a method of replacing the inverted uterus using hydrostatic pressure which avoided this problem of digital manipulation. He wrote: "In carrying out a douche (on a woman with uterine inversion) the tip of the nozzle, guarded by my fingers, was passed towards the posterior fornix; my forearm happen to block the vaginal orifice and the vagina balloned out, and to my suprise and pleasure the uterus promptly returned to its correct position, the signs of shock rapidly disappeared, and the patient made an uninterrupted re~overy"~. The main problem with hydrostatic replacement is developing a good enough water seal to allow generation of adequate hydrostatic pressures to allow uterine replacement. Sher in his modification "forcefully applied his forearm to the vaginal introitus longitudinally, while an assistant pressed the labia to the surgeon's forearm to occlude the vaginal orifice"6. The modification described here produces an excellent seal within the vagina because the size of the ventouse cup used can be matched to the size of the vagina and any fluid leaking around the ventouse cup is effectively blocked by the surgeon's palm at the introitus. Therefore, adequate hydrostatic pressure is generated effectively to reduce the inversion. This technique is also simple to use and there is wide availability of silastic ventouse cups on the labour ward where these emergencies occur. In conclusion, we have described a new technique of hydrostatic uterine replacement, which is simple, safe and effective at no extra cost.


Guidebooks for Therapeutic Practice SeriesUsing a novel digest format, this handbook brings together current knowledge about child therapy. Over one hundred thirty-five different clinical techniques are concisely presented and a full range of behavior problems are covered, including neurotic behaviors, hyperkinetic behavior, and disturbed relationships.


In order to improve web page big data capturing ratio, the wavelet neural network (WNN) optimized by improved locust algorithm is established for capturing web page big data. First, the web page big data method is established, and the corresponding mathematical model is studied. Secondly, the neural network is established, and Legendre wavelet basis function is used as excitation function of hidden layer of WNN, and the theory models of input layer, output layer and hidden layer are constructed, and then the improved locust optimization algorithm is designed based on Levy flight local search strategy, linear decreasing parameter random jump strategy, decreasing coefficient update strategy and weight coefficient update strategy. Finally, a case study is carried out for validating the proposed web big data capturing method, results illustrate that the proposed method based on WNN optimized by improved locust algorithm can effectively improve web page big data capturing efficiency and accuracy, which has wide application view.


Positive displacement water meters are found throughout the world's water distribution networks to totalize water consumption. Containing internal permanent magnets, the water meters are underutilized sensors. Flow data from these meter locations can be used to non-intrusively identify the operation of individual water loads from an aggregate data stream at the meter. This article models these meters as nonideal magnetic encoders and presents a methodology for inexpensively retrofitting these meters with digital flow rate measurement capabilities, effectively bringing them into the growing body of smart metering devices and non-intrusive load monitoring without any contact with the water passing through them. We present a model of the magnetic field produced by these meters, discuss associated magnetic sensing hardware, and describe compensation, flow rate estimation, and post-processing algorithms for flow rate extraction. Verification is provided with experimental results.


This scientific paper discusses the making of an application laboratory at the student attendance system Banking University Gunadarma by using Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9.0. This application can be used as an alternative medium for laboratory assistants in particular as a means of data processing systems using the computerized student attendance. So get facts right and accurate. In this case the Banking Laboratory praktikan attendance data processing still using manual system that is inefficient. With the use of computerization in the process of absenteeism and storage data, then both constraints inherent in a manual system can be reduced to a minimum. In addition, by using a computerized, can facilitate the making of the report. key words: application, absenteeism, visual foxpro


Taking the advantages of remotely sensed data for mapping and monitoring of water boundaries is of particular importance in many different management and conservation activities. Imagery data are classified using automatic techniques to produce maps entering the water bodies' analysis chain in several and different points. Very commonly, medium or coarse spatial resolution imagery is used in studies of large water bodies. Data of this kind is affected by the presence of mixed pixels leading to very outstanding problems, in particular when dealing with boundary pixels. A considerable amount of uncertainty inescapably occurs when conventional hard classifiers (e.g., maximum likelihood) are applied on mixed pixels. In this study, Linear Spectral Mixture Model (LSMM) is used to estimate the proportion of water in boundary pixels. Firstly by applying an unsupervised clustering, the water body is identified approximately and a buffer area considered ensuring the selection of entire boundary pixels. Then LSMM is applied on this buffer region to estimate the fractional maps. However, resultant output of LSMM does not provide a sub-pixel map corresponding to water abundances. To tackle with this problem, Pixel Swapping (PS) algorithm is used to allocate sub-pixels within mixed pixels in such a way to maximize the spatial proximity of sub-pixels and pixels in the neighborhood. The water area of two segments of Tagliamento River (Italy) are mapped in sub-pixel resolution (10m) using a 30m Landsat image. To evaluate the proficiency of the proposed approach for sub-pixel boundary mapping, the image is also classified using a conventional hard classifier. A high resolution image of the same area is also classified and used as a reference for accuracy assessment. According to the results, sub-pixel map shows in average about 8 percent higher overall accuracy than hard classification and fits very well in the boundaries with the reference map.


when the strain is intensively localted in narrow shear band, this phenomon is called localization. This paper introduces the phenomen and theory of deformation localization of rock and coal.The numerical method has been used to study the process of localization. The white light digtal speckle corelation method has been used to study the process cutting of coal. The localization phenomena has been found and the localization theory of coal cutting put forward.


The predicted future loss of native Australian species of plants and animals, in part as a result of adverse land management strategies, has led to attempts to identify areas of high biotic richness (numbers of species). Bioindicators are measures of the physical environment, or of a subset of the plants or animals, that best predict biotic richness. Ideally, bioindicators should aim at predicting as large a component of the plant or animal fauna as is possible at minimum cost. For two contrasting vegetation types, we examined remnant area, vegetation structural diversity, species richness of plants, lizards and terrestrial arthropods, and the relative abundance of individual arthropod species, as indicators of faunal richness, using correlation, principal component regression and stepwise regression analyses. The study was carried out in gimlet Eucalyptus salubris woodlands (29 sites) and shrublands (27 sites) in semi-arid, agricultural Western Australia. Sites varied considerably in grazing history (woodland) and in farming history (shrubland). Fauna sampled were lizards (woodland), scorpions (woodland), isopods (woodland), cockroaches (woodland), termites (woodland, shrubland), earwigs (woodland), hemipterans (shrubland), beetles (woodland, shrubland), butterflies (shrubland) and ants (woodland, shrubland). None of the indicator variables in any analyses effectively predicted total faunal richness for either vegetation type (<35% of variation in total richness explained). In correlation analyses for woodlands, vegetation structural diversity and plant richness, but no fauna variable, explained a high percentage of the variation in the richness of lizards (56% explained by richness of native plants, +ve), scorpions (48%, richness of native plants, +ve), termites (55%, vegetation structural diversity, +ve) and beetles (59%, litter, –ve). The richness of the shrubland fauna was poorly predicted by all indicator variables (<25% explained). When using the total richness and abundance of ant functional groups, the abundance of a subset of species within ant functional groups, and of termite and beetle species, in principal component regressions, various ant functional groups explained 42% each of the richness of scorpions and beetles, and eight beetle species explained 50% of termite richness. When remnant area, vegetation structural diversity and the richness of native plants in woodland were tested in step-wise regressions as indicators of total faunal richness, remnant area was the only significant indicator variable, explaining 33% of total richness. The richness of native plants and vegetation structural diversity explained a total of 76% of the pooled richness of lizards + scorpions + termites. No significant indicator variable was found by regression procedures for total richness, or for a subset, of the shrubland fauna. We argue that differences in the predictive qualities of vegetation structure and plant richness between the vegetation types was due, in part, to differences in the spatial heterogeneity of biotic richness, and possibly the scale at which structure was measured. The use of structural diversity or plant richness as predictors of faunal richness for different woodland types, or those with different disturbance histories, or in different geographic or climatic regions, should not be adopted without verification of their efficiency at predicting the richness of the local fauna.


This paper describes a time transfer system that allows timing laboratories, including metrology institutes and other designated institutions, to compare the local realization of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) with each other. The time transfer system could calculate the difference between the local time and GPS time, and the difference between the local time and BDS time. It stores the measurement results in a format compatible with international standards, which has just extended to include BDS data. The system was designed to be easy to use, allowing recently established timing laboratories to begin tracing to UTC with both GPS and BDS.


The paper deals with behavioral modeling of idealized systems with discontinuities. The purpose of such models is to obtain the first-order effects to verify analytic calculations or to increase simulation speed. Traditional algorithms for the time-domain analysis implemented in Spice-class simulators are based on the assumption of smoothness and continuity. Abrupt changes of system parameters or even discontinuity during switching cause numerical errors. The VHDL-AMS language brings radically different approach in comparison with Spice [VHD99]. The system of differential algebraic equations (DAE) can be formulated explicitly and can be structurally changed during simulation. The basic principles will be demonstrated on the modeling of switched power supplies. Numerical algorithms for the time-domain analysis of continuous-time circuits are based on the formulation of circuit equations into the DAE system 0 x x = ) , , ( t F & , (1)


SEM image set for:
Waters, Robin et al (2016) Templated assembly of metal nanoparticle films on polymer substrates. Applied Physics Letters.


This paper explores the making of the entrepreneurial self in contemporary Namibia. Rather than locating my ethnography within well-rehearsed arguments on 'occult economies' in Africa, I want to explore the relationship between neo-liberal discourses and practices and idioms of play, contingency and fortune. My ethnographic evidence comes from fieldwork conducted among young entrepreneurs living in Windhoek, Namibia's booming capital. Ambitious and enterprising, these youth have transformed their knowledge of IT and the media into an online and televised competition called Taramo Live. The business, with its sleek graphics and catchy tunes, is the latest addition to the appearance and consolidation of raffles, mobile phone competitions and prize draws in Southern Africa. In this paper, I bring to the fore the ways in which youths' processes of entrepreneurial self-making rely on composite biographical narratives that are constantly created, imagined and performed within the context of Namibia's 'fortunational capitalism'. Here, I will show that what constitutes valued work has been reconceptualized to accommodate emerging discourses on entrepreneurship.


A new approach to nonlinear Projection to Latent Structures (PLS) modelling using Radial Basis Function (RBF) neural networks to provide a nonlinear inner relationship is described, along with a hybrid optimisation technique for training the networks. Results are given showing an improvement in modelling performance over linear PLS for a variety of problems. An application of the technique to fault detection on a validated model of an industrial distillation plant is also demonstrated.


Entropy is a key concept of quantum information theory. The entropy of a quantum system is a measure of its randomness and has many applications in quantum communication protocols, quantum coherence, and so on. In this paper, based on the Rényi entropy and Tsallis entropy, we derive the bounds of the expectation value and variance of quantum observable respectively. By the maximal value of Rényi entropy, we show an upper bound on the product of variance and entropy. Furthermore, we obtain the reverse uncertainty relation for the product and sum of the variances for [Formula: see text] observables respectively.


A few years ago, we demonstrated that graphene can markedly surpass GaAs/AlGaAs semiconductor heterostructures for the implementation of the quantum Hall resistance standard in relaxed experimental conditions, while preserving a state-of-the-art accuracy [1]. This paper describes supplementary quantum transport experiments performed on a significant number of graphene based quantum Hall devices obtained from graphene grown by CVD on SiC, like the one used for the above-mentioned demonstration, and with similar process and preparation. The objectives were to investigate the sample-to-sample reproducibility of the electronic properties and device performance, the structural key control parameter and the underpinning physics.


Purpose: To study the effect of withaferin A on an experimentally-induced endometriosis (EM) model.
Methods: Female Sprague-Dawley rats were induced EM by implantation of autologous endometrium. Rats in the treatment group were administered withaferin A orally for 30 days. A separate group of rats that was administered gestrinone (GTN) served as positive control.
Results: Withaferin A treatment reduced the spherical volume of the ecto-uterine tissue was following five weeks after implantation. Histological analysis revealed regression of the lesions and restoration of normal architecture. Withaferin A effectively down-regulated the expressions and activities of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) 2 and 9 in the ectopic endometrium. The activities of MMPs-2 and 9 significantly (p<0.05) decreased from 1.79- and 1.65-fold to 1.08- and 1.1-fold, respectively. The EM- induced up-regulation of NF-κB/COX-2 signaling was down-regulated by withaferin A. The levels of Cox-2 decreased significantly (p < 0.05) from 198 % in EM control rats to 122.7 % in 150 mg withaferin A treated EM-induced rats. The increased levels of major inflammatory mediators nitric oxide (NO), TNF-α, Interleukins (IL) - IL-1β and IL-6, markedly (p < 0.05) were reduced by withaferin A treatment, when compared to EM control group.
Conclusion: Withaferin A effectively suppresses the proliferation of lesions and modulates the immune responses-associated expressions of COX-2, NF-κB and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), viz, MMP- 2 and MMP-9


Teaching engineering design through project-oriented learning and learning-by-doing methodology leads to the enhancement of engineering design skills, where the target is to cast the theoretical and technical knowledge through the solution of a specific design problem. The aim of this paper is to present a learning-by-doing experience by underlining its impact on the student's motivation as well as the faced difficulties. The multi-disciplinary aspect of this approach is seeing as the most important point in this experience. Beside the technical aspects, these projects have largely improved the perception that the students may have on structural design.


Literature datasets showed that gigacycle fatigue properties of materials may be affected by the specimen risk-volume, i.e., the part of the specimen subjected to applied stress amplitudes above a prescribed percentage of the maximum applied stress amplitude. The paper proposes a Gaussian specimen shape able to attain large risk-volumes for gigacycle fatigue tests, together with a general procedure for its design: wave propagation equations are analytically solved in order to obtain a specimen shape characterised by a uniform stress distribution on an extended length and, as a consequence, by a larger risk-volume. The uniformity of the stress distribution in the Gaussian specimen is numerically verified through a finite element analysis and experimentally validated by means of strain gauge measurements


This article builds an estimation model focusing on the composite capacity and market credit of executing corporation, etc. It excepts to possess some actual significance for the rational development for ERP market.


Status of coral reef health of 8 Marine Protected Areas (MPA), 6 adjacent MPA reefs and 5 regular reefs of Lagonoy Gulf were assessed from December 2017 to August 2018 and compared with previous gulf-wide assessment results in 1994 and 2004. Underwater photo transect (UPT) method was utilized to collect benthic lifeform information and coral point count with excel extensions (CPCe) was used to analyzed benthic data. Results showed that present live coral cover in MPAs are low with 26% as compared to adjacent MPA reef areas (30%) and regular reef stations (33%). A downtrend was noted from 1993 – 2004 with 10% decline of MPA reefs while from 2004 to 2018 decrease was almost 20% and from 1993 to 2018 an average fall of 25% was detected. Overall, Lagonoy Gulf reef health is declining and can be attributed to both natural and fisheries activities, as evidenced by almost 20 typhoons affecting the Region per year with a super typhoon at least every 5-10 years and the heavy dependence of fishing communities on reef fishes respectively. However, non-MPA reefs decline was observed to very minimal as compared for both MPA and adjacent MPA reefs ranging from 1% to 6%. With this, MPA management schemes should be revisited and amended to improve and strengthen MPA governance, direction and strategies.


CD4+T-cells expressing choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) have recently been shown to cause a drop in systemic blood pressure when infused into mice. The aim of this study was to determine if ChAT expressing T-cells could regulate coronary vascular reactivity. Pre-constricted segments of epicardial and intramyocardial porcine coronary arteries relaxed in response to Jurkat T-cells (JT) that overexpressed ChAT (JTChAT cells). The efficacy of the JTChAT cells was similar in epicardial and intramyocardial vessels with a maximum dilator response to 3x105cells/mL of 38·0±6.7 and 38·7±7.25% respectively. In contrast, non-transfected JT cells elicited a weak dilator response, followed by a weak contraction. The response of JTChAT cells was dependent upon the presence of the endothelial cells. In addition, the response could be significantly reduced by L-NAME and ODQ in the presence of indomethacin. JTChAT cells, but not JT cells increased the expression of phosphorylated eNOS. JTChAT cells contained significantly greater levels of acetylcholine compared to JT cells, however, the non-selective muscarinic antagonist atropine and the M1 receptor antagonist pirenzepine both failed to block the dilator effect of JTChAT cells. Exogenously added acetylcholine induced only a weak relaxation (~10%) at low concentrations, which became a contractile response at higher concentrations. These data illustrate the capacity for cells that express ChAT to regulate coronary vascular reactivity, via mechanisms that are dependent upon interaction with the endothelium and in part mediated by the release of nitric oxide.


TM surface waves on an interface between semiconductors, ferrites or artificial dielectrics are considered. The normalised phase coefficient, ß/k0, is calculated for a range of values for the two media, first with (¿r1 = 1, ¿r1 = 1) and then with (¿r1 = 1, ¿r1 = -1) assuming - 5 < ¿r2/¿r1 < 5, -5 ¿r2/¿r1 < 0. This range of parameters includes some "double negative" cases for the second medium. Dispersion diagrams are presented for the case where region 1 is an artificial magnetic dielectric and region 2 is a semiconductor plasma. The results have implications for the design of miniature passive components.


Whatever the origin of a federation, whether aggregation or devolution, its establishment at once raises three problems: how to allocate functions rationally; how to allocate taxing powers; and how to share revenue between the governments of that federation. It is for the constitution-makers to settle the first problem, leaving the remaining two to federal financial experts.


Formation of harmonious society and promotion of government public service innovation are two tasks,which are put forward in view of social development and government reform,exist side by side and play a part together in completely constructing a comfortable society.Formation of harmonious society demands that government give play to the leading function,rationalize and solve all kinds of social interest relations,remove different sorts of disharmonious factors.Establishing the service society,and innovating ideas,contents,mechanisms,and ways of government public service are to serve the people better,increase and meet public needs of society and publics increasingly,and guarantee the construction of harmonious society smooth.


Microsatellite DNA is comprised of rapidly evolving tandem arrays of 1-6 nucleotides in head-to-tail repeat motifs commonly including fewer than 60 units (5-6). Most microsatellite sequences are located in untranslated DNA between genes and, therefore, are unlikely to be affected directly by natural selection (5-6). For this reason, microsatellite loci can serve as highly informative neutral molecular markers in a variety of applications. In previous studies involving pea, microsatellite-based molecular markers have been used to determine inter-genera transferability of primers (7), to analyze diversity within the genus Pisum (3) and to estimate the level of microsatellite polymorphism in Pisum sativum L. (2). Sequence Tagged Microsatellite Sites (STMS) primarily are used to determine sequence length polymorphism; STMS sequence length variations typically arise from the loss or gain of microsatellite repeat units via polymerase slippage. RAMS (Randomly Amplified MicroSatellites), a novel molecular marker technique (3), extends the application of STMS by employing microsatellite-specific primer sets at lower PCR annealing temperatures to produce less-specific multi-banded DNA profiles. It is assumed that the STMS locus is amplified along with these less-specific loci during the RAMS procedure. In the present study we: 1) develop and characterize novel pea microsatellite loci (STMS) and then 2) evaluate RAMS profiles for pea accessions representing the range of the genus using primer sets developed for the STMS loci.


Between 1973/74 and 2000, rates of robbery, break and enter, motor vehicle theft and most other major forms of theft rose almost without interruption. Between 2000 and 2009, recorded rates of robbery in Australia fell by 63 per cent, recorded rates of burglary fell by 57 per cent, recorded rates of motor vehicle theft fell by 62 per cent, and recorded rates of all other forms of theft fell by 37 per cent. This article considers possible explanations for the fall in theft and robbery in light of the available evidence. It argues that a reduction in heroin dependence, improvements in economic outcomes, increases in the risk of arrest and imprisonment, and improved vehicle security are likely to have been significant contributors to the decline.


ABSTRACT This is a review of published longitudinal empirical research on the impact of restructuring on employee well-being. We investigated whether restructuring accompanied by staff reductions impacts differently on worker well-being than restructuring without staff reductions, and the differences between short- and long-term effects of restructuring. Furthermore, we investigated the mechanisms that explain these effects. We conducted a literature search on longitudinal, peer-reviewed, English-written studies from the period 2000–2012. Thirty-nine papers fulfilled the inclusion criteria. We found that restructuring events, with and without staff reductions, mainly have a negative impact on the well-being of employees. The majority of studies showed negative changes over time, in the short and the long term. Some groups of workers reacted less negatively: for example, workers with a high organizational status before a merger and workers who underwent a change in workgroup. Variables that intervened in the relationship between restructuring and well-being were physical demands, job control, communication, provision of information, training, procedural justice, job insecurity and change acceptance. Further high-quality longitudinal research is needed to get more insight into the impact of restructuring over time and into the part played by intervening variables.


A distributed algorithm for MIMO adaptive filtering is introduced. This algorithm distributes the adaptive computation over a set of linearly connected computational modules. Each module transmits data to and receives data from its nearest neighbor. A back-propagation LMS based algorithm is presented for adapting the parameters in each module. The performance surface is explored to identify upper bounds on each parameter and guidelines for choosing the LMS algorithm step sizes. An example illustrates the application of the algorithm.


Mobile agents constitute a new approach to the architecture and implementation of distributed systems. A mobile agent is a program with a persistent identity which moves around a network and can communicate with its environment and other agents. Possible applications for mobile agents include network management, information retrieval, distributed simulation, remote device control, active documents and mobile computing. We are developing an infrastructure for the support of mobile agents which is based on a network of 'agent servers'. Each of these controls the agents visiting a host, allows for status checks and intervention by the agents' owners and provides a means of communication for the agents under its control. Mobile agents can be written in a number of programming languages such as Tcl and Perl; the agent environment provides runtime support through dedicated libraries that add relocation and communication capabilities to the respective language. Our implementation is based on HTTP (the Hypertext Transfer Protocol) as used on the World-Wide Web; this allows us to leverage off the massive research effort which currently focuses on issues like Web security and enables convenient access to the agent environment via the Web. INTRODUCTION With the recent explosive development of computer networkingand the Internet, a gap has developed between the sheer amount of information that is available and the ability to process or even locate the interesting pieces. This does not only apply to 'application-oriented data' such as scholarly publications, stock exchange quotes, or weather satellite images, but also to the monitoring and operation of huge computer networks. The increased number of available services has also lead to a profusion of mutually incompatible user interfaces, making it difficult for people to actually take advantage of all that is offered. Agents may show a possible way out of this dilemma – programs that help their users perform routine chores and assist them during complex tasks. In a computer network, mobile agents may move around on behalf of their users, seeking out, filtering and forwarding information or even doing business in their name. The issues surrounding the infrastructure needed for such agents and, in particular, their communications and security are being studied by numerous researchers. This paper outlines our research efforts at the University of Frankfurt, where we have been developing an experimental infrastructure for the support of mobile agents. After introducing the concepts of agents and, in particular, mobile agents in more detail and giving examples of their possible applications, we examine the basic functional complexes required for mobile agents such as transport, communications and security. We then give a short description of our experimental agent environment. A brief overview of ongoing projects in our group concludes the paper. MOBILE AGENTS Definition of an Agent Agents, intelligent agents and agent-based systems have attracted considerable interest from many fields of computer science, most notably artificial intelligence, distributed systems, computer communications and software engineering. Unfortunately there is little consensus among researchers about exactly what they consider an agent to be: A radically AI-based viewpoint is held by Selker ('Agents are computer programs that simulate a human relationship, by doing something that another person could otherwise do for you' (Selker, 1994)) while Minsky, less anthropocentrically, defines an agent as 'a system that can serve as a go-between, because of possessing some specialist skill' (Minsky and Riecken, 1994). Genesereth and Ketchpel's agents are 'software components that communicate with their peers by exchanging messages in an expressive agent communication language' (Genesereth and Ketchpel, 1994). Finally, John Ousterhout's approach forms a purely distributedsystems/software engineering point of view: agents are a means of overcoming the incompatibility of programming interfaces, data formats and protocols in a heterogeneous computer network: 'the data is the application: agents' (Ousterhout, 1995). Our dictionary defines an agent in the general sense of 'anybody who acts on behalf or in the interest of somebody else' (Div., 1971). When we started doing research into agents, we decided to approach the problem 'from the bottom up'. That is, we are more interested in the technical question of how best to support agents (whatever they are) in a computer system rather than the philosophical question of whether or when agents (whatever they are) can be called 'intelligent'— we'll be glad to let the AI community settle this question. Our working definition of an agent is 'a program that helps a user perform some task (or set of tasks), possibly by maintaining persistent state and communicating with its owner, other agents or its environment in general'. (This definition is, of course, very broad indeed, but suffices as the basis for our current work.) Agents can relieve users of routine work or facilitate complex tasks; another important application of agents is the interconnection between incompatible software products to generate new, synergistic solutions (Ousterhout, 1995). One can also view agents as a generalization of the clientserver paradigm of distributed computing: access to servers is mediated by agents which apply special knowledge of, e. g., where certain informationmay be found and how to obtain it. In this sense, World-Wide Web indices such as ALIWEB (Koster, 1994) can be considered agentbased. Agent Mobility Given the agent definitions outlined in the previous paragraphs, we can easily conceive of agents that go about their tasks not only on their owners' computers, but by moving about in a network of computers, seeking out information on their owners' behalf or even negotiating or concluding business deals for them. This notionof mobile or itinerant agents is analyzed, e. g., by (Harrison et al., 1995) and (Chess et al., 1995). It is important to remark that mobile agents have the potential of moving between hosts of their own volition, i. e., the agent code includes explicit commands that cause the agent to 'go elsewhere' and continue working just like before the move. This is in contrast to 'server-side scripts' which are available in current database servers. Agent mobility is a natural generalization of the concept of 'stationary agents' above. It also carries the extension of the client-server model even farther: with mobile agents, clients conceptually send parts of themselves to the server (or several servers) for execution (Chess et al., 1995). Another angle of approach is from the point of view of active mail—electronic mail messages that contain programs which are activated during various phases of delivery or perusal (Borenstein and Rose, 1993). Many of the issues that surround active mail, such as program transport, security and so on, are also important to mobile agents, and much of the work that went into the specification of standards for active mail (Borenstein and Freed, 1993) is helpful in this context. Applications of Mobile Agents Mobile agents can be useful for many applications. Most obviously, information retrieval on the network can be supported much more efficiently if an agent representing a query can move to the place where the data are actually stored, rather than having to move all of the data across the network for sifting (and subsequently discarding most of the transmission). This works especially well for nonanticipated queries, i. e., the implementor of a database system cannot in general foresee everything users might want to find out and provide code to do the relevant analysis. Thus, if users have to write their own custom retrieval software, an agent-based approach can save a lot of network traffic. This is even more evident when taking into account that agents can move to other sources of information if that seems more promising. Techniques such as semantic routing—dispatching a query according to where it is most likely to be answered, rather than according to some predetermined addressing information— can be used to further boost such a system's utility and ease of use. Another area where mobile agents can profitably be used is network management. In big networks, comprising hundreds or thousands of connected computers, operations monitoring and fault detection is very difficult and involves large amounts of logging data. It is not possible to prefabricate diagnostic programs for every eventuality, but it would be feasible to use mobile agents to keep tabs on the system, home in on possible trouble spots or perfomance bottlenecks and bring them to the attention of the maintainers. Goldszmidt and Yemini introduce such a system based on 'delegation agents' (Goldszmidt and Yemini, 1995) which are dynamically linked into remote processes. As an aside, the potential of mobile agents for network management is of apparent interest to telecommunications companies, especially since current deregulation schemes keep increasing the importance of 'quality of service' as perceived by their customers (Lawrence, 1995). Electronic commerce is another domain which seems amenable to mobile agents: Business on the Internet is becoming a reality, and, as standards for electronic payment are deployed, commercial 'premises' accessible via the net will probably mushroom. Mobile agents can help locate the cheapest offerings, negotiate deals or even conclude business transactions on behalf of their owners. Of course, the legal and commercial implications of largescale electronic commerce are daunting and cannot be discussed in this paper. Mobile agents may be a way for customers to stay on top of these developments. Finally, an important application of mobile agents concerns mobile computing. Portable computers become smaller and more powerful, but wireless access to a f


The use of the theta-operator method and generalized hypergeometric functions in obtaining solutions to nth-order linear ordinary differential equations is explained. For completeness, the analysis of the differential equation to determine whether the point of expansion is an ordinary point or a regular singular point is included. The superiority of the two methods shown over the standard method is demonstrated by using all three of the methods to work out several examples. Also included is a compendium of formulae and properties of the theta operator and generalized hypergeometric functions which is complete enough to make the report self-contained.


Depth profiles of O-16 and O-18/O-16 were measured on stainless steel nuts and copper sheet (from a grounding strap) recovered from the leading edge of LDEF (Tray E10). The measurements were obtained by dynamic SIMS (secondary ion mass spectrometry) using a VG Isolab 54 ion microprobe. Plots of O-18/O-16 against time, show large depletions of up to a factor of 2 compared to the O-18/O-16 value at sea level. The O-16 current decreases by 2 orders of magnitude in the interior of the metal, and the corresponding profile of anomalous O-16 is strongly peaked in the outer few tens of nanometers of the surface. This depth scale is a tentative one based on estimated sputtering rates. Plots of O-18/O-16 against 1/O-16 should be linear if two isotopically distinct components, one of variable concentration (orbital component) and one of fixed concentration (normal oxygen), are mixed. Data to be presented at the meeting show departures from linearity which result from variability in the concentration of normal oxygen, but may also arise from the implantation of oxygen with a range of fractionation due to the decaying orbit of the LDEF, sputtering of the surface by atomic oxygen, and the different momenta of the two isotopes due to their equal velocities. The potential for using this method as a means of identifying exposure to low-Earth orbit, de-convoluting the effects of space exposure from terrestrial contamination, and using the implanted anomolous oxygen as a means of studying the atomic oxygen density and upper atmosphere temperature height profile will be discussed at the meeting.


Coronal consonants hold a special status for their crowded space for articulatory contrasts. Mandarin and its variants are known to have rich inventories of coronal consonants, where a three-way coronal place contrast is usually maintained. Nonetheless, previous studies have reported a (partial) neutralization of coronal places of articulation in Taiwan Mandarin, while other acoustic studies contend that the three-way contrast remains. The aim of this study is to evaluate the purported coronal neutralization from an articulatory perspective. Five native speakers of Taiwan Mandarin participated in a set of electromagnetic articulographic (EMA), palatographic and linguagraphic experiments in order to investigate the articulatory targets of coronal consonants in Taiwan Mandarin. Our articulatory results are in general consistent with the acoustic results in previous studies, in that the three-way coronal place contrast does exist in Taiwan Mandarin, and the so-called "retroflexes" in Taiwan Mandarin were produced with constrictions being at "alveolar" zone, rather than "postalveolar" zone as in Beijing Mandarin.Coronal consonants hold a special status for their crowded space for articulatory contrasts. Mandarin and its variants are known to have rich inventories of coronal consonants, where a three-way coronal place contrast is usually maintained. Nonetheless, previous studies have reported a (partial) neutralization of coronal places of articulation in Taiwan Mandarin, while other acoustic studies contend that the three-way contrast remains. The aim of this study is to evaluate the purported coronal neutralization from an articulatory perspective. Five native speakers of Taiwan Mandarin participated in a set of electromagnetic articulographic (EMA), palatographic and linguagraphic experiments in order to investigate the articulatory targets of coronal consonants in Taiwan Mandarin. Our articulatory results are in general consistent with the acoustic results in previous studies, in that the three-way coronal place contrast does exist in Taiwan Mandarin, and the so-called "retroflexes" in Taiwan Mandarin were pro...


In the paper, a Rectangular microstrip patch antenna under two operating frequencies for radar application is presented. The design model is included with double headed arrow DGS on the ground plane to advance the performance of the antenna. A low cost FR4 (Flame Retardant — Grade 4) material is used as the dielectric substrate. The range of X-band frequency is from 8 to 12 Gigahertz and is broadly used in radar and military applications. The proposed model is made to resonate under two frequencies in X-band. The Ansoft High Frequency Structural Simulator (HFSS) Version 12 software is used to design the model and to analyze the results. A return loss value of −18.16 dB and −30.55 dB is obtained for a frequency of 8.15 GHz and 10.84 GHz with a bandwidth of 280 MHz and 300 MHz respectively. The parameters like directivity, current distribution and gain are also explained in the paper.


Nowadays, in order to improve the road safety, the measurement of the rate of skid resistance of surface road is considered as one of the most important factors in design of pavement structure. Because the Open-Graded Friction Course (OGFC) mixes has special gradated combination and suitable surface texture of pavements, it has many benefits such as reduction of pavement noise level, hydroplaning and improvement of permeability in comparison to Conventional Hot Mix Asphalt, so that in the porous asphalt pavements because of producing the necessary friction between tyre and surface texture, Automobiles will not slide and show better resistance even at high speeds and rainy conditions. In this research, a comparative study is conducted between OGFC mixes and Conventional Hot Mix Asphalt in the measurement of the rate of skid resistance. The result indicates that OGFC mixes, because of their open gradated combination and surface texture, have a great effect on skid resistance of pavements in comparison to Conventional Hot Mix Asphalt mixes.


AIM: To investigate the biological behavior of human periodontal ligament cells(PDLC) cultured on the polycaprolactone(PCL) electrospun nanofiber scaffold and discuss the potential in the applications of periodontal tissue engineering.METHODS: The PCL nanofiber scaffolds were prepared with electrospinning process.Human PDLCs were isolated and cultured by the method of explants culture and were seeded on the PCL electrospun nanofiber scaffolds.The morphology of cells growing on the scaffolds was observed by laser scanning confocal microscope(LSCM) and scanning electronic microscope(SEM).RESULTS: The PCL nanofiber scaffolds had porous and interwoven structure.The diameter distribution was 338-424nm.The fibers were smooth and uniform.The LSCM and SEM observations showed that PDLC could adhere,extend well on the scaffolds and secrete lots of extracellular matrix.MTT analysis showed that the proliferation of PDLC of the PCL nanofiber scaffolds group was not different from that of the TCPS control group(P0.05).CONCLUSION: The PCL nanofiber scaffolds have good biocompatibility and have great potential in the applications of periodontal tissue engineering scaffold.


The main conclusion of the brief is that climate change is an additional burden to an over-stretched fisheries sector, and could further contribute to poverty in developing countries. Poverty will be increased in fishing communities where productivity of the fishery declines or the distribution of the stock moves out of reach. Extreme events, especially in coastal areas, threaten to destroy homes, fishing gear or spread disease. Poverty will also be increased within countries that depend on the fisheries sector as a source of export revenue and affordable animal protein. African countries, particularly those in West and Central Africa, are among the most vulnerable.


Abstract. Acanthoscelides obtectus is atypical of bruchids found in stored seeds because females do not attach eggs individually to host seeds but scatter them irregularly among potential hosts. In other respects, its life history resembles that of other species and comparison provides evidence for the adaptive nature of their behaviour. Individual females differ dramatically in the temporal pattern of their oviposition. The hypothesis is proposed that this is an adaptation to life in heterogeneous habitats. Oviposition is not regulated by host availability to the same extent as in other bruchids, providing evidence that regulation of the number of eggs laid by species which stick eggs to host seeds is an adaptation to the abundance of hosts. The continued presence of males and opportunity for multiple matings does not affect fecundity or egg viability. Females preferentially lay on clean seeds when provided with a choice between them and seeds previously exposed to other adult beetles. However, they do not appear to be deterred by, or cannot detect, the presence of larvae infesting seeds. Other bruchid species avoid such seeds that they can identify by the occurrence of egg cases and pheromones. The number of eggs laid is influenced by the host cultivar available for oviposition. Oviposition by A. obtectus appears to be an adaptation to both storage environments and the heterogeneous environment of a growing crop or uncultivated land. Its behaviour suggests an ancestral condition in bruchids and the changes which might have occurred in the ecology of other bruchid species as they have adapted to become pests of human seed stores.


In the period of the war of Resistance Against Japan, according to the educational legislative principles of "The War Time Is Encouraged to Be Viewed as the Peace Time", on one hand taking the war of Resistance Against Japan into consideration, Kuomingtang government formulated and promulgated a series of educational regulations to meet an urgency, on the other hand, it also formulated and promulgated a series of adjusting educational regulations from the long - term point of view of national reconstruction. Therefore, educational legislation came into being in the adjusting period to meet an emergency. Educational legislation in that period not only provided the timely legal basis for education in the wartime, but also laid a foundation of the construction of educational legislation in the following phase.


The resources and materials used in the area of Physical Education have undergone important transformations and diversifications during the last decades, generating controversies throughout history. For this reason, numerous classifications coexist, which translates into one of the endemic evils of the Physical Education subject, the so-called terminological confusion or semantic indetermination. Nevertheless, we consider necessary to have notions about the different classifications, selection criteria and conceptions about the use of materials, in order to facilitate their distinction on the part of Physical Education teachers; adapting them to the psychoevolutives characteristics of the students, as well as the those of the environment. The objective of this article is to analyze different classifications of materials, criteria for their selection, as well as existing conceptions regarding their use, in order to facilitate and improve the selection of materials and resources used by Physical Education teachers. However, the importance resides in knowing their applicability in relation to the curricular elements on which the teacher wants to work.


Abstract Resonant luminescence studies of InAs quantum dots (QDs) embedded in a GaAs matrix grown by molecular beam epitaxy are presented, showing marked differences for modulation-doped and undoped QDs and indicating that the doping leads to different exciton formation and carrier relaxation mechanisms. The LO-phonon assisted relaxatioin of excitons between sub-levels is identified for the modulation-doped QDs.


Objective To investigate the change of the blood coagulation, fibrinolysis and anti-coagulation system indexes in patients with chronic pulmonary heart disease during acute stage and recovery stage. Methods APTT, PT, plasma antithrombin activity(AT:C) and D-dimer concentration were measured in 62 patients with chronic pulmonary heart disease during acute stage and recovery stage , and 60 healthy controls, respectively. Results Comparing with healthy controls, all of the measured indexes in patients were significantly changed except PT in patients in recovery stage. In the patients during acute stage, APTT and PT were significantly shortened than those in recovery stage(P0.05), and FVIII:C, D-dimer were significantly increased(P0.05 and P0.01 respectively),whereas AT:C were significantly decreased (P0.05). Conclusion The results revealed that abnormality of the blood coagulation, fibrinolysis and anti-coagulation system were existed in the patients with chronic pulmonary heart disease. The patients showed high coagulation and fibribolysis activity, and low anti-coagulation activity. This situation was more serious in patients during acute stage than those in recovery stage.


The utility model relates to a single hand collapse structure, which is basically used in a baby carriage, the single hand collapse structure arranges a collapse controller on a grip of a handgrip pipe, the collapse controller comprises a shell, wherein two driving rods of gears which are mutually meshed is arranged in the shell, one end of the driving rod is connected with a steel rope, a key-press which is capable of sliding and driving the two driving rods is pressed on the lower of the two driving rods, and the steel rope which is respectively arranged on the two sides is capable of simultaneously moving toward the central, thereby pulling and collapsing the joint. Further, the utility model is capable of adding a safety slider on the shell, the slider is capable of stopping the driving rods to rotate, thereby avoiding the joint collapsing accidentally to occur a risk.


The study of the mechanical properties of materials is important in the design and fabrication of any microscale product. Acquiring information such as the fracture toughness, fatigue limits, ultimate tensile and yield strength of these materials would help to determine the reliability of the final product made using the material. Traditionally, these material properties are obtained via mechanical testing on a macroscale tester such as the machines produced by Instron. However, mechanical testing of 'softer' materials with a microscopic size is more complicated as the test procedures and equipment have to address concerns such as clamping and alignment of specimen. Recent advancement in micromachining and micro-manufacturing has resulted in the availability of advanced and affordable instrumentation that can be applied to precisely manipulate the materials at microscopic dimensions; this provides the impetus to the development of microscale mechanical testers to study the micro-elasticity and micro-fracture mechanics of soft materials. The focus of this report is on the development of a micromechanical tester that can be used to study micrometer thick biomaterials and biological tissues. The tester can be mounted onto an X-Y stage of an inverted or compound microscope to observe the microscopic deformation and microfracture of the test specimen during testing. Three case studies are presented here to illustrate the performance of the mechanical tester. These studies address the characterisation of the mechanical properties of the flax fibre, oil palm empty fruit bunch fibre and coir fibre in dry and wet states.


Budnitskii is aware of the marked transformation in extremist practices after 1905, when terrorist acts escalated from rare occurrences to "mass-scale" phenomena "unprecedented in world history." Simulaneously, terrorists became increasingly indiscriminate in choosing their targets. Terror was no longer directed against prominent and odious government figures; any police officer could by chance become a target for the terrorist's bullet; any store employee could fall victim to an attempt to raise some cash for "revolutionary purposes." Ethical questions tormenting freedom fighters of the 1870s became superfluous; radicals, their opponents, and Russian society as a whole were gradually accustomed to revolutionary (and counterrevolutionary) violence as a form of political life; human life was cheapened. During this phase of the revolutionary struggle politically motivated murder became a norm, eventually transcending the barrier of 1917 and establishing itself firmly for decades under the Soviet regime.


INTRODUCTION: During the past decade there has been an increased interest in developing fibre tractography algorithms for the analysis of fibre pathways in the brain. Many approaches have been proposed to model the diffusion signal and to obtain reliable connectivity patterns. Nonetheless, the question of defining probabilistic connectivity indices which capture all the relevant information in the diffusion MRI signal remains open. To address this problem we employ a stochastic nonlinear differential equation to model the Brownian motion of water molecules in a medium. This model is fundamentally related to the physical processes underlying diffusion MRI. A local, parallelizable implementation allows for the incorporation of the local diffusion MRI data and its uncertainty, leading to probabilistic estimates of fibre tracts between two seed regions. We validate the approach with experimental results on a recent phantom introduced at the MICCAI 2009 Fibre Cup [3].


An in situ x-ray study up to 137 GPa using a diamond anvil cell combined with synchrotron x-ray radiation has revealed three new phase transitions in MnO. The rhombohedral distortion from a B1 structure starts at about 30 GPa. The volume compression curve of the distorted phase is in good agreement with recent shock compression experiments, suggesting the possibility of a paramagnetic–antiferromagnetic transition associated with the increase of the Neel temperature (TN). A drastic change in the x-ray pattern was observed at about 90 and 120 GPa. The transition pressure of 90 GPa is also consistent with shock compression data. The phases above 90 GPa were expected to be metallic based on the highly reflective nature of the sample. The crystal structure of the high pressure phase above 120 GPa was successfully explained by a B8 (NiAs) structure as expected based on recent first principles calculations.


A glutathione (GSH) yeast‐based biomass (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) was used to investigate GSH stability, solubilization during gastrointestinal digestion and GSH intestinal transport.


to the editor: Ideally, anti-doping testing is designed to ensure fair competition and prevent athletes' harm from unfair practices. While the former issue is questionable, since fairness in sports is mostly a chimera, the latter is foremost and theoretically viable ([1][1]–[3][2]). The recent


Artificial Intelligence (AI) may appear to be one of the newest and most talked about areas of science amidst the current 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), but it has, in fact, been under development since the beginning of time, from Arabic Alchemy to (Jewish) Talmudic scholar Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel's 16th century interpretation of Golem. More recently discussed only in the realm of science fiction movies, AI has now comfortably and securely entered the highest circles of academia, industry, and government. However, experts have only just begun to look at the impact of AI on human rights violations and God. As AI and technology become integral parts of our working lives, this essay aims to answer the question of whether the scientist or AI will be held liable when a Believer's human rights are violated (physical and psychological violations) and whether the European Union's Directive 85/374/EEC legislation is adequate in tackling this currently very niche issue.


In this paper, we determine explicitly the spectra of the Dirichlet problems of some domains in simply connected compact simple Lie groups. As their applications, combining results of Hoffman [6] and Mori [10], we can state some stability conditions of these domains for the standard minimal isometric immersions into unit spheres.


Refraction on the sea surface around Taiwan is strong because the speed of sound is high at sea level.The fast sound speed at sea surface in the water surrounding Taiwan causes strong refraction. If the water depth is lessis shallower than five thousand meters deepIn shallow water, the sound rays will be reflected at the bottom, which would causescausing severe bottom losses. Therefore, the geo-acoustic parameters areis important for the the acoustic study ofin the water surrounding Taiwan. In the past, researchers have used single pulse sonar of 3.5 kHz to obtain geo-acoustic parameters by using the spectral ratio method, which is (one of the acoustic inversion techniques). Now, sNow the sediment exploration has already advanced and t and heused Chirp SonarChirp Sonar system is used onon Taiwanese Research Vessels such as the Ocean Researcher I (OR I) and the Ta-Kuan;, which uses the's TOPAS system. This paper presents the results of the study of attenuation coefficients at thein ocean bottoms The attenuation coefficients were found by applyingusing the spectral ratio method on the chirp sonarChirp Sonar data collected by the OR I. The results wereare compared with the core data, and the relative error was found to beis within fifteen percent. The actual core sites can only provide attenuation coefficients for up to aof few meters belowof the surface. This, which the information is insufficient for acoustic research. The spectral ratio method depends on the depth of exploration of the Chirp SonarChirp Sonar, which is able to get attenuation coefficients of the depth of all layers. Introduction Refraction on the sea surface around Taiwan is strong because the speed of sound is high at sea levelThe fast sound speed at the sea surface in the water surrounding Taiwan causes strong refraction. If the water depth is less shallower than five thousand meters deep, the sound rays will be reflected at the bottom, which would causeing severe bottom losses. As a result, the geo-acoustic parameters are important for acoustic study ofin the water surrounding Taiwan. The southwest water to the south west ofs of Taiwan isare 2000-3000 meters deep and to thethe east, it isern waters are 4000-5000 meters deep. TTheHence, sediment exploration method cannot be easily used easily thus not be easily used because of complications due tocaused by the water Comment [O1]: CHECK: Add 'can' if this is not always the case. Comment [O3]: CHECK: This sentence suggest this is only true of Taiwan. Is this the case? Comment [a2]: CHECK: Is this the correct interpretation of the phrase 'results of attenuation coefficients', which is grammatically incorrect?


Anemia is a danger disease for the human life. If anemia diagnosis is not found in time than its very difficult to recover the patient specially in COVID-19 time it's a deadly disease. As we know in this era 2020 COVID is create a huge change in human life that's why after 2019 is called New life. As we know there is lots of approaches are there to identify the anemia, but there is very few approaches are there which are non-invasive, and those approaches are not good in terms of the quality of the result and most important they are not a good real time analysis system. So, in this paper we proposed a novel non-invasive algorithm which is able to detect the anemia using the human nails. In this approach we use computer vision, machine and deep learning concept and based on that only we decide the anemia level on any particular patient. Our propose approach is complete real time and this system is able to provide result in very less time. Key Words:Invasive, Non-Invasive, SPO2, Hardware, Device.


The article is dedicated to the studying of the gray-clay pottery of the first half of the I m. A.D. in the Northern-Western Black Sea region. The authors have divided the ceramics into 2 different chronological and ethno-cultural groups: 1) the production of the antique potter's workshops in Tyras and Olbia that is the gray-clay ceramics of the late Scythian settlement of the neighborhood of these towns that was produced on the rural settlements; 2) the ceramics of the Chernyakhov culture made by Chernyakhov craftsmen. A clear distinction of these groups is important for they are viewed as rather similar. In the gray-clay pottery of the antique settlements of the Black Sea region the appearance of the ceramics of the Chernyakhov culture (by forms and by structure of the ceramic complex) is anticipated at the least by 150 years. This does not mean that this ceramics was the direct foundation of the formation of the Chernyakhov culture. Working out of the main features of the appearance of the ceramic complex that later became the Chernyakhov one started before the Chernyakhov culture was composed. The place where this process was taking place still should be found. Anyway, these were not the walls of the Northern-Western Black Sea region.


Abstract The method of Chebyshev polynomials is introduced to represent approximate solutions of first‐order partial differential equations consisting of two independent variables. A set of linear algebraic equations is obtained by using the properties of Chebyshev polynomials and Kronecker product to analyse first‐order partial differential equations. The coefficient vector of Chebyshev polynomials of the first‐order partial differential equations can be obtained directly from Kronecker product formulas, which are suitable for computer computation. A numerical example for a set of first‐order partial differential equations is solved by a Chebyshev polynomials approximation and the results are satisfactory.


1. Introduction 2. Redescription and logico-conceptual entailment 3. Logico-conceptual entailment and other notions 4. Supervenience 5. Psycho-physical identity and functionalism 6. A posteriori physicalism - but not as we know it 7. A priori versus redescriptive physicalism 8. Redescription, reduction, and mental causation 9. Phenomenal truths are entailed logico-conceptually, but not a priori 10. Against the intuitions - and why it's like this Bibliography Index


The way of using Cyclone to complete low-cost FPGA implementation of DES is discussed.It expatiates in detail over the method about metathesis,the design of S box,the achievement of P box,and adopts Quartus Ⅱ to carry out the algorithm FPGA simulation.Finally,it analyzes the performance of the algorithm.


The utility model relates to a bionic olfactory system of a robot. The system comprises a shell, a bionic nasal cavity, an inspiration system, an integrated circuit board, a liquid crystal display module and a control panel; wherein, the bionic nasal cavity, the inspiration system and the integrated circuit board are packaged in the shell; the liquid crystal display module and the control panel are assembled on the surface of the shell; the bionic nasal cavity is sealed and formed by an upper cavity board, a lower cavity board and a clapboard positioned between the upper cavity board and the lower cavity board; the upper cavity board is provided with an air inlet of the bionic nasal cavity and forms an upper air chamber along with the clapboard; the lower cavity board is provided with an air inlet of the bionic nasal cavity and forms a lower air chamber along with the clapboard; the clapboard is provided with evenly distributed air holes, the number of which is the same as the designed number of gas sensors; the lower cavity board is also provided with mounting holes, the number of which is the same as the designed number of gas sensors, so that the corresponding probes of the gas sensors can be extended into the air chambers and air inlet holes on the probes of the gas sensors can correspond to the positions of the air holes on the clapboard in an one-to-one relation; the longitudinal section of the upper air chamber is a conical body with a plus (30 degrees to 60 degrees) cone angle; the longitudinal section of the lower air chamber is a conical body with a minus (30 degrees to 60 degrees) cone angle; and except for the air inlet holes on the probes of the gas sensors, each joint of the bionic nasal cavity is sealed by a sealing ring.


A hyperbolic-parabolic singular perturbation problem is considered for a quasilinear wave equation that arises in one-dimensional nonlinear elasticity. An initial boundary value problem is treated, in which there is an initial layer at $t = 0$. It is proved that the solution of the reduced problem approximates the solution of the full problem uniformly on sets bounded in the time direction. An initial-layer corrector and an additional outer expansion term are provided, which yield a uniform $\mathcal{O}(\varepsilon ^2 )$ approximation.


In the present study, adsorption of β-carotene from soy oil with acid-activated rice hull ashes was conducted under vacuum. Concentrations of β-carotene in the oils before and after adsorption were measured by a UV-vis spectrophotometer. The adsorption rate was found to be increased by increasing the ratio of activated rice hull ash/soy oil or bleaching temperature and by decreasing the particle size of activated rice hull ash. Furthermore, an adsorption rate expression has been determined.


(57) Abstract: The present invention provides methods and compositions for cleaning and disinfecting contact lenses, the composition, carbonate or bicarbonate, non-carbonated buffer system, antimicrobial agents, and nonionic surfactants containing the active agent. Product according to the invention (in particular, multi-purpose solution) provides simultaneously disinfecting and cleaning contact lenses (including prevention or removal of protein and lipid deposits and other pieces of tissue).


wonderful possibilities for innovation. Some of the uses to which cable television and the videocassette have already been put provide encouraging results. Nevertheless, one must never forget that the profitability of these new methods is still a risky business. Because of this, one must avoid cultivating excessive hopes in order to avoid disappointment of a kind which might compromise everything. •


Remarkable progress has been made in developing intramuscular vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2); however, they are limited with respect to eliciting local immunity in the respiratory tract, which is the primary infection site for SARS-CoV-2. To overcome the limitations of intramuscular vaccines, we constructed a nasal vaccine candidate based on an influenza vector by inserting a gene encoding the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, named CA4-dNS1-nCoV-RBD (dNS1-RBD). A preclinical study showed that in hamsters challenged 1 day and 7 days after single-dose vaccination or 6 months after booster vaccination, dNS1-RBD largely mitigated lung pathology, with no loss of body weight, caused by either the prototype-like strain or beta variant of SARS-CoV-2. Lasted data showed that the animals could be well protected against beta variant challenge 9 months after vaccination. Notably, the weight loss and lung pathological changes of hamsters could still be significantly reduced when the hamster was vaccinated 24 h after challenge. Moreover, such cellular immunity is relatively unimpaired for the most concerning SARS-CoV-2 variants. The protective immune mechanism of dNS1-RBD could be attributed to the innate immune response in the nasal epithelium, local RBD-specific T cell response in the lung, and RBD-specific IgA and IgG response. Thus, this study demonstrates that the intranasally delivered dNS1-RBD vaccine candidate may offer an important addition to fight against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, compensating limitations of current intramuscular vaccines, particularly at the start of an outbreak.


Searching for the group members that participate in a joint action based on collecting and analyzing the position information of moving objects could provide an important support for the decision makers in the fields such as the investigation of criminal cases, group emergency disposal, a large-scale military action etc. Following the pattern analysis of mobile objects based on their position information, this paper proposes a group member search method for mobile objects based on pattern similarity, which identifies group members by utilizing the correlation information of the mobility attributes such as trajectory, speed, direction and acceleration. Compared with group clustering or classification based on trajectory distance, the overlapping interference can be effectively avoided between members in different groups, and this method fits the objective law of group movement better. Combining with the application background, the experimental analysis confirms that the proposed method can quickly and accurately find the group members.


Using the chi square test of independence, four types of achievement were studied for their association with socioeconomic status, family size, and ordinal position of white and black first graders. Findings revealed no significant associations in areas of word knowledge, word discrimination, and reading achievement. One significant result was obtained for ordinal position in the area of arithmetic achievement. Achievement was also analyzed in relation to race and sex.


The optimization problems in energy system analysis can be too complex to be solved in a reasonable time. Therefore, temporal decomposition techniques are often used to reduce model execution time. We develop a heuristic approach based on the "fix-and-relax" method and apply it -to our best knowledge, for the first time- to a large-scale energy system model. The temporal decomposition is applied only to the integer variables of the optimization problem. The results show that the execution time can be two times faster using this technique and that the found solution is still within the allowed 0.5% relative gap.


Dynamic modeling and anaylzing of partly piezoelectric cantilever system is studied in order to predict,analyze and optimize the performance of discontinuous piezoelectric cantilever system.Firstly,the piezoelectric cantilever is segmented to prensent energy functions,which is substituted into the Lagrange equations to obtain electromechanical motion equation.Secondly,based on boundary conditions and compatibility conditions,calculations method of modal shape and natural frequency is given.Finally,experimental results illustrate that the error of measured frequency of the first and second modal and theoretical model calculations is less than 1%,improving the prediction accuracy of the piezoelectric cantilever system.


A dual-energy X-ray tomodensimeter adapted for the determination of bone mineral density (BMD) of the lumbar vertebrae has been directly developed from a typical dual-energy X-ray absorptiometer. This apparatus consists of two fundamental parts: a dual energy X-ray tube, and a multidetector made by an array of 24 NaI(Tl) crystals. It provides both tomographic and non-tomographic (anteroposterior, lateral etc) measurement. The detection area is limited to 132 mm. In this condition, the choice of the best reconstruction algorithm in order to give a direct BMD is considered. Preliminary studies based on numerical simulated projections and hydroxyapatite phantoms demonstrated the superiority of algebraic reconstruction algorithms, such as conjugated gradient.


Hyperplastic processes of the endometrium are a chronic progressive disease characterized by high prevalence among women of older age groups. The objective of the study was the bioinformatical study of the involvement of candidate genes in the formation of endometrium hyperplastic processes. As a result of the study, 3 molecular-genetic markers were genotyped in 520 female patients with endometrium hyperplastic processes and 981 control women. It was found that among women from the Central region of Russia, the combination of molecular genetic markers G rs1398217, G rs887912 and G rs2090409 (OR=1.32) is a risk factor for the development of endometrium hyperplastic processes.


back to the seventeenth-century style of baroque a \ well as French classicism. Balthasar Gracian's seventeenth-century classic, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, was rediscovered as po\twar intellectuals attempted to apply his maxims for deception and diplomacy in courrly conduct to the bustling and impersonal world of Weimar Germany. Divided into five chapters, the book begins with a discussion of shame culture and how the need to avoid such public humiliation serves as an incentive for the development of social mask5 or personas. Employing contemporary anthropological notions about the nature of human identity, especially Helmut Plessner's early contention that man is artificial by nature, Lethen outlines the code of cool conduct (that is, how one is able to maintain proper distance in public). Drawing mostly from literature (Brecht, Junger, Franz Blei, and Walter Serner to name just a few), Lethen identifies eight types of cool personas. His use of (:arl Schmitt's diaries to identify one of these types is perhaps the most intriguing of the examples. He concludes with two types (the radar and the creature) that fall outside his archetypes of cool personas. The book's strengths highlight the value of cultural criticism done well, by consulting sources from a variety of fields to show the cross pollination of certain ideas and values in various disciplines. Historians, however, may be dissatisfied with the lack of history in the book. There are disappointingly few direct ties to the actual times, and Weimar historians are almost completely ignored in the study. Nevertheless, it is a rich and truly original work. comparable to Martin Jay's Downcast Eyes in scope but addressing a different time and place. All interested in German studies and cultural criticism will find food for thought; but i t is a work that is geared more toward griiduate students and professional academics. Only the most advanced undergraduates will find it useful.


Purpose-based access control models are widely applied in both governments and industry. According to users' attributes, users are required to dynamically act as various roles. Access permissions with roles are assigned to users that shows what can do for the purposes with certain conditions. Conditional role involved purpose-based access control models (CPAC) are designed for users to dynamically act with conditional roles. For efficiency of an access method, it is a challenging problem to find an optimal set of roles from an existing access control model. This paper devises a set of roles in implementing a CPAC model that can deal with the problem. We define a conditional role mining problem (CRMP) model that includes conditional roles and purposes. Algorithms are developed to discover an optimal set of roles from existing permissions in the access control model. Furthermore, based on practical situations, two different variations from CRMP are introduced. One is named δ-approx CRMP while the other is Minimal Noise CRMP. The two variations are not analysed in this paper but in future work.


We have attempted to build first some simplified model to map the interaction of quarks and gluons in presence of magnetic field, which can be constrained by their thermodynamical quantity like entropy density, obtained from calculation of lattice quantum chromo dynamics. To fulfill that mapping, we have assumed a parametric temperature and magnetic field dependent degeneracy factor or fugacity of quarks and gluons. Implementing this QCD interaction in calculation of transport coefficient at finite magnetic field, we have noticed that magnetic field and interaction both are two dominating sources, for which the values of transport coefficients can be reduced. Interestingly, fluidity of quark gluon plasma remain unaffected by interaction, although magnetic field can have an impact on it.


This paper focused on the coaxial probe fed square patch microstrip antenna characteristics have been studied with and without dielectric Superstrates. The dielectric constant of the substrate and Superstrate material is used same for designing of square microstrip patch antenna. The antenna designed frequency is 2.4GHz(ISM band) using transmission line model. In this paper experimentally investigated the effect dielectric Superstrates with and without on the characteristics such as bandwidth, beam-width, gain, resonant frequency, input impedance, return-loss and VSWR etc. Measured results shows when placing the Superstrates material thickness above the substrate the antenna parameter will be changed and antenna resonant frequency will be shifted lower side, while other parameters have slight variation in their values. In particular, the resonant frequency increases with the dielectric constant of the Superstrates thickness. In addition, it has also been observed that return loss and VSWR increases, however bandwidth and gain decreases with the dielectric constant of the Superstrates. Impedance characteristics are that both input impedance and the reactance which are increased as Superstrate become thick and its increases.


Molecular and functional studies of genes in neurons in mouse models require neuron‐specific Cre lines. The current available neuronal Cre transgenic or knock‐in lines either result in expression in a subset of neurons or expression in both neuronal and non‐neuronal tissues. Previously we identified BAF53b as a neuron‐specific subunit of the chromatin remodeling BAF complexes. Using a bacteria artificial chromosome (BAC) construct containing the BAF53b gene, we generated a Cre transgenic mouse under the control of BAF53b regulatory elements. Like the endogenous BAF53b gene, we showed that BAF53b‐Cre is largely neuron‐specific. In both central and peripheral nervous systems, it was expressed in all developing neurons examined and was not observed in neural progenitors or glial cells. In addition, BAF53b‐Cre functioned in primary cultures in a pan‐neuron‐specific manner. Thus, BAF53b‐Cre mice will be a useful genetic tool to manipulate gene expression in developing neurons for molecular, biochemical, and functional studies. genesis, 53:440–448, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


A selection of votive finds made in the church of St Corona in Altenkirchen, Lower Bavaria, constitute the subject of this article. In 2002, 431 spoons and spoon fragments, the most extensive finds of spoons from early Modern Times so far, were recovered together with several ceramic and textile objects. For this find group the results of classifying the items, their dating and interpretation are presented. Included in the interpretation of the spoons from Altenkirchen are views of traditional ethnography on religious customs. Taking into consideration the results of the classification a clarification is attempted as to whether the finds are rejects of a workshop, profane eating implements or specially made votive items.


The Earth's core was formed under gravitational differentiation in the course of the separation of iron and silicates. Most of the iron has gone into the core as early as when the Earth was growing. However, iron continued to precipitate even during the subsequent partial solidification which developed from the bottom upwards. At the different stages and in the different layers of the mantle, iron was deposited in different regimes. In this paper, the mechanisms of the deposition of a cloud of heavy interacting particles (or drops) in a viscous fluid are considered. A new approach suitable for analytical and numerical tracing the changes in the structure of the flows in a two-component suspension under continuous transition from the Stokessettling (for the case of a cloud of large particles) to the Rayleigh–Taylor flows and heavy diapirs (for the case of a cloud of small particles) is suggested. It is numerically and analytically shown that the both regimes are the different limiting cases of the sedimentation convection in suspensions.


Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers 1985 London: Fontana xxxi + 349 pp price £3.95 (paperback) ISBN 0 00 654115 1 The exciting new fields of nonlinear systems and nonequilibrium thermodynamics hold promise for farreaching results in the hard sciences (physics, chemistry and biology in particular). Nobel laureate llya Prigogine, co–author with Isabelle Stengers of Order out of Chaos, is arguably the world's leading authority on such subject matter.


: Eleven pyridine derivatives were prepared by quaternization reactions by different synthetic routes: conventional, microwave, and ultrasound. Since acetone an d other solvents used in conventional quaternization reactions are harmful, attempts were made to replace the organic solvents with more environmentally friendly alternative - deep eutectic solvents. The reactions were carried out using pyridine -3-aldoxime, pyridine- 4 -aldoxime, isonicotinamide and nicotinamide as nucleophiles and three different dihaloalkanes as electrophiles: diiodopropane, dibromopropane and diiodohexane. The results showed that the microwave method using acetone as solvent was significa ntly faster and gave higher yields than the conventional method. In contrast, synthesis in the eutectic solvents choline chloride : urea gave significantly lower yields. The structures of the synthesized compounds were confirmed by 1 H and 13 C NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry and elemental analysis. The antifungal activity of all compounds was tested at two different concentrations (10 and 100 µg mL –1 ) against Botrytis cinerea, Fusarium culmorum, Macrophomina phaseolina and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum in vitro . All tested compounds showed excellent inhibitory activity against the studied phytopathogenic fungal species at a concentration of 100 µg mL –1 .


ABSTRACT. A novel series of mononuclear complexes of the type, [M(L)(H2O)2] [M = Co(II) (1), Ni(II) (2), Zn(II) (3), Cd(II) (4), L = dipicolinate), has been investigated using various techniques, including elemental analyses, FT-IR, 1H- and 13C NMR spectroscopy, powder XRD and thermogravimetric analysis. The results indicate that the coordination of the dipicolinic acid to the metal ions involves two carboxylate O atoms, the pyridine N atom, and two water molecules. The pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylic acid and its studied compounds have been screened against microbial species. The findings show that the complexes have higher activity in comparison to the free pyridine-dicarboxylic acid.

KEY WORDS: Dipicolinic acid, Metal complexes, Antimicrobial activity

Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2022, 36(3), 607-615.
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v36i3.10


In this paper, we propose an opportunistic spectrum sharing protocol that exploits the situation when the primary system is incapable of supporting its target transmission rate. Specifically, the secondary system tries to help the primary system to achieve its target rate via two-phase cooperative OFDM relaying, where the secondary system acts as an amplify-and-forward relay for the primary system by allocating a fraction of its subcarriers to forward the primary signal. At the same time, the secondary system uses the remaining subcarriers to transmit its own signal, and thus gaining opportunistic spectrum access. As a part of the protocol, if the primary system finds that outage will occur even when the secondary system serves as a pure relay, the primary system will cease transmission and the secondary system will be granted access to the primary spectrum. We study the joint optimization of the set of subcarriers used for cooperation, subcarrier pairing, and subcarrier power allocation such that the transmission rate of the secondary system is maximized, while helping the primary system, as a higher priority, to achieve its target rate. Simulation results demonstrate the performance of the proposed spectrum sharing protocol as well as the win-win solution for the primary and secondary systems.


In this note we investigate the Cheltsov--Rubinstein conjecture. We show that this conjecture does not hold in general and some counterexamples will be presented.


Denmark and Sweden are small open economies that rely on exports for economic growth. At the same time, these countries have some of the largest public sectors in the world and a high wage equality. With extensive collective bargaining and strong unions in both private and public sectors, coordination of wage setting is crucial for balancing competitiveness and real wage increases. This paper investigates how coordination between public sector and private sector wage setting in the two countries is achieved. Like other studies, we find that agreements in the manufacturing export sector set the pattern for public sector wage bargaining. However, we also find that institutional differences have significant distributive implications for public sector employees. In Denmark, wage increase disparities between the public and private sectors are automatically adjusted according to formalized procedures. In Sweden, no automatic adjustment exists, and coordination is instead based on tightly coordinated bargaining practices by unions and public sector employers. Surprisingly, we find most public sub-sector variation of wage increases in Denmark, whereas wage structures in Sweden have been very stable. We argue that timing of bargaining, level of private sector wage flexibility and politicization of public sector bargaining are key drivers for these distributional differences.


Lithium fluoride and potassium chloride single crystals were irradiated with high-intensity ultrashort laser pulses at room temperature. Color centers were successfully produced in both materials and their optical properties were studied. The mechanism of point defects production is analyzed and a phenomenological model is formulated.


An experimental study of two-phase pressure drop in small diameter tubes
 orientated horizontally, vertically and at two other downward inclinations
 of θ= 300 and θ = 600 is described in this paper. Acrylic transparent tubes
 of internal diameters 4.0, 6.0, and 8.0 mm with lengths of 400 mm were used
 as the test section. Air-water mixture was used as the working fluid.
 Two-phase pressure drop was measured and compared with the existing
 correlations. These correlations are commonly used for calculation of
 pressure drop in macro and mini-microchannels. It is observed that the
 existing correlations are inadequate in predicting the two-phase pressure
 drop in small diameter tubes. Based on the experimental data, a new
 correlation has been proposed for predicting the two-phase pressure drop.
 This correlation is developed by modification of Chisholm parameter C by
 incorporating different parameters. It was found that the proposed
 correlation predicted two-phase pressure drop at satisfactory level.


We have set up stably transfected HEK293 cells overexpressing the (cid:1) -secretases BACE1 and BACE2 either alone or in combination with wild-type (cid:1) -amyloid precursor protein ( (cid:1) APP). The characterization of the (cid:1) APP-derived catabolites indicates that cells expressing BACEs produce less genuine A (cid:1) 1–40/42 but higher amounts of secreted sAPP (cid:1) and N-terminal-truncated A (cid:1) species. This was accompanied by a concomitant modulation of the C-terminal counterpart products C89 and C79 for BACE1 and BACE2, respectively. These cells were used to set up a novel BACE assay based on two quenched fluorimetric substrates mimicking the wild-type (JMV2235) and Swedish-mutated sequences targeted by BACE activities. that BACEs activities are by the and maximal at The specificity of this double assay for (cid:1) was by of positive" to The lack the was used to screen for vitro identified a series of that dose-dependently inhibited and with in the


The familiar partial equilibrium analysis of an individual industry's use of a particular input involves changing only one price (that of the particular input in question), even when long period equilibrium is considered. But this is incoherent, other than in fluke cases, since such a price change will always force other industries out of long period equilibrium. When this incoherence is removed, and equilibrium is taken seriously, the comparative statics results obtained can differ sharply from those derived from the familiar analysis.


An Optimization Approach to Heterogeneous Coded Caching Alexander Michael Daniel Master of Applied Science Graduate Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Toronto 2017 This thesis aims to develop an optimization framework for the development of coded caching schemes that can account for various heterogeneous aspects of practical communication systems. This framework is first used to develop an optimization-based perspective on the seminal work on the fundamental limits of caching by Maddah-Ali and Niesen, and is then extended to the case where files have non-uniform popularity and length, while users have non-uniform cache sizes. The resulting optimization problem scales exponentially in the system parameters, and so simplifications of the original problem that both perform well and scale as a polynomial function of the systems parameters are developed. By considering the aforementioned heterogeneities both individually and in conjunction with one another, insights into the influence of their interactions on optimal cache content are obtained.


At the insertion movement of plunger member (180) in cylinder member (100), a photosensor is in the position of sensing the movement of slit area (187b). As a result, when the plunger member (180) is pressed inward by an operator, light transmission zones and light shielding zones alternately provided in the slit area (187b) are sensed by the photosensor. Accordingly, there can be provided a syringe-like hand switch such that in the chemical introduction control of injector head for injection of chemicals, such as a contrast medium, in patients, both parameters for injection speed and injection quantity can be controlled by the senses at use of conventional syringes.


The year 2004 is the 10th anniversary of rail reform in Germany and the formation of a single national railway, German Rail (DB), for a unified Germany. There were four key elements of rail reform: the merger of Germany Federal Railway with Germany State Railway; the separation of the federal government's obligation to fund the national railway from the public and corporate obligations of the railway; the transfer of responsibility for funding and procuring regional rail passenger services to the federal states; and the transfer of employees to the new organisation. The objectives of rail reform were to reduce the financial burden of the railways on German taxpayers and transferring more traffic from road to rail. The successful performance of DB is described with reference to funding, investment in infrastructure and DB structure. The five subsidiaries of DB are outlined: DB Travel and Tourism, DB Regio, DB Cargo, DB Station and Service, and DB Network. DB Network is responsible for maintaining, operating and controlling access to the rail network. New investment in the rail network, rolling stock, and 'customer-driven product quality' and the launch of a new fares structure are outlined.


In this paper we established some results on reflexivity and completeness of normed almost linear space. The reflexivity of a normed almost linear space X with respect to the sub spaces and are described through some results.


Let Xn be the finite set {1,2,3· · ·, n} and On defined by On={α∈Tn:(∀x, y∈Xn), x⩽y→xα⩽yα}be the semigroup of full order-preserving mapping on Xn. A transformation α in On is called quasi-idempotent if α=α2=α4. We characterise quasi-idempotent in On and show that the semigroup On is quasi-idempotent generated. Moreover, we obtained an upper bound forquasi-idempotents rank of On, that is, we showed that the cardinality of a minimum quasi-idempotents generating set for On is less than or equal to ⌈3(n−2)2⌉ where ⌈x⌉ denotes the least positive integerm such that x⩽m


A switching regulator is provided. The switching regulator includes a switch which is connected to a switching node and controls an inductor current which flows through the switching node, and a switch controller which senses the voltage change of the switching node after the switch is turned off and controls the turn-off point of the switch. The switch controller includes a comparator which compares a first voltage applied to a first input terminal which is connected to the switching node with a second voltage applied to a second input terminal which is connected to the first terminal of the switch and outputs a comparison signal, and a control logic which receives the comparison signal of the comparator and controls the offset of the comparator in order to control the turn-off point of the switch.


The rehabilitation of patients with upper motor neurone lesions often necessitates the reduction of spasticity before normal movement patterns can be taught. One proven technique is that of prolonged stretch to the affected muscle. However, the duration of the stretch has not been defined. This study aimed to investigate which of the following durations of prolonged muscle stretch - two, ten or thirty minutes - was optimal in reducing spasticity in spastic quadriceps femoris muscles of adult patients following cerebral vascular accidents or head trauma. The degree of spasticity was measured by the use of four methods, prior to, and after stretching. Twenty-nine spastic muscles were stretched for the three durations on different occasions, and the data analysed using the student's T-test. Results indicated that the most beneficial duration of prolonged muscle stretch in decreasing spasticity was ten minutes.


Design of computer based systems (CBS) requires support tools and techniques that can adequately manage the complexity of the underlying engineering activities and processes. In this paper, the primary focus is on the design aspects of the engineering of computer-based systems (ECBS) process. More specifically, it is demonstrated how systems theory and structured knowledge representation concepts can be used to make the system level design more manageable and efficient.


3 Preface This report is a result of the work carried out in the Ph.D.-project "Physical-and Thermody-ogy and Structural Engineering. The Ph.D.-project has not yet been formally closed down and the present report is meant as an overview and a documentation of the activities completed until the autumn of 2002. The report is divided into three parts: Chapter I, Introduction: A status of the project and an easy-to-read overview of the two central experimental parts of the project. Activities carried out during the project period is described. Chapter II, Differential Pressure Analysis: A review of the main experimental part of the project, the Differential Pressure Analysis, including a description of experimental setup and procedures. The theory and ideas behind the DPA-measurements are shown. Chapter III, Isochor Volumeter: A review of the work carried out on and the ideas behind the Isochor Volumeter. The apparatus, the experimental setup and the procedures put forward are described. The Ph.D.-project was started 1'st of January 1999, with an expected end of 31'st of December 2001. The project period was extended two weeks until the 14'th of January 2002 due to maternity leave. If it were possible I would like to thank my supervisor during the project period, Professor Per Freiesleben Hansen * , for always being inspiring, creative and deeply involved in the project.