reconstruction of the war-torn country, the US needed the support of local warlords to achieve its goals. However, over time, warlords and warlordism became a major challenge to the postTaliban state-building project and in many ways undermined the overall security and the state monopoly on violence. These warlords, who had been mostly expelled and defeated by the Taliban regime, returned under the aegis of the B52 bombers, recaptured parts of the country and reestablished their fiefdoms with US support and resources. They not only resist giving up the power and prestige they have accumulated over the past few years, but also hamper the effort to improve governance and enact necessary reforms in the country. In addition, many of them run their private militias and have been accused of serious human rights abuses as well as drug trafficking, arms smuggling, illegal mining and extortion in the areas under their control or influence. In many ways, they challenge the government authority and have become a major hurdle to the country's emerging from lawlessness and anarchy. This paper explores the emergence and reemergence of warlords in Afghanistan as well as the evolution of chaos and anarchy in the country, especially after the US-led intervention of late 2001. It also analyzes the impact of the post-9/11 US support to Afghan warlords and its negative consequences for the overall stability and the US-led state-building process in Afghanistan.


The paper presents a coupled machine learning and pattern recognition algorithm to enable early-stage fatigue damage detection in aerospace-grade aluminum alloys. U- and V-notched Al7075-T6 specimens are instrumented with a pair of ultrasonic sensors and, thereafter, tested on an MTS apparatus integrated with a confocal microscope and a digital microscope. The confocal microscope is focused on the notch root of the specimens, whereas the digital microscope is focused on the side of the notch. Two features, viz., the crack opening displacement (COD) and the crack length, are extracted during the tests in addition to the ultrasonic signal data. These signal data are analyzed using a machine learning framework that is built upon a symbolic time-series algorithm. This framework is interrogated for crack detection in the crack coalescence (CC) regime defined by COD of ~3 μm and detected through the confocal microscope. Additionally, the framework is probed in the crack propagation (CP) regime characterized by a crack length of ~0.2 mm and detected via the digital microscope. For the CC regime, training accuracies of 79.82% and 81.94% are achieved, whereas testing accuracies of 68.18% and 74.12% are observed for the U- and V-notched specimens, respectively. For the CP regime, overall training accuracies of 88.3% and 91.85% are observed, and accordingly, testing accuracies of 81.94% and 85.62% are obtained for the U- and V-notched specimens, respectively. The results show that a combined machine learning and pattern recognition algorithm enables robust and reliable fatigue damage detection in aerospace structural components.


We study the efficiency of grain alignment by radiative torques (RATs) for an ensemble of irregular grains. The grains are modeled as ensembles of oblate and prolate spheroids, deformed as Gaussian random ellipsoids, and their scattering interactions are solved using numerically exact methods. We define the fraction of the grains that both rotate fast and demonstrate perfect alignment with grain long axes perpendicular to the magnetic field. We quantify a factor related to the efficacy of alignment and show that it is related to a factor of the analytical model of the RAT theory. For the interstellar radiation field, our results indicate that the degree of RAT alignment can reach ∼0.5, which may be sufficient to explain observations even if grains do not have magnetic inclusions.


Many countries are increasingly being challenged to integrate their growing immigrant populations. A major key to successful integration is the educational attainment of immigrant offspring. According to the results of comparative studies, second-generation immigrant students often lag behind their non-immigrant counterparts even though the host countries perform very differently with respect to the education of immigrant offspring. This study investigates how the interplay between the degrees of stratification and standardization in education systems and the degree of ethnic school segregation affects the performance gap between non-immigrant and second-generation immigrant students in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Based on data from three waves of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study (2003, 2006, and 2009), this article presents a country fixed effects approach to analyzing repeated cross-sectional data by investigating how changes in education policies and institutional contexts are associated with non-immigrant–immigrant reading performance gap. Between-school stratification was associated with lower performance of second-generation immigrants relative to native students, particularly when paired with ethnic school segregation, whereas within-school stratification (ability grouping) was associated with higher relative performance of the immigrant students. In addition, the non-native students benefited from less standardization of educational input, because performance gaps were smaller when a country's educational resources were distributed unequally.


The control of vortex shedding behind a circular cylinder is a precursor to a wide range of external shear flow problems in engineering, in particular the flow-induced vibrations. In the present study, numerical simulation of an energetically efficient active flow control strategy is proposed, for the control of wake vortices behind a circular cylinder at a low Reynolds number of 100. The fluid is assumed to be incompressible and Newtonian with negligible variation in properties. Reflectionally symmetric controllers are designed such that, they are located on a small sector of the cylinder over which, tangential sliding mode control is imparted. In the field of modern controls, proportional (P), integral (I) and differential (D) control strategies and their numerous combinations are extremely popular in industrial practice. To impart suitable control actuation, the vertically varying lift force on the circular cylinder, is synthesised for the construction of an error term. Four different types of controllers considered in the present study are, P, I, PI and PID. These controllers are evaluated for their energetic efficiency and performance. A linear quadratic optimal control problem is formulated, to minimise the cost functional. By performing detailed simulations, it was observed that, the system is energetically efficient, even when the twin eddies are still persisting behind the circular cylinder. To assess the adaptability of the controllers, the actuators were switched on and off to study their dynamic response.


It is difficult to find a plainer or more explicit definition of reasonable doubt than the words themselves, and efforts to do so usually result merely in an elaboration of language without any corresponding amplification of the idea.' I find it rather unsettling that we are using a formulation that we believe will become less clear the more we explain it. 2 I. INTRODUCTION The jury empaneled to decide whether Terry Williams aided and abetted the man who killed Ricky Lee Moore faced a difficult task.' Ricky Lee Moore was shot in the head while he was talking to a friend on a pay phone. 4 At trial, the state presented witnesses who testified that a man fitting Terry Williams's general description was seen running from the murder scene.' Another witness, Dion Lowe, testified that Terry Williams was the "right hand man" to the leader of a large Chicago street gang. 6 Lowe further testified that Williams approached Robert Hawkins, a fellow gang member, gave him a gun, and told him to kill Moore. When Robert Hawkins was arrested, he told the authorities that Terry Williams told him that the leader of their gang


Among the numerous compounds into which benzol, when submilted to reagents, is converted, azobenzol and its derivatives have as yet received but limited attention. Although more than twenty- five years have elapsed since this interesting body was discovered by Mitscherlich, both its formation and its constitution remain still doubtful. Mitscherlich, who discovered azobenzol in 1834, when submitting nitrobenzol to the action of an alcoholic solution of potassa, represented this compound by the formula C6H5N.


Abstract Titled compounds are synthesized in good yields from acrylonitrile and saturated aliphatic aldehydes by the cocatalysis of tributylphophine and triethylaluminium.


Demand for computing is growing, especially in the form of digital image processing and computer vision because of their applications in military equipment, industrial environment, automobiles, medical and entertainment products. Edge detection is one of the fundamental steps in digital image processing and computer vision and Canny is the most widely used edge detection algorithm. This algorithm is comprised of computationally intensive stages like smoothing, gradient computation, non-maximal suppression etc, which have high processing demands, especially for embedded computing. Hardware/software co-design appears to be a promising solution to satisfy the computation demands of many applications, especially image processing and computer vision. It has especially gained popularity due to the tight coupling between reconfigurable hardware and software on a single chip, such as Zynq by Xilinx and the availability of better tools. However, programmability of such devices is still a challenge. In this thesis, we present an efficient mapping of Canny edge detection application on Zedboard which uses Zynq as target processor. The goal is to accelerate the application without losing the accuracy as compared to the original software implementation. We highlight various challenges faced by the developer in the form of detailed memory and communication profiling and careful analysis of applications and the requirement to understand the hardware details. We highlight how tools like MCProf, can be useful to perform intelligent application mapping on processors like Zynq. We back our study with simulation and actual implementation results at kernel and application level to provide a quantitative comparison of various optimizations. We obtained upto 7x and 3.18x speedup at kernel- and application-level, respectively. Though we have used Canny as case-study, the analysis presented in this thesis is also applicable to other image processing and computer vision applications.


AM LCDs (liquid crystal displays) with <100- mu m pitches are capable of EDTV/HDTV (enhanced-definition/high-definition TV) projection, but these pitches imply electrical parasitic effects and small aperture ratio. A structure combining a storage capacitor and a black matrix with an 85- mu m pitch is evaluated and experimental results are presented. It is shown that the ground-plane-type storage capacitor is very efficient for designing low-pitch AM LCDs for projection since it reduces the many couplings of the cell. Moreover, a black matrix can easily be designed on that ground plane, which helps to keep a high OAR (open aperture ratio): a 85- mu m-pitch cell with a >60% OAR has been achieved thanks to this design.<<ETX>>


Introducing western popular culture may stimulate Chinese popular cultural criticism.However,taking it for granted will lead to negligence of present Chinese native culture and malposition or lack of criticism.From Frankfurt school theory's validity thinking,this paper probes into the limitation of popular cultural criticism.


Copyright: © 2014 Salerno C, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited Leishmaniasis is a worldwide spread neglected disease caused by Leishmania parasites. Although it is an ancient disease, it has been recently classified as an emerging pathology with 2 million cases annually. It has become a public health problem since several factors favor its expansion such as migration, urbanization and deforestation, co-infection with human immunodeficiency virus and malnutrition, and inadequate vector o reservoir control, treatment failure and emerging drug resistance due to incomplete treatment. Moreover, diagnosis and treatment is not often possible in rural areas where the disease is more frequent. Leishmania parasites can cause four clinical forms: cutaneous (CL), diffuse cutaneous, mucocutaneous, and visceral pathology. Visceral leishmaniasis is the most severe form of the disease; however CL is the most prevalent. CL is caused mostly by L. major in the Old World and by L. Mexicana, L. peruviana, and L. braziliensis in the New World. The prognosis of the disease depends on the Leishmania specie and immunological condition of the patient. Although CL lesions may be self-limited, treatment helps to reduce scars and prevent disease dissemination. Main treatment with parenteral pentavalent antimonials produce serious side effects and patient compliance is difficult. The World Health Organization (WHO) also recommends intralesional treatment with antimonial drugs depending on clinical features. Oral alternatives such as miltefosine, allopurinol and azoles have been used. But, there is still lack of effective topical treatments for CL.


.A FEW crystals of the mineral here described were brought to the attention of one of us while prospectin~ in the summer of 1888 for ores of thoria in the zircon regIon of Henderson Oounty, North Oarolina. The new thorium-phosphate (Auerlite)* had lately been discovered in that neighborhood and this yttrium-uranium mineral was considered by its finders to he identical with it. Its yellow exterior alteration bore a great resemblance to auerlite, particularly to that variety found on the Price land, but its form, density, dark interior color, and bright resinous fracture suggested a closer rel~tion to euxenite, polycrase or samarskite. '1'he locality was visited and the work of developing it promptly commenced. In an announcement of a new occurrence of xenotime-cyrtolite, printed in this J ournal (Nov., 1888), the first notice of this


The COVID-19 made an impact in the E-commerce sector. In India, the E-commerce sector is booming. Also, the Commerce sector was down due to the pandemic situation and most of the commerce is converted into E-commerce. And during COVID-19 most of the people in the home and some of the stocks is not there and it is not safe for his/her health so, people buying a product from E-commerce sites now people like to buy goods from online. Based on the collected data from 112 online respondents during the social distancing period due to Covid-19, this study is about examining the online customer satisfaction towards E-commerce logistics, payment, and product. And also examine delivery agents follow safety measurements then meet the customers. The study used SPSS analytical tools such as correlation, ANOVA, and Independent T-test. This tool is used and found the customer has satisfied with online shopping. Finally, the result showed that in this pandemic situation most of the customers like to purchase goods from E-commerce.


Once we agree-or concede-that intense, unscripted competition is now reforming the U.S. health care system, the pressing need for information becomes self-evident. Few sentient beings would argue the first point. In some areas, competition has rocked and upended health care landscapes that formerly shifted only with the grinding reluctance of tectonic plates. The second point follows: Information is necessary for making informed choices among competitors. To date, however, costs have been easier to quantify than quality, so dollars have dominated decision making. When driven purely by price, competition is antithetical to the fundamental mission of health care. Information, therefore, is also essential to ensure that quality enters the competitive equation. The rhetoric of leading health care competitors asserts their interest in value, an amalgam of cost and quality. Nonetheless, explicit quantification of value remains elusive. Experts legitimately claim that rigorous measurement of health care quality is now possible [1, 2]. However, obtaining good information about anything-such as putative health care quality-requires money and time. Designing meaningful quality measures and measurement tools, obtaining necessary data from medical records or patients, ensuring minimal reliability and accuracy of data, doing credible statistical analyses, and other necessary tasks are expensive and time-consuming. How much are we willing to pay to learn about health care quality? Thus far, most U.S. initiatives to examine hospital quality have begun on a small scale, using readily available, computer-readable hospital discharge abstracts to examine mortality rates [3, 4]. Discharge abstracts, typically produced through hospital billing, include such items as patient demographic characteristics, payer, dates, discharge disposition, and diagnosis and procedure codes. Computer files that contain discharge abstracts and encompass all hospitalizations statewide can be purchased from some state health data organizations for approximately $1000. This broad coverage, easy access, and low cost contrast favorably with the high costs and logistical challenges of obtaining clinical information from medical records. 1990, for example, when California considered imposing new requirements for reporting clinical data for evaluating hospital quality, the estimated annual cost of more than $61 million sent state lawmakers into sticker shock [5]. Instead, California adopted a method based on their already available database of discharge abstracts. Despite their pecuniary attractions, discharge abstracts offer only limited insight into patients' clinical conditions. Meaningful comparisons of mortality rates across hospitals generally must control for patient risk, but risk adjustment using discharge diagnosis codes and other administrative data is problematic. In 1993, the Health Care Financing Administration abandoned its comparisons of hospital mortality rates for Medicare beneficiaries largely because of concerns about the inability of administrative data to adequately adjust for patient risk [6]. Therefore, the model described by Pine and colleagues in this issue [7] offers a welcome alternative. They found that linking existing electronic data from laboratory reporting systems to administrative files could provide a cost-effective way to add valuable clinical information. As have others [8, 9], Pine and colleagues showed that even a few clinical variables can contribute substantially to predicting in-hospital deaths of general, acute care patients. Using electronic laboratory data to predict patient outcomes is not a new idea [10-13]. At a university hospital, McMahon and colleagues [10] created APACHE-L (a version of the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation severity measure) by using data extracted from the laboratory computer. Using values of 20 laboratory tests, they showed that APACHE-L added substantially to predictions of length of stay and use of ancillary resources for selected conditions. Similarly, Mozes and colleagues [11] used values of 22 laboratory tests obtained from electronic laboratory reporting systems at two large teaching hospitals to construct predictors of length of stay. Davis and colleagues [13] predicted in-hospital deaths by using electronic data taken not only from the laboratory system but also from nurses' assessments of function, which are entered into the computer during each shift at a major teaching hospital [13]. They found that the nurses' assessments (for example, whether the patient required assistance with bathing) were more powerful predictors of death than were most laboratory variables. Despite these encouraging experiences, it is not accidental that they all occurred at large facilities. An obvious practical question involves the feasibility of extracting comparable electronic laboratory data across facilities, large and small. Although most hospitals are moving toward computerizing their information systems, such as laboratory reporting, this process is expensive and by no means universal. In many instances, only islands of automation exist; digital health information remains cloistered within departments or small organizational units [14]. Although standards for transmission of electronic data are now being promulgated by such groups as the American Society for Testing and Materials and the American National Standards Institute, getting computers from different departments to talk to each other remains a frustratingly intractable problem, even in institutions with extensive information systems. For example, Davis and colleagues found that laboratory data and nurses' assessments were archived on separate computer systems that could not communicate; the investigators downloaded the desired data from each computer and then merged them elsewhere to create the analytical database. Although Pine and colleagues tout the utility of electronic laboratory information, it is ironic, but telling, that they used data abstracted manually from medical records. Other hurdles could also impede widespread use of detailed digital data about patients. Protecting confidentiality and privacy raises thorny ethical and technical questions. For example, patients about to have surgery undergo outpatient testing before admission. Laboratory values must therefore be obtained from diverse sites to produce complete patient profiles. Nevertheless, the United States is moving toward a time when data on health and health care will be widely available electronically. Several provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill), signed by President Clinton on 21 August 1996, give the federal government a leading role in determining standards for data transmission, mechanisms for protecting privacy, and ways of coding specified data elements. The law requires that the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics study the issues related to the adoption of uniform data standards for patient medical record information and the electronic exchange of such information and report back within 4 years about recommendations and legislative proposals for such standards and electronic exchange. In the meantime, we cannot wait for good information about quality. We must demand it and be willing to pay, but how much? Projecting these costs is difficult. Since 1986, Pennsylvania has required hospitals to collect extensive clinical data that will be used to adjust mortality rates for risk [15, 16]. One study estimated that these data cost $17.43 per case, with total annual costs ranging from $70 000 at small rural facilities to $134 000 at large urban hospitals [17]. However, these considerable sums represent only 0.36% of total expenditures at small hospitals and 0.27% at large ones [17]. Pennsylvania employers claim to have saved millions by using these data to negotiate with hospitals. Nonetheless, a lingering question is whether knowing hospital mortality rates alone is worth this price. The evidence about the relation between mortality rates and hospital quality is mixed. Even if perfect, hospital mortality rates represent the tip of the iceberg in our need for information about health care quality [2, 18]. In addition, information on outcomes of hospitalizations tells us only about persons in the health care system, not those outside the system. The obvious risk is that we will be swimming in costly information but will be unable to determine what it all means. T.S. Eliot anticipated this problem in the first chorus of The Rock: Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? If this happens, dollars will continue to drive competition in our health care system.


This chapter contains sections titled: Value Prediction with Function Approximation, Gradient-Descent Methods, Linear Methods, Control with Function Approximation, Off-Policy Bootstrapping, Should We Bootstrap?, Summary, Bibliographical and Historical Remarks


Background: Nursing school is challenging and can be stressful for many students. Nursing students are also susceptible to stress, anxiety, and depression. Exercise and mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been shown to improve mental health outcomes in other populations, but it is not known how these strategies influence academic achievement. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among exercise, mindfulness, academic achievement, and mental health among undergraduate nursing students. Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design that uses correlational, regression, and mediation analyses. Results: Mindfulness was inversely associated with depression and anxiety and, although not statistically significant, was positively associated with academic achievement. Exercise was not significantly associated with anxiety or academic achievement but was associated with depression. Conclusions: Evidence-based interventions that promote mindfulness among nursing students should be implemented to promote mental health and academic achievement, especially because MBIs are cost-effective and convenient alternatives to other psychotherapies.


This study was conducted to determine the effect of understanding, knowledge, and tax amnesty on compliance of tax payments of individuals registered in KPP Pratama Surakarta. The dependent variable in this research is taxpayer compliance of individual person and the independent variable in this research is knowledge of taxpayer, understanding of taxpayer, and tax amnesty. The population in this research is individual taxpayer registered in KPP Pratama Surakarta. Sampling technique that is by using method of convenience sampling. The sample used in this research  of 98 respondents. The data has been collected by issuing questionnaires and using likert scale 1 to 5. The method used in this research is quantitative with multiple linear analysis model. Based on the result of analysis, it shows that the understanding, knowladge and tax amnesty significant effect on compliance of tax payments of individuals.


CARTRIDGE INCLUDES UNIQUE WALL CYLINDER MADE OF COMPOSITE 80 TO ENSURE BOTH FUNCTIONS HELD MECHANICAL SEALS AND FITNESS FOR THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY THAN SAMPLE WHILE MAINTAINING PHYSICAL AND COMPATIBILITY CHEMICAL WITH THE SAMPLE. WALL SINGLE 80 CAN BE PERFORMED IN PARTICULAR FROM CARBON FIBER IMPREGNATED CARBON FIBER OR CARBIDE SILICON IMPREGNATED SILICON CARBIDE.


ABSTRACT Whereas anti-apartheid social movements engaged collectively against a repressive regime, especially in actions against social injustices, post-apartheid civil society has witnessed fragmentation when it comes to engaging jointly against neoliberal risks such as poor/no service delivery, privatisation, and environmental pollution. Civil society has not linked struggles into a coherent ideology to comprehensively challenge neoliberalism and associated risks. Research has not explored the underlying elements that contribute to reinforcing fragmentation. This article reviews the literature on key social and environmental struggles in order to draw out common elements and differences that reinforce fragmentation. The paper highlights the need for social and environmental activists to engage collectively both within their respective arenas, as well as across the social and environmental divide, if an environmental justice framework is to emerge. Social movements advocating social justice could serve as a platform to incorporate environmental discourses into their struggle to assist in formulating an environmental justice framework.


This paper analyzes how some conditions of schooling impacts on two factors of organizational development. The first is job satisfaction and the second is organizational commitment. Maquiladora industry workers from the State of Zacatecas was selected. The sample includes three levels of labor: administrative, supervisors and operators. With this information, we locate some conditions that persist in the diverse workers of this industry. Because the original questionnaire is broad, some scales are generated that allow the Labor Satisfaction factor to be reduced to five indicators. In a similar way the organizational commitment is reduced to another five. The results show that schooling is positively related to the indicators, which generates a commitment of educational institutions to support workers or students before working. Correlations of relationships with their superiors and to their peers are highlighted. By organizational commitment, labor stability as well as flexibility are found within the optimal values. Previous education that workers have, is a motivator for the socioeconomic mobility


Pain is defined as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage (HigginsonM acute pain is initially treated with short-acting non-opioid pharmacologic agents or combination opioid drugs. Acute versus chronic pain is important to clearly differentiate. Acute pain is rapid in onset, self-limiting, a symptom of the disease, and the patient often presents in acute distress. Examples of acute pain include postoperative pain, obstetrical labor pain, and trauma or injury-related pain and characteristically is described as sudden, sharp, and localized pain. It is usually self-limited and may be associated with physiologic changes such as diaphoresis and increases in heart rate and blood pressure (Mirchandani et al 2011). Chronic pain; chronic pain is long-term pain classified as acute, moderate, and severe. It is often differentiated as malignant or non-malignant pain. Chronic pain is often described as gnawing, aching, and diffuse and is more gradual in onset and cessation than acute pain, which can also be simultaneously superimposed on top of the former. It can vary in intensity, may remit briefly, and has definite impact psychologically and socially. Pain characteristics: Acute and chronic was given Table 1. The treatment for such pain is often successful with traditional pharmacologic measures; however, often less traditional drugs and even non-pharmacologic therapies are necessary to achieve relief (Mirchandani et al., 2011).


The multilayer structure of 3-D network-on-chips (3-D NoC) leads to the unequal thermal conductance between different layers and, as a result, an unbalanced thermal distribution in the chip. This issue leads to the low reliability and performance degradation of 3-D NoCs. To ensure thermal safety, 3-D NoCs require effective cooling methods. Several thermal-aware routing algorithms have been proposed to route packets in a way which helps mitigation of imbalance temperature distribution. To have a thermal-aware path selection and safety thermal distribution, we propose a new thermal-aware routing method based on the Q-learning algorithm (Q-Thermal). In our method, thermal information propagates over the network using ordinary network packets. Thanks to the Q-learning algorithm that keeps always the thermal information of routers up-to-date that causes routers steer packets toward the cooler paths (laterally or vertically). Based on the experimental results, Q-Thermal reduces the heat and temperature of different layers of 3-D NoCs significantly in comparison with the previous state-of-the-art techniques. Q-Thermal leads to a balanced thermal distribution in the stacked layers of the chip and it improves the network performance considerably.


Precision agriculture is a crucial way to achieve greater yields by utilizing the natural deposits in a diverse environment. The yield of a crop may vary from year to year depending on the variations in climate, soil parameters and fertilizers used. Automation in the agricultural industry moderates the usage of resources and can increase the quality of food in the post-pandemic world. Agricultural robots have been developed for crop seeding, monitoring, weed control, pest management and harvesting. Physical counting of fruitlets, flowers or fruits at various phases of growth is labour intensive as well as an expensive procedure for crop yield estimation. Remote sensing technologies offer accuracy and reliability in crop yield prediction and estimation. The automation in image analysis with computer vision and deep learning models provides precise field and yield maps. In this review, it has been observed that the application of deep learning techniques has provided a better accuracy for smart farming. The crops taken for the study are fruits such as grapes, apples, citrus, tomatoes and vegetables such as sugarcane, corn, soybean, cucumber, maize, wheat. The research works which are carried out in this research paper are available as products for applications such as robot harvesting, weed detection and pest infestation. The methods which made use of conventional deep learning techniques have provided an average accuracy of 92.51%. This paper elucidates the diverse automation approaches for crop yield detection techniques with virtual analysis and classifier approaches. Technical hitches in the deep learning techniques have progressed with limitations and future investigations are also surveyed. This work highlights the machine vision and deep learning models which need to be explored for improving automated precision farming expressly during this pandemic.


The hydrolysis of ribonucleic acid or a number of pyrimidine nucleotide 3'-phosphate esters as catalyzed by pancreatic ribonuclease is generally regarded as occurring in a biphasic fashion, the first phase involving formation of nucleoside-2', 3'-cyclic phosphates, whereas the second involves hydrolysis of the cyclic intermediate to 3'-nucleoside phosphoric acids (1). Reports of inhibition of RNase by various anionic polymers such as heparin (2-5) and polyphloretin phosphate (4) suggest that these materials as a class may behave as competitive inhibitors of RNase. Recent dilatometric and spectrophotometric measurements of ribonucleic acid breakdown by RNase demonstrate that the initial step is less inhibited by heparin than is the subsequent cyclic phosphatase step (4). This observation would seem to support the argument that the phosphotransferase and cyclic phosphatase reactions are catalyzed at different active centers on the enzyme surface (6). The following experiments which concern the inhibition by the anionic polymer, PXP,' of RNase activity with different substrates were devised in an attempt to explain the apparent selective inhibition.


Monosomy 1p36 is one of the common microdeletion syndromes with a recognizable facial phenotype. Failure to thrive, developmental delay, congenital heart disease, and other abnormalities are common in these patients. This is the first study on Asian Indian patients with monosomy 1p36, documenting the phenotypic characteristics of 13 patients, indicating phenotypic similarities in a diverse population and broadening the clinical spectrum.


Around the whole world, electric energy from photovoltaic systems is considered as an important generation alternative in the electric power system. A measure of the photovoltaic system's performance is given by the energy production as well as the system efficiencies, evaluated for different reference periods. In this paper, the photovoltaic system of Applied Research Laboratory Iasi, Romania has been presented and its performance indices have been evaluated. In this order, the performance of the grid connected photovoltaic system has been analyzed on annual, monthly and daily reference periods.


By calculating the Fermat limit of certain q–Fermat functions, we get explicit surgery formulae for the second and third Ohtsuki invariants for homology 3–spheres. The surgery formula of the second Ohtsuki invariant λ2 , combined with an argument using the general theory of finite type invariants of homology 3–spheres, leads to a congruence relation between the first and second Ohtsuki invariants: λ1 = 2λ2 mod 24. AMS Classification 57M99; 57N10, 57M50