prepared by the spray pyrolysis technique on optical micro slide glass at substrate temperature 793 (± 5) K. The relationship between the antimony doping level and the electrical, structural and optical properties of the films were investigated. The X-ray diffraction patterns showed that the films are polycrystalline. The grain size varies from 28.19 to 33.59 nm. Atomic force microscopic study revealed the surface of SnO 2 :Sb to be made of nanocrystalline particles. The electrical study has revealed that the films are degenerate and exhibit n -type electrical conductivity. The SnO 2 :Sb films had a minimum resistivity of 0.28 × 10 -4 Ω cm, maximum carrier density of 37.6 × 10 19 cm -3 and mobility of 590 cm 2 /V.s. The sprayed SnO 2 :Sb film having minimum sheet resistance of 0.17 Ω /cm 2 , highest figure of merit of 135 × 10 -4 Ω -1 at 550 nm. The sheet resistance attained for the doped film in this study has been lower than the values reported for 2 wt % antimony doped tin oxide films prepared from aqueous solution of SnCl 2 ·2H 2 O precursor. The obtained results revealed that the structures and properties of the films were greatly affected by doping levels.


This artwork is in response to the 25th anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The greatest ecological catastrophe humankind has ever seen, Chernobyl is the most significant nuclear disaster to date, and has been the subject of increased reflection in the light of the recent explosion at the Fukishima nuclear plant.
Using the recurring motif of a yardstick placed within each of the interiors, the act of entering and photographing these spaces, of interrupting this place beyond human control, provides a challenge to the viewer to consider the nature of artistic construction itself. The photographs encourage us to stare back into the past, into empty manmade spaces, yet the yardsticks (a means of measurement now fallen into disuse, much like the buildings themselves) play with notions of association, interpretation and memory on material fact, on that which is recorded, measured, articulated and analyzed. How we relate to these places as we animate the works with our own presence is brought into sharp focus by this act of interference by the artist.
Atomgrad (Nature Abhors a Vacuum) is a suite of large-scale photographic C-prints on aluminium. The photographs were taken in the abandoned, and now almost entirely uninhabited town of Pripyat, situated within the 30km wide Exclusion Zone around the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The works take their title from term used by Ukrainian locals to refer to the former 'Atomic City' founded in 1970 to house workers from the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and deserted just sixteen years later.


Provided are a method and device for spatially positioning an object in a three-dimensional virtual reality scene. The method includes the steps of: acquiring the drive data generated by manipulating an object in a three-dimensional virtual reality scene by external equipment which is capable of acquiring three-axial drive data (21); converting the drive data into a three-axial motion offset (22); and judging whether the motion offset is 0, and moving the object, the motion offset of which is not 0, for components of three axes to achieve positioning of same (23).


In Harvesting is one of the most critical stages of the production system of a culture because it can determine seed quality and productivity. The research objective was to evaluate the physico-chemical and physiological fruit and sesame seeds harvested at different stages of maturation. Sesame capsules were taken from the middle randomly chosen plants in the area. Treatments consisted of capsules collected in three periods: at 75, 90 and 105 days after seedling emergence, respectively. In a completely randomized design with four replications were evaluated mass of 1000 seeds, fruit length, fruit diameter, oil content, percentage of emergency and Emergency Rate Index (ERI). It was observed that all variables were influenced significantly to the fruit maturation. The length of the fruit showed a pattern similar to the diameter where the capsules with a lower percentage of moisture decreased in size compared with the capsules 75 DAE. Sesame fruits from plants at 75 days after emergence originated seeds with low oil content (48.53%), emergency low percentage (50.9%) and lower ERI (6.65). We concluded that the harvest sesame BRS Seda at 75 days after seedling emergence negatively affects the seed weight, oil content, percentage of emergence and speed Index emergency. The capsules of sesame BRS Seda that show yellowish or light brown are able to harvest.


The effect of transforming growth factors-β (TGF-βs) in the regulation and control of cell growth is widely studied, but the capability of these cytokines to regulate chondrocyte cell functions such as migration, cell death, prolifera- tion, differentiation and wound repair is not clearly understood. In this work the effect of TGF-β1 on the biological regula- tion of chondrocyte was evaluated using a model wound closure assay. The experiments were carried out on primary chon- drocyte cells with fibroblast like and chondrocytic phenotypes. The cells were isolated from knee articular cartilage of five day old Sprague-Dawley neonate rats and seeded at low density to obtain a fibroblast like morphology. Chondrocytes with chondrocytic phenotype were derived by seeding at high density.The results revealed that TGF-β1 slowed down prolifera- tion and migration of cells into a model wound. It was also found that cell attachment, as determined by the detachment time during trypsinization, was greater for cells with a fibroblast like morphology when compared with cells exhibiting chondrocytic morphology. Treatment with TGF-β1 was found to increase the detachment times of fibroblast like chondro- cytes, indicating that TGF-β1enhanced cell attachment of this cell type, whilst treatment with TGF-β1 decreased detach- ment time for the chondrocytic type chondrocyte cells indicating that TGF-β1 decreased cell attachment in these cells.


The present invention provides a power converter control circuit having the burst mode of depth, which comprises a load detection circuit and a pulse width adjustment circuit. The load detection circuit generates a switching control signal according to a feedback signal. A feedback signal associated with the load condition of the power converter. Pulse width adjusting circuit according to the switching control signal and the feedback signal generates a switching signal, adjust an output of the power converter. When the load condition of the power converter is a very light load, the control circuit performs a deep burst mode, to a depth of each burst period to the switching signal to switch only once. Therefore, the switching loss is reduced, so that the power consumption of the power converter is reduced in the same manner.


Domestic violence, not just against women, doesn't occur accidentally. It is like cancer that slowly and inconspicuously devastates those affected by it. The danger is in its generational transfer, making it hard to get rid of this old familiar habit. Domestic violence is a specific problem with historical and social roots. In recent times, the problem has been strongly promoted through the media, which has helped to better inform the public. Governments, and especially non-profit organizations, have noticeable tendencies to solve this problem. According to the released statistic details, the most frequent victims of domestic violence are women, who are the focal point of this bachelor thesis and who cannot escape without help from outside intervention. This bachelor thesis deals with the question of the role of woman-victim in society, with the roots of domestic violence, and with the assistance given by professionals. The work is divided into two parts: theoretical and practical. The descriptive/theoretical part wasn't chosen by random, because the main accented questions are mentioned in the interviews I made with those professionally adherent with domestic violence.


Indonesia Tourism Website is one of the promo- tion of alternative tourism and culture of Indonesia through the internet. With this website, make it easier for tourists to nd information on tourist attractions, hotels, restaurants, shopping, maps, and transportation. But still limited, be- cause it has not provided an online booking facility, only the address information and phone numbers only. The de- sign of this website is made with Unifed Modeling Language (UML), and the manufacture are made with PHP, MySQL, and Dreamweaver 8. With this website to provide complete and current information as a guide to travel in Indonesia. Bibliography (2004-2009)


The present work represents a theoretical investigation of the performance of a solar air-heated desalination system using humidification-dehumidification (HDH) technique based on closed-water, open-air cycle under the geographical conditions of Dhahran (26.5°N, 50.2°E), Saudi Arabia. The HDH desalination system is suitable for small-scale decentralized fresh water production. It essentially consists of a tilted, twopass solar air heater, a humidifier, a dehumidifier in addition to a storage tank. In this system, air alone is heated in the solar air heater. A simulation program is developed based on mass and energy balance. The governing equations are simultaneously solved using Engineering Equations Solver (EES) to investigate the effect of the main design and operating parameters on the productivity of the water desalination system. It is found that the tilted solar heater outperforms the horizontal one by about 7% whereas the humidifier performance has a significant effect on the system productivity. Using a selective surface an increase the desalted water productivity by 39% compared to the units that do not have a selective surface.


A ΔΣ fractional-N Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) with fast Auto-Frequency Calibration (AFC) is presented in this paper. The proposed PLL employs a dual-core Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO), a programmable Frequency Divider (FD), a Phase/Frequency Detector (PFD), and a replica biased Charge Pump (CP) with static offset current to compensate fractional spur, etc. This PLL is intended for a China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting (CMMB) TV tuner. The design is implemented in a 0.18-μm CMOS process and occupies an area of 2.1 mm×0.92 mm including the on-chip third-order loop filter and the digital circuits. The simulated power consumption is 10 mA at a 1.8 V supply voltage. The simulation result of the phase noise satisfies the CMMB specification. Also, with the help of a fast AFC scheme, the proposed PLL achieves fast settling performance. The settling time is less than 50 fis in typical case including both coarse tuning and fine tuning.


This work presents a theoretical model for the damping force of a magneto-rheological fluid (MRF) shock absorber of an off-road motorcycle. The Bingham plastic model and a 3D electromagnetic finite-element analysis are employed to develop a theoretical model to estimate the damping force of a MRF shock absorber. The mode is based on the physical parameters of the device as well as the properties of the fluid, making a valuable tool in shock absorber design for a particular application. By comparing the theoretical and experimental results, it is demonstrated that the model accurately predicts the damping force.


A description is given of an Apple II based Auger spectroscopy datasystem specifically designed for depth profiling applications. Software features which are not available on commercial systems are emphasized. In particular, the utility of peak overlap and noise threshold subtraction routines are demonstrated with reference to two examples of practical profiling.


In this paper we investigate the potential causes of failure of a diamond window unit employed in the experimental tokamak ASDEX Upgrade in Garching, Germany. The window unit features a double-disc configuration that allows for a more complex transmission spectrum than with a single disc and is used in conjunction with step-tunable gyrotrons for electron-cyclotron heating of fusion plasmas. The window unit failed during high-power operation as a consequence of a crack in one of the two diamond discs. The event that initiated the crack is unknown. Two possible reasons have been investigated in detail: high stress on the diamond due to bad quality of the brazing and due to localized power depositions. The first is investigated by computer tomography imaging of the brazing, the second by means of a custom ray-tracing code that uses a "hybrid" approach that accounts for the waves' phase, thus reproducing the effects of interference.


Considering concept formation of service-oriented public policy, the main stages of its development are discussed and some of the modern trends of service-oriented policymaking in Ukrainian legislation are analyzed. Some features and tendencies are identified in order to improve the quality of interaction between citizens and public administration system in Ukraine. This paper aims to analyze the concept formation of service-oriented public policymaking in Ukrainian legislation and the implementation process of e-services delivery in Ukraine. In spite of significant studies of "service state", "welfare state", "service-oriented public policy" and other concepts, current unique political and legislative factors of Ukrainian development determine the relevance of this paper. The primary focus of the paper is efficiency analysis of legislative ensuring of administration services in the Ukrainian context in comparison with the experience of other countries. That was implemented via such methods as comparative analysis, interpretation of statistical indexes of e-services delivery and documentary research method. The paper has been organized as follows. The next section provides a literature review on the concepts of public-state interaction. Then word experience and peculiarities of Ukrainian background of e-services delivery efficiency are considered.


Since the mid 1990s, a new era of biomechanical studies has been launched by the development of optical methods. With its high force sensitivity, optical tweezers promised to be a potent tool for the investigation of single molecules. The introduction of optical probes such as polystyrene and silica beads allowed biological macromolecules to be investigated with optical tweezers. The molecules of interest were bound to the bead and allowed to interact with other beads or a functionalised cover slip surface. In addition, optical tweezers were used as a single-molecule technique to investigate the mechanical function of proteins involved in intracellular transport and other processive activities, such as DNA and RNA replication. The most intensive applications so far of optical tweezers have focused on linear motors which move along a linear track. This work resulted in a large number of reports published on kinesin mechanics. With the development of experimental setups for the detection of single 8 nm steps of kinesin on microtubule filaments [1], the way was paved for the extensive characterisation of the kinetic and biochemical function of this motor protein. The stalling force [1, 2], the rate of the movement depending on the ATP concentration [2, 3] and the impact of load on the catalysis of ATP [3, 4], to name a few, have all been characterised by optical tweezers. In this report, we demonstrate the kinesin movement on microtubules with the JPK NanoTrackerTM, demonstrating its high spatial resolution. The NanoTrackerTM simultaneously records displacement and force data, yielding steps and stalling forces in a single measurement.


Disclosed herein is a heat exchange type cooling apparatus for a transformer, including: an insulating oil circulation pipe configured in a closed circuit form so that an insulating oil filled in the transformer is discharged to the outside and then returns again to the transformer; an insulating oil pump configured to transfer the insulating oil; and an insulating oil cooling system configured to cool the insulating oil, wherein the insulating oil cooling system includes: a liquid refrigerant maintained in a liquid state during the entire circulation cycle; a refrigerant circulation pipe configured to circulate the liquid refrigerant; a refrigerant pump configured to transfer the liquid refrigerant; and a heat exchanging part configured to heat-exchange the liquid refrigerant and the insulating oil with each other to cool the insulating oil.


In this paper, we propose a way to improve the classification performance of support vector machines (SVMs), especially for speech and music frames within a selectable mode vocoder (SMV) framework. A myriad of techniques have been proposed for SVMs, and most of them are employed during the training phase of SVMs. Instead, the proposed algorithm is applied during the test phase and works with existing schemes. The proposed algorithm modifies a kernel parameter in the decision function of SVMs to alter SVM decisions for better classification accuracy based on the previous outputs of SVMs. Since speech and music frames exhibit strong inter-frame correlation, the outputs of SVMs can guide the kernel parameter modification. Our experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has the potential for adaptively tuning classifications of support vector machines for better performance.


English is one of the widely-used languages in the world as Konig (1990) confirms this by stating that roughly 700 million people on the earth speak it. In some countries it is used as a mother tongue whereas in other countries it is used as a second language, which means they use it as an official language even though they have their own native tongue. In Turkey, English is considered as a foreign language and it is taught/learnt for international communication with other nations. Thus, this study was conducted with 101 students enrolled in one of the prestigious state universities in Istanbul and 32 teachers working in this same institution so as to determine their perspectives towards English language learning and teaching in Turkey by taking "EIL" into account. Although both learners and teachers agree upon the international status of the English language and they feel the need to learn or teach it, only half of the learners think that English language does not belong to the United States and United Kingdom any more whereas 81% of the teachers think in this way. Additionally, nearly half of the students and half of the teachers participating in the study claim that new varieties of English language (e.g. Euro-English) will appear in the near future. Results of the study also suggest some implications for education.


Objective To Investigate the HIV rapid oral testing rate and analyze the influential factors of the MSM (man who have sex with man) in Beijing.Methods Using the snowball sampling method,an anonymous questionnaire of 621 MSM was carried out in park,public baths,bar,internet bar and private club in Beijng.Chi-square test and logistic regression test were used to analyze the result.Results The rapid oral testing rate of the 621 MSM in Beijing was 66.97%.The results showed that the independent factors for the testing rate were: age,place,HIV blood testing history,whether the test was anonymous,testing by MSM care group,knowledge level of AIDS,sex behavior paten,and other factors.Multivariate analysis showed that the influence factors were age(OR 2.06,95% CI 1.40-3.03) 、place(OR 0.44,95% CI 0.29-0.67),and keeping secrete of the test result(OR 1.65,95% CI 1.13-2.41).Conclusions ≤35 years old and keeping secrete of the test result showed higher rate of testing.Group in the park(park,public bath) showed lower testing rate than in the bar.

Key words:
MSM ;  HIV ;  Rapid test ;  Dangerous sexual behavior


Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems are among the major types of Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and are responsible for monitoring and controlling essential infrastructures such as power generation, water treatment, and transportation. Very common and with high added-value, these systems have malware as one of their main threats, and due to their characteristics, it is practically impossible to test the security of a system without compromising it, requiring simulated test platforms to verify their cyber resilience. This review will discuss the most recent studies on ICS testbeds with a focus on cybersecurity and malware impact analysis.


im portance for the treatment of patients with retinoblastoma. Functional results, that may be expected following sight sa ving therapy, can be deducted from ophthalmoscopic fin dings. Large tumors, tumors located centrally, the presence of extensive retina! detachment or diffuse vitreous seeding are poor prognostic signs. Histopathologie findings of the enucleated eye harbouring retinoblastoma correlate weil with the incidence of metastatic disease. Patients in whieh the tumor has invaded the choroid, optic nerve or sclera have a high risk of developing metastases.


Over the past few years, we have seen an increasing popularity of crowdsourcing services [5]. Many companies are now providing such services, e.g., Amazon Mechanical Turk [1], Google Helpouts [3], and Yahoo! Answers [8], etc. Briefly speaking, crowdsourcing is an online, distributed problem solving paradigm and business production platform. It uses the power of today's Internet to solicit the collective intelligence of large number of users. Relying on the wisdom of the crowd to solve posted tasks (or problems), crowdsourcing has become a promising paradigm to obtain "solutions" which can have higher quality or lower costs than the conventional method of solving problems via specialized employees or contractors in a company. Typically, a crowdsourcing system operates with three basic components: Users, tasks and rewards. Users are classified into requesters and workers. A user can be a requester or a worker, and in some cases, a user can be a requester/worker at the same time. Requesters outsource tasks to workers and associate each task with certain rewards, which will be granted to the workers who solve the task. Workers, on the other hand, solve the assigned tasks and reply to requesters with solutions, and then take the reward, which can be in form of money [1], entertainment [7] or altruism [8], etc. To have a successful crowdsourcing website, it is pertinent to attract high volume of participation of users (requesters and workers), and at the same time, solutions by workers have to be of high quality. In this paper we design a rating system and a mechanism to encourage users to participate, and incentivize workers to high quality solutions. First, we develop a game-theoretic model to characterize workers' strategic behavior. We then design a class effective incentive mechanisms which consist of a task bundling scheme and a rating system, and pay workers according to solution ratings from requesters. We develop a model to characterize the design space of a class of commonly users rating systems– threshold based rating system. We quantify the impact of such rating systems, and the bundling scheme on reducing requesters' reward payment in guaranteeing high quality solutions. We find out that a simplest rating system, e.g., two rating points, is an effective system in which requesters only need to provide binary feedbacks to indicate whether they are satisfied or not with a solution.


Temperature and strain sensitivities of surface acoustic wave (SAW) and hybrid acoustic wave (HAW) Brillouin scattering (BS) in 1-1.3 μm diameter optical microfibers are simulated. In contrast to stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) from bulk acoustic wave in standard optical fiber, SAW and HAW BS, due to SAWs and HAWs induced by the coupling of longitudinal and shear waves and propagating along the surface and core of microfiber respectively, facilitate innovative detection in optical microfibers sensing. The highest temperature and strain sensitivities of the hybrid acoustic modes (HAMs) are 1.082 MHz/℃ and 0.0289 MHz/µε, respectively, which is suitable for microfiber sensing application of high temperature and strain resolutions. Meanwhile, the temperature and strain sensitivities of the SAMs are less affected by fiber diameter changes, ranging from 0.05 to 0.25 MHz/℃/µm and 0.0001 to 0.0005 MHz/µε/µm, respectively. It can be found that that SAW BS for temperature and strain sensing would put less stress on manufacturing constraints for optical microfibers. Besides, the simultaneous sensing of temperature and strain can be realized by SAW and HAW BS, with temperature and strain errors as low as 0.30-0.34 ℃ and 14.47-16.25 µε.


The prose produced by Ai Qing during the early period of Anti-Japanese War,are prime Anti-Japanese literature articles,which are rigid,uncompromising,subjective and rich in emotion.The author creates the air of art and vivid images by using concise descriptions,and expresses his revolutionary passion by using artistic language,which are rare among Anti-Japanese literature articles with the tendancy of being realistic in writing.


Summary Groups of CBA/CaJ and B‐cell deficient CBA/N mice were infected with Trypanosoma rhodesiense EATRO 1886 strain. Survival, parasitaemia, serum Ig levels plus specific trypanosomal IgM and IgG antibodies were assayed and compared during infection. Whereas both strains of mice had similar parasitaemias during the first week of infection, CBA/N parasitaemias were lower than those observed in CBA/CaJ mice during the subsequent study period. Antibody responses, specific for T. rhodesiense antigens, peaked on day 10 after infection in CBA/CaJ mice, then rapidly declined. However, antibody responses in CBA/N mice remained elevated throughout the study. In addition, the kinetics of specific IgG and IgM varied in CBA/N mice: IgG antibody was detected on day 4, whereas specific IgM was detected on day 16. This unique relationship between the appearance of IgG and IgM antibody may explain the longer survival observed for B‐cell deficient CBA/N mice infected with T. rhodesiense.


In this study we consider the problem of production planning of TFT-LCD(Thin Film Transistor - Liquid Crystal Display) production factory. Due to the complexities of the TFT-LCD production processes, it is difficult to schedule the production planning, and the study about automated scheduler is insufficient. In addition, the existing production method is a Push-System to raise the operation rate with expensive equipment, that has the problem to satisfy the due-date. This study presents an algorithm having a concept of Pull-System that satisfies the due-date and considers specialties of TFT-LCD production process. We make MPS(Master Production Schedule) according to the sales order, and present algorithms for scheduling about In/Out plan considering factory capacity, line balancing, material requirement, and inventory level of all Array, Cell, and Module processes. These algorithms are integrated as an automated production system, and we implement them in the actual TFT-LCD factory circumstance.


This article explores three important dimensions of the work and trajectory of Camilo Barcia Trelles: his understanding of the Monroe Doctrine; his vision and contribution to the debates in Latin America and the United States over intervention and the codification of American international law; and how his own understanding of the intellectual legacy of Francisco de Vitoria shaped his views and approaches to these topics. The article argues that Barcia Trelles provided a Spanish Americanist version of international law in the Americas, according to which, following the Spanish conquest of America and Vitoria's important contribution to international law, a irreversible division began to emerge between the two Americas, that is, the Latin American and US traditions of international law, especially since the US Declaration of Independence, the collapse of the Spanish Monarchy and the independence of the Spanish American republics.


Taking Shiyang River Basin as study area, Considering that the road net building is influenced by the industry, structure of resources, the road building policy, the highway net construction policies and the other transport patterns, so a concept of highway dependence-preference index is put forward, which is used to explain the variation between the actually obtained highway net densities and the values obtained by model calculation. The results show that:The density of road network in Shiyang River Basin is outward decay along the center of Jinchang and Wuwei City. The distribution density of road network is zonal shape from the south of Tianzhu county extending to the Jinchuan District, Jinchang City. Social developments of the Shiyang River Basin depend on the road network strongly, with two Counties/Districts in the super dependence or super preference situation, 28 towns in strong dependence or strong preference situation, which accounting for 26.67% of all townships in Shiyang River Basin. The medium dependence or medium preference situation is about 44 towns, which accounting for 41.9% of all counties in Shiyang River Basin. 24 countries/districts are in the less dependent or weak preference, and 7 countries/districts are in the weak dependent or weak preference situation. Besides, the study also found that the counties city center also formed basically a small group of road network, the region and part of key towns may become a potential area of the density of road network development in the future.


Afferent arteriole (Af-Art) resistance is modulated by 2 intrinsic nephron feedbacks: the vasoconstrictor tubuloglomerular feedback (TGF) and the vasodilator CTGF. TGF is mediated by NKCC2 channel in the macula densa and blocked by furosemide; and CTGF is mediated by ENaC in the connecting tubule and blocked by benzamil. Previously we measured CTGF indirectly, by differences between TGF response with and without CTGF blocker benzamil. Thus, using this indirect measurement we reported that Dahl SS have greater CTGF than Dahl salt-resistant rats (Dahl SR). We have recently developed a new method to measure CTGF more directly and we found that when we simultaneously blocked TGF with furosemide and CTGF with benzamil, the increasing tubular perfusion caused Af-Art constriction (TGF-like) that is mediated by the NHE. W e hypothesize that in vivo during simultaneous inhibition of NKCC2 and the NHE, CTGF causes an Af-Art dilatation revealed by an increase in stop-flow pressure (P SF ) and that is greater in Dahl SS than in Dahl SR in a high salt diet. In the presence of furosemide alone, increasing nephron perfusion did not change the P SF in neither Dahl SS nor Dahl SR. When we blocked both, NKCC2 with furosemide and NHE with DMA, increase in tubular flow caused Af-Art dilation that was demonstrated by an increase in P SF . This increase was greater in Dahl SS (5.1±0.4 mmHg) than in Dahl SR (2.9±0.3 mmHg; P


The invention relates to a switching device for a portable tool, in particular a drilling and / or chisel hammer, having at least one mode selection unit (14), the at least one movable, in particular rotatably mounted operating element (16) to a selection of a mode of the portable machine tool , and having at least one locking unit (18) to a locking of the operating element (16) in at least one movement position of the operating element (16), in particular in at least one rotational position of the operating element (16). It is proposed that the locking unit (18) has at least one movably mounted locking element (20) which triggers an electrical and / or electronic signal to a circuit of a mode of the portable machine tool in response to a locking position of the locking element (20).


In addition to being monochromatic, directional, and coherent, laser light can emit high energies which can damage optics. Optics for use with lasers often contain dielectric reflective or anti-reflective (AR) coatings consisting of alternating layers of high and low indices which can easily be damaged by the high energy and power densities associated with laser light. Failures in the bulk optical substrate itself are rare. These coatings generally break down before optical materials do. Damage can manifest in many ways and may be stable or grow in number or size over time, with most failure mechanisms occurring within the coating or at the coating/ glass interface. These failure mechanisms can reduce the LDT of an optic by a factor of 100 or more depending on many variables. LDT testing certifies that optics and their coatings are capable of withstanding the extreme radiation and thermal energy densities of high power lasers without being damaged. Since the laser damage threshold of the optic is typically the limiting factor for the peak power that can be used in a laser system, a close look at LDT is critical before selecting the right components.


The best ebooks about Biomechanics In Clinical Dentistry that you can get for free here by download this Biomechanics In Clinical Dentistry and save to your desktop. This ebooks is under topic such as biomechanics in clinical dentistry asymex biomechanics in clinical dentistry neppco biomechanics in clinical dentistry wadner biomechanics in clinical dentistry campen biomechanics in clinical dentistry sbmu dental biomechanics uc biomechanics http://centistryiu biomechanics in clinical dentistry maneqt biomechanics of oral mucosa journal of the royal society biomechanics studies in dentistry: bioengineering applied orthodontics school of dentistry biomechanics in dentistry crcnetbase free ebooks aligner orthodontics: diagnostics the biomechanical foundation of clinical orthodontics by innovative biomechanics for orthodontic correction of biomechanics: principles and applications unified approach to the biomechanics of dental implantology esthetics and biomechanics in orthodontics, 2e pdf biomechanics of the oral tissues linkspringer masters in clinical dentistry (restorative and cosmetic "update on biomechanics of oral & maxillofacial implants orthodontic biomechanics: treatment of complex cases using basic biomechanics of dental implants in prosthetic dentistry biomechanics and strain mapping in bone as related to bio-esthetics: giving a new face to smile enhancements laboratory evaluation of orthodontic biomechanics the masters in clinical dentistry (implantology) programme a dentist's guide to implantology welcome to the suny downstate medical center and polytechnic institute of the influence of mechanical loads on the biomechanics of biomechanics of maxillary expansion and protraction in official journal of japan prosthodontic society journal of restorative implant dentistry program book biomechanics of dental implants handbook for fellowship/mastership national sponsor travel student research program college of dentistry sheath bone formation and biomechanics on dental implant free download biomechanics and esthetic strategies in biomechanics of dental prostheses crcnetbase implant abutment connection: biomechanical perspectives dentistry (dent) bulletin | marquette university college of dentistry the university of illinois at chicago pdf | 2mb | clinical impression vol 6 (1997) no 2 unlv school of dental medicine advanced education in bone modeling: biomechanics, molecular mechanisms, and engineering computer methods in biomechanics and biomedical


Left-ventricular non-compaction (LVNC) cardiomyopathy is an arrest in the normal process of myocardial compaction and few cases have been reported just after pregnancy. In this case report, we present a patient who had heart failure symptoms at first month of after 38 weeks pregnancy. Echocardiography revealed prominent trabeculation and deep intertrabecular recesses at the left ventricular with an impaired ejection fraction. There is no specific treatment for LVNC just after pregnancy besides the usual management of dilated cardiomyopathy.


ABSTRACT It is now clear that Basel III, a much discussed set of proposals to govern the international banking system drawn up by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, has fallen far short of its creators' aims. Even more puzzlingly, this is not without precedent. Eleven years ago, partly in response to the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the Basel Committee attempted to overhaul global banking rules in order to enhance the stability of the global financial system. The culmination of its five-year efforts, the Basel II Accord, was abandoned by regulators before ever being fully implemented. In this paper, I ask why Basel II failed to meet the Basel Committee's original objectives and why Basel III has met a similar fate. Drawing on recent work on the politics of global regulation, I present a theoretical framework which emphasizes the importance of timing and sequencing in determining the outcome of rule-making in global finance. The success of this framework in explaining the failure of Basel II and Basel III is an invitation to scholars in the field of International Relations to take 'time' seriously as an analytical variable.


Two new and keenly anticipated books by young American theorists, Steven Rings's Tonality and Transformation and Dmitri Tymoczko's A Geometry of Music: Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice, re-examine the fundamental tenets of how we think about tonal music. Reading these books in close succession, what is most striking is that although they seem to depart from a similar premissçthe rethinking of tonal theory from a mathematical perspectiveçtheir emphases are decidedly different, revealing significant philosophical divergences in their approaches to theory and analysis. Each author wrestles in his own way with the legacy of David Lewin, arguably the most influential theorist of the last thirty years. Lewin's research, particularly his magnum opus Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations (New Haven, 1987; repr. Oxford and NewYork, 2007), has led to a variety of mathematical formalizations and analytical tools, including 'neo-Riemannian' theory, which reframes chromatic progressions of triads as transformations in a mathematical space based on Hugo Riemann's Schritte andWechsel. Rings's Tonality and Transformation is explicitly framed as continuation of Lewin's project both from a technical and a methodological angle, particularly in the focus on analytical close reading and the use of a variety of transformations to model different 'hearings' of a passage. And though Tymoczko has been critical of several aspects of Lewin's theories, his 'geometry of music' is unthinkable without the precursor of neo-Riemannian theory, which similarly emphasizes close voice-leading connections between chords. The two authors draw on different branches of mathematics: Tymoczko on geometry, and Rings (like Lewin) on group theory, a branch of abstract algebra. One of the main differences between the approaches is that Rings's groups of operations relate discrete points, while Tymoczko's geometries describe a continuous space. Intriguingly, this same opposition was essential to Boethius' classification of the mathematical arts of the quadrivium: while music and arithmetic dealt with discrete quantities (multitudes), geometry and astronomy dealt with continuous quantities (magnitudes). The apparently abstract and mathematical choice between geometry and group


In this work we present main correlations of ordinary differential equations computational solution, based on the previously suggested interpolator procedure which differs from the known approaches with the application not to the sought-for function but to its derivative. With specific reference we show that this method of ordinary nonlinear differential equations system solving provides an error reduction by a huge ratio in comparison to the three-point difference scheme of the 5th accuracy order.


The invention relates to a method for operating a rail vehicle having a plurality of wheels; comprising at least one driven/braked wheel to which power is applied for driving or braking the vehicle; wherein a change of speed of the driven/braked wheel is at least indirectly detected; and comprising a controller for influencing the power for driving or the force for braking the vehicle. The invention is characterised in that the vehicle has an acceleration sensor by means of which an acceleration of the vehicle is detected; an acceleration of the driven/braked wheel is determined from a change of speed of the driven/braked wheel; and the controller adapts the power and/or force if the acceleration of the driven/braked wheel deviates from the acceleration of the vehicle.


Bagging, a widely used ensemble method, is simple and fast, and can generate heterogeneous base classifiers. This research proposes an incremental learning algorithm, PBagging++, based on ensemble pruning. In the algorithm, Bagging is adopted to generate a set of heterogeneous classifiers for each incremental data set. Then an ensemble pruning method is used to select base classifiers from the generated ones and add them to the target ensemble. The new target ensemble will perform the prediction on new instances. Experimental results show that ensemble pruning is an effective way to improve the predictive performance for ensemble based incremental learning.


This course provides skills and knowledge for those working or seeking work in government investigations or regulatory compliance. Investigation processes including gathering and recording evidence and interview techniques will be taught with other skills


The invention discloses a superhydrophobic coating based on a metallic iron product and a preparation method thereof. The preparation method comprises the following steps: the metallic iron product is respectively subjected to ultrasonic cleaning by acetone, ethanol and deionized water, is dried, and then is immersed in a copper sulphate solution, a layer of copper particles are deposited on the surface through a chemical deposition method, and a micro nano rough structure is formed. The iron product is immersed in a mixed solution of polydimethylsiloxane, a cross-linking agent, an initiator and an organic solvent, and the superhydrophobic polydimethylsiloxane coating having a chemical crosslinking structure is formed on the surface of the iron product through ultraviolet light solidification. The superhydrophobic coating has excellent chemical stability and high/low temperature-resistant performance, can be used for separating oil and water when coated on the iron gauze, and has the characteristics of high separation efficiency and good reuse performance.


microcarriers are small solid particles 90–350 µm in size, on the surface of which cells grow in the form of a monolayer. The two main properties of microcarriers are cell adhesion and high cell production. According to the results of a comparative study conducted on various parameters, it was determined that each microcarrier has its own advantages and disadvantages. In our study, the properties of SEPLIFE® LX-MC-dex1 and Cytodex 3 microcarriers were compared. According to the results of the studies, it was found that SEPLIFE® LX-MC-dex1, containing an artificial substance, is not inferior to Cytodex 3 microcarrier widely used in production in all properties and ease of use. The main advantage of the SEPLIFE® LX-MC-dex1 microcarrier is its cost effectiveness, i.e. it is 5 times cheaper than Cytodex 3. In this regard, the SEPLIFE® LX-MC-dex1 microcarrier was found to be cost-effective.


This book summarizes selected papers of student conference focused on the study of properties of building materials. Presented papers deal with investigation of materials properties of conventional and also innovative building materials. The knowledge of particular material properties is essentially for successful design of structures, that is the reason why studies of basic physical, chemical, mechanical, thermal, hygric, technological and transport properties were included into this book. Experimental programs of present contributions were performed according standard system of EN and ISO but for the design of building structures is important to predict behaviour of used materials on the end of their supposed lifetime which could be number of decades. That is the reason why nowadays is necessary to apply advanced numerical and computation methods to determine of long-term durability. Last mentioned sophisticated instrument based on the theoretical principals is important to be verified in real conditions; science would be extremely boring and sterile without an experiment. Presented papers bring wide database of testing methods and materials properties which could be used in all branches of civil engineering.


Some distributed wells located in south of Tehran planned to be controlled locally and also from control center. One safe control method is designed for each well by means of PLCs. For overall process purposes one main controller designed for control center and wells data are logged in a server. Two operators can control and monitor wells from control center by means of two operating station. Communication backbone to exchange data between wells and control center is studied. Offline dial up solution using polling and interrupting method is chosen for this purpose. The most important part of our design is software layers and interfaces used for easy and optimum communication.


Abstract The Egyptian desert is not only the home of monasticism but of monastic revival which is at the heart of the reform and renewal of the Coptic Orthodox Church. This monastic revival is not the work of one person but of a series of spiritual gifted individuals, in particular Patriarch Cyril VI (1902–1971), Matta el-Meskeen (1919–2006) and the current Patriarch Shenouda III (elected in 1971), who have demonstrated leadership and vision in shaping Coptic Christianity in the modern era. The monastic renewal has also been made possible by the growth in monastic vocations, both male and female, which have made this structural renaissance possible in the Coptic Church. Members of the episcopate in the Coptic tradition are chosen from the ranks of the monks, thus the spiritual character of monastic renewal has become the face of the Church. Today the monasteries are intimately integrated into parish life and the ascetic and spiritual reading of the Desert Fathers have found a new home in the wider Coptic Christian community.


This paper presents a simple method to indirectly estimate the range of certain important electrocardiogram (ECG) parameters using photoplethysmography (PPG). The proposed method, termed as PhotoECG, extracts a set of time and frequency domain features from fingertip PPG signal. A feature selection algorithm utilizing the concept of Maximal Information Coefficient (MIC) is presented to rank the PPG features according to their relevance to create training models for different ECG parameters. The proposed method yields above 90% accuracy in estimating ECG parameters on a benchmark hospital dataset having clean PPG signal. The same method results an average of 80% accuracy on noisy PPG signal captured by iPhone, indicating its feasibility to create phone applications for preventive ECG monitoring at home.


Formation of the N-oxide for several pyridine derivatives results in a large upfield shift of the 2-, 4-, and 6-carbons and a significant downfield shift of the 3- and 5-carbons. The chemical shifts (Δδ) are consistent with a resonance and electric field mechanism. Molecular orbital calculations using CNDO/2 show a qualitative correlation between excess charge density and Δδ.


As hurricanes continue to threaten coastal communities, accurate storm surge forecasting remains a global priority. Achieving a reliable storm surge prediction necessitates accurate hurricane intensity and wind field information. The wind field must be converted to wind stress, which represents the air-sea momentum flux component required in storm surge and other oceanic models. This conversion requires a multiplicative drag coefficient for the air density and wind speed to represent the air-sea momentum exchange at a given location. Air density is a known parameter and wind speed is a forecasted variable, whereas the drag coefficient is calculated using an empirical correlation. The correlation's accuracy has brewed a controversy of its own for more than half a century. This review paper examines the lineage of drag coefficient correlations and their acceptance among scientists.


e15040Background: The majority of CAR-T cell therapy studies use the patients' own autologous cells which carry many potential restrictions related to manufacturing such as quantity and quality of ...


This paper presents a design of a powertrain with an electrically controlled planetary gear which has application potential in small vehicles. The tested powertrain is based on a single planetary gear with two de� grees of freedom which is used to couple a combustion engine and an electrical motor. The principal task of the electrical machine is concerned with the control of the rotational speed of the central wheel in the plane� tary gear and, thereby, its kinematic ratio. As a result of smooth control of the angular velocity of the electrical machine it was possible to gain gearless change of the transmission ratio in a continuous way. Consequently, the principal part of the powertrain -the engine operates within the most efficient range of rotational speed, which minimizes fuel consumption and emission of hazardous substances. In order to decide about the appli� cability of the idea, the powertrain with a planetary gear was designed and implemented in a KINROAD XT150 buggy vehicle.


The software framework is the necessary way to software reuse.The lightweight J2EE stronge framework spring is introduced in deail from the core technology IOC and AOP.Combination of Struts, Spring and Hibernate is discussed, how to construct and implement the course of SOA MIS based on this lightweight framework is introduced in deail,making use of long-distance teaching,conducing to study and exchange of student.


Abstract:Background: Community-based fitness programs can support public health by providing access to physical activity opportunities for a vulnerable population with significant barriers. Unfortunately, programs specifically designed for people with disabilities (PWD) and staff training to promote inclusion for PWD in general population programs is limited. The current study aimed to review an on-going partnership that had formed to address this need.Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess community partners' experiences with a community–academic partnership designed to implement a fitness program for people with multiple sclerosis and also to promote inclusion for PWD in community-based fitness programming.Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six community partners who had been engaged in a formal partnership with the academic institution for 2 or more years to understand partners' experiences and perspectives about the partnership. Interviews were audio/video recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed thematically.Results: Participants described their experiences as falling into four main areas. Pre-partnership experiences (or lack thereof) shaped participants views on entering into academic partnerships. Communication and planning for mutual benefit were key to getting the partnership started. Partners identified challenges and factors for success while they were in the thick of partnership activities. Finally, evaluation allowed for assessment and improvement of the partnership itself and its ultimate goals.Conclusions: Findings suggest that academic–community partnerships can be ideal for promoting inclusion for PWD and highlight insights that can be used in the development of future partnerships.


:The existence of cavern would bring great or potential dangers to every kind of construction engineering. Cross-well seismic computerized tomography(seismic CT) technology is a new geophysics method. This method can efficiently and accurately inverse the inhomogeneous distribution of layers between the wells. This theme is about the principles and methods of cross-well seismic CT technology, and it introduces the application of this technology in a factual cavern survey engineering. In the engineering, the authors combine the result of drilling survey and inversion result of seismic CT technology, and then analyze the two comparative results. As the analysis shows, the seismic CT technology have the advantages of higher precision and credibility, which can make preciser imaging of subsurface medium in engineering geophysics than usual explorative methods.


Village relocation and planning is a very important part of building a new socialist countryside.With the implementation of village relocation and planning,the farming radius has changed,which exerts great influences on the ways of travelling.This paper takes Qijiang Wanxing Area as an example to explain how the change of farming radius influences the rural residential layout planning.It firstly estimates that its reasonable farming radius is 1000meters.Then it optimizes present plan with the reasonable farming radius and then discusses the differences caused by such an optimization.It finally discusses the ways of enhancing the application of radius farming in rural residential layout planning.


We investigated the influence of AC voltage prestressing on the electrical-tree inception voltage in LDPE. When AC voltage prestress was not imposed, the impulse-tree inception voltage increased with the size of water tree due to the electrical field relaxation. On the other hand, when AC voltage prestress was imposed, the impulse-tree inception voltage did not change with the water-tree size and was lower than that without AC voltage prestressing. The FTIR absorption measurements showed several absorptions between 650 and 1500 cm-1, which did not exist in the sample without AC voltage prestressing. Besides, the TEM observation revealed that the AC voltage prestressing increased the density and size of micro voids and some of them were aligned in the direction of applied electric field. These results suggest that AC voltage prestressing causes structural change in the water tree and enhances material degradation, leading to lower tree-inception voltage.


Subject
 Prospects for the EU in 2019.

 Significance
 Next year will see unprecedented change and uncertainty for the EU. For the first time, a member state is due to leave the union, while European elections in May will indicate whether populism and discontent with traditional politics continue their rise.


Only one plant of Coffea arabica L. var. rugosa K.M.C., is available for study Its fruit production is very low. Of the progeny observed, none has reproduced th rugose condition of the leaves characteristic of the parent plant. Previous study ha shown that the rugose condition of the leaves could not be considered a somatic chimer because the tissues have a normal number (2n=44) of chromosomes. The present cytological study was undertaken in order to find out if the low yiel of the rugose variety could be related to abnormalities in microsporogenesis. The structure of the chromosomes in early prophase is difficult to study. In diaki nesis two pairs and sometimes three pairs of chromosomes appear to be attached to th nucleolus. Also in diakinesis it is possible to locate the centromere in the chromosoni pairs and to count the chiasmata. It was observed that an average of 6.6 bivalent show one single chiasma, 12.3 bivalents show two chiamata and 3.0 bivalents shoM three chiasmata. The average total number of chiasmata per cell at this phase is o 40.0, while at metaphase this number is reduced to 34.7. The first division in the mi crospore is normal and the resulting two nuclei differ in size and also in the size o their nucleolus. The polen grains are normal, giving 69% germination on a medium containinj 0,5% of agar and 15% of sucrose. It is concluded that microsporogenesis is normal and would not appear to be relate< to the low production of fruits of the rugosa variety. The fact that none of the progen1 has reproduced the rugose condition might be due to the limited number of plants observed.


Respectful Maternity Care (RMC) is right to receive dignified and respectful care by health care worker and right to freedom from harm. "The relationship between the lack of quality care and adverse maternal outcome has been highlighted globally. RMC include respect for women autonomy, dignity, feelings, privacy choices and freedom from ill-treatment, coercion, consideration for personal preference include option for companionship during maternity care." To assess the experiences of mothers of infants (42 days- 6 months of age) regarding RMC residing in Dadu Majra colony UT. Chandigarh. This descriptive study was conducted on 133 mother of infants (42 days-6 month of age) residing in one semi urban area of Chandigarh, by using total enumeration sampling technique. The ethical clearance was given by the Ethics committee of NINE, PGIMER, Chandigarh. Tool used for data collection was interview schedule comprised of three parts : 1) Socio demographic profile of participants 2) Obstetrical profile of participants 3) Interview schedule to assess RMC, in the form of Likert scale in which 43 items scored into 5 categories i.e All the times (5). Sometimes (4). Often (3), Rarely (2) and Never (1). Data was collected by interviewing the participants as per interview schedule after taking informed written consent. Data was analysed by SPSS 20 version.Majority of the participants (90.2%) received very good RMC, other 7.3% received RMC and 2.3% received fair RMC. Most of the mothers received very good care in domain of dignified care (91.7%), equitable care (100.0%), highest attainable level of care (78.9%). freedom from harm (89.5%) and informed consent (88%) while the domain of privacy and confidential care 52.6% mothers received good respectful maternity care.Majority of the participant received the very good RMC, only few of the participants reported abusive cares such as yelling by the HCW and the security guards, slapped on the thighs etc.


Objective: We aimed to identify the ratio of Surgical Site Infection (SSI) and also the validity of the National Nosocomial Infection Survellance (NNIS) and Study on the Efficacy of Nosocomial Infection Control (SENIC) risk indexes in colorectal surgery, among Turkish population. Background: Some problems have been reported with the power of NNIS risk index to predict the risk of surgical site infection. We aimed to validate theNNIS and SENIC risk indexes in colorectal surgery. Methods: Between January 2003 and December 2006, surgical site ?nfection survellance was performed to 107 patient who undergo colorectal surgery with NNIS and SENIC risk scales. The mean patient age was 48 years (range, 17 to 86), and 61.7% of the group (66) was female. For this patient cohort, 6 (5.6%) were diagnosed with incisional SSI. While the mean Body Mass Index (BMI) of all patients was 26.6; mean value of BMI among the patiens with SSI was 27.8.Results: 6 insicional surgical site infection were observed during the study. According to Receiver Operating Characteric (ROC) curve analyze neither NNIS with avalue of 0.70, nor SENIC with a value of 0.67 are perfect risk indexes. Conclusion: As a result both NNIS and SENIC ?s a good risk indexes but not perfect. Scarcely when NNIS and SENIC is used together to predict the SSI they forecast the development of infection better. But there is a lot of other factors that effect the development of SSI, so for excellent surveillance risk index those factors known by everyone must be added to risk index scales.


Harry Wellington's new book, Labor and the Legal Process,' is surely one of the most significant works published in the labor law field in recent years. Professor Wellington avoids a comprehensive, horn-book treatment of the field; instead, he examines the role of law and legal institutions in the development of national labor policy, emphasizing their limitations. With a commendably easy style and a refreshing directness, Professor Wellington deals in depth with the major problems confronting collective bargaining today-the tension between governmental regulation of collective bargaining and freedom of contract, the relationship between the individual employee and the collective bargaining representative, the role of labor in politics, and the effects of union power on the economy. In analyzing these intricate problems, Wellington presents clear choices between alternative solutions-some of which, as might be expected, I found more appealing than others. The book breaks down into two major segments, one dealing with the relationship of collective bargaining to the government, whether as a regulator of the bargain or protector of the economy, and the other with the position of the individual employee in the collective structure. I found the former somewhat more stimulating and shall devote the major portion of my comments to it, although this probably reflects my own interests rather than a difference in the quality of the two portions. But before passing to his analysis of the relationship between the collective entities, a brief description of Professor Wellington's


Climate change is the greatest threat that humanity faces nowadays. Therefore, the present work had the purpose of determining the environmental knowledge and perceptions of good environmental education practices for affirmative climate actions in rural schools of Manabí-Ecuador, specifically in the school Manuel Daza Palacios. By applying the bibliographic and hypothetical deductive methods, the most appropriate affirmative climatic actions were determined. According to the results of the diagnosis, it was possible to show that, although environmental education is implicitly contained in the Plan Nacional Toda una Vida 2017-2021; in the students there is still a deficit in or referring to this matter; affirmative climate actions included limiting the amount of plastic waste and making compost to be applied in orchards, a practical guide was developed with the most relevant steps on how to carry out these processes. Finally, the results were shared through the Voces de la Naturaleza program broadcast by Radio Politécnica de Manabí 101.7 FM, as well as on social media. In a changing and uncertain environment, it is necessary to continue with the dissemination of mitigation measures against climate change according to the needs of each community.


Sedpak is a collection of integrated computer programs written in the C programming language, under the MIT X Window System and Motif, for a UNIX workstation environment. It is a graphical simulation program designed to aid in the analysis and classification of stratigraphic sequences derived from seismic and well data. It permits the extrapolation of facies and structure away from control, embodying the concepts and processes of sequence stratigraphy, for a wide variety of basins. Sedpak has been used for a variety of different depositional settings. This article describes the findings for the following: the Cretaceous/Tertiary of the South Carolina Coastal Plain, the Plio-Pleistocene of the Gulf of Mexico, the Neogene of the Canterbury basin of New Zealand, the Cretaceous of the Baltimore Canyon, and the Triassic Dolomite Alps of northern Italy.


public administration should have a continuous and open dialogue concerning this issue. There is a growing urge for policies, actions and solutions to encourage women to fully develop their potential that in the hope that this will result in better working opportunities and conditions for all. Thus, this book is a valuable resource for those wishing to have a complete but concise overview of this topic, particularly for graduate students and young researchers. Whilst this volume focuses on the Spanish context, it also contributes to the promotion of gender research and awareness within tourism and within other organisations on a more global scale. A main conclusion is that by increasing gender equality at work, working opportunities and conditions will improve, and women will be encouraged to participate in decision-making. As the book is written in Spanish, the availability of an edition translated into English would mean a larger audience could be reached.


Political Elite and Caste Association A Report of a Caste Conference M S A Rao Caste conferences do more than reflect the aspirations and opinions of a section of the population. They also shape decision-making in some spheres at the national and State levels.


Coeliaria Mulsant, 1850 is revised based on the external morphology and genitalia of the adults and is distinguished from the other Chnoodini by the following characters: dorsal surface pubescent; antenna 11-segmented; hypomera with rounded fovea; tibia flat and angulated; abdominal postcoxal line incomplete, recurved and with oblique line. A new species, Coeliaria castanea sp. nov., from Brazil, and two new combinations, are proposed: Coeliaria bernardinensis comb. nov. and C. luteicornis comb. nov., expanding the distribution of the genus to Bolivia and Paraguay.


More people, in the United States and worldwide, die from lung cancer than breast, colon, or any other type of cancer. Although, efforts to reduce tobacco smoking have decreased incidence rates in the U.S, lung cancer remains a public health issue that needs an effective intervention. Results from the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) demonstrate that screening high risk individuals with low dose computed tomography (LDCT) can have a significant impact on mortality rates of lung cancer. However, implementing a lung screening program in real world practice could be a challenging task. Therefore, medical and public health institutions should be prepared with necessary resources, adhere to a standard practice for lung cancer screening, decrease health care disparities, and enhance public participation. This review presents some key statistics for lung cancer in the U.S, an overview of lung cancer screening studies and the impact of radiological settings and lung nodule management protocols in detecting cancer lesions, and discusses issues related to implementation of a national screening program.


Generations of readers have studied the hermeneutic riddles of Pale Fire, questioning both their meaning and their susceptibility to interpretation. This critical dialogue is part of a broader debate regarding Nabokov's narrative persona: whether it unforgivingly mocks exegetical pretension and dismisses the very notion of intersubjectivity, or whether a more generous authorial vision is discernable. This article proposes a shift in the terms of that debate. It argues that the very opacity of the novel has the effect of gathering up, into a makeshift community of the perplexed, both characters and readers, allowing them to experience, if not genuine communion or enlightenment, then at least a sense of fellow-feeling among the benighted.


Microglial cells are the major cell types involved in neuroinflammation, resulting in brain tissue damages during cerebral ischemia and neurodegenerative disorders. In this study, we examined the effects of the monounsaturated fatty acid oleic acid (C18:1, OA) on LPS‐induced proinflammatory mediators and the mechanisms involved in BV2 microglial cells. OA inhibited LPS‐induced the expression of iNOS and COX‐2 mRNA and proteins as well as the production of NO and prostaglandins. We showed that OA inhibited LPS‐induced NF‐κB activation and phosphorylation of inhibitor κB kinase (IKK). We also showed that OA inhibited LPS‐induced phosphorylation of Akt and p38 and PI 3‐kinase activation, but not that of ERK. Finally, we showed that OA reduced the reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation and an antioxidant N‐acetylcysteine inhibited NF‐κB activation and IKK phosphorylation in LPS‐stimulated BV2 cells. Taken together, our results suggest that OA has an anti‐inflammatory effect by inhibiting ROS generation and NF‐κB activation in LPS‐stimulated BV2 microglial cells. This work was supported by grants from Korea Science and Engineering Foundation.


This paper reports on the demonstration of a new class of ultra-thin (250 nm thick) Super High Frequency (SHF) AlN piezoelectric two-port resonators and filters. A thickness field excitation scheme was employed to excite a higher order contour extensional mode of vibration in an AlN nano plate (250 nm thick) above 3 GHz and synthesize a 1.96 GHz narrow-bandwidth channel-select filter. The devices of this work are able to operate over a frequency range from 1.9 to 3.5 GHz and are employed to synthesize the highest frequency MEMS filter based on electrically self-coupled AlN contour-mode resonators. Very narrow bandwidth (∼ 0.35%) and high off-band rejection (∼ 35 dB) were achieved at an operating frequency of 1.96 GHz. This first prototype showed insertion loss of 11 dB, which can be improved to few dB if parasitic elements are eliminated or device capacitance is increased.


Based on the measured data of sediment in offshore area south of the Oujiang Estuary in Oct.2010,temporal and spatial variations of the sediment concentration were studied.A new sediment concentration formula was fitted by nonlinear least square method.Compared with the simple format of the Jiaju Liu formula ignoring the effect of wave,the applicability of the new formula was discussed.The results show that(1) sediment concentration decreases gradually from the south mouth of the Oujiang river to open sea.It is different during spring tide,middle tide and neap tide along the coastline;(2) sediment concentration increases gradually from surface to bottom in the vertical direction;(3) sediment concentration in spring tide is the highest,and higher in middle tide,and low in neap tide.It is higher in flood tide than that in ebb tide;(4) compared with the simple format of the Jiaju Liu formula ignoring the effect of wave,the fitting result of the new formula is highly related to the measured data of sediment concentration,and the relative error is small.


Ecosystem-scale measurements and investigations of the small-scale variability of methane emission were carried out in northern Siberian wet polygonal tundra using the eddy covariance technique during the entire 2006 growing season. Simultaneous closed chamber flux measurements were conducted daily at 15 plots in four differently developed polygon centers and a polygon rim from July–September 2006. Our study site was located in the southern part of the Lena River Delta, characterized by arctic continental climate and comparatively cold, continuous permafrost. Controls on methane emission were identified by applying multi-linear and multi-nonlinear regression models. We found a relatively low growing season average methane flux of 18.7 ± 10.2 mg m-2 d-1 on the ecosystem scale and identified near-surface turbulence, soil temperature, and atmospheric pressure as the main controls on the growing season variation methane emissions. On the micro-site scale, fluxes showed large spatial variability and were best described by soil surface temperature.


This paper has presented results of calculations of optical functions for e||c and e^c polarizations in 0 - 12 eV energy interval, band structure and effective masses of electrons and holes of ternary compound InGaTe2. Genesis of valence band was investigated by using group-theoretical analyses. The main features of spectra of optical functions, the parameters of transition and their theoretical nature were found out. Identified interband transitions are responsible for the main peaks in the optical functions. Calculated results are in good agreement with the known experimental data.


This paper presents a systematic approach to the spiritual and moral education of primary school children, which is proposed to implement through a model that includes target, meaningful, subjective and effective components. All components of the model are described. For its implementation, forms of educational tourism were chosen, taking into account the age characteristics of children. The author described how to use different forms of tourism. A tourist activity application algorithm for younger students spiritual and moral education is developed on the basis of a concentricity principle and assumes participation of students parents. The presented model of spiritual and moral education is based on local history material and includes active and interactive forms and methods of work, which allows to develop knowledge as well as experience of moral behavior. The paper describes the modules of the world exploration consistently from exploring the city, the region and the country on the principle of expanding and deepening spiral. The description of each form of educational tourism on the material of Omsk and Omsk Region is given. The author offers options for involving parents, options for creative assignments and final sessions for children. The model is ready for use and can serve as a basis for further research.


Private colleges in China have the dual natures of public products and profit-driven entities. Since the late 1970s, private higher education began, the positioning and development model are in the process of constantly updated and improved. In this paper, I try to describe the current situation of the development through the development scale, development model and development characteristics of the private higher education in China, analyze the internal and external influencing factors in the development process of private higher education emphatically. In the end, propose the countermeasures and suggestions for the future development of private colleges. Conclusions: Private colleges should design strategy under the guidance of national policy, choose the future development mode actively; Strive for government support and subsidies actively; Guide the whole society's investment in private higher education actively; Improve the ability and level of teaching staff; Pay special attention to students' recruitment, cultivating and employment, to improve students' quality. KEYWORD: Private College, Development Status, Influence factors, Countermeasures


As Global warming is becoming increasingly severe, decarbonization has become the primary trend in the world. One way to achieve this trend is to use renewable energy resources. Among many kinds of renewable energy, geothermal energy is very neat, and its abundant storage capacity. Also, geothermal resources play a significant role in the energy supply of Iceland. They are utilized both for electricity generation and direct heat application. To this end, this article explains why geothermal energy is abundant in Iceland, and the example of utilization, some advanced technology like drilling technology and power generation technology. In addition, this article introduces the management of geothermal energy like some crucial policies. On this basis, the report concludes Iceland's experience of a successful transition from using traditional fossil fuels to fully utilizing renewable energy. And the report describes the limitation and future development of geothermal energy.


Extreme rainfalls in southern Ontario may increase significantly as a result of climate change. This study was designed to determine the impact of a 15% increase in design rainfall intensities on drainage of a typical urban catchment and to investigate adaptive measures. A calibrated model (PCSWMM 2000) was used to: (1) determine the system performance under current and climate-changed design rainfalls; and (2) calculate the magnitudes of various adaptive measures required to reduce the peak discharge to current levels. For this type of catchment, effective retrofit options that provide the required peak discharge reductions included downspout disconnection (50% of connected roofs), increased depression storage (by 45 m3/impervious hectare), and increased street detention storage (by 40m3/impervious hectare).


The solution of two-dimensional full potential equation for the analysis of steady transonic flow through cascades is investigated. Finite element method is employed in the analysis. Accuracy and efficiency of the obtained numerical solutions are discussed in terms of the employed computational grid. Accurate modeling of subsonic and supersonic flow regions together with the shock is discussed. The choice of artificial viscosity and relaxation factors are examined and related to the design of a computational grid. Shock capturing and shock fitting procedures are compared for improved accuracy and efficiency. Numerical results include cascades of Gostelow and NACA 0012 airfoils.


Slope instability phenomena are widespread in the geological context of Southern Apennines. The paper reports the slope instability features characterized the medium valley of the Basento River, which is crossed by a major road/railroad stretch linking Potenza to Metaponto and which is not infrequently affected by instability phenomena. The attention is focused on one of the most significant landslides periodically reactivated by rainfalls which badly damaged the important railway line.


Metabolic imaging with NMR-spectroscopy has become a diagnostic tool that is used for the examination of cerebral pathologies. It is a non-invasive technique, which can detect and quantify biochemical changes. This paper describes the history of NMR-spectroscopy, its technical basis and possible areas of use for tumor diagnostics. An overview of the literature is given and upcoming developments are mentioned.


Thermodynamic parameters, the structural transformation and optical properties before and after the phase transforms of amorphous films of Sb-Se-based and Ge -Sb-Te-based phase change optical disk recording media were studied by using DSC, X-ray diffraction and spectrometer. The results show that Sb-Se-based alloys in amorphous state have not a satisfactory light stability, as its reflectivity changes significantly fast with the change of the wavelength. The Ge-Sb-Te alloys with two compositions have a relatively high reflectivity at any wavelength segment, and possess an ideal light stability in amorphous state, no obvious change occurs in their reflectivity with the changes of the wavelength.


Elevational tree-limit change of Pinus sylvestris, Betula pubescens ssp. tor- tuosa, and Alnus incana during the Holocene was studied from subfossil wood remains in the Scandes Mountains, Sweden. From 8250 yr BP to the present, the Pinus-limit descended at an average rate of 20 m per millennium (after adjustment for glacioisostatic land up- heaval). In contrast, Betula and Alnus ascended until -3000 yr BP, whereafter an altitudinal decline is apparent. The relative abundance of Pinus in the tree-limit ecotone has decreased, while that of Betula increased throughout much of the Holocene. The present-day subalpine belt of Betula developed after 7000 yr BP in response to long-term cooling interacting with short-term climatic disturbance of pine stands. The inferred tree-limit histories are consistent with climatic model simulations of solar radiation and the atmospheric circulation for the Holocene (the Milankovitch theory). Based on the current climate requirements of the tree- limit species, an early Holocene summer thermal optimum -1 .0C higher than present is inferred. Subsequently, tree-limit vegetation changed gradually, in dynamic equilibrium with progressive summer cooling and increasing humidity and snow cover, i.e., a decreas- ingly seasonal climate. Accelerated recession of Pinus, indicative of abrupt cooling, is recorded for a short period around 7200 yr BP A short-term advance of the Pinus tree- limit, presumably a consequence of climatic warming, occurred -4300 yr BP. Rapid and persistent reductions in the quantitative record of subfossils of all tree species, after 5500- 5000 yr BP, may result from fragmentation of the tree-limit ecotone. This response is inferred as the combined effect of long- and short-term cooling passing a threshold, which initiated periglaciation, podzolization, and paludification.


his article concerns the economics of customer-premises agents that manage the bandwidth demanded by next-generation, high-speed networks. Models are proposed for the hypothetical prices of SONET and ATM telecommunication services. The ATM model builds on the SONET model, split


Many tissues in the human body consist of cells embedded in an extracellular matrix that has an abundance of charged macromolecules. Examples of such tissues include tendon, bone, cartilage, and corneal stroma. Motions of the body impose on these tissues solid and fluid mechanical stimuli, such as compression, tension, and viscous shear due to fluid flow. Mechanical stimuli may influence cell behavior by activating cell signaling cascades that modulate gene expression or protein activity. Mechanical stimuli may act on cells directly (e.g., by perturbing stretch sensitive membrane proteins) or indirectly through electric fields (e.g., by perturbing voltage-sensitive ion channels), which are generated as a consequence of mechanical perturbation of the highly charged tissues. Understanding such mechanotransduction processes is important to enable design of tissue scaffolds that send appropriate regulatory signals to cells when mechanically stimulated. In general, tissue engineering seeks (at the microscale) to mimic a cell's native chemical and mechanical environment and (at the macroscale) to mimic the function of tissue. Many macromolecular materials have been implemented for this purpose, including natural polymers such as chitosan, alginate, collagen, and fibrin, as well as synthetic polymers such as PEG-diacrylate and PLGA. Chemical biocompatibility is typically assessed in terms of binding, toxicity, degradability, and so on, and mechanical compatibility is assessed in terms of the similarity of the material's bulk mechanical properties to those of native tissue, as well as the material's ability to support phenotypic behavior, morphology, and gene expression. While the chemical and mechanical properties of tissue scaffolds have received considerable attention, the electrical (and, in particular, electromechanical) properties of scaffolds have been less thoroughly explored. Descriptive work exists in native tissues, including detailed measurements and modeling of the electromechanics of cartilage and bone. Additionally, techniques have been investigated that use electrical stimulation to enhance healing of bone, tendon, and ligament. However, the electromechanical properties of hydrogels remain largely unmeasured and have not been manipulated for tissue engineering applications. Chondrocytes are an example of a cell type in which tissuespecific cell behavior has been observed to change as a function of electromechanical environment. Dynamic compression of cartilage tissue and chondrocyte-seeded tissue scaffolds stimulates chondrocytes to increase biosynthesis of glycosaminoglycans (GAG), which are primarily responsible for the compressive strength of cartilage. Coupled mechanical, physicochemical, and electrical stimuli are thought to play a role in controlling chondrocyte response to mechanical loading. In particular, the concentration of glycosaminoglycans in dynamically compressed samples is positively correlated with fluid velocity, indicating that the stimulus is related to fluid transport. This points toward hydrodynamic shear, flowenhanced nutrient transport, and flow-induced electric fields, which are all coupled to the intrinsic electromechanical properties of the tissue, as possible mechanotransduction stimuli. An understanding of the relative importance of these phenomena in regulating chondrocyte metabolism would be a significant achievement for cartilage tissue engineering and instruct better scaffold design.


Credit risk  management issues  in production facilities become particularly relevant in the conditions of the economic instability and expectation of the «second wave» of the world financial crisis. The authors present the techniques of new and regular counterparty credit risk evaluation in the real economy.


Preschool children refer to children from the age of 3 to 6-7 years of age. Children at this stage are about to receive formal learning, and early enlightenment education has an important influence on the development of their thinking and the ability to learn knowledge. The stop-motion animation combines the feelings of sight, hearing and touch, and becomes a kind of educational and entertaining way for children to understand the world. It shows unique animation effects in the form of continuous play through a frame-by-frame shooting of the movement of the real combination of things. Preschoolers need to use coherent thinking to understand when watching stop-motion animation. The paper tries to study the influence of stop-motion animation on coherent thinking in preschool children's education through the analysis of preschool children's psychology and the characteristics of stop-motion animation.


Professor Finley's Sather Lectures of 1972, here published in amplified form and with full annotation, are naturally an event for ancient historians. The author begins with a modest disclaimer— ' it is not a book one would call economic history ' (p. 9); indeed, he does not set out to describe ' the economy' of the ancient world in the usual manner—at least as this is understood in the English tradition, where the works of Rostovtzeff and Tenney Frank have been influential. But his aim is a wide one; essentially, it is to characterise the ancient economy. Economic thought, he argues, was embryonic, a matter of a few empirical maxims (Ch. 1). Attitudes were dominated by the city state (for ' the authority of the state was total', 154), its institutions, its hierarchy of orders and statuses, its structures mentales; the upper classes frankly accepted wealth as the ultimate good, since it was used to achieve status; the whole ethos was antagonistic to commerce and manufacture, and thus to the specializations which economic progress must encourage and recognize (so Ch. 2). Slavery and the semi-free statuses of antiquity, which might have provided the labour for early capital accumulation, must rather be seen structurally; their labour supplied the wealthy classes with leisure to pursue political power and military glory (Ch. 3). Agriculture was the main basis of wealth (Ch. 4), but it subserved the demands of social rank and prestige, and so remained stagnant and undeveloped. An examination of the varied pattern of town and country (Ch. 5) confirms the importance of agriculture and natural resources in the economy, the minor and parasitic positions of commerce and manu- facture. Finally (Ch. 6), a wide-ranging survey shows that governments had no economic policies beyond the protection of basic necessities like corn, or the crude advantages to be gained from military conquest and imperialism. Although, in my view, we must have reservations about parts of Finley's argument and approach, it must be said that the book is exceptionally lucid, stimulating and learned. Finley felt the influence


The assortment of lettuce varieties used in experiment, performed in the period October 2009 – February 2010, was constitute by the next varieties: AS 104, AS 106, AS 107, AS 108, AS 6119 şi AS 6123. The lettuce varieties we have considered in our study were introduced in experiments of polyfactor type, the set up of the variants being achieved according to subdivided plot method with four repetitions. The insurance of a optimum space of nutrition (12 – 16 plants/m 2 ), contribute very significant at the realization of a cabbages with a superior quality. The use of a natural product Bioplasma at the fertilization assure the obtained of a cabbages with a average weight over 300 grams.


Abstract : A previously developed MATLAB-based statistical pattern recognition software package (referred to as STATPACK) has been enhanced. Current enhancements include a one-dimensional feature distribution display, and the addition of a nearest mean vector based classifier.


Abstracts: b) Surgery.
B. Martini and R. Opitz (Munch, medic. Wochensch. 1928, No. 37) observed an increase in the number of embolism and thrombosis in recent years.


Background: Flower colour variation among populations may result from the spatial variation of selective agents. The structure of phenotypic variation informs on the ecological processes related to this variation. Variation in floral traits is mainly attributed to variation in the pollinator fauna, while variation in vegetative traits is usually linked to abiotic factors or herbivores. Aims: We investigated the geographical variation of flower colour (and correlated traits) in Gentiana lutea and the relationship with the variation in abiotic factors. Methods: Phenotypic variation (flower colour, petal length, petal width, stalk length, leaf length, flower number, petal number and number of basal leaves) was assessed in 429 plants of 12 populations located at north-west Iberia. Additionally, we obtained data on the geographical coordinates, elevation, temperature, rainfall and radiation for each population. Results: Populations mostly differed in flower colour, from orange to yellow from west to the east. Abiotic factors were unrelated to variation in either floral or vegetative traits. Conclusions: Phenotypic variation among G. lutea populations does not result from adaptation to environmental factors. Other factors, such as historical events or selective pressure exerted by biotic interactions, might explain the flower colour variation in G. lutea along the Cantabrian Range.


In order to investigate the effect of humidity change on growth behavior of a fatigue crack of an extruded and age-hardened Al alloy 7075-T6, rotating bending fatigue tests were carried out using plain specimens in relative humidity of 25% and 85%. In constant humidity, a crack propagated in a tensile mode macroscopically in low humidity and in a shear mode in high humidity. The crack growth rate was accelerated by high humidity. By changing humidity, the growth rate and the growth mode of a crack were changed to those corresponding to the changed humidity. That is, cumulative fatigue life in humidity change may be estimated by the fatigue life in constant humidity.


This work has as a proposal using the one-cycle controls techniques to control a three-phase rectifier based on the boost topology without using voltage sensors in the coupled points of the system. In addition, unlike most of the work developed with the OCC technique, the digital implementation using DSP TMS320F28335 from Texas Instruments was used. The objective of implementing this proposal is the obtain a sinusoidal current at the input of the rectifier with a power factor as close as feasible to the unit, although the output of the rectifier is controlled at a fixed voltage value. Thus, simulations were performed to evaluate the proposed system, and empirical results were verified in a laboratory prototype.


: Laparoscopy is a technique that is used for diagnosis and treatment of internal organs in abdomen by inserting a camera through incision. In this paper we are introducing a novel technique has been proposed through which we enable a Doctor to access data remotely with remote server. Here the images and video are taken by the laparoscopy camera and are then transferred to the Raspberry-Pi controller through optical fiber cable without disturbing existing Laparoscopy system. The controller then processes the data and may transmit it to the remote location server to other doctors that can help in treatment and diagnosis.


OBJECTIVES: To analyze the effect of Pygeum africanum extracts on the in vitro proliferation of human prostate cells. METHODS: Prostate cancer cell lines and benign prostatic hyperplasia derived epithelial cells were cultured and treated with P. africanum extracts. The effect on cell proliferation was monitored by H3-timidin and bromodeoxiuridin uptake and flow cytometry assays. RESULTS: The incubation with P. africanum extracts, with or without addition of amino acids, significantly and in a dose-dependent manner inhibits the proliferation of prostate cancer derived cells LnCaP, PZ-HPV-7, and CA-HPV-10. In the PZ-HPV-7 cells P. africanum extracts counteract the mytogenic action of EGF and block the transition from G1 to S in the cell cycle. P. africanum extracts also exert a potent antimytogenic action on the epithelial cells derived from benign prostatic hyperplasia explants. CONCLUSION: The ethanolic P. africanum extracts have an antimytogenic effect on prostate cancer cells and benign prostatic hyperplasia epithelial cells. Such effect is associated with the inhibition of the mytogenic action of EGF, and it is accompanied by a decrease of cells entering the S Phase of the cell cycle.


Some applications such as RSA encryption/decryption need integer arithmetic operations with many bits. However, such operations cannot be performed directly by conventional CPUs, because their instruction supports integers with fixed bits, say, 64 bits. Since the CPUs need to repeat arithmetic operations to numbers with fixed bits, they have considerably overhead to execute applications involving integer arithmetic with many bits. On the other hand, This paper implements hardware algorithms for such applications in the FPGAs for further acceleration. However, the implementation of hardware algorithm is usually very complicated and debugging of hardware is too hard. The main contribution of this paper is to present an intermediate approach of software and hardware using FPGAs. More specifically, this paper presents a processor based on FDFM (Few DSP slices and Few Memory blocks) approach that supports arithmetic operations with flexibly many bits, and implement it in the FPGA. To show the potentiality of designed processor, 128-bit RSA encryption/decryption is implemented and compare with soft processor "MicroBlaze" in FPGA. The resulting processor uses only one DSP48E1 slice and four Block RAMs (BRAMs), and RSA encryption software on it runs in 0. 42ms. However, MicroBlaze uses three DSP48E1 slices and 170 Block RAMs


The present study was conducted to evaluate the commercial lifespan and optimum wool harvest interval of Angora rabbits. One hundred shorn Angora rabbits were housed in an organised farm to describe the wool production curve. It showed that the optimum wool harvest interval was 75 d, when fibre length reached 55.0 mm. Wool production was lower from the 3rd to the 6th mo (young stage) than from 7th to 28th mo and rapidly decreased from 28th to 31st mo and was the lowest from 31st to 33rd mo of age. Feed intake-to-wool production ratio was higher from 3rd to 4th and from 7th to 9th mo of age than during the adult stage, and increased from 31st to 33rd mo of age. Daily weight gain was significantly higher from 3rd to 4th mo of age than in any other periods of the adult stage, and was negative from 23rd to 33rd mo of age. Therefore, the study reveals that the commercial lifespan of Angora rabbits was approximately 28 mo. Furthermore, wool production was higher in spring and winter than in autumn, and was the lowest in summer. Concomitantly, feed intake-to-wool production ratio was lower in spring than in autumn and winter, and was the highest in summer. Finally, daily weight gain was higher in spring and autumn than in winter, and was the lowest in summer. This indicates that wool production was depending on the season, and decreased significantly in summer. Moreover, the spring provided the best conditions for Angora rabbits.


We present the EuRailCheck tool, which supports the formalization and the validation of requirements, based on the use of formal methods. The tool allows the user to analyze the requirements in natural language and to categorize and structure them. It allows to formalize the requirements into a subset of UML enriched with static and temporal constraints for which we defined a formal semantics. Finally, the tool allows to apply model checking techniques specialized for the validation of formal requirements. The tool has been developed and validated within a project funded by the European Railway Agency for the validation of the European Train Control System specification. By now, the tool has been successfully used by about thirty railway experts of different companies.


Western wheatgrass (Agropyron smithii Rybd. 'Arriba') and fourwing saltbush (Atriplex canescens (Pursh) Nutt.) were sampled from oil shale revegetation plots in northwestern Colorado. Plants were growing on two types of retorted shales: TOSCO II, produced by the Tosco Corporation; and USBM, produced by the U.S. Bureau of Mines. Various treatments included leaching and different depths of soil covering over the retorted shales. Plant samples were analyzed for B, Mo, As, Se, and F on a dry-weight basis. Plant samples with elevated Mo concentrations were also analyzed for Cu. Boron in western wheatgrass from the TOSCO retorted shale ranged from 85 to 202 ppm, compared with ranges of 4 to 15 ppm B in plants from the soil control. Analysis of variance indicated significant differences in B content due to site, aspect, type of retorted shale, and amount of soil cover over retorted shale. The concentration of B in western wheatgrass growing on retorted shales, especially TOSCO retorted shale, could affect plant growth. Fourwing saltbush samples, growing on USBM retorted shales, contained levels of Mo averaging 28 ppm, and low-to-moderate Cu content (4.8-6.8 ppm). This combination could make this species unacceptable as forage for ruminants. The concentrations of As (0.03-0.44 ppm),more » Se (0.02-0.94 ppm); and F (0.5-10.0 ppm) in the plant species investigated in this study were below limits usually set for either plant or animal toxicities and appear to be of little environmental significance.« less