BCG has been administered globally for more than 75 years, yet tuberculosis (TB) continues to kill more than 2 million people annually. Further, BCG protects childhood TB but is quite inefficient in adults. This indicates that BCG fails to induce long-term protection. Hence there is a need to explore alternative vaccination strategies that can stimulate enduring T cell memory response. Dendritic cell based vaccination has attained extensive popularity following their success in various malignancies. In our previous study, we have established a novel and unique vaccination strategy against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb) and Salmonella typhimurium by utilizing infected macrophages (IM). In short-term experiments {30 days). substantial degree of protection was observed. However, remarkable difference was not observed in long-term studies (240 days) due to failure of the vaccine to generate long-lasting memory T cells. Hence, in the present study we employed T cell memory augmenting cytokines IL-1 +IL-6+ TN F-a: and IL-7+1L-1 5 for the induction of the enhancement of long-term protection by the vaccine. We co-administered the M. tb infected macrophages vaccine with IL-1 +IL-6+ TN F-a: (IM-1 .6.a:) and IL-7+1L-1 5 (IM-7.1 5). The mice were then rested for a reasonably large period (240 days) to study the bona fide T cell memory response before exposing them to aerosolized M. tb. IM-1.6.a: but not IM-7.1 5 significantly improved memory T cell response against M. tb, as evidenced by recall responses of memory T cells, expansion of both central as well as effector memory CD4 and CDS T cell pools, elicitation of mainly Th1 memory response, reduction in the mycobacterial load and alleviated lung pathology. Importantly, the protection induced by IM-1 .6.a: was significantly better than BCG. Thus, this study demonstrates that not only antigen-pulsed DCs can be successfully employed as vaccines against cancer and infectious diseases but also macrophages infected with M. tb can be utilized with great efficacy especially in protection against TB. Citation: Singh V, Jain S, Gowthaman U, Parihar P, Gupta P, et al. (2011) Co-Administration of IL-l+IL-6+ TNF-o: with Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infected Macrophages Vaccine Induces Better Protective T Cel l Memory than BCG. PLoS ONE 6(1): e16097. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0016097 Editor: Leonardo A. Sechi, Universita di Sassari, Italy Received November 30, 2010; Accepted December 10, 2010; Published January 19, 2011 Copyright: © 201 1 Singh 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 origina l author and source are credited. Funding: This study is supported by the Indian Council of Medical Resea rch (Grant Reference No. S/8/5/6/200S-ECD-I) and Department of Biotechnology (Grant Reference No. BT/PR6219/Med/ 14/762/ 2005), New Delhi, India. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. • E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


A cross-domain initiative Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is utilizing ICT technologies and increasing autonomy of the elderly by building Enhanced Living Environments (ELEs). Affordable in-house devices that can be combined with highly available, infinitely scalable cloud services can deliver novel applications and user experience. Cost reduction and efficiency of the smart-home has become one of the imperatives of the countries around the world. Low cost (of-the-shelf) devices facilitate proliferation of smart services and make them more accessible to a broader audience. In this paper we present the proof-of-concept pilot solution developed to investigate the possibility to replace the expensive home-gateway server with much cheaper and energy efficient home sensing internet gateway based on the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B device.


The composition of equilibrated gaseous mixtures of 3-methylene-1,5,5-trimethylcyclohexene (MTC) and 1,3,5,5-tetramethyl-1,3-cyclohexadiene (TECD) have been measured for temperatures ranging between 302 and 410°C. Nitrogen oxide was used as catalyst. Equilibrium was approached from either side. The least squares regression analysis of the observed temperature dependence of the equilibrium constants K1.2 = k1/k2 = (TECD)eq./(MTC)eq. yields (with standard errors)

This results in ΔH1.2(300°K) = 0.4 ± 0.3 kcal/mole and ΔS1.2(300°K) = 1.4 ± 0.8 cal/°-mole. The fact that the reaction is practically thermoneutral implies that the secondary, «biallylic» CH bond in MTC is equally strong as the primary «biallylic» CH bond of the 1-methyl group in TECD.

The observed enthalpy and entropy differences between the two isomers are in agreement with prediction based on the concept of additivity of thermodynamic increment properties (ref. [5]). The results of this work also yield a value of 23.7 cal/°-mole for the entropy contribution characteristic of the 1,3-cyclohexadiene ring structure. When combined with the ARRHENIUS parameters, reported earlier [1] for k1, the results of this work yield for the back reaction log k2 (1/mole-s) = 8.25–30.2/4.58 × 10−3T(°K).


A cap assembly of pile is provided that the strong bond is maintained even without the secession of the notched bars. A cap assembly(100) of pile comprises a base plate(10) which is inserted into the hollow(72) of the pile(70), and has a plurality of connecting rods protruded in the upper peripheral surface, notched bars(30) inserted in the connecting rod of the base plate, a spacer(40) assembled outside notched bars. The inserting hole in which the notched bars are inserted is formed inside of the connecting rod.


Background: Ensuring the youth friendliness of health services can increase the utilization of these services and contribute to improve youth's health. Few validated instruments to assess youth-fri ...


Information communication systems are an important component in most of today's enterprises. Due to the increasing number of devices that are connected in information communication systems, maintenance and security are becoming increasingly difficult. In my graduation thesis, I introduced systems for managing security information and events (SIEM), how they work and how they differ from log managers and IDS/IPS systems. I've checked existing commercial, free and open-source SIEM systems on the market. Then I implemented the SIEM system using only open-source components and evaluated it through use cases.


Background and objectives GLPG1690 is a novel potent autotaxin (ATX) inhibitor shown to be efficacious in the mouse bleomycin (BLM) lung fibrosis model. Here, we analyze the impact of GLPG1690 on the gene expression signature in mouse fibrotic lung tissue. Methods Lung fibrosis was induced by intranasal administration of BLM. Animals were treated with GLPG1690 or vehicle.Whole superior right lung was used for RNA extraction. Full transcriptome analysis was performed using the Agilent SurePrint G3 mouse chip. Analysis was performed using empirical Bayes methods and linear models. Public human IPF expression data were re-analyzed. Results GLPG1690 strongly reduced lung fibrosis as shown by reduction of Ashcroft scores and collagen content. Microarray analysis of the lungs revealed that GLPG1690 strongly reversed the impact of gene expression caused by BLM (367 out of the 2375 probes). As GLPG1690 treatment affects 395 probes, this treatment effect is highly relevant in the model. Gene clusters affected by BLM treatment and reverted by GLPG1690 are related to extracellular matrix (such as Tnc and Spp1), collagen (Col3a1) and cytokines/chemokines (Cxcl12). Several of the affected genes are known to be involved in the development or progression of lung fibrosis in IPF patients. Conclusions These data provide further mechanistic understanding of the efficacy of ATX inhibition in a pre-clinical lung fibrosis model, highlighting a role for extracellular matrix and inflammation biology. These data strongly suggest that GLPG1690 may be beneficial in treating IPF patients and support its evaluation in a clinical study.


Purpose
This paper aims to explore the role of ethical climate as an antecedent of polychronicity, then in turn the effect of polychronicity on frontline employees' service innovative behaviours (SIBE) and error strain and the moderating role of organization mission fulfilment in these relationships in a hotel job context in Penang, Malaysia.

Design/methodology/approach
In the current study, the data were collected from 312 frontline employees in the survey premises. A partial least square approach of the structural equation modelling technique (PLS-SEM) was used to test the associations among study variables.

Findings
The study findings reveal that ethical climate had positive impact on polychronicity. Significantly, polychronicity made positive influence on SIBEs and negative influence on error strain. Organization mission fulfilment was found to boost the influence of ethical climate on polychronicity. Finally, while organization mission fulfilment was found to boost the positive influence of polychronicity on SIBEs, on the other hand, buffers the negative impact of polychronicity on error strain.

Practical implications
The present study procures implications for practitioners in terms of establishing ethical climate in work environment and maximizing the frontline employees' SIBEs while minimizing error strain. In addition, this research procures valuable implications to apply efficient managerial tools and improve job results in the lodging industry context of Peninsular Malaysia.

Originality/value
This study by investigating the untested associations such as the influence of polychronicity on frontline employees' SIBEs and error strain contributes to the related literature.


In this paper,the working performance of rigid pile compositefoundation under vertical loads is analyzed by using the analytical method.Factors influencing the stress ratio and the proportion of the loads carried respectively by the piles and the soil are studied.The influence factors considered include the cushion thickness and modulus,pile length,pile spacing,soil modulus,modulus of subgrade reaction,etc.The calculated results indicate that the stress ratio under vertical loads increases with the increase of the loads,the cushion modulus,pile length,pile spacing,and decreases with the increase of the cushion thickness and soil modulus.It is clear from these analyses that,the design parameters of compositefoundation should be selected within rational range.


Diminished spinal mobility and altered posture with ageing may be normal or due to decreasing activity levels or gender differences. We investigated the effect of gender and physical activity on lumbar mobility and lordosis in well elderly men and women. Additionally we examined the data by ethnicity. Forty-one subjects (70.5 years ± 5.3) from two senior centers all exhibited a low physical activity score. Caucasians exhibited 6.45° more lumbar flexion than African Americans. Males averaged 6.45° less lordosis than females. African American women demonstrated a moderate inverse relationship between lordosis and lumbar flexion. Women had more lumbar flexion than men did and Caucasians had more lumbar flexion than African Americans. In the elderly, ethnic and gender-related differences may exist in lumbar spine mobility and spinal posture.


In this work, we develop a new complexity metric for an important class of low-rank matrix optimization problems, where the metric aims to quantify the complexity of the nonconvex optimization landscape of each problem and the success of local search methods in solving the problem. The existing literature has focused on two complexity measures. The RIP constant is commonly used to characterize the complexity of matrix sensing problems. On the other hand, the sampling rate and the incoherence are used when analyzing matrix completion problems. The proposed complexity metric has the potential to unify these two notions and also applies to a much larger class of problems. To mathematically study the properties of this metric, we focus on the rank- 1 generalized matrix completion problem and illustrate the usefulness of the new complexity metric from three aspects. First, we show that instances with the RIP condition have a small complexity. Similarly, if the instance obeys the similar complexity metric a case instances Section 3.3 paper [55]. However, the complexity metric in this a different form and is proved to work on a broader set of applications. In addition, prove several theoretical properties of the metric in work, are in [55]. Bernoulli sampling model, the complexity metric will take a small value with high probability. Moreover, for a one-parameter class of instances, the complexity metric shows consistent behavior to the first two scenarios. Furthermore, we establish theoretical results to provide sufficient conditions and necessary conditions on the existence of spurious solutions in terms of the proposed complexity metric. This contrasts with the RIP and incoherence notions that fail to provide any necessary condition.


Concrete is one of the most extensively used constructions maternal in the world. It is attractive in many applicators because it offers considerable strength at comparatively Low Cost. When general performance of concrete is substantially higher than normal cement concrete (NCC) .Such concrete is regarded as high performance concrete (HPC), So HPC is promising material for many decades. There fore in present study the mix design of M40 grade is considered along with polypropylene fibers (PP) steel fibers (SF), PP+ fly ash, S.F+FA, four values of volume fraction of SF & PP fibers were used i.e. 0.6%, 0.9%, 1.5% and 1.8% with replacement of fly ash by 15% weight of cement. On these various mixes tests are conducted to check the mechanical properties of concrete. Mix Result show that there is significant improvement In cracking behavior of concrete when steel fiber an used and formation of large number of finer cracks. So HPC gave ductility to structural members. Which


The present invention provides a process for producing a needle type calcium carbonate (precipitated calcium carbonate) product. The process is carbonation (carbonation) before or during the Ca (OH) on the basis of And (b) a needle type comprising the step of forming an aqueous suspension of the needle type calcium carbonate product by the presence of calcium oxide of 0.5 to 5 dry weight percent carbonation of Ca (OH)


TTEthemet is a real-time Ethernet protocol that was designed to not only provide a deterministically temporal behavior for hard real-time communication but also support all types of Ethernet-based traffic coexisting in the same TTEthemet network. TTEthemet switches using the Timely Block method can obtain the timely deterministic behavior of time-triggered (TT) traffic with a very low communication jitter. As such, the TTEthemet switches will not allow the event-triggered (ET) message, i.e. either best-effort (BE) message or rate-constraint (RC) message, at the first queue to transmit, if it has found that the ET message's transmission will not have been completed before the TT message as scheduled has to be relayed. In this paper, an approach called Smaller-Frame Searching was proposed to improve the performance of the BE traffic with characteristics of burstiness and self-similarity in TTEthemet switches. Only the BE traffic that represents the traffic from the Internet was considered in coexistence with the TT traffic, regardless of RC traffic. This approach is used for searching suitable length-smaller BE messages in the queue buffer and sufficient to transmit during the timely blocking intervals for TT traffic. By means of simulation, the performance of the BE traffic (i.e. queuing delays, a number of dropped BE messages, and throughputs) in the TTEthemet network with TTEthemet switches using the proposed approach with respect to various traffic loads were observed in comparison with conventional TTEthemet switches as well as the other existing approach (i.e. the Message Fragmentation approach).


The invention relates to a separating point (14) between two partial elements (10, 12) of about a rotational axis (16) rotating tool system, in particular for use in machine tools. The separation point (14) comprises a part at a first element (10) arranged to the rotation axis (16) coaxial, at least partially conical receiver (18) by an annular end face (20) is limited. The second partial element (12) carries a coupling part (22) facing a coupling pin (24) with a to the conical seat (18) complementary conical surface (32) and the annular end face (20), in the coupled condition against the adjacent annular flat face (26). Over the free end of the coupling pin (24) via a tension bolt (36) axially engages in the coupled state in the subsequent one at the receptacle (18) cavity (38). Next operable clamping means for clamping together of the partial elements (10, 12) are provided from the outside, the two in the first part element (10) guided radially, on the tension bolt (36) engaging the clamping elements (44 ', 44' ') and in operatively connected to common actuating means (50) are provided, by which they are displaceable between a release position and a clamping position. According to the invention the tensioning elements with ejection portions (60) are provided which can be equipped with at least one rotatably mounted rolling elements (62).


Abstract Remote handling (RH) system is necessary for the maintenance and repair of in-vessel components of JT-60SA. Design study of RH system, focusing on the deployment of the toroidal rail and replacement of the lower divertor cassettes, is described in this paper. The space for RH system is very limited inside the vacuum vessel and horizontal port. The RH rail is installed before transporting divertor cassettes. The RH rail, which is coupled with six pieces and three-point mounting, can cover 180 degrees in toroidal direction. A divertor cassette can be replaced by vehicle manipulator that consists of an end effector, a telescopic arm and a vehicle. The vehicle manipulator brings the divertor cassette to the front of another horizontal port, which is used for supporting the rail and/or carrying in and out equipments. Then another RH device, which is installed from outside the vacuum vessel, receives and brings out the divertor cassette. The basic designs of RH system for deployment of the RH rail and replacing lower divertor cassettes are established.


According to ACI traffic statistics for 2002, Dubai International Airport is the second fastest growing airport in the world. In 2007, it catered to more than 36 million passengers, with approximetly 1000 daily flight events, including take off and landing. In this paper we report the first assessment of community annoyance caused by civil aircraft noise exposure in 9 sites around Dubai International Airport (United Arab Emirates). Our aim is to assess the relationship between aircraft noise levels and annoyance responses in Dubai. To accomplish our goal, we have adapted the WECPNL and L dn as the aircraft noise indices in Dubai, and the percentage of %HA have been used to assess the dose–response of aircraft noise. The %HA was obtained using social surveys that were carried out in 9 sites within close proximity of the airport using the ISO/TS 15666, 2003 questionnaire. Subjects were randomly selected ranging between 20 and 65 years in age. Results show that 41% of the respondents said that they are Highly Annoyed; a percentage considered high, but in agreement with similar studies done near major airports in other countries.


The translator's identification with his own culture and his translation strategies are closely related. Owing to the influence of the host culture, the translator usually identifies with his own culture, consciously or unconsciously, and applies some strategies to his renderings.


ABSTRACT Getting increasingly common in many settings in higher education, distance language courses have become a vigorous area of research which requires sustained focus. Although the relevant literature has documented well various aspects of distance language learning, the factors affecting academic achievement have remained under-researched. This study investigates the predictive power of the sense of community, perceived learning and learner satisfaction as the possible factors having an influence on academic achievement. Data for this study come from a series of surveys administered to a total of 156 EFL learners and participants' final grades. Structural Equation Model (SEM) was used to analyse the data. Results indicated acceptable values of the goodness of fit indices for structural model (TLI =.96; CFI =.98; NFI =.95; RMSEA =.06 and SRMR =.04). Analysis of path coefficients revealed that two components of sense of community (i.e. teaching presence and cognitive presence), perceived learning and satisfaction are the significant predictors of academic achievement. The research findings bear implications for the design of distance language courses.


B Margolis and C S Lamb (Eds) New York: W A Benjamin 1968 pp 547 price $12.50 This book contains the proceedings of a summer school for theoreticians, held at McGill University in 1967. The nine lecturers covered not only the fields of nuclear and particle physics, but also the somewhat neglected area in between.


Geo-kinematic investigations in Slovakia and the region of Central and Southeastern Europe based on combination of permanent and epoch-wise GPS networks The region of Central and Southeastern Europe is covered by numerous GPS networks investigating geo-kinematical behavior of this area. These activities started in early nineties within the several projects as CERGOP and CERGOP-2/Environment. In this paper we describe the process of combination of four networks located in the region of Central and Southeastern Europe using the CATREF (Combination and Analysis of Terrestrial REFerence Frame) software developed in Institute Geographique National in France. We were particularly interested in the CEPER (Central European Permanent Network), CEGRN (Central European Geodynaminc Reference Network), SGRN (Slovak Geodynamic Reference Network) and local network TATRY shortly described in this paper. Homogeneous velocity field obtained from the final combination is for the purpose of better interpretation divided into three parts: Central Europe, Slovakia and Tatra Mountains. Main interest is focused on the territory of Slovakia where the regional velocity field is not so frequently discussed in scientific community as the case of Central and Southeastern Europe.


The Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) has used artillery for avalanche reduction on State and Federal highways near Jackson, WY since 1972. As demands on the transportation system have changed, new technology and strategies have been implemented to improve the efficiency of avalanche reduction operations. This case study examines the effects of implementing active and passive avalanche mitigation measures on avalanche paths through three separate highway corridors. On State Route 22 over Teton Pass, WYDOT operates Gazex® and Avalanche Guard® active avalanche control systems and Infrasonic avalanche detection in the Glory Bowl and Twin Slides avalanche paths. On US 89/191/189/26 snow supporting structures are used for passive avalanche defense in the milepost 151 avalanche path. On US 191/189, through the Hoback River Canyon, two Obellx® gas exploders are used for active avalanche control at the Cow and Calf of the Woods avalanche paths. In each application terrain, avalanche conditions, environmental impacts, and highway concerns are considered with the implementation of infrastructure. With continued capital improvements and the realization of a long term strategy of implementing avalanche forecasting and mitigation technology, WYDOT is moving towards the end of artillery while reducing highway avalanche closures and their durations.


This paper discusses the reasons and processes that led the Obama administration to not recognize the Armenian Genocide. Although Barack Obama had promised he would do so during his presidential campaign of 2008, he never did once in office, despite many of his administration members, including Vice-President Joe Biden and Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, having strong records in support of such a recognition. To investigate this hitherto poorly explored question, this paper uses primarily — although not exclusively — memoirs written by Barack Obama and members his administration, some of them addressing the issue directly, others dealing with it indirectly. This study focuses on President Obama's personal choice, and therefore responsibility, to not recognize the genocide, but also expands on the geopolitical determinants of this non-recognition (related mostly to the geostrategic importance of Turkey) as well as on its diplomatic aspects (involving particularly the argument that US recognition would hamper a hypothetical Turkey-Armenia rapprochement). Two episodes of possible presidential recognition of the genocide will be particularly discussed; one in April 2009 (three months after Obama became president of the United States and coinciding with April 24, the anniversary of the genocide), and the other in 2015 (corresponding to its centenary). Finally, stress will be placed on the positions and role of the president's entourage at the White House, and on his State and Defense Secretaries.


Twin‐twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS) is a complication occurring in 10–20% of monochorionic diamniotic multiple pregnancies characterized by unequal circulation due to placental anastomoses. Left untreated, chronic TTTS has an 80–100% mortality rate, with sequelae including cardiovascular, neurodevelopmental and renal anomalies in surviving infants. Prognosis is improved by timely diagnosis and intervention, with selective fetoscopic laser photocoagulation emerging as the front‐line treatment. Considering poor prognosis and the urgent need for invasive treatment, TTTS announcement is a traumatic event for expectant parents regardless of survival outcome, thus adequate support from their providers is essential. Parent perception of their care relies on receiving ample information, and while antenatal multidisciplinary consultations at fetal centers provide space for parent education, parents often have difficulty understanding the fetal and placental anatomy. Currently, at the Colorado Fetal Care Center, supplemental educational resources include 2D images and literature intended for a scientific audience. The objective of this project was to develop and implement an interactive 3D virtual model of TTTS during antenatal consultations to facilitate parent education. The model was developed from deidentified fetal MRI Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) data demonstrating TTTS (COMIRB # 18‐1955). A total of 10 MRI datasets (6 with selective intrauterine growth restriction (SIUGR), 4 without SIUGR) were identified as possible candidates. One dataset was selected for model construction based on representation of the pathology. The DICOM data was segmented on 3D Slicer. The segmentations were imported into Blender for 3D rendering and to smooth artifacts, then published onto Sketchfab for user interaction. The tool was assessed by obstetric and surgical specialists for accuracy. By providing an anatomically accurate fetal, placental, and pathologic anastomosis visualization, this model can assist providers in demonstrating the diagnosis, explaining prognosis, and discussing potential treatment options. The new 3D, interactive virtual TTTS model has the potential to improve parents' experience by increasing patient knowledge and engaging them in the intervention planning required to optimize fetal outcomes. Further investigation is required to determine the efficacy and educational value of the model.


A High-performance device of power telecontrol for public telephone Web is presented .Its principle and characteristics are stated in detail. Electron switch and EEPROM which can be erasable and programmable are used to match its high peroformance/price ratio and flexibility,and various anti-interference measures are taken to warrant its reliability. The device is used easy and applied widely.


There are three difficult problems in the application of genetic algorithm, namely the parameter control, the premature convergence and the deception problem. Based on genetic algorithm with varying population size, a self adaptive genetic algorithm called natural genetic algorithm (nGA) is proposed. It introduces the population size threshold and the immigrant concepts, and adopts dynamically changing parameters in this paper. The design and structure of the nGA are discussed, and the performance of nGA is also analyzed.


Abstract : A computer controlled Optical Time Domain Reflectometer was used to monitor and measure fiber loss during the first Bell System installation of lightguide cable using standard plowing methods. The tests showed that the plowing operation had no measurable effect on fiber loss. (Author)


A Helmholtz resonator is an important passive control device to abate excessive sound pressure levels. Because of its effectiveness and simplicity (in principle, it consists of an arbitrarily shaped volume and a small duct), it is of high relevance for industrial applications relying on robustness, availability, and reliability. It is the method of choice to counteract high-amplitude combustion-induced pressure oscillations often exhibited in lean premixed gas turbine combustors. Traditional Helmholtz resonators feature an efficient damping performance only in a narrow frequency bandwidth. To derive an efficient design for the full-scale engine, it is key to accurately predict its resonance frequency. In addition to the geometrical dimensions and the speed of sound, this is a function of a length correction term that accounts for inertia effects of the oscillating fluid. In case the Helmholtz resonator is connected to an enclosure of equal density, several empirical correlations for this correction term a...


The research has revealed novel genetic associations between genes and pregnancyrelated traits, including the birth of twins and the woman's age at pregnancy, one of the well-known measurements of fertility. The analysis also allowed researchers to reconstruct the recent movement and intermarriage of different ethnic groups in China, and promises to help identify genes that make people susceptible to viral infection.


121 Background: Supervised exercise for cancer survivors can reduce symptoms and improve physical conditioning. This program evaluation reports the benefits of a nurse-supervised exercise program for cancer survivor participants both during and after active cancer therapy.

METHODS
The treating oncologist referred participants to the oncology rehabilitation program, called Moving On, either during or at the completion of active therapy. Participants enrolled in a 12-week program of supervised exercise for one hour, three days per week. Baseline and follow up evaluation included a patient reported fatigue score, on a scale from 1 to 10 (with higher scores indicating more fatigue), and the 6-minute walk test (6MWT), in feet.

RESULTS
In calendar 2011, 152 participants enrolled in the program and 91 completed all 12 weeks (completers). Participants were 71% female, 86% Caucasian, 14% African American, 68% enrolled on completion of active therapy, and 32% enrolled during active therapy. More than half were older than 60 years. More than half had cancer diagnoses other than breast cancer. A consistent decrease in fatigue and increase in exercise capacity was seen in subgroup analysis by gender, race, age, status on cancer therapy or after completion of therapy, and diagnosis.

CONCLUSIONS
In this diverse group of cancer survivors, a program of 12 weeks of nurse-supervised exercise was feasible, substantially reduced fatigue, and increased exercise capacity. It is noteworthy that participants, both on active therapy and after, older and younger, and across diagnosis groups, experienced the benefits of the program. [Table: see text].


An in situ testing system has been developed that detects collapsible soils and enables the stress collapse potential relationship to be developed. The full soil response to changing moisture conditions is evaluated by utilising a downhole microwave generator to control moisture content. Excellent agreement between predicted soil collapse and observed structure settlements due to collapsing soils has been observed.


Foreign cations, used in solution as hydratation activators for orthorhombric anhydrite, are essentially active in the gypsum nucleation step. A modelization is proposed by introducing, into the expression of the nucleation free enthalpy, the electrical potential created by foreign cations in solution around the forming nuclei Les cations etrangers en solution interviennent essentiellement au niveau de la germination du produit de reaction. Proposition d'une modelisation prenant en compte dans l'expression de l'enthalpie libre de germination le potentiel electrique cree par les cations en solution au voisinage des germes en cours de formation


Even Thought the United state is pluralistic society with many different people of all races, ethnic groups, and religious affiliations living going to school, and working together, an event like the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. did radically impact the general mood and atmosphere of the government, media, and people towards us Arab Muslims Because of the ethnic and religious makeup of the terrorists being the same. What are the perceptions, attitudes, and feelings of Arab Muslim Students about the racism and prejudice towards their ethnicity and religious affiliation before September 11, 2001 and after? These questions will be addressed in this research project by employing marketing research tools, techniques, and analysis. If Arab-Muslim students feel unsafe, threatened, or general hostility from Americans, on and off campus, then they are likely to reconsider their decision to continue to receive their higher education here in the United State. Subsequently, their family members, brothers and cousins, from their countries will also likely not decide to attend U.S. universities in the future. Obviously, the exodus of Arab Muslim students from CSUSB as well as other


This working paper argues that many data-mining projects in the humanities limit themselves by choosing words as their default unit of analysis. Some authors, problems, and forms are better illuminated by analysis of individual textual symbols, others by examination of multiword constructions. Insights about the nature of code from mathematical information theory, long but perhaps prematurely rejected by humanists on theoretical grounds, may give researchers less subjective and more powerful tools by which to measure the information characteristics of texts and the innovations of specific historical writers.


The course of urban environmental management (UEM) development in China is reviewed and analysed in this paper. The current situation that exists in the field of urban environmental management is also analysed from the aspects of the legislation, environmental policies, economic incentives and market mechanisms, technical instruments and environmental education and public participation. Further, this paper highlights the problems in China's UEM and puts forward some suggestions according to the existing characteristics of UEM in China.


mOre efficient In recent year!, by ligures released yealer. Fire Chief George Kupll'. losses In 1934 were $II ,1IOiI than $1 per person, InclOO. university students In the popu. 0. figure ran king weil down Itst of per capita losae8 for allover the state. Loose, for years wel'e: 1933, '36,000; IIIl, . and the two preceedl'r than $100,000 annuall,. loss by lire and per capllt In a lew other Iowa cities for tollow: Cedar Rapids, $61,4~ $1.52; Council Blutrs, $40,4U .95; Ft. Dodge, $107,233 tnd ; and Waterloo, ,32,25' tnd


A Bayesian method to establishing assay limits of detection and quantitation is proposed. It allows prior knowledge to be incorporated into the analysis of the limits. The posterior distributions of the limits in x (concentration) can be approximated well with the help of a simple simulation procedure. This allows good estimates of mean, variance, and other characteristics of those distributions to be computed. The approach is Illustrated by an example with 2 made-up data sets.


This paper is devoted to the localization of magneto-acoustic sources moving in a straight line at a constant speed. Our technique is based on the association of narrow band acoustic signals and magnetostatic measurements. First of all, we describe features that make possible the association of magnetic and acoustic data, secondly, we show that the positioning accuracy is much improved by this association. We focus on solving the problem with as few sensors as possible. A geometric discussion of identifiability is proposed, as well as a batch maximum likelihood estimator whose covariance matrix asymptotically achieves Cramer Rao lower bounds (CRLB).


Abstract : The recent establishment of the United States Cyber Command as a sub-unified command under United States Strategic Command is not optimized. Cyber Command should be a full functional unified command. The analysis will discuss why a unified command structure is preferred over a sub-unified command structure. Concentration on command and control, external relationships, and joint force presentation provide the reader focus areas. Joint Publication 1 helps explain the intricacies of joint force structures. This is then applied to the domain of cyberspace. Individual Service application is briefly discussed and how it relates to the bigger picture. Operational factors of time and space are discussed throughout. Recommend clarifying terminology throughout the Department of Defense in order to ensure a smooth transition to a functional unified command.


The article considers estimate of annual precipitation amount in the Sana river drainage basin (in the northwest part of Bosnia and Herzegovina) by use of Thiessen's polygons. The drainage basin is basically a humid basin whereas a climatic type towards Koppen is Cfb. moderately warm and moisture slimate with warm summer (beech-tree climate). estimate of annual precipitation amount has been carried out for a standard period 1961-1990 and it was 1148 mm.


The 'pipe rock' lithofacies has been much maligned by many generations of undergraduates as being dull. We attempt herein to demonstrate some of the subtleties of the pipe‐rock ecosystem and show that ichnology can be a most useful tool to stratigraphers, sedimentologists and petroleum geologists.


. The possibilities of research in zoo were discussed about the academic freedom and the curiosity of researchers. The two essential points actually control the development of research in social education.


Twelve reservoirs in North-West Bulgaria were sampled in autumn 2009 to study the species diversity and distribution of benthic macroinvertebrates in relation to some environmental parameters, and to assess the ecological potential of the reservoirs based on macroinvertebrate metrics. A total of 75 taxa belonging mostly to Oligochaeta, Ephemeroptera, Chironomidae, and Mollusca were recorded. The most abundant were the invasive bivalve mollusks Dreissena sp., larvae of Ch. crystallinus and oligochaetes. The highest taxa diversity was recorded in the reservoirs located in close proximity to the Danube River and in the reservoirs with the largest areas. The occurrence and abundance of invasive Dreissena species, electrical conductivity, Ca2+ concentration and water transparency were identified as potential factors for the mactroinvertabrate distribution. Based on 7 macroinvertebrate metrics, the ecological potential of the reservoirs was assessed in the range from "Good" to "Bad". Most of the reservoirs were classified as having a "Moderate" ecological potential. It is recommended that the invasive alien species are considered in the use and development of macroinvetebrate metrics and assessment tools for lakes, and in the river basin and reservoir management strategies. Immediate management actions are crucially needed to improve the ecological potential of reservoirs.


Abstract Background If retailers and brand manufacturers of food succeed in presenting their products at the point of sale, quickly generating a high level of attention, the likelihood of a purchase is significantly increased. Particularly, in recent years, they have been relying on the megatrend of sustainability. The importance of sustainable food has grown accordingly. Hence, an increasing number of manufacturers are challenged to communicate the sustainability of their products via packaging and displays at the point of sale. Objectives The aim of this article is: to examine to what extent the design of individual packaging and display elements of new sustainable direct juice succeeds in visually communicating sustainability aspects. At the same time the willingness to pay of customers interested in sustainability must be commercialized. Methods/Approach The focus is on a real shopping situation in conditions that are as regular as possible. The perception of a display must be recorded by eye-tracking technology. A preliminary survey must examine consumers' attitudes towards sustainable food in order to relate it to the perception of individual display elements. For this purpose, the eye-tracking technology was combined with a survey of 32 customers. Results The results demonstrate that customers with a positive attitude towards sustainable food behave in the following way: they fix individual packaging and display elements that refer to sustainable components for a longer period of time; they remember product features better and they tend to have a slightly higher willingness to pay for the sustainable direct juice. Conclusions The configuration of an authentic and natural shopping situation provides the manufacturer with concrete recommendations for the design of the display. This communicates the sustainability of its product and thus generates the desired attention.


Throughout this article, I submit that China is articulating a conception of global governance premised on the idea of strong sovereign states while at the same time proposing a much different conception of relationality and the role of law that is characteristic of the Western state system. First, China combines an endorsement of state relations based, however, on a liquid worldview in which politics and contingent deals play a more important role than the formalized legal vocabulary (which actually confirms the choice of the term "responsibility"). Second, this only holds for some areas, as there is a great divide between China's behaviour and strategies on private and public law issues both domestically and internationally; a divide that China is trying to export to the international order. And, third, the concept of politics and contingent deals premised upon relations that are configured according to the specific problem at stake, is a peculiar one that is best understood according to the metaphor of contract.

The article proceeds as follows. In section 2, I examine the uses of the concept of "responsible power" and how China has been judged on such account. This presupposes considering the way in which China has defined itself vis-a-vis the international legal order as well as the content of its normative principles. Section 3 discusses and overcomes the thesis that Chinese traditional thought does not contain resources to ground a cosmopolitan global governance approach. I then (section 4) turn to examine the ways in which China is deploying a pragmatic approach to domestic and international law and relations according to the issue-area at stake which gives a more prominent role to contracts, politics and platforms for regional interstate dialogue than to law and a model of rule-based governance. Section 5 continues this discourse by showing how China's assumption on human rights and the rule of law openly postulate the priority of the political over the legal. Section 6 concludes.


Purpose: In race walking, the reliability of competitive activity, the risks of disqualification are determined by athlete's stable control of the key motion characteristics at a distance, especially in the face of fatigue. Therefore, the formation of specialized sensations in an athlete to control these movements is an important condition for sports technique improvement. Hypothesis of study: the use of special exercises to increase the analytical perception of motion key parameters will increase the effectiveness of race walking technique, control for fatigue development. Objective of study: to show the possibilities of increasing special fitness in race walking through the use of special exercises, improvement of the analytical perception of motion key parameters. Material: 10 athletes aged 17-20 years and engaged in sports training for 4-6 years participated in the study. Special exercises, assessment of race walking technique (video shooting) before and after their performance within three weeks (10 sessions) were used. Results: it is shown that the targeted use of special exercises with the analysis of subjective sensations creates conditions for the activation in the athlete of specialized perceptions for the basic sports technique elements. After the use of special exercises, the increase in speed was due to an increase in the stride length 1.14 m (S = 0.04), relative to the initial one 1.09 m (S = 0.03) (p < 0.01). The stride length increase in athletes occurred at the expense of the length of the "rear" stride ( x = 0.43 м; S = 0.02) at statistically significant differences from the initial indices. This created the prerequisites for improving athletic


An etching tool clamp comprises an upper clamping plate and a lower clamping plate, wherein the upper clamping plate and the lower clamping plate are in threaded connection via a fastening piece, and two backing plates having the same sizes as the upper clamping plate and the lower clamping plate are arranged between the upper clamping plate and the lower clamping plate. According to the utility model, the two backing plates are added on a conventional etching tool clamp, thus a product is easy to take and put, wearing is low, fragment rate is reduced, and a handle facilitates taking and putting; and the handle arranged on the clamping plates makes the clamp easy to take and put.


Prototyping electronic circuits is often facilitated by web-based tutorials and breadboards. Several virtual and hybrid platforms do exist, each carrying their own limitations. Some of these platforms fall prey to split-attention effects, wherein users are required to split their attention to integrate multiple sources of spatially separated information. This hinders the learning and prototyping processes. Other platforms provide a single source of information, but lack tangible interaction with electronic components or suffer from the absence of active feedback which can also hinder these processes. There is hence a need for prototyping platforms that mitigate split attention effects, while continuing to provide other desirable aspects such as tangible interaction. To address this, we present three editions of PPCards, a card-based platform for prototyping electronic circuits, towards overcoming limitations of existing paradigms. Through a comparative study, it was determined that the first edition of PPCards outdid the conventional breadboard web-based tutorial paradigm in aspects of split attention, usability, and user experience. The second and third editions build upon successful characteristics of the first, additionally provisioning support for multimedia content and real-time feedback during the prototyping process. Based on quantitative data and qualitative feedback, we go on to discuss design considerations for future tangible card-based tools.


Finding inactive files is a challenging task in large-scale file systems. In a hierarchical storage management system or a cloud storage gateway system, inactive files are migrated to lower tiers to reduce the storage cost. Inactive files can also be applied the data reduction techniques such as deduplication and compression. Existing metadata search methods, using either file system crawling or metadata indexing, degrade file access performance because they require a large number of disk I/Os. The two-phase refining (TPR) we propose here searches for inactive files effectively by using file system event notification and pseudo-LRU lists. TPR consists of two processes: a listing process that lists the files created each day, and a searching process that refines files from the oldest pseudo-LRU list in order to identify files that can be migrated or subjected to data reduction technologies. Experimental results show that our method is superior to existing methods in terms of search time, file access performance, and space overhead.


small-sized hyaline casts, Ͻ4 in each slide; hyaline with medium or large diameter, cellular, granular, granulo-hematic, waxy casts, none; cystine crystals, none; other crystals, rare (Ͻ10 in each slide). We usually notice a high prevalence of pathologic findings (ϳ70%) in microscopic analysis of urine samples from our patients. Applying the published algorithm, we estimated that only 93 samples (31%) would not require microscopic confirmation, but 205 samples (69%) would need microscopic review. The correlations between the results obtained with the UF-50 and the microscope are showed in Table 1 (Cohen K coefficient; SPSS). The concordance in detecting pathologic samples was good for erythrocytes (K ϭ 0.67) and leukocytes (K ϭ 0.72). The UF-50 revealed remarkable flaws with regard to the analysis of crystals and casts, for which the concordance between the two methods is very low (K ϭ 0.043 and 0.08, respectively). These formed elements must be analyzed by microscopy to define their type and/or size. Flags for casts were produced by the instruments for 7% of samples, probably because of interference by squa-mous epithelial cells or mucous threads and cylindroids, without microscopic detection, and 40% of samples with pathologic casts were not recognized by the UF-50. This represents a serious limitation in a laboratory of nephrology. Moreover, the flow cytometer detects only granular and cellular casts. We also tried to evaluate whether flow cytometry is useful in the analysis of erythrocyte dysmorphism by applying the Kitasato criteria (6, 7). However, this system relies on eryth-rocyte volume and size, and the flow cytometer distinguishes erythrocytes on the basis of cellular diameter but cannot recognize dysmorphic eryth-rocytes with altered shape, such as acanthocytes or codocytes (8). Thus, in our study we observed that of 131 samples with microhematuria by mi-croscopy, 41 (31%) had predominantly dysmorphic erythrocytes according to both methods, whereas 59 (45%) had predominantly normal erythrocytes, but 16 (12%) revealed their dysmorphism only when analyzed by phase-contrast microscopy with a significant presence of altered cell shape (acanthocytes), and 15 (11%) showed their dysmorphism only when analyzed by flow cytom-etry, probably because of the presence of high amounts of yeasts or erythrocytes with different sizes. In conclusion, combining the automated and traditional analyses of urinary formed elements in general laboratories—starting with automated cell counting followed by microscopic analysis, which is more specific in revealing morphologic as-pects—may be a time-sparing policy. In a laboratory of nephrology, however , where samples have a …


After adding noise, face recognition rate of the traditional PCA method will be significantly lowered. This paper will use methods of orthogonal wavelet + PCA and wavelet frame + PCA to study it respectively. First, we add noise to deal with the image, then decompose the image under the use of orthogonal wavelet and wavelet frame; next, for the subgraph that has decomposed we will reduce the dimensionality and feature extraction using PCA method respectively; finally, we use third-order nearest neighbor as the classifier to classify and identify it. Through the test and verification of the ORL face database, it shows the effectiveness of this method, which is a good way to improve the recognition rate of face image under the condition of adding noise.


Infertility is the most common health concern in young adults. The aim is to study the diagnostic role of3- Dimensional sono hystero salpingography for detection of intrauterine lesions, extra uterine lesions and tubal pathology. It is a hospital based prospective, descriptive study in which50 patients with normal uterine cavity at transvaginal ultrasound underwent infertility workup at our outpatient clinic. All patients underwent 3-Dimensional sono hystero salpingography. These were then subjected to diagnostic hysterolaparoscopy the following day. The results of both were compared and correlated. Sensitivity, Specificity, Positive predictive value (PPV), Negative predictive value (NPV) and accuracy of 3- Dimensional sono hystero salpingography was compared with diagnostic hystero laparoscopy in detecting intrauterine, extra uterine lesions and tubal patency. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and accuracy of 3- Dimensional sono hystero salpingography was 71.4%, 100%, 100%, 95.58% and 96% respectively for detecting intrauterine lesions; was 90.91%, 92.3%, 79.9%, 97.3% and 92% for detecting ovarian pathology; and 97.6%, 87.5%, 97.6%, 87.5% and 96% for detecting tubal patency. For diagnostic hystero laparoscopy, considered as the gold standard, the sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and accuracy was 100%. It was concluded that the diagnostic value of 3- Dimensional sono hystero salpingography is comparable to diagnostic hystero laparoscopy in detecting intrauterine lesions, extra uterine lesions and tubal patency. Thus 3-D SHSG should be included as a preliminary investigation in infertility work up in women with normal uterine cavity in transvaginal ultrasound.


Reduced bone mineral density (BMD) together with muscle wasting and dysfunction, that is sarcopenia, emerges as a risk factor for hip fracture. The aim of this study was to examine body composition and BMD and their relationship with trauma mechanisms in young and middle‐aged patients with femoral neck fracture.


The United States is far behind many other countries in providing parental leave, with no federal legislation that provides wage-replacement to parents seeking to take leave immediately before and after childbirth. In order to explain the variations of parental leave provided globally, this article discusses federal and state legislation in the United States, international organizations' conventions and directives, and individual countries' policies. The article argues that paid parental leave has many benefits—benefits that the United States should take into account when considering reform of its current law. Drawing on international and state-level models, the article proposes federal policy reform in the United States that would expand on what is currently provided by the Family and Medical Leave Act, including providing wage-replacement to parents seeking leave due to childbirth.


GPT-3 and several other language models (LMs) can effectively address various natural language processing (NLP) tasks, including machine translation and text summarization. Recently, they have also been successfully employed in the business process management (BPM) domain, e.g., for predictive process monitoring and process extraction from text. This, however, typically requires fine-tuning the employed LM, which, among others, necessitates large amounts of suitable training data. A possible solution to this problem is the use of prompt engineering, which leverages pre-trained LMs without fine-tuning them. Recognizing this, we argue that prompt engineering can help bring the capabilities of LMs to BPM research. We use this position paper to develop a research agenda for the use of prompt engineering for BPM research by identifying the associated potentials and challenges.


The design is target on the safety evacuation of a movie center in a commercial building before the arrival of the fire risk.Based on the structural features of the building,functional requirements,and the operation situation of fire-fighting facilities,the computer software simulations and theoretical analysis were used to analyze the safety of evacuation.Refer to the building construction drawings and related technical standards,based on the combustion characteristics of combustible in movie center,fire scenarios were set to simulate the fire and evacuation in movie center.The results showed that people can evacuate from movie center safely under the certain scenario.


In this paper, we propose an iterative computation framework to detect spam reviews based on coherent examination. We first define some reviews' coherent metrics to analyze review coherence in the granularity of sentence. Then the framework and its evaluation process are discussed in details.


The adsorption of sodium dodecyl sulphate and sulphanol NP-3 by iron(III) and aluminium hydroxides was studied. The applicability of the Langmuir, Freundlich and Hill–de Boer adsorption equations for the description of the adsorption isotherms obtained experimentally was verified. Values of various parameters characterising the adsorption of the anionic surfactants investigated by iron(III) and aluminium hydroxides have been calculated. These allowed assumptions to be made about the adsorption mechanism. The possibility of using air as an adsorbent for anionic surfactants was studied.


A preliminary field trial of three systemic granular insecticides (Disyston 50, Marshal/Suscon and Thimet) and Supracide applied as a spray was undertaken, using eight species of eucalypt planted as windbreak trees in Macquarie Woods, on the central tablelands of New South Wales. The trees were hand watered to assist in the uptake of the insecticides. Some eucalypt species benefited significantly from the application of Disyston, Marshal/Suscon granules or the Supracide spray, in terms of height increments, but the Thimet granules did not significantly improve either tree height or crown condition. The trees were also used in a two year survey to identify the suite of diurnal insects present on the canopies. The most damaging insects were 'Anoplognathus' spp. (Christmas beetles), while Chrysomelidae, particularly 'Trachymela' spp. and paropsine larvae, were frequently observed on foliage throughout the survey. 'Mnesampela privata' (autumn gum moth) damaged several species from February to May.


IntroductionCareer and Technical Education (CTE) programs are an important part of the educational experience of more than 90% of all students in middle and high schools throughout the United States (National Center for Education Statistics, 2009). Specific CTE programs are supported by federal legislation and emphasize the importance of academic and technical education (Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act, 2006). This same legislation identified integrated academics as an essential component of CTE program curricula.Integrated academics are believed to improve program participants' academic and technical knowledge. Several models for academic integration have been identified in the CTE literature base (Park, Santamaria, van der Mandele, Keene, & Taylor, 2010). However, it remains unknown as to what extent the models cohered with the perceptions and beliefs of CTE educators. Coherence is an important factor in educators' decisions to select, implement, and evaluate instructional strategies in their classroom (Desimone, 2009).Historically, in addition to specific CTE legislation, federal funding was also allocated to improvements in academic achievement by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and its subsequent reauthorization in 2004. These acts called for improvement in students' reading and mathematics achievement. As a supplement, the federal government provided additional funds to support reading and mathematics programs for schools who serve a disproportionately high number of economically disadvantaged students (Title I - Improving The Academic Achievement Of The Disadvantaged, 2002 ). To qualify for Title-1 funding, schools were required to implement scientifically-evaluated instructional strategies.The purpose of this study was to determine the perceived characteristics, intentions, and outcomes of integrated reading literacy interventions (IRLIs) in business education courses, as well as discover the impact of selected participant characteristics. The results of this study will lead to better understanding the implementation of IRLIs in high school business courses, as the findings will help to develop professional development and interventions that cohere with the beliefs of business educators. Coherence is a significant influence on teachers' decisions to adopt new and/or enhanced instructional practices (Desimone, 2009).Review of LiteratureCourses found in business education programs prepare students for careers in the global workforce and in post-secondary training and development, and to function as informed consumers (Hosler & Meggision, 2013). Business educators design and develop curricula to support student knowledge and development in business management and administration, information technology, and other related career pathways (Lambrecht & Kesten, 2012). Business educators accomplish these tasks through selecting and implementing a broad array of instructional interventions (Fletcher, in press).Business educators support the development of students' reading skills through the implementation of instructional interventions (Polkinghorne & Hagler, 2011). These interventions emphasize the role of reading in preparing students for career and college. While business educators integrate reading literacy strategies throughout their business courses, there is a strong desire for professional development opportunities for teachers (Polkinghorne & Hagler, 2011).Professional development provides teachers with the opportunity to enhance their classroom knowledge (Desimone, 2009). Furthermore, Polkinghorne and Hagler (2011) reported that educators prefer to participate in opportunities that cohere with their beliefs and the expectations of employers, parents, and policy makers. In order to accomplish this task, professional development must align with teacher perceptions and, at times, bridge gaps between ideology and empiricism. …


Pores in a polymer film do not change size over time if they have just the right diameter, according to experiments.


Abdominal ultrasound (US) performed as a "primary imaging procedure" is an important diagnostic tool in gastroenterol-ogy. Expanding the routine investigation to the lower thoracic region might sometimes accelerate the diagnosis in inconclusive manifestations such as pulmonary pathology.US is a valuable tool in evaluating patients with breathing difficulties, chest pain, hypoxia, or chest trauma. This paper presents the particular situation of a patient hospitalized in the gastroenterology depart-ment, where the US identified significant pulmonary alterations and changed the final diagnosis from a gastrointestinal disease to pleuro-pulmonary tuberculosis. A brief review of literature is also included, in relation to chest US.


Abstract Sixteen new species of Trapania are described from the tropical Indo‐Pacific, temperate South Africa and the Galapagos Islands. Trapania armilla sp. nov., T. tora sp. nov., T. caerulea sp. nov. and T. miltabrancha are known only from Bali, Indonesia. Trapania squama sp. nov. is known from Papua New Guinea and the Marshall Islands. Trapania nebula sp. nov. is known only from Papua New Guinea. Trapania palmula sp. nov. and T. gibbera are known from Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and southern Japan. Trapania scurra sp. nov. is known from the Phillippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Trapania euryeia sp. nov. is widespread in the Indo‐Pacific (Reunion, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and the northwestern and high Hawaiian Islands) as is T. naeva sp. nov. (Tanzania, Kenya, Rodrigues, Reunion, Maldives, Western Australia, Indonesia, Fiji, southern Japan). Trapania vitta sp. nov. is known from Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and southern Japan. T. circinata sp. nov. is known only from the Marshall Islands. Trapania cirrita sp. nov. is known from temperate Indian Ocean of South Africa while T. melaina sp. nov. is known from the tropical Indian Ocean of southern Africa. Trapania darwini sp. nov. is known from the tropical eastern Pacific of the Galapagos Islands. The new species are externally distinguished from all other described Trapania. One of the new species, Trapania euryeia sp. nov. has the widest geographic range (from the western Indian Ocean to the Hawaiian Islands) of the new species and it has a colour pattern that is similar to Trapania brunnea found from southeastern Australia. Unique aspects and combination of characters of the reproductive and radular morphology distinguish each new species from other Trapania. The phylogenetic relationships among the Goniodorididae are examined based upon morphological characters of several previously described species of additional Goniodorididae along with the 16 new species of Trapania. Results of the analyses demonstrate that Trapania is a well supported, monophyletic clade of goniodorid nudibranchs. Ancula gibbosa is the sister taxon to Trapania. Trapania species examined in this study cluster into three distinguishable clades, two largely from the tropical Indo‐Pacific and a third from the Indo‐Pacific, Britain, Spain and Brazil. A group of unresolved species from the Caribbean, the Galapagos Islands, and the Indo‐Pacific is basally situated to the more resolved clades. Further investigation is required to test clade robustness and further elucidate relationships of taxa included in several polytomies.


The Duluth Model is one of the most widely
known approaches but was designed, not as a
perpetrator programme per se, but as a broader
systemic response to domestic violence in the
city of Duluth, Minnesota, USA. When this
'co-ordinated community response' (CCR) was
implemented, its success generated a backlog of
men who had been arrested but not imprisoned
for domestic violence. The men's programme
was developed as a solution to this unanticipated
consequence (Pence & Paymar, 1993).
There has been relatively little
documented about the emergence
and development of British Domestic
Violence Perpetrator Programmes
(DVPPs). The most substantial
British review was conducted in the
mid 1990s, which consisted of a
telephone survey of 23 British
therapeutic and educational
programmes for domestically violent
men (Scourfield, 1994; Scourfield &
Dobash, 1999). This survey found
programmes to be predominantly
cognitive-behavioural in orientation,
with half the programmes taking both
criminal justice and non-criminal
justice mandated men. The authors
note an overall feeling of optimism
in the mid-1990s, linked to a strong
liberal humanist tradition within
the probation service and renewed
rehabilitative optimism based on
emerging research on the
effectiveness of cognitive-behavioural
approaches to reoffending.


Despite the success of pedestrian detection, there is still a significant gap in the performance of the detection of pedestrians at different scales. Detecting small-scale pedestrians is extremely challenging due to the low resolution of their convolution features which is essential for downstream classifiers. To address this issue, we observed pedestrian datasets and found that pedestrians often gather together in crowded public places. Then we propose MagnifierNet, a simple but effective small-scale pedestrian detector towards multiple dense regions. MagnifierNet uses our proposed sweep-line based grouping algorithm to find dense regions based on the number of pedestrians in the grouped region. And we adopt a new definition of small-scale pedestrians through grid search and KL-divergence. Besides, our grouping method can also be used as a new strategy for pedestrian data augmentation. The ablation study demonstrates that MagnifierNet improves the representation of small-scale pedestrians. We validate the effectiveness of MagnifierNet on CityPersons and KITTI datasets. Experimental results show that MagnifierNet achieves the best small-scale pedestrian detection performance on CityPersons benchmark without any external data, and also achieves competitive performance for detecting small-scale pedestrians on KITTI dataset without bells and whistles.


Zhou Enlai was an art utilitarian,who regarded drama as an idcological enlightenment and the important weapon and tool for pablicity of revolution,and he understood the characters and rules of the art itself,and therefore,he respected the creative works by the artists and opposed to the simple rude attitude and measures to the artists and the drama works,such as "put on cap"("dai mao zi")and "attack by baton"("dagun zi");taking to the stand of Marxism utilitarianism,against the "left"way of thinking which takes the ideology seriously but belittles the art at that time.He referred to and emphasized the dialectics and unity of the thinking and the artistry,which enriched and developed Marxist art theory and aesthetics idea. On the basis of widely taking advantage of the art board and aboard,he insisted in going along the road that belongs to China to realize the nationalization of the drama,which is another important character of Zhou Enlai's idea on drama and which is also the assertion he persisted in and longed for all his life.Besides,his literary taste and the super art appreciation advanced Zhou Enlai's idea on drama further.


In wireless communication systems, mmWave beam tracking is a critical task that affects both sensing and communications, as it is related to the knowledge of the wireless channel. We consider a setup in which a Base Station (BS) needs to dynamically choose whether the resource will be allocated for one of the three operations: sensing (beam tracking), downlink, or uplink transmission. We devise an approach based on the Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) algorithm for choosing the resource allocation and beam tracking at a given time slot. The proposed framework takes into account the variable quality of the wireless channel and optimizes the decisions in a coordinated manner. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves significant performance improvements in terms of average packet error rate (PER) compared to the baseline methods while providing a significant reduction in beam tracking overhead. We also show that our proposed PPO-based framework provides an effective solution to the resource allocation problem in beam tracking and communication, exhibiting a great generalization performance regardless of the stochastic behavior of the system.


C4N3H13,Schiff base and transition metal(Zn,Fe and Co) Schiff base complexes modified SiO2(SiO2M(NNOO)) were prepared with 3-chloropropyltrimethoxysilane(CPTMS) as the coupling agents by ultrasonic technique under mild conditions.The samples were characterized by IR and UV-Vis spectroscopy and the results showed that the characteristic absorption bands of amidocyanogen and Schiff base groups appeared.The presence of complex structure was confirmed by UV-Vis.Such samples showed different catalytic activity towards CO2 coupling with epoxide.The transition metal Schiff complexes showed higher catalytic activity than SiO2/C4N3H13 and SiO2/Schiff base.


Recent developments in string compactifications in the presence of antisymmetric field backgrounds suggest a new simple and predictive structure for soft terms in the MSSM depending only on two parameters. They give rise to a positive definite scalar potential, a solution to the µ -problem, flavor universality and absence of a SUSY-CP problem.


Introduction Cementless femoral hip stems crucially depend on the initial stability to ensure a long survival of the prosthesis. There is only a small margin between obtaining the optimal press fit and a femoral fracture. The incidence of an intraoperative fracture is reported to be as high as 30% for revision surgery. The aim of this study is to assess what information is contained in the acoustic sound produced by the insertion hammer blows and explore whether this information can be used to assess optimal seating and warn for impeding fractures. Materials and Methods Acoustic measurements of the stem insertion hammer blows were taken intra-operatively during 7 cementless primary (Wright Profemur Primary) and 2 cementless revision surgeries (Wright Profemur R Revision). All surgeries were carried out by the same experienced surgeon. The sound was recorded using 6 microphones (PCB 130E2), mounted at a distance of approximately 1 meter from the surgical theater. The 7 primary implants were inserted without complication, 1 revision stem induced a fracture distally during the insertion process. Two surgeons were asked to listen independently to the acoustic sounds post-surgery and to label the hits in the signal they would associate with either a fully fixated implant or with a fracture sound. For 3 out of 7 primary measurements the data was labeled the same by the two surgeons, 4 were labeled differently or undecided and both indicated several hits that would be associated with fracture for the fractured revision case. The acquired time signals were processed using a number of time and frequency domain processing techniques. Results Figure 1 shows the convergence of a set of time and frequency features (selected temporal moments, decay and 99% energy time [1]) during a primary cementless insertion for which both surgeons labeled hit 12 as the final insertion hit. However, such convergence of the feature set was not as clear for the other 6 cases. Figure 2 shows the result of a feature that tracks the relative weight of low frequency content in the signal relative to the peak power present in the total frequency range for the two revision surgeries. This feature shows several spikes above 0.4 during the case with fractures, whereas none are present for the non-fractured revision case. The spikes concurred with the hits indicated by the surgeon panel post-surgery to have a sound associated with fractures. Conclusions Assessment of this initial stability is a challenging task for the surgeon, who mainly has to rely on auditory and sensatory feedback. Although these findings look promising for an early detection and warning for (micro-) fractures, endpoint detection based on acoustic information is more challenging. The difficulty to determine the endpoint based solely on acoustic information was also reflected by the challenge of the surgeon panel to label the acoustic signals post-surgery. Data gathering is currently in progress to extend both the primary and revision set to 15 intra-operative measurements for further validation of these preliminary results.


Psychological treatment of psychosocial problems and psychiatric comorbidity in patients with epilepsyPsychosocial problems in patients with epilepsy are frequently described. Several risk factors were identified including complexity of seizure type, high seizure frequency and younger age of onset. In patients with a rather uncomplicated epilepsy and low seizure frequency, psychosocial problems are commonly a minor problem. However, psychosocial / psychiatric problems reported in patients with refractory (untreatable) epilepsy are diverse e.g. lower general well-being, lower educational levels, higher unemployment rates and significant higher rates of depression and anxiety disorders. Studies on treatment of these problems often include psycho-educational programs and cognitive behavioural therapy, including relaxation and stimulus-control interventions. They have proven to contribute to an increase in experienced quality of life and a reduction in psychosocial stress.Psychiatric comorbidity is also high in patients with epilepsy. Most commonly reported problems are depression, anxiety disorders and AD(H)D. The specific symptoms reported by patients with epilepsy do not always fit DSM-IV or ICD-10 criteria. Therefore diagnosis of these disorders is often difficult and despite high prevalence rates, symptoms remain often unnoticed. Comorbid psychiatric disorders, if recognized, can however be treated trough conventional guidelines.A multi-disciplinary approach in diagnosis and treatment of patients with refractory epilepsy is important to understand the complex factors involved, which in turn can lead to earlier diagnosis of comorbidity and treatment programs adjusted to the individual patient.


This study aimed to analyze sentiment in office product reviews by using word embedding with three neural network modeling approaches: Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and Gated Recurrent Units (GRU). Office product review data is taken from Amazon's reviews of office products covering a wide range of sentiments. Word embedding converts text into a numerical vector representation for neural network processing. Experimental comparison of this model reveals that CNN achieves the highest accuracy, 77.99%. The CNN model effectively extracts significant features from review text, improving sentiment classification performance. Although the LSTM and GRU models show satisfactory results, they do not match CNN performance. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of word embedding and neural networks for sentiment analysis in office product reviews. This provides valuable insights for companies to improve their products based on user feedback from online reviews. Additionally, this research serves as a foundation for further advances in sentiment analysis across a wide range of other products and services


Various beta-glycosyl azides have been synthesized directly in water by the reaction of unprotected sugars and sodium azide mediated by 2-chloro-1,3-dimethylimidazolinium chloride (DMC).


A patent for a fax machine taken out by Alexander Bain in 1843. The principles of operation, how images are transmitted, are described. Fax lines entered into service in 1865 between Paris and Lyon. The portable fax was invented by Belin in time for sending images from the battlefields in the First World War. A fax sent from Berlin by Arthur Korn's machine was displayed in Paris by l'Illustration, a popular French journal. The heyday of fax was the decade between 1986 and 1996. International comparisons are shown. Japan, due to her alphabet, relies very much on the fax machine.


To combat the coronavirus epidemic, the city at the epicentre, Wuhan, China, was placed under strict lockdown in 2020 for 76 days. Unlike past emergency response situations in China, government-organised Residents' Committees (RC), property management companies, and other community institutions played an unusually prominent role in enforcing the lockdown, providing essential services, and maintaining public order. This article explains the role of community institutions in emergency management in China through case studies of the 2008 earthquake in Chengdu, the 2016 flood in Wuhan, and later, the 2020 coronavirus outbreak. Drawing on databases of media reports and individual accounts, I argue that the administrative and coercive power of community institutions stems from their spatiality—from being embedded in gated residential communities, maintaining contact and familiarity with residents, and having control over physical structures. During earthquakes and floods, when the physical space that give community institutions power is changed and destroyed, the role of these organisations in emergency response diminishes. However, when facing an epidemic, in which structured physical space is not only unchanged but also reinforced, community institutions take the lead.


Several different imaging methods can be used to evaluate patients with Chagas heart disease (CHD) for diagnostic and prognostic purposes, including plain chest radiography; echocardiography; myocardial perfusion scintigraphy, for detection of ischemia and fibrosis; radionuclide gated-angiography, for evaluation of biventricular function; 123I-MIBG labeling of sympathetic myocardial innervation; MRI, for detection and quantitation of myocardial fibrosis; and coronary angiography. This study aims to review the contributions of these nuclear medicine methods to understanding of the pathophysiology of chronic Chagas cardiomyopathy (CCC). Careful analysis and integration of findings provided by these imaging methods in patients with CCC at different stages has contributed significantly to improving understanding of several peculiarities of the disease. Clinical and experimental studies in animal models show that perfusion abnormalities detected in association with dysfunctional but viable myocardium are a common finding in CCC patients and correspond to areas of cardiac sympathetic denervation, as assessed by 123I-MIBG imaging. Furthermore, recent reports have demonstrated a close relationship between coronary microvascular disturbances and myocardial inflammation. Thus, ongoing research, mainly focused on refinements of 18F-FDF -PET techniques and further exploration of nuclear methods, such as SPECT, have the potential to contribute to detection and monitoring of early subclinical myocardial damage thereby enabling evaluation of therapeutic strategies targeting inflammation and microvascular ischemia that could result in better prognostic stratification of patients with CHD.


Pulsating instability in adiabatic, rich hydrogen/air counterflow flames was computationally simulated with detailed chemistry and transport. Results demonstrate that for large Lewis number flames, thermal-diffusive pulsating instability is promoted by the positive stretch of the counterflow flames, that oscillation is initiated at an equivalence ratio much smaller than the onedimensional rich threshold, and that the critical strain rate leading to pulsation is smaller than the corresponding static extinction limit. Furthermore, similar to the one-dimensional, unstretched cases, \vith progressive increase in the strain rate for a sufficiently rich mixture, the pulsation mode changes from that of monochromatic, to period doubling, and to pemlanent extinction. It is also seen that the pulsating flames are quasi-steady in nature in that the period of oscillation is larger than the characteristic flame time. As such, the unsteady flame cannot recover once the instantaneous flame temperature is reduced below the corresponding steady-state extinction temperature. Since pulsating extinction occurs at a smaller strain rate than the steady extinction limit, it implies that the flame extinguishes in the pulsating instead of the steadily propagating mode, and the flammable range is accordingly narrowed. It is expected that when radiative heat loss is considered, the onset of pulsation will be facilitated such that the *Asstant Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Senior Member, AIAA. 'Robert H. Goddard Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Fellow, AIAA. Copyright 8 2000 by the authors. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. \vith permission. regime in strain rate for steady burning will be further narrowed. This pulsation-induced extinction can be a major factor accounting for the discrepancy in the extinction strain rate betlveen the computed values based on static extinction turning points and the experimental data, for large Lewis number mixtures. Introduction Counterflow configuration has been widely used to study the flame dynamics and responses. The relative simplicity of this flow field renders accurate experimental and theoretical specifications and hence direct comparison between them possible. Additionally, the counterflow is quasi-one dimensional in nature, thereby facilitating the computational simulation with detailed chemistry and transport properties. Currently there exist considerable activities in this area. Especially, we can now compare the computational simulation using a detailed mechanism with the experimental data to identify the dominant chemistry. Such comparisons play an important role in developing comprehensive kinetic mechanisms. In this regard, it is also noted that a comprehensive kinetic mechanism must satisfactorily describe various flame phenomena such as steady burning, ignition, and extinction, with wide range of thermodynamic parameteric variations. At the global level, validation of a proposed mechanism can be conducted by comparing calculated and experimental results, including the laminar flame speeds, and the ignition and extinction strain rates. Typically, by using the laminar flame speed data together with the literature data on shock tube ignition delay and the concentration progress in plug flow reactors, detailed kinetic mechanism can be de\peloped, for instance, by applying 1 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (c)2000 American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics or published with permission of author(s) and/or author(s)' sponsoring organization. constrained global optimization. Subsequently, validity of the mechanisms developed can be scrutinized and verified by using data on the ignition and extinction strain rates. This would lead to re-examination of the mechanism if the agreement is not satisfactory. Following the above procedure, a hierarchy of hydrocarbon fuels of increasing molecular weights and complexity has been systematically studied. However, our recent studies [l-6] on counterflow flames have shown that, while the experimental steady-state flame structure, including the hydrodynamic, thermal, and species profiles, can be predicted well for Ci-Cj flames using the existing/developed mechanisms, the experimental extinction strain rates are consistently smaller than the computed ones. Such a discrepancy cannot be accounted for by the experimental uncertainty. There are at least three possibilities for such a disagreement in the determination of the extinction states. First, recognizing that extinction is inherently a kinetics-affected phenomenon, the controlling kinetics -could change from steady burning to extinction. Second, recognizing that flame radiation is an inherent heat loss process of a combustion system and that radiative loss facilitates flame extinction, the radiation effect has to be properly accounted. Hovvever, in the optically-thin limit, which also represents the maximum radiative loss from the flame by neglecting reabsorption, calculated extinction limits of methane/air [7, 81 and propane/air counterflow flames [8] are still significantly higher than the experimental values [9]. The third possibility is related to the self-extinction of an oscillatorily unstable flame. Namely, the flame may become unstable near extinction, and consequently extinction could be governed by an unsteady instead of steady process. In particular, from the theory of diffusional-thermal instability of premixed flames, it is well established that a premixed flame tends to exhibit oscillatory instability when its effective Lewis number (Le) is sufficiently larger than unity, as in the case of rich hydrogen/air and lean, higher-order, hydrocarbon/air flames. For one-dimensional, unstretched flames, the propensity to become unstable increases as the flame further departs from stoichiometry. Furthermore, for rich hydrogen/air flames pulsating instability has been observed to take place at fuel concentrations well below that of the rich flammability limit [lo]. The unsteady flame propagation discussed above for the one-dimensional, freely-propagating flame is expected to be modified in the presence of aerodynamic stretch, which is invariably present in all practical flames, and is manifested through flow nonuniformity, flame curvature, and flame unsteadiness. Indeed, a numerical study on outwardly-propagating flames using one-step chemistry demonstrated that, vvith sufficiently large Lewis numbers, positive curvature appears to encourage oscillation at small radii but is damped out at larger radii [ 111. Furthermore, a recent study [ 121 also investigated the curvature effects of the invvardlypropagating flame on the onset of pulsating instability through linear stability analysis and fully transient calculations with detailed chemistry and transport properties. The results showed that since the inwardlypropagating flame is negatively-stretched, flame curvature tends to suppress pulsating instability. Therefore, it is clear that negative (positive) stretch delays (promotes) the onset of pulsating instability. Since positive straining facilitates pulsating instability, this then leads to the expectation that extinction of such Le>l counterflow flames could be in the oscillatory mode. It is then of interest to describe the extinction of such a self-induced oscillatory flame, particularly the possibility of the self-extinction of an otherwise un-extinguishable flame when it becomes oscillatory unstable. In the present study, we therefore extend our previous study on purely-cuRed, negatively-stretched, imvardly-propagating flames by investigating the purely-strained, positively-stretched, counterflovv flames. Phenomena of interest include the effect of strain rate on the onset of the pulsating instability and the existence of pulsation-induced extinction as well as their implications to the determination of the fundamental flammability limit using the counterflowbased experimentation. Computational Specifications The mathematical model and the governing equations of the steady-state system employed here follow those of Kee et al. [13], while the unsteady behavior of counterflow flames is studied using a second order implicit scheme [14, 151. Calculations are performed for the axisymmetric configuration at one atmosphere pressure, 298 K upstream temperature, and with plugflow boundary conditions. The reaction mechanism used for hydrogen flames is taken from Kim et al. [ 161. Transient calculations are started at time t=O from the velocity, temperature, and species profiles of the steady solution with the same set of the boundary conditions. The local strain rate for the present premixed twin-flame case is simply defined as the


A study was conducted to know the various constraints of poultry farmers and ways and means were suggested to minimize these constraints. One hundred poultry farmers were selected in two districts of Goa i.e. North and South Goa. Out of 100 farms 90 per cent were engaged in broiler production and remaining 10 per cent were layer farmers. Data were collected through specially prepared questionnaire. Analysis was done by calculating the rank based quotients (RBQ). The study revealed that main problems encountered by the farmers, in making their poultry a successful enterprise was high feed cost followed by competition with outside farmers, high labour cost, trading, high cost of electricity, high cost of chicks and non-availability of health services. The major suggestions were provision of subsidized feed, electricity and water and establishment of feed mill with subsided equipments, remunerative price for broiler and eggs through co-operative marketings.


It has been well documented that the manifestation of immune suppression is the result of interactions among several T lymphocyte subsets. These cellular interactions often depend upon the recognition of unique idiotypic determinants present on the various lymphoid elements. We have previously characterized a system in which murine suppressor T cells (Ts) , induced by the intravenous administration of syngeneic spleen cells covalently coupled with the 4-hydroxy-3-nitrophenyl acetyl (NP) hapten, specifically affected the responses of NP" idiotype-bearing B lymphocytes both in vivo and in vitro.' The ability of these Lyt 1-, 2+, Igh-restricted suppressor T cells to bind idiotype and to function during the effector phase of an in vitro response suggested that they corresponded to the effector phase suppressor T cell (Tse or Ts?) involved in the suppression of NP-specific delayed-type hypersensitivity and cutaneous sensitivity responses.2 Effector phase suppressor T cells could also be induced by the injection of monoclonal Ts, factor in vivo or by the addition of this factor to normal spleen cells in vitro.; The purpose of the studies presented herein was to further investigate the specificity of the Ts, suppressor cell and to determine the nature of its target cell. It is well established that many defined idiotypic systems are composed of a family of idiotypically related but nonidentical molecules. In the NPb idiotypic system, for example, most monoclonal anti-NP antibodies exhibit only a fraction of the serum NPb idiotypic specificities. In order to determine if T cell receptors recognize the same repertoire of NP" idiotypic determinants as antiidiotypic antiserum, the ability of effector phase suppressor cells to bind monoclonal anti-NP antibodies bearing different levels of NPb idiotypic determinants was studied. The results suggest that anti-idiotypic effector phase suppressor T cells do not recognize the predominant serologically detected NP') idiotypic determinants. Although the Ts, population recognized molecules bearing NPb idiotypic determinants and the overall effect of the suppression was idiotype specific, there was no direct evidence proving that this Ts, was, in fact, the final effector cell in the suppressor pathway. In order to determine if a third order suppressor T cell was required for the manifestation of immune suppression, Ts, suppressor cells were added to responder cultures pretreated with anti-I-J antiserum plus complement. The data indicate that treatment of responder populations with anti-I-J antiserum eliminates a population of T cells required for expression of immune suppression. This Ts, population was shown to be present in N P primed but not unprimed donors. Furthermore, the Ts, .population specifically bound NP, was Lyt 1, 2+, and I-J+ and expressed NPh idiotypic determinants. Taken together, the data indicate that the interaction of at least three T cell


In summary, the ovarian cancer risk model built from non-invasively measured epidemiologic risk factors showed a modest discriminatory power in a Western European population, comparable to previously developed models on US cohort data. The endometrial cancer risk model showed a somewhat better performance. Future studies should consider adding informative biomarkers to possibly improve the predictive ability of the models.


The article proposes a physico-mathematical model of the mechanism of hardening of galvanic coatings by nanoscale materials. It has been established that the mechanism of hardening is most strongly influenced by structural transformations occurring in nanocomposite coatings. Based on the physical processes taking place in modified by nanoscale materials galvanic coatings, the physico-mathematical model of the mechanism of their hardening was substantiated and investigated. The presented model allows predicting the degree of hardening of nanocomposite coatings depending on the nanodispersed materials and the distance between them in the coating.


This dissertation will examine ethnic and social diversity on women's magazines with particular focus on Vogue and Cosmopolitan to further understand how sparse the use of non-white cover models is. It will also assess linguistic diversity across the two magazines, with the use of two case studies to fully understand the differences.
A literature review will also be used, featuring key texts from Naomi Wolf and Helen Gurley Brown, to analyse existing opinions on the topic and how they interlink with one another, with consideration to how many texts on the subject are dated, with ever-changing attitudes to racial diversity and feminism as key issues.


The plasmid pCAMBIA hBMP 3m was introduced directly to the Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain LBA4404 by freeze thaw method.The explant of leaf disc from tobacco sterile plants were transformed by LBA4404,plants were regenerated in selection medium containing 25 mg/L hygromycin.The PCR test of the plants were positive.It is initially shown that the gene of Human Bone Morphogenetic Proteins 3 Mature Peptide was integrated into the genome of tobacco.


This work presents the prototype development and testing of a vertically integrated half-bridge switch, utilizing IGBTs and anti-parallel freewheeling diodes. Stacking of the semiconductor devices is based on the power bump technology, which consists essentially in the replacement of bond-wire interconnections between device surface and substrate with conductive solid elements (spheres or cylinders) directly connected to an upper substrate. This approach, already demonstrated in its surface (2D) version, is characterised, in particular, by enhanced integration levels with double-sided cooling of the chips; here, for the first time, it is extended to the vertical direction (3D), keeping all of its positive distinctive features.


This study sought to find out the extent of digital library skills possessed and the methods used in training the staff of academic libraries in Benue state to acquire the skills. Descriptive survey design was used for this study and 8 tertiary institutions in the state (three universities, two colleges of education, two polytechnics, and one monotechnic) were considered. Total enumeration method was used to study the whole population of 248 library staff (professionals and paraprofessionals) of the 8 institutions using structured questionnaire. Mean and charts were used for the analysis of data in answer to the research questions. It was found that, the staff acquired all the basic skills required to work in a digital library through self efforts and sponsorship by the library. It recommended however that, those competencies be improved upon. Libraries and the mother institutions were to increase their involvement in the training of staff in different fora to acquire and improve their skills. Keywords: Digital library, academic libraries, digital library Skills, Benue State, Nigeria