The present work is a direct sequel to a recent article by the author, in which he has analysed the tensor product of tensor operators over quantum algebras. Here the results obtained there are summarized and then specialized and extended to prepare possible applications to quantum spin chains. In particular, certain invariant two-point operators are introduced (whose expectation values yield the invariant two-point correlation functions) and their multiplicative properties are derived.


The diffusion of methylparaben through silicone rubber membranes was followed with and without ultrasound. Ultrasound sources (5 MHz and 2.25 MHz) were used to irradiate the membranes normal to the membranes and in the same direction as diffusion flow. The data presented shows no apparent effect of ultrasound on silicone membrane permeability.


1. Introduction 2. Becoming a head 3. Heads in fiction 4. Heads in management texts 5. Heads and the standards agenda 6. Headship as risky work 7. The difficult work of improving learning 8. Taking a collective position 9. Getting real about school leadership


The results of non-choice feeding tests with Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus)captured from Beijing area on three grains, i.e., maize, rice and wheat, shows that the rotatory baiting of the three grains(daily changing the kind of grains)is better than the continuous baiting with only one kind of grain, the mean daily intake by rats in the former case is significantly higher than, in the lattr. When rotatory baiting is carried, out, it is better to use the soaked grain than the dried one for maize but it makes no difference to use soaked or dried grains for rice and wheat, and when continuous baiting carried out there is nosignificant differences in mean daily intakes between 5 days and 15 days running.


The insect is a kind of old species which has experienced hund reds of thousands of years of environmental changes and formed adapted construction and function to all kinds of special environment in the longterm evolution.Therefore,It has been one of the bionic objects of great concern.Fully exploiting insect resources which have special morphology,structure and superior performance and using the principles of its structure to develop biomimeties composite materials and tools with special performance are of great importance to material science.The paper summarized the morphology,structure and their principles of body surface of insects and briefly discussed its application fields and value.


If the viscosity and specific weight of a fluid are variable, the equations governing its flow in a porous medium are non-linear and in general very difficult to solve. It has been found, however, that steady flows of a fluid of variable viscosity but constant specific weight can be reduced to those of a homogeneous fluid by a remarkably simple transformation, which indicates that the flow patterns of the fluid are the same as those of a homogeneous fluid with the same boundary conditions, and that only the speed need be modified. The speed of the actual flow is obtained by dividing the speed of the homogeneous-fluid flow by a factor proportional to the actual viscosity. The transformation is also used to derive the equations governing steady two-dimensional flows and steady axisymmetric flows of a fluid of variable viscosity and specific weight. In a good many cases of practical importance these equations are exactly linear, in spite of the fact that the governing equations obtained without the use of the above-mentioned transformation are non-linear. An exact solution for a steady two-dimensional flow with prescribed boundary conditions is given. Two inverse methods for generating exact solutions for two-dimensional flows are presented, together with two illustrative examples. The theory also applies to Hele-Shaw flows, so that it can be easily verified in the laboratory.


To identify the viruses in tree peony plants associated with the symptoms of yellowing, leaf rolling, stunted growth, and decline, high-throughput sequencing of small RNA and mRNA was conducted from a single symptomatic plant. Bioinformatic analyses and reconstruction of viral genomes indicated mixed viral infections involving cycas necrotic stunt virus (CNSV), apple stem grooving virus (ASGV), lychnis mottle virus (LycMoV), grapevine line pattern virus (GLPV), and three new viruses designated as peony yellowing-associated citrivirus (PYaCV, Citrivirus in Betaflexiviridae), peony betaflexivirus 1 (PeV1, unclassified in Betaflexiviridae), and peony leafroll-associated virus (PLRaV, Ampelovirus in Closteroviridae). PYaCV was 8,666 nucleaotides (nt) in length, comprising three open reading frames (ORFs) and shared 63.8-75.9% nucleotide sequence identity with citrus leaf blotch virus (CLBV) isolates. However, the ORF encoding the replication-associated protein (REP) shared 57% and 52% sequence identities at the nt and amino acid (aa) level, respectively, with other reported CLBV isolates, which were below the criterion for species classification within the family Betaflexiviridae. Recombination analysis identified putative recombination sites in PYaCV, which originated from CLBV. PeV1, only identified from the transcriptome data, was 8,124 nt in length with five ORFs encoding the REP (ORF1), triple gene block (TGB, ORF2-4) and coat protein (CP, ORF5) proteins. Phylogenetic analysis and sequence comparison showed that PeV1 clustered with an unassigned member, the garlic yellow mosaic-associated virus (GYMaV) within the Betaflexiviridae family, into a separate clade. Partial genome sequence analysis of PLRaV (12,545 nt) showed it contained seven ORFs encoding the partial polyprotein 1a, the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), two small hydrophobic proteins p11 and p6, HSP70h, p55, and a CP duplicate, which shared low aa sequence identity with Closteroviridae family members. Phylogenetic analysis based on the aa sequences of RdRp or HSP70h indicated that PLRaV clustered with grapevine leafroll-associated virus 1 (GLRaV-1) and GLRaV-13 in the Ampelovirus genus. Field investigation confirmed the wide distribution of these viruses, causing mixed infections of peony plants in Beijing.


This work focuses on the trajectory of the archaeologist Osvaldo Heredia, particularly in the theoretical approaches, research projects, the task of teaching and political concerns. Usually located within the theoretical line of Alberto Rex Gonzalez and his innovative perspectives on the Argentine northwest, discusses the history of who was himself a notable figure in the context of the tumultuous Cordoba '60s and '70s. From materials of the Documentary Fund "Osvaldo Heredia" and interviews with his contemporaries - both colleagues and students - explores the plurality of aspects that Heredia made part of a lineage within which came to differentiate. Although the period in question runs from the '60s until his return to Argentina in the democratic era, this article focuses primarily on Heredia archaeological investigations conducted in the period 1973-1976 which were a turning point in his thought, with all its scope and also its limitations.


Objective To evaluate the short-term efficacy and toxicity of concurrent paclitaxel chemotherapy and IMRT for esophageal carcinoma.Methods 103 cases of esophageal carcinoma patients were randomized in two groups:60 cases was treated with concurrent IMCRT and paclitaxel chemotherapy(named study group);another 43 cases with radiotherapy only(named control group).After treatment,the clinical efficacy,improvement in eating obstructive symptoms,adverse reactions and survival in the two groups were observed and compared.Results 2 weeks after treatment the total effective rate in the study group was 83.3%,higher than 60.5% in the control group;consumption of obstructive symptoms was 91.7%,higher than 69.7% in the control group;2-year survival rates were 86.7%,68.3 %,higher than 55.8%,32.6% in the control group;the incidence rate of adverse reactions in the study group was lower than that in the control group,and the differences were statistically significant(P0.05).Conclusion IMRT radiotherapy plus paclitaxel chemotherapy over the same period of esophageal cancer can improve the efficiency of recent and long-term survival,and adverse reactions,patients are easy to tolerated.


The main goal of this doctoral dissertation is the study of the concept of "place" in the field of sculpture in the late 1960s and early 1970s. While, from a historiographic point of view, this concept usually refers to artistic practices challenging the institutional, social or political dimension of a site – that is, challenging the principle of self-referentiality characteristic of the modernist condition of sculpture –, we have put forth the hypothesis that the critical dimension of the concept of « place » laid elsewhere : a critical response to the modernist sculptural model. Indeed, the historic study of the production of the artists associated with the emergence of this issue has lead to the conclusion that this concept critically addressed the prevalence of vision and its immediacy postulated by the modernist theory when experiencing a sculpture. More precisely, these artists reacted to the nature of the sculptural space implied by these two assumptions. That is, a space apprehended immediatelly in all its dimensions by the omniscient gaze of the viewer. A space in which the viewer himself did not seem to be involved. A modernist sculpture should reveal itself to the viewer through an act of immediate visual intuition. But these artists shared the necessity to remind of the incomplete and lacunar nature of the viewer's gaze because of the peculiar point of view and the inherence to the space imposed to him by his own body. That is to say that the formal content of a sculpture is not univocal, but is determined by the contingent and ever changing mode by which the viewer apprehend it. Therefore, according to them, one could not consider a sculpture regardless of how it presents itself to the viewer. We then showed how, at the time, this issue turned into or was articulated around the question of the point of view, in practice as well as in theory. While seeking to prevent sculptures from being perceptible immediately, as if their content preceded their concrete and physical experience, artists like Morris, Smithson, Andre and Serra developed sculptural strategies making it necessary to cast different glances from different points of view and to move physically in order to apprehend the whole piece. Ultimately, what was referred to as « place » was the cohesion and the unity of the sculptural space experienced by the viewer through a complex visual perceptions and physical movements. The first chapter of this dissertation deals with the critical response adressed by Minimal art to modernism. By comparing Michael Fried's reflections on sculpture on the one hand with Morris's on the other hand, what is at stake is the differences between the experience of sculpture and the role of spectator postulated respectively by modernism and minimalism. The second chapter shows how Morris, Serra and Smithson simultaneously reformulated the issue of sculpture thanks to a dialectic between the ground point of view and the plan view. The latter symbolizes the ideal modernist point of view giving immediate access to the whole work. In the third and last chapter, we then showed that the conceptualization of the « place » by Andre was based on the same premises : to challenge the prevalence of vision and the uniqueness of its act. For Andre, the sculpture becomes a place when it leads the viewer to experience the cohesion of an area created by the sculpture thanks to the spatial links bound with its site. Quotes by Morris, Serra, Smithson and Heizer indicate that they understood this concept in this very sense. That is the reason why this concept could also be used to analyze the functioning of their own earthworks.


Background: Given the role that vitamin D (VD) plays in the regulation of the inflammatory activity of adipocytes, we aimed to assess whether obesity changes the expression of VD-related genes in adipose tissue and, if so, to investigate whether this phenomenon depends on microRNA interference and how it may influence the local inflammatory milieu. Methods: The expression of genes encoding VD 1α-hydroxylase (CYP27B1), 24-hydroxylase (CYP24A1) and receptor (VDR), selected interleukins and microRNAs was evaluated by real-time PCR in visceral (VAT) and in subcutaneous (SAT) adipose tissues of 55 obese (BMI > 40 kg/m2) and 31 normal-weight (BMI 20–24.9 kg/m2) individuals. Results: VDR mRNA levels were higher, while CYP27B1 levels were lower in adipose tissues of obese patients than in those of normal-weight controls (VAT: P = 0.04, SAT: P < 0.0001 and VAT: P = 0.004, SAT: P = 0.016, respectively). The expression of VDR in VAT of obese subjects correlated negatively with levels of miR-125a-5p (P = 0.0006, rs = −0.525), miR-125b-5p (P = 0.001, rs = −0.495), and miR-214-3p (P = 0.009, rs = −0.379). Additionally, VDR mRNA concentrations in visceral adipose tissues of obese subjects correlated positively with mRNA levels of interleukins: 1β, 6 and 8. Conclusions: We observed obesity-associated up-regulation of VDR and down-regulation of CYP27B mRNA levels in adipose tissue. VDR expression correlates with the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and may be regulated by miRNAs.


This paper reports on the pressure dependence of the optical absorption edge of ZnO in the wurtzite and rock-salt phase, up to 14 GPa. Both vapor-phase monocrystals and pulsed-laser-deposition thin films have been investigated. In both types of samples the wurtzite to rock-salt transition is observed at 9.7G0.2 GPa. The absorption tail of the fundamental gap, as measured in monocrystals, exhibits a pressure coefficient of 24.5G2 meV/GPa. The evolution under pressure of the full absorption edge of the wurtzite phase is studied with thin film samples, yielding a slightly lower pressure coefficient (23.0G0.5 meV/GPa for the A–B exciton). Rock-salt ZnO is shown to be an indirect semiconductor with a bandgap of 2.7G0.2 eV. At higher photon energy a direct transition (E gd –4.5 eV) can be also identified in thin films transited to the rock-salt phase. Results on the high-pressure phase are interpreted on the basis of density-functional-theory (DFT) electronic structure calculations.


We collected the results of 2,535 roll-call votes in the EP [3], from October 1, 2014 to February 29, 2016. MEPs are members of different political groups (see Table 1). The same voting within the groups shows their cohesion, while co-voting of different groups indicates their tendency to form coalitions. In the social media context, retweeting gives an alternative view on cohesion and coalitions (see Fig 1). We apply two different methodologies to analyze the cohesion and coalitions. The first one is Krippendorff's Alpha [5], a measure of the co-voting agreement. The second one is Exponential Random Graph Model (ERGM) [4], a network-based approach, often used in social-network analyses. ERGM estimates factors which influence the formation of links in the network. The results are in Figs 2 and 3. Even though the two methodologies come with different sets of techniques and are based on different assumptions, they provide consistent results. The differences are due to different concepts of chance, and treatment of non-attending and abstaining MEPs. Alpha is computed only from the yes/no votes of MEPs. Alpha = 1 indicates perfect co-voting agreement, and 0 indicates co-voting by chance. ERGM, on the other hand,


To capture the dependences of a disease on several risk factors, a challenge is to combine model-based estimation with evidence-based arguments. Standard case-control methods allow estimation of the dependences of a rare disease on several regressors via logistic regressions. For case-control studies, the sampling design leads to samples from two different populations and for the set of regressors in every logistic regression, these samples are then mixed and taken as given observations. But, it is the differences in independence structures of regressors for cases and for controls that can improve logistic regression estimates and guide us to the important feature dependences that are specific to the diseased. A case-control study on laryngeal cancer is used as illustration.


There are people who leave us with a text as their legacy. Their text. Sometimes it is a masterpiece, or a huge amount of work, a fertile and essential one. But there are people who leave us with something more, too: their words, their life. Rex Stainton-Rogers is one of them. An excessive, brilliant, entrepreneur, alive? human being. His words are our inheritance. His legacy are some of the most relevant social scientists from the new, emergent, generation, mostly in Great Britain, who are people trained, formed, by this exceptional character. His work, beyond the texts we?ve inherited, consisted on showing us life, truly the laboratory where knowledge is really given shape. So, those who shared with him a piece of his life, have had the privilege of being in contact with what makes knowledge passionate, what makes it useful, what which intoxicates you with pleasure. Rex died in February 1999 as he lived, free and splendid. A year later, her companion, Wendy Stainton-Rogers, organised a symposium to celebrate him, his life and his words with some of the people who owe the most to Rex life. Here you have the contribution we made that day.


The paper analyzed the performance deficiency of traditional routing protocal basing on the actual geographical setting,and proposed a novel adaptive greedy geographical routing protocol. Through analyzing two factors affecting networks mobility——the moving speed and the pause time of nodes,the protocal adjusted the beacons sending cycle and selected the better next hop to achieve the goals of reducing overload and increasing delivery success ratio. Simulation results show that the protocol can acquire better effect compared to GPSR ( greedy perimeter stateless routing) .


Vegetables are highly perishable in nature due to higher moisture content and faster respiration rate. In India, nearly 30-35% of its total production is deteriorate due to improper and poor postharvest handling. The physiological and biochemical processes, microbial decay, high perishability and sub-standard postharvest handling infrastructures are the major factors responsible for postharvest losses. For this reason, practices like proper handling, pre-cooling, washing and disinfection can be adopted before storage to check the postharvest losses. Few chemicals such as sodium hypochlorite, hydrogen peroxide, acetic acid are used for disinfection. However, hot water treatment can be an effective way of disinfection in organic vegetables for pathogen suppression. While, irradiation has been used as an effective means of maintaining colour, firmness, and other quality. Use of edible coating has been effective for maintaining quality and shelf life in pointed gourd. Other than these, reduction in physiological weight loss, delay senescence, maintains chloroplast activity, declines chlorophyll degradation can be possible by application of various plant growth regulators such as 1-MCP, 6-BAP MeJA, CaCl2 and KMnO4 as reported beneficial in many vegetables. Among these, 1-MCP and Methyl jasmonate can be suggested as alternative to 6-BAP for increasing the shelf life of most the vegetables in eco-friendly and economical way. By popularizing this among the farming community we can effectively reduce the postharvest losses in vegetable of about 35% every year which can play a significant role in enhancing farm income and also mitigate the hidden hunger of poor populations.


The invention provides an intelligent printer, and the printer comprises a housing which is a storage cavity formed by the enclosing of an upper housing wall and a lower housing wall; a power supply mechanism which is a storage battery in electrical connection with the upper housing wall; a control mechanism which is disposed in the housing, is electrically connected with the power supply mechanism, and is used for controlling the operation of the power supply mechanism; a printing mechanism which is electrically connected with a first circuit switch; a storage mechanism which is electrically connected with the control mechanism, receives the information outputted by an information output unit, and stores the information, wherein the interior of the storage mechanism is provided with a signal transmitter; and a rotating mechanism which is disposed outside the housing, and comprises a rotating shaft disposed on the upper housing wall and an optical inductor which is disposed on the rotating shaft. The optical inductor is electrically connected with a signal receiving unit, and the rotating shaft is electrically connected with a second circuit switch.


: As a specific application of image inpainting, face inpainting is a critical content in the computer vision. It plays an important role in object removal, photo editing and other fields. Deep learning has become the mainstream approach of image inpainting. In specific applications, the corrupted area of face images is usually irregular. For the classical irregular face inpainting approaches based on deep learning, this paper divides it into convolution operator optimization methods and structural information constraint methods, the former includes PConv and GConv and the latter includes EC, PRVS, MED, CTSDG. We fist describe the basic principle of each algorithm and detail about the strengths and limitations. Then we experiment on CelebA-HQ dataset, evaluate and compare the performance quantitatively and qualitatively.


SUMMARY Morphological and genetic studies are reported on western Mediterranean populations of Discoglossus (D. pictus Otth, D. sardus Tschudi, D. scovazzi Camerano) (Amphibia Salientia Discoglossidae). A new species from Corsica, reproductively isolated from D. sardus, has been detected: D. montalentii n. sp., and its description is given. To date, D. montalentii has been observed only in Corsica, while D. sardus inhabits Corsica, Sardinia, Tuscan Archipelago, and Argentario (Tuscany). An area has been found near Evisa (Corsica) in which the two species live sympatrically, no gene flow taking place between them. The following average values of NEI'S genetic distance (D), calculated on the basis of 35 loci, have been found: 0.92 between D. montalentii and D. sardus, 1.06 between D. montalentii and D. pictus, 0.42 between D. sardus and D. pictus. The genetic divergence of D. scovazzi from D. pictus is very low: D = 0.07, suggesting a subspecific rank for this northern African taxon. Genetic and paleobiogeo...


The Internet of Things (IoT) extends connectivity beyond traditional computing devices to different types of smart objects, equipped with various sensors and actuators. These objects range from smart lightbulbs and thermostats to smart watches and fitness trackers, or even heavy machinery used in various industrial sectors. Due to device heterogeneity, the complexity of developing applications that require the collection and sharing of data across multiple IoT devices is high, as developers need to be familiar with a diverse set of supported services and APIs. While existing approaches have proposed solutions to this challenge, they rely on the use of resource-intensive cloud-based components, they do not offer the degree of extensibility desired by developers, and they often trade off some of the richness of real-time data for ease of use. Cuttlefish is a flexible and lightweight middleware that offers a unified API to help with the development of applications that utilize multiple heterogeneous IoT devices. It abstracts away much of the complexity involved with orchestrating different devices at runtime. At the same time, it avoids the aforementioned caveats of existing approaches through a simple and efficient design, yet one that offers a rich set of capabilities to developers.


The real-time change of tire-road friction coefficient is one of the important factors that influence vehicle safety performance. Besides, the vehicle wheels' locking up has become an important issue. In order to solve these problems, this paper comes up with a novel slip control of electric vehicle (EV) based on tire-road friction coefficient estimation. First and foremost, a novel method is proposed to estimate the tire-road friction coefficient, and then the reference slip ratio is determined based on the estimation results. Finally, with the reference slip ratio, a slip control based on model predictive control (MPC) is designed to prevent the vehicle wheels from locking up. In this regard, the proposed controller guarantees the optimal braking torque on each wheel by individually controlling the slip ratio of each tire within the stable zone. Theoretical analyses and simulation show that the proposed controller is effective for better braking performance.


We have calculated electron-impact ionization (EII) for initially P-like systems for ions with an even proton number Z from S+ to Zn15+. We used the flexible atomic code (FAC) which is based on a distorted-wave (DW) approximation. In our work, 3l → nl (n = 4 − 35) excitation-autoionization (EA) channels near the 3p direct ionization threshold and 2l → nl' (n = 3 – 10) EA channels at the higher energies are included, along with the detailed branching ratios. Our calculated EII cross sections are compared both with previous FAC calculations, which omitted many of these EA channels, and with the available experiments.


This article, by the vice president of technical programs for the Texas Asphalt Pavement Association, describes a new tool, PAVE-IR System, used to give a complete thermal picture of what is happening to an asphalt pavement mat as it is being laid. The tool, which attaches to a paver, could replace hand-held infrared thermometers or thermal imaging cameras. The tool was developed over the past ten years by researchers at the Texas Transportation Institute for the Texas Department of Transportation. The tool consists of infrared sensors attached to a bar, which in turn is mounted to the rear of a paver. A GPS is also mounted on the paver to track and report the paver's position. An onboard computer calibrates the distance and collects temperature and distance data for processing. The infrared sensors continually read the temperature of the surface of the mat.


The essay, by focusing on Luigi Salvatorelli's and Giorgio Levi Della Vida's journalistic writings and historical-political works, aims at considering the different intentionality of their philosophical-religious and political points of view, as it is particularly reflected by the complex question of the unity and integrity of history during the crisis of the European consciousness.


ABSTRACT Etymology and the winds of change. There's a lot of weather about these days, isn't there? Until relatively recently the weather was just what we saw when we drew back the curtains and looked out of the bedroom window in the morning, but now things have changed dramatically. These days every time we turn on the TV or open a newspaper it is quite 'usual' for some part of the world to be experiencing 'unusual' weather. The Arctic is not yet a tropical paradise but it is starting to move in that direction and England, parts of which a mere year or so ago were drying up like so many dead leaves, has in recent months seen some of the worst floods in its history. And who among us had heard of the word tsunami (Japanese for 'harbour wave') before the terrible events of December 2004 in Thailand and Indonesia?


The quality of environment is directly influenced by transport of substances in the soil. This study was realized in the years 2012-2014 in the locality Eastern Slovak Lowland. The transport function of heavy soils was observed by selected soil parameters. Soil samples were taken from three depths from 0.0-0.6 m to 0.2m. The results of the study showed significant heterogeneity of soil conditions in the Eastern Slovak Lowland. We found changes of different soil types over very short distances. The analysis of variance confirmed statistically significant effect of experimental year and soil profile on bulk density, total porosity and maximum capillary capacity of soil.


Recently two groups used first-principles computer simulations to model Jupiter's interior. While both studies relied on the same simulation technique, density functional molecular dynamics, the groups derived very different conclusions. In particular estimates for the size of Jupiter's core and the metallicity of its hydrogen-helium mantle differed substantially. In this paper, we discuss the differences of the approaches and give an explanation for the differing conclusions.


ABSTRACT The information resulting from the use of the organization's products and services is a valuable resource for business analytics. Therefore, it is necessary to have systems to analyze customer reviews. This article is about categorizing and predicting customer sentiments. In this article, a new framework for categorizing and predicting customer sentiments was proposed. The customer reviews were collected from an international hotel. In the next step, the customer reviews processed, and then entered into various machine learning algorithms. The algorithms used in this paper were support vector machine (SVM), artificial neural network (ANN), naive bayes (NB), decision tree (DT), C4.5 and k-nearest neighbor (K-NN). Among these algorithms, the DT provided better results. In addition, the most important factors influencing the great customer experience were extracted with the help of the DT. Finally, very interesting results were observed in terms of the effect of the number of features on the performance of machine learning algorithms.


Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a play about a pair of young lovers, yet it hasn't always been popular among young people. In 1996 two film-makers created modern versions of the play, obviously aiming at the young generation of their time. Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Lloyd Kaufman's Tromeo and Juliet share a lot; however, it has been argued that the philosophy behind the two movies is diametrically opposite: if Luhrmann attempts to prove the compatibility of Shakespeare's high culture with the youth culture of the nineties, Kaufman seems to insist upon the Bard's mismatch with an assumed low teen culture. But how close do the two directors approach what we call "youth culture"? Does Luhrmann provide a full account of modern youth? And how lowly does Kaufman's youth stand after all? Also, which of the two films is closer to a young audience and, finally, what audiences do the two directors address? This essay will attempt to answer these questions by examining the two directors' use of youth culture elements and by taking into consideration the place of the two films in the film industry.


Even though Indonesian EFL learners have been studying English since elementary school, many may still consider speaking one of the most challenging language skills. Consequently, when they move to the advanced level, they are required to master more complex speaking skills. Indonesian EFL graduate students faced some problems during learning that can contribute to their speaking performance. Therefore, it is urgent for this study to investigate EFL graduate students' perspectives on their speaking challenges and strategies used to improve their speaking skills. This study used a qualitative method and a semi-structured interview to obtain deep insight into participants' perspectives. The participants were EFL graduate students who are taking an English Education Master's Program. Results showed that some factors influenced their speaking skills in an academic context, such as a lack of accurate pronunciation and lack of vocabulary knowledge and that they used effective speaking strategies for improving their ability in speaking. It is expected that the findings would assist EFL graduate students in uncovering their speaking challenges so that they could perform better when using their spoken English.


Erythropoietin (EPO) induces red blood cell production by activating red bone marrow progenitor cells, and is used therapeutically in chronic anemia. It is also used as an unauthorized adjunct to increase the oxygen transport capacity in the blood of athletes. Renal tissue hypoxia is the only widely accepted trigger for EPO production (1-3), even if new oxygen-sensitive sites have been recently proposed (4-6). This is well established in models of reduced-oxygen delivery during anemia (7), reduced renal perfusion (8), or hypobaric or normobaric hypoxia (9, 10) or hypoxemia. In one report, hemoconcentration, following sporting activities (11), has been reported to increase EPO secretion. There does not seem to be agreement on the existence of a circadian variation in EPO secretion (12, 13), although the exact timing and magnitude of the nadir and zenith are not unequivocally established, nor is the EPO plasma concentration. Previous experiments in breath-hold divers have led us to hypothesize that another triggering mechanism might exist, independent from renal tissue hypoxia. After a series of deep breath-hold dives, two out of five divers showed a marked augmentation of serum EPO levels. During descent to depth, intra-alveolar oxygen tensions increase. During ascent from depth, oxygen tension falls to atmospheric values. During these (unpublished) experiments, no severe alveolar hypoxia was observed after surfacing, although EPO production seemed to increase. Recently, a Spanish study reported that short exposure to intermittent hypobaric hypoxia increased EPO production (14). We hypothesize that a sudden decrease in tissue-oxygen tension from hyperoxia back to normoxia might act as a trigger for EPO release.


evance in mind. The new chapter on aspects of neuroradiology relevant to neuroanaesthesia is an excellent review of this complex subject and reminds us all of the importance of personally reviewing imaging pre-operatively. Procedure-specific chapters, such as those dealing with the anaesthetic management of cerebral aneurysms, supratentorial and posterior fossa mass lesions, interventional neuroradiology and severe head injury, are supported by others covering more general issues such as the management of the unstable patient and fluid management during craniotomy. A chapter on ethical considerations is unusual in a textbook of neuroanaesthesia but completely relevant to a specialty that deals with substantial numbers of incompetent patients and those in which end of life issues are highly relevant. I would have liked to have seen more coverage of neurocritical care issues and also of neuromonitoring techniques. Intracranial pressure and evoked potential monitoring, and transcranial Doppler ultrasonography, have separate and detailed chapters but there is little or no coverage of other neuromonitoring modalities such as brain tissue oxygenation, non-invasive cerebral oximetry, cerebral microdialysis or depth of anaesthesia monitoring. Neuroanaesthesia is an area where the knowledge and skill of the anaesthetists has a direct impact on clinical outcome and this book explains not only what to do in a variety of clinical scenarios, but also why to do it and how to avoid complications. It provides a comprehensive update of the latest developments in the field. This is one of the definitive textbooks of neuroanaesthesia and should be available in every departmental library. The majority of practising neuroanaesthetists will also want to have a personal copy. M. Smith Professor in Neuroanaesthesia and Neurocritical Care, The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery London, UK Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


Wave Propagation in very long, 2D sparse random media composed of electrically large scatterers with high permittivity fluctuations is considered. A novel and efficient numerical coherent model is presented that can accurately track both the magnitude and phase of the scattered wave in both the forward and backward directions. The model is referred to as Statistical S-matrix for Wave Propagation in Spectral Domain (SSWaP-SD). For transnationally invariant random media, a recursive analytical expression for estimation path-loss that includes multiple scattering effects is developed. This work can be used to study propagation path-loss for millimeter wave (MMW) communication systems as well as performance assessment of a MMW SAR system (240GHz) operating under different precipitation conditions.


Background:Aerobic and anaerobic exercise prevents the onset and progress of lifestyle-related diseases. However, for people who are suffering from pain or injuries to tissue like feet and hips, it is difficult to do enough aerobic exercise to gain beneficial effects. A high air pressure aerial chamber is thought to have a similar effect on aerobic exercise. A previous study suggested that a rise in the dissolving O2 concentration in the body under hyperpressure might lead to a reduction in fat, though its underlying mechanisms have not been established. Therefore, in order to clarify how air pressure directly affects adipose tissue metabolism or differentiation, we investigated the effect of pressurization on cultured 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. Methods:3T3-L1 preadipocytes were cultured in DMEM supplemented with 10% FBS and antibiotics. Then cells were induced to differentiate by adding adipogenic agents, and we compared the effects of culture with normal pressure (760 mmHg) and pressurization (845 mmHg). Cell viability was examined by MTT assay. Intracellular triglyceride concentration was evaluated by Oil Red O staining and expressions of adipogenic genes were determined by real time-PCR. Results:The amount of lipid droplet and the intracellular triglyceride concentration in the pressurization culture decreased compared to the normal pressure culture. The result of MTT assay suggested that the pressurization culture did not affect the cell viability. The pressurization culture induced decrease in the mRNA expression of PPAR-gamma as well as CD36 during the differentiation, suggesting suppression of adipogenesis. Conclusions:Our data demonstrate that the pressurization culture inhibits adipocyte differentiation by suppressing the expression of adipogenesis-related genes, which induces the decrease in the intracellular lipid droplet.


The ethanol and aqueous extracts of stem of Ipomoea reniformis Chois (Family: Convolvulus) was investigated for its antihyperglycemic and antihyperlipidaemic effects of alloxan induced diabetic rats. Diabetes was induced by administration of single dose of alloxan monohydrate (150 mg/kg b. wt). Ethanol and aqueous extracts of I. reniformis at doses of 300 and 600 mg/kg b. wt were administered as a single dose per day to diabetes rats for the period of 12 days, respectively. The effect of extracts of I. reniformis on blood glucose levels, serum lipid profile (Total cholesterol, triglycerides, phospholipids, low density, very low density and high density lipoprotein) and serum enzymes (ALT, ASP, ALP) were measured in the diabetic rats. The extracts of I. reniformis exhibited significant antihyperglycemic and antihyperlipidaemic effects on alloxan induced diabetic rats when compared to the standard drug (Metformin 250 mg/kg). An oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was also performed, in which there was a significant improvement in glucose tolerance in rats treated with extracts. A comparison was made between the extracts and antidiabetic drug- glibenclamide (500μg/kg). The present investigation of this plant established pharmacological evidence to support the folklore claim that it is an anti-diabetic agent.


Tree-ring cores were collected from the low and upper altitude limits of Pinus massoniana in Yunyang county of Chongqing.Two tree-ring width chronologies were established using standardized dendrochronological methods,respectively.The two sampling sites are located close to each other but at different elevations.Results indicated that the chronology fluctuation of the upper altitude limit was higher than that of the low limit.The statistical character of the chronology showed that signal to noise ratio(SNR.),express population signal(EPS) of upper limit were high than that of the low limit.Therefore,the sensitivity of tree's response to climatic changes increased with increasing altitude.In order to understand the differing response of tress at different elevations to the environment changes,the correlations between the chronology indices and precipitation and between air temperature in different seasons and different months were calculated.The results showed that the growth of upper limit of Pinus massoniana was affected by temperature and precipitation of previous year,and that of low limit was only affected by precipitation of current year.It showed that there was lag-effect of the growth response to climate force of upper limit.


We report fundamental LIF spectral characteristics of dibenzofurans and dibenzodioxins experimentally observed in the ultraviolet and visible wavelength region between 200 nm and 400 nm. A theoretical study to identify the species is also reported.


This work shows the role played by the interface grid ray-tracing scheme in cross-well first arrive1 traveltime inversion. By means of only putting the grid points on the side of every cell and a new sorting manner, the sheme makes a fast and reliable ray-tracing. This new ray-tracing scheme have several advantages: (1) fast two-point ray linking; (2) less memory; (3) suitable for high contrast slowness; (4) having accurate and stable partial derivative matrix. By means of the scheme, combined with suitable constraints and a series of linearized inversion, the solution satisfied the wanted properties can be found quickly. The theoretical analysis and numerical examples show that the interface grid ray-tracing regularized the nonlinear iteration procedure. . We have also begun to apply the ray-tracing sheme in the inversion of traveltimes picked from Daqing Oil Field data.


The incidence of hormone-dependent cancers is increasing in Western countries; increased infertility and reproductive abnormalities were also noted in these same countries. This has raised the hypothesis that compounds found in our environment, called endocrine disruptors (EDs), could be related to these pathologies. This thesis aims at identifying the effects and mechanisms of EDs on the development of rat mammary gland following the administration of two xeno-hormones having distinct endocrine properties: genistein (soy phytoestrogen with major estrogen receptor affinity) and vinclozolin (anti-androgenic fungicide found in vegetables and fruit). The particularises of this project were: 1) a study following in utero and gestational exposure at peri-pubertal period (PND35 and PND50); 2) a long life exposure study on adult rats; 3) doses relevant overall human exposure (1 mg/kg/day). We show that exposure in utero and during lactation to these compounds alter the development of the mammary gland in pubertal animals [increase in branching and epithelial proliferation, ductal hyperplasia and changes in hormonal receptivity] and in cycled animals [increase of the mammary gland area and development of lobulo-alveolar structures]. Using a transcriptomic approach, we also evaluated gene expression changes in mammary gland. Molecular changes are dependent on the period of postnatal development and the compound considered. The molecular data concerning in utero and lactational exposure are consistent with the histological observations. Furthermore, exposure from weaning to adulthood induces different alterations of the mammary gland at adulthood. In summary, this work provides new observations on the effects of a chemical anti-androgen on the development of the mammary gland in females. These studies also show for the first time that exposure of a mixture of two endocrine disruptors, belonging to two different families, disrupts the development of the mammary gland in female rats with more severe effects compared to those observed with the isolated molecules; these results highlight the risk of multiple exposure.


Objective To investigate pathogeny from disease cobra and provide effective therapeutic measure.Methods The suspicious strain of bacterium isolated from disease cobra was cultured by nutrient agar,blood agar and SS culture medium.Biochemical testing and antibacterial activity in vitro were also performed. Results The results of cultural characteristics,colony morphology,staining,biochemical testing showed that the isolates was a strain of Proteus Vulgaria.Results of antibacterial activity in vitro indicated that the isolates was high sensitivity to Azithromycin and Enrofloxacin. Conclusion The effect were prominent after cured with hypersensitivity antibiotic.


The two major factors affecting demand for food in the long run, total population and per capita income, are reviewed. Examination of FAO agricultural commodity projections for 1975 and 1985 provides coefficients of income elasticity of demand by country and by major food group. Similar examination of United States Agricultural Department reports yields different estimates. The FAO income elasticity coefficients should prevail because they are the result of consensus among some international experts and therefore provide a better basis comparisons among countries. The Ohkawa equation, which expresses the rate of increase in national food consumption as a function of the rate of population growth, the rate of growth in per capita income, and the income elasticity of food, may provide a convenient operational tool for quickly estimating future demand at various levels of average per capita income. In applying the equation, it is suggested that UN estimates of population rate of increase, Bank country reports' per capita income estimates, and FAO income elasticity coefficients be used. Long-term demand forecasts are given for 13 selected LDCs.


Obesity‐associated hypertension is a risk factor for stroke, type 2 diabetes and kidney failure. Hypertension is less common in premenopausal women than in age‐matched men possibly due estrogen induced vasodilation in women. Sympathetic nerve activity increases in obesity‐related hypertension via the elevated norepinephrine (NE) and ATP release and increased constriction in resistance mesenteric arteries (MA). We hypothesized that the causes of obesity‐related hypertension differ between male and female Dahl salt‐sensitive (ss) rats. Rats were fed control and high fat (HF) diet beginning at 3 weeks of age. Body weight and mean arterial pressure (MAP) were measured until they were sacrificed at 24–26 weeks. Males (450 g) gained more weight than females (300 g) irrespective of diet and all HF fed rats became hypertensive (MAP>140 mmHg). The estrus cycle stage in female rats was determined cytologically by vaginal lavage before euthanasia. Mesenteric arteries (Inner diameter; male=275–350 μm, female=245–315 μm) were harvested and mounted on a pressure (60 mmHg) myograph and inner diameter was measured continuously. MA contractile responses to electrical field stimulation (30 stimuli at 0.2–30Hz) and drug applications were measured. MA neurogenic constriction was greater in HF‐fed male (n=9) compared to HF‐fed female arteries (n=3). Neurogenic constriction was similar in control animals while HF‐fed males had greater constriction than females. Neurogenic constriction did not vary with the estrus cycle in female rats regardless of diet. Neurogenic constrictions were blocked by combined application of prazosin (0.1 μM, α1‐adrenergic receptor antagonist) and PPADS (10 μM, P2X‐purinergic receptor antagonist) as well as suramin (100μM, P2X and P2Y‐purinergic receptor antagonist) in arteries from male and female rats. PPADS/Suramin inhibited ATP‐induced MA contraction. Constrictions caused by exogenous NE and ATP were similar in MA from HF‐fed male and female rats. Immunostaining for tyrosine hydroxylase (NE marker) and vesicular nucleotide transporter (ATP marker) revealed greater nerve distribution in HF‐fed MA from male and female rats. NE HPLC shows similar levels in male and female MA; however females have greater NE level in the perivascular fat. Our data indicate that the mechanisms of neurogenic vasoconstriction differ in MA from obese male and female rats. Differences in neurotransmission and/or nerve fiber distribution in obese male and in female rats might explain the sex differences in hypertension prevalence between human males and females.


This paper analyses the demand-supply situation of Teakwood in Kerala State in India. The total demand for Teakwood during 2000-2001 was 96,294 m3, which was 4.7 per cent of the total demand for all timbers. Among the timber-using sectors, housing was the largest Teakwood-using sector. Teakwood export to other States within the country was 13,812 m3 of which 6335 m3 was Teak poles. The international export was only 113 m3. Of the total Teakwood supply, forest plantations accounted for 52 per cent, import 15 per cent and areas outside forests contributed the remaining 33 per cent. Production and consumption of Teakwood was more or less matched, with only a small deficit of 667 m3. Kerala, a traditional exporter, has now become a net importer. Shortening of the rotation age of forest Teak plantations to 50 years has reduced the production of larger girth logs. A policy for increasing the rotation age of forest Teak plantations must be adopted to make available high value larger girth logs for the national and international markets.


Socialist regimes always had a stormy and hostile relationship with fashion. The early Bolsheviks rejected even the word "fashion", and insisted on functional and undecorated clothing, and the post-war East European socialist regimes initially embraced that ideology and officially rejected western fashion. A new ideological turn took place after Khrushchev affirmed his rule in 1956, and attacked excessive Stalinist aesthetics. Official attitudes towards western fashion mellowed in both Russia and East European socialist countries. But with neither tradition nor market, and aspiring to control fashion changes inside their centralized fashion systems, the socialist regimes could neither keep up with nor embrace western fashion trends. In this paper I offer an interpretation of that encounter between socialism and western fashion, which occurred between 1958 and 1968. It resulted in the sartorial phenomenon that I call "official socialist dress" which was connected to the creation of a new socialist middle class by the socialist regimes. In practice, however, official socialist dress had little to do with everyday reality. Queues, shortages and poor quality supply in the shops continued, confirming in differing degrees the socialist regimes' domination of both the time and the consumption of their citizens. Official socialist dress was an ideological construct, a discourse channeled through the state-owned media. The aesthetics of official socialist dress was informed by simple and moderate lines. I call that conventional style "socialist good taste". By advocating modesty, and suggesting creativity within standardization, socialist good taste served the new stylistic synthesis of proletarian asceticism and petit bourgeois prettiness. While official socialist dress and socialist good taste eased the introduction of western fashion into the socialist systems, they were at the same time fatal factors that arrested the development of a genuine socialist fashion in the decades to follow. All the distortions that characterized socialist fashion were already transparent in the conservative aesthetics of official socialist dress from the end of the 1950s: an ontological anxiety about the fluidity of time, a pathological fear of change, the hierarchical levels of decision making in planned economies, the negligence of the market, the confused relationship towards western fashion, cultural autarky, and a lack of experience informed by an earlier ideological rejection of fashion's history.
As the first comparative and historical analysis of socialist dress codes, the paper is based on in-depth field research of a variety of documentary sources including women's magazines, art journals, picture weeklies, political dailies and satirical magazines. The analysis crosses the boundaries between different disciplines, drawing on ideas from fashion studies, cultural anthropology, critical theory, gender studies, political science and studies on the everyday in socialism. Embedded in this broad theoretical foundation, the paper analyses the concepts of time, class, taste and gender in socialism in relation to dress. The investigation of the ideologised uses of these catagories facilitates a comparison of Western fashions with their socialist counterparts. By analysing dress practices which were informed by different ideological and organisational principles, the paper broadens the field of fashion studies that had previously been exclusively organised around Western fashion and its practices.


This article shows the relevance of developing a cascade of deep neural networks for detecting and classifying network attacks based on an analysis of the practical use of network intrusion detection systems to protect local computer networks. A cascade of deep neural networks consists of two elements. The first network is a hybrid deep neural network that contains convolutional neural network layers and long short-term memory layers to detect attacks. The second network is a CNN convolutional neural network for classifying the most popular classes of network attacks such as Fuzzers, Analysis, Backdoors, DoS, Exploits, Generic, Reconnais-sance, Shellcode, and Worms. At the stage of tuning and training the cascade of deep neural networks, the selection of hyperparame-ters was carried out, which made it possible to improve the quality of the model. Among the available public datasets, one ofthe current UNSW-NB15 datasets was selected, taking into account modern traffic. For the data set under consideration, a data prepro-cessing technology has been developed. The cascade of deep neural networks was trained, tested, and validated on the UNSW-NB15 dataset. The cascade of deep neural networks was tested on real network traffic, which showed its ability to detect and classify at-tacks in a computer network. The use of a cascade of deep neural networks, consisting of a hybrid neural network CNN + LSTM and a neural network CNNhas improved the accuracy of detecting and classifying attacks in computer networks and reduced the fre-quency of false alarms in detecting network attacks


This study analyzes the components of the mode of teacher education,and points out that the four components of the mode are namely the country,the conducting institutes of teacher education,the trainees and the goal and media of teacher education.The mode varies with the change of the goal of teacher education and objects of each component.On this basis,this paper also analyzes the present situation of the mode of teacher education in China and the policy of its transition.


Electroporation, a widely used technique allowing the transfer of biological molecules into a variety of cell types (13), has been used with success for introducing plasmids and short oligonucleotides into mammalian, yeast and a variety of other cell types (1,2,9,10). A modification of the square-wave pulse technique that uses radio frequency (RF) electrical bursts is now being used effectively for transient transfections (5). RF electroporation uses bursts of sinusoidal waves, similar to alternating current (3,4) that reportedly result in better transient permeation of the cell membrane (6). This type of electroporation uses protocols and equipment already familiar to users of previously available types of electroporation. Consequently, the RF procedure can be useful to incorporate in a variety of investigations for creation of stable cell lines and in transient transfections. We describe here optimized RF electroporation parameters for the 293 human embryonic kidney cell line. Plasmid EGFP (Clontech Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA, USA) was prepared from stock solution (4.9 μg/μL) in quantities of 10 μg by cold ethanol/ sodium acetate precipitation and resuspended in 400 μL aliquots of phosphate-buffered sucrose electroporation medium: 150 mM sucrose, 27 mM Na2HPO4, pH 7.5 (3). The 293 cells obtained from Elliott Kieff (Harvard Medical School) were maintained in DMEM (Life Technologies, Gaithersburg, MD, USA) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum, 2 mM L-glutamine, 25 U/mL penicillin, 25 μg/mL streptomicin and 10 μg/mL gentamicin, allowed to reach 70% confluency, then harvested by trypsin/PBS and vigorous pipetting for 30 s. Trypsinization was stopped by addition of complete media supplemented with fetal bovine serum, and cell counts were determined by trypan blue staining. Approximately 5 × 106 cells were washed with PBS, resuspended in the previously prepared aliquots of electroporation medium containing EGFP plasmid. Pellets were then pipetted vigorously to ensure uniform suspension of single cells. This suspension was then immediately transferred to a 0.4 cm electroporation cuvette (Eppendorf Scientific, Westbury, NY, USA). Cells were pulsed at various voltages (200–240 V) and burst duration combinations (3–5 ms) using the Gene Pulser II RF Module for the Gene Pulser II Electroporation System (BioRad Laboratories, Hercules, CA, USA). The remaining electroporation parameters were held constant for all experiments: 100% modulation, 40 kHz radio frequency, 5 bursts and 1 s interval between bursts. The cell suspension was immediately transferred to 10 mL of complete culture medium (as described above) and placed in a 37°C, 5% CO2 incubator overnight. After 24 h, cells were again harvested by trypsin/PBS, washed in media and resuspended in 500 μL PBS. Transfection efficiency was detected by fluorescence microscopy using Model IX70 microscope and 1X-FLA Fluorescence Observation attachment (both from Olympus America, Melville, NY, USA). A 405, 490, 570 nm triple filter was used for optimum excitation of GFP. Percent transfection was measured as the average of three 100-cell fields counted manually under low power and is defined as the percent of cells exhibiting GFP fluorescence. Benchmarks


The article deals with the theoretical foundations of the study of metaphor as one of the mechanisms of the knowledge of the world and as a component of the entire linguistic picture of the world. The analysis of the theoretical aspects of the metaphor allows us to penetrate more deeply into the essence of this phenomenon and consider it as one of the ways of representing the accumulated knowledge by man, ways to reveal the relationship between objects studies of different sciences. The metaphor is taught as one of the main ways of creating the figurative meaning of the word, as a change in the meaning of the language. units and the development of linguistic semantics; as one of the general principles of the nomination; as one of the tropes; as a cognitive process, method of worldview; as a way of modeling the world and creating a linguistic picture of the world. The article draws attention to the fact that the scientific study of this problem involves the study of poetic, linguistic and verbal metaphors; associative representations, anthropocentric approach to language learning; the contrast between myth and metaphor; the formation of an expressive, appreciating character of the metaphor and its semantic features.


10011 Background: Ganetespib, a potent, synthetic small-molecule inhibitor of Hsp90, has shown an improved safety profile relative to 1st-generation agents as well as promising signals of antitumor activity in early clinical studies, including one pt with PDGFRAD842V mutant GIST. Preclinical studies have shown that human GIST cells with primary or secondary TKI-resistance mutations are highly sensitive to ganetespib, justifying this phase 2 trial in GIST.

METHODS
Pts with advanced GIST following failure of prior therapy (tx) received ganetespib (200 mg/m2) as a 1 hour IV infusion qw for 3 wks of a 28 day cycle. GIST status was assessed q8 wks per RECIST, until progression. In this Simon's 2 stage study design, if ≥4/23 pts in Stage 1 had clinical benefit (CR+PR+SD ≥ 16 wks) enrolment would continue with Stage 2. Hsp90 client protein levels were analyzed in biopsies pre-tx and 24-48 h post-ganetespib in a subset of pts.

RESULTS
26 pts (15 M, 11 F; median age 53 yrs, range 33-67; ECOG status 0-1; median 5 prior tx regimens, range 3-12, wild-type PDGFRA) received a median of 2 cycles of ganetespib (range 1-8). AEs reported in >20% of pts were generally NCI CTC grade 1-2 and included diarrhea, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, increased alkaline phosphatase, headache, insomnia, and abdominal pain. 12/23 evaluable pts had SD (4 SD ≥16 wks, 8 SD ≥8 wks), meeting formal criteria to enroll Stage 2. However, analysis of client proteins in paired tumor biopsies from 4 pts did not show prolonged inhibition of activated KIT or its downstream pathways. These data suggest the once-weekly tx schedule is likely not optimal for inhibition of KIT. At this time, accrual has been limited to pts with PDGFRA mutations to allow further preclinical development of alternative schedules and combinations.

CONCLUSIONS
Ganetespib given by once-weekly dosing was well tolerated in pts with heavily pre-treated advanced GIST, with no evidence of severe liver, ocular, cardiac or renal toxicity. Disease stabilization was seen in a subset of pts. Advanced preclinical modeling is ongoing to optimize the impact of ganetespib on mutant KIT in GIST.


High-dimensional analysis reveals the chronology of immunological adaptations during the course of human pregnancies. Following the hand of the immunological clock Immune function is altered during pregnancy to protect the fetus from an immunological attack without disrupting protection against infection. Now, Aghaeepour et al. use mass cytometry to examine the precise timing of these pregnancy-induced changes in immune function and regulation. They developed an algorithm that captures the immunological timeline during pregnancy that both validates previous findings and sheds new light on immune cell interaction during gestation. By defining this immunological chronology during normal term pregnancy, they can now begin to determine which alterations associate with pregnancy-related pathologies. The maintenance of pregnancy relies on finely tuned immune adaptations. We demonstrate that these adaptations are precisely timed, reflecting an immune clock of pregnancy in women delivering at term. Using mass cytometry, the abundance and functional responses of all major immune cell subsets were quantified in serial blood samples collected throughout pregnancy. Cell signaling–based Elastic Net, a regularized regression method adapted from the elastic net algorithm, was developed to infer and prospectively validate a predictive model of interrelated immune events that accurately captures the chronology of pregnancy. Model components highlighted existing knowledge and revealed previously unreported biology, including a critical role for the interleukin-2–dependent STAT5ab signaling pathway in modulating T cell function during pregnancy. These findings unravel the precise timing of immunological events occurring during a term pregnancy and provide the analytical framework to identify immunological deviations implicated in pregnancy-related pathologies.


The risk of paracetamol induced hepatotoxicity could increase with alcohol consumption. Paracetamol was usually given to tropical malaria patients to treat fever. The aim of this study was to determine the hepatotoxicity effect of alcohol consumption in malaria tropica patients receiving paracetamol. This study was a cross-sectional study which was conducted during April-June 2015 at a hospital in Jayapura, Indonesia. The data were obtained from questionnaires and medical records. Alcohol status was determined by Short Michigan Alcoholics Screening Test (SMAST) questionnaire. Level of ALT, AST and bilirubin were observed before and after receiving paracetamol therapy for 5 days. Based on the results, the ALT and bilirubin levels of alcoholic group were higher than in non-alcoholic. However, chi-square test showed that alcohol status did not have a significant influence in ALT, AST, and bilirubin levels. Otherwise, logistic regression analysis showed that age gave a significant effect on AST level (P=0.067). Keywords: alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alcohol, malaria


The elimination of oil in indoor circuit breakers, particularly for powerhouse use, has been insistently demanded to reduce fire hazard. In an effort to meet these requirements, various types of breakers not containing oil have been built and studied. Self-contained breakers of the "De-ion" type1 have been available for several years, and the potentialities of water breakers2 have been carefully investigated. Compressed-air breakers3 for this service have been successfully developed, particularly to meet high kilovolt-ampere interrupting requirements, and the circuit-rupturing ability of these devices has been so amazingly efficient that experimental breakers using this principle have now been built and tested for high-voltage outdoor application.


The various lines of evidence regarding the energy of dissociation H2O→H+OH are critically discussed. This gives a basis for discussing the energy of activation of the process OH+OH→H2+O2.


This paper describes the submissions of Huawei Translation Services Center (HW-TSC) to WMT22 chat translation shared task on English-Germany (en-de) bidirection with results of zore-shot and few-shot tracks. We use the deep transformer architecture with a lager parameter size. Our submissions to the WMT21 News Translation task are used as the baselines. We adopt strategies such as back translation, forward translation, domain transfer, data selection, and noisy forward translation in task, and achieve competitive results on the development set. We also test the effectiveness of document translation on chat tasks. Due to the lack of chat data, the results on the development set show that it is not as effective as sentence-level translation models.


The structure of thiamin thiothiazolone {TTT; 3-[(4-amino-2-methyl-5-pyrimidinyl)methyl]-5-(2-hydroxyethyl)-4-methyl-2(3H)-thiazolethione}, originally known as a transition-state analogue of thiamin, is quite different from that of its congener thiamin thiazolone (TT). TTT assumes the S conformation [φ T = ±83 (1)°; φ P = ∓176 (1)°], while TT assumes the V conformation [φ T = ±104 (1)°; φ P = ∓74 (1)°] with an intramolecular N−H−...O hydrogen bond. The conformations of the hydroxyethyl side chains are also different, so that TTT has a close δ+ S...O δ− electrostatic interaction while TT does not. Crystal packing consists of a three-dimensional hydrogen-bonding network formed by three unique hydrogen bonds. There are two kinds of hydrogen-bonded molecular dimer. The acetone molecule is statistically disordered in the cavity formed by the two centrosymmetrically related pyrimidine base pairs


During calendar year 1973, the LASL Respirator Research and Developmant Section, Industrial Hygiene Group, performed laboratory studies ar*d consulting services for the AEC Directorate of Regulatory Standards (DRS). Major efforts included writing a draft of a manual for respiratory protection against airborne radioactive materials, organizing and hosting a respirator symposium (sponsored jointly by DRS, LASL, and the AEC's Division of Operational Safety), pro- viding respirator training for AEC Regional Office personnel, testing special respiratory protective de- vices, working on development of a rapid method for fitting individuals with respirators on the basis of facial dimensions, and providing consulting services for the DRS«


Lipophilic bioactive materials, such as carotenoids, exhibit various health benefits. To enhance their stability and application in food and pharmaceutical industries, feasibility of microencapsulating these bioactive materials by spray drying was investigated. High- and low-energy emulsification methods were compared at various emulsion compositions and their effects on emulsion stability were characterized. High-energy method was preferred for safety concerns, as it was able to produce fine emulsions (davg < 400 nm) at relatively low surfactant-to-oil ratio. The formed infeed emulsions, with MCT oil as core material, gelatin as wall material and primary emulsifier and Tween 80 as secondary emulsifier, were then spray dried using a lab scale spray dryer (Buchi B-290). Operating conditions were optimized and results demonstrated that spray drying technology could be applied to transform stable infeed emulsions (containing bioactive materials) into microcapsules with desired properties (e.g., low moisture content (5.5–7% (d.b.)), relatively narrow size distribution (d50 between 9.8 and 10.8 μm), and high encapsulation efficiency (around 90%)). So, it is feasible to use this emulsion-based system to microencapsulate bioactive materials by spray drying.

Practical application
Lipophilic bioactive elements are highly susceptible to adverse environment conditions. To overcome these problems, feasibility of microencapsulating these bioactive materials by spray drying was investigated in the present study. A high-energy method was compared with a low-energy method in order to find an appropriate emulsification method. The formed infeed emulsion was then spray dried to determine optimum operating conditions. This research should be useful for identifying the most appropriate operating conditions for lipophilic bioactive materials microencapsulation for industrial application especially in food and pharmaceutical industries. Meanwhile, it also provides a possible reference for other scientists and researchers.


Normal 0 21 false false false TR X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The extraction of fructo-oligosaccharides from banana peels was aimed in this study. Experimental parameters were particle size, solvent type, temperature (40-600C) and time (10-210 minutes). 30% of yield was obtained when optimum sized peels (2*7*10 mm) were extracted with pure acetone at relatively low temperature (500C) during 90 minutes. Total fructo-oligosaccharide content was found nearly 33% of the sugar components of the extracts, and nystose was absent. The degree of polymerization was lower than those of other fructooligosaccharide containing plants (<6). It was concluded that GRAS-statued fructo-oligosaccharides can be produced from a solid waste, a banana peel. Keywords: Fructo-oligosaccharide, banana peel, extraction


This study aims to determine the effect of several macroeconomic variables on the economic growth of ASEAN countries. The variables used in this study are foreign aid, foreign direct investment, inflation, and economic growth. This study uses Panel Regression Analysis to see the effect of the independent variables on the dependent variable which can be seen from the annual data from 2009 to 2019 collected through documentation from related agencies and internet websites. The results of this study show that: (1) Foreign Direct Investment has a positive and insignificant effect on the economic growth of ASEAN countries. (2) Inflation has a positive and significant impact on the economic growth of ASEAN countries. (3) Foreign Aid has a negative and insignificant effect on the economic growth of ASEAN countries.


The application of conventional autoencoders for textual data often leads to learning trivial and redundant representations due to the high dimensional nature of the text, sparsity, and following power-law word distribution. In order to address these challenges, we introduce a new autoencoder, termed CSCAT ( C oherence-based S econd C hance A utoencoder for T ext), which uses competitive learning to select k winning neurons in the bottleneck layer that becomes specialized in recognizing specific patterns–leading to learning semantically significant representations of the text. CSCAT introduces a new competition learning based on a measure of consistency to eliminate incoherent features. Our experiments demonstrate that CSCAT achieves outstanding performance on several tasks, including classification, topic modeling, and document visualization compared to LDA , k-sparse , KATE , NVCTM , and ProdLDA .


The effects of magnesium deficiency and exogenous 6-BA to magnesium deficiency on content of chlorophyll, activities of SOD,POD,CAT and NR, content of soluble protein and permeability of cell mem-brance in three-leaf-stage seedlings of liangyoupeijiu were studied. The results showed that with the increasing of magnesium deficiency, the content of chlorophyll and soluble protein decreased,activities of SOD,POD and CAT increased first and decreased afterwards, but activities of NR and permeability of cell membrance increased. Exogenous 6-BA to the stress of magnesium deficiency has some functions of mitigative effect.


Dry seeds of wheat GUO 9722 were radiated by 60Coγ-ray with the dose of 300 Gy.Variations of protein content,gluten content,zeleny and hardness of 341 lines in M4 population were analyzed,and 12 variant lines including the 8 with higher protein and gluten contents and the 4 with the lower were selected based on a criterion out of the range of mean±2s.Their quality traits,farinogram parameters and high molecular weight glutenins(HMW-GS)were further analyzed in M5 generation.The result showed that there were significant differences in some quality traits,larger variations in farinogram parameters and obvious differences in electropheoretic patterns of HMW-GS between some variant lines and the parent.The HMW-GS of the parent was 5+14+15+9+12,while that of the variant lines was either 1+5+7+9+12 or 1+5+7+8+12,suggesting that variations of glutenin locus can be occurred.


All other NASA civil service personnel may contact TMH Medical Services: 844-506-4537 or email@example.com. The toll-free number does work in foreign countries. The Office of the Chief Health and Medical Officer manages the contract for TMH's services. For questions, call 202-358-1794 or 202-358-2390. NASA civil service personnel associated with work related to International Space Station Program/JSC should contact Global Rescue for emergency medical services: 617-459-4200 (collect calls accepted) or email@example.com. Dr. Terry Taddeo, JSC Chief Medical Officer oversees the implementation of the evacuation process and contract for the program. Dr. Taddeo can be reached at 281-483-7041. There are two international medical evacuation contracts maintained by NASA for civil service personnel located and/or traveling abroad who require emergency assistance.


Dipeptydil-peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors are designed as oral anti-hyperglycemic drugs for the treatment of type 2 diabetes owing to their effects on the incretin system through sparing incretin hormones including glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) from rapid degradation by DPP-4.It has been shown that GLP-1 signaling may exert beneficial effects on cardiovascular system.In addition to GLP-1,DPP-4 physiologically cleaves cytokines,chemokines,and neuropeptides involved in inflammation,immunity,and vascular function.It means that DPP-4 inhibitors hold promise for cardiovascular protection independent of GLP-1.And its modulation of endothelial progenitor cells,infiammatory pathway,ischemic response,and lipid metabolism emerges as the major cardiovascular target of DPP-4 inhibitors.

Key words:
Diabetes mellitus, type 2 ;  Glucagon-like peptide-1 ;  Dipeptydil-peptidase-4;  Sitagliptin


Harassment is a persistent problem in contemporary online environments, with women disproportionately experiencing its most severe forms. While critical scholars posit that online gender harassment may be linked to men's anxieties about fulfilling normative masculine gender roles, this relationship has not been examined by empirical research. We survey 264 young men between the ages of 18-24 about their masculinity anxieties and their perceptions of harassment directed at a woman on Twitter. We find that men who perceive themselves as less masculine than average men report higher endorsement of harassment. Further, we find that the relationship between masculinity anxieties and harassment endorsement is mediated by men's adherence to masculine norms and toxic disinhibition. We interpret these results through the lens of social media's specific affordances, and we discuss their implications for technology designers and other practitioners who wish to better detect, prevent, and remediate online harassment by accounting for the role of gender.


Numerous studies and trials have shown that vitamin D has a positive effect on health and may reduce cancers and cardiovascular disease. However,its effect in preventing mortality has remained unclear.


The year 154 BCE constitutes a key date for the ancient History of Hispania, for it was the point at which, in the words of Polibius (3, 4, 12), 'the war fought by Romans against Celtiberians and Vaccaei' broke out. This event was adopted by Polibius himself as the heading for the last section of his oeuvre. According to Livius (per. 47), these events brought about the modification of the Roman elections, so that the voting day for the Roman consuls was shifted from the Ides of March to January the first. However, war had not been declared against the Celtiberians, or the Belli and Arevaci, but rather against the particular Celtiberian city-state that constitutes the focus of this paper: Segeda (Appian Iber, 44-47; Diodorus 31, 39-41 and Florus 1, 34, 3). The political weight of Segeda is corroborated by its monetary mints, which display the city's name in Celtiberian (i.e. sekeida), as well as the substantial area covered by its two archaeological sites, which were successively occupied. The first city, Segeda I, was located on the hill of Mara (Zaragoza). Ensuing its destruction in 153 BCE, a new city (Segeda II) was erected in Duron de Belmonte de Gracian (Zaragoza). The latter was destroyed during the Sertorian Wars (fig. 1).


Computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) is no longer a risky economic or clinical decision if your practice is focused on reducing the use of metals and dedicated to a better patient experience. Although metal-based restorations have a proven track record, their use is greatly diminishing owing to the high cost of precious metals, allergies to base metals, and general dissatisfaction with esthetics. Tooth-colored dental materials for fixed prosthodontics have rapidly evolved and are constantly improving. With materials such as alumina, zirconia, lithium silicates, and adhesively bonded esthetic glass and polymer ceramics, our portfolio of restorative options is expanding to the point where confusion and lack of knowledge is becoming evident, primarily due to their association with digital processing.


Limited evidence has led to considerable debate about land routes and methods to move megaliths chosen for sculpture by prehistoric societies. The current research is investigating the question using Geographic Information System (GIS) to determine likely land pathways to transport megaliths over 100 kilometres in Mesoamerica by Preclassic Olmec society. Access was restricted and the terrain included floodplains, seasonal rivers and extensive swamps. Analyses were derived from digitised survey maps using slope gradient tools initially from ARCVIEW 3.2 and finally ARC10. Although compatibility issues arose with this combination as we describe, tools of both versions provided a starting point between stones' source from which to then define a pathway across the challenging terrain.


Background: To investigate the roles of microemboli and plasma D-dimer in the evaluation of warfarin anticoagulant therapy efficacies for patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Methods: Fifty-six patients with AF were treated with aspirin antiplatelet therapy (Group ASP), and 40 patients with AF were treated with warfarin anticoagulant therapy (Group WAR). Microemboli and plasma D-dimer in these two groups were monitored and compared before and after treatment. Results: Group ASP had 21 and 17 patients test positive for microemboli before and after treatment, respectively. Also, there was no significant difference in the rate of microembolus detection before or after treatment. Group WAR had 14 and five patients test positive for microemboli before and after treatment, respectively; the rate of microembolus detection was significantly reduced after treatment. The levels of plasma D-dimer in the ASP and WAR groups were significantly reduced after treatment (327 ± 73 μg/L versus 235 ± 61 μg/L and 313 ± 81 μg/L versus 170 ± 67 μg/L, respectively, P < .05), with a greater reduction in Group WAR. Conclusions: Microemboli and D-dimer can be used as indicators in the evaluation of both embolism risk and therapeutic efficacies in patients with AF.


Enhanced weathering of silicate minerals (EW) is a promising carbon dioxide removal (CDR) method that can be associated with multiple co-benefits for crop production when spreading silicate minerals on arable soils. Moreover, changes in agricultural management practices to enhance soil organic carbon (C) sequestration while maintaining crop productivity (i.e. not competing for land surface) are a key opportunity to reduce the impact of humans on the environment, reducing greenhouse gas fluxes to the atmosphere and nutrient leaching to aquatic ecosystems, without compromising food and soil security. Yet, these co-benefits of EW on agricultural practices are still poorly understood. Among others, EW can increase crop yields, restore base cations (e.g. Mg, Ca) and micro-and macronutrient (e.g. Si, Zn) stocks, as well as reduce N 2 O and nitrate (NO 3) losses due to increases in soil pH and facilitation of a complete denitrification. In order to verify these potential co-benefits for crop production, winter wheat ( Triticum aestivum ) was grown in 20 mesocosms following 4 treatments: acid soil (pH ~5) without basalt addition, acid soil with basalt addition (50 tones ha -1 ), alkaline soil (pH ~7) without basalt addition, and alkaline soil with basalt addition. The results of the experiment allowed to quantify soil C sequestration in acid and alkaline soils through EW, as well as the potential long term C sequestration by PHREEQC modelling. Furthermore, the co-benefits of EW on crop biomass production, cations and nutrients available for plants, effects on soil nitrogen cycle and reduction of soil N 2 O emissions were studied. Overall, our results showed


This article presents the findings of an empirical research project on how psychiatrists in a secular country (Denmark) approach the religious patients, and how the individual worldview of the psychiatrist influences this approach. The study is based on 22 interviews with certified psychiatrists or physicians in psychiatric residency. The article presents the theoretical and methodical grounding and introduces the analytical construct "subalternalizing," derived from subaltern studies. "Subalternalizing" designates a process where a trait in one worldview (patient) is marginalized as a consequence of another worldview's (psychiatrist) "disinterest." The analysis located four categories: (a) religion as a negative part of the patient story, (b) religion as a positive part of the patient story, (c) religion in relation to radicalization, and (d) there are no religious patients. The discussion shows that the approach is influenced by the psychiatrist worldview. Examples of "subalternalizing" are given and how this excludes "positive religious coping" and "existential and spiritual care" from treatment.


Selection of Ohmic contacts to SnS films is one of the crucial tasks for the fabrication of efficient SnS devices. Thus, we examined different nonalloyed metallization schemes, namely, Ag, Al, In, and Sn to SnS films since their Fermi level pins exactly in between the conduction and valance bands of SnS. To explore the Ohmic behavior of M/SnS (M=Ag, Al, In, Sn) structures, the electrical properties of as-grown structures have been studied at different temperatures. From these studies it is noticed that at room temperature all M/SnS structures, except Ag/SnS, have an excellent Ohmic behavior over the voltage range from −10 to 10 V. However, Ag/SnS structures showed Ohmic trend only in the voltage range of ±6 V. The stability of the M/SnS structures was also examined by annealing them at different temperatures (300–500 °C) and the obtained peculiar results are reported.


In this paper, the soy sauce residue was prepared by filtration-lyophilization, and the supernatant of soy sauce was used as control. The proximate indices of soy sauce residue were comparatively analyzed. The molecular weight distribution, variety and source and characteristics of amino acid composition of proteins in soy sauce residue and the supernatant were investigated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis(SDS-PAGE), matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation-time of flight/time of flight mass spectrometry(MALDI-TOF/TOF MS) and high-performance liquid chromatography(HPLC). Results showed that soy sauce residue(wet) was mainly composed of carbohydrate(15.98%), proteins(10.19%), NaCl(10.10%) and water(59.50%). Analysis of SDS-PAGE and MALDI-TOF/TOF MS results demonstrated that proteins in soy sauce residue primary consisted of molecular weights of 19.3 kDa(a, 59.40%),31.8 kDa(b, 12.91%) and 12.3 kDa(c, 27.69%) subunits, and proteins with molecular weights of 19.3 kDa(a) was identified as the basic polypeptide B3 of soy glycinin G4. Research on amino acid composition indicated the hydrophobic amino acid content and the average hydrophobicity of proteins in soy sauce residue were significantly higher than those in the supernatant proteins. The differences were the chief characteristics in amino acid composition of proteins in soy sauce residue, and could explain the low solubility and formation of soy sauce residue proteins.


Mark Flear, a Lecturer in the School of Law at Queen's University Belfast, has written a very fine but challenging book in Governing Public Health. This is a recent addition to Hart Publishing's Modern Studies in European Law series. In his book, Flear deftly delves into a complex topic of increasing importance in the EU and other jurisdictions: how the governance of public health can shine light on broad, critical questions relating to legal competence, risk and security, human rights and bioethics, accountability and legitimacy, and democracy and citizenship. Of specific relevance to the EU context is the future trajectory of the European integration project. The core concern of this book is "biopolitics" and the role, scope and potential of "citizen participation" in legal and regulatory decision-making. Governing Public Health not only seeks to analyse the current regulatory landscape in the EU, it also seeks to furnish discursive tools for citizen participation in legal and regulatory decision-making that can reframe and reshape public health governance, ultimately enhancing its quality.


It is shown how one can transform scalar first-order ordinary differential equations which admit non-local symmetries of the exponential type to integrable equations admitting canonical exponential non-local symmetries. As examples we invoke the Abel equation of the second kind, the Riccati equation and natural generalizations of these. Moreover, our method describes how a double reduction of order for a second-order ordinary differential equation which admits a two-dimensional Lie algebra of generators of point symmetries can be effected if the second-order equation is first reduced in order once by a symmetry which does not span an ideal of the two-dimensional Lie algebra.


Desertification is an environmental phenomenon and it is a clear reflection of the conditions of climate and irrigation drought and it is a widespread phenomenon in Babel Governorate and many governorates in Iraq and what contributes to the expansion of the desertification region is the scraping of orchards and trees inside cities which strip these cities of their greenness beauty and purity of their air which It exposes its environment to various risks not the least of which is the imbalance in the environment and the loss of productive lands, and this is very important in carrying large financial burdens represented by the costs of connecting electric energy services potable water and municipal services, with the accompanying provision of these services in light of the government deficit. It from violating the laws but rather extends to the recovery of corruption and corrupt people in the process of seducing citizens as it turns into residential neighborhoods that cannot be legally connected to these services. There is no doubt that the phenomenon of desertification in the province of Babel exacerbated for several reasons the foremost of which was the decrease in water levels from neighboring countries that despite their economic relations are in their interest but they do not give Iraq its water share fairly as Iran worked to build dams on the rivers and tributaries linking the two countries and formed A decrease "in the amount of water entering Iraq by ( 80 % ) in addition to the successive dry seasons for decades in addition to the decrease in the efficiency of the watering process due to the aging of water pumps and the failure to introduce technology in this process and these factors as a whole have increased the proportion of lands exposed to desertification to ( 74 % ) of the space group. The total allocated to agriculture. The study in this research dealt with three topics included the first topic presented the research problem the research hypothesis the limits of the research area the goals of the research and some concepts about desertification ad the second topic included natural factors that contribute to the spread of desertification and the third topic human factors and the agricultural situation in the province and methods of combating desertification Then proposals recommendations and sources. The research included a set of maps tables and pictures that illustrate some of the effects of desertification in the province.


Regenerative motor-drive systems are utilized in several industrial applications that require frequent power generation back to the grid. In these applications, the standard front-end diode bridge commonly used in non-regenerative drives is replaced by an Active Front End "AFE" power converter. The main advantages of the AFE are that it can regenerate power back to the grid, and provide unity power factor operation with a very low total harmonic distortion. The phase locked loop "PLL" is one of the most critical control subsystems in any industrial regenerative motor-drive system. It provides the control of the front-end power converter an accurate knowledge of the utility angle and frequency to ensure proper operation of the whole control algorithm. In this paper, a detailed control analysis and tuning guidelines are presented for the PLL with an adaptive filter under several practical grid steady state and transient conditions.


Experience and researches of hard rock core drilling indicate that,the drilling operation design of pilot hole for science and ultra-deep well is of great significance. In this work,the study of wire-line coring drill string related to the choice of steel pipe and the design of high-strength drill string was more of its importance. This paper introduced the testing of mechanical properties about four kinds of domestic steel pipe used to wire-line drill rod and discussed the method of fuzzy comprehensive evaluation for it.


Background: Egypt showed high prevalence of female genital cutting (FGC). FGC had many harmful physical, psychological and sexual effects. Many efforts had been established to raise awareness about FGC and to decrease its incidence. Education may play a role to change the attitude towards FGC. Objective: This study is conducted in Sohag University to estimate the prevalence of FGC and to measure student's (including males) knowledge and attitudes toward FGC and to identify the reasons behind supporting or rejecting FGC practice. Participants and methods: This is a cross-sectional study that included 1075 students from five faculties (Agriculture, Arts, Commence, Nursing and Education) and technical health institute selected by using simple random sample. A questionnaire was used to collect the relevant data. Statistical analysis was performed using STATA program. Results: The prevalence of FGC was 86.87%. Possible complications of FGC were known by 51-69% of the students. Thirty-six percent (36%) of students supported the FGC practice while 64% reject it. Males are significantly supporting FGC practice more than females (42% vs. 29%, p<0.0001). The reasons to support the practice were religious tradition (18.60%), cleanliness (11.63%), cultural and social tradition (21.19%), chastity (28.68%) and evidence of femininity (19.90%). The reasons to reject practice were no religious support (29.07%), painful procedure (23.15%), unhealthy procedure (24.56%) and bad social habit (22.38). Conclusion: One-third of university students were still supporting FGC practice especially males. Effort towards health education, better to include topic about FGC in the curriculum, will help in discontinuation of FGC in the future.


An experimental investigation on the electrokinetic transport of ternary and binary mixtures through inactive membranes is described. Pyrex glass and quartz were used to perform the porous membranes. The phenomenological equations between the thermodynamic fluxes and forces were always found to be linear. The geometric parameters of the porous membranes were found to be independent on the composition of the mixture. The concentration dependence of the coefficients L21 and L22 in the Pyrex-binary mixture systems was non-linear. A similar dependence was found for D/T? (D, dielectric constant; τ?, absolute viscosity) with the composition of the binary mixture. The concentration dependence of the Ln and L22 coefficients was linear for the quartz-ternary mixture systems. Similar trends were found for the reciprocal of the absolute viscosity (η"") and the specific electrical conductivity (λ) of the ternary mixtures. Onsager's reciprocity relation was experimentally verified and found to be obeyed within the experimental error. The variations of the coefficients L12 and L21 with the composition of the ternary mixtures was non-linear, although less pronounced than that obtained for the binary mixtures. The results confirm the decisive influence of the physical properties of the liquid mixture on the actual values of the electrokinetic transport coefficients.


During dealing with the coking dirty water with the activedirty mud, using microholes for exposing air can man notably increase the rate of silling oxygen, improve the mixing effect, promote the dirty mud growing up,decrease energy consume, rise the effect treatment with the dir water.


As renewable energy infrastructure (REI) expands globally, rural planning is faced
with a series of challenges involved in the uses of rural land for energy generation
purposes and the consequent effects on rural communities, particularly where major
or large-scale infrastructure development is involved. While renewable energy may
not conform to traditional definitions of 'extraction' it nonetheless derives production
from rural space, thus contributing to long-standing concerns around the balance of
power between urban and rural. Debates around REI decision-making have
demonstrated a 'gap' between national support for a transition to renewable energy
and local resistance to the development of REI. This chapter presents an empirical
study of three cases of planning decisions on REI projects in Wales, which were made
under the UK's Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects regime. It draws on data
from official archives to help unpack the challenges of planning both for rural
communities in light of major renewable energy infrastructure in a rural context.


After a brief introduction into basic aspects of the formulation of lattice regularized QCD at finite temperature and density we discuss our current understanding of the QCD phase diagram at finite temperature, present results on the QCD equation of state, the transition temperature and the heavy quark free energy. Furthermore, we discuss in‐medium properties of hadrons and present first results from a calculation of thermal dilepton rates resulting from quark anti‐quark annihilation in the QCD plasma phase.


A new spanner construction algorithm is presented, working under the LOCAL model assuming unique edge IDs. Given an n-node communication graph, a spanner with a constant stretch and Õ(n1 + c) edges (for any small constant c > 0) is constructed efficiently --- i.e., in a constant number of rounds and a message complexity of Õ (n1 + 2c) whp. One of the many known applications of spanners is for reducing the number of messages of various algorithms. However, usually, one still needs to pay the cost of constructing the spanner. Due to the efficiency of the spanner construction here, we show that every t-round LOCAL algorithm can be transformed into a randomized one with the same asymptotic time complexity and Õ(t2n1 + O(1/log t)) message complexity. All previous message-reduction schemes for LOCAL algorithms incur either an O(log n)-multiplicative or an O(polylog (n))-additive blow-up of the round complexity.


Abstract A WIG craft takes advantage of the ground effect phenomenon, where this kind of craft are designed to fly at low altitudes close to the ground (between 0.05 − 0.5 of the wing cord) to experience an increase in lift, while drag decreases, this result in an enhanced lift-to-drag ratio and hence greater flight efficiency. However to achieve an ideal flying altitude and a safety low flight is necessary to implement an automatic height control system capable of sustaining the WIG craft stable. The concept is to take out the "hand of the man" from the control of the altitude, so that the system will take over the control of the elevator and correct the flying altitude until the ideal level is reached and maintain it there. In addition, this system can also be used to provide accurate flight altitude.