Through stories of elementary school children she sees as a counsellor and the tensions existing in those stories, the writer enters into an examination of stories from her own life. The main question the author attempts to explore is the importance of narrative and story in her own life and how they function as a site for resistance, reflection, interpretation and meaning making. The writing itself is the process as the author attempts a qualitative, phenomenological inquiry into her own complicity in maintaining existing structures of class, race, gender, morality and education. To Paul, Nathan and Brenna without whom my life and the stories about it would be far less rich, and to my parents for their beautifully crafted stories and their willingness to share them.


A reversed phase HPLC method for separation and quantification of organic acids (oxalic, citric, tartaric, malic, ascorbic and lactic acids) in fruit juices was developed. The chromatographic separation was performed with a Surveyor Thermo Electron system at 10C by using potassium dihydrogen orthophosphate buffer (pH 2.8) as mobile phase, an Hypersil Gold aQ Analytical Column and diode array detection at ?=254 nm for ascorbic acid and ?=214 nm for the other organic acids. Organic acid profiles of ten species of Citrus: sweet orange, minneola, clementine, mandarin orange, pomelo, lemon, lime, sweetie, white and pink grapefruit were established. Species significantly affect the organic acid distribution of citrus fruit juices. In all citrus juices, the most abundant organic acid was citric acid, ranging from 6.88 to 73.93 g/l. Citrus juices are good sources of ascorbic acid (0.215-0.718 g/l). Average ascorbic acid was the highest in lemon juice followed by sweet orange juice, sweetie and white grapefruit.


The hemodynamic and cardiometabolic effects of prenalterol were evaluated in propoxyphene‐induced circulatory shock in 10 pentobarbital‐anesthetized pigs. Circulatory shock (i.e. a systolic arterial blood pressure below 60 mmHg (8 kPa) and/or a cardiac index of less than 2.01·min‐1·m‐2) was induced by intravenous propoxyphene chloride 15 mg‐min‐1. Circulatory shock occurred after 26 ± 3 mg·kg‐1 of propoxyphene. During continuous infusion of propoxyphene, consecutive doses of prenalterol 0.5, 1.0, 2.0 and 4.0 mg i.v. were injected with an interval between increments of 8 min. The maximum effect of prenalterol was seen following the 2 mg dose. Increases were observed in mean arterial blood pressure, cardiac index, stroke volume index, left ventricular stroke work index, right ventricular stroke work index, maximum rate of rise of ventricular pressure, and total body oxygen consumption. Decreases were observed in pulmonary artery occlusion pressure, mean right atrial pressure and systemic vascular resistance, whereas heart rate and pulmonary vascular resistance remained unchanged. The cardiometabolic parameters: coronary sinus now, coronary vascular resistance, myocardial oxygen consumption and extraction, remained low. Due to profound vasodilation, normal perfusion pressures were not reestablished. In conclusion, prenalterol improved cardiac performance by a significant positive inotropic action. However, pure inotropic stimulation was not sufficient to counteract the circulatory shock state during severe propoxyphene intoxication.


In underground structure, excavation method has a great impact on land subsidence and structure stability. In order to choose a more appropriate excavation method, the finite difference procedure FLAC is adopted to simulate the two different excavation process design schemes of a subway station somewhere. The dynamic change of stress in soil and forces in support structure is analyzed. It is found that after the excavation of the adit, a large depressed zone will form in both the roof and the floor. The displacement induced by the adit accounts for almost 60% of the total displacement. The maximum axial force and moment in the support structure occur in the middle of floor or at the conjunction of arch and sidewall. The displacement of the two excavation methods is quite similar. These conclusions provide important reference for the design and construction for the station.


Kempf (1976) studied proper, G-equivariant maps from equivariant vector bundles over flag manifolds to G-representations V, which he called collapsings. We give a simple formula for the G-equivariant cohomology class on V, or multidegree, associated to the image of a collapsing: apply a certain sequence of divided difference operators to a certain product of linear polynomials, then divide by the number of components in a gen- eral fiber. When that number of components is 1, we construct a desingularization of the image of the collapsing. If in addition the image has rational singularities, we can use the desingularization to give also a formula for the G-equivariant K-class of the image, whose leading term is the multidegree. Our application is to quiver loci and quiver polynomials. Let Q be a quiver of finite type (A, D, or E, in arbitrary orientation), and assign a vector space to each vertex. Let Hom denote the (linear) space of representations of Q with these vector spaces. This carries an action of GL, the product of the general linear groups of the individual vector spaces. A quiver locus is the closure in Hom of a GL-orbit, and its multidegree is the corresponding quiver polynomial. Reineke (2004) proved that every ADE quiver locus is the image of a birational Kempf collapsing (giving a desingularization directly). Using Reineke's collapsings, we give formulae for ADE quiver polynomials, previously only computed in type A (though in this case, our formulae are new). In the A and D cases quiver loci are known to have rational singularities (Bobinski-Zwara 2002), so we also get formulae for their K-classes, which had previously only been computed in equioriented type A (and again our formulae are new).


This study examines the relationship between financial education, financial literacy, and financial behavior among young Vietnamese adults. Based on survey data from over 1000 participants, this study measures financial literacy through objective and subjective knowledge and financial ability. Financial behavior is assessed in terms of short-term behaviors (emergency funds, spending, overdraft, and budgeting) and long-term behaviors (retirement planning, having a retirement account, investment, and setting financial goals). Logistic and ordered logistic regression models are employed to analyze the data. The findings indicate a significant difference in financial behavior between individuals who have received financial education and those who have not. This study also reveals that financial literacy has a negative impact on short-term financial behaviors but a positive effect on long-term financial behaviors. This novel finding highlights the importance of considering different time horizons when examining the interplay between financial literacy and behaviors. The insights from this study hold implications for policymakers, educators, and financial institutions in developing countries like Vietnam, as they can inform the design of effective financial education programs. Ultimately, this research contributes to enhancing the financial well-being of young adults and supporting the country's overall economic growth.


The millennial era can be felt as an era full of paradoxes. Millennial families are the construction of new family realities that are not completely in line with traditional Islamic family norms/laws that encourage modernization in Islamic law. This study aims to find out the method of ijtihad in Indonesia in renewing Islamic family law and its scope in the milennial era. The type of research used is descriptive qualitative research using literature research methods in which family law is an object of research. The results of the study show that the ijtihad method used was a method of combining various methods of normative ijtihad of the scholars by considering the demands of modern legislation. Renewal of Islamic family law in the midst of social change, includes: (1) Islamic family law as a social reality in the process of social reform; (2) Transformation of Islamic family law values from living law but not structured into national law; (3) Islamic family law as a living reality and social transactions towards consensus; (4) Modernization and shift in the value of Islamic family law; (5) Law as the reality and process of cultural transplantation; (6) Islamic family law and peace negotiations with globalization of values; (7) Islamic family law becomes part of the positivation of national law.


Submersible-launched UAVs can take advantage of the better stealth characteristics of lying underwater prior to deployment and extended range as a surrogate attached to a mothership. These designs, however, are still very much a concept in development due to the various challenges of operating efficiently in both water and air. This paper analyses the key that allows such designs to efficiently transit from the launch vehicle to the surface: the sizing and methods for wing-folding, and proposes a new concept for retractable wings of such aquaticaerial vehicles based on a compliant material based wing frame structure.


The simulated molten steel slag was used as raw materials to prepared glass-ceramics using melting-quenching method.The quartz sand was added in to adjust the steel slag component with the mass ratio of 1∶1.Effects of temperature on the crystallization and properties of glass-ceramics were studied by DTA,XRD,SEM/EDX.The results show that with the increases of crystallization temperature,the density of samples first increases and then decreases,and corrosion resistance increases gradually.The sample has good comprehensive properties after nucleation at 700℃ for 2 hours,followed with crystallization at 950 ℃ for 2 hours. Main phases in glass-ceramics were augite[Ca(Mg,Al,Fe)Si2O6] and diopside [(Mg6Al2Fe2)Ca(Si1.5Al5)O2].Granular crystals uniformly distributed in the glass matrix with average particle size of 20~60nm.


All plants have a potential medicinal significance. Medicinal plants are considered as important therapeutic aid for alleviating ailment of humankind. Numerous herbal plants or botanical medicines and polyherbal formulations are used for the treatment of liver diseases (Hepatoprotective). A number of herbal preparations are available in the market. Liver is a vital organ play a major role in metabolism and excretion of xenobiotics from the body. Liver cell injury caused by a range of toxic chemicals (certain chemotherapeutic agents, anti-biotic, carbon tetrachloride (CCL4), paracetamol (PCM), thioacetamide (TAA) etc.), excessive alcohol consumption and microbes is well-studied. The present review is aimed at compiling data on promising phytochemicals from medicinal plants that have been tested in hepatotoxicity models using modern scientific system. Keywords: Hepatoprotective, Medicinal plants, Liver injury, Carbon tetrachloride, Paracetamol.


The quality of training rural students in schools is related to the sustainable development of rural education. Thus, it is important to analyze the characteristics of the self-cognition evaluation of teachers' quality in rural schools. Taking Huaiyin Normal University as an example and conducting a questionnaire survey of 144 students, we drew the following important conclusions through descriptive statistical analysis and chi-square test. (1) The self-evaluation of self-development was relatively lower than average. (2) The self-evaluation of students' morality, professional competence, and self-development of students in the middle of Jiangsu was slightly worse than that of northern Jiangsu. (3) The difference between urban and rural areas was not significant. (4) The higher the grade, the greater the self-evaluation, but the self-development literacy was not improved significantly. In response to these problems, the following suggestions were made. Geography-oriented teacher training assessment must be introduced in an elimination system. Also, teachers need to focus on career planning and enhance the sense of educational mission. At the same time, teachers are required to focus on self-reflection and enhance their self-learning ability.


To evaluate the feasibility and effect of mesureteral preservation on urinary complications in the context of total mesometrial resection (TMMR), a surgical treatment for cervical cancer.


Biomedical relation classification aims to automate the detection and classification of biomedical relationships, which has great advantages for various biomedical research and applications. With the development of machine learning, computational model-based approaches have been applied to biomedical relation classification and achieved state-of-the-art performance on some public datasets and shared tasks. Nevertheless, the existing models have some limitations in expressing features of large knowledge graphs. For example, the multilayer Knowledge Graph Embedding (KGE) network structure has fully connected layers and is prone to overfitting. Inspired by the multi-layer convolutional network model ConvE, this paper proposes a novel KGE model named ConvE-Bio for biomedical relation classification. The novel model performs well on the DDI (Drug-Drug Interaction), DTI (Drug-Target Interaction), and PPI (Protein-Protein Interaction) datasets, outperforming the classical baseline algorithms. Results show that ConvE-Bio can be used as a powerful tool in the field of biomedical relation classification for drug development, polypharmacy side-effect prediction and other research.


The mechanism of brain edema is complex and still remains unclear. Our aim was to investigate the regional differences of cell volume and intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) dynamics during hypotonic stress in male mouse hemi‐brain slices. Brain slices were loaded with the fluorescence Ca2+ indicator fura‐2, and cell volume and [Ca2+]i in the lateral cerebral cortex (LCC) and hippocampal CA1 (CA1) region were measured simultaneously during exposure to hypotonic stress using Ca2+ insensitive (F360) and Ca2+ sensitive fluorescence (F380), respectively. Brain cell swelling induced by hypotonic stress was followed by a regulatory volume change that coincided with an increase in [Ca2+]i. The degrees of change in cell volume and [Ca2+]i were significantly different between the LCC and CA1. The increase in cell volume and [Ca2+]i in the LCC, but not in the CA1, was decreased by the transient receptor potential channel blockers LaCl3 and GdCl3. The increase in [Ca2+]i in both the LCC and CA1, was significantly decreased by the intracellular Ca2+ modulators thapsigargin and xestospongin C. The K+ channel activator isoflurane and Cl‐ channel blocker NPPB significantly decreased [Ca2+]i in the LCC. This study demonstrated that, between cells located in the LCC and in the CA1, the characteristics of brain edema induced by hypotonic stress are different. This can be ascribed to the different contribution of volume sensitive G‐protein coupled receptor and stretch sensitive Ca2+ channels.


Caudal autotomy is a defensive mechanism widely adopted by lungless salamanders (Plethodontidae) from the New World. In contrast, in Europe, this mechanism was not described until very recently for just one Sardinian species, Hydromantes (Speleomantes) sarrabusensis. We report on tail autotomy observed in another species from the same island, Hydromantes (Atylodes) genei. In Europe, self-amputation of the tail seems to be restricted to some plethodontids inhabiting Sardinia, while continental species do not exhibit analogous antipredator strategies.


Land use in urban areas is crucial for urban land management decision-making,environment monitoring and urban planning.According to the landscape ecology concept that the landscape patterns within the same land use type are similar,this paper presents a new land use classification approach which integrates landscape characteristics and high-spatial resolution remote sensing data.Some key landscape metrics were selected to quantify the landscape patterns of different land uses.Then,the integration of SPOT image and landscape characteristics was applied to land use classification within the 5th Ring Road of Beijing.The overall land use classification accuracy was 85.9% with Kappa parameter being 71.1%.The results show that the specific landscape patterns of different land use types would significantly contribute to improving land use classification,and could potentially be applied to other urban areas.


The Nano-Second Gated CMOS Camera (NSGCC) team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has developed a radiation tolerant camera for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) experiments at NIF with total yields of 10^16 neutrons. To achieve the desired level of operational reliability in a prompt dose environment, several firmware hardening strategies were evaluated, such as redundancy, auto-recovery from single-event upsets (SEU), and remote manual recovery if a SEU causes the system to hang. These approaches work well in a low-dose rate space environment; however, it was not clear how they would perform in a high-dose rate environment. The team generated several exploratory FPGA firmware builds with varying levels of protective circuitry and timing margin, subjected the camera to prompt dose radiation using a 20 ns short pulse x-ray source, and varied the dose. Based on this testing, a hardening strategy to achieve the highest level of radiation tolerance was identified, resulting in an FPGA firmware design that had a high probability of remaining operational in NIF's radiation environment during a high yield shot.


Essays on U.S. Energy Markets. (August 2008) David A. Brightwell, B.S., Illinois State University; M.S. Illinois State University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. John R Moroney This dissertation examines three facets of U.S. energy use and policy. First, I examine the Gulf Coast petroleum refining industry to determine the structure of the industry. Using the duality between cost-minimization and production functions, I estimate the demand for labor to determine the underlying production function. The results indicate that refineries have become more capital intensive due to the relative price increase of labor. The industry has consolidated in response to higher labor costs and costs of environmental compliance. Next, I examine oil production in the United States. An empirical model based on the theoretical framework of Pindyck is used to estimate production. This model differs from previous research by using state level data rather than national level data. The results indicate that the production elasticity with respect to reserves and the price elasticity of supply are both inelastic in the long run. The implication of these findings is that policies designed to increase domestic production through subsidies, tax breaks, or royalty reductions will likely provide little additional oil. We simulate production under three scenarios. In the most extreme scenario, prices double between 2005 and


A new model of neutral spinning particles in scalar‐tensor gravity with torsion is developed by using a Fermi coordinates associated with orthonormal frames attached to a timelike curve and Noether identities. We further analyze its equations of motion both in background Brans‐Dicke torsion field and the constant pseudo‐Riemannian curvature with a constant scalar field. It turns that the particle's spin vector is parallel transport along its wordline in the Brans‐Dicke torsion field and de Sitter spacetime. However, the dynamics of the spinning particle cannot completely determined in anti‐de Sitter spacetime and it requires a further investigation.


ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to compare residential school teachers and dorm personnel's perceptions of their individual and cooperative roles. Fifty (50) certified teachers and 50 dorm personnel at three residential schools for students with sensory impairments participated in this study. Chi‐square procedures were used to process the data. The dependent variables were responses on a 30‐item questionnaire. Results indicated that teachers and dorm personnel in residential settings have statistically similar as well as varied positions about their roles. Implications of the above findings were discussed.


Under the Torrens system, section 340 (1) of the NLC only gives the indefeasibility upon the  registered proprietor. Fraud, misrepresentation, forgery, insufficient or void instrument and unlawful acquisition are the exceptions to the indefeasibility provided in section 340(2) of NLC. Under section 340(3)(a) or (b) of NLC, the person whose title is defeasible, if he had made a subsequent dealing on the land, the new proprietor's title still defeasible. The new proprietor will only get the protection under the proviso to section 340(3) of NLC if he can prove that he is a good faith purchaser. The proviso to section 340(3) applies only to the subsequent transferee and not the first transferee. The purpose of this article is to identify the criterions used by the courts in categorizing that person as bona fide purchaser, the position and the remedy of the bona fide purchaser in land matters. The methodology used in this study is a library based research which includes document analysis, such as the decided cases, book and articles. This study also discusses some suggestions for improvement and outcome to ensure the interests and rights of the parties involved.


The physical and mechanical behavior of alpine meadow in Tibetan Plateau is now attracting widespread attention. In this paper, a series of experiments were conducted to study the influence of roots on hydrothermal behavior of alpine meadow located at Nangqian district, in the east of Tibetan Plateau, China. Root biomass, physical properties and hydrothermal properties were measured at a soil depth of 0–25 cm. The results showed that the root biomass within the depth of 0–15 cm accounts for 86% of the total root biomass. With the increase of soil depth, the root biomass shows a decreasing trend. The hydraulic conductivities and thermal conductivities of alpine meadow soil increase with the decrease of root biomass. There are lower hydraulic conductivity and thermal conductivity of swallow soil (0–5 cm) than that of deep layer soil. For the bottom soil layer, swallow alpine meadow acts as a "cap" and plays a function of ecological barrier of reducing water infiltration and heat transfer. Under the background of global warming, this insight is helpful to understand the relationship between soil hydrothermal properties and natural disasters in Tibetan Plateau.


Abstract This research deals with Mandhumat Al-Fadhila of the great Kurdish poet AbdulRahim Al-Mawlawi. It analyzes the work under study from a semantic point of view. Since many of the linguistic concepts are inferential tools, due to the conceptual semantics they contain, which consequently enforces speech and enrich it with meaning; The research is limited to linguistic inference, trying to shed light on the linguistic mechanisms and techniques that the poet adopted to change the recipient's beliefs and convince him of the subject under discussion. It seeks to highlight the sematic role of the word and the structure, highlighting the linguistic value of the system. The research concludes with many results, including: The text of Al-Fadhila derives its semantic effectiveness from the linguistic level as well as the accuracy of its verbal and synthetic choices that the poet uses to convince his readers about his ideas. Keywords: Semantics, Word, Structure, Al-Fadhila, and Mawlawi.


The United States has long been a leader in software development. True stories of rags-to:riches in the software industry abound? Copyright law has been struggling to keep up with t h e rapid advances in software development and the problems that arise concerning what is copyrightable, what constitutes infringement, and who owns the copyright in software that has been developed. This Article examines the last of these issues: who owns the copyright in software that has been developed by one party for another under the Copyright Act of 1976 ("the 1976 Act"). 2 A critical issue is the application of the "work made for hire" doctrine. A "work made for hire," as defined in the 1976 Act, is: "(1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specifically ordered or commissioned" within one of nine enumerated categories "if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. "3 The 1976 Act considers "the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared" to be both the author of a work made for hire and the initial owner of "all of the rights comprised in the copyright. TM


Clerical work may be classified as follwsw: 1. orrespondence with A,D.M.S. 2. Correspondence withfield ambulnce and battalion head-. quarters. This includes (a) sick report for every sick man sent to a field ambulance; (b) tallies for all wounded; (c) indents for stores. 3. -The, Regimental Aid Post Diary, recording the diagnosis, treatment, and disposal of sick men dealt with by the medical &fficer; and the Sanitary Diary, whieh, should be handed in' daily to the orderly room for inspection and initials of the commanding officer. 4. Other records include (a) nominal rolls of all officers and other ranks in the unit who have had dysentery or enterica, and of all cooks and men employed in the handling of the food. supply. These are kept in order to trace " carriers." (b) Record of inoculations. (c) Notes of all self-inflicted and accidenital wounds, which should be made at the time the medical officer sees the case. The foregoing sketch should, we think, not only give the young surgeon a clear conception of his importance in the chain of medical responsibility in wvar, but demonstrate to other readers that the unit medical officer is the keystone of the arch on which was.built up the finest service which ever served with an army in the field.


Objective:To observe the effects of Gushen capsule on lipidic metabolism and oxygen derived free radidicals in rats model of diabetic nephropathy(DN). Methods:After being resected one kidney and injected with streptozotocin(STZ),the DN rat model was established. Rats were randomly divided into 4 groups.Group 1 was model control group,group 2 was given Captopril and diamicron by gastrogavage,group 3 large dosage of Gushen capsule,group 4 small dosage of Gushen capsule. After 8 weeks of administration,blood lipid,superoxide dismutase(SOD) and lipid peroxide(LPO)in rats of every group were determined respectively. Results:Compared with those in the control group, triglyceride(TG), cholesterol(TC), low density lipoprotein(LDL c) and LPO in the treated groups were lowered. High density lipoprotein(HDL) and SOD in treated groups were higher than those in the control group. There were significant differences among 4 groups. Conclusion:Gushen capsule could not only ameliorate the lipidic metabolism in DN rats ,but also reduce the damage of free radical.


The human leukaemia develops with abnormal increase of blast cells in the bone marrow. Leukaemia is caused by genetic aberrations which activates proto-oncogenes and inactivates tumor-suppressor genes and eventually leads to leukemogenesis. Myelodysplastic syndrome is a preleukemic state which shares similar symptoms and causative factors as leukaemia. FOXO3 and c-Myc have been increasingly recognized as key regulatory genes involved in the initiation and development of leukaemia and myelodysplastic syndromes. Their roles in these diseases is being investigated and findings thus far has indicated that FOXO3 acts as a tumor suppressor while c-Myc has been identified as a proto-oncogene. Currently published literature indicate that there are limited research on the correlation between FOXO3 and c-Myc especially in leukaemia and myelodysplastic syndrome. This review will focus on the key regulatory roles of FOXO3 and c-Myc in leukaemia and myelodysplastic syndrome.


The study assessed the training needs of cashew farmers in Owan East Local Government Area of Edo State, Nigeria. Using structured questionnaire, data were collected from eighty (80) randomly selected cashew farmers in five villages of Owan East Local Government Area of Edo State. The findings revealed that the mean age of the respondents was 46.5 years. Majority (87.5%) of them attended one form of education or the other and about seventy percent of the respondents had been farming for more than 10 years. The tasks performed by the cashew farmers ranged from land preparation to harvesting and storage of farm produce. The study identified strong training needs for cashew farmers in the study area on water management, transplanting, harvesting and storage and nursery preparation. The correlation analysis showed that farming experience had significant relationship with the respondents' training needs (r=0.489, p=0.05). In order to improve performance and increase productivity, adequate training is required for cashew farmers with respect to the identified areas where they indicated needs for training. Keywords: Assessment, Tasks performed, Training Needs, Cashew Farmers, Owan East


Although the people of Bangladesh and the state of West Bengal in India share common cultural practices, they differ in contraceptive adoption and practice. The use of modern contraceptive methods among women and couples of the two Bengals differ from each other. The use of natural method is significantly higher among women and couples in West Bengal compared to that of their counterparts in Bangladesh. The study analyses data from Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) using sequential logit models. Results show that greater reliance on natural methods among women of West Bengal is related to higher preference for sons compared to that in Bangladesh.


The ubiquitous impact of the neoliberal economy on our everyday life leads to questions of rhetorical significance. This project strives to incorporate service labor experience as a source as well as an effect of rhetoric thereby embodying materialist notions of the body at the site of production. I explore neoliberal discourses through the phenomena of outsourcing and offshoring by interviewing service industry employees that have experienced job uncertainty within a Fortune 500 corporation. By studying narratives, this project explores how the material effects of rhetoric are able to determine discourses of power relating to production. Thus, this study questions the persuasive element of being a worker within the precarious and the flexible workspace. It also contends that rhetoric in this regard incorporates material effects upon the body of the worker. In essence, the materialist embodiment of neoliberal's immanence lies within rhetoric.


ABSTRACT. The present paper deals with the cytological studies made on 30 populations of 26 species of the Gamopetalae from selected localities of Western Himalaya. The chromosome counts in Strobilanthes alatus (2n=16), Artemisia vestita (2n=36) and Ainsliaea latifolia (2n=16) were first ever cytological reports for the species. While, Bidens pilosa (2n=96) and Coreopsis lanceolata (2n=26) are new reports from India.


7Li and 1 H magic-angle spinning (MAS) NMR spectra were recorded for Li(Ni.Co,Al)O 2 samples. The 7 Li MAS NMR signal of the layer on the pristine material is close to that of Li 2 CO 3 in close contact with it. Its lineshape, due to dipolar interaction with electron spins of the material, is drastically different from that of pure Li 2 CO 3 . Upon hydration, this layer grows, while 1 H NMR suggests that some lithium in the material is replaced by protons. Upon electrochemical cycling, the original layer is replaced by a different one, the solid electrolyte interphase, with distinct 7 Li and 1 H NMR signatures, showing its largely organic nature.


Low maternal risk perception, poor dietary practice and low adherence to iron and folate tablets among pregnant women are major contributors for higher burden of anemia. Iron deficiency anemia contribute to more than half of Anemia among pregnant women. Thus the level of maternal awareness and attitude towards dietary and other prevention practices of anemia are not well established in the study area. This study was to assess knowledge, attitude and practice of pregnant mothers towards the prevention of iron deficiency anemia in Ethiopia, 2018. Hospital based cross sectionals study was conducted on randomly selected, 128 pregnant mothers attending antenatal care service in Harar town. Data were collected by health professionals using pre tested questionnaire containing socio demographic, knowledge, attitude and practice related questions. Attitude questions were organized in five Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree using positive statements. Similarly, practices were assessed in yes/no (appropriate practices were scored as yes or no otherwise). Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20 using frequency, tables, graphs and means. Pearson correlation with r was used to assess the relationship between knowledge, attitude and practice. Analysis of Variance was used to compare the mean practice by different factors. Knowledge, attitude and practice of pregnant women on preventions of IDA are not satisfactory. Thus poor practice towards prevention of IDA is the main contributing factor for high burden of anemia.


The basic parameters of air environment (air composition, air speed, humidity) for create a comfortable micro climate in buildings are considered. Were presented the advantages and disadvantages of traditional methods for building ventilation natural ventilation, and forced ventilation. The alternative ways for creating a comfortable atmosphere in the buildings were investigated. The qualitative efficiency of ventilation systems with membrane gas-separation technologies has been shown. The work aims are to further study the membrane separation technologies with physics of civil engineering.


We present the synthesis and characterization of spherical polyelectrolyte brush (SPB) particles carrying zwitterionic polyelectrolyte chains. The colloidal particles consist of a divinylbenzene cross-linked poly(styrene) core (PS-co-DVB core) of about 100 nm in diameter onto which linear zwitterionic poly(2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl dimethyl-(3-sulfopropyl)ammonium hydroxide) (pMEDSAH) chains are chemically grafted via ATRP. ζ-Potential measurements demonstrated that the SPB has an electrophoretic mobility due to the net charge of the PS-co-DVB core particles. There is an increase of the brush thickness L of the zwitterionic brush at high concentrations of sodium chloride at room temperature. Temperature-dependent measurements by dynamic light scattering (DLS) showed that the zwitterionic SPBs swell reversibly with increasing temperature because of the upper critical solution temperature (UCST) of the pMEDSAH chains in water. This effect could be enhanced by the addition of salt. Cryogenic transmission elec...


Complexes of the type [Pt(R-CN)Cl3]− were synthesized and studied by 1H, 13C, and 195Pt NMR spectroscopies. The 2J(195Pt-13C) coupling constants are about 240 Hz. The signals due to the cyano carbon atoms of the coordinated ligands were observed at higher fields than those of the free ligands. The shielding on the cyano carbon increases as the alkyl chain lengthens and also when the branching increases. The 195Pt signals of all the complexes were observed around −2000 ppm. The crystal structures of (NMe4)[Pt(C3H7-CN)Cl3] (1) and (NMe4)[Pt(p-HO-C6H4-CN)Cl3] (2) were determined. Compound 1 is monoclinic, P21/c, a = 8.384(5), b = 15.336(19), c = 11.759(9) A, β = 99.52(6)°, Z = 4, R = 0.054, and wR = 0.051. Crystal 2 is tetragonal with a = 16.222(6), c = 12.052(5) A, Z = 8, R = 0.059, and wR = 0.044. The Pt—CL bond trans to the nitrile ligand is shorter than normal (2.276(3) A for 1 and 2.264(7) A for 2) while the two other bonds are normal (2.293(4), 2.287(3) A for 1 and 2.320(7), 2.275(8) A for 2). The Pt—N...


The volcanic province of North-West Turkey contains a number of intra-continental alkaline volcanic eruption sequences formed along the localized extensional basins developed in relation with the Late Cenozoic extensional processes. The volcanic suite comprises the extracted melt products of adiabatic decompression melting of the mantle that are represented by small-volume intra-continental plate volcanic rocks of alkaline olivine basalts and basanites with compositions representative of mantle-derived, primary (or near-primary) melts. The volcanic rocks have near-uniform Sr / Sr (0.70316–70353) and Nd /Nd (0.51291–0.51297; ENd=5.08–6.32) ratios and are characterized by Ocean Island Basalt (OIB)-type trace element patterns with significant enrichment in LILE, HFSE and L-MREE, and a slight depletion in HREE, relative to NMORB. Trace element variations of individual basaltic eruption sequences indicate that each lava sequence shows remarkably similar temporal–compositional trends that are characterized by an increase in incompatible elements and MgO, with decreasing SiO2, as melt production proceeds. Systematic change in incompatible trace element concentrations (and ratios) of the lavas is not reflected by the isotopic ratios, leading to the suggestion that the temporal–compositional trends are not caused by source variations. The variations in melt chemistry with time does not reflect fractional crystallization nor can it be explained by variable proportions of mixing between melts produced by different degrees of partial melting of two (or more) compositionally distinct sources in the mantle. Instead, the observed trends are consistent with a progressive decrease in degree of melting from early-formed alkali olivine basalts to later basanites and systematic mixing between increments of melt derived from the same source but probably at different depths. Quantitative trace element modeling of fractionation-corrected data indicates that the mafic alkaline magmas originated from mixing of melts produced by variable degrees (~2% to 8%) of incremental partial melting of a compositionally uniform, volatile-bearing mantle domain 6) 50–76 0024-4937/$ see front matter D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.lithos.2005.04.003 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: firstname.lastname@example.com (E. Aldanmaz). E. Aldanmaz et al. / Lithos 86 (2006) 50–76 51 that is enriched in all incompatible elements (e.g. LILE, HFSE and L-MREE) relative to hypothetical Depleted MORB Mantle (DMM) and/or Primitive Mantle (PM) compositions. D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


In times of increasing importance of e-commerce solutions, designing for usability has been one focal point of interest of human-computer interaction and marketing research. While internet usability research is progressing tremendously, research on intranet usability is rather scarce. But especially in the firm context, poor usability of intranet portals imposes significant costs on companies as employees need more time obtaining the information they need for their work. The author conducted a laboratory experiment to compare paper-based and computer-based card sorting for usability evaluation and come to the conclusion that there is a significant difference of results regarding the application of the two compared methods optimizing an intranet portal and derive implications for usability testing.


This article presents the consumer view of an innovative m-service, that is, the e-newspaper, which is published for a mobile reading device equipped with an e-paper display. The research question of this article is: What are the implications of the consumer view of future m-service innovation on business models? In this article, we present empirical results from an online survey with 3,626 respondents representing the consumer view. The factor analysis revealed three aspects of consumer preferences, that is, Ubiquitous access, Prestige of news source and Local anchorage and advertising. These were then correlated with media behavior and e-newspaper preferences to indicate three possible market segments. We then discuss the implications that these consumer views could have on developing new business models, followed by a comparison to earlier research. Finally, we propose an integrated e-newspaper business model framework consisting of three models, ubiquitous, local, and prestige.


The utility model discloses a filter core cleaning machine, which mainly comprises a machine frame, wherein the upper part of the machine frame is a cleaning mechanism, the lower part of the machine frame is a cleaning water circulating filtering mechanism, the cleaning mechanism is formed by a sealed cleaning cabin, at least one cleaning structure is arranged in the cleaning cabin, the lower part of the cleaning structure is a transmission gear, the transmission gear is matched with a rotating motive power gear, rolling brushes are fixedly arranged on the transmission gear, filter core fixing rods are uniformly distributed on the periphery of the rolling brushes, and cleaning structures are connected through the transmission gear, spray cleaning pipes are arranged at both sides of the cleaning cabin, the spraying cleaning pipes are connected with a pumping pressurizing water pipe, and an after-cleaning water outlet opening communicated with the cleaning water circulating filtering mechanism is arranged on the bottom of the cleaning cabin. The utility model organically combines the cleaning mechanism and the cleaning water circulating filtering mechanism, the cleaning water is in cyclic utilization, at the same time, a large number of filter cores can be cleaned in one step, and in addition, the sewage after cleaning can be effectively controlled, and the utility model has the characteristics of high work efficiency, water saving and environment protection.


A brief introduction the characteristics,forms,working principle and sorts of CO sensors are given,the general situation of the mainly application areas is summarized.The CO sensor's develop future is introduced.


In this work we pay attention to the characteristics of millisecond spikes in relation to the general activity in which they are included, processes with very different time scales. Observations were provided by the Trieste Astronomical Observatory (OAT) radio polarimeters in 237, 327, 408, 610, 1420 and 2695 MHz, with 100 Hz temporal resolution. Some complementary data were obtained from open sources in Internet (Goes X‐R, SOHO images, etc.)The waiting time distribution between individual maxima (flux >10 sfu) was calculated searching for self‐organized criticality. Left and right polarization components were analyzed separately. The analyzed temporal interval presents two activity periods. The first related to HXR and gamma emission with both polarization millisecond events, and the following activity period is dominated by the right polarized component events. This behavior is considered evidence of two different dominant generation mechanisms for millisecond events.


Multivariate regression analysis (partial least squares) of gaschromatographic and IR-spectroscopic data to predict important properties of aviation turbine fuels (kerosine type) is described. In a two step approach first a calibration model is established by correlating analysis data of a representative set of samples with their experimentally determined properties and then applied to unknowns. It is demonstrated that this allows the prediction of flash point, freezing point, density, viscosity, aniline point and aromatics at adequate confidence levels with a minimum of manual work and time.


Primary prevention through the use of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination is expected to impact both cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and adenocarcinoma in situ (AIS). While CIN is well described, less is known about the epidemiology of AIS, a rare cervical precancer. We identified AIS and CIN grade 3 (CIN3) cases through population‐based surveillance, and analyzed data on HPV types and incidence trends overall, and among women screened for cervical cancer. From 2008 to 2015, 470 AIS and 6,587 CIN3 cases were identified. The median age of women with AIS was older than those with CIN3 (35 vs. 31 years; p < 0.01). HPV16 was the most frequently detected type in both AIS and CIN3 (57% in AIS; 58% in CIN3), whereas HPV18 was the second most common type in AIS and less common in CIN3 (38% vs. 5%; p < 0.01). AIS lesions were more likely than CIN3 lesions to be positive for high‐risk types targeted by the bivalent and quadrivalent vaccines (HPV16/18, 92% vs. 63%; p < 0.01), and 9‐valent vaccine (HPV16/18/31/33/45/52/58, 95% vs. 87%; p < 0.01). AIS incidence rates decreased significantly in the 21–24 year age group (annual percent change [APC] overall: −22.1%, 95% CI: −33.9 to −8.2; APC among screened: −16.1%, 95% CI: −28.8 to −1.2), but did not decrease significantly in any older age group. This report on the largest number of genotyped AIS cases to date suggests an important opportunity for vaccine prevention of AIS, and is the first to document a decline in AIS incidence rates among young women during the vaccine era.


As an important support technology,the study of localization in wireless sensor network(WSN) is valuable.In this paper,a particular analysis for approximate point-in-triangulation test(APIT) algorithm is made, and an improvement of it is proposed. The simulation shows that the improvement algorithm reduces the probabilities of judgement error compared with the original one.


The present invention relates to a polyunsaturated hydrocarbon thioether mercaptan of the method, which in the reactor, with the addition of hydrogen, using a heterogeneous catalyst and carried out in the presence of 1-butene. Object of the present invention is to develop this type of process, to improve the C4 stream created by the raw materials used in the value. By way such that the mole ratio of hydrogen to unsaturated hydrocarbon is no more than 1 hydrogen metered into the reactor to achieve this purpose.


The market of natural and organic cosmetics is growing rapidly. The beauty industry can be no longer ignoring the voices from"green consumer". More consumers are requiring that cosmetic companies to creat more natural-based, preservative free products, that are naturally fragranced and healthy for skin. Major brands are also playing on these themes. Some natural and/or organic ingredients and some cosmetic companies who produce the organic cosmetics are introduced.


Mobile devices are increasingly becoming the dominant device for Internet access. The network throughput achieved by a mobile device directly affects the performance and user experience. Throughput measurement techniques thus play an important role in predicting expected performance. Measurement techniques that require the transfer of large amounts of data can provide higher accuracy but incur large overhead. Further, since most mobile cellular plans impose usage quota, the overhead of such measurements over cellular networks can become quite high. Smaller data transfers have also been used to measure the throughput. Due to the conservative TCP slow start behaviour, however, these measurements often underestimate the achievable throughput. Considering these weaknesses in existing throughput measurement techniques, we propose a throughput estimation technique for TCP Cubic that uses 1 MB of data transfer to predict the throughput for prevalent large transfer sizes in mobile traffic such as 5 MB, 10 MB and 20 MB. Our evaluation shows that our approach can achieve high accuracy with low overhead, in predicting the achievable throughput.


In this paper we have discussed about various applications based on ARIoT. Ultimately, an augmented reality based IoT system in the era of E-commerce .When making purchasing decisions at a retail location we will pick up the material and examine it closely, looking at the pictures. Through "augmented reality" customers can take their twodimension experience with products to three-dimension. Deliveries can be tracked through IoT capabilities. By that they can obtain the efficient result through the real world


As women constitute a most valuable part of society and development of a society is mainly dependent on the development and participation of women. The population of women in the country also nearly half of its total population. In India there is huge amount of poverty and unemployment and to solve such problems entrepreneurship may be an effective tool through which unemployed people may get job or start their business and thereby reduce poverty. Women entrepreneurship is the mechanism through which women empowerment can be enhanced. But the participation of women in entrepreneurial activities are very less as compared to male entrepreneurship. Opportunities are available but they want proper utilization of opportunities. So there is need to develop participation of women in entrepreneurial activities in the Vaishali district of Bihar so that there will be equal opportunities for women also for the empowerment.


In this letter we describe modeling of an E‐beam‐controlled discharge operated in gas mixtures containing mainly argon with approximately 10% krypton and a few tenths of a percent fluorine. The discharge physics is dominated by electron impact ionization and excitation of the rare‐gas metastables. The ionization of the metastables impacts the discharge stability directly while their excitation strongly affects the efficiency of pumping KrF*. Predictions of the model are compared with experimental results.


The author discusses the legal effects of the must-carry rule on the enforcement of the right of cable retransmission when broadcasting RTV programs of special importance. She focuses on the issue of determining the scope of a payment default from the second and third paragraphs of Article 112 of the Media Act (ZMed) in relation to the exercise of the right of cable retransmission, in particular whether the payment defaults also relate to copyright on the RTV programs of special importance and to the question of interpretation of the scope of the remuneration exemption when the cable retransmission right is managed individually. The author notes that the must-carry rule does not exclude the obligation of the operator from the title of acquisition of the right of cable retransmission, even if this right is managed individually. The free of charge clause from Article 112 of ZMed refers solely to the prohibition of the payment of access to the transmission signal itself. They do not relieve operators of the obligation to regulate copyright and related rights in connection with RTV programs of special importance. The author concludes by proposing a legislative amendment of the third paragraph of Article 112 of the ZMed.


A challenge in teaching usability engineering is providing appropriate hands-on project experience. Students need projects that are realistic enough to address meaningful issues, but manageable within one semester. We describe our use of online case studies to motivate and model course projects in usability engineering. The cases illustrate scenario-based usability methods, and are accessed via a custom browser. We summarize the content and organization of the case studies, several case-based learning activities, and students' reactions to the activities. We conclude with a discussion of future directions for case studies in HCI education.


Immediate treatment of a stroke can minimize long-term effects and even help reduce death risk. In the ischemic stroke cases, there are two zones of injury which are ischemic core and ischemic penumbra zone. The ischemic penumbra indicates the part that is located around the infarct core that is at risk of developing a brain infarction. Recently, various segmentation methods of infarct lesion from the MRI input images were developed and these methods gave a high accuracy in the extraction and detection of the infarct core. However, only some limited works have been reported to isolate the penumbra tissues and infarct core separately. The challenges exist in ischemic core identification are traditional approach prone to error, time-consuming and tedious for medical expert which could delay the treatment. In this paper, we study and analyse the segmentation algorithms for brain MRI ischemic of different categories. The focus of the review is mainly on the segmentation algorithms of infarct core with penumbra and infarct core only. We highlight the advantages and limitations alongside the discussion of the capabilities of these segmentation algorithms and its key challenges. The paper also devised a generic structure for automated stroke lesion segmentation. The performance of these algorithms was investigated by comparing different parameters of the surveyed algorithms. In addition, a new structure of the segmentation process for segmentation of penumbra is proposed by considering the challenges remains. The best accuracy for segmentation of infarct core and penumbra tissues is 82.1% whereas 99.1% for segmentation infarct core only. Meanwhile, the shortest average computational time recorded was 3.42 seconds for segmenting 10 slices of MR images. This paper presents an inclusive analysis of the discussed papers based on different categories of the segmentation algorithm. The proposed structure is important to enable a more robust and accurate assessment in clinical practice. This could be an opportunity for the medical and engineering sector to work together in designing a complete end-to-end automatic framework in detecting stroke lesion and penumbra.


With the development of high speed milling,it has been used as a finish working procedure of mould machining.Milling remain height is main factors that affects surface roughness.The actual milling procedures and scan surface formed by cutter edges are analyzed and explained.The scan surface equations are also constructed.Through resolving the intersection of scan surface,the milling remain height of ball end tool could be calculated.The method can avoid the theory error.At last some new and useful results has been obtained.


Case scenario Mr Brown is going to work on a construction site in northern Mozambique, along the coastline, for a year. Mrs Brown and Jimmy, her 16-year-old son, and Julie, her four-year-old daughter, will be going to stay with him for two weeks in December. Jimmy has severe acne, and has just started a course of Roaccutane®. He is looking forward to scuba diving while there. Mrs Brown is on Cymbalta® for her depression. What malaria prophylaxis would you recommend for them?


In this paper, we present an improved RRT-based motion planner for autonomous vehicles to effectively navigate in cluttered environments with narrow passages. The planner first presents X-test that can identify passable narrow passages, and then perform an efficient obstacles-based extension operation within passable narrow passages. In order to generate a smooth trajectory for the vehicle to execute, a post-process algorithm with trajectory optimization is proposed. For the purpose of demonstrate benefits of our method, the proposed motion planner is implemented and tested on a real autonomous vehicle in cluttered scenarios with narrow passages. Experimental results show that our planner achieves up to 13.8 times and 7.6 times performance improvements over a basic RRT planner and a Bi-RRT planner respectively. Moreover, the resulting path of our planner is more smooth and reasonable.


— The concept of administration has started to have varying definitions in the globalizing world. Efforts are put at both local and international level to ensure more democratic, more participatory and more transparent administrations. Under the light of these developments, the European Charter of Local Self Government carries utmost importance to bring a more modern structure to local governments at international level. Fulfillment of the requirements of the Charter by local governments is a major necessity both for state administration and for local people. First, the local administration system in North Cyprus (NC) will be reviewed in this study. Then, the European Charter of Local Self Government will be examined and compliance of the legal framework and practices in NC with the charter will be discussed. Thus, it will be determined if NC has a modern local government approach. There are limited studies in literature which investigate the level of compliance of the local government system in NC with the European Charter of Local Self Government. In this respect, the understanding of locality in NC is utterly important for its national democracy. This study was planned as a qualitative research. Data were mainly collected by document reviews and interviews. In the study, all written and non-written sources, mainly legal documents associated with the theme of the study, were reviewed in detail. Furthermore, opinions of field experts were taken. The study outcome provided that the local government system in NC is largely compliant with the European Charter of Local Self Government. However, the fact that laws of NC comply with the Charter does not mean requirements of the Charter are complied with in practice. Shortly, there are numerous problems with the practice in the local government system in NC. Solutions to the concerned practical problems are provided in the recommendations section of this study. It believed that this study will shed light on practices in the local government system in NC.


Bo, O.O.: Lurias theory and the psychometric tradition. Nordisk Psykolgi, 1986, 38(3), 177–193. Up to now the diagnostic work based on Lurias theory has been linked toan impressionistic method. At the same time very little is done to test the theory itself in a more objective and statistical way. The possibility of making the diagnostic procedure more valid and the procedure easier through the application of psychometric methods is challenging. Even though Luria himself disregarded this approach, it is both possible and desirable. Statistical testing of his theory through analysis of carefully selected test items measuring primary deficits is possible and should be undertaken.


This chapter develops understanding of how to work with other professionals in schools; considers how best to deploy teaching assistants (TAs); highlights recent research and guidance on deploying TAs; helps practitioners to reflect on their values and beliefs in relation to its impact on working with TAs


The aim of this research is to find out the influence of chili prices, chili production in the previous year, land area, price of leek on the chili supply in Kepahiang regency. This study covers the period 2004-2018, using secondary data in the form of panel data which is analyzed using multiple linear regression and the existing data is processed using the Eviews 9.0 computer program. The results of data analysis showed that the independent variable was the price of chili, the previous year's chili production and the area of land were positive and had a significant influence on the dependent variable that is chili production. While the price of scallion has a negative coefficient value and does not have a significant influence on chili production in Kepahiang regency. Keywords: Chili Prices, Chili Production , Land Area, Previous Year's Chili Production,  Price Scallion


In this paper, the tender appreciation methods in China are analyzed. Then, it indicates, that there are many uncertainties and fuzzy factors in the course of appreciating tender, so the appreciation specialists can't make correct decision in a short time, resulting in the failure of selecting the object accurately. In this paper, the thoughts and methods of fuzzy set theory are introduced into the appreciation of tender and a fuzzy appreciation model for bidder is found. This model can select the object quickly and correctly through quantifying those uncertainties and fuzzy factors. At last, an example is given as illustration.


The tomato cultivar resistant to leaf mold was screened by innoculation identification at seedling stage,the effect of the following factor on disease index was studied,the factor included seedling age of plant,concentration of innoculated fungi,temperature and time of innoculation.The optimal condition of seedlings inoculation identification for tomato leaf mold disease is as following:The 6th-true leaf seedling;The culture time of fungi for leaf mold disease is 20 days;The oncentration of inoculated fungi is 10 7;The temperature of cultivating yong seedlings after inoculation is 22℃ $$$$


We developed a multichannel ultra-wideband radar RF front-end for measurements of snow cover thickness. We accomplished a significant reduction in weight, volume, power consumption and cost with respect to previous implementations, enabling the collection of multichannel data in nadir-looking mode by using an airborne sparse antenna array. In this paper, we discuss the design and implementation of the RF front-end, laboratory tests to validate its performance, and initial results from flight tests conducted with a compact radar demonstrator. We anticipate that the application of array processing techniques to the data collected will aid improving detection capabilities in areas with complex topography and/or significant surface roughness.


During the last stages of the Marcommani Wars in the late second century A.D., Roman literary sources recorded that the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was planning to annex the Germanic territory of the Marcomannic and Quadic tribes. This work will propose that Marcus Aurelius was going to create a province called Marcomannia. The thesis will be supported by archaeological data originating from excavations in the Roman installation at Musov, Moravia, Czech Republic. The investigation will examine the history of the non-Roman region beyond the northern Danubian frontier, the character of Roman occupation and creation of other Roman provinces on the Danube, and consult primary sources and modern research on the topic of Roman expansion and empire building during the principate.


The blood pantothenic acid concentrations of the pregnant women showed the lower levels than that of the non-pregnant women at the same age classes. The oral administration of 60 mg. of calcium pantothenate per day did not raise the low blood levels of bound pantothenic acid of women at the 7-8th month of pregnancy. However, the blood levels of free pantothenic acid were raised remarkably by the administration of calcium pantothenate. The author expresses his thanks to Prof. E. Takahashi and to Dr. S. Kamiyama for their valuable suggestions.


This paper assesses the effect of remittance money amongst other variables on the economic growth of Africa through the experiences of Cameroon, Kenya, Lesotho, Morocco and Nigeria which are situated in different sub-regions, and sub-regional schemes and are representative of the classification table of remittances into Africa. Data for the study is collected from the World Bank Development Indicators, covering a period of 31 years from 1980 to 2010. The estimation technique used for this study is the two stages least square method. The analyses (both descriptive and empirical) showed that remittance money has a positive and significant effect on economic growth in both the aggregate model and disaggregated models. The paper concludes that these findings are important and should be taken into consideration in the design of prgrammes and policies relating to remittances in Africa. In fact, the behavior of this variable should be incorporated in the approaches, programmes and policies of remittances in the different sub-regions and economic groupings in Africa. Really, an important conclusion is that ways should be explored to increasingly channel remittance money to productive investments.


Financial intermediaries worldwide are seeking mechanisms for participating in micro lending. We consider a simple model where a bank may use informed local capitalists as intermediaries for on-lending. But the availability of multiple credit sources provides borrowers with an incentive to default voluntarily, making the bank's on-lending mechanism a non-starter. We explore whether a coalition of local capitalists, effectively limiting borrower's opportunity for defaulting multiple times, might be sufficient to facilitate on-lending. Instead, we find that a monopoly moneylender with superior enforcement technology can out-compete the local capitalist coalition if the moneylender also enjoys the smallest transactions costs of lending. We how that a credible competitive threat to the monopoly moneylender can only arise if the local capitalist coalition can also be made cost-effective either by direct subsidies or by measures such as standardization, economies of scale and implementation of best practices. We argue that Franchising is one potential mechanism that could deliver both cost-efficiencies as well as ability for local capitalists to form a coalition.


With the rapid growth of the Internet and the increase in the use of mobile devices, social media has grown rapidly in recent years. Without using appropriate representation techniques, processing methods and algorithms, it is difficult to get patterns, trends and opinions that are of interest to companies, organizations and individuals. Sentiment classification, which is one of the most popular mining tasks on the textual part of the social media data, aims to classify comment texts by their polarity. Textual features such as terms, n-grams combined with the NLP techniques are commonly used for this task. Our aim in this study is to see the effect of additional features on Twitter sentiment classification that are extracted from structured data related to the tweets and the Twitter users associated with these tweets. In addition to the use of terms in tweets as features i.e. traditional bag-of-words model, we employed tweet term usage based attributes along with Twitter user based attributes and showed that these additional attributes increase the accuracy of class substantially. Keywords-component; Sentiment Analysis; Sentiment Classification; Machine Learning; Feature Engineering; Feature Extraction;


Knowledge management is a critical component of every customer care process. Any organization that aspires to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction must focus on empowering its customer care representatives with sufficient knowledge of their products and services and make it available at the right time. The focus must be on the knowledge base, its organization and its availability within an acceptable time for retrieval. The knowledge base should be current and it should be accessible with minimum effort. This paper discusses the essential elements of knowledge management in the context of customer care for the telecom industry, with the objective of making retrieval of information quick and easy for customer care representatives. The ideas can be easily extended to other business domains.


Background: using root beet powder pigments without extract or using organic solvents, to study the stability of pigments in model foods tomato paste, strawberry jam, juice, and burger, and to perform preliminary studies consumer acceptance of model foods containing them. Objective: The overall aim of this study was to use microencapsulation technique to increase the stability of red beet pigments as the natural colorant and use it to improving red color in food models. Results: Strawberry jam, tomato paste and burger were chosen as models to study the stability of pigments in foods, and consumer acceptance of model foods containing them. The color degradation of natural pigment from red beet powder was studied in pH, and temperature during the time was used to quantify the degradation process. The remaining absorbance at 535 nm as a function of the incubation at different values of pH for 120 hours was used to quantify the degradation process. The red beet pigment encapsulation with glycerol by freeze drying was better stabilized efficiently for pH values. unmodified pigment was reduced more than 40% with the increase of pH values. encapsulation red beet pigment was the most thermos resistant with a remaining absorbance of 95 % after 6 h at 150 °C. unmodified of red beet pigment showed remaining absorbance percentages of 64.22%, 21.38% and 8.14%, after 3 h at 150 °C respectively. In general, based on sensory evaluation data, strawberry jam could be successfully with encapsulated red beet powder without any adverse effects. Betacyanin and betaxanthin in foods with encapsulated red beet pigment were the highest content. Betacyanin content 5.84, 4.16 and 3.28 in burger, tomato paste and strawberry jam respectively. Betaxanthin content 3.13, 2.96 and 2.31 in burger, tomato paste and strawberry jam respectively. Conclusion: this study would be helpful in establish the betalain encapsulation techniques for increasing its stability as powdered food grade colorants.


Zooplankton in temporary ponds is often collected with gear originally designed for lakes, and mostly unsuitable for sampling shallow habitats. We describe a new simple and inexpensive device for sampling zooplankton in very shallow, vegetated temporary ponds. We tested the sampling efficiency by comparing species composition and density of cyclopoid copepods, an important component of the zooplankton, by sampling with both the new bag sampler and a plastic beaker frequently employed for collections of zooplankton in small waterbodies. With the bag sampler we collected a larger number of species and higher densities of copepods due to its higher efficiency in vegetated areas and near the sediment. The beaker appeared to sample almost only the water surface. The samples collected with the bag sampler revealed a distinct distribution of copepod life cycle stages in a shallow pond, which differed between depths and microhabitats. Additional advantages of the bag sampler are its small size and weight, and the possibility of fast exchange of sample bags between sample locations, thus preventing accidental faunal exchange between sample locations. We conclude that the bag sampler is a device especially useful for sampling zooplankton of shallow ponds and wetlands rich in vegetation, for diversity studies as well as for quantitative sampling. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)


Water scarcity is a worldwide problem, which leads to unprecedented pressure on water supply in arid and semi-arid regions. Treating wastewater is an alternative water resource, therefore, its reuse for agricultural irrigation has been growing worldwide since the beginning of the 21st century. In several regions of wine-producing countries (e.g., Australia, California – USA, Spain), wastewater reuse appears to be the most accessible alternative, both financially and technically, for agricultural uses that notably do not require drinking water. From the summer of 2022, vine irrigation full-scale implementation will start with tertiary treated municipal wastewater in the French Languedoc region. This was made possible thanks to a collaborative research project conducted between 2013 and 2018 to address all potential health and environmental risks associated with this process. This research project was conducted in the south of France, with experimental and control plots both equipped with drip irrigation systems. All the results produced during the research project demonstrated the feasibility of applying this process for vine drip irrigation while effectively managing health and environmental risks and complying with the regulation (treated water microbiological quality). A social acceptance and economic study were also performed in order to broaden the scope of the project scalability evaluation.


Li Jianxun was a prominent politician who served as the prime minister of the Southern Tang Dynasty, and his life and poetry creation experienced three historical stages, including late Tang, Yang Wu and the Southern Tang Dynasty. During this period, the southern region became the most richest area in China. The loose political environment and prosperous economy made it possible that the wealthy elite groups could cultivate an elegant and otherworldly personality and allowed the Southern Tang poems to have access to the unique value of the gradual transformation from "poems of Tang style" to "poems of Song style". Li Jianxun's pursuit of noble personality was typical at that time. His poems, which were not only the successor of Tang Poems but also the predecessor of Song Poetry, were in truth a typical example of artistic transformation from Tang Poetry to Song Poetry.


ABSTRACT A tiny spherical cavity will expand unboundedly in a homogenous incompressible neo-Hookean solid when the applied hydrostatic tension reaches five times of the shear modulus of the solid. Such phenomenon is usually referred as cavitation in a soft solid. In the previous studies, the soft solid is often assumed to have homogeneous mechanical properties. In this paper, the effects of inhomogeneity have been investigated by assuming the shear modulus in the solid varies affinely with the radial coordinate. A bifurcation problem is considered for a graded neo-Hookean solid subjected to uniform hydrostatic tension on the external boundary. We find that the cavitation solution with a traction-free internal cavity can be analytically expressed using hypergeometric function. For large hydrostatic tension, the equilibrium configuration can bifurcate from the trivial solution (no cavity) to the cavitation solution (cavity occurs). Both the trivial solution and cavitation solution can be stable and unstable determined by minima of their potential energy. When the external hydrostatic tension is greater than a critical value, the internal cavity can expand both continuously or discontinuously inside the solid. We hope the results obtained in this article will be helpful to understand the cavitation phenomenon in complex soft materials.


Piezoelectric ceramic has a wide application prospect in self power supply,which features a simple structure,no pollution,high energy density and easy manufacturing.The performance and type of piezoelectric materials and the principle of piezoelectric effect are analyzed,with the types of existing vibration energy collectors listed.


Fenghuangshan,may be translated in English as the Pheonix Mountain,is the place of the origin of the She ethnic minority,one of the fifty-six ethnic groups of China.She people's ancestors were once the most influencial group in the East Guangdong area.Now,Fenghuangshan's She people still keep their ethnic ritual tradition:Zhaobing Festival(Heavenly Soldier Recruiting Festival),and it has been passed down for many generations.This tradition does not exist in other She regions.The festival is celebrated only in Fenghuangshan as She's ethnic culture.With accomplished studies,from the theoretical view of ethnic corridor,this article is going to discuss the characteristics of She's religious culture,the patterns of religious syncretism and the ways local elites converse with the inland political powers.Meanwhile,scholars can learn about ancient She people's military strategy and combat knowledge,via understanding the symbolic records in the Fengqing Zhaobingshu(Book of Reverent Request Heavenly Soldier) script.


In this paper, a new two-way adaptive search mutation strategy is proposed, and a "two-way evolution strategy" (TWES) is established. The experimental results show that TWES yields much faster convergence than classical evolution strategies. This paper also discusses the relationship between the parameter setting and the convergent speed by TWES.


In the world of education evaluation is mandatory to measure the level of success educational process. Computer-based Test often make students fail because of incorrect filling of biodata . This research to measure the level of similarity student identity so small mistake made by participants can be tolerated by the computer when filling of biodata and ultimately can reduce the failure rate of computer-based Test participants. This research is very important considering the change of Study methods this time to using of technology. By using approach of Levenshtein Distance method can detect the resemblance of biodata of exam participants so that when seen there is similarity it can improve the writing of wrong data. By implementing this method into the problem correction application according to the needs of the system in Bimbel Expert . Keywords : Levenstain Distance, Similarity Of Data, Examination .


Sexual isolation between two species of North American plethodontid salamanders (Desmognathus imitator and D. ochrophaeus) from a locality where they are sympatric was investigated by staging a series of 40 intraspecific and 40 interspecific sexual encounters. Only 5% of interspecific encounters resulted in insemination of the female, indicating a high degree of sexual isolation between these species (Stalker's index of sexual isolation = + 0.88). Behavioral observation revealed that, in 80% of interspecific sexual encounters, males apparently ignored heterospecific females and failed to initiate even the preliminary stage of courtship, during which the male actively pursues the female. Evidence of a role for chemical stimuli in maintaining sexual isolation was obtained in experiments in which males were exposed to different types of odors in a Y-maze olfactometer. Males of both D. imitator and D. ochrophaeus preferred conspecific over heterospecific female odor. This result supports the hypothesis that interspecific courtships fail because heterospecific females produce inappropriate chemical cues.


Leadership in construction services company is important in an age of modern organization there is want to democratization in the implementation of the human resource construction work and leadership in the construction company . there is possibelities cause of bad leadership style is a decrease in the performance of human resources will impact at the performance of the human resource construction


Abstract A series of bis-hydroxamic acids was prepared by the condensation of the aminoacids glycine, β-alanine, and γ-aminobutyric acid, with succinyl and adipoyl chlorides followed by conversion of the terminal carboxyl groups to hydroxamic acids (HA). Mole ratio plots of iron chelation indicated that 3:1 HA: Fe complexes exist at pH 4 and 6, but that 2:1 HA: Fe complexes are the prevalent species at pH 2. Differences in spacing had little effect on the iron complexing ability as measured through competition equilibria with EDTA. The six bis-hydroxamic acids were subjected to a bioassay screen designed to select compounds possessing in vivo iron removal activity for potential use in treating iron overload in Cooley′s Anemia. All of the six compounds had some activity. The bis-hydroxamic acid derived from succinic acid and γ-aminobutyric acid was particularly active, almost as active as the standard drug desferrioxamine-B.


The article presents a simple agency model of the relationship between corporate valuation and insider trading laws. The article then investigates the model???s three testable hypotheses using firm-level data from a cross-section of developed countries. I find that more stringent insider trading laws and enforcement are associated with greater corporate valuation among the sample firms in common countries, while they are generally irrelevant to corporate valuation for the sample firms in civil law countries. This puzzling dichotomy is robust to various alternative specifications and to controlling for a wide range of potentially omitted variables. The result for the firms in common law countries is consistent with the claim that insider trading laws can help to reduce corporate agency costs. I also find that insider trading laws and cash flow ownership appear to be complementary means to reduce agency costs, contrary to my hypothesis that they are substitute mechanisms for controlling agency costs; however, this result is generally statistically insignificant. Finally, I confirm prior findings of an ???incentive effect??? of greater cash flow ownership by controlling shareholders.


OBJECTIVE:To observe the effect of Buflomedil Injection plus backwards traction and functional exercises on the hemorheology of patients with vertebral artery type of cervical spondylosis. METHODS:Sixty patients with vertebral artery type of cervical spondylosis were treated with 0.2 g Buflomedil Injection (diluted with 500 mL 0.9% Sodium Chloride Solution or 5% Glucose Solution,q.d by slow iv gtt for two courses of treatment with 7 days defined as 1 course) plus backwards traction and functional exercises. Patients' hemorheologic parameters including blood viscosity high shear rate,blood viscosity low shear rate,plasma viscosity,erythrocyte aggregation index,erythrocyte rigidity index,hematocrit,and fibrinogen etc were detected before and after treatment. RESULTS:Before treatment,all the hemorheologic parameters were significantly higher than the reference values of healthy adults(P0.05). While after treatment,all parameters except hematocrit were down-regulated(P0.05). CONCLUSION:It is effective to treat vertebral artery type of cervical spondylosis with Buflomedil Injection plus backwards traction and functional exercises in that it can significantly improve vertebrobasilar hemorheology.


Evidenced-based research has shown that the current Grade R implementation in South Africa is fraught with challenges and with what some researchers construe as a misunderstanding of the aims of Grade R education. In response to research and current heated discourse which has emanated from it, this paper poses the question "What is quality Grade R practice in the South African context?" As a conceptual paper, it first explores the contested nature of Grade R and the aims that align with three informing approaches to Grade R practice. We then set out possible indicators of a quality Grade R programme in the South African context and then argue for a particular approach that could begin to realise quality Grade R practice in South Africa today.


The resource constrained multi-project scheduling problem (RCMPSP) has predominately been addressed in deterministic environment. Yet, uncertainty is inherent to real-life problems and the rise in adopting projects and portfolios in managing business organizations has initiated growing interest in considering stochastic aspects when developing a resource schedule. Priority rules (PR) is a common approach to solving the RCMPSP avoiding its computational complexity. Since the performance of PRs is highly dependent on project context, it is necessary to study the performance of PRs with real-life cases. The current study presents an application of 17 priority rules to a portfolio of deep-water construction projects. The results confirm previous results obtained from the literature and gives project and portfolio managers insights about the adequacy of different PRs with respect to schedule quality and robustness.


A comparison of reception measures with meteor showers over five-year periods indicates an accompanying increase of night fields and a decrease of day fields. The highest correlation appeared between monthly means of meteor hour rates and night fields. No associated disturbance of terrestrial magnetism was found.


Dark-adapted third-stage Trichonema larvae were orthokinetically stimulated by light. The response soon reached a maximum and then gradually decreased, the larvae then being inactive as long as they were kept in light. The rate of response was independent of intensity, and was a constant for any one age. Inactive larvae were activated by a mechanical stimulus, and were therefore only insensitive to light. The larvae needed 3 h adaptation in darkness before responding fully to a further light stimulus. Dark-adaptation required continuous darkness; larvae exposed to a flashing light responded as if in continuous light. The presence of a light-sensitive mechanism is postulated. I thank Professor B. G. Peters for discussion of this work, and for reading the manuscript.


Using the MICS instrument on CRRES, we have examined high charge state magnetospheric ions in the energy range 20–400 keV/Q, believed to be originally solar wind material, as well as singly charged Oxygen and helium. We will present survey plots of MICS data from the whole CRRES mission. These show a number of interesting features. In particular, it can be seen that the generic feature of storm bulk ring current composition changes is the emergence of a concentration of ionospheric material at low (L=3) altitude, and its rise to higher L‐shells during the recovery. By contrast, solar wind material remains preponderantly at higher L‐shells, and a belt of ring current alphas forms around L=4. The altitude of the peak in ionospheric material is a strong function of Dst. Substorms are seen to reflect the background composition at energization, with onset properties apparently unrelated to injection composition, but may contribute to the upflow of oxygen subsequent to onset. During the solar storm of March 199...


The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of Acinetobacter sp. strain AQ5NOL 1 immobilised in gellan gum beads to degrade phenol in the presence of heavy metals. Seven different heavy metals, namely, As5+, Cu2+, Cd2+, Ni2+, Cr6+, Pb2+, and Hg2+ at 1 ppm were tested. Results of the study showed that degradation of phenol by free cells was inhibited by Hg2+, Cu2+ and Cr6+ after 48 hours of incubation by 97.91 %, 77.58 % and 75.26 %, respectively. Only Hg2+ and Cr6+ inhibited phenol degradation by immobilised Acinetobacter cells in 18 hours by 67.55 % and 53.19 %. Phenol degradation by immobilised cells was affected when Cr6+ and Hg2+ concentrations exceeded 0.5 and 0.1 ppm, respectively. However, inhibitory effects of heavy metals can be overcome by prolonging the incubation time for immobilised Acinetobacter sp. strain AQ5NOL 1 from 18 hours to 24 and 30 hours for Cr6+ (46.80 %) and Hg2+ (21.40 %), respectively.


Objective The tested hypothesis states that by manipulating body position, a differentiation in the optimum body position for ocular vestibular-evoked myogenic potential (oVEMP) testing could be obtained. Patients and methods The present study was conducted on 33 ears (33 healthy adult volunteers) with no age or sex limit or any ontological complaint in the audiology unit of Alexandria Main University Hospital. Pure-tone audiometry, tympanometry, and oVEMP testing were performed. Ocular VEMP was performed in four different positions − sitting, supine, right decubitus, and left decubitus positions. Ocular VEMP waveforms were analyzed regarding morphology, latency, amplitude, and threshold. Results (a) oVEMP was present in 90% of the studied cases. (b) The sitting position produced the shortest latencies. (c) The independent position provided the largest amplitude. (d) The dependent position elicited the highest thresholds. Conclusion Although the best position for oVEMP test could not be determined by the present study, the trends found support that the sitting position may be preferred for future oVEMP testing based on the short latencies produced in this position. On the other hand, high thresholds were obtained in the dependent (left decubitus) position, which indicates that it is the least favorable position.


Human not only rely on nature,but also beyond the natural world,they transform the nature,meanwhile affected by the natural world.Harmony between human and nature is both antagonistic and unified,We must grasp the relationship of unity and opposition between human and nature,create a good situation as harmonious society between human and nature,then promote the nature to adapt to the human survival and development.


Submitted for the MAR08 Meeting of The American Physical Society Magnetoplasmon excitations in Rashba spintronic quantum wires: Maxons, rotons, and negative-B dispersion MANVIR KUSHWAHA, University of Puebla, Puebla, Mexico — We report on the theoretical investigation of plasmon excitations in a quasi-two-dimensional electron gas in the presence of a harmonic potential, a perpendicular magnetic field, and the spin-orbit interaction (SOI) induced by the Rashba effect. The resultant system is a Q1D quantum wire with free propagation in the y direction and magnetoelectric quantization along the x. The problem involves three length scales: l0 = √ h̄/m∗ω0, lc = √ h̄/m∗ωc, and lα = h̄2/(2m∗α), which characterize the relative strengths in the interplay of confinement, the magnetic field, and the Rashba SOI. The resulting Schrödinger-like equations are two coupled equations, which cannot be solved in an explicit form. However, invoking the limits of a strong magnetic field, lc ¿ l0, and kyl0 ¿ 1 allow us to solve this set of coupled equations exactly. We then derive and discuss the dispersion relations for collective excitations within the framework of BohmPines' RPA. The intrasubband and intersubband magnetoplasmons in a Q1DEG are characterized, respectively, by the negative-B dispersion and the magnetoroton excitation. Here we scrutinize the effect of the Rashba SOI on these characteristics in depth. We observe that the SOI modifies drastically the behavior of both magnetoplasmons in the long wavelength limit and may render them relatively more susceptible to the Landau damping in the short wavelength limit. Manvir Kushwaha University of Puebla, Puebla, Mexico Date submitted: 07 Nov 2007 Electronic form version 1.4


Analysis of the products formed by the addition of N-phenylpyridium betaines to some unsymmetrical alkenes revealed that the 2-methyl-or-mehtyl-or 2-phenyl-N-phenylpyridinium betaine tends to form the reverse orientation products, whereas the unsubstituted N-phenylpyridium betaine gives the expected orientation.


Both Zhuangzi and Soren Kierkegaard use fables to portray humorous and clever insights about life. Here two fables are drawn from the first chapter of the Zhuangzi and compared from a variety of perspectives with two fables found in Kierkegaard's Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits. Questions about the value of comparing oneself with others, the character of dependence and independence, and matters related to self-identity and utility are explored. Contrasts related to theological concerns in Kierkegaard and their absence in Zhuangzi, as well as the former's promotion of wuwei spontaneity rather than Kierkegaard's emphasis on making determined choices are highlighted.


by the means of literature,this article elaborates the origin and development of Board Shoes Dance of Chuang in the Red River basin and studies its culture and social function.Board Shoes Dance has many social functions.It can enhance national cohesion,inherit and promote national culture,educate people,build body and bring entertainment and promote economy development.It is essential and feasible to incorporate Board Shoes Dance into the curriculum system of P.E speciality in high schools.This can enrich the teaching content of P.E and perfect its forms.


This paper addresses the question of which large–sample binomial confidence interval method to teach in elementary courses. Recently, Goodall (1995), Simon (1996), and the references therein, have discussed the merits of several large–sample systems of binomial intervals. Three of the systems considered these articles are the z-interval, a "t-based interval," and a continuitycorrected interval, the latter denoted by c-interval herein. The 95% nominal z limits are p̂± 1.96× S.E.(p̂) (0.1) whereS.E.(p̂) = √ p̂× (1− p̂)/n is an estimate of the standard error of p̂. Thet-intervals widen the (0.1) limits by using a larger critical point; they are p̂ ± t × S.E.(p̂), wheret is the two-sided upper-0.05 critical point of thet-distribution withn− 1 degrees of freedom. The c-intervals are p̂± 1.96× {S.E.(p̂) + 1/2n} ; (0.2) they also widenz-intervals but do so by increasing S.E.(p̂) with a "continuity correction." Simon (1996) compares the achieved coverage of these systems for sample sizes 5 to 40. He concludes "thet-based interval achieves better coverage than the z-based interval," and furthermore that thec-intervals are an attractive alternative to t-intervals. This article suggests that a third alternative to z-intervals, calledq-intervals herein, should be strongly preferred in elementary courses to either o c-intervals. First,q-intervals are more easily motivated thanz-intervals because they require only a straightforward application of the Central Limit Theorem (without the need to estimate the variance of p̂ and to justify that this perturbation does not affect the normal limiting distribution). Second, the q-intervals do not involve ad-hoc continuity corrections. Third, q-intervals have substantially superior achieved coverage than either thet or thec systems. For teachers who are interested in learning more advanced material on this subject, there are several systems of "exact" intervals that have been proposed for the binomial problem. Here exact


Background: Nmnat3 is considered a mitochondria-localized NAD synthesis enzyme. However, its physiological function in vivo remains unclear. Results: Loss of Nmnat3 results in drastic depletion of the NAD pool and stalls the glycolytic flow in mature erythrocytes. Conclusion: Nmnat3 deficiency causes splenomegaly and hemolytic anemia in mice. Significance: This report reveals the essential role of Nmnat3 in mature erythrocytes. NAD biosynthesis is of substantial interest because of its important roles in regulating various biological processes. Nicotinamide mononucleotide adenylyltransferase 3 (Nmnat3) is considered a mitochondria-localized NAD synthesis enzyme involved in de novo and salvage pathways. Although the biochemical properties of Nmnat3 are well documented, its physiological function in vivo remains unclear. In this study, we demonstrated that Nmnat3 was localized in the cytoplasm of mature erythrocytes and critically regulated their NAD pool. Deficiency of Nmnat3 in mice caused splenomegaly and hemolytic anemia, which was associated with the findings that Nmnat3-deficient erythrocytes had markedly lower ATP levels and shortened lifespans. However, the NAD level in other tissues were not apparently affected by the deficiency of Nmnat3. LC-MS/MS-based metabolomics revealed that the glycolysis pathway in Nmnat3-deficient erythrocytes was blocked at a glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) step because of the shortage of the coenzyme NAD. Stable isotope tracer analysis further demonstrated that deficiency of Nmnat3 resulted in glycolysis stall and a shift to the pentose phosphate pathway. Our findings indicate the critical roles of Nmnat3 in maintenance of the NAD pool in mature erythrocytes and the physiological impacts at its absence in mice.


....................................................................................................................... v TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................. x INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 Systemic Sclerosis ...................................................................................................... 1 Interstitial Lung Disease........................................................................................... 2 Treatment Options .................................................................................................... 3 Biomarkers ................................................................................................................ 5 Objective/Aims .......................................................................................................... 8 METHODS ......................................................................................................................... 9 Ethics Statement ........................................................................................................ 9 Study Subjects ........................................................................................................... 9 Sample Collection .................................................................................................... 11